This is the scene when Blair is at the bar at the end of the episode and Serena comes to speak to her. The beginning of the downward spiral. Reviews=Love. Happy Readings!

The Age of Dissonance

You're still my best friend...

Like that even mattered! Serena really did put herself on a God-damn pedestal. Like the fact that her entire life, that her future, that everything she had spent the past 17 years of her life preparing for had come crashing down on top of her like the mother of all avalanches... that all that was magically swept away by the fact that Serena Van der Woodsen still considered her, Blair Waldorf, her best friend. Conceited much?

As if Serena could even fucking begin to understand her. As if Little Miss Sunshine, with the perfect hair, and the perfect eyes, and the perfect legs that reached up to there while hers only reached up to here, and the infuriatingly naturally beautiful, naturally skinny body, could understand all the heartache that it was to live life in her shoes.

Blair Waldorf was cursed. Like she'd told Dean Barnaby, she lacked some people's ... easy grace with strangers. She couldn't exactly make you feel like you've known her forever even though you'd just met her. When she laughs, you might not smile just at the coquettish sound of it, and she may not be spontaneous or delightful or full of surprises, and her hair does not sparkle when it catches the light...

Yeah, Blair Waldorf was nothing more than almost perfect.

Almost.

Psh. The curséd story of my life. Almost. Never enough. Not quite there.

She'd almost gotten into Yale. So close she could almost taste the sweetness of her life coming together into the perfect fairytale she had designed for herself. And then Ms. Carr had made sure that that wouldn't happen.

She'd almost ended up with the man she loved. Yeah, almost. Twice actually. Which was completely ridiculous by now, if she did say so herself. Once, she could understand. But twice... well that was just nature's cruel way of continuing to tell her that she wasn't good enough. To string her along so close to bringing her dreams into fruition. And when she was almost there, they were snatched away. Thanks a lot Nate. Thanks a fucking lot Chuck.

Chuck. Merely thinking his name made a queasy feeling start in the pit of her stomach and burn its way up to the back of her throat. The bastard hadn't shown his face around her in weeks. After all she had done for him. After all the time she dedicated, all the ego she had pushed aside, all the love and comfort and friendship she had offered him, and in all the ways she had been there for him in his greatest time of need. She hated him. Hated that he couldn't love her. Hated that she couldn't stop loving him.

Tracing her finger against her martini glass she sighed miserably.

Her years of plotting, of extracting, of conspiratorially making moves, they had all amounted to nothing. She had nothing. She had no one. No friends, no Yale, no Chuck.

"Hello, beautiful..."

A/N: So yeah... I hope this chapter is a little clearer than last chapter was. I know some of you said that it was difficult for you to follow Chuck's train of thought in the scene I wrote last (by the way, it was the scene after he hung up with Nate and was standing in front of that wall high mirror awaiting Elle's arrival... the first time he sees her after the party and she walks in holding a candle).

And yes that's Carter walking into the bar at the end of the scene.

Sorry these past few chapters have been so short, but I've been having a hard time creating a Chuck/Blair hidden moment when there is zero interaction between the two of them for the past three episodes. Hopefully I can make better chapters shortly.