AN: So many thanks for all your nice reviews. It's a real pleasure to get a response like that and a good reason to continue this story. So go on and review!

As always I take a thankful look at a awesome island with a LonePalm on it ^^

Disclaimer: Sons of Anarchy and all characters in this fic – except for Adam Learner, the nurse James and some unnamed supernumerary – belong to Kurt Sutter and the FX Network.

Opie quickly glanced at the keys on the storage room floor. Damn, he had locked the door once they were inside so the Russians would have no way to get to them. But they obviously were gone and now he and Jax were locked in. The voices from outside were growing louder; slightly frantic as they debated how to rescue their brothers. Someone tried to break the door open but of course without any luck.

»It's locked!« Opie shouted between two breaths as he continued his tiring routine. He knew that he had to leave his friend in order to get them out, but he was afraid. Afraid that he might be gone, when he returned. But that fear would get them nowhere.

Bobbys voice came through the massive door asking »Key?« and Opie pressed a last breath of air into Jax's lungs and got up.

»Got it!« he answered and with slippery hands Opie hastily tried to stuff the key into the keyhole. He couldn't see much as sweat dripped into his eyes, burning them, as the key slipped off of the lock a few times. The door was excruciatingly hot when he accidentally touched it with the back of his hand and the skin stuck to the surface, but Opie didn't noticed it at all. He finally got the key in, turned it, heard the lock open and immediately returned to Jax's side. When the first real ray of light fell into the storage room Opie shielded his eyes as he looked into it's glistening beautiful relief and a handful of shocked watching silhouettes.

••••••••••••

»Out!« Tara barked as she made her way through the bikers and felt the heels of her shoes already melting on the hot floor. The building was devastated, covered in soot and still steaming from the sudden shower that had been Juice's engineering masterpiece, but still in ruins from the fire's heat.

The sight inside the storage room nearly stopped Tara in her tracks and literally made her sick - Opie hunched over a motionless Jax. The tension of desperation was almost palpable. Nobody said a word. She started to shiver as she got closer.

»Get him out!« Clay ordered behind her back and she turned.

»No« she shook her head calmly.

»Not your decision, Doc« the President murmured but Tara was not in the mood to let anyone make decisions that could affect Jax's condition.

»Oh yes it is« she nodded determined, as she grabbed her stethoscope from the EMT-bag over her shoulder and pushed herself into the crowded storage room. Clay wanted to reply but two pairs of hands belonging to Tig and Bobby led him out of the building.

It wasn't quite as hot in there, but there wasn't much room to move around. Opie was still pushing air into Jax's limp body and Tara tried to swallow that lump in her throat. Protocols, she needed protocols.

First: Check pulse and breathing. She found the first on Jax's neck, barely and indescribably irregular. But the femoral pulse was completely gone or impalpable. His circulation was deteriorating. She had no doubt that that was the arrhythmia Adam had been afraid of and that had been the possibility, that had kept her awake the whole night.

Second: Breathing … well … he wasn't doing it on his own. In addition his lips WERE blue and he showed a severe cyanosis from maybe an hour or more without a sufficient oxygen supply. No one had to tell her how fatal that was. Tara laid one hand onto Opie's shoulder as used the other to grab the laryngoscope and and a size 8 endotracheal tube.

»It's okay, Ope. You can stop now.«

Opie administered a last breath to Jax and looked Tara in the eye before he got up and they changed their positions. His face was wet from sweat and tears.

Third: Secure airways. She tilteded Jax's head and neck back and up and introduced the laryngoscope to make the glottis – the vocal folds and the space between them – visible. His airways were free and much bigger than that ones she was used to. In a fluent movement she pushed the tube down his windpipe and filled the cuff on it's lower end with saline solution from a small syringe attached to it, to lock the tube in place.

»Ambu-bag« she ordered not thinking for a second that Opie might not know what an ambu-bag was. But he handed it to her without comment. Once she had connected it to the tube and started to ventilate Jax, whose chest rose and fell regularly, she checked the position listening through the stethoscope to the crackling sounds of the moving air. Then she turned back to Opie. He was shaken, she could tell, maybe even traumatized. She couldn't imagine how he must have felt alone in here. Possibly like herself the whole time, even now: Helpless.

»It's okay« she repeated and asked herself who she was actually trying to convince. »Opie? Get me a few strong hands. I want Jax out of here as fast as possible.«

Opie nodded vacantly and left Tara at Jax's side. She went back to the protocol.

Fourth: Sustain sufficient circulation. Assuming there was something to sustain. With one hand she ripped the monitor electrodes out of the EMT-bag and connected them to the adhesives on his chest. The monitor welcomed her with alerts. No wonder. She spotted the hair-needle-shaped graph of a monomorphic ventricular tachycardia. It was the face of a lifethreatening beast. Often it deteriorated within minutes into a pulselessness or ventricular fibrillation. Her heart skipped a beat before it sank, heavy as lead, onto the floor of a dark ocean.

»Fuck!« she cursed. No idea how long he had been in this state, but it explained the worse circulation and the pulmonary edema she was working against with the ambu-bag. She clamped the pulseoxymeter on Jax's finger tip. 78%. Bloody hell. For a moment the horror she was facing seemed overwhelming. It WAS overwhelming. But did she have a choice? Would Jax have any chance without her keeping her mind clear?

••••••••••••

»You? Again?«

»Two times in two days, son«, John Teller nodded. They were stuck in some kind of undefined, black space. Jax couldn't even feel the floor under his feet nor tell if he was sitting, standing or lying down.

»Can count on my own« he answered sloppily, but unable to fight that nagging feeling that was crawling its way up his back.

»I thought you had got the message already.«

»Dad … «

»I'm serious.«

»So am I. I told Clay that I need a few days off.«

»Who are you trying to kid?«

»Sorry?«

»My son, you're a brave one, but didn't I tell you to be scared?«

»I tried to figure it out.«

»Me, too.«

»Huh?«

»Don't let history happen twice, Jax.«

»You're talking in riddles.«

»The last time one of us tried to escape the king, he ended up dead. That man will squeeze the last drop of blood out of your body if it has any use to him.«

»I'm not so sure. Without Clay, Abel would be lost.«

»I didn't say that he is the devil.«

»I have to be really fucked up, if I am dreaming this shit.«

»Dreaming? Let me be clearer. You're back. Do you remember this darkness? The feeling, that squeezes the air out of your lungs and cuts you off from the world you were living in? You were here the last time and back then you promised yourself never to end up back here again. Do you remember, son?«

Jax looked at his father and an unbearable sadness settled over him like a black sail, dark and heavy, pulling him to the ground. He started shaking and his hands were trembling. Tears found their way into his eyes. He remembered. Oh, yes he did. The place he never wanted to return to. It was nowhere. Not a real place at all. Even worse was the certainty that he could not leave. Not even Jax Teller could escape death. Not every time.

»I see, you do« his father nodded and pain and regret distorted his face.

»I'm dying?«

»How many more chances do you need?«

»I … I can't … « Jax cried and was ashamed of it. He hated himself for crying when he had to be strong, for letting himself end up back here. In his attempts to never return to this place, he had done exactly that - maneuvered himself straight back to the one place he never wanted be in again.

»They all were begging for another chance and you got it!« his father suddenly shouted at him. It seemed that his state of emotion changed with Jax's own. »You got it and after that you even got a warning shot on top of that and you ignored it! … They all were begging for another minute on earth. Just another gasp.«

»So you blame me for acting like everyone else?« Jax shouted back.

»You are blaming yourself, Jax! And you know that! You already see the lights dimming, don't you?«

»What lights?«

John Teller raised his right hand. It vanished into shadows. The contrasts were fading. He was right.

»Do I have a chance?« Jax turned from his father and stared in the endlessness of this place.

••••••••••••

»There are an oxygen cylinder and a blanket in my trunk. Get them« Tara told Chibs while they followed Phil and Opie, who carried Jax out of and away from the building. They settled him on a still dry piece of ground and Tara dropped the EMT-bag. She was searching for amiodarone. Quickly she got the little bottle with the dark red label. She knew it was too early for that. She had to cardiovert him first.

»Leave« she told to Phil and Opie. »He doesn't need curious onlookers.«

Phill nodded and disappeared but Opie stayed and bent down. He took the ambu-bag out out of Tara's hands and continued squeezing it. Maybe he needed it, Tara thought and let him go on. She pulled the defibrillator out of the bag and pressed the charge button. That moment Chibs returned.

»There is a small tube at the end of the ambu-bag«, Tara explained and got another bottle and an IV-bag. »Connect it to the valve at the end of the cylinder and open it all the way.«

Relying on the club's medic she hunkered over Jax and put her mouth to his ear.

»Jax, I don't know if you can hear me, but everything is going to be okay. Baby, I need to shock you to get you in a better rhythm. It's gonna hurt. I'm sorry for that« she talked to him and applied a high dose of morphine from the second bottle and lightly kissed his cheek before she got the self-adhesive paddles of the defibrillator. 200 Joule. Synchronized.

»When I say "clear" don't touch him« she barked at Opie and Chibs, placed the paddles on Jax's chest and looked a last time to the monitor. »Clear!«

They stepped back and Tara hit the release button. The device measured Jax's rhythm, loaded, beeped loudly and delivered the shock. Jax's body reacted with the expected short seizure, as all of his muscles contracted at the same time, then he went limp again. Tara looked at the monitor and sighed in relief. Sinus rhythm was back.

»Oh good Lord« she breathed and continued to ventilate Jax, because Opie was simply frozen. »Opie, go. He's good for the moment.«

Opie stared her in the face but showed no sign of recognition so Chibs helped him up and nodded »Go«. After Opie had started moving towards the other members Chibs took the bag and took a good look at Jax's face.

»Will he come around?« he asked gently.

»Don't know« Tara shrugged and set a drip with the amiodarone, that hopefully would prevent another arrhythmia, and one with diuretics, because Jax actually was drowning in his own lungs. His skin was pale and blue, the o2 saturation didn't climb over 84% and he was covered in cold sweat. Even though she had prevented him from dying right now, she knew that the time that had elapsed until she gotten there could have caused damage that no one would be able to repair. She wanted to cry, to throw up, to scream and hide from the truth she was looking at, but for what? She had to be here for the only man she would ever love, so she reached over and took Jax's lifeless hand and held it firmly as he walked at the brink between life and death.

Tara heard her phone ringing and answered it. The ambulance waited for them at Milton.

»Can you direct them here?« she wanted to know from Chibs but he shook his head.

»Too many questions. We'll get him there.«

She was too tired to fight the twisted rules of a bunch of outlaws so she nodded. The men shifted Jax gently onto the blanket and placed him in the back of Opie's truck. Chibs took his vice-president's head into his lap to protect him from the violent jostling of the moving truck and continued stubbornly to press air into his lungs. Someone, Tara didn't knew who, pushed the truck fast down the dirt road towards Milton. The club was following with roaring machines and a trace of rising dust that cut through the seemingly endless desert.