Hey, it's a new NaNovember story! Charlie gets the picture first.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Where'd You Go?

Chapter one: Charlie

When she and the rest of her group are capture, Charlie can't understand how the patrol found them. She didn't even understand how they hadn't noticed the patrol. They'd set up a watch. They'd. Been. Careful. Even Aaron, who was more of a teacher then a fighter, had been careful. (She really did want to find out where he'd learned to set up traps like that; hell, even Uncle Miles had been impressed, which said nothing but good things about those traps.)

Charlie knows there's something wrong with the way she's being treated. If she were locked in a cell, and being beaten by Militia soldiers for hours on end, she wouldn't be worried. If she were locked in a nice room, with Militia officers visiting her, she wouldn't be worried. (She'd kill them, or at least make them fight for what they were going to take, but she wouldn't be worried, because that would be normal. The Militia were animals. She was supposed to fight them.)

Instead, she's in a decent, if somewhat Spartan, room. There are sheets on the bed, and a curtained-off alcove with a wash basin and a chamber pot in it. She's got a desk, and can ask the guard at her door for books, or paper and pencils. If she's supposed to be a prisoner, it doesn't exactly feel like it.

By the time she's finally let out of her cell, almost a week later, Charlie begins to understand the reasoning. She can have almost anything she wants, but there's no human contact. She can request books, or something different to eat (there aren't any guarantees that she'll get what she asks for, but she can still request it), but there's no human contact, not from the guard who never speaks and whose face and hands she never sees. She's touch-starved and contact-starved.

The guards, still quiet and unsmiling and somber, lead her to a small sitting room. Charlie's heart stops when she sees Danny sitting there, perched on the window seat like a bird poised to fly. She stands there in the doorway, eyes filling up with tears as she tries to hold him that moment forever.

Her guard shoves her into the room, breaking the moment. Danny looks up at her, a curious expression on his face. After a long four minutes (there's a working clock on the wall, Charlie notes), he finally smiles in recognition and bounds across the room to envelop her in a hug.

For someone who's been in captivity for nearly six months, Danny is surprisingly healthy. He looks happy. He also, judging by the smell, had a bath recently. Charlie inhales, smiling sadly at the scent of roses. Their stepmother, Maggie, always used rose-scented soap.

"How…how are you, Danny?" Charlie asks thickly as he leads her over to a small table with three chairs. He shrugs and contemplates the plate in the center of the table with a suspicious look on his face. Considering that they're in the heart of Militia territory, Charlie can't blame him. The pastries, which smell appetizing after her rather bland diet of the past week, are probably poisoned.

"…fine," Danny replies quietly, after another few minutes. His voice is raspier then Charlie remembers, and quieter. She tries not to notice how his hand shakes when he finally picks a small slice of yellowish bread off the plate. He picks at it, not really paying attention.

Charlie gives up waiting for him to say anything else. The shadow in his eyes, and a hundred other tiny clues, says all she needs to know. The best clue as to how he's been treated, though, is around his throat. Charlie has to dig her fingers into the armrests on her chair to keep herself from leaping across the table to rip the dog collar off her baby brother's neck. If she tried, her guards would probably shoot her, or beat Danny. Or both.

The siblings sit in silence for about a half hour. Charlie jumps when the silence is broken by the door opening. She is not happy when she sees who's entered the room. Major Neville killed their father. He's intruding. He shouldn't be here.

Charlie sees red when Major Neville tilts her brother's head back and kisses him hard enough to bruise Danny's lips for a good while. Her ability to keep herself under control is severely strained when he wraps his hand around her baby brother's throat, stroking along the pulse. The eager, happy whine her brother makes as Major Neville deepens the kiss is what makes her snap.

She's not allowed back out of her cell after that. From what one of her guards tells her, though, the notes she starts writing are pretty damn popular. That should piss her off, but it doesn't.

Charlie continues to write elaborate plans to murder Major Neville for touching her baby brother.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Think Charlie should carry through with one of those plots? Drop a line and let me know!

Author's note: For those of you who haven't read one of my prior stories, this is one of the pre-written NaNovember stories written to put my regular fics on hold while I take care of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. This one takes place during one of my two books for this year, called Fashion of His Love. FOHL is the full-length puppy!Danny fic I've been promising my readers. Also: I REACHED 38K TODAY!