Didn't say this in Chapter 1, but if you recognize the dialogue, it's because I didn't write it, the GG writers did. I am sadly not one of them, nor one of the producers, not CvZ, nor anyone else with any kind of ownership stake. I also forgot to ask for reviews, but that doesn't mean I don't want them!

Blair spent the next half-hour mingling, avoiding Serena completely, and hoped she'd impressed upon various professors her responsibility and grace. But now it was time to begin phase two. She went to the side of the room Serena had been working, and of course the giraffe came over to rub it in.

"You look pretty calm for someone who longer has the perfect answer to the dean's question."

Blair imagined she was talking to someone from Queens to get the right look of disdain on her face. "You really don't know me if you think I came here without a Plan B. And C. Professor Lewis has been working on a book on Moliere for the past two years, Professor Jamison over there is teaching a new course on women in classic myths and current superhero movies, and the head of the sociology department is a devoted Fry & Laurie fan."

"As anal-retentively researched as that was," Serena replied, rolling her eyes, "none of your second or third choices are going to be nearly as good as your first - or should I say, my first choice."

She moved forward, forcing Blair to step to the side as she turned to see the head of the drama department offering his hand to the blonde. She heard her erstwhile friend begin speaking of how impressed she had been during the campus tour and of her (day-old) interest in production and directing as though she'd been planning a film career all her life. Blair was halfway tempted to interrupt with a comment on the adult film industry being glad to have Serena, but that would hardly advance her cause.

She shook off her momentary lapse in concentration as a Constitutional scholar her dad spoke of very highly approached. A few moments of conversation, where she managed to work in not only her father's pro bono work with the ACLU but her own judicial experience - not mentioning it was as a judge of freshman fashion faux pas - and the dean announced the beginning of Probiteur.

It was time to strike, she thought, moving back to Serena's side, and for once in her life, everything seemed to be going her way. She'd always known Yale was the right place for her.

"Oh, how sweet," Serena whispered as the second person to speak chose Moliere as who he'd most like to have dinner with. "Hope you put down your choice C after all. Wouldn't want to be repetitive."

"Normally, no," Blair murmured back. "But say the first person to use my choice didn't actually know anything about her. It could be an opportunity to make that first person look like an empty-headed it girl who coasts by on her looks. Speaking of, did you have time to learn anything about George Sand aside from what's on Wikipedia?"

She saw Serena's usual ease vanish. "I learned enough."

Time to twist the knife a little, along with the truth, and hope Serena's research really hadn't been that deep - after all, the quiz answers were only expected to be a minute or two long, so Serena hadn't needed the kind of extensive knowledge Blair had put together. "So you're planning to discuss Flaubert's criticism of her? Or Baudelaire's admiration? Maybe you'll just talk about her fashion sense. I'm sure that's all the dean really expects of you anyway."

Serena smiled around her, making sure those faculty members near them didn't think anything of their quiet conversation, then grabbed Blair's arm and brought them both back a few steps into the other room.

"The dean expects enough of me to want me here, unlike you."

Those nails rather hurt. She shook Serena off. "Maybe I did have to work for my invitation, but at least I'll succeed on my own merits and not because I got a purse named after me and my picture on Page Six."

"God, why do you have to be such a bitch all the time?"

"I'd rather be a bitch than an airhead. Of course, some of us can be successful at both."

"And some of us can't be successful at anything, no matter how underhanded we are in pursuit of it."

"As Sand said, 'There's only one success in life, to be loved and to love.' And I am going to take that success and shove it down your throat in about 5 more minutes, because I love this school and I will make them love me. And you'll be the girl who commented on cross-dressing."

"We'll see about that. Thanks for the quote though, I'm sure it will liven up my speech." Serena flounced back to the spot on the edge of the room they'd vacated, Blair following to hear a Ms. Pauley talk about...Emma Frost? Who the hell was that? Never mind. There was one more tiny push that her best friend not-so-forever needed to go over the cliff. Blair paused, giving it one last consideration, knowing that she'd already done some damage and questioning whether she really could go all the way with it.

But a sneer from Serena decided it for her. This was her future and her dream, and the one thing Serena couldn't take no matter what Blair had to do to keep it. S' destruction was her own doing. And as the dean was calling on a badly-dressed girl, a somebody-or-other named Steinberg, whom Blair had found out would be the last to speak before Serena, it was time.

Again, a sotto voice comment. "The quote is yours to use as you see fit. Of course, it will be pretty hard to work in, seeing as how your person never said anything of the sort."

A widening of blue eyes and Blair knew she was listening, even if that was the only reaction. "Toying with you has been fun, but it's time to confess. You were right. I do think it's better to have an original answer. And I certainly couldn't leave you with my best one, now could I?"

With everyone else's attention across the room where Ms. Steinberg stood next to the dean, Blair and Serena stared at each other, Blair maintaining a small but triumphant smile even though the next few minutes could still blow up in her face.

But Serena had never been confident in her intelligence. She wasn't dumb, but even as a child it was all about how adorable she was and what a sunny disposition she had, and once she hit puberty, earlier than all the other girls except Georgina, the world at large was barely aware there was a mind behind that face and body. It was her weak spot, and Blair knew how to exploit it. And from the look of horror on the Jolly Blonde Giant's face, she was all too ready to believe Blair's next words. "You probably should have waited to tell me your plan until we were away from the table. At least then changing your answer might have been a tiny bit difficult. But you have always been ridiculously easy."

"Blair, what did you do?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean in, I'd say, sixty seconds from now, when the dean calls your name, who is it that you're going to have to defend as the person you'd most like to have dinner with?"

"Blair..."

"Well, let's see. It could have been Lauren Conrad, actually, that was a pretty good idea. Or I could have picked someone you don't know at all - so, practically anyone out of history or literature."

"Blair, stop it, this isn't funny."

And at that, Blair dropped her voice even lower to hiss at her. "No, it really isn't. But you wanted to come here, a school you've never given a second thought to, just to take it from me. So it may not be funny, but it's fair." She could hear the end of a speech on Artemis approaching, and was certain it was just Serena and herself left, which meant it was time. "So who did I pick Serena? What answer would hurt you the most? The one that just makes you look vapid, or the one that makes you look completely moronic? Or maybe I used the most hurtful possibility I could think of to treat you the way you've treated me."

And as the dean thanked the student ending her speech, Blair thrust the knife home with a sunny smile.

"So how would you like to have dinner with Pete Fairman, Serena? Does that sound funny?"

Much like Serena, I don't know anything about George Sand. So please pretend Blair's comments include information that can't be found on Wikipedia. And if you do know something about Sand (or you go read the Wikipedia page) then I apologize that the next chapter has been spoiled for you. Also, a chapter-title inspiring quote that I like for Blair, with apologies to Walter Scott for the first two lines, and I don't know who for the last two:

Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive
But when we've practiced quite a while
How vastly we improve our style