A/N: A lot of people requested a season one DB fic so this is what I came up with. It's sort of a season one redo and very loose canon with some AU scenes worked in. Anyway, enjoy!

As he's climbing into the town car, he glances over his shoulder and finds her glaring back at him. He considers this a victory, seeing her with her arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

He thinks he might see the slightest of smirks on her lips. It makes his stomach twist.

Dan gets in the car and doesn't think about it again.

Until that fucking brunch, and he could tell she was up to something as soon as he saw the smile on her face, because Blair Waldorf does not smile when she sees Dan Humphrey.

When Serena and Nate catch up to her, Dan feels like he's trapped in some weird twisted love triangle, except he's not a point on the triangle. He's just watching from the middle.

Chuck rasps something about his sister and Dan shoves him backward. When he turns to leave, it doesn't escape him that Blair is standing with a devious smirk on her face.

He watches Serena on that stage, talking about everything the Ostroff center has done for her, and Dan doesn't think he knows her at all. Except that when Jenny tells him it's her brother who's a patient there, not Serena, he thinks that maybe he was right after all.

So when he sees Blair walking back inside, he follows her, grabbing her wrist as she strolls down the hallway.

"Why did you do that? Why are you so determined to humiliate her?"

Blair rolls her eyes, ripping her wrist from his grasp, "She humiliated me! She slept with my boyfriend and then abandoned me. Whatever you think you know about her, you're wrong. She's not the person you think she is."

Dan searches Blair's eyes and he wants to feel a bit sorry for her, but he knows she would hate him if he did. Not that she doesn't hate him already.

"That may be true," Dan starts, sighing softly, "but you might not know her as well as you think you do either."

He doesn't stick around when he sees Eric van der Woodsen standing behind her.

"Normally I wouldn't be this close to you without a tetanus shot."

It should sting, but the crack in her voice gives her away. He returns the favor by cracking a smile and sitting down next to her.

He tells her about his mom abandoning his family, and they find that it might actually be something they have in common.

Blair watches the earnest look in his eyes, the lack of judgement. She decidedly does not hate Dan Humphrey. She may not like him, but no, she certainly doesn't hate him.

As months pass, Dan realizes how wrong Blair was about Serena, but also how wrong he was about Blair.

He was initially put off by her constant jabs at his wardrobe and personality, but overtime realizes it's her own special way of showing affection. He supposes it makes sense, due to her strained relationship with her mother and father.

She likes to mess with him, likes when he furrows his brow or narrows his eyes because he doesn't know the answer to one of her questions.

He seems to provide some sort of entertainment to her and he doesn't mind. He likes to see her entertained.

He's at a party with Serena when a hand yanks him into a dark hallway, lingering close to his body.

Blair.

She had just broken up with Nate to give him time to figure things out with his family. Dan doesn't move, just rests a hand against the wall above her while his gaze flickers over her lips.

She's more beautiful than he'd care to admit, especially when his girlfriend is nearly feet away most likely looking for him.

"Touch me," she whispers, and there's an innocence in her eyes.

How long have they ignored her? he wonders to himself, meeting her doe eyes cautiously. Her family, Nate, even Serena- they left her to fend for herself and now she's standing here, searching for affirmation. More or less asking Dan to confirm that he does, in fact, care about her. It terrifies him.

He says, "No," and his voice shakes.

"Don't you want to?"

He notices that she makes no moves closer to him, nothing assertive like Serena usually attempts. Blair just wants a "yes" or a "no."

"Yes," he says.

She forces a smirk, satisfied, and walks away from him.

He doesn't like the way he flinches when he finds out she slept with Chuck. It bothers him, that he cares, and that someone with such little self-affirmation would choose to sleep with someone who has too much.

When she enters the loft on Thanksgiving, she looks so much like the child he saw sitting at the end of the hallway; sad and unsure, but unwilling to let her resilience falter.

He really never thought Blair Waldorf would see his bedroom.

One day they're sitting in her living room while Serena takes a shower, sweaty from her run.

It's quiet, aside from the sound of water pouring from a shower head.

"Do you like me?" Blair asks, glancing up from her book. Her legs are tucked under her skirt, curled into the corner of the couch.

"Sure," he shrugs, not sure what answer she's looking for. "I guess."

Blair sets her book down and sits up straighter, waiting for him to focus his attention on her.

"Why?" She asks.

"I don't know," Dan sets his own book down now, looking up at her. "You're smart, and sort of funny in a really cruel way and sometimes you do this thing where you-"

He pauses, half gauging her reaction and half realizing the words that are coming out of his own mouth.

"Blair, what is this about?"

She shrugs, picking up her book again and finding her spot.

"I just wanted to see what you would say."

The first time he kisses her it's her seventeenth birthday. Serena and Vanessa are so busy dueling it out for his attention that they don't even notice his attention has been on Blair all night. Nate doesn't show up and Dan has the sneaking feeling that he's not going to, meanwhile Chuck is doing anything to get his hands up her dress again.

He finds her in a bedroom, presumably hers. She sits on the edge of the bed with her face buried in her hands and Dan finds himself pulling her fingers down slowly to reveal red stained eyes and black tears trailing down her face.

He's never found her more beautiful.

"Do you like me?" she asks, and sniffles quietly against his hand.

Dan meets her eyes and nods, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to her lips. He likes the way her lashes flutter shut. He can feel tears continue to roll down his cheek and he takes a deep breath in, pulling away from her.

Blair wipes her eyes, mascara streaking her cheeks. "Why did you do that?" She asks.

"I just wanted to," he says quietly, a heavy silence settling over them.

It was a harmless kiss. That's all it was.

But then they're sneaking around and he's pulling her into storage closets or finding her in empty classrooms and he can't keep his hands off of her because he does like her, he likes her more than he would like to admit.

Serena's telling him that they are forever, but he can't think about forever. All he can think about is right now and Blair's lips wrapped around his-

He watches her when she gets out of the car at the Bass/Van der Woodsen wedding and laughs to himself when she rams her knee into Chuck's groin. It's weird, the pride he feels seeing her all confident and powerful again, acting the way he used to fear her.

She looks beautiful, really, and she meets his eyes with the slightest of smirks on her lips. It makes his stomach twist and he can't stop thinking about it for the rest of the night.

He thinks that maybe he'll ask her to dance.

Harmless.