A/N: Well, I don't know what you all do with your lives, but clearly you don't review. *twitches* Review please! =D

Ch.14—Dry Water

He had walked off by now and she heard when he began talking to Vanessa on his cell. He was out of hearing distance now, had turned the block and it was just her and Nate. She avoided his gaze like the plague, and he did the same in regards to her.

What was there really to be said anyways?

The whole fight that had broken out had them all confused beyond reckoning. Dan was out of his mind—Nate and Serena were sure of that. Serena was genuine with the two of them though, regardless of how little she had said in the midst of the thick tension. Her resolve was faltering more and more. The knowledge of Chuck using Blair sent her Queen Bitch mode to a crumbling halt. It was only when Penelope and the rest of the girls stared at her head-on that she realized she had to pull herself together and become the one thing she could never truly be. It was always an act, and though her charms deemed her a good actress, she was in a desperate need for the director to call cut.

"Do you know what that was about?" she asked suddenly, her eyes flickering to Nate's. Slowly, hesitantly, he lifted his gaze to hers.

"No," he said, his voice barely audible. It was only by the movement of his lips and the darkness of his eyes that she could tell what he had said. That and she knew him. It was Nate. He sighed then and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "He just came at me out of nowhere."

She shook her head in disbelief. It wasn't as if she would have seen it coming either. She'd been distant from everybody in what had felt like forever. She didn't know who she was. And everything was popularity. Her sole reason for remaining queen was so Penelope didn't take over, but that fear pounding in her head was beginning to sound extremely fickle. Penelope didn't have a heart, but she had never had the guts to be queen either. Even when Blair was dethroned the year before, Jenny had taken her place. With no leader, it would probably be quite easy for her brunette (ex?) best friend to take her down. Unless she was still wouldn't from Chuck's games…

The blonde sighed, and then blinked, feeling herself weak when she lost herself in these overpowering thoughts. She looked up at Nate again, her eyes having fallen to the ground. He was still there. She was sure he would have left by then. But he hadn't. He always seemed to be there. In fact now he had stepped closer to her. She didn't know if she was imagining it or not, but his arms appeared to be reaching forward—like he wanted to touch her.

She swallowed hard. "Nate," she said. The jolt from his determined actions halted the movement of his arms. He had only wanted to comfort her. She just looked so lost standing there, not knowing what to do, feeling she would fall any second—he knew those were her thoughts. The slight teetering in the midst of the recent tension between all of them was not lost of him. He was just afraid to move, they all were, he thought.

His eyes flashed up to hers, and his lips parted. She didn't speak a word and the only thing that caused so much as a blink was an unexpected car whizzing by.

"What are we doing?" she breathed, and it pained him to see the sadness that was etched so deeply across her face. They weren't doing anything. It wasn't like when they had sex after the Sheppard's wedding, or when they almost met in secret to talk things out at the Bass brunch. They were doing nothing, but he knew what she meant.

He sighed and moved forward a few steps, wrapping her up in his arms. She cried into his shoulder. "I don't know who I am anymore," she sobbed, tear tracks staining the fabric of his shirt. He rubbed her back soothingly and she allowed her arms to wrap around him.

"How did it get so bad?" she sniffled once most of the tears had subsided and she had pulled away to look him in the eyes. But he had no answer for her, and he couldn't even smile—couldn't make the situation somehow better. Blair would have known how to fix it, if she wasn't a part of the problem to begin with.

"You could just hand this whole queen status back to Blair when you get to school on Monday," he offered, his hands still connected to her arms.

Serena shook her head, sniffling again. "It's not that easy."

His eyebrows furrowed, though he really shouldn't have been that surprised. Things between Blair and anyone didn't seem to be easy in any aspect of the word. Early in his relationship with her, things had been remotely smooth, but something told him she had been holding herself back until Chuck set her loose.

"Why not?" he prodded gently, rubbing his fingers along one of her arms.

She chuckled softly. "Because it's Blair."

He smirked slightly. So he had been right. "Yeah," he sighed.

"She's going to think I'm pitying her, and if I make it that I'm not in front of the other girls then…" she shook her head, biting her bottom lip softly, "well, she just won't take the bait. She has too much pride for that."

Nate raised his eyebrows briefly. "Can't argue there."

A hint of a smile appeared on her tired face and he silently congratulated himself and relaxed a little. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and started walking down the block. He felt her head drop to his shoulder and it comforted him that he had somehow found the true Serena Van der Woodsen in the mess that Chuck had created and both the girls had become victim too.

When the two were almost to the end of the block, Serena stopped. It had been so nice to relax with Nate, to know he was there for her. The only other person she had like this was Eric, and she had been closed off to him for the most part. Everything she had been doing made her feel so out of control, and for the first time in most of her life, it made her feel ugly, insecure, and so very uncomfortable.

"N-Nate…"

He looked to her, his worried eyes searching her face.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I—I—" she stuttered, felt she couldn't stay like this, that it wouldn't fix things, not really. "I have to go," she said, as if coming to the realization right then. She pushed herself out of the hold he still had on her and turned to walk away, in the direction of the parked limo she had come in.

"What? Serena," he called after her, following those first few steps she had taken. But she didn't stop at the sound of his concerned voice like she had every time before. She just kept walking and soon she was running. He called after her—longer, louder—but she didn't stop, and all he could do was sigh in the most frustrated manner when the limo she had slid into drove past him.

"Nate!"

The boy was just starting to slow down from his jog. He was dripping sweat and almost home, but somehow little Jenny Humphrey had tracked him down. If he could tell anything from what had happened with his encounter with the previous blonde, this was not going to end well and he was going to become very stressed.

Slowly he turned around and forced a small smile for the younger girl that had appeared to be running after him. "Jenny," he said, trying to sound enthused. He folded his arms across his chest, not really caring for the moment that it caused the sweat enveloping every inch of his skin beneath that shirt to increase.

She sighed, catching her breath and then running a hand through her hair. "Look, I just—I saw what happened on Gossip Girl, and I'm so sorry I wasn't there to talk to you earlier. I had no idea Dan was going to do that; I didn't tell him anything else that happened. I didn't think anything else had happen, and—"

Nate placed his hands on her shoulders and she stopped speaking immediately. It almost scared him how fast she could talk and all the expressions that were flying across her face. He immediately felt bad for disregarding her sudden need to talk to him. The girl felt extremely guilty, and he should have taken that into consideration.

"Jenny. Relax. It was nothing you did. When Dan told me about the letter originally, he wasn't upset at all. Something must have happened last night…or sometime since I last saw him to get him angry. Unless it was you who reminded him of how he lost Serena and how she might love me now and possibly did when they were dating, then—"

"Wait," her eyes crinkled into confusion, "she still loves you?" Concern etched across her face and he knew he had gone into deep. He had fallen through too much, too fast, and regardless of what Jenny Humphrey had been scheming behind everyone's backs, he shouldn't have pulled her along with him in his frustrations.

His lips parted. "I—I don't know," he winced at his own foolishness and looked away. "I don't know anything anymore," he admitted.

Jenny pursed her lips and laid a tentative hand on his arm, dismissing the fact that it was sweaty and that grossed her out a little bit.

"It seems we all don't know anymore," she sighed and removed her hand, wiping it off on the side of her jeans. He turned back to her and offered a small, genuine smile. She walked away a bit and huffed at herself. "I should have never gone snooping in Serena's room." She plopped herself down on the bench that was stationed a few feet across from them.

What?

"You went snooping through Serena's stuff?" he scoffed. "It must be a Humphrey trait," he muttered. She did not miss the reference to her brother's snooping in her own room, but decided to move past that. There were more important things to discuss.

"It wasn't a brilliant method, I know, but—" she sighed. She hated the way he was looking at her, like he couldn't even believe they were friends or even known to one another. She wondered if it was much worse than this when Chuck and Blair had 'betrayed' him the year before. She couldn't even imagine tolerating a glare that intense. "I was trying to…" she bit softly on her bottom lip, "I was trying to help Dan and Blair."

Nate's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Serena had not only disowned him but she made him look like a disease to the entire school!"

He sighed, turning his gaze away, nodding.

"And completely ditching her best friend just because some socialite told her it was better to make herself look better than an insecure Blair?"

He remained silent, but did turn his head back to her.

"I had to do something!" she insisted. He walked over and sat beside her on the bench.

"So…you went snooping to get something on Serena, to destroy her." He stated with a sarcastic laugh. This was all too evil and he just wasn't one of that sort. Never had been.

"To set things right!" she almost whined. She didn't want to sound like a big baby, but she had to stress her point. "I love Serena, but this new girl isn't Serena. My end goal was just to make everybody happy again. Dan wouldn't be an outcast, at least not so openly. Blair would be queen again, because let's face it. She pulls off the bitch thing naturally." She chuckled, and he had to smile. "And maybe Serena would be a little down for awhile, but everything would sort its way out once she realized she was back where she belonged. I mean," she shrugged, "When's the last time you saw the real Serena?" She raised her eyebrows.

He sighed, knowing she wouldn't believe the next words slipping out of his mouth. "Twenty minutes ago, to be exact, and last night."

Her lips parted, and her eyebrows narrowed in confusion. "Nate, what are y—"

"I know you don't believe m—"

"No, I do!" her eyes widened. "I just…don't understand how…" her eyes wandered, trying to figure out the meaning behind her words. "I mean, no one else has…so…?"

He smiled a bit at her adorable confusion. "I don't understand it either," he rested his arms on his knees and planted his face in the palm of his hands. He groaned into them and his head snapped up again, staring into the nothingness of empty nature and buildings in the far distance. "She's growing weak."

Jenny frowned. "Weak?" she tilted her head to the side, confused again.

"Weak," he turned to face her, and then leaned back on the bench. She watched his every move. "You're right. This isn't Serena. By some miracle she's taken off the mask around me, but it takes effort to keep putting that mask back up and keep it up. I just don't want something really bad to happen before she takes that mask off for good. Only Blair has perfected the attitude of constant change."

She sighed, her legs growing restless, when suddenly she stood and then she walked away. The action completely took him by surprise and he didn't even react till a moment later. It was the second time a blonde walked away from him while they were deep in conversation that day. He figured he should be more skilled in the after actions, but he quite honestly wasn't.

"Jenny?" he asked. It wasn't supposed to be a question, but he couldn't help the confusion seeping through his voice again. She turned around, blinking madly.

"I—I have to go." Her face crumpled into a sad, frustrated mess, and he knew there was more beneath that lie that she was willing to explain, but he let her go. At least that particular action he had become accomplished in.

She was pacing, had been for awhile, and it was starting to bother him.

"Blair," he said. She turned to face him, but she was still moving.

"What?" she asked.

"Don't you think you're being a little…"

She stopped, her hand shaking now.

"…fidgety?" he raised his eyebrows. Her eyes focused back in on his face after zeroing in on her hand and forcing it to stop moving. She sighed and walked towards him. He was still sitting on the bed, now dressed and she had found some of her clothes in his closet. She let her hands fall into his, let him grasp them gently.

"I think…we have to do something," she looked up at him, so very unsure of her thoughts at that moment. He could tell she was torn, conflicted.

"About Serena," he stated. She nodded but then seemed so very upset that she might be giving in to the one thing she had been fighting so hard for.

"Ugh!" she huffed, turning away and pacing again. He sighed.

"Blair…" he ran a hand through his hair. This was the third time this had happened.

"What?!" she snapped. That was the first time she had snapped at him out of the three.

"Look, calm down," he stood and walked to her. Suddenly everything felt like it was closing in on her and she couldn't handle it. The closer he got to her, the more enveloped by fury and fear she became. She was scared to death of everything that had been happening. And for the first time since the beginning of her whole scheme with Chuck she actually wanted to help Serena. That single act would ruin everything they had been doing. It would be all for nothing. It would be as if the only thing she would have had to do from the beginning would have been to go to her that first night Serena had gone out drinking and work things out.

There would have been no real use for Chuck then, and they would have never gotten to this place. She didn't want to lose what they had and it scared her to death that Chuck was essentially agreeing with the part of her that was screaming at her to act—to help Serena.

"Well then, let's help her," he shrugged. Her eyes flashed to his in a deadly glare and his head reared back, his eyebrows furrowing.

"What?" he asked confused. "Isn't that what you were suggesting?"

She nodded, but he could see her eyes widening in terror and now she was backing away—her pace getting steadily faster. His eyebrows creased further.

"Blair, what's wrong?"

She shook her head, her eyes closing. "Stop!" she said. That breeze of relief came to him after she took a few more steps back and his feet had not moved. She opened her eyes to see the worried, pained face of Chuck Bass staring straight at her. She cleared her throat and resolved her thoughts. She would not go to Serena. She would not ruin everything she had been fighting for. She was not going to just have her queenly title handing back to her out of pity or because she had saved the blonde from another drunken night—had pushed some sense back into her.

No.

That was not her only fear. The other fear was even more terrifying than the first—than the most obvious one. She was afraid of losing Chuck. It was okay to pretend they were together now, because they were supposed to be…for the game, the scheming manipulation. But when it was over. They would be over. Because she wasn't going back on her demand. He had to say those three magic words. And she knew he wouldn't. She knew it'd be over. All of it was just too much.

"I'm not helping Serena," she declared. And he could sense the sudden bitchiness in her tone, the cover up for her obvious just-seen vulnerability. She wasn't being real with him anymore, and he knew it.

"Blair—" he warned, walking towards her again.

"No," she affirmed. There was no room for questioning. "I'm not friends with her. I can't just go to her aid because she's making an ass of herself."

His eyes narrowed in a different manner now. For a moment he had gaped at her new demeanor, in disbelief that she would go this far—be this cruel. Serena clearly had hit a breaking point—the text must've been killing her, and he had no doubt she probably had an interaction with one of the boys, if not both of them.

"This isn't you," he said.

She scoffed. "And who are you to know who I am?" she raised her eyebrows.

He looked at her, shaking his head in disbelief. "Fine. I'm done."

Her lips parted. "What?" her voice was low…and dangerous.

"I'm out of the deal. I'm done. You've gone too far, Blair. You've back-pedaled too many times." He started walking towards the door, only halting when she called out to him.

"Chuck!"

He spun around, waiting for whatever pathetic excuse she was going to make. He actually heard a hint of despair in her voice and was hoping he had won her back over. He certainly didn't want to leave like this.

"She's your best friend," he said, when her mouth seemed incapable of moving. He didn't wait for her denial of the label he had given Serena in regards to her. "You can't hold this against her forever."

Her mouth smacked shut, and she didn't so much as blink.

"I'm done," he said, now in the doorway. "Oh, and when you leave?" he began again, "Make sure to take all your clothes with you."

Her eyes widened in fear as he shut the door behind him. Quiet. Not a slam. Quiet. Soft, still, almost inaudible unless you were waiting for the click of wood on wood and metal. She took a few steps in the direction of the bed and felt her back collide with the wall dividing the room. Her lips were pursed and she did not allow a single tear to fall.

So, she had lost him after all.

A/N: Please, PLEASE review! I get so few these days… *sigh*