Pictures in magazines, movie screens
Mirrors and cameras, so many beauty queens
It's so good to be
Fabulous and glamourous,
We love ourselves and no one else
Vanity.

Chapter 4 - Reality

They ate their fancy dinner in an almost awkward silence, neither wanting to bridge the gap of conversation. The yacht was moving now, albeit slowly, but the crisp New York evening was enough to goosepimple Blair's legs. Chuck looked up and gazed intently into her eyes.

"Chuck..." Blair's hand reached across the table, but before her fingertips grazed his hand, he pushed back his chair, the legs scraping on the floor, and stood at the rail. His hands gripped the metal as he looked out across the water.

"I waited for you, Blair." He slammed his hand down on the bar in frustration.

"Please don't do this now. Don't spoil the night," she pleaded in a whisper, her eyes closing in anticipation of the coming onslaught. Because yes, she definitely knew what was coming, and it would not be pleasant.

"September fifteenth. That was the day Eleanor died."

Blair cringed.

"For the whole of September, we waited for the tears. We waited for you to break. Even at the funeral, you just seemed numb." His voice became strangled. "You were hollow. Dead inside. Serena was so worried about you. Nate wouldn't talk to either of us. You holding yourself together tore us apart, because we knew what was coming. I still remember the night you called me. You called me before you called an ambulance. You just kept repeating 'She's dead. I need you to be here'. I was there when they took her body away. I held your hand when you said goodbye."

Blair let out a choked sob, but said nothing. These were haunting memories for her, memories that she could barely remember through the drug-filled haze of October, November and most of December of that year.

"I know that it was hard for you. You found your mom dead; of course it was fucking hard for you, but you pretended like everything was fine."

"I-" Blair went to interrupt him, but he ignored her.

"On the fifth of October, I got a call from your cell. But it wasn't you. It was Dorota. You'd left your cell at a seedy bar downtown before disappearing with three guys. She was terrified, Blair. How could you have done that to her? To Eleanor? To your Dad? How could you have done that to me?"

"I don't know," she replied in a dry whisper. "I don't know."

"I'll bet you don't even remember those months," he spat. "You were drunk and/or high for most of them. You missed school. Changed your style. You cut your hair. Everything that you did just wasn't you. You took drugs. Blair fucking Waldorf took drugs. I still can't believe it. I hate myself for being this guy, the guy that has to remind you of everything that you did. But I changed for you, Blair. I practically gave up my life to stop you from destroying yours. After everything that I did for you, after every time I punched a guy to make him get his hands off of you, after every time you turned up at my suite at three in the morning, having taken God-knows-what with God-knows-who, you just didn't fucking care. I turned up at your apartment one day, and you'd disappeared. Without a text, or a call, or a fucking email." Chuck gritted his teeth as he tried to maintain a scrap of control. He took a deep breath and counted to ten in an effort to calm himself. "For six months I called you. For six months I left messages. For six fucking months."

"I know."

"I told you that I loved you, Blair. You said that you loved me too." Chuck's eyes burned into hers as he turned back to face her.

Blair stood from her own chair and walked to the railings opposite Chuck. She clenched her jaw. "Don't talk about it. I can't-"

Chuck crossed the distance between them and forced her to face him. "You can't run away anymore, Blair. You can't run away from what happened."

"I know." She whispered, her voice almost being carried away on the light wind, a single tear making a path down her cheek.

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to see somebody that we loved go from being a neurotic control freak to an alcoholic drug addict who didn't care if they lived or died?"

"Having your mom kill herself is not something you 'get through'. How dare you say that to me, Chuck! You don't know how hard it was."

Chuck glared at her. "Don't I?"

"I didn't mean that."

He looked at her for a moment. "I know." He sighed in defeat. "Why did you do it, Blair? Why did you run?"

"I couldn't stay here. I just couldn't."

He shook his head. "That's not answering my question," he said bitterly.

She stared at him coldly, raising one of her sculpted eyebrows. "What answer do you expect me to give? I'm awfully sorry that I didn't stop to consider little Chuckie's feelings whilst finally letting myself mourn the suicide of my late mother. God, I'm so inconsiderate! What was I thinking?"

"Blair."

Her eyes started to fill. "I'm sorry that I left, okay? I had a lot on my mind!"

Chuck scoffed and he looked away. "Like where your next hit was coming from?"

Two pink spots appeared on Blair's cheeks but she ignored him. "What do you want from me, Chuck?"

"I don't know," He mumbled, staring at the water below.

"What?"

"I don't know!" He repeated. "I don't want anything from you. Forget it." We both know exactly what it is that I want, because we both want the same thing.

Blair raised an eyebrow and narrowed her eyes. "Don't lie to me." I need you to say it out-loud.

"I'm not l-" I can't.

"Yes you are!" She insisted, "I know you, Chuck. Your eyes are doing that thing where they don't match your mouth."

Chuck gazed at her, finally broken, finally defeated. "I hate you for doing this to me. For turning me into this. I never wanted to love you. I never wanted you to fucking love me. Why did you choose me? Why was it me that you turned to when you were drunk? You manipulated me into loving you. You admitted it more than a few times. When you were so high you didn't know your own name, why did you have to know mine? "

"I don't know."

"You had Nate and you had Serena. They would have done anything for you. Why did you choose me?"

"I don't-"

"You do."

Blair sighed and wrung her hands. "I knew that you'd be there. I knew that no matter what, you'd always come and rescue me."

"I never wanted to be your knight in shining armour," He ground out roughly, unable to think of anything else to say at her admittance. "That was always Nate's fantasy."

"It was always you, Chuck. Even when we were little. Serena never wanted to take over the playground like I did, and Nate just wanted to do whatever Serena wanted to do. You just wanted to-"

"Make you smile. I remember."

"Do you remember my seventh birthday?"

Chuck scratched his chin, but smiled a small smile. "Nate was on vacation and Serena was visiting her Grandmother."

"And it was just me and you."

"Just me and you," He echoed.

"We played war. Remember? I thought it was a dumb game. I hated the little soldiers with their guns and tacky outfits. But you showed me how to play."

"You won that game, if I recall correctly."

"So you see, Chuck; you made me who I am. You introduced me to a game that allowed me to conquer and control people. I've never forgotten that. You're part of the very essence of my character. Of course it was you that I turned to." Blair stepped closer to him as the yacht shuddered to a halt. They were mooring back at the docks. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you." He couldn't meet her eyes, no matter how hard he tried, his eyes just wouldn't look into hers. She placed her hands on either side of his face and forced him to face her. "I love you, Chuck. Always have, always will."

The noise of the engine became silent and Chuck finally braced himself enough to look at her. "I think you should leave." He removed her hands from his face as if her touch burned him, and he stepped away from her. "Goodbye, Blair."

Blair stood frozen and alone at the rail of the yacht. She'd done it. She'd apologised, admitted to Chuck that she loved him, and finally faced her demons. And it had all gone horribly wrong. Her heart felt like it was breaking in two, and Chuck stood away from her, expressionless, almost; as if they were strangers. But however much she was hurting inside, however much pain Chuck had just caused her, she would not show it until she was safely in her own apartment, away from prying eyes, camera phones and the temptation to drown her sorrows with a bottle of Perfect 1864*.

She steeled herself for what she was about to do, for what she was about to become. She took a deep breath, promising that when she let out the air, she'd become a new person.

If Chuck wanted to be strangers, they would be strangers. Had he forgotten that she'd won the first ever game of War that they'd played? Silly Chuck. Maybe it was time that he learned that you didn't mess with a Waldorf, especially not one who had nothing to loose. She let out the air and opened her eyes. He was gazing at her warily, as though he was frightened of her breaking in front of him.

Despite herself, Blair's heart thumped a little faster as she walked past Chuck. She heard his breath hitch as she leaned over the table for her purse, grabbing the remaining bottle of wine as she did so. He scoffed at this in disbelief, but when she turned to face him, her eyes dared him to question her. Her features were calm, showing no emotion.

Inwardly, Chuck was amazed at the speed that Blair had transformed from the vulnerable teenage girl that he had witnessed just moments ago to the confident, defiant woman that he saw before him. Outwardly, he frowned. Gone from her face was the honesty. Gone was the helplessness. Gone was the love.

It was replaced by malice, cruelty and challenge. Blair raised an eyebrow at his expression. "You see, Bass? You're not the only one who can bounce back. I'll see you on Monday. Goodnight." She kissed him softly on the cheek, pulled back and smirked at him.

With that, Blair stepped past him and walked down the stairs. She smiled an evil smile as she thought of her coat, sitting on the back of the chair upstairs.

In Blair's mind, the coat symbolised his submission. Instead of leaving her heart and her love with Chuck, like she had planned on doing, she'd left the coat. Chuck would keep the coat until he was ready or wanted to receive her heart and her love instead. Chuck would figure it out, she knew, because Blair Waldorf never left a $600 jacket on the back of a chair by accident.

If and when he returned the coat, she'd forgive him for what he'd just done. Until then, all bets were off.

"Let the games begin, Bass," she murmured, as she slowly strolled through the streets of the city. It was late, and dark, and probably very unsafe, but Blair needed the fresh air. A limo would mean a reminder of Chuck, and the minibar full of whiskey would certainly not help the situation.

It was one thirty when she finally arrived at her penthouse, her small feet throbbing slightly from the long walk, but Blair was elated. Still clutching the unopened bottle of wine, she took a bottle opener from the kitchen. Blair took the two upstairs, and stood at the huge window in her mother's old room. She leaned against the frame, smiling slightly at the still-busy New York street below. She drank the wine straight from the bottle, barely stopping to take a breath. Her skeletons needed to be reburied behind her designer dresses, and that was not a task she could do whilst sober. Collapsing onto her bed (that had been moved into the master bedroom), Blair checked her phone. No Chuck, no Serena, no Gossip Girl. Awesome.

The wine began to lull her into a deep, dreamless sleep, and Blair smiled to herself as she finally dropped off. Bridges had been burned tonight, and it would take a huge effort on Chuck's part to rebuild them. Blair was more than happy to watch him suffer until he did, though.

"Miss Blair..." Blair drifted in and out of sleep. Her head hurt, her throat was dry and her feet ached. "Miss Blair..." She moaned and raised a hand to her forehead.

"BLAIR!" She squealed as a pillow hit her in the face. "Get out of bed!"

Warily, she opened an eye, then groaned at the light in the room. "Good morning, Serena."

Her best friend giggled. "Good afternoon, Blair." Blair yawned hugely and blushed as Serena produced the empty bottle of Rose from behind her back. "The night went that badly, huh?"

Blair worried her bottom lip, combing her fingers through her hair. "You could say that."

Serena frowned, her eyes flashing a concerned look to Dorota, which Blair caught. "I'm fine! Blame your brother."

"It creeps me out that you and Chuck are the only people who refer to him as my brother. Gross." Serena bit her lip. "What happened?"

"Oh, you know, he called me out on the stunts I pulled freshman year, I apologised, told him that I loved him and he just told me to leave. Nice, huh?"

"What?" Serena exploded, "He told you to leave?"

"Pretty much." Blair shrugged, then sat up. "I'm sorry. For freshman year. Really."

Serena smiled at her and pulled her in for a hug. "It's okay, B. It's in the past. We love you and we're glad you're back."

"Sure you are." The two laughed.

Blair pulled herself out of bed. Not that she was in bed, but off of the bed, anyway. She stumbled her way into the bathroom and avoided looking at the ornate bath to her left, instead going straight to the large shower cubicle and turning on the water. The door was still open, but Blair stripped off anyway. Climbing under the hot water, she grinned.

"So, S, where are we going tonight?"

Serena entered the bathroom, put the toilet lid down and sat on it. "I don't know, B, why? Did you want to go somewhere?"

"Well, kind of. Have you heard of somebody called Carter Baizen?"

*Perfect 1864 is a French Vodka.