Disclaimer: No, I don't own Gossip Girl, because if I did, none of the things that I'm writing about would be happening in the first place.
AN: So here it is! Part 2! A lot faster than I thought, assuming that I had no idea where to go from the end of the first part, lol. But I got so much positive feedback on my last chapter that I just had to get it up soon (check below for a thank you to all of the reviewers). I'm so glad you guys like what I'm writing and I'm very excited to keep going with this story now that I have some sort of idea of the actual plot. This part has more dialogue than the last one, and if you've read any of my other stories, you'd know that I kind of have a dialogue issue. *lol* I prefer to show rather than tell, but that can get exhaustive. So here's my attempt at writing legit scene with people talking. :o Let's see what happens, lmao.
Thank you to: daisyeve, MrsCullen-Bass, Itconsumesme, gleefulvall, Gem15stone, SaturnineSunshine, HnM skinnys, Maedy, awakeningezgi, spottielight, bonafide11, svenjen, ChairLoveK and HJiloveyou. You all are awesome, please keep reviewing! It honestly makes my day every time. :)
OBSTRUCTION. [ob. struc. tion.] noun. a thing that impedes or prevents passage or progress; an obstacle or blockage. ie; the truth should stop you from lying.
"Serena…what are you doing here?" As soon as he said it, Chuck realized that those words were unnecessary. It wasn't that much of a stretch to imagine Serena coming to Paris for a vacation, especially during the summer. It was just that he'd never expected to see someone from home. He hadn't even though abouot it, hadn't dealt with the issue. He hadn't ruminated on an excuse or thought about the future, if he would ever go back. Chuck wasn't a big believer in fate, but he should have been sure there had to be some force out there in the universe that was going to make him think about it eventually. And right now it was in the form of Serena van der Woodsen, staring him down.
"I should be asking you the same question, Chuck!" Serena uncrossed and then recrossed her arms against her slouchy white top, obviously thinking she looked very threatening. "The last anyone heard from you, you were in Prague, probably losing brain cells and sleeping with every hooker you could come across, hmm, Chuck?"
Chuck couldn't look her in the eyes. He bit his lip and focused his caramel eyes on a faded spot on the sidewalk. She was right, that was exactly what he had been doing. And normally he would have had no shame admitting that. He probably would have offered to go into detail on exactly what he did with each of those women, and followed up Serena's inevitable, "You're disgusting" with an, "I'm Chuck Bass." But that was before he'd almost bled to death in an abandoned alley and decided his usual coping methods weren't quite enough this time.
Eva was still holding his hand, seemingly trying to gauge if it would be a good idea to step in and defend him. Chuck had to admit having her next to him felt nice, but he would prefer to be comforted by someone that actually knew the real him, the Chuck that had lots of sex and drank lots of scotch and leered at every woman on the street until he fell in love. She didn't know him, so she couldn't stand up for him, not really. She didn't know what he'd done, what he was capable of, and usually that felt nice. No pretenses, no "I'm Chuck Bass" here. But right now it felt stifling, and he felt like more of a liar than ever.
Serena took Chuck's silence correctly, as an agreement with the things that she'd listed. She stepped one step closer, her stiletto heels clicking on the concrete. "And who's this? Another one of your whores?"
Blair sighed, her wooden-soled ankle-strap sandals tapping against the thinly carpeted floor. Her cab was stuck in traffic, again, and the worst part was, the driver had no idea where he was going. She was supposed to meet Serena for a late lunch at their hotel, but it looked like she was going to be late. Pulling out her phone, she sent Serena a quick text, saying that she'd be there as soon as she could.
"Actually, this is my girlfriend," Chuck said, pulling Eva closer. He could feel her body stiffen slightly as she resisted, but he ignored it. As soon as Serena left, he would come up with some other story to tell her, and everything would be okay. It had to be. She was his link to this life, his one big step in starting anew. "Eva, Serena. Serena, Eva."
"Girlfriend?" Serena's face was incredulous for a moment, and then she went back to glaring at him. "Yeah, right. Chuck, you're getting more and more transparent. If this is just another plot to get Blair back, you can forget it. I'm not going to let you put her through hell again. You've hurt her enough, she needs to move on."
Chuck felt his heart stop at the mention of her name. It suddenly felt so wrong to have Eva wrapped in his arms, and he took a step away. "Wait, Blair's here?" his voice came out somewhere between a gasp and a choke, and his heart sped up as he imagined her in whole: her soft dark curls, porcelian skin, red lips, and the way he felt coming inside of her…
"Yes, Chuck." Serena spat out his name pointedly, snapping him back to earth. She said his name like it disgusted her. It probably did. "I thought it would be a good idea for her to get away from the city, after everything. You of all people should understand. Or is that beyond you?"
"No," Chuck managed. "I think I got it."
"Good." Serena rolled her eyes in his direction, reaching into the bag that was slung on her shoulder as her phone chimed. She flipped it open. "Oh, look, that's her now. I'm going to meet her for lunch." She stepped to the curb, almost tottering on her heels, and waved her arm for a taxi. "Don't get any ideas."
Eva turned to him, speaking for the first time since Serena had confronted them. "Charles, what's going on?" Her eyes were full of confusion, and Chuck felt horrible that he could hardly focus on her with thoughts of Blair swimming in his head.
Serena looked back at them as she stepped into the cab that screeched to a halt by the curb, saying something to the driver in French. "Yeah, Chuck, why don't you tell her? It sounds like you've got a lot of explaining to do." She slammed the door, and the cab pulled out into traffic. Chuck stared at the car as it pulled away. Serena's remarks had been even more scathing than usual, but he understood. He was Chuck Bass, he was an asshole, he'd just broken her best friend's heart, and, as usual, no one trusted him. Only this time, he knew why.
Reluctantly, Chuck looked down at Eva, who, due to her petite size, was a few inches shorter than him, even wearing heels. Her blonde hair shone when backed by the afternoon sunlight and her eyes were wide. She was waiting for him to explain. She wanted to listen. Chuck didn't deserve this, and he wasn't even sure he wanted it. But it felt good for someone to give him the benefit of the doubt, to not draw conclusions, to allow him to speak before leaving, so he stayed.
"We need to talk," he said, wondering what the hell he was going to say.
She nodded, still looking at him in that way of hers. "Yes, we do." She slipped a gentle arm around his waist, and it felt constricting. For the first time Chuck felt weighed down by the lies he'd told, and also for the first time, he didn't have a scheme to get him out of a situation. He'd given all that up when he decided to start over.
"But…" Chuck sighed. "Can we maybe go back to my place first? I'm not really feeling well." He feigned nausea, which wasn't really that far off considering the way his emotions were tumbling inside him. But really what he needed was time to think.
"Of course." Eva slid her hand from around his waist, grasping sliding it into the crook of his arm. Slowly, she helped him step down from the curb, still a challenge considering how it made the pain from his injury shoot up all the way through his body. They began to make their way across the street, until a cab screeched to a stop inches from their feet. Chuck turned to scoff at the driver, but then froze. The window of the backseat was rolled down, and he could see its passenger. Clad in a pink dress and a straw sun hat, it was Blair, his Blair.
Blair stared out the window, trying to force her heart from beating wildly. Was that Chuck? Her Chuck? Dressed in what looked like a plain, dirty waiter's uniform and his arm linked with a suspiciously non-hookerish-looking blonde girl, he seemed nothing like the Chuck Bass she knew from back home. That Chuck wore suits and bowties. He liked brunettes. He worked only in an oversize office on Wall Street and he was in love with her.
But it was really him, she could see it in his slightly messy dark hair, soft pale skin despite the hot summer sun, and the look on his face and in his eyes as he stared back at her. Her heart started pounding even more frantically as she took in every inch of him, remembering how his arms had felt wrapped around her waist, his body pressed against hers and his lips on her breasts. She remembered room services brunches in bed and long, romantic walks in the park in the winter. Bouquets of peonies, boxes of jewelry, the comfortable way it felt to have him breathing steadily on her neck as he slept, like everything was right in the world.
But now here he was. She had come to Paris to escape him, and clearly he was doing some escaping of his own. No one back home had heard from him in months, and therefore she couldn't place why his right hand was clutching a cane (the likes of which Serena hadn't even noticed) and why he was dressed like he had spent all day performing hard labor or, at the very least, customer service. And she couldn't decide…was this just another one of his schemes? Or was this really the real Chuck? Permenant? It didn't seem possible that he would alter himself so drastically, but it was impossible to tell, because his eyes looked numb as she caught them again. For once in her life, she couldn't read him, and it scared her.
Chuck was sure he was about to be sick. Just knowing Blair was here somewhere in Paris was enough to make the butterflies in his stomach turn wild, but having her right there in front of him, after months of not seeing her, not speaking to her and attempting not to think of her. After things had ended so badly between them. After he'd almost died and she'd had no idea. He couldn't believe his luck to be able to see her again.
And he also couldn't believe his stupidity. What was he supposed to do now? All he wanted more than anything in the world was to go to her, wrap her in his arms like nothing had changed, and switch back to how things used to be. But sadly enough, he was, first off, basically crimpled with a limp and a cane, and second, on the arm of a girl who he had come to grow quite fond of, despite her extreme non-Blairness and the fact that he had no strong romantic feelings for her whatsoever.
And third, she didn't even want him anymore. She had said it herself. "Don't say her name! Or anything else to me. Ever again."
He knew what she deserved, and it was better than him. It was certainly better than everything he used to be, and still better than everything he was trying to be now. He had made the choice to not be who he was anymore, and along with that decision to give up his old life came the decision to give up her. And that had been the one hardest of all to make.
But since he'd made it and was too afraid to look back, Chuck turned away and continued limping across the street, Eva in tow, as Blair's cab honked its horn and sped off in the other direction, seperating the two once again, despite the frantic beating of both of their hearts.
"Are you all right?" Eva asked, once they had made it to the other curb. She offered a hand and helped Chuck up, running a hand down his arm where he'd pushed up his shirt to cope with the heat. Her sweetly melodic accent sounded in his ears, and he turned to her with a smile that felt more like a grimace.
"I'm fine. It was just a…nothing." Chuck tried to widen his smile, and leaned in for a kiss. He pulled her closer in an attempt to distract her, and it worked as she deepened the kiss and then pulled away, laughing against his lips.
"Come on, let's go to your apartment and then we can talk, yes?" Eva leaned in to him a bit, her pretty smile sparkling up at him.
"Okay." Chuck let out a barely audible sigh as they began to make their way down the sidewalk. The problem was, he was even more shaken than before. The only thing his mind wanted to concentrate on was her, and he was suddenly wondering if deciding to start from ground zero was a naïve idea in the first place. No one could avoid their past.
But, he thought, other people's pasts weren't exactly similar to his. There was only one good thing he had left behind, and that one thing probably didn't even exist anymore.
AN: So there it is. :) I hope you guys liked it. :o Just a note: I'm not trying to make Eva a villian or anything in this story, but it's not my intention to make her and Chuck's interactions sweet and rootable, either, lol. I want to show that she's a nice girl, he just doesn't feel that strongly about her in a romantic way. Just some clarification, if that didn't come through in the writing. Which I hope it did. But. Please review. :) I love you all!