A/N: Alert: Major Character death (with a smattering of hope at the end, perhaps). This is by far the longer of the two endings. More notes and explanations at the end. In advance, thank you all again for reading and for all the likes and comments! Please, let me know if you will which ending you liked the best. * Update: If you've already read this once, I reuploaded it to get rid of a few punctuation errors and a redundant sentence or two.

But what if it ended this way?:

When Bass awoke the late afternoon sun was seeping into the windows, casting eerie shadows on the concrete walls. He waited for the blurriness to clear, and looked around when he was at last able to focus on his surroundings. Miles was no longer slumped against the wall across from him. "Miles?" he called out, wincing as the sound of his own voice echoing increased the tempo of the steady pounding ache in his head. He listened intently for a few minutes before he decided he was most definitely alone. Even with a head full of whiskey, Miles was as light of a sleeper as he was, if he was in the back room, he would have woken and respond. It was kind of strange though. He should have woken up when he'd left. Where the hell is Miles?

Bass slowly sat up. His back screamed in protest as the bandages pulled. He'd been passed out on his back long enough for the gauze to stick to the slashes. The pounding in his head retaliated. He looked up towards the door. It was closed. Surely Charlie hadn't locked him in again? After the night they'd shared, he was sure she'd let him go, especially once he and Miles had complied with her demand for them to reconcile. And hadn't they done just that? Granted, it may not have been exactly what she had in mind but they'd worked it out in their own way.

He briefly wondered much of his headache was due to the whiskey as opposed to the scuffles that had broken out between him and Miles periodically throughout the night. He couldn't quite remember what the last one was over. It was just as likely to have been over something trivial as it was over something serious. Having had enough of the cellar, Bass started to stand up. A wave of dizziness washed over him, causing him to grab for the steel bar embedded in the wall. Where the hell had that come from? It had probably been 20 years since he'd experienced a hangover like this. He waited several minutes for the feeling to subside. When he finally felt steady, he turned to head towards the stairs.

"What have you done to yourself?" the feminine voice came from the shadows in the adjoining room. Having been so sure he was alone, the sudden question nearly made him jump. His hand instinctively went to his belt, where a sword normally hung. Of course his swords had been confiscated, but old habits die hard.

"What?" he hadn't even realized he was responding until the words were already out. Who on earth was there?

"I said, what have you done to yourself?" the voice was strange and then at the same time vaguely familiar. He couldn't quite put his finger on where he'd heard it before, but he knew he had. Well, that meant whoever was hiding down here must be someone he had met before.

"Haven't you ever seen a man with a hangover before?" Bass slowly walked towards the next room, determined to find the source of the voice.

"You never used to be like this. What happened?" He hesitated for a second. He knew that voice. He wracked his brain trying to attach a face to it. It suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks. It had to be wrong. There was no way. That's impossible, he thought. But deep inside he knew exactly whose voice he was hearing. The same tone. The same flat Midwest accent. "What happened, Bass?"

Standing in the doorway of the next room, he closed his eyes for a second, taking the voice in. It had been so long since he'd heard it he'd almost forgotten what it sounded like, its subtle nuances having faded from his memory with time. Now it came flooding back. Feeling like he was about to make a total ass out of himself by addressing someone that he knew couldn't possibly be there, he opened his eyes and called the owner of the voice by name. "Mom?"

A shadow moved forward towards him and into the dim light stepped Gail Monroe. He took a step back, away from the figure of the woman who had brought him into this world. Bass closed his eyes and counted to three in his head, convinced that when he opened them, he would once again be alone. As he prepared to open his eyes, he absently thought to himself, I am never drinking again. But, when he opened them, she was still there, watching him with the same patient expression she always had worn when he'd been about to get into trouble.

"You... You can't be here," he took another step back as he spoke, almost tripping over his own feet.

"Can't I?" she followed him, step for step, refusing to allow him to increase the distance between them.

"No, you can't. You're dead. I buried you, eighteen years ago." he continued to back up as he spoke, while she followed. He stopped only when his back hit a wall. "That's it. I've finally done it. I've finally gone completely bat shit fucking crazy."

His mother shook her head at him, silently denying the complete loss of his sanity. "What happened, Bass?" she asked him again.

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"This isn't you," she gestured at him. "You were always a good boy. And grew to become a good soldier. We were so proud of you for standing up and protecting your country." Bass looked away from her. Hallucination or not, how could he look her in the eyes? "You were raised better than this. The Marines taught you to kill, but we taught you to value life. How could you kill so many needlessly? How did you become so cold?"

How could he explain it? "You all died. And then all hell broke loose. And then Shelley died, with the baby. And I died right along with all of you."

She reached up and rested her hand on his cheek, just like she'd done a thousand times throughout his youth. "You never could lie to me. Stop lying to yourself. You're still there somewhere. You can't keep hiding, can't keep fighting."

"I've tried. I am trying, but this is all I know. So many years, so much blood. it just got all out of hand. We went too far. The militia, the Republic, everything. I don't know how it happened. It's so hard to go back."

He could see the disappointment in her eyes. It seeped into him, condemning him for all the things he'd done. Making the regret he'd felt for the past hit him tenfold. Over the years he had tried to erase them from his memory. They'd been all gone so long, he'd rarely thought of them. He'd refused to think of them. But she was here now and despite all reason, it felt like it was really her.

It was almost as if she read his thoughts. "How could you forget us? Forget your past so easily?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" he felt his eyes sting, welling up with tears eighteen years in the making.

She wrapped her arms around him, like he was still a little boy being comforted for a skinned knee. He could feel her, smell her perfume. "You have to fix things."

He pulled back to look at her, confusion in his eyes. "I have. At least, I'm working on it. I've worked things out with Miles, kind of. And Charlie..."

She cut him off. "You can't reform the Monroe Republic. It never should have been in the first place. You have to tell them."

"They know. I've already worked this out. I'm not going to do it." He felt silly discussing his plans with his mother, who stood there looking not much older than himself, her presence an impossibility. But he had to make her see, understand.

"Have you?"

"Yes. I've talked to Charlie and Miles. Promised them. I'm not go back there."

"Are you so sure that's what you've done?" As she said it his vision faded for a second. The room seemed darker, and the weight of it seemed to press down on him. He shook it off. He looked into her eyes, swearing they'd changed somehow, just for a second. Like they were no longer hers.

"What do you mean? Of course I'm sure. A flash- Different eyes. The walls around him darker. Dirty. That pressing feeling. "What's happening?" he sank to the ground. It was getting hard to breathe.

"It's time, Bass. Time to wake up." Flash- the flicker of lanterns, flash- again the afternoon rays filtering in through the grates on the windows. "You've got to take care of things before time runs out. Time to wake up and get started." He felt dizzy again. The room flashed. He focused on the steel bar in the wall across from him. It seemed to fade, leaving nothing more than the ends, rusted out and embedded in filthy, crumbling concrete. He looked away, looked up at his mother again, then his eyes darted to the corner. Flash- it was no longer empty. A pile of junk stacked on a workbench. Flash- gone again. Replaced with just two empty walls coming together.

He was now lying in the center of the room. He didn't remember moving there. The heaviness and dizziness was overwhelming. There had to be something in that whiskey. They must have drugged him. But, why? Gail had left. "Wait! Come back!" No one responded. He closed his eyes, squinting them shut to block out the strange things he'd seen. Everything seemed to still. He opened his eyes.

He was lying on a cot. There was a plastic mask over his mouth and nose; he felt air being forced into his nose and mouth. Someone was pounding on his chest in a steady rhythm. "One, Two, Three, Four, Five…" Then it stopped. The pounding and counting resumed, "One, Two, Three, Four, Five. His eyes came into focus. He saw faces. Gene, Charlie. Charlie squeezed a bag that was attached to the mask on his face. He struggled to breathe on his own. His hand came up and tried to rip the mask off his face. Unseen hands pulled his arms down, held him to the cot. He took in a gasping breath, the mask fell away. The breath burned, like it did when you were underwater a few seconds too long. Bass darted his eyes around the room, taking in his surroundings. The safe house. The cellar they'd been staying in. Lanterns flickered. The random junk the barn's previous owner had left filled every nook and cranny. He struggled to sit up. The Phantom hands pushed him down again. He vaguely heard someone say, "He's back." Rachel? Charlie? He wasn't sure which the voice belonged to.

A candle was held over his face. Gene was above him, using a mirror to reflect the candle's light into his eyes, one at a time. "Can you hear me?" Gene's voice seemed so distant. He tried to speak, but he didn't seem to be able to catch his breath enough to form words. He simply nodded and turned his head.

Charlie was there. She read the look on his face and answered the unspoken question, What happened? "You were gone. You stopped breathing. Had a seizure. We brought you back."

He reached a hand out towards her to caress her face, but stopped himself short. It came back to him now. The typhus. How it wasn't spreading but yet he'd somehow been infected all the same. It didn't make sense. It was like he had two sets of memories.

Charlie didn't know what he'd been about to do exactly. She'd thought he was about to touch her and then hesitated. He looked so confused, lost. He had literally just died in front of her, even if it was only a few minutes. She took the hand that he'd lifted in her own, squeezing it gently. He closed his eyes for a second and squeezed it back. If anyone else had witnessed the exchange, it wasn't mentioned.

He held onto her hand like a lifeline as he glanced at Rachel. Her normally cold facade had momentarily melted into one of concern. "Didn't I earn a dose of the antidote?" It came out as a whisper.

She flinched at his question, taken aback. Despite everything between them, she was astounded that he'd accuse her of cruelty. Refusing to be baited, she replied somewhat coldly. "We gave it to you twice. Man-made or not it's still a form of typhus. The antidote does kill off the bacteria that causes it but you had a complication." he furrowed his brows at her, not quite understanding. "Your back," she explained, "it was starting to get infected. The typhus let the secondary infection take over."

"How? Thought it couldn't spread." his voice sounded foreign and raspy in his ears.

"We don't know. The Patriots had infected the food supply. But you didn't eat anything from town. But we checked it, you had the same thing, and from what I can tell it's still not contagious. Maybe something contaminated touched your back when we changed your bandages? "

He shrugged. In the end, it didn't really matter how he'd gotten it. He looked around again. Miles and Connor were leaning against the wall, off to the side. Miles looked worried and relieved at the same time. Connor simply looked bored. He looked closer at his progeny. It was like staring into his own face. He'd been dead. Sure it had only been for a few minutes, but in this world sometimes that's all it took. And the kid looked fucking bored. Just another delay in being heir to the throne. Bass looked away again, resolute in what he had to do concerning his son.

Rachel continued, "You're not out of danger yet. We've tracked down a source for penicillin. We'd just given it to you when you seized. It needs time to work. You've been in a coma until now."

He nodded in response. His eyes grew heavy, so he closed them. None of it had been real. He had thought he was going crazy, talking to the long dead. But the rest? He could feel the way Charlie had felt beneath him. The glow of the whiskey as he and Miles had gotten drunk together, working out their past. Even now, as Charlie held onto his hand, there was something familiar there. And as he'd been passing out after talking to Miles he'd felt a certain peace –Like everything had changed, and that he could redeem himself after all. Now that was fading away, and he was terrified to let it go. Charlie squeezed his hand gently again, as if to ask him if he was still awake. He squeezed back to assure her he was still with them. "How long?" He whispered.

"The coma?" He nodded, eyes still closed. "Three days." Three days? That's how long I was there. How did he dream that? He'd dreamt he'd slept down there, had dreams within that dream. But the entire time, his body had been here, wasting away. He heard Gene and Rachel get up and walk away. "Don't try to move. Rest," Charlie added. He'd expected her to join the others but she stayed there, holding his hand. He heard the others discussing something on the other side of the room. He concentrated on the sounds, straining to hear. It sounded to him like the must have left the room to speak privately, but he could still just barely make out what was being said.

"How long till he can be moved? We've been here too long. Eventually the Patriots are going to find us. We need to find someplace else." Ah Miles, always plotting the next step.

He almost missed Gene's response, low as his voice was now. "The antidote worked but it was designed to only neutralize the typhus. That isn't the problem now. He's got sepsis, but he's still too weak from the original illness."

"He has to be getting better, how else is he awake?" Miles refused to truly grasp what Gene was telling him.

"I have no idea. By all accounts, he shouldn't be. He'd be better off if he wasn't."

"So what do we do now?" Miles felt helpless. He did his best to keep it out of his voice, but Bass could still hear it. They'd known each other too long.

Rachel spoke up now, "We hope the penicillin is strong enough and works before he goes into complete septic shock. This isn't the same as the antidote. It was grown on bread. We have no way of knowing the dose."

"So just give him more."

"We can't do that. We only have so much. It works better over a longer time frame. Plus, if we give him too much it will just shock his system more." Gene reasoned.

"I don't get it. The patriots have their own disease with antibiotics that only cure that disease. How is that possible when we're using moldy bread for medicine?" Miles wondered.

"The DOD had dozens of research departments before the black out. Biological warfare was supposed to be off limits but they must have been working on this," Rachel explained.

"First Randall Flynn, and now all of this? It's starting to look like the DOD planned all of this," Miles sounded distracted as he spoke, but Bass thought he might actually be on to something. It all seemed a bit too convenient. When he got better, they'd have to check that angle out. Might help us fight the bastards.

Gene steered the conversation back towards Bass, "Lab created or not the typhus is a serious infection. Add that to the lashing he received in Mexico... "

Miles interrupted " He was fine. How is that a problem now?"

"Whips cause more damage than you think. It's not just the cuts. The weight of the whip can damage things internally. Even a bruised kidney can become a problem when you add the typhus on top of it. And with travel and then jumping back into things with the Patriots on top of it, some of the cuts had to have gotten infected. Any superficial infection can become opportunistic when the body is fighting off another infection."

"How soon until we know? What are his odds?"

"If he hangs on another day or two, he might make it. I can't exactly give him an MRI or do lab work so I'm guessing here. His odds aren't good, not by a long shot." Gene wasn't optimistic.

While Bass appreciated they'd tried to keep the truth from him, he'd heard it all.. So he was probably going to die. If he wasn't so damned tired he would have laughed at the irony of it all. After everything he'd survived, it was a whipping from his own son and a lab created typhus that was going to do him in. He drifted off to sleep thinking about how stupid it was.

When he woke up again it was late. Everything was quiet. They must be sleeping. Charlie was still there next to him, but had fallen asleep. Her head rested on the cot by his hip. At some point while he slept an IV had been stuck in his arm. The bag hung on an old coat rack they'd found. Someone must have snuck back into the Patriots quarantine camp and gotten the equipment. He hoped every one of those bastards was dying without the antidote. When they'd found it they had used most of it on the town's stricken. There had only been a few doses left for the patriots.

His stirring woke Charlie. She lifted her head and looked at him sleepily. "Hey," she whispered.

"Hey." He didn't know exactly what to say to her. He knew now what happened was merely a dream but he was left with all the residual feelings like it had been real. His dream had forced him to confront so many things he had refused to acknowledge. But here she was holding vigil at his bedside. Dream or not, there was something there regardless.

"How do you feel?" The question was a little ridiculous, but it broke the uneasy silence.

"Wonderful. Sure I'll be up doing back flips in no time," he laughed lightly, causing him to cough violently. He realized that cracking jokes was a bad idea when the coughing had left him unable to breathe. Charlie scrambled for the air bag, and put the mask back over his face. She squeezed the bag, forcing air into his lungs, while he struggled to breathe on his own once more. Their eyes locked while she spent the next few minutes trying to help him catch his breath back. Finally able to breathe unaided he pushed the bag away gently with his hand. "Thank you," He panted. They sat in silence as he stared at the ceiling and concentrated for a few minutes on breathing. He'd rarely ever been sick in his life. It was almost humiliating now. The infamous Sebastian Monroe, felled by a simple laugh. It was also not lost on him that he was being cared for by a family where each member had each wanted him dead at some point - some of them more recently than others

She picked up his hand checked his pulse at the wrist with her other hand, like Gene had taught her to do. His pulse was too fast, but she was willing to let herself be convinced it was a bit stronger than earlier. She set his hand back down but Bass tightened his grip, refusing to let her go. She hesitated for a second but allowed it. She had seen the looks she'd gotten earlier from her mother. She'd prefer to not have to answer questions about the nature of her their relationship, especially when she didn't even know what it was.

"Where did you go while you were out?" the question had been forcing its way to the surface for some time. She knew it was morbid at best, but she'd been curious. Most of them had taken the time to talk to him while he'd been out, hoping that he'd respond in some way. Sometimes, it had seemed like he was getting ready to, like their words were bringing him above the surface.

"Nowhere. Somewhere. I don't know." He didn't quite know how to explain it. He looked away briefly, looking around the room. There were things about this place he hadn't bothered to notice before. The walls and floor had once been smooth concrete, but had crumbled with time and lack of maintenance. He noticed how the windows with the remnants of the grates that once covered them. He could see some of them still had the hinges attached. And, in some places he could see where there had indeed once been steel bars embedded all around the walls. It suddenly made sense. "It was like this place but empty and newer. People came and went. Talked to me, left. Everyone but Connor, actually. It was like a really weird vivid dream. "

"We've all been taking care of you. Even Miles. "

"Except Connor," it was almost bitter the way he'd said it. He knew when Connor left Mexico with them that he didn't exactly care for him, but still he was the kid's father. It stung that he hadn't given a damn. Not when the people he'd hurt the most in this world did.

"No, not him. I'm sure that-"

"It's okay, Charlie. You don't have to make excuses. I get it He's got every reason to hate me."

"I'm sorry," and he could tell she'd meant it.

"Listen, I've got to talk to you and Miles. While I still can" He added that last part quietly. She found it disconcerting.

"There'll be time for that later." she was trying to reassure him, and he found it kind of sweet.

"Charlie, we both know that's probably not true. You heard your grandfather. Chances are I'm dying."

She sat there a second, taking in what he said. Sighing, she relented. "Okay. I'll go get him." she started to get up but he held on to her hand, keeping her there for a second longer.

"Listen, I want you to know how sorry I am. For everything."

"You don't have to-"

"I do. I never meant for any of it to happen. Your dad, your mom, Danny. None of it was supposed to happen that way. Once it all started, I just didn't know how to stop it." Tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke to her, and his chest was beginning to constrict again, whether from emotion or his weak lungs, he couldn't quite be sure. She heard the telltale rasping and put the mask over his face once more.

As she squeezed the bag, she leaned in close and whispered into his ear, as if she was afraid of being overheard. "You don't have to do this. I forgive you." He focused on her words as he tried to take slow, deep breaths as she helped him recover from the attack. They sat that way for several minutes until he could speak again.

"It was because of you, you know." He finally said to her.

"What was?"

"Back at the school, when we were under attack. I didn't come back because of Miles or Aaron. I came back because of you. Because I couldn't stand the thought of you getting hurt." His confession did not come easy. He wanted her to understand, but he didn't quite know how to get there.

"Why?" She was confused. They had become friends to a point after their trip to Willoughby together. And after his execution she had been devastated before she learned he was still alive. After that, he seemed to distance himself from her, rarely making eye contact until he'd walked back in to save her once more.

"Couldn't you tell?" Charlie shook her head at that slowly, still not understanding. He paused for a few minutes to catch his breath and find the words. "I tried to stay away from you, take a step back. It was for your own good. You reminded me so much of who I used to be, before the Militia – before the blackout even. Made me want to find the old Bass again."

"Then why back away?"

"Because I was mad at Miles for hiding Connor from me and it was just easier to stay away from you both. Because I'm simply not good enough; Because you hated me; and because it hurts to want what you can't have. Pick a reason. They're all true. But I still cared."

He left the rest unsaid. He never was good at talking about what he felt, despite the fact that he'd always been the type to care too much, to the point it consumed him. And she knew how much his confession had cost him, and what he meant when he said he cared. She wouldn't make him say it now. She reached her free hand out and caressed the side of his face, the hair from his beard scratching her palm. She bent forward as she stood and kissed him lightly on the lips before releasing his hand and walking out the door. He knew then that she understood.

He was so tired after talking to Charlie. He closed his eyes again while he waited. It seemed like only a few minutes passed when he opened them back up to find Charlie and Miles sitting on either side of him.

"See how you are. Have her wake me up in the middle of the night for a chat, and then you went and took a nap." Miles said grumpily. "What'd you want, Bass?" Miles tried his best to suppress a yawn, but he'd been sitting there for almost an hour waiting for Bass to wake back up and explain why he'd felt the need to have Charlie fetch him so urgently.

"If you'd shut up, I'll tell you. Prick" He grumbled the last part under his breath. He waited to make sure he had their attention, and then began to tell them about his offer to Connor. He could tell that while they weren't all that surprised, they both felt it as a betrayal of sorts.

"Why are you telling us this?" Miles finally asked him.

"Because you have a right to know. If I live through this, I don't plan on following through with it. I had hoped that once we got back and Connor could see for himself what the Patriots really were and what we were fighting for that he'd find a purpose other than finding power. But I see now that's all he cares about. You have to find a place for him where he's out of all this. Even if I die, he'll try to find a way to lead under the Monroe name. I never should have gone back for him in Mexico. Rachel was right. He can't be fixed. Not now."

Miles did his best to keep his temper under control. He couldn't believe that Bass had actually considered reforming the Militia behind his back. He opened his mouth to speak, but realized that Bass had fallen back to sleep again. He waited for a while, and just as he was about to stand up again, Bass opened his eyes back up. He looked confused. It dawned on Miles that he'd had no idea that a good half hour or so had passed.

Charlie was no longer in the room. Miles had finally sent her away. For some reason he couldn't fathom, she'd insisted on keeping an eye on him. She was exhausted, and it aggravated Miles to see her wearing herself down for Bass. When it all came down to it, Bass was his problem, not hers. Despite the bad blood between them, they were still brothers. It should be his job to take care of him now.

"Miles, I'm sorry I didn't want to go back home." Miles looked down at Bass now. He was paler, and his eyes were barely open. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"What are you talking about, Bass?"

"After we went to Chicago looking for Ben and Rachel. You wanted to go back to Jasper, but I talked you out of it. I'm sorry." Bass was starting to get agitated. Miles knew that the fever was taking back over. The lucidity he'd had when he'd first woken up from the coma, after they'd brought him back was short lived.

"Bass, that was over 15 years ago. Don't worry about it."

"No. It's where it all started, see? I was afraid to go home. Afraid to face it. I was terrified of looking at their graves and remember the loss. Remember what I almost did. All of it." Again, he couldn't breathe. Bass hated the weakness that had taken him over. He'd fought terrorists and bandits, rebels and patriots. And now he was fighting just to keep his lungs working. Miles grabbed the airbag, and squeezed it, the way he'd watched Charlie do earlier. He furrowed his brows with concern as he waited for Bass to be able to continue. He knew that he was determined to talk about it, so all he could do was be there and listen.

"You know Jasper had nothing to do with any of it Bass. Why bring it up now?"

He moved the mask so Bass could talk. "Don't you see? If we had gone back there, none of it would have happened. At some point, I'd have met Connor. The power going out would have changed things. She'd have told me, and I would have stayed. We would have stayed to protect the town. It never would have been. That one decision, it could have changed everything."

"It wasn't all your fault, Bass. I never should have pushed you into attacking that other camp. You were grieving, and I had figured that if I got you to do something, you'd get past it. I should have known better. I was just terrified that I wouldn't be there in time to stop you from going with them, so I pushed you at someone else. Gave you someone else to take it out on. And in the end, I never should have left you alone in Philly. I should have just gotten you out of there. So see, we're both to blame."

They both heard a sound, and turned to see Charlie standing in the doorway. She'd never known the truth of why Bass had lost it. They hadn't gone into full details, but she'd heard enough. Her heart went out to both of them. They'd finally found a way to resolve their past, and now it was too late.

She sat back down next to Bass, as Rachel also entered the room. She unhooked the bag hanging on the coat rack and walked over to the workbench to refill it. She too had heard much of what both men had said. She could not say she'd forgiven Bass for anything, but she was sorry for what was happening all the same. It was more so for Miles than anything. Good or bad, Bass had been a part of his life for forty years. He was hurting, so she hurt along with him. She reattached the bag, and then prepared another antibiotic dose. She knew that there was little help of the penicillin doing anything at this point, so despite what they'd told Miles, she gave him everything they had as a last ditch effort. He barely even registered the needle entering the skin on his forearm. She squeezed Miles' shoulder before leaving the room, and left them to hold vigil one last time.

Charlie and Miles were both asleep now. He wasn't sure of the time. Weak light filtered in the windows. Charlie had pulled her chair closer to the cot, and held his hand in both of hers. She was bent forward, with her head resting on his stomach. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, causing her to murmur in her sleep. He smiled at that. He had done his best to make what peace he could with the Mathesons, despite all the regrets he had. A few stray tears fought their way out, as he looked down at the foot of the bed. He saw her standing there. "That's my boy, sleep now." Gail Monroe whispered. He closed his eyes again and began to drift. When Charlie woke up a few minutes later, he was already gone.

As tears welled up in her eyes, a sound from above caught her attention. The door to the cellar was opening. She walked to the doorway to see who was intruding. She'd recognize those boots anywhere. Aaron had finally returned.

A/N: I don't know why this ending flowed the best for me, but it did. It wasn't the original way I had thought of ending things, but once the idea popped in my head, I couldn't seem to let it go. Hence the two different endings in the first place.

I will leave a few things up to interpretation to you: Who was really appearing to Bass? Was it a ghost? A hallucination? Or, maybe it was the nanites. And, if it was the nanites, maybe Aaron's appearance at the end wasn't a coincidence… So maybe this one ends with a little bit of hope after all.