Wendy: Peter. You won't forget me, will you?
Peter: Me? Forget? Never.
--
When Nathaniel Archibald was seven years old, he loved playing hide and go seek. Of course, Blair wouldn't play because her dress or her shoes or her whatever could get dirty and Chuck always cheated (he wouldn't close his eyes when counting or he'd go out of bounds to hide) so that left Nate with Serena usually.
Not that he minds.
Once, when he was searching, Serena had hidden in a very dark cabinet in the guest bathroom. By the time he finally found her, she was shaking a little bit and her eyes were a little glassy but she didn't want to move because she had wanted to win.
When he opened the door, she had let out a breath of relief and thrown herself into his arms.
"I thought you wouldn't find me," she says with a quivering lip and cracking voice.
"Don't be silly," he had said, "I'll always be able to find you."
--
The nights is hazy, which isn't surprising considering how much pot he's smoked, and Blair left the party with a stamp of her foot and a flip of her chocolate colored curls.
"Blair's driving me crazy, man," Nate says after zeroing it out. "I don't even know what I did this time, and she's pissed at me."
Chuck exhales, and his eyes roll towards the door where Blair made her exit an hour previously.
"Well, Nathaniel, it probably had something to do with the fact that you forgot an anniversary."
Chuck says it in a smug, unhelpful way, and it isn't the first time since the two have become friends that Nate would like to punch him in the face.
"Shit, which one?"
"Why don't you ask Blair?"
Nate closes his eyes, thinks thanks for being completely unhelpful, Chuck and lights another joint to dull the annoyance.
A girl with blonde hair tumbled into the room and Nate's eyes are immediately drawn to her. He pretends that Serena's there, and not away at boarding school.
Chuck blows smoke in his face and continues talking about Blair.
--
Their first assignment in the first grade is relatively simple. Or it should be at least.
The teacher, Mrs. Greenbaum, has written neatly in white chalk the question, "What is happiness?"
Nate feels like he should be able to write the answer relatively easily. After all, he's happy all the time. But soon the fifteen writing minutes are up and all Nate has to show for it is his name and the date written neatly in the top left hand corner.
Blair raises her hand excitedly to go first, and she stands in front of entire class, adjusting her velvet headband before reading her answer.
"Happiness is a new dress, new shoes, new manicure, new purse, and new headband from mommy, pumpkin pie from daddy, and breakfast brought to me from Dorota."
The class claps, and Blair curtsies. Nate always wondered why she did that.
Chuck goes up and simply says, "Happiness is getting whatever I want."
The class claps again, even if the teacher looks at him a little oddly, and Serena skips up to go next.
"Happiness is anything that makes me smile. Like Nate and Blair and my baby brother Eric."
After the standard applause is finished, heads turn towards Nate, who should be next.
He nervously walks towards the front of the class, and says the first thing that comes to him.
"I think happiness is a brown cinnamon sugar PopTart."
--
It's freshmen year, and Blair's become perfect while Chuck fucks everything that moves and Serena somehow becomes lost.
She spends Sunday mornings usually at his house, nursing hangovers and eating bagels and watching crappy reality TV shows together.
"What do you think I'll be when I grow up?"
The questions comes at him in between Holly, Bridget, and Kendra discussing a softball game and Serena's eating a PopTart (it's their thing, don't laugh) and he doesn't really want to grow up at all.
"I dunno Serena. I mean, I can't even picture us as seniors, let alone adults."
Laughing, she agrees.
"At least we'll always have Paris."
"That was totally out of context, Serena."
That commences a pillow fight, and feathers fly soon after.
--
Sometimes Nate really likes (loves) having Blair as his girlfriend.
She's beautiful and loves him and is a really good kisser.
Once, she custom made him bags and bags of red and yellow M&M's with the words "N+B" and "B LUVS N". Just because.
Once, she showed up at his door with a bag full of old movies and they spooned all day, which felt nice. (Not that he admitted it to Chuck.)
But he thinks the problem is that whenever Blair walks through the door, he strains his neck searching for Serena too.
He thinks he might be able to be happy without Serena though, as Blair sleeps in his old t-shirt with her hair pulled up and her head on his chest.
But that's an awfully big maybe.
--
Chuck visits Nate at Columbia quite often, and Blair's at NYU with Dan and Vanessa so it's almost like high school never quite ended.
Well, Serena's in Rhode Island, which sucks the big one.
But Nate's still handsome and rich and charming and ladies fall at his feet.
He meets this girl named Brigitte ("Like the French icon, y'know?")
They date casually, until Chuck meets her.
"So you're still not over your Serena thing huh?"
Nate plays dumb like he does so well, blank blue stare and silence.
"C'mon man look at her. She's blond, and leggy, and tall, and if you squint and remove the cheap clothing she could be my sister."
He dumps Brigitte and visits Serena for the weekend at Brown.
--
It's a Monday, and Nate got the shit kicked out of him all weekend at a lacrosse tournament and he's staring at the clock waiting for the final bell to ring.
He's going to go home, and sleep, and take some Advil for the various aches and pains he has. When Blair asks him if he wants to hang out, he immediately utters, "No," and she walks away with her chin in the air towards Chuck.
He gets to the townhouse and Dad's in London working and Mom decided she needed a vacation in the Hamptons from all the non-parenting he does and Maria has the day off so it's just him alone in the big house on Fifth.
His shirt is off and his favorite Abercrombie and Fitch red moose pajama bottoms are on and he's under the covers already feeling better when the doorbell rings. He ignores it, and then his phone starts ringing. He ignores that, and a couple minutes later he hears his door open.
He's in that hazy state in between sleep and reality, so he thinks he might be dreaming when Serena barges into his room looking like Aphrodite herself in that school uniform.
When she snuggles up next to him, he realizes that he's very much awake and turns around to see big blue eyes staring up at him.
"Rough day?" She asks it with a smile and his heart swells.
"I've had worse." He shrugs, nonchalant as always, and she sighs into his chest.
"I brought happiness with me," she says.
He doesn't get what she's saying until she pulls out a package of brown cinnamon sugar PopTarts.
They spend a few hours in bed eating PopTarts and talking, her head on his shoulder like it should never be anywhere else, and Nate thinks that maybe first-grade Nate was onto something about happiness.
Blair calls while he's on his third packet. He ignores it and listens to Serena's impersonation of Bart Bass instead.
--
There's a golden dress and golden hair and champagne that bubbles when it slides down his throat.
He's fifteen and he's drunk and the girl who is his best friend is twirling on the bar in front of him and he can see up her dress. He's fifteen and he thinks he'll never be so in love again. He's fifteen and he pulls Serena closer to him.
Then she's in his lap, and their kissing, and she feels like he always imagined she would. And she moans while his hands are her in her hair and he kisses her neck, and then she's tugging at his belt buckle.
It's over in probably five minutes and then she rests her forehead on his shoulder like it should never be anywhere else.
When he opens his mouth to say I love you, she starts freaking out about Blair. She runs off before he can find it in him to say the words that matter.
The next day she's gone, and he thinks he could never feel worse.
--
"I didn't come back for you!"
He recoils like he's been slapped, and thinks, "That's stupid, you always come back for me," because so far it's been the two of them always and he doesn't want that to go away, ever.
She agrees to talk to him at brunch and his heart soars until Blair slams him against an elevator and then the doors open so that two girls he loves stare at him with broken eyes and shattered hearts.
Serena catches her breath for a second and Blair smirks at her with lipstick smudged and dress wrinkled. When Blair informs Serena that Nate had agreed not to speak to her anymore, Serena downplays it all but Nate can read her like the directions on the box of his rolling papers and sees the cracks in her heart and face and eyes.
Ha, he thinks, you did come back for me.
But she storms out and Humphrey doesn't end up being the knight in shining aluminum (he wouldn't be able to afford armor) that Serena thought he was and Nate's left alone with Chuck and Blair smirking from their victory.
He puts his arm around Blair's waist because she puts it there, and Chuck hands him a mimosa while leering at the cocktail waitress.
"To being hot, rich, and getting laid."
Blair scoffs but drinks anyways, Chuck downs his drink and looks at Blair out of the corner of his eye, and Nate just feels like an ass.
--
One day in French class, Serena leans over and whispers, "Je t'aime, Gaston."
"Je t'aime toi aussi, Evian."
--
Blair and Chuck are BlairandChuck now, and there's nothing he can do about it. He cares a little, but realizes it should probably hurt more than it actually does. But it doesn't, so when he sees Serena sitting on the steps he goes and sits next to her.
She sighs, immediately comforted by the feel of his arm around her shoulder, and leans her head against his shoulder.
"God, we're so old Natie!"
She giggles and he smiles down on her, thinking that he feels older than he really is.
"Yeah, I guess we are, huh?"
They sit on the stairs and look at the stars and sneak glances at each other in between.
--
The Blair and Nate divorce is under way, and apparently Nate loses Serena to Blair and somehow that's the only thing that seems important now.
Blair walks up the stairs with Serena at her side, headband in place and superior look in her eyes as always, refusing to look at Nate lurking in the corner.
He doesn't know who he gets to keep because Chuck is the one who blew the whole thing to hell and he can't think about Blair without wanting to punch Chuck in the face and Serena walks past him like he doesn't matter because she's always been a better friend to Blair than he has.
So even if Serena might slow down a little when she walks by him, she still keeps walking, and Nate, the most popular guy in school, is left by himself with no friends or girlfriends or Serenas to keep him company.
Sometimes he thinks he might hate Blair, and this is one of those moments.
--
It's just the two of them, because Blair's shopping and Chuck's scheming against his nanny of the week and so they're sitting at her favorite spot in Central Park while Serena's nanny chases after Eric.
"Have you ever kissed a girl?"
He looks down at his Ralph Lauren boating shoes, kicking his legs that are still too short to reach the ground.
"Nope. Girls have cooties."
Serena leans in and kisses him on the lips quickly, running away from him as he looks at her in shock.
"Now you have them too!" she says over her shoulder with her pigtails bouncing.
Nate smacks his lips together and smiles before chasing after her.
--
She's drunk again, too drunk to function properly, definitely too drunk to be brought back to Lilly (who's making a rare appearance this weekend) and it's Nate turn to take care of her.
He whisks her away from the club, telling Chuck and Blair to stay and hang out, telling Serena to pull her hair back and hailing a cab almost simultaneously.
He's an expert on all things Serena, and this is no different.
When the cab pulls up to the Archibald house, Serena's already passed out and Nate carries her over the threshold into his room without missing a beat.
She stirs momentarily when he puts her on the bed, and proceeds to bolt up and run into the bathroom. He can hear her vomiting and grabs one of his t-shirts for her to change into and gives her the bottle of water sitting on his desk.
His bathroom is now a mess, because Serena only half-way made it to the toilet and vomit is now covering part of his tiled floor. Sighing, he can't help but think sometimes that Serena should really get her shit together. He also can't help but think sometimes that maybe it's his fault.
But he makes Serena change into the St. Jude's lacrosse shirt and throws a towel over the vomit and crawls into bed with her around three in the morning.
He doesn't know if he'd be willing to do all this for Blair (he doesn't in fact, Chuck usually takes tipsy Blair home) and he thinks that ought to mean something.
--
Serena marries Carter Baizen in Central Park on May 17th when she's twenty-six.
Nate thinks he'll throw up.
He brings a date, but her legs are too short and her hair is too dark and her skin is too pale. Her name is Bella, and she's one of Nelly Yuki's college friends. She's far too quiet and secretive for him, and she ends up leaving with Aaron that night.
Mr. Van der Woodsen couldn't face is family for the wedding, and while Serena cried for a few nights about it, she ended up asking Chuck to walk her down the aisle.
So as the wedding march begins, and everyone turns towards the blushing bride, Nate swears he can't breathe. She looks stunning, ethereal, gorgeous, beautiful, and he loses all coherent thought at the sight of her.
That tends to happen a lot.
The custom Vera Wang is based off the wedding dress in Mamma Mia and her hair tumbles around her face with little braids all over the place and the girl just radiates. When she reaches Carter, she gives Nate a little wink and that's all he has left of the girl he loves.
Carter kisses her like he'll never stop and Nate has to turn away.
At the reception, Chuck has Blair and Eric has Jonathon and Dan has Nelly and Rufus has Lilly and even Jenny has brought her latest boyfriend.
Nate's surprised when he realizes that he's the only one who doesn't get a happy ending.
--
One Valentine's Day when everyone is still young and innocent and naïve, Nate gives Serena a valentine that says 'I Love You Beary Much'.
"You're only supposed to say I love you if you mean it," says Serena with a serious nod of her head.
"Of course I do," says Nate, because he has never known anything else.
--
AN: So there it is. Another ode to N/S. The title is courtesy of Louis Armstrong's 'La Vie En Rose', love it! And I hope that you understood that it was kind of random snapshots of their relationship at random points in time. Up next: working on some Nelly Yuki/Dan love and Serena/Ryan. The quote is, of course, Peter Pan. I swear I could write a million stories using Peter Pan quotes as inspiration. Lovely. REVIEW PLEASE.