OK, so guys, first of all thank you for the reviews. Two kittens saved so far.

Got nothin' else to say, so enjoy Chap Two!

Disclaimer: Own none of the characters.

Chapter Two

June 1965, New York City

When Blair saw what Serena had become, the shock made her drop her Louis Vuitton duffel. It landed with a dull thud on the floor.

Serena looked up from her painting of a daisy field in the summer. "Blair," she exclaimed cheerily. Then she saw Blair's expression and frowned. "What's wrong."

Blair sank down into a leather armchair. "Where should I begin...?" She answered weakly.

When she had last seen her best friend three years ago, Serena had been one of the most fashionable girls in Manhattan, wearing only the latest from exclusive designers. Now, only a remnant of that was left. Instead of a dress, Serena wore tattered jeans (!) and a blouse that barely covered her navel. Her feet were bare and her face almost free of make-up. But the worst was the hair. Previously Serena had had smooth golden locks every girl would have killed for. Now it was just one huge blonde mess with small braids here and there.

"Are you..." Blair whispered, afraid to say the word out loud. "Have you become a ... hippie?"

Serena rolled her eyes and continued to observe the daisies. "Blair, chi-, calm down, OK? While you were in Yale, I've made a few changes." She smiled suddenly. "Within me. I've realised that life is about more than make-up and pretty dresses."

Blair gaped at her. "Who are you and what have you done with my friend?"

Though Blair had been dead serious, Serena started laughing. She jumped up from the floor and went to hug her best friend. Blair sniffed in the air, suspicious. "Is that ... grass I smell on you?"

Serena tried to look nonchalant. "Could be."

Blair slowly picked herself up from the chair and dragged the duffel to the doorway. "I think I need to go upstairs and process all this. Perhaps this is just one big horrible nightmare." Before she turned around and headed up the marble staircase, she said to Serena: "And if it isn't, I'm buying you a hairbrush. And Chanel No. 5."

As soon as Blair reached her room, she locked the door and threw herself on the bed. Thoughts circled in her mind like bees, buzzing and craving her attention. Three years hadn't felt like a long time. But apparently it had been enough for her world outside of Yale to turn upside down. She had already had to come to terms with her mother marrying Cyrus. Now this. If she was to be honest with herself, she didn't know how she would deal with this new, hippie Serena. Especially if they were living together. But she couldn't exactly kick her out - Serena had nowhere to go after her mother had run away with some musician.

Maybe Blair would come to terms with this eventually. Maybe...

Her eyelids felt at once heavy. After a couple of minutes, she gave up the fight of trying to keep them open and let them close. It felt good. She was exhausted after her journey back to New York City, after greeting her parents and discovering Serena's new appearance. 10 or 20 minutes of rest couldn't hurt... As soon as she had decided that, her muscles relaxed, her breathing evened out and she slipped into the world of dreams...

The sound of glass breaking downstairs brought her back to the waking world. She sat up straight, her heart thudding hard in her chest. Had she been dreaming? But no - there was definitely something going on downstairs. She heard laughter. And music. Not Beethoven, or Tchaikovsky. Something new she hadn't heard before.

She decided to go down and investigate, but since it seemed like there were a lot of people downstairs, she fixed her make-up first and changed out of her wrinkled clothes into a brand-new dress from Chanel. She hoped whatever she would find downstairs wouldn't make her regret dressing up like this.

As she arrived at the bottom of the staircase, the music growing ever louder, not only did she regret wearing the dress dress, but she regretted coming down at all.

Hippies - hippies everywhere. They were sitting cross legged on the floor, drinking straight out of wine bottles, dancing, smoking weed, openly making out, playing with valuable artefacts. The sound of glass breaking had come from an antique vase someone had toppled over. And the source of the music was a large radio in the centre of it all.

Blair felt like she could breathe fire, but she decided to save it for her confrontation with Serena, as Blair knew it was she who was behind all this.

Disgusted, she stepped over a pool of vomit and tried to find her "friend" in the chaos, clutching the pearls around her neck protectively as she the same time she fought hard not to break down as she saw in what state her home was in. Fortunately, her mother had moved into a villa with Cyrus, leaving the penthouse apartment to her, which saved her a great amount of worry.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She turned around, ready to push away the hippie.

It was Serena.

But she wasn't alone - two young men stood beside her. One blonde, handsome, a Prince Charming kind of guy. The other, all dark hair and dark eyes, was also very handsome, but also sinister somehow. It was he who smiled at her as she turned to face them. She looked away quickly. At least they weren't hippies.

"Blair!" Serena chirped. "I was about to wake you! You're missing out on all the fun here. This is Nate and Chuck, from California."

"Lovely," Blair replied with a grimace without casting a second glance at "Nate" and "Chuck". "Can I please talk to you for a second?"

Serena frowned. "Can it wait? I really need to talk to some people here."

But Blair wasn't having it. She was done taking crap from Serena, especially where it concerned herhome. "Serena. Get these people out of here. Now! Or you'll have to go find yourself another friend, one who's willing to let her apartment get thrashed by hippies." She was aware that her voice became very shrill at the end, and that people turned around and stared, but there was no stopping the wave of fury she felt right now, not at this point.

At least, that was what she'd thought. But then "Chuck" suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist and ushered her away from the shell shocked Serena, through the crowd and out onto the balcony of what used to be her parents' bedroom.

She pulled away from him the second they were exposed to the cool night air. "Who the hell are you? And what exactly do you think you're doing?"

She tried to get back inside but he blocked the way.

"Easy tiger..." He said softly. "You can get back inside when you're calm."

"I can get back inside whenever I want," Blair snapped. "This is my apartment." She was so furious that she didn't even care to be polite.

He grinned, amused. "So?"

"Do you want me to call the police?"

He laughed. "How are you going to call them without a phone?"

To that she had no reply. Huffing, she turned around and looked down at the street below. "I could scream," she suggested.

"It's Friday night in Big Apple," Chuck mused, but there was an edge to his voice. "Nobody's going to hear you..."

Blair was only bluffing, but she could see that he was falling for it. "Wanna bet?" She smiled.

Chuck raised his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine, go." He stepped aside from the doorway.

She was about to head inside, but stopped and turned to face him. There was too little distance between them, she noticed. She could even smell his aftershave.

"What was this all about anyway?" She asked, her voice suddenly wobbly for some reason.

Chuck smiled. "I was saving you a lot of embarrassment back there. Serena doesn't seem to respect you very much since she decided to throw a party in your apartment without asking you. If you shout at her, it's going to make youthe bad guy, while really it's Serena who should be feeling guilty."

Blair was suspicious though. "Why are you saying that? I thought you and Serena were friends?"

"Acquaintances more like it," Chuck replied with a shrug. He leaned in closer. "I prefer brunettes."

Blair blushed. "Um, OK. It was nice talking to you, "Chuck"."

She pushed past him and ran out of the bedroom, unsure of what to feel, of what to think.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the house, the party was still going on steadily. Serena had ignored her request. Though he seemed slightly psychopathic, Chuck had been right - Serena housed zero respect for her.

She entered the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water and tried to figure out what to do next. Her hand automatically shot up to her neck to clutch at her pearls, something she always did when she was distressed.

Only, her fingers grasped air when she did. The glass of water slipped out of her hand and broke into a million pieces on the marble floor.

He had stolen her necklace.

That was it for tonight, as any late night show host would say.

Since it's christmas-time and all, please donate to the reviews, favourites and follows. Every review = one kitten. My goal is to become the crazy cat lady so...

Chap Three, coming soon... to YOUR computer screen