Title: "Teach Your Children"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Lily
Spoiler: "You've Got Yale!"
Length: one-shot
Summary: Lily loses a husband but gains a son and in the process finds herself.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author's Note: Per usual, I should be doing other things (like my job!) but can't stop writing fic. BSG is starting up again and I'm supposed to be working on my unfinished opus, but somehow GG keeps taking precedence. Title, breaks, and cut courtesy of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Enjoy.
I. Teach your children well. Their father's hell did slowly go by.
On the first night, Charles' bags arrive without him.
There's no note and no call and Lily has never wondered where her children are when they're not with her, but she knows about Thailand and the roof (and Jack and his hands around her throat are fresh on her mind) and she's on the verge of calling the police when he strolls through her door without a care in the world.
His tie is loose and his hair is falling in messily across forehead and Chuck Bass in the aftermath of a three day bender might have been okay under Bart's roof but it's not okay under hers. At least not anymore. She didn't see it but heard in perfect detail how the boy who's now her son almost face planted on Rivington and she doesn't think she can take another six months of late nights and bated breath while waiting for another phone to ring.
"Where have you been?" she asks and tries to keep the annoyance out of her voice because she can't take him running again.
He seems surprised to see her, jerks a little on surprisingly steady feet, and pushes his hair back from his face. "Out," is all he says, head held high, shoulders braced against the onslaught he expects to rage from her mouth.
She doesn't demand more but she doesn't have to be okay with it either. "Charles," she starts and watches his chin drop, his shoulders soften a quarter of an inch. She wants to phrase this just right. She already lost Bart forever; she can't take losing him too. "It's three in the morning and it's a school night. I know you've been living on your own for a long time now, but we have rules here."
They don't have rules, but he's never lived in the Penthouse enough to know that. She thinks she'd like to have rules though, boundaries her children know better than to cross. She doesn't like the way this feels (like that night after Eric she doesn't want to remember), all the worry and fear piled hard upon her heart. "On school nights, you're home by midnight; on weekends, you call if you're not coming back. Understood?"
He looks shocked, maybe even appalled, and she half expects, "...but I'm Chuck Bass..." to serve as his defense, but he just nods and moves to the minibar. "Your house, your rules," he says and pours himself a scotch.
"Charles…" she starts because it's still three in the morning and a school night and he's still drinking.
"Lily," he interrupts and drags the tumbler to his lips. "Let's take it one step at a time, shall we?"
"It's still a school night," she protests but he's done with the conversation.
"Good night," he says as he drifts to the stairs.
He leaves the tumbler on the bar; it's still half full.
~ * ~
By the second week he doesn't leave his room.
He's back at school but tired of the world and the door stays closed the moment he's free to escape them both. She sees him in passing – a towel slung around his neck in route to the shower, a school bag hanging from his shoulder in the early morning – for thirty seconds and never more. He won't talk to her and he won't spend time with them, but he's whole and he's alive. She doesn't press for more.
She invites him to dinner once, twice, even four times and keeps trying no matter how many times he turns her down. She sets a place for him, between the two people that matter most in her world. He doesn't come but she doesn't give up. The seat is there for him every night.
She worries, about the closed door and the son who's hidden himself away from the rest of the world, and she knows her children feel it too. None of them can take their eyes from the empty seat at their table.
Charles has just become her son but he's always been Eric's brother and he's the one to push through, a determined expression on his face and a tray balanced precariously in his hands.
She doesn't try that night and makes small talk at Serena, discusses the dress she'll wear to tea at her Brown interview in the coming week, and avoids counting the seconds until Eric comes back down, sadness in his eyes and a crumpled expression lining his face.
It doesn't happen, and when she wakes in the morning, there are two sets of dishes piled in her sink.
~ * ~
In the third week he joins them for dinner and slips into the seat she's had Trudy lay out every night since he moved home, and he's only one more person (and not a very big one at that) but the table seems crowded. She doesn't mind; she doesn't miss the hole where he used to be.
He doesn't say a word beyond "pass the potatoes," but his eyes never stop watching them, absorbing their conversation from the outside looking in.
When the meal is over they scatter to their separate corners – a date with Dan, history homework, dessert with Rufus – but he lingers at the table, eyes never leaving the four empty plates and four empty glasses and three empty chairs.
"Thank you for joining us," she says and bends to lay a kiss on top of his dark hair. He flinches, but he doesn't push her away.
She smiles as she sails out the door. It's a start.
---
II. Feed them on your dreams.
Her husband dies and her life is hers to live again.
There's no longer a risk of family embarrassment, skeletons locked in a long-forgotten closet, and she can do what she wants and say what she wants without risk. She'd forgotten the feeling; she didn't even realize she missed it.
She pulls the Mapplethorpe out of storage and hangs it over her bed. She knows it's tacky (she isn't a well-bred debutante for nothing) and it comes down the next day but she likes waking up to a younger version of herself, all soft curves and wide eyes, before Klaus (with a K) and Claus (with a C) and Bart and all the rest turned her life into anything except the one she intended it to be.
She remembers the day the photo was shot, the cold air blowing across her skin and the goose bumps popping up everywhere she was bare (which was *everywhere*) and the way Robert tilted her chin and looked in her eyes and told her she was beautiful. She'd believed him.
Sometimes, she still does.
Her body isn't the same (she's had three children and she's over forty years old) but it's still hers. It's still going. She can do anything she wants with it now.
The morning she has Bex return the photo to storage, locks away the proud, bold girl she used to be, she digs her camera from the bottom of her closet. It's out of shape and she's out of practice, but it's like riding a bike, the way her fingers slides into the grooves and linger over the shutter.
Her hair is wet and there isn't a speck of make up on her face but she sets the timer anyway. This is the new her, her new life, and she doesn't feel like wearing her usual mask.
It's a self-portrait and it's not perfect. It's dark in the wrong places and light in the right ones but she doesn't mind. The real her is flawed; she's learning to like the person she is now.
~ * ~
Rufus laughs when she shows up at the gallery with a roll of film and the mouth she shares with Eric frozen in a determined line.
"Lil," he says against her lips. "What do you have for me?"
He's older too and there's a touch of gray at his temples and lines fanning from his mouth, but his eyes are still dark and warm and can't let her out of their sight, and it gives her the courage to press her prints into his hand.
"I thought this gallery could use a touch of class," she says with smirk and follows him to the bar.
She peers over his shoulder as he flips through her work and the nerves in her chest flame and burn as the seconds tick and he doesn't utter a word. "They're all of you," he finally says and turns to face her, a lock of dark hair falling across his brow. "You're smiling in all of them," he adds and can't keep his own smile from creeping across his face. "I've never seen you happier.
"New year, new life," she says and brushes his hair off his face even as it stubbornly falls back across his brow. "You're part of the reason why. I wanted to show you that." It takes a moment's pause before she can say the next part. "I think I want to show everyone."
"You want a show here?" he asks. She can see the uncertainty in his eyes, because the last time his girl took over his gallery it ended in divorce. "It would mean critics, writers, random strangers picking apart your work. Are you ready for that?"
She's never been ready for anything, not the baby she gave away or the babies she kept or the marriages she started but couldn't finish or the night she kissed him one last time and said goodbye, but it's never stopped her before. She's always been a Rhodes; she's always known how to play the part. But this Rufus and he's always seen right through her and he recognizes the fear in her smile; he takes her hand and she knows he'll help her through it. "I'm tired of hiding," she says. "I gave this up because it's what my mother wanted me to do. I wasn't strong enough twenty years ago. I'm ready now."
He brings her hand to his lips and presses a butterfly kiss to the back. "I'll help you. Whatever you need, I'm here for you."
She kisses him a thank you, open mouthed and a little wild, and hopes he can still read between the lines to know she's there for him too.
~ * ~
The show is a success.
Rufus doesn't know anyone famous but Lily does and with a few well-placed phone calls there are more press swarming the Bedford Avenue Gallery than all other shows combined.
Rufus is at her side almost constantly, while she thanks her friends for coming or talks to the press, a united front, just the way she's always wanted.
Eric spends most of the night huddled in a corner with Jenny and Jonathan, and Serena presses a breezy kiss to her cheek and murmurs "congratulations" between sips of chardonnay. She knows Dan is there somewhere and she should be wondering why he isn't hovering around her daughter, but it's her night and her time to shine and all she can focus on is the way Rufus' hand lingers on her hip and his shoulder presses warmly against her back. She's fallen twenty years into the past and finally gotten it right in the present.
Charles makes an appearance towards the end of the night, hair neatly combed and jacket stiffly pressed, but there's something blank in his eyes that takes her back twenty years into the past. She's twenty years old and the fit of her dress is loose at the waist to hide her mistake while she stands up for her sister as she marries the man of her dreams and wears a smile that never reaches the gaping emptiness in her eyes. Sometimes, twenty years into the future, her smile still doesn't quite reach her eyes.
He hovers near the guestbook and doesn't make a move for Eric or the bar, and the minutes tick by and he stands rooted in place and that gnawing feeling takes root again in her chest.
She murmurs an "excuse me" and detangles from Rufus to approach her son. "Charles," she says. "Thank you so much for coming." This time, when she lays a hand on his shoulder, he doesn't even flinch.
"Congratulations," he says and the emptiness in his tone rivals the look in his eyes. "You're quite a success."
"Thank you," she returns, and glances around the packed room, looks left and right and circles back to him. "It means a lot to me that you're here.
Something lights up in his eyes and passes so quickly she thinks she imagines it but he smiles, just a thin, slight curve of his lips, and in that moment it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. "Family is supposed to support family, right?" he asks and she nods because she suddenly loses the ability to speak.
He disappears into the crowd, to find Eric or brood over Blair, and it takes a moment to slip her mask back into place.
There's a photo behind her, mounted above the guestbook, a recent picture she took with her camera and it's no different than the rest: slightly blurry, out of focus, the wrong mix of black and white but right in the way it captures four faces (the two children she carried beneath her heart, the one she's learning to open her heart to, herself). Charles isn't smiling but he's standing beside them, arm wrapped tight around Eric, Serena's hair draped over one of his shoulders. He's dark where they're light and girm where they're grinning, but he looks like he belongs.
She glances up and he's right across the room, talking with her son and laughing with her daughter, but his eyes never leave the photo of his family.
---
III. You, of the tenders years, can't know the fears that your elders grew by.
As it turns out, running Bass Industries isn't an afterschool job. It's not a part time job either, and her days fill with more paperwork and meetings and less time for photography. She thought she'd mind; she's surprised when she doesn't.
She sits in her husband's empty chair and fills it with her ideas, her thoughts, her opinions. Hers, hers, hers. The board listens when she speaks and asks questions when they need instruction and turns their eyes to her for guidance.
Her children are grown, have been taking care of themselves their whole lives, and running a company is a learning curve she's not prepared for. She stumbles in the early days but there people there to catch her before she falls and it slowly gets easier.
She arrives before nine and leaves after dark, but she's always home for dinner. Eric usually joins her and Serena drops in most Mondays and Thursday. Sometimes, she even has all her children at her table together; those are her favorite nights.
It's Rufus who bears the brunt of her new life. She inherits a secretary and two assistants and they micromanage her days into lunches and billable hours, and she has an afternoon once a week when she can lock herself in the darkroom and disappear into a world of her own making.
She doesn't need a secretary to allot him the dark recesses of the night, at his place or hers, and it's always gone too fast and over too soon but they make it work. She likes waking with his arm draped over her stomach and his mouth pressing kisses against the back of her neck. He just likes waking beside her.
They're careful, even though the gossips rags have moved on, because their children haven't. They don't say anything anymore, but she can see the disgust in their eyes and the awkward tension that fills the room every time Rufus clasps her hand in his.
She creeps from the loft when it's still dark and he slips from the penthouse when the sun is just breaking through the sky. The kids know they're together and what they're doing, but they don't have to see it any longer. Out of sight, out of mind – it's the only way.
Jenny catches her once, on the way to early morning choir practice, and she's always been the dreamer of the group so she rolls her eyes and reminds them to use protection before ducking under her father's arm and out the door; Lily thinks their mouths hang open in shock for a full minute before they burst into hysterical giggles and Rufus mumbles something about "the mouths of babes."
She feels young again, loose and free, and forgets the new lines on her face and the slight sag in her belly, and when she closes her eyes and breathes Rufus there's no baby and no unhappy ending and no mother asking her to choose between what she wants and what she needs.
She can't let go but her youth ended twenty years ago; like all good this one has to end.
~ * ~
Charles walks in on them and it's the beginning of the end even though it just started. Eric is at Jenny's and Serena is at Blair's and Charles is never home before midnight, and when they can't make it upstairs and she's half naked against the wall, she stops caring that a child could walk in at any second and loses herself in the moment.
It's the wrong moment to give up control and he doesn't say a word but she can feel those dark eyes boring into her as he stalks past them and up the stairs. She doesn't have to meet his stare to know the sadness that lurks there.
Rufus tilts her chin and gazes at her with his own brown eyes, but they don't hold the same warmth. His hand at her waist doesn't hold her up; it holds her back. The moment is over and there's no way to get it back.
She kisses him goodnight and for the first time she tastes regret.
~ * ~
Charles is gone the next morning.
He doesn't call and he doesn't leave a note and she's on the verge of calling the police even though she knows it won't help. She can't sleep and she can barely work and every breath she takes lodges an ache in her chest from the mountain of worry piled upon her heart. She's stronger than she ever was, but she's not sure how much more she can take. Loving a child was never supposed to be this hard.
Eric calls everyone he knows and Serena puts a blast on something called "Gossip Girl" but no one's seen or heard hide or hair of the boy that's now her son. There's bile in her throat as her fingers dial the number, but she calls Andrew Tyler and puts him on the case. She hates the man but he's the best there is; she won't rest until there are three children sleeping under her roof. He agrees to try but makes no promises; the Bass men don't come with happy endings.
A day goes by and then another, and on the third Blair Waldorf is sitting in her foyer when she comes back from the office she holds for him. Her outfit is lovely, her hair is perfect, her makeup is impeccable, but no mask can hide the red-rimmed eyes or the way her hands shake as she raises a cup of tea to her lips.
"I know how to find him," she says.
She smiles thinly and sips her own tea. "Thank you, Blair, but I have it under control. Andrew Tyler is the best PI there is. If anyone can find Charles, it's him."
The teacup rattles in its saucer as Blair sets it on the table, and she smoothes a skirt devoid of wrinkles before taking a deep breath. "With all due respect, Lily, you're wrong. He doesn't need a stranger. He needs his family. That can't be me. I've tried to be that for him, but he needs more. He needs *you* to find him."
It takes her a moment to respond, to heave the pain from her chest and push words from her mouth. "I don't even know where to start."
"I do," Blair says and pushes a piece of paper across the coffee table. She looks on the verge of tears but she holds her head high and blinks. "He isn't running, Lily, not really. He just can't be here. You'll find him there. I promise."
On the night before she set this life in motion, Blair begged her to be a mother to her daughter. Her words echo in her ears, "I'm out of my league here. I can't do any more than I've done and it's not enough. She needs you."
Her daughter needed her and she was there; she has to do the same for her son.
~ *~
He's exactly where Blair said he'd be and he is jaw is stubbled and his hair hasn't been washed in almost a week, but he's whole and he's alive and even though he smells she can't stop herself from wrapping him in a giant bear hug. He stiffens, just for a moment, before relaxing into her arms, head resting on her shoulder like her babies almost two decades earlier.
She pulls back and brushes dirty hair from his brow and smiles because she's so happy to see him. "Let's go home," she says and doesn't bother to mask the hitch in her voice; she doesn't hide the tears threatening to spill from her eyes either.
He doesn't say anything but his eyes are wet and his mouth trembles and he nods to let her know there's nothing he wants more.
~ * ~
The flight back from Monaco isn't long and Charles sleeps for most of it. She lets him. They have to talk about what happened, how he scared her half to death and broke every rule she worked so hard to enforce, but not now, not yet, not until she prevents it from happening again.
Work doesn't take a vacation just because the heir apparent does, and she brings some of Bart's files as reading materials. Their long and dense and not particularly interesting, but they keep her mind off the task at hand. She thumbs through his mission statement for Bass Industries and the proposal for the first loan he took out to build his first building and buried underneath a lifetime of paperwork is something called "Charlie Trout."
She's barely read a page before she realizes who the story is about; she doesn't have to read more to figure out how the story goes; she won't read it at all because she knows she can change how the story ends.
~ * ~
The penthouse is empty when she brings Charles home and she lets him shower and changes her own clothes before she sits him down to have the talk she's never had with either of her other children.
His hair is wet and he's wearing plaid pajamas and he looks about five-years-old. He won't smile and he won't meet her eyes and she's having trouble staying angry at him when he looks so pathetic.
"Charles," she starts and it's only when the lecture pauses on the tip of her tongue that she realizes she was never angry at him at all. She's always been honest with Serena and Eric; she has to try the same strategy with him. "Do you realize that you scared me half to death?"
"I'm sorry," he says and he sounds sorry but his eyes are still locked on the ground. "I didn't mean to worry you."
"You can't run away every time you're upset about something. You can't keep doing this to me." It's unspoken that she's talking about Bangkok and the Victrola roof and every time he's come home just short of midnight and she's been waiting for him with her hands clasped and her heart practically beating through her chest.
"It won't happen again."
He finally lifts his eyes to meet hers and there's so much pain there it makes her breath catch in her throat. It's not about her. It never was. "Charles," she starts. "Is this about Rufus?"
"It's your life, Lily," he says. "I can't stop you from seeing who you want." His voice is a monotone but his eyes tell a different story. Something angry and bitter flashes in their dark depths, and they focus on a point over her shoulder.
"You already knew that we were seeing each other. You've even spent time with him. What possessed you to run away?"
It takes him a moment to respond and when he does there's no mistaking the rage burning in his eyes. "This is my father's house, Lily. It's the only place I've ever called home. It's one thing for you to move on with your life; it's another for it to happen here."
"This is my home too," she defends herself but her voice is too weak to stand up to his and it's not much of an excuse.
He laughs harshly and gestures around the penthouse. "This is only your home because my father let you in. His death was an accident. I understand that. I'm working on accepting it. I wont' accept you fucking Rufus Humphrey against the walls of a house my father built. What do you think you're doing, Lily? Who are you trying to fool?"
"I've waited twenty years," she says softly. "I deserve to be happy."
When he looks into her eyes again the rage is gone and the sadness has returned. "We don't always get what we want."
She could tell him he's wrong. She could tell him that she's the boss. She could tell him that it's her house and her rules and he doesn't have a say in how she lives her life. Except in his flannel pajamas and bare feet and damp hair falling messily over his brow, she's reminded that he's a just a boy and she's the adult and she has to step up to the plate in ways she never has in the past.
"I know I want you," she says and reaches out to lay her hand on his knee. "I want you here, with us. You're my child, Charles, just as much as Serena or Eric. We all want you here."
As if by magic the elevator doors spill open and the children she carried beneath her heart spill into the living room. Eric takes on look at his newly returned brother and a smile lights up his face (a smile she hasn't seen since that night she wished never happened).
"You're back," he says and she can't remember the last time she heard such happiness in her son's voice. It's uncharacteristic of Eric but he practically runs the distance to the couch and throws his arms around his brother. "I'm so happy you're home."
Serena is the one to approach cautiously. "Hi, Chuck," she says and there's a wary smile curving her lips. "I hope you know how worried my mom was about you." She pauses, takes step closer, and the smile changes into something relieved and hopeful. "We were all really worried about you."
Lily watches in disbelief as Serena joins Eric and can hardly believe her eyes when Charles relaxes within their embrace and reaches up to join the hug. "Mom," Eric says. "You're needed over here."
She holds them all close, all the children she carries inside her heart. "Welcome home," she whispers into his ear and feels his arms tighten around the Van der Woodsens holding him close.
She can't let this moment slip away; she understands the sacrifices she has to make.
~ * ~
It's always hard walking away from Rufus but it's easier the third time.
She won't meet him at the penthouse and can't meet him at the gallery and they settle on a coffee shop in West Village neither is embarrassed to step foot inside.
He always knows her better than she thinks he does, and from the moment he looks into her eyes he knows what's coming.
"I can't do this anymore," she says and struggles to keep her voice steady; after twenty years and two practice sessions, it's not much of a fight.
"Lil," he sighs. "I thought we worked through this. The kids know and it's awkward but they're okay with us together." He reaches across the table and takes her hand. "They want us to be happy."
"I want them to be happy too. Charles ran away after he caught us together. I can't lose him again, Rufus. "
Rufus stares at her, unblinking and non-reactive except for the humorless smile curving his lips. "You're dumping me for Chuck Bass."
She tries her best to smile to make him see, read between the lines the way he always has in the past, but he's not getting it. "I'm ending things because my son tried to kill himself a year ago and I've done nothing but bounce from man to man since. I'm ending things because my daughter is applying to college and starting a new life and I barely know here. I'm ending things because I have a new son I barely understand but needs me just as much. Rufus, you once told me that being a father is who you are. You begged me not to take that away from you. I have to do the same. For twenty years I've loved my children but they've never come first."
He stares at her unblinking, the smile never leaving his face. "I can't keep doing this, Lily," he finally says. "I can't wait forever."
She wants to beg him to change his mind, to explain that she loves him and always had but the time isn't right. She has a company to run and children to raise and there isn't room in her life for him. She wants to tell him that it will change, that one day Eric will be whole again and Serena will find a permanent path and she'll hand over the reins of the company Charles entrusts her to run and it will *finally* be their time. "I don't expect you to," is all she says instead because she loves him enough to want him to find his own happiness and save his own children the way she's determined to save hers. "I want you to be happy, Rufus, even if it's not with me."
He squeezes her hand once more and she feels the love flow through and reads between the lines to know he'll never love another woman the way he loves her but he won't put his life on hold either. "I'll always love you, Lil," he says and he's had enough practice too because his voice doesn't crack and the tears don't flow and he mostly looks like he's been expecting this day to come.
"Take care of yourself," she says and gets up from the table before the tears start to flow.
It hurts more than she thought it would and she knows this is the last time. She can't survive walking out of his life again.
---
IV. Teach your parents well. Their children's hell will slowly go by.
Charles doesn't take back the company at eighteen. He has the drive but lacks the skills and follows in his father's footsteps to take his place as a freshman at Harvard. It was a fight to get him in, but Bass Industries has a lot of weight (the hard, gold kind) behind it and when the Bartholomew Bass Center for Business Administration is a done deal, his son's admission is a guarantee.
College is good for him. It's good for Serena too. She studies drama and writing and takes a random photography class one day and comes home for winter break her sophomore year with a role of black and white candids. They're crisp and clear, the right amount of light and shadow, but they're missing something; when she looks at her daughter's photos she doesn't feel like she's falling into someone else's life.
"I think I want to be a photographer, Mom," Serena says while Lily flips through various versions of Providence. "I like being on the outside and looking in, but I'm not doing it right. Do you think you could show me how?"
The only things Serena has ever asked her for were advice about clothes and hair and jewels, but this is her daughter's life. It could be her future, right here in her hands, and she knows it's the most important question she's ever asked her. "Of course," she says and she's no longer surprised when her eyes mist and something catches in her voice when she talks with her children. "I'll teach you everything I know."
They spend Christmas and New Years and half of January touring New York and working in the darkroom. Serena shows her bars and galleries and little vintage shops she never new existed; she shows her daughter how to capture emotions people don't even know they're feeling. She doesn't take any photos of herself. She's a mother but she's still a woman and there are always things she needs to hide.
"Thank you, Mom," Serena says the night before she goes back to Brown. "I think this is the best vacation I've ever had."
She wraps her in her arms and Lily breathes in the scent of her hair and feels the softness of her cheek against her own and for a moment her daughter is six months old rather than almost twenty. There are so many things she would have done differently, so many decisions she would have changed, but the past is the past and there's no way around it except to move forward. Her daughter is whole and alive and loves her. She maybe even trusts her too. It may be too late but it's not too little. It's just right.
"I love you, baby," she whispers to her daughter and it's something she's rarely said but always meant and she can't believe it's taken her this long to realize it.
"I love you too," her daughter says and she doesn't bother hiding the tears spilling down her cheeks.
Serena returns to school and sends her a photo once a week. She's smiling in every one.
~ * ~
Eric has perfect grades and could go to any school in the world but he chooses one in the city he's called home his entire life.
"NYU?" Lily says one night over dinner. "It's a fine school, Eric, but you can do better. Why not Columbia? At least it's in the Ivy League."
He shrugs, a near perfect imitation of Charles, and turns back to his food. "It has a better drama department."
"Eric," she sighs. "You don't even like acting. It's always been Jenny's thing and you're too good a friend to tell her you don't care if Edith Head or Patricia Field designed the costumes. What's really going on?"
His expression goes blank in a way that's so much like his sister's she has to wonder about Serena's hand in all this. "I don't want to leave New York. You gave up everything to take care of us, Mom. It's my turn to take care of you."
It's her turn to lose the ability to speak and all she can manage is an exasperated, "Eric!"
"NYU is a good school, Mom. I'm going to study business so I can help you and Chuck at Bass Industries. I know you'll never admit it but you broke up with Rufus for us and you've been alone ever since. I'm not leaving you."
"I broke up with Rufus for me," she says and it's the first time she's said the words out loud but it doesn't make them any less true. "I broke up with him because I'd spent twenty years running away and refusing to look at what was right in front of me. You're my child, Eric. It was never a choice."
"You're my mother," he says in return. "It's not a choice either."
He goes to NYU and studies business and he calls her once a week and tells her stories she's heard from Serena and Charles for the last two years. He lives his own life and makes his own decisions and is just a regular college student trying to figure things out.
Every Sunday, like clockwork, he joins her for dinner. Leaving Rufus is never a choice she regrets making.
~ * ~
Charles graduates at twenty-two and Lily turns his inheritance over to him. He's studied business for four years and spent every summer learning the ropes, and he's not ready but it's the right time.
Lily stands behind him when the decision is announced to the press and she can't keep the smile off her face as he handles the questions with poise and fills shoes he never thought should be his but were never meant for anyone else.
There's a party to celebrate the changing of the guard and everyone who's anyone is invited. Everything has changed but some things remain the same.
Charles is supposed to give a speech and as the time nears he's no where to be found. Blair Waldorf is there and she has eyes only for him, and all it takes is seeing her for Lily to remember the lesson she learned five years ago and she knows where her son is without even trying.
The night is warm but there's a breeze and the moon rises high and full over the city Bart loved.
"I hope you're ready," she says and her voice is light but the meaning is heavy. She's given up everything to get him to this moment and he'd better take it.
His hair is shorter and his face is older but in the moonlight he still looks about five years old. "I don't have a choice," he says. "It's what my father wanted. It's my last chance to make him proud."
Five years ago, she would have given a long speech about how much Bart loved him but couldn't show him, but they're past those kinds of moments. Bart is dead and his son lived and it's the actions that count. He believed in his son enough to give him everything he ever was; now it's Charles turn to believe his father was right. "You're going to be wonderful," she says and stands beside him at the rail. "It's not easy in the beginning, but you'll learn. The board believes in you. *I* believe in you. We're ready to help you stay afloat."
"I just wish my father was here to see it."
Her response isn't original but it's the only appropriate thing to say. "He knows, Charles. Even if he can't see it he didn't leave you his legacy by chance. He left it to you because he knows you're the right person for the job."
He turns away from the rail, away from the city his father helped build, and looks her straight in the eye. "Thank you, Lily. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you."
She smiles, ruffles his hair. "I'm your mother, Charles. It's my job to help you live your dreams."
"You didn't have to. I'm not your blood. You have two children who are, two children who didn't mind the men you dated or the way you lived your life. You gave up everything for me. I have billions of dollars, but I can't repay that. I don't know how."
It's one of those moments of reckoning, moments she'd run from before him and faced head on in the years since him, and now there's no escape. "You know Serena isn't my firstborn," she says and ignores the pain pressing on her chest as she relives the most painful moment of her life; after five years, she's used to the weight. "Every day since I gave my son away I've searched for ways to fill that hole in my life. I got married and had babies and even fell in love, but it was never enough. I wouldn't let it be enough. Nothing can replace the child I lost but that shouldn't stop me from doing right by the children I still have. You brought us together, Charles. So thank you, for saving us."
She leans in to kiss his cheek and it's hot and wet and she can see the moisture glistening in his eyes.
When he gives his speech, he dedicates it all to her.
---
V. Just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
Five more years pass. Serena and Dan don't get married; she and Rufus don't get back together.
Charles is the one to settle down first and he's twenty-seven when Blair Waldorf makes an honest man out of him.
High school sweethearts are usually the story of movies starring Julia Roberts, but she watches them on the dance floor and can't imagine either of them with anyone else. Across the room Serena is wrapped up in Carter Baizen and Eric has Eleanor and Cyrus' daughter balanced on his toes and the smiles curving their mouths are so big and bright she's surprised their faces aren't cracking.
They're at different phases of their lives, living with different people and doing different things, but they all have one thing in common; for the first time in almost ten years she's jealous of the happiness on her children's faces.
Enough time has passed; she can have that happiness for herself.
~ * ~
She isn't the same person who first showed up in Williamsburg a decade ago because her daughter was dating his son and it might make her life difficult.
Her children are grown (for real this time) and their futures are theirs for the taking and they need her but not in the same way. Chuck and Eric have Bass Industries and Serena has photography and she has her memories. Her life hasn't been hers to live in ten years; she isn't sure what she's supposed to do with it anymore.
There are no more articles about Lincoln Hawk but "Rolling Stone" puts out a collectors' edition of best live photographs and she opens her mail one morning to greet Rufus at nineteen.
His face is so young and his eyes are too full of hope and she tries to remember the night she took the photo. Thirty years have past and it's clear as yesterday, the way the lights flashed and the music flowed through her and she'd loved him so much she thought she'd collapse from the weight of it. If she's still honest with herself, she can admit the feelings never really went away. Ten years and three children and he's always been first in her heart.
He told her he wouldn't wait but she has to try. If she's learned anything from the hand she's been dealt it's that the choices she makes define the life she lives.
For the first time in ten years, she chooses herself.
~ * ~
The gallery is bigger and the artwork is better but she can still see Rufus' influence in the cheap coffee at the café and 80s rock playing through the speakers.
He's talking with a customer when she walks in and his hair is almost all gray and he's a couple pounds heavier but he still looks like her Rufus. Thirty years and two lifetimes away from him and she still believes he belongs to her; she can only hope he feels the same way.
He looks up from the painting he's showing and looks right into her eyes and it feels like the world stands still. He excuses himself and walks to her and with each step closer she finds it hard to breathe. Thirty years she's been waiting for this moment; she can only hope the story ends her way.
He stops a foot or so in front of her, close enough to see the fear in his eyes. "Lil," he breathes and reaches across the space to brush her hair back from her face. It's his left hand, his bare left hand, and she finds it's getting easier to breathe. "You're here. You're really here."
She can barely speak but forces the words out. "You said you wouldn't wait."
He smiles and she loses herself in the warm depths of his dark eyes. "I lied. It doesn't matter how many years go by. It's always been you."
She takes a step closer, and then another, and then she's in his arms and she can't remember where he ends and she begins. "I'm ready now," she whispers against his mouth and he holds her closer and presses kisses all over her face.
"So am I."
She holds on tight and doesn't let go. She made the right choice.
~ * ~
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