A/N This is a sequel to my other story When Walls Come Crashing Down, you should totally read that one in case you haven't ;)

Disclaimer: Sadly, Chuck and Blair don't belong to me...neither does French Vogue.

What do you do when your world comes to a halt, tilting to the side as you hang on to the ledge with all your might? When something happens that makes you feel as if there is nothing but a big, aching, empty hole in your chest where your heart used to be? When the pain is so overwhelming it makes your knees buckle, your breath catch in your throat and you feel like you are caught in slow motion?

Or rather, what do you do when that happens all over again - and the one person that you would ever allow yourself to break apart in front of, the one person who once managed to piece your shattered heart back together - is the one causing you to be in this pain?

To him the answer had been simple at first. He went back to being what he knew best. Apart from being Chuck-with-Blair, that is. He went back to being "Chuck Bass" and spent most part of a week drowning out the world with alcohol, dwelling in the darkness of his chest.

After days of putting his trust in old remedies, he realized something that made him put down the tumbler that had been glued to his hand for the past couple of days. What he realized was that he hadn't been the only one to fuck it up, that he couldn't blame himself this time. He might have fucked up a little, but then she fucked up, even more than he did. Fucked them up.

The determination that he had always shown when it came to plotting and scheming kicked in, stronger now than ever before, as he began piecing himself back together. He decided to prove everyone wrong - once and for all. He studied hard for the first time in his life, dividing his time between Harvard and Bass Industries. Learning everything about his father's legacy from scratch. He kept busy and he stayed away from her. He tried his best to hate her.

After graduating and finishing his noviciate in no time, he took over the company. It caused quite the commotion when he had a majority of the board members replaced with people he trusted and then began proving everyone wrong.

One year after taking over Bass Industries he had made himself a reputation as a promising business man, one that would have made his father proud. Never seen with the same woman twice, he was also viewed as one of New York's most eligible bachelors.

He thought about her all the time.

*¨*¨*¨*¨*¨*

What do you do when everything that you believed in is proven wrong and the foundation on which you have started to build your happily ever after cracks? When the person you trusted the most lets you down in more ways than one, and hurts you more than you thought possible?

She never anticipated the day to come. The day when her – their – someday became yesterday. She never saw it coming, would never have imagined them to get to that point, but somehow they did and it broke her heart. She forced it together for a while, powered by a suffocating and blinding rage. She blamed him and only him, refusing to acknowledge the voice in the back of her mind that kept whispering that she was just as guilty.

Days later when she finally lost the control she had been fighting so hard to keep – when she could no longer pretend it was all his fault and keep her heart from shattering into a million pieces – it was as if she fell into a black hole.

She spent the coming weekend in a heap on the floor of her dorm room. A big, aching hole in her chest where her heart used to be, and a pain so great it made her knees buckle and her breath catch in her throat.

Then she did what Blair-before-Chuck knew better than anything. She locked away the pain, hurt, and guilt, and decided on anger instead. Hating him and all that reminded her of him with a passion. Deciding that she would never speak to him again, never think of him and never let him near her ever again.

After spending one semester at Paris-Sorbonne University she got a summer internship at a French Vogue - an internship that lasted for the remaining summers while she was at Yale. She worked hard, like she had always been known to do. As always, she was determined to be the best that she could be. To have it all, be perfect.

When her summer internship turned into an offer of a permanent position upon graduating from Yale, she never thought twice about it. Living in Paris and working at Vogue, she worked harder than ever before, and she did well. Starting from the bottom and making her way up to a promotion using hard work, enthusiasm and talent. When she began dating the photographer-equivalence of a UES Prince Charming, she could hardly believe how well her life was turning out.

Philippe had the right manners and came from a family that had once been related to French royalty. He bought her nice gifts, told her she looked beautiful and was more than pleasant to look at. They kept their romance on the down-low to avoid ending up on gossip tabloids and he called her his "secret lover". It made her feel like she was the heroine of a romantic, renaissance novel. She had it all, she was perfect.

Still, she thought about him all the time.

*¨*¨*¨*¨*¨*

.

.

.

*¨*¨*¨*¨*¨*

It was a warm, spring day in Paris when her life fell apart.

When everything she had worked for got swept away and her perfect life shattered into tiny, stinging pieces.

*¨*¨*¨*¨*¨*

A/N Please don't go all "#26" on me now ;) I totally blame the plot bunnies for this one!!!

Now what are you thinking...yey or ney?!

Also...a special shout out to my awesome beta Abby - BookCaseGirl - who not only managed to outsmart the PM function on this site (haha!) but also made this chapter ten times better. THANK YOU!!! :D

And...I do like reviews...