AN: Please be mindful that Quinn is a mess emotionally. Also, the "poem" in this chapter is just Hayley Williams' song "HYD," butchered by me.

And there's a chair for you where you'd always sit

And we would talk for hours about the dumbest shit

And you would always start my cigarette

Jax didn't expect any special treatment. He didn't want it. He needed to earn his place at the table fair and square like the rest of his former, current, and future brothers. Yet, he felt like he was practically a fucking slave. He knew being a Prospect was essentially being an errand boy. He would be waiting on the guys' hand and foot. Yet, some of the fucking things they made him and Opie do were unfuckingbelievable.

They were glorified maids. Jax was surprised they didn't make him and Opie wear maid outfits. On the worst days, Jax hated his dad and his sponsor, Piney.

Going to college may have been easier, he thought grimly. He would trade in writing papers for cleaning up vomit. He was just so exhausted. He felt like he only got about 4 hours of sleep this week.

He struggled to keep his eyes open after mopping the floor from questionable liquids. He wasn't embarrassed to wear pink frilly gloves that went to his elbows. It was weird, and he vaguely thought he resembled some 50s housewife. It was one thing to know how wild parties could get. He had been to some, even underage, but now he knew that his father had limited his exposure to what it meant to be a club member.

Thankfully, his dad did assure him that he and Opie would be getting a break from their duties. Jax was looking forward to becoming comatose the next couple of days. Opie was in charge of doing the laundry of what they could, considering most of the guys were still comatose. Yet, thankfully, the croweaters had no problem in helping them out. So Opie ensured fresh sheets were waiting for the girls to switch the bedding.

Kyle, the other Prospect, was responsible for all the dishes and the kitchen. Despite Kyle being a cocky asshole, they did manage to work as a team to get shit done instead of it being every man for themselves.

Jax watched with a detached, clinical eye as the dark, murky water from his mop bucket went down the drain. He knew that at least another wash was needed. He didn't want to do it as he was sure the only time the clubhouse floor was clean was when it was first installed. Yet, he didn't want to be living in a nasty germ-infested shithole. This was his father's clubhouse that he started up. This was his legacy. There needed to be some integrity.

So he filled the bucket with hot steaming water and half of the Pine-Sol and rolled his way out to the main room. He reminded himself that every one of the patches started in the same position. Sure, there was roughhousing, but he needed to go through it to strengthen him. He knew mopping up piss and vomit was child's play to what the club got entangled with.

So he mopped the fucking floor with a smile on his face.

On days when he didn't want to be subjected to his father's and grandfather's inquisitive eyes, he made his way to Lumpy's. It was the only place that he felt close to with Quinn. He knew this was one of her safe havens outside of the library. He was going there too occasionally. He hasn't had much time to read lately but has picked up several books since she left.

Yet, Lumpy's had someone who knew Quinn in a different context. He found himself going to Lumpy's at least once a week and speaking with Missouri to learn how Quinn was doing.

He hadn't spoken to Quinn since her last day at the garage. Even then, it had been stunted and awkward. Her hair was still that pretty teal. He gave her a blank journal for her writings and wondered if she even used it.

Missouri would give him some crumbs. Quinn kept in touch with her. He knew that Missouri was telling Quinn about his visits. She had to be.

He went to the regular seat he knew was in Missouri's section. She served him like she did Quinn. They didn't need to communicate, and he never strayed from his usual.

She came over with the coffee pot. "You too young to be drinking all this coffee."

Jax gave her a small smile as he grabbed the sugar. She scolded him like a mother. Speaking with Missouri brought the ache of grief he had for his mother. He wondered what his mom would think of the man he was becoming.

Would she be proud of him?

"Thank you, Missouri."

She left him alone while she tended to her other customers before returning to the table. She didn't sit—she never did—but she pulled out a laminated piece of paper.

"HYD" by Quinn Love

The air is quiet and

the sky is blue

I can't help but be reminded of you

How your eyes are shut so you cannot see

Just how very close I keep you to me in

that dark little place you have made

never thought I'd see the day

you would choose your fear over me

I wonder how you view me

On a night like this

there's a chair for you where you'd always sit

we would talk for hours about the dumbest shit

you would always start my cigarette

I wonder if you ever quit like you wanted

I bet you did, I bet you did

I bet you did, I bet you did

How you doing?

Jax felt his heart rattling around as he read her poem. He wasn't an idiot. He could read between the lines.

"You can keep it," Missouri told him. "Made that copy just for you. Our girl got her first poem published."

Jax didn't know what to say. He felt the poem said more than Quinn ever told him aloud. Maybe he should have asked to read one of her poems to know what was happening inside that pretty head.

"You know you could always write or call," she encouraged. She always encouraged him to make the first move. But god, Jax tried initially, and Quinn shut him out at every turn.

He could only take so much rejection, and now she wondered how he was doing.

Jax had wanted to stay home and mope. He had been re-reading Quinn's poem non-stop. It was his only way of being close to her since she left. He even dragged his grandfather out to buy him a scrapbook to put it in. Nate said nothing of the matter. Jax had been hesitant even to let him read the poem. The only thing Nate had said was that there were great things ahead for Quinn and that he needed to ensure he got them all.

He planned to stay home with Nate, maybe finally learning to take care of flowers. Since Quinn left, he had been caring for the plants she bought for the garage. Instead, Opie had convinced him to take the house trip to UC Berkley to visit Donna. She got a scholarship there for Education. Donna wanted to be a teacher and eventually work her way up to potentially being a Principal.

Jax didn't want to admit he felt jealous that Opie was managing the long-distance relationship, even if it was only an hour difference. But he didn't want to go because going to Berkley meant running into Quinn.

He did go, though; despite the hour difference, life is very different on the college campus. Jax met a lot of people—pretty girls while he followed Opie and Donna around. Yet, he was too preoccupied mentally with running into Quinn to barely pay attention to the girls asking about Charming and his kutte.

Jax decided to take a breather outside and was coming to the conclusion he needed to get his shit together when he saw her. She was walking down the street carrying multiple bags, and from the sound, he could tell it was alcohol. She walked right past him without even registering his presence.

Her hair was purple now.

"Quinn?"

He watched her stop and turn to look at him hesitantly before her face lit up in recognition. Then she smiled at him. Her teeth were exposed, pulling at her cheeks.

"Jax!"

She walked closer to him. She was wearing a mini checkered shimmery dress with knee-high black boots. Her hair was in loose waves. She looked happy, which made his chest ache. He was glad she seemed happy—he wanted her to be. Yet, all he could think about was her poem. Maybe her poem was her way of letting things go.

Her arms wrapped around him. The best she could with the alcohol weighing them down. She still smelled like oranges and summer. He didn't want to let her go.

"What are you doing here?"

Jax pulled back and nodded to the building he just come from. "Opie came to visit Donna."

And on queue, the two come out of the building. Both are smart not to say anything. Jax wasn't stupid; he knew Opie was probably telling Donna everything that was going on between him and Quinn.

"You guys doing anything?"

Jax shrugged and turned to Opie and Donna.

"I'm having a party. You guys should come." Quinn offered with that pretty smile of hers.

There was no objection as they followed Quinn. There was some small talk amongst them. He learned that Quinn and Donna didn't see each other much on campus. Although he got the sense that it wasn't due to their majors.

As they walked, he noticed the area became more affluent. Sometimes, he forgot that Quinn was Elliot Oswald's stepdaughter. Quinn was raised with money.

They reached a two-story house. Jax assumed it was a frat house but learned it wasn't. It was a house that one of Quinn's friends rented. The yard was filled with people, and even more were packed in the house. They all cheered, seeing Quinn with the alcohol. He didn't see how her few bags would last three minutes. Yet, it seemed it wasn't for the whole party, only a few.

His stomach dropped as a dark-haired boy wrapped his arm around Quinn's waist and kissed her. Worse, he felt sick watching Quinn return the kiss and smiling as she pulled away. She whispered something in his ear, and the man's dark eyes turned to him.

"Jax, this is Stephen, my boyfriend. Stephen, this is Jax. He's from Charming."

Jax didn't like Stephen. He could admit it wasn't from his feelings towards Quinn, but the dude just screamed he was a pompous asshole. But he would play nice. He didn't think he would ever see the man again anyway.

Instead, he took in his surroundings. It reminded him of the MORP parties. It didn't seem like this would even be Quinn's scene. It didn't seem like he knew who Quinn was anyway.

He somehow found his way to the roof of the house. He was tempted to light a cigarette but thought about Quinn's poem. He was trying to quit, but now it seemed impossible.

"So you didn't quit."

Jax huffed as he turned to look at Quinn, slowly approaching before she sat beside him. She brought her knees up and placed her chin on them. He wanted to kiss her, but he no longer had that privilege.

"So Stephen, huh." He sounded bitter, and he didn't care. He wasn't in the mood for fake pleasantries.

"He's…different," she settled on. He didn't even know how to decipher that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. "How's Miriam?"

Jax snorted. "She dumped my ass."

"Sorry."

"It was a long time coming anyway." With that, he looked at her. He truly looked at her. They both knew the truth of the situation. Quinn was the first to break eye contact as she looked into the night.

"We…we shouldn't have never…we shouldn't have done things the way we did," she admitted. "I shouldn't have allowed myself to be some…sweetbutt."

Jax felt that sliver of jealousy fades rapidly at her words. He felt shame that he allowed Quinn to feel that way. He should have done better and been honest with both her and Miriam. "I never…I never meant for you to feel that way."

"But I did, and I allowed it." She said simply. There was no anger or even sadness in her tone. She said it so casually, as if they were discussing the weather.

Jax didn't know what to say. He wanted to ask if she had gotten that one voicemail, but he didn't. It didn't make a difference in how things played out. It didn't change she was here with Stephen, and he was a prospect in Charming.

He even wanted to tell her that he missed her. Yet, that seemed too raw and vulnerable.

"I read your poem."

She didn't seem surprised. He imagined Missouri told her that she gave him a copy. After all, Missouri's loyalty was to Quinn.

"What did you think?"

He didn't know if sad was the right word. Maybe it was longing, or better yet, it was grief; she had moved on to grieving their lost relationship.

"I don't think I'll ever quit smoking."

Quinn snorted before they both laughed. Things could get better.

The sound of Stephen snoring woke her. She squinted at the clock and found it was only 9 in the morning. She did not get enough sleep, but sleeping in or with Stephen in his bed was never comfortable. She was thankful he wasn't crowding her, and his sour morning breath wasn't in her face.

He was on the opposite side of the bed, lying on his chest. Getting out of bed was easy. She was grateful she had the hindsight to pack an extra bag. She didn't want to leave his place in the mini dress she had last night. She slid on a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt. She faltered as she didn't realize she had grabbed one of Jax's SAMCRO shirts.

She wasn't going to think about Jax. Not this early in the morning, anyway. She didn't know how she would handle having him back in her life in any capacity or if she even wanted him to. Besides, his being up here for one weekend didn't mean anything to her in the long run. His being here could have just been a one-off thing.

Waking out of the bedroom, she cringed at the mess left over. She tried to curb the garbage last night, but bottles were still everywhere. The snack bowls spilled, and food was crushed onto the floor.

She made her way into the kitchen and searched for some cleaner. She knew she couldn't leave without cleaning something up. Stephen would bitch about it despite him already hiring a cleaner to do a deep clean. This was a repeating pattern with him since they got together. Stephen didn't shy away from the fact that he had money.

His main personality trait was him throwing around how much money he had. If he wasn't doing that, he was throwing a party. To her, it appeared attending college was all just about appearances.

She knew he was paying someone to do most of his coursework.

The kitchen was the easiest room to clean; she only had to fill three garbage bags. Thankfully, the extra trash cans Stephen did have were used appropriately. The living room took longer since she knew Stephen would not appreciate her running the vacuum while he slept. She knew that cleaning upstairs would have to be handled by the cleaners.

The downstairs wouldn't be hard to tackle. She finished throwing away the last garbage bag and washed her hands in the sink when Stephen finally walked down the stairs. He gave her a sleepy smile. She tried not to grimace as he didn't brush his teeth before searching her out.

"You want to join me in the shower?"

"So, who's Jax?"

Quinn froze as she entertained her apartment. She shared an apartment with her roommate, Michelle. Elliot had offered to rent a place just for herself, but Quinn, at the last minute, didn't want to live alone. She had been alone her whole life. If she was leaving Charming, she needed to make some changes. She needed to put in the effort. Luckily, Michelle, a Linguistics major, got along great.

They lived in the middle of the campus, so it wasn't a far walk to get to places they needed. Quinn didn't require the use of her car that much, so she was saving some money on that end even though Elliot was more than generous with the allowance he gave her.

She didn't see the need to flaunt her wealth around as Stephen did.

"You met him?"

Michelle gave her a Cheshire grin. Her brown hair was pulled into a sloppy bun, and her brown eyes were bright and cheery. Quinn wouldn't have even suspected that Michelle was partying hard last night.

"Now, in all the months we've been living together, you never mentioned being friends with a Jax. A Jax who is fucking gorgeous, by the way."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "His ego doesn't need to get any bigger."

"Oh, so those baggy jeans are hiding some enormous treasure," Michelle commented as she licked her lips.

"Do you only think about sex?"

"Most of the time, but I am trying to figure out girl code here. He is a biker, a distant relation to Brad Pitt, and he has a big dick…."

"I never said his dick was big."

"So it's small?"

"No, it's not small."

Michelle squealed. "So you two have fucked! I should have known with the way he was eying Stephen." Then Michelle looked at her in triumph. "Besides, now I know where all these SAMCRO t-shirts you are wearing came from."

Quinn's cheeks turned pink. "Things between Jax and I…got complicated. We used to be friends…"

"And instead of talking, you guys did some fucking."

Quinn smacked her lips together and nodded her head. It was the simplest explanation.

"Well, since I can't fuck him," Michelle started with a glimmer in her eyes. "You gotta give me the details."

Quinn decided to oblige as to the worst thing that could happen. Besides, wasn't that the point of having a roommate? She could finally gossip and engage in girl talk. Maybe things wouldn't have gone as they did in Charming if she had just had someone to talk to.

She felt like a different person in college compared to Charming. She talked more and was engaged in things. She stood her ground better, especially regarding some male writers in her classes.

She was on the verge of wanting to start an all-women writing club so that they didn't have to sit with hearing how a man wanted to murder women every class. There was no variety and nothing more creative than being slit in the throat.

She tried to tell Stephen about her thoughts and ideas. She just wanted some encouragement.

"He is just an arrogant asshole, and it is not our fault his shitty personality can't land him a girlfriend," Quinn seethed.

Stephen was sitting on the couch with a glass of wine. "You said this is Collin?"

"Yeah." She confirmed. She didn't care that he and Collin were buddies or whatever. Collin was a fucking asshole.

"So you can write about some boy breaking your heart and making you so sad, but Collin can't write how some woman made him fucking angry?"

Quinn frowned. That was not the point she was trying to make. It wasn't at all. After all, there were so many topics one could write about. There was no sense of creativity in the writing. It was all plain.

"It was uncalled for that you called his mediocre work something a 12-year-old would write after being caught masturbating by his step-sister. Then proceed to correct yourself and say maybe not a 12-year-old because they are more creative than that."

Stephen placed his wine glass down. His lips were stained red. Both of his hands gripped her face. "If women went to college to find husbands, you would still be a spinster."

He placed a kiss on her lips. "You need to apologize to him."

Quinn had the apartment to herself. Michelle had left for some party and told her not to wait up. She had debated touching up her faded purple hair, but she didn't even know if she wanted to stay purple. Her roots were coming in big time, and she didn't know if she could commit to the purple with the blue undertones.

So she lay in bed, barely paying attention to what was on the screen. She had no inspiration to write or really to do much of anything.

She grabbed her phone and scrolled through multiple apps and websites. She couldn't find anything of interest.

She didn't know what made her do it as she searched for the name she hadn't called or texted in months. A number she had actively ignored. She didn't expect him to text back quickly. She could read clearly that he was a Prospect. She knew how time-consuming that could be.

She didn't expect him to call in reply to her text in a matter of seconds.