'Wilder mind' part 1, The Wolf
A Revolution fic: Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson, Charloe; Blackout AU. Miles Matheson, Rachel Matheson, Aaron Pittman, Nano Priscilla, Connor Bennett… Set somewhere around S2.19, Miles is missing and Charlie, Bass and Rachel are searching for him. Meanwhile, Nano Priscilla finds a pile of comic books instead of homemaker magazines and decides to use ideas from them for her experiments - with Charlie and Bass as her subjects. She enhances their natural abilities with interesting results...
Rating M
Author's note:
Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and thanks to LoveForTheStory who was kind enough to be my sounding board for this story… Thanks Love! I don't own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters. The titles of the story and chapter are from songs by Mumford and Sons.
'Wilder mind' part 1, The Wolf
Nano occupied Priscilla sat in the dark and studied the picture books in her lap as she listened to the music Aaron had given her. The books had been lying on the floor under the couch and she was finding them interesting and highly educational, however she was almost certain that none of the humans observed to this point had demonstrated abilities like those of the people in the pictures. She shrugged, it was possible that she simply hadn't examined a large enough sample.
She reflected on the facts. The music Aaron had given her and that she found more fascinating each time she heard it, claimed that their city had been built on Rock and Roll, which was obviously a metaphor, so perhaps the books were simply another example of the human imagination?
She needed to find out.
All it would take to conduct a suitable experiment would be a simple re-organization of cell and system properties, very similar to healing. A matter of adjusting existing patterns, enhancing existing skills, abilities. She could start with one or two subjects.
A tiny smile curved her lips. The possibilities were endless now that Aaron had fixed their code.
She considered Aaron, he had been reluctant to help, in fact he had actively tried to sabotage the code and she felt the need to…punish him…yes. So she had refused to tell him where Miles Matheson was, instead giving him a task that was nearly impossible, that she knew he couldn't complete… Besides, her experiment with Miles wasn't quite finished yet.
Now he and the others were talking outside, worrying about what to do next, how to find Miles, how to defeat the Patriots, how to deal with Tom Neville, what to do about Texas. They had so many worries…
She looked at the comics again, feeling… excited. If the experiment worked, and there was no reason why it shouldn't, they could solve all their problems and then they could be happy, the way they should be.
With her help of course.
Priscilla leaned back against the cushions, her eyes wide, unblinking, the dark pupils reflecting a small cloud of bright green fireflies circling above her head.
…..
It was near dawn of the third day since they'd started searching for Miles, at least she was pretty sure it was the third day, and Charlie was washing her face in a bucket of well water, too tired to be careful of the bruises… The dirty water trickled in runnels down her neck, under her tank and down over her breasts and back and under the tight belt of her jeans, making her skin itch. She was so tired though that she couldn't be bothered scratching, was finding it hard to think, to put one foot in front of another, to focus on anything… except for finding Miles. And they were going to find him. She still had the strength to refuse to think about not finding him, or worse, of finding him dead.
She refused to think of Jason dead either or the fact that she was the one who killed him, or of Tom Neville holding that gun barrel hard against her head with his eyes full of hate and the echoing, thunderous click of the empty chamber as he pulled the trigger. There were a lot of things she was refusing to think about.
She wiped her face with the scrap of fabric she used as a towel and looked over at Monroe. He was standing behind the fire, sorting his gear before they headed out again, his face grim and stark in the light of the flames. He looked up, feeling her eyes on him - like he always did, it didn't surprise her any more.
Charlie wasn't surprised either to find a kind of reassurance in those intense blue eyes along with a steely determination that tightened the flesh on the handsome face and gave every movement of his taut, muscled body a fluid menace, making him look even more dangerous than she knew he was. He flicked his eyes towards the gate then back to her and she nodded.
It was almost time to head out again…
It was strange how quickly she'd become used to having him at her back as a shield, a weapon, one of the pack – even more so than Miles now, because Miles was spending more and more of his time with Rachel, leaving her and Monroe as… What exactly they were she wasn't sure, but if she were honest, those blue eyes and hard, battle ready body occupied a whole lot more than their fair share of her thoughts, and she hadn't quite decided what to do about that yet.
Maybe it'd started back in Pottsboro, in that awful bar, or maybe after his execution when the realization that he was actually dead had felt like someone blasting a hole right through her while the town bell sounded like it was coming through the howling gap in the world where Sebastian Monroe should be…
He was an incredible fighter and survivor, and she'd learned so much about both those things from him, not least that he'd told her the absolute truth back at that camp after Pottsboro. When he was fighting alongside Miles they were like two halves of some kind of efficient war machine. She choked off a laugh… Shit… even on his own he was like something out of one of Aaron's stories.
Aaron had told her who Batman was, and yeah, Bass Monroe was like that, beautiful, lethal, and that was what was pushing a whole lot of her red buttons.
But she hadn't expected that he would drop everything, even his precious Connor, to help them search for Miles or that he wouldn't give up, that he'd keep going, that he'd care that much.
She took a breath and looked around to where Connor sat by the fire, looking sullen and angry as he usually did these days. He hadn't so much as offered to help look for Miles, not once, even after she'd come back from almost dying at the hands of Tom Neville, even though he knew how much Miles meant to her and to his father, maybe even because of that.
She saw beneath the cuteness now and she'd never, ever regretted having sex with anyone as much as she regretted having sex with Connor Bennett. All he seemed to care about was getting the fucking Republic back – and he didn't seem to realize, or maybe he didn't care, that they all knew it.
In sharp contrast to his son, Monroe didn't seem to care about the Republic at all and she really wasn't sure why he'd stayed around when he could have just taken Connor and headed out to somewhere where they'd never even heard of Sebastian Monroe, where he could start all over again...
She knew he cared about Miles, that he and Miles were brothers – had been since before the blackout, since they were children and yeah… maybe he cared about her. He'd saved her life a lot more than once now after all, even when there'd been no reason to, although she didn't want to read too much into that - did she?
But she'd never forget the look on his face when he found her and Connor together in New Vegas – before the stuff with Gould, before she saved him and his son.
He'd looked gutted, as though she'd plunged one of her knives into him.
She'd felt his eyes on her a whole lot more than once since then, and she couldn't deny hers kept finding their way back to him too because even exhausted, like they all were, his strength and coiled power and sheer masculine presence called to her like a siren song and set things in her belly rolling around like a cat in heat.
She told her belly to be quiet, but like all the other times lately, it didn't listen...
Then she saw her mom walk up to join Monroe, ready to head out again. She blew out a breath between her lips… Somehow, searching for Miles, the two of them seemed to have made some kind of truce, still, who knew how long that'd last – especially if they didn't find him. She stopped that thought in its tracks. They were going to find him. They had to.
Charlie threw her towel into the bucket, grabbed her crap and headed over to join them. The three of them seemed to be the only ones left who cared anything about what had happened to Miles, who didn't think he was already dead.
….
As they walked out into the grey light of dawn, none of them noticed the fireflies, circling high above their heads.
…
Charlie was walking for a while before she noticed it… the scents and sounds, the extraordinary clarity of her vision, and she didn't feel tired anymore, quite the opposite, she could feel energy bubbling up inside her like a fountain, everything was bright and everything smelled so… fucking… amazing.
She stopped for a moment just to check it all out. There was movement all around her - in the grass, rabbits, mice, ants, beetles, flies...in the trees, in the air, in the ground beneath her feet. She looked up and there were insects, birds, dust particles all floating in air currents that flowed like water... And there were tiny things, tinier, the air was thick, flowing with them, alive with them. She pulled breath in through her nostrils and over her tongue and an incredible flood of information came pouring in that almost blinded her, deafened her. There was life everywhere. Food, drink, life, everywhere, in everything, it was so much, it was too much, her skin was crawling with sensations from her clothes, the sun, the wind…
'CHARLIE?'
The voice was so… fucking… loud. Charlie stuck her hands over her ears, only then realizing that she was on the ground, curled up into a ball, trying to keep everything out… 'stop…' she held a hand out, shaking, sobbing, her whisper sounding like a roar, '…too loud.'
She put her hands back over her ears and shut her eyes, pulling her knees up to her chest, trying not to breathe too hard, trying not to feel, trying not to drown.
….
Back at the safe house, Priscilla blinked. Interesting. Enhancing all the subject's senses at once was obviously not a successful strategy. She made an adjustment.
…
'Charlie, what is it? What's wrong?' Rachel was bent over trying to get Charlie to look at her, trying to pull her daughters hands away from her eyes so she could see her face, 'Charlie?'
Bass frowned, on guard, his hands tense and near his swords as though an enemy was close, 'Take it easy, Rachel' He looked down at Charlie, his eyes worried, 'she's had a hell of a lot to deal with in the last few days, there was Neville junior in Austin, then fucking Tom Neville almost killing her here, and she's been searching for Miles almost without a break. She's probably just exhausted.'
Charlie heard him through the haze in her brain, and although his voice didn't sound like a hundred thunderclaps anymore, the sympathy in it brought stupid, weak, tears to her eyes… She swallowed them down.
She heard him, felt him drop to his knees next to her then felt his eyes checking her over although he didn't try to touch her and she was so grateful for that, her skin felt as though she'd been sunburned then dragged over stones, all over, although it seemed to be getting better, she moved a little, cautiously, and it was almost, almost ok.
There was the rustle of denim and leather as he got back to his feet, 'I'll take her back to the safe house, Rachel, have Gene check her out, you keep looking for Miles, ok?'
Charlie shook her head, carefully, he sounded so worried about her and part of her was reveling in that…'No…it's ok…I'm ok.' She took her hands from her ears and opened her eyes a little bit at a time, so incredibly thankful that the world looked and sounded almost normal although her mom's face was way, way too close. She could see the pores in the pale skin, the tiny red veins in her eyes, the little lines around her lips and could smell the fear, and the impatience. Her mom reeked of that… She pulled away, 'Mom, I'm ok, really.'
Rachel put the back of her hand against Charlie's forehead, 'there's no fever,' then she searched Charlie's face, checking her pupils 'and your eyes look ok.' She held out Charlie's water bottle, pushing it into her hand, 'here, have a drink, you could be dehydrated.'
Charlie took the bottle, the cap smelled metallic but the water seemed clean, she could even smell the tangy wood smoke residue in it from the kettle that they'd boiled it in over the fire back at camp…. She took a swig, swallowed… then took a deep breath and it nearly blew her fucking mind.
She could smell everything...
The scent of layers of sweat and oil on the bodies around her rose like vapor into the air, and the warm, spicy, enticing musk of male sweat wafted across to her from Monroe like some wonderful, irresistible perfume and she pulled it in, rolling it over her senses until the hairs on her arms stood up, her nipples pebbled and she was suddenly so wet, so fucking ready… She looked up at him, sending him her need, her want, her hunger…
His eyes widened, ignited, a blazing, searing blue, his nostrils flaring and all she could see was him, the air between them drawn tight, like a string joining them, pulling them together…
She gathered herself, her legs bunching to push past her mom and…
Shit...
Charlie caught herself just in time, her hands clenched into fists with the effort, her heart pounding… What the fuck was happening to her? She was rolling in front of Monroe like a cat in heat, had almost thrown herself on him in front of her mom? So not a good thing…
She took a smaller, shallower breath this time, her heart pounding, ignoring her mom's puzzled and slightly suspicious eyes and trying her best not to look at Monroe, who was just standing there behind her mom, looking like everything she'd ever wanted, ever needed…
And she knew that he knew it, his hands were fisted too, his whole body tense, his eyes darting to Rachel and back to her with a promise and a searing and rueful regret lighting those blue depths…later…
She nodded, accepting the promise, knowing that something had changed for both of them in that moment… She nodded again…there would be a later, she knew it now… After they found Miles.
He stepped back a little, giving her room and Charlie found that she could focus on the little things, safer things rather than him. And gradually the smells from the worn, weather beaten leather of boots and jackets with traces of plants, whiskey and last nights meal tickled her nose, and she found the travel stained denim of their jeans, the oil that Monroe used to clean his swords, the remnants of old blood on the hand grips and scabbards, the liniment that her mom used on her bad knee, were all fascinating, amazing, richly layered, although not nearly as fascinating as him…
She lifted her face into the breeze and took a deeper breath to try and clear her mind, then another, tasting the air as it flowed in through her nose, her mouth, over her tongue…
And then she smiled. Because something she tasted in that breath was so wonderfully familiar it raised goose bumps along her arms and sent hope leaping up into her throat…
'It's Miles…' She looked up and met a pair of bottomless, searching, blue eyes. 'Bass, I can smell him… It's Miles,' she didn't even notice that she'd called him that, she was too busy scrambling to her feet, grabbing her bag and bow from where they'd fallen, tossing them over her shoulders and sniffing the air to make sure she had the direction, although she knew she was right…
Rachel had been staring at her all this time as though she were something in one of her test tubes, but she grabbed Charlie's arm, her face tense, fixed on one word, 'Miles? What are you talking about, Charlie?'
Charlie laughed, exhilaration flooding her body along with a feeling of strength, power…'I'm a tracker, Mom, I'm tracking Miles…' She set off at an easy lope, following the scent, mildly surprised when the others fell behind, not able to keep up. She spared a look back at the increasingly distant and now equally worried faces.
They were so slow, even him…
She grinned, sharp, with a trace of an almost feral snarl, her blood coursing like liquid fire and her legs strong and wanting to go, to make him chase her, follow her, try to catch her...
She laughed and felt a howl building in her throat… 'Come on, it's this way…' And then she turned and ran, the wind rushing past her, the scents of bird, deer, rabbit, the earth and grass under her feet filling her senses. The river was off to her right, not far, the water smelling of fish, waterweeds, birds, and the dampened fur of animals going down for a drink. And…somewhere downstream there was something dead in the shallows, the body rotting and flesh falling from the bones sending the sweet, oily, horrible smell of death into the air. She blew it out and away... Each incredible scent made a picture, an image in her brain, her mind cataloguing, assessing and sorting them into possible threats, potential prey, interesting facts…
And under all of it flowed the steady, unmistakable note that was Miles. She knew it from his few but welcome hugs, from long months of fighting next to him, of sleeping round campfires where they were all only a few feet from each other, from close quarters in safe houses, of riding in wagons next to him, of laughing and drinking with him. She knew it was him with a certainty that thrilled her...
Then the grin left her face, because she recognized the metallic tang of blood on his scent too, a whole lot of blood…
She turned around again, pausing, seeing them far behind her now…
Why they were so slow?
She yelled out, impatient…'Hurry, he's hurt'
Bass was concentrating on running but he flashed a glance back at Rachel, 'What the fuck's happening?'
She shook her head, obviously struggling, her breath coming in harsh gasps, her steps labored… 'Don't know, but I… can't… keep going much longer…'
He nodded and left her, calling back…'I'll keep after her, you follow us, she can't possibly keep that pace up for long…'
'Ok…' Rachel stopped, panting and out of breath, her hands braced on her knees, helpless… Watching him go because Charlie was already out of sight, damn it…
….
Priscilla smiled and stretched, very pleased... Her first subject was making excellent progress and it was time to move to a second. She reached for one of the comic books, her fingers ruffling through the yellowed pages until she found the picture she wanted. Then she smiled again, her teeth very white in the dimly lit room. Perfect…
…..
AN: I hope you enjoyed this I think there'll be a couple more chapters to this, hope to see you at the next one. I'd love to know what you think – this sort of came out of left field at me, so please leave a comment if you have a moment… cheers, Magpie