Chapter Text
It had been four days and nights since the night Charlie woke up disoriented, confused, pissed off and sick to her stomach in that tumble down shelter to the sound of rain falling to find Sebastian Monroe sitting around the campfire a few feet away from her, eating beans. She was still angry with herself about falling for the drugs in the drinks trick. Should have known better, she’d been so stupid.
She was also embarrassed that Monroe had been able to track her, angry and embarrassed for feeling grateful that he had, and confused and embarrassed about the fact that she kept noticing the blue of his eyes, the long, strongly muscled body that kept appearing in her dreams and the dark blond, crazy curly hair that made her wonder if it was as soft as it looked.
She hated to admit it but even bruised and battered, his eyes hollow, red rimmed, his skin dry and peeling from the sun - so different from the smug, polished bastard she’d seen in Philly, he was still one of the most magnetic men she’d ever seen. This Monroe had a dark, barbaric killing edge that pushed all her buttons... She wouldn’t have believed that the pampered President Monroe could have killed all those men in that bar on his own. But she’d seen this man do it.
The silent brooding thing of his was getting a bit old though. He’d saved her life twice now when you counted the Tower. You’d think he’d want to say something to her, even if it was just another ‘a thank you would be nice, Charlotte.’
She still didn’t know why he’d done it, or why he was so fixed on taking her to Miles and her mom… Was it really to try to make up for what he’d done like he’d said around that campfire? She knew exactly why she was still with him though. Pottsboro had damaged her, scarred her confidence and staying with the devil she knew, especially a devil this lethal, was a choice she was willing to make.
She slid another sideways glance at him.
He was driving of course, his long, hard muscled body slumped against the backboard and the strong, handsome profile outlined against the blue of the summer sky. That unruly hair was blowing in the breeze, sweat was beading on his brow from the hot summer afternoon sun but apart from the dark shadows under his eyes and the lines around his mouth there were few signs of how brutally tired he had to be.
After Pottsboro, and as soon as she could stand up without falling over, he’d got them moving and they hadn’t stopped since except to rest the horses at night and she didn’t think he’d slept for more than a few minutes at a time even then.
Neither had she come to that, they were both on the edge.
His shirt was open halfway down his chest, and though she tried to stop doing it her eyes kept focusing on the way the skin there gleamed in the sun, how the sweat ran in shiny streaks down over taut muscles, how his arms flexed as he flicked the reins with those long fingers and strong hands. She had a sudden vivid flashback to those hands holding swords back in that stupid fucking bar, blood dripping from the blade tips after he killed those guys to save her. And as her eyes dropped down to the long, strong legs, one stretched out in front of him, the other bent, boot braced on the footrest she knew she was in trouble. He wasn’t like other guys, ripe for a quick fuck and see you later maybe, like Jeff, this was… Him… Shit.
He kept his eyes straight ahead though, even though he had to know she was looking. He was always alert, aware of her, the road, the sounds around them, everything. She knew why, understood too. Bounty hunters had got the jump on him once and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. She wouldn’t either. The memory of him killing those creeps in Pottsboro swept through her in a hot lightening burst that shook her to her toes, again... He’d made it look so easy, his eyes burning, fierce, finding hers while his swords flashed and swirling droplets and trails of bright scarlet blood went flying like hot rain.
She looked away to hide what the thought of all that did to her, her thighs clenching on her throbbing clit, ass tense on the hard seat. A little moan escaped that she wasn’t able to catch in time…
The horses jumped as his hands tightened on the reins. ‘You ok?’ his voice was hoarse, creaky from exhaustion and disuse, those brilliant blue eyes turning to her for a second.
She cleared her throat and reached for her water bottle, ‘yeah, I’m fine.’
An eyebrow lifted just a little but he kept his eyes to the front this time, ‘It’s been a long day, another few miles and we’ll pull over, then you can stretch your legs a bit.’
She shrugged, he was right. She was so over being cooped up on this fucking bench. ‘Good…’ she braced her feet on the boards, tightening her leg muscles, trying to ease the need without reaching down to rearrange her jeans because damned if she’d do that in front of him. He’d know for certain then. She was already pretty sure he’d guessed that she’d been having some…thoughts… about him, although he hadn’t said or done anything about it. The perfect gentleman...
It was weird, she’d gone from thinking he was the worst person in the world to seeing him as something else, she wasn’t quite sure what that was yet.
After their brief but riveting conversational exchange there was silence again, except for the sound of hooves on the broken bitumen, the creak of the harness and wagon wheels and the wind in the grass at the edge of the road along with the occasional bird. She yawned and went back to thinking about other stuff, anything to take her mind off what it would be like to fuck Sebastian Monroe.
And crap… it wasn’t working… She leaned back, closing her eyes, going over it all one more time.
He’d barely said a word after the crack about her not having a choice about her taking him to Miles. In fact the conversation they’d just had had been the longest for days. It seemed to be a kind of unspoken agreement. She didn’t actively try to kill him or get away - for now anyway - and he didn’t initiate unnecessary conversation.
It had suited her just fine in the beginning, but there were some questions she was burning to ask him now, questions about her mom, and Miles and the years after the blackout. How he and Miles had started the Republic and how and why it went wrong? Why he and Miles had kept her mom prisoner and why Miles had left Philly to hide out in Chicago? Why Miles still called him his best friend despite all of that?
And why he hadn’t just gone to Canada or Cali or even further when everything fell apart? Somewhere no one would know him - especially with the size of the bounty on his head. And why had he let her go after New Vegas then followed and saved her life instead of just beating Willoughby out of her? After all, Miles would never have known that she hadn’t died on the road.
Little things like that.
All she really knew was that there was a lot more to Monroe than she’d thought…
She shuffled her butt and snuck another look.
One of his eyebrows moved slightly and his lips twitched but apart from that… nothing. Nada.
She stretched and yawned again, spitting out a bug, shit… He was different to what she’d expected in other ways too. She’d heard about him and women, the stories had even reached Sylvania Estates. But there’d been no sign of anything like that with her. In fact he was being such a complete gentleman that it was starting to irritate the crap out of her. She hadn’t had any trouble with other guys liking her, quite the opposite in fact… so what was it with him?
The strange truce between the two of them was so new that she didn’t want to ask him anything yet. But it was still a long way before they got to Willoughby and somewhere between here and there she was going to get her answers. In the meantime, he didn’t treat her like a prisoner, she wasn’t tied up or anything, but he wore or had stashed somewhere she hadn’t found yet all of the actual weapons - even some of the cooking utensils. He hadn’t let her go hunting for fresh meat either, even though they could do with some.
She didn’t blame him for being careful in fact she was kind of flattered that he bothered.
Her lips curved a little and her stomach rumbled in anticipation of food. He was just a bag of surprises… he’d turned out to be a good cook, a whole lot better than she was anyway – managing to turn the basic provisions the bounty hunters had had in the wagon into halfway decent meals so he’d mostly taken that role on, although he did let her do the cleaning up - except for the knives of course, he did those himself.
She’d offered to take a turn at driving more than once too, but he just thanked her politely, or ignored her and kept going. He took care of the horses and for some reason she couldn’t work out the two big bays seemed to like him. He spent a lot of time during their breaks quietly grooming and talking to them while they grazed, his big hands gentle, his face unexpectedly peaceful and relaxed as he smoothed the glossy brown hides, brushing, stroking, caressing - it didn’t fit at all with the image of him as heartless General Monroe.
Then, each morning it was on to Willoughby, although she still hadn’t told him exactly where they were going and he hadn’t asked, not yet, although he knew they were heading towards Texas.
She leaned her head back against the cushion of her jacket, her eyes drifting, unfocused....
To be truthful, she was still a little bit woozy after the drugs those morons had given her – and having Sebastian Monroe as back up was not a bad thing. In fact his presence was weirdly comforting, especially as she kept on having stupid flashbacks to being drugged and weak and falling down helpless in that bar. The part of her dreams where he came bursting through that locked door, his eyes like twin blue suns and his swords flashing like something out of one of Aaron’s stories was the only thing that had kept her from screaming the last few nights.
Things were different now, with him, and she didn’t know how to explain it to herself let alone anyone else, and she flatly refused to think of what Miles or her mother were going to say when she got back to Willoughby with him in tow.
She yawned again, her eyelids drooping closed, her lips parting a little, her breath slow and even and her body relaxing into sleep, so she didn’t notice when he finally turned to look at her, his eyes curiously soft, pensive…
……………………………………….
She was dreaming of New Vegas, of finding Monroe. She hadn’t been able to look away from the fight happening in that crowded, steamy and raucous tent – the memory of it still made her squirm, all of her hot, wet... He was all hard, coiled muscle and dangerous, focused intent. And so very beautiful, different though... now it was a hard, rough beauty, the General gone to hell and back, returning with electric shock eyes, a golden beard and slick, battle honed muscles. The poor guy they’d lined up to fight him hadn’t stood a chance. Sebastian Monroe had made beating him to a pulp look almost pathetically easy, the punches merciless, brutal and punishing but somehow impersonal, he wasn’t angry, he was just doing what he had to do to win...
She was weaving through the crowd in the tent, like before, like always. Staring at him, keeping out of sight behind the cheering, shouting men and women. She was watching him so hard she was honestly surprised that he hadn’t felt her there. But then maybe he was just so used to women staring at him and…lusting… that he didn’t feel it anymore? She felt it though. And when the pretty blonde he’d gone to the roulette wheel with pressed her body up close, her lips almost touching his, Charlie had felt an almost irresistible urge to go and shove her through the walls of the tent...
A picture of Jeff, the ex Militia bartender who told her about having seen Monroe and sent her racing off to New Vegas slipped into her mind. He’d been cute and sweet and she’d liked him, but when she pictured him next to Monroe it was like putting a lanky, friendly puppy next to a wild timber wolf.
She jerked awake… Damn it she was waxing all poetic over Monroe, she so needed to get a grip. She leaned back again, trying to stay awake, but the rhythm of the hoof beats and the roll of the wagon were too hard to resist, lulling her back to a dozing dream...
She really had meant to kill Monroe then – it was kill him or give in to what was boiling in her veins, and killing him was easier, simpler. She nearly had too. But just when he was right there in her sights and she let off a shot those idiot bounty hunters arrived and both she and Monroe ended up in that empty pool. But somehow she knew that he wasn’t helpless, that he’d get away. In fact she had this crazy feeling that he was indestructible. He just kept surviving…everything.
Later, after he escaped - like she knew he would, after he stopped her to show her the wanted posters of her mom and told her she was taking him with her to Miles, she got so close when she told him he was delusional that she could smell his sweat, feel his breath and the heat of his skin, thinking weirdly that they both so needed a bath, and could see the bruises and the blood still wet on his face…
He hadn’t backed away though, and nor did she, and for long moments they just stared into each other’s eyes – almost close enough to kiss, the possibility of it making the air between them hot, charged. He had the most intensely blue eyes she’d ever seen although they flickered and changed with the light and the emotions behind them. It was like looking into the sky before a storm...
She’d broken away from that gaze, turned on her heel and walked away. Told him he wouldn’t be able to track her but hadn’t really believed it, just dared him to shoot her if he wanted to stop her leaving. She knew he’d thought about doing it, had felt him watching, the gun pointed at her as she strode down that road, the rings on her belt jingling with the sway of her hips, the skin between her shoulder blades tingling with anticipation of a shot, or something else. But he just let her go …
Then it was Pottsboro and the nightmare rose up again, the breath catching in her throat, her stomach churning as she remembered the men’s faces, their eyes, avid, bestial – the drugs they’d given her taking her strength away, leaving her helpless, everything hazy, like she was underwater and drowning…
Then, like before, like always, Monroe burst in through the door, mowing through those men in the bar in a brutal, efficient, exhilarating display of swordsmanship and utter violence that she never got tired of reliving. In her drugged (and to be honest) despairing state – because she really thought she was going to die, he had appeared like some kind of angel – or devil. She wasn’t sure which and didn’t care. It was enough that he saved her life, again.
Her heart started pounding, her bones melting when she remembered the power and the strange, awful beauty of watching him kill for her.
Pottsboro had changed everything…
………………..
She jerked awake as a thought struck her. After everything she’d seen of him, she had absolutely no doubt that she was better off with Monroe in a fight than with anyone else she could think of except Miles, and if there was a fight coming with the Patriots it made sense to have him along. The desire to kill him was getting more remote each day she spent with him too. But what did he really want? How far could she, they, trust him? She sighed and sat up straighter.
Monroe glanced at her, an ironic gleam in those blue eyes. ‘Rise and shine, Charlotte.’
She glared at him, rubbing the stiffness out of her neck as well as the echo of that pool…realizing how long the shadows were now. She’d been asleep for a couple of hours at least and he’d taken them off the road to a clearing in the woods and the glint of the river was just a little way away.
………………………
Later, once they’d set up camp, she stretched out on an old blanket around the campfire after a meal from their dwindling supplies that even Monroe couldn’t make more than barely edible.
He leaned back against one of the wagon wheels, stretched out those long legs and looked at her by the glow of the firelight. There was no moon tonight and the stars were like a glittering, beautiful blanket above them.
He was oiling a piece of the horse’s tack, hands moving surely and smoothly over the leather and metal with a piece of rag. ‘Maybe its time you started pulling your weight, Charlotte.’
She sat up, startled…
He didn’t smile, just looked at her with those solemn and somehow remote blue eyes. ‘You tracked me to New Vegas, and you survived on the road so I’m guessing you can hunt. We could do with some fresh meat and anything else you can find.’ His hands kept moving over the leather with easy strokes but his gaze held hers…
‘I’m a good tracker but if you want me to actually catch anything I’ll need my knives and crossbow’, her head tilted slightly, a challenge in the set of her full mouth and the narrowed eyes.
Bass could see her dimples flicker in the firelight and wondered if she knew how absolutely gorgeous she was, even sweaty, filthy dirty and looking as though she’d been dragged through a ditch a few times. He was just as filthy though… shit, he was even getting used to the smell. Then he put thoughts like that about her away for now anyway, he needed her to trust him, not see him as a predator like those creeps in that fucking dung heap of a bar.
He took a breath and leaned forward again, putting the leather and rag down, rubbing his hands together to relax the muscles. The firelight made his eyes gleam in the shadows of his face. ‘Ok’ he said, nodding slightly, the edges of his mouth lifting a little. ‘You can have a crossbow and bolts for hunting and knives for butchering.’
Her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted into a sharp grin at that, ‘So you’ll just trust me?’
His lips curved a little more, the truth was that he didn’t want to have to hurt her if she tried anything… but she was a tricky thing and he wasn’t going to underestimate her. ‘I think you’re someone who keeps their promises, but there’s more…’
That deliciously curved eyebrow of hers lifted, ‘what more?’
He nodded, unable to resist the temptation, ‘you’ll give me your word you won’t try to kill me, incapacitate me or do anything to stop the two of us getting to Miles and your family.’
Her grin turned into the one he remembered from the pool, the wicked, smart ass one. ‘And what if I don’t give you my word?’
Bass got to his feet to return the tack to the wagon, standing there for a moment, serious now, ‘I think you’re smarter than that, Charlotte.’
She looked up at him, she could still see his eyes, they gleamed blue and even with him standing up they seemed to hold on to her… ‘So you’ll just believe me?’ she challenged again.
His lips tightened, his face very serious and he nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll just believe you…’
She shrugged, at least she’d get to go hunting, and get some alone time, and it wasn’t as though she was planning to kill him or leave right now anyway. ‘Ok then, I give you my word.’
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