Chapter 2 recaps the trip that Dan and Blair took to Cornwall. The Townie 4X11

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Dan was confused. Standing in the middle of the van der Woodsen's living room, Blaire was doing her lady vengeance bit in front of an nauseatingly calm Juliet and Serena. No one stirred. He barely heard Serena say something to effect that Juliet had suffered enough for the crimes of the family. 'A little Godfather there don't you think van der Woodsen?' Dan chewed on his cheek and watched as Blaire, again and again, pointed out the obvious flaws in Serena's logic. Juliet was the one that had lied and cheated the way into Serena's confidence. And once she had it, Juliet humiliated and exposed Serena to a scandal that basically resulted in Serena's imprisonment. There was no way Juliet should be free to do as she pleases, no matter the 'el crime de familia.' Somehow, probably because the things of beauty like Serena do not understand true evil, she skated past them and declared war on her mother for a list grievances against her former English teacher Ben.

Dan had a déjà vu moment. This wasn't quite the same situation as his affair with Rachel, Serena's English teacher in their last year at Constance/St. Jude's but there were imprints of the same emotion. Serena being quick to defend Ben's nobility despite evidence to the contrary, her insistence to clear Ben's name—all this didn't quite add up to just clearing a righteous man's reputation. He thought about it, then discarded the notion. Serena had a huge heart, and that was just it. It was the thing that he loved most about her, that her heart had room for just about anybody. His cynical brain butted in, 'that's not necessarily a good thing,' so he shut it off.

A week later, with almost no real issues resolved except for the fact that Juliet had hightailed it out of town, again, the group sat down to a holiday dinner that was ill conceived but well executed. Dan thought it was ill conceived because it had been his idea to cook the dinner at the Archibald-Bass residence in the Empire. The two bachelors had possibly never touched a range top, let alone having a turkey baster on hand.

"Isn't that, erm, for fertilizing old women?" Nate had said, gingerly handling the device as if it were medical.

While Serena, Nate, and Chuck grouped themselves around a bottle of wine, Dan retreated into the kitchen where he was shocked to see Blair in an apron. He had just assumed that the weight of the cooking would fall on the ones in the lower social rankings, so what was Blair doing with a spatula? Apparently, it was cooking, and quite a Martha Stewart looking spread by the looks of it. Dan tried to steer the topics of conversation towards safe topics, like food puns and famous food movies, but Blair was a little oblivious to it all.

She had a lot on her mind. She knew that Chuck was leaving right after dinner to pursue Jack Bass in Australia. When ever Chuck was gone, she knew that meant new women, scores and scores of new women since Chuck had never been in Australia—even though he said he was going to New Zealand. 'I hope a dingo doesn't bite off his dick,' she thought to herself—only stopping her stirring of the béchamel sauce to laugh at the image of a dickless-Chuck.

It wasn't quite like high school all over again. They were all too old to be revisiting childish things, but it was good to feel the dynamics of the group as it had always been: Chuck and Blair sniping at each other, Dan looking moonishly at Serena, Nate being slow on the uptake, and then the unexpectedly warm and friendly banter between Dan and Blair. If anyone noticed it, no one said a thing.

"See I told you, food is more delicious when you cook it yourself." Dan stretched his long legs under the table and got up.

"Yup, that's why we're going to end this experiment in middle class living and have housekeeping to clean up." Daniel threw a withering glance towards Nate. Sometimes, the golden boy really had no idea how golden he was.

"No way! I stuck my hand up a turkey's butt. You're not getting out of your job." Blair was cheekily indignant. Dan had missed Blair giving the turkey a body cavity exam, and now he wishes he hadn't because that sight was something that only 0.01% of people would ever see. There was a little bit of Lucy in Blair, her crazy schemes, her general over the top reactions, Dan chucked at the thought of the show "I Love Blair." Wow, that was weird. Humphrey had a moment. Saying 'I Love Blair' in his brain somehow sounded nice. He didn't linger on the thought since Blaire's favorite fishy resident was making his farewells.

"Well, I provided the location so I did my part. Now I'm off to New Zealand, to enjoy a taste of summer and girls who like sex games in the rain forest." Chuck bowed elegantly at the waist and whisked himself away. Dan didn't bother to tell Chuck that in addition to sex games, jungles of new Zealand probably also offered malaria and its even more sexy shit-ass cousin, cholera. But who was he to stand in the way of Chuck's good fun? Besides, Dan had noticed Blair's flicker of pain when Chuck announced the "sex-games" part. He wondered if Blair could ever truly share Chuck with the world as Chuck demanded. There didn't seem to be a lot of wiggle room in the Bass world. But it was part of Blair's world, and she sat it in like the missing puzzle piece.

When Nate groaned at the menial task of clearing the table, Dan clapped him on the back and said, "I'll help you. It's only fitting seeing as I did the shopping, set the table, and oversaw the cooking." He saw Blair's eyes flicker to him when he said "oversaw," because it was certain he did no such thing. Blair was too involved with her Chuck drama to even notice that Dan was helping her clean and making sure things weren't burning as she waved around sauces and mixes.

Serena was explaining her plans for the holidays, and Dan listened along eagerly. Now that she had chosen him at Saints and Sinners, he was hoping that they would get some quality time together, sort out the deep confusion inside him. Instead, what he heard didn't please him at all. Serena wanted to use her holiday time for Ben. Yes. That Ben. The same teacher who used his sister to infiltrate Serena's academic career, causing her expulsion from school, and threatened god knows what else. His Serena, her winsome smile and brilliant blue eyes were asking him, merrily, if he would come along on such a mission. Dan wondered how a girl with such a light touch could have such hold on his heart. Serena figured, if Dan could go on a mission with Blair, then he could certainly accompany her, the love of his life. She didn't think too hard about being the love of Dan's life, it was her rightful place and she occupied it with aplomb.

Imagine Serena's shock when Dan, the white knight who broke her out of rehab, against the advice of everyone in her life, said no to her mission. 'Why Dan? Why did you say no?' Serena wondered. She thought that the time they could spend together didn't have to be just about them. After all, injustice had been done to Ben and needed to be rectified.

She could see Ben now, his soft eyes scanning the pages of her writing, telling her in his most serious and encouraging voice that she was talented, no, even gifted with understanding literature. She had never felt such thrall of appraisal and admiration for something that had nothing to do with her beautiful face and taut, sexy figure. Her face and her body, she understood the attraction. But her mind? Only Ben ever really knew her mind. Even Dan, at his worst moments, made her feel less than secure in her intellectual confidence. It wasn't because he thought she was dumb, it was that his mind always flew 100 miles faster than hers, ticking through histories, films, books, like they were easy markers. Dan was so much like Blair. They consumed everything voraciously. Serena thought about the odd comparison for a second. Blair was so much like Dan—why it had never occurred to her must have been an oversight.

Standing at the dishrack, Dan gripped the dishtowel and tried to forget that the love of his life had chosen him, and then discarded him just as easily. What should have been an agonizing decision, she made over bellinis.

"What are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be off living your dream? Days on end with Serena in a car?" Blair's voice suddenly chimed in from behind him.

"No, I'm staying." He turned around to look at her. "It's actually my nightmare. Trapped in a city with only Blair Waldorf to talk to." Blair chuckled before the verbal onslaught began.

"Nate's here. I'll share custody as long as I get first position." She wanted to assert the seniority of her relationship with Archibald.

"Eh, Nate's with his grandfather." Dan glanced at her reaction.

"Eric, then?"

"Gstaad, with Elliott." He turned a pleading eye to Blair. "Please don't make me go down the list. I promise you, I won't be calling. I'll be writing, turning Vanessa room into an office, and seeing Nanette at Film Forum."

"I'm seeing Nanette at Film Forum." Blair was a little surprised. But not really, Humphrey did share her taste in a lot of things in the life of the mind, but almost nothing else, she asserted to herself.

"You like French documentaries about orangutans?" He knew that this was a quirk of Blaire's. That occasionally, he was able to make the odd Godard reference or Voltaire joke and only Blaire would snicker in appreciation. Even when she detested him in his junior year at St. Judes, Blair still couldn't help herself when it came to wit. Wit was a great leveler of minds since it could show just who was more clever and adept by the turn of their speech. And maybe, just maybe, Dan was as good at being witty as she was.

"Nanette is an inspiration! Last summer I went to the Jardin le Plantes all the time just to visit her." Blair thought about the noble creature for a second. "If we happen to run into each other, please don't sit next to me." She knew, of course, that he would sit next to her. And that he would offer her greasy, hot buttered popcorn like she needed it.

"I wouldn't think of it at all." Dan smirked and returned to the dishes.

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