"I didn't mean for this to happen." She said lowly. But he was barely listening. The thoughts in his head were louder than everyone in the café. In a moment he saw his life flash before his eyes. All of the days of hurt and pain. The days of laughter and smiles.
The days where he didn't quite know where he stood.
He had a sudden image of his daughters in their favorite matching pink dresses running through Central Park grinning. Scarlett was laughing, her tendrils bouncing up and down as she ran. Elizabeth was reaching for Scarlett's hand, a smile planted on her face. Suddenly it got dark outside and the wind started to blow. The girls slowed to a stop and flipped their heads around. As they turned, their dresses bled into a devastating black. They looked into Chuck's eyes with pained faces. But he couldn't run to them or comfort him. Because he was falling…falling…
"Chuck." She said a tad more firmly. He snapped out of his vision and slammed his hands on the table. Her eyes were filled with tears.
"But you're not even going to fight." He said bitterly. She cocked her head and pressed her lips together in a thin line.
"It's terminal. I've come to accept that. This way I can spend my last months living life to the fullest and can say my proper goodbyes." Chuck shook his head.
"Why wouldn't you go through chemotherapy and fight to live on? Why are you just letting yourself die?" He said. She looked into his dark eyes and knew he was hurt.
"It's better this way. When your father died…"
"Don't!" Chuck yelled, pounding his fist on the table. She felt a tear roll down her cheek.
"I don't want this to be painful for you. That's why I'm doing it this way." She begged, reaching for his trembling hand. He yanked it away and stood up.
"Well you decided wrong." He shot. With that he turned and stormed out of the café, leaving his torn and teary-eyed mother Elizabeth Fisher alone to reflect.
Chuck Bass had two options. He could go home to his perfect family and cry in his wife's arms. Or he could go back to his old devices and drink his sorrows away. He looked down at his watch. It was five o'clock. He was due home for dinner at six thirty. He had the time to spare. Maybe one or two drinks would make him feel better. Scotch also had a way of numbing him like nothing else could. He turned and walked down the street briskly. Carolers lined the streets singing melodious Christmas songs. Chuck glared at them as he passed. He always hated Christmas tunes and fluffy celebrations. And he was far from feeling jolly.
He wasn't even thinking about where he was headed. In fact, he wasn't thinking about much of anything. The news essentially blocked the blood from flowing into his brain. All he saw was reds and blacks and blues. The wrongs of the world. He ignored the little children selling cookies on the street because he knew if he even looked at them for a second it would remind him of his own. Thinking about them brought on even more unbearable pain. How he was going to break this news to them, their heartbroken faces, the sobs that would follow. And deep down inside, a fear boiled inside that they would turn out like him. That they wouldn't know how to deal with their pain and loss. Even at four years old, he feared for the worst. He saw it on the television and even before his eyes. Kids getting shattered young and growing brokenly. In essence, that was him. Maybe there wasn't one event he could pick out that traumatized him, but he had indeed grown up shattered.
For years and years, he thought he had killed his mother only to find she was alive. Then she came and betrayed him. He thought he would never speak to her again. That maybe it was better he believe she was dead. But when she came back with a story and a need for forgiveness, he had let her in. The way she looked at her newborn granddaughters was something Chuck had never seen before. Sure Lily looked at them with an unbelievable amount of pure love and nurture, but this was a look beyond that. Elizabeth was a blood bond. And although that never deterred Chuck from treating Lily any different, that did change some perspective. Who was he to keep a grandmother from her grandchildren? He was kept from his own mother for so long that it just felt unbelievably wrong to do that to Scarlett and Beth.
Over the years, he grew closer to her. The twins grew attached to her by the hip. There was Nanna (Lily), Mere (Eleanor), and then came Grandma Izzie. The two loved their grandparents on the same, but there was something about Izzie that brought out to the human eye an ever deeper compassion. All of these years, Chuck could not figure it out. It still baffled him to this day. How his two little girls saw as much light in Elizabeth as they did their own mother. She was no spectacular woman by any means. After she worked on her relationship with him and Blair, she had gone back to school to finish her medical degree. After two years, she became a midwife. The irony had made Chuck laugh and she had scolded him. She was still troubled by that tale. She had lived a life of lies, trouble, deceit, and wrong choices. But in the end, she had come out alright. Maybe it had taken her forty two years to finally find her place, but she did. And Chuck was proud of her.
Proud of them.
They had made it through the torment of Bart and Jack Bass. Through twisted love stories and messy trysts. And in the end, love prevailed over everything else.
Chuck stopped in front of his destination. He looked at the bustling streets of Manhattan in front of him and took in a deep breath of the cool winter air. How was it loving for her to leave him? To not only leave him, but her daughter-in-law who she honored so much and her two little granddaughters? Why wouldn't she put up a fight? Nothing was going to come to anyone if they didn't fight. If Chuck didn't fight for Blair, he most certainly wouldn't be where he was. He probably would have never forgiven Elizabeth either. His daughters were the glue to the broken relationship. No Blair meant no daughters. He had to stand there and wonder what his life could've turned out like if he didn't fight so damn hard. Would he still be the womanizing Chuck Bass he once was? Would he have never grown to love his family so deeply? The heaviness in his heart was sinking him to the concrete. He needed to numb it fast. He turned and looked at the restaurant with dark eyes. He wasn't seeking Blair's arms to make the pain go away.
He was seeking numbness.
Blair looked at the clock. Seven o'four. Where was he? He was never late. Her husband was a punctual man. If he was running late, he would have called or texted. She pulled her Blackberry out of her dress pocket and clicked the screen on. No notifications.
"Ms. Blair, dinner getting cold." Dorota informed her. She shot her second mother a glare.
"Well heat it up in the oven then! I'm not eating without him." She said coolly. Dorota's lips formed a thin line and her eyes darted across the room. Blair knew her maid. She was about to suggest something she knew she wouldn't like.
"Maybe meeting with mother not go so well. You should call him." Blair stood in front of her contemplating. A sudden worry grew in the pit of her stomach. She shook her head.
"I'll give him another ten minutes." She replied. Dorota gave her a hesitant look before hustling back to the kitchen. Chuck would come. She knew he would. Even if the meeting with his mother didn't go well, he'd always come back to her.
Right?
"Mommy, I'm hungry!" A small voice complained. Blair tore her eyes from the closed elevator to the little girl beneath her.
"Daddy will be home soon Scarlett. Then we can eat. Where's your sister?" Scarlett shrugged.
"In her room I think. She's been in there a while." Blair became concerned now for her other daughter. The twins were usually attached at the hip. Why was Beth being so distant today?
"Scarlett why don't you take a seat at the table. I'm going up to talk to Beth." Blair directed. Scarlett followed her mother's directions and took a seat in her spot at the table. She played with her curls in content as her mother climbed the staircase. Blair nervously went up to Beth's door and knocked.
"Beth I'm coming in." Blair said as she opened the door. Beth was sitting on her bed looking mysteriously out the window. She cautiously took a seat next to her and looked at the window to try and see what she was looking at. All it was to her was the typical city streets, bustling with excitement and energy. Carolers lined the streets along with horses and carriages. The Christmas air was running through the streets, an air she knew her daughters both loved to breathe. While Thanksgiving was always Blair's favorite holiday, she loved Christmas as well. Her father still came and joined her as well as Roman and for those couple of days, she really felt complete. Family always came first to Blair over everything, and Christmastime brought that to life. Blair turned and looked at her daughter. Her eyes were still transfixed on the street below.
"Beth honey, what are you looking at?" Blair asked quietly. The little girl turned and looked up at her.
"Everyone being happy." She replied, smiling faintly. Blair wrapped her arm around her back.
"Are you not happy baby? What's wrong?" Blair asked, concern dripping in her voice. Beth shook her head.
"No, I'm very happy right now. But I feel like something bad is going to happen." Blair's brows furrowed.
"Wha-why?" Blair murmured. Beth looked down at the ground.
"Sometimes, I get these feelings. Usually they're good ones. Like sometimes I feel when Auntie Serena is coming over with Will even if I don't know. Or Mere and Cyrus are coming to town. Or even when Daddy brings me home a present. I get these little warm feelings. But now…I'm feeling cold. And I don't know what to make of it." Blair didn't know what to think. Was this just a figment of Beth's imagination? Some sort of game? Or did she really get these psychic feelings? She remembered about Chuck being late and suddenly she felt like she was going to be sick. This all had to be a twisted dream.
"Mommy, is Daddy home yet?" She asked. Blair shuddered.
"No sweetheart. But he is on his way." Blair murmured shakily. Beth hugged her mother.
"Everything's going to be okay Momma. It's just a feeling." She picked her daughter up and brought her downstairs.
"Dorota, we can start serving."
Chuck brought his hands to his face and started digging swirls into his forehead. He had lost track of the amount of drinks he had consumed, but he know it was more than he had planned. Sweat brimmed his hairline and his head pounded with fear mixed in with alcohol. It was working though. He was feeling numb. His whole body felt like it was floating in a time warp. Time. Chuck's head shot to the clock over the bar. Seven thirty.
"Shit." He cursed under his breath. He looked down at the half-empty tumbler filled with sweet scotch and breathed heavily. He brought his shaking hand to the tumbler and downed it in one large gulp. The tumbler hit the bar with a loud bang, making the young bartender jump. Chuck closed his eyes and threw back his head in alcoholic ecstasy as the scotch trickled down his throat. It had been so long. Too long. He was tired of fighting. In that moment, he could almost understand his mother. She was tired of fighting every single day. She just wanted to die. Morbid thoughts rushed through his head. Maybe Blair would be better off without him. His twins too. He knew in the end he would be a failure. Maybe Elizabeth was just cutting to the chase to avoid that. But as he listened to his heavy pounding heart, he knew that as long as it beated it would keep Blair alive. And if it stopped she would die with it. He could never do what Elizabeth was doing. He always had to be that fighter. For Blair, for his daughters. But he was tired, so tired, of fighting his feelings. With his mother's cancer came darkness, darkness he had avoided for almost five years. With the loss of his miscarried daughter came a darkness, but he had fought out of it. Now it seemed as though it was back. The darkness was always floating outside of him, ready to move in. He was so tired of fighting it off. So tonight, he would let it take him.
"Another round sir."
Blair washed the girls in the tub alone that night. She had texted and left a voicemail. With every tick of the grandfather clock in her foyer came even more fear. She kept a weak smile on for her girls, especially Elizabeth. She didn't know what to make of her daughter's inclines yet. But something told her they were about to become pretty accurate.
She had tucked them each into their beds and read them their favorite books. Neither one of them asked where their father was. She knew they probably both suspected she was upset about it and didn't want to bring it up. So she had both promised them after she kissed them goodnight that their father would later reciprocate when he came home.
But it was eleven thirty now and still no Chuck. She twisted her nightgown in her hands as she paced the room. She thought about her daughter's incline again. What if something terrible had happened to Chuck? What if he was hurt? She could almost hear the gunshots blasting through her ears. She gripped her vanity and breathed heavily. Grabbing her phone, she quickly dialed a number.
"Elizabeth." Blair breathed. There was a suspicious silence for a moment.
"Blair? Why are you calling this late?" Blair gulped.
"Chuck is not home." She murmured. Another silence.
"Elizabeth what happened when you met at the café. Because as far as I know he was fine when he got there." Blair asked worriedly. Silence again.
"Elizabeth what happened?" Blair yelled, gripping the vanity for dear life. She heard a sniffle on the other end.
"I told him…"
"Told him what?" Blair cried.
"I told him that I have cancer. Terminal cancer." Blair lost her breath and slumped down into her chair.
"I have to go." She said in an audible whisper. She hung up the phone and immediately dialed another one.
"Serena. Get someone to watch Will. You and Nate need to help me find Chuck. It's serious."
So I know a lot of people don't like AU (me included) and I know that there are a lot of things different in this story (Blair's baby in Season 5 being Chuck's, Elizabeth being Chuck's mom, SereNate, the twins, etc.) but I hope you'll give it a shot. From this chapter on, things are going to get more actiony and less descriptions. I just needed to get a good intro first. This story does go hand-in-hand with my other story All We Have Left as well as The Basses Take Disney, so if you haven't read them I suggest you at least give them a shot. Even if you don't though this story will still be clear to you.
Let me know what you think in the reviews! I love to get them. I will be updating much more now that I have more time on my hands.
XOXO, Becca