Because I love to complicate things for myself and others, this story is now going to run in two different timelines. Blair and Dan post memory loss and the timeline that is happening inside Blair's head, which are the experiences she has lived with Dan when they were in a relationship and nobody had erased anyone. If you have any doubts please ask them. I'm not going to indicate when one timeline is taking place. I think it would be explanatory once you start reading, but if is a collective thing that people are getting confused, I'll indicate them.

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me but the mistakes.

Chapter 6

Dan, once again, fell in an easy routine. He was doing comfortably well. Every Sunday he took brunch with his dad and Lily, who were very comprehensive with him. More often than not, it was only them three during these brunch dates. Sometimes Serena and Eric joined them. Sometimes Jenny, who decided Hudson was still the best option for her but visited her father from time to time. Chuck never showed off. If Dan remembered correctly, he used to be a usual addition to their brunches back in the day, but Dan wasn't particularly missing him, so he didn't asked.

You could say Dan's world was pretty normal. Very rounded, yet, of course he hadn't forgotten about the woman who visited his loft the other night. He just decided not to look more into things that weren't worth it. However, his writing had taken an interesting turn. He was still writing his essays but he was now developing short stories about this girl. Imagining what on earth had possessed her to visit his loft of all places and yell at him; that was fun. And it made for a good six stories. Six possible scenarios. He never knew how to end them.

He was reading Jane Austen's Persuasion in his favorite café of all New York, the American Wing Café at The Met, the one with all the sculptures. Yes, of all the books he could be reading he was reading Persuasion; he knew he had already read the book but he couldn't remember what it was about, no matter how hard he tried. So, he was reading Jane Austen in a public space. Dan didn't care really; he just found the situation a little comical.

Dan was just getting to the part where the character of Lady Russell persuades Anne Elliott that Wentworth is unworthy of her when something, or rather someone, captured his sight. It was the woman! The one who went to the loft. He doesn't get a chance to verify anything because just as he saw her, she was gone again. Probably was there before him, he just didn't notice. A lost opportunity for an explanation.

After lunch he decides to walk through the main galleries of The Met, to visit his favorite paintings. They relax him enormously. He just sometimes wishes that at least one of his friends could appreciate art like he does, so he wouldn't feel this lonely while being surrounded by such beauty. The only one who got near this was Vanessa, but she was a very busy person nowadays and asking for her to act lazy on a Sunday was almost selfish. He didn't dare.

Dan decided to browse through the Islamic art. He was particularly interested in the tapestries. He was always in awe with the manual labor and artistry that went into them. Humans were capable of beauty as much as of catastrophe, all with their hands.

After another hour of walking through The Met, he called it a day. He wasn't feeling that well anymore. Maybe it was because he only drank coffee through lunch but he had the sensation that wasn't just it. He was feeling differently towards The Met. He was feeling nostalgic and this wasn't the usual set of feelings he was used to experience in there. Amazement, yes; complete lack of self worth that comes naturally when being surrounded by works of art, of course. But not nostalgia, this was new. He was going down The Met Steps when he sees someone playing the sax. He decides to stay and listen for a while, maybe that would cheer him up.

Five minutes into the musician's rendition of Paul Desmond's Take Five he sees the woman again. She goes out of her way and approaches the growing crowd around the saxophonist and Dan is getting nervous by the second. Has she seen him yet? Is she going to make a scene and start yelling at him again? He tries to hide behind the crowd. The woman is already coming towards him. He prepares for the worse, and then… the worst doesn't happen. She nods to him in a friendly way, but not like an acknowledgement, just like a 'somehow we made eye contact so I have to salute you in some way" kind of way. It all doesn't make sense to Dan. The again, these past few weeks haven't been particularly making sense anyway. He is just trying to hold it together. He just woke up, one day, and out of nowhere he felt lost and that was it. This was his life. Nothing could change that.

Or couldn't it?

Yes, this was his chance. The once he was looking for. He gave another glance to the girl with the long brown hair and the lost eyes. The one who was swinging around her own axis, feeling the music. To approach her or not to approach her? Why did he even had doubts? She was the one who went in the middle of the night to his loft, he needed an explanation. And he was going to get it.

Easier said than done. Dan walked around the crowd and got directly behind her, and he couldn't do anything else. 'Just tap her in the shoulder and get it going' he told himself 'It isn't that difficult.' And he did just that, or at least he was in the difficult process of lifting his arm and touch her shoulder when the woman turned around unexpectedly and looked at him.

"What do you want?" she asked him.

This took him by complete surprise. He swore a whole minute passed between them in silence. Except for the cheering crowd and the talented saxophonist that was behind them, yet silence it was.

"You heard me," she repeated herself, "What do you want? You've been looking at me for the past five minutes and frankly I don't find it alluring at all, it's giving me the creeps."

He had to laugh. Her nerve! She was the one who gave him the creeps to begin with when she went to the loft unannounced and being an unknown to him. "You got to be kidding me, giving you the creeps? Look who's talking! The one that came to my home in the middle of the night, interrupted what was shaping up to be a peaceful and productive evening, and you still got the nerve to ask me what I want. What do I want? I want an explanation, that's what I want."

"You are obviously confusing me for someone else. I don't know what kind of issues you have but I don't want part in any of them. Lord knows I have problems of my own, so let me enjoy the music and just go away."

"No," Dan raised his voice, "you were the one that obviously confused me for someone else and I want to know why."

"Listen Mr. Whatever-your-name-is," The woman says to him, "I don't know who you are. I genuinely don't. I don't want you to cause a scene so I'm just going to leave."

Could she be telling the truth? "Are you sure you don't know who I am?" Dan asked her.

"No." She tells him looking directly at his eyes." I don't know who you are." She turns away and leaves.

She sounded sincere. And she didn't twitched when she was looking at him. Maybe Dan was even crazier than he thought. Maybe he imagined the whole loft situation. Oh God! He must have sound like a complete lunatic to her. Oh, poor woman, he ruined her day by going all crazy.

"I'm so sorry." He yells at her, she was almost at the other side of the street. She turned around, he ran as fast as he could. "I'm sorry for how I acted back there. You can stay; I must be the one leaving. Don't let my stupidity ruin your Sunday."

"It's ok." The woman tells him. "I had to get going anyway. I was feeling a little tired… and a bit hungry so I was just going home and call it a day."

"Oh." Says Dan, "Well… let me make it up to you. Do you want to go somewhere to eat?"

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now."

After pondering for a while, she surprisingly says yes. They take some time to agree on a place; he quickly deduces she is a snob, and she thinks the same of him, yet that doesn't deflect them.

"By the way, my name is Dan." He tells her while they're walking side by side in the busy streets of New York, extending his hand towards her.

"Nice to meet you, Dan." She tells him while shaking his hand, "My name is Blair."

Maybe in another life this name would have ringed a bell. But in this one, it doesn't.

I know it is more than a year since my last update and I'm definitely going to take my time with this one. I gave up before because I was overwhelmed, I was complicating myself too much. At least in my mind. I'm still complicating myself but at least now I have a clear, almost clear, direction. Adapting 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' is not easy job, I have learned that now. I don't have many readers but the ones I have are constant and for that, I am very very grateful. I particularly like to thank dairxoxo, Janneth; who left an unexpected review in which she asked if I had left this fic entirely. And the sincere answer would have been that yes, I did. I decided to let it be and focus in other stuff. During the year I left this unfinished I wrote other stuff which resulted to be more fulfilling for me, not because I didn't enjoy this fic, I enjoy the concept a lot; I just was undecided on where I wanted to get this. As I said, I kind of do now. I will confess I almost deleted this story, but restrained myself from doing it and here we are now; one step at a time. You all know where this is going; it is after all, an adaptation from a film. But I am trying to inject my little twist, I kind of already am doing this and who knows, maybe this one will end differently.

See you when I see you.

(Maybe in another year) Just kidding, but you know me, I am a slow updater.