141. i and love and you [3/3]

[sing_song_sung]

Title | i and love and you
Chapter | 3/3
Rating | pg-13 / r
Characters | Dan/Nate/Serena(/Blair). Blair/Louis. Past Dan/Serena, Nate/Serena, Dan/Blair, Serena/Carter, Blair/Chuck, Serena/Blair.
Summary | He's heard women talking about their biological clocks and kids and a fierce kind of longing, but Dan is twenty-seven, not thirty-five, and he's, well, a guy.


"Read to me," Serena requests. She's lying across the couch, her feet in his lap, and she holds a book out in his direction.

Dan takes it from her and reads the first sentence on the page aloud: "There are three stages in labour."

She pulls her hair over her shoulder and starts to wind little braids into it. "I like your voice."

He smiles at her, rubbing lightly at her calves, and keeps reading. In his peripheral vision, he sees more and more braids appearing in her hair, and every once in a while her feet shift on his lap, her ankles uncrossing and re-crossing as she stretches out her legs.

He's reading about afterbirth (which sounds truly disgusting) when she gasps, "Dan."

When he looks up at her, she's frozen, her hands still in her hair, her eyes a little wide, and he panics right away, thinks ohgodno, thinks that they promised her so many times that this would be okay. "Serena?" he asks urgently, looking her over, but he can't see any physical signs that something is wrong.

There are tears in her eyes and she sits up a little, reaching out. "Give me your hand."

He does. "What's - "

She shushes him and takes his hand, lays it flat in the middle of her stomach. "Wait," she whispers.

He feels way too anxious right now for waiting, but he manages to do as she asks.

And then he feels it, right against his palm, a little fluttering beat.

Serena's hand is over his, her nails digging into his skin. "You can feel that," she whispers. "Right? You can feel her?"

He stares down at her stomach, speechless. "Yeah," he manages after a moment. "I can feel her." It happens again and he murmurs, "Wow…" He leans down, shifting his hand aside slightly so he can press a kiss to the spot. He lingers there for a moment, nudging his nose softly against her belly, and then he lifts his head, reaching a hand out to her cheek. "Why are you crying, honey?" he asks her softly.

She just shakes her head a little, pressing her cheek into his touch. "She likes your voice, too," she says, her voice muted.

Nate is upset that he missed it, and he pouts for a few minutes, rubbing Serena's stomach coaxingly.

"Watched kettle never boils," Dan points out wryly.

"Ignore your daddy," Nate whispers teasingly to the baby.

They spend the evening on the living room floor with Chinese take-out and baby-name books. Nate leans back against the couch and acts as a pillow for Serena as she sits between his legs, leaning back against his chest. He feeds them both with chopsticks as she relaxes against him, rubbing her belly. Dan sprawls out next to them with his spring rolls and reads out the names he likes.

"Do you think we get points if we name her Blair?" Nate wonders after he vetoes Dan's suggestion of Rosalind, even after he pointed out that she was arguably Shakespeare's strongest female heroine.

Serena giggles. "I'm not sure."

"I'm not naming my kid after Waldorf," Dan says wryly. "As much as I love her."

"I sense sarcasm," Serena teases.

He smiles back at her. "Emilia?"

"Like from Othello?"

He lifts his eyebrows at the fact that she knows that and Serena huffs, clearly offended, so he says hurriedly, "Or from The Winter's Tale."

"You need to stop with the Shakespeare stuff," Nate says gently. "Take a break."

Dan frowns playfully at him. "What do you suggest?"

"Emma," he says easily. "Kate."

"Don't be boring," Serena says, her lips puckered in thought.

Nate kisses her neck softly. "What are your picks?" he asks, smoothing his hand up and down slowly over her baby bump.

"I don't know," she admits, reaching a hand out, and Dan hands her one of the books. "We could name her after your mom," she suggests. "Allison is a pretty name."

He smiles at her; it's a sweet suggestion. "She should have a name that's all her own."

"Lily," Nate says teasingly. "Or Anne."

Dan rolls his eyes. "Daisy?" he says hopefully.

"No Fitzgerald," Nate says.

"No flower names," Serena agrees.

"It could be a Henry James reference, too," Dan grumbles good-naturedly, turning the page of his book.

"Lauren," Nate says. "Bethany. Amy."

"Bethany is nice," Dan says contemplatively, flipping through his book to find out what it means.

"I like Amy," Serena says quietly, her tongue poked into her cheek.

Dan pauses, going still. "You do?"

She nods. "Spelled the French way, like the verb aimer."

"Like Aimee Mann?" Nate asks, and Serena nods again.

Dan flips through the pages of his book again, moving backward, to the A names. "It means beloved," he reports. He glances up at Nate, looking for his opinion.

"Aimee van der Woodsen," he says, to test it out.

Serena starts, turning her head to look at him. "Wait - what?"

Dan smiles at her. "She should have your last name. She's your baby as much as she is either of ours, and we never made up our minds over Archibald-Humphrey versus Humphrey-Archibald anyway."

She looks confused. "You guys…should think about this."

"Archibald-Humphrey-van der Woodsen is way too much name for a baby," Nate points out logically.

She sighs, frowning slightly, even though Nate can't quite see her face.

"It's not about us thinking about it, Serena. You're a part of us." Dan gives her a few seconds to absorb that. "Nate and I would like her to have your last name, if it's okay with you."

"Okay," she says very softly, meeting his eyes. "Okay."

Nate's eyes widen. "Was that - "

"A kick," Serena supplies as Nate shifts his hand, pressing his palm against her stomach. "You felt that?"

He grins widely and presses a kiss to her cheek. "She's happy to have your last name," he says by Serena's ear, rubbing her belly.

Dan watches them kiss, mouths open and tongues brushing, and moves toward them when they pull apart, setting his hand over Nate's and joining him in teasing Serena.

When Dan goes downstairs to find something to eat for lunch, he finds Serena instead, sitting on the couch in the living room with her arms wrapped loosely around the bump of her belly, speaking softly to their daughter.

"Hey," he says quietly, moving to sit next to her.

"Hi."

He reaches a hand out, fingers slipping into her hair, cupping the back of her head. "You okay?"

Her cheeks are blotchy and wet and the look she gives him is fondly exasperated. "I'm not breakable, you know."

It makes him smile. "I know." He rubs her scalp lightly. "But you miss him."

She looks down. "It's not him," she admits. "It's me." She makes a face, scrunching up her nose. "And that's horrible."

Dan sits there patiently. "Tell me."

"It was just…so many years of my life, you know? I knew him for such a long time and it was always…building. Building toward that wedding, and our baby, but…as soon as we had it all it just disappeared. As soon as it stopped building it felt like it had never happened at all."

He stays quiet. He's pretty sure he could call her therapist and gloat - it is a rare and precious moment when Serena makes the conscious decision to talk about her feelings.

"All of that build-up," she says. "And I have nothing to show for it."

"You picked up other things along the way," he points out. "Like Blair. I don't always agree with how she shows it, but she loves you, more than anyone. She always will. That's a pretty big thing to have."

"I love her, too," Serena murmurs.

"That counts for something."

She draws in a deep breath and meets his gaze, her eyes searching his. "I think I'm in love with you," she says, quiet but certain.

And somehow, it doesn't surprise him, not even for an instant. "And Nate?" he asks her gently.

Her eyes fall from his face immediately. Slowly, carefully, she says, "I have never…not loved Nate."

Dan fights a smile. "And how does that make you feel?" he asks with emphasis, playing shrink.

She rolls her eyes, rubbing little circles against her stomach. "I don't know."

"Does it feel like you're building again?"

She smiles down at the curve of her belly. "Yeah."

"So let's just keep going," he suggests, tugging her into a hug, dropping a kiss against the top of her bump.

A groan tears out from somewhere in the very back of Dan's throat and Serena giggles sweetly against his lips as his fingers dig into Nate's hair. The combination of their mouths is kind of impossible to endure and he comes quick and hard.

Nate looks pleased with himself, pushing upward to kiss him. Serena is curled next to them in her sleep shirt, her chin against Dan's shoulder, her stomach pressed lightly against his side. Nate's nose nudges into Serena's cheek and then they kiss, her tongue sweeping into his mouth, tasting Dan.

He groans again. Their fucking mouths.

On a Sunday in her seventh month, Nate goes with Serena to the cemetery. It is pouring rain and they should wait, really, and go another day, but Serena is determined so they wear raincoats and they take umbrellas, and they go.

Dan knows that it's healthy, to deal with loss, to acknowledge it, but he still worries. He does a lot of nothing: folding shirts, alphabetizing bookshelves, re-reading baby book chapters.

In the end, he calls Blair. She's snarky to him when she answers but she softens when he tells her where Nate and Serena are and that now he's watching infomercials and considering buying a Snuggie out of sheer nervousness. She tells him that she's watching Breakfast at Tiffany's, as per Sunday tradition, and a few minutes later they're arguing about Sabrina, and it makes him smile when he hears her laugh.

"I should apologize," she says, suddenly sombre. "S and I have been talking, and I know that what I said to you at Baizen's funeral was…inappropriate and untrue."

He nods even though she can't see him. "Apology accepted. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did."

"Apologize for implying that Serena and I have a Sapphic relationship," she orders.

He laughs, takes a chance and teases her, "Don't you?"

"Sometimes, I suppose," she snaps, but her voice is quiet. "I've never - " She coughs delicately. "Never really known."

He makes a sympathetic noise. "Your relationship with Chuck really did a number on your heart."

"Yes, well," she says, brushing it aside like she always does. "College should have been the time for my experimental lesbian phase, obviously, but - you happened."

Dan laughs harder and more freely this time. "So it is all my fault," he says dryly.

"Exactly."

"You love Louis, Blair."

"I do," she agrees. "He's a gentleman and he's given me the world. I just…I have my regrets."

He rolls his eyes a little and waits for her to name them.

"Your whole family there," she says wryly. "Nate. And Serena. You."

"We all care about you," he says honestly. "You're welcome anytime."

"Obviously, Humphrey," she sighs.

When Nate and Serena get home, Dan waves them upstairs and they trade the phone back and forth, talking quietly to Blair as Dan waits for them to strip out of their wet clothes and hands them warmer things. Nate says I miss you and Serena says I love you and they give the phone back to Dan to say goodbye before Blair has to go.

The three of them crawl into bed, Serena in the middle. Nate lays his cheek against her stomach and Dan reads Tennyson to the baby and Serena's eyes fall shut - at some point, they all drift to sleep.

Serena stays downstairs, away from paint fumes, as Dan and Nate stencil designs onto the wall of the nursery and paint an accent wall. Serena wanted yellow, and it's a good choice: the room looks sunny all the time. They assemble the crib, which is much, much harder than it looks it will be. They set the rocking chair and the little dresser and the changing table in place. They nail pictures to the wall.

At sunset, Serena peeks in and starts to cry immediately.

Dan slips an arm around her and gives her a gentle squeeze.

"I'm not sad," she says insistently, sniffling.

Nate grins at Dan behind her back. "We know," he says.

"It's perfect," she mumbles, leaning her head against Dan's shoulder.

He wakes up in the early morning with his face directly across from Serena's. She's half-awake, too, blinking heavily. Their noses touch. They kiss. Dan drops a hand to her stomach and it's only a moment before he feels the baby shift inside of her, and he smiles against her lips.

Nate wakes up a few minutes later and makes a contented, sleepy sound. He tucks his face into Serena's neck, murmuring softly, and she gasps out a moan. Dan is aware of their soft words, half of which are mumbled into his own mouth, and he is aware of Nate slipping the boxers Serena is wearing to sleep in (Nate's; green-and-gray plaid) down her hips, but he even more aware of Serena's hands pushing at the waistband of his own boxers. He brushes his lips against hers, but they're both too distracted to kiss, and when her hands disappear for a moment and a little oh slips out of her mouth and her eyes close, he knows that Nate has moved into her.

"Yeah?" Nate asks quietly, peppering kisses down her neck.

"Oh, god, yeah," Serena whispers.

Dan catches a hint of Nate's sleepily dark-blue eyes and the corner of his smile over Serena's shoulder. He presses little kisses against her jaw and her lashes flutter, her hands going back to work, wrapping around him.

"Yeah…" he mutters, echoing them both, just before Serena bites on his bottom lip.

At eight months pregnant, Serena is cranky and snappish, yet somehow fiercely adorable.

Nate, as always, is easygoing about it. He runs all over the city to buy her whatever food she's craving, cuddles her when she needs to be held, lets her raid his closet for comfy clothes on a daily basis, kisses her belly and talks about what a good soccer player Aimee is clearly going to be.

Dan is much different. He frets sometimes and he knows it; Serena glares at him if he makes a big deal about it when she says her back is cramping up or if he offers her help getting into the bathtub. They argue about the smallest, stupidest things, and inevitably it ends with Serena insisting that she's not crying and Dan rushing to admit that he was wrong and she was right. He thinks she looks so, so beautiful - and maybe it's something natural, primal, to think that when she's carrying his baby - but telling her so is always a risk. Sometimes she snaps at him, sometimes she takes the compliment easily, sometimes she'll kiss him and they'll fool around like teenagers for hours, never going very far because any move toward sex is bound to make her feel annoyed with the changes in her body and put him back in her bad books. He is constantly trying to figure out what the hell he's supposed to do for her, and it always seems impossible.

Really, it all boils down to the fact that she's nervous and he's nervous and Nate is oddly more prepared than them both for the arrival of this baby. He's pretty sure that Serena knows that too, but they're always at each other's throats or mouths and they never talk about it.

Blair breezes in through the door precisely three weeks before Serena's due date, ignoring both Nate and Dan and going straight to Serena, hugging her tight and touching her stomach softly. Once she's there, the dynamic of their household changes startlingly.

She hires a cook and insists on eating dinner at six o'clock each night. She takes Serena shopping and they come back with receiving blankets and sleepers and diapers and more sets of sheets than a crib could ever need. She picks the movie on Friday night.

The girls sleep in Serena's room. They get ready for bed fairly early; when Dan walks by the bathroom at nine o'clock he hears running water and quiet laughter. They disappear behind a closed door after that, but when he pauses by Serena's room around midnight, he can still hear the soft murmurs of conversation and the sound of sheets shifting.

Dan and Nate tear each other's clothes off like teenagers and their blankets end up on the floor and they stay up late. They fall asleep close together, Nate sprawled out on his stomach and Dan on his back, but still - the bed seems emptier, somehow.

Serena crawls into their bed on and off, early in the morning, next to Nate. They shift to make room for her automatically, Nate mumbling unintelligible things as he wraps his arms around her. Dan usually lets himself fall back asleep until Nate's alarm goes off about half an hour later, and when he gets up to shower, Serena stays cuddled under the blankets, bleary-eyed, and Dan moves closer, an arm draped lazily over her middle.

Sometimes Blair comes in after a while and pokes at his shoulder before she lifts the blankets and slips under them.

"Shut up, Humphrey," she huffs when she sees his grin.

Blair slaps his cheek harder than necessary to wake him up, and Dan glares at her, sleepy and annoyed. "Ow," he says pointedly.

She scoffs at him, standing above their bed in a silky red robe. "Get up. Serena's water broke."

His foot gets stuck in the sheets as he attempts to scramble out of bed. Blair looks on disdainfully and all in all, it's about the most graceless thing he's ever done. Nate has already disappeared down the hall and to Serena's room by the time he rights himself.

He rolls his eyes and waves Blair toward the door. "Baby first, mock me later."

She smiles prettily. "I'm an excellent multi-tasker."

Eleven hours after Blair woke them up in the middle of the night, Serena is still is labour. When Dan walks back into her hospital room, Blair is perched on one side of the bed, smoothing Serena's hair and occasionally dabbing at her forehead with a cloth, while Nate is seated in a chair on her other side, holding her hand in both of his and speaking to her quietly.

He hands Nate a bottle of water and Blair her cup of coffee, and after he lifts his eyebrows at her, she sighs elaborately and gets up, pressing a kiss to the side of Serena's head before she slips out of the room.

Dan takes her place on the bed and tucks a curl of Serena's hair back behind her ear. "How are you doing?"

"Tired," she mumbles, her eyes slipping shut as she blows out a breath.

"Squeeze my hand," Nate reminds her. "As tight as you need to." He glances over at Dan. "She's doing awesome."

"It hurts," Serena grinds out between clenched teeth, and when she opens her eyes Dan sees that they're wet and glimmering.

He nods sympathetically; Serena's last experience with babies and hospitals was basically the worst thing ever, and for some insane reason she wanted to do the natural childbirth thing, no matter how many times they'd tried to persuade her that drugs would probably be helpful to the whole process. "Your doctor said sometime in the next hour or two," he says gently.

"Oh my god," she says, and there's a little whimper at the end of her words this time.

Nate strokes her cheek gently with his knuckles. "Breathe, baby," he reminds her, even and calm.

She shoots him a deathly glare and Dan says, "Hey…you really are doing so great. She'll be here before you know it."

Her fingers curl around his sleeve, wrinkling the fabric. "I can't," she whispers.

"You can," he argues gently, leaning forward to put a kiss to her forehead. "I know you can." He touches her belly gently. "She's just taking her sweet time." He takes her hand in his and squeezes it softly. "Like her mom."

This time, her glare is half-hearted, and she draws in a deep breath.

"There you go," Nate says brightly, approvingly. "You've got this, S."

"That is so easy to say from where you're sitting," she huffs quietly.

"I think you're breaking his fingers," Dan points out wryly; looking at her white-knuckled grip on Nate's hand.

"Shut up," she tells him, so he does.

Childbirth is gross enough that it should really make Dan want to vomit, but instead he's almost crying, watching as his daughter wails for the first time, as Nate cuts the cord, as the baby is placed, tiny and crying, on Serena's chest.

Serena is crying, too, but she's also smiling tiredly, wisps of her hair stuck to her cheeks, when their daughter is settled into her arms by one of the nurses. Aimee has been weighed and had her toes and fingers counted, has been cleaned up and bundled up.

"Hi," Serena breathes, and Aimee's cries fade to whimpers as she looks up with bleary blue eyes.

Nate is perched on the bed next to her, a hand cupping the back of his head as he peppers kisses down the side of her face and says so good, you were so good, you were amazing in her ear. He leans in a little to look at the baby, grinning.

Dan touches Serena's cheek softly and she tears her eyes away from Aimee to look at him; he leans down and presses a firm kiss to her lips, and he feels her smile against his mouth.

"She's beautiful," he says, words catching in his throat. "She's perfect." He touches the baby's tiny fingers carefully, and they curl around his.

"God, Humphrey," Blair says exasperatedly. She's sitting by Serena's legs, looking at Aimee with tears on her cheeks. "You are such a girl," she huffs, handing him a tissue.

Dan laughs, and he ruffles her hair in a way that is both fond and meant to annoy her.

"You'll be her godmother," Serena whispers, touching the baby's little nose as she glances up at Blair.

Blair smiles, patting Serena's leg. "Of course." She blinks firmly. "God knows she'll need me with the three of you for parents."

Nate laughs, reaching an arm up behind Serena to hook his fingers into the collar of Dan's shirt, to pull him down for a kiss.

"Hey…" Dan raps lightly on Serena's bedroom door as he pushes it open. The room is dimly lit by the fading sun. "How're my girls?"

She's sitting on the bed, nursing Aimee, and she smiles up at him. "We miss our boys," she says, lifting an eyebrow. "Is Nate still at that meeting?"

He nods. "He'll be home soon."

"You should wait for him." Serena glances down at the baby. "She'll sleep after this and I'll probably crash, too."

Dan sits on her bed and reaches a hand out to her cheek. "Tired?"

"Yeah." Her smiles softens. "It's a good kind of tired, though."

He smiles back at her and touches Aimee's head lightly. His daughter waves a tiny hand into the air, her mouth puckered at Serena's breast. "Yeah," he agrees fondly. He tucks a couple strands of Serena's hair back behind her ear. "I finished my book," he tells her quietly.

She looks up at him, surprised. "You've been talking about having writer's block this whole time."

"I did, for a while," he admits. "But it went away, and…I finished."

"That's amazing." Aimee pulls away, whimpering softly, and Serena moves her shirt back into place and shifts the baby in her arms to burp her. "When do I get to read it?" she asks.

He sets the manuscript down on one of her pillows. "Whenever you want."

She lifts her eyebrows, patting Aimee's back lightly. "Am I the first?"

"One and only right now," he confirms. "It's important that you read it first."

"Why?"

"Because…" He struggles to explain without giving it away. "It involves you. I need…your consent."

Her brows furrow. "My legal consent?"

Aimee fusses in Serena's arms, making pouty sounds.

"Shh, baby," Serena soothes, pressing a kiss to the side of the baby's little head. "Do you want to go see your daddy…" She glances at Dan.

He nods and reaches out, and she lays Aimee in his arms. "Hey, little girl," he says fondly as she blinks blue eyes up at him, eyes that he thinks might darken when she's older but he almost hopes that they won't. He looks back at Serena and answers her, "No, it's…more personal than that. Just read it for me," he adds, with a little smile, "Okay?"

She nods, looking intrigued. "Okay."

"I'll hold her…until she drifts," he offers, eyes on Aimee.

Serena pulls the blankets back a little so that he can get under them with her. "And me?" she asks with a cheeky pout.

He gets into the bed with her and she's sleeping soundly against his shoulder by the time Aimee finally drifts off. When Nate gets home twenty minutes later, he helps ease Serena's head onto a pillow and Dan goes to put Aimee in her crib; they leave both of their girls to sleep.

Serena crawls into bed between them around one in the morning in a t-shirt of Dan's and her underwear, baby monitor clutched tightly in one hand.

"How could you write that?" she whispers, nudging Dan's shoulder to wake him up.

Nate groans on the other side of her. "Tired," he mumbles, an arm looping around her waist, his mouth pressing a kiss against her neck. "Sleep."

"Serena," Dan mumbles, half-awake and confused; he can't read the tone of her voice, can't tell what she's thinking.

"How could you write that?" she asks again, and it's a fiercer whisper this time, demanding an answer.

"I'm sorry," Dan pre-empts, sitting up, rubbing a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, this is why I - "

Nate lifts his head halfway, frowning. "Sleep," he says again, almost a plea, but Serena's wide awake and Dan's catching up quickly.

Serena is quiet, but she's breathing hard, he can tell by the way her chest is rising and falling quickly. "You wrote…"

"Fuck," Dan sighs. "I'm so - I'll never publish it, Serena, I swear, it was a stupid thought - "

"Dan," she says, cutting him off, and he realizes suddenly that it's not anger in her voice but wonder as she says, "How did you even…"

He stares at her, at her sleep-mussed hair and her lips, puckered in an 'o'. "I just…you read the whole thing?"

She nods, and her face crumples for a moment like she might cry, but there are no tears. "You gave him a life," she whispers.

"I tried to," he says softly, and he had. He'd tried to imagine a boy whose personality combined the best and worst of Serena van der Woodsen and Carter Baizen, tried to shape the life that boy would have, tried to find an ending that was satisfying but not idyllic, tried to bring a boy who'd never lived to life in a character he'd called Dillon.

Her fingers close in a fist around the fabric of the t-shirt he's wearing. "I love you," she says softly, a little desperately. "I love you, I can't believe you - "

He cuts her off with a kiss, his hand cupping her cheek. And she scrambles closer to him, so that she's halfway in his lap, her arm sliding around his shoulders.

"I love you too," he says softly, mumbling the words against her lips.

She nods a little frantically, like she knows, like he's proven it to her somehow. Her nose bumps his and she blows out a breath before she kisses him again.

Dan's fingers slip into her hair, his hand moving to cup her head, and he kisses her back, loses himself in her for a moment.

"Not fair…" Nate voice is gruff with sleep as he drops a kiss against Serena's shoulder and then nudges his nose against Dan's cheek. "I'm too tired…"

Serena laughs softly, pressing a kiss to his lips. "Sleep, then," she whispers.

Nate smiles, tangling his fingers in her hair. "Not if I'm missing out."

Dan reaches for Nate's hand and links their fingers together against Serena's back. "We should all sleep."

"Not fair at all," Nate protests, ducking his head around Serena's to kiss Dan. "I'm awake now."

"So what's your plan?" Serena asks, a smile in her voice.

"Hmm…" Nate peppers kisses down the side of her face. "Let's make another baby."

Serena's response is a little giggle and a quiet, "Not yet," that make Dan's heart feel oddly, wonderfully full.

Nate and Serena are already up with a crying Aimee when Blair calls in the morning, so it falls to Dan to answer the phone.

"We're all still alive," he grumbles. "Thanks for checking in."

"Don't be huffy with me, Humphrey," she says, her voice light and amused. "I'm just trying to ensure the wellbeing of my goddaughter."

"She's good," he says, and it's easier to hold back a sigh when he's talking about Aimee. "She's great."

"Good," Blair says firmly, warmly.

"How's Monaco?"

"I'm going to come and visit you," she says, basically ignoring his question. "I miss you, all of you."

"When?"

"Tomorrow, I think."

He blinks, suddenly more awake. "That's…soon."

"It is. Yes."

He grimaces a little. They'll have to clean -

"A maid should be at your door at two o'clock this afternoon," Blair says wryly. "Tidy for her, please."

He rolls his eyes but he doesn't say anything; they both know that he'll do it.

"I'll assume that you're silence means that you're speechless with joy and that you can't wait to see me."

Dan laughs in spite of himself. "How long are you staying?"

"Indefinitely," she says, quick and quiet, and he understands what she means.

Nate wanders into the bedroom then, a sniffling Aimee in his arms as he hums the tune of Clair de Lune to her. Serena leans against the doorjamb, a teddy bear in one hand and a sleepy, content smile on her lips.

"Good," Dan says, to Blair. "That's exactly how long we'd like to have you."

His editor practically sobs with joy when he hands over his manuscript, and it's, see, Daniel, look what you can achieve when you come up with your own story instead of writing accounts of your relationships with rich teenagers! Dan just nods along until they start talking about editing and publication dates.

There's a lot of hype about this book, mostly due to his editor's obsession with it, but Dan remains pretty oblivious to it all because he has a family now, and his home life comes with its own hype: Aimee's first nap on her tummy instead of her back, Blair's arrival and subsequent redecorating, Nate's promotion at work, Serena's laughter and the way it has become a constant in their lives again.

The book goes to print, but it's not his biggest success.

Dan Humphrey's greatest literary achievement comes later in life. It outsells the long, rambling novel about Serena, the messily organized book of short stories about Blair, the embarrassingly flowery book of poetry on Nate, and even the short novel about the son Serena never got to have.

It's a fantasy series of four books, the kind of stuff he never thought he'd write. The first is called Mermaid Memories, the second Book of Babylon, the third Nature's Narrative, and the fourth Briar's Biography. They're classified as fiction for young adults, and they're a compilation of every story he ever made up to tell his daughter at bedtime. The main character is a girl named Briar and she encounters singing mermaids and trees that dance, castles with impenetrable walls, princes and princesses who would rather be commoners, ancient lands and languages. She learns to love with all her heart.

He never admits it, not in a preface or during an interview or at a book signing, but each of the books has its own dedication. The first is Serena's, which seems fitting; the third is Nate's and the fourth is clearly Blair's. The second is Dan's, and no one would ever guess it, but it is likely the most personal thing he's ever written.

But each of those dedications comes down to the same truth: he writes those books for her daughter and all of the people who raised her. Nate, whose idea she was; Serena, who carried her and gave birth to her; Blair, whom Aimee was calling Bee before she learned mama and dada. And self-indulgently, he has a book all his own, because he wanted her first, on that quiet night with Nate all those years ago.

All of the books are for his daughter, and he calls the series Aimer.

fin