A.N: First of all, I want to thank my amazing beta, -xGuiltyxPleasure-. She has been amazingly patient and honest with me and this story wouldn't be what it is without her. And secondly, I promise NJ scenes in the next chapter. Patience is a virtue, they say!
That Sunday afternoon, Jenny was back at her parents' penthouse, unpacking the few belongings she had had time to bring with her from Hudson. Constance's headmistress had let Jenny back in on the condition that she start right away. They were almost half-way through the semester and Jenny was very much behind on most subjects. The New York school's curriculum was much more advanced and Jenny would have a lot of catching up to do. However, she was grateful for the challenge: if she was busy with school, she wouldn't have time to get in trouble.
Lily and Eric had welcomed her with open arms, and Jenny knew right away that coming back had been the right idea. While life at Hudson had been easier, it had also been empty. She had no friends, and her mother was always busy with her new boyfriend, who wasn't that excited about becoming a full-time step parent. Jenny and Eric had some difficulties before the summer but they had made up after she slept with Chuck, and he had been a wonderful friend to her. However, he was still in another city and they couldn't hang out on a daily basis.
She was sad to say it, but she felt closer to Lily than she did her own mother. Alison didn't understand what Jenny had gone through, and had thought it stupid of her daughter to be involved in all those schemes. But Lily understood that the city was full of temptation, and that it was difficult to resist. She knew that in order to do so you had to level the playing field, but that often came at a cost.
Her dad seemed to be ambivalent about the whole situation. He had been in Lily's world long enough to understand the deception and the lies that came with it, but he was still holding on to the image of a fourteen year-old Jenny in his head. Jenny had felt like she had been caught between two worlds: she had been the Queen of Constance and had more power than she knew what to do with, but her father had still treated her like a child. She had tried everything she could to change his perception of her, including dating Damien and dealing drugs, but it was all in vain. He saw her as a fallen angel, and she didn't know how to get him to trust her again.
At Lily's insistence, however, her dad had agreed to wipe the slate clean. There were a lot of rules she had to follow: she had to be home by ten on school nights, midnight on weekends, she had to keep a B+ average at school, and all dates and outings had to be preapproved. It already made Jenny feel suffocated, but he promised her that if everything went well and she didn't get into trouble, he would eventually give her more leeway.
Jenny was unpacking her things in her room alone, Lily and Eric having just disappeared. She was surprised to see Serena stand in the doorway with a huge suitcase. The older girl didn't even greet her before marking her territory.
"This is my room," Serena said, "you can move to Chuck's old room."
Jenny wanted to tell her that Lily had said that it was alright if she took back her old room, but she didn't want to provoke her older sister. There was a lot of tension still between them, and if they were going to be living together, like it seemed they were going to, then they would have to make peace. Thankfully, Lily arrived before she had a chance to answer.
"Serena, honey, are you moving back in?" the mother asked. Serena nodded. "Well, you're going to have to take Chuck's room; I already told Jenny she could have this one."
Serena gave Jenny a death stare, sighed loudly, and then took her suitcase to her new room. Lily gave her a reassuring smile, but Jenny didn't feel comforted. She didn't think she would have to live with Serena. Suddenly, moving back in didn't feel like such a great idea.
Jenny took a deep breath and decided to stop feeling sorry for herself. She was going to have to coexist with Serena, so she might as well try to fix things. She walked over to her sister's room, and saw that Serena had already opened the suitcase and started to pull some clothes out of it. Jenny knew that Serena would get bored quickly with unpacking: she always did. The maid would have to finish putting everything in its place.
Jenny walked in the room, but Serena ignored her.
"I didn't know you were moving back in," Jenny started. It was an obvious statement, but Jenny had no idea how to start the conversation she really wanted to have.
"Well, your and Juliet's plan worked, so Blair and I aren't speaking," answered Serena. Jenny felt guilty and stupid: it obviously hadn't been the right thing to start with.
"I just wanted to apologize, for that, and for everything else," Jenny said. She was twisting her hands and looking at the floor, in what she hoped was the most submissive position possible. But it didn't seem to work because Serena scoffed and refused to reply.
"We're going to have to live together and I just..." Jenny started again, but Serena interrupted her.
"Look, Nate and I are back together," Serena said, then paused, wanting to see the effect of her words. Jenny was shocked, and it pleased her. "I promised him I'd be nice to you, so I will be for his sake. But don't think we're going to be friends, or that I'm going to forget everything you did. I don't know what you did or said to Nate to make him do everything he's done for you, but I know you, Jenny. You'll reveal your true nature sooner or later and Nate will realise what you really are."
With that she went back to unpacking, dismissing Jenny. The younger girl wanted to defend herself, call Serena on the mistakes she had made in the past, but she bit her tongue and went back to her room. She had at least hoped that Serena would accept her apology, and that the girls could live together in peace, but it had seemed too much to hope for too soon.
A few minutes later, Jenny heard Lily call excitedly for her to come to the dining room, and Jenny walked quickly to see what was happening. A 30 year-old man was standing in the room with a huge black tote bag, and when she took a second look Jenny realised he was Lily's hair stylist.
"Marco's going to do your hair," Lily said smiling. Jenny could feel a smile come onto her face as well. "If you're going to start new," Lily continued, "you're going to need a new look!"
Jenny, knowing the importance of fashion and a good haircut, could only agree. She was excited as the older man took over and started telling her about what kind of look he wanted to give her. Jenny, Lily, Eric and Marco conferred for at least fifteen minutes before agreeing on a layered shoulder-length hairstyle, and the stylist went to work.
It was exactly the distraction Jenny needed, and she had completely forgotten Serena when the young woman walked into the room to see what the fuss was about. Lily, Jenny and Eric were laughing and Marco was shaking his head, chuckling at their antics. When Jenny saw Serena she stopped laughing, and to see the look Serena gave her, she knew she was not pleased with what was happening.
Lily felt the mood in the room shift and smiled at Serena in an attempt to alleviate the tension. "Do you want Marco to do your hair too, Serena?" Lily asked. "He's going to do Eric's as well, you know."
Serena shook her head in response, her lips in a tight line as if she was holding something back. Jenny had never been more grateful for Lily's presence as Serena went back to her room. She could only imagine how things would have gone if the mother hadn't been there.
When Marco was done he showed Jenny her new look in a portable mirror, and she immediately had a flashback to when she was a sophomore, working for Eleanor and kissing Nate on the street. The hairstyle wasn't the same but it looked similar enough. When she looked back on the last few years, it was difficult for her to pinpoint an exact moment when she changed to a lesser version for herself. But that time when Nate lived with them at the loft had certainly changed something in her: she had been tired of people walking all over her, had quit Eleanor's and put on her own fashion show. Of course, Agnes had helped with a lot of that, but Jenny had made her own decisions. Jenny shivered as she thought about the Snowflake Ball and what she had done to Vanessa: she definitely couldn't blame any of that on Agnes.
Later on, everyone sat at the table for a special welcome back dinner for Jenny. It wasn't much, just a few of her favourite foods, but Jenny was grateful for it. However, the tension was palpable, and it was starting to get to Jenny.
"So Dad," she asked, "Where's Dan?" Rufus didn't look at her as he answered.
"He couldn't come," he said.
"Well, where is he? It's Sunday night, it can't be anything too important," Jenny pressed.
"He didn't say," her dad answered, but Jenny could tell something was off. However, before she could ask further questions, Lily changed the subject.
"What about Elliott, couldn't he come?" Lily asked, looking at Eric.
"We had a fight," the young man said, but didn't explain. Jenny looked at him, surprised. Eric hadn't said anything about a fight, and she was a little hurt that he hadn't confided in her.
The rest of the dinner was spent mostly in silence, except for a few other attempts by Lily to start the conversation again. Eventually, even she gave up.
That night, as Jenny lay in bed, there were so many thoughts running around in her head that she couldn't fall asleep. She tossed and turned, thinking about Serena, Eric, her dad, Dan, Lily, and Nate. She couldn't believe he and Serena had gotten back together. Well, she could, but she was surprised because she had thought she had gotten through to Nate when they talked after the masquerade ball. She had also seen Serena's pleasure when she announced their reunion.
No matter how much she turned it around in her head, she knew that the only way things would ever be okay again at the Van der Woodsen-Humphrey residence would be if she gave up Nate. While she completely disagreed with him getting back together with Serena, he was an adult and she couldn't make his decisions for him. But while she could admit that he was still in love with Serena, and not with her, she couldn't give him up as a friend. If she was going to turn her life around, she was going to need as much help as possible, and it seemed her pickings were slim. For some reason, Dan wasn't around, and her father didn't seem to have much faith in her yet. That left Eric, Lily, and Nate. She would take him while she had him, because she was convinced that no matter how good his intentions were, Serena would eventually get between the two of them, and she would lose him again.
As she turned over in her bed one last time, she wondered if she would be in love with Nate Archibald forever, or if she would one day meet someone who would be as kind and understanding to her as he was.