A/N: Sorry for the crazy wait on the update! I'm a little rusty and couldn't keep the cheese-factor in check, but I hope you guys enjoy!
A moth. A Death's-Head Moth. It was stretched along the corner of Collynn's shoulder, wrapping itself both delicately and menacingly around it. Chibs couldn't stop staring at it. He tried to pry his eyes away, but he kept being dragged back to it. The moth drifted into a pair of old fashioned silhouettes of a cat and a little boy on the back of her arm.
Chibs was fascinated by Collynn's tattoos as they sat in the office of Cara Cara. They were seated at the small, round table in the corner of the surprisingly clean room. Collynn had filched a notepad from Luann's desk and was writing frantically as she waited for Bobby to start talking. The shock of the previous few days had almost completely worn off, subsequently scaring off the cavalier attitude that she had managed to pull together.
To say that she was feeling lost was a bit of an understatement. Her overwhelmingly type-A personality kicked in and forced her to separate the page into quadrants and labeled them in a messy, cursive scrawl. In one corner, she wrote "Job," in the other, she scribbled "House." She headed the third with "Not Getting Arrested," and the fourth with "Fuck."
Bobby smiled wanly and covered her ticking hand with his own in a comforting grasp. He recognized her panic and wanted to diffuse it as quickly as possible. Ever since she was a girl, she had horrible anxiety, and Bobby knew that her behavior would only continue to rachet up until she had torn her cuticles to shreds or hyperventilated.
Collynn looked down at Bobby's hand with a thankful expression. The gratefulness that she had felt quickly morphed into horror. A gasp of dismay escaped her. She was still wearing that bastard's ring. How could she not have noticed that it was still sitting snugly on her left hand?
"Fuck!" She let out a shriek and yanked the small diamond from her finger and launched it to the other side of the office. It ricocheted off of something and landed on the linoleum with a small 'plink.' She laid her head down on the smooth vinyl of the tabletop and took a deep breath.
It was when Bobby tried again to comfort his distraught daughter that Chibs decided to make his exit. He didn't need to be here for this. He wouldn't want any of his friends around if his Kerrianne was falling apart like that. He had no business being there. He gave a short nod to Bobby and made his way out of the office.
"Dad. What did I do?" Collynn whispered into the surface of the table. It was like the world was threatening to swallow her whole. At that moment, she wouldn't have minded if it did.
"You survived, Pumpkin. You fought like hell, and you survived. I know it seems so big right now, but it will get better. You will get better." He gave her a watery smile as she lifted her head back upright.
"Where do I go from here? What can I do now?"
"Well, you could always come home to Charming. It doesn't have to be right now, but eventually..." Bobby would love to have his daughter back as a regular presence in his life, and he thought it might do her some good to be around more of a family unit than remaining stranded on her own personal island.
Collynn pressed her lips together into a hard stitch of a line and took a steadying breath. She slid the notepad back in front of her. She needed to think logically and clearly about what her next steps were. She needed to treat herself as if she were her own client. What would look the best to the jury, so to speak.
"I need to go back to my house. At least for a while. I'm not in any place to make big decisions right now. I don't want to fuck anything up by picking up and running. That is suspicious as hell. I may need to take some time off of actually showing up at work, so I don't draw any attention." The words fell out of her mouth in a rush, and it felt good to think clearly about it.
Bobby nodded in agreement and pointed to the notebook. "May I?"
Collynn promptly slid the pad over to him with a small smile. As unkempt as Bobby Munson appeared, he was the man who taught her how to fill out a matrix in order to solve all of her problems. It seems like this problem, too, was one for the matrix.
"Okay, so you don't have to worry about anyone ever finding him. We pay our cleaner way too much for that shit to ever happen." His own mouth formed a tight line as he put a bullet under the "Don't Get Arrested" portion of the paper.
Carefully, he wrote No body, no proof.
"That's a…relief?" Collynn's voice went up at the end of the sentence, but her mind was put at ease, nonetheless. Her dad was one of the more paranoid people she'd ever known, and she was a criminal defense attorney. If he was confident in the skill of their waste management services, then so was she.
"I'm not sure how long it will take for all of my swelling to go down and stitches to come out, but I can do what I can with the bruising. Orange concealer should take care of most of the purple." Collynn blew out a breath and scribbled an item in the "Job" section. She wasn't looking forward to trying to cover this shit up, but if it was what needed to be done, then it would be done.
Take off through Wednesday at work and buy drag makeup.
The pair of them continued much in the same manner until they had a full notebook page of plans.
Where it currently stood, Collynn would call her boss and attempt to get someone to cover for her Monday morning juvenile arraignments and do her best to relax and heal until then. Bobby had told her to set up camp at the clubhouse for the few days of reprieve she would have as someone would always be either coming or going. She was okay with that.
She would need to replace the door in her bathroom. It was the only evidence left that anything other than a peaceful Thursday evening had passed in her home. She would take things as they came and make a more long-term decision once she was on more steady ground.
Looking at their handiwork, she felt infinitely better. There was something distinctly comforting about putting things down on paper. She studied it closely because she knew that the page would have to be burned momentarily.
"See? It works." Bobby stated smugly, noting the look of relief crossing her face.
"Yes, yes it does."
"Okay, let's get out of here. I'm hungry, and I'm sure someone's got food going over at the clubhouse." Bobby stood and stretched. They had spent a long ass time poring over their master plan.
Collynn gave a small yawn and followed him to her feet. She folded the page neatly and trudged behind him and out into the parking lot. She lit the edge of the paper on fire and tossed it onto the gravel lot. They both stood there and watched it turn to ash. They say that fire was purifying, and in that moment, it was.
After a harrowing ride on the Fat Boy that Collynn would block from memory forever, they arrived at the clubhouse to a small crowd of people. They could hear the bass from a speaker putting off a ground shaking beat. Collynn looked at Bobby in alarm.
"People?" Her voice sounded small as she crossed her arms in front of her. She looked like a monster and this was really not how she wanted to make her first appearance.
"Sorry, Pumpkin. It's a bit of a habit on the weekend. I'll take you around it and get you settled. You look exhausted." Bobby pushed a crazy lock of graying hair behind his ear as he surveyed the clubhouse, thinking about the best way to approach cutting by everyone. He put his hand in the middle of her back to guide her as she stifled another large yawn.
The sun was starting to go down and it made the summer evening air crisp with an edge of coolness. They made their way toward the TM garage that was blessedly devoid of all humans. It was like a miracle that they didn't run into anyone on their way up to the apartments above the clubhouse. A miracle that had Gemma written all over it.
"If you're hungry, I can bring something up to you. I think the old ladies are putting something together right now." Bobby rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He didn't really know where to go from here.
"Thanks, dad. I'd appreciate that. I haven't really eaten anything today." Collynn offered him a grateful smile. "I don't know what I would've done without your help this week."
He returned her smile and pulled her into a gentle hug. "Well no shit. You're my little girl. I'm just glad that I happen to be in the right line of work to help."
She laughed as she left the embrace and opened the door to the apartment that she slept in the night before. He looked at her one more time, checking her over to make sure that she really did seem okay, before turning away and heading back toward the throng of people outside of the clubhouse.
Collynn could not contain her yawns as she toed off her shoes by the door. She wiped at her bleary eyes with one hand while the other pulled the hair tie off the end of her braid. It felt like heaven as she shook out her hair, rubbing her scalp to ease the stiffness. Collynn felt that taking your hair down at the end of a long day rivaled the bliss of shirking the bra after work.
Slowly, she stripped out of her clothes and stretched like a cat before pulling on a pair of comfy gray sleep shorts and an ancient Alice Cooper t-shirt that had the neck cut out. In a misguided effort toward normalcy, Collynn removed the towel that she hung over the mirror and peered at herself with a grimace.
Over the course of the day, the marks on her neck had faded to a graying yellow, which she could be thankful for. Her nose, however, looked even more bruised and she had taken on the look of a racoon. She rolled her eyes and turned away from the mirror, settling in on the bed, lying with her head at the foot. It always helped her think.
While she felt better about her future as far as not spending her life in prison was concerned, she still felt so uneasy. Her mind would not stop racing about the other aspects of her life. How could she just slip back into her normal life? After the previous few days, returning to routine felt almost humdrum. It was almost like she needed to classify her life now as B.M.M.A.F. (Before Murdering my Asshole Fiancé) and A.M.M.A.F. (After Murdering my Asshole Fiancé). The "before" felt like a hundred years ago.
How could she go back to sleeping in that place? How could she cook in the kitchen where she was, not only attacked, but forced to kill the man that she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with.
What changed? What changed in him? She was perplexed. In the previous few weeks, Collynn hadn't had much time for him, or anything, for that matter. They'd both been distant from each other, but Collynn figured that it was just things and work ratcheting up for the both of them.
She'd read a description of the love between a man and his wife in a novel once and it had stuck with her. The love they had (or at least Collynn thought they had) for each other was never going to be the talk of bards or poets, but it was logical and strong. There wasn't a burning passion, but more of a comfortable thrum. There were worse things to be than comfortable in life, and Collynn was okay with that.
A small tickle in the back of her brain flared up when she thought of pre-murder Trent. She struggled to suss out what synapse was trying to fire and put everything together for her, but she was unable to. She put it away to worry about later.
A knock at the door nearly made her jump off the bed.
"Come in!" She called out, rolling her eyes at her shaking voice. She figured it was just Bobby making good on his promise of food.
The door opened with a deft creak and her eyes met kind brown ones, albeit upside down. It wasn't her best angle. For the second time in a minute, she nearly jumped off the bed in surprise. Quickly, she pulled herself upright, hoping that she didn't flail too ungracefully.
"Sorry, I din't mean to scare ya." Chibs offered with a grin. "Yer da said tha' ya migh' be hungry." It was only then that Collynn noticed the two plates of food that he had in tow.
"If you're bringing me food in bed, scare me all you fucking want." She laughed lightly and stood to greet him.
His smile turned roguish at her sentiment. "Well, I hope ye don' mind tha' I eat with ye. Figured ye migh' want comp'ny. It's also gettin' a bit crazy down there." To Chibs, she looked a fair bit younger than she had even that morning. Her eyes seemed a bit brighter. Her hair was also down and acting as a wild mane around her shoulders. He had to fight back the imagery of sinking his hands into it. Internally, he kicked himself repeatedly.
"That would be nice." She was touched that anyone aside from her dad would want to go out of their way to keep her company. He handed her the plate and her mouth watered. She had to bite back a groan when she saw that there were baby back ribs and potatoes taking up most of her plate. She was only sad that she couldn't smell anything with the swelling in her nose.
Collynn was expecting an odd look from the older man when she plopped onto the floor, cross-legged like a child and her back supported by the bed, but was pleasantly surprised when he did the same, pulling two bottles of beer out from under his arm. She smiled approvingly and used the hem of her t-shirt to undo the twist top of the beer bottle.
"Did ye an' yer da figure things out earlier?" Chibs asked before taking a bite of his food.
"Yeah, I feel a lot better about things. Not great, but better. My dad is a master planner. I come by it honest, I guess." Collynn said, barking a small, humorless laugh.
When Collynn finally did bite into the ribs on her plate, she really did groan. "Oh my god. Who the fuck made these? Are they an angel?"
"Tha'd be Gem. Tha' woman has a way with a grill tha' no man will ever understand." Chibs laughed.
"Well, I need lessons from her then."
They ate in companionable silence for a few moments before Chibs eyed her t-shirt and his eyes lit with familiarity. "Trash? Really?" He nearly guffawed. Collynn was wearing a 20-year anniversary t-shirt for an Alice Cooper album that came out when he was nearly her age. Oh Jesus, now he felt old. That album was creeping up on 30 years now.
"Hey! I've had this shirt since I was a teenager. Be nice. It's from my first rock concert." Her cheeks flooded with warmth.
"No shame, darlin'. More admiration than anythin'. I remember when tha' album came out. Makin' me feel really old, love."
"What? Oh, shut up. You're not a day over thirty, remember?" She dropped him a wink that, under normal circumstances would look pretty garish with such horrible bruising, but Chibs hardly noticed it.
"Very true, love. Very true." He grinned at her, the scars on his cheeks marring the endearing dimples on either side of his face. "So, tell me more abou' yerself. It looks like yer gonna be stickin' aroun' for a minute."
Collynn mulled over his request and took a long swig of her beer, relishing in the slight bitterness and carbonation.
"Well, I'm twenty-five. My middle name is Mickey, which I could just about kill my dad for. I graduated from law school last spring and I work with mostly juveniles in criminal defense right now. Um…I have a dog back home that I am missing terribly. She's just the best. I was previously engaged, but that ended very recently. I love horror movies and reading. That's pretty much it. What about you?" She summed up her entire life fairly succinctly and washed it down with another swig of beer.
"Wait. Tha's a lot to unpack, there." Chibs' eyes were downright gleeful. "Isn't yer las' name Rourke?"
Collynn sighed and hung her head in mock shame. "'Tis I. Collynn Mickey Rourke. My dad made sure that I kept my mom's name, simply so he could name me after someone he thought was a badass at the time. We all can't have cool knife-y nicknames, man. We just can't."
His peals of laughter startled her, but soon had her giggling along with him. His laugh was rich, deep, and infectious. It felt good to laugh, even if what they were laughing at wasn't really all that funny.
When they finally reigned in their laughter, Collynn was wiping tears from her eyes and Chibs' cheeks were sore. He really didn't laugh much, but he felt like years were just added to his life. He reveled in the fact that this woman was actually laughing along with him. She'd been through hell the past few days but could still manage a giggle or two when the time came for it.
"I was tryin' ta figure it out earlier, but wha' are the tattoos on yer arms? It's really good work." He nodded to her left arm, the one he'd been staring at earlier in the day.
Collynn smiled proudly and rolled the sleeve of her t-shirt up as high as she could. "It's my homage to the greats of horror." She stifled a small yawn and prattled off the names of each of the pieces that made up her patchwork sleeve. He was impressed. Whoever did the work knew what the hell they were doing. Each of the pieces were delicate but still imposing, and not obnoxiously over the top.
Chibs nodded appreciatively. Over the past few minutes, he noticed how heavy her eyes were getting and how often she was holding back from yawning. It didn't take a mind reader as she wasn't exactly stealthy about it.
"Alrigh' darlin', it's time fer me ta leave ya alone. Yer practically fallin' asleep on me." She blinked slowly at him, almost in defiance and he rolled his eyes. "Gimme yer trash an' go to bed, lass."
"Okay. But I'm asking all the questions next time. I didn't get a single thing out of you." She swallowed yet another yawn and got to her feet, handing him her plate. "Thanks again. For everything. For patching me up yesterday, and the food and all of your kindness." She had to stop herself from rambling
"O'course." He winked at her and she smiled back sleepily. "I will give ye one bit of information. My real name is Phillip."
Her grin was as radiant as it could be considering that she was dead on her feet. "Goodnight, Phillip."
He returned her grin as he stepped out the door, "G'nigh', lass. Sleep well."
