A/N: So this has been over due, beyond over due. At first it was because I struggled hard on where to take this story and then mostly because it seems like I write better when my personal life goes to shit. So here I return, personal life in flames and now I have a direction to take the story.

Bran held two cups of steaming hot coffee's in one hand, while she listened to the soft elevator music as she waiting for the three floor where Tara worked. She adjusted the strap on her purse, as she shifted her stance to avoid touching anyone in the crowded elevator. When the door opened, Bran separated both coffee's as she lengthen her pace to move away from the crowd that exited behind her.

Her converse sneakers were quiet on the shiny floor of the hospital as she walked, and she scrunched up her nose at the strong smell of disinfectant that premeditated the hall way. After her run this morning, she knew she had to do laundry when she got back from her coffee date with Tara as she struggled to find clothes that weren't stained with paint. The yellow jean shorts and crisp white tank top where one of the few options that were available to her.

She had some vague directions to where Tara would be working on the floor, given to her when Tara dropped her off last night after a few hours waiting around to see if Juice would finish up with whatever mysterious club business she didn't want or need to know.

Bran had peek around the club house, saw way more the she needed to between who Tara pointed out where sweetbutts and or crow eaters and members and other random guys. Juice wasn't there so, she made a quick exit behind Tara towards the cutlass in the parking lot.

"Hi," Bran drew the attention of a nurse who was working behind the large half circle desk. The nurse looked from the ringing phone and then in Bran's direction, before holding up one finger. Bran nodded and waited for the nurse to finish with the phone.

"Sorry," the woman said walking over towards Bran who was leaning against the counter, coffee's rested on top. She was an older woman, longer then shoulder length hair that was starting to grey at the roots. Her square framed glasses looked a little crooked on her face but added a nice bright contrast to her face. "What can I help you with?"

"No problem." Bran told her, as she shifted her stance. She brushed her hair out of her face and gave the nurse a smile. One she hoped looked friendly as she intended it to be. " I'm looking for Dr. Tara Knowles, do you know where I can find her?"

The woman looked at her and then the coffee before looking back at the phone which was ringing on three different lines, before replying." I can page her, if you give me a moment to deal with the phones. "

"Sure, I can wait." nodded Bran as she moved to take a seat in the waiting chairs beyond the desk. She watched the women for the next ten minutes field call after call and wondered if she had forgot about her.

Another nurse walked behind the counter and dropped a stack of files and was waved over by the first nurse. The second nurse was younger, flushed and looked like she was dead on her feet.

After a few moments, the second nurse walked towards the end of the counter that Bran was sitting near and waved her over toward her. Bran propelled herself out of the plastic chair and walked to the counter with a smile on her face.

" Lorann is tied up with the phone, she said you were looking for Dr. Knowles. She's down the hall, two lefts and then a right you'll find room 347." the woman rattled out before she turned and went about her business.

"Thanks." Bran called out before she started in the direction that she was told. The coffee had cooled a little but it was gesture that counted, right?

As she turned the corner, more concerned with the room temperature coffee in her hands, she barely looked up in time to avoid a full run in with the one person in Charming she had preferred to avoid.

"Jesus christ!" snapped Gemma, as she held her hand to her chest and leaned against the wall. Her breath was laboured and her skin had a thin layer of sweat on it, as she heaved air into her lungs like she had asthma and was missing her inhaler. "Watch were the fuck your going."

"Sorry, Gemma. " Bran bit out taking in in the sight of Gemma Teller- Morrow that was before her. In the short, few times that Bran had seen her, Gemma had been always put together. And Bran suspected that it this occasion was a rare thing.

While, Bran would be the first to admit she struggled with most social situations, her observation skills were on point, and as she looked at Gemma in that moment; she knew something was wrong. Something was very wrong, with the angry woman standing before her.

Gemma wore sunglasses inside the hospital, her skin was pale, and had a shine that told Bran she had been sweating for a a while now. From Gemma's hunched over posture, and the shakes she was trying to hide as she practically cowered against the wall away from Bran told her more then Gemma's wrinkled baggy clothing and fucked up hair.

Something happened to Gemma, something that left a sour feeling in the bottom of Bran's stomach.

Bran backed up, giving Gemma some room to breath, and kept her body language small and non aggressive. "Do you need help? Is there someone to call?"

"Fuck you." Snapped Gemma, as she skirted the wall and darted around the corner away from Bran, clutching her purse like she had stolen it.

Bran listened the fast paced clipping of Gemma's heels against the floor, as she stood in place in the hallway holding cooling coffee in her hands. She started down the hall way in the direction of where she was told Tara would be but something stopped her.

The sour feeling didn't go away with each footstep, just grew in the pit of her stomach. It rolled around like waves, crashing around inside her threaten to swallow her whole as she stared down the long hallway.

Her body turned and before her mind caught up with her feet she had made her way down the hallway and towards the stairwell where she knew Gemma went. Elevators were too small, to many people to close to touch her. She would want a less direct route, one that she could navigate by herself.

Once she cleared three stories at a face pace, it didn't take her long to find Gemma hunched over dry heaving her guts up over the side of a bench along the court yard of the hospital.

Bran slowed her pace, and in between dry heaves, she called out to Gemma.

"It won't get better." Bran told her as she walked around the back of the bench and sat down on the worn wood. She held the coffee's on her knee's and stared ahead past the court yard and into the street. She brushed back the clump of hair that had fallen in front of her face and bit he lip. " At least, not for the first while."

Gemma looked up, sun glasses slid down on her nose. Two black eyes and a thin stitched up cut on the left side of her face. Her split lip lifted up in a snarl, as she bit out a retort." You don't know what the fuck you are talking about."

"Sit." Bran spit out as she turned to face Gemma, eyes narrowing as she returned Gemma's look with one of her own. " Down. Now."

Gemma must have been worse then she looked, because she did in fact sit down on the bench beside Bran. She took the coffee from Bran's closet hand and fiddled with the lid for a moment. Needing something to do with her hands, more then wanting the coffee. She was suppose to wait in the room intil Tara had come back. But the walls started closing in not long after Clay had come to visit and the lies started to pour of her tongue. She couldn't stay caged in that room, she needed air and space.

Bran turned her body towards Gemma and reached up with her free hand and slid the sun glasses down Gemma's face further. Looking into Gemma's eyes, only intensified the sour feeling in Bran's stomach. She knew, what had happened to Gemma.

Maybe not the particular's, the nitty gritty details but there was only one thing that put that look into a woman's eyes.

"They tell you, it will get better. That you are going to forget, it will fade with time and one day your going not think about it. That the thought of it won't consume you, that it won't eat at your thoughts. But that's bullshit."

Gemma grunts and pulls away from Bran, staring ahead unfocused. "It was a car accident."

"You don't like me." Bran drank the cold coffee as she let the truth hang in the air, " and I don't give a shit. But you can lie to yourself, and you can lie to your family but Gemma, you can't lie to me."

"You don't fucking know me." Gemma turned sharply, and stared a Bran, who when she felt Gemma's hard stare on her returned.

"I know."

The two words hung in the air between the women, like heavy fog in the early morning. Dense and thick, so easy to get lost in.

"Fucking Tara." Gemma snarled, throwing the coffee onto the ground. It splattered with impact and the paper cup rolled away from the bench. She felt so out of control, numb one moment and raging the next. Thoughts darting from Clay, to what happened, how to hide it and did it really even happen. The thought of betrayal from one of the only two people to know other then herself pushed further then she thought possible " I knew that bitch couldn't keep her mouth shut."

"No Gemma." Bran said tapping her on the arm to get Gemma to look at her. Bran needed her to understand that Tara did not betray her confidence but Bran knew because, Bran knew. " I know because I know."

Gemma stared at the younger woman, looked at her face and in her eyes. Her sharp, clever mind working slower to process what the other woman was saying. "How?"

The question hung in the air, it was heavy and it felt like it was a ton of bricks sitting on Bran's chest. The words came out of her mouth, like a dam breaking. Tumbling and stumbling, Bran told Gemma in what little words she could muster how she knew.

"Not long after I was fourteen." Bran started, her mouth suddenly dry. She couldn't look at Gemma, as she felt the familiar feeling of shame creep up her back. " I'd never even kissed a boy."

"Shit." Gemma's eyes left Bran and she shifted her position on her bench, holding her ribs at the sharp pain the movement caused. She needed a fucking smoke. A fucking drink, anything at this moment.

"I know, because that look in your eyes, the only you are trying to hide more then those black eyes behind those sun glasses, is the look I have seen in the mirror for years. I know because I have spent hours over a toilet throwing up nothing. I know because, you can never really scrub that dirty feeling, or the shame off your skin; no matter how hard you wash. I don't know your details, but I know."

Gemma said nothing. Momentarily, casting Bran a look then quickly looking away as if she could see those very moments Gemma was trying so hard to hide.

" I don't talk about it." Bran said, words thick on her tongue. " Never saw the need, but you got to know, it's alright to be fucked up for a while. It's okay not to know how to deal with it."

"I don't want it to be real." Gemma said, voice barely above a whisper. She pushed her hair out of her face and touch the cut on her lip, staring at the blood on her finger tips when she pulls her hand away. She wipes it on her jeans before rummaging through her purse for her smokes. " It can't be real."

"I understand." Bran nods, shifting on the bench and places the last coffee down between them so she could crack her knuckles. A habit she did, when she was uncomfortable. For a moment, the only sound is the street, quiet mummers of people just on the other side of the bushes, going about their day, and Bran cracking each knuckle one at a time. " Because, if it is real, then you have to acknowledge how much it makes you feel weak, which isn't' nearly as bad as it must look to everyone else. Because in your mind, that's all they are ever going to see you as. Weak. Vulnerable. Victim."

The last three words felt like bullets to Gemma's chest. Cutting and ripping through her fragile built walls of defence. Gemma prided herself on being stronger then the men around her, smarter and more cunning. That one moment in time reduced her a victim. Broke her down, to make her feel like the weak, old woman she was not.

Gemma reached for the coffee between them and takes a drink. The stone cold coffee, tasted like shit in her mouth. She turns her head to the side and spits the liquid out before dumping the reminding coffee out over the concret. " This coffee is shit."

"Yeah, I know." Bran agrees as she leans back onto the back of the beach and closed her eyes for a moment, " But, it's the thought that counts."

And that's where Tara found them. Sitting in silence on the bench in the court yard, with shitty coffee soaking into the concert around them.