Disclaimer: Don't own.

A/N: School has yet to begin kicking my ass (though it most definitely will be doing so soon), and I was able to get this out quickly. I hope you like it! Thanks to all of my wonderful reviewers, I love hearing from you and YOU are the reason this came out so fast. Kudos!

"Sis…" Chuck drawled as he entered the sitting room. "So nice of you to join us." When he had donned his shirt again, he purposely left it hanging open and his hair rumpled so the blonde couldn't mistake what she had been interrupting. Both Serena and Blair looked up at his entrance, the latter giving him a warning look and the former…he couldn't really tell. Serena's face was too puffed-up. And her eyes were red and swollen.

Serena was a ghastly crier.

"Chuck, what do you want?" Blair asked, her hands clenched on her robe. Chuck could tell from her tension that she was pissed off that he had come out of their bedroom.

"Just wanted to see who would drop by for a visit at this hour." He let out a leisurely sigh as he dropped down next to them on the couch. "Hello, Serena."

Serena shook her head, brushing the make-up from under her eyes. "Not now, Chuck. I'm not in the mood."

"Well, I was in the mood, thanks."

"Chuck!" Blair said swiftly, elbowing him in the stomach. "Shut up."

Chuck rubbed his gut and glared at Blair. "I just came in here to see what was wrong, but I guess concern and sympathy isn't wanted?"

"I'm serious, Chuck. Knock it off," Blair jumped to Serena's defense once more. Chuck had expected Serena to snap at him, but she said nothing, only looked down at her hands with a devastated expression on her face. He was more inclined to feel sorry for her in the face of her silence, knowing that Serena was rarely upset enough to take him down a peg or two, and Blair looked visibly more concerned too as she shot a sideways glance at her best friend.

"Alright, alright…" he replied, frowning at the disheveled blonde. "You look terrible."

Blair now slapped Chuck…hard, but Serena let out a harsh little laugh. "Don't hit him, B. He's right, isn't he? The last time I felt like this was the night I told you I killed someone."

"You did what, van der Woodsen?" Chuck blurted, unable to imagine Serena the murderer. Apparently, both women thought he was being sarcastic, because they exchanged looks of disgust before Blair quickly amended. "You really didn't kill anyone, honey…you made it out to be a lot worse than it was."

"So she thought she killed someone?" Chuck said incredulously, baffled by the ludicrous story. So the Serena of this universe wasn't a cold-blooded killer. Just incredibly stupid.

"Chuck, shut up!" Blair shouted, now completely fed-up. "Get out of here, will you?"

Chuck opened his mouth to respond indignantly, but slow, padding footsteps interrupted his thought. "Mommy…why are you yelling?"

All three pairs of eyes were drawn to the top of the stairs, where Liliana was standing, clutching Mikey the Rottweiler.

Blair stood quickly, looking up at her daughter. "Sweetheart, you are supposed to be asleep!"

Lili hesitantly took two steps down the stairs when her mother spoke. "I know. I heard the yelling and I couldn't sleep, Mommy." The little girl's large, brown eyes found Serena's and they lit up. "And Aunt S is here and she promised she'd come visit!"

Blair glanced at Chuck, who was buttoning and tucking in his shirt. He felt strange looking so sexed-up in front of the kid. "Get her back to bed…" Blair had a strained smile on her face, clearly hoping that the little girl would be back up the stairs before she recognized the tension in the room, which would have to happen fast. Blair knew her child well.

But Chuck didn't move immediately, wanting to remain downstairs to hear Serena's plight. And Lili took that time to observe the inhabitants of the sitting room until her little brow furrowed. "Aunt S…why are you crying?"

Serena shook her head hurriedly, her expression melting in the face of her innocent niece. "Oh no, baby! I'm not crying, I was just…outside in the cold for too long. It made me a little sick, okay?"

"Chuck," Blair hissed. "Please."

He didn't seem to have a choice. Chuck walked past the two women towards Liliana, now at the base of the staircase, looking very unhappy as she sensed the mood around her. "Let's go, kiddo."

The child looked up at him before taking his hand solemnly, not to be taken for a fool by his falsely bright demeanor. They headed back to the second floor, Blair's voice fading slowly away as she tried to make light of the situation. "Don't mind Chuck. He's a bit sexually frustrated at the moment…" They never even got to hear Serena's certain noise of disgust.

But the last words they heard caused Chuck to groan internally, recalling the mishap from yesterday with Bart. And a moment later, Liliana tugged on his hand. "Daddy, I thought that Mommy was the one who had…sexul fustation?"

Anxiously, Chuck shushed her and pulled her up into his arms. He couldn't decide whether to be relieved that the topic had taken her mind off of Serena, or pissed that the words 'sexual frustration' had come up again. "Hey, that one is our little secret, okay? Please don't tell your mother anything about those words…in fact, don't say them again until you're, say…thirty. Okay, Princess?"

"Mommy says not to keep secrets from people until there's something in it for me. What will you get me, Daddy?" He was faced with a set of small, pearl teeth as she smiled charmingly.

Chuck rolled his eyes at the responsible lesson that Blair had imparted to her daughter. "Good lord. Well, that is the Waldorf way, isn't it? Are you telling me that I have to buy my own flesh and blood's silence?"

At the word 'blood,' Lili bounced in horror, her little leg kicking his hip as Chuck carried her down the hall and found her bedroom again. "No, no Daddy! I don't want something nasty! I want new shoes, not icky blood!"

Chuck laughed at her misunderstanding. "No, it's an expression. Look, I'll take you shopping tomorrow or the next day or something…and you can get whatever you want. Deal?"

He was now setting her in bed while she smirked, as if she knew a secret that he didn't. "Mommy also said that I'm allowed to keep secrets from everyone 'cept her."

This time, Chuck restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Blair had certainly left her mark on her pint-sized carbon copy. "Yeah, but…I'm your…" He paused, because he felt wrong saying it, but it was the only thing that he could think of. "I'm your Daddy. Doesn't that give me some credit?"

She sat atop her bed and folded her arms, the stuffed animal laying limp at her side. "I think so…" she said slowly. "I'll think about it, okay Daddy?"

"Sure. But remember, Chuck Bass doesn't lose deals. You have to know who your opposition is." The child was incessantly patting the bed beside her in an unspoken demand and so he grudgingly joined her, laying down next to her.

Liliana wrinkled her nose. "I hate when you say big words."

"Maybe that's because your little head is exhausted and you need to go to sleep."

"I don't want to. Can you read me a story?"

"Nope. You probably already got a story, right?"

Liliana sat up and looked at him, leaning over so she could put her hands on his chest to plead with him properly. "Yes, but you didn't read it to me! 's not the same!"

"Why not?"

"Because it just isn't!"

Chuck peeled her little hands off his shirt and forced her to sit back. "Hey, just relax…you shouldn't get so worked up over a book, you know. It will lead to an anxiety disorder in the future. Or worse, you'll develop your mother's neurosis and spend the rest of your life overreacting. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

A blank expression settled over the little girl's face as she leaned against Chuck arm while settling back on her pillow. She appeared to be lost in thought. Chuck knew that she was going to ask him yet another question, so he sat with her.

"Aunt S didn't come to see me, did she?"

She was as determined and persistent as Blair, never to be put off the scent of something. Chuck wanted to smile. An intuitive kid deserved the truth.

"No, she didn't."

"Then why did she come here?" Lili asked, as if Serena's visit could not be for anything else. "And why was she crying? I know that it wasn't 'cause of the cold."

"You're a smart girl. Aunt Serena is just having a few problems that she has to deal with." He felt the slight weight of her head fall against his shoulder as she listened intently to him.

"Aunt Serena is always happy, though."

Chuck looked down at this child…the one that Other Chuck (who could, in some twisted way, be a version of himself) and Blair had created, and realized that she was protected. He hadn't given it a thought when they had gone up to check on her the night after the party, or when they tucked her in the night after that, or when she sat between them in the limo, chattering endlessly. He hadn't thought about how obviously loved this child was.

She could provoke a smile from Bart and a tenderness rarely seen in Blair. She was sheltered and coddled and it didn't even matter if it was overdone, because he was glad for it.

He was glad that she lived in a world where her Aunt Serena was always happy and not constantly facing the destruction of her own past. Where her parents where two people that loved her and each other irrefutably and she was not tainted by the walls, the vulnerability, and the defensiveness that came their childhoods. Blair was not Eleanor, and Chuck…Chuck wasn't his father.

And Liliana was living proof of that. He only had to look at the love shining in her eyes.

But that didn't come from him.

Chuck sighed and reminded himself that he was sixteen years old. He did drugs, he drank too much, he fucked whores. It wasn't time to question that. It was his life.

He had to find a way out, but he didn't know the first step to take. He was flying blind, he had been doing nothing but stumble through life since he got here. Expected to raise a child when he hadn't even been brought up right himself, and perform at a job he wasn't equipped to do properly. He was expected to love when he wasn't capable of it.

He had to leave them because he wasn't capable of it.

An immediate panic rose up that he wanted to pretend wasn't there. And every motion of his past two days, every look of disappointment, and all of Blair's tearful gestures filled him.

"Everybody gets sad sometimes," he heard himself say to the child burrowed into his side. Her very presence was relaxing him, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her.

"I guess," she muttered. "But I think it was a serious sad."

"What's a 'serious sad'?"

"It's when something bad happens, Daddy. Like not when I just be sad because I don't get my pony or I can't wear the headband I want. It's other times. It's really bad," she shook her head, perturbed. "I don't want Aunt Serena to be that kind of sad."

His arm went around her of its own volition when she said that. He didn't know why, but it did, and it pulled her even nearer to him. "Your mommy and I are going to help Aunt Serena. I promise."

Her brown eyes widened adorably and she flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his neck. Chuck took a moment to return the gesture, not quite believing that her spontaneous embrace was real. "You haven't made a promise in a long time! And it's just what I wanted, Daddy!"

It was amazing to him how a kid got so overexcited about such a small thing…she didn't see the complication in his promise. She didn't doubt that this man (who, in her eyes, had been in her life from the moment she drew breath) would succeed. Never questioned whether he would come through for her.

He grasped her small frame tightly in a moment of weakness, knowing he should hold her so close when this could never last. Her heart beat like a hummingbird's, fast and strong. "I promise," he rasped.

She pulled back, but her arms still hung loosely around his neck and she studied his face closely like she was memorizing his features. "Can you stay, Daddy? Until I go to sleep?"

He had vowed not to be a sucker for the kid, but he was having a damn hard time fulfilling that when she let her lip out in a pout like that and her eyes welled with apprehension. Even if it was just an act. She was the fucking picture of Blair.

"Just this once, kid," he told her. He forced himself to sound unaffected as she let out a little squeal and sank into the covers.

"You always say that," she said triumphantly. And he berated himself (and Other Chuck) for being such a sap. He had reached new heights of pathetic and he couldn't have cared less. He was making her happy, and if he could do that, then maybe he could return to his real life with some glimmer of hope…humanity.

"Maybe you can make Aunt S happy at Grandpa Bart's tomorrow…" Lili said as she rested her head on her pillow, continuing to watch Chuck. "Maybe I can help, too."

"I think it's going to take a little longer than—" Chuck stopped. "Wait, what do you mean 'at Grandpa Bart's tomorrow'?"

She yawned. "At dinner, Daddy. You know, when we have dinner there on Wednesdays, and tomorrow's Wednesday."

"Thanks, Princess. You just gave me some pretty interesting information." He meant it. Chuck was considering the possibilities of dinner at Bart's. A peak into Bart's files, perhaps. Information on Carter (with the happy addition of one Blair Waldorf) would be useful, to say the least.

"What's so interesting 'bout it?" Liliana's eyes were beginning to droop and he wondered how she had begun to tire so quickly. Maybe she had just exhausted herself…or maybe she felt safe with him there. He decided not to entertain the idea anymore. Still, he was glad that she was drifting.

"Nothing, kid…nothing at all."

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Chuck was awoken the next morning by a flashing and an extremely familiar clicking noise. He jerked up, throwing Liliana to one side.

"Daddy!"

He ignored the disgruntled child and looked around for the source of the disturbance. After a hurried glance around the room, he found it standing to one side. His supposed wife, with a digital camera in hand. "Good morning, Handsome."

"What the hell, Blair?" he complained, rubbing one eye and glaring up at her. "You almost killed the kid…and me."

She snorted. "Something tells me that you'll come through this the same man you always were, Chuck. Don't you fret." She sat down on the edge of the bed, open her arms to Lili. "The two of you were such a precious sight that I really couldn't resist."

"Wait a second, did I sleep here?" His eyes darted towards the window, where a salmon haze was spreading across the sky in clear morning. "Why didn't you…I don't know, wake me up?"

Blair's smile faded slightly. "I was a bit distracted all night, Chuck. I didn't have time to hunt for you." She purposely avoided her daughter's curious gaze from her place in Blair's arms.

"Oh. Anything worth mentioning?" He now wished that he had made it downstairs again last night. He didn't think that Blair would withhold anything from him, but he wouldn't have minded playing around with his step-sister for a little bit. He was still unhappy that she had decided to come to their home uninvited so she could sob until she resembled a melted ice cream cone…right before Chuck was about to get sex for the first time in two days!

Blair hugged Liliana and kissed the top of her head. "Baby, can you please get dressed by yourself? Daddy and I are running a little late this morning."

Lili sighed as she scrambled out of her mother's grip and to her dresser. "You just want to have a grown-up discussion, Mommy. I can tell."

Blair got up, throwing a smile in her daughter's direction before pulling Chuck with her by the hand out of the child's bedroom. "What a clever girl I have."

When they were in the hallway, Blair released him with a resigned expression. "Serena is here."

"Why? Can't she cry herself to sleep just as well in her own bed?"

Blair glared at him. "She was distraught, Chuck. She had just found out that Dan left her, and why are you being so callous?"

"Because Serena has this minor problem where she simply neglects to remember anything or anyone that doesn't have something directly to do with herself. And it's been kind of an annoying quality of late, if you know what I mean."

Blair slumped against the wall and stared at him. "Is it always about sex with you?"

"You know who you married, right?"

"Unfortunately," Blair teased.

"So, where is Serena?"

Blair blinked at the obviousness of the question. "…in the guest room."

"Did he leave her?" Chuck knew that Blair would know what he was asking: how permanent Dan's abandonment was. Blair moved away from the wall and approached him, one eyebrow quirked up.

"Please. Humphrey would never leave her for good." As she got close to him, Chuck saw the faraway look in her eyes, coming on suddenly. "He couldn't. She's Serena."

He watched her, the way her eyes got a strange, wounded look and he knew. Serena would always be Serena. He knew why she said it, and he felt compelled to tell her the obvious…the truth. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

They hit their mark. Blair's eyes shot up to his and something wordless passed between them. It was the intensity of her expression, the certainty that she was communicating something to him. But then it was lost in translation and Chuck knew that if he had really been him, that he would have known exactly what it was.

Then, she nodded, running one hand down his very rumpled shirt. "You need to change, Bass."

Chuck nodded back at her. "Sure. And while I'm doing that, you can delete that picture you took." She was still holding the camera containing something that he wished would never see the light of day.

Blair could barely mask her grin. "Come on, Chuck, it's adorable! You know what I should do with this?" She began backing away, as she didn't like the way Chuck was eyeing the camera.

"What exactly do you think you're going to be doing with it?" he amended approached her slowly. They were reaching the stairs. Blair would have nowhere to shrink away.

She cast another glance at the camera and smiled like the cat that ate the canary. "I'm sure Bart would love to use it for those publicity ads that he's been doing lately. It would really give BI that family ima—" She took off down the stairs, laughing like a child when he lunged for her, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Chuck followed after her until she rounded the sofa. They were at an impasse, and he stood on the other side, waiting for her to make her move. "Let me see the camera, Blair." An unwilling smile was spreading over his face. He had never seen Blair Waldorf play like she was doing right now. It intrigued him.

Blair tsk-ed, palming the device in one hand. "And what's in it for me if I do?"

"You'll live to tell the tale."

He liked the way her cheeks were flushed and the way her breasts were heaving up and down. He liked it a lot. He liked how happy and carefree she looked, and how it was him that made her look like that.

Not Nate, her Prince Charming, but him.

"What are you two doing?"

Serena was standing behind them, watching the scene. She looked like she had just slept through a good cry and she sounded congested. Chuck sneered at her. So far, she had done nothing to garner a spot in his good graces.

"We're tolerating your presence. What are you doing?"

Blair sighed, and Chuck knew that the game was over. "This is ridiculous, Chuck. Stop giving her a hard time." Blair smiled kindly at her best friend. "How did you sleep?"

"Terribly…no offense. I just," her voice crackled with emotion and Chuck fought a groan. "I just couldn't stop thinking about him. And how hurt he was." She let out a few gasping sobs and Chuck gratefully stepped back while Blair rushed to comfort her.

"Is he coming to dinner tonight? Maybe you two could go off and talk…"

The blonde shook her head. "I don't know, B. I don't know if I can make this right. He doesn't believe me…and frankly," she gave a little self-deprecating laugh. "Who would?"

Blair immediately tried to quiet her with reassuring words and looking at Serena, standing there so hopeless made Chuck finally feel sorry for her. Because whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was in the same boat. Who would believe them?

A/N: Next is dinner with Bart Bass. Yay! Should be some fun times, and maybe Chuck will even get his hands on some stuff :). One can only hope… Anyway, review and tell me what you thought!