Author's Note: This one is based off of the scene in 4x10 - when Serena is taken to hospital because Juliet practically left her for dead. Again, what I wish had happened in that hospital scene.

He was so scared. He didn't want to admit it, not now, not ever, but he couldn't just pretend he wasn't feeling it. The sweaty palms and the racing heart were telling him all that he needed to know, all that he didn't want to know, didn't want to feel.

"Where is she!? Is she okay!? What happened?"

He'd found himself running towards the entrance of the hospital, shoving the stupidly heavy door wide open and then nearly running again (except his grade school mantra about no running in the halls had admittedly stuck with him all of these years), and then there he was. Asking. Begging. Pleading. Needing.

He was needing her to be okay, because if she wasn't – because if she wasn't, then –

"She overdosed. In some cheap motel room in Queens, alone."

The confusion took a hold of him for a brief second. No. Drugs? Serena? His Serena? No. But –

"I don't know what I would do if anything happened to her."

The possessiveness came into his thoughts without warning. Without any sort of preamble. There was no revelation, no big, epiphanic moment, nothing. His.

"Sometimes I forget what a recent addition you are, Humphrey. Because this sounds exactly like the Serena I used to know."

He blinked, once, twice, three times in as many seconds. The florescent lights were making his eyes dry. Then Blair walked away, and he was left standing there on his own. Two things were now at his emotional forefront. One was terror. And two, the love he had for her, which he tried in vain to supress so much as kill all together, had it nearly beat. Nearly.

He was so damn scared and nothing, not some cheap coffee, or lame cafeteria food or his dad's sage advice, or Lily's gentle cadence, not even Blair's blithe indifferent attitude towards him, more cut throat than usual, was going to make any of this any better. But god damn he wished it would. He so wished it would.

"I need to see her."

He touched Blair's shoulder gently, barely recognizing the urgency there in his voice until she pointed it out, veiled thinly inside a terse response.

"Get in line. None of us are seeing her until we're cleared to. Until she wakes up."

She must have turned around and seen the look on his face, the veiny fear etched into his gaze, reaching, desperate, because her own expression softened. This was the first time he'd seen Blair Waldorf look resigned, scared and infinitely small.

"Oh, Humphrey," she cooed, touching his hand for a second before, it seemed, realizing her indiscretion and pulled away, like his hand was something hot to the touch, something that scolded her. And he'd be offended if he either cared or was in a completely different frame of mind than he was right now. "I'm so sorry you had to meet her like this."

Meet who, he nearly asked, but he couldn't do that because he knew. He knew, yet he couldn't, nor would he, care less. Both Serenas, the one who seemed to be a tragic cry for help, and the one he smacked into that day outside of the Palace Hotel, were one in the same person to him. He loved her. The before and after. And the in between. Jesus Christ, what was taking this hospital staff so long? He needed to see her. Now. Right now.

Just then, as if in answer to his prayer, the nurse came up to them. They were all together now, and when that happened, Dan couldn't say, but suddenly, there was Jenny beside him, squeezing his hand, her face as white as anything.

"Jen," he leaned over and whispered into her ear, "are you – "

"Fine," she hissed back, squeezing his hand again. He didn't have to look at her to see the pity in her eyes, the pity she was feeling for him, no doubt, and for Lily, for Blair, for Eric and for Serena, for the whole circumstance.

"She's awake now and if any of you want to go see her, you can," the nurse was saying.

Dan stepped forward, uncharacteristically bold, or maybe now, characteristically, thank you Upper East Side living. Before he could say anything though, there came a 'but' and it was what proceeded it that he hadn't been prepared for.

"She asked for a Dan Humphrey, specifically. Told me to send him in to her first. Is he here with you all now?"

He stepped forward again. "Right – uh – here."

He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. He was slowly becoming aware of the lingering confusion that seemed to radiate from both Lily and his dad, and Blair, and Vanessa and everyone else. To be honest, even he was confused. But then he followed that nurse down the hallway and into Serena's room – no, no, he couldn't call it that, it made this all too real, it wouldn't be her room. It was just a room.

But regardless of whose room it was, there she lay propped up by a couple pillows and the set incline of the bed. She was covered in hospital blankets and the mandated gown, he knew, she wore underneath all of them. Her hair looked blonder in this light, almost like a bleach blonde, a color he had no trouble picturing as the hair of a little girl. Serena ages three to five perhaps. It made him smile, that image, Serena, at the age to match her sweet, lilting little laugh.

He wished however, that she wasn't so pale, that her skin wasn't waxy, that it didn't hold that sickly sheen, that the blue of her eyes wasn't so dull, and her expression wasn't so flat. He longed to see that smile, the one that rivaled her laugh with its effervescence and vivre, but didn't beat, because together, those two things were a firestorm, bursting with light and a heat that jolted him alive. She made him feel so alive, but right now, right here, she seemed almost the complete opposite. He would never use the word dead, because they'd come dangerously close to it, much too close to use in mirth ever again, and so he didn't.

She cleared her throat. It sounded raspy. Probably dry from a tube being rammed down it before. He fought the urge to cringe as he took the few steps to her bedside and gave her the glass of water that had been sitting there. She took a small sip. Then another. Gave it back to him. He placed it back on the tray.

Staring up at him, she lifted her hand, coincidently, the one with the IV buried in a vein – he tried not to cringe again, but it was harder this time, and then he felt her fingers stroke his jaw. He held her gaze.

"Hey, baby," she spoke quietly, but not in a whisper. He had a feeling it was as much as she could do right now, and he would take it.

Now, he reached down and touched her face, the back of his hand, the ridge of his knuckles gliding softly, delicately, across her cheek. He took the other hand and smoothed her hair, flattening it down against her head, more than it already had been.

She didn't seem to mind, or even notice, and, really, he just needed to feel her hair in between his fingers again. Stupidly, it has become a comfort of sorts for him over the years and clearly that didn't stop being true even as they were no longer together. He didn't know how to take that, at least not yet, so for right now, he'd let it be as it may. She sighed in response, but it wasn't in aggravation, or annoyance, but it wasn't indifference either. It was the sigh that was unique to her vulnerable side. His favorite side of her. If he had to pick, that would be the one.

The hand that had stilled on her cheek moved again, up and down, down and up. "Hey baby," he said back with a strained smile that was at least somewhat genuine because she was here, she was alive, no matter the state of it. "I think the color's starting to return to your face. So that's good. Great, actually."

She smiled back in that same way. "Well, I'd think so."

"Serena…" he sighed. "You could have come to Blair, Eric, someone. You could have come to me."

"Wait," she bit her lip, moving her hand towards his and taking it, intertwining their fingers and putting them down in her lap. "You don't think I did this to myself, do you? Because I didn't." She met his eyes, their tears a reflection of one another. "I would never."

He sighed again. More emphatic than the last. "I don't know what to think. I want to believe you – but – they're taking you to the Ostroff Centre."

"What!? No – not – now!?"

He could tell that she didn't want to go, that she wanted to resist. Her eyes were screaming defiance and her mouth was a hard, immovable line. She just didn't say it.

"There's paparazzi everywhere. I don't know if you are aware of this," he chuckled, "but you generate quite a media storm with your presence around here."