Connor was still fast asleep when Charlie woke up late the next morning. He was lying flat on his stomach with his head facing away from her and towards the window, yet the sunlight shining in on his face did not seem to bother him at all.

She pressed her lips against his shoulder to see if it would wake him up.

"Connor."

Nothing.

She slid over to his side of the bed, placing one leg on either side of him, over top of the covers, then kissed him on the cheek.

"Connor."

"What?" He murmured.

"You sleep too much," she told him.

"Sorry," he commented as a small smile tugged at his lips and his eyes fluttered open. "Is that why you're always running off before I wake up?"

"Well, now that I'm not getting paid, it's just not worth waiting around for you to wake up," she teased as she slid off of him, back onto her own side of the bed.

"You barely waited when you were getting paid," he pointed out as he rolled onto his back. "And sorry to break it to you, but I'm poor again."

He grinned up at her as she sat cross-legged beside him.

"Hard to believe I ran away with you then," she joked, then reached out to smooth a curl away from one of his eyes.

When she went to pull her arm back, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips, then let their intertwined hands fall onto his bare chest.

"I knew you liked me for more than just the money," Connor told her in a triumphant tone.

"I like this a lot better than getting paid to be with you," she pointed out.

"You're a lot nicer when you aren't getting paid," he responded with a laugh.

"What? I wasn't nice enough before?" She taunted.

"You were some of the time," he told her. "But sometimes you really couldn't take a compliment."

"And I can now?" She challenged.

"I don't know. I guess we'd better test that theory out," he replied with a smirk.

There was a long pause as he stared up into her eyes before he spoke again in a much more serious tone.

"You really are gorgeous, you know. And you're scarily good with a bow."

"Does that mean you're afraid of me?" She challenged.

"No, I don't think you're planning on killing me anytime soon," he responded. "Besides, if you weren't so good with that bow and setting traps, we might have starved on the way here."

"It really is impressive that you managed to travel without me before this," she agreed.

"You're pretty good for conversation too, especially for someone who used to try so hard to avoid it," he pointed out. "That's right. I know you were just distracting me with sex a lot of the time. Or most of it. Maybe even all the time."

She let out a laugh at that, then challenged, "So then why did you go along with it?"

"Because I liked your methods," he pointed out with a grin. "And that's what you were there for, right? Well, that and gathering information. You picked an interesting strategy there, trying to get information out of me without letting me talk."

"I let you talk," she insisted. "I just tried to avoid conversations where I'd slip up and feel too guilty and end up getting mad at you."

"You know, I said some nice things about you just now and you didn't even storm off," he pointed out in an amused tone. "You must take compliments better now. I mean, you didn't go above and beyond and shower me with compliments in return. But, overall, not bad. How many of those compliments did you really mean back in Philly, anyways?"

She stopped to think about it for a moment, then confessed, "Most of them were just to distract you and keep you happy."

"So, you really could resist my body that first night?" He asked with a hurt facial expression she could tell he was faking.

"I'm pretty sure I could have," she told him in a sympathetic tone. "But I did think you were cute, which was pretty good considering at that point you were just Monroe's son to me."

"I'll take it," he said with a grin. "What else did you really think of me?"

"I thought you were kind of a dick when you were just going to take off and leave me there all day after you ripped that dress in half that first night," she admitted with a laugh.

"Sorry," he told her. "But at least I got you another one, right?"

"Only after I brought it up multiple times," she countered. "And then you acted like I had already left the second that you paid me."

"Because you wanted to leave so badly and I still wanted you to come back," he pointed out.

"Really?" Charlie questioned as she narrowed her eyes at him. "You weren't just ignoring me because you were done with me?"

"I'll never be done with you, Charlie," he assured her. "What else did you think?"

"I thought you were surprisingly good in bed," she told him.

"Surprisingly?" He repeated.

"You were paying me to be there," she pointed out. "I wasn't expecting you to be all that concerned about my experience. And I was disgusted by how sweet you were when you let me sleep instead of waking me up and then still paid me."

"Yeah, I was really nice to you and you were really awful after that," he teased her.

"You know, once I got past the guilt, I actually started liking being your fake girlfriend," she confessed.

"What about now?" He asked her. "How do you like being my real girlfriend?"

"It's much better," she assured him, then bent down to kiss him.

"So, how did you two end up together if Miles is your uncle?" Emma asked Charlie during dinner that night. "Miles isn't back in the militia. Is he?"

"No. He's still on his high horse with the rebels," Connor answered for her.

Charlie shot a glare in his direction. Was that really what he thought about the rebels, even after everything he had found out? Was that what he thought about her for being a rebel?

"He's still pretending like he's so much better than the militia just because he took off and started going after the same people he trained," Connor continued, sounding distinctly bitter. "But, apparently, killing and violently interrogating people is fine when he does it."

"He didn't want to interrogate you," Charlie argued.

"He sure didn't seem sorry to me," Connor countered. "He was perfectly happy to do whatever it took to get any answers he could before killing me. And don't try to pretend like he wasn't going to kill me, whether I gave him information or not."

"He didn't want to kill you," she insisted. "There weren't many options once you got captured and saw the way back to the base."

Connor's voice dropped significantly in volume as he questioned, "You agreed with him?"

His tear brimmed eyes were making it hard for Charlie to hold onto her anger as guilt welled up in its place.

"No," she told him. "I begged him not to."

"But he was still going to kill me. Wasn't he?" He challenged.

"He let you go. Didn't he?" She argued.

"Only because you left and got yourself captured too," he countered.

"Hold on," Emma said loudly and Charlie quickly turned in her direction as she suddenly remembered that Emma was there and had not known about any of this beforehand. Emma's eyes were focused on her son as she demanded, "You got captured by rebels? Why didn't you tell me? And what the hell were you doing when they found you?" She turned to Charlie then. "And what? You're a rebel? Were you involved in capturing him?"

"She's a rebel, but she had nothing to do with it," Connor defended her. "I was looking for the rebel base with some men and different rebels grabbed me without her knowing."

"What were you doing out on a mission?" Emma questioned.

"What?"

Connor looked taken completely off-guard by the question.

"Of course, he didn't keep his word," Emma complained as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I never should have trusted him to keep you safe. I should have known he'd break his word."

"What are you talking about?" Connor asked. His voice came out much sterner this time.

"When you went to Philadelphia, your father promised me that he wouldn't let you do anything dangerous," Emma responded. "He was supposed to keep you safe. He promised me he wouldn't let you go on any missions."

Connor looked like he had been slapped across the face.

"He didn't let me do anything," he pointed out in an annoyed tone. "I had to force him to give me something to do. Do you know how many fights I've had with him because he wouldn't trust me to do anything? I'm not a little kid. You can't keep making him baby me for you."

"Connor-" Emma tried, but he clearly wasn't listening.

"I'm not hungry anymore," he grumbled, then got up from the table and walked out the door.

"Do you want me to go talk to him?" Charlie offered.

"No," Emma responded. "The best thing when he gets like this is to give him a little space to cool off first."

Charlie was already in bed by the time that Connor came back hours later. He thought she was asleep as he quietly got into the bed, lying facing away from her, but he quickly found out otherwise when she spoke up quietly.

"Are you mad at me too?"

"What?" When she didn't respond, he added, "For what?"

"For defending Miles," she said. "And for hearing that stuff."

She wasn't wrong that he wasn't thrilled she had witnessed that conversation. She hated his dad. In her mind, Sebastian Monroe wasn't even human. He was afraid of what she thought about the fact that he actually gave a damn about his father enough to be mad at his mom for forcing Monroe into a promise that had caused endless fights between them.

She was right that Connor was still mad about Miles too. He still didn't like him, but that was because Miles was a dick, not because of anything Charlie had done. She wasn't the one who had wanted him dead.

Charlie snaked her arm around his waist and he felt her chest pressed against his back.

"No, I'm not mad at you," he decided.

"What about your mom?" She asked. There was a long pause before she quietly added, "She just wants to keep you safe."

"I know."

He also knew that he couldn't stay mad at his mom for long. Not really. It had been him and her against the world for most of his life. She was overprotective, but even that was in large part Monroe's fault. He knew she'd spent years worrying on her own about what would happen if people found out whose son he was, even before she had told him about Monroe. If his father was someone else, his mom would never have had to worry so much about him.

"Good morning," Connor greeted when he entered the kitchen the next day.

"Was that directed at both of us, or just Charlie?" Emma asked.

He considered for a moment, then responded, "Both."

"Does that mean you aren't mad at me anymore?"

"What's the point?" Connor questioned. "It's not like not being allowed to do much is the only problem I have with him. We would have fought about other stuff either way."

Sure, Connor was annoyed that Monroe never let him go on missions, but he also never told Connor anything important. Plus, he was too busy obsessing over how to get the power back on and Miles back in the militia to even notice Connor was there half of the time. He was as oblivious to Connor's presence as he was to the fact that he was turning him and Connor into a giant joke.

"What other stuff?" Emma asked with concern written all over her face.

Charlie looked curious too, which only made Connor want to avoid the question even more.

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

"Not that I'm not happy you're here," Emma told him. "But, obviously, it's something when you showed up here unplanned with no idea how long you're staying. What happened?"

"Charlie got captured," he told her again. "By him. I was already sick enough of him anyways, so I helped her escape and now we're here. End of story."

"Already sick enough of him why?" Emma pressed.

Connor glanced out the kitchen window, pretending he hadn't heard the question.

"Connor," his mother tried. "Tell me."

"Fine," he said in an exasperated tone. "He's lost it. He's completely delusional and paranoid beyond belief and I'm sick of pretending like he isn't. He barely even notices that I'm there and when he does, it's just to tell me what I shouldn't be doing because he clearly doesn't want me around anyways."

Connor had no doubt that his father would trade him for Miles Matheson in a heartbeat. Hell, Miles could have gone through with killing him and Monroe still would have taken him back.

"Well, screw him then," Emma responded. "We got along just fine without him. Right?"

Connor smiled, mostly for his mother's benefit. "Right."

They had been fine without Monroe, but that didn't take the sting out of the situation. When Connor had first gone to Philadelphia, he had been taken aback by how enthusiastic Monroe had been about having a son. He'd promised Connor everything and had wanted Connor involved in every aspect of his life. Then he had gotten to know Connor better, and that was when Monroe had tossed Connor aside to fend for himself and hopefully not get into any more trouble that would inconvenience him.

Connor looked over at Charlie, but her expression was unreadable. She was staring back at him though. He was afraid she was going to have an easier time reading his face, so he looked away again.

A/N: Please read and review! Another giant thanks goes out to TheLateNightWriter93 for being awesome and leaving a review on last chapter that helped motivate me to keep going! :)