A/N: I guess I should be grateful that the writers haven't completely shafted us during season five, but I really want them to capitalise on the great Penn/Leighton chemistry soon! And yes, I'm aware it's been over a year since I've updated Taylor Swift...and who knows, it could be a week or another year before I do. I hope this suffices in the meantime. It's AU from 1x02, but if you look closely enough you'll probably see some references to later seasons. I always liked the idea of B maybe drawing out her anger towards Serena and Nate for a little longer during season one and of course I'll always like the idea of Dair, so here are the two ideas together. Title from Coldplay and Rihanna's 'Princess of China.'
Once Upon a Time We Fell Apart
For all of his sister's bright talk of second shots, Dan isn't all that surprised when he finds himself brooding alone in his bedroom after the brunch debacle. This is a cold man's city, he knows, and he also knows that second chances are just another excuse to tread down the same path. At this point, he's not even sure if he wants another chance at gaining admission into a world that could never accept him. Sure, Chuck Bass was a complete slime ball slash rapist, and how anyone could even tolerate someone that pompous Dan doesn't know, but Chuck would always be one of them.
This is how he learns that Serena van der Woodsen and second chances are a killer combination, sometimes in the best and worst ways. He's been shamelessly and not so successfully been crushing on her for years from afar, and here she was, completely surprising him. In a way, he was expecting it; she's exciting, unpredictable, in one word: vibrant.
What he doesn't expect to learn is that her darker best friend might just surprise him too.
Of course Nate Archibald gets to usher the Dartmouth representative.
Of course he does.
Because Nate Archibald is just that; an Archibald, and Dan Humphrey is just a dreamer.
This dreamer finds that his day-dreams, once dominated by a bright blonde start to fade. He's been on one disaster of a date with Serena, and he's already done with her, done with this world.
Dan's not sure if he's hallucinating when his eyes lock with Blair's this morning, before everyone cleared the courtyard to head to morning classes.
Blair wasn't just looking, she was staring at him.
And he's more unnerved by that than he really should be.
He watches Serena talk to her and if he didn't know better (which he doesn't, which he never will) it would appear like all is forgiven.
But he saw how Blair was at the brunch. Unforgiving, snide and bitter. What shined through all of that the most though was the hurt. She was more than wounded – she was scared.
She finds herself just looking at him for no real reason.
Blair's known all her life that her so-called best friend can have anyone she wants (almost), so it intrigues her when S decides she wants a poor man's Seth Cohen. It's pitiful, really. She could understand her best friend not-so-secretly loving Nate, but then, everyone loves Nate. Blair thinks that's the best part, because she has him. And Nate was the only person who had wanted her first. (Not Serena; it couldn't be Serena.)
Still, Blair's plagued by her every day. It's not so much re-opening an old wound; Serena's return is new gashing all of its own. Blair had moved on eventually, around two months after Serena ran away. She'd crammed their history, their childhood, adolescent friendship, into one Chanel shoebox. She'd taken her favourite photograph – herself in the middle, cosseted by her two blond best friends, and ripped Serena out of her, leaving herself and Nate alone.
She'd be lying if she told you she wasn't a little grateful, as time progressed and hormones started raging.
Nate comes over that day, as usual, for homework and Dorota's brownies. He's in a lull, but she's been used to him being stoned. At least now, he was her stoner.
"So did you get the Dartmouth rep?" She asks, "You didn't text me back earlier."
"Oh – yeah. Yeah." He repeats, leaving her longing for the elaboration she'll never receive.
"The Captain must be so proud," Blair beams, "and you know that I am too, sweetie." She kisses his cheek; his easy smile falters for a second.
"That guy Dan was really pissed about it." Nate muses, thinking aloud. "I wouldn't have put him past hitting me."
"Neither would I, considering he's from where, Brooklyn?" Blair rolls her eyes. "Just look at him, it's no wonder he's Serena's latest charity case."
They both fall silent, until Nate says, "What do you think she could see in him?"
In that moment, Blair sees the anger Nate has himself.
The anger he shouldn't have.
Because he's with Blair.
"Like that matters," she corrects, failing to disguise the sternness in her tone, "you at Dartmouth law school, me at Yale. It'll be perfect." It's all that matters she finishes in her head.
"Blair, don't..." he trails off, his stupid flippy blonde hair makes him adorable, despite the fact that she hates it when he can't follow the script. She has to push him. Sometimes, she wishes he would just follow the path that is so comfortable for them to follow, the path their parents have laid out for them.
"Okay, okay, I know you're freaked out by the future." she concedes. She kisses him, always having to make the first move these days, and there's a lot of heavy breathing as they collapse onto their bed.
It's not how she planned it. There are no candles, but its dusk outside. They aren't any rose petals scattered across her bedroom.
It's one of the few times Blair decides to just take life as it happens, and then just as she does, Nate stops.
There's a moment when he looks at her, just before he starts re-buttoning his shirt and Blair knows right then and there that she will never have him completely.
"Wow. As soon as I'm gone you and Serena are at it, but you can't even –
"That's not fair, Blair. You've always said you wanted to wait, until the timing was perfect."
"Things are great! I'm on track for Yale, you're going to Dartmouth and she is finally out of our lives! Nothing gave her the right to just barge in on us, again."
But she did, and Serena has been re-opening Pandora's box and Blair has been hurting ever since.
Without a kiss, Nate says he'll call her (he won't) and leaves.
And Blair wonders if she really did miss Serena, or if she missed the sense of security that Serena could once give her.
Somewhere along the weekend, Serena apologises for being flighty, unreliable and well, for being Serena, and Nate apologises for the fact that he's a terrible boyfriend.
Blair is just left wondering why she let herself invest so much in these two people, when for years they were really all wrapped up in one another, away from her sight.
When S did leave her, Nate left in his own way. He'd lay on Blair's bed moaning about missing her, when Blair was right there in his arms.
So it wasn't that strange really, that her friendship with Chuck became something irrevocable, and necessary over that year.
She's been debating some form of revenge over her supposed best friend. When she's with Serena, most of the time Blair does feel like forgiving her, when she sees that wide grin and Serena's eyes light up at snide remark that Blair makes when Kati or Isabel walk past.
Today though, it's just Blair with Bass, helping him pick out a new suit for whatever brunch or ball they have to attend this week.
"You know, you've been less scathing on Serena's new experiment than I expected. Are you softening on me already, Waldorf?"
"Oh please. He's so boring he's not even worth passing comment on." She smiles for what feels like the first time in weeks.
She elbows his stomach when he tries to lean over her to see who she's texting. He feigns pain and says, "You know that the only way you're going to get even with her is by doing the exact thing she did to you...only worse."
"And drag myself down to the same slutty level? I'd rather not."
"Blair, it's not like you and I are known for our habit of rising above here." He smiles, and she smiles back, because sometimes she thinks he's the only one who gets how horrible she is sometimes. And he's willing to be horrible with her.
Maybe he's not the only one.
Dan remembers seeing Serena for the first time, at his fifteenth birthday party. She illuminated the room even then, as though she was his personal warning sign that everything that hadn't really mattered anymore – the right connections, money and your last name, now mattered in a major way.
Looking back, he can't help but feel embarrassed at how instantly fixated he was. The only thing that stole his stare was when her petite brunette friend started tugging on Serena's arm just as Dan was about to talk to her, as he heard something along the lines of we need to get out of this proletariat party as soon as, S, we could be in Chuck's Jacuzzi right now!
He didn't know it then, but she was Blair Waldorf, and she was undeniable.
They fall into the strangest habit of seeing each other most mornings across the courtyard between their two exclusive prep schools. Blair finds herself actually wanting to greet him, thinking of Chuck's not-so-wise words. Still, she finds it fascinating why Serena would run from Nate to this. Blair knows her own vivid imagination but she can barely paint in her mind pictures of swapping the Upper East Side for Brooklyn.
The more pressing question, she knows, is why she looks at him, and why he keeps staring back.
Finally, she loosens her hand from Nate's, who furrows his eyebrows but lets her leave anyway and approaches him. Humphrey has a closed book in his hand and pretends to be reading the blurb before she comes over.
"Serena's informed me of the fact that you haven't been returning her texts." Blair begins with an authority in her tone that dares him to do anything but give a straight answer.
"What do care? You two hate each other, from what I saw." Somehow he feels like he says that without seeing Serena at all.
He could see, however, the rage with which Blair dealt with her at the brunch, a rage that's only matched by love in some form. She lets her eyes look him up and down that tells him how trivial his non-Upper East Side existence is. Still, there had to be some reason why S was so eager to cross the bridge to Brooklyn.
"You know, maybe you're not as dense as I thought, Daniel." She considers. "Serena is too good for you, after all." His reply is an eyebrow raise, but she catches his eyes drift towards the distance and when she turns around to look in the same direction, she looks at Nate smiling at Serena. She smiles back, just as glowing as the golden boy.
"You know, you're right. Maybe I'm not the only one looking at something out of reach."
She wants to verbally tear him apart; with a few martinis in her she may have very well hit him or poured the drink over him at the bar. She's sixteen and still Queen B because S still lets her have the crown and she could destroy him, she's sure.
But he's right, and when Dan walks away she lets herself feel that loss again, almost like when Serena went away.
"So I saw you talking to Blair today," Jenny mentions when her brother wanders into their kitchen that evening. "Did you get the BFF seal of approval?"
"Not that it matters, but I don't think Blair Waldorf approves of Serena herself these days, let alone me."
"Whatever. Gossip Girl says they're back on track. You know, I don't get why you just won't work it out. This is your dream girl."
Dan doesn't even bother giving his sister a look of acknowledgement as he wonders if Serena is the dream girl, Blair Waldorf could be the nightmare. Seeing the brunette today made him question that.
He doesn't bother examining why he's ended up here, in the Waldorf Brownstone. When Blair storms down the stairs flushed (kissing Nate, arguing with Nate) she can only roll her eyes at who she has found below.
"So now you're stalking me. Fantastic, someone to be Chuck's stalker buddy."
"You're busy, okay, this was a bad idea." He fumbles.
She sighs. "I'm not giving you tips on how to get with my best friend. I thought I made my position clear today, though you tried to tell me where it was yourself."
"Yeah...I'm going to leave."
Then, for a reason she'll never find, she reaches for his arm and pulls him back, demanding an explanation.
"Why are you here? How you found where I live might be a better question."
His eyes met hers, searching for the reason why her tone softened in that last sentence.
"You know her better than me...do you think I have a chance here?" He asks. She lets silence settle between them for a few moments.
"You know you should be asking her that." She thinks about how she can't even answer that question herself. She knew the sister she had for fifteen years before this hollow of a girl returned to her, broken and asking for forgiveness. Of how her boyfriend's eyes would always be straying to Serena's, of how she didn't really know this re-formed girl who claims to have changed.
And there's nothing more than Blair Waldorf is uncertain of when she lets her hand trail up Dan Humphrey's arm and rest of his neck before she kisses him.
At first, Dan lets her.
Then he kisses her back for what feels like only a few moments before she pulls away and runs up her stairway.
"So?" Jenny eagerly asks upon his return.
He just looks at her, alarmingly.
"Yeah. There's nothing between Serena and I anymore."
When she returns to her room, Nate isn't even bothered to ask what she was doing or who she was with downstairs. She lets herself look at him, just staring at the ceiling. She has started that evening intending to have sex with her boyfriend and she ends up kissing Humphrey.
It was just to get back at Serena, she justifies. A moment's revenge. No one would know. What concerns her most is that she doesn't care about hurting Serena as much as she thought she once did.
"Why won't you have sex with me?" She asks, forgetting to conceal her vulnerability. "Every time we're together you stop. You never let me in, Nate."
"I don't know...my dad's giving me a hard time, everything is crazy with you and Serena now she's back..." he doesn't have the explanation. Instead he grabs his blazer and bag whilst Blair flops onto her bed. When he kisses her cheek as a goodbye, she can barely stomach it.
"You need to start having fun again, S." Blair whines as they stroll through Barney's, picking dresses for the next party. She'd been avoiding any semblance of Serena today, but that was always difficult. So when asked Blair to come with her shopping, there was nothing Blair could do but comply. It's not a guilty conscience, she thinks. "Seriously. The girl I knew dragged guys up to dance with her on tables."
"I remember you being constantly embarrassed, B."
"At least it was entertaining." She shrugs.
Serena walks out of the dressing room, "I liked Dan, you know? He was a new beginning. And within the first date I managed to screw that up. What do you think?" She asks, as if she couldn't wear a paper bag dress and look good.
"I think we both need something new."
When she strays to Brooklyn the next day, it's the under the guise that she's surprising Jenny with new instructions to obey.
Instead, she finds Jenny less demure. Something about her is different.
"You wouldn't be here today if it wasn't to talk to Dan. You could just see me at school. You probably don't want to be seen with him." Little J, Blair thinks. Too observant for mere minion material.
"So you'll know to scram when he comes back. There are things to discuss."
As if on cue, Dan arrives home and his eyes widen. He sends a pleading look to his sister who's too busy fleeing into her bedroom.
"What was that about last night?" She demands.
"Um...you kissed me, from what I remember." And he remembers.
Her eyes fall to the floor with a small smile. "I'm sorry. I understand how totally inappropriate I was being. I've just been angry with Serena. And Nate. My best friend and my boyfriend aren't the people I thought I grew up with."
So that's why she's not her usual scathing self.
He thinks about how he probably isn't the only one deluded by the mystery of the Upper East Side. "So it was a ploy for revenge then? Because I can dismiss that and we'll never have to speak of it."
"Obviously." She replies, catching sight of a Cabbage Patch doll on the couch. It almost makes her laugh, the sheer ridiculous nature of where she's at right now in this moment. "Maybe this is why she likes you so much," she thinks aloud, too bold, too brave, too Blair Waldorf to really care what he (anyone) thinks of her anymore, "you're definitely not like the guys we know."
Those words hang in the air between them for a while. He considers if that was the Blair Waldorf version of a blessing for him to pursue Serena. Last week he could barely believe he was actually keeping Serena's company; now he wonders if S is the real mystery girl he has to figure out.
The next day is when she does it.
She breaks up with Nate. Her Nate.
(Half hers, she knows.)
It happens after school when he's in her room, as he usually is, and she loves him with all of her sixteen year old heart, but something has to change. Maybe her.
She's met with an expectant reaction, and maybe, she considers, he's actually relieved. And free to run after S now.
Blair can't say she thought she'd ever be willing to let him, but after the first round of tears has subsided, she starts crying with relief.
Serena asks question and Blair gives ambiguous answers. The one girl who was always able to see through her is mystified and it gives Blair some satisfaction to know that for once, Serena doesn't know where she stands.
"We both know it, S. He wanted you that night, not me." It still hurts when she admits it, and so does the look of guilt on Serena's face.
She decides not to call her for a few days.
Chuck comes over with conciliatory macaroons and booze.
She's grateful for him. He's looking at her longer this evening, despite the fact that for Blair Waldorf standards, she looks like a mess.
"How is he?" She asks.
"Devastated, actually. He loved you. Differently, maybe. Still though...how could he not be?" His hand bumps against hers and she removes hers swiftly. She'd be lying if she said that she didn't have some strange connection with Chuck, didn't admire his determination to have whatever he wanted, wasn't flattered by his smarmy advances but he's not her new beginning. It's the same old story.
"I'll give you your space." He says, masking the hurt (they both do it so well), and she doesn't have time to explain before he's out the door.
She still calls Serena her best friend. But there's been a shift, and Blair genuinely isn't surprised by Gossip Girl's depiction of N and S, the golden couple!
So she throws herself into the role of Queen without a King by her side. It gets easier with every day.
It still feels strange when she celebrates her sixteenth birthday without her Nate or her S closely by her side. She's heard explanations and apologies from Serena and Blair hasn't sworn revenge like she usually would. With Serena, fighting against the friendship is just tiring.
The moment when Nate and Serena barge into her bedroom with their blonde hair and her birthday breakfast is the first moment they share in which she has actually forgiven them.
She's sipping champagne and warding off Chuck's flirtation when she sees that Dan Humphrey is there. At her birthday party.
"Well, I'm either drunk or a Brooklynite is actually present at my party."
"Happy birthday, Blair." Dan replies with a smile. "Serena told me to come but I'm actually looking for Jenny."
"The obligatory pity invite. Alas no party is immune, Humphrey." She catches him looking at Nate and Serena and she turns around.
"And you're okay with that?" He asks.
"Trying. Not that it's any of your business."
Blair spends the rest of her sixteenth birthday with him, bitching and laughing about their blonde counterparts.
"You know Blair, I have to say...I don't know why we're in each other's company." He laughs drunkenly. She giggles whilst pouring the last of the champagne into their glasses.
"You could be an interesting social experiment, Daniel."
She thinks of tomorrow's gossip girl blasts.
When he returns home that night, Jenny mercilessly teasing him for "selling out to Blair Waldorf" he tries to sleep but lays awake thinking of how he was probably the only person that night who saw past the perfect, poised Blair Waldorf.
That's when he knows they're in trouble.
There are movie dates. There are book discussions. Serena's eyebrows are raised along with everyone else in the Upper East Side, but Blair has the crown to keep.
And someone different to keep, too.
She gives into Chuck once, to go on a date.
He's nervous and she's awkward, two things she never thought they could ever be around each other.
She leaves him with a kiss on the cheek, neither of them have to explain.
Dan isn't the same with her after that.
She catches him in the courtyard before school one morning with a "Hey, Humphrey!"
"Hey."
"You haven't been your annoying self lately." She says and he notes her disappointment.
"Well I was just an experiment, after all Waldorf." He replies.
"Is this about Chuck? God, I didn't even tell you about how that went –
"Yeah well, maybe it's time I stopped meddling in Upper East Side affairs."
He walks away and Blair decides there are some parts of Brooklyn she may never have mapped out.
Why she's at his door again, she doesn't want to explain.
She tries to ignore Jenny's superior look, like it's some small victory for her that Blair actually cares about a lowly Brooklynite.
"I demand to know why you were angry with me today, Humps."
He runs a hand through his hair, the way he always does when he's agitated she knows and no, she doesn't find him hotter when he's going all angry on her, because Blair is not attracted to Dan.
"You had me, throughout all the Nate and Serena stuff...I thought...I don't know what I thought." He knows now; Blair Waldorf isn't friendship material. Not now.
"Oh." Her voice cracks on that. "Well, even worse, I wanted to be there for you too."
"Well that's good to know." They close the distance between each other and his lips lower to hers.
"I might be able to make that up to you," she whispers, toying with his tie. "A queen values her knight in shining armour more than anything else."
They lose their virginity to each other that night and they kiss and laugh and wonder how in the hell this is how their lives are happening.
"Your sister is going to be thrilled." Blair says to Dan's amusement. His body against hers, her movie inside her head irrevocably altered, she's lays speechless beside him. Her brown eyes are bright, so far away from the wounded Waldorf he was introduced to.
Blair and thought she was bound by a story she had to tell. And maybe she is. But there's something here, something different with him. It's a different story. He kisses her hand to say that they are going to tell this one well.