Home,

what is, what was.

He used to walk her to school, blonde curls next to her deep red amber long hair. She was four.

When she had been heartbroken over her little kitten dying, he had taken her little hand in his as he had stood next to her in her back garden. When they had buried snuggle in their back yard she was nine.

When she was thirteen and her mom died , he had stood right behind her in their small town church.

When she fell and needed three stitches, he was the one to come and pick her up from the hospital. She was fifteen and he had been trying to cheer her up with stupid jokes.

When she had her first hang over, he had been there at seventeen, giving her a glass of water when Miles was still asleep. Holding her hair and slowly rubbing her back until she had looked shyly at him.

He is part of her earliest memories.

Bass.

Friend. Best friend. Crush. Love. Lover.

Sebastian Monroe to the rest of the world. But always Bass to her. He is a part of so many memories. The wild sound of a helicopter making laundry blow in the wind with the shift in the air.

And now he is here.

Later that same day, Emma sees him. Standing tall. Rigid posture. Uniform. Men around him. But it is still him. He is here. And she feels a smile creep around her lips. She feels her heart beat with the secret of a mother in there. She sees him, the younger him , the man that had always been kind and decent to her.

She walks over to him. But then one of his men stop her, and she watches him. Uniform. Strong jaw line. Something in his eyes that is steel and new to her. This is not her Bass. Not that he was ever hers. This is Monroe. President. General.

But then she finds some strength to use her voice. 'Bass...it's me, Emma.' She tries his name with her lips for the first time in years. And when his eyes turn to her, when their eyes meet through time and all those years it is Bass again.

Bass looks outside the window. He looks over his town, now covered in the dark of the night. He looks over the square where he had first seen Emma again earlier today. Her voice of memories and friendship and a bridge through time to Miles and his parents and sisters tearing through him and making him forget for one fucking second he was General Monroe now. For one fucked up second he was Bass. But then he had remembered himself and her, who he was. He had to.

He looks over the town where his old house stands, where memories lay and his whole family is buried. This whole past day had felt fucking surreal as it has crept further under his skin with every hour.

8 Hours earlier

The helicopter ride had been long. He had seen the roofs in the distance. Home. They are landing in his town. Jeremy welcoming him home. Him walking around. His boots sounding lowly on the streets he has knows since he was a kid.

He stands still and looks at the house that has been his home for so long. An honest smile threatening to break free from the corners of his mouth when he sees his mom's face so clear in front of him. When he hears his dad. Watches his sisters sit on the steps of the porch. He knows his men are close, Jeremy is too but he craves to take in one fucking moment alone. Taking of guard something light is rushing in, through all the mess that is behind and around him. It is there before he can stop it.

The house dissipated. The porch a mess. The flowers his mom loved so much neglected in the garden. And it is has been years, but he can still imagine it how it used to be. With the glass intact, the paint not chipping of and lights behind the windows.

The years take him back to Emma walking into the kitchen when his parents had been away for a trip to see a part of Europe his mom had wanted to visit since she had gotten married to his dad. He can feel Emma pushing him away to get rid of some, Miles', empty beer bottles when he is drinking one himself and leaning against the kitchen counter.

Miles asleep in the other room. It had been just him and Emma in the kitchen. Her body had been making sudden contact with his side and with his had already woken up his desire for her even more. He can still smell her soft perfume. Gentle and young.

It had been one look, years of friendship and coveted desire for the other that lead to him kissing her. To moving his trembling but eager fingers under her dress. His fingers moving over tanned skin and young smooth legs. He had lifted Emma and placed her on the kitchen counter, her legs between his thighs. He had been able to remember that one moment, when he had moved his fingers into her skin, right before he moved into her wet warmth. It had been overwhelming and wrong. Miles asleep in the room next to them. But it was Emma and she seemed to want him the way he wanted her. His mind made him remembering her nail and fingers, her nail polish, digging into the trained muscles of his shoulders. Her soft panting ringing in his ear. Her breathe going fast as he pushed over and over into her, needing that release he found between her thighs and inside of her with his head on her shoulder.

And then. Her. Emma, god, fuck..Emma there again. Catching him of guard as he stood on the town square after he had left the house that was once his home behind. Bass. His nickname from her mouth reaching him like a damn bullet. Talking to him, him only able to look her at before he can find some words after rasping out her name with a heart that feels lighter now she is standing here with him.

They talk. She is not buying his lies. Feeling the reason of why he is here, with all his men. A hint of rage for letting himself feeling too much for her. Still beautiful. Still so much her. Shame and cold guilt for telling her she had no way of talking to him like that. Having to look away to push back salty tears for him speaking to her like that. His men take her away, away with the rest of who he was and love for a woman that was Miles', but somehow also his.

And after walking around his town, his old life. After standing in front of his old home again. After seeing Emma, again, his heavy heart takes him to the place of goodbye and a promise from a brother. The cemetery. The stones on their graves. Flowers, orange and red, tied together with rope respectfully placed against the stones. With three of his men around him instead of Emma or Miles, he watches the flowers in his hand. He knows who placed them there. Emma.

It has been the last part of the day that he had been able to take. Thinking of home, his parents, his sisters, who he was with them, what he had gotten to be for them. Emma, Miles. Sunset had been close.

And now, when the night has fallen over his old town and home, Bass can taste Miles getting closer. He is out there, he can just feel him aching in his blood. He knows he is. Old friends meeting again. But it has to end, it has to end fucking here. Today.

He will burn every last connection to his past tonight.

It will end here.

Emma feels the fear spread though the people of her town. She has seen him up there on a balcony in the building he is holding them all. And now, she is escorted up the stairs by one of his men that was named Baker, after she has demanded to see him after one of her neighbours died because of his men beating him up.

She is furious and scared and conflicted. Her heart beating with every step she takes up the stairs. But she has to try. For her friends and neighbours, his old friends and teachers and neighbours. She has to try for him, for Bass. For the piece of the man she refuses to believe is not there anymore. And for another reason, far away, a whole country away. A little boy, now growing into a man without her.

He is there again when she walks into the room as she watches Bass stand in front of the window. Tall, wide shoulders, those same blue eyes. She does not know what to expect. So she tries, she tries to reach him through the uniform he wears with so much control of being president. Her eyes move to those curls who do not want to fall in line with the harshness of his uniform.

She tries to reach Bass. Her Bass. She starts talking about the people in town, his people, his old friends and teachers. She sees him open up, the blue in his eyes the blue she remembers. She sees Bass and shame and guilt before her.

'You have a kind heart Emma.' Bass tells her, with a heart that is with Miles out there, but somehow also with her. And then he remembers the flowers out there. 'It was you right.'

Emma feels her heart beat wilder, her heart tricking her into believing Bass knows everything about her secret. About Miles who came to Jasper years ago and took a part of her with him to safety. But he can't. He doesn't. She tells herself he could not know.

'The flowers...it was you.' Bass looks at her as he tries to push tears back from his damn eyes.

Emma nods as a breathe escapes from her lunges. She has been placing those flowers there for as long as she can remember. For the family that is also her family. For Bass. And for one moment, that feels like it stretches out forever she thinks about telling him.

'Yeah, it was me.' Emma dares to move a step closer, when he is softer and gentler and she can take in his scent and almost touch the scruff on his jaw line. Her hand are still crossed before her chest.

For one second, hope moves around in her heart. The sound of her heart is beating over his words. Tell him. Tell him now. Something whispers inside of her. Tell him and everything might change. You can use his helicopter to have those dark curls and soft eyes in your arms again, where you yearn them to be with your mother heart.

'Bass...please...this is not you. This is not the man I know.'

She watches him rip open. Tall in front of her.

'I loved you too you know.' It is the truth. She did. She loved Miles. But Bass. She loved Bass too.

Bass eyes light up as he feels the strength of her confession filling him from the inside. Love. For him. Her. 'You did?'

But then he feels the bitter sting after her words. His instincts telling him she is hiding something, his betrayed heart screaming at him that that she is playing him. 'And you are telling me this right now?'

'Bass...' Emma tries, her heart whispering that this is her last chance to tell him about his kid, his son, their shared connection. To tell Bass about him. Her son. But then she sees his men. She sees the scared look of the people waiting for her down there. She sees and feels the shift in Bass as he interrupts her.

The first gunshot flies through the night sky. Jeremy appears in the doorway. Bass takes a deep breath, as something cold and dark starts to spread through his chest. He is here. Something familiar launches in his chest. Miles.

He moves closer to Emma, so close he can take in her scent. Still gentle.

'I want to be the Bass you knew so badly, you have no idea.' He needs her to know. He wants to. But he can't. He can't.

Bass's voice is deep and his body almost comforting before her. He moves over to her, one hand around her cheek and he kisses her so gently and lightly and with such kindness that it is him there in that kiss. Bass. His forehead almost touches hers.

Bass allows himself to feel her and kiss her one more time. To take in her scent, the scent of innocence and home and what was. One more time before he will never be what he was with her. Her lips are soft and willing and he gently moves his hand around her face to hold her lightly, but still with him. And then, he has to walk away from her.

When he walks away she feels the fire of the truth in her. But then she looks at him, at the man he became and the dangerous terrifying steel blue in his eyes as he hears more gunshots. She can't. She once wrote to Miles to come and get her little boy and get him to safety. Her heart breaking again when she thinks back to the day when she had to let Connor go. Her heart filled with guilt for letting him go, knowing she had to, to keep him safe. Or that is what she told herself, being torn by the man Bass became and the man she knows he is too.

He turns to her one more time as more gunshots sound outside. They lock eyes one more time. And they both know that he is there, out there. And that everything will change forever.

And her heart locks, protecting her child one more time. Her heart breaking, her knees giving out. Hope is fading, her heart missing Bass. And Connor. And grieving for the time they never got to have because she had let her parents decide Bass could not be part of his life because they felt so much shame for their little girl being pregnant when their plans for her involved college and not a child at such a young age. And she feels shame and guilt and an acid taste in the back of her throat how different things could have been.

She watches him. One more time. Her secret staying with her.

He is part of her earliest memories. He is a part of so many memories.

Bass.

Friend. Best friend. Crush. Love. Lover. And the father of her child. Their child.

When Bass walks out of the room to follow Jeremy, he knows he leaves the last piece of tenderness that was there in him with her. He shoves it all away with every step his boots take him down the stairs and to Miles. Walking her home after school, watching her cry and not being able to take it when some her cat died. Growing up together in this damn town. Sitting next to her when she was sick and he was trying to make her laugh with stupid lame jokes. Feeling his heart light up when she laughed anyway. Pale and tucked away under blankets on her parents couch. Watching her with Miles, craving her for himself. Finally having her, his hands digging in the soft skin of her hips as she knew how she would feel when he was buried inside of her.

The Bass she thinks she knows, he is dead. Gone. Gone when his family passed away, another piece gone when this world fell into darkness and he lost his family again. The rest of the years took the rest that made him Bass.

Right before the last step he hears her voice again. I loved you too Bass. He feels the tension run through his jaw. He had let his mask slip the moment she told him. Her words shooting straight to his damn heart. And then the cold flash of not wanting to trust her words were true. Paranoia why she is just telling him this now. Hope it is the truth. Something in her eyes that were about to tell him something more.

It does not matter. Not anymore.

He will burn every last connection to his past tonight.

It will end here.

Two hours later

Bass has ordered one of his men to grab her, fuelled by dark rage and needing this to fucking end. He cures at them for letting Miles slip away, again. He needs this to end. To fucking kill Miles. His anger spikes, darkening his thoughts. Emma, this town. Bringing out a part of him he once was and he cannot afford to be or miss. Miles here. Miles being able to free the people he had locked inside to let them burn with his past. Miles. Again. It needs to end. So when he let those people run to the woods behind the school he had ordered his man to grab Emma.

She tries to talk to Bass the moment he walks over to her as his men are holding her. But he does not even look at her the way he did before. He does not talk to her. He just grabs her.

'Move.' One low grunt with his hand locked almost painfully on her upper arm.

He watches the dead fear in her eyes but his rage is overpowering his every voice of not using her like this. To put the gang pack together and knowing Miles would show his damn face if he would dangle her in front of her. Jealousy that Miles got to have her and hate for the once brother has turned his back against him a spike as he orders her to walk with him.

He is holding a gun to her head, to the head of a woman he loves. He did once. He still does. But it does not matter. It has to end here. This is the moment in the making that will haunt him for the rest of his life. The moment he jerks her in his arms, only to place his fucking gun against her head. It is the decision that destroys everything. Emma in one hand, his gun in the other. Love and cold hate. Two hands. Holding everything.

Emma feels the might of the man behind her. He is tall and trembling with rage. His chest wide and his lock firm. And she knows, Bass, Bass is gone. She is scared and cold and numb and crying and wants to crumble inside some dark place when Bass' voice roars through the town square.

'Miles!' Bass roars, his voice dangerous and low and filled with dark edges. Bass knows he is fucking out there. He adds more pressure when he holds Emma to his chest. Aiming the gun to her head and neck with more precision.

'The gang is back together, Miles.'

Emma hears the roar of his words in his chest against her coat. The way he thunders Miles' name is filled with hurt and rage and loneliness and mad hate. She thinks back to lighter days, when Bass and Miles would share a beer. Her sitting in between Miles's legs holding her as they would hang out at the town square, only feet away from where she is standing now with Bass. She knows Miles is close. Bass. Miles. Her men.

Somehow her primal heart knows this is going to end in destruction. She thinks back to the day she held Connor for the very first time. Bass not there. Missing Bass so much she had cried softly holding on to Connor. She sees his eyes and dark hair and remember his scent. Her boy, her little little boy. Here with her in her heart, when she hears Bass' screaming something above her head. The name of a man she has loved too. Miles.

And then he is there the way she remembers him, with a kind and decent heart, with blue eyes and that warm smile. That boy who walked with her to school. The boy who stood up for her. The boy who held her hand when she buried her little cat. Who comforted her. The boy who made love to her in the kitchen of his parents home. The man that kissed her hours ago. His gentle lips warm, tasting her own tears mixed with his. The man who is the father of her child. The man who is holding her now. The steel grip of his arm and gun near her head making her cold inside.

She finds some last courage left to open her mouth, knowing it is too late. Hoping it is not.

'Bass, please...I want to see him again...'

'Miles? You will see him soon enough huh.' Bass spits out without looking at her. Not fucking believing she is talking about Miles now. Rage overtaking him even more.

'Not Miles...' Emma cries, 'My son...' Her voice a whisper, a plea. She feels the shift in him behind her, 'Your son...'

Bass stiffens as he cannot believe what she is talking about. His mind racing, his gun in his hand. His men close. Miles close. His heart beating, the numb feel of her reveal.

'What?' He breathes out, forgetting to keep the gun aimed at her head.

'You were at basic and my parents would not let me tell you.'

She watches Bass and her heart feels something else as darkness for one moment. Emma watches how one tear moves over his cheek and his strong jaw line. There he is. Bass. Her Bass.

'His name is Connor...'

And she remembers Connor again. Connor. Her mother's heart yearning for him. Somewhere out there, but now in her heart.

Bass looks at Emma, stunned and rocked to the core. He is not alone. He has family. A son, his kid. Connor. And he is just him again, with her. Bass. Emma. A kid, a son. A first thought taking form that he is holding a gun aimed at the head of the mother of his child. His heart starting to scream to get her out of here. Now. Protect her. His fighting battle hard screaming to get her out of here. Now.

She whispers his name, as Bass turns towards her one more time. Connor.

But this time, it does not reach over the sound of the gunfire above her. It does not matter. She feels something cold and numb and she is crashing into Bass' chest who is all Bass to her in her last moments.

Bass yells her name, begs for her to stay as he only wants to hold her, shield her, love her. Make her stay with him. Needing him in his arms instead of the ground. Barely understanding what is happening.

In her last moment she feels the Bass she loves. Strong and caring and reaching out for her. He holds her as she feels them both go down, her in his arms. He holds her. Later Miles will hold her too. He will carry her gentle away from the ground when Bass will watch them from a distance as his men will drag him away.

But it is Connor, that is on her mind when the most important men in her life are so close now, right before she has to let go. Bass. Miles. And the most important boy and man is in her heart. Connor. Dark hair, soft eyes looking into the world. Growing up, so much of her and so much of Bass. That warm smile, that good heart, a bit of his temper, dark curls and that strong jaw of him.

Connor. He is here with her. Bass looking at her, holding her, his breathe warm against her cheek. It is Bass who is with her when she knows Miles is close and Connor is on her mind. Her Bass. Holding her, being there with her, just like he had done so many times along the road.

Connor.

It is all what beats into her heart now. With Miles out there, in Bass' arms, it is her child's name that is the last one to pass her lips.

Only seconds later and Bass is not holding her anymore. He had fired his gun in disbelieve and hate and anger and self hate towards Miles. In the chopter Bass looks at Emma one more time with his tears firing wildly over his cheeks as he tries to reign them in, in front of his men. After his men had dragged him away from Emma, from her, and from his kid before he had been able to ask where he was all there was left to do was watch Emma in Miles' arms as they lift up in the air. Emma there with Miles with her now that rips him apart from the inside.

The thought he has a son, that they have a son, family, blood, Connor, screaming over the sound of blades of the chopter.

His name her last heartbeat.

Author's Note Emma knowing about Connor and not telling Bass that day in Jasper, is something that has been intriguing me for such a long time. It was the inspiration for this prompt. This piece was about love, family, Bass. Emma. Miles. About their past with good memories. About the present, that day in Jasper. And what Emma has been hiding from him. To write Emma and Bass like this, something I never done before. To create more back story and a little more insight from my perspective in their characters. The prompt for this story is prompt #180 His name would be last one on her lips. Thank you so much for reading, Love from Love