Chapter one Time

Two days in one cabin.

Two days and everything changes as Charlie is there for him when no one else is around.

xxx

He had turned his face towards the couch. His boots kicked out and messy on the floor.

The rain kept on falling, outside their cabin. It was small, it was not much. It's enough. The wind outside picked up, picking up the drops of rain, smashing it against the three windows of the cabin around her. Two with red curtains on her left, and one behind the couch. A fourth one above the kitchen counter in the small wooden kitchen. The sound of the rain against glass filling the room. The door rattled, but stayed shut.

Charlie looked into the flames, as dry pants were now against her legs again, and her jacket was slowly recovering too from the beats of the rain. Her hair drying in the scent of a fireplace, one of the most comforting scents she could imagine, the image of past hands going through her hair with her.

His shotgun against the side of the couch. Him filling the couch so easily with his tall length.

Three hours ago they had been just out of reach of this safe haven for the night.

When it got pitch dark, Charlie pushed them to keep on going. Something was of, the asshole was just not telling her what. Monroe was pure focus, hardened to the teeth, and with a fighting instinct, paranoia and years of experience had made him hyper aware of his surroundings. She knew the man well enough to know that by now. They shared a road and sleeping places for the night for weeks. A fire, a shed, a motel in a sleepy town where it had been them and a lot of tensed energy in many ways than one, in one room. And now he was back from Vegas, plus son, the kid in her eyes flirty but harmless, and a blood stained shirt that came out of his bag, they were back on the road.

Miles and her mom had stayed behind, as they were on a trip to get more weapons.

They had spotted the cabin, a dark shape in the midst of the trees and fading light and more dark that was moving in. It was still whole, empty and with a working fireplace. Small steps outside let to the front door. At that moment, the heavens opened, and the rain pounded on the both of them.

Monroe stumbled. It was also the moment Charlie saw the intense bewildered look in his eyes, and at the same time she watched him trying to regain focus in his eyes, turning his jaws more tensed. Monroe tried to focus, as she watched something out of place in his step. She knew they were not going to last long. She had just spent weeks looking after an uncle, and she really was not going to hold his hand or anything through anything.

Bass had felt like hell since midday. Although his gut had been acting up a long time before that. He felt sweaty and just the thought of food mad made him want to retch.

'You all right?' She had asked, trying to keep her voice as neutral and indifferent as she could. But he had felt her eyes on him a long time and more times than one now. He had snapped, yelled her name, grunted something.

She really had not deserved that. But he was not going to be sick like a dog and act like his brother did when he had gotten the flu in seventh grade in front of her. The girl already had fought her way in, and he was not about to show any fucking more.

The moment they had found the cabin, he just wanted to crawl in some corner and let the outside rot to hell. Of course, that was when his stomach really had turned into fucking hell, and he had walked outside, passing Charlie, barely able to make it ten feet without emptying his stomach. He was starting to feel the damp cold through his shirt, in the way it reached his toes. He wanted to get some fucking warmth inside.

But dear god, apparently his stomach decided he would be here for fucking forever.

Charlie had looked at Monroe , as his face was tensed and she could see the shimmer of sweat on his forehead.

Monroe had looked positively like hell the moment they gotten inside, and had muttered, although it was more like a growl, he had to go outside. When she had heard the sounds of somebody retching, she added his pale sweating face to the sounds and knew enough. She had opened the door and felt her mouth straitened as her eyes had to look at him. It made her remember how dear people had rubbed her back in comfort at these times. The memory made her want to move back from him and as they moved her closer to him at the same time. Somehow giving Monroe a back rub when he was throwing his stomach up seemed ridiculous.

'You want to go inside where it is warm, or do you want to get some pneumonia while you are at it?'

She was so purely Miles at this point, all attitude and sarcasm, but not being able to stay the hell away from him. Truth was, he felt like hell. His stomach fucking out of control as he could not stop retching. Bass looked her way, and felt more pathetic she was watching him fucking retch all over the porch.

'Come on.' She sounded firm, a small sigh accompanying her words, but she could not manage to bring up her normal level of distant loathing in her voice.

She knew him, like her uncle. If he was willing to show his cards like this, he did not have another choice. He felt beyond hell.

He looked at her with unsure weary eyes and then he moved towards the front door, his boots making heavy sounds on the wood of the porch.

His shirt was soaked and because his system did not get to absorb the energy it needed right now, he felt unsteady on his feet. The difference between the cold damp porch and the warmth inside the room hitting him straight in the face. He really thought it was not a big deal but when Charlie stepped beside him, her shoulder under his arm and oh dear fucking other body parts as well, steadying him, he knew he might have assessed the situation wrong.

Charlie watched him sway, water in his beard, water dripping from his head. His leather jacket proud among his shoulders. Soaked, cold, pale. She knew what she had to do, even in the pigheaded asshole probably would not let her close.

He did.

Which made the worry only grow bigger. She did not drag his ass all the way back once, asking somebody to save that rather fine ass one midnight only to see him like this.

Charlie grabbed him by his jacket, hands digging into the leather on the front and guided him to the couch not far from the fire.

He wanted to growl another thing in protest, but she would not let him.

'Don't be a child like Miles. We both know we have to keep warm. Did not drag your ass all the way back from Vegas to ask my mom if she could maybe not kill you to let you die here because of something like a stomach bug, Monroe.'

Bass blinked with his eyes. That was a lot of fucking information.

'What are you doing.' He closed his eyes at another wave in his stomach.

'To get you warm.'

She crouched down in front of him, her hands going under his jacket, close to his armpits as she moved his wide upper arms one by one out of the jacket, the fabric strong in her hands.

He wanted to start on his boots, Charlie watching how his strong upper arms moved in front of her. But then he felt weirdly too unsteady. He put his hand over his face as Charlie did not talk, but slowly started on the laces of his boots.

'Leave it,' he growled as Charlie looked at him with her eyes way, hell all of her, too damn close, as he kicked them out.

When that felt like he had done a day of marching, Charlie put a flask in his hands to add some more insult to his injuries.

'Drink,' She said without accepting anything else than him drinking, 'Flush whatever this is out.'

He took a gulp, his body telling him exactly what he could do with the water. She was there, a look of care in her eyes as he started to almost throw up again.

He could not remember anyone else than his staff taking care of him when he was sick.

She did not even look at him with loathing, she just sat by him. Waited.

Then, he felt a shiver. He got out of his shirt with her hands there to help him when he had to stop, close his eyes. Both of them ignoring they were aware of each other. She of her palm against his steady chest, he aware of her warm hand on a place that had never touched him. He threw the shirt on the couch next to him as Charlie moved back and grabbed their blankets. They were warm from the place before the fire they came from. This girl was practical and had managed to get a fire going, to keep this cabin warm, with blankets that had dried in those moments he had been outside doing fucking nothing.

Charlie gave him his space. She did grab his shirt and socks, placing them over a small screen in front of the fire. Ignoring the whim of his scent, musky, sweaty and earthy, that came her way as his shirt was in her hands, the light beige colour in her hands.

He let out a deep sigh. Turned his head down and shook his head for a while.

He looked down.

His pants.

Yeah, he was not taking out those, his boots now on the floor, his socks close to the fire, just as his shirt. But the fabric was cold and moist, clinging on to his thighs. He had no choice. So when Charlie sat in front of the fire, untangling her hair with her fingers, he grabbed his bag that was close to the couch, thankful that he had stuffed another pair of pants in the middle of his bag. He pushed the material over his thighs and replaced his pants for another pair.

After that, he had curled up, face away from her, and fell to sleep. Charlie watched how he was locked inside his world, how he was moving away and it dawned on her that there was a possibility Monroe was just not used to this anymore after years of knowing he had a best friend by his side. She thought more about what she knew as she sat there, her face serious, busy with bits of information she had about him. He had been ruling the Republic alone for a long time. No Miles, not other friends left. Year after year.

It was going flowing through her mind in the comfort of the dry, the warm, the wooden floor and the fire in front of her as his clothes were drying, together with hers now.

Some easy snoring from him filling the room. As he was asleep. Remembering how human he was, there, alone on that couch. Asleep. Far away. It was one of those signs she knew, he was really asleep. So she sat there, kept watch as she understood the range of his loneliness.

Hours passed in the rainy night.

She had woken him, a couple of times, moving towards him with the flask. He was so tall when she sat next to him, like a strong certainty. He was half on his way to deep sleep as he sat up for a while. She slowly let him drink, needing him to keep on doing this, although he just wanted to go to sleep again.

She checked the room, windows closed, door closed, their weapons close. The fire going, thanking the person before them there was enough wood. Everything out there was soaked by now. She took her place in between of the fireplacce and him. Feeling warmer, feeling aware of him.

Charlie watched him, the blanket had glided down from his torso, leaving skin exposed. It is when she noticed it. Saw it and felt a rush of pain.

For him.

How easily he became part of her daily routine, how much she learned from him training her on the way back. How easily the words came out, telling her mom, with shotgun in hand, she was the one that brought him back, making it clear, perfectly clear, she did that with purpose. Because he was there to help.

Because he saved her life.

Because she knew that broke out a storm of feeling. Without him she would never made it home. Without him she would have never understood the world was so much infinitely wider then she thought it would be.

His back, the back to a proud tall strong body, is forever changed with a wild fight of scars. The flesh wild. She had no idea what happened, but they, the sight of his back, left her unable to move for a long while. One day she will ask him. Not now. Not when there is too much yet to battle out.

Forcing herself to look away, giving herself what to do, she made sure the fire kept on going. That she kept on going. Not losing herself in empathy and her fingers wanting to do something with that blanket as she poked in the fire, the rain now pulsating in a loud equal rhythm against the roof.

Bass heard the sounds of her poking into the wood, and could almost picture her there, lost in thought, those damn blue's in the fire, the arch of her back, the line of her jaws. Maybe later she would have something small in her fingers, to play with. A leave of grass she liked to use out there, in front of a fire as she kept watch of as they sat down for some dinner. Something else. He could picture her so easily. He thought back about the moment they walked straight into hell. They barely avoided an ambush. They had split up, Yelling at Connor to double back, and make it back to Miles and the others. The forest was crawling with lurking attacks and as he had felt his body, his stomach like shit, the energy just not flaming inside his body he knew Connor had to go for help.

It was like this old law inside of his body, keep on going, his years travelling, at base, formed that survival mode, but he also knew, he was losing strength fast and there was no fucking way he would send out Charlie by herself. They were only a day away from Willoughby and if he kept going worse like this, he could need his brother. To keep his kid safe. To keep Charlotte safe.

For her.

Charlie heard him stir. He was finally able to keep fluids down, and the experience she had, the knowledge from Maggie, she knew that the worst was over. She did not know what seemed to happen between then however.

When the night and this space and pace made them two people that were able to almost touch the other.

She did not know where and how she was able to look past it all, and find compassion. She grabbed her bedroll. Point of no return she reminded herself. But she knew that was not the case. Because she was already gravitating towards him. Gently placing the water canteen a bit back. Checking the doors and windows one more time. She slid under her own blanket, the curve of his body close. She used the left over space on the couch behind him, and curled up.

Her hand eventually found a place. It is right under his shoulder, on his shoulder blade, as her fingers touched down on his skin. The first time she touches Monroe. It was there. Warm skin, warm body, strength under it, and deep and heavy waves of powerful muscles under it. A scar under the palm of her hand. Soothed between Bass and the warmth of the fire, she finally remembered how exhausted she was. She put her boots next to him . Felt the couch under her behind. It moved with her weight, causing a deeper height difference in the couch where she could lay in. As she moulded herself alongside him, as his warmth pulled her into sleep as the rain outside raged on.

Bass had been awake again the moment he heard the wood under her feet. He had not thought anything of it, thought she would be there for some water again. He waited. Waited some fucking more. Bass felt a woman slip next to him. Willing. Slowly. Soft. And then he realised it. Charlie Matheson fell asleep, with her warmth and slender body curved against his back. Her fingers so very much there, on his back. It was fucking pathetic, but there was a strange comfort in her hands, in her fingers, in her touch. In her.

Oh I had this one in my notebook for so long now, and I finally had the time and spark to write it . Thank you to the topsy turvy challenge for making sit down and write this one! The next and second part of the story will come soon. I hope you liked it, as always, thank you for reading! A review or feedback is always welcome if you want to, Love from Love