Okay, in my little world, Rufus and Lily never got together. I hate that couple more than almost anything else. Chuck went to Tuscany with Blair. This is set in the summer between season 1 and 2 and completely rewrites season 2. I'm still deciding whether it'll be a one-shot or longer – so review and tell me what you think!
Dark oak pews, polished to perfection and ornamented only with a tiny puffy cushion and a prayer book. White lilies, cloying in their scent, leaving a dusting of white dust on the shoulder of every passer-by who happened to brush their smooth form. Stone floors, cold and ringing loud with heels and toes.
The funeral was very tasteful, very simple, very traditional, but not small. Small was not a word that could be used to describe anything Lily van der Woodsen had ever done. Why be a hypocrite in death?
There were easily four hundred people there, and Serena had only ever seen about a hundred of them, she suspected she only knew about fifty. But he received them all. The line was impossibly long and her arm was cramping, she had stopped taking it back in after shaking someone's hand but merely kept it extended waiting for the next web of nerves and veins and flesh and blood to brush against it.
Her eyes felt deep in her head, she felt as if she hadn't slept in a year, occasionally CeCe would brush her hand across her back, waking her up a little. To her left, Jonathon held Eric's hand tightly as he received those hands that had just passed by Serena.
She had expected to feel some sort of great pain that pierced and tormented her, but as of yet she had no idea what she felt and that scared her more than the idea that she had no mother. A dull throbbing seemed to exit where her heart had once been and for days now she had been holed up in her room, sleeping or just lying and staring into space. It had taken all of CeCe's iron will to get her out of bed and into a shower.
She felt lethargic and bloated. People liked to pretend like they lost weight when they were sad or stressed, Serena only gained. She was full up on everything room service at the Palace could provide. She wanted some real food to push away the great weight of air and liquid that pushed her stomach outwards.
It was too hot. She longed to take off her heels and press her bare foot soles against the cool stone floor.
Nate's hand met hers, he looked embarrassed, his eyes were downcast and his hand was sweaty. Serena looked down and realised with a jolt that he was wearing the same shoes as he had at the Shepherd wedding and the bile rose in her throat, thin and bitter.
She gulped it down and Blair was upon her, hugging her and holding her head and attracting all manner of frowns and tuts from society women in black cashmere cardigan sets and demure strings of pearls. Serena didn't hear any of it.
Chuck touched her shoulder as he took her hand and in stead of shaking it held it in his own as he asked her if she needed anything. He really ought to have been with his father in the receiving line, but he had only just got back from Tuscany and he said he didn't want to intrude. Which Serena thought was really decent of him. She shook her head, still looking down and he sighed and moved on to Eric.
When Dan came along he didn't expect it at all, she hadn't seen him coming. She vaguely noted that he was alone and when he shook her and the tears came and she didn't quite know why. With CeCe's nod of approval, he put his arm around her shoulder and took her into an empty side room.
A soon as he had closed the door behind him she sat down on the cold floor awkwardly and suddenly, crying in earnest now with great, think sobs that racked her body. She took her shoes off and threw them across the room like a toddler having a tantrum. She kept coughing with the strength of her crying. He sat down across from her – it was a very narrow room, more like a corridor than anything else – took his jacket off and pulled her body into his shoulder. Her mouth was open like a great crag of grief now and his white shirt was dirtied with mascara and mucus and saliva and tears and sweat.
"It's okay to cry"
This made her cry harder, he instinctively understood that she would try to stop, she rocked a little and he put his forehead against hers to steady her. She couldn't stop. She felt like she was in oblivion. Her chest was so swollen with emotions that she could not define or name but that beat at her dully she couldn't speak, she collapsed her head on to his shoulder and turned to place a peck on the soft spot where his neck and shoulder met. She heard a sniff and was sure that he was crying too. He held her more tightly and grasped at him, her fingers scrabbling across his back for a tighter hold.
She wasn't sure how long they sat like that, eventually when her crying had subsided and she merely lay against him, exhausted, he pulled her up and took her over to a sink - she now registered that the room was an oddly shaped bathroom – to clean her face. There were no towels, no handkerchiefs, so he bathed her face with his hands, softly and gently, lapping the cool water over her feverish face as she stood still with her eyes averted.
She remembered a white paper tissue CeCe had given her when she thought she was crying under her sunglasses. She hadn't been but he retrieved it now, and he used it now to pat her face dry.
He held her hand throughout the entire thing. His hand was warm and dry and reassuring and his pinky rubbed the delicate skin across the back of her hand when he sensed she was finding it difficult.
He put her to bed, she looked at him and asked him to stay with her eyes, he climbed in next to her and took his tie off as she turned in bed to push into the curl of his body, he tucked her head under his chin and stroked her hair and hummed tunelessly as she fell asleep.
It was in that strange half-dream world between wakefulness and sleep that she realised she hadn't said a word to him all day.