"Would you put that out?" she said half annoyed and half distracted as she returned to the bathroom to continue her extensive bedtime beauty routine.
"Why? My post-sex cigarettes never bothered you before…" Chuck grumbled as he obliged to her request, "besides, I own the place. No rules, who cares?"
"Yes, but this room is under my name." Blair countered, "and since I don't think either one of us wants anyone to know you're here. I don't need anyone thinking either Tripp or I are smoking. It wouldn't look good, especially with his campaign ramping up."
Her words made his stomach sink. He hated thinking about her being with anyone else, but he supposed he didn't really have much of a leg to stand on considering tonight was his engagement party. How did they even get to this point?
Several hours earlier…
He honestly couldn't believe it. He was standing in one of the Palace's ballrooms surrounded by New York's elite. Well that part was just another Friday night for him, but tonight was different. Tonight was his engagement party. Chuck Bass was fucking engaged. Who would have thought?
One thing that hadn't changed though was how bored he was. Lily had been so excited to throw this party for them that he just let it go despite not being excited for it, nor his marriage to be honest, at all. He continued to listen to one of Bass Industry's shareholders drone on and on about how marriage would change him, but his eyes began to wander the crowd in search of anything remotely more interesting.
That's when he saw her. Even with not having seen her for 3 years and only catching a glimpse from behind, he recognized Blair instantly.
He had no idea what she was doing here. The last time they had been together was Serena and Nate's wedding and things did not end on a good note then. They were of course the best man and maid of honor (who else would the golden couple have chosen?). They had played nice and made it through the entire weekend with just snarky remarks here and there, but somehow ended up drunk in his suite by the end of the reception. His body stiffened and a shiver ran down his spine as he remembered the events of that night.
Despite his fiance being in the same room, he was very much so imagining a repeat of that night. His body was practically buzzing as he approached her, but then just as he had caught up to where she was at the bar, he saw something that made his stomach drop.
A man appeared and slipped his arm around her waist. The hand began drawing small circles on her exposed lower back due to her backless red dress. He had always had a weak spot for her back, her neck (currently also exposed by her updo), her in a red dress, honestly he just had a weak spot for her…
Ugh, that's my thing, he thought as he began to register who this intruder in his fantasy was.
The couple turned to smile at each other. Tripp Vanderbilt.
Blair was giggling slightly and Chuck could see the glint in her eye. He knew the one. It was flirtatious. It was captivating. Every man was enticed by it. But most of all, it meant she was excited by something… something new…
He didn't have much time to contemplate what any of this meant, because the couple had started to approach him and he suddenly felt like a sitting duck.
"Bass, congratulations on your engagement." Blair said in an almost sickly sweet voice.
"Ha! Yes, congrats man. I never thought I'd see the day considering what Nate told me before we had even met and you were just a kid then." Tripp continued.
Chuck bit back his reply. What he wanted to say was that Tripp had ended up exactly where Chuck expected considering his first impressions of him. A politician already divorced before 35 and dating a pretty girl just slightly questionably too young for him.
But this was a society event hosted by Lily, so he gave his best society smile and replied with, "Thank you. When you meet someone so amazing, they just change you. They make you want to change who you are and settle down forever, you know?"
He said all this while making direct eye contact with Blair and watched her shift slightly uncomfortably considering these were the last words he had said to her and about her the morning after their last encounter. And knowing Tripp's dirovce had just finalized, he threw extra emphasis on the forever part.
"Well we better get these drinks back to Serena and Nate before they get warm, huh?" Blair asked Tripp with a million dollar smile that gave nothing away as to how uncomfortable she was at the moment.
"Oh, of course. Congrats again, Bass!" Tripp said one more time as he and Blair began to move through the crowd once more.
On his way back to Eva, Chuck ran into Lily and his curiosity got the better of him.
"You invited Blair?" he asked while trying to remain monotone
Lily nearly smirked before replying, "Oh yes, I ran into her while shopping today and couldn't help myself. She's like another daughter to me and I hardly get to spend any time with her now that she's always in London."
"Ah yes, it wouldn't be a party without Blair." he said plainly as he continued back to Eva.
Chuck tried not to roll his eyes and point out that Lily had not spent any time with Blair this evening. He knew the real reason Lily had invented Blair though. Lily hated Eva and would much rather Chuck be marrying Blair.
And honestly, Chuck felt the same way. Eva was the most boring prop turned bride he could have imagined. He had met her on a business trip to Prague and she seemed nice enough to spend an evening with. However it turned out she was a complete prude and his evening did not go as expected.
Fast-forward a year or so and she had somehow become his stable girlfriend that the board loved. They loved seeing a settled down Bass heading the company and stock prices were at an all time high so he took the next logical step as a businessman and proposed. There were times he felt bad for Eva. Their relationship was pathetic and boring. No love nor passion, but then he remembered that she had gone from working in a coffee shop to engaged to a billionaire and he didn't feel so bad again.
Later in the evening Chuck had stepped out onto the balcony for a smoke when Nate joined him.
"Want one?"
"You know Serena would kill me."
"Of course, gotta keep the wife happy…" Chuck replied dryly
"Hey man, you're about to learn all about that." Nate replied with a chuckle.
"As long as she's able to keep swiping my Amex, Eva is plenty happy."
"That sounds like a healthy relationship…"
"Is it not the relationship pretty much all our parents had?"
And with that, the two men grew silent for a moment as they looked out onto the Manhattan skyline while reflecting on the terrible relationships that had been modeled for them.
Finally Chuck broke the silence.
"So your cousin and your ex, eh? How's that feel?"
"Ha! Well I guess when you put it that way, it does sound kind of weird, but um… I guess it doesn't feel weird considering I sometimes forget Blair and I even dated." Nate replied with a laugh.
Chuck resisted pointing out that Nate dated Blair for years and no one should ever forget dating Blair for even a moment. Instead of replying at all, Chuck turned around to lean against the balcony and look back into the ballroom through the glass doors.
He saw Blair saying her goodbyes to both Tripp and Serena and furrowed his brows.
Interesting he thought. She wasn't leaving with him…
And just as Chuck was trying to figure out what this meant, he was thrown for a loop. He could have swore Blair looked at him and winked.
What is happening? He thought.
Blair wasn't sure what she was doing. One moment she was saying her goodbyes to Tripp and Serena for the night to head upstairs to her room and the next she was winking at Chuck Bass. She really wasn't sure what made her do it. Perhaps she was feeling nostalgic being back at the Palace, perhaps it was because fate had somehow given her room 1812 and it seemed fitting, but mostly perhaps because she missed him and over the years she had grown to not give a shit.
Yes, it was probably that last one.
You see, all those years ago when Chuck had called her out for "playing wife" at the disastrous brunch their senior year of high school, something broke inside Blair Waldorf. All her life she had seen being a wife (mainly Nate's) as the end all be all goal and then suddenly Chuck had made being a wife sound like the worst possible outcome. Her whole perspective shattered and she decided at that moment that she didn't need to be someone's wife to be happy and in fact she swore to never be someone's wife.
Blair had finished her senior year as uneventfully as possible while avoiding Chuck. After Yale had fallen through, Blair did the next best thing and took a gap year with her daddy and Roman in France after graduation. The following fall she actually enrolled at Cambridge and made Europe her permanent home. For the last few years she had been working as her mother's right hand woman for the European branch of Waldorf Designs, until her recent return to the states…
As much as she hated Humphrey, she did have to admit he was right about something. All great stories start with either someone going on a journey or someone returning home and here she has done both. Things were about to get very interesting indeed…
Author's Note:
What do you guys think? Should I continue? I know it's been a decade but I can't get over Chuck and Blair. So to make this clear, this story picks up after 2x15 where Bart's will is read so everything after that is AU. I've also chosen to ignore what happens with Tripp in season 3. In this story he is simply Nate's cousin.