AN- For anyone who has been reading my other Gossip Girl story (Across The Brooklyn Bridge), fear not, I haven't forgotten about it. In fact the next update for it is with my beta and should be up soon. This however, had to be written because of what just happened in the last episode and it's very different in style and content from the other story. It would be just a two shot however, after which I will put all my attention to the other one which still has 5-6 chapters to go.
This hasn't been beta read, so all mistakes are my own.
The title is from a song by Crowded House.
Disclaimer- Disclaimed.
It just snowballs into a series of disasters…
First it's the holidays, and then there are the books and then there is one movie or twenty or so; There is pizza and shoulder cricks and then there are magazines left on the bed and conclusions being drawn and doubts mounting and there is that fateful kiss which shouldn't have happened.
"Not a thing…" Blair says pulling away from him, "I didn't feel a thing. You?"
He doesn't think he has in himself to lie at this point. Plausible deniability is Blair's forte, it could never be his, so he walks away without answering and she lets him go.
They don't see each other for two weeks after that and he has never missed not being friends with any one more.
And then there she is…And he should have known. He should have known it was an omen…
For Blair Waldorf standing at his door, drenched to the bone at two in the morning is hardly an everyday event.
He is used to her coming to Brooklyn now, of entering uninvited and lightening up the entire loft just by an eye roll; what he is not used to is her standing there unsurely, making no move to come inside as the water from her hair steadily drips down to make a pool on his welcome mat.
It's so not her that for a second he is almost paralyzed by something like fear.
"Oh! God Waldorf." He says, finding his voice back and grabbing her by the wrist to pull her inside, "What is wrong with you?"
She doesn't answer, not immediately at least…
It's much later, her hair dried, wearing one of his pajamas and sipping onto a cocoa he forces in her hands and sitting on his bed while he leans at the opposite wall that she answers his questions. The ones he asks and also the ones he doesn't.
"I do love him." She says and one day, just one of these days he's going to go kill Chuck Bass.
"He told me today" she continues and he isn't sure whether she even realizes that he is there, "that he needs me. That I'm the only one who understands him. He wants me to forgive him for everything"
She looks up then, straight at him, her eyes unblinking, "What should I do?"
And really, this takes the cake. How is he to answer that? He wants to tell her that Chuck Bass deserves to rot in hell, because he really does but he also knows that she is hear admitting that she's still in love with him. How can he ever answer her?
She doesn't wait for one though, shrugging a bit, she lies on his bed, closing her eyes briefly as he continues his stand by the wall.
She finally gets up and looks at him with a look he has never really seen before and tells him about how she had once willed herself to be traded for a hotel for Chuck Bass. He knows of it, even been told by her that he was not allowed to make a joke of it but what he hasn't known is the part where she blames herself for it. She actually believes what that bastard has told her, that because she had gone to Jack Bass on her own account meant that she had been more than willing to get herself sold. It's eerie, more so because, not once during her narration does she blink or flinch. It's a cold commentary like voice and at that moment he realizes that he really had been wrong about Blair Waldorf.
He didn't think that she had in her to ever love anyone more than herself and boy! Had he been wrong? With that realization comes two more thoughts…
One, He knows that Chuck Bass isn't the man to deserve to be at the receiving end of that love…
Second, that he would do anything to try and be that man …
"Am I that awful Humphrey?" She asks, breaking into his thought, "Tell me, do I now fit right into your description of the devil's incarnation?"
So when he crosses the small distance between them and lifts her up on her feet to wrap his arms around her and feels her put down her defenses he knows that it's true that he has never really belonged with anything or anyone associated with the Upper East Side…And yet right now, in this miniscule moment right there, with Blair's arms around him in the most awkward way possible, he feels that perhaps this is where he could belong forever…
They decide to take a holiday together. Away from everyone.
And even though he's partial to more southern parts of Europe, he suggests Paris to her thinking that she would like it; she however declines the offer. He suspects it has something to do with Chuck again but he'll be the last person to bring up that name when they're in the middle of their first holiday plans.
"Eiffel tower not romantic enough for you Waldorf?" he asks instead.
She rolls her eyes, "Really Humphrey, a hideous metallic tower is your idea of romance?"
He laughs because he agrees, "So what else do you have in mind?"
She beams up at him, "Italy!"
He laughs some more, "The Roman Holiday, Blair! You'll probably expect me to ride you around in a Vespa now."
"It does fit though…" She says smiling happily at him, "I'm the classy princes while you're the crass Journalist."
He says something appropriately sarcastic in return even though he wonders if she has realized the significance of her words… Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck didn't really have their happily ever after at the end of that movie.
So, when she decides to get a haircut like Audrey's character in the movie at one of the local barber shops in Rome he can't help but laugh.
When she returns clutching her beautiful tresses in her hand and claiming that she can never part with them he laughs even harder. He doesn't remember the last time he has been so happy.
In Florence, they quote Dante to each other and in Tuscany they watch the sunset together.
No one mentions home and he wonders if he should tell her that he thinks he is falling in love with her.
Their last night in Italy, before they head back to the States, he is standing at the patio, waiting for her to get ready for dinner and he is left speechless when she does come.
She smiles almost shyly at the look he gives her and he knows it as a surety then that he is absolutely in love with her.
It is however much later, when they return back to their room and he has his lips somewhere at her throat, the delicate strap of her dress falling from his fingers that he almost says it aloud to her.
He realizes that he has in fact said it aloud only when she stills and pushes at him gently…
He looks at her questioningly, eyes searching for an answer while she refuses to look at him straight, "Chuck." He answers for her.
He walks out of the room quietly when she doesn't say anything to prove him wrong.
He is standing at her penthouse, in the same place where it had all begun…
"Are you back with him?" He asks.
She doesn't answer, even though he doesn't need an answer. It's all over Gossip Girl and it's sickeningly sweet and romantic. However, he would have liked to hear her deny it.
She doesn't.
"Tell me Blair. Tell me once and God help me but I will fight for you. To the end, if it takes, but you have to tell me that it would be worth it."
She shakes her head slowly, "I don't want you to fight for me."
"What do you want from me then?" He asks.
"I want you to let me go." She whispers back, so softly that he hardly hears her. But he does and so he answers in a tight, clipped but controlled voice, for in spite of all the anger and the hurt, he has never been the one to raise his voice, "It's not like you need my permission Blair."
"I'm not asking for one." She says in her usual tone and he thinks that probably this tenor of hers would never leave his head, "I'm asking for assistance Humphrey. I don't think I can do this alone."
He laughs, short and bitter and if it hadn't been so tragic he would have found it funny, "As a friend and peer and not as an underling?"
She smiles slightly and mumbles the words back to him like she had done earlier so many months ago and they laugh… For a few seconds they do nothing but laugh and Dan takes in every little details of that and etches them into his memory.
He shrugs finally, his face falling back into its carefully rehearsed blankness, "Go then. You have my assistance." He smiles at what he is about to say next, the bloody irony of it not lost on him, "You have my approval Blair, blessings even. Now, just go."
She doesn't move a muscle and for long moments they just continue to stare at each other, his writer's mind wallowing in the tensed moment. Someone had rightly said that inspiration often came in the middle of extreme situations; he knows now that one day he would write about this deafening silence.
She is first to break it, "you said so yourself" she reminds him, "Chuck and Blair , Blair and Chuck."
"No, Blair." he corrects her, "those were your words. All I had said was that I think that you deserved to be happy."
Silence engulfs them once again and for two people who always had something to say to each other they're an awefully quite lot.
I'm sorry" She finally sighs and her voice is small and weak, "I'm sorry Humphrey. It's not your fault and I didn't want to hurt you but I.."
"Stop it." He cuts in and by the look on Blair's face he assumes that she is as shocked as him to find that his voice has finally increased an octave higher. He brings it down and continues calmly, "I know. It's not you it's me, blah blah blah." He looks at her seriously, "Please Blair, don't insult me by being all patronizing about it."
He is relieved when she doesn't protest and leaves without another word.
It would be an understatement to say that he is shocked to see Chuck Bass at his door one fine day. Funny, how in so many years he has come to accept everything but this man…Now for more reasons than before.
It is therefore the surprise which slows his reflexes and Chuck's punch lands neatly on his jaw.
"What the hell, Bass?"
"I had to pay you back some day." The other man answers.
"That's why you're here? To pay back for black eyes?" Dan asks, painfully holding his jaw. He doesn't make a move to fight back though mainly because in spite of what he has just done, Chuck Bass doesn't look like he has come all the way to Brooklyn for a fist fight.
"No." Chuck answers, "I'm here to talk about Blair."
Dan stills, the pain in his jaw forgotten momentarily as another one comes to wrench at his heart. It has been three months since he has last seen her, since he has been avoiding UES like a plague and she has decided not to cross the Brooklyn Bridge ever again. But he braces himself for whatever Chuck has to say, he doesn't know though how is he to respond if Chuck decides to confront him about what had made him go after his woman.
How is he to explain to this man that at time, for that week in Italy and the ones before that in New York he had rightfully thought Blair Waldorf to be his?
So don't blame him for wanting to pinch himself when all Chuck says is a thank you.
"What?"
"Thank you." Chuck repeats. "I…I know. Blair told me…" He trails off before gathering himself and continuing, "She was upset, mainly to do with me and you were there to take care of her. Thank you for that."
Dan nods. What was he supposed to say anyway? That he was welcome? That he was just trying to be a good friend? Offer the man a beer and ask him whether he wanted to catch a game someday?
He doesn't even get the chance to laugh at the thought as Chuck offers him a curt nod for a greeting before leaving.
And that for a very very long time is all he ever sees of UES.
AN- Don't worry, I'm a Dair fan…I do have another chapter in mind (Set somewhere ten years later or so.) But that is if you guys do want it. Let me know….
Please, please review. You have no idea how happy they make me.