"Mom?" Blair asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes and tying her robe loosely over her slip. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you and Cyrus in Milan? Did something happen?"
Eleanor turned too face her with a distraught look on her face. "This Blair," She held up a magazine clipping and handed it to Blair. "Is why I am here."
"'New York Socialite Expecting Baby'," Blair read. "Oh so you've heard."
"Heard? Read, is more like it. Were you ever planning on telling me?" Eleanor demanded.
"Sure, I just didn't think it was worth interrupting your vacation for." Blair shrugged nonchalantly.
"How can you just stand there and be so flippant!" Eleanor took a deep breath and pinched the end of her nose. "Blair, darling, this is a baby. I don't think you quite understand the seriousness of the situation."
"Eleanor?" Chuck asked in surprise as he came in search of his girlfriend.
"Charles," Eleanor said stiffly, giving him a look akin to pure loathing.
Chuck blinked and gave Blair a questioning glance.
"I am a strong believer in marriage." Eleanor continued, giving both of them piercing gazes. "I believe that it is a fundamental step in any relationship. Especially those who are to have any chance of lasting."
Blair narrowed her eyes. "Mom where are you going with this?"
"Blair in the social circles that we keep, certain things are expected." Eleanor said as tactfully as she could while still glaring at Chuck who was beginning to get slightly unnerved. "Marriage always comes before children, not after. I taught you that."
"Well obviously no one taught Humphrey," Chuck smirked as he poured himself a cup of coffee, resisting the urge to put alcohol in it in front of Blair's mother, even though it was Blair's mother who made him feel like he might need it.
"Humphrey?" Eleanor echoed hollowly. "You mean it's not even his!" Eleanor jerked a finger towards Chuck while looking incredulously at her daughter.
Chuck's eyes widened upon realization and he started laughing.
Blair's eyebrow's furrowed in consternation as Eleanor started muttering things under her breath and ranting about reputations, and as Chuck's chest heaved with badly suppressed laughter.
"Will someone please explain what the hell is going on!"
Chuck stopped laughing long enough to take a few deep breaths. "She... She thinks that you're pregnant." The effort became too much for him and he collapsed again.
"WHAT!" Blair shrieked. "Mom I am not pregnant!" She said firmly.
"But the paper--"
"Serena is pregnant." Blair told her. "Not me."
"But you said something about a Humphrey...?" Eleanor asked.
"Dan Humphrey! As in Serena's longtime Brooklyn boyfriend." Blair reminded her before pausing, "Wait... what did you think I meant?"
"Well... that you... I mean that he... got you-" Eleanor spluttered.
Blair mouth dropped open and her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "Dan Humphrey?" She repeated furiously. "Dan Humphrey? You thought that I was pregnant and DAN-FREAKING-HUMPHREY was the father?"
Chuck sniggered again as Eleanor flushed.
"Well what was I supposed to think?" Eleanor defended.
Blair just shook her head and glared at her boyfriend. "How exactly is this funny?"
"After all the lectures dear Eleanor has given me about cheating on you," Chuck said in amusement, "She accuses you of having a love affair with Humpty-Dumpty."
Blair rolled her eyes and re-focused her glare on her mother.
"So it's not you that's pregnant?" Eleanor checked. "You're positive?"
"Actually she's negative," Chuck supplied. "Serena's positive."
Blair lovingly elbowed him in the stomach.
Eleanor gave him a withering glare before turning to her daughter with a reproving look. "Why not?"
"Why not what, Mom?" Blair asked tiredly.
"Why aren't you pregnant?" Eleanor brushed some stray lint off of her tailored jacket. "I'm not going to live forever—"
"Thank God." Chuck muttered just loud enough for both women to hear him. He was expecting another elbow, and by the haughty look on Eleanor's face so was she, but it never came. Blair just examined her nails unconcernedly. Eleanor bristled.
"--and I want to see my Grandchildren grow up first." Eleanor finished. "You might be a little less selfish seeing as you are my only child."
The look of shock on both of the couple's faces was almost comical. Not that Eleanor was laughing, no, that would ruin her latest botox injection.
"Doesn't whats-his-face have a kid?" Chuck frowned after a few seconds silence. "Cyrus' son?"
"Aaron, does indeed have a son." Eleanor seemed reluctant to broach the subject, something that Chuck was all to quick to pick up on.
"What age is he?" Chuck asked innocently.
"Lassie is almost three now." Eleanor said with a pained expression. "His mother, Candy, named him." She continued.
"Sounds like some stripper's name." Blair snorted.
Eleanor remained stoic and silent.
"Oh my God she is, isn't she?" Blair giggled. "The great Eleanor Waldorf has a daughter-in-law named Candy the stripper - Sorry, female entertainer - and a grandson named Lassie. Lassie, as in the dog."
"Your boyfriend prefers to go by the name Chuck and takes great pleasure in parading around in pink pastel suits." Eleanor retorted. "Which of us is worse off?"
With one last haughty sniff, Eleanor mustered up the remains of her dignity and turned on her heel.
The second the elevator door closed Blair and Chuck turned to each other with somber expressions.
"If we ever have kids--" Chuck began.
"When." Blair corrected, folding her arms across her chest.
"--when we have kids, we are moving as far away from New York as is possible." Chuck said seriously.
Blair nodded in agreement.
"You're an only child, and I doubt Lily will want to acknowledge Serena and Dan's mutant spawn when it moves to Brooklyn and becomes an ax-murderer. Jenny has sworn against having kids until she's at least forty. Eric is gay, so the chances of him reproducing are slim to none..."
"Our kids will be the only heirs to both the Waldorf-Rose and Van der Woodson dynasties." Blair groaned.
"Shit."
"You said it Bass."
