"It just doesn't make sense," Jax said for what felt like the millionth time, "What could the IRA hope to gain by making Abel go buy a block of coke from the Mayans?"

"Gang member unity?" Abel asked sarcastically.

"Don't be a smartass," He snapped, "And no, because we are cool with the Mayans."

Abel figured he should shut up, Jax didn't want an answer to his question, something about this next request from the IRA was seriously bothering him, and it seemed like the best choice for him was to be quiet and let him work through whatever he needed to.

The way he saw it, compared to selling a shit load of illegal weapons to a different motorcycle club, having Abel buy a block of coke from the Mayans was like a walk in the park, hell to him that was like a walk in the park with Cassidy.

How hard could it be? All he had to do was hand some guy money and he would hand him drugs back.

But apparently Jax wasn't seeing it like that. Either Jax had become extremely paranoid overnight, had something against the Mayans, or really hated something about drugs. And Abel was leaning towards the last option, drugs seemed to piss Jax off to a whole new degree.

So that probably meant telling him the Matthew Kasen story was out of the question.

"Does it matter, Jackie Boy?" Chibs spoke up, "This is something simple, this is something we can easily do."

"Oh yeah let's just send my kid to buy some drugs, there is nothing shady about that. There has to be some other angle here, this can't just be about him buying drugs."

Abel mentally sighed as Chibs quieted down, him and the club didn't agree on much – they didn't know each other, and they had both turned the others' worlds upside down – but what they could all plainly see was that Jax wasn't looking at this with a clear head.

There was something about this task that was really getting to him, there had to be, because he hadn't put this much of a fight up for the gun-running. He wasn't sure what it was, but Abel had a really good feeling that it was about him.

"Jax," Abel tried to reason, "We don't really have a choice, and Chibs is right, how dangerous can buying drugs be? I know you all think I'm incompetent, but I'm still a teenager, and teenagers like to buy things like drugs."

"You don't understand," Jax yelled loudly making him flinch as he hadn't been expecting it, "All of this, it's bigger than you, Abel. Why do you think I let you go? It was to keep you safe, from all of this. I know that it doesn't sound dangerous to you right now, but everything, everything, in Charming is dangerous, including doing teenager things like buy drugs."

Abel blinked slowly as he made his hands into fists, not out of anger, but simply because he didn't know what else to do. They had been dancing around the subject for what felt like forever, they didn't stray away from the fact that he was adopted, but they avoided any and all conversations about how he had gotten there.

He wasn't even sure he was ready to have that conversation, and if he was being completely honest, he wasn't too sure Jax was ready to have that conversation with him either, not with so much going on, not with Abel being a bomb ready to explode at any moment, and Jax worrying about every possible thing that could go wrong in all of this.

This was the first time his adoption had actually been mentioned, and it wasn't what he had thought he was going to hear. Abel had spent his whole life thinking his birth parents hadn't wanted him, to him, there was no other logical reason to give him up, and he was okay with that, he had parents, incredible ones at that.

And then he had come to Charming, and his suspicions had all but been confirmed, they couldn't have wanted him, it wasn't like they didn't want kids, they had Thomas, he figured he had just been too damn broken for them to want, too damaged at birth.

And now here Jax was saying that he had 'let him go to keep him safe', whatever that meant. But that along with Tara saying that she had 'chosen him' was putting thoughts in his head that were dangerous for an adopted kid to have.

Those kinds of words gave a kid hope that they hadn't just blatantly thrown him away like he was piece of trash that they couldn't love, they had an actual reason for giving him up, for not keeping him.

But then he remembered that they had kept Thomas, and if they had truly wanted to 'keep him safe' wouldn't they have wanted the same for their other son?

It all just made no sense to him, and confusion was settling around in his mind, making itself a permanent fixture in his life.

"It's not a big deal, I'll go buy the drugs, drop them off here, or in the river, or the trash, whatever you want to do with them, and we'll call it day," Abel said brushing it off.

"Don't talk about this like it's already decided, we haven't even voted yet." Jax said pointing a finger at him.

"There is nothing to vote," He said in a firm tone – even if there was, the club would have only turned it down for Jax, not for any good reason, "This isn't a task for the club, it's something I have to do, it's my decision."

"Yeah?" Jax raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest – maybe in another world Abel would have found that intimidating, "And who's going to pay for your drugs?"

"I'll pay for it myself," He said simply.

"You don't have any money."

"I have a debit card."

"You can't pay for a block of coke with a debit card, Abel."

"I'll go to an ATM."

Abel realized how he sounded, he sounded like a spoiled asshole who thought he was better than everybody, and could do as he pleased, when he felt like doing so. He was acting like he was the biggest man in the room, and he was untouchable.

And even though he knew he wasn't, Jax's words about letting him go had confused Abel so fiercely that it had caused him to slam the walls he had put up back up but even stronger, he couldn't think about things like being happy in this world, he couldn't think about things like what could have been. They were dangerous thoughts, and he needed to stop thinking about them.

He needed to go back to his mindset of doing whatever it took to get Cassidy back, and then getting the hell out of dodge, it was the only way he was going to survive this emotionally.

Before all this, the idea of his birth parents not wanting him didn't matter, he didn't know them, they didn't know him, and he didn't give a fuck, he liked it that way. But now that he knew them, now that he knew the kind of people that they were, Abel knew he wouldn't be able to handle being rejected from them. Not twice.

"And your parents won't notice you just going ahead and withdrawing that kind of money?"

Another first.

While they had talked about his parents, Jax had never openly pointed out that they were his parents, and he could face repercussions, and questions from them. It was surprisingly a relief that Jax knew so little about his life, and about his family.

"They won't care," Abel said dryly despite the fact that the real answer was no. His parents wouldn't notice, they didn't pay any attention to the money he spent, or what he spent it on, but he figured that would add to the spoiled asshole theory, and he didn't feel like adding any more fuel to that particular fire.

And more than that, that answer would lead to the question 'why' and he really didn't feel like explaining just why his parents didn't care how much money he spent, he was having a hard enough time trying to separate his real life from whatever this was.

"Your parent's don't seem to care about a lot." Jax said stiffly.

"That's not really any of your business is it?" Abel asked.

God he hated this, it was all so hot and cold, so bipolar, one minute he thought Jax could do anything, and the next he was resisting the urge to slam his fist into his face – not unlike the time he had actually done it.

They were taking one step forward and two steps back.

And the problem was Abel never knew what Jax would say – or even what he would say – that would get to him, that would remind him that he wasn't playing happy family here, that shit had happened, and that nothing about this was normal or happy.

He was constantly waiting for the floor to fall beneath his feet, and there wasn't a worse feeling than that.

Other than maybe what he felt the day they took Cassidy.

"No, I guess it isn't. Go buy your coke, Abel, do whatever you want, you seem to be doing that anyway," Jax said finally after staring at him for a long moment.

Just as Abel had slammed his walls back up, Jax had done the same. It was almost scary how alike they were sometimes, and Abel hated that he had to admit that, maybe that's why Jax pissed him off so much, he hated the way Jax acted sometimes, but what he hated more than that, was that if put in the situation he would probably make the same decisions that Jax did.

It was like looking at who he could have become if he had grown up in this town – grown up in this world – and Abel wasn't sure if that terrified him or amazed him.

Whatever smart remark Abel was going to say was lost to him as the phone rang against the wooden table. They all stared at it like idiots for a moment, before Jax finally picked it up with an angry, "What?"

Seconds later, Jax was walking out of the room – still on the phone – to general confusion, and leaving Abel feeling incredibly awkward. Despite the fact that Jax and he tolerated each other on the best of days, Jax was still the only buffer he had between him and the club.

"The kid's right you know," Chibs said, "Jackie Boy isn't thinking about this clearly, we have to get that girl back, the IRA is nasty business, you boys know this, she's already been there for two weeks, we can't let her suffer even more."

"We don't know if they are doing anything to her," Tig said putting a hand on the table, "Maybe we should take a step back and just think about this, try and figure out what they're trying to accomplish. There's FBI in Charming and that's never a good thing – we've had ATF and CIA and DA's – this is the only government agency that hasn't come after us, so why are they doing it now?"

"Chibs is right," Happy said nodding his head slightly, "We saw what those IRA pussies do to people, we need to get that girl out of there."

"You guys realize that girl doesn't mean anything to us, right?" Bobby asked.

This time Abel's fists clenched in anger, but he bit his tongue, literally, he bit it so hard he could taste the bitter, coppery taste of his blood. He couldn't make any more waves with the club, they already didn't like him, he needed to learn to choose his battles.

"Anyone that the IRA harms," Chibs said quietly yet firmly, "Is it important to me. I will not let anyone suffer at their hands if I can do something about it."

Chibs was quickly becoming the only person in the club that Abel even remotely liked – and maybe Happy – it wasn't the fact that he was defending Cassidy, and talking about helping her, it was more about the fact that he protected his own, and he protected what he believed in.

He wasn't scared to be scared of something and yet still do something about it. He was the kind of man that Abel could actually see himself admiring.

"Ethan Zobelle, and the IRA had Gemma gang-raped," Happy pointed out, "Just to get the club's attention, do you really think they are keeping that poor girl safe and unharmed? They already shot her in the knee, so really this conversation is pointless, we know that they aren't above hurting her."

Who was Gemma?

And Ethan Zobelle?

Abel figured he didn't care that much, but it would be nice to know what they were talking about, though he could get the gist of the conversation.

"Point is, we need to be smart about this," Quinn said, "We need to get that girl out, but we need to make sure nothing falls back on the club."

"It will," Jax said as he entered the room again.

"What do you mean?" Tig asked sharply, "What do you know?"

"Not much," Jax admitted as Abel studied him.

He looked calmer now, more relaxed, almost reassured, and that worried Abel, because the only person he could have been talking to on that phone was someone from the IRA, and nobody from the IRA could have anything good to say.

"I talked to Cassidy."

"You did what?" Abel cried making sure he had heard him right, there were a lot of unspoken boundaries in this – whatever kind of relationship it was, but there was a certain boundary that was as clear as day, and that was the boundary between Cassidy and the club.

Jax didn't get to talk to Cassidy, especially not when Abel hadn't talk to her in weeks, not since that first day she had been taken. He couldn't believe that Jax had simply left the room, he hadn't even bothered to tell Abel that Cassidy was on the phone, and then he had simply blurted out that he had talked to Cassidy like it was nothing.

Abel bit his tongue again, blood flowing into his mouth once more, he was getting really tired of picking his battles, and he knew it, he wasn't going to be able to take another bomb being dropped on him, he was surprised he hadn't gone totally crazy at the words that had just escaped Jax's mouth, because truthfully, the urge to drive his fist into Jax's jaw was greater than ever.

Jax shot him a mix between an apologetic look and some other expression he couldn't decipher before continuing on like Abel hadn't said anything, "Apparently this is about me, about ruining my life, or some shit like that."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"How do you not know?" Bobby demanded, "She's our inside man, if she wants to be saved, she needs to do her fucking part."

Abel was done, he was done with all of this bullshit, and he was done with Bobby acting like he was above helping other people, like he was above all of this, like he was above Cassidy, and he was about to prove it, he had been itching to punch somebody – anybody – since this stupid meeting had begun, and he wouldn't mind settling for Bobby.

Even if he was an old man.

But Jax beat him to it, he fixed Bobby with such a cold glare that the gaze itself was more intimidating and impactful than Abel punching him ever would have been.

"If I ever hear you say something about her like that again, I swear it Bobby, I will put you through a wall." Jax said coldly, "I don't ever want to hear any kind of shit about not helping Cassidy again, she is family, and we save our family."

Abel took a step back at Jax's bold declaration, he wasn't sure what Cassidy had said to Jax, or what Jax had said to Cassidy, or how Cassidy had even managed to get on the phone with him, but what he did know was that Cassidy Somers had woven her way into Jax's life, just as easily as she had made her way into his.

He didn't know how Cassidy had managed to win Jax over so completely through a simple phone call, but what he did know was that if there was anyone who could have done it, it was Cassidy.

And he almost smiled at that, even from a thousand miles away, she was still managing to save herself, and in turn him.

"Buy the coke," Jax said turning to look at him seriously, "We're going to do whatever it takes Abel, we're getting her back, I swear it to you."

Able had half an urge to promise the same to Jax, because somehow, she had seemed to become just as important to Jax as she was to him over the space of five minutes.

"I know."

"I may not have been able to save you, but I'm going to save her."