London Calling.
A Gossip Girl fiction piece
A/N: Just deciding to put some feelers out and see what kind of feedback I can get for this story. I'm recently back into writing and I can't wait to start posting more. It'll probably be once or twice a week depending on how quickly the creative juices flow. Let me know what you think, good or bad reviews welcome, but don't be too harsh. This is a bit of a prologue to the rest of the story. I like a bit of background information, it makes the whole story so much easier to follow for me and for other readers. Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE.
Dan trudged down the street, his dark curls bouncing in the air as he moved into the fierce winter chill of London. He wasn't concerned about himself though, as he glanced over at the slender brunette he had his hand intertwined with. She'd chosen to wear a poncho, of all things, to keep warm on this exceptionally cold day. Blair's' stocking clad legs grew colder with each step as they tried to fight the chill enough to reach their townhouse a few streets away in Wimbledon. He'd noticed her slowly becoming more and more relaxed as they continued to build their life in London, she'd started swapping her heels for flats, her ankle length booties for knee high boots to keep the chill out. Blair's hair remained straight for many days of the month now, and she only bothered to visit the hairdresser for special occasions. Dan had begun to see a change in her closet too, the slow mixing in of high street clothing hidden between the designer pieces.
Their life in London was simple. Every day Blair would get up, shower and dress, and go to see someone about wedding details. Dan would get up, not shower and hardly dress, then sit in front of the computer in a desperate effort to write another morsel of fictional genius to show the publishers. His last three chapters he had produced were just enough to keep them at bay for several months, but he was nearing his deadline for numbers four through to seven. His last book, 'No Regrets', was a follow up to 'Inside', about the many more mistakes he made on the Upper East Side while trying to declare his love for Blair before she married Louis. The book had been a success worldwide, the praise flooding in from every continent and every critic you could poke a stick at. His choice to finally man up and claim Blair for himself had not come without its troubles, many of his friends shunning him and Blair.
They had taken the plunge and left the Upper East Side for that reason, determined to find another place where they could be exactly who they wanted to be; Daniel Humphrey and Blair Waldorf. Their teasing and scathing attitude remained towards each other, which is what made the relationship work so well for them. She had become much tenderer towards him though. Blair's touch was gentle like his now, and her words no longer split him down the middle like a clean cut with a butcher's cleaver. Her body was becoming slowly softer and more round in areas, filling out gradually into the silhouette of a woman deeply in love. Her messy marriage and divorce to Louis was now over, they had parted with a pact to never see each other again or speak of their time together. Blair had realized her love for Dan only a short while into her marriage and although desperately trying to avoid it, she had given into temptation more than once. Sneaking around was almost impossible given her royal minder and Dorota, but she had managed to talk to him at least once a day to touch base and remind him of how she was counting down the days until her divorce for his benefit.
Blair had decided to take a job as the director and spokesperson for a brand new charity that was just beginning in the UK, the British branch of the Celia Rhodes Memorial Foundation for Cancer Treatment and Prevention. The name was long, but the organization had been receiving good press from Blair's involvement. The donations flooding in from A-list celebrities, high-end businesses and large estates was enough to fund new Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy rooms for at least 8 hospitals. Blair had more than enough money to keep herself living more than comfortably for the next four generations of Waldorf children, but she needed something to do with her day while living so far away from everything she once knew. That's not to say they hadn't run into adversity in London. Londoners were on par with Upper East Siders when it came to being Ice Queens and Snow Kings. Dan always laughed it off, nicknaming the phenomenon 'The Dollar Effect'. The more you have, the less willing you are to reveal to others. Blair and Dan had made a few, select friends in their area, thankfully.
Eleanor was only two and a half hours away from Blair, Paris and London were so easily connected by the Eurostar tunnel. Their other friends were mostly native Londoners, spanning over the city center. Blair did favour her NY expatriate friend base though, the ease of flow with conversation really made her so much less homesick. Dan never understood homesickness; he had his whole life with him. She slept in the same bed as him, ate breakfast with him, held hands with him as he walked down Piccadilly, made the same jokes as him, and every time he said he loved her, he knew he was loved too.