A/N - Hey everyone! Hope you are enjoying the story and I hope to update once more this week. I just want to clarify a few things just in case it's confusing.
The whole pregnancy incident happened and that's why Blair and the boys aren't talking. When Blair and Serena argued they never made up because Blair never tried to go to France.
The whole relationship with Bart and Lily never happened but will end up happening. Eric is still close with the whole NJBC because he was raised with them all.
Hope this cleared some things ups. Hope you enjoy! RR xoxo
Bart had been driving for the last three hours, Lily nervously biting her manicured nails in the passenger seat next to him. Eleanor had decided to stay back and talk to her own lawyer as she couldn't imagine the idea of having to get a real job where she had to do all the work herself. The seven seater fit them all in but it was a very uncomfortable situation. Blair sat next to Nate who then sat next to Chuck. Behind them, Serena and Eric sat together.
The car ride had been silent so far, the only noise being the engine and the passing cars. Once in a while, Serena or Lily let out a sob but then it was all quiet again. It was late now, around 10pm. They were waiting for the next motel to come up so they could finally get some sleep. Blair was set to drive next. She had her lisence since her sixteenth birthday but she never needed to use it. The last time she drove was over a year ago, helping Serena get out of a crack house in Brooklyn.
" the next motel is two minutes away," Bart finally broke the silence, his stern voice booming through the car like a tornado through a small town.
" how far away are we?" Lily inquired with her big teary blue eyes, excactly like Serena's.
" 18 hours away." Blair checked her phone, sighing when she saw the estimated time.
" we will sleep until 6am, we should be there by tomorrow night then." Bart finished the conversation, the quiet taking over the moving car again. The red shining lights of an upcoming motel came into view, all the car sighed with happiness.
Blair quickly scrambled for the handle, pushing her tiny body out the car into the cold fresh air. Nate came out next, his legs weak on the cement. Chuck went out the other side, away from everyone else. The blonde siblings slowly made their way out, Serena holding onto Eric for moral support.
They made their way inside the old building, the smell of cigarettes taking over their senses. Bart went straight to the counter, a small fat man waiting behind it. He had thick glasses and a receding hairline. The teenagers went to sit on the red couch, never daring to speak to each other.
" I've only managed two rooms. One with two singles, the other with two doubles and a couch. Lily and I will take the first, you lot will take the second." Bart handed Blair a rusty silver key, a large wooden plaque with an engraved four hanging on by a string. " we are room twenty so we are upstairs, you kids are just down the corridor. Blair, text me if you need anything." Blair nodded at him, then he walked away with Lily following, waving her dainty hand.
The teenagers walked down the corridor, Nate tripping over the breaking carpet once. The door with a large four on it came into view shortly, Blair hesitantly opened it. The room was nothing special, nothing worth a comment. It was as Bart said, two double beds and a couch. A small bathroom was on the right and a small desk was in front of a large mirror.
" how's this going to work then? There are five of us and only two beds." Chuck finally spoke, his deep voice causing them all to turn around to face him.
" I'll take the couch," Blair offered, her big doe eyes gazing at the floor so she never had to meet his. She still felt those butterflies around him, that warm buzzing feeling in your stomach that you never wish to go away.
" me and Eric can take one double bed." Serena smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever. It was her big goofy smile, one that lit up every room she entered.
" I am not sharing a bed with him," Nate and Chuck scoffed at the same time, blue and brown eyes rolling in synch.
" who are you okay sharing with then?" Eric asked, his voice finally showing the anger he was feeling. He had everything taken off him, he stopped going to the school he had been going to forever, he had been stuck in a car with the most awkward people and now those awkward people wouldn't let him go to sleep. To say he was pissed is a great understatement.
" Serena, you and Blair. Anyone but him." Nate growled, his finger pointing at Eric in an intentionally nasty way. He dropped the finger, an apologetic look in his baby blue eyes.
" I'm not sharing with him, not after what he did to Blair. I'll share with Blair or you. I'm not sleeping in the same bad as that sleazy Basstard either." Serena yawned, fatigue finally catching up with her normally bouncing body. The light she used to bring was gone, it was like life was sucked out of her. She wasn't S anymore, she was Serena Celia Van Der Woodsen.
" okay, I'll take one double with Nate. You girls take the other and Chuck takes the couch." Eric offered but Chuck being Chuck found a problem.
" I'm not sleeping on the couch, it'll hurt my back." Chuck countered, a hand reaching out to touch said back. His back was as good as any other sixteen-year-old, probably better because all the physical activities he got up too.
" I don't give a fuck about your back, I'm tired so I'm going to sleep. As we have worked out, I'm sleeping on one of the doubles so I'm going to bed." Blair yelled, shocking everyone in the room. She hadn't said any thing in a while and now she was shouting. A strange thing a Waldorf could be.
Blair did as she said she would, she jumped onto one of the beds and snuggled underneath the thin blanket. Kicking her high heels of to the side, dropping her handbag next to it. Serena joined her moments later, turning around to face the opposite way to Blair. Nate and Eric took the other double and finally Chuck took the couch.
It was cold, unimaginably cold. Blair was still in her black pencil skirt and thin white blouse that she changed into earlier. Her penthouse normally had the heating on so she never had to worry about being cold in the skimpy pyjamas she wore in the night. But this wasn't her penthouse, this was a old motel three hours away from home.
" Blair, we can all hear you shivering." Nate moaned, picking up his pillow and covering his ears with it.
" sorry, I'm cold." Blair whispered, trying not to wake the others up who she hoped were asleep.
" I'm up. What's the fucking time?" Chuck groaned from the couch, his hand reaching around for his phone. " it's only 3am, go back to sleep."
" She's cold, Blair's been shivering for the past five hours. It's unlikely she'll go to sleep." Eric yawned, lifting his upper half from the bed to talk to Chuck who was on the opposite side of the room to him.
" I'm up as well, I can't sleep. She's been shaking like an addict without their fix." Serena added quietly into the darkness, her golden blonde hair spread carelessly on her flat pillow.
" I'm here you know, I'll just go and have a cigarette. It'll warm me up." Blair raised herself on her elbows, looking at everyone who was looking at her now with their mouths wide open.
" since when do you smoke?" Nate scrunched his eyebrows as if the most confusing thing in the world was standing before him.
" there is a lot you don't know about me. It has been five months since you last talked to me." Blair placed her tiny feet on the carpet, her feet searching for her high heels. "anyone have a lighter?" She said as she searched for her bag. It was 3am and she couldn't be bothered to go and have a look for her bag. She would lose the small amount of sleep she was feeling.
" here," Chuck said as he threw something at her, the plastic object ended up hitting her in the lip. Cutting it, a salty taste beginning on her tongue.
" you bastard, ow." She yelled, her thumb coming up to wipe the blood that was beginning to flow on her lip.
" what? I haven't done anything." Chuck asked cluelessly. It was pitch black, no one could see eachother.
" it's fine, go back to sleep." Blair grumbled, heading for the wooden door.
When she reached the foyer, she noticed Mr Bass sitting in his suit on the red sofa from earlier. He looked stressed, worried. A look Blair had never seen on his face. She had seen him many times over the years, she knew most things about him. He was the man who gave her a pen for her sixth birthday. It was gold and had Blair beautifully written on the side in white. She had kept that pen, it was one of her favourite gifts ever given to her.
" Blair, I didn't expect anyone else to be awake at such a late time." Mr Bass' ice blue eyes looked at her and for the first time in her short life, she saw them watering with tears. Glistening.
" I couldn't sleep," she responded simply, plopping down next to him on the sofa with a loud huff.
" what happened to your lip dear? You look awful." Bart flinched when he noticed the cut on her lip, the smudge of blood down her chin. " sorry, I don't mean it like that."
" it's okay Mr Bass, I was getting my lighter in the dark and bumped my head. So, what's keeping you from your sleep?" Blair inquired with her normal manners. She had been taught from a young age that anyone fifteen years your senior should be treated with respect. To this day, her grandmother Waldorf's words ring through her mind.
" just worrying, it's been a long time since I went to Houston. It holds a lot of memories. Good and bad." Bart sighed, his head turning away from Blair.
" memories of your wife?" Blair asked gently, scaring him away was the last thing she wanted to do. The next few months and maybe years of her life was spent living in a house with this man, being civil was the least she could do to keep the building tension down.
" Evelyn grew up there and I moved there when I was fifteen. After my father died, me and Evelyn decided that Houston wasn't the right place for us. We left for New York but the moment her mother died, I bought that farm. The last time I went there was the day she died. She insisted on giving birth in that house, in her mother's bed because that's where she was born. Evelyn wanted the same for our son." Bart looked as if he was about to cry but being a Bass, he never let a tear fall.
" I know it's not my place to say but I'm going to say it because I think it's right. Instead of calling it the day your wife died, call it the day your son was born." Blair suggested, her eyes soft and caring.
" that day was defined by the bad,"
" only because you don't look at the good. It's been seventeen years since that happened and I get that it's hard but Chuck needs you. He needs his father." Blair smiled, she lifted her body of the red sofa. " I'll let you think over that when I go for a smoke."
Blair had a quick smoke to calm her nerves and the chills vibrating through her body. Nothing was working so she went to the car and opened it with the keys Bart gave to her because she was driving next. Searching through her suitcase, yes singular, she found nothing but short skirts, thin trousers and thin tops. Nothing that would keep her warm. She then decided that no one would really care if she borrowed one of their tops.
Blair randomly picked a case, a dark blue one. The case was filled with shirts and suit trousers, a few t-shirts thrown in. Finally she found a plain white t-shirt that looked around three sizes too large for her. Perfect. She quickly put it on and locked the car.
When she returned to the room it was all silent except snoring that was probably from Eric. Nate nor Chuck had never snored and Serena was unladylike but not to that degree. Blair carefully climbed into bed, trying not to wake Serena. She didn't know the blonde was still awake.
" you back B?" Serena mumbled, her voice groaning into the flat pillows that barely held you up. The two boys still awake listening to them. Chuck still felt this hate, a rage he couldn't control. Nate was intrigued. The perfect UES princess now smoked and swore. What else had changed about her?
" I'm back,"