Pressure

Chapter

3.

Bass walks through their camp, looking for his kid. He finds him in front of a small tent, sitting down on a log and staring into the fire in front of him. His back is turned towards the tent. But Bass knows his thoughts are inside. With her.

She has hardly spoken since the moment they had left Austin four days ago. Her silence had pressed heavy on all of them on their way back to their camp, seven miles south west of Willoughy. He had listened how Miles had tried to talk to her and yank her away from a place of loss. A place he knows so damn well. The dark shadows of that place had started to close in on him from the night he had been sitting in front of four graves on a cemetery in his home town with a bottle of whiskey and a gun in his fucking hands.

She has hardly left the tent in the heart of their camp. Connor has hardly spoken to him. Miles has hardy slept, worried out of his damn mind.

He stops before the tent. He knows Connor has heard him but he doesn't look up.

'Concerned about your girlfriend?' Bass' voice is filled with roughness and a mocking cruel tone. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword while he adjusts his leather jacket with his free hand.

Connor hears the snarl hidden in his dad's words. He gets up from his log.

'You can be a total asshole, you know that?' Connor spits the words out when he looks straight at Bass. But then, treacherous emotions catch up with him and he has to look away.

Bass wants to open his mouth again. But then he sees familiar tension in his kid's jaws. He sees something that reminds him so much of Emma's eyes that day he saw her again in Jasper.

Guilt. All of a sudden he can see it. Bass' face changes when he takes another step towards his son. The steel in his eyes moves into concerned blue.

He puts a hand on Connor's shoulder. 'Hey. What's going on?'

Connor looks the other way, refusing to meet his eyes.

'Connor, come on...what's wrong...' Bass tries again, unable to keep his worry out of his voice and eyes.

Without any warning, Connor pushes him away with two strong hands crashing into his chest.

'What the...' Bass eyes fill with thunder.

But Connor won't let him finish. 'I think it is my fault all right...' He almost yells with wide eyes and tears that cloud his dark eyes.

He finally allows all the thoughts that have been haunting him from the moment they had left Austin to reach the surface.

Connor has been going over and over the same moment in his mind. Jason running into the hallway. Charlie following him. Him wanting to help her as he had followed her. He knew about the grenades under the floorboards near that door. He is sure he didn't touch them with his boots. Almost sure. And the almost behind every thought is ripping him apart from the inside.

'What's your fault?' Bass feels Connor's self doubt and pain in his damn gut.

'Those grenades...Jason...Charlie...I think I stepped over them but maybe...maybe...' Connor stammers. He can suddenly taste the guilt in the back of his throat as an acid reminder of Austin.

Guilt that has been keeping him company with every hour he had been sitting on a log in front of her tent.

Bass steps closer to his son. 'When you're sure you stepped over them...you stepped over them kid. I know you would never do something to get her into danger.' He briefly looks at the tent on his right before he looks back to Connor.

Bass tries to take away the heart breaking storm he can see in his kid's eyes. He tries to explain to Connor that other things could have triggered those damn grenades like the vibrations from all of their boots on the wooden floor.

He hates to see so much guilt and self doubt in his kid's eyes.

'I am just not sure...' Connor starts.

'What do you mean...you are not sure.' Another deep voice is there, filled with dark threat, close to both Monroe men.

Bass turns to find Miles standing next to the both of them. He looks like hell. And he knows that every single minute worrying about Charlie is poured into his brothers eyes that are now fixed on Connor.

'Miles...' There is a warning in Bass' voice. He tries to calm his brother the hell down.

Connor looks from Miles to his dad and back to Miles again. It only enrages Miles even more. He takes one step closer to Connor, grabbing him by his shirt.

Bass immediately reacts. He pushes Miles away from Connor with a hand on his brother's chest, close to Miles' throat. He steps in front of his kid.

'Hey, watch it..' Bass growls, protecting Connor from a brother who is looking for blood.

Bass wants to tells Miles he gets it. The sickening worrying about Charlie. The deep rage for every fucking single thing she is going through. The frustration of a war they are slowly loosing with every damn day they are sitting here in this fucking camp, doing nothing. Bass wants to tell Connor it isn't his fault.

Hell, he even wants to walk into her tent and sit next to her, telling her he gets that all consuming grieve from too much loss, better than she thinks. She will never believe him. But he is fighting that urge to do something, anything, for her for days now. He can't stay the hell away from her.

It had started when that asshole bounty hunter touched her in that pool. And as much as he tried, no matter what she says, or does, he can't stop looking out for her. He can't stop that deep insane pull to the stubborn fighter she is.

'Give the kid a break, all right?' Bass looks straight at Miles. Miles looks at Connor. And then, for just one moment he can see an insecure teenager appearing next to Emma at her front door, that day he went to Jasper almost ten years ago to take Connor to his family in Mexico. To hide him from Bass. He feels that old guilt again. He thinks of Emma.

'This is not over yet.' Miles fumes, pointing a finger to Connor, while Bass is still standing between both men. He will give Connor a break, but not for long.

When Miles locks himself in his own misery and walks away from them and Connor refuses to meet his eyes and walks away into the opposite direction with angry defeat in his shoulders, Bass clenches his jaws together.

He feels dark frustration followed by desperation pumping through his veins when Connor and Miles both walk away from him in the middle of their fucking camp. He is breathing harshly and his eyes are fixed on a point on the ground in front of him.

When he finally looks up, she is standing there inside the opening of her tent. Looking at him. Her face is pale, her eyes keep searching his. Before he is able to walk away from her, he has to look at her when their eyes connect and everything else fades away for just one moment.

Bass takes another swig from the bottle. He did not get any sleep and both Miles and Connor are still not talking to him. It is noon and he is standing in front of a fire but he does not see the flames. He stares into a whole lot of nothing while his mind shows him a movie from hell.

He's back in Austin. The sound of the explosion mixes with the nauseating fear of losing Connor and the need to reach him as soon as he can. Images from a hallway filled with dust and destruction and Connor and Charlie on the floor are close.

He lets the whiskey burn in the back of his throat. Scanlon walks past him and greets him. Bass greets him with a short nod. His fingers curl around the bottle. His mind yanks him back to that same day.

Miles has dragged Charlie with him through Austin. Bass won't leave Connor's side while the four of them make their way back to the boat they had left behind. The streets are filled with chaos and whispers about an assassination attempt on Carver. It is the chaos that helps them escape.

When they reach their wagon five miles south of Austin, Bass follows Charlie's eyes when they find Jason's backpack between hers and Miles. He is about to check on the horses but he can't fucking move. He stands there, across from her. His eyes are wide and fill with her grieve and her being so fucking broken while he is taking all of her in as a part of his heart breaks for her.

She won't even look at him. She can't look at Miles. It is a low groan filled with pain coming from Connor that pulls him back to realizing he and Miles have to get them all as far away from Austin as they can. They ride as long as they can.

Two hours before midnight Bass and Miles share one look and they know both Connor and Charlie need rest. They are exhausted. Charlie is slipping away from them and there is a bruise forming on Connor's temple that is slowly spreading to his cheek.

One nod from Miles and half an hour later they find a small abandoned wooden shed in the middle of fucking nowhere. Bass grabs a blanket for Connor. He sits next to his kid, listening to him breathing when he falls asleep.

His eyes find Miles and Charlie at the other side of the shed. The light of the moon falls on Charlotte's face. Her skin is stained with tears and sweat and dirt from three days on the road.

Miles is holding her to his chest. Charlie is far away and his brother looks lost with his arm around her shoulder while he holds her, leaning into one of the walls of the shed with his back.

Bass grabs something out of his pack, before he crouches down in front of both of them. The sounds of the forest are the only sounds out there. Miles' large hand is carefully wrapped around her temple. His fingers are comfort in her hair.

'Found this...' Bass' voice is hoarse. He shows Miles a cloth. He uses some water from his flask to moisten it.

Miles finds his eyes and just nods at him. And with his brother's permission Bass slowly moves his hand towards her face.

'Let me help okay...' Bass swallows as Charlie meets his eyes before she looks away from him again, moving her face back into the nook of Miles' neck. But it is all he needs to understand she is okay with him being close to her. He gently moves the cloth over her face and neck. His fingers slowly move some hair out of her face, while his fingertips linger on her cheek longer than they have to.

Bass feels the memories of the last week burn inside of him like the booze in the bottle he is holding. He thinks of her. He thinks of his brother and the pain hidden in deep dark eyes that night. And it is the memory of Miles looking like he was drowning in Charlotte's misery, that makes him grab his bottle. He needs to find his brother.

Rachel is on her way to Charlie's tent with fresh water and some dried fruit. She is torn between giving Charlie space like she asked her a couple of days ago and being unable to stay away from a daughter who has grown up and is living her own life now because of a decision she made a decade ago.

From a distance she watches how Miles is sitting in front of Charlie's tent. He looks tired. Older. Rachel has hardly talked to him.

He is keeping her at a distance since that day she found him staring into a mirror upstairs in their safe house after Truman and Neville had attacked their previous safe house. The day after she had asked him to let Dillon Matthews go. He had.

But she had still seen the doubt in his eyes. She had seen a part of the General he still is. She had watched him talking to Bass. She can see how Bass is dragging Miles back into the mud with him.

Rachel stops with the water and fruit in her hands. She watches Miles. And then, Bass walks to him. He stops before Miles. Bass hands Miles a bottle with a smile on his face. She expects Miles to tell Bass to go to hell but her stomach and whole body fill with disgust when Miles accepts the bottle and Bass sits down next to him.

They both sit there, in front of the tent her daughter is sleeping in. Cold hate follows the disgust when both men share a bottle and their concern for her child. And it is not just Miles accepting something Bass offers him that is making her mouth twitch for one second.

It is also the memory of an old friendship. Of two brothers who were brothers before she had met Ben. Before she had an ugly fling with Miles. Before she loved one Matheson brother more than the other.

It is knowing that Bass has a part of Miles, and a part of him that did not start with lies and guilt and an affair behind Ben's back, that makes familiar dark jealousy swirl inside of her. Rachel watches both men, with a cold look in her eyes when Miles puts the bottle that Bass just gave him to his mouth.

Author's Note I wanted to tell you again that I don't know much about pressure grenades. I am not sure if Bass' explanation could be right, so if it's not, I hope you will forgive me :) Connor's doubt and guilt was an important moment for this story so that is why I decided to write that scene the way I did. Thank you so much for your reviews, your feedback is always welcome and appreciated! Love from Love