Howdy, everybody!! I am home in Toronto! Yahoo! I am trying to get this chapter out because I start work on Monday, and after having been a happily unemployed student for the past eight months… it might kill me. I may come home cursing my life, by job, and children everywhere, before crashing on my bed and sleeping till I have to get up and do the whole thing over again the next day. This is me saying… that I will TRY to keep up on my chapters… but… I may be dead, and then you all should probably expect a little slow down in chapters. You can't see me right now, but I'm smiling VERY nicely at my screen, hoping you'll all be understanding… Here's a chapter right now! See! Be happy! Here we go…
Blair lay in bed as still as stone. Why was he still here? Every evening she'd check Chuck's schedule for the next day, if he had a late start, she'd get up before him, dress and head to her office immediately so she could throw up in peace, if he had an early start she'd wait him out and be able to give into morning sickness in the privacy of her own bathroom. Her system was working perfectly. But was he co-operating today? Of course not. Today when she was feeling like Lohan, the man was pressed into her back and shoving his face in her neck.
Blair moaned as nausea churned through her, and part of her hoped Chuck took it as a sign of passion, while the other part figured if she threw up on him he'd move away. No such luck on the latter. She felt his hand play with the edge of her silk sleeping mask, and she swatted it away, knowing that if he lifted it and saw her eyes screwed shut, he'd know something was up.
"Don't you have a meeting with a new property manager?" Blair asked, trying to sound only mildly curious.
"I'll be late… We've been missing each other for days…" He murmured, punctuating it with a kiss to her nape. "Weeks even…"
"Mmmmm…" Blair managed, trying not to cringe away from him. "You may be able to be late… You're the last Bass standing… But some of us are only partners… It's 7:12am. I have to get up in three minutes."
Chuck raised an eyebrow and leaned over her to look at her bedside clock, and sure enough she had hit the time dead on. Waving his hand in front of her masked face, he shrugged, before heading back to her neck.
"I'll buy your firm… Then I can have the pleasure of sexually harassing you." He teased into her skin.
He kept touching her. If he kissed her neck one more time she was going to throw up. Her alarm clock chiming had her sitting bolt upright, jumping out of bed, and streaking for her bathroom. Slamming the door shut she quickly turned on the shower full blast and barely made it to the toilet before her stomach emptied out.
Done for the moment, Blair stood and poured water into a glass to rinse her mouth. It had surprised her how easy it had been. She'd thought it would have taken months to get pregnant, but she'd stopped taking the pill and within days she was feeling off, and upon taking her first pregnancy test it had lit up positive. She remembered looking at the stick as she sat in her private bathroom at her office, feeling some trepidation that it had happened so quickly, and knowing that she couldn't change her mind. There was no turning back now. All she had to do now was break the news to Chuck, but she had to find the right moment… Not an easy task given who they were, so, now here she was, rapidly moving through her first trimester, and Chuck was still none the wiser.
Turning to the side she studied her figure, and sighed, satisfied that there was still no sign of it.
"You don't need to inspect. I'll do it for you. You're beautiful."
Startled by his voice, Blair jumped, the water glass nearly falling from her hand. Spinning around she saw him lounging against the door jam, having opened it quietly.
"GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!" Blair practically screeched.
"What is wrong with you?" He asked, truly baffled by her behaviour this morning. "I didn't think I'd have to have you committed till you were heading towards your fortieth birthday. Was I off by a decade?"
"First, I told you, I am never turning forty so why you keep bringing it up is really beyond me. Second, Chuck, marriage requires boundaries." Her finger flicked out, pointing. "That bathroom door is one of them!"
"Are you alright?" And at the moment the question seemed to span not only this instance, but in general.
"I'm fine." Blair said firmly. "But I'll be better when I can have my bathroom back alone in peace."
Chuck looked at her and her cold expression for a minute before backing out of the room, and pulling the door shut behind him. He stood there staring at the door. Something was definitely up with her. Rubbing his lip, he thought about what he'd heard before going into her private sanctuary. Chuck had heard her be ill, knew she'd been working crazy hours pushing herself, and he couldn't help but wonder if her condition was back.
Flashback.
He'd stood in the doorway of her room in the clinic, watching her as she flipped through a Italian Vogue, her brow furrowed. Her lip curled in disdain as she looked with contempt at a designer's newest line. He smiled as she tossed the magazine away and flopped back on the bed, her hair splaying out around her, dark against the white linens, even darker as they framed her paler than usual face. She looked like Snow White.
"I wish I had an apple."
Her had snapped over and she looked at him.
"Bass." She greeted noncommittally, her guard up at him seeing her in this place.
"Waldorf." He came forward, placing the peonies he'd brought on a table, before coming to sit on the chair by her bed.
She sat up a little, straightening the sheets over her lap. Both of them not talking, but thinking about the elephant in the room. After her parents had left for a week in Banff, she'd binged on the leftovers from her mother's last party, then not eaten for three days. Serena had found her on the floor of her closet. Unconscious, Blair had been unable to tell her that she was fine, and not to tell anyone. Serena had yelled for help. Dorota had called an ambulance. And Blair's parents. Now, here she was, in the specialized clinic they'd put her in, missing freshman formal, having only been allowed a brief visit from Serena and Nate, also banned from her phone and unable to know what was happening or who was talking. Finally she had to know.
"Gossip Girl or Nate?" She asked firmly, wanting to know how he'd know she was here. Was it just that her boyfriend blabbed everything to his best friend, or was humiliation global.
"Nate." He replied. "We've kept it off Gossip Girl."
When she raised an eyebrow as to how they'd pulled that one off, Chuck had smiled, and merely commented. "Serena made planes with Georgina. I think she's trying to pull the heat as to where you disappeared to off, and onto what she's doing at a club in the meatpacking district."
Blair nodded, relieved at having this kept off the blogs. They sat unspeaking. It wasn't visiting hours, and she didn't have to ask how he'd gotten in there. Money bought you entrance anywhere. He didn't have to ask her why she did it. He knew her need for control.
"You should go."
"If you need anything…" He said to his friend.
"I'll be sure who not to ask." She snapped, shutting him out, and looking out the window.
End Of Flashback.
He wouldn't let her go down that route. He remembered all to clearly how small she'd looked in that hospital bed; how hurt. She hadn't been his back then, but she was now, and he wouldn't let her hurt herself like that again. He needed her too much.
Another thought hit him, but he threw it away. She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't cross that line, he told himself… but still it ate at him as he punched the elevator button and headed to work.
That night Blair sat in the lounge in their bedroom staring into the flames. She turned pushed her antique diamond engagement ring round and round her finger, and remembered the night Chuck had given it to her, in the back of his limo on the day before her birthday. Full circle, that's what he'd said; he'd said they'd come full circle. Blair knew she was playing a risky game, and she may have pushed him too far this time, but she knew they could do this.
Hearing him come in she didn't turn, and he came and sat at her feet on the lounge. He sat silently, just looking at her. She couldn't put if off any longer.
"I'm pregnant." She said simply, ripping the bandage off, and hoping it didn't take half the wound with it.
He looked at her, frozen in the last minute before she spoke. Neither moved. Time ticked on.
Finally, he got up with purpose and moved to the wet bar in the corner, pouring himself a scotch, shooting it back, and then pouring himself another, before moving to the window to stare at the Upper East Side skyline, but see nothing.
Blair watched him from the lounge, taking in the grip of his fingers on the cut glass, and the unyielding lines of his back. Finally she went to him and pressed herself against that cold back, running her hands up and onto his shoulders.
"Chuck…" She whispered beseechingly.
He didn't answer and she rested her forehead gently against him, willing him to understand, not speaking because she knew they were beyond that at the moment.
Just when she thought they would stand like that forever, he choked back the last of his drink, hurling the glass against the wall as he spun towards her, their eyes meeting as the crystal shattered. She took a step back momentarily frightened by what she saw in his eyes, but then he grabbed her by her arms, pulling her tight to him as his mouth claimed hers. She didn't resist. She didn't want to.
Stretching as her body came awake the next morning, she reached for Chuck, glad that for the first time if her morning sickness kicked in she didn't have to hide it from him, but her fingers didn't find him, and instead the felt the cool sheets, and then the crispness of paper. Sitting up with a start, she shoved the mask off her face and snatched up the papers, scanning them quickly.
"NO!!"
Dorota paced the kitchen uneasily. Mr. Chuck had left so early this morning that she wouldn't have even know he was gone if it wasn't for the chime of the elevator waking her. She was like Pavlov with that chime. She could never sleep through it. Dorota had gotten up and checked to see if she was needed in the foyer, but it was empty and she'd gone back to bed. She should have gone back to sleep, but something didn't feel right. Dorota had tried to shrug it off, but it had nagged at her, keeping her awake until her alarm went off at 6am as usual. She gotten up, dressed, and made up Mrs. Blair's standard breakfast of late, of dry toast and weak tea. Even as she did it, she couldn't shake the feeling. Finally taking the prepared tray, she headed up the stairs. She place the tray on the side table, before slowly opening the door, and for a second she was surprised to find the lights in the room already on, and then she saw her Blair. She sat still as a statue in the centre of the bed, and she looked at nothing.
"Mrs. Blair?" Dorota asked tentatively.
Blair turned her head and Dorota couldn't help but gasp. When her father had moved with Ramon to Paris Blair had looked devastated. As she looked at Dorota now… She looked ravaged. The papers in Blair's hands fell from her fingers, and she opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. Shaking her head slightly she finally managed to address Dorota, and meet her eyes, shock hovering on the edges of hers.
"He's divorcing me."
TaHDaH! There you go! I have a confession…I kind of like jealous Nate. The boy doesn't have a shot in hell, but I like him jealous over Blair. It's probably because I thought he treated her like crap in the first season; that he used her for her mother's influence, and basically that he didn't want her till she was gone. Everyone who just thought in their heads that the same could be said about our Chuck, you bite your tongues! Chuck has issues, and it just takes him a little longer to get to the punch line… the punch line being that it's CB all the way.
