Chapter 10

Dan woke up to the smell of waffles and the sound of his dad crooning to one of his old songs. Dan definitely loved his dad's waffles and his singing, (he had been used to both of them for most of his life) but the last 2 years, he'd been more used to silent mornings and the smell of black coffee. This special treatment every day, with everyone being so overtly protective and caring made him feel very odd about himself. He liked the fact that every one stood by him and took care of him, but it was getting a bit much now, he missed being in Brooklyn, he missed his own space, he missed doing small little things for himself, he just wasn't used to a life, where everything was served to him on a platter. He had gotten much better now, he felt much stronger, and he was ready. He could take care of himself now, he wanted to tell them that.

He knew his dad, Lily, Jenny wouldn't be happy about it but he had to do it for himself. And then he thought about Serena, Serena who had spent every minute in the last one and a half months taking care of him. Serena was behaving like his own personal nurse, she took care of all of Dan's needs, he was grateful for that, but he didn't know if Serena was doing it for love or guilt, but he knew she was scared and she wanted to just take care of him.

Dan had to let his dad know that he wanted to go back to Brooklyn, he felt fine and he was well enough to take care of himself now. He made up his mind that he had to do it today, maybe he could rope in Eric to support him, as Eric was coming back today from Rhode Island for the weekend.

Dan got up slowly from his bed and made his way to the kitchen in the penthouse, where the whole family was already there to greet him, in addition to it were Nate and Chuck( well Chuck was technically family too). Dan remembered the many breakfasts and brunches at the Vanderwoodsen-Humphrey penthouse, with the same group of people, but she used to always be there. He didn't care about her presence back then, except for the time she would make one of her snide remarks. But now, her absence was so prominent, but he looked at everybody around him, and they all pretended that none of them could feel her absence. But he knew they were all pretending, none of them ever brought her name around him. But he wanted them to stop acting like this, yes, she had hurt him and he probably hated her, but it's not like he had tried to kill himself or something over her, so they had to stop acting this way.

Rufus was the first one to greet Dan, "Son, c'mon, join us, I made special waffles today."

Dan joined everybody on the table and they all took turns to say something to him; breakfast as usual was lavish. After everybody finished the sumptuous meal; Nate and Chuck bid their goodbye and left, Jenny and Serena had decided to go shopping and they too left. It was only Rufus, Lily, Eric and him left at home. He knew his dad and lily had to go for some fund-raiser lunch today and that they too would be off in a while. He was in fact glad that he would get to spend some time with Eric alone.

His parents left soon and it was just him and Eric and they decided to just talk. Eric had just begun dating someone and Eric was completely smitten by him. He was glad that Eric didn't treat him like an invalid and spoke to him, without asking him all about his health and how he was doing and blah blah, he was really tired of answering those questions on a daily basis.

There was another thing on Dan's mind that he wanted to ask Eric, something that he hadn't been able to ask anyone because he didn't want to hope and everybody had made sure that they never mentioned her in front of him. But he wanted to know now, why she hadn't come to see him even once, when he was in there fighting for his life, she couldn't have been that heartless, could she? He never saw her there, but somewhere for some reason he felt, that she had come, he didn't want to believe otherwise, but with Blair, he didn't know if he could ever trust his instincts again.

After a brief period of silence, Dan spoke up and said, "Eric, I don't know if I should bring this up, but there's something that's been bothering me for a while and I don't know if I could turn to anyone else but you."

Eric in a worried tone, asked Dan, "what is it Dan?"

Dan murmured, "It's about Blair."

Eric realized that this was probably the moment that Eric had to keep Blair's promise, he couldn't betray her trust on this one, he felt conflicted but he knew there was no other way out, he spoke softly and said, "what about Blair, Dan?"

Dan spoke after another moment of silence, "I don't know why I think or why I hope that Blair cared, you know about me. That she came to see me, when I was fighting for my life in the hospital that she bothered to find out how I was doing. That she was there, even for single second that she cared. Eric I don't know, but something inside me still feels that despite everything Blair still cared, you know, I mean I can't talk about her to anybody else, there's a complete ban in this place, nobody ever utters her name, nobody mentions her, I don't know, but I still wonder about her sometimes. I don't know why she hasn't come to see me. "

Eric knew that it was going to be very difficult to lie to Dan, but he had to do it, "Dan, I am really sorry, but Blair, she never came to see you, she didn't. She's not even here in fact, she left a couple of days after your accident for France and I don't think she's coming back. Dan, it's the best if you just forget about her, she didn't care, I am sorry. "

Dan didn't even let Eric complete his words, and he just left, he went to his room and locked himself. This was his very last hope for Blair but even this was crushed. He had tried so hard to hate her but the only person he hated right now was himself, because he still cared for her. He still expected that she cared, but she never had, she didn't even care about him, when he lay there dying. This was all too much, how many times would he let Blair Waldorf destroy him again and again. He had to stop this, he didn't care how but he had to force her out of his mind, no matter what it took.

Dan spent the rest of his day in the room, he only came out for dinner and he found his dad, Lily, Jenny, Serena and Eric all sitting around in the living room. The moment he entered they all looked up and Jenny came up to him and she hugged him tightly.

Dan cleared his throat and said, "I wanted to speak to all of you about something."

He looked around to see that his dad looked confused, whereas Lily looked curious, Jenny looked tensed, Serena looked worried and Eric looked apologetic.

Dan began again, "I know the last few weeks have been very tough for all of you and I can never thank any of you enough for taking care of me the way you have but I feel much better now and although I've loved being here with all of you, but I feel it's time that I move back to the loft. I really am better and I think the sooner I move there, the faster I can get back to my old life."

His dad rose in protest and said, "Dan, you're still not fine. I mean how can you even think of it right now. I mean you definitely can't take care of yourself. You're still healing. "

"Dad, I understand you're worried, but believe me dad, I am fine, I can really take care of myself and I kind of miss living by myself and taking care of all my needs."

After a big round of protests and deliberations and negotiations, Dan had managed to convince his dad, Jenny and Serena that it was a good idea for him to move back. Lily had come around much faster, even though she loved having Dan stay with them; she understood his need to be independent.

Dan went back to his room to sleep and it was probably very late at night, he heard a knock on his door. He got up from his bed with a great difficulty, it had been a long and depressing day and his medicines had made him so drowsy, so to wake up in the middle of the night was definitely difficult.

He made his way to the door slowly and opened it, only to find a teary-eyed Serena standing at his door. Dan was worried looking at Serena and he opened the door wide enough for to enter and he shut it after she was in. Dan went up to where Serena was standing and he just looked at her and then cupped her face in his hands and spoke, "Serena, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

She looked at Dan, the man who had almost sacrificed his life to save her and said, "Dan, at dinner today, when you decided that you wanted to leave, live by yourself in the loft, something inside me felt very upset and sad, I don't know, Dan, you suffered because of me, I mean I brought everything on you and I just wanted to make it up to you if I ever could and take care of you but now you want to leave and a part of me thinks that you still haven't forgiven me."

"Serena, don't be crazy, it never was your fault, and I would save you again and again. Don't blame yourself and I don't want to go back because I am tired of being around you, it's just that im tired of being taken care of, that's all." Dan said.

Serena said, "No, Dan all of it, everything that you had to go through, all the pain that you had to endure, everything was because of me. If I hadn't ever come into your life, if you had never fallen in love with me, if I hadn't dragged you into my world, you'd be happy today and not hurting, it's all my fault, Dan. "

Dan took Serena's hands in his and made her shush and he said, "Serena, don't ever say that, if I could go back and redo my life, there are a lot of things I would like to change, like you know Georgina, but I would never. I can never regret falling in love with you; I've never blamed you for dragging me into your world. I wouldn't be anywhere but be a part of this world now, this is where I want to be Serena, and this is where I chose to be."

Serena just leapt into Dan's arms as soon as he finished his sentence. She whispered into his ear, "Dan, don't leave me here, I don't know how to live without you, take me with you, please!"

Dan held Serena back from him and looked at her and he wondered maybe this was how it was supposed to be all along. It was always supposed to be them, she was the woman who had enchanted him for a large part of his life, she was his first love, and she was the one who had literally nursed him back to health. How hard could this be? He pushed Serena's hair behind her ear and said, "Okay".

Before he even finished his sentence, he found Serena's lips on his and before he realized he was kissing her back. He began to kiss her with force, almost feverishly, because he felt the harder he kissed Serena, the further he could push Blair away from his mind, from his heart and his life. so he kissed her harder and harder, with all the force and intensity in him, trying hard to drown out every thought about the woman who had broken him.

Okay, this was the last chapter, before the time leap. I know the story is turning longer and longer, but I guess iam just writing in flow. Hope you guys are still reading and liking it.

Well, this isn't really an update, but I just changed my formatting a bit because I realized that many of you must be finding it very difficult to read it( as suggested by some of you). So maybe this format becomes easier for you guys to read. Iam going to be updating very soon and it'll probably be more than one chapter at a time. The story's going to do a turnaround in the next few chapters, with lots of D-B interaction.