AN: You guys are amazing and you make it so easy to just post and post.

Part 8

Chuck Bass did not know why it was that he felt that huge pang of disappointment when he heard the hushed conversation between Eleanor and Dorota. It was not as if Eleanor Waldorf had ever been a big fan of his. She had invested so heavily in Nate from the first time she saw Blair and Nate walk hand in hand at age seven.

But he was, and he almost kicked himself for it.

The elevator door opened, and by some stroke of luck, Eleanor and Dorota seemed too engrossed in their discussion that they did not notice his arrival.

"Go on," Eleanor urged. "Change out of your uniform so you're ready."

"But Mrs Eleanor," Dorota protested. "I not going with Miss Blair. Miss Blair said Mr Chuck is taking her." And the maid's eyes had widened. "You want me to chaperone?" The maid shook her head emphatically.

"Chaperone?" Eleanor parroted with a chuckle. "That's ridiculous. They're old enough to fool around. They're obviously old enough to not need a chaperone."

Dorota blinked in confusion. "So why I get ready, Mrs Eleanor?"

Eleanor tapped at her expensive diamond-encrusted watch face. "It's a half an hour past ten, and Charles isn't here. We need a smooth backup plan. He's not here, you two go. No fuss, no long waiting." Eleanor snapped her fingers. "Like that."

Chuck cleared his throat, and the two older women whirled around in surprise. But he had to give it to Eleanor. She covered shock well. Must be practice from discovering your husband loved men.

"Charles!" Eleanor exclaimed. "Have you been standing there long?"

He gave her a lopsided smirk. "Long enough."

If there was one thing high society women were uncomfortable with, it was getting caught. "I'm sorry," she sputtered.

"Perfectly alright, Mrs Rose."

Her lips curved, hearing her new last name from the boy. Chuck always did get what made them happy, what caused their toes to curl up.

"Shame on you, boy!" Cyrus crowed. Chuck turned and saw the little man waving him forward, and so he walked towards Blair's stepfather. "Charming my wife shamelessly when I'm in the room."

"I didn't see you there."

And Cyrus laughed, heartily, and Chuck wondered if it was because he immediately took it for a jab at his height. "Let's get you in the dining room." Chuck turned to look towards the stairs, in the direction of Blair's room. "She's coming along. We're all going to have some brunch."

"I was thinking of just grabbing something in the hospital—maybe from the vending machine."

"Charles, in this house, we sit down to eat," Cyrus pronounced, and Eleanor nodded in agreement, as if that had been happening in her house for the longest time.

And then she was running down the stairs, her hair bouncing behind her, her feet clad in leather flats. "You're early!" she said in surprise.

She should really tell her mother that, he thought. Because Eleanor was already sending Dorota off to prepare when he got in, as if he wasn't going to arrive. "Apparently," he drawled, "not too early because in this house, we all sit down to eat."

She turned to her mother in shock, and then at her stepfather. Chuck noticed the small shrug that Cyrus gave. And she turned a big smile at him, a little forced. "We do," she said. Blair walked in front of him on the way to the dining room.

They arrived at the hospital a little early for her appointment, and it was only because Chuck doubted that Blair ever figured in her schedule that taking the limo always cut the travel time in half. Chuck did not blink when she led him to her doctor's office, and the name on the door caught his attention. It had not been the name as much as the specialization underneath, but he promised himself it wasn't his place to ask. After she spoke with the doctor's receptionist, she sank into the couch beside him. He laid his arm on the back of the couch behind her, and she squirmed forward and sat on the edge of the seat, her back held stiff.

"How many more minutes?"

"I'm sorry it's taking so long."

"I'm just asking," he returned in a quiet voice.

She turned her face to him and replied, "Maybe fifteen. Most likely fifteen," she amended. "You know how precisely they time."

"Yeah." She turned her face away and stared instead at the large analog clock above the receptionist's head. He knew why she would not look at him, so he offered, "The one I got for when I was in withdrawal was very anal about the time." At the admission, she glanced behind her at his relaxed slouch on the couch. "But they say it helps us, when they stick to the precise minute. It gives us something concrete to rely on." Especially when the things and the people you most counted on failed you. His eyes fell to her fists, as she clumped her skirt over and over. "Let's play a game," he said.

The surprise in her eyes was soft, charming. "Now?" she asked in disbelief.

"To kill time," he said. To take your mind off this. To keep me from shaking you until you tell me what the hell is going on. He was sober, but he wasn't a saint. His knee bopped up and down as his foot tapped the floor with impatience. Clinics like these reminded him of the days when he would tremble with need and with thirst that he thought Nate was the enemy for not letting him have a single sip. Even the odor of the hospital wakened dormant memories of the night of the Snowflake Ball, when he was so happy he started considering, during that last dance, that maybe he and she could work, if they could always be the way they were—trying to one up each other in a harmless game where no one lost, but he got to rub the Blair's nose on the fact that she would find no one as right as he for her and vice versa. The night ended with an impromptu trip to the hospital, and a quick trip to the morgue.

Of course Lily couldn't do it. She had been too emotionally distraught to do that one last thing for Bart.

The son had to do it.

If he and Blair had a son someday, he would make sure that it would be written in black and white that the boy would never be asked to walk into a cold room to identify his corpse.

That was something a boy didn't walk away from unscathed. And something he would not forgive Lily for. No matter how much Nate would say he had grown.

His eyes rested on Blair, on the eyes that said so much that every time she looked at him, he thought he heard her whisper those fantastic words, and his heart skipped a little. Chuck could imagine her in her dark, heavy clothes, with a black headband and a pair of black tights, probably wearing black pumps and carrying a black handbag—because everyone knows that ever in mourning Blair Waldorf would match her outfit—shivering insider the morgue, waiting as the ME pulled the sliding rack out of the body refrigerator.

The way she loved him, she would be dead before they pulled down the blanket.

He knew because it would be the same if it were him. He would rot in a grave without a name before he allowed her to experience that. He had to remember to get with a lawyer right after this and check if a man could take an injunction preventing the police or the hospital from calling his family in a time like that.

"Let's count how many people would pass by," he said, nodding towards the glass walls where they could see the patients and their visitors walk by, "with something fake."

She smiled, nodded, as if she were going to participate. Every three people who passed, he identified two. "That Louis Vuitton clutch," he said of one, and, "Those earrings are moizanite," of another. He identified jackets and shoes as if he were fashion police, in an effort to entertain her. But she was silent, with a small smile on her face. When he glanced at her, she smiled.

Chuck almost surrendered when he saw her eyes twinkle. "You missed one." She nodded towards the man who was passing by. Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Nothing fake on him. Even the Rolex looked genuine."

Blair smirked. "His hair isn't."

There was his girl. Rise and shine. Finally, she leaned back against him. Chuck tightened his arm around her shoulders. The position was so natural and comfortable that it was right at that moment that the nerves slowly sank in. A lot of people marveled at women's intuition, and Chuck finally recognized the awe as he felt her body start to draw away the moment he grew jittery.

What the hell was he doing pretending he was stable, like whatever he would discover behind those doors he could handle? He was Chuck Bass. He would either implode or close in on himself.

The receptionist looked towards them and said, "Miss Waldorf. Dr Silverman is ready for you."

Blair turned to him, with fear, with uncertainty, with resignation. The choice was his. He could walk away now, and preserve the tenuous control he had over his own problems, or he could stay and possibly shatter with what he would learn.

But this was about Blair.

Everyone knew he would shatter into a trillion pieces, and shatter with a contented smile, if it was about Blair.

He reached for her hand on the way in, and he closed it around hers when she started to pull away. She had offered his hand to him once in Bangkok, in that elevator, and he refused to give it to her. But he was stronger and he could hold on to her if he thought she needed it. "Not in the movies, but here… this is fine, Blair."

And she clung on that grasp until the doctor stood up and faced them. Blair shook her hand free and he allowed his to fall at his side.

The shrink was young, he granted her that. Young and pretty, and she wore a skirt that was a couple of inches higher than what other doctors wore. If only for that, Chuck warmed up to her. He settled on the leather couch and waited for Blair to sit with him. She did, but kept a distance of at least one human body between them.

Dr Silverman turned to Chuck, "Thank you for coming. I'm glad you're here." She turned to Blair. "You were very brave to ask."

"He insisted," Blair said. Chuck wanted to reach out and drag her back to him, but she seemed sealed off in her own little world. "He wants to know, then he'll know."

Persistence paid off. Whoever said it didn't was a fool.

Or he wasn't a Bass and couldn't afford to wait.

"That's good, Blair," the shrink said in a calm, patient voice.

He saw the impatience war with control on Blair's face and did not blame her. He would be irritated too.

"Not that," she said hurriedly. "Not yet." She threw a glance at him, and probably did not expect him to be watching her. Blair faced the psychiatrist at once. "He's here to listen, not to participate."

If that was what she wanted. He made it in, and it should be sufficient enough progress for today. If he stayed quiet, then maybe there would be a hint, or several, and he could connect them together to make a bigger picture full of holes.

Dr Silverman nodded, then took out her notebook. She pressed a button on the device she had laid on the coffee table, and they were recording. "How are you doing today?"

"Better than yesterday," Blair answered. "Every day is better than the day before."

He was a poster child for that. He used those very words the last session he had. It was a popular statement in group discussions too. But she wasn't addicted to anything. Pain, maybe. Him. But the last he heard, there wasn't a program yet that could get rid of him.

"How many meals have you had since we met yesterday morning?"

And it dawned on him with a sickening realization. She had kicked this. They had a small celebration when she had kicked this four months after her father left. There had been one instance of binging and purging in Thanksgiving but that had been it, and he returned from Monaco and pretended she did not fall off the wagon by saying that the event had been one last romp in the sack with an ex.

He knew more than anyone why it came back.

And she was embarrassed? He should be raked over hot coals.

"Lunch," Blair stated. "Then a snack. Dinner," she took a deep breath, as if enumerating just stressed how much she had had. "Brunch before we came."

"Sounds good." The shrink drew a line on the notebook. Chuck wondered what it was for. "And how many times did you throw up?"

The question hung in the air between Dr Silverman and Blair. Chuck swore he saw a tangible question mark bobbing above the coffeetable. He couldn't be having hallucinations again. That was over by the first week of his sobriety. He blinked and the question mark was gone. He ran his fingers through his hair. God, he needed a valium. Or a tall glass of vodka.

"Two o'clock." Right after their encounter in the lobby of her building. "And six o'clock." Before they met at the hotel bar.

She had mentioned it last night, but this was the first time it truly sank in him why it was that she did not want to bring him here. He was an observer, but he wasn't. He was the one who moved up closer to where she sat, pressed his lips on the back of her shoulder like he did when she turned seventeen and was so sad.

"Chuck?" Dr Silverman prompted. "Is there anything you want to say?"

Blair reached at the side table for a tissue. "He doesn't have to say anything. He's not the one who got forced into therapy."

"Blair, this is nothing to be embarrassed about," he said, his voice hoarse, which was odd because he had not been screaming—not out loud.

"The reason I asked you to bring him wasn't to tell him what's going on, Blair. That's between you and me."

Blair pulled out a few more tissues, and then blew her nose. "And I told you, he wasn't available."

"Well, now he's here," Dr Silverman said. Chuck marveled at the patience. "This part is for you. I want you to tell him, because I think it would take a load off your shoulders."

Blair turned cold eyes at the shrink. "You can't treat me by knocking him down. He's a recovering alcoholic."

Chuck frowned. "I can take it." He hoped to God he could. There couldn't be any certainty to it, but he needed to know. Now.

"I think the very fact that Chuck is here tells us that he's willing to hear what you have to say."

Slowly, Blair turned her gaze to him, and he could see the struggle. He took her hand in his and squeezed. "Tell me," he said, just like he had urged her last night.

"You've practiced this. Now he's here."

"Go ahead," he said softly.

Blair turned her body to him, so that now they were facing each other on the couch. "You already know I love you," she began. Chuck did not speak, just waited. These things took time. "But I hate you too. Just a little," she confessed. "And after this you're going to hate me, but I need to say it." He held his breath as she formed her words, the effort to do so etched on her face. "I love you, but I couldn't take it anymore. And I know I promised you that I'd stay, but I couldn't live like that."

The insults, he wondered, or the constant parade of women? Maybe it was the fact that he kept telling her to leave or that he didn't love her? He would leave him too. She had said nothing, done nothing that would make him hate her the way she was afraid he would.

"I thought I was pregnant," she said. He closed his eyes. Second time in their lives that she had that scare, and both times he not been the person she could come to. Next time—because had there ever been any doubt that there would be another time in their life together that she would ask the same question—he was going to be the first person she went to. "I was."

The pause was deafening. "Blair?" prodded Dr Silverman.

"And I loved you." Her tears fell unrestrained. "And I hated you."

Slowly, his hand around hers drew back and fisted on his thigh. Despite his resolve to listen, he heard himself choke out, "What did you do?"

"The last time I saw you, you were half-dead and it was just a matter of time before you OD'd or got alcohol poisoning, or jumped off a building," she sobbed.

"What did you do, Blair?" he repeated.

"I came to my family doctor and asked for reading materials about abortion," she told him.

His fist rose to rest against his gritted teeth. His fingernails dug into his palm. He needed a fucking drink in a fucking bar.

"And I came home and I read them and I read them and I read them until I memorized each one of them," she said tearfully. "I hated you so much for Bangkok, Chuck." He met her eyes, and this time he didn't bother to hide the tears that clouded his own vision.

He needed to drown this out. Dammit, what he wouldn't give for oblivion right about now.

"But I loved you too, and there was no way I was going to terminate when you just lost your dad." She drew a deep breath, not calming, not to soothe herself. She sucked in the breath for survival. "I woke up and it happened all at once—the cramping, the blood, that pain. It was six hours before it all stopped. Six hours," she said, her voice with wonder, "just to expel tissue." She shook her head. "You see, Chuck? 'I love you' is great, but it doesn't fix me like it wasn't enough to fix you."

He was eighteen years old. He shouldn't be able to say that abortion or miscarriage was part of his past.

"It doesn't."

Did he want it to? She was right. By the end of this session, he hated her. She had wanted to abort his kid. He was in Bangkok going through hell to quit drinking, for her. And she was here window shopping for an abortion. She wasn't the same girl he saw last night, the one he loved blindly, without reservations.

Slowly, he rose from his seat and walked out the door. Behind him, she heard him call his name once. When he did not stop, she did not call again.

Outside the hospital doors, he waited until she stepped out. He raised his hand, and caught her shock at the sight of him there. She tightened her coat around herself and walked over to him. When she drew near, he settled his hands on her waist.

"You were right. Now I hate you too," he said, his tone gravelly, his voice tired. She nodded, then hung her head. He caught her chin with his finger and tipped her face up. "But I'll love you, no matter what," he whispered, returning her promise to him.

The black limo rolled and stopped by them. He held the door open for her and then climbed in after her. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

He took her in his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head. Chuck hissed his breath in exhale, then held up and violently shaking hand. She laid her palm against his, then clasped their fingers. Closed together like that, it was not hard to keep it steady. "I need you today," he said. "I need you to make sure I don't drink." It was only twelve. This was going to be a long day.

tbc