Ever since he was sixteen, Chuck had known that no day would ever go by without an argument with Blair, whether a playful bicker or a screaming match. He used to live for the bite he heard in her voice whenever she spoke to him, dreamed of the way her eyes darkened when she scolded him, memorised the patterns her hands made over his body when lust warred with frustration. Seven years later, he preferred her smiling, her body curled against his, but that didn't mean he couldn't relish her anger on occasion.
In the past two weeks, though, they'd had blazing arguments every day, none of them resolved, the tension building around them. He felt like she was pushing him, and he pushed back because that's all he'd ever done. Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck: together they were a nuclear bomb – one that fit undeniably and could never be broken apart.
At least, that's what he'd thought.
Now, he was sitting in his office at Bass Industries, supposedly looking over plans to expand the Empire even further. In reality, his mind was on his wife.
That morning, he'd woken up and stretched his arm over the other side of the bed only to be greeted by the cold absence of Blair's body, like it was a living thing sucking in the heat. He'd found her curled up on a chair in their living room, staring solemnly out of the window over their kingdom. She hadn't even glanced at him as he entered. Over the next hour, in between getting ready for work, he'd tried again and again to get her to talk, had even resulted to begging. One of the reasons he loved her was her stubbornness, but he cursed it as she turned to him, on his knees in front of her, and said, "Please just go, Chuck."
He left. Every cell in his body was screaming at him not to, but he recognised the hollowness in her voice and knew that whatever was on her mind was hers alone to face. She'd come to him when she was ready; she always did.
Still, as he stared at the screen in front of him, he wished it was her face he was looking in to.
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. He glanced up as the door opened to reveal his assistant, Peter, wearing a grim expression and carrying a manila folder.
Chuck raised a hand to his temple, massaging the skin. "Please don't tell me you're here because Jack has finally managed to bankrupt Bass Australia."
Peter cleared his throat, staring at his shoes. He shuffled towards the desk, almost causing Chuck to snap his fingers impatiently. "I've had Arthur bring the car around," Peter mumbled as he passed the folder to his boss before hurrying out of the door.
Eyebrows furrowed, Chuck flipped the folder open. The bold letters on the front page burned themselves onto his retinas. He barely took the time to scan the rest of the page in disbelief before he pushed his chair back and shot out of the room.
"Divorce papers?" he shouted as he stormed into their apartment. As he'd predicted, Blair hadn't moved from the chair she'd been occupying the last time he saw her, although now her phone lay guiltily on the armrest.
She met his eye but remained silent.
"Are you mad? Certifiably insane?" he asked, voice nearly breaking. He stalked across the room and sat on the coffee table in front of her. His gaze was drawn to the bags under her eyes. Her face was usually an open book; it was disconcerting for him not to be able to tell her feelings just by watching her.
She bit her lip. "I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe."
His heart was racing, but he forced himself to breathe evenly, his mind taking him back to that fateful night she'd told him she was marrying a man that wasn't him. He'd lost his temper then, on one of the worst nights of his life, but things were different now. Things were better now. "Talk to me, Blair."
Her head shook. His eyes followed the movement from left to right and back again. She took a shuddering breath, raised her hands to her face. "I can't."
"Whatever it is, I'm here," he promised. "I haven't signed the papers yet." Her shoulders lifted up once, and dropped back down, which he took as a laugh. "And I never will."
A sob emanated from beneath her hands, and Chuck leaned forwards to grasp them. He drew her hands back until their arms rested on their knees, interlocked hands between them.
"Blair." He said her name as one might say a final prayer. "It's me, it's Chuck. You can tell me anything." She did nothing but stare at their hands. He tried again. "What was it you said to me in senior year? The first time you told me you loved me."
She met his eyes and held his gaze for as long as she could stand without blinking. As he looked back, he thought he saw something in her eyes change. "The darkest thought you've ever had…"
"I'll stand by you through anything."
Blair sighed, and tried to pull her hands away but Chuck held them tight. "I don't want a divorce," she whispered.
His heart did not stop trying to thump through his chest. He'd known all along that she was using the threat of the papers to avoid talking about the actual issue. Willing her to continue, he stroked the palms of her hands with his thumbs.
"We've been arguing so much lately," she said.
He wondered how long she was going to skirt around the issue before telling him what was really on her mind. "You wanted a divorce over something we've done every day since we met?"
She looked away, focusing her gaze on the floor. "It's not –" she began. She took a deep breath, exhaled through her nose. "Stress is bad for the baby."
As if he'd been slapped, Chuck reeled backwards. Blair seized on his lack of control and freed her hands, letting them fall limply to her side. "The baby?" he managed to force out.
Her nod gathered any shattered pieces of his heart that she alone hadn't been able to mend and fixed them back together. He shot forward and cupped her face with his hands. "Our… our baby…" he breathed, touching his forehead to hers.
She sucked in a breath before placing her hands on his chest and pushing him away. Even though he stepped back, the grin remained on his face. Her hands rested on her belly, where their baby was nestled. A tear slipped down her face, effectively erasing the smile from his face. Gently, he wiped it away, and then he grabbed her hands and pulled her out of the chair. He pressed his lips to her cheek where the tear had been seconds before. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so scared."
"Don't be sorry," he told her, sitting down on the chair and pulling her on top of him. She curled into him, reminding him how delicate she was despite her fiery exterior. "But next time you're scared, don't completely petrify me by getting divorce papers sent to my office."
She leaned her head in the space between his shoulder and collarbone. "I convinced myself it was the best way."
"How could that have ever been the best way?" he asked, hurt.
When she closed her eyes before speaking, he knew the next thing he was going to hear was her darkest thought. "When I was pregnant with Louis' baby" – Chuck put his arms around his wife, holding her close - "I realised I loved you, and then we were in that car crash, and I nearly lost everything. That baby…" her voice broke into a sob. When he tried to quieten her, she shook him off. He understood her need to say the truth, after all this time. "That baby was going to be ours, we were going to raise it together, but we'll never know if it was a boy or a girl and it was all taken away because I loved you."
Chuck placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face up so she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. "Listen to me, Blair: that car crash wasn't your fault, your miscarriage didn't happen because you loved me. We'll tell our baby about its older sibling and the heroic story of the dastardly handsome man who stole their mother away from her fairy-tale prince."
One of Blair's hands reached up to Chuck's head and began playing with the strands of hair above his left ear. She was starting to believe him, he could tell, but there was still some doubt hiding beneath. "But what if –"
"No buts," he said firmly. "I know you believe in fate, and I believe it was our fate to end up together, but sometimes terrible things happen for no reason, and we can let them drag us into the darkness or we can let them make us stronger."
Another tear fell from her eyes, followed by a third and a fourth. He kissed each of them away. "When did you get so wise, Bass?" she whispered once the tears had stopped.
He remembered years ago when she'd knelt next to a broken version of himself in a hospital corridor and told him he was strong. "About the time I started listening to you."
The ghost of a smile appeared on her face. "It's been driving me crazy for a fortnight, just thinking of everything that could go wrong."
"You've known for two weeks?" The thought of Blair thinking these things with no-one there to ease her pain made his heart constrict painfully.
She sighed. "I should have told you."
That explained why they'd been arguing more; she'd been pushing him away because she was terrified that the past would repeat itself. "Should have, yes, but you never would've done. This is exactly like the time you married Louis because you thought something terrible would happen to me because of your deal with God, when Bart actually turned out to be our saviour." He paused to regain control over his thoughts as they strayed towards his father. A knot formed in his stomach, setting him on edge. Blair pressed her lips to his neck, grounding him. "We are always better together, Blair Bass. There are no forces bent on keeping us apart and unhappy, it's only you, me and our baby."
Blair sniffed. "How is it that you always manage to say the right thing?"
He turned his head to kiss her temple. Her smile, now broad and alive, was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "You'd be able to attest to the fact I've had a lot of practise in saying the wrong things."
She made a noise of agreement. "You're not going to need any practice to be a great father, though."
With that, the knot in his stomach unravelled. He settled back in the chair and ran his fingers down the length of her arm, tracing patterns there. She leaned into his touch, and he wanted he could stay like that forever. "How is it that you always manage to say the right thing?"
A/N: so this is the only non-HP fanfiction I've ever written, so let me know how you think it was! Thanks for reading! xoxo