Title: Her Guy Friday
Author: swampophelia (coz I can't make a GG community under this name)/swamp_ariadne
Pairing: Blair/Dan, random cast members and guest stars appear. A bit of an RPF also, as several celebrities will do a walk on (this is the GG 'verse people!)
Word Count: 2144 so far
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Just playing in the playground made by CvZ and CW. JS & SS cannot sue me because I am not making any money.
Warnings and A/N: Inspired by His Girl Friday (and the fact I've always thought of Blair as the boss of Dan). Future!fic - several years into the future in fact. This is the first draft told in 1st POV. GG has always been told in 3rd POV because GG has always been our narrator. I'm drafting the 2nd version of this story in 3rd POV, so you can view this as a test run. Unbeta'd so mistakes are completely mine.

"These deadlines are NOT going fill themselves up you know!"

She barks at the escaping crowd as they scamper away to accomplish the day's business, the interns and the newbie, wannabe-Brenda Starrs the first to rush off to do her bidding. There are days when it feels like I haven't left high school as I see grown men and women quail like the minions I remember from so long ago.

It's pathetic because I'm one of those minions myself, the more I think about it. Sometimes I wonder how I got into this mess and I remember – I was thinking with my pants and I was a sucker for "complicated women". You know that saying about a sucker being born every minute? Yup that saying meant me. Nope I won't be a sucker anymore. I'm getting off of this roller coaster. If I could do it for Serena van der Woodsen, I can do it for Blair Waldorf.

"Daniel?", Blair called out to me from the door of her office. No one else would hear it, but I know that tone perfectly, the one she uses whenever she was hiding her feelings behind manufactured indifference. I only have a few feet to figure out what those feelings are before I could confront them head on, or else I'll never be able to get what I want out of this day. Please… let me not waver this time.

"Cornelia," I greet her on my approach, making sure my voice did not carry farther than the distance I was closing. Blair stepped back into her office, her face never betraying how much she hated being called that name.

She walked up to her desk as I entered the massive office suite (that I used to share not so long ago), closing the oak door behind me. I know the office gossips were already straining their ears, as we haven't been seen in the office alone together for nearly a month. The last blow out we had ended with me going off to assignment in Dhaka, and of course no one has called out on the fact that I've been back in New York for two weeks. Having former ownership status has its privileges.

She was dressed in her Monday power look – contrasting flower patterns matched with hair in a bun that screamed business. She's the only woman in the world I know that can pull off the busy patterns and still command armies. She sat down with nary any ceremony, her head immediately buried in papers and photos strewn over her massive glass desk. The remains of the conference that just ended were still evident on the large conference table at the other end of the room, which means that I only have ten minutes before the snoops come in here with excuses to clean up the mess.

"Have you signed it?," I ask her gently, sitting down on the chair in front. She won't look at me, which is one of her typical ploys. I spy the picture of Cedric to the side amidst the heap and reach for it. Immediately she slaps my hand, her eyes blazing finally with naked emotion.

"You come here, expecting me to sign off on your resignation while you go off and get yourself employed to Vogue on my dime!," she hisses, standing up with her hands resting on her hips.

"Hey, this is technically my dime too," I counter, not rising up to meet her standing stare-down routine. I have figured out several practical applications of Sun Tzu over the years I've worked with Blair.

Her face becomes unreadable again as she stalked around her desk, reaching for the picture frame as she walked towards my side of the table. "Not if I sign the other papers," she says as she stops a few inches from me, her face thoughtful. "You turned over all shares and management control. I could never figure out why you're being stupid about it."

"Well, I was often stupid when it came to you," I tease, hoping to go for charming.

Her expression had changed from reflective to fiery in a second. And there goes my Sun Tzu training.

"Really Dan? Well you apparently weren't the only one that got stupid, but at least I'm going to profit from this," she retorts holding the frame to her chest. "I'm taking custody. We never know when you'd decide to run away again to another god-forsaken third world country and Cedric would likely just get sick from the water. I don't know if you can find the right kind of nannies. Where is my story anyway?"

"Your story?," I reply incredulously. "Blair, I was the one in that god-forsaken country braving riots on a daily basis! I was the one risking my life getting that story on union-busting in factories for those high street brands – that you love – passing off "Made in the UK" clothes when they're actually "Made in Dhaka"."

She met my sneer with eyes that suddenly turned glassy, and I knew my mouth ran away from me again. She didn't know about the caning incident and I didn't really have any permanent nor serious damage done to my person. It was something I didn't want her to know – it was one of the main reasons why I didn't come home right away. I've had a good number of years evading her private eyes - it really came in handy since I became an investigative writer. Plus it helped that I called on attorney-client privilege with Nate.

"I thought… I thought it was because you were sending me a message," she says in sotto. "Besides," her tone shifting to haughty, "I don't love high street. High street is what the middle class think high fashion is. Goodness Dan, you've known for years how to differentiate between couture and street couture."

Manhattan Magazine was our brainchild, it was a unique title that blended fashion and lifestyle and intelligentsia in a glossy that had commercial appeal not just with the UES, but with those that aspired the UES lifestyle. With the trust fund that Lily forced me to accept after graduation, we ended up creating a magazine that rivaled The New Yorker and Elle in the last few years. But of course for Blair that wasn't enough.

I held her shoulders - maybe I'm just imagining her trembling. Maybe I'm just holding her because it feels like I haven't come back until I feel her. Maybe I shouldn't do this because I know what causes my resolve to weaken. Maybe because I know what I feel and what I need are two different things.

"You know me better than that Blair. I'm straightforward guy. You know I need this and you know that you need this. After all those years I had with Serena and you with Chuck, we promised each other clean breaks. I'm not going to hold on to things just because it's possible to hold on to them. And I can't do my investigative pieces here – we're not that kind of magazine, not anymore," I reason out, hoping that ending with the magazine might bring on her Queen B persona. Shit, I just ended that whole explanation with a "we".

"When are you starting there?," she asks, squinting at me. Oh…. she cottoned on.

"Today," I mutter under my breath.

"Today?," her voice was dripping cold as she walked back to her side of the desk, her hands frantically pulling out papers from various piles.

"You saunter in here expecting me to sign this," she exclaims as she waves the papers in the air, "so you could cavort with Anna Wintour and make her money you should have been making for me? And what about these?," angrily flipping the papers about in her hands, "is there a deadline for me to sign these too?"

I can only shrug at this point, because well… she has a point. For all the good I've gotten at my professional calling, I still have bad timing in my personal life.

"I wouldn't really call sending an email "cavorting" Blair. Plus at this point it doesn't make any difference, you're selling Manhattan to the Conde Naste Group so pretty soon you're going to be rubbing shoulders with her anyway," I pointed out. "The editorial direction here has been going in a direction I never wanted. I'm giving up the shares so you can do what you want Blair. I'm tired of the 24/7," I confess.

"So you saddle me with resignation and divorce and you work for the competition because you're tired?," her voice incredulous. "That doesn't make sense Humphrey! Clearly I shouldn't be signing anything because what this is is mid-life crisis."

"No it's not! What I want is to be like my Dad and have a calm, semi-normal mid-life, maybe open a gallery," I interject, "not chasing after leads and giving out Frontier Justice in Style!"

Her snort was oddly attractive, but that's Blair for you. "But you coined what we do 'Frontier Justice in Style'. I just go on the attack. Remember two years ago when Lagerfeld tried to weasel out of an interview and I had to make sure he could not leave Manhattan?," she asked, her eyes deceptively lost in reminiscing.

Oh God do I remember. "He knew it was you and he almost sued. I had to actually ask favors from Bass of all people not to mention I had to babysit him and his annual musical showcase for 72 hours in Brooklyn! And till today the loft is still defaced! This... this is exactly what I mean about the 24/7, no rest for the wicked... Blair I want a life!," I exclaim, snapping my hands on her desk in exasperation.

"So this Vogue thing is your swan song?," she snaps back.

"I'm not doing this to hurt you Blair. I… I was planning on maybe seeing someone when we've had a decent time separated. There might be a bit of a timer on that too, but it's not as urgent as my resignation."

Blair's face was stony, the face she uses for the help when they displeased her. No one could really measure up to Dorota since she left and this was the face she usually had at the house before I left. It made me feel like one of the help – pretty soon that's all I'll be at this point. Her voice was almost a whisper when she said, "You met her in Dhaka."

"Not really. I met her in Constance. I only saw her again in Singapore at the transit lounge," I fill her in. "I don't even know if you remember her since she was only in Constance for a short while…" I'm really hoping that I could dodge this. Frankly, I don't even know why I went along with the connection, but I'm a sucker for cleaning up unfinished business. And well, Rachel is unfinished business. Who's waiting in the lobby. There I go again, being a sucker.

The door burst open, and the next thing I know Burgundy Shaw, one of the features editors, walks in all flustered, followed by Montgomery Li, the managing editor, completely agitated. Pretty soon the whole editorial team was in the office and the room was filled with a cacophony bordering on hysteria.

Blair stops the panic with a high pitched whistle that she reserves for desperate times. "What the hell is this intrusion all about?"

"Blair, we're going to lose the cover story!," Burgundy shrieks.

"And some of the advertisers heard about it and are threatening to pull out several pages of ads!," cries Montgomery, waving a fan about his face as if he was about to faint.

"How did our advertisers find out before I did?," Blair quietly demands in a regal fashion, harnessing the power of her stare to hush all the occupants in the room into submission. And yes that look does work on me too. I can't help it, a decade's worth of conditioning.

"Ms. Abrams is apparently very good friends with many of them," explains Burgundy. "They were the ones that sponsored her Golden Globe-winning documentary."

"But they've signed contracts. We could threaten to sue since they're pulling out this close to printing, final layouts sent to the printers and all," suggested Montgomery.

"That would just bring us bad PR. No we tackle it from the Abrams front directly. She already went through the photo shoot," Blair points out, her eyes showing the gears of her mind working. "Plus didn't she already receive her fee from us?"

"She never took it. And she plans on taking her story elsewhere…", Montgomery trails off, eyeing me with disdain.

"What?," I shoot back at the paisley-clad, purple and green clad fop. I swear I'm never going to like purple on a man.

"She's taking her story to Vogue," Blair fills in, her eyes shooting daggers at me.

"I didn't do anything!," I exclaim. "Not everything revolves around my resignation Blair."

I hear the intake of shocked breaths in the room. Hmmm… so that wasn't common gossip yet. I guess it is now.

"It's not official yet folks," Blair intones, placating the room. She turns to me, her eyes as calculating as I ever saw them.

"Dan, you want me to sign these papers?," she practically croons. "Fine, I'll sign them by the end of the day. Get Vanessa back on board and I'll sign whatever papers you want."

"That's it? I talk to her and I can walk away?," I eye her warily.

"No, I said bring her on board, make sure her story stays with us and you can work for Vogue or fly off to Timbuktu by tomorrow," she offers, proffering her hand.

"Please Mr. Humphrey, Ms. Waldorf needs you," Burgundy says in her most obsequious tone. I squint to show her what I've always felt about how she addressed Blair.

"Of course, since my wife's minion so nicely asked, sure why not?," I respond in the most sarcastic tone I could muster.

"Well by the end of the day she won't be your minion anymore either Humphrey. If you get me what I want, you get what you want," says Blair with the sweetest smile she's ever flashed me in a while. I smell a scheme brewing.