12

Jax Is Really Alive

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Chapter 53 Recap

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Jax, Opie and JC return to the Paralorn headquarters for debriefing. Tara and Louise are also in the conference room. Louise uses the thumb drive Unser gave Jax to access the geotag on a picture. She locates where the house is located and sends a drone in to check it out. There are eight people there, four men watching porn downstairs, Brooke and Thomas upstairs and two people in a basement.

They decide to immediately go in and rescue Thomas. Louise uses a vent in the kitchen to drop a sleeping gas canister to knock out everyone before they get Thomas. Two security forces go with them. Everyone is removed from the house except those in the basement. Thomas, Gemma and Unser are in the basement. Once the two security forces leave the house taking the four men and Brooke all unconscious from the house, Unser allows Jax, Opie and JC into the basement.

Gemma is lying naked in a heap on the floor covered by a clear piece of plastic that does nothing to conceal she's been beaten, cut and mutilated. She's clinging to live. Unser agrees to trade Thomas for Jax. He's poisoned Thomas and there are only minutes left to save him. Jax trades his life for Thomas' life. He holds him, tells him he loves him and tells him to be a better man. Opie takes Thomas from Jax and rushes him to medical care.

Unser reveals there's a pressure plate that Jax triggered when he picked up Thomas. He says if Jax steps off it, there will be an instant explosion, but the whole basement will blow up in a minute. He wanted to let Jax think a little about death. Jax tells JC to leave, but instead, he tells Jax he's forgiven him for all that he's done to him and he wants to give his life for Jax's and he refuses to leave.

Jax and JC change places on the pressure plate, Jax runs up the stairs, turns and sees a last image of Gemma lying broken on the floor, an insane Unser and a JC who is calm, peaceful and happy. He continues sprinting through the house when the bomb goes off and everything turns black.

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Chapter 54 This Could be Hell

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Author's Note: It took me awhile to find the way into this chapter.

When everything turned to blackness, Jax thought he might be buried in rubble. This didn't make sense. He didn't feel anything pressing against him, he didn't smell explosives, he couldn't see and he couldn't speak. He was nothing more than a brain.

He thought when you died there was a white light and family members that would greet him. There should be something. There was nothing.

He had done a lot of bad shit in his life. Those last months of his life had been especially bloody. He'd long ago lost track of how many he killed or had killed. He thought he might have done some good by killing some bad people on what he thought was going to be the last day of his life. Maybe you weren't supposed to kill at all. Yeah, it was pretty stupid of him thinking that he was going to Heaven.

If this were hell, where were the flames, the devil and souls screaming in torment? There was no sound. There was nothing.

This could be the real hell, so bad no one could even imagine it—spending eternity with nothing but your own thoughts. Perfect. He didn't like to be alone. Now, it looked like he was going to be spending eternity alone.

He thought about Tara and his boys. He would hold onto those memories. They were the only way he had to stay sane. Finally, there was nothing. His brain switched off.

"*********************"

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Tara ran down the hall to the medical unit. She saw Opie waiting for her outside a room.

She walked into the room half afraid of what she would find. Along one wall were monitors in different colors so critical areas stood out. Thomas was attached to monitors sleeping in a clear treatment bassinette.

She saw a clock counting down. There were three minutes and twenty-three seconds remained. There was also a monitor that said antidote ready.

"Why haven't you given the antidote to him?"

Ryland turned to look at Tara.

"We're scanning and running tests. If he doesn't have the poison, the antidote will cause a cascading failure of every organ in his body that can't be reversed."

"If he's got the poison, it's getting to the point where it's too late to reverse. You need to give him the antidote. Unser liked the boys. He wouldn't lie about the poison."

"Four minutes and we'll know."

"That's too late! Each second you delay giving him the antidote could cost him his life. I'm his mother. Give him the antidote."

Ryland made a slight move with his hand and one of two large security forces dressed in black moved behind Tara.

"You can't always blindly follow procedure," Tara screamed desperately. "Give him the antidote. How are you going to feel if following procedures cost my son his life?"

"How are you going to feel if giving him the antidote kills him?" Ry asked calmly.

"Tara he saved Donna and he was amazing," Opie said quietly. "You know human medicine. We're not human anymore."

"I'm his mother. I should make the decisions. I want him to receive the antidote."

"Tara, it doesn't matter what you want. Being Thomas' mother doesn't give you the right to make all medical decisions for him. That's not the way medicine works here. This decision is mine to make. You aren't thinking rationally."

"I will never forgive you if he dies."

"You'll never forgive yourself if your impulsive actions kill him."

Ry turned back to the monitors. He touched his ear and began speaking quickly. Tara couldn't understand the words he was saying. His tone of voice sounded urgent. She realized he was speaking in Rackle the language from the home world.

"Thomas' scan is clear," Ry said to Tara. "Give me a minute," he said holding up his hand. He spoke again in Rackle.

"You can pick up Thomas. He was so feisty when he got here, we had to sedate him. He's perfectly healthy."

Tara hugged Ryland unexpectedly. Tears streamed down her face.

"I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry. I just kind of lost it for a few minutes. I really believed that Unser had poisoned him."

"That's why you can't make medical decisions for family. You were too close."

Tara hugged Opie.

"Thank you for getting him out. What happened with Jax? We lost communications."

Ryland lifted a still sleeping Thomas from his medical cradle and handed him to Tara.

She smiled as she stroked his head. She took a deep sniff of baby. There was just this magical smell of baby that always calmed her.

"I didn't know if I'd ever see him again."

"You two can go to Dane," Ryland said to the security forces. "He needs assistance."

The two security men nodded and left the room.

"You had them here in case I flipped out," Tara said.

"It's happened before."

"Where's Jax?"

"System show drone footage," Ryland said. "When we lost communications, Louise sent in another drone."

There was video of Opie, cradling Thomas protectively in his arms running away from the house and getting into an SUV that immediately sped away. The explosion came almost a minute later.

"Oh, my God," Tara said. Her eyes widened in fear and the color drained from her face.

A SUV pulled up and two men got out and ran to the house. They each held a thermo imaging device to help them find survivors. After a few minutes, they began to dig through the rubble until they found Jax. Considering what he'd gone through, his body was remarkably free of injuries. One man took Jax's arms and the other is legs. They had almost reached the street when the one carrying Jax's legs dropped them and collapsed followed by the other a split second later.

"This wasn't a normal bomb," Ry explained. "The bomb had a bioweapon component. System forward to haz mat teams arriving."

More SUVs arrived. The men that exited the vehicles wore haz mat suits complete with their own air supply.

"We hadn't identified the poison yet."

Jax and the two security forces were loaded into SUVs.

"End play," Ryland said.

"What's Jax's condition?" Tara asked her voice was soft with fear.

"His body withstood the blast with only minor injuries that will quickly heal. The problem is the chemical weapon. We don't have the antidote for it. We've determined what the chemical weapon was and we can make the antidote, but there's one chemical that doesn't exist on this planet. We will have to come up with an alternative."

"How long do you have?"

"Six to eight hours. If we can't reverse it by then, we'll have to move them on."

"Move them on?"

"The Sliven weapon is a terrible weapon. Once the bomb explodes, it releases a chemical compound that knocks out everyone within its range. They collapse, unable to move their arms, legs, fingers or toes. They can't hear or speak. They are locked inside their bodies with only their thoughts. Once we were able to reverse the chemical weapon's effects, we learned from the survivors about this state that they were in. We thought they were unconscious. They aren't. They all thought there were dead or in hell or both. Some of those that we returned to life were never mentally the same again.

"To counteract the emotional trauma, we now put those hit with the weapon in a kind of brain sleep. That's what it will feel like to them. When we have reversed the weapon's effects, all the patients told us they experienced fear and terror until they went to sleep."

"What happens if you can't reverse the poison?"

"They can stay in brain sleep for eight to ten hours. After that, their brains will return to that waking hell state. They will still be nothing more than brains. If we determine that we can't reverse the poison, we would move them on."

"Move them on where?"

"Sorry. It's an expression we use. We would move them on from this life."

Opie came and stood behind Tara putting his hands on her shoulders to give her some comfort.

"We should have the antidote ready in an hour."

"What are the chances the antidote will work?"

"It always works. Now, missing an essential component, I don't know. We've got our best med-chemists on it. The security forces should do well. They didn't get a full dose. Jax is a hybrid and he got a full dose. I don't know Tara. He's got at least a 50/50 chance."

"Come on, let's go see him," Ryland said.

He lead her to a small room two doors away. Tara continued holding a sleeping Thomas.

There were a couple of cuts on Jax's face and body, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. His eyes were shut and he was hooked to monitors.

Tara touched his skin. She pinched him. There was no response.

"You could cut a finger off and there would be no response. This poison hasn't been used in a hundred years. When we came to Earth, our history came with us. I've never seen it used, but I have listened to videos of survivors describing the hell state."

Opie patted Jax on the shoulder.

"There is something that you can try that might boost Jax's chances of recovery," Ryland said.

"What?" Tara asked.

"In Paralorn culture, we believe that there's a psychic kind of healing that can happen with loved ones. Kind of a healing energy thing. There is some evidence that it can work."

"What do I need to do?"

"I can get Abel on a screen and you and Thomas can get into bed with Jax. You and Thomas will be sedated. It seems to help the energy transfer."

"Is there anything I can do?" Opie asked.

"Not medically."

"Could you go to Jax's house? In the top dresser drawer of Thomas' room there's another bunny, a blanket and a pacifier. He really likes to have those things with him."

"Sure. I'll be right back," Opie said.

"Thanks."

"Thomas should wake up soon," Ryland said. "You should feed him before we sedate him again."

Ryland reached into a pocket in the front of his medical coat and handed a screen to Tara. He took Thomas from her.

"Lorna," he said.

Tara had a quiet conversation with her mother. It was the first conversation that she'd ever really had with her that made her feel like her mother was her mother. She told Tara that she was confident that Jax would recover and soon things would get back to normal.

For a moment, Tara watched Ryland with Thomas. She felt sorry for him. He took on so many burdens and tasks and he didn't seem to have any kind of social life to give him balance. So many depended on him. When things slowed down, she would talk to her mother about helping Ry get some time for himself. She returned the screen to him and he gave Thomas back to her.

She sat in a chair and fed Thomas his bottle. He sucked hard on his bottle almost like he couldn't eat fast enough. She'd missed every little moment with him even the diaper changes. He was such a good baby and a lot of fun. Every second with him felt like a gift.

Opie came in with Thomas' bunny. Thomas' face lit up and he reached out for his bunny and buried his face in it gurgling.

Opie handed Tara the pacifier and blanket.

"Thanks Ope."

"I thought times with SAMCRO were crazy," Opie said and Tara laughed.

Ryland came into the room.

"They've figured out the antidote."

"How close is it?" Tara asked.

"It's as close to identical as possible. All three patients will be monitored by the med-chemists and me so we can make adjustments if needed."

"How does the process work?"

"We'll give them the antidote. After about four hours to six hours, they should start moving and reacting to stimuli. We'll see improvements in their blood levels. At that point, we'll withdraw brain sleep and they should return to consciousness."

"If they don't respond?"

"We'll keep trying. We've got twelve hours before it's irreversible."

Ryland handed Tara a large eye dropper. She squirted the sweet tasting liquid into Thomas' mouth. He kicked his feet with happiness. He loved sweet tasting things. Ryland handed her two cups one with pills and the other with water. She quickly downed the pills and water.

"You really think Jax will make it?" she asked Ry anxiously.

"He has a good chance and with his family bonded to him, it will give him an even better chance."

Tara, Ryland and Opie went into Jax's room.

"Opie could you get a couple of extra pillows from the closet?" Ryland asked.

Tara took the pillows from Opie and used one to position it against the rail on Jax's bed and his chest. She nestled a groggy Thomas into the pillow. His eyes flickered open.

"Da Da," he whispered. He reached out with a chubby fist, grabbed Jax's hair and laughed.

"You're going to be in trouble," Tara said.

Thomas smiled and tugged at Jax's hair. Tara tucked his bunny under his arm and put his pacifier in his mouth before covering him with his blue baby blanket.

"When I wake up, Jax should be awake and OK," Tara said.

She put down the rail on the opposite side to the bed Thomas was sleeping on and climbed in with the extra pillow. Ryland put up the rail and covered Tara with a lightweight white blanket.

"I'm going back to Hale's. Maybe try to get a few hours of sleep or help Hale in some way."

"Thanks Ope."

"We'll be monitoring Jax and Thomas."

Ryland switched on a monitor that showed Abel in his healing coma.

Tara looked over at the screen to see Abel, she looked at Thomas and Jax before her eyes closed.

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Author's Note: To Hunter T—thanks for letting me know that you liked the way I redeemed Juice. I appreciate it. The last chapter will also have JC in it.

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Next Up: The Final Chapter Will be Posted By Christmas

Will Jax be able to keep his promise to JC (Juice) about doing right by the MC or will that fall to his sons to do?

The person who has been attacking the Sons will be revealed and every fan will know who it is—it's not some minor Sons character or OC. Can this person be stopped before this person kills again?

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Is Ryland too good to be true or will his evil side be revealed in a stunning act of betrayal?

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All the plot points will be wrapped up.