I have a lot of excuses why I haven't updated, recently AGAIN and very few of them are valid so I'll spare them and admit I procrastinate a lot. However, considering this fic is probably at a point where it has maybe a dozen chapters left combined with the fact that one of my other fandoms has a shipper week for one of my OTPs at the end of the month, I'd like to finish it by then if possible. To make sure I do this, I'm gonna do something that could potentially end badly and give out my Tumblr name/encourage you to either pop in to gently nudge me along or if you don't mind being spoiled help me formulate the ideas I have for the rest of the story into concrete chapters. Anyway, on Tumblr I am wademoriartys.

Although he was trying to appear strong and unbreakable, Chibs found himself almost ready to vomit. He was no longer in Jax and Tara's house and instead back in the car about a block away with Fiona in the driver's seat. His daughter was in the back seat trying to shield Abel and Thomas from the view down the street. An anonymous call had been placed to 911 and until he could hear the approaching ambulance, Chibs had stayed at Tara's side, almost expecting her to die before help could arrive. As the sirens became obvious he'd found himself placing a picture of Abel and Thomas on her chest. Making sure she would be able to see her boys seemed like the most humane thing to do without actually exposing them to her condition.

As soon as he'd slipped out of the door he'd made his way to the car that was already parked a block away. It would have been easy enough to ask his wife to just hit the gas and get them out of there as soon as possible, but he had to see them bring Tara out of the house and although he could see his wife thought doing so was risky, she wanted to see the other woman bought out as well.

In the gravity of the event, talking felt wrong so for several minutes the only sounds belonged to the ambulance and Abel and Thomas who were quietly sniffling. Then, almost as if to serve as a reminder that Charming was full of dangers, Chibs' cellphone began to play a familiar tune. It was Juice's ringtone, the theme for The X Files. If Chibs had chosen the ringtone himself he would have chosen something much different, as the only episode he'd ever seen had been about deadly fireflies and had left a strange bad taste in his mouth. However, Juice had the entire series memorized and he loved the glee that the other man had taken in setting his ringtone.

However, in the silence the music was even more eerie and unsettling than usual and made the atmosphere in the car even more tense.

Unsure of what to expect, Chibs decided to take the call. "I don't think the doc is who we-", he started only to be cut off before he could tell the other man what had happened to Tara.

"Yeah, I know that. It's Wendy," Juice paused and lowered his voice even more. "Jimmy saw me."

Chibs nervously raked his bad hand through his hair before wincing sharply at the pain the involuntary reaction caused "Jesus Christ. Where are you now?"

There was a brief tense silence at the end of the line before Juice spoke again "I'm under a parked car. He was following me, but I don't think he...oh shit." suddenly Juice's voice took on a different almost pleading tone as it became clear he was speaking to someone on his end of the phone line. "Think about what you're planning to do. It doesn't have to end like this."

The second voice sounded slightly further away but was still clear enough that Chibs could make out that it belonged to Jimmy and although he could only make out some of the words the IRA general sounded angry.

Still, when the sound of a gunshot sounded through the phone with sickening clarity, it was enough of a shock that he found himself dropping the phone to the floor of car.

xxx

It was a stupid, pride filled act and Jimmy realized his error the moment the bullet entered the biker's skull. He had zero remorse over killing Juice, but making a public spectacle of the murder was the wrong thing to do. In his rage over Juice showing up at Wendy's house, he'd chased the other man out of the house without even bothering to finish getting dressed. Although there was no acceptable way to be caught standing over a corpse with a gun, the way the California humidity was sticking to his bare chest and back made him feel disgusted. Then there was the fact that whoever had been at the other end of Juice's phone conversation probably already knew what had happened.

Still, now that the act had been committed it couldn't be undone and even if there was time to save the other man it wasn't in his nature to do so. Instead, he forced himself not to continue to be a sitting duck and stand over the corpse.

Although surprisingly nobody bothered to actually look out their windows while he was on the street, the moment he was back inside the apartment of Jax Teller's junkie whore ex-wife it became clear that at wrench had been thrown into his plan. Although the woman had shot up less than an hour earlier, the glassy dead eyed stoner look that had disgusted him earlier was now gone. In it's place was one that told him she now knew exactly what he was and was ready to turn on him.

"You lied to me."

The look in her eyes told him that if he didn't act fast his freedom would be short lived. Although he still had his gun, shooting her was far too messy and with one corpse in the neighborhood already he couldn't afford to take time to clean himself up. Now that she was on guard against him, it was unlikely he'd be able to overdose her. She had her back turned on him when he noticed a decorative scarf sitting on the counter. Before, he'd been completely disgusted by her seeming inability to clean up after herself, but now the dull brown garment presented him with a perfect opportunity to get rid of his target.