Gaining Fuel


"Hey, where did you go? I kinda panicked when I woke up to an empty house." AJ said, sitting at the kitchen table, "Not panicked enough to take me away from my morning coffee though." She clarified, holding her mug of coffee as Punk chuckled, walking into the kitchen with Matteo in his carrier.

"I went out to get us breakfast and I woke up to feed him this morning, to let you get some rest." He nodded, sitting the carrier on the table as AJ smiled at Matteo who was sleep and sunk into his carrier comfily.

"Well thank you. I actually did sleep a little better last night." She nodded to him as he smiled, "Why were you at the hospital, though?" She smiled a little, wondering why he was dodging around his real reason for leaving the house early.

"Do you got a GPS on me?" Punk laughed a little.

"Yeah, her name is Renee." AJ smiled as Punk nodded to himself.

He knew he had two options. He could make up a lie and hope that it wouldn't make him feel guilty every time he looked in her eyes, or he could tell her the truth, which he was sure she'd be offended by. Either way, he saw it ending in some kind of dispute.

"I wanted to see your medical records." He nodded. He opted truth.

"What?" AJ shook her head with confusion.

"Yeah, I know it's… it's none of my business but with everything you were saying last night, I just wanted to know that you'd never been hurt, as a kid." He nodded as AJ looked at him, "I don't know maybe you'd forgot about it or blocked it out-"

"I told you. I wasn't abused as a kid." AJ shook her head.

"No, but you were." Punk looked at her, "Taking your kid to the doctors to make sure she's still a virgin is abuse. In every sense of the word." He nodded as AJ looked at him.

"What did you think you were gonna find in those files?" AJ shook her head, "Broken limbs and concussions? I told you I wasn't physically abused, did you just choose to ignore me?" She asked him.

"No, I just think there's a lot you're holding in and I think that woman is more dangerous than I even thought she was." Punk said as AJ sighed to herself.

"How about you just ask me? Don't go behind my back." AJ shook her head. She wasn't angry. She didn't feel like he'd invaded her privacy. It was her husband. She never felt ashamed of him finding anything out about her that she hadn't told him about. She was just upset he didn't just ask.

"I didn't see them anyway. Shauna swooped in and took them from me. Said it was none of my business which I… I now realise." He nodded, "And I'm sorry. I'm just… I'm really worried about you."

"Baby, there's nothing happening to me." She smiled a little, "I'm fine. This is just… ghost stories. I bet you have some. I'm safe now and I'm happy." She nodded as Punk saw the lump she swallowed in her throat.

"And you're frightened your mom is gonna show up here again." Punk nodded, "And you're anxious about what her and Jason were talking about." He pointed.

"Yeah but it'll pass." AJ said, "If you got a hold of my medical files they wouldn't have given you much. I'm a physically healthy person." She smiled, "You would have saw that I broke my ankle when I was five. I fell down the stairs." She nodded, "And you then would have saw that I got stitches when I had Matteo." She said, "And that's it." She assured him.

"That's it?" He asked her.

"Your medical files are probably a lot juicier than mine." She nodded, "You just had to ask me about it."

"I didn't wanna upset you." He sighed, sitting down across from her, "I'm sorry. I just… I hate how she treated you. I hate how she makes you feel." He shook his head.

"Yeah I do too." AJ agreed as Punk looked across at her, "You must think I'm such a basket case. Can't even stand the thought of my own mother. Keeps me awake for days." She rolled her eyes at herself, and she knew she needed to be kinder to herself about the situation.

"I don't. Of course I don't." He shook his head, "I think you've put a lot of this stuff on the back burner for a really long time. And her popping up after being gone for a while has made you realise how she makes you feel." He nodded.

"I hate that I don't hate her." She looked across at him, "Why can't I? Why can't I just flip her off and hate her so much. Be totally unbothered by her and anything she says?" AJ asked, "Like how you are with your biological mom."

"I… that's not the same. I don't hate her. I… have no idea who that woman is." He said, "There's nothing to hate." He said, "This is the woman that was supposed to raise you and love you, give you everything you need to succeed and do well… and she sucked at it. But maybe part of you still feels grateful. Respectful even." He nodded.

"You sound like a shrink." She laughed a little as he smiled, "Maybe. I just have a constant battle in my head about her. I think maybe she did these outrageous things when I was a kid to protect me." She shrugged, "That's a possibility, right?" She nodded as he looked at her, shaking his head.

"No, I don't think so." He whispered as AJ looked across at him, nodding to herself.

"Well that's the conversations I have in my head every day about her." AJ nodded, looking down at her coffee cup, tracing her finger around the rim of the cup. It made her feel like an alien. She knew how it looked. Trying to defend her mother when she was nothing but cruel. She figured it stemmed from the thought of just wanting to be loved.

"Why don't we go out for the day?" He asked her, "We can pack a picnic. Go for a long drive and stop somewhere." He nodded as she looked up.

"You think my head needs cleared?" She teased with a smile. She wasn't consumed enough to not recognise her feelings.

"Well…" Punk shrugged as she smiled.

"Only if you promise you won't go behind my back like an idiot again." She nodded to him as he laughed a little.

"I promise. And I'm sorry. My worrying got the best of me. Shauna wasn't having any of it anyway." Punk shook his head.

"I think she's secretly protective of me." AJ thought about it as Punk smiled. He knew that too. For sure.

"I think so too." He nodded, "She certainly likes Matteo."

"Well of course she does. Look at him." AJ smiled, looking on at Matteo sleeping in his carrier, their favourite and perfect little guy, "You wanna go on a drive with mommy and daddy?" She took a hold of his little foot which had the world's tiniest converse on them. All of his clothes consisted of being the world's tiniest.

"I'll pack us some lunch if you wanna go get ready." He nodded.

"Ok." AJ smiled, "This sounds like fun." She nodded, leaning over and kissing his cheek as he smiled, returning the gesture with a kiss on the lips before she got up to go get ready.


"Hey, how has April been doing?" Shauna asked, walking into the cafeteria at the hospital, spotting Renee sitting having her lunch, which she always promised to her staff that she'd never yell during.

"Fine. Why? Need her back at work?" Renee asked, flicking the page of her magazine she was quickly skimming on her ten minute break.

"No." Shauna shook her head, "No, I'm just curious. Your head can go to the clouds after you have a baby." She said as Renee nodded.

"She's doing fine. A little drama with her mother, but fine." Renee shrugged.

"Her mother?" Shauna asked as Renee nodded.

"Yeah. All families have their… differences." Renee shrugged. She didn't want to say too much. She felt it wasn't her situation to tell.

"I remember her." Shauna thought to herself as Renee looked up.

"What?" Renee shook her head.

"Yeah, I was… I was just like you. In fact I had just started my program here and I always remember her coming by to see her husband. He was a surgeon here." Shauna nodded.

"I forgot you're kinda old." Renee realised as Shauna stared down at her, "I mean… older than me." Renee nodded nervously, "So you knew her mom? And her dad?"

"Oh, no… not very well." Shauna shook her head, "Her dad died not long after I started my program. I would hear the gossip around about him being sick and not telling anyone. Which is hard to do when you work in a hospital, surrounded by doctors every day." Shauna said, "But I always remembered her. She was scary." Shauna nodded to herself as Renee looked at her.

"You should tell April. She'd probably find that kinda cool." Renee nodded.

"I think I saw her one time in here. She was seventeen or eighteen maybe. Just looked like the saddest girl." Shauna said, "Strangest family." She added.

"Yeah." Renee just nodded slowly, watching Shauna come out of her trance.

"Uh… ok, when you're done meet me for rounds." Shauna nodded to her, walking off out of the cafeteria as Renee went back to her lunch.


"Through this door, ma'am." A security guard pointed to a door in front of him as Jeanette pulled it open, "She'll be in booth number eight." He told her.

"Thank you." Jeanette smiled, walking her way into the room, clutching her purse to her a little tighter, as if the jumpsuits behind the glass window could still get to her.

She walked all the way down to the booth she was directed to, other visitors in their booths turning around upon the noise of her heels. She checked the seat before sitting down carefully in the booth which had a glass window in front, a telephone hook to the side for her to pull down and connect to the opposite side of the glass.

She waited several minutes before a brunette woman was escorted to the booth, sitting down across from her, looking at her to see if she could recognise her. She then pulled the telephone on her side to her ear as Jeanette did the same.

"Who the hell are you?" The woman spat. She had a tattoo on her throat, scraggly thick brown hair laying around her face with smokers wrinkles around her mouth, but a pretty face nonetheless.

"Jeanette Mendez." Jeanette smiled, "You must be Nickie Brooks." She nodded as Nickie stared across at her, "I don't believe we've met before."