A cool blade of hate

She hides it, cool and sharp and filled with each and every part of her that is hate and venom. She lets the steel burn its cold sting against her skin for one second. She has plotted this for so long. And soon, it will all end.

Bass had buried himself in stacks of reports all day. Locked behind his desk with the top buttons of his uniform shirt loose and a whiskey in hand. The glass Jeremy had left behind after a drink that followed after a very late meeting with his senior officers, his only company on his desk.

It is the place Miles would have normally place his boots on, dirty or not, after a long day when it was just them. The echo of him not being here running wild through Independence hall makes him punch the bridge of his nose. He moves his eyes back to reports that tells him everything he craves to know about his boarders, that Foster bitch and how much continent was still his. How much wasn't staring at him.

He pushes himself away from the desk that he grows to hate more and more these days and cannot do without at the same time. He walks over to the window with a glass in his hand. The city of Philly dark out there. Their city. The city they had chosen together to start it all after a bottle of whiskey and many hours of what to do next and everything he is leading now had started to take form. Before Miles had left. A cold gun aimed at him in the night. Leaving him to deal with all this bullshit on his own.

The man he sees reflected in the glass of the window is someone he barely recognises these days. He resembles nothing of the man he would use to see reflected in the glass of Miles' car. He is stuck somewhere between what was and what is. Between being a son, a brother, a friend, husband, father to a child that he had to let go, far in the distance.

The first loss close to his heart in this miserable blackout world in the row of many in his life. A world without power or medicine or civilization. After remembering the world how it was, with healthcare and education and family, the loneliness comes. He can see the faces of his family again, of Shelly, of his baby girl. He aches for the small baby born without ever crying or smiling up at him, safely in his arms. He thinks about his baby girl.

And after that, the familiar rage sets in. Bass takes another sip of his whiskey as his office is silent. Rage that fuels his thoughts, because the rest is too fucking much to think of. Matters of the Republic and the rebels rising keep other thoughts near the edges of his mind.

He has moved deeper into politics and violence to suppress any threat to his territory and to keep the thought of Miles and what he has lost and what this word used to be before the blackout, out. More hunger to take the continent from sea to shiny sea to fill the hole in his heart of the people who are not there now.

And only a couple of minutes away from his office, is the answer to take that continent. The answer to deal with all the irritation in the form of Atlanta, Kelly Foster and the Rebels. Texas. Miles. His little group of friends. His niece.

The answer to power, light and the end to this darkness in this world and bring back civilization and health care and Universities and schools and families back.

That answer is all cold ice and sheer disdain in her arrogance of knowing how to turn on the damn power. He fucking knows she knows. And still, she has kept and still keeps her mouth shut. And he is losing his patience. Her cold answers and looks of contempt like she had never done anything to fuck up this word set his veins on fire with cold rage. Bass can feel it right under his fingertips that are now wrapped around his whiskey glass.

Rachel had showed up at the stables north of their compound instead of Ben. Telling Miles with a fucking straight face she could turn on the power when he had asked her. Bass had to turn away from his men and Miles the moment Miles told him. Realizing they lived in this hell and she had all the answers right there to change that hell. For all those people out there they had wanted to protect. He had walked straight to the place where Miles had put her. Her face older, but the cool disdain when she watched the man she never liked to see so close to Miles, in her shoulders and on her whole face.

His fingers are trembling around the glass. He controls the hate he feels in his veins for this woman. He controls the rage. He is going to get those fucking answers.

He lets the whiskey do its work in the back of his throat as he walks to a cabinet in the corner of the room. He grabs a bottle out of that cabinet with tension in his jaw and steel blue forged from hate and frustration in his eyes. He finishes his whiskey and puts the glass back on the table as he lets the golden liquid swirl through his mouth.

The bottle in his hand with a label that is Miles.' It is his last resort, his last opportunity he will give to her to cooperate and play nice. To drink in his friend when he cannot bear to not have him around anymore. To get Miles in the same room of him and her.

And she is going to fucking talk. Tonight. He had enough of her disdain. Or her arrogance. Or her betraying not only the damn world but also her children. He has thrown that into her face more than once. The biggest crime a mother could commit in his eyes. She walked away from her fucking children to get to her precious Miles when he would give the damn world to spend one more minute with his baby girl.

That is the fucking difference between the both of them. She might accuse him of being a monster in the dark but when he looks at her, he sees even more venomous treacherous actions. He would never ever walk away from his children.

He feels the bottle in his hand, the last connection between him and Miles in his damn hands. A final resort to an old friendship. He will use that, he will use Miles to get the answers from Rachel.

Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. If it doesn't he will order to get Strausser to meet him in his office first thing in the morning.

When he leaves his office he nods to the men on duty. He closes his door carefully behind him. Last chance for her. Last. Fucking. Chance.

Either way, the bitch is going to talk.

When Rachel hears the nock from her place near the fire she tilts her head towards the door. But before she looks at the door her eyes shoot to the place near her bed stand. One thing one her mind that lingers there, still unseen.

Bass never knocks. He just walks into the room whenever he wants. To ask her again, to ask her what she knows. Always him, never Miles. Not anymore.

And she knows Bass knows that she knows. Because she does. She has known for years. But that power, it has to stay of. She can't put it back on. Bass can never reach the Tower. It will cost Danny his life. She walked to Philly once. Leaving Danny, Ben and Charlie behind. To keep her secret. To talk Miles out of getting Ben. For Danny.

She had kept on walking, Miles more on her mind with every step she took closer to Philly. Wondering what it would be like. Another Matheson man again on her mind. A far more violent man. Darker, intoxicating. What she had hoped to find with him in Philly had been a ghost from the past. She had gambled. And lost it all. And now, that knock, it brings cold waves of hate and ice inside of her.

'Come in,' she looks up, putting the notebook that had been in her hands on the table in front of her with a deceitfully calm hand. Telling the adrenaline laced with venom and hate in her blood for a possibility she has been plotting for so long now to slow down. To focus. To keep her calm.

Her voice sounds low in the dark of the night and the slow burning fire. Her thoughts were with everything she had left behind before coming to Philly. Diving from one hell into another. She had once told Ben she could not do it anymore. She had thought about ending her life. She had stayed alive for her kids. And then left them.

She needs to set that straight. But more than that, she needs to end this. The door opens and he walks in. She looks at the man that always had such a big piece of Miles' heart. A piece she never got to have.

Not so freely and strongly as he gave Miles and Miles gave back to him, to Bass. It had always brought out a dark spite of jealousy and more distant resentment in her approach for Bass. Resentment had turned into hate and venom.

She will not tell him anything. He can try, talk about the world outside gone to hell because of her. But she won't talk. Not to him. Not when she has to keep Danny alive. Not when hate fills her veins and she is focussing on what she is going to do now. And that hate is making it clear between everything else. She forces herself to not look at the left corner of her room.

He wears the same uniform as Miles once wore. But he is not him. He is not the man that holds a piece of her heart. When she sees how Bass walks through the room her mind is calculating what to do next. She needs to find a way to get back to them. Her kids. When Miles is not around, there is not enough wine or whiskey to hush her guilt and feel the bare raw feelings of what she has done to her children. He was her shield to keep the worse guilt out. Always around. He is not around anymore. Maybe not even alive.

And now he is here. Bass. Not Miles, god, how she misses Miles. A whisper in the dark.

'Evening Rach.' He nods to her as he closes the door carefully, showing her he is control of the room. His voice is in control but he is also showing her what she wants to see. What might give him a way in. He shows her a hint of well placed regret or grieve. Whatever makes her buy the whole damn thing.

Rachel tries not to let her heart beat faster when she sees something in his shoulders and eyes. He is pulling a piece of cold control back over his face but it is too late. She sees how much he tries to ooze nonchalance. And control. She still sees it in his step and the slight shift in control of his boots on the wooden floor.

She sees. And she knows that this could be miserable Bass, broken Bass, lost Bass. She knows it because she has seen him like this before, years before when he lost everything, when she was there with Ben in Jasper where she had watched Miles help him through that goodbye. Her mind is racing, thinking why he does this, now. But most of all telling her, that this is her chance.

She gets up from her spot near the couch. It is a habit, getting up when he walks in, ready to strike. ready to match whatever he will do.

'What do you want, Bass?' Rachel asks, her heart beating faster as she tries to keep the hate out of her voice that always creeps around her heart when he is around.

She needs to play this the best way she can. This could be her chance tonight. Keep the hate out, she remembers herself. Make yourself that friend he once knew, make yourself a piece of home he longs for so badly. Make yourself a part of Miles. Use his weak spot. Make yourself believe you can be just that.

Her eyes go to her table near her bead and pillow again when he turns his back to her. Her thoughts with what is under her pillow. It is sharp and cool and ready. Ready for what she is going to do. She watches him like an animal would watch its prey, assessing its chances.

Bass notices how her voice lacks her usual ice, her shoulder miss her usual strong arch. But there is something rigid in her shoulders that almost make him grin, curl up his lips in a bitter gesture of venom in his face.

He is not sure what she is playing at, but he will let her play. The bitch is not going anywhere and he still needs those answers. He controls his mouth, as he slowly walk to the small table with a couple of glasses.

'A drink like we used to share as friends?' He moves the bottle on the table. Making sure she can see the label. The brand. He carefully observes her reaction to the last forced fake friendly gesture he is willing to make, before he will show her what he can do. Before he will call in Strausser to his office the next morning.

She does not turn away from him. She looks tired but still nods yes. He watches her eyes go to the bottle and he knows she knows. She knows this is Miles' bottle.

'Yeah, sure.' Rachel nods, moving to take the glass he filled for her out of his hand. Trying to keep the part of Miles out that is bombarding into her mind now she has seen the bottle. Then moving away from him. Her mind working at full speed.

Bass moves to a place near the fire place. Drinking another glass, but never not in control. The whiskey burning around his rage, but never soothing his edge and control of the room and awareness of her.

'What do you want Bass?' Her muscles are tense, as she tastes the whiskey. Miles' whiskey. It is breaking her defences slightly. Before she remembers what she is doing here. And hate build those walls right back up. Venom and poison filling the holes.

If she plays this right, if she can find a way through, a small hole in the wall of his cold defence, she has a chance. To leave, to go home, find her kinds. Maybe even Ben. She moves her hand in her pocket to keep guilt out for what she is going to do.

Rachel turns to the window with a dark city out there. She sees herself all of a sudden, a cold tired reflection of the woman she used to be. When her biggest crime had been sleeping with her brother in just weeks after their wedding. She feels tension around her mouth. The mantra of this night inside of her. Do it, use it. This is your chance.

She hears her children laugh in the distance. She thinks about the man that is not here anymore. She thinks about a world that does not exist anymore. It is the moment she knows she will do it. She will use it. Us the knife she has hidden in this room.

She will kill Bass. Here. Tonight.

Get him close to that bed and the knife. A knife she had grabbed from one of her dinner trays, after she had distracted the woman who brought her dinner so many times. Rachel had been working for months to gain the older woman's trusts with stories from her children, using them and suppressing her own guilt for what she did to them. It had worked, the woman, a mother too, had not been able to not chat with her, to talk, to laugh. Giving Rachel the chance she needed.

She had succeeded in hiding the knife from his men, and had slept with it under her pillow, to remind her of the kill close.

'This is Miles' whisky.' Rachel says when she feels the cold grip of hate and a sigh of relieve, knowing he will be dead soon when she plays this right. And she will. The son of a bitch will die.

Bass looks at her. One hand in her pocket, standing close to the window, leaning into to the wall next to it, her body turned towards the window. Her whole back is tensed, her voice too hurried. He can sense it, crawling through his skin.

'Yeah, it is.' He nods to her, sipping his whiskey.

For one fucking second he feels the betrayal of a brother again. He hides it but somehow lets it come to the surface, watching Rachel respond to when he mentions Miles. He uses it, plays it. His way in to get those damn answers. So he allows her to see something of him. not because he cannot hide it all the hell away, but because he uses it to get what he needs.

Rachel watches the betrayal in his shoulders and eyes. Bass is never good at keeping those emotions out. Not when they involve the one's he loves. And she knows the truth. He loves Miles.

She moves a bit closer to him. This could be your way out. Use it.

'It is empty here without him.' Rachel starts. Feeling nauseous at her own voice until it moves away and the only aim of wanted him dead, venomous and hate filled, are what is left to fuel her actions. He will be dead soon.

Bass feels a curse and a cruel huff of air about to escape his lunges for whatever the hell she is doing. For this harsh bitch playing her part of the wounded woman in front of him. He is not sure what the hell is going on, but Rachel, she is up too fucking something. He is not sure what, but he lets her play whatever game she is playing. Create leverage.

Bass decided to play this fucked up game she is playing with him. So he shows her what she probably wants from him right now. She is playing him into some kind of fucked up vulnerable let's miss Miles together place and it is not working.

He is on to her. But he still gives her the reaction she thinks she is getting out him, just to be two steps ahead of her.

Rachel waits. And then, watches the effect of her words. She sees the shift in him. She feels her heart light up bitterly and yet sharply at the way she found a way in. Bass never walks away from using the weak spots in her heart, never waits to take advantage of them in cruel ways. This night she does the same. Use it. Do it. The cold blade and steel of the knife under her pillow on her mind.

Bass walks over to Rachel. He stops before her, standing with her near the window. Rachel feels cold old hate spike for him being this close, an urge to stab him with anything she can find suddenly there. She tells herself to wait. The knife. The knife is there. Patience. She knows she cannot back out now, not anymore. This is it, her chance. The mantra again in her head.

Bass watches Rachel, the nervous twitch around her mouth telling him she is not in this for real. His muscles tense for whatever she will do next. He feels hate boil and steps even closer. Just to see what she will do. Just to show her he can. To tell her this, all of fucking this, is his. His city, his Republic. His. Him. In control.

Rachel feels him close. And she knows what is at stake here. Power. Power in more than one ways. Power to get out. Power to play him. To get him to let her go. Power to end this.

'You all right Rach?' There is a slow burn in his voice, it is cruel and he cannot keep a thin lace of blue steel ice out of his words.

She just nods as she shifts her hand closer to his, hating herself for what she is about to do. This is your chance. Your last chance. He is not going to win. Do not let him win.

Bass places his boots more steadily on the wooden floor next to her.

A silent murderous plot of steps raging between them. And then, it is a match near gasoline.

Bass follows her, his glass still in his hand. Rachel moving slowly, to the bed, Making it very fucking clear what she wants. He already feels rage reach the surface with cold amusement for her thinking this is going to work. He won't fucking touch her. He knows his limits here.

Rachel slowly starts to back up, never taking his eyes away from him. She looks at his lips and tells herself to let her eyes linger there when she feels the first acid bile rise up in the back of her throat. There are three steps towards her bed. She knows because she has counted them.

He is confused as hell why she is doing this for one second. His old heart getting in the way. One second of honest astonishment for her using herself like this, after all the screwing around with Miles behind Ben's back. And she wants to go there the hell again. It is confusing him for one fucking second. He won't touch her. He fucking won't. But her going this far, knocks him almost out of balance.

Rachel feels the back of the bed push into the back of her legs. Bass is standing close. The knife, so close. Just a reach of her arm away. Her heart beating in poison laced heartbeats. And she tells herself this is it. Do it for your children. Do it to kill him. To end this. To destroy him so maybe you can destroy your own guilt.

But it is the cold in her eyes, cold she cannot move out of them how hard he watches her try, give her away and move him right back to what the fuck is going on. Bass watches how she starts to move her mouth to his in a violent way, a rough storm of her reaching out.

Shock in his eyes for just a second, shock for how fucking far she is willing to let this go. For how far this bitch is willing to play this.

And in that honest moment of shock she creates one second for herself to do it. He feels her move her arm to her pillow behind her. Something starts to shine from the corner of his eyes, bringing out each and every soldier instinct inside of him. The golden glow of the fire in the fireplace reflected in steel in her hand.

In one second he is on to her. Rage is all there is now for the fucked up nerve of what she is trying to do in her fucked up way. He grabs her violently, as his whiskey glass shatters to the floor. He turns her around with rage streaming through hard muscles and he hold her in a dead lock. He turns her arm behind her back, not caring if he fucking hurts her and takes the knife out of her damn hand.

Rachel feels his violent fast reaction as she knows, god she already knows, even through the hurt of Bass twisting her arm, she has lost. She had lowered herself to whoring standards and she failed. Failed. Lost her one chance. She just gave it away. The knife that should have been in her hand and in his chest, now in his strong grip.

His voice bites as venom in her ear, his breathe close to her ear. Bass twists her arm harder and she feels the rage radiating from his body behind her.

'Well Rachel, I already knew you are a stone cold bitch for leaving your kids behind. I already knew you are a lying bitch wife. I guess we can put being a giant holier than thou whore on that list as well.'

His voice is rough and on edge, filled with violent rage as he pushes her away from him and then takes a step back. Standing before her with the knife in his hands, steel harsh blue in his eyes.

Two fingers aimed at her when he takes a step back. 'This was your last fucking chance Rach.'

He walks out of the room but not before he grabs the bottle that belongs to him and Miles, only to the both of them, from the table. Taking the last part of Miles away from the bitch. He is leaving her behind in a room, on the bed when the doors click in their locks.

Leaving Rachel behind. The bottle, Miles' bottle, not on her table anymore. Tears and self hate and self poison filling her veins when there is glass from a broken whiskey glass on the wood of her suite floor.

Three days later

The night was long, cold and haunted, now her plan had failed. The days after that even longer. Now that knife is not under her pillow anymore. Now her hate and self hate and guilt have nowhere to go. Now her plan is gone. Now she had ruined her last chance of getting out.

Now he is still alive.

She has not seen him. Until now. Rachel hears the lock from the doors to her suite being opened. There is no knock.

It's him.

Bass has his hands behind his back when he walks in, in control and boots on the wooden floor filling her suite. The leather from his boots shining in the sunlight streaming in, steel blue and nothing else in his blue eyes. He watches Rachel.

Three days after that night she played that fucked up game of hers, he walks into her suite and watches her blue eyes filled with regret and self hate. His chest filling with more venom he already had for her.

He stand at the small table in the middle of the room when he asks her what he has been asking her over and over again. His voice strong and never not in control. He hears the disdain in her answer as he stands before her near the window and asks her again.

'What was Ben working on?'

He watches the cool slow venom in her eyes match the venom pump through his veins. She does not answer.

Their old friendship is over. Broken with the shatters of the whiskey glass on the floor. She had her last fucking chance. He won't make that mistake anymore of showing her some kind of respect out of their old friendship that belongs now in a world before it had all gone to hell. She won't get another chance. Strausser has been already ordered to get to his office and is on his way. Neville too. The most violent men he could find are on their way.

His voice is harsh and dark when he talks again. 'You will regret every fucking thing Rachel. When they are done with you, you will.'

She lashes out in seconds. He knows she would. He had already counted on it. He spins her around easily, grabbing her so she cannot move. Locking her arm behind her back again. His fingers wrap themselves around her neck.

'I am completely and utterly done with you playing games Rachel.' He spits the world out in a cruel promise of destruction.

His voice is a cold deadly threat in her ear. Rachel feels his fingers dig into her neck. His voice is harsh in her ear and her blood turning cold. Tears move into her eyes. Tears for playing her game, taking her change as a way out in using his weakness against him. Or at least, that was what she thought what she was doing. Tears for guilt and betraying the few people she maybe has out there. It came too late, realizing what she had lowered herself into. Realizing how she had betrayed Ben and Miles and her kids again by even thinking that trying to get Bass close to her bed had been a way to hush her own hate and guilt.

Shame is all there is left for her. Shame, and guilt and hate. This time for herself.

Bass' fingers dig deeper into the skin around her throat. She tries to breathe, tries to think of who she was. She tries to think of Miles. But none of it is there in the room with her. Cold hate and regret are.

And then Bass shoves her away from him. He looks at her, she looks at him. As they stand close to the other. Neither one is speaking. Rachel's eyes a storm of regret, his eyes cold and already forming his next step to get the answers out of her anyway.

More than a year later the spin on the wheel of time will turn everything upside down again. And bring them together face to face once more.

Rachel will think back to that one night, that one night filled with venom and a plan she regrets. And he will stand right before her on a grey day near a creek, when Miles is missing and not with them, again.

And he will remind her of this night and what she had tried to do with cold blue steel in his words. She will tell him she was his prisoner. The story she will make herself believe from now on. And he will grab her hair and initiate a kiss that is not a kiss but a reminder of how far she was willing to go to get what she needed. A burning reminder to the kiss she had almost initiated to get to kill him with that knife close. Bass reminding her in his cruel way wow she had given herself almost away for her own fucking hate.

Bass will stand near that creek in more than a year and think back to that one night when he has enough of her holier than thou bitch attitude when he is trying to find a brother missing. When he is done seeing how she is breaking Miles. How she is dragging his brother into the mud with her, when he is standing face to face with her. Listening to her accusing him of the one thing he never did and well never do to a woman. Listening to her to turn it all around after what she had tried to make happen. She will slap him. But they will both know the truth.

But they are not there near that creek and Miles is not back in their lives. Not yet. Time will bring them to that creek and all the old venom and regret will come back. New venom and hate will be born. Jealousy for one man. Hate for years in Philly. Rachel's hate for herself. For him needing answers and her arrogance to keep her mouth shut when she could have turned on the power.

But first, many things will lay before them as Bass walks out of her suite. Leaving Rachel and her icy disdain beind, nodding to one of his men to close the door. His eyes are filled with steel. Knowing he has enough, knowing that when it comes to Rachel Matheson, he won't take any chances, not anymore.

And before he closes the door he gives one of his men an order, making sure he looks at Rachel so she can hear every damn word. The start of a satisfied cruel smirk around his lips. Raising his voice just a bit so he is sure Rachel will here every meaning in his next words.

'Get Captain Neville into my office, I am adding more men to the search to find Ben Matheson. If there is anyone who can find him and bring him here...,' his eyes put steel emphasis on that last word as he looks at her wedding ring, ' it is him.'

He locks eyes one more time with Rachel. It is ice against ice and he can see the terror in her eyes for what he will do next. But she buries it well under more ice. Making him grin bitterly at her attempts. Rachel refuses to look away from him.

From hate and venom she had forged even more hate for him and herself, for years to come.

He nods to the guard standing next to her door as he looks at Rachel one more time before his mind fills with focus again. He turns away from her and starts to walk down the hall. She does not matter. Not anymore. He walks back to his office. To meet with Strausser, to give instructions to Neville.

The sound of the lock closing of the door to her suite resounding heavy in the empty hall.

Author's Note Here it is, my version of 'that night in Philly.' A completely new story written for prompt 79 regret comes in different shades, for the Armada. With a bridge through time to those scenes in season two, giving whole new meaning to those scenes as well in a way. I used some elements from season one, like the bottle Bass showed Nora when he held her captive in Philly. That night in Philly is a night we do not know that much of. But looking at the inspiration I found in the episodes I personally feel it had to be about hate and a cruel game and hate and venom. Why else did Rachel not tell anyone? I used an angle of something new, of something that could make sense too looking at certain moments in season one and two. The 'I am done playing games with you Rache;' is inspired by that line in season one. The rest of the piece is about why Bass was so very done with her. I would love to hear your thoughts on this angle, because it was a hard piece to write, but also rewarding to writ to create a new angle. Love from Love