AN: Okay please don't get mad at me that I have been gone for ages and am only updating with this teeny tiny chapter, but look, I heard the calls, I heard the cries and I knew I couldn't leave it any longer, but this all I have in me right now.

Thank you to Twitter friends for the idea!

A sharp knock at her bedroom door sent the chill of a thousand blizzards through Blair Waldorf's body. Eyes wide and limbs shaking, she sprang into action, snapping her book closed and hurtling over to the side of the bed to stuff it underneath the covers.

'Uh, hi.' Chuck eyed her suspiciously.

'What are you doing here?' Blair demanded, leaping up from the bed and standing protectively, with folded arms, in front of it. A traitorous corner of her book still poked out from beneath the frame, but she knew kicking it would only draw his attention where she didn't want it.

'I just came by to give you this back.' Chuck held up a cream-toned cardigan. 'You left it behind during movie night and my maid just found it last week.' He proffered her the offending article.

Blair scrunched up her nose, then reached out to snatch the cardigan from his fingers. 'Thanks.' She said brusquely. 'If that's all, feel free to leave.'

'Jesus, what's got your panties in a bunch?' Chuck snickered as he peered around her, searching for some evidence of what she was trying to hide. 'Unless…' He narrowed his eyes, but she could see them gleaming with intrigue still. 'Did I walk in on something private? Were you, you know…?'

'Don't be disgusting.' She huffed. 'Does your mind ever vacate the gutter? You know, street level can be nice sometimes too.'

'Well then what?' He ignored her jibe.

'Well then nothing!' Blair insisted. She threw the cardigan on the bed and place both palms flat on his chest, propelling him back towards the door he'd walk in through. 'Leaving, now.'

'Okay, okay.' He agreed through laughter. 'But I came all this way. At least see me out?'

She heaved an exasperated sigh but nodded, following him out of the room and down the corridor towards the stairs. She should have known better. But that was how he caught her off guard. Stopping dead on the stairs, then lunging past her and sprinting back towards her bedroom, Chuck took off in hunt of her deepest secrets.

'Chuck!' Blair bellowed, following hotly behind.

She turned the corner back into the room, still screaming for him, just in time to see a flash of his wicked, grinning, devil's face as he disappeared into her bathroom. The sound of the lock crunched and she balled her hands into tight fists. Her head hot with rage, Blair dropped to her knees by the bed, praying that what she knew was happening between those four walls he'd barred her access to wasn't true. The book, though, was very much gone from its spot.

Rapping on the door ceaselessly, she shouted still. 'Chuck, come out! Give it back!'

She heard nothing but a chorus of merciless chuckles and the occasional oh my god.

'That's mine!' She wailed. 'Please stop!'

'Christ, Blair. Do you need some psychiatric support?' She heard his maddening amusement, muffled by the wooden door. 'Do I need to put Nate into a witness protection programme?'

'This isn't funny! Come out of there!' She whined, still pounding on the door to no avail.

'You can quit it, there's no way in hell I'm coming out of here until I've savoured every last page of this- what would you even call this?' He pondered. 'The only term coming to my mind is deranged journal.'

'Scrapbook.' She bit out through clenched teeth, smacking the door once more for good measure. She hoped that's where his head was resting.

'You're quite the dreamer, aren't you?' He mused. She swore she heard the agony of paper swishing as he turned another page. 'The illustrations aren't going to get you anywhere though, you'd be better off sticking to just writing the works of fiction in the future.'

Oh God, her drawings. The prom dress, the wedding dress.

'Chuuuck!' Blair whined again, whimpering through the torture of his taunting. 'That's supposed to be just for me.'

'And I can see why.' Chuck agreed, she could hear the rotten grin in his voice. 'Mrs. Nate Archibald.' He added with another cruel snicker.

Blair sank down the wall beside the bathroom door, hugging her knees. 'There's nothing wrong with planning for the inevitable.' She affirmed. If he wouldn't listen to her pleas, perhaps he'd listen to logic.

'You do realise that's what people say about eventualities such as death, not senior prom and graduation.'

Her features twitched; he couldn't be reasoned with. Changing tactics again, Blair leapt up and, as quietly as she could, tiptoed out of the room. Chuck had been in her home countless times, but she doubted very much that, in his excitement, he'd had the foresight to lock the adjoining bathroom door that led in from the guest room.

Creeping towards the door, Blair reached out for the handle and twisted slowly. Finding purchase, she edged the door open and spotted him sat with his back to the door from her bedroom, smirking as he turned more and more pages. It was too late, he'd devoured it cover to cover.

'Oh, there you are.' He said when he saw her through the crack in the door. 'I was wondering how long it would take you to realise that door was there. I'm disappointed you didn't figure it out sooner, I'd have quite enjoyed the physical scrap.'

Of course, he'd toyed with her; like cat and mouse.

Her jaw clenched, she pushed the door the full way open and stood, hands on her hips, in the frame. 'You are the most vile, evil, diabolical villain ever born. I don't know how you can live with yourself when you've not one, measly redeeming quality.'

'Well.' He said, snapping the book closed and getting up from the floor. 'If you're finished with, whatever that was supposed to be, I must thank you for the entirely thrilling read.' Chuck smiled menacingly as he handed it back to her. 'I'm sure I'll remember every aspect in great detail.'

'Chuck,' she said in a warning tone. 'Please don't say anything to anyone.' The desperation slipped through.

'Like who, Blair? Your future husband?' He mocked her freely. 'I'm sure he'd love to know he's already engaged. Such a pity he missed out on the proposal, though, isn't it?'

She knew any appeal to his gentler nature was futile - who was to say he even had one – but she couldn't help the lone tear that, after burning long in her eye, leaked from the brim. Blair buried her head in her hands and shielded herself with her hair. The sniffling came next, then her shoulders started shaking. Her beloved scrapbook, a double-crosser she'd dumped on the edge of the bath, slid into the tub.

'Are you-' Chuck hesitated. She heard him take a tentative step towards her. 'Blair, it's not that serious. Why are you crying?' He reached out to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. 'Come on, don't do that. I was only playing with you.'

Looking up at him through watery eyes, she saw his unsettled manner. More tears came. 'It's just,' Blair hiccupped. 'It's just everything is so weird right now and,' she hiccupped again. 'It's just a way for me to feel like things are normal.'

Chuck sighed heavily. 'I'm an ass.' He offered.

'No, you're right. It's messed up.' She admitted. 'I'm practically planning out his whole life, while he doesn't even want to spend any real time with me.'

'Blair, I'm sure-'

'Can you just go. Please?' She cut in, halting his sorry excuse before it arrived.

'Yeah.' Chuck agreed, his lips thinned. 'I just thought it was funny, Blair. I'm not going to say anything.' He promised; one last attempt to soothe her.

'Just go.'

He started moving past her, went through the door and closed it behind him. She stayed.

'Blair?' He called her name tenderly, his voice sounded behind her. In an instant his arms had wound around her shoulders, spinning her so her head was buried in the crook of his neck. 'I'm sorry.'

She let out a shaky breath and her body stayed stiff, but she let him hold onto her. There they stayed, wrapped up in one another where time stood still around them, as Blair sobbed into the collar of his shirt.

Later, when he'd gone, Blair picked her scrapbook up out of the bath and put it back in its box. She stored it in the back of her closet, where she kept the old friendship bracelet Serena once tied around her wrist, a letter from Nate, her father's prized Yale sweatshirt and the jacket given to her by Chuck in the Hamptons.