194. catch my 22
Title | catch my 22
Rating | pg-13
Characters | Dan + Serena.
Summary | He was looking at her face and she was looking at her watch. This is where everything changed. There was now a distance between them.
Notes | Written for this ficathon.
Dan does not imagine - not once, not even for a moment - that Serena will be the one to get tired of him. It’s a thought egotistical enough that he can hardly even admit it to himself, but it’s true. Serena married him because she loved him. He married her for that same reason: because she loved him.
They try to pretend that things are not different, and in some ways they aren’t. Dan still knows how Serena likes her coffee, where she likes to be kissed. He knows all her little tells; he can see how honest she is when she forgives him, when she stands across from him in that white dress and promises forever.
Serena wanted to elope. Dan gave into all the expectations, those of their parents, of society, of Blair watching with Chuck’s damn diamond ring on her finger. They ended up doing it in a church, despite Serena’s hesitation.
That might have, in retrospect, been the very first clue.
They’re barely married for two months when Serena tells him that she wants to have a baby, blue eyes all earnest and shiny with barely-contained hope. Dan agrees because he’s her husband. He agrees because he wants her to be happy, after all that misery he caused.
Benjamin Eric Humphrey is born on their first anniversary; from that day forward their wedding date is secondary to his birth. Serena is intensely enamoured with him, touching his miniscule nose and fingers with very gentle hands, cooing to him softly, a private conversation. She doesn’t want to let him go, and Dan finally eases the baby carefully into his bassinet once she starts to drift to sleep.
Once he’s done he touches Serena’s hair, kisses her temple, and tells her that he loves her, but she’s already sound asleep, her body eager to accept an opportunity for well-earned rest. Dan closes his mouth and sits down, silent, the only member of his family awake.
A baby provides all kinds of business. Everything revolves around Benjamin and their relationship slowly falls to the wayside. Sex becomes an afterthought, dates are nonexistent. They say I love you at night and kiss in the morning and in between there is a strange distance. Serena used to look at him like he was her whole world, like he was a part of her, all soft smiles and warmth. All that attention, all that love, is redirected to Ben the moment he’s born.
Dan loves his son more deeply than he can explain, but he also misses his wife.
Dan fills his son’s room with books, but Ben loves soccer and basketball and karate instead. He develops a slight obsession with aquatic life and becomes intrinsically attached to his little underwater camera. Serena bakes cookies for all his teams and cheers the loudest from the stands; she photographs Ben all the time and laughingly lets him take pictures of her in return. The closeness they shared during Ben’s infancy, the one all the parenting books said was expected, does not wane or shift - it endures, it develops, and he feels left behind.
He writes stories starring Ben, adventures full of wonder that his little boy is always eager to hear. But when Ben is sick or having a nightmare or in need of advice, it’s Serena that he wants.
Hey, he says to Serena one night, feeling ridiculous but determined, want to have another baby?
She looks shocked by the suggestion, and there is a long, pregnant pause, but she says yes.
Olivia comes into the world healthy and perfect, a wailing baby with blonde fuzz on her head and bleary blue eyes. The symptoms start at four months, the diagnosis comes in at five, and the prognosis is devastating.
Dan’s daughter is there and then gone again so very abruptly. He thought he knew loss when Milo was taken from him but this is something else altogether. There is an awful ache in his chest for the longest time and he thinks Serena might blame him. She has an affair.
He forgives Serena for sleeping with Ben’s soccer coach. She cries when he confronts her and he tries to dismiss it all as grief. He puts his arms around her and her hands lift to his shoulders but she doesn’t curl against him like she used to. He tells her that he’s sorry and all she says is don’t.
Serena cooks dinner every night and repaints three rooms in their house. She buys new furniture with money from her inheritance. She sleeps curled up at the very edge of their bed, far away from him. Dan can’t understand her restlessness.
He feels very quiet, exhausted in an endless way. It takes a lot of effort for him to get up, for him to type a single thing, to link five words together in a sentence.
Ben bounces back, the way kids do, and Serena just keeps moving.
Serena starts spending all kinds of time in the city with Blair, letting Ben throw basketballs around with Nate. Dan spends all kinds of time staring at a cursor blinking on the first line of a blank document.
Ben has a Christmas concert at school. All the kids dress up and sing songs out of sync, out of tune, with zero sense of harmony. The parents take pictures from the audience.
They wait in the hallway for Ben after it’s all over, Serena’s camera hanging around her neck. Dan studies her face, the slope of her nose, the curve of her mouth, the blue of her eyes. He wonders who she is.
Serena lifts her arm to glance at her watch, the one that cost more than Dan makes in a year, and then looks over at him. Her lips are in a straight line and her eyes have lost all their sparkle.
Sometimes, when Dan is in a crappy place in the middle of the night and he’s had too much to drink, alone in their kitchen, he thinks that Olivia dying was an extra nail in a coffin that had been shut for a long, long time.
The divorce is filed in February. Serena moves back to New York and when they tell Ben, gently over ice cream, that he’ll live with one of them during the week and the other every second weekend, he chooses to go with her.
Nate comes to pick her up on Blair’s orders. He helps pack the moving van and jokes around with Ben. He takes their son into the car first so that they can have a moment to say goodbye.
Dan doesn’t know what to say. He gives Serena a letter in a sealed envelope and she kisses his cheek, a soft little thing. She gets into the car and it pulls out of the driveway.
Dan lifts his hand in a wave that she doesn’t see, and then he’s alone with a typewriter again, like nothing has changed at all.
fin
Rating | pg-13
Characters | Dan + Serena.
Summary | He was looking at her face and she was looking at her watch. This is where everything changed. There was now a distance between them.
Notes | Written for this ficathon.
Dan does not imagine - not once, not even for a moment - that Serena will be the one to get tired of him. It’s a thought egotistical enough that he can hardly even admit it to himself, but it’s true. Serena married him because she loved him. He married her for that same reason: because she loved him.
They try to pretend that things are not different, and in some ways they aren’t. Dan still knows how Serena likes her coffee, where she likes to be kissed. He knows all her little tells; he can see how honest she is when she forgives him, when she stands across from him in that white dress and promises forever.
Serena wanted to elope. Dan gave into all the expectations, those of their parents, of society, of Blair watching with Chuck’s damn diamond ring on her finger. They ended up doing it in a church, despite Serena’s hesitation.
That might have, in retrospect, been the very first clue.
They’re barely married for two months when Serena tells him that she wants to have a baby, blue eyes all earnest and shiny with barely-contained hope. Dan agrees because he’s her husband. He agrees because he wants her to be happy, after all that misery he caused.
Benjamin Eric Humphrey is born on their first anniversary; from that day forward their wedding date is secondary to his birth. Serena is intensely enamoured with him, touching his miniscule nose and fingers with very gentle hands, cooing to him softly, a private conversation. She doesn’t want to let him go, and Dan finally eases the baby carefully into his bassinet once she starts to drift to sleep.
Once he’s done he touches Serena’s hair, kisses her temple, and tells her that he loves her, but she’s already sound asleep, her body eager to accept an opportunity for well-earned rest. Dan closes his mouth and sits down, silent, the only member of his family awake.
A baby provides all kinds of business. Everything revolves around Benjamin and their relationship slowly falls to the wayside. Sex becomes an afterthought, dates are nonexistent. They say I love you at night and kiss in the morning and in between there is a strange distance. Serena used to look at him like he was her whole world, like he was a part of her, all soft smiles and warmth. All that attention, all that love, is redirected to Ben the moment he’s born.
Dan loves his son more deeply than he can explain, but he also misses his wife.
Dan fills his son’s room with books, but Ben loves soccer and basketball and karate instead. He develops a slight obsession with aquatic life and becomes intrinsically attached to his little underwater camera. Serena bakes cookies for all his teams and cheers the loudest from the stands; she photographs Ben all the time and laughingly lets him take pictures of her in return. The closeness they shared during Ben’s infancy, the one all the parenting books said was expected, does not wane or shift - it endures, it develops, and he feels left behind.
He writes stories starring Ben, adventures full of wonder that his little boy is always eager to hear. But when Ben is sick or having a nightmare or in need of advice, it’s Serena that he wants.
Hey, he says to Serena one night, feeling ridiculous but determined, want to have another baby?
She looks shocked by the suggestion, and there is a long, pregnant pause, but she says yes.
Olivia comes into the world healthy and perfect, a wailing baby with blonde fuzz on her head and bleary blue eyes. The symptoms start at four months, the diagnosis comes in at five, and the prognosis is devastating.
Dan’s daughter is there and then gone again so very abruptly. He thought he knew loss when Milo was taken from him but this is something else altogether. There is an awful ache in his chest for the longest time and he thinks Serena might blame him. She has an affair.
He forgives Serena for sleeping with Ben’s soccer coach. She cries when he confronts her and he tries to dismiss it all as grief. He puts his arms around her and her hands lift to his shoulders but she doesn’t curl against him like she used to. He tells her that he’s sorry and all she says is don’t.
Serena cooks dinner every night and repaints three rooms in their house. She buys new furniture with money from her inheritance. She sleeps curled up at the very edge of their bed, far away from him. Dan can’t understand her restlessness.
He feels very quiet, exhausted in an endless way. It takes a lot of effort for him to get up, for him to type a single thing, to link five words together in a sentence.
Ben bounces back, the way kids do, and Serena just keeps moving.
Serena starts spending all kinds of time in the city with Blair, letting Ben throw basketballs around with Nate. Dan spends all kinds of time staring at a cursor blinking on the first line of a blank document.
Ben has a Christmas concert at school. All the kids dress up and sing songs out of sync, out of tune, with zero sense of harmony. The parents take pictures from the audience.
They wait in the hallway for Ben after it’s all over, Serena’s camera hanging around her neck. Dan studies her face, the slope of her nose, the curve of her mouth, the blue of her eyes. He wonders who she is.
Serena lifts her arm to glance at her watch, the one that cost more than Dan makes in a year, and then looks over at him. Her lips are in a straight line and her eyes have lost all their sparkle.
Sometimes, when Dan is in a crappy place in the middle of the night and he’s had too much to drink, alone in their kitchen, he thinks that Olivia dying was an extra nail in a coffin that had been shut for a long, long time.
The divorce is filed in February. Serena moves back to New York and when they tell Ben, gently over ice cream, that he’ll live with one of them during the week and the other every second weekend, he chooses to go with her.
Nate comes to pick her up on Blair’s orders. He helps pack the moving van and jokes around with Ben. He takes their son into the car first so that they can have a moment to say goodbye.
Dan doesn’t know what to say. He gives Serena a letter in a sealed envelope and she kisses his cheek, a soft little thing. She gets into the car and it pulls out of the driveway.
Dan lifts his hand in a wave that she doesn’t see, and then he’s alone with a typewriter again, like nothing has changed at all.
fin