A/N: One more chapter left after this one guys, stay with me! As always, your feedback is my crack. This is set after chapter sixteen, when Blair miscarries.

This was the very first page
Not where the story line ends

- Taylor Swift, Enchanted

Dan Humphrey didn't do a lot of running during his life. For his first fifteen years, he had been on the outside looking in, living between two divided spheres; his home was in Brooklyn but he went to one of the most exclusive single-sex schools in the Upper East Side. As he grew older, long legs and blonde hair catapulted him into the world he never thought he would be a part of; better still, a world he never originally thought he wanted to be a part of. He left the running away scenes in the film of his life to Serena. She did it better than anyone.

And so he ended up married to her best friend Blair Waldorf, and somewhere along the lines he has put into many a story she became his best friend, and he's the one running now. The irony has not escaped him yet.

After losing the baby, he was able to take every emotion and put it to paper, making it raw and real – for the first time since Inside. Dan wasn't one of those artists who believed in needing to hurt to write, but deep down he knows all that focus had a lot to do with Blair working later nights and stilted silences until she would return. Sometimes she would go straight to bed without a word. Sometimes, she would enter Dan's writing room, and he'd give her that you're-okay-I'm-okay look and she would sit on his lap and his arms would hold her together. As their marriage progressed, both of them found out that love sometimes meant no words were needed.

Yet somehow, his words have taken him to Paris.

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Blair Waldorf is sitting in her four story townhouse eating dinner alone when she decides that this is unacceptable.

She kind of hates that Nate and Serena are floating across the world in their blonde coupled-up stupor, when she needs them. Sometimes, she does call her husband from halfway across the world and sometimes he calls her, but he has been on his book tour for two weeks now and lately she hasn't been making an effort at all. She trusts him, of course, and he trusts her, but the only time she has ever felt this alone was when Serena ran off to boarding school all those years ago, and even then she'd had Nate and Chuck tending the Queen Bee's every whim.

It is at these times, when she wanders into the sunflower-yellow nursery which she made sure was decorated months ago in preparation, sits down in the rocking chair, that the absence weighs the heaviest upon her.

She retrains herself from crying, like she has for many an evening with her husband away. Instead, she texts Vanessa then dials Georgina's number.

"Hey, G. It's been too long since we've cracked open a bottle of dom and shared one of our classic bitches about life in general." Blair greets.

"Thank Gossip Girl you called. I was worried that Humps had turned you into some hidden away housewife, Waldorf." She can see Blair's smirk from the other end of the line. She's smiling too; for the first real time in weeks.

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Something about Nate and Serena just happening to be in Paris at the same time as himself strikes Dan as a tad too coincidental, but instead of questioning them and he just smiles when he meets with them for dinner and drinks.

"Hey, you!" Serena greets with a grin, Nate pulling him into a hug. Serena gushes about the book whilst Nate sips his beer, presumably pretending to have actually read this one. "The ending, though," Serena begins, tilting her head and failing to hide her sympathy, "I thought we were getting a happy Humphrey ending. Instead Nate saw me go through half a box of tissues."

Dan's lips curl upwards sardonically and his eyes fall down. "Yeah well. Blair and I were not in the happiest place ourselves. It's strange; I'll have the story planned out but the same thing happened with the first book. Life intervened."

Nate sends Serena a wary look, and the two blondes become glad that they left their daughter with Lily at home.

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It still seems so strange, Blair thinks, that when Vanessa first came into their lives the only thing they had in common was flings with Nate and sleeping with Chuck. When they started having Humphrey in common, they finally found a friendship, the type of which, Blair supposes – could only really form with the freedom of college without the politics of high school. It's Vanessa illustrations that are hanging up on the nursery walls in Blair's home now, and it never really stops surprising her that these two turned out to be the ones who were always there for her.

"Seeing each other needs to stop being a special occasion." Vanessa says, and Blair smiles warmly.

"I agree, docu-girl. When did this happen?" It's less of a question than a vague statement.

Georgina pours herself another glass of wine. "When you decided to be a working girl, Waldorf."

"Okay, just because I'm not immersed in artistic pursuits like the rest of you. God, my husband writes, you paint," she points accusingly at Vanessa, "and you suddenly decided to major in drama without any warning. I love being a lawyer." She finishes haughtily.

"Oh we know." Georgina mocks. "I decide show up to the firm on her first day with a bottle of champagne to celebrate and commemorate her first day, and she sends me out with the Waldorf glare of death."

"It was one in the afternoon, G." Blair reminds her, thinking of her old hair bands she still keeps in her wardrobe, Vanessa with a camera slung around her shoulder, and the champagne flutes Georgina bought her and Dan as a wedding present. They all giggle like school girls at how none of them really grew up all the way; not completely.

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Dan is left sitting at a bar with Nate when Serena decides to leave them to their male bonding.

"You haven't mentioned Cassie all night. You can talk about her, you know. I appreciate the thought, though." Dan says, staring down into his glass.

"She's three years, two months and two days old." Nate rhymes off. "She leaves teeth marks on her rattle which makes me think she's going to inherit that vicious, queen-bee streak from Aunt Blair," and this admission elicits a real smile from Dan, "and Serena and I decided to take a break from parenting here but we never stop missing her. But I guess it's good that Lily gets to spend time with her grandchild. And we'll have plenty of time to take her to places when she'll be able to actually remember."

Nate realises how glassy Dan's eyes have become, and he pats his friend on the shoulder. "There's still time, man."

Instead of saying all the terrible things he has in his head regarding how easily Nate and Serena seem to have had everything; he bites back his tongue, because Nate's eyes are brimming with genuine concern. "I know."

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When Blair wakes up the next day, she phones into work sick for the first time in her life, calls Lily, and gets a car to take her to the Van der Woodsen-Humphrey residence.

"Blair," Lily greets her with an uncharacteristically warm hug, "ever since you've had that job it feels like you've vanished off the face of the Upper East Side!" The older woman's stern eyebrows have greyed, Blair sees.

"Today has much more important business to attend to." Blair replies, looking at Cassandra Archibald.

Lily leads her over to sit. "Humphrey men have a habit of helping us see that, indeed."

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Blair's reading Cassandra to sleep with her husband's name appears on her blackberry.

"Good morning," she greets him, wary of the time and distance between them. "Serena sent me all the drunken photos of you and Nate."

"I miss you," Dan admits, his voice husky. "I'm coming home tomorrow."

Blair gazes at Cassandra sleeping, her tiny chest rising and falling. They had arrived at Blair's home after a day out, and watched Cinderella. Then Cassie had wandered into her wardrobe and selected a red hair band and she hasn't removed it has her father's eyes, but everything else is Serena – the nose, the mouth. And Blair lets a single tear fall, thinking of how her child should have been Cassie's best friend. They were supposed to grow up together, Blair and Serena the second.

"Don't. I'll come to you. You can write poetry about me in Paris like I always fantasised in our college days." She smirks.

"As if I haven't already." Dan replies, and Blair tells him what a nerd he still is.

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He's signing books when he suddenly becomes extremely grateful for the translators of the world. He wishes he had Blair beside him, though. She speaks French perfectly.

And then, she appears at the entrance of the bookshop as the crowd dissipates. The fairytale ending he forgot to end the novel with.

(But not everyone can have this kind of happy ending, he knows.)

"I took yesterday to myself, and I'm on a two week leave of absence." She says, in a tone of triumph. The store is almost empty now.

"What have you done with my wife?" He asks playfully, eyes wide.

"She's finished hiding away." She states. And Dan swears his heart doesn't just skip a little beat, because once upon a time, Blair knew how to hide better than anyone. "Honestly, I didn't know daddy still had friends in the city after he casually came out and eloped." Dan just laughs and presses a kiss to her forehead. " But I'm starting to see the appeal."

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Remember that time you eloped to Europe and decided to live your life? I'll always remember calling you when Humphrey proposed and you ran off to Paris! Better reasoning this time around though, B. Stay safe you two. xoxo – G

Blair lets Dan read the text, she's giddy from the strawberries and champagne, but too comfortable to be even remotely embarrassed by her former actions.

Dan's initial smile turns serious. "I didn't think of that once, coming here." He lets his hand cup her face and she leans into the touch.

"I know." Blair returns. "Your work is adored, Dan. Of course you should share this experience with your readers."

"Blair –

"Dan."

"I was terrified when you left. And after losing the baby...I shouldn't have left you."

"You didn't leave." Blair corrects. "We need our own space sometimes. I think it's a good thing we can be honest about that. I love you. And I love that I never have to play a certain role around you."

He brought the Sabrina dvd with him here. He has watched it every night. It helps him sleep.

"The first time I saw this...I knew I was in a lot of trouble." He says, smirking. There's nothing secret about either of them or that sentiment, not anymore. They're drifting off as the images of Audrey play across the screen. Her hand falls to his chest.

"Your heart's beating really fast." She murmurs.

Until next time.