First, I wanted to thank you all for the wonderful reviews I received. I really, really appreciate them! This is the last shot I wrote. It was a Christmas surprise and the last moment I had left to write about Fate.
I really hope that you're gonna enjoy it the same way I did!
The Second Chance
When you're blinded by your pain
Can't see the way, get through the rain
A small but still, resilient voice
Says hope is very near
"Ally ally home free!" a little baby girl victoriously shouted, touching the wall in front of her with both of her hands. Another baby ran behind her, trying to catch and stop her from ending up the game.
"Hey! It's Vichy !" At the touch a joyful choir of voices had exploded. She had set them free, and the wolf had lost.
"Who wants to play the wolf now?" the baby turned to look at her friends with a cheerful expression.
"I don't play anymore" the girl who had just lost, put her foot on the ground.
"You don't wanna play because you lost" Vichy specified.
"It's not true"
"Yes, It is" the other one insisted. She was the littlest one of them, not just because she was only 3, but because she was the smallest and the tiniest one. Good things come in small packages!She kept on repeating to everyone who underlined her minute constitution.
"It's not" the other retorted.
"What's happening here?" Sister Maria's voice interrupted the kids' fight.
" Victoria obligates me to play even if I don't want to!" the loser pretended to whimper innocently.
"She's lying" Victoria accused her.
"I'm not!"
"It doesn't matter!" the woman stopped them. "Victoria , there's something I need to tell you".
Victoria suddenly got worried, while the other kids shut up immediately.
Sister Maria used to have a word with her when she had done something bad.
Had Sister Maria discovered it had been her who had placed Enea's redfish in the college's fountain? She had done it just because that gazing ball, it was into, was too small for it. It would have died of boredom there!
Victoria tried to think what she could have used to justify the fact that she hadn't realized that in December the fish would have died of exposure! She was just 3, she couldn't think like an adult!
She kept on looking for the best excuse, silently following the Sister down the alley.
In December it was too cold to play outside, so they were forced to play hide and seek inside of the orphanage and the days never ended.
It was the saddest period of the year, the kindergarten closed for the holidays and who, like her, had no family, stayed in the orphanage or spent the Christmas holidays by some family, which hosted them for a few days.
They would have received gifts and affections for a week, they would have felt safe in a real home with a dad and a mom ready to give them the goodnight kiss, and then, a week later, that magical spell would have faded away, like Cinderella's dream night with the prince, at midnight .
"Do you want some hot chocolate?" the woman asked her, pointing at her, the chair in front of them.
Victoria righted her ears. It was the mean, Sister Maria used with them, while talking about adoptions or big changings.
Her mother was coming to pick her up? Had Santa Claus listened to all her wishes?
Moved by a sensation of joy, Victoria nodded in agreement and took the seat.
"In a few days, you'll meet someone who wants to know you". The woman said to her after a few seconds, sitting next to her and handing her the cup of chocolate.
"Is it my mommy?" the baby suddenly asked, putting all her hope in her tiny tone of voice.
She didn't want another family, she had rejected them all. She knew that her mommy would have come back to her, it was her biggest wish, the one Santa Claus would have granted. Gilda the cook had said it.
If you throw a coin in the Trevi's Fountain, closing your eyes tight and wishing something, it becomes true. And she had done it, throwing all the coins she had in her little purse and asking for he mother to come on the Christmas night. It had been quite expensive, as she hadn't been able to buy the cherry ice cream, but it had been worth it.
The Sister glanced down. She looked sad, as when she had told Angelica that her old grandmother would have never come to visit her, because she had gone to visit Christ. Or like the time she had told Andrea that his cat had run away. It was a lie, because she had seen it, coming back from the park, dead on the street, hit by a car.
" Victoria … it's not you mother… but these people were really close to her"
"Did she send them?" the baby looked curious.
"Yes.." The woman nodded, after a moment of hesitation. "She sent them"
There was a weird light in the corner of the woman's eyes, while she replied to her with a broken voice.
She had her same eyes, when she had greeted her teachers before the holiday's break. It was a good cry, they had taught her. It meant that she had a great time with them.
Maybe the Sister cried because she didn't want to lose her?
She didn't have to, she would have called her everyday to know how she was going. She would have never forgotten Sister Maria. She would have even come back every Friday to help her do the laundry, which was something she hated doing, with all her strengths.
"Sister Maria… May I ask Gilda to cook a cake for my mommy's friends? Sister Amalia says that we need to celebrate who comes to visit us!"
Sister Maria leaned closer to caress Victoria 's cheek.
"You're right sweetheart. It'll be a great day" she kissed the baby's forehead, hoping that the tear that was running down her cheek, didn't fall on Victoria 's happy face.
The pale light of the plane helped him falling asleep. It seemed ages had passed since he had walked on that jet, sat on his seat and swallowed 3 glasses of his Jack Daniel's in a row.
"I know that you will never understand".
This was the way the letter, his mother had written to his sister, started. The same letter that stood opened on the table in front of him. He had read it so many times, as many times as he had wanted to destroy it, cancel what it contained and come back to his life, pretending that it hadn't changed anything.
Though, every single line was fixed in his memory, torturing him, every single moment of his time. As much as he didn't want to admit it, that woman had reversed his life all over again.
"… But I did it for you and to give the baby a future"
While his eyes had unwillingness found the conclusion of her sentence, his stomach was on fire.
He wondered how a rational person would have reacted to those words, because all he could feel was disgust and hate and anger that reached every fibre of his body. He couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't stay there with nothing to do, since weeks.
His mother was wrong.
It wasn't a fact of understanding, but acceptance instead. The future she was talking about, was the one she chose not to spend with her own children, an hell she had forced him, his sister and then his niece and his sister again, to live in.
It had always been easy for her to decide for the other's life, thinking just about herself, and then feeling guilty or pretending it, with an impeccable sense of timing. Hers was selfishness, naked and blind, so dazzling to be read as unconditional love or good made in the name of her offspring.
He didn't even feel pity for her.
Daphne was dead, dead in the moment when the woman who had brought her to life, had abandoned her over and over in her childhood.
Daphne had been stab in her back, when the same woman, for an assumption of altruism,"for her own good", she had said, had made her believe that her own daughter was dead, hiding her in an orphanage, instead, and making her growing up alone.
Daphne was dead on a flight, trying to wrap up the mess that woman had made, while giving a sense to those words "your daughter is alive, I brought her with me", hurriedly written on a letter, received just a few days before.
She was dead, maybe with her heart divided between the hope, that the same woman who had disappointed her many times, could have said the truth and granting her biggest wish, and, on the other hand, the sad knowledge that she could have been teased or humiliated on the most suffering button of her life, again.
Chuck could distinguish the light of a city. Genova was almost there. They had travelled around the whole world, but her biggest secret was right there, just behind the most loved house of the Family, in Portofino .
"I know that you're gonna hate me for what I've done…" his hand closed in a fit on the table, while his eyes laid on the final part of the letter. "Maybe, too much time has passed, but the time to reconcile with a child is never over".
Chuck brought his glass and threw it against the wall. It shattered at the impact, the same way that sentence had crashed his heart.
His mother was still wrong.
"I spoke to Victoria about your arrival a few days ago.."
Sister Maria was observing the two figures in front of her. There were no doubts that the man and Victoria were relatives, as they had the same lines, the same eyes and the same way to act.
"She believes that her mother's sent you to pick her up" she admitted in embarrassment.
"Doesn't the baby know about her parents?" Blair suddenly asked, understanding exactly what thewoman was omitting.
"She doesn't, Miss Waldorf"
Blair turned to look at Chuck, who was sitting next to her with a dark and grave expression.
" Victoria is very clever. Actually, one of the smartest baby I've ever seen. She knows exactly what she wants and how to get out of the mess she starts, with an admirable talent! She's brilliant in every thing she does, and she speaks Italian and English as a native" the woman told them. "As you may know, this is an international orphanage, where the babies speak both the languages since the very first day" she specified.
"She reminds me of someone I know" Blair allowed a tiny smile.
"She is incredibly strong" she kept on speaking. "She knows that her mother is gone, but it has never stopped her from believing that one day she would have come back to bring her with her. She has never doubted it. She has never cried about it. And… Personally I didn't have the heart to tell her about the accident".
She moved ahead to look for a picture of the baby on her desk.
"What does she know about Daphne?" Blair got curious.
"She knows that she was very young when she had her, and she had to leave because of very important things. Through, Mrs Elisabeth asked us not to tell her that she was dead"
Blair opened her eyes wide, with incredibility.
"The baby has always known that she was alive?" she asked back in confusion.
"She does"
"At least she didn't make her believe she had killed her own mother this time" Chuck acidly commented, drawing on him both Blair's and the woman's gazes. It was the first time he spoke since they were in the office.
"Chuck…" Blair placed her hand on his knee to comfort him, but he moved it away.
"Your mother has been a constant presence in your nephew's life, Mr Bass"
"Strange, I can easily soak up the time she wasn't there" there was sarcasm in his voice.
"Mrs Elisabeth, even not showing herself to the baby" The woman specified. "provided everything she needed. She calls regularly to know how she's doing and to satisfy every wish".
The Sister was trying to explain the things with a gentle tone.
"How thoughtful of her" Chuck, on himself, was more pissed then before.
Blair glanced down. She couldn't do anything about it, and the woman in front of her, too.
"I know how difficult is for you to understand it, Mr Bass, but… maybe your mother is a woman with a lot of sense of guilt…"
Chuck dark and penetrating gaze made her stop before she could end up the sentence. With a panther and elegant move, he leaned close to the desk.
"Until 3 weeks ago, my sister was alive and my niece was dead. Today, thanks to Mrs Elisabeth, I celebrate my niece's life and I bury my sister. I didn't travel miles from home to know about the responsible of all this drama. I don't give a fuck about her. I wanna see my niece, the one alive, and leave this place as soon as possible" he made it clear, his words cutting like a knife.
The woman realized the bittersweet difficulty the boy was living with.
"Look, Mr Bass. Until today I was the main responsible of your niece. In such a hard and painful moment it may be complicate to understand it, but we both want the best for Victoria . And, about your mother, it's my owe to tell you that she's never been an absent figure in your niece's life"
Chuck swallowed.
Was he jealous of that baby, or was he throwing on her all the sufferance for what his sister had been through? There was a difference between the two options?
He looked down and slowly stood up. Blair was following all his moves, one step behind, always ready to catch him at any fall.
"Is there a roof here?" he tried to made it sound more a personal request than a signal of his weakness. She had hit him and sank him, but he was too proud to admit it.
"We have a wonderful garden if you want to visit it!" she replied, softening her gaze.
He didn't wait any other words. He closed the door of the office behind him and took a deep breath.
He desperately wanted to run away.
"Vichy! I know you're here!" Clementina ran in one of the big bedrooms.
" Victoria will join you when she'll have finished here" Sister Enrica informed her, packing the things on the bed.
It was right there, that Clementina realized that a few big suitcases were open on the bed and Victoria 's closet was empty.
"Is Victoria leaving…? We won't see her anymore?" the baby whispered while her big eyes were opened and ready for a cry.
It was typical to that place, knowing of someone's departure, but realizing the truth of it, only when the suitcases were ready at the entrance door.
Sister Enrica kneeled in front of the baby.
" Victoria will stay with her family, but she'll come here anytime she wants"
"What if she doesn't?"
"Sister Maria says that 'If you love someone, you always come back to them" Victoria quoted, coming out of the bathroom with her towels and her bathrobe.
She had always been different from all of them. Every month she received packs of expensive clothes, toys and things with her initials on.
She was 3 years old and she already knew the difference between a Burberry and a Ralph Lauren pieces. The perfumed shampoos she received made her curls, soft and lightened like a princess.
Clementina stood there, fixing her lacy dressing gown in admiration. She had always wished to have one like that, the same one, like princess Sissi.
Victoria noticed it.
"If I leave you this, you won't cry? Promise?" she knew that that gift would have destroyed all the negative thoughts. On Clementina's face appeared a always biggest smile. She took the dressing gown and wore it immediately.
"Come, let's go to play! You're the wolf" Clementina took Victoria 's hand and brought her with her.
He was an orphan too, of mother and father both, but, unlike of al those babies, he had never had a common tv saloon, or a shared playroom.
It felt weird, walking between all those toys and realise that they cost less and were less than the ones in his nursery, which was a 7 rooms apartment. It had been his only place of belonging and sometimes it had thrown it on his kindergarten's friends face, to show them that he owned more toys then them or that his toys were more expensive. It was Chuck Bass' favourite game, the one where he had no rivals.
However, he couldn't remember a single moment of happiness, spent in that nursery, but sad afternoons, empty and lonely, together with the same sensation of abandon, those babies could feel too, even if they hadn't personal toys to show to the others.
He slowly sat on a plastic blue little table. Nate had a similar one to draw. He, instead, had a wood desk like his father's, always tidy and clean, with a big picture of him and Nate on the left on, and the one which portrayed his mother on the right, together with a leather agenda, signed with his initials on.
He had always felt older than his ages and he had always read it in his little golden best friend's blue eyes.
His phone rang, filling the silence of the place. It was in that moment that he wondered where all the babies were. Maybe they were doing their nap? Maybe they were having a walk in the park? Maybe they were gone for the holidays?
He frantically searched for his phone in his pocket, exposing it. Its sound raised up by the time it was coming out of the pocket.
"Shhhhhhhhh" he heard a pissed voice. He turned around, but he couldn't see anyone, while hisBlackberry kept on ringing.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the second time, the tone sounded imperative.
He turned around and saw the head of a baby girl popping out from behind the dolls house, with her finger pressed against her nose and a disappointed expression pictured on her little face.
He petrified. The phone's bell was far away from his world. If he wouldn't have stepped on a horn behind him and almost fallen on the floor, he would have thought to be ended up in a nightmare, the worst of his life.
The baby, absolutely pissed, moved rapidly toward him from the doll's house, after taking a good look around.
Chuck Bass' heart was exploding in his chest, while that mass of brown curls, perfectly confected in a red velvet dress with a big satin bow on the waist, was coming close to him.
She was the spitting image of his sister at 3, the one he had seen too many times in the alleys of the family's estates.
The same tiny nose, the same white skin with red cheeks, the same caramel eyes of Daphne.
He didn't understand anything, he couldn't move, think, or come out of that trance state, even when the baby had reached him, stole the phone from his hands and switched it off with determination.
"You haven't seen me!" she told him, looking at the door.
Chuck didn't have reactions. The treasure he had come to pick up from the other side of the world, had appeared in front of him, from a doll's house and was ordering him what to do! He was shocked, surprised, enchanted and confused by a mix of emotions that entwined to each others.
He looked at her, while she was coming back to the doll's house and with a frowning face was indicating him to look somewhere else.
He was still motionless.
What he could have done, if not been fascinated by the funny faces she was doing to him? Telling her who he was? Holding her close and bringing her away with him? Running away as far as possible, scared by her possible reject? Or, maybe nodding and doing whatever she wanted him to?
If he had given up to her wishes and all the feeling born inside of him, she would have ruled him for the rest of his life.
She would have commanded him at any desire and she would have gained everything she wanted, using the mean of a fake pout, or his need to see her smile. Was he ready?
Blair and Daphne had domesticated him, but that little girl? That little angel would have transformed him in a Saturday night Disney's classic eater, or worse, a fan of pink tutus and chignons at the classical ballet lessons of the Wednesday afternoon.
In front of his lack of reactions, the baby lost her patience. She quickly came back to him and, when in front of him, she scolded him with decision.
"If you act like this Erica will find me! So, now, I'll go there and when she'll arrive you'll say that you have never seen me!"
Chuck opened his eyes wide: with her hands on her waist and the angered gaze, the girl looked like Blair when he came back from business trip without a sparkling gift for her.
Only when he heard a few babies, running and chasing each other, in another room, he understood.
They were playing hide and seek and she was asking him to cover her. And he was fucked, like he had never been in his entire life.
Yet now I'm standing here
My heart's so full, I can't explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I'd say
She had found him, 20 minutes later, hidden behind the curtains of the playroom, where his expensive Bottega Venetan shoes came out from.
"Chuck?" she had called him, with curiosity and incredulity.
He understood her. What was he doing, hidden behind a curtain, and kneed on the floor? He was wondering the same too.
Stiffening, he had also wondered what he had to do: showing himself to her in his actual moment of unfit to plead, or pretend not to have heard her?
She had demanded again his attention though, unabashed as she was.
"Show yourself immediately Chuck Bass!" she had forced him to come out and confess his sin, like a baby, hidden in the candy shelve, caught with his hands in the can.
He loved her with all his heart, but in that very moment, he'd rather pretended not to know her or repudiated her.
The baby, hidden next to him, was following all of their interaction and his reactions with interest.
Sharp looking and willingness, Chuck opened the curtain and fixed Blair in embarrassment.
She had seen him acting weird, too thoughtful, in the few days before, but she certainly couldn't expect something like that.
"What the hell…?" she tried to ask him, noticing that he wasn't moving, but a baby girl popped out, from behind his legs, asking her to stay in silence.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Blair stood shocked in front of Chuck and his female baby version who were staring back at her.
She had no time, unlike him, to be transported by the memories and the emotions, because the voice of a baby who was seeking for Chuck and Victoria was coming from the alley, and the baby girl had started to instruct Chuck on what to do.
"Blair, you haven't seen us!" he had finally stated, while the baby was nodding next to him, and they both closed the curtain in front of them.
Blair stood motionless and speechless.
Chuck was playing hide and seek, the game he had always refused to play, the same one where he used to blurt out where people were hidden to have them catch? Who was the man in front of her?
"Come, we have to do the Ally ally home free" the baby girl had said to him, from behind the curtain.
"How about you home for me?" he proposed her, with a tone of voice, obviously influenced by her presence outside.
"I can't! You have to do it! Rules are rules!" she had suddenly scolded him.
Blair, unable to hide a good laugh, decided to help her.
"She's right Chuck, rules are rules! Go and save them all!"
She couldn't see him through the curtains, but she knew he was very pissed!
"Ally Ally home free!" she quoted him, while they were sitting on Victoria 's bed, waiting for her to officially meet them.
"I've been forced" he replied, trying to contain his stress.
He was screwed. He had realized it, opening the curtain to follow his nephew to free all the orphans from the bad wolf, and finding Blair there to look at him with an amused expression.
His reputation was ruined for good and the "The Great Chuck Bass defeating the big bad wolf" would have been the dinner's anecdote of the Christmas Eves for the rest of his life.
"Chuck Bass, My Hero!" she contently sighted, knowing him to well.
"Blair…" he tried to admonish her, but her tiny hands had reached his cheek and turned his face to have herself a better access to place a kiss on it.
"You Know Bass… you're so sexy when you play hide and seek…" she teased him, smiling against his cheek.
He stiffened his jaw.
"No one will ever know it Blair! Never!" he ordered, not looking at her.
He was the most powerful man of the world, not a circus performer! He had to resist, to defend the honour he had left!
He imposed himself to be unaffected by the adoring smile, he knew, she was picturing on her face. He could feel the soft line of her shining eyes, penetrating his skin, while one of her fingers was slipping down his neck and her nose got closer to his cheek.
She was smiling, smiling of happiness.
"She adores you already"
Chuck glanced down at their intertwined hands, shyly.
What if it wasn't true? What if she would have preferred other places, other life, other relatives at him?
He felt Blair's hand placing under his chin and moving his face toward her, to lay her eyes in his.
She had a different light in her gaze, softer, full of hope, so light to warm him from the inside. She raised her head, up and down, to physically mime her statement. The other hand was fixing his hairs.
"She adores you Chuck Bass!" she repeated with sureness, before leaning close to kiss him. "Chuck Bass, the bitter enemy of the wolf!" she smiled against his lips.
"Do you know my mommy?"
Chuck was expecting that question, he had travelled from another continent, getting ready to answer it.
He stood motionless, a meter from her, trying to find the best way to reply, because every theory he had confected before, had puffed from his mind.
He nodded.
"We're siblings" he told her, unable to use the past form.
The baby opened her eyes wide and quickly connected the information. A huge smile showed on her face.
"You're my uncle!" The joy that was lightening her face hit him. It was the most natural and pure sensation of love that he had ever felt.
She was innocently joyful at the idea of having him in his life!
His feeling were as spontaneous, as the smile that had naturally pictured on his face, watching her reacting so good to the news.
The baby jumped ahead, to get closer with such an enthusiasm and an energy that was hitting him too.
Was she going to jump on his legs? Was she going to hug him?
Only in that moment Chuck realised that he wanted to hold her close and feel the effect of her brown curls on the palm of his hand. Maybe he would have found something of his sister, maybe he would have felt her alive even for a little while.
"Will you bring me to my mommy?" she suddenly asked, with a radiant expression, as nothing else mattered but her request, in the whole world.
A stone, heavy and gigantic, fell on the ground, bringing Chuck back to reality.
That baby desperately wanted her mommy, she had lived all those years wishing to find her and start over with her. He could see the same unconditional and instinctive love he had never lost for years too.
Hoping every single day of his life that his mother wasn't dead, that she could walked out of the elevator of the Palace and came back to bring him out for a walk in the park, to scold him for the scotch at noon, to bake for his birthday parties.
It didn't matter that she had been away, neither for how long. The thing was that she'd come back, that she'd never forget him, that she'd loved him with no shame and no limits for the rest of their life.
Staring at the baby girl next to him, for the first time in his life, Chuck Bass felt like his father. Bart, the big bad wolf, standing in front of two little caramel eyes, confessing him, that, in spite of all, he, who hadn't abandoned him, wasn't enough. His mother would have always been the missing piece that he would have never cancelled.
He understood his father's hate for Elisabeth, because, as an abandoned son, he was there, years later, with the same unbearable duty, caused by the same executioner.
How could he say to that beautiful creature, that her mother would have never come back to her? That he had to be enough for her?
Remembering the pain he had felt, hearing those words, years before, Chuck was starting to appreciate his father's lie and its desperate need not to create fake hope in a baby that would have been hurt, knowing that his mother hadn't loved him enough to choose him, to want him with herself.
A strange sensation of relief filled his mind, though. He felt ashamed about it.
He didn't have to lie. This time, the pain the baby would have felt, she would have lived with for the rest of her life, was tragically real, not the fruit of a sad lie. She would have never discovered a secret hidden behind his words. He was not betraying her, he was just offering her, himself, not to be alone anymore.
He glanced down at his hands. They were sweating.
" Victoria … you're mother is not here anymore" he slowly said not to scare her.
He hadn't been able to say it, looking in her eyes. He couldn't stop but seeing Daphne, in the body of that little 5 years being sat in front of him, who was studying all his moves and testing all his words.
When he found the courage to lift his eyes back on her, he realized that she was looking down the floor too, crying.
It was all over. She would have hated him forever, remembered him as the bad man who had broken the spell.
Her cry melted his heart and moved something inside of him. He felt the need to make up to her, to do anything in his power to push away the sadness that was covering her face.
He nervously moved closer to her and softly raised a hand under her chin to lift her head and lay is eyes in hers back.
She was so fragile under his touch, like a blossomed flower.
Victoria opened her eyes in his, with the tears pouring down her cheeks.
"Is she dead like Andrea's cat? Sister Maria said it's not, but I saw it on the street!" she suddenly asked, sobbing and with a broken voice. The light in her eyes was slowly fading away.
Chuck felt sick. He hated being there in that moment. He hated being the responsible of that sufferance. He hated to feel her same pain. He would have done anything to cancel the previous weeks and give her back her mommy and her daddy.
He nodded, unable to speak.
The baby glanced back down.
He was losing her.
It was the same old story of his life: Chuck Bass, alone with the other's back turned on him and all the blames. He closed with strength his hand, to free the tension.
"Why are you here?" after a few minutes of silence, the baby asked him, turning her gaze up on him, and surprising him.
The sadness of her big caramel eyes, built in his heart a new feeling, stronger that anything he had felt before. He wanted to reassure her, to make her smile again, to break away that sufferance and see her happy.
Instinctively, he got closer and put his arms around her.
" Victoria …" he started hesitating. " You're mother was looking for you but she hadn't the time to find you"
"So she sent you?" she anticipated him without stopping looking at him.
Chuck nodded.
"She has never stopped loving you Victoria. She had wanted you with all her heart, but, sometimes the things are not as we want them…"
He took her little hands in his and kneed in front of her, his eyes never leaving hers.
A clumsy hand lifted to dry the tears which had lined her face. The other one closed on her.
"I'm not a kids kind of man… I'm not a perfect man either…"
He felt like an idiot kneed on the ground, but for that baby he would have become the most charming prince of the planet, just to make her happy and safe.
"I know that you want your mommy and I would never take her place in your heart…"
Victoria was looking deeply into his eyes, listening to everything he was saying.
"But I made a promise to her, so I'm here to bring you with me and love you as much as I loved her"
"You want me with you?" she asked with big eyes, almost looking for something.
"You'd like to?" he needed that confirm.
He didn't want be enough for her, he didn't want that one day she'd wake up and hate him for taking her with him. He wanted her to go with him, because she wanted to.
"Do you have a beautiful house?"
At her exit Chuck smiled. He didn't expect it, but he could see both Daphne's and Nicholas in her question and her lines.
"Twice the Rockfeller's! And we own more estates and more luxurious resorts then them!" he proudly informed her, enjoying the amazement on her tiny face.
"Do we have to do all those laundry every Friday?" she frowned. More houses, more laundry to do. And she hated laundering, she always said it to Sister Maria!
Chuck stared at her in shock.
"Of course not! The governess do it! You'll play with your dolls!" he spoke as anything else was unbelievable.
"How many dolls do I have?" she didn't miss the time to ask it, smelling too many beautiful things for her, like the huge box with a big pink bow placed behind her.
"Enough to fill your two rooms nursery"
The big O she made with her mouth, made his heart beat fast. If she reacted like that, he would have bought her everything she desired. Everything.
"Really?" she exploded in excitement.
Chuck couldn't help but smirk, feeling a sense of satisfaction and pride, rising inside of him.
"And we will always play hide and seek?"
Chuck's smirk quickly faded away. That was not on the menu. If he would have accepted, he would have become the family laughing stock.
"Of course…" He murmured between his teeth. "I'm pretty sure that Nate and Serena will be excited by the idea" he tried that way out. It usually worked.
But the baby noticed his reticence.
"You won't?" she sulked, making the same expression Blair used.
He felt guilty.
He panicked. She wanted to play with him, he couldn't disappoint her. Maybe it could have become their little secret, he thought.
"Anytime you'll want!" he assured her, still on his knees.
Satisfied by his reply, Victoria threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, catching him off his guard.
Chuck Bass wasn't a hug man. Cyrus was, but he certainly wasn't.
He felt awkward, trying to hold her close, and unable to stop the smile which was picturing on his face.
"I come with you but you bring me to eat a pizza first? Gilda is nice but she really can't cook!" she asked without problems, pulling a little space to look back at him.
In that very moment Chuck realized that she had agreed. She'd come with him and Blair to New York , she'd stayed with them for the rest of her life. She wanted to be his.
Taken by the enthusiasm, he felt the urge to caress her cheek. It was soft and chubby. He euphorically smiled.
"I'll book the best pizzeria in Genova!" He would have satisfied all her needs and wishes.
While his commotion was filling every nerve in his body, the baby lied her eyes behind his shoulder.
"Are you a princess?" she asked in enchantment, taking Chuck's curiosity.
He slowly turned around toward Blair, who was staring at them with shiny eyes.
"Uncle Chuck, are you engaged to a princess?" receiving no answers, Victoria had turned to him.
Blair burst into a good laugh.
It was a magical night. It wasn't just the Christmas enchantment, or the snow which was falling since hours.
The snow was lightening the darkness and made it look less scaring, full of new possibilities.
A huge snowman reigned alone in the big garden of the estate, right in front of the family tree, where just a few weeks before they had celebrated Daphne's goodbye.
It had been a matter of a look, and baby Victoria had conquered them both with her big caramel eyes and her spontaneity.
They had eaten pizza and then, she had forced Chuck to build a big snowman in the garden.
Chuck Bass the man who had destroyed all the snowmen in Central Park , had just build it one, under a 3 years old baby's instructions. The picture she had sent to Nate and Serena, to prove it, was already on facebook and he wouldn't have liked it at all when he had found out.
Blair was staring at the picture on her Blackberry, smiling cheerfully.
The sculpture was pendant, the body was made of two pieces that only vaguely reminded balls. However, she couldn't help but admit that the big orange bow, they had placed around the snowman neck, to substitute the scarf, was adorable.
Chuck would have been an amazing father, she though, laying her eyes on him. He was sleeping with his arm around Victoria 's waist.
He had heard her cry in the room behind them, frightened by the wind and he had cuddled her in his arms, while an unknown Italian song was playing in the background. When she had fallen asleep, he had taken her with him, in their king sized bed.
"I promised I would have stayed with her, but we can't obviously sleep in a chid bed!" he had explained to her, softly placing the baby on their bed and covering her with duvet.
Chuck and his nephew slept in the same position, made the same noises and were both pressed against her, forming a little happy and domestic family.
Blair leaned closer to kiss Victoria 's forehead and caress Chuck's cheek.
It was Christmas and he was a daddy. She happily smiled.
He would have loved the gift she would have given to him the next day. She could have given it to him right there, but it wasn't the right time.
A kid per day was enough!
We were moving mountains
Long before we knew we could
Note: The black pieces are taken by the song "When you Believe", from the movie "the Egypt Prince"
I need to thank Cry, my amazing beta, for the all the support and the help! A big thank also to SunnySabry for believing so much in this fic!