Disclaimer-I'm still not the creator and executive producer of the Sons of Anarchy, but I do own No Other Man Alive, my OCs, and an incredible husband. Who is disappointed that no one said hi to him.
It was well after midnight when they rolled into the Tacoma warehouse parking lot. A few old ladies were waiting, but it was a very subdued scene. Happy was reluctant to wake Ace, but couldn't see a way around it. He definitely couldn't manage her up all the stairs, and he'd had more than enough of watching his brothers handle her.
"Baby, we're here." He murmured, trying to bring her around slowly. "Wake up, Ace."
He watched her blink slowly, looking around. She wrinkled her nose and winced, stretching.
"Ow." She muttered, and probed her cheek tentatively.
"Leave it alone." Happy told her, pushing her hand away.
"Yes, doctor." She laughed, her voice still rough from sleeping.
"Come on, let's get to bed, I'm fucking beat." Happy nudged her toward her door, and pulled their two small duffels from behind the seat. He came around to the passenger door and took her shoes off, tossing them back into the truck. Ace let him lift her down from the running boards, holding onto his shoulder for balance.
"Thanks, big man." Ace leaned against him, sore from the long ride. She stiffened a little when she saw Cat moving to intercept them on their way to the stairs.
"Hey, honey, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?" Cat started in, holding onto Bowie's arm.
"Just some sleep. " Ace smiled thinly, relieved when Happy steered them past without stopping.
"You first, take it as slow as you need to." He told her, following closely behind her, ready to catch her if she lost her balance. She made it up in better time than he'd anticipated, although he didn't like the shade of pale that she'd turned.
"You're not gonna pass out are you?" He asked her, tucking her back under his arm, where he could at least slow her descent if she did.
"Nah, quit coddling her, Ace is tough." Tig said, dropping his bag on the bar.
"Thanks, Tig." Ace smiled at him.
"Who said that was a compliment?" Tig shot back as they disappeared into the hallway.
Ace felt totally surreal being back in the Tacoma clubhouse. The day felt like it had been eons long. Happy let her into their room, dropping their bags on the dresser.
"I'll be back in a minute." Happy told her. "I'm going to go make sure my ride gets off of the trailer alright."
"Oh, alright." Ace sat down on the bed, and watched as Happy took off back down the hallway. She got up and locked the door behind him. She put her back to the door and looked around the room, completely familiar to her. The only thing changed in it, was her. Sighing, she pulled one of Happy's t-shirts from the drawer and took it with her into the little bathroom. Stripping of the dress, she got a good look at herself in the mirror. The bruises were starting to go yellow around the edges, but it would probably be another week or more before they really faded. She started the water in the tub, then decided that she'd be better off with the door shut, since the glass didn't offer much privacy.
Ace stepped into the water and then reached over to turn it hotter. The water stung a little, but it had the added bonus of steaming up the bathroom, turning the glass opaque. She lay all the way back, letting the water come up over her face. Gasping, she surfaced and curled forward, wrapping her arms around her knees. The bathroom door opened, but she didn't look up, didn't move. She heard his boots hit the floor, and finally turned her cheek so she could watch him. She looked back over her shoulder as Happy opened the glass, leaning in, looking down at her. He was careful to keep his eyes on hers, but she found herself huddling tighter.
"Let me in?" It was half question, half order, but she moved forward anyway, making room. He looked at her for another moment before his hand went to his belt, fumbling it open. Ace knew that she should help, but couldn't make her arms unwrap. Instead of watching him struggle, she put her forehead back down on her arms. She felt him get into the water behind her, sitting awkwardly, his right arm propped up out of the water.
"Ok?" Happy asked, sliding his left palm up her back, watching her skin break out in gooseflesh. He gathered her hair, brushing it forward over her shoulder as best he could. His left arm slid under hers, and she let him wrap his arm around her, drawing her back, closer to him. He skimmed his nose up her spine, and rested his forehead against her wet back.
"I don't feel like me, anymore." Ace said, her face still buried in her arms.
"You're still the same person. Shit that happens to you, it isn't who you are." He told her, kissing the ink across her back. "You're the same to me as you were when I first patched in. We got a lot of history, you and me."
"I don't even know who I am." She sighed, and let her head fall back onto Happy's shoulder, so his face was close to hers. He brought his arm up across her chest, bringing her even closer.
"I do." He answered, resting his cheek on top of her head. "Come on, you need to get some sleep."
No Other Man Alive
Ace came awake completely, skin covered in a cold sweat. She scrambled away from the hand that had insinuated itself up the oversized t-shirt. Disoriented, she slid off the edge of the bed, falling heavily on her hip.
"Ow." Ace huffed under her breath, and pushed herself up far enough to see that Happy hadn't budged. Glancing at the clock she saw that it was barely past four in the morning, which meant that she'd gotten less than three hours of sleep. Not exactly stellar, considering she was wide awake now. She lay back on the wood floorboards, both hands pressed to her chest, trying to slow her heartrate. When her breathing finally returned to normal, Ace pulled herself off of the floor, and dug around in her bag blindly until she found her jeans.
Fully dressed, Ace curled up in a chair with her sketchbook. She opened it to a blank page, but couldn't bring herself to make a mark on it. Everything she kept seeing in her head was from that day and she really had no interest in putting that down on paper for posterity. Happy had sprawled out on his back, and her hands ached to draw him, but she couldn't make herself reach for the pencil. Instead she flipped back through other drawings she'd done, pieces she wanted to put on him, filling in his blank spaces like a puzzle, or drawings of him, mostly asleep because awake he hardly ever sat still long enough for her to catch him.
Ace moved all the way back to the first few pages of her sketchbook. The drawings here were all over 6 months old, before she knew that her first husband wasn't the man she'd always thought him to be. Some of them were of him, in uniform and out, and it shamed her a little that even after she'd invested over a decade in her marriage, he'd always been a shadow of the man she had now. Really, she should have known that they were on different paths when he'd never let her ink him.
Sighing, Ace closed the book, and set it aside. She could hear some of the Tacoma Sons moving around, getting ready for the day. It wasn't quite light out, but Bowie's crews were already moving about. With another glance at Happy, Ace got up and crept to the window, watching as the departing Sons smoked in the parking lot and either mounted up or crowded into one of Bowie's fleet of trucks. When the last of them had left, Ace turned away from the window, and paced the confines of the room quietly. She trailed her fingers over the very few things Happy left on the dresser, wondering how long before her stuff started driving him insane.
"Get back in bed." His voice was a hard croak, painful to listen to, and she looked back at him over her shoulder.
"I can't sleep." She smiled, a little weakly. Happy groaned and went to scrub his face with his hands, then remembered his cast and put his useless hand down. "Go back to sleep, I'll be fine."
"I'm not gonna sleep while you prowl around. You can either get back in bed, or I'm getting up." He pushed up on an elbow, but Ace waved him down. She popped the button on her jeans and slid them down, very aware of his eyes on her. She started to go back around to the empty side of the bed, but he grunted, so she went to him. He pulled her down and rolled her underneath him. "I don't like when you're not in my bed."
"Sorry." Ace breathed, trying to gauge whether her shortness of breath was fear or want. He kissed her, both of their eyes open in the semi-darkness. When she didn't pull away or protest, he deepened the embrace, sliding a tentative hand up her leg. Ace started to go rigid underneath him and he backed off.
"I'm not trying anything, I just miss touching you. You've never been scared of me before." Happy knew he was manipulating her a little, but he didn't think that never touching her again was the answer to whatever headspace she was in, and the longer they waited, the bigger this shit got between them.
"I'm not scared of you." She said, pulling him back down, and sliding his hand back up to where he'd stopped.
"So what's got you spooked?" He asked, pushing the t-shirt up far enough that he could see his mark all over her stomach. It would be interesting to see how she was going to feel about him adding to it.
"I can't turn my brain off, too much noise. I'm afraid I won't, I don't know, like fucking anymore." Ace squeezed her eyes shut in frustration; his hand on her wasn't nearly as upsetting as the damn liar tattoo. She concentrated on breathing slowly, letting him resume kissing her.
"So maybe this'll look a little different now." Happy murmured against her mouth. "But I'm pretty sure I can convince you that you still like to fuck."
Ace rolled her eyes at his cockiness, but tried to give into him anyway. She ran her hands up over his shoulders and to the back of his neck, deepening the kiss. Happy didn't move to try anything, just stroked the skin he could reach and kissing her. After a while, leaning on his casted forearm started to hurt, so he just kissed her forehead and lay back next to her. Ace yawned and curled into him, and he held her very carefully against him.
"Go back to sleep." Happy ordered her, shifting her to reach his cigarettes and ashtray and lighting up.
No Other Man Alive
Ace sat straight up in the bed, slapping a hand over her own mouth as soon as she figured out that she was the one screaming. Her stomach rolled alarmingly, and she scrambled for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before vomiting. Rinsing her mouth, she stared at herself in the mirror, willing her body to catch up to reality. When her breathing slowed, Ace reached for her toothbrush, convinced that she could still taste Rivera's sweat and cum in her throat, even though she knew that was impossible. She brushed her teeth until her gums bled, and then threw the toothbrush into the sink.
Ace backed out of the bathroom and smiled weakly when she saw that Happy had made a point of folding her jeans instead of leaving them on the floor. Pulling them on, she dug through Happy's drawers until she found one of the long sleeved thermals he wore under t-shirts, and put that on, too. The sleeves were so long that she was sure she looked absurd, but she didn't figure that mattered much, as she had no intentions of going anywhere.
Having finished dressing, Ace pushed aside the curtains, and smiled when her guess that Happy would be outside proved to be right. He was on the ground next to his Harley, tools scattered around him. Tig was with him, leaning against his own ride. Ace briefly considered going out to join them, but it seemed like too much work, so she just stayed put, watching them. It was a pleasant way to pass the time, half out of it on painkillers, being the silent observer. When Tig and Happy headed back in the direction of the clubhouse stairs, Ace curled back up on the bed. She'd managed to drift halfway back to sleep when Happy's key scraped in the lock.
"Hey sleepyhead." Happy said, smiling widely, leaving the door cracked open behind him. "You were up at some point, since you're dressed."
"Yeah, I was up for a while. Just stayed here." Ace held her arms out to him, and Happy glanced over his shoulder to the hallway, then rolled over her, bringing her on top of him.
"Did you eat anything?" He asked, letting her burrow into his neck.
"No, I just got dressed and watched you and Tig for a while and then these fucking drugs made me sleepy." Ace shrugged.
"You have to eat, it's almost five." Happy picked her head up and forced her to look at him. "You can't take that shit on an empty stomach, no wonder you're half passed out all the fucking time."
"Sorry. Not really hungry."
"Come on, let's get some food." Happy sat up, and Ace held him around his neck to keep from falling.
"Do we have to?" She asked, wrinkling her nose.
"Yeah, you need to fucking eat, Ace." Happy was starting to lose patience. "Come on, I'll take you to the best Italian in Washington."
"You want to actually go out somewhere?" Ace asked incredulously. "After what happened last night?"
"This is my fucking city, no one's gonna hassle you about your face here. Come on." Happy dumped her on her feet and grabbed her boots, handing them to her. Ace pulled them on reluctantly, watching as Happy struggled to get his shoulder holster on one handed, finally succeeding and zipping a hoodie over it. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped both his arms around her shoulders. "Come on, Ace, let me show you the rest of Tacoma."
"Yeah." Ace smiled up at him, trying to hide her trepidation. "Let's go."
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