"Stop! STOP! Daddy! You have to stop!"

That plea froze everyone but me in their place. I took another tentative step forward as I tearfully added, "It was self-defense You… If… You'll ruin the evidence if you don't stop now."

Happy easily slipped out of his brother's now slack grip, but thankfully he didn't try to make his way back to the body. Instead, he rushed over to my side, but I raised my now freed left hand to stop him from touching me. "Don't... I'm... I'm covered in his blood. You'll get it all over you."

"I don't care about that."

The intense look in his eyes told me he wasn't joking as he pushed my hand gently out of his way and guided it to my side. I tried to quickly take a step back and away from him, which finally gave him a moment of pause.

"You know it creeps me out when you talk like that." I then straightened myself up and tried to sound stronger as I added, "Plus, it will look really bad if you have his blood all over you. Please, Dad, just stop and think about it for a minute."

Either what I said or how I said it finally did the trick. He turned and looked at the body on the floor for a couple of seconds then asked, "Who's knife is it?"

"His," I answered with a sigh of relief. That answer had every head in the room whipping around to look at me. I instinctively took another step back as I nearly shouted, "He attacked me first!"

Jax chuckled at my truly offended tone and then slowly started making his way towards me as he carefully asked, "Why don't you tell us what happened, Mia?"

I tried to look him in the eyes, but my fear almost completely overtook me and incapacitated me then. He was the President of the MC. If he didn't believe me, if he didn't believe what I was saying was the truth, then that was it for me. He could give the order that I was too much of a liability and that was it, I was gone. And I don't just mean back home to Tacoma, if you catch my drift.

My lip started to quiver again with that thought. Jax watched me with a concerned eye and then said a simple "Mia?" and the flood gates opened. My dad completely ignored my previous protests and wrapped me into a tight side hug. (He was being smarter than I thought he would be in the moment. This way he could hold me tight to comfort me without transferring a lot of the blood onto himself.)

"Mia... Luv... You said it twas self-defense," Chibs prompted in a soft voice as he, Bobby, Tig and Juice stepped to Jax's side. "You don't need to fear us, Lass."

"I swear it was," I whispered to no one in particular.

Dad tightened his hold on me as he replied, "We believe you, Baby Girl. But we still need to know what happened. Just tell us as many details as you can remember, okay?"

I let his words sink in as I absentmindedly nodded my head. He was right. In the back of my mind, I knew that all of them were right. Once they had the full story it would be beyond easy to prove that veracity of my self-defense claim.

My nodding became very deliberate as I turned my head and rose up on tip toes to kiss my dad's cheek. I then quietly said to Happy alone, "Can I get a little space to breathe, please?"

He slowly let his arms fall away from my body, so I reached out to squeeze his forearm as I whispered, "Thank you. But, don't go too far, okay Daddy?"

"Alright, Baby," he replied with a warm smile. "I'll be right here. You tell me what you need, okay?"

With my hand still on his forearm, I turned back to face the other seven people in the room (Gemma and Nero had silently entered the room while my father and I shared our little moment.)

"Alright... So... I was working on Tino's car like we had talked about me doing after hours. I finally had a break through about the wiring, so I had something sketched out that I was hoping to get started on tonight..."

"Did you bypass the headlights?" Juice asked with a hopeful smile.

"Yeah. And you were right. Actually, it was..."

Jax cleared his throat very authoritatively then asked over my more cheerful explanation, "You figured out the wiring, then...?"

"Sorry! Sorry..." I replied as I swallowed back some new tears that were threatening to form. "So, I was laying down on my creeper to check her under side again when he pulled me out by my coveralls. He slammed me face first into the side of the car. I'm guessing that's when I got this, but I can't be sure." I lifted my left hand to my forehead and pressed my fingertips into the still bleeding cut through my eyebrow. If it was still bleeding, that would probably mean that I would be needing stitches to make sure that it would heal properly. "While my face was pressed against the car door, he worked over my lower back for a little bit. Then he flipped me over to scream in my face. After he ripped back the hood off my head, he must have realized that I wasn't a member of the MC, but then again, I'm not sure that mattered to him. He... he..."

Dad slid my hand own his arm so that he could press his palm against mine as he leaned down and whispered, "You're doing great, Baby. Stay strong." Then he kissed my ear and stood up straight to give me breathing room again.

I squeezed his hand like my life depended on it to try to absorb some of his confidence to help me get through the rest of my story. "He… he hesitated, so I grabbed his knife off his belt. I was just going to cut him to scare him off but… but he tried to go for my throat and choke me out, so… well… that happened. I swear I wouldn't have cut him so badly if he hadn't lunged at me, Jax. I swear he practically impaled himself on the knife trying to get at me. If you look at the surveillance, you'll see that I'm telling the truth!"

Jax opened his mouth, but quickly closed it and looked like he changed his mind about how he was going to reply. He then almost angrily asked, "Surveillance?"

My eyes immediately turned to Juice as I stuttered out a frightened, "I… I…"

"With everything that's been going down… Especially with what happed to Unser at Gemma's house, I wanted to do something to help to protect us. It's motion activated and will record over itself after six hours," Juice explained with his intense gaze still focused squarely on my hazel eyes. He then turned just his eyes to look in Jax's direction as he continued, "I know Mia likes to work alone after closing, so I wanted to make sure she feels safe if none of us are around. I tried to talk to you about it, but you've been… busy. I got Gemma to sign off on it before I installed anything."

Jax's nostrils flared as his angry glare focused on his mother. Gemma just held her hands up and nonchalantly said, "There's no external recording at all. If we don't pull the video now, what happened here tonight will be lost forever from the digital world. Like Juicy said, after what happened to Wayne… with you wanting to go… it seemed like a good idea. Mia hitting the panic button will help us to figure out how far we have to go back to watch what happened."

I sniffled in a breath but tried my best to stand strong and to keep from crumbling. I squeezed my dad's hand tightly and he just returned the gesture before he released my hand completely. Before he stepped away from me, he whispered a few words of love and encouragement into my ear. All I could offer in return was a simple nod because I knew that if I spoke, I would break down in tears and that wouldn't be helpful to any of us. Juice caught my eye and tried to give me a look of support before he led Jax and the other members of SAMCRO to the closet that he had turned into a makeshift tech room. I don't know why but that smile almost caused me to break down into tears again. I knew that tonight had probably brought up a lot of questions for everyone in the club, but Juice didn't hesitate to try to give me an encouraging smile. I don't know if I could have done the same thing if I was in his place at a time like this.

"Did I really hear you call Happy 'Daddy'? He isn't...? I mean... You aren't...?" Gemma asked with a playful lithe to her voice.

"What? No... NO! Gemma! He isn't... Eww!" I replied with a chuckle when I noticed that she had a familiar teasing look on her face. "He's my Daddy because that's who he is. And by that, I mean, he's my Father. At one time it was just biologically, but now he's my dad in every way, shape and form. He loves and protects me like no one else."

"Which is why he went loco on that corpse over there," Nero commented more as a statement than as a question.

I still nodded then replied, "Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. I sort of know what he considers are his 'fun' jobs that he does for the club, so I NEVER want to know what he would consider would be a proper punishment for doing this to me. I can tell that I need stitches, which will give me a permanent scar. That… that would mean dad would dole out a permanent punishment. And he would have a LOT of fun playing the role of punisher for anyone who hurts me."

Gemma approached me slowly as she asked, "How long have you known the truth, Mia?"

I didn't have to ask her to clarify because I immediately knew what she meant. I shrugged then answered, "Since I was little, I knew something was off with Mom and Theo. Plus, all of my white friends had a tendency to call me "Merry" or "Marie", but mom was always quick to correct them that it was MAH-REE-AH. The Santana song helped a lot when it came out. Plus… Happy was always around. Even before Theo split, Happy would show up for my birthdays and the occasional Christmas party. Mom tried a few times to say it was just a club thing, but that just never felt right."

"He did? Wow… I never heard anything about that."

"I'm pretty sure no one did. Well, no one but mom and Uncle Terry. Turns out I'm the reason he spent so much time in Tacoma even after mom shacked up with Theo. He won't complain or say anything about it, but because of his mom I know he wanted to patch out to Charming a while ago, but… watching over me took precedence."

Gemma nodded then ran her fingers through my hair at the back of my skull then. It wasn't lost on me that she was avoiding touching the blood I had all over the front of my body. "But when did you find out the whole truth, Honey?"

I kept my eyes fixed on my hands that were tugging at the hem of my hoody while I spoke (my coveralls had been pulled down to my waist by Chibs when he realized that the straitjacket feeling was causing me so much distress, so the arms of them hung down limply against my legs.) "Just after Mom died, Uncle Terry told me everything. He wouldn't tell me how she could be in a private room when we could barely cover the cost of her cancer treatments. Then suddenly those bills disappeared just as quickly as Theo did when mom was diagnosed. Uncle Terry sat me down before we buried her to explain why Happy would be at the cemetery and then the rest just came out naturally. That paved the way for me to open up a dialogue with my real Dad."

Gemma continued to comb her fingers through my hair as she quietly asked, "Is that why you decided to move down here?"

"No," I answered softly as I leaned into her embrace. "Uncle Terry and I were totally fine with our living arrangements up until he met his new Chica. When she made it clear that she would make his and my lives miserable if we didn't change my living arrangements, I called Happy… uhh… Dad to see if TM could use a new mechanic. He talked to Jax and then got the go ahead for me to move down here. And after everything that happened with Tig's daughter, he said he would feel better if I was closer to him."

Gemma chuckled in the back of her throat as she said, "I've never heard someone so pale say the word 'Chica' with such conviction before."

I let out a tearful laugh replying, "I may favor my mom's Scottish heritage, but it's always been my father's blood that courses through my veins, especially when I'm upset."

I didn't need to open my eyes to know that Gemma was looking at the body on the floor when she answered, "No one will argue that with you, Mia."

I knew she was trying to cut the tension with a well-placed joke, so I tried to laugh. I tried and failed miserably. Instead of a light-hearted chuckle, a horrific sob passed through my lips and I started to cry and nearly wail loudly. Gemma didn't hesitate before she hugged my head to her chest to try to calm me down.

I let out another gut-wrenching sob as my knees completely gave out on me. If only Gemma had of minded her own business and left me alone. If only she hadn't made me talk about the whole, naked truth. If only so many things, then I would have been able to stay strong… or at least continued to pretend that I was as tough as some people thought that I was.

But no, she poked. No, she prodded. And now she broke through my defenses. I guess in some ways it was inevitable to some degree. I had too many half-truths in my life for them not to come to light sooner or later. I just really wish it was later. Much, much later.

As I slowly started to fall to my knees, Gemma let go of my head to try to catch me. She made no moves to hesitate until Jax came running into the room shouting, "No! Mom! Don't touch Mia! You'll contaminate the evidence."

I fell to my knees, hard then. I was too distraught to notice pain that I should have felt from hitting the cement so hard as my sobs finally completely overtook me. My arms wrapped themselves around my waist as I continued to cry uncontrollably and tried to comfort myself.

Happy ignored all of Jax's cautions and warnings and rushed to my side as fast as his feet could take him. Somehow, I remembered all of them and tried to shove him away. But he was a stubborn one and he pulled me into his lap so that I could cry in the comfort of his arms.

Everyone watched the two of us with a concerned and fascinated eye as Jax explained to a visibly annoyed Gemma, "Eli is on his way over. The video shows exactly what Mia told us. She really was just defending herself, so we can play this one completely straight."