without a key (5/5)
Nate, Dan, Blair, Serena, Jenny. Also Chuck.
s1 AU; Nate left town instead of Serena.
PG13. 5665 words.
Summary: Nate always knew he was a disappointment but it's another thing to have it confirmed.
Note: So, it's finally done! I started this fic in 2012, which is insane, but I am happy I kept with it and completed it. One WIP down!
"So it's true?"
Nate pushes uneaten breakfast around his plate. Squashes a blueberry with his fork. Ignores his mother.
"Nate," Anne says tightly, eyebrow lifting as she frowns. Or tries to; she has no visible lines on her face. Her hand is wrapped around her glass of water the same way she holds glasses of wine. "Is it true?"
He sighs. "The evidence was pretty damning, wasn't it?"
She is understandably not amused. "You've become quite the source of gossip since your return, Nathaniel."
He lifts his gaze to meet hers. "We were a source of gossip before that."
Frustrated, she says, "You certainly don't need to add to it. And especially with this – this ridiculous stunt. I suppose this is how you're choosing to rebel?"
Nate frowns at her. "No."
"You should be glad your father is busy recuperating," Anne says. "Otherwise I'd have to inform him, and we both know how he'd feel about this."
Nate stares at her stonily, his frown deepening. "Maybe that's the problem."
"Excuse me?"
"Maybe you and Dad are the real problem here," Nate says. "Not whoever I'm dating." He swallows hard once the words are out of his mouth, but he doesn't take them back, even though he and Dan haven't spoken in the days since the ball. He pushes his chair back. "His name is Dan, by the way, thanks for asking."
He throws his napkin down and leaves.
"So," Serena says. She sticks a Starbucks cup in Nate's hand – salted caramel mocha, because she knows him well. "Is Anne losing it or what?"
Nate snorts. "What do you think?"
They're sitting on Nate's stoop, because at this point who gives a fuck anymore. Serena is a little hungover, wearing big sunglasses and a floppy hat, but she seems to be in slightly better spirits than the last few weeks. "Thanks for stealing the spotlight, by the way. Dad in rehab, slept with the girlfriend's best friend, and gay – there's no room for anyone to talk about me."
"Don't forget the pending trial and jail time," Nate reminds her. "Also, not gay."
"Dan-curious," Serena amends. Then, "Have you talked to him?" When Nate shakes his head, she gives him a look over her sunglasses. "Nate."
"It feels weird, I don't –" He shrugs helplessly. "I don't know what to say. 'Sorry my drama got you outed not once, but twice; wanna make out?'"
She considers it. "That would probably work."
He tries to summon a twinge of amusement but doesn't manage it. "Everything just really sucks," he says, and though he wants it to come out light, the truth bleeds out in his voice. Everything does suck, and it's been like that way, way too long.
"Yeah," Serena sighs. "Preaching to the choir, buddy." She looks down at her own cup, tracing her name on the side with a deep red nail. "I don't know what to do without Blair. She's never been this mad at me, ever. I think… I think –"
"You'll make up," Nate says firmly. Even with everything that's going on, he refuses to accept a world where that is not a possibility. "It's my fault. Blair should be mad at me."
Serena gives him a sad, sympathetic look. "It's not all your fault, Nate. I was there too."
"I left," he murmurs. Sometimes he thinks he never should have come back; sometimes he thinks he never should've left. "I lied."
"We both lied," Serena says. "And, yeah, if it were up to me, it would've gone to the grave. But it didn't, so we just have to…" She struggles to define what exactly they have to do, and shrugs before finishing simply, "Deal."
When he doesn't respond, staring pensively down at the cracks in the sidewalk, Serena gives him a nudge. "Call your boyfriend," she says.
"He's not my boyfriend," Nate says absently. What had Dan called them? "He's my friend. With kissing." He slides her a sideways look. "You're being really cool about all of this, you know."
Serena shrugs, pushing her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose a little. "I am cool."
And that's what makes him smile. "Not if you say you are. S'gotta be an unspoken thing."
"You don't get how it works," she says airily, "Since you're not as cool as me."
"That's true," Nate allows, and laughs softly. Serena echoes it, her own laugh a little higher and brighter. Everything sucks a little bit less, right then.
If on Friday Nate had left school amid pats on the back, Monday finds them more like shoves.
Metaphorically speaking, of course – none of the kids at St. Jude's are so openly aggressive. They operate in a different way, full of well-mannered rudeness, polite but snide. Sneers replace grins. Nasty names are disguised in coughs. Nate gets tripped moving between desks in class. It's a lot of dumb, petty bullshit and Nate has no interest in any of it.
What's worse is that everyone seems to find it perfectly okay to question him about things that are none of their business. Over the course of the day, Nate is asked if this is why he never slept with Blair; if he even slept with Serena at all; if he liked sleeping with Serena; if he's gay; has he slept with Dan? It goes on and on, and Nate maintains a sullen silence as he waits for the three o'clock bell. It seems about a million years away.
He and Dan don't have a ton of classes in common. Dan's in all the honor and AP ones, they take different languages, plus their gym and lunch periods just happened to not sync up. They have math together (Dan's not great at math) and history (Nate doesn't suck at history), but in math Dan takes the seat closest to the door and is gone as soon as class ends.
Nate spends every not-Dan class itching to see him but at the same time, once they're in the same room together, Nate can feel everyone's eyes on him. As soon as he gets within ten feet of Dan, it's like everyone holds their collective breath and waits – and honestly, Nate doesn't want to give them the satisfaction.
Jenny catches up with him in the five minutes between third and fourth period. "I didn't want to have to destroy you," she says breezily, "but Dan is really upset."
Frustrated, Nate can only offer, "I know, Jenny. I'm working on it, okay?"
"Not really." They stop outside her classroom and Jenny hooks fingers around her bookbag straps, staring up at him. "I just don't see the point of breaking up with him now that everyone knows. I mean, isn't that the hardest part?"
Nate blinks, ignoring the question to say, "We didn't break up." Even as he says it, he notices some of the girls in Jenny's class listening, probably filing that away to send in as a tip later.
"That's not how it seems on my end. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." She pokes his chest hard with one finger. Really hard. "This time."
As Nate turns to head back towards the boys' wing, he comes face to face with Blair. Two girls flank her on either side, like a very imposing pastel girl gang, but she sends them off with a flick of the wrist. She has a mean smile on her face. He hates how familiar he's become with it.
"Learning what it's like to be whispered about?" she asks.
Nate raises an eyebrow. "My dad is a drug addict," he reminds her. "I already know."
There is a near-imperceptible faltering in Blair's expression, and he can only tell because he knows her so well.
"Blair," he sighs. "I've really – I've got enough to deal with. More than enough. My family, and you and –" He just wanted one stupid thing that was just his, and apparently he might not even have that anymore. He doesn't want his worry to show in his face. He hopes it doesn't. "So. Are there any other secrets of mine you want to expose to everyone?"
Blair studies him. "I don't know," she says finally. "What else do you have?"
He exhales a huff of breath and moves past her, effectively ending the conversation. "Fresh out."
Nate really needs a fucking vacation.
The class he has next is history. Dan takes the seat by the door again and keeps his eyes downcast the whole forty-five minutes. Once again, he's out the door as soon as the bell rings – but this time Nate had been ready for that. He's able to catch up with Dan halfway down the corridor.
He touches Dan's sleeve lightly, and Dan turns round looking like he's off to the executioner. "I don't want to have this conversation in the hallway," he says, sounding resigned.
Nate frowns. "Me either." And just in case Dan tries to blow him off, he adds, "But I don't want to wait for the end of the day."
"Alright." Dan sighs and glances around, chafing under the weight of everyone looking and waiting. "I'll text you. I have lunch after this period, we can do it then."
Nate doesn't care what class he has. He'll skip it. "Okay. Good."
He sits impatiently through English before finally starting towards Dan's determined meeting place: the third floor boys' bathroom, the one hardly anyone uses that's tucked away in the corner behind the art rooms. Dan is already there, over by the frosted window, looking pale and chilled in the tempered light. Nate shuts the door and then leans back against it.
"So…" Nate says. "Has this day been as shitty for you as it has for me?" He remembers that Dan wasn't exactly high on the social ladder before all this. "Or…shittier?"
Dan shrugs. "A few assholes called me Mrs. Archibald," he says. "Frankly, I've been called worse."
Nate ducks his head, embarrassed that he's managed to put Dan through all this. Dan was drama-free before Nate came into his life. "I'm sorry."
Dan gives him a curious look. "It isn't your fault." He runs a hand through his hair, clearly anxious. "Look. I know I shouldn't have – shouldn't've done this the way I did, kissing you like that where anyone could see, so that's – that's on me, and I'm sorry, I – I just really like you, I like you a lot, and if you don't want to – to do this anymore, that's fine, I know it isn't necessarily what you want, I meant – I doubt you wanted anyone to know, especially your family or whatever, and I don't know if you really… If it's really Serena, or even Blair, for you, so I get it, if this is too much, but I don't… It would be really hard for me to still be friends because I like you too much – maybe in the future, I don't know. The point is, I'm sorry and I didn't want it to get out like it did, so I get that it's probably over between us, and we just have to let it be over so I can go on being miserable in peace." He takes a breath. Nate raises an eyebrow. "Okay?"
Nate doesn't know when the babbling tipped over from crazy to endearing, or if he ever found it anything but endearing in the first place. Nate watches the way Dan's lips purse as he rubs a hand over his temples, the very picture of angst, and decides that if he doesn't kiss Dan right now, he's the idiot everyone always says he is.
"I don't care that everyone saw," Dan says quietly. "Maybe that makes me a bad guy, but I don't."
It's a matter of fact, Dan's achingly casual shrug of the shoulder.
"Would you come over here?" Nate says. "How are we supposed to kiss if you're on the other side of the room?"
Dan frowns, confused. "But –"
"I want to be with you too," Nate says and his joking drains away as his heart rate picks up. It's true, but it's a scary thing to say, scary to feel. "Plus I told my mom. So. It better still be something, because she's gonna be a real pain in the ass about it."
Dan straightens. "You told your mom?"
"She did see the footage," Nate points out, but despite the fact that his hands were tied, it doesn't change how he feels. "But yeah. She knows that we're – that we're dating."
"Dating," Dan repeats, and smiles just a little. The knot of tension slides from Nate's shoulders.
"What're you still doing all the way over there?" Nate asks, fighting his own smile.
It's funny how sometimes the bullshit just ceases to matter. Like right now: Dan coming towards him with warmth in his eyes, insecurity transmuted to confidence. He braces his hand on the door beside Nate's head and kisses him, leaning in and leaning in until they're pressed together. And Nate just doesn't care about anything else.
That doesn't make school any easier, though.
The upside is that things aren't so lonely, now – he has Dan and Serena and even Jenny most of the time, when she isn't playing double agent. So when some jerk makes a stupid comment, at least Nate has someone to roll his eyes at. And that is surprisingly nice.
Serena is exceptionally defensive, though, and this seems to split the girls' junior class in two: half of them on Blair's side and the other half unable to resist the siren call of Serena's trendsetting. It's very whatever to Nate; he appreciates everything Serena's doing, or trying to do, but he's also seriously attempting to not put so much weight in what other people might be saying.
So much so that one Thursday morning he kisses Dan right in the courtyard. Everyone seems too startled to say much about it. Dan's grin afterward makes it worth it either way.
Blair is still angry with him but Nate honestly doesn't know what to feel about that anymore. He's angry with her too, and sick of shuffling around for forgiveness when she makes him pay so hard for it every time.
She keeps pulling stupid little stunts too, like the spoonful of yogurt dropped onto Nate's head on his way into school, amid laughter from the other students. It could've been any girl among Blair's lined-up minions: they all greet his irritated expression with sugar-sweet smiles. Nate huffs a sigh of annoyance even as he notices that Blair is not smirking like usual. She's frowning. And she's not frowning at him, but at the line of girls.
She meets him at the top of the steps. "Hazel got overzealous," she says dismissively. "You know I always have a full line of hair care in my locker; I can get her to help you if you –"
Disbelieving, Nate raises his eyebrows. "That last thing I need is help from you."
Dan ends up washing the yogurt out of Nate's hair in the bathroom sink – third floor corner, their usual rendezvous spot. "What a shame," Dan says, "Those carefully-arranged bangs, that restrained use of product – all for naught."
Nate flicks water droplets at him. "Shut up."
Things are worse at home. It appears Anne is flat-out not speaking to him, though she apparently has complained to his father in vague terms about his behavior, because his dad actually asks them to come to the Center for the very first time since Nate's been back.
Nate only assumes she hasn't told his dad about the whole Dan thing because she's pretending it never happened.
She doesn't speak to him all the way to Brooklyn.
"Tell me how it went with Blair," his dad says with a kind of forceful enthusiasm that none of them feel. "Flowers work?"
"You're assuming Nate made any effort at all with Blair," Anne sniffs. "He did not."
"Because I'm not dating Blair," Nate says sullenly. "I don't want to be dating Blair. She hurt me too, you kn–"
"I know your life feels like a mess right now," the Captain interrupts. "But that's all the more reason to stick to what you know. It'll make you stable."
"That's why we plan," Anne adds.
The plan: Dartmouth, law school, Blair. It might as well be tattooed on the inside of Nate's brain. No matter what he does or what he says, that's all they ever seem to hear. Dartmouth. Law school. Blair.
"Your father and I didn't work this hard so you could just throw it all away," Anne says. Recites, more like. "Our family has an image to uphold, Nate. You have to do your part."
"Why?" Nate mumbles. He shifts in his seat, looks away. "Neither of you do yours."
"Now, Nate –" Anne begins to scold, but the Captain holds up a hand.
"Your mother is right, son," he says. "Just because you don't want to hear it –"
"I do hear it," Nate says sharply. "I know everyone thinks I'm stupid, but I got the message, okay? You've been telling me the same thing since I was five. I get that I'm this big disappointment but that's just – the son you want is not who I am. I'm not going to Dartmouth, I'm not going to Yale, I'm not going to be a lawyer or a senator and I'm not going to marry Blair."
"You're a teenager," his dad says in this put-upon patronizing way. "You don't know what you want."
"And," Nate continues unabated, ignoring that, "I'm seeing someone."
His mother's eyes widen and she shakes her head minutely, but Nate is past caring.
"His name is Dan." Nate ignores his dad's stare too, just keeps on talking. "He's really smart," because that's important, "And funny. And nice. He's a good guy. Really good. He cares about me a lot, he's good for me – good to me –"
"That's enough," Anne says, icy. "Nathaniel, please go wait outside. Your father and I have to talk."
"No," Nate says bluntly. "This is not a mistake I made that you have to spin so you look better. I'm not the problem here."
"Nate," his dad says tensely, not looking at him, "Go."
Nate hadn't been so thick as to think his parents wouldn't care but he's still caught off guard by how much that hurts. "No." Somehow his voice is steady. "If you think I'm disgusting you can tell me to my face."
His father, thankfully, does not tell him this. But he does say, "Our family doesn't need this. Especially not now."
We're like this because of what you did, Nate thinks. "He came here with me once. Dan. When Mom wouldn't, and she didn't want me to either. He waited outside for me. It was Thanksgiving."
He watches his dad place that visit, wondering if maybe he'd seen the dark-haired kid loitering in the hallway.
There is a long, thick silence before the Captain sighs. "I don't know what you want me to say."
That it's okay. That he loves Nate anyway. That he loves Nate sans qualifier. But apparently that's just too much trouble.
"Forget it," Nate mutters, even though that's the last thing he wants. "I'll go." He grabs his coat, waiting for one of them to stop him at the door. Neither of them do. "I probably won't see you at home later."
He makes the short walk to Dan's instead, ends up staying the night on the couch. He doesn't talk about it, though Dan clearly wants to, and ignores his mother's calls.
He always knew he was a disappointment but it's another thing to have it confirmed.
On Saturday Nate takes his customary run through the park and then settles into a walk, preparing to go sit on a bench with his iPod and a slim paperback book – a starter book, Dan had said, with ominous overtones that it would lead to much, much more. But before he can take a seat or turn a page, Chuck falls into step with him.
"Things always have a way of working out for you, don't they, Nathaniel," he says, and brings a joint to his lips.
Nate hasn't bothered confronting Chuck about the blast at cotillion that started the mess he's in now; he saw no reason to. He knew Chuck did it. He knew why Chuck did it. Confrontation would have brought no satisfaction, seeing as Chuck didn't respond well to it, always ready with a quip or an infuriating laugh. It would have been like fighting with a wall. A really smarmy wall.
Chuck has been Nate's friend for more than half his life, but that's over now and Nate is finding it hard to mourn the change. He guesses he's getting used to endings.
Merely being done with Chuck didn't mean Chuck was done with you, though.
"I don't know," Nate says finally. "Making the best of a bad situation isn't the same thing as something working out."
Chuck snorts. "How zen."
Nate shrugs, uninterested. "Why are you here, Chuck?"
"Can't a friend check in with another friend after a drastic change in said friend's personal affairs?"
"We aren't friends," Nate says baldly. "And I think you giving me shit for dating a guy would be kind of hypocritical."
"Aren't you curious," Chuck says, "How Blair knew?"
It's on the tip of Nate's tongue to say she must've seen but he realizes right then, from the look on Chuck's face and that goading note to his voice, that he was the one to take the video of Nate and Dan kissing. It was him. Of course it was him.
Chuck doesn't handle confrontation well, which is why he likes all the secretive backstabbing their set gets into. His problem is that he always wants credit for what he's done. He wants a pat on the back for being so sneaky and clever.
"So, what," Nate says, attempting to keep his voice very even. "You just follow me around waiting for me to do something you can report back to Blair?"
Chuck gives him one of those slow, curling smiles. "No, I just have excellent timing." He continues to press, "You know, she didn't even care what it was. I said I had something that could ruin you and she didn't even ask, just told me to send it in. Isn't it funny how things go sour? If you'd just pity-fucked her a year ago you probably could've avoided all –"
Nate may not be proud of it ten minutes from now, but he punches Chuck right in the jaw.
Despite the Humphreys' insistence that Nate is not in the way, after a week of squeezing five people into the loft, he feels distinctly like he doesn't fit. So he decides to go home.
"I'll miss you sneaking in after everyone's asleep," Dan teases gently, pressing a kiss to Nate's temple.
"I'll miss the waffles," Nate jokes back. Dan shoves him.
Nate thinks the house is empty when he first steps inside. It's cool and quiet, and the tastefully decorated Christmas tree is still standing by the front windows. He doesn't even hear Louisa, the maid, bustling around in the kitchen. He sighs and goes up to his room, but as he passes his mother's, he hears a quiet noise. And then another. It's a soft, miserable sound and he stands there for almost a full minute before he realizes his mother is crying.
Nate has never seen her cry. He could only count on one hand the number of times she's laughed, or smiled. Crying seems out of the realm of possibility.
He knocks gently. "Mom?"
The sound abruptly ceases, and he hears her get up, move around. The door opens and she looks the same as ever – not puffy, not upset, no tears in sight – except for the telltale redness of her eyes. "You're home."
"Yeah." He looks down. His instinct is to apologize, but he reminds himself he has nothing to apologize for.
"Where were you?"
"With Dan," Nate says. "His family's really nice."
Anne frowns. "And highly permissive, apparently."
He doesn't take the bait. "Are you okay?"
She averts her own gaze, and it strikes Nate that she looks kind of frail lately, stretched too thin in a myriad of ways. "Of course." Then it begins. "You know, Nathaniel, I was very worried about you – not even leaving a message, not answering your phone for days. I even went on that horrid website you and your friends use, but there wasn't anything except that video again. It was incredibly rude and thoughtless of you, especially after that scene at your father's –"
"Mom," he interrupts. "You could have stopped at 'I was worried.' You gotta – you gotta trust me a little bit."
"How was I to know you hadn't gone to your grandparents' again without a word?" she demands, breathless, staring at him hard with those reddened eyes.
He can't help faint confusion. "Would you have cared if I had?"
"What do you think it was like for me, waking up to find my son was gone?" Anne says. "Getting a call from my father that he was taking over, as he put it? And then nearly losing my husband months later?"
It seems stupid, but Nate had honestly never thought his mother cared enough to be upset that he was gone. For as long as he could remember, he had been an inconvenience to her: the boy who could never do anything right. But to look at her now, angry and uncharacteristically emotional, he is reminded of the fierce, fierce way Blair cares about people without ever wanting them to know.
"I'm sorry." Nate tries to inject as much genuine remorse into that as he feels. "I know I never said that to you. And I am really sorry. I just didn't know what else to do."
She seems at least a little taken aback. "You could have come to me first."
"Mom, don't take this the wrong way," he says, keeping his voice even, "but most of the time, you really don't want to hear it."
Anne looks away, and then brings a hand up to wipe away a stray tear that had begun to slide down her cheek. "Then I apologize as well."
"Okay," Nate says, and puts his arms around her. After a moment she lets him.
Winter break had been a welcome respite from everything, but come chilly January it's back to business.
Anne Archibald certainly hasn’t done a 360 or anything, but she's trying and Nate can be patient as long as he knows she's trying. He asks if she wants to meet Dan; she does not. But she orders some catalogues from lesser Ivys: Amherst, Trinity, Wesleyan. It's a gesture.
"Do you think it bothers her more that I'm a boy or that I'm middle class?" Dan jokes. Nate could honestly say it's a toss-up.
Blair is at his locker first thing on the first day back to school. "You punched Chuck," she says.
Nate busies himself putting textbooks away, realizes he forgot his math book. "It's not the first time someone hit him," he says. "Probably not the last, either."
She doesn't seem to care about that, shifting on her heels with a kind of impatience. "He said you were defending my honor, or something."
"What does Chuck know about honor?" He turns away. "I gotta get to class."
Nate is uncertain as to the cause of it, but he's noticed a change in Blair towards him: not so much of a softening as a lack of active rage. Which is big, for her. He hasn't done a thing to prompt it – in fact, he's been leaving her entirely alone, treating her like a stranger. He hasn't heard anything from Serena, but Serena isn't talking to Blair much either lately.
Blair is waiting in his living room when he gets home from school, a few minutes late because he insists on seeing Dan to the train every day. Dan doesn't need him to, obviously, but it's a holdover from days when he had to act the gentleman. Dan seems to find it funny.
Anne must've been thrilled to have Blair appear on her doorstep.
Blair stands awkwardly when he enters the room, her tomato red blazer standing out against all the dark wood and ambient lighting of the study. She looks tentative.
"Hope you don't have another yogurt to lob at me," he says.
"That wasn't me," Blair says with a touch of impatience. "And – and the blast, at the Ball, that wasn't me either."
"I know," Nate says. "Chuck said."
"I didn't ask what it was. I was so mad at you, I didn't care." She takes a breath. "I didn't know."
"If you had, would that have stopped you?"
Blair gives a jerky little shrug, but they both know the answer: no. Her gaze drops and he follows it, noticing for the first time the white envelope in her hands.
"What's that?"
"I wrote it to you when you were at your grandparents'," she says, and her fingers trace the edge of it, feeling its shape. "I never sent it."
Nate's throat works with a sudden rush of renewed guilt.
Carefully, Blair plucks the folded sheet of paper from inside the envelope – even with the distance between them, he can see his name and his grandparents' address neatly written on it, a letter that was never stamped – and opens it to read.
"Dear Nate," she says, and takes another breath like she really needs it. "My world is falling apart. My father left my mother for a thirty-one year old model. A male model. He's gone. And you're gone too." It's too easy to picture Blair, who never admits defeat and would rather die than concede hurt, sitting at her desk and writing out every single thing that's killing her. "I can't even talk to Serena, because she's always out or always drunk, and I can't take care of her by – by myself. Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? Why didn't you call? I love you, don't –" Her voice thins out like it could crack at any minute and her lashes are wet. "Don't you love me? I miss you so much. Love, Blair."
"You should have sent it," Nate says immediately, forcefully, his own voice thick. "I would've –"
"You would have what, Nate? You knew. You knew and you didn't even call." It's the tone of voice she used to reserve for telling him he got the wrong flowers, or forgetting she was off dairy that week. Except it's not like that at all, because he can hear how close she is to crying.
"I didn't know how to – what to say," he says, "to you, I –" He swallows. "I didn't want to hurt you, except I already had, and I didn't know how to look you in the eye and lie about it."
"I don't know if I would have told Chuck to do it anyway, if I knew," Blair says quietly. "After my dad, I wouldn't… I don't think I would."
He wonders if that has something to do with her sudden amends. Or maybe she did just miss him (so much), like he missed her; it was easy to forget with Blair that the impenetrable shield of her anger hid something very delicate. He spent so long trying not to look at that vulnerable, breakable part of her because it made him so uncomfortable. He didn't know how to handle it, and at the same time he knew one clumsy bad word from him could shatter it. But he'd done a lot worse than say the wrong thing by accident.
"I deserve it," he says seriously. "If you never forgave me, I'd understand."
Blair nods a little, but says, "Me too, I'd…" She trails off before admitting, "I want you to forgive me."
Nate's forgiveness is easily won. One look at her heartbroken and his defenses were already melted; he's not great at grudges. "Already have."
She looks up at him with sharp eyes still teary, assessing him for potential tricks. Apparently she doesn't find anything suspicious. "Okay," she says. "That's a start."
Blair invites him to breakfast on the steps – him and Dan and Serena.
Nate gets there first, finding Blair without her pastel mafia for once, just sitting alone in thick knit tights and a hat that covers her ears. Her nose is pink from cold and she is already annoyed at the weather, but privately Nate has always liked her best in the winter. She was always nudging close to him for warmth.
Dan and Serena arrive a few minutes later, holding hands as though that is totally normal. Nate must make a face, because Dan laughs and runs a hand over the nape of Nate's neck, which is unfairly placating.
Serena gingerly takes a seat one step below Blair and after a second, Blair shifts down next to her. "I got you tea," Serena says softly, and Blair takes it. Nate breathes a little sigh of relief.
It's awkward and cold for the first few minutes until Dan and Blair somehow start arguing about George Cukor and Serena rolls her eyes at Nate before effectively shifting the conversation to the upcoming Spring Formal, which starts Blair on a fresh round of weather complaints as Dan's hand settles on Nate's lower back under his coat. Nate doesn't offer much, instead letting the three of them talk over each other; Nate just breathes and breathes and feels –
He feels so much, so fully and completely, that if he opened his mouth he'd be embarrassingly sentimental. So he doesn't. He just listens, and feels too much, too good, for speaking.
epilogue
Nate, Dan, Blair, Serena, Jenny. Also Chuck.
s1 AU; Nate left town instead of Serena.
PG13. 5665 words.
Summary: Nate always knew he was a disappointment but it's another thing to have it confirmed.
Note: So, it's finally done! I started this fic in 2012, which is insane, but I am happy I kept with it and completed it. One WIP down!
"So it's true?"
Nate pushes uneaten breakfast around his plate. Squashes a blueberry with his fork. Ignores his mother.
"Nate," Anne says tightly, eyebrow lifting as she frowns. Or tries to; she has no visible lines on her face. Her hand is wrapped around her glass of water the same way she holds glasses of wine. "Is it true?"
He sighs. "The evidence was pretty damning, wasn't it?"
She is understandably not amused. "You've become quite the source of gossip since your return, Nathaniel."
He lifts his gaze to meet hers. "We were a source of gossip before that."
Frustrated, she says, "You certainly don't need to add to it. And especially with this – this ridiculous stunt. I suppose this is how you're choosing to rebel?"
Nate frowns at her. "No."
"You should be glad your father is busy recuperating," Anne says. "Otherwise I'd have to inform him, and we both know how he'd feel about this."
Nate stares at her stonily, his frown deepening. "Maybe that's the problem."
"Excuse me?"
"Maybe you and Dad are the real problem here," Nate says. "Not whoever I'm dating." He swallows hard once the words are out of his mouth, but he doesn't take them back, even though he and Dan haven't spoken in the days since the ball. He pushes his chair back. "His name is Dan, by the way, thanks for asking."
He throws his napkin down and leaves.
"So," Serena says. She sticks a Starbucks cup in Nate's hand – salted caramel mocha, because she knows him well. "Is Anne losing it or what?"
Nate snorts. "What do you think?"
They're sitting on Nate's stoop, because at this point who gives a fuck anymore. Serena is a little hungover, wearing big sunglasses and a floppy hat, but she seems to be in slightly better spirits than the last few weeks. "Thanks for stealing the spotlight, by the way. Dad in rehab, slept with the girlfriend's best friend, and gay – there's no room for anyone to talk about me."
"Don't forget the pending trial and jail time," Nate reminds her. "Also, not gay."
"Dan-curious," Serena amends. Then, "Have you talked to him?" When Nate shakes his head, she gives him a look over her sunglasses. "Nate."
"It feels weird, I don't –" He shrugs helplessly. "I don't know what to say. 'Sorry my drama got you outed not once, but twice; wanna make out?'"
She considers it. "That would probably work."
He tries to summon a twinge of amusement but doesn't manage it. "Everything just really sucks," he says, and though he wants it to come out light, the truth bleeds out in his voice. Everything does suck, and it's been like that way, way too long.
"Yeah," Serena sighs. "Preaching to the choir, buddy." She looks down at her own cup, tracing her name on the side with a deep red nail. "I don't know what to do without Blair. She's never been this mad at me, ever. I think… I think –"
"You'll make up," Nate says firmly. Even with everything that's going on, he refuses to accept a world where that is not a possibility. "It's my fault. Blair should be mad at me."
Serena gives him a sad, sympathetic look. "It's not all your fault, Nate. I was there too."
"I left," he murmurs. Sometimes he thinks he never should have come back; sometimes he thinks he never should've left. "I lied."
"We both lied," Serena says. "And, yeah, if it were up to me, it would've gone to the grave. But it didn't, so we just have to…" She struggles to define what exactly they have to do, and shrugs before finishing simply, "Deal."
When he doesn't respond, staring pensively down at the cracks in the sidewalk, Serena gives him a nudge. "Call your boyfriend," she says.
"He's not my boyfriend," Nate says absently. What had Dan called them? "He's my friend. With kissing." He slides her a sideways look. "You're being really cool about all of this, you know."
Serena shrugs, pushing her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose a little. "I am cool."
And that's what makes him smile. "Not if you say you are. S'gotta be an unspoken thing."
"You don't get how it works," she says airily, "Since you're not as cool as me."
"That's true," Nate allows, and laughs softly. Serena echoes it, her own laugh a little higher and brighter. Everything sucks a little bit less, right then.
If on Friday Nate had left school amid pats on the back, Monday finds them more like shoves.
Metaphorically speaking, of course – none of the kids at St. Jude's are so openly aggressive. They operate in a different way, full of well-mannered rudeness, polite but snide. Sneers replace grins. Nasty names are disguised in coughs. Nate gets tripped moving between desks in class. It's a lot of dumb, petty bullshit and Nate has no interest in any of it.
What's worse is that everyone seems to find it perfectly okay to question him about things that are none of their business. Over the course of the day, Nate is asked if this is why he never slept with Blair; if he even slept with Serena at all; if he liked sleeping with Serena; if he's gay; has he slept with Dan? It goes on and on, and Nate maintains a sullen silence as he waits for the three o'clock bell. It seems about a million years away.
He and Dan don't have a ton of classes in common. Dan's in all the honor and AP ones, they take different languages, plus their gym and lunch periods just happened to not sync up. They have math together (Dan's not great at math) and history (Nate doesn't suck at history), but in math Dan takes the seat closest to the door and is gone as soon as class ends.
Nate spends every not-Dan class itching to see him but at the same time, once they're in the same room together, Nate can feel everyone's eyes on him. As soon as he gets within ten feet of Dan, it's like everyone holds their collective breath and waits – and honestly, Nate doesn't want to give them the satisfaction.
Jenny catches up with him in the five minutes between third and fourth period. "I didn't want to have to destroy you," she says breezily, "but Dan is really upset."
Frustrated, Nate can only offer, "I know, Jenny. I'm working on it, okay?"
"Not really." They stop outside her classroom and Jenny hooks fingers around her bookbag straps, staring up at him. "I just don't see the point of breaking up with him now that everyone knows. I mean, isn't that the hardest part?"
Nate blinks, ignoring the question to say, "We didn't break up." Even as he says it, he notices some of the girls in Jenny's class listening, probably filing that away to send in as a tip later.
"That's not how it seems on my end. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." She pokes his chest hard with one finger. Really hard. "This time."
As Nate turns to head back towards the boys' wing, he comes face to face with Blair. Two girls flank her on either side, like a very imposing pastel girl gang, but she sends them off with a flick of the wrist. She has a mean smile on her face. He hates how familiar he's become with it.
"Learning what it's like to be whispered about?" she asks.
Nate raises an eyebrow. "My dad is a drug addict," he reminds her. "I already know."
There is a near-imperceptible faltering in Blair's expression, and he can only tell because he knows her so well.
"Blair," he sighs. "I've really – I've got enough to deal with. More than enough. My family, and you and –" He just wanted one stupid thing that was just his, and apparently he might not even have that anymore. He doesn't want his worry to show in his face. He hopes it doesn't. "So. Are there any other secrets of mine you want to expose to everyone?"
Blair studies him. "I don't know," she says finally. "What else do you have?"
He exhales a huff of breath and moves past her, effectively ending the conversation. "Fresh out."
Nate really needs a fucking vacation.
The class he has next is history. Dan takes the seat by the door again and keeps his eyes downcast the whole forty-five minutes. Once again, he's out the door as soon as the bell rings – but this time Nate had been ready for that. He's able to catch up with Dan halfway down the corridor.
He touches Dan's sleeve lightly, and Dan turns round looking like he's off to the executioner. "I don't want to have this conversation in the hallway," he says, sounding resigned.
Nate frowns. "Me either." And just in case Dan tries to blow him off, he adds, "But I don't want to wait for the end of the day."
"Alright." Dan sighs and glances around, chafing under the weight of everyone looking and waiting. "I'll text you. I have lunch after this period, we can do it then."
Nate doesn't care what class he has. He'll skip it. "Okay. Good."
He sits impatiently through English before finally starting towards Dan's determined meeting place: the third floor boys' bathroom, the one hardly anyone uses that's tucked away in the corner behind the art rooms. Dan is already there, over by the frosted window, looking pale and chilled in the tempered light. Nate shuts the door and then leans back against it.
"So…" Nate says. "Has this day been as shitty for you as it has for me?" He remembers that Dan wasn't exactly high on the social ladder before all this. "Or…shittier?"
Dan shrugs. "A few assholes called me Mrs. Archibald," he says. "Frankly, I've been called worse."
Nate ducks his head, embarrassed that he's managed to put Dan through all this. Dan was drama-free before Nate came into his life. "I'm sorry."
Dan gives him a curious look. "It isn't your fault." He runs a hand through his hair, clearly anxious. "Look. I know I shouldn't have – shouldn't've done this the way I did, kissing you like that where anyone could see, so that's – that's on me, and I'm sorry, I – I just really like you, I like you a lot, and if you don't want to – to do this anymore, that's fine, I know it isn't necessarily what you want, I meant – I doubt you wanted anyone to know, especially your family or whatever, and I don't know if you really… If it's really Serena, or even Blair, for you, so I get it, if this is too much, but I don't… It would be really hard for me to still be friends because I like you too much – maybe in the future, I don't know. The point is, I'm sorry and I didn't want it to get out like it did, so I get that it's probably over between us, and we just have to let it be over so I can go on being miserable in peace." He takes a breath. Nate raises an eyebrow. "Okay?"
Nate doesn't know when the babbling tipped over from crazy to endearing, or if he ever found it anything but endearing in the first place. Nate watches the way Dan's lips purse as he rubs a hand over his temples, the very picture of angst, and decides that if he doesn't kiss Dan right now, he's the idiot everyone always says he is.
"I don't care that everyone saw," Dan says quietly. "Maybe that makes me a bad guy, but I don't."
It's a matter of fact, Dan's achingly casual shrug of the shoulder.
"Would you come over here?" Nate says. "How are we supposed to kiss if you're on the other side of the room?"
Dan frowns, confused. "But –"
"I want to be with you too," Nate says and his joking drains away as his heart rate picks up. It's true, but it's a scary thing to say, scary to feel. "Plus I told my mom. So. It better still be something, because she's gonna be a real pain in the ass about it."
Dan straightens. "You told your mom?"
"She did see the footage," Nate points out, but despite the fact that his hands were tied, it doesn't change how he feels. "But yeah. She knows that we're – that we're dating."
"Dating," Dan repeats, and smiles just a little. The knot of tension slides from Nate's shoulders.
"What're you still doing all the way over there?" Nate asks, fighting his own smile.
It's funny how sometimes the bullshit just ceases to matter. Like right now: Dan coming towards him with warmth in his eyes, insecurity transmuted to confidence. He braces his hand on the door beside Nate's head and kisses him, leaning in and leaning in until they're pressed together. And Nate just doesn't care about anything else.
That doesn't make school any easier, though.
The upside is that things aren't so lonely, now – he has Dan and Serena and even Jenny most of the time, when she isn't playing double agent. So when some jerk makes a stupid comment, at least Nate has someone to roll his eyes at. And that is surprisingly nice.
Serena is exceptionally defensive, though, and this seems to split the girls' junior class in two: half of them on Blair's side and the other half unable to resist the siren call of Serena's trendsetting. It's very whatever to Nate; he appreciates everything Serena's doing, or trying to do, but he's also seriously attempting to not put so much weight in what other people might be saying.
So much so that one Thursday morning he kisses Dan right in the courtyard. Everyone seems too startled to say much about it. Dan's grin afterward makes it worth it either way.
Blair is still angry with him but Nate honestly doesn't know what to feel about that anymore. He's angry with her too, and sick of shuffling around for forgiveness when she makes him pay so hard for it every time.
She keeps pulling stupid little stunts too, like the spoonful of yogurt dropped onto Nate's head on his way into school, amid laughter from the other students. It could've been any girl among Blair's lined-up minions: they all greet his irritated expression with sugar-sweet smiles. Nate huffs a sigh of annoyance even as he notices that Blair is not smirking like usual. She's frowning. And she's not frowning at him, but at the line of girls.
She meets him at the top of the steps. "Hazel got overzealous," she says dismissively. "You know I always have a full line of hair care in my locker; I can get her to help you if you –"
Disbelieving, Nate raises his eyebrows. "That last thing I need is help from you."
Dan ends up washing the yogurt out of Nate's hair in the bathroom sink – third floor corner, their usual rendezvous spot. "What a shame," Dan says, "Those carefully-arranged bangs, that restrained use of product – all for naught."
Nate flicks water droplets at him. "Shut up."
Things are worse at home. It appears Anne is flat-out not speaking to him, though she apparently has complained to his father in vague terms about his behavior, because his dad actually asks them to come to the Center for the very first time since Nate's been back.
Nate only assumes she hasn't told his dad about the whole Dan thing because she's pretending it never happened.
She doesn't speak to him all the way to Brooklyn.
"Tell me how it went with Blair," his dad says with a kind of forceful enthusiasm that none of them feel. "Flowers work?"
"You're assuming Nate made any effort at all with Blair," Anne sniffs. "He did not."
"Because I'm not dating Blair," Nate says sullenly. "I don't want to be dating Blair. She hurt me too, you kn–"
"I know your life feels like a mess right now," the Captain interrupts. "But that's all the more reason to stick to what you know. It'll make you stable."
"That's why we plan," Anne adds.
The plan: Dartmouth, law school, Blair. It might as well be tattooed on the inside of Nate's brain. No matter what he does or what he says, that's all they ever seem to hear. Dartmouth. Law school. Blair.
"Your father and I didn't work this hard so you could just throw it all away," Anne says. Recites, more like. "Our family has an image to uphold, Nate. You have to do your part."
"Why?" Nate mumbles. He shifts in his seat, looks away. "Neither of you do yours."
"Now, Nate –" Anne begins to scold, but the Captain holds up a hand.
"Your mother is right, son," he says. "Just because you don't want to hear it –"
"I do hear it," Nate says sharply. "I know everyone thinks I'm stupid, but I got the message, okay? You've been telling me the same thing since I was five. I get that I'm this big disappointment but that's just – the son you want is not who I am. I'm not going to Dartmouth, I'm not going to Yale, I'm not going to be a lawyer or a senator and I'm not going to marry Blair."
"You're a teenager," his dad says in this put-upon patronizing way. "You don't know what you want."
"And," Nate continues unabated, ignoring that, "I'm seeing someone."
His mother's eyes widen and she shakes her head minutely, but Nate is past caring.
"His name is Dan." Nate ignores his dad's stare too, just keeps on talking. "He's really smart," because that's important, "And funny. And nice. He's a good guy. Really good. He cares about me a lot, he's good for me – good to me –"
"That's enough," Anne says, icy. "Nathaniel, please go wait outside. Your father and I have to talk."
"No," Nate says bluntly. "This is not a mistake I made that you have to spin so you look better. I'm not the problem here."
"Nate," his dad says tensely, not looking at him, "Go."
Nate hadn't been so thick as to think his parents wouldn't care but he's still caught off guard by how much that hurts. "No." Somehow his voice is steady. "If you think I'm disgusting you can tell me to my face."
His father, thankfully, does not tell him this. But he does say, "Our family doesn't need this. Especially not now."
We're like this because of what you did, Nate thinks. "He came here with me once. Dan. When Mom wouldn't, and she didn't want me to either. He waited outside for me. It was Thanksgiving."
He watches his dad place that visit, wondering if maybe he'd seen the dark-haired kid loitering in the hallway.
There is a long, thick silence before the Captain sighs. "I don't know what you want me to say."
That it's okay. That he loves Nate anyway. That he loves Nate sans qualifier. But apparently that's just too much trouble.
"Forget it," Nate mutters, even though that's the last thing he wants. "I'll go." He grabs his coat, waiting for one of them to stop him at the door. Neither of them do. "I probably won't see you at home later."
He makes the short walk to Dan's instead, ends up staying the night on the couch. He doesn't talk about it, though Dan clearly wants to, and ignores his mother's calls.
He always knew he was a disappointment but it's another thing to have it confirmed.
On Saturday Nate takes his customary run through the park and then settles into a walk, preparing to go sit on a bench with his iPod and a slim paperback book – a starter book, Dan had said, with ominous overtones that it would lead to much, much more. But before he can take a seat or turn a page, Chuck falls into step with him.
"Things always have a way of working out for you, don't they, Nathaniel," he says, and brings a joint to his lips.
Nate hasn't bothered confronting Chuck about the blast at cotillion that started the mess he's in now; he saw no reason to. He knew Chuck did it. He knew why Chuck did it. Confrontation would have brought no satisfaction, seeing as Chuck didn't respond well to it, always ready with a quip or an infuriating laugh. It would have been like fighting with a wall. A really smarmy wall.
Chuck has been Nate's friend for more than half his life, but that's over now and Nate is finding it hard to mourn the change. He guesses he's getting used to endings.
Merely being done with Chuck didn't mean Chuck was done with you, though.
"I don't know," Nate says finally. "Making the best of a bad situation isn't the same thing as something working out."
Chuck snorts. "How zen."
Nate shrugs, uninterested. "Why are you here, Chuck?"
"Can't a friend check in with another friend after a drastic change in said friend's personal affairs?"
"We aren't friends," Nate says baldly. "And I think you giving me shit for dating a guy would be kind of hypocritical."
"Aren't you curious," Chuck says, "How Blair knew?"
It's on the tip of Nate's tongue to say she must've seen but he realizes right then, from the look on Chuck's face and that goading note to his voice, that he was the one to take the video of Nate and Dan kissing. It was him. Of course it was him.
Chuck doesn't handle confrontation well, which is why he likes all the secretive backstabbing their set gets into. His problem is that he always wants credit for what he's done. He wants a pat on the back for being so sneaky and clever.
"So, what," Nate says, attempting to keep his voice very even. "You just follow me around waiting for me to do something you can report back to Blair?"
Chuck gives him one of those slow, curling smiles. "No, I just have excellent timing." He continues to press, "You know, she didn't even care what it was. I said I had something that could ruin you and she didn't even ask, just told me to send it in. Isn't it funny how things go sour? If you'd just pity-fucked her a year ago you probably could've avoided all –"
Nate may not be proud of it ten minutes from now, but he punches Chuck right in the jaw.
Despite the Humphreys' insistence that Nate is not in the way, after a week of squeezing five people into the loft, he feels distinctly like he doesn't fit. So he decides to go home.
"I'll miss you sneaking in after everyone's asleep," Dan teases gently, pressing a kiss to Nate's temple.
"I'll miss the waffles," Nate jokes back. Dan shoves him.
Nate thinks the house is empty when he first steps inside. It's cool and quiet, and the tastefully decorated Christmas tree is still standing by the front windows. He doesn't even hear Louisa, the maid, bustling around in the kitchen. He sighs and goes up to his room, but as he passes his mother's, he hears a quiet noise. And then another. It's a soft, miserable sound and he stands there for almost a full minute before he realizes his mother is crying.
Nate has never seen her cry. He could only count on one hand the number of times she's laughed, or smiled. Crying seems out of the realm of possibility.
He knocks gently. "Mom?"
The sound abruptly ceases, and he hears her get up, move around. The door opens and she looks the same as ever – not puffy, not upset, no tears in sight – except for the telltale redness of her eyes. "You're home."
"Yeah." He looks down. His instinct is to apologize, but he reminds himself he has nothing to apologize for.
"Where were you?"
"With Dan," Nate says. "His family's really nice."
Anne frowns. "And highly permissive, apparently."
He doesn't take the bait. "Are you okay?"
She averts her own gaze, and it strikes Nate that she looks kind of frail lately, stretched too thin in a myriad of ways. "Of course." Then it begins. "You know, Nathaniel, I was very worried about you – not even leaving a message, not answering your phone for days. I even went on that horrid website you and your friends use, but there wasn't anything except that video again. It was incredibly rude and thoughtless of you, especially after that scene at your father's –"
"Mom," he interrupts. "You could have stopped at 'I was worried.' You gotta – you gotta trust me a little bit."
"How was I to know you hadn't gone to your grandparents' again without a word?" she demands, breathless, staring at him hard with those reddened eyes.
He can't help faint confusion. "Would you have cared if I had?"
"What do you think it was like for me, waking up to find my son was gone?" Anne says. "Getting a call from my father that he was taking over, as he put it? And then nearly losing my husband months later?"
It seems stupid, but Nate had honestly never thought his mother cared enough to be upset that he was gone. For as long as he could remember, he had been an inconvenience to her: the boy who could never do anything right. But to look at her now, angry and uncharacteristically emotional, he is reminded of the fierce, fierce way Blair cares about people without ever wanting them to know.
"I'm sorry." Nate tries to inject as much genuine remorse into that as he feels. "I know I never said that to you. And I am really sorry. I just didn't know what else to do."
She seems at least a little taken aback. "You could have come to me first."
"Mom, don't take this the wrong way," he says, keeping his voice even, "but most of the time, you really don't want to hear it."
Anne looks away, and then brings a hand up to wipe away a stray tear that had begun to slide down her cheek. "Then I apologize as well."
"Okay," Nate says, and puts his arms around her. After a moment she lets him.
Winter break had been a welcome respite from everything, but come chilly January it's back to business.
Anne Archibald certainly hasn’t done a 360 or anything, but she's trying and Nate can be patient as long as he knows she's trying. He asks if she wants to meet Dan; she does not. But she orders some catalogues from lesser Ivys: Amherst, Trinity, Wesleyan. It's a gesture.
"Do you think it bothers her more that I'm a boy or that I'm middle class?" Dan jokes. Nate could honestly say it's a toss-up.
Blair is at his locker first thing on the first day back to school. "You punched Chuck," she says.
Nate busies himself putting textbooks away, realizes he forgot his math book. "It's not the first time someone hit him," he says. "Probably not the last, either."
She doesn't seem to care about that, shifting on her heels with a kind of impatience. "He said you were defending my honor, or something."
"What does Chuck know about honor?" He turns away. "I gotta get to class."
Nate is uncertain as to the cause of it, but he's noticed a change in Blair towards him: not so much of a softening as a lack of active rage. Which is big, for her. He hasn't done a thing to prompt it – in fact, he's been leaving her entirely alone, treating her like a stranger. He hasn't heard anything from Serena, but Serena isn't talking to Blair much either lately.
Blair is waiting in his living room when he gets home from school, a few minutes late because he insists on seeing Dan to the train every day. Dan doesn't need him to, obviously, but it's a holdover from days when he had to act the gentleman. Dan seems to find it funny.
Anne must've been thrilled to have Blair appear on her doorstep.
Blair stands awkwardly when he enters the room, her tomato red blazer standing out against all the dark wood and ambient lighting of the study. She looks tentative.
"Hope you don't have another yogurt to lob at me," he says.
"That wasn't me," Blair says with a touch of impatience. "And – and the blast, at the Ball, that wasn't me either."
"I know," Nate says. "Chuck said."
"I didn't ask what it was. I was so mad at you, I didn't care." She takes a breath. "I didn't know."
"If you had, would that have stopped you?"
Blair gives a jerky little shrug, but they both know the answer: no. Her gaze drops and he follows it, noticing for the first time the white envelope in her hands.
"What's that?"
"I wrote it to you when you were at your grandparents'," she says, and her fingers trace the edge of it, feeling its shape. "I never sent it."
Nate's throat works with a sudden rush of renewed guilt.
Carefully, Blair plucks the folded sheet of paper from inside the envelope – even with the distance between them, he can see his name and his grandparents' address neatly written on it, a letter that was never stamped – and opens it to read.
"Dear Nate," she says, and takes another breath like she really needs it. "My world is falling apart. My father left my mother for a thirty-one year old model. A male model. He's gone. And you're gone too." It's too easy to picture Blair, who never admits defeat and would rather die than concede hurt, sitting at her desk and writing out every single thing that's killing her. "I can't even talk to Serena, because she's always out or always drunk, and I can't take care of her by – by myself. Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? Why didn't you call? I love you, don't –" Her voice thins out like it could crack at any minute and her lashes are wet. "Don't you love me? I miss you so much. Love, Blair."
"You should have sent it," Nate says immediately, forcefully, his own voice thick. "I would've –"
"You would have what, Nate? You knew. You knew and you didn't even call." It's the tone of voice she used to reserve for telling him he got the wrong flowers, or forgetting she was off dairy that week. Except it's not like that at all, because he can hear how close she is to crying.
"I didn't know how to – what to say," he says, "to you, I –" He swallows. "I didn't want to hurt you, except I already had, and I didn't know how to look you in the eye and lie about it."
"I don't know if I would have told Chuck to do it anyway, if I knew," Blair says quietly. "After my dad, I wouldn't… I don't think I would."
He wonders if that has something to do with her sudden amends. Or maybe she did just miss him (so much), like he missed her; it was easy to forget with Blair that the impenetrable shield of her anger hid something very delicate. He spent so long trying not to look at that vulnerable, breakable part of her because it made him so uncomfortable. He didn't know how to handle it, and at the same time he knew one clumsy bad word from him could shatter it. But he'd done a lot worse than say the wrong thing by accident.
"I deserve it," he says seriously. "If you never forgave me, I'd understand."
Blair nods a little, but says, "Me too, I'd…" She trails off before admitting, "I want you to forgive me."
Nate's forgiveness is easily won. One look at her heartbroken and his defenses were already melted; he's not great at grudges. "Already have."
She looks up at him with sharp eyes still teary, assessing him for potential tricks. Apparently she doesn't find anything suspicious. "Okay," she says. "That's a start."
Blair invites him to breakfast on the steps – him and Dan and Serena.
Nate gets there first, finding Blair without her pastel mafia for once, just sitting alone in thick knit tights and a hat that covers her ears. Her nose is pink from cold and she is already annoyed at the weather, but privately Nate has always liked her best in the winter. She was always nudging close to him for warmth.
Dan and Serena arrive a few minutes later, holding hands as though that is totally normal. Nate must make a face, because Dan laughs and runs a hand over the nape of Nate's neck, which is unfairly placating.
Serena gingerly takes a seat one step below Blair and after a second, Blair shifts down next to her. "I got you tea," Serena says softly, and Blair takes it. Nate breathes a little sigh of relief.
It's awkward and cold for the first few minutes until Dan and Blair somehow start arguing about George Cukor and Serena rolls her eyes at Nate before effectively shifting the conversation to the upcoming Spring Formal, which starts Blair on a fresh round of weather complaints as Dan's hand settles on Nate's lower back under his coat. Nate doesn't offer much, instead letting the three of them talk over each other; Nate just breathes and breathes and feels –
He feels so much, so fully and completely, that if he opened his mouth he'd be embarrassingly sentimental. So he doesn't. He just listens, and feels too much, too good, for speaking.
epilogue