Author's Note: I was really mad at Blair after 5x13 and this came about. I usually like to have a happy ending but I just couldn't find one for this tale. You've been warned. For a touch of sugary-sweetness I suggest my other fic - The Bright Star and the Prince
xoxo
"You don't understand Uncle Chuck," the boy whined bitterly. His uncle watched as the boy circled his glass, swirling the scotch within in an eerily familiar move.
He was still only a boy in his uncle's eyes. Legally, technically, he had become a man three months before. He could now order a scotch in any bar and show id instead of greenbacks to get served. None of that did a thing to change Chuck's perception of him. Especially when his woe-is-me performance went on like tonight's had. Chuck had been listening to the boy whine for going on ten minutes now and finally his well-kept patience snapped.
"I don't understand," he harshly mocked the boy's words. "Love," he emphasised, turning on his nephew with a cold, embittered voice. "Is leaving yourself vulnerable to the woman who owns your heart so she can destroy you over and over and over again."
The boy paused his love-sick rant and looked at his bachelor uncle confusedly. It wasn't entirely rude to look flabbergasted by the comeback – Chuck had been single his entire lifetime, all of the twenty-one years he'd breathed. A new woman at every event didn't seem to suggest much experience with the deep emotion this boy was experiencing. Nor even the most fleeting acquaintance with it.
Chuck quickly disabused him of that notion.
"It's watching her walking down the aisle to another man while you stand there and hope she'll turn around and look at you. Then watching her do the same thing a second time like an idiot. When she promised so hard that she'd with you."
The boy's brow furrowed, not understanding the words he was hearing.
"It's giving the most fleeting moments of happiness, and then being rewarded with the agony of watching someone else raise the children you've fathered."
He turned his burning, flashing gaze of absolute fire on the boy as the words finally came rushing out of him, though they were clearly meant for someone else.
"Wait until you have a month left to live, and a lifetime wasted, watching in the wings as what should be yours gets bestowed on every other person but you. Then you can talk to me about love."
"Uncle Chuck?" the boy put down his glass and asked in a confused, tentative whisper.
He was trying to process everything he'd just heard. It was too much, and he adverted his eyes, trying to deal with the riot of thoughts that assaulted him. His eyes darted around the room, too upset to make eye contact with the man who'd been his hero since he could remember.
The unsettled caramel eyes landed on a picture taken about a year ago. Uncle Chuck and Aunt Serena and Uncle Nate and his Mom.
All grinning at the camera.
Except his Mom, who was looking at Uncle Chuck. Looking at him like she looked at a freshly opened box of Macarons that weren't hers to taste. Longingly.
Pieces started coming together to form a half-complete puzzle picture in his mind. He studied Uncle Chuck in the image but didn't find a hint of the same want his Mom wore. One thing did strike the boy though – Chuck looked a lot younger in the picture. His face fuller, more pink than the odd shade of yellow he looked right now, only twelve months later.
There were things the boy had sometimes suspected but never ever wondered out loud. And his Uncle had just voiced them as if they were absolute fact.
He forced himself to return his eyes to his uncle's face and the contrast to the photograph made him suddenly realised just how unwell his uncle looked.
Chuck's face pinched in pain and his hand raised, palm settling on his well-tailored side as if to steady something.
"Uncle Chuck?" he repeated more loudly as the older businessman pressed firmly into an organ.
"Fuck," he whispered, crumpling forward.
"What is it?" the boy demanded, putting his glass down and rushing across the room to grab his uncle's arm, holding him up.
"I thought I'd have more time," Chuck winced, grabbing onto the boy's hand reluctantly and letting himself be helped into a chair. "Call the front desk and ask them to have an ambulance brought discreetly to the service entrance."
The boy nodded, his face ashen as he reached out for the phone and quickly barked orders to the Empire's staff. Once he'd hung up he discarded the handset thoughtlessly and quickly poured a glass of water, offering it to a man who only waved it away.
"What's going on?" he asked worriedly, kneeling before the business mogul.
Chuck smirked self-deprecatingly, his features tight with obvious agony.
"Scotch is no replacement for love," he cryptically responded.
His nephew's eyes narrowed. "I didn't think it was," he qualified cautiously.
Chuck keeled forward in a sudden tidal wave of pain.
"What can I do?" two caramel eyes looked up at him, almost crying. "What is it? Tell me."
"My liver," Chuck confessed. "I thought I'd have a few more weeks."
"W-weeks?" the boy appeared even younger as he looked up at his uncle with eyes that glittered and a lower lip that seemed to be trembling. Or maybe that was just unconsciousness coming on.
Chuck struggled to take deep breaths as he clutched the hand in his. He closed his eyes, savouring how very, very like his own it felt. How it had taken this long to even have the smallest glimpse.
"Will you be ok?" the boy asked, sounding like a scared, lost little child.
"No," Chuck shrugged it off.
He struggled to open his eyes and look at the boy. A beautiful sight to behold, in what he knew were his final moments. The boy guessed it too. Because he swallowed and tried to be a man.
"Is there anything you want me to– to tell Mom?" he bravely asked the thing that none of them ever spoke.
Chuck paused, struggling to keep awake. "Like what?" he barked in a horrible imitation of laughter. "She knows how I feel. How I've always felt."
"You don't want me to give her anything?" the boy looked over his shoulder where he knew the safe was hidden. He knew his uncle. He knew there was something, jewellery, probably, that lay between the man he'd most looked up to in his life and his devoted mother.
Chuck's laughter was more genuine this time.
"You really are perfect," he said softly, his voice getting weaker. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. "I returned her engagement ring more than two decades ago when she found a bigger one that suited her better. And she already got the most precious thing I could give her."
He looked at the boy, really looked at him, one last, painful time. There was understanding between them, finally. Tears slipped out of both sets of eyes. Chuck's liquid brown then had to squeeze closed tight in agony.
"Bart," he wasn't able to open his eyes now.
"Yes?" the timid boy inquired.
"You're named after your grandfather," Chuck quietly revealed.
For just a moment Bart got confused. "No I'm not. Grandpa Harold and Cyrus and Roman…" he trailed off quietly. "Oh."
The boy swallowed back the sob that threatened to escape him but couldn't stop the tears. "Mom never told me that."
They fell into silence and Bart could tell it was getting worse. "I-is Evelyn –?" he couldn't even finish the sentence to ask after his sister. His sister with whom he shared a striking resemblance, despite being born in a different marriage to a different father.
"Evelyn is my mother's name," Chuck answered, his strength fading. "I'd rather you both carried my last name. But my feelings never mattered."
The last word came out horribly breathy.
It was the last moment Chuck was conscious of. The last word Bart would ever hear him speak.
xoxo
"Oh no you don't," Dan Humphrey's voice rang out through the traditional Waldorf penthouse.
He pushed a smirking Jamie Vanderbilt back into the elevator, barred his arrogant teenage saunter from re-entering their apartment, pressed the button to send the elevator back to the lobby and then restrained Evelyn as the doors shut. Evelyn scowled at her father with absolute hatred.
"You are only seventeen," he reprimanded. He plucked her beaded clutch from her hands and pointed to the stairs. "You're not going to some bar with that troublemaker. His father once tried to kill your mother, you know."
Evelyn just about exploded. He had never fit into her mother's world properly and she hated that he always took it out on her. That she got punished for his choices.
"Evie," he sighed. She hated being called Evie, but if right now wasn't the time for her trademark 'My name is Evelyn.'
"Your genes are going to tempt you to the darkside, I have to do my best to keep you in the light," he tried to be soothing.
Like that ridiculous explanation would keep her from her friends forever.
Her purse started ringing in his hands before she could snap a comeback. Silently she held out her hand.
"You're not going out with him," Dan reminded again.
Evelyn kept her hand raised, demanding the return of her property so she could answer her phone. He didn't hand it over.
"You're grounded," he said calmly. "No parties, no shopping, no Vanderbilt. Only school until I say so."
She didn't stamp her foot and whine about how it was so unfair, which he clearly expected her to do. She just stood there, a cool, calm façade disguising the machinations of her deviously calculating mind. Did he think words and him blocking the front door would keep her chaste?
School hours hadn't yet been a barrier to feeling James Vanderbilt aching and hard and beneath her.
His particular branch of the family had carried a stain since before they were born, so he had grown up to be just as evil and clever as she was. No doubt he was already circumventing his banishment and returning up the fire stairs to lounge expectantly on her bed.
She waited silently for her purse to be handed back. Dan put it behind his back as the ringing of her phone came to an end.
They stared at one another in silent standoff. Then the ringing started again. Dan didn't bring her clutch back into sight. So Evelyn chose a different tack and arrogantly walked past him, as if she were conceding and returning to her room. He let out the breath he'd been holding and sunk, clearly relieved that she'd let him win this one.
Before he could stop her she had plucked her clutch from his hands and retrieved her phone holding it to her ear.
"No phone calls!" he embargoed. "You won't be speaking to that boy –"
"Hi Bart," she emphasised her beloved older brother's name, glaring at her father as she retreated.
"I'm sending a car, you need to come to meet me at the hospital right now," he dictated, no nonsense about it.
Unlike her father, Evelyn almost jumped to obey this command.
"Why?" she worried, reaching for her coat and dismissing Dan who began raging about not leaving the penthouse.
There was a pause and Evelyn knew to worry because Bart had a penchant for finding trouble.
"Are you ok?" she panicked, slipping her arms into the sleeves then pressing the elevator button repeatedly.
"I am," he said with serious softness. "Uncle Chuck isn't."
Evelyn stepped into the elevator as soon as its doors opened. This time she wasn't ignoring her father as he followed her, she was actually completely oblivious to his presence.
"What happened?" she demanded worriedly, knowing her uncle was a tower of strength where she and Bart were concerned. He never would have let Bart see him hurt unless it was really, really bad.
"He's been sick, and he didn't tell us," her brother dummed it down for her, trying to soften the blow.
She could see through the façade in his words straight away.
"Bart," she almost screeched, demanding.
Bart paused and then cleared his throat. It sounded like he'd been crying.
"He's had liver failure," he revealed quietly. "I spoke to his doctor and they only found out a few weeks ago but it was in the final stages."
"I'm coming," she promised, ending the call abruptly.
Within hours Chuck had passed away in silence with his stunned children beside him.
xoxo
Bart's mother landed from Paris twelve hours later, her makeup flawless and her hair perfectly set. She glided down the private jet's stairs and kissed her son's cheek on the tarmac.
"Poor Chuck," she murmured, pulling her oldest child into a comforting embrace. He let himself sink into her and take her strength, the tears gathering again. "Who knew he had liver failure? He's always so cagey about these things."
The statement irked him, now that he knew.
An odd fact tumbled out of him right at that moment. "Studies show that men in monogamous relationships live longer," he narrowed his eyes at his mother. "Their partners nag them to deal with health issues."
Chuck hadn't been cagey by choice, there had clearly been a time when he confided in someone. And she needed to be reminded of that. Her head drew back at the odd non-sequitor and for a moment she looked suitably puzzled. Bart glared right back, angry on his uncle's behalf.
She clearly didn't understand what he was getting at, that she was the person who was supposed to nag Chuck. Blair quickly dismissed his upset words and lovingly put her arm around his waist.
"Well, another cost for being an infamous playboy," she tried to lighten the situation. "Now, tell me what happened on the way to the hospital."
Bart was cold as he slipped his mother's grasp.
"That wasn't exactly his choice, was it?" he swotted back the playboy barb. "We're not going to the hospital."
Again, Blair studied her son and his odd behaviour with confusion. What had gotten into him?
"Alright," she said slowly. "Well you can head home but I'd still like to check in on Chuck tonight. You and I can catch up for breakfast tomorrow," she soothingly appeased.
Bart's head shook and the tears came back. Like he was a child.
"You're too late," he rasped harshly.
Blair glanced at her wristwatch and noted it was after 8pm. "Hospital visiting hours? A quiet hundred should get me in, don't worry my darling."
Bart's face crumpled for her, for what she didn't know.
"He died four hours ago Mom," he revealed quietly, watching his mother freeze. "It came on so suddenly, he hadn't told anyone. You were mid-flight."
It happened so slowly he wasn't entirely sure it was happening at all. Her features fell from their resigned practicality into despair so gradually that it could have been a time-lapsed film.
He'd never seen his mother so human as that evening she was told Chuck Bass no longer breathed. A lifetime of regret, the life unlived, fell onto her shoulders and crushed her knees under the weight. He struggled to hold her as the vibrant woman that had ruled their family his entire life withered before his eyes.
xoxo
Days passed but Blair didn't notice in her grief. Bart thought he heard her whispering to the coffin as tears tracked down her perfect cheeks. He saw her lips move then press to the silken wood. But after that, when it had been lowered into the ground and buried beneath dirt, she rarely spoke again.
When she did, it was to throatily ask about Uncle Chuck's final moments.
Bart shook his head and wouldn't say. They were private, the only memories he had of something that had niggled the back of his mind as long as he could remember. Chuck was his father. When Bart sat back to reflect, he'd analysed the tone of their final conversation, the few, soft words his agonised lips had been able to speak. There was subtext, and Bart had it all confirmed when he found a letter to himself, and one to Evelyn, plainly waiting at Chuck's desk.
The billionaire had known from date of conception and never said a word. Never rocked the boat. But he'd loved them both desperately.
He left them the company in his will.
He didn't even leave Blair a letter.
For twenty-one years Bart had itched against being a Grimaldi, had been almost crushed by the weight of responsibility he didn't want. He was a passionate creature, social but manipulative to the extreme. He'd been raised in New York but contractually obligated at birth to rule in a country he associated with forced summers of horrid interaction with Grandmama Sophie and a Papa who seemed to despise him.
Finding out he was Chuck's son was like being given wings. Evelyn, a party-girl locked away for most of her teens, was the one who suggested they right their mother's wrong.
Louis did not like being disowned by his child. Dan called his daughter and her mother vile names. But then Bart and Evelyn had not particularly been liked at all by either one of them. It was Evelyn who initiated proceedings and eventually, after some time, their birth certificates and names were changed. Their mother silently scrawled her signature on both the deeds.
Then she retreated to Chuck's penthouse, atop her daughter's newly acquired Empire Hotel. She slipped into the single place she had deigned to live with him, even for a few scant weeks. Then she cloistered herself in the tower of unhappiness, much like her lover had done his entire adult life. And in that tower without her prince on his noble steed ever riding by to rescue her, Blair Waldorf slowly withered away.
No one was there the day she found the velvet-lined box. It was secreted into hidden dark depths at the back of his closet. It contained almost nothing at all and yet it held everything. A handful of photos of the two of them, when they were young and indulging happier times, before the break. Some trinkets of the children's were mixed in. Then there was Elizabeth's golden locket, Bart's favourite cufflinks. His grandmother's wedding ring, and his grandfather's war medals.
Blair's diamond necklace.
It turned out there was still a little piece of her soul waiting to be torn to shreds. The glittering charms with the heart at their centre slid noiselessly through her fingers.
xoxo
That night she dreamed she was at an opulent ball and he stood across the room, gazing at her longingly but never approaching to ask for a single dance. Because he wanted her to be happy. That was all he had ever wanted.
Too late she realised she'd only wanted him to keep fighting.
xoxo
A year later the CEO of Bass Industries saw his own estranged lover stepping through the glass doors at Bergdorf's.
"Stop the car," he called to his driver.
The stretched limousine slowly pulled into the curb and Bart jumped out, eyes flicking both ways then dashing across the wide expanse of a traffic-less Fifth Avenue.
Bart dashed into the department store and found her just reaching the top of the stairs on the first floor.
"Catherine," he rasped anxiously.
She turned in surprise, adjusting her handbag on her shoulder then darting her eyes away awkwardly.
"Bart," she greeted. Even in that one word he could hear the sadness in her voice.
They hadn't seen each other since a fortnight before Chuck passed away. And to Bart, it had been too long. He had passed twelve months thinking about his Uncle, and his mother, and the life they never had. And sometimes, he would start thinking about himself, and would wonder at just how similarly his own life was turning out.
He didn't want it like this though. To be apart from the woman he loved forever.
Determinedly, he reached out for Catherine's hand and bent over it, kissing the knuckles.
"My parents waited a lifetime and never got to be together," he said softly, looking up beneath his lashes to her stunned eyes. "I don't want to wait until it's too late," he raised his head and moved close, whispering into her ear. "I want a life with you."
Catherine frowned uncomprehendingly.
"Your parents are divorced aren't they?" she looked so confused by this rendezvous that she didn't really understand what he was saying. "And your Mom is separated from Evelyn's dad."
Bart snorted, pulling away a little so he could look her straight in the eye. If she'd been acquainted with Chuck Bass she would have seen the startlingly similar resemblance. But she wasn't, all she saw was the boy she'd loved for too long gazing into her soul like no one else could.
"Uncle Chuck," he enunciated, "spent his entire adult life pining for my mother. She taunted him with maybes and laters and forevers."
He brought his arm around her waist and laid his forehead in the curve of her shoulder. "You should have seen him at the end C," he privately mourned, not one of the other shoppers hearing his intimate whisper. "He was so sad. He knew she would never let them be, but he loved her all that time anyway. And now my Mom is – is just destroyed. I didn't understand how much she was waiting for it too. Waiting for this 'someday' that will never happen because he drunk himself into an early grave of loneliness." He pulled back, blinked, then looked at her intensely. "I don't want that for us. I want to be your husband, and raise children, and have a life together."
Her eyes were shining with sadness as he relayed his family story, now complete as Chuck's life had come to an end and his legacy had truly passed to his children. There was no happily-ever-after that would suddenly surprise Blair, his son or his daughter.
"Marry me, Catherine," he begged softly.
"Bart," she said in a hush, disbelieving.
"He was my father," Bart stopped her. "I didn't know that until about five minutes before he finally lost consciousness. It's fucked up C. My mother screwed him around since he was sixteen and in the end he still loved her. I – I don't even – I can't be like that. I can't. I want you. I want to be your husband."
"Shhhh," she soothed, her fingers finding the strands of his dark hair. "You will be."
xoxo
They were married three months later. It was too long for Bart but she wanted to plan at least a little and god all he wanted was her to be happy.
His mother spoke again, for the first time since those horrible months when they lost him. It was as mother and son danced together, at the reception.
"He held my hand you know," were her first quiet words.
At first her son didn't realise she was admitting to something only one other person in the world had ever known. She looked up into her boy's eyes with such pride that Bart was overwhelmed and didn't know how to respond.
"Chuck held my hand while you were born. We were going to be together. He even bought a townhouse, a block back from the park. It was all ready to bring you home from the hospital. The nursery was done in the softest colours, I remember the light that came through those huge old windows."
Bart looked at her with that sad, understanding smile. She painted a lovely picture and he wished he could go back and change it for her, change it for all of them.
"He held you, when you were a few minutes old. He never got to hold Evelyn, but he held you."
His throat clogged.
"Your head was so small it fit inside his palm. He was so – gentle and he looked at you like – like… Like the world was finally complete," she trailed off and shook her head. "He promised you nothing would keep the three of us apart. You were only a minute old when he said that."
"What happened Mom?" he prompted, not understanding. Not understanding how his mother and father had stayed apart when every piece of evidence screamed that they wanted to be together.
"Louis blackmailed me," she looked away, over his shoulder in remembrance. "It seems so ridiculous now. We never got to be a family because I was worried about something as fleeting as a reputation." Her lashes wetted. "But before that, He was so excited about you," she whispered. "So in awe when we first held you. And then I ruined it. I took you away so just seeing you was enough to break his heart."
"Mom," he tried to soothe her.
Blair shook her head, not wanting to be consoled. Let her entire social circle see her, she deserved it. "Here you are, a grown man on his wedding day," she croaked around the lump in her throat. "And Chuck never married anyone."
He watched her look up to the roof, her throat swallowing convulsively. "I could have married him when I was nineteen. And twenty. And twenty-one. And every year until now, when suddenly it's all too late." Her head lowered again and her lower lip was trembling. "He wanted to," she nodded pathetically. "So much. He asked me over and over and he always looked horrifically desperate. How did I say no? God what's wrong with me?"
"He loved you," Bart soothed the only way he knew how, drawing her into a hug and not caring who saw. "It's what he used his final moments reminding me, that he spent his life loving you."
"But did he know I loved him?" Blair choked, weakly grabbing at her son's shirt. "I taunted him, the entire time he loved me I taunted him. I made him pay for every second of it."
"Mom," Bart didn't want to hear her being so harsh on herself.
"I need to be alone for awhile," she reached up and shakily kissed her son's cheek. "I'm so happy for you and Catherine," she graciously wished.
Then before anyone could stop her she'd fled from the reception.
Bart couldn't truly believe his mother knew how to be happy anymore.
xoxo
Once Blair was in bed she passed out almost immediately and began to vividly dream. They were dancing at a wedding but this time it wasn't her baby-Chuck she was dancing with. It was Chuck himself, donning a groom's tux and looking utterly dashing. She complimented him perfectly, the most elegant white gown ever stitched draped over her subtle curves.
They fit snugly into one another's arms, his long fingers lightly caressing her bare shoulders.
She shuddered and pressed herself closer to his warm chest.
"You're my husband now," she happily mused, feeling those long present butterflies taking eager flight in her stomach.
He preened at her first use of the word, eyes lighting up with a flare of desire. Inclining his head just slightly, he placed the lightest peck of a kiss on her lips.
"Do you like that?" she teased lightly, even while nibbling at his delectable mouth. "Husband?"
"Mmmm," he approved drowsily, heavy lashes lidding his eyes.
He looked at her like that. Determined, intent. Devising plan after plan of how he'd touch her tonight, only to have them fly out of his head when lust overruled him entirely. Anticipation crackled the air between them as she licked her bottom lip and met his eyes, heavy-lidded with fire-starting lust.
Their feet glided across the parquet floor and he lazily pecked her lips again. A tease, to remind her they weren't in bed yet. But they would be soon. His kiss reminded her that, with them, there was always something spectacular to look forward to.
"I'm going to love you forever," he said it huskily. Voice dripping with lust and promise and the agony of a proper commitment after so many months – years.
Her eyes shined with tears as she looked up at him, her forever man.
"I'm going to love you forever," she proudly smiled back at him. Then she started repeating the simple, traditional vows she'd promised to him mere hours ago before God and everyone they loved. "I, Blair Waldorf," she began with a teasing smile.
His face began falling the moment she started saying the words. By the time she was finished he wore a confused frown.
"They mean nothing," he said, perplexed. His eyes searched her features worriedly.
Blair's brows knitted in confusion but thought she must have misunderstood as she looked up into her beloved's dark, soulful eyes. "Of course they do." She curved her index finger down the strong line of his jaw, possessively caressing the bone that would be hers until the end of days. "They're my wedding vows. Two hours ago I promised to love you forever Chuck Bass."
He captured her wrist in a tight grip and drew her hand away from his face, severing the tender moment.
"They're words I wanted to hear, but you said them to him." Blair felt her own heart stop beating, squeeze tight in agony. "Why did you do that when you love me?"
His eyes darkened but this time with bitterness, not lust.
"Those words don't mean anything to you," he accused.
"Chuck!" she exclaimed, horrified by the mere idea. She reached up to peck his lips again. "Don't say that, it's not true."
He reared back before they could kiss, appalled.
"He gave you this," they both looked down to her wedding ring for a fraction of a second.
"No," she denied. "You did, remember?" she cupped his face in her hands so he was forced to look into her eyes. She lovingly caressed him, begging him to recall that day. "We went to Tiffany's together. The second floor. You picked this one out for me, to show how much you love me." Her finger brushed over his knuckles, then to his own wedding ring. "And I picked this one out for you." She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the platinum. "So you know you are mine."
Chuck shook his head disbelievingly.
"It's just metal and stones," he contradicted, choking up as the realisation crashed down on him. "I-I thought once you wore a ring it meant forever and we could finally be happy."
He looked down at her and a sob choked in her own throat as she saw the agony in his eyes.
"You like expensive jewellery, that's all. There's no point," he realised with quiet solemnity as he stared at the expensive trinket. "It's just a thing. You want to be called Princess Blair so you found a way to do it. It's security, on a business transaction. It's not love, it doesn't mean anything to you."
"That's not true!" Blair argued desperately, eyes heating in horror. This ring didn't make her a princess. This ring made her Chuck's.
"You take them off as easily as someone else puts them on," he continued coldly.
They'd stopped dancing now. Chuck stopped moving at all.
"Please don't say that," she begged quietly. "I'll never take it off. I-I've waited too long already to be with you. All I want is to be with you."
His arms dropped away from her and like a wax figure, he was frozen. As the seconds passed, Blair waiting for his reaction, the colour drained from his face and with it the life.
"Chuck," she anxiously reached for his hands.
The ring she'd chosen for him disappeared from around his long familiar finger. Then his fingers lost their strength, the muscle, until all that was left was skin hanging off bone.
She looked up to his face, terrified by what was happening only to find his features slack, waxy with death.
"No, no please," she sobbed quietly, cupping his face and kissing him, desperate to bring him back to life. "Please wake up," she begged him. "We didn't get our life together yet. Chuck."
She frantically kissed his cheeks, his ears, making herself believe that her touch would be magical, could restore life to his stiff features.
"Chuck wake up," she pleaded with him. "We're going to be together," she tried to coax him with the promise of the life she envisioned for them. "We're going to have our honeymoon in Paris, we're going to rule Manhattan and spend summers in the Hamptons and Christmas in Bordeaux. At night we're going to make little Basses. We're going to be happy, I promise. But you need to wake up."
She pressed her head against his still, silent chest.
"Please." She begged softly. The wedding reception around her had ceased its dancing and the guests evaporated one by one. "We barely started," she whispered in a disbelieving sob. A moment later her hands clutched thin air as her brand new husband's corpse disappeared too, a look of desperate unhappiness on his face seared into her mind, the final memory he left her. "No," she couldn't get the final word out.
She woke from her dream with silent tears tracking down her cheeks, already aware that none of it was real. The bed felt cold and empty, though he hadn't warmed it since they were making plans to be together, when Bart was about to be born. Before Louis intervened.
She let herself feel the wretched agony as reality slowly soaked in. Her lover had not died on their dream wedding day. He'd lived twenty-five long years after her first wedding, when she'd begged him to find someone to love him. Instead he'd simply waited. Alone.
Waited for the day she came back to him, that was never to come.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, hoping somewhere he heard her. "I'm so sorry."
xoxo
The night was coming to an end and Bart was finally able to take his bride in his arms again. She effortlessly cradled him, murmuring softly as he sadly settled his forehead in the curve of her neck.
"Your Dad?" she knowingly guessed.
Bart nodded brokenly, lifting only slightly to rest his cheek against hers and squeezing his eyes tight shut.
"On that day," he began, and she didn't need to ask clarification about which day. When he lost consciousness right before he died and Bart was the only one with him.
"He told me I knew nothing about love." He clutched Catherine close to him, breathing in the scent of her hair to steady himself. He was crushing her wedding dress and ruining her coiffure but neither of them cared because in this moment they were just Bart and Catherine, Catherine and Bart.
"I can testify otherwise." Catherine softly soothed.
"Mom said that he had a terrible relationship with his father. That the two of them had just made a little headway when Bart Bass was killed in a car accident."
Catherine closed her eyes and swallowed.
"I never want to hear that again," she softly instructed him. "You, my own Bart Bass, are not to die in a car accident. Understood?"
He nodded, smiling self-deprecatingly. The brief smile fell away quickly though.
"Am I doomed to be like them?" he begged her, desperate to hear her reassurance that he wasn't another condemned male heir in the doomed Bass line.
Catherine's arms traced his back gently. "You," she hushed him. "Will stay by my side for many decades to come. You will keep me fat with our children as often as I see fit. You will raise them until they are more than fully grown. And you will not die until they are bouncing their own grandchildren on their knees. I decree it."
He smirked, liking the idea of her full and round with his fruit, season after season. And if only to keep himself from falling apart, he focused on that. The perfect vision of the perfect future he would live to the full with his other.
Something no Bass had been able to achieve since the last great war.