Nights in white satin, sweet dreams – Devil take it….
A Revolution fic: Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson, Charloe; Blackout AU. Miles Matheson, Rachel Matheson, Aaron Pittman, Nora Clayton mention of other characters from the show. After the Tower, and before he found New Vegas, Bass headed towards Philadelphia, aiming to see what was left of the Monroe Republic… Somewhere along the way, something happened that made him wonder about the power of dreams, and why Charlie Matheson kept turning up in his…
Rating M
Author's note:
Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for sticking with me… The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada's Revolution, The Second Coming. I don't own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.
Nights in white satin, sweet dreams – Devil take it…
Aaron was in Sylvania Waters, in front of Ben and Maggie's house. The sky was blue, the town buildings were well cared for and the flourishing gardens looked lush and beautiful in the bright sunshine of a summer's day; it looked like home…like home should still be. People he knew were walking around, doing what people did in a small rural, post blackout town; shopping at the town markets further down the road, chatting, tending the gardens and the animals, smiling, picking their noses… A crowd of dusty, carefree kids were playing tag around the wrecks on what used to be a car park, their names sounding in his head like the school roll call, Jimmy Potts, little Sara Callaghan, Parker Freeman, Franklin Marsh, Carey Locke, Josh Lucas and his twin sister Daisy, shit, even his little troop of book hating delinquents looked good right now...
Maggie was watering the herbs in her reclaimed car garden out the front of the house; the long curling strands of her silver gold hair pulled back into a rough knot at the back of her head. She looked beautiful too…
He went up to her, his heart pounding… 'Maggie?'
She looked around, startled, but her eyes went straight through him, as though he wasn't there… then she frowned a little, shrugged and went back to her work.
Aaron stepped back, his hands shaking, ok; it really was a dream then, and it had to be Rose who was doing it, because he suddenly knew why he was here; Ben, Ben had had a pendant, Ben knew how to turn them on because he'd helped invent them… Aaron hurried up to the house, the grass soft under his feet, the air fragrant with achingly familiar flowers, grasses, and the underlying tang of sweaty human and animal dung. The front door of the house was standing open, God; he'd forgotten what that was like, to live somewhere you could leave the door open… He went in, looking for Ben, but afraid to see him too, because Ben was dead, like so many of those people outside were dead, going to be dead, killed by Tom Neville and the militia…
He looked around, but there was no sign of anyone on the first floor… Then he heard a tiny sound from the bottom of the stairs to the basement, a sound that he hadn't heard for a long, long time, that played like music in his ears. Someone was using a keyboard…
He started down the stairs…
The sound came from a small alcove at the back of the basement, a tall wooden screen shielding it from view. Ben Matheson was sitting at a desk facing the stairs, an oil lamp turned to low on the table next to him and the light of a monitor screen casting a cool grey light on his face. His eyes were calm in the handsome face; cool, focused on whatever he was doing…
Aaron went closer; there were loose pages of notes and schematics stacked neatly on the desk top next to the keyboard. They looked similar to stuff he'd seen in the tower and in articles on developments in nanotech he'd read while he was at MIT - similar but not the same, and he wondered what had become of Ben's notes, what else he'd been working on, what had been left behind... Aaron hadn't given it a thought at the time, everything had happened so fast the day that Tom Neville arrived, the day that Ben died and their calm, peaceful, bucolic life came to a crashing, bloody end...
Then Ben looked up, startled, as upstairs a door banged.
'Dad? Where are you?' it was a young man's voice, a light baritone, upstairs but coming closer… 'Charlie bagged a deer and we could do with some extra muscles…'
Aaron had to bite his tongue to stop himself crying out; Danny, it was Danny, alive… Then he saw what Ben was holding and he moved as close as he dared, so he could see...
Ben held the pendant cradled in one hand, the tip of his thumb pressing against part of the bottom edge, the fleshy pad winking as he put a tiny bit of pressure from one side to the other…
Then there was a small sound, like the ping of an email coming through and the monitor screen shrank into blank darkness. Ben stood up, slipped the chain of the pendant round his neck, hiding it under his collar, flung a dust cover over the computer, quickly slid the papers together and put them in a drawer of the desk, locking it with a small key from a ring on his belt. Then he came, walking quickly towards the stairs, his arm moving through Aaron's side with a strange, cool, dragging sensation… 'I'm coming, Danny, I'm just down the basement.'
Then everything started fading at the edges, and the last thing Aaron saw were Ben's eyes, the familiar patient, calm expression raising so many more questions now that he knew about the Tower, knew more about Rachel – about everything…
…
Aaron woke up, and knew he was awake this time, because he was on the sofa bed in the cabin at Crystal Lake and he knew that because his foot had got tangled up in the hole at the bottom of the mattress, and because the light of the lamp as he turned it on revealed the upholstery in it's totally awful shade of purple sludge, probably originally called something stupid like eggplant dip or berry dumplings…
He also knew how to turn the pendants on; and all he had to do now was to find out where Miles had put them.
He finally got his foot untangled and rolled off the bed with a grunt of effort, the thing had been more comfortable than the floor but not by much... Outside, through the open window, it was still dark but the air and light were just starting to change with approaching dawn. He sat on the edge of the couch and tried to remember what Miles had done with the pendants last night... Had he put them in his pocket or… Then he saw Miles' backpack on the floor by the table where he'd thrown it and Aaron hurried over; for a (brief) moment, feeling bad about going through the guy's things, but then he remembered what was at stake and kept looking…
The pendants were in a small, leather drawstring bag in one of the front pockets, and for a moment he sat there, just looking at them. They were so small really, like cheap pieces of costume jewelry, no one would ever think that maybe they held the secret to a technology that had changed the world…
He took one out of the bag, holding it the way he'd seen Ben hold his, then he put his thumb where Ben had and felt a tiny indentation and a bump, he rolled his thumb over them and suddenly the power sign on the front lit up and made that beautiful sound, like Ben's pendant had at Grace's house when Maggie's iphone had come to life, and like it did at the lighthouse when he and those kids were hiding from the Militia…
The microwave in the kitchen beeped and kept beeping in a start up mode, the fluorescent ceiling light above his head flickered on off, on off and on again, the tv screen lit up in a hissing white blur… and Aaron's lips curved in a smile of pure joy.
Then, from the bedroom came a blood-curdling scream, then another, then silence…
Shit… Rachel, he'd forgotten about Rachel… Aaron turned the pendant off and shoved it back in the little bag. He stumbled getting to his feet, just managing it before the door burst in…
'What the fuck did you do, Aaron?' Miles was furious, his face strained as he ran to the bedroom…
Charlie was close on his heels, brushing past Aaron on the way to her mom, her panicked eyes catching his as she went past…
Rachel was sitting up on the bed, staring at the lamp in the corner of the room, her eyes wide and glazed, her lips working… She turned to Miles, 'I dreamed about Randall Flynn, Miles…' she tucked her knees up, her arms wrapping round them. 'I dreamed the power went on again…'
'It's ok, Rach, it was just a dream, everything's ok…' Miles went over to the lamp, flicking the useless switch… 'See?' he met Charlie's eyes, tipping his head to the door…
She nodded and turned to go, her eyes swerving to Aaron, 'outside?'
Aaron bit his lip and followed her, the bag containing the pendants in his hand…
The moonlight showed Monroe waiting under the trees that bordered the road at the side of the cabins, the glowing, hazy shape of a woman standing next to him…
Aaron's eyes widened, that had to be Rose, so he was actually seeing a ghost, the ghost… Long brownish misty hair floated around her shoulders and she was dressed in something long and flowing - he remembered Priscilla wearing a dress a bit like it, back when life was good… He kept walking towards them, but somehow, while Monroe became clearer, more defined in the darkness as he got closer, Rose didn't, if anything she got harder to see, her outline fading into the foliage behind her…
Charlie looked up at Aaron; in the fading moonlight his face looked drawn, pale... 'We saw the lights go on, Aaron, then mom screamed and we thought something must have gone wrong,' she tucked her arm through his, feeling sorry for him... 'So Rose came to you then, not my mom?'
He nodded, still chewing his lip, 'Yeah, I'm sorry, Charlie'
'Rachel's mind is too fragile, too precarious, I didn't dare try…so I went to Aaron' The voice was soft and seemed to echo around them and Rose seemed to phase in and out of sight as she spoke, parts of her rippling as though she was being blown around by wind somewhere else…
Charlie let go of Aaron and went up to Bass, sliding an arm around his waist. She faced where she thought Rose's face was although it was hard to tell… 'Mom screamed when she saw the lights go on, she thought this guy we met back at the Tower, a bad guy, had come back…'
Bass looked at Aaron, a sort of sympathy in his eyes…'you couldn't have known that was going to happen, Aaron…'
Aaron met his eyes, a little surprised, but grateful anyway…
The cabin door rattled shut and Miles strode towards them, his hand out… 'Hand 'em over, Aaron'
Aaron held the bag out without arguing… 'I'm sorry, Miles, I, I just… How is she?'
Miles took the pendants and shoved the bag into an inside pocket in his duster, 'Well, if there was some valium in that wagon I'd be giving her some, but I'm hoping she'll go back to sleep and think it was all just a dream…' He took a deep breath, looking at each of them in turn… 'Now we know they work, and that Aaron can turn them on, we can talk about how and when to use them once we've got some breathing space and somewhere to try them out some more… somewhere away from Rachel,' then he shrugged, 'but in the meantime' he patted his pocket…'they stay with me, ok?'
Bass lifted an eyebrow, 'fine with me…'
Charlie shook her head, 'no problem here'
Rose had faded and gone…
Miles looked at Aaron, 'next stop, you can show us how to turn the pendants on and we'll split them up in case something happens and we're separated.'
Bass nodded 'good idea, Charlie can have one, you keep the other…'
Miles turned to him, 'Bass, are you with us on this one, I mean, really with us? You're not planning to run off and find the nearest helicopter or anything like that are you?'
Bass looked down at his feet then back up at Miles…'I know a lot's happened between us, Miles, some of it bad, and we haven't always agreed on how to do things… But even if you're still worried about trusting me after everything that's happened, you can believe that I am here for Charlie, and that I'll do everything in my power to help build a better world for her and if that means bringing these Patriot bastards down, then that's what we'll do, all of us together, ok?' he stood very still, just waiting…
Miles nodded, his eyes very steady…'Fair enough…'
Charlie looked from one man to the other…'Ok, so now that that's out of the way, can we get going?'
….
The Rangers were left where they lay, both Miles and Bass agreeing that they'd only get dug up again if they did so it was a waste of time burying them, their fellow Rangers wouldn't quit until they found them, buried, burned, whatever... But if Bass was right and the Patriots were going to try to blame him and possibly Miles for the deaths – once the bodies were found as well as those of the patriot soldiers back by the road near the farmhouse, they'd be the most wanted fugitives in Texas and possibly the rest of the country.
They did spend a little time erasing as many signs that they'd stayed at the cabins as possible, although there was no way to get rid of all the horse tracks. Before they left though, Miles and Bass rode out, laying a few false trails leading in different directions…
Then, they were off again, Bass taking point, Charlie spending time with him then circling back to travel for a while with the others.
Rachel was very quiet, sitting between Aaron and Miles, staring at the road ahead, an occasional frown creasing her brow, although mostly she just sat staring blankly ahead, her lips working…
As they got further away from the mountains and closer to Ludlow, there was still no sign of recent occupation or farming, they saw no domestic animals, no people, although the land itself seemed rich, fertile… It was quiet too, the only visible birds some crows circling above them, and somehow the air seemed muffled, any sounds indistinct… There was no sign either of Patriots or Texas Rangers, which of course wasn't a bad thing…
Charlie had just returned from a brief midday meal break with the others who were about a quarter of a mile back down the road behind them and was riding next to Bass. Stony was behaving himself for once, going along at a steady lope next to the black and in front of the mule, although all three seemed a little nervous, their ears flickering… She looked around; it was so quiet, 'don't you think there'd be someone living around here, Bass?'
He shrugged…'It looks like good country, and yeah, usually I'd have expected to come across some sign of people by now,' he leaned across the distance between them and handed her one of the tarot cards, 'but then I found this in my pocket while you were back with the others..'
She took it, but looking at the picture sent a shudder of something like fear racing through her… 'The devil?' the figure on the card was ugly, horned and misshapen, its eyes, wide and staring, cruel and two tiny naked figures were chained at its feet, 'It's horrible, what do you think she means?' she handed it back…
Bass took it and slipped it into his pocket, 'look around you, Charlie' he caught her eyes, the clear blue of his shadowed with worry…'something doesn't feel right about this place…'
Suddenly there was a distant scream, then yelling from the wagon behind them… Charlie glanced at Bass and saw the same fear in his eyes that she was sure was in hers; then she turned Stony around and kicked him into a gallop.
The scream had been her mom and Miles was the one yelling…
Bass leapt off the black, unhitched Painful and latched her to a tree, then mounted back up and tore off after Charlie…
….
Miles had seen some things in his life, but he couldn't remember seeing anything like this. There was a ring of a couple of dozen ragged, grey people circled around them; men, women, children, their eyes burning in white, gaunt faces as they came closer…
The horses were restless, stamping and snorting…
Rachel was staring at them, but after screaming once she'd fallen silent, just watching as the figures came closer, a mild curiosity growing in her eyes.
Aaron was staring too, although curiosity was the last thing on his mind, he just wished they were anywhere else but there, then he reached out a hand to cover one of hers…'It's ok, Rachel, they aren't real, they're just…'
'Ghosts, Aaron?' Miles passed the reins to Aaron then shifted on his seat, reaching for his rifle… 'Fuck this shit…' his eyes shifted from one figure to the next, narrowing as his gaze rested briefly on a boy, the small figure thin and sad, then he lifted the rifle and aimed at one of the men, 'You, stop right there or I will shoot'.
The figure hesitated for a second, then, like the others, just kept coming, and Aaron really didn't want to know what would happen if the grey people got close enough to touch them...
Then a couple of things happened at once… Charlie arrived in a clatter of hooves and dust, Bass not far behind her and Rose appeared on the road in front of them, flashes of lightening surrounding her in a brightly glowing nimbus that dissolved the grey shapes into flickering dust wherever it touched them…
Miles threw his rifle behind the seat, reached out and took the reins from Aaron and flicked the horses into a run, aiming for the gap that Rose had made in the ring and hoping like hell that none of the stuff in the wagon broke…
Charlie turned and raced next to them and Bass wheeled away into the trees, the black running parallel to the wagon, although both Aaron and Rachel had turned to watch what was happening behind them where the small, brightly shining figure of Rose was holding the grey figures at bay, lightening crackling around her…
Aaron thought he heard something, her voice, shouting at them to run…
….
AN: I hope you are enjoying it so far there'll be more soon, but I thought I'd pause there (it was getting long again…). I think there'll be a couple (maybe three) more chapters to this, so thanks so much for reading if you're still with me on this little journey and I hope you feel like sticking around for the rest…
I've got a couple of Christmas stories to work on too (sweet…) for the Good ship and the Armada, cheers, Magpie