Title: Silk Lines
Chapter:
Eleven
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Rating: T
Ship(s): nate/blair, chuck/blair
Summary: It's them together, as it should be – as it should have been years ago.

Burgundy, France; 2014

She should have seen it coming, this epiphany of Nate's, but she'd been so elated with the offer of spending an entire summer away from New York and its drama, that Blair hadn't even thought of the ramifications of her past coming to catch up with her.

Blair remembers the previous afternoon; standing at her father's steps and watching Nate drive off into the setting sun. It had felt like a fairytale gone wry, the prince leaving without the princess, with the slightest chance of him coming back.

She is still not sure if she should be laughing or feeling something else entirely after the sudden turn of events of her summer.

But then, Blair reasons, because she shouldn't be too surprised.

Nate Archibald always had horrible timing.

New York, New York; 2015

There's a fair bit of noise, scuffing and muffled shouts and then the music changes from some erotic beat to a continuous stretch of blundering vibrations.

"Chuck?" Nate asks, taking his hands out of his pockets and landing on the leather couch next to his friend.

"Yeah?"

"Happy birthday, man."

"Thanks," replies Chuck.

The line goes silent. Nate can almost feel Chuck pulling that face he does, the one that makes him want to ask what's on his mind.

"You alright?" Nate asks.

"Yeah," answers the club owner, his eyes focusing intently on the stage before him, as if he is trapped in a distant, etched memory.

"Blair wants to bring you a cake tomorrow, what kind do you want?" He jokes, tossing a grin at Eric who is seated across the two of them.

"You and Blair are going bake a cake for me, then?" Chuck questions lightheartedly, his eyes reflecting the pink and orange lights that circle the open room. "That has got to be true love right there."

Nate laughs, and it's awkward, but it's still just Chuck.

As usual, his friend looks at him like he's trying to figure out just what the hell he's on about, not that Nate really cares. He's just happy to see Chuck outside of the ugly white walls and the pitiful chained-in hospital room.

Burgundy, France; 2014

A huge gust of wind blows through Nate's chest, like someone has opened a door for the cold rush of early morning French air to sweep into his lone hotel room. It clenches around his stomach in a pleasant way.

Chuck calls him the next morning after he gets back from a meeting, tells him that he's running himself ragged doing all the professional stuff around Eastern Asia, complains good naturedly that he had thought summer was supposed to go by a little more leisurely.

Halfway into the conversation he asks Nate if Blair has tried to contact him since his departure from her father's vineyard. If she has given him any hint of reconciliation.

"No," replies Nate, squirming around in his room, feeling uncomfortable everywhere he sits. "I left and I came straight to my hotel."

He hasn't been able to sleep ever since, and if he knows Blair, he wouldn't be surprised if it has been the same for her.

And it really doesn't change the fact that, as he was driving away in the cab, Nate could have sworn he saw Blair's face looking after him, for just a second, before she had retreated behind the vineyard fence in the late afternoon shadows.

God, he still hasn't really slept since he has been back. The thrum of anticipation is running wildly underneath his skin, burning his veins as it itches at him all hours of the night. In retrospect, Nate has probably gotten about three hours of sleep since. Add in his remedial time staring into space thinking about Blair, and watching nonsense French television which he doesn't understand, Nate is beyond exhausted.

His body is racked with fatigue and if he can't manage sleep, all he wants is a hot shower and some wholesome food.

Nate steps under the scalding water and hears the grumbling of his empty stomach, but still, that's not all. In fact, all his thoughts leave his hunger and the strange surroundings of the bathroom, and focus on Blair.

He slams his palm against the slippery shower wall tiles, because she is all he thinks about nowadays and Nate should be used to it, but he isn't.

Shit.

He's in a shower thinking of and picturing the girl he wants more than anything. The immediate arousal coursing through him is inevitable; however it doesn't help him or his situation.

Nate snaps his eyes shut tightly and wills his heartbeat to slow down as he exits the shower and stumbles around for a towel before getting dressed and bolting out of the door.

There's only one decent bakery open in the mornings in this small, hillside town and Nate takes the time to clear his head and strategize his daily agenda as he begins his long walk towards it.

The thing is Nate knows his arrival has been abrupt. He knows that Blair shouldn't have expected it, not in a million years, because it's something she would once have wanted him to do, which is why he wouldn't have done it in the first place.

He usually flakes at meeting Blair's expectations, and it irritates him. Blair not responding to him, her turning away, remembering how much he has disappointed her in the past, it hurts. It hurts like hell, because more than anything else in the world now, he wants to be the man who she has always wanted him to be.

He can't fix everything by himself, and that fact tears away at Nate as much as anything else.

New York, New York; 2015

Most days, it's pretty normal.

Most days, Chuck goes to his board meetings, most days he is laughing around, initiating banter and acting insidious, like he always has. He is rushing her and Nate off to work, off to go home after a long visit, but they usually stay with Chuck while he hears the results of his latest tests from the umpteenth specialist he sees.

Most days, she and Nate can act normal in front of Chuck. Most days Serena can visit too and not end up leaving in tears, and Blair doesn't have to think that Chuck is really dying this time.

Most days she can enjoy dinner with Nate because she can manage to forget long enough than should be possible. It doesn't take her long to realize that this is just another thing Nate has managed to give her.

"Are we being punished?" Serena whines the night after Chuck's 24th birthday and all Blair wants to do it wring her throat before Chuck says no.

Nate stays silent, locking his eyes with her, because there is a chance that yes, they are, and she doesn't know why. Blair doesn't know what sin they have committed that requires this much repentance.

"Will this take a while?" Nate asks, keeping his voice leveled and light, almost like he is complaining but doesn't want to sound dreary for the answer he should already know.

"I don't know," replies Chuck, his face unreadable.

And Blair thinks there might be some sort of empty promise in his words, and perhaps this might take forever, hopes that life in Chuck can last forever, that their close circle, their family,can last forever, even though she knows better.

Burgundy, France; 2014

Nate is kind of just lost in a maze of his own thoughts as he chews on his croissant simultaneously. There's a little girl walking her dog across the narrow street and in some other universe, she could be Blair, and that dog would probably be him.

The thought makes him chuckle, and relieves some of the tension in his stiff muscles. It's even enough to make him choke on his coffee once he sees the familiar face of an aged man approaching him.

"Nathaniel!"

He immediately snaps out of his reverie and comes face to face with Blair's father.

Panic washes over Nate, enough to make his stomach twists into what feels like a hundred different knots of discomfort. Then his hands begin to sweat as well, and he can barely hold his coffee mug.

Its okay, Nate thinks to himself. Maybe Blair hasn't told her dad of the intentions and the history behind his arrival and he won't get the living lights kicked out of him.

"Mr. Waldorf," Nate rises from his seat as he shakes the man's hand politely. "Hello."

We were lonely, I was a little drunk, and we didn't really mean it. And it wasn't even anything that bad anyhow.

A million and one excuses start to rush to his head. He internally winces as Harold sits down at the table across from him, and the guilt he feels only worsens.

It's not really like him to take responsibly onto himself. Especially not for something as huge and messy like this; something that has the potential to really cause the same amount of damage all over again. Nate doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to respond all of a sudden.

He only knows that he's suddenly so aware of Harold being the father of Blair. The Blair who would probably not think twice to let him bear the burden of a mistake they both made.

But Harold doesn't look upset.

Not at all.

In fact, he looks a little delighted at the sight of him.

"I can only imagine you're here to see my daughter," the older man says.

"Yes," he responds, because what else can he say?

"You won't find her at my home."

Nate absentmindedly rubs the scruff on his jaw as he feels something open up on the floor underneath him, something big and infinite that feels like it's going to swallow him whole.

"Sir, if I could just have one more minute with her, I promise I'll be out of her hair after that," replies Nate, feeling spontaneous and alive for the first time since his visit.

This is the feeling that had brought him here, to Burgundy, ready to leap without looking.

There's an expectant pause, and every silent second that passes causes all hope in Nate so wither and dissipate until finally he's certain that he has crossed some unmarked line.

"She's at the college in the next town over," Harold states, slowly wiping his mouth with his napkin, "In a big grey stone building, huge. It looks like an old cathedral. You can't miss it."

Nate's feet make the decision for him and he is just about to leave the table, uttering out a gracious thank you, as the sense of longing for a connection that has been running under his skin for the last couple of years kicks in full tilt, so hard it nearly makes him itch.

"Nathaniel?"

He freezes, unsure of how to react to Harold's steady face, when suddenly the man clucks his tongue and leans back into his chair.

"Next time, don't wait so long," teases Harold, wrinkles on display, and Nate feels the tightening in his insides begin to wilt away.

New York, New York; 2015

One month passes, and then another, and before Blair knows it, it's Christmas Eve. Blair, Nate, Serena and Eric, who comes along when he isn't busy studying to finish his final year at Brown, make sure to listen to Chuck and his blatantly pervasive jokes when they visit him wherever he may be.

They make sure to groan and scoff at the appropriate moments, because they are still trying desperately to cling on to whatever normalcy they can, pretending to be anything but what they are — four adults who are already grieving for a man who hasn't left yet.

And then suddenly, one day, he starts telling stories about his past, their past.

Chuck makes them promise not to showcase any emotional stuff. No tears and no sad looks.

"Just trust me," he advises, slowly rubbing his tired eyes.

Blair looks at Chuck and sees that little has changed around their Manhattan playground. Some businesses have been renamed or replaces, there's a new deli around the corner of the familiar hospital. None the less, she knows that time passes and these things, these trivial and detached things, do not affect her like she thinks they should.

Blair sees now that Chuck had made this decision for a reason. He wants them to spend time together as friends, and that's what they are doing.

But she and Nate end up at the hospital of Christmas evening anyway. Chuck fights it as hard as he can to get them to stay out of his room, but they are adamant, which is even more important.

Nate sits next to him while he sleeps, while Blair stands near the window, watching the snow falling outside splat on the thick sheet of glass. When she looks down at Chuck, an IV in his arm and his skin as winter-pale as the weather outside, she knows why he doesn't want them here.

Chuck's eyes silently open.

"Blair," he whispers, "Did I ever tell you about how—"

"Chuck," Nate chokes out, "now?"

He smiles at them, and Blair can see the remains of who he was at 17, driving her home in his limousine, at 20 when he had first been diagnosed, and at 21 when she had left him.

"Come on, do me a favor, huh?"

"Okay," says Blair, smiling despite the tightness in her mouth. She walks over to Nate and sits quietly next to him, holding each of their hands as she tries not to think about how fragile and small Chuck's is. "Tell me how you and Nate became friends."