Uhm, yeah...can we just pretend that Emma didn't happen? That'd be great.

Rachel's coming into the picture in the next chapter and at this point we're like two or three episodes into the show.

Hope you enjoy and leave a review if you feel inclined to :)

Hours before the Assassination

"Gen, he's crazy," Miles grit his teeth, trying to keep his voice down as he was speaking to his sister in a secluded corner.

"He's your best friend," She spit back, disgusted.

"He's also a raging psychopath! Now, you can either come with me or you can stay here." Miles roughly threw her an option.

"I'm staying." She declared with shaky confidence.

Gen hadn't forgotten the day her older brother sat beside her on the floor of her room, put her hand on his stubble face and promised that he would never leave her. He promised that he would never...

"Okay," He nodded resolutely, not even attempting to convince her to change her mind. "Goodbye Gen." He kissed her forehead briefly before briskly disappearing down the corridor.

That was the last time Gen spoke to him.

15 Years After the Blackout

The sun was shining through the window when she awoke.

She hated it.

Gen threw the comforter over her face in an attempt to block the huge ball of fire's bright rays. Of all the morning's in Philadelphia. It couldn't be raining, or gloomy, or snowing, No, it had to be bright and shiny.

The world hated her.

Sebastian Monroe hated her.

The murders and the tests didn't stop with Plummely. Oh, no! His paranoia kept turning against more and more people which meant that more of Gen's fictional boyfriend's were shot up.

She could feel the warmth of the bright day on her face as he lifted the comforter. "Uhngg..." She grumbled, "What are you doing…!" She reached for the blanket blindly and he sniggered at her futile attempt. Not getting what she wanted, she flopped her arms down at her sides and grudgingly opened her eyelids.

"Just making sure you were still among the living," Bass quipped. His grin was making her sick. She heard the bed creak as it accommodated his weight as he sat down.

"Unfortunately," She grumbled.

"I'm disappointed though, Gen...I hoped that you wallowed in pure hatred for me naked," Sebastian grinned, tugging at damp towel she had wrapped around her body after her bath the night before. "But this is close enough."

Gen didn't respond, didn't make a comment or a sound. She just sank into the warm, clean pillow, shutting her eyes and trying to imagine her home in South Carolina.

It seemed so far away from Pennsylvania.

"It was just another test," He urged, trying to loosen her taunt muscles by massaging her back with calm circles.

"Imagine," Gen sighed disconsolately. "all this testing and me without my number two pencil."

"Don't be like that," Sebastian leaned over and mumbled, running his lips over her silky smooth shoulders, mixing kisses in with bites. "Nine years and I still love you. Why do I love you, Gen?" His breath was at her ear, then tenderly nipping her throat, folding over her until she felt like she had disappeared entirely.

Gen clutched the knot that held the towel around her and shrunk further into the sheets, biting her lips so no sound would escape to fuel him onward.

"Bass," She made her voice sweet, like liquid candy running over her tongue. She didn't bother with eye contact, couldn't look at his face without seeing the flame.

He reassessed his position on the bed, unbuttoning his jacket and pressing himself against her...almost sane and normal.

"How do you do that?" She lay there with bated breath, trying not to explode in self-loathing. "How do you touch me like that?"

"Skillful fingers, sweetheart," Bass replied, holding his hand out in front of them, relaxing when he felt the droplets of water from her hair soak through his shirt.

"I want to go home." She whispered, shivering when the first of the morning breeze sneaked in through the cracked window pane.

"There's nothing left in Indiana."

"I hate it here," Gen hesitantly admitted, bracing herself for his reaction.

Sebastian was silent-not in any sort of anger or frustration. This was the girl who had had a trust fund hidden safely in the dark. There was nothing he loved better than watching. He wanted her spread out and flushed with tiny red flickers wherever his lips touched - her hazel eyes glimmering. His mouth would chart the pale blue veins and looping whorls up her abdomen, all loose-limbed and swollen underneath him by the time his lips reached hers. He loved the way she would split apart into little pieces - split apart into tiny moans that were glued back together with a 'holy fuck' and the hot rush surging through the both of them.

Now all he could do was throw one arm over her possessively, enraged at her lack of cooperation. With one swift movement, Bass had her hands pinned above her head at the wrist, looking down at the way her black hair fanned around her head, contrasting with the white pillow. He tilted his head to the side, owlishly blinking at her unwilling stillness. His grip on her relaxed eventually; he looked deep in her eyes and he saw nothing. There was no love, no sense of understanding or care. There was only a reflection of his emotionless eyes in her returning gaze.

So he sat up, rolled off of her, and stood on his own two feet, his toes curling in his boots with a flushing feeling of total abandonment.

Gen sat up slowly, carefully contemplating the words that she had uttered so many times with gentle urging. "Tell me what's wrong," She held her arms out now, expecting him to climb back in for her withheld comfort.

Bass buttoned up his jacket, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows by habit. He put one knee on the mattress, and leaned in to stop inches away from her face. "People talk, Gen," The sultry rasp that laced his strained voice with raw pain and suppressed denial was more than evident at such close contact.

"Everybody talks," was her bemused response, all of her concentration focused wholly on his lips which seemed so close, yet so far, moving with each word in a untouchable caress that she just wanted to reach out and feel.

"They talk about me. But more importantly, they have a lot to say about you," He grabbed the bed post to steady himself as he leaned closer and closer into her. "All of them...standing in their corners with their hands over their mouths, whispering like old women."

His eyes scanned her face, her body, her stare. A part of him desperately wanted to find the sinkhole she was drowning in. He wanted to be everything to her. He didn't want her to be able to survive without him. He studied the slightest movement of her muscles, putting two and two together-he wanted to find the clear-cut conclusion that she was unfaithful.

But hadn't he been?

He didn't spare any of his own mistresses in place of Gen. But it wouldn't be right of her to set aside her love for him by sleeping with one of his officers-or anyone for that matter.

Bass reached into his back pocket and pulled out a switchblade, with a flick of his wrist the blade opened and he released the bedpost to straddle himself over her. Gen's line of sight shifted between the knife and General Monroe. Sebastian sensed fear in her. He sensed silent opposition but that wasn't enough for him to back down. He pushed her in the bedsheets so she lay flat on her back, and shifted his position over her so he could tear off the heavy towel.

A smile played at the corner of his lips when he saw her chest bared and heaving in dreaded anticipation when he leaned over with the knife.

"I don't want to do this to you, Gen," The fingers of his free hand ran over her breasts, fingertips grazing over her nipples as if he was holding himself back from ravaging her then and there. He bent over, poising the tip of the blade against her flesh above her heart. "You." The steel broke through the skin, drawing crimson beads of blood in its wake.

He carved into her body, slicing the jagged letter 'M' through the blood pool which was pouring out of the previous cuts and slithered down her side to stain the sheets.

"Are."

Unable to hold back the pain, Gen opened her mouth and screamed; not daring to squirm and struggle but tilted her head up and screamed into the ceiling.

"Mine!" Sebastian snarled, connecting the starting point of the letter around in a partially completed circle to meet the ending point so it matched the insignia of the Monroe Republic. He dropped the stained knife on the pillow and reached back for the bottle of whiskey that sat half-full on the bedside table. He smashed the neck of the bottle on the edge of the headboard, resulting in sharp fragments of glass to fall like glistening diamonds on the pillows.

Gen's breathing was ragged and erratic and her screams went several octaves higher when he upended the entire bottle on her. Blood and liquor mixed together quickly, the sticky substance covering Gen's chest, neck and arms. When that first tear spilled out of her eyes, Sebastian Monroe parted a grin, bringing his head down to kiss and suck and lick at the blood and the whiskey on her quivering body.

"Holy fuck," She moaned, clapping her hand against her forehead and digging her nails into her own scalp. "Holy fuck."

Sebastian raised his head, blood dripping off his chin and the tip of his nose and smudged across his cheek, and let out an ominous, baritone chuckle. "There's nothing holy about what I'm going to do to you, sweetheart."

M, Gen thought. M for Monroe, for Matheson, for Masochism, for Murder, for Merciless...for proof that she was his. Mine, she could hear his voice repeat over and over and over again in her head. You. Are. Mine.

"Bass, stop," She tried pushing him away when he savagely bit the soft area of her throat but he came on more determined. "Stop!" She screamed, losing the mattress and landing hard against the floor.

Sebastian squatted beside her soon after, reaching his hand out to see if she was okay but Gen smacked it away.

"You don't want me to be with you, you don't want me to be with someone else. How miserable do I have to be until you're happy?" She sobbed, huddling in the corner against the wall, bringing her knees up toward her chest.

Sebastian dragged the back of his wrist across his face, a low growl vibrating from his throat.

"You just carved into me like a thanksgiving turkey, Bass!" Gen scrambled to her feet, hurriedly stepping into her panties and wincing when she forced her arm to clasp the hook on her bra. "You're not the man you used to be! I've accepted that because that man is dead. But for the love of God, stop torturing me to prove that you have the upper hand. I know that you do! Just treat me like a human being. Why are you doing this to me?"

"I don't want to lose you too." He quietly justified.

Gen blanched in disbelief. All those years of twisted mind games and harsh love-making was a sure fire way to run her out. But he thought he could take her to the brink of death and demand that she stay with him in return?

What dreams men have!

Gen decided to play one last card. One last goodbye to seal her fate forever.

"I...am broken, Bass." Tears rained down her face. "I've shattered so many times I can't put myself back together anymore."

"What do you want me to do, Gen?" He stood and demanded angrily, arms outstretched.

"Treat me like a lady but fuck me like a dirty whore, Sebastian Monroe."

Bass stripped her of her limited clothes before fumbling with his own. He hauled her up in his arms and laid her on the bed of blood, booze, and glass.

He pulled at her hair, dug his fingertips into her flushed skin with hot, desperate pressure-he kissed harder, bit deeper, thrust faster...never giving up on her until even he couldn't go on any longer.

And when Sebastian had pulled on his clothes and left her side, Gen cried into the sheets. She cried because she was so alone, and felt so violated and tainted.

She cried mainly because her brother left her alone with the man she thought she loved.