She groans loudly, moans as Dorota presses the damp cloth against her head. And she turns away, turns her head to look towards the windows shut and hidden behind dark curtains. She longs to throw them open, to stare out over the land and lake built and cultivated under the promise of what she thought she was no longer entitled to. The darkness of the room is slowly suffocating her, drawing comparisons between the past and the present she swore she would not make.
Yet, the fear of the past repeating once more flares inside her as her body tightens and contracts with the pain. Frantic eyes roll towards her mother, roll towards the only woman of her acquaintance beside Dorota allowed in with her. She had originally sent her mother away yet calls for her when being left with only her lady's maid and the midwife to attend to her becomes too much to bear alone, begins to resemble the past.
And Eleanor for all her poise and perfection immediately grabs her daughter's hand and distracts her with news from downstairs, with stories of how Chuck is pacing up and down the length of the room with Aaron and Monkey trailing behind like militiamen following their commanding officer. The story is meant make her laugh, but the concern inside her morphs to include the other love of her life.
"He's just excited, my dear," Eleanor soothes as she sweeps Blair's hair from her sweaty forehead.
"What if—"
"And he made Mrs. Thornton promise to bring the baby straight to him," Eleanor interrupts. "He is quite eager to hold his baby, isn't that right, Mrs. Thornton?"
"Straight to Mister Bass," the midwife affirms as she gestures to Dorota to help her bend Blair's knees, to help her set up and prepare for the impending arrival. "After the baby's mother, of course."
"And his grandmother," Eleanor adds, continuing her insistence that the baby will be a boy.
Blair groans out her reply, shifts her body as the pain shoots up and down her back. Her hand clutches against the sheet for the shortest of moments before Eleanor grasps it once more and holds it tightly in her own. The pressure builds, mounts until tears spring to her eyes and this time, as Blair bites down on her lip to keep from screaming and bears down with all her might, she has someone to hold her hand and guide her through the anticipation and the pain and the uncertainty.
"Once more, Mrs. Bass," Mrs. Thornton bids.
The pieces of her that want to hold her baby inside her forever, to protect her child from the insecurity of the future lose out to those parts of her yearning to meet and greet and end this tonight. And the prayer on her heart, the prayer to her father and her first child to watch over her tonight slips past her lips just as her second child slides into the world.
She falls back against the pillows, falls back with a cry that is echoed in the wail of her newborn baby. Her eyes close as she listens, as she internalized the sound she never heard the first time around. The noise is enough to sustain her as Dorota presses a wet cloth against her forehead, as her mother squeezes her hand, as the midwife carries the baby to the basin of water to wash away the unsavory parts that no gentleman or lady would want to look at.
"The baby's back?" She croaks out her question, hesitant and unsure if she wants to know the answer, and her eyes open to look at her mother, to slide to watch the midwife attending to her child.
"It's a boy, Mrs. Bass," Mrs. Thornton replies, and the information causes Dorota to bounce excitedly and her mother to murmur about security and happiness. "A fine and healthy heir for your husband."
Yet the whole world does not seem to begin spinning again until her baby is turned, until the skin of the baby's back is shown to be unblemished and whole. The tears welling in the corner of her eyes fall in a torrent rain, fall as she watches her baby be bundled in soft blankets and carried over to her. And when baby is placed in her arms, when her hands curl protectively around the first child of hers that she was ever allowed to hold, she marvels over the healthy child squirming and screaming in her arms. Despite the differences between then and now, one thing remains the same; repeating itself as her heart lurches into her throat and an unimaginable amount of love pours through her.
"Ma chérie," she coos as her lips brush over the features of his face that are a reflection of his father's.
The rhythmic pounding of his boots against the floor echoes about the room, attracting the attention of all those seated about the drawing room waiting with him. He turns on his heels and heads towards the windows at the opposite side of the room, ignoring the glass of scotch his best friend is holding out to him in a silent offering. His gaze falls on the lake in front of his property, on the water sparkling under the glare of the setting sun.
The ducks paddling happily across the water and watching them bobbing and floating across the surface causes his gaze to soften, cause his hands to unfurl and relax against his side. He sighs softly, turns on the heel of his boot to face those seated about the room.
"Does it normally take this long?"
Anxiety laid bare in his voice, he looks from his father-in-law to his best friend for an answer to his concern. The last time he had been this intimately involved, he had retired to bed expecting to be an older brother and awoke nine hours later to find that he had been robbed of his mother and left an only child with a father torn apart by anguish sometime in the middle of the night. And now as the hours tick by, as he paces across the floor, his concern mounts and grows and brings him to the edge of sheer panic.
"Maybe I should—" He begins, looking towards the door and contemplating taking the stairs two at a time. His best friend moves from the chair to clasp him on the back, to steer him towards the newly abandoned chair and the glass brimming with his chosen vice.
"You'd just be in the way," Nate informs him with the knowledge of a man who has been through this many times before. "Lady Rose will call you up when both Blair and the baby are presentable."
Chuck frowns, shrugging Nate's hand off his shoulder and standing once more. He looks to his father-in-law seated across from him with his young son curled up asleep in his lap, to his wife's best friend trying to offer him supportive smiles despite the way her hands ring with worry.
"I'm supposed to hold the baby immediately," he reminds those gathered. His words come out in a haggard whisper and he repeats them again in a stronger tone, in a forceful reminder that he promised Blair that he would hold and love and cherish this baby no matter what. Daughter or son. Healthy or hurting. "I promised Blair."
"And you will," Cyrus interjects as he runs his hand through the soft, baby fuzz finally sprouting on top of Aaron's head.
The excitement of becoming an uncle, the way he marched behind Chuck for hours wore the little boy out, and he climbed into his father's lap and fallen asleep after extracting a promise to wake him immediately once the baby arrived. Both Cyrus and Eleanor had tried to leave Aaron at Rosehaven with his nursemaid when they received Chuck's hasty dispatch to come to the Empire immediately. But the little boy had turn to tears when his schemes failed him, crying in a language neither of them understood until they agreed to allow him to come.
"But I also know my stepdaughter would not be pleased if you barged in and saw her-"
The opening of the door cuts Cyrus off mid-sentence, sends Chuck's head snapping towards it in equal parts eager anticipation and concern. And the smile on his mother-in-law's face is enough of a prompt to send him striding towards her, asking in strangled tones all the questions that have gone unanswered since the wee hours of the morning when Blair had shoved him out of their bed and told him to call for the midwife.
"Is she - and the baby?"
Eleanor steps aside and allows the midwife to step forward, to show off the tiny bundle in her arms. The blankets the child has been wrapped in block Chuck's view, and he gingerly pulls back the blankets to afford himself a first look at his child. The baby's relaxed features and closed eyes give him just a moment of pause, but then lips pucker and open partway as the child moves and squirms in the midwife's arms.
"A healthy son to inherit your empire, Charles," Eleanor informs him in a surprisingly soft voice for the matriarch he grew up knowing.
"A son," he repeats because as the days turned into weeks and as Blair hide herself behind cleverly draped fabrics, he had become convinced the baby would, in fact, be a girl. A little girl who would look like his wife and have him so firmly wrapped around her dainty fingers.
Of course, Chuck had never told Blair this because despite the way he tried to soothe her fears, there was a part of her that never really could dream along side him and a part of him that feared his own past would repeat itself. A boy, an heir to carry on the name seemed unimaginable for him just as much as for her.
"And Blair?" He asks, tearing his gaze from the baby's soft features to look at the wizened face of the midwife.
"Dorota is helping her right now," Eleanor replies for the midwife. "But she was very insist that we bring the baby to you so you can keep your promise to her."
Chuck nods his head, looks back at the baby for just a moment before sweeping his gaze to the empty chair closest to them. He begins to gesture towards, to suggest that maybe he should sit, when the midwife waves away his concern.
"You're not going to drop your son," the midwife replies. "Never in all my years has a man dropped his heir."
And he finds himself questioning how many men actually hold their newborn baby because in the all the years where his acquaintances have married and return to his parties with their lineage secure, not a single one mentioned holding their infant son or daughter. Nursemaids and wet nurses were the carriers of choice, employed to keep the infant quiet and healthy until the son was old enough to join the hunting party and the daughter was old enough to be traded for land, title, and prestige.
"Only the ones who truly love their wife," the midwife replies as she moves the baby from her embrace to his, as she watches the darkness behind his eyes replaced with the shining light of love and happiness. And Charles Bass - the rake, the fodder for gossipers from the most prestigious ballrooms to the dining hall of taverns - gently strokes his child's plump cheek and softly offers the God his wife so firmly holds onto a word of thanks.
Those assembled in the room move towards him, move to get a closer look at the baby are forced to wait just a while longer as Chuck slides past his mother-in-law and the midwife to slowly ascend the stairs and return to his wife's side.
Dorota oversees the removal of the sheets and the cleaning of the room by the chambermaids as she runs a brush through Blair's hair, as she helps her mistress change into another nightgown. It is she that spies Mister Bass standing in the doorway, and she discretely shoos the chambermaids out of the room before following out the door behind them.
Chuck moves slowly across the room to take a seat on the bed beside his wife and carefully passes the baby back into her waiting arms. She smiles at the babe in arms, sweeps her shining eyes to look at him when Chuck presses a tender kiss against her temple.
"I love you."
"I love you, too," she replies with a blissful sigh. "Your heir needs a name."
"Our son," he corrects immediately, and the rush of air that escapes past her lips is more a laugh of happiness than a content agreement. This isn't her baby or his heir, but their wonderful and marvelous and healthy son. Mutual ownership that is a far cry from the way the blame and sorrow was placed upon her the first time around.
"Our son needs a name. And, please, do not suggest Charles Bass the second. The world can only handle one Chuck Bass."
The processional into the drawing room begins with the nurse carrying in the newest member of the Bass family and ends with the delighted parents sweeping into the room with Blair's hand curled around her husband's arm. Chuck touches her fingers, holds her hand against his arm as the guest watch them assemble at the front of the room near the makeshift alter. For many in attendance, this is their first look at the new mother yet all eyes, including Blair's, are fixed on the child held in the arms of the nurse.
"Congratulation, my child," Father George bids to Blair softly with a smile. The letter sent asking him to officiate the christening ceremony had come soon after the baby's birth and he had readily agree, willing to brave the long journey from his country parish to the Bass' country estate in order to see the woman and man he married beam with happiness and trade sly smiles when they thought no one was looking.
He clears his throat, begins the ceremony as he would if this was occurring in his parish. The question as to who sponsors this child is met with the bow of the woman standing on the left and the man standing on the right of the party assembled to watch. Lady Serena van der Woodsen and Lord Nathaniel Archibald were reintroduced to him soon after his arrival at the Empire, but even in his old age can he remember Mister and Mrs. Bass's longest and closest friends who stood up with them at their wedding. And soon enough he reaches the portion of the service in which he must take the child he has yet to hold in his arms.
The baby's godmother takes the infant from the nurse, carefully adjusting his long and opulent white christening gown and repeating the name which the baby is to be given as she passes him to Father George. And the clergyman tugs back the baby's lace bonnet just enough to sprinkle holy water on his head, to recite a prayer of acceptance and love over the little boy that has clearly brought so much joy and happiness to this household.
"I baptise thee, Henry Charles Bass, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."
The baby watches with wide eyes as the water is sprinkled on his head, and Father George offers him an indulgent smile, holding him just a little longer than necessary before passing him back to the baby's godmother. Henry is held in Serena's arms until the conclusion of the ceremony at which time Blair eagerly scoops up her baby and holds him while she makes her rounds about the room. The nurse hired to care of the baby follows behind her accustomed to such an active role on the part of Henry's mother even if those here to see the Bass heir on exhibit are not.
Chuck thanks Father George for coming, for officiating yet another important ceremony in their lives for his wife and invites the clergyman to join him and the men in attendance in assembling in another room for a different kind of refreshment than the ones being served to the women. And Father George agrees with a laugh and a comment about it being alright so long as there is no cause for him to assemble a makeshift confessional at the end of the evening.
The baby is passed from mother to nurse after everyone in attendance has had the opportunity to admire Blair's triumph in securing her husband's lineage and happiness in becoming a mother. Serena, of course, is the only one to publicly comment on the later, and Blair's smile slips as she eyes her dearest friend.
"I wish you would stay," Blair replies softly, and Serena gives her a tender hug in apology. She needs to go to Santorini one final time and find the answers she has been yearning for, and Dan's position as a reporter to the crown from Italy will afford her the opportunity to escape from under the oppressive gaze of society and finally marry the man she has been in love with for five long years.
"We will write one another about everything. The good and the bad, B," Serena reminds her. And then her fingers reach out to touch the heart-shaped charm against Blair's neck, to remind Blair of her own happy ending that Serena has always wanted for her best friend and now wants for herself. "And I will be back long before Henry finds a young lady he wants to give this to as much as Chuck wanted to give it to you."
Spotted: This author setting aside her writing instruments and packing her bags for a voyage across the seas. No, that is not a tear of sadness in my eye but rather a tear of happiness and hope that the happiness of the Bass Empire will be found in the Roman Empire, as well.