Jax watched Gemma walk out of the clubhouse, his mind whirring as he thought of any way to change the club's decision, but he came up blank. He finally put the cigarette out in an ashtray, hoping a ride might help clear his head, calm him down so he could figure out what to do.

He jumped on his bike, no destination in mind, and ended up in front of the hospital. He walked inside and went straight to the billing counter as if his legs were guiding him that way. If he couldn't retaliate, he wanted to at least feel like he was doing something for Elle.

"I'd like to pay someone's hospital bills," he told the girl at the counter, who nodded.

"Name?" she asked. Jax paused. Shit. He didn't know her last name, had never bothered to ask.

"Um, it's Lauren, she goes by Elle," he stated, recalling Elle's screaming match with her ex. The girl looked at him like he had just taken crazy pills.

"Last name?" she asked. Jax shook his head.

"I don't know it," he said.

"Do you know how many Lauren's we have in our system?" she asked. Jax sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"She's got black hair, about 5'4," he started, hoping if he described her she might recognize her. The girl shook her head.

"I don't see many of the patients until they come to pay their bills," she said.

"She came in here about a week ago, she was… raped," the word hung in his mouth, disgusting, "Beaten up pretty badly. She was in room 1102," he added hopefully.

"Oh yeah, I remember her," she said, a frown creasing her face, "Poor girl. I felt so bad for her." Jax sighed, wondering if the girl wanted to twist the knife in his heart any deeper. Instead, she turned back to her computer, typing on her keyboard.

"Lauren Haywood," she said and Jax nodded, relieved.

"It looks like her bill has already been taken care of. The balance was paid in full earlier today," the girl said.

"By who?" Jax asked. The girl looked at him.

"I'm sorry, I can't really give out that kind of information," she said hesitantly. Jax flashed a grin, leaning over the counter seductively.

"Come on, darlin," he drawled, "That girl means a lot to me. I just want to know who I should be thanking for helping her out." The girl couldn't help but smile back at him. She looked around to make sure no one was near.

"The name he left was Hunter Jacobs," she said. Jax frowned. Who the hell was Hunter Jacobs? He tried to remember what her ex's name was. He was pretty sure she'd called him Clark.

"Alright, well, thanks," he said, turning around and walking back out of the hospital. His prepay rang as he walked to his bike and he answered it.

"Mayans asked for a sit down," Opie said as soon as Jax opened the phone. Jax sighed. They'd just delivered a shipment of guns to them two days ago and he really wasn't looking forward to having to deal with them again so soon.

"When?" Jax asked.

"Tonight, Hairy Dog," Opie replied.

"They say why?" Jax asked.

"Said they had a problem with the shipment," Opie said.

"Shit," Jax muttered, "Okay, we'll go in together."

SOASOASOASOASOA

"I just got a call from the hospital," Elle said as Bex walked into the living room in a robe, her hair wrapped in a towel atop her head.

"Oh yeah, what about?" she asked.

"They said someone paid the rest of my balance in full," she told her, "You really didn't have to do that." Bex took the towel off her head, rubbing it in her hair to dry it.

"Wasn't me, sweetie," she said. Elle frowned.

"If it wasn't you…" she said, her voice trailing off. She knew exactly who it was. Well if he thought paying a few grand was going to make up for what he'd sent her off to do, he was sorely mistaken. Bex spoke up hesitantly.

"I was thinking about maybe grabbing a drink at the Hairy Dog tonight," she said carefully, "If you think you'd be up for it. If not, we can stay in, maybe rent a movie or something, I just thought I'd ask…." She said, her voice trailing off. Elle looked up at her and slowly nodded.

"Yeah, that could be okay," she said, "Maybe even fun." Bex grinned.

"Really?" she asked, "Are you sure?" Elle nodded.

"I've had my time to sulk. I need to get over it. I'm not gonna be a victim anymore. I'm not gonna let that fucker change my life. Well, except for one thing," she added, her mind on the 9mm Beretta pistol sitting snug in her purse that she'd bought from the pawn shop the day after she'd been released from the hospital.

"Awesome!" Bex exclaimed cheerfully, happy her friend was taking the baby steps to getting back out there.

An hour later, they made their way to the Hairy Dog. Elle had tried to look presentable but casual, in jeans and a v-neck tshirt. The swelling on her face had gone down and the cut above her eye had nearly healed. You could barely see the bruises on her cheeks anymore, but she still had the outline of that fucker's hand imprinted on her neck and short of a turtle neck, there was no hiding it. Elle wondered if there'd ever be a day that she looked in the mirror and didn't see the hand print.

She walked in behind Bex and went straight for a table in a dark corner of the bar while Bex went to get their drinks. Bex returned a couple minutes later with a vodka seven for Elle and a beer for herself and sat down. Elle took her drink and tossed it back, setting the empty glass back on the table. Bex looked at her, concerned.

"Stop looking at me like that," Elle said, "It makes me feel worse when you do." Bex tried to smile and nod.

"Okay, sorry," she said, trying to wipe all concern from her face.

"So I overheard you talking to Tig and the others today at the shop," Elle said, stirring the ice around in her glass with a straw.

"I'm sorry, Elle. I didn't mean to over-share there, I was just so mad that they didn't know what had really happened, that they thought it could possibly be your fault," Bex said apologetically. Elle shook her head.

"No, it's okay," she said, "At least now they know what really happened. Maybe they can share in some of my sleepless nights," she added bitterly. She looked casually to the door and felt her heart start racing as she saw Opie and Jax walk through the door.

"How fucking small is this town?" she muttered under her breath, trying to disappear into the shadows. Bex looked over and her eyes narrowed as she spotted the Sons.

"Don't worry, you don't have to talk to them," she said firmly, silently praying they wouldn't even notice they were there. No such luck. Almost as soon as the boys walked up to the bar, Opie looked around the room and noticed Bex and Elle sitting at the table. He patted Jax on the shoulder, pointing at the girls and Jax turned.

Elle watched him, a part of her wanting more than anything for him to walk over to their table. And then she felt a twinge of pain as she hit one of her bruises on the edge of the table and remembered that she hated him more than she'd hated anyone in her life. More than she hated Clark.

Jax said something to Opie and turned to walk in their direction. Bex moved to get up from the booth and intercept him, but Elle reached her hand out, holding her back.

"It's okay," she said, digging her wallet out of purse and hurriedly scrawling out a check, "I have something I need to say to him anyway."

Jax paused in his walk to Elle's table, seeing her get up and walk towards him, something in her hand. Despite the bruises that still lined her face and neck, he still couldn't believe how beautiful she was. But when she stood before him, her eyes, which used to be filled with wonder and excitement whenever she looked at him, were now empty. He would've given anything at that moment to have her look at him as she had before all of this had happened.

He started to say something to her, but before he could, she shoved a check into his hand.

"I know you paid my hospital bills," she said angrily, "As if that could just fix everything. Well I don't need your blood money," she spat at him. Jax looked down at the check and back up at her.

"Elle, it wasn't me," he said. Elle had a retort ready, but that wasn't what she had expected to hear. He handed the check back to her, his finger brushing hers.

"Of course it was you," Elle said stubbornly, trying to force the check back into his hands, "Who else would it have been?" she asked. Jax shook his head, refusing to take the check.

"I don't know," he replied, "Listen, Elle, I wanted to-" But Elle interrupted him.

"No," she said, "I don't want to hear anything you've got to say. I don't want to hear that you're sorry, or that you didn't know this was going to happen, or whatever other bullshit you think you can come up with to smooth this over. Your empty words cannot fix this." And she turned on her heel heading back to the table which Bex was now standing by, watching the exchange with narrowed eyes. Jax followed her to the table.

"Elle," he called as Elle stood by Bex.

"Jesus, Jax, you have your own bar to go to. Can't you guys just leave?" Bex asked, arms crossed and very annoyed.

"I have business here," Jax retorted testily. Bex smirked, but there was no humor behind it.

"Yeah, it's always about business with you, isn't it?" she asked as Elle just shook her head.

"Fine, then we'll go," Elle said, leading Bex outside, Jax following closely behind.

"Can I just please talk to you?" he asked when they were standing on the sidewalk outside the bar. He didn't really have any idea what he wanted to say to her. Elle was right - 'I'm Sorry' just seemed like empty words. What he really wanted to tell her was that he was going to find the fucker that did this and gut him from the inside out, and it killed him that he couldn't tell her exactly that.

Elle shook her head.

"I have absolutely nothing to say to you," she said, and led Bex down the street towards her car.

Jax watched them walk away, his mind full of all his shit and his guard down. As he turned to walk back into the bar, three Mexicans in Mayan cuts walked up to Jax.

"She may not want to talk to you, but we sure do," one of them said as the other two each grabbed one of Jax's arms before he could reach for his gun and punched him in the gut. He keeled over, struggling to get out of their grasp.

"What the fuck?" he spat angrily, trying to twist his arms out of their grip.

"Our order was 10 guns short, ese," the first one sneered in his ear before punching him in the jaw and drawing his gun, aiming it at his right foot, clearly just trying to send a message. He cocked the gun, his finger on the trigger as he said, "We're gonna need you to fix this in 24 hours, or it won't be your foot we get next time." He said. Jax smirked at them as he braced himself for the shot, but dropped all pretense of cockiness as he saw Elle walk up behind the Mayan that was holding the gun and press her own gun against his temple.

"Vamanos," she stated calmly. The two Mayans looked at her in disbelief, looking at each other as though unsure what to do.

"Let him go!" she shrieked, digging her gun harder into the side of his head. They relaxed their grip slightly on Jax's arms, enough for him to yank himself out of their grip and whip his own gun out, holding it in point blank range of one of the Mayans that had been holding his arm. The Mayan with his gun pointed at Jax held it up in surrender, finger pressed flush against the side of the weapon and away from the trigger, still staring at Jax.

"Sons protected by their whores now?" he asked as Elle cocked her gun, her finger on the trigger.

"Alright alright," he said, slowly backing away from Jax and Elle, the other two behind him. He looked pointedly at Jax, "This isn't over. You remember what I told you. This needs to be fixed by tomorrow."

And they turned and walked away. Jax looked up at Elle, rubbing his jaw where he had been hit.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said. She shrugged.

"I don't want to have anything to do with you, Jackson. And that includes having your blood on my hands," she said as she began to walk away, "Clearly, the feeling is not mutual."

Jax rushed forward, grabbing her hand and pulling her back to face him. He looked into her face, which was livid with anger, all directed at him.

"I want to make this right," he said, a pleading note in his voice, "I didn't want anything like this to happen to you." She jerked her hand out of his grasp, still glaring at him.

"Good luck with that," she said, some of her anger replaced with sadness, "Because I just don't know how you could possibly make this right."

A/N Thanks so much to all my reviewers and everyone that is reading this story! Every review you leave puts a BIG smile on my face! Please let me know if you're still liking the story by reviewing!