The Last Day of Summer; 5 yr-old Serena misses her Dad and refuses to leave her room.

I'm not too sure about the show history around this point. I believe that William left his family when Serena was around 4. I'm not terribly sure about birthdays, so I don't know who is what age in relation to the others. Bear with me. :)

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Serena was still refusing to come out of her room.

"Serena!" Lily pleaded in exasperation as she leaned against her toddler's door. "I want you to come out immediately."

"No!" Serena muttered miserably back as she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling loom above her. "I don't want to come out. You can't make me."

"Serena..." Lily was exhausted. "I have to go and pick up Eric from your grandmother's soon. She was asking about you too – why you weren't being a good girl and visiting her today."

"I...I'm too sad to leave my room." Serena said honestly, biting her tiny lip as she fought back tears. "You can just leave me some sandwiches outside the door. I'll get it three times a day."

Lily sighed at her daughter's stubbornness. Serena was only 4 years old, and had already developed a mind of her old. The way in which she so seriously refused to come out of her room was endearing, but Lily felt at her wit's end. She didn't realize that William's departure would impact Serena so deeply.

"Serena, darling," Lily tried again, "I called Eleanor and she is bringing Blair over to play. The two of you can play dress-up like you used to."

"No," Serena repeated, impatient with how her mother refused to obey her wishes for solitude. "I don't want to play with anyone unless it's daddy. When is daddy coming home? He promised me we would get ice cream. He promised." Serena angrily rubbed away tears with bunched up fists. She wanted her daddy to come home, and she was hurt that he wasn't coming back no matter how hard she wished.

"I don't know when he's coming back." Lily admitted sadly. "But Serena, tomorrow is the first day of kindergarten. Are you going to miss your first day of school by hiding in your room?"

"I'm not going to school." Serena said, before emphasizing, "I'm too sad to go to school."

"Serena, please, stop with the dramatics!"

"I'm not being dramatical," Serena insisted as she carefully sounded out the big word. "I don't want to go to school."

"Blair will be going."

"Tell Blair I'm sorry, but I'm too sad to see her."

"Serena, Blair is coming at any moment. You don't want to be rude to our guests, do you?"

Serena turned over, and curled up into a little ball, hugging her favorite teddy bear as she did so. She felt tears rush over her chubby cheeks again as she tried not to let her mother hear her cry. She wanted to play with Blair, and to go to school and to make new friends...but how could she do such things when her daddy was missing?

The doorbell rang, echoing through the entire apartment. Lily checked her delicate wristwatch and sighed. "Serena, I cannot deal with this right now. I have to go get Eric, and Blair and Eleanor are here now. Please, try to be a little more courteous towards them."

Serena could hear her mother's heels click away, before the door opened, and the familiar greetings could be heard between two matrons of the Upper East Side.

"Eleanor! Hello, thank you so much for coming. Blair, it's nice to see you too - you look darling today. I hope my call didn't cause a problem...thank you so much for coming over to help cheer up Serena. She refuses to come out of her room, and I simply cannot think of anything else to do. School starts tomorrow, and she is still stubborn as ever."

"It's not a problem," came the familiar soothing voice of Eleanor. "Blair is happy to come visit, and she wants to prepare before the first day of school. I think she wants to match outfits or something. We bought along a friend as well."

There was more shuffling of shoes, before Lily exclaimed "Anne! It's so nice to see you. And I see you bought Nathaniel along as well. I haven't seen him since he was just a tiny little thing."

"Well, I hope you don't mind the intrusion. Nate and Blair were just playing together, and I think he's excited for the first day of school too. He hasn't played with Serena in a long time."

"No, not at all this summer," Lily agreed. "I don't even know if the kids will remember each other."

Serena grimaced. Nate? She sort of remembered a boy with messy brown hair at some parties that Lily had taken her too. Was he the boy that Blair wanted to play with at the picnic? She couldn't remember much about him except he had a nice smile.

There was more shuffling by the door. "Thank you so much for coming again. Feel free to take anything from the kitchen and make yourselves at home. I have to get Eric from CeCe...the time is just so much tighter now that William is gone..." Lily sighed deeply.

"Daddy..." Serena whimpered again at the painful reminder that her father had left her. She wrapped the blankets more tightly around herself.

The door closed and footsteps approached. There was whispering outside. "Blair, I want you and Nate to try and get Serena out of her room. She's really sad, but try to cheer her up before school starts. Mommy and Aunt Anne are going to be in the living room." There was a clicking of high-heels as the parents departed.

"She's being "dramatic", Mama says," Blair explained in a hushed tone to the mysterious Nate who must have been beside her. There was a sharp, regal knock on the door.

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to come out," Serena said defiantly.

"But you have to Serena!" Blair insisted with the demanding voice she had already mastered. "Tomorrow is the first day of school and we should make sure we look our best."

"I'm not going to school."

"You're not going to school?" Came a new voice, surprised and curious. Serena figured it was Nate, the mystery boy who had come to try and entice her to leave her room.

"No, I'm sad." Serena stressed, a little impatient as to why people couldn't just understand that and leave her be.

"But...the first day of school is when you make friends," Nate was continuing on, oblivious to the crisis Serena was in. "My cousin told me that you go to school, you smile at others, and you make friends for the rest of your life."

"I don't want to smile at people and make friends...besides, Blair is already my friend."

"Yes, but what about other friends?" Blair asked.

"I don't want other friends," Serena said stubbornly. She only wanted her Daddy. She missed the summer, and getting piggyback rides from him. She missed going to the beach, or just go running as fast as she could to keep up with him as they walked around Central Park. She wanted it to be summer, and not the school year. She felt that starting school would mean starting a new chapter of her life ... without her daddy.

"...I want to be your friend." Nate said, a little quietly and shyly.

Serena sat up, a little curious. "Why do you want to be my friend?"

There was an awkward shuffling of shoes outside. "...I saw you at a picnic. I was hungry. You took my sandwich. You were pretty."

Serena couldn't help but blush slightly. Her daddy used to tell her she was pretty, like a princess.

"You're nice," was all Serena could say. She lightly jumped out of her bed and walked to the door.

"I am nice," Nate said, as if reaffirming it to himself. "Can you come out and play now?"

"What are we going to play?" Serena asked, a little curiously. She wanted to see this boy who thought she was pretty.

"Let's all dress up!" Blair exclaimed excitedly.

"I don't want to dress up," Serena said from the other side of the door. "I want it to still be summer, and not time for school. I don't want to go to school."

"We can play something else," Nate suggested. Serena could hear a clash, as Blair had obviously pushed Nate.

"We are going to play dress-up!" Blair declared. There was a shuffle of shoes as she undeniably went in search of some suitable fashion pieces to entice Serena to play with her.

"Serena?" Nate asked from the other side of the door. Serena pressed her ear to the wood.

"Yes?"

"I don't want to play dress-up either," Nate admitted. "I'm scared to tell Blair that I don't want to though."

"We can play something else," Serena suggested as she thought of games that she liked. "We don't have to play dress-up if it makes us sad."

"So are you going to come out and play?" Nate sounded excited.

"I...I don't know."

"Serena...don't be sad. We can play and become friends!"

"Will you promise not to talk about school?"

"I won't." Nate said loyally. "Besides, I...I don't want to go to school much either. I want to smile at people and make friends, but I'm scared. I like the summer."

"I like summer too," Serena said with a small smile. She was glad that Nate liked the summer as she did. She felt as if she could trust him, even just by the fact that he didn't like dress-up and was going to miss the summer too. She cautiously opened the door.

There Nate stood, in a striped shirt and large smile. "You came out to play!" he yelled excitedly. He looked at Serena, then suddenly looked down, his cheeks red with embarrassment. "You're very pretty," he mumbled again.

Serena smiled slightly (for the first time in days) and excitedly grabbed his hand. "I like you!" she exclaimed as she dragged him to the play room. All her sorrows seemed to have suddenly been forgotten. Her tiny little broken heart had been mended from a boy with a nice smile who wanted to play with her.

"So you're not sad anymore?" Nate asked hopefully as he blushed at how tightly Serena gripped his hand.

"I...I'm still sort of sad." Serena admitted. "But you said that we only have to smile at each to be friends. ...and friends are happy together, right?"

"That's right!" Nate exclaimed, delighted that Serena remembered. He mumbled, "I'm glad you're my friend."

Nate smiled shyly at her. Serena was glad she had come out of her room. She was so scared of school, and facing the world without her beloved daddy, but here was the boy who had managed to lure her out of her room - a boy who thought she was pretty and wanted to be friends with her. Serena didn't feel so sad anymore. Instead, she smiled happily back.

/

Thanks for the reviews, next chapter - older post-breakup NS. Might revisit the summer first-meeting picnic story sometime.