A/N: Thanks for the reviews. You guys are beyond awesome!
New Serena was dead.
Had been for awhile.
It didn't matter if the death blow came when Dan left, or on Christmas Eve, or last night in 1812.
She was done impersonating someone good, someone worthy. She let the remnants of the girl—the one she'd tried so hard to be—wither and fade. And she didn't mourn the loss.
Serena wasn't sure why she'd come here. She'd fled The Palace without a thought in her head, except for a distant longing to just be gone.
The problem was that she had nowhere to go.
So she sat in Central Park, wearing a dress that would still be inappropriate after sunset, let alone while children were still at school. And it wasn't just short, it was freezing.
She rubbed her hands together, breathing on them periodically. It didn't matter that thousands of people walked past here every day, because it would always be Blair's bench, Blair's pond, Blair's ducks.
She couldn't face her best friend.
Not now and maybe not ever.
It didn't matter that Blair had broken up with Chuck; it didn't even matter that she had her sights set on Nathaniel. Her best friend's self-esteem was fragile (not as fragile as Serena thought, but not nearly as strong as Blair believed).
Her and Chuck hadn't exactly been discreet. If Gossip Girl hadn't leaked the story yet, she would soon.
It would eat at Blair to know that her ex had fallen into bed with Serena.
Because Serena took things. Eleanor, Nate, and now Chuck.
Which was odd, considering the way Serena had no one to turn to.
Nate wouldn't understand. As hard as Nate fought his family, ran from everything they stood for, he worshipped them—would do anything for them. Nate was good. How could he understand the way Serena had so thoughtlessly risked hurting everyone she loved most?
And she was pretty sure she'd jump in the pond, foregoing oxygen, if she thought Chuck was heading this way.
She'd almost believed they'd find something together again. They'd had so much fun together. It had just come so easy, felt so right. And she'd wanted it so bad. To feel that perfect ease they had always shared.
But now Chuck hated her. She didn't know how he'd found out. Maybe he'd guessed, maybe Blair told him, maybe he just knew—the way that he so often seemed to.
She knew she'd do anything, anything to make sure she never had to see Chuck look at her the way he had today.
She sat on Blair's bench, and no matter how desperately she needed her best friend, she didn't expect to see her. Blair wouldn't just happen upon her and Blair wouldn't gather her into small but capable arms. Her life didn't work like that.
There would be no do-over, no dues ex machina.
(An ounce of blow and a boy in a body bag had taught her that.)
Only once had she fallen this deep. So deep that she couldn't see the light, so deep that there was no one left to help her, so deep that she didn't deserve help.
But that time she'd clawed her way out.
She could be at the train station in seven minutes. She could lose her phone on the way. And staring out a window on the way to anywhere else she'd find something worth saving. She'd rebuild herself. A better her this time. One that would be straight and tall and stable.
But seven minutes passed and she still hadn't moved, because the last time she'd made her way out into the light Eric was the one to pay the price.
So she watched the ducks and waited for the friend who wasn't coming.
XOXOXO
Bart pulled out the cigars he could never light in Lily's presence. He lit it, inhaling deeply. He couldn't decide whether the way it covered the smell of Serena's perfume was a good thing or not. His office always reminded him more of Serena than his wife. Most of the house did.
Lily would be home tonight, just as she'd been home every night this week. He didn't know what had changed her mind. He didn't believe in coincidence. He didn't believe in luck. A few months ago he'd be suspicious, he'd have called his private investigators, and his mind would be constantly running over the scandalous possibilities. But his marriage had been teetering on the edge for too long.
It was exhausting.
He loved Lily. Loved her in a way he hadn't thought he was capable of since Misty. He'd known that she had secrets; he'd known her penchant for serial divorces; known how deep she buried any feelings and vulnerability. But he'd still believed they could work, believed that he could crack her perfect veneer.
He'd been wrong.
But it didn't matter. He'd made a promise to her. He'd made a promise to himself, for his son as much as himself.
So he'd try. Try and try again till he made them a family.
He watched as Serena walked past his doorway. He was still watching the door when she walked past it again, this time wearing only the merest hint of fuchsia material.
He should have stopped her, but the front door slammed before he could work up the nerve. He hadn't left things on the best of terms. Serena would be in one of her mercilessly reckless moods, full of purring laughter and natural manipulations that should be beyond her years. It always left his head spinning.
The expression in her eyes when he'd told her about the adoption...Bart wasn't a man who felt torn often, but he'd wished, just for a moment, that he had kept quiet on the matter.
"You're eighteen, so it's more of a symbolic gesture, but I mean it. As I meant the vowels I swore to your mother; I meant the promises I made about this family too."
"Really?" she asked scathingly. "That wasn't really the vibe I was getting."
He nodded, understanding her words perfectly. "Lily is...Lily: perfectly flawed and almost as flighty as her daughter. I was disillusioned with a wife who was not nearly as charmed by me as I'd come to believe, and a marriage that was falling apart before it had a chance to even start. And then there was you." He reached out to touch her cheek with a reverence that surprised even him. "Beautiful, and wild, and so far from anything I'd ever known. And for a while I fooled myself into believing it was okay. Lily was never here, you seemed to settle down a little, and nobody seemed to be getting hurt."
A few tears prickled, but she held her eyes open as wide as she could so not one could fall. His hand rested against her cheek. It made his heart ache when she leaned into it. So giving, so trusting—even after everything he'd done.
He continued in the same cool but slightly reminiscent tone. "But for whatever reason, your mother came back to me, and I had to distance myself from you. And I could see how wrong I was. About everything. I could see how very close to the edge you were. You were lost and instead of trying to be a father I was just another push towards the edge." He pulled her into his arms. "So I'm going to try again: with Brown and distance."
She slowly relaxed against him. It didn't feel platonic and probably never would. "You can just be done with me?" she whispered.
His lips twitched into a tiny smile, the way they always did when she was around. "Not even close. But I can try and turn us into something else, something that won't end up hurting us all."
Her brilliant eyes flashed, chin raised in defiance. "You can't make me go anywhere or do anything," she announced, sounding like the eighteen-year-old she was.
He put on his familiar face of harsh disapproval, but didn't move away. Couldn't move, never even wanted to. "Serena." Her name escaped his lips in a sigh and he knew it was a million miles away from fatherly. "That, my dear, is the only thing I'm certain of."
The tears began leaking from her eyes. He gathered her lightly trembling body into his arms, running a hand through her hair. He soaked up her scent, the feel of her, realising that this may be his last chance.
He looked up in surprise when he heard the front door open. He froze when he realised who it was. Chuck's gaze met his with a venom that a father should never have to see in his son's eyes.
There was no doubt in his mind that Chuck knew about him and Serena. He felt a grudging pride for his far too crafty son.
Serena curled into his chest and he was freed from the intensity of his son's hatred.
Bart stood from his desk with reluctance. When Serena had left she'd seemed to have calmed down, but obviously something had happened to send her on one of her 'outings'.
Whether by father's intuition or his own shrewd nature, he was certain of who Serena had gone to see earlier.
After knocking forcefully, he pulled out the cardkey to his son's suite. It was something he'd never done before, both out of respect for his son's privacy and a reluctance to find out exactly what went on here.
He paused when he saw the bathroom door was shut. A slither of smoke eased through the crack in the door.
Without further contemplation he threw the door open. Chuck was laid out on the small tiled space where the spa edge and wall met. His legs hung off the edge towards the bathroom door. One arm rested on his stomach, the other splayed down the side of the tub, a joint dangling from his fingers.
Bart waved a hand in front of his face to clear the smoke. He grabbed the poorly rolled cigarette from Chuck's grasp, putting it out in the sink.
With lazy movements Chuck sat up. Misty's sloe eyes regarded him with a malicious amusement that his ex-wife would never have been capable of. "You could have just asked. I have enough to go around."
The comment irked him in the exact manner it had been intended. "Enough of this, Charles. I didn't fire you so you'd have more time to break federal laws."
"Of course you didn't," Chuck sniped, standing. "You got rid of me so that you'd have more time to fiddle with your step-daughter."
Bart felt his forehead throb. No one could get a rise out of him as fast as Chuck. But his words hadn't exactly been uncalled for. He knew what he and Serena would look like to an outsider. He wanted to protest, to tell Chuck that he was human and made mistakes, that he'd fired him so that this family would have a chance at survival. But as usual when it came to Chuck, words failed him, as if the gap between the two men was just too wide to breach. And the chasm widened every time he faltered as a father, which only made it harder for him to find the right words the next time.
He didn't believe there were any words that could fix them.
His body tensed in defensive anger. "You watch your mouth. I know you've said something to Serena, and I want you to make your decision by the end of the week. I'll have some college brochures sent up."
He could see the way Chuck bit back a taught reply, dark eyes the only thing communicating his barely controlled temper. He was more certain than ever that he had to get Chuck far away. Always before his son had clung to a cool exterior in front of him, but something had happened.
Serena.
He'd watched the security tape over and over again. At first he could barely see past his own jealousy and displeasure, but eventually he'd seen how captivated they both seemed.
It could only end in disaster.
He didn't know how he'd married the only woman with a child as jaded and self-destructive as his own son.
To Chuck, women were games. Entertaining, pleasurable games. He wasn't quite certain why Serena captured men the way she did, but knew it was probably just as unhealthy. He didn't know who would damage who more and he never wanted to find out.
"And stay away from Serena until then," he said like it was an afterthought.
Chuck's words came through clenched teeth. "You really can't make me do anything."
Too alike by half.
He didn't know how his relationship with Chuck had come to this. It was a million mistakes and a million missed opportunities.
He really was exhausted.
"You'll do it, Charles. Lap dances don't pay for themselves." He hadn't been able to look at his son when he said the words; that was his only excuse for not seeing the fist that flew at his face.