A/N: You guys are completely fantastic, do you know that? The response for this story is more than I could have ever hoped for! Thank you sooo much for all of the reviews and compliments.
As I explained at the beginning of the first chapter, this will be season 1 re-written. This chapter picks up where the last one left off in "Seventeen Candles" and it gave me some trouble. You will see familiar dialogue from the actual episode as well as my twists on it. The purpose of this fic is to re-imagine the motivations of the characters and see what could have happened if they had made slightly different decisions. I'm not going to make many huge changes to the story line, Blair going to the Cotillion with Nate for example, but I'll tweak things to get to my ending.
Oh, and if you find a mistake in grammar or something I would love for you to let me know. Nicely, of course. :D That being said, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter and the journey into the complex minds of Chuck and Blair.

Disclaimer: I don't own Blair, Chuck, or Gossip Girl. If I did, Blair would realize that Nate is a whiney baby and Chuck is all the man a girl could ever need.

Warnings: T for occasional language and adult themes; may change to M in later chapters.

IF ONLY

Chapter 2

"Strong Enough to Break?"

Staring at the fractured remnants of the bar mirror, Chuck couldn't believe where he found himself this morning. Thinking about how out of character he had been acting in the presence of Blair for the last few hours, he was searching his memories for the reason why she had triggered such a change in him by simply taking a stage. The little dance that she had done, seemingly just for him, had simultaneously thrown him for a loop and turned him on. His best friend's ex-girlfriend was completely off-limits and, therefore, had become utterly irresistible.

The way she had come onto him in the backseat of his limo had shocked him, to be sure, and he knew what she was giving up. She was one of his only friends, so there was no way that he could treat her like any other girl; he knew that it fell to him to make her first time special. When he did his best to make sure that she was comfortable and to be considerate of her, he never expected that she would want to come back to his suite. Again, Blair wasn't a random chick that he could do and dismiss, so he had relented and broken one of his rules: leave them begging for more.

Nothing could have prepared him for the carefree Blair that he had unleashed at Victrola; the one who behaved like a seasoned seductress. The straight-laced girl that he had known most of his life had become an unhindered woman in the span of twelve hours and he didn't know what his opinion was on the transformation.

She had lured him into the shower and proceeded to unleash her screams to echo off of the tiles as he thrust into her against the wall. When he exited the bathroom, he had been overcome with lust as she sat brushing her hair, not at all ashamed of her nakedness. Only she had ever taken a hold of his imagination like this; Blair Waldorf had become someone capable of stealing his tight control over his body and Chuck Bass was suddenly powerless to stop her.

There was a reason why he didn't sleep with the same woman more than once and she had become the example. Between the friend she was before last night and the lover she had become since then, he had formed an attachment. Chuck Bass had become vulnerable, powerless against the fluttery feeling in his stomach every time he looked at her.

He had tried to impress her by ordering breakfast; there was a crazy need to make sure he could give her anything that she wanted. The embarrassment over his inability to fight the temptation her nudity presented led him to joke about dying of hunger and exhaustion, but he had been serious. She had reduced his resolve to dust.

Hearing her about to mention Nathaniel had brought a crushing surge of jealousy to the center of his chest and burst the bubble he had been existing in. Last night he'd made sure she wasn't going to kill him in the morning for taking advantage of her; there was no way on earth that he could have known he would feel like the one who'd been used. He should have made her get out of the car when they reached her building. Bringing her back to his suite like she'd asked had only caused him more problems than he had already.

Hind sight was twenty-twenty, however, so now he was left to study his uncharacteristicly devastated expression in one of the shards of glass still stuck in the frame of the destroyed mirror. Wasn't it supposed to be seven years of bad luck for breaking one of the things? It sure seemed like his luck had finally run out.

Slowly sliding from his perch on the stool, he decided that a cold shower would clear his head. If only he had any hope of the water cleansing the hollow ache from chest where his heart was thought to be; breaking the mirror in frustration sure hadn't helped.

After using her key to get into Serena's suite to change her outfit, thanking God that she wasn't there and that Blair kept a few outfits at her best friend's just in case, Blair continued on to the jewelry store. With all that had happened last night, she should have been stewing about being manipulated into dancing; that had been the catalyst for everything that followed. But, inexplicably, she wasn't at all regretful of her actions.

The only thing she could think about was the look on Chuck's normally haughty face when she mentioned Nate. The playful light that had been in his eyes switched off immediately, like someone had pulled the plug on a dream sequence in a television show. His demeanor did a complete one-eighty, leaving Blair to wonder if last night had meant more to him then it had to her.

Shaking that ridicules thought from her head, she walked into her apartment to see her mother muttering in shock at a newspaper. "Hey, mom. I just got back from the jeweler's and I have to say…"

"Have you seen this?" When Eleanor dropped the offending paper down onto the table in the foyer, it was Blair's turn to be shocked.

Picking up the paper, she screwed her face up in confusion. "Since when does drunk and disorderly get this much attention?"

"Since never! The Captain is being charged with Embezzlement and Fraud. This is an absolute disaster." Her mother was practically shaking in frustration, but all Blair could do was stare down at the headline on the front page: 'ARCHIBALD INDICTED.' It might as well have said, 'Welcome back to reality, Blair Waldorf.'

Her heart was sinking into her gut with guilt over what she had been doing while her ex-boyfriend had been dealing with this terrible problem. "It must be awful for them."

"I meant for me! The captain is supposed to represent me…" As her mother rambled on, Blair tuned her out. The picture of her ex-boyfriend and his family on the front of the New York Journal jarred her from the problems her night with Chuck had caused; she needed to get a hold of Nate to offer her support. He had been her friend before anything else. When she stated her intentions to call him, her mother continued to ramble as Blair escaped to her room.

The cold shower had served to calm Chuck's nerves, but not his heart-rate. When he exited the bathroom, the way that he had thrown Blair out that morning was still on his mind. Choosing an outfit from his closet, he contemplated her response to his cold dismissal. The way that she dropped her robe to dress in front of him, her hesitation to accept a ride, the last thing that she said; it was almost as if her feelings had been hurt instead of the reverse.

All of this was entirely too confusing for his newfound conscience to manage. Shaking his head, Chuck dressed mechanically while he fought for understanding of the situation and was shocked to feel that he should apologize to her for his behavior. His life had become such a mess, but he was torn between wanting to go back to the norm and calling Blair just to hear her voice.

Unfortunately he found himself thinking of the birthday party he was to attend tonight and of the gift he still needed to purchase. An apology would be a strange experience, but if he could express his undefined feelings with a present instead of words…

Grabbing his wallet and phone, Chuck headed for his door, shaking his head at what he knew he was about to do. He was well aware of which jewelry store Blair's wish list would be fulfilled at; he had gone with Nathaniel at least once to pick up her gift over the years. Chuck was going to try to win over his best friend's ex-girlfriend with stolen knowledge.

If this was what it meant to have a crush, he wanted no more of it.

She attempted to reach Nate five times, but only heard his voicemail. On the sixth try she snapped the phone shut as Serena waltzed into her room. Without knocking. "Hey, B."

Forcing a smile to her features, Blair enveloped her friend in a hug. "Serena, I thought you weren't coming over until later." Releasing herself from the embrace, Blair walked over to her closet and pretended to be interested in choosing an outfit for her party that night. She half-listened while Serena related her experience of making out in a café with Dan where his 'Best Friend' Vanessa was working.

"I can't believe he told her that you guys were going to do it." She was still shuffling clothes around in her closet, trying to look occupied.

It seemed to be fooling Serena. "Well, I told you!"

"That's different; I'm a girl." Serena was just too trusting and Blair was getting tired of explaining the danger to her.

"Well, so is she." No matter how hard she tried, it seems that Serena still didn't get it.

"Exactly my point." She rolled her eyes at her best friend's naïveté and turned around with two outfits. "But even if she wasn't, when you get a boyfriend, you become the best friend and the best friend becomes the second best friend. That's just how it has to be if it's ever going to work." She felt like kicking herself for lecturing Serena on relationships at this point, but it's what the girl expected and obviously what she had come over for.

Blair was holding the chosen clothes up to her body to compare them when Serena touched on the one subject that Blair had been hoping to avoid. "Hey, you still haven't told me how Nate's doing; it's all over the news."

Unless that was why Serena had come over. Blair quickly racked her brain for a plausible explanation, "Uh… When I spoke to him this morning, I… I told him to focus on his family today."

"He's still coming to your party, right?"

Silently cursing her best friend for being 'concerned,' she continued to lie through her teeth. "Uh… I… I told him not to worry about it. I mean, only if he's up to it."

"You're such a good girlfriend, B. Really." Blair couldn't help but inwardly cringe. She was the furthest thing from the model girlfriend right now and she didn't dare confide in her best friend until she was certain she and Nate weren't getting back together. "Hey, um, I'll just pick you up and we can go together… but I really hope that Nate will make it."

Giving Serena a slight nod when she said goodbye, Blair was both hoping Nate would be there and dreading what would happen if he did come. She was in uncharted waters; forefront in her mind was how she couldn't know the way things would be with Chuck at the party or if he would tell Nate. The troubling thing was that she couldn't care less to see Nate right now, let alone be concerned about whether he found out where she had run last night. Sure, she was worried about the situation that Nate's family was finding themselves in, but she couldn't stop picturing the crushed look on Chuck's face. For some strange reason, she was more concerned with how Chuck was faring than she was with Nate.

Getting up to hang her decoy clothes back in her closet, she almost jumped when her phone rang. After setting the clothes in their places, she made herself calmly walk over to her phone and pick it up. Seeing Nate's name on the caller ID was a disappointment for some reason, but she had to put up a concerned front anyway. "Hi, are you okay? I've been calling you all day." Right; more like ever since she had crashed back down to Earth.

Nate's nervous voice came through the receiver. "Yeah I'm fine, thanks. I, um… It's been a little busy."

"I just wanted to check on you." She bit her lip, hoping he would be brief so that she wouldn't have to lie too much. "See if you need anything?"

"Yeah, I kinda do."

As she stood staring across her room, she instantly knew what was coming and wished that he wasn't so predictable. "Oh?"

"Um… Blair, do you think we've been a little hasty with the whole break-up?"

Telling herself to play it cool, Blair told him the only truth that she knew at the moment. "I don't know, Nate, um… it was a pretty difficult decision." Well, that pretty much summed things up. "But we do have a lot of history together… maybe we should talk when I see you tonight." Fingering one of the seams on her comforter, it appeared to be a good idea. That way if she does decide that she's through with him, he wouldn't be getting the news over the phone.

"Yeah, yeah… of course! Listen, we'll just take it slow and see how it goes. And uh… I've got a birthday present for you. It's, uh, something special."

Forcing as much enthusiasm as possible into her voice, she hastened to finish the call. "I can't wait to open it at my party. See you there." She pressed the 'end' button on her phone before he could answer and she flopped back onto her bed in defeat.

She hated herself for her selfishness, but dialed the jewelry store that she'd only visited that morning. "Hi, this is Blair Waldorf, I was wondering if any of the pieces I put on hold were picked up today? The diamond necklace? Really? Thank you."

The urge to slap herself after hanging up was astounding. Leave it to Nate to try to win her back by purchasing the most ostentatious item that she had chosen. Sighing as she stared at the high ceiling of her bedroom, she lamented over the trial her life had become. If they decided to stay apart after their conversation tonight, she was going to hurt his feelings again by not accepting his gift. It just wouldn't be right considering how much she knew it cost.

Covering her face with her hands, Blair refused to think about why losing the necklace was the only disadvantage to breaking-up with Nate that she could come up with.

A/N: I hope that this update gets as good of a response that the first chapter did. Don't want to disappoint! Let me know what you thought!