Baby, It's You

Author's Note: Hey guys, here's another, like I promised. :) That aside, I would like to warn you all that I'll probably be a little slow with updates, because I go back to college tomorrow. (Joy) Anyway, read on friends. And please don't assume this is the end. It definitely is not. :)

Chapter 11: Terminus

The first thing Chibs knew when he swam back into a foggy consciousness was that he wasn't dead. He was in way too much pain to be dead. The second was that someone else was in the room with him, warm little fingers wrapped around his. He'd know those hands anywhere.

"Hey...sweetheart..." His voice was a croak out of his throat, despite the effort it took to speak.

"Filip...?" Her voice cracked, though he couldn't tell whether it was with a sob or a sigh of relief. "Thank God..." Her hand tightened around his, and he felt her lips brushing against his fingers. "I thought you were going to die...when Jax said you'd been blown up, I thought for sure I was only going to come here and find pieces of you..."

Chibs tried to turn his head and look at her, but his head was killing him, and his vision was dicked anyway. The only thing he could see for certain was the light, and that hurt, so he opted to keep his eyes mostly closed.

"I can only be here a few minutes...Gemma and Tara had to sneak me in, but I really wanted to see you...you know, make sure you were still whole and everything..." Her hand clung a little tighter again.

"The Club?"

"All in jail. Except you, Opie and Half-sack."

"The hell for?" Chibs demanded to the best of his abilities, though his voice was far from strong.

"I don't know what really happened, I don't know if anyone does, but the way the news is playing it, it sounds like they blew in on some kind of church dinner."

"That's fuckin' bull."

"It doesn't matter." He guessed Claire must be shaking her head, from the blurry motion he could catch in his peripheral. "They've got proof of something, whatever it is. And Gemma can't seem to get anyone out on bail either."

"Shit..."

He could hear her sigh, and then felt her fingers slide away from his. "Chibs, I've got to go. The nurse making rounds will be by any minute. But listen...I don't expect it right now, but... we've got to talk. About a lot of stuff. Especially whatever it is everyone has been hiding from me about Ireland." There was some shuffling, which he assumed to mean she was getting up, and she brushed a tender kiss over his lips. "Get well. We'll worry about everything else after that."

"Sure...talk..." He muttered, knowing the worst was yet to come. He wondered how much Gemma had already told her, and how much she hated him already. Before long, the pain meds kicked back in, and Chibs slipped back under into the dark.

It felt like moments later he was back in reality, and could hear the shuffling of someone else in the room once again. Had she come back already?

"Claire?"

"I'm goin' ta guess she was the cute red-head sneakin' outta here."

Chibs felt like he'd just been hit with a second car-bomb. Not Claire. Fiona.

Oh shit.

As much as Claire had hated having to sit around the hospital and worry about Chibs, she thought she might hate wandering around the house and doing it even more. At least at the hospital she didn't have to wonder about what could go wrong while she was gone. But, fact of the matter was, she was only human, and had been starting to look like a zombie from lack of sleep and not eating enough. Of course, Gemma had also threatened to make Opie carry her back and tie her to the bed-post if she didn't at least go get a decent dinner. She didn't think Opie would do such a thing, but, better safe than sorry.

So now, here she was, worrying just like before, and making a grilled cheese. Real fancy. Claire sighed and leaned against the counter. And then there was that woman. She didn't even know where to start with that one. She had been heading into Chibs' hospital room just as Claire was leaving, and brazenly too. She had never seen her before, factor in that ICU was supposed to be immediate family only, and that left a pretty limited scope of what the possibilities were for her identity. She was holding out for long-lost sister or something like that; but Claire knew it was wishful thinking at best.

That said, she wasn't sure she could handle serious contemplation of anything else just yet. Chibs would get back on his feet, the rest of the Club would get out of jail, and then...then she might be prepared for the alternatives. But for now, all she wanted was to eat her sandwich, take a hot shower, force down a couple of Tylenol PM and try to sleep a little while.

She nearly wanted to throw the plate of half-eaten grilled cheese down when she heard a car pulling into her drive. She did not want to deal with anyone right now, but when they started ringing the doorbell insistently, she figured it might actually be important and resigned herself to putting off the much-needed peace a while longer. She pushed the plate back, rose from her chair and walked to the front door, groaning aloud when she saw the bright yellow Viper sitting in her driveway, dangerously close to her Jetta. That could mean only one thing. Her brother Liam was here to make everything worse.

Knowing he would probably stand there and continue ringing until she opened the door, Claire flicked the locks down and pulled the door open, meeting her brother's annoyingly false smile with a grimace of her own.

"If Dad sent you, you can turn around and leave right now Liam. I'm having a shitty week."

"Damn Sis, that's no way to greet me after the long drive I took just to see you."

"Yeah right. I'm betting Dad sent you to do his dirty work because he didn't want to make the drive and couldn't convince Ben to do it again."

"Okay...you're partially right." Liam conceded with a nod, pulling his sunglasses off and stepping around Claire into the living room. "He did send me to try and convince you to come home again, but it wasn't that he didn't want to make the drive, it's that he couldn't. Dad's in the hospital, it's bad this time." As if that news meant very little to him, and he probably pretended that was true, Liam walked a slow circle around the living room, apparently to examine all of Claire's things, or possibly the scattered objects that belonged to Chibs. "So, where's this biker boyfriend of yours Ben was raving about?"

"The hospital, if you must know." Claire crossed her arms and watched her brother move around her house, bristling every time he got nosy and started fiddling with things, but knowing objecting to his rubber-necking would only make it worse. Liam was a trained pain in the ass, especially when it came to pissing off his older sister.

"Bar fight?"

"Accident." She crossed the floor and plucked Chibs' spare sunglasses out of Liam's hand, setting them back on the side table where he always left them, should he forget his favorite pair somewhere.

"Ah." Was all Liam said for a moment, before he turned to meet eyes with her. Liam took after both their parents in the best way, as far as looks went. He was tall and slim, but worked out enough that he wasn't scrawny. He'd gotten their Father's green eyes, and their Mother's dirty-blonde hair. Sometimes Claire wondered if they were really related, seeing as they were so different. She seemed to have gotten all the recessive genes possible in her family, and Liam never let her forget it either. "I didn't think he was serious, you know? I figured it was just Ben being Ben."

"Yeah, well, he was serious. I'm in love with a biker. Can you go now?" Claire rubbed her eyes tiredly. Those Tylenol PM were sounding real good. She looked up again to find Liam watching her. "What?"

"'In love'. Really, Claire?"

"God, you're just like Dad." Claire groaned, sitting herself down on the couch heavily. Liam, to her utter surprise, sat himself down next to her.

"Sorry. Really. Listen, Claire, can't you just come home for a little bit at least? Dad's going crazy."

Also he was an insincere bastard, but what else was new? That apology was probably the worst she'd ever heard.

"Is that supposed to change my mind? Ben showed up barely a week after I moved here, then Dad started harassing me, and now you? Is Mom booked on the next flight down or what?"

"Claire, you've got to at least go see him. I mean, before he dies. You're not that cruel."

"Maybe I am." She stood again, feeling uncomfortable with Liam trying to be so friendly, and walked back to the kitchen, remembering she had that grilled cheese to finish. He followed.

"Claire, come on. Don't be a brat."

"You're one to talk. The only time you aren't a sarcastic bastard is apparently when you get drunk and feel like calling me at three in the morning."

"He's your father."

"That never meant anything to him until he started dying," Claire spat, whirling around to face her brother with a glare. "Why should I drop my entire life just to go see him? I have my own problems, like Chibs being in the hospital." As well as the possibility that there was another woman involved in all this.

"His name is Chibs?"

"It's a nickname," Claire said shortly, not wanting to get into the explanation. Which she didn't actually know, seeing as Chibs still hadn't told her that story. Or one that would explain the mystery woman. Or anything. Claire was really beginning to wonder just how far in the dark Chibs had really been keeping her. She wasn't stupid, but she wasn't nosy either, and now, she wished she might have taken more after her brother in that trait. She should have started pressing him for answers a long time ago.

"Dad thinks you hate him." Liam invited himself to sit in the kitchen chair opposite her.

"Yeah, well, I kind of do." She shrugged and picked at her sandwich, suddenly not hungry anymore. "Listen Liam, really listen for second. I'm not going back to Portland, because it's not my home anymore. This is. I have a life here, and everything is turning into total shit. I can't leave right now even if I wanted to, I need to be here. Not just because of Chibs, but because I've got people here who are like family."

"You've got a family."

"That's not the point Liam. Is it so hard to believe that I like it here? It's not like this is some rebel phase or anything, I mean it. I like it here, and I'm not leaving."

"And I'm supposed to believe that joining a motorcycle gang isn't a rebellion?" Liam all but scoffed.

"This from the guy who only sleeps with girls who have tattoos and piercings. What do you call that? Having a sixth sense for any woman in a mile-wide radius that will piss Mom and Dad off? And it's not a gang."

"Then what the hell is it?" He demanded, leaning over the table slightly, as though planning to reach across and try to shake some sense into her. "They're bikers Claire. You're fucking a goddamned criminal."

Claire sighed, realizing they had more or less just been going in circles this entire conversation. "I'm not fucking him," She informed plainly. "Well, I mean, technically I am, but it's not just that. Maybe love is a hard concept for you to grasp, but I do love Chibs, and Charming, and living here, and I'm not going to leave just because Dad wants to start being a father when he only has a few months left to live."

"He doesn't even have that," Liam snapped, "He's in the hospital remember? That year or sixth months bullshit was only to make Mom feel better. He's going to die Claire."

"But why does all the responsibility have to fall to me?" Claire demanded, getting entirely too fed up with her family and their affairs. Not only that, like she had been trying to say, she had her own problems to deal with right now. "Why can't Mom stop pretending she's some kind of celebrity long enough to take care of Dad? Why don't you stop with all the partying and start trying to be a business man if you're suddenly so concerned about what will happen to the company? Or why don't you just let Ben and his family have it? I mean, obviously Dad trusted him more than he trusted me."

And that fact was probably never going to stop hurting. She had always known that her Father had been more-or-less completely disappointed in the way she had turned out, but she had still wanted him to love her, like any other child. And the only time she had asked for it, when her heart had been broken and she had felt like nothing was ever going to be right again, he had coldly turned her down and told her that it didn't matter if she couldn't love Ben; she was going to be with him anyway for the good of the family business.

Less than a month later, she had made the move to Charming, and everything had started to seem like it would be perfect. Until recently anyway. The last few weeks had managed to turn her life completely upside down. Again. And Liam wasn't even giving her time to sleep on it. She didn't hate her brother, but he was a real insensitive jerk most of the time.

"It has to fall to you because you're the only responsible one left in this family," Liam grunted in a resigned sort of way. "You know that, don't you? Even I know I don't have a head for business or real estate, Mom can't even keep track of her checking account, and Ben...if he ever does manage to buy out the company, he'll put us all out on the street. Is that what you want?"

"If that's the way it has to be, then yes. I'm sorry Liam, you're my brother, you're my family, but you don't need money like that to survive. I certainly don't, and I want nothing else to do with it. If you want to save Dad's business, then you do it. I won't sacrifice my chance at the life I want just so you and Mom can live your cushy lives. I'm sorry, but I won't."

"What about Dad?"

"I can't Liam. I'm afraid that if I saw him now, I would end up really hating him. Just...go home, okay? It would be better if at least you were there for him."

Liam heaved a heavy sigh, but his eyes stayed on Claire, and the two of them sat in silence for a moment. "I guess I can't really blame you for this. None of us gave you a reason to come back."

"Please try to understand, this isn't out of bitterness. Not entirely. I've just...I don't think I really belong with my family anymore, I don't know if I ever did. But I want things to work here, I want to stay with Chibs, and that means I have to settle some things. I have to try and make it work."

"You tried to make things work with Ben," Liam reminded, "-do you really think it will go any better this time?"

"I don't know. But I've got to try, don't I?"

She hoped she could make it work, she prayed she could make it work, because in all honesty, she wasn't sure she could deal with another heart break. And it only got worse; she knew if that woman and Chibs still had some form of a relationship, it was going to hurt ten-fold what Ben's betrayal had. She didn't even want to begin to think what that would do. But her trust could only carry her so far.

There should be limits to suffering.

Chibs thought this while Jax told him a bit of what he had missed out on while he had been laid up. The parts that stuck out the furthest were Luann's death and Jax deciding to go nomad. How much more shit was the universe going to fling them before something good happened? That aside, he wouldn't want to be in Otto's shoes for this one, or Jax's for that matter, seeing as the vice-president was the one who got to tell him. And while he was as depressed as the next Son to hear about an Old Lady's untimely death, it made him worry more about something else.

"Jackie-boy, ya seen Claire lately?" If Luann had been a victim, who was to say Claire couldn't be as well? Especially considering she hadn't been back to see him, and she lived so far separated from the Club; he wouldn't know if someone were targeting her. He shuddered at the thought of what could happen while she was so isolated out there, and he couldn't do shit about it from here.

Jax frowned a little, and shook his head. "No. Not since the other day when she was here. But uh...Mom thinks the chances are pretty good she might've run into Fiona."

"Shit..." He had been afraid of that. It wasn't like Claire to jump at someone, but Fiona was another matter entirely. Maybe the reason he hadn't seen her was because Fiona had decided to scare her off; or tell Claire the truth. "Listen, before ya go off on yer little nomad adventure, will ya go out and check on her?"

"The vote hasn't been cast yet Chibs, I might not go."

"Yu'll go whether we agree with ya or not," Chibs corrected, and knew it was true. He didn't like the idea one bit either. It was one thing to go nomad when you needed the travel, like Happy, but it was different when you were the vice-president and you were leaving your whole crew hanging, just because you couldn't get along with your step-dad.

"What do you want me to say if she did meet your wife?" Jax chose to ignore his comment, which was probably just as well.

"I dunno. It's not something talking is gonna make better."

"Guess that's probably true...I'll see if I can talk her into coming back to the Clubhouse. We can keep her safe there. And...maybe soften the blow a little."

"Thanks Jax." He might be bitter about Jax leaving the Club, but Claire came first. He would deal with knocking some sense into Jax when he knew she was safe and he could get out of this damn bed. He only hoped he would still have a chance with her when he finally could. Surely he deserved at least that much.

Of course, Claire and Jax weren't his only problems right now. If Fiona was here, that must mean Jimmy was as well, and God only knew how Chibs would handle a face-to-face confrontation with that prick; keeping his cool would probably be too much to ask. Not that he could risk that though. And what about Kerrianne? Was she alright? For what felt like the umpteenth time, Chibs cursed his current predicament. There was too much going on that he was being kept out of. He only hoped he was back on his feet in time to kick the ass of whichever one of Zobelle's little cronies planted that bomb. He would be healed soon. Until then, he just had to wait.

Claire's immediate thought when she saw the black Harley in her driveway was that Chibs had made a miraculous recovery, but on closer inspection, she saw that it wasn't his. This one belonged to Jax, and it's owner was sitting on the porch swing, looking as though the weight of the world had fallen on his shoulders. She knew that feeling.

She parked her car and climbed out, wordlessly sitting next to him.

"You mad at Chibs?" He finally asked, after long moments of the two of them merely sitting in silence.

"No...I don't know. Everything is really confusing right now," Claire sighed, leaning heavily back against the swing. "I feel like I shouldn't be, not while he's in the hospital, but I'm not stupid. I know that lady in the hospital has some kind of history with Chibs, and I figure she's at least part of the whole Ireland incident Gemma keeps telling me I need to ask about."

"You could say that." Jax nodded.

"I suppose you don't plan to tell me either." It was less of a question and more of a statement.

"He didn't really tell me what to say, and I don't know," Jax said forlornly, giving her a shrug. "It's not my place to tell you."

"I know. Sorry. I just hate feeling like I'm the only one not in on this little secret. Though I suppose I can guess they were together at some point."

"Yeah, they uh...they were."

"Were they still together when Chibs and I started our...thing?" She still wasn't really sure what to call it. Dating seemed too simple, love seemed too serious, but it was more than just the two of them being together.

"I doubt it. I mean, they haven't been together in a long time. But listen, it might not be that he meant to keep it from you, maybe he just didn't know what to say."

"Well, I never knew I was such a difficult person to talk to." Claire crossed her arms, realizing how bitter she must sound, but unable to stop herself. It just seemed to keep piling up. She decided to change the subject rather than dwell on it. "Jax, what brings you all the way out here anyway? I mean, you didn't come just to make excuses for Chibs."

"He was worried about you. He asked me to come see how you were."

"Oh? What, was he afraid I was going to pack up and leave or something?"

"Were you?"

"Crossed my mind," Claire admitted, frowning as she slackened her arms, folding her hands instead. Chibs had once said she had nervous hands, and he could tell what she was thinking about just by the way she was holding them. She wondered if he would be able to guess now. "I'm not very good at confrontations," She continued, Jax patiently listening, "-and I really thought about just running away and waiting for everything to be simple again. But I know that won't happen, hell, when I ran away from my family problems, they only seemed to follow me. I guess life just works that way." She shrugged. "So I guess I'll stay here and try to figure out if I still have a place."

"You're a good girl, you'll work something out."

"We'll see." Claire sighed again, not knowing if she really had the constitution to work something out. She was a natural-born push-over, and probably a little bit of a coward.

"There was...something else." Jax glanced over at her, as though he were about to say something she didn't want to hear. Which was probably true enough.

"Like what?"

"Things have been getting real bad for the Club. I dunno if you heard about Luann...but, we dunno if it will happen again."

"I heard." Claire nodded. "So...you're saying I'm in danger then, is that it?"

"I dunno. But it might be better if you kinda...stayed at the Clubhouse for awhile, just to be safe."

"Chibs' idea?"

Jax shook his head. "Mine."

"Thanks Jax, really. But I knew what I was getting into. And besides, until we know for sure it's silly to get worked up. I'll stay here. For a little while longer at least."

Jax sighed, but didn't try to convince her. She supposed he must know she was right, the only thing moving her to Clubhouse would do right now was make her an inconvenience. Or a closer target, depending on how negative she wanted to be.

"I should get back. Abel gets cranky if I don't get home at a decent time."

"Are you sure it's Abel and not Tara?" Claire asked slyly.

"Probably a little of both," Jax admitted.

He rose off the swing, and turned to give Claire a brotherly touch on the head. "Listen, you're probably not going to see me for awhile, but just know the Club is there to look out for you. If you need anything, you talk to my Mom, okay? Even if you're not an official Old Lady, we all knew it was coming sooner or later. You're family."

"Where are you going?"

"Think of it like a vacation. I need to sort some shit out, and I can't really do it here."

"So...you're running away then?"

"Not for long. I hope. Just until things can work out. Sometimes you just gotta take yourself out of the equation." Jax shrugged. "I guess I'm looking for a better perspective or something like that."

"Well...good luck then."

"Same to you darlin'."

The lights were on, so he knew Claire was home. Jax had said she hadn't wanted to go back and stay in the Clubhouse, not that he could really blame her with all the chaos going on there right now, so he was glad to see no signs of any potential threat. Still unable to wear a helmet with the sutures holding the back of his head together, he hadn't really had the choice of riding his bike, but she seemed to know it was him, exiting from the house to stand on the porch.

"Should you be driving?" She questioned, not leaving the porch he noticed, likely trying to keep what she perceived as a safe distance between them. This already felt ominous. But it was time to try his little confession over again, and hopefully this time, he could get everything out.

"I was worried about ya. No one's heard a damn thing from ya since I was in the hospital. I haven't seen ya in fuckin' days." He shut the van door with a snap, resisting, barely, the urge to run up the stairs and jump her. He could feel her protective wall of ice from where he stood, and knew she was upset. And he figured he could guess why.

"I didn't want to be in the way..." She said quietly, her eyes drifting off to something in the distance. "There was nothing I could do to help, so I figured I would be better off staying out from underfoot. Besides, Tara got in trouble, so I couldn't risk sneaking in again."

"Ya coulda at least called sweetheart. I was damn near panicking." Close enough to touch her, Chibs stopped, unsure whether she would accept anything from him right now. He couldn't even tell how mad she really was, she was so damned stoic about everything. Her tone of voice, her posture, her expression; everything was perfectly neutral, not even crossing her arms to give him a hint.

Claire glanced at him with those painfully impassive eyes. "You look tired." She touched his shoulder lightly, and it was an impersonal touch. It bit at him seeing how distant she had become, but when he reached for her, she took a pointed step away from him. "Chibs...is...is an explanation too much to ask?"

"It's complicated-"

"Just tell me the truth," She cut him off, and he saw the first glimmer of emotion in her eyes. Of heartbreak and sadness and pain. He was such a bastard. "The woman in the hospital. Who was she? I want to hear it from you."

"She was...is...Fiona is my wife." There was no sense trying to sugar-coat it anymore, anything less than the truth was only going to make things worse. But he still winced a little on the inside when he said it. The truth hurt. He could only imagine how Claire felt, having it dropped on her this way.

"'Is'? As in...she's currently your wife?"

"Yeah. That's the complicated part..."

"No shit," Claire practically hissed, but her expression stayed cool. "Anything else you feel like sharing?"

"I have a daughter too."

"Well. A whole little happy family you've been hiding from me. That certainly makes things a little more complicated." Her arms crossed now, but she didn't shout, didn't glare, she continued to look at him with a haunted expression. He almost wished she would get angry; it was bothering him that she could handle this all so calmly. Had he become so insignificant to her that she wasn't even going to bother getting mad? The very thought cut him straight to the bone. Had one lie earned him so much hatred? Even if it was a terrible lie?

"Claire-"

"So, what? Have you just been living a double-life, hoping neither of us found out? Have I just been your woman on the side?"

"No! Christ, Claire, that's not it at all. I told ya, it's complicated, ya gotta try to understand-"

"Do you love your wife?" Chibs froze, casting around for an answer. He didn't know what he wanted to say, he didn't know what he was supposed to say. He didn't even know for certain what he felt anymore.

"Fiona is my family, but you-"

"Chibs...Filip...please just...just answer the question." The thinly-veiled pained look was back. He sighed, and tried to put his muddled emotions into words, hoping they were coherent, hoping she would understand. You didn't just stop loving the woman you had married, the mother of your child, even if you fell in love with someone else. And he had fallen hard, which was why he silently begged Claire to understand, to give him a chance to explain, to stay. It was a shitty feeling, realizing you were in love with someone when you were on the brink of losing them.

"I do. But not like I used to. Sweetheart, things have changed-"

She held up a hand, silencing his words. She swiped the hand under her eyes, though she didn't seem to be crying. "I love you." She said simply, and while the words were there, they seemed cold and meaningless. "But I'm not so selfish that I'd ask you to choose between me and your wife. I won't make you choose."

"Claire, please, just let me explain," He was close to begging. He was willing to beg. He knew where this went next, and he would give anything to stop it.

"You had time to explain!" For the first time, Claire's control faltered, her voice went up in volume and the icy protection broke, her eyes filling with tears. "The entire time we've been together you could have at least brought up the fact that you were married! But you waited until we were practically fucking introduced!"

"I didn't want ya to find out this way." He grabbed her shoulders before she could walk away, as gently as he could and still keep her from leaving without even hearing him out.

"Did you want me to find out at all?" She demanded coldly. "You knew from the start...I told you from the very beginning what happened with Ben, and you still...now all of a sudden I'm the other woman? Do you have any idea how bad that hurts?" She wrenched away from his hold, pressing her hands against her eyes. She wouldn't even cry in front of him anymore. Her entire body shuddered with a repressed sob. "Get off my porch."

"Claire-"

"Leave." She glared now, pulling her hands away from her eyes to hit him on the shoulder, not hard, but it was enough to get her point across. "I won't be a part of this. I'm through. So leave." When he evidently didn't move fast enough for her liking, she turned away and strode into her house, shutting the door on anything else he could say.

The first sob that echoed through the door tore his heart out. After that, it became just a dull ache.

Claire knew Chibs had waited outside her door for a good hour or two before someone finally called him back into town, she wasn't sure who or why, but she didn't care. She was glad for it; she knew he'd never let her leave. Well, maybe now he would, who knew.

When the sounds of the van had faded into the distance, Claire picked up her duffel bag and purse, and carried them both out to the car. Like Jax had said, sometimes you just had to take yourself out of the equation, and see if things worked out. It was painfully obvious she was the odd-one out in this particular equation; not only did Chibs have a wife, but a child as well. Family should be more important than an extra-marital affair, and if it took packing up her broken heart and breaking it more by leaving Charming to make Chibs see that, then so be it. She wasn't going to try and take him away from his family, it was as simple as that. She refused to be responsible for putting someone else through what she had more or less experienced once before.

It wouldn't be the first time life had cheated her out of happiness, nor the last if her track record was any indication. She didn't know where she was going to go, or what she was going to do, but she would figure something out. She had to.

Claire locked her door behind her, put her meager bags in the car, and climbed in, turning it to the road that led out of town. First, she would just focus on getting away.

Maybe fate would tell her what to do after that.

He had never really been a nice man. Hell, some days, he wasn't much better than your average street thug. But some days...some days he wasn't so bad, was he? Some days he was worth loving, or so he thought. But apparently those days had been too few and far between to make her stay.

Chibs had known she was gone the moment he pulled into her driveway and saw the car was missing. It had been too late in the evening for her to be at work, or even at the store. His first reaction had been panic. He'd rushed to the door, fumbled his keys around, and after finally unlocking it was met with the stillness of an empty house. It hadn't been trashed the way it would have been if she had been forced to leave, everything was exactly like it had the last time he was there. Wandering to her room, he found empty hangers, the duffel bag on the closet floor missing, toothbrush and make-up gone, the systematic signs of packing a bag for a trip.

Only he knew it wasn't a trip, people came back from those. He didn't know if he would ever see Claire again.

He slumped onto the foot of the bed, unmade, the way she liked it. Hell, the way he had liked it too. Things had been so good...and then they had gone to hell faster than he could blink. What was fair about that?

He wanted Claire right now. He fucking needed her. She made shit make sense, and nothing was making sense at all. But even if she had been here, he doubted she would have just welcomed him back and offered him the warmth and compassion he'd gotten so damned used to.

When had things gotten so fucked?

Chibs rubbed his eyes, and got off her bed before everything overwhelmed him again. Even if she hated him now, he wanted to protect her, he had wanted to bring her back to the Clubhouse and offer her the same protection he had to Fiona, even knowing that should they both accept, it would mean inviting his past and his present to openly collide. It would have been worth it if it kept them both safe.

Wherever she was, he hoped she was well out of reach of the war that was about to start.

He left the room, flicking the lights off, and closing the doors behind him. Someday he would find her, and someday he would make things right between them. But until then, he had to focus on Fiona and his daughter. For now, he would have to make do with the house and the memories.