Cross-posted from AO3.
After watching the promo for 2x22 and the Revealed for 2x21, I'm rather convinced that Bass is going to die in the finale (probably in a way that he'd be brought back in season 3, but without a season 3… things become more permanent). I wanted to make sure that he goes out in a way that brings him redemption full circle and didn't ignore or cheapen the many relationships he's developed. So I wrote this to prepare myself and take the sting out of it if it happens this week in the finale.
Tissue Warning… Major Character Death… Bass doesn't go quietly
"You in?"
That was the question, wasn't it? "Dammit." He mumbled and paced over to join the Mathesons.
After the short spat with Connor, Bass climbed into the wagon and couldn't help but notice the smirk on Charlie's face where she sat behind Miles. As he pulled himself up into the shotgun seat, he realized that she'd intentionally left it empty. Somehow, the girl knew that he would chose the Mathesons over his own flesh and blood, over all his plans for fighting to rebuild the Republic with his son, over the truce he had with Neville. She'd had no doubt that after all the decades, the rise and fall of an empire, the betrayals, and all the recent events, when push came to shove there was one true constant in the world. He would follow Miles.
He wanted to be upset by this. He wanted to fight against this thing that was surely perceived as a weakness in his otherwise unquestionably monstrous character. Then Miles snapped the reins and the wagon jolted forward. That's when he realized that she wasn't smirking at him, she was just smiling at him.
"Look at you choosing to do the right thing." She teased at him. "Might just be some hope for you yet, Monroe."
He almost laughed. Maybe she was still the same naïve little girl that had blundered into Philadelphia last year hoping to save her family. She had apparently deluded herself into believing that there was some altruistic part of him that gave even the slightest shit about any of the people it that rat's nest of a town behind those hideous corrugated aluminum walls. He was looking forward to breaking the news to her that she had it all wrong, had him all wrong. He'd kill every one of those accursed Willoughbeans with his bare hands if that was what it came down to. Let the Patriots gas them like unwanted dogs at an animal shelter. He was here because the only thing he had known how to do his entire life had been to follow Miles Matheson into battle.
…..
Bass laughed at that memory, the effort causing a coughing fit that left his mouth tasting like it was full of pennies. Had that really only been two days ago?
His head was swimming, and he fought to refocus on the task at hand. "Get her out of here, Miles."
"There's gotta be some other way." Charlie pleaded.
"Charlie…" Miles started, but his voice was twisted, and he couldn't finish whatever it was he had planned to say.
"You god damned social leper. Always did make me do all the talking." Bass wheezed at Miles with a smile.
"Come here, kid." He looked softly at Charlie.
She seemed unable to ignore or disobey him, the way she usually seemed to so enjoy doing.
As she approached him, he pulled his left hand away from where it had been applying pressure to the sucking wound at the bottom right of his chest and stretched his arms out to her.
"What the… you need to keep pressure on that." She quickly shoved her hands flat over the wound.
"Charlotte…" She looked up to meet his eyes as he said her full name. "We both know there's nothing… it's all just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic at this point. Only question left is if you're going to be as anti-social as that prick over there, or are you going to give me a fucking hug goodbye."
"God, you are such an ass." She laughed through her tears as she leaned in and they wrapped their arms around each other.
"Wouldn't want you to remember me any other way." He smiled into the hair hanging at her neck.
"You don't have to do this. There has to be another way. Just come with us, we'll find it." She pleaded again as she pulled back from him.
"I know you Mathesons love to play the martyr card, but just for once, could you get the hell out of here and let me be the hero?" He wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of his knuckles. "You're the only damned one of them that ever thought I might be worth saving. Please just let me prove you right."
She nodded and smiled at him as she backhanded more tears from her face. "Thank you."
He was having a hard enough time holding it together and saying goodbye to her as it was. At her statement something registered in his head. It was what he'd said to her in the Tower the first time they'd ever worked on the same side. "See, that was nice. Took you long enough to say it though." Then another coughing fit racked his body.
She took a worried step towards him, but he waved her off. He wiped the blood he had coughed up onto his hand off on his jeans. "Get out of here Charlie." A train whistle blew in the distance. "There's not much time, and I need a minute alone with your uncle."
"Gonna miss you, Bass."
"Hey, you actually called me…" She cut him off by ignoring his order, as always, and stepping forward to hug him again. "Goodbye Charlotte."
She pulled back and let her hands trace down along his biceps and then his forearms as she stepped away from him. His fingers grazed along the inside of her right wrist, and they both looked down at the brand, then up into each other's eyes. He felt a traitorous tear start to roll down his cheek. She reached up and wiped it away with the pad of her thumb as she gave him the biggest, warmest smile. That patch of damaged flesh on her wrist would mean something entirely different from this point on. It was just one of the enumerable regrets on his list of unforgivable sins, but being able to undo that one injustice left his heart feeling like a weight had been lifted from it. They shared one more smile before she turned and walked away.
He stood there for a few long seconds, watching her disappear into the tree line, before Miles stepped up in front of him.
"Always did know just what to say to the ladies." Miles grinned at him, though the smile didn't reach his eyes.
"It's a gift."
"Yeah, well, after seeing that, I'd be a little worried if you weren't about to…" Miles trailed off.
"If I weren't about to go blow myself up, you're afraid I'd be making a play for your niece?" Bass looked at Miles incredulously.
Miles shrugged a little.
Bass considered this and ceded, "Yeah. Sounds about right. Things between us have been almost not completely fucked up for a few hours. It is about time for one of us to do something to screw that up. I can think of a lot worse ways…"
"Just gotta be a massive dick, right to the end?" Miles groaned.
"Aw come on, man. You know that's why you love me." His voice was joking, but the insecurity was there for Miles to hear loud and clear. He needed to know that his best friend still cared about him.
"Guess it is. I mean, who the hell else is gonna put up with me?" He gave Bass a lopsided grin.
They stood silently for a moment, letting the weight of their situation sink in. Bass felt tears pooling again and pawed at his eyes to attempt to forestall their escape onto his cheeks.
"Jesus, Bass. Don't start." Miles whined. His aggravated sounding voice was nothing more than a paltry attempt to hide the sadness and fear that were weakening his own resolve. "You know you don't have to do this. Charlie was right. We can find another way."
Damp blue eyes locked with glassy brown ones. Nearly half a century of history had passed between them, and now it was coming to an end.
Bass couldn't take seeing the emotion in Miles's eyes anymore and looked away first. He turned his gaze to the bullet wound in his chest that made horrible bubbling and gurgling noises every time he removed his hand from the jagged hole in his skin. "I'm dead in a couple hours whether I do this or not, and we both know it."
Miles opened his mouth to object, to vainly offer that maybe there was something Gene could do, but Bass cut him off. "You said it, brother. That train gets across this bridge and the Patriots have won. They get their war with California and the whole damn continent folds. Every man, woman, and child from coast to coast falls subject to these Nazi bastards."
"You suddenly give a crap about those millions of anonymous men, women, and children out there? You're willing to die for them?" It was Miles's turn to sound incredulous.
"Maybe not all of them." Bass agreed. "But they includes you and your little rag tag extended Adams family that you've cobbled together, so yeah. I'm willing to die for them. Always was."
Miles nearly choked on the sarcastic quip that had been waiting on his lips. A sad and contorted "Bass…" was all he was able to get out as the distant train whistle blared again, closer this time.
Bass began to beg, "Let me do this Miles. I'm dying. Let my death mean something more than a stray bullet in one of the million fire fights that we've been in together over the years. Let me do this and at least try to make up for all the things I've done."
Both men had tears streaking down their faces by the end of Bass's plea. Miles broke first and reached out to his best friend. They held each other like they hadn't in more than a decade. They clung to each other and cried, the way they had when Shelley and the baby had died, when the MP had arrived at their barracks with news of Bass's family's car crash, when they were ten years old and the doctors told Miles that there was nothing more they could do for his mother's cancer. The time just fell away between them. Over forty years became simultaneously nothing and everything.
"What am I supposed to do without you?" Miles choked out, fists knotted in the back of Bass's shirt at his shoulder blades.
"You've got a family now, man. You've gotta be there for them." Bass sounded like he was trying to pull himself together.
"You don't get it, you stupid ass." Miles forced out between gulping breaths. "You're my family. We've been together our whole lives. Even after everything, no matter what I ever said or did, you're still my brother. Always were."
"And I always will be." Bass pulled back from Miles and put his hands on his friend's shoulders. "You gotta watch out for Connor. He's a prick and a cocky little shit, but he's a good kid underneath it all. Just needs somebody to show him a better way. He needs a family."
"He's got one." Miles swallowed hard, trying to steel himself.
Bass nodded his thanks, then he pushed back, forcing them apart. "Now hand over those grenades, and let me go be a good guy for once."
Miles pulled the two grenades from his pockets and handed them to Bass. Valiantly trying to force his demeanor back to normal, Miles reminded him, "It's not a lot of fire power. Gotta blow them right at the center to take out the whole bridge. Do it before the train gets on the bridge and they still have time to stop."
"Wait 'till the last second and blow the bridge in the middle. Got it. Hoorah!" Bass slipped back to their old Marine dialect.
"Semper Fi." Miles responded curtly, nearly out of habit.
"Semper Fi." Bass let out sincerely, his voice little more than a whisper. Always faithful. It seemed ironically fitting.
They stared at each other for a few deep breaths. Tears slowed and began to dry on their cheeks in the dry Texas air as they said their final silent goodbye. There were no words that would do justice to everything that had come before and what was about to come next.
Bass was already having more trouble breathing than he wanted Miles to know, having been able to pass off some of his gasping as sobbing. Then the train whistle cut through the silence. Close enough this time that Bass knew it was now or never. He turned and started jogging onto the trestle.
He'd gotten about three strides when Miles's voice stopped him. "Bass!" Once Bass had turned to look at him, he added, "I love you."
"Love you too, brother." Maybe there were words for it after all.
Bass turned and continued down the tracks, toward the midway point of the bridge. It was over a quarter mile long, spanning a gorge nearly three hundred feet deep. The noise of the train could be heard approaching the nearby curve in the tracks that would bring it into sight of the bridge. Despite his best efforts, he quickly had to give up jogging. His breath was too shallow and ragged, his collapsed lungs not filling appropriately with oxygen. He had to keep going. He had to make it to the middle of the bridge before the train did. He was not going to be taken down by something as innocuous and mundane as a bullet. He was Sebastian Monroe. No inch long piece of metal would put an end to him. His end was going to be a glorious explosion of bridge timbers and steam engines. It was going to be epic and it was going to put a stop to the Patriots. And it would save his family. That was how he would go out.
He had only made it half way to the center of the trestle when the train rounded the corner. He tried using his hate for the Patriots to drive him forward, but he could barely make it a few steps before he was choking with his hands braced on his thighs trying to catch his breath. Hatred wasn't going to be enough to get him there.
When he was finally able to look up from his desperate panting, he saw the oddest thing before him. He wasn't on the train tracks anymore. He was back home in Jasper, in the field where he and Miles had always used to play as kids. And there was Miles, in all his twelve year old glory, holding that BB gun he'd gotten the Christmas before last. He knew it wasn't real, just a figment brought on by his oxygen deprived brain, but he didn't care. It was him and his best friend, with marker tattoos on their arms and without a care in the world.
"Come on, Bass. We gotta keep going." Twelve year old Miles pleaded with him before turning and starting to run ahead.
Bass couldn't breathe, his body was shutting down and he couldn't consciously will it to move. But that didn't matter anymore, because there was only one constant in the world of Sebastian Monroe. It overrode his better judgment, his will power, even the very principles of biology. No matter what, he would follow Miles Matheson.
Bass stood up and lurched forward. His movements were staggering at first, but as he watched the apparition of Miles get further ahead of him, he collected himself and began to walk, then to run. He chased his friend until Miles pulled up to a stop and looked up at him.
"We're brothers, Bass. Always." The child spoke to him.
"Always." Bass answered.
Then the train whistle began bellowing deafeningly in repeated fast bursts, and the mirage was broken. Bass looked around and found himself standing alone in the middle of the bridge. The train had just pulled onto the trestle and was barreling toward him. He pulled the grenades from his pockets and pulled each pin with his teeth. Holding one in each hand out in front of him, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and released the triggers. As he counted to three in his head, relative time seemed to slow to a near stop. He relived it all, every moment of his forty-six years. He felt every joy, every heartbreak, felt himself lose his grip on reality, felt overwhelming defeat and surrender. He felt the moment he regained the will to live and to fight again at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. He felt like he'd gotten back a part of himself he hadn't know that he'd been missing when he reunited with Miles under that old overpass. That was when he really understood it all. Everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong and right, it had all boiled down to this one last act. He wasn't on this bridge because of hatred or vengeance. He was here, exactly where he needed to be, because he loved his best friend. It was the one thing that had gotten him through everything, and now he would give his life to ensure that Miles would get the chance at the family and happiness that always seemed to elude him. He wanted that for his friend more than he wanted it for himself. He wanted it for Charlie, for Connor, for all of them. No matter what had come before, whether anyone would ever believe it or not, this, the last act of Sebastian Monroe was entirely selfless. He just hoped that would count for something.
Then his count reached three and he dropped the grenades.
…
Miles and Charlie had scrambled up the side of the nearby hill, staying hidden amongst the trees and foliage as they raced to put as much distance between themselves and the train as they could, in the event that something went wrong. Against Miles's urgings to keep going, Charlie pulled to a stop when they heard the train round the corner and approach the bridge.
"Charlie, don't look." Miles warned, but she wouldn't be swayed.
"He's not gonna make it!" She said in horror as she realized that Bass hadn't made it nearly half way to the mid-point of the bridge. "We need to go back."
"There's nothing we can do." Miles gripped her shoulder as she fought against him. He closed his eyes and fought to force air into his lungs. "He's still got a chance. Just have a little faith in the guy."
At that, they both turned and watched as the small hunched over figure on the bridge righted itself and seemed to look curiously at something for a moment before hobbling forward. His movements slowly became more coordinated, and just as the train pulled onto the bridge, he stumbled to a stop at the exact detonation point.
"Atta boy, Bass." Miles smiled briefly. Then he saw Bass retrieve the grenades and pull the pins with his teeth. He stood his ground, arms and explosives held out in front of him as the train roared towards him, whistle blaring. He looked every ounce the bad ass that he always tried to be. It wasn't a bad last image to have of his best friend.
Miles had been keeping a count in his head since he'd seen Bass pull the pins, and he saw the grenades drop from his hands just as he'd reached three. Perfect timing. He pulled Charlie's face into his chest, forcing her to look away and burying his own face in the hair at the top of her head as the grenades dropped through the trestle in free fall for that last second. Neither of them needed to see what happened next. They exploded at the precise level they'd planned, just a few feet below the tracks with the train mere feet away. The support beams at the center of the bridge exploded outward in a fireball that engulfed everything in a twenty foot radius. The center of the bridge began to crumple on itself, the pyrotechnic damage and the weight of the train snapping the remaining support beams down the track like dominoes falling in line. The bridge gave, and the train joined it in plummeting to the canyon floor so far below. Another huge explosion heralded the landing, and Miles and Charlie both shuddered at each resounding aftershock of noise as everything settled in its final resting place.
"He did it." Miles spoke softly as he finally looked out over the gaping crevasse and surveyed the destruction. "That son of a bitch actually stopped the Patriots."
Charlie tried to smile at her friend's posthumous accomplishment, but felt nothing but grief well up in her. She cried for everything that had happened to him to make him the way he was, for everything he'd done in the past months to attempt to overcome it all, and for him – the man who became a monster, but died a hero.
They had defeated the Patriots. Charlie knew that everything in her life was about to change. With the chaos that would certainly be about to engulf her and her family, as the orchestrators of this revolution, she needed one thing, one truth that she could cling to. In the end, Sebastian Monroe had been one of the good guys, and she vowed to make sure that no matter what happened, that was how he would be remembered. That was her constant.