Chapter Text
They ran out of clear rail about four hours later so they unloaded the horses they’d brought in livestock cars – Connor wasn’t sure who’d had the foresight to do that but considering Miles and his father were no strangers to military operations he was guessing it was one of them. Connor overhead the head engineer and Adrianna discussing a rail station they had passed about eight miles ago and the engineer’s plans to back the train so they could get it onto whatever turn-mechanism they had there.
Connor leaned over Adrianna’s shoulder to stare at the map. “Where are we?” he asked and she moved her finger between two points on the map. “Somewhere between Baton Rouge and Beaumont.
“Georgia,” the engineer commented, “always did well maintaining their rail system. But we’re probably the first train on this stretch since Atlanta was nuked. We’re lucky we were able to get this close. If you call somewhere in a two hundred mile range close.”
“I’m pretty sure that was Lafayette we passed back there,” Adrianna commented. “Which only puts us about two hundred miles outside Huston. So say a four day ride there and another three days to Austin.”
“Maybe we reconsider backing up,” the engineer commented. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to repair the tracks but if we could get into Huston there’s probably decent rails between there and Austin. . .save you a week on the trip back home.”
“Well I wouldn’t say no to that,” Adrianna commented. Connor wandered off to where Cynthia was sorting through Julia’s dresses.
“I think I’ll just take these two,” Cynthia said to Aaron. One of them was maroon and the other was a coral – Connor had noticed that Julia had preferred shaded of reds and purples for her clothes. “I think this one is rayon so it won’t show wrinkles and the cotton one can iron out pretty quick.”
Connor smiled as Aaron muttered “Uh huh. What you said.” The former school teacher rolled her eyes but she looked amused.
One of their guards led a muscular black gelding over to them and Connor accepted the reins, swinging himself into the saddle. The horse sidestepped and tossed its head – not enough to unseat him but enough to show it wasn’t just going to obey any order and Connor felt himself grin. He’d always liked more high-spirited horses because they were usually enough to catch a girl’s attention but in this case he wondered how much he and the horse thought alike. Just because there was a plan and he had a mission it didn’t mean he had to just blindly do what others expected. Or at least what Jason expected, he silently amended. He leaned down and patted the gelding’s neck, feeling the horse gradually relax under him, even through the saddle.
He’d once thought of horses as nothing other than a means of transportation but after watching the way his father and Miles had both taken care of their animals – like they were part of the team – made him wonder if that sort of treatment of people had won them their allies so easily. He made a mental note to ask them how they’d been treating their horses at the end of the Republic.
“Hey,” he called towards the guard, “What’s his name?”
“Don’t know,” the man replied and Connor ran through a list in his head. Midnight, Demon and Devil were too obvious. Monroe had seemed to have an endless supply of names – he’d named a horse Badger of all the random things but Connor frowned slightly before smiling and scratched at the base of the gelding’s mane liked he’d noticed Charlie had been doing with Blaze a lot before they’d sold the horses. Naming his own horse after his father’s seemed a little too sentimental but Tejon – the Spanish translation – felt like an inside joke; something Bass Monroe would approve of if he ever found out about it. And the chance to attempt to impress Adrianna with his ability to speak a second language might not hurt either.
“Tejon,” he murmured, making sure he was close enough Adrianna could hear him and the young woman turned, raising one eyebrow.”
“What does that mean?”
“Tejon is going to be his name. What are you naming your horse, Jason?” he asked and the other man glared at him.
“Why would I name my horse?” Jason snapped back. “I won’t have him long enough to be attached.”
“So?” He knew the answer but he asked it anyway, trying to sound innocent. Jason just swore and turned away, checking his horse’s cinch before he mounted and Connor shrugged, smiling at Adrianna and shaking his head just slightly.
“Oh goodie,” Aaron commented as he neck-reined his horse over towards them. “More riding.” Cynthia was behind him, half-turned in the saddle and fussing with the ties on her saddle bags. He kneed his horse into a trot then back down to a walk and he smiled a little. “Well, at least he’s smoother than Quaker.”
Their guards had finished dividing the supplies between the rest of the horses and Connor accepted the extra saddle-bag one the men passed to him – he was really going to have to learn their names, he realized. He took the reins for Adrianna’s horse and led it over to where she was talking to the engineer. The other horse pinned its ears back at Tejon and tried to bite his shoulder but Connor slapped its muzzle. The horse pulled back sharply, the leather reins burned on Connor’s palm as they slid through his loose grip and he was about to dismount when Adrianna walked over and slapped the chestnut horse on the shoulder.
“Copper,” she snapped and the horse tossed his head and stomped one foot repeatedly. Adrianna snorted, “Men. It’s always got to be a competition.”
“Well he started it,” Connor commented. “Quite the biter,” he added as Copper jerked his head towards Tejon again and his gelding backed away. “Come on, bud, don’t let the bad bully get you down. Anyway, you’re like four inches taller than he is.” Copper wasn’t tall but he was more heavily muscled, Connor realized and the pinned ears and bared teeth finally clicked. “He’s not a stallion, is he?”
Adrianna didn’t reply as she swung into the saddle. The chestnut squealed in annoyance and crow-hopped but she loosened his reins and put him in a series of tight circles with her legs before she grinned. “Yeah. A couple of years ago a guy lost him in a poker game to my brother. They hated each other instantly but I fell in love so I traded him my gelding. He’s Quarter/Arab mix so he can go forever and he’s not afraid of anything. He can be a bit of a bastard when he’s cooped up but he’ll be fine once he gets moving.
Jason was too far away to away to hear but the opportunity was too good to pass open. “So you like bad boys?”
Adrianna rolled her eyes and Copper side-passed over. Tejon started to sidle away but Adrianna stopped close enough their legs were brushing. “Bad boys?” she asked, her tone teasing but there was something predatory to her gaze that made Connor’s brows raise. “And what makes you think you’re a bad boy? Because your Daddy is tough?”
He felt the familiar rush of anger but he fought it down and smiled back at her. “No. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to tangle with him, especially not if he’s got Miles Matheson with him. But he’s my father and I’m somebody completely different.” He would only suffer by trying to compare himself to Monroe, he realized and knowing that Charlie had saved him from a lifetime of frustration because if it wasn’t for her, he’d have gone crazy trying to compete with Monroe and never measuring up in his own mind. The General would always be bigger, badder , have a higher body count and more territory but Charlie had taught him he could be his own person and didn’t have to keep score. He let the frustration slough off him and he started to laugh at how good it felt. “ Like you said. Men, it always has to be a competition.” He’d genuinely surprised her, he realized, and that made him smile a little more. “Sorry, I guess your horse isn’t the only one who gets bored when he’s cooped up.”
He loosened the reins, moving his horse forward as their group headed down the road. He was surprised to find Adrianna still next to him and he tried an open smile. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion but her voice wasn’t unfriendly when she asked, “What sort of game are you playing?”
He shrugged. “Not a game. Well, not really. It doesn’t benefit me,” he added then amended, “Well, at least not directly.”
“So all this making Jason jealous does what, exactly?” she asked. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you two were ex-lovers and you’re trying to use me to get revenge.”
Connor couldn’t help starting to laugh, one arm moving to cradle his abs and everyone looked at him but he ignored them. Adrianna glared at him, clearly exasperated but a little amused and he moved Tejon a little closer to Copper. The stallion pinned his ears again but she had been right about movement improving his mood because he made no other aggressive gestures.
“Neither,” Connor confessed when he was able to speak again. The dirt track gave them a great view of how badly the rails had degraded in places but he didn’t know enough about trains to know if it was easily fixable. He ducked his head to avoid a tree branch growing into the road; they would probably have to ride single-file soon. “I only met him a few weeks ago. And my only experience with a man was pretending to be Jeremy Baker’s lover so the Patriots didn’t know why Carissa was leaving Texas to go back to D.C. It was a little awkward.” It had actually been an incredible relief when Tracey Bentley had started ignoring him rather than finding excuses to follow him all over Willoughby. He’d not been blind – she was a very pretty girl – and he’d been secretly terrified he’d give in to her less than subtle interest and find himself settled down in Texas, just another farm-hand on her parents goat-ranch.
“So what is all this about? And don’t tell me it’s just because you’re bored.”
He half smiled, deciding he owed her the truth if for no other reason than it would keep her from thinking he was actually interested in her for anything more than casual sport. He leaned a little closer to her, dropping his voice. “You said it yourself. It’s a competition.”
“But Jason isn’t interested in me so why are you bothering.”
“Not interested in you,” he corrected, “till he thought I was. Now look at him.” He saw the real anger starting to simmer and dropped his voice even lower. “You got to meet Charlie in D.C. What have Cynthia and Aaron said about her the last few days?”
“Not much?” She still looked a little annoyed but she just as obviously realized she wasn’t merely the victim of a juvenile prank. He owed her the truth, he decided. Their job in D.C. would have been incredibly more difficult if her father hadn’t thrown his weight behind them and rallied people to the American Militia and effectively cut off a Patriot counter-strike to re-acquire the President. And it wasn’t just men who sometimes liked a challenge. “We got the news stories about General Matheson and his niece leading the Georgia offensive against the Monroe Republic. At the time we thought it was a good thing if someone could get rid of Monroe. Then the bombs fell and we bought the line that Monroe and Foster had nuked each other and welcomed the Patriots with open arms. . .didn’t take long to figure out that was a mistake. Then Monroe and Matheson show up out of the blue a year later and suddenly they’re best friends again.” He heard the frustration in her voice and wondered himself how different things would have gone if Miles hadn’t tried to kill his father in the first place. But Charlie had also taught him not to ‘what-if’ his life to death.
“So you probably didn’t know that during the Republic-Georgia war, Charlie and Jason were together.” He saw the surprise on Adrianna’s face. “They never thought they’d see each other again after the Tower.” He could tell from her expression Adrianna didn’t have any idea about what the Tower was but since he wasn’t entirely too clear on all the details – and he didn’t want to get into how the Matheson’s were responsible for the blackout in the first place – he continued without explaining. “She ended up with my Dad when they were trying to confuse the Patriots and eventually it went from a fake relationship to a real one. Jason’s not exactly had an easy time accepting that.”
She was quick, he had to give her that. “So I’m a present? To distract him from trying to hook back up with her?” Okay, he decided, she hadn’t quite gotten the details right. But considering the circumstances, she’d come pretty close. He could see the disdain in her face and was a little surprised she was so annoyed at him until he realized her disgust was directed more at Charlie.
“That’s not it,” he said softly, making sure his voice sounded as sympathetic as he could make it. Her eyes narrowed and she clearly wondered if he was playing her but he opened his as wide as he could, hoping it looked real. “Jason’s a good guy who probably really does deserve to be happy. Sure, I flick him shit all the time. I’m a guy. I do that. And as for Charlie,” this time he let a little real anger into his voice, “she and my father love each other.” Even he could see they had severe psychological issues – starting with the fact neither of them could actually say the words to each other, even at their own wedding. He’d had his back to them when Miles had grabbed the judge before the ceremony and asked him to leave any mention of love out of the vows but he’d heard every word of Miles’ brief argument before Peter had agreed. Adrianna, however, didn’t need to know about that. “And Charlie is one of the best people I’ve ever met. She genuinely wants others to be happy and she’ll be happier when she’s not feeling guilty about breaking Jason’s heart. He chose to go with his father to try to find his mother after the bombs dropped and she stayed with her family. I wouldn’t say their ending was mutual. . .but it sounds like they were on opposite sides of a war. . .kind of like how she and my Dad started. I think she feels bad that she moved one, even though she had absolutely no reason not to. And if I can do this one little thing for her, no matter how small, I owe her that.”
“That wasn’t what I was expecting.” Adrianna looked honestly surprised and Connor shrugged.
“Yeah well, it takes a little while until people really understand our family.” That felt so good to say, even if he privately admitted he didn’t fully understand them himself yet. “Besides, Jason’s a pretty good guy who honestly got dealt a pretty shitty hand and maybe my family owes him a little.” Adrianna’s eyeroll was as good as saying she saw through his attempt at charm but she seemed intrigued despite herself and he was guessing she would have had more questions if the brush hadn’t started to get thicker and he slowed Tejon enough that he was out of range of Copper’s heels.
If Adrianna’s map was correct they made less than thirty miles of progress following the rail line but as the sun was starting to set they found a real road paralleling the tracks that wasn’t overgrown with brush. They made camp in an abandoned barn– clearly not the first people to do so if the fire-ring on the concrete floor was any indication but it had pasture with a fence in surprisingly good repair and they turned the horses loose to graze. Adrianna let Copper into the pasture first to tear around but when he was finished she hobbled both his front and rear feet before they let the other horses in with him. He was able to manage a shambling trot after them but his attempts to mount one of the mares ended in him just following her around the pasture because she was easily able to stay out of range and he eventually gave up to crop grass.
The guards divided up the watch shifts between themselves, turning down offers from anyone else to help. While Cynthia was officially in charge of the diplomatic portion of the mission, no one had actually bothered to appoint a head of security but the guards had clearly already picked Adrianna; she was the one they went to with questions or to give reports and Connor shrugged off a momentary annoyance. He wasn’t going to fight on who got the final say on where eight men pitched their blankets or dug the latrine. He would have cared, he realized, just a few months ago and he wondered what Nunez’s men had really thought of the way he used to try to control them. At the time he had thought they had feared him and he made a note to ask to see if they had just been humoring him. He rather thought they probably had been.
He settled into his blanket, not far from Aaron and Cynthia. He remembered the look on Charlie’s face when she’d hugged Aaron goodbye and silently vowed he’d do everything he could to make sure the other man made it safely back to D.C. He was surprised when Jason walked over and dropped his bag next to Connor. “Come on,” the other man said. “Come check the horses with me.”
“I just got my boots off,” Connor protested but the look Jason shot him was almost a mocking challenge and he stood, shoving his feet back into the black leather. Not only did Jason not care about his boots, he was fairly certain this wasn’t about the horses either.
They walked out of the barn and Connor paused to admire the half moon and the stars. Jason walked over and leaned against a fence post, his jaw clenched but his hands weren’t in fists. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, what’s that,” Connor commented, barely listening.
“I may have been driven nuts but I’m not an idiot. This thing with Adrianna.” He was so clueless, Connor thought, trying not to smile as he found a post of his own to lean against, prepared to listen to Jason’s ‘leave her alone’ speech.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Connor said. “Other than she’s nice, funny and pretty damn hot.”
“Yeah,” Jason agreed, twisting his fingers together. “But she’s not Charlie. So if you think that by flirting with her you can make me forget about Charlie. . .it’s not going to happen.”
Connor felt jaw gape and he forced himself to close it. “What the. . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Okay,” he admitted, feeling very real annoyance mix with surprise. Jason, he realized, was a hell of a lot more perceptive than he had given the other man credit for and despite everything, he was impressed. “How the hell did you figure that out?”
Jason sighed and Connor was startled to see how sad he looked. “Because I’m not an idiot. And you’re not that big of asshole to goad me like you’ve been doing without having a reason.” Connor smiled in spite of himself and he sank down so he was sitting on the ground and his back was against the post. “Besides, I saw how you treated Charlie while we were coming here. Honestly, I thought you were going to be my competition, not your Dad, the way you were looking at her.”
“No one else,” Connor said softly, “has ever cared about me like that before. Sure, my Mom loved me but that was a given. My Dad loved the idea of me but it took us weeks before we could actually talk to each other. Even then, if it wasn’t for Charlie, I doubt we’d have gotten that far.” It would be incredibly lame to say she was like the glue between them but it didn’t mean it wasn’t true, even if he wanted to cut his own tongue out before he said it. But it applied to more than just him, he realized. She’d been the one to get Miles and Monroe back on the same side again long before he’d even showed up.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. And that’s why I still love her. But you don’t need to worry about me. I. . .I’m not going back to D.C. I should be able to get a job with Texas and then I can visit with Mom and Dad sometimes but I won’t have to see Charlie all the time with. . .with. . . .” Jason closed his eyes and Connor could see him slow his breathing, as if he was consciously making an effort. “With Monroe,” he finally finished. “I hate it, but she’s happy with him and I can’t stand to see that.”
There was just no good reply, Connor realized and he started to nod but realized Jason still had his eyes closed. “Yeah, I can get that,” he finally replied. Jason finally opened his eyes but he turned to look up at the sky.
“Stars really are pretty tonight,” the younger man sighed. “Dad’s going to have a fit but he’ll get over it. Mom will have a harder time but I think she’ll understand more than Dad will.”
They both turned as the barn door opened but Connor wasn’t surprised to see Adrianna walk towards them. “And here I thought,” she commented, “I’d have to break up a fight the way you two were at each other earlier.”
“Nah, that was just us being bored,” Connor commented, gesturing for her to sit next to him. The looks she gave him was the non-verbal equivalent of “are you kidding me” but he held out his hand. “No, seriously, he figured it out so this is just me offering to share a fencepost.”
Adrianna looked between them, her brows up. “Really?”
“You told her?” Jason asked, glaring at him.
“I’m not a complete jackass, even if I was acting like one. Figured she needed to know why.”
Adrianna made a noise not dissimilar to a horse-snort but she dropped to the ground and scooted back so she was facing Jason, her back partly on the post and partly on Connor’s shoulder.
“You are such a dick,” Jason sighed, as if he was too tired to even be angry and Connor burst out laughing.
“That’s exactly the same thing I’ve heard Miles say to my Dad.”
That earned him a dirty look as Jason snapped, “Let’s get one thing clear. We might get to the point where we get along, but you and I certainly not Matheson and Monroe, generation two.”
“Thank goodness for small favors,” Adrianna growled. “I don’t think the country can take another round of them.”
“Well since generation two is me and Charlie, it’s going to have to,” Connor replied. “But don’t worry about it. We’re not going crazy. I hope.”
“There is nothing good that can come of this,” Jason said, rising and extending his hand to help Adrianna up. Connor watched them grip each other’s wrists until she was on her feet then they moved to stand more than an arms-length away from each other. “I’m going to bed.”
“Hey, you were the one who wanted the little chat,” Connor reminded. “But I think I’m going to sit out here a little longer. The stars really were beautiful but it was the way they walked back to the barn together that made him smile. The closer they got to the door, the more they drifted towards each other and he held it open for her. It shut with a dull thump and Connor leaned back against the post. It had been so long since he’d been truly alone and as much as he missed the new family he’d made, it felt good to relax without all the noise and chaos that seemed to follow them. He was getting to love it, but the quiet was a nice change, even if he knew he would be happy to get back to them soon. He shook his head, smiling. He had certainly underestimated Jason Neville but he wasn’t sure his plan was necessarily dead, even if he would have to be a little more subtle.
Or, he reflected, less subtle. From everything he’d heard about Patriot programming and the drugs they used, it would probably be a terrible idea to try slipping Jason marijuana. But he certainly was going to see if he could get them both to come to Mexico with him and see what lots of tequila would do.