Okay I am sort of back from hiatus, I had this chapter typed up ages ago but thought that I should wait until it's perfect to post it but I have realised that it will never be perfect. I have lost my love for this fic and have a few works in progress on the back burner. So am going to try to finish this up ASAP and then get on with new shiny projects where I actually like the people in the fic... I think this is OOC and also both parties are very mean but they are grieving... plus I am not very good at dialogue, especially the he said she said malarky, perhaps I should just write in IM speak!
Thanks to anyone who has read this or reviewed. - Especially the recent reviews which have inspired me to get off my backside and post instead of reading fanfics all day. :)
As always a BETA would be amazing, please email me and let me know if you fancy it, and as always criticism, plot ideas, etc welcome!
Blair had never been one for violence, the Upper East Side upbringing had taught her that the word was mightier than the sword at a very tender age and it was a motto she lived by. In the world of scandal and revenge she always knew that she would get more satisfaction from the carefully thought out destruction of her foes than from giving them a black eye. So as she slapped Chuck Bass hard across the face she was more surprised than he was.
"I guess I probably deserved that" he drawled rubbing the red mark fast appearing on his chiselled jaw "but do you want to tell me which of my numerous wrongdoing earnt me that slap"
Her eyes shined in the dimly lit room, a novice might believe them to be brimming with a widows unshed tears, but Chuck saw that any tears unshed were tears of hate not sorry "Nothing specific you just deserve it." She spat her words at him with equal measures of distain and composure.
She is about to slap him again when a pair of strong arms grab her from behind, "I'm sorry Mr Bass, I will get her out of here." In 4 years of working for Chuck Bass Bernie had never let anyone get close enough to hit him, not the many angry boyfriends or psycho bitches but this tiny brunette had slipped him by, she didn't look like the usual sluts that Chuck had associated with whilst he had worked for him and her perfect curls and Haute Couture Adeline Andre had fooled him into thinking that she wasn't a threat.
"Do you mind, do you know who I am" Blair screamed as Bernie lifted her off the ground and started pulling her away from Chuck "get your hands off me".
"I don't know who you are lady but I know who he is and I know it's my job to stop anyone even you from slapping him in his own club" Bernie replied he hated people who thought they were beyond the rules, too rich, too powerful to be constrained by the simple fact that no one touches Chuck Bass on Bernie's watch.
Blair glared at Chuck, she couldn't believe he was letting this happen to her, after everything she had been through in the last few weeks, maybe she shouldn't have slapped him but he knew he deserved it and if he let her be dragged out of his club, their special place she would add it to the ever growing list of thing that she could never forgive him for. "Let her go she's my sisters best friend" he finally stepped in and took Blair from Bernie "do you want to continue this conversation in my office? Probably a little more appropriate" he whispered walking her towards the door to his office
"I've heard that one before!" she scoffed reluctantly allowing herself to be dragged to a place she hadn't been to for years.
Once inside the office Chuck took a seat behind the desk and offered the visitors chair to Blair, from the outside it would look like a business meeting but it was anything other than business. "Blair I know you are grieving, I am too, and I know that you probably blame me." He begun hoping he would be able to talk some sense into her, Blair Waldorf was not the type to go around slapping people in clubs even if it was him "If you need to hurt me then go ahead but I don't want to... I can't hurt you anymore and I think being here is going to hurt you, it's too soon to start going over the whys and wherefores."
"Awww chuckie I am flattered at your thoughtfulness but this is exactly what I need. I have been cooped up in my apartment for 3 weeks like some old widow, watching Audrey Hepburn movies and my wedding video on loop." Her voice was saccharin sweet and she cocked her head to the side in a patronising manner "I need to get out; you know it's pretty lame only having the weather to blame for killing your husband. I need somewhere to direct my anger and that somewhere seems to be you" her voice dripping with what she hoped sounded like hate but chuck recognised as despair by the time she finished speaking.
"If it helps hate me, swear at me, slap me, I deserve it I deserve a lot more." Chuck held his head in his hands, when Nate had come to him and told him that he was in love with Blair again, asked for his blessing to go for it he had put his feelings aside because he knew that as long as he was in her life he would hurt her, and now he had hurt her anyway.
"So you admit it, it's your fault?" she leaned forward challenging him with her words, daring him to admit it.
"I guess it is yeah, if I hadn't insisted on taking him out that weekend he would have been at home, he would be alive now." He shook his head, why was she going over and over this?
"You think that is why I am mad? Because it was your idea to go sailing? Going sailing didn't kill him, rescuing you killed him. He was a good swimmer, the sea practically ran through his veins, you would struggle not him you were probably being dragged down by your scarf." Her brown eyes glowed with accusation "I read the people reports they all say that he would have survived but he went back in to save people, to save you. Maybe if he had left you he would have been ok, if he had thought about us instead of you for one moment for once in his goddamned life it would have been ok, I would have him now, but now he is dead."
"Thought about us?" Chuck searched her face accusingly, she had slipped and he knew it. As the realisation of what her Freudian slip implied dawned on him he felt the colour drain from his face.
"Us, me, his parents, Serena, his friends." Blair covered looking down at the leather topped desk between them, despite herself she felt the corners of her mouth turn up as she remembered how they had celebrated Chuck's 21st birthday, Bart had finally given him full control of Victrola and they had christened that very desk. She shook away the memory and the smile and looked back at him with hard challenging eyes determined that he would not know anything she didn't want him to.
"you forget who you are talking to Waldorf, and I know you Blair you don't think in terms of "us", it's always B versus the world. When you grow up like we did its' me and them it's never us. Who is us?" he softened his voice, attempting to coax the information out of her.
"You don't know anything about me" her eyes flashed with fear as she stood up "for a start it's Archibald."
She started towards the door but before she could turn the handle she felt a strong hand holding her arm and turning her around. "You will always be Blair Waldorf and no matter what you might wish I will always know you." He whispered his face only millimetres away from hers.
"You think you know everything don't you? You think you have me pegged, know me inside and out. There are things about me you will never know, never understand." She turned away from him and rested her forehead against the door. Closing her eyes she tried to block him out, and block out all the emotions he made her feel. She was a widow, her husband barely cold in his grave, she shouldn't be at Chuck Bass' speakeasy; she shouldn't be at their place. So Chuck was to blame, she knew it and that's all that mattered, she shouldn't have gone there to confront him.
"I know that you are full of crap that when given the thing you beg for most you run away screaming." His voice was almost broken as he spoke into the shell of her ear, his words barely above a whisper. She hated that the voice he reserved for his most tender confessions of love was also the voice that he used when speaking words of hate. She had heard both and now as her heart was pounding in her chest she didn't know which she would hear now "That you stick your fingers down your throat whenever the shit hits the fan."
His words spun her around, she had always felt emotional pain physically, when she found out that Nate had slept with Serena she had a liked the pain to a punch in the stomach, when she had caught Chuck kissing her mother a stab, when Nate died she had felt like they had ripped her guts out completely and in a way she welcomed it if it meant no more pain but his words hit her like a bullet. "What about this Chuck, did the all knowing Chuck Bass know that I killed our baby, that when you proposed to me, I was pregnant. That the thought of something created by you growing inside me made my skin crawl, that I was at the clinic before you could even take the ring back and that your best friend and your "sister" were there with me." She said the thing she promised herself that she never would. Serena and Nate had promised never to tell him about their baby and she had promised never to use it against him.
He laughed slow and deep his face again only centimetres apart now that she had turned around "You are lying, Serena would have told me, and Nate would have told me. People don't keep secrets in our group. It's impossible." He smiled before continuing, it couldn't be true. He would have known "If you had been pregnant I would have gotten word on gossip girl before your period was even late. You are not that cold Blair; you just wish you were. I know you Blair, better than anyone always have always will"
"You of all people should know how easy it is to keep a secret." She returned his smile and inside something faltered he wasn't so sure she was lying. "I mean gossip girl never reported that you cheated on me"
"Amelia, you knew about her? When did you know? Did you know all along? Let me guess Serena told you?" he stumbled back to his desk the shock that Blair knew about Amelia was running around his head and his vision was becoming cloudy with the realisation.
If his vision had been clearer he would have seen the look of confusion on her face when he said Amelia's name, confusion followed by hurt and finally hate "Like you said secrets don't work for the non-judging breakfast club" she spat
"Damn Blair, I know revenge is a dish best served cold but not even you could hold out for 3 years? Would you?" he couldn't even look at her, the smile in her eyes told him everything he needed to know. "you knew all along and you played me for 3 years just so you could turn me down in that limo when I offered you ...everything."
"I have to say even I felt a little sorry for you getting down on one knee, moon river playing on the stereo that little blue box. It was all so cute I almost said yes." He made it so easy for her to be cruel, crueller than she had ever been before. The problem was that they did know each other, too well. She knew exactly how to hurt him most. She thought about Amelia, wondering when that had occurred, how many "Amelias" there had been whilst she thought that he was hers. She hated herself for being surprised, this was Chuck Bass; he had kissed her mother, why was she surprised.
In the back of her mind where she stored all her horrible memories she thought that maybe there had been a logical explanation for what she saw that New Year's eve. A game of truth or dare with just two players, a bet, maybe she got it wrong that the kiss was just friendly, it's what she told herself when 3 days after it happened she found her mother collapsed in the kitchen. When your Mom is dying you can find reasons for her kissing your boyfriend if it meant that you could look at her and not hate her again. Cancer of the oesophagus, it almost killed her; the doctors said it would kill her but they didn't know Eleanor Waldorf.
"I never thought I'd say it but Nate is better off dead than married to you" he spat at her, his voice hitching surreptitiously as he tried desperately to contain his emotions and control his rage. "I hope you kept your doctors or should I say butcher's number Blair because that kid you are obvious growing inside that hateful body of yours doesn't deserve to be brought up by an evil dried up bitch like you."
"You don't abort an Archibald; they are not as disposable as a little Basstard." She looked at him, with tears in her eyes. Her heart was wishing that he would see the truth in her lies see that she was trying to hurt him. Desperate that someone would feel even a little of the pain that she was going through.
"Get out Blair before I do something we both regret" he said quietly slowly clenching and unclenching his fists afraid to even look at her for fear of what he might do.
"I'll go Chuck, but don't get too comfortable. And I hope that you have an answer." In a moment she was back to ice queen, the tears that threatened blinked away and replaced with mocking.
"I said get out Blair" he roared not even bothering to ask her what she meant with her obvious baiting.
"When this baby, Nate's child comes to you and asks you why their daddy is dead I hope you have an answer, because I don't mind filling in the blanks." and with that she was out of the door disappeared as quickly as she arrived.
