One Last Goodbye
Blair adjusted Henry's bowtie and patted his miniature suit, giving him a peck on the forehead. "Are you ready to go, my favorite little ring bearer?"
Henry frowned, pausing to think. "Does this mean Auntie Serena won't pick me up after school on Fridays anymore?" he asked with a whimper.
"Of course not," Blair smiled gently. "You know she always loves her Henry afternoons in Central Park."
Henry looked down at his feet, unconvinced by his mother's reassurances. "What if boring Uncle Dan wants to go to Central Park on Fridays too?" he asked, his voice muttering Dan's name with a tinge of disgust in the same way his father often said Dan's name.
Blair looked sternly at him. "Henry Bass, you know better than to say mean things about people you don't know."
"But he is so boring and he is going to ruin everything!" Henry shouted. "What if Auntie Serena has a boring kid with boring Uncle Dan and doesn't want to play with me anymore? It's not fair!"
Blair bit her lip, knowing this tantrum was coming but hoping it would have been done and over with long before the morning of Serena's wedding. "If Serena and Dan have a kid, don't you think that would be fun to have another friend to play with?" she asked.
"No!" Henry insisted. "I don't want to play with a boring baby."
Blair shook her head. This was probably partly her and Chuck's fault. Ever since she and Chuck had been married, Dan had not been a part of their lives and therefore not a part of Henry's life, and Henry did not like change. Sure, Serena and Dan had been circling each other for years, but Blair and Chuck had kept Dan at arm's length aside from a few holiday get-togethers. Blair couldn't remember the last time she had more than a perfunctory, two-minute conversation with Dan. "Look, honey, Uncle Dan is not that bad. You should give him a chance."
Henry folded his arms and plopped on the couch, shaking his head furiously. "No way! He is ugly, dumb and boring and from Brooklyn!"
Blair couldn't help but smile a bit at that comment. "Henry, I remember when I used to think the same thing about Dan, but he's actually not . . . terrible. He's pretty smart, and he cares a lot about your Auntie Serena, so he can't be that bad, right?"
Henry pouted, but his anger was cooling at her words. "If he's so great, how come you and Dad don't like him?"
Blair didn't know how to argue with that, so she sidestepped the issue. "It's not that we don't like him, Henry. It's just that we have other friends and we just aren't that close with him."
"So then why does Auntie Serena like him?" Henry asked defiantly.
Blair looked down at her hands. "I guess because he makes her happy," she said. "She has been in love with him for a very long time . . . he was the one person who made her feel safe, strong . . . loved." Blair recalled her many conversations with Serena throughout the years as Serena bemoaned her terrible luck with men. But Dan was the exception . . . Dan was Serena's . . . something. Soulmate? No, that seemed the wrong word. The love of Serena's life? Yes, that sounded right.
Henry shifted in his seat. "But I love Auntie Serena, and so do you and Dad. She doesn't need boring Uncle Dan!"
Blair hugged Henry to her. "You know all those times Auntie Serena was having a hard time and she was so sad she had to stay with us for awhile?"
Henry nodded, recalling the frequent summers Serena had come to Blair and Chuck's place to hide from the world. "Yes, and we went to Serendipity and saw shows on Broadway and she was all better!"
"She was for a little while, but then she met another person who made her heart hurt, do you remember that?" Blair said softly.
Henry clicked his shoes together, remembering the gray looks Serena used to give him every time she came for one of her long stays. "Yes," he whispered.
"Well, she hasn't done that in a really, really long time, right?" Blair pointed out. "She's always smiling and so excited every time she comes to visit you these days."
Henry sighed. This was true. Serena had not been gloomy and depressed for a very long time.
"Well, Uncle Dan is the reason for that, and don't you want Auntie Serena to be happy?" Blair asked.
"I guess so," Henry murmured.
"Auntie Serena is very proud of you and really wants you to help her celebrate her wedding, and even made you the ring bearer. Don't you know how important that is? That means she trusts you to help her start her life with her husband and wants you to be a part of it," Blair reassured Henry.
"Why aren't you in the wedding, Mom?" Henry asked curiously.
Blair swallowed hard, not expecting this question. "Well your dad and I are hosting the wedding, so we are kind of part of the wedding."
"But you're Auntie Serena's best friend. Why is scary Auntie Jenny in the wedding, and not you?" Henry continued.
"I don't need to be in the wedding," Blair dodged. "I love your Auntie Serena, and she loves all of us, and that's all that matters. Now, let's get you ready for your big walk down the aisle, okay?"
Henry stood up and nodded slowly. "I guess it's okay if Uncle Dan wants to come with us to Central Park."
Blair beamed at her son. "I am glad you feel that way. Now you go downstairs and Dorota will line you up with Auntie Jenny."
Henry jumped up obediently and then ran out of the room. Blair stood up slowly, picked up her bag and headed to the hallway to follow him downstairs. However, she paused when she saw that the door to the library was ajar.
Blair peered inside and was surprised to find Dan seated at the desk, a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him as he crossed out whatever he had written with angry strokes. "Dan? Is everything okay?"
Dan looked up at Blair, clearly startled by her presence. "Yes, everything's fine, just finishing up, um, I'll be down soon."
Blair crossed her arms, eyeing him skeptically. "Are those your wedding vows?"
Dan quickly covered the sheet of paper with his hands and shook his head. "That's none of your business. I would like some privacy please."
Blair chuckled, "Don't tell me the most prolific writer in our friend group cannot figure out what to say on the day he marries the dream girl he has idolized since he was fourteen years old. You used to write essays about how much you loved Serena. Did you use up all the words already?"
Dan sighed. "Look, Blair, this is not something I want to talk about with you, so if you'll just excuse me-"
"Where is that great guy I used to know?" Blair asked, looking at him as if for the first time. She was truly bewildered after all this time as to what happened to the Dan Humphrey she used to care about. "You were loyal, kind, wonderful and generous, a brilliant writer . . . capable of anything," she said. Though she tried to make Dan the villain of her story to justify her awful breakup with him and her decision to return to Chuck, she never could quite convince herself that the Dan she had cared about was really the reason she had walked away so easily. Dan's devotion to her and the way he used to look at her in absolute awe of the woman he used to see could not be erased from her memory no matter how hard she tried. Blair couldn't deny that it was Dan's voice she heard every time she felt insecure about her life, her mother's opinion of her, or when Page Six had something to say about her and Chuck. She knew it was unfair that she could still draw strength from him when she had cut him out of her life so long ago.
Dan looked physically pained as her words hit him. "That's—that's not fair, Blair. Please, just leave me alone."
Blair sidled up next to him and reached for the paper, saying quickly, "Maybe I can help!"
Dan immediately grasped her hand and stole the paper back, crumpling it tightly in his fist.
Blair quickly pulled her hand away, startled by the shock of his grasp that sent a current right through her.
Dan stood up, staring at her with piercing eyes. "Blair, go away," he said through gritted teeth. "We are not friends, and this is none of your business," he said again.
Blair flinched, clearly hurt by his words and his cold tone of voice. "I'm sorry, but it is my business if you are not going to make this day the absolute best day of my best friend's life." Blair returned his glare with one of her own.
"Please don't pretend that you care at all about Serena's happiness," Dan laughed bitterly. "You just want to make sure that her day does not outshine you or your great, epic love with Chuck."
Blair shoved him, yelling, "How dare you! Where were you when she came crying to me every summer when she tried to fill the hole you left behind when you left her? Where were you when she was sobbing in my arms as she met one douchebag after another who treated her like crap and made her feel worthless? I didn't see you when she was rocking Henry to sleep with dark circles under her eyes, contemplating exactly why she deserved to be shit on by all the selfish dicks that were chasing after her until they caught her and decided they didn't want her. Don't you DARE tell me how I feel about my best friend!"
Dan stepped back, frozen when he realized how angry Blair was, her entire body shaking with fury.
"Look, Humphrey, your only job today is to let Serena know just how much you love and adore her, and worship the ground she walks on," Blair hissed. "This has to be the easiest writing prompt of all time, and you better not screw it up! I heard about your totally cliché, Hallmark movie proposal at Grand Central Station, and I am here to make sure you treat my best friend to the perfect, beautiful wedding day she deserves."
"YOU do not get to be mad at me," Dan finally replied, tightening his grip on the crumpled, incomplete vows in his hands.
"And why's that?" Blair said, tilting her head defiantly. "You need to get over what happened five years ago, Dan. The rest of us have."
"I am over it," Dan insisted. "This has nothing to do with that. Now get out so I can figure out what I am going to say once Serena makes her way down that aisle."
Blair shook her head, still in disbelief at the person in front of her. "You sound like you aren't ready at all! What happened to the boy that used to moon over Serena and drop everything to save her? The one that didn't care that she was from the Upper East Side and idolized her free spirit and dreamed about being with her even when she didn't even remember your name? The man who confessed he was Gossip Girl for years as a love letter to her and all of the drama that surrounded her?"
Dan threw the crumpled paper in his hand into the waste bin at his feet, feeling the anger rise up in him again. He felt the words inch up in his throat and before he could stop them, he spit out, "You don't get to be mad at the cracks inside me when you're the one that took a sledgehammer to my heart. I am sorry I am no longer that idealistic, hopeful version of me that worshipped Serena when we were in high school. Or the burned, shell of a man who clung to Serena when all hope was lost as I watched you marry the man you swore you no longer loved."
Blair was speechless, not expecting him to bring up their long-buried history, and not realizing how tightly Dan had held onto the pain of the end of whatever they had.
Dan growled, "I wasn't ready for Serena back then, not when I was still angry and bitter over what you did to us. I am sorry that Serena was hurt and I couldn't be there for her, but I couldn't be there for anyone back then. You . . . you broke the part of me that believed that I could find someone that loved me, and the part of me that thought I could be enough."
Blair pursed her lips, ready to fight against his characterization of events. "No one made you do all those things you did to hurt us after you slept with Serena and tried to sabotage me and Chuck. You did those things, and you need to take responsibility for what happened and get over it!" She still felt the ache from the shock of learning that Dan and Serena had slept together when she had decided to choose Chuck. Whatever time had passed had not dulled the betrayal. She remembered telling him it was worse than when Chuck had slept with Jenny. But it shouldn't have been. She had already had one foot out the door, so why did it matter? It was selfish of her to feel any anger at him for moving on when she was going to break up with him anyway.
"Now who can't get over the past?" Dan shot back at her.
Blair took a deep breath and said more gently, "Look, I know you have it in you. You wrote those incredible vows about me for Louis and that was before you and I were even together. You can at least fake it for Serena, the love of your life." Blair fought hard to keep the conversation about the vows and this wedding day and not rehash the past, but she couldn't help letting some of the shadows seep through.
"I am trying," Dan said, his voice low and deep. "It's just not as easy for me anymore." His shoulders slumped, Dan sat back down at the desk. Gesturing to himself he stated, "This is all there's left. I'm sorry if it's not good enough for your best friend."
Blair realized that she was not helping Serena by fighting with Dan and grabbed her bag from the table. "Okay, I'm sorry. We are not going to be able to argue our way out of what has happened in the past, so why don't you just finish up those vows and I'll see you downstairs."
When Blair reached the door, Dan confessed softly, "You were the best I could ever have."
Blair paused, her back turned to him, but unable to keep walking forward. No one who had ever had a chance with Serena van der Woodsen ever thought that about her, let alone said the words out loud.
"It was you whom I worshipped for so long, you who was my muse and who I thought was my soulmate. When I try to write these words about Serena, I keep thinking that I gave up on searching for another holy grail because nothing could compare to you and all the right words that I should say feel hollow and melt away. I . . . I think I did use up all my words, but I used them on you."
Blair shook her head. "That can't be true," she insisted. "We weren't even together that long."
"But I loved you long before that and long after that," Dan admitted. "And nothing else has felt even close to the same."
Blair turned to look back at him, staring into his eyes, searching for answers she knew she didn't want and could not comprehend. Today was the day Dan Humphrey's lifelong dream of marrying Serena van der Woodsen would come true, and here he was, like an open wound, reminiscing about a time that had been just a faded memory for Blair.
"So I guess this is goodbye, Waldorf," Dan said with sadness enveloping his throat with each word. "I never got the chance to say it back then, I think because I kept hoping I would wake up from the nightmare of losing you."
Blair felt her heart shatter at the forced smile on Dan's face, stunned to realize that she did not want to let go of what she thought she had thrown away years ago.
Dan turned back to the desk, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and began writing again as Blair quietly backed away. Dan heard the door shut and forced himself to keep writing, blinking away the moisture that filled his vision. He would be happy again, he told himself. Even if it killed him.
A/N: Fell back down that Dairpression rabbit hole and had to let some of it out. If you want an angsty, tragic ending, you can stop here. After much encouragement I continued the story to give a happy ending for the other readers. Thank you for reading whatever ending you choose :)