Chapter 14

Chuck

"I love you too," I whispered, my voice breaking.

I picked her frail body up, carrying her to the door, trying to stay low while still standing.

I heard sirens in the distance. Or maybe not so far away…I couldn't really tell.

I carried her to the flaming door and out, careful not to let her touch any of the fire.

The men who had been at the door before were gone.

I kept walking until we were many yards away from the warehouse. I saw the paramedics and the firemen.

I walked to one of the ambulances and some of the paramedics.

"Save her," I tried to say. But nothing came out.

I didn't need to say anything, though. They took Blair and brought her into the ambulance. I could tell that everyone was rushing around and shouting things, but I couldn't hear a thing.

I tried to climb into the ambulance with them to sit next to Blair and make sure she was all right, but they didn't let me. They tried to lead me to another ambulance.

"No, I want to stay with her," I tried to tell them. But once again, nothing came out.

"Thanks for calling us, Mr. Bass. We've got all of the men. It's okay. It's over now." A policeman that had just walked over to me said.

"Thank you for not being seen," I wanted to say. But I couldn't speak. It was like I didn't have a voice anymore.

"But we need to take you to the hospital. We didn't know that it would get this serious…I know you want to stay with your friend, but right now we need to make sure that you're okay too."

I stumbled, the adrenaline gone, and I was put into another ambulance. I was too weak to fight them.

"Don't worry," the policeman said. "We'll take good care of her. And you too. It's all over. It'd going to be okay."

Serena

I was pretty annoyed.

"Serena, what did you expect? Did you really want to be in the room while Georgina gives birth?"

"No…I guess I just thought that we would be getting updated more frequently."

"Well there's only Dan and Georgina in there, and neither of them can come out and tell us about the progress. Georgina's having a baby, and Dan wants to stay with her."

"I know, I know," I said grumpily. I had spent way too much time in a hospital lately.

We had just gone down to the ground floor of the hospital, after waiting in the waiting room for hours. It felt nice to walk around a bit.

We got some coffee and sat down in some seats that we found.

Unfortunately, these seemed to be in between where the ambulances dropped off people and the emergency room. It wasn't fun to watch people with extreme injuries rushed in, but we didn't seem to be able to stop watching once we started.

"Oh my god, I think that one was stabbed!" I exclaimed in horror.

"Oh, look, there's one that's only a little kid, I wonder what happened to him…"

"I think that one just had a heart attack."

"That one was shot, look…" We were silent for a moment, and I knew that we were both thinking of Chuck. Which is why I was sure I was just imagining it when I saw him on the next stretcher, and oxygen mask covering the face that I knew belonged to my step-brother.

Nate and I looked at each other in shock and I knew that I wasn't imagining it.

We ran up to him. And the paramedics bringing him and another person in.

"Chuck!" I said, seeing that he was awake. "What happened? Are you okay?"

He nodded, but he looked too upset to be serious. He closed his eyes and jerked his head up, as if trying to point something out to me.

But all that was behind him was the other patient…wait…who was it?

Nate nudged me, looking at the other patient too.

"Blair," he said.

"Follow Chuck in," I said to Nate and dashed over to the other patient.

It was Blair. She was barely recognizable with red shiny skin everywhere and burnt hair and an oxygen mask identical to Chuck's, but I knew it was her. I would know my best friend anywhere.

"Blair!" I exclaimed.

But she didn't open her eyes.

I put my hand over my mouth and my eyes filled with tears. What was wrong with her? What had happened? Was she going to be okay?

I ran next to the paramedics, but still I could barely keep up.

They rushed into the emergency room and I followed them.

But they drew the line at the door into the hallway where they were taking patients.

"No visitors," they said, and my heart sank.

They only said that when it was really serious. Even with Chuck they had at least allowed family. But then again, Chuck had been stable then. He had been there for a little bit. Blair was just arriving.

I saw Nate beckoning for me to come in from the hall.

I checked to make sure no one was watching and slipped into the hall.

I ran up to Nate.

"They won't let me see Blair!" I said, on the verge of tears.

"Then just come with me to see Chuck. Maybe he can tell us what happened."

I followed him into a room. The paramedics had already put him into the hospital bed and gotten him set up. They left as we came in. They were replaced by another doctor.

"Chuck!" I rushed to his side. "Can he take the oxygen mask off for a second? Just to talk to us?" I asked the doctor in the room.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "You can stay if you really want to, but Mr. Bass will need to have that mask on for at least a half hour or so."

"Okay," I said. "We'll wait."

And so we sat by his side and waited.

Chuck

I woke up a little bit later. I didn't remember drifting off. The last thing I remembered was Serena and Nate coming into the hospital room.

I sat up. There was a nurse in there, and after noticing that I was awake, she pulled my mask off.

"You don't have to have that on for now. We may have to put it on again later, but for now you can talk to your visitors."

Visitors? I looked around and saw that Serena and Nate were sitting on either side of me. They were still there. They looked tired.

"Chuck, what happened?" Serena asked.

"Do you know how Blair Waldorf is doing?" I asked the nurse, ignoring Serena for the moment. There were more pressing matters.

"No, I'm sorry." She responded.

"Can I see her?"

"I can't let you get out of bed quite yet, Mr. Bass. And Miss Waldorf is still unable to have visitors. I'm sorry. You can be assured that she is in good hands, though."

I sighed.

"Chuck?" Nate pressed.

"It's all my fault," I whispered.

"What is?"

"I shouldn't have ever let her get involved…it seemed like there was nothing that I could do to stop it, but now…I should have tried harder"

"What do you mean?"

"She's going to die because of me." I whispered.

"Blair? Chuck, what happened? Please tell us. You're scaring me." Serena said anxiously.

"It's a long story," I said.

"We've got time," Serena said.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked. "The whole story?"

Serena and Nate nodded.

"The whole story," Serena said.

"Well, Blair was at my house last night and after Lily left, well, we…um…well, we had a sort of fight…well not really…but she left because…it was awkward after…never mind."

Nate and Serena exchanged confused glances.

"Look, all you need to know is that Blair left," I said. "So then…well, I guess that Carter had told these guys that I stole this diamond…I guess he stole it, and he was scared…he gave them my name.

"Carter told them that you'd stolen their diamond?" Serena asked.

"Yes. It was all a little confusing. So some words were exchanged, he threatened me, then Blair shows up. I don't know why, maybe she decided she shouldn't leave after all. I don't know. But we ended up knocking the guy out, then these other guys came, and I told Blair to run, and they caught her, this was yesterday, then they told me to meet this at this warehouse by 4 today with the diamond…they told me not to call the cops of they'd kill Blair…I'd told Blair earlier that I didn't want to call the cops. I didn't want the publicity it'd bring. But at that point I didn't know what else to do. I was so scared that the group would find out and kill Blair. Telling the cops to wait could have been the biggest mistake of my life. I told them to come in at a certain time…I wanted to make sure that they could get the guys outside without letting the guy with Blair and me know that they were there. I did it all because I wanted to protect her…it's weird how sometimes you try so hard to make sure something doesn't happen and then it happens anyway. After all of that, she might still…we might have lost her. I might have lost her."

"Chuck, what are you talking about?" Nate asked me. "What happened to Blair?"

"I didn't mean for it to happen…I hoped it wouldn't get that far…I didn't know that it would be this bad…It's all my fault. It should have been me instead."

"What happened?" Serena asked, sounding like she was afraid to hear the answer.

I hesitated. "It's better if you don't know," I said quietly. "I don't want you to ever have to see that image in your head…because if I tell you about it, that's all you think about…and when you see it…"

I closed my eyes. I wanted the image to go away, but I could still see it, that burning chair…the fire…I could still hear her screaming…

And it was all my fault.

"We want to know," Nate said firmly. "We have to. It sounds really serious, but we can't understand what's going on until we know. And we want to help both of you through it."

"But what if you can't?" I said quietly. "What if Blair doesn't get through it? What if…"

I trailed off.

"She'll be fine," Serena assured me.

"How do you know? You don't even know what happened," I said.

"Then tell us," Nate said.

We were silent for a moment. "Do you like fire?" I finally asked.

"I guess," Nate said.

"I like it when it's in a fireplace," Serena said slowly. It sounded like she was starting to figure out what had happened.

"I don't. I didn't have a problem with it before, but now…" I said, trailing off.

Serena opened her mouth to ask me exactly what happened, then seemed to think better of it. She seemed to know that I didn't want to say it. And I knew that she was afraid of hearing it aloud. Because then it would mean that it had really happened.

And if it had really happened, then we would all start to think about how someone who went through that wouldn't, couldn't survive.

I knew that because I couldn't say it for that same reason.

But there was the tiniest chance, the smallest sliver of a chance, that she'd live.

And that's what I clung to. It's what kept me going.

"I fought. I tried to save her. But we were both tied up. I tried…"

"So what happened then?" Serena asked, sounding scared.

"I broke the pipe I was tied to. I guess I had some sort of adrenaline rush. I knocked the guy out with my cane, then untied Blair…" I looked down at my burnt hands subconsciously. "I saved her. Or at least, I tried to. I made a few mistakes, though, and pretty soon the whole place was on fire."

"Was she still awake?" Nate asked. I could tell that he had guessed what had happened too. He knew.

We all did. But none of us were going to say it.

"Barely…she said a few words, then passed out. I thought she might have died…"

Serena looked like she wanted to ask what Blair had said, but Nate, seeing this, quickly cut in. "What happened to the guy you knocked out?"

"Well, he woke up and crawled out." I said, grateful that Nate could tell when there was something that just wasn't meant to be told. "But the police got him. They'd gotten all of them. I found out after I carried Blair out. Then they took her away and they took me away too…" I trailed off. "You know the rest of the story from there."

"What, so this all started yesterday?" Nate asked. "Why didn't you tell us? When you saw us today?"

"I couldn't. You would have freaked out. What if you'd called the police and they'd come storming in right away and the guys had killed Blair? Or what if you'd stopped me from going, and the guys killed Blair because I didn't show up on time? But they might have killed her anyways …I might have killed her anyways…it's all my fault…" I couldn't talk about this anymore.

Serena stood up, seeing that this conversation was over and that I needed to be alone for a while. "I'm going to see if I can find someone who can tell me if Blair's okay. And maybe I can find out some news about the baby too."

"Wait, what baby?" I said, only slightly distracted.

"Dan and Georgina's. Turns out she's pregnant. Or she was…we don't know if she's had the baby yet. Her water broke this morning…" Serena explained, sounding like she was trying to distract herself.

"Okay," I said. It didn't seem important. It was none of my business anyway. Right now all I could think about was her…

Serena walked to the door, then turned back.

She looked a little lost, like she felt helpless.

I knew the feeling.

"Coming, Nate?" she asked.

"I'll catch up with you soon," Nate said.

Why wasn't he going with her? She obviously needed someone to comfort her.

Serena just nodded and walked out of the room.

Nate didn't say anything at first. He just looked out the window.

"What was it like?" he asked quietly.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Watching it."

I paused. "Are you in love with Serena?" I asked.

Nate looked surprised at the question.

Finally, he nodded, still looking out the window. "I think so."

"How would it feel if she was dying right in front of you and you could do nothing about it?"

"It'd feel like they were killing me too," Nate said quietly after a moment.

"Yeah," I said quietly, now looking out the window too. "That's what it was like."

AN: I know, I know, I still left you hanging on how Blair is! Originally this chapter was a lot different. I can't remember how many chapters I said that this was going to end in before, but I changed some stuff and I think that there are one or two more chapters, then an epilogue. I think.

I have more written but since I changes some stuff, I have to reorganize everything and write some more stuff. I changed where this chapter was originally gonna end. So I don't know when I'll update next, but it should be soon.

Thanks for…

Reviewing: ,rose, MusicFlowsWithin, HnM skinnys, Richelia, weasleywarrior, ronan03, and ronan03(once for chapter 12, once for chapter 13)

Story Alert: MusicFlowsWithin, Richelia, danielitapotter, and weasleywarrior

And yes, once again, the spaces are intentional

Thanks! Please please review!