So, this one is WAY different from my other chapters. I'm trying to get a little more into the season one storyline. This is certainly not at all light and happy like the others, but I thought it was important to include in the story. Hope you like it and don't find it too upsetting. And as always, please review!

Trigger warning…this chapter deals with the rape of Tristan Oswald.

Chapter 10

Grace walked out of St. Thomas as fast as she could. Last night had been one of the worst shifts of her life. The sun was shining at the start of what was sure to be another beautiful Charming morning, but all Grace could see was the ugliness that plagued the world around her. As soon as she got to her car, she leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and finally let out the tears that she had been keeping in since the middle of the night. My God, how could someone do that to a 13 year old girl? The ride home was a blur. The last seven hours kept playing over and over again in her head.

7 hours earlier…

She was sitting in the emergency room drinking a large black coffee, trying to stay awake since it was a slow night and she wasn't really used to working third shift anymore. She spent most of her time smiling to herself, reliving every second of her ride with Juice, along with every kiss, every touch, counting down the hours until she could be with him again. But around 12:30am she was snapped out of her daydream when she heard the call from dispatch saying that a patient was being brought to St. Thomas via ambulance. We've got a 13 year old Caucasian female. Status post sexual assault. Significant blood loss along with some cuts and bruises. Possible concussion. Vitals are stable. Patient is awake but disoriented. ETA 13 minutes.

Grace took a deep breath when she heard the call come in. Being an ER nurse, she had seen several cases of child abuse, but it was something that she would never, ever get used to. She would always dread seeing the inevitable fear and anguish in the victim's eyes, always hate the sound of the brokenness in their voices. It was, without a doubt, the worst part of her job. But just as she had done in the past, she pushed her feeling aside and steeled herself for what she knew was coming. She had a job to do. There was a girl arriving in 13 minutes that would need her at her best.

Tristan Oswald was a beautiful young girl, but it was hard to tell under the blood and bruises that covered her little body. Grace's heart dropped the moment she saw her patient being brought in on a stretcher, flanked by a man and a woman on either side who each looked nothing less than heartbroken. They were obviously her parents.

"Grace, will you help me with her. You're so calming and nice to everyone. I think your presence would be helpful."

Gracie looked up at Dr. Jeremy Danielson, the ER resident on call tonight. He was young, probably about her age, with sandy blonde hair and kind blue eyes. He was definitely the nursing staff's favorite resident, not only because he was incredibly handsome, but always nice and considerate to his coworkers.

Gracie nodded. "Of course I'll be there. I unfortunately have a lot of experience caring for assault victims. I'll do everything I can."

Dr. Danielson gave her a small sad smile before walking with her into the room where Tristan Oswald was being sedated.

The first hour was spent stabilizing the girl, starting an IV, getting cat scans and x-rays, suturing her wounds, and cleaning up all the blood. During that time, Grace had learned that Tristan had been at Fun Town when the assault occurred, the same carnival that Juice had asked her to go to the day before. Then Grace, along with the girl's mother, held Tristan's hand during the pelvic exam that Dr. Danielson had to perform. Upon hearing the extent of their daughter's injuries and getting the confirmation of what they both feared had happened, both parents looked stricken. She had been brutalized. Grace swallowed back the lump in her throat. She couldn't even begin to fathom their pain, knowing that their little girl had been raped.

Mr. Oswald stormed out of the room, unable to bare any more information. Gracie looked out the small window and watched him as he paced the hallway and was approached by David Hale, no doubt for questioning due to the violent nature of Tristan's attack. Grace had spoken to David a few times at the hospital since he usually responded to all the car accidents and domestic violence cases that would come through the ER. Gracie liked him. He was always professional and polite, and Tara had said that he had always been a sweet guy, even in high school. After a few minutes, David and Mr. Oswald walked off together and Gracie refocused all her attention on Tristan.

Dr. Danielson completed his exam and left the room. Tristan started sobbing uncontrollably as her mother held her and rocked her back and forth.

"Mom, it hurts."

Grace bit her lip to keep her voice from cracking. "Tristan, I have some pain medicine for you. I'm going to put it through your IV. It will make you feel better and hopefully help you rest."

Gracie pushed the morphine through the girl's IV and slowly saw her relax. "Please call me if you need anything, Tristan. And you too, Mrs. Oswald, please let me know if I can help you in anyway. I'll be right outside in the nurse's station."

Mrs. Oswald gave Grace a small smile even though tears continuously streamed down her face. "Thank you, Grace."

Gracie was almost out the door when she heard Tristan's small, tired voice whisper, "Mom, I thought I was safe. He was one of the clowns. He wasn't supposed to hurt me."

Gracie placed her hand over her mouth to cover the gasp that came out. She quietly shut the door and walked back to the nurse's station to complete Tristan's chart. Fighting back tears, she whispered to herself, "You can do this Gracie Jane. Crying won't help. Be strong for her."

And for the next several hours, she was. She did her job, attended to her patients, and stayed calm, cool, and professional…until her shift was over, when the sadness and intensity of the night came crashing down on her and she finally grieved for Tristan and her cruel loss of innocence.

As soon as Grace got home she took a quick shower, walked to the kitchen to down some ibuprofen and two shots of Jameson, and then crawled into her bed, praying for rest. She tried calling Juice a couple of times, hoping that the sound of his voice would somehow soothe her, but her calls went straight to voicemail. Gracie just tossed and turned, fighting the images in her mind, until exhaustion finally overcame her and she fell into a restless sleep.

What a fucking nightmare. Juice tried to stretch his neck and back, sore from sitting in front of his computer all night in the clubhouse. He was hacking into the California corrections database, trying to find a link to any Nords that might have a thing for underage girls. Elliot Oswald had called Clay last night to say that his 13 year old daughter had been raped by an unknown attacker and had begged the Sons to find the man so that he could have justice. A quick vote determined everyone to be on board. No one was going to hurt a little girl in Charming and get away with it. They just had to find the prick before Charming PD.

Juice's eyes lit up at the screen. Jesus, finally!

"Hey, Clay. I think I found something."

The president of SAMCRO sauntered over to him, looking over his shoulder.

"What do you got, Juicey?"

Juice had found a member of the Nords that had previous arrests for sexual assault. He got an address of what seemed to be a large farm just outside of Charming, where the guy had been staying since he was recently paroled.

Clay just nodded and picked up his cell to call the others. Juice sighed in relief and ran his hand over his small mohawk. He fucked up a lot and was considered to be the moron of the club, but as intelligence officer he did his job and came through when needed.

Clay got off his phone and turned back to Juice. "Go bag up some AKs. We're gonna go pay that asshole a visit."

Juice jumped off the barstool where he'd been hunched over for hours and winced at the pain in his back.

"Hey Juicey. You hurting?"

Juice turned and saw Tig approaching him. "Yeah, man. Just been sitting for too long."

Tig took a bottle of pills from his pocket and threw them to Juice.

"Take a couple of those, man. They'll make you feel all better."

"What are they?"

"Vitamins, my brother."

"Jesus, Juice. Wake up man. Juice!"

Juice could have sworn he heard Jax's voice, but it sounded a million miles away. He was sure that someone was kicking his back, but he was too sleepy to care. Why does everyone keep bothering me when I'm trying to sleep? The darkness had almost come over him yet again when he was suddenly showered with what felt like a fucking river of ice water.

Juice sat up, suddenly awake and aware of his surroundings, rubbing his eyes. What the fuck?

Chibs was standing over him with a shit eating grin on his face, holding a now empty pitcher. Why the hell am I on the floor?

"Rise and shine, Juicey boy. Nap time's over."

Chibs helped Juice off the floor and guided him to one of the chairs in the chapel.

"What the hell happened to me? Last thing I remember, I was bagging the AK's and Tig came over and gave me…"

Juice looked up at the Sergeant at Arms. "You're an asshole, Tig."

Tig wasn't even trying to hide the smirk on his face. "Sorry, moron. That's what you get for taking pills from me."

Clay interrupted any comeback that Juice may have said. "Shut up. Both of you. Juice, you're an idiot. Never take pills from Tig. Ever. Really, you actually thought they were vitamins? And Tig, you knew he was getting the guns ready. It's your fault he passed out before loading the fucking clips."

Juice paled. "Oh, Christ, Clay, the clips…"

Jax spoke up, "Don't worry about it. We handled it. Turns out, it wasn't the right guy. We're back to square fucking one."

The guys all dispersed to talk about their options. Juice stood on shaky legs and made his way over to the table that held his laptop and cell phone. He picked up his phone and looked at the time. 6:12pm. Shit, I've been out for over 10 hours. Fucking Tig. He flipped open his phone and noticed two missed calls from Gracie that morning.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself. He had been so caught up in this Oswald shit, he hadn't even thought about calling her. He listened to the voicemail that she had left several hours ago and a wave of panic swept over him as he listened to the sad, small voice that sounded nothing like his Grace. Hey Juice, it's Grace. I'm sorry to bother you. You're probably still sleeping. I just got home from work. Um, I just…I had a really bad night last night. I'm so tired I can barely see straight, but I just can't fall asleep. I guess I can't turn off my head. I know you know what that feels like. I just wanted to talk. Hear your voice, you know? Anyway, give me a call when you get a chance. Um, Ok…bye.

Juice was sure that half way through the message, Grace had started crying. He was so worried about her and so pissed at himself. He was passed out all fucking day and Grace was somewhere hurting and he had no idea why. He quickly dialed her number.

After a couple of rings, a very groggy voice on the other end said, "Hello."

"Hey, Gracie. It's me."

He heard her yawn. "Hey Juice."

"Did I wake you up?"

"Yeah, kind of. I've been in and out all day. Haven't really been able to rest."

"I'm really sorry I didn't call you earlier. Club shit. I was kind of unreachable. I got your voicemail, sweetheart. Are you alright?"

He heard her sigh and her voice tremble. "Yeah, I'm fine, really. If you're busy, we can just talk later…"

Juice interrupted her. "Babe, something's wrong. You said you had a bad night last night. Did someone hurt you? Are you OK?"

He could feel an ache forming in his chest as he heard Gracie start to quietly sob. "Sweetheart, you're scaring me. Please tell me what happened."

"I'm fine. Nothing happened to me. I just had a really hard shift, a patient that really got to me. I can't stop thinking about it."

"Gracie, you deal with sad shit all the time at work. Tell me what happened. Why was last night so bad?"

Grace took a few deep breaths and finally got her tears under control. "Please, don't repeat any of this, OK? I shouldn't be saying anything."

"Of course, babe. What happened?"

"Last night a young girl came in to the ER. She was raped at Fun Town. I took care of her last night."

Juice almost dropped the phone. He held his breath and looked around the clubhouse, somehow thinking that the men around him had also heard the bomb that Gracie had just fucking dropped.

He tried to recover from his shock. Keeping his voice as calm as possible he said, "Jesus, Gracie. That's fucking terrible."

"I know. I can't believe it. And to think, I was supposed to go there with you. I know shit like this happens all the time. I saw it way too often in Chicago. But Charming seems like such a bubble, like nothing bad can happen here. I guess I was just blindsided. And the girl, she's so young and so sweet. And her parents are beyond devastated. It was just really hard to see."

Juice's heart broke for Grace as her crying started up again. He sincerely felt so sorry for her and what she must have gone through all night, but he had to ask her the question. The club needed him to ask.

"Grace, baby, I'm so sorry. That's awful. Do, uh, do you have any idea who raped her?"

Grace's voice was quiet. "That's one of the worst parts. The girl knows who did it, but for some reason I think her mom is trying to convince her not to say anything. I overheard the patient say that it was one of the carnival workers. That he was dressed like a clown. Can you even imagine? What a sick fuck."

Juice stood up and waved his arm frantically above his head to get his brothers' attention. He tried to keep his breathing even as they gathered around him, looking at him with confusion.

"Sweetheart, I feel fucking terrible. I wish I could talk longer, but I've gotta get off the phone. It's kind of an emergency."

"Is everything OK?"

Juice hated the worry he heard in her voice. "Yeah, Gracie. Everything's fine. I can't see you tonight, but I promise I'll call you tomorrow, OK?"

"Ok. I'm glad you called. It was good to hear your voice. I'll talk to you tomorrow. And Juice…just, whatever's going on, be careful, OK?"

He couldn't help but grin at her concern. "Always, sweetheart. Go back to sleep. Bye."

Juice closed his phone and looked up to see the other members of SAMCRO staring at him.

Chibs just smirked, "So, Juicey, who's this 'sweetheart' you have now?"

Juice turned to look at Clay. "That was Grace. She's my…we're…I don't know. We're kind of together. She's a nurse in the ER at St. Thomas. She took care of Oswald's daughter last night. She heard her say it was one of the carnival workers that raped her. Said he was dressed like a fucking clown."

The guys just looked at each other and then back to Juice, dumbfounded. Clay walked over to him and looked him in the eye. "So, this new pussy your tapping…can we trust her?"

Juice clenched his fists at his sides, suppressing the urge to punch his president in the god damn face. He raised his eyes and met Clay's glare. "She's not just pussy, and yeah, we can trust her. Absolutely."

Clay stared him down for a few more seconds before nodding. "Nice work, son." Clay then turned to the rest of the guys. "Well, let's go get him."

Juice stood frozen for a few moments. Not only Clay, but all of his brothers, had looked at him just then with something closely resembling respect. He had done something right for once. And it's all because of Gracie. God, even when she doesn't realize it, that girl comes through for me. He could never tell her about tonight, about how she had helped him, his club, his family. But it was one more thing about Grace that he would carry with him. That girl was a fucking gift.

As the guys left the clubhouse and walked towards their harleys, Jax looked over at Juice and grinned. "So, Juice. Not just pussy? You got a girl now?"

Juice climbed on his bike and strapped on his helmet. "Yeah, Jax, about that…my girl? She's Tara Knowles' best friend and roommate."

Juice started his bike and drove off, leaving a wide eyed Jax staring after him.