AN: A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an interview that David Rambo (Exec producer and writer for the show) that gave a few hints of where Revolution would have gone if they'd managed to get season 3. One of the things he'd said specifically was that there'd be a tale of two cities: One controlled by the Nano (Bradbury, Idaho) and another controlled by men (specifically Willoughby being controlled by Miles and Monroe). Rambo also said that there'd be an emphasis on the backstory of Rachel and Monroe, and there'd be a "treasure" hidden under Willoughby and that our characters would receive time to reset and reform their family dynamics. This fic is based off of those cues. Because this is me that's writing this, there will be Charloe leanings, however as far as I've been able to ascertain from interviews with David Lyons and others, most of the canon shippiness was very one sided on Monroe's part – as such it will be an interesting journey and his character will be a lot darker than I've written before (I hope). My goal is to not piss off fellow Charloe shippers, but to explore all aspects of these characters. This specific chapter is a prologue…
"… I give you my word."
"Your word doesn't mean piss."
Connor backs away, taking himself out of the line of fire. He's silently telling Neville and Scanlon to take him down; giving his assent or maybe even a wordless command. Either way, he's just sold his father out.
Bass scrambles for cover while Connor watches. To give the kid some credit, he does have a clean shot, but doesn't take it. As he ducks behind some rocks to avoid the next volley he locks eyes with his son one last time. I that brief instant he sees a mixture of loathing, disappointment and disgust.
As the bullets ricochet off of his cover, he briefly wonders: What was the point? But he's a survivor and Miles is counting on him. If he dies here, the closest friend he's ever had will think that he betrayed him. Miles would have neither the time nor inclination to double back and find out what happened. His body will rot here; unburied with no one to mourn.
He springs into action and begins to return fire. As they wait for the smoke and dust to clear, Scanlon makes a fatal mistake and lowers his rifle. Bass takes this opening and gets off one carefully aimed shot, taking the clansman down. This gives him the precious time he needs to get inside.
Without a word he unties Davis from the support beam and yanks the man to his feet. He's on autopilot now. He shoves the scum out the back door and barricades it. Creeping around the corner he watches Neville and Connor aim their stolen rifles at the door. They are intent on shooting him and Davis on sight. He waits for the sound of the back door hitting the branch that holds it in place, indicating they are away from the other door. He slams it shut, locking them in together and blocks that door as well.
He shoves Davis in the back of the wagon and hog ties him. Climbing onto the bench, he comes back into himself. The adrenaline rush is now over; he takes in what he's done and the consequences of his choice. Any chance he's ever had of earning his son's love or trust is now gone. And he's finally had to face what he'd known all along but refused to acknowledge: not only is Connor just like him, he's a god damned caricature. He's all of the bad things to the nth degree, but all of the good things that Bass used to be so long ago are not there – maybe they never were.
Maybe the only difference is that Miles was around to remind him – to be the conscience from Bass' past; that brotherly love from before his heart and soul were burned to ash. Connor doesn't have that. Who was there to remind him that the world wasn't always so dark, that he didn't have to be so blind? Bass can't be that for him; he represents the darkness that has ruined Connor in the first place. No, the only person that could have been that lifeline to pull him back was his mother. Sweet and loving Emma – and Bass has stolen that from him.
He drags a hand over his mouth, distraught and trying to keep his cool. He still has a job to do. He flicks the reins and gets the horses moving. He's got a long way to go and decides he can think about all of this and beat himself up for it on the road.
Bass sat in front of his tent, eating a plate of God knows what. The Rangers weren't exactly culinary geniuses, but it filled the belly and that's all it needed to do. He'd been stuck in a holding pattern since the word had gone out to recall the Rangers back towards Austin. The war was over. The few scattered patriots were just foot soldiers – the low men on the totem pole that would pose no future threat. If they ever came out of hiding, they'd be put down like rabid dogs – because in reality that was all they were.
He'd had plenty of time on the road to that church and in the months that followed to analyze the choice he'd made that day at the reservoir. He didn't realize it at the time, but slowly came to understand that Miles had been right about him the entire time.
He'd wanted to change so bad that he'd been incapable of seeing the backsliding he'd done ever since the night he was sentenced to death and learned of Miles' betrayal. He'd lost everything at the tower and had been just waiting for death until he'd found something to fight and someone to fight for. But, when he realized that he was to die for helping someone that hadn't wanted him there in the first place – and that someone had looked him in the eye every day for years, concealing his knowledge of the only blood he'd had left – he'd snapped again. That was the funny thing about being nuts – you didn't know you were.
He was so foolish to think that he and Connor could take back the Republic and hold onto it. He'd made the decision to get it back at all costs. Winning the war and creating his legacy, that was the big picture and nothing else mattered or would stand in his way. He hadn't been able to see that the same mentality had been the very thing that had caused him to lose the damn thing in the first place.
No, Miles had been right. He hadn't changed. That Republic first attitude had made him willing to sacrifice an entire town – hundreds of people to satisfy his own ends. When he realized it, he'd been horrified. It had made him recall how he'd felt when the smoke had cleared from his mind in the weeks after the town.
He wakes up in a field, cold, alone and hungry. He's just lost everything. The only thing he has to hold onto is the fact that Miles helped him escape. Okay, he'd ended up using him as a distraction, but those words ring in his mind. "We're still brothers, and nothing is ever going to change that."
He pulls himself to his feet slowly and gets moving. As he walks it suddenly hits him. He was actually going to use the pendant to nuke Atlanta. Emma is dead, and if it wasn't for Miles their entire home town would have baked in the basement of his old high school. He'd almost killed people he'd known his entire life, and had killed his first love all so he could get to Miles. He drops to the ground, hyperventilating. He starts to laugh – then he starts to cry, then he starts to heave. His stomach is empty so nothing comes out. This spasms rack his body over and over for god knows how long. What has he done? Who has he become? How did it get so out of hand?
No, now he understood. If getting the Republic back required helping the war between Cali and Texas escalate, then it wouldn't be worth having in the first place. When it came to ruling a country and keeping it, he had to stop letting the ends justify the means. That's what they'd done the first time and it had been a disaster long before Miles had left. Even before the tower, a small part of him still knew deep down that all his crumbling nation had become was a perverted vision of a twisted ideal. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Rachel that she wasn't the only one that liked him better as an affable womanizing drunk.
No, the only way to reclaim what was lost and make it different was to do it the right way. They had to stop the war the Patriots had started and then unite to take them out. He had to be better if the Republic was going to be better, because he understood that he and Davis were two peas in one very demented little pod. If he was going to rule again he had to fight that part of himself as much as he had to fight the patriots.
So, he'd fought the good fight – fought by their rules. Granted, they hadn't made it too difficult: kill everything in a patriot uniform. But the Rangers fought like the militia should have. They protected the people under their jurisdiction instead of oppressing them. Rangers were volunteers; they chose to do their duty, whereas the majority of the last generation of his militia had been conscripted against their will.
Blanchard had given him command of a company of Rangers after he'd arranged for a stay in execution. He knew that for all Bass' crimes and faults, he could lead men into battle – and win. It's what helped to raise him to power in the first place. The general had hoped that if he could just keep his former counterpart in the field and out of an office, it may very well keep him from the insanity that the power of the Republic had caused. Blanchard's gamble had paid off and Bass had indeed been invaluable to the war.
Bass set his tin plate aside and picked up a small jug and headed into his tent. As an "officer" he was given a daily allotment of whiskey as a part of his pay. With nothing else to do with his time, he decided getting buzzed alone was a better option than being sober alone. As he drank, he reflected on how far he'd come in the past several months. He liked to think that he'd learned a thing or two about himself while fighting alongside Texas. Things he'd never been able to see before.
He finally figured out why he'd been so desperate to conquer and control. He'd been filled with darkness and rage so long, he'd long since forgotten its source. It was like there was a hole straight through the middle of him and he'd been convinced that if he just gained a little more ground; had a slightly larger piece of the pie, somehow it would be filled. But how do you fill a bottomless chasm? It would be like trying to fill the Grand Canyon up with ping pong balls (or marshmallows, or whatever) – it quite simply put couldn't be done.
At least he understood it now, and armed with that knowledge, maybe he could keep the lust for control and power at bay. This time when he set up his capital, he could keep himself from becoming consumed by it all and finally make the Monroe Republic what he and Miles had envisioned all of those years ago – a way to bring order out of chaos; a way to stop the raids and starvation that followed the blackout. From what he'd heard, the region he'd once controlled was no better than it was fifteen years ago. Maybe he could fix it, even without Connor or Miles.
He awoke the next morning with a hangover and a summons. Miles and Charlie had returned late in the night. Blanchard had apparently sent for all of them to be debriefed. They were finally getting out of their service to the Republic of Texas. Monroe entered Blanchard's command tent after having been cleared by his assistant.
Blanchard sat behind a desk that that had been brought out for his use. The sight almost made him laugh. How many times had he done the same thing? What was it about commanding generals that made them insist on packing so much shit with them? He could now recall in embarrassing humor the long list of things that he simply hadn't been able to travel without. God he'd been such a fool. All he had really needed were his weapons, a change of clothes and a bedroll (oh, and a lot of alcohol), but he was too arrogant to see it.
There were a few rickety old chairs in the tent. Blanchard gestured to one as he addressed him. "Have a seat, Monroe." Charlie and Miles were already sitting in the other two. He eyed the chair suspiciously. He wasn't entirely sure it was sound enough to hold his weight, but Frank Blanchard also held his fate in his hands, so he really didn't have much of a choice.
"Okay, I'm here. I see you've all started without me. What's with the powwow?" He asked as he carefully lowered himself onto the seat, waiting for it to collapse.
Miles turned to him. "We're trying to figure out what to do with you, Bass."
"Gee, that's nice, Miles." He shook his head, feeling a little insulted. "I just fought for you people for the last four months after I helped stop your war with California and this is the thanks I get?"
"Can you really blame us?" Blanchard asked. "Yes, without your help things could have gone a lot worse – and probably would have. But the fact is I can't have you running back east and causing a ruckus there either. The Monroe Republic is gone and it's gonna stay that way."
Choosing to ignore Charlie for the time being, Bass clenched his jaw and sent Miles a heated look. Tattle-tale. He considered denying the accusation, but it would be pointless. Even if Blanchard had it all wrong (which he had not), he'd ever believe him anyway. And Miles was right; he'd always been a terrible liar, which was funny because all Rachel and Charlie ever seemed to accuse him of doing was lying. "And what the hell am I supposed to do then? Crawl back under a rock until the next time someone decides to send a bounty hunter after me?"
Blanchard reached over and handed Bass a piece of paper. "This is an official pardon. It clears your name for the dropping of the bombs and pardons you for the rest. But it has a condition attached to it."
Bass scanned the letter. Reasonable service as the Republic of Texas sees fit? "Okay, and what's that?"
Miles spoke up now. "They need someone to straighten out Willoughby. Because of what the Patriots did there, the whole town is a fucking mess. The people are don't know which way is up and the town itself is half-destroyed. On top of that, almost everyone in charge of keeping the town running has either fled or been convicted of being in league with the Patriots. The ones that weren't helping them either died or disappeared."
Blanchard stood up from his desk and crossed in front, putting himself directly in front of Bass. "Because Miles has expressed interest in returning to Willoughby, he has been assigned as an overseer of sorts to take over running the town until things die down."
He did not like where this conversation was headed. "So, uh, what's that got to do with me?" He crossed his arms over his chest, knowing he was going to hate the answer.
"The last two sheriffs were killed by the Andover Clan. The town needs a new one," Blanchard began. The smile on his face indicated that he was enjoying Bass' obvious discomfort. "The position does come with a salary, plus you get five percent of any fines collected by the judge, once a new one is assigned, of course."
"Oh no. I don't do cop. Thanks, but no thanks." Bass stood up and went to leave. Fuck this, I'm out of here. I'll take my chances in the Plains.
Blanchard's stern tone stopped him. "If you don't want a second execution, you'll sit your ass back down."
"What?" He froze in place. Clenching his fists, trying to fight back the rage that was rising at being railroaded, he slowly turned.
"Your pardon is contingent on your serving as sheriff in Willoughby under Miles Matheson. If you refuse or skip out later, we will assume it's because you're going back east to revive the Monroe Republic, and you'll be hunted down and dragged back to face your original conviction. And this time, Rachel Matheson won't get to play with the dosage."
Bass sat back down. "And here I thought we were all friends again, Frank."
"It wasn't up to me. If it was I'd boot you out of our borders and be done with you. But Texas law requires congressional approval for pardons. And for some reason, they don't trust to head a nation. It won't be allowed. If you try, we'd destroy you before you had a chance to get started."
Miles interjected again. He really felt sorry for his friend. He really had tried to do things better, and he was still getting screwed. "Bass, there's already a company of Rangers headed east. Any militia left waiting will be disbanded and disarmed. It's over. Take the job; move on with your life. There's nothing left for you back there." He put a hand on his shoulder. "They're giving you a chance to start your life over. Take it."
Bass looked away. He refused to meet any of their gazes. He could imagine that Charlie was watching with smug satisfaction. "Fine, I'll take the job," he said through gritted teeth.
Blanchard went over to a trunk in the corner of the tent and pulled a stack of clothing out. "It's custom for Texas sheriff's to wear a uniform," he said as he handed it to him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge, setting it on top of the pile. "And of course you'll all receive a stipend for your services during the war. Texas pays well for military service."
Bass looked down at the tan clothes he now held. "You can make me work for you, but I'm not wearing this." He said. He pulled the badge off the top and dumped the clothes on Blanchard's desk before stomping out of the tent, in search of a lot of alcohol.
When he returned to his own tent several hours later, the stack of clothing was sitting on his cot. A note was written in the chicken scratch that Miles called handwriting. "Oh, yes you are."
Monroe scooped them up. There was no way in hell. He found Charlie and Miles sitting in front of their tents, eating in front of a fire. Without a word, he tossed the offending clothes into the flames. "Really mature, Bass."
"Fuck off, Boss," he said as he went back to his own tent. He laughed to himself. That had felt pretty damn good. He supposed there were worse jobs and worse things he could be doing with his life now. At the very least, it would give him a daily opportunity to be a thorn in Miles' side while he was at it.
