Chapter 9-

Blair and Paul head to the airport to see Harold and Roman off.

She's surprised when she finds Dan at the airport waiting for them.

"I invited him down to say goodbye and I wanted one last photo of you three before we left. I don't have a photo of Paul with both of his parents." Harold explains.

Blair, Dan, and Paul pose for a photo for Harold and Roman to take back to Paris. After Blair gives her approval for the photo she tells Roman that he better Photoshop some hair on her if he wants to make prints. He chuckles and shakes his head as he reaches into his carry on. He pushes a photo album into Daniel's hands.

"A gift for you, from Harold and me. Nothing big, but we are family now."

Dan looks down at it surprised. "Wow, ummm, thanks, I don't know what to say."

Harold and Roman just wink at Blair as she gives them a suspicious look. Then they walk through security and begin their journey back to Paris.

Blair sighs. Sad to see them go. She has always been close to her father.

"Mommy? Can we go eat now? I'm hungry." Paul asks interrupting her thoughts.

Blair looks down at her son, "Sure Puf… Paul. Where would you like to eat?"

"I dunno, Dan where would you like to eat?"

And just like that, Dan is invited to eat with them.

Blair was hoping to have a quiet night with just her and Paul and that she wouldn't have to deal with Dan. Lately she's been feeling very uneasy about it him. She can't explain it, but she remembers feeling this way before.

She's starting to feel too comfortable with him and might just start expecting him to be there for her.

Which she knows he probably won't, not again. Why would he? He did once before, it ended terribly and it was her fault.

No, she need to distance herself from Humphrey (NOT Dan) and hide behind her walls. Humphrey owes her nothing.

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Paul has Dan ride with them in the town car back into the city. Paul is in the middle of his parents but Blair leans into the window, trying to add more distance between her and Humphrey.

Paul and Dan start looking through the photo album Roman gave Daniel.

It's an album filled of photos of all the moments Dan missed in Paul's life.

There's one of an ultra sound, followed by a photo of Harold holding Blair's hand with both of them crying while Eleanor is in the background hugging Cyrus. Dan can tell they are in a Doctor's office and Blair is further along in her pregnancy. He can make out an ultrasound on a screen and thinks this may have been when they found out that she was having a boy. When he asks Blair she doesn't even look at him or the photo. Just nods her head as she continues to look out the window.

There's another photo of Blair very pregnant, beaming, and pointing down to her stomach.

"Wow! Isn't my mom really pretty?" Paul asks Dan.

Dan looks over at Blair and says, "Beautiful."

And there it is again, that uneasy feeling starts growing in Blair's stomach. She fakes a smile and tells Paul, "Of course! You can't expect such a good looking kid to come from a hideous mother!"

This has Paul giggling and he returns to looking through the photo album.

There are a lot of photos. A photo of Blair and Paul in those first moments after birth, both tired from the ordeal they've been through but focusing their attention on each other. Blair asleep with a very fat 1 month old, Blair and Harold with Paul at a Café. Roman, Blair, and Eleanor holding Paul blowing out 1 candle. Harold crying as Paul goes off to his first day at day care. And all the other moments he missed.

When he and Paul are done looking through the photo album that's when he notices Blair leaning over and looking at the photos. She eventually joined in on viewing what photos Harold and Roman selected for Dan.

When he closes the album she looks at Paul and gives him a knowing smile, "Roman had to have made this photo album. See how every photo of him has his best angle? Why he couldn't have omitted photos of my last trimester is beyond me."

Paul smiles and Dan looks over at her, studying her. This causes her to quickly look out the window again.

She wonders what is wrong with her and why she's started to feel so uncomfortable with Dan Humphrey.

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After they eat in the city Dan comes back to the penthouse to help Blair put Paul to bed. Blair would really rather Dan leave, but she can't seem to ask him to leave. She used to be so good at telling him what to do.

She excuses herself, "I'll be right back Humphrey. Nightly pill regimen." She says over her shoulder as she heads up the stairs.

While she's in the bathroom taking her medication Dan wanders around the penthouse.

He eventually finds himself in her study. He starts looking at her book collection. He finds books that he would expect to be in the possession of Blair Waldorf. Lady Chatterly's Lover, a few Jane Austen classics, some of the Bronte sisters works.

He stops as he recognizes one of the books on her shelf. It's one of his. In fact it's the book he wrote right after she left.

He pulls it off the shelf, and runs his hand over the cover.

It's about a man (a writer) who moves into an old home on the Upper East Side. The house had belonged to an enterprising young man before him. He was a playboy and captain of industry and had died in the house a year after moving into it.

It was a very odd turn of events.

The young man had been a mainstay on the social scene of New York, but soon after moving in to his new residence, he stopped going to society galas, stopped caring for his enterprise, and let his life fall into disrepair. They found him 3 days after he had died. It wasn't a gruesome death and no one could explain it. His heart simply stopped beating while he slept.

This of course made the house a very hard sell so it came cheap. The writer wasn't superstitious and the location and price was a dream come true, he would have been insane to not jump at the offer.

After moving into this home he starts to dream about a woman every night. Eventually he falls in love with this woman he dreams about. She's beautiful, with expressive brown eyes, brown wavy hair, and small bone structure. The writer starts to withdraw himself from his waking life in favor for the one that he has constructed for himself in his dreams with this woman.

One night during a storm, as he's dreaming of him and the woman in bed, he is awakened by a thunder clap and finds that he is in fact sharing his bed with a succubus.

He runs from the house screaming and starts to take up residence at a hotel in the city. He thinks about selling it, but can't bring himself to do it. He can hear the woman while he's sleeping, crying and begging him to "come home, come back to me." He wakes up smelling her. He starts to miss his dreams.

Eventually he moves back into the house, knowing full well what waits for him there. He begins to understand the young man who owned the house before him. Even though he knows the truth about the woman in the dream he doesn't care. He has to be with her. One night his heart stops as dreaming of her. The book ends with the house going on the market once again.

Yeah, it's about Blair.

Dan can't believe it's a part of her collection.

He hopes she hasn't read it, and if she has then maybe she won't tie the woman to her, but who is he kidding? She knows, Dan wasn't very subtle about it, and he dropped her name on the book's dedication page, "This story is dedicated to Blair, without you this story could have never been written." It did really well and made a few bestsellers' lists.

"There you are."

He looks up and sees Blair smiling in the doorway.

When she notices what book he's holding her smile disappears.

He instantly feels guilty. Knowing that she's read it and she knows just how far he went in demonizing her, literally.

"I would have never thought you would have this."

She smiles at him, "Well Humphrey, after how hurt and upset you were that I didn't read Inside, I didn't dare risk your anger for not reading this one." She says sarcastically.

He looks at her confused, "Did you read the whole thing?"

"Yes. I think the tone was a bit too Byronic in the story, but you're a very good writer Humphrey." She bites her lip, "It was good."

He feels helpless.

He knows that he shouldn't feel like apologizing for the story considering what she had done.

In fact when he wrote it and published it he hoped she would read it. He had hoped it would hurt her, hurt her as badly as he had been hurt by her. But as much as he hoped, he really thought she wouldn't have bothered.

Especially after reading the reviews about the book and seeing her name on the dedication page.

He looks at her guiltily, "I don't know what to say."

She meets his eyes, gives him a tight lipped smile and shakes her head. "I think you should leave Humphrey, I'm a little tired and I think I'm going to go to bed."

He nods and walks towards the elevator, feeling as monstrous as he made Blair seem in the book.

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Blair has been ignoring Dan Humphrey's calls for the past week. She's kept up all communication between them with text messages.

"Answer your phone Waldorf, I want to take you and Paul out for Dinner sometime this week."

"I'm busy this week, but Paul should be able to join you for dinner Wednesday Night. I will send him over to Brooklyn with Dorota if you like."

"That's fine….. but you can't ignore me forever Blair."

She hates how petty she feels. She knows that she shouldn't hold the book against him.

She knows that she had deserved such a portrayal, but after seeing him with the book all the hurt she buried bubbled up to the surface again.

She had loved him so, and while she had been awful at the end, she still thought what they had together was precious. She understood his anger but to vilify their relationship in a novel cut her. She had thought that despite how it ended, their relationship was, for the most part, the most adult, mature, and caring relationship she had ever had.

She knows she's going to have to swallow her anger and push it out of her mind eventually. But that never came easily from Blair Waldorf. She would usually devastate someone for such an infarction, or at least have them begging for her forgiveness.

But she can't expect Humphrey to apologize, after all, she deserved the portrayal, she was awful.

Blair sighs and picks up her phone.

Again he lets the phone ring a good 6 times before he answers.

"Hi Blair."

"Hey Humphrey, what time do you want Paul at your place Wednesday night?"

"4 pm-ish sound okay?"

"Well I have a doctor's appointment that day. More Chemo." She winces inwardly as she realizes how sick she's going to be this week, "So why don't you just pick him up from school."

"Okay, I can do that, what time should I have him home?"

"Why don't you keep him for the night? I'm not feeling good as it is already and I can just imagine how much fun I will be that night."

"Are you sure?"

She closes her eyes. No she's not, she'd rather be healthy and fine and not have to spend a night alone in the penthouse away from Paul.

"Yes Humphrey, I'm quite sure." She says through tight lips.

She ends the call by hanging up on him.

In Brooklyn Dan stares at his phone for a bit and a crazy thought enters into his head. It must be hard on Paul to be shuttled back and forth between parents, especially when one is sick. Things would be easier on Paul if he lived closer to them, or even together.

But as soon as the thought enters his head, he shakes it from his mind. It's crazy. He could never live with Blair, and she would never agree to it.

He sighs; this arrangement will just have to do.

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Blair is at the dining table rolling herself a joint, when the elevator dings and Rufus walks into the penthouse with Paul in tow. She's very surprised, seeing as to how Paul was supposed to be sleeping over at Rufus's place.

She quickly gets up.

Rufus looks at her amused and tells her, "Paul missed you; he wanted to come home."

Paul eyes her suspiciously, "What are you doing?"

Blair tries to hide her stash behind her, "Oh, it's.. Oregano. Dorota had to leave and she asked that I prepare her Oregano for tomorrow's dinner".

She cringes inwardly. God she used to be so good at lying.

"Why would you be wrapping it in paper?"

"Oh you know Dorota and her ways. It's some kind of technique from Poland… yeah, but don't worry about it, I'm almost done and I can put you to bed."

But Paul can tell she's lying to him and he's not happy about it.

He turns to Rufus, "Grandpa Rufus, can you put me to bed?"

Blair looks helplessly at Rufus and Rufus is doing everything he can to hide his smile.

"Sure kiddo."

Blair stays behind as they go up the stairs.

She hears them getting Paul ready for bed. They're singing a Lincoln Hawk song.

Blair rolls her eyes. Maybe guitar lessons with someone else would be a better idea.

Rufus comes down as she's cleaning up the dining table.

"Oregano huh?"

Blair looks down embarrassed, "It's for my therapy Rufus" she says sheepishly.

Rufus flashes her a big smile and puts his hands up, "I would be the last person to judge. Just make sure Paul doesn't find out about it."

Blair can see why Lily is so madly in love with Rufus. Even with how much older he is, Blair sees that he's extremely handsome. In that middle class, charming way, just like his son.

She looks up to him. "Would you like some tea?"

"Sure."

He waits at the table as she's in the kitchen making them both tea. He watches her as she walks out and places a cup in front of him and she takes a seat across the table from him.

They sit in silence at the table. He's the first to start talking.

"You never told Daniel about me coming to see you did you?"

Blair looks up to him wide eyed. She shrugs and mutters, "It really doesn't matter now does it?"

Rufus shakes his head and he remembers how he had come to the Penthouse a few weeks after Jenny was released. Right before Blair had fled New York.

She was surprised to see him in the parlor.

"Rufus… Did Dan send you here?" She asked him hopefully.

"No. Dan doesn't know I'm here. No one does. I came here on me own. "He cleared his throat, "I came here to tell you to stay away from my family. And by that I mean everyone. EVERYONE Blair" he emphasized.

"I don't understand." And she looked confused.

"I married Lily, so Serena and Eric are my family now. Chuck is a part of my family as well. But most of all you need to stay away from Dan and Jenny. If you come near them or even try to reach out to them I will know and I will make you very sorry you ever did."

He watched as her face got hard, "Threats Mr. Humphrey? You really think you can threaten me?" she tried to sound amused.

"I mean it Blair. You're poison. Everyone you touch you destroy. Serena has suffered all these years as your best friend, you tormented Jenny all these years, made Nate miserable, and Chuck." He paused as he gathered a breath, "there's a good side to Chuck, I've seen it many times, but never when he was with you. Then there's Dan. For whatever reason you thought it was worth your time to break his heart by destroying his sister. There's a common denominator to all these people's unhappiness and that's you Blair. You profess to love these people, but you always end up destroying them. You should do everyone a favor and leave town."

He watched as the truth of what he said crashed down on her. She swallowed hard and yelled at him to leave.

As he turned to leave he saw her starting to break, he walked to the elevator slowly, wanting to make her feel uncomfortable and not wanting to give her the courtesy to fall apart alone.

He had never felt so triumphant and so horrible at the same time. When he got into the elevator he took one last look at her and saw that she believed everything he'd said.

He got into the car as fast as he could and instructed the driver to leave. Afraid that Blair Waldorf might be behind him with her angry eyes, throwing threats to ruin him and his family. He didn't doubt that she would too. He could see why Jenny had feared her all these years; he had never met someone as formidable as Blair Waldorf.

5 days later Serena came to the dinner table and announced that Blair had left town. No goodbyes, nothing. She said it blankly and sat down and stared at her food all night. Dan closed his eyes and didn't say anything for a while. When he opened his eyes, he started talking about the idea he'd been conceptualizing for his new book. It's a dark story about a man and the ghost of a woman, or a demon woman, Rufus wasn't really paying attention. They moved on and lived their lives without Blair Waldorf, but he always knew that she left a vacuum in their lives, especially Serena's and Dan's.

He's watched Serena look to her right at society galas expecting to see Blair there and then hiding her sadness when she realizes that she's not a part of her world anymore. He remembers Dan refusing to come to these events. Not wanting to be reminded of the world he once shared with Blair Waldorf. He knows he did the right thing, but he still can't help but feel sorry for them.

He comes out of the memory and looks at Blair.

"Just so you know, I didn't leave because of you." She says cautiously.

Rufus just stares into his cup of tea. It's gotten cold while he was thinking. He gets up to leave.

As he's about to reach the elevator Blair speaks up.

"Rufus… I want you to know that I won't tell Dan, if that's what you're worried about. Though I think he'd understand even if he knew, but I just want you to know that I won't say anything and Paul will never know either."

Rufus looks back at her and says, "I know."

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Hope you all like it! I'm trying to get these up as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!