A/n "Nothing says love by capital murder." Jax season five. This is my tak of the Say it like you mean it challenge from over in the SOA's writers corner. This story ties in with my other one shot Smile Hap but can be read alone. This takes place when Happy is 18. Please enjoy.
By the time Happy Loman turned twelve years old he already knew the difference between being weak and being strong. Being weak got you hurt- like his ma. Brad, his step dad, came home drunk and beat his ma at least once a week. Being weak made you hide in the closet while your stepdad screamed at your ma. Happy knew how it felt to be weak. It felt fucking shitty.
So he decided he wouldn't be weak. In middle school he joined the wrestling team. He did well to. His coach said it was a positive way for Happy to work out his anger. At least that's what Happy heard his coach tell his mom. Happy didn't care. He was learning to be strong, learning to not be weak. But then he started getting in fights at school. At first the principle just said boys will be boys, boys get in to scuffles. But as the fights continued and got worse and worse as time went on. By the time he got to high school he was getting into fights weekly. His coach kept threatening to kick him off the team but it didn't matter, because he was no longer weak.
He learned to be tough. To keep a cold face. To show nothing. No matter what. Didn't matter if it was a teacher yelling about his math grade or Brad yelling at his ma again, bout to turn on to Happy himself. He didn't, couldn't show emotion, especially fear. He was smart enough to figure out his ass hole of a stepfather liked the fear, wanted to see fear in his ma and him. So he refused to give the ass hole the satisfaction.
He kept getting into more and more fights and his mother kept lamenting that her son would be the death of her. Happy shrugged it off. Sure he got in fights but he was defending his respect, defending himself. Something his mother couldn't seem to do against his stepfather no matter how hard he was hitting her. Happy couldn't understand that, how the hell could his ma get on him for fighting if she couldn't even stand up to his stepfather. Besides some of his fights his sophomore year were protecting Mac. Course after Mac started lifting with Happy he often became a co-fighter with Happy. Mac's mom was so damn strung out half the time she couldn't come pick him from the principles office. Happy's mom would pick the both of them up and scold them. Happy stopped listening to her early on. If she couldn't defend herself he sure as hell didn't have to listen to her. After all words didn't mean a whole lot. Actions showed everything, and his ma's actions showed him nothing.
The sixteen year old him didn't recognize the resentment he had toward his mother. The sixteen year old him couldn't recognize anything beneath the anger. It wasn't until he was much older that he realized he had more emotions than anger toward his mother. A large part of him was angry at himself, he couldn't protect his ma. He couldn't stop Brad from drinking too much and taking it out on his ma. He was the man, he should be able to protect her. It wasn't his mother he was angry at. It was the scared little boy he had been. But the sixteen year old him couldn't see that. All the sixteen year old him could see was his ma let herself get pushed around because she was weak and couldn't stand up for herself. But if his ma couldn't be tough he could. He had to be.
He stopped listening to a work his ma said by the time he was fourteen. He didn't start listening to her again till he was eighteen. By that time it was almost too late.
Happy's mom picked him up drunk as fuck from the police station on his eighteenth birthday. The cop, John, who arrested Happy used to go out with his ma and the cop stilled owed his ma a favor for helping him get out of some trouble years back. Apparently she provided an alibi for John his senior year of high school. John had let a greased pig loose in the old high school as a senior prank. When the principle threatened to expel who ever did it Happy's ma said John was with her. John didn't charge Happy just had Elaina pick him at the station.
"Call me if you need anything Elaina." John told his ma as they poured a wasted Happy into the front seat.
"I will John, thanks." Elaina said with a sad smile. Elaina drove home in silence not bothering to speak to her son.
"Aren't you going to lecture me ma." Happy slurred.
"Why mi'jo will it do any good?" Elaina demanded frustrated.
"Pro'ly not." Happy drunkenly admitted, "After all you cant ev'n help yourself. How the fuck can you help me?"
"What do you mean, I can't help myself?" Elaila asked.
"You're fucking with him. He's been beating on you since I was ten and you stay with him. You cant fucking save yourself why the hell do you think you can save me." Happy yelled at his mother.
"You wouldn't understand." Elaina said.
"Why not ma? What is there to understand? You let him beat on you and than walk away like its nothing." Happy demanded. Somewhere in is booze-addled brain it registered that this was the first honest conversation he had with his ma in years.
"After your father died we were broke. The nursing home only pays so much Happy." His mom yelled back, "Brad was nice to me, he was sweet. He was a cop. It wasn't until we'd been married for a year he started drinking." His ma's voice quieted slowly as she began to talk to her son. "You were only nine at the time. But he still went to work, still brought home a paycheck. So we were able to survive. Live nicely. It was another year later he started hitting me. It wasn't much at first. A hit here, slap there."
Happy couldn't speak, just sat there next to his ma as she gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. He didn't want to hear this. Didn't want to hear how his mother became who she was but he couldn't stop listening.
"It was only when he drank to much, and he always apologized. You were so young. I thought you didn't see anything. I wanted to believe you didn't see anything. Because Brad still brought home his paycheck. I was able to buy you new cloths for school, school supplies, put good food in front of you at the table. It wasn't so bad, nothing I hadn't seen my own father do to my mother. After all not all men could be like your father." Elaina said.
"I didn't need that shit Ma. I saw everything and I couldn't do shit." Happy told her.
"We would have lost our house. Food, everything. Than it got bad. I tried reporting it. But he's a cop, reports got buried, charges got dropped on lack of evidence. I thought if I could put up with it just until you left for college it would all be worth it. I love you my son but I don't know what to do anymore." A tear slipped from Elaina's eyes. They road the rest of the way in silence. Brad was out at the bar again so the house was silent when they entered. Elaina helped Happy to his room.
"I do love you my son. No matter what you think of me I love you." Elaina said as she helped him lie down in his bed.
The next morning Happy woke up with a killer hangover, the conversation he had with his ma playing in his head. He stumbled down the stairs desperate to find some pain medicine. As he rummaged in the bathroom medicine cabinet he could hear Brad yelling at his ma from the master bedroom still drunk from the night before.
"You stupid fucking whore!" Brad screamed, "You can't even keep your god damn son out of trouble."
"He didn't get in trouble, he's fine." Elaina said soothingly. Happy heard the all to familiar sound of a fist connecting with skin.
"Don't fucking lie to me bitch. I know that the cops picked him up last night. Bert couldn't wait to tell me about it once he got off duty and came down for a drink. My screw up stepson picked up on drinking. But Officer John choose to give him a warning. Bert also couldn't wait to remind me that you used to fuck John. Did you do him again whore?" Another sound of a hit connecting to flesh.
"No John just did me a favor." Elaina tried to explain.
"A favor? You filthy fucking whore, you did fuck him." Happy heard hit after hit fall down on his mother. Her words from the night before ran though his head again again on repeat. His hangover quickly seemed to disappear. He burst into the master bedroom.
I thought if I could put up with it just until you left for college it would all be worth it.
"Don't lay another hand on her," He yelled at Brad.
"Well look here. Sonny boy's finally growing a pair, took him long enough." His stepfather sneared as he turned on to Happy.
"I said stay away from her." Happy demanded his hands curling into fists.
"Or what? You going to hit me boy?" Brad asked as he advanced on Happy.
Turned out the past four years of weight lifting, wrestling team and fighting made Happy pretty fit. Eight years of heavy drinking and beating woman hadn't done any favors for Brad. Thirty minutes later Brad lay in a crumpled bloody heap on the floor. The red rage cleared from Happy's vision. He looked around the room at the broken furniture and his mother cowering in the corner.
"Ma, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I snapped." Happy stuttered. He'd never hurt anyone this bad. Never been that angry.
Elaina stood from where she'd been standing.
"What's done is done." She said. "Get him out of here and drop him off out side his bar. Go to Mac's after. He can alibi you. We both know Ronda will be to damn high to remember a thing. I dropped you off there last night because I was too upset after picking you up from the police station. Brad came home, gave me my weekly bruises and left. That's all I know." Elaina looked at the crumpled body of her spouse with disgust. "I'm filing for divorce tomorrow. That bastard will not come near this family again."
"I love you Ma." Happy said, he couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken those words to her.
"Lo se mi'jo." Elaina replied. "Now go."
Several hours later the cops were knocking on Mac's door looking for Happy.
"Officer," Happy said.
"Happy." John said, "Where were you last night."
"I was in your cell Officer, Ma dropped me off here after she pick me up. Said she didn't want to say anything she'd regret and we'd talk later." Happy answered rubbing his hand over his shaved head.
"I'm gonna have to ask if anyone can confirm that." John told him.
"Mac can." Happy answered.
"May I come in?" John asked.
"Na, I'll call him." Happy said. He knew Ronda was lying high on the couch and didn't want the cops seeing that. "Mac come on over here."
"Hi Mac. I'm Officer John. I have to ask you was Happy here all night last night?"
"Yeah sir. His ma dropped him off a bit after midnight. Was here the entire time." Mac answered. He didn't know why Happy needed his help but he knew Hap would explain sooner or later.
"Alright thanks boys." John replied.
"Why you asking Officer." Happy asked as John turned to leave.
"Officer Brad Hensen was found beaten out side the Slaughtered Prince last night." John said, "Of course when we talked to your mother she said she didn't know a thing but she did ask about filing assault charges against him. With the bruises she had those charges shouldn't be to hard to prove."
Happy couldn't say for sure but he could swear he saw John smile at him before he climbed into his patrol car. A few hours later Happy returned home to see his ma icing a black eye.
"I'm sorry Ma." He said as he sat down across from her.
"It's ok my son. We'll be fine I promise." Elaina reached across the table to grab her son's hand.
"I do love you Ma. I was just so angry at you, I thought you were being weak." Happy stuttered trying to explain.
"I know. And you were right I was being weak. I was afraid. Afraid for you. Now I see I should have protected you a long time ago." Elaina told her son.
"It'll be ok Ma, we'll be ok." Happy assured her.
"I know my boy."
That day Happy started to learn that sometimes being strong isn't always obvious. Sometimes strong people appear weak. He discovered that day that his mother was one of the strongest women he knew.