Gossip Girl FanFiction - 'Chasing Butterflies' - Chp 9
Title: Chasing Butterflies
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Spoilers: general Season 2
Rating: T
Genre: Drama/Romance
Status: In-progress
Chapter: 9/12
Summary: After 19yrs of marriage, Chuck and Blair are bitter and angry. So for their 20th wedding anniversary their daughter, Mia, sets out to get them the perfect gift: each other.
Disclaimer: I own only Amelia Waldorf-Bass, Katherine Archibald, and Jackson and Daniella Humphrey. All other recognisable characters and places are the property of their respective owners.
Chapter Nine: Truth Will Out
Mia’s eighteenth birthday was three days after Christmas. At the breakfast table, Mia unwrapped the perfume, earrings and new cell phone that her parents had bought her, but was happiest about her parents’ joined hands.
She nibbled on a croissant and turned the new phone over in her hands. It was dark purple in colour and slimmer than her old phone had been. Pretty though. Mia liked purple. She smirked. Like father, like daughter.
Blair swallowed the spoonful of yoghurt she’s just put in her mouth, and gestured at the phone with the cutlery. “So how did your other phone turn up broken in two on your bedroom floor?”
Mia licked a stray croissant flake off her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Maybe it walked and decided to collapse in two halves. I didn’t ask it.”
Chuck sipped his coffee. “What about that scratch in the paint on your wall? Looked to me like something had been thrown at it.”
“Did it? I didn’t notice.” Mia put the phone down beside her glass and set the almost-whole croissant on her plate. She leaned back in her chair and pushed the plate away.
“Is that all you’re eating?” Blair asked, trying to conceal her worry.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten anything substantial since Christmas lunch.”
“I know.”
“Well, are you feeling sick?”
“No!” Mia gripped the edge of the table with both hands and found a ridiculous amount of pleasure in watching her mother recoil in shock. “I’m not sick, physically or mentally, Mother. I’m just. Not. Hungry.”
Mia turned away before she had to see the looks on her parent’s faces. She hated when people stated the obvious. She knew she hadn’t been eating properly, but how could they expect her to keep anything down when there was a constant pain in her stomach? A pain that had nothing to do with illness or hunger, and everything to do with Jack.
Internally, she groaned. She had tried, God, she had tried, to stop thinking about him. But she’d found that her persuasion and intimidation skills didn’t work half so well on herself as they did on everyone else.
The silence that now engulfed the table was tense and strained. Mia almost laughed when she realised that the silence that had sprung up between herself and her parents, felt the same as the silence that had recently been banished between Chuck and Blair.
Mia took a breath and cast her mind out to find something to talk about. Anything would do.
She turned back to her parents, who were trying to look normal by continuing with breakfast. “So…what made you decide to name me ‘Amelia’?”
At her question, Chuck took a large gulp of coffee and then almost spit it back out into his mug. Mia frowned but didn’t have time to wonder about his behaviour before Blair shrugged.
“I just liked the way it sounded. It was slightly old-fashioned even when your father and I were young, but I thought it sounded classy and sophisticated. Do you approve?”
Mia nodded and cast her gaze over her father once more. He was drawing lines through his scrambled eggs with his fork and avoiding anyone’s eyes.
She turned back to Blair. “I do like my name. When I was a child, I loved it because I was the only one I knew who had the name. Lily told me that she thought the same, except that she’d met only one other Amelia, right after she married Grandpa Bart.”
Blair’s eyes rose from her plate and met her daughters. Slight confusion cocked her head to the side and quirked her mouth. “Really? Who was this? I never heard about an Amelia.”
Mia shrugged and met her father’s desperate gaze just as her mouth opened to voice the answer. “She was just some decorator Lily and Bart hired to do the apartment.”
Mia watched as Chuck’s eyes closed slowly and he breathed a small sigh. She frowned and her eyes flicked to Blair who had gone pale. Her mother’s hand shook as she lowered her spoon back to her plate. She pulled her other hand out of Chuck’s and pushed her chair away from the table.
“Blair.” Chuck said and pushed away from the table to stand.
Blair turned to him angrily. “I don’t believe you! How could you? Our daughter! Our daughter! And you named her after that whore!”
He grabbed the fists that Blair aimed at his chest. “I didn’t! It was you! You named her! I said no. How many times did I say I hated the name? I threw others at you. Elizabeth, Michelle, Jacqueline. I texted them to you, I wrote them on the bathroom mirror. Anything, I said. Anything but Amelia. But you wouldn’t listen! And in the end, I was the one to shorten it! For weeks after her birth, you went around weaving her name into every conversation you could. I couldn’t stand to hear it, and I couldn’t say her name, not once. So she became ‘Mia’. You can’t say I didn’t try, Blair!”
But Blair was having none of it. She kicked at his shin and pulled her hands free. “You could have told me! If you’d just said something!”
“What good would that have done? Did you really think that I was going to tell you her name, ten years after the fact? I couldn’t change anything. And I knew you’d react this way, I knew!”
“And what about the other baby? Huh? If he had been a girl, would you have named her for another one of those women?”
Chuck shook his head and he stepped back. “Why are you bringing him up? Going to fling more accusations in my face? It’s not my fault he died!”
Blair slammed her palms over her ears. “Stop it!”
“No!” He stepped up to her and grabbed her wrists to pull her hands away from her ears. “You’re going to listen to me, just like I’ve had to listen to eight years worth of blame. I. Did. Nothing. Wrong. It wasn’t my fault. Maybe it was yours! Did you ever think of that? Maybe all those things you did to yourself as a teenager affected it. Or maybe you willed it to die. You didn’t want it! I had to beg you to have another child but you kept saying no! All through the pregnancy, you whined and complained, made me feel guilty for wanting a family. You never loved him. You only cried when he was born not breathing. Maybe our son died because of you.”
The silence echoed around them as Chuck’s words swirled in the air, around and around. Blair’s face was red as she held her breath and scrunched up her eyes. Chuck’s face was awash with tears.
Mia was cold in her chair. Gradually, she unfroze and stared up at her parents. Suddenly they looked different to her. Chuck was no longer the cheating father, and Blair was no longer the tormented mother. The roles had reversed. Chuck was the one living in agony, and Blair, the cold-hearted one.
In the lull, Mia pushed her chair away from the table and, as she stood, the linen napkin that had been on her lap fell to the floor. She watched it flutter to the ground in what seemed like slow-motion. Then she turned and left the dining room quietly and calmly. She collected her coat, stepped into the lift and rode it down to the lobby. Out on the street, she didn’t call for the car. Instead, she turned and walked up the street.
Nameless faces dodged around her as she walked, none knowing the harsh words that had been burned into her brain and which still rang in her ears. She hadn’t known. She remembered being ten years old and having her father sit down beside her to tell her she was going to be a big sister. Finally, she would have siblings. She had pleaded with her mother from the time she was four to give her brothers and sisters like her friends had. Blair had always smiled and patted her head, as if the request amused her.
Never in her life, would she have thought that Chuck was making the same requests and that Blair was turning him down.
Did that mean then, that they had been fighting for longer than Mia knew? They had definitely fought after the baby, her brother, who would have been Charles Bartholomew Bass the Second, had been stillborn, but maybe this had been going on since Mia was two or three.
She didn’t notice that her feet were aching in their heels until they stopped her in a familiar looking lift.
Looking around at the buttons on the side, she saw that she’d selected the level for the penthouse. For one, detached moment, she wondered if coming here was a good idea, but then she figured it couldn’t hurt. Coming here had to be better than going home.
A bell chimed as the doors opened and she only hesitated briefly before stepping out into the Humphrey home.
The entrance was empty, but she moved forward, her heels clicking on the floor. She stopped in the lounge area and turned her eyes towards the hall that led to the bedrooms when she heard approaching voices.
Mia waited in silence and eventually, Serena and Jack entered the room. They both jumped a little when they saw her standing there. Apparently they hadn’t heard the bell.
All three people stared at each other for a long moment, and then Serena stepped forward, a smile plastered on her face. “Happy birthday, Mia! I wasn’t expecting to see you today so I gave Blair your present. I hope you don’t mind?”
Mia didn’t really hear the words. Instead, she was thinking. Serena had known her parents for years. She knew all Blair’s little secrets and all Chuck’s indiscretions. Serena could tell her the truth, about the baby, about her parents’ marriage. She wanted to ask if it was true that Blair hadn’t wanted the second baby. She wanted to know if Blair had even wanted her. She wanted to know if Chuck had cried when Blair betrayed him, in her own way, or when he’d found out his son was dead.
But those questions were too much, too heavy. If they were answered, everything would change, more than it had already. So instead she looked into Serena’s blue eyes and asked, “Who was Amelia?”
Serena frowned. “Amelia?”
Mia nodded. “Yes, there was another Amelia. Your mother hired her to decorate your house when she married Grandpa Bart. Who was she? Why does my mother hate her? What did she do?”
Mia knew that Serena had figured out who she meant when her frown eased and she took a small breath. “I don’t know how you found out about her, but if you want answers, I think you should ask your parents.”
“I’m asking you. I want you to tell me. Now.”
Serena met her eyes, as if she was searching for a reason to give everything away. She must have found it, because she took a deep breath and said, “She was our decorator, for a while. Chuck…Chuck and Blair had been dating for a week. They were going to go to Tuscany together. Before Chuck left though, he met Amelia and…chose to not meet your mother at the helipad. He stayed and slept with Amelia instead. Blair went to Tuscany on her own and then spent the rest of the summer with her father in France.”
So that was it. He’d cheated on her. It was bad, yes, but not totally unforgivable, not if you loved a person as much as Blair claimed to love Chuck. It seemed to Mia, that what she had done to him so many years later was much, much worse.
“If you want more than that, you’ll really have to talk to your parents, Mia, I’m sorry. But I have to go to work. I’ll see you later.”
Mia heard Serena walk away and step into the lift. She didn’t even care that her weeks of avoiding Jack had come to an end, or that the butterflies which usually kept company with what food she ate, were nowhere to be found. Maybe the shock had killed them. Finally.
A long moment passed before Jack said, “So, I hear congratulations are in order. Ella told me your parents are fine again.”
She almost laughed. Almost. Something told her that if she began laughing, she wouldn’t stop, and she’d just be hysterical forever. But maybe that was a good thing. Wasn’t it better to laugh than to cry?
Mia looked down at the glass coffee table. “Where is Ella?”
“She’s not here. She got up early this morning to go shopping with Katie. As usual, she left your birthday present shopping until the last possible minute and had nothing.”
“Oh.”
The quiet descended again, leaving Mia to think about leaving. She didn’t even know why she’d come here of all places. She’d rather just walk around and around in circles all day, or sit in Central Park than be here, alone, with him.
Right?
“Mia?” His voice was quiet, as were his steps as he approached her. He reached out and unfolded her arms. She hadn’t noticed that they were wrapped around her ribs, holding her together.
“Mia? What’s wrong, babe?”
Babe. He hadn’t called her that in years. She’d protested vehemently, saying he wasn’t her boyfriend, so he had no right to call her that. She hadn’t realised she’d missed it so much.
Her gaze rose from the table, travelling up his denim clad legs, over the sweater he wore, until it reached his eyes.
There was no warning before the tears came this time, no prickling behind her eyes, no sharp twinge in her nose. Nothing. One minute her she was calm and collected, the next a lone tear had trembled over one eyelid and slid down her face. Eight years worth of tears followed close behind.
She felt Jack’s arm wrap around her and pull her in towards him. She felt the rough wool of his sweater against her face. The smell of cigarettes, so notorious for clinging to everything, swirled up into her nose, followed closely by the smell of the soap Jack used.
In the last few weeks, she hadn’t been able to smell this once, so through her tears she breathed deep. She’d missed the smell and the person it belonged to. Had she been crazy, wanting to avoid him?
When her tears had slowed and all that remained were occasional hiccups, Jack pushed Mia away slightly, wiped the wetness from her cheeks and then cupped her face in his hands.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to force it out of you?”
Mia shook her head and sniffed. “No. No, I’ll tell you.”
So she did, after he’d pulled her down to sit on the sofa and she’d nestled against his chest, not willing to let him let her go just yet.
Everything she’d heard that morning came out, in a quiet tone and logical order until they were left in silence again.
Mia sighed. “It was all a waste of time. All that hate was so ingrained in them, there was no way I could compete with that. This whole thing was doomed from the start.”
She felt Jack shake his head. “That’s not true. You believed in them, Mia, when everyone else had given up. You proved that you were right. For a long time, your parents have been standing back to back, watching other people. You forced them to turn around and see each other again. You did that. I admire you for it.”
He admired her? Really? What a strange thing to know. Strange, but good. Even if everything had ended badly after all, at least she had that much.
She said, “Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. After this morning, I doubt they’ll ever speak to each other again, even to argue.”
“That’s not true either. I think this needed to happen. They needed to get the real issue out into the open. It’ll be fine. You can fix this.”
Mia pulled away to look up at him. “You think so?”
Jack shrugged. “Sure, you’ve come this far, haven’t you?”
She bit the inside of her lip. “But what do I do now? I can’t set them up again, there’s no time.”
“Forget the set-ups. You’re all experts at avoiding what you don’t want to face. Stop playing games with them. Just sit them down in a room, and make everyone talk things over. You too. You have to be honest with them. Tell them how their behaviour has hurt you.”
“But that’s so simple. Could it work?”
He smiled. “Not everything has to be complex to succeed, Mia.”
She sat in silence and thought over his words. Maybe he was right. But she was so used to having to scheme and fight her way to the top of the pack. Conversations didn’t solve anything in high school.
Maybe it was time to grow up.
Mia refocused on Jack’s face and smiled. She felt the salt from her tears, which had dried on her cheeks, crack a little and she brushed her palms over her face. When she met Jack’s eyes again, she said, “All right, I’ll talk to them. No more games.”
Jack nodded. “Good. Now, I hate to change the subject, but it’s still your birthday, right?”
“Of course!”
“Well then,” he said and stood up, “I’ll just go get your present.”
Mia watched him walk down the hall towards his bedroom. She hadn’t considered that maybe Jack had bought her a gift. She’d been avoiding him, so she had no right to expect one. Still, he hadn’t made any mention of why they’d stopped speaking. Maybe he wasn’t as into her as she had thought.
As this possibility crossed her mind, and Jack re-entered the room carrying a small gift bag, the butterflies in her stomach re-awoke and began making up for lost time.
He handed her the bag and took his seat beside her. He wrung his fingers as she pulled a blue Tiffany box from the bag and took a ragged breath when she hesitated.
He’d bought her jewellery? From Tiffany? Maybe he was into her.
“Open it,” he whispered.
“I’m scared to.”
“Then I’ll do it.” And he reached out to pluck the box from her hands.
He flipped the lid and there, lying on pale blue silk, was a necklace of white gold. Two heart pendants hung from the chain, one of which was studded with tiny diamonds.
She couldn’t speak as he removed the necklace from the box and fastened it around her neck. The gold was cold against her skin, but it soon warmed when her hand moved up from her lap to flatten against the hearts.
“There are two of them,” she said.
He knew what she meant. “Yes, two hearts for you to wear around your neck. One is yours…the other is mine. And as long as you have this necklace, they’ll always be together.”
Mia’s head was spinning, and her mouth was suddenly dry. This wasn’t happening. She didn’t want this to happen.
When she felt his fingers lightly brush hers, Mia propelled herself up and away from him. She spun towards him wildly and held her hands out as if to ward him away.
“Don’t! Don’t say those things! You don’t mean them, and even if you did, I wouldn’t care!”
“I do and you’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“If you’re not, why haven’t I seen you or spoken to you in weeks? I said it before, Mia; you’re an expert at avoiding what you don’t want to deal with. When I tried to kiss you the other week you panicked, not because I was forcing you into anything, but because you wanted me to do it. So you did what you do best. You ran away and hid. But it didn’t change anything, did it, because I was still there, in your head. And do you want to know why? It’s simple really. I li-”
Mia’s palms closed over her ears and she scrunched her eyes shut. “Stop it!”
There was a moment when Mia realised that Blair had done exactly this during the fight she’d had with Chuck that morning. But before she could figure out if she wanted to mimic her mother anymore, she felt Jack’s hands close around her wrists and pull her hands away from her head.
He forced her head up. “Open your eyes. If you’re going to deny me, I want you to look me in the eyes as you do it.”
Mia’s pride rose up at the challenge and her eyes shot open. She gasped and tried to move back, but he held fast. He was so much closer than she’d thought.
“I’m going to tell you the truth now, okay?”
She nodded silently before she could stop herself.
“I like you, Mia. I want to be with you. And you feel the same.”
The butterflies went into frenzy and the light-headedness returned. She swallowed and then choked out, “I don’t.”
“You do.” His voice was soft, the kind of voice you wanted to believe, even if it meant losing yourself.
She pulled herself out of his grasp. “I don’t.” She shook her head violently from side to side.
“Why not?”
Had he always been this stubborn?
“Because I’m not supposed to like you!” Mia all but shrieked.
“Why not?” he said again.
“Because,” she said calmly and clenched her fists by her sides, “I am Amelia Waldorf-Bass and you are Jackson Humphrey. It’s just not how it’s supposed to be.”
He shook his head and took a step towards her. “You know what’s funny? I imagine, many years ago, Blair Waldorf said exactly the same thing to Charles Bass.”
She scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. “Yeah, and look where that got them!”
Jack reached for her arms but she took a large step back. He sighed. “You’re wrong, you know. When we’re alone and the rest of the world can’t see, you stop being that Queen Bee and I stop being that Devil, and we’re left with just Mia and Jack.”
Mia frowned for a moment. She was certain she’d thought something similar just the other week. Could he read her mind now?
But he wasn’t finished. “And when it’s just Mia and Jack, it makes complete sense and you realise that that is exactly how it’s supposed to be.”
Hearing him say the words sounded so good. Her resolve weakened, just a little. She wanted to believe him, but she’d seen this kind of feeling before, in her parents before everything had gone wrong. If she gave in to Jack today, what was to prevent them from ending like Chuck and Blair in twenty years? They might not be lucky enough to have a daughter willing to fight for them. What would happen then?
“What about the women?” she said, determined to find anything that would let her walk away with her pride. “I know you’ve been with various different women since Thanksgiving. Ella told me. And I saw you, opposite Tiffany, the week before Christmas. If I mean so much to you, why were you with them?”
Jack sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I knew you’d find out, especially after Tiffany.”
“You knew I’d be there?”
“No, actually. I was walking past with…well, it doesn’t matter who…and I saw you. I wanted to make you see that you needed me. I want you to need me, Mia. You don’t have to be the strong one all the time.”
So he’d slept with other women…for her? It was definitely flawed logic…but it had worked. Nothing else would have gotten her attention. It just went to show: he really did know her better than anyone else.
When Mia’s head lowered, Jack must have known he had her, because he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed the top of her head gently.
“You do need me, don’t you, Mia?”
She sighed and looked up into his dark eyes, so uncertain and scared at that moment, and said the words they both needed to hear.
“Yes, I do need you.”
His answering smile was wide and unashamed, and Mia thought for a moment that that smile was the best gift she could have received for her birthday.
She was wrong.
Jack pulled her flush against him and their lips came together with such ease, that it made Mia think they were supposed to be like this, together. They had always been able to think and move in sync with each other, but it had never occurred to Mia that maybe it was because they were two halves of one whole, like Chuck and Blair, like Dan and Serena, like Nate and Jenny.
The prospect of being Jack’s better half was more enjoyable than she’d have thought possible. She smiled against his lips and he pulled back when he felt it.
He inspected her grin with a bemused look on his face. “What?”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
Mia sighed. “I just realised that I’m really lucky.”
Jack chuckled. “Babe, you’ve got nothin’ on me.”
He lowered his mouth to hers again and Mia hoped that he never stopped kissing her, even for a moment.
xoxo
Chapter Extras: Mia's necklace
Read Previous Chapters
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Spoilers: general Season 2
Rating: T
Genre: Drama/Romance
Status: In-progress
Chapter: 9/12
Summary: After 19yrs of marriage, Chuck and Blair are bitter and angry. So for their 20th wedding anniversary their daughter, Mia, sets out to get them the perfect gift: each other.
Disclaimer: I own only Amelia Waldorf-Bass, Katherine Archibald, and Jackson and Daniella Humphrey. All other recognisable characters and places are the property of their respective owners.
Chapter Nine: Truth Will Out
Mia’s eighteenth birthday was three days after Christmas. At the breakfast table, Mia unwrapped the perfume, earrings and new cell phone that her parents had bought her, but was happiest about her parents’ joined hands.
She nibbled on a croissant and turned the new phone over in her hands. It was dark purple in colour and slimmer than her old phone had been. Pretty though. Mia liked purple. She smirked. Like father, like daughter.
Blair swallowed the spoonful of yoghurt she’s just put in her mouth, and gestured at the phone with the cutlery. “So how did your other phone turn up broken in two on your bedroom floor?”
Mia licked a stray croissant flake off her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Maybe it walked and decided to collapse in two halves. I didn’t ask it.”
Chuck sipped his coffee. “What about that scratch in the paint on your wall? Looked to me like something had been thrown at it.”
“Did it? I didn’t notice.” Mia put the phone down beside her glass and set the almost-whole croissant on her plate. She leaned back in her chair and pushed the plate away.
“Is that all you’re eating?” Blair asked, trying to conceal her worry.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten anything substantial since Christmas lunch.”
“I know.”
“Well, are you feeling sick?”
“No!” Mia gripped the edge of the table with both hands and found a ridiculous amount of pleasure in watching her mother recoil in shock. “I’m not sick, physically or mentally, Mother. I’m just. Not. Hungry.”
Mia turned away before she had to see the looks on her parent’s faces. She hated when people stated the obvious. She knew she hadn’t been eating properly, but how could they expect her to keep anything down when there was a constant pain in her stomach? A pain that had nothing to do with illness or hunger, and everything to do with Jack.
Internally, she groaned. She had tried, God, she had tried, to stop thinking about him. But she’d found that her persuasion and intimidation skills didn’t work half so well on herself as they did on everyone else.
The silence that now engulfed the table was tense and strained. Mia almost laughed when she realised that the silence that had sprung up between herself and her parents, felt the same as the silence that had recently been banished between Chuck and Blair.
Mia took a breath and cast her mind out to find something to talk about. Anything would do.
She turned back to her parents, who were trying to look normal by continuing with breakfast. “So…what made you decide to name me ‘Amelia’?”
At her question, Chuck took a large gulp of coffee and then almost spit it back out into his mug. Mia frowned but didn’t have time to wonder about his behaviour before Blair shrugged.
“I just liked the way it sounded. It was slightly old-fashioned even when your father and I were young, but I thought it sounded classy and sophisticated. Do you approve?”
Mia nodded and cast her gaze over her father once more. He was drawing lines through his scrambled eggs with his fork and avoiding anyone’s eyes.
She turned back to Blair. “I do like my name. When I was a child, I loved it because I was the only one I knew who had the name. Lily told me that she thought the same, except that she’d met only one other Amelia, right after she married Grandpa Bart.”
Blair’s eyes rose from her plate and met her daughters. Slight confusion cocked her head to the side and quirked her mouth. “Really? Who was this? I never heard about an Amelia.”
Mia shrugged and met her father’s desperate gaze just as her mouth opened to voice the answer. “She was just some decorator Lily and Bart hired to do the apartment.”
Mia watched as Chuck’s eyes closed slowly and he breathed a small sigh. She frowned and her eyes flicked to Blair who had gone pale. Her mother’s hand shook as she lowered her spoon back to her plate. She pulled her other hand out of Chuck’s and pushed her chair away from the table.
“Blair.” Chuck said and pushed away from the table to stand.
Blair turned to him angrily. “I don’t believe you! How could you? Our daughter! Our daughter! And you named her after that whore!”
He grabbed the fists that Blair aimed at his chest. “I didn’t! It was you! You named her! I said no. How many times did I say I hated the name? I threw others at you. Elizabeth, Michelle, Jacqueline. I texted them to you, I wrote them on the bathroom mirror. Anything, I said. Anything but Amelia. But you wouldn’t listen! And in the end, I was the one to shorten it! For weeks after her birth, you went around weaving her name into every conversation you could. I couldn’t stand to hear it, and I couldn’t say her name, not once. So she became ‘Mia’. You can’t say I didn’t try, Blair!”
But Blair was having none of it. She kicked at his shin and pulled her hands free. “You could have told me! If you’d just said something!”
“What good would that have done? Did you really think that I was going to tell you her name, ten years after the fact? I couldn’t change anything. And I knew you’d react this way, I knew!”
“And what about the other baby? Huh? If he had been a girl, would you have named her for another one of those women?”
Chuck shook his head and he stepped back. “Why are you bringing him up? Going to fling more accusations in my face? It’s not my fault he died!”
Blair slammed her palms over her ears. “Stop it!”
“No!” He stepped up to her and grabbed her wrists to pull her hands away from her ears. “You’re going to listen to me, just like I’ve had to listen to eight years worth of blame. I. Did. Nothing. Wrong. It wasn’t my fault. Maybe it was yours! Did you ever think of that? Maybe all those things you did to yourself as a teenager affected it. Or maybe you willed it to die. You didn’t want it! I had to beg you to have another child but you kept saying no! All through the pregnancy, you whined and complained, made me feel guilty for wanting a family. You never loved him. You only cried when he was born not breathing. Maybe our son died because of you.”
The silence echoed around them as Chuck’s words swirled in the air, around and around. Blair’s face was red as she held her breath and scrunched up her eyes. Chuck’s face was awash with tears.
Mia was cold in her chair. Gradually, she unfroze and stared up at her parents. Suddenly they looked different to her. Chuck was no longer the cheating father, and Blair was no longer the tormented mother. The roles had reversed. Chuck was the one living in agony, and Blair, the cold-hearted one.
In the lull, Mia pushed her chair away from the table and, as she stood, the linen napkin that had been on her lap fell to the floor. She watched it flutter to the ground in what seemed like slow-motion. Then she turned and left the dining room quietly and calmly. She collected her coat, stepped into the lift and rode it down to the lobby. Out on the street, she didn’t call for the car. Instead, she turned and walked up the street.
Nameless faces dodged around her as she walked, none knowing the harsh words that had been burned into her brain and which still rang in her ears. She hadn’t known. She remembered being ten years old and having her father sit down beside her to tell her she was going to be a big sister. Finally, she would have siblings. She had pleaded with her mother from the time she was four to give her brothers and sisters like her friends had. Blair had always smiled and patted her head, as if the request amused her.
Never in her life, would she have thought that Chuck was making the same requests and that Blair was turning him down.
Did that mean then, that they had been fighting for longer than Mia knew? They had definitely fought after the baby, her brother, who would have been Charles Bartholomew Bass the Second, had been stillborn, but maybe this had been going on since Mia was two or three.
She didn’t notice that her feet were aching in their heels until they stopped her in a familiar looking lift.
Looking around at the buttons on the side, she saw that she’d selected the level for the penthouse. For one, detached moment, she wondered if coming here was a good idea, but then she figured it couldn’t hurt. Coming here had to be better than going home.
A bell chimed as the doors opened and she only hesitated briefly before stepping out into the Humphrey home.
The entrance was empty, but she moved forward, her heels clicking on the floor. She stopped in the lounge area and turned her eyes towards the hall that led to the bedrooms when she heard approaching voices.
Mia waited in silence and eventually, Serena and Jack entered the room. They both jumped a little when they saw her standing there. Apparently they hadn’t heard the bell.
All three people stared at each other for a long moment, and then Serena stepped forward, a smile plastered on her face. “Happy birthday, Mia! I wasn’t expecting to see you today so I gave Blair your present. I hope you don’t mind?”
Mia didn’t really hear the words. Instead, she was thinking. Serena had known her parents for years. She knew all Blair’s little secrets and all Chuck’s indiscretions. Serena could tell her the truth, about the baby, about her parents’ marriage. She wanted to ask if it was true that Blair hadn’t wanted the second baby. She wanted to know if Blair had even wanted her. She wanted to know if Chuck had cried when Blair betrayed him, in her own way, or when he’d found out his son was dead.
But those questions were too much, too heavy. If they were answered, everything would change, more than it had already. So instead she looked into Serena’s blue eyes and asked, “Who was Amelia?”
Serena frowned. “Amelia?”
Mia nodded. “Yes, there was another Amelia. Your mother hired her to decorate your house when she married Grandpa Bart. Who was she? Why does my mother hate her? What did she do?”
Mia knew that Serena had figured out who she meant when her frown eased and she took a small breath. “I don’t know how you found out about her, but if you want answers, I think you should ask your parents.”
“I’m asking you. I want you to tell me. Now.”
Serena met her eyes, as if she was searching for a reason to give everything away. She must have found it, because she took a deep breath and said, “She was our decorator, for a while. Chuck…Chuck and Blair had been dating for a week. They were going to go to Tuscany together. Before Chuck left though, he met Amelia and…chose to not meet your mother at the helipad. He stayed and slept with Amelia instead. Blair went to Tuscany on her own and then spent the rest of the summer with her father in France.”
So that was it. He’d cheated on her. It was bad, yes, but not totally unforgivable, not if you loved a person as much as Blair claimed to love Chuck. It seemed to Mia, that what she had done to him so many years later was much, much worse.
“If you want more than that, you’ll really have to talk to your parents, Mia, I’m sorry. But I have to go to work. I’ll see you later.”
Mia heard Serena walk away and step into the lift. She didn’t even care that her weeks of avoiding Jack had come to an end, or that the butterflies which usually kept company with what food she ate, were nowhere to be found. Maybe the shock had killed them. Finally.
A long moment passed before Jack said, “So, I hear congratulations are in order. Ella told me your parents are fine again.”
She almost laughed. Almost. Something told her that if she began laughing, she wouldn’t stop, and she’d just be hysterical forever. But maybe that was a good thing. Wasn’t it better to laugh than to cry?
Mia looked down at the glass coffee table. “Where is Ella?”
“She’s not here. She got up early this morning to go shopping with Katie. As usual, she left your birthday present shopping until the last possible minute and had nothing.”
“Oh.”
The quiet descended again, leaving Mia to think about leaving. She didn’t even know why she’d come here of all places. She’d rather just walk around and around in circles all day, or sit in Central Park than be here, alone, with him.
Right?
“Mia?” His voice was quiet, as were his steps as he approached her. He reached out and unfolded her arms. She hadn’t noticed that they were wrapped around her ribs, holding her together.
“Mia? What’s wrong, babe?”
Babe. He hadn’t called her that in years. She’d protested vehemently, saying he wasn’t her boyfriend, so he had no right to call her that. She hadn’t realised she’d missed it so much.
Her gaze rose from the table, travelling up his denim clad legs, over the sweater he wore, until it reached his eyes.
There was no warning before the tears came this time, no prickling behind her eyes, no sharp twinge in her nose. Nothing. One minute her she was calm and collected, the next a lone tear had trembled over one eyelid and slid down her face. Eight years worth of tears followed close behind.
She felt Jack’s arm wrap around her and pull her in towards him. She felt the rough wool of his sweater against her face. The smell of cigarettes, so notorious for clinging to everything, swirled up into her nose, followed closely by the smell of the soap Jack used.
In the last few weeks, she hadn’t been able to smell this once, so through her tears she breathed deep. She’d missed the smell and the person it belonged to. Had she been crazy, wanting to avoid him?
When her tears had slowed and all that remained were occasional hiccups, Jack pushed Mia away slightly, wiped the wetness from her cheeks and then cupped her face in his hands.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to force it out of you?”
Mia shook her head and sniffed. “No. No, I’ll tell you.”
So she did, after he’d pulled her down to sit on the sofa and she’d nestled against his chest, not willing to let him let her go just yet.
Everything she’d heard that morning came out, in a quiet tone and logical order until they were left in silence again.
Mia sighed. “It was all a waste of time. All that hate was so ingrained in them, there was no way I could compete with that. This whole thing was doomed from the start.”
She felt Jack shake his head. “That’s not true. You believed in them, Mia, when everyone else had given up. You proved that you were right. For a long time, your parents have been standing back to back, watching other people. You forced them to turn around and see each other again. You did that. I admire you for it.”
He admired her? Really? What a strange thing to know. Strange, but good. Even if everything had ended badly after all, at least she had that much.
She said, “Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. After this morning, I doubt they’ll ever speak to each other again, even to argue.”
“That’s not true either. I think this needed to happen. They needed to get the real issue out into the open. It’ll be fine. You can fix this.”
Mia pulled away to look up at him. “You think so?”
Jack shrugged. “Sure, you’ve come this far, haven’t you?”
She bit the inside of her lip. “But what do I do now? I can’t set them up again, there’s no time.”
“Forget the set-ups. You’re all experts at avoiding what you don’t want to face. Stop playing games with them. Just sit them down in a room, and make everyone talk things over. You too. You have to be honest with them. Tell them how their behaviour has hurt you.”
“But that’s so simple. Could it work?”
He smiled. “Not everything has to be complex to succeed, Mia.”
She sat in silence and thought over his words. Maybe he was right. But she was so used to having to scheme and fight her way to the top of the pack. Conversations didn’t solve anything in high school.
Maybe it was time to grow up.
Mia refocused on Jack’s face and smiled. She felt the salt from her tears, which had dried on her cheeks, crack a little and she brushed her palms over her face. When she met Jack’s eyes again, she said, “All right, I’ll talk to them. No more games.”
Jack nodded. “Good. Now, I hate to change the subject, but it’s still your birthday, right?”
“Of course!”
“Well then,” he said and stood up, “I’ll just go get your present.”
Mia watched him walk down the hall towards his bedroom. She hadn’t considered that maybe Jack had bought her a gift. She’d been avoiding him, so she had no right to expect one. Still, he hadn’t made any mention of why they’d stopped speaking. Maybe he wasn’t as into her as she had thought.
As this possibility crossed her mind, and Jack re-entered the room carrying a small gift bag, the butterflies in her stomach re-awoke and began making up for lost time.
He handed her the bag and took his seat beside her. He wrung his fingers as she pulled a blue Tiffany box from the bag and took a ragged breath when she hesitated.
He’d bought her jewellery? From Tiffany? Maybe he was into her.
“Open it,” he whispered.
“I’m scared to.”
“Then I’ll do it.” And he reached out to pluck the box from her hands.
He flipped the lid and there, lying on pale blue silk, was a necklace of white gold. Two heart pendants hung from the chain, one of which was studded with tiny diamonds.
She couldn’t speak as he removed the necklace from the box and fastened it around her neck. The gold was cold against her skin, but it soon warmed when her hand moved up from her lap to flatten against the hearts.
“There are two of them,” she said.
He knew what she meant. “Yes, two hearts for you to wear around your neck. One is yours…the other is mine. And as long as you have this necklace, they’ll always be together.”
Mia’s head was spinning, and her mouth was suddenly dry. This wasn’t happening. She didn’t want this to happen.
When she felt his fingers lightly brush hers, Mia propelled herself up and away from him. She spun towards him wildly and held her hands out as if to ward him away.
“Don’t! Don’t say those things! You don’t mean them, and even if you did, I wouldn’t care!”
“I do and you’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“If you’re not, why haven’t I seen you or spoken to you in weeks? I said it before, Mia; you’re an expert at avoiding what you don’t want to deal with. When I tried to kiss you the other week you panicked, not because I was forcing you into anything, but because you wanted me to do it. So you did what you do best. You ran away and hid. But it didn’t change anything, did it, because I was still there, in your head. And do you want to know why? It’s simple really. I li-”
Mia’s palms closed over her ears and she scrunched her eyes shut. “Stop it!”
There was a moment when Mia realised that Blair had done exactly this during the fight she’d had with Chuck that morning. But before she could figure out if she wanted to mimic her mother anymore, she felt Jack’s hands close around her wrists and pull her hands away from her head.
He forced her head up. “Open your eyes. If you’re going to deny me, I want you to look me in the eyes as you do it.”
Mia’s pride rose up at the challenge and her eyes shot open. She gasped and tried to move back, but he held fast. He was so much closer than she’d thought.
“I’m going to tell you the truth now, okay?”
She nodded silently before she could stop herself.
“I like you, Mia. I want to be with you. And you feel the same.”
The butterflies went into frenzy and the light-headedness returned. She swallowed and then choked out, “I don’t.”
“You do.” His voice was soft, the kind of voice you wanted to believe, even if it meant losing yourself.
She pulled herself out of his grasp. “I don’t.” She shook her head violently from side to side.
“Why not?”
Had he always been this stubborn?
“Because I’m not supposed to like you!” Mia all but shrieked.
“Why not?” he said again.
“Because,” she said calmly and clenched her fists by her sides, “I am Amelia Waldorf-Bass and you are Jackson Humphrey. It’s just not how it’s supposed to be.”
He shook his head and took a step towards her. “You know what’s funny? I imagine, many years ago, Blair Waldorf said exactly the same thing to Charles Bass.”
She scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. “Yeah, and look where that got them!”
Jack reached for her arms but she took a large step back. He sighed. “You’re wrong, you know. When we’re alone and the rest of the world can’t see, you stop being that Queen Bee and I stop being that Devil, and we’re left with just Mia and Jack.”
Mia frowned for a moment. She was certain she’d thought something similar just the other week. Could he read her mind now?
But he wasn’t finished. “And when it’s just Mia and Jack, it makes complete sense and you realise that that is exactly how it’s supposed to be.”
Hearing him say the words sounded so good. Her resolve weakened, just a little. She wanted to believe him, but she’d seen this kind of feeling before, in her parents before everything had gone wrong. If she gave in to Jack today, what was to prevent them from ending like Chuck and Blair in twenty years? They might not be lucky enough to have a daughter willing to fight for them. What would happen then?
“What about the women?” she said, determined to find anything that would let her walk away with her pride. “I know you’ve been with various different women since Thanksgiving. Ella told me. And I saw you, opposite Tiffany, the week before Christmas. If I mean so much to you, why were you with them?”
Jack sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I knew you’d find out, especially after Tiffany.”
“You knew I’d be there?”
“No, actually. I was walking past with…well, it doesn’t matter who…and I saw you. I wanted to make you see that you needed me. I want you to need me, Mia. You don’t have to be the strong one all the time.”
So he’d slept with other women…for her? It was definitely flawed logic…but it had worked. Nothing else would have gotten her attention. It just went to show: he really did know her better than anyone else.
When Mia’s head lowered, Jack must have known he had her, because he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed the top of her head gently.
“You do need me, don’t you, Mia?”
She sighed and looked up into his dark eyes, so uncertain and scared at that moment, and said the words they both needed to hear.
“Yes, I do need you.”
His answering smile was wide and unashamed, and Mia thought for a moment that that smile was the best gift she could have received for her birthday.
She was wrong.
Jack pulled her flush against him and their lips came together with such ease, that it made Mia think they were supposed to be like this, together. They had always been able to think and move in sync with each other, but it had never occurred to Mia that maybe it was because they were two halves of one whole, like Chuck and Blair, like Dan and Serena, like Nate and Jenny.
The prospect of being Jack’s better half was more enjoyable than she’d have thought possible. She smiled against his lips and he pulled back when he felt it.
He inspected her grin with a bemused look on his face. “What?”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
Mia sighed. “I just realised that I’m really lucky.”
Jack chuckled. “Babe, you’ve got nothin’ on me.”
He lowered his mouth to hers again and Mia hoped that he never stopped kissing her, even for a moment.
xoxo
Chapter Extras: Mia's necklace
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