So that's my take on the events pre/post finale. Generally spoiler-free!
It's a world wind of Chuck and the darkness that surrounds the tortured boy that she lets permeate into their universe and he's trying so hard not to be jealous. He doesn't do jealous. He only does perfect fucking boyfriend. So when she's telling him in a small voice like she's afraid he'll break, he tells her it's alright, that he understands, that he's not upset with her. He adds an unnecessary and pitchy "why would I be worried?", like he has never watched second rate movies and doesn't know it means his world is about to come crashing down.
He rationalizes it, after all Serena and Nate are involved too, so it's more a non-judging breakfast club thing than a ChuckandBlair thing. But it feels a little too much like what Marcus, Nate and Louis might have thought when the whole Chuck part of Blair happened to them.
And just like tonight, she might have been there, looking up at them adoringly, licking her lips and grinding herself against them, distracting them enough so that they wouldn't see, they wouldn't know. He was there though that time she picked Chuck over Marcus, Chuck over Nate, Chuck over Louis. He would have to be a fool not to notice the pattern. Did they feel as shattered loosing her as he is at the mere idea? Did they dream every night about Chuck finally giving in, being swallowed by the emptiness and freeing Blair from their dysfunctional equation?
"So" He says caressing her cheek "how is the grand scheme of the century going?"
She looks hesitant, as if cut off.
"I… thought you didn't want to know" she objects prudently
"I don't, not the specifics but it's you, so of course I'm interested." He tries to ask casually. Tries not to beg.
"Well, thanks to Nate's James Bond moves, we've figured out that neither Jack or Diana donated the blood that saved Chuck's life, so that means he has another relative we didn't know about. We were on a trail that led us to a brothel; which did nothing but confirm it was a Bass we were dealing with because who else takes refuge amongst whores and orgies?"
He winces because he really doesn't need to be reminded the sex games the Basses like to play. He doesn't want to know why she is wearing a barely-there dress, that is miles away from being Blair-like.
"And I don't know, I still can't make sense out of it but the club got raided and I opened a door and I think I saw Bart there."
"What?"
"Yeah I know. I couldn't talk to him but I told Chuck to go back after the police left. I can't imagine how it'll make him feel. Knowing that his own dad faked his death. Considering everything he's been through because of it."
"How about what you've been through?" he wishes he could catch the words and un-say them.
She's a bit startled, she thought Chuck and Dan were somewhere on the road from foes to tenuous friends.
"Look I know Chuck isn't perfect, but he doesn't deserve this. No one does."
"Are you serious? I mean amongst his various accomplishments, he traded you for a hotel to his rapist of an uncle. I'm not that surprised people aren't queuing to parent him."
"Thanks for the reminder. I know what Chuck is capable of. The bad and the good."
"You're welcome. It seems you're very selective about what you remember about him."
"I'm not. I care about him, I'm just trying to help!"
"Are you?" he mutters under his breath, defeated
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Fuck Blair. You always end up with him, right? It's in the cards or something. Do you even realize that I can't breathe until you walk through that door every evening and I find out I haven't lost you?"
"Oh my god, I can't believe this. Do you want to hold me prisoner maybe? Away from all my friends and the people I care about? From Habsburg to Williamsburg, I knew you'd be my social death."
"Your social death? Is that really how you see things? How you see me?"
"Well it's Friday night and I am here aren't I? I just didn't realize what I was missing by slumming it in the drags of Dumbo." She cuts. Deep.
"If you really think you're better off without me, then why don't try it out?" He shouts opening the door. She looks surprised and hurt and he can't help but enjoy the feeling that he somehow has an impact on her. It shouldn't be the only way for him to figure it out though so he doesn't back down.
She's gone for an hour and he feels completely empty, constantly on the verge of tears. It has been an hour and a half when he exits the lift into her living room, ready to wait for her return. He doesn't have to though. Dorota nods towards the top of the stairs and he doesn't need to be told twice.
She's lying on her bed when he comes in, in her underwear sobbing softly. He sits down and gently grazes the side of her face. And it's here, those three words that she never says, that he's pretty sure she has decided are not and will never be for him, as if she wasn't ready to accept to give them to someone from Brooklyn, to a hipster writer, to Serena's ex-boyfriend. But it's all over her face, so he takes her in his arms and starts rocking her and surrounds her with his "I'm sorry". They fall asleep like that in that awkward position, him fully dressed and her half naked. Before drifting, he thinks back to his teenage years, marked by the anxiety that there might be no meaning to life. There probably isn't but if there is, this is his. He was born to protect her from the world.
It's so new though, his feeling that way that it almost makes him laugh. He remembers him of the first time he ever saw her. A gorgeous petite brunette, the living portrait of Snow White. She was not as rootable as the fairytale princess though. Beauty was undeniably written in her genes, but so was contempt, he had thought back then, validated by the overtly despiteful looks that she was shooting him, pursing her gorgeous lips in a disapproving wince. And he had been stricken because there was something so oxymoronic about so much hate concentrated in such an outwardly pretty girl.
It took him 4 years to find her but there was no way he was letting her go now. He had seen her struggle against the world, her best friend, her boyfriends, her mother. Striving for power because she didn't think anyone would love her for herself, without the power plays, the schemes and the threats. It breaks his heart all over again. Because behind the walls, lies the most beautiful person he has ever met.
The very opposite of Serena, the warm blonde that loves the attention and gives everything away too easily. Demanding forgiveness where the heart shouldn't forgive. Overwhelming at first, disappointing in the journey. She's the opposite of Vanessa too, whole, uncompromising, judgmental Vanessa. A moral compass at first, and then blinded by hatred and dragging him down.
He remembers the exact moment he fell for Blair. During her time at W, after having watched Roman Holiday at Film Forum. She had ranted about Ann having to give up her world as if being a princess made her a bad person. He had said it then, what she had wanted to hear, what he had been thinking for a while deep down "even princesses have hearts". She has left that night talking about her own palace and about her own silk sheets like she was escaping him, like she was scared.
He had understood then and there that whoever had said a writer had to stand on the outside was completely wrong. You shouldn't be allowed to talk about something that you don't know, fully, completely and utterly. People should only be allowed to write about their soulmates or themselves.
And it's the same again for another week. Chuck, Serena, Nate and Chuck, Chuck and Serena. And Chuck. He wills himself to not notice how his name comes up more than before. He blinds himself to not realize that she's drifting away and that there is nothing he can do.
He gets offered the internship in Rome again, as if the universe was telling him to get away, in a last ditch effort to get rid of the last obstacle still standing between ChuckandBlair but he can't accept. He might be losing her, but he won't give up without a fight. Considering the alternative, she deserves that much.
But she finds out why he turned down the retreat one day, he can't control everything. She begs him to go and for a second he wants to say yes. He wants to leave her behind and be rid of the constant reminder of everything he's losing. But he says no. She's the one who says yes and it surprises him and he's delirious with joy. They spend the whole day intertwined, making plans. He keeps looking at her as if to make sure he's not dreaming.
The blast of Blair's diary is nothing. It's full of talk about how she hates poor people and the lower class. She looks up at him, apprehensive but he knows her and he knows she's not honest enough to write what she really thinks, what she really feels. She writes things to indulge in her fantasy world. She looks ashamed though and that's why he loves her.
"Cubic zirconia does not touch this body"
"Normally I wouldn't be as close to you without a tetanus shot."
It's kept them apart for years until he understood those were nothing but words. And that despite them, she's fucking him every night without any shots of any kind, she brushes her fingers through his hair more than would be necessary to say that he needs a haircut, she cares a little too much about Cedric for all her dismissive "cabbage patch kid" remarks.
"I love you" he says it because he needs to. Because he let Louis and Chuck steal it from him before. But none of them have ever wanted her to get everything she ever dreamed of. So he thinks he deserves it.
She looks stunned, at a loss for words and he knows that she can't say it back. But she might one day. He brings her to his lips, shutting her up before she has a chance to speak.