The Park

by ChloeCharles

"You held a certain fascination..." Set mid-1x13. AU. When Blair leaves the bar that night, she doesn't go home.

27. Chapter 27

A/N: It's been a long time. And an extraordinary one. I hope you are all safe and healthy.

Thank you so much for your continued support. You all have no idea what your encouragement and kind words mean for me. A lot of work goes into every chapter (particularly this one, which was a monster to write and took ages) and I appreciate every single one of you for reading, following, favoriting, reviewing, etc. My love and gratitude to every single one of you; I hope you love this chapter as much as I do.

i.

Wednesday, February 13

Morning

He tries getting out the door without Jenny, but of course today of all days she's bright-eyed and dressed and ready to go on time, ponytail bobbing as she flips a binder shut and shoves it into her bag when she sees he's heading straight out the door. She's quiet on the way to the subway station, probably guessing that his tight mouth is due to a Serena-preoccupation (which it is)

(in part).

His jaw sets when he sees what he hoped would not be there, at the kiosk just outside the subway station. For a second he fumbles for a way to stop her seeing- engaging her in conversation, blocking her line of sight as best he can- but it's too late for that.

"Oh, my God," she says when she sees it; doesn't even alert him to it. She must realize on the instant that he knows.

He sighs, audible, as she brushes past him, and turns slowly.

She's already fishing in her pocket for cash to pay for it.

"Jen, don't spend your money on that trash," he lectures, automatically, sounding lame and monotonous even to his own ears.

She shoots him a get-real look, telling the kiosk man to keep the change, and thumbs it open as they descend the stairs, the bitter smell of hot, grinding metal wafting up to meet them.

ii.

"Good morning, Miss Van Der Woodsen," Ellen says, the words neat like keystrokes. "Mr. Bass is just finishing a call- " she glances down at the phone next to her keyboard. "Actually, he's just hung up." She gives Serena a quick, scrunching smile, like an intense delight is about to come her way.

Serena's smile is more a shrug of the mouth. "Should I wait out here, or…?"

Ellen is reaching for the receiver when Bart's office door opens.

"Serena," he says, with a smile. "Thanks for coming on short notice." He inclines his head backward, holding the door open, while Serena murmurs a greeting and passes into his office. "Would you like any coffee?" he asks her, an afterthought.

She shrugs again, this time with her shoulders. "I'm good, thanks."

To Ellen, before shutting the door behind him: "Hold my calls, please."

Serena forces herself not to shift her feet, standing as she is in the middle of Bart's great expanse of an office, the sitting area off to her right and Bart's desk area- with an astonishingly boring view, being the third floor (Bart famously relocated his office after 9/11, stating in a controversial interview with Fortune that the terrorist attacks had made clear to him that, in the modern age, the relative safety of a lower floor trumped the prestige of a high-rise office)- before her.

Her heart is thrumming, in a way that feels at once electrifying and oddly soothing. She forces herself not to fidget: standing still is difficult on coke. She wants to dance, move; she feels, in increasingly stark contrast to her sober existence, alive.

Ordinarily, coke would make her feel utterly limitless; these days, it just brings her up to emotional break-even.

She blinks, realizing that if Bart's said something to her, she's completely missed it.

She turns and tries at a smile. If she's supposed to be nervous or intimidated, she can't find it through all the fire in her veins.

"What can I do for you?"

Bart gives no indication of whether he's said anything before now, which gives her the impression that he hasn't. He offers the same sort of smile in return.

"I wanted to get your opinion," he replies, starting across the office toward his desk, "on my Valentine's Day offering for your mother."

"Oh." It's toneless. She injects a little sunshine as he passes, unconsciously drifting after him. "Sure, happy to help."

"I appreciate that." He tosses a smile at her as he circles his desk and stoops, opening one of the bottom drawers. He withdraws a long velvet box, ivory-colored and sumptuous.

"Nice box," she says, with a forced note of cheer.

Bart chuckles and extends his arm, holding it out to her, the desk still between them.

She moves, automatically, to reach for it, and checks.

Her hands are shaky.

"Oh," she says with a self-deprecating little laugh, flashing both palms and then clasping them together at her waist, "I haven't washed my hands. I wouldn't want to mess it up."

Bart's little laugh mirrors hers.

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," he assures her.

Her gaze flicks from the pristine box in his outstretched palm up to his calm, intelligent face. His smile reaches his eyes.

Ah.

The corners of her mouth curl down, not in a frown but in a heart-thudding (though that was there already) flash of clarity.

Bart's eyes are still on her. He waits; he doesn't ask if anything's wrong.

A far-flung part of her brain remarks: Wow, Chuck is nothing if not this man's son.

"No, really," she insists, smoothing her voice to match his. "I just put on my makeup. I'm sure you wouldn't want any of this…" she gestures dismissively at her face. "Orange dust on that gorgeous box."

Bart tilts his head and looks at her. She's plainly not wearing makeup and he's too observant to be fooled into thinking otherwise.

His eyebrows flick upward and settle. "Well. I'll open it, then. How's that?"

She smiles. "Sure." She takes a step toward the desk, so they're standing directly on either side of it.

He opens the top of the box, and there, nestled in a bed of gathered black silk, is a stunning diamond necklace, oblique clusters glittering ethereally and set on a thread-thin chain- delicate, subtle, perfectly Lily.

Serena blinks down at it, as though she expected something other than jewelry. "I love it," she says after a moment.

Bart doesn't miss a beat. "You think she'll like it?"

She looks up. "It's perfect for her."

"What do you think of the settings?" Bart asks. "I designed them myself, but I don't know a thing about jewelry. There's still time to have them changed."

His eyes drop to the box as he speaks, but he's studying her face carefully as she looks down, and she can feel it.

She glances up suddenly. Their eyes meet.

Silence drags much longer than if this were an actual exchange about jewelry.

In the giddy, twirling confusion of every atom of her body shimmering with alkaloids- which are still freshly coursing through her system; gaining momentum- Serena smiles a slow smile, tilting her head at him now.

"Really?" she says, nose scrunching, eyes dancing with delight. "'The settings'?"

Bart holds her gaze, absolutely no expression in his slate-blue eyes.

She licks her lips. "You didn't even run your proposal by me- or Erik- much less the ring; and now you want to talk about settings?"

Her heart lifts, somersaults, bounces and pounds on exactly as before.

When he still doesn't reply, overwhelmed and delighted with buoyancy of her own words, she snorts out loud, then pouts her lips and assumes an expression of mock-sympathy. "Do you want me to help you write the card, too?"

After another moment of blank eye contact, Bart shuts the box and lays it on the empty center of his desk.

"I mean, really," she stumbles on, gathering momentum, as he does so, "how stupid do you think I am?"

To her surprise, Bart reaches for the arm of his chair (expensive mahogany-colored leather, hand-stitched and comfortably worn) and draws it up, settling back into it with all the nonchalance of a Yankees fan about to discuss the playoffs.

He sighs and looks up at her.

"I don't think you're stupid," he says, plainly.

She rolls her eyes.

Undeterred: "I do think you're having trouble dealing with what your friend has been through." When she doesn't reply, or shift her gaze from where it landed at the end of the eyeroll, he sighs again. "I'm concerned that you might be having trouble coping, and wanted to speak with you privately about it, before involving your mother. If there are measures that could help- seeing a therapist, for example- perhaps it's time to consider exploring some of those options."

Her eyes search the ceiling, slow enough to look like she's not disrespecting him. "What makes you think I might be having trouble coping?"

He waits, but when it's clear that she'll look anywhere but at him, he says, simply, "I heard about what happened at the Betsey Johnson show."

She flinches at that (she's coked up, not unconscious) but rebounds quickly. "So… I'm assuming you want to make sure I won't do anything to embarrass you or my mom." She finally meets his eye. "And sully the great House of Bass."

Bart opens his mouth, shuts it, and then says, "I'm worried about your well-being. Emotional and otherwise."

"Worried," she echoes, bemusedly. "Worried about my well-being…?" Her tone piques at the end. It's barely a question.

"Yes."

"Hm." She's surprised at how much this angers her, and at the origin of the anger. "That's interesting, given I've known Chuck since we were five and I've never once seen you express anything like worry about his well-being. Which is, by the way, questionable at best."

Now Bart flinches. It's satisfying.

"Charles and I- "

"What I have seen," Serena thunders on, the low rumble of a distant storm, "is him hiding the shame he has for how much embarrassment he's caused you over the years, and how little attention you pay to him other than to tell him when he's fucked up. So you'll forgive me if I can't take your expression of worry as anything other than a cheap excuse to pry into the private lives of me and 'my friend' – her name is Blair, as I'm sure you know."

He pinches the bridge of his nose, visibly tiring of her self-righteousness. "Serena- "

"But, for the record, the next time you're worried about someone, the way to handle it is not to come up with some nonsense about asking opinions on jewelry." She shakes her head a little, disdain twisting her features. "To answer your question: yes. I'm having a very hard time with what's happened to Blair. Yes, I have struggled with drugs in the past. Yes, I danced with some of the models at the Betsey Johnson afterparty, when they told me I was a big influence on this year's collection. No, those are not related."

She's sweating, adrenaline coursing through her veins – bouncing off her fingertips like a swimmer flip-turning against the end of the pool to start a new lap. The fact that Bart spends his days negotiating and seeing through people's crap is not lost on her.

"If you're worried I'm going to show up drunk at the Met Gala, or cause a scene at some other event or embarrass Bass Industries- don't waste your energy." She pauses. "And if you're actually worried about any of us dealing with what happened to Blair, don't. The four of us will get through it. We always do."

He watches her, searching- she wishes she knew for what, specifically- and she tries not to squirm, the irony of that last grandiose statement not lost on her, things being what they are.

Fractured visions pulse through her- her mother catching her cutting lines; cradling her cheekbones between palms; eyes filling with tears; crying in the hallway of whatever godforsaken institution she'd lock her daughter in if she found out about this. Trying to understand, trying- Lily wants to be, tries to be, a good mother- but falling apart and taking their family, Erik- recently-recovered, still-fragile, she'd-die-if-she-hurt-him Erik- with her.

(And that, and not a little discreet self-medication to help herself cope, would be the real scandal for Lily and for Bart and for Bass Industries, she reasons.)

That can't happen. She has to make sure that doesn't happen.

She squares her shoulders imperceptibly and crosses her arms.

"I'm doing my best," she tells him, honestly. "And my mom might not show it, but she's hurting, too. So is Erik. And Chuck, while we're at it. We all care about Blair. None of us wants to cause anyone any more pain. So if you care about any of us, you'll accept that this is going to take time and we're all doing the best we can. And lay off this weird surveillance. We're not your employees whose performance you can monitor."

Something in there, she's not sure what, seems to reach Bart. His face doesn't change, but he gives a short nod.

"So long as you and I are the same page, and so long as you're aware that, if things are too difficult for you, you understand the importance of being honest about that, and the danger of falling into old destructive habits," he says.

She bristles at his condescension ("too difficult for you" has her clenching her jaw), but she's so close, so close.

"Things are very difficult," she says, slowly, and looks him in the eye. "I love Blair. Things are difficult when something terrible happens to someone you love."

He swallows, holds her gaze for a long moment, and finally breaks eye contact.

Her heart pirouettes.

"I understand," he says tonelessly.

She nods, once, more a dip of a chin, and suppresses her smile. She knows he understands.

"I'm going to be late for school," she remarks, shifting gears: all business. "Is your offer of a car still good?"

"Wolfgang is in the garage," he says. "Thanks for stopping by."

She pauses, shifts her weight. "It's really a beautiful necklace," she offers. "My mom will love it."

Bart exhales, a chuckle contained in one breath. He smiles. "Thanks."

She says "see you later," turns and lets herself out, bids Ellen a good day, and tilts her head up in the elevator, letting out a long, slow breath, hand on her galloping heart.

iii.

Four weeks into the siege of media attention, the students of Constance-St. Jude's are inarguably looking worse for wear, prior attention-whoring tendencies notwithstanding: they're tired of being watched and photographed like animals in a public zoo (a private zoo, more aligned with previous levels of publicity, would be more acceptable).

Then, the usual suspects would turn out for their commencement speeches, their Junior League fundraisers, their debate championships and mock trials, soliciting a wise-beyond-his-years-a-young-lady-of-admirable-poise type of quote from the cream of the crop; their photographs were placed, parenthetically, appositively, beside their parents' at society events and garden parties and sailing competitions. Their triumphant faces, glowing with youth and victory, provided a promising backdrop to the real focus of the media. The parents of these bright-eyed Upper East Siders may be the focal point of the city, their presence seemed to suggest, but it's the generation waiting in the wings, full of zest and breeding and intelligence and fire, who holds the keys to the future.

And now?

Now, there are paparazzi sneaking, somehow, into their Tuesday-afternoon postseason basketball scrimmages, evading the valiant efforts of the security staff to restrict media from entry (but how much can they do, really, to prove whether a spectator is family or friend to a player?); their cab rides and dark circles could be fodder for articles in outlets of dubious legitimacy; even a wayward night out might end up splashed across a tabloid.

The courtyard is quieter, even, than usual on this unseasonably warm mid-February morning; quieter than it's been most days these past four weeks.

Maybe the life is being drained from the collective Constance-St. Jude's student body a little and a little, and soon there will be nothing left but bloodless parentheticals in navy blazers, zapped of their glow before they ever had a chance.

There's not even much solidarity in it anymore, which is perhaps the worst part among a student body so small. They've been raised, the vast majority of them, from toddlerhood to present, together; the circling of wagons after the revelation of Blair's attack, having perhaps been as much a reflex of shock as one of genuine sentiment, is not sustainable in the face of this onslaught. The garish focus on the Gala-the event itself already cheapened by the sheer amount of bandwidth dedicated to it by average-joe lifestyle bloggers, and subsequently winded in its attempts to maintain class and dignity against the tinny voices of TMZ and New York Rag and Page Six- and the ongoing scrutiny of whatever bit of Blair's essence they can get their hands on, from her likely favorite book genres (one blogger from Astoria zoomed in on any photo where Blair held a book and, from the titles she'd been photographed with, eked out a pretty competent hypothesis of "Blair Waldorf's Literary Style in Four Seasons") to her apparent rules for mixing plaids (the Tweet heralding this blog entry declared "#BlairWaldorf only layers #plaids from the same color families; but cousins, not siblings! #plaidcest" – thankfully, the blogger came to her senses and deleted it an hour later), has fractured the solidarity of Constance-St. Jude's.

No one's rude to anyone else, exactly: this is Manhattan's elite we're talking about.

But today, with the knowledge that Nate's off the basketball team buzzing near-silent in the background, melding with the new public poll, stood up late last night on Page Six Online and already having attracted over a thousand votes, on whether Blair will likely attend the Gala (because the physical copy of yesterday's tabloid wasn't enough), and a ridiculous Perez Hilton article critiquing, in his smug, tawdry way, Blair's black-tie history, concluding with a suggestion that she consider wearing her hair up and a stunning neckline-

-and have your people call my people if you'd like to work together on your perfect look. Much love, Perez xx-

into a cacophony of unseemly white noise, and the very near, very pronounced thrumming of yet another set of photographs in yet another special edition of Page Six, of Nate, a gleaming court, an orange basketball; both arms lifted, shoulders piqued, facing the camera; and then, grainier and from another angle, looming over a blue jacket, an indistinct red smear on his hand, then a blur of gold…

the near-bloodless navy blazers have little to say to each other.

iv.

Afternoon

Two more gowns arrived this morning; Blair rolled her eyes when Dorota brought them up, their deliveries about an hour apart, and waved them into her closet, barely looking up from her book. Dorota hung them next to the others and shut the closet door behind her.

It was still shut when Dorota brought up lunch. Blair is doing well with her physical therapy and has been walking up and down the staircase, but her physical therapist, in a rare departure from his usual repertoire of "down" and "and back up" and "that's all for today," mentioned during their last appointment that she shouldn't push it, noting that broken ribs can take a long time to heal, as they can't be casted, and risk of reinjury is especially high in Miss Waldorf's case, the fracture being not, as most, a stress fracture, but a break brought about in a more- traumatic- way. He stumbled over these words but barely blinked, and suggested that Blair continue to practice until any discomfort and then stop. He tried a joke then, no ballroom dancing, eh?, apparently not realizing the implications- the man doesn't look like he reads anything other than Physical Therapy Monthly- and agreed with Dorota's suggestion that Blair continue to take her meals upstairs, only coming down for exercise and not as a matter of routine.

So today, Dorota brings up Blair's tray, opening the door and automatically looking toward the bed where Blair normally sits propped with a book, usually napping in the afternoons. Blair says this is because she's tired, that the task of regrowing bone matter is physically exhausting and requires additional rest. Dorota suspects it's because she's not sleeping enough at night. She's not comfortable in the dark.

But today, Blair isn't on her bed. Her current choice, The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, is flat in the middle of the duvet, tasseled bookmark protruding. Blair's made quick progress since yesterday, Dorota notes.

It takes a moment before she sees her- truthfully, Dorota still isn't completely used to Blair's dirty-blonde mane, and can almost overlook her at a glance, like she notes the presence but keeps searching for her 'Miss Blair'- and when she does see her, perched just a few feet away at her vanity, eyes on the mirror, Dorota smiles.

Blair is fussing with her hair.

Since being sequestered, Blair has occasionally asked Dorota to brush or minorly style her hair, but mostly it's stayed in its air-dried messy waves. Even those rare occasions were quick pass-throughs with a curling iron, more to smooth and tame than achieve a specific look.

Now, though, Blair is sitting, ankles crossed, on the edge of her vanity seat, arms raised gingerly, just high enough to scoop back the top part of her hair loosely. Dorota watches as she turns her head from side to side, examining her profile.

"I'm just bored," she says in greeting.

"Bored is good," Dorota replies, placing the tray- steamed spinach, roasted chicken, endive salad- at the foot of Blair's bed. She's about to leave Blair to it when their eyes meet in the mirror.

Blair nods toward her curling iron, which Dorota didn't notice before, sitting on the right leaf of the vanity. "I'd like to see how it would look with some real curls."

Dorota smiles again, barely trying to suppress it; Blair officially rolls her eyes, but, face tipped down as Dorota picks up the brush, she smiles too.

The lunch tray is no longer wafting steam when they finish, but Blair doesn't mind, and tells Dorota not to bother reheating it. She eats, curls pinned experimentally half-up, half-down, with soft volume, shiny dark-blonde loops falling over her shoulders.

Dorota collects her tray a short while later, and Blair says she's going to rest in the afternoon, so to please not forward any calls up.

When she's alone, Blair rises from bed and enters her closet.

v.

She's waiting for him after last bell; he's managed to avoid conversation with everyone all day (although it's so clean that perhaps it's mutual)- he imagines everyone's had their fill of him in the last 48 hours, with not one but two spreads of photos featuring him tucked into most of their school bags- and he stifles a sigh when she's parked in the corner opposite his classroom door. As he files out, she falls into step beside him.

"Hi," she says quietly.

"Hi back," he replies, equal tone.

"I just wanted to see how you were."

In spite of himself, he smiles a little at her softness. Then he blinks, remembering, suddenly, that he almost struck her yesterday in the confusion.

He checks, but finds his voice. "I'm okay. How are you?"

She looks bad, he thinks as their eyes meet. Not sleeping enough. Stressed.

Again, he checks, inwardly, searching her face again.

And something else?

She shrugs and drops her gaze, nudging him around a corner away from the courtyard. "Okay, too," she murmurs, hitching her bag up on her shoulder as they maneuver out of sight of the general public.

She surprises him, then, by moving closer to him and snaking her arms, tentative, around his middle, blonde hair brushing his cheek as she rests her head on his shoulder.

Robotically, he hugs her back. She's warm and slim and comfortable against him. A few months ago, this would have lit his heart on fire; now, even as he automatically pats her back, he's more concerned with looking around for prying eyes or lenses than with whatever's brought about this impromptu show of quiet affection.

"You okay?" he asks again, for lack of anything else to say.

Instead of answering, she murmurs, "We'll all be okay, right? We'll get through this? The four of us?"

He frowns, giving her a last little squeeze, and disentangles. He blinks at her, blue on blue. "We'll all be okay," he assures her, blindly. He knows it's what she wants to hear.

"This morning I was thinking," she stumbles on, barely above a murmur, lips hardly moving, "maybe if the four of us could just- just get in a room and talk, or…" she falters when Nate looks away, jaw twitching. "I- spend some time together, I don't…"

He licks his lips slowly. "I think we all have bigger problems than that, now," he says. "I don't think that would help anything."

Not anymore.

She nods, a tiny movement, but is unwilling to let it go. "If we… I mean, if we all apologized to each other- "

"It wouldn't change anything at this point, Serena."

"No, I know, but…" her lips tremble, whether with emotion or a syllable that won't surface, he can't tell. "Maybe if we can all just- rely on each other again- like before, even, just before what happened…" she breaks off mid-sentence.

He waits, but she doesn't pick it back up, and not without a small shock he realizes he doesn't have patience for this, for her.

Entirely unprecedented.

He thinks of Blair, the last time he saw her, in underwear and clutching her discarded sweater against her naked chest, backing away, Get out; and holding that stupid bulldog, as he wiped away his furious tears. You know I love you, right? I love you, I always will; and small in her hospital bed, fresh stitches on her raw, flushed face, under a blue blanket with her hand between Chuck's palms, jolting and then squeaking in pain when his very presence startled her, asking him to leave; and wide-eyed with tears again and again and again when he hurt her, told her he wanted nothing to do with her, too cowardly to respond when she asked, at last, whether he loved her or not. Urging her to forgive him for sleeping with Serena when they were together; refusing to give her the time of day for sleeping with Chuck when they were not. And all those photos of them together, kissing her hand in that blue gown, calling her sweetheart. And Serena's legs wrapped around him, her hair falling enclosing them like a curtain in a way that felt like the only thing he could ever want. That night in the Campbell Apartment, it was zero to full-boar in fifteen seconds. He couldn't get his belt undone quickly enough, couldn't even find the patience to take Serena's underwear off fully, so eager was he to betray Blair at the first possible opportunity.

Not just Blair.

'The four of us.'

And he thinks of Chuck, and Serena, and the four of them, studying and drinking and sailing and breakfasting; Blair shrieking with laughter at private jokes with Serena, micro-expressions twitching on her mouth when she exchanged quick looks with Chuck, eyes turning to velvet when she looked at him. Chuck pouring drinks in his suite, shaking hands with bouncers, nodding over his shoulder at the other three, then the expansive, palm-up gesture, beckoning them into a speakeasy or a rooftop or a private room with a view; Serena, hair flying, twirling, surprisingly deft in high heels under any influence, loving to dance but shockingly inept at it (she mostly swings her hips with her arms in a variety of positions; Blair, oddly, is more free on the dance floor), spinning Blair around, crashing into Chuck and draping an arm around his shoulders, chiding him on his targeted conquest, squealing at Blair that she wants to salsa dance; dark-eyed the following morning, mixing her cream and sugar separately into her coffee and licking the spoon in between; Chuck, forehead in palm, pinching the bridge of his nose while Blair prattles on that if they'd listened to her and hydrated before going to bed, they'd be fine like she was; the four of them congregated in some corner of the courtyard, overcoats leaning against the wrought-iron fence, planners and notebooks balanced on forearms, planning a last-minute cram session before final exams or papers were due, or checking their Latin translations against Blair's; long days in the Hamptons in the summer, the girls' hair frizzy and full, Serena freckled and sun-blonde and Blair golden brown, flowers in their hair, and walking in the surf as the sun set at 10 PM, and Blair waking up early to get ahead on summer reading but dozing off on the cushioned chaise lounge under a towel, and Serena finding her there at noon; and the four of them on the Vanderbilt estate, getting ready for a polo match, the boys switching ties at the last minute when the girls insisted it would suit their collective look better (Chuck, in pink seersucker, handing over his periwinkle-striped ivory Charvet in exchange for Nate's silver paisley, grumbling that they were "throwing off his whole vibe"), Serena burbling with laughter when a mare nuzzled its velvety nose against her dress; and trips back into the city, fading sky and pinprick lights sparkling like stars, Arthur at the wheel; ascots loosened, bowties undone, hair unpinned, shoes kicked off; Serena's too-long body half-sprawled, half-bent; Blair's knees drawn up, hat on the seat beside her; Chuck drowsing, forehead to window; sweat cooling between shoulderblades, hair fallen flat; happy; calm; safe.

Together.

He bites down on the whir of memories- many of which take him by complete surprise- to stop the hot anger rising, unbidden, in him.

His nose tingles and he clamps his throat shut.

"Serena," he says, voice tight. "That's over."

Her brows tighten. "It isn't," she insists. "We just need to talk it out, heal, the- "

He doesn't bother breaking in: lets waits for her to trail off, instead, before he speaks.

"'The four of us' is over. That's not ever coming back." She parts her lips and he pushes on. "We ruined that, not even just with 'what happened.' It was dead before then. We just did a good job pretending."

Serena's mouth twists a little. It's ugly. He lets himself realize that. That something about her, about the two of them, could be ugly.

As a matter of fact, he realizes, a lot of 'the two of them' has been ugly.

"We weren't pretending," she says, barely a whisper.

He can almost hear her next sentence: We love each other.

"We were," he confirms. "That was all over that night, in the Campbell. You and I ruined that together. It's not anyone's fault," he adds, parenthetically, "it just… is. It took a while to see- we were both cowards- " Serena squeaks, barely audible, when he says the word cowards- "so it took a while."

His voice is without inflection, without warmth. She stares at him. She seems to be trying to find a way to refute this, but they both know there's nothing.

"You…" she swallows. "You don't miss it?"

He pauses. "Of course I do. But that doesn't change the way things are. Or how they got that way."

This last makes her flinch. Her shoulders slump a little. He waits to feel guilt, to want to put his arms around her again. Serena's important to him. She's…

But he doesn't feel anything.

She nods again, a tiny movement, and looks him in the eye. The corners of her mouth curve in an uncertain little smile. "Well," she says, awkward- has he ever seen her awkward before?- and pats his arm, twice, stiff. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I'm glad you're okay." And she turns and walks away.

In a flash, he sees her, yesterday, throwing herself on the floor to stop him from hurting someone. The way things shifted into focus when their eyes met, when she put her hand on his face, cool and soothing against the boiling fury inside him.

He waits, watching her go, but he doesn't feel anything. "You, too," he says, as she rounds the corner.

vi.

Evening

The Bass Industries board meeting, after getting off to a late start due to intense Midtown traffic (for which, Chuck notes with a glimmer of pride, he made allowances in his schedule, and thereby arrived with time to spare), ticks methodically through its agenda, with Bart driving the discussion, various members of his senior management team- Director of PR to present drafted investor materials for next week's earnings call; Chief Accounting Officer to review the full-year results; etc.- stepping up to the plate with confident fluidity.

Chuck, hair combed and slicked back, in a sedate charcoal suit and plain navy tie, sits a few seats away from his father, where Ellen directed him, without making eye contact (rapidly swapping the latest-last-minute-changes version of the agenda into each attendee's logo-emblazoned folder) when he arrived. He's on a slightly different angle of the hexagonal board room table from his father. Bart dislikes the traditional long-rectangle conference table setup, feeling it unconsciously reinforces hierarchy with the leader at one end and less-important constituents in order of rank down the sides. Chuck's seat, between Chief Legal Officer Loren Jesselson and board member James Gorman- who arrived twenty minutes late and nonetheless received a series of congratulations on his recent appointment as co-President of Morgan Stanley- is marked with an official placard, exactly equal to everyone else's in the room, that says "Charles Bass" in gold, aligned perfectly with a chilled bottle of Perrier beside its low-ball glass with ice and a lemon wedge.

(He was thirsty from the start, but the first forty minutes of the meeting were Loren Jesselson's review of past meetings' minutes, and his hyper-awareness of his presence right next to the optical focus of the room prevented him from opening the Perrier. So he listened quietly, watching as the Perrier started to perspire on the marble-top table, while Loren refreshed the room's memory on their discussions last quarter. And his heart thumped with quiet pride as she finished, because he recognized and understood everything she said. He suppressed his smile.)

His father thanks Loren and launches directly in- welcoming Gorman, who, with none of the qualms of youth and inexperience and something to prove, uncapped his Perrier as soon as he hit the chair, let it fizz, squeezed the lemon and plopped it onto the ice with a slight rattle, all while Loren spoke- and moving directly into the full-year financial review: macro, micro, by division, followed by the budget and forecast scenarios for the coming four quarters. Then it's on to a group workshop on the working draft of Bart's Letter to Shareholders, preempted by a specific non-disclosure agreement- Bart's Shareholder Letter being one of the most-anticipated Fortune 100 communiques each year- that they all have to sign, with much joking about "material non-public information" and "insider trading jurisdiction" that Bart tolerates thinly, not signaling Loren to pass out the numbered copies of the letter until she confirms everyone's duly signed and dated their NDA.

After the exacting review of the letter, they break for light hors d'oeuvres. Bart makes eye contact with his son as he moves to greet Gorman with the double-hand handshake that Chuck knows so well. Chuck goes to move the other way around the table, but Bart beckons him over.

"Jim, I'm not sure you've met my son, Charles? Charles, James Gorman."

Chuck double-hand handshakes. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

"My pleasure," Gorman insists, Australian accent hardly present, "but I'm a bit worried about your father's labor practices. How old are you, Charles?" His eyes crinkle good-naturedly.

"He's of age," Bart confirms, amused, reaching around Chuck for his own glass and taking a sip. "Thought it was time to get him some exposure to the business world, see what interests him."

Gorman's eyes sparkle with what appears to be genuine delight. No hint of this-is-Bart's-embarrassment-of-a-progeny-but-I'll-humor-him-it's-good-for-business in his expression. "That's great," he says enthusiastically. "That's great. Your father's a brilliant man, really, one of a kind."

Bart's gaze slides discreetly away; he doesn't like praise.

"I agree," Chuck replies, and deftly steers: "And congratulations, Mr. Gorman, on your recent news. Well deserved."

"Call me Jim." He claps Chuck on the shoulder. "Be sure to slide me a note if you have any questions. Excuse me; I'm going to get some coffee."

Chuck smiles for a beat, before he reigns it in, at a successful first introduction with a sitting president of Morgan Stanley.

"I'll do that," he confirms as Gorman slips away.

He realizes too late that Bart's caught him near-grinning, and internally coils for a second, waiting for a rebuke.

But Bart smiles, just for a moment, eyes lingering on his son.

"You should get some coffee, too," Bart says, breaking the gaze and reaching for his glasses. "We've got a ways to go."

vii.

After the break, they barrel on through the corporate laundry list: logistics and agenda for the Annual General Meeting, compensation approvals, top three priorities and deliverable assignments. On the second priority, a sophomore partnership with a developer in Tokyo, Bart's Finance General Counsel- a narrow-faced, soft-spoken mathematician-turned-lawyer who oversees all major development projects- runs through the initial plan, including working with the same law firm in Tokyo as they did on their freshman project there.

"They're expensive," he says with a loose shrug, charmingly holding an actual no. 2 pencil in one hand, "but they did a great job on our first project, and we can't risk a misstep this time around if we want to solidify a joint venture with Tokyo."

Beside Chuck, Gorman pipes up. "Agreed. The Tokyo market is exceptionally tradition- and relationship-driven. The team we used last time has strong top-to-top working relationships."

Chuck swallows.

Bart nods, makes a note on his agenda. "All right. So. Let's go ahead and get a term sheet- "

"Excuse me," Chuck says, holding up his pen like a flag between index and middle finger.

All heads turn toward him.

"Is this the project where Klein was the managing partner?"

He directs the question to the room. The Finance General Counsel is the first to respond, nodding floppily. "He did a great job," he confirms again.

Chuck fumbles, stopping himself from saying so I've read, and instead says, "He recently moved practice areas."

Gorman swivels in his chair. "He did?"

"When?" asks the General Counsel.

Chuck one-shoulder shrugs. "A few months ago? He's in Hong Kong now."

Bart has visibly perked up. "Can someone confirm that?"

Loren Jesselson is the first, quick on the BlackBerry: "Yes- he moved just before the first of the year, apparently. Here's the press release." She flashes the phone briefly.

"Well, that changes things," Gorman murmurs.

Bart tsk-tsks. "Jim, not keeping an eye on your neck of the woods?"

Gorman snorts good-naturedly. "So since he was managing that team, we should find out who replaced him- and what their relationship with Tokyo is like- before offering them the deal."

"I think we take it to RFP," Bart counters. "This knocks his team out of first place. Obviously he's top of the list on any projects in Hong Kong," he adds, in Finance General Counsel's direction.

The no. 2 pencil is scribbling. "Absolutely. I'll put together a Request For Proposals."

"Great. Let's move quickly on this, though." He makes another note on his agenda, and flips the page to move to the next priority.

Loren Jesselson turns to drop her BlackBerry into her bag (Bart hates phones out at meetings), and whispers, "Nice," in his direction.

Chuck keeps his expression neutral, remembering bumping into Klein, to whom his father introduced him more than once in the course of their landmark three-year project with Tokyo's biggest developer, one night in mid-December, the week after Cotillion.

In TriBeCa. Doing body shots off a nubile, beautiful Asian woman.

"Chuck Bass," he'd reminded Klein, who looked three or more sheets to the wind, but recognized him vaguely on sight. Klein had greeted him merrily, looking very little like the tightly-wound finance attorney Chuck saw with Bart. "Don't you get enough of this back in Tokyo?" Chuck had chided, gesturing at the body-shots setup.

Klein grinned. "No more Tokyo for me," he said, happily, waggling a finger. "Been lobbying to transfer to Hong Kong for years, and finally, it happened. Shh," he added hastily, putting the finger to his lips: "No announcement for a few weeks."

"Congratulations," Chuck said, amused at the loose happiness of this mid-40s attorney, acting like a college freshman, not a care in the world. It was far from the first time he'd bumped into a sterling-reputationed associate of his father's outside a business engagement. If he sees a member of Bart's C-suite at a strip joint or in the back of a seedy bar with a girl half his age, the mutual agreement, as co-members of Manhattan's business elite, has always been distant politeness and indefinite non-disclosure.

He's glad Bart didn't ask in front of everyone how he knew about Klein's transfer; he doesn't know if even he could have fabricated some convincing cover story- like that he'd been perusing the press releases of global project finance law firms, for example?- on the spot.

Whatever. Intel is intel.

As he settles back into his chair, Gorman fist-bumps him under the table.

Chuck straightens his tie.

viii.

The meeting finally breaks, past 9PM, with the attendees starting to collectively droop. All except Bart, who, in his element, still looks fresh and crisp as a cucumber.

Several of the board members bid Chuck goodnight personally, including Gorman and Jesselson, as they file past him to say goodbye to his father. He hovers, not sure if Bart will want anything from him afterward.

When they're the last two in the room, Chuck having fussed over gathering up his materials, he approaches tentatively. Bart is checking his email.

"What'd you think?" his father says without looking up.

"It was a great experience, sir. Thank you for having me."

Bart half-smiles, just an upturn of one side of his mouth, a quick tick. "You added value." Then he frowns at whatever email he's looking at, and glances up. "Any observations?"

"Yes, I made some notes," Chuck says, brandishing his notepad. "I had some questions too."

Bart pockets the phone and takes off his glasses. "Why don't we have coffee tomorrow morning and debrief? Sleeping on it helps things settle."

Chuck has to suppress another grin. "That would be very helpful. Thanks for making the time."

"Nonsense. You did well tonight. Shall we say seven tomorrow?"

He nods, a little too eager. "That sounds great."

Bart smiles, and makes a move to gather his own papers. "Get some sleep," he says. "Could you ask Ellen to block my calendar for 30 minutes for us?"

For us.

On his way out, Chuck relays the calendar request to Ellen, who's sipping a black tea, a thick cardigan pulled on over her blouse, at the tail-end of a fifteen-hour day.

He waits as she keys it in, and hovers until she looks up.

"Thank you," he whispers, holding her gaze.

She smiles a small smile, winks, and nods him toward the elevator.

ix.

Serena's tucked into a corner bar seat at Divine, nursing a Scotch on the rock- just one big block of ice- that tastes like it's been watered down. (Which is probably, she reasons, what she gets for drinking at an establishment owned by her stepfather-to-be.)

No one approached her at school that day, which was both a relief and a jarring contrast with the natural order of things. No one to ask her about Blair, or Nate, or anything. Penelope and the other ladies-in-waiting, having tried previously to cluster instead around her and follow her lead, appear to have finally succumbed to rejection-fatigue, and have not so much as tried to solicit her guidance on Gala ensembles in weeks. The whole of the Constance-St. Jude's student body should be abuzz about the upcoming event. Instead, they're shuffling along quietly, eyes half-closed, drowsy sheep to the dawn slaughter.

She has two classes with Dan, both of which meet daily, and she saw him in the hallway a few times today. But he left her alone. And she's embarrassed at how grateful she feels for that.

Their long-ago-planned Valentine's Day date, scheduled for Friday night, feels like a distant dream- a mirage which, even should they actually reach it in two days' time, will disperse into vaporous nothing.

In fact, the only personal interaction she had before Nate, after last bell, was Chuck- after she emerged from lunch-hour hiding (she has no appetite on coke and doesn't feel like dealing with questions or stoking curiosity)- tipping his copy of Page Six, folded in half, in greeting. His mouth moved like he was about to say something, but when she answered with a shrug, they both stilled.

"He just… snapped?" she finally offered.

Again, she waited for incredulity, an exclamation that it was so unlike Nate. Something.

Chuck blinked twice, and said, "Yeah." Paused. "I guess." Licked his lips. "I saw him at the tailor, right after. All smiles."

"Erik said he seemed 'wound up,'" she remarked.

"Maybe a little tense," Chuck conceded, "but like he missed a three-pointer, not like he just beat some guy bloody."

(For the world to see.)

But Chuck still didn't look shocked, or outraged.

She looked at him carefully, one hand fishing blindly in her bag. "He's the gentlest guy I've ever known. I can't imagine him wanting to hurt someone. I could barely believe what I was seeing."

Withdrew her own copy of Page Six, and flipped it open, like she needed to make sure they were talking about the same incident.

He glanced down, a courtesy.

She waited a moment and then, in agitated disbelief, she shook her hand a little, as if bold-italicizing the tabloid photos: the blue, the red, the gold.

"What are we going to do?" she murmured, near-furious, after another moment of quiet.

"I have to focus," he replied, almost apologetically. "I have the Bass board meeting tonight, my father- "

The hand holding out Page Six dropped to her side so suddenly that Chuck cut off in the middle of his sentence. Serena blinked at him.

"What?" he said after a moment.

"You're not surprised."

Chuck started to inhale, looking like he was barely suppressing an eyeroll.

"He's done this before," she added. "You're not surprised."

He made eye contact then, blinking at her as if to say, do we have to do this now?

She swallowed. "How many times?"

"Serena," he muttered.

Voice cracking: "How many times?"

"I don't know." Then, relenting, jaw ticking: "Once. That I know of."

Her own jaw trembled. She pressed her molars together to stop it, vaguely aware that her own emotions were not the point, that it was not Chuck's job to soothe her.

"You were there? You saw?" she asked, small, after a moment of fraught silence.

She watched his throat shift, slowly, as he decided how to answer her.

Then, at last, "Yes."

Her lips parted, about to blurt a dozen questions.

"Leave it alone," he told her, and she shut her mouth. "I have to go." And he tipped his folded copy at her again in farewell, and they parted ways, and she drifted off to wait for Nate after his last class, sure, sure, that if they could all just work together, all be in the same room, they could all fix this together, fix each other.

And a few hours later she was home- after turning and walking away from Nate like a person who's opened her front door of twenty years to find that her home is no longer there, to find a world that's completely foreign, with no trace of her life inside, and smile-apologizes and slams the door and goes off in search of anything familiar- half-listening to her mother, glasses perched low on her nose, double-checking columns of old notes to catch any last details she needs to address before the Gala, humming along about how much she's looking forward to seeing them all together on Saturday night, "and do you know if Nate will be sitting with us?"

And Serena, brewing their loose-leaf tea in the kitchen and debating the risks of trying to spike hers without her mother noticing, distractedly saying yes (which she wasn't even sure if she hoped was still true), and Lily making a small excited noise, and saying the three of them and Erik were her bright spot in this horrible time, and smiling when Serena brought in the tea tray, and asking what kind it was, and Serena setting down Lily's cup on its saucer, and saying: "it's a blend."

She had dinner with her mother and Erik, patting her howling stomach and saying with a sigh that the girls had been so busy talking about their outfits for the Gala, and fretting that their final fittings were tomorrow, that they'd had no appetite at lunch, while Erik sat slump-shouldered with a vacant look in his eyes and asked her to pass the bread.

She asks for a top-up- her glass has got to be 90% melted-ice-water by this point- and the bartender hesitates for just a moment before nodding, a polite smile, and reaching for her glass. She sighs, and hooks her fingertip over the rim, pulling it just out of his reach at the last second. "Nevermind. I won't get you in trouble." She gives a wink, a knowing-bygones grimace, and heads upstairs.

She dreams about Blair that night, a dream that's about Blair, she's certain, although Blair herself never appears. No one really does: were they in a bar, Victrola maybe? she'll wonder the next morning.

In the dream, Blair is fine, the tightly-ranged melody of her murmurs bouncing off the walls and they're all fine, and she and Nate aren't cowards- somewhere along the way she feels someone drop, gracefully, heavily, into the same semicircular tufted booth where she's sitting, and without looking she knows it's Nate, and she knows he's fine, he's happy, and Chuck is somewhere nearby speaking in that low, ironic rumble, and Serena has no idea what he's saying but it's certainly about cigars, or Scotch, or girls, and not about finding Blair in a blizzard or Nate assaulting someone- or anything to do with blood. They're all there, everybody's there, and they're fine, they're happy, they're together, but even in the dream something's tugging at her, she knows she's forgetting something, but she pushes it away and floats, closing her eyes at the burble of Blair and the sandpaper crush of Chuck, and when she opens them it's dark and she's in her bed and no one's there and slowly, acidly, she remembers that no one's fine and it's over, the four of them: it's never coming back.

x.

Chuck calls her as soon as the elevator doors shut behind him, not bothering to conceal his smile now that he's alone.

She answers on the first ring.

"Hi," she says, sounding… eager.

"Hi," he replies, glancing at his near-grinning expression in the polished wall opposite, and then away.

She waits a few seconds. "So?" she finally says, and he can hear the smile in her voice.

"I…" he trails off. How does he even begin to tell her? 'This meeting feels like the start of a new… something.'

"Tell me," she scolds, her tone piquing. He knows exactly how she looks: lips barely parted, eyes bright and wide, cheeks dimpling.

If they were in person, she'd be staring at him hotly, that keen-Blair-stare that dazzles, like looking at your own reflection.

He thinks of Bart smiling at him, Gorman's fist bump, Loren's whispered congratulations- for us - and can't help himself, and an overwhelmed, proud snort of disbelieving laughter escapes.

If they were in person, this is when she'd swing her purse, still open-mouthed and sparkle-eyed, and whack him sidelong on the shoulder with it, so he'd laugh again and shake off his trance.

He can hear the purse swinging in the air as she says, "do you want to come over?"

The question bounces him up another level. "Are you sure it's not too late?" he says, not even bothering to pretend he doesn't want to. He's already pressing the STOP and LOBBY buttons.

"Definitely not," she says.

xi.

She's curled her hair, he notices immediately when he arrives. He doesn't say anything, but his eyes trace over the loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, recognizing at once the contrast of the smooth, mostly-brushed-out spirals to her now-usual loose waves.

She has tea waiting, asks if he's eaten, but he's too feverish with success to be interested in a late dinner. He sits at her vanity while she perches cross-legged on the end of her bed, and picks at the fruit plate Dorota put on the tea tray, and eventually drops a masticated strawberry into his cup, nodding at it and joking that it's "teetotaler's sangria," which makes her laugh.

He tells her everything, but in a way that doesn't feel so much like a child on Christmas morning: he understood everything, he met the new President of Morgan Stanley; he offered some intel that no one else knew that changed a strategic decision; his father invited him to have coffee in the morning to discuss.

She doesn't press for details, looking at his lowered eyes, his curved smile.

She doesn't comment that he looks almost bashful, slightly pink-cheeked with contentment.

She looks in his eyes and states the obvious: "It sounds like you made a strong impression."

Hair still slicked, he tugs at his tie until it loosens, and unbuttons his collar, sighing a little. He doesn't say anything, and for a few minutes they're quiet.

He breaks the silence, draining the last of his cooling tea and swallowing the pulverized strawberry along with it when he emerges from his reverie.

"How was your day?"

She starts, too, glancing over in surprise. "Good," she says.

He chances it. "Change your hair?" He looks away, setting his saucer back on the tray, to avoid making the question feel loaded.

She pauses, then sighs.

(When Dorota came to bring up her afternoon tea, after Blair's 'nap'- which left her looking as drawn as she has all day and all week, despite her palpably improved mood- she hesitated, Blair looking around to see what was wrong, and wordlessly handed over a new edition of Page Six. Blair stilled, looking down at it with resignation- what now?- and accepted it, waiting until Dorota shut the door behind her before she opened past the cover, which was a brilliant but by this point overdone action shot of Nate jumping for a half-court basket, long arms up, wrists angled, jersey ballooned about him as he started his descent, eyes tracking the ball that was by that moment out of the frame. And a simple headline, in enthusiastic yellow Impact-font: "ARCHIBALD – CRACKED?")

"I was just bored this morning."

(By the time Dorota came to collect the tea tray, Blair had thoroughly brushed her hair, smoothing out the curls as best she could, and tied it back in a ponytail, and was hammering away at The Custom of the Country, brush nowhere in sight.)

She touches her ponytail unconsciously. "I haven't been sleeping that well." A beat, then: "I'm fine, though."

"You look tired," he says, and neither of them even playfully pretends it's a slight at her appearance. "Should I go?"

Blair nibbles at her lower lip before catching herself. "You have coffee with Bart in the morning," she reminds him.

"I can wake up early," he says without taking his eyes from hers.

She smiles lopsidedly, her eyes dancing again. "Well, who am I to argue with the rising star of the Fortune 100?"

They get in bed, neither sleepy, Blair only half-reclined now that her ribs are healing apace. They look at each other in the dark, Chuck unable to keep the smile from his face.

When he smiles like that, Blair thinks, with pride, with true delight- his eyes turn into two crescents. It feels novel and familiar at the same time. She realizes she hasn't seen it so many times, in all the years she's known him.

At some point, Chuck unearths the arm closer to her and gestures something that reads like come here, and she slides closer, gingerly, and puts her head on his pillow. (Her pillow, but whatever.)

Hand stroking her back, he whispers after a while, "do you want to talk about it?"

She shrugs. "Nothing to…" and shakes her head and shrugs again, and where normally he might think she's trying to divert, he understands what she means: Nothing to talk about. Nothing to be done.

She clears her throat shortly later, even as her body relaxes beside his, and says, "so Nate lost his temper?" and he's startled to realize he hasn't thought about Nate once since he talked to Serena, at least a half-dozen blissful hours without thinking about him and this mess.

"Yeah," he confirms, hand not breaking its pattern. She nods, the pillow shifting softly with her. She doesn't ask if Nate is okay, doesn't offer any suggestions on how they can fix it.

Nothing to talk about; nothing to be done.

He's getting drowsy, his hand getting lazy, and he thinks she must be near sleep too, when she yawns and says, "Your father must be really proud of you," the back of her hand brushing his side, a Blairism he's vaguely shocked he's forgotten about: the way she touches people when she's serious, her all-jokes-aside gesture, her version of the double-hand handshake.

He remembers the bite in her voice when, upon learning that Bart forgot his birthday, she prissed, 'Well. I hope he felt terrible.'

He closes his eyes and says thank you, and she replies mmmm on an exhale, tumbling into sleep.

xii.

Thursday, February 14

Morning

He leaves Blair's early, around 5, and tries not to wake her before he goes- in an odd juxtaposition of intent: Normal Chuck Bass pulls this move to avoid awkward conversation, but now, when he looks at Blair's peaceful face, the thought of robbing her of any sleep feels unconscionable. She does drift up briefly as he shifts, slow, adjusting the covers, and asks what time it is.

"Five," he replies guiltily, and adds, even though it sounds nervous and un-Bassly, "Don't want to risk being late."

Another sleepy-Blair-sigh. She tucks her knees up, a gesture he's seen many times when someone gets out of a shared sleeping space (usually Serena, until a few months ago): she curls into the warmth her bedmate has left behind, leaning into their memory.

From his spot beside the bed he watches and, sure enough, she pulls the pillow closer, blonde brushed-out curls falling in tangles over her sweatered shoulder.

Then she opens one eye and says, "Buy low, sell high."

He smirks in the pre-dawn glow.

xiii.

Showered, toweled, dressed and caffeinated, Chuck arrives five minutes early for his meeting with his father. Bart looks like's only just arrived in his office, too; Ellen hasn't arrived yet.

Bart waves him in, orders up some coffee- even Bart isn't at full speed quite this early- and they sit down in the seating area of Bart's office just as the mantel clock strikes seven.

They cover Chuck's questions and observations, which he reviewed twice before getting dressed, standing wet-haired and barefoot in his robe at his kitchen counter, espresso machine burbling, lips moving absently as he skimmed over his notes.

Bart's subtle eyebrow raises on more than one point are the closest Chuck has ever felt to really impressing him.

He forces himself to reign in his budding ecstasy.

"Our Annual General Meeting is in April," Bart says after a pause. "Second or third week, I think. It might be a good idea for you to come and observe, and then the next board meeting is in May. You could start to get a better sense of continuity."

Glancing up from his coffee and across the low table at his father, Chuck allows himself a smile- well, really, it happens before he has a chance to stop it- and it lights up his whole face. He tones it down.

"That would be a great learning experience," he agrees. "I'd love to observe any meeting you think could be beneficial for me to progress toward adding value."

Bart's face arranges into a facsimile of a smile, but his eyes don't change. He's looking at Chuck with a steadiness, an odd discomfiting steadiness, that Chuck doesn't recognize.

Chuck swallows and wipes away his own overeagerness. "Is there anything else I can do to help with anything in the meantime, sir?"

His father casts a quick glance around the room, and it lingers on his desk. He clears his throat slightly and says without preamble, "Do you still feel that the situation with Serena is under control?"

Chuck's heart deflates a little, wondering in a flash if this is the reason why his father is suddenly- no, no, he tells himself, Bart wouldn't waste all this time and energy to keep tabs on his wayward stepdaughter-to-be.

"I think so," Chuck says, slowly. "She's been up and down, but I think she's more worried about other people than anything." Bart nods, eyes downcast, and Chuck presses: "Do you have a different impression?"

Bart sniffs, in a way he does when he's about to sum up the bottom line. "I spoke to her yesterday about it. She insisted she's fine, and not having any issues with drug use. I'm not sure I'm completely convinced." He gives Chuck a meaningful look.

"I haven't seen anything of that nature since she's been back in New York," Chuck says, smoothly, knowing exactly the right words to use to not seem like he's lying. "I do think she's struggling with the fact that…" he falters, and chooses his words carefully. "…Blair doesn't seem to want to spend time together right now. Serena is…" he clears his throat, trying not to squirm, "…feeling sensitive about that."

Slowly, Bart nods, his expression unreadable. He tests his lower lip with his teeth, and then says, quietly, "I can understand. We all deal with grief differently."

Chuck nods, too.

Bart sniffs again, scratching behind one ear, resetting his posture: they've drifted into accidental territory and need to pivot back to their course.

"Can I count on you to look after things and do the right thing if you notice her getting out of hand?"

"Absolutely, sir."

"And Nathaniel?" When Chuck blinks in surprise, Bart frowns and shakes his head. "As if he hasn't been through enough already, with Howard- " he breaks off, and sighs in distaste at the Captain's transgression, as if even recounting it is too indecorous for such an early hour. "His father's debts were coming due all over town. I suspect Anne and Nathaniel won't have heard the last of it for a while to come. And really, he had been teetering on the edge of a breakdown of some kind for a while. I thought I had a few years before I started reading about another Archibald in Page Six."

"Nate's not- he's not like his father," Chuck starts, defensively.

Bart scoffs. "God, of course not. He's under tremendous pressure, and his circumstances are not of his own making. I'm glad he still has his mother, at least. Anne has always been a pinnacle of propriety." Bart chuckles. "When we were younger, your mother thought she was so boring. She'd try to avoid sitting at the same table at dinners. Not that she was wrong. But," he shrugs, "at least Nate has one morally sound parent to look up to."

Chuck barely hears the last part of Bart's commentary; he's lost in the fog of your mother, thinking of the photos of her that he keeps, wavy sateen hair and perfect eyebrows and dark eyes, sharp jawline like Grace Kelly, and his parents together, his father younger, less gray, loose of posture and grinning without reserve. One from New Year's Eve when she was pregnant, ringed left hand absently supporting her rounded belly, a rare photograph in flats, slim ankles looking impossibly delicate and no lipstick on; Bart in a sport coat with his collar unbuttoned and flopped open, snugging her against his side, embracing arm also holding the baby: the only photograph of the three of them as a family.

In less than a month, Chuck would be born and she would be dead.

He snaps back to reality in time to hear Bart say that this is a difficult time for all of them, and he understands that, "…but there's no need to avoid asking for help. Pain is part of life. No one handles it well. Especially not alone." He stumbles here, opening and shutting his mouth twice as if he's going to go on, and Chuck has to stop himself leaning forward.

After a moment, Bart collects himself and resets his face to neutral again.

"I'm glad I can rely on your keeping an eye out for everyone, and knowing when to ask for help," he concludes. "You've grown. It's great to see."

The clock strikes seven-thirty, and Bart glances over his shoulder, irritated, and sighs.

"I have a briefing in fifteen minutes," he says, leaning forward to collect his coffee cup and draining it. "And I haven't read the summary. Sorry to cut this short."

Chuck mumbles something like no, not at all, getting to his feet and straightening his jacket and organizing his notes and setting down his own cup in a confused flurry of movement.

Shifting seamlessly back to business (really, it's a gift), Bart is drifting over to his desk, holding up one finger, tapping it on the air, trying to remember the detail of something he hasn't said aloud yet. "I think… in a few weeks, we have an internal strategy workshop- Matthew, Loren, some others- that might be beneficial for you to sit in on. The dates aren't finalized yet. I'll ask Ellen to get in touch when they are. You may need to miss a day or two of school, but let's see. It might be a worthwhile trade."

"I'd be grateful to be included," Chuck says, almost feeling bruised by the torrent of engagement from his father. It's like drinking familial connection from a fire hose. Is this what it's like, a muffled part of his brain wonders, to have a normal parental relationship? Is this what it's like for other people?

He draws himself fully upright opposite his father's desk, and shakes his hand.

"Thanks again for your time this morning," he says.

Bart waves the gratitude away, saying he was glad to, but then his eyes twinkle. "By the way, I meant to ask- how did you know about Klein?"

Chuck blinks back at him, momentarily forgetting who Klein is, that he ever existed.

"That he changed practice areas?"

"Oh," Chuck says, wondering if he should come up with a cover story, but then, it's just the two of them now. "I happened to… bump into him in December."

Now Bart blinks.

Chuck clears his throat, giving his father's meaningful look back to him. "'Outside work hours.'"

After a surprised silence at the euphemism, Bart lets out a low snort of laughter, almost in spite of himself. "I see," he says, chuckling.

Chuck laughs, too, averting his gaze, wanting to watch his father smiling at something he's said but not wanting to stare.

When Bart stops laughing, he sighs a happy sigh and Chuck looks back up to see that his father is looking at him in that same steady way, a look he doesn't recognize.

Opens his mouth, inhales, closes it, exhales. And then says: "You look so much like her."

Chuck's heart squeezes with this most recent battery. He doesn't have to wonder for a second who Bart means.

(And Chuck agrees. He does look just like her.)

Without removing that gaze, Bart adds, "your smile is exactly hers."

It's the final blow.

He manages a reply that he takes that as a great compliment, bids his father a good day, thanks Ellen for handing him his coat on the way to the elevator, and tells Arthur good morning, before raising the partition and all but collapsing, vibrating with joy, palm over pounding heart, into the far corner of his limo.

xiv.

He barely manages to find his girlfriend in the morning before classes start; she's not in any of her usual spots.

He could reason that she might be hiding- Page Six Online and Perez Hilton have expanded their Blair-coverage overnight, producing competing Countdown to the Gala pages with rolodex-like animations counting down the literal seconds to the beginning of the event on Saturday night.

Jenny showed him this morning, toggling between yesterday's Perez article about what sort of neckline Blair should wear and an actual poll on what color suited her best.

He shook his head in distaste at the paper-doll-like visuals in an array of jewel tones, sipping his too-hot coffee that burned his hand through its mug (why did he not use the handle? Jenny asked for the billionth time since they'd been alive).

"Are people really going to participate in that trash?" he asked with incredulity, ignoring her handle question.

Jenny squinted quickly at the screen and then turned her head to follow him, ponytail flicking over her shoulder. "Red's an early favorite," she replied with a shrug, her tone weak and exhausted.

"Don't these people have anything better to do?" he grumbled, heading for the toaster to cream-cheese his bagel.

The truth is, they're all exhausted, Serena probably more than anyone (Nate, from his observation, a medium-close second). So it makes sense that she's hiding, that she's hesitant to try to live her life normally, to embrace happiness. How could she trust anything she used to believe in?

Totally understandable, he reminds himself whenever he feels desperate or angry. This sort of thing happens in books all the time. And women are complicated. Everyone knows that.

He saw her talking to Chuck yesterday, each holding a copy of what he knew to be Page Six, the same copy Jenny mewed over before they got on the subway yesterday morning. Chuck and Serena talking in their now-customary low tones, Serena's shoulders tight, Chuck's gaze penetrative. It's a workaday image now, so familiar that he could imagine he's seen it every day of his life.

He's given up trying to understand it, trying to understand her when she says things like, 'the four of us.' He reminds himself, when he can't get his arms around what she's trying to say, what she might be trying to feel, that Serena is an incomparable woman. A whirlwind. She's the butterfly that flaps her wings and causes a tornado on the opposite side of the world. She can't be defined, can't be categorized, can barely be described, much less predicted; she's her own particular brand of perfection, indescribable, unconstrainable; like Marilyn Monroe, or Anne Boleyn, or Abelard's Heloise, or Lux Lisbon. Like Zelda Fitzgerald. And he loves her. And that's the beginning of everything.

He's thinking this exact thought, the beginning of everything, when he turns the corner into the open courtyard, having half-given up on finding her, half-forgotten, in his Serena-musings, that he's actually looking for Serena, and sees her just ten feet away. He stops for a moment, imagining Serena in another time, and himself there with her, dazzled, fascinated, consumed and fueled and inspired by her every movement and word and molecule, and for a moment he almost doesn't want to interrupt that blissful vision by actually talking to the real Serena, the Serena of here and now.

He shakes that off. Obviously he wants to talk to her now. Obviously he wants the real Serena.

He says her name, and she turns and smiles, a real smile, not a stress-smile or a worry-smile and his heart leaps. It's as perfect as anything he could have imagined.

"Hi, you," she says. "Good morning."

Hi, you.

He sighs a little. Who knew two words could be so perfect, so sweet?

"Hi," he replies. "Happy Valentine's Day."

She kisses him straightaway. "Happy Valentine's Day to you." She looks around apologetically. "I'm so sorry, I have to run. I haven't finished my homework."

"No problem," he says generously, and kisses her again.

"See you later," she says, and slips away, turning to send him a warm smile over her shoulder.

Suddenly he's not exhausted anymore. Serena makes him feel alive, makes him complete. She really is the beginning of everything.

xv.

Afternoon

Nate is pacing like a cat at the tailor's after school, barefoot and barechested in trousers and cummerbund, while the tailor finishes steaming his shirt. At the last minute, he swapped to a wingtip collar from spread, after soliciting Chuck's opinion.

Chuck's fussing with his bowtie (white), predictably, on the platform, shirt untucked and pants unhemmed and raw-edged, which appears to not stress him at all, even 48 hours before the Gala, as it were.

He glances at Nate's prowling reflection in the tri-fold mirror.

"There's no one out there," he reminds him.

Yet.

A muscle in Nate's neck tightens, and he nods.

"We'll go out the back door."

The paparazzi have fully renaissanced within the Archibald orbit, swarming the townhouse once again, causing Anne, by Nate's reckoning, to actually be in the process of going crazy. Nate called him this morning, shortly before Arthur pulled up to Constance-St. Jude's, and told the whole story in a big rush: waking up to the pitter-patter of clicks and shuffling on the sidewalk that's reoccurred at regular intervals the last few months such that he barely even notices it at first hearing anymore; his mother standing in the door frame of the kitchen, hands shaking as she takes a sip of coffee, looking at him wordlessly; the phone ringing, startling her, so her cup clatters on its saucer; neither of them moving; the shrilling stopping for a blessed fifteen seconds, and then ringing again; and Anne finally turning, in skirt set and stockinged feet, to glide down the hall to the study with its empty datebook, shutting the door behind her.

I'm sending Arthur, Chuck had said, even though Nate didn't ask for help, thinking of Anne who his mother thought was boring sitting hollow-eyed and tiny in her empty brownstone, and thinking he should talk to his father about the Archibalds' situation. Before things get worse.

He thinks he can talk to his father now, about things like that.

Nate of today is much different from Nate of yesterday, to the point where Chuck wonders if the tailor notices. For Lily and Erik yesterday, Nate was his usual model-adolescent self, polite, deferential, chivalrous- handing Lily up and down to the platform, agreeing smoothly with everything she suggested- should she shorten the train on her gown? She thought maybe these earrings instead?- stiff-shouldered but charming, his laughter at her jokes a little too quick and crisp. Erik caught Chuck's eye once, over their shoulders as Lily held up a closely-hued bowtie to the one Nate was test-driving, and held Chuck's gaze for a long moment, then went back to adjusting his lapel in one wing of the mirror.

Yes, Nate was 'wound up,' as Erik reportedly remarked later. But Nate could be subdued after strenuous athletic successes, and hard and glittery after losses. He grieved and decompressed in private. Until yesterday, that is. (And that other time.)

But today, Nate is agitated, like an animal grown too big for its cage, unable to get comfortable because he can't stretch his limbs.

The tailor produces a wingtip shirt in Nate's size, and Chuck steps aside- he prefers this tiny tailor's shop since they do classical European-style work, even if it does get a bit cramped- so Nate can get onto the platform, facing away from the mirror, toward Chuck as he stands in the center of the room.

"The Gala's going to be a nightmare," Nate says, voice leaden.

He doesn't have to elaborate. Yes, for Nate the entire event is going to be a circus, an invasive, inconsiderate, blood-boiling-nails-digging-into-palms exercise in self-restraint.

And there's not much anyone can really say or do to avoid it. Nate not going would be as newsworthy as the alternative; perhaps even more, providing days' worth of speculation fodder.

"Maybe there's… a back door you could go in," Chuck tries, and they exchange a glance of mutual distaste.

Nate smiles with unconcealed sadness. "My whole life is one big back door these days," he says. "I'm understanding more why she just stays inside."

Chuck doesn't bother asking if he means Anne or Blair. It doesn't make much difference. Nate can't 'just stay inside.'

The tailor finishes marking where he needs to take in the sides of the shirt, and Nate steps down and takes it back off, letting Chuck get back in the prime fussing spot, facing into the center of the mirror.

"I wish they weren't so… interested," Nate mutters, eyeing the door wearily as if a flash bulb might burst through any second. "How do you manage to avoid this?"

Chuck scoffs. "Easy," he says. "I'm a half-breed."

Nate's head swivels and he looks at Chuck in the mirror. He's silent for a moment, then snorts. "A half-breed? Your dad owns half the city."

Shrug. "Sure, but he's new money. I'm not saying a Bass scandal wouldn't matter," he adds, holding up a hand as he sees Nate's about to argue, "but the 'American Royalty Falls from Grace' angle is what gets their blood going. 'New Money Makes Bad Decisions, New Money Has No Morals' – nothing compelling about that. Like, yawn, next." He bores of his bowtie and steps down, looking for another shade to try instead. "It's what's expected of my kind. Not yours, though."

Nate sighs again. "The Archibald-Vanderbilt heir, who goes from prep school to Ivy to investment banking, gladhanding all the way."

"Marries the Waldorf-Astor heir," Chuck adds, trying to smirk, but it's mirthless. "And somewhere, there's a Rockefeller courting a Carnegie, and their kid marries yours."

"Jesus, stop," Nate says, laughing in spite of himself, clapping a hand over his eyes.

"I'm just saying, that wouldn't make news." Chuck is trying a black bowtie now. "This? This makes news."

"So I should try to be as unremarkable as possible."

Chuck shrugs. He doesn't have to say it: it doesn't make a difference at this point. Nate's an Archibald. He can't be unremarkable.

He catches Nate's eye in the mirror. "I mean, maybe don't whale on anyone else- at least in public."

Nate snorts again; it's the first time they've mentioned what happened on Tuesday, despite eating lunch together every day and talking several times since then. But then he's nodding loosely, slowly. "I think you're right," he admits. "I'm not sure it makes any difference what I do."

The tailor finishes Nate's shirt shortly after, and he's good to go- Lily having provided final signoff on the bowtie color last night- but even as he's holding his creaseless black garment bag, he looks ready to settle in and wait for Chuck to finish his fitting.

"Go on without me," Chuck says, reaching for his phone to ask Arthur to pull around to the alley so Nate can go out the back way. "I'll be here a while."

xvi.

Evening

Because she knows she's pressing her luck with the bartenders and doesn't wish to call any more attention to herself, Serena asks for a chamomile tea with lemon at Divine, and flashes a quick smile of appreciation when it comes with two mini-financiers balanced on the saucer. She hasn't had a drink since last night's watered-down Scotch, and hasn't used since before yesterday morning's rendezvous with Bart, which she counts as proof that she's completely in control.

She left her phone upstairs, because Dan texted her "Happy V-Day, ILY" and she'd like to pretend she hasn't seen it. The thought of dredging up something to keep him happy feels like a Herculean effort right now, and she can't bear to do it. He caught her off-guard this morning, and even the quick exchange of a forced smile, hoping he wouldn't know the difference; a perfunctory peck on the lips; the guilt of rushing off on the lamest excuse of needing to do homework, causing her to glance over her shoulder for one last shame-filled look, only to see him grinning back like they just agreed to get married and live happily after and she was just going to grab the horse-drawn carriage so they could ride into the sunset; drained her completely. She spent the rest of the morning avoiding him. She never knew being loved could be such… hard work.

She found Chuck again today, this time on the way into lunch, and as he stepped around the corner after her she told him what's been rattling in her brain for the last day: "Nate thinks this is… our fault, because of what we did. Because we were cowards."

"Nate doesn't know what he's saying," Chuck replied, not even surprised at being greeted in this way, like he's used to her like this, an uncomfortable thought.

"I kissed him first," she said (which, actually, she thinks he knows firsthand is not really true).

Chuck regarded her for a long moment, and then pursed his lips and said, "Nate doesn't know what it's like to do bad things."

Serena's brow scrunched. "It was bad."

"It was his first time doing something bad," he pointed out, "basically ever. He's always followed the rules, won the game. He's never disorderly or selfish." He shrugged. "We know what it's like to deal with the fallout from our bad decisions. It's an acquired taste."

She sucked her lower lip against her teeth and released it slowly, pink turning red turning pink, absorbing his point. Then she took a breath and said, "How are you?"

He blinked like he didn't know what she meant. Then one corner of his mouth twitched up. "I'm okay," he said quietly. "You?"

"I'm okay too," she said, and for that moment at least, meant it.

"Come have lunch with us," he said, nodding toward the courtyard.

She stepped back a little. "I'm not hungry."

What she meant was I can't look at Nate right now. And it seems like he's not so interested in looking at me either.

"See you later?"

Chuck nodded. As she turned to go: "Hey, Happy Valentine's Day."

She pivoted on one heel and smiled. It wasn't draining to smile at him like it was with Dan.

"You, too."

She spent the afternoon on the rooftop, alone, chilly-but-not-freezing breeze ruffling her hair, half-hoping the boys would miraculously join her there, find her through telepathic solidarity; half-hoping she'd be caught and disciplined for breaking the rules; half-not even there, not anywhere at all.

Erik is saying her name, perched on the high-backed stool next to hers, smiling uncertainly.

"Hi," she says, relieved to see him. She pulls him in for a hug like they've been separated for weeks.

"Hi. Do you want to go for a walk? Get some ice cream?" Like most people in New York, unseasonably mild or even slightly-less-harsh weather is motivation enough for Erik to come up with all sorts of excuses to go outside.

She pouts a little. "I actually don't feel that well," she says, gesturing to her near-empty tea: "Hence the chamomile. Have a cup with me?"

"Sure," he agrees, ready, content, more carefree than she's seen him in ages. She smiles. That up-and-down Van Der Woodsen energy.

They have a tea together and talk about the Gala, about Erik's tux- sequined lapels and a matte bowtie, Chuck's idea- and Serena's hair (she wants to wear it down, but Lily is lobbying for a chignon), and Erik says he's been missing Blair. "I keep thinking about when we were all younger, when we'd go stay with her. When I was really little."

Serena throws her head back and laughs. "When she'd dress you up and carry you around?"

"'Baby Erik,'" he confirms, taking a sip, but his smile fades. "I still can't believe…"

Her smile likewise twists into a grimace, and she nods, because she knows and she can't either.

"I know. To her," she says. "To her. The good one."

Erik nods, not realizing Serena's intention to contrast Blair as the good one, and proposes a chamomile toast to the children's games they used to play.

xvii.

When his tux is finally finished, Chuck stands on the platform and takes a long look at himself in the mirror, and asks if the tailor would kindly pack his street clothes into the garment bag instead: he'll wear it out.

Arthur has long since returned from dropping Nate at home and is hovering faithfully out front. He greets Chuck when he slides in and compliments him on the fresh tux, and has the good grace to not react visibly- no knowing smile, even- when Chuck directs him to the Waldorf penthouse.

They make one unplanned stop along the way, Chuck dashing out the back door on a corner, the merchant telling him they don't take credit cards for charges under $10, and then, as Chuck fumbles for small cash (who carries singles?), holding up a palm and saying, "take it."

And so it is that, twinkling city spreading before him like petals in the oddly springlike air, overcoat abandoned in the limo, Chuck steps off the elevator into Blair's foyer, a single pink peony in his hand, and is looking around for any sign of Dorota when, turning on his heel, he looks up and sees her a few steps from the top of the staircase, staring down at him, wide-eyed and blinking in surprise.

She smiles, slowly. "Chuck Bass, I presume."

He smiles back. She's in a slouchy gray sweater, and cuffed, slim-cut gray lounge pants, hair loose, still the remnants of yesterday's brushed-out curls. One hand is on the banister, and she leans over, the other hand drifting to her ribs.

"With a delivery," he says, hesitating for a half-second, and then holds up the peony. "For Blair Waldorf."

He steps toward the bottom of the staircase, but she puts her palm up, like the merchant who gifted him the flower, and says, "Wait. I'll come to you."

So he stands rooted and watches her move the most he's seen since that day in the courtyard, with her green peacoat, telling him he was a mistake so far in her past that she could hardly remember him.

She grips the bannister with each step down, breathing through what her white-knuckling indicates are little nips of pain, lips parting as she blows out each long, slow exhale, eyes on the stairs she has yet to descend, the way a toddler does when they're just learning to take the steps in their own.

A few steps from the bottom, he does move to the foot of the staircase, and when she runs out of banister he hands her down the last two steps. Up close, he sees that her gray has flecks of pale pink in it.

Fingers still in his palm, she tells him she's not supposed to practice the stairs too much, but she felt strong, and wanted to try.

"You looked pretty strong to me," he agrees. Then, an afterthought, he holds up the peony. "For you."

She takes it and puts it to her nose at once, another simple gesture he's seen so many times, a refreshed memory like the way she curls drowsily into her bedmate's abandoned spot. Something about this stabs at him. In the half-light, glowing in from the kitchen, he can see the soft lines of her fading scars, in a way he can't in her bedroom, lit usually by bedside lamps. This blonde scarred creature, wearing figure-obscuring sweatclothes in front of him with no self-consciousness whatsoever, white-knuckling her way down her own staircase, is Blair. She's not a new Blair. She's the same Blair as before, and sometimes, he realizes, he forgets that, dissociates her from the girl he's known all his life, and then is surprised to discover she has the same tics and habits as the girl from before.

He blinks at her, smelling the bloom which is far from fully open, and says, without thinking it through, "dance with me," remembering that Blair can dance. She loves to dance.

She glances up, nose still in the petals. Her eyes look a little… wounded.

"I can't really… move right," she says, low.

"We'll go slow," he says.

She lays the peony on the table and puts her right arm on his shoulder, left one staying low, and he clasps it, palm to palm.

They move, without discussing it, into a waltz: a slow waltz, but a waltz nonetheless. Blair moves stiffly, to be sure, but her feet know the steps. She winces once or twice in the first few turns, averting her eyes to signal she doesn't want to acknowledge it, and he complies.

Finding her rhythm, movements becoming a little surer, she tips back her head to look up at him.

"How was coffee?"

He flushes under his collar.

"It was good," he says, wondering if he's hit his quota of smiles for the day. "Really good."

She turns toward the kitchen and he sees there are still dark circles under her eyes.

He wants her to laugh.

"But that's not why I'm here," he says.

"Oh, no?" her tired eyes crinkle a little, anticipating.

"I wanted your approval on my lapel width."

Success. She snorts, in her throat, and looks down at his jacket, which until this point only he, Nate and the tailor have seen.

His lapels are wider than he usually likes, and satin against the matte black of his tails. She probably can't see, but his tuxedo stripe is pale pink.

"Approved," she says, with a nod. "A positively shocking departure, though."

"Basses are chameleons," he informs her with affected coolness.

The last time he was in a tux was Cotillion, and they had phone sex the day before, her in bed in the bright early morning light, him in the back of the limo with the partition up. She had showed him a single photo- showed him, did not send to him, for security reasons- of her gown, under penalty of death, and he spent five minutes talking her through what he was going to do to her when he got her alone in it while she panted in his ear.

He looks at her now and knows she's thinking about the Gala, which a few months ago would have been a strategic and momentous night, in a completely different way.

She unclasps her hand and rubs distractedly at one eye. Her nails are trimmed and unpolished.

They drift to a stop.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"Yes, I…" she lowers her hand and he sees she's fighting tears. "I'm just tired."

As a matter of fact, he's tired, too; he didn't sleep well last night, despite his happiness, jerking and twisting in bed the way he does when he's in tense anticipation of something the next morning (which isn't that often). Finally, Blair turned on her side in the dark at some undisclosable hour and put her arm over him, laid her head on his chest, and the weight did something to him in his half-waking state, and he fell fully asleep at last and when he woke a few hours later they were still in that position (which made getting out of her bed at five in the morning considerably less appealing).

But she's not just tired.

So he waits, her free hand still on his shoulder, his loose on her waist, and her palm drifts back into his and she looks up, scars and dark circles and says, "Those polls, and the countdowns… I just…"

Her hand trembles in his. Her feet don't move.

He waits some more.

She bites rather savagely on her lower lip, trying to contain herself, and then whispers, shoulders slumping, "I'm freaking out."

There's nothing he can do, and he knows that by now. Nothing he can do to stop any of it.

And very little he can say.

He puts his arms around her, nudging gently closer to her, and she blows out a hot, desperate breath that hits his neck as she leans against him. Her hands find their way under his jacket, like that day after 1712, when he finally made it uptown and she was waiting in the parlor, and whispered that she hated him, and he was never to do that again.

Her fingers come to rest on his back, thumbs looped through his suspenders.

He presses his mouth to the top of her hair in what's almost like a long kiss, a resting of his lips on her hair that lasts through a few inhales and exhales.

"You don't owe anyone anything," he murmurs, chin at her temple.

She nods, and takes a deep breath, no more quivering, no tears.

"You're right." She leans her head back and they're close, nothing romantic about it, he's shocked to realize: being this close to Blair, he has no desire to kiss her, no desire to do anything, except stand here in front of her.

She brings up her right arm- left still hooked in his suspender- and brushes his hair back, which she's done before, when…

"Thank you," she says, just above a whisper, and they look at each other's eyes in the dim for a long moment, her hand falling to his shoulder. She smiles a tired smile. "Do you have dinner plans tomorrow night? I want to hear all about coffee. I'll be much better company if I can just get a decent night's rest." She rolls her eyes. "There'll probably be a poll about my hairstyle by then."

He smirks, thinking how strong she is in comparison with someone like Anne Archibald.

"You're remarkable," he says, before he lets himself think about it.

She swallows, shifts her feet, standing there in sweats. She doesn't have to say it: she doesn't feel remarkable.

"You are," he repeats.

She smiles a little, and he can almost feel her cheeks warming.

"Do you need help up the stairs?"

She shakes her head. "Up is easier." She pauses. "Thanks for the flower. And for coming over."

"Thanks for the tux approval."

"Oh, I'm the queen of necklines," she says, drily. "Just ask Perez Hilton."

He chuckles and releases his hold on her, satisfied, at last, that she's okay, that he's not leaving her when she needs someone.

She picks up the peony from its place on the table. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," he agrees, and summons the elevator while she waits, standing in her sweats and holding the flower by its delicate stem, smiling goodbye. He knows she doesn't want him to wait and watch her struggle up the stairs.

She wants him to remember that Blair Waldorf can waltz.

xviii.

Miss Van Der Woodsen is growing impatient.

"Did he not leave it for me?" she asks, brow wrinkling.

Kathryn is flipping through drawers, looking under file folders, in all the usual spots Xavier might have left her a note when she came on shift forty minutes ago.

"No, I'm sorry, he didn't mention anything and I don't…"

The blonde sighs, like she just can't handle one more stressor right now.

"Do we need to call him? I mean, I hate to bother him, now that he's off duty, but… my stepbrother specifically asked me to start setting up."

Almost inaudibly, she begins tapping her foot.

Kathryn sighs. "No, I don't want to bother him," she agrees. "I'm sure he just forgot. He may have even put it in his pocket."

"My fault," Miss Van Der Woodsen volunteers. "I should have made sure Chuck told him. Maybe there was a miscommunication."

"I'm sure it's on our end," Kathryn assures her. That's rule number one: a Van Der Bass is never wrong. "Let me just make you a new one. It'll just take a minute."

"Could you? That would be great. Thank you." It's delivered as one dulcet sentence, not three; the sound of an appeased one-percenter.

Pulling a blank keycard from a stack, Kathryn powers on the programming machine.

"So just access to his room, or anywhere else?"

The blonde has shifted to perusing a newspaper headline, leaning against the concierge station, and she glances up, nonchalant, preoccupied, like she's already moved on and has to recall what they're talking about.

"Oh, nowhere else," she says, with a polite half-smile, then goes back to skimming the news. "Just 1812."

xix.

Blair is back upstairs for a few minutes when Dorota knocks.

That's early for nighttime tea, Blair thinks, but then, she's tired- so no harm done.

But when Blair calls her in, she's not bearing a tea tray but a large, plain white box with a pale pink ribbon.

Blair's brow furrows. "Another one? At this hour?"

"This one arrive yesterday, but your mother ask me to keep it, and give to you before bed on Valentine's Day." Dorota nods. "A present to her Valentine."

Blair smiles a little. It's corny, but Eleanor is trying. Her father did something similar, sending her favorite chocolates and a bottle of Chanel No. 5 by courier with a letter in French that managed to be both elegant and intimate, which is now tucked into her vanity drawer (a safe distance from the swamp in her nightstand). She and Dorota shared the chocolates over afternoon tea. Harold is just better at things like that.

She maneuvers carefully out of bed. "It's from her new line?" It's an assumption more than a question.

But Dorota is all but grinning. She shakes her head and steps away to let Blair unfurl the bow.

"She say it is one of a kind, made only for you."

Blair looks from Dorota to the box and back again. Then, wordless, she lifts her hand and unties the bow, tugging it through the box's eyelets. Dorota opens the flaps, and the dress, suspended from a molded hanger in the middle of the box- the only acceptable way to deliver couture, Eleanor says- comes into view all at once.

Dorota's eyes light up, but she looks to Blair, waiting for her reaction.

"Wow," Blair whispers after a moment.

Maybe Eleanor is better at these things than she thought, she concedes mentally.

Before she can lose her nerve, before she can ask Dorota to leave, Blair says she wants to try it on.

xx.

Chuck unties his bowtie in the limo, leaning back on the headrest. It seems like years ago that he woke up in Blair's bed at five- like a different life.

He's exhausted, and vaguely worried about Blair, and vaguely worried that he's not going to be able to keep earning interactions with his father like what they had this morning, and vaguely worried that Nate's going to snap at the Gala, and vaguely worried that Serena's going to… who knows what. But something about this day, even with all these pulses pounding on, fills him with a strange, tentative peace. Blair's head on his chest, and sixteen hours later, her fingers hooked into his suspenders; Bart looking at him like he's not seen him in years, telling him he has his mother's smile. His phone ringing, Nate, calling him when he needs someone. Serena, seeking him to balance her.

People, seeking him, because they make his life better. Looking to Chuck Bass for… good.

Arthur offers to drop him on the street and then garage the limo afterward, but Chuck tells him to just pull underground; no need for an extra stop. Head tilted back, he watches through the rear windshield as the upside-down-Milky-Way lights of Manhattan float out of view.

xxi.

Gray lounge pants and sweater heaped on the bed, not bothering to cover her chest- at this point, Dorota has seen more of her naked in the last four weeks than anyone since she was a toddler- she's carefully stepping into the dress, Dorota holding it up and Blair holding her shoulder for balance. It's not a dress she could smoothly get into on her own, not like this anyway.

When she first looked at it, she thought for sure it would be too small, but as she wriggles it carefully up, she's surprised to find it snug, and looks into the mirror opposite- which Dorota brought out of the closet without needing to be asked- to see it's fit nearly to perfection.

Okay, she's definitely underestimated her mother's competence at surprises.

It's long, brushing the floor, the perfect length for heels.

She realizes Dorota is waiting for her word, standing back, out of the mirror's frame. She leans to the side a little, until she catches her reflection's eye, and Dorota steps forward to fasten the dress.

xxii.

He takes the elevator straight up, not stopping in the lobby to order dinner-

he's starving, but wants to get out of his tux-

and drapes the garment bag over his shoulder, one hand unbuttoning his collar, the other badging into 1812.

xxiii.

Friday, February 15

Morning

The day before the Gala dawns dull and cindery, smelling like wet pavement.

Serena, gray-faced and vacant after sleeping late- or, at least, staying in her room late- sips a weak green tea and nibbles at an errant cuticle, then catches herself and stops. Her pre-Gala manicure is tomorrow. Erik's left for school already, needing to get to the library before homeroom, and Lily, in white satin robe, hair pulled softly to the nape of her neck, is sitting across the table, checking emails with one hand and eating grapes with the other.

After greeting each other, a few minutes pass in silence, and at length Lily looks up from her laptop with a smile that falters, and she dips her chin and looks at her daughter over the rims of her glasses and says, "Serena, are you all right?"

Serena nods, but even the gesture is listless.

"What's the matter? Do you not feel well?"

After a few moments, Serena takes a breath and says, quietly, "I'm not sure."

Lily leans over the table, reaching for Serena's forehead. Serena leans away from her mother's touch.

"I'm not sick. I don't mean like that."

Palm in midair, Lily hesitates, then withdraws and tilts her head. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I feel…" Her lips stay parted, like she's waiting for the words to fabricate themselves. Her eyes are half-lidded and downcast. "Ashamed."

"Ashamed?" Lily says, like it's a shock, and the deepest part of Serena's soul twists because, although her mother certainly doesn't know everything bad she's ever done, she certainly knows enough to know why Serena would feel ashamed. To be ashamed of her. "Darling, what on earth about?"

A little shrug, not because it's quick but because Serena seems to only have the energy or inclination to raise her shoulders an inch. "My…self, I guess," she mutters. "I don't know."

Lily pushes back her chair and circles the table, sitting down next to Serena, who turns to face her mother- only her head, and even that reluctantly. Brushing Serena's hair back from her face, Serena shutting her eyes at the sensation, Lily murmurs, "what's brought this on, my darling?"

Serena's brow furrows; her nose scrunches. Her eyes fill with tears.

Lily traces her daughter's eyebrow with her thumb.

"Were you ever ashamed of me?" Serena asks, a gravelly whisper.

Lily splutters. "No," she insists, moving to hold Serena's face in both her hands. "Of course not, Serena. I'm so proud of the young woman you are, and the one you're becoming. What's bothering you, my love? What's brought this on, tell me?"

"I…" Serena's crying now, tears tracking down her cheeks and she doesn't wipe them away. "I'm worried about the Gala, the- not just the Gala, the- everything that's going on, all this media, I… everyone won't let the Blair story die, and nothing can get better, and I'm worried- " she pauses to drag in a long, wet sniffling breath- "I'm worried the papers aren't going to let it go, and I'm- I'm not sure I can handle it, and… I just feel like a terrible person," she finishes, sounding like she could continue but wants to slam the door shut before she can.

Lily, nodding slowly along through Serena's muddled confession, purses her lips for a moment. "Serena, my darling, you are a wonderful person. I'm biased, because I'm your mother," she admits with a roguish smirk, "but for anyone who knows you, you're a beautiful ray of light."

Serena begins to shrink away, but Lily stops her.

"This time is difficult, it's horrible, it's beyond words. Of course it's hardest for Blair, but it's also hard for all those of us who love her and who are close to her, and who want to protect her. Especially when she doesn't want to see anyone. She's important to all of us, and I think we all not only want to be close to her as she recovers, but also just miss her."

Serena nods jerkily in acknowledgement, biting a puffy lip.

Lily moves her hands down to Serena's shoulders and gives them a soft squeeze. "We have to find solace where we can, Serena, and there's no shame in needing comfort." Serena looks away, brows scrunching insolently, and Lily shakes her a little. "No shame, my darling."

"I just," Serena whispers, finally swiping at her wet cheeks, "I keep…" She makes a whirlpooling motion with both hands. "I miss her, and I feel so…"

She breaks off, and her mother says, "Lost?"

Serena nods vigorously. "So lost, without her, and the four of us, we work better as a group, but…" she shakes her head.

"And you'll work again as a group," Lily soothes. "It may never be the same, but you've been friends for so long. And I think the best thing you can do for yourself, right now, and for your friends, is be a source of good where you can. Perhaps you can be a source of light for Nate, with everything he's going through- you know he's so fond of you. I'm sure he could use extra support wherever he can get it. The two of you have always been so similar. And you and Charles seem to be growing closer, which is a blessing, I think. Neither of you had the most…" Lily pauses here, and swallows, "traditional childhood. So maybe you can find common ground, and support each other until Blair is ready to come back into the world."

"You're right," Serena manages through her tears.

Lily lets go of her shoulders now, and clasps their fingers together, Serena glancing down at their joined hands. "I know it's so hard right now," Lily says, "but with four friends who have so much history, and good intentions, there's always a way, my darling, I promise you."

Serena releases her mother's hands and leans in for a hug, her oversized black sweater slipping close to baring one shoulder as she does so, and exhales deeply in her mother's arms.

"But you're not ashamed of me," Serena whispers, a confirmation.

Her mother squeezes her tighter, too tight for a second and she can't breathe- and she likes it- and says, "my love, you're the light of my life."

xxiv.

Afternoon

What will prove to be the final gown arrives early in the afternoon. Blair unboxes it herself- cap sleeves, shimmery draped crepe in a dusty gold- and regards it for a moment before hanging it in her closet and shutting the door behind her.

She talked to her mother this morning, Eleanor having asked through Dorota if she might be up to saying hello on Skype, Blair declining- she really doesn't want her mother preening at how lovely she looks, transparently trying to puff Blair's ego; the careful comments, the desire to know Blair's thoughts about attending the Gala; and Blair's own ambivalence to try organizing a response. She said she wasn't up to it, and she was telling the truth. On the phone, she said she wasn't sure about the Gala, but she loved the gown, and she was telling the truth then, too, and it was all she could muster.

She was joking last night when she told Chuck there'd probably be a poll about her hairstyle live by today, but she's refreshing the tabs on her laptop feverishly, heart thudding with apprehension every time. She knows this is not good for her, not productive, but she's beyond pretending she doesn't care what the world is saying about her.

Dr. Genove arrives as Blair's hair is still air-drying, puffing slightly in its usual uneven waves, baby hairs curling at her temples.

Today, Blair talks. She doesn't have the energy to hide.

She tells the doctor about the polls; Dr. Genove listens, attentive, like she hasn't seen any of this for herself. She tells her about the gowns, about her mother. She tells her about Nate, that Nate was her boyfriend (vague hand motion, "before"), and the other night, he apparently… and here, Blair's forehead scrunching with the incomprehensibility of trying to describe Nate taking his fists to someone, Dr. Genove nods and says: "I saw."

"It's like everyone is waiting," Blair says, not bothering to needle the doctor about having read the tabloid coverage, "for this… for me to come out. Like that will… fix everything. But it's because…"

Angelic Blair, the frolicking maiden.

She grits her teeth. "It's because they feel sorry for me. I hate all this attention, like this. Because people pity me. They want me to come out so they can assess my damage."

Dr. Genove brushes her hair behind one ear- uncharacteristically, she's wearing it loose today, collarbone-length blonde in a smooth blowout, possibly a fresh cut. (Which reminds Blair, she's overdue for a trim.) "You don't seem to feel sorry for yourself," she says.

"No," Blair agrees. "I'm… ashamed."

"Ashamed of the attention, or ashamed about what's happened?"

Blair shrugs slowly. "Both. I lacked control before. If I had been in control, this wouldn't have happened- none of this would be happening."

If she hadn't gone to Mark Bar; if she'd just gone home. If she hadn't been so hungry for attention. If she hadn't gone swooning back to Nate like that, embarrassing in itself, that see-me-love-me dynamic that had her constantly checking the mirror to see if her waist looked small enough. If she had controlled how she felt about herself, instead of needing to find it elsewhere, she wouldn't have…

She bites that down. She doesn't want to think about that.

She takes a sharp breath through her nose and repeats: "If I had been in control, this wouldn't have happened."

"No one is in control all the time," Dr. Genove tells her.

"Every time I think about… going out there," Blair says, nodding her head tiredly in the direction of the window, "I remember what they're all thinking, 'poor innocent Blair, poor pathetic ruined innocent Blair,' and I just…" she takes a shuddering breath and begins shaking her head, vigorous, side to side. "I can't. I can't."

Still shaking her head, she begins to cry. They're nearly at the end of their hour already, so this is progress: Blair's been talking nearly the entire time.

"I understand that it feels impossible right now," the doctor says, leaning forward, elbows on knees. Blair leans against her headboard, nodding, acknowledging the point, eyes lifting skyward, tears tracking down her cheeks, silently grateful that the doctor, at least, does not seem to be urging her to consider going to the Gala, urging her to rejoin society now, when she's not ready, because of the arbitrary luck of an event falling tomorrow night.

"It does," Blair agrees, chin trembling. "It does."

The doctor waits until she's satisfied she's not cutting Blair off. "I would just encourage you to not think of it in 'forever' terms. It feels like you're all anyone can talk about right now, I admit that. I'll level with you: it's everywhere. I doubt there's a person in New York who wouldn't recognize you by this point. Well, if you dyed your hair back, that is," she adds, and Blair smiles, but the doctor continues. "And yes, you're right, there's a significant amount of pity in the collective attitude toward you. People do feel terrible about what happened. Not because anyone thinks you're weak, or that you were at fault, but because no one deserves what happened to you. But one thing I can promise you, Blair, is that people will move on. This is not for 'forever' either. There will come a time, and it probably won't be so long, when this is not everywhere, when your face isn't so recognizable. I know it feels impossible right now, to go out there and face it, especially with the recent onslaught- " and here, like the other day, the doctor's tone piques with annoyance- "but things won't always feel that way. People will move on. They will forget."

After a long pause, eyes closed, Blair says, "will I?"

"You'll never be the same, no," the doctor says, quietly. Honestly. "You'll never forget what happened. This is the part where our work together comes in. Facing what happened and forgiving yourself, and doing the work to heal, this is what we're here for."

Forgiving yourself.

For an utter lack of control. More than one utter lack of control, actually.

And weakness, and desperation for attention (like she's… Penelope, for God's sake).

But she's not weak now. She's proven it.

The old Blair… Blair the Unflinching- sleepy and warm, heavy-limbed, on the footpath in the Park, tilting her head back, snowflakes stinging as they hit her eyelids, a pair of hands on her waist-

She shakes that away again. She doesn't think about that.

That Blair is gone now. She died in the Park that night.

Had to. Deserved to.

And the Blair of Now is different. She's pushed away from the dynamics that make her weak, that whet her appetite for validation, even as she conceals her yearning under a sharp, calm shell. She's shut the door on all of that. Literally. She's better now. She understands. She has control.

It's other people's fault that she can't go out; it's their fault that she can't face the world yet.

Like the doctor said, this would pass, and then everything would be fine. Because the Blair of Now has control.

She squeezes her eyes shut against everything else.

Maybe the doctor has been speaking to her these last few minutes, maybe not- it's quite possible, Blair realizes at once, she didn't even realize she was still crying- but suddenly she hears, the voice closer than usual:

"Blair, you understand that you're only human and it's okay to make mistakes, don't you?"

She opens her eyes. The doctor is sitting at the edge of her bed, a safe few feet away, but closer than Blair thinks they've ever been. She blinks at Dr. Genove.

"Whatever way you feel you lacked control," the doctor continues, "you have nothing to be ashamed of. All humans make mistakes. Lots of them. Life can't be about control. If we were to go through life holding ourselves to an impossible standard of control, and flawless behavior and no mistakes, we'd all be paralyzed and…" she stops short of gesturing around her, but the message is clear: we'd all be paralyzed and shut up inside our bedrooms. Forever.

Blair nods.

Putting a palm on the duvet and adjusting herself on the mattress, Dr. Genove looks straight at her. "You can't control what people think or say right now, or how much attention they pay to you. That will fade, but it may not be linear- there might be renewed interest at some point in the future, and that will be difficult. I can't predict that. No one can. The key, Blair, is to face and work through your feelings about what you've been through, and to build the tools for you to cope with the gamut- trauma, memories, recovery, public attention. That last one is an unfortunate side effect of your family's place in society that almost no one in your position as a trauma survivor has to deal with, and it's unfair, and selfish on the part of the media outlets and your peers in society, to behave this way- but here we are. But, we know where we need to go together. And we'll get there."

She pauses, collecting her thoughts, and licks her lips.

"The first step, Blair, is going to be finding it in yourself to accept and acknowledge that you can't control everything, not even your own story. And to forgive yourself for mistakes, past, present and future."

Blair fights the urge to squirm. Acknowledge that you can't control everything. Not even your own story.

"That's a lot," she manages.

The doctor chuckles. "It is. But you're capable of it."

Snuffling back the last of her tears, Blair looks at her doctor, who is paid to believe in her ability to do these things, to rise above what's happened. But maybe she really does believe it; she hasn't given up on her yet, through her sharp-tongued-arms-crossed insolence, or her refusal to be seen or helped. Dr. Genove seems to see her anyway, like it or not. (And she's helped her anyway, admit it or don't.) Her efforts to wound Dr. Genove, to drive her away, have not worked; and really, the doctor is meant to be getting paid to help a girl who's trying to recover, not trying to insult her personally. Blair has to hand that to her. The woman exudes an admirable quiet strength, something to be emulated. Not brittle, not easily deflated. She's unflappable. Unflinching.

Blair nods- maybe, yes, she is capable of it- takes a breath, rubs at her puffy eyes, and says, with a touch of reluctance, "You're not half bad."

The doctor laughs a real laugh, hair falling over one shoulder. "High praise."

They're way over time- they've gone closer to two hours today- but still Dr. Genove doesn't rush away, asks if she's all right and if there's anything else she wants to talk about.

"No, I don't think so," says Blair. "Let's pick it up next week."

What she means is, after the Gala.

As she collects her notebook and organizes her bag, the doctor gives Blair, watching from her bed, a sidelong glance. "Just try to remember: you don't owe them anything," she says, nodding at the window the way Blair did. "You don't owe anyone anything in this process, except yourself."

xxv.

Serena exited school at some indecipherable point in the day- truly, if you asked her which classes she attended and didn't, she wouldn't be able to give an answer that wasn't a guess- and has been loitering all afternoon in a café a few blocks from Constance-St. Jude's, vaguely flipping through Oedipus Rex, which she has no interest in actually reading. Swollen feet, incest, destiny.

It's gray and still oddly warm out (relatively speaking, for February in New York), but raw, like the sky is about to open up any moment. There are puddles everywhere, from intense showers that pass at irregular intervals, freak bursts of pelting rain that soak the sidewalk and pound the window she's curled beside, newsboy cap pulled low on her forehead. Brown, clashing with her black sweater and coat. She's had two pots of tea, served Japanese-style where each batch of leaves produces three or four servings, so by the end it's kind-of-flavored warm water, but she doesn't care or even notice.

She's asked Dan to meet her around the corner before their Valentine's date, and when he texts he'll be there in five, she pays her bill and leaves, without so much as a glance at her dull reflection in the café's glass door.

As promised- Dan, always, always keeping his promises- her boyfriend is waiting for her under a green awning, and when he sees her, he turns, holding an enormous amount of pink carnations in both fists, and it's only when he doesn't step out from under the awning that she realizes it's raining again.

She tries for a smile, but she can't.

He blinks, face trying to smile, too, to greet her, but he knows something is wrong.

She breaks up with him in one breath. She says she's sorry, she can't anymore, he means a lot to her, she can't explain, she hopes he can understand, she's so sorry. It's the most concentrated amount of effort she's been able to gather all day, and she's spent as soon as it tumbles out of her mouth, her breath curiously steaming in the thick, damp air.

He opens his mouth, maybe to ask a question, maybe to try to reach her, maybe to tell her she means a lot to him too and he does understand and she doesn't need to be sorry, but she doesn't let him.

"Please, don't, I'm sorry, I have to go," she says, and turns and walks away in the rain.

xxvi.

Evening

He's earlier than he'd normally arrive for dinner, and he's prepared to wait; he sends Arthur home and ducks out of the limo in the midst of one of today's intense bursts of rain, unable to think past the next hour or two, abstractly aware he will not be able to sleep in the same bed as Blair tonight, and hoping she won't want him to.

The elevator to Blair's penthouse is in use, the doorman informs him, and he nods and stands off to the side, his hands in his pockets, rain on his collar and dripping from his hair.

The blonde woman who steps off the elevator frowns out at the rain and reaches to unsnap the tie to her umbrella, and then- perhaps she feels him looking?- glances over and smiles politely. "Hello."

He hesitates, then extends his hand. "Hello. Chuck Bass," he says, and nods up to the penthouse. "A friend of Blair Waldorf's."

"Ah," she says, and she's either never heard of him or a great poker player. He's not sure which would be worse. "A pleasure to meet you. Dr. Isadore Genove." She doesn't need to offer color on her relationship to Blair.

"Well," he says, realizing there's nothing at all he can say that isn't awkward- he can hardly ask if Blair's therapy session ran over, or how she is- so he gives a polite half-smile and glances out at the rain, "good luck out there. Enjoy your evening."

"Likewise." She gives him a quick, clinical once-over, and they part ways, the two people closest to Blair Waldorf in the world as of today, her out the door and him into the waiting elevator.

As he steps into the foyer, Dorota is bustling past with a new felt-tip pen, still in its presentation box, on her tea tray. "Mister Chuck," she says, "I was not expecting yet- dinner is not ready," and she glances down at the tea tray, "would you like tea?"

He holds up both palms: surrender. "I'll wait down here if she's not ready. No rush. I'm early."

Dorota comes back downstairs in a few moments, no tray, and says to go ahead up and she'll be back with another tea cup for him.

Blair is puff-eyed and her lips are a little swollen and flushed, the way they get when she bites them while she's crying. She's sitting up, the tea tray in its normal spot on her duvet, flattening the down, and she smiles a little as she greets him, one of those I'm-trying-I-know-I'm-failing-don't-call-me-out-on-it smiles.

"Hi," she says.

He glances around. No felt tip pen box anywhere in sight.

"Hi," he says, shrugging out of his coat and searching his heavy heart for something lighthearted to say. He wanted to be near her sooner, but now… "Are you catching up on your correspondence?"

She blinks.

"Dorota was bringing you a pen," he says, trying to tease.

She gestures at a novel on the nightstand: The Custom of the Country. "I wanted to annotate it," she says.

He blinks back, something sinking in him. That's an obvious lie.

It's none of his business, he reasons, as he says ah and folds his coat and drapes it over her vanity chair, the custom of their country.

She can do whatever she wants with a pen.

He steals a glance at her nightstand, though, as she adjusts her pillows behind her, and there's no sign of the pen there either.

Dorota brings an extra teacup for him and when they're alone on her bed with the tray between them, Blair takes a breath, visibly relaxing even though the evidence of tears is still plain on her face, and she asks about his day, and about how coffee with Bart was. And he tells her, and the only time she really smiles, the only time her eyes light up, is when he hesitates, feeling, somehow, like he should keep this for just himself, and then leans forward, teacup in hand, and tells her that Bart told him he looks just like his mother.

"Wow," she whispers, and he swears her eyes fill with tears again. He backs off slightly.

"Yeah," he agrees, also in a whisper.

After he tells her everything about coffee, and the upcoming meetings his father has asked him to join, he asks her how she is, and she slumps a little and says she's probably not going to be great company tonight, she had a productive afternoon with her therapist but it's been a hard week and she's exhausted.

"Do you want me to go?" he asks, and assures her he would understand. He realizes with frustration at himself that he's actually a little disappointed when she says, no, let's have dinner.

They eat quietly; he asks her about how her book is, and she seems not to know what he's talking about and he fixes her with a look and then glances at the nightstand, and she clears her throat and says it's fine, just dense.

He wants her to talk; he needs something to focus on. Something to reinforce that he's…

"I'm sorry I'm so quiet," she says, on cue, setting down her fork with finality. "I'm really in my head right now."

"I understand," he says.

She doesn't know how much.

"I keep thinking…" she begins tentatively, "about all the things I could have done differently."

He sets down his fork, too. "In… when?"

She nods along with what he did not quite say. "Life. That night. That day."

He doesn't know if she's talking about a mistake so far in my past, but he reminds himself this is about her, not him.

This isn't about you.

He takes a long breath.

"Anything in particular?"

"A lot of things I'm not proud of," she says. "Weakness."

He clenches his jaw briefly. "I get it."

"I think I thought I deserved it," she says, quieter. "Because I had…"

She shifts, discomfort evident on her face.

"Because of everything, and… I was looking for…" she swallows. "Something, anything."

He realizes he's still clenching his jaw.

"You know?"

He nods.

"Believe me," he says slowly, "I know."

"I was weak," she adds.

"No," he says. "You being weak wasn't the problem."

She nods, not catching his point but thinking she does. "Of course, him being there was the problem."

Sure. Part of the problem.

She takes a deep, resetting breath, and straightens, edging out of bed. He watches her, then gets up and follows even though she doesn't invite him in any way.

She opens the door to her closet and steps in and flicks on the light.

He steps in after her, their reflections moving in parallel in Blair's big standing mirror, back in its usual place in the corner of the closet, crowded now on either side by gowns – there's black, and red, more black, pale-petal pink, powdery blue, dusty gold, ivory satin, canary yellow, glittering stone-studded emerald, rosy mauve…

All versions of Blair. He can see her in any one of these.

He doesn't ask her what she's going to do. He doesn't think she knows.

And, again, he's not sure which answer would be better.

She's standing in front of him, off to the left where she stepped to reach for the light switch, and he can't help himself- he reaches out and touches her right side, the good side- and draws her backward, closer to him. She moves willingly until her shoulderblades touch his chest. His hand stays, tentative, on the curve of her waist, thickly sweater-padded.

Fighting down the voice that tells him he should not touch her like this, he puts his mouth to her ear. "You're not weak," he tells her.

"I was," she whispers back. She looks around at the gowns. "She was. She was looking for something, and… she found it."

She leans her head back and catches their reflection in the mirror, then shuts her eyes against she and weak.

"But I didn't deserve it," she says. "No matter what."

He knows, listening to her calm self-assurance, that this is a big step forward for her, to realize that she didn't deserve what happened to her. He knows for her to say this means she's made progress, that she's starting to heal. He knows this means she and the blonde doctor had a significant session just before he arrived, at the end of which the sky opened and spilled into the sidewalks and his collar as he waited for the elevator to come down, and he and the doctor crossed paths.

He didn't know, though, that she ever actually thought she deserved it; that this notion, this heart-crushingly untrue notion, was something she actually had to work past.

Her eyes safely closed, his nose burning, he bites down tears of his own.

He dips his head again, almost resting it against hers, and wants to murmur that he's sorry, because if she was weak that night, it was his fault. In more ways than one. Because that's what he does: he's Chuck Bass.

But this isn't about him, so he swallows his tears- a wet shifting of the throat that he knows she probably hears- and agrees, gravel-voiced, that no, no matter what, she didn't deserve it, no matter what.

xxvii.

The rain starts again when he's two blocks from her apartment, but it's not a true shower until he's four blocks from her apartment.

He's cutting across town, westward, toward Fifth. When he reaches it, he hesitates, then crosses it and steps onto the sidewalk, partly sheltered by the trees that line the Park.

And turns left, south, and starts the walk home that he meant to take that night.

He's soaked, freezing as the city settles further into night and he's pelted with rain head to toe, but he doesn't even think about calling Arthur.

After twenty blocks, almost against his will, he stops when he reaches the footpath opposite 76th Street, pauses under the same great tree that sheltered him while he called Kathryn and asked for a car, still smelling Cadence Alexander's perfume under his collar, gaze roaming idly, catching sight of the wandering form in the dusky lamplight. He looks at the footpath, at the lamplight, remembers her there, and then presses on.

I thought I deserved it, because of everything.

At some point he starts to cry, because he can hold her and tell her she's not weak, now, and he can soothe her to sleep, and make her laugh until she jolts and winces and holds her ribs, but what's happened is not her fault, it's his; his, entirely.

She thought she deserved it, because she was weak.

He swallows a furious sob. Maybe Serena was right.

His tears are hot and they sting his eyes. Or maybe he's sweating? Do tears sting? His loafers are definitely going to be ruined.

It takes him more than an hour to walk back to the Palace, and it rains off and on, but he's soaked to the bone and shaking when he arrives, hair getting too long, shaggy and wet, streaming rainwater into his ears, down his neck.

Kathryn has just come on shift, and she says his name, and as he walks by with a halfhearted, distracted greeting, stops him to apologize for the miscommunication last night, smiling uncertainly and saying something must have gotten lost in translation with the request, and did everything work out okay?

He blinks at her, confusedly.

"With Miss Van Der Woodsen," she supplies.

He raises his head slowly, the pieces clicking into place. "Ah," he says, "yes. Everything worked out fine with Miss Van Der Woodsen. Thank you."

In 1812, he glances around uneasily halfway through shucking his clothes, then carries on in frustration at his hesitance: it's his suite. He spins the dial on the shower and turns the hot water all the way up, steam billowing onto the mirror, and pours himself a double of whiskey that he'll later pour out, untouched.

xxviii.

He brings the pink carnations all the way back to Brooklyn, holding them carefully on his lap like they're a toddler he's obligated but unequipped to take care of. They're half-pulverized by the time he turns the corner to his building; he wandered around in the rain for a while before finding his way to the Brooklyn-bound 5 train. He cradles them against his chest as he unlocks the door to the loft.

Jenny is there, pouring tea into a mug like she does (playing the game of can-I-pour-the-water-without-the-tag-falling-in), one half of a toasted, peanut-buttered bagel in her mouth, and she glances up in surprise. "Hi!" she says, around the bagel, then bites it off and puts the rest down, placing the kettle back on the stove. "Why are you home so early? Did the rain- "

She breaks off, seeing her brother's ashen face, his gaze that's skittering and vacant all at once.

She chews the bite of bagel, eyes widening, and swallows it a little early in an effort to get rid of it. She comes around the kitchen counter. He's standing in front of the front door, having barely remembered to close it behind him.

"Dan?"

He looks at her, eyes welling.

"Oh," she says, hushed, eyes darting around for a solution, "okay, let me take these…"

He shakes his head, holding the stems tighter, both arms around them, like they're all he has left of her.

"Do you want to sit down?" she tries instead.

He nods a little, and lets her lead him, still in rain coat, soaked sneakers leaving prints on the loft floor, to the sofa, and press him down at the shoulders after an awkward moment of standing rooted. His eyes are beginning to leak, and she sits down beside him, socked feet wet from stepping in his tracks, and puts her arms unabashedly around him.

"I'm so sorry," she says, and squeezes him tight.

He squeezes the flowers, still glancing around in slight bewilderment, and lays his wet head on top of hers and she doesn't protest. Through the open door to her room, he can see the dressmaker's dummy where she's draped his shirt for the Gala, a treasure from her favorite thrift shop in Williamsburg, which she tailored for him last night, him standing on an old milk crate with the shirt inside out while she measured and marked, a pin cushion that looks like a tomato stuck in her mouth.

xxix.

He doesn't want to see anyone, but suddenly he's so uncomfortable in 1812, at the love seat in front of the window and the big sterile bed, at his walk-in closet and his tux for the Gala handing resplendent on the closet door's inside hook, freshly pressed- passing by on his way out of the shower, he stops and presses his nose against it, the mid-torso of the shirt, and is relieved when he smells nothing, a small comfort- and the wall of the short hallway to the door where he pounded his knuckles bloody the Sunday after the Park, that he agitatedly pulls on fresh trousers and a sweater and towel-dries his hair and goes down to Divine, hoping tiredly for a bit of luck.

It's inching toward one in the morning, and he's just drinking hot water with lemon when- and maybe that's why, maybe he summoned her, maybe that's their drink now- Lily appears at his side, in a long sweater wrap dress and a longer cardigan and glasses and slip-on loafers, and says, "Hello, stranger."

In spite of everything, his heart warms when he sees her smile. "Well, good evening." Then he checks his watch. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

She laughs. God, it's so easy with her. She makes it so warm and gentle, the way she's unflaggingly delighted with everyone and everything and glides through life, not breaking anything, not hurting anyone.

"Having trouble sleeping," she acknowledges, and gestures at the chair next to him. "May I?"

"Please," he says, pulling the chair out. "Do you want anything?"

She glances over at his cup. "What are you having?"

"Water and lemon."

"I'll follow your upstanding example," she murmurs, smiling, and gestures accordingly at the bartender. She turns to him. "Are you looking forward to tomorrow?"

"I think it'll be a phenomenal event," he says, carefully avoiding the actual question.

This satisfies her. "I agree." She nods. "A lot of work has gone into it. And for an excellent cause."

It occurs to Chuck that he has no idea what the benefit is for. Heart disease society, maybe? Or just the Met itself? (Honestly, who even keeps track anymore.)

"I hope Serena will be ready in time," Lily says with a sigh. "She's always late with these kinds of things. She likes to take her time getting ready. Well. We're all young once." Her cup arrives, and she squeezes the lemon into it. "She's not home yet; I think she's with the girls, maybe doing last-minute hair decisions. They seem to be…" she pauses, considers her words, "following her lead in Blair's absence. Temporary absence."

"Mmm," he murmurs noncommittally. Serena is barely speaking to 'the girls.' Or anyone, for that matter. But obviously Serena has painted a different picture, and so be it. That's not a door he wishes to open for Lily.

"Can I ask you a question?" Lily says, preoccupied and looking elsewhere.

"Of course," he says. Just not about Serena, please.

She presses her lips together and turns to him. "Do you think Serena's coping all right?"

He suppresses a sigh.

"Honestly?" he frowns, trying not to let his expression twist into anger. "She's been up and down. She's taking it pretty hard."

"I know," Lily hums, "and to some extent, that's Serena, and I've tried to let her work it out on her own and lean on me when she wants to, but I'm almost wondering… do you think she needs some help? Even a few sessions of therapy might be useful, help her develop some coping strategies? I mean- " her eyes crinkle, the gesture somehow self-deprecating- "you probably see more of her than I do."

He clears his throat. "I think that might be a good idea," he says, conscious of needing to choose his words carefully. "In her low moments, maybe it would be good to give her something to fall back on."

Without preamble, Lily says, "This morning she asked me if I was ever ashamed of her, because she said she feels lost, and like a terrible person. I tried to remind her that it's normal to feel this way, given- " she gestures tiredly- "everything, especially for those of us who love Blair, as she does. As I do. As you do," she acknowledges.

He nods.

"It's terrible for all of us right now, and I tried to remind her we all miss Blair and would do anything to make her happy or speed her recovery, but what's needed is time and good intentions. That's all we can do." She shrugs, taking a long sip. "But she didn't seem convinced."

It's on the tip of his tongue, he wants to spill it all, but if Lily knew about the cocaine use she'd lock Serena away, he knows it. Everything would explode. Maybe he can buy her some time to get her act together; maybe Lily is right and a few sessions with a good therapist would make the difference.

"She misses Blair," he offers, "it makes sense. I think she's taking it personally that Blair doesn't want to be in touch right now. Maybe…" he shifts, uncomfortably, remembering her at the Betsey Johnson afterparty, you don't fool me, and wanting to scream at her in the middle of that crowd to stop being so fucking selfish- and last night, when he did scream at her for being so fucking selfish, and finishes lamely, "maybe some perspective on that would help. I think she misses Blair so much that it's… distracting her from the bigger picture."

"I think you're exactly right," Lily says, cheeks hollowing as she takes a long sip, lips pursed at the rim. "So perhaps I'll speak with her about it after the Gala. An event always puts her in good spirits. She'll be more open to it, maybe."

He hopes to God she's right about the good spirits at the Gala. He saw Serena this morning, looking like she barely slept, a dark flash around the corner at school, pulling on a cap and walking in the opposite direction of class. He's never seen this Serena before- she's past Rock Bottom Serena, past Off-the-Rails Serena. Whatever Serena this is, she won't be able to convincingly conceal it for long. And a public, heavily photographed society event is really not the place for a meltdown (speaking of which, he reminds himself, he needs to check in on Nate in the morning).

Chuck murmurs that that's probably best.

They sit in companionable silence for a while, and then Lily turns to him, a secretive smile on her face. "Your father tells me you did very well at the board meeting the other night," she says, reaching over to touch his hand.

"I don't know about 'very well,'" he says, "but I'm confident I didn't embarrass him."

"Absolutely. I think he's very proud." She pauses, then looks at him again, as if for the first time. "You and Serena are both wonderful souls, Charles, and I hope you'll both try to believe that. Neither your father nor I was a perfect parent, but, nonetheless, the two of you are growing into beautiful young people- not perfect, of course, but showing a strength of character- and, I must say, I'm delighted to see you growing closer recently. I think you can relate to one another on a lot of levels."

As quickly as her words warm him, they also start to burn him from the inside out.

He struggles to find something adequate to say, something to stop her. "Thank you," he says.

"Nonsense," she replies, and lapses mercifully into silence.

He finishes his cup with as much speed as he reasonably can, and makes his excuses- that he needs to get his beauty rest- and she chimes that she does, too, and bids him goodnight as he gets to his feet.

Over her shoulder, he sees Serena coming around the corner into Divine, looking like absolute hell- soaked, stringy, pale, still in that stupid hat that he's pretty sure she bought as a joke when they were in ninth grade- and she sees them and freezes, then starts to back out, flipping up her coat collar.

Before Lily can turn around and see her daughter like that, Chuck leans down and kisses her cheek goodnight. Lily lets out a low burble of laughter, and points to the other one, then bids him bonne soiree.

He gives her a winning smile and leaves Divine, in time to see Serena step into an elevator and hook her arm around the door, holding it.

He gets in and she doesn't even look up.

"Hey," she murmurs to the floor.

"Hey yourself," he says, head tilted up to watch the bright circle-numbers skip all the way to 18. He doesn't look over even as the doors chime open. "Goodnight."

"'Night."

xxx.

Thursday, February 14

Evening

He badges into 1812, one hand fumbling with his shirt collar, undone bowtie dangling down his chest, stops just inside the front door to untie his shoes and leaving them in the entryway, garment bag with his street clothes still slung over his shoulder- heart thudding with Blair, standing in her foyer holding the peony, eyes following him into the elevator; with Bart this morning, eyes crinkling at Chuck's outside work hours reference and telling him he looks like his mother; and Nate snorting when Chuck suggests he consider not beating anyone else up in public- feeling light on his feet, somehow, light in his heart, the feeling categorically familiar from that month last winter, but new, and deeper, and achingly lovely, and he takes the garment bag off his shoulder and turns the corner to his closet and almost trips over Serena's legs.

He starts, looking down at her, reclined on his love seat, the one where she sat that night when she and Nate were here drinking whiskey sours. She's smoking one of his cigars, and she's obviously been here a while; the smoke is thick in the room. How did he not notice the smell?

"Hey," she says.

After a moment, he scoffs, disbelieving. "How did you get in here?"

She shrugs.

He high-steps, lifting his argyle-socked-feet over her outstretched bare legs one at a time when she doesn't bother moving, and continues to his closet. "Is everything okay?"

She blows a smoke ring behind his back. "I guess," she says.

He takes off his jacket and hangs it as soon as he gets in the closet, already vaguely aware that his fresh tux might be tainted with cigar smoke. He's going to kill her if he has to get it dry-cleaned last-minute. Can't she go be noir somewhere else?

"Did something happen?" he tries again, peeling his dangling bowtie off and hanging it on one of his bowtie-hooks. In his distraction, he nearly drapes it over the tux jacket's hanger like a heathen.

No answer.

He sighs and unbuttons another button, then turns to the garment bag, hanging on the inside hook of the closet door, and unzips it, opening the slit like the belly of a dressed-out pheasant.

"Serena?" he tries again, pulling forward today's shirt that the tailor organized into the garment bag and unearthing the sleeve to unfasten his cufflinks.

The door shifts, and she's standing behind him, close. No cigar.

He peers at her. "You okay?"

She nods, and reaches for the other cuff, unfastens the link and hands it to him.

"Thanks," he says, glancing at her sideways, and turns and puts the links in their box on the shelf to his left.

When he turns back, she's closer. "Chuck," she says, quietly, timidly, and he thinks she's about to confess something, some feeling, some misdeed, that she needs help- but she doesn't; instead, she leans up quickly, and kisses him.

He shrinks back, eyes open wide, almost a stumble. "Serena." He bites out her name like a curse.

She leans forward- is he in shock, or is she really fast?- and he moves further back.

"Chuck," she says again, almost a plea, and reaches for him, and gets both hands on the back of his neck before he wrenches away, his back against the wall next to the closet door, hands bracing on her shoulders, barely stopping himself shoving her.

"Stop it," he hisses, livid. "This is ridiculous." He looks closely at her in the half-light seeping in from his suite. Are you drunk?" he demands, but he already knows the answer. She isn't drunk, and she's not on drugs. He's seen her enough in both states to know.

"No," she says, with a hint of triumph. "Neither are you- should we change that?"

"Serena," he grinds through clenched teeth, turning his head away in case she tries again.

Her voice smooths to a low hum, the Van Der Woodsen hum. "Our parents will be married soon," she points out. "We both know step-sibling incest is on the Chuck Bass Bucket List."

He exhales angrily through his nose, a bull about to charge. "If you want to cheat on Dan, go find Nate, for fuck's sake."

A cloud crosses her face. She swallows. "Nate's too good," she murmurs, brokenly. "I need you. Be bad." Her voice drops even lower. "Be bad with me."

Now it is a plea. His stomach twists. She steps closer, and he digs his fingers into her shoulders, a warning.

"Besides," she blunders on, "Nate's biggest mistake of all time was fucking me. It was literally the worst thing he ever did. It's basically ruined his life. Fucking me probably wouldn't even be the worst thing you did this week."

Affronted bile churns in his stomach. Even though she's correct, directionally at least: for Nate Archibald, it was an unthinkable misdeed. But for Chuck Bass?

Nate doesn't know what it's like to do bad things.

It's an acquired taste.

She regards him for a long moment, his chest heaving with vigorous anger and hers almost still. She visibly prepares herself to speak, her tongue moistening her lips, bracing back like she thinks he's going to strike her. "You're not lonely?" she whispers, into the quiet.

It strikes him right where he's vulnerable, right where she must know he's vulnerable. Yes, he's lonely; he's alone inside his head. (So is she, of course.) He's weak for sexual intimacy, the sole currency of his connection with other people until extremely recently. His Old Faithful. She must know that, somehow.

He slackens his arms- he swears he doesn't mean to- and she leans in again, and kisses him full on the mouth.

To his eternal shame, in his eternal, inexcusable weakness, he lets her.

(He is, after all, Chuck Bass.)

He hasn't had anyone's mouth on his since- what- the night of the Park. Oddly, he realizes he doesn't remember how to kiss. His mouth won't move. She's eager, way too eager, and in a flash he knows why, sees himself as she sees him: a creature of bad decisions- sex, drugs, anything that involves taking pleasure and not caring about other people- irredeemable, just like he's always been, just like he'll always be. This is his best use, the one thing he can be relied upon for. That's the Chuck Bass she's kissing, and that's why.

She opens her mouth, trying to deepen the kiss, and his heart thuds slackly.

He thinks, again, of Blair, in front of her foyer table with the peony, and brushing his hair back, and his father being proud of him.

And all at once, he's angry.

It's only been a few moments, but it's sickening how slowly time seems to move as he grips her shoulders harder and pushes her back, indignation surging up: this newfound feeling, very new, that he's more than that, that he's valuable, that he does good things, that he can be… good.

He stands staring at her, fire in his eyes, and she sees at once that this is not going to happen.

She steps back willingly, but it's too late.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he whispers, because if he doesn't whisper then he'll scream. He's gripping her so hard that she squirms, and he realizes she's going to have bruises tomorrow if he doesn't stop. He releases her with a little shove.

"I…" she shakes her head, open-mouthed. She genuinely seems to not know.

"Seriously," he pounds on. "What exactly are you trying to achieve here?"

She closes her mouth.

"Do you want me to fuck you in my bed? Will that make you feel better? Will that make me feel better?" He inhales and smells cigar smoke, and his voice rises of its own volition. "How do you think Dan would feel? Or Nate?"

"Nate wouldn't care," she manages, feebly, eyes on the ground.

"Oh?" He steps forward, close to her face. She doesn't raise her eyes. "What about Blair? You think she'd be okay with this?"

She flinches.

"Christ, Serena. Wasn't Nate enough?" His voice cracks and she glances up.

There's a silence- seething for him, sinking for her- while they both acknowledge what he's just said.

"Yes," she whispers. "Yes, that- Nate was enough."

He tries to be done- he sees that she's crumbling, hears it in her voice- but he can't. "Stop playing the victim. You know it's Blair who was raped, right? Not you?"

Her face twists. "Of course I know that," she retorts.

"Do you?" he fires back. "Because you're acting like this all happened to you. I know, it sucks that she won't talk to you, but I mean- have you ever considered that that might be because this is how you act?" He gestures derisively at her, head to toe. "Everything is about you. Everything is always about Upset Serena, Sorry Serena, Sad Serena, Guilty Serena. Stop being so fucking selfish. This is about Blair. This is not about you."

He's almost perspiring, and then he's angry at her all over again, because his tux is going to smell like cigar smoke and sweat, covering over the memory of Blair Who Can Waltz.

She's trembling now. "I know that," she insists, shakily.

"Really?" He throws both arms in the air, a mocking shrug. "Then why are you here? All you're doing is making everything worse for everyone."

She takes a step back like he's landed an actual blow, palms coming to cradle her elbows.

He's never wanted to hurt a girl, ever. Not ever. (Sure, okay, some girls like to be choked, but that's different and very case-by-case.) But he wants to put both hands on her shoulders and shove her right now, knock her on the ground, for this, for doing nothing but making everything worse.

A jarring chill runs through him, and he realizes he's talking to himself too.

He needs her to leave.

He swallows. "Get out," he says simply.

"Chuck," she says, like the breath has been knocked out of her, taking a half-step toward him, "I'm sorry- "

"Get out," he repeats, lethal. "And don't ever come back in here like this again."

"Okay," she murmurs, palms up- surrender- and turns and all but stumbles out.

Surprising himself, he stalks her through the suite, as far as the love seats, like he doesn't trust her to leave if she isn't supervised.

He reaches up and hooks first one thumb, then the other, under his suspenders, taking them down, wanting to get out of the shirt as fast as possible.

She pauses in the entryway, puts her hand on the wall- freshly repainted after his bloody-knuckle incident that first weekend, with Nate hovering on the other side of the door, listening- five fingers splayed, like she's reaching to lace her fingers with someone, and steadies herself and turns and says his name.

"What?" He enunciates the "t" at the end.

Her face crumples for a second before she forces herself back to neutral. "Was there ever a time when I was … good?"

He forces his tongue between his teeth, biting it hard, forcing down his anger. "'Good'?" he echoes.

"Good," she repeats, like it's a foreign concept. "For… her. Or him." He knows she means Nate, not Dan. (The thought of Brooklyn doesn't even cross his mind.) She swallows. "Or you?"

She doesn't say, for Erik? For anyone?

But he knows that's what she's asking.

He breathes in, out, slowly, once. "Of course there's good," he says, with no warmth whatsoever, unable to give her the generosity that he realizes, even in his pulsing anger, she needs. He gestures at her, keeping the sneer off his mouth until the very last second. "But not like this."

She doesn't cry, or whimper. She nods, slowly, and turns and goes.

"Goodnight," she says softly, over her shoulder.

"'Night," he replies, not looking after her.

A/N: Woof. I'm sorry about that, guys. I promise it was more painful to write than it was to read. Please stay with me.

UP NEXT- THE GALA. It's time. xoxo