Author note: and now I am done. Thanks to everyone for reading this. It's been a labor of love and I have enjoyed all the comments. xoxo :) I'm sure I have a few more stories roiling around in my head, so stay tune. ~Sophia

Epilogue

Dan and Blair get married, but not right away. She tells Dan one night over candlelight that she wants to marry him, but she's belonged to too many men: Chuck, Louie. She needs marriage to not feel like becoming someone's possession. Dan nods and he's okay with her terms because he knows neither of them are going anywhere.

They date. Blair doesn't want to live together. For her it seems like letting go of all her dreams of love and marriage, but she practically lives at the loft anyway, her toothbrush in the bathroom, her clothing inching Dan's out of his dresser. They go to work and school, Dan silently handing her coffee as she's pouring over her schedule for the day at her internship, Blair placing a sandwich next to him as he writes through dinner yet again.

She keeps a studio on the Upper East Side, her sanctuary, where she can sit and think. Sometimes he stays over, but it never feels entirely like home.

It's a beautiful spring day and the air is filled with the scent of cherry blossoms. It's simple, much simpler than Blair's teenage fantasies. She's not even wearing white. Dan looks handsome in his suit and tie. They are surrounded by their friends and family, Eleanor and Cyrus, Rufus and Lily, even Jenny. Serena is her only attendant, her smile radiant and full of love.

It had taken Serena some time to come to terms with Dan and Blair. She'd avoided them for the entire summer and into the fall. Finally Blair had decided it was time to reach out or lose her friend entirely. It was a simple invitation to coffee which turned into hours of talking, reconnecting, Serena tearing up as she told Blair that she thought she would never love someone as much as she loved Dan, that it hurt her physically to see them together. That was why she'd stayed away. Blair thought about how she'd loved Chuck and how many times she'd felt physical pain as she watched him with other women. She understood.

Things had been better after that.

Dan and Blair would dance at Serena's wedding. They would dance at her second wedding too, as well as her third.

A simple quartet is playing as Blair walks across the grass toward Dan. Chuck is sitting in a chair close to the aisle and their eyes meet. He flashes Blair a smile and she smiles back. They have reached some sort of truce.

Chuck had followed the final scenes of Inside too closely. Neither Dan or Blair heard much of him for what seemed like a couple years after her escape from the clutches of the Grimaldis, only snippets and gossip, none of it good. Chuck's eternal smooth demeanor seemed to be cracking slowly and there are more and more whispers over cocktails at parties about his drunken behavior and womanizing. Blair felt sad every time she heard one of the salacious stories. Then one night the phone rings and it's Lily on the other line. Chuck is in the hospital. He tried to kill himself.

Dan understands when Blair rushes to the hospital. He brings her food as she holds vigil at Chuck's bedside. Chuck has a tube down his throat that his helping him breath and she hears the staff things like 'polysubstance overdose' in hushed tones. For a week she sit there, holding Chuck's hand, trying to see the man she had loved through all the tubes. It would be a long time before she would be able to get the beeps and hisses of the intensive care unit out of her head.

Chuck pulled through. They take the tube out and he wakes up. Blair finally comes home, exhausted, and collapses into bed and sleeps for almost 24 hours. Dan just holds her in his arms.

Almost dying changes Chuck. He leaves New York for a while after he locates his mother living in Paris and moves there to be closer to her. For the first time in his life he doesn't feel like there's an emptiness that can't be filled. They develop a relationship but ultimately Chuck realizes that Lily has always been the one who was there for him. He returns to New York and finds Lily in the penthouse and there are tears as she tells him that he has always had family even when he didn't feel like it. That's when Lily tells him about Blair's vigil, and Chuck realizes that his hazy recollection of her voice wasn't a narcotic induced dream. He thought he was imagining things, conjuring her up in his most desperate moment.

Blair loves you, Lily told him. She may not have been in love with you for a long time but it doesn't mean that you aren't part of her.

Chuck would never be a big part of Dan and Blair's life. Things were too painful for Blair to ever be entirely casual. He had been able to tell her that he was happy for her. He was able to come to their wedding. Chuck would leave New York shortly after that and return to Europe. One day he would run into Eva and for the first time in a long time someone would take his breath away like Blair used to. He would end up being actually happy, just not in the way he'd imagined and not with the person he'd imagined, and that was okay.

Nate stands next to Dan watching Blair walk toward them. He was pretty much their biggest fan, offering unwavering support for his two favorite people, genuinely happy to see them together. Lola is sitting in one of the aisles, her hands absently rubbing her swollen pregnant belly. Two weeks after Dan and Blair are married Cordelia Archibald would come screaming into the world and Dan and Blair would be her loyal and proud godparents.

Nate and Lola would go on to have three more children. He would end up selling the Spectator and going into politics just like his grandfather wanted him to. Nate was someone who felt eternally empty and restless, never doing anything for himself, and many years later he would find himself having an affair with a vacuous blonde intern who giggled at his every word while Lola thought he was working late. He didn't know who he was or what he wanted, but all that would change with Lola's cancer diagnosis and as she lay in bed dying a slow and unfair death, he would sit in the other room, his head in his hands, tears running down his face as he told Dan that it was the most horrible thing to finally realize that someone was the love of your life just as you were about to lose them.

Nate would change after that, no longer living his life for other people, quitting politics, devoting his time to his children, establishing The Lola Archibald foundation to raise money for cancer research. Dan and Blair would spend weekends with him and the kids during the summer, and Dan remarked how happy Nate seemed.

Nate and Serena would run into each other one day, much later, her sitting at a bar in the airport on her way back from California, having a drink before facing her mother and breaking the news that she'd be divorcing for a third time. Nate on his way to a fundraising event in Washington DC. They would hug and talk and both left each other feeling strangely happy and bubbly. He would call her the next day, and then the next, and not long after that Serena would move back to New York and not long after that they would marry. Full circle, Blair would murmur as she helps Serena into her dress that day. It was a simple affair at the courthouse followed by brunch at the Van der Woodsen/Humphrey penthouse. For both Nate and Serena it would be the last time they were married and one day Serena would be helping the youngest of her step kids with her homework and planning the oldest's wedding and she would realize that she was happy.

Lily and Rufus are sitting in the front row, their hands were clasped tightly together as Blair glides past them. They were so much like her and Dan, the princess and the pauper, and they are radiating happiness. Blair would see that same happiness a few years later when Lily cradled up a tiny, wrinkled right red baby girl her arms, her first granddaughter who would become the center of their lives. Rufus proclaimed her beautiful and Blair would smile up at Dan who was stroking her hair and smiling like he might burst. Their family brunches would be filled with high pitched voices and the pitter patter of little feet after that.

Life would go on. They would move, needing more space for their second baby. She would leave her job to start doing design work and Dan would be in the front row during her first fashion week show. He would spend his days chasing tiny feet and wiping sticky hands, writing all night. His third book would be published to mixed reviews and Blair would tell him that she was sure another masterpiece lurked in there. They would fund a young writers collective and Dan would start teaching some classes at NYU. They would vacation with Nate and Serena and the whole Archibald clan. Lily and Rufus would start to slow down, getting grayer around the edges. They would have boring days, mundane days, arguments over simple things, but still Dan and Blair would never lose sight of how much they love each other.

Blair knows none of this as she stands in front of Dan and places her hands in his. He'd asked her if she wanted him to use the vows he'd written so long ago, the ones she said had peered into her soul. Blair thought about Louie. He'd left the city the night she'd escaped from her penthouse, at least a lifetime ago, and returned to Monaco. She'd heard updates from time to time. He'd find some heiress to marry him and make his mother happy but had kept Estee as his mistress. She also discovered that his bisexuality was the worst kept secret in Monaco and that he had a thing for pool boys of Mediterranean descent. She felt even more betrayed than ever. Even if Dan had written the vows, they were tinged with Louie and the disaster her life almost became. So she asked Dan to start again.

Dan's hands are shaking and he clears his throat a little. Blair's eyes are shining with tears. He pulls her close to him before the officiant can start the ceremony and quickly whispers in her ear.

I love you.

Blair smiles and whispers those words back. The ceremony will be quick and after they eat a lot of good food and are buzzing with champagne and happiness, the town car will whisk them away on their honeymoon, and Blair will admire the ring on her hand and Dan will laugh about how so long ago when she was flinging insults at him on the steps of the Met and he was wondering how she and Serena could be friends, that they could never have imagined being here.

Together. Married. In love.