AN: Thanks for all the reviews and alerts! Much love to bethaboo, as always.
Seven months later
"Blair."
"Hmm?"
"Blair."
"What?" She snapped in irritation, finally glancing up from the editorials laid out in front of her.
"Did you see Serena today?" Chuck ventured carefully, his expression carefully arranged to one of neutrality.
"No," Blair replied stoutly, offering no further explanation.
"Weren't you both supposed to go baby clothes shopping?" Chuck pressed, though he knew that he was digging his own grave.
"Yes."
"And?" He prompted.
"And I didn't want listen to Serena's raptures on the joys of expecting," Blair snapped. "Forgive me if I would rather order interns about than hear about yesterday's Lamaze class and the benefits of a water birth."
The sentence was jumbled, barely comprehensible in its delivery, and as each word was spat onto the gilded veneer of their dining room table, Chuck saw Blair's icy façade crack, bit by bit.
Until she was just as vulnerable as the day she had scraped her chair back from the table, leaving in the midst of everyone's congratulations to Sean and Serena.
"It's just not fair," Blair began, laying down her pen and finally meeting his eyes. "Serena and Sean didn't even want a baby. And they got one. Just like that. It's not fair, Chuck. We've been trying for almost two years. One mistake, and they get a baby."
"We'll have our chance," Chuck said automatically, a response that had been instilled in him for the past two years.
"You keep saying that," Blair rambled on, and Chuck knew, from the way her fingers gripped the stem of her glass, to the barely noticeable shake of her shoulders, that she had been to see their doctor again, "but when? We've been trying for nearly three years, Chuck. Maybe I can't get pregnant. Maybe we should look into surrogates, we can try—"
He was by her side in a second, and Blair curled into his side, a habit formed over many years, one that never ceased to startle him.
"Did you see Dr. Cordoni today?" he asked, and Blair, who smiled slightly, because if there ever was someone whom she could never keep anything from, it was Chuck.
"I've been getting cramps," she admitted. "And there was a tiny bit of blood today, but—"
The words were nothing new. It had been the same with every drug they tried, every possible hormone treatment that could magically give them a baby. There would be nausea, a practice run for morning sickness, Blair would joke, but Chuck couldn't help the twisting in his gut every time he woke up to an empty bed, the sound of retching clear from their adjoining bathroom.
The headaches would come at the most inopportune times—while she was out shopping, leaving her curled into a ball in the corner of a fitting room. There would be times when Blair couldn't leave the bed for hours, clutching a heating pad to her abdomen, features screwed up in pain.
Nearly every side effect of every drug she tried would affect her.
"Only two percent of women experience a shortness of breath and mild numbness when taking Follistim," their doctor had assured them, bright cheery smile futile when Chuck and Blair came in two weeks later, having found Blair in that two percent. And Blair had experienced a shortness of breath to such a degree that walking up two flights of stairs left her sagging against a nearby wall.
"Blair," Chuck said warningly, and she rolled her eyes in response.
"I stopped taking it, of course," she said lightly, but it did nothing to erase the lines of worry that now creased Chuck's brow.
The last time she had experienced side effects beyond what was normal, she had persisted as if all were normal. It wasn't until Chuck received a frantic call from Blair's assistant, who had the decency to inform him that Blair had collapsed in her office.
"The last time—"
"I want a baby," Blair interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut against the onslaught of tears. She used to be able to blame them on the hormones. But after her doctor's visit that morning, she knew that it would be another six weeks before they could try another treatment "You want a baby too, Chuck."
"Not like this," he told her fiercely. "Not if it means losing you. There are other options, Blair."
Other options. Their doctor had pleaded with them after the fourth failed attempt, to consider their options.
"I'm not adopting," Blair said determinedly.
"IVF," Chuck suggested half-heartedly, but they had already been over it a thousand times. It wasn't the cost of the procedure, but the fact that Blair would never be able to undergo it. With her past bulimia still wreaking havoc on her body, coupled with her slightly underweight BMI, IVF wasn't a procedure doctors would attempt.
"Surrogacy," Blair said at last, filling the empty space with their last possible chance.
They had been over it a thousand times, and the argument had become almost habitual, each of them knowing their respective lines, a perfectly orchestrated tragedy.
"I don't want a baby with another woman," Chuck replied mechanically, the words out of his mouth almost reflexively. It didn't make them any less true. "I want a baby with you."
"Then we'll wait six weeks," Blair said tightly. "And try something else."
A perfectly orchestrated tragedy, indeed.
…
One month later
"Serena?"
He wouldn't have recognized her if it weren't for the pearl bracelet. The one she had worn nearly every day after Blair had gifted it to her.
His step-sister spun around quickly, and Chuck was incapable of gauging her reaction, as her eyes were hidden behind large, bug-eyed sunglasses, even though they were both in an indoor Starbucks.
"Chuck!" She exclaimed, her voice a pitch too high, sunglasses remaining firmly in place.
"S," Chuck said in return. "How are you?"
"Fine," Serena said distractedly, her eyes continually darting towards the door. "It's great to see you, Chuck, but I have an appointment with my OB/GYN."
"Don't blame Blair," Chuck said quietly, and Serena froze, turning around slowly, one hand lying on her distended stomach. "You know she's—"
Serena sighed, but her expression had softened. "I know. The hormone drugs aren't working, are they?"
Chuck shook his head. "We're running out of options. The doctor keeps worrying that continuing what she calls vain attempts will either decrease Blair's general FSH production, or make her dependent on the drugs."
Serena stared at him blankly, and Chuck smirked wryly in return.
"I guess I can't say you aren't attentive," Serena remarked dryly, but her expression became troubled. "Which is more than I can say for Sean."
Off Chuck's frown, Serena smiled reassuringly, though her eyes spoke of a different emotion.
"It's nothing, of course. He's busy. And I really have to get going. It was good seeing you, Chuck." A pause. "Say hi to Blair for me."
"Of course," Chuck said in acquiescence, though he meant to follow up with another remark. He had enough time to be CEO of Bass Industries and attend nearly every doctor's appointment with Blair. The only ones he hadn't attended were the ones she hadn't told him about.
Sean was a hedge fund trader. With a reputation for being an expert at delegating and doing absolutely zero work himself. Whatever kept the man busy couldn't have been work.
With a frown, Chuck made a mental note to make a call to his PI the next day.
…
"Hi."
"Hi."
Blair stood in the doorway of the study, wringing her hands nervously as Chuck put down the appraisal he had been poring over.
"I'm going to have lunch with Serena tomorrow," Blair said, after what seemed like an eternity. "And I'm not going to kill her."
Chuck smirked, "Should I call ahead and tell the restaurant to hide the knives?"
Blair rolled her eyes. "You know I would never—"
"I know. But the past few months have been…"
An unspoken word was passed between them, and it was moments like that when Chuck knew they were doing the right thing.
"I've been a raving bitch," Blair relented with a sigh. "But I've also had an excess of hormones running through me. Blame those."
"You certainly blamed the hormones enough," Chuck reminded her, wincing at the memory. "There's a heel-shaped scar on my shoulder."
Blair narrowed her eyes. "You deserved that one."
"Then I suppose the wall deserved the wrath of your Louboutins as well?"
"You ducked," Blair accused, sitting in one of the leather armchairs.
Chuck raised his eyebrows skeptically, and Blair changed the subject back.
"I called Serena and made plans. I miss her. I miss my best friend. And I have been a raving bitch. It's not Serena's fault she got pregnant and I can't. If anything, it's my fault—"
"Don't," Chuck warned, knowing the self-destructive path her words were leading to. "We've been over this. It's not your fault—"
"But it is," Blair argued, then, finding that she didn't want to argue this point, changed the subject back once more. "Like I said. It's not Serena's fault she has a baby. It wasn't even planned. And I'm going to be there for her. Even if she does decide on a ridiculous name for her child. Did you know she was thinking of Fennel? Fennel Lillian Davidson. Lily would have a heart attack. Cece would probably drop dead on the spot."
"Fennel?" Chuck repeated, mystified. He shouldn't have been, considering this was Serena.
"Fennel," Blair affirmed, adding in a delicate shudder for good measure. "Chuck, if—"
"When," he corrected her.
Blair rolled her eyes, but the smile on her lips told him an entirely different emotion.
"When we have our baby, promise me we won't name it something ridiculous."
"Of course not," Chuck said in disbelief. "We're not the Dan and Vanessa Humphries of the world. We're not going to name our child something no one can pronounce."
Blair nodded emphatically. Then, after a moment's consideration, asked the question she had been afraid to ever since their first round of failed attempts.
"What would you name it if it were a boy? A girl?"
Chuck shrugged. "I'm not you, Blair. I haven't got a scrapbook with my life planned out to the very last detail."
Blair would have contradicted the statement, had it not been true.
"Nothing ever did go according to plan, though," Blair pointed out. "For one, I was never supposed to marry you. And my wedding wasn't supposed to be a shotgun wedding in Verona that Eleanor later berated me about before practically commanding me to have a second wedding here."
Chuck shrugged, remembering their villa in Verona with a smirk, and the incredible amount of alcohol it had required to get Blair to agree to marry him.
Apparently, they couldn't wait very long.
"Ditch the scrapbook," Chuck suggested.
Blair cocked her head to the side. "I haven't followed anything in there. Not even the career I had in mind. I suppose it is time to give up on the thing."
As Blair thought about the plan she had so carefully laid out for herself, Chuck's thoughts turned towards baby names, a topic so sensitive they had dared not broach it prior.
"What did you have in mind?" he found himself asking. "For names."
Blair bit her lip. "Gregory for a boy. Heather for a girl."
"Heather?"
Blair turned defensive immediately, though she had to admit the names didn't speak to her now as they had a long, long time ago. "What's wrong with Heather?"
Chuck knew he was digging his own grave, but he bravely soldiered on.
"I slept with a girl named Heather once. She was a terrible lay."
Chuck watched as Blair fumed, glancing around her for objects that she could fling at his head. Having made sure that no such object was in her immediate vicinity before making his comment, Chuck remained calm.
"Well," Blair said icily, standing up and striding towards the desk. "You better hope we're not having a girl, because pretty much every name other than Fennel or some other ridiculous herb or spice or whatever, will be inadmissible."
"I hardly remember their names, you know that," Chuck leaned forward, voice pleading, though he wore a devilish smirk.
"She was just that terrible?" Blair challenged.
"You are the only woman I've ever loved," Chuck answered, and Blair smirked slightly at the remark.
"Am I supposed to be flattered?" She asked, leaning farther across the desk. She saw Chuck's eyes go immediately to the (admittedly, low) neckline of her dress.
And that was how she found herself being sitting on top of his now-empty desk, back to him as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
"You know what the best part in trying for a baby is?" Chuck breathed into her ear as she was spun around completely, now facing him.
"What?" she asked dryly, as she found her skirt being hiked up around her waist.
He smirked.
"The trying."
tbc
