Title: "All You Ever Wanted"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Blair, Blair/OMC, Blair/Chuck, various others
Spoiler: "Carnal Knowledge"
Length: Part IV of V
Summary: Blair can't be the girl her father wants but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
IV. Take a step before runnin'. Take a breath before you dive…
Sam says "I love you" the week they return to school.
Her chest constricts as the words slip from his mouth, because he's Sam so they have to be true, and of all the boys she's loved in her life none of them have ever said the words to her first.
She wants to say the words back, she wants to say anything more than "that's too bad" but they get lodged in her throat as she gasps around them and it's suddenly too hard to breathe.
All she can do is ask why.
He smiles at her sheepishly and brushes her hair back from her face. "Because you're Blair and I'm Sam and it's what we do."
The words hit too close to home, remind her too much of the tears she cried the day they buried Bart (and had nothing to do with the man lying six feet under) and it's too warm and too stuffy and she really can't breathe.
She expects him to walk away but he surprises her (again) and clasps her hand in his. "Can I show you something?"
She nods, because she still can't speak, and silently follows him from her dorm room to his studio space across campus. She's never been there before. She remembers Serena, and Aaron, and the heartbreak and embarrassment that went down there, and she supports Sam's art but refuses to participate. She isn't ready for this to end.
He shows her a painting and it's abstract in the way he likes but a blind person would recognize her long, dark hair and the curve of her cheek and the sadness in her brown eyes.
"It's me," she whispers. "When did you do this?"
"It was my final project." He comes up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist, and she falls back against his chest, his heart beating slow and steady against her back. "The day we met, you had the saddest eyes I'd ever seen. I swore I'd change that." He ducks his head, nuzzles her temple and presses a kiss over each closed eyelid. "I don't know if I did, but I won't stop trying."
She turns in his arms and kisses him. "I love you," she whispers against his mouth and it doesn't burn but a feeling settles low in her stomach, warm and comforting. This boy will never leave her, not like the others.
He pulls back to look in her eyes. "I called it The Girl Who Has Everything."
She sinks into his arms and kisses him again because it's true.
---
They have their first major fight over Valentine's Day because she expects dinner and flowers and he won't even buy her a box of chocolate.
It's stupid and she knows it but she's Blair Waldorf and some things are holy. The year she turned sixteen Nate filled her bedroom with flowers and Chuck bought her a sapphire ring when he couldn't tell her he loved her but wouldn't let her love anyone else.
She expects something and gets nothing.
"It's a stupid, made-up holiday." Sam glares at her and crosses his arms over his chest. "I refuse to spend my money on shallow commercialism." It's his parents' money and she doesn't fail to point out the distinction. "Same difference," he continues. "I will not celebrate that holiday."
She throws her napkin at him and storms out of the café. She'd hate him if she didn't really love him.
She spends Valentine's Day with Caitlin and Jess and they gorge on chocolate (she pretends to – life is too good for a relapse) and watch bad chick flicks and she opens up about Nate and the decade she gave him to break her heart.
"Boys suck," Caitlin throws out for good measure while Jess goes on a rant about her high school boyfriend John and Caitlin digs into her senior year crush Dave and Blair brings up Marcus to add some real scandal to the mix.
She doesn't talk about Chuck. It's over but she's never quite sure she's over him.
---
They make up on February 16th. Sam doesn't bring her flowers or chocolate but he apologizes profusely and writes her a poem (it's bad and his ears are red the entire time he reads it to her) and she cuts him off with a kiss during the second stanza.
He touches her like she might break if he presses too hard and whispers "I love you" (once, twice, so many times she loses count) and she can't help but say the words back.
It's easy to love someone who can love her so easily
---
Serena visits the first week in March and it's been a long time coming.
Blair stopped by Providence during the fall semester and has been begging Serena to trek out to New Haven; it's taken her nearly four months to make the visit. Blair knows why and it makes her sad that her friend not only dated Dan Humphrey (five times) but is still mourning him.
She doesn't have much of a relationship with Dan. They run into each other at the library or on the quad, and Emily knows him from childhood so he occasionally joins them for dinner or a night out, but they mostly avoid each other. She doesn't miss his company; she still hates him for hurting her friend. The weekend Serena visits, Emily comes through for her and convinces him to ride the bus back to New York with her to visit Jenny and Rufus. Blair sometimes wears jeans but she's still an Upper East Side girl at heart and when Emily returns on Sunday night there's a Chanel clutch to greet her.
Serena comes right to her dorm room and knocks, hard, and spills into Blair's arms in a flurry of blond hair and hobo bags handing from a slender forearm. The girls laugh and scream and Caitlin rolls her eyes and makes herself scarce. She only knows Blair, not B, and she isn't prepared but she doesn't judge. She loves her friend just as she is.
They don't tour the town or the campus (been there once, don't want to remember it) but they do attend a party at Jordan's apartment and Blair finally gets to introduce Sam to the second most important person in her life.
He and Serena hit it off immediately and a feeling she thought long buried lodges in her stomach.
It gnaws at her, at the party (as they talk the night away) and the next morning (when they pour over Serena's Christmas vacation photos of a Botswana safari and Victoria Falls). She hangs in the background, hands clasped demurely in the folds of her skirt, and listens to the easy rapport between her best friend and her boyfriend.
She sees Thanksgiving again, Serena and Nate's shared laughter in her own house; she remembers the night she finally gave herself to Nate and he told her he already gave himself to Serena. The feeling evolves into a full-fledged ache and her chest constricts around her lungs as her heart slams into her ribs so hard she wonders how it doesn't push through her chest. It's happening, again, and she's letting it.
She tells herself it's not true. Sam is different; Sam is special; Sam is hers. Turns out that she's right; for the first time, a boy chooses the brunette over the blonde.
"Hey baby, come here," he says and she looks up from her place on her own dorm bed. Forty-five minutes and he finally notices she's alive.
He and Serena are huddled around her laptop and she leans over his shoulder and rests her chin as she takes in the photo. It's a sunrise over the savanna, painting the landscape in shades of brilliant orange and vibrant red and burnished gold. It takes her breath away.
"Wow," she whispers and turns to her friend, notes the shy smile on her face. "Serena, where did you learn to photograph like this?"
Serena shrugs, zooms in a little closer. "It sounds cheesy, but it just comes to me. It's easy when nothing else in my life is." It's Blair's turn to rub her friend's shoulder. She and Serena still talk nearly every day and she knows how hard it's been for Lily to date Dan's father while her daughter suffers in silence.
"You're amazing at this," Blair says and means it and the smile returns to Serena's face.
Sam has dinner plans for a friend's birthday so she and Serena order in Thai while Caitlin and Jess truck it out at the dining hall.
"So…." Blair has to ask. "What do you think?"
"I've had better Pad see ew," Serena says and Blair swats her shoulder.
"You know what I mean. What do you think of Sam?"
Serena pauses, twirls a noodle around her chopstick, and that feeling sinks back into Blair's stomach. "I like him a lot but I'm surprised. He's not what I expected."
"What do you mean?" Blair asks and fights to keep the anger out of her voice. Things have never been perfect in her relationship with Serena but she wants this to be. Sam has to be.
"I'm sorry," Serena sighs. "I'm not explaining this very well, but I kind of feel like you're dating Dan."
"Ewww!"
Serena laughs and the feeling in her gut is replaced with disgust. Blair thinks she might have to vomit. "On the surface, he's a lot like Dan."
"They both have dark hair," Blair protests. "They're nothing alike."
"I know," Serena says and her voice gets quiet and sad and Blair almost regrets bringing this up. Almost, but not enough to let it go. "The difference is, he might sound like Dan and like the same things as Dan and even look a little like him but he's not him. He looks at you like you're the most perfect thing he's ever seen. He doesn't expect you to be anyone but who you are." Serena isn't one to talk about her feelings but there's pain in her voice and tears in her eyes and Blair pushes away the take-out to wrap her arms around her friend.
"I love you that way," Blair says and it's true. High school was competition, a fight for the throne, but neither of them wants to wear the crown any more. B and S are dead but there's room for Blair and Serena in their wake.
They sleep together in the same bed and hold each other all night long.
---
One night in late March Sam pulls her close and tells her it's the anniversary of his brother's death.
"We lost him two years ago." He pauses and his chest trembles beneath her cheek. "My parents haven't gotten over it. Sometimes, I think we all died when he did."
She doesn't know what to say. Her only real experience with death was losing Bart Bass and most of what she remembers is the way her heart constricted when she said those three words to Chuck and he wouldn't say them back.
She goes with what she understands because no one close to her has died but she still knows what it's like for the bottom to drop out of her world.
"It's not the same, but my dad left my mom for another man when I was fifteen. I thought my life was over. Nothing has been the same since."
It's been four years since Roman stole the most important person in her life and she's surprised by the way her voice shakes. Sam hears, because he hears everything, even the words she doesn't say out loud, and his arms wrap tighter around her. "It's not the same but that doesn't mean it hurts any less."
Her father left her for another man and Nate left her for another life and Chuck never wanted her enough to bother trying to keep her. She falls asleep with head pillowed by Sam's chest, his heart beating slow and steady and constant beneath her ear. He's not going anywhere.
---
It's mid-April when Sam meets Dan Humphrey for the first time.
They're reading on the quad when he walks by with Emily and stops at the corner of their blanket.
She grits her teeth a the sight of him, but forces a smile because high school is further away with each passing day and she doesn't want Sam to know that part of her life.
She grits her teeth harder when Sam and Dan instantly hit it off. Sam has read his story in The New Yorker and Dan has seen Sam's art and if she wasn't so secure in her relationship she'd have been worried about being dumped.
When finals approach two weeks later, the boys are still hanging out but she feels a new kind of loss.
---
Summer comes and she studies art at the Sorbonne. Weekends are spent with her father and Roman (and Cat) at the villa and her free time is occupied by texts and emails and calls from Sam.
It's hard transitioning from seeing him every day and falling sleep with his arms wrapped tight around her middle, but there are playlists to fill her time and old logo-tees to guard her dreams and they make it work.
Aaron lands Sam an internship with Jacob Collins (a classicist in technique but an amazing opportunity so he takes the job and doesn't complain) and he rents a room from NYU and takes the six uptown to her neck of the woods every morning. They laugh, that he's finally a part of her world and she isn't there to guide him through it.
She flies him over the second week of July against his protests, because he hates to lose an argument but his girlfriend is Blair Waldorf and he can't win them all, and the French half of her family also falls in love. It's not as simple when she flies out to Boston the first week in August and his family greets her warily. They don't like New York (a Yankees/Redsox thing, Sam says) and they freeze up entirely when she mentions the art gallery her best friend's stepfather owns in Brooklyn, but two days in she's turned on the Blair Waldorf charm and has them eating from the palm of her hand. His mother drives her to the airport herself and makes her promise to come back for a weekend in the fall.
The plane ride to Paris is long and tiring and she pinches herself because she's Blair Waldorf and everything is actually right in her world.
~ * ~
Sophomore year goes by in a blur.
She rooms with Caitlin, Jess and Emily. They share a suite with their own bath and she takes one look at the place and calls Dorota. Within hours the bathroom is spotless (and Zusanna is on retainer) and her clothes are organized by color and designer and everything is off to the right start.
She takes a political science class to fulfill a requirement, and she's surprised by how much she likes it. Governments rise and governments fall and she can't turn away from how it all happens.
Sam moves off-campus and she spends half her time with him and half her time with her friends. She remembers when she was with Nate, a "we" rather than an "I," and refuses to be that girl again.
She's been at Yale a year and a half and her life isn't what she planned but she knows it's exactly how it should be. Two years ago she wouldn't recognize the girl she is today but it doesn't matter. She likes the girl she's become.
---
She isn't ready for May.
Sam is graduating and leaving her behind. She's not okay with either.
He tells her that Sunset Park is only two hours away and shows her an article in The Village Voice about Industry City and asks her to help decorate his loft (read: cot and plywood wall). He kisses her more and talks less and she cuts class three times in one month just to lie in bed and watch him sleep.
"I don't know what I'm going to do without you," she says and she knows it sounds needy and desperate but he's Sam and she's always told him the truth. "It's not fair that you're going to go and I have to stay."
He wraps his arms around her and pulls her flush against his bare chest. "You're going to be fine, Blair."
"I hated college at first," she confesses. "No one liked me and I didn't have any friends. I didn't belong here."
He rolls her so she's flat on her back and props himself on his elbows to cradle her face between his hands. "You don't need me to have friends and a life. You had those things before me and you'll have them after me."
She knows he's right. Caitlin let her in before she even met him, and Jess and Emily opened their lives to her weeks before art history started. "I want you too," she whispers. "Every time someone says "I love you" to me he leaves. Please don't leave me too."
"Graduating doesn't mean leaving," he says. "It means moving forward." She felt the same way, when she boarded a plane in France to land in New Haven and jump start the rest of her life. She knows what he means; she just wants to more forward with him.
He kisses her and for the first time she doesn't taste forever on his tongue.
---
She stays in New York for the summer (closer to Sam, easier on her heart) and Cyrus insists she needs something to do and finds her a place at his law firm. Her stepfather signs their paychecks but she's still low woman on the totem pole and the work is dull and the hours are long and she's surprised by how much she likes it. Patty Hewes had to start somewhere and she likes to think they're walking in the same shoes. She loves her art but law is something else; she can't draw a stick figure but she could argue with people for the rest of her life.
Sam still works for Jacob and spends most nights at her house (less time on the train, more time with her) and it's an easy routine. The days slip by and August creeps closer but she puts it out of sight and out of mind and holds him tighter.
Aaron comes through and convinces Rufus to stage a show of Sam's work the last week in September. She still doesn't trust him but she's learning to like him. He makes her mother laugh and takes care of his father and has been a good friend to her boyfriend. He's been a good brother to her. Her family has always been three and then a splintered four but she's happy to expand her New York branch to include him.
---
Junior year starts without Sam. It's hard and she misses him so much she aches but she takes his words to heart – she keeps on going.
She's still rooming with Caitlin (off-campus, with Zusanna and Handsome in tow) and takes a train into Grand Central for the show. Her dress is new and her smile is wide and only gets wider each time Sam introduces her as his girlfriend.
She makes small talk with Jenny and endures a bear hug from Eric and helps Serena avoid Dan because Sam is his friend but Serena is too and they can support him from opposite corners. Dan looks sad when ever he gazes Serena's way but she remains strong. Blair would know; it's not easy to forgive betrayal.
Aaron has a rising reputation and her mother called in a few favors and there are press at the show and they're itching to make Sam a star. Rufus has gone all out and champagne circulates on trays and appetizers keep the booze from flowing too heavily and it's only been barely a year but Blair can feel Lily's influence.
A flash of purple catches her eye and Blair feels Lily's influence in more ways than one. His hair is shorter and he's a bit taller and broader but there's no mistaking that he's Chuck Bass.
He sees her but doesn't come over and she's grateful. Sam has met the people who matter most in her life but she's not ready for him to meet the one who almost ripped it apart. He mostly stares at her with an unreadable expression in his dark eyes; it's the tight grip on a tumbler of scotch that gives him away.
Sam is talking to a reporter and Serena is busy with her brother but Rufus is free and she pastes on her brightest smile and asks him to show her around. After so many years of Blair Waldorf schemes and games he doesn't bother to look surprised that she's talking to him, just tucks her hand into his elbow and gives her a tour of Sam's work.
It's nothing new. He's only twenty-two and been on his own for four months and nearly every painting hanging on Rufus' walls are abstract portraits and landscapes she's seen before.
"How have they been selling?" she asks, just to make conversation, and Rufus grins.
"They've been flying off the walls. Remind me to thank your brother. His find brought great business for the gallery." She smiles, happy for Aaron, happy Rufus has gotten over him stealing Dan's girl. "Is there something in particular that you're looking for?" Rufus asks. They've toured the gallery twice and she can't find the only painting she needs to see.
"There is, actually. It's an old painting, The Girl Who Has Everything. Have you seen it?"
Rufus frowns and suddenly finds the floor fascinating. He's Lily's fourth husband but the love of her life; there's nothing about her family he doesn't know. "I sold it an hour ago."
"Who bought it?" she asks and her voice is higher than usual because she already knows the answer.
Rufus just smiles sadly. "He was so desperate that he paid cash. If you want that painting back you'll have to ask Chuck Bass."
She doesn't act ladylike and she doesn't say goodbye, doesn't bother to check where Serena is or what Eric's doing, just storms over to that flash of purple in the corner of the gallery.
"I want that painting," she snarls.
"Hello to you too, lover." The words aren't lost on her; the destruction that followed is always fresh in her memory. It's a hot summer night and she's wearing yellow. He tried to take something from her once before; she won't let it happen again.
"Don't talk to me like that."
He looks at her over the rim of his scotch and takes a sip before responding. "You kissed me the day after New Year's Eve. I'm only keeping things consistent."
She shudders but remains strong, focuses on what she can do and ignores what she can't change. "I want that painting," she repeats. "You have no reason for buying it."
"If you didn't want to part with it he shouldn't have put it up for sale."
He has a point but she's beyond caring. "What are you even doing here? He might be Lily's husband but you hate Rufus Humphrey."
"I've developed an interest in art. I've heard you have too." He leaves it unsaid that someone else was the one to fill in the blanks. She feels guilty. Before they were lovers and almost ruined each other, they were friends. She worked it out with Nate; she misses having him at her back.
He's won the battle but the war still rages. "I'll buy the painting from you. Name your price and I'll meet it."
"It's not for sale."
That feeling lodges in her stomach, panic and nerves and a fluttering she hasn't felt since the night she turned seventeen. "Why is a student project so important to you?"
They're all alone in the corner. There's no scotch to sip or willing blonde at his side. She has his back against the wall and there's nothing left between them but the truth. "It's a painting of you," he says softly and looks at something over her shoulder, at the opposite wall, anywhere but her face. "The look in your eyes…" he trails off. "Don't think I don't know how it got there."
"Chuck," she starts but he shushes her, reaches up to brush his fingers down her cheek.
"You don't look that way anymore but I wanted a reminder." The pad of his thumb hesitates over her bottom lip and it trembles under his touch. "I'm sorry, Blair. I'm sorry for everything."
Her heart constricts in her chest and it has nothing to do with the tight fit of her dress. She can see his eyes, even in the dim light, and she knows the yearning there matches her own.
She pulls back and it's not the warmth of the room that makes her feel as if she's been burned. "Keep the painting," she manages to say and disappears into the crowd.
She makes it half way across the room before she looks back.
---
Sam's show is a success and she wears her best La Perla matching set just for him.
He's spent enough time with her to appreciate the intricately crafted merger of silk and lace and the next morning they're almost late to a brunch Lily insists on throwing for him at the penthouse.
Chuck is there and he's sober, hair neatly combed and tie perfectly knotted, and he watches her with hooded, dark eyes over a cup of coffee. She knows he'd prefer scotch but it's Lily's house and even though she's a good WASP there are impressions to be made; drinking before noon isn't one of them. He shakes Sam's hand and tells him that he bought a painting.
"Yeah, which one?" Sam asks, all curious innocence and excitement because the only lie between them is that he's finally meeting the one boy to truly break her heart.
"The Girl Who Has Everything," he answers smoothly and her hand tightens around Sam's as Chuck's eyes never leave her face.
"I wasn't sure about putting that one on the market. It has special meaning, but that's also why I wanted to share it with the rest of the world. Why did you choose it?"
Chuck's mouth curves into the most beautiful of smiles. "It reminds me of someone I used to know."
It's impossible to miss the meaning in his words and there's a furrow gathering between Sam's brows but Lily plays the role of hostess to perfection and steps in to announce brunch.
Sam sits on her right and Eric sits on her left and he catches her up on the Upper East Side as Serena and Dan monopolize her boyfriend's time while ignoring each other.
Chuck sits across from her and won't stop looking at her. He says nothing but his silence does the talking for him.
---
They're barely inside her apartment before he starts questioning her about Chuck.
"Who is he to you, Blair?" he asks and his back is tense and his shoulders are tightly bunched and he's speaking in a voice she's never heard before. They've fought in the past but never like this. For the first time in over a year she thinks it might be the end.
Her legs feel weak because the past is finally catching up with her and she barely collapses on the chaise as her knees give out. "He's someone I dated in high school." It's not a lie but it's also barely the truth. Sam knows her too well to ignore it.
"Did you love him?"
It takes her a long moment to respond, so long the question practically answers itself, and Sam does sit but not beside her. He chooses the coffee table, so close his knees almost bump hers but far enough that she can't feel his warmth. He looks at her and there's pain in his blue eyes and she hates herself for letting Chuck Bass come between her and another person she loves. "Yes," she finally says. "It was a long time ago. We broke up before I even started college."
"That doesn't mean you stopped loving him."
"I love you," she insists and she isn't lying. She loves his laugh and the way his dark hair falls over his forehead no matter how many times she brushes it back. She loves his passion for art and the dark blue of his eyes and the way his jeans hang from his hips. She loves his terrible taste in music and tv and she loves the way he stands up for anyone unable to stand up for themselves. Mostly, she loves the way he loves her. She leans forward to cup his face in her hands. "Whatever happened between us ended the moment I met you." She bends her head and kisses him, feels him relax under her touch and watches him become the Sam she loves.
"It's over, right?" he asks against her mouth and she only kisses him harder.
"I'm with you," she says as he unbuttons her dress in the middle of her mother's living room.
It's not a lie but it's not the truth either.
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