Author's Note: This series of oneshots will cover the photographs of Henry seen in the Bass townhouse during the flash-forward. It also, hopefully, fulfills the prompt submitted by Dani (MissCMorland) of "taking pictures".
The hands of the clock tick loudly, counting down the seconds to the next minute that puts her closer and closer to being late. She watches them impatiently out of the corner of her eye, watches for a moment when she can jump into this conference call with her distributer and end the conversation. But the man on the other end of the line continues to drone on and on, and her assistant timidly poking her head into her office to remind her of tardiness is unnecessary. An agitation on patience already tested and worn thin by a long and trying day.
One more glance at the clock, one more minute where the hands move dangerously towards the cutoff time, and she decides that enough is enough. She musters up her cutting bark of dismissal, hangs up the phone before the distributor has time to protest, and sends her assistant scurrying to fetch her purse and coat. Her computer and the pile of papers spread before her are abandoned without a second glance. Only her BlackBerry is plucked from the desk before she leaves, before she hurries out of the atelier towards the car waiting for her curbside.
She rushes the driver along, yells "Vite! Vite!" at him when he tries to slow at a light changing from green to yellow all the while checking the clock on her phone and tapping her foot impatiently. The drive takes longer than normal, and her impatience mounts as the car rounds the corner and turns down her street. The driver stops two houses down from hers, apologizes for the inconvenience with a gesture towards the limo blocking the spot in front of her townhouse. And although he waits for her huff of annoying, nothing comes because a twisted smile crosses her lips instead, because a game has been set and the first move to be made is hers.
She throws open the door to the car just as the driver's door of the limo opens, just as the driver she knows well begins to round the vehicle. She rushes past him, watches with a determined look as the driver opens the door and the male occupant spots her fumbling with the locks on the front door.
He catches the front door before she can shut it behind her, and his eyes narrow with the accusation that she did it on purpose. But she pays him no mind, concentrates on unbuckling the strap of her shoes and dropping them on the marble floor with a thud beside her purse.
He is, of course, faster than her, and he slips and slides in his striped stocking feet as he hurries up the stairs. The gap between them thanks to his head start is quickly closed, however, and she is right behind him as he rounds the second flight of stairs.
"You're late," she hisses in accusation.
"So are you," he retorts. He peels off his suit coat, drapes it over the banister and she does the same with her own coat; the dark green adding color to the gray of his coat and the brown on the banister. Their feet pound against the stairs as he tugs on his bowtie, as she snakes her hand behind her back and pulls on her zipper. He's nearly halfway up the third flight of stairs when she calls out to him, when she turns around and exposes the creamy white skin of her bare back to his gaze.
"My zipper's stuck," she informs him. And then she turns her head to look over her shoulder, offers him an innocent smile as the fabric falls from her shoulder and her hair sweeps to the side. "Can you help me?"
He knows immediately that it is a trick, that she is trying to gain the upper hand. Because she will shimmy out of her dress and dart up the stairs just as soon as he pulls down that zipper. Because she plays dirty and will stop at nothing to be victorious. But that patch of bare skin, the exposure of the spot where her neck slopes and joins her shoulder blades is more than just a siren's call, and he answers it even as he knows the costs and consequences of his decisions.
He tries to hedge his bet by placing one hand about her waist, by holding her steady as he pulls down the zipper. But the fact that the zipper does not snag, that she whirls out of his embrace and hurries up the stairs clearly casts him as the loser in this competition. He'll think of his punishment for her, his retribution for her treachery later because, for now, he turns on his heels and hurries after her up the final flight of stairs to the fourth floor.
The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled to his elbows. The purple robe draped over the banister in preparation of her arrival is wrapped around her and tied at the waist. A process that slowed her down just long enough for him to catch up and meet her as she push open the door to their destination.
"Dorota, put that baby down."
His wife's harsh instruction startles the maid, and she turns on around to offer up an explanation. But words about how they were late, how Mister Henry is supposed to have his bath now are lost amongst the sound of running water and eyes trained solely upon the baby in her arms. And Blair gleefully takes her son into her arms and presses a kiss against his temple as she murmurs and coos at him, as she not so subtly admonishes the maid for daring to think and suggest that she could forget about her baby in her words of greeting to the baby in her arms.
"We'll take it from here, Dorota," Chuck replies as he gathers the baby shampoo and bubble bath from the bathroom cabinet and heads towards the tub.
The maid abandons the bathroom, heads out the door and down the stairs to collect the shoes and clothes her employers have abandoned in their haste to make it in time. An incident involving shampoo and hand woven silk means neither are inclined to wear their clothes during such a messy and wet encounter as this.
As the door shuts quietly behind her, Chuck moves to check the temperature of the water, plunging his bare arm into the tub in order to make sure it is neither too cold nor too hot. And when he is done fiddling with the taps, when the water is just the right temperature, he pours just a tiny amount of bubble bath into the water and flicks off the faucet when the bathtub begins to fill with suds that glint and shine in the bright light.
"Here," he says as he stands and moves towards his wife. She passes the baby into his outstretched hands, works on undoing the fastening of Henry's diaper while Chuck greets his son and presses kisses against the cowlick in the baby's hair. "Hello, Henry. I missed you."
The little boy kicks his legs, happy to be free from the confines of his diaper and happier still to be back in his parents' arms. He reaches out and snags his fingers on Chuck's lips; laughs loudly when his father pretends to munch them. His mother joins in on the fun, blowing a loud kiss on his belly that sends him into fit of giggles.
And his giggles turn into a shriek of sheer delight when his father slips his naked, little body into the tab. He shrieks as he pats the water, as he kicks his feet and watches them through blue water. The mesh bag of toys suction cupped to the wall of the tub is opened, and the blue ball, stack of baby-sized cups, and assortment of rubber duckies come cascading into the water to Henry's obvious delight. Blair pours a dollop of shampoo into the palm of her hand and lathers it into his scalp whilst Chuck soaps up a washcloth and runs it softly over the rolls of baby fat on his arms and legs.
"You were late," she says sadly over Henry's exclamations of excitement.
"So were you," he replies softly. The accusations from before have melted away, given way to sadness and sorrow over how a minute of tardiness can so easily stretch into five, into ten, into coming home only to find that Dorota has already bathed the baby and rocked him to sleep. And, tonight, they both came so close to repeating that mistake.
"We said he was always going to come first," she reminds her husband as she snatches one of those primary colored, stackable cups from the water. She fills it with water, waits for Chuck to place his hand over Henry's eyes before dumping it on his head and rinsing out all the shampoo from his brown hair. "That Henry would take precedent over everything else."
"He does," Chuck quickly retorts, reaching out to touch his wife's chin with soapy, wet hands and gently pull her attention to him. "We're here. We're giving our son a bath and, afterwards, you'll feed him and I will rock him to sleep. And we're going to continue to do our best, to be here for him like our parents weren't."
"Bart Bass didn't give bubble baths."
"No, and neither did Eleanor Waldorf."
The splash of water hitting their faces interrupts them, dragging their gaze from one another to the baby laughing and playing in the water. Henry's eyes are wide and shine with happiness as he slams his hands on the white and blue toy hanging from the faucet, as he moves his arms and legs through the bubbles in the water. His mouth is wide. His tongue out in his happy, toothless grin and his father fumbles for the phone in his pocket.
Chuck launches the camera, holds it steady as Blair calls out the little boy's name and bids him to look at them. And when he does, when his father captures his moment of sheer delight in the tub, his mother leans over and press a kiss against his open mouth because a tiny bit of soap and water doesn't matter when her world is sitting in front of her right now, when her world is so clearly and stunningly in focus.