Chuck, I miss you. I love you. I just want you to come home. Please, please come home because I'm lonely and miserable without you here. I wish I could go back in time, to that night in the limo. Chuck, I need you...

Okay, it sounded corny and Blair knew it. She could delete the e-mail without even having sent it, but the words still rushed through her brain. She missed Chuck. She wanted Chuck. Somehow he'd managed to get inside her head, to hypnotize her, to make her love him. She didn't know how he'd done it, but he had. It was crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Just like her life.

Blair was packed and ready, waiting for Serena so that they could go to the Hamptons. She was anxious to get away from her mother and new dad, because all they did was lay around the house in their bath robes, kissing and talking about how their love was forever. Blah, blah, blah. Blair and Chuck's love could be forever, too, if he'd just stop feeling sorry for himself and come back to her.

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"Serena, could I speak to you a moment, dear?" Serena's grandmother asked her quietly.

"Sure, grandma."

Serena sat on the richly upholstered sofa and waited for her grandma to take a sip of her tea before she started talking.

"Dear, I've found your brother."

"Erik? But he's right..."

"No, dear," said Grandma with a chuckle. "I've found Charles."

"Oh. Well, according to him, he's not my brother anymore."

"Whatever. Either way, I've found him."

"How, and why?" Serena asked, confused.

"Because you deserve to know where he is, and because that poor girl out there should know, too. I found him through a friend of mine, who owns a few night clubs in Manhattan."

"Oh." Serena wondered why her grandmother had really done this. There was something about the story that didn't really seem true. But so what, as long as she knew where Chuck was. But should she really tell Blair? Blair was just starting to forget about Chuck, or so it seemed. Over the past day, she'd seemed more free, in a way.

Serena approached Blair, who was sitting in the hot tub watching steam rising from the water.

"Hey, Blair," she said.

"Hey." Blair said. She laughed. "You look like your all muddled up, or something. Something wrong."

"Nooooo," Serena said slowly. "Nothing's wrong. But something just happened with my mom. I'm not sure what. But I need to go and see her, okay? I'll be back by tomorrow, and it's cool if you stay here, but I need to go. Okay?" She bit her lip at the lie she'd formed so perfectly.

Blair laughed. "Okay."

Serena packed an overnight bag, got directions from her grandma, and left.

It wasn't easy tracking down Chuck. There were so many night clubs in Manhattan, who knew what one he'd be visiting tonight? But finally she found him. Or someone who had once been Chuck Bass. Someone who didn't really look at all like Chuck. Someone who looked like a walking skeleton.

His eyes were hollow black spots, swallowed up by the thick black lines that shadowed his face, which looked so sad that Serena actually felt sorry for him. He was drinking and talking to a girl who was sitting on the bar in front of him. She laughed and ran her hand along his arm.

"Oh my god, you are so funny!" she exclaimed. "So, you wanna get out of here?"

"Back off, bitch," Serena said. The girl looked startled, but jumped off the bar and walked away.

Chuck turned around, too drunk to see her completely. His eyes were rolling all around and his head lolled to the side. "Look, it's my big sister, come to rescue me from the clutches off..." he didn't get any farther than that because he slumped forward.

Serena called a taxi and somehow managed to get Chuck back to his hotel. She tried not to look at his face, which freaked her out. She had never, not in all the years she'd known him, ever seen him like this. Seen him so completely gone.

Gently, she put him to bed, listening to his complaints. Serena's partying years paid off. She knew that when someone was as drunk as this, they shouldn't be left alone. It was dangerous. Who knew, he was probably baked on some designer drug or something, too. So she wrapped up in a blanket and curled up on the couch to wait for him to wake up.