180. you and i are a story (that never gets told); chapter thirteen
Title | you and i are a story (that never gets told)
Chapter| thirteen
Rating | pg-13
Characters| Blair + Dan.
Summary | Give me back my future, Blair had thought. You take everything from me.
Notes | Canon applies for all episodes of Gossip Girl up to the s4 finale. This fic is loosely based on the movie Life As We Know It. I do not own these characters, etc, etc. Title is from a Taylor Swift song.
Manhattan, 2020.
Blair wakes up in a tangle of sheets and limbs in the morning; she's sprawled halfway over Dan's chest, their legs entwined and the sheets wrapped around them haphazardly. Sunlight is starting to leak through the thin curtains over the window, and she sighs, nuzzling against Dan.
She shifts after a moment, pushing her messy hair out of her face. "Good morning," she whispers, touching his cheek with her other hand as she kisses him.
He smiles against her mouth, kissing back for a beat. "Good morning," he replies. His eyes are still sleepy and his smile is soft as he looks at her. "Excellent sequel to a good night…"
She laughs softly. "You had a good night…?"
"Hmm…" He rolls them over, pressing her back into the mattress. "So did you, if memory serves…"
She giggles, shaking her head against the pillow, not even caring that it musses up her hair even more. "I can't remember."
He kisses her slowly, deeply. "Might have to remind you, then."
"The kids'll be up soon," she tells him, moaning softly as he presses kisses down her neck, her fingers slipping into his hair.
He presses kisses over the swell of one of her breasts, murmurs, "I'll have to remind you quickly, then," against her skin.
Blair smiles a little, closing her eyes. "Okay," she whispers.
Dan tiptoes downstairs to make coffee while Blair cleans up the room. She gathers up all of the pieces of clothing that were strewn around the room last night and tosses them in the hamper. The tiara he'd given her is sitting on the floor right next to her side of the bed and she picks it up carefully, hesitating for a moment before she opens the first drawer of the nightstand.
It still smells faintly of Serena's perfume in the drawer, and Blair's heart seizes instinctively at that scent, but it's a brief, aching moment, and then she can breathe again. Very carefully, she sets the tiara into that drawer, replacing all of Serena's things - baby books and love letters and photographs - with a memory of her own.
She chooses nice underwear, white and lacy, just in case she and Dan manage to find another moment to themselves while Eric's still here, and then puts on pyjamas, striped ones, and brushes out her hair. She's in the middle of half-heartedly attempting to make the bed when Dan comes back in with coffee.
He laughs at her, fond but genuinely amused. "Seriously? You don't know how to make a bed?"
"I know how to make a bed," she huffs.
"Oh, you do, huh?" he asks, pressing a kiss to the side of her head as he hands her a mug.
"I do," she insists. "Just…not how Dorota did it."
Dan smiles at her, rolling his eyes. "I'll give it a go."
She sips the coffee, smiling a little when she tastes it; just the right amount of sugar and skim milk. "Thank you."
He laughs softly, tucking sheets, smoothing blankets. "I'm your housekeeper," he says wryly, his tone amused.
"Don't whine," she says, watching him. "Gender roles are evolving…I'd be happy to be the breadwinner."
He rolls his eyes and then admits, "You might have to be…I don't exactly have a stable career."
"And look how good you are at making beds," she teases as he smoothes out the comforter. "It was meant to be."
Dan rolls his eyes at her again. "Satisfied?" he asks, gesturing to the bed.
She nods, moving back toward it, patting his cheek. "Excellent work."
He catches her hand in his, their fingers weaving together. "You're getting back in to the bed I just expertly made?"
"Shh." She kisses him, finds that he tastes like coffee, or maybe she does. "You're coming with me."
"That's my prize for making the bed? I get to un-make the bed?"
"You get to un-make the bed with me," she says, holding her mug of coffee carefully in one hand as she slips beneath the covers, her other hand reaching out to tug at his shirt.
"You think very highly of yourself, Waldorf," he murmurs, but he's already kissing her, already running a hand over her side lightly.
She smiles against his lips, lazy and pleased. "Shouldn't I?" she mumbles against his mouth, biting his bottom lip lightly.
"You should - you - "
"Morning!" Joey's little voice announces as she rushes into the room, her seahorse plushie clutched in one hand. "It's morning!" she says gleefully, clambering up on the bed, flopping over Blair's legs.
Blair blinks, mildly startled, as Dan pulls away from her. "It is…" she agrees faintly. "Morning…" She smiles softly at Joey, smoothing the little girl's blonde hair. "Good morning, sweetie."
"Can we have breakfast?" Lilah's voice asks, and Blair glances up, toward the doorway, only to see the oldest of the girls standing there.
"You're hungry?" Dan asks around a yawn, stealing Blair's mug of coffee and taking a sip.
"Pancakes!" Ella says delightedly, ducking under Lilah's arm and rushing into the room, jumping up onto the bed too and bouncing on her knees on the mattress.
"With whipped cream!" Joey adds eagerly.
"Whipped cream?" Dan asks wryly, smiling at her. "I don't think you guys need whipped cream…"
"Want it, though," Ella says, all bright blue eyes and tousled hair.
"Me too!" Bram insists eagerly, barrelling into the room, dragging his blanket along after him. "Me too!" he adds, moving to the bed and holding his arms up to be picked up.
"You too," Dan agrees warmly, scooping him up onto the bed.
He burrows between the two of them, giggly and sleepy-eyed, and Blair knows right away that it's something he used to do, with his parents, snuggle between them in the morning. She smoothes his hair gently, bending slightly to press a kiss to his forehead as Joey and Ella jump around on the bed.
"Lilah," Dan says softly, and Blair glances up, looking over at the little girl, who's still standing still in the doorway, her eyes more serious, more awake, than those of her siblings.
"Come here, honey," Blair says, matching Dan's soft tone and holding an arm out to Lilah.
She moves toward them slowly, barefoot under her nightgown, and sort of just leans against the mattress, letting Blair's arm slip around her shoulders.
"Pancakes, Li," Joey tells her brightly, cuddling in next to Bram.
"What do you think, Lilah?" Dan asks her, smiling softly, Ella curled up on his lap. "Pancakes with whipped cream, does that sound good?"
Lilah's quiet for a beat and then she asks, "And caramel sauce?"
Blair looks at Dan, at his gentle smile, at his eyes on Lilah's face, and her heart does something silly like melting.
"Definitely caramel sauce," Dan says, like there was never any question, and Ella giggles brightly.
Blair thinks there needs to be some sort of nutrition in that meal, probably fruit, grapes and strawberries. She thinks that they'll need to wake Eric, that by the time they get to the kitchen Bram will be cranky with hunger and he'll need to eat Cheerios, which will spoil his appetite, even though he might not admit it - she thinks they'll have a bellyache on their hands later.
But then Lilah slides into the bed next to her, curled up silently against Blair's side, blonde head tucked just under Blair's chin, and Blair understands what she needs then - just to stop thinking, so she drops a kiss into Lilah's hair and stops thinking, too, for a minute.
Over breakfast, after Eric has asked them about their night with several pointedly lifted eyebrows that remind Blair of the way Serena used to conduct her interrogations, they decide to go the park. It's colder now, but the kids are insistent, so they spend nearly an hour getting them all dressed in corduroy pants and long-sleeved shirts and warm socks, and then snowsuits, zipped and buckled up before they add scarves, hats, mittens, and boots.
Inevitably, the moment they're ready to go out the door, Joey announces, "I have to go to the bathroom," and it's another ten minutes to un-bundle and re-bundle her before they can leave.
Blair's choice of slightly-heeled boots are totally wrong for this outing, as if the fact that she completely forgot to wear a hat, so she stands, shivering slightly, while Dan crouches down in front of the kids, knees in the thin blanket of snow, and sets clear boundaries about where they can play. They nod eagerly and he gives Lilah a brief, serious look that she seems to understand - some kind of older-sibling communication that Blair is not privy to - and then the kids take off, hollering about snowball fights.
They sit down on a bench to watch, Blair huddled between Dan and Eric, hands tucked up into the sleeves of her coat. Dan slides his arm around her shoulders, hugging her a little, and she smiles over at him.
It's funny, to watch them play. Lilah's oldest, but she defers to Ella in the way Serena used to defer to Blair, when they were young; with a whatever-you-want shrug and an easy desire to just play, whatever the terms might be. Joey is very much like Nate was when they were small, mostly quiet and easy, performing whatever role she's assigned. And Bram is an indisputable combination of them both, all giggles and silliness that frustrates his older sisters sometimes.
"They're really beautiful," she murmurs, so softly that she's not really speaking to Dan or Eric, more to herself, but Dan holds her a little closer anyway, rubbing gently at her arm.
They make a couple friends - a boy about Ella's age and a girl about Joey's age. They both have bright red hair underneath their hats and Blair smiles politely at the couple who sit down on the bench next to their with that same red hair; they're obviously the kids' parents.
The woman smiles back, leaning over to shake hands. "Hi, I'm Erin…" she introduces herself.
Eric shakes her hand since he's closest. "Eric," he returns. "This is Blair and Dan."
"Hi," Blair says, and she can see Dan wave in her peripheral vision.
"This is my husband," Erin introduces, "John."
Blair's about to say hello to him too when Ella comes rushing over to them, her blue eyes wide. She comes to a stop pressed against Blair's legs. "Auntie B, Joey ate snow."
Blair tries to quell her smile and Eric reaches over, brushing snow off of Ella's jacket. "Are you tattling, El?"
She pouts. "Snow isn't food."
"Was the snow yellow?" Dan asks her.
She shakes her head.
"Then I'm sure she'll be okay, sweetie…a little snow's not going to kill her."
Ella still looks uncertain. "Can I tell her you said not to do it again?"
Eric laughs a little. "Go play," he tells her. "Don't worry about it."
Ella looks at him for a beat and then sighs, turning and walking back toward her siblings.
Erin smiles, comments, "She's very sweet…" She glances at Eric. "They must be yours," she guesses.
It's a logical conclusion. The four blonde-haired, blue-eyed children running around in the snow cannot genetically belong to Dan and Blair - it's an impossibility. Blair knows that, and she knows she can't fault anyone for making that assumption, but her lips press together anyway and she can feel her eyes narrow slightly.
"No," Dan says, before she can figure out what to say. "They're ours." His tone is light, friendly; much less biting than Blair's would have been.
Erin blinks, obviously confused, but she smiles hurriedly, politely. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…assumed."
"No," Blair says flatly. "You shouldn't have."
Dan's fingers tighten around her shoulder. Lightly, casually, he says, "It's a long story."
They don't talk anymore after that.
They eat out, the kids' snowsuits hanging off the back of their chairs, little voices giggling and talking and demanding the ketchup for their fries. Blair sits at one end of the table, Dan at the other, and Eric sits between Bram and Joey, the kids most likely to make messes.
The kids have calmed down, their energy spent, and the meal is relatively quiet aside from occasional laughter and pouting about stealing each other's milkshakes. She barely has time to open her mouth in order to tell Ella to drink from her own glass, not Lilah's, before Dan has already said as much and settled the whole dispute.
She gives him a small smile when he looks at her, doesn't say anything. He's suited to it, to parenting - maybe because of Jenny, maybe because of Milo, maybe because he has the right instincts. Or maybe just because he loves the kids as much as he obviously does.
She thinks of his voice, calm and collected at the park, they're ours. She looks around the table at the four heads of blonde hair, four mouths that smile so easily, four sets of slightly-freckled cheeks. She looks at Lilah and the way her nose scrunches slightly when she giggles, just like Serena's used to. She looks at Eric, the ways he looks so much like Bram.
The disconnect is obvious. Painfully, brutally obvious. It will be there, in that glaringly obvious way, for the rest of her life.
Blair beats Eric at a game of backgammon after all the kids are in bed.
After she's won, he says, "Good job."
She laughs a little. "I excel at all things," she teases.
"No, I mean - " Eric shrugs. "Good job," he says again, more seriously.
Blair softens, smile fading. "Thank you," she says quietly.
"If she couldn't be here, I know she wouldn't have wanted anyone but you."
She exhales slowly. "I really want to…be the person she would've been. For them. Without…taking over." She sighs. "Serena's still their mom."
Eric nods. "You're doing a good job," he says again. "At exactly that."
Blair reaches across the table to touch his hand, giving his fingers a brief squeeze. "Thanks, E," she says earnestly. "It's been really great to have you here."
"It's been really great to be here." He gets up, stretching out his arms. "And, for the record…" He smiles slightly. "Serena would've wanted you to be happy. She would've wanted…the best for you, not just the kids."
She rolls her eyes slightly. "You've become very presumptuous," she teases him.
He rolls his eyes too. "I'm nothing more than a person with eyes. I'd have to be blind to miss it. And it is good, you know? Even for the kids. It's good for them to see the two of you adjusting to all of this, making yourselves happy. You deserve it, all of you do."
Blair studies him for a beat. "So do you," she says, and then parrots him teasingly, "For the record."
He grins. "I'm going to read a bit before I go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
"Goodnight, Eric," she says softly, smiling too.
She packs the game up, setting all the pieces within the board before she folds it closed, and then sets it back on the shelf full of games. The house is quiet, the children asleep upstairs and Dan - she's not entirely sure where Dan is.
She checks the kitchen first, and then peeks into the dining room in case he's set himself up to write at the dining room table. He's not there, so she walks back through the living room, glances into what used to be Nate and Serena's home office and is currently a dark, untouched room, and then checks the sunroom.
That's where she finds him, sitting in one of the cushy armchairs, a solitary lamp on.
"There you are," she says softly, pausing in the doorway, smiling.
He glances up quickly, like she's startled him, and then ducks his head down again. "Hey," he says quietly, his voice rough.
Her brows furrow a little as she moves into the room, toward him. "Dan?" she asks softly. "Are you - " Okay dies on her tongue when she's close enough to see that he looks like he's been crying. "What is it?" she murmurs. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Dan," Blair murmurs, perching on the arm of the chair he's sitting in, touching a hand to his back gently. She waits for him to say something more.
There's a moment of silence and then he says, softly, "I just…miss them, I guess. Sometimes it - just comes out of nowhere, how it was all so…unfair, and I just miss them."
She starts rubbing small circles against his back. "I know," she whispers.
"And today," he sighs. "In the park. It's always going to require an explanation, you know?" he asks, looking up at her with tired eyes. "They're never just going to be our kids. People will always assume otherwise until we explain, and that just - we can be so happy but that will always come back to remind us and - " He shakes his head a little. "Fuck. I just miss them."
Blair nods a little even though he's not looking at her anymore. She does know; she knows too well exactly what he means, she's been feeling it all day, trying to ignore it. Her throat feels tight. "Nate was your best friend," she says quietly, realization dawning as she speaks. It had been so devastating to her to lose her own best friend that she'd hardly paused to realize that the same thing had been happening to Dan.
"Yeah," he says heavily. "And Serena…"
"I know," she murmurs, because, once again, she does. All of her jealousy has dissipated, and she understands; she had all of those perfect moments, those milestones of first love, with Nate.
"They're just…gone," Dan sighs.
"Yeah," Blair whispers. After a beat, she slides off the arm of the chair and into his lap, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
His arm slides around her waist. "Sorry," he says. "I know we were having a good weekend, I didn't mean to…bring all this up."
She puts a little kiss to his cheek. "You didn't bring it up. It's always…there. And it's - you get to be sad about it. About Serena, about Nate. About yourself, even. You've been so…this whole time you've been so on top of everything. You've been so good to the kids and you've been so good to me, especially in the beginning, when I was so caught up in losing them. You've been a rock," she says softly. "And that's probably not fair. We should be a team, it shouldn't be you supporting all of us."
Dan leans his forehead against hers. "It was hard on everyone. I was just…trying to cope, like you were."
"As much as I hate to admit this," she whispers. "You coped way better than I did."
He half-smiles, chin lifting a little so that he can give her a kiss. It's soft and brief and afterward their foreheads touch again and they just sit, still and together, quiet and just breathing.
"Thanks," he says after a long moment.
"Any time," she says, sincerely, kissing the corner of his mouth. The silence settles again then; he thumb rubs idly against her hip and she smoothes her hand other his shoulder. "Can I ask you about something?"
"Yeah. Of course."
"In their will, Serena left you…a notebook?"
"Yeah," he says again, wistfully this time. "It was - when we were dating, the first time, when we were kids, I gave it to her. I said it was unfair, how she always got to read what I wrote about her. I wanted to read what she'd write about me, so I got her this little book. It was very…Serena. It had sunflowers on the cover and all the pages had pink lines. But I never knew what she wrote in it, we broke up maybe a month after that and I don't think either of us ever mentioned it again."
"But she left it to you."
He nods. "I haven't opened it."
"That was sweet of her," Blair murmurs. "To remember."
Dan nods again. "She was sweet," he agrees quietly.
"Hopefully the kids will inherit that instead of Nate's permanent state of confusion," she says lightly, teasing; it's nice, that she can manage that, when a week ago she might have been crying.
That surprises a laugh out of him and he shakes his head a little, kissing her again. "It wasn't permanent," he murmurs.
"You were not around when we were fifteen."
Dan smiles at her. "I'll have to take your word on that."
She nods. "You will." A beat later, she adds softly, "You got the best years. For both of them."
"And what about for you?" he murmurs.
Blair shrugs a little, gives him another kiss. "I think I'm still working on mine." She smiles slightly. "You're part of them, though."
He tucks her hair behind her ear. "You're part of mine, too."
"Liar," she murmurs.
He just says, "I love you."
tbc.
Chapter| thirteen
Rating | pg-13
Characters| Blair + Dan.
Summary | Give me back my future, Blair had thought. You take everything from me.
Notes | Canon applies for all episodes of Gossip Girl up to the s4 finale. This fic is loosely based on the movie Life As We Know It. I do not own these characters, etc, etc. Title is from a Taylor Swift song.
Manhattan, 2020.
Blair wakes up in a tangle of sheets and limbs in the morning; she's sprawled halfway over Dan's chest, their legs entwined and the sheets wrapped around them haphazardly. Sunlight is starting to leak through the thin curtains over the window, and she sighs, nuzzling against Dan.
She shifts after a moment, pushing her messy hair out of her face. "Good morning," she whispers, touching his cheek with her other hand as she kisses him.
He smiles against her mouth, kissing back for a beat. "Good morning," he replies. His eyes are still sleepy and his smile is soft as he looks at her. "Excellent sequel to a good night…"
She laughs softly. "You had a good night…?"
"Hmm…" He rolls them over, pressing her back into the mattress. "So did you, if memory serves…"
She giggles, shaking her head against the pillow, not even caring that it musses up her hair even more. "I can't remember."
He kisses her slowly, deeply. "Might have to remind you, then."
"The kids'll be up soon," she tells him, moaning softly as he presses kisses down her neck, her fingers slipping into his hair.
He presses kisses over the swell of one of her breasts, murmurs, "I'll have to remind you quickly, then," against her skin.
Blair smiles a little, closing her eyes. "Okay," she whispers.
Dan tiptoes downstairs to make coffee while Blair cleans up the room. She gathers up all of the pieces of clothing that were strewn around the room last night and tosses them in the hamper. The tiara he'd given her is sitting on the floor right next to her side of the bed and she picks it up carefully, hesitating for a moment before she opens the first drawer of the nightstand.
It still smells faintly of Serena's perfume in the drawer, and Blair's heart seizes instinctively at that scent, but it's a brief, aching moment, and then she can breathe again. Very carefully, she sets the tiara into that drawer, replacing all of Serena's things - baby books and love letters and photographs - with a memory of her own.
She chooses nice underwear, white and lacy, just in case she and Dan manage to find another moment to themselves while Eric's still here, and then puts on pyjamas, striped ones, and brushes out her hair. She's in the middle of half-heartedly attempting to make the bed when Dan comes back in with coffee.
He laughs at her, fond but genuinely amused. "Seriously? You don't know how to make a bed?"
"I know how to make a bed," she huffs.
"Oh, you do, huh?" he asks, pressing a kiss to the side of her head as he hands her a mug.
"I do," she insists. "Just…not how Dorota did it."
Dan smiles at her, rolling his eyes. "I'll give it a go."
She sips the coffee, smiling a little when she tastes it; just the right amount of sugar and skim milk. "Thank you."
He laughs softly, tucking sheets, smoothing blankets. "I'm your housekeeper," he says wryly, his tone amused.
"Don't whine," she says, watching him. "Gender roles are evolving…I'd be happy to be the breadwinner."
He rolls his eyes and then admits, "You might have to be…I don't exactly have a stable career."
"And look how good you are at making beds," she teases as he smoothes out the comforter. "It was meant to be."
Dan rolls his eyes at her again. "Satisfied?" he asks, gesturing to the bed.
She nods, moving back toward it, patting his cheek. "Excellent work."
He catches her hand in his, their fingers weaving together. "You're getting back in to the bed I just expertly made?"
"Shh." She kisses him, finds that he tastes like coffee, or maybe she does. "You're coming with me."
"That's my prize for making the bed? I get to un-make the bed?"
"You get to un-make the bed with me," she says, holding her mug of coffee carefully in one hand as she slips beneath the covers, her other hand reaching out to tug at his shirt.
"You think very highly of yourself, Waldorf," he murmurs, but he's already kissing her, already running a hand over her side lightly.
She smiles against his lips, lazy and pleased. "Shouldn't I?" she mumbles against his mouth, biting his bottom lip lightly.
"You should - you - "
"Morning!" Joey's little voice announces as she rushes into the room, her seahorse plushie clutched in one hand. "It's morning!" she says gleefully, clambering up on the bed, flopping over Blair's legs.
Blair blinks, mildly startled, as Dan pulls away from her. "It is…" she agrees faintly. "Morning…" She smiles softly at Joey, smoothing the little girl's blonde hair. "Good morning, sweetie."
"Can we have breakfast?" Lilah's voice asks, and Blair glances up, toward the doorway, only to see the oldest of the girls standing there.
"You're hungry?" Dan asks around a yawn, stealing Blair's mug of coffee and taking a sip.
"Pancakes!" Ella says delightedly, ducking under Lilah's arm and rushing into the room, jumping up onto the bed too and bouncing on her knees on the mattress.
"With whipped cream!" Joey adds eagerly.
"Whipped cream?" Dan asks wryly, smiling at her. "I don't think you guys need whipped cream…"
"Want it, though," Ella says, all bright blue eyes and tousled hair.
"Me too!" Bram insists eagerly, barrelling into the room, dragging his blanket along after him. "Me too!" he adds, moving to the bed and holding his arms up to be picked up.
"You too," Dan agrees warmly, scooping him up onto the bed.
He burrows between the two of them, giggly and sleepy-eyed, and Blair knows right away that it's something he used to do, with his parents, snuggle between them in the morning. She smoothes his hair gently, bending slightly to press a kiss to his forehead as Joey and Ella jump around on the bed.
"Lilah," Dan says softly, and Blair glances up, looking over at the little girl, who's still standing still in the doorway, her eyes more serious, more awake, than those of her siblings.
"Come here, honey," Blair says, matching Dan's soft tone and holding an arm out to Lilah.
She moves toward them slowly, barefoot under her nightgown, and sort of just leans against the mattress, letting Blair's arm slip around her shoulders.
"Pancakes, Li," Joey tells her brightly, cuddling in next to Bram.
"What do you think, Lilah?" Dan asks her, smiling softly, Ella curled up on his lap. "Pancakes with whipped cream, does that sound good?"
Lilah's quiet for a beat and then she asks, "And caramel sauce?"
Blair looks at Dan, at his gentle smile, at his eyes on Lilah's face, and her heart does something silly like melting.
"Definitely caramel sauce," Dan says, like there was never any question, and Ella giggles brightly.
Blair thinks there needs to be some sort of nutrition in that meal, probably fruit, grapes and strawberries. She thinks that they'll need to wake Eric, that by the time they get to the kitchen Bram will be cranky with hunger and he'll need to eat Cheerios, which will spoil his appetite, even though he might not admit it - she thinks they'll have a bellyache on their hands later.
But then Lilah slides into the bed next to her, curled up silently against Blair's side, blonde head tucked just under Blair's chin, and Blair understands what she needs then - just to stop thinking, so she drops a kiss into Lilah's hair and stops thinking, too, for a minute.
Over breakfast, after Eric has asked them about their night with several pointedly lifted eyebrows that remind Blair of the way Serena used to conduct her interrogations, they decide to go the park. It's colder now, but the kids are insistent, so they spend nearly an hour getting them all dressed in corduroy pants and long-sleeved shirts and warm socks, and then snowsuits, zipped and buckled up before they add scarves, hats, mittens, and boots.
Inevitably, the moment they're ready to go out the door, Joey announces, "I have to go to the bathroom," and it's another ten minutes to un-bundle and re-bundle her before they can leave.
Blair's choice of slightly-heeled boots are totally wrong for this outing, as if the fact that she completely forgot to wear a hat, so she stands, shivering slightly, while Dan crouches down in front of the kids, knees in the thin blanket of snow, and sets clear boundaries about where they can play. They nod eagerly and he gives Lilah a brief, serious look that she seems to understand - some kind of older-sibling communication that Blair is not privy to - and then the kids take off, hollering about snowball fights.
They sit down on a bench to watch, Blair huddled between Dan and Eric, hands tucked up into the sleeves of her coat. Dan slides his arm around her shoulders, hugging her a little, and she smiles over at him.
It's funny, to watch them play. Lilah's oldest, but she defers to Ella in the way Serena used to defer to Blair, when they were young; with a whatever-you-want shrug and an easy desire to just play, whatever the terms might be. Joey is very much like Nate was when they were small, mostly quiet and easy, performing whatever role she's assigned. And Bram is an indisputable combination of them both, all giggles and silliness that frustrates his older sisters sometimes.
"They're really beautiful," she murmurs, so softly that she's not really speaking to Dan or Eric, more to herself, but Dan holds her a little closer anyway, rubbing gently at her arm.
They make a couple friends - a boy about Ella's age and a girl about Joey's age. They both have bright red hair underneath their hats and Blair smiles politely at the couple who sit down on the bench next to their with that same red hair; they're obviously the kids' parents.
The woman smiles back, leaning over to shake hands. "Hi, I'm Erin…" she introduces herself.
Eric shakes her hand since he's closest. "Eric," he returns. "This is Blair and Dan."
"Hi," Blair says, and she can see Dan wave in her peripheral vision.
"This is my husband," Erin introduces, "John."
Blair's about to say hello to him too when Ella comes rushing over to them, her blue eyes wide. She comes to a stop pressed against Blair's legs. "Auntie B, Joey ate snow."
Blair tries to quell her smile and Eric reaches over, brushing snow off of Ella's jacket. "Are you tattling, El?"
She pouts. "Snow isn't food."
"Was the snow yellow?" Dan asks her.
She shakes her head.
"Then I'm sure she'll be okay, sweetie…a little snow's not going to kill her."
Ella still looks uncertain. "Can I tell her you said not to do it again?"
Eric laughs a little. "Go play," he tells her. "Don't worry about it."
Ella looks at him for a beat and then sighs, turning and walking back toward her siblings.
Erin smiles, comments, "She's very sweet…" She glances at Eric. "They must be yours," she guesses.
It's a logical conclusion. The four blonde-haired, blue-eyed children running around in the snow cannot genetically belong to Dan and Blair - it's an impossibility. Blair knows that, and she knows she can't fault anyone for making that assumption, but her lips press together anyway and she can feel her eyes narrow slightly.
"No," Dan says, before she can figure out what to say. "They're ours." His tone is light, friendly; much less biting than Blair's would have been.
Erin blinks, obviously confused, but she smiles hurriedly, politely. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…assumed."
"No," Blair says flatly. "You shouldn't have."
Dan's fingers tighten around her shoulder. Lightly, casually, he says, "It's a long story."
They don't talk anymore after that.
They eat out, the kids' snowsuits hanging off the back of their chairs, little voices giggling and talking and demanding the ketchup for their fries. Blair sits at one end of the table, Dan at the other, and Eric sits between Bram and Joey, the kids most likely to make messes.
The kids have calmed down, their energy spent, and the meal is relatively quiet aside from occasional laughter and pouting about stealing each other's milkshakes. She barely has time to open her mouth in order to tell Ella to drink from her own glass, not Lilah's, before Dan has already said as much and settled the whole dispute.
She gives him a small smile when he looks at her, doesn't say anything. He's suited to it, to parenting - maybe because of Jenny, maybe because of Milo, maybe because he has the right instincts. Or maybe just because he loves the kids as much as he obviously does.
She thinks of his voice, calm and collected at the park, they're ours. She looks around the table at the four heads of blonde hair, four mouths that smile so easily, four sets of slightly-freckled cheeks. She looks at Lilah and the way her nose scrunches slightly when she giggles, just like Serena's used to. She looks at Eric, the ways he looks so much like Bram.
The disconnect is obvious. Painfully, brutally obvious. It will be there, in that glaringly obvious way, for the rest of her life.
Blair beats Eric at a game of backgammon after all the kids are in bed.
After she's won, he says, "Good job."
She laughs a little. "I excel at all things," she teases.
"No, I mean - " Eric shrugs. "Good job," he says again, more seriously.
Blair softens, smile fading. "Thank you," she says quietly.
"If she couldn't be here, I know she wouldn't have wanted anyone but you."
She exhales slowly. "I really want to…be the person she would've been. For them. Without…taking over." She sighs. "Serena's still their mom."
Eric nods. "You're doing a good job," he says again. "At exactly that."
Blair reaches across the table to touch his hand, giving his fingers a brief squeeze. "Thanks, E," she says earnestly. "It's been really great to have you here."
"It's been really great to be here." He gets up, stretching out his arms. "And, for the record…" He smiles slightly. "Serena would've wanted you to be happy. She would've wanted…the best for you, not just the kids."
She rolls her eyes slightly. "You've become very presumptuous," she teases him.
He rolls his eyes too. "I'm nothing more than a person with eyes. I'd have to be blind to miss it. And it is good, you know? Even for the kids. It's good for them to see the two of you adjusting to all of this, making yourselves happy. You deserve it, all of you do."
Blair studies him for a beat. "So do you," she says, and then parrots him teasingly, "For the record."
He grins. "I'm going to read a bit before I go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
"Goodnight, Eric," she says softly, smiling too.
She packs the game up, setting all the pieces within the board before she folds it closed, and then sets it back on the shelf full of games. The house is quiet, the children asleep upstairs and Dan - she's not entirely sure where Dan is.
She checks the kitchen first, and then peeks into the dining room in case he's set himself up to write at the dining room table. He's not there, so she walks back through the living room, glances into what used to be Nate and Serena's home office and is currently a dark, untouched room, and then checks the sunroom.
That's where she finds him, sitting in one of the cushy armchairs, a solitary lamp on.
"There you are," she says softly, pausing in the doorway, smiling.
He glances up quickly, like she's startled him, and then ducks his head down again. "Hey," he says quietly, his voice rough.
Her brows furrow a little as she moves into the room, toward him. "Dan?" she asks softly. "Are you - " Okay dies on her tongue when she's close enough to see that he looks like he's been crying. "What is it?" she murmurs. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Dan," Blair murmurs, perching on the arm of the chair he's sitting in, touching a hand to his back gently. She waits for him to say something more.
There's a moment of silence and then he says, softly, "I just…miss them, I guess. Sometimes it - just comes out of nowhere, how it was all so…unfair, and I just miss them."
She starts rubbing small circles against his back. "I know," she whispers.
"And today," he sighs. "In the park. It's always going to require an explanation, you know?" he asks, looking up at her with tired eyes. "They're never just going to be our kids. People will always assume otherwise until we explain, and that just - we can be so happy but that will always come back to remind us and - " He shakes his head a little. "Fuck. I just miss them."
Blair nods a little even though he's not looking at her anymore. She does know; she knows too well exactly what he means, she's been feeling it all day, trying to ignore it. Her throat feels tight. "Nate was your best friend," she says quietly, realization dawning as she speaks. It had been so devastating to her to lose her own best friend that she'd hardly paused to realize that the same thing had been happening to Dan.
"Yeah," he says heavily. "And Serena…"
"I know," she murmurs, because, once again, she does. All of her jealousy has dissipated, and she understands; she had all of those perfect moments, those milestones of first love, with Nate.
"They're just…gone," Dan sighs.
"Yeah," Blair whispers. After a beat, she slides off the arm of the chair and into his lap, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
His arm slides around her waist. "Sorry," he says. "I know we were having a good weekend, I didn't mean to…bring all this up."
She puts a little kiss to his cheek. "You didn't bring it up. It's always…there. And it's - you get to be sad about it. About Serena, about Nate. About yourself, even. You've been so…this whole time you've been so on top of everything. You've been so good to the kids and you've been so good to me, especially in the beginning, when I was so caught up in losing them. You've been a rock," she says softly. "And that's probably not fair. We should be a team, it shouldn't be you supporting all of us."
Dan leans his forehead against hers. "It was hard on everyone. I was just…trying to cope, like you were."
"As much as I hate to admit this," she whispers. "You coped way better than I did."
He half-smiles, chin lifting a little so that he can give her a kiss. It's soft and brief and afterward their foreheads touch again and they just sit, still and together, quiet and just breathing.
"Thanks," he says after a long moment.
"Any time," she says, sincerely, kissing the corner of his mouth. The silence settles again then; he thumb rubs idly against her hip and she smoothes her hand other his shoulder. "Can I ask you about something?"
"Yeah. Of course."
"In their will, Serena left you…a notebook?"
"Yeah," he says again, wistfully this time. "It was - when we were dating, the first time, when we were kids, I gave it to her. I said it was unfair, how she always got to read what I wrote about her. I wanted to read what she'd write about me, so I got her this little book. It was very…Serena. It had sunflowers on the cover and all the pages had pink lines. But I never knew what she wrote in it, we broke up maybe a month after that and I don't think either of us ever mentioned it again."
"But she left it to you."
He nods. "I haven't opened it."
"That was sweet of her," Blair murmurs. "To remember."
Dan nods again. "She was sweet," he agrees quietly.
"Hopefully the kids will inherit that instead of Nate's permanent state of confusion," she says lightly, teasing; it's nice, that she can manage that, when a week ago she might have been crying.
That surprises a laugh out of him and he shakes his head a little, kissing her again. "It wasn't permanent," he murmurs.
"You were not around when we were fifteen."
Dan smiles at her. "I'll have to take your word on that."
She nods. "You will." A beat later, she adds softly, "You got the best years. For both of them."
"And what about for you?" he murmurs.
Blair shrugs a little, gives him another kiss. "I think I'm still working on mine." She smiles slightly. "You're part of them, though."
He tucks her hair behind her ear. "You're part of mine, too."
"Liar," she murmurs.
He just says, "I love you."
tbc.