Title: Eternal Contemplations
Author: fading_tales
Pairing: Damon/Blair (Vampire Diaries/Gossip Girl cross-over)
Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl or any of their characters.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Timing means nothing and everything when you have an eternity to live.

Chapter Seventeen

She clasps her ears with her hands before she could actually hear him ask the infamous question.

"I can't hear you," Blair sing-songs. She knows she's being childish but maybe if she doesn't actually hear him ask then it won't count.

"Blair, I said-"

"I still can't hear you," she repeats obstinately, a tinge of irritation creeping into her tone.

Nate frowns and gets up from his kneeling position to pull her hands away from her ears.

"Blair. I'm trying to-"

"I know what you are trying to do and it's a cheap, dirty move and I refuse to hear it!"

"Blair, I just miss you and everything that we used to be. I just want you to forgive me-"

"That's not the way it works, Nate."

"Can't you just give me a chance?"

"No," She replies coolly and turns on her heels only stop in her tracks when she sees Damon with Katherine positively salivating all over him.

xxx

Inside the bar, Katherine is adamant to keep Damon's attention.

"I think the show has gone on long enough don't you think?" Katherine remarks, one brow angled towards him in a condescending manner.

"The only show that's going on is you making a fool out of yourself," Damon replies calmly taking a sip from his drink.

"Look, I get it. You wanted me to be jealous. Congratulations. It worked. Now you can stop with the act," Katherine remarks snidely to him.

"Not everything is about you, Katherine."

Katherine was never one to take rejection well.

The two are currently engaged in some sort of intense staring contest and Blair is quite positive Damon has forgotten all about her. She guess the kiss did what it was suppose to and he's got what he wanted, which is to say Katherine's attention. For a brief second Damon turns and their eyes meet, but Katherine grabs his face with her hands to turn his attention back on her.

"Don't look at her. This is about us." She moves her hand over his chest to where his heart should be and keeps it there.

Nate comes up from behind Blair and together they watch the couple talking through the bar's windows. Unfortunately, Blair doesn't have Damon's super hearing ability and can't make out the subject of their conversation. Katherine grants her one last glower before kissing Damon.

"Blair… Please," Nate says softly as he turns her away from the scene through the window. She's almost grateful for it. She thinks that she's seen enough.

"Won't you at least listen to what I have to say?" Nate pleads.

She blinks back up at him, but doesn't answer. She comes up with some sort of decision and so she wordlessly moves over to the side of the curb and raises her arm to hail a taxi. She quickly catches the attention of one that stalls in front of her.

"Okay. You want me to hear what you have to say? You want to convince me? Then do it. You have fifteen minutes," she states before sliding into the waiting yellow cab.

From inside of the bar, Damon's phone vibrates on the bar top with a text from Blair telling him that Nate would take her home first.

xxx

Damon pushes Katherine away the moment her lips touches his, going so far as to wiping his mouth with the back of her hand. Of course Blair never gets to see any of this. Such is the nature of the both Nate's and Katherine's impeccable timing.

Katherine's brows furrow even more, a grimace on her lips at his reaction.

"So what? Are you saying that you don't love me anymore?" she demands haughtily.

He stares back at her rebelliously, but unable to answer.

"What was that kiss for if not to make me jealous?"

He has yet to make a reply and Katherine goes on with her tirade.

"Don't tell me you actually have feelings for that human," Katherine says between gritted teeth, the disgust clearly in her voice. "I don't believe it for a moment. These humans," Katherine gestures dismissively towards the people going about their daily routine. "They're merely our prey. Playthings at most. You're not one of them, Damon. Not anymore. Have you forgotten who you are?"

Damon doesn't have a chance to answer because just at the moment his phone buzzes noisily from the bar. He turns around to pick up it up and finds Blair's message. Katherine reads it over his shoulder.

"Seems like Blair understands. She knows her place… and it's not here," Katherine taunts condescendingly.

Damon whirls around and violently and suddenly pin her against the wall. Katherine's smirk fades and is replaced with sobriety.

"What do you want from me?" he growls.

"I want to talk," she answers calmly.

"Fine. Then let's talk."

xxx

"You said you wanted to talk? Then talk."

Blair doesn't even bother to look at him when she addresses him. She keeps her gaze plastered to the buildings blurring past outside the taxi window. Nate turns himself around in his seat and tries to draw her attention away from the nighttime scenery passing them by.

"The fairytale Happily Ever After you always wanted… We can have it, Blair. The white picket fence, the big house, we can have it all."

His words strike a chord with her because it's exactly what she's been thinking about ever since she and Damon came back from their house hunting trip.

"Marry me."

"I don't believe in fairy tales anymore. You're the one that taught me that. And this is really a sorry excuse for a proposal. You don't even have a ring."

"I didn't have time to get the ring from my mother."

She knows exactly what ring he's talking about. The Vanderbilt ring. He's being serious and Blair's a little taken aback.

"Don't give up on me. I'm trying. I'm really trying. I made a mistake, and I know I've hurt you. But there were times when you were happy."

"Do I look very happy right now?" she scoffs.

"But you can be! I've made you happy before-"

"You've also made me miserable before!" she screams back angrily.

He's smiling for some reason and it only adds fuel to her frustration.

"What are you smiling about?" she grumbles, arms folding across her chest defensively.

"This is the first time you yelled at me. You've yelled at everybody, but me. It means I'm making progress."

She's silently indignant. How dare he act like he knows her so well? Because he does. That's the part she hates the most. She's been with Nate for over ten years, even dense as he is, the boy must have picked up on some things.

"If you're not with Damon, then what's the point in staying here? What is there for you here?"

She refuses to look him in the eye and he answers his own question. "There's nothing."

Blair doesn't answer him because all he said was true. There's really nothing for her in Mystic Falls. There was Damon, but not anymore.

"I'm going back to New York tomorrow. You don't have to come with me, but know that I'll be waiting for you. Come back, Blair. You don't belong here."

"I don't belong anywhere," she replies sadly as she steps out of the taxi. "Tell my mother not to worry… if she even realizes that I'm gone."

"You should tell her yourself. I'll wait for you in New York."

She prepares to take off his jacket and hand it back to him, but he stops her.

"No, keep it," he says shaking his head. "It's yours… just like I am."

Nate leaves after pressing a tender kiss on the inside of her wrist. She watches the taxi turn a corner, thinking, how did Nate know exactly the right things to say to make her heart waver.

xxx

"Why didn't you leave?" Damon interrogates.

It's the question that has been plaguing him ever since he walked into the joint and saw her sitting there, free from her chains. She could have left, but she didn't. It makes him think that maybe, just maybe, she really does mean a little bit of what she says.

"Why do you think?" Katherine answers slyly.

He wishes that for once she would just be straight with him. No games, no innuendos, just the truth.

"It couldn't possibly be because of me since you've easily found yourself some new admirers."

Katherine rolls her eyes and huffs. "I was only talking. What does it matter if talk to other guys? I'm with you."

"The problem is, Katherine… with you, it's never just 'talking'. After all, that's what you said about Stefan back when we were together."

"This is rich coming from somebody who was just kissing that stupid little human girl."

"She has a name."

"She has a death wish."

"You don't touch her," Damon warns in a low voice. "She's my friend and you're not to lay a hand on her."

Katherine's eyes narrow and Damon wonders if he did Blair a disservice by defending her. Just as quickly as her anger flared did she stow it away, hiding it behind a blinding smile.

"I want to make this work, Damon."

"Really? Because I really couldn't tell."

"You know that this is the way I am. You knew it."

"I did."

"And you loved me anyways. You still do." Katherine cups his cheeks with her hands. "And I love you."

No matter how many times she says it, all of her lovely words are losing their meaning to him.

"Come now… why are we wasting our time arguing about something so insignificant? There are better things we can do with our time."

She leans in to kiss him as if kissing could erase all of their problems. He turns his head away and she frowns.

"I found you a new place. It's an empty house by the river, it's been for sale for ages and no one can afford to buy it in this economy so you'll be safe there for a while."

The house is not the same house he went to see with Blair. He doesn't know why he wanted to bring her there when he actually found Katherine a different place already, but he had passed by that big white house and for some reason he had the urge to show it to her. It just seemed like something Blair would've liked.

"If you're done with your drink I'll take you to it."

"What? Am I no longer welcomed in the Salvatore house? Don't you remember all the places where we've…" Katherine trails off suggestively, stroking his hand from across the table.

He looks back at her expressionlessly, but she knows him well. She can feel the slight tremor in his hand that tells her she's finally provoking a reaction from him. Damon has always been nostalgic person.

"What were you talking about with Nate?"

She scoffs and pulls her hand away. She thought she had got him over that whole jealous nonsense. She makes up her mind that at least she has his attention enough that he's still jealous. In her egocentric mindset, it doesn't occur to her that his question had more to do with Nate's relationship with a certain human rather than her usual selfish actions.

"Wouldn't you like to know," she sing-songs as she gets up from the table and marches out to the parking lot and he follows her. "You said you got me a new place? Let's go see it." She dangles the keys she swiped from him in front of him with a big grin on her face.

She slides into the passenger seat of his car, making herself perfectly at home. He has an overwhelming feeling of discomfort at the sight of Katherine sitting where Blair usually sat. The picture was all wrong and Katherine doesn't look like she belonged there. He tries to shake off the feeling as he turns the key in the ignition, but it doesn't fade.

xxx

Blair ends up pacing about her room after Nate left. Her mind was overwhelmed by the events of the past twenty-four hours.

"What did Nate want?" Damon asks. He had rush to her as soon as he had returned.

She's sure he had seen the Nate's spectacle from the window, but she answers him anyways.

"Me. He wants me to come back to New York with him," with a bit of hesitancy she adds, "He proposed."

There is was. She said it aloud. It's real now. Damon was hoping that Archibald just had a cramp in one leg.

She had spent a long time staying out there after Nate left thinking about everything he said. She hates that he brought up everything she was worried about herself. Hearing somebody else voice them made all of her doubts valid. Her time with Damon had been fun, but it's not real. He's a creature of make-believe and fiction and she's… human. She can't stay with him forever, especially not with Katherine back. She's been trying to ignore the truth, but she can't run away from it any longer. She would have to go back into the real world eventually and she could do a lot worse than returning with an Archibald on her arm and the Vanderbilt ring on her finger.

"I guess I don't need you to compel him after all."

"You're going back to him? Just like that?"

"No not just like that," she answers with her hands on her hips. "I… I'm just thinking about it is all."

Why does it feel like somebody just dropped an anvil on top of him?

"I thought you would be happy. It's not like you ever wanted to compel him in the first place. You're off the hook."

"Correction, I didn't want to compel him to propose to you. I was up for anything humiliating or possibly self-detrimental."

She gives him a pointed look only to quickly avert her eyes.

"Are you really serious?" he asks incredulously. "Come on, Blair. This is Nate. He betrayed you. With your best friend! You can't trust him. Are you really going to live with wool covers over your eyes forever?"

"Yes," she replies simply. "So long as they're cashmere."

Damon doesn't smile at her joke.

"You got Katherine back. What do you care?" she sighs, she sits herself down at a vanity table and proceeds to rearrange the contents in the usual neurotic Waldorf manner.

"I care," he insists, sitting himself across from her. How many times does he have to tell her for her to believe it?

"Don't. I'm not your responsibility. Honestly, Damon. What did you think was going to happen? Am I supposed to just follow you and Katherine around like some third wheel? I'm not even a vampire! I have to go on to live my own life."

"And that life is back in New York with Nate?"

"Maybe it is."

She pauses in her ministrations and look back up at him. Her mouth is set resolutely in the signature Waldorf fashion. But then why is it that he thinks her eyes are telling him to ask her to stay? Is it just his own wishful thinking? He doesn't have enough time to decipher complicated Blair Waldorf body language before she breaks their gaze.

"I'm going back to New York," she decides. "My mother is there and I haven't even informed the school yet. I've been gone for way longer than intended already. I need deal with real life."

"Real life," he repeats with a disgusted look on his face.

If Nate and New York is real life, then what the hell does that make him? A vacation?

"My mother must be freaking out. I have to go back and reassure her I haven't died in a ditch or something. I've been gone too long," she rationalizes.

"What about Natey boy and his proposal?"

"I still need time to think about that," she replies quickly. "One step at a time."

He doesn't want her to think about it. He doesn't want her to think about it at all.

"It's just… can you do something for me?" she asks almost shyly.

"What? Anything," He answers too quickly and he realizes that he sounds quite desperate, but he doesn't care.

He'd do anything. He wants to be able to offer her something no else can. He wants there to be a reason for her need him, to want him, to stay. Something that he can use as leverage to make her stay.

"Can you give me a ride back home? For old time's sake?"

There's a sense of finality to her request that makes him think that this is the last time he'll ever see her again and he finds himself hesitant to answer her.

"Yes. Yes, Blair. I'll take you home."

xxx

Packing is faster than she anticipated. She never realized just how little her possessions were here in Mystic Falls. Back in New York, she would have rooms and rooms filled with all her things. All she has here is a suitcase and Nate's jacket. It's all the more reason to go home right?

She strokes the Vanderbilt emblem stitched on jacket's lapel and her fingers trail down to pick up the sleeve with the heart charm. It's time let go of childish fantasies. Despite what Nate said about getting their Happily Ever After, Blair knows now that there is no such thing. Nate and Blair aren't the same two people anymore. Still, they have a lot in common, particularly in terms of their family's expectations, financial compatibility and future ambitions. Most of all he's somebody she can grow old with. In spite of his shortcomings, Nate was still quite a catch and they have a history. It makes sense to go back with him. She just wishes these thoughts sounded less like excuses in her head.

As she picks up Nate's jacket something small and indiscernible falls out of one the pockets. It's a soggy, smashed up, pitiable looking thing. Nate must have left it in his jacket when he threw it in the wash. She picks it up from the floor and stokes it with her thumb. From what she could tell it used to be a little pouch. She turns it over in her hands and that's when it hits her. There are symbols scrawled across the little charm. Symbols she has seen before. Symbols that she has helped write into the dirt of forest clearings and on wooden floors. She shakes out the contents onto the vanity table and her fears are confirmed. Among bits of stone, dead insects and pieces of dried herbs is a single strand of blonde hair.

Blair doesn't waste any time getting to the Bennett's house. She repeatedly slams the door with her fists, screaming for Bonnie until the teenage witch finally emerges in her slippers and robe, her hair in complete disarray.

"Blair? What's going on?" Bonnie asks with trepidation after seeing the enraged state of the other brunette.

"What's this?" she demands, holding up the small pouch with occult symbols. "I've helped you and Emily with your little magic spells long enough to recognize this as some sort of witchcraft."

"Blair-"

"Why was this in Nate's jacket?"

"Blair, just calm down."

"No! I will not calm down. What the hell is this?"

"It's just a truth spell," Bonnie tries explaining.

"A truth spell," she repeats incredulously.

Bonnie simply nods, as any unnecessary words might only further provoke the angered Immune.

"And why would Nate have a truth spell?"

"Damon was worried-"

"Damon did this?" The shock is apparent on her face.

Bonnie regrets not lying. The look on Blair's face is a mixture of hurt and betrayal which quickly transforms into rage. Without another word Blair pivots and marches down the porch steps and back towards the Salvatore house.

xxx

He had just come back from checking up on Katherine in her new lodgings and was in the middle of tossing his jacket on the couch in the living when she finds him.

"Hey-"

She throws the witch's charm at his face. He looks down at the mangled little trinket and then back at her face. Although the physical pain from her angry reaction is miniscule, the emotional pain is insurmountable.

"I can explain."

"Everyone told me that I couldn't trust you, but I didn't believe them. But you know what? They're right! How could you lie to my face like that?"

"I didn't lie. I told you I wouldn't compel him and I didn't!"

"Oh, big whoop! You got Bonnie to do it!"

"Only so that Nate would tell you the truth! It was for the greater good!"

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is the point?"

The anger in her eyes change to something different. Something much more heartbreaking. Disappointment.

"The point was that I was naive to think that I was special. That you could deceive everybody else, but you wouldn't do that to me! I trusted you. I never thought that you could ever go behind my back. Not after everything. I was naïve, I know, but I never thought you would lie to me."

Damon has nothing to say to that.

"But you did," her voice is a hoarse whisper, teetering on tears.

"Blair..."

"Don't!"

She's hear that apologetic tone before. It never ends well.

"We're through, Salvatore. I'll get my own ride home."

"Don't be ridiculous!"

He reaches out for her, but she slaps his hand away violently.

"Don't touch me! Don't look at me, don't speak to me! I don't want to see you ever again. Consider that the favor you owed me."

He tells himself she's just angry, just upset at the moment. She doesn't mean what she says. She doesn't.

"We're even. There's nothing left between us anymore."

She doesn't even bother to take her stuff in her hurry to leave.

He stands there staring at the front door for a full hour after she slammed it shut behind her. He kept thinking she would turn around, any moment now. Any moment now and she'll come back. Come back. Come back.

She doesn't.

A/N: Sorry for such a belated update! I've been busy with the new school and the new country (studying abroad yo! XD) and so writing has been put on the backburner. Hopefully I'll get more time to write once things settle down. I actually had this insane idea about an Arthur (Inception)/Blair fic. Of course the idea of this insane pairing originally came from the amazing glitterite. So that might be making an appearance as well if anyone's interested. No promises on when the next update will be, but thank you to everyone who continues to support me and this fic! =D