"You know what would make this room perfect?" Summer said as she sat on her parents bed in their room watching them unpack her mother's things, it had been a week since Summer's 13th birthday weekend when Serena had let Nate know that she wanted herself and Summer to permanently move in with him.
"You helping me find place for all this," Serena deadpanned.
"No," she said dragging out the 'o' and holding her hands out, squinting on eye as if she were measuring something on the wall.
"I don't see it," Nate said coming to stand next to the bed so he could see what she was seeing.
"That's because it's not there yet daddy," she said smiling sweetly at him.
"And what would 'it' be?" Nate asked as Serena abandoned the box she was unpacking and sat on the bed on Summer's other side, waiting for an answer.
"A giant picture of me," she said tilting her head and grinning as her parents shared a look over her head.
"Why?" Serena asked slowly and Summer frowned.
"Because you love me that much and you'd want to see me every morning when you wake up and every night when you go to sleep," she informed them and Nate and Serena looked at the empty wall wearily.
"We do love you, Summ," Nate said nodding.
"Just not enough for a giant picture," Serena mumbled and Summer gasped and crossed her arms.
"It was just a suggestion," she pouted as Nate wrapped his arms around her and Serena started tickling her tummy relentlessly. "Ok, ok," she squealed with tears running down her face from laughing so much, Nate let her go and Serena stopped tickling her and all three of them lay on the bed giggling with each other. "I'll settle for a framed picture on each of your bedside tables."
"Hey," Serena exclaimed rolling over to grab Summer again but finding her already off the bed.
"Hannah is going to facetime me now from a party they're at," she called as she bounced out of the room. "I can't miss that."
"That child," Serena said affectionately shaking her head and looking over at Nate who was leaning back on his arms watching their daughter disappear from their room.
"Summer really misses LA," Nate said softly thinking about how close Summer and her friends were.
"She misses her friends, those girls have been friends since they were in diapers," Serena said smiling as she thought of her chubby blond baby girl getting startled when a fiery red head marched up to her and pulled a toy out of Summer's hands, before Serena or Laurens mother could react, Hannah had already toddled over and distracted both of them, they had been inseparable ever since.
"Maybe we should move to LA," Nate said sighing and Serena raised her eyebrows.
"We?" she asked, she didn't doubt that he would pack everything up and leave with them but his entire life was in New York and honestly, so was hers. "Summer wants to stay here, you can't pack up my mom and your parents, Erik, Chuck and Blair and bring them to LA with you, because those are the people she really wants to be around every day."
"What about her friends?" Nate asked, his 3 best friends were his family when he was Summer's age, he wanted her to have that closeness with her friends forever.
"They'll be fine, they will keep in touch, we can fly them out here as often as they want or we can visit," Serena told him, leaning up to kiss him. "They. Will. Be. Fine."
"S," he started but Serena shook her head and jumped of the bed, holding her hands out to pull him up as well.
"Summer couldn't care less about being in LA, not when her grandparents and godparents are right here in New York," Serena said placing her hands on his cheeks and shaking his head, Summer was in love with New York, thanks in no small part to the amount of family there that absolutely adored her, as much as Serena didn't want to think about Nate's family and their coldness toward her, she knew that they would do anything for her daughter. "None of those thoughts, especially not when I'm almost done unpacking my clothes."
"The shoes are still in its boxes," Nate mentioned with a grin and Serena glared.
"Those will be unpacked before you know it," she said waking into her closet to start hanging her dresses.
"I know that I will be looking at those unpacked boxes for months," he said coming up behind her and resting his chin on her shoulder. "Because you will buy new shoes every time you meet Blair for 'lunch'."
"I'm still not repacking my clothes to move back to LA," Serena said, patting the hands resting on her hips and continuing.
"Think of all the privacy we'd have," he said thinking about how people loved bursting into his house when he lived in his apartment, he knew Blair and Chuck and even his parents wouldn't stop now that he has his daughter and girlfriend living with him.
"We have privacy right now," she told him amusedly, at this point she knew she wasn't serious about moving anymore but she never knew that he put this much thought into moving.
She was about to say something else when Blair's voice filtered into their room and Nate gave her a pointed look and unwrapped himself from around her to go and see exactly where Blair was in their house.
"You're still unpacking?" she asked bursting into their room before Nate could make it to the door. "Chuck's got Henry in the lounge," she said dismissing Nate and talking a seat in the couch in the closet.
"It's always nice to see you B," he said rolling his eyes and sharing a look with Serena before leaving.
"How did you get in?" Serena asked, she was pretty certain she locked the door.
"I had a key made," Blair said nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders.
"When?" Serena asked, she can't remember giving Blair a key to make a copy unless Nate or Summer had.
"You underestimate me," Blair said knowing what Serena was thinking, and Serena narrowed her eyes at Blair, thinking back to high school when she made an impression of the math teachers cupboard key when the old lady was distracted so she could make a key and let Serena complete her paper.
"I thought you would have given all those little tricks up after high school," Serena told her amused.
"Oh S, you need these tricks more in the working world," she said and Serena rolled her eyes and nodded.
"What are you guys doing here anyway?" Serena asked, closing her cupboards with a sigh, she was never going to fully unpack her things. "I thought we were meeting later?"
"We are," Blair said looking at her best friend a little confused. "We came to see if you know anything about the emergency meeting your mother called for this afternoon."
"What emergency meeting?" Serena asked, furrowing her brows and started digging around for her phone.
"The emergency meeting that Erik is flying here for," Blair told her, following her back into the main room. "Serena what are you doing?"
"I'm finding my phone," she said finally locating it under a pile of her coats. "What do you mean Erik is flying to New York, he only went back last week," she said, Erik saw them at least once a month but with his exams coming up later that month, he wasn't going to fly to New York unless there was an emergency.
"S, I don't think anything's wrong," Blair soothed, seeing the panic build up in Serena. "Lily sounded calm, she just said she needed to speak to all her children about something that she recently found out."
"Oh god," Serena said not liking the sound of that, she had 14 missed calls from her mother and 4 messages asking to call and then just letting her know that she should meet at Lily and Rufus' house later that day. "Do you think she's sick?"
"No, no, it's not that," Blair said reaching out to steady Serena who was going into full panic mode.
"How do you know?"
"Because Chuck already checked all that," Blair assured her and Serena took a breath and sat down, nodding to herself, letting herself be calmed by the fact that Chuck would have checked every detail to find out if her mother was ill. "He couldn't find any reason for this emergency meeting, which is why we came over to see if you knew something."
"No, I know nothing," Serena said letting out a breath and falling back onto the bed. "She's probably throwing some kind of crazy event and needed our opinions, she has done that before."
"And she never cared about pulling any one of us out of school for it," Blair said sitting next to Serena and remembering Lily's third wedding dress dilemma, where she and Serena were both pulled out of class because of an emergency, just to find out that they were being taken to the store to help Lily feel better about the dress she was buying.
"I guess my mom has always been a little bit dramatic," Serena said laughing and Blair nodded.
"Where's Summer?" Blair asked, Serena's little doppelganger would have come out to greet her as soon as she heard her favourite aunts voice.
"She's talking to Hannah and Lauren," Serena said sitting up. "Don't expect her anytime soon."
"Is it weird sleeping in Anne and Howard Archibald's old room," Blair asked, making a face as she looked around the massive master bedroom.
"I didn't find it weird until you mentioned that," Serena squeaked and Blair laughed, she was not good for Serena's emotions today.
"Come on, let's go find the boys, before I say anything else," Bair said with a little smirk.
Summer sat between her Uncle Erik and her dad watching her mother pace in front of their couch at her grandmothers apartment. Lily sat opposite them watching her as well, they were waiting for Blair, Chuck and Henry to start their meeting.
"Finally," Serena exclaimed as the elevator pinged and they walked through the door. "What took you so long?"
Chuck and Blair exchanged a look, that didn't go unnoticed by Serena, who opened her eyes wider as if asking what they were hiding. Blair cleared her throat and put Henry down, who ran straight to Nate, climbing up onto Nate's lap and showing Summer his new toy.
"Well darlings, I'm glad you made it," Lily interrupted before Serena could say anything. "Why don't you all sit down so we can talk?"
Chuck mumbled something to Lily, who nodded tensely and moved to stand next to Rufus, who smiled encouragingly. Serena remained standing, only taking a step back so she was next to Nate and he could take her hand and rub circles on the back of it, in the hopes of calming her. Henry, sensing the mood of the room, got off Nate and went to sit between his parents, holding onto Chucks arm.
"I called you here today because I recently found out something that could change your lives," Lily said and Nate squeezed Serena's hand because he could tell how frustrated she was getting, waiting for her mother to get to the point.
"You're not dying are you?" Erik asked and everyone turned to look at him, even Henry, who wasn't paying any attention to Erik. "She said life changing emergency, what else could it be?"
"No Darling, I'm perfectly healthy," Lily said with a chuckle and Erik nodded and slid down in his seat. "But ... I um ... I found your father."
"You, what?" Serena asked, feeling light headed, she felt Nate stand up behind her and support her weight as her body leaned back onto him of its own accord.
"Where?" Erik asked, raising his eyebrows, he knew Serena looked for that man everywhere, he didn't have any desire to find the man who abandoned him when he was basically a newborn but his sister loved their father and she spent a good portion of her time trying to track him down.
"You knew," Serena said looking at Chuck and Blair before Lily could answer. "A little warning would have been nice, like this afternoon when you came to ask me what I knew."
"We didn't know when we saw you S," Blair explained, rubbing Henry's back.
"We only found out just before you did," Chuck told her.
"How?" Erik asked and Serena looked back at her brother as if just realising he was still in the room and then looking up at her mother who smiled sadly.
The elevator pinged and the doors opened as Lily started to talk. "Serena, you remember that Carol was at your grandmother's funeral and you thought it was odd," Lily asked and Serena nodded, her eyes at the open elevator that a man was exiting to enter the apartment with his back to her. "Well I did some digging, turns out she married your father once our divorce went through."
"Don't make it sound like I ruined your marriage Lillian," Carol said, walking in after the man and Serena thought she was going to faint, because standing right there after 21 years was her father.
"I apologize, I don't know how else to explain the woman who was sleeping with my husband," she said with a fake smile and Summer gasped and looked around, waiting for someone to find this entire situation as shocking as she did, but they all just looked as if they were expecting it, except for Henry who was hiding underneath his father's coat.
"Serena," William van der Woodsen smiled, taking a step toward her and she took a step back, half behind Nate who acted as a shield between them, William frowned but turned his attention to Erik, who acknowledged him with raised eyebrows. "My boy."
"Erik," he said, fully aware that his father probably knew his name but he didn't want to be called anything else by this man.
"Erik," William repeated with a tight smile, taking in the other occupants of the room. "I don't think I know the rest of you."
"I'm sure you remember Serena's friends from when she was a child," Lily said pointing to the other three adults in the room. "And that right there is our granddaughter."
William stared at Summer who stared right back at him, she knew that this man abandoned her mother but she never thought they'd ever meet him. "Erik's?" he asked, noting how close Summer and Erik were sitting.
"Serena's," Erik said with a bitter laugh. "How old do you think I am?"
"I'm sorry, she just looks like you," he said and Erik almost growled because that man was still looking at his niece.
"She looks like Nate," Serena said speaking for the first time since her father walked into the room. The elevator pinged again and Serena clenched her fists. "What other surprises could you possibly have?"
"That would be our daughter," Carol said stepping up to touch her husband's arm possessively, looking at Serena with a little smile, that Serena could not help but shiver uncomfortably at, Summer made a face, that's the same thing Lola did to her father when she was marking her territory. "You might know her."
"Lola," Serena deadpanned as the other blond came into the room, she knew from the moment she met the girl that there was something familiar about her, she just never expected Lola to end up being her half-sister. "I can't do this."
Serena almost sprinted for the doors, with Nate shared a look with Chuck and then left as well, close on Serena's heels. Summer watched them go and then groaned and threw her head back against the sofa. "Oh crap."
"What?" Erik whispered as the others recovered from Serena and Nate's departure.
"I'm never going to get rid of her, am I?"
A/N : Ok so that is the end of chapter 24! one more chapter left in this story and we're done which makes me both really sad and really excited to start working on other stories, I wanted to put everything into this story to make it amazing and so far I think I have achieved that
I know that this is a terrible time to bring in William van der Woodsen but I made references to Lola looking familiar to them in a few places and i didnt want to wait for a sequel that I wasnt sure i would write to bring that back up, if a sequel does happen I'm bringing in William and Carol and their story as a beginning to it
Alot of you guys have reviewed and said that you would like a sequel over a oneshot series so I am going to try my hardest to do that for you :D I am so glad that all of you are still here at the end of our PMABS journey
Please review and I'll talk to you guys again in the final chapter
Until next time (^^,)