"Sorry you can hold, however desolately, if nobody speaks to you. If they speak, you break down."
-Bede Jarrett
Charlie woke up with the feeling of grief like a heavy blanket on her mind, smothering her senses and thoughts. She got up and went through the motions of her morning routine robotically, thoughtlessly. Her mind was consumed with thoughts of her little brother, now gone for two years.
She drifted downstairs and into the kitchen, where her mom and Miles went silent at the sight of her. But Charlie just ignored them and picked at her breakfast without tasting it before she slipped away to be alone.
Charlie made her way out, deep into the forest where she knew no one would come to look for her. She just wanted to be alone with her grief. She wasn't ready to share it yet. She went on for about a mile before deciding she had gone far enough and slid down to the ground, her back pressed against the rough bark of a tree. Charlie sat there, wishing she had brought some whiskey to drown away the day.
Instead, she stayed on the damp ground, pressed up against that tree, and thought back to all of the moments she had spent with her baby brother. Tears flowed freely as she remembered her only job.
Never let go of his hand.
And she never had. Not until the day the Militia came in while she was off pouting, and they had taken him from her.
But it was all her fault.
She let go of his hand.
It was all her fault.
So she sat there, alone, with tears wearing paths down her cheeks, as the sun slowly moved across the sky.
The sun was almost completely down when the snapping of twigs drew her out of her daze, and she looked up into a familiar pair of bright blue eyes.
"Hey, Charlotte," he rasped, crouching down in front of her.
Charlie opened her mouth, then closed it again and looked down and the ground.
She heard a soft sigh, and suddenly he was sitting next to her, the lengths of their bodies pressing together lightly. Charlie shivered slightly, the warmth radiating off of him making her aware of the evening chill for the first time.
Her shiver didn't escape his attention. Bass wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tighter to his body.
He hesitated for a moment before finally speaking. "I know I'm probably the last person you will ever want to talk to about your brother," he said softly, "but I can relate. I lost my parents and my two baby sisters before the Blackout, all at once. We've all felt pain, Charlie, and if you ever need to talk about yours, well, I'll be here, and you know Miles would do anything for you."
Charlie felt the dam inside of her breaking as her tears came back in full force. "I just miss him so much sometimes," she whispered, speaking for the first time today, before she began bawling uncontrollably.
Bass simply pulled her closer, stroking her hair as she let it out.
Charlie sat there, cradled in Monroe's arms, as the tears finally subsided. She suddenly realized that, for the first time today, she felt human.
For the first time today, she didn't feel alone.
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