"My father always thought I was weak. And in the moment that mattered most, I was. I couldn't be there when he, uh..." Blair tears up; he's left a space in the sentence, a blank he can't fill in. "I left. Ran away. I've been pushing myself to prove him wrong. And pushing you away." He's sad. Fuck suicide.

"I don't think you ran away because you couldn't handle death," Blair says quietly. "I think it's because you couldn't handle feelings." Charlie swallows. Her words are like punches thrown, but feel good too. He still doesn't have the hang of it, hearing people love you out loud. "But you're not like that anymore. You're strong." He breathes out, quickly: Too much. Too big. "You carry people. You carry me." Charlie looks down; it's like a punch to the chest. "You're becoming a man in a way that your father never was."

Real love doesn't make you act crazy. The reason we act crazy when we are infatuated is because we want it to be real so badly -- we want to jump over the distance of time that makes real love what it is. Serena wanted to catapult herself into the future, and Trip wanted so badly to believe that he wasn't a congressional cliché. That's the trick of romance: The crazy infatuation love is so much brighter and turns so many more corners so quickly. Much more exciting than the real thing. But real love, at its finest, makes you feel like you are bursting open, like this: Like hearing a beautiful song, or reading a beautiful poem, or hearing a wonderful story, and the tears come and you don't know precisely why. It doesn't hurt; it hurts in a way that isn't hurting, that we don't have a word for. Largeness. Enormity. It takes a real strength, a real grace, to stand up straight in the face of that. Especially if you're not familiar with it.

Blair takes his hand, slowly. Carefully. He is a wild beast. "Come. Let's say goodbye." She stands, and he follows awkwardly, and sniffs, and accepts the gift. He leans on her, and he is very beautiful. They pulled a sheet over Bart's head, and he was gone. And that hospital room became just another hospital room. Even today. He breathes in, so hard, and holds onto her as they make their way back to the family. And into her hair, Chuck Bass whispers his thanks.

Eric slams his fists against a vending machine and Jenny nervously offers him coffee and he snaps at her and she gets all prissy about "I was just offering," and he snips at her that he was "just" declining, and then simultaneously they both ask for a détente, and immediately debrief about the YSL purse thing. "I'm assuming you set Sawyer [Sawyer!] up with that bag," she says, and then it turned out that he overheard a call Jenny made, but she knew he was listening, so she already had bags in hand for Jane and Carmen [Jane and Carmen!] when Eric and Kira moved to Phase II. Which, they congratulate themselves on being so clever and Machiavellian and she gives a cute ankledip and then throws her arms across his shoulder, to go look for tacky Get Well Soon crap they can buy for Serena with her drug pusher money.