oOo

Once she had finished showering just her head and drying off as best as she could, she eased herself back onto the side of the tub and started slowly pulling her gown back on. It took a while to pull her arms through the sleeves with only one hand, and drying her hair was much harder too. Surprisingly it was the arm where her shoulder had been shot that was her "good" arm, while the arm that had taken all of the glass shards was basically useless to her. After a while she gave up, stood up on her uninjured leg and half hopped, half hobbled to the door. It was especially hard to keep her balance now that she was doped up to her eyeballs. When she opened it, she saw that Theo and Kristoff had returned at some point. There were a few white carryout boxes on the cabinet and a mouthwatering smell of food wafting through the air. Outside, the sun had gone back down again.

All three men looked up to see her enter the room, but Theo- who was closest- was the one who was quick to jump up when he saw her standing there, and helped her back to her side of the bed. If she hadn't been so sedated she probably would have been very embarrassed to be wearing only a hospital gown in front of three strange men, but they had probably seen plenty of her naked body in the past few days while she was unconscious. If they hadn't tried anything creepy then, she figured she didn't have to worry about it now. At least that's what she hoped. Then again, Theo hadn't seemed like the type of guy to pull off a heist and kill people but he had. "We brought you some food." He offered as he helped her settle comfortably, propping up some pillows for her back.

"Thank you." She replied softly, and he handed her one of the boxes with some plastic utensils. In the box sectioned off in three separate parts was a lump of mashed potatoes, a breaded filet of some kind of fish, and a serving of vegetables. She finished it all within five minutes. Hans, Theo and Kristoff were still eating slowly.

"Someone was hungry." Theo noted with a small smile as he threw away the empty box for her.

"I haven't eaten properly since… Christmas Eve. About ten minutes before you guys showed up." She explained.

"Fair enough." He shrugged, and went back to finishing his own food.

They ate in silence, watching the news on TV which was rerunning the story of the Nakatomi attack. A few of the bodies had been identified through dental records, but most were still a mystery. Thirteen bodies had been recovered in total and Charlie wondered how many were her coworkers. Once they were done eating, everyone began packing up. She watched from the bed as they began picking up the duffel bags and taking them out, two or three at a time. Kristoff, who was the smallest of the three, looked quite amusing as he lifted three bags and had to walk sideways just to fit through the door.

Hans handed Theo a set of keys as he left with the final bags and said "Bring the car around, I'll meet you down there."

Kristoff waited by the door while Hans walked over to Charlie and began easing his hands under her knees and back. In one swift motion he lifted her from the bed and started walking. She threw an arm around his neck again and then they were outside, the cold air hitting her face was refreshing. She didn't recognize anything around her. The landscape, the buildings- nothing- only that this was definitely not California. Looking up to where a soft yellow light was glowing, she found it to be a neon sign for a Motel 6.

"What about…" She started to ask but stopped herself. Trying to figure out how to phrase her question.

"Yes?" Hans asked, looking down at her with one eyebrow raised.

"I mean… you were shot too. Doesn't it hurt?"

"It stings a bit." He admitted. "And they wouldn't remove the bullet, but I'll be fine."

"Did you get stitches?"

"A few." He nodded. A small gray sedan approached them and she saw Theo in the driver seat. In a low voice Hans added "If you're good I might even let you see."

Kristoff was sitting in the passenger seat, leaving the back for her and Hans. She'd been half expecting the ambulance. Once he got her situated and buckled, he went around the car to the other side, hopped in, and they were off. In the floor there were a few of the bags and some towels and blankets, probably taken from the hotel room.

For a while they sat in silence, only speaking to ask and give directions. The only other sound coming from the radio that, after the fourth or fifth Christmas song, Hans told them to turn off. After a few more hours they passed around snacks and gave her more of the painkillers and she welcomed the numbing effects. They stopped once at an empty rest stop to use the facilities and again she needed help to get inside. Mortifying embarrassment lasted only a moment until she emptied her bladder and then she couldn't be bothered to feel anything except relief. Then they were back on the road. It was very boring for several hours.

With the pills came a pleasant drowsiness and after a while Charlie started to doze off. Sometime later she woke up to the sound of an urgent conversation.

"Border ahead." Theo said.

"Get your passports ready." Hans said from somewhere very close to her and she realized she had fallen against him.

Shit! She started to get up but Hans wouldn't let her sit up all the way. "Stay low." He warned, the dangerous edge in his voice.

Through the front windshield she could see lights in the distance and suddenly something clicked. A thought managed to pull itself free from the sleep of her brain. This was the Canadian border. "Canada?" She asked, a slight whimper in her tone. She tried again, more controlled. "We're going to Canada?"

Hans was easing her onto the seat so that she was lying down, while he crawled onto the floor beside her. "We were supposed to go to Mexico." He said, pulling a blanket over her. "Don't move at all." He said, and then covered her face, placing a few of the bags gently on top of her. Through a small space between the fabric and the seat she could see him covering himself as he lay down on the floor. As he adjusted the towels and blankets so that it didn't look exactly like they were being used to hide a body, his eyes caught hers for a brief moment. Then he pulled a towel over his head.

Then she heard a sound that gave her a sick feeling as flashes of Christmas Eve flooded her mind. A gun clicking, ready to fire.

She reached her good arm down to pull the towel back from his face. "You are not shooting more people." She hissed.

"I told you not to move." He hissed back, glaring. "It's only as a precaution, and if you do that again, I'll be shooting you." He reached up and pulled the blanket back over her, shoving her arm back underneath it.

"Shut it, guys." Theo said in a tense voice from the front, and started rolling down his window.

Charlie did her best to sit absolutely still, even holding her breath. Her heart pounded against her ribcage. If they got caught, she might have a chance at freedom… but a shootout would definitely occur. People would die. She might even die.

The patrolman asked for Theo's ID and for proof of ownership on the car, which was actually a rental. To her surprise, Kristoff started speaking to the officer in French and after a few minutes of amicable conversation, some laughter and an "Au revoir!" they were driving away. They had done it. They were in Canada.

"What did you say to him?" Hans asked as he got back up off the floor and started rearranging the blankets, towels and bags so that he could sit back in the seat.

"I told him I was going back home, bringing an old friend to visit the family." Kristoff said over his shoulder. A cocky grin on his face. Hans chuckled a bit at this, helping Charlie back into a seated position.

"Well, the hardest parts are over." Hans said, taking his seat again. "We're rich beyond our wildest dreams and even if anyone knew where we were they couldn't get to us easily."

They drove for the rest of the night, and only stopped as dawn began to break over the eastern horizon. They pulled into a parking lot advertising rooms for the night. It had a rustic lodge theme, and the sign out front had a cartoon moose dressed as a lumberjack. Theo got out and made a show of stretching and yawning, then he went into the small office to get their room. He was only gone for a short while and when he returned he drove the car around the back of the lot, where they could see fifteen or twenty log cabins, each with a number painted above the door, and only two with other cars parked in front of them. Theo parked the car in front of cabin 13 and he and Kristoff got to work on carrying the bags into their room.

At one point when he returned he handed Hans the key to 13, and that's when Charlie saw that he was carrying another key. 14, which was directly across from 13. "Just… be nice to her." He murmured to Hans.

As Hans carried her into the room, she took that moment to say, "Now that you've made your escape… there's no reason not to let me go."

He didn't reply directly, only gave her a sharp look. "Drop it already." He warned as he entered the room. The log cabin theme continued inside as well, with plaid patterned bedspreads and even a stuffed moose head over the fireplace. There were two queen sized beds against the wall opposite of the fireplace and above them was a long landscape painting of a snowy Alaskan mountain range with an impressive lake, complete with wildlife.

He placed her on the bed next to the window- away from the door- and left the room. When he returned he was carrying another one of the duffle bags that he sat on the table. It didn't seem different from any of the other bags but she could tell the contents were more solid than the paper of bearer bonds.

"Hans?" She asked, waiting for him to face her before she continued. "Please… just let me go home."

"No!" He snapped.

"Why?!" She snapped back. "Why won't you let me go home?"

He started to say something, stopped, started to say something else, and stopped again. "It's… Just go to sleep, we'll talk about this later." He finally groaned, before letting out a tired sigh, sitting on the other bed and taking off his shoes.

"I'm not going to sleep until you answer me." She replied. If she had known what his reaction was going to be, she would have just gone to sleep.

Both shoes removed and on the floor, he turned and leapt from his bed across to her bed pinning her underneath his weight. One hand wrapped around her throat as he leaned over her. "You're not in any position to be demanding anything from me." He hissed in her ear as she struggled to breathe.

"Stop it!" She wheezed, tears streaming down her face from fear and pain, his leg rubbing painfully against the stitches of her own. She clawed at his hand, gasping for precious air, trying to pry him off. With only one good arm she was unable to overpower him.

"We lost a lot of people, we've been driving fifteen hours a day for the last few days, and I'm tired." With a final squeeze to her windpipe he let go. "Just be thankful I'm in a relatively good mood." He said, leaning back.

"Get off!" She said, trying to move him away from her stitched skin. He had actually ripped some of them again, and blood was slowly seeping out. The painkillers she'd taken earlier made it easier to deal with, but they were wearing off again and she still felt it; sharp, hot fire in a concentrated area.

"Oh!" He said when he saw the blood. Realizing what he'd done, he jumped off. The anger he displayed only seconds ago was replaced by concern and even shame. Grabbing a towel from the bathroom, he reached out to tend to the wounds he had reopened but she slapped his hands away.

"I'm just trying to-" He started to say.

"You've done enough!" She snapped. "Just leave me alone."

He stared at her, not believing that she would refuse his help, then angrily threw the towel across the room. "Fine! Bleed out, I don't care." He snarled, then stormed out of the room, out of the cabin, slamming the door on his way. Charlie cried as she tried to curl onto her uninjured side without making her injured leg any worse. Within half an hour she succumbed to exhaustion.

Many hours later, Charlie woke up groggy and still tired, not remembering when she had fallen asleep. The sun was setting again outside, the familiar orange glow making the trees look like silhouettes. With a yawn and a careful stretch, she slowly eased herself up. She felt like she could sleep for a few more hours- and lord knows she needed it- but she decided to get up. Glancing over to the other bed, she was surprised to see that Hans was not there. The bathroom door was wide open showing that it too was empty. She was very surprised to see that her thigh had been cleaned, and even rebandaged. At some point someone had cleaned it while she slept.

Testing the strength of her leg she tried to stand up. It hurt like hell but she could finally do it. With a severe limp she walked around the side of the bed, but after only a few steps the pain got worse and she had to sit back down.

Soon. She thought hopefully. If he doesn't kill me I can escape. Or maybe hide and make him think I did.

oOo

She had found the pill bottle on the nightstand where Hans had left it for her and swallowed one of the tablets. When Hans returned well after dark, she was flipping through channels on the tiny television, settling on children's cartoons because she was tired of watching the news replay the Nakatomi attack on repeat. They weren't saying anything new. She resisted the urge to ask him where he'd been all day.

"Feeling better?" He asked as he strode into the room. Though his voice was cautious, as if he was afraid to upset her. She shrugged her reply. "I want to apologize for… for earlier. For your leg and for… everything." He said calmly.

She didn't reply, only looked up at him through tired eyes and nodded slightly, acknowledging his apology, but not necessarily forgiving him.

"And I'm sorry for bringing you along. I know you're afraid, and you deserve to at least know… It's just difficult to explain why."

"Just tell me the truth then. Why won't you let me go home? Why did you drag me to Canada."

He never sat down, only paced slightly as he gathered his thoughts. "I dragged you with us to Canada because I feel… somewhat responsible for you."

"You what?"

He stopped pacing, and leaned against the wall facing her, looking uncomfortable. "Well, it was my fault you wound up this way." He gestured at her with one hand. "Cut and bruised."

"Yeah, and?"

"…I guess I just wanted to know that you were going to be okay."

"That still doesn't explain anything." She muted the TV that had been running some Christmas special. "I'd have been more than okay if you had left me at a hospital-"

"I know!" He snapped, then stopped himself from going off again. "I know… but I also couldn't be sure, and I hated the thought of not knowing if…"

"Don't pretend that you care about me." She said suddenly. "You don't even know me. You were going to kill me with the rest of those people."

She could tell that she'd hit a nerve, but she wasn't sure how. His expression turned dark and cold, and she had to avert her gaze to keep from showing her fear. Finally he answered, but now his voice was angry again. "You're right. I don't know you. You're just someone who got in my way. I… I really should have killed you that night. And now it's far too late, that moment has passed."

She didn't know how to reply to that, and they sat in an awkward silence again for a few minutes.

"Is that why you won't let me go home?" She asked after a while.

"What?" He asked.

"Because you wanted to make sure I got better? Because you felt responsible?"

"…Yes."

"Well don't." She said firmly. "You aren't responsible for anyone but yourself. You can let me go home now, and I can pretend this never happened."

To her surprise he seemed to consider this for a moment. "And when the FBI catches up with you? Locks you in a room for days until you tell them what happened? You can't tell them you helped me, they'd throw you in jail. How long will you last?"

"I can lie." She insisted. "I'll say you guys had me drugged the whole time- that actually won't be a complete lie."

His lips turned upward in a slight smile at that, but were quick to drop it again.

"I mean… what else were you going to do?" She asked. "Are you planning to kill me?"

"No!" He said quickly, as if the thought was appalling to him. "No, I don't want to kill you, I need you actually."

It took her a second after he said that, for it to click in her brain. "You… you're planning to drag me along, aren't you? Wherever you're going?"

He didn't reply but he didn't have to.

"That's it isn't it?" She asked, a hint of fear in her voice. He still didn't reply, so she continued her questions. "Where were you going to take me?"

With a heavy sigh he answered, "Eventually? We'll go to Germany."

She was quiet for just a moment while it sunk in, then all but screamed "I can't go to Germany!" Hans winced slightly at her outburst. "I can't even speak German!"

"You could learn." He offered. "It's not that hard. Quite similar to English in fact."

"I have a life! Back in California!"

"I could offer something better than that." He replied.

"…Better?" She tried to scoff, but he could tell he had piqued her interest. "I don't need better. I need normal. I need legal."

"Didn't you ever have dreams for the future when you were a child?" He asked. "Maybe you thought you could grow up to be a princess or something-"

"Fuck you." She snapped.

"I'm being serious." He insisted.

She sighed, annoyed and said "Musician. I wanted to be in a band." She had even learned to play guitar for several years before she realized that being in a band meant being around a lot of people a lot of the time.

He smirked at this as if the idea was absurd but quickly composed himself when she glared at him. "I see in you great potential." He stated. "Well, not as a musician, and certainly not as… whatever your job at Nakatomi was."

"I was-"

"It's not important." He interrupted. "You have a very interesting skill, and when applied in the right field, it could make you very rich."

She understood exactly what he wasn't saying. "You want me to be a thief like you?"

Something in the way he smiled told her she was right.

oOo

A.N.: When I first started posting this story all those months ago I had originally planned for the next chapter to be posted by tomorrow evening (for reasons that will be obvious when I do post it. And maybe I should anyway?) but I don't know if it will happen. I've actually been much busier than I thought this month with the holidays and family gatherings. Anyway, Happy Christmas/etc! Thank you all for the many comments and kudos since I began! I'm very happy to see that this fandom and ship isn't dead yet!