Monroe's lip was bleeding, his left eye was swelling to the size of an apricot and all he could think of was how different his head felt with close cropped hair. Being out of uniform was also an uncomfortable experience. He'd requested a dirty long shelved shirt and pants that would befit a newly captured prisoner. Monroe suspected they'd been acquired courtesy of an actual captive of the Republic. The fabric was definitely authentically pungent.

Two guards roughly dragged him through the holding cells. He threw his weigh to make it more difficult for them. For what little he knew about Charlie she'd be more likely to identify with a fellow fighter, than a victim. One of the guards instinctively punched him in the gut. Monroe didn't have for fake doubling over in pain. In the guard's defense, he had ordered them to treat him as they would any other prisoner. He didn't remember being punched in the stomach hurting this much. He was obviously going soft behind his desk.

The soldiers threw him into a cell and slammed the door. Monroe clutched his gut for a few more seconds before slowly straightening his spine. He turned in a circle slowly, trying to get his bearings. He stopped when his gaze fell on the girl sitting cross-legged in the cell to his left, staring unabashedly at him with unblinking blue eyes.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you about staring?" Lieutenant Neville had lied when he called her pretty. Charlie Matheson wasn't pretty, she was stunningly gorgeous. She had a face that in a different world would have been plastered across the covers of magazines. It wasn't her beauty that made it impossible to look away. It was the fierceness in her eyes he would recognize anywhere. If she'd been in a crowd of a hundred girls Monroe would have still have known she was Rachel's daughter.

"My mother's dead." Her words were matter of fact, not designed to evoke pity. Still Monroe automatically offered the polite response.

"Sorry." How would she react when he finally reunited her with Rachel? Would she cry? Would she smile? Would she yell?

"It was a long time ago. Do I know you?" Charlie's question forcefully pulled the general back into the task at hand. It was imperative for both of them that she did not guess his identity.

"Excuse me?" Charlie had only spent a few days with "Uncle Bass", and thirteen years had passed since then. He doubted the time had etched itself into her memory the way it had in his, yet something about him must have lingered in her mind. He was suddenly incredibly grateful he'd taken precautions with his disguise.

"Something about you looks familiar." Even if she did remember, chances were slim she would connect the man he'd been then with the man he was now. Still, Monroe knew better to rely on luck, when the universe had made it clear he had none.

"I've been told I have one of those faces. At least when it's not cover in bruises." Hopefully his injures would awaken her sympathies and distract her from her suspicions.

"Show me your wrists." Charlie's voice was hard. Clearly his wounds had left her unmoved.

"What?" Although he colored his voice with confusion he had a fairly good idea where this was going. She was looking for the brand. Smart girl. There were only a handful of Militia exempted from receiving the mark and those were the recruits specifically trained for espionage. Monroe, for obvious reasons also had bare wrists.

"It could be that you're one of the soldiers who came to steal my village's food and women. I want to be sure." The women comment caught Monroe by surprise. It was true he sent soldiers to every village to gather a tax owed to the Republic for the work they did protecting the borders from invading nations and enforcing the law, but the Republic didn't traffic in sex slaves. He'd legalized prostitution, but he'd never authorize women being forced into it. If Charlie was telling the truth and she had no reason to lie, someone in his Militia was abusing their authority and Monroe would have his head for it.

"Suspicious little thing aren't you?"

"Let's just say I'd rather not repeat the same mistake twice." She must have been referring to Lieutenant Neville. A part of him was curious about her feelings towards Captain Neville's son. The boy was clearly smitten, but was it one-sided? He had betrayed her and saved her in equal measure. Which act was more significant to Charlie? He doubted he'd ever have answers for any of his questions, but it didn't stop him from wondering.

Monroe rolled down the both sleeves just far enough for Charlie to see his flesh was unscarred.

"Satisfied?"

"Yes. Thanks." Charlie voice was slightly warmer, indicating he'd earned himself at least a little trust.

"You're welcome. Now show me yours." Monroe felt his response would be a reasonable one for the man he was pretending to be. It also afforded him the opportunity to turn the tables on Charlie. Instead of trying to persuade her to trust him, he'd trick her into convincing him to trust her.

"Ummm…actually I have one." Charlie sheepishly raised her arm to show him the damaged skin. Monroe felt odd looking at the symbol of his nation burned into her flesh. This should have been a good development, an excuse to play the skeptic, but he just kept thinking about how she had gotten the brand. An officer of his Republic, had held her down and pressed a poker against her skin, under his orders.

"That's looks pretty fresh. They throwing you into the deep end of the pool in your first week?" He tapped down on his anger. Charlie would be fine and what happened to her happened to thousands of kids just like her every single month. The mark wasn't a punishment, it was a gift, it was an opportunity to be a part of something greater.

"Look, I was on a conscription ship, but I escaped." This part he already knew. Monroe could help, but wonder if it might have been better if she hadn't left.

"Nobody escapes those ships." Charlie was strong; she would have survived her training, probably even thrived. Perhaps if she'd stayed, she'd have eventually understood what the Republic stood for, what he was trying to accomplish.

"Well, I did." Charlie's chin jerked up in defiance. The kid had a lot of spirit, he'd give her that much.

"Lucky me, they threw me in here with Houdini." Charlie's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Who?" There really was no generation gap like the one that existed between those who'd been old enough to remember life pre-Blackout and those that hadn't been.

"Wow, do I feel old right now. Houdini was a professional escape artist."

"A what?" To this day it amazed Monroe how much culture had been lost when the lights went out

"A professional escape artist. It's a type of entertainer. He used to lock himself up in chained trunks and then escape from them. It was his job." Monroe sometimes wondered what had happened to the people who use to be celebrities. Had any of them survived or had they all just crumbled the moment they realized all the power and the money they'd amassed now meant shit. Was Anne Hathaway still wandering around somewhere singing, "I Dreamed a Dream"?

"People paid to watch him do this?"

"Yes."

"People were strange before the Blackout." There was no longer time for all the things people invented to keep themselves from being bored. Survival was a full time occupation.

"Don't kid yourself, they still are, which brings us back to you. You claim you escaped off the conscription ships, and judging by the burns on your wrists, that wasn't more than a week ago. If they caught you again, why are you still alive? It is my understanding the Militia executes deserters on the spot." How much did Charlie no about why she'd been brought here? What had Ben told her? What had Miles told her?

"I don't know." She was lying, he could feel it.

"I don't believe you." She knew something, but the question was, what?

"I don't care what you believe. If you really think is all some kind of a trap, then don't talk to me. Honestly, I could use the peace and quiet." As Charlie paced her cell, occasionally testing the strength of her cell bars Monroe silently chastised himself. He'd made a mistake and pushed too hard. Charlie had known him for only a few minutes. She'd be an idiot to confide him. He needed to focus on building a bond. He needed her to like him. He needed her to trust him.

For once he felt at a loss. He couldn't use the usual tricks he employed on women for obvious reasons. He needed to befriend her and he didn't have much experience with that, even from his Pre-Blackout days. He'd never had women friends. The closest he'd come was Rachel. He smiled thinking back to that Christmas Eve they spent together, before everything had gotten so complicated.

He saw it all again in his mind's eye. Rachel grinning as she tickled him. Arguing about Star Wars and The Princess Bride. It was funny, looking back on it now how their innocent debates had foreshadowed their present predicament. That was it. That was how he could reach Charlie.

"'I always think everything could be a trap, which is why I'm still alive.'" Charlie stopped pulling at the steel and looked at him.

"What?"

"It's a quote from movie, The Princess Bride. It was my favorite."

"I can't believe you can remember some movie after 15 years." Monroe could barely believe it himself. He hadn't even thought of it on over a decade and yet the words were still embedded in the confines of his memory.

"The Princess Bride isn't just 'some movie'. It's The Princess Bride. Whatever situation you find yourself in, you can always link it back to that movie." When you love something enough it becomes a part you. The world may change around you, hell, even you might become something completely different, but that piece will remain, whether you want it to or not. Monroe had learned that lesson only too well.

"Really? What about our situation right now?" Despite herself, Charlie's lips were quirked into a half-smile.

"Easy. 'Don't even think about trying to escape, the chains are far too thick. Have no dream of being rescued either.'" The smile vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Aren't you the optimist." Charlie resumed yanking at the solid metal. Monroe sighed. She wasn't getting though those bars without a blow torch, but apparently it was no use telling her that.

"What about you? Do you remember movies?"

"A few. I used to watch a lot of Disney with my Mom." Monroe's smile was genuine, trying to imagine Rachel siting through films featuring helpless girls being rescued by men.

"Really? Which ones?"

"I think I remember one with a girl fighting with a sword…That was mom's favorite." Of course it would be.

"What was yours?" Most little girls dreamed of being princesses. Which had Charlie liked the best? Cinderella? Snow White? Sleeping Beauty?

"It was about a guy raised by gorillas. Later he meets a girl named Jane…" Monroe searched the recesses of his memory for clues.

"Tarzan."

"Yeah. There was this really great song that the mother gorilla sings to Tarzan. It's about how she'll always love and take care of him. Mom would sing to me and my brother when we were sad or sick." Rachel had sung to Charlie? Monroe knew mothers did that, but he'd never connected it with Rachel. As a mother it was easier for him to see her as the fierce protector, not the soft nurturer.

"How does it go? I don't remember many songs from before the Blackout."

"I don't remember the words anymore." Charlie's face had closed down again. Was she thinking of her mother? Of her brother? Of something else entirely?

"Too bad."

"What do you remember most about your mother?" Charlie's question caught him completely off guard.

"My mother? I don't actually remember anything about her. I was orphaned when I was two and in foster care after that." Monroe decided there was no harm in using his own history as far as he was able. It would be easy than keeping track of lies.

"Foster care? What's that?"

"It's something the government used to do to kids without parents. They find them temporary homes for them to stay in." 'Homes' might have been a generous term, given some of the places he'd stayed.

"Too bad we don't have anything like that now. I know a bunch of kids who could really someone to look after them." Monroe wondered who she could have been talking about. As he understood it, village took care of the children communally, even if something happen to a particular child's parents.

"What do you mean?"

"On my way here, I came across this group of kids, orphans, living wild with no adults. It turns out their parents were rebels and one day the Militia came. They hid the kids under the floorboards. When they finally came out their parents were lying there, slaughtered. It's how I ended up with my brand. The Militia took the oldest boy to be brainwashed into becoming a soldier. I decided to try and help. I tricked them into grabbing me." Monroe wasn't sure which piece of information to process first.

"You got yourself recruited on purpose?" Charlie's selflessness and nerve seemed to be the simplest thing to deal with.

"It was the easiest way to get inside." She shrugged, like it was no big deal that she had volunteered to risk her freedom for a group of strangers.

"That was brave of you." Stupid, but brave.

"Don't be too impressed. I wasn't able to break the boy out on my own. I got caught, which is how I ended up with the Militia mark."

"If you got caught, then how did you escape?" This part of the story he was somewhat familiar with, but he wanted to see how much she would tell him.

"My uncle rescued me." Uncle. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"Any chance he'll turn up around here anytime soon?" Charlie's eyes narrowed at him, then swept up and down the hall of the jail. Monroe raised a hand in apology, "Sorry, question withdrawn. New topic: Cookies."

"Cookies?" Charlie echoed in disbelief.

"Cookies. You asked me before about my mother, and I said she died when I was two, which is true, but there was someone who was like a mother to me. She was the mother of my best friend and she made the best cookies in the world. Whenever I came over to stay the night she'd make a fresh batch of jelly cookies cookies. They were my favorite." Offering up something of himself seemed like the easiest method of maintaining her trust, but it wasn't without cost. Marie's baking had always been like flaky pieces of heaven to him and Marie had been an angel. What would she say to him, if she appeared before him now?

"Mine too." Charlie's words pulled Monroe out of his dark thoughts.

"Really?"

"Yeah. My mom made jelly cookies with orange zest and raspberry in the middle." Charlie was describing Marie's cookies. Ben must have saved the recipe and given it to Rachel. He and Charlie had something in common. Monroe had the simultaneous impulses to both laugh and cry.

"I wish I had one of those cookies right now. What about you? What do you wish for?" If Monroe could figure out what Charlie wanted then perhaps he could negotiate for whatever secrets she held. For a full minute Charlie didn't answer him. When she did speak she sounded weary, far more than someone of her years should.

"I used to wish for adventure. I used to wish I could leave my village and go on a journey. I wished I could meet new people, see all the things I'd only seen in postcards." It seemed like an innocent and natural enough wish for someone Charlie's age. It was the time for stupid crazy adventures. Monroe had been two years under than Charlie when he'd joined the Marines.

"And then what happened?" Though he asked the question, he knew the answer. He had happened.

"I got what I wanted." Charlie turned away from him, clearly done talking for the moment. It was just as well, because Monroe couldn't think of another word to say.

Please Review! Questions and comments are what keep me going! Well that and my deep and abiding love for Bass…