I editted it a smudge when someone commented that my ending was very un-chuck (and I agree in some ways). I had been toying with an extra bit previously and then deleted it because I thought it was a bit too much, but I re-wrote it in again. So it's been editted to be more Bass-like.

Reality Ending

Blair had woken from fitful dreams, she'd barely slept all night, yet she put on her game face that said everything was alright and dressed to look perfect. Chuck's text was perfectly ambiguous of his intention and she hadn't dared to reply in case it was a hallucination in her self-spiralling depreciation. If she was going crazy, then she was just a lady having a coffee by herself at a local coffee shop at 9am. If she wasn't, then she had no idea what to expect.

Blair checked herself in the shops windows reflection, subtly checking if Chuck had arrived early before smoothing out her skirt and entering to order a caramel latte from the young server and finding a seat where she could see the door.

She took her first sip at 8:55am, perpetually early due to Waldorf good-impression instilled behaviour. But a thought struck her, his text hadn't implied as much but what if the 'we' that should catch up was not Blair and Chuck, but Blair, Chuck and Eva.

Horror struck through her and she stood, coffee in hand, ready to bolt. There was no way she was ready for that.

"Leaving early Waldorf? I haven't even ordered yet." Chuck Bass, master manipulator and wordsmith had challenged her to stay and discuss and she wasn't going to back down.

"Needed more cream actually." she lied, but stood and made her way to the counter again. He followed quietly. There was no sign of Eva anywhere in sight and it calmed her.

He ordered a black coffee; some things don't change, and followed her to the booth, sitting opposite, like he had so long ago. Only this time, they weren't meeting over a plot to overthrow a teenage girl who had crossed her. "So," she voiced softly, when he didn't immediately begin talking. "You're back in new York."

"Business." he answered.

"You living in France?"

"Mostly." He nodded, his eyes seeming to evaluate every question and every stitch in her clothing.

"Are you staying in New York long?"

"No, I have to get back."

"Oh." To Eva her brain supplied for her. They both seemed to read that in the silence. "You wanted to have coffee." she stated instead, turning this back onto him. He asked for it, surely he has something he wants to discuss.

"You eat this morning?" The curveball knocked her off her mental balance. What the hell?

"You wanted to have coffee to discuss what I had for breakfast?!" she whispered incredulously.

"Humour me." He grinned. That perfect grin that had her floored.

"Yes. I ate." Blair decided pleasantries were over. "What do you want to say to me?"

"What did you have?"

"Seriously?" she hissed. "I can't believe you."

"You look thinner."

"And you look engaged." She jabbed her gaze at the wedding band on his left hand. "So say what you need to and we can go our separate ways."

He had the shame to take a moment, to reflect on himself.

Blair was only maddening, Chuck Bass did not reflect! Chuck Bass retorted with great wit, a tease, a flirt and a smile.

"I wanted to come and tell you in person."

"That I look thinner?" Both knowing he didn't mean that, but she took joy in being purposefully obtuse. "Congratulations, you've done it." she snarked, ready to walk out but too curious about his reasons for being here to do so yet.

"That I'm getting married, Blair."

Both fell silent.

Blair looked down at her latte, she no longer wanted to drink it. But if she started turning it away now, she'd continue for the rest of the day with other food. She forced herself to take a sip, insistent that Chuck would not make her ill again.

"Gossip girl said as much." Blair finally spoke, noting Chuck wasn't going to.

"I wanted you to hear from me."

"Why?"

"I owe you an explanation."

"Yeah." She couldn't be polite and disagree like decorum wished her to.

"She's… She's perfect Blair." Blair felt the dust of her broken heart crumble further. "So different than other women." Blair knew a ghost that had said that to her as well. "I can't imagine being without her." Yet again, there was a ghost who swore that to her too.

"So you proposed." she summed, her voice quiet so he wouldn't hear the waver or crackle.

"She wants to meet you." he announced, reaching across to take Blair's hand. Blair was too numb to recoil it like she wanted to. "I told her all about you, everything you helped me through. She wants to meet you, something about thanking you for the man I am." he chuckled softly, like he didn't agree completely.

Blair felt a click in her brain, something that made her Waldorf composure crack. "She's always wanted to visit new York." he beamed. "But, I, have something better that might interest you." The crack ripped into a hollow, her smile slipping from her pinned face. "Eva works for a fashion magazine, she mentioned your branch of Waldorf designs and they'd love to do a feature on you." Blair felt a whole chunk of her façade drop away, she was relatively sure she was scowling on the outside too now. If Chuck noticed, he didn't show it. "And, there's this," He reached into his inner jacket pocket to pull out rolled up photos and prints. "Rendi fashion house has just been ran under after management changes, the entire workshop is up for sale." The implication was clear, but he stated it anyway. "I can be your financial backer if you want to do this on your own, but you could set up in Paris, in the heart of the fashion world. Establish yourself from your mother's line."

He sat quiet as he let it sink in. He must have been expecting her to look through the photos, maybe expecting questions, but she sat there like a stone.

"So, that's why you're here?" she finally spoke, her voice low and clearly controlled to an enormous degree. "To offer me a business proposition and play friends with your fiancée." He wisely said nothing, he didn't even raise an eyebrow like the old Chuck would have. "You're not going to even give me any explanation for that." She pointed a finger to the wedding band. "Not going to try and finally excuse you running out on me ten months ago?"

"Blair, that's no-"

"You said to me you would never marry anyone. You said I was the closest you had ever come."

"Blair, I never meant to hurt your feelings. I wanted to tell you before it became public knowledge, so you wouldn't feel like this."

"You ran out on me. You abandoned everything between us to find this woman?"

"Blair, if we're going to talk about this, at least be reasonable, and don't make a scene."

Half of her told her to dump the coffee on him, slap his face and walk out screaming about his infidelity. The Waldorf half that held on by a single strand in her cracked heart, told her to stand, smooth out her skirt and walk out without a word.

She walked the line between both.

She stood and he rose with her, like the perfect gentleman had been trained to do. When he blocked her path, she spoke through gritted teeth.

"Finish your business and leave New York." She tried to leave around him, but he reached out for a hand. "You left New York for France. Go back to France." she hissed at him. The hidden text was clear, Blair was New York, Eva was France. He no longer had a place in here. Her heels tapped like the beating of the drums in hell as she stormed out. She carried on down the sidewalk for six blocks before she had the presence of mind to hail a taxi back to her suite.

As soon as she walked into Apartment 34, the ghosts that resided there were forced to banish. Blair threw her clutch and shoes at each of them. Her closure came with red hot tears and an unrivalled anger. The bastard didn't even have the balls to tell her why he left her. Had the gall to marry that twiggy bitch with her blonde hair and leggy legs. Blair stormed to her bedroom and instantly started her clear out, albeit violently.

The box of Bass was kicked down the stairs, everything his spirit had tainted was sailed down to meet them. The bedding, the wallpaper, the cushion, the lingerie he'd seen.

Fuck it, everything.

Blair tore her bedroom apart, everything kicked to the bottom of the stairs until her bedroom was bare.

She cried out the last piece of Chuck and rebuilt the legendary Waldorf composure once more.

The control came back into order with a list.

First, black bags. Everything Chuck was going in a black bag and was going to be taken to be incinerated by Dorota on her next scheduled cleaning day. Second, she was going to phone Serena to cry, bitch and organise a shopping spree to replace everything with something new.

Third, she was going to finish that bottle of wine and watch Audrey until Serena came over.

It was four full years before Blair and Chuck met again.

She was walking out of Bergdorf's with bags loaded on her arms, a cell phone negotiated on top of her purse and shoved against her ear.

"Yes, I remembered." She was telling someone. "As if I could, you'd shoot me." she laughed, it sounded so carefree and blissful. "Oh, ah, I'm slipping." she complained, catching a bag with her elbow. "I've gotta go before I end up losing my designs on the pavement. Yeah." A hand stretched out to catch the falling bag and Blair looked up to her saviour only to find Charles Bass. Everything inside her stopped for a moment. It took a second to reboot her brain into the fact she was on the phone. "Of course." she replied, a numbing echo of surprise in her tone, she sounded miles away. "Completely fine…" she responded to the phone after a pause. "Ill be home soon."

"Busy day?" he asked with a smile, helping her re-order her bags. He spoke the same, with the same twitch of a tease. He still made her numb in her chest, still made her heart beat extra fast and still flashed all of those once good memories through her mind.

"Yeah." she answered without thought before remembering her manners. "Congratulations by the way." A healthy baby boy had entered the Bass family a few months ago. "How's Eva?" Politeness had been taught and raised in her, it came like an automatic response to feign interest. Blair honestly didn't care about Eva, but it was the right question to ask.

"She's good, has her hands full being a mother." He passed her back the bag he'd caught for her. She took it slowly, making a point of not touching him "And congratulations to you as well. I just heard the news about your designs; they're beautiful."

"I only found out myself a few days ago. It hasn't even gone public." she admitted, collecting the bag back onto her arm. Had he been keeping tabs on her? When she'd been working so hard to avoid everything to do with him; not easy when you run in the same circles.

"It's all about who you know. Besides, I had a feeling it wouldn't be long before we heard of Blair Waldorf dominating the designing arena." She smiled without feeling. It was all too easy to submit to the urges to wrap her arms around him, to tell him how much she missed him and how much she envied the woman he had chosen.

"It's not set in stone yet." she modestly replied. A silence hovered over them. "Are you, ummm, you out shopping?" she asked, rolling on the conversation, not quite ready to lose the few seconds in awkward silence.

"Scouting actually." He pointed to the building next to a hairdressers. It had once been a bank, then a jewellers, now a failing estate agents.

"Your next target?"

"The business more than the building."

"You really will own all of New York." she muttered under breath, but he heard it clearly. He may be living in France, but he still had dreams of owning the big apple. She remembered all of the dreams he'd told her as they basked in the afterglow of overwhelming sex.

"Not all of it." he corrected. "There's a corner of the clothing design market I'm willing to let flourish on its own." His subtlety was noted. "Though, if there was anything I could do to assist it, I'd only be a call away." He took a business card out of his jacket pocket, extending it across. Her eyes caught the long fingers of his left hand, instantly pinning an absense of a wedding ring. Her mind ran a million possibilities, but only one stood front and centre: Chuck Bass hadn't changed. It was relief that flooded her; someone else hadn't walked away with her prize. Shame that collared her shortly after for even thinking as such. He had a child now, with another woman. Blair's eyes could see the impression of the ring pressing out from his jacket pocket, she could smell the perfume of another woman and make out the badly wiped off lipstick stain on his collar. "Blair?" he prompted, lifting the card to her eyeline.

Blair looked down at it, half of her wanted to cling to it to embrace the possibility that she could have the second chance to be everything he needed and everything Eva couldn't be. The other half (the more sensible one) thought of her new life with its new prospects. She couldn't throw that all away for a man that had ran from her and into marriage (however shambled it was) and a child. She took a breath and stepped back ever so slightly.

"I shouldn't." she stated, eyes cast down. "Thank you, but this is one thing I'd like to do on my own." She knew if she fell back into his world, she'd end up where she was four years ago; damaged and desperate. Chuck was perhaps right all those years ago when he'd said she was the only one he could see himself marrying, but his attempt with someone else had closed that door entirely with her.

"I understand, but if you do ever need a hand I-"

"No. Thank you." She smiled at him and stepped back again. "I hope your business goes well." She nodded at the estate agents door. "And I'm sure your son will be one of the most eligible bachelors of New York in no time." She caught a glimpse of her town car sliding up to the pavement. A town car she'd hadn't called for. She rolled her eyes at it, her new life was calling. She was going to answer, however much she wanted anything else. She owed it to the future. She owed it to Chuck to let him fix whatever mess of a family he had.

"Blair… we should have coffee… catch up." He looked at her with eyes full of questions and intrigue. She knew the full extent of what Chuck was offering with that sentence. She used to love the way he'd insinuate a lovers tryst in between normal and PG-friendly suggestions. She could swear she heard the exact same tone right now. So desperately did she wish to pick up a verbal spar of back and forth to fall back into old patterns, routines and cascades of kisses down her skin.

"Miss Waldorf. You shouldn't be carrying all that." Within a few seconds, her driver was taking bags from her arms. It brought a burning reminder and a shocking shame for her thoughts.

"I didn't call for you, and I really am fine. I can carry a few bags." Her answer was defensive, a little too defensive for mere chivalry, Chuck noted.

"Louie called, Miss. He said you were overrun with shopping again." Now, with the balance swapped and all her bags in her driver's arms and being herded into the town car, Chuck got a good look at Blair noticing a difference. Blair's usually toned and flat stomach was a curve he was only too familiar with.

"Congratulations." he spoke automatically. Gossip girl knew nothing of this, Blair had probably worked hard to keep it that way.

"Thank you." she whispered, but paused at the door. He obviously noted.

"You sure I can't tempt you with a coffee, decaf?" He could tempt her very well and he probably knew it. But the ache in her chest that wanted to be with him hadn't ebbed, the hurt and betrayal still stung. If it wasn't for the life growing in her, who knows what she would have said, perhaps instead of settling for a gentleman she could have had the king of New York that was staring into her eyes like they were teenagers again.

Or perhaps he would just break her all over again. Just like he was breaking Eva right now. Chuck Bass burned through women and left them in ashes. She wouldn't sign up to play with his fire, however warm and passionate it could be.

"Goodbye Chuck." she simply replied, stepping into the town car. She watched out of the tinted windows as he stood on the sidewalk and watched the town car pull away. She turned in her seat to see his eyes follow the car into traffic. She waited until he was cut from line of sight before she relaxed back into the seat of the car.

A hand ran across her belly.

It wasn't the life she dreamed for herself as a child. It wasn't what her teenage self wanted. It wasn't the 100% she had craved in her heart as an adult.

But it was safe.

Chuck crossed the road, heading back to his suite, but found himself outside Antonio's, watching the ghosts in the corner booth end all chances of their happily ever after. He could almost hear the way she was cracking apart as he continued. He watched his bold Blair's ghost storm out of Antonio's and thunder down the streets. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Something bloomed in his chest, it felt heavy, if he wasn't smarter, he'd say it was regret.