A/N: Hey guys! as per usual you never cease to amaze me in your reviews! This is kind of short but it's a two parter, I'll try to have it up asap. Please keep reading and reviewing, I love and appreciate every little review even if it's just a couple words (:

It's worth fighting for
- Paramore

Chapter Sixteen:

May passed in days of rain and humidity. The short days had begun to stretch into rounded nights, the marks of approaching warmth in the new season. Chuck scowled at his clothing, feeling ridiculously under-dressed as he stood on the boardwalk, leaning against the railing. A cool breeze pressed against his cheeks and he shifted his weight. He had waited for this, the filling of a void he hadn't known until the emptiness was heaved aside, replaced with the reality of blurred truths. Nerves ran through the pit of his stomach, what if they thought he was as lame as he felt?

He picked absently at the buttons on the eggshell sweater he'd purchased late last night. An entire outfit for one day, brand new jeans that were anything but Chuck Bass, then again he was more than he had ever given himself credit for. This was a fresh start and he was trying to heed Blair's suggestion as honestly as he could manage.

"Dress down, okay? Like ... low key and casual." She had edged on the phone, a conversation three weeks and two days in the making. Not that he had been counting.

"... Down?" He had said, utterly perplexed.

"Jeans ... t-shirt ... sweater ... you know."

"No," He countered, "I don't. I wear suits Blair, it's what I do."

"Yeah well, you can't wear a four piece Prada suit to Cooney Island, trust me."

And just like that he had dressed earlier that morning in freshly pressed clothes, the tags recently thrown into the trash, with a wistful glance at his suits, lonely and perfectly ironed, lining his closet.

He glanced around, squinting as groups of tourists made their way through the thicket and onto the jetty just as Henry broke through the crowd, feet falling against the wooden planks. Chuck actually stopped, watching as Tula ran after him, her long brunette curls pulled away from her heart-shaped face in the breeze. The spitting image of Blair. He stood there, stupidly tugging at his sweater, searching for himself in her and then she smiled, no smirked - and his heart melted through the boardwalk and onto the beach.

He heard their mother before he saw her and the connection between them, whether she knew it or not, was thicker, easier to navigate and harder to cut into pieces. All these years he had been a part of her, never forgotten or lost to Mark Hutlen, no matter what she had wanted him to believe.

"Stay away from the railings!" Rays of sunlight fell across his sight, bathing her outline in sunlight as she ran after their children, another woman almost entirely. Her short hair styled with a bow that matched Tula's in colour and a flashing smile that spread across her face, rows of pearly white teeth behind cherry lips. The bits and pieces he could grab onto of the Blair he knew, he eagerly did.

He watched silently as the three of them ran after one another, gravitating in their own worlds. Blair caught them in her arms a few seconds later, peals of laughter floating in the salty air as she adjusted their clothing and bent to wipe a smudge off Henry's face. She was every bit a mother and he was their father. These two human beings less than forty feet apart, he had helped to create. They weren't there and then they were.

Chuck yearned to move but his feet were lead, his tongue dry. What would he say?

Less than a beat passed, "Charles?" Blair was looking squarely at him, warmth spreading across his skin and he smirked, as though it was effortless, as though he could hardly remember to breathe and shoved his hands in his pockets with a deep breath of anticipation.

"Blair," It dropped between them, husky and gentle, he cleared his throat. And then she was guiding them towards him until little distance remained between them. One hand on each of their shoulders as she tried, he presumed, to gauge his expression. He tried to keep it as open as possible, hiding any trace of worry or concern that might linger. Henry and Tula would either like him or they wouldn't. Simply, he told himself, just simple.

Tula was the first to step forward, curiosity etched across her forehead. Quickly, as though it had hardly registered, a pained look fell over Blair as her child moved slightly out of her grasp.

"Mr. Bass, my mom's friend right?"

She was inquisitive, he noted and brave, so much like Blair in few seconds. He nodded, maintaining his smile.

"I'm Tula," She offered, studying him just as Blair was. She tugged on her brother's hand, urging him forward. In that moment, Chuck almost felt his truths being pulled away from him, how could he be anything but entirely honest in front of these two?

"Do you really own an entire company?" She asked.

"I do," He answered, "Bass Industries."

"Oh," She batted her eyelashes, "I see."

"Hi again ... Mr. Bass," Henry interrupted. The little boy extended his hand, ever the proper gentlemen and produced a rather firm handshake, for that of an eight and a half year old. He rolled his eyes in the direction of Blair, as if apologizing for the weird circumstance under which they had first met.

"Hello Henry, Tula."

"Well," Blair seemed to sigh, edging into the moment with soft prompting, "Shall we tackle the rides or are we just going to stand around all day?"

In mere seconds, the children were beams of joy, galloping ahead and leaving the two adults to themselves, in the little space between complicated words. If he had any real idea of the moment, Chuck couldn't have factored this, dealt with it in any other way than to carefully follow Blair as she kept an eye on their kids. Silent.

The gravity of everything was magnificent. There would always be Chuck and Blair only in different ways. This was the first in a series of steps, of seconds and days he would hopefully get to be with them, to learn to know them, even if it was under whatever other guise Waldorf had to create. It was something and he was a part of it, always.

The minutes passed in blurs of carnival lights as the sun rose into the sky and gradually fell behind the buildings and onto the other side of the world. But all Chuck could think of, as he bought cotton candy and handed each stick of woven sugar to Blair, was that his entire world was in front of him, tugging at his brand new sweater and he wasn't as lame as he had thought he might be.