"You need to get away from me."
She has tried. It failed colossally.
"You don't belong here."
She listens to her worst fear in his voice. Where does she belong?
"We are NOT your family."
She has no family.
When he finally finds enough venom to fill his words with, to bite into her, teeth touching bone, to paralyze her, to begin the slow and deadly decomposition of her feelings for him, she does the only thing she has ever done. The only thing she can do. The one thing she promised him she would not do. She runs. Not very far, but far enough.
There really is no other choice. After she helps Gemma and Nate, after the horrible hour in the assisted care home, after Gemma steals her car and she has to ride pinion behind her poisonous lover, her own hands betray her as she holds on tight. And after Gemma's black heart skips a beat, she's needed again. But when she stands shaking, and the ambulance pulls out of the Teller-Morrow lot, and Jax follows on his bike, she does not.
She goes home to the house her father died in. Alone.
She holds her fisted hands between her breasts to protect herself, shield her own aching heart.
But, of course, the next day in the hospital, Gemma drives her pointed words through her ribs. The truth is a weapon, they do blame her for Abel's kidnapping. That night, she shoves boxes and carefully folded linens off the couch, lies down, and tosses and turns with the injury. Could she have thrown herself bodily in between Cameron and Abel? Taken a bullet? Should she have? She feels guilty for so many things, adding a stolen baby to the scales is nothing. She piles it on.
Her dead father's house is as cold and empty as she feels. She sleeps through the night. Sleeps into the next day. Rouses at sunset. The hysterical pregnancy is over. She wakes bleeding, rolls over onto her back, the hot slick liquid ebbs out of her body, pools beneath her. She can feel the warmth seep into the cushion. She wants it to stain.
She eats half a dozen scrambled eggs. Drains a pot of coffee at eight in the evening, doctors the last cup with Irish Cream, and sits down with her laptop to draft a letter of apology to Margaret and St. Thomas. She wanders the rooms, holds the ghosts at bay. When the morning sun rises she stands on the front stoop, breathes in the air, watches the dawn of the new day.
She tries to fashion a new shape to her life. But she is at a loss to what that shape should be.
She strips her father's house of every last stick of furniture, every last box of paper, and then she strips the house itself of paint and carpet. She wants to sell, move downtown into something vintage, something haunted by other people's ghosts. Or move uptown, something shiny and sterile, a place ghosts could never linger long. She avoids men, makes no friends. She works at work and works at home. The days pass. She counts down months on her fingers. She is not surprised that Jax doesn't come for her, but she is surprised that it's her life she is mourning and not her love. She still comes awake from a dead sleep hearing motorcycles, she avoids the Teller-Morrow part of town, and cannot bear to wear anything that smells of leather - jackets, shoes, bags.
Her personal year of living dangerously is behind her. It has very nearly killed her and in her darker moments she believes that, maybe, she is dead.
She pulled back the green curtain, the metal rings clattering loudly along the track set in the emergency room ceiling. A man lay on the gurney, his back to her, curled around his body, in obvious pain. Standing beside him, one hand on his trembling shoulder was Chibs Telford.
In a moment that seemed to combust beneath her feet, tied to the stake, she quickly looked back to the patient, blond hair? No. Black.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she allowed herself to meet Chibs' gaze and the two of them looked at one another over the other man's slow-motion writhing. She schooled her face but she knew it was too late, she had betrayed herself to him. He cocked one eyebrow and tipped his head, studying her in the quiet way he had, the subtle presence she had forgotten. If he was as surprised as she was, he wasn't going to show it. She knew he was going to follow her lead. But she had no place left to lead anyone, her life a dead-end.
"Doc," he finally said, the thick Scottish accent, the familiar nickname.
Her stomach clenched and she curled her upper lip between her teeth, squinting back dry tears. Of all of them, him. Seeing any one of them, with the exception of Jackson, of course, would have been easier than facing this man. Flashes of bleeding bodies, field dressing together, shoulder to shoulder. His own blood pooling around him as she knelt in it, laying her head on his chest listening, praying, for a heartbeat. Sitting vigil at his concussed bedside. They had shared experiences - fear horror trauma - with one another that had had nothing to do with any of the others.
She had the patient's triaged information on the digitized pad in the crook of her elbow. She looked down at it, a quick glance, and wondered if there would have been any way she could have read between the cursory notes and known; taken a lunch break, a coffee break, a breather leaning against the cold tile wall in the bathroom, hands on knees. But no, it would have been impossible and in one part of her heart she knew that. Knew sooner than later she would encounter one of them. It just so happened to be sooner than she was ready. And maybe she would never really be ready. Maybe it was long past time to talk to Margaret about that transfer.
She watched as he kept his gaze locked to hers, patting the man gently, with the surety and reassurance she found herself suddenly remembering, the way one will remember forgotten lyrics when the music accompanies the song. Then he took two long strides around the end of the bed and held out his hand. She recoiled slightly from the gesture, confused, was he offering her something? Reaching to take something? Then she laughed, nervous, he wanted to shake her hand. Put her at ease. So Chibs. The consummate gruff gentleman in leather and knives. She reached out and he had her hand in between both of his, and he was saying something. But it was impossible to listen. Some kind of electric shock had moved through her at his touch, her ears were ringing with it. She looked down at their joined hands. He had dried blood staining his skin, matting his arm hair, up past his wrists. She sighed. He let go and stepped back.
"Just here, then," he said, walking back towards the man's side, gently urging him onto his back.
It was all too familiar, too horrifyingly familiar. "I see," she said, mentally shaking herself, a hand to her brow. "What happened," she paused, "or should I ask?"
He frowned at her, then smoothed out the expression with his fingers combing through his goatee. "Course you can ask. Eejit was using a grinding wheel to cut a chain and the damned blade come off and caught him just under the ribs. Here." He opened the man's shirt, a wife-beater sliced ragged beneath it, folding the material back to reveal a shop towel, soaked and stained with blood, taped to his skin. "Tha's above my pay grade."
She looked away from the Teller-Morrow patch sewn into the chest pocket. "Looks like you did a good job stopping the bleeding, though," she said, avoiding Chibs' gaze now. That was the key, don't look at him, don't engage.
Quickly, efficiently, she set the digitizer down and began to work. She could feel Chibs watching her, anticipating what she needed, moving things into place just short of handing her instruments with his bare hands. She could have called for a nurse or one of the ERTs, should have, but she didn't. She handed him a blue plastic basin and indicated the sink and he filled it with warm water, returning with it sloshing, and he began using a large absorbent pad to soak off the dressing sticky with drying blood. He worked in tandem with her, pulling the oily shop towel free of the ragged wound. They both simultaneously grimaced. Chibs had a fresh trauma-sorb pressing below the flap of skin and she handed him a syringe of water, unsurprised as he expertly irrigated the injury. Then she began to numb the area.
"You okay?" she asked the patient and he nodded, eyes closed.
She turned to Chibs, eyebrows raised. The patient was either drunk or chemically altered. "Did we do that?" she asked him, wondering if he had been medicated by triage. He shrugged. She shook her head and continued working. Stitching methodically. The industrial clock on the wall clicking the seconds, the sounds of other patients, nurses, paramedics, a child crying, machines buzzing and beeping all faded as she worked. She focused on the neat row of stitches she was tying, and as she neared the end of the wound, fingertips holding edges pushed together, she finally allowed herself to see their four hands working in unison. Her fingers gloved in white, his stained in red. She began to dress the repair.
"You should wash your hands, Filip." She nodded to the sink.
"Aye," he answered, turning them splay-fingered. "They're a right mess. That was probably not the best idea."
"I'm sure it's fine. You might want to find out if he's clean, though. Maybe."
She stripped off her gloves, stepping back and she nearly tripped into him. A quick hand on her waist, steadying her, and she felt the fission of electricity again. She sidestepped awkwardly but he seemed to pay that no attention and then there was a breathable space between them. She picked up the digitizer, tapping on the screen with the stylus, listening to Chibs' voice and not his words as he spoke to the man in the bed. The brogue, the cadence, washed through her, another forgotten memory.
She looked over at him and with the slight turning of her face, he glanced up immediately. "He's actually really lucky. This could have been fatal," she said. "It could have killed him."
"That what fatal means?" Chibs asked, again with the cocked eyebrow.
His dry humour, like a name just there on the tip of her tongue. She blushed, smiling then laughing and he joined her.
"So, why you pulling an ER round, Doc?" he asked, stuffing gauze into the bloody water basin, moving everything over to a wheeled trolley.
"Um," she hesitated. "Staffing. You know." She looked away from the lie, imagined telling him the truth. This is the only place where I can think because I can think of anything except Jackson Teller, and the MC, dead men and women, my own guilty hands. So I spend hours here, picking up extra shifts, working where I'm needed but not necessary. My hands can heal here. I can wash the blood off. I can numb myself by staying busy and that numbness is what I need. If I'm home I'll self-medicate and wake up on the floor of the bathroom drowning in puke and tears. It's getting better but some days I still feel as though I'm crawling up a mountain of glass on my belly. And it's not a broken heart that cuts me - it's my broken life.
She stood at the furthest possible edge of the curtained exam room, wanting to bolt, making herself breathe through that impulse. He was watching her, again with the serious gaze cutting into her, a lancing scalpel.
"Long time," he said simply.
She shook her head sideways. Yes, no? She watched him glance around, looking for something, then settle on her.
"Is that a pen?" he asked, pointing at the pocket of her lab coat.
She was confused, patting at it. "Uh, yeah. Yes. It is." He motioned for her to hand it to him and she did.
He grabbed an unopened packet of gauze and bent over the trolley writing.
She began talking, methodical yet with a tremble in her voice. "I would tell you how to care for that but I know that you know. I'm sending something for pain over to the pharmacy. Again, something I'm sure you guys have covered but it would look strange if I didn't. All that sewing. I'm also prescribing an antibiotic. Make sure he takes the full dose. Stitches out in ten days. Watch for weeping."
"Hear that, boyo? Don't be crying like a wee girl," Chibs told the man in the bed, straightening from what he had been doing. Walking over to her, one hand on her elbow, he steered her out of the curtained enclosure, stopping against the edge of it. In the bustling St. Thomas Emergency Room he somehow created a private space for the two of them to stand in. He ripped the gauze package, handed her part of the paper wrapping, balling the rest in his hand.
"There's my number. Not a burner, right. My mobile. You ever need anything, Tara, anything at all. You call me."
She took it from him, speechless, words dripping away from her like tears.
"And eat something, doll. You're too thin. But at least I saw you smile. Tha's good." Without warning he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then he turned back with purposeful strides, had the patient on his feet, a firm hand under his arm, and the two of them stagger-walked away. She stepped aside as they passed her and although she waited, not sure if she wanted him to, he didn't look back.
In the bathroom, she steadied herself on the rim of the porcelain sink, bending towards the mirror. Was she too thin? She could hardly bear to look at the ghost girl reflected back at her. Her hair was mussed just behind her ear, pulled messily out of her French twist. She pressed it back flat against her head and remembered his hand, just there, holding her fast while he kissed her goodbye. Or, perhaps, hello.