Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl or the characters.

Chapter 5

Dear Blair,

I just stare at it for a minute. It's to me? Are these all letters? And are they all to me? I check quickly and find that they are.

I feel a little bad reading personal letters, but these are to me. Surely it's alright if I read them?

I start to read the first one. It's dated September 2010. After that summer where everything changed...

Dear Blair,

I've only just started this letter but I know I'll never send it to you. You hate me. Everyone does. I don't know what to do. I just feel so lost. And alone. I can't think of anyone I can go to right now. If I could choose, it would be you, but you won't answer me. Or you'll just do what you do best and use it against me somehow.

I'm a little offended at that, although I am the kind of person who would do that. But even though I was hurt that summer, I would never have done anything to hurt him.

Already, the honesty of this letter surprises me. I don't see Chuck ever really talking about his feelings like this to me. When he's ever really upset, like he was then, he shuts me out instead of letting me in. It was one of our biggest problems. His honesty makes me almost excited to keep reading. He was never planning on sending this to me, which makes me feel bad about reading it but also makes me want to read it more, because he'd never tell me these things otherwise. But I almost instantly regret my decision as I read the next line and my heart almost stops.

I was shot a few months ago.

I gasp at this. Shot? That's what happened in Prague?

I had asked if life had caught up with him there. And he had said "Something like that." I should've known then that something was wrong. It takes me a few minutes to calm down. After all, he's fine now, right? He's still alive. Perfectly alive and…well. Right?

But what about those pills? My head screams. What about that hospital bill?

I don't want to read on now. I don't want to know what this letter has to say. But I have to. I've started now, and I can't stop. I continue reading, a sense of dread deep inside of me.

I tried to keep your engagement ring, because they were trying to take it from me. The guys who did it. I tried, I really did. I was going to propose to you. I think you know that. I couldn't let them have it. Even though you'd never seen it, it was yours. I couldn't let them take the last piece of you that I had.

An engagement ring? That's what he got shot for? It's romantic, but I feel terrible that he got shot because of a stupid engagement ring. His life was so much more important to me than a ring back then, and it still is.

Of course I'd known what he was doing. I'd known he was going to propose. But I shut it out of my mind as soon as I found out about what had happened with Jenny. I regret that so much now…maybe it would have helped me forgive him. Maybe I could have gotten him to stay, instead of running away to Prague, running straight into a bullet.

So they shot me, and I knew it was over. I thought I was going to die, Blair. And honestly, I wanted to. Anything to end all of the pain.

I bite me lip at this. The pain? Was it my fault? Would it have been my fault, if he had died there, all alone?

But I didn't die. I woke up and I was scared. I was scared for it all to be over. I was a coward. Now that I knew it was possible to live, I didn't want to die. But who was I to call? Who would stand by that stupid hospital cot and help me through it all?

Me! I want to scream. I would've. No matter what had happened, if Chuck had been hurt, I would have been there by his side. I would have been there the whole time. Why couldn't he have just told me?

There was no one. No one would want to come. I didn't ask anyone. I told them not to call anyone. I told them that I didn't have any parents, any friends, any girlfriends or wives. I told them I was alone.

And I was.

I feel terribly guilty for this. But I try to justify it; he brought this upon himself. It was his own fault that he was alone.

But he did not deserve to be shot.

So I got better, bit by bit. But it was hard to take care of all of the paperwork and bills by myself. They didn't know how rich I was. I didn't get great care. It didn't help that I got out of there way earlier than I should have. You know how I hate hospitals.

I find myself nodding, even though I know he can't see me.

So when I got back to New York, I waited a while, but I eventually went to a better hospital. A very private one. I didn't want anyone knowing about this. And…it's infected. The wound. Badly. And I'm so scared. The doctors…they don't know what will happen. They tried to sugar-coat it at first, to protect me I guess, but I got them to tell me the truth about how bad it is. And it's really bad, Blair. Terrible. They told me…I could die.

Die?

In fact, it's likely. And I have to be ready. But I'm not. I'm not ready to go yet. I can't go without telling you goodbye, Blair. And there's nowhere to turn. I wish I could really tell you all of this, but I can't. I'm going to go burn this in the fire now. So in case I never get the chance to say this…Goodbye, Blair. I love you.

-Chuck

Chuck could die? No. He can't. He's not going to. I can't even process this new information.

This is not what I wanted to find. But maybe it's better now. Maybe these pills are helping it get better. Maybe it's almost gone.

With trembling hands, I take out the next letter.

Dear Blair,

I don't know why I kept the last letter. I don't even know why I'm writing another one.

Things are going alright. Or, they're going terribly. The good news is that they were able to delay the spread of the infection.

I breathe a sigh of relief. But he wrote delay….not stop.

The bad news? It's not permanent, and I'm going to die. Pretty soon. It could be a few months. It could be a few years. But either way, I won't make it past my 23rd birthday.

23rd birthday? But that's so soon…

I used to think I'd be with you on my 23rd birthday. We'd be married, maybe even with a kid. We'd be young and completely in love. We'd be happy.

Well, Blair, I'm anything but happy. The people at work? They look at me like scared little mice. They talk about me behind my back. They all hate me. None of them are friends. None of them know about my looming death. Who will take over the company after I die? I have no idea.

Are you happy, Blair? Are you happy without me? I bet you are.

A single tear drips on the paper.

"I wasn't," I whisper. "I wasn't happy…"

I hope you are. No matter what, I want you to be happy, Blair.

Goodbye, Blair. I love you.

-Chuck

I'm crying now, hard. My tears fall down and splash onto the letter, smudging the words. I hastily put it away, not wanting to ruin it. They feel like pieces of the heart that once belonged to me in my hand, far more broken than the last time I held it.

I take out the rest of the letters.

Dear Blair,

Things are going great for the company. I wonder if you know. Do you think about me? I think about you, all of the time. I hope you're happy, I really do. I try to stay away from New York for you. I have buildings elsewhere. I don't want to hurt you again.

Do you miss me?

Yes, I want to say to him. I do miss him. I miss the old version of him, the one writing these letters, even the one that would have never told me what these letters contain.

I miss you, so much. So much that it hurts. Lately I've been looking at your number in my contacts, wanting to press call but never doing it. You might have changed you number anyways. You probably have, if I know you. And I do. Better than I know myself.

All I want is to just see your face one last time. But if I do, everything that I've worked so hard for, all of my putting up a happy, or at least not an unhappy face on, it'll all crumble and break. So I can't.

Goodbye, Blair. I love you.

-Chuck

I read the rest of the letters, trying not to cry so hard that I couldn't read them. They all talk about how sorry he is, and how he wishes things were different, how me misses me and loves me and always will. How he doesn't go on dates, or out with friends. No girl would want to go out with him anyways. And he doesn't have any friends. They all end with "Goodbye, Blair. I love you." He tells me he does that so that it will always be the last thing he "says" to me. It's all very romantic and very painful to read because of the information it holds. I read them all until I get to the very last one, where I'm not even sure if I can read another one.

Dear Blair,

This will be the last letter I write you.

You're here. That's too hard for me. I can't have you here.

You tell me to come back to you, but I'm right here. I can't show anything, though. It's too much, it's too hard.

You don't want this. You don't want to be friends with me when I'm so close to death.

I stopped any kind of treatment last week. I'm not responding to it. There are only a few more weeks for me.

But for you? You have your whole life ahead of you. You need to leave and start living it. Forget about me.

Sometimes I think, I hope, that you might still love me, after all this.

But I know it's not true. How could you?

I don't know why you're back.

But I can't have you here any longer. I'll crack. I'll scare you. I'll yell and I'll cry and everything that I've held in for so long will come out, and it will scare you away.

I try to explain why you need to leave, but, being stubborn as always, you never listen.

Even if you do love me, I can't let this continue.

Not with only weeks left. It'd be too selfish. I've caused you too much pain already. If you stay here, if we become close again, it will only hurt more when I'm gone. I need you to leave. Please.

You need to leave before I'm gone. Before it's too late.

I need to protect you. It's my last wish.

Goodbye, Blair. I love you.

-Chuck

I can't hold it in anymore at this point. I sob uncontrollably, rocking back and forth, clutching the last letter. The rest are scattered on the floor.

I don't hear him come in. It's only when he's in the room with me that I heard him.

"What are you doing?" he asks in a deadly tone.

I stop crying and look up at his face. He looks furious. I'm too upset to be happy that I've sparked an emotion in him.

"What did you did? What did you read? Did you read those?" he demands.

"N-no, I didn't-I mean-oh, Chuck…" I say, unable to continue, looking at his face desperately, searching for some signs of emotion other than anger.

"Get out," he says quietly.

I sniff in a very unladylike way, but I can't help it.

"GET OUT!" he yells.

I get up and run out of the room, still holding the last letter.

I quickly check out of the hotel. I'd left my phone in Chuck's room. It was in my purse, in his office. That must have been why I didn't get Serena's text that he was coming up.

I rush to the door, needing to leave this place, before I realize that there's nowhere to go. Serena, Lily, Nate, and Eric are gone. I can't go home. Serena will be waiting to tell me all about her visit with Chuck, and I won't be able to control myself. She'll see how upset I am, and then I'll have to tell her.

I can't go back to my room, either. I don't want to, and I've already checked out, anyways.

So I drag my suitcase out onto the streets and go to a gross bar nearby. There's all of these middle-aged guys drinking beer and watching the T.V., cheering at something on the screen. There's a very scantily clad girl passed out at a table. I wrinkle my nose in distaste at the kind of people here, even in my sadness. This place is anything but classy. Being in a place like this is not like me at all. But I need this right now.

I know that Chuck won't follow me. He'll expect me to have left, anyways. And I did leave.

And he might not even want to follow me.

I sit at the bar and just cry on my arms. I can't handle it…it's all too much. I want to scream. The people around me are just talking and laughing, but I can't see how they can do that when my life is falling apart. I feel like it's me that's dying, instead of him. And in a way, it is. Chuck is a part of me. He always has been.

Chuck is going to dead in just weeks, maybe less? Maybe just days, even hours. That last letter is from weeks ago, when I first showed up at the Empire to visit Chuck. He wrote that he had only weeks left then. So what about now?

"Rough night?" The bartender asks me, and I look up.

I just sniff in response.

He gives me a pitying look. "This one's on me."

He slides a drink towards me. I look at it for a moment, and then I pick it up and down it in less than a minute.

I order another.

AN: Okay….pleasee don't hate me forever! I know I seem to be very mean to characters in my stories….I don't mean to be! I had planned on this from the start, hence the title. I feel kind of bad putting such an awful plot twist in. Oh, and I don't know if the letters were kinda cheesy, and too romantic for Chuck….in all honesty, I think they were. But I kind of wanted to overdo it because it'd be sadder that way and stuff…I don't really know. I just finished Chapter 10, I think…what is this? Chapter 5? I'm still not sure how many chapters there will be. So please, don't be mad about what I wrote, and don't be too harsh about the cheesiness of the letters, I'm aware. I guess I just didn't know how to write them any other way. Oh, and I think 3 people predicted this… I did put in some hints, just the pills and the hospital bill really. Well, the people didn't exactly predict this, but they were close…one person just guessed that he dies (which I will neither confirm nor affirm) and another told me that I should make him have cancer as a story twist…same kind of idea! And then another person guessed that the bullet caused some permanent damage. Also, I think a lot of people said that there was something wrong with him. So please review, but don't be too harsh! I want to know what you think though. Oh, and I recently realized that where I usually put a line to separate different parts of a chapter, there's no line. It doesn't show up when I upload the chapter. So I'm just doing a bunch of blank lines in between now. Sorry if that was confusing!

Next chapter will not be from Blair's point of view, but the rest probably will be.

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