I pulled my hair up into a bun, before scrutinising my reflection. I sighed and slumped down on the bed, as Nate came in from the bathroom a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Serena, are you alright?"
"Do we have to do this today? Can't we leave it until... well do we even really need to tell them?"
"Yes, we need to tell our mother's that we're engaged." he smiled, coming over and placing his arm around my shoulders. "If we don't tell them, they will find out some other way, and do you want to deal with them after that?"
"I just wish it was our little secret longer. I don't mind Blair being over-excited and planning our wedding along with her's, I just don't want our mother's to intervene. I don't want a big society wedding Nate; I want a small intimate one. With only our family and friends there, I want it to be one of the best days of my life; I don't want to have to spend the day aimlessly chatting to people who don't even really know us."
"Then don't let them pressure you into anything." Nate replied softly, "I want to give the day you always wanted."
"What about the day you always wanted?" I shot back.
He smiled, shaking his head at me slightly. "Don't you get it; I will have the day I want no matter what. So long as I have you there saying the words I do, I don't care what else happens. We could be in a church, on a beach, in a park, on a dolphin, as long as the twins and you are there, it will be the day I want."
"So are you ready for the first people we need to tell today?" I asked, reluctantly pulling back from Nate, as he stood up to pull on a shirt and a pair of jeans.
"Shall we go get them?" He asked once he was ready. "Or do you want them to come in here?"
"Here." I said brightly, before calling for the twins. "Summer, Eric. Mummy and Daddy need to see you."
They came bouncing into the room fully dressed, courtesy of Chuck and Blair it seems. I rolled my eyes, and patted the bed next to me, causing the two of them to run up and jump on it, before cuddling up to me. Nate sat in front of us so that he was looking at us.
"Mummy and Daddy have something very important to tell you." I smiled at them. I saw them look at each other as if to say "did you do anything", I held in my laugh as Nate took over.
"Me and Mummy have decided that we want to be together forever, and we decided to get married. Do you know what that means?"
"That I get to be flower girl!" Summer beamed. "Just like Auntie Blair is making me!"
"Yes you will be a flower girl." I smiled at her. "But it means that Mummy and Daddy are saying that we will always be together."
"I get to have Mummy and Daddy forever?" Eric asked, his voice shy, as if he didn't want to risk saying it any louder unless the answer was no. I felt the tears spring to my eyes, as Nate gave my hand a reassuring squeeze before answering our son.
"No matter what happens, your mum and I will always be there for you and Summer. We both love you so much, and we want us all to be a happy family."
"I want a happy family." Eric smiled.
"Daddy can't leave now." Summer smiled.
I smiled at her. "There's one other little thing. Mummy and Daddy think it would be best if we stay here for a while. With Auntie Blair, Uncle Chuck, Uncle Erik and your grandmother's."
"Can we stay with Auntie Blair?" Summer asked excited.
"No." I laughed, as Summer's smile faded. "We would have our own house. But I'm sure Auntie Blair will come around and see you lot's."
"Can I have my own room?" Eric asked.
"Yes you can have your own room." Nate smiled at him.
"Can we go play now?" Eric asked, as I nodded.
"Yay!" the twins shouted before running from the room.
I turned to look at Nate a smile on my face. "You know I never thought that I could say forever without feeling scared, but when I think of forever with our family, I'm not scared. I want to know that we'll always be there for each other, I like knowing that I will always know that someone loves me. And I want to stand up in front of all of those who are important to us, and say that I will love you forever."
"There was one thing we didn't discuss." Nate said.
"What?" I asked. "I thought we covered all the major things?"
"Not all of them Miss VanDerWoodsen."
The emphasis on my last name told me what we hadn't discussed; I rolled my eyes and punched him on the arm.
"Ow." He replied in shock. "What was that for?"
"For not knowing the answer to the question already." I laughed at his pouting face. "Do you really think that I would let the rest of my family be Archibald's while I was still VanDerWoodsen?"
"So are you saying…"
"That after we get married, I'd be Mrs Archibald." I supplied, causing him to smile at me.
"Mrs Serena Celia Archibald, you know I think I like the sound of that." Nate laughed. "You don't have to take my name you know…"
"Yes I do." I nodded. "I want the proper family thing Nate, I want us all to have the same name."
"But you always swore growing up that you would never change your name."
"That's because of how often Mom swapped boyfriends; I always thought that it was just a waste of time changing your name, when you were going to change it back anyway. But I grew up, I realised not all relationships are like that. And I know ours won't be, if we made it this far, I don't see any reason that we won't always be together?"
"Have I mentioned how much I love you saying that?" Nate asked, then covered my lips with his. "Come on, we need to get this over with."
"Fine, but you are taking me out for ice-cream after."
"What if I don't want to?" Nate laughed.
"What made you think you had a choice." I stuck my tongue out at him, as I slipped my hand into his. I may have been dreading this lunch, but knowing Nate was going to be there with me, was a huge comfort.
I walked back into the apartment that was still so familiar to me, and seen my mom and Anne sitting on the sofa. Erik had been downstairs, ready to take the twins out for us. We decided that since Erik already knew that it would be easier if he kept the twins out of the apartment while we talked with our mother's.
"Serena, Nathaniel." Mom said standing up to place a kiss on my cheek as Anne did the same to Nate, and then we all took our seats. Following our last encounter the atmosphere was somewhat tense, something that was obvious to everyone.
"Serena, would you like to tell us why you wanted to meet?" Mom asked in a somewhat frosty tone.
"Well… We have some news we need to tell you. Two pretty big things really. But before we do I need you to know that we are going to this our way, and we would appreciate if you listened to our views, you might not agree with us, but we're not changing our minds."
"We will respect your wishes." Anne said, in the same frosty tone my mother held.
I looked to Nate, who nodded in slow understanding. He cleared his throat causing the attention to turn to him. "I guess there's no roundabout way of saying this, so I'll be blunt. We're engaged."
Their facial expressions stayed the same for the most part before Anne spoke. "Well that is only proper; you two do have children together."
I rolled my eyes, figures they couldn't just be happy for us. Why did it seem like even now, nothing we done was ever good enough for our parents?
Nate however seemed unphased by it, or maybe he had simply been expecting it? Regardless he carried on "We also decided that we are going to move back to New York. But we want to do it our own way. We want to pick the apartment and are of the city. We will welcome your suggestions of course, but at the end of it all, the house we pick will be the one we want."
"Congratulations." Mom said eventually. "I am sure that the two of you will have a bright future."
"Yes congratulations." Anne smiled, but it was the practised one that held no real emotion. "I am glad you value our opinions that highly."
"It's not we don't appreciate them." I said "It's just that it's important that we do everything our way, it would be like cheating otherwise. At the end of the day I want us to be the ones responsible for the twins, and not someone else. Not even family."
"I admire your values Serena, but it's not easy to look after children and…" My mom started causing me to scoff slightly.
"I've brought up two perfectly healthy children for four years, by myself in a different country. I'm sure I can manage the same here in familiar surroundings and with a support network."
I fought back the urge to add on that they had never 'looked after' us growing up; they merely passed us onto everyone else. But I decided against it, they were already not our biggest fans today, so keeping it as calm as possible seemed like the best idea.
"We want you involved." Nate said "We just want the ultimate decision to be ours. We of course value your opinions, and we both want you be a part of this, we just need to be the ones who make the final decisions."
"We want it to be something that's perfect for us, and that's not a big affair." I sighed. "We want the people who are important to us there. That's our family and Blair and Chuck. That's all we need."
"We will support your choices." Mom nodded.
"We want you to have the day you want." Anne said. "Even if it's not what we would pick."
"Thank you." I replied, was it a hostile acceptance? Yes, but at least they accepted it and that's more than I thought they would. I looked over and Nate and smiled, things were going right. And this time I was determined not to let anything ruin it.
"Well that wasn't so bad." I said to Nate as we were walking back to the empire. "At least there was no bloodshed."
"Yeah." Nate said seemingly distracted. Then he pulled me down a small street, until we stood outside a small building. It was somewhat hidden, and somehow held a magical quality. The grounds surrounding it was covered in bright flowers, there were trees sheltering the building as if it was a sight only to be held by a select few. It was the sort of house I had always dreamed of living in when I was younger.
"What do you think?" Nate asked smiling.
"It's beautiful, but I don't get why we're here."
"I was thinking… That we could get married here. The owner's rent it out for gatherings and when I saw it, I thought of you."
"I love it." I smiled. "Although we do have to consult with our wedding planner."
"Blair's already given her permission. She was with me when I first noticed it."
"And how did you know the planner was B?"
"Because I know B." Nate nodded his head. "There was no way she wasn't helping plan it."
"True." I smiled at him. "Can we see inside?"
He nodded at me "I checked ahead of time, I thought you might want to see inside."
We walked up the path and Nate opened the door open for me, bowing deep as he did so. I rolled my eyes at him as he walked in. When I did, I gasped at how perfect it all was. In front of me was a grand staircase, but it was the room to the left that caught my eye. I walked over to it, seeing Nate following me. It was small, and already set up for a wedding. A small aisle created in between two sets of chairs. There were candles on the wall, that when lit would give an intimate feeling, it was perfect for us.
"I love it Nate."
"So what do you say?"
"I want to do it here." I nodded. "I can't imagine somewhere else now, it's going to perfect Natie!"
"Of course it is. How could it not, when I finally have the girl I've loved for longer than I can remember, finally saying I do."
"And I have the one person I ever really loved saying it to me." I smiled at him. "This is going to be forever Nate. We won't be like our parents, we always seemed to have our own little world, were everything was perfect. Now that world seems to be the real one, and if we're here after everything… I honestly believe that nothing will ever ruin us. Not even me."
"So we make a deal? We mean it when we say till death do us part?"
I shook my head. "I never believed in that. If you die first and I really don't want that to happen, nothing would ever make me stop loving you. It's always been you, and it will always be you."
Nate wrapped his arms around me, placing a soft kiss on my head. "I'll always love you no matter what. And this time, I'm not letting you slip away. Nothing is more painful than losing you."
I pulled back so that I could look into his eyes. "Forever?"
"Forever." Nate whispered, before placing his lips against mine.