Early the next morning, the guys filed into the chapel at Scoops and took their seats. Chibs, sitting in the president's chair at the head of the table and staring at the pictures on the wall, didn't acknowledge them. He only turned his attention away from the pictures when Quinn spoke up.
"Jesus, boss. Did you sleep at all?"
Chibs' neck cracked as he raised his head and looked around. No, he hadn't slept. He'd gone straight to the clubhouse after leaving Hap to clean up the last of the evidence from the barn, needing to think. Though his thinking hadn't gotten him any further in any direction; he still saw no way out of the mess he'd dragged them into.
Tig's empty chair to his left was a silent accusation of how badly he'd fucked up. He'd tried to do right: by Jackie; by his brothers. Instead, he'd likely blown the whole thing and brought about the annihilation of his club. And Jax had warned him to watch his position with Jarry—Not too close, brother—but he hadn't listened, had he?
He rubbed his jaw, feeling his palm rasp over day-old stubble. "I'm sorry, lads." His voice was scratchy. The expressions in the four pairs of eyes fixed on him ranged from curious to concerned. Happy was the only one not looking at him, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall and his expression blank, although a muscle was twitching in his jaw. He'd evidently not let on he had any idea what was going on, leaving it to Chibs to drag the coals out of the fire. Rightly so; Chibs had been the one to build the damn thing and then pour gasoline on to it, after all. Chibs cleared his throat. "I may have bollocksed it all up."
His eye was drawn once again to the photos on the wall. Jax had always been the strategist: a chess player who could think a dozen moves ahead and make sure all the pieces on the board did what he wanted. Chibs didn't have that talent. All he had was honesty—or brutal violence. Until he heard again from Jarry, he couldn't dare hope the first had bought him any credit at all, and he didn't want to resort to the latter for a solution. The club had seen enough bloodshed already.
Was he gonna be the president who finally brought Samcro down? After they'd survived JT's murder, Clay's betrayal, and Jax's misdirected vengeance? And all because he had wanted to be the kind of man for Jarry he'd failed to be for Fi and Kerrianne? Provider, protector…. He scoffed inwardly. Christ, he was a fool. If there was ever a woman didn't need his help….
"What're you talking about?" T.O. was first to speak, when Chibs remained silent for too long. "What happened? All we know is you and Tig got picked up." T.O. hadn't been in the thick of things with the Chinese; he'd only seen it go down from the fringes. He had no idea how bad things could get.
"I—."
From the store below came the sounds of a door slamming, followed by heavy boots on the stairs. Chibs closed his eyes. Was Jarry making her move?
"Starting without me, boys?"
Chibs' eyes flew open again, to see a grinning Tig looming in the doorway. With a cheer of welcome, the rest of the guys jumped up to man-hug him and slap his shoulders, everyone beaming and shouting rude comments. Chibs whistled out a breath, only now realizing he'd heard just a single pair of feet and not the full SWAT team he had been expecting.
He turned in his seat, not able to resist smiling a little, and took a closer look at his VP. Tig looked slightly the worse for the wear after a night in a holding cell—cheeks shaded with stubble, clothes rumpled, his hair in more disarray than usual—but otherwise surprisingly cheerful.
He passed behind Chibs on his way to his own chair. "She let you go?" Chibs asked, craning his neck. He could still hardly believe Tig was free.
"Yeah." Tig slipped into place. "Eglee did. Showed up this morning to let me out. Said all charges were dropped."
"Sweet Jesus." Chibs shoved his chair back from the table and, remaining seated, bent forward, hands still curled around the table's edge and arms stretched out. Mother of Christ, she'd come through; she'd buried the case. Looked like they were in the clear after all.
The realization stole his breath away and left him dizzy with relief. Maybe he hadn't fucked up as badly as he'd thought. He took several deep breaths, his gaze trained on his knees but not really seeing anything.
"Uh, anyone care to fill the rest of us in?" Montez piped up from his seat at the far end. "We're kinda dying to know here."
A guffaw of uncomfortable laughter rose at his words. With Montez' quip having eased the tension, Chibs sat up straight again, trying to calm his hammering heart. "Give us a minute, lads," he nodded to indicate himself and Tig, "and I'll explain everything." He needed to bring Tig up to speed and compare notes before he said more.
The rest of them exchanged uncertain glances and Quinn hesitated longest before he too got to his feet with the rest.
"Not you, Hap." Chibs waved Hap back into his chair. Happy grimaced but sat back down as the others filed out. Rat, the last one out, shot an uneasy look across his shoulder before he shut the door.
Chibs waited until their footsteps in the stairwell had faded away. "Tig?"
Tig didn't have much more to add: he'd been left alone overnight to stew, unable to find out anything, until Eglee had set him free this morning. When he'd asked about Chibs, she'd told him he'd been released the night before. He'd been too glad to leave the sheriff's station behind and get his bike from the pound to bother making a stink over the unfair treatment.
Having finished his story, Tig stared at Chibs, his eyes narrowed. "How the hell did you work it, bro?"
Hap made a noise. Chibs ignored him, stroking his chin, too exhausted to fully trust his high stakes gamble had paid off. He could feel every one of his nearly fifty years in his bones. "You see her? Jarry?" He didn't want to ask, but he needed to know where they stood with her.
"Nah, man. Only saw Eglee."
They were silent for a minute, until Tig spoke again, warily. "What did you do?"
Casting a glance at Happy, whose expression remained neutral, Chibs told Tig everything, from the second he and Tig had been separated until the moment Jarry had gotten in her squad car and driven away from the barn.
"Jesus Christ." Tig's curse was no more than a whisper. "Bitches, man." He mulled it over. "You think we're really in the clear? What if it's a trick?"
Chibs raised his shoulders. "Dunno." He looked at Happy. "Sorry I put that on ye, brother." Even if things with Jarry turned out the way he prayed, he still had some serious fence-mending to do with Hap.
Happy waved it off. "Don' matter." He dipped a hand into his cut and came out with a folded sheet of paper. "Something I wanna tell ya." He handed the piece of paper over to Chibs.
Chibs unfolded it. "What's this, then?" Without his reading glasses, he couldn't see what it said.
"Transfer letter. Tacoma. Talked to Lee. Said he could use me. Want the club to vote on it asap."
Mother of Jesus. "Hap—."
"Shit, Hap, you gonna leave us?" Tig jumped up from his seat. "Now? We got a good thing going, brother. We need you, too."
Happy cocked his head, looking up at Tig with dark, hooded eyes. "Ain't my scene no more."
Chibs pinched the bridge of his nose, overwhelmed by sudden sadness. They were losing everyone; with Hap in Tacoma, he and Tig would be the last ones left of the old club, the Samcro who'd run Charming together for years. But he wasn't gonna fight Hap on this. If Happy wanted out, Chibs would let him go. Things were heating up again, up north, with the Russians, and Lee was gonna need a guy like Hap. And Chibs had long since known his SAA wasn't satisfied with the direction they were taking Samcro. And after last night….
He wasn't sure he could trust his own judgement any longer. How could he ask Hap to trust him?
"We can vote it later today." He slipped the letter inside his cut. "That a'right with you?"
"Okay." Happy pushed up from his seat and left the chapel.
Tig lit a cigarette and passed the pack to Chibs. Chibs shook one out and accepted the flame Tig offered. They smoked in silence.
"Guess we gonna need to find a new SAA." Chibs tapped the ash from his cigarette. Tig leaned his head back, releasing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, before straightening up.
"Maybe you need to find a new VP."
"What?" Chibs whirled toward him, mouth open. He must've heard wrong. Was Tig quitting on him too? "C'mon, bro, you—."
"Whoa!" Tig's mouth twitched and he gestured with the cigarette. "Hold your horses, prez. I ain't leaving. Just thinkin' I make a far better SAA than VP."
"Yeah?" Relieved, Chibs took another pull from his smoke. "What makes you think that?"
Tig raised a shoulder. "We both know I'm better on the right. And with the direction this club is going, you need someone with a cooler head than me on your left. Quinn, I'd say."
Chibs pursed his lips and blew out smoke. Tig had been his unquestioned choice for VP after Jackie had to go. But that had been when he thought he, Hap and Tig would do it all three of them together: get the club back on its feet and onto the legit path Jax had been aiming for.
He let his gaze travel around the chapel. Still had a long way to go, but they'd been on the right track.
"Alright," he conceded. "We'll put that out there same time we deal with Hap's transfer."
"Thanks, bro." Tig ground out his butt and got to his feet, grabbing Chibs by the shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. "Thanks."
And Chibs knew that, no matter how many shitty decisions he'd made lately, this was a good one.
o0o
It was near evening by the time Chibs got a text message from Jarry, a single line that said We need to talk. All day, he'd wavered between going to check on her and waiting for her to contact him. To keep from brooding, he'd stayed buried up to his elbows in transmission fluids and greasy car innards at the garage, doing his best to keep his mind from wandering down increasingly alarming tracks.
It was a relief to finally get the text. He answered almost immediately, asking her to meet him at Scoops after the store closed.
"You sure about this, boss?" Tig asked as they watched Jarry pull up out front. She was in her personal car and, Chibs saw after she got out, civilian clothes. He wasn't sure what that meant.
He was very sure, however, that this was a conversation he needed to have alone. "It'll be fine, Tigger. Thanks, brother."
He must've sounded more confident than he felt, for Tig nodded once and headed outside, giving Jarry a sharp look as he ambled toward his bike and swung one leg over it. If she saw the stare, she ignored it, making her way briskly toward the store.
Chibs let her inside and shut the door behind her, making sure the sign said Closed. "You okay?" he asked, watching her slide into their usual booth at the back. She looked tired. As tired as he was.
"Not really." She huffed a humorless laugh. "Spent all day figuring out how to clean up the debris from yesterday's debacle without it blowing back on either of us."
"Thanks." He took the bench across from her. "Did you succeed?"
She leaned her head against the padded rest, closing her eyes for a moment. "I think so." She didn't offer any details and Chibs didn't ask.
"I'm sorry." He tried to take her hand between his. "For all of it."
She twisted her hand out of his grip, briefly running her thumb over the bruise circling his wrist as she did so, before folding her hands in her lap. "I won't do it again, Filip." She sat up straighter. "And I also can't be the person who puts you in jail." She stared down at her hands. "If that makes me a bad cop, so be it."
"No, luv. It makes you smart."
"No, it doesn't!" She shot upright in her seat. "It's stupid, Scotty. Stupid and—and asking for trouble. One of us is gonna end up hurt. Either I'll have to put you away, or you're gonna make me… go away." Her voice softened toward the end.
Chibs winced as she threw his old warning, spoken in hurt and anger, back in his face. He opened his mouth, wanting to assure her that he would never let that happen, but he discovered he couldn't. It was a promise he might not be able to keep.
She chuckled sadly, and he became aware she'd been watching him. "That's what I thought."
"Althea—."
"No, Chibs, please don't." She held up her hands to silence him. "I just came by to let you know you're in the clear, you and the club. And to tell you this in person: it stops here. This—," she gestured between them, "should never have happened."
Chibs narrowed his eyes. Was she dumping him? Again? Jesus Christ, of all the things he'd expected her to say, that wasn't it. They'd been there before, each time she'd resolved to grow a conscience. It had been a while, though, and he'd thought she'd outgrown whatever bug she gotten up her arse each of the previous times.
"I told you once, and I'll tell ye again: not gonna make up your mind for ye." He managed to keep his voice quiet and steady, but it had been a lot easier to say it last time than it was now. Before she'd gotten under his skin and into his heart. Before his divided loyalties threatened to rip him apart from the inside out.
She reached across the table, her knuckles briefly touching his cheek, right on the scar. "I'm sorry. No more." She climbed to her feet and walked past him, toward the door.
"You'll be back," he told the vacated seat opposite him harshly, needing to lash out to soothe his own heartache. Her footsteps stopped and he knew she was listening. He didn't turn to look at her. "You always are. That's yer thing, Jarry. Ye get all righteous and push me away. Days later, ye come crawlin' back, begging me like a bitch in heat."
If he'd been secretly hoping that being a nasty bastard would get her riled up, he was disappointed. "Not this time, Filip. Not this time."
He sat rigidly while the small chime over the door signaled she'd pulled it open and the soft click of the latch a second later told him she was gone.
"Jesus Christ," he shouted, his voice filling the quiet store. He swept his arm across the table, knocked the condiments to the floor. The sugar bowl broke and sprayed crystals across the tiles. Brooke would be upset in the morning, but he couldn't give a flying fuck.
Something told him that, this time, Jarry had indeed walked out for good.
o0o
The lug wrench yet again slipped off the nut and Chibs scraped his knuckles raw against the raised rim of the wheel. "Fuckin' goddamn piece of shite!"
He flung the wrench away from him. It clattered on the oil-stained concrete and skittered underneath the car he was working on. Rat and Dog—one of the regular mechanics they'd kept on during the lean times—scurried out of the bay, both casting him wary looks. "Yeah, run, you cowardly tossers!" he hollered after them.
Somewhere deep down, in a place where common sense still lived, he knew he wasn't being fair. He'd been a bear to be around this past week, ever since Jarry had gotten them clear of the charges regarding Hamill and then dumped his sorry arse.
He angrily wiped the blood off his knuckles with a filthy kerchief. Goddamn bint was the cause of all his woes, wasn't she? After everything he'd done, she'd walked out on him without a second thought.
He sighed, sucking on a knuckle that refused to stop bleeding. That wasn't fair, either. But it seemed he couldn't win. Every time he fixed one thing, something else would fall to pieces. Being king goddamn sucked.
"Hey, bro." Tig strolled into the shadowy bay from out of the sunlit yard, sunglasses perched on his nose. "Catch."
He tossed something toward Chibs and Chibs instinctively plucked it out of the air. It was a can of cold beer, condensation beading the slick surface. He popped the lid and swallowed a deep gulp. He licked his lips. "Thanks, Tigger." Being mad was thirsty work.
"Welcome." Tig inclined his head. He dangled his shades from the button hole of his work shirt and, turning steely-blue eyes onto Chibs, raised a can of his own in salute.
Chibs propped himself up on the edge of the work bench, and Tig took a clear spot next to him. The usual garage bustle went on outside the bay while they drank in silence.
"Go talk to her, man." Tig broke the quiet at last, his tone low. "'Fore it's too late."
Chibs sniffed. Wasn't any of Tig's goddamn business. Did the bylaws object to a club president punching his newly minted SAA in the nose? But he couldn't seem to find the energy. "Won't matter," he muttered.
Their sources at the sheriff's station had told them Jarry was leaving Charming. She been offered command of one of Sacramento's field service departments. Promotion for a job well done: returning peace and calm to Charming. Ironic, really.
Tig finished his beer, crumpled the can in his fist, and tossed it toward the trash bucket near the roll-up door. He uttered a noise of triumph at making the shot and pushed from the bench. "Just sayin', boss."
With that, he slipped his shades on and sauntered back out into the blisteringly bright yard. Chibs snorted a humorless laugh. Tig Trager, relationship consultant.
Finishing his own beer, he returned to the piece of junk he'd been working on and the rusted lug nut. Patting his pockets in search of the wrench, he remember he'd thrown it. Crap, he was really losing his shite, wasn't he? Over a piece of goddamn tail.
Abandoning the car, he grabbed his cut and slipped it on. Maybe a ride would cool his temper. Clear his mind and fill the aching Jarry-shaped hole inside him.
Somehow, as if his Glide had a will of its own, he found himself fifteen minutes later sitting across the street from Jarry's apartment building. Her SUV was out front, tailgate open, the back filled with boxes of various shapes and sizes.
Straddling the bike, he watched her come out of the building with a stack of boxes in her arms so high she couldn't possibly see where she was going. Damned woman was gonna break her neck like that.
His feet were moving before his brain had caught up. "Lemme get this for ye, luv." He took the top box from her.
She let out a startled gasp, before a wry smile settled on her face. "Thanks, Scotty."
A few trips later and Chibs was lifting the last box from the kitchen counter. Holding it in his arms, he scanned the apartment. The place had never felt like a home to him. Too impersonal, a way station to bigger and better things. Now, it felt even emptier.
"Hey. What's taking you so long?"
He gave a head shake and looked at her. Really looked at her, standing in the doorway, in jeans and a tight T-shirt. Her hair had come loose from its pony tail, and a streak of dirt was smeared across her chin. Shifting the box he was carrying into one arm, he reached out to rub off the dust and tuck the loose strands of hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. "Please, Chibs…."
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "For everything."
She turned her face into his touch, wordlessly accepted his apology. When she opened her eyes again, he was startled to see they were wet. He'd never seen her cry before.
"I better go," she murmured. "Don't wanna have to unload in the dark."
"Aye." He followed her outside and stashed the box on top of the others, before closing the tailgate. Rounding the car, he held the door for her while she threw her shoulder bag onto the passenger seat.
"Guess you'll need to break in a new sheriff after all, huh?" Her voice hitched and she didn't look at him. "I recommended they give it to Eglee. If you're lucky, they'll agree."
"Hey." He knuckled her chin up until she was forced to look at him. "Be safe, a'right?"
She swallowed. "You too, Scotty."
He pulled her into a hug, holding her tight against his chest.
"We had some good times, didn't we?" Her voice was muffled by his cut.
He rumbled a sad laugh. "Aye, we sure did, luv." He inhaled deeply, drawing in her scent, wanting to store it in his memory. "In another life, maybe, yeah?"
Jarry hiccuped a laugh. "Definitely." She pulled away enough to be able to smile up weakly at him. "In another life."
He held on to her for a few seconds more, unwilling to let her go. At last, knowing he couldn't postpone the inevitable any longer, he gently disentangled himself. "Should go, luv." He offered her a quick wink. "Don't wanta unload in the dark."
"Goodbye, Chibs." She held on to his hand, her fingers cool against his, while she slid into the driver's seat, until, at last, she let go to take the wheel. He shut her door behind her and she inserted the key in the ignition and started the engine. When she put the car into gear, he stepped back, giving her room to drive off.
Watching the SUV pull out into the road and get swallowed up in the traffic, he swiped his arm over his eyes. "G'bye, Althea."
THE END.
Author's note: Please don't hate me...! Much as I would've liked a Happily Ever After ending for these two, I cannot see it happen without seriously compromising one or both characters.