Charlie took a deep breath and braced herself before stepping through the entrance and scanning the bar.

She knew that there was a good chance that he wouldn't be here and yet she still couldn't calm her nerves down.

She wanted Miles to be here, or at least she thought she did, but she was also afraid of how exactly she was supposed to introduce herself.

Hi, I'm Charlie. Your niece who you've never met... Or at least that's what I thought until last night when I found out that you're really my dad and my parents have been lying about it for my entire life.

That definitely was not the way to do it. She just wasn't sure that there really was a right way to go about this.

Maybe he wouldn't be here... What if this whole trip was for nothing? It wasn't that far-fetched of an idea when she was basically just hoping that he still worked at the bar here and lived in an apartment over top two decades after the last time that either of her parents had heard from him.

She'd only ever seen him in old pictures and she was relying solely on those to help her recognize him. She just hoped that he still looked the same.

Charlie scanned the room and felt her stomach drop like it had when she was ten and had talked Danny into going on the tallest roller coaster in the amusement park, only to regret her decision once she had reached the crest of the hill. There it was. The face that she had seen in old pictures plenty of times, but never had really put much thought into up until the night before… The face of her biological father.

She knew that she couldn't back out now, so she forced her shaking legs to step forward.

Miles peered up as a nervous looking girl approached the bar. Christ, she was practically shaking with fear.

If she was trying to use a fake ID to buy booze, then she really was not fooling anyone when she was walking around looking this terrified.

Still, it wasn't like he particularly cared if she was underage and she certainly looked like she could use a drink, so he decided that he'd take it easy on the kid.

"What do you want?" He asked her in an unenthusiastic tone.

She stood there in complete silence, staring at him like a deer in the headlights for an uncomfortably long amount of time before he finally felt the need to loudly clear his throat.

"What'll you have?" He asked a little more insistently this time, leading her to only look a little more frightened as she continued to wordlessly stare at him. "Look, kid. I don't know if you've ever ordered a drink before, but usually how this goes is I ask what you want and then you give me an answer and I go get you a drink… You're not just supposed to stand there, staring at me like a crazy person."

Charlie just wanted to turn around and walk away… Or maybe the floor could just open up below her and swallow her whole.

Dammit, Charlie… Come on. Just say something… Anything.

"Hi."

Okay, maybe don't say that… Or at least say something else with it.

Why was she panicking so much?

"Alright, that's it," he said in a tone of undisguised exasperation. "I'm done. I tried figuring out what the hell you want."

As she watched him turn to walk away, Charlie's brain suddenly snapped back into action as she urgently told him, "Wait!"

"What?" He asked seeming less than eager to be stuck with her for any longer.

"Are you Miles?" She asked him. "Miles Matheson?"

Miles was beginning to wonder if this little weirdo had been put up to this… Whatever this was.

She was definitely testing his patience and he was just about ready to throw her out of the place.

"Maybe," Miles told her. "What's it to you?"

"I'm Charlie," she responded as if this was some kind of fucking meet and greet as her gaze shifted down to the bar-top. "I'm Rachel Matheson's daughter…" She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot before her eyes flickered back up to meet his. "I'm your daughter."

"Ah, shit."

Charlie wasn't sure how she'd been expecting him to react, but it wasn't just with swearing and then turning to walk away.

"Hold on," she insisted angrily.

"Go back home, kid," Miles told her as he turned back to face her again.

"No." Charlie persisted. "I didn't come all this way just so that you could just tell me to go home."

"Well then I guess you're going home disappointed," he retorted in a less than sympathetic tone.

"Don't you care at all that I'm your daughter?" She demanded.

"Look, I already knew that I had a kid," Miles told her. "A kid that was being raised by Ben to think that she was his daughter. So what the hell happened to that?"

"My Dad found out, so my parents decided to tell me," Charlie explained as she desperately fought back the tears she could feel fighting to escape her eyes. "I thought that you would be happy to see me… Or at least that you wouldn't be like this."

Miles sighed to himself as he looked at the girl in front of him. She was determined, he'd give her that.

That was clearly something that she'd gotten from Rachel. That along with the look of disappointment that he knew meant that he was about to do something that he was thoroughly going to regret later.

He hesitated for a moment as he noticed for the first time the straps of the backpack she was wearing.

Great. So she was expecting more than just to meet him.

Miles inwardly kicked himself as he told her, "Look, Chicago's not exactly a short trip for you… And you don't really look like you know how to take care of yourself. So, if you want, then I guess you can sleep on my couch for the night-"

A wide grin formed on Charlie's lips, which only caused Miles to grimace as he raised his voice in the hopes that she would actually listen to him.

"But only for the night, alright?" He asked her. "That's it. One night and then you're out of here tomorrow morning, okay?"

She bit her lip as if to stop herself from another outburst as she nodded her head a little.

"Alright. Go through that door over there," Miles told her jerking his chin towards the back of the bar. "And up the stairs… Don't bother trying to wait up. I'm working late and even if you're awake when I get up there, I'm not going to want to be."

Charlie was afraid to push her luck any further and end up having him change his mind, so she once again just nodded her head in agreement as if that was all that she knew how to do anymore.

She shot him a big grin before turning in the direction of the door that he had indicated.

She didn't manage to get more than two steps before she heard a gruff voice behind her.

"Kid, wait."

Charlie turned, thrilled that he was calling her back, only to find that he had dug his keys out of his pockets.

"You might need these," he commented as he tossed the keys over to her.

Charlie caught them and then turned her attention back to him, waiting to see if there was more.

"Now go," he insisted, as if she were stupid, while he jerked his chin in the direction of the door once again.

Charlie nodded once again, feeling a little stupid herself, before she turned to head for the door and tripped a little over her own feet on the way.

Charlie let herself into Miles' apartment over the bar to find that it was pitch black. Apparently he hadn't heard of windows.

She brought her hand to the wall on the inside of the door, only to feel nothing but smoothness. No sign of a light switch on either side.

She hesitantly stepped into the room, following the wall with her hand as she carefully walked.

She made it to the end of the wall, then the end of a second and was starting to wonder whether she was ever going to find the light-switch when her hand finally brushed against it half-way across the third wall.

She flicked the light on and looked around the room.

Miles' apartment was a little small, but surprisingly neat and organized. She had been expecting it to be a big mess.

She stood there for a moment before curiosity took over. Miles had said that he wasn't going to be back until late and if she really did have to leave the next morning, then she may as well look around and find out a little about the stranger who was her biological father.

A/N: Please read and review! I tried to use line breaks to make the changes in POV more clear, so hopefully that worked. There'll probably be more of this story soon since I already have a few chapters written.