AN (1): Hey friends! Gosh, it's been forever, hasn't it? I'm so sorry... I've been working hard on lots of things to publish in lit mags and such this semester, but I have a little break, so this came out :) Hope everyone's doing well! Anyways, this is a tough, sad little drabble, but hopefully you all enjoy it. Please please review! Thanks :)
AN (2): Recommended listening: "Shake It Out" by Florence + the Machine.
Never Let Me Go
It's that split second when she says pregnantthat his heart starts over again.
He doesn't tell anyone this, doesn't admit it (ever), but when he reads Humphrey's novel a few days later, there's certainly a part of him that thinks hanging by a tie or rope or whatever wouldn't be so bad at all.
...
He doesn't say anything to her, but there's something fantastically sexy about when she starts to show. (It's because he can imagine it as forever, only he never tells her that either.)
...
Serena calls him, a few weeks later, crying. He doesn't need anyone to say anything then, only hangs up the phone. He fingers all of his ties delicately, then his belts, but decides that grief is too valuable to be wasted on someone like him just now.
...
He avoids her until a few weeks later, until he sees her at a party and cannot avoid her anymore. She's beautiful, always.
"I'm sorry," he tells her (and it feels so different from it's all my fault for loving you too much).
"It's fine," she says, then shakes her head. "And if it's not fine, it will be."
"Okay." It's a lie, he knows, but he grants her that.
She leaves early that night, with Serena and Nate (no one else, and he doesn't even wonder), and things are so familiar in that moment. She's so thin, without the small life in her anymore, and he's sure his heart looks that way too.
...
"She's not okay."
"Of course she's not okay," he tells Dan, putting the scotch in his hand down more forcefully than he'd originally intended.
Dan nods, then, looking down. "She didn't do anything wrong."
He tries to breathe, even though he knows this is absolutely the truth. "I know," he says. "I know."
...
She tells him herself: "We broke off the engagement." She takes a shaky breath and tries not to cry and he thinks isn't this familiar? "It's just - I -"
He lets her leave that day without finishing her sentence, suddenly and because a part of him instantly understands that she's not ready to feel everything that big right now. But he knows she means He wasn't enough.
...
He gets a text from Dorota that makes him panic blindly, and he shows up at her penthouse minutes later with his shoes untied and no overcoat.
Eleanor looks at him for a second, but her gaze is different now - someone other than him had managed to hurt her daughter, and that means something.
Harold walks in from the kitchen, and he's so proud of them in that moment - that they're both there because Blair needs them.
"Don't you dare hurt her," Harold says. The unspoken ever is as clear as day, and it's the most natural and true thing in the world for him to nod and make promises that he swears to God this time he'll keep.
...
She's sitting on the floor of her closet, hugging her knees to her chest.
He folds her into him silently, absorbing her limbs and (some of) her pain.
"He would've been born today," she whispers.
He doesn't tell her anything, doesn't say anything to make it go away.
He just holds her as she cries.
...
No one's really surprised when they're back together again, no one questions anything. He's amazed at the grace the Upper East Side suddenly grants them.
...
They visit his grave. Blair never says anything, but they leave flowers. Peonies, because a part of him knows he would've liked his mother's favorites.
...
Years later, when their first child - a boy - is born, Blair kisses his forehead, his tiny little forehead, and weeps.
He doesn't tell her anything then, either, but he says his son's name, whispers it reverently like a prayer, and he smiles at his wife, and he holds them as gently and tightly and fiercely as he can. (He doesn't ever plan on letting them go.)
Don't forget to review! :) Thank you!