Chapter Text
I am alone. Waiting for nothing. If my heart freezes, I won't feel the breaking.
-Vashti Bunyan
Three years, eight months, blah blah blah after the war and she still can't figure out what she wants to do with her life. What she wants out of life.
The jobs Blanchard had her running with her uncle have slowly stopped coming in, especially after she and her uncle and Bass have revived something called the Pony Express last year. God she thought she rode fast, those guys can get across the country in a matter of days.
So now she sits in Miles office pouring over documents he deems unworthy of his time but is still probably important enough that someone should be taking a look at them. For a while she was helping out grandpa in the clinic but Charlie has come to a point in her life where she is sick of taking care of people. She's not exactly a people person. Charlie likes her space and she likes the quiet, because the quiet means no more trouble or drama or problems- which is exactly why she moved out of her mom's house.
Her place is small, like really small. The only things she took with her was a bed and a dresser her grandpa gave her. The neighbors up the gravel road are nice and helpful but extremely chatty. After a short introduction to the man, his wife, and their two daughters she makes herself at home. A little shed off to the side of the minuscule house became a home for her horse. Some nights when she leaves her window open to let in the breeze she can hear it kicking around and snorting. It makes her think of late night missions with Miles, Bass and Connor- before Conner found a pretty girl and knocked her up and then moved away down south. And of course, Bass followed him.
So now as she sits in Miles office reading blurry lines about leftover rebel factions that are really just gypsy towns she thinks about the day he left.
Connor's girl was nice and all but Charlie couldn't help but hate her as she was the one who talked Connor into moving closer to her parents. Charlie gave her a civil smile as she climbed into the back of the wagon loaded with the three of their belongings. Connor surprised her and held her tightly against him.
“Promise me that you'll try and take care of yourself.” He whispered into her ear. There was a brotherly tone of affection in his voice, something that she realized she would be missing out on the second that wagon would begin it's journey south. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight enough to memorize his smell and his goofy smile that would slip out every so often.
“I'll try.” She had said, pulling back to give him her best version of a smile. Something that didn't reflect how sad she was on the inside.
“Once we get settled in you could always come and visit.” He winked at her and then climbed into the front seat before setting his pack down at his feet. Connor turned and talked to his girl as she leaned over the front of the wagon.
As Charlie watched them she could feel him approach her. The last she saw of him was as he was walking around the back of the house with Miles. After over three years of fighting with each other she had come to develop a sense of him. Like her body can feel him whenever he came within a certain distance of her and she has no choice but to turn and seek him out. She felt a heaviness in her arms and a breaking in her chest as he walked towards her and the wagon.
She keeps her eyes on the ground and watches as he comes closer, hears him heave his pack over the back of the wagon and then turns to stand in front of her. His boots are scuffed more on the right foot and the shoestrings on the left boot are frayed. Charlie knew if she looked up it would be the last time she sees him so she puts it off just a moment longer. Her boots looked so much smaller compared to his, she feels so much smaller.
“Charlotte, look at me.” He commands, his voice soft and quiet though. It isn't until she looks up into his blurry face that she notices the fat tears openly falling down her cheeks. She made an attempt to swipe at them with the back of her hand before he noticed but the softening of his features told her that he caught the sight of them.
“You're leaving me.” She twisted her mouth in a straight line before something loud and sorrowful could make its way out of her throat. He shifts and looks down at her with some unnameable emotion she's never seen cross his face. Her face is smashed into his chest within seconds. Her arms wrapped around his hard frame and she holds him there, trying to commit every single feeling of him to memory. The soft outer shirt he wore smelled like the woods and the lines of raised skin just below it on his back painting a picture of his pain in her mind. The beat of his heart in the shell of her ear becomes a song that will stick in her head and the rise and fall of his chest washing over her like a calm storm.
Charlie didn't care that this hug exceeds all time limits of friendly. Didn't care that she could hear her mother make judgmental throaty sounds behind them. The only thing she cared about is the way he molds her to him. His hand, buried in her hair at the back of her head, keeping her firmly placed against him. His other hand rubbing small circles against the jutted blades of her shoulders. He leans down to place a kiss at the corner of her head and he held his lips there for just a touch too long. She could feel the thick hair of his beard and mustache scrape along her forehead and a gush of warmth as he exhaled from his nostrils. And then he pulls away and her arms fall to her sides.
He doesn't have any reason to come back for her now. This is how empty feels.
“I'm sorry.” His eyes bore down into hers and she could feel him searching for something before he quickly gives up and walks to the front of the wagon. Tears burned her eyes as she watched him scale up the side of the wagon into the front seat beside his son. He didn't turn around to wave but Conner whispered something into his ear before turning around to frown at her as Bass set the wagon in motion.
He didn't even say good-bye.
Charlie shifts in the office chair, not one to let memories of him infiltrate her thoughts, no matter how hard she has to fight them off. It's almost been a year now and the only reason she knows he's still alive is because of the short correspondence he keeps with Miles and Blanchard. Sometimes Miles leaves his letters on his desk and Charlie can't help but hold them close and trace his words with her fingernail. When he inquires what kind of trouble she's been getting into or whose hearts she's breaking she can almost hear him beside her with his snark and charm. She misses him more than she thought she had the capacity to.
There is a bang of a door slamming outside Miles' office and then soon he walks in and smiles down at her.
“Anything important in that letter or are you just keeping it for the sentimental value?” He gestures down to one of Bass' letters folded up between her fingers. She had no idea she was even holding on to it as she read through the reports of the rebel factions moving in closer from the Plains. Charlie shakes her head and stuffs it into her jean pocket and holds up the document she'd been reading through.
“You should probably take a look at this. Got some factions getting pushed into our territory by war-clans. Not a problem, yet.” She says quietly and pushes the document to the other side of the desk for him to look at. He doesn't pick it up, just stares at her.
“Kiddo, you gotta get out of this building and do something.” His voice is gravel deep and serious.
“I will be. I'm going home in a few minutes and then I'll be back here tomorrow to go over more papers you think are unworthy of your time.”
“No. I mean, what do you want?” He moves closer to the desk to stare down at her. “Do you want to join the Rangers? Because at the rate you're going I'll gladly get you a spot. Or maybe find some guy and settle down? Fuck, if you want to go and be a cobbler or start farming I'll figure out some way to help you but you have to do something. You're just kind of letting yourself be tossed around in the waves.”
Charlie sighs and looks away. She knows these things. Thinks about them all the time. The world that they've made for themselves after the war doesn't seem to have a place for her; she can't find a spot to fit in anywhere.
“I don't think what I want matters anymore, to be honest. The chance has already slipped away.” She admits. Miles looks down at his boots, unsure of what to say to her admission.
“He...asks about you.” Miles frowns at the laminate flooring. “I mean that's what this is about, right?” When he looks back up to her his voice is soft with understanding. He knows what it looks like when a heart aches. He knows because he's seen her drown herself in every bar in town and growl at any man that gets too close. Watched her sit in a chair for hours with only her thoughts to keep her company. Watched her stare at his chair at the table, knowing he would no longer be there to fill it.
Charlie nods slowly, unaware that he could see through her so easily. “Like I said, it doesn't matter.” She sighs and grabs her bag from a coat rack next to the door, can feel his eyes on her as she moves about the office to collect her things before she darts away. “He's too happy to come back. Just read his letters- he's got everything he's ever wanted.”
Miles watches with a heavy heart as she swallows back her sadness and shoves it way deep down until it can no longer see the light of day. She slips out the door and he doesn't think twice about reaching for his ink well and a clean sheet of paper. The sound of her boots as she walks away spurs him to begin his letter.
Greetings Asshole,
There is something you should probably know about.