A/N: Final chapter guys! Firstly, I can't thank you enough for sticking with this story. I started this just after the second season during 2009, and so much has changed since then – not just in inexplicable Gossip Girl land, but in my life too. I think that's why I will always hold a special fondness for this story. The absurdity of the season five finale was definitely sad to watch and displayed how these writers can't write characters consistently; but Dan and Blair for me represented GG's best chance at having a romantic, sweet couple with crazy chemistry. The message those writers are sending out is indeed sad: that the guy who treats Blair like a piece of property is 'romantic' whilst the guy who loves and respects her and "loves me for me" is rejected. But I guess what can comfort Dair shippers like myself is this: Chuck/Blair is just a CW brand, and Dan/Blair had serious substance to them. Blair had an idea of what her relationship with Chuck was supposed to be, but it is illusion. She had the reality of great love with Dan, and the real tragedy for her is not losing what she never really had with Chuck, but losing what she shared with Humphrey.

And now, after the longest authors note in history; enjoy!

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I remember tears streaming down your face
When I said, "I'll never let you go"
When all those shadows almost killed your light
I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone"
But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight

- Taylor Swift, 'Safe and Sound'

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As a girl, Blair had always envisioned her wedding taking place during winter. However, with hindsight, she realises that winter meant being on the arm of Nate when he was staring at Serena. It meant promises and had tried and failed to keep, melting away like the snow. It meant a ruby ring and a heart pin and an idealised version of her leading man.

And Dan Humphrey is so much more than that.

So she sets the date for the fourth of June. Jenny can't use her studies as an excuse. That thought passes through her head without leaving a trace of bitterness.

Humphreys had a habit of helping over the years, she reasons. She seals the envelope containing an invitation in calligraphy.

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Dan decides that an elaborate bachelor party isn't his style. Besides, he considers it a mark of maturity that if he just keeps the gathering intimate, there's no chance of he and Chuck Bass getting drunk and dragging up the past, resulting in Chuck receiving that black eye Dan still owes him from all those years ago.

In fact, Dan dismisses the idea entirely. "I don't think having a drunken party is the best idea for looking good in the morning." Blair raises an eyebrow in response. "But you look beautiful. Always." He grins, and lets her know how grateful he is for the moments of simplicity and sweetness that never leave them, even when she's stressed in the way that a Waldorf woman gets when it concerns her wedding, by planting a kiss on her forehead.

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Dan is too nervous to even write something when Nate arrives at his door unannounced with two college pals – Jeremy and Anthony – Vanessa, and a few cases of beer and declares Dan's impromptu bachelor party.

"I doubt five people merits a party." Dan tells Nate.

"You're a writer, man." Nate replies, like that explains everything. "I tried to sway Georgina over to our side but she ditched you for Blair. I can only apologise."

"I can't say it's the first time I've wondered where her loyalties lie." Dan replies with an eyebrow raise. He keeps it good-natured.

"Listen man, I know you're apprehensive about the possibility of Chuck being there tomorrow –

"I was the one who suggested it," Dan cuts him off, watching Nate's eyes expand slightly. "At first she wouldn't invite him because she thought his presence would somehow make me insecure, but that's the point; I'm not. I wouldn't spend three years with a woman, let alone marry her, feeling insecure about it."

Nate nods slowly. "I get it." Silence settles between them. "The last time Serena and I were in a relationship, she cheated on me." With you goes unsaid, but Dan can't help but shoot his friend an apologetic look.

"Serena's a part of my past - an important one. I know the same is true for Blair and Chuck, so he should be there." Dan says resolutely.

"And you're sure it's not just the fact that you want to show the Upper East Side that a Brooklynite got the girl?" Nate jokes.

Dan sips his beer and allows his smile to betray him. "I got my girl." He corrects.

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It's strangely fitting, in a roundabout way, Blair thinks, that little J is here at her bachelorette party. Jenny was hesitant whilst Dan left her to make her own decision as to attend, but she tags along because she still remembers what it was to be fifteen, and craving approval from the Queen B.

Blair is busy reapplying her red YSL lipstick when her future sister-in-law's reflection appears in the mirror. The younger Humphrey is not wearing any black. And Blair notices a significant lack of eyeliner. "I have to ask," Blair begins, turning around to face the blonde, "what made accept the invitation? Was it Dan?"

"Honestly...I don't have a real reason. But my big brother is marrying Blair Waldorf, so this stopped making sense to me a long time ago." They can't help but laugh at how they both arrived at this point. Blair has images of placing a head band on the girl before her, when she thought her happy ending was so out of reach. She knows now that it was; that the end of high school was just another beginning, one that held so much promise.

And anyway, neither girl has a crown to fight for now.

"Your brother is the best part of my life." Blair says, and hopes Jenny understands how much she means that.

Jenny lets go of her resolve when she says, "Would you still be saying that if I had never slept with Chuck?" She braces herself for a slap.

Instead, Blair's lips curl up into a small smile.

"Dan became an important part of my life just as I was realising that Chuck wasn't worthy of that." Blair replies. "What you did was wrong at the time...but it wouldn't have changed my future, or the fact that somewhere along the way at college I stopped pretending to be Dan's friend and admitted to falling for him. He is annoying sweet."

Jenny stays silent.

"So I forgive you." Blair says. "And just so you know, I've only extended this type of forgiveness once before and its name is Serena."

"Good. Because my brother isn't a consolation prize." Jenny responds, surprised by how stern she sounds.

"Little J. When have I settled for second best?" Blair grins wickedly, and that's that.

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"As entertaining as it would be to rattle some old cages," Georgina says to Blair after ordering cocktails, "I do sincerely hope you and little Humphrey are on amicable terms."

"Strange you should say that." Blair sighs. "I guess after all this time we both had some explaining to do." Georgina doesn't probe any further. She doesn't have to.

"I got you a pre-wedding gift." She says with that streak of mischief Blair has come to know so well. (And love, maybe, but who needs to know that.)

"I hope it isn't more champagne." Blair mocks, remembering how Georgina had showed up at her first day in the office with a bottle of champagne, wearing oversized sunglasses.

Instead, Blair unwraps a cabbage patch kid. "Although my obsession with these ended approximately at age seven, I still appreciate the gesture, G." She wraps her friend in a hug.

"Oh really? Because I remember how Humphrey got you one for your nineteenth birthday." Georgina smiles, and it's the most earnest Blair has ever saw her being. "You were still in a daze, I think, after everything. All I really remember is much he made you laugh."

Blair feels a wave of gratitude for her friend in that moment. "Thank you. For everything." Blair looks at the woman sitting beside her and wonders how the hell she went from her arch enemy, to scheming buddy, to the friend that never let their friendship falter since they both grudgingly acknowledged once at a drunken dorm party when Dan persuaded them that they were in fact, kindofmaybesortof friends. "I know S is my maid of honour – she's like my sister. But you've always been here for me during and after NYU." Blair breathes. "Thanks for never leaving, Georgie."

Georgina's eyes start turning glassy and she slaps Blair's arm lightly. "Whatever."

"That comeback was lacklustre. Has the scandalous secret-holder's heart actually been warmed?" Blair feigns shock.

"Yes, well." Georgina regains her composure and sips her drink. "Witnessing a love story akin to a fucking Taylor Swift album over the years has some unexpected effects."

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"Good morning, my sexy writer, intellectual, handsome husband. You know that I am getting ready with S in the morning with about five hours sleep, but you said I am always beautiful and when I am with you I feel like it. I hope you feel the same...I love how serious you look when you're writing, I love it when you let your hair grow long, but I love it even more that you cut it for our day! I love your book and all the other books you're going to write, and I know that your vows will probably be better than mine, and it's not fair because you have a special brain, but I can't even bring myself to care because I love you and we're getting married tomorrow! And I am going to love our flawless, cultured children. Okay, this is what you reduced me, Blair Waldorf to. An excited , drunken wreck. I love you. And now I must go to dispel Serena's accusations of intoxication."

Dan receives that voicemail an hour after his friends leave.

He has never felt so sure of himself before.

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Blair scrutinises the finished product in the mirror. Vera Wang. White lace. Simple make-up, her hair in soft curls. Whenever they would raid Barneys, Serena was constantly tell Blair how beautiful she was in the dressing room.

Today, she believes her fully for the first time.

"I'm getting married. I can't believe it." Blair lets the admission slide out. "I mean, I'm ready...I'm just surprised. The sixteen year old girl in me is surprised."

"Well, if we had swapped boyfriends earlier it would have saved a lot of drama." Serena concedes. Blair wonders when they began joking about it, but she's grateful for Serena's light-hearted view of the situation anyway. She glances at the Van der Bilt diamond on Serena's finger and has to laugh at how different their weddings have been – Nate and Serena eloped.

Serena's hand stays on Blair's shoulder and she gives her friend a look that holds the kind of emotion that says please be happy and you're my sister and I love you all at once. It startles Blair because it's true. "I'm glad you ended up with the one who loves you for who you are, B."

Blair doesn't cry. She just agrees. "Me too, S."

The embrace they find themselves in untangles as Eleanor enters the room. "Girls." She greets as Serena winks at Blair and makes her exit.

"These were your grandmother's." Eleanor hands her daughter a box containing a pair of earrings. But Blair knows her mother is here to give her something more important than that.

"I'm nervous." Blair says simply.

"You're taking a risk with the rest of your life." Her mother replies in a sincere tone. "Like I did with you father. And then with Cyrus."

Blair's eyes roll, but Eleanor continues."Harold was not the man I had made up inside of my head. They never are." Her smile is knowing. "People look at Cyrus and I and only see how different we are and how different our backgrounds are. What they don't know is that is our vital strength, as a couple."

Blair doesn't need to elaborate to understand.

"The risk is worth it. Your happiness is worth it, Blair."

Blair knows she was once a girl who knew how to play by the rules, do what was expected, a girl who knew how to hide. But she also know all of that started changing when she started making Humphrey her exception.

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"Are you ready, son?" Rufus asks with a gruffness that suggests he already knows the answer.

Dan nods and thinks about how his father married Lily, and the peace she brought to him when they did. Yet she was a woman from another world, it had once seemed. But they found their way in the end, Dan muses.

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All Blair thinks walking down the aisle, Harold's arm looped through hers, is; finally.

It makes her wonder why she reacted so strongly after his proposal. Blair Waldorf was almost terrified by the extent of her feelings for the man waiting for her.

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Blair devised a lengthy guest-list for the occasion with all the people who mattered, but she is oddly unaware of anyone else surrounding them.

"Humphrey," she begins with a coy smile, at which Georgina lets a stifled sob escape her, "You're my best friend. Sorry, S." There's laughter. She smiles again – she cannot stop doing that lately. "And falling in love with you has been the best experience of my life. I know, standing here today, that I'll never really be able to let myself stop loving you. You sacrificed everything without hope of return. And I am going to spend the rest of my life adoring you for it."

Dan doesn't cry. Men don't cry. Even the sensitive writer types.

He tries to swallow to no avail. He hopes that his vows can actually sound coherent in his current state.

"Waldorf," he begins in the same vein, "Although at one point I thought you encompassed everything I loathed about the Upper East Side, our love is simple and undeniable. So I'll just say this: somewhere along our friendship I realised that you are not the Queen of schemes. You're a princess with plans all of her own and I could not be happier, or luckier that you chose me to be a part of them."

Blair stares in the warm brown eyes in front of her, and she just may lose her signature Waldorf composure.

And then he slips her wedding band seamlessly on her finger, and he thinks about how many beginnings they have shared before; college, friendship, romance. Something vibrant glimmers in Blair's eyes though – she's so genuinely happy – and this beginning becomes his favourite.

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Madison Humphrey is watching her best friend Cassandra Archibald flipping through her parents photo album, and she can't figure out why her friend is so captivated. It's just mom and dad, after all.

"Your mom is super pretty here, Maddy." Cassandra notes, staring down at the photos through the curtains of her pale blonde hair. They're waiting for her parents to leave so they can call their friends and raid daddy's liquor cabinet and sample some of her mom's wine collection. Maybe Marcus Baizen could score them some weed, but Maddy was not prepared to face the wrath of her parents if anyone found out. And auntie G was unusually uptight these days, despite all the shenanigans she had told the girls about during her teenage days.

"Girls, I've given Dorota the night off." Blair informs them, pausing when she walks into the lounge when she sees her wedding album in Cassie's hands. "So please prove to me that I can trust two fifteen year old Upper East Siders."

"Oh I wouldn't worry, mom. We won't be doing anything you didn't do." And Madison smiles that mischievous smile inherited straight from her mother. It was really disconcerting to Blair sometimes – when during the week she would find Maddy in her room reading Fitzgerald, shut away from the rest of the world – and then the weekend came, and she would find a new plan to execute along with her best friend.

"When we come back just don't be surrounded by a harem of boys." Blair warns. "But I told G Marcus is more than welcome."

"But that doesn't mean we can't have boys over whilst you're gone, right dad?" Madison puts on her best winning smile as her dad enters the room to say goodbye. Last night was her dad's new book launch and they had celebrated afterwards – Dan had allowed his daughter her first few glasses of champagne, and now he was worried that he had given her too much of a taste.

"No." Dan replies, kissing his daughter's forehead. "Goodbye, Maddy. Cassandra." He nods.

And then Madison watches her mom loop her arm through her dad's, and then she rolls her eyes.

"Can you believe they're going to the opera? Getting old has to be the most boring experience." Madison sighs.

"Not when it's with the love of your life." Cassandra replies, a dreamy air to her voice. Madison knows she's the realist in this friendship.

"Stop it. Imagine if it were me talking about your mom and dad like that!" She throws a cushion that hits her best friend's head.

"But they're just so sweet!" Cassandra says, mocking.

"Eugh, you're right. It's sickening." She tucks a brown curl behind her ear, looking for Marcus' number on her phone, and makes a note to ask her mom later how she fell in love; if she knew when she did instantly; or was it something that grows; blossoming as she gazed at him? "Somewhere Taylor Swift is probably writing a song about this."

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fin.