Author's Note: This is my second Gossip Girl fanfic. I was inspired by an idea I had while writing "It Was Meant to Be You," when Nate mentions that he spent a summer sailing with Serena and Blair. It's supposed to be the summer between freshman and sophomore year, ending with the Shepard wedding. Oh, and in case you can't tell, the beginning is many years later. Let me know what you think! XOOX.

It was just the three of them and the silence that they had created together. It was just as it always had been. It had started with laughter that had faded into tears somewhere along the blurred road and had come to a dead end at silence. It was always filled up by noise, but the silent spaces between them had never really been broken.

The blonde spoke first, because she knew how to fill the room with noise without breaking silences. They knew from experience. "God, we're so screwed up." She laughed a hollow laugh.

There was no reply from the man and the woman facing her. She just looked at her wedding ring and stared up at the blonde, expectation and accusation in her eyes. The man was wearing a matching wedding ring, but he wasn't looking at it. He was just looking at the blonde. The look on his handsome face could only have been described as indescribable.

She continued talking, if only to avoid the looks on their faces. "We've always been this fucked up, haven't we? When did it start, this whole mess?"

"I think you know. When you two first slept together," the other woman said, her face not moving and her voice expressionless. It was strange that she was the other woman, even when she was the one with the wedding ring on.

The man looked at her briefly. "No. It was that summer."

They had all seen a lot of summers in their time, but they knew right away which one he was talking about. Something like a melancholy smile played on the lips of the blonde. "That summer."

The three of them looked at each other, remembering.

"We had one hell of a time, didn't we?" the other woman asked, something like amiability creeping into her tone.

"Yeah," said the man, his voice far away. "That was when it all started."

"But we were happy, weren't we?" the blonde asked, softly. "We were happy then and we aren't happy now."

"That's because everything changed that summer," the man said, gazing up at her. His green eyes still smoldered the way they had when they were just 16.

"I guess it did," murmured the blonde, remembering.

The three of them looked at each other, and suddenly they realized that it was just them in the room. The silence was gone. The predictable circle that their love and friendship had been following for years had been broken. There was no silent anger left between them. There were just three of them standing there, three people whose lives had crossed and uncrossed over time. They were three broken people, screwed up by the course that their lives had taken. They were three people, remembering a summer that had shaped and defined their lives. That summer.

It was the party someone had thrown to celebrate end of freshman year. School had just gotten out, but already they were partying like there was no tomorrow. Serena was up on the table, downing margaritas and periodically stopping to give a besotted boy a kiss. A crowd of admirers watched her, as she got drunker and drunker. She had spilled champagne all over herself, her clothes were falling off, and her hair was matted with sweat, but of course she still looked hot. Serena always looked hot. She was the golden girl, the one who they all wanted to be with or be. Sometimes both.

Her best friend, Blair, watched her with a mixture of disapproval, admiration, and jealousy. She knew that she would be the one hauling her home at 4:00 a.m., dealing with her hangover in the morning, and attempting to explain everything to her tough mother, Lilly. But it was crazy to watch her as she threw herself into the music, not caring who thought what. She just went wild and let loose, totally free of any worries or cares or obligations to anyone or anything. For the millionth time, Blair wished that that were her up there. She wished that she were a few inches taller, a little bit skinnier, and blonde instead of brunette. She wished that people would look at her and worship her and talk about her the way they did about Serena. In short, she wished she were Serena.

But Blair had something Serena didn't, for some reason that she couldn't explain herself. She had Nate. Nate Archibald was hers, all hers. Well, Nate and Serena and her were best friends, but he had chosen Blair over Serena. Blair knew well enough that Serena had had a vague crush on Nate throughout their childhood, but Nate had been the only person ever to look at Blair before he looked at Serena. They had been dating since kindergarten, but as Blair glanced over at Nate, who was talking with his close friend Chuck, she still got the shivers. He was so gorgeous and popular. He could have had Serena, but he had her instead. And that was what mattered.

Up on the table, Serena lifted up her shirt, flashing a lacy pink bra to everyone present, filled with some incredible cleavage. Lovestruck boys moaned with desire. But Serena wasn't paying attention to them. She was so drunk that she hardly knew where she was anymore, but she could still see Nate's face through the blur. Nate Archibald. Her amazingly hot best friend. And the boyfriend of her other best friend. She'd always had kind of a crush on him, but unlike every other boy she'd known, he barely looked at her. They did all sorts of crazy things together, but only as friends. And even if he had seen her as something more than a friend, Blair, his girlfriend, was practically a sister to her. Even for Nate, Serena knew that she couldn't violate that. So she might as well just get drunk and have a good time, because there was nothing else she could do. She ripped off her shirt entirely and undulated her hips. Who knew? Maybe Nate would see how hot she looked without a shirt on.

Over in the corner, Nate was talking to Chuck. He barely knew what they were talking about, though, because he was too busy watching Serena. Every time one of those perverted jackasses gathered around the bar reached up to touch her leg, he could feel his fingers balling into a fist. He couldn't stop looking at the way her eyes flashed brightly and how her cotton candy colored bra hugged her chest tightly. He was a guy after all, and Serena was his best friend. That was probably why he was so jealous of all those other guys who Serena was making out with and all. But he knew deep down that it was more than that.

He had always had a little crush on Serena, even though he was dating Blair. It was harmless, really and he didn't pay a lot of attention to it, but it was there. When he had been in kindergarten, they had all played silly little games. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, prince and princess. He remembered thinking that he liked the blonde one, Serena, because she had pretty eyes. He had been going to ask her to be his girlfriend when the little brunette girl named Blair had fallen off the swings and begun to cry. He had felt bad for her and run over. She had stopped crying when he came over and he soon found himself asking her to be his girlfriend. She had smiled sweetly and from there their relationship had progressed. He had been watching Serena out of the corner of his eye, though, ever since then. She was always busy doing something totally wild and Serena-like. Sometimes their gaze met, though, and Nate wondered if there wasn't something more than the secure, safe way he felt around Blair. He had never really found time to try it out though. Maybe one day.

"Don't you think?" Chuck asked, bringing Nate out of his thoughts.

"Huh?" Nate asked, a bit peeved to be dragged away from meditations about his beautiful best friend.

"Too busy watching the best friend to pay attention to me, eh?" Chuck inquired, knowingly. He smirked and glanced up at Serena. "It's ok, Nathaniel, she's hot. I'd fuck her too if I were you."

Nate was astonished. Did Chuck know that he secretly fantasized about Serena? Sure, he and Chuck were pretty good friends, but he would never tell him anything like that. "What are you talking about? I have a girlfriend."

"I'm sure you were thinking about her while you were checking out Serena's boobs," Chuck said, sarcastically.

"I wasn't!" Nate protested. "I was just, you know, worried that some guy might, like hurt her or something.

"Mmm-hmm," mumbled Chuck, already distracted by a pretty redhead who brushed past him. "Well, I'll leave you to it, Nathaniel."

Nate watched as Chuck slinked after the girl, slipping his arm around her waist. That was how it was with Chuck. Nate forced himself not to look at Serena, who was sitting in the lap of some guy on the football team.

Instead, he looked for Blair. He felt a little guilty, only looking at Blair when Serena wasn't his to look at, but he didn't like to dwell on it. He spotted the pretty brunette and made his way through the crowd toward her.

"Hey Blair," he said, taking her hand. She had nice hands. And it felt comfortable holding them. Maybe that was how love was supposed to feel. Comfortable.

Blair looked up at Nate and smiled her soft smile. "Nate. I've been wondering when you would come and talk to me."

"Sorry," he said. "Chuck's been annoying me and I couldn't get away."

It wasn't strictly a lie.

"I'm going to miss you this summer." Blair frowned slightly.

"I'll miss you too," he said.

That wasn't strictly a lie either. He'd miss her; he'd just be missing someone else more.

"I've been kind of thinking," Blair murmured, somewhat worried that she would seem clingy or stupid if she kept talking. "How 'bout if you took me with you? You must get lonely sailing by yourself all summer. And then we wouldn't have to miss each other."

Nate was silent for a minute. Sailing was his thing, what he did every summer. It wasn't the kind of thing Blair did. It required work, really hard work, and it meant being willing to sacrifice. He knew Blair wasn't too good at that kind of thing. But he knew that the real reason he didn't want to take her was that it seemed so serious and committed. When you sailed around on a boat with your girlfriend for the whole summer, it sort of meant something. And Nate wasn't really sure what that something was and if he was ready for it.

All he could say was, "Well, you know I'd love to…"

That was strictly a lie.

"But don't you have plans with Serena and all this summer? It would disrupt your whole summer."

Blair frowned a bit, and then her face brightened. "Well, we could bring Serena along with us? You know, make it a party. It would be so much fun. Please, Nate." She gave him a look with her big doe-eyes.

Bring Serena. That sounded less scary, more fun. He did get lonely all by himself on that big boat. It wasn't so much the pleading look from his girlfriend as it was the offer of bringing Serena that changed his mind. "Let's do it."

Blair smiled and pulled his head closer to hers. "Let's," she purred, seductively. She brought their lips together. It felt so right to be here with him. She couldn't wait for those long nights spent on his sailboat. Anything could happen.

Nate was surprised by how Blair turned him on. She wasn't Serena, but she was a girl and she was his and she could kiss. That was enough. For now.

Serena was locking lips with Derek. Or Eric? It didn't matter. His beer-soaked hands were all over her, his hungry lips and tongue were moving in sync with hers. But she wasn't watching. She was watching a tender and passionate kiss between Blair and Nate. And she hated herself for watching it. "Come on," she said to Derek, pulling him toward her. "I know somewhere we can go."

Derek (whose name was actually Paul) followed her his hands eagerly undoing the little clothing she had left on, and fumbling with his own.

It was just another night for Serena. Another wild one-night stand. Another attempt at forgetting her childhood best friend and crush, the one boy she couldn't have.

Everything looked different in the light of the morning. No one knew that better than Serena. She woke up to a soft morning, the sky neither blue nor gray. Either way, her head hurt when she looked at the light. She was in one of the suites of the hotel where the party for the end of freshman year had been held. She wasn't wearing anything, and neither was the guy next to her. All around her, discarded garments had been flung along with beer bottles and champagne glasses. This scene astonished her, no matter how many times she woke up to it.

This wasn't her. This wasn't who she was.

That was what she wanted to shout to the world, to scream out loud. She wanted to tell them that she was more than the drunk girl who had slept with three quarters of the freshman and sophomore classes at St. Jude's, along with a variety of other characters. She was a girl with dreams and desires and ambitions. She wanted to write a book. She wanted to go to Southeast Asia and teach English. She wanted to change the world, change herself, change who she had become.

Instead, she picked up her clothes off the floor and slipped them on silently. Her head still throbbed, and her throat felt dry and cracked. She would have much rather rested, but it was time to get out of there.

She grabbed her cell phone and saw that she had several missed calls, all from Blair. Damn. As she slipped silently out of the hotel room, she dialed her best friend's number.

"Hello?" Blair's voice sounded worried.

"Hey babe, it's me," Serena rasped. Tequila wasn't good for the throat.

"It's about time. I've been worried sick. What happened to you last night?"

"Don't ask. I'm at the Plaza still, but I'll catch a cab to your place. I look like shit and I need a shower. And maybe a nap," Serena said, exiting the hotel.

"I'm afraid that's not on the program," Blair stated, sounding oddly happy.

"Oh?" asked Serena, a little perplexed. "I didn't know there was a program." Serena realized that she had forgotten to button up her shirt, and began fussing with the buttons as she attempted to hail a cab.

"We're going to Newport today," Blair said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Newport, Rhode Island?" asked Serena, incredulously.

"That would be the one. Nate has offered to take us sailing with him this summer. You know how he always sails up the coast of Maine and all that? Well, I guess he got lonely because he asked me to come with him. And when I told him I couldn't because I wanted to be here with you, he suggested that you come along. Isn't it perfect?" Blair was squealing with delight now.

Serena didn't know what to say. Everything was happening so fast. "I haven't even talked to my mom yet…"

"Oh, don't worry, I already have. And I have your bag packed. All you need to do is meet me at Grand Central in 30 minutes," Blair commanded. The only time she got to order Serena around like this was in the mornings, and she liked it more than she would have enjoyed admitting.

"Um, ok," Serena agreed, unsure of what else to do. "See you."

"Ciao," Blair chirped, just as a taxi pulled up.

Serena flopped in, a discombobulated mess of clothing, hair, and confused, hungover girl.

The cab driver raised an eyebrow at her. "Uh, where to miss?"

Serena considered for a second. She could bum around New York for the summer or head up to Newport with her two best friends, Blair and Nate. That's when it hit her. She would be spending the summer with Nate Archibald. "Grand Central, I guess."