AUTHOR: SarkyPooh (yes, indeed, Poohy wants to ride that submersible, baby)
RATING: Smuttage!!! NOT!! I'm a freaking angel.
CHARACTERS / PAIRING: Pooh/Sark. Oh wait, not this fic. Fine. Rory/Tristan, then. Blah blah.
SUMMARY: Simon questions the details of Tristan's holiday break. Conclusion of Second Impressions. All done. Byebye!
DISCLAIMER: Sadly, I have nothing, own nothing.
FEEDBACK: Yes, or I'll bust your ass! Bwahaha!

“We both said goodbye, civilly, something we’ve always had trouble putting into effect. It ended on a happy note. And that was it. Simple.”

It was never that simple.

“You’re leaving in two days, and I just wanted to make sure that your misguided attempt at reconciliation wasn’t a wasted effort.”

The hushed words, which he did not share, echoed through his head with an undeniable heartfelt honesty, even as his own words -- less heartfelt, less honest – which he did share, concluded the narration of his holiday break. The statements sounded rote even to his own ears, as if he had said them so many times they now flowed with practiced boredom. He glanced up at Simon, waiting patiently for the burst of questions that would inevitably be put forth by the overeager and overly nosy roommate. Questions he didn’t think he wanted to answer, even though it had been over a week since he had returned to school, and a week since he had first recounted his story to the other boy.

“That was it? The entire bloody story?”

Simon’s blond brow lifted as his voice inched carefully into the higher octaves of incredulity. The conspiratorial twinkle of pale-colored eyes discreetly informed Tristan that he was more than ready to be let into Tristan’s world of secrets. Unlike their other schoolmates who had been interested in Tristan’s story, and had also been similarly rebuked from the hidden wealth of minute details.

Tristan looked up from his math book, nodded once, and pursed his lips as if in disbelief himself. “Yes. It boggles the mind, doesn’t it.” It wasn’t a question, and he allowed an appreciative amount of time – roughly three seconds – for Simon to contradict him. When nothing was forthcoming, not even a snort of skepticism, Tristan averted his eyes and turned his concentration back to his text.

Simon stood off to the side, staring at Tristan. His face was a study in self-control. When Tristan made no move to turn around again, Simon glared at him. It was obviously irritating him to see Tristan calmly reading when he himself was bursting at the seams from the lack of information and details he was positive Tristan was still withholding from him. “That’s the problem with you Yanks. You can’t tell a bloody story,” he complained, loudly.

Without pulling his eyes away from the blurring lines of text and numbers, Tristan wearily repeated the line he had used numerous times over the past week. “I told you the same things I told my therapist, and I tell him everything.” Except it was blatantly untrue. Only Simon would not know that for certain.

“I’m not interested in your damn feelings,” his roommate growled in frustration. “I want gory details.” Simon plopped down on the end of his bed, beside Tristan’s desk. Scooting until he was practically sitting on top of him, Simon placed a not so gentle hand over the problem set Tristan had been mentally untangling in his head. “Thick. Succulent. Sweaty slabs of minutiae.” He enunciated every word with a knowing and impatient growl, filled with an emotional charge of past-shared tales of embellished lust and intrigue.

With this intrusion into his studies, Tristan pulled back from the book and sighed. Stretching, he leaned back and slumped down in the hard wooden chair, settling his hands behind his head, fingers entwined. Calm, relaxed, cavalier. Blue eyes flashed unflinchingly as they met Simon’s. “Nothing’s changed since a few days ago when I first told you what happened,” he pointed out, coolly.

Simon merely shrugged, grinning. “I figured it’s been over a week. More than enough time for your brain to process all the good juicy stuff by now and for you to be more forthright and willing to share.” He wagged a finger in front of Tristan’s face while tsking softly under his breath. As if Tristan were being a very naughty boy. As if Simon had a right to know, and would irrefutably understand all the mental trials and tribulations Tristan had gone through during his three weeks back home in Hartford.

“I can’t rewrite history for you.” Tristan responded by rolling his eyes while releasing a heavy sigh.

“Embellish it then,” Simon recommended, cheerfully. He drew Tristan’s math book onto his lap and flipped through it, disinterestedly. Scrunching up his face, he slammed the book shut and tossed it over the desk and past Tristan, watching intrigued as it landed on top of Tristan’s own bed with a resounding plop. “They really need to make the textbooks smaller and lighter,” he mentioned, as a nonsequitor.

Tristan ignored the manhandling of his textbook, his face creased in feigned meditation. He resisted the inclination to grin mockingly at Simon. “I think there were some really good TV shows on when I was there. You just can’t beat American TV.”

There was silence as Simon arched a brow, with a dubious look that expressed his thoughts on that topic. His light complexion darkened with frustration and a tinge of disgust. Tristan may have been a master at playing the game, but Simon was no slouch either, and he was equally adept at it. If there really were nothing of import to share, Simon would have indisputably believed him. But at that moment, every nerve ending tingled with the electric charge of knowing he was being left in the dark. “No wonder we let you win that stupid revolution. It would be too damn embarrassing to have you associated with us,” he groused.

Tristan chuckled, tilting his chair back onto its hind legs and reaching a hand behind him to snag his math book. “Apparently you have no problems rewriting history. Unfortunately, as you can see, I’m trying to study for calculus now.” He tapped a long slender finger against the retrieved text before him. Plopping the heavy tome on top of the desk, he found his page with little effort.

Simon pursed his lips, eyeing Tristan as his roommate’s blonde head dipped over his textbook in a pretense of studious absorption. Simon was not fooled. He cocked his head to the side, staring at Tristan’s profile in deep contemplation. “Let me get this straight,” he started, finally, catching Tristan off-guard. “You hung out with family and friends.” He paused long enough for Tristan to glance up and give an imperceptible nod of confirmation. “Then ran into Rory at her Christmas party, and at your grandfather’s New Year’s gala.” Another pause as Tristan leaned back casually in his chair and twinkled roguish blue eyes at him. The gesture annoyed Simon, but he calmly continued, ignoring the taunt. “And all you did was talk about your old school and Eton?” He raised a brow in unconcealed wonder.

“Yes.” A broad, open grin with no hesitation.

“All you did was talk?” Simon did not seem convinced, even with the glare of Tristan’s bright white teeth staring back at him in the form of a candid smile.

Tristan shrugged, lowering the front two legs of his chair towards the floor. He reached nonchalantly for his textbook once again. “What can I say? She’s a talker, that one.”

“I don’t believe you. Aren’t you some kind of romantic hero or Casanova from the States?” Doubt had begun to elbow its way into Simon’s voice, something Tristan knew for a fact would irritate his roommate more than his own self-imposed restriction of public information regarding his trip home.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he reprimanded, lightly, eyes flickering unfocused over the open page of his text.

Simon’s brow furrowed. “I thought you’d go more for a do-er than a talker.” He didn’t bother to clarify his innuendoes, assured that Tristan would figure them out.

“It’s a strange world we live in,” Tristan intoned, mysteriously, eyes still locked on the contents of his book. As much fun as he was having, messing with Simon’s head, he hoped his roommate would concede defeat soon. He barely liked to share information about Rory and his consequent feelings towards her with people who had already met her. Revealing those cherished inner recesses of his thoughts to those who hadn’t had the fortune to ever come in contact with her seemed like an unnecessary invasion of his privacy and an indirect intrusion into her life. Even when the person asking to be included into his intimate circle of thought was the harmless Simon. No, he mentally amended himself, charming Simon could very well be extremely dangerous if he ever ran into Rory. A sudden sharp stab of unwarranted jealousy ripped through Tristan, and he staved it off by gripping the edge of his book.

Simon did not notice the flush that had colored Tristan’s face, if ever so briefly. “You were afforded multiple prime opportunities of which you took no advantages on your behalf. You’re positive you didn’t try for a feel or lick or touch or,” he affected a perfectly pitched American accent, “roll in the hay?”

Any other time, Tristan would have laughed at Simon’s attempt at playing American. This time, he simply cracked a lopsided but rueful smile. “Yes. But only because I value my life.”

“Kiss?”

“You?” Tristan raised a horrified brow, suppressing the chuckle that threatened to erupt at hearing Simon’s exasperated groan.

“No, moron,” Simon scolded, firmly. He glared at Tristan, who was obviously enjoying himself too much for Simon’s liking.

The smile faded slightly, and Tristan shrugged, as if it were no big deal. As if he neither missed nor wanted nor needed the opportunity to kiss Rory. “Bad things happen when I kiss her.” As he spoke, his right hand dropped to his side, away from Simon’s prying and observant eyes. Inconspicuously, he crossed his fingers, just in case.

Simon gave an exhausted moan of disappointment and antipathy. His feelings were clear on the subject, and Tristan knew that Simon, at least, believed that Tristan had foolishly allowed too many golden chances to pass by without making a move. “You didn’t even try to kiss her? Not once?” Simon prodded, incredulous, but hoping for the best.

Tristan stared straight through Simon as if he weren’t sitting on the bed beside his desk. His full lips pulled into a narrow line, as his forehead creased with the exertion of deep thought and analysis. Simon waited patiently, probably expecting him to be hit by the epiphany that he indeed had not lived up to expectation. If he really were thinking that, then he would have been grievously incorrect, because though Tristan hated to disappoint his exuberant roommate, he found himself ruminating over another aspect of Simon’s inquiry. Something that had filtered through Simon’s tone of voice and facial expression. Something about how the words had tripped off the other boy’s lips. Something… Something about the wording of the question. Tristan considered all that and concluded one thing: It was wrong.

The emphasis was all wrong.

“You’re leaving in two days, and I just wanted to make sure that your misguided attempt at reconciliation wasn’t a wasted effort.”

“Was it worth the effort?” Tristan had to struggle to keep his voice from cracking, his reservoir of self-control practically vanishing with her simple statement, so rife with potential.

She didn’t say anything for half a second, which felt more like an eternity to Tristan. But instead of relinquishing his impatience to the need to grab her and beg her for the truth – no more games, he prayed earnestly – he held his breath and waited. When she finally spoke, her face was free of doubt and her voice held no signs of her previous reluctance to answer his question immediately.

Her bell-like voice tinkled as if she hadn’t kept him waiting for her precious answer for forever and an eternity. “I suppose…”

Those two words, though seemingly insignificant and meaningless, were enough. He slowly released the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding, until the abstract cloud of vapor crystals materializing before him shocked him out of his stupor. Glancing up, an unconscious and inadvertent gesture to heaven, he squinted into the falling snow, trying to regulate his erratic breathing and pumping heart. “It was probably fate,” he allowed, voice modulated to sound calm, indifferent, and amused.

Rory’s frown revealed what he could do with that explanation. It wasn’t so much hate, as much as it was an instant dislike of such a trite explanation. Teasing or not, she deemed the answer too pat, too simple, and too intangible, with the likelihood of evidence proving it, practically nonexistent. It occurred to him that she always did like the substantial, and diligently avoided the mystical. Especially when it had anything to do with him.

“I was the one who drove by here. I was the one who saw your car. I was the one who stopped. I’m thinking that’s free will,” she snorted, rolling her eyes with exasperation.

“Yes, but never doubt your overly inquisitive nature. Fate led you here, and bestowed you with irrepressible curiosity, and caused you to stop,” he conceded, throwing her a sideways glance, afraid to actually meet her face on. “There’s that. And the fact you want me.” Even from the corner of his eye, he could see her shudder with revulsion at the idea. He chuckled. “Don’t question it. Let’s just call it what it is: fate,” he prompted.

“Let’s call it a reverse peristaltic movement,” she sniffed. When he glanced over at her, startled but amused, she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

Tristan bit the soft inner tissue of his cheek to keep from laughing. “You’re pretty sexy when you talk smart. And I suppose you don’t think the Chilton mistletoe is fate, either,” he teased.

She shrugged, as if there were a simple explanation for everything, and deliberately ignored the “sexy” remark. “You probably put it there.”

“Denial. I’m just saying.” Tristan enacted his own half-shrug, eyes carefully locked on Rory to catch every minute reaction.

Her response this time surprised him, as her face broke out into a smug smile. “You’re impossible. This is why we have to hate each other. And since I’m already perfect, and you can’t possibly change your nature, I’ve come to a conclusion. I don’t think we can be friends. Or anything more. Even if we worked at it.” The smile deteriorated into a feigned mask of regret.

“Based on? Other than your indubitable perfection, which I already knew about.” The corners of his lips twitched in anticipation, as he imagined her blush at his offhand compliment. Which she promptly obliged.

“Oh, this really ugly word.” Rory added a shudder for dramatic effect after she had regained her composure. “I hate to use it, but there it is: History.” She pronounced the word with exaggerated dread, honoring it with undue negativity.

His gloved hands immediately flew out of his pockets and bracketed his head on either side. Staggering backwards, as if mortally wounded, he stuttered with horror, not even breaking character when it was apparent that Rory was trying her damnedest not to dissolve into a peal of laughter. “Ah! Not the H word.”

“Comedian.” Her voice was peppered with a disdain not reflected in those two sapphire mirrors of her soul.

He placed a gentle, soothing hand on her arm, and even through her thick coat and his insulated leather gloves, the electric spark that arced between them, was staggering. He pretended not to see the flush that colored her cheeks, not wanting to bring attention to any of his own facial tics might have unknowingly settled on his features. “Hate to break it to you, Rory, but a year of avoiding each other does not count as history.”

To her credit, she barely moved, allowing him to rest his hand where he had left it. Even though he could sense her tensing through the layers of fabric. “So what do you suggest I base my feelings towards you on?” she asked, in all seriousness.

“Try current events.” He aimed an unassuming half-smile at her.

With a small huff of air, she tossed her head back, once again dislodging her scarf from its security around her neck. “I’m not that interested in international news. I’m more of a domestic newshound,” she scoffed.

“You need to broaden your horizons a little.”

Instinctively, automatically, his free hand came up to grasp the flapping end of her wool scarf. The hand that was already resting against her, moved towards her neck, caressing a tingling path up her arm without breaking contact. Expertly, he draped the scarf warmly around her bare neck, one buttery soft leather hand brushing up against her cheek, and the other becoming inexplicably entangled in her windblown hair. In this position, he could have easily faced down any objections she might have uttered. Easily pulled her face towards him. Easily placed a kiss anywhere he wanted, but where he mostly wanted was at the sensitive patch of skin at the corners of her lips. In a matter of seconds, he could have already moved to engulf her frozen lips with his own and breathe warmth and heat and rosy pink health back into them. But he didn’t. And when he was finished with the scarf, and his eyes had strayed reluctantly from their meticulous examination of her immobile lips, he searched the depths of her soul for some sort of encouragement or acceptance. Carelessly, his hands lingered on her shoulders, his left index finger sneaking out to twist a stray strand of chestnut hair around the finger in an absentminded embrace.

Once met, her eyes never left his, and even in the darkening gloom, he could have sworn that her pupils had dilated, darkening with a liquid emotion he couldn’t recall ever residing there before. “Let’s just take this one step at a time.” Her words came out in a feathery whisper, and she winced. Probably expecting them to come out much stronger than they had, trying to put him off instead of encouraging him. Even though every line and crease of her face suggested that perhaps she didn’t really want to discourage him.

“Friends?” he breathed, heart clenching with excruciating hope.

“No,” she exhaled, weakly. It wasn’t what she meant by the next step. She quickly shook her head, dismissively, to alert him that she wasn’t exactly saying “no.” Not the way the sudden droop of his face revealed he had misinterpreted her statement. “Next year.”

“Christmas party?” he corrected himself, not giving in to relief just yet.

She nodded, adamantly, as if there could be -- would be -- no other possible answer. “Definitely.”

His eyes shifted up from where they were frozen in studious examination of the hem of her scarf up to her eyes, bright with gentle acquiescence. He nodded once. Slow was something he could handle. Outright rejection would have broken his heart. Eyes locking, they both produced matching smiles. They stood like that forever, ignorant of the snow falling around them, landing on the tops of their heads and frosting their shoulders. Finally, the cold getting to her, she cleared her dry throat. The spell broken, Tristan also remembered that his hands were still on her shoulders. They snapped back, falling uselessly to his sides, as his smile took on a hue of embarrassment.

Rory scuffed her shoe against the layer of powered snow that had accumulated by her feet, and stared, fascinated, at the mini-snowdrift she had created. It was almost as if she herself were embarrassed at his actions, although he thought it absurd for her even to consider feeling that way. Head still bowed, she glanced coyly up at him from under half-closed eyelids.

“Did you really call me Mary because you thought I was innocent and a prude?”

Tristan was stunned by the sudden topic change, but did not miss a beat in doling out a reply. Her tiny smile, the one she was unable to completely hide, spurred him on. “No… I called you Mary because I thought you’d put out. It’s sort of a code to let all the other guys know my assessment.” He met her horrified look with a practiced façade of blankness. “Plus…” he finally allowed, without pausing, “I couldn’t remember your name.”

“Liar.”

The accusation lost its threatening effect under her squeal of uncontrolled and disbelieving laughter. Her delight was contagious and he found himself chuckling along with her. Still smiling, her eyes fluttered up to meet and hold his. As pleasant silence fell over them, her eyes twinkled and despite the huge grin that was already plastered on her face, the right edge of her mouth shot up impossibly higher in playful mischief. Then swiveling on her toes, the freshly fallen snow crunching underneath her boots, she tracked a path towards the stone façade of Chilton’s main building. He stood silently where she had left him, body twisting to follow her movement away from him. Intrigued, he observed as she leaned against the building. With one outstretched hand against the cold stone for support, she steadied herself and lifted her body until she was standing on the very tips of her toes. The arch from which hung the desolate sprig of mistletoe was not much higher than 6 feet. While Rory was not short in stature, Tristan doubted she would be able to reach it without some sort of intervention or his help. He was duly proven wrong. Rory’s fingertips grazed along the bottom of the sprig, and by some miracle of endeavor and sheer willpower, her small hand enclosed on the lower half of the dying plant. A forceful yank detached the mistletoe from its former hanging.

“You just defaced private property,” he called out, amused, as he watched her make her way back to him. His eyes focused on the browning leaves and still red berries of the sprig grasped preciously within her small, gloved hand. A tingle skittered down his spine and lingered in his toes and the tips of his fingers. Whether it was from the cold or from something entirely different, Tristan didn’t even want to try to figure out. Gangrene could have set in, and he still would not have moved a muscle.

“Shut up,” she shot back, but not without humor in her voice. By the time she reached him, she was breathing hard from the cold and from the exertion of removing the mistletoe from its forsaken and forgotten home. Her cheeks were rosier than before, and despite the chill and the wind, a fine thread of sweat glistened in the crease above her left eyebrow.

He thought she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life. “Should I kiss you now or are you just teasing?”

He didn’t realize he had asked the question until she answered him. Surprisingly, she acted as if he hadn’t been lewdly rude or inconsiderate. Or even too aggressive for whatever tenuous relationship they had decided on just minutes ago. Her answer came simply, calmly, as if it were perfectly normal for him to pose such a question. Probably as normal as Rory purposefully bringing a mistletoe into their shared chaotic circle of warmth and snow and teasing flirtation.

“Consider this one of those fate things you’re so fond of.”

Her hand reaching for the sky, she dangled the dreary mistletoe – whose berries had become an even darker and more vibrant hue of red -- as if they had known what was to come and had infused a last gasp of worthy life back into them for the occasion -- over their heads. Wordlessly, and without so much as a warning, she once again lifted herself on her toes and leaning against him, her chest grazing his arm, she kissed him on a smooth, semi-frozen cheek. An immediate fire smoldered from the point of origin, melting the cold and disintegrating the flakes that clung to his cheeks. His face burned where her lips made glorious contact, and Tristan began to believe it was entirely possible for a person to self-combust. He remained silent, mostly because he didn’t trust himself to say anything that would fully honor the situation. Not that he was capable of producing any number of syllables that he could string together in coherence in the first place.

“Hmm,” she murmured, her silky voice smoky against his ear. Even though she broke contact with him, she kept her lips just mere inches away.

“What?” he whispered, afraid anything louder would break the spell that Rory herself had voluntarily woven. As she stood, unmoving beside him, he was all too aware of the placement of her body. Where her lips were still hovering. And the heat emanating from her, scorching a permanent hole through the sleeve of his coat. Somewhere through his fog-induced thoughts, he considered shifting just the tiniest bit and making her fall into his arms. Through his mental haze, it occurred to him that it may have been a perfectly logical step to take, only he decided against it, unsure whether she would either struggle out of his embrace or finally allow him his one precious moment with her.

She murmured again, contemplating him, but seemingly unbothered by the reasons behind her own actions and their consequences. “I thought you would turn your head at the last second and try to cheat a real kiss out of me,” she revealed, without the slightest hint of annoyance or exasperation or anger. Even though his body was busy dealing with Rory’s unusually close proximity, his ears perked up instantaneously at the snatches of wistful disappointment in her voice.

He heard it – everything – the emotions ensconced in the nuances of her admission, barely audible over the clanging in his ears. “Did you want me to?” Not wanting to believe, and yet, unable to stop himself from doing so. Barely breathing and his mind occupied with containing himself, Tristan released a drawn out exhalation of a wheeze that sounded more like a lighting clap than anything human to his ears. He winced at the audacious interruption, afraid it would cause the magic in the air to dissipate.

“Maybe just a little.” The last word was drawn out in an emphatic cringe. Almost as if she hadn’t really wanted to let him in on the secret.

“You didn’t even kiss her, DuGrey?” Simon’s irritated voice snapped Tristan out of his memories. The question was pointless. Its answer would never change. But Simon had asked it once again, as if repeating it would change the answer to something he could respect.

Tristan heard the astonishment in his roommate’s voice. Meeting his eyes, he answered truthfully. “No.” A deep sigh stepped on Tristan’s short but succinct reply. “Impossible.” Simon stood and threw his hands up in the air in defeat. “What a complete waste,” he muttered under his breath, his accent softening the frustration in the words.

“I’m going across the hall to Oliver’s,” Tristan informed him with a sympathetic chuckle. He gathered his books and brushed past Simon, who had fallen haphazardly back onto his bed and was now staring listlessly up at the ceiling. Patiently and with a somewhat paternal look, he glanced down at him and offered a suggestion born out of mocking disapproval. “You need to calm down.”

As he strolled out of their room, Simon aimed a dirty look at Tristan’s back. Tristan, having caught the glare from the corner of his eye, continued without breaking stride or acknowledging the intent behind the action. Once into the hall, he even began to whistle softly to himself. The tune echoed cheerfully down the otherwise deserted hallway.

The silence was deafening, leaving Tristan absolutely speechless. He felt the air sucked out of him in a suffocating vacuum. But words had never aided him in winning Rory over before, and he was content keeping his mouth tightly shut. He had always been action-oriented, and the only thing he wanted was to have her nestled in the warmth of his arms. As he licked his lips, he tried to come up with something that would not drive her away from him. But he faltered, afraid that perhaps he never did have that talent to keep her.

“Try again?” he managed, but uncertain as to whether the words could be heard over the pounding of his heart and the blood clanging in his ears. His face, slack-jawed with disbelief, became a mosaic of emotions: hope, desperation, anticipation, desire.

Her eyes met and held his in a dance that had become familiar in the past hour. Seeing the jumble of raw emotion sketched on his face elicited a fresh bright flush across her cheeks, the color creeping up her neck and making her hot. “Maybe next year.”

There was a certain amount of teasing in her voice, and Tristan felt as if it had replenished his air supply. He gulped in the first breath of the invigorating, sweet scent. Seeing the impish smile playing on Rory’s lips, he grinned wolfishly. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a punchline or a catch.

“Think you can wait?”

Rory considered it, her brows knit in consternation, contradicting the tell-tale glow of relief on her face. Gone was the somber and shocked expression on Tristan’s face, and the charm and confidence had returned. He was easier to deal with when they at least pretended it was all still a game. “I’ll manage. What about you?” She inclined her head to the side, showering him with a sly grin.

Tristan answered the question by grabbing her arms and pulling her hard against him. It wasn’t anywhere close to being an enveloping embrace – their varied layers of wool and cotton and fleece guaranteed that -- but it would do. It would have to. For now.

“Count on it,” he told her, voice dipped in layers of huskiness that brought a fresh coloring to her face. Under the thick materials of his gloves, he could feel her shiver at his proximity. The tremble started somewhere deep within her and traveled through her extremities. It reached her eyes, which burned bright with an indescribable fire, even as she managed to hold onto her composure. Not only was her self-control becoming, the urge to initiate his own kiss tugged at his heart.

She let him hold her that way, showing no discomfort or awkwardness with his lips a few inches from hers and his eyes searing a hole through hers. Instead, she brought her right hand towards his, never breaking their physical or emotional contact. “Then you better keep this.”

Against his will, his gaze was drawn towards her hand. Reluctantly, he let go of her, immediately sensing the ache from the loss of contact. They both looked down at the hand she had brought into the space between their bodies, sheltering her gift from the snow. Staring at her hand with mild confusion, he took the mistletoe from her, and realization dawned on him. When he finally looked up, an amused smile tugging at the edge of his lips, she was already halfway across the parking lot. He hadn’t even noticed that she had stepped away, but it didn’t matter anymore. The exchange of mistletoe from her hand to his was a symbolic gesture his snow-chilled brain would figure out later. The significance of the sprig was unimportant. Only one thing managed to escape from his cluttered brain.

“You want me bad!”

His exclamation stopped her in her tracks. With a precision that was meant to teasingly infuriate him, she swiveled ever so slowly on her heels. And when the rotation was complete, she only smiled -- the radiance blinding him from across half a span of powder-covered macadam and concrete.

With her full attention back on him, he tried again to elicit some sort of last response. He made a phone-like gesture with his right pinky and thumb, bringing them up towards his snow-numbed ear. “You should call me.”

Her smile grew impossibly wider, crinkling the skin at the corners of her eyes. “What would we talk about?” she shouted out, repressed laughter evident in her voice.

Tristan wracked his head, searching for a possible topic. He needed something they could seriously discuss or playfully laugh over. Something innocuous. Something slow. Safe. Different. “Homework,” he blurted, and waited for her to laugh at him.

Her eyes crinkled and the laughter he expected from her followed shortly. Only the flash of her eyes, accompanied by the prerequisite roll, apparent to him even from this distance, informed him that she wasn’t laughing at him, but at his request. Face still split in a wide grin, Rory gave her head a little shake and walked backwards toward her car.

“Have a safe trip back,” she called out, still grinning at the absurdity of discussing homework with Tristan over the phone. It was clear that she had expected him to suggest something more lewd for a phone call.

“So does that mean you’ll call?” As soon as the words slipped out, Tristan bit down on his lower lip with undisguised chagrin, berating himself for sounding too hopeful. Too pleading. Too much like those girls he had tried to avoid all through high school.

As Rory stepped into the Jeep, her grin widened. “You can try holding your breath.”

She closed the door behind her and started the car. As she pulled out of the parking lot, her hand came up in a small farewell wave. Tristan, eyes following the movement of the car, did not return the wave. Instead, a warm leather-gloved hand slipped out of his coat pocket and strayed to his face, his fingers lightly brushing up against his cheek where Rory’s breath had burned an imprint of her lips into his soul.

A disheveled fluff of blonde hair popped into Oliver Chasen’s open door. The three boys who were already in the room glanced up, expectantly. Simon’s eyes lit upon his roommate and directed a knowing grin at him. Tristan was relieved to see Simon back to his old self. The half hour alone in their room had worked wonders on the gossip-deprived young man. With a tiny nod towards Tristan, Simon’s grin turned into a smirk that could have competed with Tristan’s any day.

“DuGrey, you’ve got a phone call.”

Tristan’s gave him a questioning look, but didn’t say anything.

The smirk turned into a friendly leer. “Some girl,” Simon threw out, vaguely. “Can’t possibly be Rory.” The jab was lost in a confusion of Simon’s own repressed disappointment and an air of excitement over the identity of the nameless girl. “Didn’t say what her name was. Says she needs to talk to you about… homework?” The confused lilt in his lightly accented voice did not register in Tristan’s ears.

Tristan bounced onto his feet, but suppressed the instinct to scramble as quickly as he could to his room. With an economy of movement that pained him, he stretched languidly, as if a phone call from a girl was an everyday occurrence. Especially one from a girl who wanted to discuss something as mundane as homework. Especially when Tristan attended Eton, and girls did not. As their friends exchanged quizzical glances, Simon, catching Tristan brightening in shock, quirked a curious and knowing brow at him. And when Tristan casually walked past him, Simon was on his heels.

He surprised himself with how little effort it took to refrain from snatching up the phone in eagerness. It was not lost on him that Simon had returned to their room, trailing respectably behind him even though he was chewing on his lower lip in contained curiosity. With unnatural control, Simon deposited himself at the door, leaning against the frame so he could overhear the one-sided conversation.

Not wanting to bring undue attention to what was supposed to be a trivial telephone call, Tristan’s modulated voice calmly answered the call. “Hello?”

“Are you alone?” The voice, so familiar in both his memories and his dreams, provided a breath of sweetness through the impersonal plastic of the phone.

“No.” His hand was trembling. Shifting on his bed, he placed his elbow on top of his desk for support. And even though his back was turned to him, Tristan could feel Simon’s observation piqued, probably cataloguing every minute detail of Tristan’s voice and mannerisms.

There was a slight pause of hesitation, and Tristan could picture her chewing on her lip, debating whether or not the call was a good idea after all. Finally, she let out a tiny sigh, disposed to be accommodating and tolerant. “Is your roommate there?” There was a small smile in her voice.

“Yes.” He held his breath, wondering where they would go from there.

“Is he cute?”

There was a taunting playfulness to her question that made him chuckle, despite having Simon in the room. “You can’t really expect me to answer that,” he announced, pretending to be affronted.

“No, I suppose not.” There was another pause, which Tristan interpreted as her chewing her lip once again, deep in thought. “Is he listening?”

He grinned, knowing how unmanageable Simon would be if he only knew what they were discussing. “Yes.”

“Hmm… So you can’t really talk. Maybe I should call some other time. Or maybe this was a bad idea. We’ve barely begun so no harm, no foul.” Her words stumbled into each other, gathering speed as her unease and doubt filtered over thousands of miles of fiber optic cable.

“No!” He bit back the word, already sensing Simon tensing, ears alert for the change in Tristan’s body language. Then quietly, gently, Tristan prompted her in a more lucrative direction. He held back the laugh as he asked the next question. “You had a homework problem?”

There was another pause as Tristan waited, afraid to move a muscle. She took a deep breath and his heart contracted. And when she spoke, there was music in her voice, inflaming every nerve ending in his body. “Okay. So… three things.”

“Just three?” he asked, voice coming weakly, yet trying to be as nonchalant as possible. He was mortified of saying anything wrong that would encourage her to hang up on him. The call, so unexpected, had sent his heart soaring into his throat, where it lodged uncomfortably during each of her awkward silences.

As if afraid that any stoppages would cause her to rethink the wisdom of her call, she surged ahead. “First, I’m having a geography problem. Second, I have a question about chemistry.”

“I think I can help you with those…” he interjected, too eagerly, too impatient.

“And third…” Her voice dropped considerably, but the music didn’t die. Rather, the tempo changed from a playfully melodic staccato to a somber adagio. “You can let go of your breath now.”

His smile was sincere, and knowing that Simon was behind him, straining to eavesdrop, made the conversation dearer to him. So far, the trivial small talk had not seemed to deter Simon from his listening post. But as the minutes dragged on, the other boy had become increasingly more impatient. “Is it Rory?” he whispered, not really expecting Tristan to honor the interruption with an honest answer, but holding out hope anyway.

Ignoring him, but unable to hold back the grin, Tristan licked his lips and sent his roommate off into a tailspin of conflicting questions with one quick remark. Turning his attention back to his phone conversation, his grin deepened, voice infected with dashing gallantry. “Simon wants to know who I’m talking to.”

There was a pause on the other end. And in that space of time, Tristan’s mind backpedaled quickly. It had originally occurred to him she might not want anyone to know – even Simon – that she had called him. It was a move so unlike her. But as the minute dragged on, he realized that it was actually he who did not really want Simon to know. The phone call -- and any subsequent ones -- was meant to be cherished. After working so hard to get to the point where they were now, he didn’t think he wanted to share her just yet. After all, this was meant to be their special time.

Finally, with a voice infected with a teasing conspiratorial melody, she answered. “Why don’t you tell him.”

Tristan practically laughed. Never before had their repartee been this lighthearted and accommodating. Turning to Simon, whose eyes were wide with exaggerated curiosity, Tristan simply shrugged as if both the phone call and the person on the other end were no big deal. No big deal… perhaps in another universe where their initial paths had intersected more amicably, but not in the current one, where this newfound… whatever it was… had only just begun.

“It’s just…” His voice slipped with the slightest hesitation, but the word – the name – came complete with a whirlwind of undisguised relief, affection, and teasing. “…Mary.”