A/N: This is the first of 2 chapters today. I will post the next two and possibly the epilogue tomorrow. First of all, thank you all for the feedback from the last two chapters. I know they were both downers, which is why I decided to post them together, so I only had to put you through those types of feels once (albeit ALL at once).

I don't know whether to hang my head in fanfic shame or be flattered by the emotional response it seemed to cause. I guess that as a writer it should be the latter and as a member of the fic community the former? I know I tend to write on the overly angsty side (and I'm mean to Bass, as many have told me), so I thank you all for bearing with me. On a side note, I've decided to go ahead and do this and the next chapter at the same time in order to build them up as quickly as I tore them down before.

(Tomorrow's first chapter will indeed have a completely different feel and at some times may seem quite silly… and is very bromancy…)

November…

Monroe had just gotten done with his lonely supper and the subsequent clean up. Determined to get a stack of papers graded before going to bed, he headed into the little office he'd built in one of the spare rooms of his little house. He was halfway down the hall when he heard a knock at the front door.

Figuring it was probably his neighbor, he rolled his eyes at the interruption and headed back through the living room. "Hold on a second," he called out as he pushed a very lazy and fat old dog out of the way with his foot and opened it.

His heart immediately leaped into his chest when he saw Charlie standing out there in the cold. He stood there stunned for a few moments, not quite believing his eyes.

She looked up at him, a little shocked at his appearance. He looked pretty good. She knew he'd just been on the road when she'd seen him in Willoughby, but she'd still halfway expected him to appear scruffy and worn now.

He was wearing a sweater—most likely having been made post-blackout and a pair of worn jeans, but somehow he seemed more cleaned up now than he'd been during better days in Nashville. So different was his appearance that she'd almost questioned that she'd found the right address.

"It's cold, aren't you going to invite us in?" she asked when she finally remembered that neither had spoken.

Still bewildered, Monroe nodded and then stepped aside. Carrying her daughter in an old pumpkin seat and a carpet bag in the other, Charlie came inside. She handed Monroe the bag when he silently offered and headed towards the couch while he shut the door, pausing only to nudge the dog back into place. If anything, his thick fur kept the cold from seeping in through the bottom of the door.

She turned and watched him do this. When he looked up to see her curious gaze, he shrugged. "His name is Lump," he commented. "You can see why."

At the sound of his name, the dog lifted his head about an inch off the floor and opened one eye before slumping back down and going back to sleep. Charlie giggled at the animal, the sound of it filling the room.

She set the pumpkin seat down and shrugged out of her coat, giving it to Monroe when he held out a hand for it. She unstrapped Bethany before settling down on the couch, on the side closest to the hearth. As cold as it was outside (and it was indeed cold, especially for Texas), his house was warm and strangely inviting. While she got comfortable, Monroe went to hang the coat up on the coat rack by the front door.

He sank into the easy chair that sat across from the couch, at a loss and almost afraid to speak, as if by doing so he would wake up and she'd disappear. He looked away, blushing when Charlie suddenly started unbuttoning her shirt, intent on feeding Bethany.

With well-practiced movements, she quickly had his daughter put to breast, as if sitting around in his living room like this was something she did every day. In a world where bottles were rare and formula was hand made only when absolutely necessary, she didn't have the luxury of modesty when it came to feeding her daughter. Her nonchalance over the whole business left him feeling even more flustered, if that was even possible.

Getting over his embarrassment, Monroe just watched mother and child with his heart still pounding in his chest. "What—did something happen? Are you okay?" He finally stammered.

"Oh, we're fine," she said as she sat back against the couch cushions.

He didn't understand. "Then why..?

"You seem to be doing pretty well, after everything," Charlie said, changing the subject quite prettily. The house was in a quiet, if modest part of town. She certainly hadn't expected that. When she'd first gotten off the train, Charlie had figured he'd be living closer to the center of the capital city, in a loft or something.

The last thing she'd thought she'd find was that he'd make his home in this small corner of suburbia, a good distance away from all the action, bars and so on. It was already getting dark by the time the wagon she'd hired to bring her let her off on the sidewalk, but from what she could see, the homes around his were well tended, even if they were a little small.

"I get by okay," Monroe offered.

Charlie paused to switch sides, covering herself before positioning the baby once more. "You said you got a job?" she asked, determined to keep up the small talk.

"Yeah, Blanchard arranged it after…" he trailed off. The last thing Monroe wanted to discuss was the collapse of his little empire and the circumstances that had lead up to it.

Charlie took the hint and moved on. "So what are you doing now?"

He shifted a little in his chair, feeling slightly uncomfortable. After the way things ended, she was suddenly in his living room, with her breast hanging out of her shirt. Not that he really minded, but it was getting increasingly difficult to keep his eyes directed at her face. "I work at Blanchard's new university; teaching, actually."

"Really?" Somehow she'd just thought that whatever he'd be doing, it'd be something active and maybe a little dangerous—not something as sedate as teaching. "What do you teach?"

Monroe could practically feel her disbelief. Once more, his face started getting hot. He cleared his throat before answering. "History. Mostly eighteenth and nineteenth century; you know—revolutionary era and civil war kind of stuff."

Charlie smiled at his answer. Miles had once told her that he'd been kind of a history geek before the blackout. Her uncle had often suspected that his love of history had been what had enabled him to adapt to a world without technology a lot easier than most. It had been like life had turned into a bizarre History Channel documentary overnight and he'd taken to it fairly quickly.

Most people had gone crazy without the everyday gadgets that had made life so convenient before the blackout. Up until he'd lost a second family, Miles had always thought that Monroe had stayed fairly well grounded—more so that he had initially.

Charlie shook herself back out of her thoughts and regarded him. "You like it?"

Monroe smiled at her weakly as Charlie finished feeding Bethany and went to change her diaper. "I do, actually."

In reality, he loved it. The hardest decision he had to make was when to hold a pop quiz. For the most part, the student body had accepted his presence on campus. There was an occasional punk that made a big deal out of it, but most of them treated him with the same respect they had for every other professor on campus—even if they were just a little afraid of him.

He didn't really socialize with his colleagues outside of work, but they didn't press the issue of his identity and he got along with them well. He was on friendly enough terms with his neighbors that he didn't feel so alone, and he had the dog for company—not that he did much other than sleep and eat. Even Harris visited him from time to time, so he didn't have that same isolation he'd felt in Nashville.

They sat in silence for several more minutes, both at a loss of where to go next. "Do you want to hold her?" she eventually asked.

"Very much," Monroe said as he tried his best to hold it together. The last time they'd seen each other had been hard enough. He didn't need to turn into an emotional wreck now, at least not until he figured out what had prompted this sudden visit. He got up and crossed over to her, his legs feeling like jelly. He was nervous as he could be when Charlie scooted closer and handed Bethany to him.

"Did uh… Did you find a place to stay while you're in town yet?" he asked, his eyes never leaving his daughter's sleepy face. He was still in awe of her—and he knew if he gave into the temptation of looking at her mother right now, he'd lose his fucking mind.

"No, I came straight here from the train station," Charlie told him. The way he was gazing down at Bethany with his heart on his sleeve melted her just a little. He'd only seen her twice, but the baby already had him wrapped around her little finger.

"Listen, most of the inns are on the other side of town," he said as innocently as he could muster, "and it's getting a little late. You could stay here, if you wanted."

"We'd like that," Charlie replied with a warm smile.

Monroe let out the breath he'd been holding; actually a little surprised (and very relieved) that she hadn't refused. She obviously wasn't ready to tell him why she was here, and he was reluctant for her to leave. He'd take every precious moment he could get, even if it was just for one night.

He handed Bethany back to her and stood up. "My neighbors have a handful of kids—the youngest is I guess three or so. I'm going to go see if they have anything we can borrow for a bed for her."

Monroe grabbed his jacket and headed outside. As soon as he closed the door, he leaned up against it for a few moments to get a hold of himself. Charlie's abrupt appearance still had him reeling and he didn't quite know how to handle it. Over the three months that had passed since he'd last seen her, it had taken a lot of effort to come to terms with the fact that they were so close. A mere sixty miles away was the only blood relations he had left, and he'd had no right her at all. It had been hard, but he'd miraculously forced himself to deal with it.

He'd done his best to make good on all of his promises to Charlie. He'd stayed away and the only contact that he had at all was the money he'd sent every month like clockwork. As strong as the urge had been to send some kind of personal note with it, he'd resisted it every time.

Monroe had worked hard to carve a comfortable niche for himself and to get on with his life. When he'd been given a housing allowance, he'd picked his little home carefully. He knew better than to immerse himself in Austin's night life. It wasn't good for him and he'd know where it would lead.

After the tower, he'd lost himself in New Vegas. He'd barely been hanging on when he'd been lured away from his trailer and had inadvertently found something new to fight for. His first instinct this time around had been to do the same, and he'd gone all out when he'd gotten there.

Between the boxing, booze, whores and roulette wheel, he'd surrounded himself in as much moral corruption as he could, desperate to just forget. When that hadn't helped, he'd even dabbled here and there in the more unhealthy addictions that the town had to offer—and after the settlement had been rebuilt, it had gotten a lot worse than it had been before.

Blanchard's man had actually tracked him down in one of the most notorious whorehouses in New Vegas, high as a kite and barely able to keep his eyes open, let alone win a fight. It took several weeks and multiple job offers before Blanchard had made one that sparked his interested enough to get him to clean himself up.

Now out of that world, he wanted to be better. He'd set out to start the Republic to prove he wasn't the same monster he'd been in Philly. He hadn't been able to do that, and in the end he'd been no closer getting back that piece of himself that he'd lost than ever before.

He was past trying to prove to Miles that he'd changed. Now, he just wanted to prove it to himself. And so, when he'd finally taken Blanchard up on his pity offer, he'd moved into his quiet little neighborhood and lived a completely boring and quiet life. If he occasionally fed his darker side with a boxing match on the spicier side of town, well he made sure no one found out and tried not to get too fucked up in the process.

He kept his yard clean made small talk with most of the neighbors, hung out more with a few of them even. On the rare occasion that he stopped for drinks at the neighborhood pub, he stopped at two (okay, sometimes three) drinks and went straight home thereafter and did his best to not be a total asshole. He'd learned to be content with his lot in life. He had a job, a roof over his head, money in his pocket and a few friends—someone like him really couldn't hold out any hope for much more. And then tonight, Charlie had shown up. Now that she was here, he wanted more than he had a right to want- and it hurt.

He lost track of how long he stood there, hand covering his eyes and his breath hitching. A sound off to his right forced him back to the task at hand. He looked up to see the very neighbor he was supposed to be speaking with. He'd come outside to take the garbage out to the fire pit out back and have a smoke.

"You alright, man?" he asked as he struck a match to light up. His wife hated the hand-rolled cigarettes he smoked and so forced him outside when he wanted one.

"Hey Chuck," Monroe greeted as he wiped his eyes. "Listen, I've got a favor to ask."

While Monroe was explaining the abrupt appearance of his daughter and the woman he'd made her with to his friend Chuck (who had incidentally helped him drink his way through the shock of it that first night after he'd found out), Charlie set Bethany down in the pumpkin seat and took the look around. The house was a small, little ranch but was shockingly tidy and cozy. She peeked down the hallway, curious. Grabbing a lamp off of one of the end tables in the living room, she went to do a little snooping while he was gone.

There were three bedrooms, and a bathroom. At some point the bathroom had been converted so it could be used both for bathing and laundry. The bucket of water next to the toilet told her that he'd been lucky to get a house with a septic system. She was secretly envious—the house she shared with her family in Willoughby didn't have one and they were still forced to use an outhouse and dump the wash water outside.

Moving on, she found what we obviously the master bedroom. She kept an ear open for both the front door and Bethany as she poked around, curious as to who he'd become since she left Nashville. He seemed so different, and yet so much the same that it was driving her crazy.

The furniture in the room was worn, the finish marred in a few places, but the room was clean and the sheets looked like they'd been changed recently. Of course, he'd have found a large bed to accommodate his height and the fact that he tended to flop around in his sleep. He'd even bothered to hang up a few paintings that he must have found in the market in town—none of them were very well done, but all seemed to suit him somehow.

Unable to resist, Charlie opened his closet. In Nashville, the only clothes he'd owned were uniforms and that one set of clothes he'd worn long ago in Texas. Before he'd slid into madness again, he'd usually be found in his uniform pants with the wool shirt tossed creatively across the room. He'd always started out his day fully and formally dressed, but it never seemed to last much longer than breakfast. It had kind of been the running joke around the compound.

As she picked through his clothes, she smiled at a memory of him balling up that damned shirt and trying to get it on top the bookshelf or inside a vase or wastepaper basket. He'd seemed to get perverse pleasure out of making them as hard to find or reach as possible. Sally had forever despaired of him ever growing up in that respect.

In the back of the closet, hanging up neatly were those damned old jeans and the ratty shirt. The leather jacket he'd loved so much was with them, along with his sword belt. They were pushed as far back as they could go, but there they were, as if they were waiting for the day he'd need them again.

Closing the closet, she worked further down the hallway. One of the bedrooms was completely empty, but the smallest of the three had been converted into a tiny office. There was a huge desk that took up the majority of the room. Taking a moment to poke her head into the hallway to listen, Charlie went back to her snooping.

There was a stack of tests he'd brought home to grade as well as a much larger stack of term papers. Several red pencils sat out on the desk, obviously ready for his comments and corrections. She moved on, noticing a wrinkled page sticking out of a book. Cocking her head, she pulled it out and carefully unfolded it. She realized it was the letter she'd asked Harris to give him the day she left Nashville.

Suddenly feeling guilty for her intrusion, Charlie put the letter back and tried to erase from her mind the fact that it looked like it had been balled up and flattened multiple times, as if he'd read it over and over again. She also pretended that she didn't notice the places on the letter where the ink had bled, obviously having gotten wet.

She closed up his office, just as she'd found it and went back to the living room before he came back and caught her. You will not think about what caused the ink to bleed… Rain? You know better, Charlie.

She'd just set the lamp back where she'd found it and had plopped down on the couch when the front door opened. "Dammit, Lump. Get up," Monroe got his foot inside and tapped the animal on his rear end. The dog raised his head and then scooted over a few inches before lying back down again.

"Gee, thanks a lot," He said with a sigh. "Hold on, Chuck, I've gotta move the damn dog."

Monroe squeezed through the opening and physically picked Lump up and moved him into the living room. Charlie watched in obvious amusement as the dog let out an exhausted sigh and flopped back down on his side. When she started to laugh at dog and master, Monroe only rolled his eyes and disappeared out the door again.

When he came back a few moments later, he backed in through the door, carrying the back end of what looked like a very heavy crib. Furniture post blackout was either made very poorly out of scraps, or it was extremely heavy and made to last. This one appeared to be the latter.

Carrying the other end was a younger man with a shaved head and of all things, a ring in his eyebrow. He grunted a greeting as he followed Monroe through the house. "Careful. If the finish gets fucked up, Jackie'll kill me," he warned as they turned the corner and went down the hallway.

"No she won't," Monroe's voice drifted through the house. "If you're dead, who'll take out the trash? She'll just kill me instead."

They came back a few minutes later, having set it up for the night. "Thanks again, Chuck."

"No prob. So, where's she at?" Chucked asked, looking around for the baby.

Charlie picked Bethany up and let Monroe's neighbor have a look. Not even bothering to ask, the young man grabbed her, obviously an old pro and comfortable with children, despite the fact that he was probably only a year or two older than her.

"She's a cutie. Jackie'll go nuts over her," he said, making a goofy face at the baby and earning a sleepy giggle. "We've got four—all boys," he said turning his head to address Charlie.

Charlie just stood there, astonished at this stranger and his overly casual manner. She was not used to strangers holding her daughter, and was a little uneasy. Monroe on the other hand, only seemed amused. "You have four kids?"

Chuck laughed at the way she'd asked, as if she was both in awe and terrified at that revelation. "Yeah, well we got started a little early." He handed the baby back to her and shook hands with Monroe. "I gotta get back—you know how she gets if I shirk out of bedtime duty."

Despite those words, he didn't seem too worried about it as he went out the door, shutting it behind him. The second he left, the dog crawled back to his favorite spot and slumped against the door. "We put the crib in the bedroom so you could be with her. I'll sleep on the couch," Monroe announced.

Charlie nodded, still a little overwhelmed by him and his overly friendly neighbor. She carried Bethany into the bedroom, smiling when she saw that Monroe had left a lamp burning for her and had turned down the covers for her (that he'd actually made his bed in the first place had been endearing). He followed her with the carpet bag, setting it on the bed and then closing the door behind him so she could have some privacy.

Once Bethany was down for the night, Charlie went back into the living room, only to find it empty. She found Monroe in his office. He was leaning back in the old computer chair, one ankle casually resting on his knee and a term paper in his hand. A pair of reading glasses sat on his face. She'd overlooked them when she'd been looking around. As she stopped in the doorway and watched him, Charlie couldn't help but think that the new look the glasses created was kind of cute. Stop it!

She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the way his expression changed as he read; frowning and rolling his eyes at something the student had written. He sat up straight and reached for one of those red pencils. It was then that he noticed her. He immediately pulled the glasses off, stashing them in the desk drawer, as if by doing so he could deny he'd needed them.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," she offered.

Monroe forced a smile. He'd clearly thought that she'd gone to bed and had been completely unaware that she'd been spying on him—and felt a little foolish for it. "No, it's okay." A stilted silence stretched for a few minutes before he spoke up again. "Listen, I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier, but have you eaten? I know you said you came straight here." The windup clock on his desk showed that it was now well after nine.

"I don't want you to go to any trouble," Charlie insisted. She was actually a little hungry, but she was starting to feel bad about the way she'd barged into his life. The way he'd been so instantly accommodating had her feeling all the more guilty.

"It's fine," he said as he set the term paper down and led the way to the kitchen.

A short while later, after she'd finished a plate of left overs, Charlie sat at the kitchen table while he cleaned up. She couldn't get over how quiet and almost shy he seemed now. They were sharing a quiet drink (after she'd assured him that one wouldn't harm Bethany) while he finished.

He scraped what was left on her plate into the bowl that sat on the floor and let out a low whistle. The dog groaned as he came into the room and lay back down in front of the bowl to eat. "Where did you get this thing?" she laughed.

"Lump? He showed up on campus one day and I made the mistake of feeding him. He followed me home."

"This dog?" she asked, incredulous. She'd so far only seen him walk a total of ten steps and she swore each had been under protest.

Monroe leaned up against the counter as he considered his dog. "Yeah, come to think of it, I don't think I've seen him walk that much since."

"You don't say? So, what kind of dog is he?"

He thought about this. "I think he's a… Hell, I don't know. He's a Lump." He grinned in spite of himself. "Anyway, he's old and no one wanted him, so I kept him. If anything, I don't have as much garbage to take out."

The dog let out a long and loud fart as he finished eating. Monroe started to apologize for his dog's bad manners, when he realized how ridiculous it was. A laugh erupted from him as he shook his head at his poor dog. "He's pretty disgusting, isn't he?" Before the animal could do any further damage, he dragged him to the back yard one last time.

When he came back, he sat down at the table with her. His expression had sobered and he finally said what he'd been thinking since the second he'd seen her. "So what's going on Charlie? Not that I'm not happy to see you, but why are you here?"

Tell him! Ask him! Instead, Charlie chickened out. "I just wanted to get away for a day or two, so I packed some stuff up and went to the train station. I didn't really know where else to go, and I just thought you'd like to see Bethany."

She could tell by the look on Monroe's face that he didn't quite buy it. "… And maybe I wanted to check and see how you were doing," she added.

Monroe sighed sadly. He'd been hoping that there was something else there, but he should have known better. He still didn't quite believe her, but he wasn't exactly in a position to push her either. "I'm glad you brought her," he finally allowed.

"But?"

He choked up a little. "It's really hard, staying away when I know she's so close." That you're so close, he silently amended. "This only makes it harder."

"Look, I've got to go back tomorrow, but maybe we can work something out so you can see her here and there," Charlie offered.

"Okay." Monroe finished the last of his whiskey and set his glass on the counter. He'd surprised her for the thousandth time that evening when he'd put the bottle away after filling their glasses. She'd never seen him stop at one before, even on a good day. "It's late and I've got a lecture in the morning. Good night, Charlie."

She watched him as he turned down the lamp in the kitchen and then headed to the living room. "Goodnight, Bass," she whispered before downing the whiskey she'd barely touched and heading into the bedroom alone.

The next day, Charlie was already gone by the time he got home from work. He hadn't expected her to be there, but he was still disappointed to find the house empty. Of course, he'd been ecstatic that he'd gotten to see them both, but in some ways he'd almost rather Charlie had stayed away. How does one go about letting the same people go over and over again?