AN: So happy you all are liking this story so far, it makes me truly glad :) Thanks so much to ASadAir for sprinkling this chapter with the magic it needed!
It's Monday and Blair honestly can't fathom sitting next to Dan and pretending he didn't watch her nearly breakdown in the hallway just two days ago. So she gets to class early enough that the back row will still be empty. But apparently not early enough.
Dan is sitting there in their spot, eyes trained on her. She flicks her gaze away and continues up the steps, not breaking her hard stare until she sinks down into a sit next to a pretty girl with the shiniest hair Blair has ever seen. She'd normally avoid someone so obviously better than her but she doesn't have much of a choice. This girl is her armory from the person who knows just how vulnerable she is.
A few other girls fill the row and soon enough, Blair feels safe again. Safe from those inquisitive eyes that told her they knew her.
"Hey," The girl next to her says as they wait for class to start. "I'm Raina."
Blair blinks momentarily, stunned at this friendly gesture. This is what she thought would happen all along at Yale, a simple introduction and then blossoming friendship. Why is it happening now that she's resolved to be feared, not loved?
"I'm Blair," She says tentatively.
"This is Epperly," Raina points to the blonde next to her who waves at Blair.
"Nice to meet you both." Blair replies politely, flipping open to a blank page of her notebook. She's relieved the professor begins his lecture a moment later, saving her from more conversation which she feels incapable of at the moment.
After the lecture has concluded, Raina starts talking to her again. "So can I ask? Why'd you sit back here with us instead of with your boyfriend?"
"What?" Blair feels her cheeks heat and instinctively looks down to where Dan is putting away his books - both copies, she notes, and prays he couldn't hear Raina's question. "Him? He's not my boyfriend. He's not even my friend."
She gives an awkward laugh.
"Oh," Raina arches an eyebrow, interested. "We just assumed, since you two always sit next to each other and pass notes. The lectures get boring and we're always looking for entertainment." Raina adds at Blair's confused expression.
"We don't pass notes." Blair is mortified. This sounds so high school. She glances down to where Dan had been packing up his belongings and sees he's already descending the stairs. She ignores the glance he gives her before he exits the class.
"Are you sure about that?" Epperly asks, catching the look Dan just shot her. "Did you guys get into a fight or something? He kept looking back at you during class."
Blair pushes her hair behind her ears, feeling naked without her headband. She follows the girls down the steps. "Something like that." She says vaguely. "I hope you didn't mind that I took your row today."
"No," Raina says quickly. "We were relieved actually. This total creep kept sitting there and if he asked for Epperly's number one more time I probably would have punched him. So I guess you kind of saved me from an assault charge."
They make it out of the classroom and Blair catches Dan waiting for her out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't look at him and just follows the girls, unsure of where they are headed but certain she can't stop.
Who knows what Dan wants to say to her. He'll probably tell her she needs to start bringing her own book because he can't be seen with such a social pariah.
"Hey," Raina says suddenly. "What are you doing tonight?"
Blair is pulled from her worst imaginations. She wants to say - it's a Monday, probably studying and going to bed early, but that would be tragic. "I don't know."
"Come to our dorm! Honestly, you and that guy - the one you're avoiding, are kind of like an enigma to us. We need to hear the full story. Then, we were going to watch Amelie on the communal TV with a few of the other girls."
It's like it's all suddenly happening, everything Blair dreamed of. All the minutiae of the quintessential college experience, within her reach. But thanks to Georgina's little spiel on Saturday, Blair is in disbelief and a part of her wonders if this is all an elaborate hoax to embarrass the lowly scholarship student.
She tries to put her anxieties aside as she nods. "Sure. What building are you guys in?"
"We're in Durfee. C22." Epperly says, "Come at seven."
"Okay," Blair smiles. "I'm heading to Latin now but I'll see you both tonight."
Suddenly, quite impossibly, Blair has two new friends. Forget the fact that she may have just lost one, it's still a huge step toward the collegiate life she always wanted.
As Dan watches Blair walk away, flanked by two statuesque freshman girls, he realizes he was idiotic for even waiting around for her. What was he even going to say to her?
I'm sorry my stepsister's best friend is such a bitch.
Why didn't you sit next to me?
Class sucked without you.
They were all pathetic and quite possibly, tragic - as Georgina would say. He and Blair didn't even know each other's names up until this weekend. Even then, that was an accident. They had only surmised them rather than willingly given them to each other.
At least, he assumed Blair knew his name by now. Maybe not, though.
Either way, clearly whatever peculiar, tentative friendship they had formed had now concluded.
He really shouldn't care. Yet, a fog of disquiet follows him all day. He finally recognizes what it is once he's back in the quiet of his dorm room.
It's that same recognition he felt the first time he looked into her eyes.
He had been her, once upon a time. That first day at St. Judes, Chuck Bass informing everyone that Dan Humphrey didn't belong. That he was actually just some kid from Brooklyn that would never be one of them because Lily wasn't his actual mother. She was just the link binding him to the Upper East Side. Without the van der Woodsens, "he'd be nothing." Or at least, that's what Chuck had said.
Unaware of what her financial situation was really like, or where she was even from, all Dan knows is this:
Blair is an outsider, just like he had once been.
The plain truth of it was written in those doe-like eyes. When he looked at her, that day in the hallway outside her dorm, she had looked so impossibly sad. Seeing that expression had elicited a pain in his own chest.
That's why he had gone off the rails and yelled at not only Georgina but Serena too. He didn't even know if she was still on campus or if she had jetted off to get another passport stamp. Truthfully, he couldn't care. All he cared about was making Blair feel like she belonged.
Blair still feels wary of this supposed girls night at Raina and Epperly's dorm. It feels too good to be true. If she had followed her mantra, she would have told them a movie night and gossiping about boys sounded pathetic. But that would have been a lie.
So she shows up a few minutes after seven, trying not to look overeager. Raina opens the door in yoga clothes with a wide smile. "You came!"
Her happiness seems genuine so Blair lets herself be pulled in and introduced to their other two roommates - Fran and Rebecca. While Rebecca is perky with a blunt cut lob, Fran is diminutive and has a curtain of dark hair. Her skin is practically translucent, Blair notes, as she settles into one of the couches.
"So," Epperly says to Blair. "Tell us all about what is up with you and the hot hipster in Intro to Film."
"Hot?" Blair echoes, incredulously. "I wouldn't say he's hot."
"Oh come on," Raina chimes in. "He is and you know it."
Blair ignores their comments on Dan's appearance and tells them all about their odd book-sharing arrangement. She even includes the part about Saturday because she realizes it's pretty crucial to her decision to sit with them, rather than him, today.
They all look at her with sympathetic eyes when she summarizes Georgina's bitchy rant about her. Fran pipes up, "You should put in for a transfer."
Rebecca nods enthusiastically. "I think a girl in the next dorm over just dropped out. You can probably have her bed! I'll talk to Forest, she was her roommate."
"Thanks," Blair says weakly. "So as you can all see, Dan and I really aren't friends. And certainly, most definitely, not boyfriend and girlfriend." She emphasizes a little too much. "Besides, honestly, I've I've done the whole best-friend-maybe-more slash will-we-or-won't-we-thing. I am not interested in a reprisal of it or in Dan, for that matter."
"Totally get that." Rebecca says. "My ex and I were friends first and we sort of are friends again except for the fact that we can't even have a normal conversation without it turning into some fight about something that happened when we were dating."
Raina is chewing decisively on her lips, as though weighing something. "Then, why not still sit next to him? Not that we don't love having you in our row." She quickly adds. "But it just seems needlessly cruel to shun him because he knows your bitchy roommate. I think it's sort of sweet how he always lent his extra book to you. I would call it the perfect meet-cute, but I know you 'aren't interested in him'."
Blair prickles slightly at the air quotes and tries to consider what Raina said. "It's like… He's seen me at my worst. I can't just sit next to him now and carry on like he didn't witness my complete degradation by my roommate."
"I do see what Raina's saying though." Epperly nods thoughtfully. "Blair, think about it. You've already learned how shitty people can be thanks to Georgina. So if you find a good one, like Dan, do you really want to let him go because of an embarrassing moment? And speaking of that, don't let Georgina belittle you. You need to tell her to fuck off. Put back up the Cary Grant photo – which by the way, if you can make me a copy that would be great, and next time Serena is on your bed shove her off. She's not even a student here."
All the girls bob their heads in accordance and Blair has no choice but to agree with Epperly. "Fine, but this means you're going to be stuck next to the creep on Wednesday's class."
"It'll be worth it." Epperly says with a smile. "Now, let's go watch the movie."
A miracle occurs on Wednesday. Blair is sitting in their pair of seats when Dan gets to class. Her shiny brown hair looks bare without it's headband but still, it's her. Leather bound notebook and all. When he slides past her to take his seat beside her, she doesn't bristle or even shift away. She just remains situated.
Dan hands her the book - he had brought it with the intention of delivering it to her in the back row and writing a note on the same sheet of paper from last Friday. It's also the one he had hung onto and read whenever he was bored the past few days. On it he writes:
Blair Cornelia _?
She takes the paper from him with slight hesitation and he wonders if he's misstepped. Maybe they are supposed to communicate in the spoken word now like normal students.
Her lips curl the slightest bit as she fills in the blank.
Blair Cornelia Waldorf.
Dan Randolph _?
A bubble of relief fills him as he writes back:
Daniel Randolph Humphrey
She snickers the slightest bit and he shoots her a, really look.
Sorry.
He shakes his head.
I know, it's not a very good name.
Her reply is an unconvincing attempt at reassurance:
It is. It's fine.
Waldorf is a good name.
Thanks, it's my donor dad's last name. My mom thought it sounded more dignified than her own.
Donor dad?
My mom conceived me using a fertility clinic. Harold Waldorf was the donor.
Dan thinks about this and then scribbles down a question:
Have you seen photos of him?
I've met him. We talk pretty frequently. He's sort of my dad, but not really. Just in all the good ways.
Tell me something about you. All I know about you is that you have questionable taste in friends (i.e. Georgina Sparks) and that you apparently over quantify the number of books you need for you classes.
This summary of him makes him happy. He tries to think of what to tell her about himself while trying not to seem surprised at her mention of Georgina. He wasn't sure if they were supposed to pretend the incident hadn't happened.
Deciding on telling her something that will make her see that they're more alike than she realizes, he writes:
I was born in Brooklyn to Rufus Humphrey, former frontman of Lincoln Hawk- a one-hit wonder band of the 90s. He married my stepmom, Lily van der Woodsen, when I was five and we had to move to the Upper East Side where I was forced to befriend a whole onslaught of terrible characters including Georgina Sparks just to survive. I hadn't made one friend I actually liked until I met you.
He glances at Blair as she reads the short story of his life to see if perhaps the last line is too much. But she seems pleased and writes back:
Hence, me calling your choice in friends questionable but not terrible. You did befriend me after all.
We should talk, one of these days. Like really talk. I'm starting to think perhaps you are mute? If so, I can swap my French class for ASL. (Totally serious.)
Of course you take French. Prerequisite for being an Upper East Sider.
Dan notes that she dodged his suggestion that they have an actual conversation and tries not to take it personally.
Exactly. What language do you take?
Latin.
Interesting choice….
It's underrated. Plus, it's the root of all words. I think it's more useful than you might realize.
Well, maybe one of these days you'll say something to me in Latin and I'll respond in French and neither of us will have any idea of what the other has said.
Sounds about right.
She seems pensive for a moment before taking the paper back from him and adding:
I think there's something poetic about it.
About what?
This. The notes. The not-speaking. Don't you?
She's looking at him now with hopeful eyes so he nods.
That's true. But poems always end too soon.
Blair underlines that as soon as he passes it to her. Dan watches as she writes something underneath it and then passes it back.
See? Poetic.
After he reads it, he sees her pull out the older sheet of notes, the very first. She circles something then passes it back. He discovers that she circled his words:
We don't need words.
Something about this makes his chest tighten. He hides it with a conciliatory reply:
Fine, I concede.
Blair smiles a triumphant grin and Dan watches as she finally tunes into the lecture. Except it ends a few minutes later and both of them are left without a clue as to what Professor Donovan went over today.
Dan can't quite find it in him to even mind it.
"Somebody is strangely very smiley today." Raina notes as she catches up to Blair after class. "I'm going to have to refer you to mother's surgeon to get those laugh lines filled."
Epperly pipes up, "You are starring in a romantic comedy, Blair, and you don't even know it."
"No," Raina says with a shake of her head. "She's obviously starring in a silent film. She's Greta Garbo and he's Rudolph Valentino."
"I think I'll do my Senior Project on a retelling of your meet-cute. I'll probably win at the film festival." Epperly blithely announces.
"Um," Raina sounds irritated. "It was my idea. If anyone is making that movie, it's going to be me."
Blair cuts in at last. "No one is going to be making any movies. At least, not about me nor Dan. There's nothing romantic about us."
"Sure," Epperly drawls. "There's nothing romantic about you two spending ninety minutes with stupid grins on your faces as you write love letters back and forth."
"Not love letters," Blair says through her teeth then waves them off. "You guys are making me late to Latin."
"Amor vincit omnia!" Epperly announces that love conquers all way too loudly. Blair is suddenly quite thankful Dan always heads the opposite way after class. And that he doesn't know Latin.
"Supprime tuum stultiloquium!" Blair calls back teasingly, hoping that will shut Epperly up.
But if she had been honest with them, she would have had to admit it did feel a bit cinematic. As someone who had always dreamed of bigger things for herself, she couldn't help but feel that things might finally be falling into place.