Cheyenne wakes up to the sound of running water. Opening her eyes, she turns and places a hand on Jax's side of the bed that are lukewarm. When she went to bed he hadn't been home. At least, he came home after becoming MIA when he promised to take her home from the hospital. She hisses as she jostles her wrist a bit as she moves out of bed.
She doesn't bother with her robe as she moves into the bathroom. She eyes the white t-shirt stained by blood and picks it up and throws it in the hamper along with the rest of his clothes. She should've just placed them in the trash.
The water stops and Jax steps out of the shower as he eyes her. He leans against the sinks as she leans against the wall across from him.
"Rough night?" She asks as she nods to his bloody shoes.
His body becomes rigid before he answers her. "Clay got shot. He's in critical condition at St. Thomas."
Maybe Cheyenne should be surprised, but she feels this was a long time coming, especially after their conversation yesterday, she slightly wished whoever shot him was a better shot. It would save her, the club, and Jax a lot of grief in the future, "Hm. Who did it?"
"I'm not sure." He replies.
Cheyenne eyes him. Not because this is no doubt another complication. Another problem Jax would bestow on himself to fix, but she wonders if he is lying to her. In the end, maybe it doesn't matter. She nods her head as she heads back into the bedroom. She spots her robe and grabs it. She goes to put it on and Jax comes up and helps her.
He turns her around as his blue eyes stare into her grey ones.
"I'm still getting out, Cheyenne. Deal with the Irish goes down today." He tells her hopeful.
"And then what?" Cheyenne asks as she walks out of his embrace. She creates some distance between the two of them as she sits on the edge of the bed.
"Then I put my goddamn family in a car and we drive the hell out of Charming."
"Just like that, Jax?" Cheyenne challenges as she looks up at him, "Change your clothes, wash off the blood-"
"Yeah, Cheyenne, just like that… Look I know it's not gonna be an easy shift - I'm not delusional- but I also know you're not clear right now." Jax alleges.
Cheyenne almost sneers at his words. "I'd argue I'm the sharpest I've ever been."
Jax steps forward as his hand cups her cheek. "Trust me, babe rage feels that way. Have Phil and Neeta help you pack. I'll be back tonight." Jax promises as he stands to go grab fresh clothes from the basket that is in the kitchen.
"Jax."
He stops in the doorway as he eyes her expectedly.
Cheyenne's eyes pierce into his eyes as she speaks, "Tell me you love me."
With everything that happened maybe they both needed the reassurance. They both realize that their relationship – this love – hadn't changed. It still burned like molten lava and then it still burned like a glacier in the middle of the ocean. There was no regression to the mean with them. No common middle ground and if there is, it was because they are the precipice of stroking the flame that dances with a wick.
"I love you, Cheyenne. Do you love me?"
Cheyenne looks away from Jax.
She doesn't know if it was easier to lie or tell the truth, but she figures they were weighted the same. She is just tired of being burnt, and she was the only one that put ointment on her wounds. Her wick was also the one extinguished first or smothered by the wax coating her with deceits and pain.
"I wonder if I'll ever stop."
Cheyenne knows her problem, Jax simply owned too much of her heart when she simply owned a piece of his.
Cheyenne glances briefly down at her engagement ring her thumb rotating it as she looks back at Jax, the man responsible for her ruin, "I love you, Jackson."
. . .
Lyla eyes her estranged husband. She had been shocked when she seen he was calling and even more when he said that he needed her help. Maybe it was stupid of her, but she had dropped everything and met him at the hospital for which he was being treated for a gunshot wound.
Of course any question she posed wasn't answered. In fact, as she sat and watched the nurse tend to his wound and even evaded questions from cops, she wasn't even sure Opie was even grateful she had come to his aide. She isn't even sure if that made her look stupid in the long run. Why she even felt sad for their relationship that was doomed from the start. She was stupid for trying and maybe being the one to even pursue despite knowing the loss of Donna was still so fresh and raw for him.
Maybe she had made mistakes. She should have seen how fast they were moving. She should have suggested a longer engagement. It would have given them a longer time to adjust to one another. More time to talk and not gloss over the issues that pulled at their relationship.
But no, she was so stupidly in love with this man. She had willingly gave herself to him and his club only for it to be discarded – to not matter. To know that she wasn't enough. She would never be enough. She would always be second best.
The car ride back to his place is quiet. The most logical thing would be to discuss the next steps – the disillusion of their marriage. Despite Ellie and Kenny not being hers, she wouldn't take the separation out on the kids. She knows that she's not Donna, but she loves those kids like her own. Piper loves them as if they were his own blood siblings. Despite the marriage being over, she doesn't want to sever the bond the kids have.
She pulls into the driveway. Her best guest is the kids are with Mary, Gemma, or Cheyenne. The gardening she had started is beginning to look overgrown. It was the one thing that Donna and Opie didn't have before – a garden. Lyla wasn't a proud green thumb, but it was something all her own. Something Opie teased her about as he built her some frames for her flower bed as well as a bench for the garden she wanted in the backyard.
"Are you going to tell me what happened?" She asks him.
"It was nothing." He tells her as he unclips his seatbelt.
"You were shot, Opie. That's not nothing." She counters. "Where are the kids?"
"You're concerned about the kids."
The way he says it burns. To him the abortion was a betrayal. Somehow it equates to her being a bad mother. But Lyla won't feel guilty about the abortion. She won't let him have that power over her.
"Damn right, I am." She snaps. "You need to grow up and let shit go, Opie. I wanted things to work. I tried to make things work, but you shut me out. You tried to keep me in this bubble. And I'm not sorry I wasn't about to let you trap me with a fucking kid."
"I was trying to keep you fucking safe!"
"How? By lying or sleeping with Ima?" Lyla seethes.
"Look, I'm sorry about Ima –"
Lyla snorts. "You're sorry you got caught."
Opie goes quiet. "Lyla –"
"I love you, Opie." She tells him.
"I know." He tells her sadly.
"But it's not enough."
"I don't deserve it." He replies before he gets out of the car.
. . .
Cheyenne is eyeing the stack of clothes that Neeta had graciously folded for her. Neeta was going to pack them, but Cheyenne decided to do it on her own. After convincing Abel that she would be okay in her room alone, Neeta had taken the boys and Isla out for lunch and would be back in a few hours.
Cheyenne is sitting on the edge of her bed looking at a photo of her and Jax of when they were younger at one of Gemma's Christmas parties. She picks up the photo and smiles sadly when a knock comes from the doorframe. Looking up she finds her mom there.
"Sorry to interrupt."
Cheyenne shakes her head. "You're not. What's up."
Cheryl walks into the room. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."
"Probably we have this thing on for two months. So that's fun." Cheyenne says. She knows it won't be until about 6 months that her wrist will be fully mended.
"I see you're packing."
Cheyenne nods her head. "Trying to at least. How long are you staying?"
"As long as you want me too."
"No job?"
"Viktor made sure I would be taken care of." Cheryl informs her.
"You miss him?"
"Of course, but not like I do your father. Viktor was a friend – a comfort. Your father was the love of my life. He would be proud of you."
"You know…I barely remember anything about Dad. And what I do know seems to be a lie or coated with the drugs."
"Your father loved you and your brother with all his life. You two are the best parts of us. Never doubt that or our love for you two."
"I just don't know what to do." Cheyenne reveals to her. "How do I decide what's best for my family, myself, and my sons?"
"What do you want?"
Cheyenne licks her lips. "I want Jax to be safe and here for his sons. To see them grow. I just want us to raise our boys together, but I don't think this place will let us."
"You don't think Jax will leave with you?"
"His dad didn't leave Charming." Cheyenne says simply as she stands up and begins to pack. After all, Clay has been shot and according to club hierarchy, Jax is acting President.
. . .
Cheryl leaves after their conversation and Cheyenne finds herself alone in the house well besides Phil hanging in the front by the door. She hasn't heard from Jax since he got dressed in the morning and Neeta's still gone. She hears footsteps coming down the hall.
Gemma appears in the doorway. "Another vacation?"
"Yep…'Cause the first one went so well." Cheyenne says sarcastically.
Gemma steps into the room. "Clay was shot last night."
Cheyenne places a shirt in the suitcase. "I know."
"By Opie." Gemma reveals to her.
Cheyenne looks up shocked. "What?" Cheyenne's mind goes back to her last conversation with Opie and wonders if he knew then he was going to kill Clay. "Why would Opie do that?"
"Because Clay killed his father… Piney's dead. Clay put a shotgun to his chest. He killed him because he thinks he had the letters."
Cheyenne goes weak in the knees. Piney is dead. She doesn't know how it slipped her mind out of all the visiting faces while she had been in the hospital Piney hadn't been one of them. Because he would have begged her for the letters. Her getting hurt would have been ammunition he needed for whatever his beef was with Clay. Worse, she wonders what in the hell Piney had been doing behind her back. She never meant for the letters to do this. "No. Piney didn't… he never even saw them."
"I know. But Clay will do anything to stop that truth from leaking out. He's the one that tried to have you killed, Chey. Clay hired those men that came after you."
Cheyenne's eyes widen. "How do you know that?"
"He took money out of our safe to pay 'em off. I confronted him. That's why he did this. Clay will keep on hurting everything and everyone that gets in his path until he gets those letters. He read the copies. He knows how dangerous they are."
Cheyenne shakes her head. She's grateful that Gemma is telling her this, but there is a reason for it. Gemma somehow has the advantage.
"Where are the letters, Cheyenne? I'll give them to Clay; we put this to bed. I'm out of options. This may be the only way we get out of this alive." Gemma pleads.
"And if we do that - get out of this alive - then you know Jax and I are leaving."
"I know."
Cheyenne stands up as she opens the drawer to the side table. "They're in the storage unit. Towards the back, underneath a stack of boxes. Old TM tax return."
"Okay." Gemma accepts the key and she goes to leave.
"Gemma," Cheyenne's cold and demanding voice stops her from leaving the room, "Tell me you love me."
"I love you."
Although Cheyenne knows Gemma's love is expendable. Cheyenne knows Gemma is going to use the letters to her advantage in keeping her son – her grandchildren – here in Charming.
. . .
Cheyenne walks to the kitchen. Phil has a whole bag of chips in his hand. "Should I be worried you're eating me out of a house and home."
She watches as Phil's face turns red and he looks sheepishly at the bag. "I'm sorry, Ma'am."
Cheyenne rolls her eyes. Despite Phil practically living here the two years Jax was inside, he never seems comfortable using her name. "My name is Cheyenne and you're fine."
She goes to the fridge and grabs a juice box. She sits down across from Phil. "What made you want to patch into the club?"
"I like bikes." He tells her. "And there's not much in the way of work outside of doing something at Oswalds or Hale. My Dad works at the meat plant and my Ma works at the nursing home as a CA. Not much here in Charming that's exciting."
"You're joined the club for excitement?" She asks incredulous.
"The brotherhood. Family. I'm closer to you than my Ma and own sister."
"Phil –"
"It's fine. I always admired Jax and Lip growing up too."
"Lip actually helped me restore a bike when I was still in school."
"Really?"
Phil nods his head. "My parents' house is around the corner from his. Isla would be riding her bike and Lip would trail behind her and he saw me working on the bike and helped me out."
Cheyenne smiles fondly.
"I'm sorry this happened to you, Cheyenne." Phil tells her.
Cheyenne gives him a sad smile. If anything it looks like she and Phil were on the way to becoming best friends. After all, she can't hold her own children. Won't be able to really help them until she got a soft cast or used to only being dependent on her right arm for a while.
"It could've been worse." She informs him. She could be dead. She wonders why she feels so numb to be so close to death once again. "You watch out for yourself, Phil, I feel things are going to get complicated in the next few months."
. . .
Lip didn't really buy it that Black had come onto their turf and shot Clay. It felt weird especially after Jax had single-handedly saved them all from getting their head chopped off. It wouldn't make tactical sense for them to hit them when they had a Cartel on their beck and call.
So Lip wasn't going to waste his time at the hospital and he wasn't really in the mood to see Tig weeping. And in an event that would have every member at St. Thomas in vigil, he noticed two people not in the crowd, Opie and Piney. Piney he could understand, but the man had been MIA for a few days. In fact, he had thought Opie was going to drag him down from the cabin.
So while Jax left to go visit with Lenny, who somehow got visitation, to see where in the fuck Bobby was, Lip takes a detour.
He doesn't bother knocking as he strolls in Opie's house. He finds the tall man sitting on the couch drinking a beer as he watches TV.
Lip raises an eyebrow as he observes that nice stark clean bandage his friend is rocking.
"So…you got shot too last night."
"He alive?"
"Last time I heard." Lip tells him.
Opie's eyes narrow as he takes a long chug of his beer.
"Okay, you need to loosen your lips because I know that bullshit Jax fed us isn't the truth."
"Then why don't you go to him."
"Because I'm asking you."
Opie laughs, but it's filled with no humor or happiness. "Isn't it funny you're coming to me for the truth and not Jax?"
"Why'd you shot him? And where's Piney?" Lip asks tired of the bullshit already.
"There you have it. Question and answer."
Lip reals back. He thinks his hearing might of went or he blacked out because he did not expect this shit. "What the fuck? Why don't we all know about this?"
"Because of fucking Jax!" Opie snaps. "Didn't believe his precious step-daddy would kill my father in cold blood despite him killing Donna and even your own fucking father."
Lip runs a hand down his face as he knows he is about to give Jax a verbal beat down of a lifetime. He seriously needs to know where this man's head is at. "Where's Piney now?"
Opie points to a black box that rests on the mantle.
"You burned him! When?" Lip can admit hurt colors his words that they had a small funeral without him there.
"Last night."
"Jesus fucking Christ." Lip snaps.
"I can't do this anything. I can't be in this club."
"You patching out?"
"I don't think I can follow Jax. Not anymore." Opie informs him.
"That's going to hurt him, Ope."
"Good."
. . .
Jax looks at the multiple letters in his hands. He doesn't know if rage is even a word that could describe any emotions that were cruising in his body. Just by reading his dad's testimonies on how Clay had made attempts on his life multiple times, he can understand why Cheyenne never gave him the damn letters.
Despite all the questionable shit Clay has done. Clay is still like a father to him. He is the man that helped shape him for this Life – for the gavel. But that wouldn't save Clay, this man is beyond redemption. It astonishes him how all of them bought the lies Clay concocted. All these years, his mom had been sharing a bed with her husband's killer. And he wonders if she ever wondered – questioned it. She probably did and it made him wonder how much she knew.
Then this man tried to kill his wife – could have harmed his children – for what? Of course knowing if he did know the truth, Clay's life would expand to minutes, but Clay had been so vocal in keeping him in the club, what would accomplish in killing his wife get Clay? Because knowing Cheyenne, if something did happen to her, these letters would have been made public somehow – someway, and his hand in killing Cheyenne would have been discovered the same way they discovered the truth about Donna.
But Jax realizes exactly what would have happened, Cheyenne would have been gone and it would have probably pushed him further into the club, just like it did Opie. Just as Clay did Opie keeping him close to protect his lie, Jax would have been in that same position.
He should have let Opie finish Clay off last night.
He can't believe Clay killed his father just over the gun business, and Jax realizes he needed to finish what his dad wanted for his club.
Maybe he could be the guy that could fix it – change it.
Now he felt repulsed with himself for doubting – hating – his father ever since everything happened with Abel's kidnapping and Belfast. His dad just never had a chance to change the club now Lionell Sr, Donna, Piney, Cheyenne and who knew who else paid the price because Clay was consumed by gluttony.
It amazes him how Maureen Ashby knew all of this when they were in Belfast. She knew every one of his father's secrets just waiting to be read. Maybe he should write her a letter and thank her.
Stuffing the last letter into the accordion file, he had to visit one last person before he finished what Opie wanted to be done.