"Rory."

"Dean." Rory greets her boyfriend with a smile, standing on tiptoe to kiss him hello. He avoids her seeking lips, grimacing. Rory's face falls. "What's the matter?"

"What's the matter?" Dean repeats angrily, as if not believing she doesn't know. Rory stares at him blankly, completely confused. "Todd was walking by Luke's today and he saw you with that guy. Tristan or Mateo or Stefano, or whatever soap opera name he has. The same one I saw you with when I came to your school. I thought you said you hated that guy. That nothing was going on.”

“Nothing is going on!” Rory denies, surprised by Dean.

"Dean, Tristan was just in town with his dad on business. He returned those books to me, you know, the ones I told you he stole? That's all." She smiles faintly, reaching out and touching Dean's arm. She tugs him inside and shuts the door. "I wasn't happy to see him either."

"Then why were you eating lunch with him? Todd said you looked really happy."

"Okay, first of all...I'd like to know how you know all of those soap opera names. Second of all, I wouldn't rely on Todd for an accurate appraisal of any situation-"

"What's wrong with Todd?" Dean interrupts, defensive. Rory gives him a look.

"Dean. Come on."

"Okay. Good point. But that really doesn't change anything, Rory. You were still with him."

"Me and my mom just went to Luke's for something to eat. He was there killing time cause his dad was still...doing whatever his dad does. My mom made me talk to him. We talked for like a millisecond and then he left."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. It's nice of you to get all worked up and jealous, Dean, but let's save it for a time when it actually applies. Which will be never, because you know I wouldn't do that to you and frankly I'm surprised you'd even think that." Rory says. "Although it is quite amusing because you breathe funny when you're mad."

"I breathe funny?" Dean laughs lightly and gives her a quizzical look, taking off of his jacket. He's clearly more relaxed than he was a mere minute ago. Rory takes his coat and tosses it over the arm of the couch as they go into the living room.

"Yeah, really funny." Rory is about to say something else when Lorelai comes bounding into the room, obviously on a sugar high of some sort.

"Hey, it's Nark!" She exclaims, waving to Dean.

"Nark?" Dean asks, confused.

"I decided to shorten up the whole Narcolepsy Boy nickname for you. Nark has much more of a ring to it, I think," Lorelai explains.

"You do realize of course that Nark is also short for narcotics officer."

"Or it could also be one of the sounds that Pinky makes in response to something The Brain says. Although I think that might be Narf."

"Either way, it's a multi-purpose nickname! Boy, Dean, you really cashed in."

"Guess I did," Dean grins, running his hand through his hair and glancing sideways at Rory.

"Imagine if I had caught you trying on Rory's clothes. Your nickname would be far less fun!"

"Oh, I don't think Rory's clothes would fit me. Too short. I'd have to raid your closet," Dean jokes. Both Rory and Lorelai laugh.

"So, what's new today, you two?" Lorelai plops down on the couch, eager for some gossip. "Knock over any banks lately?"

"No, but Dean did come in here and accuse me of two-timing him with Tristan!" Rory exclaims, clapping her hands with enthusiasm. "It was a great show."

"He finally caught you at it after all this time, huh? Rory, I thought you and I had discussed how to be more discreet," Lorelai pretends to scold her daughter, and Rory hangs her head. "Have I taught you nothing?"

"I know...I don't deserve my tramp merit badge," Rory says sorrowfully. "I think you should repossess it."

"Naw, you can keep it. I mean, after all the hard work you put into making that whole “Tristan-is-the-devil, he's annoying, he tortures me and makes my life at school hell” story up, the story you've been keeping up all year long, there's no way I could take it back. Just because Dean finally saw through it all and realized that all the times that you've dissed Tristan were really just decoy disses, doesn't mean you don't deserve the badge! Keep it and wear it with pride." Rory and Lorelai both look at Dean pointedly, who smiles sheepishly.

"Kay, I get the point. I was crazy to even consider Rory doing a thing like that to me." He sits down in the armchair. "Just blame it on usual guy stupidity."

"Oh, don't worry, we already have. Though I think in this case it's exceptional guy stupidity. The usual stupidity isn't this bad." Lorelai smirks, patting Rory on the knee and getting up. "What are you two up to tonight, besides all that 'we're reunited' gushy mushy stuff that gushy mushy couples like you do. When you're not accusing each other of being unfaithful, that is."

"We're mushy? Need I remind you that you have enough daises up in your room right now to last another entire generation of flower children? You could power a really bad '60's flashback with those." Rory points out. Lorelai blushes and grins happily.

"Yes, I could, couldn’t I?" She says coyly, dancing around a little.

"That's the happy dance. She's been doing it a lot lately," Rory explains to Dean, who is looking at her mother strangely.

"Do you have a happy dance?" Dean asks Rory teasingly.

"Yes, I do. It looks kind of like that," she says, gesturing to her mother. "Except I look like even more of a fool."

"Ah."

"The happy dance is genetic, I think."

"I see. Do you have any other dances that I should know about?"

"No, think that's it," Rory thinks for a moment.

"Oo! I have a sad dance," Lorelai offers. "Although it's not really a dance. It's more of a routine." Both Rory and Dean look at her expectantly. "You know in the opening scene of Bridget Jones' Diary when Reneé Zelleweger is sitting in her apartment belting out "All By Myself" and flailing about?" Both teens nod. "It's kind of like that. Except with better music and more pizazz."

"More pizazz?" Dean repeats, disbelieving that anything could be more over the top than that.

"Oh yeah. I have a light show, backup singers, a dance troupe, a real microphone...the works. If I ever became a manic depressive, I could turn the whole sad dance into a huge traveling act. Become a famous lounge singer and make lots of money. Course I'd be too depressed to enjoy it, but at least Rory's Harvard would be all paid for."

"Gotta love a woman with a plan," he grins along with Rory. The doorbell rings before Lorelai can elaborate any further on her plans for a concert tour.

"Race you," she looks at Rory and Rory immediately is at the ready, as if this is something that occurs quite frequently in their household. "1...2...3!" They both make a break for the door, Rory yelling that Lorelai made a head start. Lorelai reaches the door first, opening it up as Rory slides to a stop beside her, almost falling over. Max is standing on the front porch, looking amused by his greeting.

"We were racing. I won," Lorelai tells him with a smile.

"She cheated," Rory says, turning away from the door and heading back to Dean.

"I did not!" Lorelai exclaims in her own defense, pretending to be seriously offended. "Dean, did I cheat?" Both Rory and Lorelali look at him expectantly. He looks torn.

"I honestly...couldn't say one way or the other. I wasn't really watching that closely," Dean says, trying to give an answer that wouldn't upset either one of the Gilmore women. He fails. Both glare at him.

"Nark is lying. I didn't cheat and he knows it," Lorelai snorts with overdone contempt, turning to Max. He gives her a questioning look.

"Who is lying?" Max asks with a chuckle, trying to get her to repeat the name. She couldn't have called Dean Nark.

"Nark," Lorelai says. "Dean over there," she gestures toward him. "We call him Nark here in the Gilmore house. Except Rory, she calls him Dean."

"So just you call him Nark."

Lorelai hmms and haws for a minute, as if trying to figure it out.

"Yeah. I guess so. But you can call him that too, if you'd like. It's fun to say."

"I think I'll stick with Dean. Hello, Dean, by the way," Max looks around Lorelai and gives Rory's boyfriend a small wave hello.

"Hello," Dean replies, waving back awkwardly.

"So, what are you two doing tonight?" He asks Rory, trying to strike up a conversation with his former student.

"We're going to the park to rollerblade. Rather, he's going to rollerblade until I pull him down along with me as I go crashing to the sidewalk. It should make for a fun evening."

"She's about as athletic as I am," Lorelai says, shrugging.

"You're not athletic?" Max asks, pretending to be shocked.

"Not in the slightest bit. Though I can kind of play baseball. But not well."

"That's okay. I'm bad at sports too."

"I'll be right back, I'm gonna go get my rollerblades," Rory interrupts, hurrying to her bedroom. Lorelai and Max turn to Dean, who looks like a deer caught in headlights.

"What are you guys doing tonight?" He inquires, feeling pressured to make some conversation.

"Staying here and watching a movie."

"Going out to a poetry reading."

They both speak at the same time, then look at one another in surprise.

"I thought we were going to watch Matt Damon do math stuff tonight," Lorelai says, looking confused.

"I thought...I thought we agreed to go to that café in Hartford I was telling you about for that poetry reading," Max replies, furrowing his brow. "I must have misunderstood what we were...well that's okay. We can stay here and do that, if you want to. I mean..."

"No, no...we should go. To the poetry thing. I like poetry. Poetry is fun! Right, Rory?" She asks her daughter as she comes back into the room, lugging her rollerblades.

"What's fun?"

"Poetry. All the rhyme, all the funny language, all the figurative mumbo-jumbo...it's a hootenanny!"

"Yes...poetry is certainly a hootenanny," Rory replies, eyeing her mother as if she's on crack. "And why are we talking poetry?"

"Max is taking me to hear some," Lorelai replies, trying to sound giddy with excitement.

"We don't have to go if you won't want to, Lorelai. It's not a big deal-"

"No! Let's go. It'll be fun. I need some culture."

"Are you sure?"

"Unsure!" Lorelai exclaims, clutching her arms tight to her body and mocking out the old deodorant commercial. She is met with strange looks by all. "You guys don't remember..." She waves it off. "Nevermind, my joke is lost on you poor unknowledgable souls. Okay. Off to poetry we go!" She gestures wildly to the door and ushers Max along. "You two be careful doing your rollerbladey thing. Dean, if Rory comes home with any kind of bone broken, I'm simply going to beat you over the head with the nearest heavy object."

"Got it," Dean salutes.

"Have fun!" Lorelai calls back as she and Max leave. The door closes and Rory turns to Dean, shaking her head.

"She's going to have a terrible time."

"Not a poetry fan?"

"Not unless it's Dr. Suess."

"Rory?" Lorelai stumbles into the kitchen, looking around in search of her daughter. She rubs her sleep-filled eyes and glances at the clock. It's already noon. "Oops," she mumbles, and goes over to Rory's open bedroom door. "Rory, hon?" Rory isn't there. Confused, Lorelai is suddenly more awake. “Rory? Where are you?” Suddenly the sound of the front door opening sends Lorelai rushing back to the foyer. Rory is walking in slowly, fumbling a take-out bag from Luke's and two large cups of coffee. "There you are!" Lorelai exclaims, taking the bag from Rory. Rory smiles gratefully.

"Here I am," Rory says. "I see you finally decided to join the ranks of the living."

"Yeah, sorry hon. I didn't mean to sleep this late. What's all this?"

"I figured since the coffee maker is broken, I better get my butt down to Luke's and get you some coffee before you woke up. And while I was down there, it occurred to me that by the time you woke up, it'd also be lunchtime and you'd want to go to Luke's anyway so I grabbed you some lunch and killed two birds with one stone."

"You're the best daughter ever. Although this whole killing birds thing is a little morbid. I have some questions about that."

"Drink some coffee, Mom," Rory hands her a cup and Lorelai smiles.

"Did I mention best daughter ever?" Lorelai says, breathing in the heavenly aroma. "Do you think they make perfume that smells like coffee? If not, I want to bottle this smell and sell it."

"I don't think they do. But I know they make candles that smell like coffee."

"Oh yeah, I know. Have one upstairs in my room."

"I think I may have bought that for you," Rory says, trying to remember. She shrugs. "So how did it go last night with Max? Did you die of boredom?"

"No...it was good. It was nice," Lorelai says.

"Really?"

"No!" Lorelai stops lying and practically throws her head down onto the table. "It was the most boring night of my life! All these really thin guys dressed in black and wearing berets and these women who apparently couldn't manage to look in a mirror...it was like something out of a bad, clichéd movie. You'd think that poetry readings really weren't like that, that it was all a silly image, but no. Not at all. This one was really that way. And the poetry...oh god, the poetry! It didn't even rhyme, Rory!"

"A lot of poetry doesn't."

"I know! But this stuff didn't even make sense! It was like performance art without all the cool strange stuff going on."

"You've never seen performance art."

"Yes I have! Remember in She's All That, with the midgets and the underwear and all the strange flowy stuff? And the garbage? Well, there were no midgets dancing around at this place!"

"So, not something you'd do again."

"No."

"Did you and Max talk about the whole marriage thing?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too busy listening to poetry that had no midgets."

"You have to get past this midget thing," Rory says. "Wasn't it weird, not talking about Max asking you to marry him? That's kind of a big thing to ignore."

"I didn't ignore it. When we got in the car, he opened his mouth to say something but I told him I was still thinking and that we shouldn't talk about it for the rest of the night."

"And he went along with that?"

"Didn't have a choice in the matter," Lorelai says. "But he was cool with it. He says I can have all the time I need."

"So if you took twenty years, he'd be happy to wait."

"Why, yes, of course. But enough about Max and all that. How was rollerblading? Any monster bruises in strange shapes?"

"I got a weird one that looks like Satan on my knee."

"Like Satan? What does Satan look like?"

"Like a devil with horns. He's possessed my knee."

"Oh dear. You know any one who does knee exorcisms?" Lorelai motions for Rory to come over to her. "Let me see."

Rory lifts up her leg slightly and Lorelai gasps.

"My god, that really does look like the devil."

"Told you so."

"And apart from Satan taking over a body part, how did the evening go?"

"Very well, I think," Rory smiles, then stops, suddenly remembering something. "Oh! I have something to show you!" She races to her bedroom. Lorelai sits down at the kitchen table, taking a long sip of her coffee.

"There was this guy in the park with this little booth set up, and he was doing caricatures of people for only three bucks!" Rory calls back to her mother as she searches for the drawing. She lifts up some stuff on her desk, trying to remember where she put it, and accidentally knocks the schoolbooks that Tristan had brought back to her the day before onto her bedroom floor. "So Dean and I sat down and had him draw us, just for laughs," She continues, bending down to pick the books up. She notices that something fell out of her English folder and picks it up. It was an envelope with her name on it, and it didn't look familiar. Opening it up, she gasps and sits down on her bed.

"You get lost in there, Rory?" Lorelai calls after Rory is silent for a minute or so. "Rory?" Lorelai gets up and walks into her daughter's bedroom, wondering what's up. She finds her still sitting on her bed, staring at something in her hands. Lorelai sits down next to her and gasps as well. "Oh my god, let me guess! The guy drawing the pictures drew you like you were really ugly even though you're not, with like warts and green skin and stuff, so you and Dean both got really upset and demanded your money back. Then it turned out that the guy was really from some bad hidden camera show and after he told you, he gave you these tickets for being such good sports."

Too stunned to even comment upon her mother's crazy imagination, Rory simply hands her the note.

"Wow...Tristan got you U2 tickets?" Lorelai looks at her daughter in awe. "What a huge gift! And look, he says they're for you and Dean. How nice of him," Lorelai remarks, though inwardly puzzled as to why Tristan would encourage Rory to go out with Dean if Tristan liked her.

"This can't be real," Rory mutters, shaking her head. "Why would he do this?"

"To apologize for the P.J. Harvey thing. She's opening for U2," Lorelai points out, gesturing to the letter as if the answer were obvious. Rory rolls her eyes. "What? He says so right here."

"I know what he wrote, it just...it doesn't make any sense. Tristan DuGrey doesn't give me tickets to anything. He's not even nice to me. It has to be some kind of trick. And if he really did do this, he's going to expect something in return." Rory sticks the tickets back in the envelope, shaking her head no emphatically. "No. These are going back. I'm mailing them back to him and simply saying no thank you."

"No thank you to U2 tickets? Honey, don't take this the wrong way, but you're completely insane. You send those back and I’m going to disown you. Even if they are from Tristan...do you know how expensive these are and how hard they are to get? You should take this opportunity! And you'll get to see P.J. Harvey too!"

"That's exactly my point, Mom. I go to this concert and I immediately owe something to Tristan. I don't want to have that hanging over me. So no, I'm not going."

"Rory."

"I said no!"

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe Tristan really is trying to make nice? He brought your books back and apologized, didn't he? He was civil to you yesterday. You actually had a decent conversation with him, did you not?"?

"Yeah, for like two seconds, before he bolted. That hardly constitutes a major change in our dynamic. We have talked civilly to one another before, you know. And look what came of that. Paris hates me more than ever."

“You keep saying how Tristan is so terrible because he cost you Paris’ friendship. Can I ask you a question?”

“No.”

“Why do you even want to be Paris’ friend in the first place? She’s a pill, Rory. The only reason you want to be her friend is because you’re one of those people who can’t stand to have people not like you. Everyone has to love you. But that’s not the way the world works! Everyone should love you, but there’s going to be people like Paris all throughout your life who are jealous of how great you are instead of enjoying how great you are, and Paris is one of those people. Now, Tristan, on the other hand, clearly has come to terms with and appreciates your said greatness and he’s trying to tell you so by apologizing for his previous behavior! And I think you should accept. If not for your sake then for mine.”

Rory stares at her mother as if she has just proposed selling Rory to a tribe of wandering gypsies for some magic beans.

“What?” Lorelai asks. “If I can’t go to a U2 concert, then I think I should be able to live vicariously through you. And Dean likes U2, right? Why deny him the opportunity to see them just because Tristan is the one who gave you the tickets?”

“You really think Dean is going to want to go to a concert that Tristan gave me tickets to? He hates Tristan,” Rory states. “Just forget about it…I’m going to give them back. Apart from the fact that I don’t want to keep them, it wouldn’t be right. Tristan shouldn’t be trying to buy my friendship.”

“He’s not trying to buy your friendship. He’s trying to buy your forgiveness. Two entirely different things,” Lorelai tells her daughter as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Why don’t you just keep the tickets for awhile. Think about it a little? Maybe the idea will grow on you.”

“Tickets to what?” Lane asks, walking into Rory’s bedroom with a curious grin.

“U2 tickets,” Lorelai takes the tickets and holds them up for Lane to see them excitedly. Lane rushes over and takes them from her, staring at them as if they are made of gold.

“Oh my god. You got U2 tickets? You’re going to see Bono in concert? You’re going to see The Edge?”

“Larry and Adam too,” Lorelai adds.

“How did you get tickets? Why wasn’t I notified?” Lane shrieks, jumping up and down. “Oh my god, and he concert is in Boston. You’re going to go to Boston? Oh, Rory, I’m so envious of you!”

“Don’t be,” Rory states blandly, frowning. “I’m not going.”

“What?”

“Tristan gave her the tickets.”

“Evil Tristan?” Lane is confused. “Rory, if he’s giving you U2 tickets, he’s hardly evil. Wait - is this one of those “you can only go if you go with me” things like he tried to pull with the P.J. Harvey concert?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“There is no problem,” Lorelai says.

“There is a big problem.”

“One which I think you should stop thinking about right now and familiarize yourself with the concept of free concert tickets to see one of the best bands in the world.”

“I don’t even really like U2,” Rory points out. “They’re not exactly my favorite band. I don’t even know any of their music that’s not on the radio.”

“I’ll lend you all of my cds. Though my copy of The Joshua Tree is almost worn out, I scratched it up so bad.” Lorelai looks at Lane as if she has committed blasphemy. “I got it when I was like ten! I wasn’t exactly familiar with proper cd care at the time. I was too busy trying to hide it from my mother.”

“How about we just stop talking about this?” Rory suggests and deliberately changes the topic, putting the tickets back into the envelope again and stuffing them into her desk. “Lane, are you ready to go the mall?”

“You guys are going shopping?” Lorelai asks, pouting.

“Only if you agree to let me use the car. I don’t really feel like taking the bus,” Rory replies, looking at her mother hopefully. Lorelai debates for a few seconds inwardly and then shrugs.

“Sure, what the hell. I don’t think I’ll be needing the car today. I shouldn’t be driving today anyway, my brain is too tired.” Lorelai flops back onto Rory’s bed, putting her hand to her forehead.

Lane looks to Rory for an explanation.

“Went to a poetry reading last night with Mr. Medina. There was no flying garbage or midgets so she’s not too happy.” Lane only looks more confused. “Forget it. Did your mom clear it for you to come to the mall?”

“Yes, she did, actually. I went to Korean Bible School this morning and proved to her that all of my homework was done, and she reluctantly gave me permission. She said she’s calling the security guards at the mall and tell them to keep an eye out for me, make sure I’m not hanging out with any boys.”

“She wasn’t serious.”

“Couldn’t tell.”

“Okay. Well, wanna go now then? I’m in the mood to buy a new book.”

“Oh, surprise surprise,” Lorelai mutters, groaning and rolling over onto her stomach.

“Go to Luke’s and get some more coffee, Mom. You can gripe about how awful poetry is and Luke will agree. You can exchange relentless diatribes and you’ll come home feeling 100% better.” She leans over her mother on the bed and kisses her head. “I will be back later.”

“How much later?”

“I don’t know!” Rory calls back as she hurries out the door with Lane.

“Not an acceptable answer!” Lorelai sits up on the bed.

“Before dinner!” The front door shuts and Lorelai groans again, falling back onto the bed. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be moving from this spot for quite some time.

Lane holds up a sheer black lace top, grinning.

“Imagine the look on my mother’s face if I wore this,” she says, clearly taking delight in the idea.

“She’d have a heart attack, Lane,” Rory shakes her head with a giggle, waiting for Lane to put the top back down before heading out of the store.

“I wish I could just have your mom as my mom, just for like a week. Just to have a taste of the freedom. Your mom totally respects and trusts you,” Lane tells Rory, frowning.

“Things at home really getting on your nerves, huh?”

“I haven’t seen Henry in three weeks, you know that. How good could it possibly be?” Lane points out. “She refuses to let us talk on the phone for more than half an hour at a time and we have yet to see each other without adult supervision. It’s making me crazy. And this is with a guy they approve of!”

Rory sighs, feeling sorry for her friend. Mrs. Kim meant well, but it was hardly fair to Lane to be trapped by her mother’s traditions and strict rules. Suddenly she stops in her tracks, spotting someone quite surprising just across the way.

“Speaking of Henry, there he is,” Rory says in disbelief, pointing. Lane follows her gaze and breaks into a large smile. “Wow, that is so weird. We were just talking about him and how you never see him and all of a sudden, he’s here. That’s something that my mom would call –“ Rory stops, searching Lane’s face for any sign of surprise but doesn’t find any. “Wait…Lane, did you know he was going to be here?” Lane just blushes faintly and shrugs.

“He might have mentioned something…” Lane says innocently. Rory smacks her on the arm.

“You are such a dork! You knew!” Rory cries out, laughing. “That’s why you called me to go shopping today. Does Henry know you’re here?”

“I might’ve mentioned something about going shopping as well. In passing.” Lane says guiltily.

“So all that talk about your mom’s rules keeping you from seeing each other more often, that was just to butter me up so I would feel sorry for you and let you go off with him, right?” Rory asks, raising her eyebrows and eyeing her friend.

“No, not really. I don’t want to ditch you, Rory, don’t be silly. I was telling you about the whole thing with my mother because it’s the truth and because if we saw Henry here, I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind, you know, if he hung with us?” Lane eyes her best friend wearily. “I’m sorry. I’m a bad friend.”

“No, Lane, you’re not. I think it’s really funny and cute, actually, you and Henry pretending to bump into one another in the mall. And I don’t mind if you hang with him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you what. You go over to Henry and pretend like the whole thing is a huge coincidence that you both happened to be here, and I’ll go to the book store. You guys should go see a movie together or something.”

“Rory, I don’t want to leave you-“

“No, don’t protest. I think you should see something ultra-violent with lots of bad words and sex, just to make today a true teen rebellion day. Go see Swordfish. It has a horrible script and lots of explosions. And John Travolta’s evil, which is fun.” Lane looks truly torn, not wanting to leave Rory alone but also finding the idea of spending alone time with Henry very appealing. Rory sees her indecision and pushes her some more. “Go on, Lane. You’ve sat through enough of my Dean stories. It’s about time I get to return the favor and listen to some tales of Henry. But first you have to have some to tell.”

“You really mean it, Rory? Because I won’t go if-“

“Lane! Get your butt over there!” Rory nudges her slightly and Lane grins.

“Okay. Want to meet for some dinner at like five thirty? I really don’t feel like going home and eating tofu tonight. Since it is a day of rebellion and all.”

“Sure. I’ll call my mom and tell her we’ll be back later,” Rory says. “Let’s meet back right here. And bring Henry along too, if he can stay around for awhile longer.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay by yourself? It’s like four hours alone time,” Lane comes back to Rory after walking a few steps away. Rory chuckles and pushes her back in Henry’s direction.

“I’ll be fine. It’s a big mall. Worse comes to worse, I will buy a book and some coffee and curl up somewhere. It’ll be just like I’m at home, except I’ll be in a center of mass commercialization and exploitation rather than amidst my pillows. I can watch all the thirteen year old Britney Spears wanna-bes parade around. It’ll be great.”

“Okay…five thirty then…” Lane says slowly. She’s about to waver again when Rory stops her from talking.

“Go! Henry has seen you and he’s looking at you like you’re insane. And although he’d be right in that assumption, I don’t think that is something you want to burden your relationship with at this stage.”

“Okay, I’m going.” Lane starts to leave and then races back and gives Rory a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Ror. You’re the best!”

“So I’m told,” Rory mumbles as Lane hurries toward Henry happily. She watches them exchange hellos and then heads for the nearest book store with a satisfied smile. Seeing Lane happy made her happy.

Rory heads to the nearest pay phone before doing anything else, making sure to call Lorelai. Slipping a quarter into the payphone and dialing her number, Rory waits patiently for her mom to pick up the phone.

"Hello, you've reached a Gilmore Goddess."

"Hey Mom," Rory greets her, smiling.

"Hey there, babe! I thought you were shopping?"

"I am," Rory says.

"Good. I thought maybe the car broke down and you were stranded in some strange gas station in the middle of nowhere, you and Lane just sitting there like perfect targets for crazed serial killers. That wouldn't have been good."

"No, it wouldn't have. But no need to worry, we made it to the mall without any problems."

"Good to know."

"Is it okay if Lane and I stay here for dinner?"

"Only if you bring me back something useless and fun that I'll end up breaking in two days," Lorelai laughs.

"I'll make sure to stop by Spencer's and buy you a WWF action figure or something," Rory jokes. "But seriously, can we stay a little longer?"

"Sure," Lorelai says. "I have no problem with that. Does Mrs. Kim know or am I going to have an angry Korean woman banging on my door a few hours from now, demanding to know where her daughter is?"

"I'll make sure Lane calls her," Rory replies, hoping that Lane will at least remember to call her own mom during the day. An angry, worried and suspicious Mrs. Kim is never a good thing. Rory debates telling her mom about Lane being with Henry, but decides to wait until she gets home. That way if Mrs. Kim did come by, Lorelai wouldn't have to lie to her.

"Okay."

"Has Dean called?" "Not yet. I was just down at Luke's and I saw him at the market. He's bagging groceries like a madman."

"Big sales today?"

"Yeah, Taylor got a new shipment of something or other in today. Whole town's gone mad. You'd think Madonna was there or something."

"And I'm missing it. Darn."

"See what happens when you leave Stars Hollow for one day? You miss all the good stuff," Lorelai teases.

"I should've known better. I think I'll just stay in town for the rest of my life."

"Good plan. So what time are you going to be home today?"

"I don't know exactly. We're going to leave after we eat. Probably around 7 o'clock, I think?"

"All righty then. Oh!" Rory can practically hear her mother hitting her forehead. "Damn it all!"

"What?"

"I should've given you money to buy a new coffee maker! I totally forgot!" Lorelai groans. "I'll have to go tomorrow after work and pick one up."

"Sorry," Rory sighs. "I don't have enough of my own money with me to get one."

"I'll make sure to harass Luke for as much coffee as humanly possible, that's all."

"He's going to kill you."

"Naw. I'll wear him down and he won't have the energy."

"True, true. Okay, I'm gonna head to the bookstore now."

"Okay. Don't buy anything with big words or in different languages! It's summertime! Buy a magazine. A really bad teen one with 'N Sync on the cover," Lorelai warns and Rory giggles.

"I make no promises," she replies. "I'll see you later, Mom."

"Bye, hon. Love you!"

"Love you too," Rory says before hanging up.

After a bit of a walk, Rory makes it to Barnes & Noble and contently sets herself to the task of wandering endlessly through the vast amount of books. She ponders buying a chronicle of Celtic myth and folklore, then moves on to peruse the history section. She fingers through a heavy volume about Elizabethan England before deciding to check out what collections of poetry the store held.

It took a bit of searching, since the set-up of the store was mildly confusing, but eventually finds what she’s looking for, along with something, or rather someone else, she never expected to see. Tristan is standing in the aisle, evidently searching for a particular book amidst the selection, and his concentration at his task made Rory stop to watch him for a moment before saying anything. He looked so different, wearing a light blue polo shirt and a loose pair of khaki pants. He looked quiet and thoughtful, his jaw set tightly as he searched with deep concentration she rarely saw from him. His hair is more messed up than usual, Rory noticed as he ran his hands through it. It was weird seeing him by himself, Rory being the one able to step back and observe rather than being the one under the microscope.

Tristan feels someone watching him almost immediately and glances furtively out of the corner of his eye to see who is looking at him. Seeing Rory, he winces inwardly and tries not to let on the fact that he knows she’s there. Maybe he can just walk away and pretend he hadn’t noticed her.

Not knowing what to say but feeling like an idiot just standing there, Rory tries to muster an intelligible greeting.

“Tristan, hey,” she says, cautiously approaching him. “This is the last place I expected to see you. Since when did you develop a taste for poetry?” Tristan glances at her then averts his eyes, pretending to study the binding of the book he’s holding.

“Why, you figured me as being someone who couldn’t read or something?” He asks a bit tightly. He had just seen her yesterday, and from how that went, he had thought he wouldn’t be seeing her again until the start of school. On the ride home from Stars Hollow, Tristan had told himself that the issues between himself and Rory were closed. Figures that life wouldn’t even give him the chance to convince himself he was over her.

“No, I never considered you being illiterate,” Rory shrugs, feeling slightly anxious. She moves next to him, trying to focus on the titles before her. “I just pegged you as someone to be looking through the books about muscle cars or picking up issues of Playboy from the local newsstand, that’s all.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve never so much as lifted the cover of a Playboy, Rory,” Tristan tells her, putting a book back on the shelf and taking another one down.

“I somehow don’t believe that,” Rory snorts. This irks Tristan, thinking that her opinion of him must be lower than he originally thought.

“Well, it’s not exactly as if I’ve ever had the need. As long as I can remember, I’ve had girlfriends willing to keep me more than entertained,” He retorts with a smirk, knowing it will agitate her. Sure enough, she rolls her eyes in disgust.

“How typical,” Rory moves away from him. She doesn’t know what it is about Tristan that gets to her, but he always was able to unsettle her and make her feel confused. He had the habit of always setting things just slightly off-kilter so she couldn’t regain her footing. She is silent for a moment, then decides that now is as good a time as any to tell him she doesn’t want the tickets. “Listen, thanks for the tickets and everything, but I can’t accept them.”

Tristan turns to her, not surprised. He rubs his neck, sighing.

“Look, Rory, don’t get all upset about it. I just meant the tickets as a kind of apology. It doesn’t really mean anything. I don’t want anything from you in return.”

“Right.”

“Look, I know that you think lowly of me, Rory, but there’s really nothing more to it than that. It’s a peace offering. That’s why I tried not to make a big deal about it. I knew if I did you'd think I was trying to get something out of it."

“That’s why you stuck them in my books and didn’t tell me about them?”

“Yeah,” Tristan says. “I knew if I said anything about them you’d turn them down before I even put the tickets in your hand.”

“And you were right,” Rory retorts. “What would you have done if I hadn’t opened up my books until September? That’s a lot of money to throw away on chance, don’t you think?”

“Rory.” Tristan looks at her. “Please. Knowing you, I don’t think I ran the risk of having you dump your books in your closet and ignoring them.”

“Good point,” Rory concedes. “I’m still not taking the tickets. I’ll send them back to you as soon as I get home today.”

“Do you have to be so stubborn all the time?”

“Yes.”

“Rory, just take the tickets, go and have a good time with your boyfriend and let’s just get some closure to this mess, okay?”

“Closure?” Rory repeats, looking at him with confusion painted all over her normally serene face. “What do you mean, closure?”

“I mean…” Tristan turns away quickly, then tries to pretend like he’s just moving to look at a different book. “It’s clear that you don’t want to be friends with me, Rory. So I just figured I’d just say I was sorry, maybe do something so you wouldn’t look back on me as being quite so horrible and that’d be that. Just go to the concert.”

“I don’t want to go to the concert.”

“Rory, don’t turn down the concert for no good reason. The only reason you don’t want to go is because the tickets are from me. That’s stupid.”

“So now I’m stupid?”

“Rory…” Tristan is exasperated. “Do you want me to give them to someone else and then have that someone else give them to you? Would that really make things any better?”

“No, it wouldn’t. And I’m still not going.”

“Then at least just keep the tickets. If you don’t use them, fine. Scalp them, sell ‘em on E-Bay, I don’t care. Just don’t give them back,” Tristan mutters angrily. “I don’t know why you have to make everything into such a big deal. It’s just a concert.” He opens up the book he’s holding and tries to look through it, but can’t even fathom concentrating right now. Frustrated, he snaps it shut violently and puts it back on the shelf. Rory watches him, wondering what is going on in his head. Tristan DuGrey was immature, sometimes idiotic, annoying…but he was more than that. And that’s what made him so perplexing. Tristan continually bewildered her and it drove her crazy.

“Fine,” Rory finally mumbles, making up her mind to give up the argument and simply send him back the tickets anyway. A few minutes of silence pass, neither of them knowing if it was better to just make an excuse and leave or to say anything else. Tristan makes a move to go but Rory suddenly speaks. “So, you’re into Walt Whitman now?”

“What?” Tristan looks confused.

“When I first saw you. You were taking a Walt Whitman poetry collection off the shelf.”

“Oh. Right.” Tristan sticks his hands in his pockets, looking like he really just wants to make an escape. “I take it you like him too then.”

“Just finished re-reading Leaves of Grass last night for the third time,” Rory informs him and Tristan can’t help but smile lightly. “It’s funny that you like him. I wouldn’t think that his poetry would appeal to you.”

“I am he that aches with amorous love; Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?” Tristan quotes effortlessly, grinning as he sees Rory’s astonishment. “You’re not the only one who sings the body electric, Mary,” Tristan smirks, feeling a bit of his trademark confidence surging back at having surprised her.

“Well, you have officially stunned me, Tristan. All at once you’ve shown to me that you have an appreciation for fine literature while still maintaining your previous childishness,” Rory retorts, annoyed that he had slipped into calling her Mary again.

“It takes talent,” he says, pretending to polish his fingernails against the soft fabric his blue shirt with a pompous attitude.

“So what are you doing here all alone?” Rory inquires. “Or should I expect to have another one of your little girlfriends come running to your side any moment now? Should I get out of the way so they have a clear pathway to hang on your arm?”

“I could ask you the same question. Where’s Dean?”

“I came here with Lane.”

“Where’s Lane?”

“With Henry.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t say that like you know about Henry. You don’t know about Henry.”

“As a matter of fact I do,” Tristan corrects her. “Lane’s his tentative girlfriend, status pending according to further family investigation.” Rory is taken aback. “I do know him, Rory. He does go to our school. I ran into him at Abercrombie earlier.”

“So you knew I was here?”

“No, that I didn’t know. He just said he was meeting a girl here later. And after you said Lane was meeting someone named Henry, I, being so smart, filled in the blanks as to Lane being the girl Henry was going to meet. See how that works?”

“Move over Sherlock Holmes,” Rory remarks sarcastically.

"Lane is your best friend, right?"

"Oh, and now Hercule Poirot better watch his back too. Matlock and Colombo are nothing compared to you. Jessica Fletcher is in awe."

Tristan gazes at Rory for a moment as she rattles off fictional detectives easily. He's clearly fighting an inner battle with himself. Don’t do it, Tristan. You’ll regret it later.

“I’m going to Barney’s to get some coffee. You want to come?” He offers. Damn it, you went ahead and did it.

"Coffee?" Rory asks, trying to quickly hide her surprise at Tristan's suggestion. Playing it cool, she simply shrugs. "Sure. I can always go for some coffee."

She follows him out of the book store, her mind and her pulse both racing. What is she doing? Is she making friends with Tristan? This marked the second day in a row where he had both surprised and infuriated her, and the second day in a row when she found herself acting remotely friendly toward him.

"So, out of curiosity, how much coffee have you already had today?"

"Actually, not that much. Our coffeemaker broke yesterday, so getting coffee involves traipsing down to Luke's. I only went down once before I came to the mall with Lane."

"So, only one cup?" Tristan inquires, knowing that she's had way more than that.

"No...three when I was at Luke's, and I brought two cups back home with me, one for my mom and one for me."

"You're sad."

"And I'm not even as bad as my mom yet. Give me a couple years."

"Well, all that caffeine must work wonders, because your mom is great. If she started you this early on the stuff, you're going to be twice as hyper and three times as interesting."

"I think my mom might have put coffee in my baby bottle when I was an infant. Along with some creamer, I think," Rory jokes, laughing. They stop in front of the counter at Barney's, surveying all the various coffee choices. "What are you going to get?"

"Espresso," Tristan says. "You?"

"Mochachino with extra whipped cream and chocolate on top," Rory replies with a grin.

"Any more sugar and caffeine you'd like? You might as well down some pixie stix and no-doz while you're at it, Gilmore," Tristan teases her. He tells their order to the worker behind the counter and turns back to Rory.

"No, I save the hard core stuff for Friday nights. It gives me Saturday and Sunday to recuperate from the caffeine crash so I'm not hungover in school. Plus, after dinner with my grandparents, I need a release. Mom and I go home and play coffee pong on the kitchen table before resorting to straight shots of 80 proof Columbia grown."

"That'll be $7.49," the girl looks at Tristan expectantly as she slides the two cups of coffee over the counter. Tristan takes his wallet out of his back pocket and pays her before Rory can even protest. She quickly digs some singles out of her pocket and hands them to him.

"I'm not allowed to pay for a cup of coffee?" Tristan looks at Rory in disbelief.

"No, you're not. Us Gilmore girls always pay for their own drinks. Besides, you pay and you'll be made into my enabler. I can’t put that burden on you."

"Okay, fine." Tristan reluctantly accepts the few bills. They walk away from Barney's, holding their coffee cups carefully. The heat from the liquid is burning against Rory's skin, so she suggests they sit down and wait for their coffee to cool off a bit. They find the nearest bench and plop down, setting their coffee down and shaking out their hands. "She forgot to put those stupid cardboard things around them so your skin isn't seared off," Tristan remarks.

"We could probably sue. You want to?"

"Sure. Let's. How much you think our pain is worth?"

"Oh, at least a million. But after lawyer's fees, and taxes...we won't see a lot of that, so we should claim emotional distress along with personal injury and up it to five million."

"Sounds like a good plan. You should be a lawyer."

"Isn't that what you're going to be?" Rory asks, looking down at her coffee and realizing that the whipped cream has already melted away in the steaming liquid. "You looking to partner with me? Because I'm not letting you into my firm just because we're friends, you know."

"Yeah, that's me. Future member of the bar, Tristan DuGrey. Can hardly wait." Tristan sounds none too happy. He picks up his coffee again, takes off the lid and blows on it gently, hoping to cool it down.

"I take it being a lawyer is not your choice occupation," Rory observes and Tristan laughs bitterly.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Well, what do you want to do?" Rory asks gently. Tristan looks at her for a moment, then looks away. He's quiet for a moment before answering.

"I don't really know. But I know I don't want to do that.”

“Well, at least you can check one thing off your list. You can probably check off lion tamer and plumber from your list too.” She takes a long drink from her cup.

“I think I would make a good lion tamer,” Tristan kids around. “What about you, what do you want to do?”

“Something in journalism,” Rory replies a bit vaguely, not sure if Tristan really wants to hear about it. “I want to travel, see the world. Report about things that people need to know about but never do.” Tristan gazes at her intently, and Rory feels uncomfortable. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s just amazing that you know exactly what you want to do with your life. You have such direction.”

“No I don’t,” Rory replies, blushing faintly.

“Yes, you do. You already know what school you want to go to, you have your career planned out…I would love to be like that.”

“You don’t have to have everything mapped out, Tristan,” Rory tells him, feeling a bit strange having such a personal conversation with Tristan, of all people. But the chance of him opening up to her amazed her; she never would’ve thought it possible. “It’s completely normal to be 16 and not have a clue what you want to be doing when you’re 40.”

“Not if you’re a Chilton student and a DuGrey,” Tristan mutters, picking up his coffee and twisting the lid on top of the cup a bit nervously. “My family wants me to go to Princeton and then to Harvard Law. They’ve got my life planned out for me – I don’t really even have to think about it. So why bother, right?” He says, shrugging.

“You don’t have to do what your parents want you to. Look at my mom and what she did. And she’s perfectly happy.”

“That’s your mom,” Tristan half-smiles. “Lorelai is a bit unique. I…am not.”

“You are unique, Tristan,” Rory tells him, her voice sounding more strong than she had intended. “And you’re calling my mom Lorelai?”

“She told me to,” he says. “Why, does it make you uncomfortable or something?”

“No, I just didn’t…no. Doesn’t bother me at all. She tells everyone to call her Lorelai.”

“Okay,” Tristan smirks at her as she stammers. He stands up and takes a sip of his coffee. He glances around, checking out which stores are nearby. “So, I came to the mall to further expand my extensive musical collection. You game?”

“Excuse me?” Rory wasn’t really listening to him, too focused in on her own thoughts at that moment.

“You wanna go look at CDs?” Tristan asks more simply, amused by Rory’s behavior.

“Sure,” Rory replies. “I have nothing else better to do.”

“Thanks,” Tristan says sarcastically. “You sure know how to make a guy feel wonderful.”

“I try,” Rory grins and bounces ahead of him, tossing her empty coffee cup into the trash can.

“You did not finish that whole thing already,” He looks at her in astonishment. Rory tosses him a look over her shoulder and continues on. “Sick, Rory, sick.” He puts his still half-full cup into the garbage and follows her down the walkway to the Sam Goody.

Rory wanders through the folk music section, not even looking at any of the music selection. Her gaze is trained on Tristan as he is searching through the Pop/Rock CDs. She feels like she’s in a parallel universe; the whole day is beginning to feel surreal. She had come to the mall with Lane, and somehow she was now hanging out with Tristan DuGrey. That is what I’m doing, aren’t I? Rory asks herself, not even sure. Neither of them had really said that they’d spend time together, but it appeared to be happening.

Rory finds herself studying him carefully, from the way his head tilted as he read CD titles to the way he rested his weight on one foot as he stood there. In the little time I’ve known him, Rory thinks, I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at him. It was odd, but true. She’d always brushed him off without really thinking about it. But watching him now, Rory found herself honestly wondering what is going in his mind and truly wanting to find out. Tristan intrigued her and for the first time, she felt like she wanted to take the time out to find some answers.

Slowly walking over to him, Rory glances at the CDs he is looking at and takes a deep breath in preparation.

“What are you looking at?” She asks, trying to act like she hadn’t been intensely pondering his very existence a few seconds ago. “The Doors?” Rory peeks over his arm and reads the title of the CD he’s holding. “I didn’t think you’d be into them.”

“Are you?”

“Not that much. I’ve listened to them a few times. I think they're amazing...just not my usual thing.”

"Kind of strange way to look at it." Tristan says.

"You can have respect for a band even if they're not your favorite music to listen to," Rory remarks.

"I suppose so," Tristan agrees and puts the cd back.

"You're not going to get it?"

"What? Oh, no. I already have all of those songs. I have all the original albums at home. I play them on my dad's old record player from high school," Tristan explains. "It was just a new collection cd that I hadn't seen before." Rory is surprised by Tristan yet again. The DuGreys had enough money to buy the finest electronic musical equipment available. They could probably afford to have the remaining members of the Doors come and play live at their house if they wanted to. Yet Tristan was playing records on a forty year old record player. "I was actually looking to see if they had an album out from VH1's Storytellers. Scott Stapp sang the lead for a whole bunch of numbers and it was really amazing."

"Scott Stapp from Creed? I think I saw that episode. It was really eerie how much he sounded like Jim Morrison," Rory says. "I had to turn it off after awhile, it was freaking me out."

"Yeah, it was kind of freaky," Tristan agrees. They smile at one another for a moment, then Tristan looks away.

"What else do you like to listen to besides the Doors?" Rory inquires.

"What do I listen to? Uh...well, a lot of different things," Tristan is caught a little off guard by Rory's interest. The events of the day were still sinking into his consciousness; he could barely believe Rory Gilmore was standing next to him, talking to him like they were actually friends.

"Way to be specific, Tristan," Rory rolls her eyes, laughing lightly. She walks a little ways away from him, her eyes drifting over the E section. "Care to elaborate?"

"I don't know...I listen to a little bit of everything. Mostly early alternative...Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, STP...I like Everclear, Oasis, Live...older rock music is great too - Clapton, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. Simon & Garfunkel were geniuses. Oh...and The Barenaked Ladies are great."

"Old school or new?"

"Definitely old. Gordon, Born on a Pirate Ship...I think Maroon is a sell-out."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. It's too mainstream, too formulaic. The songs don't have that same edgy, fun, quirkiness that their earlier work does. Some songs still manage to capture their essence, but overall it just feels so strained and clean. I realize that they became famous in the U.S. with their music as it is now, when Stunt came out, but they were famous a long time before that while still doing their own thing."

"But famous in Canada."

"What's wrong with Canada?"

"It's not the U.S."

"Really? Wow...and all this time I thought..."

"Shut up. I meant that the United States is usually a market that is the hardest to conquer for musicians. You have success here and you know you've made it."

"I know, but it doesn't change the fact that Canada has great music regardless of what people here think," Tristan states.

"Oh, I definitely agree. I mean, the whole surge of female empowerment on the musical front in recent years really has its roots in Canada. Sarah McLachlan, Jann Arden, Chantal Kreviazuk, Melanie Doane, Alanis Morrisette...the list goes on."

"Do you listen to chick music a lot?"

"Chick music, he says," Rory scoffs. "Up until that point, I was really beginning to suspect you had a brain in that head of yours."

"Sorry to disappoint. Still an idiot," Tristan jokes.

"I take it you have a problem with...what was it...'chick music'?"

"Not with all of it. Just with the music in the Sarah McLachlan made-to-play-on-Dawson's-Creek variety. I don't think it really is bringing anything new to the table. It all sounds the same. Poe, on the other hand, is amazing."

"You like Poe."

"Yes."

"I think I may have to sit down."

"You want me to diss P.J. Harvey again so you feel normal?"

"No, that's all right. I think I'm okay now. You just knocked the wind out of me for a second there." Rory winces like she's in pain, clutching her chest.

"How about we change the topic to what kind of music you like, then," Tristan suggests, laughing. "Before I give you a heart attack." "What do I like?"

"That would be the question, yes."

"I like bands like DMB, Pat McGee Band, Guster...and I like my chick music, of course," she tells him pointedly. "Elliot Smith and Duncan Sheik...I love New Wave, or Modern Rock, or whatever you want to call it. The Cure, Depeche Mode, Morrissey, Duran Duran, Men at Work...The GoGos are great, the Bangles are even better."

"The Bangles? Rory...that's truly terrible."

"You're lucky my mom didn't hear you say that. You'd be a dead man."

"She's a big fan?"

"She's still planning on joining the band," Rory says. "We saw them in concert at the beginning of the year."

"Oh yeah...I heard about that one. Your mom yelled at Louise and Madeleine, didn't she?" Rory nods. "I would've paid to see that."

"Where did you hear about it?"

"I don't know...you just hear things," Tristan replies coyly, shrugging. "Word gets around."

"That's a great part of going to Chilton, the endless amount of gossip. I really love it." Her voice is dripping with sarcasm. Tristan looks at her for a moment and then starts laughing. "What?"

"I just can't believe you like the Bangles."

"There's nothing wrong with liking the Bangles. And who are you to talk? You like Oasis, for god's sake."

"There's nothing wrong with Oasis, apart from them being egotistical, immature, Beatles wannabes," Tristan smirks. "Doesn't mean I can't like a song or two. At least I'm aware of how bad they are. Unlike you, who I'm sure will defend the Bangles until the day you die."

"You really need to stop making fun of my taste in music now."

"Who's making fun?" Tristan fakes innocent. "You know what I think?"

"I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you think at all."

"Oh, ha. You're so hysterical that Robin Williams is in awe of you."

"I know, he writes me three fan letters a week. It's a nice thought, but it's getting kind of annoying. Anyway, you were thinking?"

"I think we should pick out a cd for each other. You have to buy whatever I pick out for you and listen to it."

"And you have to buy whatever I choose for you?" Rory finishes, a number of wicked ideas coming to mind.

"Yeah, that's how it goes."

Rory thinks it over for a minute, not sure if she wants to waste 15 bucks on something Tristan picks out, but decides to chance it.

"Okay, deal." Tristan extends his hand and they shake on it. He heads off in search of the perfect CD for Rory, obviously already having a couple of ideas ready. Rory starts back at the A's and Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes catches her eye. She picks it up, chuckling inwardly. Tristan would absolutely kill her. She'd never met a guy in her life who liked Tori. After debating for a minute, Rory puts it back down, deciding it was just a little too cruel. She actually wanted to buy something that he might like, something they could talk about.

An idea strikes her and she races to the J's. Tristan appears next to her moments later, holding a CD behind his back. Rory turns to him, handing him her selection. He smiles and hands her his choice.

"The Tragically Hip," Rory reads, looking at the red and black cover of Trouble at the Hen House. She flips it over and skims over the song titles. "This looks interesting."

"Jude, huh?" Tristan looks at his own cd skeptically, then raises his eyebrows at Rory. "You like this?"

"You will too," Rory replies assuredly, just feeling that he will. "Trust me."

"Okay..."

"Should we go buy these then?" Rory suggests, trying not to laugh as Tristan reads the back of the cd case. Sometimes his facial expressions were priceless.

"This guy wrote a song about Rick James?" Tristan asks in disbelief.

"Not really about him..." Rory says, tugging on his sleeve. "Come on. It was your idea to do this. No backing out."

“All right,” Tristan follows her up to the cash register, a bit wary of her choice. He had only made the suggestion in the first place to irk her, he hadn’t really thought she would follow through. But she was, and now he was going to have to listen to Jude, whoever that was. He glances at Rory, sighing. Well, if she likes it, it’s definitely worth a shot. It might be good…

Rory laughs hard and almost spills her cup of coffee all over herself. This one is from the Dunkin Donuts in the food court.

"She didn't really do that!"

"Yes, she did," Tristan replies, leaning back in his chair. "It's the god's honest truth."

"I don't believe you. Madeleine did not superglue her fingers together."

"In the fourth grade, I swear. Ask anyone. It took three days for her to get them apart. It was really funny, because she felt so weird about the two fingers being stuck, she kept the other two...kind of away from them, I guess? She was walking around school with her hand in that stupid Star Trek signal the whole time. She'd go to wave hi to someone and she'd end up looking like a Vulcan or something. We called her Trekkie for the rest of the year."

"So, you Chiltonites were cruel even in childhood," Rory shakes her head in overdramatic dismay and clicks her tongue in disapproval.

"Well, we needed the practice so that by the time we got to the really competetive grades, our claws would be sharpened and our witty barbs finely tuned," Tristan remarks with a teasing smile, crossing his arms over his chest with an arrogant air. Something across the way catches his eye as Rory downs the last of her coffee. "So, Mary, you feel like proving you're up to a real challenge?" Rory turns and looks where he's pointing.

"You've got to be kidding."

"I happen to know they have an air hockey table in that arcade. Whoever wins buy the next round of coffee. You up for it?"

"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, DuGrey," Rory stands up. "I am the Empress of the Arcade. The reigning queen of all things requiring quarters."

"Oh really?"

"You're underestimating me. I can see it in your eyes. You think I'm kidding around. I'm not."

"I know better than to underestimate you, Rory," Tristan stands up and pats her shoulder in a condescending fashion as he walks by her. "You say you're good, I'll take your word for it. But you're missing a vital piece of information that would figure very greatly into the equation."

"Which would be?"

"You're going to be playing against the King."

"Elvis? Where?" Rory looks around as if searching for a man in a white sequined jumper. "Oh, I'm sorry...looks like Elvis has already left the building."

"Very cute," Tristan smirks. "We'll see who's laughing later." They practically run over to the arcade, trying to beat one another to get there first. Tristan digs into his pocket for loose change as they approach the air hockey table, but Rory beats him to it. She sticks fifty cents into the slot and retrieves the flat, thin, air hockey puck. The little scoreboard above the table lights up, showing the score of zero to zero.

Rory and Tristan face off, each suddenly focusing in intently on the game before them. Within seconds Tristan sneaks a goal past Rory, who groans.

"What did I tell you?" Tristan gloats as Rory again retrieves the puck and sets it back on the table. Before Tristan can even return his attentions to the game, Rory easily shoots straight across the table and the puck slips neatly into the thin slit. It clatters down noisily and Tristan immediately protests. "You can't do that!"

"That's what you get for your bravado," Rory sticks her tongue out at him. "It was your own fault for not paying attention."

"Evil."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"Does that mean you were complimenting me all those times you referred to me as evil?"

"No. You're a different kind of evil. I'm evil in the best sense of the word. Clever, painfully witty, classy. Grade-A evil. I relish in my evilness and pull all my evil deeds off with a smile and style. You're second-rate evil."

"Hmmm...I guess there's an inner snob in you after all," Tristan says, bending over the table to reach the puck as it slides to an awkward stop just out of both of their reaches. "You should fit in better at Chilton next year if you can just harness that and bring it out some more."

Rory laughs bitterly even though she knows Tristan is just messing around with her.

"Trust me, I'd rather not fit in and remain the outcast than become a true Chiltonite, if you don't mind."

"Believe me, I don't want you to change either. You're the only person at Chilton who has an ounce of originality. I like you just the way you are."

Tristan's comment shakes Rory considerably and she stops moving entirely, opting just to stare at him. The puck slides right past her and she doesn't even notice.

"2-1!" Tristan exclaims triumphantly, then notices the look on Rory's face. "Rory, it's just one goal. Hardly the end of the world."

"What?" Rory suddenly comes back to her senses, realizing she's making a fool of herself. "Oh. You scored."

"Yes. I did." Tristan says, raising an eyebrow at her. "You okay?" His words about Rory had come out so naturally; he hadn't even thought about them. Even now, it still hadn't occurred to him what he had said.

"Me? Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I just got distracted for a second there."

"Sure...any excuse for letting that goal squeak by, right?" Tristan laughs and Rory forces herself to laugh along awkwardly. They begin playing again, and by the end of the allotted time, Tristan has beaten Rory by a score of 8-5.

He merely smirks at the outcome, stepping away from the table without a word.

"You're not going to gloat?" Rory is waiting for him to open his mouth and tease her about him winning, but nothing comes. "I think something alien has taken over your body."

"Do you want me to rub it in your face or something? I can, if that's what you really want," Tristan offers.

"No, that's perfectly all right. No rubbing necessary. Just surprised, that's all."

"You've been saying that a lot today."

"That I'm surprised?"

"Yes, or something along those lines."

"Well, when Tristan DuGrey is being nice to me, there's just more surprises than at Christmas," Rory remarks. "It's amazing that we haven't killed each other today. Though I think if you had taunted me about losing that game, you would've lost a body part."

"Then I guess I'm lucky I took the high road," Tristan says. "It's very desolate up here. Kind of lonely. I see you have a summer home set up here on the high road though. You frequent here often? Ah, yes...they've even erected you a monument."

"I don't know about that one..." Rory replies, feeling slightly embarrassed. She looks away trying to conceal how uncomfortable she feels, and what she sees delights her to the core. "Oh! Skeeball! I love Skeeball!" She runs over toward the Skeeball lanes like a small child, leaving Tristan behind in her dust. He stops and gets some tokens from the machine and then walks over to her. She's watching some kids play, the bright flashing lights reflecting in her clear blue eyes. Tristan hands her a couple ot tokens and she grins. Not even bothering to protest the fact he bought them, she slips them into the slot happily. 9 wooden balls roll down and the scoreboard lights up.

"You gonna play?" Rory stops as she picks the first ball up, glancing at Tristan. He realizes he had been staring at her and quickly gets back into gear.

"Yeah, of course," he mumbles quickly and deposits his own tokens into the machine. Halfway through his game, he stops to watch Rory again. She's rolling like an expert, if there is such a thing as a skee ball expert.

"You really are the Empress of the Arcade," he observes, laughter dancing in his eyes. Rory nods.

"Told you so," as she bounces in another 50 points, upping her score to 360. She uses her last chances up and racks up another 100 points.

"That's the highest score I've ever seen anyone get." Tristan rolls his last ball up the ramp and gets a measly 20 points. "I only got 190 points."

"It took years and years of practice and a vast amount of money wasted on worthless tokens," Rory explains. "My mother is a skeeball fanatic. You know in Dogma how God comes down to Earth in human form to play skeeball? That would be her. If she was a god."

"I have a feeling that if Lorelai was a god, the whole world would look like that huge room made of candy in Willy Wonka."

"One of her favorite movies!" Rory collects her tickets and Tristan's from the machines and hands them to him. "These are yours."

"Rory, you got like twenty of them for your game and I only got two."

"You bought the tokens, your tickets," Rory says. Tristan can't stop himself from laughing. She is so infuriatingly delightful. Or delightfully infuriating. Either way, he hadn't had such a great day in a very long time. Rory moves to a Mortal Kombat game next, earning another strange look from Tristan. "You play this game too?"

"I'm an arcade child, what can I say. I'm not very good at this one though. Mom wouldn't let me play it until she thought I was old enough to handle the advanced button combinations for the special tricks."

"Nevermind the blood, gore, and violence...she was concerned about the combos."

"Well you don't stand a chance of winning if you don't know how to work them!" Rory exclaims, giggling. "And yeah, I guess there was the whole violence thing too. You want to play?"

"I don't know. I don't think my fragile ego could withstand another beating from you."

"Your ego? Fragile? Those two words don't belong anywhere in the same vicinity."

"Well, it would actually be three words, cause you kind of need to include the word 'your' in their to have that insult make any sense," Tristan points out.

"Duly noted," Rory replies and takes hold of the controller with one hand, her other hand poised over the other buttons. They select their characters and begin the virtual battle. Rory whomps Tristan thoroughly and then smiles happily.

"Quite a vicious game for someone so serene as you," Tristan says as they scan the arcade for other games to play.

"Oh, I'm full of repressed anger. Anyday now I'll crack like a postal employee."

"Well, at least I'm forewarned." Deciding that the small arcade had nothing else tremendously fun to offer, Tristan and Rory head out toward the mall. By the entrance there's a small instant photo booth and Rory stops. Tristan walks a few steps before realizing he's left her behind and quickly back tracks. "No," he shakes his head adamantly as he sees what Rory's looking at.

"Come on. I love these things. Lane and I always get one when we go shopping together."

"You must have a lot of them then," Tristan replies.

"Just a few. We don't go shopping together that often because of Lane's mom," Rory peeks under the curtain to make sure no one is already using the booth. Finding that it's empty, she pushes the curtain back and begins digging money out of her bag.

"I hate these things, Rory. They're so cheesy and-"

"Great!" She finishes for him and grabs his hand. "Just get in there." She tugs him toward the booth and then pushes him in first. He lands on the seat with a thud and Rory squeezes in next to him. The second she sits down next to him Rory immediately wonders what the hell she was thinking. She loves the little rip-off photo booths, yes, but what possessed her to bring Tristan into one?

Tristan tries not to think about how close Rory's body is to his own body, but they were squeezed into the booth so tightly it's hard not to. He could smell the heavenly scent of her hair; he reminds himself it's probably just her shampoo. That doesn't exactly work either. Rory squirms around for a moment and finally manages to get her money into the machine.

"Kay, here we go," Rory murmurs as the machine starts to make noise. Rory manuvers to try to get situated quickly so she's in the shot and ends up getting a bright flash right in her face. Shrieking slightly and then laughing, she almost falls back onto Tristan, causing him to burst into laughter as well. She ends up half on his knee, balancing precariously. They manage to pull off a few funny faces for the next two shots but Rory finally loses her balance as the last flash goes off and Tristan moves his arms to stop her from falling.

The machine comes to a stop and begins making whirring sounds as it prints out their strip of pictures, but neither Tristan or Rory move. Rory is locked in Tristan's gaze, his deep, sparkling blue eyes suddenly captivating her. Her mother was right, Tristan does have amazing eyes.

Tristan looks like he's about to say something, but instead he blinks and looks away, breaking the gaze. He slowly lets her go, making sure she was no longer in danger of slipping, and then pulls away from her so fast Rory swore she could feel a breeze sweep through.

Not sure what had just happened, Rory quickly exits the booth and goes to get their pictures from the dispenser. She feels like she's quivering all over, inside and out. What the hell was that? she asks herself, mentally berating herself for how idiotic she is. Tristan steps from behind the curtain and looks over her shoulder at their pictures.

"Well...they came out to be very...interesting..." he mumbles, mustering a smile. His voice startles Rory, who hadn't realized he was right behind her. "I especially like the first one." He points to the first frame, which is an extreme close-up of the side of Rory's face with Tristan in the back left corner, an expression of amusement on his face.

"You want to keep them?" Rory offers, her voice cracking.

"No. You paid for them, you keep them," he says. "And that's your rule."

"Ah, so you actually do listen to what I say."

"What?" Tristan jokes and Rory can't help but smack him in the arm. The tension is broken and they leave the arcade together, each of them desperately hoping to forget that that strange moment in the photo booth. As they walk back out into the mall, Rory glances at her watch.

"Oh my god!" She exclaims. "I'm supposed to be meeting Lane and Henry for dinner right now! I have to go!"

"Wait, wha-"

"She's gonna kill me. I gotta go," Rory quickly runs off in the direction of their designated meeting place. She's too frantic to really say good-bye to Tristan, leaving him in a stunned silence. He watches as she disappears around the corner, his heart sinking as she got further away from him with every step. The second she is gone, Tristan comes crashing back to reality. He'd never felt more confused about anything in his entire life.

"Rory!" Lane calls as she runs up to her best friend, so giddy with happiness that Rory immediately bursts into a huge smile. "You're still alive!"

"Sorry I'm late!" Rory apologizes. "Why wouldn't I be alive?"

"I don't know. You could've been mugged. Kidnapped. Things like that happen at malls all the time," Lane informs her. "I was beginning to think I was going to have to call mall security to look for you."

"You should've. It would've given them something to do. I doubt manning the information desk is all too thrilling for them."

"So now that you're here...dinner?"

"Wanna go to Johnny Rocket's?" Rory suggests. "I'm craving a cheeseburger."

"Don't you ever get sick of eating hamburgers?" Lane asks. "You order that at Luke's all the time."

"Nope. I'm a very simple person. Hamburgers are simple. They fit my personality quite well," Rory shrugs.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d like to define my personality in terms of food.”

“Well I do. I’m a hamburger gal.”

“So, okay, Hamburglar, what did you do today after I deserted you like the wretched girl I am?” Lane starts walking in the direction of Johnny Rocket’s.

“Quit feeling guilty,” Rory demands. “There’s no reason to feel bad. Did you have a good time with Henry?”

“Of course. And we saw Tomb Raider.”

“Oh dear god, no. Why?”

“That will forever remain a mystery to both me and you.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah, that bad. Though I do have a strong wish to be Angelina Jolie now. I would really love to just look like her. That would make life so much easier.”

“I think you’re managing very well on your own, Lane,” Rory teases. “I think Henry is more of a Lane worshipper than an Angelina fan.”

“You really think?”

“Oh yeah,” Rory nods with a knowing grin. “Where is Henry, anyway? I thought he was going to eat dinner with us.”

“He couldn’t. He had to be home by six o’clock. Family does Sunday dinners together no matter what, no excuses.”

“Speaking of which, how did you get out of dinner at home?”

“I called my mom a few minutes ago and told her we were stuck in a huge traffic jam and wouldn’t be home for quite some time.”

“She bought that?”

“I think so…” Lane shrugs, obviously not sure. "But I know for a fact that there ws definite congestion on our designated route home this particular evening, so if she checks it out she won't have reason to disbelieve my story."

"And how did you come by this information regarding the traffic?"

"A lady in front of us at this store we went to after the movie was talking about it. Apparently there was an accident and traffic was backed up for miles. She got off and decided to kill time shopping rather than sitting in her car."

"Wise decision. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your mom doesn’t lock you away in your room for the next month as a result,” Rory replies and Lane laughs lightly.

“I think I’ll be okay. And even if she does, I really don’t care. Today was the best day of my life.”

“Even better than the day you discovered what Rice Krispy Treats were?”

“Oh, that was a good day,” Lane grins. “But I think this edges it out.”

“That good?”

“Yes, that good,” Lane nods. “It was so nice to just hang around him and not have all this surrounding pressures from my family and his family and…urgghh. The thought of going back to that after this is making me sick.”

“Those who have a taste of freedom don’t want to go back to prison ever again,” Rory remarks with a profound air, nodding and scrunching her brow like she’s divining some important philosophical information.

“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” Lane giggles. They step into the short line outside of Johnny Rocket’s. “It’s not too busy. Usually the line to get a table is a lot longer than this, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Rory says, a troubled look suddenly flashing across her face. Lane looks at her concerned.

“What’s the matter?”

“What? Oh, nothing. I was just…thinking about something.”

“Care to enlighten me as to what that certain something was? You looked upset.”

“It’s not…I mean, I just kind of realized that…because I was late coming to meet you I ditched the person I was with without so much as a good-bye. I sort of just ran away.”

“You were with a person? What person?” Lane inquires, interested.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Rory mumbles, not really wanting to tell Lane about her day with Tristan. She’d get all excited and happy for Rory, thinking that she and Tristan were friends and Rory would just get even more confused and annoyed. Just because she spent one day with Tristan at the mall didn’t mean they were friends. True, maybe she didn’t hate him like she used to, but that didn’t mean they were going to be best buddies now. The last thing she needed was people telling her that was the case. Nevertheless, she felt terrible about leaving him like that without any real explanation. He’s probably feeling more confused than I am at this point,, Rory thinks, then realizes that Lane is still looking at her, waiting for her to say something else. “It was just someone from Chilton. We hung out for awhile. I lost track of time and when I realized that I was late, I basically just ran away in a panicked frenzy and left him standing there.”

“Him?”

Damn it.

Rory is saved from an immediate explanation by the hostess approaching them and leading them to a table in the back of the restaurant.

“Your waitress will be with you shortly,” the hostess tells them with a tired smile and walks back toward the front. The second she leaves Lane pounces on Rory as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted at all.

“Rory, you were with a guy? What guy? What about Dean?”

“Lane!” Rory exclaims. “It wasn’t like that. Of course it wasn’t like that. I would never do that to Dean.”

“Yeah…I know that. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, I just…”

“I know you didn’t,” Rory sighs and picks up the menu that’s laying on the table in front of her. “We were just hanging out. I ran into him in the bookstore and we went and got coffee…and just hung out.”

“Can I take a guess about this mystery man’s identity or are you ever going to assign him a name on your own?” Lane remarks and Rory rolls her eyes. “It was Tristan, wasn’t it?” The look on Rory’s face tells Lane that she’s right. “Oh my god. You spent the day with Tristan? U2 Tickets Tristan?”

“When did he start being U2 Ticket Tristan instead of Evil Tristan?"

"When he did the amazing thing of buying you tickets to the best concert of the summer. What did you guys do all day? Did you have fun? Tell me everything."

"Don’t get all crazy about it Lane, please. It’s not a big deal. I don’t think it meant anything at all. We’re not magically just friends now and I don’t want everyone to think that.”

“Okay, I don’t think that.” Lane pauses. “So why don’t you think you’re friends?”

“One day of managing to not kill one another and actually getting along does not translate into friendship.”

“So, maybe it's not time to start braiding each other's hair and painting your toenails, but It could be the start of friendship,” Lane points out. “You have to begin somewhere, right?”

“I don’t know if I want to begin anywhere,” Rory lets out a long breath and frowns. “Being friends with Tristan just seems like such a strange concept. After all that he’s done to me and all the friction he’s caused…I mean, if I become friends with him, Paris is going to make my life a living hell. She’ll make life at Chilton next year terrible for me.”

“It's impossible to make Paris happy, Rory. No matter what you do, it's always going to be walking on eggshells with her. I don't think she's a good reason not to be friends with someone.“

“I’m not ruling out the possibility of being Tristan’s friend, okay? But I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. I don’t even know if we can continue being civil to one another. Tristan changes his attitude toward me so frequently; a few days from now he could easily be back to calling me Mary and stealing my books.”

“You’re out of school. A few days from now, you won’t even be carrying your books-“

“I was just using it as an example of how fast things could change,” Rory stops Lane from continuing. “I’ll just think about Tristan in September. I doubt I’ll see him more than once or twice again this summer, and quite possibly not even once. I want this summer to be simple and fun. No Chilton. I want it to be hanging with you, talking with my mom, and being with Dean. I want to have fun. I want simple."

"I got that. Fun. Simple."

"Exactly."

"And Tristan is neither?"

"No. He's complicated. Very, very complicated."

"What about fun?"

"He's still too complicated for me to make an informed decision as to the degree of fun he holds."

"So for now he's just...complicated."

"Maybe he's really simple and you're just making him complicated by overthinking things."

"Lane, it's like Sookie's cooking compared to Luke's. I mean, Sookie goes all out. She creates these masterful creations that look wonderful and taste even better. To her, food is an art form, something to be prepared with reverence. Now Luke...he puts a hamburger on the grill, plops it onto a roll and voila, you have dinner. It's that straightforward. And it is still the best-tasting hamburger around."

"You think that Luke is a better cook than Sookie?"

"No, not at all. I'm saying that Sookie...her food is a treat. An occasion. You can't eat her food every night. Her food takes a lot of hard work, painstaking preparation and tremendous dedication. But you can eat at Luke's all the time. You don't have to make a big deal out of it. You don't have to sit there and figure out the English translation of the dish you just ordered and then realize you're about to eat snails. A chicken sandwich is just a chicken sandwich, you know?"

"So Tristan is escargot and Dean is a chicken sandwich, and you can deal with the chicken sandwich but escargot is just too much to handle all the time."

"This is quickly turning into a bad variation on the creme brulé vs. Jell-o conversation between Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding, I hope you realize that."

"And you do realize what you are inadvertently saying, don't you?"

"Besides the fact that Tristan and I aren't friends? No."

"You're saying that Tristan could be this truly amazing person if you made the effort to discover what he's about, a Gourmet Guy. But you're content in your bubble of simplicity. You've got your Diner Dude and that's that."

"Lane, you're making it out like my issues with Tristan are romantic and using too much alliteration while you're at it. This is not about anything remotely romantic. Dean doesn't even figure into my relationship with Tristan, if I even have one. This is entirely about Tristan and I becoming friends."

"I know, I know..." Lane sighs, leaning back against the back of the booth. "I just...Tristan seems like such a challenge. An exciting one. And it's not like you to back down from a challenge." She picks up her fork and taps it against the table lightly, frowning slightly and looking away from Rory.

"I'm not backing down," Rory says, sounding a little hurt. "I'm just putting it off for awhile. Who says that I have to deal with this right now, at this moment? There's nothing wrong with waiting until school starts again to figure this out. I have time."

Before Lane can reply, their waitress finally appears at the side of their table, note pad and pen in hand and a fake smile plastered on her face.

"What can I get for you two ladies today?" She asks, looking between Lane and Rory expectantly.

"She'll have the chicken sandwich," Lane tells the waitress with a smile. Rory groans and puts her head down on the table with a heavy thunk. The waitress gives her a strange look and asks Lane if her friend is okay. "She's fine. I'll have a tuna melt, and I think we'll both have vanilla milkshakes."

"Okay, that'll be right out." The waitress finishes writing down their order, and after giving one more look in Rory's direction, walks toward the kitchen. Rory sits up and glares at Lane.

"What? I thought you liked chicken," Lane remarks with wide-eyed innocence and a faint smirk.

"I'm looking for a new best friend tomorrow," Rory says and Lane just laughs.

"You know you love me."

"Seriously doubting that at this particular moment."

"Doubt away. You'll inevitably come to the conclusion that you simply can't live without me."

"No, I can't live without coffee," Rory corrects her. "Best friends who continue to talk about Tristan DuGrey when it is undesired, I can do without."

"Okay. Wnat to hear more about my quasi-date with Henry?" Lane asks, giggling. They're soon involved in a minute-by-minute replay of Lane's day, Tristan momentarily forgotten. But Rory knew that she still had a ways to go, since her mother is waiting for her at home and would surely have an opinion about the events of the day. Shaking the prospect from her thoughts, Rory devotes herself to listening intently to Lane's estatic recounting of everything that Henry had said and did. Tristan was a problem for another day, another time.

To be continued...