Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N - This is dark. This chapter will not make you feel warm and fuzzy. It may test your upchuck reflex. You have been warned. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave their thoughts, they fuel me. I've been ill and injured, and thank those who've inquired about my health on my other stories. I'm feeling better, thank you. I will try to update more frequently.

Special thank you to: Ayr, Nes, Wifey. You are all very dear to me.

"Chuck!" The name was launched from Eric's tongue, Chuck knew, but by the time it leaped onto Chuck's bone drenched back, the heavy downpour had battered and pounded the moniker until all that remained was a faint whisper struggling against the storm's harsh winds. Drops that weren't quite rain, but had yet to fully solidify into hard bullets of hale slid between his shoulder blades, alternatively licking and biting into his flesh. He would have wondered idly how it was the crisp half liquid/half ice didn't rise off him in thick plumes of steam had his brain been able to corral his thoughts in a single direction.

He did not know where he was. He had lived in New York for nearly eighteen years and he could not recognize his surroundings.

He was lost.

Streets that had been easily discernible to him the last time he had visited the city that never slept crowded him now; any identifying details they might once have held, blurred around the edges and dodged his searching glare. The curtain of rain that had danced in circles around him as he'd made his way from the courthouse to the Archibald mansion only hours before, wrapping him in its cold, stubborn embrace, had thickened. Knitting the strands of translucent drops over and over until they loomed like a solid wall around him.

"Chuck! Stop! Wait!" And he barely registered the plea. He wasn't sure if it was the words themselves that coughed their frantic single syllables in his ears or if it was the vibrations they made as they came to their abrupt end against his impenetrable cocoon that had his shoes ending their erratic tattoo against the sidewalk. He didn't turn to face his once relation, the metal rod that had replaced his spine wouldn't allow it, but the other man's steady footsteps and constant calling had hounded him for blocks and he would not be dissuaded. "Thank you. If you would just..."

His voice sounded muffled to Chuck's ears; the characteristics of his face obscured by the wall of torrential rain. And even through the blur and haze engulfing him, Chuck could see the aspiring attorney summoning his lawyerly persona.

And for reasons unknown it irked him. He was not his father, who to be convinced of a ventures' potential viability had to be approached with care and nearly suffocated with information. Neither was he his despicable uncle, who only need first have hand experience with the female work force to consider pillaging and plundering its company. Chuck had always thought himself to be reasonable; he needn't be plied with an over abundance of information, distracted by anatomy, or persuaded by cagey tactics to give the blonde man his day in court. "Spit it out, Eric."

Eric paused. The large 'o' his lips formed told Chuck that he hadn't expected him to respond at all, let alone with the vigor that his name was spat. The blonde man's throat worked as he scrounged for his preplanned spiel, Chuck knew, but the words evaded him. Abandoned and speechless, the not-quite attorney merely thrust a beige envelope forward. It hung in the air between the two men as Chuck eyed it with disdain.

An envelope. Eric's explanation was a water logged, floppy envelope. A water logged, floppy, thick, legal-sized envelope.

"It's not going to work, Jack." Chuck burst through his uncle's office in the grand castle he'd brought nephew and passing fancy to dry out while they waited for the private firm that Jack had hired to handle the paternity test to return their verdict. And while Chuck waited for his step-brother to have the result of his own private test sent over from the States. He didn't trust Jack as far as he could throw him. Not when either Bass could easily be on the hook for daddy duty. "Sneaking off to your lair to fake the results."

Surprise Chuck knew to be anything but genuine slithered across his uncle's face. "I just sent Garrett to find you, nephew of mine." He hadn't, Chuck knew; he'd seen the butler dusting candle sticks in the foyer on his way in, but he let the lie slide in favour of getting this over and done with as soon as possible.

"Just open it." Chuck's snarl would have been intimidating, had the noose he felt tightening around his neck not started to choke the air from his lungs at the sight of the legal sized envelope in his uncle's hands. Jack's made quick work of opening the results and when his eyes lifted victoriously to his nephew's, Chuck felt the air rush from his lungs and darkness begin to edge its way into his vision as the noose tightened further.

"Looks like daddy number two is the lucky winner. Sorry kid." The smirk stretching his lips thin across his white teeth and the glint in his eye told Chuck he was anything but. "Let's go find your baby mama and let her know."

"Hold on. Not quite just yet." Chuck managed to convince his lungs to work as the stray thought formed at the back of his brain, but Jack had already anticipated his protest and was reaching into his breast pocket as he rose from behind his desk.

"It came for you this morning." The envelope Jack handed him was letter sized and white, but Chuck knew without having to open it that its contents would be no different from the beige manila envelope Jack still held in his other hand. And when he did pull the white letter with shaking hands from his uncle's steady ones, the black typing told him the same thing as Jack's snide remark had. Daddy number two was now the only daddy candidate that mattered. "Check with Bart's precious step-son if you feel the need," Jack's taunt had Chuck reaching for his cell phone and typing furiously, "but I think you'll find blood is just as thick as blondes." Eric's answering text filled the pause Jack meant to be dramatic. I'm so sorry, Chuck. He felt his uncle's satisfied smirk reach his eyes behind him. "Or at least in this case it is. Let's go boy, you've already knocked her up, let's not hold her up in hearing the news too."

An envelop that no doubt counted amongst its contents a detailed account of a medical procedure six years past.

"I'm going to marry her." Chuck's proclamation was badly slurred and would more than likely be forgotten by the time his blood was free of amber liquid and the white powder was wiped from his nose. His only living relative – unborn children you only just found out were yours didn't count; Chuck decided, not yet anyway – cocked an eyebrow at him and crossed his ankle over his knee in the large cabin of the Bass private plane. "Georgina." Chuck elaborated drunkenly though no elaboration was needed. "I'm going to marry the mother of my child and tell Bart just where he can stick his fucking precious company." The nearly empty tumbler he held in his hand sloshed the dark liquid coursing through his veins onto his pants unnoticed. "He wanted me to run Bass Industries? Well I wanted a father. Life sucks and then you die. I'm going to marry her and love my child like my father never loved me. I'm doing this my way, now. I'll give my son or daughter everything my father never gave me without the old Bastard's money." Glassy eyes met eyes shinning with victory. "You can have the company, Jack. I don't want it."

"And I'd be glad to take it off your hands, dear nephew," Chuck struggled to focus on what his uncle was saying, "but I think your father would have hated it more if you did both." Chuck's expression would have been one of confusion had his face not suddenly started to feel numb. "Marry Georgie and raise the brat with as much love and devotion as my brother never thought to give you. Once we scoop your bride out of the trouble she's landed herself in in Romania, we could be in Las Vegas in under six hours. But stay on at the company. It could be in name only, like a figure head," Jack added quickly when Chuck shook his head widely, causing the first wave of nausea he'd suffered since he was eight to violently turn his stomach . "You retain your inheritance and stay on the pay roll. Take the money the old bastard loved more than he loved you and use it to raise your kid in a castle meant for kings in the city known for proper etiquette. Love your kid; be faithful to your wife. And do it from inside the business your father neglected you for. The one that he couldn't be at the helm of and love his son. Put that last proverbially nail in his coffin."

Had Chuck been sober he would have recognized his uncle's speech for what it was; a manipulative ploy. Jack wanted Chuck as far away from New York – and from Lily and the other shareholders who would convince him to throw his uncle by the wayside – as possible, and submitting a counter offer to the Bass heir's proposal to outright gift the company to him was a brilliant tactic to keep suspicion from falling on Jack's own motives when it came to the company. But as it was, the perverse form of reverse psychology Jack subscribed to was overkill on top of the small pharmaceutical and liquor companies that were his nephew's blood stream, and Chuck agreed readily, unknowingly handing over the reigns to his life along with those of his father's company as their plane followed the sun's example and slipped from the sky.

A life altering procedure.

A life ending procedure.

Emotions that had been racing through Chuck's veins and stuttering through the empty cavity in his chest boiled over. Thunder cracked around the two men. Lightening lit the sky. The heavens parted. And the wall of water surrounding Chuck, hugging his emotions, his feelings, his rage to him like a swaddling blanket around a newborn infant disintegrated. Trees with leaves left almost too green from the heavy rain fall came into focus and Chuck realized he wasn't lost after all, but was standing, chest heaving and jaw clenched, half way up the drive of the Archibald mansion.

How he'd gotten there, he did not know. The image of Nathaniel's slack jaw and shocked eyes as realization dawned in the hospital corridor that Chuck hadn't known about the child, about the baby, was imprinted against Chuck's corneas; the sound of slick cement beneath his shoes still echoed in his ears, but his eyes hadn't registered the journey. His feet, fueled by unfamiliar emotions and feelings and rage, had usurped his brain – his logic – and he'd somehow ended up at the Archibald's with the youngest Van der Woodsen in toe.

No, Chuck realized, he'd called upon Eric's services. Uncover all of Miss Waldorf's medical history, he'd demanded. Hands shaking with an unresolved anger that vibrated his bones, Chuck tore the envelope from the other man's hands. Paved gravel bit into the souls of his newly purchased and expensive leather shoes, but didn't slow Chuck's pace as his legs hungrily ate the distance to the mansion's main entrance.

Chuck needed to find dry land, to organize his thoughts. To confirm what he suspected. The room he practically shared with his offspring came into view as he rounded the dark corridor and he charged through its doorway, seeking respite from himself; from Chuck.

"Charles." And he would find it in his bride, he realized. There had yet to be a time since those few months after her son's birth that Charles had relinquished the wheel and allowed Chuck to step into the limelight. The heavy wooden door connected with its frame loudly, and Charles twisted to face his maker. He did not inquire about her presence in his bed chamber, though he had believed her to be a ward of the prison still. Nor he did demand an explanation for the lie she'd cunningly weaved for Nathaniel. It did not matter. Charles did not care. And Chuck needed Charles to knot his tie and herd his thoughts until he could soundly weigh the facts of the situation.

Blood pounding relentlessly against his ear drums, Chuck wildly flung the paper clenched in his hand without averting his glare from the endless pit that was hers. Her beady green eyes did not follow the limp thing as it landed on the pristine bed spread. And neither did she; her bony back met the far wall, Chuck's fingers wrapped around her neck.

"Selfish whore," he hissed with unrestrained venom. She did not flinch. Chuck had called her worse, he knew, and the smirk her thin, cracked lips stretched across her hollow face told him it was a fact she too knew well. Tightening his hold around her windpipe, he heard control crack its leather whip somewhere off in the distance. And he nearly groaned in tortured relief when his crushing lips strangled hers, the bite he gave her that was everything but loving drawing blood.

She didn't respond. Did not squirm for air; her bonny fingers remained placid against her skinny thighs. Neither did she sink her teeth into his flesh like she had the last night they'd been this close in proximity. He'd been inebriated then, that much he could map out, though how he'd come to be in such a state when only wine enough to wet his pallet had passed his lips, he hadn't cared to waste time contemplating. The events had come to pass, the child that ripened beneath her concave abdomen conceived.

And the events would come to pass now.

His fingers unapologetically bruised the nearly nonexistent flesh at her inner thighs, searching under the too short and too tight skirt for the undergarments he knew to be absent nearly before his fingers hit her coarse curls. With a self satisfied grunt her skeletal legs clamped themselves around his now naked hips, jerking him closer until his girth ripped her insides.

It wasn't hurried or frenzied. Lips did not meet in open mouth embraces. Fingers prodded, their onslaught void of caressing touches. There wasn't any passion; no fire, no flames. And when the end of the dance neared, Chuck threw his head back and roared. Primal. Guttural. A release. His release.

The final release of Charles.

And it was then, before the tension that cracked in the air could ignite, burning wildly until it ate up the room's oxygen that Chuck managed to pry the last of Charles' cold, dead fingers from the steering wheel.

His bride's embrace may hold Charles, Chuck knew, but it need not be Charles who embraced his bride any longer.

The final release of Charles …

"Get out, whore."

The beginning of Chuck's reign.

"Chuck." Lieutenant Archibald, Chuck realized, his pants securely slung around his narrow hips once more. But it was not a question, though the blonde lawman had clearly interrupted a scene that did not normally play out in his guest bedroom. It was merely his name. And it told Chuck that perhaps the olive branch bridge they'd constructed just yesterday, and that had been engulfed in flames only that morning had not yet been charred past the point of salvation.

Lips still catching traces of her metallic, red blood, Chuck nodded at the Lieutenant. "Take her," he growled, "I'm done with her." With a commanding nod to a uniformed officer that Chuck had not initially spied, Nathaniel crossed the threshold. Turning his back on the current Mrs. Charles Bass, Chuck faced the mattress, but before he could scoop its damp contents into his hand, the Lieutenant had crossed the room and done so himself.

"I'll take you to her," he said. And the arch of his brow and the set of his jaw needn't have been accompanied by the papers in the other man's hands for Chuck to know just which her was being referenced.

"Yes, you do that." The bridge burnt on. "Take me to Blair."

A/N - I know. It makes me want to cringe, too. But look at it from a purely plot driven stand point. Georgina aided in creating Charles, and now she's aided in his demise. If their little tryst hadn't happened, Chuck would still be under Charles' thumb when he confronted Blair. I will say no more. :)

Oh, and no, B, we don't know if J accosted Blair, or what the 'New Years' reference was all about. This is just something that had been in my head *before* Jack ever appeared.

Lynne