General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, mentions of drug use/overdose, violence/death, racism/gang activity.

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CHAPTER 9: WITHDRAWALS

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Unser sighed as he made his early morning drive to the station, his weakened eyesight struggling in the low light along Highway 18. But it wasn't a struggle that worried him, because soon it would be a struggle of the past - a realization that he remained indifferent to. He had no idea what he was going to do once he no longer had a duty to Clay - to Gemma, but he figured that anything had to be better than compromising his morals twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

But the brief contemplation of his dwindling responsibilities was halted when the street lights of the old utility building came into view. The sight wasn't revolutionary by any means, it was the same sight that he had become accustomed to seeing every morning since he had moved out of the family home and onto a lot just outside of town, but what wasrevolutionary was that this time, it wasn't that same sight. This time, Gemma's Cadillac sat parked outside of what was supposed to be an abandoned building.

He scowled, swerving his squad car off of the road and into the dirt that led to the warehouse that he'd chased kids out of plenty of times, pulling up alongside her pristine black XLR that gave absolutely no explanation as to why it would be there. He stepped out of his vehicle wearily, placing his hand on his gun as he looked around the property that showed no signs of anybody else. Once he was satisfied that he was alone on the premises, he made his way around the vehicles, seeing the same lack of helpful clues on the inside that he did on the outside. He sighed, pulling out his gun as he started up the steps and slid open the rusty old door.

Gemma jerked awake at the sound of the sheet metal screeching against the pavement, her sore eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to pull herself from the bad dream that had her lying in a cold sweat. But as she looked around the empty warehouse and saw her tattered clothing covering the dusty floor along with several bloody footprints, she realized that this had been no bad dream…

She clutched the blanket that had been placed overtop of her half-naked frame when she jolted at another sound, they were coming back. She began to panic, looking up to see that her wrist was no longer chained to the fence. Maybe she could make a break for it.

"Gemma?" She heard the familiar voice - the voice that had been her savior many times...

"Wa-" She tried to call out through the shock, through the fear - a sob escaping her instead.

"Are you in there?"

"Wayn-" She tried again as tears soaked her face. "Wayne!" The plea finally passed through her trembling lips, burying her face in the blanket as she cried. She knew that he would find her.

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Tig woke up in the same unconventional position on top of the bar after only a couple of hours of alcohol-induced sleep. He could tell before he even opened his eyes that he was still thoroughly drunk, and most definitely would not have woken on his own if it hadn't been for the weight that he could feel settling on top of him.

He scowled, cracking his blurry eyes open when the warm body finally stopped moving. Sleeping with somebody on top of him wasn't something that he wasn't used to - Sydney had learned that it was one of the only ways to keep away the nightmares - but this didn't feel like Sydney. He could feel that it was a woman - the tits pressed against his chest made that clear - but this woman felt heavier, bulkier; not soft and comforting like Sydney was.

His eyes finally focused below the bar lights that shone above him, looking down to see the mass of familiar white hair. He sighed, relieved that he had just been too intoxicated to realize that it was her after all, but as he placed his hand on her lower back to pull her closer, he recoiled instantly - sending the woman toppling off of him and onto the floor with a bang that shook the entire bar. Bottles rattled and crashed down to the floor on top of her, the sounds waking multiple passed out partons around the room.

Tig growled at the sweetbutt that had sought him out as a mattress where she writhed around on the floor in pain, cradling her fishnet-covered knee. "Be fuckin' glad it was me and not my old lady." He slurred, still half asleep as he painstakingly pushed himself up to his elbows. He blinked again, trying to beat the pounding in his head before it could distort his already spotty vision as he swung his legs down off of the bar and launched himself towards his dorm in search of his old lady in question.

He stumbled around unconscious bodies until he finally got to his room, swinging the door open while holding onto the handle that threatened to pull him to the ground - finding that his bed was indeed occupied, but not by Sydney.

"What the fuck?" He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, focusing on the large lump beneath his sheets.

"Five more minutes." Donut grumbled with a hearty laugh, pulling Jessica closer as she stirred against his chest.

"What the fuck, man." Tig shook his now throbbing head, squeezing his eyes shut. "You seen Syd?" He sighed frustratedly as he rubbed his temples.

"Thought that was your job." Donut smirked with his eyes closed, not bothering to regard the man who clearly needed a lesson in how to treat his woman.

Tig growled, stalking over to the bathroom where he made to slam the door shut behind him - stopping himself just beyond the threshold. "You're cleaning my fucking sheets." He snarled, yanking the door shut and starting up a sobering cold shower. He needed to wash the beer from his hair before he could do anything.

He fumbled with the buttons on the shirt beneath his kutte, finally flinging the offending garments to the ground, but his forehead creased when they landed with a thud. It took him a few seconds of digging through the pile of spent clothing, but he finally found what had caused the heavy landing: his phone.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he sat back against the wall, realizing that this would be much easier than going on a wild goose chase, half-awake and half-drunk. Flipping it open, he pressed number one on his speed dial, the gentle trilling of the line lulling him back to sleep.

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Unser tapped the steering wheel nervously as he drove a silent, beaten, and bloodied Gemma away from whatever had been done to her in that warehouse - something that had her refusing to unwrap herself from the scratchy blue blanket where she sat in the passenger seat.

"How'd you know I was there?" Gemma choked out, realizing that if she didn't say something, he would.

"I recognized your car… Then a call came in over the radio while I was inside."

Gemma felt her brain trying to pull her face into a scowl, but it wouldn't move. "Anonymous tip?" She surmised.

"Yeah…" Unser only became more confused by her lack of explanation, but abundance of knowledge.

Her eyes trickled down - the only part of her aching body and numbed mind that she had control over. This had been done strategically. They'd wanted her to be found…

Unser narrowed his eyes as she pulled hers away. "You gotta tell me something here, Gemma." He sighed, frustrated by the familiar song and dance that he had gotten so close to escaping.

Gemma remained silent as her eyes darted around, suddenly very aware of her surroundings as they passed the turn to her house. "Where're you going?" She scowled, wincing as she tried to sit up straighter.

" ."

"No." She decided after a moment of hesitation.

"I gotta get you to the hospital?" He shook his head incredulously, wishing that just for once she would stop going against the grain with every chance that she got.

"No hospital." She groaned, narrowing her eyes before a spike of pain as they hit a bump, forcing another wince to her face.

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Tara was jolted awake by the piercing sound of her cellphone, looking around the empty bed before she remembered that Jax had told her he wouldn't be coming home - which was the entire reason she'd placed her ringer on the loudest setting to begin with. She swiped the offending device from the nightstand before it could wake the baby, scowling when she saw the name on the caller ID.

"Hello?" She answered softly as dread crept into every one of her nerves. It had only been a few months since Donna had been killed, and she knew from what Jax hold told her mere hours ago that they had just answered for her death - and there were only so many reasons that she could be getting a call from the Chief of police at 6:00 A.M….

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Tig woke up to the same sound that had put him to sleep, only this time it was louder, and he was on the receiving end. He blinked a few times as his sensitive eyes adjusted to the bright lights in the bathroom, a scowl coming to his face as he realized that he was sitting half-clothed on the floor, and the water was still running.

He shook away the vague memory, looking down at the phone that was still sitting in his hand, quickly recalling why it had been there in the first place and pulling it to his ear in hopes that it was Sydney.

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Gemma didn't do as little as flinch as Tara pressed what had to be the fifteenth alcohol-soaked cotton pad to her bleeding face, her shameful eyes falling closed to avoid her questioning gaze.

"Jax see you leave?" She sighed.

"H-He stayed at the clubhouse." Tara responded shakily as she kept her hands as steady as possible.

Gemma shuddered. It seemed that everybody had stayed in the safety of the clubhouse. "What about Abel?" Her eyes snapped back open.

"I called Neeta." Tara assured her with a soft nod, looking between her and Unser. "Y-you need to tell me what happened, so that I can help you…"

Gemma looked down at the periwinkle coloured robe that surrounded her beaten, bruised, and befouled body. "Use your imagination…"

Tara froze with the gauze against her face. She didn't want to use her imagination. She'd had enough of using her imagination, because her imagination always went to the worst-case scenario - that was the entire reason that Gemma had pushed into talking to Jax. But the look in the older woman's eye told her that she already knew all of that, and for once, her imagination may have been right…

"Maybe we should let her rest a while." Unser interjected once he could see her discomfort mounting, getting to his feet. They all knew what had happened, but saying it out loud - saying it out loud made it real. And he didn't want to be the one to put that crushing reality on the fragile woman that he so dearly and dangerously loved.

"We have to get her to the hospital." Tara insisted.

"No." Gemma shook her head.

"I can't treat you in your living room." Tara shook her head. Not for this.

"I'd have to check in… There'd be insurance and shit and-" She looked back down. "Everybody will know."

Tara's heart smashed into a million pieces as she gazed upon the strongest woman that she had ever met, in the most vulnerable position that any woman could ever find themselves in - no matter who they were.

"Okay." She nodded firmly. "We'll get you dressed, then… We'll go pick up Abel, and I'll sign him in - we'll say we're running more tests."

Gemma looked deep into the glossy brown eyes that had only ever shown her fear, but this morning, they showed her something different. This

morning, they showed her compassion. "You could get fired for that…" She narrowed her bloodshot eyes.

"I'll figure it out." Tara nodded, turning away uncomfortably where she began gathering the pile of bloodied gauze.

"Promise me." Gemma whispered, her tongue jutting out over her split lip. "You won't tell anyone…"

Tara sighed, turning back to face her. "Gemma-"

"Promise." She cut her off.

"Well we gotta tell Clay?" Unser scowled.

"Not Clay." Gemma shook her head. Especially not Clay. "Not Jax… No one." Her voice fell to a desperate whisper that begged their compromise, and it worked as they both unwillingly nodded their heads, and Tara placed her hand over hers. If this was the one thing that they could do to help her, they would.

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"Clay." Tig knocked on the door of the dorm that he knew Clay had retired to, pushing it open when he heard nothing but a groan coming from the other side. He wished that he could ignore this the way that his President clearly wanted to, but the second that he'd heard the voice on the other end of the phone, he'd rushed back into his clothes and bolted out the door - knocking multiple things over on the way.

"Clay." He repeated as he entered the room to see his friend flopped over on the bed, blinking through his still spinning eyes as he kicked the mattress. "Clay!"

"Get out!" Clay groaned.

"Come on, it's Alvarez…"

Clay woke up immediately, lifting his head from the hard pillow. "Alvarez?" He scowled at his Sergeant, reaching for the phone. "Yeah." He sighed down the line.

"Niners came into my hood and took out one of my guys." Alvarez growled.

"How do you know it was the Niners?" Clay almost rolled his eyes as he pushed himself up, reaching for the beer bottle on the nightstand and bringing it to his lips.

"Blew out his guts - got him holding up nine fingers."

Tig paced around the room nervously, the small circles doing nothing for his poor balance. He was anxious to get his phone back so that he could check his call log and see if he had ever gotten through to Sydney, or if she had texted him about going home at some point in the night - because clearly she wasn't at the clubhouse.

"Shit's going sideways out here, man. We're gonna need those AK's - as many as you got."

Clay winced. This threw a huge wrench in his plan to blame the Mayans for Donna's death, and get back into business with Laroy - and he had a feeling that he knew exactly who had thrown it. "I'm sorry, man. I wanna help you out, but this ATF thing's got us tapped." He ended the call before he could get chewed out, whipping the phone against the wall - which Tig ran for, making a mental note to remind Sydney that her fancy iPhone surely wouldn't have survived the blow, while his 'piece of shit flip phone' barely had a scratch.

"I thought Opie tagged that Mayan as SOA." He looked up at Tig skeptically.

"He did, he carved it on his belly." He nodded firmly.

On his belly… He sighed, running his hands over his face. "Get Syd ready, tell her to call Laroy and let him know that shit's about to jump off."

"Yeah… Okay." Tig nodded, hoping that was a task that he would be able to complete, but his faith began to dwindle as he made his way back to his room, scrolling through his phone to see no recent communication with her. He grit his teeth as he mashed his finger into the call button and closed the bathroom door, beginning to shed his clothes again.

But the call went right to voicemail. He sighed, hanging his head as he clutched the sink, forcing himself to look up into the mirror at his reflection - the reflection that made him sick to his stomach.

He showered quickly as the invasive thoughts swam through his still slightly inebriated brain, wishing for more alcohol to dull the pain that he knew would only grow as the trying day went on. It was clear that she had left to get away from him, and he wished that he could blame her, but he couldn't.

He had thought that what he'd needed was an old lady who could handle the club - what he'd always thought was the root of all of his relationship problems. But Sydney had shown him that the club wasn't the problem at all, it was him. He had been the problem all along. He hadn't been a good partner lately - he knew that he hadn't been a good partner lately, and that simple fact usually would've had him retreating back into the shadows of loneliness, pushing anybody else far, far away before he had to live with the guilt of hurting them. But he had stayed with Sydney because she had managed to prove the opposite - that she loved him, that she could handle it, and no matter how unworthy he felt, he couldn't bear the thought of hurting her again.

He stepped out of the shower, toweling his dripping curls as he took a deep breath before reaching for his phone once again, the spicy scent of the body wash that Sydney had gotten him invading his airway and tugging on his tattered heartstrings. The second call went to voicemail, and he began to worry as he dressed himself hurriedly and made his way out to the bar, hoping that he had just missed her among the crowd earlier - pressing redial the entire way there. Ignoring his calls was one thing, but her phone being off was very much another - she'd become glued to that thing in the past months, there was no way that she would let it out of her sight.

"You ready?" He looked up to see Clay sitting on the pool table where Bobby and his welcome-home gift were still passed out, his brow raised expectantly.

"Don't know where she is, man. Won't pick up." He held his ringing phone out for proof.

"You looking for Syd?" He heard a chipper voice that died down significantly - turning to see Half-Sack behind the bar, shrinking immediately.

Clay looked between the shrimpy prospect and his fuming Sergeant. "You know where she is?" He asked the terrified man before Tig could - knowing that he would get a proper answer.

"Uh… Yeah… She uh- She went to Cara Cara." He looked away, avoiding Tig's eyes.

Tig growled as it all came back to him. He snapped his phone shut, thrusting his finger in the air as he advanced on the prospect. "You knew this whole time?" He sneered, his teeth baring behind his quivering lips.

"Woah, man." Half-Sack backed himself up against the wall of liquor bottles. "I didn't know you were looking for her, she left last night." He explained, not daring to utter the remark that had formed on the tip of his tongue about how long it had taken for him to notice her absence - another damning piece of evidence in support of her somber claim.

"And you let her go?" Tig took his collar into his giant fist.

"Tig!" Clay hollered, sparing Half-Sack the beating solely because they were on a time crunch. "We'll go get her." He assured his Sergeant, heading for the door.

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Sydney woke up to a steady breeze rolling through her window, cracking her eyes open with a scowl as she looked around the room that was still dark at the early hour. Her head began pounding immediately, forcing her eyes shut again as she reached blindly towards the nightstand for her phone. But in her search, she found that she was in bed alone - a realization that recalibrated her senses immediately. She sat up, searching the floor for any of Tig's spent clothing that he alwaysforgot to put in the laundry basket, but all she found were bits and pieces of the angel costume that she was still wearing.

She pulled the blanket up to her chest as she reached behind her to close the window, finding her phone sitting on the window sill in the process. She clutched her head, holding down the power button as everything began to come back to her; Donut, the mystery guests, Cara Cara - but she realized as the dead battery icon appeared on her screen that she had no idea how the hell she'd gotten home. She remembered driving there, but based on her condition at the moment, she prayed she hadn't driven back.

She pulled the covers back, shakily getting to her feet as she padded across the room and into the bathroom where she slipped into her robe. When she turned back, she saw that there was a glass of water and two Advil tablets sitting on her vanity - something that she definitely hadn't been able to set up for herself. The tender sight only made her wince, because it meant that she must've gotten really ugly if Tig had been shunned to the couch.

But as she made her way downstairs in search of him, she realized that he couldn't have been shunned to the couch, because somebody else already had. A shiver rolled through her entire body, making her cringe as she laid her glitter-caked eyes on Happy where he slept soundly on his back. She fought the groan that threatened to escape her lips as she balled her fists, digging her long nails into her palms. She didn't know what was worse, the fact that he had slept in her house without permission, or the fact that Tig hadn't.

She crept back upstairs where she quickly and quietly made herself presentable, scraping as much of the glitter from her face as she could while it tingled with the threat of tears, twisting her still tinsel-adorned hair into a low ponytail and securing it up into a black banana clip. She ripped the restricting, strappy garments from her soft and untouched skin - the shiver pushing the sting in her chest further up her throat. No matter how uncomfortable things may have been between her and Tig lately - in the months since they'd gotten back together, they hadn't spent a single night apart.

She tiptoed down the stairs after dressing herself in a black and white flannel that she had opted for rather than her first choice which had been a grey one that belonged to Tig, a pair of black leggings, and an oversized pair of black sunglasses. Her black sneakers sat between her fingers as she carried them downstairs before slipping out the door and bolting to the garage, determined to get away before Happy could wake up - which she knew would likely be seconds after even the faintest sound of the door closing.

She was relieved to see as the heavy garage door lifted, that her car was damage-free, and parked perfectly next to her bike. She fired up the engine, tossing her shoes onto the passenger seat as she high-tailed it out of the neighborhood with no regard for the early hour. She had no idea how Happy was going to get back to the clubhouse, and she didn't care.

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Tig stomped up the front steps to Sydney's house as Clay waited in the driveway, praying that she was there because he hadn't had the balls to open the garage and check for her car in front of his President who would blame him if it wasn't - and he wouldn't be wrong in doing so. He shoved his key into the lock that he was thankful to see hadn't been changed overnight, pushing the door open where he immediately began calling out for her.

"Shut the fuck up." He heard a raspy voice sneering from the living room - a raspy voice that was far too low to be Sydney's. He stalked down the hallway with a scowl, that scowl only deepening when Happy came into view, sitting shirtless on the couch and pawing at his eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" His confusion quickly turned to anger - an anger that, once again, he was thankful for, because it was only going to push him further towards the normality that Sydney was desperate for.

"I went after her." Happy rushed to his feet in defense, his lip turned up as he walked up on the man who dared to question him for looking out for his old lady. "Somethin' that your pussy ass can't seem to do." He spit out bitterly.

Tig stiffened as the deja vu of the recurring conversation set in, only this time, he wasn't giving up. "You don't know shit about what's gone on here." He growled.

"Don't need to." Happy shook his head. "All I know is that my Princess aint happy."

"She's not yours." Tig snarled, his frustration beginning to overtake his accountability.

"Then act like it." Happy nodded firmly, brushing past him and heading out the door.

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