Author's Note: It is impossible for me to write pregnancy stories without drama and angst. Don't say you weren't warned. This story was inspired by an image tagged "Baby Bass" on tumblr and the quote below. Medical information for this story was gleamed from the experience of an acquaintance rather than a medical professional. I have tried to be accurate to the best of my ability.

"Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him. Has he talents? Has he enterprises? Has he knowledge? It boots not. Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a pond, and you care not if you ever see it again."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Mister Chuck," Dorota says with a slight jerk of her body. She is surprised to see him home so early from work, flustered that she did not hear him come in. He does not reply. Instead, his eyes rake over the crumpled bed sheets at Dorota's feet and the bottle of cleaner in her hands. The smell of vomit is stronger, assaulting his nose and overpowering the mix of him and her in their bedroom.

"Was there blood?"

His voice is a contradiction – harsh and soft, unconcerned and terrified. But Dorota's rigid expression relaxes under his steely gaze. She was supposed to keep this incident quiet; Miss Blair made her promise under the threat of deportation not to tell Mister Chuck. But, right now, Chuck Bass is more terrifying than the KGB, more heartbreaking than the resistance fighters turned weak camp prisoners asking for a single slice of bread.

"No blood," she assures him. A raised eyebrow says he thinks she's lying to him. She does not want to show him the sheets, does not want to embarrass her Miss Blair in this way. "I promise, Mister Chuck. No blood."

He nods his head, and Dorota sighs in relief. She wants to gather her new employer in her arms, sooth his worry away like she does for her own children. But the idea is beyond insubordination – pushing closer to grounds for dismissal – and she cannot leave Miss Blair now.

"Did you – "

She cuts off his question because she already knows what he is going to ask. She knows the drill, has been here and executed it so often that she's angry he even has the gall to ask. Yes, she called Doctor Abell and, yes, a nurse from the practice is on their way over to administer an IV. She also knows that his hungry eyes are wondering where his wife is, and she makes sure to tack on an answer about how Miss Blair is taking a bath, trying to wash off the stench and the shame. She lacks the gall to say the last few words, but they hang unspoken between them.

The giant elephant in the room.

His eyes flare in accusation of ineptitude as he strides over towards the en-suite bathroom. Dorota knows better to leave Blair alone in the bath; Dorota knows better than the leave Blair alone ever. Panic courses through him when he slips into the bathroom through the partially ajar door and spies her in the tub – eyes closed, head lulled backwards against the marble.

"Blair?"

Her eyes flutter open, and his presence is rewarded with a smile. A real, genuine smile that pulls at him, drags him down, and drowns him in love. For a moment he can look past all of it and see her – just her. Pulchritudinous her. Exquisite her.

But reality saves him from the riptide. Paper thin skin and translucent veins pulled taut across her bones. The sight makes him ill. She sees it, knows it, and sinks further into the water and the shame. He wants to assure her, but the words are like molasses sticking to the roof of his mouth and making him choke.

So instead he peels off his suit coast, deposits it on the counter, and rolls up his sleeves without a word. She watches with wide eyes as he drops to his knees besides the bathtub and dips the washcloth into the water. She shifts forward slowly when she realizes what he wants, reveals in the feeling of cloth brushing across her because it's tender and…

This is the most he's touched her in weeks.

She cannot help herself – a woman possessed – and captures his lips with her own. She can taste scotch and mint; he can taste bile and ginger ale. They can feel the spark, the electricity and the fire. Her hand cups his cheek; his strokes the nap of her neck.

Habit. All of it.

The bile rises; she cannot avoid it. She breaks the kiss, scrambles for the vile bowl that has been her constant companion of late, and vomits. The acid of her stomach contents burns stronger now as it passes over the raw burns from her previous incidents today. Yesterday. Every damn day.

"We're going to the hospital," he demands when she finishes. She's too weak to protest as he slides his hands around her arms and lifts her from the tepid water. She crashes into him – too weak to stand on her own – and the water from her body soaks his shirt and suit pants.

"No," she whispers against his neck. She does not want to go, does not want to be subjected to invasive questions and procedures until someone actually reads her file. She loops her arm around his neck and places the palm of her free hand against his cheek. "No, Chuck."

"Blair," he snaps, "we're going."

"I'm fine," she assures him, her thumb stroking his jawline. When he scoffs, when he does not relax under her touch, she grabs his hand and pulls it to her naked belly. She slides it over her rounded belly, holds it in the spot her own hand was resting on only minutes ago. "We're fine."

He won't look her in the eye and tries to wretch his hand away. But she won't let him; she won't let him be a coward.

"Feel him, Chuck," she demands. "That's our son. That's your son."

The fluttering against his palm, the kick against his hand causes his own stomach to roll. This is his baby, but this is his wife. This is Blair.

"Please," she beseeches. "Love him. Tell me you love him."

"Blair," he starts, but she interrupts him with fierce determination.

"Three words. Eight letters. Say it."

"Say it, Chuck," she begs with tears in her eyes. He cannot do what she wants; his throat feels tight and dry at the sheer thought. But he also cannot watch her cry; he cannot be complicit in her pain.

"I love you," he finally chokes out. She sobs at his words because they are not the ones she wants to hear. He is quick to plant kisses over her tears. "I love you."

The feathering of kisses against his jawline leads him to her delectable neckline. He attacks his favorite spot on her body with gusto before moving onto his other favorite spots – her perky breasts, her taunt bellybutton, her silky curls and slick folds. The contact of her smooth palm against his dick catches him by surprise, and she gives him a wicked grin as she slides her hand down his shaft.

"Blair," he groans as her thumb slides across his leaking head. His eyes roll backwards; his head swarming and cloudy so that he thinks he must be too far gone when he hears her speak.

"Wake up, Chuck."

"Huh?" He mumbles before gasping as her grip tightens.

"Wake up, Chuck," she directs again, and his eyes flutter open with a groan. They are no longer in the back of the limo, and he's surprised to find himself flat on his back in the middle of their bed. The bright sunlight hurts his eyes and he blinks once. Twice. Releases another groan at the friction of his wife's hand against him.

"God," he gasps.

"Nuh huh," Blair hums against his shoulder. "Not God. Just me."

"Blair," he corrects as she hooks her leg over his torso and hoovers her body over his groin. The negligee and panties she wore to bed last night have been shed, and now she's teasing him in all her naked glory. But no matter where he touches – her nipples, her legs, her hips – she will not let him slide into her wetness.

"Don't tease me," he groans as she rakes her nails across his chest.

"Do you want to put a condom on?"

His brain feels foggy as she places a kiss against his Adam's apple. He rarely wears condoms now that they are married, only when she's worried about making a mess in the limo or on her dress.

"I haven't put in the ring," she confesses with a trace of apprehension in her voice.

"I don't want to use it anymore," she clarifies when he does not respond.

Despite the fogginess, the implications of her statements are quiet clear. With one swift motion, he rolls her on to her back, slides in, and captures her lips in a searing kiss. The words are mumbled against her pebbled skin as she gasps.

"Our baby is going to be so loved."

He chooses to hide out at the van der Bass penthouse in the room that was never really his rather than recuperate from his minor, outpatient surgery at the home he shares with his wife. Lily does not quite accept his reason for being here, but she is also rather accustomed to his cryptic answers and actions. Instead, she excuses herself for a private art auction at Sotheby's and instructs him to make himself at home. He is not quite sure that directive extends to her collection of frozen vegetables, but he needs something to help quell the swelling.

He would really like to take a nap, but he needs to finish reading these last two proposals. There is no rest for the weary; no rest for the CEO of a major, multibillion dollar company. He'll sleep when he's dead or, better yet, when he is all healed up and can stand for Blair to wiggle against him in his sleep. The stirring at the thought alone causes him to groan at the pain, and he presses the peas closer to his groin.

"Chuck?"

He need not drop the proposal from his line of sight to know that it is her, but he does anyways because he is desperately hoping his mind is playing tricks on him. But there she is, flawless and inquisitive.

"Lily called. She said you were here."

"Acting strange," she adds after a long pause.

Inwardly, he chastises Lily for her betrayal and himself for coming here rather than returning to work or checking himself into a room at the Empire. Of course, going to the office with his bag of peas would have raised many an eyebrow. He does not need his employees thinking he has been fixed, muzzled, no longer a raging bull in the boardroom or the bedroom. And checking into a hotel – even one that he owns – would create fodder for the gossip mongers out there. Surely this was a better alternative than letting his pregnant wife think he is stepping on her?

He can see the jest forming on her lips when she spots the bag of peas attached to his groin, and had it been a few months ago he could almost count on the next words out of her mouth to be about how Blair Waldorf the virgin managed to break the great Chuck Bass.

But this is today, and the lightness in their interactions is gone. She looks positively sickened; she always looks sickened these days. But this is different, and he can see her recoil in disgust.

"Chuck, tell me you didn't."

He cannot look her in the eyes, feels like a disobedient child caught in the disappointed glare of a parent. It isn't until he hears that horrible retching noise that he is able to look at her.

She vomits again; the mixture leaving an ugly stain on Lily's pristine carpet and splashing back onto her shoes and bare legs. He scrambles out of bed towards her. His signature slide is complicated by the pain, and he hisses when she jerks away from him.

"How could you?" She bemoans as she wipes her mouth with the back of her palm. "I told you not to do this."

"It's my body," he throws back at her. These are the same words she has thrown at him every time they dissolve into that particular argument. This was his decision, the only one he has been given in all of this.

"It's our future," she replies sharply. "I wanted the option of more."

"I can't do this to you again."

"You don't know that. I didn't do this with my firs—"

It is the wrong choice of words for both of them. The fact that she was never this sick the first time around only further fuels the guilt and responsibility he feels. The idea of even talking about her first baby is too hard for her to stomach. She has spent far too much being vigilant, comparing this pregnancy to that one wondering why things are so different and worrying over how she can change the outcome.

And it is not fair because she's making the choice to give him a family. Sacrificing her body and her time and her love and her health more than she ever thought possible just to give him the one thing he has always desired but been too afraid to wish for – a family. Yet, there he is, making a decision that robs them of future possibilities.

"I hate you, Chuck Bass."