There was no other sound in the apartment than the big clock in the hallway, which had just reached 3 am.
She was there though. She was waiting for him to finish. She knew he would be in a bad mood once he was done in his study. She had expected that. Their world had become so predictable that it was almost unbearable. Their routine was punching a huge hole in her chest every single day. Every time she watched those two, small brown pair of eyes cry silent tears as they watched mommy and daddy fight.
She knew they were safe right now though. They were with Eleanor and Cyrus. Eleanor had looked confused and concerned at her daughter when she had turned up on their doorstep at 11 pm, needing a babysitter. But the look on her daughter's face had told her not to ask. It was for the sake of Violet and Drew that they were left at their grandparents' apartment for the night. They would be spared of this argument. The one she knew was coming. He knew it too. Maybe that was why he took so long to finish.
He had walked into the apartment around 10. Violet and Drew running from their bedrooms and greeting him in the hallway. He had nuzzled their hair, but walked away barely walking straight towards his study where he smacked the door in their faces when they tried to follow him. And that was the last straw for Blair.
They both wished time would just stay still. To let them forget everything about their life, so they could just loose each other in the empty paths of eternity. Wasn't that what their vows had been all about? Eternal love. Great love, the way she had once described it.
So he opens the doors from his study, having tried to become sober enough for this conversation. And he watches his beautiful wife sitting on the couch in the moonlight, watching the fire burning.

"Where are they?" He asks.

She doesn't look, just sigh."At Eleanor and Cyrus'."

He nods and walks towards the table behind the couch where Blair is sitting. He stares at the photos of their family. Then in his rage he throws them all on the floor, glass flying and frames breaking as they hit the floor. Still she refuses to look at him. He then grabs the books and throws them on the floor too. He throws one across the room and smashes a vase and the roses that were in it break as they slam back into the wall. Still she just waits for him to finish his rage.
He finally stops and sits down next to her. Her hands are placed on her thighs and she sits up formally, like she has been taught. Because her first rule is to never appear broken. She keeps a façade about herself and their family. And he doesn't help her in any way. He gently watches this beautiful, graceful creature that he has destroyed. When did she become this skinny? So grey? So lifeless? So broken down?
He wants to reach out and hold her, scared that she might disappear into the thin air if he looks away from her.
She sighs as she feels his gaze on her. And she is the first to speak.

"How many times do I have to walk into your office, only to find some cheap, underage girls in their underwear?
How many times do I have to pretend to sleep, when you come home at 5 in the morning?
How many times will I have to explain to our children why their father is never home, or why he doesn't wish them happy birthday?"

He looks down at his hands. He has never hit her. Never given her physical pain. But these hands, if only he could look at some part of his body and blame it for hurting her. All he can do is look into the mirror where he will see his own face. The source of Blair's sorrow. But for the same reason he has avoided mirrors for years.

"Probably the same amount of times I will have to turn around every time I see you walk off with a waiter.
Wish you a good vacation when I know you're going away with another guy?
Pretend not to notice when you go to the bathroom after every meal, and ignore the sound of you throwing up?
Sleep in the same bed as you, feeling that we might as well be on different continents."

Blair feels her tears pushing but at the same time, she has run out of them. There are no more tears for her to cry. It is as he has destroyed whatever was left of her. He holds her down because he loves her. She accepts it because she loves him. She lets him consume her, because he has always only hurt her emotionally. But somehow, it hurts even more when that happens. Because Blair Waldorf is no longer who she is. She has become this destroyed image of a once beautiful woman. And she loves a broken person, a sorry excuse for a handsome man. Did they really do this to each other?

"I never thought it would come to this."

"You're always so worried about your appearance. You're the one who has been keeping up this charade for too long. We both know what they say about us. That we're destroying each other."

"I've tried really hard to ignore it."

"It's the truth."

She rises from the couch and walks behind it. Ignoring the broken glass she steps on with her stilettos, she picks up their wedding photo. It seems like the two people in the picture are two totally different people. Happy and loving. Finally able to be together. Without anything in their way they were finally each others. As equals, they united on a beautiful day in May 7 years ago. Thinking that all the hurt was done and they were on their way to a beautiful future together.

She turns around and places the photo beside her husband.

"No it isn't."She studies his faces for a little."We just forgot about these two."

And then she walks away. Into the hallway where she gets her coat and then she is gone. And he knows it. Because every time she walks out that door, a part of him follows her. The part that can't let her go. The part of him that can't function without her, and it always leaves him as an empty corpse. You can live without your brain, but not without your heart.

They write sonnets about the complicated, consuming and eternal loves. But the thing is, they never really describe how those loves get a happy ending. Love can be easy and simple as breathing, or consuming and addictive as drugs. There are loves you live to get, and those you get to live. Because you can't survive without it. So you make up excuses for the one hurting you. Because even though the world thinks you are hurting each other, you know that the only reason you do so is because you love each other too. When you're broken you break the only thing that can be considered medicine, because you're scared to heal.

I just felt like I had to give Chuck and Blair a try. I originally lost my interest in Gossip Girl around the beginning season 2, but Chuck and Blair's relationship caught my attention in the season 3 finale and well, ever since I've been keeping up with them. And to be honest, whenever Chace Crawford takes his shirt off or Ed Westwick says "I'm Chuck Bass" I just .. sigh.