Jeremy and Charlie close the door, ignored by the generals as the men started talking quietly, Miles' anger at Charlie gone from everybody's minds. The captain is making his way to the suite, under the impression that he is escorting Charlie to the place where she sleeps. He is at the end of the hall before he notices that she isn't with him.
He's been lost in thought. The revelation that Bass looks so sick and tired, and that they haven't even noticed the struggle of their best friend when Charlie saw it immediately; It's a hard thing to swallow. Jeremy can't get the sickly pale sheen of the president's skin and the loss of weight out of his head, so obvious once you've been told it's there.
"Come here," Charlie whispers from a nook in the wall, hidden behind one of those heavy decorative curtains. Jeremy frowns and follows her, squishing himself into the new hiding spot. He knows this one; It is a hidden weapon stash in case their enemies get as far as Independence Hall. Those things are hidden everywhere, curtsy of Miles, and he and Charlie have made it into a game to find as many as possible. Charlie is winning by eight points or so, as usual.
What he didn't know about this one, is that it is apparently also a great spot to overhear conversations in the library, the sound echoing to their position. He knows he should pull her away, get her to bed and not spy on his friends in what should be a private conversation. His natural lack of curiosity, his non-interest in going up Militia ranks, his usual loud disposition make him the worst spook their is. He likes dramatic entrances and head on, fair, battles. Silently watching is just not his thing. He likes ignorance up to a point, revels in it. He liked not knowing exactly how fucked up the world was and avoided news channels and papers like the plague. Similarly, he has no interest in knowing if it's gotten better or worse after the blackout.
Today though, the concern for his friends outweighs the majority of his personality traits, and so he follows Charlie's example and puts his ear to the thin, unisolated wall. "You're a bad influence, little Matheson," he whispers to the teenager, getting a pointy elbow in his stomach as response.
"It's nothing, Miles, don't worry so much. It's just a cold or something," Bass denies. They've obviously tuned in half-way through the conversation, but only missed the standard evasion and the first indicators of Miles' endless persistence when he wants to know something. The excuse Monroe gives is weak at best, and Jeremy can almost see the stony look Miles should be giving the president right about now.
"Really? That's what you're going with? A cold?" the oldest of the men challenges, his arms crossed and his stance intimidating. He has the advantage here, still running on the adrenaline of the scare Charlie gave him and clothed in his Militia uniform where Bass is fresh out of bed in baggy clothes, caught completely unawares.
"It's none of your business, so let it go and go to bed. I know I am." Bass turns around and tries to walk away, but is stopped by his best friend's iron grip on his bicep. He turns around and snarls, suddenly mad and alert. Miles, who knew this was coming, who purposefully tried to draw out this reaction, knows to let go and step back, ready for either a verbal or physical attack.
"The Republic is falling apart around us, and you haven't even noticed." The accusation is whispered, and Charlie strains to hear it, her eyes narrowed. "The only reason Georgia retreated is because they are trying to destroy us from the inside out." Monroe shakes his head, trying to clear it, trying to keep his thoughts to himself even as the frustration and secret pour out.
"All they are doing is handing out those useless American flags, and all those idiots out there are deciding to fight for an utopia that had been tried and un-true. We are getting stabbed in the back at every corner and they are getting closer and closer to you!" Bass can't even look at him, turning away again, but this time heading for the windows, observing the change of guards and the steady patrol as the last civilian head home.
The truth of the matter is so very simplistic, but at the same time terrifying to Charlie. She's suspected for years, kept an ear out for any signals that she was right, and today her point will be proven. President Monroe of the Monroe Republic, General of its Militia, doesn't care about his empire or it's people at all. The only thing he is concerned with is the safety of his family, and that's not even a handful of people. Frankly, she has a feeling that even Jeremy pales in comparison to Miles.
She rests her forehead on his neck, a gesture of comfort even when he has no idea yet why. Jeremy is so riveted by his friends that he hardly even notices the added pressure. The captain is down to earth, more so than anyone else she's ever met. Charlie has an inkling that he knows he'll never get between these two, and he's never even seemed to mind.
Miles is stumped as he looks at Bass, the words harsh and cruel, but ringing true. His focus has always been supposed to be on the Militia, while Bass takes care of the city and the people. But until now, apparently, they have always shared everything. "You've been keeping this a secret? Why?" He places a hand on his friend's shoulder, but Monroe shrugs it off.
"Because I failed! They're after you!" Bass shouts, admitting what he now sees as his greatest failure. It's been eating away at him, the growing amount of rebels targeting Miles specifically according to their own spies. It is funny, but the people are more afraid of Miles than they ever will be of Monroe.
Miles is the figurehead of the Militia, when the people see him, they fear him as a warrior. He is the man at the head of an army, blood on his swords as he tears through enemies. The butcher of Baltimore. Monroe in comparison is the public figure, the charming man who delivers the speeches, the president who gave them a home and food and safety. They don't see the darkness like Charlie does. They think he is more or less harmless. They're wrong.
Monroe seems to notice that Miles is still at a loss for words. Regretful, he calms down some, meeting his friend's eyes and sighing. "I don't care about the Republic, I only went along with your plan because it was the best way to protect you. We were supposed to be safe in Philly. You were supposed to be okay. We would never be outnumbered, never without food or medicine," he tries to explain. Miles isn't convinced, and neither is Charlie from her hiding spot. His next words, however, break what is left of Miles cracked heart; "After Shelley and," Bass trails off, tears slipping down his face. Miles sighs, understanding dawning a few years late, and envelops his best friend in his arms.
"Who is Shelley?" Charlie asks Jeremy, pulling him away from the nook and drawing him out into the hallway. She's heard enough, and is now brimming with questions that she knows Jeremy will answer. To her surprise, he hesitates.
"I'm not sure I should tell you, mini-Miles," he says, more serious than she's ever seen him. He is tense with stress, his posture pure soldier as he fights with this new information. There are so many reasons to stay out of this, to keep this piece of Bass' past a secret from the girl. But then he considers the other side, he considers his own regiment, the men Monroe confesses he doesn't care about at all. His friends, men whose lives he has saved and who saved him in return. Their wives, with whom he never hesitates to flirt. The kids he's played tag and hide-and-seek with, just to have some fun in this war-ridden world.
He has a lot to lose if Monroe cracks any further than he already has. Miles is so emotionally repressed that he has no chance of getting Bass back out of the pit, not when he's half in it himself. Jeremy can't do a thing either. Bass might be his friend, but Monroe has never trusted anyone but Miles with his perceived weaknesses. Not after all the pain he's gone through, and all the times his trust has been shattered.
Charlie might be the one person in the world who has an opening she can work with. He's said it himself; she is practically a female Miles, but without all the damage, and with enough disrespect that she treats the president as little more than human. Bass might give her the benefit of the doubt just because of her last name. And Charlie, with her resources and stubbornness can save the generals and their Republic.
The girl in question remains silent, familiar enough with her friend to know that this is not the moment to push. If she waits, he might change his mind, if she tries to convince him, he'll do the opposite just because. They get to the suite, and Jeremy heads straight for the bottle, a bad habit he learned from his friends. He throws himself into his chair and Charlie seats herself in Miles' usual spot.
"A few years after the blackout Bass met Shelley," he starts quietly, his eyes are on her, but his focus is on the hallway behind the closed door. Bass will kill him for ever telling this, so he can never know. "She was this beautiful woman, kind and generous and far to good for the likes of us." He snorts, a hint of jealousy in his voice. "We traveled as a group, the safest way back then, until we found Shell got pregnant." The nickname is laced with the admiration Jeremy had for this woman, and the admiration he still has for the miracle of childbirth.
"We decided it would be better for her if we stayed in one place, find a midwife and a home for the girl. Miles wasn't leaving their side, and I didn't want to be alone, so I went too." Charlie has, by now, figured out that Shelley somehow died, and that the baby didn't make it either. She sort of understands Monroe a little better already, and also knows why Miles was so quick to let it go just a few minutes ago.
"We found this fugitive camp near Georgia, but at the last stages of her pregnancy the food got scarce and the medicine were short on supply and more expensive than we could hope to afford." He shakes his head, ashamed, wishing he could have done more. "I was trying to get more money when she went into labor, got there just in time to see Bass come out the tent, covered in blood, the happiest day of his life his biggest nightmare. He lost his second family that day."
Charlie can feel the tears in her eyes, just short of falling. She may not like or trust Monroe, but this is too painful to put into words. "Second?" she questions to distract herself, not expecting that the story can get any worse. She's wrong of course.
"Before the blackout, his parents and sisters all died in the same car crash." Charlie bites her lip to stop her gasp, her nails digging into the arms of the chair. her knuckles white. "Miles helped him through it. He never told me the whole story, but I gathered Bass was never the same after that. All he's ever been able to rely on was Miles, and now he's scared to death that he's going to lose him as well." Jeremy has never understood that until now, not until Bass finally explained.
"What happened?" Charlie knows this is not the end of the story, and that there is a lot more she needs to know.
"You heard him," Jeremy says, glancing at the door to make sure the generals are still in the library and out of hearing distance, "He was," he corrects himself, "-is willing to do anything and everything for Miles. We had no food, so he took a few men and took all his rage out on the camp a few miles from ours," he shrugs, considering leaving out his own involvement in the carnage. "I saw him kill for the first time, as effortlessly as Miles even though I'm not even sure he'd ever taken a life before."
It had been Jeremy's first kill that day at least, a moment he'd never forget. It hadn't even been all that monumental, more instinctual. The only revelation he had that day was that murder is not all that bad for your soul if you do it right, and that the rules of society had been constricting. He doesn't mind death and destruction as much as he should, unless it is people he's grown to care about. In the end, that's true for most people, he thinks philosophically.
"We slaughtered everyone there and took the supplies. All the fugitives in our camp were so grateful for the food and stuff that they didn't want to know how we'd gotten it. Bass took over Miles' idea to start a Militia like the ones we saw everywhere, and within the year we had an army. All that just so Bass could protect and supply for the one person he can't live without." The laugh he ends with is bitter and laced with reluctant admiration. Miles had written off the flattened fugitive camp against the lives Bass had saved in theirs. Not his best moment, but hardly his worst. The Monroe Republic has saved more lives than it has snuffed out if the calculations are correct.
"Monroe won't stop at anything," Charlie says, only a hint of uncertainty in her voice. Her eyes are dry, the sympathy cancelled out by the second part of the story, though she can't judge the president without condemning her uncle as well. A man with nothing to lose is reckless, a man with much too lose is careful, a man with only one thing to lose is the most dangerous of all.
That darkness that lingers in Monroe, that she's noticed from the beginning, the hint of madness that she saw as her fought his way through half a dozen men to her, coupled with what she now knows; it scares her.
"You were the first one to see it." Jeremy sees her open her mouth, but is quick to shut her up before she can start. "Don't deny it, Matheson, you've never been subtle about the fact that you don't trust him at all." Charlie nods in acknowledgement.
"If the rebels are really coming, we're all in danger," he holds her gaze, a captain more in that moment than a friend, "I need you to do everything you can to get us all through the next couple of months. American Patriots are the last thing we need right now. No sneaking out to the forest, eyes and ears out at all times. Can you do that?"
Had it been any other order, Charlie would have rebelled. Had it come from anyone else, she'd do the exact opposite. However, she is frighteningly aware of what's at stake, and so she nods.