Chapter 20: Fait Accompli

Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and reviewing.

Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.

Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD

I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

Ten years after The Blackout

Rachel was in a light, airy dormer. There were lacy, gently wafting curtains on the two casement windows. One nurse and two militiamen stood nearby. Bass sauntered in preceded by two more militiamen. He was carrying a bouquet of pink hydrangeas.

"I hope you are doing well," said Bass.

Rachel had already learned that replying in any manner other than one of strict civility would be promptly punished. Any hint of insolence would make the punishment that much worse. It was amusing, in an abstract sort of way, how undone Bass was by insolence. From working with many different scientists Rachel had learned that one's self-perception and the need for external respect or approval were inversely correlated. If this maxim held true for Bass, then he must really have poor self-esteem.

Rachel replied, "Yes, Bass, I'm doing quite well, all things considered."

Bass set the hydrangeas down on her bedside table and sat down, folding his hands in his lap.

Bass asked, "What was Ben working on?"

Rachel suppressed her peevishness at Bass's dismissal of her own role. It didn't matter. Getting out of here was what mattered.

Rachel responded to Bass' question with the DOD prepared cover, "Ben was an algebra teacher." Rachel personally thought that that was a stupid cover, why algebra, but that was the DOD cover, so she was going to stick to it.

Bass responded, "Why would an algebra teacher know that the power would go out and not come back on. Ben knew why the lights went out. Did Ben know how to turn the back on?"

Rachel calmly replied, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bass said earnestly, "Rachel, come on we know each other too well for this dissembling. Make it easier on yourself, tell me what Ben knew. Miles isn't gonna save you; he thinks you're dead."

Rachel's stomach clenched with the thought of Miles, her protector, being unable to protect her. But Bass was right, he thought she was dead, she had heard him. It was a done deal. He wasn't gonna save her.

She smiled a small coy smile, "You're right."

Bass waited expectantly.

Rachel continued, "We know each other too well for these lies. How many Christmas dinners did you come over for? How many Thanksgivings?"

Perhaps if Rachel brought up their shared past Bass would at least realize how sick this mockery of friendship really was. He wouldn't release her, she had no hope of that, but maybe he'd put her in an honest cell instead of this gilded cage. She was done with this false face of devotion and virtue – she'd rather a bare devil than one sugar o'ered.

Bass nodded, "Remember that year that Ben burnt the stuffing?"

Rachel continued, "Yes, the whole house stank for a week afterwards. Remember the year before, when you brought a 19-year-old with you to Thanksgiving."

Bass continued, chuckling, "Yep, she wanted to bring a bottle of wine, but got carded at the liquor store."

Rachel smiled, "Yeah, and you insisted that we make homemade cranberry sauce that year, and I admit, it was loads better than canned."

Bass smiled in return, "Of course I was right. When was this, 2006?"

Rachel continued, "No, 2005, the same year you spilt red wine on our carpet. Man, was the landlord pissed."

Bass' face grew cold once more. He said, "Out of respect for our friendship, I've let you recover here, but if you don't stop playing games and start helping me, you'll force me to take measures I'd rather not."

Rachel twisted her wedding ring, some time this past year she had stopped wearing it, she didn't really know why, but had woken up from her "near death experience" with the ring on her finger.

Bass stood up and said, "Genevieve has told me you are almost recovered from your little tumble, I'll give you a little more time to decide, but decide you must."

As Bass walked through the door, trailed by two militiamen, Rachel started reciting her mantra from three years ago, a mantra that despite all of the new poetry in her mind from years of doing nothing but reading, was still beyond apt.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night

Till it bore an apple bright;

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole:

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Fifteen years after The Blackout

Miles was continuing Charlie's training. Without Nora, she was his number two, and she needed her skills honed.

Rachel walked up to them sparing, and after the bout was over she said, "My turn."

Miles wanted to cock his eyebrow at her, but she would go off on him whenever she thought he was 'mollycoddling' her, so he appeased her and said, "Warm up first."

Charlie grabbed a water-skin. Miles was still a bit ashamed of what he had had to do to get their minimal gear, but he supposed it could have been worse. Who would have known that Trinidad, CO was the "Sex Change Capital of the World," and many of the post-op transgendered people had thought he was quite a stud?

Singing several Dixie Chicks songs in drag Priscilla, Queen of the Desert style certainly would stay in his memory for quite a while, but it had gotten them some much needed bedrolls, backpacks, water-skins, a bit of food, two swords, and a jacket for Rachel. Everything they needed to get to Austin, find the hacker, reprogram the nanites, and get the power back on. For Nora. For Danny.

As he was reminiscing, Rachel had completed a set of jumping jacks and had moved on to stretches. Her light shirt was damp from sweat in the mid-June desert sun.

Miles off-handedly said, "You might want to take off your shirt, so you have something dry to change into this afternoon."

Rachel looked at him like he had suggested killing and eating a baby in front of its mother. He knew she had a bra on underneath and it wasn't like he was a peeping tom or something.

Miles put his hands up in surrender, "Fine, if you don't want to, it's no skin off of my back."

Rachel visibly flinched at that cliché turn of phrase. Miles' stomach sank to the bottom of his red dust covered boots. Miles stared into Rachel's pale blue eyes, and she just stared back. It was as if they were having a contest of wills.

Eventually, Rachel firmly set her face, and drew off her shirt, revealing her back. Miles didn't know who had won that battle of wills, as he forced himself to turn off his emotional response and just study her back. He ran his hand through his once chestnut brown hair and silently swore.

Her shoulder blades and mid-back bore an elaborate design of outstretched wings covered a bit by her bra straps. Many of the individual feathers were made out of blackened scar tissue. Miles didn't even know how you could do that. The outline of the wings and wing-tip feathers were just normal pale, raised scar tissue and Miles recognized the overall artistry of the work – Strausser's scalpel had done this. On her lower back, reaching down below the top of her jeans was a thorn-hedge. The thicket of main stems was made out of pale scar tissue and each small thorn was blackened.

Charlie walked over to her mother and simply asked, "How?"

Miles replied for Rachel, "Strausser."

Rachel nodded, and expanded, "Bass decided I was as beautiful as an angel, and as prickly as a thorn bush. Each week he'd decide if I had been more 'angelic' or more 'thorny' and Strausser would work on the opposite piece while Bass questioned me about Ben and the power."

The flat, even way Rachel said that, like she was reading off a grocery list, tugged at Miles' heart.

Charlie asked, "Does it still hurt?"

Rachel glanced at her daughter and said, "No. Go ahead if you want to touch it."

Charlie ghosted her fingers along her mother's back. Miles wanted to do the same. To touch each of the uncounted scars and kiss them all better.

Rachel continued, "It took Strausser a while to figure out that if you rubbed a certain kind of ash into the flayed wound, it would make the scar dark. He is – was – a perfectionist, and it took him three years to be completely satisfied with his masterpieces. Then Bass had to come up with new interrogation techniques."

Miles didn't know Bass had had that in him. Watching Rachel being flayed by that sicko once a week for three years? Coming up with that idea in the first place? Miles was even more disgusted with himself for failing to protect Rachel. He was glad Rachel had gotten her revenge on Strausser; it certainly should help her sleep at night.

Charlie just looked at her mother with her big blue eyes full of pity and said, "Mom…"

Rachel shook her head, clearly in her mind the deal was done, and changed the subject, "I don't want to learn to swing a sword, not when we only have two, and I know how easily you can be disarmed. I want to really learn is how to protect myself unarmed. Like Krav Maga."

Miles nodded. He didn't know Krav Maga per say, but he knew plenty of hand-to-hand fighting tricks. And he knew that karate was good for little boys with ADHD, perhaps it would do Rachel some good.

Miles chivvied Charlie and Rachel together and started showing them some dirty moves that might come in handy. Dirty moves that they could use to keep their hides intact until he could get there.

- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)