Grand Romantic Gestures

Chapter Ten – Part Four

"Dan Humphrey?" Blair's astonishment went to anger and Eric stepped between the two. His sister had returned to the suite, had related her story of Chuck's phone call, of what he had said and more importantly what she had said in return.

"Blair," Eric looped an arm around her. "What's done is done. Let's focus..."

"You told him to shut up because he insulted Dan!"

"Blair." Eric tried to calm her again.

Blair couldn't be. She stared at Serena, accusations flying through her mind, words as nasty as Serena's had been moderate. Then Serena started to cry again and when Blair saw the genuine guilt, she swallowed her own anger, took several deep breaths and sat on the closest sofa. Blair felt so completely powerless and that was an emotion she could never manage. There was nothing she could do or say to tip the scales. She couldn't pay someone, or manipulate something. She couldn't do a single thing. She couldn't even be called first, be called at all.

"Where is Nate?" Serena asked.

"He didn't answer his phone," Eric admitted.

"I'll try him again," Serena grabbed her cell. "He had trouble with reception in a couple of the buildings."

Blair and Eric exchanged a look. It might have been the truth if they'd called only once but they'd tried a dozen different times. They wouldn't confide their suspicions to Serena, not until the blonde was sure herself.

Serena knew the truth before the knock came, a hesitant tap that announced the return of their fourth. She'd added another half dozen calls to their effort but Nate didn't answer a single. They all knew when Nate entered the suite, head bowed and eyes as guilty as sin. Chuck had already called him and based by how haunted the boy's eyes were, it would be so much worse than Serena's tale.

"What did you do?" The accusation was on Blair's lips before Nate could even speak.

"He called me," Nate acknowledged first. "He made me lose my temper."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him to fuck off," Nate admitted with a rub of his eyes. What a brilliant friend he turned out to be. He told his suicidal best friend to fuck off. Blair was entirely right, he was useless.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Blair was across the room before the others could intervene. She smacked him across the head, nothing playful in her violent motion. "You idiot!" She hit him again second strike following quickly after, third strike prevented by a grab of her fist. Serena arched her back and tried to pull her smaller friend back. It proved difficult, Blair pushed forward with as much strength, tried to kick when her hands were held back.

It took a combined effort to force her backward, Eric adding an arm to his sister's and a calming voice to the melee. Blair was pulled back, returned to the sofa, forced to remain there. She turned her eyes to the opposite wall. She bartered her anger away piece by piece, forced herself to refocus on the task. It was hard not just because of its force, but because when the anger left it was replaced by other uncomfortable emotions. She was hurt, overlooked, even unnaturally jealous. Why wouldn't Chuck call her? She wanted so much to hear his voice, to reassure him. She wanted to save him.

"What did he say?" Serena asked as her boyfriend took his own seat.

"He had sex with Vanessa," Nate sat with his legs outstretched, crossed his hands and ran his finger along the knuckle of the other hand.

"No he didn't." Blair rolled her eyes at the thought. That was just absurd!

"He did. He knew things that you could only know if," Nate gave a flip of his bangs, a meaningful look to the others. He wasn't going to put it to words.

"Please. What are the chances of that?"

"Chances or not," Nate began but Blair cut him off again.

"He's depressed. Right now he hates himself and he wants everyone else to hate him. He'll say whatever it takes."

"Blair," Nate's voice went firmer, his eyes went right to his former girlfriend. "It is true. I called Vanessa to ask."

"When?" Blair didn't allow her disbelief to drop; she held it up like a shield. "When was this supposed to happen?"

"I don't know," Nate broke his hands, threw one arm back to the arm rest. "We didn't get that far before Vanessa told me that her private life was none of my damn business!"

Serena sat beside her best friend, tried to put a hand on the brunette's arm but she threw it off, inched further to the side and stared further off to the distance. "If Vanessa says it is then it must be true," Serena tried in the most calming voice she could muster. Blair wanted to pretend it wasn't the truth, wanted to toss her hair back as if it meant nothing, wanted to throw up the dinner they'd forced on her. "I know that you love Chuck...'

"I do not," Blair spat on instinct. It wasn't an artful lie. Even if Serena hadn't meant romantically they all loved Chuck. That's why they were here. Blair squared her shoulders, dug her nails into the upholstery and challenged any of them to contradict. They didn't dare.

"Let's focus on the present," Eric broke the growing stalemate and refocused them to task. "Let's find Chuck."

"We've been trying," Serena reminded her brother. She sat beside Nate on the couch, exhaustion taking its own toll.

"He called us," Nate put an arm around his girlfriend. "That must mean something."

"Why is he doing it?" Serena asked. "Is it what Blair said? Is he feeding his depression?"

"I think that's part of it," Eric admitted. "I think he wants to push us all away too but that's not all of it." Eric's mind had been working non stop and he had a number of theories. He was just struggling to reconcile them all. "I think he's testing us too."

"What kind of test?" Blair asked.

"What is the one thing Chuck's been missing since his mom died?"

"Family?" Nate said.

"Affection?" Serena tried.

"Love," Blair's eyes widened in understanding. She finally grasped the total picture, cracks and all. Eric shared a nod with his apprentice while the others scoffed.

"We love Chuck," They chimed.

"Unconditional love," Blair nearly smiled at the simplicity of it. "That's what Misty was so great at. Chuck was the moodiest, most temperamental and sometimes downright rotten kid but Misty never lost her patience with him. She loved him no matter what he did."

"Bart restricts his love to approval, offers it up freely when Chuck achieves and withdraws it as completely when he fails." Eric completed the puzzle for the benefit of the rest.

"So he wants us to love him no matter what he says or does to us?" Serena asked.

"I think he wants us to help," Eric admitted. "If he didn't he'd have taken his passport and flown to the other side of the world. He wants us to stop him but he's too afraid to ask. He doesn't trust anyone."

"We need to prove ourselves," Nate finished the idea, one hand going again to his face and the other to Serena. He squeezed his girlfriend's hand in his. It was humbling to know they had both had their chance and failed miserably.

"So that's it?" Serena took a deep breath. "We just wait until he calls one of you?"

"That can't be all," Blair suggested to Eric.

"We need to go over everything he said," Eric suggested. "Word for word."

"Why?" Serena asked with a look at her boyfriend. Some things were better left unsaid.

"If he broke down enough to call you two then maybe he offered something more than an insult. There might be a clue to where he is or something minor that might lead us there."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Chuck spun the pistol on his side table; hammer locked and trigger rubbing against his finger as it turned. The gun scuffed as it moved, light scraping noises centering him on the moment. He tried to formulate his words. There was so much he could use against Blair, so many stories he could twist and turn, so many weaknesses he could manipulate but the thought of doing it again, of harming her was as exhausting as liberating. He had hurt her so much already. What triumph could there be in kicking her again, in deepening her anguish or solidifying her unhappiness? He wanted to give her something else but he couldn't offer anything else. He was too dysfunctional to offer love that didn't end with wounding.

Then he knew what he had to do. He needed to give truth instead. He wouldn't twist her history, he'd tell her his without the blessing of distance or reserve. He'd do it knowing how much it would hurt them both. He'd do it because when it was all over, she would understand why they had ended the way they had.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Serena had started despite her reservations. She told the entire room about her brother's taunting, the comparisons to her mother and Chuck's insistence that she was still in love with Dan. She caught her boyfriend's eyes as she said the last. Serena had never put it to words, had never spoken about Dan at all but the doubt had lingered. Now as her eyes dropped over Chuck's truth Nate had his own assurance. Nate hid his response behind a sip of coffee, gulped the tart liquid so he couldn't question. This wasn't about the two of them. They'd have time to discuss it later and Serena wouldn't be the only one with a confession when they did.

"Why was he going on about her bedroom?" Blair hit upon the part that didn't belong.

Eric shook his head. He had no idea.

"Aren't we over thinking this?" Nate asked. "If Chuck has gone nuts then what's the chance anything he is doing or saying makes sense?"

They all turned on him at that. It was a logical deduction but to give into it meant giving up their hopes. Nate saw the hostility and instantly corrected himself. He took another sip of coffee and volunteered to start his tale. They waited and he spoke. "He told me that he missed having me as a neighbour. He went over this story from when we were eight, a snowboard that he borrowed and cracked."

"I remember that one," Serena nodded her head. "It was bright blue with purple racing stripes."

Nate was surprised she did, brow arching at her perfect recollection.

"I bought it for you!" Serena reminded him.

"Oh!" Now Nate remembered why he had been so mad at Chuck over something that could so easily be replaced.

"Do you think he's in an apartment on his childhood street?" Eric suggested to the rest.

"We already checked all of Bart's holdings on that street." Serena negated the idea. "They're all empty."

"Could he be staying with someone?" Nate offered.

"I think someone else would notice his mood," Blair pointed out meaningfully. Nate got the cut and when the other suggestions fell flat, he continued his story.

"He said he missed taking things from me and breaking them," Nate admitted with a look downward. "He said he only slept with Vanessa to get the better of me." Nate ran a hand through his hair again, didn't dare a look at Blair.

She sat with her feet primly crossed, colour slowly draining from every inch of her face. She tried to stay neutral, to stay poised and play it off. She breathed deeply and tried to act the part of disinterested observer. It didn't work. If Chuck had said that about Vanessa, then what had been his intent with her? Even with everything that had gone after, it was too tempting to believe her deflowering a game between two competing boys.

"Do I really need to get into specifics?" Nate asked with a meaningful glance to his left.

"I think that..." Eric started but Blair cut him off.

"Do you think he might still be here?" Blair suggested.

"In the suite?" Serena arched her brow in disbelief. Her friend was too smart to offer such an asinine suggestion.

"No" Blair shook her head. "In the Palace itself. He's talking about Serena's bedroom and having Nate as a neighbour. Maybe he doesn't mean literal neighbour or maybe he just means neighbour to where Nate is now. He might be in a room somewhere."

The three shared a look. It was a stretch but not an entirely illogical one. Serena offered to call the desk, to have individual rooms searched. It gave them something to try.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Chuck's finger lingered over the send button. He studied the number, each digit that'd he pushed in sequence. He'd entered them by hand even though Blair was still on his speed dial. He wanted to prolong to the moment, give himself time to work up his strength or abandon his plan. This was it. Nothing would be the same once the truth came out.

And that's why he had to do it. He couldn't leave her dangling for months like he had been. He didn't want to give her the kind of pain he had experienced when his mother died, the longing and the not knowing. He didn't want her to spend years debating the role she'd played, questioning and blaming mingling to self doubt. He didn't want her to imagine for a minute that her cruelty had caused the final break. He needed her to know that she couldn't have helped him, that it was the right thing to have let him go because they would never have had the future he'd once dreamed of and it wasn't her fault. He was incapable of loving anyone.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

At first the Palace manager was unwilling to cooperate. The staff wasn't going to search the building without a request from Bart himself and they were suspicious of unshared motivations. Eric meandered through their questions, managed to underlie the seriousness of the situation without the specifics. Blair gave suggestions, threw drugs in and trailed off. It was enough. The manager erred on the safe side, he understood the danger if he didn't help and something genuinely happened to Chuck Bass. So they sat and waited as the bell boys did their work. They waited for the phone to ring in a muted silence. They'd done their best and now it was up to others.

They circled the home phone and stared at their watches, estimating the time it would take to search a fifty floor building. When the phone rang they all jumped but not to grab the portable. They jumped because it was Blair's phone that rang instead. They exchanged a look and Blair went suddenly pale. Serena reached the phone first, even stare putting the first suspicion to words. She held the phone to her friend, Chuck flashing on the call display.

"Are you ready?" Eric covered her hand before she could open the phone.

Blair stared at the youngest without knowing how to answer. She doubted herself.

"We're all here for you," Nate swore.

"No matter what he says," Serena chimed, "Just keep your eyes on us. Don't lose your temper."

"We'll do it together," Eric suggested and let her go.

"Chuck," Blair started and shut her eyes, waited for the familiar voice to finally reach her.

"Good evening Blair," She could feel the tears well at the drawl. Eric grabbed at her chin, whispered for her to open her eyes. She did, chased the tears away before the sobs could start.

"Where are you Chuck?"

"Somewhere," Chuck's voice dropped. Serena forced her eyes on her, held her best friend's hand again.

"We all miss you," Blair offered and waited for the lash. She held her breath and waited for a repeat of what he'd offered to Nate and Serena.

"You really shouldn't," He said instead, no hint of anger to mar his darkened voice.

Blair sat up straighter at that and clutched her hand in Serena's, nails dragging on the blonde's skin. She shook her head at the others, tried to communicate the difference from expectation. "We do," Blair assured him. "We all love you."

"You shouldn't love me Blair," Chuck said and she could hear the tears. His voice stalled over the love, jumping back with her name. She could hear his breathing waver as he paused. She didn't know if that was good. She hadn't heard him cry since he was a boy, and for a moment she was mesmerized by it. Even without the visual, the sound was enough to stun her. Eric moved and she remembered the task. She waved at him to get a paper. She grabbed a pen from the table and tried her best to draw Chuck forward.

"Why not?" Blair played devil's advocate. "You love me. You told me that." She grabbed the pad that Eric fetched, wrote out he's crying in bold writing.

"What good is it?" Chuck said. "It's just some stupid feeling in my heart that creates nothing. It doesn't mean anything."

"It means something to me."

"It shouldn't. I thought it might but it really doesn't matter because it can't fix anything."

"Chuck," Blair soothed her tone. "Sometimes it can."

"No it really can't because I can't handle love. Can you understand that? I gave it everything I had once. I will never be able to do that again."

"Maybe not now but I'm not ready to give up on forever. We're inevitable Chuck. There will be a time, or a place where we will make things work."

"It's not about us Blair," Chuck admitted and Blair froze. The second note she'd started stopping under her fingertips. "I wasn't talking about us."

Blair put the pad aside, dropped the pen to the table and with a deep breath squared her shoulders as she had earlier. She prepared herself for whatever was coming. "Who were you talking about?"

"When I was eleven years old I gave my love wholeheartedly." He began and she pulled her breath in and held. "I didn't question, or hide or pretend anything. I just loved Georgina with everything I had, stupidly even, with a kind of gullible simplicity. I couldn't see anything but her and I didn't keep secrets from her. I told her everything I felt, I trusted her to help me. I confessed my love on a rooftop, dangling four stories above Twelfth Avenue and it didn't scare me." His throat closed in a moan before reopening again. Blair's own eyes were glazing over as well, force between grief and jealousy making her incapable of a response. "I just wanted to love you that same way."

Blair put a hand to her mouth, tried to breathe deeply before she lost it entirely. Eric wrapped his arm to her head, swore to her that it was going to be okay, and urged her to control herself. "You could," Blair offered up the hope.

"No Blair, I really can't. She made sure I never would again. She tried to make me strong by abusing my love. She made a game of it. She made sure I would hate being in love and she succeeded. I don't only hate it, I am incapable of it."

"I don't believe that," Blair assured him.

"That's doesn't change things. It's the truth Blair. You'd understand it if you knew what she did."

Blair closed her eyes, tears gathering in the corners along with her courage. "Then tell me."

"She never told me that she loved me," Chuck admitted, a sniffle cracking through the story. "But she acted like she did. Her excitement was so genuine, she made herself so available. She listened to me, she never judged, just transformed my tales into derisive jokes that we both laughed at. She took care of me like she loved me."

Blair squeezed her eyes harshly, tried to control herself enough to say the one thing she never imagined she would. "Than maybe she did."

"No she didn't," Chuck said it blankly. "She hated the fact that I loved her. She told me it was a weakness that had to be banished. And believe me, she worked on banishing it."

"Chuck..."

"For months I forgave her while she fucked her way through St. Jude's freshman class. She planned it just right, allowed enough time between for me to just catch my balance, kept some as denied secrets and played a few right out in front of me. She staged it just right so that I didn't know what I was doing, so that I existed in a permanent state of instability."

Eric tried again to get Blair to focus, to get her to open her eyes and met Serena's. He tried to rub her back or touch her hair. They all did. They tried to coach her through the moment. She didn't even hear then. Her thoughts were occupied with an understanding she never wished to have, and an image that was too perverse to be banished.

"And it didn't matter what she did. I forgave her everything. That's how much I loved her."

Blair kept hold of the phone even after the click of disconnect. She couldn't help it; she didn't know what else to do. Her entire body was coiled in dismay, in disgusted shock by what he'd said. She hated Georgina as much as the boy who had once loved her. She hated Chuck a bit too, for the pictures he'd given her. For a moment she reviled everything and everyone. Then the bile found the back of her throat and she threw the phone down, pushing past the gallery of interested observers in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

'And that's why I couldn't do it again' Chuck whispered the last for the empty room. He hoped that she would understand. He couldn't be open; he couldn't permit the vulnerability needed to be in love. He was completely incapable of being that free, of exposing himself in that way.

He pulled the marker from his pocket, stood from the bed and held it over her name as the first wave of anger hit. He threw it down and kicked instead, a violent rush of motion that crushed the drywall beneath his foot. He kicked through Blair's name, obliterating her unearned concern. He didn't stop with her, he kicked at them all. Chuck kicked until a thick layer of sweat dampened his hair and a chain of holes marred his wall. Then his head fell against the partition, hands grabbing at the flat surface as he slipped downward.

His breath came in gasps as he reached the bottom. He just lay there, for a long time, until the last embers of evening light died behind his window. He head pressed deeply into the wall until the haze cleared, until his thoughts attained some clarity. They never did. The instant the stupor cleared it was replaced with another. He turned his head, his body and let his back push harder against the wall. His legs pushed forward and then were pulled back, hugged to his chest when the tears started again. They weren't like the others. His head dipped backward, fell forward to his knees but he couldn't make them stop. They didn't bring any relief, they simply multiplied as they fell, coiling his chest to a knot that wouldn't be exorcised. They came with racking sobs that blurred his vision and had him pulling tighter together. He wove his body closer to itself, curled to a ball, pressed his legs harder to his torso. He tried to stop the shaking by crushing it steady. It didn't work. He could barely hear for the sound of his own misery. He couldn't hear anything except for the working of his throat and the faint ring of his telephone.

He grabbed the phone from where it had fallen, dragged at it with his nails, pulled the cover and the battery below. He threw the battery to one side of the room, phone cascading to the other. The silence was startling, purifying even. It let him focus on his sobs, let him control himself enough to stand, to grab the pistol from the side table and put his final plan to action.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Blair was on her knees before her friends could intervene. In hindsight they probably wouldn't have. They weren't permissive but there were levels of grey, times when they wouldn't deny her even the most destructive of coping mechanisms. Still they followed, Nate immediately taking the floor beside her. The evidence of her weakness scared him and humbled him. The evidence of her concern warmed his heart. She had been all these things, good and bad, and he hadn't seen any of it. So he cradled her head against his chest, let her cry and vowed silently to protect her from that day forward.

Serena took the side opposite, took her hand and squeezed the limpness away. Eric removed the confirmation of Blair's frailty, his concern divided between Blair and his brother. He never lost sight of their original goal and that bartered his friendship for panic. They were running out of options, of lifelines to pull Chuck back from the brink. That made him sit down as well, not to add another hand in comfort but to force the truth out. "I know this is hard," Eric tilted Blair's eyes to meet his. "But I need to know exactly what he said."

"Why?" Blair mumbled even though she already knew.

"If he was going to offer any clue to us, it would be to you."

"There wasn't anything. It was all set in the past, about Georgina, about being in love with her." Blair tried as hard now to hold the tears back as before but with as little success. Nate curled an arm around her side, let his fingers caress her knuckles, and tried to offer her some strength.

"Come on, think!" Eric grabbed at her chin, Nate immediately pushing his own hand through.

"That's enough," He stared the younger boy down. "We have one more call," He reminded Eric. "We'll figure it out when he calls you."

Eric took a deep breath, light eyes meeting Blair's dark ones. She understood without the words. "He's not going to call you."

Eric's eyes downed at the truth. He took a breath and reminded himself that it was by no means certain. "We don't know that..." He explained but somehow both Blair and he did. Chuck wouldn't call Eric for the same reason he'd called the rest. Eric didn't have a temper to trip or tears to charge. He could offer his brother what he wanted but Chuck needed to believe he was unlovable more than he wanted to be unconditionally loved.

"I'll tell you everything he said." Blair agreed with a tip of her head backward. She didn't wait to stand, or walk to the other room; she related the entire narrative from her knees. She didn't summarize when the bile threatened again, she didn't skip a single detail because she trusted Eric to make sense of it. In the end it wasn't Eric that did.

"He's lying," Nate interrupted the tale. "He lost his virginity on the roof of the Palace. There was no way he could have done it with Georgina on Twelfth. There weren't houses there in 2001; it was just a bunch of abandoned commercial warehouses. It's only last year they finished tearing them down and building new luxury condominiums."

The rest of the Non Judging Breakfast Club stared at Nate in shock.

"Oh my God," Serena gasped first. "I know where he is!"

Eric scrambled to his feet, Serena pushing out of the bathroom before him.

"It's a new house, with a bedroom for me." She called back as the rest stood, running to Bart's study. "I remember a condominium. It wasn't in the Bass Industry name." Serena started throwing documents the moment she reached the desk, tossed papers indiscriminately, searched through the rejected pile until she found it. "I should have known," Serena admitted as the rest met her. "It was in Bart's name. I should have..." Serena ripped the manila cover wide, watched a single metal key clang to the desk. She waited for one of the others to pick it up. She'd had her chance to stop Chuck and she could still remember her failure.

They all shared a look, a question that none voiced but Blair answered. She pushed past the rest, grabbed the key and offered it to Eric. "You should go. For the same reason that he will never call you."

"I won't lose my temper."

"Or your emotions," She pressed the key into his hand.

Eric didn't need to be asked twice. Nate read the address and Eric had it memorized the rest could add their confirmation to his selection. He was out the door before Blair's tears had dried, before Serena could hug him or Nate could wish him luck.

He left three very scared friends behind, watching the path the youngest had taken with a cross between dread and optimism.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Chuck opened the barrel, and shook all the bullets free. They fell to the table with a clatter of noise, rolling left and right. Chuck picked only one up, stared at the cold metal cylinder and grinned. It would have taken only one to change the course of his history. If Georgina had enough foresight to load the gun, if she'd taken his life that night then everything would have been different. All the people that he'd hurt, all the lives that he'd scarred; they'd have all been saved.

What right did he have to live? He had been given everything, every advantage from wealth to education. He'd been born in the blessed class and he'd used it only to his own malevolent ends. He was filled up with sin, with iniquity and vice. He had earned nothing in his own right, had made nothing of himself. He'd simply taken from those who loved him: stolen, cheated, schemed and lied until they fractured to pieces.

What reason did he have to live? He was shattered himself, broken into so many pieces that he'd never gather himself together. It had been lunacy to think that if he stopped drinking, if he spoke about his feelings, if he really tried that he would fix himself. He couldn't be fixed. He'd never be whole. He was broken beyond repair.

So he loaded the bullet and spun, slamming the barrel shut with a deep breath. Chuck Bass would put his future in fate's hands. He'd let God chose whether he lived or died.

Despite the justification, despite how necessary it was, Chuck still felt his heart skip as the metal met his temple. His breathing turned shallow as his skin warmed the end of his father's pistol. It was fitting. He could add coward to the rest of the labels dragging him to hell. He forced his breathing to deepen, shut his eyes to focus on the sensation. He counted as his lungs filled, tried to keep his hands from shaking as he pulled the hammer back and heard it click into place. He counted backward, comforted by the simplicity of numbers and their continuous patterns forward and back. By the time he reached five he achieved what he sought, that illusive calm that bordered on drunkenness, on light headed withdrawal. The rushing in his ears had turned to silence, the beating of his heart to stillness. He was ready now. His eyes relaxed, no longer pressed closed but balanced in darkness. His hands no longer shook but dangled easily over the trigger.

Then he heard the noise, the banging of the front door and he considered skipping three, two and one. He didn't. He kept his rhythm steady, would not open his eyes even as the footsteps scampered closer. He didn't intend to look until his lips lingered over one.

"Chuck," The voice interrupted his calm and Chuck didn't need to look. He recognized it. He could see his blonde younger brother without opening his eyes.

His smile curled one lip slightly higher than the other. He wasn't fazed by Eric's presence. He had known. If anyone could find Chuck Bass then it would be Eric Van der Woodsen. "Can you come back in five minutes?" He spoke in response. "I'm a bit busy at present."

"Give me the gun Chuck."

Chuck opened his eyes at that. He laid his legs on the coffee table and watched his younger brother. "No."

"Come on. We both know you don't want to do this."

"Actually you're wrong. I do want to do this," Chuck admitted it so calmly that it shook the younger boy.

"I don't want you to."

"We're at a quandary then."

"If you won't do it for you," Eric held his hand out. "Then do it for me."

"For you?" Chuck's smirk spread but the gun stayed pressed to his temple.

"Do it because I can't imagine a world without you in it. I need your friendship."

Chuck laughed at the attempt, it was almost touching. Eric had probably practiced it on the way over. It was humbling too and just the slightest bit hopeful. That was the problem. That's why he'd never called Eric. The boy had the power to undo everything. "Just tell me this," Chuck suggested as a compromise. "What have I ever done to deserve that friendship?"

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

A/N – Well, I don't think I can even comment on this. I'm exhausted from writing it.

Bradshaw-esque – Well the next call was to Blair and I guess it was cruel. Okay, Lewis will get her Bass on before the end. Happy? ;)

Princetongirl – thanks

LuvthatMotherChucker – yeah! Another reviewer. Don't worry I won't leave Chuck crazy forever. There is someone coming next chapter who will help kick him on the path to sanity (though you might not like the methods she employs).

Hannah – Hmm, should I save Chuck? A part of me wants to, another thinks it would be wickedly cruel to not. What % did Chuck give for the first shot? Wasn't it 16.67%

Doxeh – I'm glad you like my angst. Yeah, I'm having my own issues with the show at the moment. I hate to say this but they've kind of killed Chuck and Blair for me. They did it by making Chuck all fascinated with that girl and then suddenly flipping back to Blair. I doubt whether he genuinely loves her. We'll see if they do a better job tonight.

OC Journey – Those walls are going to get covered quickly, but not before a few people get a chance to see. Who will it be? You'll have to wait and see.

PeytonSwayerScott15 – I kind of like Chuck's evil side too. I like his tortured side too though.

Annablake – Nate & Serena have been public since S told B. You were entirely right on your assessment of Chuck's mental state btw. You usually get my ideas 100% and have pretty good predictions of what will happen. He didn't really want to kill himself until he took the phone apart. You also got my red herring. What Eric was trying to show was that he was in control of himself and that Chuck could trust him not to fly off the handle. That's why Eric didn't call. It just didn't work because like Eric said, Chuck wanted to do it more than not.

PureSimplicity-XO – I think this whole situation will bring N & B much closer again.

SilkenBone922 – Thanks :)

Sassygirl – Another reviewer :)

Chucklover – Alas it was Blair, but in the end, finding Chuck was a full group effort. We'll see if saving him will be as well.

SkySamuelle – Yeah, Bart is a total schmuck! Poor guy. He really needs to get some help himself. Like Parenting 101.

Midnightsky – That's exactly why he started the calling. In the original flashback Georgina asked him if anyone would miss him first. He was hung up on that and trying to reconcile the fact that he'd be hurting his friends. After all, he knows exactly what it was like to lose someone he loved.

Up Next – Eric passes his most difficult test. Someone from book 2 (YCFYF) makes a reappearance (it's ain't Georgie). She might have what it takes to pull Chuck from his depressive haze but you probably won't approve of her methods. The facts behind Bart and Lily's pending divorce become publicly known and Chuck is given a chance to repeat history.