A/N: This follows the plotlines of the show but is also vaguely AU. It'll all make sense in good time.
all of the questions we call home
new york, new york, 2020.
The first time she sees him he is literally a ray of sunshine on the cloudiest of days.
The sky is dark with clouds and the rumbling threat of torrential rain, her heels are giving her blisters and digging into the moistened ground, and despite the fact that she's standing amidst everybody who's anybody in New York society, she feels utterly alone.
But then, he's right there, standing a few feet away from her, looking so much like a memory that for a few minutes she wonders if she made him up.
She squints. His mouth quirks up into something that might've been a smile, under any other circumstances, and it makes her breath catch in the back of her throat.
People start to drift away, moving around her, pausing to shake her hand and say her name and offer words that she never really hears. They have no reason to stay. They're here on social obligation, here because of the implications of her last name. They don't care enough to brave this weather for another moment longer.
Another hand grasps hers, another take care, darling echoes in her ears.
Then she's alone, they're alone, just him and her in the broad, gray landscape of today's heavy tragedy.
He walks toward her, as though he understands that she can't really move. He stops about a foot away from her, says, "Hey," very gently.
She lifts a hand, just to touch him, to make sure he's real, but the movement stops halfway there, her fingers clutching at nothing but air. "How are you here?" she whispers.
"My, uh…my mom told me."
"Your mom told you." She repeats the words slowly.
He nods, and reaches out to her, but his hand stops before he can touch her, falling back to his side. "I'm so sorry."
She blows out her breath, a puff of smoke in the chilly air, and she closes her eyes while she swallows down the taste of grief. "Sorry," she manages to say, "about what?"
"Serena," he whispers apologetically, but she holds up both hands in front of her, her fingers splayed and stiff. She doesn't want his apologies, doesn't want his pity, doesn't want him here at all, especially if he only came at his mother's bidding, acting on her orders.
She drops her hands, wilting a bit, her shoulders curving in and her hair falling around her face. "Fuck you," she whispers.
"Serena." His tone is different, this time, when he says her name, and that's what makes her realize that she's crying – again. Her tears are cold against her own cheeks.
He reaches out again, and this time he makes it all the way. He hugs her – or really, he lets her fall into him – and she doesn't stop it from happening. She leans into him, grips the fabric of his jacket in one fist, and ohgodohgod, he smells exactly like he did when they were kids, a lifetime ago.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, saying the words into her hair, as soft as a secret. "You can hate me," he continues, as if it could ever be that easy.
She does. And she also doesn't.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, even softer now. His arms wrap around her more tightly, a tentative gesture that she would put a stop to if she had any resolve left at all.
"Me too," she breathes.
"Serena?" Blair's voice is too high a pitch, too sharp a sound, for both the setting and the moment, and it tears them away from each other. Serena glances into his eyes, a little stunned, before she turns toward the sound of her best friend's voice.
Blair stops in her tracks. Her dark hair is gathered away from her face in a neat bun, and she's wearing black from head to toe. On her hip, legs locked around Blair's waist, is a little girl, around the age where she's getting to old to be carried but not to be denied on a day like today.
"Nate," she says. It sounds like a question mark, neatly punctuated but demanding a response.
"Blair," he replies evenly, and Serena sees the way surprise flickers through his eyes. "I didn't know…" He trails off and clears his throat.
She purses her lips, looking at Serena for a long moment. "Well. You've grown up."
His eyes land pointedly on the child she's carrying. "So have you."
Blair glances back at Serena, another measured look. "We all have."
The little girl lifts her head from where it was resting on Blair's shoulder and Serena examines her face, the pink tint to her cheeks and the permanently messy state of her honeysuckle-coloured hair that stays in thick curls no matter what is done to tame it, the glassy sheen over her eyes.
She considers Nate with critical eyes. "D'you know my dad?" she asks.
Serena's breath catches in her throat and doesn't come free for a moment. She feels the way Blair watches her while she watches Nate; he studies Blair and the child she's holding carefully, as if trying to place the little girl's parentage.
He's quiet for too long so Blair fills the emptiness with soothing words. "No, honey," she says, bouncing the little girl on her hip a bit. "He didn't."
She wilts a little, the little girl, leaning in head back against Blair's shoulder tiredly. "Oh," she murmurs, small fingers playing with Blair's hair.
Serena steps forward a bit. "You can't carry her around all day, B. She's getting too big."
"It's fine," Blair replies smoothly, leaning her cheek against the child's hair. "We're fine, aren't we?"
The little girl nods.
"You two can talk," Blair offers, smiling faintly, a smile formed out of etiquette rather than mirth of any kind. "We'll be at the wake, you'll find us."
Serena returns her smile with a grateful one of her own, stepping even closer to kiss Blair's cheek. "Thank you," she breathes as Blair returns the gesture.
Blair turns to leave, murmuring, "I should tell you a story, shouldn't I?" to the girl in her hold, and Serena watches them go, feels a pang of something deep in her chest, before she looks back at Nate.
"You and Blair," he says quietly. "You two are…"
"Friends," Serena cuts in, crossing her arms over her chest. "Always have been; you know that."
"But…still." He pauses. "I didn't think anything – any of us, the way we were – would survive…that." The way he says it is weak, tiptoeing around the subject, giving the realm of before a very wide berth.
"Well, Blair and I did." There's not as much bite behind her words as she'd like there to be. "Not that you'd know, since you weren't here."
His expression darkens, the light in his eyes dampening a bit. "You're not one to talk about running away, S."
She lifts her chin. "Don't you dare." A shake of her head, and she adds, "You did not come here, today, to rehash the past with me. You wouldn't do that."
Nate nods slowly, and the weight of his gaze eases up a bit. He reaches out to tug at a lock of her hair, like they're five years old again, surprising her. "S and B," he says fondly. "Best friends forever. I should have known."
She bites her lip, whispers, "Why are you here?"
"Worried about you."
"You've had years to worry about me, Nate. You had my wedding day to worry about me."
He scoffs, older and darker than she's ever known him. "You can't have expected me to come."
"Oh?" Her heart feels like it's cracking. "You'll commemorate the end, but not the beginning?"
Chagrined, he sighs. "Serena."
"What? Am I wrong?"
He lifts his eyebrows and meets her dare head-on. "Yes."
"You're my friend." She swallows. "I wanted you to be there."
He looks at her for a long time – too long, and it makes her wonder when he changed from a boy who raced to catch up with her to a man who stretched out her silences. "We can't," he finally says, as if this is some great piece of philosophy, "always get what we want."
She laughs. She laughs and the sound startles them both, ripped from her throat unexpectedly, unbidden. She ducks her head and looks at him from behind the veil of her hair. "I wanted you – " she begins again, but then her giggles morph abruptly into sobs, too quick for her mouth to shut in order to keep them from escaping.
Nate touches her cheek, wiping away a single tear, the rough pad at his fingertip lingering over her skin a little too long.
"You have me now," he bargains.
Too little, too late – but somehow enough.
tbc.