"JFK. And step on it."
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Two nights before Blair Waldorf's wedding, she read Dan Humphrey's book. Approaching the big day, she had been plagued with insomnia and thought perhaps Humphrey's heavy-handed prose would lull her into slumber.
She stayed up until the last page. Then, with her fingers rolling over the stiff corners of the novel, she went back to reread a section.
Clair Carlyle was everything he had hated about the Upper East Side distilled into one 95-pound package of girly-evil, but he couldn't look away. Her Medusa-strength glare called to him. Her strength and power intoxicating. The softness underneath paradoxical. He wouldn't mind being a statue if it meant he could be close to her.
She wondered how long he had felt that way. How she hadn't noticed. She wondered if ignoring it would be the best option. She was going to be a princess in two days.
She talked to Serena the next day. "Do you think it wise to keep Dan in the wedding party?"
"Did Louis find another relative to take the spot?"
"No. I just don't know," she began, halted, then continued, "if he'll look appropriate in the pictures. Have you seen his hair?"
"Ask him to cut it," Serena responded, looking partially annoyed. "He'll do it."
"I think he likes his grungy muppet hair," she responded.
"That doesn't mean he won't cut it for you." And with that, the blonde abruptly left.
The next day, she was hyperventilating in her bride's room. Her mother clucked around in circles claiming that this was normal. This wasn't normal. Serena ventured out to find a drink. Possibly two. Harold stepped out for a moment. When he came back, Dan was in tow.
"What is he doing here, Harold?" Eleanor's eyes practically popped out of her manicured lids - the visitor clearly ruffling her.
"I think he'll help." He slapped Dan on the back and shuffled Eleanor out the door.
"Hey." It was all he said, and she could breathe again.
"Your father said you needed to calm down." He sat down beside her.
"Then why did he get you? I think I'm going to have a panic attack over your hair's assault on my wedding photographs."
He laughed. Warm. Bubbling to the surface. She felt her strength regaining.
He grabbed her hand and unlike before, she didn't pull away. Relying on Dan Humphrey's strength had become a habit since her accident. And Chuck. And her baby. A tear started to roll down her cheek. "You don't have to marry him," he said, the laughter leaving his eyes.
"I want to." It was a lie, but it felt right. Blair Waldorf wanted to marry a prince.
"I just want you to be happy, Blair."
And he did. She could tell.
She got married under the eyes of God. She tried not to scan the groomsmen when the priest spoke of unselfish love. When Louis placed a ring on her finger, she looked into his eyes and settled for her fate.
Louis was good man. He loved her.
The mantra played in her head as the reception began.
They danced. Mr. and Mrs. Louis Grimaldi. Prince and Princess. And she wondered how someone who wrote Insider could stand there and watch her marry without calling out or objecting.
They met with the royal family. And she wondered how someone who was by her side for the last month was nowhere to be seen.
She pulled Serena into a corner. "Where's Dan?"
That annoyance crept back into the blonde's face. She sipped her champagne. "He left, Blair."
"Where?"
"I don't know. I think it was too tough for him."
She stared at her friend for a moment too long and then walked away.
Rufus was next. "Where's Dan?"
"You look beautiful, Blair." He was handsome and warm. Very much Humphrey's father.
"Where's Dan?"
"He left for a book tour. He didn't tell you, did he?" She looked crushed and Rufus saw it written across her face. "JFK. Terminal 2. Gate 20." He smiled in a knowing way. A Humphrey way.
She left before she could repeat her mantra once more. She didn't stop to think away the impulse. Racing into the night air, she opened the door to the limo outside.
"JFK. And step on it."
She didn't stop to think that this was crazy. She didn't stop to think that her "Just Married" decorations still clung to the back of the car. She just wanted to see him. She wanted to tell him that she read his book. That she couldn't have made it through the last month without him. That she didn't want to move to Monaco. That she wanted to watch Audrey next time. It didn't matter which one.
She raced through the airport, buying a ticket to anywhere that left near terminal 2.
But she didn't smile when she got there.
Gate 20 was empty.
