Epilogue

And so it was, and so it went – and so it was used by society mamas like the monster under the bed to chide their daughters – that Charles, who was better known as Charlie, who had made his money from coal and steel, and Clair, who had been born to hers, left New York together. Clair never got around to commandeering the ship, so perhaps it could be said that she was not a real pirate; to those who had known her all her life, however, the change was evident. Forever after, Clair got what she wanted rather than learning to want what she was given. Clair spoke frankly and curled her lip at those who did not deserve her approval. Clair gorged herself on life, which is the sort of thing which always seems unfair to those not in the position to do the same.

It was far less a case of adaptation for Charlie, for his change had far more to do with contentment. Being happy threw Charlie's more noble qualities of character into sharp relief, and although it was impossible for the 'best' kind of people to forgive or forget his transgressions, those were not the sort of people Charlie cared to consort with in any case. He much preferred lazy Newport summers, the sight of Clair filtering through the slits of his partially open eyelids.

That kind of courtship would become popular after a time. It would be called love to chase one another's tails inside the confines of a grand house, to duet upon the piano and to run away to foreign climes when all else failed. It had always existed, Charlie and Clair were by no means the first, but they made it acceptable in just the way they had never intended. They returned from France unmarried, they left for England unmarried. It was somehow acceptable.

But marry, they would.

And bloom, they would, like peonies in a hothouse.

If their people had cast them out and their wealth had been taken away, would have made their love any less true? Dylan doubted it. In fact, as he strolled along the pavement of some European city with a bouquet of yellow roses for his wife oozing green juice onto his glove, he wondered: whose business was it who'd done what with whom in the winter of 1897?

Whose goddamn business was it anyway?

– Excerpt from Within, the bestselling novel by Anonymous.

I think the true message of Gossip Girl is that people will always judge you - for how you dress, for who you date, for what you eat or don't - and no matter how you try, you can't stop them. The strength of the characters comes from overcoming this, from choosing their own happiness over what society, their parents, the world seems to want from them. There, social commentary over. Thanks to: Laura, sassy991, alissa-jackie, aliceeeebeth, SaturnineSunshine, Nikki999, issabell, kauraREX, aliciasays, Krazy4Spike, lovetvtomuchxo, Me and BellaB2010. This was a million times more of a trial and tribulation than I thought it was going to be to write, but I will miss this world and these characters more than I can say. Thank you for reading.