Sometimes he thinks he's going to crack into two. Split down the middle until there's nothing left. Somehow it never happens and he's left intact with all the same agony and the same dreams and he wishes it would actually happen, wishes he could let the craziness creep in, let the pain take over. Then he could let go.

Dan sits at the bar sipping a warm drink, amber liquid, melted ice cubes, the glass sweating in his hand, and he thinks that today is a good day. He only thought of her a half dozen times. He got up and drank his coffee as the birds chittered outside in the early morning sun. He got dressed.

Some days it takes everything not to break.

Sorrow follows him, a spector in the shadows waiting to grab him at any moment, waiting to fold him into her warm and loving embrace, inviting him to lay his head down and just let go. Dan wants to let go. He wants it more than anything. He can never just give in, something keeps him there, keeps him in the middle of his misery.

Summer is almost over, although it never really happened for him. Rome was a blur, days filled with writing, Georgina perched on the edge of the chair next to him, her voice smokey and suggestive, licking her red, glossy lips. Georgina was an open invitation, and easy fuck, a way to let go for just a few moments, a way to forget. He never took her up on it.

He didn't want to forget.

He just wrote, fingers flying across the keyboard, pouring out the truth. Truth as he knew it or as he had discovered it. Truth that hurts like blades slicing into your skin, and sometimes it was so raw that the truth even hurt him.

Pouring out his love.

He walked the streets at night, headphones one, melancholy strains weaving a soundtrack, step after step, not seeing anything around him. Only seeing her.

Blair.

Rome was a blur, full of sleepless nights and too much coffee and unbearably bright days. He hated Rome. He thought it would make everything better. Nothing could make things better.

Dan sips the watered down whiskey wishing for the burn on his throat, the warmth in his chest, but the burn left long ago. He's numb now, feeling nothing, tasting nothing.

Serena came to see him when he came back to New York, eyes unfocused, hair tangled and dirty, a lopsided golden grin plastered across her face as she regaled him with tales of coke-fueled parties and b-list movie stars. She ran a finger down his cheek and Dan winced at her touch, remembering that night and how she'd touched him then, and his stomach clenched. She told him again that he was the love of her life, that she would be good if she could just have him back, that she wouldn't need the drugs and parties, if only... Dan knew she really wanted to head to the bathroom and snort the cocaine she carried in her tiny clutch, that she wanted the numbness just as much as he did. He knew that she didn't really love him, just the idea of him.

He knew she lied.

He told her to leave. To not come back. He closed that chapter.

Another drink. The bar is dark, a perfect place to hide. Dan stares down at the glass the bartender has slid in front of him, staring at the amber liquid. The melancholy creeps up again, filling his veins and making him ache. He hates how it has this habit of finding him at the most inconvenient times and suddenly he can't breathe, can't think, can't move, and all he can see is her.

Blair.

Fuck her.

No one talks about her. Tones become hushed and suddenly the conversation changes to the weather or sports, and Dan wants to tell everyone to stop pretending that they never happened. Stop acting like they were nothing more than a doomed affair, a momentary things. All he has left is them, Dan and Blair, her smile, and the more people act like they never happened, the more things fade, and he knows that one day what they had will slip away entirely.

He's already lost her. He doesn't want to lose everything. He doesn't want to lose his memories.

He sits in bars, dark establishments with high backed worn velvet booths that still smell like cigarette smoke, tables covered with crumbs, bar stools with split vinyl. A different bar every night because he wants to be a ghost drifting in and out, never sure if he's really there. He wants to be nothing. He sits with the chronic alcoholics who stink of stale liquor, slur their words, nod over their drinks and pound the bar for more. He watches the ice cubes melt, grips his glass, never drinks more than one or two, because he's not there to get drunk. He's there to be invisible.

He misses her.

Today is the day that he finally does break. He cracks around the edges, falling to pieces, because he looks up from studying his glass and she's there.

He's seen her before, sitting next to him, tossing her hair back, glancing over, smiling that smile that always makes him melt, and then she fades away, back into the recesses of his brain. But today she doesn't fade away, and Dan realizes that it's not his imagination, that Blair is indeed sitting next to him, watching him with sad, dark eyes, saying nothing.

He wants to yell, to let out all his anguish, open his mouth and let it all loose. He wants to ask her why, why she left and never said anything. He wants to beg, to plead with her to tell him they were more than nothing, more than something she could walk away from so easily. He does nothing. Just stares at her, eyes unblinking, refusing to look away. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing his pain. Refusing to let himself look away from what has haunted his dreams.

He's like a starving man who has been handed a seven course dinner, drinking in her face, her hair, the way she bites her lips, the sadness that radiates off her and hits him full force, almost making him gasp. He memorizes the way her hair falls around her shoulders, remembers how it felt in his fingers. He traces the line of her neck with his eyes, remembering what it felt like to trail down it with his lips. Heat creeps its way up his spine.

Fuck.

He doesn't ask how she found him. He doesn't care.

"I loved you." Dan finally manages to say, taking a sip of his drink, pretending he doesn't care. He wants his voice to be casual but it betrays him and he can hear that it's bitter and he can also hear it tremble. Her hand reaches out and touches his and Dan jumps, his breath hitches. Her fingers are cold, burning his skin. He doesn't pull away.

"Are you okay?" Blair asks despite knowing the answer. Her eyes are wide, luminous, and he remembers that day in the hospital hallway when she looked at him with fear and hope and suddenly his entire world shifted toward her. She looked like this then. That was a beginning. This is an ending. It feels strangely the same.

"No." Dan answers. They have been stripped bare, all the way down the to the bones of truth. There's no reason to pretend. "Are you?"

"I don't know."

He looks down at her hand resting on his and suddenly he can't breathe.

"Blair." Dan gasps, shock running through his body.

She follows his gaze and sees what has brought the pain back, then looks back up at him.

"I'm sorry." Blair says softly.

On her left ring finger is a simple gold band. Dan feels tears sting his eyes.

"It should have been me." he spits out, looking away, not wanting to see her face anymore. It hurts too much.

"I know."

Dan's head jerks back around to see Blair looking defenseless, tears streaking down her cheeks. He struggles for control as anger wells up. How can she sit next to him and say this, now, when everything has changed and they can't go back. His gut twists and he looks away again.

They say nothing for a long time, sitting next to each other, keeping quiet company, Blair's hand resting on Dan's, Dan struggling for control, not looking at her, but not wanting to pull his hand away either.

"I thought it was what I wanted." Blair finally says quietly.

"You were wrong?" Dan asks.

"I was wrong."

Someone puts money into the jukebox in the corner and a seventies rock ballad starts to play, crackling over the bar's loudspeakers. A man on the end asks the bartender for another beer. There's the sound of clinking glasses in the background. Dan thinks he might be able to hear Blair breathing through all the ambient noise, in and out, and maybe her heart beating in time with his.

"I love you." Blair says.

They both know it's too late. They both know it doesn't matter. Dan's heart still skips a beat.

"I love you too."

~fin~