A/N: Dark. Very dark. As the series winds to a close, I'm going a little nuts trying to figure out where TPTB are headed, and frankly, I'm not seeing sunshine and butterflies. This is one possible resolution that popped into my fevered (and seriously twisted) little brain. Spoilers for Season 7 through episode 9.
It was a good day, Nero Padilla thought as he pulled into the driveway.
He'd just deposited the cash Alvarez had handed him as the down payment for Diosa; tomorrow, he and his uncle would sign the contract on the farm.
And then he'd head to the country with his boy, and God willing, Gemma and her boys. Lucius would love having Thomas and Abel to hang out with.
Now he just had to convince Gemma.
She and Abel were at the table, locked in a staring contest. A bowl of macaroni and cheese sat in front of the boy, untouched. It looked like it had been there a while.
For once, she blinked first. "Fine. Go to your room. Now."
The little boy stomped off, anger coming off him in waves.
"Little man's having an attitude problem," Nero said, a little amused to see that grandmother and grandson wore identical scowls.
"Little man's about to have a sore butt if he keeps this up," Gemma snarled, more to cover up the cold dread welling up inside her. The voice in her head, the one that sounded just like her Sunday school teacher, Sister Mary Ellen, whispered, "He knows. He knows you're a killer. Tara and the girls and Diosa and the Chinese and now Bobby. He knows."
Since Tara, she heard Sister Mary Ellen a lot, almost as often as she heard herself talking to Tara. Kind of ironic, really; she hadn't talked that much to either woman when they were alive.
She pushed the voice away, pushed the guilt away, pushed the fear back to the deepest pit of her stomach as Nero pulled her into a hug. "You can't handle a kindergartener throwing a little shade?" he said. "He misses his mom."
"I miss her, too," Gemma said, and it was the truth. "And I can handle the shade he's throwing. I just don't want to."
She closed her eyes and leaned into him, letting his warmth seep into her chilled bones. She could stay here wrapped in his warmth, forever.
But from the corner of her eye, she saw Abel leaving her bedroom.
"I thought I told you to go to YOUR room," she called. He was probably checking to see if the birds had magically re-appeared. "And do not wake up your brother."
He scowled over his shoulder at her. "*I* take care of my brother," he declared, and headed down the hall.
Amazing how loud a 5-year-old could stomp, even on carpet, Nero thought.
And Gemma hid the shiver as she grew colder in Nero's arms.
When Jax came to pick up the boys, he was not happy about Nero's news.
"Alvarez? You had to sell it to Alvarez?"
"I asked you first," Nero said, holding his temper in check for Gemma's sake. He knew the younger man was under Hell's own pressure, but most of hit was his own damn fault. "And you and the Mayans are tight these days."
"These days, yeah. Six months, a year from now, who the hell knows?" Jax was fuming. Since Bobby's death, he seemed unable to contain his rage. He was either blank and detached, or spitting mad. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I'm thinking I'm entitled to a life, and I'm going to go get it," Nero replied, his own voice rising to meet Jax's near-shout.
Gemma held her breath as it looked like the two men might come to blows. Then Thomas started screaming, and she realized she hadn't seen Abel in more than an hour. "Another temper tantrum," she told Nero and Jax, and headed back to the boys' room.
"I'll give you a hand," Nero said, hoping to escape Jax's anger and his own, even to tend to a screaming toddler.
There was no sign of Abel, but Thomas was screaming his little head off in the corner of his crib.
She and Nero both headed to him, Nero a little in front of her. That's when they saw Abel, crouched against the wall at the head of Thomas's crib.
Neither noticed the gun in his hand until he raised it and pointed it at Gemma.
The 9-millimeter she kept in the hatbox in her bedroom, Gemma realized. For some reason, she focused on the silencer at the end of the barrel, not on Abel's tiny hands gripping the weapon.
"You hurt Mommy. That's what you said to Tommy. And it's your fault Bobby died. You told him so. I heard you, at the cabin," the boy said, and his eyes were impossibly dark, like Jax's had been since Tara died. "I won't let you hurt Tommy, Grandma. I told Daddy I'd keep him safe."
Then Nero was in front of her and from somewhere far away, Gemma heard one muffled pop, and then a second and she heard her own voice screaming, "No!" as Nero's body suddenly jerked and crumpled to the floor beside Thomas's crib.
Abel dropped the gun and stared at Nero, wide-eyed. Gemma knelt beside the fallen man, trying to turn him over. His eyes met hers for a second, and he tried to speak. "Gem, what…" Then he coughed, the bright red blood bubbling from his mouth.
And then he was gone. Gemma cradled his head in her lap, trying not to stare at the dark stain spreading across his cardigan.
"What the hell," Jax said, and Gemma turned to find him standing in the doorway. "Abel, what the hell?"
He picked up his son and the pistol, tucking the weapon into his waistband. "Abel, what did you do?"
"I had to stop Grandma from hurting Tommy," Abel said, looking up at his father with dead, dark eyes. Jax's eyes had looked the same when he'd learned of Tara's murder. And sometimes, when Gemma dared to look in the mirror, she saw the same eyes staring back at her. "She killed Mommy. I heard her tell Tommy so. And she told Bobby it was her fault he died. She said she never saw any of this happening."
Jax seemed too stunned to speak, looking from the boy in his arms to Gemma kneeling on the carpet.
"You killed Tara?" he finally said. "What? Why? You said it was the Chinese…"
And she could see it in his eyes, in the way he stood, see him hardening with the realization of what her rage and lies and fear (cowardice, the Sunday school voice in her head whispered, pure cowardice) had wrought. She could see him almost ticking names off a list: Tara and Roosevelt and the girls at Diosa and the Chinese and Quinn and the Niners and West and White.
And Bobby.
And his father, though Jax didn't know that, Sister Mary Ellen reminded her. Which of those deaths would he find the hardest to forgive, the little voice asked.
Gemma watched as he pulled himself very straight, muscles taut, face as hard as granite. She'd always said Jax was the spitting image of John Teller, but just at the moment, she thought he looked just like her.
"Call Wendy to watch the boys," Jax said, and his voice was calmer than she'd ever heard it. "You and I need to go to the cabin."
And she felt herself turn to ice as the silence in her mind grew deeper. Sister Mary Ellen had nothing to say.