A/N: Thanks to all that have stuck with me this far and to those who have left me reviews, you are what keeps me going. Here is the next chapter, a week after the last update. ;) Oh, by the way, we're out of Hi!Society now... Roman Holiday will probably begin next chapter.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf, I just want to prove they can stand by each other through anything.

Chapter 25

"Misery"

The panicked voice of Serena broke through Blair's exhausted, fitful sleep.

"Blair!" Serena cried, "here you are! I've been looking for you for hours..." The blond sat down less than gracefully on the bed next to her and continued to chatter: "I got the strangest phone call from Nate and then you weren't answering your phone and..."

That was when Serena stopped yacking long enough to get a good look at her face. The night before was coming back to Blair in painful shards and pieces, so she knew there were blurry mascara trails that had been drawn by her tears standing in stark contrast to her pasty skin. Unwilling to see that look of pity in Serena's eyes, she buried her face in one of Chuck's pillows, briefly tearing up again at the scent of him it still held.

"B," her blonde friend asked softly, "What's wrong?"

The tears were back in full force now and Blair couldn't stop them. She could feel her shoulders beginning to shake with the sobs as she closed her eyes and saw only Chuck's eyes fastened morbidly her and Nate the night before. Serena's arms were around her by the time Blair placed a hand discreetly over her stomach, dwelling on the thought of what it most likely contained and just how much she wished Chuck were here.

She cried out her misery, her friend whispering soothing words and squeezing her tightly. The sentiment behind it did help for a bit, but then Blair fell apart again when she allowed herself to long for him to be here holding her, talking her through this.

Somewhere along the line, Chuck had become her best friend.

When she was finally able to calm herself long enough to string a few words together, the Blair asked the first question that popped into her head: "How did you find me?"

Serena looked like she'd never heard a more off topic question, but answered anyway. "Nate called, said you were with him and disappeared in the middle of the night." She paused to give Blair a explain look before continuing, "and you weren't answering your phone so he called me, thinking you'd sneaked upstairs to my suite. I told him I'd try to find you. When I texted Dorota and she said you were staying with Chuck last night..." Serena paused and shrugged, "the door was open."

Blair must have shrank when his name was mentioned because it prompted the blonde to ask, "Where is Chuck anyway?"

Sitting there with her friend's arm around her, Blair stumbled over an explanation as best she could. "I d-don't, he-he's..." one glance in the direction of the closet and her heart sank. She whispered, "his suitcases are gone."

"Did he tell you he had a trip planned?" Serena asked uncomfortably, obviously trying to keep the conversation casual and her eyes from wandering the room.

Sighing, feeling drained and exasperated, Blair spat, "Does it look like he planned to go somewhere? Take a look at this place! Aren't you even going to ask?!"

"Blair," she started patronizingly, "I was trying to be gentle, work my way up to it..." trailing off, the blond reached out and rubbed Blair's shoulder with her hand. "You're obviously upset; I didn't want..."

"Whatever." She couldn't talk to Serena about this; not only was she the worst at keeping a secret, but the girl never understood Blair's feelings for Chuck. It was useless to try and seek solace in her friend.

Blair was picking at her fingernails when Serena turned to her and gave her a quick shake. "Hello? You spent the night with Nate."

"Fine!" She wanted something, and Blair knew she wasn't going to give up, so she snarled out the Cliffs' Notes version: "Chuck orchestrated the dance floor punch. I was pissed at him. We broke up. Nate was flirting with me. I kissed him and Chuck saw." She gestured to the destruction around them and felt her anger begin to dissipate. Softly, she added, "I can only assume he did this after seeing that and took off. Now, can we please stop talking about this?"

It seemed that Blair's obvious upset caused Serena to pity her more. The soft look on the blond's face was boring into her own as she asked, "Then why are you here?"

A simple enough question, but it was one that caused difficult thoughts to flood her brain. Why had she come? To beg him to forgive her? To tell him how she felt? To tell him about their...

"I..." Blair breathed deeply, "I was late..." she trailed off, trying to take that a little further from the full truth, "late realizing that Nate and I don't belong together anymore." A sob choked her throat as she finished, "And he was gone before I could tell him that."

"Oh, B..." Serena's arms wrapped around her, squeezing her tightly. "Maybe it's not really that bad. Have you tried calling?"

Scoffing, Blair shook her head. "If it were the other way around, I would ignore his calls..."

The thought of listening to the phone ringing, waiting for him to decide to pick it up was terrifying. He was probably in some hotel room with some whore, forgetting all about her....

Then again, if that's where he would run first, then the last month wouldn't have been possible. No, she'd hurt him badly because he cared and she probably deserved the pain she was currently suffering.

Serena bounced in place like she'd just had an exciting thought. "But if you try to call, then he knows you care enough to! Plus, don't you wanna know where he is?"

"He could be anywhere, S. From Thailand to Brooklyn, it doesn't matter if I know or not..." She sighed, "He's not here." Blair studied the hem of her dress just to avoid her friend's inquiring eyes.

The blond lifted her chin to meet her downcast gaze and asked slyly, "Do you mind if I call him?"

Halfway across the world, Chuck was sleeping lightly in the presidential suite of his father's European hotel. After a restless flight he'd fought sleep for as long as he could before succumbing to it, fearing the image of his best friend and his former girlfriend that seemed to be burned into the back of his eyelids every time he shut them.

Once asleep, he dreamed that Blair was falling through an endless blackness and he couldn't save her no matter how fast he ran or how far he stretched to reach for her.

Through the darkness, Chuck heard the tune of 'Promiscuous Girl' coming from across the room, waking him from his fretful slumber. That ring-tone meant Serena was calling and Serena calling meant that Blair had talked to her... and that could mean any number of things.

So he let it ring.

Rolling over, he ignored the phone and the questions that would come with the call. Questions that he couldn't yet answer himself. The last thing he needed was Serena calling to take pity on him or to gloat about her friend having better taste.

Worst of all would be hearing that her best friend was broken over his sudden departure, that she regretted her actions... it might just make him run straight home.

So he avoided the phone, rolling over, covering his head with the pillow to block out the tone so that he could pretend the questions didn't exist. In his darkened room he was cut off from the outside world, only allowing what he chose to disturb him in the form of food or alcohol or women... if he could stomach the sight of one without Blair's doe eyes and chocolate locks.

No women then.

Around the seventh or eighth time that it rang, he was annoyed enough to pick up the phone and hang it back up, hoping that she would glean his meaning from the action. No such luck as it only continued to ring.

He'd lost count of the rings by the time he finally picked it up, not even bothering with a greeting because he didn't know what to say.

"Chuck?" Serena's voice was filled with disbelief, reverberating through the telephone speaker. "Chuck, are you there?"

Schooling his voice to sound as carefree as he could, he replied, "Yes."

She sounded relieved when she asked, "And where exactly is there?"

Ah. So she was on a mission for Blair, trying to figure out where he was so that Blair could prepare a game-plan, most likely. It was what he would have done, had the situation been reversed.

"Far away from Nate," he drawled, "So tell her she doesn't have to worry about me divulging any secrets better left concealed." A needle pierced his heart with that comment, but he stifled the pain to keep it from his voice. If she was going to be with Nate, then keeping things from him was her problem to deal with.

The phone shuffled slightly and then the connection suddenly sounded bigger, "Who said I'm calling for Blair?"

"Please don't insult my intelligence, van der Woodsen," he sneered, "I can tell when I'm on speakerphone."

Another rustle on the other line and the line went back to it's former state, but there was a new, more fragile voice on the line.

"Chuck?" She asked quietly, doing nothing to hide the concern in her voice, "Are you still there?"

Survival instinct said to hang up and avoid this; there were no undoing the conversation once it began. An overseas connection can be unreliable at best...

But somehow his heart overrode his sense of self preservation.

"Yes, Blair."

She cleared her throat softly. "I just wanted to know where you were and if you were okay." Her tone was cautious and there was something about it that made her voice seem so small. They'd talked for hours on the phone whenever they were apart during their relationship, but it was always confident Blair that he'd spoken with, not this damaged version.

Why was she so broken?

"You forget who you're talking to, I'm fine. I'm free. I'm relieved."

He heard her gasp on the line and he almost regretted his use of that word, that word that she'd used about her relationship with Nate, the one that she obviously hadn't truly meant. And, yes, that was harsh, but he was hurt and she should have left him to his misery.

"No Charles," she replied, her voice shaky, "You forget who you're talking to."

Scoffing, he chortled, "Oh, really." He was back there on that terrace, at the birthday party that he should of skipped... because then he wouldn't be in this mess.

"I'm the girl that you gave your heart to, Chuck. I'm the girl that broke it..." Her voice dropped off as she took a deep breath, but then she continued, "And I'm the one who'll regret that forever."

He was almost certain she was crying now, the way her voice kept catching as supposed emotions clogged her throat. There was a part of him that felt the tug on his heart, that pulled him toward home...

But it was too late now.

"Miss Waldorf," he began formally, "As far as I'm concerned, that person doesn't exist anymore... if she ever actually did."

At the last, he pressed the mute button, feigning a dramatic end to the call that he couldn't quite bring himself to disconnect.

And that was when he heard it: the sob of a person who was genuinely distraught, followed by the only sentiment they'd ever exchanged...

"I miss you, Chuck."

His throat turned warm and his eyes grew wet as he ended the call.

Oh God, she was crying again. And she couldn't stop.

This is why she didn't want to call him; hearing his voice, hearing the harsh words she knew would come no matter what she said... she wished that Serena had just given up.

Now she had the chill from his voice running through her veins, contaminating her and making her despise herself for causing him pain.

And she knew he was in pain; it didn't matter if he'd put on a show worth of an Academy Award, he was hurt. If he hadn't been, then he would have just turned his phone off.

She'd injured him badly and he'd done what she always did: held her head up high and acted like it didn't bother her. Of all people, he should have known she'd see right through it. There was one thing that all this had taught her: were the same. They had the same defenses, the same faults, the same weaknesses; they were pieces of the same puzzle, meant to only perfectly fit each other.

The living proof was growing inside her; little pieces of the two of them knitting together to form another person.

Thinking of undertaking this pregnancy without him by her side brought on a fresh wave of tears. And, having lost Chuck, crying had become her new best friend.

A/N: I'm on a roll! SQUEE! Celebrate with me!