AN: I haven't had a chance to respond to your reviews yet. Please know how much I appreciate them.

Part 9

She was falling in love with him.

His legs ate the space from the hotel entrance to the elevator in no time. He was going to see her. He would knock on the door and find her in the suite, and for the first time in a good while he was going to come home to someone who loved him.

God, he wanted to see the look in her eyes when she said it. Over the phone he had been frozen, unable to say something in return except to ask for it again. When she said it, if she said it again, in front of him, he was going to brand the moment in his brain. It would be a memory he would repeat over and over in his brain.

Like the night he had run to her for comfort the night after his father was buried, and she had wrapped him in her arms and gave her a home in her bed.

His hand slipped in his pocket to grip the ring inside. The diamond bit into his thumb.

Not even Eleanor Rose could ruin the night for him. His visit to her had yielded results that Blair would not have wanted, but it was not going to be what ruined the beginnings of what he and Blair now had.

"What do you mean you won't see her?" he had repeated, his voice soft, low. Eleanor's voice had been cool, with barely restrained emotion. The woman looked at him as if she hated him, as if he had destroyed her family. He returned the words and made them sound like a threat. He had mastered the art. It was a skill he had never imagined he would ever use on Blair's mother.

"She wouldn't listen to me. If you two are arrogant enough to feel that you don't need guidance in this, then you have to deal with this on your own."

He had swallowed, almost thought he saw his father behind Eleanor Rose. Chuck felt his jaw lock. He shook his head. "We can deal with this. We are more ready for a baby now than you or my father ever were when you had us," he told her. "But Blair seems to think she needs her mother."

"Charles, I am not the cold hearted woman you seem to think I am. I want what's best for my daughter."

Not coldhearted was right. She was heartless. It was the only way she could have proposed what she wanted to her daughter. "You want her to get rid of my baby."

"Get married," Eleanor had suggested. "Then I will come and take care of her. I can answer her questions, Charles. She does need a mother. You presume you can take care of her, but you can never do it the way a mother can."

"Can you?" Was she not holding a mother's love hostage in her demand? "I can spend a lifetime getting married to your daughter in every city and religion in the world, but we are not getting married until she's ready, certainly not because that's what you want."

"Then tell her to forget that she has a mother."

He sucked in his breath. He rang the bell and leaned on the doorframe. Chuck heard her feet padding across the floor, quickly. Like she was running. That was something they needed to talk about. He would not have her running anymore. She was getting bigger now, and it was just the two of them. They needed to take care of her.

"Blair," he started when the door opened, "we should—"

And then she flew into his arms. He wrapped her in an embrace. Her hair was loose around her face and he found his nose buried in its scent. She clung to him with the baby pressed between them. In his arms she was almost trembling.

He pressed his lips on her forehead. "What is it, Blair? What's wrong?"

She looked up at him with liquid eyes. "Nothing. I missed you."

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her inside the suite. He closed the door behind them. She turned around and he took his hand and raised it to his lips. There was time enough for everything else later. First of all, "Tell me," he requested.

She smiled, because she knew, and because, he could see, she wanted to say them. Moments like this, he almost felt that maybe he had done enough good in his life to make up for everything else he had done. Someday when their baby was born, and she—Blair seemed convinced it was a girl—went to school and interacted with other children, he might regret some of the decisions he had made in retaliation to what he had perceived as his father's hatred.

Blair smiled, and when she smiled, he felt like a hero, like the best person in the world, like a philanthropist and a philosopher, like someone who could be a great father.

"I'm falling in love with you, Chuck," she said.

Like someone who could be a good partner.

He cupped her face with his hands, almost reverently, almost like she was fragile porcelain he was handling, like it he was too harsh, too abrupt, too loud, she was going to break and he would lose her. His lips were gentle when they teased her mouth. She gave a soft moan from the back of her throat.

"I love you, Blair."

She nodded. "Have dinner with me."

"I'll book us a table. Are you in the mood for Butter?"

He missed the warmth of her body when she turned around to walk to the kitchen. He followed and stopped at the doorway to watch her pop the parmigniana into the microwave. This was the closest he would probably come to watching her prepare dinner, but it was a sight he would never get tired of seeing.

"I called for roast chicken," she told him.

He saw the table setting complete with a tapered candle at the center of the table. She placed the steaming pasta on the table and gestured towards the food.

He walked over to her and kissed her cheek. "Thanks for dinner." He pulled a chair for her and sank into the seat across from her.

They were halfway through dinner when she asked the inevitable. "What did my mom say?"

The fork was midair. Slowly, he placed it down on his plate. She was beautiful, and relaxed, and it seemed like she was happy. He cleared his throat. "I didn't get to see her," he said. "She had already left by the time I arrived."

She nodded, and he helped her place the plates in the sink for the maid to take care of the next day. Evening ablutions were different, but even if they had never done them together before, he felt a familiar warmth in the pit of his stomach to brush his teeth with the hotel's disposable toothbrush while she used her green electric one.

"Can I keep a toothbrush here?" he asked tentatively.

She spat and washed her mouth with water. He met her eyes in the mirror. "I'll buy you a new one tomorrow while you're in school," she promised.

He nodded. They slept in one bed, right beside each other. Her back was turned to him, and he was the one who slept behind her now, with his arm around her belly, holding her and their baby. He felt the movement under the palm of his hand, and he sucked in his breath. He wanted to ask, but it was so peaceful and quiet that he hesitated to break the silence.

And then her hand was over his, when he thought she was asleep. She had been. He hoped he did not wake her with his surprise.

"She started moving restlessly tonight, right after you left," she said sleepily. She yawned. "Feel her?"

"I do." He pressed a kiss on her arm.

"Chuck," she breathed.

"Yes?"

"When will you stop loving me?"

The entire night he had hesitated, but this time there was no need. "Never."

In the darkness, she reached for him. He sucked in his breath as her hands fumbled to his pants. She cupped him. "I want you." He had read far too many books to think this was more than her hormones. But at the back of his mind, he hoped it also had something to do with the words she admitted to. Chuck allowed her to settle over him, held on to her hips as she moved up and down, as she sheathed him in her heat. She gasped above him, arched her spine and threw her head back so that her hair teased his knees.

She came with a soft, muffled cry, and fell above him. He released himself inside her and wrapped his arms around her. Her hand lay above his heart. Chuck slipped his hand into the pocket of his pants. And then, while she gasped to regain her breath, he slipped the ring on her finger.

He watched her as she blinked at her finger. "Chuck?"

"You're it," he told her. "I want you to know that you're it."

She raised herself from him and sat on the bed, looked down at the diamond now glittering on her finger. "It's beautiful."

He raised himself on his elbow. "Like you. I picked it out weeks ago. The moment I saw it, I knew it was going to be the ring that would be in all our pictures for the rest of our life."

"Chuck, I'm not—"

"Ready."

"Yeah." She looked up at him, and she almost looked ashamed. "But if I was—"

"It's okay. I know you're not ready. Think of it as a standing proposal."

She took off the ring and held it up to him. "I'm sorry, Chuck."

She was falling in love with him.

It was a chant in his head the entire time. He closed her fingers over the ring. "Keep it. What will I do with it?" He sat up on the bed and pressed a kiss on the corner of her lips. She closed her eyes and the tears fell, a couple of drops on his cheek. "I love you, Blair. I'll look at your hand every morning and someday I'll see the ring. And then I'll start looking for venues, and calling planners, and I'll be fitted for my tux, because the day I see you wear it I'll know you're ready."

She nodded, and she was crying in earnest now. She looked down at the ring, then back up at Chuck.

"It's okay," he assured her. "Maybe in the future?"

Blair closed her eyes. "In the future."

"I'll never stop loving you, never stop taking care of you, even if you never wear it. But God, I hope you will."

They lay down on the bed, this time she wrapped her arm around him. Chuck closed his eyes and saw the ring winking at him from the bedside table where she had placed it.

"My mom doesn't want me, does she? She's not gonna forgive me."

"She'd already left."

Blair shook her head against his chest. "I called Dorota, Chuck. I know you talked to her."

He drew a deep breath. He pressed a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm sorry, Blair."

"It's okay. I have you."

tbc