Author's Note: It's been a long time since I did this, so I'm pretty rusty but I'd love to know what you think ... Just in case there's any confusion, this isn't linked to any of my previous stories and it's kinda retro SOA, picking up post-Call Of Duty and flitting back over the years. Thanks for reading! T x

Ashes
Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams...
- SA Sachs

Prologue

Lifting his head from his hands, Jax Teller signalled for another shot of whiskey from the hangaround behind the bar and then lifted it in a weary toast. "Kozik," he sighed, pain and anger and guilt at the loss of yet another of his brothers etched across his face. "Ride free, bro."

An uneasy silence fell over the already sombre clubhouse as those gathered simply raised their glasses in a final toast to their fallen brother. The smell of sweat, fear and burning flesh still seemed to cling to their nostrils.

Chibs clapped a hand to their young vice-president's shoulders with a sigh. "Ah, Jacky-boy, he knew the risks. And at least it was quick. Painless. Koz woulda been glad for that."

Jax knew the Scot meant well, but still he glowered at him as he lifted his head from his hands and signalled to the hangaround for another shot of whiskey. Anything to numb the pain and the anger and, most of all, the guilt that had settled heavy on his shoulders. "Really?" he all but snarled. "You think he'd be glad to be blown sky-fucking-high? Because, way I see it, that's gonna really ruin your whole goddamn day!"

But just as swiftly as his temper had flared, his shoulders slumped again and he shook his head, raking a shaky hand through his blond hair. "This shit's on me, man. No one else. He was a damn good soldier. And he shouldn't have fucking gone out like that. I led him into that."

"Can't think like that, lad," Chibs said, reaching out to tilt his younger brother's face up with one rough hand. "Look at me, Jacky – you led the rest o' us back out. Gotta focus on that. What's done is done."

"He got anyone other than that brother of his?" Jax asked finally.

"Not that I-"

From the seat in the corner, Tig cleared his throat – only to draw a sharp look from Happy. It didn't go unnoticed.

"What?" Chibs frowned, impatience getting the better of him. "Cat got your fuckin' tongues?"

"She should at least know," the curly-haired sergeant muttered, almost petulantly and more to himself than to anyone else. "Ain't right after everything, her not knowing ..."

"Fuck, that's rich coming from you. You gonna be the one to tell her?" Happy demanded from across the room. "Because I dunno what she'd take worse, man – the news, or your ass showing up on her doorstep."

"Someone wanna tell me what the fuck you guys are talking about?"

At Jax's irritated interruption, the pair exchanged glances before Tig seemed to steel himself to see out whatever it was he thought lay ahead.

"Jenn," he said. "Jennifer James. Kozik's girl."

One

Ten years earlier

Waking to the feel of long silky hair tickling his bare chest, the biker threw an arm over his eyes to block out the intruding early morning light, but still managed to reach out with his free hand to find soft, smooth skin. "Mornin'," he drawled, his voice rough with sleep. "You're up early."

"Mmm, so are you," came the suggestive response, making him grin and crack open an eye as he felt hips rolling against his even with the covers between them. "Thought I might have worn you out."

Opening his eyes fully with a smirk at that, he shook his head and just drank in the sight of her straddling him as he lay back against the pillows and let his fingers lazily caress her bare thighs. This, this was just the perfect icing on a damn good cake – a celebration of a milestone he'd once thought he'd never see. Besides, he was an outlaw, not a monk. He was allowed some vices and, right now, she was arguably the most sinful one he had left.

"See something you like, tough guy?" the girl teased, that mane of wavy dyed-red hair tumbling down to hide her breasts until she flicked it back as if in invitation and sent his hands sliding up over her ribs to cup the firm mounds. "Sure feels that way ..."

"Fuck, Jenn," he groaned, feeling the heat of her against his already rock-hard cock and shifting more to try to make the most of the delicious friction than to actually achieve the by-product of a glance at the alarm clock on the night-stand. "Just gone seven. You tryin' to kill me, doll?"

"Nuh-uh," she said, shaking her head as her best little-girl pout faded into a naughty grin and she leaned down to trail hot kisses across his chest. "But hey, be a helluva way to go, huh?"

He loved the sound of her laughter as he grabbed her and pulled her in for a long kiss, tugging the tangled sheets out from between them and swiftly pinning her naked curves below him. His sexy little firecracker. Eight feet of trouble in a tight little five-foot-something package, with her name scrawled on his neck in cursive ink.

"I'm so proud of you," she whispered suddenly, those piercing green eyes softening and her arms slipping around his neck, her fingers toying with the sleep-tousled blond spikes of his hair. "Six months clean, Koz. Six months."

And if admittedly his MC was the real reason to make some goddamn changes and learn to fucking live by them, then she was definitely an added incentive. A year ago, he never would have believed he'd make it. Not without ending up in either prison or a grave or, at the very least, losing his patch. And yet here he was. Battle-scarred, but whole. No blacked-out ink on his back. No needle in his arm. Clean and with his leather cut hung at the foot of the bed he shared with a crazy-gorgeous, albeit dangerously flawed, dancer nearly ten years his junior.

Jenn's hand caressed the scruff of his cheek as she gazed up at him and he turned his head to press a soft kiss and then another into her palm. He would have trailed his lips right up her arm, savouring the faint scent of her cocoa butter body lotion, but she pulled away before he got too far past the delicate underside of her wrist. Before he could reach the lingering track marks that marred the skin below her elbow.

He knew how hard this was for her. He'd been there after all.

"Hey, look at me," he said, refusing to let her turn her flushed face from him. "JJ, look at me. You'll get there too, babe. If I can do it, you can absolutely do it. You with me?"

"I ... I want to," she said, tears threatening and her voice so low he almost didn't hear the words. "But ... I don't know if I can ..."

"You can," Kozik insisted. "You can do anything you set your mind to, doll. Any-fucking-thing. You're strong. Stronger than you know."

"Am I?" she questioned, doubt in those too-bright eyes.

"Handle my shit, don't ya?" he said, shooting her a grin as he leaned down to claim her mouth with his again.

But her hands were on his chest, putting space between them as reality threatened the sanctuary they had created under the covers. "Six weeks isn't six months, Koz."

"No," he admitted, his lips trailing along her jaw and down her throat. "No, it ain't." His hand grazed down her side, slipping beneath one toned thigh and down to the back of her knee to guide her leg up and over his hip. "But it ain't six days either, and I know there was a time that felt impossible too."

"Every day feels impossible. Every single fucking day," she said, a flare of frustrated anger following the rare moment of sheer open vulnerability. She didn't often let her guard down, not even with him.

Oh, they fucked and they fought all right. She could swear up a storm and he'd punched more than his share of walls, and there probably wasn't a surface in his apartment that they hadn't made up on. But lust and rage were easier to vent than fear or pain or sadness. And getting angry was definitely easier than admitting to a struggle just to get by. They were both good at bottling that shit up.

Or at least they liked to think they were, when really deep down they both knew that was just the hidden fuel for the fire that could flare between them.

"I feel like I'm drowning," Jenn said softly, her gaze only flickering to his and then away. "Every day."

Kozik knew what it must have cost her to admit that and he reached out to brush a stray lock of that fiery hair back from her face, propped over her on one elbow. "Sweetheart ..."

"I don't want to drag you back down," she managed, through fresh tears that welled up clearly against her will. "But I'm drowning, Koz – and you're the only thing keeping me from going right under. I don't think I can hold on."

"Jesus, Jenn ..."

Her confession hit him like a slug in the gut. He never could stand seeing her hurt – and fuck knows, he'd had plenty of practice. But even then, he was determined to get her through it. To be strong enough for them both.

He could do it.

He could.

Six months later

"You dumb son of a motherfucking bitch! I oughta revive you just long enough to kill your no-good, junkie ass myself. I swear, Kozik, if you die on me ... Don't you fucking dare die on me, you stupid, stupid bastard!"

But Tig Trager's furious rant was lost on its audience. Neither his unconscious one-time prospect, nor the babbling, terrified girl strung-out in the corner, really heard a word of it. He would have slapped the hysterics out of the silly little bitch right then if he could have reached, but he had his hands full unceremoniously yanking the used needle out of his brother's arm and pulling away the leather belt wrapped around his bicep. It was all he could do to resist the urge to throttle him with it and throw it aside to try resuscitating him instead.

"Motherfucker!" he bit out, wild blue eyes taking in the state of the place even as he pounded on Kozik's chest. How had things slipped back so badly and so under the radar in so little time? "You! Yeah, you, Red – who the fuck else you think I'm talking to? Get your scrawny little ass over here. Fucking move!"

The girl scuttled closer, still clearly spun out on something, all wide-eyed and trembling and with her uncontrollable sobs making her breath hitch in her chest. "If he ... If he dies ..."

"It'll be on your conscience, you devious little whore," Tig hissed. "I mean it, Jenn. If he dies, you are done. You are so fucking done. Now, quit snivelling because you will get your shit together and you will help me fix this clusterfuck, you hear me? Do you fucking hear me?"

To be honest, he was a little surprised himself when she nodded in the face of him screaming at her. Maybe Koz was right and she was a tough broad underneath it all.

Too bad she was still a coke-snorting, H-injecting, toxic little bitch to boot ...