This is the final chapter of this story (though an epilogue will follow). Set about two months after the previous chapter, and with a bit of a 180 on Blair's part, which I hope will make sense. If it doesn't, yell at me in your review and I'll try to elaborate in my reply ;)

I don't really have much more to add other than that. Hope you'll enjoy the last chapter!


"Chuck?"

Nate paused for a second to see if he would get an answer. None came, so he walked inside while going through his mail. But when he turned around and cast a glance at the glass wall separating Chuck's bedroom from the living room he could see someone lying on the bed and it didn't look like it could be Blair.

"Dude?" Nate said, opening Chuck's bedroom door.

"What?" Chuck asked. He was lying on the bed, his right forearm covering his eyes.

"Why didn't you answer me before?" Nate asked. "What are you doing?"

"Is it possible that I have lost my mind completely?" Chuck asked with a sigh.

"Uh, yeah" Nate said. "You sold Blair for a hotel last year."

"Not what I was referring to, but thanks for bringing that lovely memory back."

"What's up?"

Chuck moved his forearm from his eyes and began to rub them to get rid of the blurry vision.

"Just the stupidest thing…" he said. "I was bored and I was looking at live surveillance. There was this couple who checked in and they had an infant in a pram."

Nate nodded.

"I'm not supposed to react this way" Chuck said. "I mean… I've seen a lot of babies since ours died and it's often been fine. But today it was like…"

"Look it will get easier" Nate said, walking into the room and getting up on Blair's side of the bed to have a seat.

"I hope so."

"Is Blair still..?"

"One hundred percent."

Starting about a week after the baby's funeral Blair had gone into deep denial mode, pretending that she wasn't sad and that everything was normal. Nobody had seen her cry since January, nor had anyone seen her seem upset even. It was now early March and she had been acting this way for over a month.

"She still doesn't talk about it at all?" Nate asked. "Never talks about him?"

"No" Chuck said. "I get that she wants to forget, because it hurts. I want to forget. But the thing is with your children, you can't run from it. You can't run from it once they are on their way and you most certainly can't run from it if they die."

"You know Blair" Nate said. "She either faces something head on or she goes into denial."

"And currently she's Cleopatra on that damn river in Egypt."

"Yeah."

"The oddity of it all is the reversal of our roles" Chuck said. "She was the one who accepted that we were having a baby from the very first day; I was the one who couldn't come to terms with the idea of becoming a father, I tried to ignore reality and my child for as long as I could. Now she refuses to acknowledge what we've lost while I deal with reality."

Nate nodded. He had had front row seats to Chuck's grief over the past weeks and he knew his best friend was having a very hard time dealing with the death of his son. Meanwhile Blair barely seemed phased at all anymore, which Nate knew was just a façade. Her refusal to acknowledge her baby's death was beginning to become a problem, since they all knew that sooner or later she needed to deal with it, and the longer she postponed it the worse it would get. And frankly it scared Nate when Blair acted this calm over something she ought to be in pieces over, since when the inevitable breakdown came it wouldn't be pretty.

"What are you going to do?" Nate asked.

"Damned if I know" Chuck sighed. "I've got enough to deal with when it comes to my own grief. I don't know if I have the strength right now to put it all aside and just try and jolt her."

"Why should you put it aside?" Nate asked. "You should be dealing with this together. You and I both know you need to go through this with Blair, and that she needs you too."

"You don't think I'm crazy for having such a strong reaction to losing a child that hadn't even been born yet?"

"Was he any less your son because he hadn't been born?"

"No…" Chuck sat up. "My father's right though. I've really gone soft."

"Grieving for your dead baby is not being soft" Nate said. "It's being human."

"I think to my father those two were synonymous."

Nate didn't know what else to say. He settled for just sitting there, for as long as Chuck wanted company.


Blair woke up with a slight headache, the kind that always followed with having slept for too long. Since January she had been sleeping until very late in the morning every day, except for when someone had forced her up for some reason or other. But today was Friday and both Chuck and Nate were out, so no one had disturbed her sleep.

She yawned and stretched before lazily getting out of bed and heading to the shower. Once her hair was meticulously blow-dried and styled she carefully applied her makeup to match with the outfit she had chosen for the day. Pleased with her perfect appearance she smiled at herself in the mirror and then walked out to get some breakfast.

Two vases with flowers stood on the large dining table at the far end of the living room. She assumed one of them was for her, since it consisted of pink peonies, but who the white and yellow roses were for was anyone's guess. She wasn't particularly curious so she ignored them.

After breakfast Blair decided to head out for some proper pampering. She had only just sat down for her mani-pedi when her phone rang. She reached over to her new Fendi bag and grabbed her phone with her so far un-manicured fingers.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Blair, it's me" Serena's voice came on the other end.

"Oh hi S."

"Hey. I'm just calling to see how you're doing."

"Quite good" Blair chirped. "I'm getting a pedicure right now, and after the manicure I'm thinking a full body massage."

"That's good" Serena said. "You should pamper yourself today."

"I should pamper myself every day" Blair argued.

"So you're doing okay?"

"Yes" Blair said, starting to get confused. "Why would I not be?"

"Okay, well… You know where to find me if you need anything."

"Uh, okay" Blair said. "Bye now."

She hung up and gave her phone a funny look. What was that all about? It had been a couple of weeks since Serena last tried to bum her out by being all compassionate and understanding about her plight. Blair had no intention of being bummed out or in grief. She was feeling fabulous and intended to keep that feeling.

Once her massage was done and she had gotten dressed again she picked up her phone and noticed she had three missed calls. One from Dorota and two from her mother. Her mother? That was immediate cause for concern. Eleanor wasn't usually the type to call more than once even if she couldn't get a hold of her daughter.

Blair quickly dialed her mother's number and was surprised to hear her answer almost immediately.

"Blair!" Eleanor's voice cried.

"Mother?" Blair replied.

"I've been trying to reach you. Have you had lunch yet?"

"No" Blair said, casting a glance at the clock on the wall which told her it was an hour past noon.

"Fabulous, then you will meet me at your favorite Greek place in fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes?" Blair echoed. "You're teleporting in from France?"

"Darling I'm in New York."

"What?" Blair echoed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm telling you now" Eleanor said in her typical casual fashion. "See you in fifteen, darling."

"Wait, slow down Mother. What's wrong, why are you on a surprise visit? What is it you feel you need to tell me over Greek food?"

"Nothing" Eleanor claimed. "I just wanted to spend some time with my daughter. It's a difficult time for you right now."

"I'm fine."

"Don't' be silly. Now stop chattering and get moving."

"But-"

Before she could say anything else her mother had hung up. Shaking her head Blair hurried back out on the street, giving Dorota a call while she tried to wave a cab. Had the entire universe gone crazy over night?


When Blair finally got back to the Empire she felt exhausted. Eleanor had been in some weird pampering mood and after an extensive lunch she had taken Blair out for a shopping spree. While they were out she had gotten texts from both Nate, Eric and Vanya and a call from Lily. What was with everyone?

She walked into the bedroom and threw herself down on the bed. She glanced around the room and her eyes landed on the calendar. She had bought it in December and had crossed off each day, counting down to the day when Royal would be born. The year had not been old before the countdown had stopped.

She got up and walked over to the calendar. She hadn't cast a glance in it since Roy's death but Chuck had turned the page on the first of every month. She would have gladly tossed it in the trash but if he wanted to keep it then she couldn't bother protesting.

At first she only took a quick glance at it before shrugging a shoulder and turning to go back to bed. Then she stopped, turned around and walked back to it.

March 11th was circled with a purple pen. She had circled it the same day she had bought it. By now she had lost all track of which date it was, the days blurring together to the point where she was only aware of which day of the week it was because Chuck would moan about Mondays, gripe about Tuesdays and drag her down to Gimlet for a drink on Wednesdays and Fridays. Today was Friday. March eleventh was a Friday. The reason for everyone's attention to her today became all too clear.

She swallowed hard. So what? So what if today was the expected due date for her baby? The baby had already been born, two months too soon and far too dead. Even if he had lived this was just an expected due date. Dr. Saunders had told her that only about five percent of babies arrived on the expected due date. This day was no more special than any other day of the month, or the year.

But no matter how hard she tried the uneasy feeling in her gut wouldn't go away. Just like it had refused to go away when she had broken up with Chuck and wanted nothing more than to delude herself into believing everything was fine. She was afraid of acknowledging that feeling in her gut. She slowly went back to the bed and lay down to take a nap and force her mind to be stronger than her emotions.

She woke up later that day when Chuck came home. He walked into the bedroom and stopped by the dresser to replace his bowtie with a tie. He glanced over at her as she sat up reluctantly.

"Hey" she said.

"Hey" he replied, barely audibly.

"My mother's in town. Wants to take us out to dinner."

"I know. I talked to Eleanor. I told her we'll join her and Lily at the restaurant, but we have someplace we need to go first."

"God, what is with everyone?" Blair sighed. "Today is just an ordinary day."

"No it's not" Chuck argued, focusing on putting on his tie rather than looking at her.

"It is Chuck."

"March eleventh doesn't feel at all special to you?" he asked in a dejected tone.

"The baby came in January. This date was just an estimate anyway. I don't want to go out to dinner with our mothers, I don't want to make a big deal out of it, I just want to have a normal Friday night. Drinks at Gimlet, maybe watch a movie?"

"You are doing this for me Blair" Chuck said, striding over to the bed and grabbing her by the arm. He pulled her to her feet despite her protests. "You are coming with me. Now go change into something more appropriate."

"You mean something in black?" she snorted.

He walked over to the closet and after a quick scan grabbed a black Prada dress. He tossed it to her and she caught it on a reflex.

"This will do" he said in a tone which didn't invite objections. "Go put it on and then we're leaving."

Figuring it would be easier to oblige than to protest she got up and slipped out of her skirt and blouse, changing into the dress in front of him. He had taken a seat on the edge of the bed and waited without a word until she was done. Then he got up and took her hand.

"Come on. Arthur is waiting with the limo downstairs. And we're going to need these."

He walked over to the table and picked up the bouquet of roses. He then ushered her out the door, ignoring her protests that she didn't need to be treated like a child. She hated the fact that he seemed hell-bent on leaving the penthouse when she wanted to do nothing more than stay in and ignore the world around her.

"Mind telling me where we're going?" she asked sullenly as the elevator doors closed.

"You know where we're going."


"I don't want to be here."

She crossed her arms over her chest and shuddered, though not because of the fact that it was cold and windy. She really didn't want to be here. What was the point? Nothing could change the way things had turned out; this was a situation that could never be made better by saying the right words, doing the right things or just letting time help heal the wound. So why come here and wallow in misery?

"Maybe you don't" Chuck said. "But I need to be here. And I need you to be here with me. Isn't it about time we stopped doing things alone and started doing them together? I let you handle the first months of the pregnancy alone-"

"Chuck stop it. Don't go there."

"And now you're letting me handle our baby's death alone. When the whole point is for you and I to do things together. Have you forgotten everything we talked about the days after Royal died? We said we would handle it together, that we were going to be a we. And for the first couple of weeks we were doing it together. I'm not sure what changed, but I do know this. We can't survive this as a couple if we grieve apart from each other."

He wrapped an arm around her waist and handed her the bouquet before guiding her to the gravesite where his father and their son rested. The baby's grave didn't have a gravestone yet, it wouldn't arrive for another couple of months, but Chuck didn't need one to tell him which was the right grave. He knew it far too well regardless.

Blair's mouth felt completely dry as they stopped by the two graves. It sickened her to see it. Such a tiny grave, not even the length of a forearm, right next to the much larger grave of the child's grandfather. There shouldn't be graves that small.

Chuck's arm left her waist as he kneeled down and let his fingers graze the soil on the grave. Blair watched without a word, trying with all her might not to be affected. Why did he have to do this to her? Why did he have to bring her to their baby's burial place?

He looked up at her, and then glanced at the flowers he had given her to hold. She realized he wanted her to put them down on the grave and her own eyes trailed to the roses in her hand. White and red, the colors of love, innocence and purity. She noticed that there was a card, tied to the bouquet with a black satin string. Automatically she reached up her other hand and moved the card so she could read what it said.

"Happy 'birthday'" it said, quotation marks around the word 'birthday' as this wasn't and would never be their son's date of birth. Chuck had then drawn a heart and signed it "Mommy and Daddy."

Blair's hand flew up to her mouth as she let out an audible sob. Chuck watched her from his spot on the ground but didn't make a move. She took a deep trembling breath and pulled herself together, drawing all her strength to keep her composure while she demanded herself not to be affected. She had somehow survived the past two months, and she had done it by ignoring her pain. If she acknowledged it again she wasn't sure she would be able to handle it.

Chuck slowly rose and put a hand on her arm.

"Blair…"

She realized she had lost. She couldn't ignore her pain any longer, couldn't ignore her loss. Standing by her little boy's grave on the day he was meant to be born made it impossible to pretend that everything was fine. She hated Chuck for bringing her here, where it was impossible to escape her pain.

Once she opened the floodgates she stopped caring about trying to keep them closed. It would be a lost cause anyway. She knelt down by the grave and kissed the bouquet before placing it on her son's grave.

"I'm sorry" she said.

Chuck had no idea what she was apologizing for. If it was for trying to ignore their loss, or for not being able to carry the baby to term, or for something else entirely. He stood there for a minute before reaching down to grab her by her arms and gently pull her back up to her feet. Now she was reluctant, she didn't seem to want to leave, but he knew she ought to. He was relieved that her nonchalance had cracked but there were better places for mourning than out at a cemetery on a cold March afternoon.

"Come now" he said. "Let's get you out of here."

"I shouldn't leave" she said, shaking her head in protest.

"You will catch a pneumonia" he argued. "Blair let me help you. Let's help each other."

"I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave my baby."

Chuck didn't answer, but began to lead her back to the waiting car. Despite her vocal protests she didn't try and struggle to get out of his grip. She let him lead her to the car and didn't say a word as they drove off.


Chuck put a hand in the tub to feel the temperature of the water. It was a touch too cold for his liking so he turned the knob to add some more heat to it. Blair didn't seem to care too much either way. She was sitting in the tub, hugging her knees, resting her right cheek against them. Her eyes looked empty and every now and then new tears fell from them.

Chuck turned the water off after a few minutes and sat down on the floor next to the tub, waiting for her to say something. He had brought her back to her mother's penthouse after they left the gravesite and Eleanor had rescheduled their dinner for some other time. She had wrapped her arm around her daughter's waist and slowly led her towards her room while Chuck hurried up the stairs to start drawing a bath.

Blair had said very little but she had undressed and gotten into the tub on her own. She sat in the bath for almost ten minutes before she said anything.

"What kind of a mother am I?" she asked.

"What?" Chuck asked, jolted from his own thoughts.

"My son was barely in the ground before I started to ignore him ever even existing" Blair said. "God Chuck… How could I behave like everything is just the same? Like I'm not sad and have no real reason to be? I'm his mother and I've been acting like his life meant nothing at all."

"Blair…"

"Oh God, if he's up there in heaven watching us he must think I never cared about him" Blair wept, pressing her face against her knees. "That his mother didn't love him at all."

"You carried him for seven months" Chuck said. "How can you think he would be unaware of how much you love him? You were the one who always fought for him, believed in him, believed he would make our lives better. You kept him safe and warm. You made plans for his arrival, bought everything he needed, flushed down Nate's and my pot so that he wouldn't get stoned… When I freaked out and when I couldn't accept that he was coming, when I didn't even want him to come, you were on his side. Blair he knows all this."

"What does all of that matter now, when I haven't even been grieving for the past month and a half?"

"Oh honey…" Chuck said. "Everything you've just said about how you've acted… That is grief. You've been hiding from it because it hurts too much, not shrugging it off because it doesn't hurt enough."

"You never call me 'honey'" Blair remarked, looking up at him.

He chuckled a little.

"Look, I know you. I know you've been trying to pretend everything is fine because the truth is too painful right now. That doesn't mean you don't love our baby."

"What if it does?" Blair asked, wiping away the tears that had just fallen down her cheek. "I didn't even know today was March 11th. When I realized it I didn't have much of a reaction. I didn't want to go to the fry's grave. Maybe I just didn't deserve him and that's why he was taken away."

"I understand that you're eager to find a reason why" Chuck said. "But there is none. Trust me. I've gone over all possible reasons why this happened so I know."

"Today was supposed to be the happiest day of my life" she said with a sigh. "The birth of my first child. I was supposed to see him for the first time today, touch him and smell him and hold him for the first time. And count his toes and fingers, and kiss his little head and hold him close to me and feel him nurse… I've imagined it in my mind at least a thousand times over. Our baby making those cute noises infants make… Looking into his eyes for the first time… Seeing whose nose he has, and whose mouth. Instead I'm sitting in a bathtub today with no baby, having just come from his grave. I can't even bear to think about the women who are giving birth as we speak and who will get to hold their child for the first time today. Chuck I never even got a good look at him. I didn't want to see. Do you remember which one of us he looked more like?"

"I couldn't really tell" Chuck said honestly. "It wasn't my priority at the moment."

He had actually taken a picture of their little baby, but he hadn't looked at it since. He thought about telling Blair about it, but he wasn't sure yet if she would be glad or be put off by the fact that he had photographed their dead child.

"I saw him as a sign" Blair said. "That everything would turn out alright with you and me. If we could make a baby, a perfect little person, then how could we be wrong together? But now that he's dead… What does that say about us? The product of you and me couldn't survive. Maybe our relationship isn't meant to either."

"None of that" Chuck said. "Royal is not some sort of sign about you and me. Like I told you, there was no reason why. You know I'm right Blair, this says nothing about us as a couple. People who are horrible for one another have healthy children all the time and people who are perfect together lose their babies. Life does not care about romantic compatibility between parents."

"Maybe he was better off this way" Blair said.

"That's enough" Chuck said. "I don't want to hear anymore of this."

"Think about it. A father who wasn't too thrilled he was coming, a mother who doesn't even grieve when he dies…"

"Except his father ended up looking forward to his arrival, and his mother is grieving. Do you think I don't see you? That I don't notice? Come on Blair, every night you press a pillow to your stomach, like a substitute baby bump. Do you think I've missed that? Or that I haven't noticed how you refuse to read newspapers and magazines since you're scared of finding us mentioned in them and you don't want to hear what they're saying about the stillbirth? I'm not an idiot, and in case you hadn't noticed, I'm always aware of what you're doing."

"The water's getting cold" Blair said, unwilling to discuss the subject further. She stood up in the tub. "Hand me a towel."

He rose and grabbed the large, fluffy towel Eleanor had put out for her. He felt far from finished with their discussion but he had gotten a lot more out of her tonight than he had in weeks and maybe this was all she could take for now. He wrapped the towel around her and helped her dry off while he tried not to think about the things she had said earlier about what they had been expecting to do this day. He had already thought about it far too many times and right now the baby's mother needed him more than the baby did.


The next day Chuck and Blair went out to dinner with their mothers. Even though Chuck appreciated their support the timing wasn't so good. Blair seemed unable to decide whether she was going to put her blinders back on or wallow in her guilt over having had them on in the first place. What he really wanted to do was make her choose a third option, and simply cry over her son. But that couldn't very well happen over a three course dinner at a high priced restaurant with Eleanor and Lily present.

Once dinner was over the two of them went back to the Empire. Blair walked straight into the bedroom, declaring that she was tired. Chuck watched her go with a sigh. They had made so many promises to one another the first few days after Royal's death, promises to let their shared pain unify them and to help each other through it. But he felt like Blair was bailing on him, like he was as alone now as she had been the first months they knew the baby was coming. Maybe it was just karma, but he wondered how long they would be able to go on like this.

They spent most of their days together but the intimacy had disappeared, slowly but steadily. At first he had blamed himself, thinking that if only he had let her in more during the first shocking days then maybe they wouldn't have ended up drifting apart. He had been determined not to let her see him cry, to be strong for her, but perhaps the two of them doing their crying away from each other was what had begun to drive them apart.

At this point he didn't even care what had caused the split. The divide was there, they weren't connecting, and since he couldn't go back in time and change anything that had happened all he ought to be focusing on was how to mend the wounds between them. He realized that most likely this was all fallout from the previous year, things that had never been completely resolved, wounds that had never actually healed. But the past was what it was, and he knew that as bad as the pain was now it would be tenfold that if he lost Blair too.

They weren't even having sex. They hadn't slept together since a few days before they had lost the baby. They had shared one night of holding each other close and kissing, but after that the physical intimacy had disappeared. He felt strongly that they needed it back. Not because he needed sexual release, but because they needed that connection, emotionally and physically. He wondered if she was reluctant to have sex because sex was what had created their son in the first place, and she didn't want to be reminded.

He picked up the bouquet of peonies from the table and walked into the bedroom. She was sitting on the bed hugging her knees, the same way she had been sitting in the tub the day before. He walked over and handed her the flowers without a word.

Blair took the flowers he handed her and brought them to her nose to smell them. She looked at them sadly and noticed that this bouquet also had a card. She opened it and read what Chuck had written.

"We love you. Chuck & Royal."

A joyless smile appeared on her face. Most of all she felt like crying but she didn't seem to have any more tears to cry at the moment.

"Chuck… About what you said before… About how I was constantly fighting for the baby and I was excited we were having him and all that…"

"What about it?"

Apparently she still had some tears left because now they were falling down her cheeks as she spoke.

"Chuck I was so scared. I was scared of becoming a mother, scared of the changes, scared we would mess our baby up… I really tried to be brave and I wanted everyone to believe I thought this was wonderful in every way, but… often when I was alone I would sit down and cry. I kept wondering if I would ever be able to graduate college and have a real career, and a dozen other things like that. Worries about how things would change. And I was really, really scared of so many other things. Childbirth being only one of those things. I don't know the first thing about taking care of a baby, and how exactly do you go about raising a child?"

"Glad to hear I wasn't the only one" Chuck said.

"No, it's horrible" Blair objected. "When I had that fight with Serena, one of the reasons why I was so upset was because she touched on a lot of subjects I wanted to ignore. She was right about a lot of things. Right about how fragile our relationship actually is, right about how things were going to be difficult once the baby came…"

"I don't understand" Chuck said. "You're talking like it bothers you now that you had those doubts. What difference does it make?"

"You keep saying that I was always defending my son and how I wanted him so much and how I thought it was one hundred percent wonderful that we were pregnant" Blair said. "But that's not how it really was. Nobody was completely excited that he was on his way. Not even me, his mom. It just breaks my heart to think about it. This poor little boy who had done absolutely nothing wrong, and yet everyone had doubts about him and thought things would change for the worse when he came into the world."

"Wait, hold on now" Chuck said. "Blair the things you talk about, the doubts, the fears, all expecting parents have them. Maybe not people who are expecting their second or third child, but I promise you that everyone having their first feels that way. It's kind of the way it should be. If you never worry about being a good enough parent then you just don't care enough."

"Royal deserved for someone to love him completely and think his existence was nothing short of a gift from God" Blair said. "That someone should have been me."

"But you did love him. And you did want him."

"Not enough…"

Chuck moved further up on the bed until he was sitting by her knees. He reached out his hand and placed it on her arm.

"Blair do you know when it was I first knew I loved you?" he asked. "I'm not talking about when I first got a crush on you, I mean when I knew it was more than infatuation."

"I'm going to go with the first time I went down on you" she said, attempting a lame joke.

He chuckled.

"As I'm sure you recall, that happened after I had told you I love you. No, I first realized it when I got the Gossip Girl blast that you were on your way back from Europe back in 2008. The way I reacted to finding out you were coming back, it made me realize that I wasn't just in love, I loved you. But it was another nine months before I was actually able to say those words to you."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I loved you our entire senior year" Chuck said. "I wanted you, I dreamed of you, I desired you… I knew I wouldn't be happy without you. But it still took me nine months to get those words out. I was scared out of my senses. I was scared of how my life would change if I tried having a relationship; just the thought of all the things I would have to give up, all the compromising and the sacrifices… Even though the pay-off would be amazing I was still afraid. What if I wouldn't be able to still be Chuck Bass if I had a girlfriend? And I was afraid of opening my heart to someone, giving them that much power over me. I was afraid I would make a horrible boyfriend, and that you wouldn't love me anymore once you inevitably saw the real me. I could go on listing the things that scared me until we're both senior citizens. The important part is, you know how much I loved you even then. It doesn't lessen our relationship that I had those fears. When we got together, did you honestly care that I had been such a coward?"

"No" Blair said.

"See where I'm going with this? All your fears and doubts and insecurities don't take anything away from the love you bear your son. If anything Blair it just further proves your love for him. Worrying that you won't be a good enough mother, worrying how we're going to be able to take care of him… You were concerned for his well-being."

"Chuck I appreciate what you're trying to do" Blair said. "But you can't help me unless you listen to me. I had doubts that were completely selfish. Worries about how my life was going to be difficult because of him."

"My dear I worried about what you would do to me a million times over before we became a couple. Doesn't mean I loved you any less. For what it's worth though, I'm sorry. I was completely selfish during most of the pregnancy; I was so concerned with my own doubts and fears that you felt you had to suppress yours. You don't have to explain to me about those worries. I know them very well myself. I was the one who ran out of here when you first told me we were expecting a baby, remember?"

"Yeah…" she said in a whisper.

"I was terrified and upset and quite frankly I was really hoping you weren't actually pregnant. You know how long it took for me to accept my child. Why should you feel bad for having doubts when I had ten times the doubts you did?"

"I just wish at least someone could have loved him unconditionally."

"You did. Eventually I did too. For all my doubts and fears I still grew to love him. I never realized how much until I saw him."

He moved so that he was sitting next to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed sadly.

"You know, even though I was in shock at the time, seeing and holding Royal made… made me feel like I had just lost everything" he said. "I mean, there was so much I wanted to know about him that I'll never get a chance to find out. I think about it all the damn time and it's driving me crazy. Especially today. What would he have looked like when he was a few years old? When he was an adult? And who would he take after, me or you? I like to think that he would be more at peace and happier than you and I were growing up. That what we lack in parenting skills we would be able to make up for in giving him a secure, loving home. But I wonder all the time, what was his personality like? What were his likes and dislikes? Would he have become a doctor? An astronaut? Or just a store clerk at Sachs, or a teacher, or an architect? Was he gay, straight or bi? We'll never know any of those things about him and that's the biggest loss of all. We'll never know who he really was. We don't even know what his screams sound like. His voice…"

Blair nodded slowly.

"Do you think he would have liked Audrey Hepburn movies?" she asked.

"I don't know. Do you think he would have liked single malt?"

"If he's anything like his father…"

"Do you think he would have hated us for naming him Royal?"

Blair couldn't help but giggle.

"It was your suggestion."

"Serena seems to think it's the stupidest name of all time."

"Serena didn't know him like we did. He was ours and it was a good name for him."

Chuck smiled slightly.

"Can you make me a promise?" he asked.

"What?"

"That from now on we try and go back to what we agreed on the first weeks after he died. To be together in this. And not do it separately anymore."

"I like the sound of that."

He placed a kiss on the top of her head and thought about everything they had talked about during the past two days. It was quite a lot, and he was glad she was beginning to open up to him. But he knew she needed help, more than he could provide her with.

"Blair… I think you and I should go see someone about all this" he said.

"A shrink?"

"Yeah. I think that would be best. We could go together, or you can go on your own if you prefer. But you need someone to talk to, someone who can give you an outsider's perspective and who knows how to help you. As much as I want to I can't be that person for you. I suspect a lot of the stuff you're dealing with has to do with me and how I acted up until December. Not to mention everything that went down last year, with Jack. Everything was not fine when we got back together, but I was just so relieved that you were taking me back that I didn't care about anything else. Perhaps it's time to deal with that. If you need to vent about me then you might find it easier with a shrink."

"I can't handle last year's stuff right now" Blair said. "This year's is enough."

"We're going to have to deal with it eventually. For real this time. If we want to have a future together."

She looked up at him.

"What are you saying Chuck?"

"I'm saying that wanting this to last is not enough. Not anymore, after everything that's happened. We have serious work to do, together, as a couple. I want you to be the person I grow old with. The person I raise a family with. For me there really is just the one and only; I've never been serious about anybody else but you. But somehow we've ended up slipping again. We have to really fight for this to work, and I know that I want to, that I can, so long as we have each other. But I can't do it on my own. And pretending that we're just fine simply because we're Chuck and Blair isn't going to cut it anymore. We have problems and they should be addressed."

"Could you please stop talking about us failing?" Blair said. "I'm willing to fight for us too. But I can't fight for everything at the same time. I'm just so overwhelmed…"

"Which is probably why you've been in denial."

"We swore we wouldn't lose each other" Blair reminded him. "I can't deal with the stuff between you and me right now; can't you just carry us through this Chuck like I've had to carry us through things in the past?"

"I lost him too you know" Chuck said and looked away. "Because you spent weeks pretending nothing bad has happened that means you now suddenly get monopoly on hurt and I should just get over it and do all the work with you and me? If you're not willing to work on this with me then-"

"I know" she said and shushed him with a finger to his lips as she turned his head to face her. "I know. I'm sorry." She gave him a kiss. "I'm sorry Chuck, I just…" She kissed him again. "I just…"

The next thing he knew he was lying on top of her, kissing her hungrily while she began to slowly work on his buttons. Everything was so schizophrenic. Good, then bad. Happy then sad. Intimacy then distance. But finally it felt like they had made a connection. As they began to tear each other's clothes off and the bouquet of peonies landed on the floor with the bedspread they kicked aside Chuck started to feel better. So long as they could keep having moments like this, and talks like this, there was hope for them.


Nate skillfully poured the contents of the wine bottle in his hand into four glasses, filling up each glass equally. He then handed one glass to Chuck, another to Serena and a third one to Blair before taking the fourth one for himself.

"Is it just me or has the last year and a half sucked?" he then said, leaning back with his glass.

"Here, here" Blair said, taking a gulp of wine.

"Oh come on, it hasn't been all bad" Serena tried, receiving loud protests from the other three.

They were sitting on blankets on the beach on a warm night in the Hamptons. It was June and the four of them had decided to get out of the house, even if it only meant going down to the beach. Lily had asked Serena, Eric and Chuck to come out to the Hamptons over the weekend and Chuck had brought Blair. On Saturday Nate had come out as well, bored being by himself in the city. Now the four of them sat with their glasses of wine and stared out on the dark ocean.

"So what will the next year and a half be like, you think?" Serena said.

"According to my shrink it's likely to suck" Blair said. "At least for Chuck and me. It's so weird, Royal was conceived a year ago this month and I don't feel anything about it."

"Blair please don't tell me you're going into denial again" Nate groaned. "It's getting tiresome."

The last comment earned him an annoyed nudge from Chuck.

"It's not that" Blair said. "I don't know, I think it might be that we didn't know he existed until October. I'll probably have a reaction then."

"You don't have to have reactions to everything" Chuck objected. "You just need to not ignore the things you do react to."

Serena nodded thoughtfully.

"I will say this Chuck…" she said. "The idea of fatherhood seems to have made you more mature."

Nate scoffed.

"You wouldn't say that if you had walked in on him playing a drinking game to 'Sesame Street' a couple of weeks ago."

"I was plastered" Chuck said with a crooked smile.

"You know, it's funny…" Blair said. "Back when this year began Chuck and I had our entire future set out for us. Parenthood, marriage eventually, everything was so clear. Now there's nothing decided and that feels okay too."

"Admit it, you were pretty freaked about having the baby" Serena said, lying down to gaze at the stars.

"Turns out S, you can be both incredibly excited and really freaked at the same time" Blair said softly. "I thought he was going to make my life perfect… while at the same time I was afraid of how my life might change."

"For what it's worth," Nate said, "I'm proud of you both. While Serena and I both predicted doom and destruction last year you guys handled your situation really well. And after the tragedy you suffered you managed to come out alright in the end."

"Thank you Nate" Chuck said. "But it's only been six months. Too soon to be talking about how things turned out in the end."

"I see lots of babies in your future" Serena predicted. "Clearly you guys were more ready than any of us thought. And Nate is right, despite some setbacks along the way you guys are still together."

"No matter what happens we'll always be Royal's parents" Blair said. She then grabbed Chuck's hand and intertwined her fingers with his. "Thankfully we'll also be a whole lot more. If we can get through this and be closer than ever then what could possibly break us apart?"

The other three voiced loud objections.

"Those are the most dangerous words in the English language" Nate argued. "Why would you tempt fate like that?"

"Especially when you're with someone who's proven himself capable of romantic destruction in the past" Chuck added.

"I love your self-advertisement" Serena commented.

"You three are always so negative" Blair claimed. "Things will work out, one way or another. If the past couple of years has taught me anything then it's that."

"If there's anything it's taught me it's to make sure to practice safe sex" Nate said dryly.

Chuck snorted at the comment and promptly emptied his wine glass over Nate's head, causing the girls to laugh and cheer.

"Great, my shirt is ruined!" Nate sputtered, eyeing the stains the red wine were leaving on his white Brooks Brothers shirt.

"Suit yourself" Chuck said.

"These glimpses of what you will be like as a father really make my day" Serena giggled.

"I need water" Nate whined. "I need to wash this off."

"Gee, if only there was an ocean nearby" Blair said, voice brimming with sarcasm.

"I have a better idea" Nate said.

He got up and ran back up towards the house. The others shared a look and then followed, picking up the blankets and the wine on the way. They caught up with Nate just as he ran into the part of the garden where the sprinklers were.

"Chuck!" he said, stopping and reaching his arms out. "Do the honors for me please."

With a laugh Chuck went over and turned the sprinklers on. Nate yelped when the water hit him but then grinned. With a loud cry Serena ran up to him, grabbing his hands to dance around in the sprinklers. Blair was soon by her side, followed by Chuck who grabbed a hold of her and lifted her up in the air.

She laughed when he squeezed her tight, and loudly complained about her hair being ruined, even though she didn't care one bit. She and Chuck may have been ready to become parents, but sometimes it could be incredibly nice to act like children for a while.


I contemplated adding some scenes taking place between the last chapter and the start of this one, to show more of Blair going into denial mode and how she acted while she was in it, but it felt like it was getting too long. I hope it didn't come off as too out of the blue. I know the last two chapters focused on she and Chuck facing things together while this one turns that on its head a bit. I think they would face something like this together, but I needed the divide in order to adress some of the things I wanted to adress. Hope I didn't handle it too clumsily!

The epilogue will be up next week! Please review this chapter in the meantime ;)