His vision is so clouded and his head spinning so badly that he does not even registered the limo has stopped until the door closest to him is wrenched open. Two hands reach into the limo, and he slides away from their straining grasp under he is slumped against the other door.
"Come on, Mister Bass," the owner of those hands coaxes as he climbs into the limo and reaches for Chuck.
He wrenches the young man out of the limo just as he did when Chuck was six-years-old and refusing to attend school. His employer protests, slurs his words and stumbles over his own feet as he is hauled towards the service entrance in the back of the building.
"No," he slurs when he spies the woman waiting for him at the back door.
He turns away and stumbles again as he tries to leave, but the grip around his arms tighten and he is compelled forward. The alcohol has robbed him of much of his motor skills, and his flimsy arm is looped over the stout woman's shoulder until his weight is being supported by the two people normally found in uniform. He hasn't lost enough of his motor skills to be in the dark about the fact that these two have schemed together. If this wasn't a scheme, they would currently be escorting him up the elevator in the lobby under her watchful gaze instead of dragging him towards the service elevator.
"Arthur," he says as his head rolls onto the shoulder of his source of anger, "you're fired."
The woman pressing the button marked 'PH' raises an eyebrow at the chauffeur. She had warned him about the possibility of them both losing their jobs; the possibility had been the main source of her hesitation. But Arthur brushes off her concern. Some things are more important than a job, and Arthur has been Chuck Bass' personal driver long enough to know that this is exactly where his employer needs to be.
Arthur stays behind in the elevator and rides it back down alone because he needs to move his double-parked limo before the doorman calls a tow truck. The woman chatters away in broken English as she sneaks him up the back staircase alone. She tells him that Miss Eleanor is marrying a Mister Cyrus Rose downstairs, and some part of his brain fights through the fuzziness to recognize exactly why Mister Rose hung up on him. He tries to turn back twice, is forced to move forward by the Polish woman who refuses to put up with his nonsense and sets him on the bed with strict instructions not to move.
"What do you think you're doing here?"
Her voice is sharp and demanding, but her features are softened by the turn of his head. He holds her gaze, turns away when he can't find the right words to say.
Her bulky black dress is gone, traded for a gold number that shows of her rounded stomach despite the bow. Shame and sadness fills him, and more silent tears run down his cheeks when he feels her arms wrap around his shoulder and neck. He presses his cheek to her shoulder, rocks backwards until she is cradling him close.
"He's gone," he whispers, feels her pull him tighter against herself and try to roll them both back onto the bed. He tenses and tries to hold his posture so he doesn't fall back against her and crush the baby sandwiched between them.
"I'm here," she mummers in his ear. "Let me be here for you."
He gingerly touches the arm looped around his neck at the elbow and tries to pry her off of him, but her grip tightens so that his only option is to shift his body so that he is facing her. His hands slide around her back. His fingers fumble with the zipper of her dress.
"That isn't what I meant," she tells him.
She shrugs her shoulders, tries to shake off his hands from her back. He stills, pauses, and considers what she is assuming of him.
"No," he corrects softly. "I just…I just wanna see my baby."
She stares at him, looks past the cloudiness and hooded eyelids to see the rawness of the request. She hears him, looks past the roughness and slightly slurred words to hear the ache behind the request. Silently, she acquiesces and pulls down the zipper herself.
The front of the dress falls forward, and she slips off the bed to allow it to fall to a puddle at her feet. She feels naked and exposed despite her virginal bra and panties. Twenty-two weeks. More than halfway. Unmistakably pregnant.
"You're so big," he breathes out.
"Thanks," she snaps and bends down to pick her dress back up so as to cover up her form.
"No."
He lunges for her hands, stills her movements.
"That's not what I meant. It's just…" he trails off, eyes closing and opening again before he speaks. "When I saw you earlier, the dress – I had no idea. I couldn't tell. But now…"
His hand ghosts across her stomach, across the taunt skin as though he is afraid to touch it. She watches him with curious eyes, sees her emotions reflected in his eyes that are filled with tears and sadness. He brings up his other hand to touch her and then he is cupping her belly, stroking it softly with his thumbs.
"She's healthy?"
"He's perfect," she replies.
The correction introduces a torrent of emotions, and he can barely breathe as he questions the pronoun. He seems terrified at the amendment, drops his hands and shifts away when she confirms that the baby is in fact a boy.
"Did you want a girl that badly?"
"No," he says, but the single word comes out more like a whimper. "It's just that I – I'm going to fuck him up just like my dad –"
His voice breaks at the mention of his father, and he stands to his feet. He starts to tell her that he should go, says something about her and the baby deserving better. But she grabs onto his arm, sinks her nails in like she is holding on for dear life.
"You won't," she promises. "You already – he moves at the sound of your voice. I'm always having to poke him to make him move around, but one word from you and…"
"You can feel him?"
She finds herself nodding her head rather than verbally telling him yes as he sinks back down to bed so that he is sitting in front of her. His hands are back on her belly like he has some kind of magnetic pull to the area, a pull that he cannot resist.
"He knows my voice?"
"I guess so," she replies. "He was moving like crazy every time you spoke earlier and now –"
She trails off, watches him move his hands around and frustration set into his features.
"I can't feel anything."
The anguish in his voice kills her, and she runs her hands through his messed hair in an attempt to comfort him. She explains that he won't, at least not for another few weeks, and she hopes against hope that the timeline is enough to get him to stay. He drops his head, refuses to look her in the eyes. She does the only thing that feels natural to her – pushes her stomach against him so that his forehead is touching her and his lips are inches from her belly button.
Tears fall. She can feel the wetness against her stomach. The floorboards outside her room creak, and she turns her head to see Dorota lurking in the doorway. She dismisses Dorota with a cutting glare, ignores the woman as Dorota shuts the door to her bedroom. All the sounds of the small party downstairs are gone; leaving them wrapped in the sound of Chuck's muffled cries.
Eventually, she convinces him to sleep. They lay on top of the covers together with only the thin afghan off the foot of her bed for coverage although she is semi-naked and he is fully clothed. She wraps him tight around her, places one knee between his legs and other on top of his knee so that she will know if he tries to leave in the middle of the night. And then, for good measure, she places his hand right on top of her belly even though allowing him to see the size and the shape is hard for her handle.
She barely sleeps that night, watches him like a hawk until her eyelids are too heavy and she loses her self-inflicted battle. And when she awakens, he is gone – no note, no good-bye. She feels like she is going to cry, feels like she is going to vomit even though she has been done with morning sickness for weeks.
She pulls on her white robe, grimaces when she realizes that it will not cover her belly even when she pulls it as tightly across her body as possible. She debates about taking a shower, likes the idea of being able to mask her tears with the stinging hot water. But a deep growl from her stomach rejects the idea, and she resigns herself to the idea that she will have to go downstairs and eat breakfast first.
Her bare feet feel cold against the marble; her body feels cold against the world. She calls out for Dorota, demands a breakfast tray as she sashays into the dining room. And then hot warmth fills through her as her heart stills. Her hand slides around her body to cup her belly, always ready to protect and cuddle close.
"Miss Blair," Dorota greets as she pulls out a chair and gestures for Blair to sit down.
Her employer is not easily fooled by Dorota's innocence act, and a quipped eyebrow and an open mouth spur Dorota towards an explanation. Her statement that Mister Chuck came downstairs looking for breakfast after Miss Eleanor and Mister Cyrus left for their honeymoon is not entirely believable. Chuck at least as the decency to look away sheepishly at the lie. Dorota leaves them together to go and fetch Miss Blair's breakfast, makes a passing comment about important it is that they both attend the internment with full stomachs.
"I wasn't going to stay," he confesses when Dorota finally leaves them alone.
"I know," she replies softly.
Her gaze is fixated on the half-eaten omelet in front of him. Ham and cheese and carbs and fat. All things that she would never let herself enjoy. Yogurt and fresh fruit are enough, she tells herself. Except the baby disagrees and the loud rumble from her stomach leaves her secret exposed.
"Here," he says, sliding the plate towards her.
"Oh, no," she quickly rejects. "Dorota is bringing me my –"
"Yogurt and grapes? The baby needs more than that."
"I'll feed the baby whatever I want," she snaps angrily.
The comment hangs between them as Dorota bustles into the dining room with Blair's breakfast tray. The yogurt, grapes, and strawberries would have been enough only moments ago but now suddenly look entirely unappetizing, and she ends up picking at food on the plate. With a gentle nudge, the omelet is pushed further into her eyesight and, even though she does not want to give him the satisfaction of being right, she finds herself inhaling the cheesy mess.
"Better?"
She rolls her eyes at his teasing, glares at his insubordination. And then her gaze softens at the sight of him. His hair is mess. His clothes – the same ones he wore yesterday – are haphazardly arranged, and he still reeks of alcohol. Gone is the perfectly coffered Chuck Bass, replaced by something she barely recognizes.
"The internment?"
Her question clearly startles him, and he eyes her suspiciously. She wants to ask him if she can go with him, but the memory of his rejection yesterday is still fresh in her mind. He stands, gives her a once over, and starts to walk away. Then, hovering just inside the doorway between the dining room and the living room, he pauses and calls out without turning around to face her.
"Go get dressed."
It is a cold and dreary morning as she stands side by side with him at the graveyard. She feels gross since she's wearing the same dress as yesterday, but she has nothing else with her that is black and will cover her new shape. At least, she tells herself, she can take small comfort in the fact that he has also not changed.
The priest mumbles something about ashes to ashes, dust to dust as the gilded coffin is lowered into the grown. She doesn't bother trying to hold his hand, which are currently stuffed into the pockets of his coat. She doesn't bother trying to offer words of comfort. Instead, she takes in all that she can about the moment with eyes fixated on the name on the imposing, shared headstone above Bart Bass' grave.
Evelyn Bass.
The name is unfamiliar to her. She reads the words under the name, feels her chest tighten at phrase "beloved wife". She had no idea Bart Bass was once married, assumed that Chuck sprang from thin air or, more likely, from a woman like her. Too stupid to know better, too stupid to do anything about it. Like father, like son.
But the dates below Evelyn's name give her pause. A quick calculation places the year of death in the same time frame as Chuck's birth. (She's never asked when his birthday is; he has never offered it.) The coffin is lowered, the dirt is shoveled in, and still she cannot tear her eyes away from the headstone. She feels his hand on her elbow, feels herself being tugged towards the car, and still she cannot tear her eyes away.
"Evelyn?"
Her question is a whisper meet with darkened eyes. He shrugs off her question as he helps her into the car, as he instructs Arthur to take them to Victrola. The name hangs between them even after he escorts her to the couch in the middle of the nearly empty establishment. He orders a scotch, settles into the couch to watch the dancers but finds himself watching her.
She likes to watch; he can tell just by the way she leans forward in her seat and watches with wide eyes. Burlesque, stripping, the forbidden enthralls her. His drowns his drink, orders a refill as his free hand comes to play with the curls hanging in front her face. He cannot bear to see her hide.
She turns her head at his action, looks at him cautiously and sadly. He tries to give her a smile, drops his hand to slide against her back in his failure. She turns her attention back to the stage as the music changes, and she turns her head back to look at him over her shoulder as the song she danced to fills the room.
"Do you remember that night when I danced for you? When you saw the real me? The Blair without all the hang-ups?"
He has no idea where she is going with this, no idea how to respond. She turns her gaze away from him and whispers so softly that he has to strain to hear what she said.
"I miss her."
She becomes mesmerized by the actions of the women on stage just as he becomes mesmerized by her. He strokes the back of her arm gently and whispers so softly that she has to strain to hear him.
"Evelyn was my mother. She died giving birth to me."