Hello :)

This is my third fanfiction story on this website and I thought the theme was going to be Gossip Girl.

It is set somewhere in season 3 or season 4 when Blair and Chuck were on more or less good terms and when Louis hadn't appeared. I figured our much-loved and hated characters ought to take a break from their messy NY-lives and discover nature and themselves a little more. Because, come on, wouldn't it be cool to see Blair a little more down to earth and Serena not so jealous and bitchy?

And another thing: I'm going to name the chapters after songs I like, so maybe you'll recognize a few.

Well, anyway, love it or hate it, here it is:

Chapter One: Down

(Disclaimer: I own none of the characters of Gossip Girl, except the pilot)

"I think Hawaii will be lovely," Serena said dreamily as she looked out of the airplane window. Blair, sitting right next to her, sighed. "Sure, if lovely means getting my new D&G sandals dirty."

Serena laughed. "Relax, B. I'm sure they've laid out a red carpet over the sand, just for you." She herself was really looking forward to getting away from the stress and drama in New York and she had promised herself: no more boys. There had been to much of them lately, and she realized she needed some peace and quiet. Some time think over things. Like Nate and Dan. Like her future. She had bludgeoned those important things too much by covering herself with artificial love and now she realized she had been hiding from it, because dealing with those things made her feel… vulnerable. And not like the Queen Bee she had always loved to be.

Dan, Nate and Chuck were coming as well. Truth be told, Serena really looked forward to seeing Dan bare-chested, riding the waves on a surfboard. What she didn't look forward to though, was trying to keep Chuck away from bars and ladies. But she knew she had to. For Blair. When Chuck was upset he did the wrong things and made the wrong choices, and in the end his down-side affected Blair and she became upset, too. Chuck was at times like a nuclear power plant at melt-down, radiating negativity and Blair always happened to be close to Chuck when that happened. And since Serena cared for Blair more than she was ever going to admit, she would do everything in her power to prevent her best friend's heart from being broken.

Hawaii was going to be the perfect break from woe and misery, for all of them. Serena was sure, sheeven knew that even Chuck would find tranquility in the blue ocean and Hawaiian sunsets and the Hibiscus flowers.

What she didn't know was that they were never going to reach the island.

The first tremors were subtle. Dan noticed merely that the jet was shaking by looking up from his book and seeing the water in the Evian bottle on the table in front of him rise and sink. He frowned, but didn't think too much about it – after all, it was nothing extraordinary about planes shaking a little. That happened all the time – turbulence.

But somehow he couldn't return to the safety of his book anymore. Instead he let his gaze wander until it connected with Serena's. She smiled softly, and he couldn't help smiling back. To him she always seemed like a sun, radiating light and happiness. It was too bad that she felt she had to cover herself with clouds all the time.

Serena opened her mouth to say something and then –

The jet gave such a violent shake that Dan was thrust forwards, the seatbelt digging into his stomach, and the Evian bottle rolling off the table and splattering water over the carpet. Gasping for air, he fumbled with the seatbelt, trying to open it, but when the seatbelt-sign above him started blinking, he decided to let it be. Something was going on, something bad.

Serena looked at him again, now alarm in her sapphire eyes. He felt an urge to comfort her, tell her that everything was going to be all right, that there was nothing to worry about, but then the jet started shaking for real and there was no space for words anymore.

An oxygen mask was dropped in front of his and everyone else's faces. Dan immediately pulled on his, and was reassured when he saw Serena do the same.

Just because they hadn't been together for a while and things had divided them apart, it didn't mean that he didn't still care deeply for her. It wasn't some silly crush either, the one you read about in cheap romance novels and see in cheesy movies. It was violent, it was beautiful and it was real.

The voice of a flight attendant suddenly filled the jet: "Please remain in your seats. There's nothing to be afraid of, everything's under control. We apologize for this disturbance."

And that was all. Dan could barely believe it. The jet was shaking as if it was going to crash any minute, and the woman was saying there wasn't anything to be afraid of?

"But what's going on?" he yelled, hoping to get a proper explanation. "Why is it shaking? Hey!"

Nate put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe we should just listen to them." He looked scary somehow with the oxygen mask on, but his voice was calm.

Annoyed, Dan wanted to snap at him that there was a reason Nate had gotten low grades in high school. Maybe we should just listen to them. Dan didn't want to ruin any relationship he and Nate had – but his life was hanging on the line here, it seemed and Nate was saying stupid things like this. His life and Serena's, too.

Suddenly the lights went off in the cabin. It didn't make any difference since sunlight was streaming freely through the windows, but when Dan saw that the seatbelt-sign had stopped blinking, an ice-cold fear hooked its claws into his heart. And it was in that moment he knew that they were – in the lack of a better word – pretty, damn screwed.

The jet started dipping forwards violently. Again he was squashed against the seat in front of him. The luggage compartments above their heads started to open and their bags fell out. One bag – that unfortunately happened to be Dan's - missed Serena's head by an inch. She shrieked and ducked.

"This is the last time I'm going with you in your jet, Chuck!" Nate shouted through the cacophony. Chuck replied something, but the answer was drowned in the sound of the motors and rush of air outside the jet.

Dan's eyes locked with Serena's. He was 120 % per cent sure they shared the same thought: I don't want to lose you!

And then everything turned dark.

The quiet was dark-red and pulsing. Something throbbed, something else burned. Serena wanted out of this frightening state. Whether that meant dying or not didn't matter to her.

Slowly, slowly, she opened her eyes.

Blue sky. Swaying palms above her. That was all. She couldn't hear anything though; just a buzz that hurt her eardrums. She smelt sea-air and smoke. Her throat was clogged with blood. She started coughing, turning sideways as she did. The blood stained the fine-grained white sand. But she felt better at once, and her throat didn't throb as much.

Now she could see more than sky and palms. A beach stretched in front of her, peaceful and calm. Or – it would have been peaceful and calm, had it not been for the burning jet. Flames licked the sleek white body, the engines moved restlessly. The fuselage was blackened by the fire and nearly all the windows of the jet were broken.

She didn't see anyone else.

"Blair!" she tried to call with her still relatively sore throat. "Dan. Nate. Chuck. Anyone. Please."

Gradually, her hearing returned to her and she could hear the crackle of flames and rush of the Pacific wind. She tried to sit up but at once nausea rolled over her. She wanted to throw up, but her stomach was too empty for it. There was also an urge to cry in her. Never had she imagined that something like this would happen to her. Things like these simply didn't happen to the upper class of Manhattan, to socialite Serena van der Woodsen.

Suddenly Dan was leaning over her, fumbling with his hands over her face. "Serena… Serena, are you all right?" He himself looked fine, except for a cut on his cheek and a red spot on his temple that would eventually develop into a bruise.

She nodded slowly. Her arm hurt a little and when she looked at it, she saw a cut that luckily wasn't too deep. That explained the burning. There was a lump on the side of her head, too, but at least she was alive with no further injuries.

"Where are the others?" she asked hoarsely, as Dan helped her up.

Dan grimaced. "Nate is fine and so is Blair. I haven't seen neither of the two flight attendants, but the pilot is alive, despite rather serious injuries."

"And Chuck? Why haven't you mentioned Chuck?" She was aware that Dan and Chuck weren't exactly best friends, but she knew he wouldn't not give a crap about Chuck in such a situation.

"I don't know." He looked sad somehow, as if he was delivering bad news.

And a bit behind the burning wreck of the jet, she saw them. Blair, Nate, Chuck and the pilot. Blair was standing with her hands crossed, looking quite pissed off and Nate was kneeling by Chuck. Serena hurried over to them.

Chuck's eyes were closed and he was almost as pale as the sand. But the faint movement of his chest revealed that he was still breathing. Serena knelt down beside Nate and gasped in horror as she saw the blood blooming over Chuck's chest.

"He's just bluffing," Blair snorted in the distance. "You know Basses, S, they can't survive without drama."

Serena fought the surges of dark panic that rolled over her. "B, I don't think he's bluffing at all. It looks pretty serious." There had been many times when she had wanted to kill Chuck with her own hands, but now she realized that over the past few years he had really become a part of her family, and she wanted to lose him as little as she wanted to lose Dan or Blair.

Nate didn't seem to know what to do, and since Blair was simply standing there doing nothing, she decided to take the matter of helping Chuck into her own hands. Dan had already taken the initiative of tending to the pilot. For a moment she forgot about everything else and was filled with awe and admiration for Dan and his bravery and ability to help other people. Then, she turned her attention back to Chuck.

"B, here's what you're going to do – throw sand over the burning fuselage so that it'll stop burning. And once it has – if it's safe – go inside and get the first-aid kit. Nate, you go look if there are any bags that have landed in the water. If there are, bring all the clothes of one to me."

When she noticed they hadn't moved, she turned to them and shouted: "Now!" and that finally set them into motioned.

She looked at Chuck. How could she help him when she could barely put a band-aid over a wound by herself? She couldn't be a hero. She was a selfish, Elle and Vogue-reading upper class brat who hadn't the first idea about medicine. But still, she felt some kind of new power inside her, telling her that she could do this and that she would do this. Chuck couldn't die because of her inability to perform heroically in a dire situation.

Staring at the wound, she sighed. Sooner or later, she would have to begin.

It was going to be a long day.

Dusk settled over the beach. The sky became cerise and orange and the sun was scarlet and enormous as it was slowly eaten up by the horizon. A little cooler winds drifted from the Pacific Ocean. Dan rubbed the cut on his face, ignoring the pain. Even though he was exhausted, he couldn't bring himself to sleep.

So much had happened.

He had managed to save the pilot. She was breathing now, even if only barely – a branch had gone through her stomach. He had somehow managed to stop the bleeding, but he didn't know the severity of the injury and what organ it had torn up. He wasn't a doctor – and she needed one.

Chuck had fared a bit better than her. His leg had been broken by the pressure of the fall, and Serena had discovered that a couple of his ribs were broken as well, explaining the bleeding as one of them had cut open his skin, though apart from that he was fine. But Dan suspected he would limp for the rest of his life if he didn't go to a real doctor in the nearest 24 hours.

After tending to the pilot, he had taken a look at their new whereabouts. It was an island for sure, a small one, with a patch of jungle in the middle. Dan suspected it would just take about two days to circle the whole island. And so far there hadn't been a sign of civilization, so they were even more screwed than they had been when the plane was about the crash.

Right now, Blair, Nate, Serena and Chuck were sleeping and the pilot was in a coma-like state. Nate had managed to find most of their bags and Blair had gotten out a couple of first-aid kits out of the fuselage, which had stopped burning long ago. Dan shuddered at the thought of spending very much time on this deserted island.

He lay down on the soft sand and looked up into the star-filled sky. He wanted to be home in Brooklyn, but there was nothing he could do at the moment; all he could do was hope that a ship would come or a plane or a helicopter.

And wait.

Music: Down by Jason Walker

Comments, praise or criticism, are always welcome and so is following this story! Please help to change this story for the better; authors are always blind to their own mistakes!

Goodbye and good luck,

CheeseSwiss