I
Nathanial Randolph Humphrey comes screaming into the world with full force, Blair jumping as they place his red, squalling body on her chest, Dan gripping her hand tightly. Serena cries and hugs Blair when she hears his name.
II
"Look, it's out," Dan says, throwing the magazine on the table in front of Blair, interrupting her morning coffee.
"You seriously didn't run down and buy a copy, did you Humphrey?"
Dan grins. "Just look."
Blair glances over the pages.
"Did they have to use the Mr. Mom cliche? I thought the New Yorker was beyond that." Blair asks, raising an eyebrow.
"You're just jealous that I'm a trailblazer, telling men all over the world it's okay to be an involved dad. I'm all about Dad-power!" Dan answers, making a power fist in the air before grabbing the magazine back.
"Good thing they didn't include pictures. They would have seen the peanut butter Natey just smeared all over your comfortable dad-jeans. Do you call it your Dad-power Suit?"
This time Dan was the one throwing toast in her direction and Blair thought he's not much more civilized than their children.
"Mooommm! I want to watch another TV show!" Gigi hollers from the other room.
"Don't yell," Dan and Blair say together just as they see their toddler son run by followed by an exasperated Dorota.
"This place is a nut house," Dan says, smiling at her, and Blair thinks how different her children are growing up compared to what it was like to be a kid for her. Crazy, fun days, family vacations, a doting father, a successful businesswoman for a mother, no boarding school, no being left alone with staff for hours on end.
"I love our nut house," Blair says to Dan.
III
"I envisioned this once." Blair says, leaning over the railing of the balcony, gazing out over the Pacific Ocean, watching the waves break over the beach. She's watching Eric who is down on the beach with the kids, letting them bury him in the sand, his husband sitting in a beach chair nearby reading a book.
"Envisioned what?" Dan asked.
"This. Us. The kids. Being here in Laguna Beach, this house." He comes up behind her and hands are around her waist, his lips against the back of her neck, and Blair shivers like she does every time he touches her like this. "Every time we come here I feel like I'm too lucky, too blessed, and that I'm living in some sort of amazing dream."
A small wail reaches their ears and Serena calls from the kitchen telling them that she'll get the baby, who has woken from her nap. A few moments later she joins them on the deck, holding a entirely bald, chubby baby in her arms.
"Aunty Serena loves you, Audrey. Yes she does," Serena murmurs, rubbing her nose on the baby's forehead. "I can't believe it took my brother this long to settle down but Aunty Serena is sooooo glad you're here so she can get her baby fix."
It's one big happy family gathering, filling their California home away from home with love and laughter. Serena and Nate came with them for their end-of-summer getaway. Eric and his husband coming from L.A. with their new baby daughter. The older kids play together, the adults cook and drink and talk long into the night. It's a perfect California dream.
"I can't believe Natey is going to start kindergarten when we get back." Blair says as Serena takes the baby back inside. "They're growing up so fast."
"We can always have another," Dan says quietly, his tone serious. Blair thinks for a moment. She'd escaped the darkness after Nathaniel was born, helped by therapy and medication, but she doesn't know if she wants to risk something happening again, and the kids were going to both be in school and that meant that maybe once in a while she might be able to sneak out early from the office and convince Dan that an afternoon quickie might be in order.
"No," Blair says, smiling. "No more kids. We're exactly perfect just the way we are."
IV
"Are you nervous?" Blair asks, smoothing the lapels of Dan's tuxedo. He quirks his mouth in the manner that tells her that he is, although she knows he's going to tell her he's not.
"Not at all," Dan lies. Blair rolls her eyes a little. Stubborn husband, it's okay to lean on someone every once in a while.
"You wrote your speech?" She smooths his hair, always unruly, refusing to cooperate, and she thinks that her husband is getting even more handsome with some silver in his hair and a few more wrinkles around his eyes. Distinguished. The way an honored writer should look.
"I wrote it and proofread it and rewrote it, then Nate accidentally deleted it while he was doing his homework, so I wrote it again AND backed it up."
"And you have the tickets?" Blair asks, hands going back to his lapel, fidgeting with it again.
"Blair!" Dan says quickly, "it's really going to be okay."
"It's just not every night that you get this type of honor. It's not just an award, it's other writers saying your work has moved them, and I know it's moved me, and, oh Dan, I want it to be perfect."
They are going to the Poets and Writers annual dinner where Dan will be recognized for his third book, published two years ago to critical acclaim. It wasn't the book he'd planned to write, the follow-up to Inside and Outside, but an entirely new work, although Blair could still see pieces of them woven in and out of the characters. And inside the cover Dan had dedicated to her, Guilliana and Nathaniel, telling the world that they were the driving forces in his life.
"Gigi and Natey?"
"I got them to Serena's okay. Gigi has all her homework. Nate is working on programming something for some game on the computer. God, Blair, kids are so smart these days. I never would have done that kind of thing at 10 years old." Dan starts to put on his bowtie as he keeps talking, "Serena promised to have them in bed on time but knowing Grace and Jack, they'll probably be up all night no matter what they do."
"Okay." Blair says. "The car will be around in a few minutes. I guess we can go get you honored."
"At least I'll get a good dinner out of it," Dan laughs. Blair always find his self-deprecation so amusing. This is a man who has been giving interviews and spent four months last year traveling to book signings, although he insisted he never be away from his family more than two nights at a time, so he never traveled far. Every place he went he picked up a small tourist trinket for Blair: a Seattle Space Needle pencil sharpener, a plastic snow globe from Chicago, and he would return home and present them to her like he'd discovered some sort of rare and valuable object on his travels. She feels like she might burst with pride. Blair comes up behind Dan, who is almost finished with his bow tie, and slips her arms around his waist, inhaling his scent of soap and cologne.
"If you play your cards right you might get more than just dinner," Blair says slyly. She's rewarded with a wolfish grin.
V
"MOM!"
Gigi shirks away as Blair tries yet again to place the neon pink headband over her dark, curly hair.
"Are you sure?" Blair asks again, her tone worried, "100% sure this is what you want. Constance wasn't exactly fun for me."
"Mom!" Gigi says again, her tone annoyed. "Dad already talked to me three times yesterday. I want to go there. Grace is there. She's my best friend. I can do the course work. It will be okay."
"But the girls there, honey. They can be mean. Really mean. I should know. I think I was the meanest of them all."
"Dad said they called you Queen B."
He still calls her Queen B sometimes, when he's feeling playful and wicked and wants to convince her to stop working and spend some time "bumping uglies" with him. Blair teases him, telling him that surely her writer husband has a better grasp of the English language to use something besides such a crass line to woo her into bed, not that it wasn't working. Dan tells her they have a high schooler now and he's been checking out Urban Dictionary in his spare time. She had let him pull her up and lead her into their bedroom, telling him that if they woke the kids this time she would really kill him. He responded that he hopes they do.
"Yes," Blair says. "They did call me that, but it wasn't right. You're going to be better than me, right Guilliana?"
Her daughter nods, eyes bright, hair combed perfectly, dressed in the familiar Constance uniform, a few pieces added to make it her own. She is strong and confident and Blair thinks that it's true that every generation improves on the last.
"Now, your dad is walking you to school."
"Argh," Gigi looks irritated but Blair knows it's just a show. She and her father are very close and she will always give into to most of the crazy things Dan wants to do, "I knew he was going to be annoying about this."
"Humor him. He's a boring adult and needs you to be gentle sometimes. It's his little girl's first day of high school."
Gigi rolls her eyes, looking so much like the teenager she is. Blair wonders how that baby she can barely remember holding in her arms has gotten so big and grown up, and she knows it's not long before she and Dan will let one of their children start to learn to fly on her own. But that's not today. Today it's just the beginning of high school and Blair grabs the headband off the dressing table where Gigi has discarded it.
"And you really should wear the headband. It's like the Constance code that all girls wear headbands. I wore them…"
"Kind of the point mom," Gigi smiles. "YOU wore them. It's NOT 2007 anymore."
VI
Blair looks in the mirror at her reflection and sees a face that she doesn't entirely recognize staring back at her. It's older, a little more weathered, the planes a little shaper, the edges not quite as smooth. Her hair is pulled back into a smooth, sophisticated bun that sits at the nape of her neck., a few tendrils escaping and framing her face. Around her neck is a string of black pearls, a gift for her 50th birthday from Dan. She touches them lightly and remembers how he'd surprised her with them at dinner.
The door to their bedroom opens and Dan walks in wearing his tuxedo shirt and pants, the collar undone. He walks up behind her and leans down to place a soft kiss on her cheek.
"Gigi called. She made it back to school okay and her first day of classes went well. They're going to have a fashion show at the end of the quarter and she wants us to come."
Blair fastens her black pearl earring to one ear then picks up the other and glances in the mirror at Dan.
"I can't believe it's been twenty years," she says as she puts on the second earring. He glances at her reflection appreciatively and she knows he approves of the simple black sheath she picked for this night.
"Twenty years, Blair Waldorf-Humphrey, and I swear, you look more amazing today than you did back then. And I love when you wear black. It always reminds me of our wedding day."
Dan is wearing the uniform of the Upper East Side, a black tuxedo. He holds out his hard and Blair stands and links her arm through his. She picks up a beaded black clutch from the dressing table. They stand together, looking in the mirror for just a moment.
"We do make a very nice couple," Blair says, glancing up at Dan's face. He smiles back at her. "We always have."
Dorota peeks her head into their room, reminding them that the car is arriving in 10 minutes and they need to get downstairs.
"Let's say goodbye to Nate," Dan says to her as he shrugs on his tuxedo jacket. They walk down the hallway of the penthouse to their son's room, both sticking their heads in the doorway at the sametime. Their teenage son is sprawled on the bed, his laptop open, and Blair is struck again how much he looks like Dan, with his same soulful eyes and uncontrollable mop of curly hair.
"We're going," Dan says and Nate looks up.
"Oh. Have a good time. Gigi and I are just skyping for a few minutes before she heads off to a party."
Blair hears her daughter's tinny voice screech in protest at her little brother's reveal of her plans for the night and she knows that her daughter is above all a responsible young woman who will take care of herself no matter what."
"Just don't smoke too much weed," Dan calls out and Blair hears another screech, followed by a long wail of, 'Daaaaaaadddddd!"
"You know, you're not as cool as you think you are," Nate says, raising an eyebrow at Dan as he throws a wadded up dirty sock at him.
"The car," Blair reminds Dan, pulling on his arm. "We don't want to be late."
Blair is quiet at the car makes its way to the party. She's remembering a day long ago when she threw a cream colored invitation on her console table in her old Paris apartment then turned and picked it up again. "You know how you said you almost didn't ask me to dance," she says, glancing over at Dan's profile. Dan smile and tells her he is very glad he made a different decision. "Well, I almost didn't even go to the wedding."
"Really?" Dan cocks an eyebrow at her, his face filled with curiosity.
"Yeah. I was busy and I had fashion week coming up and Serena had been out of my life for so long, I almost just sent a nice gift and called my obligation done."
"Ha," Dan laughs. "Look at us. I almost didn't ask you to dance. You almost didn't even come. I'm so glad you decided to blow off fashion week. There was no way I was going to miss that particular wedding."
"Well, you were kind of in the wedding party." Blair reminds him. Of course he would have gone.
Dan laughs again, "Technicalities, Waldorf. Even if I hadn't been, I would have been there. I was hoping I might see you."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I never had really let you go. All those years. You were the one I always wondered how things might have been if things had worked out differently."
Blair smiles at her husband. "Same for me, my love, same for me." She leans across the seat of the town car and kisses him softly on the lips.
"What if I had decided to stay and work and sent a nice gift?" Blair asks. "Where would we be now?"
Dan looks at her and Blair can tell he's thinking.
"Well," he starts, "maybe you and Chuck would have gotten back together."
Blair makes a face at him. She can't even imagine being married to Chuck now. He and Eva had finally tied the knot about five years ago and they lived a fabulous jet-setting lifestyle, the kind that teenage Blair would have dreamed of, but now it seems too busy and too chaotic. She knows now that what she'd been looking for her entire life was not glamour or money but stability, and she'd found that in the solid foundation that she and Dan had built together, and with their close and loving family.
"You might still be in California," Blair says, "a failed screenwriter dating wannabe models."
Now it's Dan's turn to make a face at her as he reaches across the town car and takes her hand in his. His hand is warm and strong and as always Dan feels like home.
The car pulls up outside the Met and they get out, walking up the stairs and into the cavernous space of the great hall. Blair leans on Dan as they make their way up to the balcony where they can hear the sounds of a big band playing. The music echoes in the giant space. The arches and marble mosaic floor never fail to take Blair's breath away and she thinks that of course Serena would pick the perfect place for their party. On the balcony a smattering of tables are set up around the dance floor. A host greets them and says that dinner will be served in a half hour but they are free to enjoy As soon as they leave their coats at the coat check Dan turns to her and puts his hand out.
"Would you like to dance, Mrs. Humphrey?"
Blair doesn't correct him. To him, she's Mrs. Humphrey, of the Brooklyn Humphreys, a most esteemed family. "Of course," she smiles. He leads her to the dance floor, his hand lightly touching her shoulder, then she is in his arms and they are swaying to the slow beat.
"You look really beautiful tonight," Dan whispers into her ear. Blair pulls him even closer and tilts her head up to look at him as he tilts his head down. She wants to remember this moment forever. The music shifts and the tempo speeds up and all around them couples pull apart and start to move faster, but Dan and Blair stay wrapped up in each other, swaying, until someone bumps into Blair from behind. Blair turns around to see Serena in Nate's arms, her smile brilliant and glowing.
"Can you believe it's been twenty years?" she calls happily, "You two are the BEST anniversary gift we could have ever asked for," Serena laughs as Nate pulls her away from them and back across the dance floor. Blair smiles softly, ducking her head to nestle it into Dan's chest. Serena is kind of right. Their friendship is worth more than anything and Blair thinks they will probably send all their kids to college and attend weddings and grow old together, and maybe someday they'll be sitting at the Archibald house in the Hamptons reminiscing about a lifetime of friendship.
But Serena is also wrong, because she and Nate are actually the gift. If they had never found each other, fallen in love and decided to get married, Blair would have never received a wedding invite. Dan would have never escorted Penelope down the aisle as Blair stared at him, memorizing him. Dan would have never asked her to dance. Life would have gone on, and maybe Blair would have been successful in her business and maybe Dan would have written an oscar winning screenplay, but their lives would have never been together.
Dan and Blair sway together a little longer, not caring whether or not they are moving to the music, until Dan pulls away from her a little and touches her chin with his fingers, tipping her face up to him.
"I have a surprise," he says softly. "I think you're going to like it."
He takes her by the hand and pulls her back towards the entrance, down the staircase into the great hall and then out the door. They are standing on the stop of the steps, looking out into the night, and Blair releases Dan's hand and wraps her arms around herself, shivering a little. The air is chilly but fresh, the scents of spring lingering underneath the usual smells of the city. She can hear traffic in the distance and the night sky is clear.
Dan would usually offer her his coat but instead he reaches into an inside pocket and pulls out something wrapped in a dark cloth.
"Gigi found this while she was home from school," he says as he unwraps it. "and I knew we'd be coming here tonight, and it made me think of this amazing day years and year ago. Way before Serena and Nate's wedding. When were were young and very foolish."
Dan finishes unwrapping the object and holds it out to her and when Blair sees it she gasps and feels tears spring up in her eyes. Cradled in his palms is a tiara. It's a little tarnished and not quite as shiny as it used to be, but Blair recognized it right away.
"Oh Dan," Blair whispers. "that day. It was the most perfect day."
"It was," Dan says, closing the distance between them, reaching up to place the tiara on her head. Blair remembers how she felt that day: happy, in love, beloved. It's how she feels around Dan every day. Blair reaches up, wrapping her arms around her husband's neck, fingers weaving into the unruly curls at the nape of his neck that he refuses to cut and she pull his face down to hers until they are kissing. At first it is sweet, just like that day, until Dan licks at her lips with his tongue and she opens her mouth and the kiss gets deeper, wetter, and Blair moans. At the sound of her moan Dan breaks their kiss and they stand there, wrapped around each other, staring into each others eyes, chests rising up and down. Blair thinks it's amazing how much she can want this man all these years later, and how scandalized their kids would be if they saw their old, boring parents making out on the steps of the Met.
Blair clears her throat, "Dinner is going to be served soon,"
"I know," Dan says, "And Nate and Serena will probably want us to be there. Nate said something about me making a toast."
Blair sighs. They don't have the luxury of following their desires at the moment, but she thinks they probably have a few more minutes before they go back to the party, where they will have to mingle and talk to people and they can't keep being only about each other. She wraps one arm around Dan's waist and smiles at him.
"Maybe we can just walk for a little bit before we go back?"
Dan smiles, "that sounds perfect."
Blair links her arm through his and they walk down the steps together then down the sidewalk, together, happy, married and in love.
*~*~THE END!~*~*
Author Note: back to the Met steps. Dair forever.
Also, for those asking about my season 1 series, I have to watch an old episode then write a section, and I don't have a ton of time for going back over old GG. I'm still working on it and will keep updating.