Archive of Our Own

When Blair was ten, her father bought her a first edition of Pride and Prejudice. Three volumes wrapped in gold, almost falling apart to the touch. 

At sixteen, she would pry the box off her shelf and think, We have much in common, you and I. 

When Blair was ten, she dragged Dorota to Albertine, bought Emma, bought Sense & Sensibility, bought Mansfield Park, bought Persuasion. Serena had Fitzgerald, but Blair had Austen. She stayed up under the covers, and poured herself into the stories. Wit and wealth and everlasting, undying love. Everything that made Blair, Blair. 

She thinks, maybe that’s why she loved Chuck so much. All tightly wrapped up, always brooding, a mystery waiting to be solved. One day she would open him up and underneath it all would lie a hero. 

At twenty, Blair locks herself in her room, under the guise of malaise, and reads through her favourite books again, as a distraction from reality. 

She had kissed Dan Humphrey, and she had lied. 

And sure, she was used to it, (the lying, of course, not the kissing Dan Humphrey, that was something she never needed to get used to), but something about this time was different. 

Lying had never felt wrong to Blair, it came naturally to her, a language she was fluent in. But No. Nothing. felt forced, the answer that was expected from her.

Chuck grabbed her arm, and she had pulled it back just as fast. Even then, his touch felt like it would leave a bruise. 

He's not a part of this world.

Stop embarrassing yourself, she bit back. Dan Humphrey may not be royalty but at least he’s not a child. 

At twenty, Blair almost becomes royalty. 

She doesn’t pack any of her books. The ceilings are high and the land is flat. There are no locks on the doors, but she feels trapped nonetheless.

At twenty, Blair leaves Monaco behind. She goes through her collection at home, for solace. She likes that she knows the endings, and she likes that the endings are happy. 

At ten, she had everything planned out. 

At twenty, if she could have anything, it would be a happy ending. 

At twenty, Blair checks back into reality. 

Dan was the first person she went to when she got back to New York.

She’s not sure what possessed her to tell the driver the address to the loft, all her luggage still stuffed in the trunk. It had felt good to be back home, the muggy, late-summer air pacified her. 

She showed up at his door with tears brimming her eyes. I really need a friend right now. 

Dan lounges on Blair’s bed, laptop open, scrolling menially. 

“Your choices are between L’Argent and Pretty Poison.” 

Blair sits on a stool in her closet, trying on different shoes. 

“Take your pick.” 

Dan clears his throat, puts on his best Anthony Perkins. “Boy what a week. I met you on Monday. Fell in love with you on Tuesday. Wednesday I was unfaithful. Thursday we killed a guy together.”

Blair rolls her eyes, obscured from Dan’s view. 

“L’Argent it is then.”

She hears Dan chuckle, and she smiles at her shoes, the brown Valentino’s going perfectly with her cardigan. 

When she comes back into the room, she finds Dan up, examining her bookshelf. 

“Don’t you have a library card?”

He ignores her, prods his fingers into the box set and goes to pull it out. She makes quick, swatting his hand away. 

“Didn’t Rufus teach you manners? Don’t touch people’s belongings without asking.” 

Dan puts his hands up, backs away from the shelf. He sits back down on the edge of the bed, muttering something under his breath that sounds like Such a girl. 

“You read those a lot, don’t you?”

She moves around him to grab her purse. 

“What makes you say that?”

“The spines are completely worn out. They’re almost the only things in this house that aren’t shiny and new.”

Almost, she thinks. 

“Well, what little girl doesn’t want to be Elizabeth Bennett, and get swept off her feet by a mysterious, dashing man with a large estate?”

Dan is looking everywhere in the room but at her. His smile is small, and oddly a little sad, she suspects. 

“You’re not Elizabeth.” He laughs lightly. She quirks up a brow. “You’re Emma.” 

Her mouth falls open a little. 

“What? You didn’t think I’d read Austen? I’ve read everything.” 

She closes her mouth, pouts. 

“Emma. She’s spoiled and puerile.” 

It’s Dan’s turn to raise his eyebrows. 

“Mhm, and that contests my point how?” 

She flips her hair from her shoulder, turns so he can’t see her face. 

“You’re no Darcy yourself.” She huffs. 

After L’Argent and dinner at Buvette, as she gets ready for bed, she hears her phone buzz on her side table. The familiar sinking feeling plunges in her stomach. When she picks it up, she expects a photo of her and Dan, tucked into a booth, sharing a bottle of wine. Something she’ll have to tirelessly explain to Serena, who still hasn’t wrapped her head around the idea of a Humphrey-Waldorf friendship. The same old routine every time she comes home, like she’s a teenager having to recount where she’s been to her mother. 

But instead, it’s only a text. 

Dan

Cindy Sherman retrospective at MoMA starts this week. Want me to get tickets?

She smiles to herself, types Sure, and moves towards her bookshelf. She picks Emma out and opens it to the first page.

Emma Woodhouse... had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

If only, Blair thinks, and shuts the book without continuing.  

After a late library session with Nate, Blair takes a cab to the loft, and lets herself in with the key under the mat. She’s not sure how this became the place she keeps ending up at, as this time last year she got a nosebleed anywhere below 65th. What had Dan Humphrey done to her? 

She can hear the shower running down the hall. She goes through the fridge and pantries in the kitchen, looking for something to eat. A basket of fruit sits next to the sink, browning bananas and mushy avocados. She pokes at a bruised apple. We have much in common, you and I. 

She finds a ripe plum and takes a bite, the juice turning her lips a dark red. She doesn’t hear the shower turn off, she doesn’t hear the bathroom door open, she doesn’t hear Dan coming down the hall. 

She does, however, hear Dan’s frantic shuffling once in the kitchen, causing her to turn around abruptly, and find him in nothing but a towel. It takes a moment for her brain to adjust, eyes trailing from his shoulders and chest, to his wet stomach, to just under his stomach - 

“Fuck! Blair! Don’t you fucking knock?”

She moves to cover her eyes, mock horror on her face. 

“Well, now I will, considering I’m scarred for life.” 

She hears him pad out of the room and lowers her hands, taking another bite of the plum. Her cheeks feel hot. 

When Dan comes back into the room, fully clothed and rubbing a towel in his wet curls, his face is verging on vermillion. 

“For the poor, you don’t have nearly as many nonperishables as you should. Why do you keep all this bad fruit around?”

Dan shrugs, not meeting her eyes. 

“My dad likes to bake. Do you wanna go out?”

Blair sets her bag down on the kitchen island, pulls out a bottle of wine and a collection of DVDs. 

“I look much too tired to be seen in public.” 

The empty bottle of wine, as well as an empty pizza box, lay on the floor by her feet. As Chow walks through Angkor Wat, leans his head against the ruins, Blair kicks the bottle with her toe, blinking back tears. As the credits roll, Dan leans forward to shut the laptop. 

“Everything okay?” 

Blair nods, a finger at her nose, stifling a sniffle. 

“What would you say that you’d have to cover with mud?” 

There’s a glint in Dan’s eyes. 

“If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret.” 

He gestures for her to come closer, and she does, resting her head on his shoulder. 

“I would say... that I’m not sad. I should be, shouldn’t I? I had everything I thought I ever wanted...  But I’m really not. I can’t remember the last time I was this happy.”

Except she can, she can pinpoint the exact moment, give you the exact time if you asked. 

At fourteen, almost fifteen, Blair was in a house with her mother and her father, with Nate’s arm around her shoulder, with Serena’s head in her lap. No damage had been done yet. Golden smiles and the promise of forever. 

It was encased in glass, all for show. But Blair didn’t know that back then. She thought that was the rest of her life. 

And the people she loved are still the people she loves. But now that memory feels like it’s missing someone, someone she hadn’t known existed then. Someone who crept up on her.

She lifts her head, looking at him. 

“I’m picking the next one.” 

“You pick every one.” 

She gets to her feet, making her way to the kitchen. 

“That’s what it costs you to spend time with me. People would pay good money for this.” 

“Thanks for the inner-city discount.” 

She fishes through her bag, shuffling through the DVDs she’s brought. When she turns back around, she finds him smiling up at her. 

“What’s wrong with you?” 

He ducks his head, looking away from her when she takes her seat again. 

“I like this. I like that you let me in.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she doesn’t. 

By the time George holds Lucy in the Piazza, Blair’s mind starts to wander. Dan’s arm has slipped from where it rested at the top of the couch to around her waist, his hand splayed out on her hip. She wonders what it would be like to kiss him, then. Not that she doesn’t know what kissing him is like, she has done it twice. But here, in the dim light, on the worn couch, against his warm chest. It’s probably just the wine talking. It’s probably just the wine making her move. 

She lifts her head up, preparing herself, and finds Dan fast asleep. 

Irritation rises in her, and she tells herself it’s because he’s such a boy, can’t appreciate a good romance when it’s right in front of him. 

She moves to get up, but Dan’s arm tightens around her. She checks her watch. It will be hard to find a cab this late, and she is comfortable. They’ll probably get up in the middle of the night with sore necks, and he’ll let her take the bed, and she’ll wake up in Brooklyn once again. What had he done to her? 

They walk down 5th, the wind starting to warm up again. They had just left the Met, the opening night of the Impossible Conversations exhibit. The name felt fitting - Blair had been trying to find the words to an impossible conversation herself. 

She looks up at the city lights above her. She links her arm through Dan’s. 

“What’s up?” 

She takes a deep breath in. 

“This time last year I was engaged to a prince. A year before that I was sold for a hotel.” 

“And now you’re hanging out with the lamest person in New York.”

“One of the lamest,” Blair says, voice low and careful. “You’re not that bad.” 

Dan’s wearing that small half-smile of his. She looks at him under the street lamps. 

“I’m surprised you agreed to come with me tonight. It wasn’t so long ago you didn’t think fashion was art.” 

Dan shrugs. 

“Guess you’ve left your mark on me. And I thought it’d be good to brush up on my knowledge of Italian designers.”

Blair quirks up a questioning brow. 

“I’ve been invited to an artists residence at the Italian Arts and Letters Institute in Rome this summer.” 

Blair squeezes his arm.

“Humphrey! How’d you manage that?” 

Dan smiles sheepishly. 

“I guess they liked my manuscript.”

Blair nudges him in the ribs.

“I hope I’ll get to read it soon. How long is the residence?” 

“Well, all summer.” 

“Oh.” Blair doesn’t mean for the disappointment to be so evident in her voice. “I mean, that’ll be fun. I can’t imagine what the humidity will do to your hair though.”

He laughs, slipping his hand in hers and squeezing it for just a moment, before pulling away. 

She doesn’t love him, because she’s Blair Waldorf and he’s Dan Humphrey, and that’s not how this works. 

And even if she did love him, which was a totally uncalled for accusation, it wouldn’t matter. Because he would never love her. He’s Dan Humphrey, and she’s Blair Waldorf, and that’s not how this works. 

And then he writes a book about her. 

Turns out that the rumored UES novel is fact, not fiction. And I have the inside scoop on who the author is. Patience, pets. Your answer is coming.

She was standing impatiently in the van der Woodsen’s living room, her fingers drumming against the handle of her bag, when Dan walked in, cardboard box in hand. 

“Finally packing up the loft and going full hobo, Humphrey?” Blair retorted, her voice lacking the edge it used to have.

Dan half-smiled, seeming distracted. They were all there, the whole lot of them, even Chuck, for some reason. 

Dan let out a long breath, setting down the box and fidgeting with his hands. 

“I’m sorry to call everyone here on such short notice, but, alright, you know how there’s been all this speculation about the book that’s being published by an anonymous author?”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “Gossip Girl said it was about us.”

Blair let out a huff. “Why are we wasting our time with this? It was probably written by some loser who doesn’t even know us.”

“I am that loser.”

Dan held up a book, bright white letters on a black background reading Inside. 

A silence filled the room, and an anger filled Blair. 

Without thinking, or perhaps thinking too much, Blair stormed out of the room. 

From behind her, something erupted. She didn’t hear what, the blood rushing to her ears. 

I like this. I like that you let me in. 

She jammed her finger against the elevator button hard enough to break a nail. 

“Blair,” 

The elevator opened and she stepped in, turning to push the button. But the door didn’t close, Dan blocking it with his body. 

“I can explain.” 

“You Brooklyn Benedict Arnold! Is that all this was for you? Material?”

His lips pursed, he moved to step into the elevator, but she pushed him away, a half-hearted gesture. His chest was hot on her hands.

Through the outrage rising in her, a realization dawned.

“You are a part of this world. You’re just like the rest of us.” 

He caught her arm, his grasp careful, cradling almost. She didn’t fight him off. 

“What’s that saying about not judging a book by its cover?”

“Look, I don’t know what game you’re playing, Humphrey, but -“ 

“Not everything is a game, Blair.” Dan’s voice was soft, sincere, too sincere for Blair’s liking. He took a step back, letting go of her arm. In the space between them, he held up a copy of the novel. 

“Make your own judgments.” 

She took it without looking up, and the elevator closed between them. 

Over breakfast, she feels Serena’s eyes on her. She doesn’t look up, keeping her eyes trained on the morning paper and the plate of fruit in front of her. 

“Did you read it?” 

“Read what?” Blair asks innocently. She doesn’t have to look at her to feel Serena’s pouting. 

“I was starting to understand all that stuff about having a real connection. But it’s more than that. I wish you would’ve told me.”

Blair sticks a strawberry in her mouth, chews it carefully. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me, I hate it when you lie to me.”

Blair lets herself finally meet Serena’s eyes, and finds not an accusatory glare, but something of a defeated one.

“S, I really don’t know what you mean.”

Serena’s lips purse, almost like she’s biting her tongue. 

“You’re the star of Dan’s book.” 

“What?” She doesn’t so much as set down the newspaper, as it falls out of her hands. 

“Has he told you he loves you?” 

Blair shakes her head. Loves her? 

“Look, this isn’t going to be easy for me, but I just want you to be honest. With me, and with yourself. Do you love him?”

Blair bites anxiously at her lip, tasting her sweet, sticky Dior gloss. 

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I try not to think about it.”

Serena pushes her seat back and stands up. 

“Well, get back to me when you figure it out.” 

“Are you mad?” 

Serena sighs. 

“No, not mad. I’m just... I don’t know what I am. I guess I have to figure it out too. You should really read the book, B.” 

She only reads the parts about her, and so in essence reads the whole thing. 

There is nothing between us, not then, not now. Nothing. Her voice is breathy, hot on Dylan’s face. 

I don’t believe you , Dylan says, inching closer and closer. Clair pulls him in, like she had before, kissing him hard, like all the days that separated the last time had been wasted. She breaks away for only a moment, her controlling hands fastened tight on his collar. 

Do you believe me now? 

He doesn’t, because he sees right through her. He always has. 

They back up against the staircase and she pulls him down onto her, wanting him then and there. He hears it in the wanton whining of his name, in how wet she is under her skirt when he touches her. He wants her too, has wanted her for longer than he should have. But all his wanting had been wrapped up in waiting, waiting for her to see him right there, waiting for her to see herself the way he saw her, waiting for her to want him too. He thought he’d spend his whole life waiting. 

She marks him with her nails, her teeth. He wants everyone to see them, the scrapes and bruises, and know that they’re hers. That he’s hers. That he loves her, maybe he always has, and maybe, just maybe, she loves him t- 

Blair slams the book shut. A bead of sweat gathers on her top lip. She pulls her sleeping mask down over her eyes. Everyone has read this. Serena. Lily. Nate. Chuck. 

She should march over to Brooklyn right now, slap him upside the head and say What were you thinking, you Williamsburg weasel? Do you know what this is going to do to my reputation?

She yanks the sleeping mask back off and gets to her feet. She pulls her collection off the shelves, worn covers soft to the touch. She opens the first book, trying to drown out the words that replay in her head. 

When she finishes the last line of the last book, she considers just restarting them all over again. But she’s gotten sick of seeing only Dorota and Serena’s tight, cautious smiles for the last few days, and her skin is becoming an almost transparent shade of pale. So she gets herself dressed up, lacy black lingerie under a floral dress, bright pink lip gloss, hair curled and pinned to perfection, and goes to see a movie. 

By some force of nature, or perhaps some demon residing in her body unbeknownst to her, she finds herself in Brooklyn, banging on the door of the loft. 

She hears a muffled What the fuck? come from inside, and then the door swings open mid-knock, and Dan is there, ratty t-shirt, ratty hair, ratty face. Unshaven and sleepy eyed. He’s so open, undone, and something about it is so absurdly handsome.

“Hey,” he says, and it comes out as more of a sigh of relief. “I thought I’d scared you away again.” 

“Lucky for you, I keep coming back.”

“Lucky for me.” He steps aside to let her in, and she kicks off her heels by the couch. He takes a seat, leaving a space for her, which she doesn’t take. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

“Did you really come see me get the award for my essay?”

Dan’s head perks up, a small grin coming over him.

“You read it.” 

She nods. 

“I did come. I still remember your speech. In the words of the great Audrey Hepburn: I'm truly, truly grateful and terribly happy.” Something in his face changes, he looks down at his hands. “What did you think of it?”

“It was...good,” she says, like she only just decided. “The drama was... palpable, and... the font was a good choice.”

He chuckles lightly. She can’t quite meet his eyes. 

“Although sex on the staircase is completely unrealistic, and would be incredibly uncomfortable.” She says, her heart hitting hard against her chest. “And it was written like a Phil Collins song.”

The immediate reddening of his face gives her a slight satisfaction. He mumbles something incoherent, maybe an apology, and she mimics his stuttering. She enjoys watching him squirm.

She’s not used to having this much space between them in the loft. There’s a reflexive warning that pops in her head, about how that’s an abnormal thought for her to have, that being here at all should be abnormal. She mentally swats it away like a fly, menial and insignificant. 

“The couch, however, could be slightly less uncomfortable.” 

Without thinking too hard about it, she marches over to him and takes a seat in his lap, her knees pushing slightly into his sides, her dress puffing up around them. 

“Blair, what’re you -“ 

She kisses him, soft at first, like she’s testing it out, trying it again. Then a little deeper, more insistent. His hands fumble on her back, in her hair, messing up the curls. She slips her hands under his shirt, runs them over his tense stomach, up to his chest. Ever so annoyingly, he pulls away. 

“We should talk about this first, I mean -“ 

She suffocates his rambling with a kiss. 

“No talking, just kissing. Try it.” 

He pulls away again.

“I don’t know what - I can’t - I love you.” He sounds so, so stupid, she can’t help but kiss him. 

“I know, I read the book.” 

“I can’t do this - like this - Blair, I love you.” So stupid.

“You see, the thing is...” Kiss. “I do, maybe...” Kiss. “Just maybe...” Kiss. “Love you too.” 

She pushes the last words inside a kiss, but he doesn’t let her get away with it. 

He blinks, blankly, like the message is rendering in his mind. 

“You do?” 

“God, Dan, you’re so stupid.” 

He blinks again. 

“You just said my name.” 

She giggles, small and sickeningly sweet. What has he done to her?

“Dan,” Kiss. 

“Say it again,” 

“Dan,” 

“No, the other thing.” 

She looks at him, his lips blurry with gloss. All that openness, unwrapped and laid out for her. 

“I love you too.”  

It’s his turn to pull her in. 

He walks in to find her standing over the dining table, a mess of papers skewed all over, big red circles jumping out at him. 

He picks up a few, looking over them. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Making plans, Dan. Somewhere between being traded for a hotel and selling out for a tiara, I lost my true self. I would like to find her again.” 

Dan moves behind her, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek, his stubble scratching across her face. He takes a seat. 

“Maybe she’s hiding underneath all these papers.” 

Blair ignores him, clicking at her laptop. 

“I’ve had enough of the French for a lifetime. I don’t like any of the intern positions British Vogue is offering. Mother wants me at Milan Fashion Week but that’s not until September.” 

“Why don’t you come with me, then?”

Blair turns abruptly to look at him. 

“Pardon me?”

Dan shrugs, a smile growing.

“We could extend the trip a few weeks and head to Milan at the end of summer.”

Blair taps her pen against her lip. She looks over him, his charming dishevelment, the improperness of him, the tenderness in his eyes. 

“Ask me again.”

“Ask you again?”

“Yes. Ask me again.”

“What was wrong the first time?”

“I didn’t like it. It was too nonchalant.”

Dan gets up, takes a step forward, his stare hard. 

“I’m partial to begging.” 

The corners of his mouth twitch up, but he keeps a straight face, ever serious. 

“Come with me, Waldorf.”

He sets his hands on her hips and kisses her, the small moan that escapes betraying her act. She feels him smile into her.

At twenty one, in spite of the deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions, Blair realizes what he’s done. He’s made her happy.