A/N - First and foremost, HUGE apologies for the delay in posting. It's been crazy busy with work - this is my busiest time of year - but I've found some time this afternoon to sit down and write this, and I think you'll love it... but let me know your thoughts! :) Now off to catch up on some reading too ;)


"Christ almighty."

Chibs lay Nina down on his bed with an overwhelming sense of relief to see her there. She murmured sleepily as she tried to roll onto her side but Chibs eased her back to lie flat, concerned about the deep gashes in her waist. That fucking bastard, how he could just throw her out of a moving vehicle like that was beyond him. His hand ran lazily along the bandage along her forearm, frowning at it, he hadn't seen that before. His fingertip traced over it and he wrinkled his nose a moment before kicking off his boots and lying down beside her, nuzzling her gently. She'd been asleep for too long, he needed to talk to her, hear her voice. He couldn't believe how much he missed her.

"My sweetheart," he muttered softly, pushing her hair away from her face. He sighed as he looked at the scars on her skin, the lines beneath her eye, along her throat. God, the shit she'd been through. He had never for a second imagined even the tiniest bit of their vast history when he'd seen her in Diosa that first night. He toyed with the ring on her finger, she had stopped wearing it for a while but had put it back on when she'd told him they had to stop. "God, I wish I'd given you one of these."

He clasped her hand in his and drew it to his forehead, closing his eyes. If only he had been more supportive from the outset, there had been so many mistakes he had made, he knew them all so well. They haunted him, constantly, and seeing her trapped in her own body like this was killing him. He looked up as he saw Juice slip in and nod to him, trying to draw him away but Chibs didn't want to leave.

"You won't disturb her," he said quietly. "She's zoned out."

Juice nodded as he edged in nervously. He hesitated for a moment before sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment, but when Chibs sat up, narrowing his eyes, he bounced back up awkwardly and shoved his hands in his pockets. "They're holding them at Stockton. Feds are saying they're a 'risk' at the department." Chibs nodded slowly. "They haven't set bail yet."

"They won't, for a couple of days," Chibs muttered, biting on the edge of his nail. "They'll be okay, three of them. Rat's first time?"

Juice nodded. "Happy there? He'll be fine." Chibs laughed, he was sure of that. Happy knew how to take care of the crew, that was for sure, and the yard at Stockton was like a hunting ground for him, he'd be simply practicing. "We got any more on Tara yet?"

To that, Juice shook his head. "I've still got a track on the ambulance she's driving, they're heading towards Nevada." Chibs mumbled in response and Juice edged forward, leaning his hand on the bedpost for a second before he said, "They'll cut me off tracing soon, Prez. The feds? They'll take the computers, I'll get disconnected. You've got to make a call on this." He looked at Chibs with a wide eyed, hopeless smile. "What do you want to do about Galen?"

Chibs pinched his lip and dragged on it for a moment, he didn't want to answer that. If it was up to him, he'd stab that fucker right in the heart with a shank and watch him bleed out on the floor, it was the least he deserved for everything he had put them through too many times. Right now, Chibs was sick of playing at 'client relations' with the guy, he wanted him dead. "I think we have to be sensible," he said, annoyed at himself for having to take that line. "I don't want to, believe me. But we need to keep him alive, take him back to the Kings, let them put an end to this shite for once and for all." His eyes connected with Juice's for a moment and Juice swallowed.

"What about Tig?"

Chibs rolled his neck from side to side. "What about him? He's a cunt." Juice swallowed.

"He's her husband," he ventured. He could see the weight of those words on Chibs' shoulders, and he grimaced, bracing himself and waiting for some sort of blow that didn't come. Chibs was just looking sadly at Nina's hand, holding it as he rolled the ring around and around on her finger, wanting to take it away from her more than anything. He wanted to just free her now, but he knew that he couldn't, it wasn't that simple.

"He lives," Chibs said sullenly, sulking a little as he let go of Nina's hand. "He has to, or she'd never forgive me." He laughed at himself as he looked down at his hands. "Fuckin' irony for you, the shite I put her through over nothing." He pinched his nose. "But that stuff with the IRA, it ends. All of it, I'm not having any of them in Belfast. I want my daughters home by the end of the night." He looked at Juice, ladening his shoulders with that responsibility. "So you get everyone ready to ride out this evening. I'll be damned if she wakes up and her girls aren't here to take care of her."


"Keep driving," Galen dictated as Tara rolled the ambulance to a slow stop. She paused, twisting her neck and listening to the satisfying click of her spine settling back into place as she looked at him.

"I don't know how cars work where you're from? But in America, we need to stop for gas." She glanced in the rearview mirror, trying to connect with Natasha's eye, but the young girl seemed to be in her own, focused little bubble. Damn, Tara could really do with her focus right about now. "It's just this thing that we do."

Galen's nostrils flared at he looked at her, he hated how quick-lipped Tara was and she seemed to refuse to back down to his intimidation. Normally these women were so easy, maybe it was because he'd been bending the ears of Emily and Natasha for years, they knew how to keep in line but this one… He pursed his lips for a moment as he looked ahead towards the gas station a little way up.

"You stay in here. You all do," he added, waving his gun towards the back. Emily sat frozen in the corner, looking at Tig with fearful eyes, terrified that he was going to die right here and it would be all her fault. Realising the two in the back were too stunned to even respond, Galen growled as he settled his eyes on Tara again. "You touch the doors, the horn, anything? You're dead, your old man is dead, your club is dead. It's very simple." He gave Tara a kick in the leg. "Drive."

She winced in pain as she eased the ambulance forward and Galen waited for her to park up before he leaned over to snatch the keys away from her. He hooked them onto his finger and dangled them tantalisingly in front of her, teasing her as they swung from his hand. With a laugh, he swung the door open and jumped down, locking the ambulance cab from the outside and slamming his hand against the side to send a resonating echo through the back which made Natasha whimper gently.

Tara, however, was enraged by the sound and turned in her seat, galloping up quickly as she strode to the back. Grabbing Emily by the shoulders, she shook her furiously, watching as Emily's head lolled back and forth with the movement. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, enraged. "He's going to kill your family, and you're just enabling him. For what?" She motioned to Tig's motionless body behind her. "For him? For that asshole? I know he's your Dad but Jesus, Em, he's going to get us killed."

Emily's eyes narrowed suddenly as she looked at him. "You're so fucking brainwashed, you all are," she snapped. "That club, it's like a poison. Daddy told me all about it, you'd all do anything for SAMCRO. At least he had an option to get out." She smirked and leaned into Tara. "You're just jealous. He told me, you've always wanted out and Jax would never take it."

Tara was not in the mood for it. Without a second thought, she gave Emily an almighty slap across the face, sending her careering into Natasha who sat up suddenly, confused by what was going on as she cradled her sister in her arms.

"Hey!" Natasha snapped, handling Emily out of Tara's way and standing up to block her defensively. "What the hell, Tara?"

"You know what happens when the Irish come down on the club?" Tara snarled, ignoring Tash and trying to push closer to Emily. "We all get fucked. Jax, Chibs, Happy, Thomas-" She saw Emily's eyes soften as she said it. "They'll kill Thomas, you don't get that, do you? And they'll hurt him, because they can. You don't get it, these people almost blew up the entirety of TM because they were pissed over something small." She tried to grab Emily's hand, desperate to connect with her in some way. "Please, Em, he's going to hurt us all, we don't have time for this."

Emily looked at her numbly and Tara rolled her eyes, frustrated as all hell. In a desperate attempt, she turned around and started to shake Tig, eager to get him awake. Emily scowled at the sight and pushed past Natasha, grabbing Tara fiercely and dragging her away.

"You don't touch him, he's mine!" she growled angrily. The words sat ill with all of them, Emily didn't even mean to say it but it fell out of her mouth loudly and the three women exchanged a somewhat fearful look. Emily clamped her hand over her lips and shook her head, not wanting to remember how often she'd heard Tig plead the same damn word about her mother. "This… you all…"

Before she could manage to clear a sentence, she suddenly dropped to the floor, her eyes rolling up into her head as she fell. Tara shrieked as she saw her collapse but Natasha motioned for her to be calm and waved a syringe she had managed to wrangle from a medical kit during Tara's frantic attempt to wake Tig. She gave Tara a hopeless smile and winked as she wrangled Emily to prop her back up in the corner, adjusting her to look like she was sitting as she had before, just asleep.

"I've got one more," she said, showing the second one in her hand to Tara. "When you're driving, I can do exactly the same to him, we can ditch him and drive back to Cha-"

She barely had time to finish the sentence when Galen suddenly yanked the door back open and barked at Tara to sit again. She started towards the driver's seat but Galen shooed her over, hopping up into it and resettling his gun on his lap in her direction as he started the ambulance.

"I'll drive," he said with a smug smile, looking at her and glancing for a millisecond at Natasha before he started up and pulled straight out of the forecourt back onto the road. Tara swallowed, closing her eyes, there was no way Natasha would be able to tranquillise Galen while he was driving, they'd all be dead in one go. She could see Natasha debating the same thing with herself, but before she could advise her against any sort of rash decision, Tash sprung forward towards the front cab. Before Galen noticed, she had slammed the needle into the side of his neck. Galen felt the prick and the searing pain rushing through him as Natasha hit precisely the wrong vein, and his blood spurted from his jugular onto Tara. She squealed as she reached for the wheel, wrestling it from his hands as Galen slumped unconscious against the door, but too late - the ambulance wheeled wildly off the road and crashed headlong from the highway, careering into the barrier and hurtling uncontrollably into the overgrowth.