There was admittedly some amount of bitterness among SAMCRO that now, Jax had decided to go off on a ride and clear his head after shrugging off responsibility and passing the buck to his wife and another member's ol' lady. The men had gathered outside to give the girls a little space to talk things out and contemplate their decision, but conversation between them, too, was getting heated.
"Juicy, don't do anythin' stupid," Tig said, crossing his arms and shaking his head as he leaned against one of the pillars that supported the awning of the porch. "But - you don't think any part of this is Jax tryin' to get a jab in? Get back at Denise? Throwin' her in the middle and testin' her loyalties?"
"He'd drag his wife into this just to get back at someone?" Brucey spoke up - the glower he received from the others was response enough to his question, and he held his hands up, backing out of the conversation.
"Y'know whose fault this is, is yours - ," Quinn said, glancing offhandedly at Happy who immediately lurched forward with his fist cocked back until Juice placed a hand on his chest and shoved him back.
"None of that shit out here, aight?" he said in a surprisingly level tone. "Or else the girls are gonna come out here and do damage control instead of whatever they're doin' in there."
The feeling of being a brotherhood divided was pervasive among them, knowing if just one of them had voted differently, this wouldn't be happening.
"Prez or not," Happy snarled, his gaze trained on Quinn in particular for his accusation. "I wasn't about to let Jax make me decide which one of my brothers dies. This is somethin' he should've shouldered. He shouldn't have passed it off."
"Just lemme go in there and talk to my wife," Juice said, gesturing with his hands and pleading with the group. "Jax putting this on her after what she went through last night? I can't just sit here and -"
"You think she's gonna be the one to go against her ol' man?" Ratboy asked. "Between her and Wendy?"
"This isn't about that," Juice said through slightly gritted teeth, though admittedly, some small part of it at the very least was. "This isn't about testin' either of their loyalties. It's bigger than that."
"I say we let him inside, let him talk to his girl," Tig said, rolling his jaw slightly and looking down at his hands. Juice looked over in surprise at Tig, who had always been one of his most open and vocal critics. "He's tryin' to look out for his. She needs somebody right now."
There were a few glances around, but now that Tig had backed up Juice's request, the dissent seemed to wane. Juice nodded, walking over and clapping a hand on Tig's shoulder without saying a word before opening the front door and walking inside, where he saw the two women still seated together on the couch, except now, the kids were all with them, still asleep.
"Dee," he said carefully, causing her to look up at him with tired, hooded eyes. "Can I talk to you out back for a second?"
Denise glanced wordlessly at Wendy, then at Sofia, who was still fast asleep in her arms. Wendy nodded and gestured for Denise to let her hold the little girl so she and Juice could talk.
There was obvious uneasiness when Juice asked Denise to join him out back on the back porch yet again, now in the dark purple hue of the impending dawn, and she crossed her arms against the nippy wind. Juice clasped his hands in front of his face and exhaled deeply before finally managing to speak up.
"So what are you thinkin' about all this?" he asked, and Denise felt a surge of relief at the concerns she heard in his voice. She gave a heaving sigh and shook her head.
"I don't wanna choose," she admitted. "Wendy wants to side with her husband, I want to side with you - but then, we're still in the exact same position," she rambled hopelessly.
"You - you want to side with me?" Juice asked, his voice cracking slightly. He reached forward and placed his hands on Denise's shoulders, his expression filling with hope for the first time in hours. "You're gonna choose Chibs?"
"I want to," she said unsurely. "But Wendy's not going to budge - she just got married to Jax again less than twelve hours ago, of course she's not going to change her mind -"
"So you're gonna change yours?" Juice asked incredulously, shaking his head and not removing his hands from her shoulers. "Baby -"
"After what I just did," Denise said her voice suddenly taking on a strength that he hadn't heard from her in admittedly a good long while. "I don't have any right to say what I think."
"So that's what it's coming down to? You feel like you have to either side with Jax, or side with me?" Juice asked, his chest tightening - and in this moment, it was clear that old demons clearly hadn't been completely exorcised. The same old problems, the inability to draw the line between their family and the club, was still there no matter how much they had been trying to make things better. It would always be there.
Something had to give. Someone had to take the first leap and hope the other one followed. Juice gulped.
"If it were up to you - if you had zero guilt, if you didn't know that I voted Chibs and Jax voted Bobby," Juice said, the hope in his expression now filled with apprehension. "Who would you choose?"
Denise inhaled in a sharp gasp, and a cluster of small lines materialized just above the bridge of her nose. The sudden apprehension, the pained expression, told Juice exactly what he was asking, but he wanted to hear it straight from her mouth.
"Dee," he pressed, hesitantly reaching out and touching her face. It was okay. He wanted honesty. Denise, however, resisted giving an answer as long as she could. "Tell me who you want to choose."
"Bobby."
Juice inhaled sharply - he had been expecting it, but was far from prepared. Denise hung her head sorrowfully at the disappointment in Juice's expression, and she felt tears leap once again to her swollen eyes. But, seeing her guilt, Juice tilted her chin up with a quivering hand so that she was looking at him.
"I understand," he said honestly, though the heartbreak in his expression sapped the statement of any comfort it could have possibly provided. But despite the pain he felt at her decision, he was being completely honest. He knew that while Denise had come to care for Chibs as someone who was important to her husband, as someone who was important ot the club, when it came to trust, there were still hesitations. There was still a longing and a wondering about what things would have been like if SAMBAY had never happened, if there had never been a reason for Denise to spend so much time away.
"I'm sorry," Denise said tearfully for what she could have sworn was the hundredth time since they came to Nevada. "I - I'll hold out if you want me to, I'll push Wendy to swing for Chibs -"
"No," Juice said, holding back his own tears for his wife's sake. "This is your vote -"
"But after what I did -"
"We'll deal with Gemma when we need to deal with her," Juice said, shaking his head. "This isn't about her. We'll be fine."
"Jax?"
Juice and Denise both looked up when they heard Wendy's voice from inside, and they both froze in place to listen to the exchange between the newlyweds.
"Where's Deedee?" he asked, his voice quiet to avoid waking the kids sleeping in the living room.
"Out back. Juice wanted to talk to her -"
"Great."
Denise looked over her shoulder at Juice with a questioning expression, and despite the fact that he still felt the same dull ache in his chest, he gave her a reassuring nod.
"Did you two make up your minds?" Jax asked. Wendy paused briefly before answering, and in the short moment of silence, Denise's hand was closingg on the handle of the back door to return inside.
"Not yet -"
"Yeah, we have," Denise interrupted gently as she pushed the door open, slowly and intentionally so that the creaking hinges squealed only quietly. "Bobby."
Jax inhaled with a hiss as his breath came in through his clenched teeth, and he glance behind Denise at Juice, who was standing in the doorway with a numb, tired expression. "This good with you, man?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "Your ol' lady."
"I had my vote. You asked for hers," Juice said. He reached out and placed a hand on the small of Denise's back, sensing that she was slowly, almost imperceptibly starting to take a step back away from Jax, looking afraid of him for perhaps the first time since the first time she'd met him. Jax, on his part, looked at Juice with a similar expression for a glimmer of a second. This, he realized, was the most respect he had ever had for Juice Ortiz.
This was the most he had ever felt threatened by Juice Ortiz.
At face value, it hardly made sense. Juice was giving way to Jax, the way he always did. But not for Jax's sake. Juice had given his blessing for his own wife to vote against him, and Jax feared it because now it was set in stone: Juice was prepared to put his club loyalties aside to protect his wife. Juice was solid. Juice Ortiz was strong.
"Aight," Jax nodded, pulling the burner from his pocket. "I'm phoning it in, then. Choice is made."
Juice nodded, his jaw tense, and pulled away from his wife to rejoin the others out on the front porch to break the news that the choice had been made. Denise looked down at her feet, realizing that she was shaking, and she took a few moments to steady herself before she moved to follow Juice through the house when Jax placed a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.
"I'm sorry," he said stiffly, while Wendy, still burdened by the sleeping children, looked on in apprehension at the interaction between the two. "I know this should've been me. Shoulda been my call -"
"It's done," Denise nodded quietly, and for a brief flash of a moment, Jax looked at her and didn't see the strong-willed young woman who had been his friend and confidant for almost two years now. He saw the scared, trapped young woman he had forced into shooting Henry Lin at the cabin in the woods.
"Lemme explain how this is gonna go down," Jax said, removing his hand from Denise's shoulder and crossing his arms yet again. "I'm gonna make this call to Marks. We're gonna make sure you and Wendy get the kids back to Charming safe - and you're gonna take me to Gemma -"
"Jax -"
"It's not a request, Deedee," he said sternly. "This is what's going to happen."
Denise bristled at the realization that she had no further say in the matter. She was an ol' lady, and the line was drawn. She nodded, exhaling and feeling her shoulders slump. But, while losing control of the situation was terrifying, there was another strange feeling that accompanied the terror: relief.
"Okay," Denise nodded. "I'll take you."
"That was blood Jax shoulda taken on his own hands," Tig said in a low voice, his gestures emphatic as he talked to the others. He knew that he shouldn't have been doing this - he knew he shouldn't have been talking about Jax this way when he'd made a deal with Jax to back him up on all matters. But there were limits. Loyalty had limits. "He put it in the hands of two girls who don't know the first fuckin' thing -"
"He's president," Brucey attempted to defend.
"Don't matter," Happy growled. "Wasn't his place to pass it off."
"You know what I think? I think Jax can't handle the heat we're gettin' from Marks. I think he's crackin'," Tig said, shaking his head. "I think we need more than SAMCRO and the Mayans. I think we need to start callin' in favors."
"What, you mean from other charters?" Quinn asked. "Go behind his back?"
"Jax ain't gonna call 'em for back up. Far as he cares, this is his war," Tig reasoned. "We need to start gettin' 'em on standby. We go to war with Marks, we're dealin' with everythin' he's got, and he's got more than just Black on his payroll, I'd bet my life on it."
It was at this moment that Juice came through the door - but as he saw the expressions on everyone's faces, he knew what direction their conversation must have taken.
"Vote's in," he said, nodding grimly, cracking the knuckles of one hand. "It's Bobby."
It felt almost obscene that the sun chose this moment to finally peek up over the horizon, casting a brighter glow on the empty space around them at the Lovelock cabin. Now, of all times, when they had all but sentenced Chibs to death in favor of Bobby - a brother over a brother. They hung their heads, knowing that the decision was final now, whether or not they agreed with the way it had been reached.
"Jax is phonin' it in to Marks. Makin' the deal," Juice said, his voice growing more constrained. "It's outta our hands."
He rolled his jaw slightly in attempt to alleviate some of the tension that had built up there before nodding over his shoulder at the door to suggest they all head back inside to learn their next move. He went first, reaching back and opening the front door to see Jax hanging up the phone, and Wendy and Denise sitting silently with their sleeping children on the couch, clearly spent by the events of the past hours.
"We're set," Jax said, looking down at his phone instead of the faces of any of the others. "Triads broke ground on the site of a new nightclub out near Rio Vista, Marks says we can pick up Bobby tonight. Says he needs some patchin' up," he admitted stiffly.
"And Chibs?" Tig asked, shifting his weight and shoving his hands in his pockets. The least they could do was pay their last respects after the job was done. A funeral. A goodbye. Something. Jax, however, shrugged and shook his head.
"I don't know," he admitted. "We're lucky to be gettin' one of 'em back. I can't push Marks any harder. Not yet."
Tig spared a moment to glance between the rest of the club's members - this was proof, and he knew it. This was proof that Jax had less control over the situation than he wanted them to believe.
"We're gonna take care of a few things back in Charming, get the girls and the kids somewhere safe," Jax continued. "Then we get Bobby home."
It wasn't the best plan anyone had ever heard, because even though it went unsaid, it needed no explanation - getting Bobby home safe meant consciously not doing the same for Chibs. But there was no good outcome that was worth the risk. This choice assured them one brother alive. Any gamble they took to not lose either of them risked losing both.
"Aight," Jax said, nodding with his jaw tense. "We've gotta get going."
A/N's
And here's an almost-Teller Tuesday update! The next chapter will be a little delayed because I have some trainings for work that are going to use up a lot of my time that I would normally use for editing. The chapters to come might be a little rough to read, so a little breathing room might be good anyway. I also wanted to recount a quick story my readers - I was on the way to San Francisco International Airport this weekend, and "Come Join the Murder" was playing on my iPod when a group of guys in Hell's Angels colors zoomed by us. Nothing substantial, but a fun anecdote nonetheless!
I've also been considering starting to post the first chapter or so of the other story I have been working on, but that story, unlike this one, is very much a WIP. I haven't decided how it ends yet. But it will be an alternate timeline, and I get to bring back some familiar faces that we don't get to see in this story. So, just a heads up that another story might be on the horizon from me in the near future. I will admit, I was a little influenced by the fact that Callianassa started posting up a new story, "Business As Usual", which is really good so far. (Hint hint: go check it out!)
And as far as Bobby and Chibs... don't count old Chibby out just yet. The man will never go down without a fight.
Anyway, wish me luck and cross your fingers that work doesn't completely drain all my brain cells so I can update soon. Until then, cheers!