The Park

by ChloeCharles

"You held a certain fascination..." Set mid-1x13. AU. When Blair leaves the bar that night, she doesn't go home.

24. Chapter 24

A/N: Thank you all so much for your feedback on the last chapter, and I do apologize for any confusion caused by the way it was written. There's a lot of hidden/obscured content in this story, obviously, but the way I organized (and especially formatted) the intercut scenes in the last chapter was not my best execution. I promise to be more mindful going forward. But, onward! It's quite a long chapter today, and I hope it's not too much – there's a LOT happening and we're entering a very dense phase of our story

Your reviews, follows and favorites make my day. XOXO!

i.

Friday, February 8

Late afternoon

Dr. Genove, accustomed by this point to her patient's polished conversational subversion, wastes no time.

"I notice your room looks very different today than it did the last time I was here."

Blair nods; the doctor sees that she'll have to ask a direct question if she wants commentary. She adjusts the notebook, not yet opened during this session, that balances on her knee.

"Why did you decide to change it?"

Blair opens her mouth, then closes it, front teeth testing her lower lip as she looks around slowly. She studies the graceful sweep of her curtains, unchanged (though the baroque tie-backs have been replaced by wide, plain ivory ribbons); late-afternoon sun, quickly dying, rushing through to splash her bare, polished floor with one last burst of gold; the blank, unremarkable ivory of her walls, not optic white but equally impersonal; the chic rug rolled up and taken out of the way of the painters and, at a quiet word from Blair, never brought back. Her dark headboard, now a minimalistic contrast to the pale empty walls, no longer rests against an ethereal silvery glow; her closet door, closed since last night, conceals a cavernous shell emptied of its contents, which have likewise been removed, presented for Blair's inspection article by article and withdrawn at her increasingly quick approvals, marched out like a parade of misbehaving ghosts.

Blair swallows.

"I… it felt like it was time for a change," she says, the words oblong in her mouth. It's the first time she's had to explain it to anyone- the first time anyone has asked. Last night, her mother's gaze skittered around- mouth tight, nod tighter- when she saw the transformation, and said, "very chic, darling, but then you always did have such refined taste," the words hesitant and the tone overly solicitous. And Blair let her off easy with a smile and a word of thanks, because she no more wanted to discuss with her mother why continuing to live in the room of Blair the Unflinching, whose existence was a constant struggle and whose identity she'll never be able to fully reclaim, does not work- than Eleanor wished to hear it.

It's clear that Dr. Genove is waiting for more. The woman has an irritating gift for asking a question and then fixing her with a gaze that holds her constantly- but without fully staring- until she has to elaborate or she'll begin physically squirming. There's something about it that makes her feel like a child on the verge of a reprimand, but this sensation is an odd comfort to her. An irritating comfort- like wearing unattractive shoes with proper arch support on a long walk- but a comfort nonetheless.

"I guess I was thinking…"

When she threw open her bedroom door and palmed the bannister- the effort of taking the five steps down measured and, pleasingly, painless-

"After everything that's happened, I just…"

Page Six open on her tousled bed behind her, uncapped pen virile and sinister in its exposed inner spine-

"It seems like it's time to start over."

The doctor nods, slow, expansive, the angle of her head changing as she holds Blair in her gaze; nothing like Eleanor. Absolutely nothing.

"And," Dr. Genove murmurs, thoughtful, "is there any specific development or thought that brought on this yearning for a new start?"

Ordinarily, this would bring a challenging cock of the head from her patient, who makes no secret of her disdain for being condescended to. Dr. Genove is no society slouch. She's seen Page Six. (The whole city has.)

Ordinarily, this would precipitate a tart faux-muse, a brittle "hmm"- at the very least, a quick narrowed eye.

Today, it doesn't.

Today, Miss Waldorf licks her lips and says, confusedly and a bit ashamedly and quite without preamble: "It's not like me to go off with someone I just met."

The doctor's hand twitches on the cover of her notebook, but opening it now is not the right move. This is the first time Miss Waldorf has steered one of their conversations this way with no prodding; the trauma of this week's renewed media interest, and the ensuing inner upheaval she appears to have experienced in the last day or so might, it seems, have cracked the glass house she retreats to when their exploration delves too deep.

With effort, the doctor keeps her fingers in place on the notebook's cover.

"Is it unlike you, specifically?"

Blair blinks. Her gaze is fixed in midair, somewhere between them. "Yes. Yes, it's unlike me."

Her full, pale lips quiver a moment before she rolls them inward and sets her jaw. Her temples flex and relax with the effort of controlling herself.

"It's unlike me," she repeats, harder, "to go off with someone I don't know, like that- for any reason- regardless. Yes. Yes, it's not like the person I was before, which was who I w- " she breaks off suddenly and swallows again. "Which was who I wanted to be," she finishes with effort.

"Do you feel," the doctor asks gently, "that you're a different person now? Do you feel you're severed from the person from before?"

"I d… I think so." Blair shakes her head, the movement so tiny it's almost invisible. "I think I have to be."

"Have to be?"

"I think I have to be a different person, now."

The doctor shifts in her seat. "Why do you have to be?"

Blair looks up, expression puzzled. "Because things are different now," she says, with a tone of obviousness.

"They are." Dr. Genove flicks her notebook sideways onto the barren top of Blair's vanity without looking. She crosses her legs and leans to one side, the movement slow, thoughtful, to rest her elbow on the arm of her chair, cupping her chin in her palm. "But why does that mean you have to be a different person?"

The question halts Blair.

"What I mean is," Dr. Genove clarifies, "of course parts of you are changed. But why does that mean you can't be the person from before? Why do you feel you have to start over?"

Blair is quiet for a long time as she thinks this over; the doctor waits; she can see that she's trying.

"Because," Blair says at last, "that- " she's blinking rapidly; she shakes her head once, opens her mouth, closes it, then shakes her head again.

The doctor waits.

"That wasn't how things should have gone," she finally says, a subtle pitch of anger, of incredulity, creeping into her voice. "I don't just mean…"

Clenches her jaw again and takes a long, slow breath through her nose.

Starts again.

"That was… what I- the- person from b- before did, it… it was very unlike me," she finishes somewhat lamely, like she's disappointed with her own answer.

Dr. Genove notes mentally- the notebook is now officially on hiatus- the physical agitation that continues in the ensuing pause: erratic blinking, gaze skeltering side to side. Temples rippling more than once.

"Was it very unlike the 'you' of now, or the 'you' from before?" the doctor asks, very gently.

Blair looks, again, like this question has not occurred to her. "Before," she says after a moment.

Dr. Genove nods.

"And because it was unlike you to be taken in like that," she asks slowly, "and because of what happened as a result, is that why you feel the right thing is to start over? Am I understanding what you're saying? Or what am I missing?"

Blair's eyes close briefly. When they open, they're bright with tears and she looks at the doctor.

"I don't understand her," she whispers, though the door is closed and they have complete privacy. "I look back and I don't… understand her."

"Mmm." Dr. Genove licks her lips thoughtfully and rolls her gaze heavenward on the pretext of thinking of her next thought, to keep their exchange moving at a pace that won't overwhelm. "May I ask, though… would you say you understood her before?"

"Of course," Blair says at once.

"Would you say everything she did made sense, and was in alignment with the understanding you had of her?" the doctor presses. "No contradictions? No self-maneuvering that had to be done? No internal conflict or behaviors that didn't make sense?"

Blair bristles visibly as these questions go on.

"No one is perfect," she defends, her voice low. "I mean, yes, of course, there were contradictions. Of course there were things that didn't make sense, that were… unplanned, mistakes that had to be dealt with, that's- that's normal." A hint of desperation creeps into this self-justification.

Dr. Genove opens her mouth, but Blair's defenses prickle and she falls back on the signature sarcasming that her therapist is, frankly, surprised they've made it this far without.

"Of course, I'm sure you're about to say you don't like the word normal," Blair rushes on before the doctor can say anything. "But yes, before, I mean, just like anyone else, there were- unexpected- developments," – she says expected developments with a clipped, exaggerated inflection; overly formal – "you know- unscripted moments- sure, but, really, who cares? I mean, who doesn't experience that?"

She ends this speech with a little huff and looks insolently at Dr. Genove, who manages, with difficulty that Blair cannot possibly guess, to keep the smile from her lips at this behavioral volte-face.

"I was just going to say," the doctor says, "that if you experienced making mistakes and dealing with unexpected developments before, then why do you feel the need to start over entirely, because of this one specific- what you perceive to be- mistake- that night?" She pauses. "Because of one momentary mistake that you feel, and I agree, was out of character, why are you inclined to throw the whole Blair Waldorf book in the fire?" She gestures around the room expansively. "Whitewash everything?"

It takes a very long time for the enormity of what Dr. Genove is asking her to fully sink into Blair.

"You said yourself a moment ago," Dr. Genove ventures after a minute or two of quiet, "that no one is perfect. I understand that the trauma of what you've been through, both that night and since, is on a level beyond what most people experience in their lives." She hesitates, and then: "And the sustained uninvited attention you continue to attract is, if I may, both tasteless and damaging, and the responsibility for that lays firmly at the feet of those who perpetuate it."

Blair blinks her tear-filled eyes, surprised at the closest thing she's heard to emotion from her therapist in all the hours they've spent together.

Dr. Genove neutralizes the frustration she hears in her own voice and continues.

"My point is, Blair."

They hold each other's eyes.

"The temptation to try to dissociate yourself from what you've been through, and from the identity of the girl who's survived this trauma, is completely understandable. But choosing to be someone else, to see the person who sustained the trauma as a separate person, is simply a fancier way of deciding that you're blocking out what you've been through, dissociating yourself from your pain, rather than dealing with it directly and allowing yourself to heal."

Blair's chin is shaking now, not quivering but severe, unattractive up-and-down shaking. Her teeth rattle and she clamps her jaws together on the instant; unable to contain her fidgeting, she begins to nod then, only half-conscious of her own movements.

The doctor watches her carefully. "Do you understand what I mean?"

Blair nods in a more organized fashion, but her tears spill over and she chokes back a sob.

"It's…"

Then she stops, shaking her head uselessly, and wipes her cheeks with both hands.

"It's not just- it's not just that I can't understand her," she confesses, her voice hoarse with misery, still shaking her head, "I can't… I can't reach her anymore."

She half-scoffs at what she obviously feels is a ridiculous thing to say, punctuating her eyeroll with a sniffle.

"I can't… find her," she tries again, listless.

Her therapist nods slowly, and then clears her throat. "Do you want to find her?"

Blair appears to think this over, rubbing at her nose with one long sleeve.

(Using the fabric to shield her crumpling expression from her therapist as she fights down flashes of moments, words, that the doctor doesn't know, and that she herself still does not understand.)

Nose dried, frowning at the dark splotch on her sleeve, Blair shrugs slowly. "I don't know. Honestly." She takes a deep breath. "What if I never find her? Or I find her, but still don't understand? What if I… can't?"

What she's asking is, wouldn't it be easier to just restart the movie from here?

Dr. Genove smiles, kindly. "I'm not sure any of us can ever fully reach or understand ourselves. But that's not what you're solving for here. Your goal right now is to heal from what you've been through, and I think a big part of that is going to be in accepting that you don't need to dissociate yourself- at least, not so starkly, not with such finality- from the person you were before. A key to accepting that is to recognize that you've done nothing wrong; the blame for exactly zero of what you've been through lies on your shoulders. You've hurt no one; harmed no one."

Even as Blair nods along, her heart blackens because she knows that, on many levels, what her doctor is telling her is untrue.

Her therapist mirrors her nodding briefly. "This has been an extremely productive conversation, Blair, and until we meet again, I want to ask you to do something for me."

Lips puffy, eyes red, Blair scoffs in an impressive show of mock-impatience. "You and your favors."

Eyes crinkled, Dr. Genove snorts. "I want you to spend some time thinking about what parts of that past person, the person from before, were beyond your understanding. Not that you need to try to solve for them now; just try to remember what they were. It's important to humanize yourself in order to accept the entirety of what's happened and move forward in a healthy way, without dissociation or self-deception."

Blair swallows.

"You don't have to share those private thoughts with me if you don't want to, but I encourage you to think through what questions you would ask the person from before, both on that night and prior, knowing what you now know. This will help you see yourself in a more clear and human light." She pauses. "Will you agree to do that?"

Normally she'd phrase this request as can you do that for me?, but Blair Waldorf is unimpressed with shrinkisms, as she called them distastefully on one particularly biting afternoon.

Blair agrees, nodding mutely, to think about the things the person she used to be didn't understand.

ii.

Saturday, February 9

Late morning

Her business in New York wrapped up, her fall collection a universal success, Eleanor Waldorf is packed and ready to depart for her Paris atelier shortly before noon on the morning after Fashion Week's closing reception.

Some might describe this as inattentive parenting; in light of what Blair's just been through, some might say she's underconcerned for her daughter's recovery.

The truth is, her presence doesn't bring comfort to her baby, and that's as plain as day.

That's her own fault, and she knows it.

Eleanor has never been a warm person. She was raised to be a flawless society woman, wife to a well-bred titan and a pillar in her own right, a poised matriarch along the lines of Brooke Astor or Lucy Rockefeller: to blend strength with achievement and elegance and intelligence. Warmth was not part of the equation, not a high enough ROI to be a worthwhile aspiration.

And then the equation came apart somewhere along the way, and try as she might- with the burgeoning company that she built on her own vision and grit gathering speed by the day, her flawless model of daughterhood delivering endless accolades in her academic career, and her reputation as "the woman who had it all" a predictable toast at soirees across the Upper East Side- she could not hold it together.

And after the pieces of her former life cracked and split and fell in humiliating shards for the entire world to see, she realized that all that time, she was aiming at the wrong answer. But by then it was lifetimes past too late.

If she's being honest with herself, Eleanor thinks that morning, she's really not emotionally fit to be a mother.

She is a mother, and she wouldn't trade that fact for anything, but that doesn't change the reality that none of it comes naturally to her. From the time her daughter was tiny and wailing about a bumped knee, all the way through to Eleanor's arrival home two nights ago to find that Blair's room was stripped lock-stock-and-barrel of its personality, she has simply lacked the instinct to be what her daughter needs.

As she and Harold smuggled Blair, bundled in that fluffy robe (bless Charles Bass for saving her from hospital-issue loungewear, Eleanor remembers thinking) and Harold's overcoat, out of the town car and onto the sidewalk in front of their building the night they brought her home from Mt. Sinai, and Blair stopped for a long moment to share an unreadable look with Dorota, Eleanor's heart squeezed and shuddered in her chest. She and Blair had never, and still have never, shared a look like that. When she forces it, Blair stiffens under her gaze or her touch; when she doesn't have the heart or nerve to force it, she shifts easily, and without meaning to, into conversing with her daughter like she's someone in her employ.

So it's not difficult for her to understand that her presence in their penthouse does not make Blair feel secure. And while it's a knife in Eleanor's heart to acknowledge this, she's also cognizant that it's her own hand that's stuck the blade there.

Truthfully, she's mulled all week whether to keep this flight, which has been booked for months: she has shows in Milan and Madrid to prepare for, and has not so much as sketched one design for Paris Couture Week, now just over four months away.

But if Blair would lean into her touch, would reach for her, seek her out, look relieved instead of guarded when she peeks in to say hello- Eleanor would be on the phone with Laurel in a heartbeat, passing the responsibility and autonomy for these shows off to her, murmuring, with finality, "Blair needs me."

She doesn't, though.

Eleanor watches her carefully when she brings up her potential departure, and Blair barely blinks; she simply asks if preparations for the shows are going well so far.

And she swears Blair looks relieved.

So when she holds her baby just before midday, dressed in slim black trousers and a black silk blouse with her hair gathered at her nape, and breathes deeply with her nose buried in Blair's blonde hair (which she still doesn't quite understand), Eleanor blinks hard to clear her eyes of tears and comforts herself that she's doing the best she can for her daughter by leaving her in peace.

iii.

Friday, February 8

Evening

Chuck handles the sterility of her new environment with impressive indifference; he spends more time, even though it's just a few moments, tracking over her puffy eyes as he pries off his shoes and drapes his coat. Her lips are slightly puffy, too, and the corners of her nose and the rims of her eyes are pink.

"Redecorating?" he asks with an automatic smirk.

"Redecorated," she replies. "Past tense."

He nods at the blank walls. They look so different white.

From Marie Antoinette.

From Marc Jacobs.

"Blue's over, anyway," he says.

Her eyes are averted. "Totally."

(They mutually ignore the fact that they're both wearing blue.)

Dorota arrives with their dinner just a few minutes after he comes upstairs, and when they're dining across from each other, cross-legged on her bed with their four-legged trays and Pellegrino in beveled crystal goblets, Chuck asks, with the same air of casualness, "how's therapy going?"

Blair, head twisted as she measures a bite of flounder onto her fork, glances sidelong at him. He's looking at her, and their eyes meet and there's an unexpected twist in her stomach. Their eyes have met so many times, in so many past lives… When she was the girl from before.

She clears her throat, and looks back down at her flounder.

"It's like freshman English." She spears a small bite and says, before she puts it in her mouth: "I could practically do it in my sleep."

He smiles, remembering the operation in this very room on the night before their final papers in freshman English were due.

Blair's paper was, of course, finished and proofread and being circulated as an example; Nate sat on the floor, leaning against the foot of her bed, laptop balanced on his bent knees, shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows, hair rumpled from numerous runnings-through of his fingers; Serena sprawled on her stomach froglike in the middle of the floor, knees wide, bare feet bouncing idly off each other in the air; Chuck lounged in Blair's vanity chair, reading a copy of Blair's paper for sport (naturally, he outsourced his own assignment, and got Blair's signoff earlier in the evening), absently toying with his cufflinks.

Blair knelt behind Serena, reading over her shoulder while the blonde bit her lower lip, blue eyes tracking each line at a pace that could be described as frantic, but stopping constantly to make adjustments as Blair leant forward and pointed out corrections:

"change comma to semicolon"

"always use 'that' instead of 'which' when possible"

"period inside the quotation marks- I know it looks weird, but that's the rule"

-in a voice that left no room for argument.

"Blair," Nate groaned on a tortured sigh, "will you be done soon?"

"I need her," Serena insisted, throwing him a desperate look, causing an incredulous hand flap from Nate:

"But she's gone over your paper like sixteen times!"

"It's not my fault I got assigned a harder book than you," Serena pouted. "Inferno is a nightmare-"

"Oh, like GreatExpectations is a walk in the park?!" Nate fired back, defensive.

"Children, please," Chuck mock-soothed, smirking and rubbing his closed eyes at the same time, "Mommy loves you both equally."

Serena shot Nate a triumphant look, to which he rolled his eyes and flopped his head back on the bed.

All the while, Blair kept her eyes focused on Serena's screen, reaching around the blonde to key down to the bottom of the last paragraph as Serena argued, one corner of her mouth smiling at the blondes' fighting over her.

Her hair was in a ponytail that night, tied with a yellow ribbon, and she had her headband off by the time they all arrived. Her hair was shorter than now, just shoulderblade-length, and the ends of her ponytail brushed back and forth over her shoulder (navy crewneck sweater, no collar underneath, navy pleated skirt) when she turned her head. Serena was in her ponytail-on-the-top-of-the-head phase (and an Avril-Lavigne-reminiscent vest over her white button-down), but she was constantly irritated because it bobbed over her face every time she leant forward.

Blair finished with Serena and slid over next to Nate- not enough distance to warrant standing up fully- and he drew her in close, wrapping an arm around her and kissing the top of her head: "She loves me more," he informed Serena, who stuck out her tongue. Blair leant into him and scolded him to be nice, pleasure at the attention flushing on her cheeks.

While Blair was reading his Dickensian analysis, Nate looked at Chuck, nodding his head in Blair's direction: "How's her paper?"

Chuck glanced up from the pages that were spread on his lap, ankle crossed over opposite knee, several inches of navy and yellow argyle sock showing, and made a skeptical face.

"I don't believe she wrote it."

Blair's eyes rolled. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

"Come on, Waldorf, Goethe? When's the last time you made a deal with the devil?"

"Didn't I give you a new pen when yours ran out of ink the other day," Blair said sweetly, without looking up, "in exchange for an IOU?"

Nate snorted deep in his throat, and Serena looked up gleefully, giggling, "oh, burn!"

Chuck snickered, and it turned into a yawn, while Nate chuckled into Blair's hair as he kissed her head again, murmuring that she was his angel.

An hour later, Serena was asleep on Blair's bed- always the lightweight when it came to academic stamina- and the boys were shaking themselves awake, standing and stretching as they prepared to go home.

Blair's ponytail curved around the base of her neck, just touching the ridge of her collarbone, as she sat upright on her knees, Nate's laptop perched on the edge of her bed, retyping his conclusion- this study session ended, like countless others, with her rewriting so many of his and Serena's sentences that she essentially authored the trifecta of their assignments.

She finished, rubbing at her eyes and telling Nate she'd do a last pass in the morning, and he helped her up and hugged her goodnight, murmuring appreciation at her temple while Chuck lazed in the doorway, and she didn't think to wonder whether he was looking over her shoulder at sleep-rumpled Serena.

One last kiss, a smile on her lips, she nodded over Nate's departing shoulder at Chuck.

"Bass."

"Waldorf."

He looks at her now, puffy, haunted, chewing her flounder with concentration and avoiding his gaze, and lets the threadbare deflection slide. Following suit, he moves his fork into his flounder, and they settle into comfortable silence.

"Are you feeling better?" she says a while later.

He glances up in surprise.

"You had a sore throat last night," she reminds him, pointedly. Her eyes hold a slight challenge. "From crying yourself to sleep the night before."

She reaches for her Pellegrino and gives him a wry look.

"I'm still recovering from the trauma," he teases, organizing a bite on his fork.

She's still, and to his surprise, when he glances back up at her, she hasn't moved. She's watching him.

"What?"

"Do you really feel better?" she presses.

He guffaws dismissively. "I wasn't sick or anything." His tone is careful. Does she think he's contagious? A grain of dread nudges into his stomach at the thought that she might send him home in an effort to avoid catching something.

She doesn't comment. She doesn't move. He feels her watching him, and now he's the one avoiding her eyes- a quick vision of Nate, shaky, hauling himself to crouching, splits across his vision- as he takes a bite of flounder.

After a protracted pause, she puts her glass back down and shifts in her seat.

"Maybe a good night's sleep will fix us both," she says, quietly, as if to herself.

As if on cue, they both glance at each other, again, and then away with perfect timing. Mutually unseen, Chuck relaxes; Blair smiles softly.

When they've both finished their dinners, and Dorota is on her way up to take away their trays, Blair clears her throat again.

"I won't be coming back to school this quarter, for sure."

Chuck nods slowly. "Do you think next quarter?"

She raises one pale blue shoulder. He notices that her movements are a less stiff than they were just a week or two ago. "It depends on… how things go."

"Yeah." He knows what she means: not just therapy, not just her injuries, not just her emotional state; it depends on whether the media storm dies down and anyone at school can literally talk about anyone else.

Which doesn't seem altogether likely.

He opens his mouth as a thought comes to him, then pauses. "You're not…"

Dorota comes in just then, and asks them if they enjoyed their dinner, and says the tea tray is read and she'll be back up with it in a minute. When both trays are gone and they're facing each other with nothing in between them, Blair prompts: "I'm not what?"

"Not thinking about… not coming back?"

The last three words come out at a lower pitch than the first three.

Blair smiles. "Mmm… 'High School Dropout' does sound like a tempting subtitle for my biography."

He smiles, too, glancing down at her duvet.

"Not thinking about going somewhere else?"

She knew what he meant the first time, of course- they both know that. She takes a long breath in between parted lips, appearing to be working through something in her mind, and then says, cautious yet firm, "No. Running away won't do me any good."

He's about to reply- what, he's not sure- when she licks her lips and continues.

"Pretending it didn't happen won't do me any good."

Dorota's feet are audible on the stairs through the open bedroom door. When she's set up the tea tray on Blair's nightstand and said her conditional goodnight (that Blair will text her if she needs anything else), Blair waits a moment, and then eases herself up and crosses the floor and locks her bedroom door.

They're quiet tonight; they're often quiet on the phone, but there's something different, more pensive, about their silence tonight. It's punctuated by an occasional moment of accidental eye contact, like they're both checking on each other, each knowing the other isn't divulging the full picture, neither willing to press the issue.

Blair has only finished a half cup of chamomile when she announces she's tired.

"Me, too," Chuck murmurs into his cup.

She eyes his chest.

"No tie tonight," she observes.

He almost quips back that she still has his navy one from the other night, but given the purging her room has gone through since he was last here 48 hours ago, he decides not to bring it up. His tie might have been donated to the City Rescue Mission by now.

"Chuck Bass, Rule-Follower Extraordinaire," he replies instead.

He gets up to turn off the lamp on her vanity while she reaches for the one at her bedside; they click off in rapid succession. His eyes adjust to the dark as he crosses back to her bed and so it is that he watches as she reaches over, moving carefully, and tugs down his side of the duvet. He stops by the side of the bed and watches her finish.

She looks up, and their eyes meet in the dark one last time before he climbs in.

She slips from consciousness quickly- he can tell by her breathing, and the way her lower legs stretch and release a little, shifting the duvet, as they do when she falls asleep- and he follows, slower, remembering that night with the English papers, Blair, yellow ribbon in her hair, cheeks warm with pleasure, snidely referring to him as the devil.

iv.

Saturday, February 9

Midday

This final meeting of the chairs of the planning subcommittees for the inaugural Met Valentine's Day Gala (officially, the 'Metropolitan Museum of Art Winter Benefit'), over an admittedly inventive modern-day interpretation of high tea – oysters Rockefeller and canape-sized quiche Lorraine paired with smoky Earl Grey; fluffy custards intercut with lemon-infused berry compote alongside Fortnum's Pistachio and Clotted Cream, steaming up from petite, saucerless espresso cups – should be a pleasant affair, tucked away as they are in the intimate Rose Room, cloistered so carefully from the weekend bustle of the museum around them that one might think they alone inhabit the building, that they're the first to discover the view of the park from its slanted paned wall of windows.

They've gone over every last item, from the final once-over of the decorations in the Great Hall, with its enormous sweeping blood-red curtains at the front of the foyer, whisked open by heavy gold ropes at both sides; with its catering staff in head-to-toe black; with its canopy, should anyone look up (and oh, they'll look up), done in layer upon layer of gathered gauze in that same crimson, and clusters of black roses to anchor them to the ceiling- and confirmed that the scaffolding to build this is already being assembled, though the actual decoration will not happen until Friday night, with a lower canopy being installed to obscure the views of Saturday's museum visitors until the late-afternoon closing; with its unexpected centerpiece of individual black roses mounted vertically on long, needle-thin spindles driven straight into their stems so they stand separately atop the erstwhile information booth; with its endless parade of black candles, thick cylinders at varying heights installed in custom-made gold trays lining the juncture of wall and floor the entire way around the Hall, surrounding the centerpiece and every pillar, and continuing, with breathtaking effect, all the way up the Grand Staircase and around its mezzanine, the glow flickering against the Grand Balcony's sets of gold candelabra and their long black tapers, looming, not just in the corners but at irregular and dense intervals, like a forest of morose willows – to the Court itself, done in similar fashion but fitted with temporary elevated flooring in thick glass, underneath which a sea of thousands of black votives will stretch from wall to wall, so that Gala attendees tread above a trembling universe of candlelight; a single, understated red silk heart, donated by Hermes, temporarily affixed to the end of Diana's arrow (a happy result of an awkward conversation wherein a young subcommittee member bubbled that the Court couldn't be a better setting for a Valentine's Day benefit; there's a statue of Cupid right in the middle!, which was tactfully ignored by her committee chairs, while her seatmate scribbled her a note that the statue is of Diana the Huntress); black candles lining the façade's windows, between parted swathes of crimson curtains, providing the backdrop to the makeshift orchestra pit, with its sounds wafting up the levels of mezzanine, where the crème de la crème of New York City will float, with goblet and flute, with painted lips and polished cap-toe Oxfords and flawless coifs and starched collars and pleasantries and bile and every other trapping of Manhattan wealth brought to bear.

They've gone over the names of those who have been confirmed for the head tables, those on the Court's floor, as well as the tables on the mezzanines; they've finalized the roster of toast-givers and the gifts for the musicians and the conductor, on loan from the New York Philharmonic for the evening.

They've confirmed, through a clipped conversation wherein all the participants managed to look disapproving, that Anne Archibald, a former committee member and one-time chair of the Gifts and Donors subcommittee for the museum, has RSVPd her regrets after having gracefully resigned from the committee two months ago.

With a sad shake of the head, the chair of the Attendance and Participation subcommittee comments then, nearly under her breath, that Mrs. Howard Archibald is veering dangerously close to recluse status.

The comment is met with an admonishing glance from the chair of the Logistics subcommittee, Lily Van der Woodsen, for whom this meeting, despite its decadent subject matter and air of impending triumph, is not a pleasant affair.

The word recluse rings in her ears long after the offending comment is hastily buried under a conversation about the announcements that will go out, starting tomorrow, that the Court will be closed from noon Friday (so the candles and flooring can be laid).

My darling, you're becoming a recluse.

Lily glances over her shoulder with a start, the voice so clear in her left ear that she's certain the speaker is right behind her. As she turns back to the table, a halfhearted smile quirking at her lips, more than one pair of eyes dart to where she's just looked. They linger over her for longer than necessary, and nerves prickle at her spine, until she realizes someone has spoken to her and is awaiting an answer.

"I'm sorry," Lily says smoothly, her voice an apologetic hum, "what was that?"

"Coming back to the outstanding RSVPs," says the Attendance and Participation subcommittee chair, "we've received a regret from Eleanor Waldorf, and Harold as well, not that that was unexpected- but," the woman, Vivienne, shifts her eyes uncomfortably, "we were wondering whether you might have any insight about the attendance of their daughter."

Lily blinks. Her lips part and then close, not wanting to speak for Blair, even as her stomach flips with something tense and familiar.

But then she envisions Blair- at whose penthouse her own children have spent countless unplanned evenings- at the Gala, sitting alone at a table of society odds and ends, the light from a million black candles glittering in her forlorn eyes, having mustered herself to take that first step back into the world- and says with resolution, "if Blair chooses to attend, she'll sit at the head table with the Bass-Van der Woodsens."

There's an awkward pause where a few of the assembled chairs exchange looks. "Well, that's- " Vivienne pauses and licks her lips. "That's very generous, of course, but your table is set for seven, as your daughter is the only one of the junior members to have confirmed she'll be attending with a date-" she breaks off, uncomfortable under Lily's narrowed eyes. "And while we are- sensitive to Miss Waldorf's plight, of course, the precedent to not rearrange seating has been upheld to a high standard in the past- we all remember that unfortunate incident with Diana Taylor at the garden party a few years ago- so it's difficult to make exceptions to precedent- "

Lily almost snorts, but thankfully keeps it to a sharp exhalation. "If Blair Waldorf chooses to attend, you will find her a chair." Vivienne looks like she's about to argue again, and Lily cuts her off. "Or I'll give her mine."

Another thought occurs to her, then, and she lays it on for good measure:

"And while we're on the topic of recluses, I suggest we also remain flexible on the seating arrangement for Nathaniel Archibald, who will be more than welcome to join my family's table as well. If there are issues," she almost-mocks, leaning forward, "Bart and I will both give up our seats."

The thrill of being, for once, the parent among her daughter's friends who has her life together rushes through her, neutralizing the ugly mass that settles in her stomach whenever she's unoccupied lately.

Even if it's as misleading as that Hermes heart at the tip of the arrow.

v.

Friday, February 8

Late evening

Serena blinks at her phone, which she's pulled slowly away from her ear as the line drones on in silence. It went silent, right in the middle of a ring, and she tried saying Blair, Blair?, Blair?, and then finally, hesitantly, Chuck…?, but there's nothing on the other end.

With a sinking feeling, she ends the call and tries again, hating herself even as she does it.

Her eyes close, wet lashes brushing her cheeks, as it rings busy, that quick percussion that happens when someone is on the other line or the line is out of service.

She just…

Her watery blue eyes meet their twins in her bathroom mirror.

She just talked to Blair. The line can't be out of service.

Maybe someone else called, and Blair is talking to them now, or there was a glitch and-

She drops the phone, still buzzing its mockery at her, onto a stray hand towel near her sink.

Steps back and leans forward, gripping the edge of the bathroom counter, wrists bent, long golden arms stark against the ruffled black dress she wore to the Fashion Week farewell reception at The Plaza.

Breathes out, shaky, staring herself in the face.

"It's okay," she tells herself- she may say it more than once; she doesn't remember later- but the biting buzz of Blair's rejection beats in her ears: No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Her gaze flits to the drawer where she keeps hairpins, tweezers, fingernail scissors, pocket-packs of tissues, and an old Altoid tin that's usually empty.

Usually.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

She shakes her head, insistent, and grabs her phone before she can think twice.

And dials the one person who always makes her feel better.

vi.

Saturday, February 9

Midday

Shortly after Eleanor leaves, the box arrives.

It's long; nearly six feet, and probably three feet wide. A foot deep.

White, sturdy material, tied with a tasteful black ribbon.

Dorota calls her out onto the landing to see it. Dorota knows what it is, knew what it was the moment she saw it, and Blair does, too.

She comes down a few steps and stands, palm light on the bannister, and says: "Open it."

Dorota glances down, and then back up. "But- are you sure you not want to…"

"I couldn't be less interested," Blair says severely, but if that were true, she wouldn't have Dorota open it.

And they both know that, too.

Dorota unties the ribbon slowly, in case Blair changes her mind, and Blair watches in petulant silence (more to prove her point than anything) while Dorota braces her hands on both sides of the box, which she's laid flat on the floor in Blair's full view, and tugs.

Blair's eyes slide upward, mirroring Dorota's motions as she carefully holds up the gown. Her face is impassive.

The gown is stunning- black, what appears at this distance to be velvet, figure-hugging and with a classic strapless neckline. Its cut is decisively mermaid- true mermaid, cinched all the way down to the knee, with a dramatic flair and a train that would follow her up a staircase like a minion.

There's an envelope pinned to the embroidered midsection that says, in clear handwritten script: Blair.

Dorota turns, almost cringing, at Blair's continued silence.

"I'll donate it," Blair says after staring at the gown for several long moments.

Nodding, Dorota turns toward the box as if to lay the gown back inside.

She freezes as Blair's voice loops across the foyer: "Bring it up and put it in my closet in the meantime."

Blair turns and goes upstairs without another word.

The gown is settled in her otherwise-empty closet (unless one counts the stacks of lounge pants and sweaters on the shelves just inside the door), and Blair is back on her bed, book in her hands- she's been holding a different book nearly every day, to the point that Dorota somewhat doubts she's actually reading any of them- when Dorota asks her when she'd like lunch.

Blair looks up at her.

"In thirty minutes," she says coolly, "and not a moment before."

Dorota pauses as she crosses the threshold and then, even though they're now alone in the penthouse, reaches behind her without looking, finds the doorknob and pulls Blair's bedroom door closed.

When her footsteps on the staircase fade into silence, Blair gets out of bed and locks the door behind her.

She hesitates at the door of her closet, looking for a long moment at her own hand on the knob.

She reaches to the side without looking and flips on the light.

Yes, the gown is velvet; it's embroidered subtly around the torso, which, she's delighted- not delighted; indifferent- to find, has a waist-cinching corset inside. The velvet is extremely good quality, and not too thick, so it would avoid that horrible effect of making her look slightly thicker herself.

Not her. The wearer.

She swallows as her fingertips touch the envelope. It's not handwriting she recognizes. She thought, for a moment, that this was a gift from her mother, but when Dorota opened the box, it was very clearly not an Eleanor Waldorf design.

Her other hand comes up to grasp the straight pin- long, gold, with a pearldrop on one end- and pull it out.

The note is from Carolina Herrera.

It says it is, anyway- Blair reasons that an assistant probably wrote it, maybe using a signature stamp or, at most, sliding it in front of the designer for a perfunctory signature.

Miss Waldorf (Blair)-

As an admirer of your personal style and a fellow woman who believes in communicating power through appearance, I enclose this sample from my upcoming couture collection, which has not been debuted at any show and is not scheduled to be so until this summer in Paris.

It would be my honor to dress you for the upcoming benefit at the Metropolitan Museum, should you be attending.

Either way, please accept this gift, and my compliments.

Yours,

Carolina Herrera

Blair closes her eyes briefly, and then opens them and places the note, and its envelope and its pin, on the shelf above where the gown hangs.

She stands there, opposite the black velvet that faces her in the barren whiteness of her closet, and tries to decide if the gown is mocking her or begging her.

vii.

Friday, February 8

Late evening

She sighs, sinking into the four pillows that surround her in her bed.

It will all be okay, she thinks to herself, curled on her side in warm cozy pajamas, black cotton-silk blend with pink piping at the wrists and ankles and lapel- it will.

She closes her eyes because they hurt from crying and being rubbed. Vaguely, she wonders where her sleep mask is, but she decides she's okay without it.

Everything is okay.

Her freshly-washed, sweet-smelling hair is heaped carelessly on the pillow behind her.

Blair will forgive her. She will.

In time, she'll forgive her; all she has to do is wait.

Just patience, she thinks. Patience.

And when Blair forgives her, she'll be able to forgive herself.

And then it will all be okay.

For the first time in weeks, arms curled around a down-filled pillow, body still, mind quiet, Serena smiles as she falls asleep.

viii.

Saturday, February 9

Afternoon

Serena's phone buzzes somewhere in the depths of her purse as she seeks it with one hand, other hand holding her cappuccino to her lips while she stands before a rainbow of silk and satin and beading.

It vibrates against her fingers, finally, and she withdraws it and flips it open without taking her eyes from the gown in front of her.

"Hello?"

"Serena, hey, it's Nate."

"Nate," she says warmly, his name stretching to two syllables in a hum that's both intimate and impersonal. "What's up?"

"Oh, I- " he sounds a bit taken aback, like he called the wrong person. "I just wanted to say hi and see how you were doing today."

"I'm good," Serena says simply, running her eyes up and down the silhouette of the gown. "How are you?"

Nate hesitates. "I'm good, too… thanks. I, uh, I was a little worried about you after last night."

"Oh," Serena says, like he's bringing up something that happened ten years ago. "That. I'm sorry about that. I was just upset."

"Yeah, yeah- I could, uh, tell." He clears his throat. "And I mean, you have every reason to be. You've been through a lot lately- "

"Sorry, Nate, can you hang on just a second?" -without waiting for a response: "Thanks."

She covers the mouthpiece with her thumb and smiles at the approaching stylist. "Could I see that one in my size, please?" Both hands occupied (cappuccino), she tilts her head to point at the one she likes.

There's an undeniable swish as Serena moves her thumb from the mic. "Sorry about that."

"No worries. So, uh, you're good?"

"I'm good," she says, turning on her heel to wander further down the rainbow. "What about you, are you good?" she teases.

He chuckles in her ear. It's easy to make Nate laugh.

(There's not much it's not easy to make Nate do.)

"I'm good, I'm good," he says good-naturedly. "What are you up to?"

"I'm actually at Reem Acra, looking for what I'm wearing to the gala."

He sputters. "You haven't picked out your dress yet?"

"I know, I'm way behind."

She stops in front of a gorgeous white creation: a beaded bodice with chiffon cap sleeves and snowy silk jersey that would move flawlessly with her.

"Do you have your tux yet?" she asks him.

"Chuck and I actually went earlier. I'm going pretty classic, so it was an easy choice. Chuck, on the other hand." He snorts, not needing to explain. Chuck and Blair are both notoriously picky about tailoring and as a rule, Chuck generally needs more than one fitting to get a tux the way he wants it.

Serena laughs, biting her lower lip as her eyes rake over the white. "How many is he deciding between?"

"Three, I think. We're going back on Tuesday. Mine will be done and he still won't have decided. And then the tailor's going to have to rush his alterations- you know, usual Chuck stuff."

"Please," Serena rolls her eyes, "Blair has literally gotten us banned from more than one tailor. I've learned to go on my own. She actually yelled at this woman in Russian last year."

"She speaks Russian?"

"She memorized insults ahead of time." Serena turns away from the chiffon cap sleeves, smiling at the memory. "I think Dorota taught her."

Nate smiles, too, memories of Blair's unbridled anger provoking an odd nostalgia. The image brings a pervasive sadness over him- and something more palpable: guilt.

"Serena," he says suddenly, "speaking of Blair…"

"It's going to be okay, Nate," she says with equal purpose.

He blinks, surprised. "What?"

"This whole- everything. It's going to be okay."

But she's not smiling, and he knows because he can hear in her voice when she is.

"It is?" he asks, cautious.

"Yes."

"Okay." He swallows, unsure what to say. "Because, I just want you to know, what we were talking about last night- we all love you."

"It's all going to be okay," she repeats, sounding distant.

He wonders if maybe she's distracted because she's shopping.

"Definitely," he agrees, but a bit uneasily. "As long as you know nothing's your fault, and that we're all here for you."

She nearly cuts him off. "You know, Nate…" Her tone is searching. "You're a special guy."

His heart warms.

Just a degree or two.

"Well, thanks," he says, flattery evident in his tone. "You're a special girl."

She smiles, just at the corner of her mouth, as her eyes slide over a few more gowns.

"Hey, I have to get going," she says with urgency. "Talk to you later?"

"Definitely," he says with the same warmth, and holds the phone in his hand for a long moment after they hang up.

As she drops the phone back in her bag, the stylist lets her know the gown she liked is waiting in a dressing room: "Are you ready to give it a try?"

"I think I'll look around a little more," Serena says, gesturing with her cappuccino.

ix.

Friday, February 8

Very late evening

He wakes in stages, hovering for agonizing moments in that awkward place where the mind fuses reality with dreams, thinking- thinking?- that what he's hearing is part of his dream.

And it's an awful dream.

Which should be the first clue, and should jerk him straight to consciousness, because, despite Serena's best efforts, he's been sleeping superlatively beside Blair these last few hours. After the last few nights, when frenetic, unsettling images have polluted his sleep and followed him, terribly, into waking, his mind calmed somehow next to her and he slid from consciousness into a deep, dreamless rest. Even after the shrilling of Blair's bedside phone, the annoyance of Serena's whining (and the question of how often Blair has had to deal with this and not mentioned it to him prodding even more irritatingly), and the potent confusion at Blair's reaction, he managed to sink again into that blissful, black unconsciousness.

So, then, a desperate voice, female, familiar, close to him, murmuring with an increasing note of anguish, should wake him immediately- but it doesn't.

As his mind suspends him between the harsh planes of the real world and the malleable dimensions of the dream world, he hears this pleading in a dream that he's not even aware is a dream. And the raw desperation in her voice reaches deep into his subconscious and makes him dream horrible, unspeakable things- things that, later, he'll swallow a double of scotch in one long drink as he tries to forget.

He wakes, finally.

He knows before he opens his eyes what's happening.

"Blair," he whispers, hoarse with sleep, as he hauls himself up.

She's curled on her side, her knees drawn to her chest, her face mashed into her pillow. The duvet is kicked halfway off her legs; her pleading is muffled, but the room is so silent he can make out what she's saying.

Anyway, it just two words.

Please.

Don't.

"Blair," he tries again, clearing his throat, covering his mouth with the back of his wrist as though he's afraid to wake her.

As though that's not exactly what he wants.

The thought that it's possibly a bad idea to wake someone who's having a nightmare- Serena has said this more than once; something about making the person go into shock?- occurs to him, but he brushes it aside as he slides closer to Blair, who is practically on the edge of the bed.

He lays a hand on her shoulder, carefully, through the duvet. She's wound tight, her shoulder stiff beneath the layers of fabric. "Blair," he says at normal volume, leaning over to see her face. No use- her hair has fallen over it.

She murmurs again; he thinks for a second that maybe she can hear him, like he heard her. He holds his breath and hopes she'll wake up on her own.

But then she pulls her legs closer to her torso, draws a quick, shaky breath, and says:

"Please- please- "

He exhales, pulse kicking into overdrive as he reaches for her, rolling her onto her back with effort.

"Blair- Blair- wake up…"

She tenses at the feeling of being forced onto her back- her face twists, the scars from her stitches imperceptible in the near-darkness, but he can make out the elegant lines of her brows as her expression contorts like it does when she's about to cry, and she whispers, barely audible, "don't…"

-and his heart thuds in his chest at what she must be dreaming right now.

The images are hellfire in his veins.

He sits up fully.

"Blair." He grasps her shoulders and squeezes, then her upper arms. "Blair. It's…" he breaks off and swallows. "It's me."

She's panting, hands drawn close to chest like prey covering her vulnerable spot, and he grows frantic and shakes her.

His voice hardens and he nearly drags her up to sitting, praying her mother is sound asleep, though he knows the rooms in the penthouse are very nearly soundproof. "Blair, wake up," he growls, shaking her harder.

All at once, her eyes fly open.

They stay open, wide, unblinking, for several long moments. Her shoulders are knitted tightly; her arms are locked to her sides; her fists are pressed together over her heart.

They stare at each other.

He realizes she's not breathing.

"Breathe," he whispers, trying to be gentle. "Breathe."

She blinks first, recognition dawning in her eyes, and then she opens her mouth and blows out a long, shuddering breath. Her posture unwinds and she sags a bit in his grasp. When the tension begins to ease, he realizes how warm she is- her pajamas are damp under his fingers.

Guiltily, he wonders how long he loafed in his own dream before he woke up to hers.

"Are you okay?" he asks, voice low, as she takes an equally long breath in.

She nods, gaze skittish, and looks around the room as though checking to make sure no one else is there. His jaw twitches in anger at this and he relaxes, with effort.

He eases her up to sitting, while her shoulders rise and fall with the exertion of someone who's just run the Central Park loop. She's breathing out of her mouth, something she hates outside of erotic moments, and she turns her head and gazes at her bedside phone for a long moment.

When he's sure she's sitting up on her own, he lets go of her arms- hoping, somewhat worriedly, that she won't have bruises from his grip tomorrow- and tentatively touches her fists, still clenched as they are just below her collarbones.

Her eyes snap back to his at the contact. He shies back, but then rests his fingertips on her knuckles.

"Hey," he tries, reverting back to whispering.

Her eyes are wide, and her blinks feel protracted, like she has to remember and consciously execute each one.

He licks his lips, trying to read her unreadable eyes, and touches her hands and says, because he feels as lost as she does: "It's me."

Another moment, and she loosens her fists, and the backs of her fingers brush against his. She's breathless and whispers back, trying at a smile, "Chuck Bass."

She doesn't execute it well, but relief floods him anyway. "Chuck Bass," he agrees, trying to mirror her expression.

"Are you okay?" she asks quietly.

He pauses. "Are you?"

She swallows. "I'm… disgusting," she says vacantly.

They look at each other. He doesn't have to ask what she was dreaming about.

He tells her she's not disgusting, because it's all he can think of to say.

To his surprise, she bends her head toward him. He slides closer, and she leans on his chest for a few quiet moments and feels his heart thumping against her cheek. He loops one arm loosely around her, searching for the right thing to say or do, and it washes over him how absolutely unequipped he is to handle this- all of this.

"You're safe," he tries, his hand finding the spot on her arm that he might very well have bruised and resting there.

He feels one of her hands land, suddenly, open-palm over his heart.

Eventually she straightens and says she's going to take a shower, slipping from his embrace like they do this all the time.

He stays like that, half-sitting-half-kneeling, until he hears the water turn on, and he sinks back against the pillows.

x.

Saturday, February 9

Evening

Serena comes to "family dinner" that night with an unnerving air of calm about her. She's dressed rather conservatively, in a miniskirt, crocheted tights, suede ankle boots and an oversized turtleneck, with chandelier earrings that don't quite go with the rest of the outfit; most mismatched, though, is the placid half-smile on her otherwise blank face.

Bart greets her when the Van der Woodsen trio arrives at Le Bernardin (Chuck arrived early, followed by Bart; the three blondes arrive in a gaggle at four minutes past the hour), not having seen her in a few days, and asks if she's feeling better. Serena simpers back, "oh, much," without batting an eye.

She turns, almost immediately, to Chuck.

"How are you feeling, Chuck?" she asks.

"I feel great, sis, thanks," he replies, sparing her a glance while he reaches for his ice water.

They haven't spoken directly since she avoided his question about whether or not she took his oxies on Thursday morning (which she obviously did).

Of course, they've spoken indirectly since then, though Chuck's the only one who knows that for a fact.

"Do you?" she presses, signaling yes when the waiter inclines the wine bottle toward her. "Did you sleep well last night?"

He holds his angry sigh in.

"I did," he says, and other than that one incident, it's the truth. "And you?"

"Like a lamb." Her voice is butter-soft. "What time did you get in? I looked for you." She props her elbow on the table and rests her chin in her open palm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Erik's shoulders sink a little as he sighs. He has the luxury of not needing to conceal it.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Chuck says, leaning back as the waiter pours him some red also. "Did you need me for something?"

Lily, after a hello kiss and hand-squeeze with Bart, has been watching this volley, and cuts in: "Charles, it just so happens that I need you; it turns out there are 34 combinations of features on recessed lighting that are suitable for the master bathroom suite, and I could use your feedback."

Serena, Chuck and Erik all look at her. Bart is surveying the starter menu, holding it up in front of him in an unconsciously fatherlike manner.

Lily smiles, beatific.

Chuck smiles back. "I'd be delighted."

"Mmm," Serena agrees gleefully, reaching for the bread basket. "Now that Fashion Week's over, he should have a lot more time for family stuff."

He shoots her a not now look. "Did I miss plans that we had?" he inquires again, his voice carefully neutral.

"No, I just meant all the receptions and everything." She blinks back innocently. "That's where you were last night, right? Now that those aren't a daily thing anymore, hopefully you'll be available more. That's all I meant."

"You'll have to get in line," Erik pipes up, unexpectedly coming to his rescue. "We have several brother-bonding nights coming up. And I have a strict no-cancellation policy." He makes a show of winking, which Lily chuckles at, picking up her menu also.

"I'll have my people call your people to confirm details," Chuck replies, sending him a grateful smile.

"What about my people?" Serena mock-pouts.

"Yours, too. And yours," he says to Lily.

Lily sends him a teasing air-kiss. "Thank you, my darling."

"So," Serena says to him a minute later, after having pretended to review her menu- he knows she didn't actually read it- "which afterparty did you go to last night?"

He pretends not to realize she's talking to him.

"Chuck?"

He glances up. "Hmm?"

She looks at him coolly. "Which afterparty did you go to last night?"

Erik looks up and his eyes flick between the two. "And more importantly, was it better than The Plaza, where she went?"

He suppresses a smile. Noble effort, my friend.

"I was tired," he says, realizing at once that the lie is not worth it. "I went to bed."

Serena glitters as she pounces. "Oh, is that so? Because I came by your suite, and no one was home."

Behind her, Erik's mouth tightens.

"Doorbell was silenced and I wore earplugs," he drawls, trying to keep the satisfaction out of his tone. "I wasn't feeling great the night before and wanted to get a good night's rest."

She deflates a little.

Lily's head tilts thoughtfully on her interlaced fingers; like mother, like daughter; her elbows are propped on the table.

"I hope you're feeling better?"

"Much," he confirms, tipping his water glass toward her.

"Excuse the interruption, but I'm starving," Bart declares suddenly, glancing around. The waiter appears as if by magic and takes their order. (As predicted, Serena scans the menu quickly and picks out something on the spot.)

"And how have you been feeling?" Chuck asks Serena, leaning over to her while Bart and Lily are turned the other direction to confer with the waiter, who stands behind their chairs. "Those oxies never turned up."

"Someone must have taken them while you had your earplugs in," Serena replies- under her breath, yet bitingly- shooting him a disdainful look that makes him smirk. When she turns away, he sees her and Erik exchange a glance out of the corner of his eye.

Erik looks tense, Chuck notes- he's looked tense a lot lately.

Lily waits for Bart to finish ordering, reaching for what Chuck initially thinks is his knee under the table- and he's surprised at the intimacy- but then their hands emerge, cupped together, on the tablecloth. She picks up her wineglass with her free hand. "I'd like to propose a toast, my darlings," she says, a glowing matriarch, glancing with what looks very much like pride around the dinner table. The irony of this makes him smile, which he passes off as warm agreement. She draws out the pause for a few moments- the Van Der Woodsens have a flair for dramatic timimg- and exchanges a smile with Bart.

Raises her glass a little higher.

"To family."

The three young Bass-der-Woodsens raise their glasses, also.

"Family," Bart says.

"To family," Chuck agrees, with Erik and Serena echoing, fam-family.

xi.

Saturday, February 9

Late evening

After dinner, which ends with Serena lingering behind him at the exit of the restaurant long enough to ride home with him instead of their parents, and spending the drive trying in her Repentant Serena way to make pleasant small talk to overwrite her recent unsavory behavior- a maneuver that would normally earn her a half-lidded glare, but under the circumstances he goes along with it, both because she's obviously struggling mightily (though aren't they all?) and because she's actually correct that he's lying to her- he stands still in his kitchen and holds his phone, trying to decide whether he should call Blair.

It's not that late, he reasons. He's probably not going to wake her up.

But the harsh shrill of her bedside phone- assuming it's even been plugged back in- echoes still in his ears, and he can't be the one to wake her up tonight.

When he left this morning, before the sun came up and long before Eleanor surfaced into consciousness, Blair's eyes were clouded with sleep, her breathing heavy with drowsiness, but her small smile reached her eyes when he touched her arm and told her goodbye. She took a minute, licking her lips, and his mouth went a little dry at what she might be about to say.

And then:

"Your tie is in the left drawer of my vanity."

Just a whisper.

He laughed, somewhere between relieved and disappointed, and said thanks, and as he went to pull away, she turned her hand over and squeezed his fingers for a quick second, and then laid her head back down.

He knows she ultimately slept well last night, which does not account for the nerves he feels at the prospect of calling her.

He just doesn't want to wake her, he reasons several minutes later, frustrated at his own mental fixation, as he wipes the shower steam from his bathroom mirror while brushing his teeth. He just doesn't want to disturb her; she obviously isn't having the easiest time sleeping- who knows how often she's having-

His phone lights up a split second before it begins vibrating, and from where it sits on top of his bed, he can see that it's her.

He doesn't even stop to put his toothbrush down.

"Hi," he answers.

She pauses, and he hears a smile in her voice. But she sounds a little shy. "I'm not waking you, am I?"

He smirks at their alikeness. "No. But you're interrupting my teeth-brushing."

"God forbid," she says dramatically.

"How was your day?" he asks, and finishes brushing while she replies.

"Well… I slept well," she murmurs, and a thrill lights in him like she's just confessed something deeply intimate.

He tips his head back so he can speak through the foam of toothpaste in his mouth. "Me, too."

He can almost hear the grin she flashes on the other end.

"My physical therapist is pleased with my progress," she says pensively, "and my mother went back to Paris this afternoon, so I no longer feel like I'm living with someone who speaks a different language."

He smirks, even as he rinses with mouthwash: Eleanor, not Dorota, is the one in the Waldorf household who makes Blair feel that way.

"That's a lot of good," he observes. "Anything else?"

She pauses, glancing at her closed closet door, unseen. "No. You?"

"Tux selection with Nathaniel, Van Der Bass family dinner, performed at Carnegie Hall and drafted my Nobel Prize acceptance speech," he says coolly, making his way to the kitchen for a glass of water.

"You must be exhausted," Blair remarks. "Hitting the hay soon?"

He snorts. "'Hitting the hay'? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know," Blair says dismissively. "Like… horses, maybe."

He chuckles, turns off the kitchen light and gets into bed, clad in boxers only post-shower.

Blair is quiet for a minute, and then says, reluctantly, "So you saw Serena?"

"I did," he says, tired of the topic but trying not to show it.

"Do you think she's okay?"

He pauses. "I think she's been better," he says honestly. "But… she's not the only one."

She scoffs. "That's an understatement."

"She'll be fine. It's just typical…" (Dancing-in-Lingerie-in-Public-Doing-Coke-at-Fashion-Shows-Stealing-Narcotics-and-Being-Cyclically-Combative-and-then-Remorseful) "…Overreactive Serena. You know the cycle."

"I do," Blair says flatly. "That's my concern."

He inhales slowly, noiselessly, through his nose, resisting the urge to ask her why, exactly, she won't talk to Serena, then.

They all know that's the only thing Serena's after.

Then she says, "I love her. But…"

He blinks.

Apparently he doesn't need to ask.

"I just can't right now," she sighs, an exhausted sigh that makes it very clear she's not going to elaborate.

"I understand," he says, trying to sound like he really does, even though he really, really doesn't; trying to sound like he doesn't want to ask why she was crying yesterday before he arrived, and whether something happened in her therapy session, or whether it was Serena calling, or what set off her nightmare- even though he really, really does want to ask.

They fall quiet, Chuck gazing idly out his window at the blinking pinprick lights of Midtown, and he can't know that Blair is thinking past Serena: back to Dr. Genove sitting at her vanity, back to the words that echoed relentlessly in the silence after she left; a silence that overwhelmed Blair, drowning out her attempts to redirect her thoughts, until it was time to pull herself together before Chuck arrived.

It's important to humanize yourself.

You've done nothing wrong.

The soothing words that needled her, mocking her with their reassuring intent, their promise of comfort, if only she complied.

You've hurt no one; harmed no one.

The bitter irony that the doctor could not possibly know how wrong she was.

There's a noise that sounds like Blair's breath catches in her throat, or like she starts a syllable but strangles it.

He waits.

"Chuck?"

He almost teases that if she'll "please hold," he'll "get him." But the vulnerability in her voice after an unusual amount of small talk tonight sobers him.

"Blair?" he says it slowly, making sure it doesn't come off glib or challenging.

"I'm…"

He hears her exhale sharply, like a sigh but with more force- almost a huff, like she does when she's trying to figure something out.

She tips her head against her pillows, the ones he lifted her off of the night before, by the time she opened her eyes.

She swallows.

Spend some time thinking about what parts of the person from before were beyond your understanding.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," she whispers-

(falters)

-and rushes it out before she loses her nerve:

"I'm sorry I called you a mistake."

He forgets to breathe for a long second. He actually rears back and stares at the phone in surprise.

"That's-" he says, finding his voice after a moment of stunned silence, "you don't have to-"

"No," she says, one hand covering her eyes, head still leant back onto her pillows. "I'm sorry."

His heart squeezes.

This is his chance.

He opens his mouth before he can think: "I'm- I'm sorry about what I said that night, when- "

"Don't." She pauses. "Please don't. You've- I- that night, I can't."

Okay, this isn't his chance.

He nods. "Okay."

"You weren't-" she says suddenly, urgently, then loses her nerve. "You know I didn't mean that, right?"

He remembers leaning against her hospital bed, black stitches fresh on her face, shivering and flushed as she came back from hypothermia, telling her he didn't mean what he said at Bemelman's after she quipped about the irony that she had, in fact, been ridden hard and put away wet. The flash of blind panic at the thought that she really believed him, that the moment when he dig his fingers into her softest spot was honest, and not a nasty but effective exploitation of years' worth of friendship. To make himself feel better.

And he remembers last night, when she wobbled a little as she raised one knee to climb back into her bed, and her palms found his shoulders, and his hands found her waist, and she didn't shy away.

And he swallows and the truth comes out.

"I do now," he says.

And she says good, and then tactfully changes the subject to where they went for family dinner, and what did he order, and how she went there twice last fall and thought it fell noticeably short of its Michelin rating.

xii.

Friday, February 8

Very late evening

He falls back to sleep while she's in the shower- he doesn't know what time she went in, but it feels like she's gone for a long time- and doesn't wake when the water turns off, or when she opens her bathroom door, soft light flooding for an instant before she realizes he's asleep and turns it off, or when she lifts her side of the duvet and slides in, grateful for the anonymity because she's wearing pajama shorts for the first time since it happened- there were no lounge pants left in her bathroom closet, and it's a blessing in disguise because she swears that after alternating cold and hot water, and washing her hair, and scrubbing every inch with bar soap and loofah and washcloth, she can still feel the disgusting sweat that she's peevishly aware has dried on her sheets and pillowcases.

But that doesn't mean she wants anyone to see her leg. Including and especially herself.

She reasons to herself that no one can see her and shuts her eyes tight as Chuck sprawls, toddler-like in a position that will certainly earn him a stiff neck in the morning, not two feet away.

No one can see her. There's nothing to be ashamed of.

Yet her left hand finds her way to the familiar ridges of those letters, which she's been assured by a plastic surgeon will be easy to remove completely if they don't heal over on their own within six months, which is the more likely scenario.

Just a few minutes later, she loses her nerve and gets up and plucks her robe from its hook on the inside of her bathroom door. She's instantly too warm in the velvet. Stubbornly, even as she feels the prickle of uncomfortable heat at the back of her neck, she wraps the robe around herself and ties the sash at her waist.

She tries again to ease herself back to sleep. But as she drifts, her own fingers are replaced by other fingers- nightmare fingers, and nightmare weight, and a nightmare face too close to hers. And her own straining voice, filling the wet, dangerous cold with pleas even as her hold on consciousness slips away.

She jerks, rather violently, awake.

Beside her, Chuck tenses and his eyes blink open, but not fully.

"Sorry," she mutters, tears at the corners of her eyes.

She gets out of bed again, not knowing where she even intends to go. The vexing irony- it's her bed and she's deferring to someone else- is not lost on her.

Bracing one forearm under him, Chuck raises himself a few inches off the mattress, voice groggy, hair rumpled, and squints at her in the dark. He obviously can't see her well, and soon gives up trying, resting his forehead on the back of his hand as he tries to drag himself fully from the deep sleep he was clearly just in.

"You okay?" he manages, gravel in his throat.

(She's momentarily distracted by memories of him when he's hungover and sounds and behaves a lot like this.)

"Yes," she says reflexively.

He turns his head and squints at her; maybe she reads too much into it, but that squint seems to say, come on, Waldorf, you're wearing shorts and a velvet robe, but you're sweating, and you've gotten out of bed like three times in the last hour, and you're tired but you won't go to sleep. Or maybe that's what she's saying to herself.

She sighs. "I can't relax," she admits, at a whisper, and she's not sure he hears her.

Forehead still lolling, he sniffs groggily, which makes her think he's almost just fallen back to sleep. "I'll relax you right to sleep, Waldorf," he murmurs, into the back of his hand.

She blinks.

On a three-second delay, he realizes what he's just said.

He says this to her the first time they spend any significant amount of time together in the same bed- her bed, this very bed, actually- which is about a week after the limo. She's tense about a chemistry exam, which includes the unit on molecular quantum mechanics, and she's been pacing and muttering to herself about Hermitian operators for days. He finds this amusing sometimes, but the moment the afterglow wears off tonight she's right back to fretting; he even sees her eye her school bag, which is where her chemistry notebook is.

He decides he won't stand for this.

He kisses her, and they have sex a second time.

And the same thing happens.

He blinks in surprise; the encore has never not worked for him. He'll have to improvise.

When he teases her about her tension, she says she can't relax until the test is over. He raises an eyebrow and makes a deal with her: if he can get her to relax, he gets to stay a few more hours. They'll set an alarm.

She scoffs, but smiles with her eyeroll-and-shrug, and moves over to share his pillow- they're all her pillows, actually, as she prissed at him earlier- and he realizes he has to really improvise, because he didn't think ahead to how he was actually going to relax her.

So his fingers brush over her hip, the sensitive spot he knows she has, and up the curve of her waist, and trail down her spine until she's covered in goosebumps, and she shifts closer to him with a shiver, shoulders pricking forward a little, her chest against his and her ankle finding her way between his calves, eyelids fluttering closed.

And she claims later that it was because of her extreme fatigue, but it's not ten minutes of this before her lower legs stretch and release the way he will soon come to know very well, which means she's just drifted off.

With agonizing slowness, his eyes open fully and he presses his hand into the mattress and lifts his head; then, faster as panic touches him, braces his other hand and pushes himself onto his knees.

"Blair," he says thickly, the color draining from his face at her silence, "I didn't mean to say that."

She's standing a few feet away, and after a moment of stillness, she crosses her arms.

He lifts both hands from the mattress like he's going to continue his apology in full physical surrender.

She parts her lips.

He freezes, heart thudding.

"I think this is too much even for you, Bass," she says lightly, expression unknowable in the dark.

For a few long moments, his not-fully-conscious, partly-frenzied brain struggles to compute whether she means what he thinks she means.

He thinks he must be wrong.

But then she takes a small step forward, toward the bed. Toward him.

He clears his throat, heart slowing at last, and sits back on his heels.

And takes a chance.

"Want to put money on that?"

She laughs then, just a quick bite of a chuckle; it comes out before either of them knows what's what. His eyes are adjusting to the dark and he can see the planes of her face.

She looks… like herself.

"How about, instead of money," she says in that same light tone- less confident and playful than the Blair he used to know, but with a wit just as sharp- "if you succeed, I get to sleep?"

He moves closer to the edge of the bed. He could reach out and touch her.

"And if I fail?"

Her fingertips find the sash of her robe; she toys with it as she ponders her response.

"Don't fail," she says at last, eyes bright like old times.

He laughs, a real laugh. "Interesting terms." He glances down at her hands, their fidgeting belying her carefree attitude, then back up to continue the banter. To give her time to think.

"And under what circumstances do I get to sleep?"

"You get to sleep when I get to sleep," she says, as if this is the most obvious stipulation in the world.

"Ah- of course," he says smoothly. He brushes his fingertips over hers like he did just a short while ago, and she tenses, but then returns the touch.

He looks into her eyes.

"Are you sure?" he whispers.

She holds his gaze, and nods- and glances down at the sash, hands moving as if to untie it.

He covers her hands with his and she glances up through her lashes, damp hair brushing over both shoulders.

"Who do you think you're dealing with?" he teases gently, slipping easily into their shared pastime of mutual bravado.

She smiles softly- he remembers her right before Carolina Herrera, smiling like that- and lowers her arms, leaving only his hands at the front of her robe.

"I almost forgot," she teases back, sounding like she did almost forget: "You're Chuck Bass."

He smiles too. How many times did she taunt him with that exact phrase in the dark?

"I'm Chuck Bass," he confirms, and watches her eyes carefully as he unties her sash- not for the first time.

When it's untied, she shrugs out of it carefully, sighing when it lands on the floor, and looks up with a smile of relief.

At this smile, he finally relaxes. "Come here," he says, extending one arm, palm-up.

She puts her hand in his and lifts one knee to climb into the bed.

Saturday, February 9

Very late evening

By the time they hang up, they're both yawning.

After a blissful minute of inner quiet, Blair pulls back her duvet and stands tentatively, like a fawn testing out her legs.

She pauses at the doorknob to her closet, but not as long as she did earlier today.

She flips the light switch and glances at the note, waiting on the shelf with its envelope and straight pin.

She takes a deep breath, looking at the black velvet gown that floats, facing her, humanlike.

And she takes off her pajamas.