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When Shit Hits The Fan

It was Monday morning and Jem sat on the couch in the living room of the apartment. Even though he knew that she was working, Jem stared at Scarlett's number in her phone and contemplated calling her. Since he had come down from his high, guilt had hit him square in the chest like a ton of bricks. Scarlett had opened up to him about her past sexual experiences and how she hadn't had sex in six years because of it. Basically, Jem had acted like one of those guys from her past and he felt like a dick. He hadn't intended for it to end up like this and all he wanted to do was apologize.

Jem's thoughts were cut short when he heard a knock at the door. His head snapped up and he glared at the door to the apartment. There was another knock, more impatient this time around, and Jem groaned as he stood up from the couch. He shuffled his way across the living room and yanked open the door to find a pair of police officers standing in the hallway.

"James Coughlin?" the one cop asked.

Well, this is it, Jem thought. I'm going back to Walpole.

"Yeah?" Jem answered hesitantly. In response, the cop to Jem's left stepped forward and took Jem's wrist in his hand. He snapped a handcuff on his wrist and then forced Jem around to cuff his other wrist. Jem groaned as the cop who had cuffed him informed him that he was being arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and started to recite Jem's Miranda Rights.

The cops led him out of the apartment building and into the back of the cop car. They slammed the door and then slid into their respective front seats. The car started to crawl forward as they headed out of the parking lot. Jem glanced out the window and noticed the residents of his apartment building indiscreetly peeking out of their windows to witness Jem's arrest.

The cop car pulled out onto the road and headed to the precinct. Jem stared blankly out the window as the landscape whizzed by him. He knew he'd fucked up. They weren't careful during this last job. As far as Jem knew, he wasn't headed back to Walpole and he felt relieved. But what the rest of the day had in store for him, he wasn't quite sure. It wasn't too late to be sent back to Walpole.

The cop car turned into the parking lot of the precinct and the one cop put the car in park while the other climbed out to retrieve Jem from the backseat. The cop yanked Jem out of the backseat with much force and he stumbled out of the cop car. The cop slammed the door before he pulled Jem forward into the precinct.

Jem had been in here before when he'd been arrested for murder. There had been countless other times when he'd thought he'd see the insides of this precinct but he'd narrowly avoided it those times. He wasn't happy to be back but he wasn't sad or angry either. He just walked through the precinct with his head bowed and a blank expression on his face.

The cops immediately started protocol by confiscating any personal items on him and zipping them away in a plastic bag. They took his fingerprints and his mug shot before unlocking the cuffs and handing him a dime for his one phone call. Jem figured that the rest of the guys were somewhere in the precinct too so they weren't any use to call. Fergie and Rusty were out of the question too because they had been part of the plan as well. There was no point in calling Krista because she was probably high as a fucking kite already and she would only blow their cover anyways.

And then it suddenly clicked as to who he should call and he wasn't quite sure why he didn't think of her in the first place. His own damn girlfriend was a lawyer. She could get him out of this mess. Unfortunately, he would have to tell her everything but there was no way out of this. He'd been given the chance to make his one phone call and Scarlett was the only person he could call.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, he figured she'd be on her lunch break by now so he slid the dime into the slot and tried to rack his brain for her number. He nodded to himself when he figured it out and quickly punched in the numbers. Nervously drumming his fingers on the wall, he listened as the phone rang three times until Scarlett finally picked up.

"Hello?" she asked hesitantly, most likely due to the fact that she wasn't familiar with the number.

"Scar?" Jem asked. "It's me."

"Jem?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jem said. "I know you're mad at me. I know you're pissed but I need your help."

"The fuck, Jem! What the fuck!" Scarlett shouted into the phone, causing Jem to pull the receiver away from his ear. "You fucking shithead! Yeah I'm fucking pissed off at you! You decide to fuck me and then blow me off!?"

"I know, I know," Jem said calmly. "Please calm down. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

"No, I'm not going to calm down!" Scarlett shrieked. "I opened up to you. I trusted you and you just decide to fuck me and leave me like the rest of the guys! Yeah, fuck you Jem Coughlin!"

"Scarlett, please," Jem begged innocently. "I'm begging you. Please calm down because I really, really need your help."

"Oh, Jem Coughlin needs my help!" Scarlett snarled. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I was kind of arrested this morning," Jem said nervously. He'd never been so terrified in his life. Scarlett McAuley was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

"You what!?" she shrieked.

Jem flinched as he felt his eardrum vibrate. She really had some lungs on her. "Scarlett, I don't have much time, but I really need your help. Please just come help me out."

An eerie silence followed and Jem got nervous that she had hung up on him. His time was running out. He most likely only had a minute or less so he really needed her to answer him.

"You know what, Jem Coughlin," she finally said. "I don't think you've learned your lesson."

"Wait, what?" Jem asked, sincerely confused.

"I think you need to stay down there for a little bit and think about your poor life choices," Scarlett said. And with that, the line went dead. Jem pulled the receiver away from his ear and stared at it in bewilderment before returning it to its proper place.

"Alright Coughlin," one of the cops that had booked him said. "Time's up. Come with me."

Jem sighed as he bowed his head and followed the cop to his doom.

They'd been grilling him with questions about the robbery but Jem Coughlin was a tough cookie. He was a rock and he wasn't going to crack. They'd made him read a paper with dialogue on it. Some of them were his words. Some of them were Doug's. Some of them were even Gloansy's. He masked his voice slightly as he read the words from the paper so as to convince the FBI that it wasn't him who had originally spoken them.

Jem had lost track of time after the first hour. He'd been taken into the room to be interrogated at about 12:30 so he figured it had to be about 2:00 or 2:30. He was starting to grow bored of the questions and some of them were the same thing over and over, just worded differently.

The FBI had started another round of questions when the door opened and one of the cops brought another manila folder in for the FBI. But it wasn't the minor interruption that caught Jem's attention. It was the commotion down the hall that caught his attention.

"You have been questioning him for how long without a lawyer?" he heard a female's voice ask condescendingly.

"Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to take a seat and wait for them to finish," a calm female voice answered.

"I'm his fucking lawyer!" he heard Scarlett shriek and Jem couldn't help but smile.

"What the hell is going on out there?" the FBI agent asked, not taking his eyes off of the folder in front of him.

"Just some chick freaking out over Coughlin here," the cop said as he brushed it off with a wave of his hand.

"Look," Jem heard Scarlett continue. "It's stated in his Miranda Rights that he has the right to a lawyer. Well I'm his fucking lawyer and I'm here and I'm ordering you to stop questioning him!"

"Well, where were you when he was booked two hours ago?" the other woman questioned.

"I was in a fucking meeting! I have other clients other than him, you know!" Scarlett shrieked. Jem heard her Boston accent slipping back in and it was making an appearance very quickly. "So if I were you, I would release him now because I am fucking pissed."

There was a deafening silence and Jem only hoped Scarlett was staring this woman down. Suddenly, there was the sound of approaching footsteps and before he knew it, a woman with short blonde hair appeared in the doorway of Jem's briefing room. She looked annoyed, yet frazzled, and Jem figured it was because she knew she lost her shouting match with Scarlett.

"Excuse me," she said grudgingly. "But you need to stop questioning Coughlin. His lawyer's here and she demands that we cease all questioning."

The FBI agents looked at her in awe before slamming the folders back on the table. The FBI agent to Jem's left pinched the bridge of his nose while the one to Jem's right just waved him away. Jem nearly jumped out of his seat and ran down the hall to Scarlett, but he simply rose from his seat slowly and followed the blonde woman down the hall to get released from the precinct.

When he reached the end of the hall, he could see Scarlett on the other side of the counter, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes filled with rage. Jem knew she must've been pissed at him so he kept his smiles to himself. The blonde woman grabbed the plastic bag filled with Jem's belongings and handed it to him over the counter. Then, she pulled up a clipboard with several forms for him to sign for his release. Jem initialed and signed where he was instructed to and then he passed it to Scarlett so she could do the same. When his belongings were returned to him and all of the proper forms were signed, Scarlett turned on her heel without a word to Jem or the blonde woman and headed out the door.

Jem was right on her heels but he figured he should stay a couple steps behind. He bounded down the steps behind her and followed her to her car. Without turning around to meet his gaze, she jabbed a finger towards the passenger side, as if to order him to get in. Jem jogged around the car to the passenger side and climbed in. Just as he was closing the door, Scarlett climbed into the driver's side and shoved her keys in the ignition. Her car purred as it came to life and Scarlett immediately pulled out of the parking spot.

Turning onto the road, she didn't say a thing to Jem. She just drove with her eyes focused on the road, her hands gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. From Scarlett's body language, Jem was just waiting for Scarlett to explode. She was pissed. She was furious. And Jem felt guilty that he was one who caused it.

They were turning onto Medford Street when Scarlett decided to finally pipe up. Jem wouldn't look at her. He was too nervous so he kept his gaze focused out the windshield of her car.

"Start talking," Scarlett said through clenched teeth. Jem was too nervous. He didn't know what to say. "Now!" she shouted.

Jem jumped in his seat. Oh yeah, she was pissed. "You're not going to like it," Jem mumbled.

"No shit I'm not going to like it," Scarlett snapped. "You fucking called me on my lunch break to tell me that you've been arrested. I sat at work for two hours, feeling guilty for leaving you there. And I felt guilty because I'm a good person. So I want you to fucking talk, James, and don't fucking lie to me."

Jem winced at her calling him by his full name but he realized that this was it. This was the moment Jem had been dreading since he first saw Scarlett in the bar that night. He'd let it come to this so it technically was his fault. But he was scared. Jem Coughlin was scared to tell her the truth. He knew that she wouldn't like him afterward, even though he'd been to jail for nine years for murder. Even after that, she still liked him. But the fact that he'd committed these robberies – especially the last two – since she'd come into his life may not be very pleasing to her.

"Coughlin!" she snapped. "Talk."

"I robbed a bank, okay!?" Jem shouted back. He whipped his head to face Scarlett to see her looking out the windshield in awe. "And I robbed that truck on Friday. And I've robbed countless other banks and trucks. I was arrested today on suspicion of armed robbery."

Scarlett was still silent, her eyes still trained forward. "You…" she trailed off, still trying to absorb Jem's confession. When she finally composed herself, she reached over and punched Jem in the arm.

"Ow, what the fuck?" Jem whined.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me, Coughlin!" she shouted. "What else have you lied to me about?"

"I didn't lie," Jem said innocently. "I just didn't tell you everything."

Scarlett shook her head in disgust. She couldn't believe this. She had a feeling that he'd been involved with something when he'd given her that money to pay off her loans. She even made a vague connection between that money and the Cambridge Merchants robbery. But never did she think her inkling would actually be real.

"The money that you gave me," Scarlett said. "That was from the Cambridge Merchants robbery. You were involved with that robbery." It wasn't a question. She pretty much already knew the answer but she just needed Jem to confirm it.

For confirmation, Jem just nodded his head silently. He'd let her down. That was the last thing he wanted to do. There was no way they'd be dating after this car ride; she would definitely end things with him by the end of this car ride. And after that, there was no guarantee that he would see her after she ends things with him.

Suddenly, Scarlett slammed on the brakes and the car came to a screeching halt. Jem's seatbelt nearly choked him as it restrained him from going through the windshield.

"Hey, what the hell?" Jem griped.

"Get out of my car," Scarlett ordered as her voice shook with rage.

"Wait, what?"

"You heard me," Scarlett snarled. "Get the fuck out of my car and walk your sorry ass home."

"Wait, Scarlett, no, let me explain," Jem pleaded.

"I've heard enough now get the fuck out of my car!" she shouted.

"Fine," Jem snapped before opening the door and climbing out. In response, he slammed the door, causing the windows to shake from the force. Scarlett watched Jem turn around and start walking off with his back towards her. Scarlett shook her head in disbelief before flooring it and speeding off to her townhouse in East Cambridge.

She could feel her throat closing up as hot tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. But she needed to keep it together. She knew crying while she was driving wasn't a smart idea so she continuously swallowed to hold back the tears until she got home.

When she reached her road, she noticed a parking spot right in front of her house and she parked in the spot. The moment she put her car in park and turned off the ignition, the tears began to spill over. She folded her arms on top of the steering wheel and then rested her forehead on top. Her body was wracked with heavy sobs as she thought about the past month with Jem. She could forgive him for killing someone when he was eighteen. He'd done his time but the thought of him possibly going back because of committing armed robbery absolutely terrified her.

The thought of Jem going back to Walpole made Scarlett cry even harder. She cared about him too much to see him go back to Walpole. She wasn't quite sure what they were to each other at the moment. Whether they were still dating was up in the air, but Scarlett's feelings for Jem didn't change one bit. This had been a bad decision on his part, but that still didn't change how she felt about him. That still didn't change how he felt about her, how he acted around her, and how he treated her.

"Why Jem why?" she croaked with her hoarse voice. She breathed deeply as she tried to control the sobs but was only met with more tears. She stayed out in her car for almost an hour, sitting hunched over the steering wheel as her body was wracked with sob after sob. She didn't want to believe this was happening.

When she finally controlled her tears and sobs, she wiped her face dry before reaching behind her and grabbing her purse from the backseat. She pulled her keys from the ignition and wiped her face again before opening the car door. She rounded the front of the car, walked up her front steps, and stepped into her house so she could resume drowning in her sorrows.

Uh oh! Things do not look good between Jem and Scarlett. Now that she knows about his involvement with the robberies, think she'll overlook it and take him back? Stay tuned!

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