Dan plunks a jar down on the table in front of where Blair is sitting. It clanks on the wood, and Blair doesn't bother to look up from the book she's been reading until she hears him clear his throat with a loud 'ahem'. When she does lower her book she sees a clear glass jar with a green lid covered in checked red and white gingham, tied with some brown twine, and floating in the jar, bright green, lumpy and bumpy are...pickles.
"Just in case." Dan says, smiling. Blair rolls her eyes and goes back to reading her book. Dan leaves the room, taking his pickles with him, miffed that his attempt to harass her has been thwarted.
A half hour later Blair has found that she can't read more than a sentence or two without losing her train of thought and she wonders if this baby is sucking her brain away. Dan walks back into the room and Blair makes a concerted effort to ignore him. This time when he plunks something down on table it makes a softish thud. Blair refuses to lower her book.
"You might want to look." Dan says, his voice tinged with laughter.
"What, and participate in your insanity as you subject me to every pregnancy stereotype on the planet?"
"I just want to be prepared. You know, just in case. Late night craving or something. Anyway, it's going to melt."
Blair rolls her eyes again. He didn't...did he? She lowers her book and looks at what Dan has placed on the table.
Ice cream. To be exact, a hand packed pint of her favorite chocolate from the gelateria around the corner. Pickles and ice cream.
"Are you trying to win the husband of the year award?" Blair asks, smiling, no longer able to keep up the facade of mock disapproval.
"Is there actually any competition out there? Can I enter or do I need you to nominate me?" Dan asks, still smiling, walking over to stand next to her chair, leaning over to place a kiss on her head. Blair looks up at her husband and she's struck again by how much she loves this man. Her hand goes to her belly as she thinks about how amazing it is that their love is growing inside her. Her thoughts shift suddenly, and she realizes that it's not ice cream she wants, or pickles.
"Tacos!" Blair exclaims.
"What?"
"Tacos! Remember that place you took me in Laguna Beach, that little truck that had the best tacos. God, what I would do for one right now. Do you think they have something like that in the city, some truck that sells those tacos with the onion and cilantro, and that salsa. Oh, the salsa. It was so good."
Dan laughs. Blair fights back the feeling of annoyance because she's not kidding. She wants tacos. She has to have tacos.
"I'm on the case." Dan says, winking. "If my pregnant wife wants tacos, well, I'll find her tacos."
Blair looks at him, just studies his face, and then her face grows serious. His eyes search hers, and she can see the question there, forever wondering if she's okay, forever worrying that she's not.
"I love you, Dan Humphrey."
Since the night she told him she was pregnant Dan has been steadfast, doing everything he can to help her feel safe and secure, telling her that he knows she can do this, that they can do it together. She still has the nightmares now and then, the fear still creeps up on her sometimes and she's still not sure this, having a child, is something that she really can do, but Dan tells her differently. When she's feeling weak and scared, she looks at him and he's there telling her that she's worth something, that she can do this.
She can do this.
"I love you too, Blair Cordelia Waldorf-Humphrey."
Blair smiles at the use of her full name. Dan continues.
"I love that you are carrying our child, and I hope she or he is just like you."
Blair wants to say something back, to tell him that the most truly wonderful thing would be for their child to be just like him, a head of curly brown hair and soulful eyes, a heart that never stops loving, but suddenly her stomach twists and Blair closes her eyes and a wave of nausea washes over her.
"Sorry," she gasps, springing from her chair, pushing Dan out of the way as she runs toward the bathroom. Tacos don't sound good anymore as her gut heaves and Blair wonders when this part will be over. She's not feeling as sick as she was a few weeks ago but now it's surprising her, sneaking up on her when she least expects it, and suddenly, in the middle of a meeting or while gazing at a painting in a museum, her stomach betrays her and she ends up excusing herself and finding a bathroom quickly.
The weeks pass by, sometimes slowly, other times quickly. Blair is busy at work with meetings and finishing the headquarters move to New York. Dan is putting together the curriculum for his first class at NYU. The city starts to melt, snow dripping, the sun staying out longer, small purple crocuses pushing themselves up out of the ground in a determined manner, the inevitable march towards Spring.
Dorota knits at least one hundred and one pairs of baby booties, in all different colors, from cotton candy pink to chartreuse, and regularly berates Dad and Blair for not finding out the sex, glaring at them as she dishes out bacon and scrambled eggs, threatening to make sixteen varieties of Polish goulash until they relent.
The Blair of the past would have found out the sex and decorated the nursery in an appropriate them, then invited the New York Times home & garden section to feature it, posing with her arms wrapped protectively around her middle in a rocking chair imported from Italy, forever Queen B of the Upper East Side. The Blair of the past would have filled a wardrobe full of tiny clothes and found the most expensive stroller and started researching the best preschools, and planned for her baby to learn Mandarin so she or he could one day grow up to dominate the business world. The Blair of the past would have plans and schemes for this baby.
The Blair of now doesn't care about those kinds of trappings. All she wants is to keep the fear that lurks in the back of her mind at bay, to ignore that little voice of doubt that refuses to go away. She buys some clothes, orders a crib, finds a rocking chair that is stylish and comfortable, but she does all this knowing that the most important part isn't having a nice room, but having a mother and father, two people who will hold you and love you, what Blair feels she never really had. She buys blankets and stuffed animals, reads books about baby care, knowing that they are details that are lost in the big picture. Then she curls next to Dan, his hand on her belly, and he smiles when the baby kicks, and she gazes up at him and tells him that this baby is so lucky because she or he will have the most amazing father in the entire world. What she doesn't tell him is that she knows she can do this because of the way he looks at her, the way his eyes gaze at her with unwavering belief in all she is.
The days tick by. Dorota makes her smoothies, salads, healthy things. Blair's back starts to sway, she can't wear heels to work anymore. Dan laughs at her and tells her that she's waddling like a duck. Blair tells him that he's going to lose sex privileges for a couple days after that one. She gives in within a matter of hours and they end up tangled together under the duvet of their bed, Dan flicking his tongue across her extra-sensitive nipples, Blair cursing him for being irresistible.
Blair sits on the balcony one morning, a cup of herbal tea steaming in one hand the other resting on her burgeoning belly, and she feels the baby roll and kick, and she smiles. She has a heavy wool sweater wrapped around her shoulders and although the air is cold, there is sunshine across her lap and she feels warm and cocooned and happy. Three more months. Three more months and everything will shift, everything will change.
They have the hospital picked out. Dan packed a bag even though Blair made fun of him, telling him that being so prepared is going to guarantee the baby stays in longer.
Dan walks up to where Blair is sitting and squats down next to her. He puts his hand out and rests it on her belly. They are quiet for a few minutes, the sounds of cars on the street drifting up between buildings, a bird chirping in the distance, and Blair smiles because the baby has a funny game of playing possum when papa is around.
"How's our little pickled beet today?"
Dan has a different nickname for the baby every week. Last week was something about potatoes. This week, beets. Blair swats at him playfully.
"You're ridiculous, Humphrey. Why are we cycling through all the produce? Surely with all your literary talent you can come up with something more clever."
Dan smiles.
"I like beets."
Blair sips at her tea. She glances over at her husband and smiles. He is staring at her belly and suddenly it twitches and rolls and he jumps a little and looks at her with a big grin.
"There he is."
"He?"
"Maybe. A boy would be nice."
A boy with deep brown eyes and curly hair and a romantic disposition, a dreamer and a poet. Blair thinks a boy wouldn't be so bad.
"Maybe she is a girl." Blair counters.
"A girl would be nice too." Dan answers. Blair imagines dresses and hair ribbons, a tiny Princess B, and suddenly the fear is there again as she remembers how hard it was to survive the Upper East Side, with all the girls trying to one-up each other, Blair never thin enough, never good enough, or at least not good enough until she had found a bathroom and hurled the contents of her stomach into the toilet, and only then did she feel good enough because at least there was one thing she could actually control in her life.
Blair feels dumbstruck, numb, and she glances away from Dan, out over the city that is bathed in the early morning light. She feels his hand grip hers and squeeze, warm and reassuring, and she turns her face back to him, tears in her eyes.
"It's going to be okay." Dan says quietly. "We'll make it okay."
He never questions her sadness. He lets her have her tears, rides the wave of her fears, just holds her and tells her that nothing matters but them, and they are back to right here, right now. He is her rock, and she tells him this in the middle of the night when she's sure they've made a huge mistake and there's nothing to stop it, when the baby inside her feels less like joy and more like retribution, when she stares into the mirror and sees all the hurt she carries and wonders how she will protect her child from her own pain.
"Why can't I just be happy?" Blair asks Dan as she stares at him with tears brimming in her eyes. Dan sighs and leans forward, kissing her softly on the lips.
"Because you are someone who is intuitive, sensitive, and you understand that what we're doing is bigger than anything else we've done with our lives. You know it's more than accessories and mommy wars. You know it's about raising good and decent human beings. You know it's a big deal. Do you know what?"
Blair licks her lips.
"What?" she asks.
"This is one thing I've always loved about you. Your intuition. Your way of understanding things at a deep level. You see the complexities of things."
Blair nods. Dan takes a breath and then continues.
"I also know that it's not an easy place to live."
Blair nods. It's not. Sometimes she wishes she had what Serena had, this uncanny ability to just be happy, to turn everything into gold.
"I love you, Dan Humphrey." Blair sighs as she feels the fear slip away, recede back into the corners of her mind, still there, but smaller, weaker. "What would I do without you?"
"Let's never find out."
Dan stands up from where he's been squatting and he extends a hand. Blair takes it and allows him to take her weight, to pull her up to a stand, and just as she's about to wrap her arms around him, about to allow herself to rest against him, bury her face in his chest, feel the muscles of his back under her fingertips, and maybe she'll tilt her head up and he'll dip down and kiss her, and perhaps they'll skip breakfast and go back to bed. Just at that moment when her thoughts shift to how good her life is and how happy she is, she feels something else ripping through her.
Pain.
Blair gasps. Her hands fly to her belly, clutching at it, her knees buckle and Dan's arms come out to catch her as she drops toward the floor. The pain shoots through her again, and she feels the muscles of her belly tighten and she feels something wet down her leg, and all she can think is that this isn't supposed to be happening, that it's too soon. Her head is spinning and the floor feels unsteady and someone is screaming far away, the Blair realizes that the voice she's hearing in the distance is her own, saying over and over again,
no
no no no no no
TBC