A/N: Happy reading! Props to kate2008 (: Review if you have some time! Their majorly appreciated and loved as always.

Girl: Have I seen you before?
Tom: Me? I don't think so.
Girl: Do you ever go to Angela's Plaza?
Tom: Yes... That's like my favorite spot in the city.
Girl: Yeah, except for the parking lots.
Tom: Yeah, yeah I agree.
Girl: Yeah, yeah I think I've seen you there.
Tom: Really?
Girl: Yeah...
Tom: I haven't seen you?
Girl: You must not have been looking...
Tom: ...
-- (500) days of summer

Chapter Twelve:

December 16th, 2011.

Having threaded out of shops for the past four hours Blair stopped on the street, inhaling the fresh air in gulps. The stream of people on the street narrowly avoiding her, the tiny brunette dizzy with the smell of new clothing.

One impossibly packed subway, three blocks and half a bottle of hand sanitizer later, she found herself in Brooklyn, eyes cast on the outline of Tessa's apartment building.

Blair kicked her Louboutin's together - arguing with herself over the likelihood of her best friend actually being home on a Friday night. Chances were decidedly slim.

The hall was cold as she climbed the stairs, coming to stand in front of the suite. She raised her hand to knock just as the door swung open and Mark appeared.

There was a pause, a single breath of surprise.

"Hey," He grinned, "Blair right?" There was a wool scarf draped around his neck, a black jacket zipped up his chest.

She rolled her eyes. "Is Tess around?"

He rested his forearm on the doorframe. "No actually, she went to pick up dinner."

"Oh." Well, there went any shadow of a plan she might have built up.

"But," He continued, "You could wait – eat with us if you want."

"You're not going out?" She hesitated, fully drinking in his apparel. Clearly - he was going somewhere - soon.

"I was actually just going to get a paper..." He shrugged, "From downstairs."

"Oh okay..." She cast a glance down the empty corridor, weighing her options. If she didn't wait, the apartment with its cardboard boxes was just across town. Somehow, this sounded better.

"Don't go anywhere - "He held his hands up, words rushed, "Actually, go inside." He opened the door, and led her into the hallway. "I'll be back in like two seconds."

Blair was left alone, standing awkwardly against the wall, she peeled off her coat and trailed into the kitchen, sidestepping the stacks of papers that littered every available surface.

She closed her eyes, absorbing the familiarity, breathing in the lavender incense that burned in an abandoned jam jar, trying in vain to clear her head.

Blair loved being there. The books and colourful paintings, thrift store furniture covered in thick handmade blankets. She felt at peace, snuggled into a corner of Brooklyn without a care. The one place no one would ever think to look for her.

She blinked when the door slammed, shifting her weight as Mark trudged into the kitchen. The Times was tucked in his jacket pocket. "Man, its cold out there." He rubbed his hands together and moved towards the fridge. "Thirsty?" He held up a beer and she nodded.

Normally, Blair didn't drink more than a glass of red wine with dinner and an occasional vodka shot but it was Friday night after all and maybe the alcohol, however gross it tasted, would warm her bones a little.

She realized, as Mark opened the bottle and handed it to her, that she hardly knew him beyond the obligatory information released at random by his sister.

Of course, there had been instances in which he'd slinked past them, trailing kisses down a lover's cheek, bidding her adieu at the door. As often as Blair was around she had never seen him with the same girl more than once. Ever.

She knew enough about him to know what kind of man he was.

He pushed a stack of notebooks off the nearest chair and sat down, unzipping his leather jacket and throwing it towards the couch. It landed in a heap. Their eyes met across the table, neither daring to speak first, pierce the heavy air with rounded words.

Blair couldn't remember crossing paths with him often.

Mark never seemed to get his coffee in any of the popular cafes or even nearby street vendors. As far as she knew he didn't run around campus on a regular basis either. Or perhaps this lack of acquaintance was because he was a third year marine biology major with a certain affinity for blonde freshman. Or so Tessa had said once or twice. And, last she checked, her hair was brown, hereby declaring her a brunette.

She ran a finger around the lip of her bottle watching him as he stared out the tiny window, edged in frost. Abruptly he stood, turning towards the dishes. The faucet was turned on and the sound of water draining into the sink was excuse enough to not talk.

She sipped at her beer, thinking about the holidays; Christmas ... the beauty of the city bathed in lights.

Her thoughts drifted towards Mark, drawn into the pieces. She'd never given any attention to him. Then again, she'd never really been alone with him either, in any real sense of the word. Mostly Blair had stood around while Tess had talked to him, in crowded bars and noisy parties, the quiet surfaces of the apartment in the early morning.

She had pretended to be asleep on those days.

"Care to help?" Smooth words floated off his tongue and danced towards the ceiling.

She looked up, towards the dirty dishes in the sink and at him, taking a rather large sip of her beer. The fermented taste slinked down her throat.

"Seriously?" She flipped her hair, wondering whether or not he truly was being genuine.

"Yeah. What good is sitting there going to do?" The man did have a point, she mused.

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to speak.

"Fine," She sighed. Anything to pass the time faster would obviously be better, it would ultimately equate into the lesser amount of minutes she'd have to spend completely alone with Mark.

"Wash or dry?" He asked, slinging a dishtowel over his shoulder.

"Wash," She replied with more confidence than she felt.

For one whole week when she was eight Dorota had let her dry the dishes whenever Dorota set about to wash them. Then one day Blair had accidentally dropped a teacup, shattering it into pieces. She had been so fearful of her mother's disappointment that she too had burst into tears.

Needless to say, Eleanor was less then impressed. That night as she tucked her daughter into bed she had said: "My darling WE have no time to do anything but conquer the world."

She'd never really thought about it after that. The menial tasks of ordinary people.

Blair slid the yellow plastic gloves onto her delicate hands very slowly, glaring at the dishes which looked to contain remnants of last night's take-out. She grimaced.

Mark was close enough now that she couldn't help but breathe him in, the scent of fresh pine and soap, it was intoxicating and her head was swimming.

The closest she'd been to a man in the last month had been the whispered messages left on the answering machine by Chuck.

"I've changed my mind," She said suddenly, "I want to dry." She moved to grab the dishtowel off his shoulder but he ducked away, grinning.

"Nope," He said it so simply, with fearlessness.

"What?" She wasn't used to the coldness of the word.

"You called it, so now you're stuck with it." He bumped her in the shoulder playfully.

"I hate you," She grumbled, not even knowing where to start. Gripping the sponge with two fingers she ran it under the water, sighing dramatically.

"Don't hate me," he countered, "Hate the rules."

"There aren't any rules," She stated, gently scrubbing at the caked on mess, "You're just doing this to torture me."

He turned to her, his eyes burning her flesh. It was an intense gaze, inquisitive, it warmed her blood better than the lukewarm alcohol.

"Hey, Tess and I grew up with the rules, the rules exist. However," He noted with interest, "I can guess you're not familiar with them. Have you ever even washed a dish in your life?"

She opened her mouth to lie but it would fall uselessly to the floor. It was obvious by the way she held the plate in her hands, her nose bunched up at the bridge, that she wasn't accustomed to manual labour of any kind.

"Not particularly."

Blair could feel the warmth of his flesh as he took the plate from her hands. "Like this," He instructed, scrubbing diligently at its surface.

He put the plate in the dish rack and passed the sponge back to her. And, by the time she was halfway through, it didn't matter that she was doing the dishes. Neither did the fact that she was with a man who wasn't Chuck and sort of enjoying herself while scrubbing someone else's food off their plate.

It was relaxing and strangely satisfying. Maybe that's why Dorota had cursed in Polish when Eleanor had installed their first dishwasher and insisted she used it.

Soon the pair fell into sync, working side by side. She passed each dish to him, where they were dried and put away.

After a while she pushed her hair behind her ears, working on a particularly sticky food stain."You know, I'm not usually like that. What you saw I mean … the other day, in case you think that's … well me."

"I don't think your anything," His tone was soft, sincere.

Blair wanted to fill the hollow seconds with something. "My boyfriend left town on business, and I uh, when he leaves it's like he takes my heart with him."

"That must be hard," he joked she surmised, trying to make her feel better.

"I manage," She replied.

"I wish I had something like that," Mark lamented, reaching to place a fork with the other silverware.

She grinned, trying to compress the laughter in her throat.

"What's so funny?" He asked, amused.

"Nothing," She shook her head, "I'm just surprised."

"At what?" He looked utterly confused as she burst into peals of laughter. Blair took a deep breath, "But you've slept with pretty much every girl at NYU."

"Says who?" He was smiling now, his tone light. She truly had no idea why she was laughing so hard.

Maybe the menial tasks of ordinary people weren't so horrible after all.

"Can I just - can I ask you something?" She tried to pull at composure, gripping the counter. There was a pause, "Why exclude the teachers?" And then they were both grasping for breath, clutching their sides, hands on their knees as they slid onto the floor together.

When their breathing finally slowed and the laughter died down Mark leaned his head against the cupboard."You know, you're better than I thought you'd be."

Blair bit her lip, "I guess I could say the same about you."

Their attention was caught elsewhere on the shriek of the front door as the lock was drawn back. "Mark?" Tessa called, "I need a lil help here."

He stood up, turning off the faucet and offering his hand to Blair, pulling her onto her feet. A faint smile stretched between them as he disappeared from view.

Blair spun in circles towards the table. The air was electric.

"B?" She turned, greeted by Tessa's broad smile and glossy lips, flecks of snow stuck to the lapels of her jacket. "Hey!"

"This isn't a good idea S, I can't just see him." Blair knitted her eyebrows together, throwing her hands in the air. The suggestion itself was beyond preposterous.

Serena was lounging on the bed, a stern gaze locked on her friend. "Well," She propped herself up on her elbows, "Chuck hasn't changed much. We both know that if you don't go looking for him, he'll become even more difficult when he has to find you. And -"

"He will." Blair sighed, finishing the thought. It was true. "S," She leaned forward, fixing her lips into a pout, "Come with me. I can't do this alone."

Serena collapsed, staring up at the ceiling. "Blair, I love you but this is something you have to do by yourself."

She blinked. Everything she'd done had been alone. Her relationship with Chuck, the pregnancy, the list went on. Well, that was a little melodramatic of her, she had Tess and Serena, Nate sometimes, but without Chuck in the picture it had really felt like one-sided.

Mark was the one who had come along and fixed that, taken the loneliness away, replaced it with something solid, happiness. "What if I don't want to?" She put her head in her hands, "Because I don't. He's still the same Basshole he was then, mother chucker, insensitive asshole. Take your pick ..." She trailed off, rubbing at her eyes.

"I still have to deal with him bi-weekly you know." Serena groaned, "But it takes two to tango."

"And only one to forget the dance and fuck everything up." Blair added pointedly.

Serena rolled her eyes. "You couldn't have expected this to last could you? I mean I'm surprised that you managed to keep it quiet this long." She sounded genuinely awe-struck. In all honesty Blair didn't know how she had either. The facade was so elusive, a running dream, she had only done what she could to protect Henry and Tula, grabbed onto the pieces, started from there.

"I don't know. I don't know what to do S." She stretched her legs, facing her reflection in the vanity mirror, "I'm not the same anymore. I don't know if I can even play the game right this time around."

There was a long pause. "Blair, it's in you. Just ..." Serena stumbled over her words, "just fight for what matters to you. Your instincts will kick in when you need them."

"And if they're all wrong?" She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her stomach stirred. She hadn't allowed herself to think of it, the confrontation, truth in its existence. There would be so much to say when the time came and yet nothing at all, her actions would speak louder than words. She shivered, cold with the thought of her husband leaving her, explaining it to her children. "I shouldn't have come back."

Serena flattened her back against the headboard, pulling her hair onto her shoulders. "Have a little faith." She smiled, lopsided and comforting, gesturing at the space next to her. Blair stood up, walking over to the bed, climbing onto the covers; she buried her head into Serena's maroon blouse.

"Now," She continued, combing her fingers through Blair's chestnut locks. "When are you seeing him?"

"7pm."

"Dinner?"

Blair nodded.

"Somewhere badly lit?"

"Paulo's bistro on 73rd." She answered. They had good food, great music and avoided the use of electrical lighting in the dinning room; it was brightened sparsely by large wax candles that burned into the early morning hours. A hidden treasure.

"See," Serena laughed, "There's the Blair I know."

After all, the number one rule had always been to dine in dark restaurants where the sparks could flicker in corners of the room better than any light bulb. Or the emotions, creased words and wandering meanings could be well concealed in the shadows. As they often had in the past, the latter was the frequent outcome of such nights and Blair had a feeling this one wouldn't be any different, whether or not several years had passed.

"We'd best get you ready then," Serena added.

Blair sighed. She had agreed to this solely on the basis of discussing their situation. The past she could no longer hide from his preying eyes. Now, she wasn't sure what exactly she had agreed to, or even if it was worth it. Chuck had never been one to keep quiet, then again she hadn't either.

But, she reminded herself as Serena pulled her onto her feet, that she wasn't the same girl either . . .

. . . not quite anyway.