First of all, thanks again for all your wonderful reviews! Means the world, it really does. Secondly, sorry for the angst of the last chapter (and this chapter), but I promise, happier times are ahead!
(BTW, this chapter is considerably longer, simply because I wanted to do this serious subject the justice it deserves)
I hope everyone enjoys the latest developments. Blair and Chuck are meant for each other – we all know that – and don't worry, this fic is about them finding their way back to each other.
Keep reading, and I'll update again tomorrow! :) Let me know what you all think!
Despite Blair's protestations, Chuck insisted on riding in the ambulance with her. He watched as the crew members lifted her into the back of the ambulance on the stretcher before turning briefly to the concierge at the Empire front desk and leaving a message for Nate and Serena; that they shouldn't worry, but Blair had fainted and was just being checked over by the doctor.
He turned to head back to the open ambulance and felt his heart pounding as he watched the paramedics attending to Blair, who lay weakly on the stretcher. He ran towards them and hopped up into the ambulance to sit beside her and hold her hand. Blair's face relaxed momentarily when she saw him but then she appeared to panic.
"Just a few questions, Mr Bass… are you the father?"
Chuck almost laughed, trying to catch Blair's eye at the idiocy of the question, but she avoided his gaze.
"Jesus, how old do I look? No, I'm a close friend."
The paramedic looked confused.
"No, I mean, are you the father of Miss Waldorf's baby?"
Chuck looked stunned and turned his face back to Blair.
"You're pregnant?"
She began to cry miserably and nodded.
"I'm so sorry, Chuck."
The paramedic tapped his clipboard. Chuck's attention came back to the question at hand.
"Um, no. No I'm not. He's not in the country right now, he's in Europe." He turned back to Blair, realising the full implication of her fall. "Blair, maybe you should contact him."
She shook her head feebly and Chuck raised his hand to stroke her hair.
"Okay, it's alright. Let's just get you to the hospital and see what's going on. I'm sure you and your baby are going to be fine."
Seeing Blair in potential danger somehow had immediately calmed him down. If she had told him she was pregnant upstairs while they were talking in the apartment, he had no idea what would have happened.
As it was, she was lying in pain and it was his job to remain calm as well as to keep Blair calm.
Oh, and to silently plot the demise of the French son of a bitch who had thrown out his pregnant fiancée, naturally.
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Blair lay on a hospital table in a private cubicle, Chuck standing pacing by her side. They had been promised a doctor would be arriving shortly but the three minutes it actually took seemed the longest of both their lives.
"Hi, Miss Waldorf? I'm Dr. Jones."
Chuck and Blair both snorted despite themselves and despite the impending seriousness of the situation.
"Like, Indiana?"
Chuck laughed at her comment before recovering his composure.
"Dr. Jones, I'm Chuck Bass, a friend. Is there anything you can tell us?"
The doctor shook his hand.
"I'm afraid without further testing it's impossible to tell whether Miss Waldorf has indeed suffered a miscarriage." He turned now to Blair. "I'm just going to take you now for a few painless tests so we can really get to the bottom of this. Mr Bass, if you'd like to wait in the seating area just outside this door, I'll come and find you when we're finished."
Chuck exhaled loudly and ran a hand through his hair before turning back to Blair.
"Okay. I'll be just outside, I'm not leaving. I'll see you soon, Blair…there's nothing to worry about."
Without thinking he leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips, before opening his eyes to repeat his words.
"I'll see you soon."
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Chuck had waited for twenty minutes, and growing more anxious with each second had begun walking laps of the waiting room. He knew he was probably irritating everyone else sitting around him, but there was no way he could spend another minute in that little plastic seat.
"Mr Bass? I can take you now to Miss Waldorf."
Chuck didn't notice but behind him an anonymous blonde teenage head looked up from her copy of InStyle and silently snapped a quick picture with her phone of the doctor and Chuck standing before her. The tip was sent before Chuck had even left the waiting room.
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Blair was in a private room at the end of the corridor, and as the doctor escorted him there Chuck felt his forehead grow damp with perspiration. His mind couldn't stop turning over the various possibilities that lay inside that room, none of them good.
The door opened and he smiled at the sight of Blair sitting up in the bed, looking infinitely more healthy than she had before, putting his mind at rest momentarily. Dr. Jones motioned for Chuck to sit beside the bed, where he leaned in and grasped Blair's hand.
"Miss Waldorf, one of your babies has indeed died, but due to the complicated nature of …"
Blair cut him off immediately.
"ONE of my babies? Meaning there are two in there?" She gasped, all the air seemingly knocked out of her lungs. "Twins?"
The doctor looked confused.
"Yes, but… I thought this would have been picked up by your initial ultrasound scan which you had at the standard 12 week mark?"
Blair shook her head silently.
"Hmm. Okay. Well, give me the name of your usual doctor and I will try and find out what happened there. It's entirely possible that the deceased foetus had such a weak heartbeat and was so small that your other baby overshadowed it on the scan. This is extremely unusual though and if I'm honest, extremely unprofessional. It seems your doctor simply did not do a thorough enough job."
Blair bit her lip and felt a tear run down her cheek.
"But the…um…the, the 'deceased foetus'…. what happened?"
"In 99% of twin births there is one twin which is slightly smaller and weaker than the other. In your case, the smaller twin had serious health defects and problems from the beginning of its development, and did not develop in the same healthy way as your other baby. We would need to do some more tests to ascertain exactly what happened."
Blair's head fell into her hands and she sobbed uncontrollably. Chuck felt his heart break and his own eyes grew watery. He attempted to take control of the situation.
"So, what happens now, Doctor? Is there a standard procedure as in any other miscarriage?"
"I'm afraid not. You see, the twins were identical and sharing a placenta. It would be almost impossible to remove the deceased foetus without harming the other, and would almost certainly result in premature labour. At this stage, I'm not sure the other foetus could survive that."
Chuck felt Blair squeeze his hand as she used her other to wipe the tears and smudged mascara from under her eyes. She looked up in disbelief at the doctor.
"You mean…I have to carry both babies? I mean…both foetuses, even….even the…."
Her voice trailed off. She was overcome with an aching sadness as the doctor began to nod at her words.
"Even the deceased foetus. I'm so sorry, Miss Waldorf, I know this a traumatic event for both you and your partner. We can refer you to a counsellor if you'd like to discuss it further with an outside party."
Blair snatched her hand from Chuck's as she once again held her head in her hands. Chuck became vaguely aware of tears rolling down his cheeks as he realised he'd never seen Blair like this. Nothing either of them had ever experienced had ever left her this broken. He cleared his throat and wiped his face briefly with his cuff.
"Will this…the foetus…will it pose any problems for the health of the other?"
"Not usually, but we would like to arrange several more appointments each week for Miss Waldorf so that we can closely monitor her pregnancy, just to be sure."
Chuck nodded.
"Thank you for all your help, Doctor."
Dr. Jones nodded.
"I'll give you some time to process and adjust. If you notice any more bleeding or anything unusual-"
"We'll be sure to let you know. Thank you."
Chuck shut his eyes tightly and angrily and heard the door close behind the doctor. He looked over to where Blair was still sitting with her head lowered into her palms, shaking slightly with irrepressible yet silent sobs.
He leaned across and put his arm in her lap, squeezing her knee through the hospital bedding.
"Blair."
Nothing.
"Blair, please… look at me."
Slowly she lifted her chin, once again smearing underneath her eyes in an attempt to wipe away the salty tears. Turning her head towards Chuck's her lip quivered with one last involuntary sob.
Chuck couldn't believe the turn of events this day had taken. To go from playfully jousting with Blair over mimosas that morning to holding her hand in a hospital bed as she lay pregnant with another man's child was just too surreal for him to deal with.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Chuck. I was embarrassed….and scared."
"Is this why Louis ended the engagement?"
There was a pause before Blair nodded and Chuck almost snarled with rage at the thought of Louis abandoning her.
"But…Chuck, it's not what you think."
"Don't try and defend him, Blair. I thought he didn't care what his family thought? Besides, a royal title doesn't excuse his despicable behaviour."
"Chuck, he knew it wasn't his baby!" Blair burst out in frustration, her cheeks still wet and smudged with faded grey mascara streaks.
Chuck's eyes widened.
"But how can you be sure…"
"I didn't sleep with Louis!"
"What?"
"I said, I didn't sleep with him. He worked out what happened with us…at that barmitzvah." Blair hung her head again and tossed her curls from side to side angrily. "I was already pregnant when I got to Monaco…I thought about passing the baby off as his…it could have been plausible. But I hadn't slept with him yet and I knew I never could while I was carrying your child. So I told him."
Chuck remained silent as Blair stared into space.
"This was at the beginning of our vacation. He… he went crazy."
Chuck looked up. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"
Blair rolled her eyes.
"Of course not. You've met this guy, there's not a violent bone in his body. He was so angry though. He told me that" – here her voice trembled slightly – "I had broken his heart…and that I should leave. But even when he was so mad at me, he granted me one last favour…he promised not to release the statement until the end of summer, to give me time to regroup alone before facing everyone in New York."
"Including me," Chuck added, bitterly. "Blair, that is my child! How could you have even thought of hiding this from me?"
"Oh, because I'm sure you would have been really great with cancelling your trip with Nate to take me to birthing classes and doctors appointments all summer. Yeah, I can really see that happening."
Chuck stood now, his eyes narrowed furiously. When he spoke, his voice was calm, low, and simmering with rage.
"Blair, are you EVER going to learn to have any faith in me whatsoever? Because I don't know what else I have to do to prove to you that I am here. I am here, Blair, one hundred percent."
She started to speak but Chuck carried on regardless, never moving his eyes from hers.
"I have spent this entire day taking care of you…watching you, worrying about you…praying to God for the first time in my life, doing anything to make sure that you and your baby were safe. You're my best friend, Blair. But if that is what you think of me – that I would abandon you and our baby – then maybe it would have been better if you had never come back at all, and you could have spared me the pain."
He turned to walk out of the room, but before he had even reached the door, Blair was up and out of her bed, with her hand on his arm.
He whirled around straight away, his arms immediately going to support her weight as he worried for her being out of bed so soon after her ordeal.
"Chuck, please don't leave me." Fresh tears now joined with those dried on her cheeks. "Please. I'm so sorry."
He held her to his chest automatically, his arms encircling her protectively as she kept whispering between sobs, "I'm so sorry….So sorry, Chuck…I'm so sorry."
