A/N: If you like the way I ended things in Homecoming, feel free NOT to read on.

Summary: Just a few 'Missing Scenes' between Chapter Seven and the Epilogue.
This changes what could be interpreted as Chuck dying in Chapter Seven and makes it so that he lives on for a short while and then dies, so it's the missing scenes of 'what could have been' if I'd added in a few chapters between Chapter Seven and the epilogue.

"There are only four questions of value in life.
What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made of?
What is worth living for?
What is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same. Only love."
Don Juan Demarco

.

He named it the Eden/Iona Project, what he discovered.

He said when people received it, it'd be like Heaven on Earth: being given that second chance at life.

It was the name they chose for their daughter.

Eden Iona Bass.

Like that tiny Scottish coastal island he'd lived on once upon a time.

The place where he found himself: made a life; gained lifelong friendships; extended his family.

Like the cure for cancer his company produced.

The gift he gave others; the contribution he bequeathed to the world in their search for life everlasting.

Like that slice of Heaven he'd received all those years ago, brought back with him to extend to her and Eric.

She was a living embodiment of their love.

The miracle that shared her name existed to give the world hope; she was alive because her family had faith.

.

"Love knows no limit in its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love stands still when all else has fallen."
Anonymous

.

They will survive, because he is Chuck and she is Blair.

Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck.

And they love each other.

It's the mantra she repeats to herself everyday; the song she finds singing in her heart when she looks into her daughter's eyes.

The words his brother tells her in the dark of the night when she calls him with tears of betrayal threatening to fall and ruin this life they've carefully crafted around them. It will last, the younger says to her ever time; so assured in his brother's influence. You'll be together. Always.

And she believes him, because in her heart she knows this to be true. When she looks at him, hears his voice, feels his touch; she knows this to be true. When she even so much as thinks her daughter's name; she knows this to be true. When she speaks to his brother, when she speaks to Eric; when they are merely in one another's company; she knows this to be true.

They've created a life; formed by faith; held together by love.

It can't fail; they won't let it.

.

"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defence, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."
Frederick W. Robertson

.

He winces, his arms outstretched, palms up, as his knees give out. Exhaustion and pain cripple him of any remaining strength he has and he collapses on the solid floor as stars explode behind eyelids he'll never remember closing.

And she's screaming his name, grasping for him as he falls. Her head is snapping to the side as she calls out, to anyone, to everyone, a desperate plea. And as she cradles him, her hand runs over his skin, willing his heart to beat under her touch.

He blinks slowly and stares up at her; his eyes telling her what his mouth can't.

"When I say I love you, it isn't out of habit or to make conversation. I say it to remind you that you're the best thing that ever happened to me."

Her tears fall onto his face and wet his cheeks as the words he spoke to her mere hours prior sound in her ears.

She feels the walls around her start to crumble as the life they've made together; the home they forged through everything; dissolves in the diminishing clarity of his eyes.

She's only grateful that the last thing he sees is that which he loves most of all.

.

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be… It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for."
Erica Jong

.

Chuck Bass dies on a cool winter evening under a glittering sky in his wife's arms.

He stares up into the eyes of his first love and his heart spills from his lips with crimson words that break her heart.

He takes his last breath as his gaze falls on the photo that rests on their bedroom mantle; the shades of blonde that darken to brown, the myriad of faces that have shaped his life.

When his dark eyes settle on the three figures in the center; their family; his everything, it's like looking into a black hole.

He's leaving them, and he's trying to take everything he can with him. It's heartbreaking and gut-wrenching, and absolutely nothing like the movies used to tell her of the grand romances and their tragic end.

This is love, she thinks.

Hard, and terrifying, and completely consuming: but unequivocally worth it.

.

"Love is all we have, the only way we each can help the other."
Orestes

.

The funeral is hard. It'd be exactly as Chuck would've wanted it: with her influence, obviously – if he'd bothered to plan his funeral. He didn't; well, he did; but she still felt the need to oversee everything. It kept her mildly occupied; kept her mind ticking over on things to prepare, gave her an immediate purpose.

Stopped her from thinking of her imminent future as a single mother, a widow.

Eric is there throughout; he's never not been there for her. He relishes his role as an uncle like it's always been his calling in life; but she knows it runs deeper than that.

Eden cries for her father, cries that ring loud and unanswered from the House of God all the way to the open grave. And while others look to her and those nearest to take the child away; to spare her, and them, this horror that is so unimaginable to them because they were not the ones burying the love of their life; Eric simply takes her hand in his and lets his niece's tears wash over him as well because they are more telling of the man they have lost, and the life he gave them, than any words could ever be.

There is an understanding there that she has only found with one other person; a person they once shared; a person they continue to share in the little girl that looks every bit like her mother, except for her eyes; she has her father's eyes.

Blair wouldn't have it any other way.

.

"Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you..."
'Georgia on My Mind', Ray Charles

.

The guests have all left and the house feels suddenly empty. She hates it already.

And she's completely and utterly terrified of going to sleep alone, in the bed they shared together, in the room where he took his last breath.

She's lying on their daughter's bed, stroking Eden's hair as the little girl sleeps. A small smile lights up her face, even in the lands of slumber, and she snuggles further into her mother's side.

It amazes Blair how she and Chuck could have made something so innocent, so perfect; so utterly magical and spellbinding.

Her eyes fall on the picture by her daughter's bedside; the one her Uncle Lachlan had provided. Chuck is standing in front of his house, on that little island off the coast of Scotland that became home to him in those intermittent years, looking off to the distance; out to the sea, while land stretches behind him. He looks completely at peace.

She'll take their daughter there sometime; show her the place where her father made a home in a world where he found he could no longer fit. And they'd discover a part of him they never knew, together.

Her gaze drifts up to the screen before her: her husband is sitting in the hand-crafted rocking chair that still holds pride of place in the corner of the room she's in now; their daughter cradled in his arms, nestled perfectly into his chest, as he sings softly to her and gently lulls her to sleep.

It's the Michael Levy poem he found, converted to lyrics and then sang to their daughter every night as she went to sleep.

She watches as his head lifts, and a smile lights up his face, his eyes shining.

She remembers the moment she recorded this sight: standing in the doorway, watching her husband and daughter. The tears fall faster, as the realization hits her that it is something she'll never witness again.

And her heart breaks that little bit more for her daughter; the little girl who's going to grow up fatherless, the child who'll never truly learn firsthand what an amazing man Chuck Bass was.

But as she carries on watching, sees her husband continue singing; looking down at the little girl in his arms with nothing short of utter adoration and the smile he gave her still spread widely across his lips, eyes brighter than they'd been in a long while; she realizes that they'll be ok.

Because in that moment, she understands just how much her husband impacted on their lives and the lives of those around them, recognizes that neither she nor her daughter will ever forget the man who called them his own.

Blair leans down and presses a kiss to her daughter's forehead, gently sweeping away her dark locks, she rests her hand over Eden's heart; feeling it beat beneath her palm with the love that created their perfect little girl.

The love that first joined Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf all those years ago and refused to let go.

The love that lived on in their daughter as she grew into the perfect embodiment of her father and mother.

And it would continue to live on.

Forever.

Because true love never ends.

.

"Small child
once you were a hope, a dream.
Now you are a reality.
Changing all that is to come.
A love to hold our hearts forever."
Charlotte Gray

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The End.

Thanks so much for all your support with this fic. For anyone who's alerted, favourited, reviewed – read. It means so so much to me! Thank you!
Steph
xxx