This is the first part of a new story I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. This is my story for the Good Ship Charloe fic challenge. This is a story about things that will never be the same, but also a story about new things, about the past and the future. It is a story about hard moments, about darkness and light, about loss, about family and friendship, love, passion and hope. A story about gratitude.

A little note: I do not own Revolution, this is fan fiction and a daydream about what could have happened too.

That day

Part One

It is over. Everything that has been filling her mind and hands when they were around her knife and crossbow is over . The last convulsions of war are fading away around them.

It is late autumn and a late pale afternoon in the camp set up near the outskirts of a small town north east of Austin. People are gathering as they look for others who have been through what they all have been through the past year, to share this moment with on this day where they have won the war and casted away the threat of kaki for good.

People are drinking. People will be starting to believe in something else other than war. People will start to dare to believe in something else again other than fighting this war, and being hungry or cold or homesick or desperate and so tired. As booze is flowing freely with pats on backs and short knowing nods shared between men and woman who formed the group they became. Bonds formed through the war they have been through, and first slow hesitant grins are visible on faces as that slow realization is setting in.

People are starting to talk about going home.

Charlie has been drinking. But instead of grinning, or celebrating, or looking beyond war she has felt how an overpowering blank feeling is starting to wash over her. It is spreading fast. She is standing under a large tree, part of a small tree line close to the small town. She is standing close to her people. Her family. Aaron and Priscilla are there, just like her mom and Miles. She watches the two men that are sharing a bottle together right behind Miles. Two men that became her family the past few months. Connor and Monroe.

Charlie lets her eyes move over her people surrounded by the sounds of men and woman drinking, eating and sharing their booze. The wind touches the leaves of the tree above her, the leaves golden but somehow pale too in the light of the cold afternoon. Charlie watches how Aaron is talking to her mom. She sees their mouths move, but she cannot follow their conversation. Because the slow overpowering blankness is being replaced by something completely else.

'You coming kiddo?' Aaron's voice is pulling her out of her own slow thoughts as he is standing across from her, a little further ahead. The sky is getting more dark and more grey, as the sun is slowly setting somewhere on the other side of that heavy pale sky . She has no idea how long she has been standing here like this, because her group around her is not drinking and talking anymore. She feels the shift going through them as their unwanted eyes focus now on her.

It is the moment the foundation of that stretching low emptiness is starting to shake under her feet. Through the cracks there is such a deep sadness creeping into her, that Charlie is not sure she can form any words.

Miles' face fills with worry, as he looks at Charlie. He is stepping away from Rachel with his right hand on the hilt of his sword as he is making eye contact with Bass for a very short moment who is now standing a little further ahead near their wagon.

'Charlie...hey..' Miles stops before Charlie, tilting his head so he can get to her level, trying to find her eyes. 'Charlie?'

Bass watches how Miles is trying to get through to Charlie. He watches them both. She has hardly spoken, she has been too damn quiet. He has kept his mouth shut about it, but hell, he had seen it. He watches how Charlie does look up, but her face is pale, her eyes clouded like autumn mist. And hell, she is a world away. And all alarm bells go of in his mind when Bass hears how Miles calls her Charlie. Not kid, not moron. Charlie. The last time he had seen and heard his brother do just that had been Austin.

He is preparing the horses to leave later that night, as they will all start to make their way back to Willoughby. Bass exchanges a look with Connor who is throwing their packs onto the back of the wagon. Both men share a concerned look before they look back to see Charlie who still does not move or react to her name. As Miles is starting to reach out for her cheek with the palm of his hand to try and make some contact with her.

Bass stops what he is doing, one hand on the mane of the hoarse behind him as tension builds in his jaw for the way Charlie is fading somehow again. Bass looks at Miles who is desperately trying to reach Charlie. She flinches at his attempt to reach out for her as Miles' hand tries to cup her face and his heart flinches for her and his brother.

Miles feels how Rachel walks up to him and Charlie as he feels a giant grey aching mass in his heart for Charlie in front of him, moving herself away from his hand that just wants to comfort her. Rachel is now standing next to Miles and right in front of Charlie. She has been watching Charlie with Miles as there was one moment of aching and a dark small brush of jealousy in her mother's heart as it is aching for that hurting realization, for knowing in her heart that Charlie needs Miles now more than she needs her. For realizing Miles gets her daughter now more than she ever will. Rachel feels how her mouth tightens with tension.

' Charlie..' Rachel tries. She is now standing next to Miles. She feels the small worried twitch around her own mouth as she feels how worry floods her muscles with tensed concern. She tries to reach Charlie again. 'Hey, you all right?'

She tries to get a reaction out her daughter but fails. She tries again. 'We are leaving in a couple of hours so maybe you can get your pack?' Rachel nods to the house behind them where they had spent the night. Rachel's voice is soft but still her words are razor sharp to Charlie.

And her mom's words are taking her back, all the way to a home in Chicago where her mother had told her they were going on a adventure and would leave the city. Charlie is being lifted up as her mind takes her back to that house, their home, and the girl that wanted to take her ballerina's with her.

It is right then and there, there on that late autumn afternoon on that day of pale autumn light touching trees and branches above her, that Charlie realizes it.

She is not going home. She is never going home again. There is no home. Not for her. Not anymore.

Tears are absent, the whole grey feeling of that realization is locking her in one place. And she knows all of sudden she cannot be here. She can't. But she can't go either. She can't go anywhere.

Not with them. Not when every one of her breaths hurts. Her mother's home there in Willoughby where she grew up is not her home. Not when she is realizing she will never walk through those gates in Wisconsin. Not when she realizes Chicago has become a memory. Not when she is realizing her father will never be there, standing before their home with a flask in his hand. Not when Danny will not be there to joke around with.

Not when she realizes how much different she is now and how this war has shaped her. Changed her. Through the core.

Charlie finally looks to Rachel and then to Miles who is looking with a deep concern for her in his dark eyes. She sees Aaron and Priscilla, as Connor and Monroe come into focus. His blue eyes somehow standing out in a weird way, reaching her through the pale afternoon light.

Everything is different now. So she does the one thing her feet want to do now. She turns, she cannot look at any one of them now. She cannot look at her mom, Miles or Aaron. She cannot look at Connor, who is standing next to Aaron. And she cannot meet Monroe's eyes, which she feels on her now. He is there, like he has been so many times as he would be holding her eyes, longer than he should. Longer then she should. After a battle, after a fight, after he is being a crude ass. But not now, not after this.

She can't look at any of them. She can't look at him. Because she can hardly look at herself. So she turns and starts to walk to their safe house, as she does not look back. Her mind focussed on one thing. The room where her things are. The room where she will pack her crap and figure out where to go next, when home , her home, is not there anymore.

Bass waits two whole long hours. Fires that have been build with wood from the forest provide warmth and light throughout camp now nightfall is close. The men and woman who he has fought with walk up to him, to talk to him with a show of respect for the man that lead them through this war. Side by side with Miles again. He talks to them, nods to them, drinks some booz that burns in the back of his throat. But his mind, his mind has been with her.

He knows she is in there, in that house he has not let out of his sight the past couple of hours. Because hell, he had not been able to do anything else.

Miles is sitting close to the porch as well. Both men are silently doing the same as they are watching out for her. For Charlie. One look at his brother and Bass knows how desperate Miles is. It is in his shoulders, in his dark eyes. They have come a long way, the both of them. He knows.

And when Bass finally cannot contain himself anymore, and as he walks to the steps of the porch of the house, there is a long wide sadness in Miles' eyes when he looks up to meet his eyes. Bass almost comes to a full stop, when he is not that far from Miles. And then, Miles nods to him. And one nod from him, one nod of understanding from his brother and Bass walks into the house.

Both men know the reason why Miles is okay with him going into the house. They had both been there, on that one day now almost two decades ago. Hell, her face, that pale lost sad face. Charlotte's face had taken him more than fifteen years back in time and into the past he shared with Miles. Her paleness and those eyes filled with harshness and a wild kind of being lost at the same time had been his own eyes reflected in the mirror of a bathroom on base.

They had been ready for another drill, on a normal Wednesday morning. It is a little after ten in the morning and Bass has just given orders to two men and has dismissed them. As he looks up he sees Miles walking towards him, from the other side of the square. There is a sound of a jet ready for take of behind the building he is standing in front of as normal on base activities are filling the clear blue sky with normal every day sounds he has come to know so well. Boots on concrete, orders being shouted.

Miles walks up to him and is about to say something as they are interrupted and being told that they are needed in the office of their superior. Bass shares a look with Miles as Miles' eyes go a bit darker and both men share the same question in their eyes. The walk to the office is spent with neither of them speaking. They do not have to, to understand that there is something going on. Bass adjusts his hair right before they are being told to come in, his hand going through his curls as Miles goes in first.

The moment they walk into that room is the moment that normal Wednesday morning stops being just a normal Wednesday morning.

There is a desk, there are two chairs in front of it. There is Miles close to him when there is the news. The news that makes his eyes go wide, and his mouth that falls open in shock and there is a harsh breathe and a hoarse no rolling from the back of his throat. His mom, his dad, his beautiful little sisters. They are all gone now.

He hears Miles talk about a flight back home. Or whatever there is left of home. Miles walks him back to their room through hollow hallways that feel desolated now and not like the hallways he has spent year in..Miles is grabbing their crap as Bass sits on the bed, staring. Right before they leave he stands in the small empty bathroom. Hollowness is ripping him apart from the inside slowly.

He stands there, in front of that mirror in that hollow bath room. He looks into his own eyes as he locks his jaws with grieve.

Miles knocks on the door before he opens it. His voice is hoarse but strong and filled with support at the same time. 'Bass, ..we have to go.' Bass looks up at his friend who is now standing in the doorway. He just nods and follows Miles without questions.

Miles throws both their bags over his shoulder. Both men are walking shoulder to shoulder as they make their way of base when they start a torturous long trip back to Jasper. Back to a home that would never be home again. Not now, not ever, not now his family wasn't there anymore.

Bass walks up the stairs of the silent safe house with that memory in every step of his boots on the wood of the stairs. And he sees her face, before him, over and over again. And he feels it all the way to his bones. Charlie is him, him on that day in that bathroom.

And he does not know if it is one fucking hell of a cosmic joke, but somehow he gets her as she somehow silently seems to get him, every time right before she shoves it all and him, out. He cares for her, enough to be here. Enough to take the risk of being rejected. He cares enough to try.

He stops before the door of the room she has spent the night in and takes a deep breath that sounds like agony, right before he knocks on that door just like Miles had knocked on that bathroom door, a fucking lifetime ago.

She does not answer and the door is half open. His boots hit the wooden floor of the dark room as that sound is the only sound that breaks the silence in the room. Bass finds her sagged on the damn floor, with her back against the side of a bed. Curled up with her knees close to her chest, her arms on her knees. Staring blankly into the dark of the room before her.

He feels dread and fear for feeling every fucking thing himself he has tried to push out that walks into the room with him. There is a slow breathe released from his chest as he looks to the floor and then back to her.

'Dammit.' It is silent but still it is rolling of his lips.

He has called her Mini Miles, he has been blown away with how much Miles is within her. But here is the thing, that one thing he has never shared with her. She is so much of Ben too. There in stubborn warmth and kindness when she wants to show it. But most of all, and this is Ben and all of him, she knows how to give second chances. It is what locked her straight under his damn skin.

And things between them have been intense from the very start, but somehow it always comes back to this. Him not being able to look away from her. Fighting together, pushing each other's buttons as no other can. They push the other away when the other comes too fucking close, in every way they can.

But here, today, it is him and her again, in one room. His heart fucking breaking into raw pieces for her. Bass slowly walks to where she is huddled against the bed and slowly crouches down before her.

His right hand is leaning against the mattress behind her. He expects her to lash out. But she doesn't. She is quiet. Too fucking quiet. Hell, he would give anything to get some Matheson sarcasm out of her now or that raise of her eyebrow or her telling him he is delusional.

But he knows it is not going to happen. He knows which place holds her heart prisoner. It scares him to death. But he stays put as she just sits there. Dried up tears on the skin of her cheeks. Harsh lines in her face.

He is close enough to hear him breathe. He is close enough to hear the leather of his jacket as he readjusts his weight to his other boot, crouched down before her. He is tall and wide next to her. Charlie cannot look up. She just can't.

She had started to shove all her things into her pack before she had realized she had absolutely no idea where to go or what her next move had to be. Her body had gradually felt too heavy for that thought. She had slowly moved to the floor and let the side of the bed keep her in one place, her back against it as she had let time pass by until heavy boots on the steps behind her had brought her back to the room.

One of his boots on the steps in the hallway and she had known it was him. She had heard him curse. She had heard him release that long aching breathe the way only Monroe could.

If she would look up now she knows she would see that jaw lock that is so much him. But that would mean that his eyes would not be far. And she can't. Charlie cannot look up. She just can't.

Bass swallows, his throat heavy and filled with worry and dread and hurt for her. He slowly starts to move his arm, the sound of leather moving from the sleeve of his black leather jacket locked between them.

His hand find its way towards her temple, as the palm of his hand moves softly against her temple and over her hair. The rough skin of his fingertips slide into her hair as the skin of her cheek connects with his hand.

She does not move. She does not pull back. She does not talk. He finally has enough fucking courage to touch her and he won't let go. Not anymore. He sits close to her and lets her be, close to him.

Charlie closes her eyes. She feels the slow comfort of his hand around the side of her face. The palm of his hand is brushing and is now cupping her temple and cheek. Warm, steady, wide.

She swallows, as tears still won't come. A strange sense of calm does. She realizes this is Monroe, with her here. She knows he should not be able to ground her like he is doing. He really shouldn't. It is something that has been keeping her company on the road, day after day. That question of why. The thought of all the things he should not do for her. All the man he should not be for her.

When Bass sees how she opens her eyes he waits. Bass slowly brushes her hair with his fingers moving with a weird sense of gentle through it. Charlie tilts her head towards his eyes when she finally has enough strength to meet his eyes. They are warm somehow. Deep and blue and so much of him.

'I...' She starts. Bass slowly moves his hand , brushing a lock of hair over her shoulder. He watches how her mind tries to find the words that are forming in her eyes. Her lips moving to search for how she is going to say what she needs to tell. She does not look away from him. 'I don't know what to do...I don't know how to explain this to them. To my mom or Miles, or Aaron. 'I can't go back...'

Charlie feels how Monroe brushes her hair gently, as she wonders how such a small gesture can contain so much.

'You do what you need to do.' Bass voice's is gruff and low but with a warmth in it that is new to Charlie.

She blinks and looks.

'I ...I just...' Charlie sighs and struggles to keep on talking.

'You what?' His low voice is so close Charlie can feel his breathe and his voice inside of her chest. She licks her bottom lip as she looks away from him for just a second as she finds the need of the truth come to the surface of finally telling him.

'I do not want to get out there, on my own...' she looks up at him and her eyes meet his. 'Not like I did then.'

Bass watches how her whole face drops. He knows. He knows because she had found him after the Tower, all alone. Hurt, pissed and so very lonely. But he lets her be, he lets her talk. He just keeps his mouth shut as his heart is pounding in his chest.

And there is another tone in her words, stronger and more like herself, shining through.

'I can't just leave again and take the risks I took when I was on the road all by myself. Not like then...I do not want to be out there again, walking, putting myself in danger again, not after what you did for me there in that bar. Not after everything you did for me. Not after all those days on the road together. Not after everything we have been through.'

This time her voice trembles when warm salty tears break free. 'Not after you saved my life that day.'

Bass freezes, she can feel it. She can see his face harden, his jaw locking even more as he presses his lips together. But she can see his eyes soften. Charlie can see the effect from her words reflecting in his eyes.

And there, between all the blank questions of where to go next, there is something she does feel. There is something she knows for sure. Here in this dark room, with him so close. Here with her back against the hard wood of a bed, here sagged onto the floor. With Monroe there. Here, she finally knows for sure, that he is more than the killer she once saw in him. He is more than that hardened man she met once.

She knows she was not wrong, that moment on that she had already started to realize that once, that day she had saved his life. In Willoughby, in New Vegas. She was not wrong to believe in him. To believe in Bass. Her heart had not been wrong, buried under layers of rage and hate.

'Thank you.' Her voice is filled with Charlie's strength, although her voice is softer and low.

This time she sees tears pool in his wide blue eyes as he jerks his head downwards and looks away from her.

Three fucking words. Three fucking words and Bass feels how salty tears are ambushing him. He swallows the salt away from the back of his throat. He can only nod, unable to do anything else. Inhaling the tears as he takes a breathe in.

They just sit, and when he finally has the balls to loop up again, she is there. All of her. Real, aching, hurting. Searching for him with her eyes. Really being there with him, Thanking him. Bass can only feel what the hell she is doing to him, as he is not sure he could think of any words that would match what she has just given him.

They lock eyes and she just sits there with him. He slowly moves close to her, his back now against the side of the bed too, both of them sharing a floor. His leather jacket brushing hers. Time moves on, as the sounds of the camp right outside the house fill the room.

'I could ask Blanchard if there is some kind of mission you could join. I am sure they can use every good solid help they can get now, rebuilding Texas.'

Charlie looks at him, as she feels the meaning behind his words. She would be on the road, she would contribute to rebuilding lives after the war, she would have aim and purpose and she would not roam around the plains aimlessly this time.

And she would not be alone.

'You don't have to do that.' Her voice is stronger again as she thinks about his offer.

'I know, Charlotte.'

It takes her a long time and then she knows, that her things near her bag on the bed behind her have a new purpose. She will take his offer. She will go.

'All right.' She nods.

Bass just nods back. He knows this means he will have to watch her walk away after all those months they had spent together on the road.

Her golden honey locks flying through the air as she fires that crossbow of hers. That smart ass mouth of her. Her asleep close to him or Miles near a fire, when he would keep an eye on her when it was his watch. Her joking around with Aaron and Connor on a rare moment of whiskey and some time alone on a very late night. Watching his brother's eyes on her with pride and love for her, knowing how fucking much Miles cares for her.

He watches her as she is sitting so damn close. He knows he will have to let her go. But she needs this, he can taste it. So, for now, he lets her go. And he just has to hope, and he almost huffs at that stupid as fuck concept in this blackout world, that her strength and her will and her stubborn loyalty to family will bring her back to all of them. To him.

When she pushes herself of the floor as Bass gets up himself, she finds herself close to him, near the doorway.

Bass watches her, right at that moment she is there with him and he has the woman that became so fucking much, someone to fight this damn fight with day after day, but hell, even more, to himself.

'I know this is hard okay, I know...' He surprises her with his warm low voice, it is so raw and open Charlie feels her breathe accelerate in her chest as she looks up at him as they are both standing close to the other. 'But we will be there...there for you to come back to.'

What he is offering her makes her lips part in solid warm shock and realization, as she can only look at him. She leans into his tall strength, just for a second as his lips hover close to her ear and hair. She feels how he is taking her in, her, her scent, her hair, all of her on one deep breath in.

She lets him as she does the same and the leather of his jacket and his sweat and skin and jaw line and scruff is so close. Her forehead almost brushes his chest as a goodbye for now, as she stands there in the circle of his arms and before a tall wide chest that is the man that now stands before her.

He has just offered her something, someone to come back to. All of them, including him. She had not been sure about him, about where he would go. But know, she knows he will be there. With Aaron, Connor, Miles, everyone. They will be there as a gentle solid place to come back to.

They stand there , near that doorway, in the dark, just enough light to lock eyes as Bass takes in the scent of her skin.

She moves her lips closer to his ear, as she looks up and he looks at her. Her voice is hoarse but somehow, with him, right now, she does not mind to show a piece of her she has never showed before to him.

'Take care of Miles for me, all right?'

She moves her crossbow over her shoulder, just like her bag. She does not have to wait to hear his answer, because his answer is already in his eyes, as they lock eyes one more time.

Author's Note I am working on Part Two and I hope to publish that one later this week because this week, I want to focus completey on this autumn story of gratitude, and writing with lots of coffee as autumn sunshine has arrived here! Love from Love