Chapter six

Charlie finds him on the steps of the stairs in the hallway. She sees him huddled up, his eyes downcast, his whole normally so tall and proud body compact, his fore arms on his legs. Knowing how much she ripped open. But she stands for the truth, and she will never have a part in denying Bass the truth.

Charlie stands in the kitchen, Emma's kitchen, as dark curls walk into the kitchen. For one second she hopes she is wrong. That this is a situation with a totally logic explanation. That this is some movie moment with a punch line that won't end history the way it was.

It isn't. Because dark curls and deep eyes walk in with shoulders in a miniature version that she has seen before.

'Mommy?' He asks. He looks up at Charlie with big eyes. He feels something is not right.

She won't put this little boy through anything he won't have to go through. She is not made out of that. This little boy is innocent and with a childish sweetness around him.

Emma gets to his level. And it is the skittish look in Emma's eyes that puts the truth, here in this kitchen, with both feet on the ground.

'I'll be right back Connor, okay buddy?'

Connor nods, when he tilts his head and turns his little body towards Emma, a hand close to his nose to cover up, when there is a little flannel cuddle toy in the shape of a dog in hands, dangling in front of him.

Connor. She is part of this now. She has a hard time forming sentences but she tries to reassure the little boy anyhow. She does not want things to end up on the shoulders of this little boy, Connor, that don't have to be there. SO much is yet to come for him if she is right. But she knows she probably already is. Sometimes you know. Sometimes your heart tells you, no matter if you don't want to hear it.

Charlie smiles to Connor. 'Hey little guy. I just stopped by to give your mom some books back. I am going home now okay, Connor?'

Big eyes nod at her when he moves a little behind Emma. He doesn't smile but his eyes are on her, and he seems to calm down by the look in his eyes as Charlie nods a warm gesture at him.

She looks up at Emma. She sees the turmoil in her eyes. She feels the blow for Bass. Slowly.

She says goodbye to the boy who's smile at her is unsure, which makes Emma even more uneasy.

Charlie feels her chin lock her face in a contained anger when she turns around. Her face is filled with hurt and her heart is pounding. Miles. She needs to get to Miles. Or no, her dad. Her dad.

She walks down the steps and is out of the house. The air around her feels different, the Sunday morning sun flat. The brisk air of the land outside the town in her face but the colours are off, like a tv movie that changes its colours when going to a different scene. She feels a million things at the same time and her heart is pounding.

'Charlie wait,' Emma follows her with an almost contained cry of despair in her voice.

She turns.

'Please don't...' Emma pleas.

'Please don't...,' she waits, then she continues, she is normally a very put together person, strong, strength, bright, but when you touch the people she cared for, a lioness comes out, 'What Emma? Don't tell... Bass?' Charlie's face is seething. Anger is spiking. She tries to keep her voice down. She knows Connor has already felt enough, and she remembers when she was little, the things her mom and dad think she has not felt. She will never ever put someone through that, it is just in her DNA now.

'Please don't tell Bass...what?' Her tears are almost cornering her last word, putting tear poison into that last word.

She is standing there, trembling as she watches it unveil in Emma's eyes. They both know what Bass needs to know. They both know who it is, that stands in her kitchen.

Life.

A part of his life.

'Let's get one things straight,' Charlie feels the line on her face go tense, like her skin has seen too many hours at the beach and she feels the tension in her face, as her voice goes to that flat but radiating pissed of tone that makes her strong and impressive and the one that puts her there in her strength. 'Don't ever, EVER, ask me to lie to Bass. I will never ever do that, to him.'

A son.

'So, you will tell him?' Emma sounds defeated.

'We have to find a way.' Charlie nods. They do, but she won't run, make a lot of drama, to make this situation even worse. This is not about her. This is about Bass. And that little boy that is... Oh god. This is about real lives, lives. She won't let her anger take control. Her stubbornness prevents her from doing so. She won't use her own anger to hurt somebody else when it should be about somebody else completely. She has seen one person do that at times in her life, and she won't be that person.

Emma nods, Charlie nods. Both woman face off, stand there, woman to woman as Charlie manages to nod at Emma and then Charlie turns again. As she walks away. Dad, Miles.

He is a father.

He has a son.

And bass. Oh god. Bass.

And now she is here. At the end of a Sunday that started with the sun and is now filled with an empty hallway and Bass in it, with grieve and crushed friendship and love and knowing things are not what they used to be. Sure she could not let a son and father spending time without the other in their lives. She will stay around for this. How could she allow that, how could she walk away from fighting to give Bass a life with his kid. But she is unsure. Unsure what he will say, what he will do. His eyes are dark, his face in one sharp line, his eyes on his hands as he holds his jacket in his hands.

Grieve is replaced by anger.

He does not look up. But she knows he has acknowledged her. So she keeps on walking.

Emma just left. She can sense her still here. Her perfume. And the idea of her, of a woman that she knows has been there for him, with him, close, alone with him, shifts something inside of her.

Bass feels her. He does. He has nu fucking clue how long he has been sitting here. And then he remembers earlier. As his thoughts go over and over to whatever the fuck happened to him.

'Emma.' He looks at her. His voice is low and not how he ever talked to her. He is pissed, he is disappointment, he is in shock. But the still manages to sound civilized. Because they have a kid, and he needs, craves, wants to see his kid. Ben and Miles were there. Telling him. As his mind was on repeat. You have to be fucking kidding me. You have to be... But they weren't. He put his hand through his hair, over his scruff. Emma. The one girl. She betrayed him. He hates feeling it, but she did.

She has opened the door to her house, the small blouse under the knitted vest, jeans. Her dark long hair falling over her shoulder. And now, hours after the words from Ben and Miles, he is here. They could not have stopped him. A whole fucking continent would not have stopped him. One look and everything is different. First look. First look at the woman he loved. First look at the woman as memories of what was come back. And he feels he can never thrust her again. It is something that breaks of the glow of his childhood, of this town that was and is his home.

'Bass,' She looks up at him, her face uneasy, her eyes at him, her shoulders, eyes, hair, all different. Hell, everything is different.

'He is not here,' Emma says softly.

John, Emma's dad walks in.

'I think you have to go son.'

Bass looks from him to Emma. Standing in front of a door to a house he is not even allowed to walk into.

'How could you do this, knowing how I would feel for this child?'

'Son, we made a decision.'

'The hell you did.' Bass fingers point at him, his voice is booming through the air as his blue eyes are dangerously turning darker.

Emma has never seen him like this. John has neither.

'If you think I would walk away from my child, you are fucking wrong. He is my son and I won't leave him.'

Tears are pushed away as rage takes over. He walks into the house, and looks around. Paranoia and disbelieve about what Emma told him is taking over. The kid is here, and if he is here, he has to see him.

Emma tries to intervene but Pete guides Bass out of the door. Bass almost shoves a fist in his face. But then he feels like air is running out of him.

He looks at Emma. And his whole face changes into defeat. Tears are in the back of his throat.

'Emma, come on. This is me. You can't do this.'

His eyes are pleading. That kid is his family.

'At least tell me his name.'

He presses his lips together as he tilts his head a little more down as thick tears fill his eyes now.

'Connor. His name is Connor.'

And then he stands at the other side of the door. The door clicks into the lock. Bass looks with disbelieve and raw hurt in his eyes at the house. He moves backwards as he puts his hand over his face, his scruff and takes tears with him. he looks at the house again, his hand on the back of his head in disbelieve. And then he walks away. He will be back. He won't let his son go without a fight. But is for the decency for his own mom, and his father's heritage of respect and the sweetness and example he set for his sisters, that he won't let this situation explode.

For now.

When he walks past a wooden fence, he jams his fist into it as his face is dark with seething rage and the completely feeling of pushed out by anyone.

It is dark. And cold. And lonely.

It feels like he has no one left.

He has walked back to his home. Walked inside. Looked at the dark floor in front of him and sat down on the fourth step of the stairs. The one that is his, the one he used to sit on to get into his boots from as long as he can remember, since he was a little boy that went to play pirates with Miles. Jacket in hand as his hands lay on the fabric.

The click of the door opening and closing, as his mind is still with the whole fucking scene at Emma's.

Charlie.

When she stands in front of Bass, he already stands on his feet. He has sat down here for hours, until she walks in. Stands before her, looks at her with intent.

'I..' Charlie starts, as her face is torn in sadness and the shift she feels in him. In grieve turning into dark anger. It is scary to her.

It is not the man she knows.

'Thank you,' His tone a low gruff tone. They stand boot to boot as his taller frame towers above her.

Charlie just nods.

'I have to go.'

'Bass, let me g..'

'No,' his wordcolour gets even lower, 'You stay out of it.'

Bass cringes under his own voice. Fuck. Push her out you fucking moron, way to go. Another one on the list of endless fuck upped moment of this week. But he can't.

Charlie's hope drops. He is pissed. His face looks so different and she wants to read out so much, as his arm is reaching for the door.

When Bass is feeling the fresh air and Charlie on the other side and her not by his grieve anymore, his eyes look at the ground again, his face drops. He can't burn the salty tears anymore. He shakes his head.

'Dammit.' He lets out a harsh breath. And then he walks the path he has chosen many times before. He does not stop before he reaches his house, the small house at the end of school ground where the street turns into another corner, before it runs into the fields at the edge of town.

He needs to find Miles.

He finds him. At his old home. Fuck, once life had been easy. It had not been about fucking messed up tears and kids hidden from him.

He crashed the door open, finds Miles with a bottle in his hand that is about to go towards a glass. He does not even notice the other man in the room with him.

'You knew.' Bass puts his finger into Miles' chest. It is not a question. The paranoia comes back at full blow.

'No, I didn't.' Miles says firmly.

'You did.' Bass shoves him hard in his chest with two hands. He has to, because right now, Bass needs to vent, needs to punch, needs to roar with grieve und dishonesty and unfairness that twirl into paranoia and anger.

'Bass, he didn't.' It is Ben, his warm voice reaching him.

Bass is still filled with rage.

'Sebastian, look at me.' Ben uses his full name to get his attention, 'Miles did not know.' His voice is softer.

Bass breaks. He shoves Miles again. And then tears come. 'I had a child,' he spits out the words, with her, some of his spit flying through the air, 'I don't know what the hell I did wrong for her to hide her, I would have...I would never,' Miles feeling every load of those words, with her, with Emma, with the girl Bass noticed from when they were little and where he always felt for, for her, his face pissed and so incredibly torn that he looks years older. 'All this time, I had a child Miles, and I would never hurt him...I was not there ' his voice peeks, rough, low, high.

Miles puts his arms around Bass, shoving them around them like they delivered punches, in a man way that is hard and loved, clinging onto him and not let him go. Bass sobs into Miles' neck. They crash to the floor as anger and paranoia is moved by grieve and harsh sobbing.

Later, they sit. They drink. As Bass stares towards the wall.

Ben hands him another drink as he sits next to his brother and the man he sees as family on a chair.

'I have to go and find Charlie,' Ben puts the glass on the table as he gets up.

'I'll stay here Ben. Take care of our girl.' Miles nods.

Bass cannot talk, but taking care of Charlie sounds good. His girl, his friend, his...she needs to be taken care of. Because he sure as hell can't and fucked that one up. He huffs bitterly with the drink in hand, as he looks at and over the rim of the glass.

He nods at Ben with hollow blue tears glazed eyes.

The door shuts behind Ben and then it is him, Miles. On a couch.

At the end of the day Bass fulfilment about his kid pushes away the anger for the audacity of one decision. He has missed so much. So incredibly much, that he does not know how to put that into thoughts for now.

But then he looks and feels Connor's name and the promise of him again in his mind, and he realises how much he can mean for him. How much he wants to see him. As he asks himself how much he will see in that boy. How much lays ahead. It fulfils him. But tears are there. Tears for these emotions as he sits on a chair in the kitchen, a glass of whiskey on the table. Alone. His arms on his knees. Tears for the woman that is not there.

And the woman he wants to be here. Because somehow she can always pierce through his misery, make him step up and take care of her, respect her, be in awe of her strength and smart mouth and beauty.

He can hear her steps on the wood as the thoughts materialize into her. And he can't look at her. Because she cannot be here. Not after everything he has done. He can't. Slowly he raises his eyes. And then she walks towards him into the middle of the room, with dark wood on the floor and dark walls from the nightfall as the water in the small reservoir outside moves quietly in the Indiana night. Her nose is a little red on the top from the cold in the air outside. Her eyes glassy with tears as she nods at him ever so slowly.

He looks at her, knows that here, is understanding and a second chance. He should not get that one, but she gives it anyway.

'I'm sorry,' His voice is rough and broken.

When her sweet scent, fresh, not too much, is reaching him he encircles her with two large hands.

'There is nothing to forgive.'

And as she stands there between his thighs, his head finds the swelling of breasts, the sweet warmth of her stomach as tears move into her tank.

The glass of whiskey close to them on the table.

Authors note I love this weird moving of the time line, because I can write this moment. I always wondered how that conversation between Emma and Bass would go, when the first shock was wearing out, when he found out about his son. About her decision, and how he would feel. How people like Ben would help him, and fit in the story. There were two scenes here in the present as a flashback: the moment Bass went back for a second time to Emma and the moment where Charlie talks to Emma as she realises who the little boy could be. Is. And it is a little link to Vegas, where she did not walk away from Bass, where she saves his life but also is the key to giving him Connor back to spend time with. She is also the one with bringing back Bass to Miles, who gave the impulse and to Bass to find his kid. I think that is beautiful and I wanted to bring that back here. I also love writing Ben in the mix.

There are two more scenes waiting: the one where she will have to tell Miles and Ben. And the one where Bass will know about life in between the grieve there, his part of him and the confrontation with Emma. Dammit, that's three. So, these scenes will unravel in the chapters to come as this story was about loss but there is life too.

Thanks for reading. Love to hear your thoughts! Love from Love