A/N: The following chapter contains thoughts of suicide and discussion of postpartum depression/postpartum ptsd. Please be forewarned of these sensitive topics. I tried to handle them realistically and sensitively. PPD is under-diagnosed, and sadly a lot of women don't get the help they need.

Chapter 8

Not even Serena knew about the night shortly after Cora was born that Blair sat in an ice cold bath with her three-month-old daughter sleeping in a baby-lounger beside the tub. Complications during labor led to an emergency c-section, and she had been prescribed Oxycodone for pain relief. Blair was always weary of the effects of narcotics on her body, even more so now that she was nursing a fragile baby, so she'd never actually taken any of the pills, instead relying on ibuprofen when the pain became too intense. She was so utterly alone that she was at her breaking point. Her mother, Serena, Nate, Lily, Dorota - they had all been so attentive in the beginning, making sure that she took care of herself, that she napped and had breaks that few single mothers got. After the first six weeks or so, the visits became less frequent, the assistance sparse. Dorota was always there of course, but Blair pretended like she was more of a nuisance than anything because she felt guilt for taking Dorota away from Ana so often.

On this particular night, she'd sent Dorota home early, her mother was in Paris, and Serena was on a date. Blair looked over at her sleeping baby, her brown hair just starting to sprout in sporadic curls around her head. She was so small and so innocent, and Blair felt immensely guilty for the thoughts creeping into her mind. It hurt so much when the dark thoughts of abandoning her daughter entered her mind, but life was hard and she was lonely. She didn't take joy in Cora; she locked herself in the bathroom and cried nearly every night. Sometimes she would hear Cora crying in her bassinet, and she would imagine a life without her, a life where she was still a college student, where she still had a social life - a life where she was happy with Chuck. As a new mother, she should be bubbling over with happiness, right? She told herself that she was selfish and undeserving to be Cora's mother, and the sadness washed over her so severely that she felt like she was drowning in that shallow tub.

She turned the bottle of Oxy over and over in her hands: she would never do it; she would never do that Cora. It was so incredibly tempting though. She could just fade into nothingness. She wouldn't have to feel the pain anymore; it would be the ultimate freedom from the torment that she'd suffered over the past seven months. She was just so tired and sad that each day felt like a new mountain that she would never be able to climb. No one noticed her pain. Chuck would've noticed; he should be there with her, with their baby. The unfairness of the entire situation hit her hard, and she could feel her anxiety growing to an unbearable degree. She submerged herself under the water, wishing she could drift away to a different time in her life.

When she emerged from the water, she heard Cora whimper in her sleep, and Blair whispered, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that you don't have a father, and your mother is a trainwreck."

Cora's whimpers turned to cries of hunger, and Blair immediately dislodged herself from the tub and dried her wet body with a fluffy towel, placing a light nursing robe around herself. She picked up the baby and carried her into the nursery, cradling her in the crook of her arm as she sat in the gray rocker near Cora's crib. She offered her nipple to the squirming infant, and Cora immediately began suckling at her mother's breast. Blair felt tears slowly trek down her cheeks, and she stroked her daughter's head softly. "Please don't give up on me," she whispered into the darkness, "I won't do this to you. I'll get help, I promise."

XOXO

Blair watched her daughter's chest rise and fall in a silent indication that she had finally succumbed to her exhaustion and fell asleep aboard the large aircraft carrying them across the Atlantic. In the quiet of the first class cabin, she was alone with her thoughts for the first time since her second encounter with Chuck. What no one knew was that she'd spent years blaming herself; she feared that she had overreacted to the Jenny issue and spurred him to the events that caused his death. Logically, she understood that the only person at fault was the man with the gun, but on a deeply emotional level, she couldn't help but think that he would be alive if only she'd…what? Just forgiven him for sleeping with Jenny Humphrey? That would've never happened, but she would give anything if she had done something differently; she just didn't know what she could have done differently.

When he showed up at her door tonight, she was terrified, and her reaction had been one of self-preservation. If she talked to him, who knows what would happen to her already fragile mental state. She was the only parent Cora knew, and she had to stay healthy for her. She remembered back to her early days of motherhood when she had been so mentally unstable that she was unsure of her own ability to care for her daughter properly. In the end, she blamed herself unfairly for her postpartum depression, but she also blamed Chuck and his self-destructive tendencies.

For years, she'd mourned the loss of a man who wasn't actually dead. She lost so much of who she was to a lie. He'd robbed her of years of stability and sanity. After she'd gotten over the shock of his appearance, she'd felt relief - happiness even - that he was safe and alive. She'd waited for years for news that he was okay, no matter at what cost. But that feeling was short lived when the harsh reality hit her: she'd raised her daughter alone without a father; she'd grieved a loss that she never actually suffered. Everything had been a lie, and she had to numb herself to the heartache before she fell apart.

Why had he even bothered to try and speak to her tonight? He had six years to find her, and now he wanted to talk? Why would he leave his entire life in New York - his friends, his money, her - behind? It was as if none of them mattered to him in the least. Chuck Bass really was a heartless man, and she'd been foolish to ever think that he was capable of loving her in the same way she loved him.

For you. Because you deserved better.

She didn't believe him; she couldn't. If he'd cared about her in the least then he would've never put her through hell by letting her think he was dead. He had to know what that would do to her. He made a conscious choice to destroy her even more than he already had. He took the small fragments of her heart that were still clinging together and shattered them into unrecognizable shards.

"Blair?" Serena's voice cut into Blair's inner thoughts, and she startled, having forgotten that the blonde was even in the seat next to her.

"Yeah?" she asked softly.

"Are you okay? You haven't talked about it." Serena's blue eyes shined in the darkness, imploring Blair not to shut down on her.

"I'm fine. I just have to focus on Cora."

"Don't you think you should at least talk to him?" She knew that the question was risky, but she didn't want to see Blair make a huge mistake.

Blair glared at her, anger radiating through her eyes, "Why should I? He's the one who decided to disappear for six years."

"You don't know why -" Serena started.

" Does it matter why?" Blair snapped, careful to keep her voice down so she didn't wake Cora. "I went through hell without him. You know that better than anyone, and you think I should talk to him, just open my heart back up and let him trample all over it for a second time? Subject Cora to the heart-rending knowledge that her father is alive but he has nothing to do with her? Tell me, Serena, that you think that's what I should do!"

"Okay, let's talk about Cora," Serena didn't back down; she pushed harder, "How do you think she will feel when she finds out that you kept this monumental secret from her? How will she feel knowing that her mother kept her from a potential relationship with her father? I know how that feels, and the answer is that that pain is just as bad as not having a father at all, maybe worse. She deserves to know him."

"She can never find out!" Blair's heart rate accelerated, and her hands began to tremble. She just wanted to tell Serena to shut up, but she knew that there was some truth to her words. It terrified her; what if Cora resented her for her secrets? What if her daughter hated her forever? "I can never forgive him for what he's put us through. She deserved to know a father who was present in her life from day one; he's lost that right."

"You don't need to forgive him, but I know you and you will always regret it if you do nothing and just let him disappear from your life again," Serena warned, her voice mirroring her desperation.

Blair closed her eyes tightly and clenched her fists in her lap. Serena had no right to try to guilt her into a conversation with Chuck. "I didn't let him disappear the first time. I'm pretty sure he accomplished that on his own."

Serena would always support her best friend; God knows that she's been through more than anyone her age should, but she couldn't allow her to do this. She changed tactics, knowing that she was about to enrage her even more, but it had to be done. She could handle Blair's wrath and whatever repercussions came with it. "It's not up to you," her blue eyes shined in defiance.

"What?" Blair sneered in disbelief.

"You're not the only one who grieved for Chuck. You're not the only one he left."

"I'm the only one who gave birth to his child," Blair gestured to Cora, daring Serena to challenge her further.

"That may be so, but I lost a brother, Mom lost her son, Nate lost his best friend. This decision isn't yours to make alone. I, for one, am not ready to lose him all over again, and I'm almost positive that Mom and Nate will feel the same way."

"If you do this -" Blair threatened, tears brimming in her eyes and she wasn't sure if it was from her anger over Serena's perceived betrayal or her fear of what it would all mean.

"What? You won't be my friend anymore?" She asked in irritation, but her voice grew softer as she watched the panic cloud Blair's eyes, "We both know that isn't true. Look, you don't even have to see him or talk to him, but I can't pass up the only chance that I might get to bring him back into our life. You know what this has done to Mom; it wouldn't be fair to hide this from her - or from Nate."

Blair let the tears fall. She knew that Serena was right; she didn't have authority over what the others chose to do, and it was completely unfair for her to ask Serena to keep this to herself. Lily had lost so much weight and fell sick with unknown illness after Chuck's disappearance; her health was so fragile that there was a brief time that they were afraid that her condition was terminal. Nate completely let himself go; he skipped classes at Columbia before deciding to take a year off. When he returned, his academic performance was so subpar that he nearly didn't graduate. He was like a lost puppy, just wandering through life looking for someone to love him. She nodded and reached out to grasp Serena's hand in a gesture meant as a white flag of understanding, "Just promise me that Cora won't see him. She's already seen his picture, so his presence is even more of a risk."

"She's our first priority, always," Serena agreed.

"And Chuck can't know he's her father -" she whispered quietly but forcefully.

"B-"

"This is my decision to make, and it's final." The seriousness etched into Blair's countenance told Serena that this was non-negotiable, so she relented reluctantly, counting this conversation as a small win.

XOXO

A week later, Chuck still hadn't been able to process his encounter with Blair. He couldn't even rationalize his decision to go see her. He had convinced himself that he needed to stay as far away from her as he could, that it was for her own good if he just pretended like none of it had ever happened. Yet, somehow, even as he made plans to convince Eva to leave Paris once and for all, he found himself in a car headed to Harold's chateau. He didn't even know if she was there, but he had to see her. There was a strange supernatural pull guiding his movements, and he couldn't understand what was happening until she threw open the door in exasperation.

He nearly stumbled to the ground when he saw her up close. She was devastatingly beautiful, even more than he remembered, even more than his few saved pictures showed. His chest ached, and he longed to erase the past six years and pull her into his arms. He barely heard her pleas for him to leave above the beating of his heart, but when he saw the pain reflecting in her eyes, he knew he had made a mistake. His one promise to himself years ago was that she would never shed another tear because of him; he would die before he caused her any more pain. Yet here he was, making her cry simply by existing.

When he'd returned home, Eva was extra needy, and it simply annoyed him. She cuddled up to him on the sofa, and he forced himself to stroke her arm as he typically would, but it felt wrong. He felt like he was in a foreign place with a complete stranger, and he yearned to push her off of him. The guilt crept back into his mind, and he placed a kiss against her temple in feigned affection. It was all he could offer her.

"I went to the hospital to check on Blair," she said.

He tensed and tried to force his body to relax before she noticed his reaction to Blair's name. "Oh," he acknowledged, offering no further comment.

"She's going to be okay."

"That's good."

"I showed her a picture of us. She said you resemble an old friend from New York."

"Hmm," he had to change the subject. He didn't want to lie to her, but he couldn't tell her the truth. It would devastate her and open too many questions about his real identity that he couldn't answer. He stood with a fake yawn, "It's been a long day; I'm going to bed."

Now as he sat at the bar top in the pastry shop sipping his morning coffee, he wanted nothing more than to find a pub and get trashed. His life wasn't what it was supposed to be. He had been meant for greatness, but the darkness that owned his soul devoured any chance he had to be the man that he could've been, the man who would've been worthy of Blair.

He heard a light tapping on the front door, and he groaned at the impatient customers who were too entitled to wait until opening time. He checked his watch: 9:52 am. He still had 8 minutes, and he wasn't going to open the doors early. He was in too foul a mood to put on a chipper face right then and welcome people into the shop that he didn't even want to own. He scoffed at the thought: the great Chuck Bass had been reduced to a pastry chef. He had once been willing to sacrifice the love of his life for his legacy, and now, he was nothing. He hated feeling this way. He hated the fact that he resented Eva for the fact that he felt this way. He thought being a good person was enough, but when he looked at his life, he was miserable.

The customer at the front door was relentless in their pursuit of breakfast sweets, and the noise grew to a banging hard enough to crack the glass. Chuck really needed to reign in his temper, but he headed toward the main entrance anyway, ready to give the guy a piece of his mind and possibly lose a customer. He didn't care. He didn't care if the little shop succeeded; the only reason he put in any effort was for Eva and for the hope of finally accepting the life that he had sentenced himself to.

He stopped when he saw another familiar, unexpected figure standing on the opposite side of the glass door. He drew a deep breath and slowly, hesitantly walked forward to unlock the door. "Nathaniel Archibald," he tried to speak with some level of confidence, but there was a self-doubt in his voice that Nate wasn't used to hearing from Chuck Bass.

"Hey, man," Nate smiled awkwardly and entered the building when Chuck motioned for him to continue. He wanted to hug him, but it felt inappropriate, like it would cause Chuck to shut down immediately. He needed him to be open for the conversation that he needed to have with him, so he simply reached out to shake Chuck's hand. "It's been a while."

Chuck nodded weakly without a verbal reply and returned the latch to its place, securely locking the door; he figured that his regular customers could deal with an unexpected closure for once. "Follow me," he led his long-lost friend down a narrow corridor to a creaky set of stairs that led to the second-floor apartment that he and Eva resided in above the bakery.

Nate felt like he had entered an alternate reality. Chuck Bass was living in a clean but meager one bedroom apartment with minimal furnishings and not an ounce of luxury in sight. Chuck motioned to the small sofa situated in the center of the room. They sat in silence for several moments, unsure of how to begin. Nate took the opportunity to really study Chuck. He was thinner, more muscular from the looks of his fitted t-shirt. His hair was shaggy and curled around his ears. He had a light sweeping of brown stubble across his jaw, and there was darkness wearing underneath his eyes. He looked tired and defeated, like he wasn't really taking care of himself, despite being in better physical shape than he was in six years ago.

"What are you doing here?" Chuck was the first to speak, and there was a tremor to his voice that Nate found disconcerting, like he would break at any given moment. He felt like he didn't know the man sitting in front of him.

"I came to bring you home, Chuck," Nate said with an authority that he didn't actually own.

"Look around, dear Nathaniel, I am home," he smirked, and Nate finally saw his old friend hidden behind uncertain eyes. Chuck thought it was a special bittersweet torment to see Nate after all of this time; he couldn't let his guard down. No matter how close they had been years ago, they didn't have a place in each other's lives anymore. He tried to forget that he once considered Nate to be his brother, that they had had a bond thicker than blood, because now, it meant nothing. Too much had happened; too much time had passed.

"C'mon, man," Nate shook his head, "This isn't Chuck Bass."

"You're right. I'm Henry Prince now; Chuck Bass died years ago," he was short in his response, fire slowly starting to return to his spirit. "Now, I'd love to catch up, hear all about the exploits you've gotten yourself into since I've been away, but if you are going to give me a spiel about how I need to return to New York, you're wasting your time."

"Dammit, Chuck," he cursed, his voice raising to a point that startled Chuck. "You're just the same selfish bastard you've always been, aren't you?"

"If you traveled all this way just to insult me, then you could be a little more creative," Chuck sneered, "But I suppose that you finally smoked away those few brain cells that you had left floating around, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

"This was a mistake," Nate shook his head, a mixture of frustration and defeat clouding his expression, "I was wrong to think that you would ever care about anyone other than yourself. It doesn't matter what your name is - you'll never change."

Something that Nate said caught Chuck's attention, but he shook his head and adamantly declared, "No one wants me back in New York. Maybe you, but I made everyone else's life hell. I'm better off here."

"Blair -" It was the wrong tactic, and he knew it as soon as her name left his mouth.

"Blair made it perfectly clear exactly how much she wants me to stay out of her life," Chuck practically growled, rage flowing through his veins at the mention of her name.

"She was in shock, Chuck! You left her without a word. Of course, she was surprised. She's been through hell -" He sighed when he could see Chuck's eyes darken and he could tell that he was about to lose him, "You know, she's not the only one you abandoned. Did you know that Lily became so ill that doctors thought she wouldn't last the year?"

Chuck's mouth dropped open slightly, and he felt his heart clench in his chest. It had to be a coincidence, right? No one cared about him enough for it to actually affect their health. "Is she -" his mouth went dry, and he had to close his eyes to regain his composure, "Is she okay now?"

"She's never been the same, Chuck. She's physically healthy; doctors can't really explain it, but she's heartbroken. She lost her son, and she's spent every day of the last six years waiting for him to return. Serena misses you; I miss you," Nate could tell that Chuck was finally listening, so he pushed harder, "You belong in New York. You're Chuck Bass; you're destined for greatness. You're legacy is in Manhattan. You can't just give up on that. After Lily fell sick, Jack took over as head of Bass Industries again. He's fighting to legally declare you dead, so his position can be permanent. I know things were bad in New York, but If you don't come home, you'll lose the Empire, you'll lose everything you ever cared about."

"I lost the only thing I cared about. They can have everything else," he snarled, emphasizing each word with finality.

"Look," Nate sighed. One thing that Chuck clearly hadn't lost was his stubbornness. "Blair will forgive you. I know that she won't shut you out for good if you return; she'll need some time to adjust, but you owe it to her - and to the rest of your friends and family - to at least give it a shot. Come back to New York with me. You don't have to stay permanently, but come see Lily. Relieve some of her heartache. Don't let Jack win."

Chuck mulled over Nate's request. Now that they all knew about his secret identity, what could it hurt? He missed Lily, and his guilt for leaving was compounded by the fact that he may have hurt her so badly that her health suffered. Serena was one of his dearest friends and the closest thing he would ever have to a sister, and he knew that her radiance would only warm his cold heart. Blair was another story altogether, but if he only returned for a few days then surely he could avoid her long enough to make amends with his family, maybe say a proper and final goodbye.

Chuck shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, downplaying the fear that he felt in the pit of his stomach when he said, "I guess that means you're buying my plane ticket."

A/N: I know that there wasn't any CB interaction in this chapter, and that's what you guys really want. I just had to set it up, and let Blair and Chuck grapple with their feelings a little bit more. Now that Chuck is heading back to New York, their interactions will be more frequent. It is a C/B fic after all.

I leave for vacation in the morning, so no updates for at least a week or two.