Happy New Year! I appreciate you all reading and reviewing throughout the holiday season, it's meant so much to continue seeing your kind words! Thank you, as always, to ASadAir for being such an insightful beta.

At least, some things remained the same during Dan's brief stint in Vegas. He returns to his office Monday morning to see everything is in its usual and rightful place – the stapler in the upper left desk corner, the globe-shaped paperweight holding down his in-tray, and an idling laptop. In fact, there are zero reminders of the night that changed everything. Well, except for the little dot on his digital calendar marking the noon appointment at the lawyer's office.

While he was away, it seems a pile of unread emails had taken up residence in his inbox. He tackles them, one by one, and feels a flicker of surprise when the ping of his phone breaks his momentum. Glancing at the clock, he sees it's only fifteen minutes until the lawyer's appointment. Blair's warning rings out in his mind: don't be late.

He shuts his laptop with a flourish and stands, brushing any wrinkles out of his suit trousers. As he heads down the block toward the subway station, a strange sensation materializes in his gut. The thought of seeing Blair again makes him feel a wash of emotion. Like dread. Or is it anticipation? Or perhaps it's something else he'd rather not name…

Dan fails to identify the feeling by the time the train has skittered to a halt and he lets out a breath instead. Feeling slightly calmer, he swiftly and confidently pulls open the grand doors to the corporate offices once he finally arrives.

"You're on time," Blair announces when he walks inside the lobby, sounding surprised. She's just come from the office too, judging by her blazer and pencil skirt. She turns away toward the elevator and presses the up button.

"How are you?" Dan tries to make polite conversation as they step into the elevator. Blair seems to ignore his question.

"My stepfather called me yesterday, sans approval from my mother, and said the annulment should be straightforward." She presses on, matter-of-factly. "As long as we both confirm we weren't in the correct frame of mind to consent to marriage and agree to annulment, the marriage will be dissolved as soon as a judge signs off."

"That's great," Dan says uneasily. Hearing how easy it is should bring him relief but something about seeing a divorce lawyer is still making his skin prickle. The elevator arrives at their floor and Blair leads the way toward the office of one Preston Sullivan.

Once they are seated, Blair calmly explains their situation and Mr. Sullivan doesn't even flinch at the sordid tale. Dan merely sits beside her, watching her tackle this meeting as though it's as simple as arranging a flower delivery or ordering a cake.

"Look," Mr. Sullivan steeples his fingers. "This should be fairly easy. You both were far too inebriated to acknowledge the ramifications of marriage at the time of the nuptials. All we really need today is to go through some paperwork. Eventually, you'll need to appear before a judge who will likely sign off on the marriage dissolution with no issue. I do need to make you aware, though, that an annulment will prove that the marriage was not legally valid but it will still remain on record in the state of New York."

Blair looks stricken at this. "On record? Why?"

"Because," Exhaustion takes hold on Mr. Sullivan's face as he explains. It seems he's already checked out and is mentally planning for his next client's appointment. "That is way in which the law was written."

He pulls out a stack of papers and pushes them forward. "Now if you'll get started on these..."

By the end of the appointment, Dan and Blair have a court appointment for Thursday, a supposed stroke of luck according to Mr. Sullivan. But for them, it means what they thought would be a 72-hour marriage will now amount to 6 days. Perhaps even a week, once the processing period is factored in.

Both of them seem to still be processing this information as they wait in silence for the elevator to arrive. In the reflective surface of the closed shaft doors, Dan can see that Blair's expression mirrored his own: a look of dismay painted across her features, she stared blankly ahead, unseeing.

The elevator arrives and Dan finally admits to himself that maybe this marriage won't be a miniscule blip after all...

"How's the lovely missus?" Rufus asks when he calls Dan later that night.

"Still legally my spouse until the end of the week, apparently." Dan fills him in on this morning's appointment with the lawyer.

"You're sure you still want an annulment?" Rufus asks. "Because son, I can tell you, marrying the same girl twice might sound romantic but you'll be spending a lot more than 7 days awaiting legal updates. If your mother and I would have just stuck it out the first time around, we would have saved a lot of money and time spent in court."

"Dad, Mom wasn't just some random girl you met in Vegas and married on a whim, no, wait, a dare." Dan pauses in horror. "Or was she? I just realized I don't actually know that not to be true so-"

Rufus laughs heartily. "No, Dan. But I'm just saying this Blair sounds kind of great. Jenny Googled her and apparently her mom is some famous designer. Maybe she could even line Jenny up with a job…"

"Dad," Dan is growing frustrated. "I'm not going to stay married to Blair so Jenny can work for her mother. That's absurd. And hardly romantic."

"Okay, okay," His father drops the subject. Instead, he rattles on about the rest of the family's considerably less wild weekend in Vegas. Apparently, the three of them had spent their Saturday night at Cirque du Soleil and had missed him very much. Dan barely listens, though, because his father's ridiculous idea has warped his logical thinking and planted the seed of, what if?

Dan can just picture Blair's reaction to even the very notion of staying married. That icy expression would take hold on her face and she would stare at him like he's a complete idiot. Then, she'd phone up Mr. Sullivan and say the grounds of annulment should be changed to let the record show she had married someone mentally unstable.

Hell, he's questioning his own sanity just from this very thought bubble.

He promptly bursts it, reminding himself that Blair Waldorf is his past, not his future.

Or she will be, in seven days time.