Dinner at the small italian place in Brooklyn goes even better than he dared to hope for. The food is good, the wine rich, and Serena's heel against his calf is the most wonderful distraction. The best part, though, is how normal it feels, how easily the conversation comes, as if it's just another one of their typical date nights.

They talk about the kids, about his father and Serena's mother whom he has yet to see, about small glimpses into the last six years that don't hurt so much. He enjoys hearing about the single semester of ballet class Hailey was enrolled in when she was four, laughing at Serena's recollection of how she was called into the studio twice because their daughter favored the bar as a gymnastics tool far too much. He's captivated by the surprising stories of her and Milo having sleepovers in Serena's Penthouse while Serena was pregnant. But Milo's insistence that Serena shouldn't be alone when she was so close to the due date, his need to be there for her during the drive to the hospital, sounds about right.

It all leaves a pang of guilt and wanting in his gut. But the relief of witnessing Serena speak of times when he wasn't around without that haunted look spilling onto her face is far greater.

They've just finished a shared dessert of tiramisu when she signals the waiter, pays the bill before he can. Shushing his arguments with a roll of her eyes she leads him out of the restaurant to walk off the full meal. Serena's hand snug in his. He's about to suggest that they find a coffee shop when Serena's phone buzzes from the clutch of her purse. His immediate thought is work, even though it's become more lenient since becoming a mother. She only brought her phone for one reason tonight.

"It's Milo," she announces, scanning over the text quickly and reading it aloud to him. "They went back to the loft to watch their marathon on the projector screen, but when Hailey fell asleep, she had a nightmare, and now she wants her dad."

"Me?" he whispers, earning a quizzical look from Serena that turns soft as they pick up their pace.

"Yeah, Dan, you," she murmurs, squeezing his arm.

It isn't a far walk to his loft since they're in the same neighborhood, but they hail a cab to cut the time in half, and then rush up the elevator side by side. He can hear the muffled sounds of crying from Hailey's bedroom as soon as they step inside the loft. Serena nudges him on ahead of her, encourages him be the first thing Hailey sees as he jogs up to her room.

Her door is open and when he spills into the room, he sees Milo sitting on the bed with her, rocking his sister back and forth as Hailey weeps quietly into his neck.

"Hey, hey, look who's here," Milo calls softly once he notices Dan in the doorway. He shifts out of the way as Hailey spares a look upwards to see him, immediately reaching for him as he takes a seat on the bed.

"Daddy," she chokes out, wrapping her arms tight around his neck. Dan hauls her into his lap, resumes the soothing back and forth sway Milo put into motion. "You were gone - you were gone and you didn't come back."

Milo squeezes his shoulder as he slips from the bed, quietly disappears from the room. Dan strokes his fingers through Hailey's hair like he's seen Serena do so many times, already feels Hailey begin to calm against him.

"I'm right here," he promises, cradling the huddle of her body to his chest. "Your mom and I were just down the street having dinner, remember? But we came back, we're home now."

Hailey nods against him, drops her cheek to his collarbone.

"It was so real. We were looking for you, like in my other dreams," Hailey explains, rubbing at one of her eyes. "And we never found you in those either, but this time... I never had you then, now I do and I don't want you to leave."

Shit, she's breaking his heart all over again.

"Just a dream, sweetheart," he promises, cuddling her closer to his chest and propping his chin atop her head. "I'm not going anywhere."

He stays with her until the tears on her cheeks have dried and he's coaxed at least one sleepy giggle from her lips. She eventually crawls from his lap to lie back down, her small body curled to face him, and he adjusts his back against the headboard, acquiesces her request for a story.

"Tell me one about you and Mommy," she yawns, her eyes already struggling to stay open.

"But your mom already told you all of our stories," he points out, sure that Serena's gone over every extraordinary moment.

"Tell me when you knew Momma was your forever," she suggest, pillowing her cheek atop one of her hands.

Huh, okay. He can do that.

"Okay," he nods, getting a little more comfortable and allowing his mind to wander back in time. Before Serena was ever his, before she would have even fathomed the idea of giving him a chance. "Well, I won't lie, I was kind of head over heels for her from the first day I met her."

"She said never to believe you if you said it was love at first sight, because she was drunk and probably talked a lot of nonsense when you first met her," Hailey mumbles, but her lips quirk with amusement when he huffs at that.

"Fine, she's probably right about that part," he concedes. "But I definitely wanted to know her, to be a part of her life, and I always had a huge crush on her for sure. I couldn't forget her, even when I hadn't seen her in over a year."

"But when did you know you loved her," Hailey questions, giggling as Dan muffles the last of her sentence with a hand over her mouth.

"You're just as impatient as your mom. I'm trying to tell you a story here," he grouses, lifting his hand and ruffling her hair before he folds it back into his lap, waiting until she's settled with a contented sigh once more. "I think I knew with certainty that I loved your mom when I saw her selflessness, when I saw her kindness. When I saw how she always tried to help the people she cared about. And that's when I told her. Did she tell you that story about me telling her all the reasons why I love her?"

"Yeah," Hailey yawns, shifting to snag her stuffed elephant from her opposite side and cuddling it to her chest. "She said you compared her laugh to a four year's old."

The smile tugs at the corner of his mouth; he knows she eventually rolled her eyes at that whenever he would bring it up. He noticed Hailey having the same laugh.

"Yeah. You wanna know a story she definitely hasn't told you? A few years later, your mom came to live here for a few nights after deciding not to attend college that semester, she stayed in this very room actually, and she doesn't know this part," he confesses with a quiet chuckle. "But I used to check on her almost every night, just to be sure she was okay. And I think that's when I started to realize that I would love her forever, despite everything that has happened."

Hailey's drifting, he can tell, but she smiles sleepily at his answer, presses her cheek to her elephant's soft fur.

"You shoulda told her then," Hailey slurs.

Dan hums, brushes the hair back from her cheek and watches her eyes flutter shut. "Maybe, but I like how our story turned out."

Hailey hums, but doesn't reply, her breathing beginning to even out. Dan watches her, takes a moment to rest his head against the wall.

"Has she told you the story of how I followed her to the Hamptons?" he asks, but doesn't get a reply. His own mention of the beach sparks a yearning in his chest for the solitude of Serena's oceanside home, for the scent of the sea breeze in Serena's hair and the taste of the sun on her golden skin, for the sight of Hailey frolicking on the beach and Milo swimming laps in the pool.

Serena has mentioned that Hailey only has a couple of weeks of school left before summer break, maybe they can all drive up to the Hamptons, escape the city and retreat to a place untouched by bad memories and pain.

He glances down to Hailey, seemingly fast asleep, her face cleansed of nightmares and finally at peace. Dan slips silently from the bed, bends to brush a kiss to her temple before he tiptoes out of her room.

"Love you, Peanut," he whispers, thoughtlessly using Serena's nickname for the girl, watching her arm tighten ever so slightly around her elephant, fingers twitching.

"Love you, Daddy," she breathes, her eyes failing to open.

His heart clenches.

Tonight is the first time she's ever called him 'Daddy', has actually told him she loves him without Serena around.

Dan closes her door without making a sound and rests his back against it for a long second, lets the smile lace along his lips. He can't wait to tell Serena.

Serena tiptoes back to the kitchen when Dan and Hailey eventually go quiet inside the bedroom, hurrying before Dan can emerge and catch her listening in. Not that she meant to. She only went to check on them, didn't expect to hear Dan telling Hailey when and how he knew he was in love with her all those years ago, sharing a piece of their story with their daughter that Serena herself didn't even know about.

The soft sound of footsteps only a few short minutes later has her quickly disassembling the coffee machine, doing her best to appear busy. She waits until she senses his presence in the kitchen to lift her head.

He looks so lovely in the gentle light of the loft with that hint of wonder in his eyes.

"Hey, is she okay?"

"Yep, sleeping soundly again," he assures her, glancing to the living room, back to Milo's room. "Did Milo head to bed too?"

"Ah, no," Serena chuckles, chewing on her lip at the curious glimmer in his eyes as they swing back to her. "Well, he has a friend who also volunteers at the organization, and they had plans tonight that he cancelled for Hailey-"

"And by friend, you mean..." He swallows hard. "A girl?"

Serena rolls her eyes, abandons the coffeemaker to drift towards him, pacifying him with a pat of her hand to his cheek. "Her name is Sarah and I've met her. She seems very nice."

"But-"

"And he's sixteen years old, Dan," she reminds him, stroking her thumb along his jaw, his chin. "And so responsible. I promise you."

He sighs, catches the pad of her thumb with the pucker of his lips, a fleeting scrape of his teeth that has her insides simmering.

"Oh, but guess what," Dan whispers, curling his fingers around her wrist and drawing their hands to his chest. "Hailey called me 'Daddy' for the first time, she actually called me that, Serena. And she told me she loved me."

She already knows, heard the words outside Hailey's door, but her heart still melts at the look on his face, the awe and pride of being loved by the daughter who has only known him for a few weeks, and her smile breaks open along with her chest.

"It was only a matter of time," she grins, fingering the lapel of his jacket, resisting the urge to toy with the top button of his shirt.

She moves to take a step back, doesn't want to rush anything with him, but Dan catches her hand. He trails his palm up the path of her arm until he can cup her shoulder, stroke his thumb to the uncovered edge of bone.

"Dan," she murmurs, her eyes flickering to his mouth without her consent.

She just... wants him so badly, is tired of trying to quell the need that spikes every time he's around. A sensation that has only been growing, making the process of sharing a bed all the more difficult lately. Dan seems to sense the desire building through her blood, his eyes mimicking hers, trailing down to her mouth, some of the tenderness fading.

"Serena." Her name is a husk in his mouth, laden with the same desperation she feels thrumming through her veins, and she leans in closer, her breasts brushing his chest.

But he hesitates, just as she feared.

"Dan?" she murmurs, keeping hold of his jacket, keeping him within arm's length, but failing to truly understand the trepidation tugging at the lines of his face. He's made no secret of wanting her since he came back. Hell, he has her lingerie stored somewhere in his bedroom. He wouldn't have just changed his mind... would he?

"I'm - it's just there's... it's stupid, but something Tripp said," he confesses, pursing his lips.

Okay, not the exact time she wants to hear about the psychopath who kidnapped him, but she nods, waits for him to continue.

"I think he and Maureen let me escape."

"Let you?" she echoes, her brow furrowing deep. "Why would they ever-"

"I don't know, I've been wracking my brain since it popped into my head the other night. All I know is that I don't think it happened how they wanted it to. I don't think I escaped according to whatever schedule they may have had," he sighs, pressing the heel of his palm to his eye socket for a moment before dropping his hand to her waist. When he meets her gaze, it's with a flare of shame she doesn't understand. "The only reason I'm bringing this up now is because I... I overheard them discussing it once. I don't know how, where I was or why they were with me when I was always locked up, but - the clearest thing I heard, that I remember Tripp saying, is that you wouldn't be a problem anymore, that we wouldn't. That even if I made my way back, you would never want someone so damaged, on the inside and - well, the outside."

"No," she argues immediately, firmly, lifting her other hand to snag in his jacket when he shifts as if to move away from her. "No, Dan, we talked about this-"

"I know, I know," he placates, his hand squeezing at her hip. "And I know insecurity really isn't my thing anymore, I just-"

"Dan," she gets out, a little sharper than she intended, but it manages to hook his attention, bring his trepidatious eyes back to her. "Do you know what Tripp and Maureen underestimated?"

He shakes his head, but he looks hopeful, desperate for her to prove him wrong. And she can, she will.

"I don't think anyone could ever comprehend how much I love you," she murmurs, holding his gaze and leaving hers unguarded, letting him seek there whatever reassurance he may need to find. "You told me they wanted to break you and maybe hearing those kind of things for six years, having Tripp purposely planting them in your head, did. To an extent."

Serena relocates her hands to his neck, the warm skin of his throat, and grazes her thumbs along the hinges of his jaw. She allows her eyes to follow the work of her fingers, linger along the faded scar on his chin, the fullness of his lips.

She stepped out of her heels at the door and the slight difference in their height has Dan leaning in, their noses brushing and the heat of his breath blooming across her lips. Threading her fingers through his hair, she cradles the back of his skull, lets her eyes seek his.

It's so close, so intimate, that she only has to whisper the words.

"But I can prove them wrong."

She flicks her gaze down to his mouth once more, but he's already pressing his lips to hers, a warm caress of a kiss that blooms with heat as she arches onto her toes, opens her mouth. The stroke of his tongue spills fire through her veins, upsets the stability of her knees, and has her sinking deeper into him.

She loses her breath as his hands scale her thighs, slip beneath the skirt of her dress to cup her ass and hoist her up. Serena's legs band around him with ease, welcoming the proximity and rocking into the cradle of his hips, gasping at the sensation, relishing in the sound of his groan.

"Bed?" he breathes, the solid wall of his chest thrumming with the drumbeat of his heart beneath hers.

She nods, tries to quell the urge to undulate against him and to throw off the precarious balance of their bodies as he starts to walk them towards his bedroom.

The roam of his hands beneath her dress isn't helping, taking advantage of the firm grip her thighs have around his hips and palming the taut muscles of her ass, hooking a thumb in the waistband of lace just below her hipbone. She can't help the way she curls around him, her body like a cove, protective and sure, but her heart is a wild thing in the cage of her ribs. Raw and desperate and so badly wanting, straining towards him.

They nearly crash into a bookshelf once they make it inside his bedroom. She catches his grunt of surprise with her teeth, unable to cease in her unrelenting quest for his mouth after so long without it. She almost asks him to just lower her to his desk, the coil of heat in her abdomen indomitable, the beat of her heart too frantic, but Dan is determined, securing his hold on her body.

He's firmly in control when he spins them, slamming the door shut with the press of her spine to the hard surface. Her spine arches, her head falling back with a thud, and Dan's lips skim along the bone of her jaw, trailing fire down the column of her neck, his tongue clever and warm and oh so welcome over the flesh.

He drags a moan from her throat and she shoves the jacket from his shoulders, desperate for the touch of skin beneath her hands. Her fingers fumble, but she manages to slide a few buttons of his shirt out of place as he lets her go to shrug the suit from his arms. The lack of his grip causes her to slip, aligning their bodies a little too perfectly, the muscle of his thigh catching between her legs. She mewls, grinds down.

"Serena," he chokes out, the heated gasp of her name staining her jaw. Her name on his tongue feeds the sparks of need spreading across every inch of her skin, soaking into her bloodstream.

His thigh flexes beneath her and she buries a sound that is too close to a sob in his shoulder. His muscles are toned, stronger after just a few weeks of physical therapy, a vast improvement from the near atrophied state they were in upon his return. Her body yearns to just grind down, ride his thigh and the glorious friction. She damn well knows Dan would let her, encourage her release, but she wants all of him. She wants to feel him fall apart with her.

And it will be oh so worth the wait, she knows that from experience. This isn't their first time, but Dan still explores as if it is, his lips travelling to the bared skin of her shoulder where the strap of her dress has fallen, venturing along the jut of her collarbone, the slope of a breast.

"Dan," she breathes, fisting her fingers in the collar of his button down, refusing to whimper, not yet. But - oh, god, soon. "Please."

He sucks in a breath that trembles and draws her away from the door. Carrying her through those final steps to the bed, he follows the descent of her body with hands that skim along her sides, dance across the undersides of her breasts.

A pleasant flicker of deja vu plays in the back of her mind, memories of their first night, the tender touch of his hands, the needful press of his mouth and the shy but skillful slide of his tongue. The way he worshipped her body with an ardency she never knew before him. That same intention flares gold in his eyes as he hovers above her now. Of course, she's known all along that he would give nothing less, give her everything, and her chest is already burning with emotion, with impatience and unshed tears.

Her eyes slip shut without warning when he presses a kiss to her sternum, laves his tongue over her skin. A keening noise breaks past her lips as he lingers, adores the skin with his mouth. One of her legs twines around his waist, her hips rolling into his, the fire in her blood beginning to unfurl and intensify with every sweep of his fingers and graze of his mouth.

She helps him in the process of removing her dress, squirming free of fabric and bowing her spine as he slowly - god, far too slowly - drags the zipper down her back, branding each knob of her vertebrae with the whorls of his fingertips.

She shimmies her hips once the material is finally past her torso, watches him drop her dress over the edge of the bed.

The chain around her neck slips out of place without the fabric, has nowhere to hide, and Dan pauses above her. He follows the line of gold with his fingers to the space between her breasts that glitters with the jewel of an engagement ring.

"You kept it," he rasps, brushing his thumb over the subtle set of diamonds, the band of platinum, looking so surprised and relieved and almost childlike with the wonder that breaches the seas of arousal overtaking his gaze. "It- it wasn't in the drawer and I wasn't sure if-"

I never took it off," she explains, hopefully dispelling the last of his doubts.

"I - but you were... even while you and Carter-"

"He was never you." She bites her lip, averts her eyes to the ceiling and breathes past the swell of guilt that rises so naturally in her chest. "It was one foot out the door all over again, caring about him but hoping there was a chance you would come back. 'Competing with a ghost', he called it."

Her gaze reluctantly trails back to him and she can't help lifting a hand to his cheek, touching her fingers to the frown on his lips.

"There's only ever been you, Dan. Whether you came back or not," she confesses softly, swallowing hard. "But I understand if you need more time-"

"No, I - no more time," he whispers, leaning in to press a fleeting kiss to her mouth, his knuckles grazing the bones between her breasts as his grip on the ring tightens.

Her hand slips down his jaw, fingers caressing his chin, before she covers his hand with hers at her chest.

"I wasn't giving up, Dan," she murmurs, easing onto her elbow to aid him in drawing the necklace over her head. He spares a moment to examine the jewelry before his eyes return to her, so reverent and trained on her face even as she sits in nothing but the matching black lace she chose with him in mind. "Wasn't giving you up."

He gingerly sets the ring and its chain on the nighstand, doesn't resist the call of her hands unbuttoning his shirt, shrugging it from his shoulders.

The kiss he drapes to her mouth is earnest and thorough, over her frame, awe and arousal swirling together, while his hands map her newly exposed flesh with unhurried adoration.

"I love you," he murmurs, so simple, so much, and she can't believe she has it back, can have him back.

"I know," she whispers, stealing his hands from her sides to interlace their fingers. She rests their sealed palms over his head as she leans in to kiss his mouth, painting a prayer against his lips, stroking rapture along his tongue. "I love you too. Never stopped."