As soon as the words are out of Dan's mouth he looks like he'd like to put them back it and it must be because of the look on Blair's face. But they can't go back in, they hang in the air between them, and Blair feels like she wants to die.
Too much. Too soon.
"I...I can't." Blair stutters, and she feels tears forming in her eyes. How can she go from being so incredibly happy to destroyed in a matter of seconds.
He has violated his own terms, has leapt into the future and Blair isn't ready and she knows that nothing is going to be the same after this moment.
She is still on top of him, and he's saying her name, pleading, his hands holding her arms and Blair looks away because she can't keep looking at him. It hurts too much.
"I'm sorry." Dan says. Blair is sorry too.
She rolls off him and lies down next to him, curled up with her knees to her chest, her back against him, and Dan says nothing, just wraps his arms around her and holds her.
Blair returns to Paris. Dan sits on the bed as she packs her bags, stuffing in the tank tops and shorts and flip flops, although she knows she won't be needing them again anytime soon. There won't be days at the beach in Paris, and Blair won't have time for any vacations. She tells him she never was able to stay long anyway, but they both know that Dan's words are what started this rush back to reality.
"If I could only take them back," Dan says as she zips her carryon shut.
"You can't." Blair says, smiling sadly, wishing things were different. She's not sure if she actually wants him to take them back anyway, she just wasn't ready to hear them. Not yet.
"It's not like I don't want that, Blair." Dan sighs. "It's not a lie. I want to marry you."
"I know," Blair sighs. "I just...I'm just not..."
She can't do it again. Blair married Chuck for all the wrong reasons and she just can't do it again. She likes the way she is with Dan. She doesn't want marriage to make things different, the way it did with Chuck. She's afraid.
"I'm not him." Dan says, still watching her and Blair flinches, because as always, he has a way of understanding what she's thinking that leaves her spinning.
"I know," and Blair is telling the truth. Dan Humphrey compared to Chuck Bass is like comparing the hot, burning sun to the cool, lifeless moon. It's just that she can't go down that path again, and now that she knows that's what Dan wants, things feel different.
"I love you." Dan says, resigned and she knows he wishes loving each other could make a difference for her, but Blair loves him also, and that doesn't make things feel better.
They make love that night, and Blair cries but this time it's not because she's happy. It's because she's leaving and she can't see the future, and Dan has taken away the here and now, and she is filled with anguish. Afterward they hold each other, Blair pushing away sleep because she wants to have every possible moment she can with Dan, wants to remember how he feels in her arms, and he falls asleep long before her so she can study his face without interruption, commit it to memory.
It may be all she has left.
She can't let go of him at the airport and it's Paris all over again, but Blair is heavy hearted for different reasons this time. She just holds him, pressing her face into his shirt, trying to hold back the tears.
"Don't let me go." Blair whispers. "Call me, write me, because I love you despite all of this crap."
"I won't." Dan promises. She's asking for time. He's telling her that he'll give it. Still, she's ripped to shreds inside. She holds onto him tighter, then she lets go, grabs her carry on handle and gives him one last peck on the cheek.
She cries the entire flight home.
Blair throws herself into work. It takes her a couple days to recover from her jet lag, for her eyes to be less puffy from crying, then she's back to her previous life, full of meetings and decisions but it's not like before and she feels like she's sleepwalking through each day. She had hoped being busy might make a difference. It doesn't.
She can't eat. Blair picks at the food made by the chef in Waldorf Design's private dining room and it's top of the line, haute cuisine but it all tastes like cardboard and she knows she's losing weight. Instead she lives on coffee, cup after cup, trying to chase away the tiredness that plagues her.
Dan emails her every day.
He tells her that he can't write, that he's behind on his script, that all he can do is pace and miss her and everywhere he goes he's reminded of her, and he wishes things were different. So does Blair.
He ends every email with the same sentence,
come home
Blair remembers that Dan told her in New York that he had a house, but he hadn't had a home in a long time. She knows that he's not asking her to return to California, to his house on the beach, to long day spent holding hands and beautiful sunsets. He's asking her to return to him. He's telling her that he's found his home and it's Blair. She cries the first time she realizes this.
They are stuck in some sort of limbo.
Blair knows how to break it. She knows all she has to do is call him with an answer, to say what she really wants to, which is the word, 'yes'. She wants to agree to spend the rest of her life with him, to commit to him in front of friends and family, to be his wife. But something holds her back, some spector from the past that haunts her and grips her, and Blair's fear is overwhelming, and she just wants what they were back.
She cries every night and in the mornings she applies cold cucumber slices and ice packs to try to hide the puffiness that comes from too many tears.
Serena visits. She and Nate are vacationing in Spain and it's that hard to make a stop in Paris, and the two friends spend an afternoon walking around the city, drinking parisian coffee and eating brioche. Serena tells Blair that she has news, that he's going to have a baby, and she rubs her belly with some sort of motherly knowledge and Blair smiles and tells her that she's happy for the both of them. She really is happy, and Serena is glowing and smiling, and Blair feels a sting in her soul, because this is what Dan was asking her, to have what Serena has, and she doesn't know why she can't just reach out and grab it.
Serena asks about Dan, and Blair answers that it's complicated, and Serena frowns and says that it didn't look that complicated at her wedding.
"You love him." Serena says, reaching across the cafe table and grabbing Blair's hand. "What more do you need."
"I don't know." Blair sighs. If she knew, she wouldn't be in Pairs heartbroken. She'd be in California, or Dan would be here with her.
Blair tells Serena that she wishes she had just an ounce of her happiness and thinks that after all her friend has been through, she deserves Nate and this baby and everything else wonderful in the world. Serena hugs her and tells her that she deserves happiness too. Blair wishes she could believe what her friend says.
When Blair gets back to her apartment she calls her assistant and has her send an expensive baby gift to Serena and Nate at their New York address.
She goes on like this. Working, barely eating, missing Dan. They talk every few days and often their conversations are filled with silence, Blair listening to him breath across continents and oceans.
"How can I fix this?" Dan asks. Blair sighs and tells him that he can't. And she doesn't know how, and she asks him how his writing is coming along and he asks if she's ready for London's fashion week, and they talk about work because talking about their relationship gets them nowhere.
"I wish I'd never said it," Dan says during one phone call. "I wish I'd never asked you to marry me."
Blair's heart hurts.
"Don't say that," Blair gasps. Everything might be messed up, but she doesn't want Dan to regret wanting to marry her.
"I just want you here with me, I want things to be like they were before, and I messed them up, and I'm so sorry."
Blair tells Dan not to be sorry. Their here and now has been changed, and they just have to get through it to the other side, and it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with her.
"I love you," Blair says quietly after another long silence. "That has to mean something."
She hears Dan's breath catch on the other end of the line.
"It means everything, Blair." he says softly. "Everything."
Something has to give, has to snap, because Blair feels like everything is building up and if she doesn't find a way to figure this out, she might lose everything.
Change comes in an unexpected way, from an unexpected source.
Blair is working on the ad campaign for London's fashion week one afternoon when her loyal assistant pokes her head into her office and tells her someone is waiting for her in the lobby.
"Who is it," Blair snaps, her voice irritated. She prefers that people make appointments and doesn't appreciate when they stop by unannounced. She's about to tell her assistant to tell whoever it is to come back another day but Blair thinks that she could use a quick break and her head is starting to hurt and her morning coffee has worn off, so instead she sighs and puts down the campaign proposals on her wide and imposing desk.
"He didn't say." her assistant says, shirking a little, not unfamiliar with her boss' moods.
Great, a mysterious visitor who won't give his name, but then Blair thinks that maybe it's Dan and he's pacing in the lobby, waiting for her, wanting to surprise her, and her irritation starts to dissipate and hope starts to grow.
Blair smiles.
She heads out of her office and down the hallway, the rich pile carpet muffling her footsteps and everywhere around her people's heads turn toward their computers and bow as if they are involved in something very important, and Blair is used to the effect she has on her employees. She is loved and feared, and she likes it that way.
Blair rounds the corner that leads to the lobby and a smile is starting to spread over her face and by the time she steps into the waiting area, filled with modern couches and tall potted plants, she's convinced she's going to see him standing there, hands shoved into his pockets, a sheepish smile on his face, so when she finds it to be someone entirely different, someone she had never expected, Blair stops in her tracks and stares.
It's like fifteen years never happened, and he looks almost exactly the same, hair carefully styled, nicely pressed Armani suit, a stylish tie carefully knotted at the neck. He is standing, looking around, then he looks at his phone and looks up and sees Blair standing there. He smiles. Blair doesn't smile back.
"Hello, Blair," the man says, his voice as smooth as ever, and Blair takes a deep breath and tries to hide her surprise. How long has it been since she saw him? Years? A decade maybe? Then she finds her voice, steps forward and greets him like the professional businesswoman she is.
"Hello Chuck."
TBC