This was originally intended to be a transitional chapter in Collision Sparks, but it caused my plot to flow about as quickly as molasses in winter so I was forced to remove it. CS simply won't allow me to go into this much detail about Blair's time in France. It pained me to take it out since it gives considerable insight into how Blair dealt with her breakup with Chuck at the end of season three. So instead of deleting it, I present it to you all as a one-shot to love or hate as you please. You don't have to read CS to understand what's going on, but it's helpful to know that Chuck didn't leave Manhattan after the finale's breakup and Blair's got quite the admirer. Warning: it's not Chuck. Please don't hate me.
It had been three years, three months and twenty-two days since Blair had been defeated by a rail thin, bleach blonde wannabe from Brooklyn, but now she was twice the Queen she'd ever been on the Upper East Side.
Spending the summer in Paris with Serena had proved to be the perfect way to ease her disgrace. The girls spent nearly every day shopping and dining at chic cafés, while evenings consisted of Serena abandoning Blair for a tryst with a waiter or street musician. Blair predictably rolled her eyes every time she heard Serena giggle flirtatiously, but she wished she could be more like her golden-haired best friend. For a little while, at least.
How else could she expect herself to get over him?
She'd tried constant inebriation the first week they were in Paris. She and Serena had plenty of fun, but her alcohol-saturated brain would convince her that he was lying next to her in bed every night. When sunlight poured through the windows the next morning and she reached over to feel the cold side of the bed, she'd instantly feel the beginnings of a throbbing headache. So she gave up liquor.
The next week, she slept well through the afternoon each day. Serena put a stop to that after she grew bored of shopping by herself. So sleeping was out of the question, then.
She tried daily massages, acupuncture to increase relaxation, visiting at least two museums a day, and even debated taking up smoking pot- if it made Nate so unconcerned, why couldn't it work for her?- but found that visiting the library and reading helped the most. When she and Serena would spend time drinking wine in the evenings at a casual rooftop restaurant, she'd pull out a French novel and relish in the tangible feel of paper between her fingers.
She liked rereading the classics, ones she had literally read dozens of times before, because the ending would never change no matter how much she feared it would. Mr. Darcy would always ask for Elizabeth's hand in marriage, Odysseus would brave the ancient world to return home from the fabled Trojan War, and Edmond Dantès would exact his revenge upon those who wronged him. The ink on the worn pages was permanent; the words created lifetimes ago. She felt at peace when she relaxed with a book.
Serena had eventually grown bored with Blair's foray into literature, and had insisted that she at least spend the daylight hours with her. Blair complied, and found that she had grown fond of her evening reading as the weeks passed. The summer in Paris was one they would never forget. When the end of August crept up on them, Blair made the sudden decision to stay in France. Serena begged her to reconsider, because who else could possibly be her partner in crime at Columbia?
But the more Blair thought about it, the better it sounded. Her time on the Upper East Side was up for now. Jenny and Chuck had done the unthinkable and she wasn't ready to face them yet. She needed to regroup. What better place to do that than in France: her second favorite place in the world, near her father and Roman?
She would take all the time she needed to become the Ice Queen again. She'd return with a fortress around her heart and razor-sharp defenses. Then she would be more than just the Queen of Constance: she'd be the Queen of the entire Upper East Side. Better yet, Queen of Manhattan, she would always add with a smirk.
She and her best friend parted ways after a lengthy. Serena cried loudly as she exited their rented flat on the Right Bank. Blair watched her go, standing still as a statue, willing herself not to let more than one tear slip down her cheek. After all, that's how the heroines in her favorite movies expressed sadness; a solitary tear was regal and refined. Queens did not blubber.
A thought entered Blair's mind before she could suppress it: could it be that she wasn't sad to see Serena go, but scared?
She was no stranger to using any means necessary to getting what she wanted, but this time her opponent was more elusive. Pain wasn't tangible like her more recent adversaries: Miss Carr, Yale and NYU, Georgina, Jenny. She still didn't know how to fight it effectively. Ignoring it was easy. But using stacks of novels to cover it up only lasted so long, and then she'd feel like clawing at her skin again. She needed something else.
So she enrolled at the last minute at Sorbonne. She spent most of the weekends of her first semester at her father's vineyard in Lyonne, gradually involving herself in local charities and forcing her way into society events. By spring, Blair Waldorf had regained her former willpower and determination. She took Paris by storm, quickly becoming known as la Reine Rusée- the Cunning Queen.
One of the perks of her nickname was that men were intimidated of her. It suited her fine- the first time someone asked her out since Serena left, she'd had a difficult time making it to the bathroom before she was sick. She had steeled her reflexes since then, thankfully. She realized that plotting social dominance and acquiring French minions was all she needed to keep suitors at bay, because there was simply no time for dating.
Plus, she could not forget Chuck. She would never acknowledge it- queens did not admit anything that would show weakness- but she was still healing. After a particularly difficult scheme, she found it difficult not to share her glory with him. Her heart leapt at the sight of a finely tailored suit on a dark-haired gentleman. There were times that she could feel his warm breath on her neck in the mornings and times she swore she heard him rustling the newspaper in bed next to her.
Chuck hadn't called or texted, and Serena and Nate hadn't told her that he'd asked after her. He certainly hadn't come looking for her. Her 20th birthday had come and gone, with only a visit from Serena to mark the occasion, and he remained silent through the winter holidays. When the anniversary of their breakup finally came around with still no word from him, Blair put her foot down. She may have told him to never speak to her again, she may have sworn to hate him all of her life, but he wronged her. He should have taken a red-eye flight to France (though the plush comforts of the Bass Industries jet wouldn't be much of a punishment), prostrated himself before her, and sworn his undying loyalty and infinite servitude to her. If he loved her, he would have done everything in his power to make it right.
For the love of God, he was Chuck Bass! He could have anything he wanted. After all, she'd spent her entire life hating him and he'd made her fall in madly love with him.
So when spring came around and it had been a year since they had spoken, she wrote him off. She deleted him from her cell phone contacts (though truth be told, she'd had his number memorized since they were 16), blocked him from her social networking sites, unsubscribed to Gossip Girl, and forbade Nate and Serena from mentioning his name to her.
From that day on, she became ruthless. She executed plots ferociously and her rise to the top was quick. She was soon privy to the most intimate scandals of the elite. She excelled at her studies at Sorbonne and graduated six months early. Near the end of college, she had come across a rather nasty scandal involving her classmate Brigitte- who had long been employed as an intern at Elle- and a low ranking manager. She eagerly sunk her claws in. The manager was fired, Brigitte got promoted, and Blair got her internship spot. She could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Her managers found that while she was sometimes difficult to work with, she excelled at all aspects of fashion, from wearing the trends and spotting the duds. She was given a temporary blog to write based on local designers. After reading some of her work, they also put her on a trial period for a short column in their magazine. Then she was given the monthly assignment to seek out one local designer and spotlight them. By her third year in France, she had become the assistant fashion editor of Elle magazine. She celebrated with her cohorts from work all night, smiling brightly when they raised their glasses to her. Her life was coming together and she'd never felt so alive.
Until Chuck smirked at her behind her eyelids, and whispered that she'd never feel alive again unless she was in his arms and he was inside her.
Her mind reeled, but the martinis and cosmos and shots had wiped the vision of his face clear by morning. She called her mother to tell her the news of her promotion after she ate breakfast. Eleanor congratulated her earnestly and put Dorota on a flight to Paris the next morning as a treat. Vanya urged his wife to go; he could take care of their daughter, who was now in preschool. After all, Dorota had missed her scheming mistress just as much as Blair had missed her.
She hadn't arrived a moment too soon.
On the second Sunday afternoon of September, Blair breezed into her apartment with bags of couture and draped herself on the couch. She pulled a box of Ladurée macarons and chewed one thoughtfully, then another. Dorota appeared in the room after a moment and regarded her mistress.
"You okay, Miss Blair?" she ventured.
"Of course I am," Blair responded, focusing her eyes on her maid. "Why?"
"You don't eat sweets unless something bothering you."
Blair sighed. She looked down at the small pink treat in between her fingers and was surprised she didn't feel the need to purge. "Do you believe that time heals everything, Dorota?"
The Polish woman's features softened. "Of course. When your father moved to Paris, you were very sad. But you got better. Now you are successful woman! Are there no schemes to help?"
"No," Blair responded. She looked up at her maid with shining eyes and a trace of a smile. "But I think I made a friend today."
"Then why upset?"
Blair furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. She couldn't think of any reason why she would be upset, so why did she just catch herself reaching for another macaron? Surely it couldn't be because of the handsome Parisian she'd spent the better part of the morning with. She was just starved for conversation that didn't revolve around workplace gossip. Yes, that was it. It wasn't his strong jaw, the slight curl of his hair, or his surprising green eyes that intrigued her. She definitely wasn't infatuated with the man simply because he could talk about literature, fashion and foreign policy in one sitting without an awkward silence. And she wasn't thinking about the laugh lines that formed when his lips curved into a smile.
"Oh, Miss Blair," Dorota smiled. "Did you meet handsome French man?"
"I most certainly did not!" Blair cried, snapping out of her daydream. She received a questioning eyebrow in response. "I met a woman at the café around the corner and we simply struck up a conversation. It was surprisingly nice."
Dorota wasn't convinced. "Oh? What is her name?"
"Nicola- Nicole," Blair responded as she took another bite of a macaron. "Now, can you put these clothes I bought in my closet so they don't get wrinkled?"
Her maid nodded and watched as Blair stalked towards the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. From that day on, Blair spent many afternoons and evenings with her friend "Nicole". Her maid was no fool- she knew that the secret smile on Blair's full lips meant a man was involved. But she said nothing and went about her business. However, she did manage to drop an occasional hint: a pearl necklace would accent her chestnut curls better, a nude lip color begged to be studied closer, or the cut of her mauve Versace dress was an excellent choice for drinks in the evening.
When packages and flowers started arriving at the apartment, Dorota pretended to be blind to the existence of any notes attached. "Miss Blair, a package for you," she would say as Blair returned home from work. "Who is it from, Dorota?" Blair would respond airily (as if she didn't already know), to which Dorota would always reply: "I know not, I did not see note."
After months of hearing Blair talk on the phone into the early morning hours, receiving enough peonies to line the Great Wall of China, and mysterious gifts of exquisite dresses and jewelry that her mistress donned immediately, Dorota was at the end of her rope. She wanted to know who the man was who was lavishing so much attention on Blair. She gave in and checked the note attached to a bouquet of peonies that arrived one afternoon. Of course she knew Blair had been denying the existence of a new man in her life, but seeing the truth warmed her heart.
On a pleasant day in early March, Blair burst from her bedroom and stomped to the kitchen.
"Dorota!" She screeched. "What are you doing?"
Her maid jumped slightly and gestured to the silver tray she had just begun to place dishes of food on. "Making your dinner."
"Why are you-forget dinner. I told you I have a date tonight, and I need you to help me with my hair! It has to be perfect. Come zip up my dress as well."
Her maid knew better than to say that she hadn't heard anything about a date, so she followed Blair to her vanity in her bedroom. She helped arrange the curls that Blair couldn't see and then placed a small diamond necklace around her neck.
"Nicolas will like," Dorota smiled, taking a step back to see Blair's reflection in the mirror.
"I hope so," Blair murmured as smoothed the non-existent wrinkles in her dress. She took a last-minute look in her full length mirror before she left her apartment. Her nerves were frayed, her heartbeat was racing and she felt like she would be sick- but she reminded herself that she had known Nicolas for months now, and it was time to give in to the feelings she'd had for him all along and jump in with both feet. She closed her eyes slowly and took a deep breath when she reached the door to the street outside. This was the last step she needed to take to eradicate Chuck from her life completely, and she wasn't going to crumble now.
Goodbye, Charles Bartholomew Bass, she thought. She pushed the door open and saw Nicolas leaning against his limo, bundled in a black wool coat with his hands in his pockets. He looked flushed, as though he'd just run from his apartment to hers. He was excited. She was completely thrilled.
Finally, Blair sighed. I'm free.
Nicolas smiled broadly at her and kissed her hand when she reached him. It was only as he helped her into his chauffeured pearl-white Mercedes did she realize she'd never even told Dorota her date's name.