Disclaimer: I do not own "Gossip Girl."
Author's Note: Part 1 of 2, depicting a summer scene I wish would have happened. Tis AU. I hope you enjoy! :)
"Serena, please just get it done! The movers will be arriving with their things in less than an hour!" Lilly's voice had reached that tone of not-yelling that grated on Serena's every nerve.
"Yes, mother. I get it, okay?" She hissed and couldn't contain her eye-roll. She sat up from the sofa and peered at her mother from over the top of it. Lilly was holding folders and what was likely her agenda for the day. A few paces behind her Miranda, her personal assistant, stood patiently waiting.
Lilly's eyes narrowed, "I will have the entirety of it tossed, Serena, don't think I won't." She waved her hand and Miranda came forward and handed Serena a stationary pad and a pen.
Serena scowled and took them. "I don't understand why we have to make room for them!" She repeated the line she'd been saying for the past two days now and mentally cringed a moment after it left her mouth—even she was tired of hearing it.
"Explaining this to you, yet again, would be tiring to the extreme. The abbreviated version, as you well know, is that we are all going to be living here as a family and Charles will be occupying that suite. So you need to make a list of the things you would like to keep so the movers can rearrange things accordingly. End of story."
She turned away then tossing over her shoulder, "I have appointments all day, reach me on the mobile if you need anything."
Serena sighed and dropped the pad and pen onto the floor beside the couch. "Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, then dropped herself on the sofa once again to stare up at the ceiling.
She'd been doing a lot of that since they'd arrived at the Hamptons last week—staring and thinking.
She'd been drifting in thought lately… and for the first time in months she'd relaxed. Felt something inside of her unwind as she realized how far she'd come from last summer, how different everything was; not perfect, but better.
And the funniest thing happened when she did that, when she stopped trying so hard; she'd let the staff pick up and fold her clothes, let the maid bring her breakfast in bed, had returned the ice tea because it wasn't sweet enough, had asked that they brew her coffee a bit stronger in the mornings—and there was no guilt. Because this was her life, this was her; and maybe she should stop fighting it, maybe that's why she and Dan hadn't worked…
But still, he made her a better person, right? He did. He was so good and when she was with him, she thought maybe some of his goodness rubbed off on her, maybe if she was more like him she could atone for past sins. Though… maybe that was why they hadn't worked? Because atonement shouldn't be the basis of a relationship…
But she loved him too, right? She did. He made her feel special, made her happy—as long as she was on his pedestal. Maybe that was why they hadn't--
"Serena?"
She jumped and gasped a little, eyes focusing abruptly to realize that Eric was standing over her, staring down at her.
"Jeez, Eric! What?!"
He backed up. "Nothing. Are you high or something? You're eyes were all glazed over."
She sat up and glared at him. "I'm not doing drugs. Ever. Again." She hissed.
He held up both hands in a show defeat, "Okay, okay. Sorry."
She shook her head as she put her feet on the floor and looked up at him. He was wearing a blue polo shirt and white shorts and sneakers; very Typical Hampton Boy Attire.
"I was just thinking," she responded.
He nodded, moved to sit on the coffee table in front of her, which was a habit that he'd picked up… anywhere but the Upper East Side.
"Mom told me on her way out to tell you to--"
"Yes, I know. Clean out my old suite."
Eric grinned, "I don't get you. What's the big deal? You haven't used those rooms in like… five years."
"Six."
"Right. So what's the--"
"She's giving them to Chuck."
Eric shrugged, "He's not so bad. I kind of… like him. He's fun and he doesn't treat me like I'm gonna shatter if he's less than polite."
Serena felt herself soften a little. "Okay, so he has point-one-percent of a redeeming quality. He's a black hole of sleaze, don't get too close."
Something flickered in her little brothers and Serena felt a shiver go down her spine. "Don't worry, it's not like I'll really get the chance. I'm sure we'll be moving on in half a year or so." He answered shortly.
She reached out and took his hands in hers. "I'll still be here in half a year—and in a whole year. That won't change."
They stared at each other for a beat. Then Eric pulled up a smile for her, grateful that she hadn't tried to correct him. They both knew their mother well; she was a serial monogamist of the highest order.
No reason he couldn't tease Serena about it a bit though. "Yeah, I know. Plus I'm thinking the law of the universe states she's going to stay married to Bart Bass the longest because you can't stand Chuck…"
Serena rolled her eyes as she stood, "The universe sucks." She muttered as she scooped up the stationary pad and pen.
Eric laughed, "Yep, it kinda does." He stood with her, "Come on. I'll help you."
She shook her head. "No its okay. No reason for both of us to spend the day locked away slaving indoors." She said dramatically and Eric smirked, calling her on it.
"Drama much? It's your own fault; you didn't have to wait until the last day."
"Thank you so much for pointing that out dear brother." She accompanied the sardonic words with a ruffle of his hair. "Do me a favor and text me when the movers get here."
"Yeah okay. Have fun." He offered sarcastically as he gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the foyer.
Serena sighed as she watched him wander back outside. Even before he got here, Chuck was already ruining her summer.
XoXo
Her childhood suite had been located on the ground floor. It had a sitting room that opened onto the back patio and lawns; this was of immense importance because it meant there was near immediate access to the swimming pool from her room. It meant she could swim and play tag outside until 15 minutes before dinner and then run to her room to change and still be on time.
As she got older though, it being on the ground floor meant less privacy.
At the end of the summer she turned 12 her mother had allowed her to move upstairs to the garden bedroom, Serena called it so because it had a balcony right above the garden. And she had wanted that bedroom for years; had wanted to stand on the balcony at night and look over the gardens and feel like Juliet, feel grown up.
She'd been so excited she'd grabbed, or rather instructed a maid to grab, her wardrobe and moved upstairs without a backwards glance.
The interesting thing about bedrooms one used for two to three months once a year was that they remained relatively untouched through time. The staffed cleaned around what you left behind, they never altered anything without instruction and because you came here so infrequently one never instructed anything.
So when Serena entered her old bedroom, it was precisely as she'd left it six years earlier. She walked around the bedroom slowly, noting the dolls she'd left on the bed when she was six, the magazines she'd hidden from her mother in the closet when she was eleven, the dollhouse she'd played with when she was eight; all of it here as she'd left it, staples of her childhood that she'd smiled at each year she returned. How silly it had seemed when she was ten that she'd spend so much time playing with the dollhouse the year before. How irreverent those magazines had seemed the next year at eleven. Trinkets lined the bureau, all beautiful gifts from her grandmother-- and now she had to displace it—for Chuck.
She rolled her eyes and proceeded to the sitting room. The sitting room had been hers and Blair's favorite place. They'd spent hours in here talking, doing each others hair, trying on outfits and shoes, putting on little plays, reading aloud from their favorite books, reciting movie lines to each other…
She smirked then, suddenly remembering that tonight wouldn't be Chuck's first time in these rooms. He'd been… well, Chuck, when they were growing up. She forgot sometimes that she had known Chuck for as long as she'd known Blair, as long as she'd known Nate.
Manhattan's elite upper crust ran in tightly knit circles and every generation grew up within their sphere. The four of them had formed their own circle though. As early as 1st grade, she and Blair had been inseparable, the same with Nate and Chuck; and well, the Van Der Woodsen's had always been 'friends' with the Archibald's; and then there was Blair and her relationship with Nate, which had seemed to blossom when they were as young as seven.
The first thing she did when she walked into the room was head over to the glass doors and pull the curtains back. The way the room flooded with light turned her smirk into a genuine smile.
She walked over to the antique desk and sat in the chair; this was actually going to be a lot simpler than she'd expected.
She wrote slowly, neatly so there would be no confusion and then she set the pad and pen down.
The room was decorated in very neutral tones. The only splashes of color were the photographs that she and Blair had meticulously affixed to the walls each summer. They'd been nine when they'd started it; had gone about it retroactively, trying to find as many pictures of summers gone by as they could.
She toured the room now, studying the faces in the pictures. Today's elite Upper East Side teenagers had been yesterday's children. And looking at the smiles frozen in time, she couldn't help, but remember those children fondly.
"No Chuck, you can't play if you don't follow the rules."
"Blair just--"
"No, Nate, he'll have to go play something else. We're playing Castle. You said you'd play with me… didn't you mean it?"
Nate blinked, "You know I did," he defended himself; he liked to play with Blair. She was really good at making stories.
"Well then," her gaze went back to Chuck, "Castle is about a kingdom. There are no pirates when we play Castle."
Chuck glared at her, "It's what I want to be."
"Then you can't play with us. Go play with the Devon's or the--"
"Aww, B! Come on! Can't there be one pirate!?" Serena asked, dancing in through the sliding doors from the patio where she'd been listening, "It's Chuck! Just one for him?"
"No!" Blair proclaimed. She eyed Chuck for a moment, because Serena was right, it was Chuck and he was their friend-- well, mostly. "You can be the court advisor," she told him graciously.
Chuck snorted and rolled his eyes, "No way. I'm not playing Castle again, Blair. It's boring." He smirked suddenly, "Nathaniel and I can play pirates outside," he said, arching an eyebrow at her, "You and Serena play Castle inside."
Nate nodded, pirates sounded more fun anyway. "Yeah Blair, you--"
Blair frowned, "But you said you'd play with me!"
"He'd rather play with me though," Chuck taunted.
"Guys we can all play together!" Serena cried, bouncing from foot to foot, "We always do!"
"Not if he won't follow the rules!" Blair cried back.
Chuck huffed. "Whose rules?"
"My rules!"
"Your rules are stupid."
"You're stupid!"
"Guys, stop!" Serena yelled and then she giggled, focusing on Blair, "Pirates are fun, B! We can be a Pirate-Castle! You can be a pirate princess!"
Nate nodded enthusiastically, Chuck smirked; Blair eyed her blonde counterpart with pure disdain. "There are no Pirate-Castles! Pirates are foul creatures, Serena."
"Aw, come on, Blair. Pirates can be fun," Nate tried.
Blair huffed. "They cause shipwrecks, people!"
"That's it!" Serena cried, hands waving around excitedly in the air, "We can be shipwrecked! Think how romantic, B! You and Nate on an island and he's the prince and he saved you, the princess, from a... a tragic death at sea! And you can build a little hut on the beach! And Chuck can be a pirate and…"
"And I can protect you!" Nate cried, grinning at Blair "From the pirate!" Then he shifted that wide smile to Chuck, "We could do battle, man! With… like swords!"
Chuck nodded, warming to the idea.
Blair bit her lip, "What about you, S? Who would you be?"
Serena's eyes lit up impossibly brighter, "A mermaid!"
Chuck rolled his eyes, smiling.
Nate threw his head back and laughed.
Blair couldn't contain her giggle, "A mermaid? That's absurd."
Serena nodded, "It's a game!" She emphasized, then skipped up to Blair and threw her arms around the other girl, hanging off her neck, "Come on, B! Let's play! You can be shipwrecked royalty!"
Blair looked over and then smirked at her friend, "It kinda... does have a certain… charm."
"Yay!" Serena screeched, letting Blair go and spinning around.
Nate grinned, "Awesome!"
Chuck's smirk widened a little.
"Okay, how do we do it?" Serena asked, stopping and gazing over at Blair, her eyes eager.
The boys nodded, equally eager eyes trained on Blair.
Blair brought a hand to her chin, eyes going thoughtful. "The patio of course," she said turning towards the screen glass windows and gazing out onto the patio and yard, "Grab white, blue, and beige sheets, S. And pillows. Oh! And those old umbrellas from the closet in your Mom's hallway—the big ones, with the points at the end…. Nate, in the kitchen, get bags of…brown sugar, if they have it; regular if they don't. Chuck, ask Samuel to move the outside table around to this side of the yard… and the chairs too… we'll make the ship with them—and make sure he does it right now."
They all nodded, but Chuck eyed her with narrowed eyes. "And what are you doing?" He asked.
She tossed her hair, a smile playing around her lips, "I'm supervising of course."
Chuck and Nate exchanged exasperated looks.
And then Serena giggled, grabbing Blair's hand and twirling the dark haired girl around, "B's going to dress us up, right?!" She cried.
Blair giggled too, letting herself do a dramatic spin and nodding; the smile blooming on her face, "Of course… who else could turn this game, into a production!"
Chuck and Nate rolled their eyes, grinning, as they left the room. Serena and Blair giggled as they did a few more dance spins…
The memory rose up vividly in Serena's mind and it made her yearn for her friends almost fiercely.
They'd been eight that summer and Pirate-Castle had been played and developed until all the kids staying at the Hampton's that year had wanted to play. Blair, of course, had set rules… no one could be Prince, but Nate; and no one, could be Lead Pirate, but Chuck; and only Serena could select mermaids and all mermaids must stay on the blue sheets, because that was the ocean…
She remembered the way they'd covered the lawn with sheets, every color meaning something… they'd had sand purchased, when brown sugar attracted ants, and of course, props had been purchased too…
In the end, it had been a production, complete with an audience of envious grammar school kids watching them play from inside Serena's room.
But the magic of that first time, just the four of them, with sugar as sand and umbrellas for swords, with a hut made of a table and sheets and overturned chairs for a ship— that had never been recaptured, that had never been seen; that existed only in the memories of four best friends on a bored summer afternoon.
She turned away from the bulletin board of pictures abruptly.
It had been a long time since she'd remembered her childhood. The past two years were so big, so dramatic and life altering, that the quieter years had faded a little, dulled in comparison.
She missed the Blair that giggled and did things even though they were absurd, the Nate that smiled at them and cared, the Chuck that took part and laughed…
She considered for a moment and then left the suite in search of her phone.
"Wow, that was fast," Eric commented when she walked outside to the deck.
She shook her head, smiling, "I'm keeping everything, Chuck can have my room upstairs, I'll move back in there."
Eric cocked an eyebrow, smiling, "Okay then… that's sudden."
Serena shrugged, looking around, "Everything in those rooms is more mine, than anything I have upstairs… have you seen my cellphone?"
"Right there," Eric pointed to a spot behind the center piece. "And okay, sure; we can go with that making sense..."
Serena walked around to get her phone and grinned at her little brother's sarcasm.
"Who're you calling?" He asked her a moment later.
"I'm gonna ask Nate if he wants to come over… he's in the Hampton's and I've hardly seen him… and we were supposed to hang out this summer too…" she finished, trailing off sadly.
Eric nodded, smirking, "Chuck's getting here soon too..."
Serena nodded back at him, smile still in place, "Yeah, I know!" She cried excitedly; suddenly a lot more accepting of that as the memory Chuck wearing a pirate's hat and brandishing a plastic sword fluttered into her mind. We do not attack the mermaids, he'd commanded of his band of pirates, Only the Prince's men.
"And this is a… good thing now…?" Eric continued, eyeing his sister with amused confusion.
Serena laughed as she dropped down onto one of the chairs, "Yep, I've had a…resurgence of… memory!"
Eric laughed, rolling his eyes; and Serena speed-dialed Nate, lifting her gaze to bright blue sky above as she waited for him to answer.
"Hey! Nate, it's S…"
TBC.