Disclaimer: I do not own Gossip Girl.

Author's Note: I like Lilly/Bart, a lot-- in keeping theme with the title, I'm owning that. : ) I hope you enjoy!

He hadn't said more than twenty words to her in two days, since the night of the charity event, the night the mantle of respectable Mrs. Bass had slipped to reveal traces of Lilly Rhodes. Rufus's appearance and dancing along to the music, the delighted smile she hadn't been able to hold in during the show and her intervention with Jenny Humphrey... she was sure it all contributed to the silence.

She was sure her husband knew she had dropped his name to save the daughter of her former lover from a criminal record.

She'd come to understand that Bart Bass knew everything about her. She'd come to wonder if she would have married him still, knowing that.

The suite was silent, Charles, Serena and Eric off to school. There was certainly a charity meeting or a luncheon she was to attend later in the day and surely, Bridgette would come to remind her, and then Alfonso would drive her and she would smile and say exactly what she was expected to say-- because she was Lilly Bass and that was what she had brought to the Bass empire. She had brought the respectability of the Rhodes name, the status of New York Society Old Money; she had brought the blue-blood lineage Bart for all his billions couldn't buy for himself.

It was a realization that came too late. Another detail she wondered might have made a difference before I do was exchanged.

Still, this was the life she'd chosen. It was in silences like this, empty spaces like this, that she heard Rufus's words echo loudest in her mind, saw the steadiness in them, heard the finality they held.

She and Rufus were over.

She couldn't lean on him, he wouldn't catch her anymore and this, this suite and this husband and this marriage was her life. She had chosen it and she had to live in it.

Something that had seemed easier before knowing of the Lilly Dossier; she sighed, standing from the breakfast table.

She was crossing the living room, heading for her bedroom when the Bart strolled through the main door.

She froze, he was supposed to be in meetings all day-- he had told her so earlier this morning.

"Bart," she said, pulling up a smile and doing nothing to keep the surprise out of her voice, "What a… lovely surprise." She threw the pause in there because he hadbeen giving her the silent treatment.

He nodded, set his briefcase down, "I'd like a moment, Lilly." He said in that tone of voice that was not a question.

He motioned for her to sit down.

"Of course," she said easily and sat. She was his marionette was she not?

"Slow day at the office?" She inquired politely when he said nothing, did nothing, but stare at her.

He cleared his throat and the action was uncharacteristic enough that she narrowed her eyes and paid closer attention.

"I'm not an overly emotional man."

It was only the training of Cecily Rhodes's that kept Lilly from snorting a laugh. As it was she couldn't contain a smirk or the arch of an eyebrow. "You don't say?" She murmured.

"You knew that when we married."

Her smirk faded. "I thought I knew a lot of things when we married."

He nodded. "I understand my intrusion into your past upset you. But I need you to understand that--"

"Why are you here, Bart?" She cut in, didn't really care suddenly what he needed her to understand.

"You've been distant since the night of the charity ball."

This time she allowed a small, sarcastic laugh to escape her, "I've been distant; with a bit of effort I may actually be able to give you a count of words you've spoken since Saturday night."

He frowned at her. "Yes, I'm sure. But it's you we're discussing. You have been oddly silent and I'd like to… I'd like to know why."

She blinked at him. Had she been silent too?

"I believed us to be past the… disconcert of a few weeks ago." He continued.

It was the way he danced around the issue that set her aflame. A woman's temper could only be held at bay for so long.

"Oh you mean your blackmailing of me? Of course dear, why would that take more of a toll than a few weeks on me?"

He almost scowled at her. "Don't be petulant, Lilly."

"Don't be patronizing, Bart." She hissed. "I have every right to be upset with you."

She stood, feeling abruptly anxious, "It was naïve of me, I suppose, to think that you had married me for… me." She took a few steps, turned away from him, because it was a bit shameful this truth; she ought to have known better by now, "To think that you married me because you felt, like I did, that we were kindred; different people on this inside than those around us believed us to be."

She drew in a shuddering breath and pulled her thoughts away from that, from what she'd believed and hoped, to what she now knew. "It slipped my mind…" she continued softly, letting a tinge of bite enter her voice, "…that there are things one cannot buy, but must marry into."

"Is that what you think, Lilly?"

It surprised her a bit that his voice came from the sofa, that he was still seated. Bart had impeccable manners.

"That I married you for…" he paused, "For what exactly?" He asked her and she sense a ripple of anger in his voice.

She felt that slow fury bubble inside, because he certainly had no cause to be angry at her.

She pulled that emotion in tightly and turned to him; unleashed her version of a passive-aggressive icy fury that had sent many a grown men to therapy. "Well Bart, on good days, I think you married me for my lineage, for the clout having a blue-blooded bride, even one as… tarnished as myself, can bring to you in certain circles…" she stopped there, almost hesitated because the look slipping over his face was one she hadn't seen before—a mix of anger with something she couldn't quite place.

It told her to abort this conversation—now.

But hell, he'd come home in the middle of the morning to talk to her, so she might as well talk.

"But the truth is…" she continued, "Most days I believe you married me for a much broader audience, I believe you married me to lure Mid-Western investors to Bass Inc. with the lovely, wholesome image of our blended family. After all, the image of a globe-trotting, womanizing, single father with an equally womanizing son fond of underage-boozing is a hard sell, no?"

He was standing in flash and Lilly silently acknowledged that perhaps she had crossed a line; but she held her ground as he approached.

"You think I married you for my image? For your… blue-blood…?" The words were low and growled, intensely angry in a way that was surprising to her.

And then his expression registered with her, it was anger and it was disbelief that were mixed together.

"If you think that your lineage is why I married you Lilly, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I could buy myself a dozen better pedigrees if that was what I was after."

She barely heard the insult; instead she saw the eyes, angry and real. "Then tell me why, Bart, because it's obviously not why I thought it was. I thought you liked me. Me. Not the woman society thinks I am."

"I do."

"No, you don't." She whispered, "If you did… then--"

"Does the Mapplethorpe really mean that much to you?"

"It's not about that, it's about… it's about what it represents…"

His eyes narrowed. "You truly believe a semi-nude portrait of yourself is a suitable art piece to display in the home of our children?"

She blinked at him, the question catching her a bit off guard.

"I want what is best for this family, Lilly." He said again as he always did. But then he was touching her face, fingers sliding gently over her jaw, "I also want for you to be happy."

His hand was sliding down her arm and he was holding her hand gently, pulling her along towards one of the parlors.

She let him, curious.

He opened the door for her, she walked through it. There was a silver gift box on the coffee table, simple and tasteful. She looked at him as she walked past her towards it.

"What is this?" She asked him softly, watching as he motioned her towards it.

"A gift," he responded, a smirk in his voice, "For you."

"You haven't gone anywhere."

He brought out gifts when he returned from a trip.

"Open it," he commanded, then a moment later added, "Please."

She nodded and sat down, pulled the box towards her, lifted the lid, carefully pushed aside the silk tissue paper—and gasped.

She looked up at Bart with wide eyes, no words to say. He bent at the knees so he could look into her face. His expression as calm and steady as it always was.

"I do…like you, Lilly," he told her, then after a moment said what she was sure he had come here intending to say, "I want us to find a medium between what is best for our family and what makes you happy."

She stared at him, stunned.

She looked back down at the gift, lying there waiting for her to put it to use, to recapture a piece of herself that had been missing for so many years.

She did not, of course, let the tears that filled her eyes fall, but she did lean forward and gently tug Bart's face towards her so she could press a kiss to his lips.

"I don't really mind softening your playboy image," she whispered past the lump in her throat, "Or hindering Charles's unorthodox lifestyle a bit."

He smiled at her, looking truly amused and then he stood. "I have to get back to the office," he announced and she could have laughed at the abrupt segue, could almost picture, fix marriage, written in his agenda.

"We'll have dinner together tonight? Alone?" He asked her, truly asked.

She looked up at him and nodded slowly, "Yes, I'd… I'd like that."

He nodded once and then he was gone; leaving her in the silent suite that oddly enough did not feel so empty suddenly.

Carefully, she lifted the Hasselblad CF-39 from the box and slid her fingers over it, maybe it was time to do more than live in this life, maybe it was time to live it, maybe it was time to own it.

--Fin.

Author's Note #2: More like a disclaimer actually, I'm not a photographer, so I googled! : ) And this Hasselblad seemed like it was appropriate price-wise for Bart to purchase. ; )