"Juice, come out here!" Mars called from the bar and Juice's dorm door was open, so he heard. He got up and walked down the hall. "Tal's about to spit Kendrick in one go!"

"Mars didn't know that white girl knew how to rap, Juice. Gotta spit some mad bars." Talia smiled as she danced with her headphones on, but she stopped to take them off when she saw Juice's bruised face. "What happened to you?"

"What?"

"Your face looks like it pissed off a honey badger, what happened?"

Juice hung his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "It's nothing, just Brotherly Love."

She didn't understand what he meant by that, so she looked to Mars for an explanation. "When the guys want a new member to toughen up, they'll take him in the garage and wail on him." He explained. "Hell, they've been kicking my ass since I put this leather on."

"That's called bullying." She told them, frowning.

"Tal, really, I'm fine." Juice tried.

"I see no difference between your smile and a ray of sunshine on a rainy day." She recited to him, locking eyes. "You aren't smiling, Juice. You're not okay, you're not fine and what those fucktards did to you isn't gonna fly with me."

Juice looked to Mars for help, but the other man shrugged because he wasn't sure how he could possibly distract Talia at this point. "Tal, don't…" He wanted to tell her not to worry about him or to fuss, but he wanted her to. If there was one thing Juice would admit, it was that he had a hard time standing up to the other Sons when they were beating him down. He's learned to just deal with it and roll with the punches, but he'd be lying to himself if he said there wasn't a tiring weight that came with it. "I'm okay."

"Don't you ever lie to me about what's going on inside your head or your heart, Juan Carlos." Talia sternly told the man.

Juice could feel the sympathy and protectiveness coming from Talia and it warmed his heart, but it wasn't like she could just snap her fingers and make him into the hardcore biker the Sons wanted him to be. Sure, he could hold his own and he'd never run away from a fistfight, but that didn't mean he went looking for trouble or even wanted to.

Before Juice could respond, the door to the clubhouse opened and the remaining Sons began piling into the bar with Jax at the front. Juice saw Talia narrow her eyes at the blond man before she went over to him and as he was greeting her, Talia cocked her arm back and punched him in the jaw, sending him to the ground.

"Jesus, what'd you do to her?" Tig tutted, but he was next in line, so Talia slugged him in the gut before he got a punch in the face and was on the ground too.

~SOA~SOA~SOA~

When Clay and Gemma strolled into the clubhouse, he almost tripped over Jax. His stepson was on the floor, forehead on the ground with his hair veiling his face, on his knees with both hands holding his crotch. Looking around the bar, Gemma and Clay saw a trail of Sons in similar positions, all of them looking to have been badly beaten and slightly groaning in pain.

"Jax?" The blond grunted in response. "The hell's going on in here?"

Jax said something, but Clay couldn't understand a word of it because it sounded like he was talking into a cloth. When he looked at his wife, she shrugged. Clay stepped over Jax and looked at each of his members as he passed them, all of them grunting or groaning like Jax did if spoken to. When he reached the bar, he noticed a pair of sneakers propped against it and leaned over to look at who was on the other side. He found Talia sitting on the floor, lazily smoking a cigarette with her head in Juice's lap as he quietly tapped away on his laptop and Mars was across from her, leaning against the shelves.

"They were bullying Juice." She told Clay and Juice, almost shyly, looked up at his President like a little kid who was unsure if he was in trouble or not. "They beat him, so I beat them and I will continue to kick their asses for as long as they continue to pick on my big brother. They can all go rot in Hell for being assholes."

"Tal...you hit Chibs?"

She sighed a cloud of smoke from her nose. "I know, Clay, but he participated and therefore had to be punished. Besides, it hurt me more than it hurt him."

"No fires?"

"No fires."

"Okay." Clay smiled and clapped his hands, looking over his members. "Shake it off, boys! She's just showing how much she loves you!"

"...Tal?" Juice quietly called her.

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you do that?"

"Juice, I love you, okay?" She honestly told him, watching him blush a bit at her words. "I know that bullying can seriously fuck people up. It can make them depressed or worse, suicidal. If I ever found out that you thought the only way to make yourself feel better was to kill yourself, I don't know what I'd do. I don't wanna lose you, Juice."

"I'm not going anywhere, Tal. I promise." He vowed and they bumped knuckles.

"You too, Mars." She jabbed him on the knee. "I got mad love for you, boy."

"I love you too, Tal." He smiled at her.

"That was really sweet, baby." Gemma commented with a smile. She's been leaning on the bar since Clay went to his dorm, but Talia, Juice and Marshal didn't notice she was watching until she spoke. When they all looked up at her, Gemma was suddenly hit with a wave of maternal feelings. She felt like there were three little babies looking up at her with their big, innocent eyes for guidance and knew that she had enough love for all of them. "These two?" She waved her hand between Juice and the Prospect. "They aren't used to good feedback. Yelling, Brotherly Love and all that painful shit? They understand. They don't need to be alone and it's really good they have some compassion in their lives. You two are lucky to have her. Tell her that sometimes."

Of course, the second that Gemma left, Mars and Juice simultaneously told Talia that they appreciated her and she affectionately called them dorks. She did love these knuckleheads though.

"Gem was exaggerating." Mars said as he got up. "We understand positive feedback."

"She's right." Juice said with a shake of his head. "Mars would be fine, but I'm not good on my own, Tal. My head gets so loud and shit doesn't make sense...nothing syncs up."

"You start thinking about your thinking and get lost in the details of nothing." She finished his thought. "Feels like nothing can make the voices stop, nothing can pull you out of oblivion."

"Talia...are you depressed?"

"Right now? I don't think so. Then again, I'm a teenager, so…" She shrugged. "Have I been depressed before? Yeah. Have I been suicidal before? Fuck, yes. Pretty sure I've got PTSD."

"And you're okay with all that, knowing your head's a little messed up and that you're not exactly like everyone else?"

"If I didn't accept the fact that I am one fucked up kid, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd have flung myself off the roof the day Happy took me home." She said as she stood and he got to his feet too. "Some of my confidence stems from that. Some days, thinking of that keeps me going. You gotta love yourself so no one else has to."