Chapter 6

Chuck was at a loss. "Serena, what the f is your deal?" Blair demanded an explanation even if Chuck, the obvious culprit, wouldn't himself. "Oh B. Just wait! You have no idea what he has done this time! It's sick even for HIM!" Serena returned in a bark. Serena then glared towards Chuck, "Say it. Say it out loud. Tell her what happened!"

Chuck knew that this moment would come, but he hadn't exactly planned it out. He thought back to the hospital in Prague when the doctor pleaded with him to call friends from home, but at the time, he wasn't even sure he had any friends left. Besides the obvious, Blair, he figured everyone else had learned of the truth by then too. He figured he didn't have much of anything or anyone to go home too...ever again. Seeing Serena and Blair here in Paris had him questioning that theory, but now that the two of them were finding out...he felt that sudden panic again. He would have nobody left from his past in New York. He was losing everything...everyone. He was losing Blair...again.

"Serena, I..." Chuck started, but his stepsister soon interrupted. "And, don't even try any excuses. 'I'm Chuck Bass' won't get you out of this one, dear brother. Just cut to the chase! Tell us how you got shot! Tell us how you spent weeks in a hospital alone in Prague! Tell us how you didn't feel that your family was important enough to know of any of this! Damn it Chuck! How could you!" Serena was in tears by the time she choked out these words. "I don't even know where to begin..." Chuck's voice cracked, and his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. He was the most terrified he had ever been in his entire life, and admitting that to himself was a lot. Chuck Bass wasn't often terrified unless Blair Waldorf was involved in any way...or muggers in Prague too. He wasn't ashamed to admit that moment in his past made his top five terrifying moments.

"Um. Is this seriously for real? What the hell is going on? You were shot, Bass? I don't understand. How could you not tell me?" Blair's voice seemed tinier than it ever had before. All this time, he hadn't realized that she was sitting there on the same bench completely dumbfounded. As the three continued their looks of anguish and hurt, Eva approached them outside of the bar. Before Chuck realized this, he bent down in front of Blair, hoping to take a way any of the hurt he saw etched on her face. "Blair, you have to understand. Your last words to me that night at the hospital...Do you remember them? You demanded that I never speak to you...ever again. I wanted to, Blair. I needed to. After all that we had been through, all the hurt, all the pain...I still needed you. But for once, I saw what I had done to you. I heard the devastation in your voice...saw it in your eyes that night at the hospital. Seeing you like that, Blair, I wanted to be dead. I didn't care if I lived. Despite my own depression and hurt, I wanted to finally be the man you always deserved Blair, I was trying to be a better man for you. I loved you enough to let you go. I was trying to give you your freedom...freedom from a life of horrible things...freedom from a hopeless future with me." Chuck choked out these words, and his body trembled. Blair barely spoke, "So what, you were so hurt, you just gave up on life? You just tried to end it? How could you? I asked you once never to do that to me. Whatever you wanted to do to yourself, you should have never done that to me!" Chuck cringed at the memory of Blair first saying those words to him. It seemed so long ago. He knew that Blair had assumed he tried to end his own life again. He couldn't blame her for jumping to this conclusion. The thought had crossed his mind that night in Prague...ironic, huh? Guess you get what you ask for sometimes in life.

Chuck tried to speak with conviction this time, "Blair, I didn't try to end my own life. Although, that idea wasn't by any means foreign to me, and this time, I have to admit I wouldn't have thought you would have cared. Blair, I was mugged and shot in an alleyway in Prague. A few drunken locals saw me laying there, bleeding out onto the street, and the next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed, feeling pain I never knew existed." Serena obvious to Blair's needs and her own, sat down beside her best friend and grabbed hold of her hand, squeezing firmly. Blair shook her head, "No. No. That couldn't have happened. You didn't call. Nobody knew. You would have been all alone for so many days." The words came out one syllable at a time. Chuck shook his head embarrassed at the words he knew were coming next, "Blair, after what I did to you, I couldn't face you, and I was still trying to give you what you asked for...a life without me. In my mind, I expected the worst which is understandable. I deserved it. I assumed that everyone knew of all the wrong I had done to you...Lilly, Eric, Nate...I didn't think I had a reason to call home. I felt I had nobody left and rightfully so." Suddenly, he saw a fire in Blair's eyes he didn't expect in a moment such as this. He knew that look, and the repercussions of that look were never good.

"How dare you...you...you... ass! Only you, Chuck Bass, would make this situation all about YOU! So you got shot and had nobody to call. Poor Little Lamb! Did you not think about what it would do to Lilly, a recovering cancer patient, to know that her stepson failed to mention his near death experience to her of all people? Or how Eric, a young adolescent who has a history of depression, would handle this news? And not to mention...Serena?" She asked angrily, pointing towards her best friend on the bench. "You knew what she'd been going through with her daddy issues, and to know that her own stepbrother failed to include her in such a crucial time in his life! Did you ever stop to think about what your decision to remain silent would do to them?" She screamed at him. Her eyes were furious. Chuck looked to Serena for some type of reassurance from the truth he knew Blair spoke, but Serena with tears in her eyes only looked at him accusingly. Blair was fuming. She couldn't help but continue. The harsh words were pouring out of her. Chuck had seen this side of Blair. She had directed this type of fury at Georgina, Little Jenny Humphrey, and even her stupid little minions, but he had never been a victim of this type of lashing...not from Blair.

Chuck cringed. He knew he deserved it, but knowing he let Blair down once again made him feel completely hopeless. What was the point in living? "Maybe, I should have died in the streets of Prague. Prostitutes nearby. The papers would have loved that." He sadly thought to himself, smirking at his own morbid thoughts. This was what his life was now...disappointment after disappointment. The life of the great Chuck Bass.

"Since you obviously didn't feel the need to include your family in your life when you needed them the most, perhaps you shouldn't even come home. Save us all from the destruction that only you can cause! To think I actually felt sorry for you for the words I said to you that night. Please, you still are and will always be a bassterd! Don't come home! Who needs you? It will be as if you never existed!" With that, Blair pulled Serena away from the bench, and the two of them practically ran back to their suite. Neither saying anything, both silently sobbing the entire way.

Chuck felt like his insides had been ripped out, and to think he just thought getting shot was the worst pain he'd feel in his life. He pulled himself onto the bench, barely able to pull up his own weight. As he looked up, he saw Eva standing timidly alongside the building. She approached him slowly. "Charles, I am so sorry. I had no idea that you hadn't told anyone. She's your stepsister, Charles. How could you not tell your own family that you were shot? You nearly died!" She tried to speak as calmly as she could. She saw what he had just been through with Serena and Blair. He needed her now more than ever. Chuck tried to make her see it from his perspective. "I initially didn't want them to know, ya know? I just didn't want to pull them into the downward spiral of my life yet again. After a while, it just got easier to keep telling myself I was doing the right thing. After all, what could I say, 'Oh hey, Lilly. I know it's been a while. It seems I forgot to mention I was shot three weeks ago.' You know it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue that easily," he tried to explain his reasoning for keeping this secret from the ones who loved him most in life. Eva didn't say anything, but she did nod in understanding, taking hold of his hand gently. "I want you to come away with me, Charles. Let's leave all this behind us. Start a new life with me...your Eva." She initially just wanted to pacify his needs in that moment, but at the same time, Eva realized she had never been more sincere in her life. Who cares about this Chuck Bass from the past? That wasn't the Charles that she loved today. Yes, if she were to admit, Eva had realized she had grown to love him. She loved him and maybe he could love her too?

"When do we leave?" Chuck whispered with a slight smile on his face.

Awe, it seems C will finally get a happy ending...or should we say a happy beginning? We're all for C leading a better life, but traveling abroad with E? We're thinking that if B were here, she'd tell little miss Balenger that the smile on C's tortured face was one that didn't come close to reaching his dark, piercing eyes. You know what they say. A smile tells it all. Au revoir, C and E!

XOXO, Gossip Girl