Jax stood beside Opie in front of the closed auto shop, casually finishing off the cigarette pinched between two of his fingers while his other hand was tucked into the pocket of his jeans. His eyes tracked Clay’s steps across the lot as two police officers escorted him to the back of the police car, his hands cuffed behind his back. It took everything inside of Jax not to call out to Clay, itching to taunt him one last time. But just before Clay climbed into the backseat of the police cruiser, he glanced over to where Jax stood smoking near the garage. 

Jax pulled the cigarette out from between his lips, blowing out a cloud of smoke that drifted up into the dark sky. His hard stare met his step-father's before one corner of his lips slowly drew back into a satisfied, triumphant smirk. Because he’d won, and Jax wanted to remember this moment. He wanted to sear it into his brain so when he finally found you, he could give you a detailed retelling of the look crossing Clay's face when he realized that he was finally getting what he fucking deserved for all the shit he’d done over the years.

Jax flicked his spent cigarette to the ground, shifting his attention away from Clay as he was shoved into the back of the car. He crushed the smoke beneath his shoe, grinding it into the pavement. While he still wished he could be the one to personally end Clay for everything he'd done–for everything he'd taken and tried to take from him and the others–he knew he'd have to settle for this quiet vengeance. Because it wouldn't be long until Clay was transported to Stockton prison where Jax had exchanged a favor for a favor. 

As the police climbed back into their cars, the Sons began to gather around Jax. Because with Clay gone, he'd moved up in rank–the proof soon to be stitched onto his leather. Looking around himself, Jax could see the frustration and confusion on his brothers’ faces. Clay’s arrest had come as a shock to everyone but himself, Opie, and Gemma.

“What're we gonna do about this mess?” Tig asked, eyes on Jax as he gestured a hand across the lot to the police cruiser. “He's looking at life in prison for this shit.”

It took a considerable amount of control for Jax to keep his expression neutral and not to laugh as the police cars began slowly pulling out of their compound. Clay would've been fortunate to even be looking at that long. He was lucky if he had a week.

“I called Lowen already,” Jax began, attempting to quell the guys’ fears. “She said the DA has DNA evidence all over the scene and the bodies. They even got a murder weapon with his fingerprints on it.” He shrugged, continuing with a shake of his head as he attempted his best to fake sincerity. “She said it sounded like a clear cut case.”

“She say if they're giving him bail?” Bobby questioned.

Plastering a faux somber expression onto his face, Jax shook his head again. “Nah, not for what he's getting picked up on,” he replied. “Lowen is certain the judge assigned to his case is gonna deny it because of his history.”

Tig cursed loudly, running a hand through his dark hair in frustration. The tension among the Sons was palpable as Jax’s gaze passed over each man. Except for Opie, who'd helped Jax tip off the police and practically handed them everything they'd needed. Hale had been all too happy for a chance to take Clay off the streets for a crime he’d actually committed.

“We’ll do what we can to secure him protection inside,” Jax informed the guys. He shrugged a shoulder again, still putting on a show like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. “But that might be all we can do. We won’t know more until Lowen does.”

The heavy tension still hung thick in the air around the group, Tig and Juice staring down at the end of the lot where the police cruisers had disappeared a minute ago. Chibs had begun pacing in front of the garage, one hand running back and forth across his mouth like he was deep in thought, while Happy stood there against the building, a cold look in his eyes as he stared off into the distance. Jax glanced over at Opie beside him, his best friend wearing his usual stoic mask to cover up his own true feelings about what they’d done. While both men had admittedly felt some level of guilt at making this call–especially behind the club’s back–Clay had it coming. He’d been wielding his power too freely for too long.

Bobby let out a sigh before making his way over towards Jax, a grim look on his face. Jax shifted his focus over to the man who’d soon be the new sergeant at arms after Jax had made Opie his vice president. He had a feeling he knew what Bobby was about to bring up, and he tried his best to hide the fact that he was itching for the news.

“Probably not the best time,” Bobby began solemnly, “but you said you wanted me to reach out to Precious and get you in touch with Colletti to find your missing girl, right?”

Jax nodded in response, struggling to keep his emotions in check. He had asked Bobby a few days ago to reach out to his ex-wife's current husband, Sergio Colletti. The man was a decent bounty-hunter and possibly the only person Jax could think of who could track where you'd disappeared to over these past couple of weeks. He needed someone who could access more than what Juice could, someone that could actually pick up on your trail to find where you could've gone because you’d clearly been covering your tracks too damn well. He assumed you’d been doing such a good job of it because you were afraid of Clay finding you. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Yeah, you hear back?” Jax asked him.

“He said he'd set up a meeting with you,” Bobby told him. “Tomorrow afternoon. Look, I know the timing isn't great–”

“It's fine,” Jax said, cutting him off. “I can handle the Clay shit and still meet with him. I'm not abandoning my girl, Bobby. She’s been gone for two weeks now without a word. I need to fuckin’ find her and make sure she’s alright.”

Bobby nodded, that grim look still spread over his face. By the way he was standing there still looking at Jax, he knew this wasn’t the end of the conversation. All he’d told to everyone–besides Ope and Gemma–of your disappearance was that you’d mentioned being threatened before you’d disappeared. And now, he was going to pin that threat and Clay’s messy crime scene that led to his arrest on Lin and his men. They’d already been in the middle of some shit with the Triads, it wouldn’t be hard to pass it.

“Think it’s all connected?” Bobby asked, voice dropping lower. “Your girl and this shit with Clay?”

Jax made a face, shrugging his shoulders a little. “It’s gotta be,” he answered. “No way Clay was that goddamn messy dealing with that warehouse problem. And someone scared my girl off. Gotta be Lin and his guys.”

“Guess you got your hands full of shit to sort through already, pres,” Bobby said with a sigh, clapping Jax on the shoulder. “But you know we got your back. With your girl and all this other shit.”

Jax nodded at him, his eyes briefly flickering to Opie before returning to Bobby. “Yeah,” Jax replied. “I know, brother.”

Sitting on the couch at your best friend's place, you were scrolling through a listing of jobs in the area on your laptop once again. You needed something with health insurance before your pregnancy started showing and no employer would want to hire you knowing you'd be on maternity leave in a matter of months. 

You needed money. You couldn’t just keep crashing at Lauren’s place out near Modesto trying to hide from Clay. Her apartment was only about an hour outside of Charming and you weren’t entirely sure if that was far enough to keep Clay from following through on his threats. Which is why you’d been using cash whenever you needed to make a purchase over the past couple of weeks, but you couldn’t keep that up. And you couldn’t keep relying on Lauren even if she’d been more than happy to help you after you’d showed up at her door and told her everything.

You’d long since tossed your old cellphone, uncertain if Juice was capable of tracking it. Though you figured Clay probably knew a guy who knew a guy if he really wanted to find you, so you’d bought a prepay from the store that you’d been using instead. Considering how poorly things had gone when you’d tried to ask Jax for help the last time you’d seen him, you hadn’t tried to reach out to him at all, either.

You’d been curious to know how he’d reacted to your sudden disappearance. You imagined he’d been upset because you knew Jax wasn’t a heartless asshole, he’d have had to feel something when he’d realized you were gone. But had he assumed you’d taken that final argument as some sort of breakup and just moved on? Had he even tried to find you? Had he figured out why you’d left and what you’d been trying to tell him in the first place? 

But honestly, none of that even mattered because you and your unborn baby weren’t safe as long as Clay was around. He wanted to pull Jax deeper into the club, and you were already ruining that by taking up his attention. Adding a baby into the situation would only make it harder for Jax to have the singular focus that Clay demanded from him. He’d never let you back into Charming, especially not while carrying Jax’s child.

Absently picking up your glass of water beside you, you tried to stomach a few sips of the cool liquid. By now, the morning sickness had hit you in full force. There were only two periods of the day where you could reliably manage to get food into you–briefly around noon, and just around dinner time. Any time other than that? You wanted to be sick. Even water sometimes had your stomach churning.

And almost everything smelled off to you. Even your own scented soaps had your nose scrunching up in distaste when you took a shower. Food wasn't any different. The only thing that didn't smell weird was cigarette smoke, but obviously you weren’t walking around finding smokers outside just to deeply breathe in their toxic secondhand smoke. But it reminded you of Jax. Of safety and comfort and how things used to be months ago before Gemma and Clay had turned you both on each other.

Setting the glass of water back down onto the coaster on the coffee table, you heard the familiar rumble of an approaching motorcycle outside of the apartment building. Your focus returned to the laptop in front of you as you continued to scroll, searching for an opening somewhere that sounded promising. While Lauren was at work during the day, you’d been here applying to jobs online in between the napping and the puking. 

You stopped scrolling when your eyes landed on something that looked interesting–a fairly decent paying receptionist position that you were qualified for after working as Teller-Morrow’s office manager. Opening the page, your eyes scanned across it as you began reading about the position while trying to ignore the constant fatigue that came with the first trimester of pregnancy. 

You’d only gotten halfway down the page when you heard a knock come from the door of the apartment. Pausing, your eyes narrowed at the screen in front of you. That was strange because Lauren obviously had a key to her own apartment and she wouldn’t need to knock. If she’d somehow forgotten her keys, she had the number to your new phone and she’d have called you. 

Your attention drifted over the top of your laptop screen, lingering on the apartment door that someone was currently standing outside. A slow, steady stream of fear began to flood you as you felt your pulse increase along with your thoughts. Had Clay finally found you? Had he sent Tig after you because you hadn’t gotten far enough away from Charming? Was he here to kill you this time?  

Closing your laptop on the coffee table, you cautiously rose from the couch while your eyes remained on the front door. Padding softly across the wood floor in your friend’s apartment, you moved as quietly towards the door as you could. With each step closer, your heart beat harder inside of your chest, your breath nearly stopping when you finally reached the door. You placed a hand flat against it before leaning in close enough to look through the peephole and out into the hall, fully expecting to be met with the sight of a gun barrel–but it was Jax.

Taking a step back, your brows deeply knitted together in confusion. How had he found you? You had been trying to avoid using any possible way to trace yourself, he shouldn't have been able to track you to Lauren's. But despite your surprise at seeing him standing there in the hallway, you were grateful it was him who'd found you instead of Clay.

You pulled back the deadbolt before unlocking the door, swinging it open a second later. You’d somehow expected not to still see him standing there–somehow thinking you’d imagined it–but the moment the door was open, his eyes locked right onto yours. 

It felt like time had completely stopped. Both of you just stood there in silence for a long, drawn out moment simply staring at each other. What felt like an eternity later, you finally remembered to breathe as your hand tightened around the door handle. In the growing silence, Jax’s eyes began scanning you over, a myriad of emotions passing over his face in rapid succession that it was impossible to tell exactly what he was feeling. 

Your own eyes took in the state of him in return. He looked exhausted. There were dark shadows underneath his eyes and his hair looked messy in a way that had nothing to do with having just been on his bike. His facial hair had grown out, like he hadn’t bothered with it since you’d left a couple of weeks ago. He smelled very much like cigarette smoke, but instead of the intensity of the scent making you nauseous like everything else, you found yourself struggling not to just step forward and bury your face into his chest, letting the smell of him surround you while you sobbed against him.

You’d missed him so damn much these past couple of weeks. But you were still incredibly fucking pissed off and hurt over that last argument and the way he’d reacted to you. Jax had never been so cruel and cold in the past. You hadn’t recognized him that night. And in the days since then, you’d still wondered if maybe he’d gone and spent that night with someone else after he’d left.

Eventually, Jax’s eyes returned to your face and you caught the way his lips trembled. He looked like he was struggling to keep himself composed–which was not like the Jax you knew. 

“I fucked up,” he breathed out, finally breaking the silence. “I fucked up so goddamn bad, baby. I don’t even–”

He broke off, his head dropping guiltily as he shook it. Gripping the door tighter in your hold, you refused to let him inside the apartment and off the hook that easy. But when he raised his head again, you had not expected to see the tears welling in his blue eyes. The sight of the raw emotion on his face hit you right in the chest like a physical blow.

“I’m sorry,” he continued, voice thick with emotion. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry. And I know that’s not even enough to begin to cover all this shit, but it’s the goddamn truth. I fucked up that night. I was tired from the bullshit Clay had me dealing with earlier, I wasn’t fucking thinking when I came to your place. And I…” He trailed off, wincing as he looked away from you. “I shouldn’t have treated checking up on you like it was just another damn job I had to take care of that night.”

His gaze dropped down to the hallway floor outside of the apartment, his eyes briefly closing as guilt and shame washed across his features. This was easily the most vulnerable you’d ever seen Jax. He looked like he was near tears, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“You needed me,” he said, his words suddenly so quiet you had to strain to listen. “You needed me and I let you down. And I can’t change that. I can’t go back and fix that.” 

Jax sniffed hard before he looked up, his expression shifting as his eyes met yours again with an intensity and determination you’d never seen suddenly reflecting back at you. He took a step closer towards the doorway, an earnestness in his words as he continued.

“But I have spent the past couple weeks trying to make it right,” he assured you. “And I promise I’ll never let you down again, baby. Either of you.”

His eyes dropped down to your stomach and for a second you were confused before it fully hit you. The realization felt like a weight slowly lifting off of your shoulders.

“You know?” you asked him.

Holding your gaze again, he nodded. “Broke into your place when you wouldn’t answer the door or the phone for a couple of days,” he confessed, a sheepish smile creeping onto his face. “Found a box for prenatal vitamins in your bathroom garbage can.”

Chewing your bottom lip, you tried to take a steadying breath. So he knew you were pregnant now, and he wasn’t freaking out, either.

“That wasn’t how I wanted to tell you,” you admitted quietly. 

He nodded once again, that small, sad smile still on his face. “I figured, darlin’.”

Hand still gripping the door tight as if it was a lifeline, you tried to process what he’d just said. So he’d known that you were pregnant this whole time you’d been gone from Charming? But then something else he’d just said passed through your mind again and your brows drew together in confusion.

“What do you mean you’ve been trying to make it right?” you asked him slowly. “Trying to make what right?”

“The shit with Clay,” he answered. “Took me far too goddamn long to realize what was goin’ on that night. That he’d threatened you. That he’d done it while knowing you were carrying my child.” He paused, his jaw clenching in anger briefly before he shoved it back down. “So while I’ve been trying to find where you’d disappeared, I was also trying to make Charming safe for you both. Because darlin’, I want you to come back. You don’t belong out here.”

You shook your head, the confusion still written on your face. “Make it safe how, Jax?” you questioned. “Clay isn’t just going to let me come back to Charming. He’s not–”

The sentence died in the air when Jax’s hand reached up, grabbing part of his kutte and lifting it up towards you. The gesture caught your attention, your eyes dropping down to the patches. Almost immediately, you noticed his ‘vice president’ patch had been replaced by one that simply said ‘president.’ You stared at it, trying to make it make sense.

“Clay was arrested almost a week ago,” Jax began, speaking slowly and clearly. “Left a lot of evidence behind at a warehouse where the police found a few bodies. Pretty clear cut case. Judge didn’t grant him bail so he got transferred to Stockton prison to wait for trial.” 

Your eyes gradually left the patch on his kutte, slowly making their way up to meet his again. He didn’t falter as he continued.

“He was attacked in the cafeteria yesterday afternoon,” he told you. “Got a call from Lowen. Stabbed a few times by a couple of guys. Bled out.”

Mouth opening in surprise, you stood there staring at him. You didn’t know how to react to that, but something in the way Jax was looking at you, after what he’d said about making things right, had you knowing that he was somehow behind Clay’s death. Jax had a hand in it. 

“You…?”

You couldn’t even finish the thought. Half of you felt a wave of relief crash into you, your past few weeks of worrying now feeling like it was finally at an end. Clay wouldn’t be after you now, you wouldn’t have to worry about him. But the other half of you felt a little nauseous at the thought, knowing you somehow played a part in it, too.

“He had it comin’ for a long time, darlin’,” Jax assured you as if he could see what you were thinking just by the look in your eyes. “Got away with too much for too long, trust me on that. But now he’s not around to make threats. He can’t hurt you. You can come back to Charming. I’m giving you your job back at TM, you’ve got your apartment to come home to, and–”

“Jax, we still have a lot of fucking problems,” you pointed out, cutting him off. “And what about Gemma? She’s just going to let me come back to work after that?”

“Gemma didn’t fuckin’ know what Clay was doing,” Jax explained, shaking his head. “Not entirely, at least. And I’ve already talked to her. She knows if she wants to be in any part of her grandkid’s life, she’s going to have to knock her bullshit off.” He sighed, running a hand through his shaggy, messy hair. “And yeah, we did have problems. Most of them caused by two people who aren’t gonna be stickin’ their damn noses in our shit anymore, but we do have some shit to discuss.”

He jutted his chin towards the apartment behind you, his brows raising up onto his forehead. It was clear what he was asking–to come in and talk. Releasing a sigh, you knew you needed him to answer just one more question before you felt comfortable doing that.

“If you want to come in, I need an honest answer,” you told him, hoping this time it didn’t end in disaster again. “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to keep bringing this up, either. Whatever you tell me, I’ll believe. But I want the truth, Jax.”

The look on his face made it apparent that he knew exactly what you were going to ask before you even did. But you needed to know to finally put this all to rest.

“Did you ever sleep with anyone all those times Clay kept telling me you were?” you asked him.

“Darlin’,” Jax said, taking the final few steps towards you. His hands raised, cradling your face between them as his thumbs gently brushed over your cheeks. “Baby, I love you. I haven’t slept with another girl since we got together. I swear on my goddamn life it was all bullshit meant to tear us apart. None of it was true.”

There was a moment where you held his stare, letting the words settle around you. Then your hand finally left its death grip on the door handle before both of your arms wrapped around him, pulling him into you. He tucked you in against himself and that feeling of safety you'd always known with him blanketed you instantly despite the past couple of weeks. 

“I missed you so goddamn bad,” he said, burying his face against the top of your head, his arms nearly crushing you to himself. “Was so damn worried something had happened to you. Couldn't fucking sleep while you were gone. Kept thinking the worst.”

“Surprised you even found me,” you told him, voice muffled against his kutte.

He chuckled, his arms holding you somehow tighter against himself as you began walking him backwards into the apartment. The corners of your lips curled upwards at the sound.

“Hired a bounty hunter to find you,” he told you, a hint of a smile in his words. “Bobby’s ex-wife's new husband. That's how goddamn good you hid yourself.”

A surprised gasp flew out of you as you unburied your face from his chest and looked up at him. Jax met your gaze with a grin spread wide over his lips.

“You hired a legitimate bounty hunter to track me?” you asked him.

“Ain't a goddamn thing I wouldn't have done to find you, darlin’,” he told you. “I said I wouldn't stop until I did. And now that I have, I intend to apologize as much as I goddamn need to so you come back home. Go ahead and yell at me all you want, I deserve it.”

Part of you wanted to chew him out for how he'd let you down that night, but you figured that discussion could come later. As you buried your face back against his chest again, there was only one thing you wanted to do right now. 

“I don't want to yell right now,” you whispered. “I just want you to hold me.”

His arms pressed you against his chest as he buried his face against the top of your head again. “I'm right here, baby,” he assured you. “And I ain't fucking things up again. With either of you.”

Jax slipped his shoes off by the front door of your apartment, both of his hands full of takeout bags. His messy hair was tucked beneath his black ‘Reaper Crew’ hat as he grinned at you where you lay curled up on your couch, wrapped up in one of your soft blankets. You'd been watching pointless television while waiting for him to come over, but now your eyes were focused on the bags in his hands, your sensitive nose due to the pregnancy picking up on the smell of food.

“Took me far longer than I'd have liked,” Jax said, stepping into your living room before triumphantly raising the bags in both of his hands, “but I got it all, baby.”

“I can smell that as much as I see it,” you told him, a smile drawing over your lips.

“The tacos you've been craving,” he began to list, making his way over to your coffee table, “cheese fries, onion rings, and fried rice from that place just outside of Charming. Along with a few other things, and some cookies Gemma baked because she said you'd been craving sweet shit.”

Pushing yourself carefully up into a sitting position on the couch, you watched as Jax began laying everything out on your coffee table. He'd begun pulling containers out of bags and the smell of so many different things combined should have smelled positively disgusting to you, but instead it had your stomach growling hungrily.

“Really?” you asked skeptically, arching a brow at him when he glanced over his shoulder at you. “Cookies from Gemma? Are you sure she didn't poison them?”

“You're pregnant, sweetheart,” he reminded you, a teasing grin on his face. “Pretty sure you've got a few months before you can start to question that.”

You hummed in response, scooting closer to him along the cushion until your thigh brushed against his. His focus fully shifted from the takeout in front of him to you, his hand resting on your knee and gently rubbing it.

“How you feeling right now, darlin’?” he asked. “Still nauseous?”

Shaking your head, you leaned into his side, finding comfort in having his presence once again. You'd been back in Charming for almost three weeks now after that entire situation with Clay firing you, threatening you, and running you out of town. After plenty of serious discussions and apologies from both Gemma and him, things had steadily returned to how they used to be between you and Jax. Even with the president patch on his chest, without Clay always trying to keep him from you, Jax was around as much as you let him be–which was almost always. 

While you'd been surprised that Gemma had helped Jax and Opie get rid of her husband, when Jax had told you the truth behind their marriage–the time Clay had laid hands on her, the lies behind her back, their own slow growing apart–it had started to make sense. Especially when Jax had told you that Clay had killed his own father, something you'd never known, and that Gemma had always known that the day would come when Jax would seek his own justice for it. Her acceptance of the situation was easier to understand with Jax’s explanations, and her shift in behavior towards you began to grow even clearer.

“She loves family more than anything,” Jax had told you. “She’s not gonna pick Clay over me and a grandbaby, especially after him trying to get rid of her own flesh and blood like that. And she knows better than to sour the relationship with you now. Not if she wants to be grandma.”

“I'm just starving,” you answered him. “You timed your running around and getting back here just right for that weird window of me being able to stomach food.”

He squeezed your knee affectionately, a warm smile on his lips. “Good, cause I was trying to,” he told you. “Still fuckin’ weird, though. Your morning sickness operates on a schedule as strictly as you do.”

Your knee nudged his playfully at the jab. “Funny, babe.”

Turning your attention to the food he'd spread out, you grabbed an onion ring and tossed it into your mouth. Somehow it tasted twenty times better than usual, especially with how hungry you were, and you couldn't resist the faint moan as you chewed. Jax snorted beside you, heading turning over his shoulder as he chewed on a cheese fry.

“You need a few minutes alone with the onion rings, darlin’?” he joked. “Christ, you'd think I didn't do a good enough job getting you off earlier.”

You reached out, your hand hitting the bill of his hat and playfully knocking it off of his head. Jax chuckled in response as it fell to the floor by his feet while you grabbed another onion ring, shooting him a pointed look.

“Welcome to pregnancy hormones, Jax,” you said around the bite of onion ring. “Apparently it makes women insanely horny, especially in the second trimester.”

A devilish grin spread over his face before he popped the rest of the cheese fry into his mouth. “Yeah?” he asked as he chewed. “Gonna want my dick as much as you want onion rings?”

“More than that,” you answered, returning his grin.

He hummed in response, a mischievous glint in his eyes clearly telling you he'd be testing that out later. But then his expression softened as he finished chewing his food before he leaned over and placed a kiss along your temple. His warm lips lingered against your skin for a moment and you leaned in even closer to his body beside you on the couch. 

“You staying here tonight?” you asked when he pulled away, watching him unwrap a burger from the slew of greasy food on the coffee table. “Or do you need to get back to the clubhouse? Thought I overheard Bobby saying something about managing a problem when I was in the office?”

Jax shook his head as he swallowed down the bite of burger he'd taken. You remembered overhearing something about a problem with the Triads when you'd been at Teller-Morrow this afternoon, something you probably weren't supposed to have heard. 

“Let's just say I called in a favor for a favor,” he assured you. “The problem is dead and buried, so I'm all yours tonight, babe.” He turned towards you, taking a large bite of burger and chewing with a grin on his face. “And every night after that,” he said with his mouthful.

“And they call you Prince Charming, huh?” you teased him.

He patted his chest as he chewed, that crooked grin on his face. “I'm your knight in dull leather, darlin’,” he joked, mouth still full. “What can I say?”

With a soft laugh, you shook your head before reaching over and grabbing one of the tacos on the coffee table. Things definitely felt like they used to between you both and you couldn't have been happier to no longer have anyone meddling in your relationship. Especially since soon there'd be a third addition to this dynamic, and you loved how excited Jax had been about it, surprising even yourself. 

With his jaw clenched so hard the muscles in it ached, Jax made his way over towards the closed chapel doors, his body tensed and ready for a fight. Clay had been conveniently difficult to find ever since Jax had broken into your apartment and confronted Gemma about your disappearance yesterday afternoon. Which meant Jax had more than an entire day to sit in his quiet rage while it festered, causing him to only further grow vengeful and furious when he thought about what Clay had done to you. His imagination supplied the missing pieces of the puzzle, because Jax could guess what threats Clay had made against you.

But while Jax had been itching for the chance to get Clay alone and confront him, he’d also been busy making his own moves. He'd still spent that time trying to figure out where the hell you could’ve vanished, but it didn't matter how often he kept trying your phone, it always went straight to voicemail–as if it was turned off now. He’d tried leaving you a handful of messages, but he never heard anything back from you. 

It was going on five full days of you being gone without a goddamn word. The silence from you was maddening. All Jax could think about was you out there somewhere pregnant with his kid, completely alone, and probably scared because of Clay. He fucking hated the thought of that. It had him tearing apart both his room at the clubhouse and his own damn house. 

Jax had tried to focus his mind and energy on doing what he could in the meantime–sending out Chibs and Juice to interrogate your landlord in an attempt to figure out whatever they could. While they’d been tasked with that, Jax had spent the day planning something else with Opie. Because he was going to bury Clay for what he’d done, that much was certain. But even that still didn’t feel like he was doing enough right now. 

As Jax approached the chapel doors, he could hear the faint sound of voices coming from within. His teeth ground together, his anger barely being held back inside of himself as he stood there attempting to keep some level of composure. He needed to see what answers he could manage to get out of Clay, to see if there was anything he might say that could give Jax some idea of where you were. But of course Clay was here late plotting things behind closed doors and the backs of the whole club. 

He wasn’t going to keep getting away with this shit, though. Not anymore.

Uncurling one of his fists, Jax reached out and twisted the door handle before pushing the door open so hard it flung backwards and smacked into the wall with a sharp bang. Both Clay and Tig instantly fell silent at the interruption, their attention shifting straight towards the door. Jax stood there with his eyes locked on Clay, a vicious gleam in them as his lips curled back into a sneer.

If he could have ripped Clay’s head off with his bare hands right now, he absolutely would have.

“Whoa, Jax, man,” Tig began, brows furrowing faintly together as he took in the sight of him. “Easy there. What the hell are you doing?”

Clay didn’t look remotely fazed at the sudden enraged entrance, almost as if he’d been expecting it. The way he so comfortably leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, folding his hands in his lap as he focused on Jax like he was completely untouchable, only pissed Jax off further. But it was clear on Clay’s face–he knew exactly why Jax was here just by looking at him.

“Get the fuck outta here, Tig,” Jax snarled, his glare remaining fixed on Clay.

In the chair beside the Sons’ president, Tig focused his attention on Clay, giving him a questioning look. With his own eyes never leaving Jax, Clay gave him a single nod in response.

“Leave us, Tig,” he ordered, flicking a hand dismissively. “‘S’alright. I got this.”

Tig hesitated in his chair for a moment longer, clearly aware of the tension between his president and vice president but not making the connection as to what it was over. Eventually when Clay didn’t say anything otherwise, Tig quietly slid his chair back and rose to his feet. He gave Clay one last look before he slipped past Jax and out of the chapel, closing the door after himself on his way out. 

And then it was just the two of them.

Jax stood there for a moment longer, seething as he stared back at the man who’d just spent one afternoon five days ago blowing up his entire life like it was nothing. And now here he was sitting there looking so fucking calm about it, like he hadn’t done a goddamn thing wrong forcing you out of his life and this town.

“Where is she?” Jax asked, voice level but not any less threatening. “What’d you do to her?”

Clay shrugged a shoulder simply, pulling a face at the questions. “I didn’t do nothin’ to her,” he answered. “Just paid her a visit. Had a talk. That’s it.”

Lips pressing together, Jax’s nostrils flared sharply at the response. He knew damn well how much Clay was downplaying whatever ‘visit’ he’d had with you. And yet he was going to sit here and lie to his goddamn face about it, too. 

“A talk about what?” he pushed firmly. “And don’t fucking lie to me. I know you’ve had it out for her since that first night she came to the clubhouse. Don’t tell me it was some friendly visit.”

Clay continued to sit there, casually leaning back in his chair at the head of the table as a silence fell in the room. Jax recognized the calculating look in his step-father’s eyes–he’d seen it plenty of times to know what it was by now. It was the same look he had whenever he attempted to twist the truth or detract attention away from himself.

“She doesn’t fit, Jackson,” Clay finally said, his words breaking through the heavy tension in the air. “In this world, in this club, in your life. I know it. Your mother knows it. And I’m pretty damn sure your little girlfriend knows it, too.”

With a frustrated grunt, Jax crossed the distance from the entrance of the chapel and over to the ornately carved wooden table. His eye twitched as he tried to hold himself back from doing precisely what he’d rather be doing–beating the absolute shit out of the man. But instead, his fists came down slowly against the table’s surface as he leaned over towards Clay.

“That’s not what I fucking asked you,” Jax growled low.

“But it’s what you need to hear,” Clay countered, his own tone matching Jax’s as he leaned forward along the table, his eyes narrowing back at him. “Because ever since she started working at the garage, you’ve been distracted. Everyone can see it. You’re lettin’ pussy distract you from your responsibilities to the club and your family.”

Jax slammed his fist hard against the solid table, his knuckles stinging from the impact. It was taking every bit of willpower for him to resist striking Clay right in the fucking face like he desperately wanted to, but he knew he had to refrain from the urge. He had a plan in motion to deal with Clay and he couldn’t deviate from it. He couldn’t risk tipping the club off as to what was really going to happen to Clay by having a physical altercation with the piece of shit and leaving any evidence of just how badly he wanted him gone. 

“Don’t you dare call her that,” Jax warned him. His lips twisted up into a dark smile, one that contained only danger and threats as he held Clay’s own cold gaze. “She’s not just some club whore, you old bastard. She’s my girl. My old lady. And you were threatening her.”

Clay scoffed, shaking his head at Jax’s words as if they were nothing. Jax could feel himself practically vibrating with rage right now, everything inside of him screaming to unleash what he was feeling on the bastard–to beat him within an inch of his life and watch him choke on his own blood in this very room.

“She’s nothing more than a passing flavor of the month for you,” Clay retorted. “The way you go through girls. She's nothing.”

“She’s mine!” Jax shouted, finally succumbing to his rage. “And she’s carrying my fucking kid!”

Jax’s chest heaved with his sharp breaths as he stood there bent over the table, a wild look in his eyes as he stared down his president. Clay still kept that outward calm as he eyed Jax, clearly unaffected by his words. Which was all the confirmation Jax had needed. Gemma might not have known that you were pregnant, but somehow Clay had. And he’d still fucking pushed you out of Charming anyway. 

Trying to reign in his temper, a bitter laugh fell out of Jax as he straightened back up beside the table. He stared down at Clay, one of his shaking hands coming up to comb through his shaggy hair in frustration. 

“You fucking knew, didn’t you?” he spat. “You knew she was pregnant. That’s why you threatened her, wasn’t it?”

Clay shrugged again. As if it didn’t matter. As if you carrying his goddamn child didn’t matter. His lips pressed together at the realization of just how cold–how fucking cruel and ruthless–the man really was when he wanted something. And Clay had wanted you out of the picture long enough. 

“Yeah, I knew,” he admitted easily. “So I paid her a visit. Told her the truth.”

Jax’s eyes narrowed further into slits at his words. “The truth?” he shot back, his head tilting to the side in challenge. “What fucking truth, Clay? You been doing nothing but feeding the both of us lies for months now. So what goddamn truth did you share with her, huh?”

Clay’s hand raised from the table, gesturing at Jax before him. “That you, my son, are not remotely in the place or the mindset to become a father,” he answered smoothly. “You’re barely taking care of your damn self, you got no idea the first things about raising a kid. And let’s be real–that ain’t the kinda shit you want on your plate right now.”

“Don’t you–” he snapped, pointing a ringed finger sharply at Clay, “–call me your son after the shit you've done. And don't you even try and pretend to know a damn thing about what I want. You got no idea.”

“Don’t matter now,” Clay told him. “Your girl is probably long gone now. She’s got no job since I fired her, so who knows what happened to her.”

Inhaling a sharp breath, Jax’s jaw tightened at the information. He’d fired you–you hadn’t quit. Clay had fired you knowing that you were pregnant. Knowing you’d need a job and money and fucking insurance to take care of yourself and that baby right now. And right now you had none of that, not because you’d made the choice yourself, but because Clay had intentionally taken it all from you.

Attempting to maintain his composure, one of Jax’s hands ran along his mouth. The sharp scratch of his facial hair against his fingers barely registered as he fought to keep himself from knocking the old fuck right out of that chair. That haunting thought of you somewhere struggling right now flashed through his mind, and he physically had to restrain himself by gripping his other hand against the edge of the table.

Clay would get what was coming to him despite how goddamn smug he looked sitting there. Because Jax knew something that Clay didn’t, and it would only be a matter of time before that president patch was stripped from Clay’s kutte and sewn onto his own. 

Jax was going to make damn certain Charming was safe for you, and then he was going to fucking find you and fix everything. It didn’t matter how long it took for you to forgive his stupid fucking ass for not just listening to you that night you’d come to him for help. He would do whatever it took to get you back here and keep you safe. 

Which is what he should have been doing in the first place.

Taking a few steps back towards the chapel doors, Jax’s glare remained on Clay. “You fucked up, old man,” he told him. “You're eventually going to find that out.”

Without another word, Jax turned and exited the chapel, slamming the door shut behind himself as he went. As he stormed his way through the empty clubhouse, his steps swift and heavy, he knew it was foolish to have hoped that Clay might have given him some clue as to where you’d disappeared to. He probably had no damn idea himself.

Stepping outside of the clubhouse and back into the dimly lit parking lot, Jax continued to stride across the pavement. Opie was waiting for him right where Jax had left him a bit ago–leaning against his bike and smoking a cigarette. He nodded his head in greeting at Jax as he expelled the smoke from between his lips.

“Get what you needed to, brother?” Opie asked curiously.

“Of course not,” Jax snarled in irritation. He grabbed his helmet from where it was hanging on the handlebars of his bike, unclipping it before he jutted his chin at Opie. “You get what you needed?”

Opie nodded, tossing his cigarette down to the pavement. He stamped it out with his shoe, his eyes flickering to the clubhouse as he did before he focused back on Jax.

“Yeah,” he answered. “You sure you wanna do this, though?”

Jax’s eyes burned with rage as he stared at the clubhouse, securing his helmet on his head. “He’s taken enough from us, Ope,” Jax answered, an edge to his words. “He got away with what he did to Donna. Now he's trying to push out my girl.” He secured the helmet on his head as he looked back at his best friend. “You wanna give him the chance to find an excuse to go after Lyla next?”

A muscle jumped in Opie's cheek at the question before he quietly shook his head. 

Jax damn well knew he owed you an apology for the other night. You hadn’t deserved the way he’d shown up and torn into you like that. He’d just been so fucking exhausted and stressed after dealing with Alvarez out in Oakland. Jax had been walking a thin line trying to appease the Mayan president all goddamn day after he’d gotten word about the new Sons’ deal with the Niners, and it had completely fried his patience. But it was a bullshit task Clay had thrown him on to deal with, one that he knew would be irritating as fuck and take Jax the entire day to handle the “gang politics” of, but he claimed that Jax would benefit from the experience. 

He knew that wasn’t an excuse for his attitude with you, though. He knew that the second he woke up alone four days ago in his dorm room after that fight. Jax had dragged himself out of his bed, thrown on whatever clothes his hands had touched first, and then gotten onto his bike and rode straight to your apartment. He felt like an absolute asshole for the way he’d snapped at you, but he felt even worse for the way he’d just walked out of your apartment that night telling you not to even call him.

And that bad feeling only grew as the days had passed, settling like a heavy weight right in his goddamn gut. You never answered your door that morning when he’d come to apologize. Jax had just assumed that you needed some space after the fight, figuring he’d try again later so that he didn’t piss you off further. But you still hadn’t answered the door any of the times he’d stopped by in the days since. 

Everything had gotten worse after that. When he’d come into work at Teller-Morrow yesterday morning on Monday, you hadn’t been in the office. Which was strange because you never missed a day of work–you were always the hardest worker at the auto shop. But Jax left it alone despite the feeling in his gut telling him something wasn’t right. Maybe he really had just pushed you so far that you’d taken the day off. Maybe you still needed more time to calm down because he’d massively fucked up with you.

But then you hadn’t shown up today, either. 

Jax had stormed into the small office attached to the garage and demanded Gemma explain what the hell was going on earlier this morning. Jax had let you keep your distance long enough; he was done ignoring that feeling in his gut. And if for some reason he was wrong and you really were just pissed at him, he’d happily let you tear him to shreds–anything just to know that you were safe and still his girl. Because goddammit, he really fucking missed you.

But when Jax had barged into the auto shop's office this morning, he hadn’t expected his mother to tell him that you’d quit without warning a few days ago. Gemma told him that was all she knew, claiming she figured you’d already told Jax that you were going to quit your position as office manager. 

Except you hadn’t. You’d never expressed an interest in wanting to quit your position there. It was yet another thing that you absolutely wouldn’t do. It wasn’t like you to just go silent and disappear, quitting your job without even telling him that you were thinking about it. And that’s when the panic had finally set in for Jax.

He’d left the office, furiously pacing around his dorm room afterwards. Tugging at his hair, he tried hard to recall everything from that night. You’d called him an absurd amount of times that evening–something you’d never done before. Fifteen times. Your texts and voicemails had all said the same thing–that you’d needed him. No specifics, no explanations, just that you needed him.

None of what was going on these past few days felt like you. Something had happened and he’d fucking missed it. You had been trying to tell him something that night and he had been too tired, too focused on himself and how exhausted and irritated he’d been that day, to even see that something was wrong. That maybe you really did need him.

But you had looked perfectly fine when he’d stopped by your apartment. You hadn’t looked upset until he’d started shouting at you for yet again accusing him of cheating. And he’d been pissed off that not only had you called him to argue about that again, but because he had never wanted to touch another girl after meeting you. He’d told you that over a hundred times now and he meant it every fucking time he’d said it, but no matter how many times he did, you just wouldn’t seem to trust him. 

It wasn’t until Jax had thrown everything off the top of his dresser in his dorm room at the clubhouse, kicking a few boxes out of the way in his rage, that he remembered something from that night. One small, minute little detail. One little comment that had been quickly overshadowed by the accusations of him cheating.

You’d told him that Clay had visited your apartment earlier that day. That he’d threatened you. 

All of that had led to what Jax was doing now–breaking into your apartment.

He didn’t give a shit that it was mid-morning and anyone looking outside could’ve seen him picking the lock on your door. You weren’t answering your goddamn phone and you’d suddenly quit your job. Something was wrong with you–something more than just the fucking fight you’d had with him. And pairing that with the fact that you’d called him most likely afraid after Clay had made some sort of threat against you, Jax was fucking terrified he’d find you dead somewhere inside your apartment this morning.

Jax’s hands were shaking as he focused on picking the lock on your door, his teeth grinding together in barely contained frustration and nerves as he worked. If something had happened to you, he knew it was his fault. He hadn’t been there when you’d needed him. All he’d done was yell at you and walk away. 

Eventually, Jax heard the click of the lock. Returning the lockpicking tools into the inside pocket of his kutte, Jax twisted the handle of your door and pushed it open. His heart was hammering heavily inside of his chest as he stepped inside your apartment, closing the door after himself. 

“Baby?” he called out hesitantly. “It’s Jax. You here?”

No answer came.

That dark, terrifying feeling only grew in Jax’s gut as he stepped further inside, his eyes scanning around your place. Your living room looked as it usually did, not a single thing out of place. Even your blankets you liked to curl up with when you watched television were folded nice and neat on the back of your couch. 

Walking through the small space, a lump formed in the back of his throat. Jax had handled some high-stress situations plenty of times in his life. He’d been in gun fights, prison fights, and he’d negotiated with countless dangerous criminals over the years. But he’d never felt true fear like he did as he made his way around your apartment, a pit forming in his stomach.

Your kitchen looked just as pristine as the living room. There were no dishes in your sink, no sign of a struggle. Nothing out of place. Everything looked like it usually did whenever he’d come over to see you in the past.

Making his way down your short hallway next, Jax’s confusion only grew with each step he took. While he was grateful that he hadn't stumbled on your lifeless body lying anywhere in a pool of blood, he didn't understand what was going on. Where were you? Why weren’t you here? Where had you gone?

Flipping on the lightswitch of your bedroom, Jax made his way inside carefully. Your bed was neatly made and everything seemed just as pristine as the rest of your place. No clothing scattered on the floor, your bedside lamps weren’t knocked off the nightstand, the drawers of your dresser weren’t yanked out and thrown around. There was absolutely no sign of someone making you just disappear.

But he was missing something, he knew it.

Jax’s fingers ran over the comforter on your bed as he stepped further into the room, his eyes searching for something–anything. There had to be a clue as to what was going on, you couldn’t have just disappeared without a single trace. At the very least, he’d have expected a note. An angry text or voicemail. Something more than silence.

That’s when Jax’s eyes caught the way your top left drawer of your dresser was left open just a tiny fraction. As if maybe you hadn’t closed it completely because you’d been in a rush. Making his way over towards the slightly open drawer, his hand reached out and pulled it fully open.

It was empty. 

He knew this was the drawer you kept your bras and panties in–he’d watched you get dressed in here in the mornings more than enough times now. As his brows knit together, Jax’s hand slid over to the drawer beside it, the one he knew was filled with the cute little tank tops and cotton shorts you always slept in. But when he pulled that drawer open, it was also empty.

A deep frown dragged the corners of his lips downwards as Jax roughly shoved the drawer shut in his growing frustration. Turning around, he headed over to your closet and pulled it open. Half of your wardrobe was missing entirely. He stood there for a minute, just staring at the empty hangers as they taunted him with your absence. 

Inhaling a sharp breath, he shoved the closet door shut once more with a sharp bang. Running a hand across his bearded jaw, he turned and scanned the room again. Why were only a few of your things missing? What the hell was going on here that he wasn’t catching?

Wanting further proof that you’d really left Charming, Jax abruptly exited your bedroom and crossed the hallway to your small bathroom. He knew without a doubt that you’d never leave anywhere without that damn shampoo and conditioner you kept in your shower. He’d heard you complain about borrowing his enough times when you’d stayed over at his place that Jax finally told you to just leave some damn bottles in his own shower. 

Stepping into the bathroom, he reached a hand out and ripped the shower curtains all the way to one side. Your shower was empty, too. Devoid of your beloved shampoo and conditioner, and even that body wash that smelled so damn good it made him want to bury his face against your skin for hours just to inhale the scent of it.

You were gone. You’d really just left without a word. But why? And did it really have something to do with Clay? Something just wasn’t adding up here.

Releasing his tight grip on your shower curtains, Jax let out a low growl of frustration. But just as he’d been about to stalk out of your bathroom and back outside to his bike, a bright pink and white box sitting on the top of your bathroom garbage caught his eye. Taking a step closer to it, Jax bent over and reached out to pick it up.

Prenatal vitamins.

It felt as if all the oxygen had just been ripped straight from his lungs at the sight of the box in his hands. Prenatal vitamins–he knew what those were for. Pregnant women. But you weren't–

Hands shaking as he stared at the box in them, his eyes scanned over the image of a pregnant woman holding her belly on it as his mouth went bone dry. Feeling off balance, he reached a hand out to steady himself against the bathroom counter as his pulse jolted into a frenzy.

You were…pregnant? That's what you’d been trying to tell him? 

“Goddammit, baby,” he whispered to himself, feeling tears beginning to burn in his eyes. “I didn't fucking know. I didn't…”

Jax's voice trailed off as he stared at the box through his blurred vision, one hand running across his mouth. He'd fucked up. He'd really fucked up. You were pregnant with his baby and he'd just yelled at you and now you were gone. 

Both of you. 

A sick feeling hit Jax as he stood there staring at the box that had previously contained a bottle of prenatal vitamins–a bottle you’d clearly taken with wherever you'd gone. Had Clay somehow known you were pregnant? Did that have something to do with why you said he'd threatened you? Was that why you'd left without a word? Because you needed to get somewhere safe from his twisted step-father who’d spent months trying to shove you apart? Was that why he’d sent Jax off to Oakland that day?

Gritting his teeth together, Jax slammed a fist sharply onto your bathroom counter, barely registering the sting of pain to his knuckles. You had come to him for help and he'd failed you. He'd let you down.

With a dangerous rage unfurling inside of him, Jax set his jaw and stalked out of your bathroom, making his way through your apartment and back out to his bike in the lot. The pink and white box was smashed in his fist as he moved, each of his steps filled with determination. 

Driving back to Teller-Morrow only took a matter of minutes. Jax had parked and turned off his bike, retrieving that damn box once more before he turned and headed straight to the office. He was going to figure out what the fuck was going on. He was done with the bullshit lies.

Slamming the office door wide open, the door battered into the wall with a loud, abrasive noise. Gemma and one of the younger guys from the garage startled at the interruption. Both of them looked over at Jax, taking in the look of pure unbridled rage on his face. 

“Get out,” Jax snapped at the mechanic.

Gemma loudly scoffed as she swiveled her chair towards her son. “Jackson, that's not–”

“Get the fuck out!” Jax roared over his mother's words. 

Sebastian, a newer mechanic at the shop, instantly ducked his head and bolted through the door that led back into the garage. Gemma sat back in her chair, looking annoyed at Jax for having interrupted her conversation. That only pissed him off further at this point.

“Jax, you can't just–”

“Where the fuck is she, ma?” Jax snapped, cutting her off. He said your name, gripping that damn box tighter in his hand. “And don't fucking lie to me again!”

“I already told you earlier, Jax,” she began, her eyes narrowing back at him. “She unexpectedly quit. I don't know anything else.”

“Bullshit!” he growled. “That's bullshit, Gemma! I fucking know you and Clay have been trying to tear us apart from the fucking beginning. Don't goddamn lie to me right now, ma. Where is she?”

“I didn't do a goddamn thing to your little girlfriend,” Gemma replied. “I got no damn clue–”

Jax slammed his hand down onto the desk, abruptly quieting his mother. Gemma's gaze dropped down to the smashed box he'd left there, her eyes taking a moment to read the writing on it. A second later, her gaze flew up to Jax's.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Prenatal vitamins, ma,” Jax told her bitterly. “Just found them at her place. Her place where she looks like she packed some things and fled.” He paused, trying desperately to reign in his own anger right now so he could get answers, his hands curled into tight fists at his sides. “Guessing that means she's pregnant with my kid, so I'm gonna ask you one more goddamn time, and I want you to stop bullshitting me.” He leaned forward, the question coming out like a snarl, “What the fuck is going on?”

Gemma sat quietly in her desk chair for a long moment, her eyes stuck on the misshapen box lying on her desk. The room grew thick with tension in the following silence before she finally spoke again, her voice quiet and just barely audible over the noise coming from the garage. 

“Clay,” she answered. “Had to be Clay. Told me he had something on her to make her leave Charming, but Jax–” her eyes flew up towards her son's furious blue ones, “–I swear I didn't know that she was pregnant. I had no idea. If she's carrying my grandbaby, you know I'd never do something like that. I'd never run her out of town with my own flesh and blood inside of her.”

Jax’s lips curled back into a feral snarl at her explanation. Gemma knew? She knew that Clay was trying to run you out of Charming and out of his life? And she’d just let him?

“You wanna earn back my fucking trust then?” he snapped, taking an intimidating step towards his mother as he loomed over her in her chair. “Ever be in that kid's life when I do find her? Because I promise you that I fucking will find her.”

Gemma was nodding instantly, her expression serious. “Of course I do,” she answered. “Of course that’s what I want.”

Pausing in the middle of your living room, you were hit with a wave of dizziness that interrupted your anxious pacing. Closing your eyes and resting a hand against your forehead, you figured it was probably the morning sickness that you’d read about the other day. After finding out you were pregnant just four days ago, you’d spent some time figuring out what to expect about this unexpected and poorly timed pregnancy. During these past four days, you’d been debating on what the hell you were even going to do about it–whether this was something you wanted or not. It hadn’t hit you until Clay had threatened you and your unborn baby that you knew without a doubt you were keeping it. 

But after that unwelcome visit earlier, you hadn’t been able to stomach anything more than water, and even that wasn’t going down easy right now. You knew you needed to eat something–not just for your sake but the baby’s. Except every time you stepped into your kitchen and opened your fridge, all you could think about was Jax back at the clubhouse ignoring your calls. Your mind kept conjuring up images of some girl on her knees sucking his dick, or him in his bed in that dorm room, pounding away into some other girl like you didn’t exist while his phone sat discarded somewhere.

As that wave of nausea only intensified at your intrusive thoughts, your hand slid down from your forehead to cover your mouth. You wondered if you were about to actually get sick. Those unwanted images continued to run through your mind, only adding to the churning in your empty stomach. 

But Jax wouldn’t do that to you, right?  

You couldn’t stand that things had gotten to this point between you both. That you couldn’t trust Jax’s word anymore because Gemma and Clay had gotten your mind so damn twisted up over what was true and what wasn’t. Everything felt like it had started falling apart almost two months ago when Clay had started putting more club responsibility on Jax, which in turn kept him stressed and far busier than he used to be. It left him hardly any time for you.

The familiar growl of a motorcycle broke through your thoughts, your head darting towards the window of your apartment. Usually the sound was something you welcomed because it meant Jax had arrived, but now it had you on edge as you wondered if Clay or Tig had returned to make sure you’d left Charming. But as you looked out between the blinds on your living room window, you could see Jax in the dimly lit parking lot as he removed his helmet. The tension in your body didn’t ease much at the sight of him, though.  

As he climbed off of his bike, sauntering towards your apartment with his usual gait, you noticed he looked exhausted. Running a hand down his face as he approached your door, your eyes met his through your living room window. You could already see the irritation on his face with the way his jaw was set and his lips drawn into a tight, thin line, and his expression didn’t remotely change as you made eye contact through the glass. Which told you that whatever was about to happen, it was going to end in a fight.

Breaking eye contact first, you stepped across the small room and over towards your front door. Jax didn’t even bother to knock, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans when you’d pulled the door open a few seconds later. He just stood there staring at you for a long moment, his eyes running over you as if checking to see that you were fine. Then slowly, his gaze returned to your face.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” you told him.

Judging by the tick in his jaw, he already knew that. Hand gripping the side of your door tighter, you braced yourself for whatever was about to happen next as that sick, uncomfortable feeling in your gut only grew worse. It was definitely not just from the pregnancy.

“Noticed that,” he answered tersely. “Called me fifteen times today, baby. Think that’s a bit of overkill, don’t you?”

You hadn’t meant to come across as annoying to him when you’d tried to reach him. The calls weren’t meant to get on his nerves, you’d just been panicked about what had happened earlier and the only person you figured you could turn to was Jax–assuming he’d even believe you about Clay. What were the odds that him and Gemma hadn’t somehow twisted things up in Jax’s mind even more, trying to convince him that whatever you tried to tell him now was just some lie to make him want to leave the Sons? To try to pit him against them all? That fear had been on your mind all evening as you’d tried to reach him, wondering if he’d even listen to you at all.

“You weren’t answering all night. I just…” 

Your words trailed off weakly as you stood there in the doorway, your mind once more conjuring up images of him with other women in his dorm room. The things Clay had told you earlier kept playing on repeat as Jax expelled a frustrated breath. Still standing just outside of your door, his hand reached up and ran through his shaggy blonde hair–a clear sign he was trying to keep his temper in check but struggling to do so.

“Been busy all damn day dealing with club bullshit,” he told you. “Was out in Oakland most of the fucking night, I wasn’t paying attention to my phone.”

You knew you shouldn’t have asked the next question that came out of your mouth, knew that it would only shove him straight into a fight with you. And there were other things you still needed to try and discuss with him–big, important things that you weren’t sure how to even begin to navigate with him. The last thing you needed right now was for him to be pissed off and shouting at you.

Yet the question still fell past your lips because you needed to know. Especially with the way his breath smelled faintly of alcohol, meaning he’d been back at the clubhouse long enough to have a drink or two before he’d even decided to stop over and see you.

“Why didn’t you call me when you got back to Charming?” you pressed. “When you saw that I’d been trying to reach you?”

“Because it’s been a long goddamn day, alright?” he immediately snapped back, his short fuse now blown. “Figured I’d try to have a few fucking drinks and relax, crash at the clubhouse for the night because it was late. But then I saw all your texts claiming you needed me, so I got back on my bike and fucking came over.” He paused for a moment, fury shining back at you in his blue eyes. “So you gonna let me in or just stand there bitching at me?”

A heavy lump felt like it was forming in your throat as you slowly stepped aside, no longer blocking the front door. Jax stepped into your apartment, closing the door after himself a bit more harshly than necessary. As your arms crossed over your chest, you already could tell this conversation wasn’t going anywhere helpful. How were you supposed to break the news that you were pregnant to him when he was like this? Especially when it felt like everything was just spiraling downwards every day between you both lately?

Maybe Clay had been right about more things than you wanted to believe.

“What the hell is going on that couldn’t wait until morning, huh?” Jax pushed. “What the fuck is so goddamn urgent that you call me fifteen times like that?” He gestured a hand at you standing before him, that rage still clear in his face. “Cause you look completely fucking fine to me, baby.”

His words and his anger were gradually taking its toll on you, especially after Clay’s visit and his threat from earlier. You knew matching his anger and frustration with your own was the wrong move, but your nerves were already so damn shot at this point.

“Oh do I?” you snapped. “You sure about that, Jax? Because Clay stopped by today. Making threats against me. Telling me that you’re blowing off steam at the clubhouse lately with the fucking croweaters, Jax!” Tears were stinging at your eyes as your hands gripped tight to the fabric of your shirt, your arms still crossed over your chest. All those images that had been running through your mind of him with other women had you suddenly losing it on him. “That why you were going to stay at the clubhouse again tonight? Instead of coming back here to me? Because you’d rather be with one of them?”

Jax scoffed back at you, his eyes narrowing as his hands balled into fists at his sides. You could see the muscle working in his cheek, aware that if you’d been someone else, he’d already have gotten in your face and laid hands on you.

“Are you fucking serious with this shit again?” he growled, his voice dropping to a dangerous level as he took a sharp step towards you. “You’re accusing me of cheating on you? That what you called me over here for?” A bitter, humorless laugh fell out of him before he shook his head, but then his expression grew dark and serious as he continued. “How many goddamn times do I need to tell you that I don’t want anyone but you? That I love you. That I fucking crash at the clubhouse because Clay has been keeping me so damn busy that it’s just easier to pass out there alone at the end of the day sometimes? And yet here you are once again thinking that I’m over there buried in fucking club pussy all the damn time like I’m some fucking animal that can’t control myself!”

“You’re never here anymore, Jax!” you shot back, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “For weeks now you’re always off with the club or over at the clubhouse. You’re hard to reach or always acting like you’re annoyed with me before I’ve even said a word! Shit has been off between us for almost two months now and you know it!”

“Yeah, it definitely fucking has!” he yelled back. “Because you’re always upset about something with me!”

His chest was heaving as he stood there, a wild look in his eyes. The burn of tears only grew as you stood there in front of him in your living room, your vision slowly blurring from them. This was not how things were supposed to be between you both. This wasn’t what you wanted.

“It’s because your mom and Clay keep whispering shit into your ears, Jax,” you told him, trying to control your emotions. “And you’re letting them get to you.”

“And you–” he hissed, jabbing his index finger in your direction as his nostrils flared, “–are sitting here listening to the fucking bullshit that Clay has been spewing about me. Why the fuck do you believe him, huh? Why’re you believing him over me?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore!”

The tears had finally started spilling down your cheeks, warm, wet tracks dripping down your face. The constant fighting was wearing on you. This wasn’t how things used to be before Gemma and Clay had started meddling with your relationship.

“Obviously you believe the fucking lies, baby!” Jax roared back, his voice raising even more. “You’re over here thinking I’m fucking other women just because Clay told you I am! It’s clear what you believe!”

Lips trembling, you watched as Jax turned away from you. He stood expelling a rough breath, his hands combing through the strands of his hair in frustration again. You could see the way they were shaking with his anger as the tears still quietly fell down your face. 

“This is the same old bullshit over again,” he muttered, an edge to his voice. 

Focusing back on you, his expression hardened despite the fact that you were crying. There was no compassion on his face, only a look that you hadn’t ever seen there before, one that had your heart squirming in your chest. You didn’t like it.

“You’re acting just like Tara,” he told you, a cold look in his eyes. “Pulling the same goddamn bullshit she did when she was trying to get me to leave the club.”

“That’s not–”

“It ain’t gonna happen,” he stated, talking right over you with an unsettling calmness. “I’m not leaving the fucking club. Not for you or anyone else.”

Staring at him in shock, you watched him walk over to your apartment door. Your hands were shaking, your knees feeling weak as you stood there silently crying. That hadn’t been what you were trying to do, you’d never tried to get him to change. And that comment about you being just like Tara? It felt like an actual slap in the face.

“Jax, I–”

“Don’t call me again tonight,” he warned you, opening the door and pausing just long enough to look over at you. “You seem perfectly fucking fine, you didn’t need me.”

Lips parting in shock, you stood there feeling helpless as Jax stepped outside and yanked the door shut after himself. Eyes drifting over to the window in your apartment, you watched him walk over to where his bike had been parked. He mounted it, pulling on his helmet before bringing it to life with a vicious roar.

He’d never just stormed out on you like this before. Like he was just done with you. And you had no damn clue if he’d been at the clubhouse with someone else before coming over, or if he was heading back there now with the intention of it. All you knew as he pulled away was that you hadn’t even had a chance to tell him what had happened. He still didn’t even know that you were pregnant with his child.

Clay’s threat hung over you as a soft sob finally fell past your lips, the tears beginning to fall faster. He wanted you and the baby gone from Charming. He’d made that clear earlier. And after this fight with Jax, you had a feeling he wasn’t going to believe you at all. He’d probably think it was some lie meant to mess with his head like Tara had done. You were certain Gemma and Clay would twist it into something like that.

Standing behind him, Tig casually leant against the wall in your small apartment living room with his dark eyes fixed on your every movement. His eyes lingered on your hands, one of his own resting on his hip. Probably just over the pistol you knew was hidden beneath his kutte.

There was absolutely no way you were calling anyone for help right now.

How had things even gotten to this point? How were you suddenly Clay’s target? How the hell were you someone that he felt was a big enough threat to his club to come here and do what he was doing?

You’d known for a while now that Clay and Gemma had grown to steadily dislike you over the past almost year, but you hadn’t realized that it had gotten quite to this extent. You knew their contempt had nothing to do with your work ethic as the office manager at Teller-Morrow Automotive–because you were a damn good employee. It was solely because Jax had taken an interest in you from the very first day you’d walked into that office, especially since it hadn’t been long after that day that you’d somehow found yourself in a relationship with him, the pair of you practically inseparable. Because you had managed to steadily domesticate the wild, rebellious playboy prince of the Sons, causing him to gradually make you a priority even over the club–at least in the beginning. 

In the beginning of your relationship, Jax had become almost unreachable whenever he was with you. His phone was often left forgotten somewhere inside of his kutte, which he’d always tossed off of himself the moment he’d stepped into your apartment like he was shedding a part of himself the second he was with you. Then his attention would be entirely on you for the duration you were together. He’d even shown up late to club meetings, ducked out on club parties, and barely focused on the cars in the garage because he was too busy flirting with you in the office in the first few months of dating. You’d come out of nowhere and unexpectedly become his everything.

And both Gemma and Clay hated you for it.

So they’d done what they could to try to ruin things, always trying to shove a wedge between you and Jax over the past eight months that you’d been together. Trying to find ways to make Jax question if you were someone worthy of his trust, making you out to be some passing entertainment or someone with a hidden agenda. And since you didn’t exactly approve of his other way of earning money outside of being a mechanic at TM, they always pointed it out to Jax as the main reason you’d never be the old lady he deserved–a proper Son president’s old lady. 

You weren’t even sure if that’s what you’d wanted yourself, but you’d known what you’d gotten yourself into the moment you’d accepted Jax’s offer to grab drinks at a bar in downtown Charming eight months ago. The night that had started everything between you both. 

But nothing would stop Clay and Gemma from finding ways to manipulate Jax away from you, slowly poisoning his mind for months until he gradually began to question your intentions with him. You knew what they were doing, too. Wanting Jax to question if you were trying to drag him away from the club, attempting to achieve what his ex-girlfriend Tara had failed to do a few years prior to you meeting him–to get him to leave the Sons. To earn a living working a nine-to-five and leave Charming and everything he'd ever known behind, yanking him away from what they kept telling him was his proper place. From his family. They kept painting you out to be some heartless villain when all you’d done was fall in love with a man who lived a life far different from yours.

“I just don’t think we have a need for you in the office anymore. We're downsizing, you could call it,” Clay continued, disrupting your thoughts as a bitter smile twisted the corners of his lips. “And as for the other thing…”

Your tongue felt like it had gone dry in your mouth, sitting heavy as a rock while Clay’s voice trailed off. He’d always put you on edge because you knew exactly the kinds of things he was capable of–the things he'd done. Jax had told you more than enough for you to piece things together, so having him sitting in your living room telling you that he knew about the positive pregnancy tests–something you hadn’t even had a chance to share with Jax in the past few days since you’d discovered the news yourself–only had you growing further uneasy in his presence. Because you’d just found out that he’d had Tig and the prospects secretly tailing you on and off, watching you all this time that you’d been dating Jax. And that unnerved you. 

“I don’t think it’s worth telling Jax about any of this, sweetheart,” he continued a moment later, a bite to his words beneath that faux friendliness. “He’s young. His focus isn’t on settling down. But I think you know that, don't you? You're a smart girl. Jax becoming a father?” Clay pulled a face at the idea as if it was the most absurd thing he could imagine. “Come on. You know he’s not about to propose and become some family man. He's young and popular with the girls. Got a lot of pussy chasing after him that he ain't about to just walk away from.”

The sting his words caused couldn't be hidden on your face as you grimaced, hating everything Clay was telling you. You knew what the Sons’ lifestyle was like; you'd seen the parties and the barely dressed croweaters around the clubhouse, the ones sometimes sucking dick or getting fucked on the pool table right there out in the open. You knew the Sons were partnered with CaraCara and that Jax had literal pornstars interested in him. 

And you'd always hated that part of his lifestyle, too. Because over the past couple of months when things had finally started to sour in the relationship, you'd often wondered if he'd ever slept with someone else, or if he'd ever been tempted. Wondered who had been trying to get in his bed at the clubhouse when you were at your apartment by yourself making dinner. It was a known fact that Jax never really dated, that he got bored easily. You and Tara had been the only exceptions to that. 

You wanted to believe he was still loyal and faithful to you. You wanted to believe Jax every time he told you that he loved you, that you were the only one he wanted. But with how things had steadily felt like they'd been falling apart over the past few weeks, you wondered if there'd ever been anyone else when you weren't around. Especially since he hadn't been staying here at your place as often as he used to anymore. Your bed had felt painfully empty most nights.

Clay huffed lightly beside you, clearly taking in the pensive and hurt look drawn plainly on your features. Tensing on the couch at the deep, satisfied sound, you hated the way he was smiling at you now. As if he knew he'd found your weakness and he was about to exploit it.

“We both know Jax has been stressed lately,” Clay continued with that faux sympathetic tone, one of his large shoulders shrugging. “And I think we both know he's been staying at the clubhouse most nights, dealing with his stress the only way he knows how. Pussy and booze.”

A sick, disgusting sensation churned in your stomach at Clay’s words and how casually he’d thrown them out. Was he really telling you that Jax had been fucking some of the girls at the clubhouse, or was this more bullshit just meant to tear you both apart? You fucking hated that you couldn't tell anymore because Jax hadn't been coming back to your bed every single night for weeks–which is what he'd always done before. 

Swallowing back the bile that felt like it was crawling up your throat–whether from the thought of Jax with someone else, the morning sickness, or both–your eyes darted over to Tig. He was still quietly leaning against the wall, staring at you with a straight face. Because to these guys, monogamy didn't exist. Jax fucking someone else and coming home to tell you he loved you half an hour later was inevitable in their mind. Normal. 

But the idea made you fucking nauseous.

“Sweetheart,” Clay said, shifting further towards you on the couch, his voice dropping to a deeper octave, “if you tell him you're knocked up with his baby, he's gonna run so damn far from you. You know that. That’s why you haven’t told him yet. Cause he don't want a damn kid. Your best bet?” He paused, a fake sympathetic smile on his face to match his tone. “Don’t keep it.”

It felt like Clay had just reached across your couch and stabbed you right in the chest. For a moment you just sat there, blinking back at him. He wanted you to…get rid of the pregnancy? Your hands stopped fidgeting with your phone instantly, gripping the device in them as your nails dug into the phone case.

“What?” you breathed out.

“What’re you gonna do?” Clay asked. “Raise it by yourself? You got no job now. And–” he continued, the hint of something dangerous entering his words again, “–Charming ain’t the safest place, you know. All kinds of dangers lurking around here. You never know what could happen to a single mother.”

Jaw tensing at his words, you fell silent once more as you sat on your couch, the weight of both his and Tig’s stare making your skin crawl. That was a clear warning. A legitimate threat. 

Breath coming in short, you attempted to stay composed on your couch as Clay rose from it. But the fake smile wasn’t on his mouth anymore as he looked down at you, and you could feel fear flooding your veins like ice. He truly wanted you out of Jax’s life. One way or another.

“Probably best if you leave Charming,” he stated. “Sure you’ll have better luck finding a job somewhere else.”

Frozen to the spot on your couch, you felt helpless as Clay made his way towards the door of your apartment. He waved a hand wordlessly at Tig when he passed him, and you watched as he pushed his way off of the wall and followed Clay out of your place. You wanted to shout at them, to tell them how furious Jax would be when he heard about this little visit. But as your apartment door shut with a definitive noise behind the pair of men, leaving you alone once more, you didn’t know if that was true. 

Nails still sharply digging into the phone clutched in your hands, you contemplated what the hell you were supposed to do next. Disappear without a word from Charming and heed Clay’s warning? Or did you risk seeing what happened when you didn’t listen and call Jax in the hopes that he believed you about what had just happened with his step-dad and club president? It didn’t help that you still needed to break the news to him that you were carrying his child. But was Clay right? Would that just be yet something else to push him away from you, too?

It happened on a Tuesday.

A completely normal Tuesday.

The kind of Tuesday that should not have been life-altering.

You were working the late shift at a small diner outside Charming.

The lunch rush had finally died down. The coffee pot was half-empty. The jukebox was playing something old and country.

You were wiping down tables when the door opened.

The bell above it jingled.

You looked up automatically.

And forgot what you were doing.

A group of bikers walked in.

You noticed the leather kuttes first.

The tattoos second.

The dangerous energy third.

And then—

Him.

Blond hair. Broad shoulders. White t-shirt stretched across his chest. A smile that should have been classified as a weapon.

For a full five seconds, your brain completely stopped functioning.

Not slowed down.

Not distracted.

Stopped.

Like someone had unplugged it.

The rag slipped from your hand.

One of the bikers noticed.

A dark-haired guy with scars on his face.

He immediately started laughing.

The blond biker looked over.

His eyes landed on you.

And then he smiled.

God.

That smile.

Your soul left your body.

"Oh no."

Your coworker, Sarah, looked at you from behind the counter.

"Oh, no, no, no."

"What?"

"You got hit."

"Hit by what?"

She pointed.

"The biker."

You looked.

Unfortunately.

Jax was still standing there.

Still smiling.

Still existing.

Which felt deeply inconsiderate.

You immediately looked away.

"Oh my God."

Sarah cackled.

"Oh my God, you're fucked."

"I'm not fucked."

"You're staring."

"I am not."

"You absolutely are."

You glanced over.

Jax was still looking at you.

You immediately looked away again.

Sarah nearly fell over laughing.

When you finally approached their table, your hands had forgotten how to work.

Which was unfortunate.

Because carrying coffee required hands.

"Hi."

Good start.

Normal.

Professional.

"Welcome to—"

You forgot the name of the diner.

The diner where you had worked for three years.

Your mind went completely blank.

The scarred biker started laughing again.

Jax looked amused.

You wanted the earth to open and swallow you.

"Welcome to..." you repeated weakly.

Silence.

The biker with the wild hair looked concerned.

The scarred biker was openly dying.

Jax leaned back in his chair.

His smile widened.

"You okay there?"

No.

Absolutely not.

You had never been okay less in your entire life.

"Yep."

The word came out far too fast.

"Good. Great. Fantastic."

You stared.

Why were you still talking?

Stop talking.

"I mean not fantastic. You're customers. Not fantastic. Not that you're not fantastic."

Jesus Christ.

Kill me.

The scarred biker wheezed.

Actually wheezed. Asshole.

Jax looked like he was fighting for his life not to laugh.

"Coffee?" you blurted.

"Coffee sounds good."

"Perfect."

You grabbed the pot.

Immediately poured coffee onto the table.

The table went silent.

You stared at the spreading puddle.

The puddle stared back.

The scarred biker put his head down.

Jax covered his mouth.

You considered fleeing the country.

"Sorry."

You grabbed napkins.

"So sorry."

More napkins.

"So incredibly sorry."

Even more napkins.

Jax finally laughed.

The sound hit you directly in the chest.

Warm.

Deep.

Genuine.

Dangerous.

Very dangerous.

"It's okay."

His voice was still amused.

"No permanent damage."

You looked up.

Big mistake.

His eyes met yours.

And suddenly every coherent thought vanished again.

How did people survive this?

How did women in romance novels function?

You finally understood why they spent entire chapters staring helplessly at handsome men.

It wasn't weakness.

It was biology.

After that disastrous first meeting, you fully expected never to see him again.

Life, however, hated you.

Because three days later he came back.

Alone.

You were carrying a tray when he walked in.

The second you saw him, your stomach flipped.

"Oh no."

Jax heard you.

His grin appeared instantly.

"That's not very welcoming."

Your face immediately heated.

"I didn't mean—"

"I know."

He sat in a booth.

You hated how happy you felt about it.

The worst part?

He kept coming back.

Twice a week.

Then three times.

Then whenever he happened to be nearby.

Always ordering coffee.

Always finding reasons to talk to you.

Always smiling.

And every single time your brain abandoned you.

"You know," he said one afternoon, "I've never seen somebody so consistently nervous around me."

"I'm not nervous."

"You just walked into a door."

You glanced behind you.

The door was still swinging.

Damn it.

Weeks passed.

Then months.

And somehow Jax Teller became part of your life.

You learned things about him.

He had a son. He loved motorcycles. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He laughed more than people expected. He listened carefully when people talked. He was fiercely protective of the people he loved.

And beneath all the charm and confidence, there was sadness.

A deep sadness.

One he rarely spoke about.

You found yourself looking forward to seeing him.

Looking for his motorcycle outside.

Listening for the sound of his voice.

Smiling whenever he walked through the door.

And that terrified you.

Because Jax wasn't safe.

Nothing about him was safe.

One night, after your shift ended, you found him waiting outside.

Leaning against his bike.

Hands in his pockets.

Looking unfairly handsome beneath the streetlights.

Your heart immediately forgot how to beat properly.

Again.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Neither of you moved.

Neither of you looked away.

The air felt different.

Charged.

Heavy.

Important.

"You wanna grab a drink?" he asked.

Just like that.

Simple.

Casual.

As if he hadn't just detonated a bomb inside your chest.

A normal person would have answered immediately.

You, unfortunately, were dealing with Jax Teller.

Which meant your brain had stopped working again.

"A drink."

Excellent response.

Very intelligent.

His smile widened.

"A drink."

"You mean together?"

Oh God.

"That's usually how drinks work."

You wanted to die.

Instead you managed:

"Yes."

And suddenly he looked relieved.

Actually relieved.

Which made absolutely no sense.

Because this was Jax Teller.

Women probably threw themselves at him daily.

Yet somehow he looked genuinely happy.

"Good."

His voice softened.

"Good."

The first date lasted six hours.

The second lasted eight.

The third ended with both of you sitting on the hood of his truck watching the stars.

Talking.

Laughing.

Learning each other.

The more time you spent with him, the more dangerous he became.

Because it wasn't just the looks. Or the smile. Or the eyes.

It was everything underneath.

The loyalty. The kindness. The way he remembered tiny details. The way he listened. The way he looked at you like you mattered.

You fell in love slowly.

Then all at once.

The realization hit one evening while you were sitting on his couch.

Your feet tucked beneath you.

His arm draped across the back cushions.

The television playing forgotten background noise.

You were talking.

Rambling about something completely unimportant.

A bad customer.

A weird dream.

A movie you'd watched.

And Jax was watching you.

Not the television.

Not his phone.

You.

Like every word mattered.

Like you mattered.

Something inside your chest cracked open.

Warm.

Terrifying.

Permanent.

Oh.

Oh no.

You loved him.

Across from you, Jax smiled.

And somehow you loved him even more.

The problem was that being in love with Jax Teller was terrifying.

Because loving him meant caring.

And caring meant worrying.

Every late-night phone call. Every unexplained bruise. Every dangerous situation. Every risk.

But somehow he became worth the fear.

Worth every sleepless night. Worth every worry.

Worth everything.

The confession happened eleven months after you met.

Not because either of you planned it.

Because neither of you did.

You were standing in his kitchen.

Arguing.

Not really fighting.

Just frustrated.

"You can't keep acting like you're invincible."

"And you can't keep worrying about everything."

"I worry because I care."

Silence.

The words hung between you.

Heavy.

Real.

Jax froze.

Your stomach dropped.

Because suddenly you realized exactly what you'd said.

His eyes never left yours.

"You care?"

You swallowed.

"Yeah."

His voice became softer.

"How much?"

Dangerous question.

Your heart pounded.

"A lot."

Still watching you.

Still waiting.

"A lot, huh?"

You laughed nervously.

Then admitted the truth.

"I love you."

The room went completely silent.

And for one horrible second you thought maybe you'd made a mistake.

Then Jax crossed the kitchen in three steps.

Grabbed your face.

And kissed you.

Hard.

Desperate.

Relieved.

Like he'd been holding it in for months.

You kissed him back immediately.

Because obviously.

Because it was Jax.

Because you'd been in love with him for far too long.

When you finally pulled apart, both of you were breathless.

"I love you too."

His forehead rested against yours.

"I've loved you for months."

You stared.

"Months?"

"Months."

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

"Because every time I looked at you, you forgot how to form sentences."

You covered your face.

"Oh my God."

"It's true."

"It is not."

"Baby, first time we met, you forgot the name of your own diner."

You groaned.

He kissed your forehead.

Still laughing.

Still looking at you like you were something precious.

And suddenly you realized something.

The women in romance novels weren't exaggerating.

Not even a little.

Because when someone looked at you the way Jax Teller did—

When they loved you completely.

When they became home.

When they became your favorite person in the world.

Coherent thoughts became surprisingly difficult.

Fortunately, by then, you didn't need them anymore.

You had Jax.

And judging by the smile on his face as he pulled you back into his arms—

He had you, too.

“Doin’ alright over there, Michigan?” Jax asked. “I've lost count of how many fuckin’ times you've done that now.”

You wriggled your nose, trying to alleviate the nearly permanent itch in it. All of the boxes and pieces of furniture piled in Gemma's storage unit were coated in such a thick layer of dust that you assumed no one had stepped a foot inside of here in years. Unfortunately for you, all of that dust kept making your eyes water and your nose tickle, causing you to sneeze constantly over the past twenty minutes that you'd been here searching for John Teller’s manuscript. 

You hoped you’d find the thing, too. Not only were you assuming that was the sole reason why you were even in Jax’s world, but maybe you’d stop catching him occasionally staring at you as if you were as deranged as he sometimes thought. Feeling like you were losing your mind was bad enough, you didn’t need Jax suspecting the same.

“How'd you even get the keys to your mom's unit anyway?” you asked him. Tentatively trying to open the flaps of the box in front of you again, you attempted not to scatter more dust into the air. “Did you just swipe them from her house without her knowing?”

“No,” he answered.

The slow, almost cautious sound of his voice had you pausing, glancing away from the box of what appeared to be Jax’s old clothes from when he was a teenager judging by all of the graphic tees tossed together. After uncovering all of the useless junk that Gemma kept stored in here, you’d wondered if she was either more sentimental than she let on, or if she was just a closet hoarder.

Turning to look over your shoulder, you stared at Jax’s back while he rummaged through a box, the reaper on his kutte staring right back at you. The slope of his broad shoulders shifted and moved as he dug through what looked like a box of loose papers and photographs, and you temporarily grew distracted with the way his biceps and triceps flexed beneath the sleeves of his white t-shirt while he sifted through everything. 

It’d been almost two full weeks that you’d been staying with Jax ever since he’d found you reanimated on the side of the road. In the past few days he'd spent more time at his house, which meant you'd both had more interactions with each other than when you’d first moved in with him, even if you rarely ever talked about anything serious. And you certainly avoided discussing your massively declining mental state which you only kept loosely held together whenever you were around him. Though the conversations you did have with him lately had helped you warm up to him a little more, causing you to feel slightly less like he was about to pull a gun on you without warning at any given moment. 

You’d also shamefully found yourself admiring him when he wasn’t paying attention lately. Especially in the mornings when he’d shuffle down the hallway in a pair of sweatpants, his bare chest gleaming in the honeyed morning light. You’d stopped pretending to be asleep on the couch and instead had started joining him and his decrepit coffee maker before he headed off to the clubhouse. 

It was impossible not to stare at each perfectly contoured line of muscle on his torso when he was distracted with making a cup of coffee in the mornings. You were mesmerized by the pull of muscles under his skin as he reached into cabinets and stirred sugar into his coffee. You even quietly studied the different shades of blue in his eyes lined with those pretty blonde lashes whenever he was scowling at some text on his phone while he drank his coffee. 

But whenever those weird little nervous flutters twisted in your stomach as you silently observed him, you forced yourself to remember who was actually in front of you. Real Jax–the one who’d probably carved someone up with that knife he always carried at his waist. Nothing sent the butterflies in your stomach away faster than picturing Jax stabbing someone.

“Why does it feel like there's more to that ‘no’?” you hesitantly questioned.

Jax lifted up the box he'd been searching through and set it off to the side, stacking it on top of the other boxes beside him that'd he'd already looked through. He glanced over his shoulder afterwards, something slightly guilty in his eyes when they met yours. The look on his face set you on edge.

“Told my mom I was lookin’ for a dresser to borrow for a bit,” he told you. “Guys already told her that I had a girlfriend livin’ with me, so I lied and said you needed some extra space to store your shit in while you were redecorating my place.”

Mouth falling open, you gaped at Jax with wide, horrified eyes. A few days ago Jax told you he’d casually let it slip that you were staying with him to the other Sons, and while realistically you knew that meant the news would inevitably reach Gemma, you hadn’t realized how it would make you feel. Because learning that she now knew of your existence in Jax’s life sent a chill up your spine and made you want to disappear. 

Jax’s lips tugged to the side in a half-grin as he caught the look on your face. “C’mon, don’t tell me you’re that scared of my mom,” he said, turning more fully towards you.

“I am,” you replied, ignoring his chuckle. “She’s fucking terrifying. And she’s even more terrifying when it comes to you.”

“Relax, Michigan,” Jax soothed, the grin lingering on his lips. “She ain’t gonna do anything to hurt you. My Ma ain’t stupid enough to harm my old lady.”

Something between a hysterical laugh and a strangled cry fell out of you, and Jax’s face screwed up in confusion at the sound. The image of Tara’s bloody body laying on the tile of his kitchen floor–tile that you were now personally very acquainted with as more than part of a television set–flashed through your mind. Even if Tara had never come back to marry Jax and become his old lady in this reality, you knew precisely what Gemma would and would not do to someone even if Jax genuinely loved them. And you were simply a fake girlfriend, so you knew she’d have even less qualms about offing you. 

“I think we have separate opinions on that,” you said, voice wavering.

His eyes narrowed curiously back at you, clearly wondering what you must’ve witnessed in the television show of Fake Jax’s life that would make you say something like that. You expected him to question you further about it like he often did whenever you made strange comments, but instead he shook his head as if to shake off the thought.

“Anyway,” he continued, that slightly guilty expression returning, “I may have forgotten to mention earlier that Gem is having a barbeque at the clubhouse now because she wants to meet you. So do the guys.”

You tensed at the new information, your arms quickly hugging themselves around your chest. Turning away from the box of his old clothes, you faced Jax in the cramped storage unit, anxiously chewing on your bottom lip. Meeting the rest of the Sons and Jax’s mother was an unavoidable situation, one that you’d known was coming. But you’d hoped that you could somehow manage to meet everyone for the first time in a less stressful setting than a party, and possibly without being forced to meet them all at once. 

“When’s the barbeque?” you asked.

Jax paused for a long moment, his grin growing a little sheepish. “Tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?” you repeated, panicked. “Like, tomorrow tomorrow?”

“Don’t think there’s another kind, darlin’,” Jax replied. “Look, all you gotta do is show up with me. Just eat some food and talk a little with everyone and then we dip out.”

“You forgot the part where I need to look like your girlfriend,” you pointed out. 

Jax’s expression faltered at the reminder. His head tipped slowly to the side as he studied you through partially narrowed eyes, and you ignored how the sunlight flooding through the opened garage door of the storage unit somehow made him look a little softer than usual.

Hugging your arms tighter around your chest, nerves flooded you at the knowledge that you’d finally have to put this whole fake relationship into practice sooner than you’d anticipated. You had absolutely no idea how to be that comfortable with Jax in a public setting while acting like you were truly with him, especially when you knew that your life quite literally depended on making it believable. 

If anyone thought there was something off about you or the relationship, you had a feeling the Sons or Gemma herself would start digging into who you were to figure you out what was actually going on. And what happened when they learned you didn’t exist in this world? Or if they found out Jax paid to have forged documentation made for you? Or what happened if Juice couldn’t find any history linking you in this world and they started to think you were an undercover federal agent dropped into their territory just to spy on them? You doubted Jax would be able to find a way to save you from the wrath of his club, because there was no way they’d believe the truth.

“No one’s going to look at me and realistically think I'm the girl you liked so much that you let me move in with you,” you told him, nails digging anxiously into your palms. “Your mom is going to take one look at us together and know the whole relationship is bullshit.”

A heavy sigh fell past Jax's lips as one of his hands smoothed back his blonde hair. He nodded his head slowly, lips thinning into a straight line.

“Yeah, you’re not wrong, Michigan,” he grimly agreed. “But that’s only ‘cause you always look terrified of me.”

You frowned at his rather unsympathetic response, a little disappointed at how easily he agreed with the sentiment that you looked nothing like a girl he’d be serious with. It didn't exactly build confidence. Your mind quickly tried to conjure up alternative solutions that would allow you to avoid attending the party altogether, wanting to find some way to get out of the entire situation. While you began contemplating how difficult it might be to fake having a bout of food poisoning, Jax stood across the storage unit deep in his own thoughts, his tongue distractingly dancing back and forth along his bottom lip.

“A’ight,” he finally announced, “I got an idea.” 

His voice broke through the tension in the room, pulling you out of your thoughts as you eyed him warily. “What is it?” you cautiously asked. “Does it involve me having a very credible excuse to miss the entire thing? Like maybe I’m allergic to sunlight? Or grilled food?”

Jax shook his head, a little glint of mischief sparkling to life in his eyes. “No,” he said. “We just need to get you comfortable with touchin’ me so that you don’t look so nervous tomorrow.”

You immediately balked at the suggestion. “What?”

He lightly rolled his eyes. “Not like that,” he said. “Just like…kissing and holding hands and shit. Stupid couple things. That way it won’t feel so fuckin’ weird for either of us tomorrow night when we're around everyone, and then hopefully you won’t keep flinching away from me like I’m gonna hit you whenever I get close.”

Your frown deepened at the accusation. Admittedly he still made you a little uncomfortable and nervous when he was around because of who you knew him to be from the show, but you doubted you flinched away from him whenever he got near you. 

“I do not flinch,” you moodily countered.

“Yeah, you do,” he disagreed. “So we're gonna fix that. Right now.”

“And how exactly do you intend to do that?” you asked.

A smirk gradually crept across his lips, the type of smirk that had your pulse unevenly thudding beneath the arms wrapped around your chest. He’d never looked at you like that before, not in the almost two weeks since you'd been staying with him, and the shift was so abrupt that you fell silent. Jax tipped his chin at you in a manner that you’d only ever witnessed from Fake Jax on the television show, and unfortunately you found out that you were quite easily affected by Real Jax despite his also very real criminal history. 

“You’re gonna come over here and kiss me darlin’,” he stated simply. “That’s how.”

Hearing Jax Teller command you to kiss him was quite literally something straight out of one of your fantasies–and your fanfiction stories that he still thankfully was none the wiser about. But that was before you'd died and wound up meeting Real Jax. Now your body was a complete mess of desire, entirely turned on by the idea of getting a free pass to make out with him, while the conflicting issues of morality based on who he actually was kept trying to cast doubt on your attraction towards him.

And the irony wasn’t lost on you that you were now quite literally standing in the middle of a very overdone trope. The fake dating trope always came with one of these situations where the two characters were forced to be affectionate towards each other, often as a way to practice for when they needed to publicly put on a show for whatever reason they were faking the relationship in the first place. You'd written it a few times yourself in the past, so you absolutely shouldn’t have been as blindsided by this situation as you felt. 

But somehow being told to go kiss him had your feet locking up as if they’d melted into the concrete slab beneath you. Instead of doing what he’d said, you could only stand there gawking at him like an idiot, which Jax seemed to find amusing judging by how much more wicked and wolfish that smirk on his face grew. Suddenly your heart was thumping wildly like a cornered animal, which was certainly how you felt under the weight of that look on his face. 

“What’s the hold up, Michigan?” he teased. “Never kissed anyone before? Because I thought you were the one defending women exploring their sexuality and all that shit the other day.”

Heat crept up the back of your neck. Now he was making fun of you for your hesitation at just giving him a kiss. Maybe if you just turned and snorted up some of the dust on a nearby box like it was a line of coke you could enter into a sneezing fit and distract him from this entirely mortifying situation. 

“I’ve obviously kissed people before,” you defended yourself, ignoring the slightly elevated and awkward pitch of your voice. “I just–just haven’t gone around kissing people to the extent that you have.” 

One of his brows casually quirked up onto his forehead, his teasing smirk not helping the skipping of your pulse. You decided Jax Teller’s charm was absolutely not a figment of a television show in that moment.

“Callin’ yourself inexperienced then, darlin’?” he questioned.

“No,” you quickly replied. “I’m just saying it’s awkward to kiss someone I’m not really dating who up until two weeks ago wasn’t real.”

The corner of his lips twitched like he was trying not to laugh. The cocky little shit found this whole situation highly amusing and you desperately wished you'd found another cover story to hide behind now than the one which forced you to be his girlfriend. He took a step towards you, beginning to close the distance between you both in the small storage unit, and you stiffened before backing into the stack of boxes behind you. 

“What’re you doing?” you demanded.

Jax shrugged a shoulder, sauntering towards you with all the confidence in the world. “Breaking the tension between us. Someone’s gotta do it if anyone is gonna believe we're together.”

Your brows dipped together, your heart beginning to batter itself against your chest. “What do you–”

He didn’t give you the opportunity to finish your thought. With nothing you could describe as anything other than the pure swagger of Jax Teller, he closed the distance between you before grabbing your face in both of his warm palms, thumbs tucked just under your jaw. Without hesitation he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to yours, and everything else that came after was entirely instinctual.

Unwrapping your arms from around your chest, your hands flew forward and latched onto his t-shirt beneath his kutte, fingers twisting into the soft cotton. Your lips moved in rhythm with his as you unconsciously eased forward into his body like you were drawn to him against your will, and those mindless butterflies returned to your stomach at the delicious scratch of his beard against your skin.

This kiss wasn’t exactly what you’d expected from Jax Teller. While he tasted of coffee and cigarettes and a bit of the spearmint gum he’d been chewing earlier, he wasn’t devouring you in some heated, rough and hungry way. Nothing about it made you think he was about to shove you over a stack of boxes and take you right there like you were some croweater. The way he was cradling your face in his calloused hands seemed almost tender, and despite the teasing way he’d initiated the kiss, he suddenly seemed uncharacteristically gentle as his lips molded over yours.  

Whether it was due to the crush you'd always had on Fake Jax, or how touch starved and desperate for comfort you'd been while trapped here for these past couple of weeks, you lost yourself in the kiss. There was nothing else but Jax, the frenzied hammering of your heart, and the strange way his mouth was making you grow dizzy.

When he finally pulled away, your eyes remained closed for several drawn out seconds. Your mind felt like ice cream left to melt in the sun, and your insides were just as soft and warm. Never before had a single kiss left you this weak and senseless, and you stood there dumbfounded while struggling to get a hold of yourself in the surprising aftermath.

Eventually you blinked your eyes open, half out of it from whatever strange sensation was buzzing through your bloodstream, only to be met with Jax’s face mere inches from yours. A shit-eating grin was drawn straight across it, and you realized how visibly dazed you must've looked. Embarrassed at your reaction to him, you abruptly released the tight grip on his shirt and took a half-step backwards as his own hands returned to his sides. 

Apparently, only you had felt whatever that was. Which shouldn't have surprised you or dampened your mood, yet it still did. Real Jax was the same as Fake Jax–both had slept around plenty. Of course he wouldn't have been affected by a single kiss from a girl who meant nothing to him even if somehow you’d been idiotic enough to feel something on your end.

“Didn't seem so afraid of me doin’ that, Michigan,” Jax teased, entirely unaware of your sudden internal conflict. “Wonder why that is?”

“I think we both know you're not exactly unattractive,” you muttered. 

Tomorrow night might be more painful than you initially realized if you were going to be this damn sensitive about his fake feelings towards you. You needed to get your head on straight after that kiss, but you couldn't do that with him staring at you. Jabbing your thumb awkwardly at the boxes behind you, you were desperate to get past this entire situation and return to the reason why you were here. 

“Now can we get back to searching for the manuscript?” you asked.

Jax shook his head, a lopsided grin sliding onto his face as you internally squirmed beneath his stare, your insides still liquified mush after that kiss. While you'd hoped to make it through your time in Charming without ever giving away the fact that you absolutely had a crush on Fake Jax, that knowing glint in Real Jax's eyes had you wondering if he'd started quietly piecing that together already.

“Nah, not yet,” he answered. “Still gotta make sure you're comfortable kissin’ me before tomorrow night. I played my part, now it's your turn, darlin’.”

If you could die a second death from absolute mortification, you'd have dropped dead on the spot. Was he expecting you to initiate now? After how he already knew he'd visibly rattled you?

“No one's gonna believe my old lady is someone this timid, darlin’,” Jax pushed. 

He was right and you knew it. Jax was a born leader, he was charismatic and outgoing. That man commanded a room when he stepped into it. It was also longstanding public knowledge that he was a manwhore, so no one would expect him to be drawn to a woman who wouldn't just openly grab him and kiss him. Especially knowing that his old lady would want to publicly mark Jax as hers in front of everyone, because Tara had certainly done that in the show. 

Fuck it. Just bite the bullet and go for it. What's the worst that can happen?

“You're gonna have to be a bit more–”

Taking a step forward, you reached out and grabbed the back of his neck before sharply yanking him towards you, instantly shutting him up when you crushed your mouth to his. There was no hesitation from Jax afterwards, his mouth moving against yours as if there'd never been an interruption from the first kiss. 

Heat flooded you once more, causing you to melt back into him as his hands rested on your lower back. He pulled you against his chest, pressing you flush to him and eliminating every gap of space between you both. Completely losing your head at the feel of his solid body against you, the faintest groan slipped out of your mouth against his. Jax took that exact moment to slip his tongue into your mouth, and your nails dug into the nape of his neck as it tangled with yours, your knees going weak at the intensity of whatever was happening here. 

This didn’t feel like any other kiss you’d had before in your past relationships or hookups. This was the kind of kiss you wrote about in your silly romance novels, the kind that left you breathless. The kind that you filled up pages with ridiculous metaphors in an attempt to grasp a fraction of what it truly felt like. The type that made your head spin and your heart ricochet around your chest, the type that you’d replay over and over in your head while alone later.

But just when things started heating up a little too much, your sanity and reality came crashing back down on you. Because this wasn't real. This was just practice, a way to break the ice so that you two could realistically play your parts for the duration of the time Jax helped you get back onto your feet in his world.

Abruptly breaking the kiss, you pulled away from Jax, staring at him as your breaths came in heavy and ragged. There was something unexplainable burning behind his blue eyes that you hadn’t seen after the first kiss, a flicker of confusion as if maybe he wasn’t sure why you’d broken away because he hadn’t wanted you to. But maybe you were just imagining that with how fast his expression morphed into an arrogant grin again.

“Suppose we don't gotta worry ‘bout faking any chemistry, Michigan,” he teased. “Kinda surprised you had that in you with how you used to avoid me.”

A frown creased over your lips. Did he expect you to be a bad kisser? That stung.

“Just because I'm dead doesn't mean I can't kiss,” you bitterly muttered.

You caught the dip in the corner of his mouth before swiftly turning around, returning to searching the boxes. As you closed up the open box in front of you filled with nothing more than just clothes, you tried to swallow down all the heat and desire burning through you from getting close to him. How dare he have that much of an effect on you and not nearly be as affected in return.

“Don't do that, darlin’,” he said, tone softening. “Wasn't trying to insult you, you just always seem nervous around me. Didn’t think you had it in you to just grab me like that.” 

You began tearing open another box, ignoring the tickle in your nose when the dust flew up into the air again. Baby clothes filled this one, stacked in neat little rows as if they’d been packed away with care. As you slipped your hands inside, gingerly looking through a few of the onesies, your fingers brushed over a baby blanket with the name ‘Thomas’ stitched into it and a harsh ache slammed into your chest. 

This was Jax’s younger brother’s baby clothes. The younger brother who’d died at the age of six because of a congenital heart defect, the same one Jax was born with. 

“And you're very much not dead, Michigan,” Jax continued behind you. “I can vouch for that myself after the way you just kissed me.”

Your throat felt tight as you sifted carefully through a few of the onesies in the box, your bitter mood quickly fading. Jax was just trying to help you when he truly had no reason to, and yet here you were getting upset because he wasn’t romantically interested in you for real. Which was stupid since you didn’t want to get caught up with a criminal in a motorcycle club anyway. You were just lonely, that’s the only reason as to why you'd been affected by him a minute ago.

After skimming through the box, you realized it was simply filled with baby clothes. There was no manuscript hidden inside of this one. But as you’d gone to close it back up, you stopped when Jax’s arm appeared beside you, reaching around you and into the box. He picked up a small gray onesie covered in tiny motorcycles. Glancing sideways, you saw Jax standing beside you examining it, his brows pinched together and all the teasing gone from his features.

“Guessin’ you know who these belonged to 'cause of that show,” he said softly.

You nodded slowly, trying to get a read on Jax. Fake Jax in the show never really discussed his brother or his passing, but he’d named his second son after him. Obviously his brother had meant something to him, and beneath that slightly guarded look in his eyes, you could see the hidden pain.

“Your younger brother Thomas,” you confirmed. The mood in the storage unit immediately shifted at the mention of the name. “What was he like?”

Jax’s fingers went still on the onesie, his blue eyes locked onto the small piece of worn cloth stained with spit up in his hands. A muscle began to feather in his jaw, and you weren’t certain if you’d asked something that you shouldn’t have until he spoke.

“He was quiet,” he answered solemnly. “Never said much, usually ‘cause my ass was always causing trouble. But he was funny. Always liked makin’ everyone laugh.” His teeth sunk into his bottom lip like he was struggling to fight down his emotions. Carefully leaning past you, he lowered the worn onesie back into the box onto a stack of others. “He really liked Hot Wheels cars. Made little tracks for them with sticks and rocks so they could race. He always liked cars, not bikes.”

Jax roughly cleared his throat before he stepped away, heading back over to the boxes he’d been searching through initially. Your eyes followed his retreating back as you blinked down tears, suddenly intensely aware of just how human this Jax actually was. He wasn’t just Real Jax as you’d been referring to him in your head for these past two weeks, he was an actual person. And while you technically knew that, it hadn’t fully hit you until that moment. 

Jax wasn’t just some guy you’d watched in a television show and written fanfiction about, he wasn’t simply some character that you’d studied and discussed and drooled over. He’d lived through the very real loss of his brother and father, he’d truly grown up entrenched in the Sons of Anarchy and everything that came with it, and his mother had really kept him ensconced in the idea that he'd be at the head of the table one day. Tara had actually broken his heart when she’d left Charming as a teenager while failing to save him from this fate, which caused him to put a real barrier between women and his heart in the years since. He was someone who’d loved hard and lost just as severely, and that was just as unscripted and real as the violent parts of him that you’d spent all your focus on ever since he’d found you. 

“I’m sorry about what happened to him,” you whispered, closing the box back up.

“Wasn’t your fault, darlin’,” Jax replied from across the storage unit. “Besides, probably better he didn’t grow up in all this shit anyway. He wouldn’t have been cut out for it.”

A heavy silence settled over you both after that, the weight of it only broken by your occasional sneezes and Jax’s deep voice asking if you were alright. You’d dug through five more boxes before starting to lose faith in the fact that you’d find John’s manuscript at all. What if it just didn’t exist in this world? Maybe John never wrote it. Maybe this was all just pointless and there was no rhyme or reason as to why you’d died and woken up in this world. 

And if there was no manuscript, maybe there was no homeless woman. Maybe you’d never find the answers you were searching for because they didn’t exist. What if this was just how the multiverse worked–you died and your essence was just recycled somewhere else for no reason? Or maybe you’d somehow cheated death by accident and someday you just…wouldn’t wake up on Jax’s couch as everything righted itself. 

“Darlin’?”

At the uncertain tone in Jax’s voice, you stopped digging through the box of Ninja Turtle plates and cups. “What?” you asked, turning around. “Did you find something?”

Jax stared down at a thick stack of papers clutched in his hands, his mouth partially agape. The pages were held together by a large binder clip on the top, and you instantly recognized them for what they were. A surge of excitement and hope shot through you as the past few minutes of doubts washed away in an instant.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Jax replied. “The manuscript my dad wrote. ‘The Life and Death of Sam Crow’,” he read the title with a faint tremble. “‘How the Sons of Anarchy Lost Their Way’.”

Jax’s gaze rose from the papers he was holding in his tight grip, shock and bewilderment etched onto his features as his stare met yours. You imagined the same look was mirrored on your own face right now, because even though you’d known it was real in the show, you weren’t certain the manuscript was real here. Yet there it was, the few hundred pages which caused so much trouble and death were now held in Jax’s hands. 

“You were right,” he said, still stunned. “It does exist. Which means…”

“Maybe Jesus Ghost is real?” you nervously supplied. “And there really is something wrong with the crows in this world?”

“And maybe you really are a long way from home, Michigan,” Jax added carefully.

He was eyeing you slightly differently than he usually did and it was making your stomach try to burrow its way towards your feet in an attempt to hide. Because gone was that familiar skepticism he always wore at who you’d claimed to be and where you claimed to be from. Instead it was replaced with something you didn’t quite have a name for, something that looked a lot like terrified awe, and it had you shifting uncomfortably in front of him. Until a bit of dust tickled your nose again and you released another earsplitting sneeze into your arm. As you sniffled and twitched your itchy nose, Jax cracked the smallest grin.  

“Let's get you outta here,” he said, gesturing his head at the open garage door. “I'll get a prospect to drag a dresser to my place to keep Gemma from askin’ any questions.”

You rubbed the heel of your hand against your nose, trying to alleviate the itch. “Trading annoying dust for your scary bike,” you deadpanned as Jax chuckled. “Great.”

Usually by now Jax would have already woken, showered, made a quick pot of coffee, thrown a cup back, and then disappeared out the front door as he lit up a cigarette. It was what he'd done every morning that you'd been here so far. And you'd only known that because you were usually just pretending to be asleep on the couch while watching him through partially opened eyes, waiting for him to leave for the day so that you could get up and avoid him. 

He'd done that every single morning except for this morning. You hadn't heard him get out of bed yet, so you figured he was still in his room asleep. Did he not have to get to the clubhouse for once this morning, or was he just accidentally oversleeping today? Pushing yourself upright to sit on the couch, you knew that whatever the reason was, you were not about to go bother him and find out. If he overslept and was late to deal with something with the Sons or Teller-Morrow Automotive, that was his problem to deal with. You weren't his alarm clock, and you could only imagine what horrors would await someone that dared to wake Jax. 

But you were desperate for a cup of coffee after having barely slept for the ninth night in a row. Not that Jax had any good coffee–it was passable at best–but it was better than nothing at all. With a sigh, you shoved the blanket off to the side, leaving it bunched on the couch cushions as you accepted the fact that you'd have to interact with him this morning. 

Getting up from the couch, you headed into the kitchen and straight over to the coffee maker on the counter. Setting it up to begin brewing a pot of coffee, you found yourself wondering if Jax also spoke in short grunts in the mornings. That’s what he usually did whenever he came back late at night from the clubhouse before he usually disappeared to his bedroom.

It wasn't that you didn't necessarily like Jax, because you’d absolutely loved his character on the show from your reality. You’d binged all seven seasons more than once. You felt like you could relate to the way the world always seemed to be against him at every turn–especially now in this impossible-to-believe situation you'd found yourself in against your will. And you'd felt sympathy for his character, watching him steadily become the thing he never wanted to become while he slowly lost everything he ever loved because of his club. 

He was a complex and tragic character, one beautifully fleshed out with flaws and hopes like anyone else. You'd cared about his character enough that whenever you'd hit writer's block on your actual work, you had written fanfiction about him. You gave him stories with far better endings than the one he'd gotten in the show–endings you felt he deserved instead.

But Real Jax was not a fictional man on a scripted show where the story was fake and the stakes weren't real. This Jax didn't come home with prop blood from a television set splattered on his sweatshirt and his face, or a dulled knife holstered at his side with a gun in his kutte that fired off blanks. Everything about him was real and dangerous and hard to accept. 

Despite how he'd been taking care of you since he'd apparently found you dead on the side of the road before you’d miraculously reanimated, along with the few short conversations you'd had with him a couple of times over the past nine days, it was difficult to look past the violence he'd perpetrated to see a man you could trust and feel safe around. It was one thing when you were looking at the Jax on a show–the one you’d written about in your stories–but it was a completely different thing altogether when the man came home marked in the sins and transgressions of his life on a daily basis. 

So you'd found it easier to just avoid him as much as possible rather than to try and process how you felt about all of that, too. You already had enough on your mind with trying to accept the strange predicament you were stuck in while trying to figure out what you needed to do in this world, you hadn’t wanted to also grapple with issues of morality. He was helping you get your footing here and that's as far as you'd let yourself look at it.

A presence at your back pulled your mind from your exhausted thoughts, causing you to startle when a hand reached up towards a cabinet near your head. Taking a couple of steps backwards, you saw Jax’s hand pause before the door of the kitchen cabinet where the coffee mugs were stored, his face scrunched up in confusion at your reaction.

“‘S just me, Michigan,” he soothed in a far too delicious morning rasp. “Don't needa be so jumpy.”

“Sorry, you just–” 

You broke off as you watched him continue to reach into the upper cabinet and pull down two plain black coffee mugs as he stood there wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants, the muscles in his arms visibly flexing as he moved. You had to forcefully tear your eyes away from him and onto the pot of coffee that was steadily and noisily filling on the counter beside you. Even the way his hair was mussed from sleep instead of within its neat style was doing something to you this morning, something you also did not want to think about when it came to Real Jax.

“You startled me,” you finished lamely.

“Well, maybe if you weren't so busy pouting at my coffee maker,” Jax teased, turning towards you and handing you an empty mug, “you would've heard me talkin’ to you.”

“I wasn’t pouting,” you disagreed as you accepted the mug. “I was just…thinking.”

“The pout on your face says otherwise, darlin’,” Jax countered. “You got somethin’ against my coffee maker?”

He turned and rested a hip against the counter, the small grin on his tired face making all the warnings in your head about him dull and quiet. The hard curves of his chiseled pectoral muscles coated in the warmth of the morning sunlight in his kitchen wasn’t exactly helping to make you want to bolt from the room, either. He was just so unfairly handsome, and maybe it was due to having watched seven seasons of Fake Jax’s life multiple times, but whenever he looked at you like that, you felt as if you knew him. As if maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you trusted him.

“It’s hardly a coffee maker,” you answered before you could stop yourself. 

His head very slowly tipped to the side at the insult to his kitchen appliance. One of his brows rose onto his forehead as the object of discussion struggled to noisily finish filling the pot on the counter beside you both. If it wasn’t for the amused twist of his lips, you'd have thought you'd just genuinely offended him.

“Look, I mean it with the utmost respect,” you began to defend yourself, “but your cheap coffee maker is almost as dead as I was the other day. And your taste in coffee is deplorable.”

“Oh, it’s deplorable, is it?” he repeated, grin widening.

Whenever you two fell into one of these rare, lighthearted conversations, you found yourself trying to ease into it and let your guard down. Spending a week and a half mostly by yourself left you feeling rather lonely, and your loneliness helped make it easier to forget just how scary Jax could be. Considering the adorable lopsided grin on his tired face this morning, he currently seemed rather unthreatening, so you found your initial desire to avoid him quickly melting as you continued.

“You drink pre-ground Folgers,” you said, gesturing a hand to the canister on the counter. “I don’t think there’s anything lower than that, Jax. It’s like you’ve been brainwashed by what I’m assuming also existed as commercials in the nineties here to think that it’s actually coffee when it’s absolutely not.”

He snorted in amusement at the comment. “It’s not real coffee?” he questioned. “So what is it then? Fake Coffee? Just like Fake Jax?”

A faint frown crossed your lips at his teasing. You’d told him the other day how you’d begun to separate both Jaxs’ in your mind. He was Real Jax since he was the one solid and breathing in front of you, while the other Jax from the television show in your world with the slightly different timeline was Fake Jax.

“No,” you replied. You turned around and grabbed the pot of coffee from beneath the coffee maker when it finally completed its death knell. “It’s just shitty coffee. I’m sure Charming’s stores have something that’s at least marginally better quality than this.”

“Didn’t realize you were that goddamn picky ‘bout your coffee, Michigan,” Jax teased, accepting the pot from you. 

Beginning to spoon a bit of sugar into your cup from the container on the counter, you attempted to cover the bitter, burnt flavor of the coffee as you shrugged a shoulder. “I took my coffee seriously,” you told him. “I used to go to this coffee shop to work at when I didn’t feel like messing with my own espresso machine for the day.” You looked up, eyes landing on the oak cabinet in front of you as a wistful expression passed over your face. “They had the best croissants, too.”

A faint chuckle rumbled out of Jax beside you at the counter. “Yeah, you ain’t finding that shit in Charming, darlin’,” he assured you.

“I know,” you muttered, deflating a bit as you slid the sugar over to him on the countertop. “I found the single cafe in downtown Charming already. No croissants and subpar coffee. I’m more doomed in this world than I initially thought.”

Picking up your coffee, you carried it across the small kitchen and over towards the table. You pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, raising the steaming cup to your lips as your eyes drifted out of the window next to the table. It overlooked the street in front of Jax’s house, but your eyes were quickly drawn to the little black figures sitting on the roof of the house across the street. It looked like three crows were perched on the rooftop and your brows furrowed faintly. 

What the hell was with all the crows in Charming?

“Think you got bigger problems than coffee and fuckin’ croissants,” Jax pointed out, finishing making his own cup of coffee. “Should be more worried ‘bout why the hell you’re here.”

Taking another sip of the bitter coffee, your nose wrinkled as the warm liquid passed over your tongue. Eyes still lingering curiously on the crows across the street, you knew Jax had a point, but it wasn't as if you hadn't been trying to make sense of that for the past nine days.

Swallowing down the coffee, you tore your eyes away from the birds, surprised to see Jax settling down into the chair across from you at the table instead of running right out the door and heading to the clubhouse. But your initial nerves of having to interact with him this morning had already dimmed with the conversation, even if you were still struggling not to stare at his bare chest. 

Jax took a sip from his own mug as he settled into the chair, lazily leaning back in it. As he drank, his eyes drifted out of the window before they gradually narrowed. His mug hesitated by his mouth for a second, gaze clearly locked onto something. He swallowed his coffee before lowering the mug back to the table, his head tipping towards the window.

“You keep seein’ all these fuckin’ crows lately?” he asked curiously.

Your head turned back over to the window, eyes landing on the three dark shapes across the street. You couldn’t see their faces at this distance, but you swore the birds were watching you both. Which felt ridiculous to even think let alone admit. But you had been seeing a lot of crows around here since you'd shown up. Usually on those mornings that you couldn't sleep, when you were sitting outside in Jax’s backyard because another nightmare about your death had kept you awake, there’d be crows circling around nearby. Or perched on something just watching you.

“Yeah,” you answered, attention returning to Jax. “I just assumed they were common to the area. I never really saw them that much in Michigan. Not like this, at least. Why? Is that not normal?”

Jax shook his head, shifting in his seat as he continued lounging back in it. “No,” he answered. “Been seein’ them a lot more lately. Ever since the day I found you on the side of the road.”

He paused for a moment, tongue running slowly along his bottom lip as he sat in silent contemplation. The gesture made your body heat as your eyes followed its path, watching the way his lips glistened with saliva in the wake of his tongue. You shifted awkwardly in the chair before tearing your eyes away from his mouth, mentally chastising yourself for even noticing.

“A few of them appeared right before you woke up on the side of the road,” he told you, his voice drawing you back to the conversation. His gaze flickered to the window before it returned to you. “You think they got somethin’ to do with why you’re here?”

You made a face at the question, your hands wrapping around the warm mug of coffee on the table in front of you. “The crows?” you clarified. “I doubt birds brought me here, but I don’t know. I suppose they appeared in the show from my world often, so…maybe they're related to it somehow?” you answered him. “At this point, I’d believe almost anything.”

“Did they mean anything in the show?” he asked, studying you. “Anything important?”

One of your shoulders rose and fell at the question. “Death?” you answered. “Isn’t that usually what crows represent? Though,” you continued, glancing across the street at the trio of birds, “they don’t necessarily give me a bad feeling, they’re just unsettling.”

Jax leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on the table beside his coffee mug. “Feels like they’re watchin’ you right?”

You nodded in agreement. “It’s like they’re oddly sentient for crows. More than they should be.”

He hummed a thoughtful noise as he raised his mug of coffee to his lips again, side-eyeing the birds out of the window as he took another drink. Raising your own mug to your mouth, you settled back in your chair and sipped on the bitter coffee that tasted nothing like what you were accustomed to.

It was strange that he was seeing the crows now, too. Even stranger that he acknowledged the odd feeling they’d been giving you over the past week and a half. Almost as if there was something supernatural about the birds, just like your appearance in this other reality. But what did the supernatural have to do with the Sons of Anarchy? It was just a show about a motorcycle club and their illegal activities, there wasn’t anything–

Your eyes widened the moment it hit you, shocked at how it had taken you nine whole days to think of the most glaringly obvious element in the whole show that wasn’t normal. Abruptly sitting upright in the chair, you practically slammed your mug down on the table, the liquid sloshing dangerously close to the edge of the cup.

“Oh my fucking God!” you exclaimed, the loud noise causing Jax’s head to snap in your direction. “I don’t know how the hell I forgot about her!”

Jax's brows drew together at your outburst, his eyes narrowing at you. “The fuck are you talkin’ about, Michigan?” he asked, concern and suspicion coating his words. “Forgot about who?”

Trying to rein in your enthusiasm, you planted both hands firmly on the kitchen table like it was the only thing keeping you from jumping out of your skin in excitement. Because it sure as hell felt like you'd just figured something out.

“The homeless woman,” you explained, the words falling out of you in a rush. “The homeless who appeared throughout all seven seasons of the show. The one who looked like the woman your father accidentally killed in his motorcycle accident. Except she’s not exactly a ghost because other people can see her.”

His blonde brows shot up onto his forehead, clearly not following much of what you said. He looked as if he was probably contemplating your sanity once again. 

“You tellin’ me there’s not only weirdly sentient fuckin’ crows, but an undead ghost lady wandering around Charming now, too?” he asked. “Is that what you're sayin’?”

You waved a hand dismissively through the air in a rush as you shook your head. You felt like you were onto something here, as if you’d found some piece of this entire strange puzzle of your unexplainable existence in this world that you were now desperate to solve. That alone had you forgetting about how nervous he often made you.

“No, she’s not some ghost lady,” you corrected him. “She was this supernatural element in the show from my world. She just looked like the woman who’d died in the accident that took your father’s life, but I don’t think it was the actual woman.” You waved your hand through the air again, as if brushing off the irrelevant information. “This homeless woman kept appearing to you and sometimes your mom–she even showed up in Belfast when you guys were in Ireland. At the end of the series, you asked her who she is, but she never really answered you.” 

You slapped your hand sharply down onto the table, the solid noise ringing through the kitchen. Jax eyed you warily, the morning light flooding through the window making his eyes a prettier shade of blue. 

“I bet she’s the one who brought me here,” you stated. “She has to be behind it.”

“The dead lady?” Jax repeated skeptically. “You think the dead lady brought you here?”

“There’s a lot of speculation about who she’s actually supposed to be because it’s never confirmed,” you told Jax. “The creator of the show, Kurt Sutter, straight up claimed she was Jesus Christ in a video, but I think he backtracked that later.” 

Jax stared blankly back at you from across the table, that hard look on his face causing heat to creep up your neck. Two weeks ago, if someone would’ve told you you’d be sitting in Jax Teller’s kitchen talking about Jesus, you’d have thought you’d gone insane, too. But after dying and coming back to life in a different reality, you had no idea what the hell to even think about anything anymore.

“Yeah, I get it,” you agreed, that hard stare of his making you uneasy. “I sound insane. I know. But somehow I'm here, so maybe she is real in this world. And maybe she’s death itself like some people speculated, or maybe she really is Jesus, I don’t know. But whatever she is, she’s the one thing that stands out in that whole series as abnormal.” 

You paused, teeth sinking into your bottom lip as Jax’s expression remained stoic and impossible to read. That self-conscious feeling you often got around him was slipping in past your excitement over feeling like you'd figured something out.

“If anyone could have brought me here, it’s probably her,” you finished. “Which is most likely why you found me and not someone else. She probably wanted you to find me because she’s linked to you somehow.”

Jax’s face pinched tight in confusion as he eyed you across his kitchen table. “You think I found you because Jesus Ghost wanted me to find you?” he questioned. 

The corner of your lip twitched in amusement at the name he'd given the homeless woman–Jesus Ghost. But when his expression remained serious and unchanged, the amusement vanished.

“She always showed up during important moments of your life,” you told him. “So maybe that’s what this is now? Maybe I’m supposed to help you with something. Maybe that’s why I’m here in your world.”

Jax’s face only pinched tighter as he threw an arm over the back of his chair. “The fuck do you mean she wants you to help me with something?” he asked. “No offense, darlin’, but I think you’re far too soft to help me with anythin’.”

Gaze dropping down to the coffee in front of yourself, you stared at the dark liquid. His comment stung, but he wasn't wrong. You weren't built for his life. It made no sense as to why you would be here to help him, but if the homeless woman–or Jesus Ghost–was involved in this, then there had to be a bigger reason. Something Jax needed help with.

So maybe there was something in the differences between Real Jax and Fake Jax that would give you the answer. In the show, Jax’s life had gone completely off the rails after Opie’s death, but Opie wasn’t dead in this world. Things hadn’t gone quite the same way in this reality as they had in Fake Jax’s life on the show. So what was missing? What could Jax possibly need help with that might involve you?

As you sat there absently tapping a finger against your coffee mug, a thought struck you. It was one of the glaring differences you’d learned right when you’d first woken up in this world. Head darting back up, you met Jax’s stare again.

“You said you never married Wendy or Tara, right?” you asked him. “You never had children?”

Across the table from you, Jax tensed at the questions. “Yeah,” he answered in a clipped tone, like you were touching on something you shouldn't. “Never married. No kids.”

“Which means you also never went looking through Gemma’s storage unit for baby items,” you pointed out. “Meaning that you never found John’s manuscript about the club. About how the Sons lost their way.”

“The what?” Jax asked, brows knitting together.

That had to be it. This had to be why you were brought here, right? Even though why it was you specifically still made no sense whatsoever. But if Jax never had a reason to go through Gemma’s storage unit in the past in this reality, he’d become president of the club without ever having read the manuscript. He’d never read any of the things his dad had written, never read what the club was supposed to be from the man who’d created it. Jax had just been blindly following in Clay’s footsteps because that’s what he’d always known in this world.

Maybe the manuscript was somehow meant to change his trajectory in this life. Maybe he needed to find it and read it. Maybe that’s what the homeless woman wanted?

“Your dad wrote a manuscript before he died,” you explained to Jax, your terrible coffee entirely forgotten with how focused you were on this conversation. “You finding it in your mom’s storage unit was literally the catalyst for everything in the show. You’d wanted to get the Sons out of running guns, to find a way to save the club. To make things legitimate and less bloody and dangerous, especially after your son was born.”

It felt like you were vibrating with energy as you sat across the table from him. For the past nine days, you existing in this world had felt entirely depressing and pointless, but maybe it wasn’t in the end. Maybe you had a purpose here–though you had no idea what would happen to you whenever you fulfilled it.

“I bet you that manuscript exists in this world,” you continued, ignoring the uncertainty on Jax’s face. “Finding it would prove that I really did watch a show about your club in some other reality and that I’m not delusional and crazy. And maybe that’s how we figure out why I’m here.”

With a heavy sigh, Jax raised the arm from off the back of his chair, running his hand across his face which looked far too exhausted for a man who'd just slept in. Having been so engrossed in all of these sudden realizations, you’d temporarily forgotten that he was sitting there half-dressed in his kitchen looking far too good for your liking, and you fought to not blatantly stare at the spot on his chest. The one missing Abel's name.

“You do realize how fuckin’ crazy you just sounded spouting all that shit off, right?” he questioned, his hand dropping to the table. 

“I’m aware, yes,” you answered. “But I’ll sound less psychotic if we find that manuscript. And afterwards, maybe I can track down that homeless woman.”

“So lemme get this straight,” Jax said, holding your stare. “You wanna go raid my mom’s storage unit, and then you wanna go look for Jesus Ghost?” 

“Yes,” you answered firmly. “I think that's what I need to do, yeah.”

He shook his head, his gaze shifting back out of the nearby window and landing on the crows still sitting across the street. “Guess we’ve got ourselves a fucked-up little plan then,” he muttered.

“With one little detail,” you added awkwardly.

Jax’s head turned back towards you, a flat, unamused look on his face. You had a feeling he'd be chain smoking a few cigarettes to deal with his stress after this conversation.

“What?” he asked gruffly.

“In the show, your mom wasn’t too thrilled with you finding that manuscript,” you slowly explained. “I have no idea how Gemma in this world would react considering you’re already SAMCRO’s president, but maybe it’s better you don’t just ask for the key to the unit? Because that manuscript…started a lot of problems. It might be better if no one knows you have it if we find it.”

“Right,” he sarcastically replied. “Because breaking into my mother’s storage unit with Jesus Ghost’s miracle girl is definitely what I needed to add to my list of shit to do this week.”

Lips drawing back in a sheepish smile at Jax, you really wondered why the hell the homeless woman had chosen you to handle all of this with him. You and him working together made absolutely no sense. But maybe you'd eventually figure that out.

It had been an adjustment staying with Jax over the past few days, one that didn’t feel like it was getting any easier as the time had gradually passed. But it wasn’t like you had any other options of places to stay while simultaneously struggling to make sense of the situation you’d been thrown into against your will all by yourself. Because you were all by yourself. 

The other night when Jax had given you one of his burner phones after his ceaseless interrogation of you, you'd tried calling your family and friends. But it had only taken you going through five or six numbers from your contact list and constantly being met with either a wrong number or a disconnected line before you realized the truth. You weren't going to get a hold of any of your family or friends here because they weren't here. A little searching around on the internet for the existence of yourself–or some other you in this world–with Jax’s laptop later that same night had also come up empty. Meaning exactly what you’d initially expected–you didn’t exist here, either.

That's when you'd started getting the sinking feeling that your world hadn't just been turned upside-down by whatever had happened to you, but that you'd been thrown straight out of it. Which had inevitably led to another panic attack that thankfully Jax hadn't been around to witness since he'd stepped outside to smoke yet another cigarette before bed. After that first panic attack you’d had in his kitchen, you’d gone out of your way to keep your breakdowns private whenever you had one, but that hadn’t been too difficult since you’d barely seen Jax after that first full day you'd been in his house.

Because on that first day here, Jax had made it a priority to help you get settled in his house and in his world. He’d taken the afternoon away from Teller-Morrow and the club to take you out shopping, letting you pick up basic necessities and clothes since you couldn't exactly continue to borrow his. And it had been an insanely uncomfortable experience buying bras and panties with the real Jax Teller, nothing like you’d have expected in a piece of fanfiction that would’ve led to some steamy sex with him tearing them off of you at his house later. Not that you were even necessarily sure you’d want that because Real Jax always had this no bullshit I-have-killed-people-and-buried-dead-bodies thing going on that was hard to ignore with that surly look often on his face. 

After he’d taken you shopping for clothing and a few other things, which he had firmly refused to hear you offer to pay him back for when you eventually started making money, he'd put in a call with his mysterious contact to get started on acquiring you things you’d need to seem less like a ghost in his world–a forged birth certificate, social security number, and a few other legal documents. But since you had nothing here, no money of your own or form of transportation, and no actual way to work without those documents you were still waiting on, your life had been a lot of figuring out how to pass the time lately.

Usually, you spent your time going on walks and getting acquainted with the small town of Charming. You’d discovered that Jax’s house wasn’t too far from downtown, so during the day you’d wandered around the small town before stopping into the little local library where you scoured the internet and read books. In the afternoons and evenings, like right now, you’d end up sitting in front of the television thinking about how absolutely messed up this whole situation was that you’d found yourself in. You kept thinking about how you’d never see your family or friends again, how you had no idea what you were going to do with yourself in this world, how it felt pointless trying to start a new life here because this wasn’t where you belonged–

Inhaling a sharp breath, you willed your mind to stop going down that familiar spiral of panicked, terrifying thoughts just as you caught the telltale sound of Jax’s bike pulling up into the driveway outside. Shrinking further into yourself on the couch involuntarily when the engine fell quiet, you waited for the sound of the door opening to announce his presence. 

You were still a little uneasy around Jax, finding him incredibly hard to read since you hadn’t had too many conversations with him after those first two days. He often came home late, greeted you with a couple of grunted out words, and then headed to the shower or the bedroom. In the morning, he was barely here longer than it took to brew and chug a cup of coffee before he left on his bike. You’d wondered if he was really gone that frequently, or if he was just keeping his distance for your sake to give you space. Or if he was keeping his distance from you because he was still considering killing you to keep you quiet about his club–you hadn’t entirely written that fear off yet despite the help he’d been giving you. 

You’d also adamantly taken up his larger couch to sleep on for the foreseeable future. He’d shocked you when he offered for you to take his bed since it was the only bed in his house–which you’d made a lot of bitter one bed trope comments about inside of your head–before he offered to just share it with you when you’d firmly refused that idea. But it was already bad enough that you were actually living through the fake dating trope–which you thankfully hadn’t had to put into practice yet since no one had visited in the few days that you’d been here–and the forced proximity trope. The last thing you needed was to share the damn bed, too. It was almost as if the universe–or the multiverse, who fucking knew at this point–was finding some sort of cosmic humor in forcing you to live out these tropes that you’d so frequently read or written in romantic fiction yourself.

The front door finally swung open and Jax stepped inside the house, his entrance breaking through the train of thoughts currently filling your mind. He shut the door after himself, leaning a hand against the wall as he slipped out of his shoes before taking off his kutte. You glanced over from the television at him, a strained smile on your face as you greeted him quietly. He nodded his head at you in response, that usual stoic expression still on his face. 

“Surprised you’re still up,” he said.

One of your shoulders rose and fell slightly at the comment. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Which was true. Most nights you couldn’t sleep because your thoughts just kept on spiraling until you eventually cried yourself to exhaustion on the couch. And then at some point you’d have a very vivid nightmare about the car accident that killed you–because it turns out that reliving your death is terrifying, who’d have guessed. Usually after those dreams you’d slip out into his backyard for a bit until the sun started to rise, and then you’d bury yourself under the blanket on the couch and pretend to be asleep before Jax could wake up to realize you’d been awake most of the night. Because those were all just more things that Real Jax didn’t need to know about. Not that you figured he’d care much anyway, he hadn’t really seemed too invested in your well-being much over the past few days.

Jax took a few steps towards the living room before pausing just behind that half-wall that the smaller couch rested against. You looked over again at him, noticing the way he was staring at the show on the television with a slightly raised brow. Seeming to sense your eyes on him, his attention abruptly shifted to you, his blue eyes causing you to stiffen beneath the blanket wrapped around you.

“Want some company?” he asked.

The answer to that was a see-saw of yes’s and no's. Would you like to get to know Jax better because this was an odd situation and you were curious to pick the brain of one of your favorite fictional characters? Yes. But would Real Jax Teller let you sit there and just ask him ceaseless personal questions? You highly-fucking-doubted it. Were you desperate for human interaction of any sort at this point? Yes. But did you want the scary Jax Teller–an actual biker outlaw–to sit and pay close attention to you with his hard-to-read almost-glare? Not particularly.

Not knowing how to exactly answer the question, your gaze darted skeptically back to the show you were watching. “You…want to watch The Great British Baking Show?” you asked in disbelief.

“Honestly? No, not really,” he answered. “Don’t know how you’re actually struggling to sleep with that shit on.” He paused, a small sigh falling out of him. “But I haven’t really been around the past couple days. Haven’t really, y’know, seen how you were, uh, doin’ and all.” 

To your utter shock, the corner of his lips drew back into a little grin before a quiet huff fell out of him. He ran a hand through his blonde hair, combing back a few loose strands that had probably been shifted out of place from his helmet, before shaking his head at the question. An amused glint in his blue eyes met yours when they landed back on you, the sight of it softening you towards him just a little.

He ran a ringed hand awkwardly over the back of his neck as if the topic of your mental health was terrifying to him, which you figured it probably was. But the odd look on his face now seemed like it had nothing to do with him wondering how you were and more to do with something that was on his mind. Chewing the inside of your cheek, you had a feeling there was a little something more to his offer of keeping you company.

“And we should…probably figure out that cover story a little further,” he added awkwardly. “‘Cause uh, it kinda came up tonight that I’ve got a girlfriend stayin’ here with me.”

Your eyes immediately grew wide before flying to the front door behind him, half-expecting to see Gemma bursting straight through it ready to drown you in the kitchen sink. Clearly reading the fear on your face, and as if he could hear your thoughts, Jax chuckled softly and shook his head at your horrified reaction.

“Just the guys, not my mother,” he assured you. “Though, I don’t think it’s gonna be long before she hears about it from one of them. So we should probably get some details sorted, y’know?”

“Right,” you agreed awkwardly, gripping the ends of the blanket around you tighter as your attention shifted back to him. “That makes sense. We uh, we should have a reason as to why you’ve got a girlfriend no one’s ever met before suddenly living with you.”

“And all the other important bullshit that comes with that,” Jax agreed with a nod. “How we met, how long we’ve been together. All that stupid shit. Which means I’m gonna need a beer for this.” He took a couple of tired steps towards the kitchen, his blonde brows arching up onto his forehead as he looked back over his shoulder at you. “You want one, Michigan?”

“Yeah, sure,” you replied softly. “Thanks.”

Maybe a beer would help you to feel a little less uncomfortable around him. Especially for such an odd conversation that involved plotting out an entire believable relationship that wasn’t actually real between you both. But you were a romance writer, and you’d also written stories for Jax in your free time when you hit a road block on your actual work, so it shouldn’t be that hard to come up with a realistic and passable story that wouldn’t have Gemma Teller murdering you in his kitchen.

Jax sauntered his way back to the living room, his white-socked feet dragging along the floor in clear exhaustion with each of his steps. When he held out one of the beers for you to take from him, you leaned forward on the couch and grabbed it with a quiet ‘thanks’ before tucking yourself back against the armrest of the couch. As Jax settled onto the opposite end instead of getting comfortable on the smaller couch, you felt the hair on the back of your neck prickle at his proximity. Quickly drawing the cold beer to your lips, you took a deep pull off of the bottle and hoped it would help ease the strange mix of fear and attraction that always ran through you in his presence.

“Probably should figure out how we met,” Jax mused aloud, leaning back into the couch as he raised the bottle in his hand towards his mouth. “Gem’s gonna ask that kinda shit.”

Pressing your lips together, your fingers nervously ran along the length of the cold glass bottle in your lap. “I’m guessing telling everyone that you found me dead on the side of the road isn’t a cute story, is it?” you half-joked.

Across the sofa, Jax swallowed down his drink before jutting his chin at you. “You always do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” you questioned back.

“Deflect with jokes,” he replied, cocking his head to the side as his eyes narrowed marginally. “You’re always makin’ jokes when you get uncomfortable instead of just answering the question.”

Lips parting in surprise at how much he’d actually been paying attention to the few interactions he’d had with you over the past few days, you silently gaped at him from the other end of the couch. The quiet drone of the baking show filled his living room around you, the familiar sound of it feeling like the only thing keeping your pulse steady. This was undeniably still a hard to come to terms with situation, one that had you taking yet another deep pull off of your beer with the way Jax was still studying you.

“Laughing is better than crying,” you flippantly answered after swallowing down the alcohol. Trying to veer the conversation away from anything too personal about yourself and your feelings, you continued right on. “So we need a realistic place that you would meet a girl. Somewhere you’d have been out and alone since none of the other Sons have met me yet.”

Resting an elbow on the back of the couch as he sat half-facing you on the cushions, Jax’s fingers on his free hand rubbed at his temples as his eyes closed. He looked like he’d had a difficult and frustrating day, especially with the firm set of his mouth. You wondered if something was going on with the club and maybe that explained his absence over the past few days after he’d taken you shopping. But you weren’t about to ask him if he was alright or if there was something on his mind even if you found yourself a little curious. The last thing you wanted to do was accidentally piss off the grumpy biker, and you had a feeling personal questions would certainly do that.

“A bar?” Jax threw out.

His suggestion drew your attention back to the conversation at hand. Chewing your lip in thought, you watched his eyes open before he looked over at you hopefully, as if he figured that one suggestion would somehow solve the whole problem of your fake relationship because he clearly didn’t want to participate in this conversation.

“Okay, but do you usually go to bars alone?” you countered, raising a brow. “Especially since you can just drink at the clubhouse and find whatever girls you want there?”

Jax sighed, the sound one of annoyance. “No, you’re right. Got no reason to go to one.”

“Okay, so…” Your voice trailed off as you looked down at the beer in your hands, your fingers tapping lightly along the cool glass. “We need something realistic for you. Something that makes sense and doesn’t leave room for holes to get poked through it.” Blowing out a long breath, you tried to focus your thoughts, switching into the mindset you had whenever you brainstormed when you wrote. “I did this for a living,” you muttered softly to yourself as you focused on the beer in your lap. “You’d think I could handle doing it when my life depends on it.”

“Did what for a living?”

Jax’s question threw you off, your gaze darting back over to him on the other end of the couch. He was eyeing you curiously now, clearly having caught the little muttered comment you’d made to yourself. Blinking back at him slowly, you realized you hadn’t really told him too much about yourself–not that he’d asked. When he’d found you by the side of the road almost a week ago, you’d mentioned being a writer, but you hadn’t really gone too in depth about it. Not that it had exactly been the time for that.

“Coming up with stories,” you told him, a finger still absently tapping against the bottle on your lap. “I wrote books before I died and ended up here. Romance novels, more specifically.”

The corner of his mouth drew up into the most beautiful little lopsided grin you’d ever seen. The sight of it had you temporarily forgetting that he was the leader of a criminal motorcycle club that illegally ran guns and who occasionally killed people–possibly a few innocent people if he’d gone down that same dark path like Fake Jax had after Opie’s death on the show you’d watched. Your breath caught in your throat at the same time your finger stopped its nervous fidget against the beer bottle while you stared at him, your heart doing a weird little pitter-patter in your chest. But the second he spoke, reality crashed back down on you and you swallowed hard, reminding yourself that he wasn’t just the pretty biker on a television screen.

Real Jax was dangerous. In more ways than one.

“You serious, Michigan?” he asked, half-teasing. “You wrote romance novels for a living?”

The faintest frown met his light jab at you. “I had a few best-selling books,” you defended, catching the hint of surprise in his eyes. “I was doing fairly well before my life completely ended.”

“Yeah, I bet you were,” he said, that lopsided grin still present. “Were your books those little naughty ones with the half-naked Fabio’s on the cover?”

Maybe it was the half of a beer in your system loosening you up just a tad, or maybe it was the fact that Jax was actually being a little friendly and not the stiff, hard-to-read guy he’d generally been towards you over the last few days. Either way, you found yourself rolling your eyes as a small smile crept onto your face.

“They didn’t have half-naked Fabio’s on the cover, no,” you answered.

His eyes creased at the corners as he pointed his beer at you, his shoulders shaking lightly with a quiet laugh. “So they were naughty books, weren’t they, darlin’? Didn’t hear you deny that part.”

“It is perfectly acceptable for women to explore their sexuality,” you pointed out, finding yourself relaxing a little more on his couch. “Not that you should be one to judge since I’m guessing the Sons in this world still worked with CaraCara, right?”

Jax nodded as he took another pull off of his beer. When he swallowed the alcohol, his tongue slipped out, running over his bottom lip in a fluid, distracting motion. Your eyes followed the movement before your brain mentally chastised yourself for noticing, drawing your own beer to your lips to give yourself something else to focus on. But with Jax acting like this around you–being charming, charismatic, and funny–you were struggling to keep in mind who he really was.

“Yeah, we did,” he told you. “Before Luann walked away and we decided to start Redwoody instead.”

You mentally noted yet another difference in the lives between Real Jax in this world and Fake Jax of the television show you’d watched. Over the past few days you had slowly been piecing together a handful of little differences from the few things he’d been telling you. Real Jax–this world’s Jax–had never married Wendy, so he’d obviously never had Abel. Apparently Tara had never come back to Charming running from Kohn, which also meant he’d never married her or had Thomas. Donna had been shot on accident by Tig, but Opie had still married Lyla, and he thankfully had not been brutally murdered in prison because he was currently Jax’s vice president. And Clay had apparently stepped down and handed the gavel to Jax because of his arthritis when he could no longer ride–he had a seat at the table, but he wasn’t exactly running with the Sons anymore. 

“Who came up with the name of it, by the way?” you asked curiously before you could stop yourself. “Redwoody? I’ve always wondered if you guys were just sitting in church spitballing porn studio names around the table one night.”

An amused huff fell out of Jax before he nodded his head, leaning further into the cushions of his couch as he got more comfortable. “That’s exactly what happened, Michigan. And it was Tig who threw out the name, believe it or not.”

At the mention of Clay’s previous right hand–one of the Sons who would certainly make you nervous if you saw him in the flesh–you sobered up a little. You were supposed to be sitting here coming up with a good relationship cover story for why you were staying here in Jax’s house temporarily. Some sort of realistic story that everyone would be able to believe. Because if Gemma or any of the guys thought something was slightly off about you and looked too far into things, who knew what might happen–especially if everything about you seemed fake. What if they thought you were some undercover federal agent like Jax initially thought? They might want to get rid of you. Permanently. And you figured not even Jax would be able to stop the guys if they took a vote to kill you. You already knew what Gemma’s reaction would be if she suspected you were a threat to her son and the club considering what she’d done to Tara in the show just for thinking she was going to rat her son out to the feds.

Your life quite literally depended on faking being Jax’s girlfriend until you could get enough money saved up from a job to move far, far away from the Sons of Anarchy. That was the plan you’d been quietly coming up with while Jax had been gone most of the past few days–get the forged legal documents, get a job, make as much money as you could, then buy a car and get as far away from Charming, California as possible.

“So,” you began, pausing to clear your throat. “We need to think of a place where we’d have met.”

Jax’s head tilted slightly to the side at your sudden shift in conversation again, his own grin slowly vanishing from off of his face. That calculating look was back instead, as if you were some sort of confusing puzzle he was still trying to figure out.

“What about a gas station?” you tossed out, determined to stay focused. “You need to refuel your bike sometimes, and I’m guessing you’re not usually doing that with an entourage, right?”

“No,” he agreed slowly, still thrown by the topic change. “But why the fuck would I be pickin’ up a girl from a gas station?”

“Well…best to keep things as close to the truth as possible, isn’t it? I'm here because you're helping me,” you pointed out. “Is it realistic enough to say I was being harassed by an ex-boyfriend while I was there and you stepped in to help me?”

In the first season of the show, you vaguely remembered a girl with a shitty boyfriend that Jax had temporarily ‘rescued’ her from at a gas station after the idiot had sat on Jax’s bike. Maybe it wasn’t too far from the realm of possibility that this Jax would be capable of doing something fairly similar. 

Jax’s brows furrowed together at the idea. “You mean like, I came in defending your honor or some shit?” he asked skeptically.

“More like you overheard him saying some degrading or verbally abusive things to me,” you explained. “Something that pissed you off. Maybe you stepped in, told him to back off, the prick said something stupid to you, so you clocked him in the face. Then we got to talking and you offered me your number in case my ex ever gave me hell again. You can tell the guys it was because you were hoping to get laid for helping me or something like that. I don’t care.”

“Then what?” he prompted. He raised the beer to his lips and took another pull from the bottle, clearly trying to just finish working on this little story with you. “You used my number to hit me up to rescue you again some other time from your dipshit ex? We hit it off and then suddenly I’m asking you to move in with me? ‘Cause I don’t know ‘bout that, Michigan. That sounds like bullshit. No one’s gonna buy that.”

Chewing your lip in thought, you hit a wall at that yourself. Jax falling for some girl in a matter of what would probably equate to a couple of months before having her move in didn’t sit right for him. That wasn’t in his character. But then you remembered what you’d initially said about keeping it close to the truth and shook your head as an idea formed.

“No, maybe not quite like that,” you answered slowly, eyes narrowed in thought as you stared at the bottle in your lap. “Maybe…we hit it off but my ex continued to be a problem while we were seeing each other for the past couple of months. He kept showing up at my place and harassing me. Scaring me. So you demanded I leave my old apartment and come stay with you until I got my footing and started over in Charming. You can pick some place just a little bit outside of town and say I was living there initially before I came here.”

Eyes raising from the almost finished bottle of beer in your lap, they met Jax’s across the couch from you. He was drinking back the rest of his own beer as his focus shifted over towards the television that was still playing an episode of The Great British Baking Show, which now seemed incredibly out of place in his living room as he sat there watching it. Sitting on the opposite end of the couch, you lightly drummed your nails along the brown bottle in your lap, waiting for him to tell you whether he thought it was a good cover story or absolute shit. 

“Yeah, alright,” he eventually said, gaze returning to you. “We go with that. Doesn’t seem too hard to believe and it explains why you’re stayin’ here with me. Covers almost everything.”

“Could also say I was nervous to meet the guys at your club because of the history with my ex,” you added hesitantly, knowing that needed an explanation too. “To cover why none of them had heard of me before. Say I was a little nervous to meet them despite your reassurances, so you figured you’d keep things quiet for a bit. Would also explain away any genuine nerves when I do have to meet them.”

Jax’s lips pressed into a thin line, his piercing eyes feeling as if they were staring through you instead of just looking at you. Not for the first time you wondered what he was thinking when it came to you. Was he quietly plotting your murder in his head? Were you an annoying nuisance that had taken residence on his couch? Did he secretly think you were a zombie who’d eventually develop a craving for his brains?

“You don’t need to be afraid of them, darlin’,” Jax said, a gentleness to his usually gruff voice. “They’re not gonna hurt you, especially if they think you’re my old lady.”

“Except I’m not actually that,” you reminded him, tugging the plaid blanket tighter around you with the hand not holding your beer. “So if they realize that, then nothing is really stopping them.” 

A frown settled onto your face as your attention returned to the show on his television, but you weren’t exactly watching it. Not that you had been watching it that much earlier before Jax had come back home, either. His TV had become the background noise to help drown out the noise in your own head over the past few days, except it never really seemed to do that. 

“You good?”

At the sincerity of the question, you looked back over to find Jax leaning forward on the couch towards you, his hand wrapped around the neck of his empty beer bottle. For the briefest moment when your eyes met his, you were struck with the overwhelming urge to tell him the truth. That you felt a deep, aching loneliness everyday that you’d woken up here which you couldn’t quite possibly begin to explain in words. A loneliness that came from not just feeling isolated but entirely misplaced. That you craved some sort of comfort and connection from someone–anyone. That you wanted someone to tell you why you were here grieving your own previous life and trying to figure out how to survive in this new one when you were supposed to be blissfully dead. That you hated reliving the car accident that haunted your nightmares in vivid detail and staring at the healing scars on your body every time you showered. That you wanted someone to just tell you, even just once, that everything would be alright somehow.

But you figured Real Jax wouldn’t give a shit about any of those things, so instead you forced a smile onto your face and nodded. 

“Yeah,” you lied. “Just trying to figure out which of my nine lives I’m apparently on now.”

You caught the look on his face, the one saying he knew what you were doing. Deflecting with jokes again. But he didn’t call you out on it, which you weren’t sure whether you were grateful for or not. If he had, maybe he’d have gotten the truth out of you. Then maybe you’d have seen if there was still some scrap of genuine sympathy inside of Jackson Teller which might’ve led him to offer you that pleasant lie you so desperately craved to hear, the one where he told you that everything would be alright in the end. 

Except instead, Jax pushed himself up from the couch and maneuvered around his coffee table before heading towards the kitchen to toss out the empty bottle of beer. The suffocating weight of your loneliness in this unfamiliar reality slammed right back into you as you sunk down into the couch cushions, absently swirling the last dregs of your own beer in your hand.  

Jax stepped out of the kitchen shortly afterwards, clearly planning to head to bed now that your conversation was finished. Your eyes followed him as he started making his way down the hallway, the corners of your lips twisted into a frown.

“G’night, Michigan,” Jax said as he passed.

“Yeah,” you muttered solemnly in return. “Night, Jax.”

But you'd noticed the growth chart that usually hung on the kitchen wall near the table, the one that had been used for marking Abel’s height as he'd grown over the years, wasn't there. There were no kids’ drawings proudly displayed on the stainless steel fridge, and even Jax’s living room, from what you'd briefly seen of it, lacked children's toys and playpens like you always remembered there being in the show. 

His house was eerily quiet. It was one of the first things you’d noticed when he’d led you inside and down the hall to his bathroom–though you already knew the entire floor plan of his house. Every room you’d secretly glimpsed when you passed it was glaringly devoid of Tara, Abel, and Thomas’ presence, which puzzled you immensely. But when Jax had found you by the side of the road a bit ago, he had told you that he’d never been married and didn't have kids. You still had no idea how that was even possible, though.

From what you'd seen in the hour that you’d been here, his house looked almost exactly the same as the one in your memory from the show–the early seasons before Tara had redecorated while Jax was in Stockton Prison. But this wasn't some television set put together–this was a real home. You could tell by the way the wooden chair creaked every time you awkwardly shifted your weight, and there were scratches and marks on the kitchen table beneath your nervously fidgeting hands. The cabinets were filled with dishes, which you'd seen when Jax had gotten you a glass of water after you'd finally sat down. Everything all felt real here. Even the brief touch of Jax’s hand when he'd passed you the cool glass of water earlier had sent an actual rush of heat and anxiety through you that you couldn’t write off as just being inside of your head. 

With every passing second, you felt like you were holding back a dam of fear and panic that was quickly filling you to the brim. It didn't help that as you'd been answering Jax’s interrogation of endless questions after you'd washed your face up in the bathroom–where the shower had reminded you of all those scenes he'd been in there naked–your eyes kept traveling towards the floor by the kitchen sink. The off-white vinyl tile looked familiar, but it was the image of Tara lying there dead after what his mother had done that kept resurfacing in your mind. And that only served as a reminder about just how dangerous Jax’s world actually was, and how dangerous he actually was.

Because through your panic and ever increasing horror, you'd come to start thinking that maybe you weren't in a coma or just dreaming all of this up. This all felt far too real for that. Jax had been warm and solid as you'd ridden pillion on his bike back to his house after he'd found you, the wind very real as it whipped past your face at the slow crawl he'd driven at. You’d felt the tension of muscles in his abdomen where your hands had timidly held onto him whenever he eased the motorcycle around a turn, and you’d felt the following involuntary heat that flooded you in response each time. Even seated in his kitchen now, with the smell of coffee lingering in the air and mixing with the scent of cigarette smoke rolling off of him, you knew it wasn't something conjured by your imagination. The same held true for how real it'd felt to wash your dirty and strangely blood-smeared face in his bathroom with warm water from the tap. 

None of this was in your head. And it certainly wasn't some drug-induced hallucination like Jax had asked you more times than you could count. But after you'd sat here and told him a handful of incredibly personal information about himself, his mother, the other Sons, and the club itself, he'd begun to realize it wasn't that, either. You were clearly in your right mind–for the most part–but carrying more knowledge than you should have had. More than made logical sense to Jax judging by that wary look of distrust which hadn't exactly left his eyes the more you'd told him what you knew.

“So…you’re tellin’ me that’s really how you know all this?” Jax asked skeptically, his stare holding yours. “‘Cause you watched everything in a TV show?”

His voice broke through the awkward silence that had hung in the air when his ceaseless round of questions had seemingly finally drawn to a close. Despite the glass of water you’d recently chugged down, your mouth still felt dry. That nervous energy vibrating beneath your skin had panic beginning to tighten around your chest the longer the not-so-fictional violent man sitting across the kitchen table stared back at you.

“That’s–that’s where I know you from,” you weakly agreed with a nod. “That’s how I know…all of what I told you, yes.”

Since you had watched Sons of Anarchy an embarrassing amount of times over the years, you happened to know quite a bit of details by heart about the characters and plot points. You might’ve also dabbled in writing fanfiction for Jax outside of your actual paying career as a romance novelist, but you really didn’t think telling him about the smut and slow burns you’d written about him were remotely pertinent information to share with Real Jax. If that’s who he was–the real Jax Teller in the flesh, unlike the fictional character played by a really hot actor back wherever you’d been before waking up here.

He sat across the table from you with his forearms pressing into the surface as he observed you. His piercing blue eyes darted around your face, studying you so closely that you could feel the tick of your pulse in your throat. His gaze was unnerving, especially because you still had no idea what he was going to do with you. He'd made it painfully clear that he didn't like how much you knew about the Sons.

That only added to your growing panic. If you were somehow really here–really alive in his world–that meant he could kill you. And if he was anything like the later season Fake Jax from the television show that he looked very much like, then that outcome seemed entirely plausible. You were a threat, weren’t you? Some woman who had far too much information, a woman that seemed like she was crazy and might go spew it to the wrong people–including the authorities. 

As if sensing your increasing fear from the way he was leaning towards you, Jax slowly settled back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to give you some space. But while he was no longer leering at you quite as intensely, his broad and muscular figure was still an imposing, terrifying thing that had your heart slamming into your ribcage.

“What's the last thing you remember?” he questioned next, his head tipping to the side. “Cause if you're somehow not from here–” he paused, making a face as if he thought the television show explanation was absurd, which you didn't blame him for, “–then maybe that’ll explain how the fuck you are here.”

Right. That made logical sense. Logical sense that you'd been too panicked and preoccupied to think of yourself due to the man who wasn't supposed to be real constantly pushing you for answers to his questions. 

“Last thing I remember?” you repeated hesitantly, fingers still nervously twisting around themselves on the tabletop. “That would be…”

Taking a deep breath, your eyes drifted away from Jax and focused on the coffee machine just past his shoulder that sat on the counter beside the fridge. The last thing you remembered was…

Your eyes narrowed as you squinted at the coffee maker as if it was somehow at fault because your last memory was not immediately coming back to you. With a frown, you shook your head and then closed your eyes, trying a little harder to focus on the last thing that had happened before you’d been on all fours in the dirt staring at a man who you absolutely never expected to see in person. Gradually, after much effort, the beginning of a memory slowly took shape in your mind.

It was dark outside. Late. After midnight, maybe? You'd been in your car driving home–possibly from a girl's night-in with your friends? You remembered glasses of wine and laughter, but you’d been sober by the time you’d left. It had been cold outside–mid-January after a recent snowstorm, that much resurfaced clearly. And that explained why you'd woken in California currently dressed in your favorite sweater that now smelled faintly like sweat thanks to the heat.

“I was driving home,” you answered Jax quietly, remembering he was still sitting there expecting an answer. “From my friends’ place.”

Your eyes remained closed as you struggled to drag forth the last remnants of the memory you’d had before ending up here, clawing at the pieces of it as you brought it to the forefront of your mind, trying to shove it together like a mangled puzzle. But it was difficult. It felt like trying to catch water with your open hands, the images faint and trickling right past you as you tried to make sense of them all. Brows knitting further together, you squeezed your eyes tighter shut as you tried even harder, the effort making your head ache.

“It was late,” you continued softly, your voice a little tight. “The roads were icy because it was winter.”

Jax didn’t interrupt you when you fell silent again, your eyes still closed in concentration. You figured the strain of trying to recall your last memories must’ve been written on your face and keeping him quiet.

Continuing to focus, you remembered the way your tired eyes fought to remain open as you drove, your car swerving a few times over icy patches on the road. Your favorite playlist played at a high volume over the car’s speakers in an attempt to keep you awake and alert, but then…

That's where things became very fuzzy in your mind. Like a wall of white static halting you in place, a warning to not keep pushing further. But you pushed anyway, trying to shove your way past it to what was buried behind the static. You wanted to make sense of what had led you to be sitting in Real Jax Teller's kitchen.

That tightness in your chest abruptly doubled out of nowhere to an agonizing degree, as if something had crushed your lungs before smashing into your head with a brute force so sharp that it caused you to audibly gasp. You recalled two blinding bright lights in the dark and the loud crunch of metal before you felt pain shoot through your entire body in abundance at the memory, your teeth gritting together as your face screwed up in agony.

“What?”

Eyes flying wide open at the sound of Jax’s voice, you felt like you were struggling for air as you tried to orient yourself back in his kitchen. Because now you knew what had happened in those last few moments you’d had before waking up to Jax’s face on the side of the road and it was awful. You wished you could forget the feeling of it forever. 

Hands sliding down to grip the edge of his kitchen table, you clung to it like you were trying to ground yourself in this moment instead of that one. On the opposite side of the table, Jax’s arms uncrossed themselves from over his chest before they lowered back to his sides at your abrupt and surprising shift, the obvious fear and pain written on your face. Concern flitted across his own features as he leaned slightly forward in his chair towards you again.

“What?” he asked carefully. “What'd you remember?”

Mouth opening and closing a few times, you could feel the rising panic inside of yourself reaching a level you’d never experienced before. Breathing heavily, your nails dug into the solid wood table as you struggled to form the words to answer him, still shocked yourself as if you’d just experienced the entire situation all over again.

“Car accident,” you gasped out. 

Jax’s head tilted further to the side, his brows pinching curiously together at those two words. But you couldn’t really focus on his reaction to what you'd said. Each inhale you took burned as it reached your lungs, and those suddenly felt far too small and incapable of holding an entire breath. Your pulse had jolted to an alarming rate that felt abnormal, sweat pricking at your palms and your forehead as your vision tinged white at the corners.

You had died. That's what had happened to you before you'd randomly awoken here in this not-real reality. An oncoming car had slid on a patch of ice and veered straight into you, slamming right into your car before causing yours to fly off of the road in a deadly roll before it smashed into a tree. The feeling you’d just recalled had been an echo of what it was like being tossed around in the driver’s seat of your car like a ragdoll. Which now explained the blood and strange cuts on your face when you’d washed it in Jax’s bathroom, even if it didn’t quite explain how you were here or why they looked mostly healed.

“I died,” you choked out.

Eyes focused just somewhere past Jax, you didn’t quite catch his reaction to that hard-to-believe revelation. Because after realizing that you’d died, you’d begun to slowly realize a handful of other awful, terrifying things in rapid succession. Things that had you feeling like you were having a fucking heart attack in a kitchen that wasn’t meant to exist while sitting across from a man who’d actually killed people.

You’d died in your world and somehow ended up in some other place that shouldn’t be, some other place that wasn't quite the same as the show you'd watched. But yet, here you were. And if Charming, California existed on a map–if Jackson Teller and the Sons were real people with real lives–then you had no idea where the hell you were. 

This wasn’t your reality. Because Charming, California did not exist beyond the television show in your world. Jax Teller was portrayed by an actor. Which also meant that the likelihood of you existing in this world was slimmer than slim. Meaning your family probably didn't exist here. None of your friends. You’d already discovered that your cell phone couldn’t make calls when you'd tried in the bathroom–probably because access to interdimensional cell towers weren’t part of your wireless plan. But that also meant that you most likely had no published books here, no little house in Michigan that you’d proudly bought after your first book deal. It also meant that you had no money or bank accounts, and more than likely, not a single legal document that proved you were an actual human being allowed to function and work in the world here, either.

You had nothing.

That one word rang through your mind on repeat, causing your blood to run as cold as ice while Jax’s words grew muffled in your ears. Nothing. You didn’t exist here in this world. Nothing you knew was probably real in whatever this fucking reality was, and you were apparently dead in your previous one.

But why the hell hadn’t you stayed dead? Why were you here? Why had you come back? Was this what normally happened when you died? 

Two warm hands gently grabbed your upper arms, the touch causing you to jump in your chair before your wide, terrified eyes flew to meet a pair of blue ones. Jax slowly turned you in the chair away from the table and further towards himself as he said your name, the sound of it cutting through the racing thoughts and your uneven, heavy breaths.

“Hey, stay with me, okay?” he urged, his hands gripping your arms a little tighter. “You need to calm down and breathe before you pass the fuck out, darlin’.”

Having a fictional man who wasn’t exactly fictional–and was honestly terrifying as shit in real life–trying to offer you comfort was not exactly helping you to calm down. It was doing the opposite, actually. So you closed your eyes again, trying to block out the sight of things that shouldn’t be real while Jax’s hands remained holding your arms in a gesture you assumed he thought was comforting. Except it wasn’t. 

“Take some deep breaths,” he urged again. “You need to relax. I think you're having a panic attack.”

But you couldn’t follow his instructions. Tears bloomed at the corners of your eyes, slowly beginning to fall down your cheeks in warm droplets. Your breaths continued to come in sharp hitches, your heart beating roughly in an irregular rhythm. 

What were you supposed to do now?

Comforting emotional women wasn't exactly Jax’s strongest skill. It wasn’t something he’d had a lot of experience with, and he'd certainly never faced a woman going through quite the same predicament as the incredibly strange one currently taking measured breaths while sitting on his kitchen floor looking entirely out of place. 

Because if what you’d been telling him was somehow fucking true, you were as out of place as anyone could ever be.

Maybe it was because you'd experienced an actual panic attack while trying to recall your last moments alive–a panic attack that he could not even argue was fake because you’d scared the absolute shit out of him with that wheeze-sobbing thing you’d been doing for more than five minutes straight. Or maybe it was because everything you'd said made Jax begin to wonder if he really had stumbled on you lying dead beside the road when he first hadn’t felt your pulse before you’d abruptly reanimated. Whatever it was, he found himself slowly beginning to think you less and less delusional despite the strange shit you kept telling him. 

It all still seemed far too improbable for him to wrap his head around what you considered the truth, but nothing about you made any fucking sense otherwise. Maybe you really were some odd girl out of time and place who'd watched a show about his life and his club. How the fuck else did you know everything you did with such extreme detail? Even if some things you'd said made no sense–like his two marriages and two sons–far more of what you’d said was accurate than not. Uncomfortably so. 

But as you sat there, tear streaks glistening on your face in the light of his kitchen as you began to come down from that rush of emotions that’d thrown you into a very terrifying-to-witness panic attack, Jax knew one thing. 

You needed help. 

While he wasn't the most caring and soft-hearted man in the world, he also knew that he couldn't just chuck you back out onto the streets and purge you from his mind. He told himself it was solely because of what you knew about his club, because it truthfully was dangerous knowledge for you to have, but he also knew that wasn't the only reason as to why he was sitting beside you on the floor and eyeing you with an odd sense of sympathy. Something that he hadn't felt in a long goddamn time. But yet those sad, fearful eyes of yours had somehow awakened a part of himself he'd long ago thought had died. 

You looked lost and scared sitting there hugging your knees to your chest on the floor, soft sniffles coming from you every so often. Nothing about you screamed federal agent after he’d spent the past hour questioning you before witnessing you fall completely apart in his kitchen. You looked vulnerable. Alone.

With a heavy sigh, Jax eventually pushed himself up from the floor, noticing how your eyes darted towards him at the movement. You were still skittish and fearful of him. He hated the way you looked at him like he was going to pull a gun out and shoot you at any second. That look kept making his stomach twist inside of himself, but he tried to brush that unwelcome feeling aside as he took a step closer to you. Lowering a hand downwards, Jax let his offer to help you to your feet hover unspoken in the air.

You sat there hugging your knees to your chest, staring at his offered hand with your glossy eyes as the tears finally stopped running down your cheeks. Jax swallowed hard as the seconds ticked by, assuming you weren’t going to accept such a simple gesture from him. But just when he’d considered pulling his hand back, one of your arms unwrapped from around your legs before your smaller hand slipped into his. 

He helped pull you slowly up to your feet before nodding his head towards his living room. “Let’s go sit down,” he suggested. “Talk about what happens now.” When he saw that panicked look flit across your face again, he quickly added, “About how I can help you, darlin’. I’m guessin’ you need some help, yeah?”

With your lips pressed into a straight line, you nodded quietly. Jax released your hand and started walking from the kitchen to the living room, aware of your soft footsteps following a few paces behind. When he reached the couch, he sat down and got comfortable among the cushions, but he wasn’t surprised to see you make your way over to the smaller couch that butted up against the half-wall of the hallway. You settled into the cushions awkwardly, your eyes darting around his living room as if you were taking it all in as your hands fidgeted with the sleeves of your sweater.

“I’m guessin’ you’re gonna need a way to get back to Michigan, then?” Jax asked.

From the other couch, your eyes fell away from curiously studying the motorcycle pictures on the wall and focused on him. He saw the weak rise and fall of your shoulders as you shrugged in response, your bottom lip trembling as if you were fighting back more tears.

“I don’t know,” you answered, gaze dropping down to your fidgeting hands. “I probably don’t have a house here anymore. I’ve…got a feeling that I never existed in your world. Or if I do, I can’t exactly go and take over some other me’s life. There can’t exactly be two of me living in this world.”

Running a hand through his beard, the sharp hairs gently rasped over the pads of his fingers as he tried to let the strangeness of what you said unfurl in his mind. “So you think this is some sorta…alternate reality thing?” he asked slowly. “You died somewhere else and ended up here? That it?”

His question was met with another weak shrug from you before you leaned forward on the couch. Jax watched curiously as you pulled that strange cell phone out of the back pocket of your jeans and looked at it forlornly.

“Maybe?” you replied. “My phone doesn’t work. I can’t get cell service or internet connection. I already tried calling my family and my closest friends but I got nothing. It just…doesn't work here.”

“You can try one of my burners in a bit,” he offered. “I got one that hasn't been used yet. See if that makes a difference at all. You can call whoever you need to.”

Sad eyes lifting from your phone, Jax felt frozen beneath your stare when your eyes met his. Teeth sinking into your bottom lip, you chewed it in silence as the minutes passed. He figured you were probably thinking exactly what he was thinking now. And that’s when you finally gave voice to the unspoken question hanging in the air.

“What if no one answers?” you asked him softly. “What if I just don’t exist here? That would mean I don’t have a job, or a house, or any money,” you listed off, panic creeping back into your voice the more you spoke, “or family, or friends, or even a social security number, or–”

“Darlin’, hey, stop,” Jax cut in quickly, shaking his head. 

If you kept that up you’d end up giving yourself another panic attack, and that wheeze-sobbing thing you’d done a bit ago was still very much ingrained in his mind. Neither of you needed to experience that again. Leaning forward, Jax rested his elbows along the tops of his thighs as he once more attempted to offer you a comforting smile, but he saw the wary and uncertain look on your face.

“You can stay here until we figure somethin’ out,” he assured you. “However long that takes. I got connections if you somehow don’t have all the legal shit you need. I’ll fix that for you. And if–” he paused, inhaling a deep breath as he tried to accept the oddity of everything that had come along with your strange appearance in his life before he continued, “–if you’re really from some alternate reality or somethin’, I’ll help you get your footing here, alright? I ain’t gonna just throw you out, darlin’. But you can’t go around telling people they’re from a TV show, or spouting off shit ‘bout my club. Got it? I can’t promise you the other Sons would be as understanding as I’ve been, especially since they weren’t the ones who found you dead before having you bust their goddamn eardrums with your screaming.”

“Sorry,” you murmured, tugging on the sleeves of your sweater. “You just…scared me when I saw you.”

“Seems like I still do,” he observed.

Jax noticed the way your eyes darted away from him, jumping from object to furniture to object in the room just to avoid him. He wished he knew why you were so uncomfortable around him, but he figured if you really had watched him on some television show about his club, maybe that meant you’d seen him doing some of the violent things he’d done in order to protect the club. He supposed he wouldn’t blame you for being afraid of him if that was the reason.

“I told you earlier, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Jax repeated, his tone growing gentler. “I meant that. You’re safe here, Michigan. Not gonna let anyone else do anything to you, either, okay?”

Nodding, your eyes made their way back to Jax. “But you can’t…possibly want me to stay here,” you awkwardly pointed out. 

Jax made a face as he settled back on his couch, throwing an arm over the backrest as he got comfortable. He lifted a leg, crossing his ankle over his knee as he relaxed. On the opposite couch, you looked tense and rigid sitting there half-avoiding eye contact with him.

“What makes you say that?” he questioned.

“Because you don’t spend more than a few hours with the same girl,” you stated.

You’d said that so bluntly that Jax couldn’t stop the sharp laugh that burst out of his chest, a genuine smile spreading over his mouth. Yeah, you had a point. He’d never lived with a girl before, much less one he’d just found on the side of the road not even two hours ago. But you were a little different, and so was your situation.

“While you’ve got a point, this ain’t that,” he countered. “And while I also ain’t the nicest guy, I’m not so fuckin’ cold that I’d kick you out with nothing, Michigan. We’ll make it work.” He shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly. “Not like I’m here all that often anyway. It'll be fine.”

“What happens when the other Sons hear about some girl living with you?” you asked, a nervousness seeping into your tone. “Or Gemma? Because I’m sure your mom would be on me like a shark on blood in the water.”

The smile gradually dimmed before it slipped off of Jax’s face altogether. His head fell back against the back of his couch as he expelled a long breath. You had a point. If you were staying here until you could get a job and make enough money to go take care of yourself, you’d probably be here for a few months. Long enough for the guys–and certainly his nosey ass mother–to notice. Having some girl living with him was out of the norm for Jax, something that would undoubtedly draw questions from the others.

“Then I suppose we’ll have to come up with some sorta cover story or somethin’,” Jax mused aloud. “Pretend you’re my girl or some shit while you’re here.”

He saw the way your eyebrows shot straight up onto your forehead at that. For a few very long seconds, all you did was stare at Jax with a look of disbelief on your face.

“What?” he asked.

“No one’s going to believe that,” you told him. “You don’t date.”

“Yeah, well,” he shot back with a pointed look, “you got a better excuse as to why you're stayin’ here for a few weeks, sweetheart?”

You sat there, eyes narrowed as a pensive expression settled onto your features. But after a minute, you shook your head in defeat, clearly unable to think of a better explanation yourself.

“No,” you answered.

“Great,” Jax said, already regretting how this might pan out. “Then while you’re stuck here, if anyone asks, you’re my girl. We can figure out the details of everythin’ else later. Think you’ve been through enough for a day.” He pushed himself up from the couch with a soft grunt at the effort, tired from his long day that had just gotten even longer. “I’ll go find a burner phone. Then you can make some calls while I go have a much needed fuckin’ smoke after all this weird ass shit.”

Jax maneuvered his way out of his living room and towards the hallway, aware of how you seemed to shrink away from him when he’d gotten a little too close. Ignoring how that made him feel incredibly shitty, he sauntered down the hall to his bedroom to find you a phone while trying not to think about the repercussions of you living here playing house as his fake girlfriend for who knew how long. But as he stepped over to his dresser, movement outside the window caught his attention and he paused.

He was riding solo this afternoon, making his way back from a meeting with Alvarez out in Oakland that'd been interrupted because Opie’s son had gotten sick on one of his last days of school before summer break. Lyla had called during the middle of their sit-down and practically begged Opie to pick Kenny up since she was busy filming something for Redwoody that apparently couldn't be interrupted. Which had Jax wondering just what the hell she was working on over there that required so much attention.

But it meant that Jax was now riding back to the Sons’ territory without backup while on high alert. Even if there wasn’t currently a war or tension amongst any other groups with the Sons, that didn’t mean he’d be dumb enough to let his guard down while riding solo. Fortunately, the entire ride had been uneventful by the time he’d finally reached Charming. There'd been nothing but the usual sights of California to take in as he drove along the winding stretches of road. Though, he'd still constantly checked his mirrors behind himself to make sure he wasn't being tailed, and he'd scanned his surroundings for anything out of the ordinary for the duration of the ride. 

Which was exactly how he caught sight of the odd object coming up on his right and laying just a few feet away from the shoulder of the road amongst the dirt. It was a large, dark shape somewhat hidden by the tall bushes around it, but Jax had been paying close enough attention to spot the otherwise hidden figure. He was probably about a mile from Charming’s welcome sign now, and he knew that whatever was lying there definitely hadn't been there a few hours ago when he and Opie had left for Oakland. One of them would've noticed it on their way out of town. 

With a furrowed brow and a sinking feeling in his stomach, Jax lowered his Harley's speed to a crawl as he approached. Whatever it was looked far too big to be ordinary road kill shoved off to the side of the road. His eyes narrowed at the dark shape as he pulled his bike over to the shoulder, not a single other vehicle in sight as he examined what was lying beside the bushes. 

It was a body.

He tossed the kickstand down before killing the engine of his bike, Jax’s eyes never once leaving the body lying completely still on the side of the road. It belonged to a woman who seemed dressed for colder temperatures rather than for the heat of today. Judging by the lack of movement, he had a distinct feeling that she wasn't alive anymore. He grit his teeth while his fingers deftly unbuckled the strap of his helmet beneath his chin, his jaw tense.

This had to have been an attack on the Sons. The likelihood that there was a murderer in Charming just dumping women's bodies on the outskirts of the town in the middle of the day like this seemed improbable. Just like it seemed improbable that whoever this girl was had just dropped dead on an unlikely walk outside of town, laying down to die beside a handful of bushes along the side of the road.

But who the fuck would be starting shit with the Sons right now?

The question lingered in his mind as he hung his helmet along the handlebars of his bike. He slowly made his way over to the woman lying on the ground, his Nike's crunching dirt and gravel beneath the soles of his shoes with each step. Kneeling down carefully when he finally reached her, it was hard not to immediately notice that she was attractive, but the thought quickly left his mind just as fast as it had come–he wasn't like Tig. Dead bodies weren't his thing.

Reaching a hand out, Jax gently placed two fingers along her neck in search of a pulse. Holding his breath, he practically willed himself to feel some sort of steady, barely there heartbeat beneath her skin. But despite how her body wasn't entirely cold–maybe from the California sun–he didn't feel anything. Not even the faintest, uneven little thump beneath his fingertips.

Settling back to sit on his heels, he stared down at the dead body in front of himself. What was he supposed to do here? Leaving her corpse to rot in the summer heat until police found her seemed all kinds of wrong even to him, because whoever she was at least deserved to have her family informed of her…situation. Which also ruled out Jax calling a prospect to go and bury her somewhere in the nearby woods where they'd often buried others before. But if he called in a dead body to Roosevelt, he knew he'd be the prime suspect in this woman's obvious murder. Which he did not need to deal with.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Running a hand through his hair, combing the blonde strands back down with his fingers, he tried to consider all of his options. But the only thing that felt like the right course of action for whoever this girl was, was to call it in. To let the authorities deal with her and inform her family, and then he and the guys could figure out who'd killed her and why when the police inevitably pointed fingers at Jax. 

But as he sat there studying her face, he couldn’t shake the fact that she didn't look the least bit familiar. Not even in the I've-passed-you-at-the-grocery-store-a-few-times sort of way that was normal in Charming. She must have been from out of town, especially considering her clothing, but that just made the entire situation even stranger. Who were you?

With a sigh, Jax rose back up to his feet, a grim expression on his face. Pulling open his kutte, his hand reached into the pocket inside of it before he pulled out his cell phone. With his eyes still on the woman, a frown tugged at his lips.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he murmured apologetically to the body. 

As he began dialing the number for Charming’s police station instead of the emergency line, not needing an entire slew of emergency responders for someone who clearly was not benefiting from CPR, the sound of a crow cawing nearby caught his attention. Jax paused halfway through typing the number, glancing up at the large, black bird. It had perched on a tree a few feet away, its black eyes seemingly focused on him and the woman’s body. He stared at the bird, temporarily forgetting what he was doing when it cawed again, tilting its head to the side. The crow's stare felt unsettling, a reminder of the death present nearby.

Shaking his head a few seconds later, Jax focused back down on his phone before he finished punching in the last few digits of the phone number. But when he held the phone up to his ear, listening as it began to ring, another sharp caw cut through the afternoon. Jax’s gaze drifted across the street to where the noise had come from only to see three more crows sitting ominously on different branches of the same tree. All of them were fixated on him across the street, staring in a way that felt uncomfortable for just birds.

Jax’s brows pinched together in confusion as the phone against his ear rang again. He glanced back over at the crow sitting in the tree just a few feet away from him, locking eyes with it. His own blue ones hardened into a glare at the bird, knowing full well why they were after the woman lying not too far from his feet. Their idea of dinner. But whoever she was, she certainly deserved better than that.

“Charming Police Station, this is Officer Davis,” a bored tone greeted over the line and drew Jax’s attention back to his situation instead of the damn birds. “Is there somewhere I can direct your call?”

“I need to speak with Roosevelt,” Jax said into the phone, his attention returning back to the body. “It’s important.”

“Can I ask what this is regarding? Sheriff Roosevelt is in the middle of something,” Officer Davis replied. 

Jax rolled his eyes in irritation at the cop. He knew exactly who Davis was–one of the lazy officers on Charming’s payroll that spent most of his time parking his squad in the gas station parking lot and eating fast food while listening to audiobooks. Which, generally, made things easier for the Sons when he wasn’t on desk duty because he was useless, but right now he was just getting on Jax’s nerves.

“Just put me through to him, okay?” he snapped. “Tell him it’s Jax Teller and that I–”

But Jax stopped mid-sentence, his mouth still half-forming the words he’d been about to say as he stared down at the woman. Because he swore he just saw your fucking hand move. 

Except that wasn't possible. He'd checked your pulse, really trying to actually find one. You hadn't even been breathing, there’d been no steady rise and fall of your chest. It was either the afternoon heat or a trick of his mind because there was no way you'd moved.

“Right, Teller,” Davis said flatly, ignoring the way Jax had broken off. “And you're calling because you think Sheriff Roosevelt is going to do what? Help the Sons with something?”

Jax’s jaw tightened in further irritation at the chuckle that followed, forgetting the brief flicker of movement he'd thought he'd seen. “I'd remember who you're talking to,” he growled low over the line. “Officer.”

A brief pause met Jax’s unspoken threat, the crows around him once more starting with their unsettling cawing back and forth to each other. But just as he'd been about to finish his call with Davis and leave his message for Roosevelt, he heard the faintest noise breaking through the occasional unnerving sound of the crows around him–a pained groan.

By the time Davis recovered from Jax’s intimidation, trying and failing to sound intimidating over the line himself, Jax had completely tuned him out. Because there you were wincing in pain, your features twisting and tightening in a sight that made Jax’s blood run cold. He'd seen many fucking things in his life, especially since becoming president of the Sons, but he’d never once seen someone quite literally return from the dead. Because you had most definitely felt and looked dead a minute ago. But now you were attempting to roll onto your side as a hissed noise of pain slipped out between gritted teeth just a few feet away from him.

“Nevermind,” he barely managed into the phone.

He ended the call, his hand holding his phone slowly dropping to his side as he watched you gradually prop yourself up onto an arm. The crows that had been eyeing you suddenly flew from both trees in a burst of noise and a flutter of wings as they scattered away from the scene.

You were very much alive now. Some-fucking-how. 

When his brain managed to comprehend that you weren't a corpse–he must've somehow missed your pulse, it was the only logical explanation–he slid his phone back into the inside pocket of his kutte. Closing the distance between you both, Jax moved slowly towards you.

“Easy, darlin’,” he soothed, kneeling down beside you as you shakily raised yourself onto your hands and knees. “You were just…really outta it for a minute there.”

Jax caught the way you'd tensed at the sound of his voice. Considering you'd probably just gone through something horrific if someone had just tried to murder you and hadn't fully succeeded, it made sense that you'd be uneasy. So he did his best to sound and look as non-threatening as someone like him possibly could.

“Relax, you're alright,” he assured you softly, raising his hands in front of himself in a gesture that showed he meant no harm. Though you were on all fours still staring at the dirt ground instead of looking at him. “I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? Just wanna make sure you're alright. I just wanna help.”

You were breathing a little heavily, your eyebrows drawn tight together on your forehead as if you were deep in thought, a small crease forming between them. Did you have a concussion? Maybe he needed to get you to a hospital.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he tried again, keeping his voice low and soothing. “Can you tell me your name? Or how you got here? Do you remember anything?”

At his onslaught of questions, he saw your head steadily raise up as you continued to hold yourself up on your trembling hands and knees, finally looking at him. His eyes darted around your face, noticing some dried blood amongst the dirt smeared on your skin that he hadn't seen when he'd initially examined you. But now that you weren't lying on the ground lifeless, he couldn't help but take in your features. You were attractive in a way that set you apart from the girls that usually hung around SAMCRO. Something about you just seemed completely different–softer and more vulnerable. But maybe that was due to the situation you were in.

Though as he'd been quietly examining you, you'd startled him while simultaneously silencing his brain when you'd abruptly and unexpectedly unleashed a shriek that he didn't know your lungs were currently capable of producing. Stumbling backwards, you awkwardly caught yourself with your hands as you stared at Jax with wide, horrified eyes. For a few seconds, all he could do in return was stare right back, his mouth partially agape in shock. 

That wasn't how people generally reacted to him.

“Whoa, hey,” he said, still trying to sound soothing. “I promise I'm not gonna hurt you, I just wanna help, sweetheart. That's all.”

Jax wanted to make sense of that terrified look etched on your features. It wasn't just fear in your eyes, but something like a mix between confusion and disbelief. Like you'd just looked up to find a ghost instead of him sitting there. So he kept his hands up, palms facing towards you as he kneeled in the dirt a few feet away. He tried to put a friendly smile onto his face in an attempt to appear less intimidating, but judging by the way you'd inched back from him again, his smile had the wrong effect.

“Look, darlin’,” Jax began, speaking slowly in case you did have some sort of concussion. “I was just driving by and found you on the side of the road. I stopped because I saw some woman lying in the bushes looking very much not alive.” 

He paused, his eyes examining you even closer while he wondered how the hell you'd had no pulse a few minutes ago, yet here you were clearly breathing. And screaming. 

“Can I take you somewhere?” he offered. “A hospital? A police station?”

Instead of answering any of Jax’s questions, you managed to confuse him further. Raising a hand slowly out in front of yourself, you pointed an index finger firmly at his chest. That strange look remained on your face as your words came out so quiet he’d almost barely caught them.

“You're not real.”

It was the first thing you'd said, your voice sounding scratchy and hoarse. He figured you were severely dehydrated from lying out in the heat in too many layers for who knew how long, but then your words quickly registered. He wasn't real? Were you concussed? Or high on something right now?

“Darlin’, I'm very much real, alright?” he assured you. 

His eyes narrowed, trying to get a better look at yours, but Jax wasn't a doctor. You seemed lucid and your pupils weren't blown wide in any telltale sign of drug use, but that didn't necessarily mean much. You weren't making much sense, and you definitely looked incredibly confused as you sat in the dirt still keeping distance between you both.

“No,” you said with a shake of your head, finger still pointing accusatorily at him. “You're not real. You're fictional. You are a fictional man.”

Jax’s face tightened at that, his own brows drawing together as his mouth pulled into a deep frown. Yeah, that was absolutely the weirdest fucking thing a woman had ever said to him before.

“I think you hit your head, darlin’,” he replied, reaching into his kutte for his phone again. He should just call you an ambulance, you clearly needed a trip to the hospital. “You're not making any–”

“You're Jax Teller,” you blurted. 

The words caused him to hesitate, his phone still held in his hand. Eyes gradually drifting up from the device to land back on you, his head cocked to the side in confusion and shock. He supposed being the Sons’ president made him known to a lot of people, but who the hell were you? How would you know that?

“You're the–” you paused as your gaze dipped down to read the patches on his kutte before your eyes returned to his, “–president of the Sons in Charming. Your father was John Teller, the man who created the whole club. Then he died when you were fifteen and your mom, Gemma, married Clay. You were basically groomed to run the club since birth.” A humorless laugh that sounded almost hysterical briefly burst out of you before you pointed a finger at him again. “But you’re not supposed to be real.”

Jax continued sitting there on his heels beside the road, his lips slightly parted as you'd spit out a handful of personal details about his life. He blinked back at you, his head tilting even further to the side. 

“Who the fuck are you?” he finally asked.

Another humorless noise that wasn't quite a laugh passed between your lips. Your eyes darted around as you ignored his question, apparently finally beginning to notice your surroundings. He watched as you pushed yourself up slowly from the ground, standing on trembling legs. He followed after you, his eyes narrowed in distrust now. If you hadn't just spewed personal facts about him, he'd have told you to take it easy and sit back down, but now he was feeling wary of you. Something was clearly going on here, and he wasn’t entirely sure what.

“Where am I?” you asked, still scanning the empty stretch of road around you. “Where's all the snow?”

Jax pulled a face at your question. Snow? In Northern California in the beginning of June? Why the fuck would you expect snow? But he supposed that might've explained why you were dressed in jeans and a sweater–which you had to have been sweating in. 

“Snow?” he questioned back. “Sweetheart, it’s June. In California. The fuck is goin’ on here? Are you okay? And how do you know who I am?”

Your attention flickered back to Jax briefly before you returned to scanning the landscape around you. You'd looked at him and then away so quickly, like you'd easily just written him off already. It made him bristle in frustration that he tried to tamp down. You were probably injured or on drugs, you were clearly out of your fucking head. Losing his temper on you wasn’t the course of action right now.

“I know you because you're a fictional character from a television show,” you distractedly answered. “You're not real. Like I said.”

And there it was again. It felt like someone had bashed him over the head when you said it once more so matter-of-factly. Jax’s expression contorted into irritation before he grit his teeth and tried to keep control of himself. Why did you keep calling him fictional? He was absolutely not fictional. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he snapped, struggling to maintain his patience. “You're speaking crazy shit right now, you know that?”

Attention finally leaving the road, you focused back on him. It was clear you were thinking something over as you stared at him silently, that crease forming between your brows once more. 

“I must be in a really vivid dream,” you mused to yourself. “That's got to be what’s going on.”

Jax’s head cocked sharply to the side as he listened to you. Taking a few steps towards him, he watched as you finally closed the gap between you both. That’s when he noticed a gash across your forehead about five or six inches long smeared with blood. It looked like an injury recently healed over, though. As if you'd sustained it weeks ago instead of recently.

“This is all in my head,” you said, appearing to be speaking more to yourself than to Jax. “Because you’re–”

You reached a hand out and placed it flat against his chest right before you’d instantly stopped speaking. Eyes growing wide, your hand lingered against him over the bit of his shirt peeking out in the space between the opening of his kutte. He could feel the warmth of your palm through the fabric as it rested against him, but you looked completely shocked to be touching him. Just as shocked as Jax was that you’d even had the audacity to reach out and touch the Sons’ president in the first place. 

Your hand lifted off of his chest only to come down three more times in the same spot, as if you were gently patting him. Jax’s eyebrows rose up onto his forehead as he stared back at you, wondering what in the fuck you were doing. He didn’t say anything though, just stood there waiting for you to make sense of this entire weird fucking situation.

“You’re…very solid,” you breathed out, sounding almost in awe.

Jax blinked back at you a few times, one of his brows arching higher than the other one. Were you talking about his chest, or him in general? He recalled how you’d looked at him when you’d first seen him, as if you didn’t think he was really there. 

“Yeah,” he answered dryly. “I work out.”

Wide eyes leaving the sight of your hand on his chest, they flew up to meet his gaze at the same time your hand abruptly dropped back to your side. You took a couple of steps backwards looking completely embarrassed, your mouth falling open and closed a few times before you managed to get anything out.

“No, that’s not–” you began before pausing and shaking your head. “I just–” Your tongue slipped out to wet your chapped lips as you struggled to piece your thoughts together. “You feel far too real to be in my head. Dreams don’t…feel so solid.”

“Because you’re not dreamin’,” he stated flatly. “I told you that.”

Staring back at him, your confusion only seemed to increase. And that little crease between your furrowed brows returned as you looked down at your dirt covered hands in front of you. 

“I don’t understand,” you murmured, still staring down at your hands. “I was in Michigan. It was January. There was snow everywhere.”

“It’s June,” Jax reminded you, feeling just as perplexed as you looked. “And you’re just outside of Charming, California, darlin’. This ain’t Michigan.”

Your eyes darted up from your hands as you held his stare, shaking your head slightly. “Charming isn’t real,” you told him earnestly. “It’s a made-up town in a television show. It doesn’t exist.”

A frustrated scoff fell out of Jax as he took a step backwards, turning away from you and facing the road. One of his hands ran through his blonde hair in agitation. He was getting really sick of hearing you say everything that was real wasn’t real. This was the most infuriating conversation he’d ever had, and he still wanted to know how the fuck you knew about him. 

After a few moments of pinching the bridge of his nose and struggling to contain the urge to shout at you, he finally looked over his shoulder. You were standing there staring at him with that fear in your eyes again, like you were afraid of him. He didn’t like it. It made him feel like you thought he was going to hurt you, but he wasn’t going to do anything to you. He just wanted answers.

“How do you know all that shit about me?” he asked gruffly.

“Because I watched it,” you answered slowly, almost hesitantly. “In a television show. Sons of Anarchy. It…had seven seasons a few years ago.”

Pressing his lips firmly together, he didn’t really know what the fuck to say to that. A show? About his club? That was insanity. But you stood there saying it with so much conviction that he was struggling not to question your belief that it was real. 

“It’s mostly about you,” you continued, the words sort of falling out of you like you couldn’t hold them back. “Struggling to get the club out of guns and to make it what your father wanted it to be. Something less bloody that wasn’t so tied up with the IRA, and–”

Jax’s eyes grew wide before he sharply turned around, taking a few brisk steps towards you and effectively silencing you. “What the fuck did you just say?” he snapped. “What do you know about the IRA? Are you a fuckin’ fed? Is this some bullshit new tactic the government thinks is gonna work on me?”

Jax’s hands were on you instantly, patting you down as he felt for weapons or a wire. You’d gone completely rigid from the moment he put his hands on you, protesting weakly until he’d shot you a glare that had you falling quiet again. But in his search, he came up with nothing except an incredibly expensive looking phone in your back pocket, a model that he hadn’t seen before.

“I’m not a fed, okay!” you assured him when he’d finally stepped back from you. “I have no idea what’s going on just as much as you, alright? I just write books in the safety of my little house in Michigan, that’s all! I swear!”

“I’m not buyin’ it,” he shot back.

“Okay, okay,” you said, raising your hands in a placating gesture like he’d done earlier. You could feel nerves mixing in your gut, that hardened look on his face making him even more intimidating. “Feds wouldn’t know incredibly personal information about you, right? Like about the heart condition that’s genetic on your mom’s side? The one Gemma calls the ‘family flaw’? The one that killed your brother when he was little? It’s what killed her mom, too. You were born with it, your son was born with it–”

“I don’t have a son,” he cut in sharply.

You paused at that bit of information, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as your head tilted to the side. But then you shook your head briefly and carried on. “Okay, well, in the show you did. You married Wendy before you married Tara, who you’ve apparently been in love with since you were both sixteen despite the fact that you two have terrible communication. And it doesn’t make sense that you’d still love someone that deeply eleven years later when you'd only known each other for a couple of years, and she never even accepted who you were as a person in the first place.”

Jax’s jaw tensed at the mention of Tara. How did you even know about her? Or how he felt? He hadn’t even talked to Opie about her in years, and here you were mentioning her so casually, as if she wasn’t an old wound that you were tearing wide open on the side of the road. But then your words had caught up to him after the initial shock of hearing her name. Marriage? He’d never married anyone, he hadn't wanted to after Tara left.

“I’ve never married, sweetheart,” he bitterly replied. “You got your facts wrong.”

But it was still unnerving how much you knew about the genetic heart defect on Gemma’s side of the family and the damage it had caused. And about the Irish connection with the Sons, something no one outside of the club and his own mother knew about besides the speculation from federal agents and the gangs and other clubs they worked with. It was also incredibly odd that you knew about his feelings for Tara, too. She’d been gone well over a decade from Charming, erased from practically everyone's mind here but his.

Some of what you’d just dropped on him wasn’t necessarily public information, either. It was information that you shouldn’t have had, which only made him more curious as to how you’d gotten it. But as he stood there staring at you through narrowed, distrustful eyes, he’d also remembered how he’d just found you. You’d appeared very much dead before seemingly reanimating on the side of the road and freaking out at the sight of him. There was absolutely something strange going on here, something he didn’t understand. He didn’t want to believe your theory–that his life was a television show you’d watched–because that was utter insane bullshit. But he didn’t really have any other working theories at the moment.

He did know one thing–you knew too fucking much already. Probably even more than what you'd just told him. Dangerous information. Things that you should not know. And he couldn’t just have you wandering off somewhere with all of that information and doing who knew what with it, not while he tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

“You got anywhere to go, Michigan?” he asked carefully.

A frown pulled at your lips before you ran a dirty hand across your dirt and blood-smeared forehead. Your eyes darted around at your surroundings before you focused back on him, shaking your head slowly.

“No…” you answered hesitantly. “If this isn’t Michigan, and somehow Charming is real and you’re real, then I’m…very much confused as to where I am right now.”

His tongue ran along his bottom lip as he nodded, his brain still running through everything. If he brought you to the clubhouse, the guys would have questions. This would become an entire thing, and he didn’t know if he wanted it to become something more until he knew what the hell was really going on here. The safest and most private place to try to make sense of you would be at his house.

“You can come clean up at my place then,” he replied. “Answer more of my questions. Then I’ll figure out what to do with you.”

Jax turned and began sauntering back towards his bike parked on the side of the still quiet road as if what he’d said was a completely done deal, but when he turned to look over his shoulder at you, he realized you hadn’t moved to follow after him. Coming to a halt, Jax sighed in frustration and turned back around to face you.

“You got a problem with that?” he called over to you, struggling to keep his irritation to a minimum.

Crossing your arms over your chest, you remained rooted to where you were, but your eyes didn't quite meet his. “When you say…‘figure out what to do with me’,” you began, the nervous edge clear in your tone, “does that mean you’re going to…?”

Jax frowned at the unspoken implication and the obvious fear on your face. Fuck, he hated when you kept looking at him like you thought he was going to kill you. That’s not what he’d meant. A couple of the other Sons might suggest that if they knew the information you were carrying around in that head of yours, but not him. He had no interest in hurting you, so long as you really weren't some sort of threat to him or his club.

“I’m not gonna do anything to you, okay?” he promised. “Swear on my goddamn life. You're completely safe with me. But you look thirsty, I can’t tell if you’re injured, you got nowhere else to go, and it ain’t every damn day that some girl on the side of the road claims I’m from a fuckin’ TV show. You can’t tell me you’re not a little fuckin’ curious to figure out what the hell’s goin’ on, too, can you?”

There was a long pause at his words before you slowly shook your head, agreeing with him about how odd this all was. Relief flooded Jax at the sight. Good. He'd get you to his house and try to make sense of all of this–if that was even possible. He'd just have to watch what he said to you in case this really was some weird ass new ATF tactic.

Jax gestured his head at his bike and told you to follow him before he turned around and started walking back to it again. He rummaged around in the saddlebag for his spare helmet, pulling it out and intending to hand it to you, but he grit his teeth when he looked up and saw that you still hadn't moved.

“What's the goddamn hold up, sweetheart?” he called out. “I ain't lying when I say I'm not gonna hurt you.”

He watched as you nervously bit your lip before uncrossing one arm and pointing a finger at his Harley. Jax looked over at his bike, checking for a flat or something wrong with it as his brows knitted together, but he couldn't see anything. When he looked back over at you, he raised a blonde brow in a mix of confusion and annoyance.

“What?” he asked.

“I've never ridden on a bike,” you awkwardly called back. “They make me nervous.”

Jax inhaled a sharp breath, fighting the urge to roll his eyes as he muttered a “Jesus Christ” under his breath. Because why wouldn't the mysterious possible zombie or federal agent be afraid of his fucking Harley, too? He'd never had a girl afraid to get on the back of his bike before–at least, not genuinely. A few had faked some fear to seem cute or whatever and give themselves a reason to cling to him, but you looked genuinely afraid of it.

“I'll drive slow,” he assured you, holding out the helmet towards you. “It ain't that far of a drive back to my place anyway. Or would you rather walk in the fuckin’ heat while I ride beside you the whole goddamn way?”

He rested a hand on the handlebars of his bike as he shot you an impatient look, the extra helmet held out towards you still. Jax watched you glance around, almost as if you actually were contemplating walking instead and he nearly rolled his eyes that time. But then he saw your shoulders drop in defeat before your lips moved, forming words he couldn't quite hear as you began making your way over towards him. 

“I still think this is a dream,” you grumbled, accepting the helmet and reluctantly putting it on. “Or I'm in a coma.”

“Well,” he said tersely, grabbing his own helmet still hanging from his handlebars and putting it on, “I am unfortunately very awake and aware of the fact that I’m giving a mentally ill woman a ride back to my house.”

“I'm starting to question my own sanity,” you muttered, buckling the chin strap of your helmet. “Riding on the back of Jax Teller's bike?”

Jax caught both the curious tone you'd spoken in and the little snort of disbelief afterwards, as if that somehow meant something other than the obvious. 

The fight was stupid. Aren’t they all?

This one really was. At least it started out stupid, but only grew into a more serious fight the longer it went on. 

Jax had come home close to midnight, a tired, grumpy man who’d spent his day dealing with club business - most of which he hadn’t yet told you about despite one of his vows being to do just that, to keep you in the loop as best as he could. 

You’re his wife, after all. You deserved that, at least. 

He’d stripped out of his clothes, leaving a trail leading all the way to the bathroom, and that was only after he greeted you with a simple, chaste kiss to your cheek without saying a single word. 

That in itself made you a little annoyed, because after not hearing from him for most of the day, and after waiting for him to come home all night, that was all you got? Well, that and a now messy hallway. 

You bit your tongue as you followed the discarded clothing trail, picking up each one and wondering how bad of a day he had to justify needlessly making the house a mess, especially after you spent a good few hours cleaning it earlier, but you doubt he noticed that with how quickly he disappeared into the bathroom as soon as he stepped through the door. 

After you picked up his jeans, shirt and boxers, you lifted your gaze and looked at Jax through the foggy glass of the shower, your eyes narrowing at how tense he looked. “Long day?” you asked, and he just grunted, shaking his head and barely acknowledging you. 

“Yeah,” was all he said, and you lifted a brow, debating on whether or not to push him further, but you weren’t cruel. He obviously dealt with some serious shit today, if the red stain you saw on his jeans was anything to go by, and wanted to have a shower in peace. 

So you left the bathroom and entered the bedroom, stuffing his clothes into the laundry bin and making a mental note to do them as soon as you wake up tomorrow in hopes to get that stain out for him - not that he’d really care anyway. Another stain would just take its place soon enough. 

You went back into the living room, where you had been patiently waiting for him to come home, and sat back down on the couch. You picked up the book you’d been reading and had set down when you heard him come home, only to receive that vague greeting from Jax before he left you alone again. 

It was less than ten minutes later when the shower turned off, and only a few more minutes passed before you heard footsteps leading up to the living room, and when you lifted your gaze from the book and met Jax’s tired eyes, you felt your heart clench in your chest. 

He was dressed for bed, wearing just his sweats, and he looked exhausted, both physically and mentally, and you wanted to help him in any way he’d let you, because you’d both been each other’s safe spaces since you started dating, and you’d like to think that was still very much true now that you’ve been married for just over a year. 

But instead of giving you an explanation, or a proper greeting, or a gruff apology for his sad excuse of one, he gave you a tight lipped smile he didn’t even try to make reach his eyes. “‘M goin’ to bed,” he said, and you squinted your eyes at him, making him pause when he already started to turn away and head back down the hall. “What?”

You narrowed your eyes at that. Yes, he was allowed to have bad days, he’s the President of a fucking motorcycle club that gets put through the ringer damn near every day, and you’d never try to invalidate that, but to have him be so short with you and so distant wasn’t appreciated in the slightest. 

Your shoulders lifted in a sarcastic shrug, “Oh, hey, babe. How was your day? Mine was good, thank you so much for asking,” you said, sarcasm dripping from every word. You just couldn’t help yourself. “That’s usually how a normal husband greets his wife, you know.”

Leaving his clothes on the floor was one thing, but pretty much ignoring you was something else, and especially since this wasn’t the first time he’s come home this week in a bad mood and essentially ignored you in your own home. 

Jax let his shoulders drop, he let out a deep huff, “Don’t start,” he muttered, running a hand over his damp hair, and that only made you even more annoyed. 

You set the book aside, having not really read much of it anyway, and sat up a bit. “Don’t start?” you echoed, narrowing your eyes, “I’m way past that. What happened to your eye?” you asked, the beginning of a black eye that was obviously forming on the left side of his face something you’d noticed while he was in the shower, but didn’t say anything about. 

Jax propped his hands on his hips, his head tilting to the side in a way that told you he was already done with the conversation. It was a look you’d seen him give countless times to others, and he’d given it to you a handful of times as well, but everyone else didn’t get the same treatment that you did. You weren’t just anyone else, you’re his wife. “It’s nothin’,”

“It doesn’t look like nothing-”

“It’s just club shit,” he cut you off, effectively making you briefly shut up. “You know how it is.”

You pressed your lips together, your arms coming up to cross over your chest. “Yeah, I do know how it is,” you agreed, trying to reel your temper back in, because as much as he was pissing you off at the moment, you didn’t want to start a fight he obviously didn’t have the energy to have right now. “But I also know that you once promised to never keep things from me. Club shit included.” 

Jax went silent at that, and you watched the way his jaw locked, a muscle in his cheek twitching slightly. He waited a few breaths, no doubt trying to calm himself down too, before he softened his expression just a tiny bit. “Babe, I promise, it’s nothin’ for you to worry ‘bout right now, alright?” he said, seeming to hope that would be enough for now. “I’ll tell you all about it soon.”

But it wasn’t enough, because lately you’d been feeling detached from him, and like he was keeping things from you, and you didn’t like that. At all. “No, it’s not alright,” you said, standing up from the couch, and his eyes lifted with your movement. “Jax, you barely said a word to me when you got home, you left your clothes all over the floor, and instead of sitting down and talking to me about it, you just told me you were going to bed. I feel like we don’t talk anymore.”

Jax exhaled harshly through his nose, and he broke eye contact with you as he shook his head. “Look, I’ve had a long fuckin’ day, alright? I told you that,” he said, his voice raising a bit as his eyes met yours again. “I don’t feel like sittin’ down and talkin’ about it, okay? Is that alright with you?” 

Your eyes hardened at that, but so did his, and you’d come to a clear stand off, despite you simply wanting him to communicate with you a bit better. But that was asking too much of him, apparently. “Fine. Whatever,” you said, letting your shoulders drop even though your whole body was tense now. “Goodnight then.”

Jax let out a short huff, and he gave you a look you’d seen too many times to count at this point. “You mad at me now?” 

Yes, you were, but he clearly just wanted to go to bed and forget about today, and who were you to stop him? “No, Jax,” you answered, crossing your arms. He gave you another look, this one almost comically unimpressed as he mirrored your stance, his own arms coming up to cross over his chest. “Fine. Yeah, I am kinda mad at you.”

Jax huffed and shook his head, muttering something under his breath you weren’t able to catch. “So I deal with bullshit all day with the club, and then when I come home and try to leave all that shit behind me, I have to deal with my wife too?”

You squinted at that, his choice of words adding to the anger you felt burning inside of you. “You don’t have to deal with me, Jax. And I don’t think that’s a very fair thing to say to me,”

“But jumpin’ on my back as soon as I get home is fair to me?” he shot back, stepping around the half wall separating the hallway and the living room. “I expected you to be the one person who wouldn’t fuckin’ push me when I’ve already had a rough day.”

“And how am I supposed to know that? That you’ve had a rough day?” you asked, ignoring the sting you felt at the way he was so dismissive of you right now, like you were just another person to him instead of his partner. 

“The lack of greetin’ wasn’t obvious enough?”

You flared your nose at that, and this wasn’t going the way you wanted it to at all. Starting a fight was the last thing you liked doing with Jax, but you also didn’t see this de-escalating anytime soon. “You’re acting like an ass right now, Jax,” you said, ignoring his question you had a feeling he wasn’t expecting you to answer anyway. 

Your choice of words had his brows raising, and his head tilting back a bit. “I’m actin’ like an ass,” he repeated, stating it rather than questioning it. “You ain’t in no position to be sayin’ that to me, babe.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re actin’ like one of those needy chicks that hang around the clubhouse instead of my wife,” he grunted, his face lacking any resemblance of the softer side of him that always seemed to be around when he was with you. 

Hearing him reduce you to a needy chick, someone who just hangs around to get laid by one of the Sons, had your jaw clenching angrily. “You’re calling me a fucking crow eater? Are you fucking serious? Why?” you scoffed, “Because I just wanted my husband to look at me for more than five seconds and to have an actual conversation with me?”

“Because you keep fuckin’ pushin’ it when you know it’s just makin’ shit worse,” he said back, as if that justified his words. “You ain’t a crow eater, but you are my old lady, and when I need a fuckin’ minute to myself when I get home, you give it to me.”

A humorless laugh left your lips. “Oh, I give it to you? Is that what I’m supposed to do? We’ve been over that, Jax. You don’t get to boss me around like one of the Sons,” you said, “And how am I supposed to give you something you never asked for? Do you want me to read your mind? So I know you need a sec to yourself instead of taking it out on me as soon as you get home?”

“I didn’t want to take it out on you,” he said, and his voice raised even more. He was clearly getting as worked up as you are. “I tried to not fuckin’ take it out on you. But you just had to go and start somethin’, huh?”

“Don’t pin it all on me, Jax. That’s not fucking fair,” you glared at him, “You can’t just expect me to be all happy and understanding when you come home and fucking ignore me, especially since you’ve been doing it all week. How is that fair to me?”

“This life ain’t supposed to be fuckin’ fair, babe,” he scoffed, his biceps flexing as he crossed his arms more firmly over his chest, and any other night you’d be all over that, but you’d gotten so mad so quickly, you couldn’t even take a second to appreciate just how hot your husband is. 

You rolled your eyes and turned away, opting to just stop looking at him since the anger in his eyes wasn’t helping you calm down at all. How is he mad at you right now? When he was the one at fault here? “Don’t give me that,” you shook your head, “That’s bullshit. You can’t blame it on the life all the time, Jax. You were given many chances to leave, and to make shit better. It doesn’t get better, and you just have to deal with it and let me in, not push me away when it gets hard.”

“I’m not pushin’ you away. I’m tryin’ to not bring this shit home with me, but clearly that ain’t workin’,” he muttered, running his hand over his mouth. “And I ain’t blamin’ it on the life either. Things get hard sometimes, like right now. I’m dealin’ with a lot of shit with the club, and I don’t need you breathin’ down my neck about it as soon as I get home.”

“Me just wanting to talk to you counts as me breathing down your neck, now?” you asked, understanding the point he was trying to make about as much as he was understanding yours. Not at all. “What’s next, I have to ask you for permission to touch you in case you had a bad day and decide to take it out on me instead?”

“Jesus Christ,” he nearly yelled, his eyes darting around the room as if he was looking for a chance to escape, as if simply hashing something out with you was such a big thing to ask of him. “That’s not what this is and you know it. You don’t have to ask permission to do shit with me, alright?”

“But I’m supposed to be able to tell when you want space, then give it to you after you already made me feel like shit for caring?” 

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like shit-”

“Well, you did. You made me feel like some idiot who needs to get permission from you to be able to talk to you, let alone touch you,” you cut him off, “And you make me feel like I’m some afterthought, that I’m just here for you to come home to. I’m your wife, Jax, I’m supposed to be the person you come to with this kind of shit, not brush off and ignore so you can bottle it up on your own.”

“You are the person I come to with this kinda shit-”

“It doesn’t seem like it. You’d rather barely say a word to me when you come home, then go back out the next day and do it all over again-”

“‘Cause you make it fuckin’ impossible to get a word in without you flyin’ off the fuckin’ handle,” he cut you off this time, and his voice was a lot louder than before. He moved to stand in front of you, towering over you and making you regret ever opening your mouth. But there was no going back now. “I don’t need to deal with you and your fuckin’ insecurities when I’ve got enough shit goin’ on, alright?”

You narrowed your eyes, your gaze as cold as his is. “My insecurities?” 

“Yeah. What the fuck are you even complainin’ about, huh? What, I didn’t greet you properly when I got home, so that means you get to be on my case for the rest of the night? To bring up shit that doesn’t even fuckin’ matter?” he was in your face now, angrier than he’s ever been with you, and you actually shrunk back a bit. 

“You’re out of line, Jax,” you tried to reel him back in, but you feared he was already too fired up, and you’d pushed him to his breaking point. 

“You’re the one puttin’ me outta fuckin’ line!” he yelled, and you flinched at both the loudness of his voice, and the way he raised his hand to brush his hair out of his face. He caught your flinch, and instead of instantly calming down, it only seemed to irritate him even more. “You thought I was gonna hit you?”

And maybe you should’ve assured him that, no, you didn’t think that, and you’d never think he’d ever put his hands on you like that, but you were still so mad, you didn’t have much control over what you were saying right now. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you did,” you said instead, even though it would definitely surprise you if Jax were to ever destroy your relationship beyond repair by hitting you. “The way you guys treat your old ladies, the way you treat women in general. I’ve seen the aftermath of an argument between your mom and Clay. It’s not pretty.”

You knew that would hit him hard. There was nothing he hated more than to be compared to Clay, and the fact that you insinuated him possibly hurting you in the way Clay had hurt his mom was pretty low. Even you knew that. It would cut deep for him to hear that you might actually believe he’d be capable of doing that to you, even though you didn’t believe that at all, but you were just so upset with him, you wanted him to feel the way you were feeling. 

Jax scoffed and shook his head, taking a few steps away from you. “You’re unbelievable,” he said under his breath. “I ain’t Clay. I’d never put my goddamn hands on you like that. Ever. You should fuckin’ know that.”

And you do know that, but you didn’t say that. 

Instead you turned away and sat down on the edge of the couch, feeling the way the tension in the room became less angry, but remained just as heavy. The argument seemed to be over, with neither of you wanting to continue it after that. 

“I’m gonna stay out here tonight,” you said, your voice rough from holding back tears. You looked down at the floor as you curled in on yourself. “I’ll sleep on the couch. I don’t want to see you right now.”

A humorless laugh left Jax’s lips, and he turned away, heading down the hallway towards the bedroom as he muttered, “I don’t wanna see you either,” 

That was by far the worst argument you and Jax had ever had. That was the most heated you’d gotten with each other, to the point of getting into each other’s faces and letting your mouths spew words without letting your brains think of the consequences for it after. 

You and Jax were both stubborn, and he was more hot-headed now that he’s the President of SAMCRO, and the longer you’re with him, the more unwilling you are to be treated like the other old ladies you’d met. It was definitely a clash, but you and Jax are usually able to make it work. You and he are usually able to talk things through before they get to a point where everything just explodes and you end up angry with each other. 

In the years you’ve been together, there have only been a handful of times where you and he couldn’t reach an agreement, or you couldn’t get each other to see your point of views on things, and even then, they weren’t as bad as tonight was. 

You felt your eyes sting, and you quickly reached over to flick the light off before curling into a ball on the couch. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it definitely wasn’t as soft as yours and Jax’s bed, and you almost wished you’d told him to sleep on the couch instead. 

But you ignored the flat pillow that was more for decoration than to be used as an actual place to rest your head, and you pulled the throw blanket up to your chin, leaving most of your lower half uncovered. 

This was the first time you and Jax willingly chose to not sleep in the same bed. Of course there were times where he ended up crashing at the clubhouse and you had to sleep alone in the bed, and there were times where you’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting for him to come home, but he’d always bring you to bed with him, because you didn’t like not sleeping next to each other. 

And even though you meant it when you said you didn’t want to see him, it didn’t change the fact that your heart was hurting, and even though it was because of him, you still wanted to be with him in your room, not out here by yourself. 

But you were still so upset, and you were stubborn and bitter and didn’t feel like getting up and putting your differences aside so you could both get a decent enough sleep tonight. 

With your luck, it would just start round two, and you weren’t in the mood to deal with that at all. 

So you got as comfortable as you could, and tried to ignore that Jax was sleeping by himself in the bed you’d been sharing with him for the last two years. 

It took you what felt like hours to finally calm down enough to go to sleep, but it wasn’t peaceful. You were barely asleep, just unconscious enough to chase away the tiredness from the fight and leave you feeling slightly more rested, but it still wasn’t a good sleep. 

You weren’t sure what time it was or how long you’d been out here, but you were able to faintly hear the sound of the bedroom door opening, and the sound of a few footsteps. Even with your eyes closed, you could see the brightness slip into the darkness behind your eyes as the hall light turned on, but you didn’t fully wake up until a few moments later. 

The sound of more footsteps barely registered in your mind, and you were almost completely back to sleep when you felt the blanket you’d been using slowly lift off of you, and then felt a familiar hand slide under your back. 

You almost thought you were dreaming, because of course Jax would be in your dreams, but then you felt your body being lifted up, and you opened your eyes. You squinted at the harsh light coming from the hall and turned your head, burying your face in Jax’s chest as he slid his arm under your legs, keeping his other one wrapped around your back. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, using his shoulder to flick the light switch off when he walked past it, and you just groaned as he carried you the short distance to the bedroom. 

You knew he was taking you to bed, and even though you were still quite pissed at him, you didn’t try to get out of his hold, nor did you tell him to stop and put you down. 

He left the bedroom door open as he walked around the bed, and he gently set you down on your side of it. The sheets and comforter were already pulled back, and you melted against your cool, much comfier pillow as Jax pulled the covers up over you. 

You instantly cuddled under them, your eyes falling shut as he rounded the bed again and got in on his side next to you. You kept your back to him as he slid under the covers and moved closer to you, and you instinctively leaned back against him. 

“I’m still mad at you,” you mumbled as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you back against his chest.

A much softer laugh than all the sarcastic and humorless ones from before came out of his mouth at that, and he laced his fingers with yours under the sheets. “Yeah, I’m still mad at you too,” he said back, and you tried to fight off a smile as he buried his face in your hair. 

You thought that would be the end of it, that he just brought you to bed since he didn’t want you to sleep apart unless you absolutely needed to, and you were still very much not on good terms right now, but the soft sigh you felt against the back of your neck had you refraining from falling asleep just yet. 

“What happened before,” he started, his voice low and much more gentle than it had been earlier in the living room. “It got outta hand. We both said some shit, but it ain’t gonna break us, alright? We just needed to cool off for a bit.”

You held his hand a little tighter, because despite all the things he’d said to you during the fight, that was what impacted you the most. “No. It won’t break us,” you agreed, and you felt the way his lips curled up just slightly against your skin. 

“That’s my girl,” he mumbled, and you fought off another grin, knowing that you and he would need to actually talk things out properly in the morning, but for now, you were more than content to fall asleep in his arms like you had many times before, and you held onto the hope that tomorrow’s conversation would be much more efficient that the one from a couple hours ago.

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