A/N: I forgot to mention this last time, but this will not follow the book. At all xD Thanks for the reviews. Keep it coming!

The entire time I wrote this, instead I imagined Robert Pattinson as Chuck. Maybe it's because I wrote this chapter after the 16th billionth time I watched the Twilight teaser trailer. ;D tehehee.

Blair stepped into the meadow, her shoes in her hands as her bare feet grazed against the grass. She hadn't been in this place for the longest time, mostly because she didn't want to run into Chuck while he was "thinking". Her eyes wandered around the meadow. Everything was the same since she last came here. Everything but one thing. One major, disappointing thing. She was holding her shoes, not Chuck's hand. Sighing, Blair set them down beside a tree and headed further in. "Chuck?" she called softly, bending her head left and right to check if he was there.

"Hey," he answered her from behind the tree she placed her shoes next to. "Thanks for coming."

She turned around, placing a hand over her heart. Not just because he startled her, but because her heart was racing rapidly from hearing his voice, his genuine and raspy voice, for the first time in what seemed like centuries. "Of-of course," she stammered and managed to crack a smile.

He returned the smile and stepped closer to her. She reflexively moved towards him. When their bodies were about a foot apart, Blair looked to the side, afraid to make eye contact. "So…" she began, not sure what she was doing. "Why'd you call me here?" she asked him, sitting down on the grass and patting the area next to her.

He gladly took the offer and sat close to her, but not too close, approximately a good one and a half feet. "I just wanted to talk, I guess. I miss talking to you," he whispered, picking at the grass between them.

She nodded. "Yeah, me too," she agreed, turning to pick the grass with him. "But there's nothing we can do."

He chuckled without amusement, more along the lines of frustration and anger. "I know. Don't you hate it?"

"More than anything."

"At least Eleanor would learn to accept it. Bart's completely against the idea of me being with someone that's not," he paused, trying to find words that wouldn't offend her, "upper class."

There was a long pause as Blair continued picking at the grass and Chuck looked around silently.

"Why, exactly?" Blair finally asked, eyes still on the grass.

"Hmm?" he asked, turning to face her. He instantly regretted looking into her eyes and stared down at the grass.

"Why is he so against it? Us being together? I mean is it just because I'm not… rich?"

Chuck sighed, flicking a piece grass. "It's a bit more complicated than that."

"How so?"

"We come from different families, B. Entirely different, and not just because of money, because of everything. We live in two different worlds in my father's opinion."

Blair shook her head. "I still don't get it," she whispered, urging him to continue.

He finally looked across to face Blair, noticing the unfathomable hurt in her eyes. Chuck's face quickly softened, and he so badly wanted to reach out and touch her face. He wanted to be able to comfort her again, but he knew the pain it would cause them both when they remembered the fact that they just couldn't be together. He shook his head, focusing his attention to the trees. "Look at who Bart just married; Lilly van der Woodsen. I'm expected to follow up to that. I'm expected to date, and eventually marry, somebody well, yes, rich, and also someone who's well-known. Somebody that could handle going out in the spotlight and live in a fancy house with a huge swimming pool. It's complicated to explain, but basically, he tells me it's just the opposite of you." His voice lowered at the last part of the last sentence, and he realized how much it really hurt him. He took a deep breath, preparing himself to look at Blair again. He turned to face her.

It wasn't the reaction he'd expected. He was sure that she'd be too stunned to do anything, that she'd probably just be a statue, sitting on the grass next to him. But when his head turned to meet her gaze, he was staring at her waist. It took him a moment to tilt his head up to look at her face when she was standing up. She wasn't crying, but she was extremely close. Chuck could see the red starting to flush on her cheeks from the anger and disappointment. He could see her eyes blinking back the tears. He could see her hands clenched into fists and the constant shrugging of her shoulders, a habit of hers when she needed to calm down. He stood up and grabbed her hand, but she pulled hers away before he could feel the warmth of her skin. "Blair, please," he begged her. "Don't cry." He could hear the pleading sound of his voice. It was unendurable for him to see her this way. Especially since he had caused it.

She shook her head vigorously. "Tell me how I can't, Chuck," she replied bitterly, biting her bottom lip before looking away. "Why did you even bring me here? Just to do this to me? Do you think it's funny to see how I tremble at your presence? Is it humorous that you have this certain control, this power, over me?" Her voice was quivering at this point, and he imagined the tears running down her face.

"Not at all," he told her, his voice nearly silent. No one said anything after that. The only noises were the wind soughing over the meadow and the chirping of birds.

Blair, it seemed like she always broke the silences, turned to face Chuck again. "Lunch is over in half an hour. I'm going to leave now."

Chuck looked up from his feet. He was right, tears had been streamed down her face and her mascara ran. He was paralyzed at the heartbreaking sight; all he could do was nod slightly. How did I screw this up so badly? he cursed at himself. He kicked at the grass, just watching her walk away, slowly disappearing through the trees and heading to the driveway. Do something. Do something, damn it!

"Blair, wait!" he shouted and sprinted over to her. She turned around to tell him to forget about it, but was cut off when his hands pressed against her cheeks. When his lips pressed against her lips.

- - -

Serena held her books close to her at her stomach, feeling butterflies flutter around and around as she walked to her outside locker near St. Jude's to put her books away for lunch. She could still hear people whispering about her, and the pointing never ceased. Boys had already tried to pursue her, the point only to get some "action" as they always called it. Serena shook her head, trying to discard the thoughts. While doing this, she had not seen the slender boy walking in her direction, and only to increase the humiliation of her first day back, they bumped into each other and her books lay scattered on the floor next to her. "Owww," she moaned, rubbing her forehead with her left hand. Her eyes remained closed after the fall as she hoped she was just dreaming.

To her dismay, she wasn't. "I'm so sorry," the boy apologized, holding her hand, and wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her up. "Are you alright?"

She tried to steady herself against his body and reluctantly opened her eyes. She squinted her eyes slightly to decipher who he was. After a few seconds, she recognized the face. "Dan Humphrey," she whispered under her breath.

He chuckled lightly. "I'm surprised you remembered me."

It took her a few seconds to realize that she was still leaning against him, both hands resting around his neck tightly. "Oh, sorry," she whispered and pushed herself away from him as she bent over and picked up her books. Nothing of his had been spilled.

Dan bent down to help her, but she only ignored him and grabbed an occasional book out of his hand violently. Knowing that he wasn't wanted, he stood up, bringing his hands behind his back. "Well, again, sorry for bumping into you."

Serena bit her lip and rolled her eyes, getting to her feet to face Dan. "Is that all?"

His face contorted with confusion. "Uh… yeah, pretty much."

She looked to the side and sighed. "Fine." With that, she continued on her way to her locker.

Dan watched as she left and shrugged his shoulders. Feeling a pang of guilt, and anger that he had upset her yet again, he rushed over to her and rested his hand gently on her shoulder. "Me again."

She rolled her eyes and continued stuffing her books into her locker. "Yes?" she inquired with exaggerated impatience in her voice.

"Am I supposed to apologize to you for something else?"

"What do you think?" she snapped, slamming her locker shut.

He was taken aback, and Serena could feel it when he immediately took his hand off her shoulder. Instead, he placed it on the back of his head. "Well, I'm stumped. I haven't talked to you the entire day."

She bit her bottom lip, whipping her head around to look at him. "Not today."

He let out a sigh. "You mean before you left for boarding school."

"Bingo!" she said with mock sarcasm. "Didn't think the 'whore of The Upper East Side' would call you on that, did you?"

"I never said you were the 'whore of The Upper East Side.'"

"Rightttt." She puckered her lips and looked up to the ceiling. "Right. Because the exact words you said were 'skankof The Upper East Side.' Sorry, my mistake. Sometimes I just get those words confused." She turned to the side and started walking into the streets, hoping that a cab could bring her back home for her to have lunch.

"Woah, woah, there," Dan panted, catching up to her and grabbed her arm. She shook it off. He placed his hands, palm facing Serena, in front of him, as if to say he was surrendering. And he was. At least in the most Dan-like way he could. "I'm sorry?"

She shot daggers at him. "That's supposed to be a question?"

He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"For?"

"For…" He tried to flip back the pages of his memory journal to recall what he had done. He knew he had said horrible things about Serena, but who didn't? The thing was, his mind wouldn't let him go back there. Because he lov—

"For…" she repeated, crossing her arms over her chests.

"For calling you the 'skank of The Upper East Side.'"

"Pft, I bet you can't even remember when you did."

At this point, Dan couldn't take it anymore. "Actually, it seems like I should apologize that you're not always on my mind."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she asked, surprised, but still peeved.

"It's not like I remember every single detail of when and where and why about you. When you left to boarding school," –this part being a complete lie, but his anger took the most of him- "I didn't constantly think about you everyday. The world's not revolved around you, Serena. GET OVER IT.

"I know I did some pretty crappy things to you. Yes, I know that for a fact. And I'm apologizing. It's hard for me to apologize to someone. It always has been. But the least you could do is to just accept it so we can part ways like we always did.

"So there, I'm SORRY. I'm sorry for calling you a whore, skank, bitch, slut, whatever. I'm sorry! Okay?"

Dan took a deep breath after all of the yelling he had just done, but he knew he was in for some more.

"You can't just say sorry for all those times and expect it to be okay, Dan!"

"Well what the hell am I supposed to do then, huh?! It seems like I can never say anything to please you, Serena."

"Stop trying to please me. An apology's not going to please me. What would is going back in time and preventing all that from happening, but we can't. The least you can do is mean what you say when you apologize!"

"Why do you think I don't?!"

"Because I've met people like you. In fact, everybody in the whole damn school is like you. They say sorry to me because they're afraid of me, but they don't mean crap about what they say."

"Well, I'm different."

"Oh yeah?! How so, Dan?"

He leaned in towards her, resting his hot lips against hers. Although it was intense, it wasn't too out there. She could tell, by the way he intertwined his fingers with hers instead of trying to feel her body and by the way he didn't try to stick his tongue in her mouth, that he at least respected her boundaries. But what did that mean? They finally released and stared into each other's eyes in puzzlement until they heard a few gasps.

Everyone had been watching. And that meant…

Dan felt his phone vibrate in his messenger bag and fished it out. A new text message.

Oh, Daniel, you don't know what you've done for me. After hiding all your secrets about how much you liked Serena, I was getting a little impatient. The perfect time to release them never came, until now that is. Everyone thinks that kiss was just to get her to shut up? I know the real deal, hun.

xoxo, Gossip Girl.

Dan clenched his jaw and thrust his cell back into his bag. "Serena, sorry about—"

But she was gone.