He leaned his broken, battered body heavily against mine as I maneuvered him down the hall.
The hot bath didn't serve to make him look any less damaged and as he lay stretched out on the bed in front of me, I knew what he really needed was a doctor.
A dark purplish bruise nearly covered the left side of his chest and only a slightly less frightening one marred his right side. His ribs were, if not broken, severely bruised. The left side of his chest was swollen and almost too sore for me to touch. He winced every time I came close to brushing my fingers over the flesh.
The ice pack didn't seem to be helping. That was the first thing I'd tried, but I had no idea where to rest it as I surveyed him critically. Both of his eyes were swollen, again his left was worse than the right, but neither of them looked very good. His left cheekbone was also swollen.
As I looked at him, he seemed so foreign, so alien to me, I wondered despairingly if his face would ever look the same again. Would it eventually return to the devastatingly handsome perfection that he once was or would this injury somehow stay with him, change him so completely that he would never be the same man again ?
I realized with startled surprise that I didn't care. Even if he was forever marred and disfigured, he was still my Chuck. No matter what, he would always be my Chuck.
I went about covering all the wounds I could find with bandages after cleaning them throughly despite his pouting and threats. Then I curled up beside him and rested my head gingerly against his shoulder.
His arm came to wrap around me and he held me close, both of us just relieved to be back together and, for the moment at least, safe.
" Have you devised some sort of plan while you were prolonging my torture ? " He asked as he stared up at the ceiling.
" I wasn't torturing you. I was treating you." I specified. " And no, I haven't come up with anything yet."
He turned his head and gently kissed the top of my head. " I want you to promise me something." He announced.
" What ?"
" Promise me that when they come back, you'll stay hidden. Get under the bed, do whatever you have to. Jack can't find out that you are the one down here." he said, holding me tighter. " If he realizes what kind of ammunition he really has, he'll use you. He'll hurt you to get to me and I can't let that happen."
I sat up quickly. " I'm not letting them take you again. I'll scratch their eyes out if I have to."
" Blair," He insisted. " I can handle this. What I can't handle is knowing that he has you. Promise me."
I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest defiantly. " No, the next time they come, we'll be ready for them. We'll stop them and they won't take either of us."
" Be ready for them ?" He laughed. " Like we were this time ? How can we be ready for them ? They have all the power here. They just turn off all the lights and we're pretty much helpless."
" Only because we weren't prepared. We didn't know they might be coming." I argued. " We will think of something."
" You keep saying that, but I can't see how we can fight against this." His tone was so lost, so defeated.
I took his hand and squeezed it. " We'll find a way. We have to."
" That's easy for you to say. You aren't the one that got ran over by a Mac truck." He pouted.
" Do you think this is easy for me, watching you, seeing you like this ? I didn't know where you were. I thought they had taken you away from me forever. I thought they were killing you." I was crying again and batted at the tears angrily.
He reached a hand up and the expression of pain on his face told me what the effort had cost him. Then he touched my cheek so softly. " I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I know this hasn't been easy for you either."
" You realize that if Jack is behind this and he has no idea that I'm here with you, then there is no ransom. No one is going to save us. No one is coming." I told him even as the thought occurred to me. "He's just going to keep us here until either you sign over your shares or he kills you."
Chuck drew in a breath and his face turned horrified for a moment. " No, actually I hadn't thought about that. But I guess you're right. We do have to fight. It's the only way we're going to make it out of here alive."
" So tomorrow we come up with a plan. We'll figure this out. We're Chuck and Blair. Devising plans and scheming to get what we want is what we do." I announced full on more confidently than I felt.
He let out a garbled, weak laugh. " You're right. It's what we do."
I looked down on him with pity in my eyes. He looked so broken and defeated it nearly broke my heart. " What can I do to make you better ?" I asked, willing to try anything to help him.
" Blair," he took my hand and squeezed it. " You have fed me, bathed me and tortured me with peroxide. You're poked pills down me and covered me with ice packs. I can't think of anything else I need right now besides sleep and you being by me."
As I sank down into the blankets and snuggled against his side I let out another silent prayer of thanks to whoever was listening for bringing him back to me.
It took three days for him to even begin to look normal again. He spent most of his time in bed, at my insistence and we talked about how we were going to escape. We came up with so many plans I couldn't remember them all, but none of them had the potential to actually work. I was beginning to think he was right. There was no way to fight against this. The men that held us had all the power and we were helpless. And helpless is a state I am neither accustomed to or fond of.
" I was thinking that if one of us had paid attention in class or were some kind of super geek, we could figure out a way to get a signal out. You know, call for help." I mused as I reclined against the headboard while Chuck rested his head in my lap.
" Yeah, too bad neither of us is a super geek." He agreed.
" About all I can is design an outfit for our escape." I sighed.
" I could buy our way out if there were anyone to bribe." He answered.
" How is it possible that we have gotten almost all the way through high school and still have no discernible, usable skills to prepare us for the real world ?"
He sat up quickly and his eyes were intense and alive with the spark of a new idea when he looked at me. " We have skills."
" Chuck, I don't think the ability to roll a joint or text four people at a time is going to get us out of here."
" Please don't remind me that I've been sober for over a week now." He bit sarcastically. " What I mean is that you were right. We have skills. We manipulate, we scheme. We solve problems. We just have to look at this in a different way."
I sat up straighter and took a deep breath. " Okay, I guess it couldn't hurt. Looking at it like we're screwed sure isn't helping the creative process."
He smirked at my snide comment but didn't respond to it. " Okay, we know there is nothing we can do until they come back and try to grab one of us again. That much is a given. There is no way to get out of the only exit door. We've tried that already."
I nodded and let him continue without interrupting. When Chuck got going like he was, it was best to just sit back and watch his devious brain do its magic.
" So how do we get the upper hand when they come back and turn off all the lights and shoot us up with drugs ?"
" We carry flashlights ?" I offered.
He gave me a look that said I wasn't really helping so I shut up again. Obviously he had a point to make.
" First off, we can't let them catch us like they did last time. It was easy for them. We were standing in the hall. All they had to do was point and shoot. We practically had targets on our chests."
I held up a hand to stop him for a moment. " Do you think maybe they knew we were in the hall when they came in ? It seems a little convenient that we just happen to be in the perfect spot for them."
He thought about that for a minute. " You think they may have cameras here somewhere, hidden in the halls or something ? Some kind of surveillance ?"
My entire body shuddered at the thought of those men watching me all the time, seeing me constantly. Then I blushed to the roots of my hair as I thought about all they may have seen over the last week.
Chuck pulled me into his chest at seeing my expression. " It's okay, Blair. We'll look for the cameras. We'll get rid of them. If they're here, we'll find them." He assured me.