Gossip Girl Puzzle

To Daphne, who inspired (and corrected) this fanfiction. I love you!

Puzzle:

"_Time after time I tell myself that  
I'm so lucky to be loving you.  
So lucky to be the one you run to see  
in the evening, when the day is through._"

Frank Sinatra, _Time After Time_

His Rolex's hour hand was just reaching 10 pm when he finally walked into the living room. Chuck sighed with relief, as he allowed himself to slacken the tie's knot and take off his jacked. It was a Friday night, the epilogue of an endless, stressful week of work and he was absolutely exhausted. He was usually home in time to have dinner with his family, but the past five days had been an absolute nightmare at the office and his body was protesting against relative lack of sleep and skipped meals, an annoying routine which had accompanied him for a few days.

Henry was probably sleeping already. The thought made him feel bad and he looked down to the small package he was holding with guilt. Was a gift enough to make it up to his son for his recent moments of absence?

Chuck sighed again, placing his hand on the wall and blindly touching it in order to find the switch. It wasn't until a few seconds later that he realized the light was already turned on. He rubbed his eyes, looked up and he finally identified Blair, who was sitting on the couch with crossed legs, already wearing her black lace night gown. He weakly smiled at her sight, let the gift wrap on one of the armchairs and walked towards his wife.

"Here's my handsome husband," she welcomed him, placing a velvet pillow on her lap and tapping her hand on it to invite him to curl up next to her. The prospective of resting his head on Blair was so inviting that he felt a last flare or energy warming up his cheeks.

"I'm hardly handsome, Blair. I've been wearing the same suit all day and my head is killing me. I'm _dying_ here," he complained, pronouncing the last sentence with a dramatic tone that made her laugh, as he let his body fall on the couch and lied down.

She started running her fingers through his hair, delicate as if she was touching a fragile flower. Chuck closed his eyes and enjoyed the warm sensation on being taken care of, a pleased smirk curving his lips.

"You're such a drama queen, Chuck Bass. Besides, you don't get to decide if you're handsome or not. I do," Blair said. She took his chin between two fingers, raised his head a little and leaned forward to kiss him. "Relax. Have a drink"

Chuck looked at the small table in front of the couch. There were two glasses: one was a Martini cup and the other was a crystal piece form his favorite set, with a golden line and his initials incised on the border (a Christmas gift from his uncle, if he remembered correctly). Both were already filled up.

"You really enjoy spoiling me, don't you?" he joked, sitting up and grabbing the glass.

"Don't be so egocentric, Bass," she replied. "I just thought that having a drink with your amazing wife was the best way to release the tension."

"And here I thought you enjoined releasing the tension in more creative ways," Chuck teased her, glancing at her legs only partially covered by the night gown with a promiscuous smirk.

Blair playfully slapped his shoulder, before she let her hands slowly slither till his neck and definitely liberated him from the tie he was still wearing. Then, delicately, she proceeded to unbutton the first three knobs of his pink shirt. "Not too tired for the flirting I see?"

"Never." He winked at her and she smiled with a malicious light in her eyes that made him forget the hellish day he had

On the table, he noticed as he took a sip of his Scotch, there was also a silver tray full of small macaroons. At the sight of food his stomach grumbled in protest.

Blair, who was now blending her Martini, looked at him with suspect. "You didn't skip dinner again, right Chuck?" she asked and her voice was something between concerned and irritated.

Chuck lowered his eyes, asking himself since when he had become unable to lie. He was supposed to be the best liar, a scheming master – and he was with anyone else, he told himself proudly – but he couldn't even hide the fact that he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast when it came to Blair. She was born with a dictionary to translate all of his silences and behaviors inside her, so lying wasn't on the menu of his marriage. It was something he was actually very happy about, since that magic spell worked perfectly both sides.

"There wasn't time for dinner," he admitted , knowing she was about to start giving him a roasting. Chuck raised up his gaze at Blair, who had now put the Martini back on the table and crossed her arms.

She was looking at him with the same face she used to give Henry when he didn't listen to her – which happened relatively often, since the kid was independent like his mother and stubborn like his father (and terribly spoiled, but neither of them was ready to admit it out loud) – so Chuck thought it was a good idea to use his son's technique. He put on his best sad and tired expression, showed her a bit of puppy eyes (without exaggerating, because otherwise she would have gotten angrier) and waited for Blair to scold him.

He would have said: "_Please, don't yell at me, my head hurts, remember?_" then he would have placed two fingers on each temple and slowly moved them in circles, with a painful expression. She would have come back next to him and stopped admonishing him. She couldn't help it, Chuck knew it: him being needy was her weakest spot.

For a moment it looked like Blair had fallen in his little trap, but then something caught her attention. Her glance fell on the armchair where the gift wrap was peacefully waiting to be opened. Chuck followed her eyes and when he finally realized what she was looking at he groaned: now he was really screwed.

"Oh," Blair got up, reached the armchair, took the package in her hands and examined it. "But there was time for going to buy this, right?" she questioned, rhetorically.

"Blair…" he tried to explain himself, but she stopped him, rising her palm.

"Another bowtie, I suppose."

He didn't answer right away, he clenched his jaw and took another sip of scotch.

Blair sighed, sitting next to him again. Chuck saw her struggling not to show how sympathetic she felt: Blair didn't like not being able to be authoritarian, but when they talked about Henry neither of them had the strength to be actually severe. So, noticing that she wasn't really pissed, he relaxed his shoulders and leaned his back on the couch's seat-back.

"He liked the one I was wearing yesterday, what I was supposed to do?" he protested, conflicted.

Blair laughed softly, putting an arm around his shoulders. She started massaging his neck, any sign of irritation disappeared from her face. "Having a decent meal instead of going to get him another gift, maybe?" she answered, ironically.

"I have the right to buy to my son as many gifts I want, Blair. I don't need your permission." His sentence would have sounded far more intimidating, he thought, if he hadn't already given up to Blair's touch on his tensed muscles. She laughed again, louder this time.

"Do you want to know what is this about?" Blair asked, pointing a finger at him.

"You're going to tell me anyways," he commented, rolling his eyes.

"It's about you being scared of failing him. You arrived home with a gift every night this week, just because you feel bad about having a hard moment at work and not coming back home in time to tell him goodnight."

He was so screwed, Chuck thought again. He preferred not to add anything (it was more dignified, he told himself), he just emptied the glass with a last, long sip, and then put his head on Blair's lap again.

"He's your son, Chuck. And mine. Trust me, he knows every trick to make you feel guilty. But you don't have to worry, Henry is happy and he couldn't be more proud of you. All he does is babble about how _The Great Chuck Bass_ is his daddy, daily drives Dorota crazy because he wants to dress just like you and he goes on and on telling everyone he's going to rule the world someday."

Chuck laughed, more relaxed. "I may have told him he's destined to, last time I took him with me to work," he admitted. Even if he couldn't see her from the position he was now, Chuck imagined Blair shaking her head with fake annoyance.

"Of course you did, I had no doubts."

They remained in silence for a while and Chuck allowed himself to close his eyes, as Blair kept running her fingers through his hair.

"I'll have to go to France next month. There's a mess going on with the hotel in Monaco and people are so incompetent these days. I'll have to fire at least half of the management staff, so that maybe, j_ust maybe_, the other half will understand how to do their job," Chuck said, a few minutes later.

"Oh please, Bass. Don't try to tell me you don't enjoy terrorizing employees. I bet you won't even tell them you're coming."

Blair had a satisfied tone. He smirked, because he knew how talking about anything that concerned power was basically foreplay to his wife. It was just too bad that he was actually too tired to do anything but lying there and letting her ruffle his hair, or the conversation would have surely led to amazing sex.

"Of course I won't. If I did they'd be prepared. But I don't know how many days I'll have to spend there," He answered, bringing up what really bothered him about the situation.

He loved his job and he was terribly good at it – why faking modesty? -, but the idea of staying away from his family didn't please him. Not now that Henry was growing up, at least, and he could do things like asking him when he was going to come back home or telling him "_I miss you_" on Skype. The idea that Henry could miss him was tough for him to accept, for many reasons that he really didn't want to think about.

"Chuck, don't torture yourself with this. It's part of having a position of power. I barely manage come home before fashion weeks, but you and Henry are here when it's all over, right?"

She was right – of course, she was always right, especially when it came to him - he thought. He didn't answer, though, so Blair took the chance to change the subject, probably in the attempt to finally make him relax.

"Besides," she started cheerfully, "when you can't be around Henry has his overly present uncle to keep him busy. Nate stopped by before dinner."

Chuck frowned. "Did he?"

"Actually, I thought it was a little weird. Not him being here, of course, _he's always here._ But he didn't ask me about you, not even once."

Chuck sighed, shaking his head on the pillow. "Well, he's mad at me," he admitted to Blair, who looked at him with pure curiosity.

"Nate? Mad? And mad at you?" she asked, her questions sounding like a surprised climax. She was clearly trying to keep herself from laughing. "What an exceptional event. And may I ask why?"

Chuck thought about it, for a moment. The answer was so funny and frankly ridiculous that he didn't even know how to tell Blair. Chuck had everything figured out about Nathaniel (not that his best friend was that hard to understand, he was as transparent as his blue eyes), but he wondered if it was right to tell Blair. Then he thought again about the fact that hiding stuff from his wife was a lost battle, so he sighed and started to explain.

"Officially, he's mad at me because I invited Jack to the annual Lost Weekend. It's all planned for next week and I thought it was impolite not to invite him, considering that with the amount of work we have we'll probably just stay at the Empire, but apparently Nathaniel decided to be you for a day and started ranting and raving about how it's supposed to be _our tradition_ and _traditions shouldn't be ignored._"

At that point Blair couldn't hold her laughter anymore. The sound of her amusement made Chuck smile and he wondered how many men could have an honest talk with their wives about best friends acting weirdly and men's poker nights. Since the answer was no one, in the long list of the people he knew, Chuck felt like if he was the luckiest person on the planet.

"Did he really say that? You've found yourself a jealous boyfriend, Bass. Should I feel threaten?"

Chuck giggled. "I'll probably just take him and Henry out for dinner tomorrow night. Boys night out should fix the superficial problem. But I'm concerned about him, if I have to be honest."

"Why? Are you still worried about him not being able to handle this political campaign? I'm basically organizing it for him, Chuck and you are being as supportive as you can be, giving him opinions on his speeches and making sure he doesn't let that old man toy with his mind."

Blair, as the bossy and controlling person she was, was incredibly pleased by the fact that Nathaniel was running for major. She called him on daily basis to make sure he was following her all of her advice and she never missed to remind him that he had to find himself a proper girlfriend, because "_People vote for the first ladies, Nate. Everyone knows that_".

Not that he listened on that particular matter. Nathaniel was far too romantic and far too honest to date someone just to have more votes**; **both Chuck and Blair knew it. The difference between them was that Chuck had given up to his best friend's pure heart, while Blair was still trying to push that button with all of her strength.

"I don't think politics or his grandfather have anything to do with Nathaniel's problem, Blair," he started, trying to find an easy way to explain it. "He's so jealous about Jack because he's becoming scared of people leaving him behind. I bet that, somehow, he thinks I'll replace him."

"How can he even think that?" Blair said, this time more serious. "He has the keys to our house, for God's sake."

"It hardly has anything to do with me or us. These last six months have been hard for him. He's trying to act like he's happy for Serena and Humphrey, but she hasn't called him ever since before the wedding, not even showed up for a coffee in months. It's like she canceled him from her life and you know how much Nathaniel cares about her friendship. He's just feeling abandoned."

"Her friendship, umh?" she commented sarcastically, raising her eyebrows.

"I was trying to be subtle, Blair," he told her, chuckling. "Besides he still hasn't realized how little this has to do with friendship. It's Nathaniel, he's a tortured soul."

Unexpectedly, Blair kissed him again, this time deeply. Then, when their lips parted, she gave him a warm smile. "You're such a great man, Chuck Bass, taking care of the people you love."

"Apparently I'm not," he answered, joking. "I forgot to ask about your day."

For a moment he actually felt bad about it: he had complained about his problems without making sure everything was okay with her. Blair, anyway, didn't let that sensation last long. She pressed a finger on his lips and shook her head.

"It's okay, Chuck. You have an headache, you're excused for tonight – _just for tonight._ Anyway, it was a pretty quiet day at the atelier. At least until Serena showed up to talk about how marriage is such a _complicated puzzle to solve. _I wonder in which para-psychology article she found this expression."

"_Complicated puzzle to solve_? Is Humphrey giving her any troubles?" Chuck asked, pissed at the thought of Dan Humphrey. Neither of them was happy about him marrying Serena, but they both loved her and they knew she – sadly and unbelievably, he mentally added - loved him.

Still, Chuck was having an hard time accepting it, struggling with the idea of that eternal wannabe being a part of his family (he didn't consider him a part of it, actually, and neither did Blair, but Humphrey had married Serena and that made him – at least _legally _\- related to them) and if he had hurt Serena again in any way, Chuck would have made sure that Dan Humphrey was exiled from Manhattan for the rest of his miserable life.

The awareness that doing it was something in his power made him feel restored. He smirked, something that Blair noticed right away.

"Clam down, Bass. Don't get all brotherly protective. He's _Humphrey_ and she's _Serena_, _of course_ they're having their issues. Apparently it all came up because she went out for a drink with Georgina a couple of days ago and _didn't_ _ask his opinion about it_, to quote Serena," she explained.

"Like if she had to. It's a marriage, not a prison. He's such a pitiful asshole. Don't you think it's at least disrespectful to expect your wife to ask your permission to do things?"

It just sounded absurd to him, if he compared that craziness to the relationship he had with his wife. He couldn't even think about telling Blair what she could and what she couldn't do. Blair was an exceptional creature, an independent woman who wouldn't have let him do anything like that –not that he wanted- or, for the matter, given him any kind of rules.

"He just can't accept that she's always been more than what he wants her to be. It's not about the drink, it's about her need for more. She can settle for spending nights watching him reading and cooking pasta, but eventually she'll always need something else. She's Serena, you can't cut her wings."

Tired of talking about Dan Humphrey, Chuck took Blair's hand in his and kissed it. It was something he loved to do: Blair's hand was so small compared to his, but somehow their bodies were always fitting. He felt suddenly felt completely aware of the rarity of what they had; a strong relationship where they could be themselves, without making excuses for their flaws.

"I would never want you to be anything other than what you are, Blair," he said, feeling the need to reassure her. Blair smiled at him and then she placed a kiss on his forehead.

"That's because we have something special. They could never be us, Chuck; we're too much."

He smiled, closing his eyes. She was so right. Blair was always right, he thought once again. That was the last thing on his mind before he fell asleep with his head still on her legs and her hands dancing through his hair.

* * *

It was 5 in the morning when Blair woke up, feeling the bed empty on Chuck's side. After letting him sleep on the couch for about an hour, Blair had convinced him to go to bed and that's where he was supposed to be. She got up, put on her night gown and looked inside the bathroom to see if he was there, but the room was empty.

"Chuck?" she called him, coming out from their bedroom, trying to keep her voice down not to wake Henry up. Then she finally saw him, in front of the kid's room. He was standing on the entrance, his body leaned against the opened door, looking inside.

Blair silently reached him and gently touched his shoulder, not to scare him.

"I knew you were going to wake up," he said calmly, looking down at her with a smirk. "You can't sleep without me."

"It's 5 am and you still manage to be a pain in the ass, Bass," she whispered. "I'm impressed."

She was now wide awake, with no chances of falling asleep again, but Chuck would have needed to sleep more, she wondered with a bit of concern. Blair would have already told him to go to bed, if she hadn't noticed how he was still looking at Henry, who was peacefully resting in his bed.

There was a certain sadness in Chuck's eyes, a not well hidden melancholy that Blair wished he didn't have to feel. It was clear to her that the conversation they've had about parenting a few hours ago hadn't fully convinced Chuck.

There was nothing to do but to wait for him to say something about it: there was no point in pushing him to talk when he didn't want to. She had learnt, with time and with a lot of patience given her by the love she felt for him, that she had to give her husband his time to elaborate things.

It was the way he was. She had no doubts about how much Chuck trusted her, so she had stopped long ago worrying about him not telling her what was on his mind. He would have always gone to her, eventually. That firm belief gave her the will to remain where she was.

"Do you think he knows how much I love him?" he asked her after a while, without stopping looking at Henry. "I don't want him to think he's second to anything in my life, Blair. He's the most important thing," he paused, as he lowered his gaze and Blair felt a shiver down her spine, because she had a very precise idea of what was going through his mind in that very moment.

Something about the loneliest childhood, about a boy with a tie and a suit waiting hours, days for a father who never arrived, wondering if it was his fault, if there was something wrong about him, something that he had done to deserve lack of love and consideration. And that, Blair knew, was just the beginning of a story that had the worst epilogue possible, something that she couldn't cancel, something that Chuck was going to carry with him forever.

Blair was aware of the fact that Chuck's deepest fear was the idea of Henry feeling abandoned or lonely, even just for a minute. The scary thought never missed to make him feel insecure in the relationship with his son, he was constantly worried about failing him or not being enough. And, no matter how much effort Blair put into trying to show him how he meant the world to Henry, how loved and safe the kid felt when he was with him, sometimes Chuck just couldn't overcome that anxiety.

It was a fragility that he kept well hidden inside him and that he hardly showed to anyone who wasn't her, a small crack on his the façade of his powerful personality. It was maybe that one thing Blair loved most about him: it was a delicate sensibility that she was the only one to know deeply.

"The most important," he repeated, this time even more sure.

She was about to say something, but then the simplest and still most amazing thing happened: Henry, probably waken up by the sound of them talking in front of his room, sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes, till he focused on the image of his parents.

Then he sleep-walked towards them, took Chuck's hand and dragged him to bed with him. "Daddy let's go to sleep," he said with a tiny voice "It's Saturday tomorrow, there's no work on Saturday."

Chuck, who could have never refused his son's offer, looked back at Blair.

"I think you got your answer," she told him.

She couldn't change Chuck's past and the way it never missed to make him feel insecure about his present, but she realized in that very moment that it wasn't even her duty anymore. Chuck had someone else to make sure he never forgot what he had gained from his life and, despite his three years and an half, Henry was doing the job wonderfully.

Later, watching her men sleeping in a tight hug, Blair couldn't help but thinking of Serena's sentence about the puzzle. She actually agreed, marriage was a complicated puzzle: her puzzle was big and the pieces were many and incredibly small, but somehow they fitted perfectly. She felt grateful, as a warm sensation of belonging spread in her chest. So she smiled, ready to start a new day.

**Notes: **

**[1]** This fanfiction assumes that both Jack and Georgina are a part of Chuck and Blair's life (as long as Serena's). They were at Dan and Serena's wedding after all.

**[2]** About the Serenate hints, it's just the way I see it. I don't own an higher truth. Same goes for Dan and Serena's problems. It all comes from my mind and my point of view. I hope it doesn't bother anyone.

**[3]** English is not my native language, I'm Italian. I sincerely apologize if there are too many mistakes.


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Gossip Girl, Family, Hurt-Comfort