Title: Eternal Contemplations
Author: fading_tales
Pairing: Damon/Blair (Vampire Diaries/Gossip Girl cross-over)
Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl or any of their characters.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Timing means nothing and everything when you have an eternity to live.

Chapter Twenty-one

Blair swallows and forces a cocky smile out of herself despite how unsettling Katherine's menacing leer is.

"Kill me? And how would you accomplish that? Have you forgotten what happened the last time you tried to bite me?"

The memory of Blair Waldorf's blood makes her cringe. She'd take vervain any day over the stupid little Immune's blood. Vervain didn't leave her fangs numb and aching, causing her unable to properly eat for days after. She had to drink stale hospital blood that Damon got for her from cups and straws as if she were a child. It was humiliating. Imagine…a vampire that couldn't hunt and eat. It was as if she was a cripple. She might as well been a human and that's the worst thought she ever had.

"I might not be able to glamour you… or bite you…" Katherine states as she leisurely circles Blair. "But you forget… you're still quite vulnerable to ordinary physical violence."

Without another word Katherine violently pushes Blair through her bedroom door. Blair crashes into the stairway with a loud bone cracking smack. The force is enough to breaks several parts of the railing and probably a rib or two.

Blair's head hurts more than she could have ever imagined possible. Though bloody, teary eyes she could make out the figure of Katherine making her way towards her. Katherine crouches down to Blair's level and almost endearingly brushes the matted bloody hair out of her face.

"Why couldn't you just marry Nate? I went to so much trouble to compel him to propose to you like you wanted, but that just wasn't good enough for you was it?"

"Y-You compelled Nate?"

"You should thank me. I made him the perfect boyfriend. He should've been everything you ever wanted."

Nate's sudden doting behavior starts to make sense.

"But still, you just had to have Damon. And you called me greedy." Katherine's sweet tone turns into a growl. "You need to learn your place. I tried playing nice, but I've realized that if I really wanted to get rid of you I better make sure it's permanent."

"You bitch! You messed with my life!"

"As if you made mine a piece of cake," Katherine scoffs. "Besides, if I don't kill you, somebody else will. You're an Immune." She says it in a sing-song voice, but the cruel smile she has on diminishes any soothing effect. "Don't you know why you're the only Immune? It's because the rest of them have been hunted and killed ages ago. Immunes are a threat to the rest of the supernaturals. And the way we supes like to deal with threats is by ripping it. Limb. By. Limb. Staying with Damon… it would've been only a matter of time before others learn about you. But I've gone on too long. This visit has been great, but I think it's time to say good bye, princess."

"Go to hell," Blair spits out. She grabs the jagged piece of broken railing besides her and ignoring the splinters jabs it into Katherine's blurry figure as hard as she possibly could.

The vampire reels back in pain and Blair takes that moment to try and run to the door. Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she doesn't feel anything other than the need to run and fast.

Unfortunately Blair's aim was off and Katherine quickly dispenses of the jagged wooden spike from her shoulder. She speeds over to block Blair's way just as her fingertips touches the front door's ornamental doorknob. With a shove, Katherine sends Blair violently tumbling back several feet across the marble flooring. Katherine doesn't take time to leisurely taunt her victim anymore and quickly moves to eliminate the threat once and for all.

Katherine has Blair by throat pined up against the wall.

"Do you know what the one good thing about Immunes is? When they die, they stay dead. Your immunity means that the effects of our blood can't heal you or turn you. It's better this way really… you and Damon had no chance anyways. He's immortal and you have an expiration date. One way or another you're going to die. I'm just going to expedite the process."

Blair spits bloody saliva on her face which earns her a hard backhanded slap.

"I'm going relish tearing you apart!" Katherine snarls.

"Bite me," Blair retorts with a snarl.

Just as Katherine takes a firm grip of Blair's broken prone body, ready to fling the other female down various stories, Damon bursts into the room.

"Katherine! Put her down."

"She's a stupid human and she's served her purpose. She's not even a decent snack!" Katherine answers with a hiss.

"Let. Her. Go."

Katherine scoffs. "Or you'll what?"

Damon launches at her to which she drops Blair to fall to the floor coughing bloody breath. Blair struggles to get up and instantly pain shoots in her chest. Definitely a broken rib or two. Damon manages to tackle Katherine into an antique hutch. The expensive china inside comes crashing to the ground as the two vampires go at it. Unfortunately for Damon, Katherine has at least four hundred years on him and has the upper hand.

"You're mine, Damon! Mine! Don't you ever forget that!" Katherine snarls right before she shoves Damon through heavy oak wall separating the front foyer from the dining room. With a vicious smile she tosses her hair over her shoulder and struts slowly back to where Blair is trying to frantically trying to break off another piece of railing to act as a stake. She manages to free a piece when Katherine super speeds in front of her and slaps the makeshift weapon away.

"Now, now. There's no need for that."

Katherine grips Blair's throat tight and raises her body up off the floor. Blair kicks and claws at the undead vampire's hands, but supernatural strength and the earth's physical laws are unfortunately not something she is immune to.

She's poised to throw Blair down to the hard cold marble floor below, but Katherine's victory smile turns bloody as a wooden stake, the same one that Blair had lodged in her shoulder earlier, is driven through her chest. Two times a charm.

Katherine's eyes are wide as she releases Blair from her grasp to fall against the banister once more and turns to look at Damon who'd thrown the stake from across the room and straight through her heart.

"D…Damon…" she rasps, falling to her knees.

Damon walks over to her and crouches in front of her.

"I don't belong to anybody, bitch," he states, driving the stake in deeper.

With a last gasp Katherine crumples to the ground.

xxx

She's able to walk out of fiery infernos with a scratch. Get bitten by a vampire and have the vampire recoil in pain. She even managed to stake said vampire, even if the wound wasn't fatal. Blair Waldorf has come through so many times despite the odds, so it's completely ludicrous that this was the way he was going to lose her.

"Blair! Blair! Come on!"

Apparently the throw against the banister had done more than crack few ribs. He could feel a huge knot forming at the back of her head, could hear the blood pooling in her lungs. She gurgles and chokes on her own blood. The floor is flood with it, staining the expensive tiles red. Usually it's a sight that would set any vampire on edge with bloodlust, but all he feels is panic as he watches the love of his life bleeding out.

"Blair! Blair! Come on! Stay with me here!"

"D-Damon…I…I'm afraid."

"Don't be. You're Blair Waldorf! You're not afraid of anything. I won't let anything happen to you," he promises with a smile that's way too forced.

"I-I'm not afraid for myself," she manages out in between gasps for breath. "I'm afraid for you."

"Don't be stupid."

"Don't be so angry and bitter."

"Hush. You're distracting me."

She never did ever listen to him. Blair Waldorf, right till the end, always did whatever she wanted.

"Promise me that you'll be happy?"

He's desperate and has no time for idle contemplations while she lies bleeding her life away on the floor.

"I'll be happy if you'll stop talking and let me save you."

He rips open his own wrist and once his own blood is flowing he presses it against her mouth. His blood and hers mingle together. She chokes on it, unable to swallow.

"Come on! Just swallow, Blair."

She shakes her head.

"I'm an Immune, Damon. Just stop. It won't work."

"I'm just trying to save you!"

"I-I'm going to d-die. I can't be with you forever. J-just-"she's interrupted by wracking bloody coughs. "I love you. I love you."

She says I love you as if it means goodbye.

"You have to let me go, Damon."

"The day you die is the day I walk out into the sunlight without my ring on. I told you that and I'm a man of my word so do us both a favor and don't die on me."

She wants to protest, but her eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, coaxing them to a close. Soon her eyes flutter shut and Damon falls into despair.

"Don't you dare die on me! Don't you dare die on me!"

She never ever did do what he told her to do. The cut he made on his wrist heals over, but he just makes a new one. Again and again every single time. Somewhere in his head he must know that as Blair's lifeblood was bleeding away onto the ground, his was too, but it didn't matter. Nothing did.

It's all be just a fluke of nature. He never should have met her. Never should have went to that party, never should have noticed the pretty girl in the white dress, never should have sat at that bar, never should have followed her, asked her to walk him home. Never should have fallen out of love with Katherine. Oh yeah and what else? Never should have fallen in love with Blair Waldorf. Because if anything, this was all his fault. He should've known better. Monsters don't get happy endings.

This is how Nate finds them. Damon kneeling in a pool of Blair's blood cradling her head against his chest. He still has his bleeding wrist held against her lips in the case that love could defy biology.

xxx

If it had been anybody else, they would've known better after receiving such an ominous text from Blair Waldrof that something was not right. Blair's text, after all, had the ominous foreboding ring of the cliché "We have to talk" breakup tone to it. Alas, Nate remained oblivious and merely attributed Blair's request for his presence as something to do with their upcoming engagement party later that evening. Possibly to berate him on his choice of tuxedo and/or current hairstyle or the like. So he texts her back, rather exasperatedly but in good humor, that he was coming.

Of course in the typical Nate fashion, he runs into Chuck on the way and is convinced of having a smoke (or two).

"Can we just have five minutes of you being your own man instead of Blair's whipping boy?" Chuck jibes good naturedly.

His five minutes quickly turn into fifteen and then ten more when Chuck mentions that since he's so late already he should go looking for an apology gift to appease Blair's predictable bad mood.

"She likes peonies," Chuck supplied.

In retrospect, Nate realizes that his usual flakiness probably saved his life and probably cost Blair hers. He looks up from where he'd been staring at the floor to the light above the surgery room. It feels like it has been hours since Blair's been in there. His mind flashes back to how he found her and Damon Salvatore crouched on the floor in a pool of blood. Her blood. God it was just so much blood. She's so tiny, he didn't even know she could have so much.

"Oh my god! Blair! Blair!"

Nate rushed to Blair's side, climbing the stairs two at a time and ignoring the fact that the bloodstains on his expensive Marc Jacob cashmere sweater won't wash off.

"What happened? Oh my god!"

"She's hurt. Damn it! The blood isn't working. We need to get her to the hospital. Fast!"

"But- Oh my god. She's bleeding so much. How can she be bleeding so much?" Nate's gaze lands on the Katherine's dead body, sprawled about two yards away. "Is that Elena? Is she dead? What the hell happened?"

Nate sits there freaking out and every moment he sits there like an idiot is a moment lost when Blair could be saved. Damon grabs Nate by the collar and slams him into the wall.

"I know it must be tough for your puny little brain to comprehend the simplest tasks, but right now I need you to man up and help me get Blair to the hospital. Do you understand?"

"Y-yeah."

Nate quickly gets a car and Damon carries Blair to it and lays her down in the backseat.

"Get her to the hospital quickly. She's losing a lot of blood. I tried to stop it, but I think she nicked an artery."

"What do I tell them?"

"That she was in a car accident. A hit-and-run. That should explain the injuries." Damon shuts the door and backs away.

"Wait, aren't you coming?"

"I need to do something. Go. Now! She needs you."

Nate has a lot of questions, but he knows better now that time is of the essence so he nods and gets into the car. Damon watches as the love of his life drive away.

Nate recalls watching Damon from the car's rearview mirror as they drove away. He never saw anyone look so exhausted and devastated. And then one moment he's there and the next he's gone. When he finally got Blair to the hospital they rushed her away to surgery. Everything is just so messed up. He rubs his face with his hands and just wishes Blair would wake up, be her normal adorably condescending self and make some sort of snide comment on his unkempt hair and wrinkled shirt. He wishes none of this happened. He wishes that he could forget it all and just be a guy about to be engaged to his girlfriend of seventeen plus years. It should have been a happy day.

Suddenly Damon appears next to him, with Bonnie in tow.

"How is she?"

"Where did you come from?"

"How is she?" Damon repeats, this time more sternly.

"Damon, calm down. He's as worried about her as you are," Bonnie chides. "How is she?" she asks softly to Nate.

"I don't know… she's been in there forever."

"Can't you do something to help her?" Damon begs Bonnie. "There's got to be something in their grimoire of yours."

"I don't know. I'm not powerful enough to heal such a massive injury. And even if I did, she's an Immune."

"What do you mean she's immune?" Nate injects.

Bonnie's eyes dart over to the blonde and then back to Damon.

"Excuse us for a moment," Bonnie addresses Nate before dragging Damon away. Once they are out of earshot she glared him down. "You're playing awfully quick and loose with how much you're talking about our… special condition with a human in the room."

"I'll compel blondie later! Bonnie, please. I just need to save Blair. Do something. I don't want to lose her."

She recalls his desperation when he showed up at her door and dragged her into his car speeding back to New York. "Blair's dying and I need your help." That was all he said. She didn't need to hear any more.

"I can't use my magic on her… but maybe I can on the doctors. Make them more alert, precise. Help them along with the surgery. It's not a guarantee… but at least it gives her a better fighting chance."

"Do it."

Bonnie nods. "I'll do everything I can. But… just know that it might not work. You have to be prepared, Damon, in case she doesn't make it."

"If she doesn't make it. Nothing will matter anymore. If Blair dies, then I'm going to die with her."

"She wouldn't want you to do that."

"It was my fault, Bonnie. I did this to her. She was fine before she met me. I brought her into this and now she's dying because of me."

Bonnie could stand there and keep on arguing with him, but she knows that Damon's made his decision already and nothing was going to change that. So she just nods in defeat and gets to work. She pours every ounce of power she has into saving Blair and when she's done and spent and there's nothing left to do she crosses her fingers and prays for the two lives that are hanging in the balance.

xxx

Finally the doctor comes out and they all start to sigh in relief, but stops short when they see the expression on the doctor's face.

"I'm sorry."

"No. No. Don't say that to me!" Damon cries out.

"We did the best we could."

"Well maybe your best wasn't good enough!" Damon lashes out and kicks a trash can which crashes violently against the wall.

The surgeon, a fancy award-winning hotshot, shakes his head and Bonnie has to restrain Damon from tearing his head off.

"I'm sorry. She was just bleeding too much. We managed to stop it, but there were some complications."

Nate falls back into a plastic hospital chair. "I can't believe this."

"It's not likely that she is going to make it through the night."