Chapter 25
A/N: The support I'm getting is so incredible, it makes me want to cry. Also, just to make one thing clear: Dan is NOT shocked by the fact that she's an assassin, of course he knows about it. What he's shocked and saddened by is how she speaks about the victims as though she's right to kill them, how obsessed she is with catching her dad's killer that she has resorted to this. He loves her and he sees the Serena we see on the actual show. The Serena here is NOT anything like the Serena in the show. She's been alone for several years, licking her wounds in private, suffering from PTSD and her outrageous obsession for what she considers is justice. Dan has been oblivious to that for the entire fic, he's ignored this side of her. That is why he needed a moment alone. Nothing more.
Dan leans against the wall, eyes closed and breathing laboured.
Her words are tumbling around in his mind and he can't let them go. How can he make them go away? It's not like they didn't deserve it though, right? No, Serena, no.
He presses his hands into his eyes and feels like he's bleeding with the weight of it all. This burden. He's always been a fan of crime shows and mystery writers. But in every book or show has always been justice for the victims. Even the murderers that suffered from mental illnesses have been punished in the books or shows, because that's what the victims and their family deserve. But this? This is different, being emotionally involved with the murderer, having them so tightly wound around his heart he can feel impressions of her with every breath he takes.
Does Serena deserve to be punished?
They deserved it. Right? Right?
She's not thinking rationally.
But he- He can make her see. He can make her see how wrong it is.
He pushes off the wall but stops, pauses in his tracks as terror seizes his heart. Because he's not innocent. He's not innocent at all, he has blood on his hands, so fresh it's still sticky. And if he's not innocent, since he's murdered for her, does he have any right to help her in this? Does he have any right to sit her down and tell her that what she's done is wrong?
Because he knows that what he did was wrong, murdering a man, the man that once shot her. But he can't find himself to feel guilty about it, because if he hadn't, he would've lost Serena. He would've died, too.
This is his logic.
Why does it seem right when hers seems so wrong?
There are interruptions flooding through his mind.
There are interruptions in his musings, sounding awfully like voices, like wrenching sobs.
On the other side of this door, he can picture her crying. It hurts so far down, but he can't bring himself to go through to her. He is not entitled anymore. She is going to leave him eventually. There is going to be a goodbye. Why not now? While he can still bring himself to see her go?
"You better me damn well kidding me, Chuck."
He opens his eyes and finds Blair standing before Chuck and Nate, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed. When had she come back? He doesn't remember. He's been so caught up in his own laments, he lost track of time.
"Blair, you are not going in there-"
"She is my best friend!" Blair cries, fire in her eyes as she takes a step forwards to Chuck, poking him in the chest. Beside Dan, he feels Nate flinch. Huh. So he's not the only one afraid of her. "No matter what's changed, I love her to pieces, Chuck. And I know you do too."
"She's different Blair, we can't know-"
"Oh, no, don't you dare. This is Serena van der Woodsen. I don't care what she's done, she is not thinking straight, and we're gonna help her, okay?"
Chuck's hands raise and wrap around Blair's offending hands, clutching them tight as though he can't let her go. "Dammit, Blair, she could hurt you."
Blair is silent for a moment, stone-faced, and Dan thinks that Blair finally gets it. Finally understands why there's the taste of bile at the back of his throat. Because he's had Serena the wrong way around this entire time and he doesn't know how he feels about this new version (or is she so new?) of her. Does he love her? Yes. Wholeheartedly. Completely. Infinitely. He is tethered to her and there is no way that he can free himself. But does he love her for this? No.
But then a tear drips down Blair's cheek and it all comes gushing out, the overwhelming need to run to Serena, to gather her up in his arms and promise her that she can stop feeling this way. That she doesn't need to define herself by her dad's murder. That she doesn't have anything to prove. She can give it up, she can give it all up, and go back to a normal life. With him. Always.
"Serena would never hurt me, Chuck. She knows me. I'm her best friend, her sister. Just like she knows you, and Nate, and muppet hair over there. We're all she has, and we're damn well not going to give up on her. We're going to help her through this, okay? The PTSD, her grief, all these problems- not to mention her trust issues which you are not helping right now. And I swear to God Bass, if you stop me from going through that door, I will divorce you."
Chuck releases Blair's hand at once, trails down her arm like he's communicating a message with her that nobody else in the room will understand. Then he lets her go.
Serena is exhausted and in so much pain by the time Blair comes bursting through the door.
Blair slams the door behind her, anger in her eyes, and for a heart stopping moment Serena thinks that the rage in her eyes is what she herself has put there.
But Blair's eyes soften around the edges. A soft smile crinkling her cheecks. She rushes over to Serena's bedside and grabs her by the shoulders, ignoring Serena's wince, and squeezes them roughly. Drags her hands across Serena's shoulders, up her neck, and cups her cheeks reverently. Staring directly into her eyes. As though she needs to make sure that Serena's really there. Like she hasn't left yet.
Serena's brain is numb with it all. Which version of herself is Blair searching for?
"Hey, S." Blair smiles softly when Serena's eyes drift open. When had they closed? "How are you feeling?"
"Like crap." Serena admits, too past caring to blush.
"That's okay. I don't blame you." Blair says, pressing a kiss to Serena's forehead. Serena sighs against the touch, remembering how it feels to be loved by her best friend. A friendship had never been easy, but the best thing in her life. "But I promise you, it's gonna get better."
"It's been twelve years." Serena says, voice rough. "Twelve years since I lost him and...It's not."
Blair forces Serena to look up at her when she tries to look away, soft as a feather in her stormy eyes, tears gathering there like she's collecting them for memories. "You have a man who loves you, and you have me, and the boys, and we will get you through this. It's better, and it's gonna get better, so suck it up." Blair smirks.
"I'm still-"
Serena chokes on her words and her hands push past the barriers of the soft pajamas Blair had dressed her in when they'd brought her here. Curl around her scar, anchoring her down, and down, and down. She is going to explode.
"I'm still damaged goods, Blair."
Blair ducks her head down, resting on Serena's shoulders, staring at the scar on Serena's chest. She sighs heavily then reaches out, pulling Serena's hands away from the scar that started all of this; this slow descent into her own mind. Five Years ago when Blair had ran to her once Chuck had let her go, blood coated with her best friend's blood as she'd begged her to stay with me. Don't you die on me.
"That's right." Blair says softly. "But I love you. Chuck and Nate love you, no matter how stupid they're being. And muppet hair? I don't even have the words to describe what he feels for you, what I've seen in the space of a day. I'll leave him to tell you that."
Tears clog in Serena's throat, sting the back of her eyes. "I'm a murderer." She whispers.
"You've been in a tough place, S." Blair says. "And we're gonna get you out of this. I swear, we will help you find your dad's murderer and then we'll help you live your life."
I don't want to live my life.
The words come as a shock to Serena, tumbling through her brain, and make her stiffen in shock. But somehow, it makes sense. There's guilt, long suppressed guilt, starting to break free of its confines. Letting itself be known. And for this she is grateful. Because she's beginning to understand the others' reaction to her, starting to understand what it means to be normal and not to have to live with this weight, this constant pressure.
"I want justice."
"I know you do."
"No- Not that. I want that, too. But..." Serena watches Blair's brow knit together in concern. "For my victims. For the ones I've killed."
Blair's eyes water, jaw slacking. "But... We just got you back."
Serena tries to smile. There's no words in her heart left to say.
When the others finally manage to be in the same room as her later that day, she feels a terrifying sense of relief. It dizzies her. These people in her life that love her, so much that they'll overcome what she is. What horrible things she has done.
(A large part of her is still screaming that they deserved it.)
Dan watches the inherent fragility in her eyes when they gather around her bed.
Her eyes flutter shut, just for a moment, a kaleidoscope of emotions crossing her face until they open again. Leaving her with nothing but determination. He can see it now: The lawyer in her, that drive for justice, that thirst to do things right. He can still see it. It's there. Stuck between livid nightmares and the winter that stole her dad away.
She spares a glance for him, just for a moment. Dan knows that she wishes for more. Her fingers twitching give that away, but the softness around her eyes are enough for him. They can talk later. For now, he can give her this. The ability to move on.
"A price was put on Dan's head. A very large price, by a man who knew my dad, the man that you're helping the police with investigating the murder of- well, covering up my murder." Her eyes flash with self-hatred and it hurts him. He wants to smooth it all away, but then she begins speaking again and he's once again enraptured by her. "I took the hit. But I didn't kill him."
"Why?" Chuck blurts out, and Dan can read this man. He needs more. So that he can know Serena can change- be more, is more, has always had the potential to be more.
Oh, how blind Dan has been.
Serena bites her lips and turns her eyes to Dan. "Because my Dad read his books, and so did I. Because his books made me feel closer to my dad. He has a son, near enough to the age I was when I lost my Dad. I couldn't do that to him, turn him into me. I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone. And most of all there was no reason, no reason as to why he ought to die. He didn't deserve it." (Not like the others.)
"Nobody ever deserves to die." Dan murmurs. In the shadows of his eyes she can see the man he killed, and she can't bring herself to believe in that statement. Of course people deserve death.
"Why's he still with you?" Nate asks.
Serena bites her lips. "I had to protect him. I just... Had to." She looks down at her hands. They have brought so much death. "He's still in danger. In the space of a day there were to attempts made on his life, both ending in murder."
"We'll protect him."
Serena looks up and stares into the haunted eyes of Chuck. Her lower lip trembles, heart fluttering nervously in her chest. "You will?"
Chuck nods silently.
"I'd like you to do something else for me, if you wouldn't mind- I'd just- I'd like to know something..."
"Anything." Nate vows.
The sincerity of his statement brings a smile she doesn't feel to her lips. "Can you look up the record of a guy named James Mortem?"
"You mean Senator Mortem?"
"What?"
The news brings ringing to her ears, panic clawing at her heart.
"Why do you need us to look up the record for the senator?"
"Because he's the man that ordered my first murder, and I had the feeling that he is involved in all of this."