Chapter Text
In the frenzy of trying to hold a rushed wedding (elopement, really) in a park while also trying to outrun the police, Blair is left alone.
The day has been a never-ending rush, a frenetic affair that didn't seem to be coming to a stop any time soon, and yet, Blair has found a sliver of stillness as she stands on the bridge, watching strangers pass by and feeling the bitter chill of an early-December breeze swirl past her.
Serena is calling Nate because she's sure he wouldn't want to miss their wedding, even this quick thing in the park. Chuck is talking over the plan again with her parents, going over how this will go down in clearing Chuck's name and all. But for once, nobody needs Blair for anything, so here she is, with no one but herself for company.
Of course, that's when Dan finds her.
She'd protested today when she learned that Serena was back together with him, or at least hoping to be, but it wasn't just disapproval for him. Yes, part of it was because of those awful articles he'd written about them, but she couldn't really blame him all that much, after all, she knew it was her fault. She knew she'd broken his heart (though she'd never thought she'd have the power to, and was surprised to see she could) and knew it had led him to lose hope in all of them; fair enough. So, it wasn't the articles—they had all done things like this to each other; if anything, it made Dan closer to the Upper East Side, closer to their twisted little group—but just him and what the sight of him did to her.
Every time she'd seen him in these past few months, it'd felt like pressing her fingers onto a tender bruise—or maybe, like her body was a wound, raw and open for all to see, and the sight of him reopened it over and over again. But that's the way it always has been with Dan, hasn't it? Even back when they'd hated each other, she'd always felt like he was able to see right through her, to pick her apart in a way nobody else had. (She thinks of a lifetime ago, when they'd sat on the floor of an empty hallway and he told her just what she needed to hear, even though they barely knew each other. Neither brought it up ever again, but Blair has never been able to shake it.)
So, can she be blamed for not wanting to see him? Not after she destroyed him like she destroys everything else in her life. Not after he'd betrayed her with Serena. And especially not with those wide, pensive eyes of his that look right into her core and see all the rotten, ugly things that lie underneath.
Dan Humphrey is probably the last person she wants to see. And yet, here he is, at her wedding, no less.
He makes her way to her side, standing next to her on the bridge, hand on the railing and body turned towards her. Blair sees him from the corner of her eye, but she doesn't turn around; she won't look at him, she can't.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, cold and biting just like the weather around them.
Once upon a time, she would've made a quip at his expense, mean and sharp, but he'd reply in kind, and their little game of sorts would keep going. Once upon a time, she would greet him with a wide smile and happiness that her eyes couldn't quite hide, armed with a comment at his expense that lacked bite and gave way to the fondness that warmed her up and thawed her ice-cold heart. Now, there is nothing.
"Can't I just talk to the lovely bride?" he remarks, a sardonic smile on his face, though he softens and says, "You look beautiful as always."
She swallows the lump in her throat; he can't know how much his words affect her, how raw and open she feels. "You don't look any less like a Muppet than usual, but thank you, Humphrey."
He snorts at that, and she can't fight the way the corner of her lip quirks upward. She also can't fight the longing that's crawled inside her, closing up around her throat and suffocating her. Why does she have to miss him so much? It's her wedding day, to the love of her life, may she add, she shouldn't have any space to feel anything for him at all.
She finally turns to face him and meets his eyes. He doesn't say anything at first, just looks at her, his big brown eyes raking over the expanse of her face as if they're looking for something. And he seems to find whatever it was he'd been looking for, because he rolls his shoulders back and steels himself for whatever it is he's about to say.
"Blair, I know you're going to say it's not my business or try to fight me on this, but seriously, what are you doing? Getting married spontaneously in the park while the cops trail after you? You can do so much better, and you know it. And I know you will try to say that this is something you need to do for Chuck, but one, he can fight his own battles, and two, even before all this, you were in such a rush to marry him, carrying his fucking ring around your neck and everything, as if you're trying to prove a point," he steps forward until all the space between them is swallowed up, until they are so close all either can see is each other; he doesn't touch her, that's not something they can do now. "Don't marry him for the wrong reasons."
She scoffs. "And what would you know of my reasons? As usual, you don't know anything."
"Well, what I do know is that only a few months ago, you were sure above anything else that you didn't love Chuck, and that your heart belonged to someone else." To me, he doesn't say, but it rings heavy between them anyway, looms above them like a dark cloud.
She swallows and averts her gaze, stepping back from him. "So what, you're here because you think you can help me escape a second wedding?" she asks incredulously, eyebrow quirked, but the way it leaves her mouth doesn't reflect the way the thought feels like a heavy weight inside her. In reality, she doesn't know if he can, fears that he truly might (after all, he's always been able to see through her, see the parts of her nobody else has, so if somebody could, it'd be him).
"It worked once," he jokes, though there's barely any mirth there.
She crossed her arms over her chest, eyebrows rising. "And tell me, how well did that turn out?" She doesn't need to say it; the history between them is a heavy, inescapable thing that feels like weights sitting on her chest and suffocating her.
He frowns, a look of hurt across his face (will they ever stop hurting each other?). "Our time was good, Blair, a lot of it was good."
She shrugs, gives him a smile that doesn't meet her eyes, and looks away, watching the wind rustle the trees and the people passing by instead. "And now look at us, everything between us is broken, and I'm marrying Chuck."
"But that's the thing, you don't have to marry him."
She looks at him, takes in his wide, wild eyes and his hands running through his mess of a hair, the look of his face of desperation."Unbelievable," she scoffs incredulously, shaking her head. "So, you're here to tell me not to marry him, so what? So you can tell me to marry you instead? Like that's going to work."
"Blair, if I thought that's what you wanted, I would in a heartbeat, I wish I could, but it's not what you want," he says simply, like he isn't speaking of a great heartbreak, like he's just talking about the weather, something that's just a fact; he would marry her in an instant if she ever said the word and that's fact. To Blair, it feels like she's just been punched in the stomach and all the air has been sucked out of her lungs. "But I don't think marrying Chuck is what you want either."
"Right, as if you know what I want," she scoffs again. She won't let his words reach her; they don't matter. "Stop trying to pretend like this is about anything other than you. It's not like your motives for trying to stop my wedding are exactly valiant."
He steps closer to her again, so all she can see is his wide, desperate eyes, and all she can feel is his words as they leave his mouth. "Yes, I can admit that part of this is me fighting to have you back because I will never stop fighting for you. But as much as you may want to deny it, to bury it away, I know you, Blair. Before we dated, we were friends, best friends, for a while, and that doesn't just go away. I know more about you than you’d want to admit. And I’ve seen you happy, and I’ve seen you in love, hell, I’ve seen you in love with Chuck, but this isn’t it. You don’t look happy, and even worse, you don’t look in love.”
Blair swallows the lump in her throat and just looks at him, letting his words sink inside her as she looks at him. The words hit harder than she could've expected, like a sharp, unexpected knife to the gut, and then Blair does something that neither could've expected: she starts to cry.
She crumbles. A sob escapes her throat—as if clawing itself out after being stuck there, dormant, for a long time—as the tears run down her face. She sees Dan soften, eyes full of concern, and he reaches forward but stops just short of her arm, hesitating on whether he should touch her at all, on whether this unspoken line between them should be crossed.
Blair can't even bear to look at him; she looks down, hand over her face. "Nothing is how I wanted it to be. Everything is wrong."
She looks up when she feels his hands on her upper arms, warm and comforting even through the lacy fabric of her sleeves; it feels like he's holding her upright, holding her together; like he's bearing her entire weight for her.
"Blair, it's not too late. If what's wrong is you marrying Chuck, or even just marrying him this way, you can change it, okay? You have a choice," he tells her, urgently, desperately, and he's so close to her, she can feel his words on her. Dan is making sure the words stick, that they make it into her stubborn brain, into her confused heart.
"Chuck was supposed to be the one!" she sobs, and it's not enough that Dan is holding her; she grasps his shirt into her fist and practically falls into his arms. If she weren't so distraught, she'd probably think of how this would look to other people, to Serena and Chuck, but she doesn't have space for that in her mind right now; all that exists is the two of them and the ache in her heart that hasn't left her since she left Dan all those months ago. "I lost everything over and over just to be with him, and that had to be for something, and who else could—"
Love me, she doesn't say, but it's understood clearly enough anyway. Because that's always the issue with her, isn't it? She's always going to fear that nobody else could love her as she truly is because what lies inside her is too rotten, too ugly, too filled with darkness. At least she knows Chuck can, knows that her darkness is what attracted him to her in the first place. Sometimes, being with Chuck feels like he's snuffing out all her light and leaving her in a dark abyss, but at least she knows the ugliness inside her won't ever drive him away; he won't ever leave her.
"Blair," Dan says firmly, and the grip he has on her tightens—not enough to hurt, but enough to make her look up at him. She would deserve it if it hurt; she doesn't deserve the gentleness he is showing her, she never has. "If you’re marrying Chuck because he needs you and you’re convinced he’s the only one who could love your dark and twisted self, don’t. I’ve seen every side of you, have been on the other side of it, and had my heart smashed into a billion pieces by you, and yet I love you more than I ever have and ever will love anybody else."
She licks her lips, watches him through glassy eyes, and wills them not to fall down her face. The words are so gentle, so beautiful, and it hurts.
"You’re it for me, even if I’m not it for you. I will love you for the rest of my life, even if you don’t love me. Even if you don’t marry Chuck, but still don’t love me. Hell, even if you do marry Chuck. I’ll love you forever, so if I can love you this much whilst having seen every bit of you, know that somebody else could too, know that you’re not unlovable," he's looking deep into her eyes as he tells her all this, speaking it into the short space between them where she can practically feel the words vibrating against her skin.
For a long time, she doesn't say anything. She's half-collapsed in his arms, her eyes take him in full, and her chest aches. God, how did she mess it all up? Her heart had beat in the tune of his name for longer than she'd care to admit, even when she was with Chuck, but she threw it all away because of fear, because she was sure he'd run at the sight of what lay inside her. And here he is, after she'd broken his heart, still in love with her.
What is she doing? Why did she ever think marrying Chuck was her only option?
She swallows, looking out into the distance. "I can't do this," she says, standing up and out of Dan's arms; his face falls, but she shakes her head, No, it's not what you think. "I can't marry Chuck."
Dan looks shell-shocked, like despite all his efforts, he was bound to fail, like this was never how it was going to end. Well, everybody is wrong about her. How could she hear Dan's words and still go through with this, with something she was only ever going to do because it felt like what she had to do? It took only one person seeing through that for her to give it all up.
She couldn't before, but she can now.
"We should uh, go then, right?" Dan asks, looking as flustered as she's ever seen him.
She scoffs, wiping the remaining tears and residue of makeup away from her face and rolling her eyes. "Humphrey, that is the whole point of a runaway bride! Did you seriously come here to talk me out of my wedding without thinking that through?"
"Well, in my defense, you did spring this wedding onto all of us," he points out, arms gesticulating wildly to make his point (no, she doesn't find that cute at all, thank you very much).
"Well, what was I supposed to do? The police are involved—"
"I know you know this, but that's very illegal, by the way," he cuts her off, eyebrow quirked, and she just rolls her eyes. "But I didn't even know if it was going to work, I just took my chance, even as small as it looked to me."
She softens at that; if she cries again, she's going to punch Humphrey in the face, she swears she will. "True or not, we do still need to get out of here."
He grimaces. "Guess it'll have to be by way of getaway cab this time around."
She flashes him an unimpressed look. "Your lack of unpreparedness is astounding, so much so that I can't believe your speech worked. But I have no time to examine what is wrong with me, so let's just go."
"I can't believe you're scolding me for being unprepared to talk you out of your wedding when your wedding in itself was just as unprepared—"
She cuts him off by slapping his arm. "Oh, it doesn't matter, Humphrey," she insists with an eye roll, and grabs his upper arm. "Let's just go."
He rolls his eyes in turn, as if to say he doesn't even know why he did all this in the first place. "Whatever you say, Blair."
He moves to start walking, but Blair stops him, tugging on his arm. "Wait," she says, suddenly serious. "Look, I don't know what the future holds, but I don't…" She swallows and steels herself, and then she reaches out to lace her fingers through his. "I don't think you'll need to love me for the rest of your life from afar, nor do I think I'll need to find somebody else to love me."
She hopes he understands what she means, the truth that is beating in tune with her heart and has been for longer than she'd wanted to admit. Right now, fresh off another failed wedding and with their months of messy complications, is absolutely not the time for her feelings about him, but they've been there, even if she's tried to bury them.
His eyes dart from their hands to her face, and when he finally settles on her, he smiles. It’s all she can give her now, but it’s enough for him.
Blair smiles back, and so, they walk away from the bridge, and Central Park, and this wedding, and everyone they know.