119. the fight for you is all i've ever known [one]
Title | the fight for you is all i've ever known
Chapter | one
Rating | pg-13
Characters | Nate Archibald, Blair Waldorf, Serena van der Woodsen, Dan Humphrey, Chuck Bass. Various other characters. Nate/Blair, Dan/Blair, Nate/Serena, Dan/Serena, Chuck/Blair.
Summary | In the aftermath of a tragedy, Nate Archibald asks Blair Waldorf for the impossible. She says yes.
Notes | This begins in the future and moves back into the first season of GG, thanks to one tiny thing that I've borrowed from HP: a time-turner. It doesn't work exactly the same way and its capabilities as well as the reason for its existence will be revealed in later chapters.
They land on the steps of the Met.
"Ah," Blair says, satisfied, as she tucks her hair behind her ears. She's wearing her old Constance Billard uniform, plaid skirt and blouse, and she has the requisite headband sitting atop her head like a crown. "Perfect."
Nate glances down at himself, the khaki pants and the blazer over the white button-down. His tie is loosened around his neck and when he sticks his hand in his pants pocket he finds a joint waiting for him. He sends a sidelong glance at Blair, feeling very young all of a sudden. "You look happy," he notes.
She quells the smile on her lips but it's still in her eyes when she looks back at him. "It's like acting in my very own movie. And I already know how it ends."
"Yeah, well." Nate frowns. "I want to change that ending."
(He thinks about it far too often, about how empty her eyes had looked, about the broken way - )
Blair is staring at him.
"What?" he asks her, suddenly nervous.
"Did you mean it?" she asks simply. "When you said you'd make sure he didn't hurt me like he did before."
Nate nods. "Yes. I meant it. We both know better now."
"Okay." She sends him a beaming smile, recognizing her minions as they approach, Penelope's attention dedicated to her cell phone while Kati and Iz giggle together one step behind her. "So let's put that knowledge to work."
"B," Penelope simpers as she approaches, and starts gossiping about one of the freshman girls.
Blair arches an eyebrow - high school was so easy; she had all the right answers back then. "And why should I care about this, P?" she asks, tapping one foot impatiently.
"Hey," a quiet voice says.
All of a sudden Serena's standing a couple feet away, hovering near them with a bright smile, but everything else about her is tentative, testing the waters.
Nate feels his heart constrict. She's right there, all young and bright-eyed and beautiful, wearing her uniform in that non-uniform way of hers, blonde hair up in a high ponytail. She doesn't even know how many chances they have left.
"Hey yourself," he breathes out, and he can't help it, he rushes to her and gathers her into a tight hug.
She lets out a surprised little gasp right by his ear, her laughter following on its heels. "What's up with you?" she whispers as she squeezes him back.
He pulls back to look at her face and to grin at her. "Happy to see you, that's all."
Her cheeks colour slightly and he sees it dancing in her eyes, confusion and something like a warning, and then she floats out of his arms and moves on to pull Blair into an equally enthusiastic hug, most likely in order to quiet the minions, who are whispering madly amongst themselves.
Blair shoots daggers at him with her eyes and he shrinks back a little. He'd forgotten, for a moment, where they were.
"Sweetie," she says to him, plastering on a smile. "Walk me to class?"
Penelope's smirk is knowing. "Class doesn't start for another fifteen minutes, B."
Blair's glare is lazy and lethal. "Was I speaking to you, Penelope? Have you finally resorted to making yourself into Nate, since obsessing over him clearly wasn't enough for you?"
Hazel's jaw drops and Penelope glares back at Blair, suitably chastised. Serena flicks a hand into the air, laughing as she says, "Let them go." She doesn't spare him another glance.
Blair hooks her arm through his and he walks her to the Constance courtyard.
"Idiot," she hisses, smacking his arm as they hide out in an empty Constance Billard hallway. "You're hopeless, you really are. Should I be thankful that you didn't start making out of her in front of God and Gossip Girl?"
He almost smiles at the way she says that, like God and Gossip Girl are equals. "Oh," he says slowly, "Gossip Girl…"
Blair rolls her eyes extravagantly and digs into the bag balanced in the crook of her arm. She pulls out her cell phone and they huddle around the tiny screen together as she scrolls through the latest Gossip Girl posts.
The latest update is about Serena…and Dan. Serena's in a yellow dress, hair tumbling down her back, eyes closed as she kisses Dan.
Everything snaps into place, and Nate feels a jolt as he realizes exactly where they are in the timeline of their lives.
"The masquerade ball," he whispers. I tried to tell you I loved you, he remembers, and the shine of her eyes in the bar's low light, the catch of her breath: …you loved me? "This is after the masque ball."
"The day after, to be precise," Blair says with a nod, glancing at the date of the post and making a face at Gossip Girl's stupid little limerick. She smirks at him, quietly amused. "I tried to lose my virginity to you last night. You didn't find me in time."
He breathes out a laugh. "I tried…" But he didn't really. "I…I kissed Jenny Humphrey last night."
Blair's eyes widen considerably. "Excuse me?"
Nate sighs, slumping against the wall, his head tipped back. "She and Serena traded masks."
It takes her a second, but she understands what he's really saying. "You wanted to kiss Serena."
"I wanted to…" He glances over at her and then ducks his head, feeling guilty.
"This is the past, Nate," Blair says impatiently. "It's water under the bridge. We both know how you and I end. Tell me."
She helped him, she got him here, so he relents, "I tried to tell her I wasn't over her, that I couldn't fight it…that I loved her. She wasn't hearing me, before. I just wanted her to listen."
Blair stares at him for a moment, unblinking. "There are so many ways," she finally sighs, "that everything could've been different…"
He nods, swallowing hard. "Yeah."
"We'll figure this out," she promises him, putting her phone away. "But if we're redoing our lives then I still plan on maintaining my reputation. Right now, you're my boyfriend. Act like it."
He attempts at smile. "Yes, ma'am."
Students start to meander into the hall, eyeing them, searching for gossip. Blair presses a quick kiss to his lips. "See you, sweetie," she tells him with a smile.
Nate leaves her there, letting her friends surround her. Serena is noticeably absent, but he tries not to dwell on that. He heads to St. Jude's, realizing in a panic that he has no idea what his next class is - and, more importantly, that he now has to learn everything again, not to mention retaking the SATs.
"So." Serena looks painfully nervous. "You and Nate…"
Blair shrugs as blithely as she can. "Didn't happen. He didn't find me in time."
"Oh." Serena's reaction is careful and she peers at Blair's face. "Are you…okay with that?"
"Of course, S." She smiles. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"It just seemed…like the perfect plan. You were excited."
"There will be other plans."
Serena laughs, and Blair notices that it's strained. "You and your plans, B."
Nate approaches them before she can say anything more, wandering over from St. Jude's. "Hey!" he greets them both.
"Hi," Blair says, beaming. Serena's response is a smile that lasts all of one second, but that doesn't stop Nate from looking at her with all the longing in the world. She rolls her eyes and turns back to Serena. "We have plans…but I'll see you later?"
She nods, waving them both off. "Later," she says with a nod.
Blair sets her schoolbooks down on her desk and looks pointedly at them. "You had to come back to high school…why, exactly?" More seriously, she asks, "What is this going to solve?"
Nate is sitting on her bed, shoes off and legs up on the mattress. "I don't know," he admits. "I need some time…to figure it out."
She takes a seat in her desk chair. "Have you considered…the possibility, that maybe this is something you can't fix? Maybe this is something bigger than you?"
"No." He won't consider that. "I can fix this. I will."
She leans forward, elbows on her knees. "We can always go back. There's only one future and I know it's not a place you're eager to be right now, but…we can go back. We can wait for her."
"No, I can't…I can't wait again. It can't be like that. We can't finally get what we want only to have everything fall apart - life can't work that way."
"But life does work that way," she points out softly. "Life sucks, Nate. It's the reality of it, and everyone needs to learn that at some point."
"Don't…don't try to teach me things. I know I look like a kid right now, but I'm not. I know what life is."
Blair pulls the headband off of her head and tosses it aside, exasperated. "I don't understand what you're looking to find here."
He shoots her a pleading look. "Just give me some time."
She spins toward her desk, so that her back is to him. "At least do your geography homework in the meantime."
For a long time after Nate goes home at around eight o'clock, Blair stays awake and snoops through her own things, remembering this time in her life. For a while it had been perfect: straight As, the queen bee of her school, the boyfriend she was sure she would someday marry.
She sighs as she flips through the pages of an old diary. Blair Cornelia Archibald is doodled all over the inside cover. She remembers how much she'd loved the look of that name, of the woman she would one day be, the way each word had an 'i' and an 'a', the way it sounded sophisticated.
The masque ball. That was only days before everything changed. She remembers, now, the way Jenny had come to her and had cried about it, had said he kissed me, he thought I was Serena. She'd sent her away and cried. And it wasn't long after that Nate's life had fallen apart, his father arrested on a city sidewalk, and only hours after that that Blair Waldorf had taken off her dress in a public place and given her virtue to Chuck Bass.
She sighs, lifting the covers on her bed and crawling into it without even bothering to change out of her clothes. She hadn't really wanted Chuck then, not in the way she would eventually want him, not in the way that would ruin her. And she didn't particularly want him now.
She rolls onto her back and hisses, "Fuck," into the dark.
Choices. She has to make choices. And she has to help Nate make choices, too.
"This isn't what I signed up for," she whispers, and then she closes her eyes and lets herself sleep.
Nate is driving himself crazy. He stands in the foyer uncomfortably for five minutes of conversation with his father about his relationship with Blair and then escapes up to his room, where he paces his room for the better part of an hour.
He can't get it out of his head. He can't stop remembering, can't stop reliving those moments when he'd clung to her like a lifeline and she'd let him go. She let him sink and run off to drown herself, and it makes him ache in a profound, tragic way. She could've just let him love her; for once she could have slowed down and just given herself over to him.
He sits on his bed and looks around. He feels too young for this room, for the hiding places where he stashes his pot, for the school uniforms, for the soccer balls and the permanently unmade bed, no matter how many times the maid ploughs through his room on a daily basis. He's older now, he has problems bigger than these, and he needs to fix them - he needs to fix the future.
Finally, he leaves the room of his childhood. He can't think there, he needs fresh air, he needs a new perspective.
The air outside is just chilly enough to make him smile and breathe in deep so that it stings his lungs a little.
He just walks. He lets his feet carry him, listening to the beat of his sneakers against the sidewalk and dodging other pedestrians as he goes. He tries to clear his mind of everything but now: what does he need to do right now?
He needs to find out -
All thinking of now stops when he sees Serena standing about five feet away from him, outside of a coffee shop, her hands cradling a tall styrofoam cup as she blows into it lightly to cool the liquid.
"S!" he calls to her, feeling his spirits lift at the sight of her.
She turns and a smile springs up to her lips when she sees him. "Hey, you." She squints at his face a little. "I thought you and Blair had…plans."
"Uh…not really. We just did homework and stuff."
"Oh." Her brow furrows, like he's confused her, and he can't think about the fact that he just might've messed up some cover story that Blair constructed anymore than he can stop himself from reaching out to smooth her eyebrows with his fingers.
"Nate," she says, low and startled, as he moves his hand to cup her cheek.
Now, he reminds himself. Think about now.
He skims his thumb over the apple of her cheek, longing to touch more of her skin. "Last night," he murmurs, "you and Jenny traded masks."
Her eyes flicker as she tries to catch up with his train of thought. "I…yes. For fun."
"I thought she was you."
She lifts one shoulder in a shrug but makes no attempt to dislodge his hand against her cheek. "Sorry," she jokes, giving him the kind of smile that hopes that this is the end of their conversation.
But it's not, not at all. "Yeah," he says softly, eyes locked with hers. "I kissed her."
She starts - he can feel her physical reaction when she pulls back from his palm for a moment. "Nate," she whispers, her eyes darting around.
"I kissed her because I thought she was you," he clarifies, to make sure she knows exactly what he's saying. "I asked her not to say anything, to just let me talk. And I told her - "
"Nate." Her voice is raw; she's begging him.
He smoothes her cheek with his thumb again to offer comfort. He's not going to stop talking. "I told her that this is killing me. You and me, it's…" He swallows. "It's killing me. I'm not over you. I'm never going to be over you. We have to tell Blair. You have to give me a chance." Her eyes are wide and full of alarm and he almost laughs. "You have to, S. Because I love you."
The coffee cup falls from her hands and the lids come off so that coffee spills all over Nate's shoes and the bottom of his pants. It makes him jump a little, and he drops his hand, glancing down at the mess.
When he looks back up at Serena a moment later, she's looking at him with a million things in her eyes. "Nate," she whispers, just as Dan steps out of the coffee shop and moves to stand by her, like a boyfriend would.
"Nate," Dan says, calm and cautious. "Hey."
"We're…" Serena hesitates, and for a moment Nate swears he sees tears in her eyes, but she blinks and bumps her shoulder to Dan's. "We have plans," she says with quiet confidence.
"Serena - "
"I'm sorry," she cuts him off, her voice trembling, just barely. When she speaks again it's clear and easy: "Sorry about your shoes."
Nate sits down on the curb. He finds Blair's name in his list of contacts and calls her.
"It's night-time in the past, too, Nate," she says with the last of her patience, not bothering with a proper greeting. "People need sleep. I need sleep, since you woke me up to bring you here."
He presses his forehead into the palm of his free hand. "Can we break up tomorrow?"
She sighs, and her voice is gentler when she says, "We'll talk about it in the morning."
Before he can reply, she hangs up.
He knows better than to call back.
tbc.
Chapter | one
Rating | pg-13
Characters | Nate Archibald, Blair Waldorf, Serena van der Woodsen, Dan Humphrey, Chuck Bass. Various other characters. Nate/Blair, Dan/Blair, Nate/Serena, Dan/Serena, Chuck/Blair.
Summary | In the aftermath of a tragedy, Nate Archibald asks Blair Waldorf for the impossible. She says yes.
Notes | This begins in the future and moves back into the first season of GG, thanks to one tiny thing that I've borrowed from HP: a time-turner. It doesn't work exactly the same way and its capabilities as well as the reason for its existence will be revealed in later chapters.
They land on the steps of the Met.
"Ah," Blair says, satisfied, as she tucks her hair behind her ears. She's wearing her old Constance Billard uniform, plaid skirt and blouse, and she has the requisite headband sitting atop her head like a crown. "Perfect."
Nate glances down at himself, the khaki pants and the blazer over the white button-down. His tie is loosened around his neck and when he sticks his hand in his pants pocket he finds a joint waiting for him. He sends a sidelong glance at Blair, feeling very young all of a sudden. "You look happy," he notes.
She quells the smile on her lips but it's still in her eyes when she looks back at him. "It's like acting in my very own movie. And I already know how it ends."
"Yeah, well." Nate frowns. "I want to change that ending."
(He thinks about it far too often, about how empty her eyes had looked, about the broken way - )
Blair is staring at him.
"What?" he asks her, suddenly nervous.
"Did you mean it?" she asks simply. "When you said you'd make sure he didn't hurt me like he did before."
Nate nods. "Yes. I meant it. We both know better now."
"Okay." She sends him a beaming smile, recognizing her minions as they approach, Penelope's attention dedicated to her cell phone while Kati and Iz giggle together one step behind her. "So let's put that knowledge to work."
"B," Penelope simpers as she approaches, and starts gossiping about one of the freshman girls.
Blair arches an eyebrow - high school was so easy; she had all the right answers back then. "And why should I care about this, P?" she asks, tapping one foot impatiently.
"Hey," a quiet voice says.
All of a sudden Serena's standing a couple feet away, hovering near them with a bright smile, but everything else about her is tentative, testing the waters.
Nate feels his heart constrict. She's right there, all young and bright-eyed and beautiful, wearing her uniform in that non-uniform way of hers, blonde hair up in a high ponytail. She doesn't even know how many chances they have left.
"Hey yourself," he breathes out, and he can't help it, he rushes to her and gathers her into a tight hug.
She lets out a surprised little gasp right by his ear, her laughter following on its heels. "What's up with you?" she whispers as she squeezes him back.
He pulls back to look at her face and to grin at her. "Happy to see you, that's all."
Her cheeks colour slightly and he sees it dancing in her eyes, confusion and something like a warning, and then she floats out of his arms and moves on to pull Blair into an equally enthusiastic hug, most likely in order to quiet the minions, who are whispering madly amongst themselves.
Blair shoots daggers at him with her eyes and he shrinks back a little. He'd forgotten, for a moment, where they were.
"Sweetie," she says to him, plastering on a smile. "Walk me to class?"
Penelope's smirk is knowing. "Class doesn't start for another fifteen minutes, B."
Blair's glare is lazy and lethal. "Was I speaking to you, Penelope? Have you finally resorted to making yourself into Nate, since obsessing over him clearly wasn't enough for you?"
Hazel's jaw drops and Penelope glares back at Blair, suitably chastised. Serena flicks a hand into the air, laughing as she says, "Let them go." She doesn't spare him another glance.
Blair hooks her arm through his and he walks her to the Constance courtyard.
"Idiot," she hisses, smacking his arm as they hide out in an empty Constance Billard hallway. "You're hopeless, you really are. Should I be thankful that you didn't start making out of her in front of God and Gossip Girl?"
He almost smiles at the way she says that, like God and Gossip Girl are equals. "Oh," he says slowly, "Gossip Girl…"
Blair rolls her eyes extravagantly and digs into the bag balanced in the crook of her arm. She pulls out her cell phone and they huddle around the tiny screen together as she scrolls through the latest Gossip Girl posts.
The latest update is about Serena…and Dan. Serena's in a yellow dress, hair tumbling down her back, eyes closed as she kisses Dan.
Everything snaps into place, and Nate feels a jolt as he realizes exactly where they are in the timeline of their lives.
"The masquerade ball," he whispers. I tried to tell you I loved you, he remembers, and the shine of her eyes in the bar's low light, the catch of her breath: …you loved me? "This is after the masque ball."
"The day after, to be precise," Blair says with a nod, glancing at the date of the post and making a face at Gossip Girl's stupid little limerick. She smirks at him, quietly amused. "I tried to lose my virginity to you last night. You didn't find me in time."
He breathes out a laugh. "I tried…" But he didn't really. "I…I kissed Jenny Humphrey last night."
Blair's eyes widen considerably. "Excuse me?"
Nate sighs, slumping against the wall, his head tipped back. "She and Serena traded masks."
It takes her a second, but she understands what he's really saying. "You wanted to kiss Serena."
"I wanted to…" He glances over at her and then ducks his head, feeling guilty.
"This is the past, Nate," Blair says impatiently. "It's water under the bridge. We both know how you and I end. Tell me."
She helped him, she got him here, so he relents, "I tried to tell her I wasn't over her, that I couldn't fight it…that I loved her. She wasn't hearing me, before. I just wanted her to listen."
Blair stares at him for a moment, unblinking. "There are so many ways," she finally sighs, "that everything could've been different…"
He nods, swallowing hard. "Yeah."
"We'll figure this out," she promises him, putting her phone away. "But if we're redoing our lives then I still plan on maintaining my reputation. Right now, you're my boyfriend. Act like it."
He attempts at smile. "Yes, ma'am."
Students start to meander into the hall, eyeing them, searching for gossip. Blair presses a quick kiss to his lips. "See you, sweetie," she tells him with a smile.
Nate leaves her there, letting her friends surround her. Serena is noticeably absent, but he tries not to dwell on that. He heads to St. Jude's, realizing in a panic that he has no idea what his next class is - and, more importantly, that he now has to learn everything again, not to mention retaking the SATs.
"So." Serena looks painfully nervous. "You and Nate…"
Blair shrugs as blithely as she can. "Didn't happen. He didn't find me in time."
"Oh." Serena's reaction is careful and she peers at Blair's face. "Are you…okay with that?"
"Of course, S." She smiles. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"It just seemed…like the perfect plan. You were excited."
"There will be other plans."
Serena laughs, and Blair notices that it's strained. "You and your plans, B."
Nate approaches them before she can say anything more, wandering over from St. Jude's. "Hey!" he greets them both.
"Hi," Blair says, beaming. Serena's response is a smile that lasts all of one second, but that doesn't stop Nate from looking at her with all the longing in the world. She rolls her eyes and turns back to Serena. "We have plans…but I'll see you later?"
She nods, waving them both off. "Later," she says with a nod.
Blair sets her schoolbooks down on her desk and looks pointedly at them. "You had to come back to high school…why, exactly?" More seriously, she asks, "What is this going to solve?"
Nate is sitting on her bed, shoes off and legs up on the mattress. "I don't know," he admits. "I need some time…to figure it out."
She takes a seat in her desk chair. "Have you considered…the possibility, that maybe this is something you can't fix? Maybe this is something bigger than you?"
"No." He won't consider that. "I can fix this. I will."
She leans forward, elbows on her knees. "We can always go back. There's only one future and I know it's not a place you're eager to be right now, but…we can go back. We can wait for her."
"No, I can't…I can't wait again. It can't be like that. We can't finally get what we want only to have everything fall apart - life can't work that way."
"But life does work that way," she points out softly. "Life sucks, Nate. It's the reality of it, and everyone needs to learn that at some point."
"Don't…don't try to teach me things. I know I look like a kid right now, but I'm not. I know what life is."
Blair pulls the headband off of her head and tosses it aside, exasperated. "I don't understand what you're looking to find here."
He shoots her a pleading look. "Just give me some time."
She spins toward her desk, so that her back is to him. "At least do your geography homework in the meantime."
For a long time after Nate goes home at around eight o'clock, Blair stays awake and snoops through her own things, remembering this time in her life. For a while it had been perfect: straight As, the queen bee of her school, the boyfriend she was sure she would someday marry.
She sighs as she flips through the pages of an old diary. Blair Cornelia Archibald is doodled all over the inside cover. She remembers how much she'd loved the look of that name, of the woman she would one day be, the way each word had an 'i' and an 'a', the way it sounded sophisticated.
The masque ball. That was only days before everything changed. She remembers, now, the way Jenny had come to her and had cried about it, had said he kissed me, he thought I was Serena. She'd sent her away and cried. And it wasn't long after that Nate's life had fallen apart, his father arrested on a city sidewalk, and only hours after that that Blair Waldorf had taken off her dress in a public place and given her virtue to Chuck Bass.
She sighs, lifting the covers on her bed and crawling into it without even bothering to change out of her clothes. She hadn't really wanted Chuck then, not in the way she would eventually want him, not in the way that would ruin her. And she didn't particularly want him now.
She rolls onto her back and hisses, "Fuck," into the dark.
Choices. She has to make choices. And she has to help Nate make choices, too.
"This isn't what I signed up for," she whispers, and then she closes her eyes and lets herself sleep.
Nate is driving himself crazy. He stands in the foyer uncomfortably for five minutes of conversation with his father about his relationship with Blair and then escapes up to his room, where he paces his room for the better part of an hour.
He can't get it out of his head. He can't stop remembering, can't stop reliving those moments when he'd clung to her like a lifeline and she'd let him go. She let him sink and run off to drown herself, and it makes him ache in a profound, tragic way. She could've just let him love her; for once she could have slowed down and just given herself over to him.
He sits on his bed and looks around. He feels too young for this room, for the hiding places where he stashes his pot, for the school uniforms, for the soccer balls and the permanently unmade bed, no matter how many times the maid ploughs through his room on a daily basis. He's older now, he has problems bigger than these, and he needs to fix them - he needs to fix the future.
Finally, he leaves the room of his childhood. He can't think there, he needs fresh air, he needs a new perspective.
The air outside is just chilly enough to make him smile and breathe in deep so that it stings his lungs a little.
He just walks. He lets his feet carry him, listening to the beat of his sneakers against the sidewalk and dodging other pedestrians as he goes. He tries to clear his mind of everything but now: what does he need to do right now?
He needs to find out -
All thinking of now stops when he sees Serena standing about five feet away from him, outside of a coffee shop, her hands cradling a tall styrofoam cup as she blows into it lightly to cool the liquid.
"S!" he calls to her, feeling his spirits lift at the sight of her.
She turns and a smile springs up to her lips when she sees him. "Hey, you." She squints at his face a little. "I thought you and Blair had…plans."
"Uh…not really. We just did homework and stuff."
"Oh." Her brow furrows, like he's confused her, and he can't think about the fact that he just might've messed up some cover story that Blair constructed anymore than he can stop himself from reaching out to smooth her eyebrows with his fingers.
"Nate," she says, low and startled, as he moves his hand to cup her cheek.
Now, he reminds himself. Think about now.
He skims his thumb over the apple of her cheek, longing to touch more of her skin. "Last night," he murmurs, "you and Jenny traded masks."
Her eyes flicker as she tries to catch up with his train of thought. "I…yes. For fun."
"I thought she was you."
She lifts one shoulder in a shrug but makes no attempt to dislodge his hand against her cheek. "Sorry," she jokes, giving him the kind of smile that hopes that this is the end of their conversation.
But it's not, not at all. "Yeah," he says softly, eyes locked with hers. "I kissed her."
She starts - he can feel her physical reaction when she pulls back from his palm for a moment. "Nate," she whispers, her eyes darting around.
"I kissed her because I thought she was you," he clarifies, to make sure she knows exactly what he's saying. "I asked her not to say anything, to just let me talk. And I told her - "
"Nate." Her voice is raw; she's begging him.
He smoothes her cheek with his thumb again to offer comfort. He's not going to stop talking. "I told her that this is killing me. You and me, it's…" He swallows. "It's killing me. I'm not over you. I'm never going to be over you. We have to tell Blair. You have to give me a chance." Her eyes are wide and full of alarm and he almost laughs. "You have to, S. Because I love you."
The coffee cup falls from her hands and the lids come off so that coffee spills all over Nate's shoes and the bottom of his pants. It makes him jump a little, and he drops his hand, glancing down at the mess.
When he looks back up at Serena a moment later, she's looking at him with a million things in her eyes. "Nate," she whispers, just as Dan steps out of the coffee shop and moves to stand by her, like a boyfriend would.
"Nate," Dan says, calm and cautious. "Hey."
"We're…" Serena hesitates, and for a moment Nate swears he sees tears in her eyes, but she blinks and bumps her shoulder to Dan's. "We have plans," she says with quiet confidence.
"Serena - "
"I'm sorry," she cuts him off, her voice trembling, just barely. When she speaks again it's clear and easy: "Sorry about your shoes."
Nate sits down on the curb. He finds Blair's name in his list of contacts and calls her.
"It's night-time in the past, too, Nate," she says with the last of her patience, not bothering with a proper greeting. "People need sleep. I need sleep, since you woke me up to bring you here."
He presses his forehead into the palm of his free hand. "Can we break up tomorrow?"
She sighs, and her voice is gentler when she says, "We'll talk about it in the morning."
Before he can reply, she hangs up.
He knows better than to call back.
tbc.