A/N: Wow, I am amazed and so thankful for all of the feedback I got for the last chapter. It's been over a month since I last updated (Sorry!!), but I hope the wait was worth it!

I had no words. None. On the contrary, UpChuck had plenty.

"Fancy seeing you in the past, huh?" he said, still smirking. When I was still silent, he tried another tactic.

"Looking good, Waldorf," he said, eyeing the Cesare Paccioti strapless dress I had changed into before leaving. The feeling of his warm hand against my bare arm made me jump.

"You—do not touch me. If it wasn't okay in the time period we just left, what makes you think it's okay now?"

"Because tonight is the first night you are supposed to touch me."

"It was just a kiss. A truth or dare kiss."

"Then why are you here trying to stop it?" I rolled my eyes and ignored his question.

"How did you even get here?" I said, crossing my arms.

"I never forgot this night," he said, for the first time sounding serious. "It wasn't too hard to imagine you'd be here too."

"No, I mean, all of this," I said, pointing to our matching Revisors. Now, he rolled his eyes.

"Seeing as how you ditched me in the lobby, right outside a parade of taxis, it wasn't exactly hard to follow you. All it took was a hefty donation to ReviseIt, and they happily pointed me in your direction."

"You had no right to be stalking me!"

"You had no right to be changing the past without my consent!" he said in that deadly quiet angry voice of his. "Do you know what it feels like to find out that some of the best memories of your life are being erased because someone else stopped caring? You and me—you can't just change that like you change your dress. We have history."

I have to admit. Saying no to a speech like that nearly killed me. But I couldn't fall for another one of his dramatic pleas again. I didn't come all this way to be sidetracked by a Bass.

"Aren't you tired of fighting? Don't you believe, even for just a second, that life would be so much simpler if we didn't have this?"

"Sure, I think that. But then I look at you, and I know that all of it, all of this bullshit, is worth it."

"Worth fighting over?"

"Always." He was looking me full in the face now, and I couldn't look away.

"Then prove it. Fight for it. Of course, you're going to lose and we'll cease to exist, but in the meantime, show me that you want us."

"That is assuming you win," he said. "I'll do you one better, Waldorf. I'll defeat you. I'll stop you at every turn until you realize this whole thing is pointless."

"It'll be the game to end all games," I said, excitement growing in the pit of my belly. Just the thought of it was kind of…turning me on. He licked his lips, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. We sported identical calculating grins.

This'll be easy, I thought. The only thing more satisfying than Bass-proofing my life was out-Bassing Chuck. He was so going down.


Fifteen minutes later, I was wishing we had followed the birthday party inside before making our bet. The crowd was packed, and they were nowhere to be found. Fourteen-Year-Old Me and Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck could have made out, gotten married, and left for their honeymoon for all I knew. To make matters worse, Chuck had decided he had nothing better to do in the past than follow me around.

"So, did you enjoy my Gossip Girl tip?" he said in my ear. Even as my mouth opened in outrage, I had to try hard not to breathe in the scent of him that hung in the air. Well, I tried.

"Your—Oh my effing God!" I smacked his arm with my purse. "You evil, conniving—ugh, I should have known it was you. Scandals and Gossip Girl tips—your specialty. That's why there was no picture of Ms. Burke. You made the whole thing up!"

"Well, not completely. Ms. Burke really did hook up with a student. Possibly the one and only French class I didn't skip…" he trailed off with a dreamy look on his face.

"Make one more remark about your vulgar past and I'll make it so you were never born. Literally." Before he could respond, my eyes had landed on them, the Headband Huddle sipping identical cosmos (I vaguely remember that being the It drink way back when.)

"I found them!" I whispered excitedly, whipping my head around, but finding no Bass in sight. He had disappeared. The thought of it struck me as a little unsettling, but I refocused on the situation at hand and maneuvered myself to a spot close to but hidden from the Blair Brigade.

"Way to go, Serena! His cell phone and his wallet," Kati was crowing. Serena wobbled unsteadily to her feet and took a dramatic bow, her mane of spun gold hair catching the light—and the eyes of many a guy in the crowd.

"Truly impressive, S. I think you've locked lips with just about every investment banker in this place," Fourteen-Year-Old-Me was saying imperiously. "Whose turn is it next?"

"Yours," Is said.

"And I have the perfect dare," said Penelope. She paused for effect. "Make out with Chuck Bass for two minutes."

I should have known. After all, history had thwarted me once before. If not Hazel, then Penelope.

Well, that made my plan a little harder. I wondered if the time travel police would come and arrest me if I simply knocked her out and dragged her away.

"Easy," she said, sipping her cosmo and fixed them with my patented Mona Lisa smile. I wasn't as easily fooled though. Out of the corner of her eyes, she was glancing frantically for some way out, and I knew that underneath the smile, her mind was going a mile a minute.

She looked exactly like I did when I was secretly in thought. I suddenly thought of how alike we looked; to the untrained eye, we could switch places and no one would be any the wiser. That's when a plan started to take shape…

"In fact, I'll find him now," she announced loudly to all within earshot.

"How will we know that you did it?" Penelope said.

"Why don't you ask him in an hour or so? I'll give him a kiss he won't forget." She got to her feet as confidently as she could and strode through the crowd.

I had no idea what she was planning on doing, but now we were working against the clock. As soon as she was out of view of the party, I intercepted her.

"Thank God you're here," she said. "Penelope dared me to kiss Chuck!"

"I know. I heard it all. We have to go to the bathroom. I have an idea," I had to yell over the music.

"What?"

"The bathroom! Now!"

As soon as we made it to the restroom (five whole minutes later, due to the crowds), I took a middle stall and shut the door. The one left to it was occupied, so she settled into the one on the right, and we talked through the divider.

"Listen, we're going to trade dresses and shoes. You'll wear this hat-" here I tossed over a floppy, wide-brimmed hat from my purse. "And keep a low profile. I'll look like you, kiss the Bass, and you'll have done your dare."

"Not a bad plan," she said.

"It's a good plan," I corrected. "You'll eventually come up with a few of your own someday. Now, here's my dress," I said, letting it lie over the top of the door. It soon disappeared from sight.

A few minutes later, she hung her dress over the top of my door and slid her heels underneath. I slid her my Jimmy Choos and went to work on the Louboutins. Unfortunately for me, my feet had grown another size up in the past decade, so they were particularly difficult to work with.

"I'm finished," she announced a couple of minutes later. "I'm going now."

"Okay, I'll be out in a couple of minutes," I said, adjusting the shoe strap. I heard the door swing shut behind her, followed by the sound of the stall door next to mine unlocking and opening.

Call it instinct but I couldn't help but check out the stranger's shoes as they stopped outside of my stall. They were made of rich brown Italian leather, and oddly enough, they looked just like the shoes Chuck liked to wear.

Chuck...

I reached up for the dress.

It was gone.

"What the--?" I whipped around, searching for the scrap of blue. "Blair?" I called out, even though I knew she had already left.

I felt like a criminal in hiding, holding the door closed against the police waiting on the other side. So you see, I really didn't want to open the door.

I opened the door.

"Chuck!"

"Surprise, surprise."

"Do you mind?" I said, shutting it a little and looking down to make sure my half-naked body was hidden from his view. "I'd like my dress back."

"It would come—with a price," Chuck said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. He walked to the bathroom entrance, opened the door, and waited for my next move.

"I am not sleeping with you!" I said, opening my stall door a little wider.

He wasn't seriously going to leave, was he?

"My, my, Waldorf. What a dirty mind you have. I was going to say, drop all of this and go back to the future with me, but I guess you have a more romantic bargain in mind."

I lunged for the dress, but he easily dodged me and got halfway out the door, before I threw my weight on the handle and stopped him. He didn't look fazed at all. Instead, his eyes rudely scanned my body in that salacious way of his.

"Is that the lingerie I bought you last month?"

"Give me that dress or so help me God, I will murder you!" I could feel my cheeks burning with shame. I mean, could it get any more degrading—him holding my dress up out of reach while I, in my current state of undress, reached for it futilely.

I pretended I didn't secretly enjoy the chance it gave me to be near him again. Even while I was flailing against him, I couldn't help but notice how good he smelled, and how warm his arm was.

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. I didn't know whether this was from the physical exertion of fighting me off or if he was feeling the same.

"Oh come on, Waldorf. You didn't think I'd go down without a serious fight, did you?" His voice slightly hoarse.

"I thought we banned public nudity from our games a few years ago after that strip poker game at Serena's. We both know how jealous you get when any guy but you sees me naked."

"That's funny because I distinctly remember you being the jealous one when Little J tried to take my pants off."

"Me? Jealous?" I cried.

"Why shouldn't you be? After all, I am Chuck Ba--"

With a battle cry, I made a move to rip the dress from his hands, but he sidestepped me and took advantage of my distracted state in order to push the door open and slip out. I felt a stream of cool satin slip through my fingers. The last thing I saw was his dancing brown eyes taunting me as the crowd parted for him before the door closed.


This was not my proudest moment. For one, I was dressed as a male bartender. This alone was enough for me to be thankful that no one from my time (except Chuck) was here to see me.

Still more embarrassing (and disgusting) was the fact that I had to swap saliva with a bartender who reminded me of Aaron Rose and who was clearly a complete moron for not being suspicious at all when a half-naked socialite practically mauled him in the hallway on his way to the bathroom. As if he could have dreamed of having this in any life.

Years of playing UES Truth or Dare had made me a pro at stealing the poor shmuck's clothes. Even as I was leaving, he was counting to forty with his gullible eyes tightly shut.

I had slipped the pants and shirt on in a private room and tied my hair up so that from far away, I at least looked like a man. A very effeminate man.

Cursing the fifteen minutes I had lost and praying to God Fourteen-Year-Old Me was still safely hiding, I made my way back to their table but stopped short when I saw both Fourteen-Year-Old Me and Present-Day Chuck already there.

"Yeah, I had to freshen up and got a little lost on the way back. No biggie," I could hear Fourteen-Year-Old Me say as convincingly as I can. "Thanks, urm, Uncle Jack. I almost lost my party there."

Uncle Jack? Actually, that was a pretty brilliant cover…

"No problem. I'm always willing to be of assistance," Chuck aka Uncle Jack said. Kati and Is were gazing at him with adoring eyes, and I noticed more than a few women from other tables admiring him in his crisp navy suit. I could feel that flare of jealousy rising up again and I wondered where it had come from.

"Uncle Jack, we were wondering where your nephew was," I heard Kati ask, fluttering her eyes shamelessly.

"Actually, he's right there at the bar. Completely available for any dares."

I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach, and suddenly, I realized that the odds were in Chuck's favor. My fourteen-year-old self was going to have to do this dare—her reputation and social standing depended on it. There was nothing I could do to stop her. The only thing I could do was make sure Chuck was unavailable for her to complete the dare.

Now this I could do.

It only took a twenty and a point in adolescent Chuck's direction for the pale curly-haired brunette to approach him. She wasn't a dead ringer for me, but in this case, she would have to do. He smiled at her as she smoothed out his suit flirtatiously. Hook, line, and sinker.

But before I could round up some victory martinis, she was walking away from him with an affronted look on her face, and he was looking regretful. However, this look was soon replaced by one of smug satisfaction and surprisingly, a dash of nervousness. I whipped my head around and saw Fourteen-Year-Old Me approaching him, her face worried but defiant.

This was it.

Like a hero in slow-motion, I dove back behind the counter, grabbed a pitcher of ice water, and dumped it on Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck's head.

Five seconds later, it occurred to me that maybe that was a bad idea. Four things happened, all at once.

1) Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck let out a ferocious yell, threatening to sue the establishment.

2) The entire club fell silent.

3) Fourteen-Year-Old Me stopped in her tracks.

4) I ducked and almost got away. Almost, because before I could get out from behind the bar I ran headlong into Present-Day Chuck Bass.

Oh, shit.

"Water, Waldorf? How original."

"Let me go!"

"And dressed as a bartender. I'm a little flattered you went to such great lengths, only to be stopped here."

"You are not stopping me. Not now, not ever!" I struggled against his arms as he dragged me outside.

"Blair! Blair!" I yelled, as we passed Fourteen-Year-Old Me on our way out. She turned and looked at me with confusion. I mean, seeing as how I was being forcibly dragged out of the club by an older-looking Chuck who was now covering my mouth with his hand, all while wearing a bartender uniform, I could see why she would be confused.

"Where were you?" she yelled.

"Mmmrmpph," I said.

"Ow!" Chuck said. "You bit my hand!"

"Don't kiss him!" I yelled at her, ignoring him. "I know your reputation might seem like it depends on it, but for your own sake, don't kiss him!"

"You don't understand," she said, following us outside. "I'll be an Upper East Side laughingstock."

"Look at me!" I said. I thrashed a little harder for good measure. "Do you want to end up like this?"

"Don't listen to her," Chuck said. "Stop kicking me, Waldorf, and I'm telling you this for your own good. Do you want to change the future by making your past self lose her spot on the steps? Do you want to end up as a loser throughout high school, lose your spot at Yale, and end up marrying Walter Gompers?"

Fourteen-Year-Old Me blanched.

"Oh, shut up!" I said. "Don't listen to him. That's not going to happen."

"Queen Bee, Yale," he said. "Or lunch in the cafeteria with Brooklyn."

The club doors swung open and Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck Bass stormed out, followed by the manager, who was nearly kissing his feet with apologies.

"It's final! I'm leaving," he said. "You can expect to hear from my father in the morning."

Arthur opened the limo door as his employer's son approached.

"Think about it," Present-Day Chuck was saying. "Your future depends on it."

As Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck stormed by, still damp but no longer dripping, a pale white hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

"For the last time," he snarled, before turning around. "I—"

Everyone watched as Fourteen-Year-Old Me pulled Chuck's mouth down to hers and shut him up with a kiss that seemed to suck all the air from the city. His eyes widened in surprise, but as his hands landed on her familiar brown curls and he looked down at the girl that had the front of his jacket fisted in her tiny hands, something else (wonder? amazement? I didn't know if there were words for it) flickered in his eyes before his eyelids fluttered closed and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tiny frame closer to him. She responded by wrapping her arms around his neck.

I could have broken it up. I could have pulled them apart. But watching them, watching us, I had to admit we looked good.

I looked over at Present-Day Chuck and saw the same thoughts written across his face. He turned to look at me, and some unspoken energy seemed to flow between us. We didn't need to be fused at the lips to feel a connection. He opened his mouth.

"Feeling left out? Wanna give it a try?" he said. Of course, he had to kill the mood.

"Sure, when hell freezes over," I retorted.

Looking over at them, I noticed they were still going at it, clutching each other like life preservers. I checked my watch.

"Two minutes!" I yelled. The fourteen-year-old versions of ourselves reluctantly broke apart, staring at each other so intimately, I had to look away.

The sight of them bathed in the gentle blush of our early days was depressing me. I wish someone back then had warned me, had shown me the hell of the next ten years of my life. Would I have still chosen to be with him knowing what I know now? Was there even a choice?

A light tap on my arm woke me from my thoughts.

"Do you still need me or are we just going to try again in the future?" Fourteen-Year-Old Me said impatiently.

"A Waldorf never gives up," I told her sadly while looking straight at Present-Day Chuck. "You'll have to see me one more time before I win."

"If by that, you mean you'll be seeing her many more times before you lose, then I'd say you're right," Present-Day Chuck said.

"See?" I said to Fourteen-Year-Old Me while pointing to Chuck. "This is what we're up against."

Chuck rolled his eyes.

"I'm going to go rejoin my party now, if you two don't mind," Fourteen-Year-Old Me said. They were waiting by the doors, Kati and Is giggling over the picture they took. Great, it was already on its way to Gossip Girl. But I figured I'd let Fourteen-Year-Old Me deal with it in the morning.

"Put Penelope on a good, grueling probation for me. Shoe-wiping and all," I said as Fourteen-Year-Old Me swung around and headed towards the party of girls hanging by the door.

"Yeah, tell her I owe her one for my dare," Chuck said smugly. "I never did thank her all those years ago."

"Your dare?"

"You thought Penelope was smart enough to come up with that on her own? Please, ten years ago, it was my idea for her to dare you to make out with me. She and Hazel thought you'd turn it down. But it worked, didn't it? Best night of my fourteen-year-old life."

I couldn't even look at him, I was so mad. Even though I didn't want to admit it, it had been a bright, shining memory in our history.

"And you just ruined it," I said out loud.

"I just saved us."

To add further insult, Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck joined him at his side with a matching smirk. Two Chuck Basses. That was more than the world deserved to handle.

"Wow," Fourteen-Year-Old Chuck said, letting out a long breath. "You weren't kidding." Present-Day Chuck patted him on the back.

"Nice work, Casanova."

I looked between the two of them.

"Nice work? Nice work?!? I should've known you filled him in on everything!" I yelled.

"Hey, just giving him a heads-up so he would know what to look forward to. And what to avoid—like that two-cent whore you sent in his direction. Thanks but no thanks."

"You know what, fine. Stay and have your little heart-to-heart. I'm heading back to change."

Of course, I wasn't really going back. But he didn't need to know that.

After walking down a couple of blocks, I pulled out my diary again and opened it to the bookmarked page. This time, I was going to do this alone. Chuck Bass wasn't going to get in the way anymore.

After checking to make sure the Basstard was out of my sight, I punched the numbers into my Revisor and watched as the lights of Manhattan began spinning.

"Hey!" came a loud yell from behind me.

From the corner of my vision, I could see a dark blur looming larger and larger.

If you've ever traveled through time, you know it's hard enough to try to stand still; it's another thing altogether to try to run away from someone while traveling through time.

This is probably why I stumbled and fell to the ground before he even needed to tackle me.

And let me tell you, falling while spinning through time hurts.

The last thing I saw before closing my eyes in pain was Chuck, his face level with my foot, hanging onto my ankle like his life depended on it.

A/N: As always, comments are greatly appreciated (comments = happiness!). Thanks to Guardian Izz, ronan03, Juicyxoxocharm16, ochibi-chwan, LunaSeasMoonChild, asha, TriGemini, batgirl2992, lynsay, delphin4ik, cherrysugar, BlairC, acv315, Nyx Underwood, penelope, suspensegirl, BassKingdom, ggff-fan, thegoodgossipgirl, Michaelllllla, and Ori1 for commenting last chapter. You guys are the best readers ever! 3

The door swung shut behind her.