if these wings could fly
AN: Thank you for all the reviews, I love you guys.
Her heart is pounding so quickly in her chest, she thinks it's going to break her ribcage, shatter all of her insides with broken bones so that she will implode quietly, rapidly.
New York has never seemed so cluttered, so suffocating before, but now all she can see in front of her eyes is him and she needs to get away. She needs to get away, to some space of her own, so that she can damn well think clearly and accept what just happened- But there's so many people, so many surrounding her, thrumming with blood and oxygen and they keep appearing no matter how many crowds she stumbles through.
"Hey lady, you okay?"
She jerks when a man grabs her by the elbow, spinning her to face him amongst the rush of New York.
He must see her panic, or something else there, something she doesn't want to think about- like all the ways she knows she could've taken him down for that dumb move- because he raises his hands, palms facing forwards, unfamiliar, yet strangely honest eyes studying her carefully, and she finds herself pausing to hear him out. Her heart still pounds wildly in her chest and her legs still feel like they're going to give out any moment, and she's pretty certain she can't speak because tears are clogging her throat, but he stops.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. My name's Gabriel."
Huh. Okay. Why was he introducing himself to her?
She clears her throat when she realises that he's waiting for a reply. "Uh, I'm fine. Honestly."
His lips tilt slightly, like he's not sure what to make of her, but before she has a chance to question it he's speaking again.
"Well, it doesn't look like it to me."
She doesn't know what to say, so she presses her lips together, waiting for him to leave her alone. Part of her wants to tell him to mind his own business, another part of her knows how she can get that message across, but she simply balls her hands into fists by her sides and waits for these thoughts to pass. She knows how to resist acting so impulsively now. She knows how to fight it. And it's hard, and it hurts that she has to do such a thing in the first place, but she always manages: She just has to count down from ten and remember how hard it was for her to work to be out, to remember those dreams she had of her and Dan walking hand-in-hand through the hospital gardens.
"You want me to call you a cab? It's far more peaceful than walking." The man - Gabriel, was that his name? - offers.
"I, uh, yeah. Thanks." She replies hesitantly, knowing he's right.
The man tugs her over to the side of the street, and his six foot frame stands out over any others trying to hail a taxi, and almost immediately one is pulling over beside her. Four wheels and an awfully yellow colour of relief.
"There you go." Gabriel says, opening the door for her, and for the first time she is struck speechless by the kindness of a stranger.
She hesitates, not knowing what to say, words that she feel she ought to say tangling together on her tongue. Gabriel watches her curiously, smiling kindly, and she wonders if this is the kind of man she would've wound up with if her Dad had never been murdered, if she had never killed so many, if her damn brain hadn't been so broken that she couldn't process that what she was doing was wrong, that she still has trouble accepting what was so bad about it sometimes when she presses her ear against the wall of her apartment and listens to her neighbours, searching for a sense of normalcy.
How on earth had she ever found Dan?
"Thank you." She manages to stutter out before slipping into the taxi.
"You're welcome, uh, hey- I never got your name."
She smiles as best as she can. "No, you didn't."
Then she's leaning over and telling the driver her mother's address, remembering how her name sounds on Dan's tongue.
"Dan?"
Dan looks up as his father hesitantly enters the room. His study is bathed in darkness. Blinds dawn, technology off, with Dan sitting and staring into the abyss of nothingness. He can tell his father's worried. He's always worried. He knows that's why Rufus has lived with him all these years, despite the success of his gallery, despite the chances he'd had to move away from him. He can't imagine he's a very hospitable man to live with.
"What's with all the macabre?" Rufus says as he pushes the door wide open, unleashing light into the room that hurts his eyes.
He sighs, leans back in his chair and rubs a hand across his eyes. "It doesn't matter, Dad."
Rufus comes closer, rests a hand on his son's shoulder. "I know a flair for dramatics runs in the family, but this is more than that, Dan."
"It's Serena."
His father's eyes widen for a moment, but other than that, he doesn't show his shock.
"I saw her."
"I thought you weren't allowed to visit her."
There's no judgement in his father's voice, and that's something he'll always be thankful for. He understands why he can't let go, in ways Milo never could. And he knows his father hates seeing him like this, or how his life has been a complete standstill for eight years, but he's never told him to snap out of it, to move on. He has always understood. And Dan thinks he always will.
"I didn't visit her. I saw her in a coffee shop. Such an outrageously normal place." He spits out roughly.
Rufus hums lightly. He's watching him carefully, waiting for him to break, and he hates that his father has had to see him this way. It was okay when he was a child, when he had a grazed knee or a black eye from one of the kids at school, but as a man in his thirties it doesn't feel so good anymore. He just feels ashamed.
"Tell me what happened."
He closes his eyes, trying to focus on her hand against his cheek instead of falling back into hurtful memories.
"She was so angry at me for waiting, Dad. So angry. And disappointed."
"Not the flattery and swooning that you expected?"
He can't help the upward tug of his lips at that one.
"Surprisingly not, no. But she- I tried to make her see why it was worth it. But she just kept saying how she didn't deserve me, and that I deserved more. And maybe that's true, but that doesn't mean I can stop loving her. That doesn't mean I have to. Does it?"
Rufus' sad eyes regard him carefully. "No. No it doesn't."
"She gave me her number. But she told me to think about whether this is what I deserve. And it just feels like I'm going to spend the rest of my life chasing after her."
"And you don't want that?"
He clears his throat, looks him in the eye when he speaks.
"The worst part is that I would spend as many lifetimes as it takes chasing her, so long as she'd let me catch her in the end."
"I still don't understand."
Serena stops her pacing with one hand on her hips, the other mid-air as her mother interrupts her speech. She stares at her incredulously, even though Lily just watches back with that same calm, indifferent expression she always wears.
"Don't understand what, Mom?"
"Why, if you say you don't deserve him, you gave him your number." Lily points out plainly.
She groans, spinning on the spot and begins pacing up and down again while her mother watches, amused.
"Because I still- I still have this stupid, childish hope, you know? And it's dumb and pathetic and I don't even know what I'll do if he does call, but I just... I had to. Even though it doesn't feel right."
"Serena."
She pauses in her pacing, turns to her mother again. Hears the plain bleeding through her words and it catches her off-guard for a moment, struck by how deeply her mother feels. Their relationship is stronger now, sure, but it will never be what it once was, before all of this. She'd forgotten that they were both more than a woman who drank too much and a woman who cared too little."
"Mom?"
"I'm not gonna tell you, Serena, but... The man waited six years for you. And I doubt he's even moved on these past two years. I'm not saying you owe him anything, Serena, but if he loves you that much, and you still feel something for him too, then what's the harm in trying?"
Serena sighs, pushing a hand through her hais as she moves over to sit with her mother on the couch.
"I'm bad for him, Mom."
"You're better now, Serena."
"I am to him what drink is to you." She says quietly, picking at a loose thread on her top. "So no matter whether I'm better or if he waited for me, and no matter how good it feels, I am always going to drag him back dwn again. And I can't do that to him, Mom. I can't."
Lily sighs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she pulls her in for a half-hug. "You've been out for almost a year now, Serena. Maybe this is what you need."
"It isn't what he needs."
But that doesn't mean that she's not disappointed when a week passes and he doesn't call.
TBC
P.S Gabriel won't show up in the fic again, I just needed some guy and since I was re-watching the second season, I chose Gabriel. Let's admit, he's kinda hot, except for his voice ;)
