Chapter Two: Blotting
Seven years later, I was a long way from the broken, messed up sixteen year old I had arrived in Charming as. Well, maybe I wasn't any less broken or messed up, but I was better at hiding it. It had been hard, back then, when I first arrived, to feel like I really belonged. But Clay, Gemma, Jax and the club had taken care of me. As promised, they'd become my family. I hardly looked back anymore to what my life had once been.
I worked most days at a tiny diner on the main street in Charming. I did some nights behind the bar at the clubhouse, too. The two things certainly took up my time and kept things interesting. I probably knew more about what was going on in Charming than anybody else. I heard all the gossip from the Mom's and housewives at the diner and I saw all the debauchery that went down at night in the clubhouse. I was the whole town's listening ear and shoulder to cry on. Most of the things I knew, I'd much rather not.
Like, for instance, the fact that the SAMCRO warehouse that'd just been blown up had contained stacks of illegally traded ammunition and guns. I wasn't supposed to know that, of course, but the guy's often forgot I wasn't one of them because I was always around, and things got let slip. I knew the club was in a shitload of trouble now, because they'd all gone to church early. I was left cleaning glasses in the clubhouse while their meeting went on in the back. Idly, I wondered which of the clubs' enemies had been behind it- it was just as likely to be the cops as it was a rival motorcycle club, like the Mayans. Then again, the cops wouldn't blow all that evidence to pieces…
Sighing, I set about tidying up behind the bar, sweeping a pile of bottle caps to one side before searching around for the dustpan. The previous night had been typically wild and it always took hours to set the place right again for it's next round of destruction-by-biker. I'd barely found the dustpan when the clubhouse door burst open. I looked up and was surprised to see Gemma. Usually she looked calm and collected, but there was something then in her face that told me something was wrong.
"Where's Jax? I've been trying to call him," She said.
"Church," I replied, "Why-?"
"Mom?" The door to the back room had opened then and Jax himself appeared, with the other guys in tow. "What is it?"
"I thought she was cleaned up?" I swallowed. I was looking through the gaps in the blinds into the room where Wendy, Jax's ex-wife, was lying in a hospital bed. She had been pregnant with his baby, too, but Gemma had found her passed out with a needle in her arm.
"Question is, where she got the junk," Clay, my Dad, muttered.
"I found these matches next to a bunch of her empty thumb bags," Gemma held the small box up, "Hairy Dog."
"Shit," Dad cursed, "It's gotta be the Nords dealing out of the Dog again." I drifted out of the conversation for a moment as I turned away from where Wendy was lying, closing my eyes and breathing in deeply. I never thought about it anymore, but this story was horribly familiar to me- it brought back the time I'd found my own mother with her own needle in the arm. Only Wendy was alive and Mom had been dead.
"You alright, Little One?" Bobby nudged me, bringing me back to my senses. Bobby 'Elvis' Munson had never been anything but kind to me since the day he'd picked me up from my Mom's old place and helped escort me into Charming. He always called me Little One because of my relatively small stature- although, of course, practically everybody was small next to Bobby.
"Good, thanks," I told him. I was looking at Jax, who had separated himself from the group to talk to a doctor- a pretty, dark-haired woman who seemed familiar, somehow. It took me a moment to place her. Of all the people in the world, it was Tara Knowles, Jax's ex and the love of his life, regardless of his marriage to Wendy.
It was impossible to make out what Tara was telling Jax from where I was stood, but I desperately strained to hear anyway. All I heard was 'genetic', 'tear' and 'operate'. I felt sick to my stomach.
"Hey," Jackson was already leaving. He stopped to look down at me.
"Sorry, kid, I have something I gotta do," He told me.
"I know I just… Is the baby going to be okay?" I asked him quietly. His expression softened slightly.
"His chances aren't good," He admitted quietly, "But they're gonna do their best." I nodded and glanced back to the room where Wendy was.
"I could kill her," I declared angrily. Jax put a hand on my shoulder, looking both serious and amused in equal measure.
"I know," He said, "But please don't."
"You be careful," I added to him warningly. I knew what Jackson could be like; rash, reckless, swayed by emotion. He could tell me one minute not to kill his junkie ex who'd almost killed both herself and his baby, and the next he could be going out to hunt down her dealer and commit a murder of his own.
"Don't worry Little One," Bobby said from my other side, "I have his back." I nodded, smiling. I knew I was being foolish- the club wouldn't let anything happen to Jax. It didn't stop me worrying, though. He may only be my step-brother in name but our bond was like that of birth siblings. I couldn't stand the thought of his good heart getting him into trouble.
"I bet Gemma just loves that Tara's the doctor," I said to Jax, in a last effort to lighten his mood. His mouth twitched up as it almost worked.
"Oh yeah, she loves it," He chuckled.
I headed over to where Dad was standing. Gemma had departed some ways up the corridor with Tara to see the baby.
"You okay?" He asked me, fixing me with his grey stare.
"Yeah," I replied, "Jax told me not to kill Wendy, so..."
"The way she's going, Wendy'll kill Wendy," Dad chuckled. I nodded, casting a glance towards the room Wendy lay unconscious in once more. I could feel Dad watching me but I didn't know what else to say. "It's fight night tonight. Come along, have some fun, take your mind off it. You know everyone will do what they can for Jax and Abel."
"Abel," I repeated the name.
"Your baby nephew, hon," Dad said. I smiled for a second but then the grin faded as anxiety took it's place once more.
"I hope he pulls through," I said, sighing.
"We all do."
Fight night was usually one of the best at the club. It wasn't that I was super into boxing, but it broke up the monotony of the croweaters and sweetbutts crawling all over the guys. Not that they wouldn't be there trying their best, of course, but the guy's focus would mostly be elsewhere.
Still, that night, as much as Dad had told me to enjoy myself, I was finding it pretty hard. Three beers in and I still couldn't help glancing over at Jax every few minutes, wondering how badly this thing with the baby was eating him. I couldn't ask him about it though- I knew it wouldn't get me anywhere. He'd come back from the Hairy Dog unharmed but clearly riled up, then had disappeared into a club meeting. The party was swinging along by the time they all came out.
"Hey," A soft voice interrupted my reverie, "Ten bucks on Happy." I glanced to my left and saw the prospect, Half-Sack, had perched himself on the picnic bench beside me. I may have been staring in the direction of the ring but I hadn't actually been paying attention. Squinting to get a look at their faces, I recognised Happy and Tig.
"You're on," I grinned, shaking the prospect's hand. The guys ribbed Half-Sack a fair bit, but he was at his core a nice guy. He was not as crude as some of the older bikers- not yet, anyway. There was a comfortable silence between us as we both watched the match. I took a sip of my beer as I watched Tig dodge a blow from Happy and ram him in the ribs instead. "You're not gonna have a go?" I indicated the ring.
"Naw, I already lost one ball," Half-Sack joked, and I chuckled.
"You were a soldier, you should give yourself more credit."
"I couldn't take those guys," Half-Sack said self-deprecatingly.
"No, but I bet you could take Juice," We glanced over to where the biker in question was sat. A croweater was half on his lap already,
"Looks like you're gonna win the best," Half-Sack told me. I looked back at the fight. Happy had gotten a good right-hook in on Tig. But then the bigger man punched Happy right on the nose.
"Or not," I added.
"All right, all right, all right!" Bobby called, getting up in the ring and separating the pair, "Step down, step down. Hug it up!" The two embraced each other then, laughing. As usual, it'd been pointless placing a bet because nobody ever really won these 'matches'.
"How about you get me a beer and we'll settle it there?" I asked the prospect, who smiled.
"Deal," He departed to get me a fresh Bud, right as I pushed the empty bottle back onto the table behind me.
"You should watch that one," A voice told me, "Don't wanna give him any ideas." I looked around at Tig. His face was showing signs of bruising around the sides but his blue eyes were as stunning and lively as ever.
"What ideas might they be?" Safe to say, I'd formed a crush on Tig the second I'd met him on the night I'd first come to Charming. As a teenager I'd been unable to form a coherent sentence around the guy and always ended up feeling a total idiot. As an adult, I still ended up feeling like a total idiot but I'd managed to get enough of a grip on myself to actually talk to him. I knew that as Sergeant-at-Arms he was always at the centre of whatever Godforsaken mission SAMCRO was on and usually you wouldn't see him for having his face buried between the legs of some croweater, but even so I couldn't shake off the draw he had on me. There was a sort of allure- and maybe it was sick- of an older, dangerous man with baby blues. Whatever it was, I still got that dumb flutter of butterflies in my stomach around him.
"Hm," Tig eyed me, "You act innocent but I bet you could eat the prospect for dinner. I know your type."
"I have a type now?"
"Yeah, the dark horse type," His eyes glimmered as he perched beside me, fumbling around with his kutte.
"I don't know about that," I shrugged, trying not to notice that his arm brushed mine as he finally sorted out his kutte and swung it around and onto his shoulders.
"Right. So you're not leading the poor boy on?" I was a little surprised at this suggestion. Glancing at Tig, I could see he was joking, but that didn't mean the question didn't bother me. I was constantly being accused of teasing the clubs' hangers on.
"Chance would be a fine thing," I replied, laughing. Because, of course, Tig knew full well that I was in no position to tease any man. The second one got anywhere close to me, the club was there to scare them way off. In the beginning, this had been on Clay and Jax's orders, given the unsavoury types that motorcycle clubs generally attracted. But over the years I was sure it had just become habit. Either way, I'd never managed to actually have a proper boyfriend because the poor assholes were shit-scared to be anywhere close t the wrong side of Clay Morrow. For some reason, my response had grabbed Tig's attention. Perhaps it was the bitter tone to my laughter, because he was contemplating me with an uncharacteristically serious expression.
"How old are you now, Kitten?" He questioned thoughtfully. Just as Bobby, Chibs and Piney always called me 'Little One', Tig had always called me 'Kitten'.
"Twenty-three," I replied. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
"Huh. Where did all those years ago?" I saw him bite his bottom lip as he looked away, apparently lost in thought. Had he really not realised how old I was now? I guessed he'd still always thought of me as the same shy sixteen year old he'd met in this very parking lot.
"I hear when you get older time seems to fly by faster," I commented.
"Ouch. You know how to hurt a fella, don't you?" He asked teasingly, a smirk hitching back onto his lips. Lips I definitely spent far too much time looking at.
"Well, it's true, when you get older..."
"You calling me old, Kitten?" I dodged him as he extended a finger to attempt to poke me in the ribs, moving so I was standing in front of him as opposed to sitting beside him. "I'll have you know I'm in the prime of my life. Maybe I'll show you sometime."
"Don't let Clay hear ye say that," A Scottish voice interrupted us. Both Tig and I laughed.
"Hey Chibs," I greeted him.
"Alright, Little One," He nodded to me, "Is this nasty man giving you trouble?"
"Nothing I can't handle," I quipped. Chibs nodded approvingly.
"Aye, that I can believe, lass. Yer boyfriend's on 'is way now, anyway." I turned to see Half-Sack finally returning with my beer.
"If you haven't had enough," Tig added dutifully. I was about to question this when I noticed that Dad had come over to join us. I rolled my eyes.
"I'm sure I'll survive," Dad, Chibs and Half-Sack all laughed as I accepted my beer. "Where's Jax?" I addressed Clay.
"He went to see Wendy. They have some shit to sort out." I nodded, believing that. Where did you even begin to discuss the sequence of events that led to you almost losing your son because your wife took heroin whilst pregnant? I felt the same cloying sickness in my stomach as I had in the hospital, and again I had the same flashback to the sight of my mother's dead body passed out on the beige tiles of the kitchen. These memories certainly weren't welcome ones.
"I can take you home if you can't handle it after all, Kitten," Tig offered, and I noticed that his blue eyes were observing my expression. I rearranged my face into the nonchalant mask that I had learned to adopt around bikers. Dad and Chibs were talking about something else whilst Half-Sack was busy mooning after some croweater nearby.
"I've not even started yet," I toasted him before tilting my head back to take an enormous gulp of beer. I'd need something stronger if I wanted to blot out the past.
A/N: Two chapters in one day, I just really wanted to get stuck into the story!
