A/N: Ya'll have been waiting a long time for this next chapter and, truthfully, I had trouble with it. This hasn't been beta'd or read over by anyone but me for a second opinion... so please take it easy on me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass or Blair Waldorf... I just like to put words in their mouths and knock sense into their stubborn heads.

If Only

Chapter 16

"Broken Angel"

For a day that started out so right, suddenly everything was so wrong.

Blair was sitting next to her mother at the dinner table, playing the perfect society daughter, and silently seething over the phone call she'd made to her father. It really shouldn't have surprised her when he was relieved to hear from her, happy to find out that she was 'no longer so upset with him.' It was then that he'd filled her in on the conversation he'd had with Eleanor about his trip stateside for Thanksgiving.

It was those details of betrayal by the woman who gave birth to her--who knew how much she looked forward to her father's visit--that caused the fury that now flowed through her.

For about fifteen minutes now all she'd done was stare at her plate of food, which seemed to be mocking her. She was so upset with her mother that she could barely see straight, let alone eat. Sitting in silence seemed to be all she was capable of at the moment; if she opened her mouth, there was no telling what she would say to her mother. It was best that she sat obediently still and quiet, leaving any altercations with her mother for later when company had left.

She just had to remember to keep breathing through the fury.

Eventually, her mother figured out she wasn't making idle conversation. "Blair, you haven't touched your food," she reached out and ran her hand through Blair's curls.

Blair, on the other hand, was not in the mood for the rare placating touch. "I'm not hungry," she said evenly, shirking away from the proffered hand.

Its owner was taken aback; "My darling, what has gotten into you?"

"Well, I was going to wait until after dinner, but I guess now is as good a time as any." Turning to face her mother, she asked vehemently, "Did you call Daddy and say that I didn't want to see him this Thanksgiving?" Just as she'd thought, once her mouth opened, she cut right to the chase.

Scoffing, her mother replied adamantly, "Of course not! What a ridiculous accusation!"

Oh, Eleanor really shouldn't have denied what Blair knew to be true. "So you didn't tell him that I was so angry at him for leaving that I didn't even want to talk to him today?" Leaning toward the older woman, she pointed at her as she added, "You had no right to un-invite him."

"When are you gonna get it through your head?" Leaning toward her, her mother spat, "He left us!"

Blair's voice turned to ice, "He didn't leave us, Mother, he left you."

The hurt on her Eleanor's face, for the milli-second that it showed, almost made Blair regret throwing that particular barb. It was obvious to her that she'd learned her sparring abilities from her mother, as well as her need for control. The human emotion was gone from the other woman's face almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the faint memory it ever existed.

"That's enough, Blair," Eleanor closed the subject neatly and then wrapped it with a bow. "If wanna take this up with me, we can discuss it later, after our guests have left. Right now you either eat or you leave the table."

Any semblance that Blair had of control over her emotions was gone with that order. "I told you, I'm not hungry," she shoved herself away from the table and stood before her mother got it into her head that Blair could still be treated like a child that refused to eat their vegetables. Her eating habits were not the issue here, her mother's loyalties were.

It was obvious to Blair that Eleanor would rather save face in front of her guests than settle a rift with her daughter before it could become a chasm.

A secret, almost vindictive gleam shown in her mother's eyes as she suggested, "Maybe dessert will change your mind." If her mother had been anyone else, she would have smacked the knowing smirk off of Eleanor's face with her words.

Instead, all Blair could do was gape at the older Waldorf's gall; what the hell was she thinking, goading her? The first word was all that slipped out before Blair stopped herself; "What?!"

The way that her mother answered was not a suggestion, it was an order and one that left nothing open for interpretation; the meaning was crystal clear. "Choose one of those amazing desserts," Eleanor drawled in response, seemingly daring Blair to defy her.

Her mother, of all people, knew that Blair's issues with change and loosing control drove her to try and re-gain it. The phone call to her father was one way of trying to capture the reins from Eleanor's manipulative hands, but there was another way, one that Blair had used many times before.

One that her mother must have known she was driving Blair to yearn for at this very moment. If the older woman didn't realize what she was doing, then Blair doubted her sanity. It was so obvious to anyone who knew about Blair's former condition that it was wrong to go down this path.

Blood was boiling underneath the surface of Blair's skin as she grabbed something from the dessert cart without even a glance to see what.

Tempting a bulimic to escape from the situation, to take back control, was not a wise thing.

She stormed into the kitchen, pie in both hands, and slammed it down on the counter with a clang. Darota was watching her steadily, obviously concerned, but Blair only waited a few seconds before dismissing her with a glare. Her maid was worried for her well being, but Blair knew as she picked up the fork, and stabbed the apple pie with it, that the mood she was in was nowhere close to well; it was familiar territory.

The tight control of her life that she fought so hard to maintain was slipping through her fingers and the different ways that those vital reins were wrenched from her grasp over the course of the day were flashing though her head. Thanksgiving had started out so promising, it was the day her Dad was finally coming back home, but everything had quickly fallen apart around her. Serena had tried telling her how to handle her relationship with Chuck, Eleanor had told her father not to come, told her to go get dressed in something more presentable, to eat her dinner or leave the table.

Her mother told her to do this, her mother told her to do that; it seemed like the woman was in control over everything where Blair was concerned, meaning that Blair wasn't.

The worst offense of all was her mother's insistence that she eat dessert; Eleanor practically forced her, demanding that she take the pie to the kitchen.

It was all too much.

All too suddenly Blair heard the clink of the fork as she dropped it into the empty plate. She felt full and disgusting and used; she was her mother's plaything… at least that's how she felt.

Dropping the pie plate unceremoniously onto the counter, she turned around and caught her reflection in the glass on the microwave, her visage distorted by the thickness of the glass. It made her look like a caricature of the beautiful girl that everyone, even Chuck, insisted they could see, but she didn't believe existed. The sight of cheeks that were just a little bit too chubby and a chin that appeared to be on the verge of being double…

The need to take back what her mother had stolen from her, that control of her own life that Blair needed, drove her upstairs, into her bathroom, and on her knees.

After ridding her body of the pie that she couldn't even remember tasting, her relief was very short-lived.

In taking control, she'd lost it.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she sank down to sit on the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She cried into the hem of her skirt, wishing that someone had been there to hold her while she did so, someone to tell her that everything was alright… even if that was a lie.

After a few moments of wallowing in just how out of control her life felt at that moment, she glanced up and saw her phone. It was lying there on the bathroom counter, the place where she'd left it that morning while she was getting dressed rather than it being with her as it always was. Leaning forward, she pulled it towards her and grabbed it, rolling it over in her hands, trying to work up the courage to call Serena. Even though they'd fought that morning, she knew that the blonde would come running; she was still her best friend. All it took was a few code words and any disagreement would be pushed aside, made insignificant by the seriousness of the situation.

On one of her phone's revolutions in her hands, she looked down just in time to see the little light blinking, the one that indicated she had a message. Opening the device, she found out that she had one missed call from Chuck, a call that came about fifteen minutes ago…

Just as she was shoving pie into her mouth.

Her hands started to shake as she pressed the 'one' button down to call her voicemail, then the 'loudspeaker' key, and that was all it took for the room to be filled with Chuck's voice, echoing off the bathroom walls.

"Hi… I thought it appropriate that I call and wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, but it seems you're too busy with your holiday festivities to pick up the phone. I hope you're having a good enough day for the both of us, since the dinner I'm about to suffer through with Bart will most definitely be less then enjoyable. I would ask you to say hello to your father for me, but I think it may reveal our secret. I don't think our dating would come as a surprise to him; there was that time when he found us in your room planning some deserving soul's social demise and he gave me an odd look… but never mind. This message is already the longest I've ever left. I guess all this is to say that I'm eagerly awaiting any naked plans that you've concocted for you, that gorgeous body of yours, and I to celebrate my return. Oh... and that I miss you. I guess I'll talk to you tonight."

When the electronic voice asked her whether she wished to save or delete the message, she hit the save key and hung up. Her head was resting against the bathroom wall, tears still running down her face, and suddenly that urge to be held morphed into a yearning that Chuck's father hadn't forced Chuck to leave town so that he could be here. Right now she wanted nothing more than that.

If Chuck had been in town, if there'd been no hotel to investigate, he might have been at this dinner. She and Chuck probably would have been so busy trying not to touch each other under the table that she wouldn't have paid any attention to her mother.

In fact, if she'd only had her phone on her when she was downstairs, she might not have relapsed; she would have picked up the phone. Ignoring the call was something she didn't see herself doing, no matter how upset she was. That, in itself, spoke volumes about what kind of role she'd allowed him to take, how important he'd become…

Staring up at the ceiling, she numbly pressed the 'two' key on her phone to call Serena. There would be plenty of time to wish Chuck's arms were around her while she waited for her best friend to show.

A/N: Well, there's my best attempt. I hope it wasn't too much or trying too hard, but I wanted to show what I think Blair's thoughts would be through her relapse. I've never been bulimic and I don't pretend to know the exact thing that happens to trigger an episode, I just know what I think my version of Blair would experience. Hopefully it'll go over well. Please let me know.