Archive of Our Own

Charlie snapped into consciousness the same way she had for the last twenty-something iterations of this insane time loop she was trapped in. She was lying on a street bench and was doused in water as a city bus splashed through the puddle next to her before coming to a stop, shocking her awake. She was in Chicago twenty-four hours before the blackout.

The nanites had to have sent her back here for a reason. Though why she was the one that had been chosen to relive this god-forsaken day over and over, she may never understand. Their entire world had been crumbling as the error in the nanotech’s code had exponentially worsened, causing chaotic electrical and eventually magnetic disturbances that were tearing the atmosphere and the planet apart. By some coincidence of science fiction mumbo jumbo that she’d never understand, the nano had managed to create some kind of worm hole to send her back in time to stop the apocalypse. And made her live the same day over and over until she eventually, hopefully, got it right.

If they had sent her to Chicago, it had to be because that was where her family was. She had tried everything she could think of over and over to get her parents to listen to her, but even on the few loops where she’d managed to make them believe she was from the future, they were always too late. The blackout happened anyway and everything reset. This time she had to try something different. She had a plan.

She got up from the bench and started walking down the now familiar Michigan Ave. By the time she reached Wacker Street, still the stupidest name ever, she had picked enough pockets to supply her with the funds to do what she needed to do.

Charlie disembarked the Amtrak train just after nightfall. The South Carolina air was still warm and muggy, even in early fall. With a few questions to some uniformed passers-by, she easily discerned the most likely haunts for the off duty officers from the nearby base.

She’d already combed through three bars that would have been considered shady even by post-blackout standards, and was about to give up when some drunk nearly tripped over her in the fourth establishment.

“Watch it!” She grumbled, shaking the man’s stale beer off her arm where it had spilled.

“Hello beautiful!” The man slurred as he righted himself. “What is a sexy young thing like yourself doing in a shithole like this?”

Charlie nearly laughed out loud when her eyes met with his. Finally something was going her way. “Bass, where’s Miles?” They didn’t have much time left, but maybe if they hurried…

He seemed only slightly taken off guard that she had addressed him by name, but that seemed to pass quickly. “Miles? What do you want that mopey mother fucker for? I promise you I’m a lot more fun.” He flashed her a brilliant smile before stumbling and nearly falling again.

Charlie groaned as she caught him. She didn’t have time for this. She pulled his arm over her shoulder and supported some of his weight to steer him over to a bar stool. “Bass, this is important. We need to find Miles. Where is he?”

“Off somewhere torn between brooding and creaming his panties.”

“Well, we need to find him.” Charlie tried to get him to focus.

“Not sure why you’re so hung up on Miles, but trust me, a stunning young woman like yourself shouldn’t waste her time on lost causes when you have much better… much more willing opportunities right in front of you.” He trailed his fingertips along her shoulder.

Oh dear God. He was laying it on thick. She really hoped they succeeded in stopping whatever it was the nanites had sent her back here to stop, because she really wanted to get back to her proper place in the timeline and see his face when he remembered this.

“Lost cause or not, we still need to find Miles.” She rolled her eyes when she realized that his stare had drifted a good bit south of her face.

“I’mma tell you a secret.” Bass smiled at her and crooked a finger indicating that she should lean in to let him whisper something to her.

Charlie did as suggested, lining her knee up such that she had a clear shot at sensitive portions of his anatomy in case whatever he was about to tell her was too inappropriate.

“Miles got a call today from his brother. Him and his wife are splittin’ up ‘cause she’s been cheating on him. Here’s the kicker. His brother doesn’t know this, but Miles is the one that’s been banging his wife. And like not just banging, but he’s totally head over heels stupid in love with this chick.” Bass sat back a little and returned his voice to a normal conversational tone. “So, as hot as you are, and I mean… shit… you are totally the hottest girl in any of the places we’ve been tonight… you don’t have a chance with him.”

Charlie felt like she’d just taken a strong blow to the chest. She knew about Miles and her mom, but in their time it had always just been “Miles and her mom”. The gravity of what they’d done before, the adultery and the lies had never fully weighed in on her. She suddenly found herself angry. And without anyone to hit, there was only one way she could focus her anger.

“But what you’re saying is that I’ve got a chance with you?” She nearly purred at him as she let her knee stray slightly from its original target and rub against the inside of his thigh. She gazed at him as he seemed to be slowly coming to understand what she had just implied. Other than the boost it would give his already sizable ego, there was no reason not to take advantage of this situation. This Monroe had never gone nuts a taken over a quarter of the continent. He’d played no part in the destruction of her family. Hell, he was only a couple years older than she was. “Hey, how old are you?” She asked as she settled ever more snugly between his legs.

“I’m thirty. How old are you?” He smiled and started running his hands through her hair. He had the content but confident air of a man that knew he was about to get some.

“Twenty-two.”

Her response seemed to excite him even more.

Then, to their mutual dismay, a strong hand suddenly gripped Bass’s shoulder.

“Come on bud. Time to call it a night.” Miles tugged his friend off the barstool and displaced Charlie. “Sorry miss, but party’s over for tonight.” He didn’t even bother making eye contact with Charlie as he started to drag Bass toward the door.

“Dude! What the hell?” Charlie could hear Bass grumping at Miles as he was manhandled toward the front of the bar.       

“I’m the one that drove your free-loading ass here, so I say when it’s time to go.”

“I was kinda in the middle of something.”

“Yeah, well, since she doesn’t even look like she’s old enough to have a learner’s permit, if you wanna be back on base before curfew, you’re coming with me.”

“Way to be a giant cock block you douche. So you gotta ruin my fun just because of whatever shit you got going on with Rachel?”

They were leaving, and Charlie had no idea what to do. It was already too late to do anything to stop the blackout, but she felt like she had to keep trying. “Wait, Bass!” She yelled and quickly scribbled down on a napkin the phone number to the prepaid cell phone she’d bought in the train station on her way here. She jogged up to the men when they paused and shoved the napkin into his hand.

Bass eagerly accepted his prize as Miles rolled his eyes and returned to his task of shoving his drunken friend out into the parking lot. It wasn’t even two minutes later before her phone alerted her to a new text message.

Hey what r u doin later?

Ugh. Charlie groaned. This would go so much easier in person. Or even talking. Why did everyone seem to enjoy this stupid texting thing?

There’s not going to be a later. That’s why I need you and Miles now.

…..

“We’re not even out of the parking lot yet and you’re already texting her?” Miles groaned.

“Did you see her?” Bass moaned as he hit send on his text and pulled the seat belt across his chest. “I think I’m in love with her.” He bemused drunkenly.

“You’re in love with getting your dick sucked.” Miles punched his shoulder and pulled the Charger out onto the side street that would lead to the highway.

“I’m serious.” Bass almost slurred. “I don’t know what it is about her but… she could be my Rachel.”

Miles’s only response was another, harder punch.

Bass’s phone vibrated in his lap.

There’s not going to be a later. That’s why I need you and Miles now.

“Aw man,” Bass groaned. “She is begging for it right now. And dude she even sounds like she’d be up for a tag team. I told you this is the perfect chick.” He started tapping out a reply.

Miles rolled his eyes. “Bass, why don’t you just call her?”

“Call her? Nobody calls anybody anymore man. C’mon, she’s twenty-two. She doesn’t even talk on the phone.”

“Wow.”

“What? You wanna give me some tech advice? Huh? You with your big fat Casio ‘80s brick phone?”

Miles’s phone began to ring as if on cue. “Yeah… It’s my brother.” He answered the phone, “Benjamin…”

With Miles distracted, Bass turned back to his phone. “She’s sending photos!”

…..

Charlie knew the blackout was about to happen any second now and her day would reset. She hadn’t even had time to read Bass’s dirty reply text when a voice coming from the TV instantly caught her attention. Randall Flynn’s face smiled across the screen as a CNN correspondent asked him questions in an interview apparently recorded earlier that day. She felt like she’d never be able to stop the blackout, but maybe she could stop the surge that gave rise to the sentient damaged nano. With no better ideas, she sent Bass the message:

You need to see this.

Then she used the camera on her phone to snap an image of Randall’s face. She quickly started tapping out the caption.

Do NOT trust him. Do NOT let my mom turn the power back on at the Tower.

The lights started flickering as she hit send. A few seconds later the lights blacked out for good. She didn’t know if it even went through, or if the message would do any good if it had.

Charlie closed her eyes and waited for the moment that she knew would come next. She would black out and be woken by that stupid bus crashing through the puddle. She readied herself to do this all over again as she felt her consciousness slip.

…..

Charlie woke feeling warm and comfortable, sunlight drifting in through only partially drape-obscured windows. She was in a bed, with the softest whitest sheets she’d ever seen, her head sunken into a down pillow.

This was new.

Realizing that something had changed, her mind snapped into full alertness. She was in bed. And naked. And somebody was in bed next to her, snoring softly. Panic started to set in as she took in her surroundings, not wanting to move for fear of waking the stranger beside her. Then things started to register. She’d never been in this room before, but the architecture of the building, the antique furniture, and all the decorative trappings left her with little doubt where she was. Philadelphia. Independence Hall. And if the dark navy blue militia jacket hanging on the back of a nearby chair was any indication, she had a pretty good idea exactly whose room she was in.

What the hell had happened?

…..

- 15 ½ years after the blackout –

President Monroe strode into the room where he’d been holding Rachel Matheson at the power plant just north of his capital. “Rachel. Must be nice having both of your children back.” He smirked confidently as Strausser and some other guards watched on.

Her daughter pulled back from where she had been holding her younger brother and looked up at him with disdain. Something about her nearly knocked him for a loop, but he couldn’t identify the sensation and quickly brushed it aside. “Hello Charlotte. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m General Monroe.”

Rachel made a snide comment and Bass turned his attention to her briefly. He then acted as if he was carrying on a conversation with Charlie, but it was all nothing more than a thinly veiled threat directed at Rachel. Though for some reason, Bass couldn’t stop looking back toward the woman’s daughter. She was attractive enough, but it seemed like more than that. Whatever it was kept eating at him, like a forgotten thought he just couldn’t quite remember.

Then Strausser was holding the gun on Charlie as she begged to die instead of her brother. He could not deny the instinctual attraction he felt in that moment. The girl had to be in only her early twenties, but yet Bass couldn’t help feeling drawn to her. Wait. Something about that stuck with him. Early twenties…

Then she was talking about the power and her family. Her family, like Miles… Strausser cocked the hammer on his gun.

That’s when it all came flooding back to him. She had been there in that bar the night of the blackout, looking for him and Miles. But that was impossible.

“Wait!” He yelled and grabbed the muzzle of Strausser’s gun, shoving it toward the floor. “Charlotte, do you remember the night of the blackout?”

“Barely. I was five.” She answered cautiously, unsure what had caused the strange change in his mood.

He didn’t understand. How could he be remembering what he thought he was remembering? “How old are you now?”

“Monroe, what is this about?” Rachel interjected angrily.

He ignored her, and apparently so did Charlie, who now seemed intent on staring him down. “I’m twenty.”

“It hasn’t happened yet…” He whispered to himself.

Everyone in the room was beginning to look at him like he’d lost his mind. “Everyone out!”

“But General?” Strausser questioned.

“I said OUT!” Then he turned and looked at the Mathesons before him. “Rachel, we need to talk.”

…..

When Miles stormed into the power plant a few hour later, what he found stunned him beyond his capacity to process the situation. Not only was Rachel alive, but she and her kids appeared to be voluntarily sitting around having some kind of think tank session with Monroe.

Miles still hadn’t shut his gaping mouth when Rachel asked, in lieu of a greeting, “Is Aaron Pittman still with you? We’re going to need him.”

Bass, the Mathesons, Aaron, and Nora were all sitting in his office the next evening when a soldier barged in to inform President Monroe that a man had just arrived driving a car. Randall Flynn was then ushered into the office. Had it been any other day, Bass realized that he never would have made the connection. But as it was, the image from the very last text message he ever received resonated in his memory. Rachel’s instant recognition of the man only confirmed his suspicion.

“Mr. Flynn. You and I are going to have a lot to talk about.” The President glared menacingly.

…..

- 2 years later –

Charlie rolled over slightly, chancing a glance at her sleeping companion, and confirming that she was, in fact, curled up naked in bed with Sebastian Monroe. How had this happened?

She cautiously stood up and pulled the comforter off the bed to wrap around herself. She poked around the well-appointed room for a few minutes before stepping over to the window and peering out. As she suspected, flags bearing the Monroe Republic logo flapped crisply in the morning breeze. What did surprise her, however, was the number of happy-looking people wandering the streets, apparently taking goods to the market area. Militia presence was at a minimum and many of the civilians stopped and greeted the few officers on guard outside their capital. It was nothing like the last time she remembered being in Philly.

“Hey.” A familiar voice, husky with sleep, murmured in her ear as his arms wrapped around her and pulled her back against his chest. “It’s still early, and I don’t have anything scheduled until after nine this morning. Come back to bed.” He then planted a row of soft kisses just behind her ear.

She spun in his arms, unable to hide the shock and a small twinge of fear from her expression.

“Charlotte, what’s wrong?” his voice held nothing but concern.

“This… everything…” She muttered. As he took a step back to give her some room, she quickly realized that she wasn’t the only one that had been naked when they woke up. Though she had been the only one to feel the need to cover herself. Even more terrified at her situation now, she quickly diverted her eyes, trying to look anywhere but at the man in front of her.

He reached out for her, then quickly withdrew his hand as if he realized something. He grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around his waist before approaching her again. “Charlie?”

She cautiously met his gaze. “Yeah?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” He tried to look reassuring as he steered her back over toward the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.

She sat down next to him and thought back. “The blackout. I’d just found you and Miles at a bar in South Carolina, but I was too late. I couldn’t stop it. Again.”

“Again?”

Somehow he seemed to understand some of what had happened to her, though she had no idea how that could be. “When the nano sent me back, time just kept repeating over and over because I couldn’t stop the blackout.”

“Like Groundhog Day.” He supplied.

“No,” She looked at him weirdly, “Like I kept reliving the same 24 hours over and over again. It didn’t have anything to do with groundhogs.”

He laughed, and she could tell that he’d just had to consciously stop himself for instinctively reaching out to touch her. “How long were you in the loop?”

“About a month, from what I could tell. I kinda lost track toward the end.”

“But this is new?”

“Yeah. This is definitely new.” She eyed his bare chest almost warily.

“That means that whatever you did in the last loop fixed it.” Bass supplied.

“Fixed what?” Charlie asked.

“Whatever you were sent back to fix, or stop, or make happen or whatever. Aaron can probably explain all the sci fi bullshit better than I can.”

“Aaron’s here?” Charlie perked up instantly.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” It was Bass’s turn to look confused.

“What year is it?” Charlie asked.

“A little over 17 years after the blackout. It’s March, so that makes it… what… 2030.”

“He was dead by now in my time line.” Charlie admitted sadly.

“Huh.” Bass seemed to be pondering something. “What else is different from what you remember?”

“Umm...” She looked around the room and stopped her gaze on him. “Everything.”

“So we weren’t…” He didn’t look like he wanted to hear the answer he obviously knew was coming.

“No. Well, not exactly. Towards the end things got a little complicated.” She sounded almost ashamed as she admitted it.

“Oh.” Her answer seemed to have hurt him a bit.

“Why? How long have we been… in this universe?” She asked.

“A while.” He was obviously trying to play it off.

“And my mom hasn’t killed you yet?” Charlie tried to lighten the mood.

“Sure, she thought it was a little weird at first, but why would she want to kill me?”

“I guess in my world she never forgave you for Danny.” Charlie admitted, her voice dropping slightly at the reminder of her lost brother.

“What about your brother?” He asked, again seeming confused. “I mean, I know she thought Miles and I went a little too far with the booze and the stripper on his birthday last year…”

“Danny’s alive?” She nearly jumped off the bed.

“He’s not in your world?” Then after a brief pause he seemed to put the pieces of what she had just told him together. “And it was my fault.” This time he stood and walked away from her. With his back to her from across the room she barely heard him mutter, “I know I was getting close to losing it when you and Miles showed up, but Jesus. What the hell happened?”

“Yeah. You could definitely say that you lost it. But we all did at one point or another.”

“How many of your family did you kill?” He said sarcastically, obviously still disgusted with the thought of being responsible for Danny’s death.

She stepped up to him cautiously and put her left hand on his shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, I came really close to killing you when you were fighting in New Vegas.”

As he turned to face her, she noticed something for the first time that morning. On the ring finger of her left hand sat a gold band with a not so subtle diamond faceted to it. It was an engagement ring.

Unaware of Charlie’s new discovery, Bass asked, “Why was I in New Vegas?”

At the same time Charlie blurted out, “Why is there an engagement ring on my finger?”

They both looked at each other and confused stares met.

“I guess I’ll go first because that one’s easy.” Bass shrugged. “We’re engaged.” Seeing Charlie’s eye widen until they resembled saucers, he added, “But it’s different now. I get that. It’s not a big deal. We don’t have to…”

“Maybe we can just talk about that stuff later.” Charlie gulped and pulled the comforter back up more securely around her shoulders. Somehow she didn’t actually believe that breaking her engagement to the President of the Monroe Republic was not a big deal. Especially when you couldn’t exactly tell people it was because she was really from an alternate reality timeline and had altered their history to try and save the world, and now had no memory of anything that had happened in this time line.

“Yeah. Sure. So, about New Vegas…” He dejectedly tried moving on.

“That was where you ended up cage fighting for money under an alias after the Republic fell.” There really was no way to soften that blow.

“After the Republic what?”

“Like I said. You lost it for a while. You were obsessed with Miles and the power and did some really questionable stuff. When we were all at the Tower…”

“So we ended up working together at the Tower?” He seemed hopeful for any scrap of information that didn’t paint him as a deranged psychopath.

“Kind of. At the end. Originally Mom and Aaron were there to kill you. Miles and I were just going to try to stop you. And you were hell bent on turning the power back on. But first, Neville staged a coup and took over all the forces you had with you at the Tower. Then when my mom got the power back on for a few seconds, Randall Flynn used the power to launch a nuclear strike against Philly and Atlanta so the Patriots could come in and mop everything up. And the power didn’t even stay on.”

“That’s why your text said not to let your mom turn on the power in the Tower.” That part of the puzzle started to make sense for Bass at least.

“And it was what turned the nano sentient. They grew and learned from that point, but as they did, it exacerbated an error in their code. They ended up unable to control themselves. It started with electrical storms, but it just kept getting worse. It was destroying the entire planet.”

“But before that, you’re saying that the Patriots actually made it back to the mainland?” Bass questioned.

“You mean they didn’t here? But that means they’re still out there. You don’t understand these guys. If they failed once they’ll try again.” Charlie looked panicked.

“Don’t worry, Charlie.” Monroe tried to soothe her. “Randall Flynn showed up on my doorstep the day after I recognized you during your attempt to rescue your family. I recognized that weasely bastard from the text you sent. Things didn’t exactly go the way he planned. After we got him to spill the beans on his Patriot buddies in Guantanamo, let’s just say that Cuba had itself a bit of a missile crisis again.”

“You used missiles? So you have power? But how?” Charlie was obviously nervous.

“The pendants.” He answered. “There were originally twelve. We only ever recovered ten. Don’t know what happened to the other two. Either they got destroyed or there’s some doomsday pepper still hunkered down in a bomb shelter running a generator somewhere. We’ll never know. Anyway, we realized that these Patriot guys were bad news, so we sacrificed one of the pendants with the missile we used on them. The rest we distributed between the Republic, Georgia, California, and Texas.”

“You actually gave away pendants?” Charlie couldn’t believe it.

“It might have been your mother’s idea.” He shrugged.

“And you listened to her?”

“Her, Miles, and you. You all made a pretty convincing argument.” Bass tried to play it off.

“Miles totally threatened you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. Pretty much. But it worked out for everyone in the end. I mean, things could certainly be worse.”

She looked at him and didn’t see a trace left of the man she’d known in her time line. “Yeah. They could. Trust me.” She nodded and raised a knowing eyebrow at him.

It got quiet in the room as the both acknowledged the truth in her statement. The silence quickly grew awkward, and Charlie started to feel just how naked she was under the comforter draped around her.

“We should probably get dressed and gather the others.” Bass sighed, obviously disappointed that this morning was not going to play out the way he’d expected when he woken up. “See if we can figure out where the timelines diverged and if there is any other information we should know.”

Charlie nodded in agreement.

…..

The day had dragged on far longer than Charlie had expected. While she had barely been able to contain her elation at seeing all of her long deceased friends and family members alive and well, the questioning she was subjected to all day barely stopped shy of being an interrogation. She’d told them everything about the nano and the Patriots, the Tower, even about the fall of the Republic and the battles she and Miles had fought with the rebels before that. Then she’d heard accounts of everything that had happened differently since their timelines split the moment she and Bass had reunited the day she’d shown up in Philly and he’d recognized her. Apparently with Miles back and her family reunited and working with them, Bass’s mental status, and thereby the Republic, had improved. The people were content, the regional governments were at peace, and with the limited power the few pendants provided, there had been real improvements in quality of life for the citizens of not just the Monroe Republic. It was incredibly interesting, but it was a bit much to take in during a single marathon sitting. Bass had been the one to finally call an end to the inquisition, as if he’d realized that she needed a break. He had claimed to have a meeting that he couldn’t reschedule, and dragged Charlie with him.

He held the door to his office open for her and she stepped inside cautiously. Finding it empty, she went straight for the decanters of liquor set up on the side table. She poured herself a few fingers of scotch and then unceremoniously slammed it back. She was refilling the glass when Bass stepped up behind her.

“Nice to see that some things about you stay the same in any alternate universe.” He grinned at her, took the glass from her hand, and downed its contents in a single swallow before handing it back to her.

“And what would those things be?” She muttered as looked at the empty glass and then turned a wary eye on him, as if to warn him against pilfering it again.

“You hate sitting through meetings.” He invaded her personal space to reach around her, grabbed the bottle of scotch, and refilled her glass before pouring himself one. “And you’re really only using me for my liquor.” He shot her a playful grin and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“There is no meeting, is there?”

“Not so much. You just really looked like you could use a break.”

She lifted her glass and clinked it against his before taking a sip of the contents. ‘Well played Mr. President.”

He laughed and, seeming to momentarily forget their situation, put a hand on her hip and softly pulled her to him.

He didn’t miss the slight look of surprise in her eyes and immediately released her. “I’m sorry.” He breathed out quickly and took a step away from her.

“It’s ok.” She offered. She meant it sincerely, but he didn’t seem to believe her.

“It’s just that you’re still exactly like you, and it’s easy to forget for a second that you aren’t… the you I know.” He realized how convoluted that sentence ended up sounding.

She put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s ok. Really.”

Again he pulled away, and Charlie started to wonder if so much time in close proximity to Miles had caused some of her uncle’s trademarked self-deprecation to rub off on his friend.

“The things you told us about what happened in your time line… Jesus. I was a monster. How can you even stand to be in the same room with me?”

Charlie almost laughed. She hadn’t exactly lied when she told him that things were complicated between them towards the end in her original timeline. Despite everything that they’d done to each other, if they hadn’t been so preoccupied with the world ending, they would have likely shared more than the single unplanned kiss she’d sprung on him that night before she was thrown back into the time loop. Also, it wasn’t twenty-four hours ago in her memory that she’d been ready to screw a naïve and arrogant younger Bass in a bar bathroom to spite Miles and her mother. Ok, that had somehow seemed much more logical at the time. And here they were actually engaged, with her family’s blessing. Why did it seem like no matter how unlikely, they somehow ended up together in every iteration of their timeline?

She swallowed the last of her scotch and deposited her glass on his desk. Then she let herself plop down into one of the leather chairs as he paced. “I forgave you then. Here you haven’t even done most of that stuff, so it would be kinda wrong to hold it against you now.”

When his next lap brought him past where she was sitting, she reached out and grabbed his wrist, stilling him instantly. He looked down at her, his expression torn.

“Do you think I’ll ever get back any of my memories from the last two years?” She asked quietly.

He collapsed into the chair next to hers and lifted his glass to his mouth to drain what was left in it. He let his arm fall back to the chair’s armrest and focused on the few drops of liquor clinging to the side of the glass as he swirled the bottom of it against the leather. “I don’t know.”

He only looked up when her hand covered his on the glass. She was standing in front of him as she took the glass from his grip and placed it next to hers on the desk. Then she reached for his hand again. Once their fingers intertwined, she pulled him to his feet. They stood silently staring at each other, appraising.

Partially emboldened by the alcohol and partially from an irrational fear that somehow soon all of this would reset into another different reality, Charlie made up her mind. She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before speaking. “It’s been a long day. I think I’m ready to go to bed.”

Looking like a child that had just watched someone take away his puppy, Bass started to mumble, “Yeah. Right. There’s a room at the other end of the hall near your brother’s. It was yours before we... I think some of your stuff is still in there. I’ll get someone to take you…”

Charlie shook her head and chuckled. She took a step toward the door that separated his office from his bedroom… their bedroom. When she tugged at his hand to force him to follow her, he gave her a disbelieving stare. She rolled her eyes at him.

“What happened to that guy I met at a bar in South Carolina? He seemed willing to do just about anything to take me home with him that night.” She gave him a smile.

“Charlie, that was a lifetime ago. And that’s not us anymore. I don’t want you to think you have to do anything just because…”

“You don’t get it, Monroe.” She used his surname to accentuate the fact that she was talking from feelings that extended even in her timeline. “That’s exactly who we are. Every time. Every alternate reality. We are the one thing that happens over and over. It’s literally what saved the world when nothing else I tried could. It’s basically inevitable, so how about you shut up and take me to bed.”

“Are you this bossy in every universe?” He groaned but couldn’t hide his smile.

“You better believe it.” She gave him a defiant look.

He laughed and pulled her to him. “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“You never do.” She grinned knowingly before reaching up and pulling his face down to meet hers in a long overdue kiss.