Blair heard a baby cry in the distance - the sound ringing alarm in her head. Her body bolted up into a seated position. She looked around, noting a field of peonies around her, a highly saturated landscape, a gingham dress on her body, and a furry clothed and sleeping Dorota close by. "Not this place again," she muttered to herself.
She stood up, shaking the dirt off that had gathered on her outfit. "What is going on here?" she asked to no one in particular.
She walked over to a sleeping Louis and nudged his shoulder. "Louis," she cried. "Louis!" But he simply kept sleeping, unaffected by her pleading tone.
She noticed another body lying a few feet away and approached it slowly. As she got closer, she saw a flash of Chuck's silver suit glimmer in the sunlight, but that quickly faded when she saw the two sleeping girls on both sides of him.
She began to run through the field looking helplessly for Dan, but he was nowhere to be found. She sat back down in the field, feeling the peonies swallow her up, consuming the energy in her body. "Help," she whimpered.
A large pink bubble floated softly down, and Blair tried her hardest to keep her eyes open as it descended upon her. This time, when it burst, there was no Serena.
Blair felt her eyes start to well up. "I just want to go home," she said looking down at her feet, but her ruby slippers were gone.
Dan was gone.
Serena was gone.
Everything was gone.
Blair's eyes opened slowly, her head throbbing at the white light overhead. She felt confused and sad, but she didn't know why.
"You've been here all night," she heard Serena's voice say in the corner of the room. "I think Blair would want you to take care of yourself. At least go downstairs and eat something."
All night, she thought. All night where? Where was she? And who was Serena talking to? The room was white and harsh and her vision was still blurry, the fuzzy outlines of just waking up taking far longer than usual to adjust for clarity.
She heard feet step closer to her, and she painfully twisted her head in their direction. "Hey," came a deep voice and concerned eyes through the fog of the room. She couldn't quite see him, but she knew the voice. She knew the eyes. Humphrey.
She felt tears well up again but this time for real as he sat down beside her, his hand running across her forehead, smoothing her hair. And for a brief moment, she thought to herself maybe she had found her way home.
She wanted to ask where she was, why her head pained so much, why her vision was so slow, and why her movements were so labored, but all she could manage was a brief, hoarse, and barely recognizable, "Water."
"Of course B," Serena said, hastily making her way over to a table with a pitcher and paper cups. The blond gingerly handed it to Blair. In her first movement, she sloshed several large drops on herself.
"Blair, I'm so sorry," Serena said, grabbing for a paper towel. "I filled it too high."
"It's ok," Blair croaked out, finally reaching the water to her lips, and promptly forgetting about any spilled water as she gracelessly gulped the liquid down. After a moment, she asked, "Where am I?"
"The hospital," Dan stated simply, his hand still resting by her cheek, and before she could ask why, he answered, "You cracked your head open pretty badly."
She tentatively raised her hand to the source of the throbbing and winced as her fingers ran across a gash with several stitches. She saw Dan wince as well. "See, I always thought your head was too hard to crack," Dan said in a smile, one that couldn't quite travel the short distance to his eyes.
"Dan," Serena scolded. "It's not really the time for quips." She took the cup from Blair's hand and returned to the table to pour more water.
Dan didn't respond to Serena. Instead, he slowly took Blair's hand, holding it calmly in between his own.
And that's when she remembered. She remembered clutching her purse in her hand. Feeling fear spread through her body. His grey sweatshirt. Her disbelief. Struggling for her ruby ring. Then blackness. Blackness as she had instinctively grabbed at her stomach. "My baby-" she began, sitting up with concern.
"Is fine," Serena quickly assuaged, her blues eyes sparkling with what she deemed good news. "The doctors said the baby is good. It's you we were worried about."
I just wish this baby would go away. Her previous words haunted her, making her head ache even more. "What if I had-"
"You didn't," Dan said, squeezing her hand, somehow knowing what she was going to say. What if she had lost the baby? Dan smiled, this time the smile making it to his eyes. "And you won't," he said. "Between Chuck and Louis, I think they've flown every doctor in the tri-state area to attend to you."
At the mention of Chuck and Louis, Blair felt herself sober up a bit. She took her hand from Dan, and looking around, said, "How are you two allowed in here? I thought they only let family in the room."
She meant the comment to be biting. It only came out as tired.
"With your mom and dad are out of the country, Eleanor called to let them know that I was considered family," Serena said, adding, "and I believe the words were 'and you better treat her that way'." Serena laughed at the memory.
"And I convinced the nurse that I was the father of your baby," Dan said, still seated beside her, stubbornly refusing to budge after she unceremoniously dropped his hand.
Blair whipped her hand in his direction, immediately regretting the swift motion, but still narrowing her eyes to say, "You're not that good of a liar."
"It's a funny thing," he said, scooting even closer to the bed. "The nurse is an avid follower of Gossip Girl, and with the recent blasts, she was more than happy to accommodate me."
Blair looked suspiciously at Dan and turned her head slowly to Serena for confirmation. "Seriously, that's what he did," the blonde nodded, looking one part embarrassed and two parts uncomfortable.
"Yep," Dan said, looking oddly proud of himself. "Beth, that's the nurse's name, said she was a 'Dair' fan." He laughed a bit as he lowered his sarcastic air quotes from the air. "I'm a little embarrassed to admit I know what that means, but I'm blaming that on growing up with a little sister."
"And an affinity for bad teenage television dramas," Blair retorted sweetly.
Dan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "That is a unsubstantiated rumor."
Blair smiled. The first smile since she had woken up. "Can I remind you that I've seen your Netflix queue?"
Dan hung his head in defeat. "What's on his queue?" Serena asked, curiosity lining her lips like too much gloss.
Dan cleared his throat. "I really like that nurse though," he said changing the topic quickly. "When Chuck tried to get in, she told him that no self-respecting human being would help enable your twisted relationship. Can you believe she got that all from Gossip Girl's blog?" Blair wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry at that question. "I'm glad you woke up," Dan said, taking her hand again, the moment morphing into something far more serious as she felt his fingers lace with her own. His stubborn refusal to take a hint warming her heart a bit in a way only he could do. "For a while there, you really worried me Waldorf."
There were moments in life where words weren't really necessary. In fact, they just stumbled in the way of true genuineness. This didn't happen very often to Blair Waldorf. It was perhaps a contributing factor to her years of reading and amassing a vocabulary that would rival any SAT test-maker. She wanted to always be prepared, ready to express the moment with the best chosen words so all would know exactly what she wanted to convey.
But here, in that harsh white room, terrifying blue hospital gown, tubes and beeps and monitors providing all the ambiance of a trucker bar, Blair felt one of those moments. She felt her breathing grow heavy. Her heart beat a little more fiercely. She felt his hand in hers, a feeling so familiar it almost scared her. Words didn't escape her - they just weren't needed as she drank in his concern for her.
"Yeah, you know what," Serena said, shattering the moment. Blair looked away, watching her best friend fidget uncharacteristically with her nail. "We should probably get the doctor," she added. "I'll be right back."
Blair watched as her friend left the room. The moment was gone and now she just felt awkward.
She looked around the room, her hand still in his. "There are a lot of peonies here," she observed. Lame, she thought to herself, but it was true. The room was filled with bouquets of beautiful pink flowers. Beautiful but suffocating after her dream. They made her think of Louis and her empty promises. Of Chuck and his endless disappointments.
"Yeah," Dan said, moving back a little to reach for the nightstand by the bed. He lifted a book, an old looking book, the edges brown with time. "I got you this," he said, handing it to her. It was a copy of Pride and Prejudice. Actually, it was her copy of Pride and Prejudice. "Well," he amended," I didn't so much as get it for you as I finally read it like you asked me too."
She had. She had asked him what felt like a lifetime ago. She had lent her rare edition to him two days before leaving for Monaco, and she had promised that if anything happened to it, she now had an army at her disposal. "It was good," Dan said. "You know, if you're into the happy ending thing," he finished with purpose in his voice.
She smiled. "Happy ending? What's that?" The words came out sadder than she had intended.
Dan shook his head, looking around the room as well. "I thought about getting you flowers, you know," he said. "But daisies seemed too commonplace. Lilies too morbid." He paused. "I thought about going Bronte and getting a field of heather but I didn't like the message," he said shaking his head. "I know you like peonies, but I didn't get you any. They kind of seem to be your harbinger of sadness."
"What, was 'harbinger' on your word of the day calendar?" Blair scoffed. Watching him ramble was starting to make her feel more like herself.
"Actually, no," Dan said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "It was 'fissiparous', but with you unconscious in the hospital, I didn't want to talk about pieces falling apart."
The sadness in his voice stopped Blair, halting her typical sharp tongue. "I suppose peonies have been around in a few of my least favorite moments," she conceded, visions of throwing them on an elevator floor, hopelessly picking them out of the Empire State Building's trash, and clutching them as she saw a tear-stained, raccoon-eyed Jenny Humphrey coming to the forefront of her mind. "Although that might have more to do with who gave them to me," she finished a little more tongue in cheek then she had supposed. "How do you even know I like peonies?" she asked sincerely.
"Writers notice details," he said and then much more seriously, "and I also have an active interest in you."
She wanted to ask why. Her situation at the moment was far from perfect. Preceding that, they came from two different worlds - two different styles, really. Why would he have an on-going interest in her, especially after their last conversation? If he had directed the words 'trailer trash' towards her, she would have been fine with his mugging and consequent leaving on the street to die.
Well, maybe not fine.
"Dan," she began hesitantly, "about what I said to you the last time we talked -"
"Look who's awake," announced an older blond man in a white coat as he entered the room holding a clipboard. "We were really starting to worry."
Blair sighed. She would have to wait a little longer to clear the air with Dan.