as the hours and the days and the weeks
gossip girl. 4045 words. 1940s au.
dan, nate, serena, blair. mostly gen with some romantic vibes.
w: general wartime sad stuff, character death, suicidal ideation.
summary:They meet in the trenches.
note: For![]()
lookinglassgirl! I know this is nothing you asked for, but once I had the idea I couldn't quite let it go, so I hope you like it! Tried to do as much research as I could in a few days but I'm sure there are still inaccuracies, haha. This idea ended up more ambitious than I realized. Thanks @ ![]()
sing_song_sung; a couple of lines of this originally came from a joint fic that didn't quite pan out.
![]()
They meet in the trenches – so to speak. They meet in the field, they meet on the front lines, they meet in the war, they meet when Dan is lower in spirits than he ever knew he could be. He has his gun in his hands and dirt on his face and he has killed people, other people, men, he's killed them. He's supposed to be in school. He had been studying literature with an eye towards becoming a novelist.
"I might kill myself after this," Dan says, with no feeling in it. "I should."
It's an unformed decision he's come to, not exactly premeditated or planned, but certain in its own way. He will probably die, and he doesn't quite mind that now because if he doesn't he'll have to do it himself.
He doesn't know Nate's name yet, but these are the grounding details of the moment Dan will always remember: Nate's blue eyes sharp in a dirt-spattered face, everything around them green and brown, trees and uniforms and dirt, even the sky a muddy grey. Sometimes an explosion of red. But Nate's eyes are very blue and he looks at Dan like he knows him already.
"You can't think like that," Nate says. "Not here. You just can't."
Dan is grateful, but all the same he never really shakes it.
He learns a lot about Nate after that.
Nate is from New York City too but unlike Dan he's a Manhattan prep school boy, though he's got no attitude, no arrogance. He shows a lot of interest in Brooklyn, but Dan doesn't like to talk about it out here. If he thinks about home while he's here, it becomes a part of this.
Nate doesn't seem to mind Dan's lack of sharing. He does enough talking on his own. He tells Dan about his best friends in the world, Serena and Blair, and it takes weeks before Dan figures out which one is Nate's girl. He keeps letters from both of them tucked in the pocket above his heart at all times. Nate shows him a picture once of the both of them, pretty girls shielding their eyes from the sun on some beach somewhere in happier times. Nate taps a finger on the brunette's face. "We're engaged," he says. "Right before I left. I'm gonna marry her as soon as I get back."
From Nate's stories, Dan would have guessed he was seeing the blonde.
They get shipped back to England ("Lucky dogs," Nate says) where leave has given them enough time to maybe get drunk, maybe forget for a few hours. The first surprise of the evening is an appearance by Nate's girls, who Dan had been picturing like they were on that beach, far away on home soil, waiting.
"See, Blair had been going to school in Paris, living with her father," Nate says, "Until – well, you know. Serena was tagging along. Now they're waiting here until they can get back stateside, but lucky for us we can see them before they go."
"Do you think luck runs out?" Dan wonders, but Nate tells him to quit being such a pessimist.
In person Serena is even brighter than she is on film, more beautiful and vibrant than anyone or anything Dan has seen in a long time, USO girls included. Blair is more sedate in her smart gray suit with her hair tucked back and her lips a perfectly red bow; Dan's mother would call her sophisticated. Blair has a rock on her finger big enough to sink the Titanic.
Dan is somewhat ill at ease back in a civilized world full of neat sidewalks and girls in heels and lipstick. It feels impossibly foreign to him after all that time spent in dirt, tents, marching. He keeps his focus on Nate because that's what helps him when they're out there.
He can feel himself staying too quiet during dinner and drinks, but Blair is too quiet too. Nate tells sanitized stories like they might tell in a radio drama, all heroism and no bloodshed. "You should have seen it," Nate is saying. "I was about to be shot– there was a German soldier in the woods we were marching through and I didn't even see him, but Dan did. He saved my life!"
"That's an exaggeration," Dan interjects. He notices Serena's gaze shift towards him for the first time, studying him a little more closely.
"He's modest," Nate says. "I'd be dead without him."
"Anyone would have done the same," Dan says.
"But anyone didn't," Serena points out. "Sounds perfectly heroic to me."
Blair leans in to Nate's side, slipping her hand into his. "You sound perfectly heroic to me."
"You ought to try to be more impressed with Dan, he's the crack shot," Nate jokes.
"Of course," Blair says, gaze flicking towards Dan. "What was your family name again? Or don't you have one?" Dan tells her, and just like that finds himself entirely dismissed. "I don't know any Humphreys."
"We're not exactly society," he says, but her full attention has returned to Nate.
"I can't wait until this whole thing is over," she says, arm twining through Nate's like a vine.
Dan says, sarcastic and mean, "Why, can't get good nylons in wartime?"
She looks at him again, red lip curling. "That's rude."
Dan looks right back at her. "You started it."
Serena laughs, a little delighted, and that makes Nate laugh. The moment passes, but Dan feels like he does when a gun goes off a long ways away, his heart racing.
"I'm sorry I neglected introductions before," Serena says when they're all saying goodbye. She and Dan are standing a few feet away to give Nate and Blair their privacy.
"It's fine," Dan says. "I caught your name alright."
"You must think she and I are the worst kind of snobs."
It makes Dan smile, a rare sensation. "Not you."
"You'll have to cut her a break. Blair doesn't do too well with newcomers," Serena says. "She's protective. And scared, but she doesn't like to show it. We're leaving in a few days and she's terrified the ship's going to be blown up or something."
Dan looks over towards Blair with a tentative thread of sympathy. "Aren't you afraid?"
"Of different things," Serena says with a vague little smile. She really is something, her golden hair curling over one shoulder and a jaunty flower pinned above one ear; the kind of girl a man lives through a war for.
"Don't think I'm too forward," Dan says. "But would you mind if I wrote you sometime?"
Her smile widens. "I like forward."
December 17 1943
Serena –
This might be worse than forward, but the promise of your letters is one of the few things that gets me through the day. Your last letter gave me my first real laugh in a long time. I don't think you talk of too many frivolous things. In fact I like it. You remind me the world's still going on, and not in the way my family does, which only makes me feel guilty. I appreciate your offer to go see them, though. I think my sister will like that a lot.
I'm sorry I made such a bad impression on your friend that you didn't hear the end of it. I hope to see you again, and when I do I'll be on my best behavior.
I hope you have a good Christmas and a good New Year's,
Dan
"Blair's like that, I guess," Nate says. The night is quiet and cold; they shiver while they walk. "Army ought to pick her up for interrogations. She'd crack the toughest Nazi in a second."
"I always found girls like that intimidating," Dan admits. "Rich girls."
"I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Blair's one of a kind; picked me out when we were six years old and that was the end of my say in it." Nate laughs.
Dan wonders about that. "Maybe you're right. I suppose I don't have much experience with it. Serena's changing my mind."
Nate seems surprised. "Serena?"
"She writes to me," Dan says.
Nate is at a loss momentarily. "She never said."
"Not much to say. Not yet, anyway."
Nate nods and smiles a little, but the uncertainty does not leave his expression.
April 15 1944
Hello Dan!
You and Blair might agree on more than you'd think. You tell me I help just by being myself, and Blair's got it in her head that the best way to support the war effort is in entertainment, only she won't go out to Hollywood because she's too afraid of getting a tan, I guess. Right now she's got a line in radio, voicing commercials and looking for dramas. So much for the education, right?
I keep thinking I ought to do more than what I'm doing. I don't like the idea of sitting around while so many people work, and you and Nate out there in the thick of it. My mother won't hear of my working, so maybe the best I can do really is just cheering up soldiers with my bad penmanship.
Please tell Nate to write more so Blair stops complaining to me about it.
S
The letters Dan gets from home make him feel worse instead of better – his mother talks of keeping his room for him just how he left it and his dad writes about Dan picking up his schooling right where he left off. Dan knows they're trying to keep him going but it just feels like they're blotting out the here and now, as though his time in Europe is a deviation and he will be able to slide seamlessly back into his life should he ever return to it. Dan knows that is not the case.
Dan thinks of picking supplies off dead men. He thinks of talking to another soldier whose name he hadn't even learned, being right in the middle of a word when a sniper catches the other guy in the throat and that's the end. Dan thinks about being eye to eye with a German just around his age and not hesitating to kill him.
Serena says she wants to know these things, that she doesn't care about ugliness, but Dan doesn't write them down, and it's not just out of fear of censorship. As a teenager he had been obsessed with the idea of preserving himself and his ideas but now he simply doesn't care. Maybe one day it will all be written down. Maybe one day Dan will be dead.
It happens very fast.
Dan is already at the hospital before he comes back to himself, and even then it's not – he's not ¬–
His arm is strapped down because the bullet hit him in the shoulder. They dug it out and stitched him up but they don't know the extent of the damage yet. He's got a concussion but worse than that (apparently) are the words that make the doctors and nurses exchange shifty eyes. Shellshock is what they used to call it. Combat fatigue is what they call it now.
"We'll fix you up, son," the doctor says, but his eyes are already straying towards the other beds, beds upon beds of men suffering as badly or worse than Dan is suffering. There are too many people. There are not enough people.
Dan keeps looking at his hand, the one not wrapped up, because he thinks they didn't clean the blood out from under his nails enough. He can still see it. "I need to write a letter," he tells the nurse, resolutely, over and over until she gets him some paper.
He was lucky he was shot in the right shoulder. He can still write.
June 7 1944
Dear Ms. Waldorf (I figured you wouldn't appreciate it if I were too familiar),
I'm sure you're surprised to hear from me, but I felt this news would be best delivered from someone you knew and not just a formal letter without any feeling in it. Nate was killed four days ago (though I'm not entirely sure how long it will be until this letter reaches you). He has been buried; I'm sure the official letter will award you more particulars. I will refrain from tormenting you with gruesome details, but suffice it to say he did not suffer much. I did what I could to put him at ease. He was not cognizant of much at the end, and I cannot offer you the comfort of last words.
It had been my wish to return him home to you and to his parents; apparently my vehemence on this issue resulted in something of a fit, because I am writing to you now from a hospital, where I am to recover (and recover quickly, they hope) from afflictions both seen and unseen. I am having trouble remembering time between these events. I know my state of health is of little concern to you, but I would appreciate it if you could hand this letter over to Serena when you are done reading it, because I am not sure I could relay these facts twice, for my own sanity.
With sincerest regards and condolences,
you have no idea how much,
Dan Humphrey
After he proves himself unable to be recuperated, Dan is discharged from the United States Army. The official reason is something like psychoneurotic disorder or personality defects, because the shoulder ended up not being too bad, though they guessed it might ache for the rest of his life. The real reason is that Dan's cracked up, he can't handle it, he is a bad soldier and no longer useful even as a body holding a gun. He couldn't go back to the front lines and he was taking up space in the hospital all those many weeks. By the time he's back in New York it is much too late to attend Nate's funeral.
He spends time in the hospital there too. When all's said and done Nate has been dead for over three months.
"We sent flowers," Jenny tells him hesitantly. He is back at home, sitting on the edge of his bed. He never thought he would be here again.
"That was nice," he says.
"We didn't think it would be right to go, but his – your friend Serena came by a few times. She was really nice."
"That's good," Dan says. "I'm glad."
Jenny shifts her weight, hands twisting until she puts them behind her back, fingers locked. "Are you alright? Do you need anything?"
"No," Dan says, without specifying, and gives her a wan smile.
September 15 1944
Dan –
I really regret not being home to greet you; I was really looking forward to seeing you again on familiar soil. I don't want you to feel bad about this. You served your country, Dan. You've done your duty. Plenty of men get sent home hurt.
I don't know if you'd have heard by now, but I'm going to try and do something about that – I've joined up with the Women's Arm Corps. Blair thinks I'm nuts reckless but you know I couldn't stand sitting by, and with Nate gone it's even worse. If I could do something – just my own small part – then shouldn't I?
I'll see you when I see you. Don't stop writing me & know that I love you lots. Don't be afraid of dropping in on Blair from time to time. I really worry about her and I know she could use the company.
Your friend,
Serena
(Nurse van der Woodsen to you)
Dan sees Blair again at the cemetery. Nate is still overseas, but his parents put up a headstone anyway in their family plot. It's funny. It's kind of a farce. Dan understands it but he can't help thinking about how there's nothing in the ground.
He brings some flowers and a letter he wrote, but he stops about ten feet off when he registers Blair, a small and somber figure in a mink coat with a straight spine. He must crunch some leaves or something, because she looks over her shoulder at him.
"It's alright," she says. "I'm not as bad as all that."
Dan takes a deep breath before he moves forward. "Who said you were?"
"Most people," she says. "And our first meeting didn't go so well."
"Our second one isn't exactly auspicious either."
Dan finally comes level with her and bends to put his suddenly substandard-seeming gifts down against the marble. He assumes the other bouquet, comprised of perfect white lilies, is Blair's; the daisies cut from Dan's mother's window box certainly look lacking in comparison.
"What did you say to him?" Blair wonders, then clarifies, "In that letter."
"Oh," Dan says, rubbing the back of his neck. "That I was sorry, mostly. Do you want to read it?"
She pauses, but then she shakes her head. "Let's get a coffee."
Before they go, she leans in and presses a kiss to the stone, leaving behind a cherry stain.
"I gave the ring back to his mother," Blair says. "She told me Nate would've wanted me to keep it, but what was I going to do with it?"
"Mourn?" Dan suggests.
"It was a family ring." Blair moves her shoulders in something not quite a shrug, not quite a shiver. "It wouldn't have been right for me to keep it."
They're at a small café nearby that isn't too crowded, though Blair keeps glancing around anyway as though she expects to be jumped at any moment. Dan wraps both of his hands around his warm mug. It isn't very cold out yet but he feels it acutely anyway. He looks out the window at the people passing by and tries not to think badly about them, people just living their lives, probably suffering in ways he doesn't know. There's nothing wrong with them for going on about their day.
Then Blair says, "I tried to see you in the hospital right when you came back."
This surprises Dan.
"I wanted to…" She clears her throat. "You were with him…when. I wanted to know everything that happened."
Ah, he thinks. "Do you still?"
She meets his gaze, her eyes large and brown under a fringe of soft black lashes, and he knows that she does. Still, she says, "I'm not sure. No one will tell me how long feeling this way is supposed to last."
He frowns, curious and confused. "What do you mean?"
"I loved him my whole life," Blair murmurs. "I don't think he ever loved me quite as much."
"He did," Dan says, because this is something he can tell her. "He talked about you all the time."
"No." Blair's gaze lifts again. "He talked about us all the time."
That silences Dan.
"And now she's gone too, because she can't stand to be here, to feel…whatever she's feeling," Blair says, voice growing ever smaller. "And I'm alone. They've both left me utterly alone." One of her hands clenches on the tabletop, oval nails with their half moon manicure biting into the soft flesh of her palm. "What if she goes too?"
Dan flounders. "You can't ask me something like that," he says finally. "I'm not two weeks out of the psych ward."
Blair's eyes widen and then she sort of laughs, her fingers coming up to cover her lips. "I'm sorry."
But Dan finds half a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. The absurdity of it, sitting here after it all with Nate's girl – no. With Blair. "That's rude."
"I said I was sorry," she says loftily.
"So you did." Dan unhooks his hands from the mug and sits back in his seat. He raises a questioning eyebrow before reaching for Blair's golden cigarette case, which sits on the table between them, and at her nod he opens it to take one. Her initials are engraved on the front in whirling script. B.C.W. "I don't know what to tell you about things like this. I'm not handling them very well myself."
"I can tell, Mr. Humphrey."
"I think Dan would be alright."
Blair looks at him, then takes a cigarette for herself and leans across the table so he can light it. "Alright."
He and Blair go to the cemetery together once a week on Saturdays, then twice a month, and then Blair is talking about the important days that can't possibly be missed – holidays, birthdays, deathdays – without reference to the unimportant ones in between. They always go to the coffee shop after. At first they talk about Nate, or sometimes Serena; he tells Blair about how he was going to kill himself before Nate, and how much he wanted to after. He tells her about how Nate was so skilled at keeping the other men in good spirits though he made it seem like nothing at all. It was just how he was. She tells him that the very first time she saw Nate she knew he was the one she wanted to marry, even thought they were children. She tells him about Nate's golden boy days in high school, captain of every team and apple of every girl's eye.
Gradually they learn to talk of other things. Blair invites his opinions on the scripts she is planning to audition for. Once, offhandedly, she mentions that the station is hiring new writers. "I'd heard that's something you do. Are you any good?"
"I used to think so," Dan says. "Best find out if that's still the case, huh?"
November 30 1944
Dan –
Not much time these days. Happy to hear you and Blair have become friends. I'd say you couldn't imagine what it's like here, but of course, of course you could – it's only me that couldn't imagine. Now I'm here.
Wish me luck,
Nurse Serena
Blair calls him on Christmas Eve crying, so Dan leaves his first holiday at home in who knows how long to take the train into Manhattan and uptown, where he is ushered up to her family's penthouse apartment. A large glittering tree dominates the sitting room but Blair is in the kitchen nursing a highball and weeping.
"It's good," he tells her. "It's good to cry. It means there's still something in there."
"Yeah, well, it feels like hell," she spits back.
"I don't think I've cried since before I shipped out," Dan says. "At least, not that I remember."
It's odd that he finds it so easy to make confessions of this nature to Blair when she is essentially a stranger, and a highly armored one at that. Maybe that's why.
Blair observes him with her wet red eyes, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. "That doesn't mean there's nothing there."
"Tell me that a few more times." He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and presses its clean white edge to her face. "Maybe one time it'll stick."
On New Year's Dan is conscripted to service once again, though this time the task is a more pleasant one; Blair demands him as an escort to her mother's party. "You're the only one in the whole damn city I can stand to be around," she tells him. "Don't let it fluff up your ego too much; I'm very bad company."
"Me too," he says. "I think that's why we get along. Neither of us has to be very nice to each other."
"I don't know." She glances up at him with something of a knowing look. "You do alright just the same. Now do this up for me."
She holds her hand out and lets a gold bracelet pool in his open palm. Then she turns her arm, tender underside exposed, so Dan can wind the bracelet around her wrist and fasten it. He does so, but his fingertips linger for just a moment too long.
"Do you need to hear it again?" she wonders. Her hand falls back at her side, jewelry glinting.
"No," Dan says, looking at her. "No, I think I've got it."
gossip girl. 4045 words. 1940s au.
dan, nate, serena, blair. mostly gen with some romantic vibes.
w: general wartime sad stuff, character death, suicidal ideation.
summary:They meet in the trenches.
note: For
lookinglassgirl! I know this is nothing you asked for, but once I had the idea I couldn't quite let it go, so I hope you like it! Tried to do as much research as I could in a few days but I'm sure there are still inaccuracies, haha. This idea ended up more ambitious than I realized. Thanks @ sing_song_sung; a couple of lines of this originally came from a joint fic that didn't quite pan out.
They meet in the trenches – so to speak. They meet in the field, they meet on the front lines, they meet in the war, they meet when Dan is lower in spirits than he ever knew he could be. He has his gun in his hands and dirt on his face and he has killed people, other people, men, he's killed them. He's supposed to be in school. He had been studying literature with an eye towards becoming a novelist.
"I might kill myself after this," Dan says, with no feeling in it. "I should."
It's an unformed decision he's come to, not exactly premeditated or planned, but certain in its own way. He will probably die, and he doesn't quite mind that now because if he doesn't he'll have to do it himself.
He doesn't know Nate's name yet, but these are the grounding details of the moment Dan will always remember: Nate's blue eyes sharp in a dirt-spattered face, everything around them green and brown, trees and uniforms and dirt, even the sky a muddy grey. Sometimes an explosion of red. But Nate's eyes are very blue and he looks at Dan like he knows him already.
"You can't think like that," Nate says. "Not here. You just can't."
Dan is grateful, but all the same he never really shakes it.
He learns a lot about Nate after that.
Nate is from New York City too but unlike Dan he's a Manhattan prep school boy, though he's got no attitude, no arrogance. He shows a lot of interest in Brooklyn, but Dan doesn't like to talk about it out here. If he thinks about home while he's here, it becomes a part of this.
Nate doesn't seem to mind Dan's lack of sharing. He does enough talking on his own. He tells Dan about his best friends in the world, Serena and Blair, and it takes weeks before Dan figures out which one is Nate's girl. He keeps letters from both of them tucked in the pocket above his heart at all times. Nate shows him a picture once of the both of them, pretty girls shielding their eyes from the sun on some beach somewhere in happier times. Nate taps a finger on the brunette's face. "We're engaged," he says. "Right before I left. I'm gonna marry her as soon as I get back."
From Nate's stories, Dan would have guessed he was seeing the blonde.
They get shipped back to England ("Lucky dogs," Nate says) where leave has given them enough time to maybe get drunk, maybe forget for a few hours. The first surprise of the evening is an appearance by Nate's girls, who Dan had been picturing like they were on that beach, far away on home soil, waiting.
"See, Blair had been going to school in Paris, living with her father," Nate says, "Until – well, you know. Serena was tagging along. Now they're waiting here until they can get back stateside, but lucky for us we can see them before they go."
"Do you think luck runs out?" Dan wonders, but Nate tells him to quit being such a pessimist.
In person Serena is even brighter than she is on film, more beautiful and vibrant than anyone or anything Dan has seen in a long time, USO girls included. Blair is more sedate in her smart gray suit with her hair tucked back and her lips a perfectly red bow; Dan's mother would call her sophisticated. Blair has a rock on her finger big enough to sink the Titanic.
Dan is somewhat ill at ease back in a civilized world full of neat sidewalks and girls in heels and lipstick. It feels impossibly foreign to him after all that time spent in dirt, tents, marching. He keeps his focus on Nate because that's what helps him when they're out there.
He can feel himself staying too quiet during dinner and drinks, but Blair is too quiet too. Nate tells sanitized stories like they might tell in a radio drama, all heroism and no bloodshed. "You should have seen it," Nate is saying. "I was about to be shot– there was a German soldier in the woods we were marching through and I didn't even see him, but Dan did. He saved my life!"
"That's an exaggeration," Dan interjects. He notices Serena's gaze shift towards him for the first time, studying him a little more closely.
"He's modest," Nate says. "I'd be dead without him."
"Anyone would have done the same," Dan says.
"But anyone didn't," Serena points out. "Sounds perfectly heroic to me."
Blair leans in to Nate's side, slipping her hand into his. "You sound perfectly heroic to me."
"You ought to try to be more impressed with Dan, he's the crack shot," Nate jokes.
"Of course," Blair says, gaze flicking towards Dan. "What was your family name again? Or don't you have one?" Dan tells her, and just like that finds himself entirely dismissed. "I don't know any Humphreys."
"We're not exactly society," he says, but her full attention has returned to Nate.
"I can't wait until this whole thing is over," she says, arm twining through Nate's like a vine.
Dan says, sarcastic and mean, "Why, can't get good nylons in wartime?"
She looks at him again, red lip curling. "That's rude."
Dan looks right back at her. "You started it."
Serena laughs, a little delighted, and that makes Nate laugh. The moment passes, but Dan feels like he does when a gun goes off a long ways away, his heart racing.
"I'm sorry I neglected introductions before," Serena says when they're all saying goodbye. She and Dan are standing a few feet away to give Nate and Blair their privacy.
"It's fine," Dan says. "I caught your name alright."
"You must think she and I are the worst kind of snobs."
It makes Dan smile, a rare sensation. "Not you."
"You'll have to cut her a break. Blair doesn't do too well with newcomers," Serena says. "She's protective. And scared, but she doesn't like to show it. We're leaving in a few days and she's terrified the ship's going to be blown up or something."
Dan looks over towards Blair with a tentative thread of sympathy. "Aren't you afraid?"
"Of different things," Serena says with a vague little smile. She really is something, her golden hair curling over one shoulder and a jaunty flower pinned above one ear; the kind of girl a man lives through a war for.
"Don't think I'm too forward," Dan says. "But would you mind if I wrote you sometime?"
Her smile widens. "I like forward."
December 17 1943
Serena –
This might be worse than forward, but the promise of your letters is one of the few things that gets me through the day. Your last letter gave me my first real laugh in a long time. I don't think you talk of too many frivolous things. In fact I like it. You remind me the world's still going on, and not in the way my family does, which only makes me feel guilty. I appreciate your offer to go see them, though. I think my sister will like that a lot.
I'm sorry I made such a bad impression on your friend that you didn't hear the end of it. I hope to see you again, and when I do I'll be on my best behavior.
I hope you have a good Christmas and a good New Year's,
Dan
"Blair's like that, I guess," Nate says. The night is quiet and cold; they shiver while they walk. "Army ought to pick her up for interrogations. She'd crack the toughest Nazi in a second."
"I always found girls like that intimidating," Dan admits. "Rich girls."
"I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Blair's one of a kind; picked me out when we were six years old and that was the end of my say in it." Nate laughs.
Dan wonders about that. "Maybe you're right. I suppose I don't have much experience with it. Serena's changing my mind."
Nate seems surprised. "Serena?"
"She writes to me," Dan says.
Nate is at a loss momentarily. "She never said."
"Not much to say. Not yet, anyway."
Nate nods and smiles a little, but the uncertainty does not leave his expression.
April 15 1944
Hello Dan!
You and Blair might agree on more than you'd think. You tell me I help just by being myself, and Blair's got it in her head that the best way to support the war effort is in entertainment, only she won't go out to Hollywood because she's too afraid of getting a tan, I guess. Right now she's got a line in radio, voicing commercials and looking for dramas. So much for the education, right?
I keep thinking I ought to do more than what I'm doing. I don't like the idea of sitting around while so many people work, and you and Nate out there in the thick of it. My mother won't hear of my working, so maybe the best I can do really is just cheering up soldiers with my bad penmanship.
Please tell Nate to write more so Blair stops complaining to me about it.
S
The letters Dan gets from home make him feel worse instead of better – his mother talks of keeping his room for him just how he left it and his dad writes about Dan picking up his schooling right where he left off. Dan knows they're trying to keep him going but it just feels like they're blotting out the here and now, as though his time in Europe is a deviation and he will be able to slide seamlessly back into his life should he ever return to it. Dan knows that is not the case.
Dan thinks of picking supplies off dead men. He thinks of talking to another soldier whose name he hadn't even learned, being right in the middle of a word when a sniper catches the other guy in the throat and that's the end. Dan thinks about being eye to eye with a German just around his age and not hesitating to kill him.
Serena says she wants to know these things, that she doesn't care about ugliness, but Dan doesn't write them down, and it's not just out of fear of censorship. As a teenager he had been obsessed with the idea of preserving himself and his ideas but now he simply doesn't care. Maybe one day it will all be written down. Maybe one day Dan will be dead.
It happens very fast.
Dan is already at the hospital before he comes back to himself, and even then it's not – he's not ¬–
His arm is strapped down because the bullet hit him in the shoulder. They dug it out and stitched him up but they don't know the extent of the damage yet. He's got a concussion but worse than that (apparently) are the words that make the doctors and nurses exchange shifty eyes. Shellshock is what they used to call it. Combat fatigue is what they call it now.
"We'll fix you up, son," the doctor says, but his eyes are already straying towards the other beds, beds upon beds of men suffering as badly or worse than Dan is suffering. There are too many people. There are not enough people.
Dan keeps looking at his hand, the one not wrapped up, because he thinks they didn't clean the blood out from under his nails enough. He can still see it. "I need to write a letter," he tells the nurse, resolutely, over and over until she gets him some paper.
He was lucky he was shot in the right shoulder. He can still write.
June 7 1944
Dear Ms. Waldorf (I figured you wouldn't appreciate it if I were too familiar),
I'm sure you're surprised to hear from me, but I felt this news would be best delivered from someone you knew and not just a formal letter without any feeling in it. Nate was killed four days ago (though I'm not entirely sure how long it will be until this letter reaches you). He has been buried; I'm sure the official letter will award you more particulars. I will refrain from tormenting you with gruesome details, but suffice it to say he did not suffer much. I did what I could to put him at ease. He was not cognizant of much at the end, and I cannot offer you the comfort of last words.
It had been my wish to return him home to you and to his parents; apparently my vehemence on this issue resulted in something of a fit, because I am writing to you now from a hospital, where I am to recover (and recover quickly, they hope) from afflictions both seen and unseen. I am having trouble remembering time between these events. I know my state of health is of little concern to you, but I would appreciate it if you could hand this letter over to Serena when you are done reading it, because I am not sure I could relay these facts twice, for my own sanity.
With sincerest regards and condolences,
you have no idea how much,
Dan Humphrey
After he proves himself unable to be recuperated, Dan is discharged from the United States Army. The official reason is something like psychoneurotic disorder or personality defects, because the shoulder ended up not being too bad, though they guessed it might ache for the rest of his life. The real reason is that Dan's cracked up, he can't handle it, he is a bad soldier and no longer useful even as a body holding a gun. He couldn't go back to the front lines and he was taking up space in the hospital all those many weeks. By the time he's back in New York it is much too late to attend Nate's funeral.
He spends time in the hospital there too. When all's said and done Nate has been dead for over three months.
"We sent flowers," Jenny tells him hesitantly. He is back at home, sitting on the edge of his bed. He never thought he would be here again.
"That was nice," he says.
"We didn't think it would be right to go, but his – your friend Serena came by a few times. She was really nice."
"That's good," Dan says. "I'm glad."
Jenny shifts her weight, hands twisting until she puts them behind her back, fingers locked. "Are you alright? Do you need anything?"
"No," Dan says, without specifying, and gives her a wan smile.
September 15 1944
Dan –
I really regret not being home to greet you; I was really looking forward to seeing you again on familiar soil. I don't want you to feel bad about this. You served your country, Dan. You've done your duty. Plenty of men get sent home hurt.
I don't know if you'd have heard by now, but I'm going to try and do something about that – I've joined up with the Women's Arm Corps. Blair thinks I'm nuts reckless but you know I couldn't stand sitting by, and with Nate gone it's even worse. If I could do something – just my own small part – then shouldn't I?
I'll see you when I see you. Don't stop writing me & know that I love you lots. Don't be afraid of dropping in on Blair from time to time. I really worry about her and I know she could use the company.
Your friend,
Serena
(Nurse van der Woodsen to you)
Dan sees Blair again at the cemetery. Nate is still overseas, but his parents put up a headstone anyway in their family plot. It's funny. It's kind of a farce. Dan understands it but he can't help thinking about how there's nothing in the ground.
He brings some flowers and a letter he wrote, but he stops about ten feet off when he registers Blair, a small and somber figure in a mink coat with a straight spine. He must crunch some leaves or something, because she looks over her shoulder at him.
"It's alright," she says. "I'm not as bad as all that."
Dan takes a deep breath before he moves forward. "Who said you were?"
"Most people," she says. "And our first meeting didn't go so well."
"Our second one isn't exactly auspicious either."
Dan finally comes level with her and bends to put his suddenly substandard-seeming gifts down against the marble. He assumes the other bouquet, comprised of perfect white lilies, is Blair's; the daisies cut from Dan's mother's window box certainly look lacking in comparison.
"What did you say to him?" Blair wonders, then clarifies, "In that letter."
"Oh," Dan says, rubbing the back of his neck. "That I was sorry, mostly. Do you want to read it?"
She pauses, but then she shakes her head. "Let's get a coffee."
Before they go, she leans in and presses a kiss to the stone, leaving behind a cherry stain.
"I gave the ring back to his mother," Blair says. "She told me Nate would've wanted me to keep it, but what was I going to do with it?"
"Mourn?" Dan suggests.
"It was a family ring." Blair moves her shoulders in something not quite a shrug, not quite a shiver. "It wouldn't have been right for me to keep it."
They're at a small café nearby that isn't too crowded, though Blair keeps glancing around anyway as though she expects to be jumped at any moment. Dan wraps both of his hands around his warm mug. It isn't very cold out yet but he feels it acutely anyway. He looks out the window at the people passing by and tries not to think badly about them, people just living their lives, probably suffering in ways he doesn't know. There's nothing wrong with them for going on about their day.
Then Blair says, "I tried to see you in the hospital right when you came back."
This surprises Dan.
"I wanted to…" She clears her throat. "You were with him…when. I wanted to know everything that happened."
Ah, he thinks. "Do you still?"
She meets his gaze, her eyes large and brown under a fringe of soft black lashes, and he knows that she does. Still, she says, "I'm not sure. No one will tell me how long feeling this way is supposed to last."
He frowns, curious and confused. "What do you mean?"
"I loved him my whole life," Blair murmurs. "I don't think he ever loved me quite as much."
"He did," Dan says, because this is something he can tell her. "He talked about you all the time."
"No." Blair's gaze lifts again. "He talked about us all the time."
That silences Dan.
"And now she's gone too, because she can't stand to be here, to feel…whatever she's feeling," Blair says, voice growing ever smaller. "And I'm alone. They've both left me utterly alone." One of her hands clenches on the tabletop, oval nails with their half moon manicure biting into the soft flesh of her palm. "What if she goes too?"
Dan flounders. "You can't ask me something like that," he says finally. "I'm not two weeks out of the psych ward."
Blair's eyes widen and then she sort of laughs, her fingers coming up to cover her lips. "I'm sorry."
But Dan finds half a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. The absurdity of it, sitting here after it all with Nate's girl – no. With Blair. "That's rude."
"I said I was sorry," she says loftily.
"So you did." Dan unhooks his hands from the mug and sits back in his seat. He raises a questioning eyebrow before reaching for Blair's golden cigarette case, which sits on the table between them, and at her nod he opens it to take one. Her initials are engraved on the front in whirling script. B.C.W. "I don't know what to tell you about things like this. I'm not handling them very well myself."
"I can tell, Mr. Humphrey."
"I think Dan would be alright."
Blair looks at him, then takes a cigarette for herself and leans across the table so he can light it. "Alright."
He and Blair go to the cemetery together once a week on Saturdays, then twice a month, and then Blair is talking about the important days that can't possibly be missed – holidays, birthdays, deathdays – without reference to the unimportant ones in between. They always go to the coffee shop after. At first they talk about Nate, or sometimes Serena; he tells Blair about how he was going to kill himself before Nate, and how much he wanted to after. He tells her about how Nate was so skilled at keeping the other men in good spirits though he made it seem like nothing at all. It was just how he was. She tells him that the very first time she saw Nate she knew he was the one she wanted to marry, even thought they were children. She tells him about Nate's golden boy days in high school, captain of every team and apple of every girl's eye.
Gradually they learn to talk of other things. Blair invites his opinions on the scripts she is planning to audition for. Once, offhandedly, she mentions that the station is hiring new writers. "I'd heard that's something you do. Are you any good?"
"I used to think so," Dan says. "Best find out if that's still the case, huh?"
November 30 1944
Dan –
Not much time these days. Happy to hear you and Blair have become friends. I'd say you couldn't imagine what it's like here, but of course, of course you could – it's only me that couldn't imagine. Now I'm here.
Wish me luck,
Nurse Serena
Blair calls him on Christmas Eve crying, so Dan leaves his first holiday at home in who knows how long to take the train into Manhattan and uptown, where he is ushered up to her family's penthouse apartment. A large glittering tree dominates the sitting room but Blair is in the kitchen nursing a highball and weeping.
"It's good," he tells her. "It's good to cry. It means there's still something in there."
"Yeah, well, it feels like hell," she spits back.
"I don't think I've cried since before I shipped out," Dan says. "At least, not that I remember."
It's odd that he finds it so easy to make confessions of this nature to Blair when she is essentially a stranger, and a highly armored one at that. Maybe that's why.
Blair observes him with her wet red eyes, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. "That doesn't mean there's nothing there."
"Tell me that a few more times." He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and presses its clean white edge to her face. "Maybe one time it'll stick."
On New Year's Dan is conscripted to service once again, though this time the task is a more pleasant one; Blair demands him as an escort to her mother's party. "You're the only one in the whole damn city I can stand to be around," she tells him. "Don't let it fluff up your ego too much; I'm very bad company."
"Me too," he says. "I think that's why we get along. Neither of us has to be very nice to each other."
"I don't know." She glances up at him with something of a knowing look. "You do alright just the same. Now do this up for me."
She holds her hand out and lets a gold bracelet pool in his open palm. Then she turns her arm, tender underside exposed, so Dan can wind the bracelet around her wrist and fasten it. He does so, but his fingertips linger for just a moment too long.
"Do you need to hear it again?" she wonders. Her hand falls back at her side, jewelry glinting.
"No," Dan says, looking at her. "No, I think I've got it."