Chapter 22

A/N: I can't repeat myself often enough: Thank You!

There's a short time in which they are both silent, staring at each other, waiting for the other one to blink. Almost as though this is a game; like there is a winner to be found between the pair of them. As though there is no consequences to be sought by one decision. As there is not a dying woman in his own arms.

Blair sighs and pulls Serena's limp body from his arms, settles her gently on the ground. As though she is made of china. It makes his eyes water to see her be treated in this way. She's usually so strong- never defeated by anything. Is she even breathing anymore?

His heart burns and he closes his eyes against the feeling, trying to ignore the waves of grief that threaten to drown him. Because she cannot be gone. She cannot ever leave him.

He will not allow it.

There's pain everywhere. It licks through her veins. Through her leg. Her ribs. Flares brightly in the scar on her chest.

Her tired eyes slowly blink open and she takes in the blurry sight of a figure that look strangely familiar. She's too confused to figure out what is going on (where is Dan?) and lets her eyes fall back shut again. No. She has already had her last moments. The large bulk figure of Dan, his warm hands reminding her of home, leaning in close to him and confessing thoughts that she never thought she'd ever feel again.

Let me go, let me go, let me go. She thinks. Thinks it and so suddenly all of those times that she's come so close to death and the adrenaline had pumped through her veins makes sense.

"Don't you dare die on me, S."

"Blair?"

Oh. Her voice is raps and it burns in her throat to speak. How long has she been passed out? Dead? Wherever the hell she was, she wants to go back there. This world is full of too much pain. Death was easy. Dark. Painless. Nothing.

"Yeah, it's me. As soon as you're okay again, I am going to give you a serious talk. I mean, damn, how in the hell did this even happen to you?"

She blocks the voice out and weakly attempts to open her eyes again. They focus this time and she finds an openly-smiling Blair staring at her, before she looks back down, tending to Serena's leg. Serena hisses at the pain that flares even brighter there when Blair goes back to it, but Blair ignores her, simply continues working.

"You've lost a lot of blood. You need to go to a hospital."

Serena shakes her head limply. "No. No hospital. Too risky." She argues weakly.

Blair pauses, looking up at Serena with wide eyes. "Writer Boy over there has been quiet about what it is you two are involved in. Care to shed some light?"

Automatically, her mouth opens to lie. That's all she is now, after all. A body full of lies. A life full of lies. The only thing constant and eternal truth about her is that she loves Dan with all of her damaged little heart.

But then she pauses, thinks it through for a moment. Rationally. Blair wouldn't ever tell on her, no matter the circumstances. Blair is- or was, at least- her best friend. Besides, it's more than that. Blair deserves the truth. Serena's dragged her into this mess now and her fingers will forever be tainted if Serena's ever caught, or gives herself in (why is that thought there? Why would she ever give herself in?). And after everything Serena put her through before, she owes her this. At the very least.

"Car crashed into us from behind." She murmurs. "On purpose, of course. Tried to kill us. Dan. Me. I don't know anymore."

Blair's eyes water. "Is this to do with your Dad's case?"

Serena bites her lip, finds her hands are suddenly trembling and that the pain is magnified. "I don't know anymore, B. It wasn't at first. It was just- Someone wanted him dead- And I just..." She looks down at her hands. Watches them tremble. Why are they trembling?

It hurts too much so she changes the topic. "Blair, I told you to leave me if I was too far gone." She says lowly, still staring at her hands.

Blair's reach out and cover her own. "I thought about it. At first. You wanted to protect him and you did seem too far gone, but..." Blair hesitates, and Serena doesn't dare look at her. Blair squeezes their hands together and Serena supposes it's supposed to be reassuring but it's really, really not. "But your muppet was adamant that I save you. And I don't think I could've lived with myself if I just let you go like that."

She shouldn't say it, she really shouldn't, but having a ghost from her past makes her weak.

"Blair. I wanted you to let me die."

Serena feels hands on her at that, forcing her to lift her chin and suddenly she finds herself staring into the startling fierce eyes of Blair Waldorf. Not just Blair Waldorf, but her best friend Blair Waldorf, the one who she was never afraid to speak her mind. The one who had always talked Serena out of her lows, always patched her up after a round of PTSD, the one who kept her heart beating when she had almost spiraled from life in the back of an ambulance. And this is Blair. This Blair has always terrified Serena.

"Don't you dare say you want to die, Serena van der Woodsen." Blair growls. "You have a man here who absolutely loves you. I can tell, and you love him too. You have always had me and the boys, no matter what you do or where you are. We are here for you. We're the NJBC, remember? You are not alone."

Serena's chest heaves and her lungs hurt- actually, her whole body hurts. She wishes that Blair could give her something for the pain. But the problem is that she doesn't think that pain is wholy physical anymore. It hasn't been for such a long time. The pain is in her mind and it's buried there, unreachable. Blair can't just give her medicine for the pain in her mind. Nobody can make that go away. Even when she's with Dan, it's still there; no matter what form it takes. Whether it's grief over losing her Dad or the despairing loneliness. Or the lack of answers that she can barely live with or the well-known and extremely cliche feeling of never being good enough. It just doesn't go away.

And this- This could've been her escape. Blair could've taken Dan to Chuck and Nate and they would've worked this whole thing out. Dan would've been safe. He would've had no choice but to leave her behind and move on, back to his son and his safe life. And she could've had and escape from the pain. She could be with her Dad.

Damn, she could be with her Dad.

"Blair." Serena hiccups. "Make it stop. Please."

Blair softens immediately, leaning back and tending to Serena's upper leg again. "I am. I'm doing as best as I can."

Not that. Make my heart stop beating. Make the world stop spinning.

But the words don't come and they swallow her whole from the inside.

"Your boy's watching guard." Blair says almost conversationally. "For cops. But I phoned Chuck and Nate and told them to prevent any officers from coming here until I've got you out of here."

Despite her swirling mind and her inability to form a single sentence without feeling the pain echo through her body, her eyes bulge and she begins to protest. "Blair, no. Don't bring the others into this."

Blair shrugs. "I didn't exactly. Chuck was called to work with the police on a murder in this area." Blair looks at her from the corner of her eye, almost suspiciously. "There was a car crash and a man's neck sliced wide open. You're lucky it's my day off. And that I'm conveniently that blade of yours that you've got hiding in your pocket."

Serena's hands find purchase on the ground and instantly she forces her arms to have strength. Tries to push herself up and away from the tree so that they can go, her heart pounding furiously in her chest with fear. Ignoring Blair's commands that she stays still. Eventually she slumps under the pressure of Blair's hands pushing her shoulders down, weak arms giving out. And she has never felt so utterly useless than she does in this moment. This moment when she can't even fight her best friends hands and escape when just hours ago she could take on men three times her size. Kill them with one calculated move.

"What the hell are you trying to do?" Blair cries, fists clenched by her side. "You're not leaving until I say so, Serena."

"They're gonna find my blood in the car. They can match it. They'll have my blood on the system already from when I used to go to jail once every week for two months to visit a client." Serena grinds out, eyes glittering with tears. "Let me die, Blair, but please don't let me get caught. I couldn't-"

"Serena, please stop worrying. I won't let that happen, okay? That's not going to happen."

"But my blood was everywhere. I was too weak to do anything about the cars and usually I'm better than that. Usually I don't do stuff like this in broad daylight. I've made so many mistakes-"

"Blair?"

Dan's shout cuts through Serena's worried babbling, panicked and an octave too high. Serena's pulse instantly escalates, especially at the sight of Dan tearing through the greenery of the forest, eyes fixed on Blair and not her.

"They're here." He says, making Serena frown.

"Who's here?" Serena asks, catching his attention for the first time.

A wide grin splits across his face straight away, eyes almost spilling over in happiness and relief. Although she feels completely confused by this situation and irritated that she's being left out of the loop, Serena can't help the way that her heart stutters at the sight. Immediately her hands reach out for him, just slightly, too weak to do anything more. She's so relieved when he hurries right to her side, taking her hands in his and kissing her reverently. Softly. Too many emotions for her to find the right adjectives for, other than the fact that it makes her toes curl despite her aching body and for the dead weight of her heart to feel staccato bursts of light.

They break apart and he sighs in relief. "You're alive."

"Yeah." She grins wryly. "Apparently someone demanded I be brought back from the dead."

"Huh. Don't see why. I mean, you're a terrible cook."

For the quip he earns himself a twist of the ear, but she's smiling so much despite this situation and she is so incredibly grateful that he is here for her. So incredibly grateful to have ever met him. And, damn, she knows that she's going to miss him almost more than she misses the person that she used to be. But, she thinks, when the time comes that she is certain he his safe and protected and they part ways (unwillingly on Dan's part), she is more than anything going to simply be grateful that he ever shone his light in her life; that she was ever given tha chance to love him. For him to love her.

"That's a lie and you know it." She tells him.

He pokes his tongue out at her. "So shoot me."

Oh- That's not. No. Because she remembers looking through a sniper rifle with him as the target, alone in his apartment. And she had been reday to shoot. So ready to take his life.

A throat clearing breaks her thoughts and she turns to find Blair staring at her in a way she never has before. Smug. But not quite. Happy. But a little less so. All the same, it breaks the moment she and Dan are having, and brings her back into the present time. With her broken body and their panicked situation.

"You guys are cute and everything, but we need to move you. Now."

"Uh. Blair, a second ago you were stopping me from moving."

Blair arches an eyebrow. "Yeah. I said you weren't going anywhere until I said so. I'm saying so now. We're gonna get you out of this."

Serena begins to feel the flutter of nerves in the bottom of her stomach.

And just at that moment, she hears the rustling of leaves to her right, that flutter of nerves breaking out and spreading throughout her whole body as the footsteps approach. Closer. And closer. Heavy, thudding footfalls. They scare her so much that she feels like her heart's in her stomach, her hands in Dan's begin to tremble again. Not just out of pain this time.

And then from between the trees emerge two figures, dressed formally, brows furrowed in anger and something that looks like fear.

Her heart but spills free of the confines of her ribs.

"Look who we've got here." Chuck says with a grin, despite the anger in his eyes. "I hear you let someone get the drop on you."

Nate frowns at him. "That's not how I'd put it."

Chuck turns to him with his eyebrows raised. "Dude. Are you seriously gonna argue with me on this?"

"Well, the way you phrased it makes it sound-"

"Guys." She breathes. So quietly. She's surprised when they break from their bickering to turn to her. Tears springing to her eyes at the familiar sight of them. "Oh, God, guys. What are you doing here?"

Nate smiles. "We're here to help you, Serena."

"But- I just-" Her words get caught in her thorat because what is she supposed to say, really? The only reason she had been able to get her words out with Blair was because she needed someone to rescue Dan. But now Nate and Chuck are here, and it's been so long, and she's destroyed their lives so badly already. And she doesn't know how to refuse their help without being offensive. She doesn't know how to refuse them full stop.

They look so well. All of the, not just the boys. Nate, Chuck and Lanie. Nate looks a little older, some of that innocence within him that he'd always had lost. But other than that, they only seemed to have improved from not having her darkness in her lives. And she doesn't miss the rings on Blair and Chuck's fingers. She just figures it's not her place to ask about that. It hasn't been since she upped and left five years ago.

"Oh, God, guys. I've missed you all so much. I have." She babbles, clinging onto Dan's hand and drawing the strength from him that she doesn't possess anymore. "But you can't get caught up in this. You need to leave. Now."

But then her mind is getting fuzzy and as she speaks her words don't fit right around her tongue. They fall heavy and her eyes begin to close, grip slackening in Dan's no matter how much she wills herself to stay awake. Stay alert. This is the first time that she has been so weak since she was shot. Almost trumps it. Because at least then she'd had the promise of death on the other side.

"Blair..." She turns for her to help, her earlier wishes on the tip of her tongue, but they don't make it out.

"Dan." She says instead, because she can always find him. No matter what.

Just before her eyes drift close, she catches sight of the makeshift drip Blair has set up. She smirks, but soon it fades and she finds herself falling without consent into the realm of dreams.