Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from "Sons of Anarchy." They are the property of Kurt Sutter and Fox Network. No money is changing hands in the writing, reading or distribution of this story.

Chapter 13

It still felt a little bit like she was wandering unattended through a place that wasn't hers, but Joss pushed that feeling away. It was her house, and just because she'd gotten up off the porch steps and without a word, walked away and left Tig outside, it didn't make it any less so. At least she knew where the good bathroom was, and she headed up the stairwell with the awful red paint, not really knowing where anything like soap or towels were, or if there even were any, but she did know how to turn on a shower, and that's what she most wanted right now, water, washing what she'd done away. There was pain deep between her legs, her skinned knees burned, her mouth tasted like blood, there was a smear of dirt across her forehead; Joss wanted it all gone, all of it! Tig wasn't angry, his feelings weren't hurt, but she could tell that she'd shocked him; she'd shocked herself too. But it wasn't the first time. Good God, what was she? She knew soap and water weren't going to remove whatever made her do the things she did, but it would be good to at least feel clean.

She opened the bathroom door surprised to see fuzzy, light blue bath rugs covering the pristine, white, evenly cut floor tiles. Whoever Bobby was, he'd done a great job. And there were towels too, that matched the bath rugs, there was even a pump bottle of light blue foaming hand soap on the white sink, and a light blue shower poof sitting atop a light blue bar of soap on the edge of the tub. Gemma and Tara, it had to be. Joss made a mental note to find out from Tig just what she had to thank each of them for. She pulled the shower curtain with the Forget-Me-Not print across the tub and turned on the water, for a moment able to laugh at the thought of Tig showering behind a cascade of all these happy little flowers. Happy, she'd been that just a few hours ago, where had it gone? She was careful not to look at herself in the medicine cabinet mirror as she stood stripping off her clothes, she just couldn't bear to see herself. Her top, her bra, the skirt, they just barely clung to her, and it felt good to wriggle the rest of the way out of them, but she hoped she'd be able to get the semen stains out of the denim skirt, for she still didn't have a lot of clothes.

Joss stepped into the shower, closing her eyes under the rain of clean water and just stood there, letting it burn her split lip and her skinned up knees as it rolled down her face and body. The pain was remarkably comforting, something she needed to feel, an odd kind of closure that trapped her within it and didn't let anything else touch her. It wasn't the first time that sex with Tig was rough. She could handle it. It wasn't the first time that Tig had hurt her or scared her. She could handle that as well. But it was the first time she'd made him do it, against his better judgment and his will. He'd tried not to fight with her, had given her a warning to shut up and back off, because she knew he didn't want to do something he was going to regret later. But she'd made him do it. And ironically enough now, Tig was fine, but Joss was the one full of regret. The reality of just how much power she had over him, and how easily she could hurt him was startling, like being handed a loaded .45 with a hair-trigger. What if she couldn't get control of it?

Joss reached for the soap, but when she did, she noticed it was speckled with some short, black hairs. Things like that had always grossed her out, but oddly enough she smiled this time as she picked up the soap. Tig, he'd always be with her, somehow. She'd apologized to him, but not nearly enough and she never would have guessed she'd be apologizing to him for something like this. Why did he love her? Nope, he'd never said it, but she knew he did, had for some time now known that "Tell me you love me" was a code Tig didn't know she'd even broken. It would stay that way, she'd never tell him, that was his secret and she'd let him keep it. At least his secret was something good, something noble and sweet. Joss had her own secret, but it was how awful she truly was inside. Why did he love her? She held the soap in both of her hands now, running her thumbs over all the disgusting, little, black, stubbly hairs, and sank to her knees, rocking back and forth on the bottom of the tub, crying as the hot water rained down from above.

Chapter 13; Part 2

The water had been turned off a few minutes ago, but Tig had remained waiting in the one room he hadn't shown her. He had things to do anyway, like find where the hell the box was with the black shoe polish in it. He dug around in one of the two unpacked moving boxes, but it was full of CD's he'd found in an old duffle bag that he'd shoved into the closet of the dorm room when he first moved into the clubhouse all those years ago. Wow, he'd liked 'Journey?' Go figure! What the hell, this house was too quiet anyway, particularly after that deal out on the front steps. Sometimes, sex wasn't about sex at all, and it had started that way, it was only about grinding Joss into the ground and making her sorry. He'd had not control over that, and when he'd come to again, realizing what had happened, Tig was petrified, then royally pissed to realize that Joss had orchestrated the whole thing, used him like he was some kind of…porn puppet! But she was right to do so, and now, looking back on it all, he couldn't help but feel so turned on! Joss however…well, her feelings were at this point unaccounted for.

Tig grabbed the 'Journey' CD and leaned across the bed to the clock/radio/compact disc player on the opposite night table, throwing in their "Greatest Hits" CD and hitting play, resuming his search for the shoe polish as Steve Perry began singing "Don't Stop Believing" in the background. Finally! There it was, he knew he had it, you didn't get through life with a black leather cut that had to be meticulously maintained without black shoe polish. But it wasn't his cut that lay across his lap. Joss, Gemma was right, she had something; she absolutely was going to make it in this life, and make it with him. Tig would never admit it, but he felt a bit foolish for having told Joss otherwise time and time again. That damn girl was tougher than he'd figured, tougher probably than she even knew herself, and the fact that she was still held up in the bathroom seemed to support that.

The master bathroom actually adjoined this room, one door in the hallway lead into the bathroom, but a second one lead from the master bedroom into the bath as well. Joss hadn't closed either of them, but he knew to give her some time alone. When Joss lost it, it was like a flash grenade going off, everything happened without warning, there was some impressive shock and percussion, it was unsettling, and there was always a lot of noise, but generally there was no real carnage…well, save for that one time with her father…and maybe this time, too. But it wasn't the actual detonation that Tig worried about with her. The aftermath of it was always the toughest part for Joss, remembering what she'd said, what she'd done, how she'd done it and why she'd done it stuck to her and fucked with her more than anyone else he'd ever known…except for one person who he refused to think about in that context anymore…and that hadn't ended well. It wasn't going to end that way for Joss though; she had her issues, that was undeniable, but he wasn't going to let her become what he'd become.

A few more minutes had passed with no sign of Joss, though he could hear her moving around in there, opening the medicine cabinet, sighing and then closing it again. Next the water in the sink turned on briefly, but then it was quiet, except for a faint sniffle. Okay, it was time to intercede if she was sitting in there crying still; the shit that went down on the porch wasn't worth all that. Tig got to his feet.

"Hey," he spoke softly as he looked around the door frame, seeing Joss, wrapped in a towel and sitting on the edge of the tub.

"Hey," she replied, and managed a slight smile, but Tig could tell she was still kind of down. She held a rolled up washcloth that she'd dampened in the sink, and she appeared to be dabbing it onto the more scraped up of her knees.

Fuck, it was Thursday, her party…well, their party, was Saturday night, and she'd gone from having casts all over everywhere to this. He hadn't noticed how torn up she'd gotten on the pavement, he'd had jeans on, and he wasn't thinking about…well, in truth, he hadn't been thinking; he was all primal force. Still, he felt a little responsible now. "No, baby, let me get that." He said, his voice still soft, but not because he was forcing it to be.

"Really?" Joss asked, but why she wouldn't believe him Tig wasn't sure…and a little worried.

"Yeah," he looked over his shoulder back into their bedroom for a second. "We got a first aid kit, stay there." He stepped away from the bathroom doorway, the white plastic box with the big red cross on it was somewhere in here…he remembered throwing it down.

"You have a first aid kit?" Joss called from the edge of the tub, and he didn't have to be looking at her to see the look of disbelief on her face. But just as he was about to answer he saw it, laying under a copy of "Hustler."

"No, I didn't get it," he said, grabbing it and going back into the bathroom, trying to determine how it opened as he knelt down in front of Joss. "What's her name…Jax's doctor bitch—"

"Don't call her that," Joss's voice was half sigh, half whine, like she really didn't want to piss him off, but she also really wanted him to know she didn't like what he'd said. "I like her. Her name's Tara."

"Whatever," Tig replied shortly, but some of it was the frustration of trying to open the damn first aid kit. Finally, a latch popped, then another. "Tara," he said, glancing up at Joss and in some way showing her he was being more respectful now, in accordance to her wishes. Joss had been through a lot tonight, why add to it? "She brought it over, said she thought it might come in handy while I was working on the house." Tig looked into the first aid kit now, but he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. There were plenty of things that said "alcohol swab" but he was pretty sure that wasn't a good idea. Why didn't they make something that just said "for skinned knees?" And then he saw a familiar word; ointment. Yeah, that would probably work. "I guess she thinks I'm fucking clumsy or something."

Joss again smiled slightly, but she looked suddenly sad. "She's a good person."

Tig had thought Joss was looking down at what he was about to smear onto her knee, but when he glanced up he saw that she was just looking down, at nothing. "Oh no you don't," he shook his head and lifted her chin up with the hand that wasn't full of first aid ointment. "Don't do this to yourself, Joss, c'mon. It's okay, you know that." Fuck, was there anything in that damn first aid kit he could smear on her self image? Just don't play into this, if he tried to tell her anything different than what she was thinking and saying, she was only going to disagree with him and make herself feel even worse…at least, that's what he'd have done, because that's what he always did. "Don't worry about your patch," he said, changing the subject and hoping he'd found something that might make her happy again as he lightly touched the ointment to her abraded knee, gently spreading it over the entire injury. He wasn't sure exactly how the vest had gotten ripped off of her and snagged on the pavement, but it had been; a ragged little line now marred the supple, black finish up near the shoulder on the front. "I took some shoe polish to it, it'll be dry by morning, and you won't be able to tell anything ever happened to it."

She brightened a bit, made eye contact with him, "Thank you," she said warmly reaching out and putting her hand on his shoulder. Tig felt himself relax into that touch, but all too soon, it was gone, Joss sighing and now shaking her head slowly then looking down again. "One more time I fuck everything up, and you're left cleaning up the mess."

He was squeezing out more ointment onto his finger for the other knee, but he stopped abruptly and sighed. The only way to get this out of her was maybe to order it out of her. "Jocelyn," he hardly ever called her that, and it usually got her attention, but not tonight. "Hey, look at me," as he expected her head lifted and her eyes met his, but she really didn't want him to see her, he could tell. "Now listen to me, because you're my old lady, you're wearing my patch, and there isn't a thing on you or about you that I don't own now, so you'll do what I say," he'd never said those words before to anyone, but it felt strangely good. "Stop doing this shit you're doing. It doesn't go anywhere good. I'm living proof!"

He watched her sigh and fidget and fight it, but ultimately she knew there wasn't anything she could really do after he'd put it to her like that. "But," the word kind of sputtered out of her mouth like a sick engine; it was obvious that shutting up when he told her to was going to be the hardest thing for her to learn how to do, but it was usually like that for any girl someone owned, and in Joss's case he couldn't help wonder if it wasn't just some of that classic teenage rebelliousness at work too. "Can I just ask you one question?"

He put more ointment on his finger now and reached out for her other knee, contemplating his answer. "Yeah, one." He finally said, gently dabbing the ointment against her raw skin. "But I don't have to answer it."

There was that sharp exhale Tig had heard earlier tonight, and Joss crossed her arms in front of her, rolling her eyes. "Never mind."

Oh fuck no, she wasn't! Not again! "Hey!" he snarled, looking away from her knee and glaring up at her, bound and determined to not let this get away from him like it had the first time. "You don't want a second round with me, Joss! You really don't!" He'd have been yelling in her face if it weren't for his clenched teeth. "Now you take all this uppity attitude, and all the 'poor me' bullshit, and you put it someplace where not even fucking Freud would find it! You got it?"

She was defiantly trying to still look angry, but the tears that welled in her eyes betrayed it, as did the way she nodded her head. Good, he really didn't have another flash-bang cluster fuck in him tonight. Jesus Christ, he was trying to be nice to her, tried to show some fucking sensitivity, and she was trying to get all spider monkey crazy on him. Spider monkey? Well, she did sometimes wave her arms around a lot when she lost it…and she screeched. But she was quieter now, looked much more subdued, however, Tig couldn't remember anymore if he'd put ointment on the knee his hand was closest too or not. Damn girl…

"I'm sorry." Her voice surprised him, and he decided he'd just better go ahead and put ointment on her knee, what could it hurt if he'd already put some on anyway?

"It's okay, you'll learn." There was a particularly deep cut on the outside of her knee that looked like it might need extra medicine, but when Tig went to coat the bloody crack with the meds, Joss flinched and hissed in pain. He half smiled. "Now I'm sorry." He smirked.

Joss smiled, but it was clearly out of courtesy. "I didn't mean I was sorry about mouthing off," she said, and wiped at her eye with the back of her hand. "I made you do something you didn't want to do."

Tig couldn't help but burst out laughing; that was just the funniest fucking thing she'd ever said to him. "Joss, do you realize…no, I mean, can you even begin to understand, since I met you, just how many things you've made me do, that I didn't wanna do?"

She looked confused, but she was so confused that she wasn't crying anymore. "No."

"Yeah? Well, me either anymore," he laughed. "I just know it started two years ago with me not wanting to even ask you what your name was, and it ends with me here, with this first aid shit all over my fingers!" To his surprise, there was a very slight, amused and semi proud smile on Joss's face. Tig's own smile widened; he laughed again, wiping the ointment on his jeans and then softly tucking a few strands of her stringy wet hair behind her ear. "You wanna apologize for all the other shit you've somehow or another found a way to make me do, that I never wanted to do?"

Joss sighed, but this time it was because she was feeling better, despite her best efforts. "No." she admitted, her smile becoming harder and harder to disguise.

Tig nodded, but his expression was less smile and more advice now. "Then you gotta let what happened on the steps go too." He said, the hand that had pushed her hair back now softly stroking the back of her head until she looked up at him, her eyes finding his, and she nodded. He smiled again, screwing the cap back onto the tube of ointment, they were done here, everything was all fixed. "Good. I got more freak than Lucky's got charms, baby. You know that, and you were just working an angle on me, it's cool. Okay?"

She smiled more and laughed like she'd been trying not to, but just couldn't help it anymore. "You sound like a beatnik," she said, but was more and more like herself. "But yeah, it's cool."

Yeah, it was…until the next time she freaked out on him it was, anyway, but Tig pushed the thought from his mind for now. The CD was still spinning in the other room, "Faithfully" now pouring out its lyrics in a space and time that made Tig's gut twitch it was so fucking perfect, but what could he do? He hadn't planned it, and even if he ran back in the bedroom now, ripped the CD out of the player and crushed it into prismatic shards, it had still happened, he couldn't make that go away. All that happy stuff he hated that had been filling him up all damn day was beginning to do it again…fuck…but too much had happened tonight for him to try make it go away, or make himself not want to feel it. Jocelyn…that damn girl…sitting there in nothing but a light blue bath towel…he hadn't been completely done with her earlier, but of course, that was not a time where either of them were wanting anything further…but now…Tig dropped the ointment back into the first aid kit, snapping the box closed again, his eyes on every part of her not covered with the towel, and the rest of him somehow able to see through it. "So, you coming out now?" He wanted her, he had for days, and it was all descending upon him now. He wanted her, and after all they'd been through today, Tig could feel that Joss needed him, and he was ready to be there for her, anywhere she wanted him. "I can show you the bedroom."