Author's Note: Well, here we go. A thousand thanks to Thinktink2, who wouldn't let me forget about this story, and to buttercups3, who has always been either the Monroe to my Miles or the Miles to my Monroe (I'm never sure which) in this fandom. The power went out on this story almost exactly two and a half years ago, but damned if y'all didn't switch it back on. I'll try not to nuke anything now that it's back.

Jump Start

"They've crossed the river, sir."

Major Tom Neville fixes the scout with a steady gaze, feeling the muscle in his cheek twitch in apoplectic fury. "They've what?"

"Crossed, sir. On horseback. After the garrison blew the bridge at Albany crossing."

"Seven people swam across the Raritan River in the dead of night, with - "

"Six, sir. One wounded."

Tom pauses. His voice, moderated before, drops into a register that has the scout flinching back on his horse. "Six?"

"Tracks indicate five horses, joined by a sixth rider shortly after passing the Eberhardt plantation. We found a...a dead mountain lion, and a fair amount of blood."

"No chance any of them were riding double?"

"Not at that speed, sir. Their horses would have fallen behind."

So the wounded one is Matheson, then. Tom can't pinpoint anyone else in that group who could ride that far after sustaining severe blood loss. And Tom has an excellent idea who has joined Matheson's merry little band, but now is not the time or place to contemplate his son's increasingly treasonous tendencies.

Focus. Hone. Direct the rage at the most efficacious target.

Miles Matheson has been a needling irritation in Tom's side for years. Even gone from Philadelphia, the man's lack of presence brought constant frustration, as Monroe sank further and further into unhinged paranoia and started taking potshots at all those closest to him. He could forgive Matheson his ill-thought-out assassination attempt - Tom himself had planned a similar - albeit more effective - gambit to put into motion at the proper time. But the man had laid hands on his wife. Had made a fool of him in front of Monroe, again and again, but now, worse, in front of Julia. That, he will not forgive.

He'll actually be a little disappointed if Miles has managed to drown himself crossing the river. He'd been looking forward to some...quality time, on the ride back to Philly.

The scout has fallen silent. Ah, yes. Waiting for him.

"Thank you, Private Colter. Dismissed." He doesn't miss the way the man's shoulders sag in relief.

He turns in the saddle then, to the stocky Sergeant mounted next to him. Harding is both dependably vicious and fiercely loyal - to his commanding officer first, and the Republic second. It's a quality Tom prizes in all of his men. Ruthlessness, devotion, and a healthy dose of discretion to avoid the magnifying lens of Monroe's paranoia. "Take your men and backtrack to the plantation. You're looking for two members of Matheson's party - likely, at least one of them will be injured." He can see no other reason for Matheson to have left them behind.

Sergeant Harding doesn't ask why, or how he knew, or any other number of inane, time-wasting questions. Instead he nods, says, "Major Neville, sir!" and immediately rides away to rouse his men. The man knows his orders; no need to have them repeated. Professionalism. So hard to come by these days.

The next nearest bridge crossing is less than three miles away. That much closer to everything he and Julia have worked for. He can practically taste it.

And it tastes like blood. Matheson's, and Monroe's.

…

Aaron's brought back to wakefulness by a hand over his mouth, and his first panicked thought is that Monroe has decided to murder him in his sleep after all.

Then Bass's voice - uncomfortably close to his ear - hisses, "Shut up. Patrol." Aaron nods his understanding, groggily hoping that will make Bass stop suffocating him, which it does. He rolls as quietly as he can to his side, grabbing his pack and keeping low as he follows Bass right up to the Jeep. Bass makes a series of hand signals that Aaron interprets as Get the fuck in before I kill you, Stay down, or they'll kill you, and Wait. It's possible he'd added his own interpretive flair to the first two signals, but the third seems pretty clear. Except...Wait...for what?

By the time he turns around to ask, Bass is gone. Aaron gets in, sets his pack on the seat, and lays on the floorboards of the Jeep, clutching the pendant in both hands and wishing that its list of magical powers included invisibility. And then it clicks:

One defenseless geek carting a literal piece of magic jewelry across a hostile land full of enemies who want to use its power to destroy the world.

With a slightly hysterical edge, Aaron thinks that he doesn't know if that makes him Frodo or Sam, but Bass...

...is definitely Gollum.

…

Bass tells himself that the reason he's hiding in wait is that he's not sure if the patrol following them is rebel or Militia. It could be anybody, he reasons - hell, border disputes with Georgia have gotten hot enough recently it could even be a scouting party from their Federation -

- But of course it's not. He recognizes Sergeant Harding by the man's horse, of all things (Miles would be so damn proud; Bass has always told him all horses look the same to him, because they do). But Harding's gelding is an odd shade of muddled dark gray, and almost as stocky as the man himself. It stands out among the bays and chestnuts of the rest of his patrol.

If Harding is here, then Jeremy has Neville out hunting for him. And, given that it's Neville, "hunting" might not actually be far from the truth. Bass has not stayed in power, alone, for all these years without developing a healthy radar for situations that could go very bad, very quickly.

Nevertheless, a judicious application of power at the correct moment…

He steps out in front of Harding's horse, close enough that the animal spooks, spins, and nearly deposits Harding on the ground.

"Sergeant." He laces the title with all the disdain he can muster, a reminder of the man's position and how much lower it is than Bass's.

"President Monroe," Harding announces, slightly louder than necessary, and the quiet, tinkling alarm bells in the back of Bass's head start to sound klaxon-loud. Harding's alerting the rest of his patrol. "Word is you'd been shot in the leg and kidnapped by terrorists," Harding continues, appraising Bass with a look that clearly takes in the fact that he's standing on his own two feet.

"I thought we'd trained our men better than to listen to rumors." He's five feet from Harding's horse. He could take the man down in a step and two strikes, as long as -

Then Harding whips out his sidearm and points it at Bass's chest. "Turns out you actually betrayed your own Republic to the Rebels and got shot in the chest for your trouble. Funny how those stories turn around."

Bass's pulse jumps in his throat. He'd known Neville was a conniving bastard, but he hadn't wanted to be right about this, had almost convinced himself it was just paranoia. After all, Neville was a coward, and Bass wasn't weak. But apparently the man had seen his opportunity in Bass's injury and kidnapping - and damn it, why is it always Miles's fault when things fall to pieces around him?

He spreads his hands, smiling a very dangerous smile. "Now, Harding…"

And, about fifty feet away through the trees, the Jeep's engine roars to life. Harding's horse - who's probably never heard a noise like that in its life - lunges sideways in panic, and Bass takes the man out of the saddle in one leap, following him to the ground and jamming his short sword through the Sergeant's chin into his skull. Two seconds to strip the man's weapons and he's running again, toward the sound of the engine.

The noise of Harding's patrol is getting disturbingly close by the time Bass makes it back to the clearing and the Jeep. Two horses burst out of the woods on his left, but before Bass can turn fully to face them, Pittman thinks fast and flicks on the Jeep's headlights, blinding both horses and riders and throwing the clearing into sharp relief. Both riders throw up a hand over their eyes, and both horses slide to a stop, rearing up a foot or two off the ground. Huh. He wouldn't have given the tech genius that much credit. Not under pressure, anyway. Well, don't look a gift horse in its temporarily-blinded eyes. Bass takes the opportunity to sprint the rest of the way to the Jeep, shoving Pittman out of the driver's seat and navigating them out of the clearing and back to the road at a pace that can only be described as "foolhardy."

So much for a quiet night to plan and scout. Bass floors it toward the nearest bridge crossing, hoping they can get over the Raritan before they run out of gas or one of his own damn Militia puts a bullet in his brain.

Aaron looks at him from the passenger seat, clutching his pack and the pendant close to his stomach. With his other hand, he adjusts his glasses, looks at the road, then back at Bass.

"So, uh…" he starts, then licks his lips and tries to hang on as they rattle over a particularly vicious pothole. "Are we just not going to talk about how a bunch of your own Militia soldiers just tried to kill you? Or am I missing something here? Did you, like, get an American flag tattoo while I wasn't looking? Because last I checked - "

Bass rips the pistol from his belt and points it at Aaron's head without a word. The fat guy gets the message and falls silent.

He flicks on the safety and jams the pistol back into his belt. It would be too easy to hit another pothole and blow Pittman's brains out. He's dragged the guy this far to use as a bargaining chip with Miles and there's no sense in wasting all that effort.

So he shoves back the little voice asking him what the hell he's doing, bears down on the accelerator, and lets the corner of his mouth twist in a vicious smile as the Jeep roars over cracked asphalt hard enough to set his teeth rattling.

Maybe five minutes of silence later, Aaron releases his white-knuckled grip on the roll bar and starts rummaging through his pack. Bass wonders, idly, and without much concern, if the guy has finally snapped and is looking for a weapon to take him out.

Instead, Aaron draws out a pink iPhone, of all things. He spends a couple seconds tapping at the screen…

...and then the tinny sounds of Born to Be Wild begin to play from the iPhone's speakers. Bass gapes at Pittman long enough to almost drive the Jeep off the road, then, slowly, lets an honest-to-God laugh bubble up out of his chest. "Never actually listened to the lyrics before," he says.

Pittman nods, looking straight ahead, now gripping pendant, phone, and pack in one hand and the roll bar in the other. "Seemed appropriate."

The first bridge over the Raritan is blown - dust, concrete, and twisted girders stabbing at the night sky - but the old Highway 1 bridge two miles down from that is still operational, and when they drive up, headlights blazing, engine roaring, tinny little iPhone blaring, the bridge guards actually fall to their knees like they're a fucking visitation from on high.

Like it's a miracle.

Bass shares a glance with Aaron - wary, throat thick with something he can't name - then floors it across the bridge before any of the guards wise up and decide to shoot them. Then they're out and rumbling across the sand and gravel on the far side, and Bass turns the wheel upriver and, for the first time, notices the smell of smoke and the orange cast to the sky. He switches off the headlights, slowing down enough that he can navigate by the glow and by the starlight.

"Forest fire," he mumbles. Aaron taps the iPhone and flicks off the music. For all the good it will do them - you can still hear the engine three miles off. They round the next bend, and there it is - closer and bigger than Bass expected, hot enough to take the chill out of the night air. Perfect. Any Militia soldiers in this area are going to be so distracted fighting that that maybe, just maybe, they actually won't notice the Jeep.

"Do you think they made it across?" Aaron's voice breaks the sudden relative quiet.

"Miles made it."

"But how?" Aaron casts a glance at the rubble of the Albany bridge as they rumble by it. "I mean, couldn't they still be stuck on the other side - "

Bass casts him an Are you kidding me? look and flails a hand at the massive forest fire. "Really, Sherlock? Are we looking at the same fucking signal fire? Of course he fucking made it across." And his voice is quiet, but there must be something in it that warns Aaron to shut up, because he does, staring out ahead of them at the moonlit bank.

Bass sighs, and focuses on driving. If Miles had crossed where Bass would have, they'd have been washed downriver at least a mile, which would have been about where they'd started the fire - smart distraction, that - maximum impact with minimum effort. So then, assuming their course held true, they would have headed upriver back toward old Highway 27 and Edison. It was practically the same route they would have followed after Trenton.

You know, if Miles' hadn't nearly gotten himself killed, and if the campaign hadn't ended in abject failure and all of them fleeing back to Philly with their junk in their hands. If that.

What are you doing, Bass? That's Miles' voice, in his head - and somehow, it's always Miles's voice that questions his motives, makes him doubt himself.

Shut up, he thinks, and keeps his foot on the gas.

...

It's been way too long since Miles said anything, and Charlie's actually starting to get worried that – and then, suddenly, all of his weight drops onto her shoulder and he slips from her grasp into an unconscious pile on the sand.

Yeah, that. That's exactly what she was getting worried about.

"Miles. Miles, c'mon, I can't drag you all the way upriver. We've gotta be almost there – another mile, maybe two -

She drops into the sand, cold grains grinding into her knees, and tries to shove Miles over onto his side. Her shoulder - numb, after several hours of supporting half of Miles' weight - suddenly erupts in sharp pain.

She manages - barely - to get his face out of the sand, checks for a pulse, for breathing. Both, but the heartbeat is too fast and the breathing faint enough to make her own heart rate ratchet up in alarm.

"Miles. Miles!"

He's lost a lot of blood. Maybe too much… The back of his jacket has gone tacky, wounds barely seeping, which should be a good sign, except that several of the wounds are still open, which means he should probably be bleeding more...if he had enough blood left.

They have to get off the beach. Back to the horses. Back to the others and the med kit. And he's going to need blood, but that's three problems down the road and she hasn't solved the first one of how to move him from this spot.

"Dammit, Miles."

She can't drag him - not in his condition, and not over this terrain. His wounds are already so coated in sand and grit, it will be a miracle if they don't get infected. Maybe she can move fast enough on foot alone to get to the others and get Maggie's med kit - assuming they've waited, and that they haven't been pushed off the beach already by Monroe's troops. Assuming those same troops don't find Miles while she's gone.

They need a miracle.

She leans down to check Miles' breathing again, straining to hear -

- but there's something wrong with the ground. There's a slight rumble against her palms, like horse hooves, but the horses would be close enough to hear if - and then there's a buzzing in her ears, a hum she can't identify but that seems so damn familiar...

A memory, sharp and clear and stunning - laughing her head off in the back seat on the way back from the ice cream store, Uncle Miles in the front, belting out a rock song at the top of his lungs to be heard over the roar -

- of an engine.

It's an engine.

Charlie grips the back of Miles' jacket, hauling with all her might - screw sand and grit and infections; they're about to be run over by a Militia patrol that's probably gotten ahold of the same pendant that powered that helicopter - and starts to drag him off the beach, into the cover of the trees -

- Too late.

With an increasing roar followed by a spray of wet sand and gravel, an open-topped vehicle skids to a stop in front of them. She drops Miles, grabs her knife, and takes two running steps toward the car before Aaron's voice calls out, "Charlie! Wait!" She stops as he stumbles out of the vehicle, clutching a pack and a pendant, and she can ask about that later, but right now, Miles needs -

- and then Sebastian Monroe jumps out onto the sand from the driver's side, takes in the sand, the blood, Charlie and her knife and Miles' crumpled form, and mutters, "Miles, you stupid bastard. You'd better not be dead." He brushes past Charlie - on two good legs, she notes, numbly - ignoring the knife, and kneels in the sand next to Miles, listening for breathing, checking for a pulse.

"He's alive," she manages, shoving aside all of her questions but pinning Aaron with a look that says, We will talk about this later. "But he's lost a lot of blood, and - "

Monroe swivels to Aaron. "Whatever you did to me - do it to him." What?

Aaron's mouth opens, floundering. "I don't even know if it will work. Harold - "

Monroe flies to his feet, and suddenly there's a gun pointed at Aaron's head. "He's not Harold. Fucking do it, or so help me, I will splatter your brains all over the sand!"

Aaron drops his pack, and runs for the back of the Jeep like he's on fire.

Charlie moves to help him, but Monroe snaps his fingers. "Charlotte. Med kit, in the back. He needs blood." She runs, rummaging next to Aaron for a second before she finds the kit - and where the hell had they gotten all of this gear? There are things in here she's never seen -

She drops back into the sand next to Monroe and he rifles one-handed through the med kit - keeping two fingers of his other hand on Miles' pulse - and pulls out a length of clear tubing with two needles.

"Pittman!" he snarls, jabbing one of the needles into the vein on his right arm.

Aaron's wavering voice comes from around the back of the Jeep, along with a beep and a strange blue glow. "I'll uh...I'll be a minute. Just - give me one minute to get it booted up."

Monroe holds up the tubing, letting it fill with blood. "He doesn't have a minute, Pittman - "

"I can't make it go any faster!"

Monroe takes his fingers off Miles' pulse and reaches for his arm just as Charlie recovers from her initial surprise and snaps, "Wait! Do you even know your blood type? Or his?"

Monroe gives her a level look, and hands her the needle. "I've given him blood before. After Trenton. But if you'd rather let him die, be my guest." Charlie stares into those blazing blue eyes for a second and then reaches for Miles' arm.

"Left arm," snaps Monroe. "Fucker hates it when his sword-arm's sore."

As Charlie slides the needle home - in Miles' left arm - she asks, "Trenton?" It's the one piece of information in all of this insanity that she can grasp, so she reaches for it, mostly to distract herself while Aaron does...whatever it is that Aaron's doing.

"He got shot in the stomach." Monroe shakes his head, edge of his mouth quirking. "Hell of a gut wound. Can't believe he made it, actually."

There's another beep from behind them, and Aaron comes around the side of the Jeep, holding something blue and blinking between two fingers. "I, uh...I think I've got it."

"Well, hurry it up, Doctor Frankenstein," Monroe snaps. "I've only got so much blood."

"Look," Aaron hesitates, voice shaking. "I can't guarantee that this will - "

"Just fucking do it already!" both Charlie and Monroe yell at the same time.

Aaron takes a deep breath through his nose, kneels next to Miles, puts one hand on his shoulder…

...and jams the blinking capsule into one of the open wounds on Miles's back.

There's a long, strained silence. Charlie bows her head, searching Miles' face in the darkness for any sign of life. Monroe touches his fingers again to the pulse point in Miles' throat. Charlie notes, with some surprise, that his hands are shaking badly.

For a long, long time, nothing happens.

Then Miles jolts.

And starts to scream.