Story starts after 508 All the Pretty Sources.

A/N- i'm just a fan, I do not own gossip girl or the characters.

A/N - Hi all, this is the first chapter of a story i intend to be much longer. It's a Dair story but fair warning besides Dan, Chuck is one of my favorite characters so don't expect him to be killed of within the first few chapters. The story will also go into storylines of the other characters. The first chapter is mainly an establishing chapter. The second should be longer.

After Blair's bridal shower, Dan avoided Blair like the plague. Not a hard feat to accomplish since Blair still refused to talk to him. He stayed on his side of the bridge, leaving only to attend the few classes that he had left on his schedule this semester at NYU. Having his Dad, Lily, Charlie and Chuck being the only people on the Upper East Side still talking to him meant his social calendar on that side of town was just about empty.

Staying at the loft allowed him the time he needed to focus on the discovery that he had recently made with the help of Chuck Bass of all people. He, Dan Humphrey was in love with Blair Waldorf. Of all the people in the world he could not believed that he had allowed himself to fall for someone who was A) Out of his league B) About to get married to a Prince and Pregnant with a baby and C) Would never give him the time of day as a potential suitor.

So Dan stayed at the loft ignoring everything about the Upper East Side until two weeks after Blair's shower when there was a knock on his door. In the middle of finishing a paper on eighteen century british literature Dan opened the door to find the brunette he had steadfastly tried to ignore for the past two weeks standing before him.

"Blair what are you doing here?" he asked in surprise.

"Can I come in?" she asked a small smile playing on her lips.

"Um sure" he stepped aside as she stepped past him and into the loft.

She walked straight past him into the living room, dropped her purse on the table, took off her jacket and neatly placed it over the couch before turning around to face him. It was at that point that Dan actually realized how long he had not been part of her daily life, the moment when she turned to face him and he realized that her once flat stomach was starting to protrude with evidence of her pregnancy. Slightly, but still significant enough to remind him of how much time he had missed in her life because of his book.

They stared at each other for a moment before Blair who was always the more forward of the two decided to make the first step into the conversation.

"I heard what you said at my shower" she said eyes leaving his to stare at a spot above his head for a brief second before returning.

" Listen Blair, about that, I was drunk, high and really in no position to be talking to anyone, so I'm sorry for whatever I may have said and if you need me to I'll apologize to Louie just tell me …."

Blair interrupted his rambling with a delicate hand lifted to call his attention back to her.

"You were right" she spoke the words so softly that Dan couldn't be quite sure that she had said them.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked in disbelief.

She looked his straight in the eye this time before answering.

"You were right, you were there for me when no one else was and I couldn't be bothered to return that favor in the last month, and I'm sorry for that"

So use to never winning in a tug of war with Blair, Dan was stumped for a few seconds.

"It's not all your fault, I mean I wrote the book" he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Very true" she acknowledged taking a moment to have a seat on the couch, "but you deserved to have me yell at you and call you names, not forget you altogether, you've never done that to me, even before we were friends, you were there and when it came time to return the favor, I failed and I'm sorry for that."

He looked at her and offered a smile, the first real one to make a presence on his face for weeks.

"Well I'll accept your apology if you accept mine."

Her smile was all the answer he needed. Moving to sit on the opposite end of the couch from her he tried to quell the emotions taking a rollercoaster ride inside of him. He may have recently discovered he was in love with the brunette in front of him, but he was unwilling to let that ruin the fact that she had only seconds ago reestablished a friendship that he had thoroughly missed for the past few weeks.

"So how's it going?" he asked her smiling kindly

She smiled at him "Decided to start with the loaded question I see"

"How could that be a loaded question?" he laughed, "you're about to be married to a prince, all your dreams are coming through and you're in the midst of planning your royal wedding"

Realizing her eyes growing sad as he listed all the things she should be happy about, he moved a little closer to her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"What is it, is everything alright?" he asked

She smiled sadly at him "everything's fine… it's just that the fairytale isn't as smooth sailing as I expected it to be"

"Anything I can do to help" he asked

"A cup of tea and a friendly ear would do wonders right now" she looked at him a small smile trying to hide the slight tremble of her chin.

Giving her shoulder one final squeeze Dan walked to the kitchen to make the first of many cups of tea that would come that night and prepared to listed to the woes of a friend who just happened to be the woman he was in love with, who just happen to be preparing to marry a Prince, who he stood no chance against.

And although he didn't know it, the conversation that they would have that night and the small realizations that she would make about her fairytale sitting in his living room would be the catalyst that would bring her world to a sudden halt a few weeks from then.

Thanks for reading, be kind and leave a review ( the really are the most helpful things for a writer). Stay tuned for Chapter 2