A/N: Sorry, I know I've been lazy with the updating and my EOYs are coming, pretty soon - 8 days in fact. But somehow the plot bunnies seem to hit whenever I promise I'm on a brief hiatus, so it gave birth to this so there you go. Like I put up on my Profile Page:
Just a warning, though: I'm not good at fluffy, airy, loveydovey fics. In fact, I suck at them. This fic will be slightly darker - not a lot, not very noticeable, but I dont think I can think of a suitable happy ending for them. Secondly, I realised this fic has probably the most loopholes in them - such as simple questions like how old are Blair and Chuck etc in the fic as pointed out by DewiMadrim and voldemort14 .
I honestly say I don't know, because I started out the story intending for Blair to be all grown up. Then I realised that this would limit the possibility of them meeting - the only time Edward probably talks to strangers is when he's forced to in class - and the fic wouldn't even get started. So I put Blair to spend her summer break in Forks. I apologise if it doesn't make any sense but I live in a tropical, Asian climate so I don't know how the summer break thing goes, and I sure as hell don't know exactly how long you wait to go to college. I tried researching but too much information makes my brain go yadda yadda yadda. I'm sorry if it may be a bit confusing though, and I'm working on this problem as soon as I can. Just to clarify - TAoD will not be a full length fic, maybe around 5 chapters or so.
Also, you have to admit, keeping the secret that you are vampires do make you a little suspicious of everyone. I dunno, that's how I intepreted the Cullens eating alone despite them being so beautiful and all - they probably chased everyone else away. The way I see it, it's only because Edward was attracted to Bella for the first time in his lifetime that they began to notice Bella and go out of their way to be nice to her. Other than that, they would be a little cold and cliquey of a sort.
There you go. A mouthful. So here's a chapter - or maybe a teaser, I haven't quite decided yet - but I'll probably come back to edit a few things. Read and Review!
Chapter 3
The change is little, barely discernible, but it's there. It is fortunate, then, that Blair has a keen sense of observation and is able to read people like no other. Blair mentally notes the mere existence of that one night under the stars juxtaposes itself subtly into undateable, icy heart of Edward Cullen (if he had a heart, that sneaky bastard). It is almost imperceptible, so much so that Blair thinks she might be the only one to notice it – the way he tilts his head at a curious angle at her whenever she speaks up in class, or the brief flash of amusement in his intense eyes as she snickers at Jessica's dressing (she has taken to attempting Blair's style, failing miserably with Gap as a replacement for Bergdorf's) or the quick, faintest quirk of his lips when he glances briefly at her as the teacher mentions her name and the silky brush of his hand against hers as he passes a pen or worksheet over.
He doesn't speak, but he acknowledges her existence and Blair ignores the thrill and cunning satisfaction she gets in the pit of her stomach, purposely flipping her hair back and telling herself that whether or not he notices her does not concern her in the least. Or at least that's what she tells herself. Sometimes Blair catches herself smiling back at him, or glancing haughtily over at his (eyes, nose, lips) faded jeans and sweater over a snugly-fitting white tee.
Not good enough for you, Waldorf, she tells herself. And the Upper East Sider in her dutifully clutches her Prada bag a little tighter and ignores the pitiful voice in her head piping up, but he's good for you.
The spark between their feigned disinterest is undeniable, though.
They both share a dirty little secret and Blair's had enough to last her a lifetime, but that doesn't mean she'll stop.
He's still freezing ice-cold and blazing white-hot fire but somehow, he's not as untouchable as before. It's as if that one lone encounter has melted and extinguished his impermeable front and now he's...human. Less like a god, somehow. And Blair knows ordinary, puny humans are effortless to manipulate and much more fun to do so. No matter how beautiful said ordinary, puny humans were, they would get crushed under the dainty Miu Miu kitten heels of Blair Waldorf.
He looks at her no less than four times during Biology class (not that she was counting, of course) and smiles very slightly when Blair snarls at him to fix his eyes somewhere else. She can't help feeling a little disappointed when he obliges all too easily, though.
They exchange glances in the cafeteria, though, where everyone is at their loudest gossiping and complaining about the food (Blair has been bringing strawberry yoghurt and Cuban salad every day since the first day of school, specially prepared by Mark, the chef in her summer house) and people are less occupied with staring and complimenting her, or staring and whispering about the Cullens to even bother notices where her steady, almost predatory gaze is directed to. Every lunch, her dark brown eyes find Edward's gold ones (was it her, or did they seem to be getting darker?) and a perfectly trimmed eyebrow is arched in a challenge.
He will always smile back, even though sometimes his hands grip the table hard and his knuckles turn white. Blair always pretends not to see it.
No one else does.
Jessica is still bugging her about what fashion accessories did she think would go well with her hair (accompanied with a hair toss of flaky hair and an envious glance at Blair's natural curls), Lauren is still animatedly talking to a guy (Blair still couldn't remember his name) about Dante's The Inferno close-reading analysis in Literature class and how it could be seen metaphorically and the authorial intention, the blond guy is alternating between shuffling and muttering to his feet and trying to talk to her (oh wait, was that one action?). Tyler, the Corvette-stealer, is enthusiastically talking to some guys with glassy eyes on how interesting it was to examine and take apart expensive cars first-hand.
My expensive car, you sonofabitch.
Blair disinterestedly stirs her yoghurt about. She's contemplating her life here in Forks, and surprisingly enough she likes it. It's cold, rainy and quiet. Although the people here weren't probably a quarter as rich as she was, perhaps she could arrange to introduce her ever-useful handbook of all the Terms of Fashion into this third-world fashion nation. Perhaps even persuade her mother to set up an Eleanor Waldorf branch in Port Angeles, which was only a few hours' drive away. Blair could wake up every weekend to manage a long-overdue shopping trip. She'd have the best of everything – no Gossip Girl, no Chuck, no Serena (nobody to outshine her constantly), hot guys (she refused to think of Edward)...
Blair realises with abject horror that she's thinking of her staying in Forks in the long run. Impossible – she still has a couple of weeks before university, and after University she would return to the UES, after all, as planned. She would either continue running Waldorf Designs with her mother, major in fashion-related events, or a lawyer (Blair liked to think that she did indeed have the calibre to take after her father's footsteps). She would get married, have two perfect children and be the envy of everyone around her, and that it would be her life in the UES for a long, long, time.
Blair's so preoccupied with reassuring herself of her pre-planned future that she doesn't glance over at Edward again, and so she doesn't see his bronze head bow down and his shoulders slump just slightly.
"Do something, dammit!" he hollers at the phone. "You're a fucking P.I. for Christ's sake, not a concussed headless chicken!"
The man on the other side of his phone, who has never once let him down before, lets him down for the first time as he garbles an indiscernible reply. Chuck recognises a few words in the warped speech, to recognise the sounds of a babbling apology quaking tremulously with fear at the backlash, and at being at the mercy of a furious Chuck Bass. "You're fired!" Chuck snarls in disgust, before he throws the phone savagely against the wall, where upon impact cracks loudly and drops unmercifully to the floor.
It had been certainly an inconvenient time for Andrew, his regular, trusted PI to apply for paid leave. A wedding, in fact. The one he could have had if only he'd given the ring as planned – well not a wedding per se, since Blair wouldn't have let him marry her that early after graduation, but a future-wedding that he would at least be promised to. And that man was thirty years his senior. Thirty years. Bloody fucking hell.
Chuck curses out loud again. It's been a month since Blair has walked out on the Upper East Side, and the gossip still circulates. The most popular one, of course, being that Blair found out about Chuck's infidelity and flies to a foreign land. Sadly to say, that was the truth, in its whole iridescent glory. Other versions included Blair walking in on Chuck and another woman and being murdered by Chuck (he'd even had to entertain visits from the police after they'd gotten wind of it), or Blair meeting another prince Marcus dunce and running off to a faraway land with him (utterly ridiculous, although his stomach lurched at the thought of Blair being with another man).
But all this rumors didn't change the fact that Blair was missing.
It has been a month.
Chuck has tried all the ways he knows to get Blair back – the women. Anything to make Blair come back, and re-stake her claim on him, because that's the dynamics of their relationship – pure, unadulterated possessiveness and jealousy. He makes sure he is seen herding the women into his room, locks the door and sits them down on his bed and offers them tea and talks about Blair, though – just to while away the time until it is deemed suitably scandalous enough. However, as the more women pour into his chambers and still no luck from Blair, he has returned to his old ways – desperate to make Blair feel jealousy, anger – anything. But she doesn't, and the women and the liquor still keep coming and he's still counting (or had he lost count already?).
He takes a long swig of amber scotch and dials Nate on the antique telephone on his desk. "Any luck, man?" he slurs.
Nate, ever the intuitive friend, picks up the conversation topic quickly. "Blair, you mean? Well, no. Serena has no clue where Blair is, either-"
Chuck blinks, forcing his blurry mind to focus and sharpen on the glaring fact. Since when was Serena even contactable? One day she'd just up and vanished with Carter, without a word of goodbye to her best friends. "Serena? You talked to Serena? Since when?"
"I've always been friends with Serena," Nate says, and this time his tone is defensive, almost petulant, and Chuck knows that even in his inebriated state he's hit the mark.
"Hold up, Nathaniel. I think something's missing in this equation of touchy reunions. Or rather, someone." Chuck leans forward and grips the scotch glass tighter. He has to struggle to think, but he does it anyway because something is nagging at the back of his mind, something that his infallible intuition warns doesn't quite add up and if only he could just figure out what. "Where did that hippie chick of yours cycle off to?"
"Vanessa?" Nate ventures. There's a slight hesitation before he answers haltingly. "It – It didn't work out between us."
Chuck laughs, although he feels no distinct amusement from the situation. It comes out more like a bark, a sharp sound of harsh laughter. Although he can't see Nate, he's pretty sure he flinches. "Didn't work out, Nathaniel?" he demurs, his drunk voice dripping acid. "Or was it because of a certain six-foot blond that you keep breaking up with girlfriends for?"
There's a long silence between them, that stretches out so tensely Chuck knows its going to snap and lash back at both of them anytime soon. "You're drunk, Chuck." Nate says quietly. "You're not thinking straight-"
"Neither are you," Chuck tosses vindictively at him. "I'm drunk Nathaniel, not stupid. And right now, all I want to know is -when did you start talking to Serena?"
Another long pause. Chuck closes his eyes as a headache rushes past him, but he blinks away the sluggishness of it all when Nate's guilty, soft voice echoes out of the antique speaker of the phone Chuck wants so badly to crush right now. "A week after she left," he admits. "Vanessa and I weren't doing so good – she only wanted to stay in motels and I wanted….better." He pauses. "Then Serena called. She sounded – she sounded, well, bad. Like she needed me, man. So I cancelled everything and booked a ticket to Prague-"
"You bailed on her," Chuck says quietly. Suddenly he feels very, very sober.
"Yeah. I did," The pain and guilt in Nate's voice is evident. "Vanessa told me that if I left her again we were done for good, but Serena needed me and I – I walked away from her."
"All this time?" Chuck whispers. "All this time when we thought you were backpacking with the little Brooklynite, you were with Serena? In Prague? When Blair was worried and upset over Serena leaving without a single note or goodbye, it was all fun and sun for you and her, Nate?"
"That's not fair," Nate snaps back, and Chuck knows he's hit a sensitive spot. "Carter lied to Serena, okay? He got her involved in some smuggling ring, and Serena didn't know what to do. She was just trying to find her dad."
Chuck sneers. "Once again, Van der Woodsen gets involved in things way over her head. Once again, Nathaniel Archibald, the shining white knight rushes to the damsel in distress," he stops, letting his voice drip scorn. "Did you ever once think about Blair? That she might be waiting, panicking, anxiously, wondering where her best friend's gone to and left her all alone, again, even though she promised never to again? Did Serena even think about Blair?"
"Serena didn't want Blair involved. She didn't want Blair-" Nate falters, and Chuck knows in his rage, he has to hit out – to lash at someone, and Nate has provided the perfect opportunity.
"Didn't want Blair to mess it up for her or scare away Daddy Dearest, more like." Chuck nearly explodes. The scotch glass meets the table with more force than necessary, and Chuck can feel the vibrations from the impact shivering his nerves. Not good enough.
"You don't know Serena."
"And you do, Nathaniel? We've known her as long as we've known each other. And all this time, Serena has always been the perfect child, so airy and flighty that you can't help but want to hold her down. And you've always wanted to be her tether, to be her rope to keep her grounded and you want her to need you as much as you've always needed her-" At this point, Nate starts talking, but Chuck isn't interested; he's on a roll- and rambles on. "It was never Blair, was it Nate? You never once spared a thought for your girlfriend who loved you and needed you just as much as Serena did. When your girlfriend's life was falling over the cliffs, you were too busy holding on to Serena, making sure you never floated away, to even offer her rope to hang on."
There's a long silence, and Chuck knows that his words – sharpened, moulded carefully into precise arrows to Nate's heart to hurt – has done their job. But he's angry, and he's not sorry. He's not sorry because it's the truth – that Nate hadn't the decency or sensibility to appreciate Blair and that despite all his self-righteous preaching, he hadn't either.
"I know," Nate whispers after a while, and his voice breaks. "I know, okay? Chuck, you're my best friend – believe me when I say I love Blair – I just don't love her in that way. I'm sorry I took so long and her heart along with me to figure it out, but I have. And Serena – Serena just wants her father back. That's all." His voice crumples for real this time, and Chuck knows instinctively Nate is crying on the phone. "Because, if you look at it, Chuck, man – we all want our fathers back, don't we?"
Chuck closes his eyes, and thinks about Harold Waldorf in France with his boyfriend, Captain Archibald serving time in prison, and his own father, buried six feet under the ground. And he knows that he'll forgive Serena for what she's done to Blair – what he doesn't know, however, is whether Blair herself will.
"Yeah."
"Serena wants to meet, two o' clock on Friday on the steps of the café on Bleecker. She thinks she's got a lock on Blair."
"I'll be there." Chuck breathes.
Blair gets another message from him by dinner.
She'd switched her phone off any Gossip Girl alerts in an attempt to disconnect from the high-strung life she'd lived and to fall into a regular, mundane rhythm of mingling with Wal-Mart shoppers and worn loafers and jeans. (Of course, that doesn't mean that she dresses like them, but it gives her a sense of satisfaction that Forks is making her less elitist.) She tries not to think about the Upper East Side as much as she can – it's just a couple more days before she returns to the Bitch Zone of Prada stilettos and Gucci-toting pretentiousness anyway.
So she stows away the Gossip Girl alerts, and pretends not to notice the frequent alerts cropping up on the Gossip Girl website (her homepage).
C spotted with another girl. Check. C making out with another girl. Check. C inviting a girl to his suite at the Plaza. C inviting two girls to his suite. C bringing home a whole harem of scantily-clad, giggling girls with way too much plastic surgery.
And of course, all of the scandalous photos came equipped with the dread Gossip Girl coverage and her goddamn ever-so-snide comments.
Well, well. Has resident womaniser C gotten over first love B, so soon? Well, that's a record for the books – or the sheets.
Blair knows –she doesn't need the goddamn input from Gossip Girl and the whole UES attempting to understand their relationship - it was his own way of telling her, Come back. I need you. It'd been a special focal point of their relationship – they know each other so well that they know what the other is thinking. Chuck wants her to fight for him, to show that she feels something. And Blair does. She feels, she's unbelievably jealous to the point she wants to ruin those girls for life, ruin him for life. She wants to slap him silly and kiss him even sillier and fall into his satin sheets with her hands in his hair and apologies left to be nothing but a thing of the past. She wants to stake her claim on him, if only for her to be the one to destroy him and make him beg. She's unbelievably pissed, and yet she hurts and aches down deep inside because she knows no matter how hard she's tried to bury him under the busy dazzle of Edward Cullen and ruling of Forks High School, he's still under her skin.
She feels for him, strongly enough to fight back.
But she doesn't. Somehow, her hands (perfectly manicured in pink) stay folded in her lap, smoothing down her floral dress and readjusting her flowery headband, but they don't move. Perhaps these hands are just too afraid of being scraped and bruised and callused in the impending struggle to follow. Maybe these hands are tired of fighting and clawing and scratching their way to the top. It's as though her hands have already accepted what her brain refuses to believe – they're over.
And of course, her phone beeps. Blair has two phones, and she hasn't given anyone in Forks that phone number.
The message is simple.
Please, Blair?
And it's so heartbreaking the way she can almost imagine him, dark eyes begging and pleading when they know they've wandered too far, his hair unusually dishevelled like he's run his hands there too many times. She can imagine his voice, even, the soft purr left gravelly with the alcohol and cigarette he most probably consumed, and yet still managing to make her weak in the knees.
Blair closes her eyes and pictures his voice, and with as much determination she can muster she pins the words dirty, cheating bastard to the beautiful brooding face, shoves it to the back of her mind, and thinks about something else instead. The fall collection of Vera Wang, perhaps, and those pretty new Miu Mius that would've been stocked in Bergdorf's by now. The simple, mundane, materialistic world Blair lives in that helps her connect to her shallow bitch and forget about the deep, trying matters of the world.
For the first time, this doesn't work.
Blair hums to herself and thinks of Edward Cullen instead.
He's a brooding mystery and Blair can't help but feel intrigued by him. Flawlessly perfect, except something about him made him burn hotter and freeze colder than anything she's ever experienced. Modest, to the point of being so insufferably arrogant about his modesty. A teasing smirk that somehow ridicules her and compliments her at the same time and threads so thin a line Blair just doesn't know what to believe. The slight soft dimple on his right cheek that seems to contrast so greatly against the hard, angular planes of his cheekbones. He is mystery and an annoyance bundled up into one big package of man.
And what a fine package it was.
Blair blinks, conscious of her distinctly lecherous thoughts, and decides she needs a strong drink right about now. She's sick of drinking the same wine in her cellar and she's sick of getting drunk in her summer house and she's sick of passing out on her recliner only to wake up alone. Blair doesn't do one night stands, but she's hormonally imbalanced (her period's coming) and she's lovelorn and being horny just thinking about Edward Cullen does not help matters.
Blair walks.
She's aware this is probably one of the few times she's ever hiked with the primary intent of hiking (there was that one time on a date with some poofy English Lord but her mind gets fuzzy on the small details). But she's in a mood to be awed speechless and the clearing is just about the right place to do the awe-ing and for the first time it's sunny in Forks and the clearing is sure to be marvellous so Blair grabs her camera and walks there anyway.
She is not, in any way whatsoever, hoping to meet Edward Cullen there.
She doesn't meet him, but she meets someone even better. Arriving in a package of wiry black hair and pale skin and wide eyes with a look too permanently startled to be considered pretty.
Bella Swan? I'm Blair.
Blair Waldorf.
Blair smiles.
Bella Swan is a walking magnet for disaster; that she knows. She's faced insurmountable danger over the past few years – almost being raped, almost getting knocked down by a truck, kissing a vampire that would forever be more tempted to suck her dry than to kiss her silly, almost getting killed by another vampire, almost being turned into a vampire, almost getting killed by a coven of vampires, almost getting killed by the first vampire's lover (there was this unhealthy relationship between her and vampires).
Despite that, Bella is unprepared to deal with the likes of Blair Waldorf.
She's gorgeous, poised and confident, a polar opposite from herself – a bumbling, ordinary creature. Bella idly wonders if Blair is a vampire too – it would explain the drop-dead looks, a smug arch of the eyebrow as though she knows something Bella doesn't, and the rather predatory gleam in those large chocolate orbs. She doesn't dazzle like the Cullens do, but there's something about her, form the proud tilt of her head right down to her perfectly manicured feet strapped to heels that looked expensive, that made her somehow more, and yet less than that of a vampire.
But her boyfriend beside her doesn't growl like he would have done to any other vampire, and instead straightens up and looks at the arrival somewhat warily, but with no animosity. Blair had to be human, then. A breathtakingly beautiful human.
"You must be Bella Swan." The voice is clipped but with a certain evasive coyness in them, and her head tilts elegantly to a side, her chin tilted upwards, a grin on ruby lips parting to reveal perfectly straight teeth (Bella breathes a sigh of relief that the canines are not pointed). As dazzling the smile might be, it doesn't quite touch her regal-looking eyes. "I'm Blair, Blair Waldorf."
Bella smiles, although twitching her facial muscles to form one seems distinctly false; she agitatedly shuffles her feet back and forth. It doesn't matter that Jacob is here, right beside her, large hands placed protectively on her shoulders – next to Blair Waldorf her insecurities return and she has never felt so average before. Her pale, translucent skin looked sickly next to Blair's pale, yet faintly glowing porcelain skin. Her hair stringy and unnaturally dry compared to Blair's dark, lush locks. Her hips do stick out quite a bit…
Jacob squeezes her hand almost as if he's the boyfriend with a tendency to read minds, and Bella flashes him a quick look of gratitude.
Bella thinks of herself as pretty strong and independent. She's not one to fawn over popular girls or celebrities or to pine about the things she doesn't have- she's generally clueless about things like that – but for the first time, she feels a flash of envy at the confident way Blair glances, half-demurely and half-proudly, effortlessly the way she's only ever seen on screen, and she can't help wondering why the hell Jacob was still standing there holding her hand when she was pretty sure, in all fairness, he deserved to be with someone like her-
"So, you're from the school on the reserve?" Blair asks, her finely trimmed eyebrow arching up in a mixture of amusement and boredom.
Bella nods cautiously. "Well, yeah I did transfer to La Push – I used to go to – well, it was really because-" she sounded like a blathering idiot. Clearing her throat, she tries not to stare at Blair's intense gaze and glances at the pretty flowers about the meadow instead. "Yes, I transferred out early this year."
"Pity," Blair muses. "We'd have been great friends. I'm studying in the school in Forks – for the moment, anyway." A corner of the red lips curl upward temporarily in a smirk.
"Oh?" God, she sounded stupid.
Bella winces.
"I took the nearest flight out of New York. Mother wasn't quite pleased with me and she grounded me here in this peasant town." Her voice is distinctly snooty, and Bella catches a flurry of undistinguishable emotions flit over her porcelain features as she taps a long finger on her mouth in thought, eyes narrowed and lips pursed.
"Well-" Bella falters, because as much as she dislikes Forks' weather she feels she does owe it to Jacob – who is gripping her hand rather tightly – to defend it. "I wouldn't call it peasant. You get used to it. I think it's rather quaint, actually."
Blair sighs breathily, and Bella sees her flick an appraising glance at Jacob. "Quaint?" she says in an agreeable tone, although her eyes are clearly displaying disbelief and disinterest at the same time. "Oh, I suppose."
Jacob clears his throat as if to disagree and this sudden noise gives Blair the opportunity to cock her head and glance at him as if seeing him for the first time. Bella blushes furiously, because it is only then she realizes Jacob has been excluded in this conversation – an irrational part of her disliked Jacob talking to someone as pretty as Blair. But she pushes those thoughts aside, clears her throat and says too-brightly, "I forget to mention," she says as breezily as she can, trying to keep the guilt out of her voice, "this is my boyfriend, Jacob. Jacob Black."
"Nice to meet you," Blair allows, not bothering to look away from Bella. "So, Bella, I'm going shopping in Port Angeles sometime later this week. I hear there are at least some decent shops there – at least, some which sell clothes that I wouldn't have to put on a paper bag over my head should I ever wear them."
Bella opens her mouth – she's supposed to hang with Jacob and his pack this weekend – but Blair cuts past her ruthlessly.
"I'll take you up as my little charity case. Where'd you get that fabric from, a convenience store?" Blair sniffed. "And your scarf - you can see it from space."
Bella instinctively fingered her scarf – what was so wrong about it? She liked her scarf.
"Come on, I'm feeling charitable," Blair smirks, as though she senses Bella's insecurity. "I'll get you some decent clothes. Trust me, this advice is priceless. I don't dispense fashion advice to just about anyone. Ask Jessica, she's been trying to get me to tell her if her new cardigan makes her look like a gray Hulk. Well, she looks more of a rhinoceros, but I'm not going to tell her that." She flipped her hair back and her eyebrow arched a fraction higher. "So?"
Bella shakes her head. The thought of being welcomed by someone so obviously rich and popular is tempting… "Blair, I'm really sorry. I really, really wish I could but I've already made plans with Jacob this weekend."
"Go."
"What?" Bella turns around, utterly bewildered by the change in Jacob's demeanour. His face isn't as disapproving or clenched as she thought it'd be. They'd been planning this meeting with the pack for weeks, and Bella did want to see them, she really did. Besides, despite Blair's glamour she did disconcert her a little bit.
"Go," Jacob says and there's a small smile at the corner of his mouth as he gives her a playful push. "You need more friends, Bella – girlfriends especially. Besides, Blair is only staying for a while, and I'm not going to leave anytime soon." He shrugs. "We can reschedule."
"Are – are you sure?" Bella worries. She isn't quite sure if she's prepared to go on this trip with Blair – she was kind of scary.
Jacob turns to Blair instead. "Take good care of her?" he offers.
Blair scoffs. "What is this, the Brady Brunch?" Jacob doesn't back down, and Blair rolls her eyes in exasperation. "Well, I don't doubt her safety is pretty much guaranteed in a town less than a day's drive from here, but if anything happens I have my lawyer on speed dial. And my dad can sue anybody's ass into next week."
Jacob offers a ghost of a smirk, but nods. "All right."
There's an awkward silence as the three of them wait for the other to leave this meadow first, that the latter can enjoy the beauty of it in peace. Bella feels distinctly awkward and selfish – it is the meadow she shares with Jacob, after all, and she cannot help but feel as if their date is being intruded upon. Blair blinks and she opens her mouth as if to ask something, but she closes it. She seems immune to the tension, her eyes instead focused on raking the meadow.
"Looking for someone?" Jacob asks archly.
Blair's eyes blaze and brown curls fly as she whips her head around and Bella finds herself shrinking again at the scary side of Blair Waldorf, as the temporary truce is faulted into smithereens, hoping with all her might that Blair doesn't respond with a blisteringly acid retort –
"Blair?"
Blair turns, distracted as the insult dies off her lips. Bella turns as well, and Jacob follows in a sinisterly alike representation of a domino of human heads, and they all freeze in the middle of the meadow as the gold eyes of Edward Cullen find theirs, looking utterly bewildered. A long silence passes over them, as the sun arches the sky overhead and everything starts to darken. They each stare at the other in turn, opening their mouths to say something but closing them wordlessly, hands folded defensively in their pockets.
"Well, this is awkward." Jacob mutters.
Blair really, really wants a cigarette right now.
She's never really gotten into the habit of smoking like Chuck or Georgina or Serena in her wild days, or even Nate. The fact that the small little tube could blacken her teeth in the future and leave her a toothless, wrinkled ugly old woman disgusted her to no end. But it's precisely in times like these Blair wishes for the rolled up cigarette to be stuck between her two front teeth and lighted, so Blair can just inhale the smoke and life can just stop, even for just that singular minute.
No such luck – her only packet of cigarettes is in New York, a few thousand miles away. And she honestly as heck didn't know where the nearest convenience store was. (Did Forks even have a convenience store?)
Bella isn't what she expects. She'd expected someone ridiculously beautiful, a Serena-esque doll that would be equally ridiculously intelligent and multi-talented and effortlessly perfect just as Edward was. Not some….not some average, sickly looking girl that was too pale and skinny for her own good. She looked awkward. Well, just as awkward as the bronzed hot guy with dark hair and soulful eyes and large hands (a pity he had such a smart mouth) as he gaped with a confused look (mirroring his girlfriend's) at their one-sided conversation, anyway.
All in all, Bella Swan certainly isn't the epitome of perfection that everyone had made her out to be. Well, at least, not looking like that. And that cardigan was more awful than the many monstrosities hidden and probably spawning away in Penelope's closet…
How had Edward Cullen fallen for that?
Beside her, Edward growls audibly.
The tension thickens until the point where Blair can't stand it anymore. She's ruled the Upper East Side and held the Bitch Court for as long as she can remember, but right now she knows there's something brewing deeper in this love triangle and Blair doesn't as hell want any part of it. The way Jacob's hair catches in the sun and is holding Bella protectively, the way Bella is glancing uncertainly between the two men and how there is just the faintest tinge of regret and desire, and how Edward's face is unreadable like always reminds her of a situation in the past she'd rather forget. A situation ,where Blair too had a white knight and a not-so-white knight competing for her attentions while she wavered in her indecision, before the situation got so blown out of proportion and became a bloody fucking mess.
Blair really needs a cigarette.
Blinking, she lets out a long, exaggerated sigh, which dispels some of the attention and breaks off the trance the three of them are in. Bella blinks as her head slowly swivels toward Blair.
"I'm going," Blair enunciates clearly, her voice slipping into authoritative, a tone in which she is already accustomed to. "Bella, see you Friday?"
"Uh, yeah. Um, sure."
"Friday?" Edward questions, and there is a dark look on his face and a promise of a threat in his snarl.
"Nice meeting you," Blair says in faux sweetness to Bella. She can sense Edward's anger rising and she smiles brilliantly at Jacob, and she spins on her heel and strides out of the meadow without looking once in Edward's direction.
She's leaving because she simply cannot be recognised as a witness on a possible murder scene, she tells herself. Whatever would it do for the Waldorf name? She would have to call Daddy, and he wouldn't be pleased.
Blair bites hard on her lips as she firmly refuses to acknowledge the brief pang of jealousy at the way Edward Cullen looked at Bella Swan.
A/N All right, so I've updated after a long, long break. I must say I'm not quite happy the way this chapter turned out, because what was meant to be a short, livejournal-esque fic turned into a story of its own. But I'm going to end it soon, so expect an ending within three chapters at the most? I've got a vague outline for the next chapter, but I definitely want to put in some Edward, some of Blair prying secrets out of Bella, and maybe some NJBC if I can squeeze them in.
Anyway, for those people who might have a problem with my characterisation of Bella, I might as well start explaining now. To me, Bella is just another Mary Sue. Not offense to Bella lovers, but I didn't know quite how to write her because she was just so plain. I do recognize that she is very uncertain about herself, and she does have a little self-esteem issues and like it or not, she is still dazzled by Edward Cullen, and perhaps by Blair Waldorf, because she may see Blair as everything she isn't and all that she wants to be (especially admiring her confidence).
Anyway I'd love to hear what you thought, read and review!!