Thanks again to the WONDERFUL people who reviewed. THOSE OF YOU NOT REVIEWING: *ominious music sounds*

Thank you for the ideas, I'm so glad that this story is tiding so many of you guys over 'til January (it's tiding me over, too :D) THE decision has been made: I am looking forward to writing about Blair's new admirer soon! (Don't worry, though, we all know Queen B. belongs with Chuck.)

AN: I'm so sorry these chapters are so short, inspiration tends to find me in the worst of times (ie EXAM WEEK) !!! So, to avoid my laptop being torn away from me as a result of my failed exams, I must acutally study....

Disclaimer: Blair and Chuck = not mine. My crappy geography exam mark = totally mine.

Blair Waldorf wished nothing but the worst on the twisted hand of fate that had made her fall in love with Chuck Bass. She was here, in this crappy B&B on the edge of Staten Island, begging and crying for him to come back with her, but he wasn't moving.

She was leaving. She told herself that as she put on her coat, as she made up her mind to make Chuck sorry for the day he'd ever rejected her.

Time, she was told, healed all wounds. She prayed to god that it was true.

She'd thought she was in love with Nate only to turn around to find that Chuck was the one who made her heart race, and she'd tried to damn hard to love Marcus, but in the end it was Chuck, always Chuck, with his arrogant attitude and his hidden vulnerability, that made her weak.

Blair had never done anything harder than to turn away from Chuck—her Chuck, who was suffering and in pain—and walk away. There was nothing she wanted more than to turn around, sit down, and wrap her arms around him again, tell herself that he wasn't going to leave her again. She wanted so bad to delude herself into thinking that Chuck would stay by her side the way she'd stand by his, but she'd sacrificed too much pride and too much of her heart in this cruel, never-ending game already.

She felt a hand on her shoulder pull hard, and she spun around involuntarily. She saw one flash of Chuck's desperate gaze and felt his lips on hers, urgent, heartbreakingly sweet, and irresistible.

So right, so natural…this was where she belonged. Desperation to stay here, coupled with the fire burning through her veins, made her twine her arms tightly around his neck, pulling herself ever closer to him…

But alarm bells rang in the back of her head. Did he think that if he slept with her, she'd forget all about his cold "too bad" after she'd told him she loved him? Did he think that he could take advantage of her willingness to do anything for him…and still walk away without loving her? Her body recklessly luxuriated in the feel of his lips against hers; but her mind, albeit hazily, discerned that this was not right.

Two days ago, she would have done anything for him, when she had told him I love you…she would have done anything with no questions asked. But now, with her heart halfway between shattered and whole, Bart dead, and Chuck still unable to express any kind of human emotion outside of hatred, lust and grief, she couldn't do this anymore.

It took everything she had to pull her lips away from his. Everything hung in that infinitesimal moment, her heart, her love…but he stared into her eyes for a single moment, and then he dropped the hands that had clasped around her waist.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. She could not resist giving him a kiss on the cheek, but then she left. Could he hear the shattering of her heart?

Time, Blair thought murderously, had better heal all wounds.