Masquerade

A Gossip Girl fic by Gigi

Summary: What if the masquerade ball wasn't just for the teenagers? Lily and Rufus find themselves dragged to the ball by their insistent children--and bump into each othe

Chapter 4: Tension

A/N: Hm, I'm not getting too many reviews on this story. I'm hoping it's because it's in a category that doesn't have any organization, pairing-wise, and not because it's bad. If it's bad, please tell me!

Three days had passed since the ball. Lily only had to wait one more day to take a test, but the tension was driving her insane.

One more thing was driving her insane.

She had started throwing up on the dawn of the fourth morning, just in time for Bart to "return from his trip."

He walked into the room all cocky, like he owned the place, which, surprisingly enough, the mogul didn't. The Palace was one of the only hotels in the Upper East Side not affiliated with Bart Bass & Co. But that's beside the point.

Summoning as much dignity as she could, Lily quickly wiped her mouth, grimacing at the vile post-upchuck taste in her mouth, and put on her stern face as she approached her fiancé.

"Lily," he greeted in what she thought was supposed to be a warm tone. His vocal inflections varied as much as his facial expressions, of which her son insisted he only had one.

She had begun to agree with Eric.

Lily moved her head to the side so his intended kiss on the lips became a peck on the cheek.

"Lily, what's wrong?" Lily didn't reply right away, but looked towards the bedroom. There, piled neatly outside of it were his bags, all packed and ready to be moved out of the capacious apartment. "What are my things doing all packed?"

"Well, I figured you might want to be more immediate to your girlfri--I mean business," Lily bit. She didn't even let him start to defend himself. His look of utter horror was enough to confirm the rumor. "Don't even start, Bartholomew Bass. You were seen multiple times. What I don't understand is how you could possibly preach to me about leaving behind something I loved when I was young while you were having an affair with that something's ex-wife!"

"Lily, I--" he tried to sneak in.

"No. Don't you dare, Bart. You left our wedding to have a last fling with Allison. What the hell was that about?" Lily demanded.

"Lily!" Bart grabbed her by her shoulders to catch her attention. It worked. "Allison's pregnant."

Pregnant. All words, all emotions, all coherent thoughts flew out of Lily's head. What an ironic twist of fate, huh?

Speaking of ironic twists of fate, she was feeling another ironic twist coming on. Lily feigned shock--didn't take much feigning--and clapped a hand to her mouth. "I'm going to be sick," she declared before racing to the toilet for the second time that morning.

At least Bart was considerate enough to hold her hair out of her face.

A few minutes after she had finished throwing up, they remained on the cold tiled floor of the immaculate bathroom. Finally, Bart spoke up. "How did you know about Allison?"

"Serena dragged me to the Masquerade Friday night to keep her boyfriend's father company. We got to talking and he told me he'd seen you roaming around Brooklyn with her. He'd snapped a picture and I recognized Allison. He said you'd been having an affair since before Christmas, when they were still married." Okay so it wasn't completely true. He'd never taken a picture. She never said Rufus was her boyfriend's father. He had no reason to call her a hypocrite in this sense.

"How did he know how long it had been going on?" Bart asked, suddenly suspicious. This boyfriend's father sounded extremely in touch with the goings-on in the Humphrey marriage system.

Luckily, a lifetime of Upper East Side made lying ridiculously easy for Lily. "He'd seen you since then and she still had a wedding ring on her finger."

Bart had no excuse for that. There was no way he could turn this on her. He couldn't destroy her. It was completely his fault and she had picture proof to back it up. Damn the woman!

Finally, he sighed in acquiescence and began moving his luggage out of the apartment.

During his last trip, Lily stopped him just before he left and placed the almost rudely large diamond ring that had found home on her ring finger into his palm. They were over.

8D

The phone was ringing. It had been four days.

Rufus lunged for the phone before either of his children could get to it. "Hello?" he whispered.

"I need you to pick up a test on your way here," Lily's voice came through the receiver.

"Why can't you pick it up?"

"Because I can't spark another Gossip Girl blog without merit," she explained, "especially since it went public that Bart and I called off the wedding."

"You called off the wedding?" Rufus asked, suddenly excited as Lily's laughter filled his ears.

"Down, boy," she chuckled. "Can you pick up a test?"

"Yeah, I'll see you in half an hour."

As promised, Rufus Humphrey appeared on the other side of Lily van der Woodsen's door in exactly thirty minutes, holding a brown paper bag.

"Great, Rufus. Way to not be conspicuous," Lily said ironically.

"Yes, because I'm just that moronic?" he shot back playfully, pulling out two subs. "I thought you might want some lunch."

"Oh," she laughed. "Thanks. So what stick did you get for me to pee on?" He pulled it out his inside jacket pocket. E.P.T. Good choice. "You asked the lady at the counter, didn't you?"

"Well, I'm a guy."

The two kept up the witty banter until Lily disappeared into the bathroom to do the test. After setting it on the bathroom counter (on a paper towel, of course) she and Rufus tried to enjoy their subs. Keyword: tried.

The tension was just too great for witty banter. Suddenly something popped into Lily's head. "Uh, Rufus?" He looked up from his sandwich, a bell pepper hanging from his lips. "I have something I should probably tell you." He removed the pepper and gave her his full attention. "It's about Allison...she's pregnant."

Rufus' face turned stony. "It's Bart's, isn't it?" Lily nodded. "Why am I not surprised?"

"It's like she and I have some link. We have to be pregnant at the same time or something," Lily laughed.

"That is true..."

Neither of them said anything else for a while, the tension too much to break. The only thing that was able to break it? The sound of a bell going off.

Time was up.

Lily and Rufus looked each other in the eye, taking the other's hands in their own.

"You ready?" Rufus nodded. Lily took a deep breath and walked into the bathroom.

"Here goes nothing."

A/N: I'm so evil. I know that. I revel in my evilness. But aren't you glad I've been pretty constant with my chapter lengths? They're all at least 3 pages long, which means 1000+ words each chapter. Go me! Now REVIEW and tell me how evil I really am.