A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed (: and please keep reviewing it gets me all hyper and quick to write new chapters ... sososo review please! This chapter is rated M for maturity.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Galaxy of ours

When I'm with you, I am calm
A pearl in your oyster
Head on my chest, a silent smile
A private kind of happiness
You see, giant proclamations
are all very well but our love
is louder than words
-- Bloc party

The day, although barely noon, proceeded in an idle rhythm as I tried in vain to ignore the barrage of pregnant woman. They mulled about, clutching their stomachs, grumbling in their husband's ears, rough words that fell through occupied thoughts. I cringed inwardly.

Humidity pressed against the ceiling, filling every corner of the small waiting room and I was dizzy with the heat, confused by my own gestures. Out of habit perhaps, a movement of intimacy, I grabbed Chucks' hand, winding his fingers in mine with crushing strength. He elicited no eye roll, eager for everything that was our relationship, even if it came at the expense of a few fractured fingers.

How I envied him, the ability to forget when I was still merely digesting.

I felt him watch me, twinges of sweetness in the corners of his mouth, a smirk forming across his lips that crashed to the floor between us. I hated him. It was the same expression, the mysterious air that had drawn me into his bed, between the sheets on so many separate occasions, that had caused me to fumble with my heart, give it away without regret. I narrowed my eyes and returned to feigning interest in a severely outdated issue of Cosmopolitan.

Eventually, sometime in the latter half of the hour, we were led down the hall and into a vacant room. Chuck lagged at the door and I stepped forward, letting him go, closing the door behind me. I craved the privacy, shedding my purse and tying my hair in a ponytail, propping myself onto the exam table, my heart racing.

There was a gentle echo as the door opened and closed in the distance, footsteps nearing. I focused on my breathing - in out in out. When I blinked, the landscape that came into focus was strikingly different. It wasn't like every other time I had been in this office, on this very exam table, anxiety and excitement running through me. Chuck was here and he stood out, the young and dashing executive who quickly fell at my side, clutching my hand in his. It was almost as though the loss of contact, however brief, had been painful.

He was the foreign object in so many lost moments and I wondered vaguely if he knew it, understood it as blatant as it was.

I resisted sneering at my doctor, who had conveniently taken his costly time in getting to me. Instead, I gripped my husband, tipping up my chin with a polite smile.

"Mrs. Bass," Dotor Yeli said, brow furrowed as he read over my chart, "How are we feeling today dear?"

"Tired and very pregnant," I admitted. The freezing goo was splattered across my stomach and I grimaced, feeling Chuck lurch forward slightly. I still didn't know why it had to be so cold.

The old man chuckled, low and soft, turning towards us. The young couple that we appeared to be, hands clasped, breath held, eager for the sight of our child. If only he knew, I thought, that this may be the only thing holding us together.

"Yes," He nodded, "That is quite typical of pregnancy." It was a joke meant to cool the tension, said as if this man, possibly of sixty, knew anything other than what he had read and observed of pregnant woman. "Let's take a look shall we?"

Minutes passed, stretched and thin, the standard questions repeated. I answered thoroughly, with an air of impatience, almost automatically.

The grey blocks built themselves up on the monitor. "Ah," He exclaimed, "Beautiful and healthy, sucking it's thumb."

The heartbeat was fast and steady, everything else melting away. The most important glorious symphony Eleanor ever entertained me with couldn't have surmount to one tenth of the magic that was that sound, peaceful. She was the sun, the moon, the stars ... my galaxy shrunk down in black and white and so much more defined than the last time I laid eyes on her.

Chuck cleared his throat, rubbing his fingers across my knuckles. I was swirling with him, lost in this magnificence. There was happiness so pure and clear that I wanted to grab it, hold it as long as I could.

"Is she ... he ... alright?" Chuck's voice was barely above a whisper, fractured.

"Perfection," Doctor Yeli assured him. I knew then that our baby had become Chucks' entire world, suddenly so small and yet so gloriously significant. Our own.

The doctor moved the wand across my belly. "Would you like to know the sex?"

Chuck turned to me, evaluating the emotions, testing the air with his response. I shrugged, riveted by the images that flittered across the screen, nothing else mattered. I was glad I had let him come, shared with him as much as I could, sorrow pressing against me that I had been so reluctant to allow him space in our lives for so long. And it was more to me than I had thought it would be, to have him there, next to me, holding each other together with our hands.

"I think we'll wait," He sighed, running a hand through my curls. I tried to maintain the calm that seemed to drift away from excitement, separating. We were allowing each other this, the synchrony of marriage, the joy of each other.

In the glow of the sonogram I felt the hope of our love sprout in my belly and spread across my skin while our universe stared back at us, sucking her thumb.

XOXOXO

I woke with the incessant need to clean, scrub and scour the floors and I grumbled, rolling into a sitting position. Elongated shadows danced across the hardwood floor as I pulled my hair away from the nape of my neck. I prayed for the heat of summer to dim and for the brilliance of Autumn in New York to arrive. The baby stirred, she must have been sleeping too. I pressed my palm to where she lay, over the taunt skin of my belly, "I love you baby."

The mornings, with the dew of early August sunrises lancing the bay windows, were all my own.

Silence dusted the edges of the furniture and I glanced at Chuck, he blinked at me, observing my movements. I turned as much as I could manage; hand on my hip, "I'm just going to go ... do something." I could hardly admit that I wanted nothing more than to vacuum. It was absurd enough as it was.

"Can't sleep?" I guessed, unfurling my arms, the baby stretched with me. A yawn escaped my lips.

He nodded.

"Getting ready to clean?" He chuckled.

My expression betrayed me, mouth forming a perfect circle both appalled and eager to know how he'd found out.

When I said nothing, he added: "Dorota said something about the cleaning supplies be all moved around and the kitchen floor looking cleaner than usual for the last couple of weeks." I figured ..." He trailed off, "it's in the baby books.

My attention was snagged. "Baby books?"

The darkness did little to conceal our vulnerabilities, blush rounding his pale cheeks. The purple and pink hues had begun to reach the skyline. "I've been reading them ... at work."

I felt every bit compelled to dig up our affection with my bare hands, I needed him and yet stupidly rejected the idea, too stubborn to ever admit it. I was doing the best I could, to work through this and there he was, two steps ahead of me and wondering why I was walking so slow. I wiped tears away from my eyes, gurgling in a very unattractive way, waves of appreciation hitting me.

He was trying, really trying.

"Chuck, that's ... thank-you," I mumbled rather lamely.

He sat up, ruffling his hair, squinting in my direction. "I missed the first half Blair," There was sadness, the way the words fell from his lips, "I'm not going anywhere now."

I smiled, albeit weakly, moving towards him without even registering my own actions. We hugged and I laid on his chest, against his beating heart. My muscles relaxed and the baby was grateful. His chest hair tickled my bare arms as he spoke into my hair. "I've been meaning to tell you ..." It was a deliberately calm admission, "Everything is just ... you are ... today was ..."

"I know," I laughed, brushing my fingers against the stubble on his chin, "It's amazing isn't it?"

"Exactly," He exhaled, as though a couple of soft words could express anything, "You're amazing."

I had never understood that about us, in a relationship so breakable and yet built upon two of the most bruised people. His hand hovered over my stomach, "May I?"

I nodded, closing my eyes a moment too long, his fingers spreading across the map of my body. The baby kicked and we both gasped, I burrowed my smile into his chest, giggling.

"Have you thought of any names yet?"

I puckered my lips in thought. "Florence," I loved the way the name sounded, "if it's a girl, which she is."

"Glad to know you're so sure," He teased. "And if it's a boy, what then?"

I hadn't given any thought to that but the name flew off my tongue as though I had, "Kennedy."

"Kennedy," Chuck rolled the name around. "It sounds like him," He commented after a long moment.

Quiet settled all around us and I fit easily into his arms as though I had never been elsewhere. Then, his lips were against my neck, the air sparked between us, grasping at each other, remembering old territory and discovering the new. He ran his hand under my nightgown, cautiously over my stomach.

"Kennedy," He said into my ear, "It's a solid name."

He pulled my underwear down, over my ankles, tossing it into the abyss of our bedroom. Somehow my logic was dismissed and all I could think of was his touch, lingering and sensitive, all over me. "Easy," I whimpered as he stripped off his pants. We were at the point of no return, drunk on each other.

I was gigantic, manoeuvring into a sea of blankets and pillows, following my heart as he bent over me from behind, his tongue on my flesh.

"Careful, careful" I repeated, as though he might have forgotten, "Slowly." Things were different, not as they had once been, and yet somehow the same. He mumbled in my ear, our own lullaby, "I love you Blair, I love you."

And we claimed each other, in the early morning, for the first time since he had left me. Only I was not alone and he was slower, more concerned than I could ever remember him being in all the thousands of times we had made love. "And I love you," I parried, his hands cupping my breasts, winning back my heart.