Thank you all for encouraging the continuation of this story :) It was a challenge to write the last chapter, especially in Dan's first person POV, but you all made it worth it with your kind reviews. Thank you so much.

I walk into the quiet cafe and spot Blair in a booth. I let out a breath in relief, I had an uneasy feeling she wouldn't actually show. Her back is straight against the tufted seat and her hands are folded neatly on the table. We're on her turf, a few blocks from Central Park, but I don't mind. I would have met her all the way upstate if those had been her conditions.

There's not a trace of exhaustion from yesterday's wedding on her face. Instead, her skin is smooth and when her eyes look up to meet mine, there's not even a slight shadow beneath them.

"Hi," I greet her as I slide in across from her. "Thank you for meeting me."

She nods and slides the drink menu to me. She's painfully polite, "Thank you for agreeing to come to the Upper East Side."

I look down at the menu for a lack of anything else to say and the silence is broken by a chipper waitress appearing at our table. She passes a latte to Blair, one she presumably ordered before I arrived. Then, she turns her attention to me. "What can I get you to drink?"

"Espresso doppio, please." I slide the drink menu back into its holder against the wall. Once she's gone, I look back to Blair. "How was the rest of the wedding?"

I left after we had agreed upon meeting today. It seemed the right thing to do, to let her forget about me for the rest of the night and enjoy her best friend's night. I find my gaze dropping now, though, momentarily to her lips. The memory of the brief kiss in which we had ended the night still fresh. It felt like potential.

"Serena and Nate were whisked away in a horse-drawn carriage as the guests showered them with confetti. And they lived happily ever after," She replies dryly.

"Really?" I could honestly see the carriage part happening as I recall Serena's original wedding demands.

"No," Blair smirks. "But it was nice, they did leave in one of those retro cars with the 'Just Married' writing across the rearview window though."

My double espresso arrives and we fall silent as the waitress walks away. I want to ask Blair everything and nothing. I want to rewind time and undo the article that was our undoing. I want to be sitting at this booth laughing and sliding my hand across hers.

I do none of those things.

"How have you been?" I ask and it feels cold and insincere. But what else do I say? I'm a writer, I remind myself. I could certainly script something better than this.

"Good," Blair unclasps then clasps her hands again. "Besides quitting my job, that is... Which has been deemed my mother 'an unconscionable mistake.' I have a lot of time now to think about what I want to do and apply for positions with Serena being gone. It's been… quiet."

"I'm sure you're happy to have your place back to yourself,"

Blair seems to consider, "I suppose I am." Her hands slide back down the table to her lap. "And how are you? How is freelancing?"

I have the sense that neither of us are going to be honest with each other and will instead skirt the real reason we're here. We can stay on this safe, solid patch of ice or let ourselves skate across the thin ice that might be treacherous but could also lead us somewhere better.

I decide to take a leap of faith and hope the ice won't crack beneath me.

"I've missed you," I tell her honestly and watch as her expression changes into one of surprise. She momentarily looks like wants to scold me for breaking some unwritten rule. I proceed though, not letting her potential admonishment deter me. "I know I shouldn't but I have to ask you, have you moved on?"

I think I know the answer, at least I hope I do. Because she wouldn't have let me kiss her if she had, would she? Or was that a test? One I still don't know the results of.

She brings her hand to her forehead and lets it slide across her skin. I watch her draw in a breath. "Define 'moved on,'"

A deflection.

"Blair," I reason. "You know what I mean."

"I don't because you could be asking if I've moved in from you, from your deception, from any number of things really. So I need you to be specific."

I play along with this game in which I have no knowledge of the rules or the object. "I am asking if you are over it, us, if I'm wasting my time here. Because I meant what I said last night. I still think about you, I never stopped, and I never stopped regretting what I did. If I could go back and not write that article, I genuinely mean that I wouldn't. But I can't. So I need to know if you can ever trust me again… If we could ever get back on track. Because I don't want this, Blair. This distance between us. It's almost worse than not having you at all."

A flash of anger crosses Blair's face, "It's been one day, I can't just magically forgive you overnight. I thought I was ready to, but then I saw you today and realized I still don't really know you. I still don't know if I'm a part of some long con I'll never see coming."

"You don't really think that do you?"

"I thought I knew exactly how you felt about me, Dan." She says sharply. "But then, you wrote about me. About all the things I fear about myself, it was all on paper and I knew someone who-" She breaks. "Really cared about me couldn't say those things. I want to believe that it wasn't you, that it was your editor, but I don't know if I can. I need more time." She stiffens and folds her arms across her chest. "So I suppose that's your offer, more time or none at all."

She motions for the waitress before I can stop her.

I nod but wish I could make her see things the way I see them... Make her see her the way I see her. But I can't.

"Check please," Blair orders as I think of something, anything to change her mind.

"I can give you time. But it's been over two months and I am starting to lose faith that even with more time that you'll change your mind. There has to be something I can do to make you see,"

Blair tries to take the check as the waitress sets it down but I swiftly retrieve it. I put down my card and pass it back to the waitress before she has retreated.

Blair looks briefly annoyed but then turns pensive. A steady gaze is placed on me as she says something I thought she'd never say, "I want to read it. I need to read it. The original."

"Blair, I shredded that. I told you,"

"Check your laptop or your emails. There has to be a digital copy somewhere." She collects her bag from the booth and stands up. "Email it to me and I'll let you know what I decide by the end of the week."

"Are you sure?" I ask, following her out of the cafe. I feel a little shaky at the prospect of having her read something so intimate. It contains my unfiltered feelings for her. My editor deemed it a love story, something that never would have made it to print on second thought.

"Yes," She replies cooly as she steps out of the door I hold open for her. A town car is waiting for her and she approaches it. "Thank you for the coffee, Humphrey."

The car door closes and she's obscured by a tinted window and I'm left with a rapid pulse of trepidation.

I wasn't very thorough in my destruction of the article it seems by mid-afternoon. Blair was right, I found the document sitting neatly in my uncleared Recycle folder on my laptop. In my haste, I must not have thought to empty it after hitting delete. I restore the document and reread it ten times over before deciding that yes, I will send it.

Because what other choice do I have? I have no idea if it'll change her mind. But I send it anyway.

The hours tick on after sending it through the either. I'll let you know what I decide by the end of the week. The end of the week. I didn't even know how I was going to make it through the end of the day and it was already five in the evening.

I resolve to sit at my desk and force myself to crank out 1,000 words on a far away world sans a bridesmaid and a journalist. It helps, only a little, to distract myself with this made up realm. When I've hit my target word count, I refresh my email, again, to see it empty from the one reply I want to see. I shut the laptop in disappointment and fling it from my lap onto the couch.

Wandering into the kitchen, I realize I haven't eaten all day. I don't have even the slightest of appetites but cooking is something to do. As I saute a few cloves of garlic, I feel the ghost of Blair's touch across my back. The memory lingers of her standing behind me, peppering me with kisses as I cook. I shut my eyes and feel the hot splatter of oil as I let my spatula-clad hand drift too far down. I drop the wooden spatula into the pan and go over to the sink, rinsing the burn under room temperature water.

My mind is still elsewhere though, even as the skin continues to sting as I towel it dry. I think of the night I first saw her, never imagining that that girl with her expensive mismatched heels and surrounding of elite friends would stand in my kitchen one day. The only thing I can believe is how it ended.

I go through the motions, adding an onion, adding a can of tomatoes, spices, then bring a pot of water to boil, add noodles, drain, and add sauce. It all forms a rigatoni in marinara that should have a full-bodied flavor but instead is colorless and bland.

By the time I've finished cooking and cleaning, there's a tiny pinprick of hope that perhaps by now Blair has replied to my email.

Refresh, refresh, refresh.

Still empty.

"Hello, sunshine," Jenny greets me sarcastically at the little diner down the street from the loft we grew up in. "You look worse, somehow, than when I last saw you."

"Thanks," I reply sardonically, eyes downcast. "How are you?"

"Better than you," Jenny smiles brightly. "I got to design a dress this week at work. It was just for the background of the editorial the atelier was being featured in but still, it felt good to be sewing again. Running out for coffees and manhandling models into their too-tight garments was getting old."

I feel a genuine ripple of pride in his sister, "That's awesome, Jen. I bet you'll get another assignment soon."

"I hope so," Jenny agrees as their waitress arrives. They place their orders and are delivered coffees. Jenny turns serious. "So are you finally going to tell me what exactly happened to you to end up like this?" She motions at me generally. "You're morose. I have a theory, if you won't tell."

"What's your theory?" I ask without enthusiasm.

"I bet the girl-"

"Blair," I correct. "And how did you know it was a girl that's the problem?"

"Because it's always a girl," Jenny replies as though I'm simple-minded. "Anyway, I bet she saw Cedric. She probably took one look and bolted. Am I right?" Jenny quirks a brow.

"I wish it was that simple," A tiny chuckle escapes me, my first laugh in weeks. "But no, it was nothing that inconsequential."

"So what was it?" Jenny places her hand on her chin. "I can help if you'd just tell me."

"It was," I look away. "I put work above her and betrayed her in the process. Okay? That's as much as I'll say because honestly, there's nothing for you to fix. I've done what I can and now I have to wait and see if it's enough."

"Hm," Jenny mulls this over. "Well, I hope it works out. If it doesn't, I guess I can set you up with someone from work. There's this girl Jessica that's always asking if she can meet my older brother." Jenny winces. "Normally, I'd refuse like I always do but you look so miserable I can make an exception. She's perky and basically the opposite of you at the moment so-"

"No," I say more sternly than I intended and I watch Jenny flinch. "Sorry, I just- That won't help. But I appreciate the offer."

We eat our meal in silence, eventually making more small talk. I pay and Jenny announces she should get to work, I don't blame her for rushing off. It's not like I'm great company at the moment.

I, on the otherhand, don't have work to run off to. A distraction I would welcome at the moment. Instead, this empty Monday stretches on and it's only 9:30 AM. A bonus of the hour in which little occurs is that I can at least appreciate the empty streets as I walk back to my apartment. Each step I take, I find myself wondering if somewhere out there Blair is reading my article.

The Bridesmaid

Two days is all I can manage before curiosity breaks my resolve. I knew asking for the article was a bad idea. I thought maybe if I did, I could rip off the band-aid and end this whole brief entwinement with Dan Humphrey. Maybe then I could finally stop thinking about him… Stop picturing myself on his couch, my head tipped on his shoulder, our hands in entangled…

Closure is what I need.

Kissing him at the wedding had been a mistake. It had reminded me of the ways in which my mouth had missed his. I had let myself imagine those three months apart were just a blip. A bump in the road that we would forget as our future stretched along a windy road. I pictured myself leading him up to my hotel room.

There were so many things I'd never say to him, now. I could get it all out on paper, perhaps then the words would stop from swallowing me whole. Read the article, then put all my own thoughts and feelings to paper, destroy both, and forget the entire affair.

Those were the steps I had outlined for myself in my "Guide To Getting Over Dan Humphrey." Except I had broken the first rule by not reading the article as soon as I returned home that Sunday. Instead, I let it sit like a challenge in my inbox, willing myself not to be so desperate as to read it right away.

I told myself it was self-preservation. But it wasn't. It was a paralyzing fear that the words in that article would break me. That they would take my already constricted chest with its barely pumping lungs and constrict it further and further until I could no longer breathe.

Finding out exactly what Dan Humphrey had really thought of me, had written about me, could be the end of this Blair Waldorf.

I could be left a shell of a girl, one that would go through the motions, never quite feeling again.

So Sunday bled into Monday and Monday bled into Tuesday, until by evening it had seemed the day had run dry leaving me to face my fear.

Armed with a glass of wine, an old scuffed Manolo I can chuck if anger arises, and my phone in case I needed to immediately call and tell off Dan Humphrey, I sit down at my desk. The one item I probably would truly need, a box of tissues, is absent because I have far too much pride to cry over a Weddings columnist.

I hesitantly click on the email.

From: Dan Humphrey

To: Blair Waldorf

Subject: For Blair

Within the body of the message, Dan has typed a simple, pleading request.

Blair,

I really am so sorry. I'd do anything to repair the trust I broke.

I'm sorry.

Yours,

Dan

My foolish heart betrays me, palpitating irregularly, upon seeing the way he signed the email.

Yours.

If only.

I push my wistful thoughts away and click on the attachment. My breath stays lodged as my eyes roam the page.

The Unsung Ballad of a Bridesmaid

Lincoln Hall

My eyes travel fast through the pages willing a word to jump out that will cut me deeply. But none do. Instead, all of the hurtful remarks like always being a bridesmaid, or a lonely spinster, are gone. What's left is what seems almost like a love story.

Almost.

Because Dan's journalistic approach is still there and it's most likely only the hopeless romantic in me letting myself read between the lines. When he says that the maid of honor, Clair Carlyle, is a "treasure in the hand Philistines," that doesn't mean he thinks I'm a treasure, does it? It's just a general statement. It couldn't possibly mean-

Desperate for more clues, I scroll back up and reread the article. I want to find evidence, evidence that this growing feeling that I should forgive him, should have forgiven him a long time ago, is accurate. The feeling grows tenfold and I slam my laptop shut. I need to get out of here. I need to know.

Fuck the guide to getting over Dan Humphrey. It was nonsense anyway.

The Journalist

My melancholy Tuesday is interrupted by a sudden flurry of knocking on the door to my apartment. Immediately thinking of Jenny and the prospect that something has happened to her to send her in a state of panic, I hurry to open it, not even bothering to check through the eyehole to see who it is.

It's not Jenny.

Instead, it's a reverie come to life. Her cheeks are tinged pink as though she's been in the sun, her hair falls in waves around her shoulders, and her eyes are searching as though seeking answers to the mysteries to the universe.

She's a wish granted and I'm a man paralyzed.

I listen as she catches her breath, I wonder if she ran up the stairs. I'm still too stupefied to move. But she breaks the silence.

"What does it mean?" She fiddles with her hands, wringing them. "'A treasure in the hand of Philistines.' Is that just profound-sounding bullshit you spun as part of your Lincoln Hall persona or is that-" Her words break and her eyes implore me.

"You're a treasure, Blair." As I say the words, I realize that sending her the article wasn't the Hail Mary I thought it was. My last chance for forgiveness is something harder, something I've never done with anyone else. Providing her with vulnerability. I would have to tell her with crystal clarity how I really felt for a real shot at a second chance.

Blair is frowning at me now, clearly confused as to why I stopped talking. I inhale sharply and let the walls collapse around me.

"Blair, I love you. I loved you the moment you called me a hack. I knew you were the most beautiful, outspoken, and terrifying commanding girl I had ever met and I would never meet another girl that could make me feel half of what you did. You intimated me so much I wanted to run away but found myself doing the opposite. I couldn't stay away. The reason my editor changed the article so much was that she said it was a love story starring the bridesmaid and that every Bridezilla would feel vindication in knowing that indeed, people paid attention to the bridesmaids they had stuck in ugly dresses as an attempt to mask their beauty. I- I couldn't be objective. I was in love in with you and it threaded through every word I wrote, without even trying."

Her face is such a wash of mixed emotions, I can't begin to decipher them. In my disquieted state, I elaborate. "I know I broke your trust. I don't expect to earn that back right away or even soon. I just would like a chance, to show you that you can let me in." An idea seizes me. "We can even start over, I can fill your calendar with invitations to drinks and we can meet up and you can tell me all about how exhausting your best friend is now that she's married. I'll tell you how very dull my freelance writing career is and how I'm pretty sure the Weather column is all I'm suited for. At the end of the night, I'll wish you a good night and kick myself on the way home for not kissing you. We can start over, Blair."

"Or," There's a softness to her tone that wasn't there any of the times we've recently talked and it gives me a seed of hope. "We can pick up where we left off and rebuild trust along the way. It might take me a while... But I'm willing if you are."

Her hands begin wringing and I reach out and grab them on impulse. She stills in my touch and looks up at me with an expression that finally isn't contempt. I let my hands squeeze hers, "I am, of course, I am."

I step forward and close the distance between us. This kiss is nothing like the one from the wedding which was reserved and somehow foreign. This is kiss is like coming home.

"I've missed you," Blair says suddenly in a rush, pulling away. She keeps her forehead tilted against mine. "I haven't had anyone to complain to about how Serena completely brainwashed me into caring about the environment. During my job search the other day, I came across a company that makes leggings from water bottles and sent in my application. Leggings, Dan. Leggings aren't even pants."

I fall in love with her all over again as she says my name for the first time in months. It's not the same as if she had said 'I love you too," but somehow it's more than enough. I force my breath to steady and will my hands to stop shaking as I put on a wry grin. "It sounds like you need a serious intervention."

"Please," She steps in closer, her arms wrapping around my neck. "I really do."

The weight of her forgiveness engulfs me in a cloud of happiness as our lips meet once more.

TBC...

I hope the dual POV wasn't too confusing. I had been stuck on this chapter for a while until I finally decided it would progress best with a brief delve into Blair's POV. I haven't decided on the POV of the final two chapters, it'll probably come to me once I get to writing them. Oh and also the original title of Dan's article is obnoxiously pretentious on purpose, so hopefully you got that and didn't completely loathe it :) I felt like the dramatic title suited both him and Blair's characters.

Thank you all for reading!