Disclaimer: The characters are not mine.

Notes: Set about a year after the beggining of the previous chapter. And about three or four months after the ending. I don't know where this came from, again.


I don't quite know how to say how I feel.

(I think about all the times I thought I said too much,

Now I realize that I never said anything at all).

i.

He sees her again, all of the sudden. It's by chance, because somehow the years had made New York far bigger than it used to be. The years diluted the coincidences, deleted the meetings by chance, somehow prevented the day they would meet again.

He sees her again, all of the sudden, and he thinks that it shouldn't be possible that his memories of her face are pale in comparison of her beauty. She looks older, ragged, sad and lonely, but beautiful all the same.

"Blair Bass," he says with a hint of bitterness, "it's been such a long time."

He swears he sees her froze on the spot, but pushes the thought away because that woman right there is Blair Bass, and Blair Bass doesn't fear Dan Humphrey.

"Dan…" she breathes.

He sees her again, all of the sudden, but the way she looks at him is completely new.

It's like… It's like she missed him, maybe.

"Are you…?" (fine, still married, as lonely as I am, still as in love with you as I am), "Are you busy? Maybe we could get some coffee and…" he sighs, "talk. We could talk."

Oh, really smooth.

His lack of conversational skills doesn't matter, because she agrees.

ii.

She has this sudden impulse to lie.

("I'm not married anymore," she would say, and Dan would drop their coffees out of the table and just kiss her because he can't stand it anymore and he just has to touch her.)

"So, how's life?" he asks.

She has this sudden impulse to lie. But she doesn't.

"Fine, I guess," she answers, "A great penthouse, a lovely son, a… marriage."

(She wonders if he noticed the way her voice changed at the thought of her poor excuse of a marriage with Chuck Bass.)

"Oh," he exhales, and it's all over his face. Of course he noticed, this is Dan and he always knows.

"And you?"

Beat.

"I… write. And sleep," he shrugs, "I'm just used to spend my time alone, with Jenny being always so busy and dad on tour."

"What about Eric?" she asks, just wanting to her his voice and see his lips curve in every syllable (seriously, when was the last time that happened?).

"Didn't Serena tell you? He moved to London six months ago."

She looks at him straight in the eye and says, "I don't talk to Serena anymore."

Beat.

"Yeah, that makes two of us."

iii.

It happens again. Coffee, movies, long conversations about everything and nothing at all. Falling in love with another world, creating a world together...

(And the eternal shadow of Chuck Bass lingering around them).

"You must see that this can't last," she says.

He's tempted to quote The Age of Innocence ("What can't?"), but decides against it.

"If that's what you think."

She sighs, looking at him with a defeated look in her eyes.

"I wish it could, though."

"You and I, we both know that it could," he tells her, his face obscuring with a darkness that reminds her of the first time she saw him after she left him, "But you're always scared."

And he walks away.

(Our being together — and not together.)

iv.

Is she sleeping by his side? Is he touching her the way he used to?

No, he isn't. Because Chuck doesn't love her the way he did (the way he does). So he couldn't possibly be holding her the same way.

Or at least that's what he wants to believe. He doesn't want to think about brown messy hair tangled around his neck and he doesn't want to think about those lips kissing another chin.

And he just wishes she was brave enough to try again. But she isn't. And the truth is that he is scared as hell too.

Across the bridge, looking out of the window Blair Waldorf cries and thinks of him.

She thinks of all the things she's going to do to make him come back.

(Just, maybe, it could last).