A/N: Read and Review. Flaming welcome. :)

If you and I aren't meant to be, then I don't know anything

-Dawson's Creek

XOXO

Carter takes one look around her home—at its Italian-shipped tiles and post-modern furniture—then smiles ruefully. He's not even slightly impressed by the Badgley Mischka designed fabric on her lounge. "Where are you, S?"

Excuses for the mansion rush to her tongue. The house was a present. Nate loves it. But she's done nothing wrong (recently). Nothing at all. It's not her fault she didn't turn out the way he wanted. She's never been what anyone wanted. It's everyone else's fault that they could never see what she really was. "Are you angry at what I am, or that you're not the one with me?"

Carter glowers. Not at her, but everything around her. But then he laughs, quiet and insincere. "Aren't you?"

She shakes her head, but Carter's fingers stroke along her jaw till her eyes fix on his face. She knows what he's doing and she doesn't stop him. Doesn't say a word.

His kiss is slow and soft. Silky lips leave her feeling desperate and hungry. She pulls away, face warm and head spinning. "Don't do that."

"I know you, Serena." You won't be happy here. You won't be trapped here. You can't live with what ifs. You grab life with both hands and now you're letting me and the world slip through your fingers.

Restless fingers twirl in her necklace till the sapphire ring on the end digs sharply at her skin.

"Get out." She's won't be that girl anymore.

"Anything you want." He turns away. Spotting Nate in the doorway he adds an insinuating, "Anytime, beautiful."

With a grin and a friendly clap on Nate's tense back, he's gone. He catches a flight out that night, knowing how much Serena hates to be left behind. She'll hear about his adventures and someday soon she'll start looking up at every plane that crosses the sky. Watching and wondering.

Mission accomplished.

XOXO

Blair and Chuck arrive promptly at seven for dinner. A wide-eyed maid lets them in and with closed ears leads them through to the sitting room.

For a moment Blair and Chuck just stare at each other, not reacting to Nate's strained voice or Serena's hisses. Blair looks around, quickly settling for yesterday's Financial Review. Chuck watches on as Blair nonchalantly flips through the pages.

"What's going on, Blair?" He doesn't believe for one second that Blair's either uninterested or uninformed.

She looks over the pages innocently. "How should I know?"

"You always know."

Blair simpers. "I'm hungry."

"So I have to—?" But Blair's already turned back to the newspaper. Of course he has to. Doesn't he always?

Their words become clearer the closer Chuck gets to the dining room.

"Why can't you just believe me?" Serena pleads.

"You forget." Nate throws the words back into her face, "I know you, Serena."

"You know noth—" She catches Chuck's bland face. With a last glare at Nate she spins on her heel. "I'll check on dinner."

Nate disappears up the stairs, mumbling something about a shower.

Before Chuck can even turn, Blair's at his side. She rests her hands gently around his arm, like something from a Jane Austen novel he's never read. "Well, this isn't going to be uncomfortable at all," she murmurs.

Is that a simper or a smirk? He looks, trying to decipher the shadows behind her cool brown eyes. "I can't help but think…" What have you done?

"As long as you think it, not say it," she snaps. "Aren't you going to get my chair?" she adds breezily.

XOXO

She's not unhappy. That's not it at all. But did her ring always weigh so much? Did it have to be so obvious?

Suddenly she can see the cords tying her down. But this is love, isn't it?

Nate doesn't drink—well, not with her. But he has friends and workmates. One night, she stays in the city—dinner and wine with girlfriends—to pick Nate up.

He smiles, grins brilliant and charming. They spin on Manhattan streets, kiss until she's breathless and giggling.

He nuzzles her neck, warm lips brush against her ear. "I love you, so much. So much." His hands rove down her back, massaging her flesh. His voice comes soft and hot in her ear. "God, I wish I didn't."

XOXO

They spend Christmas together at the Archibald's Hampton house, the way Blair use to plan they would. Only Nate is married to Serena and she's married to Chuck, but she can see the skeleton bones of her dreams in Chuck's sardonic wearing of a Christmas hat and Nate bent over his new toys. Serena might not be drunk, but she's clearly trying.

The blonde is on her back under the tree, running a discarded ribbon across the floor for her puppy to chase.

Chuck throws a whole bush of mistletoe at her along with an overtly sleazy wink. Serena giggles, tosses it back and flips him off.

"We should get a real tree next year, Natie." She shoots her husband a vague and tipsy smile.

"The fake one suits us better."

Nate doesn't look up from his scuba set, and Serena's smile is frozen in place as she goes back to playing with the puppy.

Chuck's hand in hers is a comfort, but there's no flesh here anymore.

XOXO

Serena nearly gets lost one day—not lost in the sense of upside down maps and unfamiliar streets, she just gets this unshakable feeling that she's in the wrong place.

She thinks about going to the airport, wondering if she'll see right written on the departures screen, but she's already got bags in her hands. Can't get on a plane with that many bags. For a dizzying second she thinks even if she drops the bags and bolts, the plane still wouldn't be able to take off under all her baggage.

She finds herself at The Palace bar, asking for vodka martinis, even though they give her a migraine now. Nate can smell gin even under breath mints.

She doesn't even blink when, like clockwork, Chuck walks in an hour before he's supposed to finish work. It's kind of their thing now: uptown bars and painful banter. She doesn't bother questioning how he knew she was there, just accepts it as the mixed-blessing he always is.

Most people would consider this a bad meeting place, after truffle oil, bar fucks, and countless digressions. But Chuck and Serena aren't most people. They know their mistakes, inside and out. Know that you can run forever and a mile and the only thing you can escape is a time zone. So they wallow in their mistakes, hoping they'll remember to make less.

He slips, silent and confident, into the stool beside hers, barely looks at her as he signals the bartender.

She bites her lip, twirling a toothpick in her fourth martini. Chuck has a tendency to make things either much better or much worse.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..."

Her lips quirk, glad he's chosen better, but she doesn't have the energy for a smile. "...I walk into yours."

He turns the full weight of his gaze on her, amused and piercing. Only the vodka stops her from flinching. She doesn't want Chuck in her head today; it's not a nice place.

She finishes her fifth, before they talk again.

"Does it get easier?"

"What?" His lips move into that wonderful smirk, so ready to be amused by the fucked up nature of life.

She doesn't want to say the things she thinks, doesn't know how to tell him how awful she feels most of the time. Alone one minute, crowded the next. "Being good...You know?"

He did know. Marriage. Monogamy. Monotony.

Chuck is uncharacteristically hesitant. Yes would be the right answer, the comforting one. He finally settles on, "If you're with the right person."

He knows what he's implying, knows how his response will burn.

Serena smiles grimly. "And you are?"

"I am." The answer is instantaneous, not even a hint of doubt. Because there was none. He married his perfect partner. He's just not certain Blair married hers.

Two more drinks and Serena is malleable enough to shove in a town car and send back to the Hamptons.

He hopes she can keep her buzz through dinnertime.

XOXO

Blair expects Serena's calls, waits for those marriage complaints almost eagerly. But they don't come. If Nate has complaints, Chuck won't say. Serena loses ten pounds, and covers it up with more highlights and a new Spring wardrobe.

She sits in bed, drinking a gimlet.

Chuck buries his face in a pillow, letting out a harsh, "Leave them alone, Blair."

You're doing enough of that for the both of us.

But she sips her drink in silence. She can't just sit while Serena fades. She looks at the big picture, sees no light at the end of the tunnel.

She calls Carter, gets sent to voicemail.

Serena was ever the photogenic one.

She does not do this for herself.

XOXO

They fight. It's big and awful and by the end she's crying and can't remember why. Nate balls the photos up in his fist, throws some out the window, throws the rest in her direction.

She's everywhere, in bikinis on beaches and bars, in bed in less than that. And always Carter is there. With a smile despite her flesh covering his mouth.

"They're old, Nate!" She folds the photo's corners over and over again.

"But, why do you have them?"

I don't know. I don't. The photo tears in her hands, breaking that pretty smile.

XOXO

For the second time in a month, Nate watches as she stumbles out of Chuck's town car, hair mussed, lipstick gone. And he wants to know so badly his heart stops for a single beat. Where were you? Why are you drunk? Was it Blair? Why is it never me?

At dinner her hands feel thick and clumsy.

Nate doesn't look at her, not once. Not even when she drops a glass and it splits in two.

"That was a wedding present, you know." He slices at his salmon, face empty.

I'll fix it. But the words don't come out. She grabs her bag and walks out the door. There's always an empty suite at The Empire and the hotel staff can remember who her mother was married to, even if one or two of the husbands slip her mind on occasion.

Be good. Be good.

She tries, she really does, but her fingers move by themselves and her phone is ringing before she can realise she's not eating dinner anymore.

XOXO

Blair wants to play her cards carefully, wants to be a friend. But that's not what they are. Not really. So she cups Serena's face, swiping away a mascara stained tear with her thumb. "Leave, S," she whispers fiercely. "Just leave him."

The blonde shakes her head violently. "I can't."

Blair tries to find something she can understand on Serena's face. "Why? Do you love him that much? Do you love me so little?"

"No!" She sucks in a shaky breath. "I do. I mean… I love him. But I signed up for better or worse. I meant it. I did." She didn't lie. She can't just leave. He's her husband.

And she will not be her mother.

Blair struggles not to stamp a foot in childish anguish. "You did not sign up for a lifetime of misery!"

"I'm not miserable," she murmurs. Her eyes close and more tears overflow.

"'Course not. You look perfectly fine," Blair snaps back.

Serena cracks open an eye and lets out a wet laugh that quietly turns into hiccupping sobs. She covers her face with her hands, leaning her head against Blair's stomach.

Blair gazes down worriedly, letting her hands run down Serena's hair.

Serena's voice comes to her faint and mumbled through her dress. "I don't know why I can't just be happy."

XOXO

Plans are laid before she gathers her Xanax-laden bravery less than a week later.

I'm sorry, Nate. I always meant to love you more.

Is that all you can say?

We tried, didn't we?

She can't really remember what was said. Just the tightness of her throat, Nate's not-quite-tears, and the knowledge that those ropes tying her down might be the only thing keeping her from sinking.

XOXO

Blair doesn't sleep on Tuesday night. Excitement and fear duel it out till she gives up and heads to her office. Nerves make it hard for her to concentrate and her mind can't follow any line of thought. By seven a.m. she has to use more concealer than Vanity Fair would ever approve of just to cover up the dark circles.

Her day is just a blur of faceless employees and approved sketches she knows she'll have to go over again. She's only a tad disappointed when Serena isn't there when she gets home.

By nightfall she's already cried twice.

It's an hour before midnight when the elevator finally opens.

Blair's reading dry-eyed in the sitting room. Sobbing and waiting for something that will never be hers is embarrassing. Never again, she swears to herself.

She doesn't look up when Serena comes in. She can already tell that the blonde isn't carrying any bags. She can already guess the expression, the excuses. The I'm-so-sorries and Nate-really-needs-mes already leave her bitter and hollow

The silence drags on till her almost-tears turn into an anger she can barely breathe through.

She throws her novel to the ground and stands in the swirl of her silk robe. Blair breaks—tears well and words that barely make sense pour out. "What, Serena? What?"

And Blair should have looked up earlier, because Serena's already broken.

The blonde's a mess of reddened eyes, and tangled hair and she would cry at Blair's screams—because for all their million fights Blair's never really screamed at her—but she's all dried up and no words are going to change that. Slowly she walks to Blair's side and crumples onto the lounge. Her eyes close she doesn't want to know what Blair's expression will be. She doesn't even know if she can live with her own pain.

"I'm pregnant, B"

And that's enough.

Blair sits back down and doesn't say a word. There are none. She can't even summon a flippant congratulations. Serena lays her head in Blair's lap and there's a desolate loneliness on her face that Blair can feel echoed in every molecule of her body. And suddenly Blair knows what all those black and white movies tried to convey. It was Ashley's face when Mellie died and what Ilsa must have looked like on board that plane.

That's what a broken heart looks like.

A decade of evasions, and boyfriends, marriages and fights—they pale beside this. Because Serena is pregnant. And Serena will never leave Nate now. And Blair and Serena will never be together. And neither one of them will lift a finger to change that.

They curl up together and Blair clings as if Serena is the last solid object in her world. Serena feels real and soft. She traces her fingers over the planes of a face more familiar than her own. There's the thin trembling eyelids, and spiky eyelashes of darkest gold. Heated cheeks, clammy with dried tears. (Remember this.) She leans close to golden waves that smell like vanilla and citrus. (Remember this). Just once she presses her lips against Serena's and she tastes like warmth and home. (Remember this.) Blair doesn't shut her eyes for a long time, watching as Serena's breath evens out and tension and disappointment flee for a few hours of peace.

Remember this.

Because it's all you have.

XOXO

Serena makes a million promises to the bundle of cells in her stomach. Little ones and big ones.

I'll never make you wear dresses when you want to wear jeans.

I'll be there for every birthday.

You'll never feel like an outsider in mommy's new marriage.

They all say the exact same thing.

I'm not Lily.

It's odd, because she didn't want this baby. She wasn't even certain she was going to keep it. She's still not sure she made the right choice. She's not maternal and she knows she'll make more mistakes than anyone can forgive.

But she's fallen in love. Fallen like she hasn't since she was fifteen and not quite innocent.

XOXO

Nate is an hour and a half plane ride away when Blair gets the call.

She doesn't know what to do. Every ounce of socialite poise and Queen B calm melts at the sound of Serena whimpering and making little-girl sounds of agony.

It feels like forever and she's never been so thrilled to see Nate in her life. Nate looks at least as overwhelmed as she feels. His hair sticks up in odd clumps, like his hand has been running through it constantly.

"Where is…? Why aren't you…?"

"They have to do an…." Emergency isn't a word anybody wants to hear right now. "They're doing a C-section, so we can't be in there. But it's good, quicker this way."

Nate's eyes fly wide as all colour leaves his face.

"She's fine, Nate." She'll say it till it's true.

"Yeah, yeah," he repeats, but not like he believes it.

"Hundreds of women are doing the exact same thing, at this very minute. Serena and the baby are going to be fine." The words would be more convincing if Chuck didn't have that deathly stillness around him.

But as always, Chuck's right. It's only a thirty minute surgery before they get to meet the newest, nameless Archibald. Serena looks a little dazed, but almost uncannily healthy, as if she could do this every day. Serena's mother and her Humphrey tag-alongs arrive shortly after. She takes the baby, while Nate continues to touch white wisps of hair in awe.

"You see it?" Chuck asks. His discomfort around the Humphreys has subsided to the point that he can barely tell if they're in the room or not. Lily or no Lily, Serena was family.

"Yeah," she whispers from Serena's side, brushing golden locks back in an exact mimicry of Nate.

"You'll look after her?" Serena breathes, one eye on Blair, the other on her baby. She doesn't want Nate to hear. Blair's taken care of her for more years than she can count, there's no one she trusts more.

She makes Blair and Chuck godparents before her mother can look disapproving and remind her of how responsible Jennifer is. It feels good. Blair and her made the godmother promise over a fruit rollup.

The promises made at eight have a sacredness her post-puberty ones lack.

XOXO

Lilianne Rose Archibald, Lila, lives up to everything expected from a child of Nate and Serena. With flaxen blonde hair and smoky blue eyes, she's Lily all over. She's quick to tears, quicker to giggles, and never in one place for more than a second.

Blair doesn't expect to like her. Not only were children annoying in general, this one had cost her Serena. But she becomes Arny Beee and all of the sudden those smiles she faked won't go away. Unka Chars does not have the same effect on Chuck. Not in public, anyway.

She holds onto the information, wonders whether to stay silent. Lila sits on Serena's lap and they play an uncoordinated clapping game.

"I heard Carter got married," Blair says suddenly.

Chuck and Nate give her an unhappy glance.

Serena pauses for a second, looks into the distance. Lila keeps clapping and Serena laughs, coming back to the present.

"Good. I hope he's happy."

XOXO

They don't expect to be good parents. There's always a nanny and a maid and someone there behind them, making sure they don't screw up the only truly pure thing they've ever done. But when Serena's alone with Lila, just playing, making sure she doesn't eat her blocks, it's good.

She talks to Nate, they fall asleep next to each other, but they don't heal for a long time. They're too tender and so afraid of being hurt again.

Serena rolls onto her stomach, wanting every inch of her skin to get its fair share of sunshine. Nate and Lila play their favourite game in only half a foot of water. Lila clings to her daddy's legs, but she can't walk yet and even standing is a shaky experience. She gets knocked over by the waves last breath more often than not. She goes under and Nate reaches down to heave her up giggling and sputtering water.

Serena tells them when to stop, when she can see her daughter's giggles quietening with exhaustion.

Nate pours a bucket of water on her tanning back and tries to blame Lila.

XOXO

One day she finds Nate on a pool lounge. He's still in his suit, papers strewn all around him. Neither one have the energy for life let alone work.

She tiptoes closer, and can see he's sleeping peacefully. She brushes her lips over his eyelids, moves her fingers under his shirt. Her lips travel to his throat and up again. By the time her mouth reaches his, she's tugging at his zipper and his hands have her dress over her hips.

For one moment she knows where she is. Nate's under her, inside her, clutching her tightly, but she's not trapped.

They try to catch their breath, but fail when they spot her bra drifting in the pool.

She's not trapped, because this is the only place she wants to be.

XOXO

They're given two years. Two years when what they have is enough. In those two years they're given so much that nothing will ever feel like enough again.

XOXO

Blair keeps her mind clear of everything except hurry. Why did they have to live so far out? Damn Serena and her obsession with living everyday like it was Spring Break.

The sun's just beginning to set when Blair pushes the front door open. Serena's right there on the stairs, head slumped against the wall. Blair sits beside her, wraps her cold hand in both of hers.

"Is she…?"

"They took her away, Blair." She flinches at her own voice. Her head was so empty it was surprising when something actually came out.

She was playing in the waves, but Nate wasn't there and the nanny didn't know the game.

Blair wraps her in those ever-strong arms and they only move when Chuck rushes in. He touches Serena's cheek, but has no words. He travels slowly up the stairs, knowing he has to find something better in himself before he sees Nate.

Sometime in the future, Chuck will watch Serena run from the world without ever leaving her bedroom and he will wonder if he should have found those words before he found Serena.

XOXO

Serena sees Nate sitting in their rotunda. She sits beside him, not quite touching.

His eyes aren't red anymore. They're even worse. Those brilliant, cornflower-blue eyes are dull, and just a little bit frantic around the edges.

He gathers her into his arms, resting his head atop hers. She wishes it felt more like comfort and less like he expected her to disappear if he wasn't clinging tight.

"We can be happy again," he murmurs into her hair.

"I know." She buries her face in his chest, and he feels like every childhood dream she never knew she had.

So they try again. And again.

But they'd already had so many chances.

It was only fair that they had none left.

XOXO

Fin...