Chapter: Three

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Rating: T

Ship(s): N/B

Summary: He could have her forever. Have her smile, laugh and cry with him. He could have her walk down the aisle towards him, bear his children and wake up next to him each and every morning. But he won't. She won't let him.

Author's Note: Okay, so I've decided to redo this chapter instead of adding another one for two reasons. One, the fourth chapter would have been too short and two, because I think the additional things I've added fit better into this one, so enjoy.

It was his fault, Blair decided. Nate had never made it easy for her to love him. He had so many issues and he was emotional despite his best efforts to be seen otherwise. Nate made it hard for her to love him because she couldn't trust him.

His face was carefully blank, his eyes bare and his promises just as empty, she figured. In contrast to her own inner void, Blair imagined herself to be a mess; tear-stained; disarrayed hair. Sometimes she wondered if it would be too must to ask for him to be a little less sedated. If even during all those prospects of them breaking apart forever in the past ever did something besides pique him.

Blair had known from the beginning that getting her heart involved with Nate was a bad idea those many nights ago, but she had done it anyways because she wanted him and he had wanted her. After so long she wasn't masked behind the very picture of apathy, because although Blair had constantly been told she was beautiful... with him she felt even more beautiful.

Because Nate wanted her; he needed her, she realized.

But she didn't. Blair didn't need him because she couldn't trust herself with more.

And more was exactly what Nate was. He was amusive, affectionate, brave and so much more than the mere word of perfection. He was more than anything she could imagine and more than she knew she could handle.

It was obvious then, that he cared for her more than she did for him. And it just wasn't fair; having more came with an unjustified price.

They weren't together and it killed Nate, slicing through his heart like a paring knife.

And it was impossibly painful for him to understand. He wanted Blair. He wanted her forever. He wanted to love her and hold her and protect her for as long as he lived. And it was stupid. Because Nate could have her. He could have her forever. Have her smile, laugh and cry with him. He could have her walk down the aisle towards him, bear his children and wake up next to him each and every morning.

But he won't. She didn't want him.

That was why Nate woke up alone, clothes strewn across his room, pain shooting through his body, his heart as sore as the rest of his frame. He didn't recognize himself through his bloodshot eyes with the dark circles underneath nor the heavily built scruff that was mount on his face. Nate did not look like the confident, charming and good-looking guy Blair had once proclaimed him to be; what she had made him feel those some nights ago.

No. Instead he looked and felt like the broken mess he was and Nate knew that Blair had succeeded in breaking him down, again.

She had always done so.

The wall the one he tried to break down and the one she apologized for building Blair had rebuilt it when she informed him of her un-escorted doctor's visit.

Although Nate promised he would be there for Blair with certainty, he did not blame her with competence. He didn't deserve her, he knew that. Blair was better off without him because he was conceited and unreliable and he'd made her cry one too many times.

"Blair?"

He was hallucinating. Dreaming. Wishing. Praying. Blair Waldorf was not at his doorstep (once again).

Realizing that he needed to clear his head, Nate decided to take a stroll outside in the cold evening because he did his best thinking when he was moving in the outdoors. It was the most peculiar thing, really. The only time Nate decided to leave his home, he found the woman he had been avoiding just a few inches from his front door.

"I'm not pregnant," stated Blair, grimly, her face softened slightly when she realized that she would still do anything for this man she never really had.

"What?" Nate spluttered, not even think of inviting her as a morbid feeling swept over him for a moment. She was not carrying his child. "But you told me the doctor–"

"It was a false alarm. It happens."

It took him a few minutes to analyze the realization before reaching his epiphany, giving her a meaningful look.

"Do you want to come inside?" he whispered, unsuspecting of the placidity of her facial expression. Nate almost knew her answer, but her reply threw him completely off guard.

"I finally know what I want Nate and...you can't give it to me." Blair mumbled back quietly. She refused to look at his face, only wanting those wasted minutes in bliss when she could envision herself in a moment where none of this was happening.

She knew she was slowing breaking his heart, prying it open with her piercing words and she just couldn't stop.

"Blair..." He felt as though she were pelting him with bricks.

Weakly, Nate ran his gaze across the darkness of her eyes, the line of her nose, the fullness of her lips secretly locking her features away in the realm of his silent dreams, as though it would be the last time he'd see her. He made a move towards Blair, pushing himself forward.

"No stop! Just... stop, okay?" she whimpered feebly, "I'm sorry Nate. I'm sorry I just can't."

Memories of Nate had began to haunt her once again repeatedly and she wondered why he just wouldn't leave her alone. Vague, suspiciously bright images of him and everything they'd done settled themselves into her sleep over and over again like some sort of broken videotape.

"You lied to me. All this time, you lied to me, Blair," confronted Nate, he was thinking of the past again because it was the wrong thing to do and he did have a tendency to do things the wrong way, no matter how good his intentions were.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Blair asked angrily, suddenly confused. The chilling climate spewed their condensed breaths in each others direction, before blending with the rest of the snow covered city.

"You said that you were sorry for pushing me away," he laughed exasperatedly in fear that if he didn't, he might scream. "You didn't mean it at all."

"Nate–" No. He was wrong, she convinced herself. Because Nate didn't know her. He didn't see hernot the way she wanted to be seen.

"I should have known Blair. You've been pushing me away for so long." Nate reminded her, since he owed her that much. She had completely destroyed him after all.

"I've been pushing you away? I've been pushing you away all this time, huh?" She had raised herself after senior year believing that everything they had done was wrong; that they in general were wrong.

"Yes!" He was yelling at her, because she had to listen to him, she had to understand. And maybe if he spoke louder then she could hear him better, read him better. "I'm starting to think that you've never really loved me, Blair. It was always about you and your friends and your grades and your parties. You loved the idea of someone wearing your heart on their sleeve, but you didn't love the guy wearing the damn sweater!"

"I can't believe you, Nate," snapped Blair, who could feel the tears starting to sting the corner of her eyes. She cursed herself for letting him do this to her. "If I didn't love you, then why did you want me? Why did you show up at my door wearing that damn sweater all those years ago? What about all those times, Nate? All those times when I was with Chuck and you didn't say anything. You avoided me. You avoided the fact that I picked Chuck over you and you didn't feel anything. Because God knows if you can feel anything with that capricious heart of yours!"

"Oh right, because it's always my fault." But that wasn't it. Of course Nate felt something. Incompetence, vigilance, defeat and any other word that could describe how torn up he had been.

"Exactly! This is what you do Nate. You destroy everything until it's as fucked up as you and then wonder why any of it can't be fixed!" She screamed at him furiously.

Blair wanted to hit him. Hit him hard and demand for him to see her for what she was. See them for what they were.

Brilliant; tainted; decadent; broken.

There was a small silence, marred only by the sound of their own dolorous breathing and the city traffic far off.

"I love you."

"I'm sorry for pushing you away."

"...what do you want?"

Nate wanted more of her. He loved her, but it wasn't enough. He needed more of her. He wanted more of Blair, in a way he had never had her before. But how could he tell her without chasing her away? What could he tell her that she didn't already know, by the way she was looking at him? By the way that he touched her?

She was swaying on her feet, the heat that was previously pouring through her had calmed down and the glacial weather was starting to take its toll on her small body. Sighing, Blair stuffed her gloved hands into her coat pockets, lifting her head to stare at him with the small amount of strength she had left.

"I..." Blair began, but stopped, realizing that she had too many weaknesses and Nate already knew all of them. Instead, she turned away, "Good-bye to you."

And so it was.

Nate wanted to leave her alone.

He wanted this, whatever it was between them, to end, because he didn't know what they were. One day they were friends, the next they were sleeping together, and then Blair said she wanted to be away from him.

He was so confused, and hurt, and lost that Nate just wanted to shake her and ask her again what it exactly was that she wanted. But that would be weak since it would be a direct recall to the night that started this whole mess.

The snow melted and winter turned into spring and it was all a little blurry really, like someone painted a perfect picture of his life and then decided to erase the lines. The colours bled into one another and everything either felt the same or he just didn't notice the difference.

Sometimes when Nate saw Blair he felt nothing, but other times, he could feel the pieces of something deep in his chest cut tender flesh.

The women he had began seeing thought he was still in love with her, and sometimes, he thought he was too.

-

Blair would rarely dream anymore and when she did it was one of those awful and fanciful dreams she cooked up when she was young.

She would dream of a house with a white picket fence and a front porch with a creaky old swing. And there'd be daisies and tulips and roses lining the walk to the front door and Blair had a terrible time dreaming of who was behind it.

And it was a good thing too, because then she woke up and realized that all of it would have been pointless anyway.

There was a time that Blair thought the belief in her dreams were real and that they would come true, and they didn't. So all she could do was watch them waver in front of her at night like a memory not ready to be returned to the recesses of her mind.

She blamed herself, then Nate, and then no one because it had gotten her no where.

-

When Nate finally saw her again, and really saw her, when she wasn't hiding behind her air of supremacy and bitter words, was an occurrence that Nate questioned it's existence. Because the last thing Nate could remember about Blair Waldorf was the tightness of her uneager smile as she left him at his door, and Christ, that still kind of hurt.

He wiped the sweat that had accumulated on his forehead during his run with the back of his hand as he approached her, wanting to look the least bit presentable in front of Blair.

Yeah, she still did that to him.

The moment Blair saw him, she instinctively turns into another direction, avoiding the herd of tourists that scampered around the part.

But then her feet stopped almost impassively because it was never easy to get away from Nate.

He always ended up finding her in the end.

They didn't say much when there was barely two feet of space in between them, and Blair was cautious to advert her eyes from his because she didn't feel like looking directly at everything she had left behind. If Nate was happy, she didn't want to see how well he was without her, or if he wasn't, she didn't want to be the cause of his unhappiness.

The more Blair thought about the situation in front of him the more she wanted to leave it alone, and not have anything to do with it or him.

It had never been about the formalities between the two because Nate and Blair had known each other since forever, so reluctant greetings ceased to move past their lips and after a couple of minutes of complete silence Nate quietly said the first aching thought that came to him.

"Why don't you stay?"

At first Blair thought he meant this park for the remainder of the day, but then he looked at her with his heart-pounding gaze and she almost wanted to strike him.

Instead, she pinched the bridge of her noise and sighed with an emotion somewhere between annoyance and misery and replied.

"Nate, you know I can't."

"Why not?" Nate asked, suddenly desperate, because he knew this would be the last time they would speak of anything that really mattered.

"Because you and I have been over for years. I'm sorry for what happened," she preached as her mouth dried instantly.

Her response was so calm that it angered Nate and made him feel betrayed.

"I love you, Blair," he said, wishing it was enough and knowing that it wasn't. Nate felt so stupid getting so frustrated over something that held no promises, but that didn't stop him from feeling so remorseful and wounded.

Blair's expression immediately softened as she squinted up to look at him, "I know Nate, but please stop looking so hurt. You'll still get your happy ending."

She couldn't believe she told him he'd be happy when her own inner turmoil and her dreams had turned her upside down. However, when Blair looked at him, she just knew.

"Why can't it be with you?" Nate asked accusingly, suddenly understanding all over again why Blair Waldorf had unconsciously been such a huge part of his life. He never had to pine after her, because she always opened herself up to him – or at least she did before he took it for granted in high school.

Blair didn't answer him because she was already sure they had made some sort of progress, or maybe she didn't answer because she didn't want to, or perhaps because she didn't know why. Maybe she would learn soon, but until then, she had to stop dragging Nate on.

But Blair Waldorf was nothing if not anything with Nate Archibald, so she kindly shook her head to dismiss his question before taking a few steps back, eyes lingering on his, before turning around, fully confident that Nate wouldn't follow since he was smart enough to see the truth in her words.

She hoped she would get her happy ending as well, and maybe, she just might would.

-

You finger the expensive, white-gold pendant that anchors the chain around your neck as the golden-haired boy shuffles awkwardly on his feet and casts anxious glances over your shoulder.

Something quivers inside your stomach because you've never seen him like this before; you've never seen him so anxious or uneasy since you've been busy thinking he is rather charming and sweet instead.

Regretfully, you turn and roam your eyes over the congesting traffic and suddenly your heart is hammering inside your chest when you see a beautiful, dark haired woman step outside a town car and walk briskly down the street.

You try to tell yourself that she doesn't mean anything to the man in front of you because you are the one carrying the symbol of his appreciation around your neck.

But you know that every look he sends that woman with his gorgeous blue eyes means more than any necklace ever could.

-

Le Fin.