That day,
Part Four
He does not see her after that night. That night where she had walked into that bar to share a bottle with Staypuft. That night he had watched the emotion on Miles' face as he had embraced Charlotte. That night she had surprised the hell out of him with that kiss outside that bar. That night where he had known for good how she would taste and how Charlotte would feel. That night where he had been thinking of her until he had not been able to deal with the four walls of his apartment and he had walked his ass over to see her. That night he had found out how her skin felt under his damn fingers.
Bass knows Mathesons. And more than that, he knows her. She needs her space. Hell, he is not sure what will be next. But he knows the depth of her hurt and wounds. Rachel and her dear old dad may push all they want for her to talk or settle the hell down, he knows, and hell he really does, it does not work that way. Not for them.
So for the past few weeks, he has given her that space. That does not mean she does not keep intruding his mind all the fucking time. Her lush lips. Her hips. His hands around those damn hips, her tilting back her head with her eyes closed when he trusted deeper inside of her. Her fucking moans in the bed with him.
All of her and the memory of how she tastes and feels and sounds when he is pumping into her has him shifting in his seat this evening when he takes another sip of whiskey. Bass looks from Miles to Blanchard over his cards at the round kitchen table at Miles' place.
It's a boy's night with cards, whiskey and cigars. Blanchard had marched his ass in earlier this night with cigars and a wide grin on his stupid face. A cigar had lead to a good old fashioned night of poker and bullshit stories. And Miles can nag and whine all he wants, one look at that grin on his face and Bass knows he is enjoying the hell out of himself.
Rachel is doing something with her dad tonight, something Bass could not care less about. Well, maybe if he tried, but he is kind of fucking done with her pathetic attempts to turn Mile into a man he really isn't. It means they have the house to themselves and more than that, it means having his brother back, the man he has known since he was four.
Bass leans back in his chair while he looks at his cards and is about to throw another insult at Walnut when the three men around the kitchen table hear the sound of the kitchen door being opened on their left.
Bass swallows when his eyes are the first ones she finds. Thinking of her is one thing. Having her within reach again, is another thing. Bass takes another sip of his whiskey to give his lips and mouth something to do when all he wants to do is lick his bottom lip at the sight of so much Charlie. He sees the slow smirk emerging on her gorgeous face that tugs at his balls now he knows what she is like, all of her, under him at four a.m.
They lock eyes before Charlie nods to both Miles and Walnut. Walnut looks at her like she is his fucking next glass of whiskey and Bass feels the first wave of irritation and tension creeping into his fists for the way he dares to look at her. His fingers clutch a little bit harder around the cards in his hand.
'Well, ain't you a fine piece of ass'?' Frank says with a wide grin and eyes that move from her eyes to her hips.
Both Miles and Bass are about to kind of rip Blanchard's head of but Charlie stays calm as her eyebrow raises slightly and her arms cross before her chest while an amused mockery look settles in her eyes.
Charlie steps towards Blanchard ignoring the low growl that escaped Bass' throat while she rolling her eyes at an uncle who is ready to step in and for both men thinking she cannot handle a General on her own.
'Well, aren't you an old pain in the ass?' She does not even blink as she looks at Blanchard and throws her best Matheson smirk at the General and leader of Texas.
Frank's face turns into shock but then an honest wide grin spreads around his whole face. That, and a flash of respect for this woman he heard many things about fills his eyes as well. Miles just grins behind his glass. Bass has to look at his cards to hide one fast proud grin under his moustache as he swallows his amusement an awe for this hell of a woman away.
'And who are you?' Frank asks, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from herself. He gets up from his chair as he walks towards Charlie.
'Charlie Matheson, sir.' Her voice is strong. Her arms remain before her chest. 'And who the hell are you?'
Frank's eyes go wide at her strength.
'Yeah, insulting presidents is kind of what she does.' Miles says drily as Frank's mouth falls open for such a strong force of a woman in one small kitchen. Next to him, Bass chuckles and lets out a huff of air above his glass.
It is the moment where Blanchard's eyes start to sparkle as he holds out his hand for her to shake. This time, his words are filled with a tone of respect that he feels she deserves when he speaks again.
'Frank Blanchard ma'm, President of this fine nation and the boss of these two assholes.'
Charlie grins at that last part. And then, she shakes his hand with a firm shake of her own.
'Will you join us this evening?' Frank nods to the table, whiskey and cards next to him.
Bass watches as a grin appears on her face he remembers from Vegas, when she had brushed past him when Duncan had given her those men he had walked his ass all the way to Vegas for. She is fucking hot as hell. Again.
He feels her eyes on him as she takes a seat next to him and accepts the glass of whiskey and the job offer Frank will give her three hours later.
And that is how Charlie gets her next job and a glass of whiskey with a seat along the poker table with the guys that night. Bass looks at her, close to him, close to Miles, sharing a poker game and whiskey with them like she has never done anything else.
Two weeks later she is part of the unit of Rangers that make sure Willoughby is and stays safe and protected.
One month later
He is walking behind them again. Step by agonizing step. There in that church. Miles is there. Ben is there. And he has to say his impossible goodbye again. When the dream feels like a giant wave he cannot bare anymore it all stops.
Bass wakes up with the shattering and loud sense of that impossible day. There is cold sweat brushing and moving over the scars that are visible to the eye on his back. He pushes himself into a sitting position with absolute definite pain running through him as the sheets glide down over his bare chest.
The muscles in his shoulder blades are on fire with tension. His bedroom is dark. The sheets feel clammy so he pushes them away without much conviction. His breathing is out of control and his eyes are unfocussed and wide. His chest raises and falls with every wild breathe he takes. And although he is awake and in Texas, his heart and so much of him are back in Jasper again.
But most of all, he feels over and over and again and again when nightmares find him what it is like to never get to feel that sense of home again. He will never get to feel the warmth of that strong and yet bright and loving smile of his mom. He will never get to hear his father's advice when it comes to cars and all those other things he never asked advice for, but his dad had given it nevertheless. He will never get to stop some stupid fight between his younger sisters anymore. He never gets to be a part of that home again.
They left him. They left him behind.
He tells himself to breathe. And then he feels something warm against his thigh so very fucking close. Charlotte. Here in his bed with him. Still asleep. He swallows and moves a hand over his face as another wave of panic starts to wash over him. She cannot see him like this. Not after everything. Not after the role he has played in taking so much from her. The fact that he has been trying desperately for everybody else to see that Miles was right the hell there with him does not mean he has forgotten what he has done.
He does not want her to see him like this. He does not want to put her through that. He does not get to have anything from her this night. He won't allow himself to wake her up or to place his burden on her shoulders.
So he pushes himself out of bed silently. When his feet hit the wooden floor his elbows land on his knees as he buries his head in his hands. He feels the moist of tears in the palm of his hands. With one low agonizing breathe he gets up from the bed, as he cannot even look at Charlotte who is breathing evenly and is asleep in his bed.
He makes his way to his living room. Bass grabs a lonely bottle of booze from the kitchen counter before he slumps down on his couch. His arms on his knees, staring in the dark and with the bottle in his hand.
Charlie wakes up in a bed that is not her own. Alone. It is dark and cold as she shivers. She sits up slowly. She does not know when it started. It just did. They did not talk about it. In between assignments and jobs her team of Rangers gets from Blanchard she finds herself more and more in Monroe's bed. Or waking up to the scent of his skin when she somehow moved over to find him in her sleep.
She feels she does not have the energy to drag her herself back home or tell him to go home after they shared a bed and hours of skin against skin and his arms pulling her closer as she straddles him. Or maybe she just does not want to. Either way, she does not care. This is hers. She wants this. Here. Now. And that is, for now, enough. He does not ask, she does not ask. It just happened.
She moves the sheets away as she moves her bare feet on the wooden floor of his bedroom as she takes the same path towards the living room Bass took one hour earlier. She finds him in the dark cold living room. Alone. Tension running through him, harsh lines in his face.
He hears her. He feels her in the room with her. Charlotte. She slowly walks to where he sits on the couch.
Shame follows after the cold vivid images of that same nightmare he has to endure for years now and that keeps on going the moment he wakes up. He can shake the sleep away with whiskey but not the nightmare. Never the nightmares. He takes another sip from the bottle as he looks straight ahead.
'Don't.' His voice sounds low and on edge, a hoarse warning in it. The word rolls of his lips as he presses his lips together afterwards. Locking himself up and keeping her out. He can't look at her. He just can't.
Charlie looks at the broken man sitting in front of her. She ignores his warning as she sits down next to him. She looks at his wild curls, his locked jaw, the tension in the muscles of his neck. At eyes that are darkened not only by the absent of light when he has not bothered to make a fire in the fireplace.
He thinks she does not know about the nightmares. She does. She has felt them running through them. Not only here. But out there on the road too. From the very start she spend that first night with him near that fire outside Pottsboro.
He is shutting her out. She knows. She has seen how Miles did the same to her, so many times before. Telling her to get the hell away from him. Getting lost in his own guilt and misery. She has not given up on him. She never will.
And now, she finds herself here in his living room , feeling the same about the man who is now sitting next to her in his own world of misery. She knows he wants to lock her out of the grey that is going on his heart. He can try all he wants to, she simply will not let him. If he thinks he can tell her what to do, he is dead wrong. She does not give him any space to outrun her comfort. Comfort she was not sure she had within her. She finds that part of her has somehow survived.
Bass fingers tremble around the bottle. He feels how her steady hand moves to his left shoulder, as she sits next to him. She does not talk, or ask questions or give fucking meaningless comfort or tell him that everything will be all right. Because some things will never be. They both know.
They just sit, together. Until the fingers around his bottle tremble so hard and even if he wants to stop them, he can't. The tears that are there. Again. One simple hand on his shoulder and her scent so damn close are what are standing now between his demons and him this night as a strong loyal force of protection. Her.
Charlie stays with him, there. Close. She feels how cold he is, she feels how empty she is. She grabs the plaid from the side of the couch. The plaid he got for her two days ago when she was going through some reports late at night and she was cold. She never asked for it, but he still got it for her.
She slowly moves the plaid over his shoulders. And then, without words and one strong movement from his arms he pulls her into his lap. He holds on to her as she holds on to him.
She lets him burry his head against her neck while he pulls her closer to his chest. And Charlie understands they know, they both know this place so very well, filled with loss and their demons and nightmares. They understand. Both of them. Here and together as Bass buries his head in her neck and in her hair and she lets him.
Author's Note: The second half of this chapter was a link to the start of this story, showing that Bass knows about loss too and how he finally lets Charlie see a part of that just like she did in chapter one. I wanted to write about how Charlie understands that not only Miles has that wall around him (something we saw between her and Miles in season one) but Bass has that wall of pain and loss and time moving along too. And as she has never given up on Miles, she realizes, she will not give up on Bass either. Thank you for your very kind words of support I received after last chapter. I am taking my time as I am working on my health and when I have inspiration and energy, I love to keep on writing and to work on my stories! I wanted to thank you all and a special thank you to Lemon and Threemapgies for theor feedback. You are all amazing and kind people! I hope to see you again at the next chapter, Love from Love
