"It's just for one night. Why can't they just let me stay?" I cross my arms against my chest as Tara awkwardly fiddles with her hands.

"It's hospital regulations. You can come back tomorrow morning though-"

"To hell with regulations! I'm not leaving my son." I interrupt her. My chest fluttered and my jaw clenched as Tara looked at me as her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. "Either use your words or close your mouth."

Tara closes her mouth and rubs her forehead with her right hand.

"I can… try to let you stay, but you've got to be quiet. No wandering around. You need anything you text me." She explains and relief runs through my veins. My shoulders feel less strained and they sag back down from their tensed position.

"Thank you." I mutter before she ushers me back into the hospital room.

"Close the blind, keep the noise down and I'll be the nurse to come check up on Tommy." Tara then leaves and closes the door behind her.

I turn back to Tommy as he slept in the hospital bed. Mom had brought me a bag of stuff from home, a few items being Tommy's blanket and teddy bear. I had tucked him in with blanket and he cuddled his teddy with his left arm, resting his cast upon a pillow beside him. He wasn't in any pain and after his last check up by Tara, everything will be fine. The cast will just be a constant reminder of how I didn't protect my baby.

Fillip.

God I wish I could hear his voice right now. Feel his hand brush my hair while he whispers "tha' everything will be fine."

Not lay near enough comatose in a hospital bed with a hole stitched up in his head.

I didn't know what to do. Still don't. I had visited the room that Tara wrote down when she handed me the piece of paper earlier today. I walked up to the door, looked through the small window and froze.

There lay his shell.

It wasn't my Fillip.

He was lifeless, hooked up to a machine that beep, beep, beeped away.

I stood for a while next to him, my knees locked and my calves and feet felt like TV static. I can't begin to describe the feeling I held in my chest, but I can begin with that I can't lose him. I never had closure with George, I never got to say goodbye or say one last 'I love you'. I didn't want to have that a second time.

But I wasn't going to say goodbye because he was going to make it. We were going to see each other again. We'd say hello again.

I spent the night wide awake watching over Tommy. I concluded that the explosion had to have been Zobelle; which means that Clay is going to retaliate no matter what anyone thought. This was all the fuel Clay needed to have a full on blood bath in Charming – which could mean someone is going to either end up dead or behind bars. Watching Tommy sound asleep made me panic that that someone could be me. Was being a part of the club worth risking my baby?

The next morning the doctor came as Tara had already clocked off, it was easy to lie and say I'd only arrived moments before him. He gave Tommy a once over and deemed him fit enough to return home and rest there.

"Will everyone sign my arm mommy?" Tommy asked as I drove the truck back home. "Elliot had a cast in school and we all drew on it for him. Miss Harrison said it would make his arm better. Will it make my arm better mommy?"

"It will baby," I assured him and smiled. "You can get all your friends to sign it at school." With that Tommy seemed to beam the rest of the drive, happy to be able to get his cast signed by everyone.

We spent majority of the afternoon watching movies and playing with Tommy's dinosaurs. Tommy had wanted me to sign his cast and I did so with purple heart and wrote 'mommy's soldier'. He beamed all afternoon about being a brave soldier, ready to fight the bad guys to protect his mommy.

The club hadn't called or visited which most likely meant they weren't going to consider me as a prospect in their decisions today. Which I am grateful for because I didn't want a minute away from my son. Any chance I could grasp onto him and hold him in my arms, feel his little heartbeat in his chest, blow raspberry kisses on his cheeks, all moments that assured me that he was alive and well.

Coming up to dinner I still hadn't heard anything from the club or even Jax. Silence is never good – with children or with men. Tommy had asked to call Half-sack at the hospital, after he had his surgery Tommy had been missing one of his favourite babysitters – I couldn't lie and say I don't miss him too. So whilst I prepared spaghetti and meatballs, Tommy sat on the floor against the fridge with my phone rambling on about his new cast to him.

"Mommy said I can get it signed by everybody!" Tommy falls silent for a moment, then nods his head. "I made a square for you to sign, next to Chibby!"

Filip…

I jolt as the door knocks. I wipe my hands on the kitchen towel before leaving Tommy still chatting away on the floor and go to greet my new guest.

"Got room for one more?" Mom asks as she holds up a bottle of whiskey. She has shadows under her eyes, her hair still styled to perfection but her shoulders hold onto an invisible weight as they slump.

"Meatballs almost done," I step back and let her in. We walk back to the kitchen after I close the door. Tommy sees mom and almost drops the phone as he runs up to her to cuddle.

"Grandma is here. Okay. Bye Eddie!" Tommy beams up at mom and I take my phone back and put it on the counter.

Dinner is eaten in the living room with mom and I on the couch and Tommy sat on the floor and his plate on the coffee table. Scooby Doo and the gang run around trying to solve another mystery as I eat my meal and sip the whiskey mom brought. Tommy gasps when the monster is revealed to the previous owner of the land. Mom is silent. She greeted Tommy with warmth and a smile and she answered him anytime he spoke to her, but other than that it's as though she's lost in her own little world.

I don't press her on what's wrong; that's a first class ticket to being berated about my own problems.

By the time Tommy is settled in bed and hugging his teddy bear, my own fatigue was creeping up on me. I walk into the kitchen just as mom opens a window, her other hand holding a pack of cigarettes and her lighter.

"Spare one?" I ask as I walk over to the counter below the window and sit on it. Mom passes me a cigarette and lights it for me. With my first inhale I realise that this has been the first one I've had in two days.

Mom lights up her own and we sit and stand in a comfortable silence.

"I never did get to say goodbye to your father," Mom begins, exhaling smoke as she looks at me. A haunted shadow in her eyes fluttered by and said goodbye before I could question it.

"Only got to hear the words come from the sheriff where they found parts of his skull." I shuddered. I took another drag and let it's burn itch at my chest.

"I don't remember the last thing I said to George," I muttered. Mom shifts next to me, turning in to listen as she did when I was younger.

"I just remember we were shouting; I was trying to get him to come with me. To run back here and get help… but he didn't want to run. I remember seeing blood and putting Tommy in the truck. But I don't remember if I told him I loved him." I sniff back the coarse feeling in my throat. My chest burns a deeper hole. The last thing I asked Fillip to do was take Jax's side.

"The last thing Fillip said to me was my name. He called out to me before the van blew up. He saved my little boy. Now I don't know if I'll get to help him." My head falls, I stare down at my feet. Mom wraps an arm around me and pulls me into her, her chin resting on my head.

"Does it ever stop?" I ask – beg.

"You never get over it."