"CHARLIE!"
Miles watched as the young girl fell never to get back up. The only thing left in this world of Ben, the first person he had opened up to in ages and she was gone. Just like that. One well aimed bullet and now Charlie would never open her eyes again. This couldn't be right. If anyone should be going down in this war it should be him. He had enough sins to sign his own death warrant ten times over. But instead the young woman who had everything to live for was the one on the ground.
Miles didn't' remember much of the battle after that. It was all sort of fuzzy and covered with a red film until he made it back to camp with Charlie's body. He did remember having to be pulled away so the medics could look at him. Miles hadn't wanted to let anyone else touch Charlie. She was his. She was Rachel's and Ben's but she was his too in some small way and he didn't' want to lose that. It hadn't been until Rachel had come to him with soft, soothing words and tears in her eyes that Miles had allowed himself to let go. Rachel could touch Charlie. She had that right.
But it also made Miles hurt worse to see her embrace Charlie. Rachel had lost everything now, just like him. She had lost her only other child. And it was his fault. His job had been to protect Charlie and he had failed. He always seemed to fail when it came to the people close to him. Ben, Bass, Rachel, Nora and now Charlie. He had destroyed every one of them. And they weren't even the end of the list. All Miles ever seemed to do was hurt people.
Miles was gone the minute the medics cleared him to leave. He spent the rest of the night hiding in his tent with a bottle of whiskey. He didn't want to see anyone. He didn't' want to talk to anyone. Hell, he didn't want to feel anything. It all hurt too much.
Miles stayed for the funeral. He even dug Charlie's grave himself and placed her in it. She deserved that much from him. She deserved more but this was what happened when people tried to attach themselves to Miles. They got hurt, they got killed; either way they were never the same. And he couldn't' deal with it anymore.
He packed up his whiskey, his knife and some food and disappeared that night. He didn't even bother leaving a note. Miles was too afraid someone would come looking for him like Charlie had. The whole point of leaving this time was that it had to be permanent. No one could find him. The right thing to do would be to find some group that wanted him dead—and there were many of them—and offer himself up as a sacrifice. But in his core Miles had always been a coward so instead he left the camp of rebels never to return.