Open Road
by Sandrine Shaw
Bass is saddling his horse when a noise from behind him makes him spin around, gun raised and ready to fire. They might have won the war against the Patriots, but that doesn't mean that there aren't still plenty of people out there keen on getting the drop on the man who used to be President Sebastian Monroe. Perhaps he's not the most hated guy on the continent anymore, but he figures he's still up there in the top ten, and barely a week goes by when he doesn't have to put down some bounty hunter or assassin or a random ex-Rebel out for revenge, itching to slit his throat.
It's just Charlie, though, leaning against the doorway of the bar, smirking as she raises her hands in mock surrender. Bass relaxes and puts his gun back into the waistband of his jeans, a cool and comforting weight against his skin.
"Getting sloppy," Charlie taunts. "I've been standing here for minutes. If I'd been a rogue Patriot, you'd be dead now."
"Good thing you've given up on trying to kill me then." The sarcasm in his voice hides the fact that he's serious. Truth is, of all the people who'd come after him with vengeance on their minds, Charlie's one of the few who had a proper shot at succeeding. Before Willoughby, if the bounty hunters hadn't got to them first, their story might well have taken a sudden and violent end. It's not something he likes to think about, but sometimes he looks at her and remembers all that anger and hatred she used to spit at him and he isn't quite sure what he's done to deserve her change of heart. He worked hard to earn Miles' forgiveness – Charlie's was just something he gained inadvertently along the way.
Her lip curls, and her reply is as fitting for his comment as it is for his thoughts. "Lucky you, I guess."
She steps into the barn in a rustle of leather and a jangle from her belt, and it's only now that he notices the backpack slung over her shoulder. His eyes follow her when she walks over to her horse and gently pets its neck.
"Going somewhere?"
It's not hard to guess what her answer is going to be, but he wants her to say it. She takes her time, silence stretching as she fusses over the horse, before she turns around to him. "I figured you might want some company." With a sharp smile, she adds, "Someone to watch your back."
Part of him bristles at the idea. He doesn't need a babysitter, neither to watch his back nor – what he suspects to be the real reason for her urge to accompany him – to keep him in line. Even if he manages to track down Connor, he's not going to let the kid talk him into anything crazy.
Then again, having Charlie around might help. Much as he hated their little hook-up in New Vegas, Connor has a soft spot for her, and maybe they could use that to their advantage to make him come around after all. Look, kid, I can't offer you the Republic, but you come back with us and you get your girl. Far greater men have given up more for much less.
Hell, if Bass had someone like Charlotte fucking Matheson asking him to stop building an empire and come home to her instead, history might well have taken a different course.
He shrugs, trying to ignore the bitter sting that accompanies the thought. "Fine with me. We leave at first light."
Back in the days before the blackout, it used to be damn easy to track someone down. Smartphones, the internet, facial recognition software, even the reach of a simple 'missing' quest put up on a social network. You lost touch with someone, they were hardly ever more than an internet search and a phone call away, and even if they didn't want to be found, there were ways.
Now, it's like looking for a fucking needle in a giant, ugly haystack. Connor could be anywhere. Could have made his way back to Mexico. Could have gone with their original plan and went to D.C. with Neville. Could be all the way up in Alaska, for all Bass knows. Could be dead in a ditch on the side of the road or in a shallow grave in the desert, and they'd never know.
They don't even have a photo they could show around. Have you seen this kid? Hot-headed little idiot, too smart to be content with what he's got and too reckless to know when to stop. Pretty much like his old man.
All they have to go on are vague descriptions they can give people. They pick up Neville's trail up north, but no one has seen anyone who fits Connor's description with him and they say he's been talking to empty air, like he wasn't all there.
"Maybe the old bastard has finally lost it," Bass says when they double back and head south instead.
Charlie makes a noncommittal sound. "If we're lucky."
Neither of them believes it. They've both seen what the nano does, have heard Priscilla's account of what it wants, and it chills them to the bone. They know how to fight an enemy that has a face and hands to fire a gun or to wield a sword. Rebels, militia, Patriots, bounty hunters, highway robbers. Put a bullet through their brains and they all bleed and die the same.
The nano is a different sort of beast, the kind that can't be fought with weapons Bass knows how to handle, and he hates the helplessness he feels when facing it, knows Charlie feels the same because he sees the fear on her face when Aaron and Rachel talk about it. It's at rare moments like these when he appreciates those two and their skills, when Aaron is more than a liability and he's willing to forgive Rachel for being the stone-cold bitch who stole Miles from him. If anyone's going to save the world, it's gonna be them, and he's almost grateful that they're all on the same side. Then he remembers that they're the ones who ended the world and unleashed those fucking nanites onto them in the first place, and whatever gratefulness he felt evaporates fast and thoroughly.
The road is long and the nights are cold, and there's not always a conveniently abandoned farmhouse to give them shelter, or a town where they can rent a room for the night.
Under open skies, they light a fire whenever they dare, but more often than not, the comfort it would bring isn't worth the risk of attracting the wrong sort of attention.
It reminds him a little of their road trip to Willoughby, except that the banter they share now is familiar and sarcastic, devoid of the old hostility. These days, when Charlie lies down to sleep, she doesn't eye him with a mixture of wariness and loathing, and when Bass closes his eyes, he doesn't expect Charlie to try to gut him while he sleeps.
It's almost comfortable.
In the darkness, she gravitates closer to him. It doesn't mean anything, other than the unconscious need to preserve body heat in the winter chill while cool winds blow around them. He sneaks his arm around her middle and burrows closer, telling himself it's not taking advantage if he's actually freezing.
Every couple of nights, one of his nightmares leaves him tossing and turning, disrupting Charlie's sleep. Depending on her mood, it earns him either the painful jab of an elbow into his ribs or a gentle shake.
"Wanna talk about it?" she asks one night after a silence that went on for so long that he was sure she'd gone back to sleep already. She lies with her back to him and her tone is gruff and matter-of-fact, like she's purposefully trying to avoid any awkwardness.
If he said yes, he wouldn't know where to start. Wouldn't know where to stop either. It's Shelly who steals into his dreams. Baltimore. Miles pointing a gun at his head. Emma dying in his arms. Jeremy. The bombs blowing Philadelphia off the map. Connor. Every person he ever loved and buried or lost.
He scoots closer and pulls her against him, his hand on her hip, his face buried in her hair. She smells like hay and earth, solid and comforting and real. "Go back to sleep," he says.
A couple of dozen miles beyond the border, shit gets real.
The attack comes early in the morning, when it's barely light at the horizon, a dozen men surrounding them in a matter of seconds. Luckily for Charlie and him, it's not a war clan, just a bunch of rough bandits with a thirst for violence who are probably after the diamonds in their pockets and a chance to lay their hands on a pretty girl. They don't have firearms, just blades and brute strength – not too little of that, unfortunately.
One of them reaches for Charlie before she can get to her crossbow, mistaking her for easy prey, and gets a knife in his left eye for the trouble. He makes an angry, roaring sound like a wounded animal, charging back at her with all he's got, and Bass' machete slides through his gut in a spray of red.
"I had him handled," Charlie bitches, sending an arrow clean through a massive, bearded guy's forehead, and Bass grins sharply, showing teeth.
"Can't let you have all the fun for yourself." He cuts the knife away from one of the attackers, with five fingers and half of the guy's hand still attached to it, kicking in the man's kneecap for good measure to make sure he won't get back up. Behind him, Charlie laughs a little breathlessly.
They fight back to back, the way he and Miles used to back in the day, and it feels good, feels fucking amazing, feels right in a way it hasn't in a long time.
Afterwards, when they've each saved the other's life half a dozen times – Bass isn't keeping a tally anymore, hasn't since his fake execution – they stand over the dead bodies of the bandits, catching their breaths. There's a smile on Charlie's face when she turns to him, her eyes gleaming, and the smudges of blood on her cheeks and her arms aren't her own. She looks beautiful and fierce and deadly, and the desire to kiss her hits him like a punch in the gut.
He turns away.
Miles' fucking niece, he reminds himself. There were reasons he warned Connor away from her, and some of them were legitimate.
"We should get going. As morning exercise goes, that was enough for one day." He wipes his blade clean and busies himself gathering their stuff, pretending he doesn't feel her eyes burning holes into his back.
One morning, a day's march outside Monclova, Bass wakes up to find Charlie gone. He hates the way cold panic makes his insides clench. Fucking Mathesons. They're going to be the death of him one day.
He finds her down at the river, taking a swim. She's up to her shoulders in the water so it's not like he can see anything, but her clothes are in a messy pile on the shore, panties and all, and he knows she's naked in there. He ignores the rush of desire in favor of annoyance, because her weapons are on the shore too.
"You can't just wander off like that," he calls out to her. "Reckless shit like this is going to get you killed."
Even over the distance, he can see the amusement on her face. "Aw, Monroe. Didn't know you cared." She swims closer, clear blue water parting in front of her, glistering in the sun.
"I care about surviving. Miles will take my head off with his sword if I come back without you."
It's not really a joke, but it makes her laugh anyway. "Turn around. I'm coming out," she says, and he's tempted to refuse. If she was stupid enough to strip down and leave her stuff on the shore, then she can deal with walking around naked in front of him. On the other hand, it may be her pride on the line, but his sanity too, so he does as he's told and turns her back to her.
When he faces her again, she's dressed, clothes clinging to her wet skin and her damp hair framing her face. His eyes linger on her for a moment too long, greeted with a lopsided smirk when they snap back up to her face.
"You should take a bath too while we're here. No offense, but you reek."
The look she throws him is as mischievous as it's challenging, and he has never backed down from a challenge in his entire life. He holds her gaze as he shrugs out of his jacket and pulls his shirt over his head, raising an eyebrow at her because she's still watching him by the time he unbuckles his pants.
By then, it's become obvious that she's not going to turn away unless he asks her to, and asking her would mean admitting that her gaze is making him uncomfortable, so that's not going to happen either.
He pushes his pants down, never mind the fact that he's not wearing underwear, never mind the fact that her eyes roam freely over his naked form and he's half-hard – just the usual morning wood, though the sight of her curves shining through damp fabric doesn't exactly help. He refuses to be embarrassed, stepping out of his pants and spreading his arms mockingly as if to provide her with clearer visuals.
"Should I get some paper and a pen so you can draw a picture?" He lets his voice turn into a slow, husky drawl.
She laughs, but he notices with some satisfaction that there's a faint blush rising to her cheeks and down her neck. He'd count it as a win for him, but the way her skin flushes down to her cleavage only serves to highlight the gentle swell of her breasts, and he decides it's time to turn around and get in the water before his body gets the wrong idea.
They find Connor in a dingy little shithole west of Monterrey. Clearly, life hasn't treated him too badly since he left, because he has a girl on each arm and a dozen of men behind him with their weapons trained on Bass and Charlie, ready to put a few bullets into them on his word.
It takes one look for Bass to realize that Connor is not going to go anywhere with him. The kid looks happy enough and at home where he is, and if he managed to take this town and make it his all on his own in a matter of six months, then maybe he'll have his own Monroe Republic down here in a few years. Doesn't look like he needs his dad for it, and he bets that Connor knows that too.
Still, Bass tries. Lets Charlie try too, lets her talk about needing guys like Connor back in Willoughby, about the power vacuum left after the fall of the Patriots.
"Nice try," Connor spits. "But you know what? I fell for the same bullshit the first time he came to get me. Gave up everything to join him on the promise to rebuild the Republic, and all I got was almost getting killed half a dozen times and him following your goody-two-shoes uncle around like a fucking lapdog. So I think I'll pass."
"Don't come back," he warns as he sends them on their way. "The next time, my guys will shoot you."
Charlie's mouth curls in a sneer. "Got it. Have a nice life."
Her hand is on Bass' arm, tugging him along when he just stands, looking at Connor and wondering if the kid's the way he is because Bass is his father or if he got that way because he grew up without his parents; if it's genetics or upbringing. Either way, it's Bass' fault, and the knowledge stings more than anything.
"Sorry, Charlie. I know you thought you could change his mind," he tells her when they leave the city limits behind them.
She turns and looks at him the way she sometimes does when she thinks he's being an idiot. Rachel has a similar expression for him, but with Charlie, it's half-fond, half-annoyed exasperation and significantly less judgment.
"What?" He feels like he's missing something.
She shakes her head and fixes her eyes on the horizon, not meeting his gaze. Then, suddenly, like she's come to a decision, she turns back to him and says, "I didn't come for Connor."
It's nothing he hadn't guessed, her objective closer to keep Monroe straight and narrow than to help him find his stupid-ass kid, though she has enough of a bleeding heart that he thought Connor's blatant dismissal would have hurt her anyway. He frowns. "I thought you liked him. You two seemed close enough, after Vegas."
Her laughter is quiet and harsh. "It was never about Connor in the first place. He was just convenient. The safer option, and all that. Which is funny, because since when have I ever played it safe?"
It takes him an embarrassingly long moment to get it, before he finally realizes that he misunderstood what she meant when she told him she wasn't here for Connor and he has to admit to himself that he might have misinterpreted every interaction they've shared. It feels a little like the rug's been pulled out from under his feet, and he needs a moment to readjust to a reality where Charlotte Matheson wants him.
She shakes her head. "Forget it. It's stupid."
The unhappy downward slant of her mouth cuts him wide open, and when she makes a move to turn away, he reaches for her and pulls her back towards him. Her skin feels impossibly soft against the calluses on his fingertips as he curves a hand around her jaw and closes the distance between them.
Miles is going to kill him for this – that is, unless Rachel gets to him first, and he can't work out which one of them would mete out a more painful death to him. Doesn't matter, because it's not going to stop him either way. Getting to do this – to slide his mouth against hers and let his hands roam over her hips and listen to the needy little sounds she makes as he kisses her like he wants to steal all the air from her lungs – that's worth dying for.
The kiss leaves him breathless and stunned, but he is who he is and when he breaks away he can't quite hold back the smart-ass remark. "Are you saying we could have been doing this since we went on this trip?"
Charlie laughs quietly. "A whole lot longer, actually," she admits.
"Well, guess we'll have to make up for lost time then." He gets the last word in, if only on account of forestalling whatever she has to say with another kiss.
"Is it weird because I slept with your kid?" Charlie asks when her head is resting on his chest and his fingers are sliding through her hair, both of them boneless and sleepy.
He frowns. It's pretty much the most awkward way to ruin the afterglow he experienced, and that includes that one time a girl he took to bed tried to kill him with a hairpin after he dozed off. "It will be if you keep bringing it up."
In the silence that follows, he realizes that he needs to tell her now because if she reacts badly, he'd rather nip it in the bud right away rather than allow himself to get attached. More attached than he already is. Eventually, she'll find out anyway. It might not be the sort of thing Rachel advertizes, but he wouldn't put it past her to use it as ammunition to turn Charlie against him.
"I slept with your mother," he says, and tries not to hold his breath while he's waiting for the fall-out.
She sits up abruptly, her elbow catching him hard in the side. The pain is only part of the reason he winces. "Before or after she ended the world?" she wants to know.
"After." Then, after a pause, remembering the drunken night at Coachella with Rachel and Miles back in 2005, he adds, "Well, both. Kinda."
Charlie looks at him with so much outrage in her expression that he expects her to start yelling at him any second. Doesn't quite expect her to break into laughter, deep and throaty and full of mirth, like it's the funniest thing she's heard in months. Then again, if he thinks about it, it is pretty damn hilarious, in a crazy, bizarre sort of way.
He can't take his eyes off of her. The way she throws her head back, a spark lighting her eyes and genuine, joyful laughter rumbling from her throat, is too damn sexy. It's not exactly news to him, but he's so used to denying himself that the idea that he doesn't have to anymore still seems novel and strange.
Under his appraisal, her expression softens. On a whim, he takes her hand and presses a kiss to her open palm. She raises an eyebrow at him.
"Who'd have thought, badass General Sebastian Monroe is secretly a huge sap," she teases, but she doesn't pull her hand away and her fingers curl gently against the stubble on his cheek, so he figures his secret is safe with her.
They make it back to Willoughby by spring.
Miles steps out onto the porch when he hears them approach, and though there's relief written all over his features to see them back alive and well, he keeps it out of his voice. "About damn time you got your asses back home. Thought I might have to come chasing after you."
They stop their horses and Bass jumps off. When he helps Charlie down, his hands linger a moment too long on her hips, reluctant as ever to stop touching her, and it only dawns on him that he's inadvertently telegraphed their relationship clear and plain when he hears Miles groaning behind him, "Hell, no!"
Bass freezes and he feels Charlie tensing under his grip, knows her well enough to sense that she's about to go off on a rant about Miles needing to mind his own business.
Instead of the angry outburst Bass expected, Miles just sounds grumpy, though. "You two just lost me a bottle of perfectly good moonshine to Gene," he tells them, and Bass huffs out a laugh that's as surprised as it is relieved.
"Wow," Charlie says, shaking her head. "And just when I thought this family couldn't get any more dysfunctional, my uncle and my grandpa are making bets on my love life. Classy."
Bass snorts. "Did you expect anything different from those assholes?" He grins as Miles flips him off.
Later, Rachel is going to give him a hell of a shovel talk, and Miles will tell him that the only reason he won't kill Bass for touching Charlie is because Charlie would probably be mad at him for all eternity. Later, there'll be questions about the trip and about Connor that Bass won't be comfortable answering because even though it's been five weeks now, the wound of losing his son – again – is too fresh.
Later, Charlie and he will have to deal with the fact that life is not just the two of them and the road anymore, and it'll mean they'll have to sit down and redefine their relationship, actually talking about it like the grown-up, emotionally mature people they will never be. It's not going to be easy and there'll be fights that leave them smarting and shaken and angry for days, there will be make-up sex that will break furniture and tear clothes. It'll take readjustment and hard work but it'll ultimately be worth it.
Rachel will always get on Bass' nerves and his friendship with Miles will never be quite what it used to be before Philadelphia. The fight to take down the nano will almost cost them everything and it'll be a hell of a long time until their lives will ever be approaching anything like normalcy.
But that's later.
For now, Charlie's laughing at his side, her fingers entwining with his, and Miles is rolling his eyes at them, and Bass feels the happiest he's been in years.
End.