Summary: Just divorced, Chuck thinks that all is said between him and Blair. But why does she show up at his doorstep at night? Future fic.
AN: Wow! 29 reviews! I certainly must've done something right with the last chapter! Thank you so much to all of you! I loved it! I hope you'll like this chapter as well! Enjoy!
Once again, thanks to you, Sam! Your awesome! *kiss*
BTW: I apologize for any spelling mistakes in this chapter. It's not the fault of my beta Sam. She did a great job as always. I'm slightly drunk while posting this... =)
Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
Way Back Into Love
Chapter 7: A Natrual
Awkward. Chuck wondered if he could find another word that would actually fit the situation of him and Blair sitting there and having breakfast together. Awkward came close. But it didn't even come close to how strange this scenario really was.
Talking-wise she still only bared the necessities.
Maybe you should've made you're amazing speech, when she was actually awake, you fool.
He didn't really blame her for not trusting him. After the history they had, why would she? Every single time one of them had shown the slightest weakness in the past, the other one had exploit with bodacious.
When he had been tense about closing an important business deal, she'd done her best to make sure he would fail. When she had been nervous about a upcoming social event he'd done his best to embarrass her.
It had been there regular cat and mouse game. It'd only been a matter of time till one of them would exaggerate it.
Which he'd managed. Remarkably.
"Why do we have to go there, again?"
"Because Eleanor insisted that we'd come."
"Only a reason more not to."
"She's your mother, Blair."
"Only by blood."
"Cut the martyr act. Don't think I couldn't find other things to do on a friday night instead of going to a Eleanore Waldorf-Rose dinner party."
"What? Boozing and Whoring?"
"To name a few."
"You're disgusting."
"I try."
"While we're at it. I'd appreciate it if your bimbo Valerie wouldn't let her stuff go into our laundry. The next time I find a cheap tacky no-name thong in my underwear drawer I swear I'll make you wear it."
"Kinky. I didn't know you still had it in you."
"..."
"Glaring me to death won't work, wife. You've tried it countless times, remember? But it's a good thing you bring her up, actually. There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about. I was gonna wait till later, but I guess now is a good a time as ever."
"What?"
"Val's appartment building is being fully renovated."
"Good for her."
"Basically yes. But it means she's practically homeless, for the next six months."
"You own half the hotels in Manhattan. I'm sure you'll find a room that's as cheap as she is."
"You see, Blair... spending most of my youth in a hotel suite myself, I know how unpersonal those can be."
"I don't like where you're going with this."
"She's gonna stay in our guestroom."
"Over my dead body!"
"I'm not asking your premission."
"She's not stepping a foot in our home!"
"Just look at the bright side. This will minimize my tries of claiming your conjugal duty."
"Don't carry it to far, Chuck. Or I'll divorce you so quickly you'll be dizzy."
"You're way to conceited to step aside for your husbands mistress and we both know that. And since all of our accounts are in my name you might wanna overthink the whole divorce thing."
It had never actually come to the point of Valerie moving in. Chuck had become bored with Valerie before. But he had invited his lover to a few, for Blair very important, dinner parties. He'd found joy in degrading his wife, when she kept up the perfect hostess while he'd unbluntly flirted with another woman in front of New York's high society.
Only short time after that she'd started the affair with Jack. She'd repayed him by having an affair with the soley blood relative he had left. That had struck home.
How in the world had they become so mean?
Newlywed they seemed to be the happiest couple in the whole world. A unit. Nothing was able to tear them apart. The uncrowned king and queen of the Upper East Side.
The untroubled fortune lasted for about four years. About the time when Blair decided to leave the law firm she'd been in. She'd found the job not being as fullfilling as she had hoped and decided to temporaily merge in her role as socialite on her husbands side until she would figure out what she really wanted.
That was when the balance between them had shifted.
Up and till then they both of them had been constantly busy. He with Bass Industries, she at her law firm. Now she all of the sudden felt neglected by her husband. And he found her to clingy suddenly.
Having so much time again, old fears and insecurities broke open in her. When he'd turned down sex after an exhausting day at work she'd jump to the conclusion that she wasn't attractive anymore or that he was cheating on her.
So in order to be the perfect wife she brought her whole life into line with him. And the more he struggled for his freedome the more she clapsed. Which in turn let to him pushing her away even more. A catch-22.
It was him who cheated on her in the first place. Afterwards he came home, gloomy and full of guilt, confessing everything to his shocked wife.
But instead of talking about what was wrong with them, they ended up having desperate make up sex. Which turned out to be a disaster. Blair had been even more insecure about herself and her body after he'd betrayed her.
Chuck was full of remorse and tried everything to pleasure her, but she was so caught up in her self counciousness that she just laid there stiff, full of tension enduring his endearment.
He knew that she loved him very much but his breach of trust had bruised her deeply. Obviously she thought that he didn't love her anymore. Which couldn't have been farer away from the truth.
Slowly but constantly they drifted apart after that. And slowly hurt feelings turned into random cruelty. Which turned to open humiliation.
It was a mystery to everyone, why they hadn't filled for divorce much earlier. Up to about one year ago they hadn't even considered it. Most people just thought of them as masochists who stuck together to prevent a scandal and because they were in someway addicted to each other. He'd started to think the same.
But as he sat there, watching Blair as she frowned over the current newspaper, picking at her food as usual, he knew that the reason was way simpler.
Somewhere deep inside of both of them, below all the hate, bitterness and the dissapointment a small rest of love had lasted. And filling for divorce eventually hadn't changed that.
"You should eat up," he told her, earning a death glare. "You have a doctors appointment in forty five minutes."
"Excuse me?" Her glare became a weapon of mass destruction.
"Your doctor called yesterday when you were asleep," he explained. "She said she wanted to talk to you, about your options."
"Well, you can call her and cancel, because I'm not going. How dare you making appointments for me in the first place?"
"I know...," he drawled. "You're not my wife, you're not my responsibility, you don't want me here."
"And yet, here you are," she snapped back.
"Ms. Blair," Dorota disturbed the glaring competition between the divorced couple by adressing her employer. "Ms. Serena here for you. Should I let her in?"
"You let him in," the brunette answered, gesturing towards her ex husband. "Why bother asking me know?"
The maid remained there uncertain for a moment, looking at Chuck for help. He gave her a slight nod, at which she made her way back to the entrance.
"Hey B!"
When his step sister entered the room Blair didn't acknowledge her at all. Her eyes remained fixaed at the paper in front of her.
"How're you feeling?"
"Fantastic," Blair replied not bothering to look up. "Haven't you heard? Mastectomies are the new facials."
Serena threw Chuck a uncomfortable look. He just jerked his shoulders. Offence had always been Blair's best deffence.
"Have you reconsidered your options?" Serena asked not responsing to her friends comment.
"No," Blair answered in her ice queen manner. "But you apparently your promise of secrecy."
"Serena was right to tell me," Chuck interjected.
"Well, since the two of you seem to be getting along so good, I'll leave you alone so you can openly talk about my behalfs," with those words the brunette slammed her napkin onto the table and left the room.
"I should talk to her," Serena said with a sigh and motioned to stand up but he stopped her.
"Let me," he said, walking after his ex wife.
He found her just like predicted once again curled up in her favorite chair in the living room.
"What part of leave me alone didn't you understand?"
"Listen," he started, stepping towards her. "I know that you're scared."
She involuntarily jerked at his words. Apparently mad at herself for showing so much weakness yesterday.
"What do you want me to say?" She ran a hand through her hair a desperate expression on her face. "Yes I am. I'm terribly scared. You're happy now?"
He kneeled on the floor in front of her so that their faces were at the same level and shook his head slightly.
"Not until you choose to fight. You can do this Blair," his voice was low, but still forcefully "You want to live."
"Say's who?" she questioned her eyes directed towards the floor.
"I know you do," he answered with a smirk. "Otherwise you wouldn't have had the surgery in the first place. You made it so far. If you don't have chemo everything you've been through up and till now would have been for nothing. If dying would've been what you wanted, you could have done it keeping both of your breasts, just as well."
Their eyes met after he had finished and he felt the insatiable urge to kiss her. To pull her close and give her a reason to fight. Show her that he wanted her to live. Show her that she was attractive and beautiful. So beautiful it hurt him to be in her presences without being allowed to touch her. That he actually hated himself for the fact that she had to develop cancer for him to realize all of this.
"When did you have time to rehearse that little speech?", a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and it made his heart leap in joy.
"Chuck Bass doesn't rehearse," he told her with his signature grin. "I'm a natural."
This time she really smiled: "I'm sure you are."
To be continued
AN: Any good? Let me know!