Charlie landed in a sweaty heap next to Bass, his pathetic bed on the floor providing no cushion for her less than graceful dismount. Bass laughed, taking deep breaths as he did, and rolled on his side to kiss her. "Are you going to wake me up like that everyday?" He asked with a grin.
She let out a loud snort. "I don't know... maybe."
He kissed her again. "Well feel free to wake me up whenever you make up your mind."
They kissed slowly, soft and sweet, their tongues exploring gently. The perfect morning was interrupted by Emily's cries coming from the bedroom. "I think we woke her up," Charlie whispered against his lips.
Bass propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her accusingly. "What do you mean, 'we'?" Rolling her eyes, Charlie made to get up but Bass pushed her back down. "I'll get her." He moved quickly, Emily's fussing subsiding the moment the bedroom door was opened. Charlie sat up on their makeshift bed and leaned her back against the wall as he brought the baby out. Emily reached for her mother groggily and the moment she was in Mommy's arms, latched on to a breast.
When Charlie made no attempt to cover her bare chest or the eating baby, he sat down next to them and cuddled up to her side, watching Emily suckle from over Charlie's shoulder. "She's so perfect," he said quietly. He reached over and pinched her little cheek lightly, chuckling when she batted his hand away with a chubby fist, her blue eyes glaring up at him sleepily. "I don't think she likes it when I do that." He tried again, this time tickling her little feet, which earned him a few wild kicks in his direction.
Charlie elbowed him in the ribs. "Cut it out, how would you like it if somebody tried to mess with you while you were eating?" Though he couldn't miss the ghost of a smile crossing her face.
XxX
Things were really starting to look up for their little family. Bass was still working with Ralph and Aaron had given Charlie a job at the school watching the kids during lunch. According to Aaron, they wanted the teachers to be able to have a break from the kids during the day, but Bass suspected that it had more to do with having some spare time with his lady friend. Though he tried not to think about the two of them in the old Principals office, ugh, it gave him some horrible mental images that Charlie would have to kiss away later.
The town was having quite the baby boom at the moment, which was great for keeping Rachel busy and away from them. It was also great for freeing up Miles so he could help get the house fixed up for winter. Ralph had somehow managed to find an unbroken window in one of the abandoned houses around town and the three of them had spent almost an entire day removing it from one house and installing it into theirs. The window was a bit too small, so they'd then gone out and tore some of the drywall in the other house down, removed some of the insulation, and boarded up the gaps the small window had left behind.
On another day, Aaron and Cynthia had come with Miles. Cynthia had helped Charlie start a winter garden while Aaron and Emily watched Bass and Miles patch some weak spots in the roof. Over the course of a few weeks their crappy, little house had become a home. Ralph and Opal bought themselves a new dining table with matching chairs that the local carpenter had made, then forced them to accept the old set as a gift.
Charlie had even come back from hunting one day with no game in her hands but an enormous smile on her face. She had found an old shack that was partially caved in, and after a few hours of sifting they'd uncovered a dresser, a battered coffee table, and a bed. Unfortunately the mattress was useless, it had more mold on it then the one they already had, but the queen size iron bedstead was in perfect condition. Lugging the damn thing back to the house hadn't been fun, but it was worth it for that smile on Charlie's face.
They were saving up as much money as they could for a trip to Austin, which was basically the only place you could buy a mattress these days. It would be expensive, but it would be totally worth it when they finally got to spend the night together in a real bed.
XxX
Charlie was sitting on the low stone wall in front of the school watching over the children while they enjoyed their half hour break from class. For such a small town, Willoughby's school had a pretty impressive class size. There were thirty-seven kids enrolled and only a quarter of them lived outside of the wall. Since there weren't really colleges anymore, the town considered kids finished with school when they hit sixteen. If they wanted to study further, they had to go to Austin to do it.
They classified the kids as Uppers or Lowers, and since school in Texas wasn't mandatory, there were only twelve kids enrolled in the Upper levels (age 12-16). The older kids, like most teenagers, deemed school unworthy of their attention and usually spent lunch gathered around a large oak tree in the yard, complaining about how stupid they thought adults were. For the most part, Charlie left them alone. As long as they stayed over by their tree and didn't start fist fighting (again) she was content to let them whine about whatever they wanted.
The Lowers were much more entertaining. The group seemed naturally split between what she liked to call 'the babies' - which were the five and six year olds, and 'the brats' - the seven to twelve aged kids who just loved making trouble. Dominic Frasier, a particularly nasty ten year old with a crush on her, seemed to really enjoy throwing the vegetables his mother packed in his lunch at Meghan Herbert, a poor little five year old with pigtails that cried at the slightest provocation.
It was Friday, which meant that Charlie was anticipating Dominic's attack to come at any time, so she hadn't noticed Bass coming up the stone path towards her with Emily.
"Hey, gorgeous." They'd been officially 'together' for about three weeks now, but Charlie had a feeling that hearing him say those words would never fail to make her heart flutter.
She pulled Emily down onto her lap and tickled her belly. "How's my baby?"
"Oh he's fine, thanks for asking." Bass responded sarcastically.
Charlie looked up at him, doing her best to keep the smile off of her face. "Funny, I could have sworn you were a man," she shrugged. "But I've been wrong before."
He sat down next to her and leaned close to her ear, a hand squeezing her thigh. "I'm definitely a man, sweetheart. Guess I'll have to remind you later." He slid his hand slowly up her leg while he bit down on her earlobe, making her gasp loudly. The teenagers surrounding the oak tree across the lawn broke out into fits of giggles, making Bass look up quickly, surprised to find that they had an audience that was actually paying attention. They were still giggling when he turned to her, his cheeks adorably flushed. "Sorry," he muttered, tipping his head in the kids direction.
Charlie shrugged. "Whatever, at least they aren't fighting."
Dominic picked that moment to fling a carrot stick from his picnic table on the left towards the babies table on the right. It hit Meghan square in the back of the head. She shrieked loudly and immediately started balling as if someone had actually hurt her. Charlie glared daggers at the boy, going over to comfort the little girl before starting his way. On her approach, the boy scooted back in his seat, his eyes wide with fear.
"Whoa, hang on a second." Bass grabbed her from behind and whispered in her ear. "I don't think making a kid pee his pants is going to be good for your job," he warned.
Charlie stopped, huffing an angry breath through her nose. All of the children, including the teenagers, were watching her to see what she would do. She mumbled something under her breath and grabbed for Emily. "Fine, if you know so much, you watch them."
Bass watched her stomp back over to her wall, thoroughly ignoring him. Aware that he had thirty-seven sets of school age eyes on him, Bass did the only educational thing he could think of, he talked about the Civil War. At first none of the kids seemed interested, except for Meghan - who was just grateful not to be a human target at the moment, and completely ignored him. But when he started talking about battles and started reenacting a fight between two soldiers while standing on Dominic's picnic table, the kids started paying attention. By the time he made it to President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, even Charlie was listening in. He was working his way through President Lincoln's assassination when the lunch bell rang.
"Aww, come on!" Dominic glared at the bell as if that would make it stop ringing.
"Did he really shoot him in the theater?" On of the little girls asked, Charlie thought her name might be Isabella.
"Did they catch him?" A boy, probably Dominic's age asked. Bass' head looked like it might explode as he tried to come up with an answer for all of the questions at once.
"Did his blood go everywhere?" Thomas, one of the Upper kids, finally gave up on pretending not to be interested and came over. "Did his brain like, ooze out of his head?" He asked excitedly.
All the little girls squealed in disgust, even some of the older girls looked grossed out. Bass tilted his head and stared at the teenage boy for a moment, something strange flitting across his face before it disappeared. Charlie pushed her way into the little group that had formed around him. "Alight you guys, get to class or Mr. Pittman will put all of us in detention."
This was met with lots of grumbling, Dominic turning to Bass with pleading eyes. "You're gonna come back tomorrow and tell us the rest, right?"
Bass gave him a warm smile. "I'll be here."
"Cool." The kids all ran off to class, leaving Charlie to stare down at Bass with wonder. He rolled his eyes and got up, taking Emily in one arm and pulling her close with the other. They started home silently, their fingers intertwined, Emily babbling about what they assumed was supposed to be 'birdys', though it sounded more like 'buh-bee'. She wondered vaguely if Emily meant bumblebee.
"Why did you make that weird face at Thomas when he asked you about the guys' brains?" She asked.
Bass chuckled, lifting their joined hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles. "Nothing, he just reminded me of something." At her raised eyebrow, he continued. "Me and Miles. We were like that when we were his age. Loved everything to do with blood and guts."
"So much has changed," she added sarcastically.
"We have," he said defensively. "I mean, look," he held up Emily as an example. "I don't have time for fights anymore. My life revolves around giggles and diaper changes."
Charlie pulled him to a stop in the middle of the market and look up at his face. The sun was shining beautifully behind him, his blue eyes were completely focused on her. "I know," she said quietly. Then she kissed him, light and happy. "I love you." She wasn't sure where the words came from, but now that they were out she couldn't take them back. She found that she didn't want to. He opened his mouth to say something, she had no idea what, but was cut off by a loud, authoritative voice.
"Sebastian Monroe?"
Bass closed his eyes and let out a slow, calming breath before turning around. There were at least ten Texas Rangers surrounding them, the town's sheriff looking particularly smug next to their leader.
"Yes, that's me." Charlie heard several gasps of surprise, but ignored the townspeople in favor of the obvious threat around them.
"You are under arrest for committing crimes against the general public," the man drawled. "I'll have to check my list, but let's just go for the general 'mass murder' charge." Several of the men around him laughed as Charlie's heart lept into her throat.
"You can't do that," she argued, "he-"
Bass yanked her away from the Rangers. "Charlie, don't." He shook his head sadly, passing their daughter over to her. Emily seemed to sense that not all was right in her little world and began to cry, reaching for her Daddy. Bass cupped her little head in his hands and kissed her forehead and both cheeks. "I love you, baby," he whispered to her. Then he kissed Charlie softly on the cheek, his mouth close to her ear. "I love you, too." Then he backed away, his sad eyes locked on hers, his hands up in surrender.
A/N Thanks for reading everyone! Leave me a review if you have a second to spare! :-D