A/N: Hello, lovely readers! I had a great time at the beach - thank you for your well wishes! I have to say, I think this was probably one of my favorite chapters to write, so I hope you like it too!
Thank you so very much: kauraREX, Avivush, BekaRoo, nics, Zara, and livelovelaugh9704 for your reviews of the last chapter! May you all be blessed with many sunny beach days in the near future! And now, here we go...
Chapter 18: Honey and the Moon
Don't know why I'm still afraid
If you weren't real I would make you up now
I wish that I could follow through
I know that your love is true
And deep
As the sea
-"Honey and the Moon" Joseph Arthur
Blair stared at him with wide eyes, not sure whether she would gain more success by taking the offensive or the defensive. Shelving both for now, she settled on indignant silence, counting on her eyes to convey what her mouth could not.
"Nothing to say to that, Waldorf?"
"Oh, I have plenty to say I assure you, but me being forced into this dance is enough torture without having to endure speaking to you as well." Chuck's eyes flashed with a modicum of confusion before shifting to an enchanting shade of burnt butterscotch.
"Well, I approve so long as your silence equates with concurrence to everything I say." Blair did not respond. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of goading her out of her muteness and inciting a round of barbed insults that would get the gossips whispering. "In that case, I'll talk, and you can just stand there and continue to look beautiful as you agree." Half of his mouth twisted up into a smirk. "Let's start with Marcus 2.0, and while I know that this one doesn't have a stepmother he's clandestinely banging, I'm sure he has some not-so-princely secrets. You probably won't be surprised to hear that I already have Mike digging them up as we - well as I - speak. But that's beside the point." Blair rolled her eyes, having had enough of Chuck, and deigned to break her internal vow of silence.
"Well, what's your point then, Bass?" she sighed.
"What's yours?"
"You think I don't belong with him, and you're trying to stop it," she said, answering her own question rather than his, and prodding him in the chest with a force backed by complacency.
"You think I don't belong to anyone," Chuck replied, satisfying both inquiries in one answer. "And I'm merely trying to prove you wrong. I've come a long way since Lily and Bart's wedding, and while I would love to continue reliving that conversation, I think it's about time we focused on the future rather than the past." Chuck signaled to the quartet of violinists, who abruptly stopped playing the current song and flipped through their sheets of music in a flurry of white. "Do me a favor?"
"What?" Blair asked distractedly, entranced by the movement of the musicians and the appearance of Coeur de Pirate, who was enthusiastically greeted with a round of applause and a few staggered whistles.
"Translate. My French is terrible."
"I guess that would be okay," she answered warily. She looked over Chuck's soldier as the violins started to play an extremely familiar melody, their notes swelling and falling and saturating the library in sound. Couer's voice suddenly cut through, and Blair took a breath.
Des yeux qui font baiser les miens
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche
Voilà le portrait sans retouche
De l'homme auquel j'appartiens
"My eyes look down when he looks at me," she said, ironically avoiding Chuck's eyes as she spoke. "I only see his mouth when he laughs. This is the portrait as is, of the man I belong to."
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose
"When he takes me in his arms and speaks to me softly, I see life in rosy hues." Chuck tightened his hold around her waist, bringing her closer to him, and she instinctively brought her head to rest on his chest.
Il me dit des mots d'amour
Ces mots de tous le jours
Et ca m'fait quelque chose
Il est entre dans mon coueur
Une part de bonheur
Dont je connais la cause
"He tells me words of love," Blair whispered, mellifluously but with enough strength for Chuck to hear. "Everyday words, and it makes me feel. He came into my heart - a piece of happiness for which I know the cause."
C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie
Il me l'a dit l'a jure pour la vie
Et des que je l'apercois
Alors je sens en moi mon couer qui bat
"He is for me, I am for him, in this life." A tear rolled down her cheek, and she lifted her head a bit in order to see Chuck. He gazed at her with pools of unshed tears in his own eyes, and she continued in a throaty murmur. "He told me that - swore it for life. And as soon as I see him, I hear my heart beating."
Des nuits d'amour ne plus en finir
Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place
De ennuis, des chagrins, des phrases
Heureux, heureux en mourir
"Nights of love, never ending. Much joy, which takes over troubles, sadness, phrases. Happy, happy to die." Couer continued to sing, repeating the chorus as Blair returned her head to Chuck's chest and held him tighter than she ever had before, because she knew that as soon as she let go, it would have to be for good. They were both with other people now - he had Raina, and she had Louis, no matter what his imprudent, unfounded comment to Louis had meant. Perhaps things were supposed to be this way. What she and Chuck had was a great love - the kind movies and books were written about - but the love stories of Catherine and Heathcliff, Scarlett and Rhett, and Paolo and Francesca all ended in tragedy, with the lovers torn apart. And perhaps being happier than she had ever been in her life for a brief time wasn't worth the pain that would surely come in the end. The phrase he is me, I am him, in this life was flowing from the veins in her heart up to her head, and while she knew it to be true, she wasn't sure that their joy would be enough to defeat the troubles, sadness, phrases that they would be thrown. She looked up when she heard the moment of quiet followed by a fluid wave of clapping and immediately released her hold on Chuck to join in.
"What a wonderful surprise!" Louis enthused, returning to his date. "I did not know such a well known artist would be performing tonight!"
"Yes, wonderful," Blair replied, not entirely sure whether she meant it.
"I must go introduce myself, but I will be right back." Louis gave her a kiss on her cheek. "Do not stray far, ma chéri."
"Chuck, there you are," said another voice, which soon revealed its possessor to be Raina Thorpe. She was holding two glasses of scotch in her hands - one full, one nearly empty. "I didn't know where you went. I was worried you'd ditched."
"No, I was just - "
"Catching up with an old friend," Blair interceded. "Blair Waldorf."
"Raina Thorpe."
"Pleasure," said Blair coolly, taking Raina's hand. "So how long have you and Chuck been together?" she asked, wishing that she didn't have to know, wishing that she didn't care.
"Oh, we're keeping things very low-key, seeing where it goes. This is our first date, actually." She laughed and squeezed Chuck's arm. "And I believe you owe me another drink, considering I had to have this one alone."
"Lovely," Blair lied with a toothy fusion of a smile and a grimace.
"That's fine, but Blair, I really need to talk to you first. Now." Blair couldn't meet his eyes when she responded.
"I don't think I should spend another second away from Louis. He's my date, and I feel like I've barely been with him all night. Excuse me." She quickly began walking blindly in the opposite direction she thought Louis had gone - she didn't want to be near Chuck, but it didn't increase her desire to be anywhere in the vicinity of the prince. She couldn't breathe; she needed fresh air. Blair raced out of the reading room and through the seemingly endless halls of the library until she reached the gray stone steps and could suck in comfortable breaths of the autumn air.
"That was quite an exit." Blair jumped and looked at the stranger to her left. The woman's threadbare, black overcoat and olive pants were a strong contradiction to the erudite look to her wizened but still attractive face. She was most likely a derelict, yet there was something about her that made Blair think she hadn't always been, and the lights of the city created an almost supernal halo around her waves of shiny, silver hair. "From whom are you running, my dear girl?" she asked. Blair didn't think twice before replying.
"Myself."
…
Serena sat alone in her apartment, staring at a blank computer screen, figuring the frustration she was feeling must be how what Dan dealt with whenever he was suffering from a bad case of writer's block in the midst of writing his novel. Though her day with Nate had been a lot of fun and brought back memories of a simpler time in her life, she hadn't gotten a thing done. Her first blog post was supposed to be up in two days, and she didn't know where to begin. What had Nate told her, again? Write about your life, whatever the upcoming fashions are, the galas you're attending, the clubs you're dying to go to, anything you want – a lifestyle blog I guess you could say… The problem was, she hadn't done anything of interest the past couple days, and after the disastrous turn for the worse her love life had taken at Insomniac, the only club she would be going to was the country club at the Hamptons when she visited her grandmother later that month.
"God, I'm going to suck," she sighed, rubbing her eyes. She stirred her glass of water and contemplated all the things she could write about - Columbia, maybe? No, too boring. Her friends? Already taken by another blogger. Her romances? Though Gossip Girl had a loose hold on those too, she never really got the whole story, never got the complete truth. And what better way to vent about her feelings than through a blog? That's what most people did with them anyway, right? It could be like a personal diary, centered around love but filled with splashes of the events she would attend, the clothes she'd purchased at Bergdorf's and Barney's and Bendel's… A symbiosis of sorts between her own idea and the idea Nate had shared with her. She returned her fingers to the keyboard and began to type.
Many of you already think you know me. Yes, I added that 'think' in there on purpose, because while you may consider yourselves knowledgeable on the happenings in my life, that doesn't mean you know me. To be honest, I sometimes question whether I know myself. But I want to, I do. And I want you to know me too - the real me, not just the it-girl that's written about in gossip articles and the Life & Style section of the newspapers. I want to be known for more than that. And I think one of the biggest problems I've encountered in my life is that other people not only don't expect me to be more, but also they don't want me to be. I hope you'll give me the chance to try.
Serena nodded to herself, satisfied with the rough cut of the first section of her blog entry. She hadn't gotten to the love section yet, but it wasn't like she could immediately launch into her failures - not the best way to attract readers, with the exception of gossipmongers who would relish in the stories, and those were the exact opposite of the group she wanted. She wasn't planning on becoming another Gossip Girl. It wasn't her job to break scandal or ruin people's lives by displaying their secrets. She was just going to figure out the person she was and share it with everyone else - a journey to find life and love in Manhattan.
But it's not just myself I'm looking for, strange as that may seem. Usually, when you want to 'find yourself' like people say, you're supposed to cut out distractions, and of course, boys are at the top of the list. But if I'm right, and I think I am, then it can only help me to be with someone. Because if he's really the right one, then he'll be my mirror - he'll reflect back at me without shielding any of my assets or my flaws. I'll see myself for what I truly am when I'm with him. This is a big city, so I'm sure I'll have to look into a few cracked ones first, but that's life, isn't it? You mess up until you get things right, and so long as I'm on the way to 'right,' I think I'll be okay. I'm ready for this journey; who else is up for the ride?
Happy trails for now!
SVDW
But right now
Everything is turning blue,
And right now
The sun is trying to kill the moon,
And right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores
Of freedom,
Where no one lives
Until next time - xoxo