Carly woke up feeling light-headed. She had taken a call from Jax on the ride home from the stables and fell asleep as soon as she hit the bed. Jason had a couple pieces of pizza by himself and curled up next to her. He watched her open her eyes, but she struggled with the strength to lift her head.

"Carly, I ordered you an omelet and juice. Please, for me?" He begged as he helped her to a sitting position.

She was running on empty and knew it. "Anything for you." She replied. The omelet was filled with ham and cheese, just how she typically liked it, no veggies to speak of. With it was a couple pieces of whole grain toast for carbohydrates and a glass of orange juice. She couldn't understand why she struggled taking every bite, except everything she put in her mouth appeared to be tasteless and most of the time the mere mention of food made her stomach flip.

"Are you having breakfast?" She asked as Jason watched her take each bite.

"Already did." He had woken up several hours earlier. "Don't tell me you are done?"

"I'm going to shower and then I'll try some more." She offered. At least what she had eaten seemed to provide her with some energy.

"I guess. Do you need some help?" He asked; she still appeared shaky as she stood.

"No, I'm okay." When she got into the bathroom she dropped her nightgown that she didn't recall changing into and adjusted the water to the perfect temperature before stepping in. She had permission from Dr. Drake to remove the bandage completely that day. Her stitches had dissolved and she was left with a fuzzy patch that was luckily covered by the rest of her hair that draped over.

As the water fell down she let herself imagine she was on the island where she was happy and healthy. She was getting ready for an evening of dancing and candlelit dinner under the stars. A dress had been picked out for her, and was lying on the bed as she finished freshening up and next to it was a small box which she opened to find a diamond bracelet. After slipping into the gown she walked to the door and was greeted by a bouquet of tropical flowers. She looked up to see the face of the man in the tux… Jason? 'No,' she thought and attempted to put her husband in his place. Failing horribly she stepped out of the shower to dry herself off.

"Hey, is everything all right?" Jason asked looking at the time. They only had half an hour to get to the clinic.

"Yeah, I'll be out in a second." She said as she was brushing her teeth. He turned around as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a blouse; then she slipped on a belt.

"Three more bites." He bartered with her.

"Fine." She smiled and took the fork and stabbed it into the eggs.

**********

Claudia held onto Sonny's hand crying. The baby she had growing inside of her for eight months was gone, and she felt empty. All the good parts of her had been ripped out and she couldn't understand what it had done to deserve this. Her, yes sure, but her daughter was completely innocent.

"What are you doing here?" Claudia cried; her lip still quivering.

"You are not in this alone."

Now he was finally standing up, Claudia thought. She had been begging for his undivided attention since before the baby was conceived and now he wanted to act like the devoted husband. She was pissed at him, pissed at herself, and pissed at God for letting this happen. "Just go!"

"I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you. Claudia, you didn't deserve that."

"Yes I did." She didn't care anymore. She didn't care if he hurt her or killed her, hell, she was begging for it. "You were right all along. It was me. I hired him." She tried to keep going but couldn't stop crying.

"I know what you are doing." Sonny replied. He was notorious for pushing people away as he got drunk on his own guilt.

"No really. I hired Devlin, and I used Carly as my alibi." She said hoping to really drive in the point, but her words were broken up. "Carly was looking into the eyes of the person responsible when she got the call that her son had been shot."

"You don't know what you're saying." He said denying what he was hearing.

Somehow a laugh mixed in with her tears. "Are you that dense? Jerry had discs all over your house implicating me. Why else did it look like I was checking out every corner of the place when I thought I was alone?"

He recalled the suspicious behavior. She had covered up by saying that she was interested in redecorating.

"After Ric found out I knew my time was closing in on me." She explained; tears were still streaming down her face. "I poked holes in the condoms. I tried to get pregnant because I thought it was the only way to protect myself if you found out."

Sonny stared at her silently as his eyes glazed over. He tried to process everything, but he knew on some level that he had already known. The pieces of the puzzle were already there and put together. He thought he needed proof, but her confession didn't seem to change anything.

**********

"How's the knee doing?" Dante asked as he handed Michael a cup from Starbucks.

"Stiff, but the swelling has gone down." He answered.

"I called your school pretending to be your dad."

"Thanks."

"No prob. I thought you could use the day off. Besides I got a call from my ma late last night from the hospital."

"Oh God." Michael had tried pushing the guilt he was feeling away as he was dealing with his own pain, but he knew if anything happened to Claudia or the baby it would be his fault.

"The baby died." Dante announced not sure if there was any easy way of putting it.

Michael hung his head down as he felt a knot forming in his throat.

"It was an accident." Dante tried comforting him. "Just like the ricochet bullet was. You can't blame yourself."

"She was my sister."

"Johnny and Sonny are setting up a small memorial service for her tomorrow. I can take you if you would like."

"I doubt Claudia wants to see me right now."

"It's probably going to take her a while to get through this, if ever. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't seek your own closure."

He wasn't sure what that would entail. He was still upset at his dad, but he never meant to hurt his child, the baby that he had no memories of, and now never would. "I should have had my tires checked." He finally said.

"It was the first snowfall of the season, and an early one at that. You couldn't have known."

"Last week, I could have…"

"Last week your mom almost died. Michael, stop, I mean it. Nobody is blaming you. It's a stupid intersection where the stop signs should be in the other direction. It was an accident waiting to happen."

He knew Dante was right, but it didn't stop him from hurting. "Okay, I get it. Do you think you can bring me over to my mom's?"

"Sure, but I thought she was out of town."

"She is, but I think I should tell Morgan and I'd really like to see Britni." The loss of Sonny and Claudia's daughter ignited feelings for his baby sister. He remembered his resentment when Jason saved her; he would have sacrificed her to save his mother, but now he couldn't imagine this world without her.

"If we're going to get there before Morgan goes to school we need to leave now." Dante instructed. Michael grabbed his coat and raced through the hallway, his knee was definitely doing a lot better.

Jax was just about to take off with his step son when the doorbell rang. "Michael, come in. Dante?" He invited them both.

"Michael." Morgan threw his arms around his brother. "Jax told me about the accident. I'm so glad you're okay."

Jax found out about the accident during his conversation with Carly. It was just like Sonny to leave him out of it.

"Yeah, did Jax tell you about Claudia's baby?" Michael asked.

"No." Morgan answered, but saw the serious look on his brother's face.

"Our sister didn't make it."

Morgan looked to Michael, Dante, and Jax not knowing how to react. He felt bad for his dad and Claudia because he knew how much they loved her, but he didn't feel the connection to their baby the same way he did with Britni. "I'm sorry."

"Morgan, you don't have anything to apologize for." Michael responded.

"But I am. I haven't been nice to Claudia or her baby, and all my prayers were for you, mom, or Britni."

Jax held Morgan as he realized what his step-son was thinking. He had been through so much since Michael's shooting, and he put it all on himself to fix and make better. "That's okay, Morgan, its okay."

"Hey Morgan, can you show me to your room?" Dante asked. He saw the eye contact between Michael and Jax.

"I'm sorry, Jax." Michael apologized. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to upset him before school."

"No, I think it's good that you were the one to tell him. He'll be okay, he's resilient."

"Like mom. How's she doing?" He asked figuring he was probably talking to her daily.

"Truthfully? She sounds tired, but claims everything is okay."

"She's resilient." He echoed.

"Thanks, are you staying?" Jax asked.

"Yeah, I wanted to see Britni."

"She's in the nursery with your grandmother. If you want to hang out here for awhile I was going to drop off Morgan and swing over to the hotel to take care of some things, but we can go car shopping this afternoon."

"Okay, yeah, thanks."

***********

On the ride down to Mexico Sam sat in the passenger's seat attempting to mentally prepare for their evening. Besides a few bruises Lucky was fine, he knew he made out easy and they weren't going to get many chances. They had to turn things around to their favor.

"I got to hand it to Jerry. He sure knows how to show a girl a good time." Sam teased. First there was the casino, then the Alamo and now off to the museum of modern art.

"You know, you don't have to do this. I know that you would just assume put in bullet in Jerry's heart and be done with it."

"Unless the bullet was silver I doubt it'd do much damage." Sam replied. "Besides this was my case, remember?"

"That's right. How was I the one blown up?" Lucky joked.

"You were the one that pushed me out of the way, you Goddamn hero."

"Yeah well, call me protective, but I don't want to see anything happen to you." He gave his dazzling smile, which melted her fear.

"Lucky." She said turning the conversation more serious. "If this goes wrong, promise me that you'll save yourself."

"What are you talking about? I'm not going to let you get hurt."

"I'm a big girl who has looked out for herself for a long time, and I've even managed to do a pretty good job of it. Don't worry about me."

"I definitely can't promise not to worry." Lucky added. "But if we're playing the martyr game then it goes both ways, don't risk yourself to save me."

"Is this it?" She asked as he pulled up to the museum.

They took a moment to appreciate the modern Mexican architecture then went inside to steak the place out. Lucky wanted to find the areas of best visibility of each escape. He was enjoying the collections in the entry area when Sam came back from scouting access from the upstairs and checking out the security system.

"What did you find?" Sam asked.

"Besides the main entrance there's a fire escape on the East end that is locked from the outside except with an employee key card." Lucky explained.

"The security in the place is pretty tight, but more directed towards the collections. Still I'm going to have Spinelli hack into the camera's and keep look-out for us." Sam added. "I think it's best if I take the East end and you cover the main entry."

"Whoa, what?" Lucky said caught off guard. "We're not splitting up. Last time that happened you ended up with a gun pointed at your head."

"In order for the plan to work we need to spot Jerry before he sees us. The only way for that to happen is to cover both points of entry. He has had a day on us, you can't tell me he hasn't figured out a way into the East side."

Lucky agreed as long as they could use Spinelli as a contact point. Each of them would be connected to his through their blue tooth and once Jerry was spotted he would make the phone call to the Mexican authorities. Sam thought it sounded reasonable. They went to the nearby diner for a late lunch, Sam stayed in the vehicle to relay the plan to Spinelli as Lucky got them a seat.