A/N: No-one, unless spoiled could have predicted the crack-fest that was 3x22. And you know, with CS unable to keep it in their pants, let's just say that BN again at this point can't be ruled out again, despite the fact that Josh and Stephanie can't write these characters consistently. The way I see it, BN are the only characters that have truly grown from season one and they should be endgame, although the writing staff of GG doesn't deserve Cecily's characters regardless.

Perfect, Now

Here's a place I've been before

A place some say I should go more

But every journey just leads me too far away

When I just wanted to stay

I just wanted to stay

Sarah Blasko, 'Perfect Now'

Blair Waldorf has learned that there are two forms of perfect.

There is the 'perfect' that is always threatened to be marred. Her relationship with Chuck that she had fought so hard for, that he had completely squandered. Yet, the world could never show mercy, could never leave them alone. It's only in this period of reflection can she decipher that it was complete and utter delusion. She loves Chuck – not enough to see him through his darkness. She thought she could keep up, she truly did.

And she couldn't have contemplated this, but it is the purest relief she feels wash over her when he proves her right by sleeping with Jenny Humphrey. For the very first time, she has let go because that's what destiny demands.

Then there is the perfect that you don't even recognize when it's in your grasp, the perfect that is permanent, and the perfect you do not expect to come around again, having sacrificed it.

She and Serena leave for Paris. Serena leaves on impulse, the way she always does and of course, Blair understands that she has to be there for the girl who has been through everything with her. The brunette will always be the planner of how the game goes; Serena will always be the player.

Humphrey tracks them down. Blair thinks it's all completely ridiculous, Serena, being who she is, can't help but let herself be immersed in the moment and by the end of the night Blair catches them kissing in the hotel lobby. She merely rolls her eyes.

"Serena, seriously?"

Serena smiles like the beautiful fool she is, arms around Dan's neck. "B...it's time to go home."

Blair glares at Humphrey and feels the oddest sense of sympathy for them. If it's real, Blair thinks, would it matter where she is? Isn't she already home?

Then, maybe S didn't want a heart to call a home, not the type Blair will continue to strive for. (Already has found, she knows and she found that a long time ago.)

And she wonders if she's angry at Nate for driving Serena into a choice she knows she already regrets, but knows the reality is that she's silently furious with Serena for choosing someone over Nathaniel Archibald; Blair's made that mistake, after all.

It's worse when the girl who is your sister doesn't learn from your mistake.

So she leaves Dan to be disappointed once again in the fact that Serena will never be the girl that he wrote about and he's sacrificing his best friend for that. Leaves Serena to make her latest-oldest mistake.

She refuses to be the third spare part here (again – the pain never faded completely). So she leaves Dan and Serena by themselves in Paris. It wouldn't really matter where they were; they're the only two people that exist anymore anyway.

Blair knows she shouldn't be estranged to find Nate loitering in the foyer of the Waldorf Brownstone, still looking angst-ridden with his broody gaze and scruffy hair.

"I was just waiting for you," he says, "You know we need our regular summers back, right? I've missed you." His greeting is startlingly affectionate, and she finds herself nervous in Nate's strong arms even when she knows there's nowhere she could feel more comfortable. He kisses her forehead fleetingly and even for Nate, he looks exhausted.

She missed this too.

She sighs when they part. "Nate, if you're here about S...she and Humphrey..." She fiddles with her tiffany's bracelet. She can't bring herself to finish the sentence. He looks surprisingly unafraid of what he knows is at the end of that statement.

Blair has relinquished the hold Chuck had over her, Nate has let go of all the promise he once saw in Serena. She would always be his dear friend and a girl that he treasured, and really he can't blame Humphrey for not having let go of her, and he's just happy that he has. There were fireworks with Serena and they fizzled out the way they inevitably do.

"You didn't come home..." he says – it isn't tinted with judgement. He remains sympathetic to her. He can't blame her for not replying.

"I know its cold of me –

"I understand." is all he says, and they find their way into one another's arms again. "I understand," he repeats, his head over hers.

Blair has always recognised the evil within her and at times, valued it. Because being evil and knowing that in yourself, it gives you an excuse to act the way Blair does. She says her schemes are for the better good, the people she loves and being evil is just part of knowing Blair Waldorf.

But when Nate called her as she and Serena were trying on dresses for Harold's birthday, every sound around her faded away. Chuck had been shot, and what really scared Blair, terrified her to her core, was the fact that in some twisted way, she viewed it as revenge for everything he had done, not just in the months their reformed relationship spanned, but from the night it seemed okay to lose your virginity to your friend who was willing and who was there instead of the boy she had truly wanted it to be. The one plan she shouldn't have made any adjustment to.

She'd thought what she had with Chuck, their chemistry, would be enough. That their love could be enough. Knowing better, she gave him chance after chance anyway and the reality didn't fully dawn upon her until he decided to take Jenny Humphrey's virginity.

That irrevocable mistake that saw her sacrifice everything that made her Blair Waldorf sounded so simple.

"Thank you," she says to Nate, her gratitude muffled by the tears, "Thank you."

It's completely typical that she starts feeling a lot like commanding, demanding, authoritative (but just a little bit vulnerable beneath it all) Blair Waldorf in Nate Archibald's arms again.

After dinner that evening with Blair, Nate goes home expecting the reverberating silence in his room. He knows it should be an easy choice, that he should choose his best friend (although he knows; that's only been in name lately) and his ex-girlfriend, the only girl to have ever truly took his heart and crack it.

He chooses Blair. He knows this because he wouldn't have been there for her today. He would have been at Chuck's bedside.

When he flicks on his light-switch, she's lying in foetal position on his bed and he can't help but smile. Even when she's angry or anxious, Blair never fails to be adorable in whatever she does next.

He considers taking the other room for the night until he hears Blair groan and pat the space next to her, signalling that it's okay.

It will always be more than okay.

He pulls off his shirt and she tries not to look, but he has always been so tempting, and he's the one boy she has never said no to.

"I came home to worse sights." She remarks with something of a smile. It's been a long time since she felt her lips curl upwards and when she smiles, he does too.

When he gets into bed, he has to fight the urge to warp his arms around her, protect her from this. There is no redemption for Chuck this time and he can't fault her. "Do you still love him?"

She unravels and stares up at the ceiling. "No. I don't hate him either. I'll always care about Chuck to a certain extent. We had this great potential together and somehow he went out of his way not to fulfil it. I think he was afraid of that, and I'm not going to be with a coward." She states it with a soft realisation. It's pure fact, what she feels.

"Sounds like you're describing us," Nate thinks aloud and they half-laugh, half-sigh.

She looks at him. Really looks into his eyes, and whatever it is she's looking for, she finds it in him.

"And what about S?"

Nate shakes his head. "Honestly? I think she's a lot like Chuck."

Blair smiles fondly "And it only took us the better part of ten years to come to that conclusion. God...what happened to us?" She isn't sure what that question means.

"To us?" He prompts, uncertain.

"I know what happened to us," Blair says her voice strained, "I chose Chuck over you and now I'm paying for it. The way I knew I would. The way I knew I wouldn't be completely okay with you and Serena. You, I told Jenny Humphrey that you two were mythic. Like it was a good thing. The definition of mythic isimaginary; fictitious. I thought this was it. I thought it was Chuck and I, you and Serena, and we'd be happy. What happened to us? Us four?"

She feels his hand on her arm, rubbing it in comfort. The expression on his face is bordering on complete confusion.

"We were supposed to be perfect," he agrees. "Serena can't be tied down. You know that."

"And neither can Chuck."

They don't know why that fact bewilders them so much; it's been obvious for years, when Serena had a new boy every week, Chuck a new girl every night. They were truly each other's equals and were so similar, most of the time they repelled each other. Serena saw her faults in Chuck, Chuck viewed his in Serena. They were tied together in that respect, where as when Chuck and Blair were together, they were a little bit too dark, too cunning, and too smart for their own good. With Nate and Serena it was more simplistic; they were too slutty for one another. Blair knows that even in her thoughts, she should put that more eloquently, but they really were two blonde bimbos whom she happened to love more than anyone else.

If Chuck and Serena are that similar, she thinks, her and Nate should have been the perfect balance.

He thought they were. (Still does, sometimes, when he allows himself.)

Instead of discussing the topic of how intertwined they are for fear of finding the real answer, Blair pulls Nate's arm around her. "Goodnight, Nate."

He feels the absence of her ruby red ring; longs for the path once placed before him. He knows he shouldn't have questioned that, she recognised it, he acknowledged it. It was Upper East Side destiny at its purest.

Goodnight, sweetheart.

They wake up and Nate can't think of what else to do other than play her favourite movie. They sit there watching, her head on his shoulder, and it feels a lot like they're fourteen again.

"That was the perfect kiss." She declares at the end. It's the first time she's said that to him.

"In the rain, holding a wet cat?" He asks with that slightly confused expression on his face that she always kissed away when they were in high school. "Our first kiss was perfect."

"Then our second first kiss in the snow," she smiles. Awkwardness settles between them – they can't relive their memories without the mistakes, on both their parts, marring them.

In that moment, they wake up to the fact that they need time, if they're ever going to have a delicate chance again.

They kiss anyway, just once, and they know they are home again.

The only source of renewal, redemption and realization is within those glistening green eyes of his. Ultimately, Blair knows nothing has really changed.

Blair, rather than tending to Chuck, focuses on ruling Columbia, and she does just that with Nate by her side, albeit not as her boyfriend.

When Nate is considerably drunk, Blair knows her course of action is jealous, possessive, but she takes him home and sits him on the tub. "Archibald. You can't even sit."

"I can take care of myself, Waldorf."

"Clearly, you cannot," as she smells the stench of alcohol of his breath.

He looks at her earnestly, his hand playing with hers. "I love you, Blair."

Her exasperation melts away. "I love you too, Nate. Now can you take care of the rest? I don't need you drowning on me." She doesn't need him going anywhere. She kisses his forehead to remind him of that fact.

They graduate gloriously, without ever having to label what it is they are. That's not a requirement in College, but when they turn twenty three it all becomes very real. They are still each other's dates to everywhere and they can't comprehend the concept of ever being separated.

It's not just Blair, this time, but everyone saying they'll end up together.

One night, he comes home to the home they share, says they should buy that townhouse she's had her eye on since they were thirteen, and when she asks why, he says "Because that's where my girlfriend has always wanted to live."

She doesn't argue with that.

Dorota leads her on an all too familiar path. She relishes retreading it; home has always been an important aspect of her personality. Serena was the runner; Blair was the Upper East Side girl who was going to be Upper East Side Queen. Its winter, it's snowing and it is fate. They were fools to ever to dispute that.

"Third time's a charm," she comments.

"Blair Cornelia Waldorf," he begins, and he gets down on one knee, and she's thinking that every dream she has dreamed since she could remember is happening. He clasps her hand and it sends a tingling wave through her body and she feels her eyes widen. "I love you. I've made my mistakes and right choices and they've all lead me to you. I love you, always have, always will. Will you marry me?" The ruby red ring inside the blue tiffany's box is revealed and then he removes a second box from his coat containing the ven der Bilt diamond.

Blair tears up, laughs and tilts her head. "God, Nate." She begins nodding reverently, completely sure of her fate as he places them on their rightful place. They embrace each other just as they did in her foyer those years ago and the journey is almost complete. "Of course. You know I will, Nate Archibald!"

"Baby," he says gruffly, ignoring all tradition and convention that Blair craves – but has let go of to hold on for him, "we were supposed to be doomed." He kisses the nape of her neck and it astounds her how he still has this effect on her, to make her feel as though she is all that matters.

And he gazes upon her with such adoration, with the Van der Bilt diamond where it has always belonged. Of course, he hadn't recognized it then, when he was sixteen, in constant cloud of smoke that rendered him stupid. Yet, Blair Waldorf had always made a point to remind him of what he had, and every time she did that, he regained that purpose and direction his life was so often lacking.

They have defied literally everything; best friends be damned.

"That sounds better than anything that Humphrey has ever written," She says, kissing his temple. "How did we even find our way back after...everything?" She thinks aloud.

He takes both her hands. "I like to think that in a weird, twisted way, we fought our way back to each other." He says it so earnestly that she can't think about doing anything else; her lips are on his.

Blair Waldorf is complete perfection in her porcelain skin, her Vera Wang gown and tiffany diamonds when she looks into the mirror to see the final result on her wedding day.

However, it's not about that. It's about the fact that she's so happy she feels like crying, and she would if it wouldn't destroy her make-up.

This is all that races through her head on this day; "I sowed it there so you'd always have my heart on your sleeve." "I remember the first time I ever saw him." "Nate was my destiny after all." "You're my first love." "I love you Nate Archibald. Always have, always will."

She's tearing up and all she can do is grin like she's some fool who is so in love that only one person in this world matters. And maybe, what made her a fool is for thinking for one day that Nate Archibald wasn't that person.

Serena tells her to stop crying, she'll ruin her make-up.

"I don't want there to be any resentment here," Blair instructs.

"Blair," Serena begins fondly, "This is it. I thought I was in love with Nate all those years ago, I truly did. But when you're in love with someone you don't even contemplate being with someone else. Dan is my forever and Nate is yours. We didn't know it then, but twelve year-old Blair Waldorf got it right."

Blair nods curtly and feels Serena's long arms entwine around her. They're embracing their fate and there is nothing to be scared of – they knew, all of them that this was how it's supposed to be. And they couldn't be any happier.

Harold walks his brunette daughter down the aisle and it's all so seamlessly perfect that nothing can touch them. She is walking to Nate Archibald, his green clashes with her brown; sparks still fly between them and all she can think about is how "I knew he was the one I wanted to marry."

Time was their only disguise.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed. (: Feedback is love.