"Juice - babe, what are you doing?"
Denise, who was sitting in an armchair with Sofia curled up on her asleep, gave a quiet, incredulous laugh when Juice emerged from the hotel bathroom wearing a suit and tie - his only suit that he'd packed into his bags.
It was an eleven hour drive from Charming, California to Flagstaff, Arizona - eleven grueling hours that they were admittedly relieved to be done with. But the distance from Charming seemed to be an immediate breath of fresh air, and since they'd switched off turns at the steering wheel, they were none the worse for the wear.
The idea to stay at a nice hotel while they tried to figure out something more permanent was Denise's call - not so much because she wouldn't be able to rough it, but because she didn't want to tote her daughter around to a sketchy Motel 6. So, they found themselves at the Little America Hotel, a luxury hotel set off the beaten path amidst a thick nest of Ponderosa pines, far from the dry gold hue that painted most of central California.
"I've literally never set foot in a place this nice," Juice chuckled, gesturing widely with his arms. "Never. You can't tell me you don't feel like this is some James Bond s-h-i-t right here," he chuckled.
Denise, frankly, wanted nothing more than to be in sweatpants and sleep, spread-eagled on the nice big bed, but the fact that Juice was practically a brand new person just from having gotten away from Charming, even if it was only for now, even if this was just the honeymoon period of their great escape, was enough to bring a smile to her face. If only, she mused, they had thought to make a getaway sooner. Then, they would have had happiness like this all along.
"Well," Denise said with an impish smirk, "You look dashing, Mr. Ortiz."
If she hadn't known better, if she hadn't known that at times, Juice's mindset could switch at the drop of a dime, Denise would have sworn that the person standing in front of her right now was an entirely different person from the man who had been sitting on the clubhouse floor calling himself a monster.
It wasn't them, Denise convinced herself. All of the things that had happened, all of the things that they'd done - it was something in Charming, not something in them. They'd need to find a new home, a new car, start new lives - but all of it was worth the knowledge that whatever poison coursed through SAMCRO, they could still leave it behind.
Denise snickered as she watched Juice sit down on the floor of the hotel room to assemble the pieces of Sofia's crib, still wearing a suit. It was so him - and it broke Denise's heart a little bit that he had come so close to losing this part of him, the part that was happy and whimsical and was able to just live.
It wasn't long before the crib was up and standing, and Sofia was comfortably asleep on the plain pink mattress. Juice finally flopped onto the hotel bed, still in his suit but with the sleeves of the oxford shirt rolled up to his elbows. He laced his fingers behind his head and let out a tired groan, kicking up his feet while Denise was in the bathroom washing up.
He was grateful that Denise had been able to make the call to walk away - all of this mess with Bobby, with Marks, it was getting to be too much for him, and he didn't know if he would've been able to make the call to get out. He wanted it. There was no denying that he wanted it. But wanting something and doing it were very different things. Knowing that Denise, despite her misgivings, had been able to make this call to get out while they still could had been the kick in the pants he needed. It helped him accept that it was okay for him not to carry what had happened to Bobby on his own shoulders, as though he had somehow caused it.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Juice looked up at the sound of Denise's voice and saw her emerge from the bathroom in a dark blue dress - the same dark blue dress she had been wearing more than two years ago, the first time he had taken her out on a real date, when they'd been kidnapped by her brother and made a break for Charming as though it was a place that could keep them safe. She gave him a lopsided grin before flopping into the bed next to him, nestling in to his side.
It was like starting over again, Juice thought, his smile finally peaceful for the first time in a long while. He leaned over and kissed Denise on the forehead.
"Where are we goin' from here?" Denise asked with a small yawn, her eyes fluttering gently shut. Juice gave a small chuckle, tipping her chin gently upward so she was prompted to open her eyes at least halfway.
"Why are you askin' me?" Juice asked, his forehead wrinkling slightly. "We're makin' our getaway on your trust fund money."
"But you're my husband, and I trust you," she said with a strange sort of innocence to the statement. "I'm trusting you to decide what's best for our family because I know you can. I know," she emphasized. What Denise didn't expect, however, was the tearful grin that burst onto Juice's face at the statement as though he'd just won the lottery.
"Don't do that," Denise laughed weakly, nuzzling into the curve of his neck and nudging him in the ribs gently with her elbow. He grinned as she wriggled slightly against him, and he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close as though still afraid this all was too good to be true. People didn't just get out of Charming. People couldn't just walk away.
"We'll pick somewhere new. I'll - I'll cut my hair and get new clients, do more photoshoots," Denise nodded.
"I'll find someplace to put up a new dispensary - never can have too many of those," Juice smirked, chuckling at the eyeroll he earned from his wife. A dispensary was legit, though. It was a legit business that would get them the fresh start they needed. "I'll get my ink removed, we get a little house on a nice street, and we get our clean slate."
Jax had been reluctant to believe that the Ortiz family had made a run for it. They wouldn't. They couldn't. But when he had come to their door in the morning and received no answer no matter how much he knocked, he had fished the spare key out from the potted plant and opened the front door to find empty cupboards and shelves, no pictures on the walls, no car in the driveway.
The feeling of losing friends and allies very quickly made Jax feel like he was going to choke. It was a familiar but unpleasant feeling that he thought he had long overcome, but again, just like after Tara's death, he felt a sense of drowning, of disconnection. He suddenly couldn't stand to be around people he was supposed to care about most. He was losing it. He hadn't even been able to sleep in the same bed as his wife, when he'd been married to Wendy for less than a week. Everything just felt wrong.
That was why he was stomping his way through the clubhouse, making a beeline for Happy's dorm room, not looking for Happy himself, but instead for someone else he knew he would find there.
"Hap," Jax barked, pounding his fist on the door twice and pausing. "Open up, man. You decent?"
"Am I ever?"
Happy opened the door, shirtless and fastening the button of his jeans - Jax spotted Wenya behind him in the room, getting back into her dress, and he gave a chuckle and a smirk.
"Can I talk to your ol' lady for a sec, brother?" he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Just need to ask a favor."
Happy's jaw clenched briefly - he hadn't yet heard about what Jax had found at the Ortiz house, but Happy knew well enough that Jax asking someone else's old lady for a favor didn't bode well. Happy knew as well as anybody that it had started that way with Deedee too, and Jax's interference had done quite a number on Juice and Denise's marriage. But Jax Teller was, first and foremost, his prez. Happy glanced over his shoulder and nodded for Wenya to follow Jax. Hesitant, Wenya straightened out the tight little black dress and walked out of the dorm room, gently closing the door behind her.
"Does Hap know about the pictures?" Jax asked in a low, throaty voice, causing Wenya to grimace slightly at the altogether too seedy nature of this conversation. She shook her head, and Jax exhaled forcefully, nodding to himself. "He's gonna need to. I need your help with the Mayor -"
"I can't do that," Wenya interrupted quickly, crossing her arms over herself. "I got a good thing goin'. If I get outed as the girl that fucked the Mayor -"
"You're not gonna get outed, that's the point," Jax said. "But we need to let the Mayor know that Marks isn't the only person in on his dirty little secret."
Wenya's expression turned to one of annoyance. She didn't want to be anyone's dirty little secret anymore. There was something nice about being respectable - because compared to what she did before, Wenya knew her gig at Red Woody was as legit as it got for someone like her. Was she really going to risk it for the club? For someone like Jax? She had seen what it did to Denise, and Jax could tell from the look in Wenya's eyes that she wasn't convinced that she wanted that for herself too.
"I get it," he said, shrugging casually. "You want the past in the past. I do too. But if we don't clean this mess up right first, the past doesn't stay in the past - does that make sense to you?" he asked, gently cocking his head to one side. "Deacon Bollinger needs to fall in line with us if we ever wanna get rid of Marks, and that ain't happenin' unless -"
"Unless I help you blackmail him," Wenya said with a quiet, skeptical nod. "And how do I know you won't use it against me later? Make me prove myself the way you did with Dee-dee, huh?"
"You don't," Jax admitted. "But I can only give you my word for now. I can give you my word that I wouldn't be here unless this really needed to get done. You want your rags-to-riches Cinderella story? Then you gotta help me end this chapter first."
Wenya's eyes narrowed slightly - she might have been new in town, but she knew well enough that someone like Jax Teller had a way with words, with getting what they needed out of pretty much anyone. She also knew that saying no and not giving him his way had the potential to ruin this new life she had created for herself, away from the Triad and Marks. If Jax Teller was telling the truth about anything, it was that Wenya's choices were very, very few.
"Set up a meeting with the Mayor. Bring the pictures," Wenya said. "But I have one condition."
"Name it."
"I want Deedee there," she said firmly. "I want someone there on my side to make sure you don't do me dirty -"
"I can't promise you Deedee," Jax admitted, gnawing gently on the inside of his cheek in frustration. "She and Juice made a break for it."
Wenya's eyebrows rose. So the girl had done it. A small, impressed smile broke onto the woman's face as she realized that Denise had finally mustered up the balls to take back the reins of her own life. Good for her.
"Fine," she said with a curt nod. "Let's do this."
A/N's
I know, it's been a while since the last update and I'm sorry! But for those of you who hadn't heard the news (from the A/N's in the updates to my other story, 'Flown South'), I got accepted to grad school at UC Davis and I had a lot of personal stuff to take care of, so I have had a crazy past few weeks. But I'm hopefully back on track, and I hope to be updating somewhat regularly. There's still more heavy stuff coming in this story, so be prepared! Jax is heading into a very bad place again mentally, so he's again going to be veering into "off kilter" territory. He was getting a little too sane for my taste anyway.
I'm going to try and update at least every week, so let's see how well I do with this! Again, I'm grateful as always for all of your support for my stories, and doubly thankful for all your patience! Until next time, cheers!