A/N: I don't usually do this, but this fic was inspired by two great quotes that I want to share.
"...any magic that was there, that ran out, didn't it? But then there's you. There's proof that someone out there is thinking of me... my friend who was with me always. It's pure magic."
- Dawson's Creek
"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
- Roald Dahl
----
They're four years old, running around the backyard of his parents' Hamptons estate. She's screaming and laughing as he chases her, and he knows he's faster than her, but she looks so happy when she doesn't get caught that he can't let himself catch her. He could and he should, because that's what he's supposed to do and those are the rules, but he doesn't. She's a girl, and he should beat her just because he can. That's what boys do.
But not Nate, and not Serena. And not today.
He stumbles and falls just a few feet from her. He tripped over his own feet and got grass stains on the knees of his pressed khakis, and she starts laughing at him like it's the funniest thing she's ever seen. She collapses beside him, her white dress with the little blue flowers on it flowing around her knees as she sits indian-style, and her hair falls around her shoulders. She pulled it from its braid when they started playing, because she said she hates braids. Blair had looked utterly disgusted, but they all knew that Serena was going to do what she wanted to do. She always does.
"Are you okay?" she asks. Her laughing has stopped and her big blue eyes are looking at him with concern.
"Yup," he says simply.
She lays down beside him, a rare moment of calm and quiet since eating a little too much cake (and sneaking extra icing). She looks over towards the patio and sees Blair in her pristine lavender coloured dress, her hair held in place by a matching headband, and little patent leather shoes on her feet. Chuck is there too, in a pair of khakis and a white button down shirt. Blair is trying to get him to play some game, and every time she reaches for his hand, he pulls it away. She eventually stomps her foot and cries his name, and he relents, letting her clasp her fingers with his. Serena laughs to herself. Chuck always pretends he hates playing games, but he always ends up smiling in the end.
Serena reaches over and presses her palm against Nate's, and he closes his hand around hers. She looks over at him and smiles, that perfect smile, and they both look back to the clouds.
He's said it probably 10 times already today, but he glances over and says; "Happy birthday, Serena."
She doesn't say anything, and she doesn't look at him, but he can see her smiling. He doesn't know why, maybe it's stupid, really, but he leans over and kisses her cheek quickly before getting to his feet and running away from her, shouting, "you're it!" as he grabs Blair's hand and pulls her into the game with Chuck tagging along.
Serena chases after them all until they break apart, let go of each others' hands, and it's no surprise, really, when it's Nate she catches first.
----
He can still remember the tears in her eyes when she said goodbye to him, Blair and Chuck at the beginning of the summer. She didn't want to go, and they didn't want her to leave, but they're only eight, and she couldn't stay alone, apparently. It's not like Lily never left her kids with a nanny for extended periods of time. None of them understood why Serena had to leave. But they all hugged her (only Chuck was reluctant) and Serena whispered "I miss you" into Nate's ear as he wrapped his arms around her waist. He didn't know why she was using the present tense, but he'd learned not to really question what she did. Blair buried her face in Nate's chest and clutched Chuck's hand as they watched the town car drive away. She sobbed about being the only girl around the two boys for the summer, and Nate and Chuck stayed quiet. Nate was too busy thinking that he missed Serena, and Chuck was too busy polishing his pinky ring on the thigh of his pants.
It's July 7th when Nate looks at the calendar and sees that it's only a week until Bastille Day. One week. He doesn't know how the mail works, and he doesn't know how long it takes things to get to England, but he can't let Serena's day pass without doing something.
"Mom, can you get Serena's address?" he asks his mother.
"Serena is in London, darling."
"I know!" he insists. "I need to send her a card. It's her birthday."
Anne smiles and runs her hand over her son's hair. He's such a sweet boy. "I'll see if I can get the address," she says quietly. Nate smiles and kisses her cheek quickly before running from the room.
The next day when he wakes up, there's a piece of paper with his mother's handwriting, Serena's name, and a series of numbers and letters and a street name, and he smiles to himself. His nanny takes him out and he has a crisp twenty dollar bill in the pocket of his shorts.
He finds her the prettiest card he can. It's white with shiny dark blue writing on the front, spelling out Happy Birthday and nothing more. It's plain, but it's perfect. It's the same colour of blue as her eyes, and he smiles as he pays for it. He holds the flat brown paper bag carefully in his hands all the way back to his house, afraid of bending that perfect card. When he gets home, he reaches for a pen, not a pencil like he usually writes with, and makes sure it's blue, then he writes her name on the inside of the card, a short message, then carefully copies that address onto the front of the envelope. He insists that the card needs to be sent out that day, and the housekeeper obliges him based on his excitement and pleading blue eyes alone. He watches from the window as the courier comes to pick up that envelope, and he sighs his relief.
The card arrives right on Serena's birthday. She and Eric are eating far too many cupcakes (there's no one around to stop them, really) and giggling as they watch silly movies, and the maid brings that envelope to her. She recognizes the printing on the front of the card immediately and she can't help the smile that spreads across her lips.
She tears open the envelope and pulls out the card, and she loves that Nate didn't get her some flowery card or something silly with teddy bears on it (like her mother did). She opens it up and reads what's on the inside as Eric peeks over her shoulder.
Serena,
Happy 8th Birthday
I miss you too
Love,
Nate
She grins and runs to her bedroom to set that card on the table next to her bed. The rest of the cards she received are sitting atop her dresser. Blair's is an elaborately embossed off-white parchment, signed Blair Cornelia Waldorf with a little heart next to her name. Chuck's is devoid of any handwritten sentiment, and he wrote only his initials on the bottom right hand corner of the inside of the card. She hadn't expected anything different. Nate's is special. Because it's Nate's.
So it stays on her bedside table for the rest of the summer, and when they leave London at the end of August, she presses that card between the pages of a book so that it won't get crumpled in transport.
It's his favourite book and her favourite book, and that card stays tucked inside James and the Giant Peach even when they get back to New York, because it's special and that's where she wants it to stay.
----
He finds her crying in her big bed the day she turns 10. She'd told them all that they didn't have to come over until the party started in the afternoon, but Nate just couldn't stay away.
Wasn't it always that way?
She's wearing her pale blue night shirt and she's covered over by blankets. Her hair is a mess and there are red marks on her cheeks from the tears she's cried. Eric is right behind Nate as he makes his way into her room, and she wipes her tears away when he sits next to her on her bed. She says nothing, just points to the bedside table where a card is laying, and he reaches for it. It's from her mother, signed 'Love, Mom', but Nate knows why Serena is upset. She wants her mom around, especially on her birthday, and Lily has become even more of an absentee parent than most on the UES.
Nate closes the card and flings it across the room dramatically, grinning when she laughs. Eric chuckles too and climbs up on the bed to lay on the other side of his sister.
"You're not allowed to cry on your birthday," Nate states firmly. "I won't let you."
"Yup. Not allowed," Eric echoes. Serena slips one hand into her brother's, and the other into Nate's, and she sniffles one last time.
"So what are we gonna do?" she asks.
Eric looks at Nate and both boys smile. They saw the cake being brought into the house when they were downstairs, and even though it's barely 11:00, it might be time to celebrate.
"Eat cake," Nate says.
Serena's eyes go wide not in surprise, but anticipation. She jumps out of bed and drags both boys into the hall and downstairs, and when no one's looking, she cuts three huge pieces out of the cake, and the three of them sneak back up to her bedroom with their plates and forks. They sit on her bed with the door closed and laugh and get high on sugar, and when Eric asks what they're supposed to do when the staff realizes they've already cut the cake, Serena grins and says;
"It's my birthday. I can do what I want." They all start laughing, and when Eric runs to get changed for the party, Serena wraps her skinny arms around Nate's shoulders, kisses his cheek and says; "Thanks, Natie."
He shrugs his shoulder like he'll do anything for her and it wasn't a big deal, and he smiles at her. "Happy Birthday, Serena."
It's the first time in her life she's ever really wanted to kiss a boy; felt like she genuinely wanted to kiss him. She doesn't do it.
----
The night before her 13th birthday, Serena and Eric show up at Nate's house. Her mother is off...God knows where doing God knows what. Anne and the Captain are off sailing the coast, and so it's just the kids at Nate's penthouse with the Hungarian housekeeper that he frankly finds a little scary. Serena and Eric told their own housekeeper they were going to the Archibalds' for the night, and she didn't seem too concerned.
Some would call it freedom. They long for someone to care enough to stay home.
But they do have someone. They have Nate. They have Blair and Chuck, too, but it's Nate they turn to no matter what. It's Nate who always opens the door and takes her backpack (inside, a change of clothes and toothbrushes for she and her brother) and doesn't ask questions. It's Nate who treats Eric like his own brother and treats Serena like she's someone everyone should love. She goes to him because she needs that.
She's laying in Nate's bed between her two favourite boys, Eric's hand in one of hers and Nate's in the other as she stares at the ceiling. It's late, and Eric is asleep, but she can tell that Nate is awake because every so often, he'll run his thumb along hers. It's innocent enough, but she feels like it's not because lately Blair's been claiming Nate as her own, and that leaves Serena feeling guilty every time he picks her over her best friend. He's oblivious to Blair's feelings, which is infuriating to her, and when he smiles at Serena, he doesn't see Blair frowning.
She doesn't know how long they've laid there in the dark, but after a while, Nate turns his head and glances at the clock and sees that it's after midnight, then turns back to her and she locks eyes with him.
"It's your birthday," he tells her, like she wouldn't have remembered if he hadn't told her. She doesn't know what to say, so she just squeezes his hand. "Happy Birthday, S."
She smiles. She has to. She closes the space between them and presses her lips to his and he tastes like toothpaste and the chocolate they snuck after brushing their teeth.
He knows he's not the first boy she's kissed, and she's not the first girl he's kissed. But it feels like she is, because he's certain he's supposed to feel that feeling (he doesn't know what it is, only that it's there) when he kisses someone.
----
She turns 15, and it's the four of them celebrating together. They go to some upscale restaurant Blair insisted upon and drink Veuve Clicquot because everyone knows who they are and no one says no to them even though they're underage. The champagne goes straight to the girls' heads and Blair clings to Nate a little more, and Chuck sits and watches it all with a little content smirk on his lips. It's Nate between Serena and Blair, and Serena between Nate and Chuck, and they're all sitting close together in their little booth.
Serena throws her head back and laughs at some disgusting comment Chuck makes, and Blair looks away, offended, and Nate looks at Serena only. Her thigh is pressed up against his, and when she puts her hand on the seat behind him for no reason at all, he can feel her fingers brush along the back pocket of his pants and no one else notices but him.
Blair has too much to drink and wants to go home now, but Serena wants to walk. Chuck has his limo, so it's decided that he'll take Blair, and Nathaniel will walk with Serena.
It's hot and sticky outside, and the strap of Serena's gold dress keeps falling off her shoulder. She stops caring after the second time she puts it back in place, so she leaves it down and her freckled shoulder is so tempting to Nate that he tries not to let himself look at it. Her hair is sticking to the back of her neck, and there are a few little beads of sweat on her brow, and he thinks she's so beautiful it's not even really fair. She takes his hand as they walk, and they don't say much of anything. He doesn't say the words he's said to her every birthday since he can remember. She complains about not getting proper cake, and he's pulling her into a corner store as she laughs and pleads with him to tell her what he's doing.
He buys a pack of Twinkies and they each take one in their hands, and he strikes a match and sticks it in the top of hers. "Make a wish," he says.
She locks eyes with him as she blows out the flame, and maybe it's the champagne, but she doesn't really feel guilty at all for wishing that her best friend's boyfriend was hers.
----
Everything's so fucked up that it would make her cry if she let it. She has before. She doesn't want to do it anymore. (But it's inevitable.)
She ruined everything. She had sex with Nate and betrayed Blair and did something really bad and scary (even worse than sleeping with your best friend's boyfriend) and ran away and she hasn't talked to any of them since.
She misses them all. She misses her best friend and her...Nate. She even misses Chuck. Maybe especially him, because she feels like if anyone could understand her choices (or rather, the situations she kind of fell into) it might be him. But she has no one, and she hasn't for a while, and she's scared for Eric and for herself a little bit. She's alone and it's her birthday and all she really wants is to go back in time and fix it all somehow. That would be her birthday wish if she thought she even deserved one.
She's laying on her bed with the sheets pulled up as high as she can get them, and she finally allows herself to cry. It is pretty sad that she's laying in bed alone on her birthday, so she ignores Nate's words from all those years ago. And besides, he's not there to tell her she's not allowed to cry anyway.
She feels far away from home, despite only being a state or so away, and the only person who's called her is her brother. She loves him for that. She's just switched on a Dawson's Creek marathon when her phone vibrates on the bedside table.
She listens to Joey talking about magic as she opens her phone, and she starts crying a little bit more, not only because she's so happy that he's remembered (did she really think he'd forget?) but because 'S, Happy 16th. -N' seems like a little bit of magic in itself.
----
They've always owned summer. It's their season. Tanned skin and blonde hair and blue eyes. They look like summer, even more so when they're together, and one night after drinking cheap wine coolers on the beach, she tells him that, and he wholeheartedly agrees.
They spend the Fourth of July at a casual party where Serena wears denim shorts and blue flip flops and a flowy red Ralph Lauren tank top. Nate's wearing just jeans and a white tee shirt, and as they walk down the beach, Serena runs and buys a temporary tattoo of the American flag and insists that he has to wear it. He rolls his eyes, but smiles and nods his head, and she picks where she wants to put it. He knows he's going to have a rectangle on the inside of his wrist for the rest of the summer, because he's going to get a lot of sun before that tattoo goes away. He can't really complain because she looks so happy, like she's accomplished something huge (she always did tend to take a little more pleasure in the simplest of things). He's a sucker for her smile - that's nothing new - and he can't help but want to see it.
They hold hands because they're 'dating', but the reality of it is that they'd probably do it anyway.
He tells her he has to go to New York on the 14th, and she looks absolutely mortified, like it's his biggest betrayal to disappear on her birthday. He apologizes profusely and he so hates that he's decided to do this, because now it seems like a horrible idea to mislead her at all. And really, it's not like he's doing anything crazy anyway.
But he walks into her bedroom before she's awake, and he's got four cupcakes (two for her, two for him) on a plate, and he sits down on the bed next to her and she smiles as soon as she's awake.
"You lied," she says, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Yeah. It was kinda pointless, but...Surprise?" he says, smiling adorably and extending one of the cupcakes to her.
She laughs and sits up against the pillows a little bit, and Nate moves to sit beside her. It's just barely 8:30, and they're feasting on cupcakes, and she rests her head on his shoulder as she licks the icing from her fingertips. Their hands wind up joined together, sticky from sugar, and Nate kisses the top of her head.
This was a really good surprise.
"Happy birthday," he whispers.
She decides it's one of her favourites.
----
She's in Fiji with Carter for her birthday, and he has no idea they should be celebrating, and she doesn't really care. She's 18, and it's kind of a big one, but it doesn't really feel like it, not when she's so far from home and searching for things she's not sure she'll ever find.
She realizes at the end of the day that she didn't hear from Nate, and it hurts her heart a little bit, though she knows he doesn't know where she is and her phone hasn't worked in over a week.
It's the end of July when she returns to the city, and there's a stack of mail sitting on her desk in the bedroom she didn't realized she missed so much. She's flipping through the envelopes and her heart beats wildly in her chest when she sees a postcard from Rome and she knows who it must be from.
S,
Happy 18th!! I miss you...
-Nate
It's short and sweet and written in bright blue ink, and she tucks that postcard between the pages of James and the Giant Peach. She's just put the book back on the shelf when Blair and Chuck step into her bedroom and she finally almost feels like she's home again. Almost.
----
They've kind of danced around one another for the past year. He was dating some girl and there was a whole lot of drama there that Serena wanted to stay out of (when was there ever not drama with the girls Nate dated?) and Serena was seeing Carter, which Nate definitely didn't approve of. But it was off and on and when it was off, Nate was too busy to connect, and they were both starting school and learning how to be college students. She saw him a few times over breaks, but their paths didn't cross often.
So when he shows up at her doorstep with a packet of Twinkies, a single candle burning on one, and a bouquet of fresh daisies, she tilts her head and smiles at him and doesn't hesitate to invite him inside. She hastily blows out the candle, forgetting to even make a wish because she's in such a rush to get her arms around him. But all those years she wished for this very boy, and maybe there's a little part of her (namely, her heart) that thinks she might in some small way be getting her wish anyway.
They spend the next couple hours catching up. Really talking, like they used to do, about everything they've missed out on in the time where they lost touch. He tells her about his relationship and how it was probably doomed from the start, and she says she knows what he's talking about, and then they talk about her relationship. They both probably know that she had kind of a hard time letting go of the idea of she and Carter, and Nate gently teases her, telling her that it's kind of funny, since she had such a hard time accepting the idea of she and Carter in the first place. She hits his arm and cries his name and he laughs, because it feels like they're back to normal again. He thinks maybe they were never not normal, they just weren't together enough to realize that.
"What about school though?" he asks after a while. They're sitting on her bedroom floor. Well, he's sitting, his back against the frame of her bed. She's laying with her legs draped over his for some reason. He's not going to complain. He's learned to just let her do her thing. He probably learned that lesson 15 years ago.
"I love it. I love Brown," she says. "It's amazing."
"But?" he asks knowingly.
She looks at him like she's surprised that he can sense that there's something she's not saying. That only lasts a moment. After all, it's them. "I guess I just didn't realize how much I'd miss it."
"Miss what?"
"New York. My family, as messed up as it is. Blair and Chuck and their...ridiculously serious state of couple-hood," she says, and both she and Nate laugh softly. "I dunno...You."
He smiles and runs his hand over her bare leg. She's always known how to make him feel a little unhinged. "You missed me?" he asks, smiling in that way he's always done when he's being particularly charming.
"Shut up," she says, raising her knee and shoving him with it. "We always miss each other when we're not together."
He'd argue, but it'd be pointless. It's true. She's not jumping to conclusions at all, and he thinks that of all the things he's ever thought about Serena (and there are a lot of things) the one he's thought most frequently in his life is 'I miss her'. Whether she was in London or the Alps or Greece or Fiji or across town or across the hall or across the room. He always seemed to miss her if she wasn't right next to him.
He doesn't miss her now. He doesn't want to miss her anymore.
She gets up and rushes over to her bookshelf, and Nate just watches her. He'd ask what she's doing, but he knows he'll find out soon enough, and he thinks it's hilarious that she'll still skip around her bedroom the same way she did when they were six years old. When she sits back down next to him, she places the book in his hand and she rests her head against his shoulder. He laughs to himself.
James and the Giant Peach.
"I love this book," he says, smiling over at her. She looks up at him, all blue eyes and freckles on the tip of her nose, and she just nods her head. He opens it and inside is every birthday card he ever gave her. Cards with both their names on the inside and various ages and states of legibility of his printing. "You kept them all."
She shrugs her shoulder cutely and slips her hand into his. "I wanted to," she says quietly.
He grins and wraps his arm around her shoulder to pull her closer to him. She curls against him, wraps her arms around his waist, and she lets out a little sigh. He's not sure she meant to, or if she's even aware that she did it, but it makes him have to kiss her. Just anywhere. He settles on kissing the top of her head, and that's fine, but he wants more. He's always wanted a little more.
"I don't want you to go," he admits.
"Go where?" she asks.
"Back to Rhode Island."
"I'm not leaving for another five weeks," she says laughingly.
"I know," he says quietly. "But...I miss you too."
She has to close her eyes, because she's afraid that if she looks at him and he's doing that adorable smile thing he does when he's being vulnerable and honest with her, she'll kiss him. That's the thing with them, always has been. The feelings are just there. Always beneath the surface, just waiting for some sort of green light or good timing. They've never had that. Not ever. She thinks this is the closest they've ever come, and it scares her, but there's something like butterflies in her stomach, and they're the kind she's only ever gotten for one boy.
She kisses his cheek, and then he kisses the side of her mouth, and then her lips are on his and she feels a lot like this is what she's been missing all her life, and it's magic, and it's Nate. He tastes like Original Chapstick (she can tell) and coffee and Twinkies, and she loves it and maybe she loves him.
Then Eric knocks at the door and the moment is gone, but the look in Nate's eyes tells her that there'll be more moments like that.
And there are. They have dinner with her entire family, including Chuck and Blair, and Serena discreetly steals glances at Nate all through the meal, and no one questions it because she's always done that. If she wasn't looking at him, he was looking at her, and that was just the way it went. It almost makes him laugh at one point when he looks over at her and she's looking at him, and there's that almost awkward moment where they both know they've been caught. But it's not awkward. Not at all.
They go to his apartment because it's more private, and his lips are on hers as soon as they're through the door, and she's gripping the front of his shirt, and her heart is screaming at her to tell him she loves him. She does. She always has, and sometimes she was too wrapped up in other things to see it, but it was always there. She pulls away, fully intent on asking him what he wants, what this is, but she doesn't have to because he's looking at her exactly the way she's looking at him.
Maybe she just had to stop wishing in order to get her wish.
-Fin-