Just a little disclaimer, I don't own Gossip Girl.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed or altered this story. I was unsure of how people would respond to this fic so it was nice knowing people understood the method behind my madness.
This is a little different. Hope you enjoy.
She was already trashed when he got there. One of the waiters had snapped a picture of Blair Waldorf falling off her chair at the Palace Hotel bar and sent it to Gossip Girl. Apparently everyone enjoyed seeing the UES at its worst.
He had emptied the bar to ensure Gossip Girl wouldn't get any more pictures of Blair losing the control she had worked so hard to gain.
His father would be angry but Chuck didn't care. He couldn't let anyone see her like this.
He couldn't risk things going back to the way they were.
He walked briskly to her side. She was looking like she may fall again. He caught her just in time.
"Nate, is that you?"
She lifted her hooded eyes towards Chuck.
She looked unguarded. He had seen her like this often. Though he was sure no one else had.
Not her storybook boyfriend or her free spirited best friend. Their lives seemed too perfect to taint with the struggle of being Blair Waldorf.
"It's all falling apart. All of it."
She threw her arms around Chuck and he could feel her tears on his shirt.
He held her loosely and cursed Nate.
He should have been there picking up the pieces of his girlfriend. Not him.
But somehow he knew it would never be Nate.
He tightened his grip on her slightly, his fingers at the small of her back.
He imagined how soft the skin underneath would be. How smooth and warm it would feel against his fingertips.
For a moment he felt on fire.
He quickly loosened his grip. He couldn't acknowledge thoughts like those about his best friend's girlfriend.
"I feel like I'm falling apart. Hold me together. Please…"
She managed to pull him closer to herself. Chuck felt like the glue that did hold her together. Invisible to the world but always there.
"He's leaving her. He can't stay in this city any longer. He can't pretend anymore."
Her voice is a whisper on his neck and it gives him goose bumps.
She always did when she was like this.
"If he never loved her…what if he never loved me?"
She was always doubtful. Thinking herself undeserving.
"Blair…" his voice was low and he was unsure what she meant.
"My dad. He's moving to France with his lover. The model who had an affair with my mother actually had an affair with my father. Gossip girl got the story wrong for once."
She laughed softly to herself.
"My head is spinning. My life is spinning."
She let go of Chuck and kicked off her heals and began to spin like a child in front of him.
He stood there for watching Blair Waldorf break down and he had no idea how to fix it.
It took everything in him to not be shaken to the core watching her.
She stopped and swayed a little in her place. Her eyes met Chuck's and he knew she'd never remember this in the morning.
She was telling her secrets to an empty room. Chuck was insignificant in that moment.
She'd feel lighter in the morning and never know that someone else was now carrying the things she didn't even dare say in the dark.
"And Serena left. She didn't even call me. She just packed her bags and left. Her mother says she's gone and she won't tell me where."
She crumbled to the floor in tears. She sobbed and he didn't know what to do.
He couldn't hold her. He couldn't help her like she needed to.
He could only keep her secrets.
"Everyone who ever cared about me is leaving. What's wrong with me? I'm trying so hard and I just keep failing."
She became quiet for a moment. He felt chilled to his bones. He felt he was going deaf from the silence but her breaking it hurt just as bad.
"It's such a struggle…"
It was moments like those that scared him. Moments like those that Chuck knew things would never change between them. He'd always keep her secrets because it's the only way she knew how to survive.
so take me and break me and make me strong like you.
i'll be forever grateful to this and you.
He walked to her slowly and helped her to her feet. He was practically carrying her as they walked to the staff elevators.
The look on Chuck's face told anyone who saw them that if he saw even a hint of a camera they would lose more than just their jobs.
Once on the elevator he pulled out his phone and texted Nate to meet him at his room as soon as possible.
Nate arrived half an hour later. He looked disheveled and a bag in his hands.
"What?" He asked in a rushed tone.
"What do you mean, 'what'? Have you seen Gossip Girl?" Chuck said calmly.
He had a new shirt on, one without Blair's tears dried on the front. His hands placed loosely in his pockets.
Appearance was important to Chuck. He could never let anyone know just how much he had come to care for her.
How her happiness had come to be so intimately linked with his own over the years.
"Yeah, I saw Gossip Girl. Someone posted pics of Serena at JFK. I'm going after her."
Nate lifted the bag indicating his plans to run away from the UES as well.
Chuck shook his head.
"It isn't going to happen."
"What do you mean?" He looked bewildered.
"Think about it Nate. You're going to chase after Serena and what is going to happen?"
Nate's blue eyes clouded slightly. He never really thought things out.
Chuck was the practical one.
"Chuck man, you don't know. You don't understand. The wedding. We slept together at the wedding."
"I know. I saw you two."
Nate smiled a little. A twinkle of hope that his friend would see his point of view.
"Then you understand. I have to go after her. It meant something…it had to have."
Chuck steadied himself. He had learned long ago the best way to win an argument was to remain in control. And Nate was spiraling just as fast as Blair was.
"She's your girlfriend's best friend Nate. Even Serena wouldn't sink that low."
He could tell Nate wanted to punch him. The flash of anger across his eyes and his fingers formed loose fists at his sides.
"It doesn't matter," Nate replied.
"It does. She's running away because of you and you're going to chase her? It's not worth it."
He brought a hand to Nate's shoulder.
"I found Blair at the bar. She was a mess."
Nate looked torn at the moment and Chuck knew it was the time to remind him of what Blair meant to him.
What he meant to Blair.
"Think about it Nate. Her parents are getting a divorce. Her best friend just left without a word to her. Gossip Girl is having a field day. If you leave, she's going to have nothing left."
Chuck didn't need to say anything more. Nate was putting the pieces together before his eyes. Serena would never be with Nate. She could never choose him over Blair.
And it wasn't so much that he settled for Blair but that he his life would never be as perfect without her.
"Chuck…I…don't tell Blair. It was a momentary lapse in rational thinking."
Chuck nodded. Serena was irrational to a fault. If only Nate realized how irrational Blair was.
He still only saw her in her constrained world and she'd never tell Nate how her world was spinning.
"You're secret is safe me Nate."
He handed him his room key.
"Now I am off to a party I am very late for."
Chuck walked away and heard the door to his room open and close.
The only place he was going was to the empty bar downstairs.
His shoulders felt too heavy to support anyone else tonight.
i'm here for you to use, broken and bruised.
do you understand?
it's only you, beautiful.
or i don't want anyone.
if i can choose, it's only you
I'll let you all try and figure out what the importance of Blair and Chuck's conversatoin (or lack there of) was. Honestly it is mostly because I'm still trying to piece it together myself…but it just felt right
Thank you once again to everyone who reviewed and author/story alerted the fic. Knowing people understand the madness makes writing it easier.
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