My weekly update plan failed last week... I'm not sure I'll be able to keep it up in the near future either though I hope so because I was hoping to have this story wrapped up by mid-April and my new story up on the site. We'll see how it goes.
The update is shorter this week but hopefully it's quality above quantity ;)
Chuck reached for the coffee cup in front of him but then drew his fingers back. He was uncomfortable yet partly relaxed. The situation was awkward and at the same time reassuring. He hadn't expected it to feel this way.
"Thank you for meeting me" Emmy said, looking at her tea cup and not at him.
"Of course."
Silence fell between them again. He wasn't sure why she had e-mailed him and asked to see him over coffee and even less sure why he had shown up. Being near her again felt oddly comforting, a reminder of the one constant in his life for four years. It saddened him to think that it had to be this way, knowing that if he had never known Blair he would have been perfectly happy with Emmy. Probably. It was hard to say what was nostalgia and what had been genuine emotion.
"How are you?" he asked after a minute.
"You don't want to know" she said. Then she looked up at him. "How are you?"
"Doing okay."
"Sebastian?"
"He's great." A smile spread across his face and it almost made Emmy smile too. "He's becoming more and more at ease around me. I keep waiting for him to call me 'Dad' but he's only done so once thus far. We've gotten him enrolled in a great pre-school and he starts in August. I know he's only four but he doesn't know any children here except Dorota's kids and he needs friends."
"I'm glad he's doing good."
"He misses you" Chuck offered.
"Yeah" Emmy said, not sure she believed it. "Can I stop by? See him? I would love to take him to the park now that it's spring."
"I… I'm not so sure it's a good idea" Chuck said. "Everything is changing in his life, all the time. I'm worried it might confuse him if you start seeing him again when you're not my…" He harked and looked awkward. "I hope you understand."
"And you and Blair? You're back together now. Is it everything you hoped it would be?"
The question was genuine, not sarcastic, but it still surprised him.
"Blair and I are not together" he said. "We… There was one night… But no. We sleep in separate bedrooms. Getting a place together was for Sebastian's benefit, well, mine and Sebastian's."
"You don't have to sugarcoat anything" Emmy said in a slightly strained voice, glaring at her tea while stirring her spoon.
"I'm not."
She looked up at him and it saddened him to see her this way. She looked broken and dejected, far from the serene woman he had shared four years of his life with.
"I can't stop thinking about what happened between us" she said. "About what went wrong and the things you said."
"I wish I can tell you how horrible I feel" Chuck sighed, looking away for a moment. "I've been an ass to you and you were an angel to me."
"You told me you had planned on leaving me before you found out you had a son. That you stayed with me because ending a long-term relationship on top of adjusting to fatherhood was too much at once. That is humiliating."
"I know" Chuck said.
"Which is why I don't believe it. I don't think that's what really went on."
"Please" Chuck said. "You have no idea how difficult it is to have to say things that will hurt you. Having that conversation once was painful enough. Must we do it again?"
"I've spent the past three months licking my wounds, trying to figure out what to do with myself and my life. Then it dawned on me that nothing you said that night truly adds up. I still think you're afraid."
"I'm petrified but not for the reasons you think."
She tilted her head a little and got a new look in her eyes. He drew back a bit, wondering what she was thinking.
"Maybe I've been wrong about this…" she said. "It's not about you and Blair. It's about you and Sebastian. You didn't leave me for her, you left me for him."
"Emmy…"
"As long as you were with me there was a greater distance between you and him, since I know Blair hates me with a passion. Us added too much to an already strained situation. You didn't get to see him on Thanksgiving because Blair wouldn't want me to be there and you didn't get to be with him Christmas Morning since as long as you were my boyfriend there would be a palpable tension if we were all in the same room."
"It's not about that."
"I think it is" she said. She finished her tea and rose from her seat, now with the hint of a smile. "I don't give up easily, you know that" she said. "I won't give up on you. Take your time. Bond with your son, work things out with Blair. Fight for your son and I will be fighting for my relationship."
"Emmy" Chuck said. "Come on, you deserve better than that. Find someone who would do anything to be with you. I want that for you."
"You would do anything to be with me" Emmy said confidently. "Anything except give up your son." She walked over and placed a kiss on his cheek. "I love you. This is not over."
She left the café before Chuck could think of a response.
Back at the apartment Blair had just put Sebastian down for a nap. She knew Chuck was out somewhere but didn't have the faintest idea where. He came and left at his own behest without ever telling her where he was going. It wasn't strange in itself, he was a grown man free to do as he chose, but they were roommates now and parents together. It felt weird to not know where he took off to when he left home.
Their new living arrangement had been going fairly well for the two weeks that had passed since Blair and Sebastian flew back from France. Neither Blair nor Chuck knew how to interact with one another in this new situation and it had resulted in stilted conversations and slightly awkward interactions but there had been no fighting. Chuck focused mostly on Sebastian and on work and Blair had a similar division of her time and devotion. Living so close to him but still being so far away from him made her unsure of how or what to feel but aside from everything with Chuck her life was starting to feel like it was coming into order. Her friendship with Serena was slowly progressing, she had made a few friends at work and she felt more like her old self with each passing day.
Her eyes drifted to the door that led to Chuck's room. She hadn't been in there yet. He always kept the door closed and she wasn't even sure if Sebastian had been in there. On a whim she walked over to the door and opened it. It was a corner room with windows on two sides and a wonderful view. The walls were a light green and the furniture looked brand new except for the bed which she recognized from his room at Bart and Lily's penthouse and later on the Empire. The scout painting was missing and she realized it had not been up in his and Nate's apartment either. She decided to blame it on Emmy, figuring that she hadn't liked it. Blair hadn't had an opinion on the painting either way but it was very much a part of Chuck and she would have liked to see it on the wall.
As she looked around the room she noticed Chuck's laptop on the nightstand. Filled with sudden curiosity she walked over and grabbed it, taking a seat on the bed. She wanted to know where he was and what he was doing and perhaps there was some clue on the computer. He obviously hadn't expected her to come snooping in his room since the browser was still open with several tabs. She eyed through them quickly. Two news sites, which seemed typical of Chuck. Bass Industries official website which made her scoff since she found it ridiculous that he would be browsing it himself. The bank where he had most of his personal accounts was also open and she clicked on that tab but found that he had been automatically logged off after fifteen minutes of inactivity. The remaining tab was for his e-mail account and she clicked on it with absolutely no sense of shame over going through his private correspondence.
She quickly eyed trough the list of e-mails. This was his private account and not the one he used at work. Two e-mails from Lily, one from Serena, three from some online store he had been shopping at and one from Emmy. Blair felt her mouth go dry and she tried clicking on the mail but got an error message. Just like the bank's website his e-mail logged him off if he was inactive for too long. Blair hit backspace and got another error message which made her panic a little. She had no qualms going through his e-mail but she most certainly didn't want him to know about it. Now he would find out for sure. In a moment of minor panic she closed the tab and hoped that he would figure he had closed it himself. Then she quickly put the laptop back where she had found it and got up on her feet, inspecting the bed to see if anyone would be able to tell she had been sitting on it. Then she hurried out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.
What was Emmy doing e-mailing him? It wasn't an old mail; it had been dated just two days ago. Was he still seeing her? Was that where he had gone today? Why had he been visiting his bank; did that have something to do with Emmy?
Filled with nervousness and conflicted emotions she opened the large refrigerator and eyed the food available. She had been doing good for a while, resisting the desire to binge and purge. This time around she had found that her bulimia was much easier to control when she had a lot of things going on that distracted her. Today though there was no distraction. Sebastian was asleep and Chuck was out, possibly with Emmy. Was he giving her money? Paying for something for her? Buying her jewelry?
She spotted a sundried tomatoes and feta pie and grabbed it. This wasn't usually the kind of food she binged on but there were surprisingly few sweets in the house, as if Chuck was trying to keep Sebastian sheltered from such things until he got older. She grabbed a fork and sat down by the kitchen table, relieved that nobody else was in the house right now, and began to eat. The pie was cold and probably disgusting in that state but she wasn't aware of what she was eating. She finished the whole thing and tossed the pie dish in the sink. Then she ran up the stairs and into the nearest bathroom.
She purged until she had nothing left in her stomach. Gasping for air she fumbled with her hand trying to find the knob to flush. She didn't normally use this bathroom since she had one connected to her bedroom and wasn't sure where the knob was. Finally she found it and flushed, closing her eyes hard for a second.
"You're not pregnant, are you?"
Chuck's voice startled her and she sat up straight, staring at him with wide eyes. He was in the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, holding out a box of Kleenex to her. The look in his eyes was impossible to decipher. How long had he been standing there?
"Blair?"
"No" she said, grabbing a handful of Kleenex. "I'm not pregnant."
"Certain?"
She gave him a look.
"The last person I had sex with was you. That was in February, almost exactly two months ago. Of course I'm sure."
"Good. We didn't use a condom so that made me concerned."
"Breathe, Bass" Blair muttered and wiped her mouth with the Kleenex. "I know my pregnancy track record hasn't exactly included telling you all about it but for one I've learned from my mistakes and for another we're living together. If you had knocked me up I would have told you about it."
"What's the problem, then?" he asked. "By the looks of it you were vomiting up an entire buffet."
She blushed. He couldn't have been standing there for very long if he thought she might be vomiting because of a pregnancy. If he had seen her stick her fingers down her throat he would know what was up. Still it embarrassed her to no end that he seemed to have gotten a look at what she had been throwing up and the man she loved but couldn't have watching her do so was definitely on the list of things that could kill any romance.
"I had some bad pie for lunch" she said, avoiding his eyes.
"That's it?"
"Luckily food poisoning wears off within a day" she said. "When I was pregnant I had morning sickness for three months."
Chuck studied her for a moment with a thoughtful expression. She didn't dare to meet his eyes, petrified that he would see right through her and realize what was actually going on. Her bulimia was ammunition and she refused to give it to him. On shaky legs she rose to her feet and walked over to the sink to rinse her face and her mouth. Chuck's eyes stayed on her the entire time.
"Go lie down" he said. "I'll instruct the chef to give you something light for dinner. Some white fish, some rice. I'll take care of Sebastian for the rest of the day."
Great. Blair kept in a groan. He had bought her lie but now she would be confined to her bedroom for the rest of the day while Chuck spent Saturday afternoon having fun with Sebastian. Without saying a word she pushed past Chuck and walked to her bedroom, feeling worse than ever and wishing he would stop looking at her.
When the door to her bedroom closed Chuck still stayed in the hallway for a few minutes, wondering if she really was suffering from food poisoning or if she had caught stomach flu. He strongly hoped it wasn't the latter. If it was one thing he couldn't stand it was having the stomach flu and he didn't want poor Sebastian to have to suffer through it either.
He heard a noise coming from Sebastian's room and walked inside. Sebastian had just sat up on his bed and was rubbing his eyes sleepily. Chuck walked over and stopped a few feet away from the bed.
"Hey" he said. "Did you have a good nap?"
"I'm thirsty" Sebastian mumbled.
"Then let's go downstairs and get you some water." He held out his hand and Sebastian took it groggily. "I was thinking… Mom isn't feeling very well today. We should let her get some rest. What do you say you and I go to the zoo? It's lovely weather outside; we could see some animals, maybe eat some popcorn?"
"Do they have hippos there?" Sebastian asked, interest perked.
"I'm guessing that they don't. But they have all kinds of other animals."
Sebastian looked excited and began to fire off a number of questions about zoos in general and animals in particular. He had gotten very inquisitive over the past few weeks and sometimes it was hard to keep up with all his questions. While they walked down the stairs Chuck texted Dave to have him bring the limo around again.
The following two weeks Blair made sure that whenever she purged she did so in her own bathroom with the door locked. It happened three times in those two weeks and each time she felt a bit more miserable. She knew she had to be more careful. Sebastian had walked in on her purging and so had Chuck. Unless she wanted to get caught she had to cover her tracks better and getting caught was the last thing she wanted at present.
Living together was starting to get more difficult. Neither she nor Chuck had anticipated the problems that would follow when it came to Sebastian's care. Blair had just assumed she would be the one to get him dressed in the morning, who made sure he ate his breakfast, who took care of most his needs during the day and who tucked him in at night. She hadn't spent much time considering what Chuck would be doing and when he started to want to get Sebastian ready in the morning she felt like he was intruding on her turf. The two of them ended up awkwardly dancing around each other while Sebastian seemed to get more confused each day and more easily irritated.
On top of that there were none of the cozy family moments Blair had envisioned. Chuck preferred spending his time with Sebastian one on one in order to bond with him better but Blair didn't know his reasons. To her he just seemed to be avoiding her. It disappointed her a great deal that the only time the three of them spent together as a family was during breakfast and dinner and Chuck usually spent breakfast reading the paper and barely said two words during dinner. The whole thing was a mess.
On Saturday four weeks after she and Sebastian had moved in with Chuck she was sitting on the comfortable black couch in the downstairs sitting room reading a magazine when Chuck and Sebastian came down the stairs apparently on their way out. She looked up and put her magazine down, frowning with disapproval.
"Where might you be going?" she asked.
"All the snow has melted and it's getting warmer" Chuck said. "Sebastian needs a new spring jacket."
"I shop for Sebastian" Blair objected.
"Blair I am perfectly capable of picking out a jacket for my child" Chuck said gently.
"That is not the point" Blair frowned. "I am his mother and I do the shopping."
"In my household growing up it was always the father who did the shopping" Chuck countered. "Come on Sebastian, let's hurry up. Dave is waiting downstairs with the limo."
Blair snorted but before she could think of anything to say in return Chuck and Sebastian had walked out the door. In a really foul mood she tossed the magazine aside and felt her eyes drifting towards the kitchen. Then she made a decision not to be weak and got up to go call Dorota. If Chuck and Sebastian were going coat shopping then she could go shoe shopping. Spending money had always been her favorite way of taking her mind off her troubles.
Chuck soon found out that shopping with a four year-old was anything but fun and that it was better not to bring the child at all. Sebastian had absolutely no interest in picking out a jacket and instead ran around the store Chuck had taken him to. Chuck managed to rope him in to get him to try on a few jackets but Sebastian complained loudly and thought it was boring. Annoyed by the unruly child Chuck grabbed a purple jacket in the right size and decided they could send it back if it turned out not to fit. He walked up to the register to pay for it and growled when he heard Sebastian making loud airplane noises behind him. He turned and saw his son running around the store like a lunatic with his arms stretched out as wings.
"Sebastian!" he barked. "Get over here."
Sebastian stopped in his tracks and looked at him with wide eyes. Then he obediently came over, feeling frightened by his father the way he had done most of the time during the first six months.
"Stand still and be quiet" Chuck said firmly.
"My, my, my" Jack's voice said. "It's like a blast from the past. Except instead of Bart and Chuck it's Sebastian and Chuck."
Chuck turned around and stared at his uncle with disbelief.
"What on earth are you doing here?"
"Sure as hell not shopping for a child's jacket."
"I should hope not."
"I'm just stalking you" Jack shrugged. "Since you never call, never write, an uncle's got to find his own means of staying in touch."
"Perhaps you could call or write? Or get a life of your own."
He put a hand on Sebastian's shoulder and turned to pay for the jacket. He glanced over his shoulder but Jack was gone. Feeling relieved he took the bag the cashier handed to him and walked out of the store with his hand still on Sebastian's shoulder.
"Bart would be proud" Jack's amused voice said the second they stepped out of the store. "Little Charles taking some real responsibilities."
Chuck turned and saw Jack leaned against the wall with an entertain smirk. Rolling his eyes Chuck looked over at the limo and saw Dave getting out to open the door for them. He handed Dave the bag and looked at Sebastian.
"Why don't you get in the car?" he said. "I'll be right with you."
Sebastian wasn't very keen on getting back in the car but he was still quite intimidated by his father at times and this was definitely one of them. With a nod he jumped up on the leather seats and picked up the stuffed animal he had left on there. When the car door closed behind him Chuck turned back to Jack.
"Now why did you go do that?" Jack asked, sounding a touch disappointed. "You didn't even give the kid and me a chance to get introduced and acquainted."
"Aw, rats" Chuck said, voice brimming with sarcasm.
"One of these days you're going to have to wake up and realize that I've been consistently on your side these past twelve months. This whole 'my uncle is my Hamlet-esque nemesis' thing is getting tired."
"You're never on anybody's side but your own" Chuck pointed out. "If you're nice to me right now it's only because it benefits you somehow to be. The moment it no longer does you would sell me out to the highest bidder."
"Perhaps I'm reformed."
"Perhaps you're not."
"So paranoid" Jack said, smacking his tongue. "You're going to teach the little munchkin to be that way too?"
"No, I was actually planning on giving him a secure and loving childhood."
"Aw that is just adorable" Jack said with a smile and tilted his head. He left his spot by the wall and walked closer. "Did he like the frog?"
"That's why you're stalking me? To find out if the frog was well-received? I can only assume that your office in Australia has been invaded by wolf spiders or alligators and that is why you've returned to New York this week and not to ask about a plushie."
"Actually I returned to scratch my vengeance itch" Jack said. "Upon, well, you know who."
"Is that really necessary?"
"Turns out it wasn't."
Chuck frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.
"That should be comforting to hear but when the words come out of your mouth they seem ominous."
"For one your little plan of shacking up with her made it more difficult to come up with a revenge plan that wouldn't hurt the kid as well" Jack said. "I don't want the kid to get hurt. My beef is with her but he is blood."
"Being related to you by blood has never been a vaccine against your antics before" Chuck pointed out.
"For another it didn't seem like I had to unleash any revenge upon her" Jack continued, ignoring the comment. "She seems to be rather miserable these days all on her own and with the flair-up of her bulimia it seems like she's actually punishing herself for me."
"What?"
"I'm not saying I've completely pulled the plug on operation Pound the Waldorf but it's been postponed at least."
"No, about bulimia. Blair had bulimia ten years ago. She's not having any flair-ups."
"Oh" Jack said. He began to laugh and shook his head. "Oh. Oh Nephew, Nephew, Nephew… You share an apartment with her and you haven't noticed that she's bulimic again? I really do hope you've gotten yourself a good nanny already because she is an unfit parent and obviously you pay about as much attention as a vegetable."
"Stop trying to be cute and be straight with me" Chuck demanded.
"Your lady of no virtue has been sick again since the end of last year. If I can find this out then how come you had no idea?"
"How did you find out?" Chuck wanted to know.
"I'm Jack Bass" Jack replied with a grin. "If I want dirt on someone I find it. See you around, my oblivious little nephew."
He walked off still laughing and Chuck wondered if he should believe him. He would have noticed if Blair was bulimic again. He had caught her throwing up once but it had been an isolated incident and she had had food poisoning. Jack was probably just fabricating things to cause problems.
He got in the car and paid almost no attention to Sebastian who was playing with his stuffed animal. As soon as he got a chance he would do his own investigation into the matter. If Blair was bulimic again he would find out about it, before her condition had a chance to hurt their son.
He didn't get a chance to speak with Blair right away. She was waiting for them when they got back and Sebastian eagerly ran to her. She gave him a big hug and then demanded to see the jacket they had gotten. She studied it with skepticism but seemed to find it okay enough and told Chuck to go hang it up. When he got back she was already halfway up the stairs with Sebastian's hand in hers.
That evening after Sebastian had gone to sleep he decided it was time to have a talk. He knocked on her door and stepped inside without waiting for an answer. She was stretched out on her side on the bed flipping though a fashion magazine. She looked up at him through her reading glasses and it occurred to him how thin she had gotten. He had reflected upon it before but never connected the dots.
"What do you want, Charles?" she asked.
"Did you really have food poisoning the other week?" he asked.
"Unfortunately, yes" Blair said, flipping through another page.
"You're not bulimic again, then?"
Blair froze and slowly looked up at him. Then she wrinkled her nose and gave him her best offended snort.
"Absolutely not. The mere implication is absurd."
Her eyes didn't match her mouth. He frowned and shoved his hands in his back pockets, deeply concerned now.
"For how long?"
"How long what?"
"How long has this been going on?"
"Chuck I'm telling you, I'm not bulimic. I had one case of food poisoning. Good grief."
She returned her focus to the magazine and did her best to ignore him and show him how preposterous she found the idea. Chuck wasn't fooled for a second.
"Blair. This is serious."
"I am not purging myself" Blair said sharply.
"How much do you weigh?"
"Excuse me?"
"How much? When you came back to New York last year you were somewhere around 120 pounds I should assume. Looking at you now I don't think you're more than 90, if that even. That's a lot of weight for a tiny woman to lose in just a few months."
"You're keeping tabs on my weight?" Blair scoffed, sitting up on the bed. "Chuck what I weigh is none of your business. And I have never weighed 120 pounds except for when I was pregnant. How dare you?"
"Your weight is my business if you've relapsed in your eating disorder" Chuck argued. "It's Sebastian's business and it's mine."
"Leave Sebastian out of this."
"So you admit it then? You are bulimic?"
Knowing she had more or less backed herself into a corner Blair said nothing. She felt embarrassed but more than that she felt afraid. What would Chuck do with this information? Over the past weeks she had begun to realize that he wasn't the same Chuck Bass she had known and loved before, there were some parts of him that were different now. There had been a time when she could always predict how he would react to something but not anymore.
"Blair why the hell have you not said anything?" he asked. "Why haven't you come to me? Or talked to Serena? Or Dorota?"
"You or S?" she said with sarcasm. "My loving friends who are there for me no matter what? Why oh why did I not turn to you, my eternal pillars of strength?"
"Probably because we helped cause it" Chuck muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. "Well now I know. We have to do something about this."
"Well thank God you came along with that bright idea" Blair sulked.
"You can't go to a treatment facility" Chuck said.
"Why?" Blair had to ask, looking at him with incredulity.
"Sebastian and I need you at home. Plus we can't have the scandal. There's been enough turmoil in that child's life for one year. You're going to get better but it has to happen here. There are doctors at normal hospitals that specialize in things like this, right?"
Blair fought the sudden urge to get up from the bed and hug him. She had been worried sick that if he found out he would use it against her but he seemed to be on her side.
"Chuck I'm scared" she admitted. "What if I can't get out of this vicious cycle? What if our son has to grow up with a mother who binges and purges?"
"That is not going to happen" Chuck reassured her.
"I'm too weak to be a good mother. I should have known better and been stronger. If this is how I've reacted now then how am I going to handle Sebastian's rebellious phase?"
"The past year has been hell for you. I know that. It's not weak to crumble under the enormous amount of pressure you've been under. Besides, you're not the only one who's resorted to bad coping mechanisms. I should have left Emmy months ago but I stayed with her because I needed her. It was completely selfish and in the end I think I did more damage than I would have if I had left when I first decided to."
"You were planning on leaving Emmy before?"
"Before I knew that you had lied to me."
"You were going to leave her for me?"
"I was going to leave her because I realized my feelings no longer ran deep enough. Then I stayed because she was my rock. I used her and I'm not proud of that. What you've been doing is self-destructive. What I did was destructive towards someone else."
"I guess we're both pretty screwed up."
"Yeah I think so" he nodded. "Look I'm going to make some enquiries and see if I can find a doctor who can help you here or an out-patient program of some sort. The important thing is that you get better and that we keep Sebastian protected."
"Thank you" she said. "For not using this against me."
"We're done playing that game" he said. "The whole point of moving in here together was to give our son a real sense of a family. We're working together from now on."
She nodded and managed half a smile. He smiled back and left the room to go find a doctor or a program. She took a deep trembling breath and felt relieved. Her secret was out and disaster had not struck. She had been wanting to get help for weeks but had been afraid to do so since once she did she wouldn't be able to keep her condition a secret. Now Chuck knew and he wasn't going to use it against her. He was going to help her shield Sebastian from it. It would be a slow process for sure but at least she was no longer alone in it. Being able to turn to Chuck as a friend felt great and gave her hope.
So Blair's eating disorder is out in the open (or at least known to the Basses) and Emmy has made her comeback. In other words there are a few issues left to deal with before the end =) I'll be trying my best to have a new update ready by next week. Thank you for reading, let me know your thoughts!