A/N- So here it is, the last chapter in this fic that's turned out to be very dark and actually, very sad, even by my standards. But I think this has been my favourite ever story to write, and I just wanted to take this chance to say thank you to everyone who's reviewed throughout this story :) Like I always say, they mean so much, they really do :)

So here's the last chapter, hope you enjoy :)

The Saddest Song

Chapter Six: The Way Out

Blair fails to hear the words of Serena and the nurses running around her as another flash of pain tears through her. She knows what's happening.

She's not even sure how she's managing to walk, or how the screams forming in her mouth won't escape her lips, but she is, and they're not, and for now at least, she's keeping it together.

Pretty ironic really, that as she's losing a something inside of her, she's still composed, still tidy, still bitchy as the nurse tries to help her and she shouts that she can do it on her own.

Truth is, Blair knows she can't, and she's more than grateful at the sight of a decent-enough empty hospital bed as she tries to ignore the fact that everyone can see her wearing sweat pants in public, even though she knows that she'll have to throw out them out anyway.

And as they lay her down on the bed and tell her not to panic, she tries to ignore Serena covering her trembling mouth as one nurse shouts something about delivery to another, and they whisk her away like in those awful episodes of ER she's seen. Only this time, not comfortably laying underneath silk sheets with Serena and a bowl of popcorn in Serena's old bedroom, hoping for a glimpse of George Clooney like they used to, but she's doubled up in agony in a bed on her own as a thousand harsh lights fly past her overhead.

They don't have to tell her; she knows where she's going.

And moments later, when she's delivering a sort-of lump-like mass, tears streaming down her face, it's the most humiliated and undignified she's ever felt, and when Blair finally lets herself go, eyes closing as her fingertips loosen their grip on the bed sheets it's like some kind of euphoria, and it's the release she's needed for so long.

X

The hospital gown she wakes up in is horrific. It's white and plain and so loosely fitted that it looks like she's drowning in a sea of white, and all that's visible are a pair of tired eyes and pale, pale lips. She lets an investigative hand travel down to her stomach, sighing inwardly as she trails her fingers over her flat stomach, and then back again, leaving her hand rooted at the side of the bed as Serena gasps and throws herself onto her best friend's chest.

"B, I'm so sorry." She chokes, and it all only annoys Blair further. She knows fine well that Serena isn't sorry she lost the baby, but she figures that she's sorry that it had to happen in the first place.

"For what?" She snaps, not even sure why she'd said it.

"For this whole…"

"Mess?" Blair offers.

"I was going to say situation."

The brunette stays silent.

"So how are you feeling?"

"On top of the word." She replies sarcastically as Serena sighs a little, angering her even more.

"I meant, are you in pain?"

Of course not. Blair thinks. I've just been forced to endure the worst moment of my life in public. But she shakes her head anyway. "Just a little sore."

"I didn't know what was happening. I thought… wasn't sure if you'd be okay, and then…oh my God I should have called your Mom! I'm so stupid, I can't believe…"

"Don't." Blair cuts in quickly. "Don't call her."

"But don't you think she should…"

"I said, don't call her." Blair emphasises forcefully as Serena takes a gulp of oxygen, leaving her friend seemingly starving for air. She stares at the blonde, makes her promise that she won't call Eleanor, and when she does finally give her word, Blair lets herself fall back to sleep, because it's the only place that this isn't a reality.

X

He wakes her up gently with a stroke of his heavy fingers underneath her eyelids, ignoring the fact that his skin is now wet with her tears as he places his other hand to his lips before gesturing to Serena asleep in a chair beside the bed.

She doesn't ask how he knows, and for the most part, she's more grateful to him now than she's ever been for anything before.

He doesn't ask if she's okay (he knows more than anyone that she's not), doesn't urge her to speak as she wraps her dainty arm around his back and he loops his around her. It's horrible and it's tense and it's totally inappropriate, but it's the most complete she's felt all day.

All he tells her once they're outside of that room is that "Serena called." He doesn't need to add anything, and he doesn't want to. It was bad enough the first time.

"I'm at the hospital Chuck." Serena cries shakily. "It's Blair, it's, she's loosing it… I was at her house and it happened…she…I got her here, and I was trying to calm her down and all she kept saying was 'Chuck'.

He stays silent, stomach lurching as his step sister chokes her way around the night's events.

"I don't even think she knew she was saying it…you know right? About the baby…I…it was awful and I couldn't do anything…I called a driver but…I…should I have called 911? She needs you Chuck."

He's still silent and she's no longer making sense.

"Just come." She ends abruptly, and it takes too long for what she's said to sink in, and yet he knew exactly what the call was about before he even answered. He hates himself for letting her go.

And though he knows Serena's right, and that Blair probably does need him, wanting him to be there is an entirely separate thing. She's not wanted him anywhere since the day he slept with Amelia, and he doesn't blame her.

So after hours of pacing, of hesitance and deliberating, Chuck finally bolts downstairs.

"The car's outside." He tells her quietly, wishing she'd say something, anything at all to prove that she's not as broken as he thinks.

X

Maybe this is her way out.

Maybe it's all just her 'get out of jail free' card so-to-speak. She's not wanted the baby in the first place, and perhaps this is her punishment. Perhaps the baby didn't want her either; she wouldn't be surprised.

As they enter Chuck's suite, memories of old times flooding back, he does his best to make this better for her, explaining (or not really explaining at all) "I thought you'd be better off here."

Blair wants him to understand what this feels like. She doesn't want to be the only one this affects, doesn't want to be the only one who feels empty and hollow and confused.

"Maybe you want to get a shower?" He asks carefully. "Or just…I can get you a flannel if you like?"

She nods gratefully, managing the smallest, tightest of smiles as he opens the bathroom door.

She knows it's wrong and that it's unfair, but Blair wishes more than anything that this was Chuck's baby she'd lost. Maybe then he'd be able to understand just how she feels to have lost something she'd never even wanted in the first place.

But as long as he can't fully understand (even though he'll force himself harder than anyone to try), she'll keep quiet, keep her thoughts and her feelings to herself because it's easier this way and she feels less stupid for crying over something that would have only ruined her life anyway.

He sighs, not angry or frustrated, but tiredly, painfully wishing there was more he could do for her. Chuck's always been this way around her, and what had once made her feel powerful and in control now makes her feel weaker than ever.

Now, she needs him just to hold her up, just to lean on while he wipes the warm, damp cloth across her skin, smoothing her soft hair away delicately, like she's some kind of porcelain doll that could break under his touch.

He turns himself away reluctantly as she pulls his oversized shirt around her cold body, and when her shaking fingers fail to do up the buttons, he senses, turns and does them for her without a word, without the expression of pity and sadness written across his face that she knows he knows she doesn't want to see.

It the most gentle he's ever been, and Blair can't help but stay rooted as his arms wrap around her and her hair brushes against his cheek. She thinks she feels his lips press the softest of kisses onto her forehead, and then her eyes will themselves to shut, and she tries not to think about anything to do with him, because it's all only hurting more.

She'd stay like that with him all night if her legs didn't have other ideas, and as she feels her knees start to buckle beneath her, Chuck senses, and half scoops her up, not in the same way he would if they were re-enacting a cheesy movie scene, but sort-of ushering her, guiding her towards his bed, where he draws back the sheets before resting her there, biting the sides of his mouth to stop himself saying something to damage her further.

So when she finally breaks her silence and asks him to put on some music (only because she needs something to take her mind off listening to him breathe,) she's surprised when he bothers to ask what she'd like.

She can't muster the energy to respond, and simply closes her eyes as he places an old record onto the player she figures his father has had stored somewhere for the past twenty years.

If this was them normally, she'd mock, or maybe raise an eyebrow expressing the fact that she didn't know he was into old sounds. But this isn't them normally, and so Blair simply shivers underneath the expensive sheets, haunted by the words of Sam Cooke over Chuck's record player.

"Will you lay with me?" She asks in the smallest softest of voices, and it's so quiet he almost doesn't hear. And yet, he obviously does, because when his eyes lock with hers, his legs have taken him across to that bed before he can even realise.

He hates that it's a question and not an order, because when he thinks about it, Chuck can't ever remember Blair asking him for anything in her life.

He wants to suggest that he takes her back to the hospital, that maybe he should at least call Eleanor or Serena to save their worry, because after all, they both know she really shouldn't be here. But he knows better than anyone that she's safe now, and that she feels safe now, and so on purely selfish reasoning, Chuck turns off his cell with his left hand, stroking her hair with his right as she moves closer into him.

He talks to her (only in his head) as he watches tear after tear fall out of her closed eyes, and silently tells himself that there isn't a God up there, because she doesn't deserve any of this.

"It's my fault." She mumbles with trembling lips as she realises all of this – the miscarriage, Chuck knowing, Serena knowing - is a weight off of her, and then self-hate and disgust falls all around after she realises the kind of person she is.

"I didn't want it." She cries. "I said I wasn't pregnant, I denied everything, I…I didn't eat, and I drunk martini and…this wasn't supposed be how it ended."

She claws at him for comfort, for reassurance and safety, and he shields her body with his, her face pressed into his chest, his arms and legs over hers in that huge bed to try and urge some warmth into her body, onto her skin through that shirt, through his shirt while forcing himself not to cry with her.

Telling her that it's not her fault – arguing – it wouldn't help, Chuck figures. He only tries to soothe her as she cries into him, as her hands grab for his shirt and his skin and his lips in desperation, more and more tears falling as the words from the record fill the air to make it the saddest song he's ever heard.

Review please? For the last chapter? Lots of love xxx