Wordcount; 2892

Notes at bottom.

Chapter 42;

The fight was over. After everything they'd been through the past few months it was over now, and they were the winners. He had cuts and bruises all over his body, the most serious one was a deep gash in the side of his leg where one of the patriots had buried his knife but all in all he was okay.

Numerous bodies scattered across the streets made it obvious that there really wasn't anything to celebrate with the loss of so many lives, but the people who'd laid down their lives here helped in saving millions of lives all over the USA. Now the Patriots were as good as defeated, no more typhus laced oranges or any of that shit.

Right now he was talking to the man that had ran the city before those pastel assholes had shown their faces. The man was happy that they had killed the threat, to be honest, Bass was surprised that this entire city wasn't on the Patriot band wagon. Seemed that the news that had all those people coming to help them had also reached other ears.

His mind drifted to the young woman he'd left locked inside a hotel room a couple of hours before and he cringed. Charlie was going to remove his balls for taking her out of the fight but at least she was safe, that's all that mattered to him.

Leaving her in that room had been one of the most difficult decisions he'd ever had to make but he couldn't risk her getting hurt, or worse. No, he knew he made the right decision for him but he feared that she wasn't going to see it his way.

Charlie always had had a mind of her own and a, sometimes overrated, faith in her own skills as a fighter. Besides, it's not just for her sake that he locked her up, it was for the rest of humanity as well. If Charlie had fought and died he wasn't so sure the rest of the world would survive because if anything happened to that woman... he'd go off the rails.

So he was doing a public service, really. She was safe and he didn't have to go on a nationwide killing spree. Win-win situation, if you asked him. Now, if he could only convince her of that fact they'd be golden.

"Monroe!" Oh, shit. He spun around on his feet and watched as she strode towards him like an amazon straight into battle. Her blond hair was flowing around her face and she had blushes of agitation and anger, she looked amazing. He smiled in relief that she was alright but then he realized they were about to fight like never before and the smile slipped from his face.

She was angry and she was screaming at him. Bass just allowed her to get it all off her chest and sometimes replied to her questions. He didn't really expect her to understand but he did his best to explain why he did what he'd done.

Charlie was still pissed as hell, he could see that. She'd also calmed down a little bit and swore to him that they would talk later about what had happened. He wasn't really looking forward to that if he were honest but he was just so elated by the fact that they had defeated the Patriots and were still alive he couldn't really be bothered.

He watched her delicious hips sway as she walked across the square where Pete was standing with a couple of other clan members. Charlie waved at the other man a wide smile on her face, obviously happy that Pete had survived everything.

There was a loud 'bang' and Bass nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected sound. Who the hell was still shooting at this point, the Patriots knew they were defeated so there was no need for gunfire.

Charlie had stopped in her tracks when the gun had gone off and Bass was about to walk over to her and tell her it was nothing, probably just a mistake. That's when he noticed it, the red spreading through her blond hair and he realized what had happened.

Just as Charlie sank to her knees he started off in a dead run "Charlie, Noooo!" His scream startled everyone around him but he didn't notice nor care. There was only one thing, the blind need to get to her as quick as he could manage.

Bass sank to his knees and gently gathered her up in his arms "Charlie?" There was no reply "Charlotte, talk to me. Come on baby." Her blue eyes were staring up at him but it took him a moment to realize her pupils weren't reacting, her eyes were in his direction but she wasn't 'looking' at him.

"Charlotte?" His voice broke and he pressed her tight against his chest "Come on, baby, talk to me." He pushed a couple of bloody locks from her face and lightly slapped her cheek "Come on, Charlie... Charlotte!"

His fingers were warm and sticky with her blood and his eyes drifted to the hole in the side of he head.

Pete and a few other people were gathered around him but he didn't notice them, his eyes were riveted to Charlie's face. Her smile was gone and her beautiful face void of all emotion. "Charlie, come on, come on, baby. You gotta come back."

Realistically he knew that she couldn't hear him anymore but he just couldn't let her go, not like this, not right now. "Charlie, Charlie." He kept whispering her name against the side of her face, her blood seeping into his clothes and onto his skin but it didn't register.

His lips rested against her temple and he murmured for her to wake up, to come back to him but it didn't work. Tears were streaming down his face, tracking lines in the dirt, sweat and blood, he didn't notice and if he had he wouldn't have cared.

Bass just sat there on the blood-soaked ground, the woman he loved lifeless in his lap. His hands caressed her face and gathered her securely onto his lap as he gently swayed her back and forth.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he heard Pete's gruff voice "Monroe, she's gone, Monroe." Like he didn't know that! Like the gaping hole on the side of her head and the blood running over his hands hadn't alerted him to this fact.

He looked up and shot Pete a murderous glare "Unless you all want to join her I suggest you find who did this... and bring them to me." Bass wanted the person responsible for this.

Lacing their fingers together he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, his tears smudging her skin as he couldn't stop them from falling. Bass couldn't even remember the last time he actually cried. Most likely it had been when Shelley and the baby had died, after that he'd just gone cold and dead inside and he hadn't cared about anything enough to show emotion like this.

Charlie had been the one to get him out of his self-destructive hole, she'd been the one to bring him back to life. He hadn't felt much besides anger and hate before she came into his life, before she became his friend.

He'd gone on happily not feeling and not caring about anything because it was easier. If you didn't care then you didn't get hurt and he'd been hurt more than he would have liked. She was the one that convinced him it was worth feeling again, she was the one whose smile had made him want to feel again.

And now she was gone.

His heart and chest constricted painfully and he let out a sob he didn't know he'd been holding. After all the trouble he'd gone through to make sure she was safe, in the end it hadn't done a damn thing. He was still on his knees, covered in blood with her body splayed across his lap.

Bass wished he could trade with her, that he could take her place. He wasn't a religious man and he knew praying wouldn't do him any good but he figured he had nothing else left to lose, so he prayed, begged. Begged to be taken in stead of her but like he knew it would, it didn't do anything, he was still holding her and she still wasn't breathing.

His hand came up and he gently closed her blue eyes for the last time, unable to stare into her dead gaze any longer. Unable to keep gazing into those eyes that had looked at him every way possible. Filled with anger, fear, sadness, smugness, happiness, satisfaction... love.

A familiar cold crept into his chest and his breath evened out. She was gone, dead... and every dream of a future he had…. Had gone with her. Nothing mattered anymore, he'd failed the most important task ever given to him. He'd failed to protect her.

Was he surprised? Should;d he even be surprised? It was the story of his life, turns out he was poison after all. He hadn't been able to keep his family safe, hadn't been able to save Shelley and their baby…. Emma… and now Charlie.

Bass wiped the tears from his face in an efficient, cold gesture.

There were voices coming closer and closer and he looked up to find Pete standing a couple yards away. "We found him." The bearded man's voice was rough and filled with emotion, Bass knew Pete had taken to Charlie.

Ever so gently he placed the woman in his arms back onto the floor, taking off his jacket to pillow her head before he stood up, there was a large red stain on the front of his grey shirt.

It was a man, a boy, about Charlie's age. Brown hair and blue eyes, an angry, slightly satisfied look on his face that had uncontrolled rage coiling low in Bass' stomach. "Why?" He spat out the word and glared at the boy so there was no question as to who he was talking.

The boy raised his head and smirked "Because I could." Was his cocky reply.

Bass curled his hands into fists and stared the boy down "You just made the last mistake of your life." With angry strides he walked back to Charlie and respectfully removed her knife from it's sheath.

The silver blade glinted in the sunlight and he turned the knife over in his hand "Her name was Charlotte." He said, not really caring if the boy heard him "She was a daughter, a niece, a friend." His eyes pierced the boys "To me... she was everything."

"Let him up." Pete was about to protest but Bass sent him a glare that made him shut up before even a word could leave his mouth. The two men holding up the boy lifted him to his feet "What's your name?" He wanted to know who killed her, who took her from this world.

"Alan." The boy replied. "Alan," Bass repeated and walked up to the young man "Alan, I'm going to take her back to her family and when they ask me what I did with the man who did this to her..." He paused for a moment "I'm going to tell them that I got payback. That I made him suffer for taking her from us."

Fear seeped into the boys eyes but Bass didn't care about it, he didn't care about anything, not anymore. He drove Charlie's knife into the stomach of her killer and cut the man open, stem to stern and watched him fall to the ground. It was a painful way to die because it wasn't instantaneous. He didn't care.

Bass wiped the knife on his pants and placed it back in the sheath on her hip, where it belonged, where it had been for as long as he'd know her. "Leave him here, either he'll die of blood loss or the crows will finish him, I don't give a shit."

He walked back over to Charlie and lifted her up in his arms. Her dead weight heavy, especially with the wound in his leg but he wasn't going to let anyone else touch her. "I'm going to take her back to camp. Wrap things up here and come back."

Where he got the strength he didn't know but he carried her all the way back to camp, it took him an hour and a half and his arms felt like they were about to fall off, but he got there.

The camp was filled with people who were chattering happily while they were packing up their belongings but fell silent when they spotted him. He realized what a sight he must be, covered in blood, bruises and dirt carrying Charlie through the camp.

Her arms and legs were dangling down, her head thrown back since he hadn't had the strength to re-position her when she'd slipped in his arm. It must look like something from a movie as he carried her towards the large fire roaring in the middle of the camp.

Miles, Rachel, Gene, Aaron, Priscilla and Connor were all standing by the largest tent they had, at the moment still blissfully unaware of what was about to change in their lives. The sudden silence from the people around them must have alerted the group because all of a sudden they halter their conversation and looked around to see what the fuss was all about.

Miles spotted him first and his friend came running towards her "Gene," Miles called for the doctor but Bass knew it wouldn't do any good.

"Oh my god." Rachel cried out and came running over as well "Is she okay, what happened."

There was a lump the size of a planet in his throat and he couldn't get any words out. "Bass!" Miles demanded but he blankly looked at his old friend "I need a blanket." His voice was cold and even, dead.

"Just set her down, Bass." Rachel piped up, not yet aware of the situation.

"Get me a fucking blanket, I'm not laying her down on the ground!" He screamed, making everyone jump. "Bass," Miles' voice tried to reason but he just looked at the face that would never smile his way again "Just get me a blanket, please." He whispered.

The tone of his voice seemed to alert them that something wasn't right aside from Charlie limp in his arms. "Bass?" Rachel's voice was now tiny and scared but he couldn't make himself look into the eyes of the woman who was about to find out she had lost her other child.

It was Priscilla, of all people, who came up to him and spread a thick blanket on the ground, right in front of his feet.

He knelt down and gently placed her body on the blanket, the movement revealed the wound on the side of Charlie's head and he heard Rachel cry out in agony. The sound reflected exactly how he was feeling at the moment, raw and exposed.

Bass was on his knees, still sitting beside Charlie and he wasn't about to move not for anyone. Rachel sank down to hers on the other side of her daughters body, sobbing uncontrollably. Aaron was crying and Miles and Connor stood there fighting tears, not really believing what they were seeing.

Gene came up and grabbed Charlie's wrist, searching for a pulse but Bass knew he wouldn't find one "She's dead." Somehow Gene's voice set him off and he snapped at the older man "Don't you think I fucking know that?"

Connor's hand on his shoulder barely registered but it calmed him down slightly and he turned his gaze back to Charlie. "What happened?" By Miles' voice he could hear the man was barely holding it together. He didn't really want to talk about it but he knew that her family deserved to know what had happened.

"Somehow she escaped from the room I locked her in and she came to find me. The fight was over, we'd won and I was talking to the guy in charge of the city before the Patriots took it over." He took a deep breath and felt new tears fall down his face, renewing the tracks the previous ones had made.

"She was angry, so angry that I locked her inside that room but the fight was over. The fight was over and she was still safe and I didn't care she was angry with me. She turned..." His voice broke and he tried to swallow around the lump in his throat "She turned around to head over to Pete and there was a gunshot."

Bass took another shaky breath before he continued "At first I didn't know she had been... I didn't know." A long pause to gather himself together "I didn't know until she fell to the ground and I saw the gunshot wound in the side of her head." Bass ran gentle fingers through her hair, he couldn't look up at the other grieving people or he wouldn't be able to hold it together "There was nothing I could do….. She's gone."

Sorry you guys, was supposed to update yesterday but my damn internet up and quit on me. It's a suck-y time for me computer wise because my Vaio up and died and is being repaired by Sony so I have to do with my Compaq from the Mezozoic era.

Anywho, here's the latest chapter, I hope you enjoyed it… or not, since I was kinda hoping to hit you in the feels with this one. So this one isn't ending on a cliffhanger, because I know you guys hate those ;p So this must be soooo much better huh, heroine dead and everything ;p

Next chapter will be up next weekend and it is the second to last chapter. It goes up to 45 and then it's over and done with and on to one of the new stories, or both at the same time, I haven't decided on how I'll start posting those.

Please, please, let me know what you thought of this one! I hope it's not totally out of character and over the top, so let me know your thoughts on this one and I'll see you at chapter 43 :D

Love, Marisa