Notes: I think we can all agree that the Season 5 finale was disjointed, nonsensical and frankly, a little terrifying. I'm still mourning the loss of Dair. This is my coping mechanism. Well, part of it anyway. I took all my muddled post-finale feelings and channelled it into this fic. I have no idea what the writers have planned for Season 6, but it can't possibly be good, so this fanfic is what I cling to in my head. I hope you guys like it.

The title comes from Jane Austen's Persuasion:

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.

She sits before the mirror carefully putting the finishing touches on her make-up. Once she is satisfied with the results, she puts the brush down and glances around her room. She is glad to be back in New York. Glad to be home. Yet she lets out a huff of exasperation as she takes in her room. Everything is in its place, just as she had left it. Nothing is missing. Nothing is different. Yet something is different. Something is missing. The space suddenly feels emptier somehow. Impersonal. Never one to admit defeat, she busies herself with rearranging several items on her shelf. After a few minutes of tinkering and tasteful placement, she stands back to examine the results. She lets out another huff of frustration before putting everything back as it was.

Three months. Three months since Blair Waldorf found herself in a casino, taking a leap of faith. Three months since she last thought of Dan Humphrey.

She doesn't think of him. She prides herself on how much she doesn't think of him. It's easy to do when they're on separate continents. Or were. She vaguely recalls Nate mentioning something about him a fortnight ago. That he was back from Italy. Or wherever he had disappeared to for the summer. She imagines that his grooming has fallen into a further state of disarray without her guidance. Or she would imagine so, did she ever think of him. She's not entirely sure it's him Nate was talking about. It's not as though she paid close attention to what Nate said. Because she doesn't care. Because she doesn't think of him.

She doesn't need to think of him. It's effortlessly simple not to when everything in her life has finally fallen into place. Everything is as it should be. Everything is as she wants it. She doesn't need to think of him when she's engaged to the man she loves. She's going to marry the man she's loved since she was 16. She holds her left hand out in front of her and wriggles her fingers watching as the pristine Harry Winston sparkles, catching the purest light. She frowns slightly before breathing on the diamond and polishing it against the sleeve of her blouse.

"Miss Blair?"

She startles slightly at Dorota's voice, but collects herself immediately to offer her a perfunctory smile as she enters the room clutching a medium sized box topped with a red ribbon.

"Mister Chuck leave this for you," she explains as she hands Blair the box. "Said to tell you he can't make gala tonight. Said something about meeting with investors."

"Oh," says Blair shortly. "Thank you Dorota."

She waits until Dorota leaves before carefully tugging at the ribbon to examine the contents of the box. Nestled inside is a silver filigreed headband. It glitters absurdly brightly as the light in her room is caught by the highly polished gemstones that line the delicate ornament. She picks up the card attached to the box and reads.

I thought it was time for you to return to who you really are. Love, C.

She lifts the headband out of its box and slides it carefully onto her head. She examines herself in the mirror again. It's perfect. She's perfect. She walks over to her desk and places the headband back in its box. She pulls open the top drawer to place the box inside, but finds the drawer already occupied.

It's still there. Of course it's still there. She kept it. It suddenly looks rather large and crudely constructed, yet somehow the fake gems glitter almost as brightly as the real thing. She lifts it out of the drawer and notes its weight. Or lack thereof. She's not sure why that surprises her. Plastic tiaras are not known for their finery. She watches as the imitation teardrop pearls dangle back and forth slightly.

I thought you should get to feel like a princess one last time.

She doesn't think of him.

...

She stands in a corner clutching a champagne flute, taking sips at regular intervals, but tasting nothing. Galas like this one had long since begun to blend into charity benefits which blended into cocktail parties and another and another. She looks the part as always, the jewel encrusted headband Chuck gave her perched royally on her head, perfectly complementing her carefully crafted curls and flowing gown. She smiles dutifully and exchanges inane pleasantries with any who come her way, but it would take someone who knows her well to spot the detachment in her eyes. As her luck would have it, she spots someone who knows her making his way over to where she stands.

"Archibald," she says, as Nate comes to a stop in front of her.

She tries to offer him a smile, but somehow she can't quite manage it.

"Hey," he says, gently patting her on the arm, as pleasant and Nate-like as ever. "You okay?"

"Chuck asked you to babysit me?"

She is surprised to find that Nate looks hurt by this.

"Have we really grown that far apart that you think I need Chuck to remind me to care about you?"

"Nate, you know I didn't mean –"

"No, it's fine. I get it. You and I haven't exactly been braiding each other's hair lately."

She laughs.

"Even Blair Waldorf knows that Nate Archibald's hair is sacred," she says, smiling genuinely for the first time that night.

He grins back and they stand in companionable silence. She can feel him observing her out of the corner of his eye.

"Blair?"

"Hmm?"

"What did Chuck do this time?"

She turns to him, feeling puzzled.

"Nothing," she replies, blinking in confusion. "He's been... he's been good actually. I think it's the most stable we've been for a while."

"Oh," he says cryptically.

"Oh? That's it? Spit it out, Archibald. What are you not saying?"

"I'm not saying that I thought being together, getting married, the whole thing was what you both always wanted."

"It was – it is."

"Oh."

"I swear to God, Nate, if you say that one more time –"

He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"It's just, I thought you'd be... happier."

His gaze is oddly defiant as though daring her to contradict him. Just as she's contemplating doing precisely that, someone collides painfully with her elbow causing her to come precariously close to spilling champagne down the front of her gown. She stumbles slightly before steadying herself.

"Excuse me, watch where you're –"

The words die in her throat as she turns to see the perpetrator. She's not sure why she's so stunned to see him there. They were bound to run into each other eventually. She should probably be surprised it hadn't happened sooner. Yet somehow it still feels surreal that they are standing face to face. Surreal that he's close enough for her to reach out and touch. Close enough that she can catch the familiar scent of his cologne. If Dan is half as stunned by their proximity, he shows no sign of it. He looks at her with a dull sort of indifference. They could just as well be strangers. She vaguely registers that he mutters an apology for bumping into her, but she doesn't have a chance to respond before he's walking away without a backward glance.

...

She makes sure to give him a wide berth for the rest of the night and only dares to steal glances at him from afar as he stands talking to Nate. She's relieved to see that he looks healthy, though there's a fatigue and disinterest apparent in the way he carries himself. His hair is still long enough to be ridiculous, but it's marginally shorter and neater than she remembers. She tries to be discreet and tries not to stare too openly. She only succeeds for a while before Dan looks up to catch her gaze. She wants to look away. It's no use. She searches his eyes for a hint of the slightest emotion, but her trance is broken as several phones beep and buzz all at once in the way that she has come to dread.

She wearily reaches into her purse to extract her phone. There's a hum of chatter going around the room as people take in whatever havoc Gossip Girl has decided to wreak this time. It takes several seconds after pressing play on the video for Blair to fully register what she is looking at. It's not the greatest quality, obviously filmed on someone's phone at an odd angle, but there is no mistaking the golden haired, long limbed form of Serena. She's sitting on a bar, straddling some guy as they make out somewhat sloppily, clearly drunk. Blair wonders why Serena's drunken exploits with strangers is something Gossip Girl would consider newsworthy at this point. She rolls her eyes and decides she's seen enough as Serena grabs her make out partner's hair. His hair.

Blair observes the image closely and suddenly the faces around her begin to swim. She feels the room spinning and walls closing in. No. No. She forces herself to look at the video again and the bile rises in her throat as she recognizes the location. No. And then she's running. She can hear whispers and feel eyes on her, but she sees nothing and no one as she tries to keep herself moving fast enough to make it out into the open before she suffocates. It feels like an eternity until she stumbles out of the opulent hotel lobby and into the street. She doesn't know where she's going. She only knows she needs to keep moving. She only knows that movement is the only thing that can rid her mind of the image.

She hears his voice instantly, but she keeps striding down the sidewalk rapidly. Or as rapidly as her high heels will allow. He persists and she can hear him growing closer and closer.

"Blair! Stop!"

He catches up to her with ease and touches her arm to stop her. She wrenches it away from him.

"I don't want to hear it, Humphrey!" she shouts, hating the way her voice breaks mid-sentence.

"You don't have to hear anything," he says, sounding almost bored even in the face of her theatrics. "You dropped this. I thought you might want it back."

This takes some of the wind out of Blair's sails and her eyes widen as he hands her the familiar Harry Winston that had presumably slid off her finger as she ran out. She is struck momentarily dumb by this and wonders absurdly about having the ring resized as she slides it back on, but her anger returns in full force when Dan turns to leave without a word.

"Why her?" she calls after him. "How could you do that to me? Why would you?"

He stops dead in his tracks and laughs sharply. He turns to her in apparent disbelief.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. I need to know why. Right now."

"Oh, I don't know, Blair. Let me think. Maybe because I realized that night that my girlfriend didn't think she owed me so much as a smoke signal before choosing to go be with another man. Maybe that's why. But, you know what, it doesn't matter because I don't want your forgiveness any more than you seem to want mine."

"That's not fair," she insists, struggling to keep the tears out of her voice. "I've been going around with so much guilt hanging over my head, feeling terrible about how I left things with you and you let me do it. You let me feel like the bad guy while you sat in your tower judging me. I tried to apologize. You never answered any of my calls and I wrote to you so many times, but –"

"Phone calls and e-mails? Are you serious? For an entire year you've been making your way over to Brooklyn with a higher frequency than you insulted me for living there, but, hey, I guess you only stoop to visit us little people when it's convenient for you."

She pauses. There's truth to his words, pointed as are, but she is too angry to cede any ground to him.

"Well, since you obviously have such a high opinion of me, you must feel like you've dodged a bullet, Humphrey because I'm marrying Chuck."

"Exactly! You're marrying Chuck. You love Chuck. You chose Chuck. So, why are we even having this conversation? Why does it matter who I slept with?"

For the first time since they started arguing, Blair doesn't know what to say. It all seems so neat and simple when laid out like that in front of her, yet nothing about any of it feels simple. In her cloud of hurt and anger, she hasn't stopped to ask herself why she cares. It's a question she's not entirely sure she wants an answer to. Dan's shoulders fall tiredly and he shakes his head. When he speaks again, his tone is considerably more even and lacking in combativeness.

"Look, as much as it hurt to realize that I was basically the village idiot in Chuck Bass' empire, the fact is that I only ever wanted you to be happy. So, I'm trying, here. I'm trying to ignore the fact that I was collateral damage and be happy for you, but this?" he gestures between them. "Isn't helping."

"What would help?" she asks, feeling drained.

"What would help is if you and I could pretend we're just distant acquaintances and stayed out of each other's way."

"Dan –"

"Congratulations," he says waving a hand carelessly at her ring finger. "Honestly, I always thought you deserved better than him and I thought maybe someday you'd realize that yourself, but for your sake, I hope he proves me wrong. Oh and, uh... nice headband."

And with that, he walks away. Blair reaches up to rip the headband from her hair roughly and shoves it unceremoniously into her purse as she watches his retreating form.

...

It's barely a fortnight before she sees him again. Too soon. At a cocktail party this time. She suspects that it's Nate who's been dragging him along to these things because Dan couldn't look less interested. Nate has been dropping badly disguised hints since the debacle at the gala. Hints that she and Dan should make an attempt at coexisting peacefully. She appreciates his altruism, but ignores him just the same. Acquaintances. That's what Dan wants to be and she's perfectly content with obliging.

Or at least that's what she tells herself as she watches him. He stands at the bar, his arms resting on the counter as he fiddles absently with the drink in his hand. She had always liked his hands. Long-fingered and well proportioned and elegant. Pretty. Yet somehow appealingly masculine. It's something she had allowed herself the indulgence of noticing long before she had allowed him the indulgence of calling her a friend. He takes a sip of his drink. She watches his jaw line tense and vividly remembers kissing her way along it. She squashes that memory before it can take further root. He's dressed in a black suit paired with a black tie and white shirt. She's surprised at the tie and wonders vaguely whether her influence has finally got to him. The suit is well tailored. It fits him well. Entirely too well. Blair feels her face grow warm and takes a large gulp of her own drink.

Her body and her brain seem entirely at odds as she walks towards the bar while screaming at herself to stop and turn back. Acquaintances he said. Not strangers. Acquaintances are allowed to acknowledge each other, she tells herself. In fact, it would be rude not to.

"Nice suit."

He looks up and his eyes narrow slightly as he takes her in. He doesn't smile, but Blair takes it as an encouraging sign that he hasn't walked away. He leans an elbow on the bar and angles his body to face her.

"Where's Chuck?"

It's not the question she was expecting. There's nothing in his tone that betrays hostility, however, so she answers.

"He couldn't make it. He's been... busy."

He's always busy, she doesn't add. Dan clears his throat awkwardly and tilts his head to one side as he peers at her.

"Are you... uh, okay? I mean, you and Chuck aren't –"

"We're fine," she says too quickly. "We're stable and- and... functional."

"I thought that was a good thing," he intones and she can hear amusement in his voice.

"It is."

"Then why did you say it like you were announcing a death in the family?"

She sighs. This was a bad idea. She considers cutting and running at this point, but somehow can't pull herself away quite yet.

"Chuck and I have always been about dysfunction," she offers slowly. "In some strange way, it's one of the things that kept us going. I'm starting to think that maybe it's the only thing that kept us going. It's like the drama was what made us tick."

She looks at Dan to gauge his reaction, but he appears unfazed and nods slightly at her to continue.

"I'm just... not so sure that stable and functional agrees with me and Chuck. That was always more of a you and me thi – "

She stops herself just in time, mildly mortified at her own folly.

"I'm sorry," she stumbles to correct herself. "I didn't mean – I shouldn't have –"

"Don't apologize," he says casually. "We, um... we did wear stable and functional well, didn't we?"

"Better than most," she adds, relieved.

There's a pause as they look at each other. For the first time since she saw him at the gala, there is nothing clouding his gaze. No mask of disinterest or indifference as he continues to stare. There's a sudden intensity and reassuring steadiness to it. Blair feels her face heat up again and she starts to have limited success getting the appropriate amount of air into her lungs. She berates herself internally for not walking away when she had the chance.

"I have to head home," Dan states abruptly, breaking the trance.

He turns away from her and downs the rest of his drink in one gulp.

"Goodnight," he mutters perfunctorily before brushing past her.

She tries to ignore the spark that rushes through her at the brief contact.

...

She should be headed home. She stayed at the party for longer than necessary. She's tired. It's late. She should be headed home.

It's not until she's pushing the large and familiar loft doors open that it occurs to her that she probably should have knocked first. She has walked casually through these doors with such freedom in the past that it feels like second nature, but she no longer knows whether she's welcome. She knows she's not. The thought is so depressing that she forcefully stamps it out as she places her coat and bag on the arm of the couch and takes in the place that had been her sanctuary for so long. She breathes in the scent of it. Old books and freshly laundered linen. There's also that oddly pleasing mustiness that she remembers so well. Everything looks the same. Warm and inviting and lived in and safe. Home.

He sits at the kitchen counter, his computer in front of him. He is so engrossed in his work, typing rapidly, that he does not notice her presence. His jacket and tie have been discarded, the sleeves of his crisp, white shirt rolled up to his elbows and top collar button now undone. She can see his Adam's apple bob as he frowns, frustrated at something on the screen. The muscles in his forearms tense as he places his elbows on the counter and rests his head tiredly in his hands. Blair's throat feels inexplicably dry when she speaks.

"You really should lock your door, you know. You're risking armed robbery. Especially in this neighborhood."

He looks up, startled and his eyes widen fractionally at her presence. He doesn't let the surprise linger for long, rearranging his features almost instantly to project the utmost apathy. His mask of indifference back again. She feels like she'd prefer to see hatred. Anger. Something.

He clamps the laptop shut before rising from his seat and making his way towards the center of the room. Blair closes the door behind her and takes a few steps forward. She gestures at his computer.

"Working on your book?"

There's a pause. He shrugs, his hands now in his pockets.

"It's uh... it's a new one actually. I wrote it over the summer."

"What's it about?"

"Same thing the first one was about."

Something dark passes over his features for a fleeting moment, but it's gone so fast that Blair wonders whether she imagined it.

"Let me guess," she says. "This is the one where you skewer us all?"

The one where you skewer me, she wants to add, hoping he'll contradict her. He laughs ruefully.

"Something like that."

She decides that they are standing inappropriately far apart for a normal conversation and moves closer, about a foot in front of him. It's only practical, she tells herself. He sways slightly on his feet and she wonders whether he'd like to run away. She remembers how at ease they used to be around each other. Never needing to second guess their movements or pay heed to formality. She begins to crave that effortless physicality as they stand there together, disjointed and out of sync.

"Well, in that case I better get the first autographed copy," she starts to babble. "I mean it's the least you can do if you're going to –"

"Why are you here?"

His tone is not hostile. He sounds tired more than anything else, but Blair can't help the feeling of hurt that courses through her at his blunt phrasing.

"I miss you."

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them and he responds with a chuckle. It's not the warm, rumbling sound Blair remembers. There's no humor in it. No joy. It's sharp. Edged with poison. A bitterness that seems out of place on him. Unfamiliar. Wrong. Blair's stomach lurches at the thought that she may have had even the slightest hand in putting it there.

"Well, you had me," he says evenly, his eyes boring into hers. "You had me in a way that was almost embarrassing. You don't get to miss me."

Blair flinches. He doesn't mean it, she tells herself. He's trying to hurt her. The words are intended to cut. Wrong. This is all wrong. He was the good one. The one who would never hurt her. The one who would be different from the others. The one who wouldn't screw Serena. Blair clamps her eyes shut and wills that image to disappear and in that moment she hates him. She hates this stranger. She opens her eyes and blinks back the tears that threaten to surface. She looks at him, willing him, pleading him to come back. Be Dan again. Her Dan. He's not yours, screams a shrill voice in her head.

"I miss you," she repeats defiantly, taking a step towards him, refusing to yield. "I miss my best friend. You were my best friend."

He smiles this time. It's not the endearing, boyish, carefree expression Blair remembers. It doesn't light up his features like it used to. She searches for that familiar dimple at the corner of his mouth and can't find it.

"I know," he replies with no trace of irony. "But you weren't mine."

Blair bites down on her tongue to stifle the gasp that bubbles up in her throat. She thinks of all the verbal bullets she's taken from Chuck over the years. That way he has of wielding his words as a weapon. Of saying exactly the thing that would hurt her the most and make her feel the smallest. Somehow Dan's words cut deeper and hurt more viscerally than anything she can remember. Because they're true, the shrill voice screams again. She thinks of all he had been to her for a year and a half. Her confidant, her partner in crime, her savior, her home and suddenly she feels nauseated. She chose Chuck and she hadn't thought to tell Dan. She hadn't thought to break his heart in person. She hadn't thought of him at all. He had been her best friend. She had forgotten to be his.

It's then that the image of Serena straddling him, clawing at his hair flashes through Blair's head and suddenly she's angry again. She hates him again. What right did he have to make her feel wicked?

"You cheated on me that night," she blurts out and she hears the same venom in her voice that had been in his.

"So did you," he offers flatly without missing a beat.

"You told me you'd always be there for me."

"You told me you weren't in love with Chuck. You lied. I lied. We cheated. We've never been more compatible, really."

Her anger deflates as suddenly as it appeared to be replaced by a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. His tone is still sharp. His voice still strikingly bitter. She hates that this is what they have been reduced to. Trading accusations to hurt where they once traded barbs to tease. Standing a foot apart in the very same room they once stood entwined. Absurdly, as they stand there shrouded in a cloud of things left unsaid, there is only one thought repeatedly gnawing at Blair's consciousness. I loved us.

I loved us, she thinks to herself. I loved us. I loved us. The thought begins to consume her. Their relationship was the right in her life. The good. The light. Something incorruptible even at the worst of times. It was almost sickeningly wholesome and untainted. She fed on it and relied on it, but it occurs to her now that perhaps she didn't take the time to truly revel in it, to stop and enjoy the scenery, until it was too late. The more she looks back, the more wonderful it all starts to seem. So wonderful and filled with a wide-eyed naivety that she wonders whether she didn't dream it all. It feels like a dream now. One that dissipated in a puff of miscommunication and bruised hearts. Or a snippet of someone else's life. Some other, less broken version of Blair Waldorf and less battle weary version of Dan Humphrey.

She's not sure what she was expecting. There's a part of her that entertained the idea that perhaps nothing had changed. Nothing would be different. She would waltz through his door like she always had. They would make amends like they always had. He would envelop her in his arms like he always had. Because he was good. Because he was Dan. Her Dan. No. Not yours, she reminds herself.

She doesn't know how long they've been standing in silence, but she looks up and is surprised to see that his face has softened. Her cheeks feel strangely cold and she realizes she's been crying. Something shifts inexplicably in that moment and he's looking at her like he used to. Like he had earlier that night. Like he had for the better part of an entire year. As though willing her with his eyes to decipher what he couldn't put into words. The weight behind his gaze is such that Blair wonders how she had missed it all those times before. How she had not understood how he felt about her sooner than she had. He sighs heavily and runs a hand through his already unruly hair. She stifles the desire to smooth it down for him.

"Blair," he breathes and for the first time that night, there's no ugliness to his tone.

Blair's breath hitches involuntarily at the sound of her name. He always had a way with it. Like he was pronouncing every part of it with care.

"What?" he asks, puzzled by her reaction.

"You just said my name," she replies, her voice almost a whisper.

She watches as recognition flashes across his face briefly and she thinks she detects a ghost of a smile before he's unreadable again.

"I'm sorry," he concedes. "About what happened with Serena. I was upset because I thought you – never mind. It doesn't matter why I did it. I shouldn't have and I wish I hadn't because, for whatever it's worth, you were the one person I never wanted to hurt. I promised myself that I'd never be the reason you cry. So, just... do me a favor and help me keep that promise?"

She holds back further tears that threaten to fall at this pronouncement and manages a half smile.

"I'm sorry, too, Dan. I handled things badly. I didn't come talk to you in person. I owed you that."

He studies her carefully and his body is angled forward in a way that Blair knows is a sign that he wants to say something, but isn't sure whether he should.

"I haven't sent Alessandra the manuscript, Blair," he finally offers after several moments of silence. "And I don't intend to."

She looks up at him in surprise.

"Why not? We all probably deserve it."

"Probably, but I don't think I deserve it. Turns out I'm not willing to sell my soul just yet. Consider it a wedding present."

Though his tone is light, she can see the strain in his eyes as he references her impending marriage to Chuck and suddenly she feels claustrophobic in the large, airy room. Something inside her begins to ache relentlessly and she feels the need to put as much distance between herself and Dan as possible.

"I should go," she says hurriedly. "It's late and –"

"Oh, right, yeah, of course. You should."

He reaches out to pat her elbow awkwardly and she startles at the contact. He draws his hand back as if burned by her skin.

"G-goodnight, Dan."

"Goodnight."

She turns as fast as her feet will carry her and rushes to the couch to grab her coat and bag. She can't seem to breathe properly and is desperate to be out the door. Just as she reaches for the handle, she hears him call out.

"Blair, wait."

She takes a deep, shuddering breath to steady herself and turns slowly. He appears to be arguing with himself. She recognizes the way his mouth tenses and his eyebrows knit together. When he finally speaks, she almost has to strain to hear him.

"I just need to know. Was any of it real? Us. Were we real?"

It takes all her reserves of strength not to crumble right then and there. Not to run to him. Not to throw her arms around him. Not to hold him for as long as it would take for him to understand what he meant to her even if she hadn't understood it herself when he needed her to. So, she doesn't. She doesn't crumble. She doesn't speak. She doesn't move.

"Tell me," he continues, his voice stronger, taking a step towards her with each word. "Tell me that I was just a phase. Just a social experiment. Tell me that I was deluding myself. That you were using me. That I was the third wheel in my own relationship. That –"

"Stop," she snaps, unable to contain herself. "Cruelty doesn't become you, Humphrey. So, stop."

She notices that he flinches at her use of "Humphrey" and she's glad. She hopes her words sting him as much as his have stung her.

"You don't get it, do you?" he says. "I loved you. In a way that I still haven't been able to wrap my head around because I have nothing to compare it to and the more I try to deal with it the more I realize that I am way out of my depth here. So, now do you understand? The only way I can stop myself from picturing a future with you in it is to hear from you that you never pictured one with me."

Somehow during his soliloquy he has come to a stop mere inches from where she stands, her back now pressed against the door in an effort to maintain some semblance of control. A level of control that begins to slip away the moment he brings his left hand up to rest on her shoulder and pads his thumb across her skin gently. And just like that they're Dan and Blair again. Just like that, she's just a girl attempting to will away the nervous energy as a boy stands in her foyer proposing a kiss with an endearingly awkward sincerity. The boy is the same, his eyes hold the same sincerity, but none of the awkwardness. He peers at her intently as though trying to unravel her defenses piece by piece. His hand still rests on her shoulder and he continues to stroke his thumb, feather light across it, but his eyes are so focused that she wonders whether he's even aware that he's doing it. She feels her own breathing become increasingly erratic and hopes he doesn't notice. She was never much one to compromise her pride in this relationship, after all.

"I'm not trying to be cruel, Blair," he continues, sighing again in that tired sort of way. "I'm asking you not to be. I'm begging you to tell me the truth because it's what I need to hear to let you go. To let us go."

When she speaks, she is relieved to note that her voice sounds even, though several octaves lower than she would like.

"You loved me that much?" she asks, though she knows the answer.

Though, she's known for longer than she's willing to let herself admit. He shakes his head.

"I love you that much."

"Dan, I –"

"Look, you don't owe me anything, Blair. I don't expect a reward for being your friend. I never did and if I had to do over the past year knowing you'd never love me, I wouldn't change a thing. So, if that's what we were about, you should just tell me. If you felt guilty or you didn't want to hurt my feelings or –"

"I thought you knew me better than that," she interrupts before he can continue along that train of thought. "I thought you knew me better than anyone."

"I thought I did, too."

"Well, apparently we were both wrong because if you knew me, you'd know that I can't tell you what you need to hear."

"But –"

She holds a hand up to silence him.

"The past year with Louis and the accident and... the baby, I felt like the breath was being knocked out of me at every turn. You let me catch it again, Dan. You asked me if any of it was real. There were times when I felt like everything was falling apart around me and you were the only thing in my life that felt real. When we were the only thing that I felt I could rely on to be constant. And if I took that for granted, it's only because it was so constant and it felt so indestructible."

"Blair –"

"I'm sorry I lied to you about Chuck. Just don't ask me to lie about us. I can't tell you that we weren't real and I can't tell you that you were a phase. None of it would be true and I think I've lied to you enough."

"You... you really shouldn't say things like that to me right now."

His voice is raspy and unsteady. Their noses are almost touching. Their gazes flicker between eyes and lips; a tell that neither of them had ever been much good at masking.

"Why not?"

"You know why."

"Always such a talker, Humphrey."

There's no deciphering who moves first as they collide in a desperate tangle of lips and limbs. Dan instantly goes for her bottom lip, nipping at it, running his tongue along it, sucking on it and Blair is glad once again for the door behind her keeping her upright. His hand is cradling her face as she rakes her fingers through his hair. It is all so familiar and unchanged that it's as though they have never stopped. She realizes then how much she has missed this. She has missed the way he kisses her. Somehow he is careful and deliberate and uninhibited all at once.

He rips his lips away from hers and she groans in protest, but is quickly silenced as he turns his attention to her neck, kissing his way up from her collar bone to just beneath her ear. His body is practically crushing hers against the door and she grinds her hips against him, but even that does nothing to satiate the need. The aching, unrelenting need to feel skin on skin. So, she starts to claw at his shirt, pulling it out of the waistband of his pants and trying to make quick work of the buttons, but her movements are uncoordinated and sloppy. She manages to get three buttons on his shirt undone and grabs a fistful of his hair to yank his head up again. She barely waits a second before covering his neck in long, open-mouthed kisses and she can feel his breathing get ragged and shallow as his fingers dig into her waist. Soon, she is trailing her tongue along his jaw like she's been wanting to ever since she saw him at the party and then continues to kiss every inch of skin she can find from his neck to his shoulder to his chest. Some part of her feels the need to reclaim him. To reclaim any part of him that Serena may have taken from her that night. Then, just as he had months ago in what now seems like some happy, hazy, drunken hallucination, Dan lifts her up and pushes her against the door. Her legs wrap themselves instinctively around his waist and she bends her head to meld her mouth to his again.

Just as he starts to push her dress further up her thighs, the haze of lust and spontaneity snaps in an instant. Blair starts to reconsider her position on technology ruining interpersonal relationships as Dan's phone sits atop the kitchen counter buzzing obnoxiously. He doesn't move to answer it. Nor does he move to kiss her again and she instantly craves the contact. He is still holding her up, trapped against the door, her dress bunched around her hips and she makes no attempt to climb down. They stay as they are, breathing heavily, foreheads pressed together, but the moment is lost. The phone stops buzzing and Dan pulls his head back to look up at her.

"We shouldn't do this."

His voice is still low and raspy and frustratingly that only makes her want him more.

"But, I want to," she offers meekly, knowing immediately that he's unlikely to relent.

He shakes his head.

"No, you don't."

"Don't tell me what I want," she barks, annoyed at his superior tone.

He chuckles, genuinely this time, as though amused by her penchant for contradicting him at every turn. Amused that even in this messy, imperfect, fractured place they find themselves, they can still be Dan and Blair.

"Blair, you're engaged."

"And a few months ago I was married. That didn't stop you."

"This is different," he persists, not adding 'This is Chuck', though the implication is there. "You should go home. It's late."

She wants to refuse. She wants to tighten her hold on his shoulders and wrap her legs more soundly around his waist and refuse to leave. She wants him to shut up and kiss her. She wants to pretend, just for one night, that nothing else in her life exists. She wants.

"Go, home, Blair."

I am home, she doesn't say. This time he pulls away and she slides down, feeling deflated and drained of energy. Her legs feel like stilts when they hit the ground and she stumbles on the spot. Dan reaches a firm hand around her waist to steady her before moving away completely. Somehow this gesture raises a painful lump in her throat which she tries to ignore as she smooths down her rumpled dress and picks up her coat and purse from where she had discarded them on the floor.

"So, what now?" she asks, not quite willing to leave with things unresolved yet again.

"Now you'll walk out that door and we'll go back to pretending we're acquaintances."

She wants to scream and cry and stomp her feet.

"And that's what you want?"

Dan smiles sadly at her before replying.

"You know what I want. I never stopped wanting it. I just wish I knew what you want."

"To be happy," she whispers .

"So you keep saying."

She doesn't need him to explain what he means. She almost laughs bitterly when she realizes she's exactly where she was a year ago. I think I know how to make you happy, he had told her then.

"I was – we... we were happy, weren't we?" she says wistfully, more to herself than to him. "We were good together, Humphrey."

He laughs lightly at this, but she continues.

"No, we were and I walked away. I'm not sure I know why I did anymore."

"Now, you and I both know that's not true. You walked away because you loved someone else. It's not rocket science, Waldorf."

"I thought it was that simple, too, you know. I know it's not fair for me to say this, but I loved what we had, Dan. What we have... it's what I want. It's everything I've ever wanted, but I just –"

"Don't know if you want it with me?"

She's not sure whether she loves or hates how easily he can read her. She wants to contradict him. Wants to tell him he's wrong. That she's not as unsure and fickle as all that. That she knows what she wants and how to get it. She says nothing. He studies her for a moment and nods in a way that seems to say 'That's what I thought'.

"Well, come find me if you ever figure it out. Deal?"

He offers her his hand with a strained smile. She finally lets the tears fall freely as she looks at him standing there, shirt half undone, hair sticking out at odd angles, lips looking thoroughly kissed, yet somehow projecting an untarnished innocence as he holds his hand out expectantly. She manages a choked laugh as she takes his hand to shake it.

"Deal."

She leans forward to press a lingering kiss to his cheek before turning away as fast as she can and forcing herself out the door.

...

She's mildly surprised to find Chuck waiting for her when she gets home, but ever the professional, she doesn't let the surprise register and keeps her features as impassive as possible. Neither one of them moves in for the customary peck on the lips. Instead they stand in the foyer facing each other in uneasy silence. It quickly becomes apparent that Chuck doesn't intend to break this stalemate, so Blair relents.

"How was your day?"

"Fine," he says, his tone betraying nothing unusual. "Busy, but fine."

It's such a mundane, commonplace exchange. Probably one taking place in millions of households between couples far older than they are. Not for the first time since taking over Waldorf Designs and morphing into the dutiful fiancé of young mogul Chuck Bass, Blair feels like a little girl playing dress up. Chuck continues to watch her as he twirls his phone carelessly in one hand and for the first time she can detect the trademark Bass sneer working its way onto his features. Some ridiculous part f Blair's brain wants to laugh at how strikingly melodramatic it all seems. Any thought of laughter, however, is stifled when Chuck finally speaks.

"I hear Brooklyn is nice this time of year."

He knows. That doesn't surprise her. What does surprise her is that she doesn't care.

"It is," she offers steadily, refusing to break his gaze.

She feels tired. The subterfuge. The push and pull. The game. They had always thrived on games even at the best of times. She was all in, she had told him. Betting on him. A gamble. Stability had never suited them.

Chuck moves closer and turns his phone towards her so she can see the image on the screen. It's a blurry snapshot of her exiting the town car outside the loft. It's splashed across the front page of Gossip Girl with what is no doubt some appropriately biting commentary, but she can't bring herself to read it.

"Slumming it again, are we?"

"Chuck," she snaps, a warning in her tone.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I understand why you went. Sooner or later we all have to deal with the fallout from our charity cases gone wrong. I'm a big enough man to forgive you your moment of backsliding. I suppose I owe you that after all we've been through. I assume that this particular case of yours is closed now?"

And that's all it takes. She knows. With every part of herself, she knows, and the clarity of the moment is entirely new and overwhelming. She wonders how she could have ever confused the dull inevitability of resigning herself to fate with this feeling. This unencumbered simplicity. There are no orchestras playing, no angels singing, no fountains lighting up behind her, no thunderclaps. There is only a blissful, giddy relief.

"It's over," she says with a dazed sort of assurance.

"Good," says Chuck with a perfunctory smile. "Now we can get on with our lives without the guilt of Humphrey hanging over your head."

He moves to kiss her, but she turns her head so that the kiss lands on her cheek.

"No, Chuck."

She slides the glittering Harry Winston off her finger and presses it into Chuck's palm.

"It's over."

...

There is something oddly calming about the sound of the very large raindrops spattering against the windows and roof of the car as it moves through the street. The drumming sound distracts her from the hammering rhythm of her own heart.

Three weeks. Three weeks since she found herself returning yet another engagement ring. Three weeks since Chuck Bass walked out of her apartment and her life. Three weeks since she had made the same journey she was making now to the same place to see the same boy.

The same boy she spots walking towards his building in the pouring rain as the car pulls up to the curb. He is drenched to the bone and apparently losing a battle with a broken umbrella and two large bags of groceries. Somewhere in Blair's brain, she is aware of her own umbrella resting on the car seat beside her. She leaves it resting there and clambers out of the car into the downpour with all the eager grace of a rhinoceros. It only takes seconds before she's almost as drenched as the idiot in front of her who doesn't seem to have noticed her presence. Blair finds that she can't move as she watches Dan swear loudly to himself and attempt to manoeuvre the umbrella into one hand while he stoops to pick up one of the bags he dropped.

There is a moment of fleeting shock that flitters across his face when he finally spots her in the midst of his clumsiness. He squints in the rain as if to make certain he's not hallucinating. The umbrella is tossed aside and the bags are dropped unceremoniously onto the sidewalk where they land with a splash, their contents rolling out. Dan doesn't seem to notice as he makes his way over to her in a daze.

Within moments he is standing in front of her again. She can smell his cologne again. She wants to smooth his hair back for him again as it seems to have wilted on his head, as ridiculous as ever, leaking rivulets of water onto his face. Beneath his jacket, she notices that his shirt is clinging to his torso in a way that causes a familiar, aching warmth to spread through her even as she shivers slightly under the onslaught of cold water. Her cheeks start to cramp and she realizes that she hasn't stopped smiling since the moment she stepped out of the car. Dan appears to be searching for something and she follows his eye line. He's looking at her left hand. Her left ring finger, to be exact. When he looks up, he breaks into a smile so uninhibited that it's almost childlike. Blair searches for the dimple at the corner of his mouth and finds it exactly where it should be.

"I figured it out," she almost shouts over the din of the rain.

She has a speech. An entire speech planned in which she will pour her heart out. A speech she constructed carefully over several sleepless nights of tossing and turning and making notes on overpriced stationary. It's a good speech. Blair Waldorf does not write bad ones. Apparently Dan Humphrey has no regard for her hard work and dedication. She doesn't get another word out as his lips come crashing down on hers and her hands are tangled in the abomination he calls hair and there is not an inch of space separating them. Their bodies are melded together in a way that Blair imagines is entirely inappropriate considering they're out in the open, but any further rational thought is wiped from her brain as Dan tugs on her bottom lip in the way that only he ever has.

Three weeks since she last kissed Dan Humphrey. She smiles into this kiss knowing it won't be three weeks till the next.

A/N: This story is actually a bit of a departure for me in terms of writing style. I'm usually more of a humorous fluff kinda gal, so hopefully I didn't mishandle angst entirely.

Reviews are always welcome and much appreciated. A big thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to write one. :)