author note: I know I update quickly, but I don't think I'll be able to with this one. So, apologies ahead of time and I hope you enjoy a little crazy AU multi-chapter fic. Feedback very welcome. ::sophia

Sometimes he thinks Blair will be the death of him.

After she married Chuck in a huge ceremony and somehow forgot all the things Dan had done for her and hadn't even bothered to even invite him to the wedding, although Dan was actually glad because he wouldn't have gone anyway, he had to get out of New York City.

He goes to Europe and travels around, staying in hostels although Lily had told him he could have enough money to travel in style, but Dan didn't want it. He just wants to be like anyone else, so he carries a sleeping bag and washes his clothes in sinks and sleeps on uncomfortable beds. He sits in cafes drinking coffee and writing frantically in cheap notebooks, then sends them home, asking Rufus to put them in his bedroom and he imagines them lining his bookshelf, waiting for him to come home and convert them into the great American novel.

He doesn't think about her.

Dan had wanted to stop her from marrying Bass, to throw himself at her mercy and declare his undying love, to stand out in the rain, soaking wet, yelling her name, begging her not to make the biggest mistake of her life. Instead he had stayed away because Blair had asked him to when she had told him she was going marry Chuck, and she had tears in her eyes as she said she hoped he could understand this decision one day, that they just weren't meant to be, and the whole interaction had been strangely sad for someone who was returning to the embrace of the love of her life.

Blair was his destiny, and if she couldn't see that then he didn't believe in much of anything anymore, so he had shrugged at her words and tried to hide the fact that his lower lip was trembling like a school boy's and wished that he'd realized that the last time he'd kissed her had actually been the last time he would ever kiss her. Blair blinked at him and they both were silent, and she had this strange look on her face, a strange kind of pain, like maybe she was sad that he didn't beg her to change her mind, and it made Dan want to say something cheesy, like, 'look babe, I'm a lover, not a fighter'. Instead he had sighed and said, 'so this is it' and Blair repeated those words back to him in a resigned tone, statement following question, and she turned and left and Dan watched her walk away until she turned a corner and he could no longer see her figure in the distance.

He doesn't always remember where he is when he wakes up, and sometimes it takes a few minutes for him to identify that it's Paris or Berlin or some pastoral French village where expats settle and live out their lives running bookshops and making cheese. He sits in internet cafes and emails Rufus, asking him to send more of those cheap plain journals to his next destination, and Rufus emails back and asks if he's ever coming home, and Dan replies that he doesn't know, but it's really a lie because he doesn't really have a place to call home anymore.

Home is where the heart is and Dan had given his to Blair. He'd fallen hard for her and if he had thought she'd be open to it he would have asked her to marry him and have his babies and grow old with him, but he'd just settled for being able to be around her and then she'd ripped his heart out and Dan didn't have a home anymore.

So he drifts around, going from town to town, with no particular goal except to stay away as long as possible so he can reduce the possibility of being stuck at some particular boring event having to be subjected to the newly married couple as they make their way around different social circles and Dan would much rather be waking up to the sounds of goat herders in the Swiss Alps then nursing a warm drink and trying to avoid her gaze.

It's much better this way.

Sometimes he thinks Blair will be the death of him. Especially on the day that he wakes up and there is a knock on the door of the rundown London flat he's rented with peeling paint and a sink that has been drip dripping all night long and he opens it expecting to see a stranger staring back at him with a confused look, neither of them expecting the other person revealed with the opening of the door. But it's actually someone he knows and Dan is surprised to find Blair Waldorf standing in the dimly lit hallway and his mouth is hanging open and all thought flees his head.

"How..." Dan blurts out when he can finally find his voice and Blair sounds flip as she tells him that she has her ways, and she breezes past him, smelling like freesia, as haughty as ever. His eyes follow her as she looks around and finally picks an old chair with cracked vinyl to sit down on, and she perches on its edge, glancing around the room, then she looks at him and smiles.

"Chuck is here on business and I thought..."

It's like nothing had ever happened. Blair leaving, marrying Chuck, were just some crazy dream. She's sitting in front of him, looking fresh and dewy, cocking an eyebrow at him and he knows she's about to suggest they head out for a day of art-gazing at the museums and maybe lunch, and Dan wonders how she can just erase the past.

"What the hell?"

His voice is flat, his mouth hangs open, and he sees her blink and for a moment there is sadness in her eyes, then Blair Waldorf is back, smiling and perky.

"I know we didn't leave things on the best of terms."

Code for 'I chose Chuck over you'. Code for 'I married Chuck instead of you'. Code for 'I broke your heart'.

"No we didn't."

Blair sighs a little and that familiar sadness is back and she looks at him in that way that has always eaten away at his defenses, and he feels them start to slip away.

"I can't explain, but I really need your help, and I know I can trust you. I need a friend."

Back to this. Back to friends and being helpful, and Dan knew he should tell her to get out, go to hell, never come back into his life again, but he doesn't.

"I know the timing may seems strange..." Blair continues.

"Very," Dan answers back.

"You just need to trust me."

She said the same words months ago as she was breaking his heart and telling him she was returning to the arms of Chuck Bass. She had held his hands in hers and told him that this was not over yet, and asked if he could he trust her, and Dan had spit out the word no, and he had managed to hold back the giant 'fuck you' that he wanted to add to his response. He should tell her now, say 'fuck you' and turn away, but he doesn't. Because he's the same idiot who fell in love with a woman who would break his heart in the first place.

"What do you want, Blair?" Dan finally asks, his voice wary, although his posture is a little more relaxed now, and he's capitulating against his better judgement.

"Just the National Gallery," she smiles. "I'm in the mood for some old-school. Shave and get dressed."

Dan rubs his chin with his fingers and feels the stubble, then he does something he hasn't done in months. He smiles. It was like Blair breaking up with him and marrying Chuck had never happened, and maybe it actually was a crazy dream, or maybe she would go back to her husband that night and he'd never see her again, but it wasn't the first time Dan had to take what he could get when it came to Blair Waldorf. The end had come so abruptly, one day they were happy and the next she was walking away, it was hard not to be greedy about getting just one more chance to spend time with her, and even if it didn't end with kissing and confessions of love, Dan was glad to add another memory to the only thing he had left of Blair.

He showers quickly and shaves, then buttons up one of the flannel shirts he'd left hanging on the shower curtain, and he sees Blair roll her eyes when he walked out of the bathroom, his hair still damp, and she mutters something about certain things that never change.

"Let's go." Blair snaps, hustling him out the door, and they walk down the creaking old staircase to find a car waiting outside, and Dan isn't surprised because Blair isn't the kind of girl to take the Tube, even for the pure novelty of it. Blair barks at the driver, telling him to head to the National Gallery, then she leans back into the leather seat and smiles at him, and Dan smiles back.

The world works in mysterious ways.

They arrive at the National Gallery and Blair quickly gets out of the car and motions to him to follow her. She's already heading up the steps leading to an impressively large building and Dan quickens his pace to catch up with her. He wants to ask her where the fire is, and this isn't the Blair who used to savor museum visits, lingering to catch every piece, commenting on how things look in different shades of light. He would also say that a building full of stuffy paintings you might find in the collection of someone's rich grandfather wasn't really her taste either, but she had mentioned something about going old school, and Dan isn't feeling like asking a lot of questions at the moment.

Dan catches the door just before it shuts and finds himself in a long room whose peach colored walls are covered in paintings. The ceiling is tiny panes of glass and the filtered light of a cloudy London day has lit the entire room. It's beautiful light for appreciating art. There are doors on all walls of the room, heavy and wood, with glass panes, and he can see more paintings through them, and he thinks they must lead to other galleries. One of them is just swinging shut and he gets a glimpse of Blair through the glass and follows her.

Dan's shoes click on the hardwood and he almost slips on one of the intricate metal grates space evenly across the floor, as he hurries after Blair. When he finds her, she is sitting on a bench in front of a painting, holding still, staring up at it, a drastic change from all the frenetic energy she'd been displaying since they arrived. Dan couldn't shake the feeling that all of this was starting to seem a little strange. He sits down next to Blair and stares up at the painting.

A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal, is the title.

"I didn't know you liked, uh," Dan squints and finds the artist's name, "uh, Vermeer."

Blair doesn't say anything. She's still staring at the painting, twisting her hands a little.

"Blair?" Dan asks, putting his hand on her shoulder. She jumps.

"What?" she starts

"Vermeer?"

"Oh, uh, love her."

Dan frowns.

"Him. The artist is a man."

The sound of footsteps approaching echo through the gallery. Blair glances up and Dan feels her tense next to him. He glances up to find an elderly man has materialized next to them. He's standing adjacent to the bench, staring at the same painting. Dan flashes him a slight smile and the man doesn't smile back. Blair is still staring at the painting and suddenly the air feels like its crackling with electricity and Dan isn't quite sure what's going on.

"I much prefer The Girl with the Wineglass," the man says, then coughs a little.

"Not the Girl with the Pearl Earring?" Blair says back, and Dan feels even more confused.

"Too popular." the man answers. He is wearing a black raincoat and he seems to hunch further into it. Then he is leaving, turning and walking away, and Dan and Blair are still sitting there. Blair doesn't move, still staring at the painting, then she turns to him and puts a hand on his arm.

"Do you want to look around," she asks, "I need to go to the ladies room."

Before Dan can answer, Blair stands and turns to walk out of the gallery. Dan is left wondering what the hell is going on, then decides he might as well look at more paintings since that's what t they came to do in the first place. Ten minutes pass, then twenty, and Dan is starting to question what is keeping Blair, when she materializes by his side, and she flashes a brilliant smile at him, and all the strangeness is gone.

"Lunch, Humphrey?" she chirps, "and don't try to eat off my plate like you used to. Disgusting habit."

"We haven't been here that long," Dan stutters, and besides, it's only 1030, but Blair is insistent, saying something about being starving and they had back into the central hall, toward the heavy, ornate doors that will lead outside, and everything seems strangely normal compared to before. They are pushing through the wooden doors with the glass panes, when Blair freezes and pulls him back into the gallery.

"Fuck." she says under her breath.

"What," Dan starts to ask, but Blair puts up a hand and shushes him. This is the moment that Dan notices something different in her eyes. It's fear. Not the kind of schoolgirl fear that arrives when you realize that someone has arrived at the party in the same dress you picked out, but real fear. Blair is scared.

He peers through the glass pane of the door and sees just a man standing in the central hall. He's tall and thin and there is something foreboding about him, then Blair pulls him further back inside the gallery, away from the doors, where they can't be seen as easily.

"Dan." she hisses, keeping her voice low, and he remembers how much he likes when she says his name, but not like this. Not with a frightening urgency. "Do you love me?"

"What the hell?"

Blair is breathing fast and her eyes search his face, and Dan doesn't know how to answer her question. She's married. To Chuck. They're hiding in a gallery a museum in London. A million emotions are clashing together all at once with her words, and he wants to grab her arms and shake her and ask her how she could walk back into his life and do this, but something keeps him from doing any of that. Maybe it's the fear that's still there as she waits for his answer, and he knows that this might be the most serious thing Blair has ever asked him.

"Yes."

Relief washes over her face. She opens her coat and pulls out a black leather folder and shoves it into his hands. She glances around then steps closer.

"Take this. Don't ask any questions. Don't go to your flat, find somewhere else. And whatever you do, whatever happens next, don't follow me. I'll find you later."

"Blair..."

"I know this is kind of," she pauses as if she's not sure what to say next, "um...surprising. Just trust me."

Dan swallows and he's struck mute by what he senses is actually a serious situation. Whatever is happening, this is bigger than Gossip Girl and the scheming that took place on the Upper East Side. Blair is in trouble. He wants to ask her the questions swirling in his head but instead he just nods in agreement and Blair lets out a sigh of relief. Then she is moving even closer to him and reaching up to pull him closer to her and her lips are on his and she's kissing him with urgency, then just as quickly she's breaking away.

"I didn't mean for you to be dragged into this, but it looks like they've found me."

"They?" Dan asks and Blair's eyes widen as if she's said too much. She grabs his arm with her gloved hand.

"Just be careful," she says and with her words she is pressing something into his hand and it's hard and cold and when Dan looks down he finds that he's holding a petite gun.

"What is this," Dan starts, then realizes that his voice has gotten louder, and Blair's hand is clamping over his mouth. She removes her hand and he repeats the words again, but quieter, "what is this?"

"Just in case." Blair smirks, a little of Queen B leaking through. "Hopefully you won't have to use it."

Like he even knows how to use it.

"What the hell, Blair?" Dan hisses as she turns away from him, "are you in the CIA or something."

Blair stops and turns back to him and Dan will never forget the next words that come out of her mouth.

"Actually, yes."

TBC