Disclaimer: Yes, I own them. There, I said it. Uh…sadly, I don’t. They all belong to Amy Sherman Palladino and so on.

Part: 1/?

Pairing: Tristan/Rory/Logan

Rating: Very strong R. You are forewarned.

Spoilers: Everything up to the S4 finale then it is pretty much AU from there, with elements of S5 incorporated as I deem fit. Keep in mind, this is way back when so poetic license gives me the freedom to rewrite the Rory/Logan history if I want, so there.

Author’s Note: Okay, so here’s another update. I know they’re slow and at length but like I’ve said before I am far busier and less inclined to write. My muse is quite upset with me at the moment. This is largely un-beta-ed because my regular betas seem to be MIA and I will post the edited proper version once they get back to me. So bear with me. XOXO

Part Two

There’s just too much that time cannot erase.

- “My Immortal”, Evanescence

She had told herself she wouldn’t think about him or his ridiculous, presumptuous invitation. Rory was not going to dwell or obsess about him and let him ruin the rest of her day or the quiet evening she was planning with Logan at home.

In fact, she wasn’t going to spare Tristan DuGrey and his arrogance another thought.

“Tristan asked me to meet him for dinner,” she blurted as soon as she got home later that day. Logan turned from his place near the window and simply raised an eyebrow, his expression unreadable. “Not as a date. I think. I mean, he knows I’m with you and even he’s not that arrogant to believe that he can just ask someone out on a date when that someone is already with someone else. Although I am pretty sure-”

“Rory,” Logan stated quite calmly for a person whose girlfriend just got asked out by another guy.

She went to him, took both of his hands in hers and looked at him imploringly. “I don’t have to go. I wasn’t going to go.”

He touched the side of her face, gently. “Do you want to go?”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, torn. It was useless to lie to Logan, she never really had before and she wasn’t going to start right then. Not over someone like Tristan DuGrey. “Yes.”

“Then go.” He said it so simply, she wondered if he wasn’t even a little bit threatened. Her eyes widened slightly and he grinned. “You thought I was going to break something, preferably his neck, in a jealous rage, didn’t you?”

“That would be a normal reaction, yes.” She kept staring at him strangely, as if the last two years had been erased and she was staring at the face of a stranger. Oh good God, Tristan DuGrey hadn’t stepped back in her life for a day and he was already changing everything. Fucking bastard. “You’re completely okay with me going for dinner with another guy?”

“As long as you’re coming back home to me after a normal, friendly dinner with an old acquaintance, I’m fine, Ace.” He kissed her forehead and then wrinkled his own. “You are coming back home to me, right?”

Rory let out a sigh of relief that ended on a chuckle. “Of course.”

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

She brushed her lips against his and wrapped her arms around him, pushing back the guilt she felt for not revealing that Tristan wasn’t just an old acquaintance. “Don’t look now, Huntzburger but I think you’re growing up.”

“So you say,” he replied with a chuckle. “So you say.”

- & -

Calm, she told herself as she was led to the table Tristan had booked at Adrianna’s by the waiter. Remain calm at all times – no matter what he does to provoke you. She patted her hair down despite herself and glanced down at her dress for the hundredth time wondering why she decided to wear something that showed, in her opinion, so much skin.

She caught Tristan’s eyes as he watched her approach and saw the slow smile spread across his face. Half of her reveled in the way his eyes darkened knowingly; he knew why she chose to wear white, knew exactly what she was thinking as the silky material slipped over her. It was to remind him that it was her innocence that attracted him.

And it was her innocence he was hell bent on destroying.

“You look breathtaking, Gilmore,” he said simply as he rose.

She was ready for some lewd remark so it threw her off, the straightforwardness of his compliment. She blushed and avoided his gaze. “Thank you.”

Once they sat down and she placed her drink order, she met Tristan’s gaze and kept staring. He smirked and then shook his head. “I didn’t think you’d show.”

In spite of her anger, she smiled. “Oh I beg to differ - you knew I’d come.”

“I knew you’d obsess about whether or not to show,” he returned easily. “Probably made a pro/con list. And then threw it away and met me anyway.”

She had thought of making a list but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “God, I can’t believe how little you’ve changed.”

Tristan took that jibe in stride. “Gilmore, you like me exactly the way I am.”

Because it was true, she didn’t say anything and made a show of perusing her menu. “So what’s good here?”

Without taking his eyes off of her, Tristan immediately said, “I’m actually looking forward to dessert.” Her eyes flashed warningly and he chuckled. “Relax, Mary, I’m serious, the cannoli here is to die for.”

Placated, Rory frowned. “I hate when you call me, Mary, Tristan.”

“Right,” he said with a wry smile and the pinned her with an intense gaze she couldn’t fathom. “It’s Ace, nowadays, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.” She didn’t miss the brief flicker of… something that crossed his face at the admission.

“Well does Logan know about your past a Mary?” he said in a way that implied her past was anything but innocent.

“Logan knows most parts,” she answered after a beat. She could never lie to him and it unnerved her completely. “He knows about what happened with Dean.”

“But he doesn’t know about me.”

Avoiding his gaze again, she looked at the menu. “He thinks you’re an old acquaintance from high school.”

“Well, I am an old acquiantance from high school,” he agreed with her, somewhat dryly. “That’s half of the truth, anyway.”

The guilt rose up again and she glared at him. Leave it to Tristan DuGrey to know exactly which buttons to push.

In a way Logan never did, even with all his flaws.

It was true that her initial relationship with Logan had started out quite the same way it had with Tristan – with strong dislike (from her part, at least). But the antagonism had died quite quickly and she had admitted quite readily that she was attracted to him. Rory had been the one that had wanted more than Logan was ready to give from the very start.

With Tristan, it was quite the opposite. He was the one that pushed, when she was desperately trying to fight her own, undeniable, intense attraction to him. She had never been ready for him even when she was, despite her better sense, deep into something with him three summers ago.

Rory was never ready for Tristan DuGrey, it seemed.

- & -

“What are you doing?” she asked him, her eyes wide, lips trembling, as he brought his hand to rest on the wall above her shoulder. “Tristan?”

“Relax Mary,” he whispered softly, bending his head so that he could be heard over the roar of nightclub music. “Jesus, you look like a virgin on the verge of sacrifice.”

“Very funny, DuGrey,” she managed to get out as she tried to relax. She had been nervous with Dean, when he had come to her house that fateful night, and the knowledge about what they were going to do flowed through her.

But with Tristan, eyes gleaming with mischief and seduction, she was terrified.

His lips brushed the shell of her ear and the knuckles of her hand, which was holding a plastic cup of alcohol between their bodies, grazed against his shirt. She repressed the shudder that ran through her and adopted a nonchalant expression as she gazed over his shoulders at the European night scene displayed before her.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he told her as his lips continued down her neck.

“You knew I would,” she answered automatically. She watched a near naked woman, with bright blue hair and body glitter, dance around in a cage and wondered why she did. “I told you I would.”

“This isn’t your scene, Mary,” he said as his other hand rested on her hip and slowly kneaded the satin of her dress.

“It isn’t yours, either,” she answered turning her face towards him. With their lips inches apart, his warm alcohol laced breath mingling with hers, she raised an eyebrow. “And I hate it when you call me Mary.”

“If the shoe fits…”

Her hand which lied limply to the side, suddenly reached up and tugged at his hair. Challengingly, teasingly, she licked her lips. “It doesn’t.”

Instead of grinning and taking her up on her invitation to kiss her, Tristan pulled back, surprise apparent in his eyes. Regaining his voice and composure, he asked, oddly, “When?”

“A couple of weeks ago,” she replied. Apparently, alcohol loosened her tongue. And made her mean. She grinned a little. “To Dean.”

Tristan pushed away from her completely and she had to struggle not to frown. This was a game and she wasn’t going to lose her nerve because he looked so disappointed. No…disapproving. “And now?”

She wanted to cry but instead took another sip of her drink. The masochist in her replied, “He’s married.”

It took a minute for Tristan to process what she was saying. He shook his head, ever so slightly and repeated, “And now?”

She shrugged. “Now I have to find someone else to help me explore my sexuality.”

He studied her for a minute and then took her hand. “Wanna get out of here?”

Smiling victoriously, she nodded. “Thought you’d never ask.”

- & -

“Logan doesn’t need to know about us,” she finally answered after the waiter brought the food. She reached for a roll of bread and gave him a pointed look. “There’s not a lot to tell, anyway.”

He chuckled at that and it made her angry that he wasn’t the least bit offended. But his eyes did darken when he finally spoke, “That doesn’t work with me, Gilmore. You know that. I was there, too.”

Desperately, she leaned forward. “Tristan, we decided to walk away.”

Now he looked pissed. “Oh you sure have a way or rewriting history, Rory. You decided to walk – no, run, away. Back to your safe haven, back to the arms of the very guy you were trying to forget.”

“I had a life there.” She curled her fingers together; her knuckles turned white. “You had a whole other life. Were we really going to change all of that?”

His mouth set in a grim line but a muscle near his jaw twitched. “That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?” she asked as cut into her steak. “What’s the point of this entire evening?”

“Just like you must’ve told Logan,” Tristan answered easily. “Two old acquaintances catching up.”

“You know that we’ll never be able to be just two old acquaintances, Tristan,” she said and winced. She wasn’t making much sense.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fucking hell, Gilmore. Seriously, how do you make everything right in your mind? How does one piece fit into the next of this life you created for yourself and still leave room for that brain of yours? It’s all haywire.”

“Don’t mock me, Tristan.”

“Don’t confuse me, Rory.” He put his fork down and reached for her hand. “Let me get this straight. We can never be old acquaintances but what happened between us was nothing life-altering. Logan knows all about your sordid affair with Dean and yet you can’t tell him about what happened between us in Europe?”

“Yes, exactly,” she answered even though she knew it sounded ridiculous. Reverting back to an old tactic, she squeezed her hand and implored, “Tristan, please…”

He sighed and nodded. “Okay, we’ll have a nice, normal dinner. Because no matter what you’d like to believe, we were friends at some point, Ror.”

A grin tugged the corner of her lips, almost naughtily, “No, we weren’t.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Tristan,” she said as she leaned in a bit, “Friends don’t want to strangle each other constantly.”

“So then what were or are we?” he challenged taking a sip of wine.

She looked away before catching his gaze again and shrugged lightly. “I don’t know…I could never put you into any category, DuGrey. You never seemed to fit anywhere in my life.”

He put his wineglass on the table and pinned her with a look. “That’s a very dangerous thing to say, Rory.”

Her brows furrowed. “Dangerous? How?”

“Because now you’ve made me hell bent on reminding you where exactly it was that,” he stopped and glanced downwards before smiling wolfishly and finishing, “I fit.”

- & -

“God, this is so clichéd,” Rory exclaimed as she trudged up the stairs of the quaint, British B&B that had checked into for the night. “Of course, there’s only one room. That is what would make this road trip complete.”

Tristan, who was in front of her, carrying their luggage, smiled. “Buck up, Gilmore. I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

Rory snorted in response. Ever since they had embarked on their impromptu road trip to the north of London, Tristan had been anything but a gentleman. He had made lewd comments, touched her everywhere, kissed her in front of the cashier at the roadside Marks & Spencer and even copped a feel when he helped her onto the horse they rode earlier along the Devon coast.

And then he had almost fucked her against the rental car, as the sun sunk into the horizon.

She had tried everything to discourage him. Really, she had. She had pushed away almost immediately. Well…not almost, but as soon as reality hit.

“You’re incapable of that, DuGrey.”

He only raised an eyebrow and opened the door to their room. Gallantly, he stepped aside and let her in before following with the luggage. They stood at the entrance and stared at their lodgings. It reminded Rory of the room she and Lorelai had stayed in on their own impromptu Harvard road trip.

She looked at Tristan who shrugged. “The bed looks big enough for the both of us.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a syrupy smile. “Well that’s good for me. You’re sleeping on the ground, buster.”

“Hey,” he replied offended. “Have you met me? I’m a spoiled, rich brat. I don’t sleep on floors. It’s bad for my back.”

“You went to military school, Tristan.”

“Yes,” he said dropping their bags on the ground and walking over to the bed. “That’s just another reason why I refuse to sleep on anything other than feathers for the rest of my life.”

“Fine, I’ll sleep on the ground. So much for being a gentleman.”

He grabbed her arm and tugged her forward. “Now, don’t be a prude, Mary.”

“DuGrey,” she warned as his arms wrapped around her waist. “You promised.”

He smirked. “I lied.”

“I should have known,” she muttered as his lips descended on hers. She kissed him, letting her hands tangle in his hair. For a few blissful moments, she lost herself in him, allowing his hands to roam freely up her back, into her hair; his lips to caress hers, her jaw line, her face like he was about to devour her whole before she stepped away, keeping him at bay with one hand against his chest. “I can’t.”

Tristan looked at her, anger flashing briefly in his eyes before he nodded and raised both his hands in a universal sign of surrender. “Okay, Ror. I’m backing off.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, not meeting his gaze.

“For now,” he answered and then turned around and began rummaging through his things.

Knowing that the conversation was over and she couldn’t add anything else to it without angering him; she turned and fled into the bathroom, taking her bag with her. Once inside, she sat down on the toilet and tried to calm down. Tristan always made her insides go haywire and it took a couple of minutes to come down from the heady daze her hormones put her in whenever he kissed her.

After showering and changing into what she believed were her frumpiest PJs, Rory left the bathroom to find Tristan on the bed, naked from waist up, playing with his PSP. Determined to make the best of a bad situation, Rory smiled brightly as she dumped her duffel bag on a chair nearby and walked to the bed.

“Bathroom’s free.”

He looked up at her and put away his game. “You look hot.”

She rolled her eyes and sat down at the foot of the bed. “You’re incorrigible.”

He sidled up behind her and played with the tips of her wet hair. “You could have told me you were showering - I would have joined you.”

She shivered deliciously at the image of them in the shower, slicked with water and soap, entangled together. “Tristan, this is not backing off.”

“I realized that I don’t know how to,” he answered softly, kissing the nape of her neck, “and that I don’t want to and that you don’t really want me to either. Deep down inside, you know you just want to give in and let me help you forget all about Dean and every other guy who’s ever touched you.”

It was tempting; she knew that he probably would make her forget – forget and enjoy every minute of it. She turned her face to his, brushed her nose against his and sighed. “I want to, Tristan. I want to forget what I did.”

He smiled and softly kissed her. “Then let me help.”

“Sex with you will be like alcohol, Tristan,” she explained in between his kisses. “I’ll forget for tonight and then everything will be just the way it is come morning. Only I will have slept with you and then we can never go back.”

He seemed only to be half hearing her as his hand slipped under the first button of her PJs and popped it open. “I never liked where we were in the first place. Plus, you’re over-thinking this.”

“Tristan,” she started to say but he covered her mouth with his.

His arms came around her waist and pulled her on top of him as he lay back on the bed. Helplessly lost in his kiss, she let him take control, adjusting her body to fit perfectly against the hard contours of his. His hand trailed down her back and one fisted in her hair and she didn’t know it but her own hands ran down his sides and up over his bare stomach.

He rolled them over and her breath came out in a half-whisper, half-moan, “Tristan.”

He lifted himself on his elbows and undid the remaining buttons of PJs, tearing the fabric away so his eyes could feast on her, heaving, bare breasts. “God, Rory, so damn hot.”

She felt her cheeks burn, she wasn’t used to anyone seeing her naked and ridiculously she thought that now Dean had and Tristan had and they would always remember. Like that episode of “Friends” where Ross says he could picture Rachel naked whenever he wanted to after they had broken up.

She giggled slightly and Tristan lifted his head from her breast and looked at her curiously. Chastised, she struggled to make her face serious. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

“Then I must be losing my touch.”

Her hands roamed down his back and she looked him in the eyes and smiled. “Not at all. I guess I’m just nervous.”

“Understandable.”

Feeling her confidence grow, she nodded. “You may continue.”

Laughing he lowered his head and kissed her hard. In a few moments, he had her out of her PJs and she successfully rid him of his pants without giggling nervously. His hands, mouth and tongue touched her everywhere, making her crazy. Slowly, she felt all inhibition leave her as she touched him back, boldly caressed his skin, nipped his shoulder and neck with her teeth and then slid her hand between their bodies and fisted his cock, slowly and languorously, causing him to moan her name with a few choice expletives thrown in.

With Dean, she had been shy and had let him lead, following when he made love to her. She had barely understood what her body was doing and basically restricted her exploration of the male anatomy to above the waist. She had blushed furiously when she felt his rigid length along her thigh and had closed her eyes when he was poised at her entrance, asking sweetly, if she was sure.

With Tristan it was an entirely different experience, she was an equally active participant, matching him need for need, kiss for kiss. Her hands were everywhere, her tongue licked and tasted skin, curved along the contours of his body, and she even managed to roll them over so that she was on top, his cock slipping against her slick mound.

Then without any sweet assurances or even any warning, Tristan grabbed her hips and thrust upwards, into her warm, welcoming heat.

It was fast and crazy and over way too soon but the entire time, Rory kept her eyes open and on his and they climaxed almost together, before she fell against him, her head resting on his chest, his length nestled deeply, perfectly, inside her.

- & -

Cheeks hot, Rory shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Tristan, it was a long time ago.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“Because we’re in a public place. And I have a boyfriend and this is totally inappropriate.”

“This is getting old, Rory,” he answered, a little frustrated.

“You think?”

He pursed his lips and shook his head before finishing off what was left of his wine. “You’ll never change, will you? Running. Avoiding. Always.”

“I am not avoiding and running from anything,” she protested, her fork clattering on her plate loudly. “Damn it, Tristan, I’m in a loving, committed relationship. Logan and I are honest with each other.”

“But he doesn’t know that after you fucked Dean, you fucked me before you returned to your little perfect world to fuck Dean again before you fucked him, right?” Tristan whispered crudely, his eyes flashing angrily.

Shocked, hurt and angry, Rory stood up and glared at him. “I knew coming here was a mistake, but I did. For old times’ sake, I suppose. Stupid.”

Sighing, Tristan reached for her hand but she pulled away. “Ror -”

“I’m leaving, Tristan,” she stated airily. “Have a nice life.”

He stood up too, tried to grab her hand again, but she had already turned her heel and was walking away. He watched as she weaved through the tables in the restaurant and then looked down at their unfinished dinner and mumbled, “Fuck.”

To Be Continued…

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