Aw shit. I got nothin'. Although I will say this, abso lovin' the reviews, thanks Constant Reader, yer makin' this a fun ride after all! For those that have been askin' and waitin' I'll say this, Tara isn't comin' home in enough time to make any decisions regarding the mess, but she will be there just in time to discover something most fantastic that's been going on... stay tuned. MKAngelus

OLODL CH12

Opie pulled up in front of Gemma's house and looked into the back seat. Wyatt was waving his hands in the air and babbling to himself, he could just see him kicking his feet from behind his rear facing car seat. Kenny was half asleep, leaning against the back of the seat, his face flushed from what Opie could only guess was a fever and sounding like his nose was stuffed with cotton. Opie felt terrible, he knew that Kenny needed to be tucked in and given some sort of medicine or something and he shouldn't be dragging him around, but he felt even worse leaving him with Chuckie. He knew Jax wasn't going to be happy that he'd brought the baby over, but it seemed dumb to leave him with Chuckie too, besides, Wyatt was pretty easy going for a baby, and whatever Jax had going on couldn't possibly be as bad as the mess that was at TM.

Getting the baby and Kenny out of the car proved to be pretty difficult, so Opie carried Kenny to the front door and tapped politely on the door with his size 12 boots. Gemma opened the door and smiled at him and then quickly her look turned to concern, "What's wrong with Kenny?" She asked placing the back of her hand on his forehead.

"He threw up and isn't feeling well; I think he might have a fever. Lila said to give him some kids' aspirin and bundle him up, but I didn't want to leave him at the clubhouse…" He trailed off, and Gemma clucked her tongue and said, "Bring him in here Ope and put him on the sofa, I'll get him some blankets. Poor baby." All mom all of a sudden, Gemma took charge and Opie was relieved. He knew that he had missed out on a lot of his kids lives and he didn't want to be the dad that didn't know up from down, but it wasn't something he was comfortable asking for help with. Somehow Gemma sensed that and she always seemed to make things understandable.

As he laid Kenny down, Jax came out of the kitchen with a glass of what looked like straight bourbon. Opie raised an eyebrow and nodded at the drink, "Breakfast?"

"You want one?" Jax asked with a smirk, "You're gonna need it."

"Uh, no I think I'm good, I'll be back in a minute and you can explain what the fuck is going on okay?"

Jax nodded, "Sure man," He said sarcastically, "I can't wait to explain this shit." He smiled again and drained the glass.

Opie shook his head and went back to the caddy and pulled out Wyatt's car seat. He tucked the blanket back around the baby's feet and tucked his stuffed dog into his diaper bag. Kicking the door closed behind him he walked inside and Jax spit out an ice cube when he saw that Opie had Wyatt in his seat. "Dude, what the hell, I told you to leave him with Chuckie! Jesus Tara is going to kill me!"

"Calm down Brother, I didn't want to leave Kenny there; he feels like shit, what kind of dad would that make me?" He smiled and set Wyatt down and Wyatt looked up and grinned, Gemma came back in and cried out loud, "Oh Wyatt, my baby is here!" She handed the blankets to Opie and hurried over to the car seat and picked the baby up, Jax just shook his head. He knew when he'd been beat and this was it. He was done. Opie grinned and winked, then lit a cigarette and said, "So Jax, what's so important that I needed to come over here?"

Jax said, "Follow me, I'll show you." He gestured down the hall and Opie followed. At the top of the stairs without any fan fair Jax opened the door and stepped aside so that Opie could see what was at the bottom of the stairs.

Silently Opie studied the mess and then whistled between his teeth slowly and took another drag. "Bummer," He said and took a step around Jax to walk down the stairs a couple of steps, "Looks like one of them tripped and fell, and another one tried to stop a bullet." He smiled up at Jax's snort of laughter and said, "Whose handiwork was this? Your mom's?"

Jax nodded and sat on the top step, and cupped his chin in his hands, "Yep, Mommy Dearest in there found them at the shop last night and brought them here, tied them up and left them in the basement. Then she called me and I rushed over here where she told me her brilliant idea was to 'kill them', while she was outlining the 'plan', they got loose and I think Ima tried to get out and Wendy must have stopped her, or tripped her or something, because when I heard her fall I came down and Wendy tried to nail me with a piece of pipe." He paused long enough to light his own smoke and take a drag before continuing, "Then, while Wendy and I were catching up on old times and I was still trying to wrap my head around shit, my mom blew her fucking head off."

"That's when I called you and well, now you know what I know." Jax stopped speaking and stared at Opie.

Opie not only sensed the sarcasm in his best friends voice, but he could feel the tension wafting off of him like smoke from a barbecue, he started to speak when Jax interrupted him, "Oh and Tara called in the middle of all of it and told me she wanted to come home early. So basically, I've got two dead bitches in my mom's basement, a tore up shop, two kids being coddled by my sadistic mother and my old lady on her way home. I'm thinking that today was a good day to get shot in the ass by an ATF agent or something."

Opie grinned; Jax playing the martyr was incredibly funny and rare actually. Usually Jax was the hero and was able to come up with something to save the day, even when they were kids and doing stupid shit that kid's do all the way up to that whole thing with Stahl and their time in Stockton. Had he not gone the route he'd gone, they'd all be spending their time fighting over three hots and a cot. Taking a last drag on his smoke, he pinched the cherry and put the butt into his pocket and said, "Don't hold back man, let it all out. You need a tissue?"

"Come on Opie!" Jax yelled, "This isn't the time for jokes man! What the fuck are we going to do?" He stood up on the steps and gestured to the girls at the bottom. Opie followed his gesture and decided that today, the prince had left the building and if they wanted to get out of this mess before the king came back, they'd better get going on a plan.

"Okay man, pour me a shot of breakfast and we'll all go upstairs and figure out the next move." Opie said coming back upstairs and taking Jax by the arm, "Now isn't the time to panic."

"Really?" Jax said sarcastically over his shoulder, "Is there a better time to panic?"

Opie was silent until they got into the kitchen, where Gemma was able to see Kenny and Wyatt from where she was mixing up what looked like cinnamon rolls. Opie grinned and winked at Jax and nodded towards Gemma and the kids, "Yeah, start to panic in about 7 hours when the girls get in and we have to pretend that everything went nicey nice while they were gone."

Jax started to smile and relax, Opie was right, this wasn't bigger than anything they'd ever dealt with before. It was all going to go just fine. They'd sit down, figure out what was going to happen, then do it. That's how the Sons did things; there was no need for him to panic at all. He sat at the table and heard a muffled noise coming from the bar, looking over he saw that Gemma had brought in the baby monitor. He reached over and picked it up and turned up the volume slightly. Clearly, as if he'd been standing right next to him he heard Abel say, "Fuck! Where's my Gammy?"

Gemma, Opie and Jax stared at the baby monitor and then they all started to grin, Gemma the first to respond said, "Nice job Jax, I'd be more worried about explaining that to your old lady than how your mom offed the first one."

Jax turned the volume down and set the baby monitor back down on the bar and sighed.