A/N: This is so late! I'm so sorry! Please forgive.

And review. =P

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

…

Ch.5—Through the Looking Glass

December 2, 2007

She kept her eyes glued to the menu she knew by heart as he not so subtly stared at her from across the small round table covered in lace.

Sunday brunch.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about this. She and Chuck always had breakfast together on the weekends. Since brunch was more frequent on Sundays for anyone in their small group, they had shifted the morning meal to later in the day. Just because she had allowed him to frequent her presence in a more…personal way since her birthday party did not mean they should stop their little tradition.

In fact, it would probably be better if they didn't.

People might get suspicious.

Not that there was anybody particularly interested in her and Chuck's association. Even Serena's piqued interest seemed to have downsized in the last week. She knew it was mostly due to her restraint on her emotions in front of her best friend.

Because if she had been forward and completely honest with her best friend, every time she thought of Chuck in her private moments, she felt like she was on cloud nine, floating, and laughing at all the lesser being that were unable to achieve that level of giddiness.

She felt the toe of his shoe gliding up the underside of her calf, but did not look up. Her eyes froze on the meal in the menu she'd been staring at. She couldn't even tell what it was anymore because her eyes were boring into the tan color behind the black words. Her vision was starting to blur and a shiver ripped up her spine. When the waiter arrived, she daintily uncrossed and crossed her legs on the other side of the table.

"The usual," she told the waiter, smiling politely as she handed him her menu.

She ignored Chuck's muffled chuckle. It was almost worse than the heated stare he'd been branding on her forehead while she'd been pretending to make a decision on what to eat, but she wouldn't dare let him know it was bothering her.

Chuck finished his order and the waiter left, leaving them alone. Chuck was smiling like a Cheshire cat when she looked up at him. For a moment she tried to ignore it, but then she caved.

"What?" she asked, annoyed. But the tone wasn't as dangerous as it normally sounded and Chuck took great pleasure in that.

She was warming up to him.

"Nothing. You just amuse me is all."

Her eyebrows narrowed.

"Excuse me?"

"You pretend you're going to order something new every Sunday, and every Saturday if we're counting all the morning meals we eat together, and yet you still get the same thing every time."

She scoffed. "We don't go to the same place every time," she said condescendingly.

"True," he consented, "but when we do, you still always get the same thing. It's like…you're programmed or something. You have to stick to a certain schedule or you'll start to feel on edge."

He was daring her indirectly and it made her blood start to boil. She knew he was doing it on purpose too. As they'd both discovered, she was far more…fierce in her physical affection when he had pushed her too hard beforehand.

"That's not true."

"It is."

"It's not."

"It is. And I'll bet you anything it has to do with your mother."

She was so outraged she could have stood to her feet and stomped out of the restaurant. Instead she clenched her hands into fists and forced herself to regain her emotional footing. She would not let him win at this.

"I'll order something else right now if it'll make you feel better," she said confidently, though deep inside she wondered if somehow her mother would find out and lecture her later, force her to eat less at dinner, if that was even possible. Maybe she wouldn't be around. Also a possibility.

His lips quirked at the corner.

"You'd let me decide what you should do?" he asked curiously.

The face and tone were innocent. The eyes were not. She could read every sexual innuendo in those eyes. She could also see him undressing her every time she looked into them. What disturbed her even more was the fact that when she blocked out any sort of judgment her moral compass gave, she liked those looks he gave her.

She liked them a lot.

"And since when do you care about my feelings?" he taunted.

She cleared her throat.

"I don't," she said flippantly, her eyes lifting to his.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asked huskily, his foot starting to inch up the underside of her leg again. She uncrossed her legs and dug her high heel into the toe of his shoe.

He stifled a groan and winced.

She took a sip of her water and then looked up at him, bitch smile in place and angelic eyes gazing sweetly at him.

"Habit," she said by way of apology.

He was still recovering when she swung her leg back over her knee and accidentally-on-purpose kicked him in the shin.

"Oops," she said. "My bad."

He stifled another groan. This one was more difficult to overcome. His hand went down to his throbbing leg.

"So, what did you do last night?" she asked politely, ignoring the glare he was shooting her and secretly smiling when he didn't answer right away.

She attempted to keep the heated thoughts from her mind as long as possible. Torturing him like this fueled her arousal, but they weren't animals. At least she wasn't. She didn't think so. Though his influence was clearly lessening the more humane side of her and awakening the she-cat he never ceased to tell her had always been suppressed inside her begging to be released.

Still, she could keep them at the table until at least the food came. Whether they finished eating every morsel on their plates was another matter entirely.

"You know." He smirked, speaking smoothly like he hadn't just suffered two physical blows to his leg and foot.

"Ah yes, of course I do," she said knowingly. What else did he do? Women, drugs…

"You," he interrupted her thoughts.

Oh.

She blinked, surprised. She knew they'd had sex the night before, but this thing between them was so new and Chuck Bass was certainly not one to commit. She was surprised he hadn't gone out to Victrola to get some ass or called some trashy girls in. It had been early evening when she'd last seen him.

Chuck didn't explain himself, hadn't bothered to ever since he told her he had butterflies. She gathered he was embarrassed, though obviously not embarrassed enough to stop pursuing her. And his eyes were subtly heated in dangerous jealousy whenever he saw her dancing with her Cotillion date during the ballroom dance practices. It was volatile.

But deep down she liked that too.

She sipped her water and cleared her throat.

"I have something for you," he said suddenly.

This piqued her interest, but it also confused her to no end.

"You already got me the most expensive thing on my birthday list. I think that's enough for now…" she trailed off, losing her breath as he presented a long velvet box before her. Gently, she opened it and then sat staring at the breathtaking diamond bracelet. She gasped.

"Chuck…"

He smiled at her from the other side of the table. The look of joy and surprise on her face more than satisfied just as he'd known it would. The feeling in his stomach intensified. The fluttering that he told himself when he wasn't with her was horrible and should be gotten rid of, he fully embraced now.

"Do you like it?" he asked softly.

She looked up at him, her eyes answering his question wordlessly.

"Are you kidding? It's gorgeous."

He continued to smile, though this time smugly for knowing her so well.

"Chuck, I can't take this. It's too much." She closed the velvet box and held it out to him.

He frowned, eyebrows furrowed, and refused to take the box.

"It's less than the necklace," he said, disappointed. "And besides, you love it. I saw your face just now. You were glowing."

Reluctantly, she looked up at him. His eyebrows were raised at her pathetic response

"Tell me I'm wrong and I'll take it back."

"You're wrong," she said. He opened his mouth to speak. "I was not glowing."

He shut his mouth and smirked.

"Just take the box," she huffed, setting the box down beside his plate since he wouldn't take it from her hand.

"Fine," he said, taking the box and slipping it back inside his jacket. "I'll just give it to you for Christmas."

Her eyes flitted up to his, a million questions racing through her head and no time to ask them, nor did she want to.

"What? That's a more fitting occasion, isn't it? You can't possibly deny me then, because it's a giving holiday. And besides, I'd feel insulted."

Her gaze lowered to where he'd slipped in the box.

She could feel his smug smirk back on her face, daring her to look at him and cave to his demand. The worst part was she knew she was going to do it.

"Want it?" he taunted, pulling the box back out of his jacket.

She rolled her eyes and sighed but held out her wrist to him.

He smirked, but then his face grew serious as he delicately lifted the bracelet from the box and draped it around her wrist, locking the clasp into place. Then he brought her hand to her face and kissed her knuckles.

Shivers ripped through her.

The waiter arrived and she quickly pulled her hand away. Chuck's hurt expression vanished the instant her eyes told him that they needed to be discreet. It had camouflaged itself the moment she pulled her hand away but his eyes gave away his true emotions.

She didn't know why she cared so much.

He was Chuck Bass. He could take care of himself.

And it wasn't like they were really together. They'd never be like that.

"Thank-you," she murmured after the waiter had left. Chuck nodded once just before they dug into their salads.

Blair raised her hand daintily to get the waiter's attention, and requested more water. She felt Chuck's eyes on her again, glanced at him and briefly glared. As she finished her request to the waiter though, she smiled, and his butterflies fluttered again.

….

Across the street in a newly purchased limo, having resumed his previous stalker tendencies, twenty-year-old Chuck Bass watched the sixteen-year-old version of himself and the seventeen-year-old version of Blair Waldorf eating brunch in the front restaurant window. He smiled softly as Blair opened the velvet box displaying the beautiful diamond bracelet he'd spent hours picking out. She wouldn't realize till later that it not only accompanied the Erickson Beamon necklace perfectly amongst several other pieces of her jewelry, but also the cashmere and silk ensemble her father would give her for Christmas in three weeks and two days. Right after she got his text threatening to tell dearest Nate about their dirty little secret.

He shook himself and wondered if Serena – his Serena – would be coming along any time soon. He had told her she didn't have to come, that he was going to go through with it whether she accompanied him or not; and while that might have been true or not, he'd feel a little braver if she was there by his side. He could even go for some annoying worrying and complaining on her part. It would actually him smile if he saw her roll her eyes.

But she wasn't there. Or, if she was, she certainly hadn't contacted him. In all fairness, he'd had to get a new phone and a new number. He'd tried to keep the number the same, but he'd had to change it. Someone else had it. Himself. His younger self. Never since the age of thirteen had he had a different number. This time he couldn't very well pull him I'm Chuck Bass line, because he wasn't the only one and he didn't want Andrew Tyler tracking him down to find out his identity.

He had to be in control of this situation. Problem was he didn't have a plan in the world. He'd been in such a hurry to get here that he hadn't thought anything through. Which is why Serena needed to be there.

He sighed and came to the conclusion that she'd have to go through the whole phone transaction as well. The problem with their phones was not just that they didn't work through time travel, but that apparently they also didn't exist yet. Sure, the companies existed and earlier versions of the phones, but not these ones. Apparently a lot happens in the course of four and a half years.

And that was the understatement of the century.

Seventeen-year-old Blair skipped out of the restaurant with sixteen-year-old Chuck following closely behind her. When they reached his limo Arthur was already there to open the door for them and shut it gently behind them. Four years later Chuck still remembered how irked he'd been by that because he knew Blair was a hopeless romantic and that part of him had been awoken the morning after he'd taken her virginity, or rather she'd given it to him on a silver platter.

He'd want to open the door for Blair.

Of course the second she started kissing him wildly mere moments after the limo had pulled away from the curb he completely forgot how irritated he'd gotten. He had more important things to focus on.

Until later.

"Follow that limo," he told the driver through the barely opened window. It was best if people saw as little of him as possible, at least until he'd concocted some sort of plan. He couldn't just stalk to younger versions of himself and Blair and watch them fall apart. His heart clenched just remembering how she'd been torn away from him then. Watching Nate and Blair kiss their way into a lavish bedroom at Cotillion served to completely break his heart and make him bitter as hell.

The limo parked in front of the building housing the Waldorf's penthouse.

He leaned back in his seat and watched as Blair entered the building and then how his younger self followed five minutes after. They were being discreet. Because, after all, they were running around in secret.

"What now, Mr.—?"

"Just wait," he said, his mind half in a daze. Then, without thinking through the idea, he muttered the request to his driver again and walked into the building.

The lobby looked the same. A lot of things had happened in that lobby, but the freshest in his mind was the worst. He'd hurt her in this lobby. Bad. It was here that she confronted him about his involvement with Jack and the Empire. Looking back on it now, he couldn't believe he'd chosen the hotel over her. The reasons had been valid in his mind at the time, but now they were pathetic. Less than pathetic. Criminal.

He took the elevator to the floor beneath Blair's. Then he took the servant stairs up the remaining distance. His heart was beating fast. His hands were damp and his forehead was sweating. He nearly groaned out loud when he heard the playful laughter and kissing. When Blair moaned his name – Chuck, he thought he was going to lose it.

He shouldn't be here. He couldn't relive this moment. Nate wasn't here, and neither were Dorota or Eleanor, or Serena, but that didn't mean a damn thing. This was the beginning of it all.

This was where Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck began. This was when he'd realized it.

Quietly, he inched his way down the hall and then peeked in through Blair's wide open bedroom door. Hands were all over place, as were lips, but it was smooth and sensual. It was breathtaking.

He stepped back, overwhelmed, and started back towards the servant's stairs.

He stepped too hard and too fast, nearly losing his balance. But he caught himself, and groaned.

Blair gasped and his eyes widened.

Oh shit.

….

Dark outside, but lit up and glamorous inside, she entered the building and headed for the concierge, hoping to get a quick key to the room without any questions being asked, or very few if she could help it.

"Miss Van der Woodsen," the man behind the counter greeted her, happily smiling.

She forced a smile.

Of course. How could she have forgotten? Not only did everyone know who she was here because of her name, but because of the obvious.

She lived here.

….

A/N: Sorry this chap is so short. I just wanted to get the fic moving, so that's why I think the last 4 chaps were much longer. Heh. I think I have a pretty good idea where I'm going with this fic though, so the next chap should be a bit longer. ;p