A/N: This was written before 3x18 aired, based solely on spoilers and my ideas/wishes for what might transpire when I heard Carter would return for an episode. Needless to say, the show really let me down in that regard – I expected much more, and much better. Originally, this was intended to be a oneshot, but I now feel compelled to fix that mess (catharsis ftw), so it will probably be a three- to six-part story so that the actual events of 3x18 can be incorporated. I really love this ship, and it's awful that they've been left off like they were.
Lyrics courtesy of the Carey Brothers (this is and always has been my ultimate Ca/S song). Enjoy; reviews are lovely.
Ride
--
you are everything i wanted
the scars of all i'll ever know
--
Here are the things she does not tell Nate:
i.
She ignores it, when she first sees Carter (she's downtown and he's just there, standing only a few feet away, all of a sudden and for a moment she thinks she made him up), when he rests a hand at the small of her back and presses a chaste, unassuming kiss to her cheek. She pretends it does not happen.
But she can't ignore it when he looks right at her and says huskily, "Hello, beautiful."
It's impossible not to acknowledge it: the unmistakable, tentative flutter of her heart.
ii.
"I missed you," she tells him abruptly at one point, to fill the silence. Tears prick at her eyes mercilessly; her throat's all tight. "You shouldn't have left like that."
I could never hate you, never pity you – don't you know that?
And maybe he does, because his eyes pierce hers and his thumb skins over the apple of her cheek and he says, "I shouldn't have left at all."
iii.
This is an old story.
She told Carter about her father, trusted him with treasured information that could break her as easily as it could fix her, long before she let anyone else in.
Still: "You didn't have to do this," she tells him, sitting on one of the wingback chairs in his hotel room, her fingers tracing over the ink on the documents, her family's mess of a history made simple, laid out in black and white as if it could really be that easy. She spends an extra moment staring at a picture of her father, remembering the way she always barreled down the hallway and latched onto his legs when he came back home.
She looks up at Carter; he's watching her, waiting patiently.
Serena stands up. "You don't owe me this." The thought stings, makes her defensive. "We're about more than just this."
He nods calmly. "I know. And now you know…" He gestures to the arc of documents, "Everything."
iv.
He knows about Nate.
She can tell by the way he is careful around her, the way he does not let himself linger. She can tell that he wants to respect her relationship – but that it's a surface kind of want, something born of propriety; beneath it, he missed her too, she knows it.
She appreciates him for it, that respectfulness – false as it might be – but wanting and doing are two different things.
They're too accustomed to falling back into each other.
v.
She can see the way she's broken his heart.
It's right there, in his mannerisms and his eyes and the sound of his voice.
A part of her longs to put the pieces back together, to use her kisses as super-glue.
vi.
They don't have sex.
(She is not that girl anymore.)
But she does end up in his bed, half of her clothing shed and her hands clutching at the Egyptian cotton sheets and at his shoulders as he slips his fingers inside her, takes her higher, higher – and when she comes she gasps out his name on a breath that keeps catching in her throat.
vii.
Afterwards, she cries, mascara smudged against the hotel's pristine pillowcase and Carter's arms around her, his face tucked against her neck while she breathes in his cologne and sniffles into his shirt, takes great big breaths and pretends that she's okay, that this is okay.
viii.
He's too big a part of this, of her whole life, always here or there, always catching up with her or there for her to find.
It scares her, the way they are irreversible.
ix.
Just for a moment, while she smoothes the damp corner of a towel over her face in the bathroom, she wants to ask him to whisk her away from here.
(She knows he would.)
x.
He kisses her when she's about to leave, pushes her back against the door, traps her body with his own, eases her mouth open with his.
The way he kisses her, deeply and desperately, it's like he's trying to tell her something he doesn't have the words for.
She thinks she hears it anyway.
xi.
In the town car outside the Waldorf's (now Serena's, kind of) home, she waits a moment before she opens the door.
There is a thick, ugly file tucked into her bag, but that's not what's important.
"Will I see you again?"
Carter smirks, pushes her hair tenderly out of her face. "Don't you always, baby?"
Serena kisses him, this time, the key of a hotel room she never had any right to enter still clutched in her hand, plastic edges rough against her palm.
xii.
"Thank you," she says formally, standing with him on the city sidewalk, their fingers threaded together.
"Anytime, beautiful."
He kisses her knuckles and then he lets her go, returns her to her home and her real life and the man she loves.
She feels undeniably like her mother's daughter.
xiii.
In the elevator, she rests her head against the wall and closes her eyes, finds a smile and a hey, you for her boyfriend.