A/N- Don't own
An alternate ending to 2.13, set just after Chuck leaves the wake. I thought that B/C didn't have nearly enough scenes in an episode that was supposed to be about Chuck! Ugh, couldn't they have saved the S/D/A triangle for another episode? Anyway, R&R!
"Chuck talk to me!" Blair urged him with tears in her eyes. "I can help. Please."
He heard the crack in her voice, the telltale sign that she was hurting, and he hated it. Hated that he was hurting her, but he was hurting too. He felt like his whole life had been ripped away in one quick movement, he had never felt this bad in any of seventeen years. And when Charles Bartholomew Bass felt bad, the one thing that made him feel better was causing others to feel pain too. So if hurting Blair was what it took to take away even a fraction of the pain - he would do it, no matter how worried or scared she looked.
"I love you." She choked out.
His heart stopped. Any second now he would wake up and find that it was all a dream, his father would still be alive, he would still have a family, and he and Blair would still have a possibility of someday. Better yet, now. If that call hadn't come in, he and Blair would have been together by now. They would have admitted their true feelings for each other while surrounded by the magic of the snow and the freedom. It wasn't meant to be like this, not in a dirty little hovel in the Lower West Side. Not when he didn't know how to feel, let alone how to reply. So he didn't.
He gulped down the rest of his scotch and made to walk away from the bar, but she followed. She had been doing that all day, afraid that if she let him out of her sight for even a second he would do something stupid. Like calling Lily a whore and blaming her for Bart's death. As he said before, when he felt bad he made sure everybody felt his pain - no exceptions. Not even for the tiny, curly-haired vixen that he had completely and utterly fallen for.
"Chuck," She tried feebly, grabbing at his arm and turning him around. "Where are you going?"
He glared at her for a few seconds before finally replying, his voice as cold and as biting as ice. "Away. Don't follow."
With that he walked out of the building and straight into the awaiting taxi - he couldn't face limos right now - not even stopping to look back at the broken girl he had left in his wake.
*****
Three weeks later-
"Where could he be!?" Lily moaned, placing her head in her hands. "He's not answering his cellphone, his credit cards haven't been used and nobody has seen either him or Jack since the will-reading."
"Jack didn't leave a contact number?" Eric asked.
Lily gave a scathing laugh, "If Jack had left a contact number do you think I'd be sitting here worrying if my stepson was dead in a ditch somewhere right now!"
Eric flinched and Serena put her arms around him and gave her mother a reproachful look.
"I'm sorry, Eric. I'm just stressed right now and I don't know what to do for the best. I shouldn't have taken it out on you." Lily sighed.
"It's okay." Eric said quietly.
"Chuck switch on your fucking phone." Nate said angrily into Chuck's voicemail. "Ugh!" He threw the phone at the wall.
Blair had been sitting quietly on a chair next to the fire. She had barely spoken two words to anyone since the funeral. Upon hearing Lily start to sob for the hundredth time she stood up abruptly and marched towards the door.
"B where are you going?" Serena asked warily.
She fixed them all with a determined look. "I'm going to get Chuck back."
*****
"CHUCK!" She demanded, pounding on the door. "Open this door right now or I'll-"
"Can I help you?" An older version of Chuck smirked at her, standing in the doorway.
"Is Chuck here?" She crossed her arms across her chest.
"Depends on whose asking," He led the way into the apartment.
"Blair Waldorf," She nodded, looking around with disgust at the number of broken liqueur bottles and empty pizza boxes. She swore she could even spot a few empty boxes of condoms.
"Jack Bass." He took note of her school uniform while unashamedly checking her out. She wrinkled her nose - he was at least thirty. "Chuck's not here right now."
"When will he be back?"
Jack shrugged, "Who knows. I could always keep you company while you waited." He added suggestively.
"Thanks I'm fine." She snapped.
"Suit yourself," He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a drink before coming back and leaning against the wall. "Though I have to warn you, if you're here as a spurned lover I wouldn't waste my breath. Chuck's not interested in relationships, hell I don't even think he's knows the meaning of the word commitment."
"Well that's where you're wrong." Blair said quietly, she hesitated for a few seconds before quickly typing a message and pressing send. Jack didn't seem to notice.
"Wait..." Jack asked slowly, "He didn't get you pregnant did he? Because I know some really good clinics-"
Blair felt like she was about to throw up and tears welled up in her eyes, just before she was about to shout at Jack when the door opened behind them. She stood up and looked at the occupant in the doorway. Chuck's eyes were red and bloodshot and he had a bruise on his face. He was clutching his head and groaning while telling Jack to get him some aspirin for his hangover. He hadn't noticed her yet.
Jack smirked at her before doing what was requested. "There's someone here for you," He called back over his shoulder. Chuck looked over at the couch for the first
time.
"B- Blair?" He asked in shock.
"What? Forgotten me already?" She asked, furiously wiping at her eyes. "I'm sure you had plenty of women to help with that."
He winced but otherwise allowed the dig to slide. "How did you find me?"
She gave a scathing laugh. "I followed the stench and the number of brokenhearted sluts all the way into Brooklyn."
Chuck slumped into a chair, "You knew where I was the entire time."
"Congratulations, your brain does still work after all." Blair sniped before taking a deep breath. "You need to come home."
Now it was his turn to laugh, a cold, disbelieving laugh that shook her to the core. "In case you haven't noticed," He swept his arms around in gesture of the room, "I am home."
"No, you're not. Because if you were home then I wouldn't be standing here right now, Eric wouldn't be distraught over losing half of his family, Lily wouldn't be crying her eyes out at least ten times a day, Nate wouldn't keep calling up every and anyone that you've ever met, Serena wouldn't have canceled her trip with Aaron to Buinos Aires!" Blair spat at him.
"I've just lost my father!" Chuck yelled back.
"And mine left me for a male model named Roman." Blair countered. "Nate's Dad is most likely going to spend the rest of his life in jail, Serena and Eric's Dad is god knows where doing god knows what-" She took another deep breath. "I get that you're hurting Chuck, really I do, but that doesn't mean that you get to inflict your pain on everyone else. Because trust me, we're all hurting enough already."
"Oh really? Then tell me why my stepmother – My Father's wife – has already moved on with Rufus Humphrey? Since you say she's so upset."
"Lily has always been in love with him. I know that, you know that, even Bart knew it. You have to let it go or you will spend your whole life with it hanging over you."
"Well sorry I'm not Blair Waldorf with her perfect little life-"
"Perfect life? I'm standing in a grungy little flat in the middle of Brooklyn late at night. Four guys - five including your uncle - hit on me on my way here, one of whom who wasn't too happy to take no for an answer until a guard spotted us." She rolled up her sleeve to let him see a red mark in the shape of a hand on her arm.
Chuck clenched his fists,
"All to see someone who has done nothing but hurt me, time and time again. I've lied to all of my friends, including a grieving widow, about not knowing where you were these past few weeks because I thought you needed space."
"Why bother?"
"Because you'd do the same for me if it was the other way around." She replied simply.
Chuck glared at her. "What the fuck gives you the right to come around here and make me feel guilty about hurting other people when my father has just died. Do you have any idea what it feels like to have someone you love say goodbye to you at night and never show up again the next morning?"
"You'd be surprised."
He ran an angry hand through his hair as he paced the room. "What the fuck do you know about death Blair, you gloss over everything to make it suit you. I bet the only reason you're here is so you can pretend to be a great heroine in one of your stupid fairytales, you don't care about m-"
"When I was fourteen I was bulimic." She interrupted him.
"What?" He asked confused.
"I made myself throw up after I ate anything, no matter how small. It made me feel in control, when everything else went to hell. Nobody noticed, not even you, Nate and Serena. It wasn't until Dorota found me passed out in the bathroom when I was fifteen that anybody realized. They rushed me to hospital. I almost died." Blair told him matter-of-factly. "I spent the whole summer in an institute like the Ostroff Center."
"No," He shook his head disbelievingly, "You were visiting a sick relative in England that summer. You're lying. The Blair Waldorf I know would never do something that stupid."
"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do then." Blair said,
"Nobody does. And you know why? Because we're both the same. We hide ourselves, our real selves, away from everyone else so that when they hurt us we won't break. Not fully. Except it doesn't work that way with us now – we're already in too deep to come back. We don't have a choice, we either save each other or we crash and burn."
"Well I pick crash and burn." Chuck snapped, pouring himself a scotch.
"I pick saving each other." Blair felt tears pour down her face. "Is this who you want to be Chuck? Is this really what you want? Living each day like it's a waste of time, squandering your money on drugs and booze, sleeping with a different woman every night of the week. You can't want this Chuck, you're better then that."
"Jack seems to be perfectly content." Chuck looked down, her tears affected him more then he'd like to admit.
Blair let out a hollow laugh, "Jack?" She shook her head, completely spent. She picked up her bag and walked towards the door. "You know what Chuck? I'm done. Oh and by the way – you should ask your uncle what he said to me. Tell me then if that's really who you want to be." With that she walked out.