A/N Hi again. I can't get this idea out of my head. Have a vague idea of where it's going, but, I must say, the best impetus for taking something further is to post it. And to hopefully get some of your feedback!

Completely AU. Forgive me if I get geographical, historical and other details wrong, I have never set foot in NY, let alone the US (as much as I'd like too!) and there is only so much online research will tell me.

And of course the characters belong to Cecily and etc. Not me.

New York, Columbia University, 1928

Dan stood motionless on the cobblestones, feeling disoriented, an island in the midst of the bustle around him. He scanned the map he held in his hands once again. The building on the right was where he should be going, he was sure, but the mass of people between him and it seemed endless. A group of confident looking juniors jostled past him, so he stepped back heavily, attempting to avoid them.

"Ow! You oaf! Get off my foot."

He started forward and turned to the voice. The eyes that met his were as dark as his own, and scowling. Glowing red bow lips and sooty lashes against milk white skin. Dan blinked; he'd never seen anyone wear so much makeup during the day. He'd never seen someone so fiercely put together.

Her face took on an even more irritated expression and she snapped. "Are you an imbecile? Do you not speak?"

Dan held up his hands in apology. "Sorry! I didn't know you were there."

She jabbed him in the chest with one manicured finger. "Well, look where you're going! You've probably broken my toe, not to say ruined my shoe. These are Perugia!"

He looked down at her petite pair of camel suede and chocolate velvet buckled heels. Sure enough, there was a dusty heel print, just the size of his own, marked on the exquisite toe of her shoe.

Dan smiled, trying to beguile her. "Look, I really am sorry. I'm sure they'll clean up."

Her eyebrows snapped together, scornfully. "What would you know?"

"I could buy you a new pair if they don't…"

The girl's face changed from disgust to disbelief and back again. "Have you any idea how moronic you sound? I told you, these are Perugia. And they were handmade for me!" She looked him slowly up and down, taking in his tired travelling attire and worn bags. "I doubt you could even afford the buckles, even if we were in Paris."

Dan's already short patience wore thin. He thrust his hands into his pockets, giving into his annoyance. "Well, what the hell were you doing wearing them here, today, if they're so irreplaceable? You know, the considerable likelihood of crowds and dust and the other inconveniences of life."

Her glowering brows flew up under the brim of her close hat and her jaw dropped. "Oh! If I'd known it was going to be filled with lumbering philistines, like you, I wouldn't have come here at all! Get out of my way!"

Dan stepped aside before she could walk through him and he stood and watched in astonishment, as her small person pushed her way determinedly through the crowd, until she was lost to sight. He shook his head in incredulity. What a girl like that would be doing on campus, he could only wonder. Probably seeing off a brother or a boyfriend. He hoisted his bags onto his shoulders and began to pick his way through the crowd toward Hartley Hall.

He eventually found his small room. The scholarship funds that would support him during his studies wouldn't stretch to one of the larger rooms, but at least he didn't have to share. His minimal collection of clothing looked lonely in the closet and it took him no time at all to unpack his smalls. The desk he took more care with, laying out his fountain pens and stationary and lining his favourite books up on the one shelf. It was mournfully inadequate. He left the remaining books in his small trunk, pushing it under the narrow bed.

Dan sat down on the one chair, listening to the shouting voices drifting up from the south field, thinking briefly about heading down to join the throng. Or going to wash off the grime of his travels, or at least writing to his father as he had promised, to let him know he'd safely arrived. Instead, he pulled out his notebook and picked up a pen, meditatively testing the nib on the clean page, and began to jot down his impressions of his first day at Columbia University.

xoxoxoxoxox

Blair nearly turned around and walked out of her room in Hewitt hall in disbelief. This was where she was meant to spend the next 9 months? It wasn't even the size of her closet at home, and she had to share it. She cursed her mother under her breath for refusing to allow her to set up in an apartment on the Upper East Side, with Dorota, her childhood nurse, playing chaperone. She could hear Eleanor's sharp tones still.

"No respectable young lady can afford to look fast, darling…"

"But Mother, you still have the apartment there. It's empty. Dorota can look after me perfectly."

"Blair, I have no faith in Dorota's ability to chaperone you properly. It's Hewitt Hall or nothing. The housemistress there tells me their girls are kept to a strict curfew. Which is exactly what you need after the merry chase you're been leading me on."

Blair had been raised in New York, but when her mother's fashion label expanded, she had moved with her parents to France. For the summers anyway, the rest of her time had been spent in select finishing schools in Switzerland, in the middle of nowhere. On her final graduation from Institut Villa Mont Choisi, she had joined her mother in Paris. It had only taken Blair a few indiscretions in Montmartre to get Eleanor to agree to send her back home to attend college. Barnard wasn't the most glamorous, but at least it was in Blair's beloved New York.

She was fed up to her back teeth with needlework, deportment, elocution and conversation classes (she could have taught the mistress a thing or two in that department). The language and literature lessons had been the only things she had enjoyed, but…oh…to get away from the dry old classics and to be able to sink into some modern works. To be able to discuss them, rather than just read them furtively. She had had to hide the Lawrence's and Fitzgerald's she had acquired, from the finishing school's housemistress, on threat of confiscation. To be able to attend the theatre; go to the movies; talk about modern art; openly talk about anything at all… Blair felt her spirits begin to rise again, she was here, away from her mother and private schools and she could do anything she wanted, curfew or not.

Her trunks had arrived, taking up nearly the whole floor space of the room. Blair took a seat on one of them and raised her foot, disconsolately inspecting the damage wreaked on her hapless shoe. The curly haired lackwit had ruined the pale leather. No Dorota to fix it, or even to unpack her trunks, although she suspected that not even the contents of one of them would fit in the pitiful closet space allocated to her.

She wondered what kind of to-do her roommate would raise about the amount of space her luggage took up, when she finally arrived. One Miss S. Van Der Woodsen of New York City. Blair couldn't imagine why anyone would come and stay in this miniature hell if she had somewhere else to stay in Manhattan. A complete dowdy, no doubt, just like all the other residents she had seen, with ugly hats, bad teeth and sagging stockings.

A ripple of laughter interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see an ethereal blonde at the door, golden hair forming a halo around her head in the light. Blair recognised the dress the girl wore she wore as current season Lanvin (she had wanted the garment herself and bemoaned the fact that it didn't suit her colouring) and her cream leather shoes rivalled her own. And she was pretty, too pretty… Blair felt a pang of insecurity.

The girl's deep blue eyes took the sea of trunks, bags and hatboxes, blinking in amusement. "It appears we have a small problem."

Blair's lips twitched. "Small is the word. The facilities here are infinitesimal. Miss S. Van Der Woodsen, I presume?"

"Serena, but call me S if you wish. Serena is a mouthful. You must be Miss B. Waldorf."

"The B is for Blair."

Before Serena could open her mouth to reply, a porter appeared behind her. "Where do you want this lot, Miss? The rest is on its way up."

"There is a small space there, my good sir." She handed him a generous tip. "Leave the rest outside the door."

He smiled admiringly at the blonde and did as he was bid. Serena fluttered her lashes at him. "You couldn't tell me if there was a trunk room we could get dibs on, dear man? You see we're in a bit of a bind."

The man looked around at the array of luggage scattered around the room. "There is, but, Miss, there's a limit on storage, you ladies are going to have to send some things home."

Blair stood up, removing her hat, a white hand smoothing her sleek dark crop and the man's eyes widened. She smiled slowly at him. "I couldn't possibly send this all back to Paris. Surely, there must be something you can do to help us?"

He stuttered incoherently. Serena winked at Blair and moved closer to the flustered porter, her fingers playing with the long beads around her neck. "We really need your help. We can make it worth your while."

He shook his head determinedly, his face flushing. "Miss, I can't."

Serena stepped over a hatbox to the trunk he had placed on the floor. She unlocked it, retrieving a flat pint bottle filled with viscous amber fluid. "Here, I bet you haven't seen this for a while. The finest Irish whisky and I can make sure you get one of these a fortnight, if you'll help us…unless you'd prefer cash?"

The bottle finally distracted the man from gazing at the two girls. "Oh, but I couldn't, Miss."

Serena tilted her head. "Well, then, what about one a week?"

He looked suspiciously at her. "But, Miss, you can't...the prohibition… it's illegal."

Blair's demeanour changed instantly from purring kitten to spitting cat. "Yes, so it is. And if you say anything about this to anyone, I'll tell the Housemistress that you were impertinent. Do you know who I am?"

He shook his head again. "N...no."

She narrowed her eyes at him, warningly. "Well, I can make sure you're fired if you dare even breathe a word of it."

"But, Miss, I'll be fired if anyone finds out I've given you extra space." The man's face cringed in fear.

She rolled her eyes at him, mockingly. "Well then, it's simple, make sure no one finds out."

He nodded his head, worry clear on his face. "There's some a room on the 3rd floor, you can store some trunks there, but you can only go there when I tell you it's clear."

Blair glared at him. "I'm sure you can do better."

"I'm sorry, Miss, I'll see what else I can find, but at this notice, it's the only thing I can think of." He shot several glances at the bottle still held in the other girl's hands.

Serena smiled sweetly at him and pushed the bottle toward him. "Here, take it. What's your name?"

"Vanya, Miss."

"Vanya, you look after us and we'll look after you." She winked conspiratorially at him. "Put the rest of my trunks up in your storeroom while we sort this lot out and then come back in an hour or so and you can move the rest."

He shuffled toward the door after concealing the bottle in his waistcoat. Serena shut the door firmly behind him. "Well, that certainly is less than ideal, but it will do, until we work out something else. Your suit, it's Chanel, no? I can't wait to see what else you have in your trunks! It's a pity I'm so much taller than you, otherwise we could have swapped."

Blair blinked rapidly at the thought of letting anyone share her Chanel. "Yes…a pity… And your Lanvin…divine."

Serena took a seat on one of the beds. "I know, beautiful isn't it, Mother took me to Paris for the summer." She raised her skirt a little to reveal a garter holding a hipflask. "I think we both deserve a little house warming drink, although keeping Vanya supplied is going to dent into my personal stash. I'll have to tell my step-brother Charles, to increase my supply." She found a tooth glass on the desk and began to fill it.

"No, don't use that filthy thing. I have something much better." Blair opened a trunk, flinging a few dresses onto the bed, before she located what she wanted. "Here." She passed Serena two heavy crystal tumblers after unwrapping then from the linen in which she had stored them.

"My, B, you have such foresight. I didn't even think to bring my own linen. The stuff here is guaranteed to be ghastly."

Blair hesitated. Her monogrammed, satin weave, Egyptian cotton sheets were essential to her ease. "I have a spare set, you can use them if you wish."

"You are too marvellous!" She grinned with infectious glee and Blair felt a return smile spread across her own face. Serena passed her a glass and they toasted each other, the liquor scalding a path down Blair's throat. She wrinkled her nose as she caught her breath. "We'll need a soda canister."

Serena laughed. "Well, that I did bring. It appears we are perfectly balanced." She stood up. "Here, come to the mirror, I want to look at us."

Blair obliged and stood up, walking over to the mirror and standing beside the taller girl. Their faces peered back at them, all contrast. Sleek dark crop against sun streaked honey blonde radiance. Velvet dark pansy eyes countered cornflower blue. Ivory translucence against golden sun kissed limbs.

"Oh, it's better than I hoped!"

Blair couldn't help but smile again at Serena's excited words. She looked ruefully at her pale skin compared to the other girl's complexion. "I wish I could tan like you, I just go red and peel."

Serena widened her eyes. "Oh no, B, your skin is perfect. We are perfect. Look at us! And we are going to have so much fun!"

xoxoxoxoxox

Dan still found the layout in Hartley Hall confusing. Large and small rooms seemed to be arranged with little discrimination. Dan's tiny room was squeezed in next to a large double, which by all appearance housed a single occupant. Interesting smells came consistently from under the door but it wasn't until several weeks of classes had passed that he met his elusive neighbour.

Dan had discarded his jacket and waistcoat and was sitting in his shirtsleeves at his desk, engrossed in his reading, when a brief knock at the door heralded the arrival of an artfully dishevelled Adonis, wearing a cream linen suit.

"Hello? Anyone home?"

Dan stood up slowly from his desk, looking appraisingly at the intruder. "Uh…hi there."

"Good, you're here." The golden haired young man smiled winningly at him. "I'm your neighbour, Nate Archibald."

"I'm Daniel Humphrey...Dan."

"You know you'd really be helping me out if you'd lend me a pen."

"Uh…I guess I can...why not?" Dan looked down at his fountain pens, trying to decide which was the one he could do with the least. They were each like an old friend, adjusted to his penmanship. He passed his newest, least comfortable one over.

"Gee, thanks, I have a paper due tomorrow." Nate's grin grew wider. "You wouldn't happen to have any paper, too?"

Dan felt stunned for a moment and then burst out laughing. "I think I do. Can I help you with anything else?"

Nate paused for a moment. "Are you taking Professor Hinckley's journalism class?"

Dan cocked his head. "Yeah…I am. Are you? I haven't seen you there."

"I've found it hard to get to some of the classes…" Nate's amiable smile spread across his features once more. "I couldn't have a loan of your class notes, could I?"

A mirrored smile grew on Dan's face; the charm of the man was undeniable. "You can borrow them all, but I draw the line at lending you the actual paper I just finished myself."

Nate chuckled. "I guess that would be asking to much." He took the proffered notes from Dan's hand. "I really appreciate this…Dan…I'll bring it all back to you when I'm finished and then you must come have a drink with me." He held out his hand in a friendly gesture.

Dan shook it in his own and nodded back at him. "Ok…thanks…I will."

"Well, I gotta go and get on with this." Nate saluted, closing the door on his way out.

Dan scratched his head at the insouciance of his visitor and then sat back at his desk to find his place in the book he had been previously absorbed. He had just re-established the rhythm of his reading when another knock disturbed him.

"Hey, Dan, you write like my great aunt, I can only understand one word in every five. With her letters, it's a blessing…but…you couldn't translate some of this for me?"

Dan sighed and placed his book down. "Give me that." He looked down at his own erratic writing.

Nate peered over his shoulder. "What are all those squiggles?"

"That's shorthand."

"Oh, neat. I always wondered what that was."

Dan shook his head and abandoned all thoughts of finishing his reading that evening. "Look, Nate, as I said, I've finished my paper. Do you want me to give you a hand?"

"That would be swell, Dan, you really don't mind?"

Dan smiled at him. "No, I don't mind, not at all. But I'll hold you to that drink after. It's been week's since I had one."

"God man, why didn't you say so before? Come and have one now!"

Dan's amusement grew. "Let's get this paper started first."

"Good idea!"

xoxoxoxoxox

The change in the girl's room was extraordinary. The ugly floor was been covered in a hand knotted silk Persian carpet, and plush embroidered cushions and velvet throw rugs massed on every available surface. They had bribed Vanya to place unauthorised picture hooks on the walls, to hang photographs and etchings, a collection of original Erté designs taking pride of place above Blair's bed and a large, gilt framed, art nouveau mirror above Serena's. The girls removed the original indeterminate coloured curtains and instead draped a collection of piano shawls over the railing, in every conceivable colour. The silken fringing swayed in the breeze from the open sash windows. The only clear surface in the room was Blair's desk, holding a collection of fountain pens and her etched calfskin writing set. She had taken over both bookshelves, stacking them with an eclectic collection of leather bound novels and course books. Serena's desk had been converted into a dressing table come bar, littered with makeup brushes, bottles and pots, covered in a drift of nose powder. The only thing that they hadn't improved was the closet space. The girls had taken to rotating their wardrobes on a weekly basis, exchanging illicit bottles of spirits with Vanya, for armloads of silk and cashmere garments.

Blair was curled on the window seat, Lady Chatterley's Lover held loosely in her hands, completely absorbed. She had been dying to read the scandalous novel, and had had a friend in Italy procure her a first edition, sneaking the banned book into the country with an innocuous, false dust cover.

Serena lounged on the chair at her desk, her silken robe slipping over one golden shoulder as she reflectively held up her collection of earrings, one at time. "B, stop being boring and talk to me. It's nearly cocktail hour and I promised Chuck we'd meet him in Harlem tonight. We have to get our glad rags on; he's dying to meet you. What are you going to wear?"

Blair reluctantly looked up from her page. She bit her lip, closing the book, using her finger to hold her place. "I don't know. I've been waiting for this book to arrive for a month, do I have to go?"

"Yes, B, the book isn't going anywhere. People are going to start thinking you're a bluestocking, studying all the time. Come on, you'll adore Chuck, and the band playing tonight is superb. You must wear your red velvet and the two-tone Ferragamo's with the garnet heels. I'll lend you my rubies. I'm wearing my white silk and your Egyptian drop earrings. Look. They are divine on me."

Blair rolled her eyes at the blonde girl. She was right though, the gold and enamel antique drop earrings showed off the swanlike quality of her long neck, below her glowing nimbus of hair. "All right, I have class in the morning though, so I don't want to be home too late. And look after my earrings, they belonged to a long dead Egyptian princess and my father will murder me if they're lost. He had them smuggled from a dig for me."

"You worry to much about class. Don't you know it's bad taste to have a higher than a C average?"

"For you maybe. I've never got anything less than a B+ in my life."

"Well your A average won't be threatened by a bit of dancing." She stood up and stretched luxuriously. " So, what will it be? Martinis or Manhattans, darling?"