re·pair 1 (r-pâr)
v. re·paired, re·pair·ing, re·pairs
.
1. To restore to sound condition after damage or injury; fix: repaired the broken watch.
2. To set right; remedy: repair an oversight.
3. To renew or revitalize.
4. To make up for or compensate for (a loss or wrong, for example).

Disclaimer: Oops! Almost forgot this this time. BTW, I don't own "Revolution" or any of its characters. Aaand, this fic is for fun, not for profit.

Schematics

"A schematic diagram represents the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the information the schematic is intended to convey, and may add unrealistic elements that aid comprehension."- Wikipedia

Sebastian Monroe doesn't sleep particularly well, and tonight is not a departure from the norm. It's past two in the morning, and the power plant is silent - always silent - around him as he paces the floor of his secondary office. If he believes the reports - and there are too many now to ignore - then Miles is actually on his way here. A day away, at most.

Bass slumps into the chair behind his heavy oak desk, closing his eyes for a moment. He's been running scenarios in his head for weeks - ever since he heard Miles might be heading back to Philadelphia - and he still doesn't have a clue how this is going to play out.

He'd kept thinking that Miles was pulling some elaborate long con, the kind he couldn't even tell Bass about. The escape, even the attempted assassination, had to have all been a ruse to convince the men that he'd truly deserted. As the years had passed, Bass had held on to that hope - after all, each of Miles' actions could be explained. He'd had to stay away so long because the rebels would never believe he'd truly abandoned the Militia after a year, or even three years. Or five. When the eight-year mark came and went, Bass had thought, surely, this was the year Miles would unveil his grand plan. He'd unify all the rebel camps and lead them into Philly, having sent word (finally) to his best friend, and then he'd walk those damn traitors straight into Bass's waiting trap.

And he'd finally have his best friend back. The Militia would finally have its (real) General back. The men would stop complaining behind his back, and Jeremy would stop giving him that carefully schooled look every time Miles was mentioned.

But when, for the first time in eight years, somebody had finally brought him news of Miles Matheson, it was…unexpected. Miles was coming here…to free his brother's kid? How in hell did that fit in with the con? When Jeremy had returned from the field claiming to have caught Miles in a rebel camp, Bass had felt a breath of hope. And then Neville returned, claiming to have seen (and fought) Miles in the flesh at the train station in Noblesville, where he had apparently assisted with and ultimately prevented a rebel train bombing. And Bass had thought, maybe it was all true.

It would be one fucking hell of a long con, but that was Miles - committed to a fault. Maybe he'd helped those rebels rig that bomb and known he couldn't have that many Militia deaths on his head, so he'd pulled if off the train once no one was watching.

Maybe his stint with the rebellion wasn't working out so well, and the whole "rescue the kid" thing was just an excuse to get back to Philadelphia.

Maybe.

Bass sighs and rubs his temples, bending forward over the carved oak desk. Maybe Rachel knows something about getting the power on, maybe Miles is coming back to join him, maybe he'll last another week without Neville or - God - even Jeremy putting a gun to his head.

Hell, the only reason they're letting him lead now is that he has them convinced he can find out how to turn the lights back on. If he fails there, then even the fact that they're all scared shitless of each other may not help him anymore. At the moment, everyone knows that if they breathe a word of treason, someone around them will be self-serving enough to march right into Bass's office and turn them in. It's the reason he's made a habit of giving snitches promotions: so that it remains less risky to move up within his structure than to try to overthrow it.

But if he fails to get the power back on…

Bass pushes up from his desk abruptly, straightening his uniform and running his fingers through his curly hair to smooth it back to order. He strides from the room, nodding to the guard outside the door, and hurries down the hallway.

Three turns and two sets of doors bring him to the room where Rachel has been working. He doesn't knock - she'll be sleeping in her cell by now anyway - just steps slowly into the open space, automatically scanning the room for threats before he turns toward the machine.

He'd been good at math in high school, but shit at car repair and electronics. Math made sense - it was linear; consistent; straightforward. All this science crap just ran you in circles. He had looked at this damned machine every night for the past week, and it never made any more sense to him.

Miles had been the one who had always seen how things worked. One time, when they were on leave, he had pulled out the engine block in Bass's broken-ass car and rebuilt most of the engine from parts, patiently pointing out how each joint and hose and piston connected to the whole. Bass had tried to pay attention (honestly, he'd been a little distracted texting a super-hot chick he'd picked up while out running that morning), but Miles might as well have been speaking French for all he'd understood of it. That engine that Miles could look at and take apart with his brain just looked like a big, oily hunk of metal to Bass.

And this…thing that Rachel is building, no matter how many times he looks at it, just looks like a fucking tangle of wires.

He lets out a tight-lipped sigh of irritation and runs his fingers through his hair again, trying to calm himself down. This is the solution, right in front of him. This machine is going to turn the power back on.

It has to. It will work, everything will work, and then the world will be his, so he can make it safe. So he can crush the rebels, the Georgia Federation, and all the other republics once and for all, so Miles can come out of hiding, so they can disband the Militia and set up a real government, so he can stop playing games with Rachel and torturing people for information and spying on his own captains and worrying about assassination attempts and he can finally just be.

He can go back to drinking at bars and one-night stands and - hell - to playing video games, and no one will question him or look at him sideways ever again, because he'll be the goddamned hero who brought the power back.

And then all this will have been worth something. That's the plan, and either Miles is coming here to help, or he's coming here to blow it all to hell.

And what keeps Sebastian Monroe up at night is that he has no fucking idea which.