Disclaimer: I don't own Sons of Anarchy or any of the characters in the show. It's the property of Kurt Sutter, Sutter Ink and FX.
Thank you so much for your enormous response on the previous chapter and I'm sorry for all that heartbreak I've poured over you in the last chapters on both this and 'Brighten the Corners'. Not really done yet...
Chapter 29: I Did The Same
Grace moved between the headstones and finally knelt down in front of Piney's.
"I need you. I miss you and I don't know what to do." She dried the tears on her cheeks. "You would've known what to say to them. You always knew."
She leaned the tequila against the headstone and sat down in front of it. She still didn't know why Clay had killed Piney but she knew that he had. Jax had confirmed it once when she talked to him. It had been the first time she'd talked to Jax properly, she'd been fourteen and due to some injury he'd been stuck with babysitting her despite being the president at the time. And despite her being fourteen.
The tears ran down her cheeks again. She'd never in her life felt so betrayed, by all of them. Peter was her friend, her only friend and he would never do anything to harm her, or the club for that matter. Just like she would never do anything to harm him but somehow that's exactly what she'd done. She'd failed him and wasn't sure how to make that right. She didn't even know where they had him and her brain wasn't working properly. She looked at the headstone again.
Clay and Piney had been friends, Piney had even been the one who took Clay into the club. Somehow they ended up as enemies and Clay shot him. It had been easy for her to put that to the account that Clay had been completely fucking crazy the last months of his life, he'd even beat up Gemma and that was probably tied to why he shot Piney.
But after today... she wondered if it wasn't just Clay being crazy but rather some... built in flaw in the club. Taking things to far. Happy's reaction and Skip ignoring her pleads. He just took her outside and told her to get on the 'fucking bike'. The rest of the club, all of them knowing Peter and what he meant to her, didn't say shit. She'd always known that the club came first, the meaning of it had just never hit her this close or this directly.
Grace was well aware that she was in the worse mental stat possible at the moment but she didn't think that really made any bigger difference. Not when it came to Peter. She would've felt betrayed no matter what.
Their faces had said all she needed to know. They'd do whatever they decided was necessary to find out the truth from Peter and they didn't trust him to just tell them everything. He would've told her if they would just let her talk to him. He would have told Happy if sat him down in the kitchen that the house. He wouldn't hide anything.
She wished that Peter had been more open about Jorge, him keeping the guy a secret didn't help convince the club that he hadn't known anything about it.
She wondered what reasoning Clay'd had when he shot Piney, if it was about protecting the club or his own ass. And how Jax reasoned when he killed the man who was his mothers husband and his stepfather. If it was for the club or for revenge.
Grace wasn't so sure that they most of the time managed to see further than their own fucking noses. And they had Peter, might even think he knew something about The Fallen Ones and none of them listened to her when she tried to explain that he wouldn't do that. He would never betray her and she wasn't going to leave this alone. She was not going to sit back and watch them hurt him no matter what Gemma and Tara had said.
Because they had tried talked to her. That this was club business, that it had nothing to do with her and that she should stay out of it. But it wasn't club business to her. It was her friend and she trusted him more than anyone else at the moment.
Her mom was her mom. The strong awesome woman she always was. She had hugged her and said that she trusted her. Then caressed her face and whispered that she understood that Grace had to do what she had to do.
In her left hand the scar was still fully visible and she knew that Peter's was the exact mirror image of it. They'd held each others hands with their fingers interlaced around Happy's knife and then Peter pulled it out from between the hands before grabbing on to her hand really hard to mix the blood. She'd cried but he hadn't and still holding her hand, he leaned over and kissed her cheeks and dried off the tears with his right hand.
When she'd accidentally killed the classroom hamster and the other kids tried to beat her up, Peter had hit the biggest guy among the ones approaching her with his lunch box. Right over the nose. With the jock lying on the floor bleeding he looked at the other and explained that he'd make damn sure that as many them as possible would be bleeding before they got to her. The others backed off.
Afterwards she'd asked him how he'd dared to do that to the big guy he smiled at her. "If you take out the one they least expect first the others back off cause they think you're crazy." Even as a seven year old Peter had been extremely smart and knew how to get people off his back. Or how to win them. He'd eaten that worm to prove he'd do anything for her and it had worked.
The day after he ate that worm she walked up to him and took his hand. He'd turned and smiled at her and that was it. It was the two of them together. He'd never, not once, been afraid to protect her when she needed it and she wasn't going to bail on him now.
She ran her hand over the headstone and that's when it hit her. She knew where they had Peter.
-o0o-
They'd been to the house, Peter's apartment, the park, even the creek but no Grace and Happy was running out of ideas.
"Where would she go if she was upset?" Chibs looked at Happy and he tried to calm down enough to make his brain work again.
"Only other place I can think of is Piney's grave," he finally said. They hadn't checked there and that was the last place he could fucking think of. If she wasn't there he just didn't know and they might as well stand at a random street corner and yell her fucking name.
"Pop's grave?" Opie looked at him with a surprised look. "Why?"
"Don't know. She's gone there since he was buried. When she needs to think." Or when they were fighting and she was pissed at him and couldn't find Peter. Just like she'd turned to Piney when she was a kid, she still did it now and then.
They headed towards the graveyard and even from far he could see the bottle leaning towards it.
"She's been here," he said and pushed the bottle with his foot when they got there. The bottle wouldn't have been left there for long so he knew she'd been there since she took off from Gemma's.
"Why didn't you just tell her we wouldn't to hurt Peter?" Opie said and looked pissed.
Happy looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Yeah, she would've believed that. You all looked like you were getting an colonoscopy when we talked about it."
Grace wasn't stupid and she'd call out a lie in a second. They were just going to talk to Peter to begin with but if they even got a hint that he was lying, they'd do what was needed. She knew it. It was quite possible that Peter knew it too.
Grace also knew that who you were and what kind of relationship you've had before didn't matter when it came to club stuff. They'd killed the former president, one of the first nine, without hesitation when it was needed. A man who'd been in the club since it started and the president for twenty years. Shit like that didn't matter when it came to protecting the club. Skit like that didn't matter when it came to him protecting his family either.
The four of them stood and stared at the grave and the bottle next to it. Where the fuck would she go from here? He heard Jax take a deep breath.
"Fuck!"
"What?" Happy turned to him.
"If she's after Peter she probably figured out he's in the cabin while she was here."
Happy knew he wasn't as quick as Jax but this one was completely lost on him. "Why would she figure that out here?"
"She knew that Piney was the one who took Jonah to the cabin, she probably thought of it when she was here."
The rest of them all spoke at the same time. "What!" came from both Chibs and Opie.
Happy was about to explode when he practically yelled, "When the fuck did she tell you that?"
"When I was babysitting her. You know what time I mean. She told me she knew that you killed Jonah and that Piney had taken him to the cabin."
"She knows you killed Jonah?" Opie stared at Happy.
"Took her less than a month to figure that out," Happy said but his mind was at a completely different place. Could she really be going for Peter? He looked up at Jax again. "She wouldn't do anything stupid."
Jax met his eyes and sighed. "We talked about Clay and Piney that time as well. Remember?"
He did remember that time Jax had been left with Grace. It was hard to forget for a number of reasons. She'd been so pissed and argued that she didn't need a babysitter when she was fourteen. When he came back Jax had said what everyone said when she'd 'figured something out'. He looked at Hap and said 'I knew she was smart but...'. That time Jax had gotten more info out of her than what she got from him but she still got a lot from him.
Grace was smart but Jax was older and better at people. Jax had admitted to her that Clay killed Piney and that they'd offed Clay for it. She'd known that it was more likely that Jax would tell her the truth if it was ok for her to know it. That he could make that decision since he was the president.
He looked up and saw something in Jax's eyes. He had a feeling he wouldn't like whatever was coming next.
"She knew about that too?" Opie asked looked Jax and then at him. "Is there anything she hasn't figured out?"
"Probably not." Happy sighed again. The second time he met her and Ava, Ava had said that Grace was too smart for her own good and it was true. To top that off, nothing got past her, she noticed fucking everything. "What were you going to tell me?" He said to Jax to make him said whatever the hell he was avoiding.
"Earlier in our talk she admitted that when she called you to save her mom from Jonah, she knew you'd probably kill him."
Happy had a sudden urge to beat the shit outta Jax. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me!" Towards the end he was yelling again. How could he not have told him that? It had been bad enough that she'd known he killed Jonah. Now it turned out she'd suspected he'd do that when she called?!
"I owed her," Jax stated as if that made it ok.
"You said that you told her about Clay because you owed her." Then he remembered the look on Grace's face when he said that Jax had mentioned owing her and how she laughed after that. She'd known what Jax really meant! That he was keeping her secret. He shook his head to Jax. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I'm sorry..." Jax started but Happy didn't want to hear it.
"You don't fucking keep shit like that about someones kid to yourself." That explained some of Grace's nightmares. When Jonah came and accused her. She's probably had a bad conscience over it, thinking it was her fault which was just fucking stupid. Jonah had been a dead man the second he walked over the doorstep to Ava's apartement.
"Listen, you can beat the shit out of me later for that. My point is that Grace would be prepared to go pretty fucking far if she needed to."
"You can't judge her on that," Opie finally butted in. "It's not like she had much of a choice at the time and just calling someone knowing that he might kill someone when you know you mom is being beaten up... It's not even close to something radical. Not like she had a choice."
"I'm just saying that she might be prepared to go pretty fucking far for someone she loves."
Happy was going to beat the shit out of Jax when this was done, President or not you do not fucking keep secrets like that about someone else's kid. But for now they needed to find Grace before she did something stupid.
"Call Tig," he said and Chibs picked up the phone.
They were walking towards their bikes. "No answer," Chibs said before dialing another number.
Still waiting Happy turned to Chibs. "No answer from Skip either?"
"No. Their phones are off."
"This is really fucking bad," Jax said. "Let's just get up there."
-o0o-
Skip was holding his arm and suddenly he couldn't help it, he laughed.
"What the fuck's so funny?" Tig snarled.
"Didn't think she would do it." Skip knew he should be pissed but he wasn't.
They'd put her in an impossible spot and she'd done what she thought was necessary. It still hurt as fucking hell. Both the gunshot wound and the fact that... she probably was getting as far away from them as possible right now.
She shot him. He took that as her breaking up and impressively enough, that actually hurt more right now. He'd had a feeling she would and that was why he asked her if she wanted to get inked. He wanted her to know how much he loved her before she broke up with him.
The second she admitted that Jorge was the one who took her, he'd known they'd go for Peter. And he knew that it would push Grace over the edge. She'd been pretty damn close to it since Bobby. Peter's parents and taking care of him hadn't helped and being so close to death... no one could take all that shit.
"Cant fucking believe she cut our tires." Tig's comment made him snap out of his thoughts.
"Making sure you wouldn't follow her."
"She attacked my bike!" Tig yelled and then turned to him. "You don't attack a man's bike!"
"At least she didn't shoot you." Skip was still smiling. He wouldn't have expected anything less from her.
They heard the bikes and moments later, Jax, Chibs, Opie and Happy came through the door. They took one look at the situation and Happy took a deep breath.
"What the fuck happened?" Happy said and looked straight at him.
Skip shook his head and looked at Tig and nodded so he'd tell the story. Skip didn't even know where to start.
"She barged in and told us to back the fuck off or she'd shoot us." Tig looked at him. "And when I said I didn't think she had the balls she took a shot at him."
Jax shook his head. "She shot you?"
Skip nodded and held up his blooded hand. "Yeah, upper arm."
"What did she say?" Happy looked at Tig again.
"That I should probably re-think the balls idea since she just shot her boyfriend."
When Skip started to laugh, Tig looked at him and then he started to laugh as well. They couldn't stop. His arm was hurting like hell, his girl had broken up with him in a very definite way but he couldn't fucking stop laughing. The look on Tig's face...
"Are you two high?" Happy finally asked. "What the fuck are you laughing at?"
"Just..." Skip tried to dry his eyes with his good hand. "The look on Tig's face when she said that."
"I was fucking freaking out, man." Tig said between the deep breaths he was taking to try to calm down. "Fucking crazy kid you've got. Seriously, she had the same expression you have when you're torturing people. Exact same one. I did not see that coming."
"What did Peter say?" Chibs asked.
"According to him, he didn't even know what the Fallen Ones was," Tig said. "Said he hadn't talked about the club with Jorge but that he had talked about Grace. A lot."
"Think he was telling the truth?"
Tig shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."
"Maybe?" Jax walked up to Tig. "We need better than 'maybe'."
"I think he did."
Skip had been there when Tig questioned him. It hadn't gotten violent but Peter was scared as hell. He was with Tig; Peter had been telling the truth. What really got to Skip was the only question that Peter had asked when they told him what happened, 'How is Grace?' That was the only thing he wanted to know.
"We need to get the kid to the clubhouse, I'll call Tara," Jax said. "Moby is on his way with the van."
Skip managed to finally calm down and then he looked at Hap. "She's taking off."
"I know," he said, confirming what Skip suspected. He'd known she might do that but he probably hadn't thought she take Peter with her. When they heard a crunch from underneath Hap's foot, Hap lifted it and looked at the pieces of a prepay. "She crushed them?"
"Yeah. Told me I wouldn't bleed to death and that you'd probably be here soon anyway." He shook his head again and looked at Hap with a smile.
"Smart girl," he said and they walked out.
Skip followed him outside and sat down on the stairs. Hap handed him a smoke.
"Think she'll ever forgive us?"
Hap shook his head. "Eventually, maybe." He stroke his hand over his head. "It's more a question of if she or Ava forgives me first."
Skip hadn't thought of that. "We didn't have much of a choice."
"Sure we had. We just fucking panicked. They almost killed my Baby Girl and I panicked." Hap turned and looked at him. "I'll never fucking admit that again."
"Got it," Skip said and gave back the cigarette. "You've taught her well."
He laughed dryly. "Yeah, a little too well."
-o0o-
Tara cleaned the wound, said it was a through and through and hadn't hit anything vital.
"You were lucky," she summed it up.
"She'd a good shot."
Grace was probably long gone by now and they needed to go after her before she managed to disappear completely.
Tara looked at his smile and shook her head. "What did she shoot you with?"
That made him laugh again. "The gun I gave her for her birthday."
"Poetic." He heard a voice behind him and turned to see Gemma in the door.
Skip jumped down from the table and walked out to the bar after getting a hug from Gemma.
"You ok?" Happy asked.
"Yeah."
"Does any one have any idea on where she might be heading?" Jax looked at them and Opie cleared his throat.
"I can try to talk to Ellie. She might have passed there."
As far as Skip knew, Ellie pretty much hated both her father and the club but she'd kept in contact with Grace.
"She'd help her and she wouldn't say shit to us." Hap emptied the glass he had in front of her. "Go talk to her and I'll head home to see if I can find anything there. Someone call Quinn too, she might have contacted Ruth."
"We'll take the van. I'll come with you." Skip wasn't going to let Hap do this without him.
-o0o-
Happy turned and looked at Skip who was next to him in the van.
"How's the arm?"
"It's ok. It's nothing."
"She shot you."
His stubborn, half crazy fucking daughter shot her boyfriend. Just to prove she meant business. He couldn't help to feel slightly proud of her. At the same time he was terrified. He'd known it was a big risk to take Peter but not even in his worst case scenario had he even imagined that the stubborn girl would shoot her own boyfriend!
He'd had a very quick talk To Ava on the phone. She was pissed as hell. 'Just what the fuck did you think she'd do? The girl was on the brink to total break down even before your shit plan', then she hung up. She was right. Grace had been pushed to the very edge. He should've thought about that more than he had. So now she was gone, his wife was pissed as hell and quite possible on her way as well.
Grace's room looked just as usual. Nothing looked strange until he opened her wardrobe. It wasn't empty but there was quite a few things missing.
Skip came in just behind him. "Fuck." He sat down on her bed and looked around. "She really is gone."
"We'll find her, kid."
He walked out and into Lemmy's room. Grace hadn't said anything to Ava but he knew Grace; she wouldn't leave Lemmy behind without saying something. He was right. There was a note on his pillow.
He opened it. There were two sentences in Grace's handwriting on it. "I love you! You know where to find me."
He held it up to Skip who mostly looked confused. "What does that mean?"
"No idea. I'll ask him."
"Think he'll tell you anything?"
"No."
Lemmy wouldn't say shit. He took the brother-sister bond very seriously but that didn't mean that Happy wouldn't try. Stubborn fucking family.
-o0o-
Grace looked over at Peter who was in the seat next to her. He was ok, they hadn't touched him, according to him at least. She suspected that was the whole truth though. When he turned she saw the tears in his eyes.
"Did he really try to kill you?" Grace wasn't sure what to say so she just nodded. "Did he do that to your face?"
"No. It was the other guy." She turned towards him. "It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known."
"I should have suspected something. He was so fucking secretive." She noticed him drying his cheeks.
"It wasn't your fault," she repeated. She didn't blame him. She couldn't.
"You just left your entire family behind."
"No I didn't. You're here."
"You know they just did it to protect you and the club."
Fucking Peter. Always being so understanding.
"I don't want to talk about it," she bit off.
She didn't want to hear any stupid defense talk for what they'd done. You didn't fucking do things like that. Peter was her friend, her only friend and he would never do anything to hurt her. They should've known that. They should've trusted her when she said it. Or talked to him in a normal way when she was with him. Not fucking pick him up and take him up to the cabin.
"You shot your boyfriend." She looked over at Peter and she shook her head.
"I think we just broke up."
"You think?" He suddenly started to laugh. "Can't believe you did that."
"You taught me that. When you hit Mike in the face with your lunchbox."
Peter laughed and shook his head and she knew that he understood what she meant. "Still. You shot Skip. You love him."
"True, but you're the love of my life." She took his hand and touched the ring on his thumb. They'd exchanged rings on her sixteenth birthday. Not like an engagement and that why they chosen thumb rings instead. Just to show it was the two of them against the rest of the world, always.
"I love you too, Pixie." He suddenly got a more serious face. "Now what?"
"I don't know. I shot a member." She shook her head. "I don't know. If you'd ask me two days ago I'd be more sure but..."
They had stopped at nothing and suddenly the fact that they'd killed Clay seemed much more scary. And that Clay had killed Piney. They'd taken Pete and obviously been fully prepared to beat the shit out of him, maybe even kill him. Her best friend, he'd been at the club almost as much as she had. But the club came first and she shot a member.
Happy wouldn't let anyone hurt her, she knew that. At the same time she couldn't even stand seeing anyone of them now. Everything was just a mess in her head and she needed time away from them to process all of it.
"Did they hurt you?" She asked him again.
"Grace..." he said.
"Tell me!"
"No." He was lying but since he looked ok she assumed it had been slapping. He squeezed her hand. "Do you think Jorge killed my parents?"
That thought had struck Grace as well. "I don't know. I don't know why they would do that. It wouldn't have made any difference if they were still alive."
"No. That's what I thought." He seemed relived.
Grace felt the tears on her cheeks again. "You know, if you'd just stayed away from me, none of this would've happened."
When he squeezed her hand again she turned towards him. He was smiling. "It's not your fault either, Pixie." He lifted her hand and kissed it. "Besides; my life would've been excruciatingly boring without you."
"I am rather fabulous." She still felt like shit though. He was mostly trying to make her feel better, she knew that but she still appreciated him trying. They sat quietly for a while again.
"Think they'd come after you. Hurt you?"
"I don't know."
"They'd have to kill Happy first. He'd do anything for you. He would never do anything to hurt you or let anyone else hurt you."
"He hurt me when he didn't listen to me, when he agreed on letting them ask you. You know they would've tortured you if they even suspected that you lied to them."
"I know." He was quiet for a while. "Still, you shot your boyfriend and left everything."
"They put the club first." She turned her head and looked at him. "So I did the same."
They had started their own club when they were eight. They called it 'The Rascals' since that's what Tig always called them and that what the inscription ton the inside of the rings.
"A club of two, not very impressive," Peter said with a laugh and that was his exact words when she'd suggested it.
So she gave him the same reply as he had back then. "Just makes it stronger."
"You and me, Pixie."
"Always." She smiled. "Get some sleep."
"I still think he did it for you. He needed to be sure."
"Could you stop defending him?" It was starting to piss her off.
"I'm just saying that you shouldn't judge them too harshly, Love."
"You don't understand." She tried to find the words to describe. Describe why this was... more, more than just what they did to Peter. "I'm not saying that I need to be the center of their world."
"And by 'their', you mean?"
"Dad and Skip."
Grace was still struggling. "But I don't want to be at their mercy. Kept on my toes and just... accept that they at any time can tell me that the people I trust can't be trusted. Especially not when I don't have that many people I trust outside the club. Do you understand?"
Peter was quiet for a while. "Yes. I do."
"I've always known what they are, but they didn't even listen. They'd made up their minds and nothing I said... They shut me out. I was nothing, just a nuisance."
"I think you're exaggerating."
"Maybe a little. But then Gemma and Tara was all like; It's club business, you need to stay out of it. It wasn't club business to me. It was you, my best friend. I couldn't see that as... something I should stay out of and I couldn't believe they'd think I'd do that."
"You do realize that neither Tig or Skip looked particularly pissed when you shot Skip? Or even when you showed up. They might have tried to tell you but they didn't really believe that you'd stay out of it. He did look a bit surprised though, when you shot him." Peter laughed a little. "I'm betting you that Skip's still in love with you."
She didn't want to talk about Skip. She was no way near ready to even admit to herself what she'd done. She shot him, just to prove a point. Obviously her dad had rubbed off on her more than she would like to admit. She turned towards Peter again.
"Just get some sleep. You'll have to take the wheel later. We're not stopping for a while."
"Where are we going?"
"Don't know." She turned and tried to smiled at him. "Still got that roadtrip to do."
The full conversation between Jax and Grace when he was her 'babysitter' is in 'Brighten the Corners'. It's called 'Jax beat you at your own game today'.
