Jax Teller remained expressionless, his hands folded in front of his mouth as Juice's kutte was thrown onto the table in front of him. Chibs had just ridden in on the runaway's bike, and he threw the keys onto the table as well.

"I was hoping to bring him to ye alive," Chibs said sternly, crossing his arms over his chest. The other Sons at the table let out a low hiss at the suggestion - that Juice was dead. Jax curled the leather slightly into his fist and exhaled through his nostrils, shaking his head amid the reactions at the table.

"I'm sorry, brother. I know it's been hard on you," he said, though his tone was flat and expressionless as it had been for practically a month now. "Who took him out?"

"The Asians," Chibs lied easily. "They found out he was on the lam and followed him, tried to bring him into the fold. He refused."

If he couldn't bring the boy back, Chibs reasoned internally, he could at least clear his name in memoriam. Jax nodded silently, and Chibs couldn't help but feel a slight chill, knowing that he'd just lied to Jax, who already had a long list of people with whom he had a score to settle. But the President seemed satisfied with the explanation, drumming his hands on the table in front of him.

"Rat or not, he was still one of ours, and when someone takes out one of ours, it's our business," he said - but whether it was sincere or not was unclear. There was a brief flash of something that looked like regret, but it was quickly wiped away, much like any other impression of humanity in him recently.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Tig asked, shaking his head and tapping on the table with a palm of his hand. "It means they're onto us. They're startin' somethin' - we can't bother with all this spying and -"

"No. We have a plan," Jax interrupted, not looking at anyone but instead at his hands, his expression hard and determined in such a way that stated it was no use to try to argue. "We find and intercept Meimei, and we ruin them -"

"Jax."

"It's decided," he said sternly, rising to his feet and standing toe-to-toe with Chibs, who had just attempted to voice dissent. "Lin doesn't deserve to go fast. He doesn't get to go out easy."

And he simply left, heading back home and leaving his brothers completely lost for words at what his leadership was turning into, as well as struck dumb by how they were going to even speak about the fact that Juice was dead.

Jax arrived home, and immediately upon walking through the door, Gemma could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong, moreso than it had been before he left. She intercepted him at the front door before he could go into the boys' bedroom in his state, eyeing him questioningly.

"Juice is dead," Jax stated simply, scratching the back of his head - Gemma was unable to conceal a gasp, bringing a hand up to her chest. "The Chinese got their hands on him. Chibs just brought back his kutte and his bike."

"Oh God, no…" Gemma said, shaking her head, and Jax suddenly felt the weight of the news finally hit him. There was a brief moment of questioning, if Juice's death was truly what he wanted. "God, no. He loved you… he loved all of us…"

She knew that Jax had bad blood with the boy, she knew that he'd done a great many wrongs. He'd fucked up more than his fair share of times, there was no denying that. But he'd never done a single damn thing with bad intentions for any of them. She knew the boy had his faults - that he sometimes was more messed up than he let on - but she also knew that he had a heart, and because of it, he'd done the unthinkable for her. Juice had gotten more blood on his hands to preserve her life, and she'd never been able to repay him for it.

Gemma hurried off and retreated to her own room before breaking down behind her closed door, covering her face with her hands. "I'm so, so sorry, sweetie," she muttered into her palms, shaking her head. "This shouldn't have happened to you. I'm so sorry."

The sound of her phone going off was enough to bring Denise at least halfway to awake. Her eyes remained closed, but she slowly began to recall snippets of the previous night in detail when she realized, while lying on her side, there was an arm draped over her waist and another beneath her head.

When she realized that she would practically need to call in a lumberjack to deal with a certain case of morning wood, she squirmed slightly as she finally acknowledged that last night had really happened - she was naked under the sheet. So was he.

Juice.

They'd made their way at some point during the evening from the living room to her bedroom, and she opened her eyes when she realized that they had most definitely gone all the way, back to start, and all the way again. Hearing the sound of slight snoring behind her, she carefully reached over to look at her phone without disturbing him - Melissa had sent her a text message to ask her about working on a group presentation.

Denise knew she should go, so with a brief pause, she attempted to squirm out from Juice's arn and sit up, only to have his hold around her waist tighten, pulling her back onto the bed and pressing her close to him again. In spite of herself, she laughed - not forced or with any sort of intention, but because there was something about being this way that made her feel genuinely okay. He propped himself slightly with the arm that had been underneath her head and grinned sleepily as he nuzzled her neck gently. There was just something right about this, he decided - even if a part of him was still processing last night, he believed what Denise had once said: that people were where they were because they were supposed to be. Maybe seeing Chibs and giving up his bike and his kutte had happened because he was supposed to be here instead.

"Melissa and I have a project to work on," she laughed breathlessly, only half-heartedly trying to get out from his hold. "I have to go -"

"Tell her it's a bad time," he laughed huskily, grazing his teeth over the tender skin behind her ear, making her breath hitch in her throat. Nestling into him slightly, Denise was admittedly tempted to take his suggestion, but she reluctantly pulled away and got to her feet, pulling the blanket off the bed to cover herself as well and leaving Juice completely exposed. He chuckled, lacing his fingers behind his head and laying back, shaking his head.

"I have to go, Juice," she laughed, walking over to her closet and quickly pulling out the first semi-matching clothes that she could find. He felt strangely happy, hearing her call him Juice, instead of Juan.

"Suit yourself," he smirked. After putting on some underwear and a snug grey t-shirt, Denise turned around, and realized that he was still looking at her, and she at him. There was a brief silence, as though both were trying to find a way to address the previous night but failing. It had all just happened so quickly, it was probably better to drop it. Denise turned back around and pulled on a tight pair of black jeans and tied her hair back messily, shooting him only a wordless smile before hurrying out.

Juice stayed in Denise's bed for a short while before getting out and throwing his clothes back on - at face value, because this was the first time he'd been in a comfortable bed for a pretty long time, but also because it almost felt like he got out of bed, it opened the door to one or the other of them forgetting about the previous night, and whatever it was, wherever it had come from, it wasn't something he wanted to forget about. Whatever this was with her, it was the only thing that made things okay again, and the one thing he needed was for something - anything - to still be okay. He had half the mind to just stay naked in her bed as a reminder, just to make sure she didn't forget it either.

But that, he reasoned, would probably just freak her out completely, and freaking her out would rule out the possibility of last night ever being discussed, let alone repeated. So, he got up and got dressed.

Denise, meanwhile, had made her way to Melissa's apartment, her eyes covered with a pair of sunglasses to hide the fact that her eyes were still heavily lidded from having done very little sleeping the night before. She was slightly winded, having needed to retrieve her car from where she'd left it the previous night. Melissa saw her at the door, and, after glancing at her for a while, pulled her inside and closed the door quickly behind her.

"You totally banged him last night."

"What?" Denise asked, pulling off her sunglasses and turning to face her friend, whose face had been lit up with an impish grin and whose voice was not lowered in the least because she lived alone anyway. "I - you know what, no comment. No comment," she said, shaking her head.

"You don't need to comment, your neck looks like it got caught in a bear trap!" Melissa laughed, pushing Denise towards the nearest mirror where she caught sight of herself for the first time that morning. Juice, as it turned out, had very fervently gone to town on her neck. Denise gasped and groaned, turning away from the mirror while Melissa still continued laughing. "This would've probably been a good day to wear a scarf."

"How about we just work on that project?" Denise said dismissively, making her way towards the sofa in Melissa's living room and knowing she wouldn't be able to live this one down. Melissa, however, couldn't have been more pleased to see the girl she considered a good friend actually enjoying herself for once. Unfortunately, this meant that for the entire time they were meant to work on their presentation, she insisted instead upon constantly reminding Denise of the state she was in.

As such, the work took much longer than it needed to - but thankfully still got done and Denise left in a hurry, only realizing once she had gotten back to her car that she'd left her phone there. She groaned when she saw that she'd missed several calls from her brother and, before starting the car to leave, dialed his number. When he answered, however, he didn't greet with a hello or any greeting, but rather with impatience.

"Well?" he snapped, and Denise immediately remembered that the entire point of sneaking around to eavesdrop the previous night. had been to try and see what Juice did while she was away. It wasn't that she'd failed, but the information she had learned, she wasn't willing to share.

"He's - he's starting to crack, ge," Denise replied vaguely, doing what she could in order to conceal the unease. She could have talked about last night, about Chibs, about how SAMCRO wanted Juice dead, but none of it felt right to say. She couldn't get herself to say any of it. "I just - I need more time."

"You don't have more time, mei," he snapped, raising his voice at her. Denise's jaw clenched, not receptive to being rushed when she'd agreed to help him. "Uncle wants the information now. You need to step it up. Don't fail me."

And then, he hung up. Denise tossed her phone into the passenger seat and slapped her palms against her steering wheel in frustration, taking a few breaths to calm herself before starting her car. What more could she do? More importantly, what was she still willing to do?