A/N: Remember that anything in italics = flashbacks. This chapter alternates between flashbacks and present day.

Chapter 6

She knew those eyes from the moment they had stared back at her for the first time. The universe would be so cruel as to provide her with a daily reminder of what those eyes used to mean to her.

She'd watched her daughter's eyes change colors into a dark chocolate brown from the soft blue hue that most newborns were born with. The almond shape developed slowly as she grew into her features, but by six months old, there was no mistaking it: Cora had her father's eyes. When she was three-years-old, they sparkled with the same hint of dark mischief that Blair had come to recognize in Chuck's when he was feeling particularly devious.

"Miss Blair, have you seen chocolate morsels for cookies?" Dorota questioned from inside the cupboard.

"Of course not, Dorota. Those calories go straight to my thighs," Blair rolled her eyes.

A look of confusion clouded Dorota's eyes and she shook her head, "But I left them right here."

Cora's curious dark eyes peeked around her mother's skirt, "I not eat them, 'Rota."

Realization hit both the maid and Blair at the same time, and Blair lowered herself to the ground in front of the small child. "Cornelia, where are the chocolate chips?"

Cora shook her head innocently and batted her large eyes in her mother's direction, "They're not in my vanity, Mommy."

Blair could hardly contain her amusement as she sauntered out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her daughter's room. She opened the drawer and found the item in question tucked neatly into the back of the drawer. Cora pranced into the room, donning an exaggerated expression of shock. Blair demanded, "How did these get in your drawer, Cora?"

Cora's dark eyes twinkled mischievously, entirely unwilling to plead guilty to the crime, "'Rota put them there."

"Dorota did not put chocolate chips in your drawer."

"Then it was Gramma," Cora shrugged in stubborn indignation that she would not take the blame no matter how damning the evidence.

Blair just shook her head and deposited the bag into Dorota's outstretched hand. She couldn't help but think that Cora clearly had more of her father in her than she was ready to admit.

XOXO

Blair felt like a horrified deer caught in the high-beams of a fast approaching truck. She couldn't react; she couldn't look away.

He didn't move; he just continued to stare as if he was in a trance. For a moment, Blair swore she must've taken too many pills; she had to be hallucinating. It was a virtual impossibility that her eyes were actually seeing the image that they reflected back to her. In all the years that she had spent searching for this man, he couldn't be standing in a tiny little pastry shop in Paris. It was unthinkable. She'd really gone crazy this time - not just seeing ghosts, but manifesting fully-developed figures before her eyes.

But this time it didn't make any sense. He wasn't wearing his trademark business suit with perfectly coiffed hair. There was no characteristic smirk etched into his expression - the smirk that had the uncanny ability to either seduce her, mock her, or enrage her. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she realized that his presence seemed both familiar and foreign. Was she dreaming? Was she trapped in a nightmare that she couldn't escape?

Her chin started to quiver pathetically, and she felt fresh tears streaking down her face. The man on the other side of the door finally started to move slowly, almost as though he was approaching a frightened and potentially dangerous animal. His hand lifted to the glass to push open the door, to acknowledge her in some manner, but he stopped in his tracks and dropped his hand again. His mouth opened slightly, but he was once again completely still. His eyes bore into hers, studying her intently, like her entire existence perplexed him.

She felt as if his gaze set her aflame, and she nearly crumbled from the intensity. She found a fire in his eyes that all of the apparitions over the years had lacked. He may not look like the same man she remembered, but the spark in his eyes was unmistakable. She felt her chest rise and fall as she struggled to inhale enough oxygen to fill her lungs. She was overcome with heat scorching through her entire body, suffocating her muscles, and she couldn't process a single thought except the look in his eyes.

I have to get out of here.

She stumbled backwards, unable to tear her eyes from his. She reached for the closest solid surface around her, but her hands couldn't find purchase on a single piece of furniture. Her back hit the wall hard and she leaned into it momentarily, searching for any support as a substitute for her weak knees.

"Blair?" she heard a soft, familiar voice call out in concern. It wasn't his; she hadn't heard his voice in years - at least not outside of her own mind.

Her eyes started to grow blurry, and she looked around for the owner of the voice, for anything that could help her keep her grip on reality. She was spiraling into a dark oblivion; her brain was foggy, and she suddenly couldn't remember where she was or why she was there. She felt her legs waver unsteadily, and she was free-falling into the abyss. Everything around her was black and gray except for a single bright light shining in the distance. The light was the guide: if she followed the light, she would find her home. Her vision grew hazy, but the light still called to her.

"Mommy?"

Cora.

XOXO

"I'm sorry Ms. Waldorf, but we don't have unlimited resources. We have to cease the search for Mr. Bass."

Blair's heart dropped into her stomach, and she immediately shook her head violently. They couldn't just give up on Chuck; if she wasn't giving up on him, neither could they. "But you haven't found anything. He could be in trouble -"

"I understand, Ms. Waldorf, I truly do, but with Mr. Bass's reputation, it's just not worth our continued efforts and expenditures."

"How can…this is your job!" Blair yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks, no longer caring about the scene she was causing inside of the small police station.

"Look," the investigator sighed, "I know you were hoping for answers, but the evidence is pretty clear: there's blood, unused credit cards, no sign of him for months. This certainly isn't an official statement, but in my professional opinion, Mr. Bass was the victim of a mugging gone wrong. I think the muggers killed him and dumped his body. I'm sorry."

"I didn't ask for your 'professional opinion'," Blair snarled, "I asked you to find my -" She broke off into a sob, crumbling to the floor, incapable of further articulating her thoughts.

She was broken. She'd poured every ounce of energy into searching for Chuck; she was desperate for word of his whereabouts: even if the only info she got was that he was screwing his way across Europe. Any news would've brought her some sense of comfort, but no news felt like a dull knife cutting her heart out of her chest one jagged piece at a time.

That moment was the very first time that she let herself consider the possibility that he really was dead. Her throat was dry; her eyes were raw. What could her life possibly mean without Chuck Bass? He'd always been there in some form or another - always a constant figure. Images flashed through her mind, and she could no longer control the violent convulsions that wracked her body as unbearable grief consumed her.

The first time she met him, she was five, and it was the first day of Constance. It was lunch time, and she sat at a table alone. She wasn't overly concerned with making friends, and she had yet to take the time to get to know any of the other kindergarteners. Her focus had been entirely on making sure that her teacher was putty in her hands. A brown-haired little boy approached her, a natural swag to his gait that she'd never before seen in a child his age, and he sat down silently across from her. He opened his yogurt and handed it to her even though she didn't ask. She studied him, and after a minute, she decided that he was worthy of her company. With a soft smile, she accepted his proffered treat. As the teacher ushered them back to class, he winked and said, "See you around, Waldorf."

She was caught by surprise and narrowed her eyes skeptically, "How do you know my name?"

"I pay attention," he shrugged.

A few weeks later at recess, he pointed to her hair pulled back neatly into a ponytail at the base of her neck. He asked her, "Why do you always wear your hair back in those ribbons?"

"Mother says that I don't have the facial features to wear my hair down. That it looks better pulled back."

Chuck scoffed and rolled his eyes, "You look like a frilly little princess."

Blair gasped and glared at him hatefully, "I absolutely am not."

"I know," he chuckled quietly.

The next day, he was unsurprised to find that she still had her hair tied up in those ribbons, looking like a fragile porcelain doll. He walked behind her, and loosened her bows before she realized what he was doing. She opened her mouth to protest, but he simply handed her a pretty golden headband. She tentatively placed it on the crown of her head, and he reached out to adjust her hair around her shoulders. "There," he smiled, "Fit for a queen."

Years later, they had their first school dance as seventh graders. Blair dressed in a deep red knee-length, spaghetti-strap dress that she'd finally developed enough to fit into. She spun in the mirror and scrutinized her pre-teen body. She hoped that she looked grown enough to get her first kiss from Nate. She'd agreed to be his girlfriend at their fifth-grade graduation, but they'd yet to have any more physical contact than simply holding hands when they walked into school each morning. Serena had kissed a boy for the first time a whole year earlier, and she constantly told Blair how incredible it was. She rushed Blair to just "get it over with," but Blair wanted it to be perfect.

As she continued to inspect her appearance in the mirror, she couldn't help thinking that something was missing. Her earrings were pretty and picked up the darker red of her dress. Her mary jane pumps matched perfectly without being too mature. Everything should be perfect, but she wasn't completely happy with her appearance.

A knock on her opened bedroom door pulled her from her intense examination of her attire, and she looked over her shoulder to see Chuck standing in the doorway dressed in a classic black tux. "Red's definitely your color, Waldorf," he rasped in a voice caught in the early onslaught of puberty.

She rolled her eyes, having grown accustomed to his half-hearted compliments over the years, "What're you doing here, Bass?"

"Nathaniel asked me to pick you up in my limo. He's running behind. Something with the Captain."

He walked into the room, standing directly behind her so he could admire her reflection in the mirror. His eyes traveled slowly from her ankles up to her face, and he nodded in approval, causing her to blush furiously, "Just missing one thing."

"And that would be?" She asked, genuine eager curiosity in her question.

"This," he answered softly, offering her a burgundy box adorned with a black bow. She opened it anxiously and pulled out an updated version of the headband he'd given her when they were children. It was a simple gold band with roses twining up the left side. "Here, let me," he placed the headband on her and adjusted her hair over her shoulders much like he had that day at recess years ago. "See, still fit for a queen."

She turned toward him and smiled softly, "Thank you."

He leaned in closer than he'd ever been to her, and her breath hitched in her throat. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her on the lips, and she was surprised to find that she almost wanted him to. Instead, he gently pressed his lips against her jaw and whispered, "You really are beautiful."

She didn't have her first kiss with Nate that night, but she never forgot the way her skin heated up when Chuck kissed her cheek.

Then junior year, everything changed when she danced for him on the stage at Victrola and she gave herself to him freely in the back of his limo. The following years flashed before her eyes in an instant, and it was as if a weight crashed down on top of her, crushing her and holding her down.

Her awakening: "Are you sure?"

Her birthday: "Something this beautiful deserves to be seen on someone worthy of its beauty?"

Her promise: "The worst thing you've ever done, the darkest thought you've ever had. I'll stand by you through anything."

His confession: "I love you, too."

His deception: "I never thought that the worst thing you would ever do would be to me."

Her forgiveness: "I can't deny that our path has been complicated, but in the end, love makes everything simple."

His final betrayal: "Blair, when you didn't show up, I thought you didn't love me anymore. I didn't care if I lived or died."

Then, sitting there in the coldness of the sheriff's office, she realized that those were the very last words he'd spoken to her - that he didn't care if he lived or died. Had he been so careless with his own life after she rejected him that he wound up dead at the hands of some lowlife criminals?

She'd screamed at him so loudly that she was sure the entire hospital had heard the commotion. She'd warned him, "Don't say her name - or anything else to me ever again!"

And he didn't. Her emotional, pain-fueled threat had become her reality.

Oh, God. He'd listened to her. He'd left her alone - perhaps with the hope that she could find peace without him - only to find his own tragic demise.

She couldn't do this anymore. She was too weak, too scared, too hurt, and too alone. She heaved so aggressively onto the tile floor in front of her that she was certain she broke a rib from the violence.

It was all over; he wasn't coming back, and she didn't know how to live without him.

XOXO

Blair awoke to a light assaulting her vision, and she had to squint to adjust to the brightness of the room. She blinked several times and looked around the unfamiliar room. "B?" she heard the soft voice of concern break into her confusion.

She turned to her right to find an IV attached to her arm and Serena sitting in a plastic blue recliner that came standard in most community hospitals. "Serena?" she questioned, "Why am I in the hospital?"

"You passed out at the pastry shop," she explained gently, "Eva and I tried to rouse you, but you wouldn't wake up, so we called an ambulance. Well, Eva shouted to her boyfriend to call an ambulance from the kitchen."

"Eva's boyfriend," Blair repeated slowly, "In the kitchen."

Serena was a little perplexed by Blair's strange statements, but she assumed it was a reaction from being disoriented. "Yes, the doctor thinks that the grapefruit in your macaron may have interacted negatively with your Xanax. Apparently it can increase the alprazolam levels in your blood causing dizziness and confusion."

Blair nodded, but she wasn't really listening. Her doctor had warned her about the combination years ago when he prescribed Xanax, but she wasn't sure if that was really the problem now. She still had trouble processing what had happened, and she wasn't ready to talk about it yet. She considered the doctor's explanation to Serena, and tried to force herself to believe that the potential confusion from the increased alprazolam levels had caused her to see something that wasn't really there. She shook her head, trying to stave off another panic attack, "Where's Cora?"

"Eva was kind enough to take her back to your father's so that I could accompany you in the ambulance."

"What's Eva's boyfriend's name?"

Serena furrowed her brows in disbelief. What reason could Blair possibly have for needing the name of Eva's boyfriend right then? She sighed heavily but decided that it was best to appease her for the time being, "His name is Henry. She told us that when we were all having dessert together, remember?"

Henry, not Chuck. She let out a long sigh. The bad news seemed to be that she really was going crazy; the good news was that she was still sane enough to know that.

There was a hesitant knock on the door, and she looked up to see Eva standing anxiously at the door with a small bouquet of roses in her hand. She stepped inside and handed the flowers to Blair, "Cora's with your father. I just wanted to check and make sure that you are okay."

"Thank you. I'm okay. Apparently my medication didn't interact well with my food," Blair forced a smile as she studied the woman before her with a more intense scrutiny than before. From far away, she was attractive, but up close her features were a little harsh. She had a large unflattering nose, thin lips, and unfortunate eyebrows. She boasted peasant hands that were disproportionate to her petite frame. She certainly wasn't the type of sophisticated, classically beautiful girl that Chuck Bass would be attracted to.

Blair mentally scolded herself for tearing apart a woman who had been nothing but kind to her. She'd gone out of her way to take care of Blair's frightened daughter - twice. The woman was a saint, and Blair was getting jealous of a nonexistent relationship that she had with Chuck inside of Blair's imagination. Blair had never felt so foolish in her entire life.

Still there was the tiniest bit of morbid curiosity haunting Blair's thoughts, so she couldn't help but add, "I hope I didn't scare your boyfriend too much. Henry, was it?"

"Ah, yes," Eva laughed nervously, "He doesn't scare easily, but you did startle him, I'm afraid."

"Was that him just inside the door to the kitchen?" Blair asked.

Eva shook her head and held up her phone to Blair, "Yes, that's my Henry."

Blair felt her heart plummet into her stomach and bile rise into her throat as she stared at the picture set as Eva's screensaver. Eva looked radiant in an emerald green sundress and her hair swept into a soft chignon at the base of her head, but all Blair could see was the man with his arms wrapped tightly around the blonde's waist. He had a large smile on his face; he looked immeasurably happy. It was a look that she'd only ever seen him give her.

She felt her hands shaking uncontrollably, but before she could respond, Serena's eyes fell to the photo, and she screeched, "Oh, my God! That's -"

Blair cut her off quickly, "He looks so much like one of our old friends from back home. It's uncanny really." She cut her eyes back to Serena in warning, begging her to understand that now wasn't the time to question Henry's true identity. She wanted answers, but she needed to have control. She needed time to think and process without setting alarm bells off for Eva.

Serena seemed to understand Blair's silent plea, and she closed her mouth. Eva seemed skeptical, clearly perturbed by the blonde's strange response to her boyfriend's photo, but she just said, "That's crazy. I always thought he had a really unique face."

Blair tried to get more information from her before she shut down completely, "Well, you know what they say: everyone has a doppleganger. How did you two meet?"

"Oh," Eva began, "That's a complicated story, but long story short - he was shot during a mugging a few years back in Prague. When I found him, he was near death. I used to be a nurse…I'm sorry," she stopped abruptly, a feeling of discomfort and tension filling the air in the hospital room, "I should let you get some rest."

Without another word, Eva turned and left the room. As soon as she was out of hearing distance, Serena turned to Blair with wide eyes, "B! That's…that's -"

Blair shook her head - her thoughts spinning, her eyes wet with fresh tears that she'd refused to let fall in front of Eva - and she quietly affirmed, "Chuck Bass."

A/N: Okay, I know most of you were hoping for a CB reunion here, but it's just not time. It's been six years, so it can't be that easy. We'll get to Chuck's perspective soon, I promise.