2 weeks later

Chuck sat in the chair peacefully. Not tapping his fingers. Not shuffling his feet. He had no problem being there, not at that moment at least. He didn't see the point in giving the doctor a hard time anymore. It was boring him.

He had been in the Ostroff Center for about three weeks now. It was the middle of March.

Last week he had stopped denying all the stuff the doctor had been telling him and decided to accept it. It would get him out of there sooner.

"Well, Chuck, you have definitely been making progress lately. How does it feel?" The doctor looked intently at him.

"To tell you the truth I really don't feel that different." He shrugged. It was the truth. He had been accepting all of his problems and talking about them to Dr. Sherman, but he didn't feel any better.

"Hopefully that will change."

Chuck nodded and remained silent.

"So tell me about your father. We haven't talked about him much." He settled into his chair as if getting ready for a long talk.

He looked back at his doctor than stared off, thinking of his so-called father.

"Hey, dad! Do you want to hear me play?" The small five-year-old Chuck bounced on the bench at the large piano in their living room.

"What, Chuck?" His father didn't even look at him. He was flipping through some papers, but they were apparently more important than his own son.

"Do you want to listen to me play piano? My teacher says I'm getting rather good." He tapped his small finger on one of the keys and listened to the pinging sound it made and waited for his father to answer him.

He peeked around the large musical instrument to see the older man, preoccupied and paying no attention to him what so ever.

"Dad?" He called to him, hoping he would listen for a minute.

He waited a little while longer, but he was growing impatient, "Dad?"

"Chuck! I don't have time for this! I have to go to the office." He scrambled the papers up in a bunch and threw them into a briefcase.

The small boy jumped up from the bench and walked over to his father, "But-but…"

"I'll be back later." The man brushed him off and walked towards the door in a hurry. Not even bothering to kiss, hug, or say goodbye to his only son.

"Bye." Chuck meekly said after he left. He climbed back up on the bench and started drumming his fingers on the keys. He was pretty talented for a fiver-year-old, but his dad would never know that. He would never listen to his son play piano, not once before he died.

"He hated me." He said simply, still not looking at he doctor as he remembered his childhood.

"I'm sure that's not true." A sad expression spread across the doctor's face.

Chuck had only told a few people now about his father, but everyone's reaction had been the same. They felt sorry for him. First, Dan. Then Eric. Now, Dr. Sherman.

"Well, he didn't love me." He turned his head sharply to face him.

"And I'm sure that's not true either. Every father loves his son."

"Then he certainly had a funny way of showing it."

"He left you his company, correct?"

"Yes. Is that supposed to mean something?"

"He left you his legacy. Doesn't that mean something?"

"No, not after seventeen years of rejecting me."

"He rejected you? Tell me about it." He peered at him, he was glad he had finally got Chuck to start talking about his problems.

"When he wasn't ignoring me, he was pretty much telling me he was ashamed to call me his son."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"Made me feel like shit. But made me angry as hell since he sucked as a father. It's his fault I am the way I am," Chuck paused for a second, "Well at least I hope it is."

"Why?" He appeared confused.

"Because that would mean that I could've been different, I would've been someone else."

"You want to be someone else?"

Chuck shrugged, the conversation was not going in the direction he wanted it to.

"Okay, well tell me about your mother."

"How am I supposed to tell you about her? She's dead. I remember nothing of her." He looked at the doctor like he was stupid.

"Just tell me how you feel about her?"

"….I wish she was still alive. I wish I had gotten to know her…or something." He looked down at his hands.

"You wish you had gotten to know her?" Dr. Sherman wanted him to go into more detail.

"Yes. She was my mother, I kind of want to know what she was like." Chuck had never talked to anyone about this, and he couldn't believe he was telling it to someone he hardly knew.

"Your father never told you about her?"

"Please," He scoffed at him, "The only time my dad ever talked about her was when he told me what happened to her. How I killed her." He put his hand to his chest, pointing to himself.

"You don't really believe that do you?"

"What else am I supposed to believe?"

"It's not your fault." He looked at Chuck seriously.

"Maybe, maybe not."

The doctor didn't want to push Chuck on one subject too much. As soon as he saw that the young man was getting tired of talking about one thing, he would steer their conversation in a different direction. So he could keep him talking.

"Okay, tell me about other stuff in your childhood. Your friends."

He thought of what him and his friends were like when they were younger. When they were in elementary school and junior high they were the closet group of friends. But everything changed when they got to sophomore year in high school. When Nate cheated on Blair with Serena, and she went off to boarding school. Then the next year when Serena came back, Blair and Nate broke up. And he fell in love with her.

Chuck remembered how him and his friends used to be, "I've had the same three friends my whole life…but everything's different now."

"How so?"

"Serena's my step-sister, I don't think she considers us to be friends anymore. Nate is now the most vile person I know. And Blair…" He trailed of, not wanting to finish the sentence.

"Blair, the girl you're in love with. You guys used to be good friends?"

"Yeah." He muttered.

"When did you fall in love with her?"

"Last year."

"You don't seem happy about it."

"Why would I be? I just wish we could go back to when we were all friends. Like before Serena slept with Nate, and we could stay like that."

"Serena slept with Nate?" The doctor tried to understand his friend's complicated lives.

"Yes, they slept together, even though Nate is Blair's boyfriend and Serena is her best friend." It was an old story and Chuck got tired of telling it. "But that was a long time ago."

"But you weren't in love with Blair then?"

"No. We were just friends," He thought of how he felt about her back then, "But I don't know maybe I was."

"Maybe you were? You don't know?"

"No, I really don't. I could've been, I just might not have realized it. There was always something about her."

"Like what?"

"She was always different from the all the other girls. I think she gets me some how. She understands me more than anyone else does. At least I think she does…I understand her."

They continued to talk about Blair for a little while longer and then the doctor asked him a few more questions about his mom and dad.

"Okay, Chuck, this session is over." He closed the notebook he had been writing in and set it on his desk.

"'Kay, cool." Chuck stood up from the chair he sat in across from Dr. Sherman.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yep." He turned to leave the office.

"Chuck?"

"Yeah?" He swung around to face him.

"I wasn't going to tell you this, but I think I should, you deserve it."

"What?"

"Lily and I have agreed you can leave in a few weeks."

Chuck wasn't sure how to answer, he hadn't expected him to give him news like that, "That's…nice." That was all he could think of to say. He didn't know how to express his excitement, he hadn't been looking forward to something so much in his entire life.

Chuck then left Dr. Sherman's office silently and returned to his room.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 week later

"Are you okay?" A male nurse asked him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It doesn't hurt." Chuck told him rudely, he just wanted him to carry on with what he was doing.

Lily had brought him to the hospital to see his doctor and get his stitches taken out. He sat in a chair with his arm and hand resting on a table while the man removed all the stitches. He was supposed to get them taken out sooner, but when he had ripped several of them out it set the date back. Lily stood next to Chuck and had her hand on his shoulder. It really didn't hurt, but everyone was acting like it would.

He watched the nurse cut the stitches then pull them back through his skin. It couldn't have taken more than ten minutes. It would've taken less time if the dumb nurse would stop going in what seemed like fucking slow motion, Chuck thought.

"Alright, Chuck."

He looked down at his wrists and saw a line of pink, dry and cracking skin on each one. There were also small holes where the stitches used to be.

The nurse put a large band-aid over each wrist. "You'll need to keep those on for a week or so, just until they heal fully." He told Chuck.

He remained silent and nodded. Lily answered instead, "Okay, thank you very much."

"Your welcome, Ms. Van der Woodsen. You already talked to the doctor, so I don't think there's anything else you guys need to do here."

"Thank you." She smiled politely and grabbed Chucks arm as he stood up from the chair.

The male nurse began cleaning the table with disinfectant as Lily left the room with Chuck.

"Before we go back to the center, do you want to get some lunch?" She held his arm as they walked through the hospital, then out the door into the spring air.

"Okay." He nodded his head. He was sure that Lily wouldn't ambush him again with Eric, Serena, and the whole Humphrey family.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

"Eric and Serena really miss you." Lily told him after their food arrived.

"I'm sure they do." Chuck mumbled, he wasn't sure if he believed her.

They talked about the Ostroff Center and how he was getting out soon and dug into their food.

"You know prom is coming up soon. It's next week actually." She offered a conversation as she picked at her salad.

"That's wonderful." He said sarcastically enthused.

"I could talk to your doctor to see if you could go."

"Thanks, but no thanks." He moved his fork through his food, he didn't have much of an appetite.

"You don't want to go?" Lily set her fork down and looked at him.

"No."

"Alright, but maybe you'll change your mind."

"I doubt that." Chuck reached for his glass of water.

"But it's your prom. It'll be fun."

He shrugged, he didn't want her to bother him about this.

There was a time when he would have no problem going to the prom. Everyone went. It was just something you had to do before you graduated high school. But he knew Blair would be there with Nate. And that was something he didn't want to see.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

2 days later

"Come on! Aren't you excited?" Serena shook Blair, trying to shake some enthusiasm out of her. "It's the prom! And your going with Nate! Haven't you wanted this like your whole life?"

The two girls were dress shopping and Blair was dragging down the festive mood.

"Yeah, I guess it is." Blair moved her hands over some dresses. None of them were good enough for her.

Serena knew what the problem was. Her best friend was in love with Chuck Bass. And she wasn't going to the prom with him. Blair had dreamed of going to the prom with Nate her whole life, until she fell in love with Chuck. Then Nate wasn't even in her dream anymore.

She also knew the two of them hadn't spoken in weeks, and Blair was broken over it.

"Blair, I know this is hard for you." She reached for her hand.

"I don't know what your talking about." Blair turned her nose up so she couldn't see her face.

"You can talk to me about it. I'm your best friend remember?" She poked at her teasingly.

"I think this dress would look good on you." She held it up to Serena's body.

She snatched it from Blair's hands, "Okay, how 'bout we make a deal?"

"A deal huh? Your not one for making deals." Blair looked at her, wondering what she was up to.

"I know. It's Chuck's forte, but I think this circumstance calls for it."

"What circumstance?"

"You won't talk to me about Chuck. And your depressed. Not even shopping is cheering you up."

"Whatever. What's the deal?"

"You talk to me about Chuck, and you get to pick out my dress for prom."

"That's kind of a dumb deal." Blair went back to looking through dresses.

"And, if you'll cheer up! I'll try my best to convince Chuck to go." Serena looked at her with one eye brow raised waiting for her reaction.

Blair tried not to show any signs of caring, but she was almost positive her eyes got a little wider, "Your going to convince Chuck to go? To the prom?" Her voice sounded more eager than she wanted it to.

"Yes, but first you have to start talking to me, then you have to cheer up." Serena shoved her shoulder lightly.

"And I get to pick out your dress." Blair smiled.

Should Chuck go to prom? Or not? I have two scenarios worked out in my head, so it could go either way. But what do you think he should do?