A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers.
Chapter 11: Train Wreck
"Oh, fuck, I am so fuckin' screwed. There is no way for this to end well. It's not enough that there is an ATF Agent breathing down our necks. It's not bad enough that we have a new player in town that's without a doubt going to be trouble. No, let's just put Roy and Julian in town at the same time. Not only that let's have Julian work with the club. We all know that Clay isn't gonna turn down his offer to supply him with arms. Because all of that is just what I need for my sanity." Jaz paced back and forth on the roof of the clubhouse agitatedly.
"Jaz, you need to calm down as far as you know neither of them expect anything and as far as anyone knows I'm JT's father. Only five people know that that's not the case. That's you, me, Jax, Tara, and JT. I don't think any of us are going to go spouting off at the mouth to Julian about it. I promise you this you haven't seen me go psycho and lose my shit until someone comes after you or our boy. Nothing is going to happen to either of you on my watch." Happy promised her.
"Hap, Roy isn't stupid and neither is Julian. I know that Roy's seen him. Deep down a little piece of him has to wonder if that's his son or not." Jaz reasoned with him.
"He probably had the thought and dismissed it. Jaz, we were married when you slept with him. You're the lawyer I shouldn't have to tell you that in the eyes of the law no matter who fathered him I am considered his father." Happy replied.
"I know that, Hap. But that does nothing to help us if either one of them decides to do some digging into it. Not to mention the whole can of worms that opens with Nate. I never told him the truth about JT and he's not stupid he's an investigator. He already thinks that you're not his father. If he decides to look into the matter I'm going to be royally fucked. Speaking of Roy that presents a whole new set of issues. I thought I was over him and that I had buried those feelings in the past where they belonged and that my future was with Nate. I'm not so sure about that anymore. If there is even half a chance that Roy and I can be together I'll probably go against everything that my common sense is telling me and jump right back into something with him." She ranted.
"One thing at a time, Jaz. Don't go borrowing trouble. You don't know that you have an issue yet, so there is no reason for you to worry. As for Nate it's not like he had a right to know. You were protecting our little prospect. That comes first not just for you, but for me too. I've never been a dad to him, but I've always protected him and made sure that he was taken care of. I'm not about to stop now just because he knows the truth." He assured her.
Jax rushed out onto the roof at the moment. "What's going on? Chibs said that you were probably gonna need me and that you were up here." He addressed his sister.
"Jax, we have a huge problem. Julian is back in town. Not only is Julian back in town he's working with Zobelle. Not only is he working with Zobelle he wants to have a sit down with Clay to see about buying some guns from him. I don't see a way around him finding out about JT. The only thing I can hope is that he doesn't think anything of it and lets it go." She explained to her brother.
"Oh fuck, oh shit, ok we can work this to our advantage we just have to figure out how. The one thing we have going for us when it comes to JT is that Happy is listed as his father. I don't think Julian would have any reason to question that. If he works with the club on getting guns he would really have no reason to deal with you directly. You don't typically handle gun running matters that's me and Clay." Jax ran his hands through his hair.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Jackie. I'm scared and I'm never scared. I can't let anything happen to my little boy." She let her childhood nickname for him slip out.
"Nothing is gonna happen to JT. Even if Julian found out that he was his son he wouldn't do anything to hurt his own flesh and blood. It's you I'm worried about if he finds out he won't hesitate to kill you. The only thing I can think to do is we always insist on meeting with him in neutral locations and we don't let him get close enough to the clubhouse to set eyes on JT. There's always the option of sending him up north to our grandpa. Or we can send him to wherever the hell Uncle Jeremiah is right now. That could be our best option. Uncle Jeremiah could protect him better than anyone if we made the choice to send him away." Jax thought out loud.
"You're forgetting one thing. Anyone who wants to get to that boy has to get through me first. Not only do they have to get through me they have to get through Gemma. No one in their right mind fucks with Gemma if they don't have to. As much as I know Jaz doesn't want to hear this they would have to get through Clay too. They would have to get through Tig, through Opie, through Chibs, through the whole damn club if they wanted to get to him. That's before they have to get through the Teller twins. No one is gonna fuck with Jaz where that boy is concerned. If she got one thing from Gemma it's that fierce momma bear attitude and no one is gonna attack her cub." Happy pointed out.
"All that does us no good if we can't see which side the attacks are coming from. Julian literally has men everywhere. He could come at us from any direction at any time. He has us surrounded already and there's really nothing that we can do about it until we can see the threat. Like I said it doesn't help at all that we have Stahl breathing down our necks just waiting for us to screw up. The only way for us to get her off our asses is to give the appearance of going semi legit." Jaz took her flask out of her vest and took a huge gulp out of it.
"That does actually sound like a pretty decent plan. It at least it would get the ATF to back off some. I'm sure that we can find some kind of legit opportunity somewhere. You're the smartest out of all of us. If you and Bobby sit and put your heads together I'm sure that you can come up with something. Jaz, you get tonight to fall apart because if anyone has earned that much it's you, but in the morning you need to stop being ruled by your emotions. You're the only bad bitch who can help us right this ship and keep it from sinking. You'll come up with a plan you always do and I'll back you with Clay if he gives you any shit about it." Jax gave her his version of a pep talk.
"I know I'll come up with something. Me being overly emotional right now isn't exactly a bad thing. Some of my best plans come up when I'm all worked up. I'll be the attack dog that you need me to be. I'll stow my own shit and put the club first just like I always have and just like I always will." Jaz took the cigarette that her brother had offered her and took a long drag off of it before she blew the smoke out through her nose.
"You know what? That's not very fair though is it? It's always on your shoulders." Jax worked his bottom lip between his teeth. There was something that he needed to say to his sister. Something that he had needed to say for fifteen years. And there was something he should have done fifteen years ago.
"It may not be fair, but it is my lot in life. For whatever reason it was my destiny to be the savior of Samcro. I've accepted that now. There was never an out for me and there never will be." Jaz locked eyes with him.
"Jaz, I've got something that I need to say to you. Something that I should have said a long time ago." Jax worked his courage up.
Happy could tell that this was going to be a personal moment between the two siblings so he excused himself. "Jaz, I'll be waiting in your dorm when you're done up here." He knew that she would need him then more than she needed him now.
"Thanks, Hap, I'll be down soon." Jaz gave him a thin smile as he exited the roof. "What do you have to tell me, Jax?"
"That I'm sorry. I'm sorry that all of this landed on your shoulders and I'm sorry that I wouldn't step up and take it off of you. I'm sorry that I was so blindly in love with Tara that I wouldn't bite the bullet and let the IRA find an older woman for me to marry. I'm sorry that you had to sacrifice the one great love of your life to marry Happy. You can deny it all you want to, but I know that you'll love Roy Flannery until the day you die. But most of all I'm sorry that I didn't do more to stand up for you. I'm your brother, not just your brother, but your twin brother. I should have stood up to Clay and told him that he was gonna sell you off over my dead body. I should have gone to Gemma and told her what was going on she would have put a stop to it even if I couldn't. Hell, I should have said something to Gemma after the fact because you have suffered fifteen years of her disappointed over a choice that wasn't even yours." Jax started his speech.
"Jax, you don't have to." Jaz started to say, but he held his hand up to stop her.
"I don't have to I need to. I need you to hear this while I have the courage worked up to say it. I'm your twin brother and I failed you when you needed me the most. You've never once failed me. Any time I've needed you to come through for me you've done it in spades. I've always admired your courage and your resilience. You dared to up and leave Charming to start a life for yourself somewhere else against Gemma's wishes. I didn't have the courage to do the same thing when it came to Tara and I missed years with the love of my life because of it. But because of you because of your willingness to always sacrifice I have another shot with her and I don't plan to squander it." Jax paused and took a shaky breath. "So, tonight I'm standing up here on this rooftop and I'm begging for your forgiveness for all the times I've failed you and for the things that you've been forced to give up because of my cowardice."
"Of course I forgive you, Jax, you were just a kid too. What were you supposed to do against Clay? What could have Gemma really done? I know I lay some of the blame on her, but I don't know that she could have stopped it I just know that she could have tried. I've never once laid an ounce of blame on you and I never will. I may have my soul mate out there somewhere, but you are my twin the other part that makes me whole. Who knows I may get my shot with Roy yet and that just complicates things with Nate even more than they already are. It just feels like it's all too much for me sometimes, but then I just suck it up and carry on. Because that's all we can really do when shit gets turned upside down." Jaz replied.
"You gonna be ok tonight?" He asked her concerned.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Go back to Bobby's party. I don't think me getting drunk tonight would be the wise thing to do. I'm just gonna head down to my dorm room. The boys are with Tara tonight and I could just use the night to decompress." Jaz turned to walk off the roof.
"Hey, Jazzy," Jax called out using his old nickname for her.
Jaz turned to face him. "Yeah?"
"I don't always say it, but I just thought you should know I love you." Jax told her.
"I know I've always known that whether you said it or not. I love you too, brother." Jaz turned and left the roof.
Happy was waiting for her when she got back to her dorm. As soon as she shut the door behind her he took her into his arms. "It's ok, Jaz, I've got you. Let go. Whatever you've been holding in for hours let it go. You get to be you in here. You don't have to be that bad bitch right now." He whispered to her soothingly.
That was all it took and Jaz began to cry into his chest.
Tara was woke by a loud knock on the door. Unser was there with Gemma who had his jacket wrapped around her otherwise nude body.
"Jesus Christ, Gemma, what happened?" Tara questioned her mind suddenly alert.
"I found her like this in an old warehouse. Her care was parked out front and she was in there naked and alone." Unser supplied.
"Get her on the couch I'll grab my medical bag." Tara's doctor instincts took over. She grabbed her bag off the counter.
"They did this to send a message to Clay and to Jax to stop doing business with minorities they can never find out about this." Gemma groaned in pain as she sat down.
JT came out of his bedroom with his pistol drawn. "Aunt Tara, is everything ok out here?" He questioned and then he saw the state the Gemma was in and dropped his gun on the coffee table. "Grandma, what happened? Are you ok?"
"I'm fine, JT, please just go back to bed." Gemma begged him.
"No, I won't just go back to bed." JT crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. A move that made him look just like his mother.
"JT, sweetie, everything is fine. Why don't you go feed Abel his bottle? He'll be up any minute wanting it." Tara spoke to him soothingly.
"I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what the fuck is going on." JT maintained.
"Prospect, as queen of Samcro I'm ordering you to go." Gemma got firm with him.
"That's bullshit plain and simple. I don't take orders from you. I take my orders from fully patched members. I'm not some stupid kid anymore I'm a prospect and this is my family too. I have a right to know what's going on and I have the right to help protect it." JT stood his ground.
"Consider this an order then, what you're about to hear goes no further than the people in this room." Gemma relented.
JT nodded his head. "I can live with that."
"I was on my way home from Bobby's party when this blonde girl flagged me down on the side of the road and said her baby was choking. I got out of the car to help her and instead of seeing a baby I found a doll. At about that time she hit me over the back of the head and the world went black. When I came to I was handcuffed to a chain link fence inside of some warehouse and there were four men that took turns… They took turns raping me." Gemma stammered over the words.
JT picked up his gun. "That's it I'm going after those son of a bitches right fucking now. No one fucks with the Tellers in this town and gets away with it."
"Wayne, a little help." Tara pleaded with him.
"Son, that's not a very good idea. You know your mother would have your ass if you got yourself in a world of shit." Wayne tried reasoning with the young man.
"It wouldn't do any good anyway, JT, they wore masks." Gemma added.
"Gemma, you really need to get to the hospital and have this looked at. There's not much I can do for you here. Besides you need brain scans to make sure that you don't have a concussion." Tara told her.
"No way, I just told you that no one can know about this. I can't go to the hospital there would be a record of that." Gemma disputed.
"Uncle Wayne, give me the keys to grandma's car." JT held his hand out.
"I just told you that I have to keep you out of this if I don't want your mother to kill me." Wayne argued with him.
"One of us is gonna need to be there to wreck the car while the other one calls it into the police. That way when she shows up at the hospital there are no questions asked." JT explained. He thought quick on his feet much like his mother.
"I could take Abel into the hospital and say he needed a checkup and put all of Gemma's information in his chart." Tara jumped on the bandwagon.
"That idea is just crazy enough to work." Wayne agreed. "JT, grab your bike. That way you can say that when you hadn't heard from your grandma all night you went out to look for her and you found her car wrecked and then you called me and I had her taken to the hospital."
"Just let me go get dressed and I'll be ready to roll." JT headed back to his room.
"That kid gets so much like his mother every day that it scares me." Tara shook her head.
"Tara, Jaz can't know about this either. While she's capable of keeping the peace and not giving them what they want over this she will do something rash. I know my daughter. She's just like her father." Gemma grabbed Tara's hand.
"Alright, I promise you that I won't tell Jaz about this." Tara agreed. She stopped herself short of saying that if anyone would be able to understand what she had just gone through it would be Jaz.
Nate snuck into his office to check on the results of the DNA test he'd had run against JT and Roy. Now was the time to do it while the rest of the club was passed out drunk. He logged into his computer terminal and scanned the report. He arched an eyebrow and made a face at the screen there was no way that he could be reading that right. And what's more there were things in Roy's file that didn't make a whole lot of sense. That was a mystery he was just going to have to untangle without Jaz figuring out what he was up to. He already had one piece of the puzzle that he needed he just needed to find out where the other pieces fit.
"Nate, what are you doing here so early?" Jaz asked from the doorway of his office.
Nate quickly exited out of what he had been looking at and looked up at her. "I was just getting in to type up a report while everyone else was distracted with Bobby's homecoming. This way I don't have to explain away my absence to anyone. What are you doing here?"
"Same thing as you are. I came in to type up my report and I may or may not have had Griffin pull some strings. I had him get Stahl demoted off the IRA case. If we don't have her on our asses there is less of a chance of our covers being blown." Jaz explained to him. She wasn't quite sure that she believed the line he had just fed her, but she let it go for now. She had far more important things to worry about.
"You are one devious woman when you want to be, Jaz Teller. You'll have to remind me to never get on your bad side." He grinned at her.
"You've known me how long and you still need to be reminded of that?" She teased him. God things could be so easy and so uncomplicated with him. And that grin of his did things to her that she didn't even want to think about, but then there was Roy. Roy who she had loved for longer than even she could remember. She loved him even when he wasn't right there within her grasp and she could do something about her feelings towards him.
She had to be a first class whore. She'd spent the night in the arms of one man, was currently flirting with another, and was madly in love with yet a different man. To say her love life was messy and complicated would be an understatement. In all fairness though nothing had happened with Happy like nothing ever did. He was just her rock, her port in the storm so to speak. He let her be vulnerable with him when she needed to be and he kept her safe while she felt her feelings. Honestly she could probably count the number of times that she and Happy had had sex and it couldn't total more than ten. It had just never been like that with them.
Over the years she had come to love him as one of her best friends, but she had never been in love with him and she never would be. They'd used each other for sex on a couple of occasion other than that their marriage could have been annulled rather than them going through the process of divorce if not for the fact that he was listed as JT's father.
Then there was Nate. She did love him and she had been in love with him of that she was sure. She also knew that he was the safe choice. If she chose him she knew what she was getting and there would be no surprises. He was by the book and truthfully a little bland at times. She didn't regret her love for him though, because at one time in her life he had been exactly what she needed.
She couldn't leave Juice out of the equation. Actually he didn't factor in at all. She knew that he had feelings for her and would do whatever she asked him to do without question, but she didn't return those feelings. All he was to her was a warm body to keep her company when she got lonely and she made sure he knew that. She had a soft spot for him though it just wasn't love or really even affection. What she had with him was physical nothing more and nothing less.
The only man from her past that she truly regretted was Julian. Despite what she'd said about sleeping with him as a way to hurt Roy for turning his back on her. It hadn't really been her choice. Clay needed money to buy more guns from the Irish and he couldn't come up with any other way to get the capital. He knew that Julian had always had his eye on Jaz, so he'd basically sold her off like a hooker to him for a weekend in exchange for twenty grand in cash and another twenty grand in drugs.
With everything that she had been through as a teenager it was a miracle she had turned out as normal as she had. Part of that was thanks to her Uncle Jeremiah. He had been a huge influence in her life. He was the one who told her that she didn't be held back by the club and used as their form of currency. He was the one who had arranged for her to get an appointment at Annapolis. Of course that had about given Gemma a fit, but he didn't care. He was looking out for his goddaughter who clearly needed protection from the man that her mother had married.
She'd stayed with him while she was pregnant with JT and he had been the one by her side when she'd given birth to him. Happy had come in the room after it was all said and done. Jeremiah knew all the details of how his great-nephew had come to be and it had taken a lot of begging and pleading from Jaz to get him to just let it go. If it hadn't been for the fact that he adored her and didn't want to do anything to cause her anymore pain than she had already been through he would have killed Clay with his bare hands. He knew a few people in the government who owed him favors and he'd managed to adopt Jaz as his daughter even though she was married. That was how he got her into the Naval Academy. He was a Medal of Honor winner and the admissions requirements were lifted for children of Medal of Honor recipients.
She was pulled out of her thoughts when her phone rang. "Hey, Tara, what did he do and am I gonna have to use my lawyer skills to get him out of it?" She didn't specify which he she was talking about. It could have been her son or her brother that got into trouble.
"It's nothing like that, Jaz. JT and Jax are both fine I just had my eyes on both of them a second ago and they were behaving as well as they know how to behave together. I'm calling because you need to get to the hospital now. Gemma had an accident and they are running tests on her." Tara told her from the other end of the line. She said a silent prayer that her best friend wouldn't be able to tell that she was lying to her. Jaz was like a human lie detector there wasn't much that got past her at all.
"Is she ok? Should I be really worried? Do I need to call my grandparents?" Jaz asked a series of rapid fire questions.
"No, it's not that serious. She was talking and alert when they brought her in. I just thought that you would want to know and you would want to be here when they finally get done running tests on her." Tara replied.
"Of course I'll be right there just as soon as I can. Thanks for calling and letting me know." Jaz told her gratefully.
"Jaz, you're my best friend. Of course I'm gonna call you if your mom ends up in the hospital. I'll see you in a little while. I've cleared my schedule so I can be with her while she's having these tests done and I can keep everyone informed of what's going on." Tara informed her.
"Yeah, I do have to thank you because I know Gemma won't. Whether she likes it or not you're family and once again you're showing just what an important part of this family you are. I gotta go so I can get ready. I'll see you soon." Jaz replied.
"I'll see you soon. Take your time there is no need for you to rush and get into an accident and wind up in a hospital bed next to Gemma. Be careful, I love you, bitch." Tara tried to calm her down before she got all worked up. She felt terrible lying to her, but that was the way Gemma wanted it.
"I love you too, skank." Jaz chuckled as she hung up the phone.
"What's going on?" Nate asked.
"It's a good thing that you still have your colors on. We need to get to the hospital. My mom had an accident and they are running tests on her. I just hope it wasn't because of her heart condition." Jaz was genuinely worried about her mother. It took a lot to take Gemma down.
"I'll drive, you're in no condition to right now." Nate put his arm around her shoulders and guided her out to the parking lot.
Surprising them both she didn't fight him for once. She really was too worried and too distracted to be behind the wheel at the moment.
By the time they reached the hospital the whole MC was there generally making a nuisance of themselves as usual. Chibs and Tig were racing up and down the hallway in wheelchairs. While Juice and Happy pushed Bobby around on a gurney.
"I swear I can't leave you boys alone for five seconds without you behaving like children." Jaz jumped their asses to hide her emotions.
"You know them as well as I do, Speaker, they can't behave themselves even if they try." Clay gave her a smile.
"Oh, I know. I just harbor the vein hope that one day they will grow up just a little bit. If last night's antics are any indication that is never gonna happen." Jaz actually smiled back at him. She could tell that his concern for her mother was genuine. Whether she could stand him or not she could admit that he did love her mother. That's why she tried as hard as she could to get along with him.
"Grandpa, Sprite or root beer?" JT came into the waiting room carrying two cans of soda.
"I'll take the Sprite, Prospect. You're just saved your grandpa's life from the massive hangover that he has right now. You keep the good work up and you'll be a fully patched member in no time. You already saved your grandma's life today." Clay took the soda from him.
"JT, what happened?" Jaz asked her son.
"I just got worried when I didn't hear from grandma last night. So I took my bike out this morning. I found her car crashed into the median and her slumped behind the wheel. I called Uncle Wayne and we got her to the hospital. I know she wasn't drinking last night and I was really worried that it might be her heart. I didn't know what else to do." JT told a very convincing lie.
Jaz went and threw her arm around his shoulders. "You did good, kid, you did really good. Do you have any idea how proud you make me?" She pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek.
JT wiped his cheek. "Come on, ma, not in front of the guys." He begged.
"Ah, momma's little baby." Jax teased him.
"Shut up, Uncle Jax. You're a bigger momma's boy than I am and you can't deny that." JT shot back at him playfully.
Jaz just shook her head. She gave up on getting those two to behave together.
A/N: Here is the next chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it. We are really getting into the thick of things now. Nate better be careful where he sticks his nose he just might end up getting someone killed. You have to wonder what he found in Roy's file though and what he found out about JT's paternity. I promise that we will get to all that good stuff soon. Until next time please review.