4.
When Bass walks into the darkness of the Texan night, Charlie knows she won't walk inside her home alone tonight.
'Aaron gave me a bottle of whiskey. Interested?' She surprises herself with her question.
They both know this isn't about a bottle of whiskey. Her voice in the heavy silence of the night fills his chest with all the things he tried to push away.
Charlie waits. An unexpected wave of uncertainty flows through her body when Bass doesn't turn around. She can see the tension in his jaws. When his eyes connect with hers and the pale light of the moon above them reveals the burn in his eyes, her next breath is filled with everything she finds in his eyes.
He doesn't stay a word. Bass knows he should go home. He knows he shouldn't be here, accepting whatever it is that she is offering. He knows he is being fucking stupid. But he can't stop what's happening inside of him when she is standing on her porch in the middle of the night and her eyes connect with his. All he can see now, is her, standing there with her strength while the moonlight brushes her face. Without looking away from her he just nods. He starts walking back to her.
He follows her inside her home. They don't talk. She doesn't look at him while she closes the door behind them. Bass knows he is staring at her like some damn moron. Fuck. He swallows. He stares at her wooden floor before he is able to look at her again.
Charlie takes off her leather jacket. Her living room is suddenly filled with him. Charlie can feel it swirl inside of her but she decides to ignore it because thinking about why she feels the way she feels is too much to think about with Bass so close. She walks into her kitchen to get two glasses and a bottle of something they both need now. Bass starts a fire without even asking her.
When she is in the kitchen, Bass looks around. The light of the fire in the fireplace adds nightly light to her small living room and the couch on the other side of the fireplace. A round wooden kitchen table is standing close to the kitchen. A small hallway leads to her bedroom. Her crossbow is leaning against the wall close to the door. This is the first time he is here. Hell, this is the first time he is alone with her since they walked from Vegas to Texas.
It feels like a lifetime ago when he used to fall asleep with her sitting close to him after she had decided she would take him back to Miles and she had stopped trying to kill him. It feels like a lifetime ago when she fell asleep, curled up next to their fire, and him, surrounded by the shadows of the trees and the night around them.
When Charlie walks back into the room with two glasses and a bottle of whiskey in her hand, he follows her with his eyes. She sits down on her couch. He joins her and tries to make sure there is space between her and him. She offers him a glass of whiskey. His fingers crave to feel the cool glass. He lets the whiskey burn in the back of his throat. They watch the flames of the fire in the fireplace. They drink in silence.
Charlie can see the hesitation and tension in the way he holds his glass. She remembers the picture that has been hidden in an almost forgotten box in an attic, even without holding in her hands. She wants to know what the story is behind those honest smiles and the happiness locked inside the picture. She takes a deep breath before she slowly breathes out.
'Tell me about them… ' Her voice is soft and strong at the same time. She looks at him and all the emotions that fill his eyes. They are so strong that she can almost feel them herself.
Bass' chest fills with heavy emotions that start a wave of pain and slow deep panic deep inside of him. It's the first time someone asks since Miles left everything they had built together in Philly. He can't remember the last time he has talked about the people he carries with him like the scar on his arm that hides the symbol for how much his family means to him.
But then something else happens. Her courage to ask him the question that still fills the whole damn room with the respect that is hidden in her words, adds a new kind of warmth to old pain.
For one moment Charlie regrets asking what she just asked him. The blue in his eyes feels darker. His wide shoulders are filled with steel tension. His eyes fill with haunted pain. But then she notices that something more is happening in his eyes. She waits. And then Bass starts talking.
'My mom loved it when the house was filled with people.' His voice is low, his breathing inside his chest feels heavy when he mentions the woman that raised and loved him with her strength and love. His heart feels full and heavy at the same time while he talks about his father who taught him so much about life and family.
Charlie just listens. The nightly sounds outside her home barely reach them. The town outside is quiet. All that she hears and all that matters is his low voice and a piece of his life and memories he is willing to share with her.
Bass doesn't know how it happens, but he tells her about the night the picture she gave to him was taken. He tells her about his father and his mother and the home they build for him. He tells her about his father and the way he had always been there. He tells her about Angela and Cynthia. He tells them about his two sisters and how he almost killed the first guy that broke Angela's heart. He can feel her smile next to him when he shares that memory. He tells her about Jasper, his home and the strength of his family. He doesn't know why, but she keeps listening to him while the worst of the pain subsides and he is able to reach real memories that are filled with light in the middle of dark memories.
When he finally has the balls to look at her and his eyes search for hers, there is only her strength and empathy waiting for him. There is no loathing. There is no hate.
'Did Miles spend a lot of time with your family?'
Bass nods before he puts his glass of whiskey to his mouth. He needs the slow burn of the whiskey that fills his chest. 'He did. His dad.. after all the things he saw in the war.. it changed the man he was.'
When Bass talks, she listens. She realizes how much she needs the answers he is giving to her. She never heard these things about Miles. She knows Miles can't and doesn't talk about certain things. Miles never mentions his own father. She knows his home wasn't the home Bass had when they grew up together in Jasper.
She takes a sip from her drink. Bass starts to talk about the home Miles grew up in. He tells her about Miles' father, her grandfather, and how much demons he was facing too.
'It changed him. It changed Miles.' Bass is unable to hide his pain for his brother from her. He remembers how much Miles struggled with his father. He remembers how much hidden pain he could always see inside of Miles.
It hurts, having to listen to what Miles' life was like when he was so young. But it also makes her understand more about the man that returned to her life years after the blackout. Her thoughts flow to Jasper. They flow to Miles. They flow to her father and how they grew up, together with Bass in a small town when the world had been so different. And for one second, her heart hurts with the wish to be a part of that life, if the world had not changed the way it did.
Bass takes the bottle which is standing in front of them on the small table in front of the couch. Without asking her, he fills her glass before he fills his own. He knows he is drinking too much. She knows it too. But she lets him.
'Tell me about him..' Her voice is more fragile now.
Bass can sense her grief in just four fucking words and it is almost too damn much. This time, he knows she is not talking about Miles. She is talking about Ben.
He has called her a Mini Miles. But the truth is, she is also so much like Ben. He can see his warmth inside of her. He can see Ben inside her kindness and the way she is willing to really look at people and the way she refuses to walk away from someone in trouble, no matter how fucked up that trouble is. She hasn't walked away from Miles. She hasn't walked away from you. And she is here. With you. Sharing a bottle of whiskey, hours after midnight.
Somehow, after every single that happened and every single fucking thing he has done, she is still here. The moment that thought fills his head, he is fucking grateful for the glass of whiskey in his hand.
'You are a lot like Miles…but you are a hell of a lot like Ben too, kid.' His voice is hoarse and low and he is barely looking at her. But Charlie is able to hear the honest warmth in his voice. And finally there is someone there, sitting next to her, who lived a part of his life with the man that raised her and who is willing to talk about him and remember him and give her a piece of him she can't remember.
She takes a deep breath while his words linger between them. 'Thank you…' Her voice breaks the silence.
'For what?' His voice sounds rougher than he wants to. When he finally has the balls to look up again, her eyes filled with gratitude and a world of emotions meet his.
'For not being afraid to mention him. For telling me about him..'
He just looks at her. She gives him the smallest of nods before he has to look away. He can't talk. Her words are more than he can take. He just hopes she doesn't notice what her words to do him. She doesn't ask any more questions. She makes him feel he doesn't have to talk either. They just let the memories of the people they both carry with them, no matter where they go and where life takes them, be there with them in her living room, together with the warmth of whiskey and the quietness of the town outside her house. The hours slowly move towards dawn. But dawn is still far away. They share a bottle of whiskey. They watch the fire together.
Charlie stares into the flames of the fire. They have done this before. It's like being back on the road with him when it was just her and him and they had shared the hours between sunset and sunrise. She can almost feel the cool night air that had flowed around them. It makes her thinks about the weeks on the road she had shared with him. Life had been different. Everything had been different. She surprises herself when she thinks about how natural it feels to have his shoulders close to her again.
When she looks at Bass again, his eyes are closed. He is still holding his glass of whiskey in one hand. His breathing has changed. Charlie can't stop the subtle smile that appears on her face. Sebastian Monroe fell asleep on her couch. The light of the fireplace plays with his deep blonde curls and the way they brush his neck. She follows the strong lines of his neck that flow to wide shoulders.
She slowly gets up from her couch. She puts his glass on his table before she walks to her bedroom. She grabs her deep grey blanket from her bed. When she walks back to the couch, he is still asleep. She slowly moves the heavy but soft blanket around his wide shoulders. She waits. He mumbles something in his sleep but he doesn't wake up. She curls up on the couch next to him, ready to share another night and the hours between sunset and sunrise with him again, while she watches the fire and listens to his breathing next to her.
Author's Note: I love connecting the past and the present in this chapter. Not only with Bass' and Charlie's memories from their time on the road when they walked from New Vegas to Texas together and this night they share in her living room but also with Bass' memories about Jasper. I loved writing the conclusion of this chapter, because it is them together again, just like those weeks on the road at the start of season two but then in a new way when so much is different ( in their lives and between them). I love including Ben, because he must have been a part of Bass' life in Jasper as well because he was so close to Miles. They barely mention him in season two and I wanted to create room in this story to let Charlie remember him and to write more of Ben's story here. I love exploring how that home and their lives in Jasper could have been like before the blackout. It gives Charlie a new perspective on her family and the way she sees Bass. Thank you so much for your reviews and follows, they mean so much to me! Love from Love