In Love There Are No Answers, a gossip girl fanfic

A/N: This is set in season 2, around 2x08, when Nate was homeless and Serena should've noticed.

For DaeDreemer. I've owed you this for quite a while, and I hope it lives up to your expectations. *gnaws fingernails worriedly* A lil' vdB somehow managed to work its way in here, too. Anyway, you know I love your insight and your writing, and you deserve to read something that makes you smile/cry/squee the way IF does for me. Here's to many bright, sunshiny days ahead! ;)

In Love There Are No Answers

(And In Life There is No Lie)

When she shows up on his doorstep she looks a little lost, in a suit that doesn't exactly look like something she'd buy, hair falling into her eyes, but she gives him a smile that makes him feel found. She's got her old sleeping bag tucked under her arm, the pink one with Barbie's smiling face emblazoned on the front. She holds it out, gives him a soft smile, and says, "Natie, we can do this your way, but I don't think I can even fit into this anymore." Tilting her head, her eyes connect with his, pulse softly. "So why don't you come home with me?"

What goes unsaid is the insinuation that she would sleep on nothing but his cold, hardwood floor if that's what he needed her to do, and the delicate plea of let me take care of you, a barely-masked version of love.

Pink sleeping bag falling to the floor, she throws her long, willowy arms around his neck, presses her entire body against his, her breath hot, heavy and rough against his neck. He wraps his arms cautiously around her waist; she feels surprisingly breakable. In the background, he can hear the murmur of his mother's tired voice as she herds Eric inside and up to bed in a routine way, as this is not an uncommon occurrence.

"She left again?" he asks into Serena's hair. She smells like oatmeal cookies and cigarette smoke, the strangest combination, but he finds that he likes it.

"Always," she says in a small voice, burying her face into his shoulder. "There's always someone, and there's always leaving."

They are both a little too young to really understand what she's trying to say, but his grip on her tightens nonetheless. "I'll never leave," he swears, as if that will make it all okay, just one person promising forever.

Serena pulls back, tears sparkling in her blue eyes, her expression the perfect picture of heartbreak. "But what if I do?"

He shrugs, because with her he is all about simplicity and it seems easy. "Then I'll wait for you. You'll come back."

They walk back to her current home – the duplex she grew up in was exactly one and half city blocks from his, a familiar path for both sets of their feet; the Palace hotel is a little further and the walk isn't beaten out as well, ingrained into their bodies the same way, which might make it even more meaningful that she sought him out tonight. He's got his overnight bag, which can hold nearly all of his current possessions, and she's got her sleeping bag, but they manage to shift everything just right so that they can hold hands. If this street, this trek they've taken time and time again, could talk, it would probably tell the best version of their story.

"Nate!" she shrieks, voice high and tangled with giggles. "No, no…" she cries half-heartedly as he tackles her with barely-shaped snowballs. They're late for school, but as his body falls over hers, neither of them care.

"Gotcha!" he cries triumphantly, his blonde hair covered in snowflakes and his smile wide. He clamours out of the street-side snow bank, extending his mitten-encased hands to help Serena up, too. She grins up at him from where she's partially buried in the snow before slipping her gloved hands into his, a perfect fit, and letting him pull her up. He exerts more force than necessary and she ends up tumbling into him, arms around his neck in an impromptu hug.

They stay there for a moment, Serena smiling against his neck.

"You always do," she says.

Bart blinks when Serena drags Nate back into her own messy family situation, but Lily doesn't bat an eyelash. For all the ways she has failed Serena, there are a few things she completely understands about her daughter's behaviour…and Nate is one of them.

They don't quite understand the dewy looks in their mothers' eyes on the day the parents come to watch their progress at their ballroom dancing lessons. Nate shrugs and twirls Serena, smiling as she laughs at the way the full skirt of her dress twirls outward before he pulls her back again. Nate's the easiest for her to dance with because he never lets himself get troubled by the complicated steps or her long legs, they just move, and it's easy and uncomplicated and certain.

Afterward their mothers descend on them and murmur "puppy love" over their matching blonde heads, and Serena curtsies and Nate bows, and she giggles when he kisses her white-gloved hand because it sends a thrill through her whole self, and she hugs him even though it's not the way you're supposed to end a dance, because sometimes Nate is her very favourite person in the world, even more than Eric or Blair.

In her room, she pours him a drink and steals a sip – giggles over the rim of the glass, dancing through her eyes – before she hands it over; they sit on the floor of her bedroom, on the plushy-soft carpet, legs crossed and knees pressed together.

And she is so beautiful in her flimsy white camisole and the blazer of her Parisian suit and her tiny little pyjama shorts that it truly, physically hurts him to look at her.

"Nate!"

His name leaves her lips in a happy rush, her arms slipping around his neck. She smells like alcohol and sandalwood.

"Hey," he laughs, making sure to keep her steady on her feet, his arms encircling her.

Her hand moves to cup the back of his neck, pulling him close, and then she's kissing him, and he lets her, his girlfriend drifting to the very back of his mind as Serena moves closer to him, the curves of her body pressing against his.

"Hey," she replies, giggling against his lips before tucking her head into his shoulder contentedly.

"You're drunk," he sighs, holding her closer, his whole self aching for her.

"You're mine," she murmurs in response, eyes closed.

Her fingers encircle his wrist and she leans close, nose buried into his shoulder. He breaths her in, links their fingers together slowly, sighs into her long, blonde, sunshine hair. She lifts her head, sighs against his neck, sending a chill down his spine. Serena cuddles a bit closer and he lets her, he has always let her. She has always been touchy-feely when she's intoxicated – he couldn't find it in himself to worry about her sometimes when Blair often used to, couldn't try to stop her spiral, because she was Serena, ethereal and long-legged, and if she was spiralling he'd be happy to let her pull him along.

She tilts her chin upward and looks at him with those – dreamy, skyline, get-lost-in-this-poetry eyes – her lips barely parted; for a moment he's so sure she'll kiss him that it comes as a shock to him when he sees that she has yet to touch her martini.

Serena sighs, her breath brushing across his lips. He feels warm all over, heat that starts in his heart and seems to spread outward.

"How can I fix this for you?" she asks softly, sadly, like his problems hurt her as much as they do him.

He feels lighter and airier, sitting there on the floor, less heavy and not so dark, not as weighed down by the mistakes his parents have left him with. He's got his own set of mistakes, too, but with Serena they never feel quite so bad.

With her arms draped around his neck and her body pressed close to his, her eyes earnest and gentle as they probe into his, colliding blues, he thinks she's done everything he could have asked of her: sought him out, picked him up, and wrapped him up in her arms.

On her eleventh birthday he finds her on the beach, toes digging into the sand, an eerie shadow of the lively girl he's always adored. He's brought her a cupcake, but just before he reaches her he stubs his toe and trips; it topples, icing downward, into the sand. She turns to him, tears springing to her eyes, and he's horrified, he can't stand watching her cry.

"It's okay," she murmurs in response to the apology that's clear in his expression, hugging her knees, and he scrambles to her side, looping a lanky arm around her slender shoulders, pulling her close and letting her lean into him, because it is clearly not okay.

She cuddles as close as humanly possible, and it will be a feeling he'll crave over and over again in the future. Safely buried in his embrace, Serena whispers, "I don't want to go home."

"You don't have to. Come home with me."

"Yeah?"

He can feel her heartbeat, in sync with his. "Always, Serena."

She lifts her blonde head, hair reflecting the light of the moon. Her cheeks are streaked with tears and he hates it, so he leans in to nuzzle his nose against hers, the way he's seen her do when she wants to cheer Eric up. Her lips curl into a slow, sweet smile, like sunrise, but there is a catch at the back of her throat.

"I love you, Natie," she says, simple fact.

Those words spark something deep within him, and he finds himself grinning back at her. He leans in again and her eyes flutter closed, expecting another Eskimo kiss, but instead his lips find hers, hesitant and certain all at once. For a moment she's surprised, but it only takes an instant for her to sink into it, kissing him back.

"Love you, too," he murmurs as they pull apart for oxygen, and for a very long time he will consider that moment – the ocean in her eyes and the taste of her tongue – one of the very best of his life.

She sits up straight, pulls her hair up into a haphazard bun, and says very seriously. "I'm going to help you fix this."

He tries not to smile, he really makes an effort, but it is so hard to look at that determined face of hers. She is just so cute, he can't help but be distracted.

"Natie, are you laughing at me?" she pouts. "That's the thanks I get?" Her expression slips, and then she's smiling.

Nudging her foot with his, he says, "You're not meant to be so…sombre." He sees her as angelic and wild all at once, and those traits leave little room for sincerity.

To his surprise, her frown returns and deepens. "I wish you, of all people, would take me seriously sometimes…"

His frown mirrors hers as he pushes his untouched drink aside and inches closer. "I always take you seriously."

"Nate." She breathes out his name, a sigh. "Nothing is serious between you and me."

"Serena –"

With a frustrated shake of her head, she gets to her feet, and he watches her legs as she strides across the floor. She pauses his front of her mirror, fingertips grazing the edge of a photograph tucked into the frame. Whirling around, she presses her hands against the top of her bureau, bracing her weight. "I realized, today…when I came to your house, that…that needs to change. There was always…but we never talked about things…and it can't work like that anymore," she says adamantly, their eyes locked intensely.

When she gets sick in the summertime, pneumonia that she can't seem to shake, lying in her bed with particularly pale skin and looking strangely breakable, he wants to fix her. She only has her nanny to worry about her; her mother is off somewhere exotic and her grandmother is busy doing social damage control, so Nate takes it upon himself to care.

He builds a sandcastle on the beach as close to her summer mansion as he can get, spends a full day working under the sun, making the prettiest, most elaborate castle, because she deserves to smile.

At dusk, he sneaks past her nanny and into her room and lends her his soft, worn-in sweeater to throw on over her thin nightgown as he drags her over to the window to see.

"Natie!" she squeals, her eyes lighting up for the first time in a week. She coughs through her smile and maybe her eyes water or maybe she's crying, he's not really sure. "Thank you," she adds hoarsely.

"Get better for me," he requests as she crawls back into bed wearily. His heard thumps worriedly in his chest as he regards the dark circles under her eyes.

She musters up one more smile for him, and the cadence of his heart settles.

By the time she's healthy again and allowed to play, the sandcastle has been washed away, but he finds her sitting on the beach in the exact spot it stood, cheeks pink and eyes sparkling again, N + S engraved in the sand.

Nate gets up slowly and walks toward her. He and Serena are so often on the same page, it's been that way since childhood, so he is entirely unaccustomed to having to catch up with her emotions. "I don't understand…" he says carefully.

As he gets closer, he sees that she's on the verge of tears, and it makes him ache.

"Serena," he says, almost delicately, as her breath hitches at the back of her throat. He steps closer till, until his body's barely a hairsbreadth away from hers; he's not quite brave enough yet to breach the barrier they put up between themselves years ago.

She meets his gaze only for one probing moment before she turns her head away, shaking her hair out and letting it fall into her face. "You were sleeping on your floor, Nate," she murmurs, voice tight. "You only had Dan to confide in. And I wouldn't let myself notice…" She sucks in some air. "I only noticed when I let myself need you; I wouldn't let you need me…"

"It's okay," he murmurs evenly.

"It's not!" she cries bitterly, head snapping up as she asks desperately, "How can you say that?"

He doesn't have an answer for her, he can only move closer, breaking that boundary and pulling her into a full-body, never-let-you-go kind of hug. She hugs him back with even greater ferocity, because she is still set on fixing him.

"It's okay," he says again, breathes it into her hair.

"No," she mumbles thickly, head tucked into his shoulder.

"Okay," he finally concedes, holding her even closer and cautiously kissing her temple. "Maybe it's not, not totally, but you and me…we are."

They're quiet for a moment, until she holds him just a little more loosely, until he knows that she believes him, because she is here and she is now, and she is all he wants.

"I'm sorry." She pulls away from him, just barely. "You should sleep. Just…dream of something better than this, and tomorrow we'll figure everything out."

He touches her cheek, watching her eyelashes flutter as she blinks. "I'm not sure I could dream up anything better than you."

She shoves at his shoulder with her won, arms still linked around his neck, her cheeks the lightest shade of pink. "You've been drinking," she says, an automatic way of brushing aside his words.

"I haven't," he contradicts her. "Neither of us have."

Her eyes dance over his face. This time, there is no alcohol to hide behind, for once there are no excuses to be made.

Arms slipping from around his neck, her hands find his, their fingers slipping together. She holds on tight and breathes deeply.

"Let's go to bed," he says.

They are just kids the first time they share a bed, making a tent out of his Spiderman sheets and hiding away. It starts off as a tickle fight and morphs, slowly but surely, into conversation. They talk until dawn, voices quiet and penetrated by giggles. For all the silliness that existed between them, there was always an underlying, serious current of total understanding. Serena tells him everything; he tells her anything. And they could have talked forever, he thinks, but he didn't mind when she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, her hand clasping his.

He thinks they could have stayed that way forever, too.

She seems reluctant to let go of him, like she's unwilling to let him go unprotected, so they end up under her feather-light duvet in a tangle of limbs, her cheek resting against his chest.

Being this close to her, this sweetly and intimately, makes him miss her, in the strangest way. Because he's got her, right there, in his arms, but not exactly the way he's always wanted her so badly.

"What?" she murmurs, eyes closed but wrinkled around the edges, a sure sign of a Serena smile.

He soaks it in for a moment, the way she's so perfectly attuned to him after all this time. "I missed you, is all," he whispers into her hair, using the past tense so as not to alarm her.

Her eyes fly open and she shifts her position so that she's stretched out on her stomach, partially curled into him, partially on top of him as he remains sprawled on his back. She considers his face with the most serious gleam he's ever seen in her eyes.

Carefully – delicately, as if he or she or they might break – she leans in toward him and presses her lips to his. It takes only an instant before he's kissing her back, because God, he has missed her.

"Natie," she murmurs against his mouth, and he pulls her closer, letting her settle her whole body atop his, hips matched, her toes nudging his. She smiles into their kiss and lets his tongue slip between her lips.

And it is as always, him and her, tumbling toward a four-letter word that has always been there but never, ever said aloud.

Somewhere through his haze of Serena and need and lust-maybe-love, he finds it in himself to remember that this is no different from them, and she's been demanding they change, so he pulls away from her, one of his hands still tangled in her hair.

She licks her lips, kissed red, and her eyes, a darker blue, open to peer at him.

"What?" she whispers, pouting worriedly, as if he would ever change his mind about her – a ridiculous thought, because he never has, not even when he probably should have.

"You said you wanted…to talk about things…"

"Shut up," she giggles, a grin breaking free and her nose wrinkling adorably, because some things are conveyed better without words, and he kisses the smile from her lips into she's whimpering into his mouth.

It crosses his mind, oh-so-briefly, that maybe that should slow down, maybe it could be different this time, but they won't and they never do, because they are infinitely in the making.

It is so easy, so right, to love her, to sink into her soft sheets and soft skin like they are meant for each other.

Button, zipper.

Zipper, long and slow, fingertips on her spine.

Sunset through the windows.

Tipsy, not drunk.

"Nate."

Long legs, bright lights in her eyes.

Barstool teetering; giggle, sigh.

Lips, neck.

One shake of the head in case Chuck slipped something in his drink again.

Nope, it's real, it's finally.

Straps slipping down her arms; experienced hands.

Warm skin.

And oh.

"Sometimes I think you broke my heart," he says, quietly and confidentially in the aftermath, letting the darkness of her bedroom, curtains closed against the city, absorb his words. Her limbs are slick against his and she is cuddled up to him contentedly as she fades into dreamland. He dozed, but now he is alert again, listening to her breathing. At times he is in awe of her, but at the end of the day he is aware of how very well he knows her. She is his safety net – he's not afraid to tell her the truth, though for years they've had a silent agreement, solidified in matching blue gazes meeting over Blair's head, to tell one another lies.

She hears him, he knows, but she says nothing. Her hands drifts across their bodies with the slowness of sleepiness, her fingers linking through his and lifting until both of their hands are resting on his chest.

"It was hard to love you." Her voice wavers, but only for a second. "And harder to stop," she sighs, a flash of a smile in the dark. He turns toward her and can feel her breath against his face as she whispers, "I tried to leave you behind." Swallowing hard, "And I'm sorry for that."

He takes a moment to consider this. "Was it worth it?"

Serena shakes her head stubbornly, mussing up her hair as it rubs against her pillow. "No. No."

Unable to help his small smile, he asks, "Did it work? Trying to…?"

She hesitates, like she always has. He squeezes her hand to remind her that it's safe now, that Blair loves Chuck and Chuck loves Blair and one day that strange relationship will work itself out. But Nate knows he's always been the more selfish one – even if she insists she was wrong in trying to leave him behind, Serena has always been trying to maintain the status quo, always been the one aware of how destructive their being together could be.

"We could've been perfect," she murmurs, as if letting herself really realize for the very first time, regret seeping into her words because they are always what if or what could have been, and most heart-wrenchingly, if only…

"We were perfect. And this, god…this was perfect," he murmurs reverently, fingers sliding down the skin of her bare arm. "Maybe we can…"

He lets it hang there in the air, and lets them hope.

She grows up faster than he does, and while she probably regards it as a new beginning, Nate sees it as an end. She acts as if she belongs to no one, and he hates it because she used to be his.

When she's drunk one night and seeks her out and she greets him with an enthusiastic hug and a glass of champagne, and somewhere in the midst of it all he finds the courage to kiss her. She tastes like home and hope and he wants her, wants her back.

She pushes him away slowly, gently, turning her head away. "Go find Blair, Nate," she says.

"Serena…no, I want –"

He sees a flash of heartbreak in her bleary eyes as she drifts away from him, so he goes, and he finds Blair, but only because Serena wants him to.

He presses a kiss to her forehead, tasting the saltiness of sweat and the sweetness of her skin.

"Serena," he says, voice husky and low, asking her for the truth.

"No," she murmurs, but her words are unquestionable. She tilts her chin upward, looking at him with those bedroom eyes. "I just missed you more."

They are both tired, burdened by their family issues and still trying to find their way through the whirlwind of emotion they've let themselves feel tonight. He knows he should kiss her one last time and let them both give in to a much-needed slumber, but the way she's looking at him, echoing everything he feels, gets in the way. He kisses her hard, an outpouring of emotion, slowing shifting them until she is lying underneath him.

"S'almost morning," she murmurs, not really resistant to him as his hands drift over her body.

Nate smirks down at her, smoothing stray strands of blonde hair out of her face. "We've got time."

"Yes, we do," she agrees quietly, meeting his eyes with a smirk of her own, one that trembles for a moment as she blinks.

"We do," he whispers, a promise, lowering his head until his lips brush her earlobe as she arches her back beneath him.

"You know what I always wonder?"

He does not tear his eyes away from the screen as they watch the end credits of Rapunzel, but he listens carefully. "What?"

"Fairytales always end happily ever after. What is that part? Why do we never see it?"

"Because it's boring," Nate shrugs, unconcerned.

"But…it has to be good, doesn't it? Happy. That's what they say."

"Yeah, I guess."

"So that wouldn't be boring. If you were happy."

He frowns, squinting at the screen. Serena's never this inquisitive. "Probably not…"

"Are you happy right now?"

"Sure," he replies, another shrug.

"And are you bored?"

The movie has ended, and they're just sitting there on Blair's couch, listening to the voices of their brunette best friend and her father drift in from the kitchen, staring at a blank TV screen. Nate absorbs it for a moment before he turns to look at Serena, who is clutching a pillow, a striking kind of vulnerability in her expression.

He smiles easily at her and watches her relax. "No, I'm not bored. She returns his smile tenfold and throws the pillow at his face. He laughs, ducking for cover. "You would never let me get bored," he remarks.

She beams back, shaking her head satisfactorily. "Not for all of ever after," she agrees easily.

In the mid-morning, when they force themselves out of her bed and the bubble they've created for themselves, they brush their teeth standing side by side in front of her sink, bumping one another's hips, foamy laughter bubbling in their mouths. She had an extra blue toothbrush just sitting in her cupboard, as if it was waiting for him, and he thinks that someday, maybe, they'll get married and this will be the way he begins every morning.

Maybe someday.

"Nate." Her laughter snaps him out of his daydream and she tilts her head, wordlessly telling him to follow her back into her bedroom, where she sheds her bathrobe and inspects her closet for a moment.

She slips a white-and-yellow dress on while he tries not to stare too much, winking at him over her shoulder, and then they tiptoe down the hall to Chuck's empty room where she rifles through her step-brother's closet and tries to force Nate into a sweater with basses on it, finally settling on a nice, simple change of clothes in the form of gray slacks and a yellow button-down.

Serena steps forward and smoothes out the collar of his shirt, biting her lip, focused on him, on her task. Nate's eyes drift around the room as he tries to distract himself from her closeness, from the need to tug at the ties that hold her dress up and lower her onto Chuck's many purple pillows. As he surveys the mess, he says, "Won't he be mad at you?"

"Sure," she replies airily, stepping on his toes playfully. She looks up at him through her eyelashes, shy in a way he hasn't seen her since she was a little girl. "But you're worth it."

"We'll get in trouble," he hisses into the musty air of their hiding place, blue eyes narrowed.

"Natie," Serena sighs, her bony hipbone digging into his stomach as they try to get more comfortable in the cupboard down in the wine cellar of her grandmother's house in the Hamptons. "We're not doing anything wrong."

"They said no games!" he hisses back at her.

"It's not a law," she shoots back petulantly.

Outside, they hear the tell-tale click-clack of Serena's nanny's heels on the wooden floor, and they fall silent instantly. Serena's lips are turning white with the effort to hold in her giggles, so Nate sighs and clamps a hand over her mouth; she glares at him playfully but makes no effort to get away.

"Serena Celia. When I find you…" Her nanny rattles off a list of punishments that have Nate's mouth going dry; his grandfather won't take kindly to finding out he's gotten in trouble with Serena…again.

"I'm going out," he declares, lifting his hand from her mouth.

Her eyes are wide and serious in the dim lighting. "But I'll get in trouble," she whispers.

He sighs. Her nanny will find them eventually, and they'll both be in trouble. He knew this was a bad idea; he's just so bad at arguing with her. Settling back next to her again, he sighs.

"You can go," she says in that same quiet voice.

Nate meets her eyes, reaching for her hand and shaking his head. "I'll stay with you. I wanna stay with you."

They step into the dining room cautiously, Nate's hand lingering at the small of Serena's back, and are shocked to find the van der Woodsen-Bass family sitting around the coffee table on the living room floor, eating cake for breakfast. They exchange a look and join her family readily, legs tangling as they sit. Apologies spill from Serena's lips in a rush of sincerity, and they're reciprocated and accepted by her parents while Eric cuts two more pieces of cake.

The serious atmosphere fades away, as it so often does when faced with Serena's presence, and Nate is struck by a feeling of belonging as he eats cake on the floor with her hand resting on his knee. Chuck sighs as he regards them, and he feels himself tense up until his best friend says wearily, "Nathaniel, that is one of my favourite shirts."

Serena bursts into muted giggles, covering her mouth, and Nate just smiles, pressing his lips briefly to her cheek. She winks at him, sticking her finger into the icing on her cake and smearing it on the tip of his nose. As he splutters, she smirks at Chuck across the table. "I tried to get him to wear your bass sweater. He wouldn't, for some strange reason."

Chuck's eyes narrow. "How much time did you spend in my closet, sis?" he bites out, eyes flicking over to Nate as she leans into him.

"About time," Lily says softly, voice nothing more than a whisper, following her step-son's gaze as it moves between the two blondes, voicing Chuck's thought. Her eyes settle on Serena lovingly before shifting over to Nate, commenting at normal volume, "Yes, perhaps we should talk about why Nate is wearing Charles' clothing…"

Serena speaks up for him, still pressed close, talks over his situation trustingly with her mother and her step-father, who nod at one another, making wordless decisions. He realizes then, as Serena's fingers find his and squeeze warmly, that for the first time since she returned to New York, she purposefully sought him out, and now she is very clearly pulling him into her world, into her family.

For the first time since she arrived back in the city, he knows, without a doubt, that this is what it means to come back for someone.

"No. I didn't come back for you."

For a second he hardly hears her because he was taken aback by the way her hair swept around her shoulders, catching sunlight, and he sees her five years old, chasing him down the beach, and eleven years old, demanding a piggyback as the sun set, and fifteen, twirling on top of a bar, and only then do her words start to sink in.

He doesn't let himself believe her right way, because she's lying. He knows it, he knows her. He looks at what she's wearing, the soft brown coat and the striped turtleneck, and he thinks that if he pulled at the collar of that shirt right now she'd giggle and let him pull her close, let him tug the fabric down and kiss skin he memorized long ago.

But then she's saying Blair's name and it's jarring him, and she's turning, walking away with her hair bouncing against her back again, and he sees her barefoot in the sand, pouting at him with angel eyes, intoxicated and perfect, and now…gone, again.

Again. And it doesn't make sense to him because he knows her, knows her five, eleven, fifteen, forever, and she was lying.

Lily has insisted he stay with them – though Serena wouldn't have it any other way – so they make a detour to the bathroom before heading back to his house to get his things in order for Serena to clean the icing off his face.

"Nate, you're a mess," she says, her words accompanied by a breathless giggle, and he smears some of the icing from his cheek onto hers; so are you.

Sometimes, when she smiles, that smile reserved specifically to go from her to him and no one else, he sees…well, he sees everything. He sees a history of her sweet laughter and hugs, a present that is irrevocably attached to her, and a future that can't go any other way. He sees barstools and the way she looks when she wears his t-shirts and that earnest gleam she gets in her blue eyes; he sees the way her eyelashes flutter when she's dreaming and that understanding smirk she always wears when he says something stupid-but-adorable. He sees what their kids could look like, blond and blue-eyed, silly and probably a little wild, but perfect; he sees her in a white dress with toes buried in the sand. And he'll hear the affection in her voice, so very close to love: "Look at you, you're a mess…"

They meet Blair, undoubtedly there for Chuck, just outside the building. Her eyes skim over the two of them, together, quickly – noting their matching outfits and matching smile and easiness around one another. A knowing smile jumps into her eyes and slowly curves her lips as she takes a step to the side, giving them room to walk out.

"Don't let me keep you," she tells them softly.

He could never pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with Serena, because it happened so long ago it feels like an integral, natural part of his being. He can, however, figure out the approximate day that Blair declared him her boyfriend. And it doesn't feel fair. It's a decision that's been made; whereas with Serena…that just happened, as naturally as he breathed. It was unfair, and maybe Serena should've protested, or maybe he should have said no, but Blair was their friend, and neither of them wanted to hurt her, so he relaxed into being with her and Serena let him, because both of them were scared of aching for each other, but even more afraid of what would happen if they let themselves tell the truth.

But being told to love someone is not the same as loving someone. Nate didn't know a lot of things, but he knew that, and sometimes it hurt, maybe more than taking a risk and being with her would have.

He stops on the street, hands resting on her hips as he tugs her to him and kisses her, seriously, in a leave-you-breathless kind of way. She makes a contented sound at the back of her throat, sinking into him, one hand cupping his cheek as he pulls her even closer.

This time, he wants for them to be real, free of secrecy and lasting longer than teasing looks across a room all evening or hours spent talking under his Spiderman sheets or drunken moments at a wedding.

Every time he sees her with some guy – who can't, just can't, be good enough for her – it makes him feeling like he's burning. She's all flippy hair and mascara and sultry smiles, and it's not fair, because he wants to be that guy she's with. He doesn't crave the jealous stares or the makeup that makes her eyes pop or the innuendo in her confident words.

If he stares for long enough she'll feel it, and she'll try to frown at him, but in the end her lips will curve upward, dimples in her cheeks. And then her eyes will drift to his left or his right or just ahead of him, and Blair will be there, and he'll be forced to feel his heart twist as her face folds in on itself for just a second.

Then it will be fingers through her hair and "will you walk me to class?" and he'll watch her go, wondering how it is that she makes him the happiest he'll ever be, and yet they're so good at letting each other do this, this horrible, miserable thing. They've made such a complicated situation of something that should have been easy – messy and crazy at times, but easy at the end of the day.

He wants to walk across the quad and kiss her, remind her how they both feel, because he's sure after that it wouldn't be difficult or complicated, not even for a moment, because he's had brief moments, glimpses of what they, together, would be like.

And it's the easiest thing.

She grasps his hand securely – and he realizes then how much she is the very person he needs right now, to make this easier – as he unlocks the door, sighing as it swings open to reveal the minimal mess he'd been living in.

"This is about as far from perfect as you can get, huh?" he mutters, trying to step forward and away from her, bothered by the idea that they'll fall out of this blissfulness for the infinite time in their shared lives, but her hand still grips his, holding fast; this time neither of them are running away, she won't allow it.

"Hey." He turns back to her, meets her blue eyes. She leans into him, nuzzling his nose with her own, making her cutest, kindest face as she rests her forehead against his for a moment. "We'll get there," she promises, sealing it with a kiss, and then they step inside, together.