The Last Truck Stop

Story Summary: He'd always be her Chu-Chu Chuck. Bittersweet ChuckBlair.

Genre: Romance/Hurt/Comfort

Rating: T/PG-13

Author's Starting Notes: This chapter has been among my list of to-dos since before I posted the forgotten piece of the last chapter. I kept revising what I wanted to say again and again, until I ended up with half of this. Actually, no, I ended up with half a page of writing (which is everything up to the buddy part of the conversation). I actually sat down October 11th (that would be the day I'm writing this as well) to focus on it. After maybe an hour of reading, revising, and eating sandwiches, I have an emotional chapter with a very awkward ending note. Happy thing, I think I know how to start my next chapter and will be ready with that shortly. I can even tell you the starting line for the next chapter… but I won't. Enjoy!

Time Stamp: Posted October 12th, 2008

Chapter Four:

Somehow, he finds that there isn't a good way to describe the anger coursing through his body. He can't grab control for he knows if he does, he might just forgive Nate too easily. You see, Chuck has come to a conclusion. Nate is an asshole. He may pretend not to be, but he is. And, Chuck wants nothing more than to expose Nate for being exactly what so many people resent about Chuck. So, he picks up the phone and puts it to his ear.

"Hey, man, what's it like in Cali?" Nate asks, carefree as ever

"I wouldn't know. Actually, I don't know a lot of things, like what ever happened to that darling, little conversation we had a while back," Chuck says, his voice so level he gives nothing away

"What conversation?" Nate asks

"Oh, just that one where you told me about why California was such a great place, and how lucky I was to not be back home," Chuck says

"Still not getting it," Nate admits. Chuck rolls his eyes. Either Nate is an idiotic asshole, or a brilliant one. Chuck's pretty sure it's the first one.

"Okay, let me go through this slowly, Nate. Two months after I left, business trip, home, busy people, you. Now, do you get what I'm talking about?" Chuck asks

"Not really," Nate answers

"I'M TALKING ABOUT THE TIME WHEN YOUR STUPID ASS TOLD ME BLAIR DIDN'T WANT TO SEE ME!!" Chuck roars startling both the females he forgot were in the room. Instantly, the youngest starts crying causing the eldest to look at him surprised.

"Chuck, who are you talking to?" Blair questions bouncing the little tike to try and quiet her down

"No one," he tells her quickly, "You are dead," he tells Nate angrily

"Chuck, what are you talking about? I never told you Blair didn't want to see you," Nate says

"Oh, you didn't? So, I just imagined the entire phone call when I came home and was told that Blair was doing a doctor and not to even bother trying to see her? Because I know I don't like myself that much, but my subconscious wouldn't be that cruel to me," Chuck spits. There is a moment of silence. It dawns on Chuck that Nate must be remembering the conversation.

"Buddy, I-"

"Buddy? Buddy! How can you even think about calling me 'Buddy' after what you did!" Chuck hisses glaring at a spot on the wall harshly. Nate is very lucky that he isn't in the room right then. Chuck surely would punch him if he was.

"I was protecting Blair. Doing what was best for her, for you too," Nate says. By his tone, Chuck deduces that Nate is actually serious.

"How is keeping me away from Blair and my daughter supposed to be best for anyone?" asks Chuck rhetorically, "You may have been my friend, Nathaniel," (At the sound of his name, Blair gasps.) "But that gives you no right to intrude in my life the way you did,"

Blair silently nods agreeing with the one-sided conversation she is hearing. She's not so sure whether she's as mad at Chuck as she used to be. It feels all the more natural to want to kill Nate all of a sudden. Deciding one side isn't enough for her, she moves closer to Chuck in hopes of hearing Nate talk as well.

"Like it would have made a difference," mutters Nate spitefully

"Excuse you," Chuck says powerfully having heard Nate's barely audible remark perfectly

"You obviously heard me, Chuck. I know you, man. You claimed to have felt such emotion for Blair, but we both know that you weren't after a life with her. If you had been, you would have taken her with you," Nate states matter-o-factly. Blair takes a small step backward. Is Nate right? She wonders.

"I was as serious about Blair then as I was all those years ago when I told you that I hated your mom's cooking," Chuck declares

"Last time you said that we were five, Chuck," Nate points out

"I'm aware of that. Did I ever eat anything your mom made after that?"

"She refused to cook for you after that. She heard you say it!"

"Exactly, Nathaniel. A-and what gives you the right to gauge my feelings for me? Did you not think I meant it when I said I loved Blair and that I was stupid to do so, but okay with it anyway? Or was my word choice to difficult for your little, blonde head?" Chuck asks

"That's rich, Chuck. At least my 'little, blonde head' seemed to have been enough to still stay in this zip code. Or, was it just Daddy sick of you that had you packing your bags?" retorts Nate cruelly. Chuck's anger level rises even more. For a moment, Blair considers turning away. It is kind of wrong for her to be there. A private discussion between two feuding friends should never be overheard by the ex-girlfriend, or the daughter. However, she finds that she's as drawn to the conversation as she is to the man before her. So, she stays.

"At least I know that when my daddy goes on a business trip, he'll return. Yours seems to have been gone for nearly three years now, Nate," Chuck laughs, "Ah, where is he this time? Hiding from the police in Alaska? No, that was over shortly after I graduated. Better go broad so as not to give away too much. Europe? Asia? Hell, is he even on Earth anymore?"

"You're a bastard," Nate utters in a surprisingly level voice

"You got the first syllable right. And, like a true Bass man, I feel it is only proper to tell you that all ties from hence forth are to be severed. Sorry, I mean, this friendship is over," Chuck concludes.

This time, Nate laughs. It isn't a laugh like the kind the one-year-old gives when treated to a ride on the swings down the street. Oh, no, within this outward manifestation of delight is a pained sense of reality. Almost as if Nate is backing up the sentence Chuck finished only moments before. From there, Blair stops listening. She hears nothing of Nate's following words. She doesn't recognize Chuck hanging up the phone and hastily stashing it in his pocket as if the very device burned him the way Nate had. She only has her thoughts, her questions.

Is it really over? She wonders. And, somehow, that question brings up more than just thoughts of friendships past.

"I want Chuck," she said.

The other parties in the room had to stop themselves from showing their shock. It was the first time in months anyone had heard her say those words. She had ranted about how she hated him, how she missed him, how she loved him even; never once did she say that she wanted him. It was implied, of course. Underneath every sentence she said that involved him, there was a silent plea for his return to come. Hearing her say it, then of all times, was something entirely different.

"What did you say?" Serena asked just to clarify

"I want Chuck. I want my boyfriend back. I want the guy who smiles at me and makes me glad to be alive. I want the man whose very presence lights my entire body on fire…. Serena, why do I want him? Why?"

Serena van der Woodsen said nothing in response. She had nothing to say. Truthfully, she also felt that Blair was more thinking aloud than actually asking a question.

"He didn't treat me right," Blair continued as if no one else was around, "Except for when he treated me amazingly. He didn't know how to hold me, until I bent to fit his shape. He couldn't speak to me correctly. So, we just made our own language. But, he was the only one who could see me. He could hear me, feel me, touch me. He knew me, S. Then, he left me. He left me with no one."

Tears pooled together behind her eyelids, begging to fall and relinquish the pain she felt inside. Unlike most times, she let them. She closed her eyes, and freed the drops of anguish. To her, she was almost always alone. Without Chuck, she was nothing.

At that point in time, it mattered not that her mother, her best friend, her first ex-boyfriend, and her nanny were there to witness her breakdown. How could it? All she could hear were the cries of her broken heart. It screamed for him every day and every night. Her body ached for his touch. Her mind yearned for his witty remarks. Her ears longed to hear his voice. And, her eyes bled without seeing his lean form. Pictures, videos, and small online chats could not stop the pain she felt. He'd been gone for six months. She'd been missing him for six months, four days, twelve hours, and thirty-three minutes. She was counting somewhere in her mind. It gave her something to focus on other than him, and other than her.

Then, tears still flowing down her porcelain cheeks like rain on the windowpane, breath as shallow and rapid as if she was lifting ten times her weight, she rounded on them, all of them. She looked at the four with eyes as pained and empty as she was, and asked:

"Is it really over?"

No one could answer her.

It isn't until she feels coldness on her cheek that she realizes she is crying. She curses herself for being so weak as to let a memory affect her so. She's kind of glad that Chuck has always been oblivious. It lets him think he and Nate did this to her, not her own thoughts of abandonment.

"I'm sorry, Blair. You weren't supposed to hear that," he says. She gives him a suffering sigh. Not as part of an act, but for her own sake. She can feel her heart pounding strongly within her rib cage and knows it probably won't take much for her to be in tears again.

"It's fine," she says shortly

"No, it isn't. That… that was between me and Nate and I shouldn't have made it so that you had to hear that. If possible, I'd like to go back to where we were before Nate called,"

There he is giving her an out, a chance to take the reigns of the situation once more. Instantly, she takes it. She steps even closer to him - if that's possible when you're literally face to face - and looks down at her daughter. It only takes a small glance at the little girl to bring a ghost of a smile back to the brunette's face.

"Chuck Bass, I'd like you to meet your daughter, Matteson Antoinette Bass," Blair says looking at him more than her. She can see his features soften and his eyes glaze over in a way she hadn't seen in so long. If she didn't know better, she would be expecting tears to flow from him next. Instead, his posture goes rigid and he clears his throat.

"That's, um, that's a lovely name, Blair," he says, his voice betraying the stiffness his body demands.

"Thanks. I really loved the name Tess, and I heard that your mom's middle name was Antoinette. I think the Bass part is pretty self-explanatory," she explains. He nods, his gaze going back to the toddler in her arms. Matteson fits the girl perfectly. He doesn't know how he couldn't have seen it before. Her face, her hair, her clothes, all scream Waldorf. He begins to wonder if there was anything she got from him. Then, her eyelids flutter revealing a set of charcoal eyes that can only mean one thing.

"She's got your eyes," Blair adds, seeing the ice melt once more, "I'm pretty sure she'll be as disgustingly Bass as you were when you were her age,"

"And how would you know?" Chuck asks, "We didn't meet until I was six,"

"Yeah, and, when we did, you told me that bologna about your mother's plane crash,"

"Bologna? What do you mean? What I said was true," he insists. She scoffs and shifts the baby to her other arm.

"You don't have to lie to me anymore. I know the truth. She didn't die in a plane crash that brought you to the Upper East Side to get away. She died giving birth to you in a home birth twenty miles south of Orlando, Florida," Blair tells him. He stares at her, mouth agape. In all the years they had known each other, he never once told her that. He never told anyone. Well, no one important at least. That thought led to him coming to a very surprising conclusion.

"M-my dad told you," Chuck declares, eyes even wider than before. Blair only nods. "When?"

"The day I told him," Blair admits

"Told him what?" Chuck asks, fearing the answer. Please tell me, she didn't tell my father. Oh, please tell me, he inwardly pleaded.

"That I was carrying his first grandchild, of course,"

And, just like that, Chuck is sure he has taken in all his brain will allow.

© Dezi. While everything above was written by myself, the characters and the world they live in was not. I don't own GossipGirl, or AOL Instant Messenger. I do, however, own the plot, which grows with every single review I get. If I were you, I'd start commenting.