A/N: This is the first half of their attempt to make things right. The other half should be edited and up in the morning. * Warning – after the next chapter, our story will likely be updated to M Rating, so if you aren't a follower and don't normally reset that filter, you will have to do one or the other to find the story later.
Monroe woke up in the morning to the sensation of having been drowned. Soaked, he jumped up from the cot. He looked around him, eyes bleary and his head spinning. "What the -?"
Daniel stood in front of him with a satisfied smile on his face, the bucket he'd just used still in his hand. "You gonna sleep all day, boy?" His gruff voice was full of mischief as he set the bucket down.
Monroe sat back down on the bunk and rubbed his eyes with one hand. As he tried to collect his thoughts, he glanced down at the bottle on the ground near the cot. There was only an inch or so remaining in the bottle. As he started at it, he idly wondered if he was just hung-over or still drunk. "What time is it?" he asked as he prepared himself for the inevitable pain of standing. His head was already pounding.
"Late enough. Come on. Time's a wastin'. Get yourself cleaned up and get some food in ya. Damn goat kicked the fence out again this morning." Daniel tapped his foot impatiently while he waited for his sorry excuse for a farmhand to get move.
Resigned, Monroe slowly stood. The motion made the world spin around him. He leaned against the wall with one hand while he waited for the sensation to stop. "I'm up," he grumbled as he started to shuffle towards the stable door.
As he walked across the yard to the house he saw Charlie on her way to the dairy. The familiar sight of one happy (not so little) pig was close behind her. He could tell the second she became aware of his presence because suddenly she held her head just a bit higher and her pace increased. "Probably broke the fucking fence herself, just so I had to chase Dickhead around," he mumbled to himself.
He heard Daniel laugh behind him, indicating that he'd said it louder than he'd meant. Shaking his head, Monroe made his way into the kitchen. Priscilla was still cleaning up after breakfast. "Hungry?" She said curtly when she saw him. He nodded in response, wincing as the motion only served to increase the pain at his temples.
He gingerly lowered himself into a chair, every moment reminding him that he was getting a little too old to down a bottle a night. Having no pity and offering no mercy, Priscilla slammed a plate of food down in front of him. He was mildly surprised she didn't break the plate. The smile on her face told him how much she enjoyed the pain that the sound caused him. She followed up with banging a coffee cup down as well. He sent her an icy glare as she filled it. All he got for his efforts was a kick in the shins. "Dumbass," she spat at him as he left the kitchen.
Tired and feeling like shit (and likely with a bruised shin), he shoved the plate to the side and concentrated on his coffee. It was no longer hot, but at this point he'd take what he could get. From the look on Priscilla's face, he should be so lucky that she hadn't poisoned it.
Thoughts of the previous night swirled around his aching head. Monroe couldn't fathom how things had gotten that far out of hand. In the ugly light of morning, he could see why she'd been so adamant about picking the fight in the first place: She'd been scared. And if there was one thing that Charlie didn't handle well, it was fear. She'd much rather be kicking an ass than be afraid. And it had just so happened, his ass and been right there for the kicking.
But he'd been scared too, dammit. Even if he hadn't played up who he was to get info from that clansman, Avery would have put two and two together eventually. It could have (and by all rights should have) gone seriously wrong. Monroe still felt that he'd had no choice and that Charlie was in the wrong for taking it out on him to begin with. But still, he knew he shouldn't have used the fight as an excuse to vent his own frustrations at her. Look where it had led.
Aaron came in the back door then. It was a rare morning when he was out and about before Monroe. At least he had the courtesy to stop the door before it slammed shut. "Got some stuff together to fix the fence. I figured you'd probably need some help this time," he said as he sat down at the table across form Monroe.
"Yeah, just give me a minute and we'll head out." Monroe pulled the plate back over and started to pick at the cold eggs and potatoes. His stomach was already on fire from the night of drinking. Cold eggs were not going to help, but he wasn't about to piss Priscilla off any more by making a mess in heating them back up. That smile she'd given him reminded him just a bit too much of non-Priscilla.
Aaron shifted in the chair, his discomfort quite clear. "So, uh..." He stopped to clear his throat. "You okay?"
"Don't wanna talk about it," Monroe said a little harshly in between bites. As bad as his mood was, he felt guilty for having just snapped at Aaron. He was only trying to help. "Listen, I appreciate the concern. Really. This is just something I've got to work out on my own, okay?"
"Shouldn't you be trying to work it out with Charlie?" Aaron countered.
God I hate it when he says something smart. Monroe picked up his coffee and downed it. "She's made her feelings on the matter very clear. If she hasn't changed her mind before now, she never will. I give up," he said as he stood.
As he left to get changed into dry clothes Monroe barely caught Aaron's response. "Don't be so sure about that." Monroe just shrugged him off. He had his pride, and he refused to swallow it. If she didn't want him, fine. He wasn't going to continue to chase after her like a lost puppy. He'd keep her safe and he'd be there for Danny and Angie – that was all. If it meant being miserable for a while, so be it.
He stopped to check on the twins before returning to collect Aaron and start their mission of subduing Dickhead. He found them already down for their morning nap. They must have woken up early to be down so soon. Not wanting to wake them, he just stood there for a few minutes and watched his children sleep. Deep down, he knew that for their sakes, he and Charlie had to come up with some sort of truce. They deserved better from their parents. If all that between them was hurtful memories and resentment, Danny and Angie would be better off if one of them simply left – and that was something that Monroe wasn't prepared to even think about.
Shaking himself out of his morose thoughts, Monroe backed out of the room quietly. If his eyes were a little damp, well he'd just blame it on the hangover. "Let's get going," he said to Aaron as he walked through the kitchen and out the door. He had a fence to repair and a goat to catch.
Charlie leaned against the entrance to the dairy as she watched Monroe and Aaron pick up some tools and a few boards. Even from a distance she could tell Monroe's mood was no lighter than hers. As he walked, his shoulders were a little slumped and the usual grace that defined his movements was currently missing. Well, misery loves company, she thought as she ducked back inside the dairy. The two men were about to walk right by, and the last thing she wanted was for Monroe to catch her watching him.
"So, are you going to talk to him?" Gene asked form where he sat. He'd be helping with the wheat tomorrow, so he'd told some of the neighbors that they could bring their kids in for checkups after lunch. The lone doctor in town was usually so busy with every ailment in the area that preventative checkups were few and far between. Gene had offered to help in this regard. Until then, he had little to do this morning, so had decided to help Charlie for a while – and by helping he'd thought he'd pry to see what on earth had happened.
Charlie started setting up the butter churn. Normally this was a task that she didn't mind, but she was not looking forward to it today. It required no attention whatsoever and offered too much time to think. The last place she wanted to be right now was in her own head. She'd spent far too much time there last night. "Nope," she finally said to Gene.
Gene started to milk the goat in front of him. "I hope you both know that you are being idiots." His tone was blunt and a little condescending, but someone had to say it. He knew that Daniel was on the same page. Although Monroe was twice Charlie's age Gene considered him to be emotionally retarded. Underneath the mask of the killer he was an absolute wreck. He understood, or at least he thought he did. The man had lost two families. Gene was pretty sure that deep down, the idea of having something real with Charlie absolutely terrified him, and so he'd been spending these past months unknowingly sabotaging his own cause.
Charlie, on the other hand was just like her mother and grandmother: stubborn to a fault. She had this preconceived notion on what should or shouldn't be in life and when it came to Monroe, there was no exception. In Gene's mind, if she wanted to keep it that way, she shouldn't have slept with the man to begin with. But she had, and she really did care about him. At this point all she was doing was helping Monroe to make them both miserable.
When Charlie didn't respond, Gene gave up. Finished with the goat, he sent the animal back to its pen before dumping the pail into the larger vat that Charlie would use later to make cheese. "I really hope you know what you're doing, Charlie. At some point in time, you have to let the dead bury the dead." He left her alone to think about it for a while.
As the weeks passed, Monroe was too busy with the wheat and then the barley to do much else. His life took on a dreary new pattern: wake up, work, drink, pass out. He avoided Charlie as much as possible, especially after the third day post-fight when he'd gone into the stable to find she'd dumped all of his clothes on the cot.
He still had to see her at meals. Daniel had made it very clear that if he didn't at least show up for chow (and make a visible effort to eat something) that he'd dump every barrel of bourbon on the property. And the way the old man had said it, Monroe believed he'd do it too. Cleary Daniel was worried about him. Hell, if he wasn't so damn miserable, he'd be worried about the direction his life was headed too.
Of course Charlie did not restrict his access to Angie and Danny. No matter what was going on between the two of them, that was one low both of them knew she'd never stoop to. And even though it hurt and angered Monroe to be around her, they still did their same bedtime routine with the kids. That was something he couldn't bear to give up. Before this mess, one of his favorite times of the day was the hour or so after dinner where they'd sprawl out on the floor as one happy little family. They'd been taking turns doing this since their fight. But it wasn't the same when she wasn't there with him. Quite simply put, Monroe really missed her.
Charlie was faring no better. She'd been hoping that he'd get tired of sleeping in the stable after a day or two and come back. After the third day, she'd been annoyed that he'd still been insistent on staying away, so she'd dumped his shit in there, just to prove that she didn't care. That she'd hidden in the dairy and cried for an hour after doing it was not something he needed to know.
The longer he was gone, the more Charlie missed him just being there. Even though it was turning in to a hot summer, her bed felt cold without Monroe there beside her. She'd lay in bed for countless hours trying to figure out exactly why she felt the need to push him away so much.
As the weeks passed, she thought she was slowly going out of her mind. She found herself thinking about Monroe more often than not, especially after waking in the middle of the night once having dreamt about their one night together. More than once she'd berated herself for being so damn stubborn. Here she was lonely (and a bit horny besides) in her bed and there was a perfectly good man that loved her and wanted her sleeping in the stables; and despite all the complications between them, Charlie finally admitted to herself that she loved him too.
She would find herself almost ready to cave, but then pride and fear would get the better of her and she'd talk herself out of it. She'd start to rationalize things way too much: If he wanted her so much then he should have fought harder to keep her; but then again, he'd been fighting for a while now. Angie and Danny were eight months old. He'd faced one rejection after another since they'd been born and had never left until the night they'd fought.
The two little people that had brought them together in the first place ended up being the ones that forced them back together again. One morning, as Monroe was heading in for breakfast before getting to work, Gene met him in the yard. "Kids are sick," Gene said as he approached.
Monroe stopped dead in his tracks. "What? Both of them? What's wrong?" He felt his heart leap to his throat.
Gene instantly went into doctor mode. "It'll be a few more days before I can confirm it, but if I had to guess? Measles."
Even after seventeen years of no power, it was still so strange for Monroe to hear about diseases that were all but eradicated by vaccines when he was growing up. "So, what are we looking at here? Are they going to be okay?"
Gene really felt for the guy. He could almost feel the terror radiating off of Monroe. He placed a hand on Monroe's shoulder and nudged him back into motion. "Barring any complications, they'll probably be just fine."
"And you're sure it's measles?" He asked as they walked, still trying to wrap his head around it.
Gene stopped at the top of the back porch stairs. "One of the girls that helps Charlie in the dairy came down with it a week or so ago. I believe you know her, Ally Bradshaw?"
"Yeah, her family rents a plot from Avery, right?" He could only imagine what the girl's parents were going through. From what he'd heard, they lost their oldest to influenza a few years back. She was their only surviving child. "She okay?"
Gene reached for the screen door. "She's recovering. Complications can be dangerous, but severe ones are rare. Maybe one percent, give or take." When they entered the kitchen, Priscilla was the only one in there. "We might have a problem though."
Monroe stopped with his hand on the back of the chair he'd been about to pull out. "I hate it when you say that. What kind of problem?"
Gene sat down at the table. Priscilla offered both men cups of coffee and went back to frying slices of ham. "Severe complications are rare in children. Not adults."
"Okay, but all of us were born before the blackout. We've all been vaccinated," Monroe argued.
Gene set down his coffee and leaned forward on the table. "Daniel and I are old enough to have been exposed. You, Aaron and Priscilla have had the vaccines. But I'm not so sure about Charlie."
Monroe almost dropped his coffee in his lap. "What?" He could almost feel the blood draining from his face.
"She was five when the power went out. The window for the last booster is four to six years. I don't know if she got the last one. Only Rachel would know that, and she's not here to ask," Gene explained. "We have to assume that she didn't; just to be safe. Which, by the way there's a small chance that anyone that didn't get a booster as an adult could still catch it."
Monroe caught what he was saying. "Well, I'm good at least. They shoot you full of everything when you get to boot camp and again before your first deployment."
Gene looked relieved. "Good. We just need to be extra careful. Charlie needs to stay clear of them when she isn't nursing. I've got her wearing a mask around them right now. But you're going to have to take over otherwise. Priscilla will help, of course but with both of them sick, she can't do it alone."
"I wouldn't expect her too," Monroe said thoughtfully.
Daniel came into the room now. "Well, Avery is sending over a few hands to help out with the rest of the harvest so you can stick close to the house and take care of those babies." He looked tired and worried. It was obvious how much he'd come to care for Danny and Angie.
The next week was absolute hell. The twins didn't develop any complications, but they didn't want to eat and were up all night crying. Charlie was miserable having to isolate herself from them between feedings when all she wanted to do was hold and comfort her children. Gene had fashioned a mask out of canvas for her to wear anytime she was near them, but she hated having to wear it. For one, it seemed to scare them which made feedings even more difficult – as if they weren't hard enough with them being so sick.
Monroe dutifully stayed in the house and took care of them. He knew Priscilla was willing to help, but it didn't seem right. Sick kids needed their parents. And if Charlie couldn't help, well he'd have to just do it by himself. As their illness ran its course, he felt himself slowly running down. After all, he hadn't been getting any sleep before this.
Because of the problems between Monroe and Charlie and his reluctance to expose her any more than she would be by feeding Danny and Angie, Monroe had been sleeping on the couch when the twins would let him. Charlie was lying awake in bed, waiting for the sound of him going down the hall – the telltale sign that he'd finally gotten them down. Just because she couldn't be in there helping him didn't mean that she wasn't in this too. Until her babies were asleep, she couldn't either.
It was late and all was quiet, however. Curious, she donned her facemask and tiptoed over to the nursery. She opened the door slowly and peeked inside. He was sitting in the old rocking chair, a baby in each arm. All three of them were fast asleep. She could see the dark circles under his eyes, indicating just how tired he was. Consequences be damned, she went over and lifted Danny from Monroe's arms. His fever appeared to have broken and his rash was fading. She gently put her son to into his crib before moving on to her daughter. Angie still felt warm, but her fever was nowhere near as high as it had been the last time she'd fed her.
Monroe was so tired, he hadn't even stirred. She'd always considered him good looking, but as she watched him sleep, it struck her how handsome he really was. She stood there for several more minutes before she finally made a decision. Smiling to herself, Charlie padded down the hall and out the back door. When she returned a short while later, she went back to bed, falling asleep faster than she had in weeks.