So, this chapter was a difficult one. Not because it's particularly emotional, but simply because not a lot happens. I'm trying to follow some canonical events, as I expect is obvious by now, and I thought that what happens in this chapter was important for the way that Dan is starting to see Blair, but it's just not all that exciting, so sorry about that.

Also, In this chapter I mention Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall and I have thos nagging feeling that he was actually mentioned on Gossip Girl, but I can't remember in what context or even who it was, so I wrote it as if Dan didn't know who he was, because I wanted it to be explained just to save any readers who aren't familiar with him the google search.

On another note, how do you guys feel about the length of these chapters? Because the next two are shaping up to be a fair bit longer, and I'm worried that I'm getting into the habit of making them too long.

"Humphrey, are you familiar with Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall?" Shapiro asked, glancing over the tops of his glasses with a mischievous expression.

"The name sounds familiar." Dan winced. He hadn't lied, but whenever Shapiro referenced a writer – who Dan was safe to assume that this Shaughnessy person was – he felt like he should know who he's talking about. Which most of the time he did, but he hated when he didn't and could practically hear Shapiro mentally criticising him for being so uneducated. At least it was only mental criticism now, Dan was very thankful for that since Shapiro had spent the last thirty minutes verbally criticising him for his run on sentences, over-descriptive passages, pretentious diction and, – most of all – the introduction of his counterpart, Dylan Hunter, into the Claire Carlyle story.

"Before he began to write 'Down to This'," He began to explain, pointedly saying the name of the book that Dan obviously should have heard of and read, "he spent a year living with the homeless in Toronto. He immersed himself in the lifestyle that he wanted to portray."

"Okay…what has this got to do with me?" Dan asked slowly.

"Humphrey, if Shaughnessy can endure drug dealers, pimps, whores and all around maniacs, surely you can find the will to infiltrate a group of spoilt rich kids, one of whom you've already had a relationship with." Shapiro finished with a big grin on his face, the kind of grin that a sadistic child would have as he throws a mouse into a snake tank.

"But, I thought the point was for me to observe from the outside? I'm an outsider, I liked being an outsider, it's where I belong, and you said that it's when I do my best writing, so-" Dan was interrupted by Shapiro chuckling to himself. "What?"

"Clearly, you don't like being an outsider that much seeing as you could write no more than four chapters on Blair Waldorf before adding yourself to the story."

That shook Dan more than it should have. Probably because it was true, but Dan couldn't acknowledge this yet. He lay awake that night rationalizing what, he quite frankly, wanted to do but pretending he was going to do it because Shapiro said so. He had to get on the inside. But getting there would be no easy task.

He barely slept that night and the next day he was still going through scenarios of how to befriend Blair. Being nice wouldn't work, he had always been a nice guy and yet that seemed to be one of the things Blair hated about him. He couldn't see how being mean would be any better. The only way he had been able to talk to her last time was because she was vulnerable.

He was too busy mentally practicing how to approach Blair that day and imagining all the new insults he'd get for his efforts that he could barely pay attention to Vanessa's latest cause. She said something about coming to school to hand out flyers, but that really wouldn't help his own cause at all.

When he finally saw Blair later in the courtyard, all his potential openings vanished from his memory when her face lit up at the sight of him and she skipped over.

"Humphrey!" She greeted, strangely friendly.

"Blair." Dan responded, almost questioning if this perky brunette was really Blair.

"As I expect you already know, seeing as stalking Serena is your one and only pastime, Serena and I are friends again. And we both know that that's, at least in part, to you." She said sweetly, tilting her head to the side in a completely adorable and completely un-Blair Waldorf way.

"Umm….are you thanking me?" Dan asked, worried that any move he might make could cause the real Blair to resurface any moment.

"Actually, I was going to thank you by inviting you to Serena's parents' housewarming tomorrow night. You can even bring Vanessa."

"Hey guys, what's going on?" Serena suddenly appeared looking confused while Dan tried to process what had just happened and Blair waited for an answer, her eyes still on Dan and her eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Is everything okay?" Serena added as she looked from Blair back to Dan.

"Yes." Dan could finally talk again. "Blair was just thanking me about…everything at Yale, which reminds me I haven't apologised to you yet for what I said-"

"Don't worry about it." Serena stopped him before he could continue. "It's forgotten."

"Oh, well still, I'm sorry. Anyway, apparently Blair's idea of showing gratitude is inviting me and Vanessa to a party that she's not even hosting, your parents' housewarming." Dan explained, hoping Serena might be able to explain what's happening to him.

"You did?" Serena turned to Blair in disbelief.

"Yes, that's not a problem is it?" She responded innocently.

"No, of course not." Serena seemed stunned.

"Great! It's decided!" Blair clapped her hands together. "Humphrey, I shall see you tomorrow evening."

Both Serena and Dan watched Blair flitter away just like she had arrived, both in shock over what had happened.

"You know, you don't have to worry about things being awkward, I'm not going to go." Dan said when he and Serena turned back towards each other.

"No, what are you talking about? You should come." Serena's mood instantly changed.

"No, it's Bart Bass's party, I'm the last person who should be there. Well, second to last, after my dad. And what am I going to do? Sit drinking gin and smoking cigars with Chuck and his dad?"

"It's not like that, it's actually…it's kind of a propaganda thing with a load of boring business partners of Bart's, and it is going to be so boring, so please, please come so I have someone other than Blair to talk to." Serena started doing that adorable nose scrunch thing she did and Dan was so close to giving in.

"Why would you want me there?" Dan asked after a moment of hesitation, then elaborated with; "We're not…we tried being friends."

"I know, and it didn't go well, I agree. But we're older and wiser now….I think we should give it another shot. You should come." She repeated, with a hopeful smile as she bit her bottom lip.

"I guess I could bring Vanessa and she could try and get all those oh-so-important business men to sign her petition for this….you know that's not important, but yeah, I guess, I'll see you tomorrow night." Serena beamed at him as he gave his answer, and he couldn't help but smile back. He then wondered why he took so long to agree seeing as he was supposed to be trying to get on the inside, then decided he was probably just shocked at how easy it seemed.

When he told Vanessa she seemed just as shocked as him – and he had even left out the part where Blair had been the one to invite them – but Dan reminded her that it would help her with her current quest and that she had almost been friends with Serena once, and she agreed.

Jenny dressed him the next day, not literally, and he ended up not looking bad. He had the awkward task of explaining to his dad where he was going, and then in a private moment explained the real reason why – but this didn't make Rufus any more comfortable and then he and Vanessa set off.

Serena had been right when she predicted that it would be boring. He and Vanessa had sat talking to her for all of twenty minutes before Lilly came and collected her because a reporter wanted to talk to her. Serena sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes, but assented. The two had an awkward run in with Nate, who politely talked to them for a few minutes, but soon found an excuse to leave. Obviously, things were still strained between him and Vanessa. Dan had caught glimpses of Blair every now and then, but she hadn't even noticed he was there as far as he knew. He thought it was strange considering she was the one who had invited him, but in one of the few times that he saw her she was sharing what she thought to be a secret glance with Chuck and Dan guessed that no one else would be getting her attention that night. Not that he cared.

Vanessa was able to convince several businessmen, lawyers, journalists, bankers and even Bart Bass, to support her cause. She didn't hate any of these people any less, but she appreciated the fact that sweetly asking for backing under the expectant eyes of their peers and a room full of journalists was a lot more effective than trying to guilt them into being better people. Deciding it had been a successful night, Vanessa decided it was finally time to leave and Dan could not be more relieved as he had wanted to leave since he got there. Being at one of these parties was not as glamorous as he had imagined. Frankly, it had been dull.

The most exciting thing to happen was when the coat check girl couldn't find Vanessa's bag.

"Can you check again?" She asked, her arms crossed in frustration.

"No need." And the mysterious brunette appeared again, Vanessa's purse in hand.

"Don't tell me you took my purse by mistake." Vanessa scoffed.

"Hardly." Blair responded once she glanced at the bag in her hands with distaste. "But then it wasn't your bag I was after."

She then produced Vanessa's phone from behind her back and everything made sense. Dan wasn't sure why, but he'd been played.

"Don't you know never to leave anything valuable unattended? Oh, and I took the liberty of increasing your storage space."

"What did you do?" Vanessa snatched her phone back.

"Marcus and Catherine are free to live their sick little lives in peace, as am I. Now that you have nothing on me, you're done here." Blair smiled triumphantly.

"I can't believe this." Dan finally spoke. "You invited me here just to get Vanessa's phone so you could delete some pictures?"

"Seems so unnecessary I know," Blair maintained her nonchalant yet superior tone, "usually I wouldn't go to such lengths over someone so unimportant, but I couldn't let Vanessa blackmail me with those photos."

"Is that true?" Dan turned to Vanessa.

"Yes, it's true." Blair answered before Vanessa could speak, and then turned back to Dan. "You were just collateral damage."

When Dan turned back to Blair, she was already walking away, her long, dark locks cascading down her back. Sometimes he couldn't help but think that she was far too beautiful to be so cruel. But he always instantly shook those thoughts away.

Vanessa explained the truth to him in the cab ride home, that she had indeed tried to blackmail Blair with those pictures yesterday morning, and then everything made sense. He told her that he understood what she was trying to do and it was forgotten. The cab dropped them at Vanessa's place and from there Dan walked home replaying the last two days events in his head. He felt pretty stupid to say the least. In a strange way it brought back how he had felt when Serena had been lying to him. On a conscious level, he knew why she did what she did, but it didn't change the insecurities buried deep in his psyche; Serena couldn't have lied like that if she truly respected him and saw him as an equal. He knew that those thoughts weren't true, but it still had felt that way, and that's how he felt now too. Of course Blair didn't respect him, why would he think for a second that she did? And she would never see him as an equal. He wasn't even mad at her, he was mad at himself for falling for it and racked his brain as to how he could let this happen.

He decided that lately he'd been trying so hard to see more to Blair than just a vindictive, manipulative, spoilt brat, that he had almost blocked that side of her from his view. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Dan was tired when he got home, but sat down to type at his laptop, needing to get down what had happened while it was still fresh in his memory. He barely registered a knock at the door, but then Rufus called him.

Dan stepped into the hallway to see Blair standing in the doorway and Rufus still holding the door, not sure whether to invite her in or not.

"I'm just going to go…tune my guitar." Rufus said, stepping into his bedroom.

"Are you lost?" Dan asked, taking Rufus's position at the door.

"Ninety-nine per cent of the time it would be safe to assume that I was lost if you saw me in Brooklyn, but believe it or not, I…." And she trailed off, her mouth still open like she was still trying to find the words. Dan guessed that she had planned to apologise, but that she was physically incapable of saying those words to him.

"You don't have to apologize." Dan tried to help, but she looked at him in horror.

"I'm not going to apologize! This is simply a pre-emptive strike. When Serena asked me if I had seen you leave, I realized that as soon as you got the chance you would tell her what I had done and she would coerce me into apologizing to you."

"So, you are here to apologise?"

"No, I'm here to explain why an apology isn't necessary." She explained as she looked at him like he was a complete idiot and what she was saying made perfect sense. "Vanessa got off easy tonight. Believe me, I could have done a lot worse, Chuck even offered to….and she got all the financial backing to save that antediluvian monstrosity anyway. Look, I went easy on her because she's your friend and…you helped me and Serena last week, so we're even now."

"Even?" Dan asked in disbelief.

"Yes!"

"No, you manipulated me and used me for your own agenda." He countered, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"Don't be so dramatic." Blair rolled her eyes.

"Blair, what are you actually doing here?" Dan asked forcefully and her façade seemed to fade. She did that thing that Dan had begun to notice where she looked into his eyes, then dropped her gaze and swallowed before regaining her poise and looking back at him.

"I guess….I felt….guilty."

"Guilty?" Dan repeated, starting to enjoy this conversation.

"Yes. I don't know why…it's not because of Vanessa, I know you don't believe it, but I really could have done worse to Vanessa."

"Oh, no, I believe it." Dan responded, imagining how furious Blair must have been that Vanessa would have the audacity to try and blackmail her.

"And like I said, you…maybe I owed you one because you convinced me to make up with Serena. And maybe it's because I know that you and Serena are making another doomed attempt at being friends, so I'm going to try and be civil towards you again!" She almost seemed to be rambling, but ended her sentence in typically superior Blair Waldorf way so that she wouldn't appear to be the awkward one.

"Just out of curiosity," Dan began, the resentment he had already fading away, "what times do you think that you were being civil towards me?"

"I let you date my best friend." Blair responded after a pause when she couldn't think of an answer.

"That was very kind of you." Dan decided to play along.

"I'm glad you finally appreciate my kindness." Blair added. Then came the awkward silence and Dan could tell what she was waiting for even though she hadn't apologized.

"So, now that I know how altruistic you were truly being tonight, I guess I can forgive you for that fact that I got caught in the crossfire." Dan said in mock politeness and Blair supressed a smile.

"Well, now that that's cleared up…I am free to leave."

"Goodnight, Blair." He smiled as she was about to turn without saying goodbye. She looked back at him and smiled slightly.

"Goodnight, Humphrey." She responded and then she was gone.

It had only been a short conversation, and she hadn't even said she was sorry, but Dan somehow felt lighter because of it. She was manipulative, he couldn't pretend that she wasn't, but she was still this other girl that he was just starting to discover too. When Dan closed the door and span around, he saw Rufus standing in the hallway with his arms crossed.

"What?" Dan asked, seeing that Rufus looked pissed.

"I don't exactly know what happened tonight, but did you not see the irony in you being mad at Blair for manipulating and using you to further her agenda?" Rufus asked, his arms dropping as he walked towards Dan.

Dan's jaw tensed as he realized how hypocritical he had been when he had said those things to Blair.

"It's different." Was all he could think to say in response, and Rufus gave an unconvincing nod.

"At least Blair had that sense to see that what she was doing was wrong." Rufus shrugged.

"Dad-"

"I'm going to bed. You should too, it's late." Rufus instantly went casual again and left Dan with his thoughts.

Dan went back to his laptop with a different attitude. He wasn't mad anymore, and could write the new chapter with more impartiality now. He sat typing away, but couldn't get what his father had said out of his head. He told himself that he knew what he was doing was morally questionable, but he rationalized it away, finished the chapter and emailed it to Noah Shapiro at two in the morning.