In The End Close Is All There Is, a gossip girl fanfic

A/N: Set sometime post 3x14. This follows on from All I Wanted Was You. I know the whole giving-back-the-sweater has been done a lot, but now it's my turn to see what I can do with it. The song is Sleep by Azure Ray. I personally feel this oneshot is really...weird in style and definitely different from other stories I've written, and I can't say I'm completely satisfied, but I guess that's something that comes with being a BN fan regardless. I'd really appreciate a review on this one.

In The End Close Is All There Is

Fill these spaces up with days
in my room you can go, you can stay
I can't sleep
I can't speak to you
I can't sleep

Amidst the gracious giving of advice in regards to the literal golden couple, the indisputable fact remains that Blair Waldorf believes that in the most intimate way, Nate belongs to her. And maybe that's an unfounded belief at this stage, but if Blair's built herself on anything; it's that same unwavering belief, founded or not.

She's picking them apart, attempting to draw the lines that were skewed a long time ago, but the lines have been so harshly reinforced now – it's Chuck and Blair, and Nate and Serena, and it's perfect. It should be perfect. The cunning, gorgeous brunettes who are steps away from having the world outside of the one they already rule, and their blonde counterparts to bring the fun times. On paper, it's all so painfully perfect.

Now that I'm with Chuck I can see that Nate and I were only perfect on paper.

She's been a fool; she knows she has been before, for thinking that first love could fade that fast, even the shadows of Chuck's deep dark eyes aren't enough to eclipse memory.

Moments when they were five, running around after each other in a snow laden central park; Nate had tore her red plaid jumper once he clung so fiercely to her (and he'd tear more than that) Moments when they were thirteen, first kisses, first dates and first Valentines, moments when they ended up back at that same park by that same lake to renew those same promises. Moments when they were sixteen and without their Serena, but it didn't really matter, ultimately, because that girl was made for breaking hearts and Nate and Blair could heal together. And by the time they were, she was back again. And when she was back again, she'd take whatever she wanted, because Blair isn't stupid enough to think that Serena didn't let her have the crown. Now, she so clearly wants Nate.

Moments when they weren't scrutinised on paper, and they were still perfect.

The best, and sometimes the only way to connect with Serena is physically. There had been no shortage of that in Nate's latest relationship and he's content, happy even. It's easy with her, always has been.

It's so strange, even after all these years of being their golden boy, that he's still fascinated by how completely they are, yet two halves of the same heart.

He tells her, a lot, about how much he's waited for this. It's not stretching the truth at all, and that's why it all feels so...anti-climatic. So routine. So lets-just-throw-ourselves-together-because-Chuck-and-Blair-would-approve.

If only he knew Blair's rating.

And it's only when he looks back at Blair as she walks away in her adopted Anna Karenina persona that he realises; he's been the stupidest guy in the Upper East Side to squander the chance to be the star of her movie.

The brunette tells her blond best friend that she needs to challenge Nate more. And Blair can't tell if she's correcting her mistakes with Nate, or giving Serena the worst advice possible, because Blair herself challenged Nate more than anyone, and it all leads to heartbreak in the end anyway.

Now these years locked on my drawer
I'll open to see just to be sure
I can't sleep
I can't speak to you
I can't sleep

Serena stays over at his place for the night and she's scanning for old photographs and memories as usual, rummaging through everything she can. Interaction between her and her boyfriend has been reduced to a montage of sex that's passionate and almost maniacal, but it fizzles out. She can be entranced by those beautiful glistening green eyes all she wants – but she knows they've looked the same way towards her best friend at one point or another.

Challenges. Serena wasn't accustomed to those at any point in her life, maybe with exception of Dan, who challenged her completely. They weren't meant to be together, but simultaneously had to be together to change each other for the better. Sometimes, she misses him, when she lets herself. Not romantically, but more as a shoulder to lean on. She knows there's only so much she can discuss about Nate around Blair.

Somewhere along the night as she accidently tumbles sweaters when she sees a shoebox, a moss green cashmere sweater literally lands in her face, blinding her for a few seconds.

It smells likes years ago – Nate's signature scent of pot and sandalwood. She smiles sheepishly before feeling something odd, and her fingers collide with a little gold charm. A golden heart.

Blair.

Serena van der Woodsen has never known pure jealousy, not before this moment.

When Chuck is distressed, the world's walls tumble. Revenge is sworn, hearts are broken, friendships marred. When he is happy, then and only then, are the other three allowed to be happy. Blair curses that fact sometimes, but then, she got herself into this, and she knows all too well she'll never be out.

And having his mother in his life makes him happy, just as Serena said it would.

Serena says - the Upper East Side does.

When Blair places an embellished hair-band on (old habits), looks herself straight in her brown eyes, she thinks that, maybe, all along, it was Chuck and Serena commanding the four of them. That Queen B and her golden Prince were the real pawns all along. The hair-bands were crowns of a Queen only in title; not in actuality.

The four of them wake up for the fourth consecutive morning in Chuck's suite. Serena's sprawled over the Italian leather couch, Nate is making the type of breakfast you actually eat and Blair observes him thoughtfully, smiling, and no, she doesn't think of what it could have been like, waking up to find Nate Archibald cooking for you.

"Don't worry, I made you some too." He says handing her a plate of waffles, bacon, eggs – the works. The moment reminds her of how he was always making an effort to make sure she was eating.

"Thanks Archibald." She smiles and prepares for ensuing small talk, for fear of what would happen if they discussed anything that's serious.

"How is he?"

"Happy. We'll see how long that lasts."

He lets a hollow laugh escape, something that's uncharacteristic of him. She wouldn't have expected it, now that he's with his dream girl and all.

Dream girl. Blair knows that girl better than anyone, and so she knows that every boy in Serena's life has a conception about her, usually unfounded. And then she wonders if Nate will really pin her down, and she just cannot see it. Because having Serena in your life, in a strange way, was like having a dream and then you'd wake up and she'd be gone, again.

"We'll see." He agrees.

The post-breakup awkwardness between them dissolves in that conversation, and they make plans for double dates, talk about their glory days at Constance and Nate thinks they're too young to be sentimental, but she just makes him.

"He's been okay with you...right?" Nate asks, knowing its dangerous territory, but it's never stopped him before.

"It's hard. And tiring. But we're happy. All of us are happy, right?"

And she wonders how the fight for happiness could be so hard when she once had it so easily.

Nate takes her cleared plate and finishes his coffee. "We're happy." He replies, not looking into her eyes.

Oh God, I missed that; dating someone who's a horrible liar.

Blair's lips curl up in a half-smile and her eyes fall to his lips. "I meant what I said earlier...I do miss someone who lets me in. Someone who couldn't lie to save his life...I guess now you're finally with the one. Is it...is she..."

She doesn't even know what she wants to say or ask. Or rather, she does, but she knows she has no right to that anymore. That fact couldn't upset her more, because this is the boy she would have given everything else up for.

"It's..." He trails off, "different."

"Obviously," Blair says softly. "I really hope you two are happy. I know she can make you happy."

So why is she so strongly trying to convince herself, if she already knows?

She walks away, knowing Chuck is waiting for her down at the bar, when Nate says her name and her breath catches.

"You know I wasn't lying when I said you made me happy, then." Is all he says, and it's enough to haunt Blair for the rest of her days.

And so I'm reaching out for the one
And so I've learned the meaning of the sun
And all this like a message comes to shift my point of view
And watching through my own light
As it tints the shade of you

"What is this?" She demands sternly, her eyebrows rising so high Nate expects them to hit the ceiling.

"I'm returning what I stole, I guess." He replies weakly as she flings the already opened package on his bedside bureau.

"My heart?" And her tone is laced with complete fragility, it almost makes him shudder.

He sighs. It's ten in the morning, and she doesn't comprehend why Nate posted, posted his sweater back to her when he could have just dropped it off, in person. They've known each other since they were five. She feels rage slowly building inside of her, the way it did when he'd be staring at Serena and Blair eyes had been forced to his best friend, and she wants to hit him.

"I...come on, Blair. Please don't be upset about this –

"Nate..." she trails off, anger dissolving with sorrow replacing it, filling her to the brim. But she won't let tears fall, she can't. "I know we lost our last chance a long time ago, but you remember that it was you and I, at one point? It's over and we've moved on, but we happened. There was a point when you were all that ever mattered to me."

He thinks this might be the closest he's come to literally feeling heartbreak.

"You made me keep my ring." She reminds him in a timid, truthful tone.

"I know."

He hates irony.

"It was Serena that told you to give it to me?" She asks, already knowing his reply.

"I know Serena appears...indestructible. But she's really fragile right now. And I think the fact that her best friend...that I was once in love with you intimidates her more than anything."

She hates irony.

Blair's eyes can't help but roll, and Nate laughs, sighs and runs a hand through his hair in disbelief. Fuck knows how they got here, to this point, and maybe they should stop trying to make sense of that.

"Nate?" She probes through the silence.

"Yeah?"

"You're keeping your sweater." She smiles in victory, hugs him and leaves.

"Good." She hears him say as she walks away.

Except it's so very far from that.

Their non-judging breakfast club group are out clubbing and when Blair re-applies some lip-gloss, Serena asks why she couldn't let go. It sounds genuinely inquisitive instead of bitter.

"S," she turns around sympathetically, rubbing her best friend's arms. "You don't want the truth."

"No Blair, I really do. If you still..."

"I don't still anything. I just loved him first. That's why he's keeping the sweater."

Serena's usually composed demeanour evaporates within seconds, eyebrows furrowing, "And you still have your ring and –

"Serena. I'm with Chuck." Blair's tone is stern and authoritive, the tone Serena doesn't answer back to.

Serena's eyes fall to the floor. The girl no one could faze has been hindered by memory, and she doesn't know how to handle it. If this is how Blair felt about her all these years, then Serena would have ditched her boys, booze, b-list fame, to let Blair have the one boy who could come close to giving her happiness. Because Serena has Nate, and he's making her do a lot of things, but his presence doesn't make her deliriously happy the way she thought it would. But he brings her close to that, and maybe they wouldn't be happy, but they'd be perfect on the outset.

They stare at each other for what seems like hours before Serena says, "I'm sorry." Blair nods and hugs the girl she's always considered her sister.

"It's okay. I know its strange coming from me, S, but we're not going to find perfect. All we can do is try to make it.

On the eve of the Bass-Waldorf wedding, Blair lounges in her hotel room having had her girls over in celebration of having her new version of perfect.

Nate and Serena, meanwhile, drift in and out of each other's arms when she's not travelling with a certain Mister Baizen.

Before settling for the night, she observed Nate carrying a drunken Chuck. Serena comments on how they've all made it, years later and still considering themselves to be best friends and Blair doesn't reply. She sipped her martini and told Serena that what she's doing to Nate is unfair.

"I love him Blair, I do. But Carter has me the way he has me. I can't let go."

Blair shoots her a poignant look. "I don't think I ever let go, either."

Hold my wine hold it in
Nobody's lost but nobody wins
And I can't sleep
I can't speak to you
I can't sleep

It's four in the morning when Nate sneaks into her hotel room. Her hair is spread out, he looks endearingly at her. He's so happy for her, and his best friend. Even if it means he won't be happy for himself ever again.

"Archibald." She greets, eyes open.

"Waldorf." He says with such affection, she thinks she feels tear form.

They lie on her sheets in silence. He talks about Serena and her running away complex, and Blair hates that she's so right about her best friend never being captured, not by anyone. She discusses Chuck and how she's not completely satisfied with the fact that he'll be off travelling extensively himself, but "This is the closest we could get." She says, and it evaluates their situation so concisely that it compels Nate to agree.

"Chuck doesn't know you're with me, does he?" She asks knowingly.

"No, he doesn't."

Looking at how the years have bettered Nate, she takes in his emerald eyes. All the prospect they once held, their renewal. And she thinks maybe, their mistake was not ending things the way they had began.

"Why did you let him win, Nate?" Her voice shakes. "Why did you never fight for me?"

"Because," he begins, getting up and smiling down at her, "I was eighteen, stupid, and I didn't have clarity in any aspect of my life."

Before she has a chance to elaborate, he kisses her forehead and leaves.

In the morning, she's left wondering if it was all just a hopeless, pointless, beautiful dream.

Blair commanded herself to never be one of those girls who cries during their ceremony. It's cheesy, and she considered it to be kind of undignified. Then, this girl always had trouble giving herself away.

She almost feels the same uncertainty she felt at the age of seventeen, crawling into that limousine with a dear friend, feeling the cold leather and the fear pulsating through her every vein. She's terrified, so terrified for them all.

Vows race through her head, the minister's voice is so distant. She looks into Chuck's adoring brown eyes and then glances towards the best man, who's fixated on her.

She wants them to swap places, the same way she wanted them to swap places when they were seven years old, playing silly games that they're still playing.

And she cries, a gentle release of tears, for all the promise in Nate Archibald that she's lost.

Chuck smiles and has a few tears of his own, and they're both crying for totally different reasons; never really quite in sync.

You may kiss the bride.

So Chuck does, and it's messy and salty because of the tears, and all she can think about is how her first love never faded, and how she wants to run away the way Serena would.

But she stays, because she could never have Nate, but she needs to be close to him.

As Chuck and Blair honeymoon, Dan and Nate decide to leave their girls to their own devices. Nate knows that Serena wasn't really his girl anymore, but he finds himself caring a lot less than he probably should.

He and Dan take a boys weekend to Vegas to gamble their money (Humphrey a writer, Archibald a banker) and one night, when they're at the roulette wheel, Dan asks where the new found carefree, who-gives-a-fuck attitude has sprang from. Nate tells him he has no idea what he's talking about.

On the travel home, Nate smiles at the sweater, an ancient relic at this point, and slips it on. It's still as comfortable as it has always been.

For the first and last time, Serena van der Woodsen is waiting for Nate Archibald. She's in his townhouse, she cooked, and when he walks in her eyes break into shards of blue upon looking at his sweater. With silence, she walks away, and in response to Nate's feeble attempt at an explanation she tells him to fight for whatever, or whoever is the one he wants.

The same night, he reads the one e-mail Chuck has sent him and agonises over the photos he's attached. Hope you're having fun with Humphrey. Blair misses you, man. We'll talk when we get home.

He looks at the photos, the backdrop of a perfect blue sky, white sands and sunshine. They're on the beach, arms around each other, Blair's huge Chanel sunglasses disguising anything she might feel, the way she's become so good at it during all the years past.

When we're married we'll make love on the beach every night. She'd say stuff like that before they'd had sex, always the tease. Before that fateful night at the ball, they'd come close countless times to having sex, taking each other's virginity. It was planned, but he knew, it would still be amazing. When they finally got there, it was with all that build up, but then he thinks maybe it was a reflection of how close you could come to perfect and yet somehow squander it all for fear of failure. He should have fought for her, he knows.

But in the end, close is all there is for them.

And close is where he keeps her.

The End.