Not a lot of love for Dan after the last chapter… Hopefully though that will change (at least a bit) later on. Probably not in this chapter though. It is the last of this fic, but there will be a lot of stuff left unresolved for the sequel story.

I was very relieved that people seem to find Blair's actions understandable. The question is if the other characters will be as understanding. Read and find out!

Blair walked inside Chuck's office, nervous to see him. They hadn't gotten a chance to talk last night after they almost kissed and she didn't want things to be awkward now. She wondered if that was why he had texted her and told her to come to his office.

He was standing by his desk with his back to her, his hands on his hips and his head bent. He looked tense. She wanted to walk up to him and massage his shoulders until he loosened up. It was no wonder he seemed uptight. The past week had been overwhelming for all of them and she knew there might be some trouble in his relationship caused by her. On top of that his business had taken a backseat to Blair's problems and he probably had quite the workload to deal with now that the Malcolm situation was over. Unfortunately there would be more stress in his life real soon when she told him about their son. At least that stress might in the end lead to something good.

"Chuck…" she said softly.

"When… were you going to tell me…" he began with an angry but composed tone before turning his head to give her a cold glare, "that you got your child from me?"

She felt calmer than she would have expected. There was no doubt about it, this time he knew the whole truth. Judging by the look on his face and the tone of his voice her estimates of what his reaction would be were probably understatements. She felt afraid yet strangely liberated. It was a relief to no longer have any lies. The great burden she had made herself carry for so long was now lifted and she could deal with the fallout, whatever it may be. Though she had a feeling this composure might be a result of light shock as she was already feeling herself welling up and shiver slightly.

"Or is it all a lie?" he asked angrily. "Tell me… that it's a lie. Tell me that this child of yours is not your child by me!"

"I'm so, so sorry Chuck" she breathed. "Believe me, I never meant to hide this."

"Oh God…" Chuck said, shaking his head with disbelief. "God I… I didn't truly believe it until you confirmed it. I told myself that it must be some mistake, that there was no way in hell you could do that."

"Chuck it's not-"

"Don't try and defend yourself!" Chuck snarled. "There is no justification for this! Not only did you neglect to tell me the single most important bit of news of my entire life when it happened, you also failed to mention it when you came back to New York and brought me back into your life. Not twenty-four hours ago you stood here in this office and listened to me telling you how I thought you needed to be honest with the child's father and yet you kept your damn mouth shut! Just over twelve hours ago you flirted with me out on the balcony and you were not the one who averted that kiss. How the hell could you do this Blair?"

"I never meant to hurt you" Blair said. "I never meant for it to go this far."

"Then what the hell did you mean? What? You felt I didn't deserve to know? That my child being born didn't concern me? That I wasn't good enough to be part of this child's life?"

"No! That's not it at all. I just… It wasn't so easy. I was engaged to Louis when I discovered I was pregnant and I didn't know what to do."

"I don't give a damn about any of that" Chuck snarled. "It shouldn't matter whether or not you were married to someone else when you found out. You chose to have sex with me and cheat on Louis. That means you take your share of the responsibility. But I guess you got your revenge now, didn't you?"

"Revenge?"

"I made that deal with Jack all those years ago and you finally paid me back for it. Too bad the person who really has to pay the price is an innocent child."

"This has nothing to do with-"

"Then what the hell is this?" Chuck cried. "I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why you did this. What could I possibly have done to you to make you keep my child from me? The Empire deal is the only thing I can think of but I honestly never thought you would be so petty as to-"

"Chuck stop it!" Blair cried. He quieted and she took a deep, trembling breath, composing herself.

"Whatever friendship we had, it's done" Chuck said icily. "We're not friends anymore and I can't stand to think of how... You obviously don't love me anymore and who knows if you ever did?"

She trembled, fighting hard to keep calm through the panic that was beginning to grow inside her. She had never seen him like this. The look in his eyes, the tone of his voice, all of it was torture to her. She had avoided telling him partially because she had feared this moment and the pain it would cause him but like she had known it would the truth hurt him even more since it had come from somebody else. She couldn't figure out how he had found out that he was a father. Not that it mattered much at the moment. She could feel the distance growing between them with every passing second and there was nothing she could do to change that. She could only imagine what he was feeling. What could it be like to find out that you were somebody's parent and you didn't know the first thing about that person?

"His name is Sebastian" she said, trying her best to keep her voice steady. "I call him Bas for short, or… Little Bas."

"What you call him is neither here nor there" Chuck said, turning away from her and placing his hands on the desk as if bracing himself.

"His birthday is February 15th. At birth he weighed-"

"Blair it doesn't matter! I'm not angry that I didn't know his birth weight, I'm angry that I didn't even know I had a son!" He felt himself shiver as he said the word. He hadn't known until Blair mentioned his name whether he had a boy or a girl. The fact that he hadn't known that infuriated him.

"I watched every season of 'Mad Men' when he was little. I watched it while I nursed. I wanted him to have… things that were part of who you were around him."

"Sure, that makes it okay. Watching shows I used to like is definitely a worthy substitute of a real father."

"He had a bit of colic when he was a baby and sometimes it helped to play music on a low volume to help soothe him to sleep. Sometimes I… I played 'Aida'."

"Do you think any of this makes it any better? Do you? I woke up yesterday and I didn't know that there's a little boy in France who is my son. Nothing you can say could possibly make me feel any better. Nothing can even remotely make it okay."

"His favorite cartoon is the Smurfs" Blair continued, tears falling down her face. "He watches them on DVD all the time."

"You shouldn't have to tell me all of this! I should know these things already. You were never going to tell me the truth, were you? You kept it from me for four years and you had ample opportunity to be honest with me and you never thought it was a good idea to share this bit of information with me."

"I wanted to tell you but it's not so easy."

"God, and to have to hear about it from Humphrey!" Chuck exclaimed, slamming his palms on the desk and turning around to face her.

Blair was speechless for a moment, stunned by what he had just said. Humphrey? He found out through Dan?

"What are you saying?" she asked.

"As if all this wasn't insulting enough. You didn't think I was worthy of knowing the truth but apparently your pathetic boy toy Humphrey deserved the truth. I should be grateful that he's a little snitch or I would never know I have a son. I don't know what kept him from telling all years ago, hell it's a miracle I didn't find out through reading his next book. I just can't believe you shared this with him and you didn't tell me. The boy's father."

"I never meant for you to find out this way!"

"Oh I believe that. You never meant for me to find out at all."

"That is not true" Blair said in a pleading tone, begging him to understand and believe her. "I wanted to tell you right from the start, but I-"

"Oh don't give me that" Chuck snarled. "I know you, or at least I thought I did. If you wanted me to know then no force on earth could have stopped you."

"I wasn't even sure you were the father at first" Blair said. "I didn't know what to do, Chuck. I was stuck in an impossible situation. You have no idea how much I've agonized over this. It's been deeply stressful every step of the way. When I found out for sure that you were the father I was happy but I was also scared."

"Yeah well I almost had a fucking panic attack!"

"I'm sorry" Blair said, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. "I'm so, so sorry. I never meant for it to go this far."

"That's it?" Chuck asked. "That's all you have to say? Some small part of me was actually hoping that you might have a solid reason for keeping this from me. I even allowed myself to think that you might have been pressured by Louis and his family to keep this under wraps since it would be a scandal if people knew the prince of Monaco's fiancée was pregnant by another man when the wedding was called off."

"I wish I could tell you something like that but I can't" Blair said, knowing that if she were to have any chance of forgiveness at this point she had to be completely honest and take full responsibility for the choices she had made. "It was a mistake. From beginning to end. I just got so deep into it that I ended up not knowing how to get out of it."

"That's not good enough" Chuck said.

"It wasn't so easy, Chuck! You were in New York and I was in France. I was scared to go back home because I knew I would have paparazzi following me and I didn't want you to find out I was pregnant from Gossip Girl. What was I supposed to do? Tell you over the phone?"

"You and I both know I would have travelled to France to see you if you told me you needed me to come over" Chuck said. "I would have travelled to the ends of the earth for you and you know it. Jack's right, I am pathetic when it comes to you. Or at least I have been up until now."

"Oh really?" Blair said, crossing her arms over her chest. "There was a time when I believed you would do anything I asked of you but that was before you made that deal with Jack and before you slept with Jenny Humphrey and before you told me you would wait for me and then went and told someone else she was sacred to you. I wasn't sure you would come to France, believe me I thought about it. But by the time I left Louis you were with Emmy. I had no reason to think you would come all the way to France to see me when you were busy falling in love with another woman."

"Forget about Emmy" Chuck said. "She is not the reason you kept your mouth shut. She came into my life months after we conceived that child and you still kept the pregnancy from me. Or actually, let's talk about Emmy. Am I to understand that because I got involved with another woman I lost my rights to my son?"

"That is not what I said and don't you dare twist my words" Blair said.

"You should leave."

"What?"

"I want you… to get out" Chuck said, turning his back to her again. "This is too much. I can't handle being in the same room with you right now. I want to yell and scream at you but that's not going to make the situation any better. It won't give me back everything I've lost with my… with my son. I can't handle this in a rational manner right now. So just go."

Blair swallowed and rubbed her upper arms, feeling cold. She took a step closer to him and fought to hold on to what was left of her composure.

"Chuck I love you" she said in what was barely more than a whisper.

"Well I'd rather you didn't!" Chuck said, turning around to face her. "At least if you hated me this wouldn't be such a god damned betrayal!" He strode past her and stopped in front of the 'Casablanca' poster, unable to look at her right then. "I will only ask you one more time to leave. If you're not out of this door in thirty seconds security will escort you out of here. There's nothing you can say to make this any better and right now I have nothing to say to you that you would want to hear."

Blair turned on her heel and took a few steps towards the door. Then she gave up on trying to stay calm and quickened her pace. She almost ran out the door and ignored Alice who rose from her seat when she saw Blair come running out of the office. She slammed her palm against the call button for the elevator and wished it would hurry up and come so she could get the hell out of there. Chuck was right, they couldn't be around each other right now. He needed to calm down and she needed to find a way to make him see.

She reached the lobby and hurried out of the elevator, wishing she was home so she could have a complete breakdown. Now what was she supposed to do? Until she could make Chuck understand, if that was even possible, she had no friend to turn to. Nate would side with Chuck, she had no doubt about that. Under different circumstances she might have been able to count on Serena, but she would be forced to choose who to side with, her best friend or her brother. Serena would be horrified to learn the truth and she would be furious at Blair for keeping it from her and that was sure to tip the scales in Chuck's favor. Above all she no longer had Dan. Dan, the only friend who had known her secret. He had betrayed her and for what?

"Whoa, slow down!" a familiar voice said as she hurried by the front desk.

She stopped in her tracks and turned around. She had just passed Jack Bass and he was grinning at her with far too much contentment in his eyes. Chuck had said he was involved in this somehow. Suddenly it all made more sense. Jack had found out his nephew had a child he didn't know about and it was the perfect thing to use to taunt him. She recalled the obscure reference Malcolm had made to her selling herself to Chuck to get the three million and her cheeks turned bright red when she realized Jack must have told him about the deal they had once made for the Empire. It infuriated her and she marched over to Jack, feeling far more angry than upset at the moment. The only thing she couldn't figure out was why he had orchestrated the whole blackmail situation and she was determined to get an answer out of him.

"Here's what I can't figure out" she said. "Why not just run to Chuck the moment you learned the truth and use it as your new fun torture device? Why create this whole charade to have me running around in circles?"

"Paranoid, are we?" Jack smirked. "This may come as a shocker to you but not everything I do is designed to hurt Chuck. In this case I got a lot of enjoyment out of knowing you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Jack asked, his smirk now gone. "You bore a Bass child and you kept it a secret. I may put my nephew through the ringer every once in a while but I don't condone outsiders messing with the family."

"Let's get one thing straight" Blair said, pointing a finger at him. "You are not my son's family. You never have been, you never will be, and if you ever set foot in the same areacode as my child it is likely to be the last thing you ever do."

"Publically threatening me might not be the smartest thing to add to your growing list of offenses" Jack said. "That boy is a Bass. He has our blood and that makes him far too good to be raised in the French outback by the likes of you."

"You could care less about the Bass name or the Bass legacy" Blair said icily. "All you're after is to torture Chuck. You are seriously disturbed to want to cause that much damage to your own nephew, somebody you're supposed to love."

"Well if I'm the kettle you're the pot. You've done an awful lot of hurtful things to my dear nephew even though you claim to love him. And let's not even discuss the things you've done to your son."

"Your nephew can give as good as he gets" Blair said. "You stay away. Away from me, away from my son and away from Chuck."

"I think Chuck would rather spend time with me now than with you" Jack said, smirk back on his face. "In fact I'm on my way to pay him a little visit right now. Let's see how many praising things he has to say about you."

He grinned at her and walked off. Blair scowled and wished she could do him bodily harm. She needed an outlet for her emotional turmoil and she knew exactly who to take it out on.

Chuck was back by his desk, bracing himself against it while he tried to think. Nothing he had learned in the past twenty-four hours made any coherent sense to him. He couldn't believe Blair had lied about such a thing; he didn't want to believe it. If only she had denied it. He knew that line of thinking made no sense but he couldn't help himself. He would almost rather not have a child than to have the given circumstances be true. But it was true and he did have a child, one he knew next to nothing about and who probably knew nothing about him.

He tried to wrap his mind around it and to picture what the child must look like but he couldn't. Did his son even know who his father was? What had Blair told the boy? Did he think his father had walked away from him? The thought of that made Chuck sick. Did he think his father was dead? If that were the case then Blair was unbelievably cruel given Chuck's history with his mother. What lies had Blair told the child to justify the absence of one of his parents? There was no way she had told him the truth.

Alice buzzed him but he ignored her. He didn't want to talk to her or to anyone else. He wasn't going to get any work done today anyway so he might as well go home. The only reason he had left home to begin with was to face Blair in a more neutral environment. He didn't want to have the conversation they had just had someplace where he would live.

He heard the door open behind him and he made up his mind to fire Alice on the spot. Whatever she wanted, it could wait.

"Alice not know" he growled.

"You're never going to succeed long-term in the business world if you're not more inviting" Jack's voice replied.

Chuck turned around to face him, wondering if his day could possibly get any worse. All that was missing at this point was an earthquake, bankruptcy and the bar at home having been emptied when he got home.

"What do you want?" he asked his uncle tiredly.

Jack held up the envelope he had had the other day and grinned.

"Tyra mail!"

"Don't bother Jack" Chuck sighed. "I can figure it out. You're here because you want to make sure I know the whole story. Put your mind at ease. I know I'm the father of Blair's son. What more could you possibly have to lay on me?"

"Believe it or not I'm not here to inflict more harm."

"I certainly believe there's no more possible harm you could inflict" Chuck said in a resigned tone, leaning back against his desk and crossing his arms over his chest. "You know, you fight like a dairy farmer."

"Huh?"

"Whatever's in that envelope I don't care" Chuck said. "Put it wherever and mosey on back to whatever rock you crawled out from under this time."

"I'm not here to mess with you further" Jack said. "I mean it." He took a few steps closer and held up the envelope. "When I first learned about Blair's little secret I wasn't sure what to believe. So I paid a guy to steal the kid's spoon when Blair took him to a diner. Then I ran a paternity test and the results are in the envelope."

"Do I want to know how you got a sample of my DNA?"

"Probably not" Jack said, a hint of a smile reappearing on his face. "There's something else in the envelope as well."

"Cyanide pills?"

"A memory stick. You really ought to tell Blair to get better security on her computer; it was ridiculously easy to hack into. That is, if you ever do speak to her again."

"What do I care what's on her computer?" Chuck asked with a complete lack of enthusiasm.

"I thought you might like to see what your son looks like" Jack said. "Not just at the moment but at various ages. Congratulations Nephew, you now have access to all of Blair's pictures of that child."

"Why?"

Jack looked surprised.

"Why?" he echoed.

"Why get me those pictures? So I can get a better grasp of exactly what I've missed out on these past three and a half years?"

"You and I weren't always at war with one another" Jack pointed out. "In fact while Bart was alive we got along pretty good. You're my blood and while I may enjoy knocking you down I don't enjoy letting an outsider get a good punch in. I thought you and Blair were doomed for sure because of all the crap you've done but she's proven to be your match. What she did is not okay even by my standards and that ought to say a lot."

"Still doesn't explain why you give a crap about any of this."

"I think a father should have the right to know his son" Jack said in a tone more serious than Chuck had heard him use in a long time. "Even if you can't raise him you should still get to at least know him."

Chuck frowned. There was clearly some subtext here but he couldn't bother to decipher it. Whatever issues Jack had he probably deserved to have them. He walked over to his uncle and snatched the envelope from him.

"I'll give it some thought" he said, walking back to his desk and tossing the envelope on top of a bunch of documents he really ought to be reading.

"That paternity test wasn't really needed" Jack said, heading for the door. "I would have known whose kid that was if I ran into him on the streets."

He left without further comment and Chuck walked around his desk, sinking down in his chair with a heavy sigh.

"Thanks for agreeing to see me, man" Dan said, sitting down on the couch at the loft. "I'm not entirely sure why you're upset with me but I appreciate you stopping by anyway."

"Yeah," Nate said, slumping down in an armchair, "well I realized you're not exactly at fault here…"

"What exactly is going on?" Dan asked. "You seemed to get really pissed off in a matter of seconds last night."

"Its…" Nate hesitated. "It's… It's Serena."

"What about Serena?"

"I still have… feelings for her."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I've been telling myself it's ludicrous and that she never felt about me the way I felt about her but recently it's seemed like her feelings have changed."

"Okay, then, so… what's the problem?"

"If you haven't noticed she gets really upset whenever you show too much interest in Blair" Nate said.

"Oh…"

Dan pondered this for a moment. He wasn't sure what to tell Nate. He wasn't interested in Serena himself anymore; she would always be his first love and part of him always would love her but he had given up on the two of them making it work a long time ago. He wasn't about to reactivate the triangle they had had going on for a few months back in college. But if Serena still had feelings for him then he would still be an obstacle for Nate.

"Look, I…" he began. "I don't know what Serena feels. If she feels anything for me at all anymore. What you need to do is talk to her. You know, give her a chance to tell you how she feels. Even if she does still have feelings for me that isn't necessarily a hindrance. I think part of you will always love your first love."

"I've lost her to you before" Nate pointed out. "I'm not so sure I could be happy with her knowing that she still feels something for you. If there's some part of her that will always love you… whoever ends up with her will have to live with that. Just like whoever Blair ends up with will have to live with the knowledge that she'll always have feelings for Chuck and like Emmy has to accept that there's a part of Chuck that will always belong to Blair."

Dan groaned at the mentioning of Chuck and Blair. Why was it that these two were always brought up as the ultimate romance? He couldn't find anything even remotely engaging about their past relationship and everything that had come with it. People seemed to just ascribe whatever attributes they thought the perfect love should have onto Chuck and Blair without paying attention to whether or not it fit.

"I don't think Chuck's love for Blair is all that immortal" he couldn't help saying. "Nor is hers for him. They're just each other's bad habit."

"What makes you say that?" Nate scoffed.

Dan wasn't sure how to answer. He was feeling increasingly more guilty over telling Chuck the truth last night, ashamed of himself for having stooped to that level to get Chuck back out of Blair's love life, hopefully for good this time. He couldn't explain any of this to Nate though. It would only cause further damage if he blabbered about Blair's secret to even more people.

Before he could decide what to say the door flew open and Blair came storming in, looking like she had been possessed. Nate and Dan both flew to their feet, Nate terrified that something had gone wrong and Blair's secret had been published after all, Dan realizing she had spoken to Chuck and was out for blood.

"Daniel!" Blair practically screamed, striding up to him with eyes that could kill. "You puny, hypocritical, muppet-haired, poorly dressed, harlequin romance writing, sanctimonious ass!"

"Whoa, Blair, slow down" Nate said.

"How could you do this?" Blair cried, ignoring Nate's existence. "I trusted you! And you sabotaged me!"

"Okay Blair, hold on-" Dan tried to placate her.

"Don't touch me!" Blair snarled and took half a step back. Tears started to flow down her cheeks. "You ruined everything!"

"Blair, what has happened?" Nate asked, getting seriously worried.

"He hates me now" Blair said and sobbed. "Are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted? Or were you just out to clear your precious conscience?"

"Can we, can we talk about this without yelling and screaming?" Dan said, starting to fear her wrath.

"No we are done talking!" Blair cried. "I'm not confiding anything in you ever again!"

"I know Chuck is probably very angry right now" Dan said. "But does he really have a right to be? What about all the things he did to you? And if he loves you like you believe he does this won't matter in the end."

"It's not even about Chuck and me anymore, don't you realize that?" Blair cried and smacked him on the arm. "He's going to try and take my son!"

"Whoa, hold on, slow down a minute!" Nate said, waving his arms in a time-out gesture. "Your, your what? Blair you have a what now?"

"My son, okay?" Blair said, turning to him for the first time since she walked through the door. "My son with Chuck."

"Chuck never told me he had a kid" Nate said, dumbfounded.

"I never told him. I was going to but World's Conscience over there beat me to it" she said, turning her wrath back to Dan.

"Blair I don't know what you mean" Dan said. "Chuck said he was going to take your son away? Believe me I never wanted for that to happen."

"He didn't" Blair said. "But he's Chuck friggin' Bass! Do you really think he's just going to let this slide? The one thing he's wanted since forever and I kept it from him. He's not going to just shrug his shoulders and let us continue on with our lives. He'll want to get to know his son and he'll want him to be raised in Manhattan and he'll want to have custody of him. He'll hire the best lawyers, bribe whoever he has to bribe, use all the influence that he's got. What does it matter that I've been the boy's sole parent for over three years? I did a horrible thing in keeping him a secret from his father and that's coming back to haunt me now and it's even worse because of you!"

"Blair I still don't follow" Dan stuttered. "Either he'd do this regardless of how he found out or he won't do it at all."

"He thinks of me as the enemy now" Blair said. "The one who kept his baby from him. Do you think he's going to let that go? The truth can have a very different impact depending on how you learn it. If I had told him-"

"Why the hell haven't you told him?" Nate interrupted her. "Good God Blair, I don't believe this!"

"Stay out of it Archibald!" Blair snarled.

"Like hell I'm going to stay out of it" Nate scoffed. "You had Chuck's baby and never told him about it? But you told Dan?" He turned to Dan. "You, you knew about this all along and you said nothing? Whatever happened to your moral compass? Whatever happened to doing the right thing regardless of how you may feel about someone?"

"I seem to have lost my way" Dan griped.

"That's an understatement" Nate said. "I'm out of here. The pair of you can sort this out as best you can. I'm going to go see how Chuck is holding up."

He walked out and Dan looked at Blair again and was scared by the passionate fury in her eyes.

"Why?" she asked in a sob. "Why Dan? What the hell reason did you have to suddenly tell him everything?"

"I…" Dan said, knowing he didn't have an justifiable reason. "I guess I just… crossed one of the last lines I ever expected myself to cross."

"That's not a reason. That's barely an explanation! You know I've been scared of telling Chuck the truth and you know the reasons why. Why did you sell me out? You tell me you love me in the morning and you go ahead and ruin my life in the evening. That's a pretty impressive 180 even for you."

"I made a mistake" Dan said. "Do I regret it? Yeah, partially. At the same time I think it's all for the best that Chuck now knows."

"Sure you do" Blair snorted. "You're all high and mighty and self-righteous when it benefits you to be. You think you did me some sort of favor? I guess in a way you did because now I know once and for all that you are a horrible person and the last person on earth I'd like to call my friend."

"Hey, compared to the stuff your other so called friends have done to you over the years, not to mention some of the things you've done to them, I think your reaction is a little extreme" Dan said, getting really nervous.

"Nate and Chuck and Serena might have betrayed me in the past and I might have betrayed them" Blair said. "But never without a reason. What reason could you possibly have? You were the one who insisted that Chuck should never know. You said so just yesterday. And now here I am, the love of my life hates me and my son's life is about to become complete chaos and… and I might end up losing him."

"Look I may loathe Chuck but I don't think he would take Sebastian from you" Dan said. "He's not that cruel. And I don't believe you really think that either, you're just... in shock right now."

"He can be ruthless when he wants something" Blair sobbed. "He can be even more ruthless when he hates someone. Not to mention the lengths he would be willing to go to for someone he loves. He wants his son. He hates me. And he loves Sebastian."

"He doesn't know Sebastian" Dan pointed out mildly.

"He's always loved Sebastian" Blair argued. "Long before he was even conceived. Chuck has wanted a family of his own since forever. He will stop at nothing to make sure he gets to raise Sebastian. Thanks to you I no longer have any chance of persuading him, to, to make him see that we should all be together as a family. You're lucky I have to focus everything I've got on protecting and keeping my son right now or I would annihilate you. This so called friendship is over. For good."

She turned on her heel and hurried out, wiping away her tears even though it was no use as new ones just kept falling. When the door slammed behind her Dan stood there for several minutes wondering when he had betrayed his own ideals and ended up being the kind of person who would do what he had done over the past few years. Keeping a child from his father and now betraying the woman he loved in the vain hope that by making his biggest competitor eliminate himself from the race he might actually stand a chance. He ought to have known all along that it wouldn't work. He had never felt worse about himself.

He slumped down on the couch, trying to justify his actions since it was a little too overwhelming to look at all his mistakes and face the music. He had told Chuck because the truth needed to come out, because the deception he had been so fervently advocating had been wrong and he had known it all along. At the same time he had kept the truth from Chuck because he was looking out for the good of the child.

Though no matter what spin he put on things in his mind he couldn't fool himself anymore. He had made one bad decision after another, abandoned one moral principal after the other, all for a woman who might never love him back the way he loved her. He had played the game the same way Chuck would have, only unlike Chuck he had a conscience. Sinking to his rival's level had not brought him anything good. So what now? Should he try to make up for his mistakes? Perhaps if he atoned for his sins he might be able to look at himself in the mirror. And perhaps Blair might eventually forgive him and maybe even love him back.

Chuck sat on the couch of yet another impersonal hotel room, Jack's envelope and a laptop on the coffee table in front of him. He wasn't sure what to do next or even what to feel right now. He didn't want to talk to anybody or see anyone he knew which was why he had gone to the Empire and gotten a room just so he could sit in silence and think with absolutely no disturbances. He had stopped by the apartment and left his phone there so nobody could use it to track him.

His eyes kept drifting over to the envelope. He didn't want to open it and he was afraid not to open it. The thought of plugging that memory stick into the computer and seeing the pictures of his son frightened him. What if he felt nothing? What if he felt instant love? Either option came with a ton of difficult emotions he wasn't ready to deal with just yet. What was it like to look at a picture of someone and know that that person was your child? Most parents didn't see their child for the first time via photo. He didn't want the first time he laid eyes on his son to be in such an impersonal matter yet he didn't think he could wait for days or weeks or months before he knew what the boy looked like. What would it be like to look at a little boy and see both himself and Blair? Finding out should have been a dream come true but the circumstances made it anything but.

He took a deep breath and reached out his hand to grab the envelope. He spent another couple of minutes holding it in his hand before opening it. He ignored the DNA test and went straight for the memory stick, fishing it out between his thumb and his index finger as if it was something potentially damaging just by touch. He then spent another few minutes feeling it with his fingers, playing with it a little, familiarizing himself with it. Then he growled at his own foolishness and quickly plugged it in.

Jack had apparently done a thorough job. There were several folders on the memory stick and not all of them had pictures. He had gathered all sorts of information about the child but Chuck wasn't interested in any of it. He would be damned if he acted like his own father and got to know his son through other sources. He had already decided that aside from looking at the pictures he wouldn't find anything out about his son through any other way than asking him or spending time with him. He wanted to get to know his son, not get to know about him. He decided to click on the folder labeled "Of special interest" and wondered if it was Blair or Jack who had named it such.

He rested his chin in the palm of his hand and slowly let out a trembling sigh as he clicked on a picture at random. It showed a blonde haired boy squinting in the sun and grinning widely, clinging to a large St Bernard dog. He stared at the picture for several minutes trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing but it all seemed to bizarre to be real. He clicked on another picture and when the image opened he felt a chill run down his spine. The photograph showed Harold lying on his back on a rug, holding an infant up in the air above him. It was eerily similar to a photograph from Chuck's own childhood, one of himself and his uncle. Chuck had almost forgotten that there had been a time when he was very fond of his uncle and when Jack had seemed to be fond of him too. It had to be Jack who had selected this picture as being "Of special interest" but he couldn't figure out why. Whatever the reason it was creepy to look at the picture of his son with his grandfather and be reminded of the picture of himself and his uncle. He slammed the laptop shut and decided not to look at any other pictures. He wanted to see the child in person, not on picture.

His mind seemed to be going a mile a minute. There seemed to be a hundred different aspects to take into consideration both regarding his own feelings, hopes and desires and those of Blair, their son and Emmy. She would be affected by this too regardless of their relationship status. It was impossible to find a solution that would make everyone happy. He couldn't even think of something that wouldn't make one or more of them miserable. He felt a deep, burning fury towards Blair for being the reason behind all of this but he knew he couldn't focus on that right now. If he did he would get buried in his anger and resentment. It wouldn't change anything and it might make their son collateral damage.

He stayed that way the rest of the day and the night that followed, trying to make sense of everything and figure out what to do next. He was barely aware that he hadn't eaten since the previous day and he could care less that nobody knew where he was and that someone might worry about him. He wasn't even particularly concerned that Blair might try to leave the country as soon as possible and take the child on a let's-avoid-your-father holiday. He had let her go live her life the last time she had left New York but this time around he would send out every PI he could find to track her down if she tried anything funny. He would find her wherever she tried to hide.

The next morning, after having gotten only three hours of sleep in total and no food in his system, he left the hotel room and headed for his office. He ignored Alice's questions and concerns when he arrived but absentmindedly ate the breakfast she conjured up for him. He sat down at his desk and took a deep breath, lifting his landline phone to call his lawyer. He knew what his next step would be and he was determined to not waste any time.

It was past lunch when Blair arrived at his office, so nervous she was nearly trembling and weary after spending a sleepless night reproaching herself for every mistake she had made, grieving the knowledge that Chuck would never want her now and worrying that her son would end up caught in a bitter custody feud. She was glad Chuck wanted to talk to her even though she feared what he had to say. She had spent four years running from her problems and hiding from them. She couldn't do it any longer and it was time to face the consequences.

Her heart ached when she walked inside his office and laid eyes on him. He looked like hell. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before, his hair had not even been combed, much less styled, and he had dark circles under his eyes. Clearly he hadn't gotten any sleep either. And when he looked up at her there was so much hurt and sadness in his eyes. She had seen him devastated before but never anything like this.

"I'm so glad you called" she opened with, nervously twisting her hands. "Or, had your secretary call. We need to talk."

"Have a seat" he said in an emotionless tone.

Obediently she sat down in one of the comfortable black chairs opposite his desk. Every second felt like an eternity and she was torn between hoping he would let her tell her side of the story and wishing he would just go ahead and tell her what he planned to do next. Slowly he walked around to the other side of the desk and placed his hands on it. He closed his eyes hard for a second and then opened them, careful to look anywhere but at her.

"I don't want an explanation from you" he said bitterly. He left his spot by the desk, walking over to look out the windows instead. "Nothing you can say is going to make this any better or even any less horrid. You kept my child a secret. There is no justifying that. I may have made my mistakes but I'm not a child molester or someone who in any other way poses a threat to a kid. There's no way you can say you did it for the sake of the child. But I don't want to talk about that and I don't want to talk about you and me."

"You should let me explain" Blair said, convinced that even if he wouldn't like her any better after hearing the whole story at least he might not blame himself for any of it.

"The only thing we have left to talk about is our… our son" he continued, ignoring her comment. "Does he even know who I am?"

"He knows he has a father" Blair said nervously, feeling a little bit like she was being quizzed by a professor and that her answers would make or break her grade. "I've shown him a picture of you."

"Does he know why I haven't been around?"

"We… We haven't talked about it."

"Is he a good boy?"

The question was spoken in a whisper, so low that Blair barely heard it. She felt close to crying and wished she could ease his pain somehow, any way possible so long as it didn't include turning Sebastian's life upside down.

"He's the best" she answered. "He doesn't always behave, but… Chuck he's so much like us both. He's like what I expect we were at that age."

Slowly Chuck walked across the room and stopped near the door, shoving his hands in his pockets. Blair turned to follow him with her eyes and then rose from her chair, tentatively taking a step closer.

"Chuck, I…"

"You really played me for a fool" he said.

"What?"

"If I weren't the target I'd almost admire you for it. You had me ignoring my work and ignoring my girlfriend to run around and help you prevent me finding out about my child. It's brilliant. And completely soulless."

"Chuck how can you think that of me?" Blair said. "Keeping Sebastian a secret was a mistake but I would never use you in such a cruel fashion. I wanted to tell you this whole time but there was never a good time."

"Never? Not even yesterday when we spoke about your son in this very office?"

"I was so shocked, I was…"

She trailed off, not knowing what to say. They were both silent for a minute, Chuck fighting the anger that was building up inside of him and Blair trying desperately to find the right words to say.

"I suppose you want to know what I plan on doing next" he said grimly.

She swallowed and nodded, then shakily answered him in a whispered 'yes'.

"I don't have to take any guesses as to what you want" he said bitterly. "If you wanted me to be any part of my son's life you would have told me the truth a long time ago."

"You've got it all wrong" Blair said.

He spun around and looked her in the eye for the first time since they had begun to speak. The look in his eyes now was venomous and bitter and it made her want to recoil.

"Do you really think you can bat your eyes and quiver your lips and have me yield?" he hissed. He strode past her and stopped by his desk, his hands resting on his waist. "If you think you can decrease my anger then spare your breath. Now you're going to be quiet and listen to what I have to say."

"I don't blame you for being angry" she said meekly, her heart pounding with fear that he was going to go all out and get back at her by taking her son away from her completely. She had to find some way of placating him a bit but she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't make it worse. "Maybe we don't need to make any decisions about this today. Let it all sink in first, think about it rationally."

"I don't need more time to think. I want to fight you on this. I want to rally every attorney on this entire continent to make sure you don't get to keep calling all the shots. And I want my son!" He took a few breaths, calming himself. "But what's the use? You're never going to give me what I want. We both know your talk about planning on telling me the truth is just talk. You're not going to let me have him, not nearly to the extent I want to be part of his life. In the end we would just end up fighting bitter court battles against each other. It would catch the media's attention and the boy will be put through exactly the kind of media circus you were fighting so hard to avoid."

He paused for a while and Blair tried desperately to decipher what he had just said and whether it was good or bad for her. He turned and sat down on his desk, running his hand over his chin. When he continued he seemed to have calmed himself a little.

"You have no idea how much I want that kid" he said. "My son, my own flesh and blood… But at least one of us has to think of him firsthand and sacrifice what's best for us in order to preserve what is best for him."

"I want what's best for him" Blair objected.

"Don't try to pull that song and dance with me" he scoffed. "Although you probably will be singing and dancing when you leave here, and all the way back to your precious French hideaway."

"Could you please speak plain English?" Blair snarled, tired of the emotional rollercoaster and wanting straight answers.

"He's over three years old and he has no idea who I am" Chuck said. "His home is in France and his family is… well I don't know who his family is but I know that in his eyes I'm not part of it. And you will never let him go. You will never give in and let me be a real part of raising my boy."

"That is-"

"Just shut up, will you?" Chuck sighed and held up a hand as a signal for her to stop. "I will hate myself for this for the rest of my life but I have to think about what's best for that little boy. A long, drawn-out court case would be the worst thing we could do to him. So you win."

Blair blinked a few times, unable to make sense of what he had just said.

"W… what?" she stuttered.

"You win" Chuck said in a completely resigned voice. "I spoke with my lawyer and… I decided I can't. I can't go through with a custody battle. Congratulations Waldorf, you got the outcome you most desired. You can go ahead and return to France and to our son and forget he even has a father. Because his father won't come looking."

"Chuck that… that doesn't make any sense" Blair objected. "And it's not what I want. I want you to know him and I want him to know you."

"Please don't insult me with such obvious lies."

"I'm not lying!" Blair said emphatically. "What I wanted was never for the two of you to be apart for all time. I don't want a bitter custody battle any more than you do but we don't need to go to the other extreme."

"We do" Chuck said, looking down at the floor. "I can't handle the middle-ground. That child matters to me and I've never even met him. If I do meet him… The point is, the only way I can keep myself from fighting you till the end over who gets to raise him is if I don't get to know him. I'll never be able to pretend he doesn't exist and I need you to promise me that you will make sure he knows I want him and I didn't abandon him. He shouldn't have to grow up with the abandonment issues I had."

"Give it a few days Chuck" Blair said. "You'll feel different. We can work something out. Something that works for all of us. We've always been able to talk about things."

"I thought so too" Chuck said and got up from where he was sitting. "That was before I found out you haven't talked to me about the only thing that truly matters."

"I don't want you to give up" Blair said. She had been terrified of losing her son but this was not what she had hoped would happen instead. "I have made so many mistakes; let's not continue to make more."

"I have said my peace" Chuck said, calm now. He got up on his feet again and placed his hands on his sides. "Please just go."

"No" Blair said. "This is not okay."

He laughed a little, a joyless, bitter laugh.

"This is not the only alternative" she repeated.

"Look …" Chuck said. "There is no version where it's a win for everyone. There's definitely not a version where our son doesn't suffer and that's all thanks to you. I'm just opting for the lesser of the evils from his point of view." He paused for a minute. "If you ever need anything for him… Money, or... a kidney… Whatever. Anything. Come find me."

Blair wanted to tell him that she needed a father for Sebastian but she couldn't bring herself to say it. Not because she didn't mean it but because she knew he wouldn't hear her out, only throw it back in her face. This was the last outcome she had wanted. If they couldn't live together as a family she at least wanted the three of them to live in the same city and for Sebastian to see both his parents as much as possible. She was more than willing to move to New York to make this happen and she would tell Chuck this. But not right now. Right now he was still in shock and still angry and still discovering the true depths of her betrayal. She knew that right now he meant what he had said. She also knew he would look at the situation differently in a couple of days, possibly a couple of weeks. She needed to give him that time.

"I love you" she said softly.

He sniggered. She didn't blame him for not believing her right now. Without saying anything else she walked out of his office.

So that's that! You can probably guess what the sequel story will be about. I'm aiming to post it later today and it will be called "Father and Son" (sticking to a song theme here =))

Let me know what you thought of this chapter! Thanks for reading.