I wanted to use three deleted scenes from season two, and three of them, the moment on the bridge between Connor and Bass with Charlie, Bass seeing Charlie in Austin right after and the attack in the tent in that camp, will come back here in this story. It is the main line, as another storyline, in the present flows through it.

6 days after Vegas,

Just outside Willoughby.

Bass walked up to his kid, as he had made a turn around the factory building, leaning over a banister of a steal bridge in front of him. The dissipated factory, with a rusty empty car in front of it, behind him. Under it lay a path, hidden by trees. Miles was busy with Rachel. The old man busy with something he fucking did not care about. And he, he apparently could not stay the hell away from Connor. Connor was leaning over it, easy eyes on her. He had tucked his hands in his pockets as he watched how easy his kid was flirting with her. They were back from Vegas, and everything felt upside down. She was down there, on the path under the bridge, wood in her hands, eyes and a small grin on his kid.

He closed the distance between him and Connor, as he saw her, tight pants, leather jacket, honey blonde dark curls dancing around her shoulder and that full mouth of hers. In Vegas he had heard Michaels sing every rose has its torn and man, wasn't that the fucking truth here.

'You go get yourself another scoop?' Bass moved his lower back against the banister, blocking Charlie out of his view. His eyes were on the pattern of steel under his boots, his back in worn leather jacket turned towards Charlotte. The wind going through messy curls. His boots fidgeting with something on the ground.

'It is creepy the way you talk to me sometimes.' Connor's reply.

'Ah look, you want to bang that? You go at it. I don't care.' His eyes on a point near the trees.

Sure dad. You know who says he does not care. Out loud? Mentioning the fact that he had something with Charlie again and again.

Bass' mind registered a sound of wood clattering down beneath him.

Connor did not even answer as his face changed at hearing how his dad was talking about Charlie. Irritation in him that his dad treated her like this. It was interesting to see the change in him, in how he was before her with Vegas, and how he was after. The one change that one hook up with her.

And it was telling him something that his dad was so hard trying to burry under rocks of being casual nonchalant.

Connor was wondering if he had been caught up in something he should not have.

'But we have bigger things to worry about. About getting our army back.'

Bass heard himself talking about an army, as he felt pretty damn pathetic he played it like this, using that army drawing his son's attention away from her.

The truth was that the thought about Connor with her, drove him fucking crazy. The thought if they screwed again, even more. The visual of the girl that become so much, too fast, with his son pumping rage through him. Vegas. Even Duncan had seen it, Charlie not denying it. Thinking of, knowing, feeling that something was going to fucking happen between them. His cock awake whenever she was around but more, the ton of feelings when he was near. Rage ,not fucking about what would happen if Rachel and Miles would find out. He knew it was bullshit even before it came out of his mouth when he had found them. Being dumbfounded like some idiot when he had realised she had made a choice, as she had looked him up and down right after. Standing there like some chump.

'You want to get to a point?' Connor asked, fed up with this whole conversation. It seemed like wherever he went, wherever Charlie went, his dad showed up.

Apparently he fucking wasn't getting to that point, because the next thing Bass watched her walking towards him, when she had been covering the distance between the path under her and him, angry sway. All fury and fire and pissed off.

She had been gathering wood for warmth, clean water and cooking, on the outskirts of the abandoned factory they used now as a safe house near the river. Miles and her mom busy, her grandfather busy with some herbs. Connor had been harmlessly sending her that flirting smile grin and an air kiss that was cute at best, although she was pretty sure that Vegas was a onetime thing, for more reasons than one.

One of those reasons, with leather jacket, wild curls and locked jaws, walked up to Connor on the bridge above her as she started to walk back. They were within hearing range now, as she heard Monroe.

Her fingers dug into the wood in her arms.

..you want to bang that...

With one loud smack she threw the small logs of wood on the ground before her as she put force behind it, the wood scattering all over the soft forest floor under her.

The grin was wiped from her face as she felt heated rage boil through her.

God, son of a bitch. She thought out loud ,taking the hill to her right with large steps.

'Are you out of your fucking mind?' She stormed at Bass, as she watched how he had moved away from the banister, one boot pushing himself away from it, standing on the bridge now before her.

Connor had one hand on the rail, as he stood next to Bass.

Bass' boots were almost touching her as he let a harsh breath out of his nose.

'Well, I guess you did all the fucking in Vegas, Charlie.' Arrogance dripping from his words.

'Yeah you seem unable to shut up about that. I can't believe you of all people are being a son of a bitch about that.'

'And why is that Charlie?' He was still standing tall before her, but she did not move an inch.

That was until she moved her face closer to his.

Her lips moving deliberately, emphasising every word with being pissed off.

'Because I am pretty sure you screwed my mom.'

She watched his face change, as her heart dropped at his reaction.

'How,' Bass heard how his voice sounded, as he swallowed something away, 'Who told you that?'

'You just did,' her voice so sharp.

Holey fucking hell. Bass opened his mouth, let out an uncomfortable harsh breath.

They stood there, eyes locked, bodies locked, with the wind howling around them, the skies moving with grey speed.

Charlie always had an idea, deducting it from a million small things, but she could not keep quiet anymore.

Bass'mind was racing a milion miles an hour, as he was trying to figure out why this mattered so much.

'You son of a bitch. I saved your ass there.' And then something changed in her eyes that ripped fucking right through him. 'You have no idea what Vegas cost me.' Charlie said, as her voice broke with memories she brought with her from Vegas, pointing her finger at him.

Her lips pressed together, her face fire, her eyes deep and with a wash of pain in there for just a second, until it was blazing pissed of Charlie all over again.

'What the hell does that mean?'

He fucking needed to know what she meant by that remark about Vegas, but she did not give him a change as she stomped of, headed to the river.

Present

Ranger camp,

Austin.

Bass felt the rage still going through his veins. The shots in that hangar earlier ringing in his ears. He had stood there, together with Blanchard and his men.

I'd say it is the end of a treaty.

He had walked in through tall open doors that were glided open, daylight streaming in, giving him access to the large hangar, kaki's waiting there with no fucking clue what was about to happen next. Finally there, with shots and dead bodies on the floor, it all ended. What had started with one of his man, telling somebody drove over to him. Flynn. Revenge, pay back for those sons of bitches. It filled something deep inside of him, covered by the layers of guilt and what happened to his city still there, reflected in his eyes.

Going through the set up Ranger camp, his boots hitting the ground,

And then he saw her. Although he fucking saw the red imprint of a bloody hand on tent canvas first. And everything that he had ever felt for her, came rushing back to him. Hitting him right in the face.

Charlie had sat down on a chair, before she had told herself she could not stay here. The dull pulsating in her side urging her to keep on going.

Sharp trusts of pain. Going to dull ones as they reached their intensity again.

She had moved through the tents, and her vision was reducing to blunt forms, a sound she did not recognised as her own, like she was halfway into a dream.

Faces came to her. Reasons she wanted to live. Miles, even her mom, and then him. Bass.

Another corner to take, another inward struggle for movement, to keep on going as a first wall of panic hit her. She was slowly losing contact with the ground under her. Another corner. It was hard to stand up straight as her body pulled her down into blackness.

And then she saw him. And everything she had tried to keep away, what she had felt for him, came rushing back to her. Hitting her so hard, as he stood there, so close, as she let out a sigh that turned into a painful relieve.

Bass.

Her hand moved to her left, as she grabbed canvas of a tent, barely holding her up. She felt something on the inside of her hand and when she looked up, barely hanging on, a red imprint of her hand, blood red, was there on the canvas, as she slipped down, stumbled.

Bass.

When he had looked from the red imprint on the tent canvas to her, he swore he could not believe how fast fear set in. Her mouth was moving, mumbling something.

In two lager strides he was with her.

One arm hooked under armpit, between her side and arm, going over her back, catching her as she lost the battle to stand up straight. She swayed right into his arms, as he held her.

And as they both were moved through the ground, he followed what caught his attention from the corner of his eye.

It was so unusual to hear panic in that low rough slow timbre of his voice. Just like in her uncle's. She heard him growl, scream as he turned back to her.

'You, get some help over here, NOW.' He growled to an officer, standing close by. When he did not move in one second, he threw him a cold deadly look. 'Get your ass moving. right fucking now.'

'Don't you dare to this Charlie.' It was an order and a plea into one. He pressed her head against his. Instinctively holding on to her.

His arms hard locks around her, keeping her against him, where it was leather, his voice, his scent, she never took it in like this, it was a corner of strange safety as the hairs of his beard touched her temple.

'Don't to this Charlie. Come on.' His voice was now deeper, slower, a edge of worry and care in there that was calming her.

His hand over the wound on her left side, his fingers over her skin, her trained side, her soaked tank in between his fingers as he felt the resistance of her skin against his hand, his hand covering most of her side and stomach.

His jaws were clenched, as he barely got the words out. His knees in the dirt, his boots under him, Charlie in his lap, over his knees, positioned in the hook of his right arm, her long golden hair against his leather jacket, her face lacking all its usual bravado.

'You'll be all right Charlie,' as her curves so slowly moving in his arms, the pain in her sounds she was making and the old fear in him telling opposite. But he stayed calm. For her.

His warm eyes were keeping her in place.

And as she was moving her lips, and the camp around him sprang back into motion, he finally heard what she was saying, breaking his heart as the weight of her light body was so easily in his arms.

'Bass.'

As I told you with the title, this story is a hard road to something good. You can recognise the deleted scene on the bridge and the one where somebody gets stabbed in the camp at the end. I wanted to try something new, something more raw. Love from Love