Sorry for the delay I have been busy and had writers block. Please leave your reviews I could really use your lovely comments.

CHAPTER 20:

Mother.

"What are you doing here?" Jem asked as he stood coming face to face with Murphey's mother, Margaret. He hadn't seen her since before he went to prison. She hadn't seen Murphey since she kicked the teen out after finding out she had gotten pregnant to Jem.

"I have every right to be here," she frowned at Jem.

"You disowned her when she got pregnant!"

"She's my daughter!"

"You're so full of shit!" Mary said standing beside Jem. "You're probably here to see if you have to bury her. You never cared about her when she chose to be with Jem instead of the boy with a rich daddy!"

Margaret rolled her eyes and scoffed, "She could have done better, not like she had any support from you James."

"I gave her more support from prison than you ever fuckin' did!"

"She's my daughter Jem; she is mine, not yours!" She snapped.

"She is not a possession!"

"Then I am allowed to see her," she said.

"She's not going to want to see you," he said standing his ground.

"Maybe you should be the one to leave." Margaret told him.

"I love her, I'm not going anywhere," Jem glared at her. It was the first time he publicly admitted he loved Murphey.

"If you loved her you wouldn't have fucked up so bad,"

"That's rich coming from the one person she needed the most who threw her out on the fuckin' street when she got pregnant," Jem said taking a step forward only for Mary's fingers to curl round his arm, keeping him beside her.

"If she'd gotten pregnant to anyone else she could have stayed at home but since it was your baby, I wanted nothing to do with it."

"My daughter isn't an it!" His voice lowered threateningly and Mary's grip of his arm became tighter. "And neither is Murphey!"

A nurse walked over to them to see what was happening. "Excuse me what is going on?"

"This woman shouldn't be here," Jem said pointing to Murphey's mother.

"But she's a blood relative," the nurse said.

"She disowned her daughter! Me and Mary are the only fuckin' family she has," he said getting more frustrated.

"Sir, please keep your voice down," the nurse told him.

"My girlfriend is in there fighting for her life and you want me to fuckin' keep my voice down? How 'bout you go do your fuckin' job and go find out if there's been any news," Jem glared at the nurse. He wasn't in the mood to be told what to do.

"I know you're angry right now but we need you to calm down," the nurse told him.

"I'm going to go get some fresh air," he frowned making his way to the door.

"Go! You're not welcome here anyway!" Margaret spat as he walked away.

"Jem wait," he heard Mary call after him. She followed him outside and sat on the bench next to him. "Look, don't listen to anything she has to say, she's never been there for Murph, we have been. We're the ones who love and care for her despite everything that's gone wrong. You're the most important person to her, you're her world and I know she's yours."

"Since when did you care about what I meant to Murph?" He snapped, only to regret it as he heard her answer.

"Since I see how much you're hurting right now. You've just proven to me and everyone else how much you care for her."

"I fuckin' love her!"

"I know you do," Mary said softly. "And I'm sorry for everything that's happened in the last couple of weeks. I truly am. I know how much I hurt Murphey and if I hadn't told her what I did then maybe she wouldn't have disappeared and ended up where she is now."

The guilt of what she did and said to Murphey was starting to settle in. There was no right or wrong in this situation, just shades of gray that didn't make sense.

"It's not your fault," he sighed. "The fucker that did this should be paying for hurting her. If I find him before the cops do, I can't promise I'll go easy."

"Break his nose for me," Mary said nudging his side and he smiled.

"Mary,"

They looked up to see FBI Special Agent; Adam Frawley marching towards them. Their smiles faded for different reasons.

"Adam," Mary jumped up from the bench.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Jem asked. He couldn't take any more surprises today.

"I'm here because of what happened." He replied.

"This isn't your department," Jem continued to frown.

"Jem, I called him on my way here," Mary admitted quietly, sheepishly glancing at him as she stood between the two foes.

"Why?"

"He can help us. He has more power than the cops do –"

"How do you know that?" He noticed the blush that appeared upon her cheeks when Adam rested his hand against the small of her back. "You're fuckin' him? Is this what you've been doing why your friend's been missing?" he questioned her.

"Coughlin you need to –" Jem cut him off, refusing to even look at him.

"Don't fuckin' tell me what to do! Great glad to see your head is in this Mary."

"There was nothing I could do," she said defending herself.

"So you just fucked the first thing that came into view, and it had to be him" Jem scoffed.

"It wasn't like that. I tried calling her, going to her house and pounding on the door until I was blue in the face. But there was nothing I could do!"

"Yeah right" Jem muttered.

"You don't have to believe me. I know you're angry but we're here for the same reason. We're here for Murph. She doesn't need us arguing."

"If she had us, this wouldn't all be happening would it?"

"We all stuffed up,"

"Yeah we did." Jem sighed.