He remembered her at her worst in green.
In a dark green dress, slumped on a dirty concrete floor in a way he never thought he would find Blair Waldorf. He didn't know it at the time (there was so much he hadn't known), but he would have bet his unlimited Metrocard that it was a silk dress. (It was.) He found her staggering under the combined burden of her intimidating mother (which he understood) and her lovely best friend (which he could not understand, not yet). Because to Dan, Serena was weightless, like a star, like a sun, like a yellow balloon drifting just within reach of his fingertips.
A balloon that he might catch for this sad young girl on the concrete floor in her pretty green dress and the red, red frown.
(God, how wrong he had been.)
He remembered her in a bright green cape, with her eyes wide and horrified. His hand was hurting-hopefully not more than Chuck's jaw was. Dan had been enraged for Jenny's sake, but seeing Blair's betrayed and hopeless expression had chilled his heart. Tell her! he had said, sounding like a valiant knight, of all things. But he had walked Serena home that night, and not the crying girl. Why had he done that?
(Tell her, he thought, many times.)
He remembered her at her best in pink. It was Oscar de la Renta (that he knew), and it was the fluffiest, fanciest, designer-iest dress he could find (with Skype help from Jenny, who dutifully didn't ask for details when he just said it was "for a friend"). Blair's eyes had narrowed in suspicion when he'd handed her the enormous garment bag-but then, when wasn't Blair suspicious?
He had helped her into the dress himself, fingers brushing over her shoulders, her ribs, her spine. She'd smiled and blushed, quickly composing her face back into a scowl. She wouldn't let him see her smile at her own stunning reflection.
(He'd caught her awed look in a fleeting moment as he turned to help her into her jacket.)
He'd led her up the steps and crowned her queen. Then the swarm of schoolgirls had surrounded her like jewel-bright butterflies around a rose. (Admittedly, he had bribed them, but it was worth it to make Blair feel as beautiful and as worthy as he knew she was.) She had looked dazed, like she'd just been woken from a terrible dream-her former life lay undisturbed before her. Please God, had the last two years never happened?
And she smiled. Smiled at him like she couldn't really understand what he'd done, or why. Smiled, with her pink lips in that pink dress, glowing like the moon.
I love you, he thought, again and again. Kiss me, and no one else.
He took her hand and led her down into their kingdom.
