Your Insanity Cost Me

The two men left Clara to go deal with the crisis. Bass ordered the guards to keep the former maid there: he wasn't done with her yet. He then went to see Rachel in another interrogation room.

"You must be pretty pissed to have been caught."

A nasty black bruise was forming on her cheekbone but she looked into Bass's eyes and smirked. No one was getting to her now. Her strength and hate radiated from her smile.

"In the end, I got what I wanted."

"You got your son out, I get it. You will pay for it though. Five guards were killed by your precious rebels."

"They're not my rebels. We made a deal, that's all."

Bass had deliberately kept Miles out of the room by asking him to organize a search party. But he had a feeling his brother would be back any minute now. Rachel mattered too much to him.

"And now you won't be able to threaten to hurt him or kill him anymore. The time when you played with me like a puppet master is over. Those days are gone, Bass!"

"You also kidnapped Charlene Pittman, who was not a prisoner. I don't know how you learned about my relationship with her, but I can only guess that you did it out of sheer hatred."

Rachel stared at him in surprised and frowned.

"Charlene Pittman? Are you fucking playing dumb with me right now?!" she spat.

At that moment Miles walked in.

"We got a search party out. We'll find them."

"Worried about your family, Miles?" Sneered Rachel disgustedly

"Come on, Rach. I cannot let him go! Besides, do you really trust those savages?"

"They are no more savage then the brutes you call the Militia!"

Rachel was almost screaming now.

"And I suppose you're not looking for her? Are you really going to pretend she was not there? I saw her!"

"Saw who? Charlene? Why did you even bother taking her away?"

Both men looked extremely confused.

"Rach, you gave the rebels a real pain in the ass of a girl."

She opened her eyes wide and went back and forth between them. Monroe looked annoyed and Bass' eyes were shooting daggers at Miles.

"Oh my god"

"What?"

"Oh my god! You don't know? This is even worse than what I thought."

She felt tears welling in her eyes and spilling slowly on her cheeks. They had not kept Charlie hidden away from her to use as a trump card. The man she thought she loved didn't even know his own daughter. Charlie was officially his niece but Rachel had always known who had fathered her eldest child. She had chosen it keep it secret to protect her family.

Rachel let out a sound that was halfway between laughter and sobbing. She smiled and a fresh wave of tears soaked her face.

"Rachel" said Bass "what the hell is going on?"

The half-sobbing half-laughing mess in front of him was starting to scare them both. Her grip on sanity seemed to slip with every passing year but they had never seen her like this.

"So I guess she was your girlfriend, Bass. That is disgusting but, oh so funny in a way. At least she wasn't Miles's"

"I'm beyond confused." Interrupted Miles "we just learned she used to be a Militia soldier and now you have her kidnapped along with Danny."

Suddenly her tears stopped and she turned her head to stare right into Miles's soul. If eyes could kill, hers would have melted his brain.

"How the fuck could you not recognize her? How the fuck did this happen?"

"How exactly am I supposed to know her? Oh Hell, I don't get it. I give up!" Miles threw up his hands in frustration.

"She is half you, you fucking idiot! The girl you call Charlene is your seventeen-year-old daughter Charlotte!" screamed Rachel at the top of her lungs.

The world seemed to stop right then. Neither man moved or made a sound, too stunned to even speak for a minute.

"My…my daughter?"

"Charlotte was only Ben's on paper. But I always knew."

"Oh fuck"

"No No No NO" Miles grabbed his own head and agonized over the piece of news. He walked over to Rachel and pulled her on her feet by the collar.

"You told me she had died! "Continued Miles in an enraged tone. He let her go and turned away from her, almost as if the sight of her was too much to take. Rachel took a few steps back to rest her back on the cold, damp wall. Wiping her teary face, she started speaking in a trembling pleading voice. Miles was fully capable of murder.

"I had to give her a chance. I didn't know if she was dead or alive. How could I have known? I have been a prisoner here for years! But if there was even a tiny chance that she was out there somewhere I couldn't send you on her trail. Charlie deserved a shot at living outside four walls."

"But she wasn't even close to free" Lamented Bass in a small voice from the other corner of the room. He was sitting against the wall, his head hanging down.

Bass felt too stunned to say more than that. Everything he had lived with her was a lie. Every moment he had spent with her felt different to him now. Charlotte Matheson was now in every single one of them. The little girl he saw before the Blackout had been right before his eyes. He felt like a blind man; a dirty blind man to be precise. He had fallen in love and slept with a seventeen year old. Despite all the things he had learned about her, he wouldn't know how to react if she were to materialize in front of him.

However, one thing was sure: Rachel's cover up had made no difference. Charlie's life hadn't been one of freedom.

Now she was out: out of Independence Hall, out of Philly. Out of the place she never called home. Away from the threat the body of her child's father represented. Away from the beautiful monster who loved only Miles and her. Away from the Uncle who despised her. She breathed more easily next to her brother, whom she had mothered like he was her own. Listening to his breathing she mused it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

The night rain battered the world outside and she was safe and sound in a rebel hideout, resting on an old cot next to her little brother. She felt happy and sad at the same time. The nostalgia of her lost childhood kept her awake. Teenage Danny looked so grown up for his age. They had recognized her each other instantly. Charlie hadn't told him she was pregnant yet. She had not told him much at all: she didn't want him to treat her differently. She had never told her story to anyone.

The young woman wanted everyone to think her child was the product of happiness. She wished the baby's father was Bass, not matter his shortcomings and flaws. And she wanted to see him again so badly. However, she wanted to face him with a sharp mind and a strong heart; both things she had lost to Davidson's maddening cruelty and heartlessness. It was high time she became herself again.

Rachel had gotten caught while saving her children. She was not very motherly towards Charlie. Maybe she saw too much of herself and Miles in her. Danny had the soft touch of his father. Rachel wanted to redeem herself. She loved her daughter and she regretted acting coldly when she was concerned. It was okay as long as they were together out there. Her mission was complete; even if she now lay in a cold prison cell.

Miles and Bass can rot in Hell, she thought.