This is my first gossip girl/chair fanfic so... yeah okay. COOL. read nd review? thx m8.
They say that lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice.
But Chuck still feels his heart split like the sky in a storm. Elizabeth. Blair. It's the cruelest irony that has him laughing. He doubles over, hysterical, until laughter turns to tears, and they mingle with the rain. He knows that if (only) lightning were to strike the oak he was sheltering under, he'd be dead. Dead. Elizabeth. Bart. Jack. Blair.
Her name whips up a storm of emotions, and he sinks to his knees, grasping blindly at the roots of the ancient wood, nails tearing at his chest, desperately looking for his heart because, fuck, he feels like it's been torn out of his ribcage, and there is no fucking way, that anything could hurt as much as this. Then he stops, and remembers that his heart was her. And he knows, that now she's gone, nothing will ever matter again. So he falls to the ground. Dirt, rain, blood and tears.
This is how Nate finds him. Covered in filth, pristine hair caked with mud, shirt torn, eyes bloodshot. "Chuck," he says. Chuck stays down, because, I'm not Chuck Bass without you.
"Chuck. Please. Please stand up. Chuck. Look at me." He looks up, because the words are familiar. Blair's words. But not quite right. It's Serena, mascara running, skin ashen, instead of Blair hoisting him up.
"No. Fuck off! Leave me alone! Let me fucking die. I'm nothing without her. Don't you understand?" He needs her arms around him, her scent mingling with his. He needs her.
There's only one sentence that Nate and Serena need to say, before he struggles and lifts his body, weary from crying. "Henry needs you. He needs his father."
Together, the two blondes help him through the hospital doors. "Two light, two dark. A perfect balance," she would say. There's no balance now. There's nothing without her. He doesn't know what he'd do now. Everything is a reminder of her, of the empty space she's supposed to fill. But he'll do this for Henry, half of him, half of her. Her last living legacy.
But the instant he steps in the bleach white hospital room, all traces of Blair wiped away, the blood and sweat cleared, her body moved, he can barely breathe. (Not that he wants to) Because Henry looks just like her. High cheekbones, chestnut hair, small, perfect lips. And of course, he has her doe eyes. But Chuck sees himself in his sturdy jaw, and high brow.
Henry begins screaming in Eleanor's arms, frightened by the filthy man, sopping wet, unaware that this is his father. "Charles!" Eleanor says, "Thank goodness you're here." And as much as Blair thought her mother didn't love her, it's evident that she did, grief and sorrow etched into her every feature. Henry will never have a mother. Like father, like son, I suppose. And this thought has him choking back a strangled sob, eyes swollen and mouth parched from crying the entire night.
After the funeral, after pouring his soul out into her eulogy, (one that the old Chuck Bass would have scoffed at) he's become numb. He feels nothing, his heart beats, his lungs inflate, deflate, his blood circulates. But he is does not live. Living is an impossibility when you've lost all worth living for. He never needed to drown himself in scotch, there was nothing to feel, anyways, and he'd never deface her memory by being with another woman. He feels like he's losing his mind, (isn't losing my heart enough?) as his head is filled with her voice. I love you's, snarky comments. Her voice bosses him around, telling him how to take care of their son.
But apparently that's not enough. Because Henry Bass is fourteen years old and already throwing himself into girls, booze and partying.
"What the fuck, Chuck?" Nate slams down his drink, jolting Chuck out of his misery induced stupor. "It's been fourteen years. That's plenty of fucking time to get over her death." At his best friend's indignant and astonished expression, he barged on, "Yes, Chuck. She's dead. Blair Cornelia Waldorf-Bass is DEAD. She died giving birth to your only fucking son that you've been fucking neglecting for the past-" His speech was cut short by Chuck's fist flying into his face.
Chuck expects him to fight back, but instead, the former 'Golden Boy' laughs. "You don't fucking understand, Archibald. She's the only thing I ever loved. I never had a mother. Never had a father-"
Nate cuts him off here. "You never had a father, but neither does Henry. Can't you see? You're Bart. All you ever fucking do is wallow in your own fucking self pity and throw yourself into your fucking business. Sound familiar? That's cause it is. Except the twist in this story is that there is no Blair Waldorf for Henry. A girl like that? She only comes once a century, a millennia. There's nothing to save him. But it's not too late. Chuck. Help him."
And hours later, Nate long gone, Chuck stands up, and for the first time in years, feels Blair's hand on his shoulder, smells the vanilla on her skin. I'm proud of you.
And lightning strikes his heart again.