Of Control and Yielding

by purplebowties

He could not indulge in facing her gaze. If he had, he would have crumbled before it, and lost all of his determination to it, ending up accepting the fact that she was right. But she wasn't, he reminded himself categorically; she was merely very convincing—and he had a long history of letting her coax him into admitting defeat.

Hello, readers. It's been such a long time, I'm not even sure where to begin. Honestly, I didn't think I'd write about this couple and this universe again, or write at all, but then last summer Chuck and Blair drew me back into their world and this story started to shape in my mind. It started as a simple one-shot built over a basic trope, just to get back into the groove; as I started typing it down, however, it became bigger and bigger, and deeper, and less light than I had imagined it, which is why I decided to publish it into two parts, to make it more accessible for whoever wants to read it. Ideally, this would be part of the In The Realm of The Basses series, but it's too long to be published as a single one-shot.

You should read it as a portrayal of these characters' life together, of what a mature relationship and a solid marriage mean for them, and how their complexities fit into it. Overall, I did not restrain myself while writing this: what you read is my headcanon as it is, detailed and wide, and I made no compromises with my vision of the characters.

I should also warn my readers that I do not consider the Gossip Girl reboot canonical. I have nothing against it, and no particular issue with Chuck and Blair and Henry living their life in Paris; to put it simply, by the time the reboot came out, I had already spent years writing about my post-series headcanon, and so I no longer felt comfortable changing it.

---

Chuck stirred awake to the familiar, soothing sound of Blair's voice.

This wasn't an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence per se, as from the very beginning of their marriage, which had now been twelve years strong, his wife had made a habit out of gently whispering his name to rouse him and still faithfully kept to this ritual whenever possible. She would claim that he was far more agreeable in the morning if his precious beauty sleep was interrupted by her delicate ways rather than a blaring alarm—a fact that she took immense pride in and found endlessly amusing.

The odd thing about the situation was that it wasn't him she was softly speaking to. Instead of sitting by his side on the edge of the bed and murmuring sweet nothings in his ear as she would usually do, Blair was conversing in French over the phone, in that harmonious, honeyed, and bubbly tone she acquired whenever she addressed her father, a hazy tangle of smooth words that Chuck couldn't quite discern. For the briefest moment, he wondered if he was still wrapped in a fog of sleep, dreaming of her as he often did, but he quickly realized that it wasn't the case. Not only was his wife's voice remote, revealing that she was regrettably nowhere near him, but it was also muffled by something that had little to do with distance: a horrendous headache, throbbing mercilessly at his temples and behind his closed eyes, which made him acknowledge that he was unquestionably awake.

However, Chuck felt utterly worn out and somewhat disoriented, his thoughts foggy and vague, as if watered down by a hangover, which was entirely nonsensical since he hadn't indulged in more than his customary post-dinner glass of single malt the night before. His eyes completely shut to avoid enraging the wild pounding in his head any further, he cupped his hands over his face and pressed his palms against his orbits in an effort to relieve the pain and clear his mind of the unfathomable sense of fatigue and confusion that gripped him.

That was, undoubtedly, a mistake. His body immediately protested against such simple movement, sending waves of ache through his every joint and muscle. A chill crept up his spine, and he felt his fingers tremble against his forehead, where they weakly lay, cold and stiff.

Unable to make sense of the dreadful discomfort that plagued him, Chuck felt the sudden need to call his wife, interrupting her phone conversation and luring her to come sit next to him. She would have joined him and brushed the last shreds of his drowsiness away, he thought, placing a kiss on his lips and softly running her fingers through his hair. He would feel better then, he decided: energized, alert, and ready to face his day. When he did proceed to do so, though, he realized that speaking had somehow become an exceptional challenge. Blair's name struggled to come out of his lips, scratching his burning throat, and, when it finally did, it turned into a chocked, raspy sound, trailing off into a coughing fit that shook his chest and forced him to hide his face in the crook of his arm.

Thunderous as it had been, the noise of that torture managed to draw Blair's attention, warning her that he was awake. In the midst of his miserable struggle to catch his breath, Chuck heard her come out of her walk-in closet and enter the bedroom, announced by words that were no longer an indistinct echo in his ears and by the cruelly piercing din of stiletto heels over the parquet floor. "Il faut que je m'en aille, papa," she announced as she approached him, still engrossed in the phone call. "Oui," she continued after a brief pause, "je vais lui donner un bisou pour toi."

To Chuck's relief, the tapping of her shoes became a much softer and more bearable sound when she reached the plush carpet spread out under the bed. In the short moments that followed, Blair giggled at something the man on the other end of the telephone had said, and Chuck had no need to open his eyes to know that she was now just one step away from him. He couldn't inhale her perfume, which led him to the terrible conclusion that his nose was completely clogged, but he could still sense her proximity. If only he'd had the energy and the courage to challenge his sore limbs, he wondered, he would have slid closer to the edge of the mattress, stretched out his arm, and captured her waist in his grasp, pulling her down to the bed and onto his lap. He did not do such a thing. Instead, he limited himself to suppressing the urge to cough again, refusing to lift his eyelids or attempt any sort of motion, and waited for Blair to say goodbye to her father—which she did right away, with an "à bientôt" that sounded warm and delighted.

Finally, Chuck felt her sitting down next to him, the mattress just barely bending under her delicate weight. In a moment, Blair reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Chuck, you're awake," she whispered tenderly, her thumb tracing faint circles against his knuckles. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be loud. I was getting ready, and then Daddy called, and I had to pick up."

Chuck, who was fairly certain it wasn't his wife who had woken him up, but his freezing body and the ache in his bones, didn't respond. Desperate to warm up and find some solace, he simply snuggled closer to her, moving just enough to rest his agonizing head on her lap. She was wearing velvet, he noticed, as, sniffling, he rubbed his cheek against the fabric. He liked her in velvet, he wondered absentmindedly—he liked her in anything, really, and most of the time with very little on, but at that moment he especially appreciated the fact that she was wrapped in something fluffy and warm.

Blair kept slowly toying with his fingers. "I was hoping you'd manage to sleep a bit longer," she said softly, her voice filled with something akin to concern as she carefully fixed the duvet to cover his back. "It's still pretty early. Why don't you try to fall back asleep?"

Immediately, her words and her indulgent tone caused Chuck's forehead to wrinkle in a confused frown, as his thoughts wandered off to the tightly packed day ahead of him. Though the idea was inviting, he couldn't possibly consider sleeping in and taking the morning off, and he couldn't fathom why she would suggest it. He let out a weak and tentative sigh—the best he could manage without ending up convulsing with yet another hacking cough attack. "What time…" he tried to utter, only to be forced to painfully clear his throat in the middle of his question to succeed in getting the words out, "...what time is it?"

Blair brought her hand to his face. Her fingertips were strangely cool against his skin as they searched his cheek in a feathery caress, and yet Chuck couldn't help but give in to the gesture, tilting his head slightly to the side to guide her fingers down the curve of his neck. Understanding what he was silently asking of her, Blair slid her palm under the collar of his silk pajamas and began massaging the top of his shoulder. No matter how cold it was, the soft pressure of her capable touch against his aching muscles was pleasant enough to make him forget about what he had asked her for a moment, and Chuck almost felt himself drifting back into sleep.

However, that quiet, cozy interlude did not last. Brutal in its rigor, his mind soon shattered it, reminding him of his schedule—a hectic series of conferences in the morning regarding the construction of a new Bass luxury resort in Dubai and a dreadfully long and demanding board meeting in the afternoon, which would have likely dragged on till the late evening, possibly past dinner time. The mere thought of spending hours in a stuffy conference room, navigating through the observations and the questions of people who never seemed to get to the point fast enough, or who quite simply couldn't keep up with his vision and needed to be walked through every detail, was grueling.

Frustrated with the lethargy he couldn't seem to shake off and that felt so unnatural to him, Chuck finally forced himself to open his eyes and then immediately regretted it. Although the room was almost completely dark, the warm glow emanating from the open door of Blair's walk-in closet was bright enough to make him flinch in pain, his temples pulsing hideously. The sight of his wife was fuzzy when it came into view, the light behind her blurring and distorting the outline of her figure, yet he could still make out a particularly tender expression on her face, which made him ask himself how weary he had to look in her eyes, even in semi-darkness. Enough to curl the corners of her mouth in the hint of a sympathetic, knowing smile, he detected displeased, and to bring a caring, worried twinkle to her gaze.

Never especially comfortable with the idea of being fully exposed or with blatant signs of weakness, Chuck felt a purely visceral need to recoil from her careful stare, and, too tired to make compromises with his nature, he gave in to the instinctual necessity to glance down.

Sensing his distress, Blair lifted her hand from the nape of his neck only to capture his chin between her fingers, gently but firmly guiding him to bring his eyes back on her. Her smile widened when he did, and she took a moment to gaze lovingly down at him before bending forward and pressing a kiss to his lips.

Her curls tickled his cheeks, making him shiver. Though the soft brush of her mouth over his was always a sweet bliss, no scent of Chanel No. 5 inebriated him and roused his senses, and that anomaly added to his unease.

"It's only seven," Blair answered at last as she pulled back, her voice never higher than a soft murmur.

The revelation made Chuck blink in puzzlement, and then it made him groan, as he realized that not only did he feel wrecked, but he was also terribly late. On regular weekdays, when he didn't have pre-dawn conference calls scheduled, Blair knew better than to let him sleep past 6 a.m.; that way, he had the time to have breakfast in bed and get ready without too much hurry before joining his wife and son in the dining room, where he'd read his morning papers, drink a second espresso, and go over his day's plan one last time as his family ate. Normally, he was out of the house and on his way to Bass Industries no later than a quarter to eight.

"Why didn't you wake me?" Chuck protested, confused. The questioning complaint would have sounded far more aggravated and serious, he thought in a surge of irritation, if only it hadn't come out so gruff and feeble—a moan rather than an articulate sentence.

As if taken aback by his words, Blair darted him a perplexed glance. "Well, I just thought—"

Whatever her reason for not waking him had been, Blair didn't get the chance to explain herself. Chuck's throat suddenly stung and clenched uncontrollably, causing him to abruptly break free from her grip and turn away, shielding her from the violent coughing he could no longer hold back.

As he lay there, gasping for air while Blair delicately stroked his back and quietly told him to try to breathe, Chuck was caught by an intrusive desire to be alone. His body would not respond to his best efforts to dominate it and convince it to function properly, and the thought was so infuriating and destabilizing that it made subduing the agony ravaging his chest even more difficult, as he fought to both stop the cough and calm himself down.

That sense of helplessness was deeply humiliating and nagged at him with a roughness that was impossible to ignore. So, once he finally managed to stop panting and wheezing, Chuck, desirous of regaining some degree of composure, sat up as swiftly as the ache in his bones would allow him and propped his back against the padded headboard of the bed. It was a convoluted ordeal, with no grace nor fluidity in his movements, by the end of which he found himself no longer fully sheltered by heavy blankets, unbearably cold, and even more frazzled.

He heard Blair fumbling through his bedside table, but his throbbing head kept him from seeing what she was doing, punishing the stubborn change of position he had demanded of his body with a spell of dizziness that forced his eyes to go shut again. To his horror, when he gingerly reopened them, he discovered the room was much brighter.

Impatient to take a better look at him, Blair had reached out to the abatjour and turned it on, and she was now scanning him, her brow furrowed in plain worry, revealing that his struggle hadn't passed unnoticed. There was a glass of water in her hand. She offered it to him, and Chuck took it with trembling fingers, hoping it would soothe his parched throat. He sipped the liquid with hesitation, wincing at how painful swallowing was.

Blair kept a close watch on him while he drank, as if, Chuck observed with a pinch of peeve as he glanced at her over the edge of the glass, she fully expected him to choke on the liquid. The moment he was finished, she retrieved the glass from his weak hold and settled it back on the nightstand where it belonged. "As I was saying," she finally explained, her inquisitive eyes still working on taking in and studying every detail of his features, "I simply thought it reasonable to let you rest."

She had stressed the word 'reasonable' a tad too decisively for Chuck's liking; her tone was still deliberately low, but it had lost its loving softness to a matter-of-fact quality that, understanding what she was getting at, he found somewhat insulting. "Why would you assume—"

"You're obviously not feeling well." Blair took advantage of his fight to speak to cut him off. She grabbed his hand again and grasped it as if to placate him, well knowing that he wouldn't like what she was saying. "That vicious cough didn't let you get a wink of sleep, and you look dreadful, Chuck." Before he had the time to do more than glare at her comment on his appearance, she added, "You weren't actually planning on going to work today, were you?"

Chuck was, and she evidently knew that he was. Nothing but utter confidence could have justified the way Blair's eyebrows were now arched in a challenging expression, daring him to contradict her. He glowered at her. He wouldn't stand for being looked at and addressed in such a manner, as if he were a petulant child who needed to be lectured about what he could and could not do; as if he were incapable of making his own decisions and taking care of himself; as if he weren't a highly successful man in his thirties running a multi-billion-dollar multinational corporation, but their ten-year-old son, who had only yesterday fully recovered from a case of the flu…

Chuck resolutely pushed that unpleasant thought away, not only because it made him feel irrationally anxious, triggering fresh memories of five days spent going back and forth between home and his office, eyes always on his phone and fingers ready to accept a call from the nanny at any given moment, but also because he categorically refused to consider the situation Blair had so distinctly pictured in her mind, deciding that he had logically and surely fallen victim to the same virus Henry had recently battled against.

It was simply implausible, as Chuck hardly ever got sick, except for the stress-induced migraines he'd always suffered from. It was actually a running joke between him and Blair, the way his supposedly prodigious immune system had almost without exception kept him from contracting diseases from their son over the decade they'd been parents—and not because he had actively tried to avoid it. Ironically, Blair would comment that common infections had nothing on 'The Great Chuck Bass', and he'd smugly declare that the reason was that he simply had no time for them.

Indeed, he didn't. It was only Monday, and the week ahead of him was long and filled with engagements he couldn't and, most importantly, didn't want to miss, culminating in a three-day business trip to Berlin from Wednesday to Saturday morning, to oversee the final stages of an acquisition. There was no reason to put it all on hold just because he wasn't feeling exactly at the top of his game. He would push through this slight malaise and manage to overcome it without canceling his schedule and staying home wallowing in his misery, he mentally concluded, imperious and inflexible even in the face of the thought in the back of his mind that persistently tried to remind him that when he did, in fact, get sick, no matter how rare the occurrence was, illnesses tended not to be so mild, nor simple to recover from—due to the way he'd always drive himself to the brink of total collapse before coming to terms with the fact that he wasn't as fine as he'd claim to be, Blair would remark resignedly, out of tenacious pride and borderline unhealthy workaholism.

Chuck brusquely freed his hand from her icy grip. "It's just a cold, Blair," he declared, and his statement was pronounced in such an imperative way that it managed to strengthen his own conviction in what he was trying to make her understand: that he was completely capable of getting up and going about his day as planned and that he wouldn't let such a minor inconvenience slow him down. "I'm perfectly fine."

Though his voice was hoarse and much flimsier than he would have liked, rough from the fire burning in his throat, he had very deliberately chosen a tone that didn't belong to the way they spoke to each other; rather, it was the one he used to command over his boardroom. He was well-known for being capable of imposing a deferential silence with a single stern look, one that didn't allow questioning or rebuttals, and the stony stare that matched his words was meant to do exactly that: to hold back the many objections he could tell his wife had.

However, Blair was neither an intimidated employee nor a reverent business associate who worshiped him without reservation and devotedly admired his every accomplishment. She was, in truth, his only equal; she rivaled him in obstinance, and she didn't have the slightest qualm about opposing him if she thought he was in the wrong. Thus, much to his dismay but not unpredictably, she met his harsh gaze with an unperturbed expression, fairly unimpressed by the despotic demeanor he had so carefully put on. If anything, Chuck bitterly noticed, she seemed to find it ludicrous.

"Sure you are, Bass," Blair bantered, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him. "You're the picture of health." She let her sarcastic words trail off with a deep, long sigh, at which Chuck took further offense, both because he knew he couldn't do the same without losing all of his currently precarious dignity to the cough she had just a few moments before defined 'vicious', and because she was still acting as if she were in front of a kid going through a tantrum and accordingly needed to collect her patience. "Let me just call Elias and have him cancel your day."

For a split second, Chuck debated crossing his arms in outrage at her irony and at the not-so-subtle implication that she considered his current state so dire that even such a simple task as contacting his own assistant would have been far too demanding for him to complete, before realizing that he didn't have enough stamina to move and, simultaneously, fight her absurd claims and her evident eagerness to manage his life as she saw fit.

Instead, Chuck had to settle for scowling at her, eyes narrowed in indignation—and in a vain attempt to defend themselves from the dazzling light. "I appreciate your concern, but that won't be necessary," he retorted, articulating each word as firmly and as sharply as he managed; they callously scraped his sore throat and echoed so painfully in his head that keeping himself from wincing in front of Blair's increasingly frustrated gaze took a great deal of effort. "Actually, I'm already quite late," he went on, resolved to make it clear to her that he had no desire—nor, truth be told, energy—to continue that conversation, "I have to get ready."

Proclaiming his intentions, Chuck pulled away from the headboard, which had so far helped him to maintain himself in a somewhat dignified sitting position, and leaned forward, preparing to get up. The motion, however, left him fatigued, and he ended up with his forehead buried into the palms of his hands, his eyes losing their strenuous battle against the ghastly illumination of the room, his hammering temples, and exhaustion. To muster the strength to get out of bed as he wished, he persuaded himself to try to take a deep breath, but to no avail; his body immediately betrayed him, and he lurched forward, shaken by more relentless, rasping coughs.

Chuck felt Blair's fingers slithering under his pajama shirt then, and coming to rest on his back. In an unhurried, light caress, they found their way up between his shoulder blades, where they dug gently into his skin, trying to bring him some comfort. The touch, though, sent uncontrollable chills all through his body, and he found himself shivering, unable to repress a whimper of pure discomfort.

Before he had the time to realize it and pull away, the back of Blair's hand was pressed against his cheek; it hesitated there for a moment, ice cold against his face, and then moved to his forehead, pushing his tousled hair back.

"Charles, please," his full name—which she only used when she was extremely annoyed at him, or especially worried about him, or, as it happened at times, both—was pronounced poignantly, heavy with apprehension and fondness, signaling that she had temporarily dropped the weapons of provocation and dry wit to make him reason, and decided to adopt a persuasive strategy instead. "Just lie down. No wonder you're shaking like a leaf, you're feverish."

Though Blair's tone had been uncharacteristically saccharine—the same she'd reserved for Henry when their son was younger and that the boy now cringed at whenever she tried to be overly affectionate with him—her declaration had sounded unwaveringly confident and indisputable.

Once again, Chuck felt the need to withdraw from her nurturing touch, obstinately avoiding intercepting her eyes. He didn't want to meet them and discover that they were full of compassion, delicate and warm, and yet immovable, resolute in the intention of sheltering him from his worst impulses and misguided decisions. He didn't need her to do that. He was not a thoughtless mess of a man who had to be micromanaged by his wife.

"I'm not," he hissed, feeling more than just a little bothered. If there was one thing that he despised more than anything, something he simply would not tolerate from anyone and much less from her, that was pity; and the thought that Blair felt sorry for him to such an extent that her maternal side had taken over so fiercely, forcing her to treat him as if he would have perished away from her complete attention, was motivating enough to make him shove the duvet that still covered his legs aside and drag himself to the other side of the bed, where she couldn't reach him. "I'm thirty-four, Blair. I know when I have a fever."

Blair sighed tiredly at his caustic remark. "Do you?"

Chuck ignored her rhetorical question and the especially mellow, gentle tone she had used to voice it, as though she was waiting for him to break down into a million pieces at any second and therefore felt compelled to control the way she spoke to him. The notion that Blair perceived such weakness in him was more unsettling than any ache or weariness; thus, with his back turned to her, Chuck commanded himself to stand up, gripping the edge of the mattress to push himself upright.

The soreness in his bones inevitably flared up as he stood, and he felt the floor swing under his feet when they touched the carpet. He grimaced, closing his eyes as he waited for his head to stop spinning. He let a couple of seconds pass, and, when he felt stable enough, he put on his slippers. "It's just freezing in here. No surprise that I caught a cold," he reasoned. Speaking had become a slightly less taxing challenge now that he had grown accustomed to the pain in his throat and constant need to cough. Plus, if he kept his tone low and deliberate enough, the words didn't intensify his headache too much, and he took advantage of the little bit of control he had gained over his uncooperative body to elaborate on his argument. "We need to have the heating checked," he insisted, proceeding to give a rational explanation to the unreasonably frigid temperature shrouding the room, as he trudged towards the bed bench where he had left his robe the night before. "There must be something off with it. The house is supposed to be warm, certainly warmer than this. Either there's a malfunction and no one has noticed, or the settings have been changed. In any case, I'd like to have a word with the staff. Henry was sick all of last week, and I don't want him to relapse due to someone's incompetence."

Something about what he had said, and probably how he had said it, haughtily and dismissively, finally managed to break through Blair's self-imposed calm and make her snort at him. Chuck welcomed the contemptuous sound with relief, as the realization that he had managed to aggravate her fueled his resolution. He greatly preferred being the object of her vexation rather than her commiseration.

"Nothing is wrong with the heating, Chuck, and terrorizing the help will not make you feel any better," Blair replied immediately, fazed. She wasn't letting herself raise her voice at him, not yet at least, but patience and tenderness had given way to sharpness, and now her words were tinged with an unconcealed shade of disconcert and urgency. "Something is wrong with you."

Judging by her tone, Chuck thought, a slight headshake must have accompanied her statement, her eyelashes fluttering closed for a moment in barely contained exasperation. He had no way of knowing for certain, though: not to look at her, he had busied himself with his robe, keeping his eyes on the floor and letting the soft yet heavy purple fabric welcome his still trembling shoulders as he wrapped it tight around his body.

He could not indulge in facing her gaze. If he had, he would have crumbled before it, and lost all of his determination to it, ending up accepting the fact that she was right. But she wasn't, he reminded himself categorically; she was merely very convincing—and he had a long history of letting her coax him into admitting defeat.

He was not going to let that happen. He wouldn't confess to her how unwell he actually felt, nor would he allow himself to be tempted by the prospect of finding comfort in the care he knew she was yearning to offer him, and that his body, despite his best efforts to convince it otherwise, fervently longed to accept. All at once, getting the better of his neediness and her conviction to be right had become a challenge that Chuck eagerly wanted to win, and it was the sweet thought of triumph that gifted him with an unexpected burst of energy. He used it to let the corners of his lips tilt up in a smirk that was a pure act of defiance, meant to show her that she was completely wrong—that she was overreacting, and exaggerating the severity of his condition over proportion.

"Well, now you're just being dramatic," Chuck affirmed, and for a moment he felt like himself again, ready to embark on their usual flirtatious, passionate banter, a hint of inevitable amusement in his croaky, brittle voice, despite the chills, the soreness, and the weariness.

He heard her gasp then, and he could tell right away, and not without a pinch of satisfaction, that his accusation had provoked her enough to leave her speechless, if only for a moment, in front of what she surely considered boundless audacity.

Suddenly, he was overcome with the desire to look at her. Blair's eyes might have been treacherous territory—traps that couldn't wait to lure him into caving in, a guaranteed death blow to his margin of victory—, but there was no reason to keep himself from letting his gaze embrace her figure. So he looked up, and his stare found her still sitting on the bed where he had left her, crossed legs and crossed arms, frozen in a rigid posture accentuated by the sculpted black velvet suit she was wearing, the blazer concealing her petite shoulders under austere angles. Eventually, his eyes inched up to her face and stopped their ascent on her lips—glistening red, and now pursed, a clear sign that she was about to completely lose her arduously maintained inner poise and snap at him.

"And you're being ridiculous!" Blair indeed burst out, jumping to her feet.

Even if Chuck had painstakingly predicted her reaction, his wife's now high-pitched voice rang excruciatingly in his skull, and he couldn't help squeezing his eyes shut for an instant, cringing at the shrill sound. It had been enough to almost completely kill the fight in him. His splitting headache was getting worse by the minute, and the pain was starting to make him feel slightly queasy other than weak and wobbly on his feet; he could not breathe properly, each shallow gasp menacing to trigger a cough that felt like daggers piercing through his chest, and he simply couldn't seem to keep warm. Watching Blair approaching him swiftly, his eyes rigorously fixed on the tips of the gold pumps peeping out from under the hem of her tailored pants, Chuck rubbed his palms up and down his arms, trying to stop the shivering he was tormented by from annihilating his purpose of remaining unperturbed in front of her.

Once she was finally standing in front of him, capable of forcing him into a warm embrace he would have helplessly and inevitably collapsed into, able to raise her hand to his face and obligate him to glance back at her with the slightest pressure of her fingers against his cheek, Chuck knew it was time to execute a strategic retreat. As obnoxious as her accusation had been—he was most definitely not being ridiculous; he was being responsible toward his obligations, and only reasonably demanding with himself, and had he had even just a dash more strength, he would have told her just that, fiercely defending his judgment and his right to conduct himself however he considered appropriate—contesting it would have meant prolonging that conversation, and he knew he didn't have it in him. He had to save whatever was left of his energy for other demanding efforts: disappearing into the safety of his walk-in closet, for starters, crossing it to make his way to his bathroom, showering, and, eventually, getting dressed.

The best way to ensure the success of his tactic was to get the jump on her. Before she could move to touch him, Chuck laced an arm around her waist and pulled her close enough to press her body against his. "I promise you, I'm alright," he vowed, secretly grateful for the fact she had chosen to leave her hair down that day, so that, to keep his eyes off of hers, he could focus on twirling his finger around one of her curls and tucking it behind her ear. His voice was strained from the effort of speaking, and it almost gave out then, faint to the point of threatening to completely fade into a thin whisper, but he pushed himself to go on. "There's no reason to be so worried."

Blair shook her head as her hands came to rest on his chest, and Chuck became uncomfortably aware that, from there, they could have slithered up to his shoulders and trapped him in a hug. As fragile as he felt, he would have allowed them. It was time to let go.

"Chuck…" she started to say something, surely some further recriminations about his foolishness, but he silenced her by capturing her mouth in a brief kiss.

Then, hastily, Chuck took a step back, parting from her. "I'm sorry, but I really need to get moving now," he told her, offering her the shadow of a sly smile. Even without looking at her, he knew that she had rolled her eyes at him. "I want to see Henry before I leave."

With that, swallowing to stifle the cough that would have brusquely shattered his display of firmness and confidence, he turned and left her to watch him pace away and plod to the other side of the bedroom.

"Fine!" Blair's exasperated voice reached him as he was about to open the door to the closet room, and he could sense her piercing gaze on his back, mindful and certain as it tended to be whenever she looked at him. "Pretend like you never get sick!"

His hand on the door handle, Chuck paused. That statement was an echo of many similar ones that had been pronounced by his wife, sometimes with affection and delicacy, sometimes in a fit of rage, and more often heavy with resignation, not only during their marriage but throughout their entire relationship, variations on the theme of how he had always been allegedly terrible at acknowledging his weaknesses and even worse at accepting them and giving in to them, whether they'd been emotional or physical. She had hardly ever been wrong. Most of the time, he had come back to her, defeated and worn out, with no more options on his table but crawling into her arms and allowing her to remind him that he was neither infallible nor invulnerable.

Not willing to linger on that disturbing musing, Chuck pushed the door open, and then, stepping into the room, he closed it behind him, relieved to find himself surrounded by darkness and silence, and away from Blair's pointed looks. He was going to prove her wrong, he thought again as he surrendered to the need to rest his head on the wooden door surface and shut his eyes, granting his body a break from the effort of moving. His pride, after all, wouldn't leave him much of a choice, not after how he had decidedly dismissed her concerns.

As for how he would get through the day, that was an issue for him to deal with later.

---

Blair was in a foul mood as the elevator brought her down to the second floor, where she was going to join her son for breakfast in the dining room.

She couldn't take her mind off Chuck and his preposterous attitude. While those who knew her well could attest to her general lack of patience and her propensity to be easily irritated, no one managed to cross her like her husband at times did, with his unbounded arrogance and unyielding stubbornness. The way he had persistently opposed her every attempt to make him face the reality of his situation and disregarded her legitimate concerns as exaggerations had succeeded in working her up. However, more than annoyed by his denial about his evident sickness and the condescending demeanor he had armed himself with to preserve it, Blair was truly worried about him and couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness that had crept into her stomach.

Chuck was an exceptionally proud man, and every so often intolerably so. He strived to project an aura of solidity about him and to appear as though he had a firm handle on whatever came his way, no matter how big or small. In normal circumstances, having known him for a lifetime and loved him for most of it, Blair didn't need to make any special effort to deal with this side of him. It was, after all, one of the many things they had in common and profoundly understood about each other. There was also tender satisfaction in knowing that Chuck's strict exercise of command over himself was generally discarded the moment he'd step into their house, which he considered a sanctuary of comfort and safety, ready to welcome his vulnerability the same way it embraced his strength, his power, or the most manifest excesses of his melodramatic ego. They had built their home on solid grounds of love, and each brick, each corner of it, was a testament to mutual acceptance.

What Blair had witnessed only a few minutes before, though, was not consistent with Chuck's usual behavior, at least not anymore. Seeing his walls rise so quickly and become impenetrable to the point that he wouldn't even meet her gaze, let alone have a meaningful and honest conversation with her, was a rare event these days, an extreme reaction that could only be triggered by a sense of utter loss of control. There was nothing that Chuck detested more than being faced with powerlessness. He didn't know how to handle it. While he would have rationalized his repulsion differently, Blair knew that the inability to hold himself together as he wanted completely overwhelmed him and quite simply terrified him.

If that was the case, Blair wondered, her thoughts racing as the elevator's doors slid open and the floor landing came into her view, if Chuck was resorting to challenging her and provoking her to hold on to the last silvers of control he felt he had at his disposal, he had to be feeling worse than he looked, which was an alarming consideration, given how devastated he had seemed to her.

The mere notion sparked a restlessness within Blair and hastened her anxious steps toward the dining area, the fresh memory of his burning skin under her fingers making her jaw clench. She was a woman of action, and, instinctually, all she longed to do was turn on her heels, come back to their bedroom, and argue with him till she'd force him to succumb, even if that entailed wearing him out to the point that he'd have no choice but to let her strip him of his autonomy and do what she thought was best for him. Seeing the state he was in, Blair considered, it wouldn't even have taken too much effort on her part.

Following such a gut feeling, however, would have been an act of disrespect that would have ultimately hurt Chuck more deeply than any physical discomfort. She had already risked crossing that line when, back upstairs, she had let concern and her temper get the best of her, and fought the fire of his obstinacy with the one of her insistence. Whilst the idea of not batting an eyelid as he put himself through some excruciating hours was tremendously difficult for Blair to tolerate, she also understood that pushing Chuck relentlessly would have been a hard blow to his pride and made him feel as though she was deliberately ignoring his boundaries.

There was no reason for her to add insult to injury, not when she knew that all she had to do was wait. Patience—a hard lesson learned in the years spent navigating through his prolonged silences and the cryptic looks he often entrusted with the responsibility of speaking for him—was the key. Inevitably, Chuck would have found his way back to her, if only battled and bruised. It might have taken half a day and cost him quite a lot in the currency of worsening symptoms, but Blair was entirely certain that by that evening he would be safe and sound in her embrace, flat on his back with his head on her lap and her fingers dancing through his hair, whining dramatically about the atrocity of his condition and all the ways it was killing him. Once he was out of his negation stage and wretchedly resigned to the reality of illness, Chuck never missed turning into the most theatrical and immature kind of sick person, a living nightmare for anyone but her, who actually found something endearing in the challenging job nursing him was, and warm satisfaction in the knowledge that Chuck would have never abandoned himself that way to anybody else's care.

"Good morning, mom."

Henry's voice welcomed Blair the moment she crossed the wide-opened double doors that led into the dining room, distracting her from her reasoning. Her eyes found him immediately, sitting politely yet nonchalantly at the table next to Miriam, his nanny. He was already impeccably dressed in his dark navy blue school uniform, the bright red shirt under the blazer matching perfectly with the tartan-patterned bowtie he had chosen to wear for the day.

Blair beamed at the sight of him, lightened up by his presence, and whatever concern she had about Chuck was temporarily forgotten, driven away from her mind by the tiny, satisfied smirk creasing her son's lips as he observed her making her way toward him.

"Good morning, sweetie." Blair bent down to place a delicate kiss on the top of his head when she reached him and then offered Miriam a cordial yet aloof greeting as well, taking the seat next to the boy.

Henry, who was going through a phase of aversion to coddling and currently considered himself "too grown-up" for his mother's doting ways, promptly glared at her. Delighted, Blair had to repress a giggle in front of the exaggeratedly offended expression he showed her as he guided his hand to his hair, which he evidently thought she had ruffled. "Don't give me that look, Herny," she admonished him, though her tone was everything but strict. "Grand-père made me promise I'd give you a kiss, I'm just keeping my word."

Henry rolled his eyes. However, Blair noticed, he reached out to his glass of orange juice and took a sip to hide a content smile. "Fine," he declared after, a long sigh accompanying his concession, and went back to eating his breakfast—a couple of pancakes topped with maple syrup and raspberries.

As it was custom in the household, the table had been laid out with a rich selection of French pastries, including a pile of éclairs set on a serving stand that was solely there to please Chuck in case he was still hungry, and several savory options, but Henry had always preferred a less elaborated dish for his first meal of the day—a bad, unbecoming habit that Nate was entirely to blame for, Blair thought annoyed as she watched her son cut a small piece of pancake and gracefully bring it to his mouth.

"You look rather handsome today," she complimented him, knowing it'd satisfy his vanity, and set the napkin on her lap. She took a warm croissant from the sterling silver tray arranged right in front of her and placed it on her plate. "Is that bowtie new?"

Blair had a very detailed knowledge of her son's immense closet, but she did not recognize that piece, though the elaborate pattern seemed like something Chuck would have chosen—for himself and Henry. It also didn't remotely look like anything high-end commercial: the fabric was far too refined and unique, and there was a monogram subtly embroidered on the left side of the bow.

Henry nodded. "Yes," he replied, an evident note of pride in his voice. "Dad had a few custom-made by his tailor while I was sick," he explained. "Some new suits, too. And sweaters. And tons of shirts. He said it'd cheer me up."

The confirmation of her theory made Blair sigh, her mind trying to quantify the vague amounts Henry had just mentioned for a moment, before concluding that it was a pointless endeavor. There was simply no stopping Chuck from lavishing their son with gifts and spoiling him shamelessly. It was already a lost battle under normal circumstances, given how he lacked any sense of proportion, but it was far too easy to imagine how seeing Henry unwell had made him even more eager to indulge his every whim, desperate to make him feel even just slightly better.

"And I'm sure it did." Blair smiled tenderly at Henry as a waitress came from the service kitchen and brought her a steaming cup of tea. She didn't thank her, nor did she acknowledge her in any manner, too engrossed in staring at her son. He still looked a little paler than normal, she detected with a pinch of worry, but he seemed to be overall healthy, and ready to come back to school and resume his weekly extracurricular activities. "Are you sure you're feeling completely okay, though?"

Blair's question carried a subtle undertone of guilt. She hadn't been there to take care of him through his bout of flu, having spent the entire previous week between Milan and Paris, her schedule packed with back-to-back meetings with suppliers and European retailers that had been planned months in advance and that she hadn't been able to postpone. When she had finally come back home on Saturday afternoon, Henry had already been on the mend, and he hadn't needed any special mothering from her.

The thought tugged at her heart and made her feel inevitably at fault, even though she understood that such melancholic ruminations were irrational and unworthy of serious consideration. Henry had been perfectly taken care of, immeasurably pampered by his doting father, and hadn't seemed to mind her absence. He never did. Once he was born, ten years ago, she and Chuck had made a well-pondered and conscious decision not to take business trips at the same time, emergencies aside, if one of them didn't have the chance to bring Henry along. An arrangement of this kind wasn't always easy to manage, and it did require compromises and complex adjustments, but the result was worth every inconvenience: Henry was completely accustomed to his parents traveling, even when their engagements kept them away for long periods. If anything, it was she and Chuck who struggled with homesickness and incoherent fears of not being present enough.

Taking a sip of tea, Blair wondered if maybe the way she ached to care for her sick husband had something to do with a desire to compensate for her absence during Henry's illness. Her therapist—and Chuck, had he been in better shape and able to read her as usual—would have definitely said so.

"I'm absolutely sure, Mom," Henry answered unfazed, shrugging. "As I told you many, many times yesterday, every time you asked, I'm good as new."

Blair rested her cup back on the table and shook her head at her son's implicit mockery of her concern. Yet, she couldn't help but grin, realizing that he was right—she had indeed repeatedly asked him if he was feeling fine, and there was no denying she had been a tad too apprehensive.

"Henry Charles Nathaniel Waldorf-Bass," she pronounced his entire name through an enthralled, enamored giggle, and lifted her hand to his face to wrap her fingers around his chin, forcing Henry to look her straight in the eyes. "Are you perhaps making fun of your wonderful and caring mother?"

Henry smirked at her, eyes just like hers sparkling with barely repressed laughter and thin lips that were the spitting image of his father's, and, challenging her, he asked, "What if I am?"

Blair let out a theatrical gasp, arching her eyebrows. "Well, that's a punishable offense!" she exclaimed, as, swiftly, she reached out to his hair and messed it up, this time on purpose. Being playful didn't come naturally to her, but she had learned to soften the sharp edges of her character for Henry.

"Mom!" Henry cried out, horrified and insulted. He cringed, his hands immediately flying to his head and moving frantically to fix the egregious damage she had caused.

Finding herself and Chuck in that reaction, Blair felt her chest fill with warmth, a sense of fulfillment and serenity that often caught her when she was at home, surrounded by her family—a place where she could be tender and burst out laughing with no restraint, and effortlessly embrace every aspect of herself, even the facets that she jealously treasured as secrets only a few were aware of.

Henry's nanny laughed at that hilarious scene as well. It was only then that Blair remembered her presence and that she actually had something to tell her. "Miriam," she finally addressed her, her tone losing all the mirth reserved for Henry and regaining the rigidity and distance that were typical of the way she spoke to their staff. "Henry's itinerary is likely to change today. I'll let you know the details as soon as I'm certain about how the day will unfold, but there might be no need for you to go pick him up from the riding club this afternoon."

"Yes, Mrs. Waldorf-Bass," she replied. She had been waiting to be dismissed to go check if everything the kid needed for the day was ready and run the errands she had been tasked with, so she pushed her chair back and stood up. "Shall I still see his equipment being arranged in the car, or is Henry going to skip the polo lesson?"

The question managed to distract Henry from the effort he was putting into trying to comb his hair with his fingers. "I'm not skipping anything," he curtly butted in, his perfect manners forgotten before the hypothetical, daunting scenario that saw him spending yet another afternoon locked in at home. His eyes narrowed in a deeply outraged expression that made him look so much like his father that, to Blair, it was almost comical. "I'm fine and I wanna see my horses."

Blair took a bite of croissant to grant herself a moment to take pleasure in her son's authoritarian demeanor and imperious tone, before making peace with the idea that she had to reprimand him—if anything because he had been impolite. "Henry, it's extremely rude to interrupt people when they're speaking," she remarked firmly, ignoring the way he was scowling at her. "You will attend your lesson just as planned. Before you cut me off, I was about to inform Miriam that your aunt Serena will probably pick you up," she reassured him, her voice instantly relaxing as she acknowledged annoyance fading away from the boy's face and turning into bright relief. "I still need to check in with her, but I was thinking you could have dinner with her and sleep at her place tonight. Would you like that?"

Henry frowned, suspicion bringing a surprised, piercing glint to his gaze. "On a school day?"

A creature of habit, Henry had definitely realized there was something dubious about her proposition. While he often spent time with his aunt, he was also used to having sleepovers at her place during weekends or holidays, when staying up late was no concern and everyone's agendas were more flexible.

Blair stretched her lips in a blasé smile that let no hint of uneasiness show through. "That's right," she confirmed calmly, but didn't elaborate any further. She locked eyes with him and reached out to his arm to give it a soft squeeze—a tacit reminder that she would answer the questions she could tell he had when there was no staff around.

Then, she turned her head to the nanny again. "I'll have Henry's exact schedule emailed to you later, Miriam. You can go, I'm sure there's plenty you need to take care of. For instance, given the recent addictions I've just become aware of, I have a feeling his closet needs to be reorganized."

Understanding that Blair had no more to say to her, the woman nodded and quickly left the room.

"Something is up," Henry affirmed as soon as he and Blair were alone, not one single note of hesitation in his voice. He had finished eating, and he was now staring at his mother with crossed arms and a smug, knowing smirk. "There's no way you'd let me sleep at Aunt Serena's on a weekday. Plus, Dad is late. I know he's home because his papers are there," he titled his head in the direction of the empty seat at the head of the table, where Chuck's customary selection of national and international papers lay untouched, "but he's not here with us, and it's almost eight." He paused, and Blair could tell from the way his eyebrows furrowed and then immediately raised that a thought had crossed his mind, a plausible explanation for the unusual facts he had just presented. "You guys are fighting, aren't you?" he commented, self-assured and confident in his understanding of the situation. "That's why you want me out of your hair tonight."

Not surprised by the conclusion Henry had reached, Blair chortled. She and Chuck bickered and teased each other quite a lot, and enjoyed doing so, but they rarely actually argued; however, when they did, the house tended to become a warzone their son wasn't allowed into. They always made a point of solving whatever the issue between them was without exposing Henry to the most volatile aspects of their complex relationship, granting themselves room to let their tempers and furious feelings out—whether that meant lashing out or passionately making up, or both. "We're not fighting," she assured him. She took another morsel of croissant and then continued, "Your dad is just running a little behind his schedule this morning, that's all."

Not only did that remark not satisfy Henry, but it also deepened his skepticism. He leaned in, darting Blair a questioning, pointed look. "Yes, and that's weird," he insisted, as if he were referring to some sort of unprecedented event that deserved to be addressed with gravity and drama.

He had a point, Blair thought, always marveled by his savvy. Out of necessity and choice, their household normally ran on a very regular rhythm, and Chuck in particular was almost metronomic in his habits at home. Henry was simply too observant and insightful not to consider such deviations from his father's routine relevant, and too stubborn to let go of the queries he had about them, especially because she could tell that Chuck's absence was sincerely just bothering him. Every day, Henry would tell him all about his plans for the day at the breakfast table, and the fact that Chuck was home but not there for that morning ritual they shared unsettled him.

Blair sighed resignedly, resolved to explain the situation to Henry, but, before she had the chance to, Chuck made his entrance and relieved her of that responsibility.

The moment he stepped into the room, his valet in tow and the strong scent of Dior Fahrenheit announcing his arrival, Blair pushed her chair back just a little, every nerve in her body urging her to stand up, reach him, hug him, take his hand, and guide him to sit down. However, she froze in mid-motion and drowned that instinct in a long sip of tea, reminding herself that, at that moment, there was no point in doing anything but letting the tragedy before her eyes play out.

Chuck looked like death warmed up. Though he had evidently gone to great lengths to spruce himself up and appear impeccable, shaving and combing his hair to perfection as usual, there was no hiding the unnatural paleness of his skin and the dark, deep circles under his eyes, nor the way he was gracelessly dragging his feet through the room as he came around the table toward them. The suit he had chosen—an especially stylish purple plaid cashmere one—was overly warm for the still mild October weather, and yet it did very little to keep his hands from trembling or to relax his stiff shoulders, his body battling against the bitter cold that was only a product of his own altered temperature.

Henry realized what was going on immediately. Blair followed his gaze as it lingered on Chuck, taking note of everything that was off with him, and then flashed back to her, quizzical, looking for a silent confirmation. Blair nodded silently at him, and their eyes locked in a shared understanding.

The exchange between her and their son was completely lost to Chuck, who was too preoccupied with walking straight and masking his discomfort—two tasks he was spectacularly failing at, Blair noted.

"Here you are," she welcomed him airily as he stopped behind Henry's chair to bend over and kiss his cheek, uttering a hoarse good morning as he squeezed his shoulder. So much for being too old for loving gestures, Blair thought with a bit of jealousy, as she watched her son grin at Chuck and heard him answer fondly to his greeting.

While Chuck would have usually kissed her as well, resting his lips on the nape of her neck and letting his fingers trail down her shoulder in an intimate, suggestive gesture that always put her in an excellent mood and made her feel ready to face even the toughest days, that morning he tiredly stepped past her, adamant not to touch her and, perhaps more so, to keep himself at a distance from the risk of being reached by her hands.

Blair pursed her lips, an entangled combination of concern, frustration, and sadness burning in her throat. She didn't truly want to ponder where that reaction to sickness had to come from, and how much neglect had produced such a rooted and uncontrollable need to recoil and suffer alone like a wounded, frightened animal, but the thoughts still came, and they made her heart ache. He'd come around, she told herself again; she just had to remain calm.

"Do you have time to eat something or are you on your way out?" she asked him, her tone casual despite the unspoken intention to better assess his state.

Chuck cast a fleeting glance at the lavishly laden table and his lip curled at the sight of food. Though nearly imperceptible, Blair caught that sign of revulsion nonetheless and added loss of appetite to the tab she had been keeping on his symptoms. She made a mental note to tell Dorota to have the chef prepare a very light consommé, knowing she'd have to get him to eat something at some point.

"No," Chuck predictably replied in a low voice, without looking at her. He clenched his hands around the back of the black leather upholstered chair, and Blair saw him shiver as he fought the need to slide it back and sit down, trying to maintain his composure. "I only wanted to say goodbye before leaving. I might not make it back for dinner tonight."

He was going to come back home on his knees before lunch, Blair mentally calculated as she inspected his fever-flushed cheeks and the way he was already struggling to keep his glassy, reddened eyes open, maybe by the early afternoon if he really put all that he had into resisting the inevitable, but he certainly would have been faced with defeat long before dinner time. However, she didn't voice her conviction; instead, she plastered a smile on her face and said, "That's fine, just remember to let me know."

Chuck nodded. If he had noticed any falsehood in the jovial note that had rung through her words, he didn't show it. He lifted his eyes to their son and cracked a weak smile. "How are you feeling, Henry?" he croaked. "Ready to go back to school?"

Henry raised his eyebrows at him, both surprised and amused. There was no doubt that he found his father's thoughtful intention to check on him somewhat absurd given the evident circumstances, and therefore quite humorous. "I'm okay, Dad," he answered with a chuckle. "How are you?"

It took Blair a lot of self-control not to laugh at the scene. She inhaled a deep breath, and relaxed against the back of the chair, curious to see how her husband would wriggle away from their son's wit.

Had she passed on that question the way Henry had, teasing and a tad sarcastic, Chuck would have immediately looked daggers at her, and, his voice laced with irritation, he would have given her some foolish, indignant retort. Instead, the response Henry got from his father was anything but piqued and curt.

Blair saw Chuck falter as if dazed, though she couldn't say whether he was sincerely puzzled by the way his son had instantly seen through him, or simply too out of sorts to resort to his usual presence of mind. Whatever the case was, he took a second too long to reply, clearly grappling with the dilemma the question had posed. On one hand, as a rule, Chuck did not lie to Henry, ever, even when the truth was complicated or uncomfortable to explain; on the other, though, complete honesty would have crushed his efforts to maintain his senseless battle against her and himself, and Blair knew that he was far too proud and currently too delusional to let that happen.

Eventually, he went with the only version of the facts he was allowing himself to accept at that moment. "I'm fine," he muttered, downcast eyes, his raspy voice betraying his obvious intention to sound confident and quite plainly contradicting his own statement. To keep herself from shaking her head in exasperation, Blair focused on finishing her breakfast, letting the sweet taste of buttery pastry calm her as she watched him struggle to keep on speaking without coughing. Chuck gulped, flinching as he tried to clear his throat, and then he added, "Apparently I have a bit of a cold, but it's nothing to be concerned about."

Blair turned her head toward Henry just in time to see his expression change. It was heartening to watch innocent insolence fade away from his gaze and his eyes soften as he acknowledged how difficult it had been for his father to utter that small confession, and how actually sick he had to feel if he was willing to concede as much. She slid her hand under the tablecloth and patted it on her son's knee in a reassuring gesture, as her lips instinctively curved in a loving smile.

"Are you sure?" Henry's voice was hesitant and gentle now, sprinkled with a hint of genuine worry. "You don't look so good."

Chuck wearily closed his eyes then, and Blair found herself hoping that Henry had, after all, worked a miracle and broken through his father's nonsense quicker and more effectively than she ever could, with something as simple as a caring comment. She had witnessed it before. At times, Henry had an innate, purely emphatic way of understanding Chuck and finding a way through his most intricate moods—a special connection that had no need nor space for tiptoeing or carefully calibrated gestures, that, to this day, Blair was still in awe of.

Unfortunately, though, Chuck's valet chose that very moment to bring him his espresso, and unintentionally offered him an escape hatch from the raw vulnerability that had slipped away from his grasp and seeped through him for an instant.

"Your coffee, sir," the man said, promptly setting the small cup on the table next to the papers, as he did every morning.

Not at all surprised, Blair watched as Chuck's eyes fluttered back open, and glared at the ristretto he had just been served under a dark frown, his façade firmly back in place. "What is this?" he questioned gruffly, harshly punctuating every word. "I did not ask for this."

Behind him, the valet blinked, evidently confused. It was a well-known fact among the household's employees that Chuck rarely made explicit demands; rather, he expected those who worked for him, and his personal staff especially, to anticipate his every need and desire. This was precisely why the coffee had been brought to him without any specific request on his part. Regrettably, the valet had no way of knowing that drinking the scalding and bitter liquid was currently out of Chuck's reach, nor did he realize that Chuck's display of frustration toward anyone who approached him served him as a convenient diversion to deflect his family's concern and preserve some semblance of control.

As the valet stammered a flustered apology and hurried to collect the cup from the table, rectifying the seemingly inexcusable mistake he had made, Blair exchanged another knowing look with Henry and spared a slightly amused thought of pity for whoever would have to deal with her husband at work that morning.

"Rather than wasting my time, go make sure my car is ready," Chuck ordered. He would have sounded threatening if only his voice hadn't come out so exhausted, as if having to explain what he needed done was some kind of unbearable torment. "And see to the heating issue I told you about. I want it fixed by the time my son gets home this afternoon," he continued, waving his hand dismissively.

There was a sluggishness and an awkwardness in the movement that didn't belong to his graceful bearing, Blair realized, and it was such a small detail that, more than anything, made her feel an inevitable pang of anxiety. He shouldn't have been walking around in his picture-perfect, uncomfortable double-breasted suit, tormenting his body and pushing it to its limit, she thought restlessly; he should have been resting in their bed, warm, wrapped in night clothes. She achingly longed for the moment she'd come home from work that afternoon, and find him there, ready at last to let her in and surrender to her care. No matter how skilled Blair had become in the game of patience and respect, no matter how deeply she comprehended why Chuck acted the way he did in certain situations, watching him fight himself that way was always somewhat anguishing.

Henry interrupted those wistful considerations, forcing Blair to let go of that moment of gloom. He leaned in toward her as his father went on complaining to his valet about the "glacial" temperature in the house and how "unacceptable" it was, and, frowning, he whispered, "It's really not that cold."

Blair sighed, a placid sense of resignation finding its way back into her chest, and shook her head to wordlessly tell her son that it was better to just let Chuck go on with his nonsensical ranting without contradicting him. The valet evidently reached the same conclusion, and, thinking it wise to get out of the way before he could be reprimanded any further, he assured Chuck he would deal with the nonexistent problem and briskly paced out of the dining room to go gather the things his boss needed and warning security that he was about to go out.

"I'm afraid I must leave now," Chuck announced at last, releasing the chair from the grip of his hands and taking a tentative step back. As he started to wanly make his way to the door, he looked at Henry and somehow heroically mustered the resolve to smile smugly. "Don't worry about your father, young Bass," he told him, stopping by his seat, and went as far as winking down at him to reassure him that everything was alright. "Chuck Bass doesn't get sick."

It was only then, pronouncing that pretentious, utterly ridiculous declaration, that Chuck locked eyes with Blair, a provocative glint in the glance he shot her as he leaned over to press a goodbye kiss to Henry's temple. It was barely a fleeting twinkle, a flimsy sparkle of audacity behind the glossy veil of fever clouding his dark irises, but it was enough to remind Blair that, other than worried about him, she was also furious with him, and baffled that he still had the nerve to say such things with conviction.

He might be ill, she concluded, but he was still very much a proud asshole who would soon have to eat his delirious words, and so she allowed herself to give him a withering look, which he welcomed with a small, provocative smirk hovering above his lips.

Henry's laughter broke their silent staring match. It prompted Chuck to resume his laborious stride to the door and kept Blair from giving up on all her good intentions to remain patient and stoic, and from uttering some very unkind words in reply.

"Bye, Dad," Henry chirped, as he watched his father move away from the table.

Though it was obvious he did not believe the ludicrous statement Chuck had pronounced, Blair understood that he had still found it comforting, proof that, despite the sickness, his dad was still well enough to joke and be his pompous, self-obsessed self.

It was far from true, Blair wondered; Chuck's absurd charade was a testament to his denial and stubbornness rather than a sign that he wasn't feeling too bad. Yet, she still found something tender in seeing some concern melt away from her son's gaze, as she realized that, other than challenging her, bringing that serene glow back to Henry's face had probably been Chuck's main intention.

Eventually, it was a warm, tender feeling of forbearing affection that brought her to put her annoyance aside once more and to say goodbye as well. "I'll see you tonight," she told Chuck as he was about to exit the room. Then, seeing him pause in the doorway, halted by her voice, she couldn't keep herself from adding, "Call me if you need anything."

As Blair had fully expected, Chuck didn't turn back to face her. He had already used all that was left of his leverage when he had allowed himself to meet her eyes only a few moments before, and she knew he wouldn't dare to make another bold, inconsiderate move like that. Still, it was with surprise and relief that she watched him look down to his side and weakly nod his head before leaving, a small gesture that told her he'd understood the implications of what she had meant to say—that no matter how long it'd take him to find his way out of his resistance and feel like he could come home, she would be ready to welcome him with no reproach. It wasn't much, just a tiny breach in the thick barriers he had quickly erected around himself, but it was still more than enough to make Blair smile.

---

Fifteen minutes later, Blair was in her limousine with Henry, en route to drop him off at school before going to the atelier. Ideally, Blair would have opted for canceling her entire day and waiting for Chuck to come to his senses at home, making sure everything was ready for the moment he'd be back, but her schedule wouldn't allow her: there were two fitting appointments that required her presence planned for the morning, and a meeting with the marketing team in the early afternoon.

Thus, before leaving the house, she had spoken with Dorota and informed her about the situation.

"Dorota, we're in crisis mode," Blair had announced, stepping into the kitchen, where she had found her maid occupied with going over the menu for the week with the house chef.

Dorota had glanced up, taken a single look at Blair, and, noticing her barely concealed vexed expression, she had motioned for the man to leave them alone. "What happened?" she had asked then, propping her hands on her hips.

"Chuck has caught the flu," Blair had shared once the chef had exited the room. "He's currently in denial about it, but I expect him to crawl back home no later than two."

A look of pure horror had crossed Dorota's face. It wasn't the first time she'd found herself having to deal with such a circumstance, and she was painfully aware of everything it implied. Chuck would become unreasonably irritable and demanding, calling her at any given moment with absurd requests, all the while rejecting any sort of actual help: he would not eat the food she'd bring him in bed or drink the hot honeyed tea she'd offer him, or even accept to take the medicines she'd neatly arrange on his bedside table; all he'd do was call his wife on repeat and complain about imminent death looming over him.

Blair had drawn a sympathetic sigh. "I'll try to make it back home early," she had added with a shrug. "In the meantime, you know the drill: dismiss all the staff that isn't strictly necessary, make sure his doctor is here by the time he arrives, and be prepared to face the tantrums of a three-year-old. I'm afraid I need you to stay longer today."

Dorota hadn't worked full-time in years and held the position of household manager mainly out of loyalty toward Blair and the family. She was there during the mornings to ensure the efficient and smooth organization of the staff and daily matters, but she hardly ever stayed past lunchtime. However, regaining her usual stoicism, the maid had nodded resignedly. "Lights off, no noise, no alcohol in Mr. Chuck's reach, keep heating on full blast," she had continued before Blair had the chance to add those very points to the list. "No mocking Mr. Chuck no matter how ridiculous he is."

That last remark had rubbed Blair the wrong way, making her frown. "Don't be so sarcastic, Dorota," she had reprimanded her, suddenly peeved and caught by an irrepressible rush of protectiveness. She had all the right to claim Chuck was ridiculous, but that liberty didn't extend to anyone else. "You didn't see the state he's in. That man can't do anything in moderation, not even get sick. He won't catch anything for years, and then the one time he does, he can barely stand."

Surely critical of the tender, concerned note that had inevitably mellowed the typically stern cadence of Blair's voice, Dorota had scoffed at her words. "You just said Mr. Chuck is like three-year-old kid, not me."

"Well, I can say whatever I want about Mr. Chuck!" Blair had shouted abruptly, an indignant scowl on her face, "I'm his wife! And don't roll your eyes at me!" Snappy and impatient, she had snatched the paper Dorota had been holding from her hand, taken a quick peek at it, and shaken her head. "This will not do for Chuck, at least not for a couple of days," she had stated firmly, scanning the weekly meal plan the chef had carefully put together. It was excellent, but, up to the standard that was normally required, it was also full of rich, elaborate dishes Chuck wouldn't have eaten in his current condition. "We need light, warm food. Something easy on the throat. I'm thinking broths and pureed soups."

Dorota, who had been muttering in disagreement in Polish all through Blair's fervent speech, had waved her hand in exasperation. "Flu is not such big drama. Mr. Chuck not going to die if he eats filet mignon."

Blair had inhaled sharply, feeling tired and frustrated, painfully aware that there was no one else fit for the job of looking after Chuck but her. The thought of leaving her husband in someone else's care, even for just a little while, was more irritating than the maid's brash comments and insubordination. "He has no appetite, Dorota," she had retorted, laying the menu on the kitchen island's white marble countertop in a gesture of irritation. "Just do as I said. I know what's best for my husband and father of my child better than you do."

Dorota had given Blair one last disapproving headshake, but then she had reached out to place a comforting hand on her arm. "Miss Blair, you go work without worry," she had told her gently. "I deal with Mr. Chuck."

Resigned to the fact she had to leave the house, Blair had nodded slowly, letting out a weary sigh. "Keep me updated," she had demanded then, making her way out of the kitchen. "Warn me when he gets home. Try to convince him to go to bed. And don't let him break you."

"I can lock Mr. Chuck in bedroom if necessary," Dorota had declared. When Blair had turned to shoot her an amused look over her shoulder, her maid had her arms crossed and the austere and resolute face of a general ready to sternly guide her troops into battle.

Even if she knew she had left Chuck in safe hands, staring at the buildings sweeping fast behind the darkened car window as the limousine speeded forward along the street, Blair cursed the work day ahead of her. Though it wasn't especially long, she knew getting through it would be a challenge, her mind wandering off to her husband and her heart aching to be home.

"Mom?" Henry's voice was soft and tiny when he called her.

Blair averted her gaze from the buildings blurring past the vehicle and turned to look at him. She found an unsure expression on his face, a slight pout on his lips. "Yes, sweetie?"

Henry took a moment to answer, his hands fidgeting with the ends of his red scarf. He heaved a sigh and asked, "Do I really have to sleep at Aunt's Serena tonight?"

A tender smile spread across Blair's lips. She had expected that question. There was a certain warm and attentive gleam in his eyes that was infinitely familiar to her—she had seen it staring back at her in the mirror countless times. "You don't want to?" She played for time, knowing that it was better to give him a second to elaborate on his feelings.

A small frown wrinkled his forehead. "I do. It's always fun. She lets me eat on the couch, in front of the TV," he replied, albeit somewhat uncertainly. Blair stopped herself from shaking her head at the predictable revelation and waited for her son to continue. Eyes down to his lap, Henry bit his lower lip. "But what about Daddy?"

'Daddy' wasn't a word Henry used that often anymore. He had slowly grown out of the habit of calling his father like that over the past couple of years, and in those days he normally preferred using less childlike terms, always so preoccupied with sounding older than his age. That unconscious slip was all Blair needed to strengthen the conviction that, despite how fairly blasé he had looked at the breakfast table when he had said goodbye to Chuck, Henry was still a bit worried, and felt like he had to keep the situation under control. There was so much of herself in that urgency to be vigilant and in the way her son was fiercely protective of the people he loved, that she didn't have to make any efforts to deduce that, had she allowed him to come back home after his afternoon activities, Henry would have found a thousand ways not to let Chuck out of his sight, for it was exactly what she would have done—what she had been longing to do ever since, at some point during the night, she had realized that he was sick. And while that would have been endearing and surely amusing to witness, she also knew that, unfortunately, it wasn't the best course of action. The last thing they all needed was for Chuck to further exhaust himself, trying to look and sound better than he was, just to avoid worrying his son.

Blair reached out to his hand and took it in hers. "Your dad will be just fine, Henry," she assured, trying to convince him to glance up at her by squeezing his fingers. When he did, his eyes were serious and insistent. "Everyone gets sick from time to time," she went on, rubbing her thumb against the lapel of his trench coat. "Even 'the Great Chuck Bass', no matter what he claims."

That made him giggle, carrying away some of his uneasiness. Nevertheless, once the tentative laughter faded, he still looked pensive. "He should have just stayed home," he uttered decisively.

Blair nodded her head, his hand still tightly wrapped in her grip. "That's right, he should have," she agreed without hesitation. Henry was brightly intelligent and used to be talked to with absolute honesty: there was no point in concealing her thoughts. "Sometimes Dad lets his pride get in the way of reason," she explained calmly. "I know it's a bit frustrating, and it's not always easy to understand. Truth be told, I am a little annoyed with him, and I too wish he were home. Still, we need to allow him some time and space to get over himself. He'll come around, I promise you."

Henry took a second to let her words sink in and then slid his hand out of her hold to fold his arms across his chest. "When?" he inquired, a narrow, piercing gaze staring back at her under his long eyelashes. His eyes were hers in shape and color, but their sharp glint when he demanded to know something, radiating an uncompromising, intense acumen, was Chuck's through and through.

Though Blair had already elaborated a theory about the time it would have taken Chuck to accept that he needed to go home and was somewhat certain about the conclusion she had come to, she still pretended to ponder over that pointed question, letting Henry know that she was taking it very seriously. "Mmh. I give it four to five hours," she estimated. "What do you think?" she challenged him then, aware that it was always the best way to get through to him. "Do you want to make a bet?"

Immediately, her suggestion brought a smirk to his lips. He looked down for a moment, gathering his thoughts as he worked on a fitting prediction. "I'm leaning toward six," he affirmed at last, and, satisfied with his best guess, he directed his glance at her again. "Dad is really stubborn."

Despite sincerely hoping that her son was wrong about the timing, Blair broke into earnest laughter at that statement. "That he is," she concurred with him. She guided her hand to his perfectly cut bangs, fixing them over his forehead. The fact that he let her without protesting warned her that he could have used some further reassurance. "We shall see who was right later, then. Meanwhile, don't waste too much time thinking about it. Just enjoy your school day, your polo lesson, and your sleepover. I'm sure your aunt will plan an abundance of thoroughly unacceptable activities for you two to engage in, like eating pizza from a carton and karaoke."

Henry snorted, a grimace on his face. "I can tolerate the pizza, but not the karaoke, please," he whined. He leaned back against the leather seat and laid his head on the headrest, letting his arms fall limply by his sides as if the mere thought had exasperated him to the point of exhaustion. "I hate it, and she thinks I adore it. She tortures me with Taylor Swift songs."

"Well, you should consider yourself lucky that it's not Britney or the Backstreet Boys," Blair said through a chuckle, always entertained by her son's theatrical demeanor. "We all had to put up with it at some point."

Henry raised his eyebrows, curious. "Even Dad?"

"Oh, yes," Blair disclosed, glad to see that she had succeeded in distracting him from his concerns and cheering him up. "However, the best she could manage was to make him sing to Sinatra."

"How come I wasn't aware of this?" Henry wondered, and his eyes wide in surprise and amusement. "Is there any video evidence?"

Blair let out a sigh. "I'm afraid not. It was a long time ago. We were barely teenagers, and I'm fairly certain your dad was too drunk to even remember it happening. Everyone was. I might be the sole custodian of this memory."

Henry nodded, chortling. "That explains why I didn't know," he replied, as he turned his head to look out of the car window.

He remained quiet for a couple of minutes after that, and Blair didn't attempt to continue the conversation; instead, she took the chance to pull her smartphone out of her briefcase and go over some emails that needed to be answered. Henry was growing into a quite reflective and reserved person, and she knew that his silence didn't mean that he was upset; it only revealed that he was reflecting on something, spending some time with his thoughts at his own pace.

It was only when the limousine pulled up in front of the St. Jude's Elementary School building that, collecting his schoolbag as he waited for the bodyguard to come to open the door for him, Henry looked back up at his mother and asked, "Can I still call Dad later?"

Blair put her phone down, sliding it into the pocket of her coat. Smiling tenderly, she leaned over to adjust his scarf around his neck. "Of course you can," she promptly assured him. "You can call him after your polo lesson. I'm confident he'll be home by then, driving me and Dorota crazy."

"Hopefully." Laughing softly, Henry fixed his school bag on his shoulders. "And what about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," said Blair, her voice patient and steady, and the caring beam on her lips never faltering, "by the time you come back home from school, your dad will be feeling a little better."

"Will he?" Henry darted her an inquiring look.

"Yes," Blair confirmed right away. It was an easy promise to make: by then, Chuck would have at least been medicated and rested, which was more than she could currently say about him. "Plus, look at the bright side. You'll have plenty of time to spend with him over the next few days, given that you and I will not let him out of the house until he's fully recovered."

Her son snorted at that last remark, clearly finding the thought entertaining. "He's so not gonna like that," he commented, speaking with inflexible self-confidence.

"Well," Blair brought her hands to his arms, smoothing the fabric of the coat that had been slightly crumpled by the backpack's shoulder straps when he had put it on, "he'll have to live with it, whether he likes it or not."

One last amused giggle escaped Henry's lips before he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. It was an unexpected gesture, and Blair found herself grinning as she wrapped her arms around him, trapping him in a brief hug. "Have a good day, sweetie," she said in his ear, inhaling his scent—the white musk of his soap, and a drop of Chuck's cologne, which he not so secretly kept in his bathroom. "I'll talk to you later."

In a matter of seconds, Henry pulled back, said goodbye, and exited the car. Once he was safely inside the school, the bodyguard got back in, and the limousine took off again, heading for Waldorf Designs.

Alone at last, Blair took the smartphone out of her pocket and finally called her best friend.

Serena answered after three rings. "Blair?" Her voice sounded hoarse, and Blair could immediately tell that her phone call had interrupted her sleep. Serena was silent for a second, probably squinting at the screen to figure out what time it was, and then she let out a groan. "You'd better not be calling me at this unholy hour to cancel on me," she muttered, annoyance transpiring through her still-drowsy words.

Blair pressed her lips in a thin line, drumming her fingers over the briefcase that rested on the seat by her side. She and Serena were indeed supposed to go out for a drink later that evening, and Blair didn't look forward to explaining why she'd have to reschedule their appointment, well aware that her best friend would find her reasons absurd, other than laughable. "It's perfectly acceptable to call someone at eight forty on a Monday morning, Serena," she deflected the accusation.

Serena groaned again. "Not if that someone is in her thirties and went to sleep well past 3 a.m. I told you I had the New York City Ballet's fall gala last night. Speaking of which, why weren't you and Chuck there?" she mumbled. In her mind, Blair could picture her sitting up and running a sluggish hand through her mane of golden hair, trying to shake grogginess off. "I know for a fact you got an invitation."

"Well, we don't just attend everything we're invited to," Blair retorted, hiding the fact that she had completely forgotten about her best friend's latest professional engagement behind a piqued, haughty tone. She couldn't be expected to remember every party Serena participated in, she told herself: Serena ran a very successful PR and special events production firm, SunshineS, and her social calendar was always extremely hectic, practically impossible to keep up with. "You know we calibrate our public appearances. Not—"

"Not everything is worthy of the Basses," Serena cut her off, mimicking the words she'd heard from Blair plenty of times before and distorting them with a parodic cadence. "Yes, I know. I'm too tired to deal with your snobbery, B," she complained then, huffing. "Quit beating around the bush and tell me why you're standing me up."

Blair looked down at her nails, conceding herself a moment before having to face her best friend's teasing and possibly offended recriminations. Her manicure needed to be freshened up, she detected displeased.

"Blair?" Serena urged her. There was a flapping sound of sheets and blankets being shoved aside, before Serena, now probably up, suspiciously said, "Wait. Are you bailing on me to have some weird sexual rendezvous I really don't wanna hear about?" The question drifted into an outraged gasp.

"Oh, if only," Blair heard herself grumble before she could stop the wistful, disappointed words from coming out of her mouth. Sadly, sex would be out of the question for a few days. She drew in a deep breath and then released it in a heavy sigh. "Unfortunately for me, it's nothing like that. I must take a rain check on drinks this evening because Chuck is sick."

A couple of wordless seconds followed her revelation. Then, Serena snorted. "Is he dying or something?"

Blair wrinkled her nose at the question, staring at the vehicle's ceiling. She was already agitated, the frustration she had been trying to contain for hours finally starting to overcome her, and Serena's predictable sarcasm did very little to ease her exasperation. She wished she didn't have to explain herself to anyone, much less her best friend, who simply wouldn't understand Chuck's situation nor the dynamics of her marriage, and who held the utterly unfounded conviction that she spoiled her husband past any reasonable limit. "Well, he does look like he's at death's door, but I wouldn't go as far," she clarified drily. "I think the most logical assumption is that he came down with the same thing Henry had."

"You can't make it because Chuck has the flu?" Blair could almost see Serena's always overly expressive eyebrows raising in a perfect arc to accompany her ironical words before her eyes. One day soon, her best friend would have needed Botox to smooth her wrinkles, and she would have greeted that day with joy. "That's completely absurd, Blair. He's a grown-up man, living with a full staff and a valet, which, by the way, is anachronistic and insane. I'm pretty sure he can survive—"

"No, he evidently cannot!" Blair snapped before Serena had the chance to launch herself into a long, insensible preach about Chuck's alleged childishness and general ludicrousness. Once again that morning, she found herself thinking that such comments were her prerogative, and thus she finally gave in to the need to rant about him, all of the irritation and anxiety that had been building up in her chest erupting at last. "He's a pompous, stubborn ass who has no idea what's good for him! He left for work looking like an actual walking corpse, wrapped in tailored Ralph Lauren from head to toe, and claiming that 'Chuck Bass doesn't get sick'!"

As Blair let out a long, relieved breath, feeling much lighter now that she had allowed herself to vent, Serena tried and failed to repress a guffaw. "He actually said that?" she snickered. "I'm sorry, B," she apologized through her silvery laughter, "that's just ridiculous."

"While I don't completely disagree," said Blair, regaining her composure, "I don't appreciate the tone."

Deaf to her admonishment, Serena kept on giggling. "Well, given that you refuse to meet me, can I still stop by your place this afternoon when you get back from work?" she proposed. "I need to talk to you about something that happened at the gala yesterday, and I'd rather do it in person. Plus, I so wanna get a glimpse of my dear brother's histrionics. It's priceless material to make fun of him for years to come."

The idea was completely inconceivable, Blair thought. Not only would Chuck have gotten endlessly offended by such an invasion of his privacy, but she was also adamant that the best thing she could do for him was grant him a semi-empty house; an intimate, secluded environment to make him feel it was safe to be vulnerable. She surely wouldn't allow Serena to barge into that secluded coziness and give her the chance to mock him. "You will not come to my house to ridicule my husband, Serena."

Blair heard Serena fumbling to do something—probably starting to fix her own breakfast, she wondered with disapproval, given that her best friend categorically refused to keep a proper domestic staff and managed to make do with a single housekeeper. "Someone should, though," Serena pointed out, joking. "You especially. But you won't, because you always wear your rose-tinted glasses when it comes to Chuck, and you're just so worried about him. I can hear the tension in your voice, you know."

Serena sounded genuinely entertained now, her tone light and overly honeyed, and Blair could clearly imagine an annoying smile of condescending and compassionate cognizance playing about her lips. Her best friend was hardly ever right about anything, Blair wondered, but when she knew she was, she became intolerable. Not eager to confess exactly how much her husband was worrying her sick by being an insufferable, hardheaded idiot with an unimaginable ego, and give Serena that satisfaction, she decided to cut the conversation short. "I'm sure you have a lot to say about this, but I'm already having a difficult day and I don't have time for your unsolicited opinions, S," she stated curtly. "Actually, I need a favor."

"Wow," Serena chuckled over the beeping noise of her open fridge, which she was surely scanning, looking for something to eat while holding her phone between her ear and shoulder. "First you canceled on me and now you have a favor to ask? You really are a terrible best friend."

Annoyed, Blair rolled her eyes. "You know what? I'm just gonna call Nate. I'm sure he'll be more than willing to help me out without judging."

"No, don't call Nate!" Serena immediately exclaimed. "Go ahead, I'm listening. What do you need?"

Her best friend's oddly rash answer gave Blair a pause. Serena and Nate had been divorced for a couple of years now, but they had parted ways on good terms after their short marriage and they were still very close friends. The fact that Serena clearly didn't want her to speak to Nate was a red flag signaling potential new developments in their always blurry relationship. "That was quick," Blair noted, raising a suspicious eyebrow. Immediately, a thought came to her mind, and, regardless of the predicament she found herself in and the more pressing issues she had to solve, she ended up wondering, "What is it that you were so impatient to tell me over drinks, by the way?"

Serena sighed. "Nothing I wanna discuss on the phone, especially not while you're on the verge of some classic Waldorf-style implosion, Blair," she replied tiredly, avoiding the question. Even if she couldn't see her, Blair knew Serena was looking down and biting her lip, as she did whenever she unsuccessfully tried to hide something from her. Once out of the woods of the flu crisis, Blair decided, she'd have to delve into that matter and figure out what was going on between her equally blonde and equally foolish friends. "Let's just skip to the part where you tell me what you need and I get to be the most thoughtful and accommodating best friend and sister-in-law on the planet."

Blair shook her head. "I'm not on the verge of anything. You're just deflecting. You're lucky that I have too much going on right now to investigate your vagueness further. In any case," she continued, "you would take a lot off my plate if you could just babysit Henry tonight. I'd much rather deal with Chuck alone."

Serena squealed with delight, so loudly that Blair ended up wincing, moving the phone away from her ear. "I was hoping you'd say that!" There was a clapping noise and Blair could tell her best friend had monetarily abandoned her mobile on the counter and was likely hopping on her feet in excitement. "Of course, I will! That's hardly a favor, B. You know how I love having my little nugget here!"

"Thank you," Blair replied sincerely, relieved, at least, to have one less thing to worry about. "Try not to call him that, though," she added. Henry had hardly ever been enthusiastic about the pet names his aunt would come up with and his tolerance for baby talk had significantly thinned recently. "He fancies thinking of himself as an adult these days, and, as you well know, he is blessed with all of his father's touchiness."

After Serena had protested that she would call her nephew however she pleased and that Heny could use some down-to-earth influence in his life, given how little of it he was getting from his parents, Blair briefly proceeded to walk her through his schedule for that day and then assured her that Henry's nanny would pick him up from her place to take him to school the next morning.

By the time she'd said goodbye to her best friend ("Tell the dying man to get well soon," Serena had joshingly yet kindly offered before hanging up), the limousine had pulled over in front of Waldorf Designs, and Blair felt somewhat readier to face the burdensome day ahead of her, having made sure that Henry would spend a carefree night with a person he loved dearly.

---

Sat at his seat at the head of the lacquered dark wooden table in the largest of the conference rooms on the top floor of Bass Industries, where he had been for three hours, Chuck was in a hell of suffering he would not have wished on his worst enemy—a noteworthy concession on his part, given that he was a man whose opponents were not mere figures of speech but flesh-and-blood individuals.

The aspirin he had conceded himself to swallow down with a morsel of bagel upon arriving at the office, hoping it would alleviate the worst symptoms of the bothersome cold tormenting him and help him to at least get through his morning schedule, had stopped doing its job halfway through his third meeting.

While Chuck had felt drained and cranky, for the better part of two hours he had still managed without too much of a struggle, the medicine working its magic and giving him enough reprieve to function somewhat normally and to hide his discomfort from prying eyes. Not to further strain his voice or set off the cough perpetually ticking and scratching his raw throat, he had let his uncle Jack do most of the talking about the Dubai project in his stead. His comments concerning the financing and the authorizations for the construction site had been few and concise, yet scrupulous enough not to raise any suspicion. If Jack had found being delegated the task of leading the conversations an uncharacteristic occurrence or his nephew's input any less consistent than usual, he hadn't mentioned it, all too satisfied with the chance to exercise some authority.

When the conference with the architectural team had started, the last before the lunch break, Chuck had been firmly adamant that, with some simple expedients, he could have indeed made it to the end of his day. Strong in his conviction, he had tersely prompted the lead architect to start elaborating on the concepts for the luxury resort. He normally demanded any sort of video presentation to be preceded by a detailed preliminary description and to be accompanied by a reasonably extensive dossier, and that time had been no exception. As a preamble to the presentation that was on the agenda for that meeting, Chuck had been provided with a heavy informative file, and, willing to make sure that his requests had been precisely met, he had channeled his energies into reading through it, following the architect as he detailed the contemporary, sleek aesthetics envisioned for the group of buildings. In a victorious outburst, satisfied with the control he seemed to have mastered over his state, Chuck had even considered texting Blair to reassure her that he was all things considered fine while taking the opportunity to stress that he had been undoubtedly right about her being overly dramatic.

And he would have if only the effects of the aspirin hadn't started to wear off. Instead, his condition had deteriorated quickly. Before he could realize it was happening, his headache, which had so far regressed to some annoying but tolerable dull ache behind his eyes, had returned with a vengeance, as had the bitter chills and the belligerent pangs of pain throughout his body. Soon he had found himself feeling much worse than he had been when he had left home—achy all over, his limbs a shivering burden. Concentrating on what was being said had become ever more difficult, and reading an impossible challenge, the printed words slipping away from his grasp and blurring under his unfocused vision.

At last, after having endured over forty minutes of that anguish, Chuck was on his last leg and had had about all he could take of that meeting. The architect's unreasonably loud voice droning about the public areas of the resort had become an intolerable cacophony in his ears, and his eyelids were impossibly heavy over his eyes, threatening to close at any moment under the weight of the ache burning at his temples and of the weakness and weariness that had seeped into his very bones.

He needed to wrap up the meeting right away, Chuck realized. It might not have been the most professional or meticulous move on his part, but it was all he could do to prevent his growing uneasiness from becoming an evident fact to all those present in the room. He was already having a dreadful day, and he would not deal with his employees' nosy looks and entirely inappropriate questions about his health. So, determined to speed things up, he painfully cleared his throat and raised his palm to get everyone's attention, which he obtained immediately.

A heavy silence fell upon the room. The entire architectural team and the project manager stared at him anxiously, tensely waiting for him to speak.

Chuck took a single moment to savor the fearful expressions on their faces, always pleased to know that his comments were awaited with reverential fear, and slowly declared, "I think we've heard enough."

His words immediately sparked an alarmed reaction of worried glances. Such an interruption had been completely unforeseen: Chuck's perfectionism and his punctiliousness were matters of common knowledge, and, while his employees knew that ruthless criticism of their work was always to be expected, the decision to cut things short was almost unprecedented and therefore hard to decipher.

Even Jack, who sat by Chuck's right side as usual and had till that point remained unperturbed, lazily skimming through the pages of his copy of the dossier, seemed to be slightly taken aback by the obvious anomaly. He raised his gaze from the file and darted his nephew a quizzical look under raised eyebrows. "Are you sure you don't want to go through every point that you've deemed necessary to be included in this introductory report?" His voice was suspicious, but it held an undertone of amusement, the hint of a snigger. "I'm certain that Mr…" he spied out the name from the glossy cover of the dossier, "...Johnson and his team have a lot more to say about their vision."

On any other occasion, the irony in his uncle's words and the implied criticism of his alleged pedantry would have made Chuck firmly retort that decisions were his to make and that the level of thoroughness he expected from his staff was everything but excessive, especially because they were public and Jack had spoken none too respectfully. That day, however, Chuck couldn't bring himself to do much more than register that his uncle had finally picked on his odd behavior, found it entertaining, and was now on the prowl for an explanation.

"I'm sure they do," he replied sluggishly, frowning at how slurred and groggy his words sounded. He wearily pinched the bridge of his nose to allow his eyes to close for a second and find some respite, as the bright light coming from the floor-to-ceiling windows had quickly become an unbearable affront to his throbbing head. "However," he continued, feeling and disregarding Jack's penetrating gaze scanning him, "I'd rather see what we've been discussing now. We're moving on to the video presentation. It's the reason why this meeting has been set to begin with, isn't it?"

Jack snorted lightly, shaking his head a little, but no one dared to remind Chuck that the long introduction had been put together as per his specific instructions. Instead, the projection screen was immediately turned on and set, and the video presentation launched.

Two minutes into it, Chuck was livid. He had expected a perfectly done job, but he found the video appalling, borderline amateurish; not only did the 3D models popping on the screen fail at giving him a precise idea of the spaces they were meant to describe, but they also intensified the pain in his head with their overly bright blue and green tones.

Exasperated, not so much from feeling sick, but from the shocking incompetence of the people who had been hired, Chuck ordered the switching off of the screen with a weak yet unmistakable motion of his hand.

While he might not be able to command his body to get over whatever was making him wish he were sedated, punishing the waste of his time and momentarily minimal mental strength with some harsh words was well within his control. "This is completely unacceptable," he rasped brusquely, breaking the uneasy, taut stillness that had shrouded the room at his silent request to shut the presentation down. He allowed himself to relish it and found some solace in the rush of power that gave him a thrill the moment he acknowledged the dread his statement had provoked. Looking in the general direction of the project manager, who was seated across Jack, he questioned, "Why am I being presented with something that looks like it's been thrown together at the last minute?"

Chuck could not recall the man's name, and trying to would have been too much of a challenge considering the way his brain was menacing to explode out of his skull, but he still found some enjoyment in seeing him shift uncomfortably in his seat, grappling to come up with a response. "I thought it was a solid update on the progress, sir," the man managed to stammer at last. "I understand the rendering is not quite hyper-realistic yet, but—"

"That's an understatement," Chuck interrupted him curtly, scorn flowing through his impatient tone. "I can assure you my ten-year-old son could have assembled something better on his own with his laptop." Irritated as he was, he had forgotten to speak deliberately, and he had to stifle a cough at the tail of his rebuttal, struggling to gulp it down his burning throat.

A crooked, knowing smile suddenly stretched Jack's lips. He cast a wry look at Chuck before shrugging. "That might not be so far-fetched," he commented facetiously, looking at no one in particular. "The little devil is precocious enough."

No matter how funny it had been, no one was bold enough to laugh at the joke. Though Chuck was quite enraged and didn't think the blatant ineptitude of the team was material for humor, he secretly thanked Jack's impertinent interruption because it gave him a second to catch his breath and muster the resolve to keep venting his disappointment. "It's your job to assess this type of material before it gets to me," he addressed the project manager again, glaring at him. "If something needs perfecting and doesn't fit the requirements, I do not wish to see it. I don't have time for it."

The man couldn't hold his sharp gaze. He looked down at his lap, and, tying his hands together on the table, he tried to justify himself: "Sir, you said you wanted a visual idea of the entire project by today, and the team worked very hard to meet the deadline. It was a tight one."

Chuck sensed whatever was left of his patience evaporating, his temples pulsing so intensely that he could almost sense his blood throbbing through them. He shivered, whether out of pain, cold, or anger, he could not tell. "I know what I demanded as well as I know that I did not get it," he retorted roughly, his voice thick and low but not any less categorical. Holding himself together despite how dreadfully unwell he felt at that moment was already difficult enough without having to deal with insubordination. "If I don't have a reasonably accurate notion of the spaces, I cannot give my final approval on the blueprints; if I don't, there'll be a delay in the breaking ground of the complex, resulting in a significant waste of my money, of my time and my resources, all of which can't consequentially be employed in other projects. Or are you under the unreasonable impression that this is the only real estate development the company is currently undertaking?"

By the time he managed to get to the end of that long, laborious answer, Chuck had become miserably aware of two things: that he'd have to set up another meeting with those incompetent people the following day to resolve the matter before his Berlin trip, and that he was starting to get lightheaded, unable to understand whether he was hot or cold, his face on fire and his body trembling, the room swaying before his eyes.

"No, Mr. Bass," the project manager replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "I apologize. I'll make sure that all future updates meet your expectations."

"You'd better," Chuck snarled. "I need a new visually accurate presentation by tomorrow," he ordered then, his gaze darting around the room to meet the members of the architectural team; their faces stared back at him out of focus and blurry, triggering queasiness in the pit of his stomach, but he forced himself to ignore the sickening sensation. He directed his eyes to the lead architect, who stood in front of the now blank screen with a mortified expression. "Is it unreasonable of me to ask?"

The question had been purely rhetorical. If someone considered the task prohibitive, they restrained themselves from saying so.

Pleased with the reaction his request had produced, Chuck would have usually left at this point, and allowed himself a theatrical exit to stress his dissatisfaction and disapproval further; however, he felt too weak to stand up, so he slumped into his seat and announced, "Unless someone has something useful to say, you're all dismissed."

There was a moment of puzzlement then, seconds filled with anxious, jittery whispers rising above the uncomfortable silence. Chuck let his eyelids close and lifted his fingers to his temples, wishing that everyone would just stop talking and disappear. For the first time that morning, despite his resolution not to, he ended up regretting the comfort and intimacy of his bedroom, and Blair's delicate fingers running through his hair. He longed to be clung to her, his face buried in her lap, hidden from anyone who wasn't her, and the desire was so overwhelming that he could almost feel her arms wrapped around him, shielding him from the light, the noise, and the people.

Someone, most likely his uncle, clapped their hands, snapping Chuck out of his daydream and making him wince. "Well, you've heard Mr. Bass," he heard Jack exclaim, and he mentally cursed him for shouting that much. "Everybody out. Come on, get moving!"

Though he couldn't help cringing at the noise of a dozen chairs being pushed back against the hardwood floor and indistinct murmuring, Chuck, craving to be alone, welcomed the sounds warning him that his employees were finally leaving with relief. In a matter of seconds, the room had emptied out but for one person, who cleared their throat to announce their still lingering presence.

Well aware of who it was, Chuck cracked an eye open and met the sight of his uncle standing in the doorway with no surprise. "The 'all' in 'you're all dismissed' includes you too, you know," he grumbled faintly, slowly rubbing his fingertips in circles against the sides of his head. There was neither strength nor real strictness in the tone, as Chuck had already run out of both. He heaved a very tentative sigh and resigned himself to the fact that his uncle simply couldn't leave well enough alone.

"What if I have something useful to say?" Jack indeed snickered.

Chuck watched him through hooded eyelids as he took a look outside at the common spaces, probably making sure that no one was still around, and then closed the door, stepping inside the conference room again. "They can't make it by tomorrow," he pointed out, grabbing the chair that was closest to his reach. "You know this as well as I do."

"It's not my problem," Chuck hissed drily. "They should have made it by today. I want this over and done with before the Berlin trip."

"Berlin?"

There was an ironic shade in Jack's surprised tone that Chuck was simply too tired and not interested enough to investigate "Yes," he replied impatiently. "It's been on your calendar for a month at least and you've already been given the exact itinerary. Have you developed a senile condition? Why do I need to remind you?"

"You don't," Jack huffed as he took a seat. "I know I'm going. I was merely thinking you might want to sit this one out."

Chuck pursed his lips and tried to inhale a short breath to control his frustration. He couldn't. "Why would I do that?"

Jack leaned back in his chair and, crossing his legs, shrugged. "One might call it an unexpected surge of common sense."

Chuck ran a hand over his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to have that conversation; he was just trying to scrape together a bit of energy to stand up, defeat the dizziness, and make his way to his office, where he would have gone to the bathroom, splashed some water on his face, poured himself a drink and then pulled himself together enough to be able to chair the board meeting in the afternoon. If the Dubai conferences had worn him out to that point, he didn't dare to wonder how hard having to personally elaborate on the plans for the next quarter or going over the expected figures would be, not only because he truly felt ill now, but because he hadn't had any time for his final prepping that morning. "Can you just get to the point and leave?"

"Fine," Jack let out a dramatic sigh. "The presentation wasn't half as bad as you made it sound."

The mere memory of the 3D models moving and turning in flashes of colored light made Chuck feel nauseous. He didn't want to think about it. He gave up on massaging his temples, as it didn't ease his headache the slightest and his arms felt too heavy not to let them fall on the chair's padded armrests. Again, his mind wandered off to his wife. Had Blair been there, he thought, she would have taken care of cradling his head. She would have kicked Jack out and saved him from that pointless talk. She would have taken him home. He would have succumbed to his need for her and to his inability to get through a simple cold, and she would have won. That idea was so unacceptable that it made him frown and pushed him to reply, "It was mediocre at best."

"It was adequate for the stage of the project. We're nowhere near needing an immersively realistic rendering of the spaces. We're months away from breaking ground, and even if we were closer and the blueprints had been approved, there are always adjustments to be made once you move from paper to reality." Chuck didn't need to look at Jack to know that there was a sly smirk on his face; he could hear it in his sarcastic, conceited voice. He would have rolled his eyes if only he had managed to keep them open for more than a split second. "But, of course, you are perfectly aware of all of this," his uncle continued, relentless in his gloating desire to highlight the supposed absurdity of his behavior. "You're just being a pain in the ass 'cause you're sick as a dog, and lashing out is the way you cope."

"I'm not sick. I do not get sick," came Chuck's purely instinctual reply. He snapped it, completely disregarding his struggle to keep his cough at bay, and he paid for his impulsiveness and carelessness when he found himself hacking into his arm and sniffling so much that he was soon panting.

"Clearly," Jack sneered.

Exhausted and still a bit breathless, Chuck slowly reached out to his tie and loosened it slightly, his fingers trembling around the tight knot. Blair liked to free him from his ties, he found himself wondering, suddenly lost in his thoughts, Jack's presence and his voice blathering about his impossible mood and his so-called sickness a distant cognition. She had a meticulous way of doing it that was heavenly: one moment her gentle, small hands were working on the fabric, the next they'd released him from its constriction and were massaging his neck. They'd glide under his shirt then, down to his shoulders, and find all the spots where tension had piled up during the day, and gradually dissolve it, one stiffened muscle after the other…

"Chuck!" Jack called him, giving him a start and making his eyes snap open.

The light was horrendously bright, and Chuck had to blink repeatedly to convince his sight to face it again. When he finally managed to direct his glance to his uncle, Jack was staring at him with an unapologetically amused expression on his face.

"You haven't heard a word I said, you're too out of it," Jack concluded, mocking laughter vibrating through his statement. "Look, kid. I don't actually care about this stubborn act of denial you're putting on or what shape of masochism led you to come in this morning," he said, waving a dismissive hand up and down to indicate Chuck and the obviousness of his state, an uneven smile creasing his mouth. "If anything, it's a hilarious throwback to when you were a brooding child and you'd hide being sick from your nannies. Not the smartest bunch, those, but then again my late brother was always more concerned with good looks than with adequate résumés. I also don't particularly mind you giving your subordinates hell, but you can't pull a stunt like that with the board this afternoon. They're insufferable morons, but you can't treat them like the idiots they are."

Everything about his uncle's tone and words was intolerably offensive: the way he had addressed him and spoken about him with a complete lack of regard for his authority, the brash remark about his childhood, and the scornful implication that his actions were as irrational as a kid's, not to mention the plainly disrespectful assumption that he wasn't fit to do his job. He was the best in his field, Chuck reminded himself; he might be notoriously cold-blooded and his leading style ruthless and inflexible, but it all meant very little when he had an edge on the company's every competitor and was able to ensure Bass Industries regularly made billions in profits. He would not be scolded or told how to conduct himself in his boardroom. Seething with burning indignation, Chuck let fury take control of his weakened body and clutched the armrests, forcing himself to sit upright and lean in toward Jack. "Are you perhaps suggesting I don't know how to run my own company?"

Jack merely raised his eyebrows at him, unmoved by the deliberate, cutting question, and by the threatening quality Chuck had tried to give to his voice. "Always so melodramatic," he commented through a long sigh, shaking his head. "You know, you would almost look intimidating if it weren't for the whole being-one-step-away-from-collapsing thing. All I'm suggesting is that you should go home. Go to bed. Sleep it off. Have your wife nurse you back to health."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not going anywhere," Chuck immediately replied, firm and harsh. He had had more than enough of his uncle's insinuations and mockery, and the outrage making his blood boil made him feel as though he had enough strength to leave. He cautiously stood up, careful to move slowly enough not to make his head start spinning again, and buttoned up his suit. Then, shooting Jack a menacing look, he stated, "I'm fine."

Jack stared at him for a moment, a taunting smirk still hovering above his lips. "Just peachy," he replied ironically. "Well," he threw up his hands as if in defeat, and pushed his chair back to stand up as well, "let the record show I did try to stop this madness and put you out of your misery."

Chuck kept glowering at him in silence, as his uncle took a step toward him. "See you later, nephew," he said smugly, and he even had the audacity to pat him on the shoulder. "Try not to pass out in the hallway. That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it?"

With that last obnoxious, snappy comeback and a wicked, self-satisfied wink to accompany it, Jack finally made his way to the door, suddenly engrossed in texting on his phone. Chuck waited for him to disappear out of his sight completely and then a few more seconds to better collect himself and straighten his tie before making his way out of the conference room as well.

Contrary to his uncle's ridiculous allusions that he was about to, Chuck did not in fact collapse. However, by the time he reached his office and barked at his assistant that on no account should he be disturbed, he had come to the realization that he felt too sick for his indisposition to be just a cold he could easily push through: his splitting headache was intolerable, breathing through his congested nose and sore throat was a torture, and there was no longer denying the fact that he was running a fever, no matter how decisively he had fought Blair on that very point earlier that morning.

He locked the office door behind him, and, deciding that he needed a glass of scotch to dull his senses, he headed straight for the bar cart. Blair would have objected, he considered briefly as he picked up the decanter and poured the liquor into a glass. She would have protested that drinking was the last thing he should be doing at that moment, reminding him of his temperature, his headache, and the fact that he was essentially running on an empty stomach, and resolutely whipped the single malt away from his hands before he could bring it to his lips. However, Blair wasn't there, and he was free to do as he pleased, so he took a generous, long sip.

He grimaced as the alcohol slid down his throat, making it burn furiously, and barely had the time to swallow before he was coughing again, his chest on fire.

Chuck cursed under his breath, and, feeling his legs dangerously weak under his weight, he reluctantly abandoned the glass half full on the cart and staggered to the sitting area of the room, where he miserably let himself fall on the leather couch, the bitter taste of liquor still in his mouth. He lifted an arm over his eyes, closing them against the fabric of his jacket, and the thought of his wife caught up with him again. He wondered what she was up to. He didn't have to expose himself to the bright light of his phone screen to know that she hadn't called him: she wouldn't, not when she was aware that he wouldn't have picked up. Yet, the realization that he had successfully managed to convince her to let him drown in his agony made him feel uneasy, guilty at the idea of having pushed her away, and, at the same time, irrationally bothered by the fact she hadn't made any attempts to contact him. Though he understood that she was just trying to give him space, there was a part of him that ached to be reminded that she was worried about him and struggling to maintain her distance.

He could almost imagine her sitting behind her polished desk, her fingers drumming restlessly on the tabletop, staring at her phone as she waited for him to call her and pleadingly admit defeat on his way back to the house. She would have answered straight away and pronounced his name in an anxious, soft gasp, and the sound of it would have made relief wash over him, a cocoon of long-awaited comfort. She would have let him whine, meeting his every complaint with delicate, softly-spoken questions of affection and concern. She would have promised him she'd come home immediately, telling him to stay warm and safe and wait for her. He would have asked her to hurry, desperate to be in bed with her, trapped in her embrace.

Chuck groaned. There was no point in losing himself in that mental scenario, as things would not play out that way. He would not call Blair, nor would he leave Bass Industries before having completed everything that was on his schedule, no matter what his uncle, his staff, and the board thought or had to say about it. He was the CEO, chairman, and majority shareholder of his company. He was Chuck Bass. He had worked nonstop through worse than the flu, he told himself sternly: through bleeding wounds and broken bones; through exhaustion, burnout, and more than a few depressive episodes; through grief, paralyzing panic, and debilitating insomnia. He would not allow himself to be weak in the face of something as mundane as a common virus. He just needed to lay down for a few minutes, and then he'd be perfectly ready to deal with what remained of his day. It was only half past eleven, and the board meeting was set for two: there was plenty of time for him to get back on his feet and properly prepare, going through the files piled up on his desk and ready to be reviewed one last time.

Before he could realize it, as he thought of graphs full of numbers and figures that made very little sense, he had slipped into a restless, comfortless sleep.

---

The first time Blair reached out to her phone again that morning, it was just a few minutes past eleven. As she returned to her office, after having walked a delighted bride who had just had the final fitting for her couture wedding gown to the door, she felt it buzzing in the pocket of her blazer and immediately grabbed it. Working had taken her mind off her husband for a while, but, now that her client was satisfied and gone, it was with trepidation that Blair darted a glance at the screen, longing to see Chuck's name flash on it. It was a vain hope, as she knew that it was far too soon for him to yield to his need to call her, but she still couldn't help her disappointment when she acknowledged that the text lighting up the display was from the wrong Bass.

Blair halted her steps as her eyes scanned the very few telegraphic words Jack had deemed necessary to type and send her:

Your husband is spreading the plagueAND terror. Come collect him.

Not one bit taken aback by the content of the message, Blair snorted. She had no doubts that Chuck was giving every person around him an impossibly hard time, and the predictability of his behavior—the way she could distinctly picture him ordering people around without an ounce of restraint in his despotic ways—felt reassuring and hilarious to some extent. Yet she craved new, more accurate information, so she quickly replied:

That bad, uh?

Crossing the conference room to her office, Blair tersely reminded her assistant Danielle to make sure a bucket of champagne was ready to welcome their next client, an influencer who was supposed to get there in fifteen minutes, and walked past the double doors that separated her private space from the common area; she closed them, letting everyone in the atelier know that she was not to be bothered with matters that weren't urgent, and then sat down at her desk to read Jack's prompt answer:

Worse. I have to deal with a whole team of architects threatening to quit. I repeat: come collect your husband.

Blair stared at the text for a second, weighing up the tempting words. There was an obstinate side of her that pressed her to do exactly what Jack was suggesting: call her driver, have him speedily take her to Bass Industries, enter the building and take the elevator up to the top floor, and then stride right into Chuck's reign with no hesitation, fully intentioned to interrupt whatever meeting he was in or simply burst into his office, deaf to anyone's attempts to stop her. It would have been humiliating for Chuck, and he would have resented her for it for days, but she was an implacable savior in this fantasy, and her actions were justified by reasonableness, love, and fierce protectiveness.

Once, she would have reacted this way, and she wouldn't have had much of a choice.

At the beginning of their marriage, back when Henry was nothing more than a secretive, tentatively whispered promise between them and they were a young couple unbounded by the responsibilities of parenthood, Chuck had struggled a lot with finding a somewhat reasonable work-life balance. His first year as CEO of Bass Industries had been tainted in more ways than one by the aftermath of Bart's death; the negative publicity that had followed it had been terrible, and the speculations on Chuck's innocence and suitability for his role incessant and often unfair. While he had never ceased being an attentive, doting husband, at that time he had not seldom ended up overworking himself, disregarding his health and letting it weaken under the weight of tremendous stress and the pressure to establish himself, laying every questioning of his competence to rest and proving his worth beyond all doubt.

Those first couple of months after their blissful honeymoon had been a dark period of little, erratic sleep, often haunted by nightmares and nameless grief, and of constantly walking on a tightrope stretched above the throes of breakdown—mental and physical.

Eventually, burnout had gotten the best of Chuck. His body had given out on him, punishing the nerve-wracking rhythm he had imposed on himself with recurrent migraines and fatigue; at some point, strained, he had gotten sick with a mild case of pneumonia. Blair had watched him helplessly as he pushed himself to function through it, her every attempt to make him acknowledge the seriousness of the situation falling flat. After three long, frustrating days of ceaseless coughing, coming and going fever, and chest pain, Blair, at last beside herself with worry and having run out of any less invasive ideas to reason with him, had ended up barging into his office unannounced, ready to make a scene, only to find him alone, bent over his desk with his head in his hands. The look of guilt and disorientation she had seen on his face when he had glanced up and realized her presence in the doorway had shattered her heart and suffocated the perhaps hyperbolic threats to call an ambulance on him she had been completely prepared to shout. He had looked so thin and frail, so impossibly young, crushed under burdens she couldn't take off his shoulders, that she had just rushed over him, dropping her bag and coat on the floor. She had trapped him in her arms, his head pressed safely to her chest, and whispered teary vows of devotion and reassurance against his disheveled hair. Chuck had allowed her to take him home then; no further words had been spoken between them till much later, when, curled up in their bed, he had apologized to her and sworn never to let things go that far again.

A few slips aside, Chuck had mostly kept his promise. Unlearning the way he had taught himself to tune out any discomfort or tiredness till he didn't feel it anymore had been complicated, and it was something that, to that day, he still grappled with. Yet he had become better at understanding his limits and at welcoming Blair's help; days of hiding and denial had turned into mere hours, and his still irrepressible initial resistance to accept her advice and care had become grounds for loving irony rather than painful worry.

Blair no longer needed to disregard Chuck's need for his time to elaborate on his feelings out of exasperation and suffocating anxiety, and she wouldn't set foot into his sacred place of authority to "collect" him unless she had a more than valid reason to put him through such mortification. She didn't, and thus it was with a soft sigh of acceptance that she typed:

No can do. You're on your own with this. Bye.

She put her iPhone in Do Not Disturb mode and started to get ready for her next appointment.

The thought of Chuck remained a pale concern in the back of Blair's mind until her lunch break, when she allowed herself to turn her notifications back on. There was a text from Serena with a picture of a wrapped gift she had gotten for Henry on the occasion of the unexpected sleepover attached, which made Blair smile, and a missed call from her mother, which she ignored, resolved not to add Eleanor to the equation of her day.

Chuck had not called her yet, nor had he sent her any messages. Four hours and a half of radio silence was a hard test on Blair's patience, but it was nothing she hadn't dealt with before, so she focused on eating the grilled chicken salad that had been delivered to her office and tried to keep herself occupied with finding a way to rearrange her schedule for the next day. There was most definitely a sleepless night ahead of her, not to mention the fact that Chuck would plead not to be left alone, and she was determined to at least cancel her morning so that she could indulge him and get some rest herself.

"You have a breakfast appointment with Mrs. Van Der Wooden at 9:30," Danielle reminded her. She stood in front of Blair's desk, inspecting the tablet she held in her hand. "And a design meeting for the home collection at 11."

Blair scanned her planner, which lay open next to her almost empty plate, where both things her assistant had mentioned had been neatly underlined in green and yellow. "Move my appointment with Mrs. Van Der Woodsen to a late lunch, if it works for her," she demanded. Blair had been chairwoman for the debutante ball for three years now, but, as chairwoman emeritus, Lily was still very much involved with the committee and the organization of the cotillion and had asked her daughter-in-law to meet her to discuss the dinner for the debutants and mentors Blair would host at the beginning of the following month. Lily wouldn't have minded the rescheduling, though, Blair wondered, especially once informed of the situation. She took a sip of water and asked, "Is there any way we can postpone the design meeting to the afternoon?"

Danielle scrolled her finger down the tablet and frowned. "Not if you still want to leave at 3:00 p.m., Mrs. Waldorf-Bass."

As her eyes landed on the bottom of the page, where 'dinner with Chuck' was written in bright red, Blair let out a long sigh. She had organized her Tuesday to be able to get home in time to prepare for a romantic early evening date with her husband—a couple of hours of excellent food and intimacy before he'd leave for his business trip. Chuck was supposed to go to the airport straight from the restaurant so that he could sleep on the jet and be in Berlin in time for his afternoon meetings. Obviously, none of that was going to happen. "I'll stay longer," she replied, a pinch of resigned dissatisfaction in her tone as she thought about the vintage Yves Saint Laurent silver silk dress she had planned on wearing for the occasion. "On this account, also cancel my 7:00 p.m. reservation at Per Se."

"Shall I contact Mr. Bass' assistant so he can take it off his calendar as well?" Danielle inquired.

It was a redundant question, as their schedules were always meticulously coordinated down to the last detail, and Blair was about to point it out, but then her phone buzzed again, distracting her from her purpose of reprimanding the not-so-perspicacious employee. She wordlessly motioned for Danielle to leave her alone with an impatient hand wave and a withering look, and she found herself huffing when she realized that it wasn't her absurdly stubborn husband who was requiring her attention. It was Nate.

Frustrated, she picked up. "Hello, Archibald," she greeted him before he could speak, setting her planner aside. "What do you need?"

On the other side of the phone, Nate hesitated, held back by the stressed tone that had inevitably tightened her voice. "Are you busy, Blair?" he stammered. "I can call you back later if you are."

Blair sighed. Nate was always too nice for his own good. "Not at the moment. I was just eating my lunch," she answered, careful to give a more mellow quality to her words. While it wasn't unusual for Nate to call her, he rarely did it during her work hours; he knew better than to disturb her. If he had given in, surely after considerable rumination, something was certainly troubling him. She had a feeling it had to do with Chuck. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just…" he paused, drawing a long breath. "I've been trying to get in touch with Chuck for an hour, but he's not answering his phone. If he can't pick up, he usually texts me. But he hasn't."

Listening to Nate's agitated explanation, Blair had relaxed against the chair backrest, smiling to herself, always happy to acknowledge her undefeated prediction skills. "Have you tried the office landline?"

"I have!" Nate promptly and unsurprisingly replied. "Elias said he's not taking any calls or seeing anyone." Desolated, he added, "I insisted, but he wouldn't put me through."

That was an interesting piece of information, Blair thought, her fingers toying with a sterling silver pen she had picked up from the desk.

Avoiding contact with Nate, who, despite his characteristic lack of intuition, could have possibly guessed what was going on, was quintessentially Chuck; completely isolating himself at work, however, wasn't in the slightest. Chuck was a full-blown workaholic. Normally, even when he wasn't technically occupied, he'd find a way to make the most of his time, calling impromptu meetings to keep tabs on the development of various projects and deals, or making surprise appearances in departments where he wasn't expected—a subtle type of torture he liked to inflict on his employees, Blair would say amusedly, or, according to him, the best way to make sure everyone was constantly kept on their toes and giving their absolute best. Moreover, Chuck always kept an eye on potential investments and had a knack for discovering new talents; he enjoyed meeting young entrepreneurs who, after having gone through a rigorous and frankly strenuous system of selection, would get the chance of being introduced to him and pitching their business proposals. These appointments were usually squeezed in at the last minute in between his planned engagements, whenever he told his assistant he had some spare time.

If he was opting for remaining secluded in his office, Blair wondered, it could only mean that he had already given up on carrying on with his day as if nothing were happening and was battling against the last crumbs of his pride. It also meant he had to be feeling beyond awful, even by his ridiculous standards, and worried it might clearly show. That last thought made her shake her head, but she soothed her concern and annoyance by reminding herself that he was one step closer to surrendering and going home.

"Well," Blair said calmly, "that's because your best friend is likely too busy trying and failing to command himself not to be sick to deal with anything else at the moment."

In the couple of seconds of silence that followed her statement, Blair grabbed her fork and took the last mouthful of her lunch, Nate's expression of vague confusion a perfectly well-defined image in her mind. When, at last, he asked her if Chuck was alright, genuine alarm ringing in his voice, she couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. "I've just said he isn't," she stressed, struggling to maintain the patient tone she had promised herself she would keep. She loved Nate dearly, but she had very little tolerance for the time it took him to process new information. "He has the flu," she clarified, "but, in typical Chuck fashion, catching up with the fact is taking him a while."

"Oh!" exclaimed Nate, finally reaching an understanding of the circumstances. "Oh, no. Is he doing his I-don't-get-sick thing?"

"Obviously," Blair confirmed, relieved that, now that he had figured out the facts, she didn't need to add anything else. Though he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, Nate knew Chuck almost as well as she did and had lived with him long enough to be entirely familiar with the whole spectrum of his most bizarre behaviors and moods.

Nate let out a giggle. "You know half measures aren't Chuck's forte," he uttered, and Blair could hear an easy, sympathetic smile in his warm tone. She found herself nodding tiredly at what he was saying. "You've just gotta wait. He'll go from total denial to full melodrama soon enough."

There was something so inherently uncomplicated and comforting about talking to Nate about Chuck, in the way they could have spent hours reminding each other of things they were both aware of and comprehended, that, despite herself, she ended up accepting the truth he had so effortlessly stated with a soft chuckle. "Within the next hour, according to my calculations," she remarked as she checked her watch with a flick of her wrist. "In a couple, if your nephew's prediction turns out to be spot on instead. We made a bet."

Nate snorted. "On this?"

"Henry was a bit worried," Blair explained, catching a certain perplexity in his reply. The memory of her son's delicate, affectionate concern made her beam. "I had to find a way to distract him. It worked marvelously."

"Of course it did." Nate's bewilderment dissolved into a tender chortle at the thought of his nephew. Then he wondered, "Listen, is there anything I can do? I can drop by the house if you need me to. I mean, it's not like Chuck is gonna want to see me; he'd just tell me to leave him alone, but maybe—"

"I have everything under control, Nate," Blair interrupted him before he could offer to stick around just in case, as she knew he would. Nate was loyal and kind to a fault, and he considered their place an extension of his own. "I couldn't take the day off, but I'll wrap things up here at the atelier as soon as possible. In the meantime, Dorota knows what to do, and Chuck's doctor will be waiting for him at home when he finally decides to come back."

Nate was silent for a moment before he asked, "You're ambushing him with a doctor visit and leaving him alone with Dorota?" The question came out in a crescendo of surprise and amusement, which melted into a burst of laughter. "Sounds like a recipe for guaranteed drama to me."

Blair drummed her finger over the mahogany of her desk, her lips pursed in a new wave of annoyance. She could see Nate's point and the reason for his hilarity, and she was well aware that, though it was the best she could do, her plan wasn't exactly ideal. Chuck had some visceral aversion to seeing doctors, and finding one in his home ready to examine him would unnerve him almost as much as realizing that not only wasn't his wife there to welcome him but that she had left him in the hands of her infamously strict maid. Blair was sure he would be positively impossible to both Dorota and the doctor, just out of spite. "Well, he'll have to get over it," she affirmed firmly, telling herself that if Chuck needed to see a doctor, it was because he had refused to listen to her and thus made his situation much worse by insisting on acting like the reckless, senseless man he was. "I can't be in two places at once, and he needs to get checked, for his sake as well as my sanity. He was already in bad shape when he marched out of the house this morning, and you and I both know he's terrible at self-preservation."

"You're not wrong about that," Nate agreed, his voice still quavering with a chuckle. "I just feel bad for Dorota! And you! I'm sorry for him too, of course, but you're in for a hell of a day. Chuck can be…" He paused, trying to find the right words to express what he meant; not finding any, he concluded, "Well, Chuck."

Blair felt her lips curving into a wistful, tiny smile. Nate might honestly feel sorry for her, Dorota might find her absurd, and Serena ridiculous, but when she let herself imagine coming home to a sullen, overdramatic, clingy Chuck, the thought filled her chest with nothing but tickling anticipation. "I know how to deal with my husband, Archibald," she brushed off his comments with a shrug and a sigh, and no tension in her voice. There was no point in trying to convey that the only thing that truly bothered her was the waiting. Nate wouldn't get that she didn't consider what he had hinted at—Chuck's capacity for being exasperating—irritating or maddening; challenging, maybe, tiring for sure, and calling for a great effort of patience, but still something to be met with love. "Now, coming back to the reason you called," she continued, changing the topic, "Chuck might be unavailable at the moment, but maybe I can help you with whatever it is that you so eagerly wanted to tell him?"

The long hesitation that followed her proposition told Blair that what Nate had meant to discuss with his best friend was a private matter rather than a work or family-related one; otherwise, he would have sought her advice without pause, as he often did. "It's nothing really," he eventually mumbled, unsure. "A thing happened yesterday, and I think he'd want to know. But it can wait. I can speak to him when he feels better. Maybe tonight? Wouldn't that be too soon? Or tomorrow?"

The urgency in his voice was hardly disguised. It made Blair's eyebrows raise in vivacious interest, as the conversation she'd had earlier with Serena came back to her. "A thing happened yesterday, uh?" she repeated what he'd just muttered, the suspicion that had crossed her mind that morning turning into a certainty as the dots connected clearly in front of her. "Believe it or not, but this is the second time that I've heard these exact words today."

"What?" Nate sounded completely disoriented.

"Were you at the New York City Ballet event last night, by any chance?" Blair questioned, eager to get the last piece of the puzzle.

"Yeah," he confirmed hesitantly. Even if he wasn't in front of her, Blair knew his forehead was furrowed in a bemused frown under his blonde locks, which were always in need of trimming. "Why?"

Blair forced herself to hold back a giggle. "Nothing," she said, deciding not to press him. She didn't need to. Without meaning to, he and Serena had already told her everything that she needed to know. "It's better if you call Chuck tomorrow, Nate. Let's give him a break from the intricacy of your Serena chapter for today."

There was a gasping sound on the other end of the phone, and Blair could easily envision Nate's blue eyes opening wide. "How do you know it's about Serena? Did she tell you anything?" he blurted out, raising his voice a bit as he fought to contain his astonishment. "I didn't—"

"I know everything," Blair simply cut him off, a satisfied smirk on her lips. It was something Chuck usually liked to say, but she felt that taking possession of that particular signature sentence was more than appropriate in the situation. "Allow me to tell you what your best friend would," she went on. "Before proceeding to make the grand romantic gesture I know you want to make, try to understand whether whatever happened between you and Serena, and I'm assuming it was sex, meant the same thing to her as it did to you."

Nate heaved a long sigh, surely running a hand over his face as he did when he was distressed. "How could it not?" he protested, his voice brittle with a thinly concealed note of desperate longing. "She seemed so…" The words faded into a whisper and then into silence. Either Nate didn't know how to properly express the magnitude of the concept and his emotions, or he didn't feel comfortable enough to tell her. Chuck had a way of reading through him and making him feel at ease that she had never quite conquered, at any point of their relationship, despite the sincere, deep affection between them.

"Well, never mind," Nate indeed resignedly said. "Tell Chuck I'm sorry he's sick and that I hope he feels better soon. And if you guys need anything, just give me a call. Even if you just need a break from his antics! I can come by at any time; I don't have much on my schedule today."

Blair smiled at Nate's earnest concern and at the fondness that had accompanied his assurance that he could make himself available. She thanked him warmly, knowing perfectly well that he would call at least one more time later during the day to check on his best friend and offer his assistance again, and promised she would let him know if she needed help with Chuck—she didn't, but it was what Nate wished to hear, and denying him such kindness served no purpose.

It was almost 1 p.m. when she ended that phone call, and her meeting with the marketing team was only half an hour away. Outside her office, Blair could already hear the hectic hustle and bustle of people entering the conference room and preparing themselves to begin.

As she texted Lily to apologize for the rescheduling of their appointment and explain the reason behind it, she briefly reasoned that there was no point in waiting and made the extemporaneous decision to get the meeting started in advance. She had already reviewed her notes on the matters that would be addressed the night before, and she had no necessity to go over them one more time. If the team wasn't ready, she decided as she collected her laptop, they simply would have to be; the items on the agenda were many and required lengthy and detailed discussions, and Blair was dead set on leaving the atelier and going home in no more than two hours.

On her way to the door, she also picked up her phone from the desk, her grip on it tense as if squeezing it in her hand could have made it buzz sooner. Usually, she would have left it there or silenced it, but on that occasion, she did neither; actually, she made sure to turn the ringtone on, ignoring any consideration about rudeness and proper manners. Chuck could have reached out at any given moment at that point, and there was no way Blair would have missed that call, even if it meant abruptly interrupting the marketing plan presentation her employees had devised.

Blair strode into the conference room briskly, her very presence commanding immediate silence, and, as she headed toward her chair at the head of the glossy dark wooden table, she resolutely proclaimed, "We're starting now. Let's make this as quick as possible."

She sat down, and, while everyone around her rushed to catch up with her directive, she scrupulously arranged the laptop in front of her, turned it on, and opened the presentation file that had been sent to her the previous day. Next to it, she settled her phone under the palm of her hand, her fingers eagerly tapping on the cover.

Thirty minutes later, the marketing team was elaborating on a comprehensive situation analysis, and Blair was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation, her eyes furiously traveling between the graphs and data on the screen and the phone, her patience thinning with every minute that went by haunted by Chuck's obstinate refusal to cave.

At that moment, she hated him with passion; hated the way he could monopolize her attention, stripping her of her ability to focus and flooding her mind with the thought of him; hated the way he was resisting her and the pointless pain he was putting himself through; hated that he was forcing her to turn into a less mature version of herself, one that was a mere step away from abandoning every resolution of being respectful of his space and tactful in her understanding of his inner turmoil.

At last, just when Blair was about to allow herself to stop fighting the urge to call him, her phone finally rang. She turned it with a sudden twitch of her hand, and, when her gaze finally found his name lighting up the screen—the words 'Chuck Bass' bright white over a picture of him and Henry in matching purple bowties—a long-held-back sigh of relief finally escaped her lips. She brusquely pushed her chair back and, ignoring how the room had turned quiet and the several pairs of puzzled eyes staring at her, stood up. "I need to answer this," she curtly stated without apology. "Take a break. We'll start again in ten minutes."

With that, she spun on her heels and finally tapped on the green icon at the bottom of the screen. "Chuck," his name rolled off her tongue in a velvety, whispered tone. Whatever rage she had felt towards him only a minute before, while she restlessly waited for him to call her, was gone, lost to the way she craved to hear his voice. "How are you feeling?"

Chuck didn't answer. He was completely silent for a couple of seconds, and the only sound Blair could hear was his shallow breathing; it told her that he was agitated, and the discomfort and difficulty in putting it into words kept him from saying anything. While she stepped back into her office to find the privacy the conversation required, Chuck finally poured all of his struggles into a pained moan that was clarifying enough on its own.

Blair gulped, a lump in her throat as she sat on one of the two Bergère chairs in front of her desk. Her chest ached with the necessity to be close to him, where she could have touched him, and spared him the strain of uttering an admission that wasn't difficult just because it required him to overcome the hurdle his tenacious pride was, but also and foremost because she understood that he was overwhelmed with need and shame, and the frightening sense of loss of control. "Where are you?" she asked him softly, maintaining a calm tone as she tried to guide him through that moment of disorientation. It was a simple question, one that would ground him and help him speak.

Chuck sniffled. "Limo," the word came out in a whimper and immediately vanished into a horrible fit of coughing.

The sound of it made Blair wince, but she found comfort in the thought that he was already on his way home. For a moment, she had feared he was still at Bass Industries and that she'd have to convince him to leave. "That's good," she murmured when he stopped hacking, and she was sure he could hear her. "You'll soon be home. I had Dorota dismiss the staff. It'll be quiet."

Her promise seemed to calm him, the realization that he would no longer be surrounded by people a reassuring idea, and his breathing evened out as a long, wordless moment passed between them. "Blair," her name parted his lips at last, slurred, something in between an invocation and a lament.

The brittleness in his voice filled her with the wish to hold him and her fingers curled tighter around the phone. "I'm here," she reminded him in an undertone, as delicately as she managed. "Tell me."

"I'm dying," Chuck moaned. Blair could see him as if he were right under her gaze, his eyes closed, his lips downturned in a pout, and a scowl on his face. "I'm freezing," he rasped. "My head is killing me. My throat is on fire. I can't breathe."

Blair shook her head as the confession she had longed to hear for hours drifted into more dry, harsh coughing. Chuck had voiced it so helplessly, each gasped word an affected testament to his suffering, that, despite her concern, she felt an amused chuckle tickling at the bottom of her throat and the impulse to answer I told you so. She sighed to repress both. "I know," she said placidly instead. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Chuck groaned. "Can't you come right away?"

"No, I'm sorry." Blair bit her lip. Though she had anticipated such a reaction from him and despite her understanding that sounding so exhausted and weak was an instrument he was deliberately using to coax her to drop what she was doing and rush to join him, his tone, overflowing with need, had still irrationally pricked at her conscience, and sincere regret echoed through her apology. "I'm in the middle of a marketing meeting."

"Call it off," Chuck implored, a well-placed hint of desperation in his request. "Please."

That was a completely uncharacteristic and illogical plea on his part, both in content and emphasis, and an evident attempt to convince her that he was sick to the point of being incoherent. A knowing smile rose to Blair's lips as she realized that his state hadn't stopped him from catching every wistfully apologetic streak in her voice and that he hadn't lost his manipulative ways to how unwell he felt. His maneuvering might have lacked its usual mastery and finesse, and it might have been unsubtle and a tad clumsy, but it still made her breathe easier.

Reassured, Blair stood up and fixed her shoulders in a rigid pose, giving herself the strength to stand on her ground in the face of his best effort to take advantage of her visceral desire to do precisely what he was begging her to do. "Chuck," she articulated his name decisively, "I realize you're not feeling well, but—"

"I'm dying," he repeated, cutting her off, a whining, immature rebuttal that, had Blair been any less aware of how much it had cost him to concede himself such an exaggerated display of vulnerability, or any less than helplessly in love with him, she would have held against him, reminding him of his foolishly conceited attitude that morning.

However, since she knew she was the only one he'd ever shown himself so exposed to, and because no annoyance nor wish for payback rivaled the unconditional affection swelling within her, she paid no mind to his childishness and quietly told him, "I should be done in an hour or so. In the meantime, Dorota is staying late today. You can ask her for whatever you need."

"I need you," Chuck mumbled wearily, accompanying his reply with an intentionally shaky sigh.

The Basstard, Blair mentally cursed him, her mouth agape as she acknowledged her misstep and the way her prashing had walked her right into a trap. Those words were her kryptonite, and Chuck was more than aware of it; it had been thoughtless of her to offer him the perfect chance to use them on a silver platter, and, by doing so, to make staying away an insurmountable endeavor for her. "I understand that," she answered with a quiver, closing her eyes to collect her resolve. There was an unequivocal truth behind the layers of his theatrics, and forcing it aside, however temporarily, was inevitably hurtful. "And I promise I won't be gone too long."

Chuck exhaled a sharp breath, which had him coughing again. "Fine," he eventually conceded with a faint, scratchy voice, "whatever you say."

Blair had anticipated him to sound insulted, but displeasure had only been a barely perceivable hint in his reply; instead, he had sounded defeated and utterly miserable. That sudden, unforeseen docility—the way he had thrown in the towel so quickly and given up on his work of persuasion without further resistance, too worn out to keep on protesting—made her frown in worry and wish she were already back at the house, in the foyer, counting the seconds that separated her from seeing the front door opening and Chuck stumbling inside and then right into her arms.

"Doctor Shaw is waiting for you at home," she revealed, more to soothe her concern and sense of guilt than to comfort him. No matter how tactfully she had spoken, she was well aware that the notion would irk him; still, the thought that he would soon be seen by his physician was the only thing keeping her from leaving the atelier at that point.

Chuck let out a dissatisfied grunt. "Is it really necessary?" he grumbled, a pale shadow of irritation in his drained tone.

Had he been feeling even just slightly better, Chuck would have categorically stated that he would not see the doctor and possibly had his driver turn the car around, refusing to enter the house until the man was gone; however, Blair considered, the hours spent at work must have sucked all the combative spirit away from him.

"Yes, it is," she affirmed, nodding her head. All at once, she found herself missing his fierceness, the tameness in his answers stirring a sense of unease in her, and thus, to provoke him, she added, "You said you were dying, didn't you?"

"I am," he countered right away, the attempted harshness in the retort forcing him to clear his throat and swallow hard, "I'm in agony, Blair."

There he was, Blair thought, her touchy and histrionic Chuck. A tiny, tender smile creased her lips. "It seems to me that it's only reasonable for you to get checked, then."

Chuck took a moment to express his disappointment with a muffled, distressed groan and then whined, "You're unbelievably cruel."

The way he had pronounced that sentence—as if she were indeed torturing him with her absence and her demand that he would undergo the humiliation of seeing his doctor—made her laugh softly. "I'm just being logical," she rebutted. The sullen, indignant look on his face was a vivid mental picture that softened her tone with warm notes of fondness and amusement. "I have to go now, Chuck," she told him regretfully at last. She wanted nothing more than to continue talking to him, to reach him, in truth, but she knew that every moment spent on the phone was time stolen from her meeting. The longer she indulged in that conversation, the later she would manage to wrap things up and go home. "I'll be back before you know it."

"That's a lie," Chuck objected wearily. "It's just what you're telling yourself to feel better about leaving your sick husband alone in the midst of torment and anguish."

Blair rolled her eyes, realizing that not only was he right but that there was also a long list of recommendations on the tip of her tongue, things that, as he had pointed out in his dramatic declaration, she had the urge to say just to feel lighter. Sighing, she stopped herself from uttering any; instead of reminding him to go to bed, rest, and eat something as she wanted, in a longing whisper, she said, "I'll see you later. I love you."

Chuck's reply—a feeble, languid "Bye" with no usual love affirmation at its end—weighed heavy on Blair's chest long after she finally hung up and came back into the conference room, making it hard for her to remind herself that she would soon see him, and look after him the way she needed to. She waited for Dorota's text informing her that Chuck was finally home and with his doctor, and then forced herself to turn off her phone, adamant that, if she wanted to be done with the meeting in a reasonable time and devote attention to it, she should ignore his calls and the ones he'd instruct her maid to make in his stead.

Eventually, even though she had done her uppermost to speed things up, the conference dragged on, and it was almost half past four when, out of breath and ridden with guilt and anxiety, Blair rushed up the front steps of the townhouse and pushed the heavy wrought iron door open.

The foyer chandelier was off, and the entrance was dimly lit with the warm, gentle glow given out by the appliques on the wall and the dark marble fireplace, the entire house wrapped in a stillness that didn't normally belong to it. No zealous member of the domestic staff approached Blair to close the front door behind her or to take her coat and briefcase, and, for once, she didn't mind it one bit, satisfied with the absolute quietness she had requested and therefore expected. She didn't even stop two steps away from the entry space to take in the room and scan it, hunting for flaws in the way it had been cleaned and tied up, as it was her habit. Instead, she hurried into the hallway and tossed her bag onto the floor in front of the hall closet, which she quickly opened to hang her coat.

It was as she arranged the soft black fabric on the clothes hanger that, with a fleeting glance, Blair noticed the tall, rich white callas and hydrangeas flower arrangement set in the center of the console table across the staircase and the cream, gold-foil lined note that had been laid next to it.

"Flowers are for Mr. Chuck from Mrs. Lily," announced Dorota's voice before Blair could grab the thick paper and read it. She looked up to see her maid coming out of the elevator and frowned quizzically at the tower of three pillows piled up in the woman's arms. "News travels fast."

Blair picked up the card and smiled down at the polite, sober well wishes for a speedy recovery her mother-in-law had put down on paper in elegant handwriting—a graceful gesture, tactful and warm, yet less intrusive than a phone call.

"They're beautiful," she commented. She placed the note back next to the silver vase and, looking back at Dorota, she nodded at the cushions the maid was carrying. "What are you doing with those?"

"Bringing them to Mr. Chuck," Dorota scoffed. "This is fourth time I change them. First pillows were too firm, then too soft, then fabric was itchy," she rambled frantically, looking as exasperated as she sounded. Hadn't her hands been occupied with carrying the said pillows, Blair wondered, they would have been moving in broad, rapid gestures of frustration. "He wants extra blankets, but then he whines blankets make him feel too hot. He asks to light the fireplace, but then he complains bedroom is too bright. He keeps calling me to hand him things because he too sick to move. He wants to know why Mr. Henry not back from school and when I tell him Mr. Henry has polo practice on Mondays, he says I accuse him of forgetting."

Blair shut the closet door and sighed. "Sounds like textbook Chuck," she remarked, inevitably entertained by the absurd account that she'd just heard. The unintentional, enamored beam that had formed on her lips earned her a glare from her flustered maid. She shrugged it off and, determined to get a full and accurate picture of the situation before going upstairs and facing her husband, whose report would no doubt be exaggerated, she inquired, "Predictable shenanigans aside, how is he? What did Dr. Shaw say?"

Dorota rolled her eyes at the softly pronounced questions, surely finding them unreasonably devoted and voiced with excessive concern. "Doctor said Mr. Chuck has bad case of the flu, as Miss Blair predicted," she revealed, now hiding her annoyance and disapproval behind a calmer tone that wouldn't aggravate Blair's distress. "He also said Mr. Chuck very irresponsible for leaving the house this morning and making everything worse."

Blair, who could easily picture how that particular conversation had played out, with Chuck taking the man's comments personally and dismissing him with an accidentally comical instead of intimidating reminder that he was Chuck Bass and that he would not be called irresponsible, especially not in his house, crossed her arms and let out a new, longer, and resigned sigh. "Well, did you manage to convince him to take anything or eat?"

In truth, Blair pondered, those were pointless questions, as she already knew that Chuck had surely made a point of refusing to take proper care of himself—a ridiculous, masochist stance taken to make her pay for the fact she wasn't by his side and stubbornly maintained against any better judgment till he would have finally laid his eyes on her.

Indeed, unsurprisingly, Dorota shook her head. "No, Miss Blair," she huffed. "Mr. Chuck acting like man-child. When I tell him to take medicine, he says he wants to be left alone in misery and that I'm just trying to knock him out. Still, he keeps ringing bell and demanding I call you and tell you he's dying."

That last comment reminded Blair that her phone was still off. Leaving the atelier, she had been in such a hurry and so desperate to get home that the thought of turning it back on had completely slipped her mind. She picked the briefcase up from the floor and opened it, extracting her mobile from the inner pocket and turning it on. There they were flashing on the screen, six missed calls from Chuck and four from Dorota that made her feel a sharp twinge of guilt.

She pursed her lips and inhaled a deep breath. "It's okay, Dorota," she said, dismissing the maid with a faint, slight smile, an implicit thanks for the few hours of madness she'd endured and for her patience, "I'll take it from here."

"Are you sure you don't need anything else?" Dorota asked, raising her eyebrows. "Maybe more pillows to suffocate Mr. Chuck and end his suffering?" She stretched out her arms, indicating the cushions still in her hold.

Blair cracked a smile at the joke. "I know that after having spent part of the afternoon with him in the state he's in, it might sound unthinkable to you, but I don't wish to murder my husband, just to make him feel better," she announced, and started striding toward the elevator. Pushing the button to make the gilded slide doors open, she added, "You can bring those back to the storage room. Then I just need you to serve tea and later dinner in the master bedroom. You might as well go home after that."

Dorota nodded, her features relaxing at last. "Thank God," she grumbled. "Sick Mr. Chuck is traumatic experience, Miss Blair. I feel I need lots of vodka to recover."

Blair stepped into the elevator. "Oh, believe me, there are worse things," she replied, the remark a gentle, dreamy display of the relief she felt knowing that she was home, finally able to take matters into her own expert hands, and of her yearning to climb in bed with him and let him hold on to her. There was nowhere else she'd rather be than with him, Blair wondered as the elevator closed and Dorota's doubtful expression disappeared from her sight, and nothing she'd rather do than take care of him.

---

Notes:

[1] In terms of timeline, the story is set in 2024, making Henry 10 and the NJBC 34.

[2] In my headcanon, Serena divorced Dan briefly after they got married, and then had a tumultuous love life, which also included a short-lived marriage with Nate. If you're familiar with the In The Real of The Basses canon, you already know this! But, in case you want more specific details, you should read Tales of Perdition.

[3] There are several facets of Chuck depicted here and in the second part of this story. One of them is that he's, to put it simply, a ruthless businessman and definitely not a kind boss. The way I picture him in his work environment and his relationships with his employees might not sit well with everyone. While this is my vision and I stand by it, if you have questions about this topic feel free to contact me.

[4] The story is full of details. Everything has been thoroughly researched: clothes, spaces, events, places, and so on. I'll leave you a link to my moodboard, if you wanna get a visual idea of the tale: design/DAFvpzWfu28/chOTVb44ukZEd0UJnkuNrw/edit?category=tAEv8Hh5on0

[5] As usual, feel free to contact me here, on X/Twitter ( CryWilliams), or on Tumblr ( 22reasonstolove).