I completely lost inspiration for this, but I hate to leave things unfinished, and I didn't want to leave it until after Season 6 started (the end - sob). So I just sat down and wrote, and ended up with the following. (I was going to try for all talking, since I had them not talking previously, but couldn't do it.) Hope everyone follows the skipping scenes - they should be pretty clear.

Not mine.

Please review!

"We need to talk."

"The worst words in the English language. Really, why does anyone say them anymore? There are so many less threatening ways to start a conversation. It's really probably just better to start whatever conversation you're trying to open than..."

"Blair."

A pause before she slumps.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"No, I'm trying to get back together with you."

"Really?" She beams.

"But I want to restart on the right foot. Blair, I want this to be our last time reuniting. I'm not saying if it doesn't work we can never try again, but I don't want to have to. Can you understand that?"

"Of course."

"So we agree?" She nods. "Then we need to talk."

He finds her at the loft. She's made herself comfortable while he was out.

"Is this really what you think of me?"

And she's also apparently read his new book.

He considers turning around and walking back out, but it's past time for him to get this over with.

"Did I get something wrong? I tried to be as accurate as memory allowed." And her crocodile tears aren't going to sway him, either.

But he should have known she wouldn't try for sympathy as she lifted her chin and stared him down. "No. You have all my actions perfectly described."

And he can't stop himself from asking. "Then which of those actions would you like to change?" He silently dares her to say how she left him. He wants to force her to say it. He wants to fight.

Say it, he urges. Say it.

They walk together slowly, with a minimum of small talk.

"How's Serena?"

"Perfect, of course. Just beginning to babble and cries at the sight of flannel." At a questioning look, he amends "On those rare occasions someone is wearing it in our neighborhood for her to see."

"And the boys?"

"Doing well. Aiden's started preschool, and Bart is continuing his reign at St. Jude's. How's the next book?"

"Don't ask. Ever since the movie, they want me to retread old ground. Boring. I'm thinking of getting away for a while."

"Feeling the urge to collect another wife, Humphrey? Never would have thought you'd be the multiple-marrier in our little group."

"Not all of us are as blessed as you were, Chuck."

"Blessed. Yes. I try to remember that."

Then they start up an incline and forgo speech in favor of breath.

"I want to know what's bothering you."

"I...What do you mean?"

He wants to sigh in exasperation, but she seems honestly confused. "About us. Beyond our not having gotten back together before now. Something's been wrong, and I know it's not your work. It could be Serena if you weren't so assiduously avoiding talking, and I'm guessing thinking, about her. Unless it's Dan?"

"No," she hastened to reassure him. "He's still ignoring me, of course - and again, I appreciate your accepting my calling him so graciously..."

"It's not that hard when he doesn't pick up."

She barely winces, but that's a sore spot between them that is well-known, and he wants to hear about what he's missing.

"But there's nothing going on there that you don't know about already."

"Then it's something to do with us."

"No. It's something to do with you."

He's surprised when she bursts into laughter, and stays stunned for the next minute while she completely loses it there on his couch.

He clenches his jaw. "It's a fair question."

She looks at him a bit more, studies his tension, and realizes how very serious he is. "Everything, Dan. I would change everything except the end."

"Well, I'm not surprised the end justifies the means in your mind."

"What would you have me do, Dan? After all, I'm one of your characters, aren't I?"

He knows she's being arch, but answers honestly anyway. "I'd have you stay with the man who loved you. Who put up with your shit, who helped you, who tried to keep you from feeling insecure, who didn't hurt you every ten minutes."

"You'd have me stay with the man I owed."

"That's not what I meant!"

"It's what you said. And what you wrote." She gestures to the manuscript on the table.

He looks away, a little ashamed to know she isn't 100% wrong. 95%, maybe. "I know you owed me more than what I got. For common politeness's sake, if nothing else."

And now she looks down, because he is completely right. "Yes. I owed you more than that. And I hope one day you'll forgive me for it."

He wants to say something cutting, but just a few minutes face-to-face with her and the anger he's kept alive all summer seems to have deserted him, and his voice follows it.

He breathes in and out slowly. "Yes?"

"Please, Chuck." She lays her hand on the side of his face, and he forces himself to relax and listen. "I worry about your plans for Bass Industries and your father. I promise, if it's really what you want, I'll be with you the whole way and never bring this up again. But is it truly what you want?"

"Blair, he dismissed me from the company like I was nothing."

"I know that. And I know, better than he does, how much you did to save Bass while he was playing dead. It's just...I'm not sure you're in this for any reason other than to prove to him you can. To best him. Where are you in this?"

"It's my company, that's where I am. I didn't have it for very long, but I worked hard at it."

"But did you enjoy it?"

"Enjoy...of course I enjoyed it."

Blair bit her lip, trying to convince him to at least see other choices now available to him. "I know you enjoyed some of it Chuck. I know you love being in the hospitality business - you're amazing with clubs and hotels and parties and any kind of spectacle. But the rest of it always seemed like a chore to you. Did you really like all of it, or was it just what you had to do because your father left it to you?"

Her words reach him, and he can't answer. "I don't know Blair. But I do know I can't go through my life feeling like a failure, and I'm afraid the only way that's ever going to stop is by beating him."

"It's not the only way."

"You have a plan?"

"No, I have faith. I told you once you were becoming a man in a way your father never was, and it's so apparent now that you are that man. You are so much more than him Chuck. You don't have to beat him in business. You don't have to beat him at all. You just have to be beyond him. You just have to step forward, and you're already there."

"Then, hypothetically, what would you suggest I do next?"

She laughs a little at his phrasing, but knows he's convinced.

"Well, you won a nice stake to start yourself off. And the Empire hasn't been doing as well without you, maybe it's devalued enough for Bart to want to sell?"

"Keeping track, are you?"

"I might have checked some of the reports you'd commissioned for your takeover plans. So, I was thinking Charles Industries?"

"That's a horrible name."

"Well, it's your company, I wouldn't want to make any decisions for you."

He laughs at her obvious lie. "I'll give it some thought."

He sits on the other end of the couch. "So, are we done? Because you've sort of apologized, and I'd like to get drunk now."

"Not quite yet, Humphrey. The book."

"Ah, so it's time for some threats, is it?"

"No. Just a question. Is it going to be published?"

"So you're not going to threaten me, you're just going to stop me?"

"Again, no. I'm just trying to figure out if this was you working through your anger or if this really is your next outing."

He sticks his chin out, defiant. "It is."

And she knows she should be delicate, or silent if she can't manage that. "It shouldn't be."

"Not your business. Not anymore."

"I know."

"Then go home."

"I can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because you put up with my shit, helped me, kept me from feeling insecure, and didn't hurt me. Because you loved me, and I still have hope that one day you'll believe that I loved you too."

"That would mean more if I weren't being blinded by the rings on your finger."

And she is cruel and kind and honest. "I didn't say I loved you most."

He shakes it off. It is easier to have this conversation than it was to imagine it all summer. "Then finish. And then go home."

"Do you remember when Serena took over my mother's photo shoot?"

"Of course. It was the first time I thought you might actually be human."

"Yes. The first time I thought you might be worthwhile as well. So you remember sitting with me, talking about your mom?"

"Is your point that I should write about my own family and leave you alone?"

"No, my point is that you saw me. You looked past my attitude and saw me, the same way you saw what was true about Serena and Chuck and Nate. You looked deeper than any of the society masks or gossip, deeper than anyone else ever bothers to. You saw inside us, Humphrey. You know that."

And he knows what she'll say next, because he knows it's what everyone who's read his latest work, all the writers in Italy and Alessandra and even his dad, have been trying to tell him for months. "Yeah. I know."

"Then why are you writing that?" She points at it on the coffee table, and he can't defend himself. "It's so shallow, Humphrey. You're so much better than that."

There's nothing to say to that, so he rises, picks up the pages, and tosses them in the trash. She's standing when he turns around.

"Well, I'd make you burn them, but there's too much polyester here. Can't have the loft go up in flames."

"Yeah, I need someplace to write."

The smiles they send each other are small and brief, but real.

He escorts her to the door. "You're still a crazy bitch, Waldorf. But you're right."

"Of course I am. I'm Blair Bass."

He doesn't know why he's surprised. "So. That's your happy ending then."

"It is. Missing some parts, though. There's a vaguely Humphrey-shaped hole."

"I make no promises."

"But you'll think about it?"

"I'll think about it."

"So is that it?"

"For the fighting portion of the evening? I certainly hope so. I could move onto the making up."

"No, I mean of what you wanted to talk about. Since we were talking before we got back together and all."

He smiles at her. "Yes, my concerns have been thoroughly discussed."

She looks gleeful. "And we're back together? Officially?"

He begins to say 'absolutely' and then stops to think. "Well, not entirely offically yet."

And her pout is so pretty, but he's not kissing it off her without one more minute of seriousness. "I want a promise, Blair." She looks quizzical. "Your thoughts on my plan were helpful. Your insights were correct. But you didn't share any of them until I pushed you."

"I didn't want to add to your burden while it's already so heavy."

"But you didn't. So you have to promise to talk to me."

She settles against him. "As long as it goes both ways."

"Okay. And no scheming either. For real this time. We're a team."

"I promise to never go behind your back, and only use my deviousness in service of a mutually agreed-upon cause, as long as you do."

"I promise to only scheme with you, never against, unless in furtherance of a surprise present."

"Loopholes already?" She narrows her eyes.

"Just the one. What else do you want?"

"Support when I'm feeling less than myself." He looks down at her, surprised. She forestalls his objection. "I can admit I need it sometimes. But real support, Chuck. Not fake photographers to make me feel confident."

"Then I promise to support you without resorting to tricks."

"And I promise to look to you when I need help."

"I promise to try to stop letting my dad drive me crazy."

"I promise the same with my mom."

"I promise to be honest with you."

"As do I. And I promise to keep you in jewelry and peonies."

She closes her eyes and rubs noses with him. "Uh-uh. Keep me in love."

"I...I could keep you in sickness and in health?"

She opens them again, to see a look of determination. "Really?"

"Well, we've been doing pretty well at writing vows for the past few minutes, don't you think?"

And her smile is trembling, and her eyes are tearing, but she is so far beyond happiness at this moment that she thinks she'll just have to spend the rest of her life there. "Yeah, I think we have."

They crest the hill at the same time, neither winning the slow race they wouldn't have admitted to being in. Chuck lays a stargazer lily on Lily's grave, who technically finished her life as a Bass - who would have thought her marriage to his father would have been her last? - but decided after his death to use her birth name and be only herself from then on. So, despite numerous affairs, culminating with one last long relationship with Rufus Humphrey, she was buried a Rhodes.

Dan, after a moment, goes to visit Serena. There are fresh flowers there already - Carter Baizen had been in town recently, and Ben lived in New York, or Eric or Nate might have been by, or maybe it was someone else. Men their age always seemed to get maudlin about the most beautiful girl in the world whom no man could tame, or some other romantic notion.

Dan only ever saw tragedy. She never quite managed to find her footing for more than a year or two at a time, and they all got used to her frequent entrances and exits from their lives until the last one many years ago.

Chuck rises and they continue, keeping pace on purpose now. Blair's grave is pristine white, not far from the girl she loved first and best for so many years. Dan doesn't stay long. Can't really, at least not today. Her children, Charles Jr. and Audrey, never come on the anniversary of her death, just her husband and her best friend. Dan knows the other man takes some comfort in their young grandchildren, only two of whom Blair had lived long enough to meet, but thinks it is probably not enough.

But he hopes he's wrong. After all, he and Chuck are friends.

Sort of.

Yeah, not totally what I intended. Too rushed, but it kind of got my point across (I hope). Thank you for reading! Would love some feedback!