There was nothing Gemma hated more than situations being allowed to become out of her control. Her grandsons were still at a location that only Tara knew and Gemma herself was still bleeding steadily from her broken nose. She'd had to ask her son to drive her to the ER, although there was no way he could go inside covered in the blood of one of St. Thomas's doctors. Still, he'd dropped her off outside the doors before heading off to torch the car that was also soaked through with the doctor's blood.

The moment she pushed her way through the ER door, Gemma suddenly felt like a bad situation was about to get worse. Seated at the admittance desk was a nurse that Gemma could only describe as Barbie's less plastic older sister. The woman was taller than Gemma by at least a couple of inches and was way too blonde. Disgustingly pink scrubs were an added offense, and every time Gemma had seen her in the past she'd been way too cheery. However, now the intolerable nurse was the one thing standing between her and treatment for her broken nose, and Gemma was beginning to feel too faint and lightheaded to consider turning around and going elsewhere.

Slowly she approached the front desk, finding herself feeling incredibly heavy and sluggish. Something in Gemma hoped the perky nurse would at least temporarily lose her cool at the sight of the blood streaming down her face.

However, the other woman remained completely cool and overly cheery. "How can I help you?"

"Look sweetheart," Gemma growled, "I don't know what they taught you in Barbie medical school, but my nose is broken." When she took a break to attempt to stare down the irksome woman, she found a pain beginning to form in her jawbone. In the seconds before she blacked out, she realized that she was in the process of having a potentially massive heart attack.

xxx

Some people could clearly remember the worst day of their life as a singular entity. For Chibs, it was a little less clear. Instead of a singular day, the amount blurred. Too many recent days had made the list though. Too many relationships had been shattered and his friends were rapidly meeting bloody ends while the one man he wanted dead continued to evade him. A weaker man would have broken much earlier, but Chibs didn't consider himself weak. Still, he had finally reached his breaking point after seeing Tara on that couch and hearing Juice's murder.

By the time he got back to his house, he was almost completely numb to the others with him. Instead of worrying about what his daughter or his wife were doing, his brain turned on the most basic response as it had multiple times before. His clothes and skin were bloody and the only logical option was to clean them. The water felt good on his body, however there was something about watching Tara's blood circle into his shower drain that made every emotion he'd tried to avoid flood his body. Instead of composing himself as he'd hoped he broke down crying alone in the shower. Softly he closed his eyes hoping that being unable to see the red streaks would keep him from fully breaking down.

Instead, it made him feel almost small and unsafe. At that exact moment, he heard a clear rustling outside the shower door. In a futile attempt to defend himself from who his brain immediately assumed had to be Jimmy O'Phelan his eyes flew open and he gripped the closest item which happened to be a shampoo bottle. If his nemesis had truly been standing outside the shower, the other man would surely have laughed. However, instead the figure that stepped through the shower curtain easily deflected the bottle he'd instinctively swung and instead stepped fully into the shower with him.

"Are you okay love?"

He wasn't okay, and he knew Fiona had already figured this out, but the last thing he wanted to do at that moment was bare his soul even to someone he knew would never use it against him. Instead he chose to try to plaster on a fake face as he dropped the shampoo bottle back on the shelf. "How are Kerri and the boys?"

"She's got them set up with some cartoons to keep their minds off today, but you have to answer my question too."

Chibs sighed, "I guess I have to be, otherwise we're gonna be eaten alive."


I'm aware this chapter is a bit short, but I was afraid if I pushed it too hard to reach my normal word quota I'd never update it and then Chibs' last line came up and it seemed like a perfect chapter ender. The heart attack isn't Gemma's punishment for what she did to Tara and simply a way to get her where she needed to be for the punishment to happen. Also on a note I at least find interesting, I actually used an actress as a face claim for the nurse character in the first half as I figured having a description of even a minor character to go off of would ease writers block.