For Years and Years, a gossip girl fanfic

A/N Set around early season one. Kind of drabbleish musings. A little AU-ish because I changed and added a few things along the way.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gossip Girl. Thank you for reminding me.

Music: Secondhand Serenade.

Nate wasn't an idiot.

He really wasn't. Maybe his grades weren't the best and maybe he made some stupid choices but he wasn't an idiot. Because he saw it coming a mile off.

He was five. They were all just five. He was an innocent curious little five year-old when he figured it out.

"Serena, who do you want to marry?"

"Ummm….I thinks I'm going to marry Blair'

"You can't marry Blair…She's a girl, you have to marry a boy"

"But she's my best friend"

"That doesn't matter, she's a girl. I'm a boy…you could marry me"

"No….if I can't marry Blair then I won't marry anyone"

"How come?"

"Because she makes my heart beat really, really fast….see, right here"

Serena had pointed to the middle of her chest, blissfully unaware that that was not where her heart was located, however that wasn't the point. The point was they'd been five and Nate had known, in that instant when he saw Serena look the most certain he'd ever seen her, that he didn't stand a chance. No one did. Because no one made Serena's heart beat like Blair did.

Everyone is only just starting to realize exactly what it meant (even them) and he'd known it, understood it for years and years.

Serena and Blair were going to be together forever. He had seen it. He had watched it grow. Ever since they were kids he hadn't really doubted it or questioned it because it wasn't a question or a prediction, it was a truth. An undeniable fact. And anyone who even dreamed of even suspecting anything different was an idiot.

Nate admits he was in denial about what it really meant for a long time. Even with the overwhelming evidence laid out before him he tried to hide, tried to pretend. But it hadn't worked. And to be honest Nate doesn't really know why he went out with Blair in the first place. He (bitterly) thinks that maybe he was angry that Serena didn't love him like he wanted her too and going out with Blair would make her jealous. Maybe he hoped that he might even fall in love with Blair and they could live happily ever after in a completely Serena-less world and he could be the person everyone expected him to be. But he should have remembered that when Blair is involved you can't even have a Serena-less world….not even a Serena-less day.

He doesn't like to think like that. Because that would mean that everything he and Blair ever shared ultimately came down to Serena and everything they ever had was based on lies and stupid fantasies and he knows that's not true because Blair means a lot to him and he knows he means a lot to Blair. Just not as much as Serena.

It was a strange love triangle based on lies and denial and no one ever really just said what they were feeling. Nate knows that if people were honest life would be a lot less complicated but he wasn't ready to accept the truth yet. No, He wasn't ready to admit to himself that he had lost the two people he could ever have truly loved at the tender age of five.

So Blair said yes to Nate, like everyone knew she would. But Nate never thought for a second, never deluded himself into thinking that Blair would even consider choosing him over Serena. And maybe he was a little angry that he didn't come first in anyone's life but he had the girl, right? Wrong. He had a girl and it wasn't the girl his heart truly wanted.

For a while things were okay. Not great, but okay. It was Blair and Nate and it seemed like it would stay that way. But Serena wasn't even pretend okay, not at all. She was slipping away and everyone saw it. She'd drink herself into oblivion and no one knew what to do. Everyone just let it slide, just brushed it off, it was just Serena being Serena.

But Nate could hear the pain and distress in Blair's voice when she called him, asking for his help to get Serena out of another party. He saw Blair's face when he arrived at some sleazy bar to find her sitting with Serena who was barely staying upright. It was times like that, which were becoming more and more often as time went on that he saw a Blair that scared him.

Blair was so in-control, so sure and certain. Nothing fazed Blair. Nothing except Serena.

Blair could deal with Serena like this. She could manage a half-Serena because Serena was still there. Serena was still Serena, still happy and bubbly and she still never slowed down. She could still smile and they could still watch Audrey and they were still together.

So when Serena ran away from it all, Blair was lost. Blair was so utterly and uncharacteristically defeated that it hurt to look her in the eyes.

Serena left, and she took Blair's heart with her.

Nate wasn't deaf.

He really wasn't.

He heard the crying. The heart-wrenching sobbing that accompanied the aftermath of Serena's departure. He remembers when he found her, broken Blair, the night after Serena left. He was feeling so confused and hurt and guilty and he wanted to tell Blair about what had happened, if only to make himself feel better. So he'd gone over to her house and Dorota had let him in with a forced smile.

He'd slowly walked up the stairs and then he'd heard it before he saw it. Crying, heart broken weeping like he'd never heard escape the perfectly shaped, always glossed lips of Blair Waldorf.

She was curled up in the corner of the bathroom as she always was after a relapse and her head was cradled in her hands and he rushed towards her but she didn't even look up as he asked her what was wrong. He picked up the flashing phone that had been thrown down and he saw the flashing text that had proved that Serena was truly gone.

He didn't need to ask what was wrong because everything was. Everything was wrong.

He'd sat next to Blair and tried to hold her but she'd scrambled away and so he just sat their, letting his own despair wash over him. The guilt and the shame and broken sobs of a broken heart ringing in his ears.

Nate was fairly certain that Blair had cried herself to sleep for weeks after the abrupt and unexpected exit of one of Upper East Side's beloved. But one day it just stopped. The tears stopped, the relapsing stopped. Blair just stopped. She put on a façade, a mask ( a headband) and she become Blair Waldorf, official Queen B. Serena was a mere bitter memory and it seemed that she didn't need Serena as much as everyone had thought.

But Nate knew. Nate knew that this was Blair's way of dealing. She became someone so cold and so far away that Nate felt himself drifting away too because he was too guilty and too caught up in his own feelings to try and do anything to get (Serena's) Blair back.

Things fell into a…routine of sorts. Sometimes it was as though Serena had never even been there in the first place, like she was erased completely from their lives. But he couldn't even pretend to completely forget Serena because he saw her every time he looked at Blair. Every time the smile didn't quite reach her eyes he knew the cause of it and even though he was stuck in his issues he couldn't hide from the fact that something was missing. A part of Blair was missing and no matter how she tried to pretend otherwise, without Serena, Blair wasn't really Blair at all.

When Serena came back it was like….someone turned on a light. Everything that had been slowly slipping into the darkness, all the feelings and all the thoughts were thrown into the light and there was no where to hide anymore. Everyone tried, Nate did, honestly but with Serena back the guilt became too much and he had to tell Blair. He just had to.

All the secrets came out. And again, Blair got so hurt. Blair, who had been through hell this last year, struggling to find herself, to put the pieces back together. Nate saw, through his shame, he saw the way Blair couldn't help how happy she was that Serena was finally back. Blair tried cover it up and turn the fluttering in her heart into a burn of jealousy or even hate but it didn't work because she was so confused about how she was supposed to be feeling.

The love and the hate clashing together, the hurt mixing with the relief and Blair was desperately looking for answers but all she got was betrayal and a heart that had been messily broken.

Blair was scared. Serena scared Blair because she made her feel things, thing she shouldn't, not couldn't feel. Because Blair wasn't really angry about Serena and Nate. She was angry at Serena for leaving her, for leaving without saying Goodbye. That's what it came down too because it was always Serena and Blair. No questions, no denying, no pretending or hiding.

So when Blair read that letter to Serena, trying to tell her things that she just couldn't say. When things were looking up and it seemed that all could be forgiven, as long as they had each other. Nate saw it again, flash right before his eyes.

Serena and Blair were going to be together forever. They were so different, such an unlikely pair that they just worked. They weren't okay by themselves. They needed each other and they could fight and they could bitch all they wanted but they weren't ever going to let each other go ever again.

Nate wasn't an idiot. He just saw what was already there. He was just waiting for everyone else to figure it all out.

A/N I don't really know if it makes sense but it's been running around in my head for ages.

Leave your thoughts at the virtual door. QM11