Title:take me in one of your minute
Author: smc-27
They break up on a Friday in the sunshine, her tanned legs peeking out under her shorts and his hair a mess from the wind. It's always hello, then goodbye. It's never stay.
A/N: I suppose you could say this is AU after 3x21 (finale never happened...) Don't hold me to the timeline.
...
They break up on a Friday in the sunshine, her tanned legs peeking out under her shorts and his hair a mess from the wind. The day is so them. He wonders if that's what makes it all feel so wrong.
She's tired, she says. She can't just stay in New York.
"I'll come with you."
"No," she says. "You can't."
He wants to know why not. Why can't he? It's summer. They'll go on an adventure - a road trip! - and then come back in the fall when his classes start, and she can get serious about what she's going to do with her life.
He should have known better than to say that. She doesn't want to think about it. Never has. She wants nownownow. Blair plans, Serena does. Nate's always been somewhere in the middle, holding Serena's hand, tugging her along little by little, just enough that she doesn't really realize that she's headed where they want her to go.
Not this time. She won't let him take her anywhere, wants to go be free, be something else, be away from him.
"I love you."
"I know, Nate. I just...can't."
She kisses him, and he tries to hang on to her. Slips his hand into her hair and runs his thumb over that spot just behind her ear that they both love. She takes a deep breath. He knows her well enough to know that this is it. She's leaving. She's leaving him.
"Serena, wait."
"It's not you," she says. "It's not you, Nate."
She kisses his cheek and walks away.
He wonders when he stopped being enough for her.
Wonders if he ever really was.
...
He doesn't see her off, doesn't know where she's going off to. He supposes it doesn't matter.
He sits with a bottle of scotch and his best friend (who leaves for an hour with 'business' to attend to, and Nate's not an idiot; he knows where Chuck goes). It's quiet in their suite, neither saying anything; Nate doesn't want to talk, and Chuck acts like he doesn't care. They both know he does, of course. These two have been friends for too long for Nate not to know that Chuck is concerned.
"Let's go out."
Nate shakes his head. Going out won't end this feeling. Going out won't do anything but leave him with ringing ears and a hangover.
Going out won't stop him from thinking about her, wondering where she is, how she is.
He lays back in his bed, mind fuzzy with too much 24 year old scotch, and looks at the ceiling in the darkness.
Fitting, he thinks, she's running and he's standing still.
...
He goes through the motions.
Goes to class. Goes to his internship at the law firm Grandfather approved. Goes to dinner with his mother, drinks with Chuck, coffee with Dan.
He finds a few of her things laying around; some clothes and makeup and a couple pairs of shoes. He puts them all in a box and puts it on the top shelf of his hall closet in the apartment he buys.
You know, she might come back for them someday.
(She might come back for him someday.)
...
He knows it's stupid to get involved with Jenny. He knows it. It's always been stupid to get involved with Jenny.
But she's there, and she's willing, and everything's so easy with her.
No, easy isn't the right word. Most of the time he feels like he's babysitting her, showing her how to behave and be mature, and sometimes it's difficult.
But she's there.
It goes on for a couple months, casually mostly, much to Chuck and Blair's dismay (the fact that he's seeing Jenny at all, not the fact that it's casual.)
One night when he's pissed at her and she's acting like a total bitch to Blair, he says something he shouldn't, right in front of Chuck and Blair.
("Why can't you be more like Serena?")
And so that ends that.
...