114. the history books forgot about us
Title | the history books forgot about us
Chapter | 1/1
Rating | hm, r to be safe.
Characters | Nate. Nate/Serena. Dan/Serena, Carter/Serena, Dan/Nate, the tiniest hint of Chuck/Blair.
Summary | Every atom of you and every atom of me.
Notes | This fic is the result of a prompt dae_dreemer gave me, which was NS in the same context as Will and Lyra at the ending of the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, a summary of which can be found here. I've taken some liberties with the prompt since Will and Lyra are in the same place at the same time for one day out of every year, but they do not actually see one another. The structure of universes within this fic is based vaguely on the structure in Fringe, and I've taken some liberties (aka made some things up) for the sake of the story.
I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment.
And when we do find each other again, we'll cling to each other
so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart.
Every atom of you and every atom of me…
We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees
and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams…
And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one,
they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight…
- Lyra, from the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
prologue. 2006.
Summer solstice day, early in the morning, the stars twinkle eagerly in the sky - it's only a matter of time before the sun will come out, overpowering and replacing them all.
He breathes out. "So…"
She smiles, teeth glinting and eyes glimmering in the pale blue light. "How 'bout them Yankees?" she supplies.
Carefully, he reaches a hand up and tucks her hair out of her face. He's lying on his back in the grass and she's sitting crossed-legged beside him, her summery dress pooled between her thighs. "How about them," he echoes, not exactly a question.
Her eyes flutter shut for a beat. "Almost morning," she murmurs.
"Yeah. Almost." He moves his hand from her hair to her cheek, traces his finger over the scar along the left side of her jaw, one of the many ways the war has marked her - has marked them.
She leans into his touch, turns her head toward his hand and kisses his fingertips. "It was a good one, wasn't it?"
He sits up abruptly and kisses her, almost forcefully, one arm going around her and tugging her as close to him as possible as he slips his tongue into her mouth, committing her to memory. She gasps when he breaks the kiss.
"It's not over," he tells her, the words heavy. It can't be over - they're only fifteen years old. "It's still good."
With gentle fingers, she tugs his arm away from her body and moves it back to his side. "Still good," she agrees softly, her eyes sparkling like she might cry.
He balls his hands into fists. "Don't forget."
She giggles and the sun starts to rise, an explosion of bright light on the horizon.
"Don't forget," he repeats, urgently this time.
"I won't, Natie." She lifts her hand and her fingers collide with an invisible barrier between them.
And then she's gone.
one. 2007.
"Nate!"
Something breaks and then all of a sudden she's in his arms, her limbs tangled around him in an enthusiastic hug. He squeezes her back just as tightly, his nose wrinkling slightly at the unmistakable scent of alcohol.
He tucks her hair gently behind her ear and leans back from the hug a bit, wanting to look at her for the first time in three hundred and sixty four days.
She's not quite how he remembers her, and he only has his memories to go on. All of the pictures of her are gone, all evidence of her no longer exists - she belongs to her universe now and only hers. She is a part of over-there, not of here. He remembers her smile, the way it had blinded him whenever he'd seen it, and the look of her blue eyes in the dark. He remembers the way she used to sleep and the way she used to laugh; remembers the way she said his name, like it was something sweet in her mouth and the way she'd said no, simple as that, just no, and stepped right in front of him during that final battle, the time someone had almost killed him - he remembers how she hadn't wanted to cry afterward, how her jaw was set and he'd had to hug her for a long time before he felt her tears against his neck.
She blinks at him, asks, "What're you staring at?" on a giggle.
Her laugh is the same, but everything else - her eyes look…harder, and darker, more like navy blue than he's ever seen them, and her smile doesn't reach them anymore. They're all lined with kohl and her lips are glossy and her jeans are low and tight, so unlike the plaid skirts that used to move with the rhythm of her steps. And the scar on her face, the one she got because of him, looks as red and as angry as it did in the days after she received it.
"You," he says faintly. "Lookin' at you…" He swallows. "Up partying all night?"
"Yeah, Georgie found this awesome place!" She laughs a little, at some private thought, and then presses her hands against his chest. "It's you," she whispers.
He runs his hands down the sides of her body; her shirt is thin and glittery and vaguely transparent. "Who's…Georgie?" He tries not to think about the way her lip gloss looks smudged.
"Oh my god, Natie, she's like my best friend." Everything about her goes still for a moment and then she forces a casual shrug. "Since, y'know. Blair's here."
He blows out his breath, relieved. Georgie's a girl. "Yeah…"
"How is Blair?" she wonders, looking at him with wide eyes. More softly, she asks, "How're you?"
Nate laughs quietly and cups her face in his hands, leans in and takes hold of her lips with his, kisses her slowly. She makes a tiny, pleased sound at the back of her throat and he feels all the tension seep out of his body, replaced with the want of her.
"Sit down with me, S," he murmurs, lips still grazing hers. "And I'll tell you."
He tells her about his life over the past year: back to school at St. Jude's, as if nothing has happened at all, his parents still pressuring him to choose an Ivy League school as if he hadn't won a war the year before, as if he couldn't make his own choices. She lies next to him on the grass and holds his hand, listening patiently and making quiet comments in all the right places.
When he finishes she keeps asking questions, so he tells her about Blair and Chuck, about his lacrosse games and about Blair's sixteen birthday bash. He's been keeping an eye on Eric - she asked him too - and he tells her everything he knows about the younger boy's life and about how they play Wii together at least once a week. She's silent throughout most of that, watching him with serious eyes, drinking in his information.
Around noon, he insists on a subject change: "Tell me about you." He tangles his fingers into her hair and tries not to sound too curious when he asks, "What's it like over there?"
"Different," she whispers. She looks a little lost, all of a sudden. "My dad's there. Like, he's home with us, like we're a real family. Eric's different and Blair's not there…"
She keeps going him, telling him about the uniforms at Constance are red and not blue, how there's no social hierarchy in school and no queen bee, how every time she sees a blonde boy she does a double-take, thinking it's him. She says Eric's still a sweet kid but he's louder over there, like they've switched places or something and he's the one everyone pays all the attention to. She tells him about Georgie and about all the fun they have together, about the drinking and the drugs and that one time they stole horses.
"It was so fun," she breathes, sunlight painted over her skin.
"What happened to them?" he wonders.
"Hm?" She blinks at him, eyelashes fluttering alluringly.
"The horses."
"I don't know." She looks up at the sky, squinting, and then back at him. "I'm so drunk," she confesses, flopping back into the grass, her eyes shut.
He traces a finger along her scar; her skin is so warm to the touch. "Yeah," he whispers, at a loss for anything else to say, watching as she drifts off to sleep.
She sleeps for all of the afternoon and well into the evening; fitfully, restlessly - he draws the line when she starts whimpering in her sleep and shakes her gently, waking her up.
"It's okay," he soothes as her eyes open and she looks at him in sleepy alarm. "It's me, S - you're here with me."
She's pale and shaky and she rolls toward him, grass stains on her jeans, huddling against his chest. He wraps her up in his arms, trailing kisses down the side of her face.
"It's okay," he repeats. "I dream about the war sometimes, too."
Serena's quiet for a very long time, her breathing slowly settling. And then she glances up at him, almost coyly, and asks, "Do you ever dream about me?"
He cups the back of her neck with his hand and laughs. "Of course I do."
And then she kisses him, hot and deep and perfect as he fists her hair in his hand and leans into her, wanting to feel all of her curves press against his body. He dreams about her all the time, but he can't dream up the way it sounds and feels when she moans into his mouth or the taste of her, like strawberries and peach schnapps.
Under the night sky they kiss and kiss and kiss, pausing only occasionally to exchange quiet words and catch their breath. Eventually, they start to fall asleep, still tangled up in each other.
With her eyes half closed, Serena breathes, "Don't forget."
He wakes before sunrise and gently jostles her into wakefulness as well.
"Hey, you," she murmurs, her lips finding their way to his.
It takes a lot of effort to stop kissing her. "Serena," he mutters.
"Hm?"
He sighs. "I'm worried about you."
She pulls back a little, looks at him with cautious curiosity. "Worried?"
Nate nods. "You're different."
She licks her lips and there's an edge to her voice when she says, "Different? People change, Nate. It's normal."
"You look…" He doesn't know how to say it. "You look different, you look…sadder. Like…you're hurting, or something."
Her lips thin. "I'm trapped in another universe, Nate. I think I'm allowed to hurt for a while, don't you?"
"Yeah, it's just - it's like you're hurting yourself." The look in her eyes is making him anxious.
"You don't know what I'm doing. You haven't seen me for a year."
"That's not my fault," he points out softly.
"It's not my fault either," she spits, her face crumpling in something like heartbreak -
And then she's gone and he stares straight into the sun until he feels his eyes start to ache.
five. 2012.
"Isn't it funny?"
She's wearing her pyjamas and he's dressed down in jeans and his sweater emblazoned with his name and his lacrosse-team number.
He reaches up and tickles her, hits some vague patch of skin and feels a tiny surge of joy when she wriggles and giggles, "Stop, Nate."
He laughs, too, but he doesn't quite feel it. "What is it?"
"People used to think the world would end in twenty-twelve." She stretches her arms above her head; he can see her fingers extend toward the sky as if she could touch the clouds if she just tried hard enough. "Mayan calendar in all that."
"Guess we proved them wrong."
There is wind today, but it's warm and teasing, carrying Serena's words gently to his ears. "Yeah, guess we did."
As far as he's concerned, the world ended when the war began.
"What's his name?" His eyes feel heavy but he tries to keep his voice light.
"Nate." She sighs his name quietly in that voice that's just not fair.
"C'mon, Serena. You've been distant for the past two times - two years, you're obviously…you have someone."
She purses her lips and he sees her thoughts play out over her face, the way she considers denying it, considers admitting it, before she finally says, simply, "Dan."
It's like a punch to the gut and Nate can't catch his breath - can't accept the way she says the name of someone he's never even met, someone she clearly cares for deeply.
"Natie…" She reaches out to him and he feels his heart twist; she says his name the same way.
He shrugs her off. "We can end this, if you want. If you've found something better."
"No!" She frowns. "No, of course I don't want to end this. It's…it's a long time in between, Nate, and sometimes it seems like the day will never end, and it's been…it's been hard, over there. My family, and my friends - they think I'm someone else, they expect me to be the girl that belongs over there, but I belong over here, I belong where you belong…"
When she trails off they're both silent. She's breathing hard, her eyes locked on his, chest rising and falling in a quick, even pattern.
"He's been good to me," she whispers. "It's been so hard and he's been good to me."
"Do you love him?"
She shoots him a wounded look and lowers her head, her hair falling like a wall between them, and through blonde strands he can see that stupid scar of hers (and some days he just wishes she would have let him die).
"Don't ask me that," she breathes.
He presses a hand over her heart and she lifts her head quickly but he speaks before she can, "I want you to be happy."
Serena's hand comes to rest over his heart in turn, feeling out its steady beat. "I want you to love me," she volleys back.
Sadly, he smiles. She's never had to ask for that.
ten. 2025.
He lies with his head in her lap, watching the clouds in the sky. Her fingers massage his scalp lightly; her chin is tipped back too, admiring the sunny day.
"Serena," he says softly.
"Hm?"
"What's your daughter's name?"
Her hand stills against his head. "You've never asked me that before."
"I've never been ready for the answer before," he reasons.
He can feel her smile in the air. "Natalie," she announces. "That's her name."
nine. 2023.
Serena's smile is lazy, her fingers tracing patterns over his skin. "What aren't you telling me?"
He chuckles nervously. "I kind of have a…thing."
"Nate." She's leaning back on her elbows, head tilted toward the sun, fingers on his forearm - she's glowing. "I have many things. You're allowed to have them too."
"But…with Dan," he chokes out, "I have a thing with Dan."
Serena sits up abruptly and stares at him, her mouth open but curved at the edges like a smile. "Are you saying…" She laughs. "Are you saying you're dating my ex-boyfriend?"
He laughs, too, in relief. "Your Dan is not the same as my Dan."
"Oh, I see." She leans over him, breasts pressed to his chest, lips too close. "He's your Dan now, huh?"
Nate rolls his eyes a bit. "Nobody's mine," he says calmly. He waits a beat before he gives her a devilish grin, "Except maybe you."
She plucks a clover from the grass and he sees that it has four leaves. "Today, I'm yours and only yours," she agrees, a painful reality but an accepted truth.
Before she goes, in their final moments, he makes love to her and afterward he forces himself to look at the sky, to count how many more minutes they have.
"Don't move," she whispers, her eyes closed, not letting him pull away.
Nothing compares to this, to the sound of her breathing and the feel of her and the taste of her. "If I could I'd stay here forever," he whispers back. "If I could, I'd do this every minute of every day."
Serena's eyelids flutter open and he sees stars in her eyes. "Marry me."
It's a ludicrous request and they both know it but the moment stays serious, grounded.
He goes to move but she stops him, fingernails clawing into his back. "Nate," she says in a voice he's never heard from her before, one that sounds dangerously close to begging.
"Hey," he murmurs. "I'm yours."
eleven. 2031.
"I had dinner with Dan's family the other day, and his dad asked how long I'd been gay."
Serena arches his eyebrows - a gesture that's more imposing on her face now, a little more like Lily and a little less like a girl who was always on the verge of laughing. "What'd you say?"
They're sitting opposite and next to each other, legs stretched out so that her feet and by his waist and vice versa. He appreciates the view of her legs, the fact that they're still great legs and she still wears skirts, albeit more conservative ones. Her dress is lacy and ivory-coloured, almost like a bride's, very much like a socialite's - and that's what she is now, what over-there Serena had always been, what his Serena had never really wanted.
"I mumbled something stupid. It was a non-answer."
She reaches over to touch the Vanderbilt-crest pin on the lapel of his discarded blazer. "All these years in public office and you still can't think on your feet," she tsks.
He watches her movements and wishes desperately that it was possible for her to leave some piece of herself behind, even if it was only the scent of her perfume on his clothes, but he knows by now that when she disappears he'll be left with nothing, as if she was never there at all. Holes in the space-time continuum don't take human desires into consideration.
"Your constituents don't know about Dan, I take it," she continues.
"My constituents don't need to know about my private life."
"You must come off as a mystery." She gives him a secretive little smirk that goes straight to his heart. "War hero with so many secrets."
Nate sighs. Lately, the war seems very far off, and his triumphs seem so insignificant. "How did we end up there?" he asks her softly. "Right in the middle of it."
"You had your beliefs. And I loved you for those."
"You should have gone into hiding with your family."
Serena laughs. "Same to you."
"You would've been okay."
"You would have died. Tell me how I would have been okay."
He sighs again, frustrated by her. "People move on, Serena. We both have."
They look at each other for a long, tense moment, and then they throw their heads back and laugh.
Moments before she leaves, he puts his pin on the sleeve of her dress, knowing full well that it will disappear the second she arrives in the universe that she now calls home.
three. 2010.
"Serena - "
He grabs her hand and pulls her to him for a soft, chaste kiss.
It's all they have for before she disappears, and it's the only time they kissed the entire time she was there. Nate stares into the empty space where she just stood and wishes he could disappear, too.
eight. 2020.
She flies into his arms so abruptly and at such a high speed that he topples back into the grass; the wind is knocked out of both of them when she lands on top of him. She catches her breath first and laughs, pressing kisses to his cheeks.
"Hey, you," he says, almost laughing as well.
Serena grins at him. "I missed you."
The scar on her jaw looks different now, faded and muted, something that happened long ago. He traces it with his thumb. "How's your girl?"
Her grin stays in place but it shifts a little, somehow, into something that isn't meant just for him anymore. "She's a handful. She's perfect."
"Sounds like you."
She swats at his shoulder and laughs, moves so that she's no longer lying on top of him but sitting instead, straddling his hips. Her knee-length pencil skirt is all bunched up and she looks him right in the eye as she slips the buttons on her sleeveless, pale blue blouse undone, revealing a lacy bra.
He can't help but think about the girl on the other side, the almost-three-year-old who calls Serena mommy and thinks that she can solve any problem in the world; he can't help but think of the other eyes that must have seen her lingerie, the other hands that must have touched her skin, the other man who's learned her body in a way Nate will never have the opportunity to.
"Don't think so much," Serena says softly. "We only have today…"
He loops an arm around her and rolls them over, gives her a silencing kiss and then moves his mouth downward, soft kisses over her chest, moving slowly down her abdomen. She arches her back beneath him, hips lifting in anticipation, one hand reaching out to grip a handful of his hair.
Nate can't help but be proud of the way he makes her come, sweat beaded on her forehead and tears on her cheeks and his name on her lips.
He leans over her, kissing her quickly. "How's your husband?" he asks.
She's trembling underneath him. "Don't…do that. Don't be jealous."
"I want you," he says, and his voice cracks, making it sound more like a confession than a statement.
She rids him of his clothes with remarkable speed, wraps her legs around his waist. "Have me."
"I wish it would snow," Serena says softly, naked and tucked against his side, an arm thrown over his chest.
He winds her hair around his fingers. "It does snow," he tells her teasingly.
She props her chin on his shoulder and sticks out her tongue and for a moment they're kids again and there's nothing but this: them, together. "I mean when I'm with you. We could…have snowball fights, build snowmen…"
Nate wonders vaguely what's going on behind her eyes when she tells him those things, whether she's envisioning all their laughter in Central Park when they were young, all the cups of hot cocoa and the shared smiles and the snowflakes caught on their mittens and hats…or if she's envisioning her life over there, playing in the snow with her daughter, little-girl giggles and what it's like to be a family.
They used to tell each other everything: full disclosure. She knew all the details of his life and he knew all of the details of her. Now, they tell each other simple, meaningless things and leave out everything significant. It's to protect one another, he knows that, but it feels like a loss - one he's not sure they'll ever overcome.
He looks at her face, at her clear blue eyes, at the way the lines of her face have changed as she grows older. "Summer suits you," he promises her.
fourteen. 2050.
Dan is published. Serena's daughter has fallen in love.
"It feels over, doesn't it?" she reflects. He wishes he could drown in her eyes.
He can remember her words from forever ago and he repeats them back to her with an easy smile, "It was a good one, wasn't it?"
She smiles back. "It was hell."
"You made it heavenly." He presses his fingertips to her scar one last time.
She squeezes his hand, "Don't forget."
When she's gone her words echo around him.
six. 2014.
The moment she appears before him she laughs, full of relief and joy and amusement. "You look awfully proud of yourself, Nathaniel Archibald," she drawls. Her dress is blue and pretty and her heels are black; she takes those off and tosses them aside, walking barefoot across the grass toward him.
He likes the way she looks, calm and smiling, and a nagging voice at the back of his mind gloats, look how well she's being treated by someone you've never really met. He ignores that thought, though, looping an arm low around her waist and tugging her to him. She stumbles into him, smiling softly, and his heart does a somersault when she initiates their kiss.
"M'just happy to see you, baby," he whispers against her mouth.
She rolls her eyes and touches the tip of her nose to his. "I know you, remember?"
"I remember everything," he tells her seriously, and then grins. "I met Dan."
She arches an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me?"
"My-universe Dan," he corrects.
"So that's why you coerced his last name out of me last time…" She shakes her head a little. "What's he like? Are you being nice?"
He pretends to balk. "I'm always nice, S."
"Uh huh," she says dubiously.
"Dan's nice, too," Nate admits, a little grudgingly. "He lives in Brooklyn and his dad's a failed musician who's obsessed with making chili. He has a little sister."
Serena's bottom lip pokes out slightly, her eyes search his. "A sister?" she asks knowingly.
He tickles her ribs, making her squeal. "Shut up. No."
Her mouth keeps smiling but her eyes go darker and solemn. "You're allowed to love people, Nate. You're allowed to want to love people."
"Like you love Dan."
"Yeah." She slips her arms around his neck and he sees, all of sudden, how comfortable she is with this now - she'd always been so careful with her affections before, so worried about someone hurting her heart. "Like I…love Dan."
He fights to take it in stride, holding her tighter to him. "How 'bout you love me instead?"
She giggles, soft and sweet. "Forever, you idiot."
twelve. 2037.
"No more babies, huh?" he asks.
Her eyes fly to meet him in a way that makes him wonder what his question might have sparked in her mind. He smoothes a hand down her bare arm, kisses her shoulder with an open mouth.
"I'm just asking, sweetheart. You and Carter never…"
"We talked about it," she says vaguely. "But we love Natalie and we didn't feel like we needed another child to be complete. And I couldn't…" She swallows hard and Nate's eyes fall to the elegant line of her neck. "I couldn't have his baby again, I just…when they put her in my arms for the first time and I looked at her face, I couldn't stop looking for signs of you. For a crazy moment I thought she had your eyes, but…she has mine."
He kisses her gently. "You have your life and I have mine." It's almost their mantra, now, the foundation of their split existences. "And from what you've told me of her, she sounds - "
"Like a mess," Serena sighs, and he hears how she blames herself in those three words. "In my head I don't even live in the same universe as my daughter does."
"But you love her," Nate protests. "And apples and trees, Serena - your childhood wasn't the neatest or the easiest. The most perfect girls…they're not really perfect until you look at all their mess and you want to be a part of it."
Her lips quirk. "You're a part of my mess?"
Nate grins. "I'm your whole mess, sweetheart."
She rests her hand against her cheek. "Still so charming," she teases, "and ever so handsome. I don't know how you do it."
He laughs. "You're still the prettiest girl in any universe."
"Not exactly a girl anymore," she corrects him gently.
But she's wrong: there's a part of her, in his eyes, that is forever fifteen, forever in this field of soft green grass, forever his whole universe contained in a package of blonde hair and blue eyes and perfect girl.
"I have to tell you something," she whispers.
He's zipping up her dress for her, nice and slow, running his fingertips along her spine. She has her hair gathered over one shoulder, holding it there with one hand, her wedding rings glinting in the almost-morning-light.
He kisses her diamond ring as if that will make it his and not someone else's. "Anything, you know that."
She keeps her back to him even when he finishes zipping. A deep breath, and then she says quietly, "We made a baby once."
He freezes. "What?"
Serena blows out her breath and says in that same quiet tone, "It was…the first time. We were kids and as soon as I knew…I knew it wouldn't last. That baby was half me and half you and we don't belong in the same place anymore - a child can't split itself in two, no universe would let that happen. But I had…I don't know, I had this stupid hope. I didn't miscarry until I was a couple days over three months pregnant."
He can't breathe, can't do anything but say, "Serena…"
"I didn't think I would come back, I didn't think…that I could see you. I was…bad, for a really long time, I didn't go to school and my mom wanted to check me into rehab and then…I met Dan. And he helped me, and…it turned out he'd had…a crush on me for a while, the me that had always been there, and he'd written stories about me, and he gave me one. And at the top, he wrote…" She stops, frozen on the spot, shoulders curved downward.
"Serena," Nate says again, his heart in his throat.
"He wrote don't forget. So I didn't." She turns around to face him, tears pooled in her eyes but none on her cheeks.
"Oh my god," he manages to say.
"I thought - there's no way of ever knowing, but for some reason I thought it would've been a boy."
"God, Serena…" His hands press lightly against her abdomen, as flat now as it was in her youth. "We had a baby," he says slowly, in wonderment.
"We could've," she agrees, oh-so-softly.
"You never told me…"
"Does it matter? Everything's -"
She's gone and he's left touching the air.
"Everything's okay," he whispers, clenching his empty hands shut.
two. 2008.
She's wearing her Constance Billard uniform skirt, her hair up in a messy knot, when she appears in front of him, so close that she almost lands on hiss toes.
Quietly, she breathes out, "Hi," as she steadies herself with a hand on his arm.
"I couldn't stop thinking about it," he murmurs. She looks a little better this time, less makeup and lighter eyes. "The last thing I said to you. I wasn't sure you'd be here."
She slips both of her hands into both of his. "We promised."
He gathers her to him in a hug that he doesn't intend on ending for a while, sighs her name into her hair when she hugs him back with the same amount of resolve.
After a couple moments of silence during which they do nothing but hold each other, he moves his hand to tug at the hem of her seersucker skirt. "What's with the uniform?"
"It was just…there." She kisses his shoulder, over his shirt. "I didn't know what to wear and this just seemed easiest. I guess…I wanted to impress you."
He shakes his head and scoffs a little how ridiculous that idea is; she's never needed to work to impress him. "I love you," he tells her, cupping her head with his hand, fingers slowly massaging her scalp. "God, I love you."
She pulls back from the hug just the slightest bit so that their eyes can meet. He has so much to tell her - this year has been hell but it's also been too good to be true at times - but he thinks he can see her whole world, the one he'll never be able to cross into without killing himself, sitting right there in her gaze: everything she's done and hoped for and hated, it's all right there and he's in love with her.
"I'm so tired," she breathes.
It's barely morning.
A soft, misty rain wakes them up. Nate watches her face appreciatively, the rapidly blinking eyes and the pinkness in her cheeks. She's lying on her back and he's lying on his side next to her and he could die with how beautiful she is -
He realizes then that he's hard, pressed against her thigh, and he buries his face in her damp, sweet-smelling hair. "Sorry," he says, truly apologetic but not quite willing to let go of her.
Serena's smile is lazy and as slow as sunrise. "S'okay," she whispers, running her hand down his chest, going further and further until she brushes against him and he jerks against her hand.
"Sweetheart," he groans.
"It's really okay." Her voice is soft and she shifts in the grass so that they're lying face-to-face. With careful fingers, she unbuttons and unzips his khaki slacks before she slowly pushes them down his legs. He kicks them off, teeth clenched as she pushes gently at one of his shoulders, moving him so that he's on his back again.
She hikes up her skirt just a little in order to straddle him and his hands go automatically to her hips, pushing up her ivory-coloured school shirt so that he can grip her bare hips. There's nothing but his plaid boxers and her thin, bright-pink underwear between them and when she takes a quick breath he knows she must feel the same way he does about that.
"Baby," he tells her, "I'm gonna - "
He's cut off by her kiss; she leans down to press her mouth to his and her hair, which has come out of its knot, tumbles around their faces, hiding them away from the trees and the sky. She guides one of his hands up and under her shirt, reaching around herself to unhook her bra and letting him touch her.
"Not til you're in me," she breathes against his mouth and Nate drops his head back against the grass, moans her name.
Struggling to clear his mind a little, he tells her between kisses, "I've wanted you…forever…but then the war…"
"Nate," she gasps suddenly at the way his hands is moving against her chest. "Oh."
He lifts his other hand from her hip to touch her cheek. "S," he says, and he forgets the rest when she sits up a little pulls off her shirt with shaky hands.
Because she hasn't asked him to, he doesn't touch her, just concentrates on the feel of her hips pressed to his and carefully undoes the zipper on her skirt, making a great effort to force himself to listen to her when she whispers, "I've never…"
He pulls the skirt up over her head so she doesn't have to move, leaves her white knee socks, now stained with dew, on her. She follows his lead and strips his shirt off for him.
"Have you?" she asks faintly.
Nate blinks, taking a moment to figure out what she's asking. "No," he finally manages to say, running his hands over her smooth skin, all the parts of her he's never been able to touch before. "No, it's supposed to be you."
A single tear or maybe a leftover raindrop drips down her cheek and onto his, and then she's kissing him, her mouth moving against his. "It's me," she murmurs into his mouth, and he knows what she's saying.
four. 2011.
He's laughing when he first sees her. He runs toward her and picks her up in a hug so forceful it lifts her off her feet. She laughs and he twirls her around.
"You'll never guess," he tells her.
"So just tell me," she giggles.
"Chuck," he says, pausing afterward for emphasis, "and Blair."
Her mouth falls open. "No way."
He nods enthusiastically. "Yes way. Getting married way."
She punches his arm, hops a little on the spot. "No!"
"Yes!" He laughs, tugs her into another hug and presses his mouth against her neck; she sighs at the touch and he figures it's allowed. "I'm the best man."
Her laughter fades a little as she hugs him, they sway back and forth slightly. "Of course. You would be."
He squeezes her tighter, maybe too tightly. "You'll be missed. Blair said so when she told me."
"Said so?"
"In her Blair way. She complained about not having anyone to be good enough as maid of honour without you there."
Serena laughs again, but this time it's short-lived. "Tell her I'm hardly honourable."
"Hey." He pokes her in the back and rests his chin against her shoulder. "That's my girl you're talking about. I'm very serious about defending her honour."
She nuzzles her nose against his neck. "I love you," she says, and then again, "I love you, I…"
The sky clouds over slightly and Nate closes his eyes. "I know," he says lightly.
"If it worked both ways," she says shakily, "I would come anyway. I would've come to you even if it meant I would die."
"I'd never let you."
She sniffs. "I'd tell you to fuck the hell off."
He feels the fleeting temptation to smile. "I'd ask you to define that a little more clearly, because I wouldn't have heard any of that sentence past fuck."
Serena sobs against his neck, this broken, heart-wrenching sound that has Nate gulping, and they both pretend she's laughing.
thirteen. 2038.
"I fucking hate this," Serena says on a rush the second she comes into view. "Of all conversations to leave unfinished - "
He kisses her to silence her, deep and lingering. "I was thinking about it," he murmurs against her mouth. "Everything you said…"
She moans into his mouth - a year is a long, long time to want and worry. "And?"
"And I realized that my Dan writes stories, too."
She melts into his arms, pressed as close as possible, and as smoothly as he can, he maneuvers them both onto the ground. The sky is bright blue and cloudless overhead, pretty and simple as can be.
"You should get him to write our story," she says quietly, almost laughing. "We're better than fiction; we're unbelievable."
"I'm a believer," Nate counters lightly, rolling them so that they're both lying on their sides, facing each other. Her eyes seem to glow when their gazes meet. "I'll have to convert you…"
seven. 2017.
When she appears she's already biting her lip, already looking at him through her eyelashes, not quite letting herself breathe.
"Oh," Nate murmurs. "Wow."
And maybe he's been naïve all these years but it's the first time he's ever realized that the days they spend together are nothing in the grand scheme of things, that in-between she's building her own life and so is he, that they are as significant to one another as dreams.
She's not fifteen anymore and neither is he. He's standing here now like a schoolboy, blazer tossed aside and sleeves rolled up, tie loosened around his neck the way she'd always teased him about wearing it. And she's right there in front of him, in his world, her hair cut shorter than he's ever seen it before and a diamond glinting off of the fourth finger of her left hand and a noticeable swell to her stomach, her arms crossed protectively, defensively, over the bump of her baby.
"You're…"
"Yeah." Her voice is so soft that he hardly hears it.
"Wow," he repeats. "God, you look - " She looks achingly, painfully, dramatically beautiful.
There are tears shining in her eyes and when he finds his voice again all he can ask is, "Can I?"
She takes four quick steps toward him and throws her arms around her neck like they're kids again. He starts a little at the abruptness of her hug, even more at the feeling of her stomach, rounded with someone else's child, pressing against his - but he hugs her back before he really registers any of that.
He feels the way she breathes him in and then she's crying, shaking shoulders and fingers clutching at his shirt, silent sobs against his neck. He holds her, rocking them both a little and whispering shhh into her hair, kissing the tears off her cheeks.
After a couple moments he feels a soft thump against his stomach, and then another, and with widening eyes he moves one hand from where its rubbing at her back to touch her abdomen instead. The fabric of her shirt is incredibly soft and he runs his hand over it in the place where he felt kicking a moment before. There's another kick seconds later, this one a little harder, and he almost laughs, awed by the feeling.
"Hey," Serena says softly, wincing slightly as she pulls back from their hug a little, her eyes on her stomach. She rests her hand lightly over his. It takes him a moment to realize that she's speaking to her baby, not to him.
"Is it okay? For you to be here? Now that you're…"
She blows out her breath. "I researched. We should be okay."
Nate touches his forehead to hers. "You're married."
She laughs but it's without mirth. "My father didn't really allow any room for other options once I found out I was pregnant."
"Shotgun wedding." He tries to be teasing but it doesn't come out that way. "Romantic."
She gives him a scolding look and glances at their hands, which are still touching. "He'll take good care of me - of us."
Nate swallows hard. "Dan?"
She shakes her head. "Carter Baizen. My parents, over there, they're good friends with his, and it seems like…it seems like he's loved me for a long time. Apparently the me over there - " the girl who's now dead, who Serena has replaced " - apparently, she lost her virginity to him and they've been on and off ever since. He acts like…" Her eyes are far away. "He acts like we're inevitable, like we were always meant to be married."
"And you're having his baby."
Serena presses her lips together and nods.
"How far along…"
"It'll be six months in a week," she says softly.
"Do you know…"
Her smile blooms into something genuine. "It's a girl."
He almost smiles in return. "She'll be beautiful," he tells her, and knows it to be true.
Serena's eyes are eager, taking the compliment for all its worth. "Yeah?"
"She's yours." Nate shakes his head a little. "So of course she will."
The baby kicks again, two quick beats that Nate feels too, and Serena breathes out a laugh and rubs gently at the spot with her palm, a tender, automatic, maternal kind of gesture.
"Maybe she'll even be a soccer player," Nate says.
Serena kisses him, sweet and familiar and if he closes his eyes he can pretend almost everything away, he can pretend that the war never happened, that alternate universes are nothing but science fiction, that Serena is his, wearing his ring, that this will be his family.
"You love him," he mutters against her mouth. It's not quite a question - he wants her to be happy.
"I'll never love anyone as much as I love you."
Her daughter kicks again, right against Nate's fingers and he kisses Serena, deeply and endlessly until she makes a noise at the back of her throat.
Then he scolds her, gently, "Liar."
fifteen. 2051.
He doesn't expect her to show up; it isn't a surprise when he stands alone in the field.
Without thinking, without hesitating, he steps through universes, into the one where she died, where she might've taken her own life (the details don't matter) - the universe where he isn't permitted to exist.
So he won't, not without her.
before. 2005.
He kisses her before the war starts, when they're both high on energy, both too nervous to tell each other all the things they'd like to. He kisses her with his hand gently touching her cheek, right at the spot where she will eventually be marred for defending him, his lips moving cautiously against hers.
"Nate," she'd said, and he understood that she'd put her whole heart into that one word, into his name.
"Just in case," he'd breathed, kissing her one last time, trying not to let it feel too final. "Don't forget."
fin
Chapter | 1/1
Rating | hm, r to be safe.
Characters | Nate. Nate/Serena. Dan/Serena, Carter/Serena, Dan/Nate, the tiniest hint of Chuck/Blair.
Summary | Every atom of you and every atom of me.
Notes | This fic is the result of a prompt dae_dreemer gave me, which was NS in the same context as Will and Lyra at the ending of the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, a summary of which can be found here. I've taken some liberties with the prompt since Will and Lyra are in the same place at the same time for one day out of every year, but they do not actually see one another. The structure of universes within this fic is based vaguely on the structure in Fringe, and I've taken some liberties (aka made some things up) for the sake of the story.
I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment.
And when we do find each other again, we'll cling to each other
so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart.
Every atom of you and every atom of me…
We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees
and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams…
And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one,
they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight…
- Lyra, from the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
prologue. 2006.
Summer solstice day, early in the morning, the stars twinkle eagerly in the sky - it's only a matter of time before the sun will come out, overpowering and replacing them all.
He breathes out. "So…"
She smiles, teeth glinting and eyes glimmering in the pale blue light. "How 'bout them Yankees?" she supplies.
Carefully, he reaches a hand up and tucks her hair out of her face. He's lying on his back in the grass and she's sitting crossed-legged beside him, her summery dress pooled between her thighs. "How about them," he echoes, not exactly a question.
Her eyes flutter shut for a beat. "Almost morning," she murmurs.
"Yeah. Almost." He moves his hand from her hair to her cheek, traces his finger over the scar along the left side of her jaw, one of the many ways the war has marked her - has marked them.
She leans into his touch, turns her head toward his hand and kisses his fingertips. "It was a good one, wasn't it?"
He sits up abruptly and kisses her, almost forcefully, one arm going around her and tugging her as close to him as possible as he slips his tongue into her mouth, committing her to memory. She gasps when he breaks the kiss.
"It's not over," he tells her, the words heavy. It can't be over - they're only fifteen years old. "It's still good."
With gentle fingers, she tugs his arm away from her body and moves it back to his side. "Still good," she agrees softly, her eyes sparkling like she might cry.
He balls his hands into fists. "Don't forget."
She giggles and the sun starts to rise, an explosion of bright light on the horizon.
"Don't forget," he repeats, urgently this time.
"I won't, Natie." She lifts her hand and her fingers collide with an invisible barrier between them.
And then she's gone.
one. 2007.
"Nate!"
Something breaks and then all of a sudden she's in his arms, her limbs tangled around him in an enthusiastic hug. He squeezes her back just as tightly, his nose wrinkling slightly at the unmistakable scent of alcohol.
He tucks her hair gently behind her ear and leans back from the hug a bit, wanting to look at her for the first time in three hundred and sixty four days.
She's not quite how he remembers her, and he only has his memories to go on. All of the pictures of her are gone, all evidence of her no longer exists - she belongs to her universe now and only hers. She is a part of over-there, not of here. He remembers her smile, the way it had blinded him whenever he'd seen it, and the look of her blue eyes in the dark. He remembers the way she used to sleep and the way she used to laugh; remembers the way she said his name, like it was something sweet in her mouth and the way she'd said no, simple as that, just no, and stepped right in front of him during that final battle, the time someone had almost killed him - he remembers how she hadn't wanted to cry afterward, how her jaw was set and he'd had to hug her for a long time before he felt her tears against his neck.
She blinks at him, asks, "What're you staring at?" on a giggle.
Her laugh is the same, but everything else - her eyes look…harder, and darker, more like navy blue than he's ever seen them, and her smile doesn't reach them anymore. They're all lined with kohl and her lips are glossy and her jeans are low and tight, so unlike the plaid skirts that used to move with the rhythm of her steps. And the scar on her face, the one she got because of him, looks as red and as angry as it did in the days after she received it.
"You," he says faintly. "Lookin' at you…" He swallows. "Up partying all night?"
"Yeah, Georgie found this awesome place!" She laughs a little, at some private thought, and then presses her hands against his chest. "It's you," she whispers.
He runs his hands down the sides of her body; her shirt is thin and glittery and vaguely transparent. "Who's…Georgie?" He tries not to think about the way her lip gloss looks smudged.
"Oh my god, Natie, she's like my best friend." Everything about her goes still for a moment and then she forces a casual shrug. "Since, y'know. Blair's here."
He blows out his breath, relieved. Georgie's a girl. "Yeah…"
"How is Blair?" she wonders, looking at him with wide eyes. More softly, she asks, "How're you?"
Nate laughs quietly and cups her face in his hands, leans in and takes hold of her lips with his, kisses her slowly. She makes a tiny, pleased sound at the back of her throat and he feels all the tension seep out of his body, replaced with the want of her.
"Sit down with me, S," he murmurs, lips still grazing hers. "And I'll tell you."
He tells her about his life over the past year: back to school at St. Jude's, as if nothing has happened at all, his parents still pressuring him to choose an Ivy League school as if he hadn't won a war the year before, as if he couldn't make his own choices. She lies next to him on the grass and holds his hand, listening patiently and making quiet comments in all the right places.
When he finishes she keeps asking questions, so he tells her about Blair and Chuck, about his lacrosse games and about Blair's sixteen birthday bash. He's been keeping an eye on Eric - she asked him too - and he tells her everything he knows about the younger boy's life and about how they play Wii together at least once a week. She's silent throughout most of that, watching him with serious eyes, drinking in his information.
Around noon, he insists on a subject change: "Tell me about you." He tangles his fingers into her hair and tries not to sound too curious when he asks, "What's it like over there?"
"Different," she whispers. She looks a little lost, all of a sudden. "My dad's there. Like, he's home with us, like we're a real family. Eric's different and Blair's not there…"
She keeps going him, telling him about the uniforms at Constance are red and not blue, how there's no social hierarchy in school and no queen bee, how every time she sees a blonde boy she does a double-take, thinking it's him. She says Eric's still a sweet kid but he's louder over there, like they've switched places or something and he's the one everyone pays all the attention to. She tells him about Georgie and about all the fun they have together, about the drinking and the drugs and that one time they stole horses.
"It was so fun," she breathes, sunlight painted over her skin.
"What happened to them?" he wonders.
"Hm?" She blinks at him, eyelashes fluttering alluringly.
"The horses."
"I don't know." She looks up at the sky, squinting, and then back at him. "I'm so drunk," she confesses, flopping back into the grass, her eyes shut.
He traces a finger along her scar; her skin is so warm to the touch. "Yeah," he whispers, at a loss for anything else to say, watching as she drifts off to sleep.
She sleeps for all of the afternoon and well into the evening; fitfully, restlessly - he draws the line when she starts whimpering in her sleep and shakes her gently, waking her up.
"It's okay," he soothes as her eyes open and she looks at him in sleepy alarm. "It's me, S - you're here with me."
She's pale and shaky and she rolls toward him, grass stains on her jeans, huddling against his chest. He wraps her up in his arms, trailing kisses down the side of her face.
"It's okay," he repeats. "I dream about the war sometimes, too."
Serena's quiet for a very long time, her breathing slowly settling. And then she glances up at him, almost coyly, and asks, "Do you ever dream about me?"
He cups the back of her neck with his hand and laughs. "Of course I do."
And then she kisses him, hot and deep and perfect as he fists her hair in his hand and leans into her, wanting to feel all of her curves press against his body. He dreams about her all the time, but he can't dream up the way it sounds and feels when she moans into his mouth or the taste of her, like strawberries and peach schnapps.
Under the night sky they kiss and kiss and kiss, pausing only occasionally to exchange quiet words and catch their breath. Eventually, they start to fall asleep, still tangled up in each other.
With her eyes half closed, Serena breathes, "Don't forget."
He wakes before sunrise and gently jostles her into wakefulness as well.
"Hey, you," she murmurs, her lips finding their way to his.
It takes a lot of effort to stop kissing her. "Serena," he mutters.
"Hm?"
He sighs. "I'm worried about you."
She pulls back a little, looks at him with cautious curiosity. "Worried?"
Nate nods. "You're different."
She licks her lips and there's an edge to her voice when she says, "Different? People change, Nate. It's normal."
"You look…" He doesn't know how to say it. "You look different, you look…sadder. Like…you're hurting, or something."
Her lips thin. "I'm trapped in another universe, Nate. I think I'm allowed to hurt for a while, don't you?"
"Yeah, it's just - it's like you're hurting yourself." The look in her eyes is making him anxious.
"You don't know what I'm doing. You haven't seen me for a year."
"That's not my fault," he points out softly.
"It's not my fault either," she spits, her face crumpling in something like heartbreak -
And then she's gone and he stares straight into the sun until he feels his eyes start to ache.
five. 2012.
"Isn't it funny?"
She's wearing her pyjamas and he's dressed down in jeans and his sweater emblazoned with his name and his lacrosse-team number.
He reaches up and tickles her, hits some vague patch of skin and feels a tiny surge of joy when she wriggles and giggles, "Stop, Nate."
He laughs, too, but he doesn't quite feel it. "What is it?"
"People used to think the world would end in twenty-twelve." She stretches her arms above her head; he can see her fingers extend toward the sky as if she could touch the clouds if she just tried hard enough. "Mayan calendar in all that."
"Guess we proved them wrong."
There is wind today, but it's warm and teasing, carrying Serena's words gently to his ears. "Yeah, guess we did."
As far as he's concerned, the world ended when the war began.
"What's his name?" His eyes feel heavy but he tries to keep his voice light.
"Nate." She sighs his name quietly in that voice that's just not fair.
"C'mon, Serena. You've been distant for the past two times - two years, you're obviously…you have someone."
She purses her lips and he sees her thoughts play out over her face, the way she considers denying it, considers admitting it, before she finally says, simply, "Dan."
It's like a punch to the gut and Nate can't catch his breath - can't accept the way she says the name of someone he's never even met, someone she clearly cares for deeply.
"Natie…" She reaches out to him and he feels his heart twist; she says his name the same way.
He shrugs her off. "We can end this, if you want. If you've found something better."
"No!" She frowns. "No, of course I don't want to end this. It's…it's a long time in between, Nate, and sometimes it seems like the day will never end, and it's been…it's been hard, over there. My family, and my friends - they think I'm someone else, they expect me to be the girl that belongs over there, but I belong over here, I belong where you belong…"
When she trails off they're both silent. She's breathing hard, her eyes locked on his, chest rising and falling in a quick, even pattern.
"He's been good to me," she whispers. "It's been so hard and he's been good to me."
"Do you love him?"
She shoots him a wounded look and lowers her head, her hair falling like a wall between them, and through blonde strands he can see that stupid scar of hers (and some days he just wishes she would have let him die).
"Don't ask me that," she breathes.
He presses a hand over her heart and she lifts her head quickly but he speaks before she can, "I want you to be happy."
Serena's hand comes to rest over his heart in turn, feeling out its steady beat. "I want you to love me," she volleys back.
Sadly, he smiles. She's never had to ask for that.
ten. 2025.
He lies with his head in her lap, watching the clouds in the sky. Her fingers massage his scalp lightly; her chin is tipped back too, admiring the sunny day.
"Serena," he says softly.
"Hm?"
"What's your daughter's name?"
Her hand stills against his head. "You've never asked me that before."
"I've never been ready for the answer before," he reasons.
He can feel her smile in the air. "Natalie," she announces. "That's her name."
nine. 2023.
Serena's smile is lazy, her fingers tracing patterns over his skin. "What aren't you telling me?"
He chuckles nervously. "I kind of have a…thing."
"Nate." She's leaning back on her elbows, head tilted toward the sun, fingers on his forearm - she's glowing. "I have many things. You're allowed to have them too."
"But…with Dan," he chokes out, "I have a thing with Dan."
Serena sits up abruptly and stares at him, her mouth open but curved at the edges like a smile. "Are you saying…" She laughs. "Are you saying you're dating my ex-boyfriend?"
He laughs, too, in relief. "Your Dan is not the same as my Dan."
"Oh, I see." She leans over him, breasts pressed to his chest, lips too close. "He's your Dan now, huh?"
Nate rolls his eyes a bit. "Nobody's mine," he says calmly. He waits a beat before he gives her a devilish grin, "Except maybe you."
She plucks a clover from the grass and he sees that it has four leaves. "Today, I'm yours and only yours," she agrees, a painful reality but an accepted truth.
Before she goes, in their final moments, he makes love to her and afterward he forces himself to look at the sky, to count how many more minutes they have.
"Don't move," she whispers, her eyes closed, not letting him pull away.
Nothing compares to this, to the sound of her breathing and the feel of her and the taste of her. "If I could I'd stay here forever," he whispers back. "If I could, I'd do this every minute of every day."
Serena's eyelids flutter open and he sees stars in her eyes. "Marry me."
It's a ludicrous request and they both know it but the moment stays serious, grounded.
He goes to move but she stops him, fingernails clawing into his back. "Nate," she says in a voice he's never heard from her before, one that sounds dangerously close to begging.
"Hey," he murmurs. "I'm yours."
eleven. 2031.
"I had dinner with Dan's family the other day, and his dad asked how long I'd been gay."
Serena arches his eyebrows - a gesture that's more imposing on her face now, a little more like Lily and a little less like a girl who was always on the verge of laughing. "What'd you say?"
They're sitting opposite and next to each other, legs stretched out so that her feet and by his waist and vice versa. He appreciates the view of her legs, the fact that they're still great legs and she still wears skirts, albeit more conservative ones. Her dress is lacy and ivory-coloured, almost like a bride's, very much like a socialite's - and that's what she is now, what over-there Serena had always been, what his Serena had never really wanted.
"I mumbled something stupid. It was a non-answer."
She reaches over to touch the Vanderbilt-crest pin on the lapel of his discarded blazer. "All these years in public office and you still can't think on your feet," she tsks.
He watches her movements and wishes desperately that it was possible for her to leave some piece of herself behind, even if it was only the scent of her perfume on his clothes, but he knows by now that when she disappears he'll be left with nothing, as if she was never there at all. Holes in the space-time continuum don't take human desires into consideration.
"Your constituents don't know about Dan, I take it," she continues.
"My constituents don't need to know about my private life."
"You must come off as a mystery." She gives him a secretive little smirk that goes straight to his heart. "War hero with so many secrets."
Nate sighs. Lately, the war seems very far off, and his triumphs seem so insignificant. "How did we end up there?" he asks her softly. "Right in the middle of it."
"You had your beliefs. And I loved you for those."
"You should have gone into hiding with your family."
Serena laughs. "Same to you."
"You would've been okay."
"You would have died. Tell me how I would have been okay."
He sighs again, frustrated by her. "People move on, Serena. We both have."
They look at each other for a long, tense moment, and then they throw their heads back and laugh.
Moments before she leaves, he puts his pin on the sleeve of her dress, knowing full well that it will disappear the second she arrives in the universe that she now calls home.
three. 2010.
"Serena - "
He grabs her hand and pulls her to him for a soft, chaste kiss.
It's all they have for before she disappears, and it's the only time they kissed the entire time she was there. Nate stares into the empty space where she just stood and wishes he could disappear, too.
eight. 2020.
She flies into his arms so abruptly and at such a high speed that he topples back into the grass; the wind is knocked out of both of them when she lands on top of him. She catches her breath first and laughs, pressing kisses to his cheeks.
"Hey, you," he says, almost laughing as well.
Serena grins at him. "I missed you."
The scar on her jaw looks different now, faded and muted, something that happened long ago. He traces it with his thumb. "How's your girl?"
Her grin stays in place but it shifts a little, somehow, into something that isn't meant just for him anymore. "She's a handful. She's perfect."
"Sounds like you."
She swats at his shoulder and laughs, moves so that she's no longer lying on top of him but sitting instead, straddling his hips. Her knee-length pencil skirt is all bunched up and she looks him right in the eye as she slips the buttons on her sleeveless, pale blue blouse undone, revealing a lacy bra.
He can't help but think about the girl on the other side, the almost-three-year-old who calls Serena mommy and thinks that she can solve any problem in the world; he can't help but think of the other eyes that must have seen her lingerie, the other hands that must have touched her skin, the other man who's learned her body in a way Nate will never have the opportunity to.
"Don't think so much," Serena says softly. "We only have today…"
He loops an arm around her and rolls them over, gives her a silencing kiss and then moves his mouth downward, soft kisses over her chest, moving slowly down her abdomen. She arches her back beneath him, hips lifting in anticipation, one hand reaching out to grip a handful of his hair.
Nate can't help but be proud of the way he makes her come, sweat beaded on her forehead and tears on her cheeks and his name on her lips.
He leans over her, kissing her quickly. "How's your husband?" he asks.
She's trembling underneath him. "Don't…do that. Don't be jealous."
"I want you," he says, and his voice cracks, making it sound more like a confession than a statement.
She rids him of his clothes with remarkable speed, wraps her legs around his waist. "Have me."
"I wish it would snow," Serena says softly, naked and tucked against his side, an arm thrown over his chest.
He winds her hair around his fingers. "It does snow," he tells her teasingly.
She props her chin on his shoulder and sticks out her tongue and for a moment they're kids again and there's nothing but this: them, together. "I mean when I'm with you. We could…have snowball fights, build snowmen…"
Nate wonders vaguely what's going on behind her eyes when she tells him those things, whether she's envisioning all their laughter in Central Park when they were young, all the cups of hot cocoa and the shared smiles and the snowflakes caught on their mittens and hats…or if she's envisioning her life over there, playing in the snow with her daughter, little-girl giggles and what it's like to be a family.
They used to tell each other everything: full disclosure. She knew all the details of his life and he knew all of the details of her. Now, they tell each other simple, meaningless things and leave out everything significant. It's to protect one another, he knows that, but it feels like a loss - one he's not sure they'll ever overcome.
He looks at her face, at her clear blue eyes, at the way the lines of her face have changed as she grows older. "Summer suits you," he promises her.
fourteen. 2050.
Dan is published. Serena's daughter has fallen in love.
"It feels over, doesn't it?" she reflects. He wishes he could drown in her eyes.
He can remember her words from forever ago and he repeats them back to her with an easy smile, "It was a good one, wasn't it?"
She smiles back. "It was hell."
"You made it heavenly." He presses his fingertips to her scar one last time.
She squeezes his hand, "Don't forget."
When she's gone her words echo around him.
six. 2014.
The moment she appears before him she laughs, full of relief and joy and amusement. "You look awfully proud of yourself, Nathaniel Archibald," she drawls. Her dress is blue and pretty and her heels are black; she takes those off and tosses them aside, walking barefoot across the grass toward him.
He likes the way she looks, calm and smiling, and a nagging voice at the back of his mind gloats, look how well she's being treated by someone you've never really met. He ignores that thought, though, looping an arm low around her waist and tugging her to him. She stumbles into him, smiling softly, and his heart does a somersault when she initiates their kiss.
"M'just happy to see you, baby," he whispers against her mouth.
She rolls her eyes and touches the tip of her nose to his. "I know you, remember?"
"I remember everything," he tells her seriously, and then grins. "I met Dan."
She arches an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me?"
"My-universe Dan," he corrects.
"So that's why you coerced his last name out of me last time…" She shakes her head a little. "What's he like? Are you being nice?"
He pretends to balk. "I'm always nice, S."
"Uh huh," she says dubiously.
"Dan's nice, too," Nate admits, a little grudgingly. "He lives in Brooklyn and his dad's a failed musician who's obsessed with making chili. He has a little sister."
Serena's bottom lip pokes out slightly, her eyes search his. "A sister?" she asks knowingly.
He tickles her ribs, making her squeal. "Shut up. No."
Her mouth keeps smiling but her eyes go darker and solemn. "You're allowed to love people, Nate. You're allowed to want to love people."
"Like you love Dan."
"Yeah." She slips her arms around his neck and he sees, all of sudden, how comfortable she is with this now - she'd always been so careful with her affections before, so worried about someone hurting her heart. "Like I…love Dan."
He fights to take it in stride, holding her tighter to him. "How 'bout you love me instead?"
She giggles, soft and sweet. "Forever, you idiot."
twelve. 2037.
"No more babies, huh?" he asks.
Her eyes fly to meet him in a way that makes him wonder what his question might have sparked in her mind. He smoothes a hand down her bare arm, kisses her shoulder with an open mouth.
"I'm just asking, sweetheart. You and Carter never…"
"We talked about it," she says vaguely. "But we love Natalie and we didn't feel like we needed another child to be complete. And I couldn't…" She swallows hard and Nate's eyes fall to the elegant line of her neck. "I couldn't have his baby again, I just…when they put her in my arms for the first time and I looked at her face, I couldn't stop looking for signs of you. For a crazy moment I thought she had your eyes, but…she has mine."
He kisses her gently. "You have your life and I have mine." It's almost their mantra, now, the foundation of their split existences. "And from what you've told me of her, she sounds - "
"Like a mess," Serena sighs, and he hears how she blames herself in those three words. "In my head I don't even live in the same universe as my daughter does."
"But you love her," Nate protests. "And apples and trees, Serena - your childhood wasn't the neatest or the easiest. The most perfect girls…they're not really perfect until you look at all their mess and you want to be a part of it."
Her lips quirk. "You're a part of my mess?"
Nate grins. "I'm your whole mess, sweetheart."
She rests her hand against her cheek. "Still so charming," she teases, "and ever so handsome. I don't know how you do it."
He laughs. "You're still the prettiest girl in any universe."
"Not exactly a girl anymore," she corrects him gently.
But she's wrong: there's a part of her, in his eyes, that is forever fifteen, forever in this field of soft green grass, forever his whole universe contained in a package of blonde hair and blue eyes and perfect girl.
"I have to tell you something," she whispers.
He's zipping up her dress for her, nice and slow, running his fingertips along her spine. She has her hair gathered over one shoulder, holding it there with one hand, her wedding rings glinting in the almost-morning-light.
He kisses her diamond ring as if that will make it his and not someone else's. "Anything, you know that."
She keeps her back to him even when he finishes zipping. A deep breath, and then she says quietly, "We made a baby once."
He freezes. "What?"
Serena blows out her breath and says in that same quiet tone, "It was…the first time. We were kids and as soon as I knew…I knew it wouldn't last. That baby was half me and half you and we don't belong in the same place anymore - a child can't split itself in two, no universe would let that happen. But I had…I don't know, I had this stupid hope. I didn't miscarry until I was a couple days over three months pregnant."
He can't breathe, can't do anything but say, "Serena…"
"I didn't think I would come back, I didn't think…that I could see you. I was…bad, for a really long time, I didn't go to school and my mom wanted to check me into rehab and then…I met Dan. And he helped me, and…it turned out he'd had…a crush on me for a while, the me that had always been there, and he'd written stories about me, and he gave me one. And at the top, he wrote…" She stops, frozen on the spot, shoulders curved downward.
"Serena," Nate says again, his heart in his throat.
"He wrote don't forget. So I didn't." She turns around to face him, tears pooled in her eyes but none on her cheeks.
"Oh my god," he manages to say.
"I thought - there's no way of ever knowing, but for some reason I thought it would've been a boy."
"God, Serena…" His hands press lightly against her abdomen, as flat now as it was in her youth. "We had a baby," he says slowly, in wonderment.
"We could've," she agrees, oh-so-softly.
"You never told me…"
"Does it matter? Everything's -"
She's gone and he's left touching the air.
"Everything's okay," he whispers, clenching his empty hands shut.
two. 2008.
She's wearing her Constance Billard uniform skirt, her hair up in a messy knot, when she appears in front of him, so close that she almost lands on hiss toes.
Quietly, she breathes out, "Hi," as she steadies herself with a hand on his arm.
"I couldn't stop thinking about it," he murmurs. She looks a little better this time, less makeup and lighter eyes. "The last thing I said to you. I wasn't sure you'd be here."
She slips both of her hands into both of his. "We promised."
He gathers her to him in a hug that he doesn't intend on ending for a while, sighs her name into her hair when she hugs him back with the same amount of resolve.
After a couple moments of silence during which they do nothing but hold each other, he moves his hand to tug at the hem of her seersucker skirt. "What's with the uniform?"
"It was just…there." She kisses his shoulder, over his shirt. "I didn't know what to wear and this just seemed easiest. I guess…I wanted to impress you."
He shakes his head and scoffs a little how ridiculous that idea is; she's never needed to work to impress him. "I love you," he tells her, cupping her head with his hand, fingers slowly massaging her scalp. "God, I love you."
She pulls back from the hug just the slightest bit so that their eyes can meet. He has so much to tell her - this year has been hell but it's also been too good to be true at times - but he thinks he can see her whole world, the one he'll never be able to cross into without killing himself, sitting right there in her gaze: everything she's done and hoped for and hated, it's all right there and he's in love with her.
"I'm so tired," she breathes.
It's barely morning.
A soft, misty rain wakes them up. Nate watches her face appreciatively, the rapidly blinking eyes and the pinkness in her cheeks. She's lying on her back and he's lying on his side next to her and he could die with how beautiful she is -
He realizes then that he's hard, pressed against her thigh, and he buries his face in her damp, sweet-smelling hair. "Sorry," he says, truly apologetic but not quite willing to let go of her.
Serena's smile is lazy and as slow as sunrise. "S'okay," she whispers, running her hand down his chest, going further and further until she brushes against him and he jerks against her hand.
"Sweetheart," he groans.
"It's really okay." Her voice is soft and she shifts in the grass so that they're lying face-to-face. With careful fingers, she unbuttons and unzips his khaki slacks before she slowly pushes them down his legs. He kicks them off, teeth clenched as she pushes gently at one of his shoulders, moving him so that he's on his back again.
She hikes up her skirt just a little in order to straddle him and his hands go automatically to her hips, pushing up her ivory-coloured school shirt so that he can grip her bare hips. There's nothing but his plaid boxers and her thin, bright-pink underwear between them and when she takes a quick breath he knows she must feel the same way he does about that.
"Baby," he tells her, "I'm gonna - "
He's cut off by her kiss; she leans down to press her mouth to his and her hair, which has come out of its knot, tumbles around their faces, hiding them away from the trees and the sky. She guides one of his hands up and under her shirt, reaching around herself to unhook her bra and letting him touch her.
"Not til you're in me," she breathes against his mouth and Nate drops his head back against the grass, moans her name.
Struggling to clear his mind a little, he tells her between kisses, "I've wanted you…forever…but then the war…"
"Nate," she gasps suddenly at the way his hands is moving against her chest. "Oh."
He lifts his other hand from her hip to touch her cheek. "S," he says, and he forgets the rest when she sits up a little pulls off her shirt with shaky hands.
Because she hasn't asked him to, he doesn't touch her, just concentrates on the feel of her hips pressed to his and carefully undoes the zipper on her skirt, making a great effort to force himself to listen to her when she whispers, "I've never…"
He pulls the skirt up over her head so she doesn't have to move, leaves her white knee socks, now stained with dew, on her. She follows his lead and strips his shirt off for him.
"Have you?" she asks faintly.
Nate blinks, taking a moment to figure out what she's asking. "No," he finally manages to say, running his hands over her smooth skin, all the parts of her he's never been able to touch before. "No, it's supposed to be you."
A single tear or maybe a leftover raindrop drips down her cheek and onto his, and then she's kissing him, her mouth moving against his. "It's me," she murmurs into his mouth, and he knows what she's saying.
four. 2011.
He's laughing when he first sees her. He runs toward her and picks her up in a hug so forceful it lifts her off her feet. She laughs and he twirls her around.
"You'll never guess," he tells her.
"So just tell me," she giggles.
"Chuck," he says, pausing afterward for emphasis, "and Blair."
Her mouth falls open. "No way."
He nods enthusiastically. "Yes way. Getting married way."
She punches his arm, hops a little on the spot. "No!"
"Yes!" He laughs, tugs her into another hug and presses his mouth against her neck; she sighs at the touch and he figures it's allowed. "I'm the best man."
Her laughter fades a little as she hugs him, they sway back and forth slightly. "Of course. You would be."
He squeezes her tighter, maybe too tightly. "You'll be missed. Blair said so when she told me."
"Said so?"
"In her Blair way. She complained about not having anyone to be good enough as maid of honour without you there."
Serena laughs again, but this time it's short-lived. "Tell her I'm hardly honourable."
"Hey." He pokes her in the back and rests his chin against her shoulder. "That's my girl you're talking about. I'm very serious about defending her honour."
She nuzzles her nose against his neck. "I love you," she says, and then again, "I love you, I…"
The sky clouds over slightly and Nate closes his eyes. "I know," he says lightly.
"If it worked both ways," she says shakily, "I would come anyway. I would've come to you even if it meant I would die."
"I'd never let you."
She sniffs. "I'd tell you to fuck the hell off."
He feels the fleeting temptation to smile. "I'd ask you to define that a little more clearly, because I wouldn't have heard any of that sentence past fuck."
Serena sobs against his neck, this broken, heart-wrenching sound that has Nate gulping, and they both pretend she's laughing.
thirteen. 2038.
"I fucking hate this," Serena says on a rush the second she comes into view. "Of all conversations to leave unfinished - "
He kisses her to silence her, deep and lingering. "I was thinking about it," he murmurs against her mouth. "Everything you said…"
She moans into his mouth - a year is a long, long time to want and worry. "And?"
"And I realized that my Dan writes stories, too."
She melts into his arms, pressed as close as possible, and as smoothly as he can, he maneuvers them both onto the ground. The sky is bright blue and cloudless overhead, pretty and simple as can be.
"You should get him to write our story," she says quietly, almost laughing. "We're better than fiction; we're unbelievable."
"I'm a believer," Nate counters lightly, rolling them so that they're both lying on their sides, facing each other. Her eyes seem to glow when their gazes meet. "I'll have to convert you…"
seven. 2017.
When she appears she's already biting her lip, already looking at him through her eyelashes, not quite letting herself breathe.
"Oh," Nate murmurs. "Wow."
And maybe he's been naïve all these years but it's the first time he's ever realized that the days they spend together are nothing in the grand scheme of things, that in-between she's building her own life and so is he, that they are as significant to one another as dreams.
She's not fifteen anymore and neither is he. He's standing here now like a schoolboy, blazer tossed aside and sleeves rolled up, tie loosened around his neck the way she'd always teased him about wearing it. And she's right there in front of him, in his world, her hair cut shorter than he's ever seen it before and a diamond glinting off of the fourth finger of her left hand and a noticeable swell to her stomach, her arms crossed protectively, defensively, over the bump of her baby.
"You're…"
"Yeah." Her voice is so soft that he hardly hears it.
"Wow," he repeats. "God, you look - " She looks achingly, painfully, dramatically beautiful.
There are tears shining in her eyes and when he finds his voice again all he can ask is, "Can I?"
She takes four quick steps toward him and throws her arms around her neck like they're kids again. He starts a little at the abruptness of her hug, even more at the feeling of her stomach, rounded with someone else's child, pressing against his - but he hugs her back before he really registers any of that.
He feels the way she breathes him in and then she's crying, shaking shoulders and fingers clutching at his shirt, silent sobs against his neck. He holds her, rocking them both a little and whispering shhh into her hair, kissing the tears off her cheeks.
After a couple moments he feels a soft thump against his stomach, and then another, and with widening eyes he moves one hand from where its rubbing at her back to touch her abdomen instead. The fabric of her shirt is incredibly soft and he runs his hand over it in the place where he felt kicking a moment before. There's another kick seconds later, this one a little harder, and he almost laughs, awed by the feeling.
"Hey," Serena says softly, wincing slightly as she pulls back from their hug a little, her eyes on her stomach. She rests her hand lightly over his. It takes him a moment to realize that she's speaking to her baby, not to him.
"Is it okay? For you to be here? Now that you're…"
She blows out her breath. "I researched. We should be okay."
Nate touches his forehead to hers. "You're married."
She laughs but it's without mirth. "My father didn't really allow any room for other options once I found out I was pregnant."
"Shotgun wedding." He tries to be teasing but it doesn't come out that way. "Romantic."
She gives him a scolding look and glances at their hands, which are still touching. "He'll take good care of me - of us."
Nate swallows hard. "Dan?"
She shakes her head. "Carter Baizen. My parents, over there, they're good friends with his, and it seems like…it seems like he's loved me for a long time. Apparently the me over there - " the girl who's now dead, who Serena has replaced " - apparently, she lost her virginity to him and they've been on and off ever since. He acts like…" Her eyes are far away. "He acts like we're inevitable, like we were always meant to be married."
"And you're having his baby."
Serena presses her lips together and nods.
"How far along…"
"It'll be six months in a week," she says softly.
"Do you know…"
Her smile blooms into something genuine. "It's a girl."
He almost smiles in return. "She'll be beautiful," he tells her, and knows it to be true.
Serena's eyes are eager, taking the compliment for all its worth. "Yeah?"
"She's yours." Nate shakes his head a little. "So of course she will."
The baby kicks again, two quick beats that Nate feels too, and Serena breathes out a laugh and rubs gently at the spot with her palm, a tender, automatic, maternal kind of gesture.
"Maybe she'll even be a soccer player," Nate says.
Serena kisses him, sweet and familiar and if he closes his eyes he can pretend almost everything away, he can pretend that the war never happened, that alternate universes are nothing but science fiction, that Serena is his, wearing his ring, that this will be his family.
"You love him," he mutters against her mouth. It's not quite a question - he wants her to be happy.
"I'll never love anyone as much as I love you."
Her daughter kicks again, right against Nate's fingers and he kisses Serena, deeply and endlessly until she makes a noise at the back of her throat.
Then he scolds her, gently, "Liar."
fifteen. 2051.
He doesn't expect her to show up; it isn't a surprise when he stands alone in the field.
Without thinking, without hesitating, he steps through universes, into the one where she died, where she might've taken her own life (the details don't matter) - the universe where he isn't permitted to exist.
So he won't, not without her.
before. 2005.
He kisses her before the war starts, when they're both high on energy, both too nervous to tell each other all the things they'd like to. He kisses her with his hand gently touching her cheek, right at the spot where she will eventually be marred for defending him, his lips moving cautiously against hers.
"Nate," she'd said, and he understood that she'd put her whole heart into that one word, into his name.
"Just in case," he'd breathed, kissing her one last time, trying not to let it feel too final. "Don't forget."
fin