Title: Bringing Up Baby

Author: Isabelle

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I do not own Gossip Girl and Chuck Bass is not locked in my closet. But Blair might be ;)

Spoilers: Post 2.16. After avoiding one another, Chuck and Blair arrive at the Van der Bass home to find a small child left for the Bass family. This follows the first 48 hrs adjusting to having a small child to care for and realizing they're anything but over one another.

A/N – This will be a much lighter piece, full of fluff and fun moments as the hours tick by and Chuck & Blair realize what it takes to be a family. A special thank you to Tati, my always faithful beta *kiss*

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(Chapter 3)

Friday, 11pm

Chuck entered the room to see Blair placing the baby down on his feet on top of his freshly made bed. He had a feeling that this was going to end badly. Children had never seen his bed; his bed had never seen children. Richie stared at Blair, still sucking on his pacifier and sniffling.

"Ok. Here you go. Bed time," she sing-songed and motioned to the pillows. Chuck stared at the child.

"Mimi…" he whined behind his muffled pacifier.

Chuck intervened, seeing as this was going to take all night. He stood next to Blair, picked up the baby slightly, and lay him down. Blair stared at him, and he looked back at her and shrugged.

"I figured it shouldn't be given options," he explained.

This was not a popular thing with Richie, who sat up and scrunched up his face in order to cry.

"Oh, God," Blair groaned.

Chuck sighed tiredly. He was becoming exhausted.

"No!" Richie cried and held his hands up to Chuck, asking to be picked up. Dejectedly, Chuck lifted him up, and Richie latched on to him, placing his head on his chest and staring at Blair.

"We're going to have to lay with him, wait for him to be asleep, and then sneak out," Blair informed him, and Chuck had to admit that it was a pretty good one.

"Fine, go to the other side," he relented and kneeled on the bed with the child still in his arms. Richie seemed to like this much better, letting go of Chuck and rolling on the bed, babbling nonsense. Blair took off her shoes and carefully lay back on Chuck's bed. The child loved this and crawled to her, calling her Mama once more and making her roll her eyes. It also made her smile, but she hid it well.

She turned her body into Chuck with the baby between them, and Richie lay on his back, snuggling into the pillow.

"Lalalala," he began babbling.

"Shouldn't we sing it a song or read it a story or something?" Chuck looked at Richie, who was still wide-eyed awake but clearly tired.

Blair peeked at him over the child. "Why don't you do the singing?" She suggested, and he could clearly see the amusement in her eyes.

"I'm not a singer," he countered. "Why don't you do it?"

"I most definitely can't sing," she glared at him.

He smirked because he couldn't help but be an ass when she was just mere inches away from him, and in his bed, no less! "This mattress can attest that is not true."

Blair's eyes widened and she quickly looked at Richie, who was studying them with a curious gaze. "I can't believe you said that in front of the baby!"

"He doesn't know what we're talking about. His vocabulary consists of four words, Waldorf," Chuck chuckled.

"He's learning! He'll pick up anything. Do you really want to be responsible for corrupting this child?" She snapped.

"I'm not –"

And his sentence was cut off when a very loud fart sounded in the dark room. Chuck looked at Blair; Blair looked at Chuck.

"Don't even think –" Blair started.

"Well, it wasn't me!" Chuck snapped.

They both stopped and stared at the baby. Richie sucked innocently on his pacifier. And then the smell hit them. They quickly scrambled out of bed, glaring at the baby.

Richie sat up, confused by his abandonment, and began crying once more.

"Ugh," Blair sighed dejectedly. "He's got no control of his body functions!"

"He's a baby!" Chuck defended, but was clearly not about to jump in and get the baby with the scent still lingering around.

"Get some air freshener or something!" She shoved him and turned to Richie. "It's ok. We're right here. You're ok. No need to cry."

Richie, of course, didn't understand her and stood up on the bed and began walking to her with his arms outstretched. Blair jumped forward before he fell off the edge of the bed and quickly picked him up, breathing in from her mouth.

Chuck came out of the bathroom with a bottle of freshener and sprayed it around the room. They both relaxed once the smell was masked. Blair took Richie back to the bed and Chuck watched her, afraid that more gas would attack them.

"Come to bed," Blair ordered. "This is your child, not mine. I will not be stuck with it."

Chuck took his bottle of freshener with him and laid it on his bedside table. That's when Richie spotted his scarf on the same table. His eyes widened and he made a beeline for it. Chuck quickly grabbed his precious scarf and held it out of harm's way.

Richie, stunned at being denied the colorful scarf, let out an angry scream that turned his face pink.

"Oh, my God, Chuck! Give it to him!" Blair demanded, sitting up and watching in horror at the tantrum the baby was about to throw.

Chuck was not budging. He held his own baby to him and out of the child's grabby hands. "No way. No. Blair, this is my scarf. Not his. I'll get him another one."

Blair watched as Chuck quickly scanned his closet and handed the baby another scarf, red with fringe. The child eyed it for a moment, and then threw it on the floor with all of his baby-strength and yelled for Chuck's scarf.

"No!" Chuck cried back, horrified at having to give the baby his scarf. Blair rolled her eyes at him.

"Chuck, give it to him while we get him to sleep. He won't harm it, then you can pull it off him once he's asleep," she said. "It can't be worse than the things Kristy McDowell claimed she did with it."

Chuck glared at her. "Those were lies. Didn't you notice that she disappeared to France a little bit after that incident?"

Blair raised a brow, impressed but undeterred. "Give it to the baby."

Richie sobbed.

Chuck growled. "No. I'm not giving it to him, Blair. I'm just not. I'm putting my foot down."

Richie clutched Chuck's scarf contently as he settled between Chuck and Blair. He snuggled into the pillow and pressed the scarf to his face, murmuring nonsense. Blair smiled at him. He was finally at ease.

"See? He likes it," she told a very pissed off Chuck, who refused to acknowledge her.

"I can't talk to you right now," he ground out.

"I wasn't the one who wanted your filthy scarf," she reminded him.

"You made me give it to him," he snapped back. "And it's not filthy."

She tried guilt-tripping him. "You didn't have to do what I said. You could've kept it from him and let him go to sleep crying and hurt."

Chuck turned his head and glanced at her. "We both know I have a very hard time saying no to you," he finally replied. And they were silent. Because up until now, it had been all about the baby. The baby had been taking over their conversations, their actions, their gestures. Now the baby was content and at ease, and it was just the two of them. In a room. In a bed. With only twelve inches between them.

Blair gulped and felt her head go light. This is what Chuck did to her. Made her question her motives. Made her question her decisions. Made her reconsider, and Blair Waldorf never reconsidered. But not with Chuck. He was an enigma that in the past year had taken over her rationality, her thoughts, her dreams. And it was downright perverse how he could unmask her with just a look from his eyes. She found that when he acted like this, her strength was always tested.

"Be quiet, Bass," she whispered. "Let the baby go to sleep."

Richie kicked his foot and turned his back on Blair to stare at Chuck. Chuck blinked back at him, and the baby smiled, pressing his face against the pillow and still clutching his new 'toy' in his hand.

Something soft and odd began happening inside Chuck Bass. It was the strangest feeling. He'd had it a couple of times in his life. Most of those 'soft' feelings were held for Blair, when he hurt her and she was close to tears before him. Soft moments. When Nate broke his arm in 5th grade because of Chuck. He'd had to get stitches, and Chuck was in the room when his best friend had a huge needle stuck inside the cut. He'd felt incredibly bad. When he thought back to how he'd yelled at Eric. Soft moments.

Right now? He was feeling soft again. He pursed his lips and sighed.

"Just don't stain it, ok?" He told him, and Richie held the scarf to Chuck's nose for him to smell. And that was when Chuck realized that the scarf smelled like him… And a little bit like Blair.

Richie smiled at him once more and settled on a position. Chuck and Blair were eerily quiet when he finally began to doze off and, finally, after Blair ran her fingers through his soft hair, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Blair's eyes looked at Chuck in the darkness. "Slowly. I will get up first."

His eyes narrowed. "Let me get up first, I need to call Mike and have him look into this."

She glared back at him. "Is this all you can think of at this moment? Your P.I?"

"He's the best there is," Chuck countered.

The baby mumbled and they were quiet.

"You're going to wake him!" She chided in a harsh whisper.

His nostrils flared as she slowly got up from the bed, picking up her shoes on the way to the door and sneaking out. She turned to him and motioned for him to join her. He turned to the baby and picked up the end of his scarf and slowly began extracting it from Richie's little fingers. The baby moved in his sleep and flexed his fingers, but didn't wake. Chuck smirked and slowly got up from the bed, pausing a few times when the baby stirred, and then finally made it to the door where Blair was glaring at him and his scarf.

"I'm going to hide it," he informed her.

That's when Richie woke and found himself alone on the bed. They stared back guiltily at him, and he looked downright betrayed. He let out a loud yell when he realized his scarf had also been taken from him.

"You just had to take the scarf, didn't you?" She seethed as she walked back to the bed, yanking the scarf with her.

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Saturday, 12am

Blair came back in from the kitchen with a cup of hot tea in her hands and took a seat next to Chuck as he finished up with his P.I.

"Just find out what you can and as soon as possible. He needs to have a relative somewhere… OK, let me know." And he hung up and glanced at her. "He's on it."

Blair shifted and tucked her feet under her, a move that was not unnoticed by him. She did it so very gracefully and sexily that it woke his groin once more. He gulped and looked away.

"We need to call the nanny service, see if they can be here first thing in the morning," she said, sipping her tea. Chuck noticed that she looked exhausted. It wasn't like he could place her in Serena's room – that room would reek of urine for the time being, and he was keeping it locked. He could offer her the guest bedroom, but it was in the other side of the house, and they wouldn't be able to hear the kid screaming. He was contemplating giving her his room and sleeping on the couch, but he was pretty sure he wasn't that 'soft' just yet.

So he opted for picking up the phone and calling the nanny service. Their 24-hour operator picked up and agreed to send some candidates in the morning.

"Just like that?" Blair asked.

Chuck stared at her once he had hung up. "What do you mean?"

"They didn't ask what the baby likes."

"We don't know what he likes."

"They didn't ask if we preferred someone who knew English."

"I don't think it matters."

"Of course it matters, Chuck!" Blair sighed. "Eleanor first got Dorota when I was seven, and she was sent to both English and etiquette school."

He threw her a glance. "Fine. We'll 'interview' them and analyze them à la Queen B. Happy?"

She smiled happily. "Yes."

She studied him for a minute; he looked tired and worn out. And he'd admitted to not being able to say no to her. That counted for something, right? That should count for a lot more, but she was so hungry and nearly desperate for the words he just wouldn't say that she physically restrained herself from scooting closer to him. Just to feel his warmth.

So she looked away, and he sensed that her body language changed.

"Why don't you go to bed? Use the guestroom," he suggested.

She smiled a little, nearly touched. "What are you going to do when the baby starts screaming?"

"I'll…" He looked around, truthfully not sure on what to do. He wasn't the holding babies type of guy. Never had been. Never really wanted to be. "…Come wake you."

Blair nodded, still amused. "It's ok. I'll sleep on the couch…"

"What? Blair Waldorf sleep on a couch?" He teased, slightly smirking.

"I've slept on couches before, Bass. It's not a big deal. It's only tonight, and then tomorrow we'll have nannies. I'll be home – you'll be partying…" She shrugged her shoulders, her voice nearly leaving her.

He stared at her and opened his mouth to say something, but truthfully the words had left him. She just looked so hurt still that he could hardly reach out to her. He'd messed her up. Messed her up good, and lacking relationship experience meant he had no cards in his pocket but flowers, plotting, and apologies. That was it.

He turned his body into her, and she stiffened, staring at him.

Of course, that was when Richie woke with a loud cry. They sat up and turned around, then scrambled, rushing into his room, nearly pushing one another to get there first.

The baby was sitting up in the middle of the bed, pacifier gone, buried under blankets with Chuck's scarf still tightly clutched in his hand, sobbing. Blair went to the right of the bed and sat down. The baby crawled to her and latched on. Blair stared at Chuck as he slowly sat down on the other end, and she ran her fingers through Richie's hair.

Chuck grabbed the forgotten pacifier and motioned to give it to Richie. The little boy spotted his movements from the corner of his eye and opened his mouth. Chuck was startled for a minute and then reached and placed it in his mouth. Richie made a content noise and settled once more against Blair, sucking furiously.

"There…" Blair whispered to him. "Better. He probably lost it in his sleep."

Blair yawned, and Chuck struggled to keep his own yawn in.

"Let's get him to sleep so we can sleep ourselves," he murmured, and she nodded, lying down on the bed.

Richie snuggled under the blanket and went and curled himself against Chuck, his scarf still in hand as he sighed sleepily. Chuck looked down at him and then looked over at Blair, clearly confused and just a bit scared.

"Just hold him. He just wants to be held," she explained, motioning with her hand.

Chuck took a large gulp and slowly brought his hand down, curling it around the child's small back until it felt settled and right. The baby sighed and squished himself more against Chuck. Blair smiled and slowly relaxed against Chuck's pillows. She was so close he could smell her.

She reached out and touched the baby's hair, making him murmur. Her own eyes were hazy and heavy and, without noticing, she slowly drifted to sleep.

Chuck felt the child do the same in his arms. He stared at Blair, whose lips were slightly parted. Her face was relaxed and stunningly beautiful. He carefully rested back on his pillows as the child settled, and Blair stirred slightly. He stared at her for a while before the overwhelming sensation that he had truly lost her and they were back just being friends took over him. He thought that this must be what dying felt like.

"I love you…" he whispered to her. She didn't move, just continued her slow steady breathing. "I love you, Blair Waldorf."

He blinked, then turned his head and stared at the ceiling. He needed to fix this. He needed to fix them. He needed to fix her.

Richie murmured something unintelligible in his sleep, and Chuck instinctively held him closer, then felt his heavy and tired eyes give in. He decided he would just rest for a minute. Just a minute, because Blair's scent was all over him and the bed was warm and comfortable. So he gave in.

When Blair blinked and opened her eyes, she felt a new sensation surround her. It was still dark. She felt she had slept for barely a minute. Her head felt heavy, and she felt… This was odd… She felt… Wet.

She blinked and opened her eyes slowly. Richie was now nearly on top of her, still happily sucking on his pacifier. She furrowed her brows. Why was she wet? She slowly lifted the covers, then let out a high pitch scream that made Chuck bolt up awake and Richie let out a loud wail.

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Tbc…

the next part may not be up for a few days as I'm traveling :(