"Sir, they are up for her safety."
"You're not listening to me." Came a frustrated growl. Arika swallowed and furrowed her brow. That voice… "If she wakes up in a cage, she's going to have another panic attack. I have seen it." It wasn't a dream then. Arika blinked her eyes open slowly and found the lights around her were dim, but she could see the figures standing outside of her little ER cubbie.
"You're the reason Fiona is here to begin with." Jason nearly shouted.
"Her name is Arika. Arika Nicole Blake." The blonde biker said loudly, matching his volume. "She's got a scar on her shoulder, she's got scars on her arms, she's got scars all over her god damn body." Jax said slamming a hand on the nurses' station. There was a beeping that accompanied the sudden increase in Arika's heart rate. Jax moved towards her, but Jason grabbed his arm, holding him back as the nurses came to her aide.
"Fiona, sweetie, you're in the ER." The woman said in a no nonsense tone that was supposed to be comforting. Arika put a hand on her belly, closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillows, trying to breathe. She could not lose herself to a panic attack. She couldn't put the baby at risk.
"PUT THE GOD DAMN BARS DOWN." Jax yelled at the top of his lungs. The shout was followed by scuffling but Arika wasn't doing anything but focusing on breathing slow, imagining taking big deep breaths that filled not only her lungs, but the lungs of her baby too.
"Fiona, I'm putting these rails down on this side, I need you to be careful not to roll this way okay?" the uncomforting nurse directed. Arika didn't open her eyes, but nodded. She would feel better when she could move. She needed to move.
-SoA-SoA-SoA-
Opie wasn't exactly sure at what point during the night his prepaid had finally kicked the bucket, but when the cut clad giant flopped onto his motel bed after his shower and turning on the device that had been charging, her was surprised to find that it had been lit up with voicemails during its brief siesta.
'Hey, it's me. Leaving the bar with a nice little redhead. Don't wait up.' Opie shook his head. He didn't think Jax could even keep track of all of the women he'd taken home.
'I found her Ope. I fucking found her. I walked into that house and there she was, and she's alive. I'm on my way to the ER. Call me back.' Opie frowned and sat up a little straighter. Found who?
'Where are you guys, no one is answering their God damn phones. This is serious. I found Arika. Meet me at Auburn Memorial.' Opie was on his feet now, scrambling for jeans as he listened to the last message and Opie snapped the phone shut and threw it at the bed grabbing a shirt and throwing his room door open, not bothering with shoes as he started pounding on the adjacent doors. Clay looked thoroughly unamused as he tossed open the door, a couple of ditzy blondes lounging on his bed.
"Real bad time Ope." He said looking back at the girls. "REAL bad time."
"I just got a voicemail from Jax."
"So take Chibs and Bobby if you need back up and handle it." Clay said plainly trying to close the door on him but Opie put a hand out.
"Clay, he said he found Arika."
-SoA-SoA-SoA-
Jason knew that he wasn't going to be able to keep Jax for the assault charges, but he needed the hot headed biker out of the way before he did something reckless that put Fiona and the baby at risk. His screaming and making demands of the nursing staff was the last thing the stressed out mother to be needed. Then there was all the confusion about who she was. Fiona didn't need that either. She had a life and was on track. Whatever she left behind it was for the best. He saw the scars that covered her arms, the gash through her shoulder still seemed to be tender at times, and god forbid he so much as mention the scar across her shoulder blades. Whatever horrors she left behind her, he didn't want some biker who probably put the scars there to dredge it all back up again. Jason just wanted her to have some space to breathe and process the night's events before Jax was trying to throw his two cents in.
"Excuse me, what happened to the patient in bed 16?" Jason asked as he found the little cubical empty after returning from his run to lock up Jax and get him out of the way.
"The prenatal anxiety case? She was discharged."
"What do you mean discharged? She's pregnant and passing out!" Jason was incredulous.
"She wanted to go, she's cleared for discharge. We let her go. Both her and the baby were fine." The nurse said looking back at her computer.
"So you let a pregnant amnesiac woman who's having panic attacks so bad she's losing consciousness walk out of the emergency room shortly after her ex biker boyfriend starts a scene just up and walk away? Am I understanding that right?" the officer spat.
"The fainting spell was from anxiety, and there's nothing an emergency room do for that. Your wife needs counseling, not triage." The nurse didn't look back up. Jesus Christ, this couldn't be real.
-SoA-SoA-SoA-
When Arika paid the cabbie and climbed out of the car in front of her and Jason's quaint town house she took a deep breath. For the last few months, Arika had played pretend, had played normal. She imagined that the scars didn't exist, and that she and her baby were going to be able to be normal. The truth was though, there was no being normal. Arika was a ticking time bomb. Tonight was proof of that. All it took was a familiar face and her safe little bubble came crumbling down around her. Jason didn't know what he was up against, and she wasn't sure she could even explain it to him. His Fiona was a fairy tale. She couldn't keep up the charade. She had to face what she'd done.
Arika was sitting on the steps with her packed bags when the squad car pulled up into the driveway.
"There you are, thank god!" Jason called as he climbed out of the car. "Fiona, you had me scared to death, why didn't you wait for me?" She didn't move. "Fi?" She looked down at her feet as she heard him approaching. "Fiona, you're freaking me out." He said grabbing her shoulder.
"He's right."
"Who?" They both know who she was talking about.
"My name is Arika." She said softly. "Jason, I'm so sorry." She said, grabbing his hand and holding onto it tightly.
"How much do you remember?" he asked, pushing her hair out of her face. Maybe it was all awful. Maybe it meant she would stay.
"Enough." she said swallow, pulling his hand away from her face and stepping back from him. "I need to figure some things out Jason."
"Figure things out?" he asked incredulous. "What is there to figure out Fi? Haven't I made you happy here? Haven't I taken care of you? You just need to rest. You aren't thinking clearly." he said stepping in again. "If you're afraid, I can protect you, you know that." Arika shook her head, stepping into Jason putting her hands on either side of his face, her baby bump brushing against his torso.
"Baby, you have no idea what kind of protection I need." she said softly placing a soft kiss on his lips. "I have to face this, or its going to haunt me." Arika looked up the street and saw a familiar red sports car turning onto their street. "This is me taking control of the shit before it gets out of my grasp." she said quickly.
"Don't." he said grabbing her and holding her tightly as she tried to back away from him and the car pulled into the driveway. "Don't do this for them Fiona... Arika..." He put his forehead to hers, put his hands on her baby bump.
"See you around Jason." She whispered gently as she picked up her bags and moved toward the car. Jason felt helpless as he watched her go. His hands shook as his ran his willed her to turn around. He mentally begged her to turn around one more time and give him a chance to convince her to stay. She didn't hesitate however. She dropped into the passenger side of the car without looking back.
-SoA-SoA-SoA-
Jax was physically exhausted, but his mind was still running a mile minute as he sat hunched in the corner of the holding cell. He couldn't process the shocks of the previous night. What were the chances of him walking into her house? If he had gone pee before leaving the bar, he would have been within 30 feet and never would have known. He swallowed closed his eyes remembering every tiny detail of her shocked expression. The circles under her eyes had faded away, and her pale skin was glowing. She was well rested and healthy. She was… Pregnant. Jesus Christ, she had gotten knocked up. The reality of this fact settled on Jax like a heavy weight, but the creaking of the heavy security door pulled him from his thoughts.
He sat up straighter as the uniform stopped at the door of the his cell. The bloodshot eyes were shooting daggers at him from the other side of the cage bars. Jax immediately squared his shoulders and raised himself off the bench.
"Here to try and throw another bogus charge on me Dudley Do Wrong?" he growled, the contempt in his words clear as day.
"What did you people do to my girl that broke her so badly? That she forgot her whole existence?" Jason asked in an equally threatening tone. "What did you do that sent her running for the hills the moment you stepped foot in this town?" Jax's guy tightened. Arika was in the wind again?
"You don't know what you're talking about. Me and my club are the only reason she's still breathing. The fact that she didn't wanna play house with you anymore says more about you than us."
"STEELE!" Jason looked up the hallway at someone that Jax couldn't see. "Chief wants you in his office. I'll finish processing the release."
"Aw, did someone upset Daddy?" Jax asked as Jason clenched his fists at his side.
"This isn't over." The blonde smirked and raised his palms to the ceiling.
"Bring it on." The haggard looking officer turned away, and another took his place just a few moments later to let Jax out of his cell.
This officer wasn't as chatty as Steele had been, and that suited Jax just fine. His mind was racing a mile a minute. Arika had taken off again? Was it even Arika who did the running or was it the alter ego that apparently had been living in this Charming rip-off for the last 5 months while he withered away in anguish at the loss. Could he blame her psyche for splintering after all of the trauma that the young girl had gone through before she could even legally drink? Could he blame her alter ego opening up to some pig and getting herself knocked up?
"Jax!" The distracted blonde looked up as he made it out of the station and saw that the MC had been waiting for him. They were gathered around their bikes, waiting eagerly for their VP – waiting for news, waiting for a direction to run in to find their fallen angel. He looked at their eager faces, at Opie who had carried the burden of her loss almost as heavily as Jax had and he felt the sinking sensation of failure.