It's mid-November and they're somewhere in Pennsylvania. The first snow of the season has finally fallen and Charlie is delighted by stomping through the slushy snow in her new boots. Miles has attempted to stop her a few times, worried that she might ruin her new shoes, but Bass let's her be. Blackout or no, she's still just a kid. Plus, he would be lying if he said he didn't kind of enjoy it too. Charlie runs through the slush while he chases after her. Miles walks along behind them shaking his head, trying valiantly to frown disapprovingly but failing miserably.
They have been following this highway for weeks and haven't met any other people until today. This morning, they'd stumbled across a tent with two dead bodies in it. Murdered, brutally by the looks of it, and left to rot. Other than those two, they haven't seen anyone else though. Bass can't decide if it's a good thing or not. On one hand, they've been lucky enough not to run into anyone that wants to do them harm. On the other hand, he wonders if their good luck will run out soon and the people will start to catch up with them.
He's deep in those thoughts, his feet moving slowly through the slush while Charlie runs ahead, when he hears it. It's faint, but the sound of fists hitting flesh is something he's very familiar with. He looks up, only to find that Charlie has moved much farther ahead of him than they usually allow her to get. They have very strict rules about where she's allowed to go and how far. It's his own fault for not paying attention. He starts running to catch up with her so he can keep her away from whoever these people that are fighting are, but he's too late. She's already there, frozen to the spot with fear.
Bass hears it when Miles realizes that something is wrong. A low 'damn' and the sound of his large feet splashing through the half melted snow as he runs. As Bass gets closer, he can hear the grunts and groans of pain, and the laughter of the assailants. Men by the sound of it, the victim too.
He nearly crashes into Charlie when he reaches her with Miles just behind. The three of them are standing at the side of the road looking into a small clearing where someone had set up their tent to sleep. That someone is most likely the man on the ground getting the crap beat out of him. The two men beating the third seem oblivious to their audience while Bass and Miles are both to shocked to move. It isn't until the men deliver a particularly sickening kick to the third man's face, and Charlie whimpers in horror that the boys finally move.
"Stay here, Charlie. Don't move." Miles tells her and she nods quickly, her eyes riveted to bloody scene before her.
Bass looks over at the blood and then back at her. "Close your eyes, Charlie." She tears her eyes away from the men to look at him. There's fear there that no child should ever have to face. "It's alright, just close your eyes." She listens this time, slapping her hands over her face to cover her eyes.
Miles is already at the scene, drawing the attackers attention by tackling one of them to the ground and pinning him down before punching him square on the nose. The other attacker turns in shock to see what happened to his friend, not noticing Bass' presence until he's already pinned face down to the ground too.
"Get off me!" He shouts, but Bass shuts him up with a quick punch in the kidney.
The one that Miles has pinned starts wiggling desperately. "Wha' d'you wan'?" He asks, his mouth filled with the blood pouring from his nose.
"What do we want?" Miles asks incredulously. "You're the ones beating the crap out of this guy. What do you want?"
Bass crains his neck to see the man that they had been beating lying on the ground. The man is groaning in pain but not trying to go anywhere anytime soon. He can't see any reason for these men to have attacked him.
"We just wanted his food," the guy beneath Miles says. "He wouldn't give it up, and... and we're hungry."
"Everybody's hungry you idiot," Miles growls at him.
Bass looks over at the poor beaten guy again and finally sees what these two morons must have been after. A can of beans is laying on the ground near what's left of the fire.
"A can of beans, seriously? You nearly beat a man to death over some beans?"
The dirt bag beneath him starts to whimper. "We're starving, dude. We didn't have a choice."
"There's always a choice," he tells him angrily, and suddenly he hates this guy. Can't stand him and doesn't even want to be near him. Bass pushes himself up off of the ground roughly and looks over to Miles who is kneeling over his guy with a look of serious concentration on his face.
"Miles, we should get moving." But Miles ignores him and just keeps staring. "Miles, let's go." He finally looks up at him, a deep anger and a sense of helplessness in his eyes.
"They could have killed him. They would have if we hadn't stopped them." Miles points at the two guys who are both watching him with fearful eyes.
Bass struggles to find the right words for this. "I know, but there's nothing we can do now. It's not like we can call the cops. Let's just go." He turns, trying to force down the guilt rising in his gut at the sight of the beaten man. It's not that he doesn't want to help him, it's that they already have more mouths than they can feed, they can't afford another.
"We have to do something," Miles persists. And then Bass turns just in time to see it, Miles' hand settles on the butt of the gun strapped to his waist.
"Miles," Bass warns in a low voice. "What are you doing?"
But the gun is already out and Miles is aiming it at the two guys that had almost killed a man for a can of beans. "If we don't, then they'll just do it again," he rationalizes.
Bass is suddenly aware of two things; one is the fact that Miles is about to commit murder, the other is that the tiny hand squeezing his own belongs to Charlie. He looks down, finding her face scared and confused, her eyes brimming with unshed tears as she watches her uncle prepare to shoot two men.
"Miles," Bass warns again, though this time there's an anger there. Anger that Miles is about to take away what small amount of innocence Charlie has left. He must hear the anger in Bass' voice because he looks over at him, his face carefully blank as he stares back at him until his eyes float down to the small girl cowering at Bass' side. Miles' face softens and suddenly there's guilt radiating off of him. He takes a deep, calming breath and then looks down to the guys he's been holding at gun point.
"Get out of here. Go!" And they don't need to be told twice, scrambling from the ground and running full speed away from them.
Miles slowly and carefully replaces his gun to its holster and then approaches them. Charlie steps back a little bit, like she's afraid of him, which causes Miles to sink to his knees in front of them.
"I'm so sorry, Bug. I... I don't know what I'm doing here, I just... I just want to help."
Charlie gives him a long look, her big blue eyes scanning his face. After a moment, she drops Bass' hand and runs to her uncle, circling her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "It's OK, I forgive you." He pulls her close and sighs with relief. Bass doesn't mention the tear that he sees trickle down his cheek.
The three of them are so lost in their moment that it takes a long, suffering groan coming from the beaten man to get their attention. They all moved towards him quickly, Bass going to check the wounds on his face and Miles poking gently at his bloodied chest.
"Man, they really screwed him up," Miles says.
A noise, harsh and weezy, comes from the man's mouth. "No kidding, Sherlock." Miles starts a little, clearly surprised that the guy was even conscious, nonetheless able to speak. And not just speak, but joke.
"What's your name, buddy?" Bass asks as he gently tries to wipe some dried blood from his mangled face. He hisses when the cloth makes contact with his raw skin.
"Jeremy. Ah, Jeremy Baker."
Miles hands Bass a thermos full of water before going back to poking his ribs. "Alright, Jeremy, let's get you cleaned up."
Charlie chooses this moment to move next to Jeremy's head. She bends down to look at his face and Bass watches Jeremy's swollen eyes take her in from upside down.
"Hi. My name's Charlie."
"Hello, Charlie." He says kindly.
She smiles really big, the kind of smile that the boys haven't seen in a long time, then drops to her knees next to Jeremy and starts digging in her pink backpack. A moment later she pulls something out and peels off the wrapper before sticking the small, Hello Kitty band-aid over a cut on Jeremy's forehead.
"There. See? It's all better now."
Jeremy smiles up at her and Bass knows right then that this guy is someone he likes. "Thanks, Charlie. I feel better already."
A/N Aww, so cute. I'm drowning myself in sickly cuteness over here, lol.
To the random guest person that was so nice to review: I honestly have no idea why Charlie is with the boys, it actually hadn't even occurred to me that it was strange until you mentioned it. I'll try to write something that explains why but for now, let's just go with a generic 'Danny was sick, they needed a babysitter.' OK? :-)