Part 11

Baby was running around, and Chuck marveled at how much of a handful the puppy was at three months old. Her barks were more of a delightful series of yelps. He grinned as Blair lay on her stomach on the floor of her bedroom as she watched Baby. Baby nuzzled her nose into Blair's hair, and Blair squealed in half disgust and half delight.

"Baby, no!" Blair rolled the orange plastic ball that they had decided was a good pastime for Baby. His phone beeped, and Blair arched an eyebrow. "Taking calls already?" she asked pointedly. "You haven't even played with Baby."

It was Serena on the line. He just knew she would respond to his message, if only to send a message from Lilly. "Good thing you're playing with him." He made his way out of the room, then turned around. "You do know he's going to detest you for naming him Baby when he's a big dog in the park and you're running around calling him that."

Blair rolled her eyes. She tossed the plastic toy ball at his stomach. "Take your call if you have to!"

Chuck felt the soft thud on his gut, and heard Baby yelp as he spotted the ball drop to the floor. "I'll be right back."

He pushed the call button and waited for Serena to answer. When she did, it was almost an unseemly squeal. "Chuck, you're back!" And it was unsettling to him how breathless and exciting she sounded for someone who barely tolerated him when they were forced together by their parents' marriage. "Why did we have to hear it from Gossip Girl?"

"I'm back. That sometimes happen after people leave," he said wryly. "That's not what I wanted to talk about."

"Mom has been frantic about you!" Serena gasped. "And your uncle has been hanging around the company and checking up on us."

He sighed. "Serena, this isn't the time for that, okay? I want to know about Blair."

There was a pregnant silence. He cleared his throat to prod her. "You probably know more than I do, judging from the picture on Gossip Girl."

"What do you mean? You haven't talked to her?"

"You know, Chuck, in the interest of peace, I think I should tell you that I will not say anything more unless you agree to dinner with the family."

He almost growled. No one blackmailed Chuck Bass. "Stuff it, sis." The world spilled so automatically that Chuck almost kicked himself.

"Listen to that," Serena crowed in delight. "Come on, Chuck," she cajoled. "Mom misses you." She sighed. "Eric misses you so much."

It was little E's name that convinced him. He did not give a rat's ass what Lilly thought. "Fine," he grumbled. "Two place settings."

"That's great! You're bringing Blair?"

He snorted. "Of course Blair's coming," Chuck snapped, as if it was the most ridiculous question he had ever heard.

"Chuck, Blair hasn't talked to anyone after she got back. She didn't even tell me about—" her voice dropped. "About the baby. Do you know how much it stings to find out about it after everyone has?"

"Wait," he interrupted. "How did everyone find out?"

"There was a picture of her blasted on Gossip Girl holding all these abortion information. And then her mom called in sick for her."

"She never came back," he concluded.

"Oh she did," Serena corrected him.

And he could imagine that moment in the courtyard so clearly, when Blair Waldorf returned to school, alone, with her head held high and everyone staring, pointing, whispering. He leaned back against the wall outside her bedroom and slid to sit on the floor. Newly recuperated from something no girl should suffer through alone, and she charged into the world, alone.

The phone clattered on the floor when he placed it down. Chuck closed his eyes. The door opened beside him, and he heard the little yelps that Baby made.

"Chuck, are you okay?" Her voice was filled with concern.

He opened his tearful eyes, and felt the guilt choke him when he saw her. He took her hand, tangled his fingers with hers, then slowly pulled her down to sit with him on the floor. She sank to her knees, then sat on the side of her hip so that she could lean against him. "I'm sorry I wasn't here," he murmured, then pressed a kiss to her cheek. "They wouldn't have dared." He heard her sigh when she figured out what he had just learned.

"I can take care of myself, Chuck," she said, but even the defensive words sounded too soft, even for her. She sounded defeated, as if the hasty bandages she had put in place to cover her wounds were slowly being peeled away.

"Then why would you let them drive you out?"

She took a deep breath, then extended her hand to the puppy. Obediently enough, Baby ran over to sniff at Blair's hand, and he thought the puppy was a perfect distraction for them both. He picked Baby up and rested him on his lap, where he imitated Blair and lay quietly leaning against Chuck.

"I was just so tired," she finished.

And despite the bravado she had shown in Bangkok, he knew that entire week had taken its toll on her. He had been trying to break through her walls for only two days and he was exhausted—and she was much nicer now closed off than he had been grieving. "You miss school," and when he said it, it was not a question.

"Of course." Blair Waldorf loved school. The lessons were black, white and shades of gray—and she was expert in finding the in betweens. "But everyone thinks I got an abortion."

Unlike Chuck, Blair cared what other people thought. Her entire universe had revolved around making the right impression, establishing herself as the girl that freshmen modeled themselves after—and until Chuck, being considered the pristine princess that Georgina Sparks had often referred to as Snow White.

"One thing I learned early on, Blair," he said, sharing the insight that had helped him survive his father and the lifestyle he had chosen, "is not to give a crap about what other people say about me."

"That's easy enough to say," she returned.

"It's easy to do too," he told her. "I'll give you instructions. Number one, stop listening to them." Blair smiled. He knew even if he could not see her face. He felt the movement against his chest. "Number two, if you do hear them, don't give a damn." And from her it elicited a chuckle.

"Lessons in Life by Charles Bass," she proclaimed.

Sitting there, on the hard uncomfortable floor outside her room when there was a bed and there were comfortable chairs only a few feet away, was illogical and impractical. But sitting there, with Blair leaning against him willing to at least respond to his questions, even if she was unwilling to volunteer information, with Baby starting to paw his way up his abdomen to his chest before sliding back to tumbling to his lap and repeating the action over and over as if never learning from his mistake, seemed a good trade off for having nothing cushioning his butt.

"So what do you say, Blair?" he asked softly. "Will you come with me on Monday?"

She pushed away and Chuck felt the cold spot that she had vacated. She looked up at him. "I'll come with you if you need me to," she said.

He shook his head. "Yale," he said.

Blair swallowed. "I can go to Yale with my grades now, even if I finish from home."

"You know it takes more than just grades, Blair," he told her. "Come with me on Monday because you miss school, because you love going, because," he continued, in a reassurance typical of the Chuck Bass that made everyone in St Jude's and Constance Billard shudder in its arrogant truth, "no matter what anyone says behind your back, you're still the queen and they know it."

And it was little, but that tiny flicker of pride that he spotted in her eyes was enough to egg him on.

"We don't need to go to school. We choose to go, and they should be grateful we go. We can buy those schools fifty times over and still have more money than any of them will see in a lifetime."

And somehow, though his words did not matter as much, the way he said them, softly, intimately, just loud enough for her to hear, he was exciting her. He could see in the way her breathing grew faster, shallower, the way she leaned towards him.

She shook her head. "You're the billionaire. I'm just a simple Upper East Side girl." Her hand moved to ruffle the fur on Baby's neck.

"And I'm in love with you," he said. And he realized he had said it twice now without hearing it back from her, as if the tables had turned and he was the one driving home the point. "We'll crush everyone who made it difficult for you." This time, the threat was explicit, and it was very real to him. Blair had gone through hell, and returned to school, her second home, her kingdom, and found no warmth or sympathy from the people who used to worship her. "If you don't want to get your hands dirty, I'll crush them for you one by one in the courtyard while you watch from the library window."

It would probably not have come as a surprise to Eleanor, but Chuck just knew if Cyrus recognized how much the prospect of destruction titillated his stepdaughter, he would have been appalled. But that reaction was what Chuck had banked on when he heard the truth about school from Serena. If those stupid little pawns in high school could not recognize who not to mess with, they would know it by the time Chuck finished with them.

Destruction came so naturally he didn't even need to drink or shoot up to do it.

Slowly, she nodded, and Chuck's pride grew at the way her lips curved in anticipation. Chuck handed Baby over to Blair, then picked himself up from the floor. He then extended his hand to help her up.

She helped him brush off the fur on his shirt, then decided that they would have to make a trip tomorrow to get a lint remover. "Baby's getting too fond of climbing all over you."

Chuck grinned wickedly. "He gets it from his mommy."

And really, she should not have looked as surprised as she did then. Chuck winked at her, and she laughed. They both turned when someone came up the steps. "Dorota!" Blair gasped.

"Snacks are served downstairs, Miss Blair."

"Thank you," she replied sweetly.

Dorota extended her hands and offered to take the puppy. Chuck nodded. Blair hugged Baby to her chest, then reluctantly surrendered him to the maid.

Chuck walked over to Dorota, and the maid held her breath in fear. "Relax, Dorota," he said softly. "The puppy can smell fear. You don't want him to think you're afraid of me, do you?"

"No, Mr Chuck," she sputtered.

"Good." He gave one last stroke on Baby's back, then informed Dorota. "We're got going to be gone long. But his toy ball in on Blair's bed, and there's some dog food by the sock drawer in the guestroom."

Dorota nodded. Blair pulled Chuck along with her and pulled him to the steps. They made their way to the dining room and arrived before Cyrus and Eleanor. She picked up a glass of orange juice and drank.

Something had been bugging him since their discussion upstairs, but Dorota's arrival made it impossible to address it. But there were always little things that told him that she did not completely believe everything he had said before, and these little things he would not let pass. In AA, they said the little things you ignored sometimes blew up to be the very things that drive a man to drink. In this case, he thought, he could not let Blair's little slips go unnoticed because they all coalesced into a bout with the porcelain goddess. "Blair, I don't believe in prenups."

She choked on her drink, then coughed into her napkin. "What?"

"My mom and my dad didn't have one. They were in love. I don't believe signing a prenup says a lot about a relationship."

"Chuck, where is this all coming from?"

"Upstairs," he told her. "When I say we can buy something, or that we have money, I mean we. Don't come back to me and say that I'm the one who has money. I don't believe in prenups."

Her eyes widened. "Your hilarious joke about buying St Jude's and Constance?" she said in disbelief. "Do you want to pick a fight about a joke?"

Chuck shrugged. "I'm not picking a fight. I'm just saying, if we're going to make this work, I think we should stop doubting each other." He nodded towards the ring. "We're both sick," he said. "You throw up when you feel really low. I drink when it gets too hard. I used to be drunk all the time because I thought my entire life was hell."

She bit her lip. "You make us sound like we're awful people."

"I haven't touched a drop in almost a month because I wanted to remember it when I said loved you," he confessed. "And you are nothing less than perfect, and I think you're nothing less than perfect. What's awful about two people like that?"

"Sometimes," she hesitated. Chuck reached for her hand to squeeze it over the table, urging her to continue. Sometimes, I think—"

"Think what?" And when she still hesitated, he caught his breath, his heart pumped steadily with his nerves.

"Sometimes I think the reason I slept with you last year was that you made me feel so wanted."

He released the breath with an audible sigh. "Any guy who doesn't want you after they know you is a fool." And he could not believe how someone like Blair Waldorf could ever have issues with her self-worth.

When Eleanor and Cyrus walked over to the table, Chuck could not prevent the pang of disappointment in his chest. He had broken through, and she had responded. But he forced a smile as the two took their seats.

"Blair," Eleanor said. Blair looked up at her mother with a smile. "My friend is launching a new line of makeup and is looking for a youthful face to use in his campaign. And I thought, who has a better face in Manhattan than my daughter?"

It was then that he realized, Eleanor and Cyrus had been there longer than he had assumed. He met Eleanor's eyes. "Blair doesn't need makeup," he said.

Eleanor turned back to her daughter. "What do you say, darling?"

Slowly, she shook her head. "I don't need to be in ad campaigns, or on billboards, mom."

Eleanor gave her a look on confusion. "But last year, you wanted so much to be on my campaign. You were crushed when we decided that Serena had the look and the personality for the line."

Blair gave her mother a lopsided smile. "It wasn't about the campaign, mom. But thank you for thinking of me for this one." Chuck saw the jerk of her wrist right before her fork clattered to the floor. Blair pushed out of her chair and said, "Look at that. My fork's dirty." She picked it up and placed it back on the table. "It's okay. I'm not hungry anyway."

She turned on her heel and ran up towards the stairs. Chuck nodded at the couple left at the table, then hurried after Blair.

He found Dorota wring her hands outside the bathroom door while Baby softly pawed the door, mewling. Chuck winced when he heard the first retch, then heard the wet noise. He gestured for Dorota to leave, and the maid did so. He picked up Baby then sat down with the puppy on the side of her bed, facing the bathroom door. He heard the vomiting sound and recognized that while he had earlier observed her dryly heaving into the sink, this time, she was actually purging something.

Long moments later, the door swung open slowly. She stepped outside on her bare feet, her shoulders slumped. He met her eyes, and in front of him he saw her clear eyes water. "What can I do?" he asked.

Blair walked over to him and took Baby in her arms, then walked to the other side of the bed. She lay down on her side with her back to him, and she hugged the puppy to her. He saw her shoulder tremble and recognized that she was crying.

Chuck pulled off his shoes, then settled on the bed behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss on the nape of her neck. Surrounded in his embrace, she sobbed.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered. "And you're perfect." She sniffled. "And I'm so in love with you." Over and over, that afternoon, he repeated the words like a chant. This was the family he had envied when he wanted so frantically to have one of his own.

When finally, she was asleep, he rested his head back in the pillows. He needed to sleep. He needed a clear head if he was going to think of a way to solve this.

tbc