A/N: Heeeey, only a week later I update this! I think that's pretty impressive considering how long it was in between chapters before that. Lol. In case you couldn't tell, going off of my constant updates of my newest story, my writing muse is back. ;) Maybe b/c I don't think I can really vid CB until they're done with this 'war' of theirs, or maybe just b/c I'm inspired to write again. Heh. Whichever, hope you read and review. And please, pleeeeeeease vote on my profile poll! =D

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

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Ch.9—From Denial to Vengeance

He stared straight on at the wall, the blank part that he couldn't possibly concoct any memory from except for the fact that Blair Waldorf had slept with her head right on the spot for over a week straight. For the moment, that fact did not occur to him. He wasn't thinking anything right now, not about her, not about anyone or anything. A lot of the morning, he hadn't been lying in bed. He'd been pacing, wondering what had happened the night before, if anything had happened, if it had all been a dream with a strange ending. Eventually he had gone back to lie down in the bed because he had nothing better to do and he could not recall ever walking around for no good reason, even when confused out of his mind.

There was a knock at the door that jolted him out of his non-thought. He turned his head towards the door and released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Thank-god it's you, Nathaniel." He sat up straighter in his bed and took a quick sip of the water in the paper fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand cup that sat beside the bed in a metal tray on top of a portable table.

"Were you expecting someone else?" he asked curiously, shutting the door behind him. Blair, Blair, Blair, he chanted secretly in his mind.

"I think of come up with the perfect plan to get Blair out of this hospital and back to where she came from," he said very assuredly.

Nate sighed and muttered to himself. "And here I thought it was going to be different today."

"What?" Chuck asked, perhaps thinking his best friend had some wisdom to offer. He'd never had any before, none that he could think of, he thought, but at this point he was getting desperate. Nothing he'd come up with thus far had been entirely foolproof against the determination of Blair Waldorf.

Nate shook himself out of his hopefulness very quickly. "Uh, nothing." He leaned his frame against the wall. "It just sounds like you're exiling her, don't you think?" Chuck looked confused. Nate couldn't believe it. "Sending her back to where she came from?" He jogged his memory and comforted himself with the fact that his best friend seemed to have recalled his own words. He even smiled a little.

"I'm not sending her back to New York, Nathaniel. I'm just getting her out of this hospital, maybe out of this city or out of the country if I'm lucky. Didn't you say she was vacationing in Paris with Serena, her father and Roman too…" he trailed off.

"Yes," Nate said, nodding and quickly become frustrated. He walked a little ways into the room and sat in the chair Blair had been known to occupy. "I did say that." He covered his eyes with his hand. "So," he asked, "what is this 'perfect plan'?"

"I'm glad you are so interested in my new theory," he said, sounding pleased with himself. Nate dropped his hand to the arm of his chair and rolled his eyes, not really caring that Chuck did not notice.

"Not like I have much of a choice…" Nate muttered.

"My plan is you tell her to leave."

Nate's eyes narrowed. He scoffed. "Haven't we…tried that before?"

Chuck sighed. "Yes, but this time it will be different."

The blonde looked bewildered. "How?" he asked in disbelief. "Because I'm talking to her this week instead of last week?"

The brunette sighed and put his head in his hands. "Try not to be difficult, Nathaniel."

"I'm being difficult?" Chuck looked at him innocently as if this new idea was the smartest one he'd ever come up with. "Chuck, tell me what's really behind this sudden…dawning revelation."

"It is not a dawning revelation. More like an insight that—"

"Chuck."

He sighed and finally met his eyes. Nate wasn't buying this bullshit, and quite frankly neither was he. "Fine." He sat up straighter in the bed and took another quick sip of the water beside him. Nate looked at him expectantly. "Blair and I may have…interacted."

Nate's eyes widened. He immediately sat up in his chair, shocked beyond belief and now definitely at full attention. "I thought she just usually fell asleep and then took off before you barely opened her eyes."

Chuck looked at him and nodded. It would be best if Nate didn't know that he had calculated his exit every morning to precision so she could sneak out without him noticing. Only Eric had picked up on it thus far and not by him telling him either. Eric was very observant. With things like this it severely irritated the otherwise very composed Chuck Bass. A lot had changed since he'd left New York a few weeks ago, but his younger brother's acute awareness of his older brother's feelings, no matter how hard he tried to hide them, remained very accurate, almost flawlessly so.

"What happened?" Nate asked. He shifted in his chair. Chuck shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair as well. He shrugged as if the experience had been nothing out of the ordinary, as if nothing of significance had come from it.

"She came and talked, I didn't. She came again, practically threw my food on me and demanded a bed time story," he sighed, sounding somewhat annoyed. Nate gaped and finally Chuck looked at him. "What?" he asked, bothered by the disbelief on his best friend's face.

"A bed time story?" He was completely baffled.

"I thought it was weird too, since it was the middle of the day, but" he shrugged, "after what I did to her, I figured it was the least I could do. Maybe it'll be the start to making amends." He nodded, proud of his conclusion and ignoring the disbelief on his best friend's face very effectively.

Nate slunk back into his chair. He exhaled in quiet exasperation. "Good lord." He lost his gaze on the floor. "What is this plan again?" he whined breathlessly. Chuck ignored the tone. "No wait, don't tell me, I remember. I'm just supposed to tell her to leave and she'll do it."

Chuck smiled, proved at the progress he was sure he was making. If he could openly be blind-sighted in front of people, then he would no doubt eventually believe in the theories filled with nothing but stupidity when no one else was around.

"She's already come to see me and we've talked. I'm not dying and she's seen that. Obviously there's no other reason for her to stay," he said, sounding very serious. It was in fact the most serious he had sounded, the most sense he had made, since Nate had walked in the door. He didn't take him seriously, just like he hadn't since he'd been aware of Blair's first night sleeping in Chuck's room and Chuck had continued to act like it didn't affect him when in fact he was becoming more see-through about his desperation for her by the second. But all of this didn't stop Nate from looking at his best friend and trying to see what was behind all this nonsense once again. He doubted this 'new plan' would work at all. In fact, he was 100% sure that it wouldn't.

"I'll see what I can do," he muttered, standing to his feet and crossing the room. He waved off the thank-you, Nathaniel, you're a good friend that Chuck threw at him as he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him, still looking as bewildered as ever. A passing nurse looked at him cautiously to see if he was alright.

….

Blair, in all her glory, waltzed into his room later that afternoon. He'd been thinking about her all day, about how to get rid of her and what had happened between them the day before, what exactly had happened. He remembered all of it in vivid detail, but he still couldn't gather what the chain of events all meant. And he needed to know. He needed to know before she left. That was the real reason he'd acted like a complete idiot in front of Nate that morning, insistent that the same old tactic that had never worked from day one was going to work now. The real trick to his idiocy was that he knew, regardless of the past results, that Nate would try to get her to leave by doing exactly what he'd said to do, and that the end result of that would be Blair storming into his room to give him a piece of her mind. Then, he could hurt her. He was nothing if not relentless. She wasn't the only one.

"Chuck, I heard you wanted to see me," she said, smiling brightly. She was beaming, no doubt willing to repeat their activities of the day before. It was true that going off smiling to dinner – even if it was in opposite directions – had made everyone think things might be progressing well between them and so leave him alone in his demand to get her to leave. He knew it was her trying to get him to want to be there, but he'd taken the offer because he was sick of people worrying, and she was no doubt very proud for the achievement, just as she was proud of herself now. He was very sure he was going to be annoyed to the point of disgruntlement by the little speech he was about to endure before he could properly bash her until she could not stand it, until she felt the only thing she could do was leave.

"Those weren't the direct words that came out of my mouth when I spoke to dear Nathaniel, but I suppose they will have to do for the time being." He observed her as she walked towards him, glowing in all her beauty and assurance. She was intoxicating. He was nearly overwhelmed at the thought of her leaving him, but his guilt still lay heavy on his heart, his shoulders grew weary and worn every second he thought of just what he had done to her, of every awful thing he'd done to her, and those seconds were now every second of his life. He couldn't let her stay; he just couldn't. He knew he'd find some way of killing himself if she did not leave before he had made himself worthy of being in her presence. He was sure of it as he was sure the air would still be there even when he was not thinking of it at all. Her presence was dangerous to his very existence. She had to leave.

"Yes, well, I'm very good at reading between the lines." She continued to smile brightly, but now she moved to the wall to pull up her favorite chair and set it beside his bed. She was halfway to sitting down when he spoke again.

"I hate you."

She froze, her bubbly mood gone in a heartbeat. She could not speak. She could not do anything. She just stayed there, practically squatting in mid-air, but for her legs firmly pressed together. Her eyes screamed at him to explain himself, but his expression was blank. What looked like hard cold truth spread across his face.

"I-I uh," she cleared her throat and sat down slowly. She smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt. "I know you probably didn't want me barging in here unannounced, but you should know me enough not to be surprised by that particular—"

He sat straighter on the bed. "Maybe you didn't hear me correctly. I said I hate you."

"No." She held back the tears in her eyes, begging for a dry gust of wind to suck the moisture away. "I heard you," she said softly.

"I've always hated you, Blair."

"What?" Her voice was so quiet, baffled in its scared innocence. His words didn't sound true at all. A tension settled in the room and extreme heat filled her body from head to toe.

"I wish we'd never met. I wish you'd never met Nate. I wish you hadn't even existed."

What bothered her more than the icy glare in his eyes was the way his voice was never uneven at all. It didn't sound like he was trying to make her hurt. It sounded like he was just making her face the facts. It was as if he'd finally decided to pull her out of some dream world that she must have created herself.

"I never loved you," he said. "Nate never loved you either."

"Stop it," she ground out. He raised his eyebrows in what looked like amusement.

"Oh? You tell me to stop only after I mention the state of Nate's love? The fact that it had never been?"

Her brows furrowed in hopelessness and her mouth opened and closed. He looked at her as if she were some dirty specimen he was having the pleasure of condemning to exile, but first telling her every horrible thing he believed he thought of her. She swallowed hard. Then, in one swift move, she stood to her feet and shot him an angry glare, hiding the hurt in her rapidly beating heart.

"I never loved anyone as much as I loved you. What I felt for Nate is a speck of dirt compared to how I feel about you, and you know it." For a fraction of a second she thought that it was probably unwise for her to be declaring her love to a man who had hurt her so much. His betrayal was so great that she'd never wanted to see him again, and now here she was, begging for him to believe that still loved him. He looked at her intently but said nothing. Then, he sighed and looked down at the sheet.

"But, you no longer love me, and I'm glad." He looked at her. "I never wanted your love, Blair. Not for one second. It will do you no good to stay here. You need to leave." He watched her face as it crumbled before him, fighting to keep its firm composure. "I hate you."

"Stop it," she sniffled, shooting to her feet.

"Why? Afraid I'll break your heart again by telling you the truth?" he asked, shooting forward on the bed, his eyes piercing through her soul.

"No! Because you're not telling me the truth! You're telling me lies! You just want to make me hate you like you hate yourself!"

"I have no feelings!" he screamed, pulling the covers off him in an instant and standing to his feet. She backed away, scared of what he would do in this temper. The back of her knees hit the chair and she stumbled back as the chair skidded across the floor, stopping when it slammed into the wall.

"Chuck…"

"And you don't have any either! You stupid, selfish, worthless bitch!" he shouted, not caring that probably everyone in every room in the hall could hear his voice. He had to get her out. And nobody was coming to stop him.

She gasped. "Chuck!" Tears welled up in her eyes again, a small droplet dripping out of its own will. She took another couple steps back, her feet moving back of her own accord. She nearly tripped in her own heels. He'd never shouted at her before. She'd never hear him shout to anyone, ever. She didn't know how to act and she was scared out of her mind.

"Go ahead, cry. They're fake tears. All of them. Just like any love anyone could have ever had for you. If you had never walked into my life, I would have never thought I was in love. I could have continued to be numb to life until the very end. I could have lived without the cursed weight of regret and torture!"

"I love you!" she cried out, tears now flying down her face. She was on the verge of collapsing there right where she stood. But he didn't hear her. He just continued out, pushing down her self-esteem and courage and declarations of love. He saw her fall apart right in front him and made himself step out of the situation so he could continue on.

"Chuck, please stop…" she begged, her eyes closing because her vision was so blurry with the tears he'd created.

In one last attempt to shake him out of the temper that had taken over him, she purposefully strode to him in two large steps and pressed her body up against his, claiming his mouth to show him she cared and she wasn't going to leave, even he wanted her to. But it failed. The second their lips touched, he pushed her away from him with such force that she nearly rammed her head against the wall. He continued on his torturous desecration of her existence, blinding himself to her tears and her heartbroken face.

But then he lost his breath, and fell. He heard her scream and then everything went black. Blair backed away, horrified at the sight of his violently shaking body hanging off the side of the bed. He had clearly lost consciousness but she could not stop screaming, though most of it was drowned out by the loud noises emanating from the monitors surrounding his bed. Soon nurses and orderlies and a doctor rushed into the room. Nate must have been the closest one of all that had come for him, because he was the only one that stepped inside. Blair was no longer screaming now. Her eyes were very watery though, red and her cheeks were covered with tears. Her hand was covering her mouth as she watched the nurses and doctor try and recover her precious Chuck. Nate's voice called to her through all the madness and an eternity later she turned to see his pleading face in the doorway. Shakily she made it out of the room and then she was running, tears flying down her face.

"He's gone into cardiac arrest!" She heard one of the nurses or orderlies or someone from that room say. She cried harder, completely overwhelmed by everything that had just happened. Nate's hand grabbed the crook of her elbow just as she turned the corner, and without thinking she collapsed in his arms when he turned her to him. She sobbed on his chest for what felt like forever, and when she was finally spent he took her out of the hospital and he cradled her huddled body against them in the back seat of his limo.

…

A/N: Wow. *stares at last scene in disbelief* That was HARD to write. *shudders* Well, review! lol. I'll try to update soon. Maybe tomorrow if the episode doesn't completely break me by showing me that right now Chuck truly wants to hurt Blair, and not just because he doesn't want her to hurt on his accord more in the future.

Please vote on my profile! =D And please review. ;p