Author Note: a reviewer had said they wanted to meet Henry, so here he is. And some well-deserved Dair schmoop.
The sun is just coming up when Dan leaves. Blair is wearing a light silk robe and she kisses Dan in the hallway until he groans and tells her if she doesn't stop he's not going to be able to leave. Blair smiles and tells him that it's part of her secret plan to trap him and keep him forever. Despite the fact that Dan is leaving her again, she feels strangely happy and light, because this time she knows it isn't forever. They have something between them now, even if it's not much, even if it's only talking on the phone, it's better than missing him and aching for him with no possibility of relief.
"I'll call you when I land," Dan says between kisses, "and then an hour after that. And an hour after that."
Blair laughs, "we're not teenagers anymore Humphrey. Considering that I thought I'd never see you again, I can manage talking to you once a day."
She lies. Dan calls her on it.
Her neighbor walks out of the apartment next door, leveling a glare their way and Blair pushes away from Dan, shivering a little without his contact to keep her warm, wrapping her arms around herself, her eyes never leaving his.
"Go." She says emphatically with a wave of her hand.
"I love you," Dan says, kissing her forehead.
He calls her from the cab. Then when he reaches the airport. Blair laughs at her ridiculous boyfriend, lover, whatever he is. It feels good to laugh.
She still has a few hours before Henry comes home so Blair busies herself in the kitchen of all places. Without Dorota to make meals for her Blair has actually had to learn to cook, which means she ends up texting Dorota about twenty times any time she turns on the stove. This morning isn't any different, and she thinks that it's early enough that maybe Dorota hasn't gone to bed yet, so she sends a quick text followed by a winking smily.
- how do you boil water? ;)
Miss Blair, you seem happy today. Not always so funny. -
- I am happy Dorota.
Mr. Dan? -
Blair hesitates. Dorota has been with her in her darkest moments, watched her go through being married to Chuck and divorcing Chuck. She's held her as she cried her heart out after seeing Dan in Paris. She knows what makes Blair happy. Blair hesitates for a moment, not sure how vulnerable she wants to be, then she smiles a little and texts back.
- yes.
A few minutes later her phone bleeps again.
squeeeeee! -
Blair winces a little and makes a note to tell Dorota she tends to overuse exclamation points. At least she didn't text back, 'am Mr. Dan and Miss Blair's biggest fangirl'. Blair should be thankful.
In the end, Blair settles for making coffee and running down to the boulangerie for croissants. She's at least mastered making coffee, but she promises herself that she's going to actually make crepes some morning, and surprise Henry with them, who will probably high five her and tell her 'way to go'. Or maybe even make them for Dan someday, who will eat them with gusto and tell her that maybe it's time that the Humphrey waffle tradition go by the wayside. Blair's chest clenches with this thought because for the first time ever she is allowing herself to think of a future that includes Dan Humphrey and it thrills her to no end.
By the time Henry comes home, slamming the door behind him and throwing his backpack on the floor in the hallway the sun is shining brightly and it seems the rain won't be gracing them with its presence today.
"Croissant?" Blair calls from where she's sitting in the kitchen as Henry passes by the doorway. He stops and turns to her, leaning against the doorjamb. He's a long, gangly almost teenager but still has some of his little boy face left. His skateboard his under his arm, his hair flopping in his eyes and Blair feels her fingers itch to push it back. She's always struck by how much he looks like Chuck with a little bit of Blair mixed in.
"Ate at Remy's," he says. "I've got homework and we were going to go skate in the park later."
Sometimes Blair feels like they're more roommates than mother and son, living their lives side by side. She knows this is because since he was seven Henry has spent most of the year living away from her with only a few months in the summer for them to reconnect before he returned to his exclusive upstate New York boarding school.
"Sit," Blair says. "Come talk to me for a few minutes before you play video games,"
Henry rolls his eyes at her revelation that she knows there's a good chance homework isn't going to be done right away once he goes to his room. He drops his skateboard onto the floor, lops across the floor and slides into the chair across from her. Blair pushes the plate of croissants towards him and Henry grabs one, shoving it in his mouth and chewing.
"Coffee?" Blair asks.
"They never let us have coffee at school," Henry mumbles around his mouth full of pastry.
"Oh." Blair says, feeling a little flustered. Is she supposed to keep him from having coffee? She's not entirely sure. This day to day parenting thing is new for her. "I think it's okay. I'm making espresso."
"Maybe a latte?" he says, cocking an eyebrow at her. "I'm sure I'm too young for the straight stuff."
Blair smiles and gets up to make her son a latte. She returns to the table and places a steaming mug with froth over the top in front of him.
"Getting pretty good at this, mom." Henry says after taking a sip. Blair feels herself glow. She's glad she can do something for her son because she spends a lot of time not really knowing exactly what to do. Other people have been parenting their kids hands-on for years by the time they're twelve. Blair is just getting started.
"Did you have fun at Remy's?" Blair asks, feeling a little awkward, and as easy as it would be to just let Henry go back to his room and do whatever he does in there, she knows she needs to push through these feelings.
"Yeah," he mumbles.
"What did you do?"
"Not much."
They are quiet again, Blair sipping her espresso, Henry grabbing another croissant.
"Did you have a nice night?" he asks, like someone at a dinner party making conversation. Blair hopes the heat that rises up her doesn't color her cheeks, giving away that she didn't spend the night curled on the couch watching movies like Henry might assume. She adjusts the collar of her robe hoping there isn't some mark on her skin that will give her away.
"I did," Blair answers. It's the truth.
More awkward silence between them. Henry grabs another croissant then makes a noise like he's about to say something uncomfortable, like 'hey mom, you've trapped me here long enough and I really want to move on to something I actually LIKE to do.' Blair decides she needs to do something to break this dynamic. She reaches across the table and takes one of Henry's hands in hers.
"I love you," Blair says quietly. "I hope you know that."
Henry looks a little embarrassed, "I know that mom," he says quickly, as if she's saying the stupidest thing in the world. She thinks he should add a long, drawn out 'geeeeeeeez'.
"And I know I took you away from everything you knew when I brought you with me to Paris," Blair continues, wanting him to know some of her truth if she can't tell him everything.
"It's fine, mom," Henry says in the manner that a kid who is used to everything changing very quickly uses. He's adapted. Parents never around, breaks with Blair hovering too much, Chuck whisking him away on last minute trips to the Middle East because he can't leave his business in Dubai and wants to play father. Henry is not a kid who has ever come home to breakfast every morning and parents who attend every school play. Blair brightens a little. She'll attend a school play. She's never been to one. Then she realizes that she doesn't even know if Henry likes drama, or if when you're twelve whether or not your whole class still puts on charmingly awkward plays as a rite of passage where scenery snafus happen and children forget their lines. Maybe she missed all of that. Blair feels that little tug of regret that never seems to go away when she's talking to Henry.
"I just want to do better for you," Blair says lamely, feeling that she's failed again at trying to connect to her son. He squeezes her hand and smiles at her, and again Blair sees Chuck's smile.
"You already have, mom," Henry says. "This is way better than boarding school, and my French is getting really good."
Blair's heart swells a little. There are two men in her life who can make her feel amazing. One is on a plane to New York and will probably call her when he lands and then again in the cab. The other one is sitting across from her and she still wants to push his hair out of his eyes but doesn't.
"Okay," Blair says. "Now, go play video games AND do your homework."
"Awesome!" Henry says, standing up.
"put headphones one if you're going to listen to music."
"Okay, okay."
"And call your dad." Blair says as an afterthought.
"Oooookay." Henry groans, "you're way too good at this mom thing sometimes!"
Blair smiles so widely that it hurts. If only being Henry's mother was only about telling him what to do and making sure he cleaned up his room. That she can handle. It's the other stuff, the things in her heart and his, that she's scared of messing up. She hears the room to his door shut and then the apartment is back to being quiet.
Blair putzes for a bit. She pulls out her sketch book and starts to draw, thinking through some more ideas for dress designs. At some point she's going to want to work and she thinks she'll do something with her mother's company, but right now she can spend some time being creative. She thinks she might head to an exhibit of 17th century to modern textiles to get some more ideas for fabric then decides she'll stay home. Henry emerges from his room to show her his finished english essay and tells her he's going to grab something to eat on his way to the park to meet Remy.
Blair glances at the clock. Dan should land in a few more hours. She misses him already and as much as she had teased him about calling her too much, she can't help but glance at her phone every fifteen minutes as his landing time comes closer.
She stops sketching and tries to read a book then stops when she realizes she's read the same sentence over and over. Maybe the newspaper, but after flipping past one depressing story after the other, Blair decides that's not going to distract her either. She ends up crawling back into bed, burying her face into the sheets that smell like sex and Dan's spicy cologne, and lying there as she replays the events of the night before in her mind. God, she misses him so much it hurts, just as much as it hurt before, but in a different way. This time it's the kind of hurt that comes with this strange edge of joy and hope, not the kind that sits in your soul and eats you alive.
Blair lies there, clutching her phone in her hand, lost in her thoughts, when it buzzes and she sees the picture of Dan she'd snapped that morning as they were in bed, and she loves his bedroom eyes staring at her and the way his curls are going every which way with the most excellent post-sex bedhead ever, so much she almost forgets to answer. She had taken the picture before he managed to put his hand up in front of his face and wave her away, then she'd asked him for his phone number, her voice cheesy and tinged with laughter at the fact that it sounded like a pick-up line, and made him a permanent part of her life, telling him that not everyone got a picture to go along with their number. He'd asked if Chuck had a picture and Blair had told him that Chuck was pretty much persona-non-grata on her phone.
"Hi." Blair says breathily as she answers, mentally kicking herself for sounding a little like a lovelorn teenager and then mentally kicking herself again for thinking that she really needed to practice answering the phone in the mirror a few times to get it just right.
"Blair," Dan's voice rumbles in her ear, warm and loving and, oh god, she misses him so very much. "That was the longest flight of my life."
Blair smiles. This is how things should be. At least for them. It feels like such a gift just to be able to miss each other and to be able to hear his voice. If this is what she gets, this is what she'll take. Blair settles back into the bed loving the sound of his voice as Dan tells her all the boring details of his flight, down to the salty snacks they served, followed by a rant about the quality of salty snacks these days. Typical Humphrey diarrhea of the mouth, and he's about to tell her about the meal they served and as Blair wonders where his promises of phone sex went, she stops his diatribe by schmoopily murmuring into her phone just because she can, "I love you, Humphrey."
"Oh!" he stops and she can almost hear him smiling, "I love you too, Waldorf."
"I just didn't want you to go another minute without knowing it."
TBC
