Chapter 3: "Yeah, I think we actually might..."

A/N:

Longer chapter - conclusion to confrontation of Burt Coleman.

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"Don't get any ideas about running off." Coleman warned as they made their way through the barren yard between the gate that had just been locked behind them and the run-down, scorched, farmhouse in front of them that looked as if it shouldn't still be standing. "This whole place is rigged."

Charlie, momentarily confused by that, nearly glanced behind her at the stout man pointing the rifle at their backs, but instead found herself distracted by Miles. He'd been looking at her already. She stared back, her lips tensing slightly to acknowledge him. He didn't do anything but keep looking at her, as if warning her. She couldn't decide whether or not how seriously he was taking this was a good sign or a bad one, but she didn't break the eye contact for a long moment. She wouldn't be able to decide before Coleman spoke up again, "You can't rig a building like you used to, but you're being held at gunpoint by the Rube Goldberg of Demolition," Coleman announced with nearly theatrical pride, Charlie could almost feel Miles' irritation grow at that, "So you better not use the second step or the whole place'll go up."

She hadn't noticed till then that they'd reached the porch steps. She hesitated before lifting her boot clearly over the second step, looking at it for a second longer, realizing it didn't look as old or rundown as the others.

Miles opened the door for Charlie, only letting his eyes off her to give a glare at Coleman who only nudged his gun forward to motion Miles inside the house, too.

"Now," Burt projected just as the screen door snapped shut behind them, "to start this off, I'm going to ask you a simple question."

He walked them into the living room. Charlie and Miles were facing each other with just about six feet between them. The room was littered with large spindles of cord, dozens of canisters, garbage, and nearly every surface had dark gray smudges coating it. If Charlie hadn't been so focused on what was more important she might have noticed the aged decorative figurines and picture frames beneath the garbage and sinew that had once been picked off the shelves of local retail shops now flooded and overgrown. But none of them were so focused on any of the details, not when Coleman motioned them to sit down.

Sitting awkwardly in a ragged La-Z-Boy Charlie kept her eyes on Miles who resigned himself to a seat on a kitchen stool.

"It's a simple question, so I expect simple answer," he prepared, lowering his rifle for one hopeful moment before pulling out a handgun from his belt, "That means no smooth-talk."

A moment came and went, with a glance from Charlie to Miles Coleman raised the gun in his hand.

"What is she to you?" The nozzle of the aged gun prodded the soft underside of his jaw. The metal pained him as he swallowed, despite his dry mouth, before speaking.

"My brother's kid." He answered.

"No." The man rejected. "What is she to you?" The gun left his jaw. Its new target was Charlie's heart. The gun cocked.

Miles had been fine until that moment.

He was standing before he knew it. He saw Charlie's eyes widen, looking from the gun to him, and he felt the fear come off her. She didn't move, though. The kid might've been scared, but she stood her ground like she always did.

"There's a reaction, sure, but…" Coleman judged as the point of his gun raised a few inches for emphasis on what he was about to say, "What could a man like you possibly feel for another human being?"

Another question. Another one Miles couldn't answer.

He couldn't understand what he wanted to hear.

Charlie was his niece – a pain in the ass. A kid who came into his life, demanding he dig up everything he worked so hard to forget and already 15 years too late to get to know the uncle -the man- she remembered and wanted.
Even so, he couldn't help but notice, begrudgingly, that if that was all she was to him his heart wouldn't be beating twice as hard with the gun pointed at her than it had been when he'd been the target.

As if the confusion on his face was clear enough, Coleman spoke again, really loving the sound of his voice, "You see, the question I'm really asking here, Matheson, is whether or not if you're worth your breath."

That was an answer Miles knew the answer to.

It wouldn't be one he should say, though. Not if he wanted to live through this. Miles could tell from the look in the man's eyes that Coleman was actually waiting for some kind of permission to squeeze the trigger at either of them. That permission was either the wrong answer or the wrong action, but whatever it was neither of them had done it yet and Miles needed to keep it that way.
Miles knew he had Charlie to thank for whatever amount of doubt she'd given Coleman that was keeping the bullets in that gun – but if they lived he knew he wouldn't thank her the way he should not when she was stupid enough to risk her life for him.

Coleman's mind was on a similar train of thought.

"You see, a murderer… wait, a mass murderer you may be, but…" Miles' expression hardened at that correction, and yet he had no instinct to deny it. Remembering the faces of the people he killed, himself or through others, was enough to keep him quiet, especially the thought that there were more than enough faces he'd never seen as well. "But… this girl cares about you… a lot." Coleman explained, his voice full of genuine wonder. Miles glanced at Charlie for a moment, carefully keeping his face as motionless as stone.

He knew it was true. It was obvious. Somehow this girl had learned to care for him.
When they'd met again after the blackout she needed his help, but she didn't even like him, and now...

Even in that moment, she was looking up at him the way she'd done since a few weeks after they started this suicidal journey, the way she'd been the only one who could: like he was some kind of goddamn hero.
He'd told himself enough times that he wasn't what she thought he was, but that didn't stop her from being the only person in the last decade to look at him with that expression of complete trust. It pissed him off sometimes, like now, it could wear him out for the rest of the day, but in tougher times it was all that got him through the next moment.
Charlie didn't know that and he thought it was better that way.

"This girl… a young, pretty, impressionable thing like her..." Miles' attention was brought back by his distaste for Burt's choice of words, "… and she was willing to take a bullet for you...? Where did that come from?"

Miles couldn't look at Charlie for a moment, but that didn't stop her from staring at him with those big blue eyes that never quit, of course. He tried to ignore it.

"… I have no idea." In a tired voice Miles told what he believed was the truth.

"Fair enough," Coleman gave him, "I can't understand it either, but… would you do the same?"
The gun switched over to him now and the relief of tension in his chest was uncomfortably obvious to him.

Miles didn't answer, though. He knew his answer, and an instinct deeper than regret told him it was better not to say.

Coleman shook his head roughly at that moment of quiet and swung his aim back to Charlie, pressing the gun directly against the base of her neck forcefully, she let out a groan of either pain or fear if not anger. Miles didn't notice how little control he had over himself in that moment until he was already grabbing Coleman's shoulder and pulling him away from Charlie with all his strength, risking more than his own life in the process.
It wasn't a second until he felt the butt of the gun drive against the side of his head, not hard enough to knock him out, but not gentle enough to spare him any blinding pain.
"Miles!" Charlie called, standing up as well. Miles felt her hands land protectively on the back of his shoulders as he stood up straight again. He managed to shrug one of her hands off, but one still lingered on the shoulder closest to her. He took a step in front of her, protectively.

"I guess that answers my question."

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"It's so quiet…what's going on in there?" Aaron tried looking through holes in the meshed-metal gate. "How could Miles let it get like this?" He turned back to Nora, exasperated, letting his hands rise and fall against his sides in disappointment.

Nora stared at the gate from several feet away, "He hasn't been himself for a couple days."

"What do you thinks been up with him?" Aaron asked, walking over to Nora's side, stressed.

She answered as she continued to search for weak points, "I don't know. He doesn't talk to me." Aaron could hear the disappointment in her voice, but it was a very different type of disappointment from his own. "He doesn't talk to anyone, but…" she continued after a pause, "it can't be easy getting this close to Philly and being reminded of what he's done."

"Yeah, but, isn't that just who he is?" Aaron asked with something like humor. "He's always brooding over his Militia days… which is good, I guess, but he's getting really bad. What's so different now?"

Nora looked at Aaron at that, thinking hard for only a moment, "Maybe he's starting to care more…."

"Why would he care now?" Aaron asked rhetorically. He gave her a confused look before sighing and shaking his head tiredly, she tried to forget those thoughts quickly.

"Come on, help me find a way in." She still hadn't found a weak spot, but she didn't see any good in thinking about Miles' famous self-destructive tendencies… tendencies she knew from experience only got this dangerous whenever he was feeling something besides his usual surliness and regret – something much more.

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"So now that I know what she means to you, what should I do?" Coleman reached over and gripped Charlie by the arm. He pulled her over to the stool and Miles couldn't help but miss the light pressure of her hand on his shoulder. It took everything to keep himself from reacting defensively when Burt pushed her onto the stool. "How about a trip down memory lane?"

"Don't-"Miles tried to object but was cut off.

"So, here we were, what, a decade ago?" He checked with Miles with an insincere air of nostalgia. "I was finally settling down with my family, having found my own corner in the new Dark Age, and one particularly stormy night in fall the Militia come knocking on my door." Coleman became more animated with his story, as if telling it to a group of children, "Even though they – this man right here, actually – had agreed to leave us in peace in exchange for most of our crops I still heard that night, at my door, 'Open up, Militia business!'" At this point Charlie had been staring at Miles as Burt spoke, Miles couldn't look away. Every time she heard more about what he'd done he could see a war inside of her, so far the trust behind that look she's always giving him had won every time… but that didn't mean it always would. If this kid was going to finally look at him the same way everyone else did, he wanted to see it happen. Coleman continued his story without another objection."And, dumber than a little piggy, I opened the door…. Apparently the big bad General, here, wanted more. His army had grown too large and he wanted all my crops, and all the weapons I had designed to protect my family. But winter was on its way and we needed what we had so I had to say 'no'." Coleman quickly continued, "And your uncle, here, didn't like it when people said 'no'." Charlie's eyes followed as Coleman pointed, with the tip of his gun, to a framed picture of a happy newlywed couple cradling a baby between them. "And so they huffed," the nozzle tapped against the glass of the frame, pointing at the smiling woman in the picture, "and they puffed", he pointed to a long, faded, scar running across the side of his face and neck that Charlie hadn't noticed until then, "and then they set everything on fire." He concluded ineloquently.

Charlie took a quiet moment to process the story, her gut feeling heavier than before when she'd only been nervous about the gun. She knew this would happen – she knew the former General of the Militia would make enemies out of good people, but….

Miles watched the war wage in her. He thought he wanted to see the moment she lost whatever amount of stupid faith she had in him, but he had had enough already. He broke the silence first, "I didn't want things to end up the way they did, Burt." Coleman looked to him flatly before Miles spoke again, "And Helen shouldn't have been involved. Strausser pulled the trigger against my orders." Miles still remembered that night clearly. The memory of it had helped him give up the Militia.

"I remember." Coleman replied solemnly, something in his expression had twitched when Miles had said what had been his wife's name. "I was there."

Miles spoke up again, motioning to Charlie as he did, "She's just a kid," he reasoned at Burt, though he saw Charlie look up at him when he said it. "She had nothing to do with what happened."

"It's gonna take more than a few words to earn my help, Matheson. At least not words from you." Burt turned back to Charlie who seemed more alert now, "Girl… apple of Former-General Matheson's eye… convince me that your personal dictator, here, is a changed man." Charlie was looking at Coleman, nothing for Miles to read about the victor of the war inside of her. He tried to convinced himself he didn't care what she thought of him now, but that didn't stop him from listening intently when Coleman asked, "Do you think that ticker of his has finally started beating for something besides power?"

Charlie swallowed before speaking, slowly and clearly, "He's been helping me get my brother back from General Monroe. He's helping us get into Philadelphia."

She still didn't look at him. Miles' frown deepened momentarily.

"How do you know he isn't just using you to get back into the Militia's fold." Coleman asked, glancing at Miles.

"He wouldn't." Charlie spoke up quickly. "That's not him anymore."

Something in Miles' chest dropped in a relief he tried to ignore, tried to forget. Another part of him wanted to say she was wrong – she didn't understand he was the same person, somewhere inside, but the relief was too strong to think like that right then.

"You trust him?" Coleman asked.

"Yes." Charlie answered.

"With your life?" He asked.

Charlie looked back to him, giving him that goddamn look again.

"Yes."

Miles looked back to her. If he'd been a smiling man, he knew he would have. Instead he cleared his throat, breaking eye contact before meeting it again.

Coleman stood up straight, his gun pointing at Miles again for a silent moment.

"… Well, damn it…. I don't know how you did it Matheson." He uncocked the gun with a defeated tone in his voice as he continued. "But even after all these years, and after everything you've taken from me, I still can't bring myself to kill a man who means something to someone." He was quick to add, though, "And I don't want to see the look on my son's face if he had to come home and clean up the mess."

Charlie let out a breath of relief at that, one of her honest smiles widening on her face as she looked to Miles. The kid could smile enough for the both of them and look better doing it, he thought to himself.

"Follow me." Coleman motioned to Miles tiredly.

It was only minutes later that they found themselves outside again, between the house and the gate. Coleman had changed from his twitchy and angry demeanor to one of solemn calmness. At first Charlie couldn't understand how anyone could forgive what Miles had done - anyone but her. Charlie could see now that Burt Coleman was just a tired man. A man, like most others, who had lost his wife many years ago and was just trying to protect himself and his son now. She'd learned from watching Miles as closely as she did that, with enough time and enough support, people change and anger fades.
Miles had been afraid that he'd broken a good man, but something had actually kept him together, and kept him good enough to spare one of the few people he had means to hate. Miles motioned for Charlie to stay put by the gate, and she did, knowing better than to test whatever slim alliance they had made here, and also wary of any other booby traps lining the area.

Miles followed Coleman for a few paces in silence.

"If you're gonna try and win a fight against the Militia, you're gonna need a lot of back-up fire power." Coleman explained behind his back as he entered a rickety shed by the side of the house. "But, of course, you'd know that." He emerged from the shed with a bundled sack filled with heavily wrapped, unstable, elements and supplies.

"This should be enough to make a dent in any army or fortress. And I packed a little extra just in case you see Strausser... He's the one man I would kill even if he had a whole damn family waiting for him with supper." He held out the sack of supplies for a moment, Miles reaching out to it, just before he hesitated. "… After all these years of hating you, I can't believe I'm doing this."

Miles said nothing. He could say nothing. He only nodded, respectfully.

Coleman looked at the supplies in his hands for a moment before he spoke quietly, "Every good man has something in his life he needs more than anything else - something to build his worth on." Coleman explained, his gaze lost in the distance just before looking over to Miles, his eyes suddenly as clear as a hawk's, "Something worth dying for."

Miles understood that, but it wasn't until Burt looked behind Miles at the girl waiting by the gate did Miles understand what Coleman meant when he added, "But, more importantly, something worth living for."

Miles glanced at Charlie silently.

"It's clear what you mean to her, and only a good man could mean that much to a kid like her," he explained. "I was ready to kill you until she saved you."

"Yeah, my savior." Miles breathed insincerely.

"She is." Burt agreed seriously as he offered the sack in his hand to him, "The Matheson I knew before was a man without real worth. Now that you have some don't lose it, not like I did." The same twitch that took over the man's expression at the mention of Helen came back. "Keep her safe."

Miles looked back at Charlie who was already watching him, "Easier said than done." The corner of his mouth lifted a little.

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"Oh, thank God you made it! We were just trying to find a way in." Aaron greeted them as they ducked out the little metal door.

"Safe as houses." Miles was back to his aloof self; Charlie couldn't help but smile at how much he wanted to shrug off a situation that had obviously worried him. "And we got what we needed." He lifted the bag in the air. "You should be able to make some pipe bombs or something with some of it, but save the rest of it for something better."

"How'd you manage to not get shot and get the supplies?" Nora asked with genuine curiosity, reaching for it and taking it carefully.

"We talked." He answered, already walking ahead of everyone.

"I have no idea how you saved your own life by talking, but at least we can get out of here now." Aaron cracked as he took hold of his backpack straps as he usually did, determinedly walking at Miles' pace.

"So, we're really gonna get out of Philadelphia alive because of what you got from him?" Nora asked as she poked through the back.

Miles turned back to Charlie who was walking just behind him, she was already looking at him, "Yeah, I think we actually might…."

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Future chapters may recap the last two episodes, but with slight variances in the emotional commentaries for Miles and Charlie. After that it'll be strict fiction again!

Thank you for reading an all reviews welcome!