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General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death.

CHAPTER 76: NEW BEGINNINGS

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Jax looked up from where his son had fallen asleep in Wendy's arms to see Gemma motioning for him outside of the door to the baby's hospital room. "I'll be right back." He whispered, squeezing her knee as she looked up nervously.

Gemma couldn't help but enjoy the rush of power that she got when the younger woman looked at her with such terror in her eyes, especially with what she was about to do.

"Hey." Jax nodded as he closed the door softly behind him.

"I'm gonna head to the store - pick up some groceries so she'll have some stuff at the house."

Jax felt his face turning to a scowl. "Really?" He looked at his mother skeptically, wondering what could have possibly happened on that short coffee break to have completely changed her mind.

"Well, you said she's trying to make up for her mistake." She shrugged. "I'm all about second chances."

"No you're not." Jax scoffed.

Gemma took a deep breath as she pulled her deceitful eyes away from the purity behind his, looking to the ground. "So, anything new on Ope and Bobby?" She changed the subject to one that she knew would surely distract him from their differing opinions - knowing that he was desperate for an ally.

"No, nothing." He sighed, leaning back against the wall. He still wondered what the true intentions were behind her sudden change of heart - because he knew there were some - but right now, he didn't care. He needed all the support that he could get.

"I don't care what anybody says." She reestablished eye contact. "Opie didn't rat." She told him with sincerity - sincerity that she hoped would trump his suspicions.

"I know." He nodded, breathing a sigh of relief when finally somebody was on his side. "Thanks, mom." He gave her a small smile, squeezing her arm gratefully before heading back into the room to give Wendy the good news.

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By the time that the sun had started to set, Brian and Greg were still furiously rushing around the garage scrubbing every surface and polishing every tool - hoping that they could make up for what they worried would be a grave mistake with the MC that they'd gotten a little too comfortable with.

Brian's head snapped up when he heard footsteps, his breath catching in his throat as he saw the leather of a kutte before he was able to exhale in relief - recognizing Juice to be the source of the noise. "Jesus christ, man." He chuckled nervously, still trying to catch his breath. "You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were Tig coming to finish us off for laughing at his bitch."

Juice rolled his neck to the side as his eyes fell closed when the younger man stupidly spoke so candidly about how little he'd learned from the lesson that had left his face battered but his mindset untouched.

"Dude…" Greg stood across the garage as he widened his eyes at his buddy, shocked that he was continuing to test the boundaries in front of the patched member who had clearly just found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time - hoping that Juice didn't think that he shared the same opinions. He'd gotten the message earlier - loud and clear.

"So this is just a joke to you, huh?" Juice nodded with a sarcastic smile.

"Come on man, you were laughing with us too." Brian scoffed.

He wasn't. Greg thought, feeling his forehead beginning to break out in a sweat and moisten his dark hair as his partner in crime continued to dig himself into a deeper hole.

"Then why didn't I catch a beating too, huh?" Juice cocked his head to the side.

"Probably wants to fuck you too." Brian shrugged. "Little groupie bitch."

"Brian!" Greg tried to stop his hateful accusations before he could bury both of them with his misogyny.

"Little groupie bitch who did a number on your face and has you running around here doing bitch work?" Juice scoffed. "Get outta here. Leave your uniforms." He nodded to the office as he pulled two envelopes from his back pocket, tossing them onto the gleaming surface of the aluminum work bench.

"Hey!" Brian yelled when Juice turned away from him. "Only reason that stupid bitch got a hit in on me and didn't get one back was because Tig was sitting right there. Okay? Don't get that shit twisted - I'm not scared of some club slut." He snarled as he wagged his finger in his face. He couldn't believe the grief they were giving him over some halfway decent piece of ass. The whole reason he'd applied to this job anyway was to be around like-minded individuals who viewed women the same way that he did - he hadn't at all expected the rough and tough bikers that he'd heard so much about to be chewing him out over one that he hadn't even laid his hands on. Maybe the rumors had been just that - rumors. These men couldn't possibly be the men that the town so valiantly feared.

Juice stood completely still with squinted eyes and a smug smirk on his face as he listened to each ironic word that left the completely oblivious man's mouth.

"What's this?" Greg asked as he picked up his letter, hoping to diffuse the situation before it could get any uglier.

"Your termination." Juice answered cockily. "Don't come back here."

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"You sure about this?" Jax raised a brow as he helped Wendy get settled in the house that they used to share together - still unsure about leaving her alone, but even more unsure about leaving her alone with Gemma.

"Not much more she can do to me Jax…" She gave him a small smile. "Besides… I did it to myself." She added quietly.

"Wendy…" Jax shook his head.

"No." She cut him off. "No. It's okay. Part of staying clean is knowing what I did wrong… Taking responsibility for my actions." She nodded assuringly to both him and to herself, hoping that hearing the mantra out loud from her own mouth would help her to believe it.

"Okay." Jax nodded admirably. "I'm gonna go."

"I know who to call if I find myself at the end of a knife." She chuckled.

"Ah, I don't think you gotta worry about that… Not after she just had the house painted." He smirked.

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"This is fucking bullshit!" Brian yelled as he kicked open the door to the office, crumpling the piece of paper in his hands.

"Dude, be glad that this is all we're getting." Greg mumbled behind his friend as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking over his shoulder to be sure that Juice wasn't following them, or worse - hearing what Brian was saying.

"Oh yeah?" Brian scoffed. "They're just a joke. They aren't tough like everybody says. If they were really the guys we thought they were, they wouldn't been sending us off with a fucking termination letter-"

"That's not all we're sending you off with." The boys whipped their heads around at the sound of a third voice, their eyes adjusting to the dim light as Sydney appeared from the shadows. "So you're not scared of me, huh?" She nodded to Brian.

Brian forced his muscles to stop trembling, rolling his shoulders back and pulling his chin up. "No." He told her as confidently as possible, clasping his hands in front of him.

"That's okay..." She smirked. "Because I know you're scared of him." She cocked her eyebrows as she nodded behind them.

Greg froze, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he felt somebody approaching behind him, slowly turning his head where he saw Tig - his eyes barely focusing on the Sergeant before he was knocked to the ground by a hard punch to his temple.

Brian felt his feet moving before his mind could catch up - bolting towards the street where he'd hoped he could outrun the older man, but it was no use as he realized that Sydney was blocking his path. He stopped, looking around frantically as he tried to find another way out - a way around the perfectly planned ambush that he had found himself on the end of - but that was even less helpful than his first instinct to run had been as he felt Tig yank the hood of his sweatshirt and pull him to the ground, smashing his fist into his nose on the way down.

Sydney sauntered over to the closest picnic table as the sounds of grunting and groaning echoed through the compound like music to her ears. She sat herself down, lighting a cigarette and slowly taking a drag as her eyes feasted on the blissful sight of her man battering the men who had dared to wrong both her and her club.

Juice awkwardly approached Sydney at the picnic table as he watched his plan unfold, hoping that his initiative to avenge her had been enough to earn back her trust that had been unintentionally destroyed by the cocky assholes.

"I didn't mean for that to happen." He told her with his head down as she refused to acknowledge him from where he'd sat behind her. "You shouldn't have had to see that, and I'm sorry."

"See what?" Sydney whipped her head around, stamping her cigarette out on the table. "Men who I thought had my back taking an opportunity to throw me under the bus for a good laugh? It's okay, Juice. I'm used to it." She nodded curtly before pushing herself to her feet and walking over to where Tig was ramming Brian's face into the pavement, stepping over a much-less beaten Greg on her way.

Once she reached them, she placed her hand on Tig's shoulder lightly, squeezing until he came back down to earth and out of his blind rage, looking up at her where she nodded. He returned the nod, getting up off of the nearly lifeless man as he gasped for air through his bloodied orifices.

"Look at me." Sydney commanded, watching as Brian struggled to push his broken body onto his back - feeling the familiar thrill run through her veins once his unrecognizable face came into view.

Even through severely damaged and blood clouded eyes, Brian could still see that her expression remained stone cold. He gulped, immediately choking and gasping for air again - his eyes finally refocusing to see that he was looking down the silenced barrel of a forty-five.

"Are you scared, Brian?" She asked in an eerily calm voice as she watched his eyes widen in fear once he realized what was happening.

"Yes." He nodded frantically, ignoring the excruciating pain that it shot through his surely broken neck. "Y-yes."

"Why?" She cocked her head. "There's nothing to be scared of." She shrugged. "These aren't the tough bikers that you heard of, and I'm just a little groupie bitch, right?"

"No." Brian shook his head, realizing now why Greg had been so adamant about him keeping his opinions to himself - because they were the last ones that he'd ever have. "N-no, I was wrong." He sobbed, praying for mercy as he shook his head back and forth.

"Yeah. You were." Sydney didn't do as little as blink as she pulled the trigger, not wanting to miss a single second of watching the life drain from his eyes. Once she was satisfied that her adrenaline rush had peaked, she turned her attention over to Greg who had managed to push himself up off of the ground in an attempt to escape, but had stopped dead in his tracks when she killed his friend right before his eyes.

"I-I won't say anything! I swear" He held his hands up in surrender, hoping that it would be enough to spare him.

"Yeah, I know that you won't." She nodded. "Because you're going to bury the man that you just killed."

"W-what-" Before Greg had time to comprehend what she had meant, he felt his body flinching as she tossed him the gun, catching it on impulse.

"Juice will help you find a spot." She told him as she pulled off the clear kitchen glove that she'd been wearing to protect her fingerprints from getting on the gun that was now covered in his, nodding to the bald man who blinked in response - understanding that this was the chance that she was giving him to right his wrong. "All the good ones have filled up." She added with an evil smirk before walking over to where Tig was waiting for her.

Greg felt his blood run cold as he watched the couple walk off hand in hand as he realized what she'd done… What he now had to do. Brian had been right… These weren't the bikers that they'd heard about, they were worse.

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Wendy paced back and forth around the kitchen, trying her best to calm her racing mind as she stood in the very spot where she'd almost taken her and her son's lives. She tried to repeat what she'd learned in rehab in her head… Make new memories to replace the old ones. A place where you got high isn't a place where you can't live sober. Take back control over your space. But she was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of the front door opening - and it was probably a good thing.

She stood with her back against the counter, hoping that it would help relieve some of the trembling in her nervous body, but it did no such thing and Gemma came into view with a stern expression and her hands on her hips.

"Uh, I thought Jax said you guys were okay with me staying here…" She held her hands out in front of her, not wanting to cross any more boundaries than she already had.

"Yeah." Gemma managed to shrug off the instinctual reaction as she stood in front of the woman who had almost killed her first grandchild. "It is." She forced a smile, walking over to the table where she set her purse down as Half-Sack brought the groceries in from her Cadillac.

"Uh, okay." Wendy shifted her eyes when not only did the energy dramatically shift, but Gemma seemed to act as if nothing was wrong.

"Sit down." Gemma told her as she began unloading the paper bags, feeling the pride rise in her chest as Wendy hesitated to get any closer. She smirked once her back was turned to the younger woman, opening up the pantry door where she began stocking the shelves. "How much time you got?"

"Forty-two days." Wendy tried to force a smile. Before it had sounded like so much, but with all of the awful memories she had been forced to relive in the last day, it was starting to feel like forty-two hours… "I'm not gonna make any promises this time… I'll just- Just see what happens." She began fidgeting with the bracelets around her wrists.

"Abel comes home on Saturday." Gemma reminded the new mother, who she could see was already struggling to stay sober - the new mother that she would've loved to see struggling until what Tara had done just hours ago. Now she had to make sure that Wendy stayed on the right path so that Jax wouldn't go back down the wrong one.

"I know." Wendy hung her head when the sore subject was brought up. "He's a lucky kid… He's got crazy, fierce grandma looking after him." She chuckled, hoping to lighten the mood and move past the awkwardness between them that the topic of her son carried.

"Yeah, he does." Gemma chortled.

Wendy stared up at her former mother-in-law, still feeling as if there was too much unfinished business to ignore. "I'm not seeking custody. I-I just went by because I wanted to see him and-" She felt tears coming to her eyes. "And just say sorry for what I did." She forced the words out, remembering that she needed to take accountability for her actions.

"Amends." Gemma nodded understandingly as she walked over the sink.

"Yeah." Wendy scowled when she barely acknowledged the very incident that she had tried to kill her over not two months ago.

"Well, I guess I…" Gemma forced the words out as she ran her aching hands under the warm water, turning back to face the mother of her grandchild once she was sure she could deliver the pitch convincingly. "I guess I owe you some." She nodded. "The shit I did to you… All a reaction to him almost dying."

Wendy blinked a few times in shock as she heard an actual apology coming from the mouth of Gemma Teller-Morrow, wondering if maybe she had relapsed after all - because there was no way that this was actually happening.

"We all pulled through." Gemma continued.

"I guess we did." Wendy nodded slowly, staring at the very spot on the floor where the paramedics had revived her.

Gemma sighed, making her way back over to the table where she pulled out a chair and turned it to face Wendy, sitting down so that their knees were almost touching. "You still love Jax?" She looked deep into those sad, brown eyes.

"Uh." Wendy was sure that she had relapsed now. She blinked a few times, waiting for the image before her to morph into something else - something more believable than the woman who had wanted her dead six weeks ago now trying to rekindle her relationship. "S-sure- I guess-"

"No." Gemma shook her head when she hesitated. "It's not a guess." She told her sincerely, feeling herself settling into the role much easier - hoping that she wouldn't have to try much harder to convince the recovering addict. "He's still your husband… The father of your child. Do you love him?"

"Yeah." Wendy nodded as her guard came down as Gemma's eyes burned holes into her.

"You want this family back together?"

"I-I don't know if I'm ready for that…'' Of course it was what she wanted… More than anything. But she knew that if she fucked it up, she would never get another chance.

"When you're ready." Gemma nodded. "You want this family back?" She was more than okay with a grace period where Jax wasn't distracted by Tara or Wendy.

"It's the only thing I want…" She admitted wishfully.

Gemma took a deep breath as she watched Wendy squirm, trying to figure out what statement would hit the hardest… She gulped, blinked as she reminded herself of the end goal before she forced the words out.

"Abel needs his mom."

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"You okay?" Tig asked Sydney as they made their way across the compound, feeling her grip getting tighter on his hand as her hardened expression didn't let up, staring straight ahead.

Sydney stopped her stride, running her tongue across her teeth under her lip as she took a deep breath, trying to force her anger down - not having expected the irrelevant man's words to trigger her so severely. She ground her teeth, looking back at where Juice and Greg were loading Brian's body into the bed of the tow truck.

"Can we take the bike?" Was all that she could manage to get out, knowing that the first long ride in weeks would be exactly what she needed to calm her raging mind.

"Sydney…" Tig shook his head, wishing that she would stop pushing the subject - the sore fucking subject that had him reliving the accident every single goddamn time that she mentioned it.

Sydney clenched her jaw harder, squeezing her eyes shut in frustration before willing herself to brush off at least something today. "The world will be better without him… Safer." She answered his original question.

Tig nodded, listening to the harsh growl in her voice as he caught on to why this had been so personal for her. "Let's go." He nodded to the van, knowing that keeping her at the scene wasn't going to do anything to calm her down.

Sydney nodded, removing her hand from his and beginning to stomp across the asphalt, determined to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Tig felt a grimace form on his face when he felt her hand sliding out of his, a full blown wince spreading through him as his thumb grazed the silver ring on her finger… The ring that he'd given her after she'd given him her necklace - the necklace that he'd proudly worn around his neck when he had done exactly what she'd pleaded with him not to do.

"Wait." He took a deep breath. "I gotta tell you somethin…" She had done her share of transparency today, now it was his turn.

Sydney stopped, feeling her anger fading as inquisition took its place - looking over her shoulder at him expectantly as he approached with his head down and his hands in his pockets.

"I uh… I went after Half-Sack. This morning… When you were talking to Jax." He admitted shamefully.

Sydney scowled. She had seen Half-Sack in the afternoon and he'd appeared to be fine; his face wasn't battered, he was walking perfectly fine and he hadn't acted any more awkward than usual - which had been the telltale sign to her that he was okay.

"I stopped myself." He explained as she stared at him with a puzzled look on her face, waiting for her anger to return - but it didn't. Instead, the angelic look to her face returned as her expression softened.

"Okay." Sydney nodded curtly. "Thank you for telling me." She didn't care that Tig hadn't been able to fight off his initial impulse - clearly she wasn't one to talk. What she cared about was the fact that the Sergeant of Arms of the mother chapter of the infamous motorcycle club had stopped himself from doing the one thing that he knew how to do best - all for the simple fact that he knew it would upset her.

"Okay?" Tig scowled incredulously. "That's it?" He couldn't believe it… There was no way? Honesty had never been this easy before?

Sydney nodded softly, understandingly. "Let's go home. I'm hungry for some of that dinner you're going to make me." A small smile tugged at her lips she she held out her hand to him once again.

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"You know that I'll be picking you up again, Ope." Stahl warned as she led Opie and Donna out of the facility while they walked with their arms around one another. "As soon as we put this case together you will be tried for murder." She grasped at the last straws that she had available when her plan crumbled before her eyes. She was sure that she would've been able to get Donna to crack - but as usual, the MC's claws were in too deep.

"I guess I'll see you then." Opie deadpanned as he stared straight ahead at the doors, the only thing standing between him and the freedom to clear his name.

"Going back to the club is a mistake. It puts you and your family at risk." The relentless Agent tried again.

"I can protect my family." He argued, calming himself down as he remained focused on his only goal. This had been the reality check that both he and Donna had needed - they knew what they wanted now.

"Do you believe that? Huh?" Stahl sneered to the silent woman who she hoped was still rolling the idea over in her head. "You need to start thinking about your kids. Donna, what kind of mother are you going to be?"

Opie felt his muscles tense as Donna turned to face Stahl, worried that she was still considering the offer and that this conniving bitch knew just how to make her take it…

"The kind that doesn't bail on her family." She looked back at her husband who wore a look of shock once he realized what had changed her mind. "Let's go." She nodded. She was ready to finally be not only the woman that Opie had always loved, but the old lady that he had always needed.

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NOBODY manipulates as good as Queen G 😍 Also some light season 6 foreshadowing… #iykyk 🍴😂