A/N: This is a short spoilery fic to as late as spoilers for 2.15. It's about Lily and Chuck's relationship and their ultimate reunion after all that has been set to motion by Bart's death.
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The whole day had gone by in a blur. A dark blur with shades of grey. She had seen little light in the past month, worn anything other than black for even longer. And she had thought things would get better, that she could find a ray light in the dark mess that her life had become. She had thought that she could replace his lost life by another. That she could get a second chance for once to do things right, to apologize and fix them. But alas, it had been too late. It was always too late.
She had sat in her room once again, ready to be shut out from all life and light. Her migraine was back, pounding worst than ever. And there was a call. She was ready to ignore it at first, and she would have, but something she could not define had made her crawl across their bed for vibrating phone laying there up on the night stand. Mother's intuition? She would have scoffed at the thought, and she had. But it appeared for once Lily had experienced what she had thought after years of failure she could never ever feel or comprehend. And yet here she was, walking along the marble floors with heels clicking at every step, brought here due to that feeling, the intuition, for one of her own was in need.
"Charles?" She called opening the door the secretary had pointed her too. The poor woman had meant to escort the blond, but Lily despite the heels had sped past and wrung oped the large mahogany door and came face to face with the owner to the name she had cried a second before.
"Lily?" He looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him on seated on the leather couch and most shockingly in a deep navy robe. His hair was a mess, rumpled as though he had just left the bed.
"Charles, what is going on?" She tried to keep the sudden broiling terror out of her voice. She had felt it stir since she had heard the ring, born from her mother's intuition it seemed. And it had only grown since. The first shock was to find that he was admitted to the care of Dr. Buchanan, a longtime friend of Bart's and of late a close friend of herself as he and his wife had spent considerable time with the newly wed Lily Bass in Beijing during the supposed honeymoon. Lily was sure Chuck himself had not requested, but knew even despite the horror and anger now forming across his young pale face, that he was the tiniest bit grateful for the doctor to have called and for her to have arrived.
"Go away Lily. This doesn't concern you."
Lily stared at him now, obvious that his condition whatever it had been had kept him here all night. Her intuition was making her sick with worry. His skin looked so pale and sallow, greenish almost. His eyes were sunken. On close inspection he looked like death. She had seen him grief stricken looking like the hell that was brewing inside, but she had yet to see him sit there like a child, a broken down doll and shivering in what terrified her to admit was terror. Chuck Bass looked scared, frightened beyond his wits. And it was all Lily could do not to lose control of her limps and faint dead to the floor. Fright was a gentle breeze in comparison to the horror that was born from the sight before her.
"Charles," she took beautiful command of her voice. She had mastered it to the point that it would not betray her, not even was she to lose every bit of wit left in her. "Charles, tell me what in the world is going on? Dr. Buchanan? Dr. Buchanan, please?"
The doctor gave her a sad smile and walked to doors opposite to the grand doorway she had entered through, and he disappeared soon after.
Lily closed her eyes an instant and made a choice, one she had not realize she had made. Her legs seemed to carry her on their own, and she was seated next to Charles on the large leather couch. He did not look at her. His gaze was stubbornly set on the silk woven Persian carpet set just a few inches away from where they feet could reach sitting where they were. Joining Chuck's eye line to the gorgeous carpet her mouth exercised the same freedom that her limbs had a moment before, and she began talking before she knew what she was saying.
"He is dead. They had named him Andrew."
Chuck was startled. She could tell. He gave an involuntary fidget and his head jerked towards her a second, though his eyes remained intent upon the carpet.
"The son I never knew is dead. The son I'll never now know. Should it hurt this much? I never spent a moment with him. Not a single second after his birth. He didn't exist. He'll never exist."
"It's the could haves. The would haves." His mouth too seemed to exercise upon it's own control. "Perhaps had he lived you would have grown to despise him."
He chuckled now. It sound was dry, like a person dying of thirst, losing all fluid.
"Perhaps. But it didn't hurt nearly as much as Dr. Buchanan's call did." And she did not lie. The horror born from the forbidden information of Charles at his office and requiring of her assistance had sent her into a fury mess of raging emotions in which a death of a long lost child could never arise. She had realized at that moment that he was her last hope. Charles Bass was her one chance to fix things, for the both of them.
He was moved by her words in equal amounts to being completely unconvinced of there being any truth to them. Her finger had found there way to his tightened fists. Her warm hands encased his white cold fist, and she squeezed lightly.
"You lost a mother you never knew, just as I lost a child I never knew. I suggest we compensate, for each other's loss. We could make the could haves into something that is Charles."
His fists had relaxed at her warm touch, even if slightly. But she sat still, holding her breath and waiting for his response. She expected the worst.
He laughed. Any sound from him was drought, and yet somehow his laughter boomed like a ray of sunlight, the odd ray that beamed out of the crack between her thick curtains, the ray that brought no pain only memories of joy and of things soft and weightless. He was laughing, really laughing. Actual laughter you hear suddenly sprung from youth. It was odd seeing him like this and yet that burst of childlike laughter. It was the sound of all things innocent, the sound of youth.
She smiled sincerely to the sound. And even once he had controlled it she could see it still dancing in his gaze. She hadn't seen him like this in sometime. The last time was when he and Bart had returned from the last Ranger game they had attended. She had this strong urge to touch him, to physically connect to his joy so she can conduct the sweet melody of that sound, now gone, through his skin to hers. But she could not touch him yet or he would increase draw back and put infinite distance between them.
"Compensate? Is that the most affectionate—is that supposed to be your loving motherly declaration?"
She smiled now seeing as he had let her through. She could see it. She had done it by falling into his step and showing him what was he was she. And yet the gratitude she felt at that moment for this chance was equal to the ever more brimming terror broiling ever the more vicious inside. Charles Bass would not have unlocked this door had there not been something so terribly wrong.
"I'm not fit for the typical, and I know you don't wish to receive them." He smiled at her with a short nod of the head. Their eyes joined in mocking their UES heritage. Shocking how easy it was to convert, for she was only a 1st generation and he a 2nd. Far was her California ranch as was his grandparent's suburban home.
It was time for her to suggest what he would not ask, or demand rather, for he would not accept the offer in any other manner. And so she did, she mastered as much of authority as she could master and ordered him back home. But he declined, as expected, for this was the first step.
She like him knew the game, or the dance. The moves, the proposal. So she curtsied and declared that without a man the house felt empty. But without her child it felt unbearable.
His throat worked at the word child and she feared for a moment she had miss stepped and crushed his toes. But he danced, he laughed at the label and called her on playing too thick the role of a sentimental woman, for one cultivated in the Upper East Side. She laughed it off, but stopped abruptly. She would risk the end to the dance because the terror still broiled inside.
"You are my child Charles. You have done more for Eric and Serena more than I have in their lifetime. You couldn't be any more precious to me. And you're the last thing I have left. You're the last child that needs me. I will not let this chance slip by, I owe it to your father."
His face was unreadable, and she was once again holding her breath. But she had to risk it, she could not afford to waltz about.
"I'm no one's debt."
She laughed softly. She really adored him at these times, moments when he displayed just how different from her he was. How very much like Bart he was.
"My only debt in regards to you Charles is the one I owe you. The debt I must pay for neglecting family."
"Don't—"
"You can't stop it. You can deny it my darling boy, but Serena, Eric, and I have coincided. Being American it is only due that the majority vote is the victor."
He looked away abruptly and was struggling with something. But he straightened just as quickly and declared a halfhearted agreement.
"I suppose."
This was the victory and yet it came with a terrible price. Chuck was waiting for it. He had been waiting for this chance since his choice of being admitted by Dr. Buchanan and not of a physician who would not know to or would not call upon her. She had known this for despite his asking the doctor to not contact her he had begged feverously that he would not contact Jack Bass under any condition. That he swore upon his father's grave that contacting Jack Bass would not do. Lily sat as terrified as ever. And she finally touched him. She could not resist any longer.
It was that fringe that fell upon his forehead, like a lost wisp of brown hair, limp and without the strong root to hold it back in it's rightful place. She brushed it back into the folds of brown hair, all thin and ill looking. As morbid as his sallow skin appeared.
He did not back away. And she grew more bold.
"I miss you." She chocked suddenly. His eyes grew wide and he could not hide the signs of smile at the corner of his lips. "Please Charles, it's not home without you there. His loss and yours is unbearable. Even for the ice cube the Upper East Side has condensed my heart into."
She chuckled and his eyes joined her. But there was no sound of laughter from him, just a chocked noise rising from the depth of his throat. Something gurgled and desperate to escape.
She drew close still and had without either of their knowledge engulfed his whole figure in an embrace. He protested at first touch, but then conceded and let himself be taken despite his body shivering in protest. Once past the borders she held on tight. She squeezed him like she had never squeezed anyone, not Rufus or a child. It was as though she had to use every ounce of her physical strength to squeeze out the evil. To rid him of that evil that had been tugging at her insides since Dr. Buchanan's call.
"Charles" She whispered, but the whisper came as a sob. And then came another. And pretty soon she shook against him as he did against her. It was an embrace between a pair of twigs encased and hardened by a layer of ice. But they melted now shivering and growing closer together as their armors vanished away.
"Lily" he finally whispered against her ear, the side of his face pressed hard against hers. His voice was oddly cool despite how his body felt within her embrace. And Lily knew that she was a breath away from what was the worst. His fingernails dug deeper, past his thick robes and punctured his skin. Her knuckles grew still whiter in her hardened grasp. And it came, the worst in a single swing, all in one breath.
"Uncle Jack tried to kill me."