A/N So I decided to get back on the Charloe-loving bandwagon after a briefly obsessive watching marathon of Warehouse 13 and Eureka, and repeat (that's four times five seasons…oops). I didn't really have the time to think up something, so I went to TheGoodShipCharloe for a prompt, and found the perfect one for my current mood, even though I'm a few days late: Charlie gets flowers from a secret admirer for Valentine's Day. She wants them to be from Bass, but are they?
"Just wrap it up and let me get back to my tent," Charlie snaps impatiently. The medic shoots a glare at his uncooperative patient, blindly investigating the tendons in her ankle while he continues his conversation with Bass. The general had entered just after Charlie had been assigned a bed, a smirk on his face and completely impervious to her fury.
Bass looks at her, the other man's words ignored. "Tell me, Charlotte, how exactly did you damage your ankle in the first place?" It's a redundant question; he knows exactly what she's been up to today. Half the camp knows she's been fighting in the nearby town, much like the scene where she first found Bass after the nukes.
"It's fine," Charlie says exasperated, wiggling her foot in the medic's grip, not even wincing as pain shoots through her leg, muscles tensing and her nails digging into her palm.
"It was fine," Bass retorts, emphasis on the past tense, "and then you walked two miles back to camp with it." He seems exasperated with her, her stubbornness and her righteous anger. It's like he suddenly is the responsible one in their friendship, the calming influence that she has to be for him for a year.
"What are you doing here, Monroe?" She uses his last name, so he knows she's still angry. Not necessarily with him, but not ready for their usual banter either. "Shouldn't you be decorating or something?" She just wants him to leave.
He smiles, "I'm the general, Charlie. I'm hardly going to hang hearts all around the camp. I have people for that." He's just a hint smug, enjoying his power after a year without it. It's one of his lesser qualities; the arrogance, but he wouldn't be himself without it. Also, he deserves to be confident. After all, she's never met a man more capable of leading an army. Miles may be the better fighter, but he's less of a team player than his best friend. Bass is a leader in every sense of the word, caring about his people in his own way.
It still surprises her when she sees former militia practically bow down in their general's wake. The soldiers are Texan now, but they answer to Bass first, and that sets the Rangers' teeth on edge. Other high-ranked officers are scared of Monroe, deadly afraid of what he can do when he decides to take action, but unable to let him go yet while the Patriots are still in play.
"Do you have a Valentine in mind for tomorrow, general?" her medic asks, and the teasing tone either means that they're friends, or that she digging a grave for the man once she wraps her own ankle. Charlie's pretty sure she saw the spades in quadrant C, but she'd have to check to be sure.
Bass smirks like he knows something, but doesn't say a word. Charlie's foot is wrapped in linen, stuck at a ninety degree angle, but she can still feel her toes, so the medic must have done his job well.
She gets up, nods in thanks and leaves the tent. The camp is busy, like it always it. Soldiers are everywhere, mostly unarmed, but carrying around a bundle of decorations. It's ridiculous that people still take the time to celebrate something as stupid as Valentine's day. But when she said that aloud this morning, Miles had grinned and told her that she would think differently when she had someone to celebrate it with, before running off to meet with Rachel, who seems to be the one organizing the whole thing.
Charlie had immediately escaped the camp, before her mother could find her and blackmail her into helping. "I don't get it," she states when she feels Bass come up behind her, "It's a waste of money, time and resources." His hand lands on her shoulder, reassuring. It's a stark contrast to his increasingly cold demeanor. It worries her, how he's been acting, regressing in some ways. With her though, he's been different. Small touches that burn through her clothes, a warm hand that she can't ignore. Silent support at her shoulder, a gentle guide at the small of her back, and very rarely fingers carding through her hair, which he only seems to do when he's distracted.
"Never underestimate the effect a day of love can have on war-worn troops, Charlie." She leans back slightly, enjoying his touch while she watches how hearts are placed everywhere, the pre-Valentine's day jitters in the air.
"Loving someone isn't restricted to one day a year," she says quietly, knowing he will hear her anyway. "Besides," she adds a little louder, "I think it's just an excuse to spend the whole day in bed." She turns to face him, wiggles her eyebrows to implicate naughty thoughts, and tries to see if she has distracted him from her unintended confession.
The look he gives her tells her she hasn't, that he understood what she hadn't even meant to tell him. "So that's why you spend all day fighting every man who tried to challenge you," he says, blue locked on blue, searching for the truth. Charlie is a great liar, but he can always catch her as long as he's looking at her, and if she averts her eyes, he'll know too. She skips over the challenge, unwilling to admit that she'd foolishly offered herself as a price for the man who could beat her in hand to hand combat. It was the only way they would fight a woman as young as she still is. Too young to fight, but old enough to fuck. The thought had helped her win three fights and utterly humiliate her opponents. Time has not made her a better person.
"I'm going out again tomorrow," she tells him. If Miles or Rachel want to know where she is, they can ask Bass. Charlie is not in the mood to watch her uncle follow her mom around like a puppy, or to figure out which woman Bass is intending to seduce. She can't face all that love when it only reminds her of whom she has lost. She doesn't need a day to remember her father or her brother or Maggie or Jason or remind herself that she loves Miles and her mom and maybe even Bass. She does that every single day, and everything about Valentine's day is a mockery of the people who were and are in her life.
His mouth becomes a thin line, and he's trying to stay calm and tame his temper. "So you can sell yourself to the first guy that takes advantage of your injury?" he sneers, trying to tell her how foolish she is being. She might no longer have a death wish, but she's still reckless and careless with both her body and her mind. Miles is growing more concerned with his niece with each passing day, and he's been dumping that on his best friend, who can't help fearing for that special young woman who helped him to gain a new family, no matter how dysfunctional.
She looks shocked that he knows, but she shouldn't be. His soldiers have orders to keep an eye on her, and four of them had hurried to inform him, which is how he knew to get to the medical tent. The other two had discreetly accompanied her long track back to camp. She doesn't seem to have noticed yet, mainly because there are soldiers everywhere, and they all sort of blur after a while.
She recovers, sneering at him and stepping back, shaking his hand away from her shoulder, only noticing he had been rubbing his thumb on her shoulder in calming circles when the sensation is gone. "Don't be all high and mighty, Monroe, you're not the only one allowed to get laid, you know. I like the adrenaline of a fight first, spices things up." Bass stares, not sure what to say, and stumped by this new revelation, though he should have guessed.
Charlie leaves quickly, ignoring the twinge in her ankle and fuming at everyone she comes across on her way to her tent. It's dark, and has been for a while, soldiers forgoing sleep to prepare for tomorrow. She finds her tent, tears of the heart and throws it to her neighbor, before entering and collapsing onto her cot.
The night passes, and before she knows it she's already woken by the bustle of the shift-change, and everyone getting up for breakfast. She isn't hung-over, which is a blessing considering the amount of nightcaps she had yesterday, and her ankle seems to be fine.
Charlie gets up, and the moment she puts pressure on her foot, she winces. The pain is not as gone as she thought, and Bass was right. There is no way she can walk two miles on this thing if she doesn't want to permanently damage it, let alone fight men twice her height and thrice her weight.
The mess line for breakfast is still small-ish, couples starting the day with a private celebration, most having bought chocolate and berries, which cost a fortune, but seems to make wives everywhere happy. Charlie keeps her weight on her good side as she waits, trying to figure out is she wants nutty bread or last night's stew.
Usually she just goes to Bass, who gets his own food brought to his tent. It's one of the general's perks that Charlie doesn't hesitate at taking advantage of. But not today, not when he might already be chasing after his skirt of the day, maybe even has her in his (actual) bed this morning. She likes his bed too, with an actual mattress and a pillow that's to die for. She sneaks into it when he's at meetings, and he's never caught her. Charlie wonders if he knows, he probably does.
The train of thought has made her nauseous, so when she finally gets at the front she simply asks for a handful of nuts and goes back to her tent. Absently snacking on her treat, she doesn't notice the flowers until she almost trips over them.
Her hand is immediately on her sword, her first thought is that someone was in her tent, but there are no places to hide, and there's nobody with her. She's alert and violently awake, immediately noticing the note tucked between the wild flowers.
She ignores them resolutely, settling on her cot to sharpen her sword, the soothing motion interrupted by the quiet presence of the invading plants. Her curiosity guides her eyes to the bouquet of colors, and she immediately stops the motions of her hand. Miles has taught her that she should never ever, not once work on or with her weapons if she's distracted.
Charlie binds her sword at her hip and considers the flowers. She wonders who they're from, hadn't considered anyone would take this hellish holiday to try and seduce her. The amount of guys trying has decreased dramatically in the past few months, very few guys willing to risk Miles' wrath. There's also the problem that she hangs around with Monroe too much, and he projects possessiveness, which is not good for her love life.
There a secret deeply hidden desire that makes her hope that Bass placed these in her tent, but she very sincerely doubts it at the same time. She'll know it the moment she reads the card. Even if his name isn't on it, she's sees him write so often that she recognizes the distinct flourishes of his handwriting.
She grabs the tiny thing, completely white on the outside, folded once to hide the words. Charlie takes a deep breath, inadvertently notices the lovely smell, and opens the card with her eyes still closed.
"Charlotte," Bass calls from the other side of the tent flap, after which she immediately hides the card without reading it, hurrying outside so he doesn't come in. It's for naught, because he takes one whiff and smells the flowers, glimpsing them even though Charlie tries to obstruct his view.
"A secret admirer?" he questions, a smile on his lips. It makes her suspicious, because he is usually the jealous type. It's a good thing that he's with her though, because she doesn't handle suspense well. He'll give her enough clues to figure it out, always more observant than she is. He'll know if a soldier has been following her or staring at her. "Card?" he asks when she keeps staring.
"Haven't read it yet," she says, blushing lightly as she pulls the object in question from her pocket. He is still smiling, this time at her discomfort. "You know something," she accuses, and thinks that maybe she was wrong. She knows Bass though, and he is not the flower type, and he would know better than using Valentine's Day after the conversation they had yesterday.
"This day is for romance and chocolate and strawberries for most people, but sometimes, Charlotte, for some, it's about family, and appreciating you have one. It's not just about loving someone, it's about letting them know they're loved. We all need that sometimes." She smiles then, because that's what she can live with. With enough courage she opens the card, and finds not Bass' but Miles' handwriting.
The three of them, she and Bass and Miles, have been so unloved and insecure about their place in the Matheson family, always lonely in a crowd of relatives. Charlie has always been second to Danny, Miles to Ben and Bass to Rachel, but that's changed in these last few months in Texas, during the war with the patriots. She's first to Miles, Miles first to Bass, and Bass first to her. They have each other now, and she's going to celebrate today by letting them know she loves them.
Charlie takes a step forward and throws her arms around his neck, pulling him close. He stumbles a bit, but steadies them with his hands on her waist, his smile hidden in her hair.