Chapter 3 – The Dark Night…P.S. I Love You

Serena's POV

The second I left Blair, I called Nate.

"Hey, Nate. What are you up to right now?"

"Serena! Um, nothing really…why?" He sounded surprised that I was calling.

"I just left the apartment…"

"How's she doing?" his voice dropped, calming and showing true concern for his friend.

"Not so well…she puts up a good front, but we've all known how to see through her cover for years. She's hurting, Nate…suffocating. But, we need to talk."

"Sure…what's up?" He sounded a little skeptical.

"No, not on the phone…in person. It's about some things B said. Can you meet me?"

"Um, yeah I'm just in the office catching up on some busy work."

"Okay, umm…the suite at the Empire in 20?"

"Serena, I-"

"Look, I know it's not the best place to go right now for any of us. It'll probably tear me apart, but it's somewhere private where we can talk about anything and no one would think to look for us there…" Truth be told, I was terrified even at the idea of being in Chuck's penthouse again…ever. But we did need somewhere private without the fear of being interrupted, so it was the best place I could think of.

"Um, yeah…okay. The suite, I'm on my way."

"Thanks, Nate."

"Sure, this is what best friends are for right?"

"Right." I hung up, my hand was already shaking as I walked down the sidewalk, heading in the direction of the Empire. When I got there, I stood outside the door for several minutes, just staring, trying to gather the emotional strength to open them and walk inside. Finally I reached a shaky hand out and pulled the door open, and walked inside the lobby. There was a somber mood inside, all of the staff looked as though they hadn't slept in weeks and not one had even the slightest hint of a smile on their faces. James, the concierge, recognized me.

"Miss van der Woodsen, good afternoon. I must say, I didn't expect to see you around here so soon."

"Hi, James. I didn't expect to be here so soon, but Nate and I have some private family business we need to attend to in the penthouse."

"I see, well, I will be sure to let him know you're here when he arrives."

"Thank you, James, but that won't be necessary. I just got off the phone with him so he knows that I'm here."

"Very well. You have a nice day Miss van der Woodsen."

"Thanks, James…you too."

I got in the elevator and hit the button for Chuck's private penthouse suite at the top of the Empire. When the elevator doors opened, I was frozen, paralyzed. The place looked like Chuck had never left, perfectly clean except for a pair of shoes under the coffee table like he had just kicked them off, and dirty dishes in the sink. Nate hadn't gone back inside since that night, not even to get his stuff. Monkey came running in from the bedroom, I had almost forgotten about him. His bowl was full, I guessed that the staff was taking care of him. He saw that it was me and started to whine, his tail stopped wagging.

"I miss him too buddy." I squatted down to pet him to try and calm him down. "I wish he would come back too."

As I looked around, I half expected him to walk in, making some snarky comment about me calling before I just drop in, but he wouldn't walk in…I would never see him again. My best friend, my brother, the man who loved my best friend in the world…the only man my sister would ever truly love.

The elevator dinged behind me and I froze in place. My heart was telling me it would be Chuck behind the door, but my head knew that could never be true. I stood up and turned around just as the doors opened and Nate slowly, cautiously, stepped out.

"Hey, Serena." He wasn't himself, but then again neither was anyone else these days. "Wow…it's kind of eerie being back in here, isn't it?" he looked around warily. "I half expected to see him on the couch with a scotch in his hand."

"Yeah, I thought the same thing." There was a very somber, melancholy mood hanging over us, and the entire suite.

"So what did you want to talk about? You sounded really upset." He successfully shifted the topic away from Chuck to me, or Blair, thank God. I was getting to the point of near tears or breakdown.

"Yeah...I was just at the apartment. I talked to Blair. Then I argued with Blair…and then she told me the truth about exactly who found Chuck that night." I gave him what I hoped was an indignant look.

"Serena, believe me when I say I wanted to tell you. But Blair made me swear not to tell. She was convinced that if anyone found out and heard about what happened to her, they'd ship her off to Ostroff for good."

"I know, she told me. But we wouldn't do that. I wouldn't have thought she was crazy, it's a traumatizing thing. We would have understood."

"You know that, I know that, and I think deep down Blair knows that, but that night she wasn't thinking straight, hell…I wasn't thinking straight, so I just made her the promise. It seemed like the best, easiest thing at the time."

"I get that, I do. But now that I know…Nate, you have to tell me what exactly happened."

*flashback/Nate narration*

"Well, I wasn't home that night. It was he and Blair's anniversary for something or other and I knew they would want time alone here, so I was out on some sort of date that I'm pretty sure Chuck set up if I think about it.

I was out for about an hour when I got a text from Chuck. He was upset because Blair was running late, and apparently he had a meeting earlier about the Empire and the company that didn't go so well. I guess he had had a few drinks because Blair told me that when she got there, he was already a little tipsy.

Anyway, apparently they got in some fight. All I gather from what she said is that he probably said something in typical Chuck fashion that upset her, so she ended up saying stuff that she regrets and leaving. Then after she left, he must have started drinking, the hospital autopsy report said he had taken tons of sleeping pills. At first they thought it was accidental…but that's not Chuck. He's never accidentally taken too much of anything. He knows his limits. He did this on purpose.

Hey…are you alright, S?" he paused his story. I looked up at him, he was looking at me, deep concern in his eyes. That's when I noticed I had started tearing up.

"Yeah…I'll be fine. Just keep going, I need to know what happened…for Blair's sake."

"Okay…if you're sure." He looked at me, I gave a nod of approval and he continued.

"So, they had a fight, Blair left and Chuck started drinking…heavily. Then I guess somewhere amongst all the booze, he ended up taking all of his sleeping pills…did you know he had insomnia?"

"Yeah…"was all the response I could muster, it still wouldn't sink in that Chuck had done this to himself…on purpose. This wasn't just about Blair, he had to have been hurting for a long time to get to the point of something like this.

"Anyway…I came home a few hours later. Blair had come back, probably to talk to Chuck, to apologize. I came in and could tell there was someone here. I saw a faint light on in his room so I assumed they were probably having sex…until I heard Blair crying. It was so quiet from in here…but it's such a distinct sound.

I went in the bedroom and that's when I saw it, the one image I will never be able to erase from my mind.

Blair was curled up on the bed, still with her shoes and coat on. She was holding onto Chuck for dear life and sobbing so hard that her entire body shook. She didn't say anything aside from calling out his name every so often. Then I looked at Chuck…and that's when it clicked. I could tell something was wrong, he wasn't there, Chuck was gone. I slowly made my way over to her, I didn't want to surprise her too much.

'Blair.' I spoke so softly, but she jumped at the sound anyway. She looked up at me, tear-stained cheeks, fear and denial in her eyes. 'Blair…B, sweetie, what happened?' she didn't say anything, didn't speak…I don't think she could. She just went back to rocking back and forth, tucking her head into his neck, whispering his name: 'Chuck. Chuck, baby,come back…don't leave me Chuck. I love you. I need you here. Please, please don't leave Chuck.'

It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. I didn't know what to do, how to help her. I got her to calm down enough to come out here and sit on the couch, and I got her some water. Then I called 911. Everything after that was a blur.

The ambulance came, I could hear the sirens. They rushed in with a stretcher and Blair tried to stop them from taking him away. I grabbed her by the arm so she wouldn't chase after them. I just held her as she started sobbing again, and I was crying too. When they strapped him to the stretcher it hit me that he was gone, my best friend was dead. Or at least most likely. We stood there like that until they were leaving.

'Are you coming?' the rescue squad guy asked me.

'What?' I said, confused, pulling out of our bubble.

'Are you two gonna ride with 'im to the hospital?'

I hadn't even thought about that, 'oh, um yeah I guess so…come on, Blair. Get your coat, we're gonna go with them.'

She kind of just looked up at me blankly. She was still so far away, distant, but she silently turned and grabbed her coat and took my hand and we left behind the rescue squad, I avoided looking too far ahead, not wanting to see Chuck's limp body on the stretcher up ahead of us.

*coming back to present/end flashback*

"And then you know what happens from there…I called you from inside the elevator."

"Oh my god, Nate…I had no idea." I couldn't believe what they had gone through that night. "Why didn't either of you tell me? I wanted to be there for you, both of you, but neither of you let me…and you didn't tell me how bad it really was. You're my best friends, Nate…why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I guess I was just in shock? Maybe I was ashamed of how torn up I was…? I don't know…I think maybe I was trying to deny that it happened, like if I didn't talk about it, he wouldn't really be dead." He looked like he was about to cry. "I know it's silly, but I didn't want to admit to myself that he was really gone…"

"It's not silly." I rested my hand lightly on his shoulder, trying my best to comfort him even though we were both in so much pain. "We were all close, we went through everything together. He was you're bro, you're guy…I get it. We all lost something so special and sacred the day we lost Chuck. I lost my brother, Blair lost her fiancé, her true love, you lost your wingman, your partner in crime, we all lost our best friend." He turned and hugged me.

"I miss him." I had never heard Nate get so emotional before, especially over Chuck. He always acted so cool about their friendship, even though we all knew that they loved each other like brothers, held each other more dear to their hearts than they would ever admit in words.

"I miss him too, Nate. I miss him too." All I could do in this moment was hold him, show him that I was there for him, for anything.

There was a long pause, then he pulled away slightly and looked at me, a familiar look in his blue eyes. "I love you, Serena."