Stop this is the second update for today. Please go back if you haven't read about Blair leaving the hospital.
Chuck stole a glance at Blair. The tip of her nose peeked out of the fall of her brown curls. If she was still worried, she hid it in a close study of the city passing by on their way home from breakfast.
Their meal had been unhurried and Blair had for the first time Chuck could remember eaten her favourite foods, uninhibited by the memories of her past struggles.
They might survive this crisis after all. She'd asked him to help her enter her life again, and he felt stronger because Blair needed him.
As the car slowed to the curb, she drew a quick breathe and pointed to the tall, narrow building. It was just home to him, or it would be now that his wife was sharing it with him again. Through Blair's eyes, he saw how the gold trim of the entryway glittered and how regal the doorman appeared as he cross the sidewalk to open the door.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" The unfamiliar word felt strange in his mouth.
Blair's hair whispered against the seat as she turned to him. "You sound as if you're seeing it for the first time."
"Maybe not the first time, but I've taken it for granted. You picked this building, because of how elegant the lobby was." His beautiful bride to be had tugged his arm as she practical skipped down the block explaining to him how perfect this apartment would be for them. "You're what makes it home, a part of you I can't forget."
"The part you wished would remember you?" Blair prompted
"I guess that depends on why you forgot."
"Dr. Barton didn't talk to you about shock and the amount of blood I lost?" She sounded as if she suspected the doctor might have given her a different story.
"That's what he told me." He hastened to relieve her understandable fear. "But I've researched memory loss on the internet. I know about stress. What if Barton's wrong, and you forgot because you don't want to remember?"
"Tell me what stress I was under."
Annoyed with himself, he motioned for her to step out of the car. He rounded the SUV holding out his arm for her.
"The usual stress. And you're pregnant, but I didn't know that."
She clasped his arm as they walked toward the lobby. He gaze rode him hard as he gave the door man instructions.
"Why didn't I tell you?" she asked as they entered through the glass doors. "I can't believe I would have chosen to get myself pregnant with your knowledge."
He loosened his grip on her arm, as he pressed the button to call the elevator. "We stopped using birth control when we first got married. We tried for a year and it didn't happen. Don't waste your time worrying about why you didn't tell me. We'll deal with the answers when they come."
Blair followed Chuck onto the elevator, sliding her hand beneath the weight of her hair, leaning her nape into the palm of her hand. He rubbed his own hands together, remembering the way soft texture of those dark strands against his skin.
"Sometimes," she said, "I feel as if you know something you're not telling me. You don't have to protect me. I'm not fragile."
He didn't answer. He couldn't lie to her outright.
"Chuck?"
Looking at her, he knew his eyes begged her to take him on faith. She nodded slowly.
"Let's start our life again," she said.
Brave words. In the past weeks, he's struggled each day for a respectable measure of courage. Hers came from a source he'd underestimated. Nodding, he clasped her had as they exited the elevator.
"I'm home," she said
He hadn't excepted her to think of their penthouse as her home already. His legs threatened to give.
Blair flashed an apologetic glance. "I keep repeating it in my head. I thought I might be more convincing if I said the words out loud."
Reality again. He was starting to dislike it. "Do you think you feel up to exploring?"
"I can't wait." She proceeded him as they walked down the narrow hall that lead to the kitchen.
When they'd first moved in she had insisted they renovate the kitchen. She stopped now at the butchers block island and revolved in a slow circle, bemused at the stainless steel fixtures, all state of the art, all of a sturdy and useful.
"Why does this place look like a restaurant?"
He almost dropped her bag. "That's what I said the first time you showed it to me. You talked me into theses appliances. You desperately wanted to lean t cook, to be a 'sweet little house wife' as you put it."
She turned away from the island. "I don't recognise myself when you talk about me."
Chuck's world slipped a little, like a foundation incorrectly laid. He had known Blair their entire lives, he'd believed he knew all about her. "What don't you recognise?"
"Obviously, women choose to make homes for their busy husbands and to look after children, but how would I stay home with so little to do around here?"
Little to do? How about taking care of their family?
She laid her left hand on her forearm. He started at the narrow band on her ring finger, at the diamond he'd picked just for her. He'd insisted, because the sapphire she'd liked hadn't said the same thing as a diamond.
"What did I say that scared you?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I wonder if you were bored with me – with our life – before the accident."
"I wish I hadn't said that."
He twined his fingers with hers, and she didn't pull away. Did she notice she'd let him touch her? "Say what you feel. Ask me anything. I want to help you, but I can't promise I won't be disturbed when you tell me something I didn't know about you."
Shrugging, she gently disentangled herself from him. Her smile flirted a little. "I hope I keep on disturbing you. I'd rather not be the only one who's confused." The tender curve of her lips made her look more like his Blair.
His heart responded, but he checked his involuntary response. "Why don't we take your things to our room? I'll show you the way, and then you can explore the rest of the place while I make some calls. We'll take those stairs." He pointed toward the white wooden steps tucked into the corner beside the pantry.
Blair climbed ahead of him. Her perfume drifted back as her hair gently settled to her shoulders with each step.
"You'll probably want to change," he suggested. "Our room is the first door on the left."
As she took in the narrow hallway, he saw its shadowed closeness for the first time in years. She hung back, as if she shared his unexpected claustrophobia.
"We should have discussed sleeping arrangements before now," She said.
A rush of resentment surged through him, but he opened the bedroom door. He was determined to be strong for her.
She followed him inside, carefully avoiding the four poster bed and the overstuffed armchairs that guarded the wide bay window. A reading lamp hovered at the corner of her chair. She'd loved this room.
He also avoided the furniture they'd used all their marred life. He wouldn't let his need to hold her again turn into immature anger. "You're asking me to move out?"
"No, this is your room. It's strange to me." She stopped
Well, he probably looked stricken.
"It's comfortable," she improvised, confused about what mattered to him. "But unfamiliar. I'll move out until we know each other again."
He did know her. Some caveman instinct that startled even him suggested he ease her to their bed and remind her in all the ways he knew she loved.
"You stay here," he said and then cleared his throat. If shed known 'him at all, his husky tone would have betrayed the erotic images in his mind. "I'll take the guest room."
Stubbornness she'd never shown before firmed her mouth. "Why should you sleep anywhere besides your own bed? You don't have to be a gentlemen."
"I'm not," he said. "I want you to remember. Maybe, if you stay in a room you loved, surrounded by belongings you've chosen, your life will come back to you." And she'd return to him. Unless she remembered his lie about the business.
For a moment she didn't care if she remembered what he'd done as long as she remembered the rest of their lives together. The company mattered, but they had children who would need both parents, and he wanted Blair to remember loving him.
"I'll just go make my calls and then I will move my things."
"Can't you call from here?" Her gaze reached the telephone on the side of the bed. She picked up the receiver and held it to him.
"Listen, Blair, this time I could use a break. I'm willing to do what you want about our marriage, but I'm not happy about separate rooms. Let me go downstairs and deal with my work stuff." He stopped as she looked at him with a pinched face.
She twisted her neck, flexing the muscles. Once he would have stepped behind her to massage her tension away. Chuck needed her with a yearning that went so deep in his body he had to force himself not to shake like a scared child. "I just need a moment."
She out her hand on his arm, and he jumped, but then stood still, meeting her gaze. Her mouth was vulnerable. Her eyes beseeched. "I learn to be your wife again, Chuck."
"I don't want you to learn." He bit the inside of his cheek until it hurt. "I want a wife who loves me "he felt naked.
"What if I don't remember? I can't promise to fall in love with you." She took both his hands in hers and pulled them against the swell of her stomach where the babies they'd made together were growing. "But I want a real marriage." Her dark eyes glinted with life he'd never seen before. "And I want it with you. I'm willing to believe I might come to feel love enough to make our marriage real again."
"For the children?"
"For them. I won't lie to you, but I don't want to throw the past away just because I don't remember it. I want to know what I can feel for you if we give each other time."
He wasn't a man who talked about maybes. He believed in reality, like concrete and steel. He carried her bag to the chair in front of his cluttered desk.
When he turned, she was still watching him. Her soft tone and intense gaze promised a future he craved. But would she try so hard if she knew he'd failed in their present?
He'd feared losing Blair for most of his life. She'd always said she wanted to share the bad times, the problems he'd tried to hide as well as their successes, but he couldn't show her his failures, he wouldn't let another person in his life be disappointed in him.
"You don't have to handle me with care, Chuck."
He held onto the chair to fight off another bout of shaking. She knew something was wrong.