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AND THEN...
Something about being left behind a day after thoughts of renegotiation and promises of being his and hers forever have eaten at Charlie for the last seven weeks.
They'd argued about leaving her behind (something something it wasn't safe to take her) and about her going (something something if he could go, how come she couldn't?) and it'd ended with a compromise that'd sounded suspiciously like pandering. A declaration that he'd let her visit if things seemed calm or he'd simply come back. Just that he wasn't going to allow her on the front lines of anything dangerous because otherwise, what was the point of trying to keep her safe?
She'd pretty much blocked it out once he'd started making excuses not to take her; feelings hurt, she'd pouted for the rest of the afternoon, through most of dinner, but she'd loved him all night long. She'd told him again that she was his, had let him press into her while he'd left marks on her skin and called her his. After, she'd reminded him that he was hers, too, and she'd be very put out if something happened to him and then, without exploring the ramifications too deeply if that happened, she'd curled into him and fallen asleep.
The next morning, she'd woken up alone. She'd woken up alone for the last seven weeks. It was agony as she'd realized that so much of her routine was caught up in this man, a man she'd finally realized that she loved, and now he was just gone. She couldn't be sure where, and the snippets of information she got were too few and far between.
Meandering around the large house didn't help with the boredom, though she spent time with Miles. She refused to leave, despite his insistence, and he still didn't understand. She didn't care and didn't change her mind. It surprised the men that the General had left behind, too, that all she did was entertain her uncle, and a few of the wives of the other soldiers. Just to keep up morale. That they sent notes back to inform him that yes, she'd stayed, and yes, she was keeping busy, was something they didn't share with her.
And then one day, all that tempered peace was rocked. When she came downstairs, she found everyone on edge and, when asked, the answers were vague. Not until she made demands did she find out that he'd been injured. He was expected to live, probably, but it'd been two days now, and Charlie was livid.
That she couldn't go was no longer an option. Who she was taking with her was the only question. Miles, of course. Her personal guard, naturally. And two other men. That was all. And a day and a half later, their group of five arrived at General Monroe's camp like they belonged there.
They'd argued about leaving her behind (something something it wasn't safe to take her) and about her going (something something if he could go, how come she couldn't?) and it'd ended with a compromise that'd sounded suspiciously like pandering. A declaration that he'd let her visit if things seemed calm or he'd simply come back. Just that he wasn't going to allow her on the front lines of anything dangerous because otherwise, what was the point of trying to keep her safe?
She'd pretty much blocked it out once he'd started making excuses not to take her; feelings hurt, she'd pouted for the rest of the afternoon, through most of dinner, but she'd loved him all night long. She'd told him again that she was his, had let him press into her while he'd left marks on her skin and called her his. After, she'd reminded him that he was hers, too, and she'd be very put out if something happened to him and then, without exploring the ramifications too deeply if that happened, she'd curled into him and fallen asleep.
The next morning, she'd woken up alone. She'd woken up alone for the last seven weeks. It was agony as she'd realized that so much of her routine was caught up in this man, a man she'd finally realized that she loved, and now he was just gone. She couldn't be sure where, and the snippets of information she got were too few and far between.
Meandering around the large house didn't help with the boredom, though she spent time with Miles. She refused to leave, despite his insistence, and he still didn't understand. She didn't care and didn't change her mind. It surprised the men that the General had left behind, too, that all she did was entertain her uncle, and a few of the wives of the other soldiers. Just to keep up morale. That they sent notes back to inform him that yes, she'd stayed, and yes, she was keeping busy, was something they didn't share with her.
And then one day, all that tempered peace was rocked. When she came downstairs, she found everyone on edge and, when asked, the answers were vague. Not until she made demands did she find out that he'd been injured. He was expected to live, probably, but it'd been two days now, and Charlie was livid.
That she couldn't go was no longer an option. Who she was taking with her was the only question. Miles, of course. Her personal guard, naturally. And two other men. That was all. And a day and a half later, their group of five arrived at General Monroe's camp like they belonged there.
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Or she'd just fallen under Bass's spell. Having spent over three decades under it, Miles couldn't truly say he didn't understand how it was possible. Rachel thought they were both insane. He supposed he couldn't blame her, either.
When news came that Bass was injured, however, and no one would say how badly, not even when he backed up Charlie's demands with his own, he wasn't any more intent on staying than she was. That it took as much as it did to get any news, and that it was still so fucking non-specific made him feel his loss of position more than anything else. Too many of them had never known him as their general; he was a traitor granted clemency, but they weren't going to reveal Bass's weakness to him.
That seemed to continue at the camp: just as they did every time he came to the Hall, they stripped his weapons away before they'd let him follow Charlie further into the camp. They were polite about it, but implacable. He pointed out the idiocy of taking away weapons while they were at war, only to be told the enemy had retreated, licking their wounds.
Jeremy finally came to meet them, and the look on his face made Miles' stomach drop. Whatever he thought of them being there, he'd apparently processed it and moved on. No point protesting what was already done; Jeremy had always been pragmatic that way. He didn't fuss around with asking if they needed anything, either, just tilted his head toward the center of camp.
"He's this way."
"What happened?" Miles sincerely hoped that Jeremy would fill them in, glancing at Charlie, because all their questions had gotten them very little. "He shouldn't have been in the middle of the action. I taught you better than that."
"He wasn't," Jeremy snapped back. "But they had rocket launchers of some kind - unguided, but still effective. We didn't know, but they didn't get close enough for any accuracy; we think they were aiming for the helicopters, but hit the munitions instead. He'd gone to get a visual on the field, were on his way back when it blew. Far enough away not to be caught in the worst of the explosion, but still in blast radius. One of his guards was killed; the other's probably gonna lose his leg. They were between him and it, took a lot of the shrapnel. Most that hit him was non-life-threatening, though there was a piece in his side that had the surgeon worried. Still not sure if it punctured a lung or if the damage is from just the concussive force. Blast knocked him into one of the helicopters, like throwing a rag doll at the wall."
"Status?"
"Doc says his pulse and blood pressure are stable, and he's breathing, though more shallowly than doc would like. He's worried about internal bleeding. And Bass hasn't woken up."
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"Hey." Her voice carried to interrupt the status and the storytelling. "Bass is gonna make it." There wasn't going to be any of that kind of talk where anyone else could hear it and she shifted her glance around before asking, "Why didn't you tell me?" She could understand Miles, but the expression on her face said more than she wanted to aloud. "He'd have wanted me to know."
Which was true enough, she was sure of it. Without him being awake, it was impossible to say, but they had to know that without details she was going to come.
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"Because I thought if they told you he was fine, you'd stay put where you were safe. Or, at least, that he'd"--a nod at Miles--"be able to keep you there, and safe. I didn't know how to keep you away if you knew how bad it was. And, maybe he'd have wanted you to know? But he wouldn't want you here. I had to balance the different risks."
Miles frowned, trying to not show how worried he was. "Why not bring him home?"
Jeremy gave him a look that asked if he was an idiot. "Doc doesn't want him jostled in a wagon if he's got a punctured lung, plus really hard to protect. And we can't put him in the helicopter, because they have rocket launchers." The asshole at the end of that was clear in the tone.
Possibly, it had been a very stressful week for him, too.
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"Maybe if someone had been honest and upfront with me in the beginning," she started, enunciating and stressing her words on purpose, "I wouldn't have had to come all the way out here to see for myself just how bad he was." The asshole was implied. "Besides." A breath. "Whether or not he wants me here is irrelevant. He should have brought me with him in the first place."
Taking a deeper breath, she stands up straighter. "Where is he?"
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"I'm gonna leave what he should have done between you and him," he said, holding his hands up. "But given they have weaponry beyond what we expected, he's probably going to argue that." When he could. But Jeremy was going to keep that to himself, because he didn't need any of the men doubting the President was going to be fine.
He chose not to respond to what she thought he should have done. He'd been trying to keep her safe while Bass couldn't. Even now, she was in danger, and that was going to bite him in the ass more than likely.
"In his tent." They'd come in sight of it--the biggest one, in the center of the camp so it would be hard for an enemy to make it through to it. It was well set up, with the nicer things that he tended to have on long campaigns - his desk, a screen for privacy, the larger bed, though it was still a camp bed. There were two guards standing at the entrance, with a few more scattered around the area, clearly on watch for anyone unauthorized who got too close.
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"Thank you, Jeremy."
For more than just telling her, that much was obvious. She gave her uncle a look; she didn't need his help to go across however many feet it was and she didn't want him to come. He could stand there and glower at Jeremy as much as he wanted, but she was going to the General's tent and what the guards saw heading in their direction was five feet, five inches of determined marching in their direction. She didn't slow down or stop, she simply moved as if she intended to walk right through the front of it.
What she'd find inside might not be something she's prepared for.
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Inside was another militia member, though this one with a red and white cross on a band on his arm--a medic the surgeon had left behind to watch over the President while he tended to the others in the med tent. He might have preferred to keep Bass there, but everyone agreed he'd be more comfortable in his own bed and they could better control who had access near him.
They had him in his bed, shirt off; his chest was bandaged, blood seeping through on a side, though far less than there had been. There were bruises peeking out from under the bandages, as well as along his arm and shoulder on the bandaged side, with another that had bloomed along his temple.
The medic had been trying to get some water down his throat, at least, even if they weren't able to get much food into him, but water was essential. He stood when Charlie came in, giving her a startled look. Unlike the others, he spent a lot of time on the battlefield and hadn't seen here before, so he frowned a little.
"...Can I help you?"
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"Yeah, you can tell me if he's going to be okay."
Moving to the end of the bed, she placed her hand on his ankle, curling around it gently.
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"Um...Doc thinks he will be. If he'll wake up. I'm just supposed to try to get him to swallow some water. Doc says we can't let him get dehydrated on top of everything else."
He couldn't just tell her the President was going to be okay. That was well above his pay-grade.
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It wasn't his fault, which is what she told herself as the rising panic started to make her irrational and angry on top of hungry and exhausted. Watching him there, with the cup frustrated her and she motioned with both hands and attempted to take it from him. There was nothing he could do that she hadn't done already for the man in the bed and she shooed him away.
"I can do it. Go tell Jer-- Captain Baker that you need something else to do." Captain? She wasn't sure what Jeremy did while on the battlefield, but she was going to drown Bass if it meant he might wake up.
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Bass might have been unconscious, but he wasn't completely still, shifting a little, with a frown knitting between his brows, like some part of him heard her voice and was reacting to it, even if his eyes stayed closed.
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Miles had asked the wrong question. Charlie had zero intention of continuing the fight; she had every intention of ending it. Despite the fact that whoever it was that had attacked Monroe had had rocket launchers and a several day head start, Charlie had a good idea where they'd come from and where they were going because of the meticulous record-keeping happening in that tent. It was only going to take her a couple of hours and a bit of gathering together with Jeremy and her uncle to put a plan together. If they'd thought she was bossy and commanding before, they were in for a treat now.
She took no excuses, no reasons to stay, and absolute no 'no's'. She told them she'd do it without them and only gave in when she saw them better her plan, and they did better her plan. It was a level-headed and entirely ruthless duo of Matheson's, backed by the best the Monroe Republic had to offer, that surrounded the miscreants that had attacked ten days prior. They were just over the Georgian line and Charlie strode into their camp just before dawn, while they were just waking up.
Guns drawn, her own guard had her back, along with Miles and two others (Jeremy had opted to stay behind to keep Bass from following if he woke up), and Charlie didn't stop until she reached the leader's tent.
"My name is Charlotte Matheson," she told the man outside it. "I suggest that you bring everyone in this camp to this spot in the next five minutes. Anyone attempting to leave or alert anyone will be shot. Anyone who pulls a weapon will be shot. Anyone who speaks without being spoken to first will be shot." Pausing there, she waited a beat, then asked, "Do I make myself clear?"
The man nodded.
"Go, bring everyone."
Nodding to the men with her, the men who had followed her from Philly, she waited outside the tent while the occupant was dragged yelling outside. She repeated her commands and, when he didn't comply, he was backhanded until he finally shut up. Slowly, the camp emptied into the space around the tent and she stood there while they were surrounded by the people she brought with her.
"My name is Charlotte Matheson," she said again, making sure to bring her bright blue eyes, now filled with the rage she felt, to every single person in that camp. There were far less than she'd anticipated, but that didn't stop her. Some were young, like she was, and some were older. "Ten days ago, you attacked General Sebastian Monroe and his men. I'm here to return the favor."
Lifting her pistol from her belt, she shot the man that had been dragged from the tent in the middle of his forehead, then turned back to the men who had yelled, started fighting, and then yelled.
"Anyone who fights, dies." They calmed slightly, and she wondered what Miles was thinking. She was still filled with the fury she had when she'd heard Bass had been attacked. "You." She pointed. The man was dragged in front of her and put on his knees. "And you. You. You." She continued until she had ten men kneeling in a line. Gazing out at the rest, another fifteen or so, she lifted her chin and caught their eyes before striding back to the ten that had been chosen. Kneeling, she watched them for a moment. "I want you all to remember this. For every time you cross into the Monroe Republic and declare war, I will hunt you down myself."
Butcher of Baltimore? It runs in the family. Charlie looked back at the rest of the fifteen and the men she'd brought with her. "Kill them."
Swords, guns, and knives, the ones left standing - not the ones kneeling - were slaughtered. No, she hadn't wanted to continue the fight. She'd left ten men alive to ensure that there was no fight left.
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"I had a dream Charlie was here," he confessed, a bit sheepishly.
When Jeremy told him she had been, but wasn't anymore, he got upset. He got more upset when he found out where she'd gone, but when he tried to push himself out of bed, the pain in his side almost made him pass out again.
Jeremy called for the doctor, easing Bass back onto the bed; the doctor wasthrilled to see his patient awake, and didn't even flinch when Bass threatened to have him shot when he checked his pupils with a light that seemed far too bright.
They got him to eat, then the doctor did a more thorough examination. By the end of it, Bass was exhausted. But he had some opium to kill the pain and drifted back to sleep, surprised he could, worrying like he was over Charlie. And Miles, he supposed.
Jeremy just hoped the Mathesons got back fast. He didn't want to keep standing in the way of Basss getting to them.
***
Miles watched Charlie, torn between pride and concern. She was doing what they'd discussed and what he'd have done if it were his show, but it was still unnerving to watch.
"Feeling better?" he asked, quite seriously.
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Actually, she knew. If someone did something to Miles, to Danny, or even to her mother, she supposed. But she might be sick.
"Yes."
It was a one word answer, a raised eyebrow in his direction to see if he'd challenge it, as she packed her bags. The rest of the men they'd left alive were tied up and she intended to leave them that way. They'd eventually get loose, that was the point, but it'd give them another head start back. She'd made it clear that for every time Georgia retaliated, she'd come back and kill ten men, women, and children and they'd never see her coming. It wasn't necessarily true, but she said it like it was. It was up to them to decide what to do about it. They'd started it.
Not until they were back with their own people did she start to relax from the fight, her stomach tight for other reasons. They'd been gone for too long - what if something had happened to Bass?
Her strides lengthened as she strode back into camp and she left the stories to the others. Heading straight for the general's tent, she didn't expect anyone to stop her and they didn't.
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When they got back, he didn't try to detain her, but followed behind her more worried than he'd admit to.
Jeremy intercepted them about 10 yards shy of the tent, a bowl of stew in his hands. Miles scowled to see him away from Bass, snapping out, "Report."
Jeremy held up his free hand. placatingly. "Doc's with him now, checking him over one more time before bed. He woke up and we got him to eat before he dozed back off. Doc says it's actual sleep now, though, and he'll probably do a lot of it still, given doc gave him the good stuff for his headache."
Not the first choice in a medically advanced world, to be sure, but you did what you could, these days.
Miles sighed with relief to hear the news, then looked slarmed again about the drugs. "Doc's sticking around to administer doses, right? No one's leaving Bass alone..."
"With the opium? No, of course not. I do, in fact, know better than that."
Who'd kept the man alive for four years after Miles' betrayal? Did anyone appreciate how hard that had been? Miles should, and the grimace of apology and nod he gave Jeremy seemed to say he did.
"You can wake him if he's dozed off again," Jeremy told Charlie. "He's been asking if you're back whenever he wakes, so it'd be good for him to see you are in one piece."
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"We are."
Leaving Miles to explain, she ducked into the tent and let her eyes accustom to the darker environment before she found Bass on the bed inside. Her heart picked up the pace again and she moved to his side, sitting on the low stool there, slipping her hand into his carefully. She didn't attempt to wake him, but she lifted his hand to her forehead and whispered his name.
"I found them," she added. "They won't come back. I made them sorry they ever found you in the first place."
Her voice was pitched low enough not to startle, but she may have woken him anyway.
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He squinted at her, the low light still a bit too much for comfort and traced his fingers from her forehead down her cheek. "You're okay? Miles, too?"
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Honestly, she doesn't want to see his face when he hears that she murdered fifteen people in cold blood because she got a little pissed that the man who forced an agreement out of her was injured in an ongoing conflict. Would he be pleased? Upset? She can tell Miles isn't happy about it. Just the fact that he's talking to her means that it's all worth it.
"We're okay. Everyone that went with us is fine." Maybe a bruise here or there, but not a single real injury among them. "How're you feeling? Should I get the doctor?"
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"That's good. I was scared when Jeremy said you'd gone..." He wasn't chastising her or anything, just stating a fact. "I'm glad you're back. Here. I missed you."
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"You were scared? How do you think I felt when I found out what happened to you?" She brushes her lips across the back of his hand and then focuses her blue eyes on his as best she can, her voice sliding into something harder. "They won't do it again, Bass. I made sure of it."
He can take from that what he will, but she closes her eyes and rests it against their clasped hands again. "I -- " She sighs. "I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you."
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But it warms him, more than a little, to know she really does care, that it really does matter to her what happens to him.
"Thank you. For taking care of the situation when I couldn't."
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In the morning, she's awake before Bass and slips from the bed without doing too much jostling. Even with the laudanum, she doesn't think he'll sleep much past her leaving him there and she'll have the doc go in to look at him before they start preparing to leave. When she steps outside, she sees preparations started at daylight; she goes to find her guard and tells him to eat before they go, thanking him for his service again. Then she goes to find Miles and Jeremy to make sure that everyone's ready to go once Bass is up.
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"Miss Matheson. Good morning. How is he?"
She doesn't look upset, so Jeremy isn't too worried, but the question still needs asking
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Coffee. Give it over, Jeremy. At some point, she thinks she might say something about the 'Miss Matheson' but now isn't the time and not in front of his men. Instead, she looks around for the source of caffeine because she needs it to make the day go, otherwise Miles' barking is going to sound like a lullaby by noon. As the doctor passes, she tells him that Bass might be awake and, if he is, please check him out and make sure he's good to go.
The doc gives her a nod, holding his own coffee, and heads that direction.
"Okay, where can a girl get a cup?"
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"Here, have mine," Miles says, as he walks up, holding out hie full mug to her.
Yes, the officers have their own mess even when they go to war and that's the only place to find coffee out here. It's still a rare, expensive commodity. And he's pretty sure no one would be stupid enough to stop her going in--they'd let him in--but why risk it? It's his third cup anyway, because Miles didn't sleep last night. Too much on his mind, and too much to do for today, too.
The doctor nodded at her, waved at Jeremy and went to check on Bass and get him ready to travel. Miles has already been working on setting up a wagon for him and Charlie with plenty of blankets to keep Bass from getting too banged up. "You think this is sufficient?" he asks Charlie, waving at it. "He seemed pretty banged up in the bath, but Christ knows what the men's pillows are infested with--nothing I'm gonna expose him to, at least, with any open wounds."