Title: La Vie En Rose
Pairing: Blair/Carter, Blair/Chuck
Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl…sigh
A/N: Okay, so at heart everyone knows I'm at Chair fan, but this was just too tempting to pass off. It's basically the season finale except that instead of Blair waiting at the helipad and meeting Ben, she's at the airport where she meets dum dum dum…our favourite Carter Baizen. Yep, mildly based off the alternate ending that's been floating around. Enjoy! THANKS Nat, btw. There's also a little note on my page about my current status as well as the status of my other stories just for anyone who's interested.
The minute Blair realises that Chuck's late, she sends him a text, asking him blatantly, 'where r u?'. A minute passes with no reply, two minutes, nothing, and by five minutes, she's beginning to think that maybe he's dead. After all, the longest she's ever gone with not receiving a reply from him is thirty seconds, so the possibilities as to where he is start to mount in her head.
She takes a seat on the terminal lounge, tapping her foot on the hard polished floor, amusing herself by surveying the people that walk past her. Half of them are tourists, clad in 'I heart NY' shirts and goofy grins and the other half are business men, dressed to impress in Armani suits and stern expressions, mimics of Bart Bass. She feels lost and lonely, but nonetheless sits perfectly straight, her head raised high. She is a Waldorf after all and Waldorfs never slouch (no matter how abandoned they feel). It doesn't help that with every crowd that passes, their eyes are immediately drawn to her and for once, she wishes that she didn't have all the attention in the room. Where, oh, where was Serena when you needed her?
Blair takes out her phone once more and frowns when she sees no new reply. Their plane departs in less than thirty minutes and Chuck's nowhere to be seen. Maybe she should check up on him at the Bass suite and after minutes of deliberating, she stands up, trying to find her way out of the airport, scouring for the nearest exit. She spots it and is in the process of picking up her bag to head towards it when she suddenly finds herself slipping on her heels, and would've, no doubt, become very intimately involved with the ridiculously hard-looking ground if it weren't for a pair of strong sturdy arms that grab her waist and hold her tightly.
"I never would've pictured you as a damsel in distress, Blair," jokes a familiar, rich voice as Blair finds her feet and looks up at her rescuer, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
"Carter Baizen, I never would've pictured you as a knight-in-shining Armani," Blair replies, fingering his leather jacket that matches his rugged appearance.
"Well, I've never been one for clichés," he says and Blair can't help but notice a certain twinkle in his eye. "So, where was Miss Waldorf heading to before she fell into my arms?"
"To see my boyfriend," Blair states clearly and Carter rubs his jaw with a smirk to rival Chuck.
"Ah, yeah, I heard about you and Chuck," Carter says to Blair's surprise and without prompting he clarifies, "You're never too old for Gossip Girl."
"It takes a true man to admit that," Blair jokes, thinking back to many instances where she had caught Chuck on the Gossip Girl blog only to have him make the excuse that he couldn't find any good porn.
"So, where is Chuck?" Carter asks, looking around for any sign of his former apprentice but abandons his search when he hears Blair mutter, "Your guess is as good as mine". Blair lets out an annoyed sigh and checks her phone again, seeing now that they only have fifteen minutes left before their flight departs and still her boyfriend is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, her phone vibrates and she instantly flips it open to find a text message from the devil himself. 'Cn't make it. Dn't kno when i can. I'll try 2 meet up wth u in France. Chuck.'
"Oh" is all the Blair can muster as she rereads the text, trying to pick it apart for any hidden messages or clues, but all she can see is Chuck blowing her off. She can feel her blood boil and her anger slowly rise, but she keeps her cool. After all, Chuck is Chuck. And she shouldn't feel angry. He probably just wants to spend more time with his father, she decides, but she can't help but feel that there's more to the picture.
"I'm taking it Prince Charming's not so charming?" Carter says, and Blair smiles forcefully, shutting her phone and sticking it into her purse.
"Prince Charming's just very busy. Turns out he can't make it to France with me," she says, a sad tremor in her voice as Carter gives a low whistle.
"And who's he busy with?" Carter insinuates, raising his eyebrows. Blair scowls in disgust at him for even thinking of such a thing, but then she rolls her eyes and feels like a hypocrite as in the back of her mind, that's exactly what she was thinking.
"Chuck would never do that," she says firmly. "He loves me. He wouldn't do that to me."
"And how much of what you just said do you believe?" he asks her, knowing that he's hit a chord when she refuses to look at him. "Come on, Blair. You and I know both know how Chuck is. He doesn't fall in love. He simply pretends to be in it. Then he breaks the girl's heart. How long until he's broken yours?"
She doesn't answer him. Instead she haughtily walks away from him, offended to how he described Chuck. Carter was wrong. He didn't know Chuck at all. In the past, Chuck may have been like that, but now that he was with Blair, he had changed. He was loyal and faithful and just because he couldn't make it to France did not mean that he was cheating on her. She heard Carter's voice call out her name, but ignored it completely, strutting to the nearest shop that she could find. It didn't take long before he caught up to her, dragging behind him his luggage.
"Listen, I didn't mean to insult you back there," he says, standing next to her as she flickers through the magazine stand.
"Oh no, just meant to completely insult my choice of boyfriend," she retorts.
"Blair," he says, almost like a friend, "just consider what I said. If Chuck is the same Chuck that I knew and sadly enough, taught to be like me, well, then he's not worth your time."
He gives her a small nod and is off before she can reply. It seems ironic that Carter Baizen – Carter Baizen, out of all people - could be warning her about Chuck considering that, as he had said, he had been Chuck's former mentor. Then again, he and Chuck weren't on considerably good terms as she remembered hearing about their debacle with Nate. But no matter how much she wants to rush over to the Bass suite to prove that Chuck is a faithful boyfriend, there is that tiny voice inside her mind that keeps telling her 'listen to Carter' repeatedly. But she doesn't.
She imagines that if she did, she'd call out, "Carter," and he'd spin around, amused at the sight of her scurrying towards him with a scowl painted on her face. She'd ask sweetly, "So, where are you heading off to?" and he'd merely smile at her, causing all thoughts of Chuck Bass to flow from her mind.
But as she watches his disappearing figure, she shakes her head from all thoughts of 'what ifs and maybes'. She's with Chuck (at least she thinks she is) and decides that her trip to France will only strengthen their relationship as they take some time apart. After all, absence makes the heart grow heart fonder.
However, as she walks to the terminal, she ignores the fact that her eyes keep searching for a scruffy boy in a leather jacket.