AN: Do remember to leave feedback, as I'm addicted to writing this story and really want to know what you think. Oh and, no need to request in the review to update Mr and Mrs Bass. Lol. It makes this story jealous.

Part 4

"Chuck, I'm sorry. You shouldn't be here."

Chuck looked down in disbelief at Nate's hand on his chest, in one gesture to stay him. He scowled at his best friend, grabbed Nate's wrist and tossed it aside. He stepped forward, only to be blocked by Nate once again.

"You don't want to cause a scene here," Nate told him.

When Chuck surged forward, the door opened and shut too quickly for him to glance inside. Dan stood vanguard outside the door. The other man shook his head at Chuck. "Listen, Chuck. Serena sent me out here. You should go, man."

"They've kept me away for long enough. Let me talk to her. She's awake."

"Eleanor doesn't want you here."

Chuck glared at Nate. "I'm not here to see Eleanor. I'm here to see Blair."

"You should go."

Chuck's hands fisted, and he lunged for Dan. Nate gripped his friend's arm. "Dan, go back inside. I'll take care of it."

Dan shrugged and opened the door. Chuck took the opportunity to grip the doorway and take one look at Blair. Sitting on the bed, she was white as the sheets covering the mattress and the pillow. She was surrounded by people that were not him, and he knew that it was only him she needed.

"Listen, Chuck," Nate began.

"Archibald, I need to know how she is."

"I can't let you inside," Nate told him.

"Because of Eleanor?"

Nate sighed. "Blair doesn't want to see you."

Impossible. Had they not established it, over and over? There was nothing he could do that she would never forgive, nothing she could do that he would not. They loved so much that what Nate had said was impossible.

"Don't lie for them," Chuck burst out.

"The doctor's inside. He's going to tell her about the baby."

It was what deflated him. Chuck paused and looked down at the floor. Nate took his silence as his agreement, and then opened the door to step back inside. Before he entered, he said, "I'll leave the door open a little so you can see her. But don't come inside, Chuck. It's for your own good."

And so he stood outside the door, peering through the slit on the door just for a glimpse of her. The doctor stood at the foot of the bed.

"Blair, you should know. It was impossible for the pregnancy to survive a fall like that," the doctor said quietly.

From the distance between them even he could see the way Blair's fingers curled on top of the blanket. She needed someone to hold her hand, and no one out of the friends and family surrounding her could see it.

"In the future, you can still try. You're young…"

The doctor's words drifted off, and all he could hear was the hitch in her breathing. God, to hear her breathing from so far away. To hold her. To share her hell.

"Mom," Blair gasped. Eleanor stepped forward, took her daughter in his arms, rocked her from side to side. "Mom, I need to leave."

"Whatever happened, sweetheart, you have to understand. He was angry," Eleanor said soothingly.

And all the implications hung in the air above them.

"He didn't mean to. I'm sure he'll apologize to you."

Blair shook her head. "No. No more. Don't let him near me again."

Stories became legends; people became characters. To those who passed history from one person to the next, he owned the truth, held it at the tip of his tongue. Their story had been told so much that often, to Chuck Bass, it was as if his memory was wrong and everyone else's version was the truth.

That in fact, maybe, in his anger, in the jealous rage that possessed him, he had pushed her.

The words of the world were so powerful, often so consistent, that sometimes he dreamed that he had held her in his arms, tightly, then whispered goodbye. And she tearfully looked up at him, accepted his farewell. In his dreams he gripped her arms and gave her a feral growl, then threw her down the staircase.

Watched immobile as the blood spread around her like a red rose blossoming.

In the Upper East Side, it was the one story not even Gossip Girl dared to print. No matter how many believed its truth. It was a secret so scandalous no one would claim responsibility for it.

But the story went, and was told, and he—the character—had memorized every word.

The guests in Baizen's homecoming watched him, followed his movement with surreptitious glances. He met their eyes, because despite the way their truth infiltrated his dreams, he would stand by one thing only.

There was no moment, in that dark night where he thought to lash out at the world and punish her, that he would have raised a hand to her, that he would have hurt her.

"Chuck, why did you come here?"

He turned to his stepsister, who stood holding on to her husband's arm. Her eyes were uncertain, almost pitying. He despised it the way he despised Serena that night in the hospital.

"If any one of you there was a chance that I wouldn't come for her, then I'd ask you to share what you've been smoking. That's powerful stuff," he said snidely.

Serena stepped away from Dan, gripped Chuck's wrist and tugged, forcing him to turn his gaze up, to meet her eyes. "Stop being selfish," she snapped. "She's happy."

And it was the biggest lie. And it would not be a story to be retold until it was true to everyone. He could live with the other one. The world could believe him a criminal, but he would die before he would agree that Blair was happy in a life that did not include him.

"She will never be happy with anyone else," he said softly.

And fucking Serena's eyes pitied him. He pulled his arm away from her. Chuck strode away from her, pushed past the members of Society who were either to polite or too afraid to call him out. Like called by an unheard voice. He raised his gaze from the floor to the grand stairwell that the Baizen home boasted, and saw Blair making her way gingerly up the stairs.

Carter. That bastard.

For months Chuck had financed Baizen's trips, read curt updates that only told him over and over that she could not be found. The same useless updates that his own PIs had given. And then one day, after France, there was silence.

Now the bastard stood at the top step, a smile fixed on his lips. Blair—his Blair—looked at up at him as if he was the answer to all of her questions. She reached out her hand, which Baizen took at once. And then the man wrapped an arm around her waist, maneuvered them so he would be the one closer to the stairs. And it was Blair who pulled him down for a kiss. And like watching a bloodbath, his eyes were glued.

When Baizen lifted his head, and Chuck saw his face, he paused.

Where the hell was the deception, the calculation, the manipulation?

Bastard looked like he was fucking in love with her.

The Koreana boasted of a restaurant that sold the largest, the tastiest, the most sinfully unhealthy golden prawns in the world. The dish was served on a mint blue plate, with sculpted vegetables arranged in a line shaping the circumference.

When Carter Baizen first visited South Korea, he backpacked his way to Pusan and trudged along the frozen streets, sat on dark brown mixtures of melting snow and cooling mud, and munched on protein bars to keep himself alive. On occasion, when he could manage to swindle bored young professionals in a game of poker, he treated himself to a hot meal. Often, the best he would take was hot water for a Styrofoam cup of spicy noodles.

It was a life he enjoyed, and one that New York shunned. But he had been happy. And so he lived through the quiet disapproval he encountered whenever he returned.

And because he was a Baizen, it was easy to be forgiven.

His wealth remained untouched, and not once had he asked for money.

Not, at least, until he found Blair Waldorf.

She had been exhausted, drained by the time he reached her. "Beautiful," he had called her once. "Beautiful," he had called her again. And yet when her lashes lowered and projected half moons on her cheeks, the beauty had changed from the surreal unreachable queen to the beauty of a fragile flower, petals crushed and torn. And Carter Baizen had always found beauty in the ugliest places and things. And there had been nothing in his life uglier than Blair Waldorf destroyed.

Even in their one night, when she was on the verge of self-destruction, she had a haughty arrogance about her that resonated in her voice.

Blair Waldorf, in the South Korean winter, was a dark spot on an otherwise pristine snowy landscape.

"Dad, I need five grand," he said, his phone on his ear, his eyes on Blair Waldorf sleeping with her cheek pressed against the cold glass of the minibus as they made their way to Seoul.

Ridiculous. He was a twenty two year old heir who still needed to call his father for money. And yet all the years before it had never been issue. And suddenly, he needed to take charge of his own money.

"Are you locked up anywhere, Carter?" his father asked. "Do you need a lawyer?"

Carter sighed. Of course those would be the questions. "I'm not in jail, dad. I need to check in to a hotel, and I don't have enough money on hand."

He had checked in to boarding houses, to small motels all over the world, and never needed his father's money.

"Send me the money."

"What are you involved in?"

What was he involved in? Blair tossed in the comfortable seat and mewled in her sleep. And then she gasped, cried softly when she should have been finding rest. Carter stood from his seat and settled beside her. She found his warmth and pressed against him, her fingers clutched at the front of his shirt.

"Please don't leave," he heard her sob. Her eyes were closed, but the tears on her cheeks were real. "I love you." Carter swallowed the knot in his throat, because the voice was far away, intended for someone in New York City. "I'm sorry."

"I found Blair Waldorf," he admitted.

The name was key. His father probably feared all along he would come home with a nameless foreigner, and he would lose the single most important opportunity to establish connection with another family of old money and prestige.

"The money will be in your account within an hour," his father assured him.

Carter nodded, then stopped when he realized idly that his father could not see him. "Thank you. Dad—"

"What is it, son?"

"Don't let anyone know."

Not Bass. Definitely not Bass.

He checked them into separate rooms in the Koreana, in suites as lavishly equipped as any she was used to. He tossed his tattered backpack on the bed. For a moment he paused, looking at the image of the lush sheets creased by his worn bag. His crap ill suited the suite. He wondered if he should start buying new and better things.

The golden prawns were waiting. It would be horribly overpriced for his taste. There were shrimp flavored spicy noodles that took up the empty space in his belly when he was hungry anyway. Still, he called for a table reservation and cleaned up as best he could.

He knocked on the door and called her name. When she did not answer, he took his copy of the key card from his pocket and slid it in the slot. The door opened with a click.

The bathroom door was open. Carter made his way towards the bathroom to call her. "I've got the reservation placed, Blair."

Over dinner, he could ask her. Because the ugliness, though beautiful to him, would one day eat away inside her.

He heard the muffled sobs. He had seen her before, naked under him, touched every part of her in a desperate effort to please her. She had stared at the ceiling even while he felt her muscles clenching in her orgasm.

If she did not look at her, she could imagine someone else.

He barged inside the bathroom out of spite.

Found dark drops of blood on the tiles. Little globular droplets raining down to make a puddle. Dripping from the hand tossed carelessly outside the tub.

Her brown eyes were fixed on the doorway, but did not register his entrance. Carter strode inside and pulled her bare and wet out of the water. He slapped at her cheeks, yelled her name, but she was looking so far away.

"He killed my baby, Carter," she whispered.

Brown eyes, blue lips, red blood, pale, pale skin. She was dripping and straggly. The dark circles under her eyes were bruises of sleeplessness.

Beautiful.

From the very top step at the center of the grand welcome home party, Carter stood tapping his champagne flute with a desert fork. Chuck stopped at the bottom step, looked up in horror as the events unfolded before his eyes. On cue, the small orchestra hired for the occasion shifted from the lively upbeat music to a strong of violins.

The older Baizen gestured to his guests. "I would like to thank you all for joining me in welcoming home my son. If I had two, I would call him the prodigal one." Polite laughter erupted, then just as subtly died. "But Carter is the only heir to my name, and as such whatever he does I will always welcome him home with open arms."

A jovial thanks, a pat on the back. The sight stung, only for the fact that he would never hear it from his own father.

"I was prepared for the worst. You are all aware of Carter's escapades, and have been so generous that you have turned a blind eye on them."

While his own little exploits, thought Chuck, were judged swiftly and harshly. What miracles old money could effect.

"Instead of the worst, nothing could be better than this—"

Carter raised Blair's hand to his lips, and whispered in her ear. She smiled. And then, Chuck felt his chest tighten when slowly her gaze shifted to him. Chuck at the bottom of the step. Her at the top. The fate had turned since that last night. The only thing missing was the puddle of blood around him, but he was certain she would take care of that too.

Everything happened in slow motion. Chuck watched in paralyzed fear as Carter bent on one knee. Around him were audible gasps. With Chuck, it was a silent endless scream. Carter drew a small velvet box from his coat pocket and held it up to her.

For one split second, that to him lasted for a lifetime, Blair's gaze moved from the diamond to him. And he could almost hear her curse at him.

And then the moment was over, and she was smiling down at Carter Baizen, nodding her head and saying "Yes." Over and over that the word grated on him. Carter slipped the ring on her finger, then stood up and caught her up in his arms as they sealed the deal with a kiss.

tbc