AN- It's been so loooonnnng! Super sorry I can never update in timely manner. I've been on a roll this week however and so here is the next chapter of Another Day. Maybe I'll pop over to my other Revolution fic and update it too.

Also, is FF sending out notices? I feel like there's something glitchy with the site but is anyone else noticing anything?

Bass walked as quickly as possible toward the house and away from Charlie. He didn't even realize he was holding his breath until his chest started to hurt and he let it out in one big whoosh. He hesitated at the door and decided to walk around the back and collect his thoughts before having to face Miles and Rachel.

Holy shit. One hand raked through his hair, the other braced against the back wall of the house, and he closed his eyes. That wasn't enough, not nearly enough. Flashes of being inside her, feeling her in his hands, swept through his mind and tightening his gut. Although he had in the past lightly fantasized about screwing Charlie, the reality was nothing compared to it. The softness of her skin, the smell of her hair, the feel of her rhythmically clenching around him as she came…

He shook his head hard and opened his eyes. In all his wildest fantasies, it was always him dominating her, manipulating her, into some sort of thing he could control and wind up and send out to do his will.

Now he was very much afraid the tables had been turned.

Ugh. He stomped through the back door and went to the kitchen sink to throw water on his face. He needed something to hide whatever Miles or Rachel might detect in his eyes and he needed to slip upstairs to the attic to collect himself before the mission.

"What's got you in a bunch?"

Bass' head jerked up and around to see Miles standing in the doorway of the kitchen, illuminated by the hall light. He grabbed a towel and swiped at his face. "Nothing."

Miles rolled his eyes. "Oh, okay. I thought I heard you stomping around in here but must've been my imagination."

"Drop it." Bass moved toward the exit but Miles didn't move. "Let me by."

Miles stared at him hard and then flicked his gaze up and behind him, looking somewhere toward the back of the kitchen. Or thinking about Charlie and how she was probably still outside, Bass thought, uneasily. And wondering if we were together out there. And why…

"Where's Charlie?"

Of course. "How should I know? Last I saw she was by a tree outside. Now are you going to let me by?" He couldn't believe he kept a straight face at the mention of the tree.

Miles stared at him hard and then nodded, stepping to side and motioning him to go. Bass, always wary, made it two steps before Miles' arm shot out and stopped him again.

"Charlie's a tough girl."

Okay, you have my attention, Bass thought, a bit tiredly. Guess he wasn't as good at poker as he thought.

"And pretty, too."

Bass' jaw clenched ever so slightly and this time he looked fully into his former best friend's face. "What's your point?" The thing about Mile's was that if you looked at him, he seemed like a tired old man with a sense of humor. If you looked deeper, into his eyes, for example, you saw the truth.

The cold, hard, empty, killer truth.

Miles wouldn't hesitate to try and kill him again if he ever found out about Bass and Charlie.

"She's going through something right now. That kid, Jason … she cared about him. And she had to kill him."

Subtle much, Miles? Bass thought bitterly. Some of his old hate flared back up and he forgot for a second that he loved Miles and wanted him back in his life. "Yeah. I remember."

Miles shrugged. "Don't think I haven't noticed you two getting friendly."

"You told me to train her. I'm training her."

"Okay, okay. I just wanted to give you a little friendly warning though." Any pretense at civility Miles had before dropped away instantly. His voice lowered. "If anything … ever … goes beyond training, I will kill you. Call my bluff, I dare you."

Bass wanted to wipe the look off Miles face so bad right then, but he snorted a laugh instead. "Will you calm down? Charlie's half my age and your niece. And she hates me. What are you so worried about?"

Miles didn't bother to respond. He simply lowered his arm and walked away. Damn, Bass thought, dragging a hand down his face, Charlie better keep her mouth shut or things are going to get a hell of lot more painful around here.

XXXXX

"How do I look?" Charlie stood in the living room and held out her arms. Gene had managed to borrow some clothes from a family in town with a teenaged daughter her size. With her hair up in a ponytail, she thought she could pass for seventeen, eighteen easy.

Everyone just stared.

"What?" Charlie looked around in a mirror on the wall and then swung back around. "I know I look stupid, but I mean do I look like a regular girl?"

"You mean one who doesn't throw knives at people on a regular basis?" Miles quipped, standing up and smiling at her.

She cracked on back. "Yeah."

"You look great, honey," Rachel said, also standing and walking over to her. She touched Charlie's cheek and for just a momet, she was five again and back in the old world, in her house watching TV, safe and warm.

She shook herself. Not the headspace she wanted to be in pre-op. "Do you think I should look banged up or something? Like I put up a fight?" At the look on Mile's face, she quickly amended, "Not like Drexel, but I mean maybe some dirt or something?"

"No. You look fine," her uncle said firmly. "Remember, you're a weak, scared girl who doesn't know how to fight and just wants to go home, okay?"

"What about Drexel?"

Charlie kept her eyes trained on her uncle, forcing the blood down from her face. Monroe's voice alone was enough to cause her stomach to flip. Miles' hand twitched at the memory of what that asshole had done to her. "Nothing," she said quickly. "He's dead now anyway."

"Did he hurt you?" Rachel asked, frowning and looking between them.

God, why did she mention Drexel? She forgot sometimes that there was a huge chunk of time when it had just been her and Miles. No mom, no Monroe. "It was nothing. He wanted me to pose as one of his girls and kill this guy for him. To look the part, he decked me in the face."

Rachel gasped.

Miles spoke up. "It's fine. Aaron blew his brains out so … we won. Can we go now?"

Drexel was a huge sore point for him, she knew, and she was sorry she brought it up. She leaned down and grabbed a glass of water sitting on the coffee and listened as Miles walked Rachel over to the kitchen and spoke to her about something.

"Your hand is shaking."

She almost choked on the water.

"What really happened with Drexel?" Monroe asked quietly, looking her over.

Charlie remembered the house, the smells, the bruises on his girls, the sick fear. "Nora was dying and Miles said he knew a guy." She swallowed another drink of water and shook her head. "I had killed before that but … this was different. He was a good man who loved his daughter. I took advantage of that. Miles saved me before I could… But I was going to. To save Nora. To save all of us."

Monroe looked down at the floor. "If you're gonna do something awful you can't live with…"

She swallowed hard, past the lump rapidly forming in her throat. How many times was she going to have to tell herself that before the end?

Two hours later, Charlie sat huddle in a corner of a train car, wondering of her uncle and Monroe made it onto the train undetected and whether or not she was going to make it through this next week alive.