Part 7

The month had been calm around them, and it sat oddly in his gut. Since she decided to take time away from school he had been missing her. It was not as if he hardly saw her, because since the day they had shared a book, and he had read to her about the growth of the baby, he had had a standing welcome into her afternoons. And he had used the welcome so much, so frequently he wore it thin at times. Even the company, which he had wrested out of his uncle's grasping hands, he had left for the most part for Lily and his advisers to run.

Someday he would have time for it. Lily had agreed. For now, he needed to be a seventeen year old. For now, he had school. To Chuck, the time was Blair's.

She had kicked him out of her house more times than he could count for the past month. He chalked those times up to mood swings, and waited out the hurricane that was her temper ensconced in the soft couch when she only threw him out of her room. When she demanded he leave her entire apartment, he would wait in the lobby.

Without fail, within the hour, he would get various clues that the coast was clear.

Like a text message that stated, "I want a steak. Medium rare."

Or a quick call in which he heard her say, "Snow cones, Chuck. Avocado-flavored, with a real avocado on top."

He figured out all the minor stores in Manhattan, and drove his secretary crazy helping him search. The avocado ice treat, in particular, sent him running to Brooklyn instead. The thing had melted by the time he went back to her place. He had been scared when he offered it to her, but she seemed delighted with the effort. "I like it melted," she told him, then proceeded to drink the treat. He had made a face of disgust. "I'm going to get fat," she realized.

Even exhausted, he was smart enough to know he needed to respond with, "You're always going to be pretty."

Once he thought he was being very nice and generous, and offered to take her on a shopping trip after he arrived in her house after school. She took it to mean she was getting too big for her clothes, threw a chicken wing at him and pointed to the door. Chuck had shuffled downstairs to the living room and lay down on the couch. He picked up the magazine, a Cosmo which he thought was Blair's but turned out to be Dorota's, and read through the bedside astrologer and wryly thought he had not gotten any for nearly four months.

Blair had come running down the stairs, and he had sat up quickly on the couch with his heart in his throat. "What?" he demanded.

"You're still here!" she gasped.

"Do you need anything?" he inquired sharply, direct to the point.

Her face softened, and he recognized the look by now. "I want papaya pizza."

He slowly sighed in relief. "There's no such thing as papaya pizza, Blair."

She locked her jaw and turned around, stomped back up the stairs. An hour later, he found himself helping Dorota slice open a ripe papaya and placing strips on a pizza.

That night, he let her feel her abdomen and the slight swelling that he book had predicted. Sometimes effort paid off, none more than this.

It was a Friday when his heart stopped. He had just finished an exam and was leaving the classroom when he checked his phone and found the eight missed calls registered. He checked his messages and found one from Dorota, asking him to come to the house. He had cut the rest of his classes and raced directly to the apartment, and wondered if his touching the now obvious distension of her stomach was bad luck.

He could still remember the slight fluttering he had felt in there, like there were butterflies inside.

The elevator opened and he saw Dorota, who appeared worried.

"Where is she?" he asked. He had the limo standing by, ready to take them to the hospital if it was needed. Dorota nodded towards the living room.

Chuck entered and spotted Eleanor finally back from her trip, with Blair sitting on the chaise primly, her hands on her lap. She was wearing a loose top, but even then the curve of her belly was visible, stark against her petite frame. Eleanor finally knew.

"Are you two getting married?" was Eleanor's first question to him.

He stepped forward, kept his eyes on Blair, who was looking down at the magazine lying on the coffeetable in front of her. It was the magazine he had been reading just two days before. He hoped she hadn't run out of baby books to read. "Your daughter isn't ready to marry me," he told Eleanor. Chuck could not believe the conversation, until he remembered a conversation a long time ago that he had with Nathaniel. Eleanor and Anne had been prepared to throw a wedding party for the two. He had to remember that the woman had grown up on a different Upper East Side than he or Blair.

"If she's not ready for the consequences, she shouldn't have slept with you," Blair's mother said sharply.

He saw Blair wince, wanted to squeeze her hand.

Eleanor turned to Blair. "Is it his?"

And that was what made him snap. "It's mine," he interrupted, his voice firm and abrupt.

And finally, Blair looked up at him in surprise. It could have been the certainty in his voice, or the fervor with which he insisted it.

"Neither of us can force her to do anything she doesn't want to do," Chuck continued.

Eleanor's hands fisted, but not before Chuck noticed the tremor of her fingers. "Do you know what kind of humiliation this is going to be?"

"Careful, mom," Blair whispered finally. "Don't say anything bad."

"You haven't even graduated. I can't condone this, Blair. What will the society ladies say?"

"How do you plan to survive? I assure you, your father will not be pleased about this."

Blair shook her head. Chuck interrupted, "I can take of her. She can take care of herself."

"You're not getting married," Eleanor repeated.

"It's 2009, mom," Blair responded. She turned to Chuck, then asked, "Will you wait in my room?" He wanted to stay, but she pleaded with her eyes, and he recognized the beginning of a mother and daughter talk. "Please."

And so, with a large amount of reservation, Chuck climbed up the stairs and left Blair to discuss with her mother. He turned back to look at them and saw Blair look at her mother squarely in the eye. The determination made him proud.

But he knew her, knew the strain it caused her to respond to her mother, saw the stress in the corners of her mouth. He entered her room and settled on the edge of the bed.

It could have been hours later when she finally entered her own room and closed the door behind her. She leaned her head back on the door and took a deep shuddering breath. She held herself up stiffly, and he wanted to reach out and rub the tension away from her shoulders. She opened her eyes and looked down at him.

"This doesn't count towards anything," she warned him. Upon hearing those words, he knew she was on the edge, ready to break, to do something she was not completely willing to do.

"I was thinking of you," he answered.

"Don't. I just—" Her voice trembled.

"It's okay, Blair," he encouraged her. Speaking with his father about the disappointments he had caused him was enough to break him, and he was heartless. He could not imagine what toll it took on Blair to speak about this with the mother she had been aiming and failing to please since she was a child.

She opened her mouth, and a sob caught in her throat. "This doesn't mean anything." And then, she walked over to him, sat on his lap and sank into his arms. She buried her face in his neck, and he felt the hot liquid of her tears start to burn his skin. "It's ruining my life."

Their baby.

And her words were like a knife into his gut.

But he had known, in the back of his head, that this was bound to happen. The last month had been too peaceful, too calm, and at times he even pretended she still loved him. He had no right to correct her. And so he requested, "Tell me what's wrong. I'll fix it."

Slowly, she pulled away and looked down at him. He saw it in her eyes, the reluctance, the effort to make a decision.

I don't even trust you.

He held his breath.

"Promise me?" she asked, almost as if she was herself uncertain.

All his promises have been broken before. He knew it.

Never never never again.

"I promise," he swore, branding it in his brain. "If you tell me what's wrong, Blair, I promise I'll fix it. I'll fix it all for you."

He hoped she knew – he would never break a promise again. Not if she gave him one more chance. One last chance.

She had heard the words before, and he had broken the last. But God, he needed another one. She needed to give him another one.

"Please," he said.

She moistened her lips. Almost as if she remembered her mother's words, her eyes filled with tears, and she laid her cheek on his shoulder. He felt the gentle swell of her rounded belly against his abdomen. His hand splayed over it, and knew it was special, wondered how it could be the reason that Blair was so sad now.

"I'll think about it," she said.

Chuck nodded, his lips buried in her hair. "I wish you would."

He had left her sleeping in her bed, and he had gone home. The next day, after school, as usual he went to her home and Eleanor refused him entry. He called her phone and found her number rolling into voicemail. In a desperate attempt to reach her, he had texted Dorota and received no response.

If Eleanor had sent her away, the world was nothing. He had found her once, in Hong Kong, half the world away. He would find her anywhere.

It teased his brain briefly, taunted it even, that Blair could have thought and decided against his offer. His heart hurt at the thought. He steeled himself.

He had laid himself out on the table, and in the end, just like he told Eleanor, the decision was hers to make.

He sat in the courtyard and pulled out his book, took the cap off his pen and highlighted the passages she would need. Next month. Month five. They could find out if it would be a boy or a girl.

"Chuck."

He looked up at Dan Humphrey and scowled. He closed the book, because whatever he was reading was only for him and Blair. "What?"

The other boy nodded towards the gate. Chuck turned and saw her, standing just outside in an oversized gray coat. He searched her face for a sign, terrified she was there for a goodbye.

And then, very slowly, her lips curved into a tentative smile.

Chuck rose from his seat, pocketed the small book, and slid his hands in his pockets. He started walking towards her. She walked towards him, meeting him halfway into the courtyard.

She spoke first. "I thought about it."

He cleared his throat. "Yeah?" he said softly, not wanting to pressure her.

"I want to trust you."

"You can."

"Prove it," she replied. "Fix it, Chuck."

"Tell me." He reached for her hand, and did not care even as he heard the cameras clicking. "I'll do anything for you, Blair. I want to make everything up to you."

She nodded, but her eyes still spoke volumes of her doubt.

He would happily spend every day for the rest of his life making sure he removed bit by agonizing bit of that doubt from her eyes.

"My mom thinks the only way we can avoid any scandal on our name is if I get married, or if I got rid of the baby."

She wasn't getting rid of the baby. They had been over that. He could never be violent to a woman, especially someone so much older, but if that woman forced Blair to a clinic after the trauma that he had led her away from, he could not trust himself or what he could do.

"She's not going to marry you off to any random stranger," he told her.

Where the hell did these people get their ideas? It was ridiculous and unreal, for Eleanor Rose to insist on something so antiquated.

"Either that, or I lose everything."

It was completely improbable. Blair Waldorf would never be left with nothing.

"I left." She smiled sadly. "Now I'm completely cut off. I don't have a phone, or my clothes. I can't even talk to Dorota." Her brows furrowed. "I have no college fund."

She enumerated everything he knew she told herself mattered. "I can give you all of that," he told her. Probably not Dorota, but he would think of it later. He pulled her to him in a silent reminder that she could say it all, that she could trust him. "Tell me, Blair. Tell me. I'll fix it."

"You can't," she whispered, telling him that she had lost much more than what he could provide her.

"I promised."

He hoped he could give it to her. If he couldn't, he would move heaven and earth to find a way.

"I thought," she admitted, "when she came back, and I told her, she could help me through it. I wanted her to be my mother, Chuck, even if it's just for this." She sighed. "I need my mom, Chuck. It's scary to do this alone."

Alone. Even after the last month, she still thought of it as doing it alone.

"Can you make her forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" he parroted. What did Eleanor need to forgive?

"You promised. Make her forgive me, Chuck. I need my mom."

When the hell would he learn never to promise anything?

tbc