Hi! I’m totally new at this writing…these…people….anyway.

Tonight’s episode was Bad News Blair. And Blair and Dan finally talked! So I with my little alternate shipping brain, decided of course – B and D are the next great couple! Right? So after every week’s episode I will be including my own little B/D side of the story.

Starting now.

PS: This is completely based off the show and you really need to have seen the episode to understand.

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Just because comforting crying girls in the hallway wasn’t a skill of his didn’t mean Dan couldn’t do it. Plus, no matter how completely vile she was, Blair Waldorf was undeniably pretty and he was a sucker for crying brunettes in hallways.

She made some remark about needed tetanus shots that he didn’t understand. Was he rusty? She must really be upset if that was the best she could do.

And so he slid down the wall. Her eyes followed his descent and he caught them with his own. Doe-eyed, mahogany, her eyes were too deep for such a shallow person. Once again, she confused him, and Dan, who prided himself on his intelligence, was slightly hurt that Blair – Blair Waldorf – had stumped him.

He rambled about his mother, babbling so he could pretend he didn’t care about what he was talking about. She listened, patiently, her eyes shining in the cheap fluorescent lighting. He didn’t know where he was going with this story and knew he was telling her only to get it off his chest, but she seemed to understand.

“Why not?”

He shrugged – he never liked to admit he had made bad decision. And not telling his mom how he felt – how he felt like shit – was a bad decision. But he felt that Blair might understand this, too. She had made plenty of shitty choices and she knew it.

Her eyes flickered up to the lighting as he fell silent and she almost smiled.

“My dad left me, too.”

He knew that. Everyone knew the Blair’s dad had left her and her mother for a male model. It was the scandal of the year back in ninth grade.

“That’s when I learned to shut up, I guess. I don’t want to lose my mother, not the way I lost Daddy. Y’know, the way they’re there, just not for you?” Blair’s eyes pleaded with him to get it, to understand, but he didn’t, he didn’t. In the space of a sentence, she had gained too many facets to process.

“Serena’s always there for you, right?”

Blair’s laughter trilled through the hallway. It was too painful, he mused, too actually qualify as a laugh, but there was no other word for it.

“No, Humphrey. Serena’s just my best friend. No being there required.”

Dan felt a pang a pity spasm across his chest and didn’t believe it. Blair, who he began to suspect was too observant for her own good, shifted her weight to extend a leg. She pushed against his calf with her toe.

“Go find her.”

And she smiled at him. And, despite those epitaphs he had thrown around with his father, a grin managed to stretch itself across his face.

And they sat there, smiling at one another. The words - “I’ll be there” – had lodged themselves in Dan’s throat and he couldn’t even say goodbye as he raised himself from the floor and walked away.

Because he couldn’t make that promise to Blair.

Not yet.

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She didn’t want to hear their plans – she didn’t much care for Serena’s happiness these days. But their joy was radiating out to warm even her heart and she found herself smiling again.

She made a comment about his hair as an excuse to keep staring. He was so new, so shiny, and much too bright for her world. She resisted the urge to think of him as a Christmas present, or a new toy, because she didn’t want to think he was that breakable.

Because she wanted him around to be there for her. Someday.

Not yet.