When she was a little girl, Blair Waldorf loved the carousel in Central Park.

On Sundays, she skipped down the pathway towards the pavilion in her black party shoes, turning around to squeal "Hurry!" to a panting Dorota. The maid always struggled to keep up with her spirited little charge, her arms loaded with Blair's red coat, a picnic basket and a bag of breadcrumbs for mallards at the pond.

Adorned with brightly colored saddles and arabesque trappings, the horses vaunted their legs in a gallant gallop; they tossed their wild manes backwards in the wind. All of them were beautiful, but Blair always rode the stately gray stallion with the golden headband. He was a horse befitting a princess. Dorota had told her so.

Setting her foot in the stirrup and clambering onto her royal charger, Blair spread out her skirt, steadied herself on the saddle and tucked in her knees—the only proper way to ride a horse. She set her little hands around the metal pole and gripped it tightly.

"Hold on tight, Mees Blair," Dorota said with a merry wink from the sidelines. And, after wheezing out the first few notes of a jaunty melody, the carousel slowly began to twirl…

Her horse galloped up and down, up and down, and the carousel turned around and around, faster and faster, until the onlooking crowd began to whizz by in a whirr.

Beaming, Blair shook out her brown curls and let them blow behind her in the wind. She stretched out her hand to grasp at the golden ring that was always inches out of reach—and told herself grimly that only a wicked faerie spell kept her from capturing it. One day she would break the spell. She was determined. All it would take was a kiss from the perfect prince she would meet on her voyage around the world…

She imagined riding her horse through the exotic lands she'd read about in her storybooks—through the rolling meadows of merry England, over the sand dunes in the shadows of the Gaza Pyramids, alongside the winding pathway of the Great Wall of China. In every land a handsome prince begged for her hand, but she refused. She had a journey to complete, she said.

When the carousel creaked to a stop, she jumped off her horse and ran down the little steps into Dorota's arms.

"I went on a trip around the world!" she announced.

"Yes, Mees Blair," Dorota agreed. "And now you are right back home where you belong—just in time for lunch."

"Wait! I almost forgot!" Turning around, Blair traipsed back up onto the carousel and patted her horse on the nose. "'Till next time," she whispered to her old friend as she always did—with stars shining in her eyes.

Then she and Dorota, hand in hand, walked off to the duck pond to have their lunch.

—

Up and down. Up and down. Around and around. And the onlooking crowd began to whizz by in a whirr.

Beaming, Blair shook out her brown curls and stretched out her hand—and felt another hand envelop her fingers with its own. She watched a grin spread across Chuck's face, and heard him laugh more genuinely than she'd heard him laugh in years.

They hung suspended in the air, smiling at each other, hands clasped, until the frantic motion of the crowd beneath them caused their fingers to slide and slip, and he was jerked away from her grasp.

He wasn't her prince, Blair realized with a bittersweet pang, watching him laugh and buck on his rollicking seat. He wasn't her…anything, not anymore. But she couldn't help but think that every time in her life that she stepped off the carousel—the endlessly circling months of her unfolding future, the social forces that swirled and shaped her, even her trips around the world, to Tuscany, the Hamptons, Paris—he was always the one who she saw standing there, at the foot of the stairs, waiting for her to come home.

A boy with wounded eyes standing in the center of a garden. A young man waiting by the curb with brightly wrapped boxes in his arms. A stranger in a vest and shirt-sleeves, hobbling on a cane across the platform of a train station.

The whirling images of her once-lover's face began to blend together in her spinning head, and she desperately clung with one hand to the bottom of her chair, trying to steady herself—and the tumult of feeling that flooded over her in waves.

Eventually, the song quieted. The crowd calmed down; their cheerful laughter faded away. Beneath her, the chair slowly sank down, and even though it should have felt solid underneath her feet, Blair felt her balance pitch and roll as soon as she stepped down to the floor.

"Back to the real world," Chuck said in a resigned voice when he returned to her, and took her arm to escort her out of the ballroom.

"'Till next time," Blair wanted to say. But her voice caught in her throat.

Next time? There was no next time. She'd found her prince. She'd broken the spell, and she'd finally gotten her golden ring.

The journey had ended.

Seized by a sudden impulse, she grabbed Chuck's hand and jerked him towards a waiting room in the wings. She slammed the thick wooden door and turned to face him.

She took in his astonished expression for the space of a second—then, striding across the small room and reaching her hands up to fist his lapels, she pulled him into a passionate kiss.

His hands dug into the small of her back as his mouth melted into hers. Her eyes swiveled backwards when his tongue darted against her tongue, sending a bright flame flickering downwards through her torso. It bloomed in her nipples; it ignited with a burst in her groin.

Letting out of soft moan of supplication, she reached down to his belt and undid the first loop, and heard him gasp with surprise and arousal.

She turned around. She felt the warm caress of his parted lips on the nape of her neck as he unclasped her dress, and her eyes fluttered shut in barely contained desire. And then she turned around again, and planted her lips onto his in a sideways slant, plying open his mouth with eager thrusts of her tongue.

She pulled his head down to her chest, and, following her cue, he shoved her bra downwards, lifting out her pert breasts. Encircling his lips around one nipple, he flicked his tongue against it, and she ran her hand through his hair, letting out a breathy sigh of surrender. Turning his attention to her other breast, he gave its swell a tender kiss, and then lowered his head to suck her nipple. He rolled it between his teeth, and she groaned with pleasure as he pressed his erection into her upper thigh and gyrated against her.

Raising his mouth to her neck and pushing his tongue into her sensitive skin, he slid his palm up her right leg. He wrenched the fabric of her skirt upwards until her fingertips hit her bare skin. They lingered over the lacey edge of her panties and traced them along its rippled hem, edging slowly towards the cleft between her legs—and then pushed the fabric aside to gently stroke at her clit.

Trembling with arousal, Blair reached down to guide his hand upwards towards her core. Two of his fingers instantly slid inside her, and she threw her head back, letting out a soft cry, and he widened his eyes, astonished at how quickly her body had responded to him.

"I'm ready," she told him in a whimper.

Their hands fluttered around like birds—undoing buttons, unzipping zippers, unbuckling clasps—and they stumbled across the room, kissing frantically, until they reached the divan. Blair sank down onto her back upon the velveteen cushions, and jerked him on top of her by the panels of his tuxedo shirt. As soon as he was between her legs, she impatiently yanked up the skirt of her dress.

"Blair—" he hesitated, but she stifled his protest, curling one hand around the back of his neck and pulling him into a hungry kiss. He broke it when her other hand darted into his open trousers and ensnared his throbbing erection, letting out a breathy whistle through his lips.

Slowly pumping the length of his rigid cock, she pulled aside the strip of fabric between her legs. She guided his swollen head, up and down, up and down, along the wetness of her slit, and heard him let out an acquiescent groan. Sliding her other hand down his back, she grabbed his ass and pulled him into her, and felt him glide easily inside of her.

Criss-crossing her legs behind his back, Blair sighed with satisfaction. She felt his breath against her neck as he began to thrust into her in a quick, ardent rhythm that caused her vision to blur and grow faint. White-hot stars burst and died behind her eyes.

She was already tightening around him. She was already—oh God.

Sinking her teeth into the fabric of his tuxedo jacket, Blair fought back a scream as she felt herself shatter around him.

God, she thought desperately. Would she never be done with this man? Even now, in the very throes of an orgasm, she was convinced that she could never get enough of him. The heat of his skin, the texture of his hair (she knotted her fingers into it, moaning with appreciation), the sensation of his hard cock, filling her up to the hilt, sending her into spasms that racked her body up and down with pure unfiltered pleasure…

She heard him groan into her ear as he slammed into her in quick succession, spending himself inside her. Slowly, gradually, the motion of his hips quelled, and he lay on top of her for a standstill moment, his breath shuddering in his chest. She felt the sweat on his brow as he nuzzled his face into hers, as his lips glided across her temple in an affectionate kiss.

They remained there for a moment in silence, their hearts beating against each other's.

"Blair…" Chuck whispered hesitantly into her ear. "I know that…things are complicated right now. But the way I feel about you…hasn't changed. I just wanted you to know that. Whatever you decide."

Tightening her legs around him and entwining his torso with her arms, Blair screwed her eyes shut to staunch the tears welling up in her eyes.

Decide? her brain echoed. Decide was the wrong word. Decide implied rational thought. Something she was obviously incapable of whenever Chuck was in a hundred-foot radius.

No. Whatever spell he'd cast on her, it was the unbreakable kind.

He kissed the center of her forehead, and tried to pull away…and then gave her a bemused glance when she arrested him with all four of her limbs.

"Blair...?" he said.

"Shh," she hushed him, burying her head into his shoulder, her thoughts whirling at a breakneck pace.

He wasn't waiting for her to leave the carousel, she realized with a surge of dismay. He was the carousel. She'd traveled the same spiraling path with him, around and around, for years. And no matter what she did, she'd never be able to get off. Never be able to leave him. Not entirely.

She was stuck. She was…addicted. And the journey would never end, not until she died, or he died, or both of them died. She would keep coming back to ride him around and around, up and down, in a whirl of ecstatic motion…until she was so dizzy she was sick, until the stable world outside the spinning circle was nothing but a half-forgotten dream.

"Blair, we're in a public place," he cautioned her, the worry evident in his face. "If you want to…draw this out, I'm game, but we need to leave before someone sees us."

She didn't say anything. There was nothing to be said. Didn't he realize that they'd cast their lots together? What difference did it make if they were discovered?

He tried once again to extricate his body from hers, and she resisted, clutching the fabric of his jacket with taut fingers.

"Blair!" he exclaimed, trying to reach around his back to unfasten her hands. They struggled for a bit, but finally he slipped his jacket over his head and slid out from her crossed legs, and staggered onto his feet.

Lying on her back, still clutching his jacket in her hands, Blair couldn't repress a sob of disappointment.

"What's the matter?" Chuck asked in confusion and concern. "Didn't you get off?"

"No," Blair declared, her lower lip trembling. "I didn't get off. I'll never get off. That's the problem…"

She planted her hands on her face, fighting back a flood of emotion.

Chuck let out a long, slow, overcome sigh. "Come on," he said gently, sitting back down on the sofa beside her. He lifted her up to a sitting position and pulled the straps of her dress up over her shoulders. "Let's get you out of here."

—

Down a winding path in Central Park, Blair walked arm-in-arm with her perfect prince. She pointed out the famous sights, the monumental trees, and the shores beside the shimmering pool of the duck pond—everywhere she'd spent an errant hour during her youth. Louis eagerly listened to everything she had to say, and she was flattered by his attention.

"Blair—what is that?" he suddenly asked, gesturing ahead to a round pavilion.

"Oh," she exhaled. "Nothing interesting. It's…just a carousel. For children."

"Did you ever ride on it when you were a child?" he wanted to know.

"Sure," she said with a nonchalant shrug. "Everyone did."

"Let's go and see it," Louis said with obvious excitement.

"No," Blair refused, pulling her arm out of his. "It's really…not very interesting."

Clasping her hands in his, her fiancé beamed at her. "I told you," he said affectionately, lifting one hand to touch a finger to the tip of her nose. "I want to know everything about you. Show me."

Blair sighed and made a gesture of agreement, and, hand in hand, they walked down the path towards the pavilion.

She frowned as soon as she saw a sign posted by the front. CAROUSEL CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS.

"Oh, it isn't open today," Louis said with obvious disappointment, and tried to turn away—but Blair jerked her hand out of his and darted towards the entrance.

Inside the pavilion, workers were chiseling away at the sides of the circular structure, removing panels and bearing them away to a tented structure outside. Mechanics with blackened hands were greasing the metal spools at the center of the column. Music was bleating from a portable radio—not the jaunty tune of the carousel, but a synthetic, anemic-sounding pop hit.

Dismayed, Blair's eyes panned from left to right. There were only a few horses left standing on the panel—and her gray charger was nowhere to be seen.

"Where are the rest of the horses?" she cried to the nearest stander-by.

"They're sanding them down," he reported, shooting her a puzzled glance. "Over there."

Blair ran to the far corner and found a haphazard cluster of chariots and beasts and horses standing on their pedestals, stripped of their bright colors and their arabesque designs. Moving among them, she scanned their identical faces in a flurry, and felt a surge of despair. How would she ever find the horse that was hers?

"What're ye looking for, missy?" a brogue rose from the corner.

Turning abruptly, she saw an old man in a white shirt and suspenders, sitting on a stool and sanding the belly of a snarling lion.

"Just…" She paused, and cleared her throat. "This horse…I used to ride it when I was a little girl."

"Which one might that be, fair one?"

"A gray horse," she answered readily. "One of the tallest. With a golden bridle."

"Ah," the old man exhaled. Rising from his stool with a groan, he tottered over towards the cluster of animals and set his hand down on the saddle of a stripped horse.

"That would be this'un," he said.

Blair edged over towards it with wide eyes, soaking in its image.

Yes. It was the same horse. It was stripped of its paints and the grain of the wood was cracking in spots, but it was the same gray charger that she rode in her youth.

"'Tis a fine animal," the old man told her with a solemn wink. "Worthy of a princess."

"Yes," Blair exhaled, gratitude overflowing in her eyes. "Yes, he is."

He doffed his cap at her, and, whistling, hobbled over to the stool to resume his labors.

Left alone for a moment, Blair reached out her hand and stroked down the length of the horse's nose.

"Hey," she whispered. "Don't you remember me? It's me…your princess."

The horse's eyes gazed back at her impassively.

"The best times of my life were with you," she confided. "But now I'm all grown up, and the carousel's stopped, and…I have to let go."

It was just her imagination. It had to have been. But she could have sworn the horse's eyes widened in reproach.

"You knew that it would happen," she admonished him, a tremor in her voice. "You knew one day I would have to let go. But I don't want to. I know that I don't, and I know that you—"

"Blair?" A voice interrupted her speech.

Turning her head, she saw her fiancé walk up to her, a puzzled smile curling his lips.

"You are so strange," he exclaimed, lifting one of her hands and kissing it soundly. "You say that all of this is child's play, and I find you talking to a old wooden horse." He let out a musical laugh.

"Yes, I know," she admitted. "But I just…had to say goodbye. I know it's silly of me."

"I like you when you are silly," the prince said merrily, winding her arm into his. "Come. Let's go have a shaved ice."

He led her towards the path, and Blair fought the urge to look back. She knew what she would see—the old horse, standing there alone, forever waiting for her return. Forever waiting to whisk her away to oceans uncharted, lands unknown. To the world that she'd only glimpsed in dreams.

Walking down the narrow pathway, she clenched her fiancé's arm..and felt a glorious secret in her chest begin to bloom.

"'Till next time," she mouthed in an inaudible whisper, stars shining in her eyes.

A/N: Thanks to Miss Maribells for an eleventh-hour beta-ing.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this hastily written one-shot, so please feel free to review!