It was a life changing kiss. A life changing kiss with Dan Humphrey, seven words that did not belong together, yet were undeniably true. A kiss that confirmed what she had always known: that she belonged with Chuck Bass. And she was planning on telling him! On finally putting them out of their misery, but he had to go and ruin it. To try to destroy Dan's career, someone who had become, gross, her friend. How could she still love someone so awful? How could she keep seeing potential in someone who had done far more things wrong than right? Who insisted on showing his love by hurting her? It was okay for him to do whatever he wanted, but God forbid she so much as kiss another man. And so now she had locked herself in her room, hiding from anyone and everyone, because that seemed to be the only logical choice. If Chuck came, would she be able to resist? To keep fighting the inevitable?

Her phone buzzed. Humphrey. Checking in on her. How very sweet. How very unacceptable. For the man she didn't even like, the one she treated mostly with disdain, to still care. And yet there was this awful part of her that wanted to call him. To watch an Ingmar Bergman film on speaker and dissect every line of dialogue. She had gotten used to him. To debating things she could never discuss with Chuck. With Chuck it was sabotage and sex, never culture. Sex better than drugs (not that she would know on the drug front, obviously). The kiss with Humphrey, it was so… vanilla. Sweet. Innocent. Not entirely unpleasant, she might admit under the most arduous form of duress. Nice even. But Blair Waldorf did not want nice. She had tried that, with Nate. Although conversation with Nate was less scintillating than even with Serena's waffle-making stepfather. Another Humphrey, but one far less interesting than his son. His son, who had texted. Who was waiting for a reply. Who she had no passion with, right?

Maybe she should forgive Chuck, stop fighting it. Who cares about Humphrey anyways? And she had done worse. As had he! It wasn't like that time with the hotel, or with Jenny, or…

"Blair! I know you're in there." Serena. The last person she wanted to deal with. Or maybe not the last, considering the amount of people she was currently avoiding. But talking to her best friend right after she found out that she had kissed her ex-boyfriend was a conversation she'd prefer to avoid.

"I'm sleeping!" Blair winced as soon as she said it. Idiot. "Can we talk tomorrow?"

"B. Open the door." Blair huffed her way out of her bed, one heel still on her foot, making this whole walking thing incredibly difficult. Once she yanked the door open, she collapsed on the floor, exhausted by the sheer effort.

"I'm humiliated. Okay? I know I messed up but can we save the anger for later. Please S?" Serena sank next to her best friend and took her hand in hers, shocking Blair. Wasn't Serena supposed to be furious? That was how these things went, didn't they? 'How dare you steal my boyfriend' and all that.

"You said goodbye to Chuck, B." Right. She had done that, hadn't she? But they both knew she didn't mean it. No one needed a singing Mrs. Potts to confirm this was a tale as old as time. She would take Chuck back. And he would ruin it, and she would cry, and they would circle around each other until she finally admitted defeat.

"I did. For tonight." They sat in silence, two twenty-year-old women who were still girls, forever tortured by the same boys in different combinations. Although tonight, the air was heavy with something deeper than even the eternal question of 'Who should we date?'

"My mom might go to jail for trying to protect me from someone who dumped me the first chance he got." Blair shuddered, still disturbed by the supposedly innocent teacher who had liked her friend when she was fifteen and then had her other friend's dad beat up just because. "Waiting to hear about her sentencing has been torture. I keep playing out the options. How long will she go away for? Will she resent me after? She's the only parent who ever wanted me." Blair squeezed her friend's hand. Lily Humphrey would be fine, she was certain of it. There was no way she would end up behind bars, not if the Rhodes' or the Basses or the Waldorf's of the world had anything to say about it. "I keep coming back to that, though. Her trying to protect me. Even if she did it in the wrong way, at least someone was trying to protect me." This was where Serena paused, taking a deep inhale. "You're my best friend, B."

"And you're mine."

"Best friends protect each other. And you have. Tripp, Colin, Ben… you always warn me, and you're still there when it goes to shit."

Blair patted Serena's hand. "You would do the same for me."

"But I haven't." It was in that moment that Blair noticed the tears pooling in Serena's eyes. Why hadn't she noticed them sooner?

"S? What's wrong?" Serena swallowed, trying not to choke on the tears that were suddenly filling her throat, making it impossible to speak.

"Do you remember what happened the night of the Kiss on the Lips party?" Blair's face turned to ice. They didn't speak of that night. It was in the past. And the Non-Judging Breakfast Club didn't focus on the past – that was one of their rules.

"I know that Chuck apologized. And I know Little J forgave him."

"I never told you what happened the night before. Chuck—" Blair dropped Serena's hand. No. She couldn't have. if Serena had slept with Chuck, she would never recover. Everything else, she could have. Nate and Yale and Columbia and the paparazzi and even the entire New York social scene, but Chuck was hers.

"Stop talking."

"When Jenny texted Dan, I knew it was serious. Because Chuck, he… He tried to do the same thing to me." The look on Blair's face was too agonizing for Serena to stomach. She kept her gaze focused on the floor, certain that was the only way to get through this. "I've never even flirted with Chuck, B. You know that. And when you started seeing him, I tried to tell you. At Thanksgiving. But then you started to like him, and… I thought it didn't matter, as long as he was good to you. And maybe it was my fault. These things, they keep happening to me, and that can't be a coincidence, right?"

Blair shot up like she'd been scalded, refusing to look at her friend. "Who else knows about this?" She could hear how small her voice sounded, how frightened.

"No one, I swear. B, I'm so sorry—"

"Stop." Blair finally met her friend's eye, the fury in her gaze almost too much for Serena to bear. "Don't you dare apologize." She walked to her closet, pulled out a coat for herself, and threw one at Serena. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To see your Mom."


Lily Humphrey was getting ready for bed after what had most likely been her last night out for quite some time. The thought of an orange jumpsuit continued to haunt her, not just because it was most certainly not her color. Her children still needed her – all five of them. She trusted Rufus to take care of them, of course she did, but she knew how to speak to Serena and Jenny in ways that he didn't. How to hug her darling Eric close to her chest in just the precise way that had soothed him since he was a baby. And then there was Rufus himself, who most certainly still needed her. They had only gotten to enjoy two years together after a lifetime apart, and barely over a year of marriage. Of hearing the only name she had ever longed for paired with hers. How would he fare with her arrest? How would she fare without his body next to hers in bed? With a roommate who was sure to have a great deal of disdain for the wealthy woman she was now forced to bunk with. She was in the process of removing her make-up when she noticed Blair Waldorf's reflection in the mirror, dragging a reluctant Serena behind her.

"Blair? Serena? What on earth are you doing here at this hour?" It was then that she took in her daughter's tear-stained face, the way Serena seemed to be struggling to breathe. "My darling, what's wrong?" She pulled her daughter into her arms, something it had taken her far too long to get good at. Something she would never get tired of doing.

It was Blair who spoke the words, her face red with rage. She didn't even give Lily time to ease into the idea, the boy she had taken in as her son hurting her daughter in the most unforgivable of ways. "Chuck tried to rape her."

Serena jumped to his defense. "Years ago. And I got away. It was fine, Mom. I swear."

Blair continued, the math she had been doing since she got in the cab adding up too furiously not to share. "Jack Bass tried to rape you. Chuck knew that, he even stopped him. And then he tried to sell me to him. One night of sex with me in exchange for The Empire." Distraught could not begin to describe the look on Lily's face as she smoothed down her daughter's blonde locks. "I told Jenny to keep it quiet, what happened at The Kiss on the Lips party. I know she says it wasn't a big deal, that she's fine. But she was just following my instructions. And that night between them this summer…"

"She was upset. Rufus had threatened to send her to Hudson. She was…"

"Vulnerable." Lily met Blair's gaze, a look of understanding so powerful passing between the two of them even Serena could feel it as she sobbed into her mother's shoulder. "What Jack tried to do to you – is there a day that goes by that you don't think about it?" Lily shook her head without hesitating, and Serena let out what could only be described as a wail. "I thought it was my fault. That I couldn't forgive him for the hotel. That I couldn't forget how horrible it felt, how terrifying. He did that to Serena, Lily. And he let her carry the burden for years like the coward he is." And it really was that simple. Men could hurt them and be forgiven, but when they hurt Serena, someone they loved more than they loved themselves, it was suddenly entirely different. When Rufus entered the room, Lily didn't flinch.

"Call Jenny."


Nobody slept. Rufus picked Jenny up from Hudson that night, drove through every red light. Blair didn't speak when she saw her, she simply took Jenny into her arms, whispering a silent apology into her peroxide hair. The DA's office called to deliver Lily's sentencing that morning – nine months of house arrest, and she was at least grateful she would be home to guide her daughters through this. There was no need for Blair to formally lift Jenny's banishment, they all knew it was over. There were new rules now, new rules in a sisterhood they only just realized they had been sharing for years.

Rufus made waffles for the women they couldn't eat, their mouths far too busy talking, sharing feelings they had kept locked up for so long it felt incredible to finally let it all out, even if their hearts were shattering at the same time. Blair would always love Chuck, as would Lily. The roots went too deep, were impossible to tear out. But there was a difference between loving someone and enabling them, and that's what they had been doing. At one point it was Jenny's head that was snuggled in Lily's lap, tears staining her stepmother's nightgown. Lily kept mumbling apologies: for not protecting her more after she shared the details of her assault, for not telling Rufus about it sooner, for believing that a teenager could move on from something so traumatic so quickly when even she still bore the scars at forty-one. Scars she only let Rufus see, scars he would tend to when she woke up screaming in the middle of the night, forever haunted by mere minutes she had spent locked in a bathroom, Jack Bass' hand yanking back her hair as his other hand bunched up her dress.

Eleanor came to pick Blair up, trying to remain calm as her daughter confessed that her ex-boyfriend had tried to sell her for a hotel. She had worked against her better instincts to care for Chuck Bass, the man her daughter had chosen to love, but there are some things a mother cannot forgive. She spoke to Lily in hushed whispers while the girls continued to trauma bond, trying to figure out what there was to be done about the Chuck Bass of it all. Chuck had already announced plans to visit now that her sentencing was official, and Lily intended to keep their appointment. There was no need to put the girls through an intervention – they had been through enough – and Eleanor worried Blair lacked the strength to actually part ways with the boy. He had been her Achilles' heel for far too long. And so it was arranged that Eleanor and Rufus would take the girls to lunch while Lily met with her adopted son, a meeting that would be agonizing for both. Rufus didn't want to leave her, but they both knew he wouldn't be able to stomach the sight of Chuck, not yet. She had always been better at compartmentalizing – she'd never had a choice. If there was ever a time to be grateful she was Cece Rhodes' daughter, this was it.


When the elevator doors chimed, her heart sank. She didn't want to do this, but she had no other choice. To allow him to continue his life without consequences meant that more women would be hurt, and the four of them couldn't bear that. He smiled as he said her name, relieved she wouldn't have to spend any time in a jail cell, but his smile vanished when he saw the look on her face.

"Lily. What's wrong?"

"Serena told me about what happened. When we were living at The Palace. I believe you arranged for the kitchen to make her a grilled cheese sandwich, and then..."

His expression was a combination of furious and that of a scared little boy. The latter broke her heart, and she worried the former would always terrify her. "That was a long time ago."

"It's not just what happened that upsets me, Charles. It's that you never told me."

"She's your daughter."

"And I took you in as my son. I made her live with you, made her sleep under the same roof with someone who would try to force her to do that. You must have known how she felt, and yet you never said a word."

"She never brought it up, I assumed she was—"

"Over it? Well, I assure you, you don't get over something like that. And Jenny, Charles. To lose her virginity to her attacker? How did you think that was something she could have possibly wanted?"

"You said nothing could make you stop loving me."

"Oh I still love you, Charles. We all do. That's not in question. But you've lied to me, to all of us. Your father, he threatened me often. I'm worried if you don't confront this… This need you have to hurt the people you love, it doesn't go away."

"I've been growing. I got Bass Industries back from that imbecile. You could never have pulled that off without me."

"There's a facility. I already contacted them."

"I'm not Serena or Eric. You can't just ship me away."

"Yes she can." It was when he heard Blair's voice that it was all over. She was the linchpin, and they all knew it. There was no way to get Charles Bartholomew Bass to do anything without the help of Blair Waldorf. "You need help, Chuck. If you ever loved me, you'll do this."

"Blair, I'm s—"

"If you're really sorry, you'll go. The only way to earn our forgiveness is to do this, to let me go. Want more for me, Chuck. Hard as it may be for you to believe, this is me wanting more for you." She kept her distance, even though she still wanted nothing more than to run into his arms. He wasn't the only one who was sick, who needed time and space to heal. And this was her first step in committing to that path.

He turned to Lily and nodded so briefly she wondered whether she'd imagined it. But then there were the tears in his eyes, the tears that signified the beginning of a true repentance. She hugged him before he left, Clarissa waiting to take him to a car that had been told its destination hours ago. It was that final whisper from the only mother he had ever known that he would hold onto over the following months: "I am so proud of you."

That was the day Chuck Bass left New York, and once he was gone… the city turned into a whole new playground.