Fool Me Twice

Save the Date

Dan landed in LA around 9 AM in the morning. After missing his flight he was lucky enough to find another on the same night. The whole way he kept thinking about Blair. He had tried to put a distance between them for more than four damn years and one glimpse at her had resurfaced every feeling he had ever had for Blair Waldorf. This brought forth an unpleasant fact that all he had done was lock all his feelings for the woman out of his reach into a casket and push it into the farthest corner of his heart. But now the casket had washed up on the shore refusing to sink again wanting to be opened. 

All Blair had done was look at him with pain in her eyes and he had left everything and forgotten everyone to help her. The wish for him to see her happy and more specifically for himself be the instrument that made her happy was as dominant as ever. He kept reminding himself that he was engaged, set to marry Serena. 

He did love Serena, a love that was old, comfortable and safe. Going to Serena felt like going home. A home you didn't like, complained about everything in it, hated the tapestry and the paint but at the end of the day you knew it would be there for you stagnant and unmoving. He cringed at the pathetic image he had just drawn. Serena damn well deserved better than that bullshit. 

When he had begun his relationship with Serena four years ago, it was a form of friendship he was looking for. And they both had found it. Not for one moment had he regretted it in the time they had spent together. Because the one he loved more than he could ever understand, the one that got away, was safely married, unavailable and in another city very far away. But one night of disarray with her made one fact very obvious to him. He hadn't moved on, far from it. 

His chest hurt as through his heart which he had put together carefully was cracking all over again. His head felt full with her thoughts and rethinking all the time they had spent together tonight. Never mind she was married and a mother of a three-year old, the whole evening he had resisted the urge to whisk her away far from this world where they could be together and happy. He was desperately in love with Blair Waldorf and would be for the rest of his life. There he had finally admitted the truth to himself. The truth that had haunted him for four years and was refusing to be snubbed anymore. 

Now the right thing to do was let Serena go. She was a dynamic, wonderful woman and deserved more than being a placeholder in his heart and life. 

It was almost 10 when the taxi dropped him off at their house. It was an upbeat studio apartment that they rented and it had been almost two years since they had moved in. He walked in expecting quiet because Serena was on a night shooting schedule for her latest movie, but he found her sitting at the kitchen counter talking on the phone and looking like she had just won the lottery. She smiled big when she saw him and waved at the coffee pot and mouthed 'two minutes'. He smiled a little and lugged his suitcase to their room. As he placed it near the dressing table he felt surreal seeing it, as he realized he might not need to unpack. 

There was nothing he could do. No matter how happy she looked Dan had to tell her the truth because the last four years would amount to nothing if he continued to lie after realizing the truth himself. 

"Dan!" Serena rushed to the room and hugged him in excitement. 

"Woah!" he caught her just in time as she didn't wait to see if he could hold his balance. "What happened?" 

"That was Blair." she said pulling back to face him. She would his hands around his neck and had a coquettish smile on her face.  

He felt his stomach drop. There was just a seconds pause before Serena said the next sentence but he knew before she even uttered the words that he was about to get his second lesson at heartbreak at the hand of Blair Waldorf.