Summary: Just divorced Chuck thinks everything is said between him and Blair. But why does she show up at his doorstep at night? Future Fic.
AN: Special thanks to my amazing beta's Holly and Eileen for making my rambling understandable!
Also, as always big thanks to Sandra. Without her, this chapter would've ended at "...best days of my life."
Kisses to all of you guys!
Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl or its characters.
Way Back Into Love
Chapter 14: Dressing Gowns
If someone would have told Chuck a little more than a month ago that today he would wake up with Blair safely tucked in his arms... To be perfectly honest, he hadn't been expecting to find her still asleep next to him. But amazingly, she was really still there –in flesh and blood. He had been watching her sleep for a little over an hour, seeing her chest rise and fall. With every second that passed, the urge to kiss those bow-shaped lips grew stronger.
The knowledge of Blair's probable exhaustion was the only thing that stopped him for doing just so. He didn't want to rob her of the sleep she so desperately needed. He was glad that he could be there for her, but it still hurt him to see her in this state. He felt absolutely helpless as his power and money were worthless in this situation.
"Would you stop staring at me and just go back to sleep!" she mumbled groggily without opening her eyes. "You're making me feel self conscious."
"You have nothing to feel self conscious about," he answered, letting his fingertips graze over her temple and cheek.
"It's actually the lack of things that makes me feel that way," Blair said in a matter of fact voice, though she couldn't keep the edges of her lips stop from curling up at his touch. "Like the lack of lashes? Eyebrows? Or any hair, really..."
"I couldn't care less."
He leaned in slightly to capture her lips with his own, when her eyes shot open. She pushed him away and slapped his shoulder.
"Ow," he complained.
"Chuck Bass!" she exclaimed at the same time. "In what universe does 'I don't have any hair' qualify as pre-makeout talk?"
He smirked at her tightening his grip around her waist. "Sorry. I just couldn't resist."
"Resist what exactly?" she wondered out loud. "The puke breath? The perfectly cracked up lips?"
"Maybe it's the bliss that I get to wake up next to you again — in this bed, ourbed," he confessed.
That confession had her silent for a moment. As if she'd just realized were she was. She scooted a bit closer into his arms. "I did always love our bedroom. Our bed."
"So you've told me on several occasions," he chuckled, earning yet another slap on his shoulder.
He eyed her carefully as she relaxed in his embrace, closing her eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," she simply answered. "It's not hard to top a low point like last night."
"I'm glad you feel better."
"So am I." She smiled up at him, with those deep brown eyes that just started to get their sparkle back.
"What are we going to do today?" he asked.
"Aren't you already late for work?" she wanted to know, resting her chin on his chest so she could get a better look at him.
"Yes, in the hour or so I've been here, I'm sure I've only lost a couple of million…but I think you're worth it."
"Just a few million dollars," she asked acting offended. "Last time I checked, I was worth more than a few millions, I believe I was worth about 1.2 billion in the divorce?"
"I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you."
He leaned in closer to her , testing to see if she would pull back. When she smiled in response, looking deeply into his eyes, his smirk grew as he closed the last few millimeters between them.
Their lips had just brushed against one another when the ringing of a phone pulled them apart. For a moment, they just stared at each other, and Chuck felt the disappointment rush through him.
"You should probably answer that," she told him, only barley able to break from their locked gazes.
Even though every pore of his body screamed I don't want to! desperately, he nodded as he
suppressed the urge to just grab and kiss her with all the passion he could muster. The hint of relief in her eyes when the phone continued ringing caused his throat to constrict, were his advances unwelcome? As she slipped out of his grip the moment he turned away to answer his phone, his unease increased. Was he moving too fast?
"What?" he barked into his phone, causing Blair to flinch slightly at his tone. He felt a flash of guilt, but the anger he felt that at her rejection - if you could call it that - overtook him.
"Good morning, to you too, Chuck," his stepsister bitched from the other end of the line.
"Serena," he sighed.
At that Blair turned her head to him immediately. He raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner. In response she shook her head rapidly. His answer was an understanding nod.
"What is it, sis?" he asked as nonchalantly as possible.
"Are you planning to show up at all today?"
"I'll be working from my apartment today," he explained. "Overdid it a bitwith scotch and illegal substances last night. I'm not really in a socializing mood."
"She's with you right now, isn't she?" A smile sounded in the blonde's voice.
"What do you mean?" he asked, playing dumb.
"Blair."
Busted.
"Just say 'talk to you later', if she's with you," Serena offered him an easy way out.
"I'll talk to you later, Serena," he answered.
"You better be taking good care of her, you hear me!" She commanded the threatening tone in her voice not lost on him.
"I wouldn't dare to do anything else," he said before hanging up.
Of course Serena had figured him out. He should've known. Him not showing up at the office to continue the search for Blair had probably been enough to tip her off. The least he could've done was come up with a better excuse.
"What did S want?" Blair asked, still sitting on the bed, eying him carefully.
"She wondered why I wasn't at the office today," he explained.
"Why would she care if you are at the office?" Blair narrowed her eyes. "How would she even know, you didn't show up? It must've been five years since she last stepped a foot in that building."
He chuckled. "I remember. I let the company make an official statement regarding her topless Ibiza incident. She swore that she never wanted have anything to do with that company again. Or me for that matter."
"Don't try to distract me," Blair warned with a raised eyebrow – well it would've been raised if she still had eyebrows. "Answer my question!"
"She was there every day last week," he confessed. "My office was sort of the home office in the search for Blair Waldorf. Better not ask how many dollars I've lost spending the previous week yelling at Mike instead of working."
"Once again," she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't want all of you so worried."
"It's all right," he rolled over in bed, reaching for her hand. "As long as you never do it again."
Never do it to me again, he added silently.
Returning a proud smile she squeezed his hand tightly. "I just hated it seeing my face all over the tabloid news."
"That's actually something I wanted to talk to you about. We should sue. My lawyers can start drafting us a
lawsuit to have every tabloid in America sued."
"So we should sue, huh?" she asked with pursed lips.
"You, me, we," he shrugged. "You're splitting hairs, here."
She sighed. "As always, I'm a few steps ahead of you. Unsuccessful one's that is. I talked to a partner from my former law firm. Being active as a spokesperson for several charity tables makes me a public person. If I would sue all it would do is cause the headlines to get even more personal and degrading. Probably something like She already planned her funeral or Her mother's already wearing black."
"But there's gotta be something-"
"A public statement," she interrupted him. "I was told that a public statement could clear up all that mess that has been written."
His face lit slightly up. That sounded reasonable. Plus it would maybe even tone down the public interest as for the gossip would become less.
"I won't do it," she stated before he had a chance to do as much as finish his thought.
"What? Why?"
"Because it would stir everything back up again, just when the media is starting to calm down again."
He scoffed. Starting to calm down? Just last night she'd told him that paparazzi had chased her out of her hotel. But he knew that now wasn't the right time to start a debate of principles with her. The only thing that would come out of that would be her running away from him again.
"How about we have breakfast?" he proposed instead.
"How about we have a shower?" The words had left her mouth before she could think about the double meaning.
He smirked and couldn't resist wiggling his eyebrows in a suggesting manner. The slight blush on her cheeks was quickly replaced with an evil glare.
"I was talking about the fact that we slept in our clothes," she told him seriously, her nose scrunching as she tried – unsuccessfully – to smooth the wrinkled material of her skirt. "Maybe we should freshen up a bit. Separately."
Chuck looked down on himself. He was still wearing suite pants and a silk shirt. Solely his tie he had discharged onto the floor sometime last night.
"You're probably right," he finally agreed.
"Would you mind getting my suitcase from the hallway closet downstairs?" she pleaded.
He stretched out in bed in a lazy manner. "Why don't you just get something from the closet?"
She got up from the bed, quickly switching into major bitch mode. "Just because you're too lazy to go downstairs and fetch my bag doesn't mean that I'll wear any of the items those call girls and bimbos you've
had in here have left. I'll just go get my bag myself!"
"It's all your stuff in there," he stopped her. "Just as you left it."
She turned to him, looking at him disbelieving, "You never cleaned it out?"
He shrugged his shoulders. He didn't really have an answer to it. Maybe he'd been too busy. Maybe he just didn't care, since he really didn't need the space inside the closet. Or just maybe a part of him had hoped she'd be back one day.
"Ever thought about why I left this stuff?" she called out after swarming around in the walk in closet for a bit. "God, in what universe was this stuff ever fashionable?"
"Another hideous buy to piss me off, maybe?" He stepped into after her, holding up a blouse in a disgustingly bright yellow. "What did I do to deserve this? Come late for dinner?"
She laughed. "That thing is so ugly you probably cheated on me to deserve this!"
Instead of returning her smile, his shoulders slumped forward as a guilty expression crossed his face. Their bathroom conversation of last night still lingered in his mind.
Blair rolled her eyes as she noticed his change in attitude. "Jeez, don't give me that sorrowful look! What have we become if we can't even make jokes about cheating on each other? I did things I'm not proud of either ... remember Thanksgiving two years ago?"
Did he remember?
It had all started out pretty harmless. They'd agreed – Blair had blackmailed him into agreeing - to invite people over for the holiday and act civil, at least for that one day. Up until that certain moment, everything had worked out just fine, the turkey was delicious, small talk was flowing.
But then Cyrus's mother had dared to ask the question. The one question nobody was allowed to ask in the Bass-Waldorf household.
"Why don't you have kids yet?"
Cyrus had tried to hush her but it had already been to late already. All conversation at the table halted as an uncomfortable silence descended over the room.
"Well..."
"Um..."
"Blair doesn't want children."
"Not right now that is. We're both still young. Maybe someday."
After her comment, he'd angrily thrown his napkin on the table, jumped up and left the room without a word. When he had reached his office she'd caught up with him.
"Have you lost your mind? We have a room full of guests sitting out there!"
"I don't give a rat's ass!"
"Shush! They can hear you!"
"Again! Couldn't care less about those shallow idiots!"
"You promised you wouldn't act like the bastard you are!"
"I will the moment you'll stop lying!"
"It's my stepfather's mother! What was I supposed to say?"
"How about the truth?"
"Oh yeah. I guess 'Now that you mention it, I just had an abortion three weeks ago' is excellent dinner conversation!"
"You're the one who tried to play Gloria Steinem, taking control over your body. Now deal with the consequences!"
"Don't be an asshole."
"Don't be a bitch, then!"
"How about I tell them the real truth?"
"And what would that be?"
"That I didn't want to be killed by your spawn in childbirth, just like you killed your mother!"
Needless to say the holiday spirit was dead after that.
"You know what I said that day wasn't true, right?"
He just stared at her. No. He didn't know. Not really.
"Well it wasn't," she added. "I just said that to hurt you."
He shook his head as if it could erase the memory off it. "I don't wanna talk about the things we've been through."
Pursing her lips she tried, unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. "Though it's hurting me, now it's history?" she added dryly.
While he looked at her strangely and slightly nodded, she had a hard time not bursting into laughter.
"Didn't know you quoted ABBA... Ran out of pick up lines, Bass?"
Chuck scoffed visibly, while he cursed on the inside. He'd known that that line sounded familiar as the words left his mouth. So what if he'd—just after she left him— fallen asleep drunk while listening to ABBA? To distract her from that embarrassing fact, he reached for a gift-wrapped box that sat on an upper shelf.
"Here. This was supposed to be your present for last Christmas. I bought it before..."
She stared at the package in her hands then back at him. "Before I filed for divorce."
"Maybe you have some use for it now..."
Quickly she ripped the wrapping paper off quickly and opened the box, looking in awe at the chocolate colored silk dressing gown that slid through her hands. "It's beautiful."
He smiled back at her. "Though I don't think the initials I had embroidered are all that accurate anymore..."
"BCWB," she read out loud.
"I guess you can just have that last letter removed."
"It's perfect the way it is," she told him with a sincere smile. "A perfect gift. Thank you, Chuck."
"When I saw it in the store I couldn't help but remember the time when we were newlywed and spent our weekends wearing those robes all day long."
She giggled a little. "Yeah I remember. We'd just go from meal to meal never getting dressed properly. Wearing dressing gowns."
And we had sex on every surface in this apartment in between meals, he added in his mind and the way her cheeks were blushing slightly told him that she was thinking the very same thing.
"I think those were the best days of my life," he told her.
"Yeah. Mine too." A moment after she'd made that statement something in her eyes changed. He'd noticed instantly. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something else, but closed it again a second later. Squeezing her lips tightly shut.
"What?" he asked. "You look like something's bothering you."
"It's nothing," she said, denying it with a wave of her hand.
"You should know by now, that I can tell when you're lying," he challenged.
"If you give me the 'eyes don't match my mouth' speech I'll swear I'll kick you!" she warned.
"Just tell me Blair."
"I... I...," she struggled momentarily to find the right words. "I need you Chuck. I hate to admit it, but I do. I know I told you that I needed time to heal, and as much as things are still really complicated between us... without you I don't know what I want to live for."
"Don't say that," he interrupted her, shaking his head.
"It's true," she continued. "I need you, and I... I, I just can't not be around you."
For a moment they just stood there, staring at each other after her confession. He stood there motionless until he realized that she was waiting for a response from him. He quickly took a step towards her, pulling her into a tight embrace.
She dropped box and robe onto the floor, surprised by his sudden outburst, before wrapping her arms around him as well. Holding onto him as if her life depended on it. And it some way it really did.
He rested a palm of his hand on each side of her face, pressing a soft kiss onto her lips, before studying her eyes again.
"I feel the same way. This time I will stand by you through anything!" He kissed her one more time. "And you'll survive this, because I don't know how to live without you. Those few weeks after you left and filed for divorce were the worst of my life."
The tears shimmering in her eyes told him that she had felt the same way. "I can't have you going anywhere, Waldorf. I need you here, right by my side."
They shared another deep kiss and for the first time ever since their night in 1812 Chuck felt alive again. They only parted, due to the lack of oxygen and smiled at each other brightly, like the lovesick fools that they were.
"What are we going to do now?" she asked softly brushing a restless strand of hair out of his face.
His trademark smirk spread across his face. "I thought we could spend the day in our dressing gowns..."
To be continued
AN: So, last but not least: thank you to everyone who left a review the last time. Hope you take the time to do it this time as well.