So here we are, the final installment for this story! Before I let you get to the epilogue, I want to sincerely thank all of you for having been with me to the end. I know some of you were skeptic early on about Chuck and his behavior ;) I'm glad to see that most of you seem to feel that I've redeemed him in the last chapters.

Thanks to all of you who have reviewed, both with positive feedback and constructive feedback. You really make my day, all of you. I would especially like to thank those of you who have experienced similar things to what happens in this story (whether it's having a baby at a young age or losing a baby) for sharing your stories with me. I'm honored that you chose to tell me your stories, and I'm glad you felt it was realistic.

Now then, on to the epilogue, which I hope will tie up all the loose ends… =)

It was cold, but there was no snow falling from the January sky as Chuck and Blair walked up to their baby boy's grave. They were on their way to the church but Blair had insisted they stop by the graveyard first.

Her brown hair, cut short and styled into a bob she thought was very Audrey Hepburn, was flying in the wind and she began to regret that she hadn't taken a hat after all as her ears started to freeze. Ironically she had gone hatless so that her hair wouldn't be ruined but now it was blowing every which way. She would have to style it again when they got to the church.

The almost two months old baby girl in her arms had her ears and her head safely covered in a hat at least. A rather ugly hat Nate had found at a swap meet, a knitted thing that looked like the head of a bass. Blair found it hideous but Chuck thought it was hilarious and he had been the one to choose their daughter's headwear this morning.

"Here we are" Chuck said as they stopped by the two graves, his father's and his son's.

"Say happy birthday, Alicia" Blair told the baby and let her tiny hand wave to the grave. "It's Royal's birthday today."

Blair had insisted that they have their daughter's christening on the day that sort of was Roy's birthday. Chuck had thought it was a bit morbid but in the end he didn't care all that much about what specific date they christened their daughter so he had let Blair have her way. He didn't think it was necessary to have a christening at all, so since Blair felt it was he let her have things the way she wanted them.

Alicia Caroline Bass had been born a week after Blair's twenty-fifth birthday, a year and a half after her parents had gotten married. She had been a much anticipated child; it had been nine excruciatingly long months for both Blair and Chuck, both of them afraid that what happened with their first child would also happen with their second. But Alicia had arrived two weeks later than expected, perfectly healthy. Everything had gone just as well as could be, and a lot of ghosts had been driven from Blair's mind when she held her newborn, crying girl.

"We should go" Chuck said after a few minutes.

"We just got here" Blair objected. "Can't we just stay ten more minutes with him?"

"I don't want Alicia to get cold."

Blair nodded reluctantly and kissed her baby girl on the head, through that ridiculous hat which had been washed three times over before Blair let it anywhere near her child. If Nate wanted to slum it at a swap meet than that was his business but she refused to let anything like that near her baby unless she knew with absolute certainty it wasn't filthy.

Chuck put the flowers he had brought down on the graves, yellow roses on Bart's and pink peonies on Royal's, and then put his arm around Blair's waist. He lead her back towards the limo and got in after her.

Once they arrived at the church Blair quickly went to work with removing the baby's thick overalls and having Dorota iron the christening gown one more time. With Dorota's assistance she then dressed the baby in the gown and handed her over to her father. Now that the baby was ready Blair had to make sure she was presentable as well. With an annoyed frown she got to work with her hair, trying to get every strain of it to fall back into its proper place.

"Take a good look at Mommy" Chuck said to Alicia, lifting her up so she could get a good view. "See how she's fussing about her looks? That is sadly how you are going to be spending about one third of your life. Even though neither you nor Mommy have anything to worry about when it comes to appearances."

"Daddy is so full of it" Blair said sweetly, turning to look at her husband and child. "He spends almost as much time worrying about how he looks as I do."

"Poor baby, she doesn't stand a chance" Chuck laughed.

"Dorota go see if Serena is here yet" Blair said, grabbing a can of hairspray.

"Yes Miss Blair" Dorota said, hurrying out.

"She's probably going to be late as usual" Chuck sighed. "You know she's standing in front of the mirror right now, making sure she looks just perfect. I should give her a warning, all eyes should be on my daughter today, not on her silly godmother."

"You know S."

"Wish I could say I didn't."

"Remember Bass, we want to teach Alicia to be loving and compassionate. All snark, witty remarks and spitefulness may only be conducted when she is not around."

"She's too little to understand" Chuck shrugged.

Blair shot him a look, unwilling to take any chances. Not that she thought there was anything wrong with being snarky or spiteful, but her little girl was so unspoiled and she wished to keep her that way for as long as possible.

Alicia was a little miracle. Even though the doctor's had told Blair she shouldn't have any reason to worry about having another baby the concern had always been a the back of Blair's mind. She and Chuck had been trying to get pregnant for six months before Alicia was finally on her way, that alone had concerned Blair. Every single day when she was carrying her daughter she had been nervous. Especially when the baby was in the same week as her son had been when she lost him. When time came for her second baby to be born Blair had been adamant about having a natural delivery, unable to shake the thought that if she avoided all easy roads with this pregnancy she might truly deserve this child, and it would live. She hadn't told Chuck that when he protested vehemently and insisted that she take something for the pain, because she knew he would point out how irrational that was. Instead she had told him that she didn't want to take the chance with any pain relief since they didn't know for sure how it might affect the baby. She had made it through the birth, difficult as it had been, and more importantly the baby had too. The relief she had felt when she heard her daughter's screams had been unlike anything she had ever felt before.

Not a day went by without her thinking about the child she had lost, but as the years had gone by his presence in her mind had faded. He wasn't on her mind every hour anymore, and until she got pregnant again the thought of Royal hadn't made her cry for almost two years. But she would always wonder what it would have been like if he had lived.

He would have been almost five years old if he had been alive today. An individual, unlike her baby who was starting to show some characteristics but who wouldn't be a distinguishable individual for a while yet. Blair wondered almost daily what her boy would have looked like, what kind of interests he would have had, everything Chuck had mentioned that day after Royal's expected due date.

And she couldn't help but wonder what her life would have been like if she had given birth to a healthy baby boy in March of 2011. Would she still have the same college degree and the same job? Would she and Chuck be married? They had gone through a rough patch a few years back but the bond that had been forged though the death of their son had made them come through it. Would it have been the same if their child had lived? And what if she had never gotten pregnant in the first place? Sometimes Blair wondered if she and Chuck would have gone their separate ways years ago if it hadn't been for that pregnancy, the one that brought them closer than before and made them overcome the problems they had had earlier.

After the loss of their son neither one of them had spoken about trying to have another baby. Not until years later, a few months after their wedding. Deep down inside Blair knew they probably weren't ready back when she was first pregnant. Now that they had Alicia she was understanding more and more how unprepared they really had been back then. There was a reason why they had waited so many years before trying to get pregnant again. But she also knew that they were now a lot more grown-up and mature than they would have been if Royal had never existed. They had been forced to start growing up.

She looked over at Chuck and they shared a smile. His phone rang and he squirmed to try and fish it out from his pocket with one hand while holding the baby steadily with the other.

"Excuse me for a minute" he said to Alicia. "It's your soon-to-be godfather."

Blair turned to face the mirror again and carefully studied her looks. She looked perfect, or close enough. She glanced at her wristwatch while Chuck prattled on in the background.

"Seriously?" she heard Chuck say. "You're calling me twenty minutes before my daughter's christening to ask if you can bring a date? What do you think this is, a luau?"

Blair shook her head with a smile. While she was a bit disappointed that things hadn't worked out between her best friend and Chuck's there was always a lot of amusement to be drawn from Nate's romantic escapades.

Chuck hung up the phone with rolling eyes.

"Your godfather is kind of a moron" he told the baby. "Can you say 'moron'?"

"Chuck!"

"Oh come on, she needs to know at least one degrading word. Especially when it so accurately describes her godparents. She's going to be hearing it a lot."

Blair walked over and sat down on the sofa next to her family. She took her daughter's tiny hand in her own and leaned in to kiss her husband.

"Ready to be christened, sweetheart?" she asked the baby.

"Yeah, feel up for having a guy in a robe splash your head with water while everyone looks on?" Chuck said. "Baby's first taste of public humiliation."

Blair caressed the baby's soft, dark curls and smiled when the girl stuck her whole fist in her mouth and made a whole series of unintelligible noises. If Royal was her little angel then Alicia was her little miracle.

"You know Chuck, since we've had her I've really started to understand what the whole point was of us almost having a son all those years ago."

"There wasn't any point" Chuck argued for the umpteenth time. "Things like that don't happen to make a point. They just happen."

"Everything has a point" Blair argued.

"No… If they do then that means he was never meant to survive in the first place, and if that's the case then there was no real point in him existing to begin with."

"Yes there was" Blair said. "Sometimes I honestly believe we have him to thank for us still being together."

Chuck reached up the hand that wasn't wrapped around the baby and gently caressed her cheek. His hand then slid down and landed on her left ring finger, gently twirling the golden wedding band around, the one he had engraved: "For longer than forever".

"Blair… That is just your way of trying to assign some meaning to what happened. The truth is that he was supposed to live but he got sick, or something else went wrong. Maybe it was for the better, maybe it wasn't. Just don't attribute more to it than what it actually was."

Blair nodded, unwilling to argue about it. She had her ideas of the significance of their son's death but if Chuck had other thoughts then she would let him have them in peace, without her trying to inflict her thoughts on him.

Maybe he was right. Maybe there had never been a point or a reason. Perhaps it had just happened, seemingly at random, and they had learned from the experience and adapted.

Chuck lifted up the baby in his arms and gave her a big kiss. The truth was that he knew his daughter probably had her older brother to thank for her life. If the idea of being a father hadn't been forced upon him he would probably never have decided he wanted kids. He loved his lifestyle, and changing it to make room for a baby would have been the last thing he wanted. If it hadn't been for the way he had felt the last month before the stillbirth, and the way he had felt when he saw and held his son. Suddenly it had seemed like life would be empty if he never felt that kind of attachment, if there never were any children in it.

Without Royal back when they were too young and too screwed-up for parenthood there would never have been an Alicia now when they were older and ready.

They got up and Blair straightened the christening gown one more time before they would walk out into the church.

"There" she smiled. "You look perfect."

"Let's go have that priest splash water on you" Chuck said. "Save Dorota the trouble of giving you a bath."

He kissed the baby's head and then leaned in to get a kiss from Blair.

"Okay, let's go" Blair smiled.

"Oh, and Alicia, try not to spit up on this suit" Chuck said. "It's Valentino and spit-up is not a recommended accessory. You can puke on the Armani."

Blair rolled her eyes and opened the door. She then took Chuck's arm and walked out with him to greet the crowd that had gathered for the christening of their daughter.

Thank you all for reading =) Hope it wasn't too saccharine.

Before I wrap this up, I would like to apologise for sometimes taking several days to respond to reviews. I'm in the process of moving, and it's taking up a lot of my time. I promise I will try to do better =)

*shameless self-marketing* The response I got from the earlier chapters of this story made me want to write a story with Chuck and Blair as parents, and how they would tackle having a small baby and everything that comes with the baby growing up. So I began to write such a story, and I'll be posting the first chapter later today. Hopefully the pregnancy chapters won't be too similar to the earlier stuff in this story… Anyway, if you read it I hope you will tell me what you think =)

And that's all for me, and this story. Again, thank you so much to all who have read and reviewed!

XOXO