Chibs drove me straight to Teller-Morrow's. We parked and Chibs had to help me from the passenger seat. The sun was setting so the sky was pink and the lot was washed in its dying light. I took a deep breath and felt myself truly relax for the first time since I got into the wreck. I heard my name being yelled and I turned to see Half-Sack running to me.
"You're alive!" Sack yelled before hugging me tightly.
"Who said I died?" I asked. Sack shrugged and he and Chibs took me into the clubhouse.
The clubhouse looked as it always did but this time the whole club was waiting at the bar. When I got into view, they all cheered and clapped and moved forward to say hello. I felt some of the guys clap my back while others went for full out bear hugs. Tig wrapped me tightly in his arms before lifting me off the ground and he sat me down soon after. Gemma walked over and kissed my cheeks lightly before others came to greet me. But there was really one face I really wanted to see.
Juice had been hanging back, obviously waiting for an opening. When everyone got over seeing me out of the hospital for he first time, they thinned their crowd out a lot and began to head back to the bar. That's when Juice saw his opening. He walked past Chibs to get to me and I made eye contact with Chibs. My friend wriggled his eyebrows at me and moved onto the bar. Soon Juice and I were standing together.
"C'mon, everyone's been waiting to see you again." Juice said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back to the crowd. I sat down at the bar and Juice took the seat to my left. He gently prodded at my still sore arm, causing me to flinch a bit. Juice automatically went into a flurry of sorrys and held his hands up in what resembled a gesture of surrender.
"Stop giving the girl further injury!" Tig yelled at Juice.
"And you need to stop yelling in her ear," Gemma said, walking over. "She'll go deaf before she's twenty-four." She handed me a beer, which I happily took. The party was mainly everyone talking to each other and eating the food that Gemma made. I learned all about Bobby's arrest and that he should be coming home in two weeks. This led to Jax telling me about the wild parties SAMCRO held sometimes.
About an hour into the party Tara showed up. I walked over and greeted her myself. "Thanks for telling Chibs about that heat pack. That thing saved my life back there."
Tara smiled kindly at me. "You're welcome. I figured that after a bad crash your joints would be incredibly sore. Are you better now?"
I shifted my shoulders around. "I'm still pretty sore but it's not as bad as it could've been." Tara then began asking a bunch of medical things that I had no idea what any of it meant. Luckily, Jax came over and saved me from Tara's doctor talk by asking if he could have a word with her. I happily let Tara go with him but I wasn't alone for long. Juice came back up to me.
"D'you wanna see the Buick?" Juice asked.
"Jesus Christ, yes," I replied. "You have no idea how much I've been thinking about that car." Juice laughed and led me out of the clubhouse. The sun had set by now and it was dark except for the bright lights overhead. As we passed by underneath them, I could hear the buzzing from the electricity. Juice led me behind the garage and I saw the Buick.
Just like Chibs had said, the front was crumpled where the hood had hit the asphalt of the road underneath the overpass. It looked like a piece of crumpled paper, black, metal paper. The left-hand mirror was hanging off while the right-hand mirror was completely gone. The windshield had also been shattered. I circled around the car, leaving Juice standing by the jacked-up hood. The back of the Buick had been badly dented from where that idiot had rammed into me over and over again. The top of the car was also dented from where it had fallen down onto the top.
The sight of the broken car that my uncle had handed down to me was enough to bring me to tears.
"Hey," Juice said, coming up behind me and pulling into his arms. "I didn't mean to make you cry when you came out here. I'm sorry."
I let go of him and wiped the fallen tears off my face. "I'm fine. It's just, that had been my uncle's car. I've had this thing since I was sixteen. Chibs said it was going to be a project, now I see that the project is more like Mission Impossible."
"You and him were really close then?" Juice asked.
I nodded. "Before Valerie came to be the manager of Moody's, my dad was. My mom worked at the high school so most of the time I'd hang out at the restaurant while they were both busy. And since Vince could do whatever, he spent most of the time keeping an eye on me. That man raised me more than my dad ever tried to."
Juice was silent for a while. He then intertwined his fingers between mine and he began pulling me away from the wrecked Buick. I followed him without arguing, and I remembered what Chibs had said about having some of the mechanics work on the Buick as best as they could. I guessed that I'd just have to hope that the men here could actually bring the Buick back to life.
I walked back to the clubhouse with Juice still holding my hand. Even when we entered, he didn't release me, as I had expected him to. No one really looked up as we sat back down at the bar, and we continued to just sit and talk loudly to one another for a long time. Around eleven, Tara announced that she had to take Abel back home.
"I'll get a ride then, if I can." I said, following her.
"That's fine," Tara said, lifting Abel's carrier. She began to began to head out the door and Jax walked with her, taking the baby carrier from her. As I tried to leave, everyone made another big show of saying goodbye.
"We'll give you updates on that car of yours," Clay said, clapping me hard on the back, nearly knocking me over. Gemma kissed my cheeks again and she and Clay went back into the bedroom area of the clubhouse.
"See ya at Bobby's coming home party, Miss Moody," Tig said. "Though I'll be coming in this week for breakfast." He gave me a sly grin and retreated. Chibs just hugged me tightly and promised that he'd be coming by sometime to check on me to make sure I was okay. I had made it outside when Juice came from behind me and spun me around before planting his lips on mine.
A loud cough caused Juice and I to separate and I looked around in surprise to see Jax standing nearby with a knowing grin on his face. "Well, who didn't see this one coming?" He joked, passing us to go back inside. I felt my face heat up considerably and Juice's dark face seemed to get darker, judging by the light coming from the street lights above us.
"I'll come by later, Moody," Juice said quietly. I nodded and Juice pecked my forehead before heading back inside. I felt my face heat up even more and I got into Tara's car. She didn't say anything, just gave me a look that told me that she saw the whole scene.
A few days later, I got a large envelope in the mail. I peered at the sending address and was shocked and a tad scared to see that it came from a legal office in Anaheim. I opened up the envelope and read out the letter from the office, signed at the bottom by my parents and the blank line, asking for my own signature.
I sat the paper down on the kitchen counter, not really knowing how to function because of this. I read and reread it over and over again, but no matter how many times I did, the words never changed and it was never the case that I had misread it. The phone rang once, then twice, and then it finally left a message.
"Suzy?" Shelly's voice said tentatively. "I know you're up there it's just that, well, the Scottish man is here tryin' to check up on you, to make sure you're still fine. Ill send him away if you-"
I answered the phone, cutting her off. "Could send him up here, please?" I hung up and put the phone back down on the cradle, feeling a tightness in my chest. A minute later, there was a knock on the door and I answered it to see Chibs looking mighty concerned.
"You alright, Miss Moody?" Chibs asked. I didn't say anything, just gestured at the torn envelope and the papers on the counter. Chibs glanced at me before going that way to read it. I went into the living room and sat down on the edge of the couch. When I heard Chibs's loud curse, I knew he read it through.
He stormed into the living room, holding the papers and looking furious. "Assholes, your parents are! Who d'they think they are, slapping disownment on ya after your crash, after all ya did was stick with the club-"
"It's been a long time coming, I guess," I said quietly from the couch. "And it's not just the club, it's been everything since we moved to Anaheim, just little and big instances stacking on top of each other." My voice cracked and the back of my eyes began burning with unshed tears. Chibs looked down at me with his angry expression, but this time he looked a bit more sad.
"This says that you can still 'ave the restaurant; probably 'cause your dad wouldn't 'ave to deal with it." Chibs said, reading off the papers. "But you're to never go to Anaheim to visit, never to try an' contact them-"
"Could you please stop reading it?" I asked, running my hands through my hair. "I've read that thing about a hundred times already; I know what it says!"
Chibs stared at me. He slapped the papers down on the coffee table and he took the seat next to me on the couch. "What're plannin' on doin'?"
"What I usually do," I said through a heavy and shuddering sigh. "I'm gonna run this place, keep the basement open for Clay, and just never speak to my biological family ever again." I finally started crying and Chibs wrapped his arm around me, pulling me into a hug.
"Don' go doin' that, Miss Moody," Chibs said gently, wiping a tear away with his thumb. I let myself lean against Chibs, thankful for his presence at this time. After a while, Chibs sighed and said, "You're like my kid already, Moody."
I pulled away a bit to look at him. Chibs looked back with a dead-serious expression on his face. "I said you're like my kid already; and I think I'm a damn better dad than Duke ever was." He paused. "I'm jus' sayin' that if ya ever want to talk with a good father-figure, my door's always open."
Fresh tears found their way to my eyes and I hugged Chibs tighter than before. He snorted and hugged me back too. "Thank you," I said quietly.
"Anytime, Moody," Chibs replied. We stood up and I signed the disownment papers before Chibs found a big enough envelope and sealed the papers away. "D'you mind if I tell Clay and the rest 'bout this?" Chibs asked as we headed downstairs to the restaurant kitchen.
"They're going to find out at some point." I said grimly. "Might as well be from you." I entered the kitchen with my head held high and began to work on the long-awaited order for SAMCRO, Chibs rushing in to help whenever he was needed.