Chapter 4:

Recap:

"Well, we've finally IDed the body."

"Really? Who is it?"

"A girl named Vanessa Abrams"

Blair's eyes widened. She'd heard that name before, from Serena.

Her worst fears were starting to be confirmed.

Chuck stared at her.

"Blair? Is something wrong?"

"Um…no it's just that the name is familiar…"

"Did you know her?"

"Vanessa? No…I didn't…but Serena did…."

"I'm really sorry Blair. Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of this. Plus, you still don't have definitive proof that Serena did it."

"Chuck. We have Serena's bracelet. The one of a kind bracelet her mother splurged on because she'd actually finished high school. Why would anyone else have that? She's related to this. There's no escaping it now. She's involved."

"But…"

"We have to work with what we have. I can't just pretend there isn't any evidence because it's Serena. In any other case, you know that we would've already brought in the suspect for questioning. You go talk to the dead girl's family and I will track down Serena. Okay?"

Chuck nodded, clearly hurt that they weren't going to go together as they usually did.

Blair wasn't quite sure why she'd snapped at him. She knew the stress was starting to get to her. But she also knew that she'd want to confront Serena alone the first time. She felt bad, she knew he wanted to be there for her but this was one of the few things he couldn't help her with.

"Call me when you're done?"

She nodded back, and with that she turned to leave.

xoxo

Chuck pulled up to the Brooklyn apartment, and waited for a moment before going in to break the news to the victim's sister.

He sighed as he couldn't believe how Blair had acted back at the precinct. First, he'd caught her almost relapsing and then she'd snapped at him and went off to find Serena on her own. He wasn't sure what he had done wrong; all he wanted to do was to help her. He didn't want her to fall back to her old ways and he sure as hell didn't want to lose his best friend. She may have been the one with a dark past, but she had helped him get through some of his own problems. They made a great pair. They were able to have tons of fun and act silly around each other like they never did with anyone else but they could also have really deep and serious conversations too.

He laughed when he remembered his first impression of Blair.

It was his first day of training camp and he had already met up with his friends from police school and seen several girls that he planned on taking home. As he was scanning the room for more possible conquests (since the several that he found would only be enough for this week), his eyes landed on a girl standing in the corner of the room.

She was different from most of the girls he went for. He usually went for the girls that were extremely gorgeous on the outside, but didn't have anything else to offer other than a good lay. That was the way he liked it. That way there were never any emotional attachments. This girl, though, had an extremely cool exterior. She was beautiful, but not in an obvious supermodel kind of way. It was more of a low-key beauty, and for some reason it gave Chuck a feeling he had never felt before. He didn't even know how to describe it, and as a result chose to ignore it. He was Chuck Bass. He didn't have romantic feelings for women, he only had lust.

He turned back to the front to face the sergeant as he began calling role. Chuck raised his hand upon hearing his name, and continuously glanced around the room to see what this girl's name was. Several minutes had passed, and the sergeant was approaching the end of the alphabet.

When he called "Waldorf, Blair" Chuck saw the woman he'd been eyeing raise her hand. So, he thought to himself, Blair Waldorf… might not be a bad option to keep around.

Chuck put these thoughts to rest as the sergeant began grouping the new rookies into teams.

…

Several days passed until Chuck saw her again.

The sergeant changed their teams every day in order for the rookies to get to know each other better. Each day they'd start off introducing themselves to the whole group, and then were broken off into pairs to complete the day's exercises.

On this particular day, Chuck had been paired with Blair to complete the day's training exercises. She was already at the shooting target. She turned for a moment and saw him coming and stared blankly in his direction.

There it was again, he thought. That cold vibe. What was her deal?

He smirked back at her as he approached. There was a moment of silence as the door closed behind him, and he used the opportunity to take a look at Blair up close.

He could immediately determine that she was a lot prettier up close, where she couldn't hide her features. Her chocolate brown curls were just the perfect amount unruly, and she only wore a little make-up that accentuated her eyes. She had perfectly clear, pale skin and her eyes were a welcoming brown color that contradicted the cold look that they were usually giving people.

She was definitely beautiful, he thought. Yet he was sure he'd never get anywhere with this one.

Several more moments passed without her acknowledging him. She started firing at the targets without saying a word.

Fine, he thought. If she going to play it this way, then so am I.

He cleared his voice and waited until she fired another round.

"You're doing it wrong."

Blair gave him a quizzical look, that had annoyance mixed in.

He continued: "Just thought I'd tell you before you mess up when it counts."

"Thanks, but who do you think you are to come over here and critique someone who you don't even know?" Blair replied, haughtily.

"Oh me?" He paused. "I'm Chuck Bass," he said as he held out his hand.

She paused before taking it.

"Blair. Blair Waldorf."

"Well very nice to meet you Miss Waldorf. Shall we get to our drills now? Or did you want me to help you with your shooting technique."

She smirked. "I think my techniques fine. I can demonstrate on you if you'd like," she said as she pointed the gun in his direction.

He smiled. "Fine. I guess you've made your point Waldorf. Nicely done."

Once again she smirked. "Why thank you Bass," she said putting extra emphasis on his last name just to mock him.

She grabbed another revolver from the rack closest to her and tossed it to him. As they began shooting, the iciness that had filled the room just moments ago had started disappearing.

Chuck finally pulled himself from his thoughts and brought himself back into the real world. He had a relative to notify he told himself.

He got out of the squad car, and rang the doorbell of the apartment.

A fairly young looking woman with red streaks through her hair opened the door. Cool, Chuck thought to himself. An artsy type.

He forced himself to focus.

You can't mess up on this murder, he said to himself. This will probably be one of the most important cases you will ever solve. You have to focus.

And so he did.

"Miss Abrams?"

"Yes…is there a problem?"

"Unfortunately there is. Do you mind if I come in? This'll probably be easiest if you sit down…"

"Oh…um…alright. Come on in."

She sidestepped to let him in, and then motioned for him to follow her into what was obviously the living room. She sat down on the couch, and he sat next to her.

"Miss Abrams. My name is Chuck Bass, and I'm a homicide detective for the NYPD. Unfortunately, I come bearing sad news. We've recently identified a body, as your sister. I am extremely sorry for your loss."

It seemed as if all the color had drained from her face. She couldn't speak for several minutes, and just sat there and stared at him while the tears began streaming.

"Vann…Vanessa's dd..dead?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Wha-at? H-how? W-ho?"

She began bursting into hysterics.

"We don't have very much information just yet. But I will most certainly notify you when something comes up. I just have to ask you a few questions, ok?"

She nodded.

"So…uh… when was the last time you saw Vanessa?"

She took a moment to compose herself before she spoke.

"Well she didn't come come home on Tuesday, so I figured she was just crashing with one of her friends. But when she still didn't come home yesterday I began to worry. I never thought that she'd be…d-dead."

She burst into tears again but this time threw herself into Chuck's arms. He hadn't expected this, and wasn't sure what to do. He barely knew how to handle Blair when she was upset, so he certainly had no idea how to handle a bawling stranger. He was sad Blair wasn't here, for she was that one who usually comforted the victims. He tried now, but only ended up awkwardly patting her back.

"I'm sorry Miss Abrams…just a few more questions."

"Right. Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Feeling sad right now is definitely normal. I just need to ask you if Vanessa had any enemies? Any ex-boyfriends, ex-friends, or people who didn't like her? Or maybe a friend she recently fought with?"

"Um no…not that I can think of…"

"Well if you remember anything feel free to call and let me know," he said as he gave her a card with his name and work phone number.

She nodded as he made his way for the door.

Feeling bad for her, he turned.

"Miss Abrams…I really am sorry for your loss."

He turned around again and made his way back to the squad car.

xoxo

Blair stared at the door in front of her.

She didn't understand why this was so hard for her. She'd been here too many times to count in her life, and she even had her own key.

Yet she couldn't bring herself to just barge in.

So she knocked. And knocked.

And knocked.

When there had been no answer for fifteen minutes, Blair was beginning to get impatient. Serena couldn't really be ignoring her, could she?

Sighing, Blair pulled the key out from her pocket. She didn't want to have to do this, but Serena was simply leaving her no other choice. She slipped the key into the lock, and turned it until she heard a click. She pulled the key out and turned the handle.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to see.

Serena had never been the neatest person, but the state of her apartment was out of control. The place was completely trashed.

Papers had been scattered everywhere, and her clothes were hanging off the furniture. There was some, actually lots, of food left on the dining room table and in the living room. Blair speculated that some of it was one night old, while the rest could have been several weeks old.

Not only was the place a mess, it also smelled. Blair realized this was probably because of all the food, but it didn't stop her from scrunching up her nose and heading towards the window. As she was opening it, she heard footsteps in the hallway behind her.

Shit, Blair thought. She'd left the door open.
"Hello?" A familiar voice asked in a terrified tone. "Is there someone in here?"

Blair turned just in time to see her old friend.

"Hi Serena."

Blair tried to genuinely smile at her but all she could do was stare.

Not only did her friend's apartment look like a mess, but so did she. When they were growing up, Serena had always been the beautiful one that all the boys wanted. Blair had resented living in her shadow at first, but eventually got used to it as she realized that Serena didn't try to get attention. She was just effortlessly beautiful and there wasn't much she could do to stop attracting attention. Even Blair was sometimes mesmerized by her.

She could throw on whatever was on the top of the drawer and still make it look great and half the time she didn't even have to brush her hair for it look shiny and nice.

Now, Serena was as far from that effortless beauty as she could possibly be. Her formerly beautiful blonde hair was now knotted and greasy. Her face, usually clear and slightly made-up was now full of blemishes and had obvious traces of smudged mascara and eyeliner. Her clothes were covered in dirt and about three sizes too big. All in all, Serena just looked disheveled and dirty.

Blair wanted to know what had happened to drive her friend to look like this. Even during their worst days, Serena had always managed to still look presentable. Blair, not so much, but she never thought that it would be possible for Serena to look bad. Obviously she had been wrong.

Serena stayed silent during Blair's observation of her with a surprised look on her face that made it seem like she thought she'd never see Blair again.

"Blair…" Serena finally managed, "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you of course…like I said in my text…I need to talk to you and it can't wait anymore. It's been too long and I don't know why you've been ignoring me since we graduated college and-"

"Blair… I'm really sorry but I can't ri-"

"No Serena. This is serious and you can't run from me. Not anymore. I'm really the least of your worries right now and if you talk to me it will be easier for the both of us. This isn't even about you ignoring me, though I'd really like to know why. I need to know about what happened to Vanessa…"

Serena's eyes widened. "V-Vanessa?"

"Yes Vanessa. Don't play dumb with me Serena, I'm losing my patience, I know you know what happened. And you're going to tell me whether you like it or not."

"Alright fine. But we can't do this here. I don't think this place is safe anymore."

"Fine, whatever, we'll go to my place then."

"No Blair. I can't be seen there. It might put you in danger."

"Come on Serena, don't be ridiculous. I'm a homicide detective; I think I can fend for myself. Plus, why would anyone come after me just because you were in my apartment?"

"Blair, please. Just come with me ok?"

"Alright fine. Just give me a minute."

"Kay I'll be by the door"

Blair pulled out her phone to give Chuck a quick call. She turned around to stare out the window while she waited for him to pick up.

" Hey, so I found Serena, and I'm getting her to talk! Just wanted to let you know, that it's going well so far. I'll call when I'm done. Sound good?"

"Alright sounds good. You know you can always call if you need anything, ok? Good luck!"

"Yeah I know. Oh by the way, how'd it go with notifying the family?"

"It was fine…I'll talk to you about it later! Go talk to Serena now!"

"Alright. Talk to you later!

She smiled as she hung up and put her phone away, turning back towards Serena only to find that she was no longer there.

Blair gasped.

No. This couldn't be happening.

She ran back into the hallway and look around the corridor that was lined with apartment doors. But Serena was gone.

She pulled out her phone again, tears beginning to stream down her face.

"Chuck. We have a problem. A really big one."

"I'm on my way. Text me the address."

A/n:

Oh no! What happened to Serena! I guess you'll just have to wait a couple days to find out!

As usual I hope you liked it! Don't refrain from leaving a review to let me know your thoughts, or even to let me know if there's something you want to see!

I just need to give a big shout-out to my friend Sam! She's doesn't really watch GG, but she helped me a lot with this chapter when I got stuck and now I am forever grateful!

Also one last thing, I just need to tell all you guys about the birthday present I got from my friends! It's amazing! They got me the scarf (I know you know what I'm talking about). Yeah. It's awesome.

Alright I'm done with my little ramble now! Expect a new chapter in a few days and don't forget to review! : )

Xoxo, thattchuckbasstard