Miles From Where You Are
Summary: Blair's thoughts after Chuck leaves in 2.13, and my interpretation of what leads her to sleep with Jack Bass. I hope I did Blair justice here, and you can tell me what you think.
Disclaimer: GG is not mine, Blair is not mine, Snow Patrol is sadly not mine.
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Miles from where you are
I lay down on the cold ground
And I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms.
-- Snow Patrol, "Set The Fire To The Third Bar"
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He was gone. She had woken up expecting to feel his warm arms and instead had found his cold note. She deserved better? Like hell she did. What Blair Waldorf deserved was to have exactly what she wanted, and what she wanted was Chuck safe with her and not wandering the world aimlessly like some vagabond or - worse - backpacker.
She wiped away the tears that fell fast and hard on her cheeks, laughing bitterly as she thought of all the times she had cried because of him. Except, this time, it wasn't because of him - it was for him. She was certain she could feel everything he had to be feeling at the moment, so she wept for him and for herself.
It wasn't his fault his dad had died and he couldn't handle anything because of it, just like it wasn't her fault she loved him so damn much that it literally pained her. That was probably his fault, she smiled ruefully. She knew he wasn't to blame for his disappearance, but somehow she had hoped that that for which he was to blame would be enough to make him stay. That she herself would be enough to heal him and make him whole again. Why wasn't she ever enough?
Stupid, stupid, stupid, her mind screamed as she held back her hair and leaned over the porcelain toilet bowl for the first time in a good six months. Stupid Blair for believing in her fairy tales and in the magic of her three words, eight letters. Stupid Chuck for not believing in them. How dare he let Bart's death be bigger than them, damnit? They were King and Queen of the Upper East Side - possibly of the world. Nothing was bigger than them, and they didn't need anything or anyone else (except maybe Serena).
A sudden fear gripped her with such a force that she forgot about purging entirely. What if he had gone off to... wherever the fuck he had gone - in order to end things once and for all? She would hate him until the day she died if he did that. And if he did, she would probably die soon after, anyway. From grief or something.
She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts, glad that at least some vestiges of her romantic nature had remained with her in her despair. Now it was Chuck who was no longer Romeo but Hamlet, and she could be his wilting Ophelia and go batshit insane and fucking drown in the East River for all he cared at this point.
She hastily interrupted her wild train of thought to type out a frantic text asking Serena to make sure Lily looked for him. The mere execution of such a rational action calmed her down and brought her back to her senses a bit. She was still in control of the situation. More importantly, if Chuck Bass were going to commit suicide, he would do so in the most ostentatious, dramatic way possible. He wouldn't sneak off to some remote location where no one would hear about it or even have a chance to stop him.
No, all they had to do was figure out which exotic location he would be most likely to choose in order to drink and fuck away his pain. When he came back, that would be the first thing they'd do together: get him tested for STDs.
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Days went by, then weeks, and there was still no sign of that Chuck Basstard. Lily had gone to all the trouble of putting in some calls to every hotel in the world owned by Bass Industries and requesting they they inform her if he showed up to any of them, but that was as far as her motherly instinct went. Jack Bass, Chuck's sleazy uncle, had flown all the way from Australia under the guise of searching for his nephew, but Blair only needed to look at him once to immediately know that he was just there to collect his share of the fortune. She fervently hoped Bart had left him nothing.
It was New Year's Eve, and Penelope was throwing the bash of the night because Blair couldn't be bothered. The Mean Girls of Constance whispered that she was losing her touch and her reign was going to waste, but she didn't care. In fact, her usually razor sharp ears couldn't even hear their worried murmurs. She was with a room full of people that she had known since birth, but there was not a single one there with whom she could ring in the new year.
Nate was visiting some extremely poor Navajo reservation with the dregs of Brooklyn, Serena was visitng Buenos Aires with the rat from RISD, and Chuck was... Not hers to worry over. He belonged to nobody, and nobody belonged to him. She had spent her whole life thinking of herself as Audrey Hepburn and hoping she could groom Nate into becoming her Gregory Peck or her Humphrey Bogart, but it turned out that Chuck was her fucking Holly Golightly and she was dumb old Paul Varjak trying to show him love was not a cage. Goddamnit, she needed a drink.
Somehow already ready and willing to provide her with that drink was the one person at the party she hadn't known since birth: none other than Jack Bass. She smiled wryly at the irony of it all before deigning to speak to him.
"Aren't you a little old to be here?" She asked him pointedly once she had downed the drink he offered. She drank it too fast to know what it was, but she thought it tasted like Scotch. Then again, everything tasted like Scotch to her nowadays, so what did she know?
"I'm just sending my dearly departed brother off in style," he replied with a snake-like wink. "A champagne toast, you know, the works."
"At a high school party?" She asked incredulously, wondering why - out of all the people in this place - he had chosen to bore her with his platitudes. She briefly entertained the thought that he was thinking about Chuck, too, but immediately tried to block herself from going there before she started to cry.
"I was actually hoping I'd see you," he whispered gravelly, and a chill ran all the way up her spine as she realized he was looking at her exactly the way Chuck would have if she were anyone other than Blair Waldorf.
In response to her long silence and widening eyes, he grinned. "Okay, and maybe I was planning on getting a little friendly with Miss Penelope's mother."
She gave him an obligatory expression of disdain and a quick "You're disgusting" rolled off her tongue, but her mind was already somewhere else entirely.
Chuck may never come back, and Blair was all alone and might always be all alone, at this rate. She would never find another king to fill the space beside her throne, and for that, someone had to pay. Even if that someone would never be around to hear about it, and the only one who would feel the pain and repercussions of her victory was herself.
"I'm going to go back to my penthouse, to my bedroom," she told a disbelieving Jack Bass. "If you're as disgusting as I think you are, you'll come find me."
And with that, she walked out of the party and out of all that remained of her former life. If only for tonight, being anyone other than Blair Waldorf would have to do.
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