When she wakes, Brooke is warm - too warm, the kind of warm that happens when the blanket's been tucked into the bed frame too tight and can't get any air in. She feels for a moment that she's being suffocated, that she can't breathe, her hands immediately swatting at whatever is too tight around her. She, who had slept alone for so many years, doesn't know what she's feeling as she fumbles with the heavy object on top of her ribs, only understanding it when she opens up her hazel eyes to find him beside her.
Or really, surrounding her. At that moment, Jax is the vine and Brooke is an old Victorian home, his body wrapped around her in every way possible. His lips are pressed into the back of her hair, his strong and muscular arm wrapped around her petite waist, and the other lays beneath her head as some sort of makeshift prop beneath her pillow. Jax is completely and utterly tethered to her in that moment as she quietly rolls over in his arms and drinks him in.
His brow, for the first time in the short span of time they've known each other, is unfurrowed and unwrinkled, smoothed by his deep slumber. His lips now graze her forehead as she gazes upon him, her small hand reaching up and stroking the rough stubble that covers his cheeks. He's handsome, the kind of handsome that could stop you in the street if you were actually paying attention, and he's so completely serene as they lay in each other's arms that she wonders when he was this peaceful before this moment. Had it been with Tara, when he would fall asleep with her in his arms and their world complete? Had it been that long since the man that lays before her had gotten a decent night of sleep? Brooke can't help but feel pride surge through her, that her touch had been gentle enough to make him look as he does, an utterly unburdened man stripped bare before her eyes.
She longs to wake him, to she him give her the half moon grin that she's become such a junkie for, to snuggle deeper into his chest and just breathe in his scent. During the day, it's a combination of cigarette smoke and bike grease, and even then Brooke can't get enough of it - but now, there's a lingering scent of cinnamon from the whiskey he had drank the night prior, and fresh air from the window that he'd cracked open at some point during the night. She wonders how long they can lay like this, with her watching him sleep so soundly. It's a sight that so rare that she feels as if she's discovered a new country right here in his bedroom.
But Brooke can feel the chaos creeping in, literally hear it as someone starts yelling downstairs - one is a familiar voice, Rachel howling at the top of her lungs, but the other is unfamiliar, filled with rage. There's a thundering beneath them, and before she can even say anything, Jax's blue eyes shoot open and his body is rising from the bed, immediately into fight or flight mode. Had he learned that over time, or had he just been born to jump to attention whenever the situation demanded it?
"How long has that been going on?" He asks her as he throws on a shirt, almost accusingly so, as if she had been keeping him from whatever impending doom had amassed beneath them.
Brooke shrugs carelessly, sitting up in the bed as she hears something like a chair breaking. "It just started, I was about to wake you bu-"
"Whatever happens, you stay in that bed until I come through that door. You understand me?" Jax growls as he looks down at her darkly, pointing to where she lays in the sheets.
She's about to say yes, to be fine with him being all growly and possessively protective - she finds it pretty hot that he's telling her to stay in his bed until he comes and find her, her mind instantly moving to certain fantasies that have played in her head during the midnight hours - when she hears a gunshot crack through the tornado beneath them directly before someone starts screaming bloody murder, and then all of their collective thinking goes out the window when she jumps out of the bed
They both go running down the stairs, Jax scolding Brooke for not being more careful on her injured knee the whole way and her snapping at him to fuck off as they come barreling into the lower level, finding Rachel hiding behind the bar and howling for dear life at the top of her lungs.
"She fucking shot at me! The crazy bitch shot at me because I told her she couldn't go upstairs!" Rachel hisses menacingly, the brunette hurriedly walking over to her side as Jax heads to the other party. "Fucking old bat!"
Across from them, an older woman with long graying curls holds a handgun in her shaky grip, screaming at Jax about how this is her house and no one can tell her where and when she can go somewhere, or who she can even see. He's trying to calm her down, ripping the gun from her hands and shoving it into the waistband of his jeans as he attempts to soothe the monstrosity, when Brooke hears him say it.
"Jesus fuck, Gemma! You can't just shoot someone because they won't let you into my room!"
Gemma.
Jax's mother stands across from her, wild eyed and shoving her son with her tiny ineffectual fists, reckless in her behavior. She is a hurricane, violently thrashing about in their shared space as he tries to get a handle on the situation, a hideously powerful force of nature that Brooke is sure she'll come to blows with before the day is done. She's cursing so loudly that it would make a sailor blush as Jax tries to restrain her, until the two women lock eyes.
"I'm trying to find a way to avoid my mom."
"I think my mother, Gemma, might have killed my wife."
"I don't want her near you."
Brooke can barely breathe as the woman across from her stares at her, evaluating her with nothing short of jealous rage as Jax stands between them. He is her bodyguard in that moment, keeping her safe from Gemma as he steps in front of her gaze. His hands are on her arms, keeping her from scrutinizing her any longer. He doesn't turn, doesn't tell her to get the hell out, simply standing between them.
Her face gaunt and filled with worry, she watches the two of them, sees the two Teller's come to verbally abusive blows. She's not once seen Jax this livid, where he's almost shaking with anger. His voice is no longer a yell but a roar, the kind of volume that hold true weight behind it, where it does more damage than any punch he could've thrown.
Rachel's pale, too pale for her liking as Brooke presses another bar rag against her forehead, trying to calm her down, unsure of what to do as Jax begins a screaming match with his mother. Cold sweat covers her dearest friend, and she knows the signs of shock when she sees it. They've been in too many fights, too many unsure situations such as this for her not to know.
"We shouldn't be here, Brooke." The redhead murmurs unsteadily as she looks down at her hand, swaying ever so slightly. Brooke's eyes follow her gaze, and her face goes pale in horror as she sees what Rachel has spotted. Thick dark blood, and a decent amount of it, pours from Rachel's lower left side, and the blossoming spot on her shirt forces her into the realizations that it's far too much for anyone here to patch her up.
"Jesus fuck, Rachel. Why didn't you say anything!" She chastises as the Rachel sinks into her arms, Brooke's eyes wide with fear as she looks to Jax for help, finding him fighting with Gemma. "Jax!" She yells, but her words go unheard, bouncing off their screaming. Brooke can't move, suddenly frozen. She doesn't know what do to, how to do it, if she even can go to a hospital without getting everyone in some kind of trouble - but at this point, she doesn't care if she does. When it comes to fight or flight, Brooke knows to run like hell.
Like an answer to her prayers, Chibs comes running in the side door from the shop, reaching for the gun holstered at his side. It's not until he and Brooke make eye contact, when he sees the mix of guilt and shame in her eyes, that he knows that the blood that covers her hands isn't her's. His reaction visibly relaxes, and the Scotsman is at her their side in mere seconds. "What the hell happened here?"
"We need to get to the hospital, Chibs. There's too much blood, too much...just too much." Brooke whispers breathlessly, and she follows his lead as Chibs picks Rachel up and carries her shaking best friend to the club's back door. They don't have time to sit around for the club doctor from two towns over, and she can see that he has no way to fix it on his own.
She looks back when they reach the door, Jax completely and utterly oblivious to what's going on as they bicker like an old married couple. She doesn't want to leave him, every fiber of her being pulling her to him like gravity. But this is Rachel, this is family. Jax can handle himself. After all, he's not her's, not by a long shot.
He's Tara's. He's Gemma's. He's the club's.
He's anything but her's.
Brooke runs out the door to the SUV, and this time, she doesn't bother looking back.
- x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x -
"...no one is going to tell me when I can go up see my son, definitely not some ginger bread tramp tending bar!" Gemma screams at him, her bony finger right up in his face. She loves to do this, to really bug the shit out of him when he just wants her to walk out the door and never come back. His mom's specialty is pushing buttons, and she knows the location of every one of his.
"You have no mother fucking right to do this, Gemma." Jax snarls at her, barely able to keep his composure.
He wants to kill her. He wants to pull the twenty two from the waistband of his pants, and shoot her right here and now. Put her out of the misery that she demands everyone else be in with her, put her down like the rabid animal that she's become. Maybe it's because she doesn't have Clay to beat on anymore, to take her wrath and insanity. Jax doesn't know, but he's so tired of her and all her shit that he just wants to give it up. For a moment, he even wonders if he should've let Clay kill her when he'd beaten her half to shit.
"She told me I couldn't see my son, who I found out hasn't been home to see his own children in over two weeks. 'Scuse me for fuckin' worrying about you."
The mention of Abel and Thomas makes his blood boil, blue eyes suddenly filled with nothing short of madness. "My children are none of your concern."
"And apparently they aren't yours either."
"You watch your fucking mouth!" Jax yells at the top of his lungs right at her, the chains dangerously loosening on his temper.
She doesn't even flinch, the tough old broad that she is. She's always been this way, this invincible woman, and he's grown tired of it. "You know that Thomas and Abel ask about you every day, while you're here bangin' some brown haired hussy that looks an awful lot like your dead wife."
His hand is around her neck, slamming her into the wall before he can even stop himself. Jax's grip tightens around her leathery skin, barely able to stop himself from breaking her neck. He's so close to the edge, so close that he can taste it. "You don't know shit about her, and don't you get within two fucking feet of my children again." He seethes through gritted teeth, tempted to choke her out right then and there. "Or I will put a bullet right between your eyes just for what I think you did to Tara."
She's gasping for air, struggling against his hands and slamming her fists against his chest. Jax doesn't even know how to stop, or if he will. He can't pull himself back anymore, not after all of the shit that's happened to him. There's too much darkness, the pitch black shade of his life threatening to swallow him up whole and never let him go back.
Until he hears the squeal of tires in the parking lot.
It's then that his head whips around to just barely see the club's truck skidding out onto the street, his hands dropping from her neck as he goes sprinting out the door of the clubhouse and watches the only thing keeping him from truly hurting someone sitting in the back seat. He can still hear her shrieking at whoever's driving, smell the burning rubber as his hands go to the top of his head.
It's then that he sees the blood, splotches of it staining the pavement. Then that he realizes that Brooke and Rachel are gone, that Chibs isn't in the shop anymore, and that he's majorly fucked up this time.
"Jesus fucking Christ." He mutters to no one other than himself as his mother goes running out the front door in a fit of coughing, and he doesn't even bother to go after her. For now, he has bigger issues than a worn out woman on a murder spree.
- x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x -
"I'm not blaming you, but this really fucking sucks." Rachel chokes out, her teeth clenched tight while a nurse puts an IV in her arm. She's never been one for needles, Brooke remembers as she holds her hand tightly, letting her squeeze the ever loving hell out of it until the line is in.
They're in the emergency room of Charming Presbyterian, despite every single one of Chibs' objections to it. Jax would be pissed, someone would ask questions, the police would have to be called. There were so many reasons why they should've have come there, but there was just too much blood, so much of it and Brooke didn't know where else to go. She'd screamed at him until he finally turned towards the hospital, and Chibs had carried Rachel all the way in to the gurney. He's a gentleman that way, she thinks, and she's so grateful for his help that she can't even find the words.
Brooke nods, a small smile on her lips as she smooths her free hand over the top of Rachel's head. It's so rare to see her like this, to see her as anything other than the take-no-prisoner's no-nonsense woman that Brooke has known her as. Rachel's tough as nails, and seeing her like this reminds Brooke of where they actually are.
This isn't home. This isn't safe. Not by a long shot.
"These doctors are going to take really good care of you, Rachel." She murmurs as soothingly as she can, her fingers deftly smoothing her friend's forehead, which is so screwed up in pain that it looks like she's ninety seven. "Quit doing that with your face. You'll get wrinkles."
"Fuck you, you old slut."
"At least I'll be an old slut with nice skin." Brooke says with a small laugh.
"Miss Davis, we're going to have to take her to surgery. We need you to leave the room so we can get her up to the operating room."
"Brooke, this isn't going to be pretty. The bullet's not through and through." Chibs murmurs. The words that he wants to say go unsaid, because Brooke already knows: they can't help Rachel and keep Brooke calm. They need to be able to work, to fix her without her getting in the way. And so she nods before pressing a soft kiss to Rachel's forehead, smiling as she looks down at her.
"You just yell and I'll come running, okay?" Brooke says softly, running her fingers through her friend's hair before taking another step backwards, turning to a nearby nurse. "She's going to refuse pain medication, she's allergic to penicillin and aspirin, and I get informed every hour. If you think that I'm bad now, try keeping me out of the loop."
The nurse nods as she hangs a bag of fluids, the understanding of how crazy she would be there in the woman's eyes.
She watches as Rachel nods slowly, the pain kicking in with a loud groan as Brooke moves to the doorway, a silent promise between the two of them as Chibs takes her arm, leading her out. She's kicking herself for not noticing it sooner, for missing something that could potentially kill Rachel if they weren't careful. They were supposed to take care of each other, and Brooke feels like a complete and utter failure.
"She's going to be fine, lass." The Scot murmurs against her hair as she leans against him. "She's one tough broad, that girl. Refusing pain meds? That's ballsy."
"She's a drug addict in recovery, she knows better." Brooke murmurs as she leans into him heavily, her knee practically howling in pain as she limps over to the chair that Chibs leads her to, collapsing into the seat.
"That's it, love. Jus' have a little sit with me."
But she can't just sit, not with how she's feeling, with the anger that's seeping from her pores like a hangover she can't sweat out. She's so goddamn angry at Jax that she could scream, all memory of their morning together utterly destroyed in the wake of all of this. He should have turned around, he should've fucking listened and then maybe they could've just called the doctor, not wound up in the hospital.
"Brooke?"
"Hmm?" She answers, her hands running through her long locks. She feels exhausted, drained from the events, but she can't close her eyes just yet.
Chibs shifts behind her, his arm wrapped around her chair. He's still holding her hand, perhaps to keep her calm or to keep her from forcing her into the operating room with Rachel, of which she's not sure. "I was sayin' that we should get your knee looked at while we're here. Get an MRI to be safe, since you were movin' around a bit too much for my liking."
"You'll do that?" Brooke asks with a raised eyebrow, surprised to say the least.
"Not for me, they won't. But for you?" He scoffs with a grin, reaching out and stroking her cheek gently. His touch, soft and kind, comforts her like a warm blanket. "That gorgeous masterpiece of a face could move mountains, Brookie. Make the devil cry for salvation, even."
Brooke shakes her head, letting out a soft laugh. "You're pretty charming when you want to be, Chibs."
"That's what they tell me, lassie."
She allows him to help her limp over to the desk, calmly explaining to the nurse that she'd taken a spill while getting her friend in on an already injured knee, telling the woman her name - well, at least her first name - and other various information. Chibs gives her his last name at the last minute, seeing her panic when she's about to give her own last name, becoming Brooke Telford as she smiles and plays into it. The nurse raises her eyebrows at the lie, about to question where the cast was from, when a wave of recognition hits her face.
"You sure look a lot like that woman from Clothes Over Bro's that went missing."
Brooke's face pales at the sound of her own name in association with her old company, but she does what needs to be done.
"Oh, don't worry. I'm not her. My father here can tell you that. I just lost track of my ID in all of the craziness. Shootings and all, we're not really used to that sort of thing." She lies weakly, casually glancing over at Chibs as he stands beside her. She's grateful for the support, but that doesn't stop worry from seeping into her bones as the nurse formally checks her in.
She knows what someone just saying her old name means, what being on the patient list of this hospital under an alias is going to bring to Charming. She and Rachel had known that they couldn't outrun it forever, the fame and the cameras and the weight of the world. Maybe she's known since the night that Jax had found her, that their running wouldn't last much longer.
As they lead Brooke back to the exam room, Chibs following her like the loyal friend that he is, she knows that Charming will never be the same after this, and she's not sure if she's ready for it.
"Brookie, you're white as a ghost. Y'sure you're alright?"
Chibs' voice drags her from her thoughts for a moment, unable to find the right words to express how she's feeling. She wants to tell him how sorry she is for what's coming, that it's all because of her, but she doesn't. Brooke manages to get a few words out, asking Chibs to grab her make up and the new clothing that Jax had bought her and to come straight back here, that she just needs something decent beside Jax's t-shirt and shorts. He doesn't ask questions, something that she's sure is due to Jax's usual behavior of not wanting people to ask him for explanations, and he's gone after pressing a soft kiss to the side of her head.
And then she sees him.
Jax barrels into the emergency room waiting area from the doors on the opposite side of the building from Chibs, barely visible to her as she walks away from him, her pale expression turning to ice as she does. Brooke should've known that he would show up, that he would be concerned after seeing the blood in the clubhouse. But Brooke just keeps walking to the exam room as she hears him demand to know where she and Rachel are, suddenly feeling like this is her death march.
Maybe because for her, it is. Or maybe it's just the death of her and Jax. She's not sure, but the pain that sets in tells her that no matter what, it's really going to hurt.
- x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x -
"If you don't tell me where she is, I swear to God..."
"Mr. Teller, if you don't calm down I'll be forced to call the sheriff's department!"
Jax is frantic as he stands at the visitor's desk of the emergency room, slamming his palms against the counter as he tries to keep himself in check. The last time he was here...it had been Tara, identifying her body for the second time in the morgue on the lowest level. Maybe that's why he's so upset, pacing back and forth as he tries to calm himself down, the nurses eyeing him warily. All they're willing to tell him is that Brooke Telford has been taken to an exam room, while one Rachel Gattina is being prepped for surgery to have her bullet wound treated.
He's not surprised that Chibs had given Brooke his last name, given the secrecy that she'd had with him. It had been a miracle that she had opened up to Jax as much as she had. He feels awful, like there's an elephant sitting on his chest as he tries to remember how to breathe evenly. The entire time that he's known Brooke, he's never not known where she was, not been within a floor of her. He's always close to her, always within reach, and to be away from the woman that he's grown to care for, it's the most painful thing he's felt in a long time. Jax wants to rip open every door, howl out her name like it's a sacred prayer, search every single inch of this place until he finds her. Even if it means just standing in the room while they check her over, he doesn't care. He just needs to be near her, and he feels like a fucking idiot for not listening to her when she'd been screaming his name.
He can hear it now, the jagged cry that had escaped her lips while he had been dealing with his mother, no longer blocking everything else out on a hunt for information on how his wife had died. It nearly shatters what little of a heart he has left as he paces back and forth, every single person in the waiting room watching him as he does so. He's an asshole, a fucking self centered prick, and he wants to apologize with all of his might. He wants to go back in time and never get out of bed with her. He wants to be back under the covers, Brooke's warm body in his arms, sleeping more soundly than he has in months. He wants to take care of her, to keep her safe, to let her get close. He wants all the things that he shouldn't want, and it's crippling him.
"Mr. Teller?"
The nurse calls his name from the station, and he rushes over. He doesn't say a word, he just stands and listens.
"Miss Gattina would like to see you, and she would also like me to inform you that Miss Telford was not injured in the accident. You can follow me to prep, we only have a few moments before they take her back to surgery."
He nods wordlessly, still getting used to the formality of the girls' last names - even though Brooke's isn't even real. He wonders why they hadn't told him who they were, given him all of the information, but he lets it go as he follows the nurse to a nearby room.
Rachel looks worried, her normally tanned skin looking ghostly. They've got her hooked up to a few IV's, a bag of blood and something he's sure is giving her the glazed over look that she had on her face. When she looks at him, when her face hardens with anger rushing into it, he knows that she's refused the pain meds and that he's in for a ripping.
"Your mom is a one crazy bitch." She snaps, her brown eyes afire with her rage.
Jax would love to be able to tell her to fuck off, that of course that wasn't true, but he can't. Rachel is one hundred percent right when it comes to Gemma, and he's sure that Brooke is thinking the same thing. He's sure that they're both questioning why the club had even taken them in.
"Sit down." Rachel commands.
Jax obeys, not knowing what else to do in his silent stupor. He can't believe how foolish he had been, how insane it was that he had just thought his mother was staying longer at his grandfather's home. Of course she would try and surprise him, try to catch him off guard. She's smarter than to let herself be predictable in her madness.
"I need you..." She pauses, brushing a few stray hairs away from her face, her movements sluggish from the pain. "There's something you need to know about Brooke."
Jax stays quiet, not knowing quite what to say as Rachel struggles to sit up.
"Brooke's been classified as a missing person for over a year by the Los Angeles Police Department. The media has assumed that she's been dead for at least six months."
You're not the only one with a fucked up mom, Jax.
When her life went to shit, I was the emotional crutch that she needed.
No one's been this good to her in years, let alone a man.
It suddenly all makes sense to Jax as he reels from the information that Rachel's just provided, whether her loose lips came from the trauma or otherwise not mattering in that moment. The secrecy about who they were, the fact that no one had come looking for Brooke aside from the redhead, Rachel's defensive actions whenever taking Brooke to a hospital was brought up. It all made sense. They had been hiding from everyone, coasting from town to town. Rachel had protected Brooke from the media, and in return, she must've bankrolled the entire operation.
"She told me about the company. About her mom, what she did to her." Jax manages to get out, thinking back to the diner. The Brooke that he had seen then is so open, so unwavering in her need to tell him who she was. But there were things that he was noticing about her words now, the fact that she never told him what the company's name was, swearing up and down that she could never go back, that she could only go forward.
"Victoria is the least of her problems if the media finds out that Brooke is checked into the hospital, and they will because someone's bound to recognize her. They're vultures, Jax." Rachel breathes out, her pressure bandages restraining her body. "They'll come to find out what the story is, to pick her bones. She must have thought that Charming was small enough that she would be safe from them. And the second that they see that it's actually her..."
"She'll be walking into an ambush." He murmurs, shaking his head as he realizes exactly whats to come.
"They'll dig up every nasty secret, Jax. Every guy she's slept with, every bartender who served her a drink. And then..."
It hits him like a freight train, visions of Brooke lying on the pavement surrounded by pools of blood. It's been their secret, the club's burden to carry - which they'd been more than willing to do. But Jax knew all too well what the temptation of money could do to a club, how it could tear its members apart and take no prisoners. It's what the cartel had done to them, rip their club apart until they could just barely put it back together.
"Tell me what I need to do." Jax manages to heave out, his brow furrowed in pain as the vivid memories of the aftermath of Brooke's attack play in his mind. "Tell me what to do, and I'll do it."
Rachel laughs, her voice bitter and filled with hate. "There's nothing you can do now, Jax. You just have to protect her. Be the knight in shining armor that she thinks you are. Get her out of this hospital they second they patch her up."
"She won't leave without you."
A nurse appears in the doorway in sterile green hospital scrubs, walking over to Rachel's bedside and raising the handrails. "Miss Gattina, we have to go. The operating room is ready for you."
Rachel nods warily, looking back over at him with hazy eyes fill with tears. "Make her. You have to make her leave me." The finality in Rachel's tone settles the conversation, settles the issues that have swirling around the room. "Just tell her I love her, okay? Tell that she has to do this for me, and that I love her."
She's doing the right thing, she tells herself as Jax nods and the nurse pushes her out of her room and towards the operating room. She's knows she's doing the right thing for Brooke by getting her out of here, even if it means separating the two of them for the first time in years. As the tears settle in and streak down her cheeks, Rachel tells herself that over and over again, that Jax will take care of Brooke and that she'll be perfectly fine, that she comes first after everything that she's been through.
They'll all be okay, she tells herself as the nurse gets her into the operating room, watching as the doctor puts the mask over her face and tells her to count back from ten.
Even if it hurts like hell, they'll all be okay.