A/N: Thank you so much to my readers! To my anonymous reviewers, I wish I could thank you personally, but just know I'm very grateful for your time and attention :)
Note to all readers- this story comes with a trigger warning, and this chapter is particularly sensitive. If that's a concern, please proceed with caution.
i.
She speaks with Dr. Lambright and Annemarie privately after they're finished, wiping her tears and releasing his hand, parting her lips and hiding the fact that she's trying to catch his eye, even as she does it- "I'll wait," he tells her before she asks- and it's a waste of time, this formality, because they all know the answer, although she was the last to know. Just as she was the last to know what was written on her leg.
They don't send him to get X-rays done with her; no one tells him she's gone until she has, and he's watching the school closures tick by like a never-ending rolodex on the television in the waiting room – a Friday snow day; let all adolescents rejoice – when Annemarie comes to get him for the second time.
"How long does she need to stay here?" It's a safe question. He wants to ask if her ribs are broken- he guesses they are; but he'd rather not try to get a medical professional to violate the law by giving him confidential information before it's even eight in the morning.
"At least overnight for observation. Her temperature is still climbing, and with this kind of exposure and the other…" she falters. "…complications – it would be ideal to keep her on fluids for 24 hours after she's back at a normal level. Hypothermia can be dangerously dehydrating."
"She'll need a private room."
Annemarie nods. "We've alerted the eleventh floor; they're seeing what's available…"
They round a corner a few feet from her current door. He comes to a stop, swivels to face Annemarie. "Her father is a partner at Cravath; her mother is Eleanor Waldorf of Eleanor Waldorf Designs. And if it helps," he lays on politely, "my father is Bart Bass, chairman and CEO of Bass Industries, who if I'm not mistaken donates a healthy six figures every year to this hospital. I hope you don't find it indelicate of me to ask you to relay, if the eleventh floor comes up empty on private singles, that Bart Bass would be greatly appreciative if they could look again."
The nurse's kindly face doesn't react in any visible way. "I'm sure they can find her a private room on the first try, but I'll keep that in mind."
He nods and raises a fist to tap on her door.
ii.
Blair has two broken ribs – Dr. Lambright knows his fractures; ribs seven and eight, indeed – and a fractured metatarsal, with all the swelling and inflammation that these injuries imply.
She's wrapped back up in blankets. "The X-ray machine was cold," she tells him idly.
"They're working on getting you a private room," he offers in return.
Blinking back up at him: "I still can't shower."
Checkmate.
He stops a few feet from her bed. "I thought they said you could once you were examined."
Her gaze drops to the middle of his chest. "They have to do something else."
Can she see the way his heart hammers across the silence that follows that statement?
"What?"
"It's called a rape kit."
She lifts her head and looks at him, tears welling up again. They're glittering, actually somewhat mesmerizing, as much as he sickens himself by thinking so. The corners of her mouth curve up a little, almost a wry smile, and stay that way while she breaks eye contact. It didn't look like she really saw him, anyway. He wonders what, exactly, she was seeing.
He reaches for her hand again. He doesn't know what else to do. She doesn't notice, but he sees a scuff on his sleeve, from when he patted at her bleeding mouth in the cab.
"I guess it's pretty involved. It takes a while," she goes on in a whisper, her hand drifting across her lap- he's on her right side now, with the bruised hand newly splinted- to rest in his. "I agreed to file a police report." He can barely understand her, her voice has slunk to such a low volume. "It's the next step after talking to them."
He opens his mouth. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
It seems to take several seconds before she hears him. Then she shakes her head. Her words are listless, slow, dreamlike. "Just… after they move me upstairs, could you call Serena and ask her to come… to be with me… during? I don't…" she trails off.
She doesn't want to be alone.
"I told them my parents are away… and they're figuring out the next flight they can take back," she adds.
He nods.
"…Luckily, a minor can… receive… medical treatment…" she's slow and stumbling again, like she was last night- "in these situations… without the consent or even… knowledge of their parents."
He blinks miserably down at her. Her head has dropped further.
"I took the abortion pill already."
For some reason, this is the statement that finally enrages him. The broken bones, the gashes on her face, have poisoned his stomach past the point of even wanting a drink- and the thought of someone else- unwanted- inside her- taking pleasure from doing these things to her- and using her- and actually finishing-
"Just as a precaution," she continues, conversationally, as though they're still talking about the blizzard. Her voice is lilting as ever, but with the crush of sandpaper on top now. "I don't remember much. Really… not much…" She blinks, eyes closing for a few seconds before they open slowly. "A little, here and there." Their eyes meet again. "Rohypnol. It's still wearing off, apparently."
He closes his eyes.
Tightens his grip on her.
"Blair…"
"You don't have to stand. Bring the chair around to this side," she suggests, as though suddenly realizing she's being an inconsiderate hostess.
There's nothing he wants to do less than sit by her bedside uselessly. The abortion pill. The clock suddenly starts ticking in his mind, coming up on, what, eight, ten hours since it happened? At least three other places he could be more efficiently using this time spring suddenly to mind. Rohypnol. But he told her he wouldn't leave her alone, so he doesn't.
"Are you in pain?" he finally asks.
"Still numb" – and he understands what she means: all over. "They'll stitch me up once I'm moved upstairs, they said… rather than stay down here longer to wait for someone to free up."
She shakes her head after a minute or so of quiet. Then exhales out her nose, almost a chuckle if there was a smile on her face.
"What?"
Her face crumples, brows scrunching together, mouth drawing inward in anguish.
He grabs at her wrist, waiting for a monitor to go off- something they missed- she's about to go into heart failure; a seizure; the drug is causing an aneurysm-
"Blair. What?" He stands, looking over his shoulder to the closed door of her room, ready to run for it. He could be out the door in less than three seconds.
"No- I, just…" she shakes her head, still the picture of pain.
Her damp dark hair falls over one shoulder.
"I…" she squeezes her eyes closed – a tremble even as she visibly tries to steel herself- "… 'rode hard and put away wet.'"
And she withdraws her arm from his grasp, which has gone limp anyway.
He's breathless, wordless.
And she covers her face with her hands, and cries.
iii.
An hour later, she's settled in her room upstairs, a surprisingly quiet corner room, and Serena is on the way. He stepped out while they were setting up Blair's machines and listened to the forgotten voice message Serena left him last night, before he called her, though he had a sinking feeling he knew the gist of what she'd said.
Chuck, it's Serena. Have you talked to Blair? She and I got in a fight earlier and I came over to apologize, but she hasn't come home yet and it's almost 11:30. She's ignoring my calls. The weather is getting bad and I'm going to head home, but if she's with you- or… if you see her, or hear from her, can you please tell her I'm sorry and ask her to call me?
He clenched and unclenched his jaws, breathing deep. He'd started ignoring that call at 10:43 PM – the first of four. By 11:30, he was probably in the beginning stages of round two with Cadence. And Blair was… where?
And why?
I have no one else to turn to but you.
I don't want you anymore.
He had peeked into Blair's room before pressing Send on Serena's name, thumb poised above the button.
Annemarie was putting Blair's humidified oxygen tank in position next to her bed; she'll only need to breathe it in once an hour now, the nurse was explaining.
Chuck? Are you in your room? I knocked twice-
I'm not home. Listen- I need you to go downstairs and get in a car and come to Mt. Sinai.
What? What happened? Are you okay?
A resident will be up to take care of her stitches shortly, Annemarie promised. And was he sure he didn't want anything to drink?
Blair. She's- she was…
Swallowed.
Assaulted.
Assaulted? What are you talking about?
"Blair," he'd said, as soon as she stopped crying long enough to hear him, in her room downstairs, not able to reach for her hand – that same hand he just covered with both of his while she clung to it like a lifeline an hour ago; the same hand he used to grab, or that used to grab his, while they kissed, or touched, or looked at each other in the dark – afraid to touch her without being invited, not deserving to touch her ever again, "I'm so sorry-"
"Please, it's forgotten."
"No, it's…"
She'd covered her eyes with the same hand, looking like a child playing pin the tail on the donkey. "Just ironic. That's all. Just ironic."
She'd looked at him a few seconds later, eyes red with tears. "Let's forget it. Thank you for being here, anyway."
"Hey." Panic beating up in him like a million black butterflies flapping in unison, he'd reached for her shoulder, realizing suddenly that she thought he helped her, stayed with her, in spite of feeling the way he expressed he felt last night. But faltered, hand drifting back down to the railing. "I didn't- I didn't mean that. Any of that."
She nodded, once. "It doesn't matter."
The hell it didn't.
And she didn't reach for his hand again.
He kept his voice even, but it came out rougher than he meant it to. Don't make me say it, Serena.
This isn't funny. Pause. Chuck. Her voice broke. Tell me you're kidding.
Silence.
God… A whimper, barely audible.
The roads will probably be messy. Don't rush. She's not alone. Just call me when you're here and I'll come meet you.
Alone now, a much bigger, quieter room, with an actual view, if that isn't too cliché; still snowing.
He has to make her understand.
He leans on the side of her bed.
"None of those things are true," he tells her without preamble. "None."
She's composed now; maybe the rest of the Rohypnol has worn off. She achieves a too-steady raise of the eyebrow. It's warped by her flushed skin, red eyes, redder nose.
"Sure they are," she replies evenly. Her knee twitches under the single warming blanket they left her with at this stage in her recovery. "Haven't you seen my leg?"
He can't respond to that. Suddenly he does want a drink. Several.
Her eyes sink, defeated, to her lap. She doesn't want to talk about this, he sees, and he's being selfish in trying to force it. She doesn't have to listen to his guilty insistences right now. Not now, of all hours. The only thing more selfish than having said it in the first place is insisting on revisiting it when he's sitting, healthy and unharmed, on her hospital bed.
Tentatively, she says: "Can I ask you a favor?" And when he looks up, raising his head, she does the same.
"Anything."
She shakes her head. "You won't send this in?"
Shock is not really the appropriate response to this, given yesterday he reported that she'd gone to bed with two guys in one week, but it's the first feeling to hit. "No," he promises. He wants to say of course not, but he hasn't earned the right to be incredulous about the idea. The fact that she thinks it's possible burns more than it should.
Rode hard and put away wet.
She nods, the tiniest gesture, and he again fights down the urge to tell her he didn't mean it – he was just trying to hurt her because she made him feel – she made him feel, and she took away his power over himself, and then she made him hurt, and he can't do feel and hurt – he just can't – and the only way to push them back under and wrench his self-control back from her, the only thing he could do at this new kind of hurt, was to seek out her sensitive spot, and not the ones on her body (hip, shoulder, neck), but the ones on her soul. And then hit them all, hard, in quick succession, and make her feel what he felt, and hurt her like he was hurt. And then she wouldn't be above him anymore, and she'd have no power, and he'd pull the chips back across the table and sign on the dotted line and reclaim his King. And walk away from the board. From her.
Except he hadn't meant any of it, and she'd walked away from him. And into this. And here they are.
Instead, he makes a vow to her: "Nothing. Ever again."
And he means it.
iv.
Serena arrives while Blair is getting her stitches; he excuses himself – she's almost finished – and goes down to meet her at the elevators. Her movements are quick, jerky, stamping snow off her boots and lowering the hood on her coat, and her eyes are fiery with worry.
"How bad is it?" she asks as soon as she sees him.
"Bad," he says, punching the elevator button. She gets in without a word.
When the doors close behind them, he leans his head against the wall, tipping his face up toward the eleventh floor.
"Tell me," she insists, strangled, hoarse, like he's teasing her, withholding a juicy piece of gossip.
He closes his eyes. "Two broken ribs, a broken hand, stitches in a few places…"
"Oh, my God." Serena tilts her head the opposite way, to the floor.
"She was drugged." He swallows, having forgotten the key element. "And hypothermic. She'd been walking around in the park for God knows how long."
"How did she get here?"
He licks his lips. "I brought her."
He side steps further questioning as they arrive on the eleventh floor.
Halfway down the corridor: "I fought with her," Serena murmurs.
He looks sideways at her, not breaking stride. "I don't think any of us was at our best with her yesterday."
Wide blue eyes swim with tears. "But I told her she was on her own." Her voice wavers. "That she could handle this one alone."
I don't want to be alone.
They slow to a stop.
"She asked for you," he points out, simply, not knowing what else to say, "and you're here now."
Serena nods as if absorbing his words to strengthen her. "You're right. Okay."
He goes in first, leaving her a few feet away from the door.
"Serena's here," he tells Blair, whose garish red marks have yielded to neat black-dotted ones. He bends one knee and perches on the edge of her bed, facing her.
"Blair," he says gently. "I need you to do something for me."
She gives a careful smile – she can't move her face much with her new stitches – that has an inspiringly sly Blairish quality to it. "Only you would ask me for a favor right now," she almost teases.
He manages a smile too. It even reaches his eyes, halfway. "I need you to tell me where you went after you left me last night."
"Left you," she repeats, more a statement than a question.
"After you left Bemelman's." Matter-of-fact. "Tell me where you went."
The smile fades. "Does it matter?"
He nods, a small, long movement. "Yes. It does."
She swallows, eyes moving over his face. "I really don't want to talk about what happened last night."
"We don't have to." He holds her gaze. "All I want to know is there you went. Then I'll drop it."
When he gets up to leave, she murmurs his name. "I appreciate… thank you."
Please stop saying that.
"Call me if you need anything."
She actually looks sunburnt, reclined on the bed, hair having dried in full, careless waves like she's just come from a salt-air afternoon splashing on St. Thomas's.
"You don't need to check in again," she offers.
I told her she was on her own.
He drapes his coat neatly over both arms and places it against his torso. "I'll be back this afternoon."
Serena is steeling herself outside: raking her fingers through her hair, smoothing her coat, shifting her feet.
He gives her a look that's entirely without slyness or humor. "She's settled in bed. You're on, Van der Woodsen."
She's nodding rapidly. "Okay."
"Call me with any updates." It's not a request or an assurance, like it was with Blair. "I'll be back – but if there's anything urgent."
He waits for a minute after she goes in, and then turns around and looks through the small window of meshed glass in Blair's door. Serena is sitting where he just was a minute ago, leaning forward, one hand on the bed near Blair's left thigh, bracing herself- close; careful, he warns silently- Blair's head on her shoulder, shaking slightly with sobs. A muted movement, he knows, because her ribs are broken and even sitting like that must be uncomfortable.
Serena's arm is around her, and she's kissing the top of Blair's brunette head between her lips moving at a steady rhythm. He only has to watch three or four times before he can make out what she's saying.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Blair's hands come around to Serena's back, the injured one gingerly holding on.
Untouched.
If you see her, or hear from her, can you please tell her I'm sorry…?
Serena's free hand strokes over Blair's hair, lips still moving, pouring love and devotion over her like only Serena can.
All I want to know is where you went.
-Hi, you.
Then I'll drop it.
He gets in the first cab that rolls up, remembering he needs to text Arthur, who will almost definitely be waiting for him at The Palace despite the snow day. It's a few minutes past nine.
"Where to?"
It doesn't matter.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
He releases his fists, with effort, and unlocks the jaws that clamped together when he saw Blair begin to raise her face, hot and soaked, from Serena's shoulder, letting out what she couldn't let out in front of him.
When he turned away so she wouldn't see him through the window, waiting to catch her in a moment of weakness, again.
Ever again.
Only you would ask me for a favor right now.
Whore.
"Mark Bar, please. Madison and 77th."
v.
Shortly after Chuck leaves, the police arrive.
Blair tries her best, but she doesn't remember everything from the night before. A nurse, angelic and smelling of baby powder, hovers nearby with Blair's consent, noting things down in a spiral notebook that she's produced from a medium-depth white box that reads "Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit" above a long blank line.
Her lower lip?
"Bitten." It trembles over a heart-stopping pause. "He got angry when I fought back."
Try as she might, Serena can't keep all of her tears in, and a few escape at this admission.
Her cheek?
Blair's voice is barely audible. "The back of his hand." She looks down. "Same reason."
Can she walk them through what happened? – that's okay; just what she remembers.
"I was at Mark Bar."
He introduced himself; offered to get her another glass of wine.
"He said he splits his time between here and London."
He was charming.
Interesting.
"Just pleasant conversation. It was nice to talk to someone outside my normal circle."
Serena reads between the lines: it was nice to talk to someone who didn't know every detail of my private life and judge me for it.
Does she have any idea when he might have drugged her drink?
Her eyelashes lift.
"I used the ladies' room while we were talking. That's the only time I was away." She cringes, almost apologetic.
What happened then?
"It was getting late. I wanted to get home. It had started to rain pretty hard…" she gazes at nothing. "He offered to get me a chauffeured car from the doorman at the apartment he keeps while he's here. He said cab drivers aren't careful on icy roads."
She closes her eyes.
"He had an umbrella. He held it up for both of us. His apartment building was just a block and a half."
How did she end up in the park?
She opens her eyes and levels them at the officer, dry irony playing across her face.
"I walked in myself." A long beat. "He said he heard what sounded like a child crying, just around the corner."
Hesitating under the streetlight, looking up at the heavy, wet sky; seconds from being, again, alone; her phone turned off in her pocket since she ordered her first drink.
"He said he'd never live with himself if he heard on the news that a child had been lost in the park the next morning…"
A tugging at the corner of her mind, a warning alarm going off; but he was tall, and handsome, and well-spoken, and had a kind warmth in his eyes. And she didn't want to be alone.
She knew kindness. She knew goodness.
Didn't she?
"It was just around the corner that he could hear it." She swallows. "He said I could have the umbrella and go if I didn't want to look."
And of course she cared. And of course she didn't want to possibly leave a child in harm's way.
She's a young woman, after all.
And of course, when having it put to her like that – you can have the umbrella and go if you don't want to look with me – there was really nothing else that she could have done.
Than follow across Fifth and enter the park, hurrying along the footpath across from East 76th.
"But the child kept sounding further and further away."
So they kept looking.
And she was feeling, suddenly, fatigued. Coming on steadily, slow and heavy, as she strained her ears for a child's wail that she couldn't seem to hear.
"He said something about how his sister was lost in the woods as a child, and he couldn't let another family go through that." She actually smiles at this – a slow, nasty smile, eyes filling and stitches straining.
And then, deep enough in the park, under a cover of trees and nowhere near Fifth Avenue, as she was beginning to feel leaden with exhaustion, her thoughts even seeming to carry a peculiar weight and her head feeling like a burden to hold up as he half-supported, half-pulled her off the footpath in her heels, he kissed her.
"I don't… I don't remember as much after that."
Wet- the umbrella disappeared- and forceful hands on her waist.
The kind quality in his eyes gone.
"I remember I fought. But… I was feeling… fuzzy."
Her hand?
"Yes. My phone was in my pocket, and I was trying to turn it on without taking it out. But I was-" her chapped lips fit around the word- "clumsy. I got desperate…"
On her knees now, the forceful hands on the back of her head.
"…and tried to pull it out of my pocket. It fell and I went to go after it."
A screen lighting up in the dark, a bright square on the ground, a chance worth throwing herself after, sluggish mind trying to decide what to do with it once she got it-
The heel of an expensive wingtip coming down swiftly, deliberately, on an outstretched hand. A snap.
"Then I was on the ground."
Kicking, feebly, exhaustion winning, finding herself on her back, palm covering her mouth, phone's illuminated square settling back to black at lack of use.
Not needed after all, it supposed.
"I don't remember anything else after that."
Her ribs? Her leg?
Serena's eyes flick from officer to Blair, and down to Blair's legs, covered in hospital blue.
She shakes her head. "He kept calling me a…"
Serena's mouth tightens, eyes widening at Blair, who is oblivious.
"…but." Her head shakes again.
Does she know his name?
"He introduced himself as Isaac Winthrop."
She looks down in shame. Her voice breaks.
"It occurred to me when it was too late that that probably wasn't true."
What's the next thing she remembers?
Un, deux, trois.
"I was in a cab with a classmate. Chuck Bass. I couldn't see well or feel anything. But I could hear him- he was counting to five in French. I knew his voice before I saw him."
Any idea why he might have been counting- in French?
She blinks.
Serena blinks.
She shrugs a little, a vacant non-smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. "No idea. I counted along with him, though."
Chuck.
"I speak pretty good French."
She'll call them, she agrees numbly, if she remembers anything else.
It's the nurse, Annemarie, who handles the rape kit. She's sweet and pleasant, and Blair seems comfortable around her; she works in the ER, but for whatever reason- Serena suspects it has something to do with Chuck- she's the one who is assigned to guide Blair through this process.
Blair hasn't finished crying completely. She pulled herself together, to an almost eerie stoicism, when the police arrived, but now she is, ironically, what she herself would label "sniveling." Tears leak from her eyes indifferently, losing their form on her cheeks as they flatten out and blend with the plane of wetness on her skin.
It's a good thing, Serena thinks at first, that Blair's room is large. A huge sheet of white paper is laid out in the open area next to her bed – actually, this looks like a double room, half of which was stripped, now that she looks closer.
Annemarie explains, in soothing tones, that because they've already removed the clothing Blair was wearing at the time of the assault, they can skip that part of the examination, but that the white paper will catch any trace DNA while she's more thoroughly examined.
Nude.
Blair swipes at her cheek halfheartedly with her bandaged hand, the other one clutching to Serena's own, and looks at her desperately.
"You don't have to do this right now," she murmurs back.
Blair squeezes her eyes shut, looking away as if to shut out the offer. "Get it over with." She looks back in Serena's direction, but not directly at her. "Could you untie the back of my gown, please?"
Serena nods wordlessly and steps behind her, the obedient lady-in-waiting, feet off the white paper, leaning over and opening the ties. Blair shrugs, carefully, plucking at the fabric until it slides off, and hands it to Annemarie.
Annemarie packs it away in paper, seals it in a plastic bag. "We've got a fresh one for you," she tells Blair gently.
"I'm only doing this so I can shower," Blair responds, an attempt at imperiousness as much for her own benefit as for anyone else's, but it comes out weak and strangled.
Serena's breath catches in her throat when she sees Blair's body. The red-purple splotch on her ribs, the word carved into her thigh. Her lips move, but she mutes herself: "Oh, God."
The word has been stitched up, just like Blair's face. Chuck didn't warn her about that.
Time slides by, fluid, as Annemarie starts from the bottom of Blair's body, swabbing, examining, using tweezers to lift invisible particles from Blair's skin and tuck them into pieces of tissue, and those into small clear bags, stopping to seal and label each one as she goes.
"Tell me if you have any questions," she says more than once.
Still not really crying, a tear escapes from Blair's eye. "How long until I can shower?" she tries at a joke.
The nurse inserts a swab between Blair's legs, having informed her in advance that she'd be doing so – and that it might feel cold – and it comes back pink. This doesn't seem to surprise her, although it stops Serena's breath.
"Blair…"
Blair's eyes are closed, but she cringes at what she must know the result is, and casts about for Serena's hand knowing, somehow, that it's outstretched, finding it in a moment, still standing trembling and naked on the white paper.
The nurse gently tells Blair she's torn, and asks her permission to photograph the injury later in the process.
"Do I have to?" Blair mutters, brokenly.
"No. It's completely voluntary. We can skip it."
Blair swallows, resolve setting in the lines of her face. "No. I want to do this right."
"Blair," Serena begins again.
"If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right," Blair plows on.
The nurse moves on, examining Blair's navel, the flat lines and narrow curve of her waist, her unmarked chest and neck.
Just beginning to form, Serena notices an oblong bruise on Blair's left wrist.
Annemarie notices it, too, when she's extracting and swabbing and clipping Blair's fingernails into a set of plastic bags: left hand in one, right hand in the other.
Avoiding the stitched lip, she takes a saliva sample, and scrapes a few cells from the inside of Blair's cheek.
Blair's posture has slackened throughout this long process, and Serena, standing to her left side, sees the defeated rounding of her shoulders, the pearls of her vertebrae, the forearm that covers her bare chest, the slightly inverted knees.
"Can she put something on now?" Serena asks.
"We're almost through with the physical examination, but we can stop or take a break…"
"It's fine." Blair's eyes slide closed again.
The last step is to comb out Blair's hair, in case any piece of debris might have lodged there. Annemarie uses a special comb for this, starting near the ends of her unusually full and wavy hair – air-dried – and working her way up to higher and higher starting points.
This is when Blair begins to really cry. She turns toward Serena fully, the nurse subtly rotating around her, and opens her teary eyes. She looks… guilty.
"It feels good," she admits as the comb trails through her hair, tracing her scalp. Like she's forgotten what a pleasant physical sensation feels like.
Serena begins to cry then, too.
Almost finished, above Blair's left temple, lifting the hair up to detangle what's underneath it, the comb stops.
"What is it?" Blair asks.
"I'm not sure," Annemarie replies, fetching another clear plastic bag and withdrawing its empty tissue paper insert.
Blair lifts her bandaged hand without thinking.
"Please don't," Annemarie stops her.
Blair wraps her arm back around herself, sniffling. Serena brings her free hand up, the one that's not holding Blair's, and passes her thumb across one of Blair's closed eyes, and then the other.
She mouths: I love you – when Blair opens her eyes as Annemarie finishes maneuvering whatever particles she's found into the tissue paper.
"Do you know what it is?" Blair asks, eyes on Serena, but words to Annemarie.
Annemarie hesitates. "It appears to be residue of dried semen."
"Stop," Blair replies quickly, as though it's been tearing at her throat this entire time and Annemarie has just opened the release hatch: "Stop. I want to stop, please."
The nurse nods. "Do you want to do the photographs?"
Tears are pouring down Blair's face again. She tries for a moment to hold back a sob, and then lets it go, a ragged cry escaping along with it, face crumpling. "I…"
Serena smooths a hand over the top of Blair's head. "You don't have to."
"How quickly can you do it?"
"Once the camera's set up, we can be finished in sixty seconds. Just quickly- there- and then the leg and rib injuries."
Gasping her sobs away, Blair nods.
She sits on her bed, Serena behind her, their heads tilted together and Serena's arms around her, covering her chest so she doesn't have to, and when Annemarie is ready, Blair turns and buries her face in Serena's shoulder, spreading her legs unwillingly with a whimper for what seems like the thousandth time in the last twelve hours.
In a voice as warm as velvet, Serena counts down from sixty, each number a promise in Blair's ear.
The camera has an odd, unusual flash setting, which Serena assumes illuminates residue of blood and semen and God knows what else- and Annemarie works with the ruthless swiftness of someone dismantling a bomb.
Around the halfway point, Blair adjusts so Annemarie can photograph her ribs and the black word on her leg.
"Not my face," Blair murmurs.
"No need," Annemarie assures her, though Serena feels sure she'd photograph it if Blair were willing.
The white paper is folded up last of all, tucked away into its own plastic bag- the largest of all- and sealed up, topping off the white box, on whose long black line the nurse now writes: "Blair Waldorf."
Blair watches her do it, Serena still beside her, arms wrapped around.
Annemarie approaches her, a respectful few feet away, and explains that her medical details and account of the incident – she skims over "incident" with no elaboration or emphasis – round out the kit, which will now be sealed as evidence and transferred to the appropriate department at the NYPD. If she has any questions or concerns, she's welcome to contact them at any time.
Blair nods slowly. She's still nude, vulnerable, on the edge of the bed, knees pressed together. Her hair falls over her shoulder as she nods.
"Is there anything I can do for you or any questions I can answer?" Annemarie's voice is soft.
"Can you please recline the bed," Blair replies. It's not supposed to be flat, because she's not supposed to lie flat while her rib is so freshly broken, but Annemarie does it anyway.
She slides herself carefully back, reaching for her forgotten blanket and pulling it over her bare body, and tugs at Serena's sleeve. Serena swipes at her own cheeks, kicks off her boots, and lies herself down next to Blair, a layer of electric warmth separating them.
Through closed eyes, tears coursing again: "Just stay beside me for a few minutes."
"I'll stay beside you forever," Serena tells her.
She sees Annemarie pause, looking at Blair's removed IV, and deciding to forego it for now.
"I love you." Serena's wide eyes watch Blair's pink-and-white profile. "I'll stay beside you forever."
Blair tries at a smile through her tears. "Stay here forever until we're gray."
"As long as it takes."
It's nearly an hour later, past two in the afternoon, when Blair stops crying and licks her lips.
"I want to take a shower," she whispers.
"I'll get Annemarie."
And she's alone in her room, naked and warm under her blanket, when she realizes she's not shaking anymore.
Author's personal note- sections in this chapter were some of the most difficult I've written so far due to wanting to handle the sensitive, intimate content poignantly but not gratuitously, and to respect and try to stay true to Blair's character. I'm not at all trying to minimize the trauma of what Blair is going through.
Also, I apologize if it seems like the story is moving too slowly; I'm lingering long over the important foundational scenes, but the pace will ebb and flow as we move along. Stick with me :)
