A.N: This is a repost because a lovely reviewer pointed out that I'd misspelled something pretty vital. I'm not sure if it was a misplace in autocorrect or just plain ignorance on my part, but I apologise to anybody that I've offended by spelling Puerto Rican wrong. That being said, thank y'all for sticking it out with Happy and Tori up until now, I appreciate each and every one of you.

- Daisie

SEVEN:

Juice watched me, caution evident in his eyes while he waited for my reaction.

"Are you fucking kidding?"

He looked at the wall behind my head, avoiding making eye contact with me. "No, I'm not kidding. Now that you've got ID you can be on the books. So I made you an appointment and I'm going to drop you off and pick you up, you are going."

"If you think that I'm partaking in this madness you are insane."

For the first time in nine months, Juice's anger got the better of him and I watched his nostrils flare. "It is not madness and you will be going whether I have to drag you in there kicking and screaming by your fucking hair."

I ran my tongue over my teeth. "It's none of your business, Juice."

"You won't let me help? Fine, I can't change that. But you are getting help because I refuse for you to live your life like you've been living it."

I let out a frustrated scream and stormed into the office where I slammed the door so hard that the glass in the window shook.

"Ah, so I assume Juice let you know about therapy, than."

I spun around to face Gemma and threw my hands up in exasperation. "Can you fucking believe this?"

A smirk appeared on her lips and an eyebrow raised. "Who's idea do you think it was? Honestly, the little Puerto Rican is a lot of things, but he's not the kind who would enrol your ass in therapy by himself, do you?"

I took a deep breath to try and centre myself, my eyes shooting to the roof above us so I didn't have to look at her. "Of fucking course you're the mastermind behind it."

"Just want you to get better, baby. Can't make the demons be your friend if you won't speak about them," her voice was soft for a moment. "Also, you got a letter today."

She hadn't even finished the sentence before I was reaching for the envelope on her desk, hand clasping the small envelope.

Finally.

Although it had only been three days for it to arrive, I'd been anxiously waiting to see if he would even bother to reply.

"Nice to see a smile on your face baby. I was getting sick of you being such a miserable bitch all the time."

I shot her a mock glare before I exited the room, making my way back into the bare garage, opening the letter as I went.

Tori,

Thank you for writing back, I appreciate it more than you know.

You're going to have to forgive me for how messy this is going to be, I don't have a lot of time and I'm trying to write as fast as I can.

They didn't give me your letter until about five minutes ago and I only have a few minutes to get this to the guard or he won't take it and you won't get it for another few days.

Fuckers.

I honestly didn't do anything to Kipp to make him scared of me, the kid is just a pussy.

Glad you told him that we're close, hopefully he'll keep his fucking hands off you. And eyes.

He's a fucker, too.

I hope you're doing well and none of the other guys are giving you shit for him, let me know if they are.

I liked your letter a lot, little girl. Hope to get another one of them sooner rather than later.

Made me so happy I doubt I'll punch anyone for the next few days. Kidding. Kinda.

Gotta go now so that you can get this.

Sorry it's so short.

Happy.

A frown made it's way onto my face, disappointment at the lack of words and bluntness.

But, I reasoned with myself, he had implied in the first few sentences that it would be shorter than normal and the fact that he'd sent a letter at all meant a lot since he didn't have to bother writing one at all.

I stuck the note in the back pocket of my jeans and turned my eyes towards Juice who shot me a sad smile.

He's only doing what Gemma told him to do.

He's trying to help.

Sucking up my pride, I gave him a small nod to signal that I would go to the appointment he'd made. His answering smile that lit up his face like a christmas tree was all I needed to realise I'd made the right decision.

He was still smiling as he, Jax and Chibs got on their bikes and disappeared out of the lot and into the main street, roaring off into the distance.

Once upon a time I would have loved to be on the back of the bike.

But that was before.

As I worked on the finishing touches of the Volkswagen, I came to the realisation that - although overstepping boundaries that I'd made quite clear -, they were only doing what was best for me, even if I didn't like it.

Gemma was right. I wasn't going to make my mental state any better if I couldn't face my demons, and I couldn't speak about certain details with even her, fearful that she would look at me with the same pity I'd seen in the faces of those I'd left behind.

Therapy would help, I summarised to myself with only a small level of anxiety. And I wouldn't make it hard on Juice who definitely hadn't been kidding about dragging me in kicking and screaming if necessary.

Because they love me.

Because they're family.

It was a few hours later when the Beetle had been picked up and I'd moved onto a masterpiece of a Chevy that the young teenage boy had run into the ground, when I let my mind wander.

I wonder what he's doing right now.

As per usual, my brain had tuned out the world and turned to thoughts of Happy as I put my hands to work.

I'd been using the garage to keep myself as busy as I possibly could, trying to ignore the moments which consisted purely of thoughts of the gorgeous bald man with the brown eyes who smirked at me every time I entered the Clubhouse.

"Someone call Tara, Juicey's gone and got himself stabbed."

I knew that I wasn't meant to hear a word that Bobby had yelled as he half-dragged a bleeding Juice through the lot of Teller-Morrow, in the direction of the Club.

Jax and Chibs, who'd arrived half an hour prior to the commotion, ran towards the two men who were leaving a trail of blood on the concrete.

I turned back to the blue Chevy and made my best effort not to divert my eyes a second time, refusing to revisit the scene which I clearly wasn't meant to see.

Juice was in obvious pain, groaning and mumbling incoherently and he didn't look like he was in a good way.

If the amount of blood on the ground was anything to go off he was in a world of hurt.

Despite being as close to them as I was, I wasn't part of the Club by patch or Old Lady status, and that meant that I wasn't welcome to know their plans or when something went wrong with those plans.

Unfortunately Juice being dragged through the parking lot with a knife hanging out of his leg was one of those prime examples.

Ignore it.

Tara will show up soon.

She'll patch him back together and I'll pretend I never saw anything.

"I can't call Tara!" Jax's voice washed over me, clearly distressed and filling me with dread. "She's got surgeries all day, she made sure that I knew calling her wasn't an option before she left this morning."

Juice let out a strangled cry, whether at Jax's statement or if he'd put pressure on his leg I wasn't sure.

Without even thinking I walked over to where Bobby, Jax and Chibs were all standing.

When I was close enough to get a good look, I assessed his injury to the best of my ability, his jeans covering the wound but soaked in blood.

I ignored the way that all of their backs stiffened as soon as they noticed my presence, their expressions making it obvious that they were expecting me to ask questions of what the hell had happened.

Once again I moved my eyes over both of Juice's legs to make sure that there was only one wound on him.

It was a large knife, but it wasn't stuck down to the hilt. It was close enough, however, that it was practically a miracle that it hadn't hit something pivotal that would have given him a life threatening injury.

"Bobby get him inside and on a flat surface," I sighed and tilted my head up to make eye contact with Jax. "If you could find me a clean needle and some fishing line or thread- just something that's sterile and won't cause him an infection when he's too idiotic to have the common sense to clean it properly." Next I looked at Chibs. "And if you, my favourite Scot, could grab me a preferably full bottle of Vodka, I would appreciate it."

All of the three men standing around Juice stood in silence, staring at me as if I'd somehow sprouted a second head or was speaking a language that they couldn't understand and I let out a frustrated groan before I threw my hands in the air with exasperation. "I'm not speaking French here and I'm not asking what fucking happened, I'm asking you to move our friend so I can help! You can wait hours for your wife to finish her surgeries and get here, hope he doesn't bleed out in the mean time and die, or you can trust me that I may know what I'm doing and I can get him fixed now. Fucking move!"

Whether it was the raised tone or the words itself, all three quickly spurred to life and they rushed into the Clubhouse, leaving me in the carpark to do a mental checklist in my head of the steps I needed to take to fix the situation.

Needle and thread - Jax.

Sterilisation - Chibs.

Cleanliness...

I looked down at the outfit I'd chosen for the day and cringed.

I'd started later than normal because I'd spent the morning with the boys, eating breakfast that Gemma demanded we all sit down and eat, so it had been disgustingly hot when I'd travelled back upstairs to change out of my jeans and into a pair of denim shorts I was almost embarrassed to bend over in.

If I wasn't wearing my baggy Led Zeppelin shirt and dirty work boots, the shorts probably could have made me pass as a mechanic in a porn film rather than in the actual garage.

I'd felt comfortable in them because I knew that Tig wasn't coming home until the next day, and Kipp was on the run with him so their inappropriate comments and staring wouldn't be around.

As I followed them, I watched as Bobby placed Juice up on the pool table, grimacing when he let out a loud yelp of pain.

Two moments later Jax and Chibs dumped their items on the green felt next to his body, all eyes turning to stare at me and my movements.

I was in uncharted territory and all of us - minus Juice who was too busy thinking about the pain he was in - knew it.

I'd always turned a blind eye whenever they came home with bruised and bloody bodies or bloody clothes, whether they'd come home from a run or if it had just been a big night.

I'd never questioned.

They'd ever elaborated.

As a collective, we had all been living in this beautiful space where I feigned ignorance of their movements, and we shared a peaceful world where I didn't have to worry about a bullet being placed in between my eyes or in the back of my skull for holding too much knowledge.

Is saving one of them, someone I've come to think of as family, going to land me in a hole six feet under?

Nobody will ever find me.

Nobody would even look.

With a final moment to steady myself, I stepped up to the table and tried to zone them out.

I couldn't help but feel as though I'd been dropped into the middle of a shark tank and was waiting to get bitten.

There was a mixture of confusion and intrigue lingering in the air as I picked up the bottle of Vodka and poured a generous shot down my throat, attempting to steady the shaking in my hands while I silently had a nervous breakdown at the idea of what I had to do.

Juice, already in a world of pain, didn't have to know that I was nervous as hell and panicking over the fact that I hadn't done anything medicinal in a year.

Silently, I turned and put the bottle to his lips. "You're probably going to want to have a big drink of this before we start, Juicey. I'm sorry in advance."

His brown eyes flicked to me own and he cringed while he opened his mouth, taking a large gulp, hissing when I pulled the denim around his wound apart to get a better look at what I had to work with.

"Look, Juice ... I'm not going to lie to you because I don't want you to be unprepared for what you're in for. It doesn't matter if you finish the whole bottle, this is still going to hurt like a bitch and there's nothing that I can do to change that because we don't have hospital grade meds and it's in so deep-"

He took another swig. "Can I do some coke before we start? I feel like that will help my pain tolerance."

Yeah, I thought bitterly, remembering how he was the last time he'd gotten high. And it'll make you so hyper that you'll probably pull the fucking thing out yourself and make yourself bleed out.

"No," I snapped at him. "There's good news, though! When you stabbed yourself you managed not to hit anything that's major or you would have bled out by now. So I can go ahead and take it out, but you're going to have to be careful about infection and clean it pretty thoroughly for a while."

He let out a dark chuckle and took another large sip of the vodka, eyes squeezing for a moment at the burn before he placed the bottle in my outstretched hand and laid back to look up at the lights on the roof. "I didn't stab myself, Tori. How much of a fucking idiot do you-"

I cut off his sentence by pouring the liquid on his thigh, knowing full well that the burn of the vodka going into his cut would make him hiss in pain. "I don't care what you did, Juice. I don't care if you stabbed yourself or if you pissed Jax off and he stabbed you, or if you've got a secret girlfriend and you're into kinky shit. I don't even care if you made the mistake of fucking Lyla and Opie caught you and did this. I'm not your Old Lady, club business isn't my business and I don't want to be involved. So please and kindly shut the fuck up and I'll get it out now."

Chibs let out a satisfied grunt at my answer and I saw Bobby give me a nod of approval from my peripheral vision before I grabbed the needle and fishing line off of the pool table. "I'm gonna need some help here, guys. When I start pulling the knife out his body is going to try and get away from the pain, so he's going to pull away. If you could hold him down and keep his leg as stable as possible, hopefully we can get through this without him nicking an artery."

"Hopefully?" Juice groaned, putting a hand over his eyes.

We all ignored him, the three men moving around to try and stabilise his body to the best of their ability.

Please, Jesus, I know we haven't spoken in a really long time. I know that I've been lacking in the prayer department. But please, please, please ... don't let me fuck this up.

Juice's scream filled every crevice of the room and my heart shattered in my chest as I pulled the knife out of his skin and pressed a bandage to it to try and stop the bleeding.

Taking a closer look at the wound, I felt the nausea rise to the back of my throat and I swallowed to keep it down.

I'd always been fine with blood and cuts, I'd healed myself enough times not think twice, but I couldn't handle seeing someone I cared for deeply in pain.

The only relief I had was when Bobby reached over and gave him back the bottle of Vodka that I'd finished using.

When I finished stitching him up, he was halfway through the bottle and was nursing it on his chest like it was his most cherished possession.

I nodded as a signal that they could let him go and stood back, blood covered hands instantly making their way down to my shorts and wiping themselves out of habit from working with grease in the garage.

"Did good, lass."

Always the encourager, I smiled up at Chibs, silently thanking him for the compliment.

"How'd you know how to do that, darlin'?"

I didn't bother to look at Jax. Instead, I pulled my shoulders up into a shrug and wiped my hands again. "Didn't ask how he got stabbed, don't ask me about knowing how to patch up."

Silence passed between us until Bobby coughed uncomfortably with a fair enough under his breath.

Finally, after another tense moment, Jax nodded at me. "Thanks for that, darlin'. Done us a massive favour. And thanks for not asking questions, makes all of our lives easier."

I shot him a nervous grin instead of answering before I turned to look at Chibs. "Actually, I do have a question!"

The shake of his head was so minute that, if I hadn't been staring directly at his greying beard, I would have missed it completely.

I didn't miss it, however, and I got his message loud and clear; Don't ask a question that is going to get you put underground.

"The Chevy that I'm working on out in the garage? I don't have the muscle mass to click in the new piece.. any chance one of you could come and push it in for me?"

I'd be lying if I didn't fall a little bit in love with him when the look of instant relief crossed over his face, thankful that I hadn't asked him something he wouldn't be able to answer.

A large smile, the smile I hoped I was always on the receiving end of, parted his lips. "Aye Lass, just give me a moment to talk to this dick and I'll meet you down there."

My feet had just hit the concrete outside when I heard Jax ask where the hell I had come from.

"That wee lass has stepped out of the pearly gates and come down from heaven, Jackieboy."

I turned my face up towards the sky, letting the sunshine soak on my skin.

In my head, I came to terms with the fact that my Led shirt was probably unsalvageable since I doubted that the guys would be happy with me looking like I'd been in a slasher movie.

"Hey, little miss sunshine! I'm off to the post office this afternoon. If you want your letter sent, get it to me in the next hour."

"Yes, Ma."