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It’s the first week of December and Nate is holding yet another extravagant charity gala.
She’s made her rounds, saying hello to everyone she knows, introducing herself to those she doesn’t. It’s routine, she’ll see them again in a few months time, when Nate finds something else to spend his money on.
She keeps her hand tight on Chuck’s arm, smile painted perfectly on her face, laugh sounding harmonious and natural. It’s routine.
And then, from across the room, she sees him slip in.
They say, when you die, you have 7 minutes of brain activity in which your whole life flashes before your eyes.
Blair checks her pulse to make sure it’s still beating.
He makes a beeline to Nate, who encases him in a brotherly hug. She hasn’t seen him in months, longer than the rest of Nate’s regular invites. He’s grown a beard, a real one. He looks good, she decides.
She thought about a time, so long ago now that it feels like a different life.
She had looked up at him in the dark, the pads of their fingers pressed together. She was telling him about a scheme she was concocting, something she wasn’t really going to go through with.
How Machiavellian, he said.
Mmm, just the way I like it. She planted a kiss on his neck. I know I said I’d leave it all behind, but it’s just so fun.
Well, one step at a time. He kissed her head.
She clasped their hands together, pressing her face into his chest.
I have so much blood on my hands, she whispered, and she could have meant a great many things.
Her thoughts are interrupted by a hand on her shoulder. She turns to find Serena, tanned and glowing, reaching for a hug. A lifeline. She forgets what it was that made her feel so jittery a few minutes ago.
Serena has started seeing people again. Good people, good choices. She spends most of her time on film sets in Los Angeles, but Blair uses any excuse to get her on a plane home. And every time they drop Serena off at the airport, or call her a car to take her there, there’s a voice in the back of Blair’s mind that says This is it. This is the last time. She’s going to leave like she did before, and she’s not going to come back.
There are a lot of things Blair has never gotten over.
Serena had been unhappy for a long time. Her relationship with Dan had been on-again, off-again for years before he proposed. Something made them, made him, think that marriage would bring them closer together. Blair didn’t question this. They had all always been experts in warped logic.
There was a part of Blair that wanted to extract this unhappiness from her, take it on herself, so Serena didn’t have to feel it. But I have enough for myself, she thought. Too much.
When they were seven years old they knit their pinkies tight together and promised to share everything. They meant clothes, shoes, plane rides. Which turned into boys, into a home. They never meant this.
When Serena showed up to brunch and afternoon tea without a ring, eyes puffy and cheeks red, Blair wondered who she goes to now, in the night, to cry to, to hold. There was another part of her - a smaller part, one she forced down - that was glad it wasn’t her.
“Was it... someone else?” Blair asked one day, because Henry slept soundly now and hardly fussed, hardly fought, and so she had spare time to think. And she did, a lot, all the time.
Serena took a moment to answer. “For me, it was just one night. Dan wasn’t even that angry.”
Blair nodded, but was stuck at the beginning of the sentence. For me. Was there something else for him? Something more than just one night?
She didn’t think about it. She swears she didn’t.
Dan published another novel, only a month after the separation. They hadn’t meant for that, or at least Serena said they didn’t, but it caused the media to initially label the separation a publicity stunt. Many articles cited that the love interest of the main character seemed almost a carbon copy of that in Inside. The book left no dedication.
Not that Blair read any of the articles, of course. Not that she had read the novel itself, even.
But if she had, it would’ve been on a flight to Paris, on her way to visit her family, only her and Henry. She would’ve picked it up at the airport, paying in cash and slipping it into her purse. She would’ve imagined the story, a mystery with a side of romance, playing out in her head, like a black and white movie. She would’ve teared up a bit, at the end, at the final kiss. She would’ve excused herself to the small, claustrophobic bathroom, dry heaving in the sink.
If she had read it, she would’ve tossed it into a garbage can at Charles de Gaulle, leaving no evidence behind. But she didn’t read it. So it doesn’t matter.
At some point in the night, Chuck slips away from her, excusing himself to speak with someone she doesn’t care to remember the name of. At a point they all blend together.
She’s used to Chuck not being around. She waited for him long enough to get used to the feeling of not having him by her side.
One night, she curled up on the couch with Henry to watch cartoons, but ended up watching his face instead, illuminated by the glow of the tv screen. He looks just like her when she was his age. It hit her suddenly, that she never did anything like this when she was young. This was a moment her mother didn’t have.
And when she looked up into the dark of the room, in that moment, she felt Chuck’s absence more than ever. At least I still had my father when I was this young, she thought, when she was back in bed and heard the door open. She never said this to him, didn't turn to reach him when he got under the covers anymore, knowing last time she did, last time she challenged him, it ended in a glass of whiskey colliding with the wall. Her white slip ruined, her feet bleeding in bits.
Before Dan and Serena’s separation, they spent a lot of time together. All of them, tucked neatly inside Blair’s big glass house. Blair would sit on her couch, or at her dining table, or in her kitchen, and watch them. Henry cradled in Nate’s arms. Dan with his arm around Serena’s waist, kissing her cheek when she giggled at Henry’s baby talk. Chuck chastising the help for not cleaning up properly after stepping on a toy. One big happy family. Watching them, everyone playing their role perfectly, made her feel that she was the only one about to break. About to shatter like the glass against the wall.
Her couch. Her dining table. Her kitchen. She repeated these sentiments as she walked through the house, like taking inventory. She had to remind herself that they were her own, too. Not just Chucks. Henry was her own. She was her own.
After the separation, Dan stopped coming around. There was no need for him there, he was back on the outside, and didn’t care to look in. There were days when Serena slept there, saying that she had to get used to sleeping in an empty bed, that it would be easier to do it in a full house. It never gets easier, Blair thought.
It was hard to explain to Henry, who had grown a particular fondness for his Uncle Dan. How do you explain to a child that his aunt and uncle fell out of love? How do you explain that, truthfully, they had never really fallen back into it?
Only weeks before the separation, Blair hosted Henry’s birthday party at the house. It was the last time they were all together, under one roof, playing along. There were no eyes watching them now, there hadn’t been for a long time. But they were all still performing. Some things just get easier the more you do them.
When the doorbell rang, and she opened it to the strained smiles of her friends, and Henry ran past her, jumping into Dan’s arms with an excited squeal, there was an instant - a flicker - where she thought He could be his.
Same brown hair, same goofy smile, tiny gap tooth.
But then Henry looked up at her, with eyes that are unmistakably Chuck’s, and she felt a pit in her stomach she needed to throw up.
Bent over, hair tied, shower on. The same old setup.
Relapses are common, she told herself. They’re a part of recovery. But there isn’t a part of her that feels it’s recovering.
On nights like this one, parties and galas where more often than not the Archibald name plagued every screen, napkin, and cheque, they leave Henry with the nanny all night. They check into a hotel, where the Bass name always plagued every room. They fucked, long and hard. And then they went back to business the next morning, until next time. Tonight would be no different.
Blair looks at the ticking clock and thinks she needs hard liquor. Something in her stomach to throw up later.
She finds Nate in the crowd, sets a hand on his shoulder which he returns with a hand on her back. “Hey, you.” He says, big and booming, but warm, still warm. She hears him introducing her to people who already know who she is. She hears him call her his Best friend, and she sees a glimmer of a life lost to her.
A week before, when Nate offered to watch Henry when Blair had to stay late at work, and then stayed for dinner when Chuck said he would be late, in the dim light of her kitchen, Blair turned to him.
“Did you ever stop loving Serena?”
It came out of nowhere, catching Nate by surprise.
“I - what?”
“I mean, since we were sixteen. Or before that even. Have you ever stopped?”
“Well, I - sure I did. I don’t now, or I mean I do, but not...”
He trailed off, giving her her answer.
She’d put the kettle on for tea, and was leaning against the marble countertop.
“Look,” He started. “I wasn’t going to say anything, because it’s not my place but...I’m worried about you.” He scratched at his beard uncomfortably, then gestured to her hands, causing her to instinctively look down at them. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but they were still there. Small bruising, minuscule indentations. “Have you... started again?”
She forgot sometimes, that before Chuck, before... before everyone, there was Nate. Nate who held her hands when they looked like that then. Nate who reached across the countertop to hold them now.
“I’m fine,” Blair said, her oldest and most overused lie. “Relapse is a part of recovery.”
Nate cleared his throat, lowered his voice.
“He doesn’t... hurt you, does he?”
Blair thought for a moment, because at this point, she doesn’t really know.
“You know him. You always have.”
Nate’s face changed, something dark casting over him ever so slightly. He shifted his body, and Blair thought he looked like someone wearing a wire. Choosing his words carefully. Choosing his loyalties carefully.
“You don’t have to stay with him.”
Blair waited for him to continue, for a suggestion, a genuine idea. But there wasn’t one. The kettle whistled urgently.
She poured them both a cup of tea, paused a second, then reached into the top cupboard, pulled out a bottle, tipped a few drops into each cup.
“Lily never stayed. The one time she did it didn’t matter.” There wasn’t a point to this, she was just thinking out loud.
Now it’s his turn to wait for her to continue. But she didn’t. She just handed him his cup.
“You’re not Lily.”
“Hmm,” Blair doesn’t let her tea cool, letting it burn the tip of her tongue. “No,”
She remembered that Chuck told her, after they were married, about something her mother had said to him, before Blair’s first wedding. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I don’t want my daughter to wait...to be happy.
“And I’m not Eleanor either.”
“Where’s all this coming from?” Nate said.
“I always used to have someone by my side. I guess I just... feel alone most of the time.”
Nate rubbed his face. Blair could see the wheels turn behind his eyes, trying to find the words.
“What are you doing.” He said finally, but it wasn’t really a question. “What is all this.”
“I’m going through with it. With our pact”
“You don’t have to do that.” He repeated, but again, offered no ulterior.
“Your mother did it.”
“Blair,” He looked at her straight. “You are definitely not my mother.”
“I always wanted to be like her. Even more than I wanted to be my own. All that old money. That big shiny rock on her finger. The Captain. What little girl doesn’t want to marry the captain. Maybe that’s all I ever wanted. To be first mate.”
“You’re not her, Blair.” And there’s something pleading in his voice.
“I do have to stay with him. I couldn’t do that to Henry. He’s my whole world.”
“See,” Nate took the last sip of his tea, set it back on the counter. “That’s where you first get it wrong. That’s never what I was to her.”
She asks Nate lowly if there’s a quiet place she can go, and she feels his hand tense slightly, his eyes narrowing. She flashes him a smile that says It’s okay! and she knows he doesn’t buy it. So she flashes another, this time, Not now. He points her in the direction of a private parlour.
When she enters, she immediately rolls her eyes. There’s someone at the bar, a black figure on a stool. She debates leaving, going to find a bathroom instead, but then the figure moves, the light catching his face, and she sees who it is.
“Hi,” she says, taking a few steps forward, her heels echoing in the quiet room. “Nate said you were coming, but I never saw you come in.” It’s an innocent lie, but an unnecessary one.
Dan looks up, startled, and she isn’t sure if her presence sets him at ease, or keeps him on edge. But he smiles at her, tight lipped, raising his glass.
“Can you get me one of those?” She says, and she can hear the polite sweetness in her voice.
Dan pours her a glass wordlessly, sliding it down the bar. She takes it without sitting down.
“Where’s your date?” She asks. He shrugs.
“Didn’t bring one. I’m sure you saw the Ken doll Serena came with,” he says, his eyes going to the door. Blair nods. Nick, or Mick, or something.
“So that’s why I’m hiding. What about you?”
Hiding. She didn’t realize that’s what this was. What all this was.
She doesn’t sit down, but she lets herself relax, leaning against the bar. In the few seconds she’s been silent, three lies have come to her, and she shuffles through them quickly. But there’s something about the low lighting and the drink in her hand, about the two of them, just them, after all this time, that makes her want to tell the truth.
“He’s perusing potential buyers. I leave him alone when he’s in his element.”
“Millionaires writing big checks and endless cocktails? Seems like your element too.”
“Being a mother changes you.” And this isn’t the full truth, but it isn’t a lie either.
“Except for Georgina.”
Blair laughs despite herself. They both do.
“How is Henry?” Dan asks, watching her carefully.
“Good,” She replies, and then, riskier: “He misses you.”
Dan murmurs against his glass. “Yeah, I miss him too.”
Blair is reminded of a time, 7 years ago now, when she asked him if it would matter that she was having another man’s baby. It wouldn’t to me.
“You should come by some time. He’d like that.” She says, only because it’s futile, only because he never would.
“How about right now?” He says, and she laughs a little in surprise.
“Are you drunk?”
”Hmm,” He mumbles. “Maybe a little. You might need to drive me home.” She laughs again, loud and real this time.
“I still haven’t learned how.”
“I can teach you.”
“In your dreams, Humphrey.” She says, In mine too, she holds back.
For a moment, it’s all so easy again. It all feels like real life again. Like the last few years could have all been a dream - black and white and uneasy - existing only in the confines of a laptop. But this - the scene in front of her- really has been in her dreams. Those hands, those eyes, that smile, digging graves and burying themselves in her subconscious. And all those years, those were real. That all happened to her. She even has the blood proof to show for it.
She doesn’t realize until she looks up blurry eyed and the room spins, that she hasn’t eaten anything today. She must swoon a little, because Dan’s hand finds her back, holding her upright. She’s not sure how long they stay like that, the only thing separating them the fabric of her dress.
How did I get it so wrong? She thinks, but then Dan pulls his hand away, looks at her oddly. And she realizes she’s said it out loud.
“Well, for one thing, you married Chuck.” Dan says, and Blair thinks she’s never heard his voice so low without it being a whisper.
“I wasn’t supposed to.” She says,
“No.” He answers, but it wasn’t a question.
“No,” She echoes. They’re quiet a moment. Then she says, “I was supposed to marry Nate.”
He looks up at her, slightly surprised, and sees a young girl standing in front of him. A girl who is all control, planned all the way ahead. The loneliest person he’s ever met.
“Do you know,” She continues. “What it’s like to build something up in your head, for years, every step you take leading you there, only for all of it to come crashing down?”
Dan is really looking at her now. At the woman who was almost a princess, who lost a child she never met, who slept on his couch with her head on his shoulder because she had no one else. He loves her the same way he loved her all those years ago. He never stopped.
“I might.”
Blair drops her head to look at her hands, not because she’s admit defeat, but because she’s so tired.
“After I lost Nate, lost the life I was going to build for us, I had Chuck. I had our story all written out -“ She stops abruptly, immediately regretting her choice of words. She expects him to say And I had ours. But he doesn’t, he just says:
“I know.” Dan pushes his glass away and pushes himself to his feet. He walks past her, because he has admitted defeat. Some things just get easier the more you do them.
“You married Serena.” She says, and she hopes he doesn’t hear her voice threatening to break.
“I divorced Serena.”
“Annulled.” She states matter-of-factly, because she’s still Blair Waldorf. “You’d have to be married longer than seven months to get divorced.”
And she can’t see him, but she hears the chuckle.
“I guess neither of us got what we wanted.”
“I didn’t want Nate.”
“I didn’t want Serena.” It tastes bitter in his mouth, but it’s the truth. “But you wanted Chuck. You always wanted Chuck.”
She turns to face him.
“I wanted the same thing you did. An idea. But it’s... gone now. Maybe it was never there.”
“I don’t think we wanted the same thing.”
“This isn’t the place for this conversation,” she says, putting her hands on the bar to steady herself. But she knows they may never get this chance again, not for a long while anyway. She doesn’t fight when he continues.
“Why him, Blair. Why him and not me.”
Blair regrets her streak of telling the truth, because now she can’t stop.
“When a man loves Serena he never stops. I never had to share Chuck. He was only ever mine.”
“You could’ve given me more time.” He says, and there’s a desperation in his voice.
“We wouldn’t have lasted.”
“You tell yourself that. I’m sure we would’ve lasted longer than seven months.”
7 months. 7 years. 7 minutes.
Blair lets out a deep breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
“I thought, eventually, you would have looked inside me and you would have hated what you saw. I thought the only person who never would was him.”
“I could never hate you, Blair.” And the sound of his voice saying her name is enough to make her fall to pieces. “I saw everything I needed to see to know I wanted you.”
“Then why her, if she’s not who you wanted?” She says, her voice so frail now.
“I guess we can’t avoid making our parents mistakes.”
Dan turns to leave again, but stops himself. Because although they’re ripping open a poorly-stitched-never-healing wound, neither of them really want this conversation to end. The proximity is enough to keep them going.
“So that’s it then? You just stay with him forever?”
“I have to. For Henry.”
It’s Dan’s turn to face her.
“How are you going to explain to him that his parents don’t love each other?“
And she slaps him hard across the face, except she doesn’t, because her hand doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch.
“Chuck does love me.”
“Not the way you should be loved.”
She’s crying now, but pretends she doesn’t feel it, and Dan pretends too.
“He loves Henry.”
She lets her tears fall to the ground, small puddles on the hardwood. All at once, as fast as it came, the anger in her dissipates. She is so tired.
I’ve forgotten all of it. Now all I do is stand aside and watch. I want to know again.
And he is still Dan Humphrey, and he’s never been good at pretending. So he steps forward and wraps her in his arms, one hand on her head. “Hey,” he says, lips pressed against her hair. “We’ll figure this out.”
And she should push him off, wring herself from his grasp, hit her fists against his chest. But she doesn’t. She only leans in.