Hello everyone! I know it has been an age since I updated but I have been in the States and had a great time! Here we go...I hope you like it, I warn you I am a bit rusty, I will hopefully update more regularly now! Reviews are, as ever, very welcome!

"It's clear what she is saying. She would rather be forgotten than remembered negatively or cause pain as a result of her absence. I do not agree though, I think that no memory is completely tainted; Rossetti cannot just expect a memory to leave a person. The pain is as much the person as the pleasure and that identity is of the upmost importance. So, as noble as the sentiment is, I would say it was too naive. Literature should not be naivety it should be reality, or pure fantasy. The emotions should be credible at the very least." Chuck put his notebook back on the table and looked up at the board of interviewers, who were sitting in silence. The professor of English wrote something on his pad and looked up "thank you Mr Bass that will be all."

Chuck stood up and left without another word. He walked straight passed the quad and picked up his bag in the porters lodge, wanting to leave it all for his brain to deal with at another time. The train back to London was a blur, Blair's face being the only clear thing in his mind. When he got off the train at Paddington Nate met him with a pitying smile and said the only words that he needed to hear "let's go and get drunk."

2 weeks later

The match flared up and illuminated the pink of his hand cupped around it. The flame flickered in his hand as he lifted it to the end of the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. The tip glowed red and the flame guttered and went out as he shook the match. The door to the bar opened and a waitress placed his drink on the table in front of him, the ice clinking in the golden liquid. Chuck's dark eyes remained fixed on the traffic running up towards Hyde Park and the waitress turned her back on him in disgust. Cars rushed past, lights flitting in and out of his vision. Only when a car with a dark haired girl in the passenger seat, stopped at the red light did he show any sign of life, but even then, it was merely the slight tilting of his head.

The early snowfall had typically turned to slush under the trampling feet of the London commuter and on this the penultimate night before Christmas holidays; there was no feeling of festivity in Chuck Bass' mind. He was avoiding the inevitable, trying to resist the pull back towards school where she was performing in the last performance of the season. After two weeks of quiet sadness and avoidance of each other, he had finally cracked the day before yesterday. Managing to get by without her had suddenly become impossible for him, he could not do it.

This feeling had become so heightened that afternoon when he had been heading for the library and had seen her up ahead of him. She had continued past the library and up the corridor towards the theatre. He did not follow at first, going into the library and returning some books and browsing the shelves. His eyes fell on a copy of 'Wuthering Heights' and he picked it up, it fell open on a page and his grip tightened on it as he saw the feint pencil annotations that he recognized so well. Her handwriting from the lessons that they had done together, she had underlined a passage and he reread it, feeling a jigsaw piece fall into place as the words rushed over him. "So he shall never know how I love him and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am." He closed the book and put it back on the shelf, walking slowly out of the library and up to the theatre. He climbed the stairs to the upper gallery and entered the dark of the theatre.

The stage was flood lit and she stood there with Dan Humphrey facing her. Her hair was permeated by sparkling beads and her soft floating costume made her look ethereal. Blair's voice was ringing out and he leant back against the lighting box and just listened to her. The Christmas performances were starting tomorrow and he knew that going to it would be too much like a year ago. He let himself relax and allowed his thoughts to wonder, just listening for the sound of her voice. Blair had seen him come in and she could not help the smile that came to her face.

The dress rehearsal finished late and by then she had become so caught up in the play that she had forgotten about him. Then as she returned to her dressing room to take off the costume, she remembered he had been there and smiled at herself in the mirror. She took off the royal blue dress and hung it next to her other costumes. She pulled on her uniform and sat in front of her mirror, pulling the hair clips out of her hair.

There was a soft knock on her door and she shouted out "Humphrey go away!" The door opened and Chuck walked in, a nervous smile on his lips. He left the door open, careful to keep themselves public and he walked towards her. She turned to him and gestured to the chair beside hers, he sat down and she continued to pull pins out of her hair. "It's looking good Blair," he said in a hesitant voice. She turned her head slightly towards him and a smile flitted across her lips "it'll be better on the night, if you'll come?" She had placed an offer on the table and he hesitated "I don't know, it may be a little too nostalgic." Her hands curved around the back of her head attempting to get the last clips out, but she missed some. He got up and pulled her hands away from her hair. He took the last sparkling clasp out gently, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck just before her hair fell to cover it. Her breath caught in her throat and he heard it. She stood up quickly and he took a quick step back from her. She bent to retrieve her bag and left the room quickly, leaving a faint trace of her perfume and Chuck with his memories.

Chuck stared at the bottom of the glass, which had now been drained and then glanced at his watch. It was 11 and he knew the performance would be over and that she would be heading to the after party with the cast and all their friends. The thought made him feel sick. He needed some indication that she was on her way to getting round those barriers that had been so insuperable in Oxford. He just needed her back, needed to tell her about how he'd done, needed her to envelop him with her smile and needed to feel her in his arms again. His feelings were clear to him, in truth they had been for a long time, but he had done is upmost to avoid them. That gnawing sensation had been dulled first by narcotics then by the biting ambition that she had inspired and was still inspiring in him. He did not know, yet, if he could bring himself to voice that feeling, but that he was aware of and admitted it to himself was progress.

He was about to order another drink when his phone buzzed, he put it to his ear and listened. That voice travelled through the airways and went straight to his heart.

"Where are you?"

"The Ritz bar."

"I'm coming to get you...stay there."

The line went dead and he gripped the phone. She was not at a party, she was not enjoying herself without him, she was coming to get him and she had sounded happy about it. The car drew up by the Hotel not long after and she got out, a red coat that had no associations for him, around her shoulders. She had not worn anything that held any sentimental value since Oxford and he knew that this was not a good sign. She bent and said something to the driver before turning towards him, the remnants of her stage makeup remained on her face. The glitter of her fairy incarnation still sparkled around her eyes, which made them look even bigger and more alluring to him. She sat down by him and smiled gently. "Shall we go in, its freezing out here...I take it you still have your suite?" Chuck did a double take, before realising that the request had been completely innocent, he nodded and they walked inside.

###

Blair threw her coat over the back of a chair and shook her hair out of the hat that kept it up, before sitting down at the bar in Chuck's suite. He poured her a drink and sat down opposite her, the bar between them. He was finding it hard not to be intoxicated by her. Everything she did had gained a new significance for him. She smiled at him again, becoming more confident. She began to speak as if they were continuing a conversation "I didn't want to end the term on a low, it just seemed so wrong, so when you couldn't make the play I thought I'd come to you." He glanced up at her "I'm sorry, I just couldn't." Her smile did not waver and she nodded "I know, we need new memories and experiences. That particular memory, no matter how pleasant wouldn't have helped either of us." He smirked and she laughed as a glow of red tinged her cheeks. "One thing I do have to bring up though is going to hurt, but my curiosity cannot stand the suspense: how did it go? Nate said well, but I never can be sure he's completely with it."

Chuck smiled and refilled their glasses, "it went more than well I'm afraid. I could bullshit, but you know that is not my way. They asked all the questions that I had prepped and on top of that I answered a few that they didn't ask, in my presentation." Blair nodded "just as I had expected, of course" her voice was tense but the smile remained fixed. Chuck looked at the shiny wood of the bar and asked her the blunt question "Why're you really here Blair?" She rested her fingers on his and murmured, "It just became too painful not to see you and well, a party isn't a party without Chuck Bass." She got off her stool and retrieved an envelope from her bag. She placed it in front of him, she sat back down and caught his eye. "Open it." He did as ordered and retrieved a set of tickets, he read the destination "Grenoble?" She took them out of his hand and placed them back in the envelope as she began to speak. "I want you to think about this, but Serena, Nate and I fly on the same day. They think this is a bad idea, but I am asking you to come with us for Christmas. Skiing, snow, freedom and I hope some new memories for us. It may seem sudden and an odd suggestion given the circumstances, but it could do us good. Mother and father have given us the chalet for the fortnight." She stood up and put on her coat, "just think about it Chuck, I'll understand either way."

Chuck realised that she was going and looked up from the paper in desperation. "Leaving Waldorf?" he asked in an almost normal drawl. She nodded and moved to the door, "not really a good idea for me to stay is it?" She looked around taking in the coffee table that had the residue of bad memories still lying on it and shuddered slightly. Chuck smiled at her "No you're right, I'll see you tomorrow Blair." She nodded and walked out, the door closing quietly on her. Chuck picked up the envelope and placed it in his breast pocket before picking up the phone on the bar and calling the reception. "Hello, its Chuck bass in the penthouse suite. Yes, I'd like to give up the rooms." Blair was right, bad memories needed to go.