"Dan Humphrey?"

Dan, who was still slightly wet from his quick post-show shower and ready to move from the freezing street to his tour bus, turned hastily to face the girl and put out his hand, ready for a pen. "What do you want me to sign?" he asked, not even looking up from his phone to the girl who said his name. "It has to be quick, I'm meeting someone."

The brunette raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "Sign? I don't want you to sign anything of mine, Humphrey. Who do you think I am? A teenaged fan girl? You're supposed to be meeting me, you prick."

Dan looked up, startled to see that it was Blair Waldorf who had said his name. He was even more surprised that he didn't recognize the voice which had floated in and out of his head so often in the last ten years. Maybe it was the addition of Dan before the Humphrey which was such a rare occurrence or maybe it was that his ears were still recovering from the sound in the small venue. "Blair, I'm sorry. I thought… usually there are people hovering outside of my bus… I'm just used to barreling through."

"Yeah, I hear you have quite a reputation with your fans. Not a good one, may I add."

"I'm not into crowds."

"And yet you became a singer… a writer would have fit the lonely boy lifestyle a little better."

"Can't I be both?" he asked, raising his eyebrows and running his hand through his damp curls. "Look, it's freezing, do you want to come on the bus? And what do you mean that I'm meeting you… I'm supposed to be meeting a writer from Vanity Fair."

Blair rolled her eyes. "That's me. I'm the writer. And I would love to get off this dirty street of Brooklyn although your bus might not be any better…"

As she trailed off, Dan opened the door of the tour bus and saw that she was definitely correct. His bus was no cleaner than any street in America. It had been a late night the night before partying with the girls that followed his band into the bus. He often said no but for some reason, being home and having three shows in his home town, he had agreed to the impromptu party.

"As expected, it looks like a frat boys dream home in here," Blair took a small notepad from her purse and started to jot down notes. "I'm surprised you even got out to play," she said, stepping over an empty bottle of whiskey. "How does your head take it when you have a hang over from all of this cheap alcohol? Didn't getting money give you some taste, Humphrey?"

Dan sunk into the couch on the bus and laughed. "Money? What money? Do you know how much this bus was to rent?"

"Don't give me that. I know your record label pays for it."

"Okay, fine, but the music videos?"

"The ones you record in this very bus and pretend they are art? Low budget, if any budget. What are you wasting your money on if you can't get a cleaning crew in here after an orgy?"

Dan chose to ignore her first question and instead focused on the start of her statement, "So you've been paying attention to my career, Waldorf?" Her last name rolled off his tongue like an old friend and his brain almost begged for a reason to say it again.

"For this story, Humphrey." Blair tapped her pen against the note pad as she looked for a clear place of furniture to sit. "Am I going to get diseases from this couch? I don't even want to know what has been done on it."

"Or who."

"Gross," she clucked her tongue as she used her pen to move a piece of clothing off the couch opposite of Dan. "This is literally the worst conditions I've ever had to go in to for a story."

"Probably good you didn't become a hard hitting journalist then. I thought you worked for Vogue… doing make up reviews."

"So you've been following my career?" she cocked her head to the side and then slightly shook her head. "Not that it matters but I moved from Vogue to Vanity Fair a year ago. I've been doing mostly little stories, this is my first big one. The rise of the self made musician… or at least the myth of the self made musician. Like you, for instance. A big label backing you and you choose to make your music videos in your tour bus with a shitty camera… and yet impeccable sound. Fans get the feeling you're really connected to them but they miss the point that you are being backed by a corporation."

"Ouch," Dan said, covering where he imagined his heart to be with his hands. "When my manager pitched this story to me, this wasn't what it was pitched as."

Blair smirked, "Well, it wasn't originally going to be that kind of story. I just did some research and decided to switch it up. Rags to Riches is so cliche. How about riches to riches? Now that is something I would read."

"Then all my answers to you are going to be No Comment, Waldorf." Dan bit his lip as an electricity ran through his body after saying her last name again. Ten years and she still had this power over him. Ten years and still all his songs were about her, or if not about her, how he had felt when he was with her, when he wasn't with her and the enormous loss he felt as she chose Chuck Bass over him.

Blair shrugged and started to put her note pad away, "That's fine with me. To be honest, I had no idea I was coming to interview you until I got the call this morning. Angie was supposed to do this article but got massively sick… like Bird Flu sick… and they called me in. I can't interview anyways. I would put a spin on anything you said and my journalistic ethics won't allow me to ruin a story over you."

Dan shrugged, "So you're off the clock?"

"I mean I need to write something. I might stick around and see if I can get the headliner to talk to me."

"The ginger out there strumming on guitar and singing about his melancholic feelings about flowers? He'll definitely talk to you, he loves talking to anyone who will listen about his meteoric rise to fame, brushing over the fact his uncle owns the record company he is signed to."

"Did you call this tour "The Two Sell Outs" then?" Blair pursed her lips.

"Ha ha, Blair. I've never hid the fact I'm signed to a major label. Everything else is a creative and artistic choice I've made for the path I want to follow in my music."

Blair smiled, "I didn't even know you were an artist… or a musician… when I knew you."

"Yeah, well, you didn't know a lot about me. You knew… let's see, I was from Brooklyn, I was a semi-decent writer and I was in love with you." Dan regretted the last part as soon as he said it and looked away from her face immediately, to the floor.

"You were a better writer than semi-decent. It's what makes your songs so good, Humphrey. You have real feeling in them." Blair stood to get up, "Look, I should go. But let me talk to the editors and maybe, if we don't get you in this story, we could do a feature on you as a writer and song writer? I don't have to write it but I think you deserve a little recognition for what you do best."

"Need to get back to Bass?"

Blair raised her hands, "Do you see a ring, Humphrey?"

Dan, despite himself, smiled. "I have one more show tomorrow before we head out to Boston. Why don't you come tomorrow as a guest and not as a writer?"

She shrugged, an extremely noncommittal shrug, "We'll see."

"At least get lunch with me? I'd like to catch up."

"We'll see," she said again but reached for her notepad and scribbled down her number. "Just text me in the morning."

As Blair was climbing out of the bus, she saw a wave of blonde hair bouncing towards her. "Serena?"

"Blair! Oh my God, were you at the show? How great is Dan!"

"I actually missed it. I was here for work and it got foiled by the fact that it was Dan. What are you doing here?"

Serena smiled, her mega-watt smile that men melted for, "I always see Dan when he's in town. You know, an old friend thing…" she trailed off and nudged Blair slightly with her fist. "You know, the old friend thing."

"Yeah, I get it," Blair said, feeling a pit inside of her stomach. "You're here to sleep with him."

"Oh, come on, Blair. It's not like that. I mean… sometimes it is. It's mostly to celebrate his accomplishments. Anyways, where are you going? Why don't you stay and we can all drink?"

Blair shook her head, "I have to go. I have to find a ginger with melancholic thoughts about flowers…"

Serena scrunched up her face, "What? Never mind, it doesn't matter. Call me tomorrow! We need to get lunch or something. Maybe this week? I'm so busy with work but I would love to see you for more than three minutes outside of our mutual ex-boyfriend's tour bus." Serena smiled and reached out to Blair's arm, "It was great seeing you, B."

"Yeah, you too, S," Blair returned her smile but it didn't reach her eyes. As she walked away, she took the ring that had been in the pocket of her coat and slipped it back on her finger.