Cathryn (formerly catslash) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
remindmeofthe) wrote2011-10-17 04:55 pm
remindmeofthe) wrote2011-10-17 04:55 pm
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Things I should have been doing this weekend:
* Class reading I fell behind on during vacation, because vacations render me incapable of summoning the brain power to even do things I want to do, never mind things I am merely obligated to do.
* Writing papers I have due tomorrow and Wednesday, because ditto.
Thing I actually did this weekend:
* Write several thousand words of self-indulgent Gossip Girl near-future fic after having spent the past month or so rewatching and catching up on everything I missed since wandering away during season three and being frankly horrified by some of the shit that went down in my absence, especially in re: Blair and Chuck. (At some point I also want to do this massive, angry meta post about Jenny's character arc, but that requires analytical power I should really be saving for those papers, so fic it was.)
This fic has spoilers for everything that has happened as of last week (5x03) and is based on some of my own speculation for what could conceivably happen given the plot threads they've set in motion thus far in the season. It will not be continued because it's frankly mediocre (except for the first scene, which I think could stand as its own fic with some polishing), and also because it becomes increasingly evident that a) I suck at writing Blair and b) that is not okay because this is her story and definitely should be from her POV, not Dan's. Whoops. But I'm posting it anyway just because it might be fun to compare and contrast later in the season. And I do like some of the character interactions. Maybe I can salvage them somehow for something else.
There are no actual spoilers for future eps that I'm aware of, because I live in a spoiler-free zone.
"Dan!"
He wants to pretend he didn't hear her. Just keep walking, thinking about nothing more complex than preventing his coffee from sloshing up through the hole in the lid, and proceed forward into a life that remains a Georgina-free zone.
But now that she's spotted him and decided she wants his attention, it's going to take a little more than grade school-level rudeness to dislodge her. He compromises with himself by stopping, but not turning to face her, as he answers with flat disinterest,
"Georgina!"
Maybe if he indulges her for five minutes, she'll go away.
Yeah, because that's exactly how Georgina operates.
. . . maybe if he indulges her for five minutes, she'll pretend to go away, then when he gets to Blair's, they can hatch a plan to make her stay away. God knows Blair could use something to do. She's done nothing but mope in bed since Louis broke the engagement after finding out the baby wasn't his. Dan's been trying to give her space, but the worried texts from Dorota have been joined by worried voicemails from Serena despite his social quarantine since Inside hit the shelves, so he decided this morning that there's such a thing as too much space. Maybe dealing with Georgina is just the thing Blair needs to cheer her up. Hell, maybe he should give her more to work with by leading Georgina on a little. Then Blair will get to scheme against Georgina and lecture Dan. She'll be in heaven.
"How are you?" Georgina perks as she maneuvers around into Dan's line of sight, struggling a little with -
Oh.
With a stroller.
Milo gazes up at him with a baby's round-eyed interest in the world. Dan has always liked encounters with babies and toddlers, when they're old enough to find everything around them fascinating, but still too young to have absorbed the social taboo against staring. They can stare at him and he can stare right back, and no one's in it to offend or intimidate. Just a simple, unloaded exchange between two people, a moment of pure innocence.
Milo's eyes have turned a deep brown that could have marked him as a Humphrey. The shape of them is Georgina's, as is the thick, dark blond hair that's grown in, and the nose and mouth and chin are probably from the Russian on the plane, but Dan could easily pretend that the brown of those eyes (and the curiosity in them) came from him.
"Dan," Georgina says in the impatient, pay-attention-to-me voice that he remembers so well from the months with her and Milo in the loft. Dan blinks, reluctantly pulls his gaze away from Milo's.
"He's gotten big," he says.
"They do that," she says dryly. "Especially at that age." She smiles; he can't tell if it's maternal pride or a Georgina Special, but he doesn't care. "I swear we have to buy him all new clothes every two weeks."
"A constant excuse to go shopping," Dan says. "How you must be suffering."
"Still bored to tears," she says. "He's the only thing in the house that's occasionally interesting. He's developing a personality and everything."
"He always had a personality," Dan defends. Georgina rolls her eyes.
"Babies don't have personalities," she says. "They have cute little faces that flood us with nurturing hormones so we don't kill them when they start screaming every three hours."
Typical. Dan doesn't even bother to answer; he just shakes his head in disgust.
Georgina reaches over and plucks his coffee out of his hand. Before he can protest, she says, "Do you want to hold him?" and gestures toward the stroller.
The smart thing would be to say no. No thanks, Georgina, I still haven't dealt with how it felt to watch you walk away with him. I just slapped a Band-Aid over it and left it to fester, and that's been working out so far, so I'm just gonna go now before you can rip that Band-Aid off and make me look at the infection.
"Yeah," he says. "Of course I do."
He leans down and lifts Milo gently up out of the stroller. Milo makes a couple anxious little noises, but settles quickly into Dan's arms and occupies himself with tugging at the collar of Dan's shirt.
"Hey there, little guy," Dan says softly. "Remember me? Your almost-dad?"
"He must," Georgina says. "He usually hates strangers."
Milo is trying to pull Dan's collar to his mouth without much success. Dan shifts his hold so he can offer Milo his finger instead. "There you go," he murmurs.
"I forgot how good you were with him," Georgina says. She sounds soft, a little wistful, and Dan knows that if he looked up he'd see a smile to match.
He doesn't look up.
"Is that why you took him?" he asks abruptly. "Because you forgot?"
"Dan -"
"Yeah, I know, you just needed a name for the birth certificate, but why'd you stop there? You owned me, just like you wanted freshman year. I would have done anything for Milo. I still would."
It's a stupid thing to do, hand his weakness over to Georgina on a silver platter like that, but it's not like he's telling her anything she doesn't already know. Why else would she offer to let him hold Milo?
"Your family hates me," she says.
"Please, like you ever cared about people hating you." His voice is sharp and sneering, which he regrets immediately as Milo pauses in exploring his hand and sleeve to look uncertainly up at him.
"Shh," he soothes, gentling his voice and smiling down at Milo, "it's okay." Milo considers this for a second or two, then accepts it and returns to what he was doing.
Georgina sighs.
"I did think about staying," she says. "More than once. You're right, it was pretty perfect. I had you right where I wanted you. But you know what? I may not have a nurturing bone in my body, but that doesn't mean I don't want what's best for Milo, and growing up with a family that hates his mother is definitely not it."
Dan does look up at that. Georgina gives him a sad little smile.
"I know, it surprised the hell out of me, too. But why do you think I stay with a man who bores me so much? He adores Milo and his family adores me. I made sure of it." She reaches over to stroke Milo's hair.
"My child is going to have everything," she says. From anyone else, it would be sweet. A moment of tenderness.
From Georgina, it's terrifying.
"I almost feel sorry for anyone who tries to mess with him," Dan says. She grins at him.
"By the way," she says, "I read your book."
Oh, god. Dan learned quickly to dread hearing those words from anyone he wrote about, but definitely some more than others. He winces in anticipation. She won't kill him while he's still holding Milo, will she?
"It was great," she says. "I wouldn't have thought you'd have it in you, Humphrey."
". . . Really?" he says. "Uh, I mean, thanks."
"You're welcome," she says. Then she holds out his coffee. "Now if you don't mind, Milo and I have an appointment."
"- Oh," Dan says. "Yeah. Sure." He looks back down at the baby in his arms, crushing an absurd impulse to cling to him and start running. "You be good," he tells Milo. "Don't give your mom any reasons to eat anyone alive, okay?"
When Milo is settled securely back into the stroller, Georgina puts Dan's coffee back into his hand and kisses his cheek.
"It was good to see you," she says.
Dan says something polite back, he doesn't know what, then he stands there and watches them leave.
Eventually, he remembers that he, too, has somewhere to be.
*
"Dan, oh thank god." He hadn't called to tell anyone he was coming, but somehow Serena knows to be waiting at the elevator for him anyway. "She won't let anyone else in, I haven't even laid eyes on her in almost a week -"
"She lock her door." Dorota, drawn by the ding of the elevator or possibly the sound of Serena's relief, hastens over from the stairs. "Open only to take meals so baby does not starve."
"I've never seen her this bad," Serena says. "Nothing is working."
"I, uh, guess I should try going up there, then," Dan says before she can keep talking. He walked a few blocks before he flagged down a cab, which helped clear his head, but he's still nowhere near being in the right mood for Serena right now. He needs to save what fragile focus he's managed to pull together for Blair.
"Perhaps you go up without announcement," Dorota suggests. "Not give Miss Blair chance to hide."
"That's probably a good idea," he says.
"Good luck." Serena reaches out and squeezes his arm. In spite of everything, his stomach flips over the way it always does when she touches him. He gives her a half-smile.
"Thanks. I think I'll need it."
He's not wrong about that, though at first, when he hears the sound of the lock being undone before he can even knock, he foolishly thinks he might have been.
Then the door opens.
He'd expected a Blair who was the opposite of the Blair Waldorf he knows in every possible way - listless, unkempt, unshowered, maybe even wearing a ratty terrycloth bathrobe despite the fact that Blair should own no such thing. Instead, she's every inch the Blair he knows. Clean and coiffeured, designer dress flattering her in every way . . . there's even her usual hint of Chanel in the air.
Most worrying of all, she's smiling that slightly manic, detached-from-reality smile of hers, the one that says she has some impossible plan in the works and oh look, here's just the man for the job.
"It's about time, Humphrey," she says. "I was starting to think I'd have to text you myself."
"Waldorf," he says warily. He skips asking What are you up to? to spare them both the tedium of her inevitable Who, me?, saying instead, "You've got Serena and Dorota scared half to death hiding up here moping behind a locked door."
Blair gives a patiently impatient little sigh. "I haven't been moping, I've been thinking. Are you coming in or not?"
He points out that it's kind of hard to do that when she's standing in the doorway, which she rewards with a roll of her eyes and an exaggerated step to the side.
"So," he says, once he's comfortably ensconced in what was once his usual position stretched out on her bed, "what have you been thinking? Am I going to regret asking?"
He watches Blair seat herself delicately in her favorite chair. It might be be his imagination, but he thinks he's starting to show a little. She's going to be one of those women who gets more and more beautiful with every passing day of her pregnancy, even when she's waddling awkwardly and swollen from water retention. She'll be perfect, like she always is to him, like she would have been even if she had opened the door with greasy hair and dull skin.
They haven't had a chance to talk about his book. But maybe he's gotten really lucky and, with everything she's been through in the last couple of weeks, she hasn't had time to read it. Maybe she'll be too preoccupied to bother with it at all.
Yeah, and while I'm making wishes, I'd like a pony.
"I've been thinking about who my baby's father should be." Blair places a protective hand over her abdomen.
"We've gone over this, Blair. You don't get to pick after the fact."
"Georgina did."
Dan goes still, staring up at the ceiling. He needs a few seconds to remember how to breathe again.
"Yeah, and that worked out so well for everyone involved." The bitterness in his voice is so thick he can taste it.
"Yes, well, I thought I'd skip the step where I abandon you to go on my whorish little way."
Dan looks at her. "Abandon . . . me."
Blair is frowning slightly now, aware that this conversation is not going along with whatever insane version of reality is living inside her head. "Before you say no -" she begins, but Dan cuts her off.
"No," he says, sitting. "No, Blair, I am not doing that again. I can't believe you're even asking me to. I know I told you about Milo and what that did to me the night we watched Bringing Up Baby. I wasn't so drunk that I've forgotten about that. Or did you not get the point of that story?"
"Why do you think I'm asking you?" Her voice is a mix of pleading and demand. "Even after you knew Milo wasn't yours, you still wanted him in your life. That's what I'm looking for, Dan. I don't just want a name to put next to mine on the birth certificate. I want someone who'll love her no matter what."
She gets up to sit next to him on the bed, taking his hand in both of hers. "And I know you will," she finishes softly.
Sitting close to him like this, with those eyes of hers begging him to understand in a way she wouldn't do out loud to save her own life . . . god, she's his kryptonite, and how screwed is he if she ever figures that out? He'd have said yes already if he hadn't run into Georgina before coming here, and he knows it.
But he did run into Georgina, and he hasn't said yes, and anyway there is one more person in this mess to consider first.
"I take it Chuck already turned the job down?"
"Chuck can never know it's his," Blair says flatly.
"What? Blair -"
"No. Listen to me. It didn't take me a week to decide I wanted you to be her daddy. That took about three seconds. The reason I had to lock my door for a week was so that I could think, all by myself, about me and Chuck and what kind of father he would be. I had to be completely honest with myself about him, and I couldn't do that with Dorota and Serena around. They're too biased toward him."
She closes her eyes hard against tears. "I love Chuck. I always will. And when it's just me dealing with him, that's my business. But it's not just me anymore." She reaches up to touch her cheek; she seems to be running her fingers along a mark that isn't there. She opens her eyes. "Think about the worst things you know about him," she says, "and then think about how there are worse things that you don't know."
She pauses, giving him time to do exactly that. He does. He thinks about running out onto a rooftop to the sound of Jenny begging Chuck to stop, and about Jenny sobbing in his arms in the hospital chapel almost three years later. He thinks about the way something in Blair's eyes shuts down whenever the subject of the hotel deal comes up.
Worse than that?
Blair nods a little, watching as his thoughts show themselves on his face.
"Now," she says, "imagine putting a child into the middle of all that. I tried so hard to believe that fatherhood could change him, and maybe it could. But I can't take the chance that it wouldn't." Her voice breaks a little on the last word.
Dan looks down for a second, at her hand still on his. He turns his hand so he can wrap it around hers. Then he looks up and nods. She smiles faintly and shifts closer, leaning her head on his shoulder. He lets go of her hand to take it in his other one so he can put his arm around her.
"The thing is," Blair says, "as far as Chuck knows, with Louis out of the running he's the only other possible candidate."
Dan sees where this is going. Of course. "And I'm the only other guy who's not Louis that he might believe you were sleeping with at the time."
She turns her head on his shoulder to look at him. "I meant everything I said," she tells him. "But yes, I had to consider the logistics, too. And ever since your book came out, the entire country thinks we were sleeping together anyway, so that'll make it easier."
"So you did read it." So much for luck.
"How do you think I knew you'd say yes?"
He should be seriously pissed off about that. He waits, in case it's some kind of delayed reaction, but nothing happens.
Well. No surprise there. He knew who Blair was when he fell in love with her.
She squeezes his hand. "I'm not going to be ready to even think about romance for a long time," she says. "Just so we're both clear on that."
"I know," he says. "I don't expect anything from you. Except visitation rights," he adds.
She laughs.
"I'm serious," he says, even as he starts to smile. "I want it in writing. Signed and notarized."
"I'll get Cyrus to draw up the paperwork," she promises.
"Cyrus is an entertainment lawyer."
"So? It'll still be legal. I just want to keep this in the family for a little while longer."
"Fair," says Dan, even though he thinks that'll last all of thirty seconds.
"We could have a dinner to announce it." Blair brightens, sitting up straight. "Do you think everyone will be available tonight? No, tomorrow night, Daddy and Roman will need time to fly out."
"I want Jenny to be there," Dan says. "None of your banishment crap, she's part of the family, too."
"Oh, I unbanished her ages ago," Blair says airily. "But I'll call and invite her myself if it will make you happy."
"It will."
"Ugh, Aunt Jenny. That was nearly enough by itself to make me reconsider."
"But think of all the cute maternity clothes she'll make you."
"True. I suppose that's a start."
"It'd be best for the baby if you guys could patch things up," Dan says, thinking of Georgina. Your family hates me. That's not going to be a problem here, not if he can help it.
"We'll manage," Blair says. Then her expression turns more serious. "Speaking of managing people . . ."
Dan nods, anticipating her next words.
"I should tell Chuck first," she says. "He won't be invited."
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No," she says. "I should do it alone. If you're there, he'll think I'm rubbing it in his face. But will you wait here for me?"
"Of course."
"Thank you." She kisses his cheek and stands up. "I'll tell Dorota to start planning."
"I'll start calling family members." He'll need something to keep himself busy while the full realization of what he's agreed to dawns on him.
"Start with Serena," she suggests. "She'll be up here so fast after I leave that you wouldn't even have a chance to time her. Just try not to let her drag everything out of you."
"I'll do my best."
"It should go without saying, but no one can know the truth except us. And Audrey someday, when she's old enough to understand."
Dan raises an eyebrow. "Audrey?"
"I'm trying out names. You don't get a say," she tells him.
"What are you thinking of naming a boy?" he asks. Blair scoffs.
"I'm not having a boy. What would I do with a boy?"
"Also not one of those things you get to decide."
"I don't know about that." She smiles. "I did just pick her out a pretty good daddy."
Dan smiles, too; judging by the look on Blair's face, it's a lot goofier and more pleased than he'd like, so he says,
"Go talk to Chuck. I'll be here when you get back."
*
True to Blair's prediction, Serena is in the room about ten seconds after Dan hears the elevator doors ding shut.
"Blair hides out for a week, then you show up and fifteen minutes later she's making mystery visits and planning a family dinner? Dan, what is going on?"
"All will become clear at dinner tomorrow," he tries.
She raises her eyebrows at him.
"Yeah, I didn't really think that would work," he admits.
Serena plops herself into Blair's chair. "Dan," she says plaintively.
Abruptly, Dan realizes what this is going to look like to her. It's going to look like, even if they weren't lying to her face when they insisted they weren't sleeping together, they went ahead and did it later and still didn't tell her. Which, arguably, is none of her business, except that Blair is her best friend and Dan is her ex and he and Serena haven't completely closed the door on future possibilities yet, so maybe it kind of is.
At least he's already gotten a taste of what it's like to have everyone thinking he was sleeping with a prince's fiancée. Maybe he should send Vanessa a thank-you note for stealing his manuscript and publishing it behind his back after all.
"I guess it's only fair to tell you privately," he says, "before everyone else."
This is it. The very first test. If he can tell this to Serena, he can tell it to anybody.
"Since the entire world found out Louis isn't the father of Blair's baby," he begins, "everyone on the Upper East Side has been assuming it's Chuck's."
Serena starts shaking her head, just a little; he doesn't think she even knows she's doing it. He takes a breath and presses on.
"And you know how close Blair and I have gotten over the last year -"
"You told me you weren't sleeping together," Serena interrupts. "You both told me that. And you've been telling everyone your book was artistic license!"
"It was artistic license." Why didn't he think to get a story straight with Blair before she left? They'll have to do it first thing when she gets back. "I didn't just write things down the way they happened, Serena, you of all people know that. That applies to all of it. And when we told you we weren't sleeping together, that was true at the time. We never lied to you." We're just going to spend the rest of our lives lying to you, that's all.
He wants very badly to tell her the truth, but he can't deny that there's a reason why Blair went out of her way to avoid consulting with Serena about this. Not only would she tell Chuck, but she'd do it in the sincere belief that she was doing the right thing.
"You're having a baby with Blair." Serena's brief indignation has fled, leaving her looking small and sad. "Are you going to marry her? Is that what tomorrow is about?"
"No," he assures her promptly. "No, this is a strictly platonic arrangement."
"Oh." She looks slightly less deflated at that, but still uncertain. "Then what does this mean for us? For, you know, our timing?"
"I don't know," Dan says. "I guess that's up to you."
Serena takes this in, then gets to her feet. "I can't be here right now."
"Okay," he says. "Just, wait, Serena, don't tell anyone? Blair really needs this dinner. She's actually excited about it."
Serena nods. "Okay." She hesitates, then, "Tell her I'll be there. I just - I need to be by myself for a while first."
"I'll tell her," he promises.
*
After Serena leaves, Dan just sits for a little while, thinking about how much more complicated this day has gotten since he was walking down the street, coffee in hand and not much on his mind.
He never did get to drink that coffee. What did he do with it? He must have left it in the cab. He'll ask Dorota to make some in a little while. Maybe. He still feels really awkward about the whole servant thing, but the one time he tried to do for himself here something which fell in Dorota's domain, she'd been very insulted. He'd ended up apologizing a lot.
He'll make a call or two, then think about it some more.
He decides to call Dad first.
"Dan," Dad greets him. "Long time, no talk."
"It hasn't been that long, Dad." Has it?
"No, I understand. My son the student, published author -"
"Social pariah," Dan puts in.
"It's a busy schedule. So what's up?"
"What are you and Lily doing tomorrow night?"
"Nothing special that I'm aware of."
"Great," Dan says. "Blair and I are hosting a dinner tomorrow night for both our families, and we'd really like it if everyone could be there. It's, uh. Kind of mandatory, actually."
There is an agonizing silence in which Dan can almost hear his father thinking about exactly why Dan and Blair might be throwing a mandatory family get-together.
"Dan," Dad says, and that's about when Dan realizes that Serena will be the only one who didn't see it coming the second she got the invite. He sighs.
"Can we do the lecture later? I have a lot of calls to make."
"You sure you wanna give me time to finetune it? Tell me you at least managed to keep it in your pants once she got engaged."
"Please, Dad, I -" He closes his eyes. "I ran into Georgina and Milo today. I really need to be happy about this right now, okay?" The fact that it's actually true - all of it - doesn't make him feel less shitty about the emotional blackmail.
"Oh, Dan." The edge is mostly gone from Dad's voice, blunted by gentle sympathy. "I'm so sorry. Okay."
"Thanks," he says quietly.
"You're welcome. But this is only a temporary stay of execution."
Dan exhales a faint laugh. "I know."
"Good. Lily and I will see you tomorrow."
As Dan ends the call, Dorota comes into the room. She has a tray bearing a steaming mug and a croissant.
"Oh my god," Dan says, "you're like magic. How did you know I was just thinking about coffee?"
Dorota smiles as she puts the tray down next to him on the bed. "Is my job," she says.
"To read minds?" Dan picks up the mug with care, intensely aware of how Blair will react if he spills so much as a droplet on her bedcover.
"How else I last in Waldorf home so long?" Her tone is entirely serious; Dan glances up to check her expression and can't quite decide whether she's joking or not.
"Well. Thanks," he says. Dorota nods acknowledgment.
"You need anything else while Miss Blair gone, you let me know."
"I'll think it real loud," he says. She smiles and turns to leave.
"Hey," Dan says suddenly. "Uh, sorry," he adds as she turns back around, "but I just realized, I was there when your water broke and I have never once asked you about your daughter." He can't even remember her name, how much of an asshole is he? "How is she?"
From the way Dorota lights up, it's a good question to ask. It's a good thing he's really interested in the answer, too, because he gets it in detail - how Ana (right, he remembers now, short for Anastasia) is so beautiful and so smart and ahead of her age group in everything and how very proud Dorota and Vanya are of her. He smiles and sips his coffee as he listens, and starts to feel excited about being a dad.
". . . and now I am pregnant again," Dorota finishes, "same time as Miss Blair. Maybe you and Vanya share taxi to hospital."
"Maybe," Dan says without thinking about it. Then he does think about it. "Uh, wait . . ."
"I read minds," she reminds him helpfully. "Miss Blair go to tell Mister Chuck, yes?"
Dan nods. "Yeah."
"Miss Blair is strong. She be okay. She find way to be happy again someday, and that is important part."
"Yeah," Dan says again. "It is."
*
Paranoid about spilling his coffee or getting croissant flakes on Blair's bed, Dan moves to the floor. From there he calls Mom (who either doesn't get it because she doesn't live on the Upper East Side or is better at hiding it than Dad, and frankly that could go either way), Eric (who says, "Jonathan owes me twenty bucks," which Dan doesn't realize until after he gets off the phone means that whatever the bet was, Eric probably bet against him), and Cece (who can't make it, which he knew, just like he also knew that she would be deeply offended if he hadn't invited her anyway).
After that, he decides that Blair has probably been gone long enough that he can officially start worrying. He's been worrying since she left, of course, but now he can acknowledge it.
He's toying with the idea of texting Nate, to ask if he's home and if he is has he heard any yelling or anything, when he hears the elevator open and Dorota say,
"Miss Blair."
He can't quite make out Blair's reply - her voice is low and even in a way that makes him apprehensive. He gets up, intending to go down to meet her, but by the time he's out the bedroom door she's halfway up the stairs and it's less awkward just to wait. As she gets closer, he can see how tired she looks, like she just came back from running a double marathon instead of paying a short visit.
She doesn't speak until they're in her room with the door firmly closed behind them.
"It worked," she says. "I don't want to talk about it."
Understandable. Dan nods.
"All I need to know," he says, "is how many bodyguards I'm gonna have to hire, and if I'll need them for the rest of my life or just the next eighteen years."
She almost smiles. "I'd make arrangements for your next dozen lifetimes while you're at it."
"Of course," Dan says. "Why would he stop just because I'm dead."
"It never pays to underestimate him." The almost-smile is gone. Dan sighs a little and reaches over to take her hand.
"The hard part's over," he says. In the second before she nods in answer, he can see a hundred different responses flit past behind her eyes. The fact that she doesn't use a single one of them worries him more than anything else has so far.
"So I made some calls," he says, deliberately lightening his tone, "and I hate to break it to you, but it turns out I have a bunch of very smart relatives. I don't think any of them are going to be surprised by our announcement. And I'm pretty sure Cece had the whole thing figured out before I even said, 'Hi, it's Dan,' because that's kind of what she does."
"What did Serena say?" Of course. Blair knew exactly what Serena would think long before he did. It must be one of the countless things she thought about, locked up in here with herself.
"She said to tell you she'd be there. I don't think she'll be coming back tonight."
"I have to say, that's better than I expected." Blair drops his hand and steps away, going over to examine herself in her mirror. "God, I look awful."
"Chuck has that effect on people."
She gives him a sarcastic look in the mirror. "A more acceptable response would have been, 'No, Blair, you look great.'"
He smiles at her. "You always look great."
Blair flushes a little and drops her gaze, which is not something he has been able to make her do ever. He'd expected her to be rattled after dealing with Chuck - he feels a little bad that he didn't push harder about going with her - but this isn't rattled. This is - something else.
"Blair, what's going on?"
She picks up a tube of lip gloss and unscrews the top, dabbing the gloss neatly onto her lips. She isn't watching the application wand, though; she's staring hard into her own eyes. Dan watches her, waiting for her to answer, wondering what she's looking for.
Eventually, still looking at herself, she asks,
"Are you doing this because you want to do this?"
He blinks at her. "What? Blair, of course I -"
"No," she interrupts. "Don't answer so fast. You have to think about this. It's not just a favor for a friend. This is for real."
"I know," Dan says. "I - look, Blair, I don't need to do the whole new parent panic thing. I did it last year, and then for bonus points I got to do the single parent panic thing, too. But I got through it, you know, I was ready. And then I -" He falters. Blair meets his eyes in the mirror again. "So I have all this readiness now," he resumes. "It didn't go anywhere. I just need somewhere to put it."
Blair turns abruptly to face him. "My baby is not a replacement for Milo."
"What - ? No, no of course not. I -" He shakes his head and tries to start over. "I don't need time to think because I already know I can be a dad. And I want to be. Maybe I wasn't planning on it for a few more years, but." He shrugs. "Neither were you. On being a mom, I mean. Obviously -"
"Babbling, Humphrey," Blair interrupts.
"Right." He shuts up.
Blair sighs. "Does it get any less terrifying?"
"No," he says. "But on the plus side, after she's born, you'll be too sleep-deprived to be terrified."
"Not what I wanted to hear," she says dryly.
"Well, if you wanted to be lied to, you picked the wrong baby daddy."
"So it would seem." Blair pauses, then, "It's just so much. The baby and Chuck and you and I don't even know if I'm ready. Dan, I can't remember the last time something went right. Everything I do blows up in my face."
AND THEN IT DIDN'T BLOW UP IN HER FACE AND EVERYTHING WAS AWESOME. The end.
* Class reading I fell behind on during vacation, because vacations render me incapable of summoning the brain power to even do things I want to do, never mind things I am merely obligated to do.
* Writing papers I have due tomorrow and Wednesday, because ditto.
Thing I actually did this weekend:
* Write several thousand words of self-indulgent Gossip Girl near-future fic after having spent the past month or so rewatching and catching up on everything I missed since wandering away during season three and being frankly horrified by some of the shit that went down in my absence, especially in re: Blair and Chuck. (At some point I also want to do this massive, angry meta post about Jenny's character arc, but that requires analytical power I should really be saving for those papers, so fic it was.)
This fic has spoilers for everything that has happened as of last week (5x03) and is based on some of my own speculation for what could conceivably happen given the plot threads they've set in motion thus far in the season. It will not be continued because it's frankly mediocre (except for the first scene, which I think could stand as its own fic with some polishing), and also because it becomes increasingly evident that a) I suck at writing Blair and b) that is not okay because this is her story and definitely should be from her POV, not Dan's. Whoops. But I'm posting it anyway just because it might be fun to compare and contrast later in the season. And I do like some of the character interactions. Maybe I can salvage them somehow for something else.
There are no actual spoilers for future eps that I'm aware of, because I live in a spoiler-free zone.
"Dan!"
He wants to pretend he didn't hear her. Just keep walking, thinking about nothing more complex than preventing his coffee from sloshing up through the hole in the lid, and proceed forward into a life that remains a Georgina-free zone.
But now that she's spotted him and decided she wants his attention, it's going to take a little more than grade school-level rudeness to dislodge her. He compromises with himself by stopping, but not turning to face her, as he answers with flat disinterest,
"Georgina!"
Maybe if he indulges her for five minutes, she'll go away.
Yeah, because that's exactly how Georgina operates.
. . . maybe if he indulges her for five minutes, she'll pretend to go away, then when he gets to Blair's, they can hatch a plan to make her stay away. God knows Blair could use something to do. She's done nothing but mope in bed since Louis broke the engagement after finding out the baby wasn't his. Dan's been trying to give her space, but the worried texts from Dorota have been joined by worried voicemails from Serena despite his social quarantine since Inside hit the shelves, so he decided this morning that there's such a thing as too much space. Maybe dealing with Georgina is just the thing Blair needs to cheer her up. Hell, maybe he should give her more to work with by leading Georgina on a little. Then Blair will get to scheme against Georgina and lecture Dan. She'll be in heaven.
"How are you?" Georgina perks as she maneuvers around into Dan's line of sight, struggling a little with -
Oh.
With a stroller.
Milo gazes up at him with a baby's round-eyed interest in the world. Dan has always liked encounters with babies and toddlers, when they're old enough to find everything around them fascinating, but still too young to have absorbed the social taboo against staring. They can stare at him and he can stare right back, and no one's in it to offend or intimidate. Just a simple, unloaded exchange between two people, a moment of pure innocence.
Milo's eyes have turned a deep brown that could have marked him as a Humphrey. The shape of them is Georgina's, as is the thick, dark blond hair that's grown in, and the nose and mouth and chin are probably from the Russian on the plane, but Dan could easily pretend that the brown of those eyes (and the curiosity in them) came from him.
"Dan," Georgina says in the impatient, pay-attention-to-me voice that he remembers so well from the months with her and Milo in the loft. Dan blinks, reluctantly pulls his gaze away from Milo's.
"He's gotten big," he says.
"They do that," she says dryly. "Especially at that age." She smiles; he can't tell if it's maternal pride or a Georgina Special, but he doesn't care. "I swear we have to buy him all new clothes every two weeks."
"A constant excuse to go shopping," Dan says. "How you must be suffering."
"Still bored to tears," she says. "He's the only thing in the house that's occasionally interesting. He's developing a personality and everything."
"He always had a personality," Dan defends. Georgina rolls her eyes.
"Babies don't have personalities," she says. "They have cute little faces that flood us with nurturing hormones so we don't kill them when they start screaming every three hours."
Typical. Dan doesn't even bother to answer; he just shakes his head in disgust.
Georgina reaches over and plucks his coffee out of his hand. Before he can protest, she says, "Do you want to hold him?" and gestures toward the stroller.
The smart thing would be to say no. No thanks, Georgina, I still haven't dealt with how it felt to watch you walk away with him. I just slapped a Band-Aid over it and left it to fester, and that's been working out so far, so I'm just gonna go now before you can rip that Band-Aid off and make me look at the infection.
"Yeah," he says. "Of course I do."
He leans down and lifts Milo gently up out of the stroller. Milo makes a couple anxious little noises, but settles quickly into Dan's arms and occupies himself with tugging at the collar of Dan's shirt.
"Hey there, little guy," Dan says softly. "Remember me? Your almost-dad?"
"He must," Georgina says. "He usually hates strangers."
Milo is trying to pull Dan's collar to his mouth without much success. Dan shifts his hold so he can offer Milo his finger instead. "There you go," he murmurs.
"I forgot how good you were with him," Georgina says. She sounds soft, a little wistful, and Dan knows that if he looked up he'd see a smile to match.
He doesn't look up.
"Is that why you took him?" he asks abruptly. "Because you forgot?"
"Dan -"
"Yeah, I know, you just needed a name for the birth certificate, but why'd you stop there? You owned me, just like you wanted freshman year. I would have done anything for Milo. I still would."
It's a stupid thing to do, hand his weakness over to Georgina on a silver platter like that, but it's not like he's telling her anything she doesn't already know. Why else would she offer to let him hold Milo?
"Your family hates me," she says.
"Please, like you ever cared about people hating you." His voice is sharp and sneering, which he regrets immediately as Milo pauses in exploring his hand and sleeve to look uncertainly up at him.
"Shh," he soothes, gentling his voice and smiling down at Milo, "it's okay." Milo considers this for a second or two, then accepts it and returns to what he was doing.
Georgina sighs.
"I did think about staying," she says. "More than once. You're right, it was pretty perfect. I had you right where I wanted you. But you know what? I may not have a nurturing bone in my body, but that doesn't mean I don't want what's best for Milo, and growing up with a family that hates his mother is definitely not it."
Dan does look up at that. Georgina gives him a sad little smile.
"I know, it surprised the hell out of me, too. But why do you think I stay with a man who bores me so much? He adores Milo and his family adores me. I made sure of it." She reaches over to stroke Milo's hair.
"My child is going to have everything," she says. From anyone else, it would be sweet. A moment of tenderness.
From Georgina, it's terrifying.
"I almost feel sorry for anyone who tries to mess with him," Dan says. She grins at him.
"By the way," she says, "I read your book."
Oh, god. Dan learned quickly to dread hearing those words from anyone he wrote about, but definitely some more than others. He winces in anticipation. She won't kill him while he's still holding Milo, will she?
"It was great," she says. "I wouldn't have thought you'd have it in you, Humphrey."
". . . Really?" he says. "Uh, I mean, thanks."
"You're welcome," she says. Then she holds out his coffee. "Now if you don't mind, Milo and I have an appointment."
"- Oh," Dan says. "Yeah. Sure." He looks back down at the baby in his arms, crushing an absurd impulse to cling to him and start running. "You be good," he tells Milo. "Don't give your mom any reasons to eat anyone alive, okay?"
When Milo is settled securely back into the stroller, Georgina puts Dan's coffee back into his hand and kisses his cheek.
"It was good to see you," she says.
Dan says something polite back, he doesn't know what, then he stands there and watches them leave.
Eventually, he remembers that he, too, has somewhere to be.
*
"Dan, oh thank god." He hadn't called to tell anyone he was coming, but somehow Serena knows to be waiting at the elevator for him anyway. "She won't let anyone else in, I haven't even laid eyes on her in almost a week -"
"She lock her door." Dorota, drawn by the ding of the elevator or possibly the sound of Serena's relief, hastens over from the stairs. "Open only to take meals so baby does not starve."
"I've never seen her this bad," Serena says. "Nothing is working."
"I, uh, guess I should try going up there, then," Dan says before she can keep talking. He walked a few blocks before he flagged down a cab, which helped clear his head, but he's still nowhere near being in the right mood for Serena right now. He needs to save what fragile focus he's managed to pull together for Blair.
"Perhaps you go up without announcement," Dorota suggests. "Not give Miss Blair chance to hide."
"That's probably a good idea," he says.
"Good luck." Serena reaches out and squeezes his arm. In spite of everything, his stomach flips over the way it always does when she touches him. He gives her a half-smile.
"Thanks. I think I'll need it."
He's not wrong about that, though at first, when he hears the sound of the lock being undone before he can even knock, he foolishly thinks he might have been.
Then the door opens.
He'd expected a Blair who was the opposite of the Blair Waldorf he knows in every possible way - listless, unkempt, unshowered, maybe even wearing a ratty terrycloth bathrobe despite the fact that Blair should own no such thing. Instead, she's every inch the Blair he knows. Clean and coiffeured, designer dress flattering her in every way . . . there's even her usual hint of Chanel in the air.
Most worrying of all, she's smiling that slightly manic, detached-from-reality smile of hers, the one that says she has some impossible plan in the works and oh look, here's just the man for the job.
"It's about time, Humphrey," she says. "I was starting to think I'd have to text you myself."
"Waldorf," he says warily. He skips asking What are you up to? to spare them both the tedium of her inevitable Who, me?, saying instead, "You've got Serena and Dorota scared half to death hiding up here moping behind a locked door."
Blair gives a patiently impatient little sigh. "I haven't been moping, I've been thinking. Are you coming in or not?"
He points out that it's kind of hard to do that when she's standing in the doorway, which she rewards with a roll of her eyes and an exaggerated step to the side.
"So," he says, once he's comfortably ensconced in what was once his usual position stretched out on her bed, "what have you been thinking? Am I going to regret asking?"
He watches Blair seat herself delicately in her favorite chair. It might be be his imagination, but he thinks he's starting to show a little. She's going to be one of those women who gets more and more beautiful with every passing day of her pregnancy, even when she's waddling awkwardly and swollen from water retention. She'll be perfect, like she always is to him, like she would have been even if she had opened the door with greasy hair and dull skin.
They haven't had a chance to talk about his book. But maybe he's gotten really lucky and, with everything she's been through in the last couple of weeks, she hasn't had time to read it. Maybe she'll be too preoccupied to bother with it at all.
Yeah, and while I'm making wishes, I'd like a pony.
"I've been thinking about who my baby's father should be." Blair places a protective hand over her abdomen.
"We've gone over this, Blair. You don't get to pick after the fact."
"Georgina did."
Dan goes still, staring up at the ceiling. He needs a few seconds to remember how to breathe again.
"Yeah, and that worked out so well for everyone involved." The bitterness in his voice is so thick he can taste it.
"Yes, well, I thought I'd skip the step where I abandon you to go on my whorish little way."
Dan looks at her. "Abandon . . . me."
Blair is frowning slightly now, aware that this conversation is not going along with whatever insane version of reality is living inside her head. "Before you say no -" she begins, but Dan cuts her off.
"No," he says, sitting. "No, Blair, I am not doing that again. I can't believe you're even asking me to. I know I told you about Milo and what that did to me the night we watched Bringing Up Baby. I wasn't so drunk that I've forgotten about that. Or did you not get the point of that story?"
"Why do you think I'm asking you?" Her voice is a mix of pleading and demand. "Even after you knew Milo wasn't yours, you still wanted him in your life. That's what I'm looking for, Dan. I don't just want a name to put next to mine on the birth certificate. I want someone who'll love her no matter what."
She gets up to sit next to him on the bed, taking his hand in both of hers. "And I know you will," she finishes softly.
Sitting close to him like this, with those eyes of hers begging him to understand in a way she wouldn't do out loud to save her own life . . . god, she's his kryptonite, and how screwed is he if she ever figures that out? He'd have said yes already if he hadn't run into Georgina before coming here, and he knows it.
But he did run into Georgina, and he hasn't said yes, and anyway there is one more person in this mess to consider first.
"I take it Chuck already turned the job down?"
"Chuck can never know it's his," Blair says flatly.
"What? Blair -"
"No. Listen to me. It didn't take me a week to decide I wanted you to be her daddy. That took about three seconds. The reason I had to lock my door for a week was so that I could think, all by myself, about me and Chuck and what kind of father he would be. I had to be completely honest with myself about him, and I couldn't do that with Dorota and Serena around. They're too biased toward him."
She closes her eyes hard against tears. "I love Chuck. I always will. And when it's just me dealing with him, that's my business. But it's not just me anymore." She reaches up to touch her cheek; she seems to be running her fingers along a mark that isn't there. She opens her eyes. "Think about the worst things you know about him," she says, "and then think about how there are worse things that you don't know."
She pauses, giving him time to do exactly that. He does. He thinks about running out onto a rooftop to the sound of Jenny begging Chuck to stop, and about Jenny sobbing in his arms in the hospital chapel almost three years later. He thinks about the way something in Blair's eyes shuts down whenever the subject of the hotel deal comes up.
Worse than that?
Blair nods a little, watching as his thoughts show themselves on his face.
"Now," she says, "imagine putting a child into the middle of all that. I tried so hard to believe that fatherhood could change him, and maybe it could. But I can't take the chance that it wouldn't." Her voice breaks a little on the last word.
Dan looks down for a second, at her hand still on his. He turns his hand so he can wrap it around hers. Then he looks up and nods. She smiles faintly and shifts closer, leaning her head on his shoulder. He lets go of her hand to take it in his other one so he can put his arm around her.
"The thing is," Blair says, "as far as Chuck knows, with Louis out of the running he's the only other possible candidate."
Dan sees where this is going. Of course. "And I'm the only other guy who's not Louis that he might believe you were sleeping with at the time."
She turns her head on his shoulder to look at him. "I meant everything I said," she tells him. "But yes, I had to consider the logistics, too. And ever since your book came out, the entire country thinks we were sleeping together anyway, so that'll make it easier."
"So you did read it." So much for luck.
"How do you think I knew you'd say yes?"
He should be seriously pissed off about that. He waits, in case it's some kind of delayed reaction, but nothing happens.
Well. No surprise there. He knew who Blair was when he fell in love with her.
She squeezes his hand. "I'm not going to be ready to even think about romance for a long time," she says. "Just so we're both clear on that."
"I know," he says. "I don't expect anything from you. Except visitation rights," he adds.
She laughs.
"I'm serious," he says, even as he starts to smile. "I want it in writing. Signed and notarized."
"I'll get Cyrus to draw up the paperwork," she promises.
"Cyrus is an entertainment lawyer."
"So? It'll still be legal. I just want to keep this in the family for a little while longer."
"Fair," says Dan, even though he thinks that'll last all of thirty seconds.
"We could have a dinner to announce it." Blair brightens, sitting up straight. "Do you think everyone will be available tonight? No, tomorrow night, Daddy and Roman will need time to fly out."
"I want Jenny to be there," Dan says. "None of your banishment crap, she's part of the family, too."
"Oh, I unbanished her ages ago," Blair says airily. "But I'll call and invite her myself if it will make you happy."
"It will."
"Ugh, Aunt Jenny. That was nearly enough by itself to make me reconsider."
"But think of all the cute maternity clothes she'll make you."
"True. I suppose that's a start."
"It'd be best for the baby if you guys could patch things up," Dan says, thinking of Georgina. Your family hates me. That's not going to be a problem here, not if he can help it.
"We'll manage," Blair says. Then her expression turns more serious. "Speaking of managing people . . ."
Dan nods, anticipating her next words.
"I should tell Chuck first," she says. "He won't be invited."
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No," she says. "I should do it alone. If you're there, he'll think I'm rubbing it in his face. But will you wait here for me?"
"Of course."
"Thank you." She kisses his cheek and stands up. "I'll tell Dorota to start planning."
"I'll start calling family members." He'll need something to keep himself busy while the full realization of what he's agreed to dawns on him.
"Start with Serena," she suggests. "She'll be up here so fast after I leave that you wouldn't even have a chance to time her. Just try not to let her drag everything out of you."
"I'll do my best."
"It should go without saying, but no one can know the truth except us. And Audrey someday, when she's old enough to understand."
Dan raises an eyebrow. "Audrey?"
"I'm trying out names. You don't get a say," she tells him.
"What are you thinking of naming a boy?" he asks. Blair scoffs.
"I'm not having a boy. What would I do with a boy?"
"Also not one of those things you get to decide."
"I don't know about that." She smiles. "I did just pick her out a pretty good daddy."
Dan smiles, too; judging by the look on Blair's face, it's a lot goofier and more pleased than he'd like, so he says,
"Go talk to Chuck. I'll be here when you get back."
*
True to Blair's prediction, Serena is in the room about ten seconds after Dan hears the elevator doors ding shut.
"Blair hides out for a week, then you show up and fifteen minutes later she's making mystery visits and planning a family dinner? Dan, what is going on?"
"All will become clear at dinner tomorrow," he tries.
She raises her eyebrows at him.
"Yeah, I didn't really think that would work," he admits.
Serena plops herself into Blair's chair. "Dan," she says plaintively.
Abruptly, Dan realizes what this is going to look like to her. It's going to look like, even if they weren't lying to her face when they insisted they weren't sleeping together, they went ahead and did it later and still didn't tell her. Which, arguably, is none of her business, except that Blair is her best friend and Dan is her ex and he and Serena haven't completely closed the door on future possibilities yet, so maybe it kind of is.
At least he's already gotten a taste of what it's like to have everyone thinking he was sleeping with a prince's fiancée. Maybe he should send Vanessa a thank-you note for stealing his manuscript and publishing it behind his back after all.
"I guess it's only fair to tell you privately," he says, "before everyone else."
This is it. The very first test. If he can tell this to Serena, he can tell it to anybody.
"Since the entire world found out Louis isn't the father of Blair's baby," he begins, "everyone on the Upper East Side has been assuming it's Chuck's."
Serena starts shaking her head, just a little; he doesn't think she even knows she's doing it. He takes a breath and presses on.
"And you know how close Blair and I have gotten over the last year -"
"You told me you weren't sleeping together," Serena interrupts. "You both told me that. And you've been telling everyone your book was artistic license!"
"It was artistic license." Why didn't he think to get a story straight with Blair before she left? They'll have to do it first thing when she gets back. "I didn't just write things down the way they happened, Serena, you of all people know that. That applies to all of it. And when we told you we weren't sleeping together, that was true at the time. We never lied to you." We're just going to spend the rest of our lives lying to you, that's all.
He wants very badly to tell her the truth, but he can't deny that there's a reason why Blair went out of her way to avoid consulting with Serena about this. Not only would she tell Chuck, but she'd do it in the sincere belief that she was doing the right thing.
"You're having a baby with Blair." Serena's brief indignation has fled, leaving her looking small and sad. "Are you going to marry her? Is that what tomorrow is about?"
"No," he assures her promptly. "No, this is a strictly platonic arrangement."
"Oh." She looks slightly less deflated at that, but still uncertain. "Then what does this mean for us? For, you know, our timing?"
"I don't know," Dan says. "I guess that's up to you."
Serena takes this in, then gets to her feet. "I can't be here right now."
"Okay," he says. "Just, wait, Serena, don't tell anyone? Blair really needs this dinner. She's actually excited about it."
Serena nods. "Okay." She hesitates, then, "Tell her I'll be there. I just - I need to be by myself for a while first."
"I'll tell her," he promises.
*
After Serena leaves, Dan just sits for a little while, thinking about how much more complicated this day has gotten since he was walking down the street, coffee in hand and not much on his mind.
He never did get to drink that coffee. What did he do with it? He must have left it in the cab. He'll ask Dorota to make some in a little while. Maybe. He still feels really awkward about the whole servant thing, but the one time he tried to do for himself here something which fell in Dorota's domain, she'd been very insulted. He'd ended up apologizing a lot.
He'll make a call or two, then think about it some more.
He decides to call Dad first.
"Dan," Dad greets him. "Long time, no talk."
"It hasn't been that long, Dad." Has it?
"No, I understand. My son the student, published author -"
"Social pariah," Dan puts in.
"It's a busy schedule. So what's up?"
"What are you and Lily doing tomorrow night?"
"Nothing special that I'm aware of."
"Great," Dan says. "Blair and I are hosting a dinner tomorrow night for both our families, and we'd really like it if everyone could be there. It's, uh. Kind of mandatory, actually."
There is an agonizing silence in which Dan can almost hear his father thinking about exactly why Dan and Blair might be throwing a mandatory family get-together.
"Dan," Dad says, and that's about when Dan realizes that Serena will be the only one who didn't see it coming the second she got the invite. He sighs.
"Can we do the lecture later? I have a lot of calls to make."
"You sure you wanna give me time to finetune it? Tell me you at least managed to keep it in your pants once she got engaged."
"Please, Dad, I -" He closes his eyes. "I ran into Georgina and Milo today. I really need to be happy about this right now, okay?" The fact that it's actually true - all of it - doesn't make him feel less shitty about the emotional blackmail.
"Oh, Dan." The edge is mostly gone from Dad's voice, blunted by gentle sympathy. "I'm so sorry. Okay."
"Thanks," he says quietly.
"You're welcome. But this is only a temporary stay of execution."
Dan exhales a faint laugh. "I know."
"Good. Lily and I will see you tomorrow."
As Dan ends the call, Dorota comes into the room. She has a tray bearing a steaming mug and a croissant.
"Oh my god," Dan says, "you're like magic. How did you know I was just thinking about coffee?"
Dorota smiles as she puts the tray down next to him on the bed. "Is my job," she says.
"To read minds?" Dan picks up the mug with care, intensely aware of how Blair will react if he spills so much as a droplet on her bedcover.
"How else I last in Waldorf home so long?" Her tone is entirely serious; Dan glances up to check her expression and can't quite decide whether she's joking or not.
"Well. Thanks," he says. Dorota nods acknowledgment.
"You need anything else while Miss Blair gone, you let me know."
"I'll think it real loud," he says. She smiles and turns to leave.
"Hey," Dan says suddenly. "Uh, sorry," he adds as she turns back around, "but I just realized, I was there when your water broke and I have never once asked you about your daughter." He can't even remember her name, how much of an asshole is he? "How is she?"
From the way Dorota lights up, it's a good question to ask. It's a good thing he's really interested in the answer, too, because he gets it in detail - how Ana (right, he remembers now, short for Anastasia) is so beautiful and so smart and ahead of her age group in everything and how very proud Dorota and Vanya are of her. He smiles and sips his coffee as he listens, and starts to feel excited about being a dad.
". . . and now I am pregnant again," Dorota finishes, "same time as Miss Blair. Maybe you and Vanya share taxi to hospital."
"Maybe," Dan says without thinking about it. Then he does think about it. "Uh, wait . . ."
"I read minds," she reminds him helpfully. "Miss Blair go to tell Mister Chuck, yes?"
Dan nods. "Yeah."
"Miss Blair is strong. She be okay. She find way to be happy again someday, and that is important part."
"Yeah," Dan says again. "It is."
*
Paranoid about spilling his coffee or getting croissant flakes on Blair's bed, Dan moves to the floor. From there he calls Mom (who either doesn't get it because she doesn't live on the Upper East Side or is better at hiding it than Dad, and frankly that could go either way), Eric (who says, "Jonathan owes me twenty bucks," which Dan doesn't realize until after he gets off the phone means that whatever the bet was, Eric probably bet against him), and Cece (who can't make it, which he knew, just like he also knew that she would be deeply offended if he hadn't invited her anyway).
After that, he decides that Blair has probably been gone long enough that he can officially start worrying. He's been worrying since she left, of course, but now he can acknowledge it.
He's toying with the idea of texting Nate, to ask if he's home and if he is has he heard any yelling or anything, when he hears the elevator open and Dorota say,
"Miss Blair."
He can't quite make out Blair's reply - her voice is low and even in a way that makes him apprehensive. He gets up, intending to go down to meet her, but by the time he's out the bedroom door she's halfway up the stairs and it's less awkward just to wait. As she gets closer, he can see how tired she looks, like she just came back from running a double marathon instead of paying a short visit.
She doesn't speak until they're in her room with the door firmly closed behind them.
"It worked," she says. "I don't want to talk about it."
Understandable. Dan nods.
"All I need to know," he says, "is how many bodyguards I'm gonna have to hire, and if I'll need them for the rest of my life or just the next eighteen years."
She almost smiles. "I'd make arrangements for your next dozen lifetimes while you're at it."
"Of course," Dan says. "Why would he stop just because I'm dead."
"It never pays to underestimate him." The almost-smile is gone. Dan sighs a little and reaches over to take her hand.
"The hard part's over," he says. In the second before she nods in answer, he can see a hundred different responses flit past behind her eyes. The fact that she doesn't use a single one of them worries him more than anything else has so far.
"So I made some calls," he says, deliberately lightening his tone, "and I hate to break it to you, but it turns out I have a bunch of very smart relatives. I don't think any of them are going to be surprised by our announcement. And I'm pretty sure Cece had the whole thing figured out before I even said, 'Hi, it's Dan,' because that's kind of what she does."
"What did Serena say?" Of course. Blair knew exactly what Serena would think long before he did. It must be one of the countless things she thought about, locked up in here with herself.
"She said to tell you she'd be there. I don't think she'll be coming back tonight."
"I have to say, that's better than I expected." Blair drops his hand and steps away, going over to examine herself in her mirror. "God, I look awful."
"Chuck has that effect on people."
She gives him a sarcastic look in the mirror. "A more acceptable response would have been, 'No, Blair, you look great.'"
He smiles at her. "You always look great."
Blair flushes a little and drops her gaze, which is not something he has been able to make her do ever. He'd expected her to be rattled after dealing with Chuck - he feels a little bad that he didn't push harder about going with her - but this isn't rattled. This is - something else.
"Blair, what's going on?"
She picks up a tube of lip gloss and unscrews the top, dabbing the gloss neatly onto her lips. She isn't watching the application wand, though; she's staring hard into her own eyes. Dan watches her, waiting for her to answer, wondering what she's looking for.
Eventually, still looking at herself, she asks,
"Are you doing this because you want to do this?"
He blinks at her. "What? Blair, of course I -"
"No," she interrupts. "Don't answer so fast. You have to think about this. It's not just a favor for a friend. This is for real."
"I know," Dan says. "I - look, Blair, I don't need to do the whole new parent panic thing. I did it last year, and then for bonus points I got to do the single parent panic thing, too. But I got through it, you know, I was ready. And then I -" He falters. Blair meets his eyes in the mirror again. "So I have all this readiness now," he resumes. "It didn't go anywhere. I just need somewhere to put it."
Blair turns abruptly to face him. "My baby is not a replacement for Milo."
"What - ? No, no of course not. I -" He shakes his head and tries to start over. "I don't need time to think because I already know I can be a dad. And I want to be. Maybe I wasn't planning on it for a few more years, but." He shrugs. "Neither were you. On being a mom, I mean. Obviously -"
"Babbling, Humphrey," Blair interrupts.
"Right." He shuts up.
Blair sighs. "Does it get any less terrifying?"
"No," he says. "But on the plus side, after she's born, you'll be too sleep-deprived to be terrified."
"Not what I wanted to hear," she says dryly.
"Well, if you wanted to be lied to, you picked the wrong baby daddy."
"So it would seem." Blair pauses, then, "It's just so much. The baby and Chuck and you and I don't even know if I'm ready. Dan, I can't remember the last time something went right. Everything I do blows up in my face."
AND THEN IT DIDN'T BLOW UP IN HER FACE AND EVERYTHING WAS AWESOME. The end.
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And I'm so glad I remembered to come back because this is really great. Your Dan POV is great, and you really nail Blair (like when Dan expects her to be listless and unkempt and instead she's all scarily put-together, that was aces) too. And the sequence of scenes is great and really well-thought-out too. This is kind of an out-there scenario that you made really believable.
Plus all the little moments! I especially liked the stuff with Dan and Dorota.
AND THEN IT DIDN'T BLOW UP IN HER FACE AND EVERYTHING WAS AWESOME. The end.
Best ending ever, tbh.
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Thanks so much for the comment! I was so pleased to get it, especially since I don't even know if there's anyone on my flist who watches GG anymore, so I wasn't expecting much of a response to this post. I'm happy the fic worked for you, as it's so incredibly self-indulgent and I didn't think anyone except me would even care all that much about it. *g*
Dan was really easy for me to write (no surprise there; most of my Buffyfic way back in the day was Xander-centric), but I felt like I was all over the place with Blair. The more surface-y stuff, like the bit you mentioned and the banter with Dan, felt pretty solid to me, but every time she got more serious I couldn't tell if she sounded like her or if I was just putting my wish-fulfillment words in her mouth. (I also totally cheated by glossing over the scene with Chuck. I thought of like twenty ways it could go and couldn't pick one! I am 99% percent sure Blair is lying, or at least selectively interpreting the truth, when she says her plan worked, though.) I feel a bit better about it after reading your comment, but I don't think any GG fic I write in future is going to feature her very much.
I especially liked the stuff with Dan and Dorota.
:D Thank you! I love Dorota. More often than not, the stuff on the show with her is uncomfortably classist, but Dorota herself is awesome. There was no way I wasn't going to work in a scene with her somehow.
Best ending ever, tbh.
It is an ending Blair should get more often, and it's clear that fic writers will have to be the ones to provide it, since the show doesn't seem inclined to.