Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.
Thank you for reading. -- Sarah
Drunk Dialing.
Blair drunk dials Carter Monday night.
Or, at least, she dials him while in the presence of alcoholic beverages. Whether or not she's actually in control of her senses and actions is entirely arbitrary, she decides, and she's going on the assumption that she is absolutely wasted, thank you very much.
At her own insistence, she and Serena are at 1Oak and her best friend has admirably stepped into the role she herself held for years, that of The BFF/ Babysitter, remembering to order water in between martinis and keep one eye on her at all times.
When a leering but harmless investment banker falls all over himself to distract the blonde's attention, Blair takes the opportunity to step aside with her phone.
She lets it ring once before hanging up, and he replies via text approximately 2 minutes later with a Hi, B.
She stares at the phone, not responding, until it rings in her hand, and she takes an eye-watering gulp from her drink before bringing the receiver to her ear.
"Carter?" she feigns confusion and hopes completely in vain that the two drinks she's had have made her speech at least a hint slurred because hearing his voice has eliminated any chance she thought she'd had of faking it – it's hard enough just to remember to breathe. "Why are you calling?"
"You called me first, Blair," he replies, and she suddenly feels absolutely, entirely ridiculous but she's in too far and so she keeps up the charade.
"I did not. You just called me."
Her heart aches and she feels a suspicious pricking at the back of her eyes when he plays along without further resistance. "Just wanted to see how you're doing," he tells her.
She can hear amusement laced through his easy tone, mixed in with something deeper that she allows, or forces, the alcohol in her system to blur for the moment, and she starts to wonder if she needs to restructure the reorganizations within the outline of her reconstruction-of-life plan again.
XOXO
She has breakfast with her mother and Cyrus on Wednesday morning, and Eleanor launches into a litany of suggestions as to what she might do with her life since it's confirmed that she's not now, nor will ever be, Yale-bound.
It's not that the notion of faux-clerking for Cyrus under the guise of getting a jump-start on her original plans for her post-baccalaureate education (something prestigious and dispensable, she once thought, an MBA or a JD, since really it was just to be for title when she took her husband's name) or spending some time in France with Harold and Roman ("Blair, it would just be so much easier to explain why you're seeking spring semester admission to the Sorbonne than it would be if we were talking about Columbia!") are particularly vile, so she's not sure why her yogurt parfait attempts to climb back up her throat.
She adds a dash of Frangelico to her black coffee once her parental figures are back to paying attention only to each other, and then she dials Carter.
She lets the phone ring once before hanging up, and his text comes back more quickly this time.
Drinking in the morning are we, B?
It makes her smile, but her heart sinks when the phone remains silent in her palm as the five-minute mark passes.
XOXO
Chuck catches her in the hall of the Van der Bass penthouse on her way to see Serena Thursday afternoon and pulls her into his room with a light hand, heavy eyes and a fantastic Armani suit.
"Meeting with the board?" she asks as he simultaneously declares, "We've got to talk."
They both look down at the floor for a moment, and when they look up they're both smiling but it doesn't even come near their eyes.
"You just left," he says, finally, and he hates the weakness in the words but he doesn't take them back or try to cover them up with more.
She surprises him when she lays a hand on his forearm.
"I know. I'm sorry," she tells him. "That night was … I've been a little in over my head lately."
He holds her gaze, comprehending, and nods slowly. "So it was just …"
"I do love you, Chuck," she says, and something in him soars, but he thinks too high, maybe, like it's about to leave the stratosphere he's in for one far, far away, or at least across the park for one that someone else is existing in.
"You mean, miss me?" he asks quietly, recalling her outburst.
"That too," she replies softly, and moves her hand to take his. "We've both got a lot to figure out. I thought … I thought once that maybe we were going to figure it all out together."
She steps closer to him with a sad kind of half smile and straightens his steely lavender tie, and he puts his hands over hers against his chest, trapping it there gently.
"I kind of think now we might need to do it on our own," she continues. "We're Chuck and Blair, and we'll always be there, but …"
"Maybe it's still not all we need," he finishes for her, and his dark eyes meet an even darker mirror, twin pools reflecting what could have been, maybe even should have been in some universe, but ran its course before they could manage to catch up.
XOXO
Friday night while they're getting dressed to go out she finally tells Serena about Yale. She starts to apologize because her best friend wasn't the first she confided in, though she also wasn't the last, but Serena's already enveloped her in floods of sympathy and blonde hair and is promising to figure it out with her, spewing panicked chatter of late applications and even transferring.
"It's okay, S," she assures her. "I've got it."
"You do?" Serena replies, managing to sound dubious and supportive at once in the way only a best friend can.
"Well, no," Blair admits. "But I will."
Serena nods slowly and says okay and to remember she's there for her, and Blair gives her a tight hug and then runs to the kitchen for pre-game cocktails.
With a bottle of Belvedere (closed) in hand, she lets the phone ring four times, and there's a hint of concern amidst the confusion in Carter's voice when he answers. It's the first time she hasn't hung up after the first ring.
"Blair? Are you alright?" he asks. She's silent for a moment and he remembers the game. "I mean … I was just calling to…" he begins, if a little weakly.
"Carter, remember when you liked me?" she interrupts.
"I still like you," he replies without hesitation, and she smiles against the receiver and tells him to quit drunk dialing.
XOXO
Nate runs into Carter for what he really - seriously now, god of coincidences, he thinks to himself - considers to be the third time too many in as many weeks when he and Vanessa are heading into Beatrice for a drink Saturday night.
He's taken aback when Carter briefly looks at him with an exhausted, fairly bereft kind of gaze that he thinks couldn't possibly be any less Baizen, and offers a ghost of smile devoid of any arrogance or mischief and a nod in greeting and signals the bartender for his check.
Nate's still staring at his back with furrowed brows when Vanessa nudges him at his side.
"I know you hate him," she says quietly, in that tone he adores that's just so Vanessa, the one that's so full of inherent kindness and perception that it manages to eclipse the superiority and judgment he thinks would probably drive him nuts otherwise. "But …"
She trails off because in truth she knows nothing of the older boy except the veiled anguish clouding his light eyes, and Nate wants more than anything to tell her that yes, he does hate him and there are no buts …
But.
Something uncomfortably like empathy swells inside of him and instead he hears himself asking if Carter wants to have a drink with them.
Carter turns again to them and smiles for real this time, still slight but not vacant, surprise crossed with what just might be gratitude touching his features, and shakes his head.
"Thanks, Nate," he replies, and nods in Vanessa's direction. "But I should get going. I'm heading out of town for a while Monday, and I've got a lot to take care of before then."
Three sets of eyes turn to his phone on the bar, where it rings once and falls silent.
"And I've got to return that call."