When it Rains, It Pours
By: pottersweetie

Author's Note: I don't believe I'm doing this, I really don't. I was always a hardcore Blair/Nate supporter, and I was furious at the end of the last book. I also believed that I would think the books were better than the show. But, I love the television show and Blair seems to fit more properly with Dan... In a weird, love/hate, tense, mixed-up kind of way. So I'm going to give it a shot. Enjoy, Read, Review!

Warning: This is based on the television series, jumping off sometime after 'Bad News Blair' and disregarding everything after that. Okay?

Chapter One
"Who says the river can't leave its waters?
Who says you walk in a line?
Who says the city changes its borders?
Who says you are mine?"
-Keane

Blair watched in disgust as Nate and Serena nearly stuffed their faces with pizza and fries, slurping down cokes, hardly coming up for air. She looked at the plate in front of her; salad with grilled chicken, not even a hint of dressing, and then she looked back at Serena and Nate. Her stomach rumbled violently but her lip curled a little, as if she wanted to vomit. Sure, she would have loved to shove the whole pizza down her throat and steal everyone's coke for herself, but she knew that could gain her twenty pounds in a single night and that alone made her hesitate in eating her own dinner. From across the table, beside Serena, Dan sat, watching them as well, slowly sipping his drink. His eyes met Blair's briefly, before he looked away and she subtly rolled her eyes.

Her last thread of patience was fraying at a rapid pace.

Serena had suggested this double date. She had been desperate for Nate and Blair to get along and be buddy-buddy with Dan, so she forced them all together. Blair thought it was ridiculous though. She believed that Serena could handcuff her to Dan Humphrey and throw them onto a desert island together, and that still wouldn't change her opinion of him in the least. But she had agreed to it, if only to get a date with Nate. After all, he was being so distant and weird, hardly hanging out with her at all, ignoring her calls. Just as Serena was desperate for all of them to be friends, Blair was desperate to get her boyfriend back.

So she had endured Avenue Q, the Broadway play Serena had suggested they all see. The stupid play had everyone in stitches, everyone except Blair and Nate. Nate, she noticed, kept darting glances at Serena and fiddling with his phone. When she touched his arm and sent him a curious look he only knotted his eyebrows in turn, as if he didn't know what she was talking about. Needless to say, she wasn't even concentrating on the show in front of her. Even when one actor came into the audience with his puppet and tried to joke with her. She had sent him a glare that could melt icebergs and he had made a joke about how he should have worn his armor or something. Dan laughed at that, if only slightly, and Serena giggled as well, which made Blair's blood boil. How dare this Dan guy laugh at her, he didn't even know her. Blair had wanted to hit someone, to hit someone so hard they wouldn't be able to fight back. Of course, that wasn't possible, so she settled for digging her nails into her palm and shooting Dan Humphrey dirty looks.

Once the puppet show-play had finished though, they had ended up at the pizza place, some horrible little Italian restaurant that fed greasy looking truckers and screaming little kids. Blair wanted to rip her hair out.

Nate was now happily stuffing his face, joking with Serena as they shoveled food into their mouths. But Blair and Dan were unusually silent. Dan, mostly because he looked tense, as if he felt he was some sort of interloper, and Blair, because her boyfriend was driving her crazy. It was becoming harder and harder for her to stand Nate's mood swings. One minute he would be reclusive and quiet, looking as if he were deep in thought, the next he would be laughing and joking, as if nothing had ever been wrong,

Maybe he's bipolar, Blair thought to herself, stabbing a green leaf on her plate, allowing herself to chew it and let it slide down her throat. She listened as Serena and Nate recalled the summer after their freshmen year, when their families had gone to Mexico together. Blair remembered it; they had gone skinny dipping in the hotel pool at nearly four in the morning and she had been desperately afraid Nate would see Serena's shimmering Venus of a body and dump her flat. Fortunately, the pool lights hadn't been on, so no one really shimmered, or even appeared to each other in the pitch blackness of the invisible moon.

The incessant volleying of memories between her best friend and boyfriend became almost unbearable.

"Dan," Serena said, "Have you ever been to Mexico?"

He replied bluntly, "No. I haven't."

Blair felt herself smirking, but she stopped before it could fully form into anything other than a small twitch.

"Nate, what was wrong during the play?" Blair asked, looking up hopefully into Nate's placid face. "I know something was wrong."

He looked down at her, no emotions flickered across his face, "Nothing, really," he shook his head.

They were standing outside of the grimy pizza place, Dan and Serena were talking only a few feet away about where to go next and Blair had pulled Nate aside, asking him the question that she wanted him to answer truthfully.

"I'm fine-"

"Hey guys," Serena cut him off. "Dan and I were thinking about heading to Serendipity."

Blair resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Serena's face was shining with hope, "Do you want to come?"

"I'm actually really tired," Blair said in return. "Besides, I have tennis tomorrow."

"Wouldn't want to be drowsy for tennis," Dan said a little dryly.

Blair shot him a dirty look before saying, "Yes, so I think I'll just go home. Nate, you'll drive with me, right?"

He looked taken aback for a minute, and then he seemed to remember himself, "Yeah, of course."

Blair smiled, "We'll see you guys later."

They all said goodbye, exchanging hugs and handshakes. When it came time for Blair to say goodbye to Dan she knew she wasn't going to hug him or shake his hand so she narrowed her eyes at him and gave him a little smirk.

"Humphrey."

He raised his eyebrows, "Waldorf."

She watched as he and Serena disappeared down the sidewalk, feeling as if this boy was competing against her in some way. But she soon ignored the feeling and turned back to Nate, ready to set her plan into motion. "Let's get a cab," she said, looking deeply into his eyes.

He nodded, "Okay."

Once they were safely seated in a cab and on their way down the street she put her hand on Nate's leg, looking at him deeply. He turned his head, looking at her as if he were surprised. She gave him a sweet smile and pressed her side against his. In return, he gave her an awkward little twitch of the lips, as if it was odd for his girlfriend to touch him. She gave his leg a little squeeze, briefly digging her nails into the material of his jeans.

Blair's heart was swaying between angry and desperate. Not only was she furious that Nate was acting so weird and distant, she also wanted him desperately. The idea of losing him to Serena, or to some other aspect of his life, made her sick.

And that was why, when they were standing in the vestibule, beside her front door, she took his coat and then took off hers. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Mummy won't be home until morning."

She watched as Nate's ears shifted on his head, as if his whole face had moved and tensed.

Taking hold of his shirt in her fist she pulled him along with her, dragging him to her bedroom. She kicked the door shut behind her and pushed him down on the bed. He looked up at her, mystified. Her anger pulsed and throbbed, writhing in her stomach like a storm-tossed ocean. Channeling all her anger into seduction she unbuttoned her Chanel blouse and looked at him heatedly. Instead of looking at her with love and wanting, Nate sat up, looking around her room.

Blair pulled off the rest of her shirt and then her jeans, crawling beside him in only her La Perla underwear. The look he gave her was far from what she wanted. Instead of pure, unadulterated love and lust, he looked hungry, but confused. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him deeply, she willed all the power she put into the kiss to make him wake up and start acting like the perfect boyfriend she knew he was.

Nate gave into the kiss, and it deepened, mostly from Blair's part though.

She began to gain some form of hope. Maybe he just needs me to prove my love to him, she told herself. Maybe if he sees how much I love him he'll snap out of this retarded funk he's in and he'll be completely devoted to me. She was convinced everything would change, and she put her all into making it so.

When all he did was kiss her back though, hands on her waist, not even moving to her hair or her neck, she thought he needed a little encouraging. So she tried to unbutton his shirt herself but that was when he pulled away.

"Blair, maybe-"

"Shhhh," she shushed him, pressing her lips against his, nearly sitting on top of him.

When she put her hand on the back of his head and kept his lips firmly in place, he realized he couldn't pull away, no matter how much he struggled. So finally, he pushed her away. Feeling as if she'd been slapped in the face, Blair looked up at Nate, her large eyes sad and questioning.

He cleared his throat, "We shouldn't do this."

Sadness turned to anger and she narrowed her eyes at him, "Why not?"

"Blair, I just don't think-"

"You refuse to do this with me," she said slowly. "But you'll do it with Serena."

Now he looked as if he had been slapped across the face, "That's not fair. That was a mistake-"

"Yeah, I'm not so sure it was," she said acidly.

He shook his head, looking at her comforter, quiet.

"What the hell is up with you?" she demanded, standing up. "You've been so weird and you've hardly talked to me since Serena came back! You were the one who kept apologizing, the one who kept saying you wanted us to be together, to forget about it, to move on! What the hell is this now!?"

Nate look confused, but slightly guilty, "What's what-"

"You! Your mood swings!"

He shook his head again, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't give me that shit Nate! Why are you lying to me?"

Blair felt her anger boiling over, spreading to her fingertips and toes. Not just her anger toward Nate, but also her sleeping anger toward Serena and even her anger toward Dan, who had only laughed at a puppeteer who had joked about her. But everything and everyone she was angry at, her Dad for leaving, her Mom, her whole life, everything came back to her and she channeled it against Nate, feeling as if she needed a release.

"All you ever do is lie to me Nate, and when you tell me the truth it's only to hurt me!" she screamed as he stood up too, walking to her so they were only a foot apart. "You lied to me about Serena, you lie to me about all the shit you and Chuck do, about your pot, about how you really feel and what's really going on! When are you going to start being a proper boyfriend and not an ass hole!"

He was turning angry, Blair knew this, his whole face was tensing and his eye twitched a little, "Blair, there's so much you don't understand-"

"Yeah? NO SHIT!"

He waited a beat and then moved toward the door, "Why you don't talk to me when you chill out a little? All right?"

Blair watched in uncut madness as he closed the door behind him. How dare he leave with the final word, how dare he not resolve this, she seethed. And then, she grabbed the nearest thing she could find, a framed picture of her and Nate at a sophomore mixer, and she hurled it against the door. As it flew she screamed, a low, guttural scream, that made her vocal chords vibrate angrily and tore at the inside of her throat. And then, she watched as the frame broke into little different pieces and showered down onto her hardwood floor like tiny shards of ice and metal.

Author's Note: Obviously very televison-show-based but there will be some mentions of little pieces of characterization and what-not from the book. Hope you liked it, reviewing is appreciated!