#oc jo

(Plus some sneak peaks for who might be coming next!)

Jo walked into the hospital with the chicken parm plate wrapped in tin foil and the jameson juice box tucked secretly behind her jacket. Her eyes were scanning for the sign that would lead her to the critical unit. After a few minutes and talking to a couple nurses, she found the exact room she was looking for.

“Up for company?” She peaked in and saw Chibs with his eyes closed and head wrapped with gauze. It was still a rough site for her to see, the idea of Chibs being attacked, the club being a target, she grew up with a lot of these guys being around, whether they knew her dad or not, they were family to her.

“He-hey.” His voice was raspy, he was still very much healing from his head wound, but he straightened him self up a bit.

“Don’t get up, stay relaxed.” Jo quickly paced over and dropped the plate of food on the rolling table and moved her free arm to steady him.

“I’m al’rite.” He did his best to brush her off. “What do I owe the pleasure, darlin’?” He looked up at Jo, worried she came with bad news.

“What can I say, I’m Gemma’s daughter. Just wanted to come by and check in. Brought you homemade food, because I know the shit they’re feeding you in here is well, shit.” She laughed moving the table closer to show the warm plate of food. “Made it this afternoon. S’fresh.”

“Ahhh.” He smiled eagerly and began looking for utensils.

“Here.” She turned to grab a set from the old rolling cart likely from his breakfast and placed them on the one he was currently using and followed it by dropping the jameson juice box next to it. “You hide this from the staff. Last thing I need is Tara getting in trouble for that. It’s not even two shots, so it shouldn’t be a big deal with,” she pointed to his head and then sighed. “How are you feeling?”

“Way better now, sweetheart.” He wasn’t even looking at Jo when he said it, just digging into the food and immediately going for the jameson.

She laughed but it wasn’t the usual Jo Teller laugh that everyone in the club knew, so he looked up. “I think I need to ask you, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Just, a lot going on.” A sigh left her mouth and she plopped down at the foot of his bed.

“Heard about that piece of shite, Micky being back, we’ve got your back, you don’t need to spend another minute worrying about that.” Jo knew his words were genuine but it was hard to believe when everything around her felt like it was crumbling, but she wasn’t going to talk to Chibs about that.

“Thanks.” Her hand squeezed his leg. “So when are they bustin’ you outta here?”

“Not sure, hopefully soon, but m’still on the critical list.”

Before their conversation could continue, the door was opening and Jax and Half-Sack were appearing. The tension was quick to fill the room, maybe more on Jo’s side than Jax’s.

“What’re you doing here?” Jax frowned, confused.

“What? I can’t check in?” She barked back, standing up quickly.

“What’s up with you?” Jax frowned again, a smirk peaking at his lips which made Jo want to smack it off of him.

She looked over to the corner by the door and nodded to it. Jax hesitated but then followed her and pointed to Chibs as a way to say hi as well as tell the prospect to keep him company.

“You alright?” Jax walked over even more confused than when he first walked in.

“No, I’m not.” Her voice was stern and pointed. “Why the fuck are you keeping secrets?”

That opened up a number of things that came rushing to Jax’s head. Which one of them Jo was talking about wouldn’t have been able to be figured out in a matter of seconds with the way all the possibilities flashed in his mind so instead he took the route that would likely make her more angry.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play fucking coy with me, Jackson.” Full name, she was pissed. “It’s my birth right just as much as yours to have that book, to at least fucking read it. But you’ve kept it for God knows how long.”

The manuscript. Jax didn’t know if he was relieved or more stress that was the secret she was referring to.

“Joanne.” He used her full first name now, but it was said sincerely, almost begging for understanding.

“Don’t hit me with that puppy dog eye bullshit, might work on mom, but it defintely won’t work on me.”

“I’ve just been trying to figure out some shit, alright?” Now he got back to his bitter voice.

“My name is on that dedication page, too.”

“I’ve just needed a minute to sift through it all.” He argued again.

“I feel like so much makes sense to me now.” Her voice settled now as she spot, looking quickly over Jax’s shoulder to see Kip and Chibs talking clearly preoccupied and not at all curious to the Teller’s conversation at all. “Like everything I saw on his face was written in words.”

“You were older, you saw more of it than I did.” Jax shrugged. “It’s all new to me. Feel like I actually know him now.”

“The shit with the club, you’re trying to push it in that direction, what Dad wanted.” It was more of a statement than anything else. “Why you’re pushing up on Clay.”

Jax looked at her wondering where she was getting this info.

“You two had a fit at dinner, it’s not subtle.” Jo raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, Jo. I look at the club where it is now, where I am now and then I just see this vision dad had, for the club, for life, and I remember why I wanted this leather and it connects with that vision JT had so well. His ideas, his views..”

“Real hippie shit.” Jo laughed thinking back to some of the ideologies she read.

“Exactly. Outlaw life but so obtainable.” Jax nodded.

“He gets angry in it later on. Something shifted Jax.” Jo was now just talking with him like normal.

“Tara said the same thing.” Jax shook his head, also just talking not realizing that sentence was going to shift everything.

“Tara?” Jo questioned with a frown. “She read it? Are you fucking kidding me?” Jo pushed Jax now not even letting him explain.

“Whoa.” Jax lifted his hands up in innocence, and now the other two patch’s eyes were on the both of them.

“Go fuck yourself Jax. 'Wrapping your head around it' my ass.” She was staring at him almost like the next words out of his mouth were going to make the decision of her next move for her.

“I needed someone to talk to about it, Tara was catching on to shit happening. I needed her to see the full picture.” He whispered it, really only so Jo could hear.

“You can talk to ME about it, Jax. Your fucking sister, the person whose name is on the fucking book. I deserved to know it even existed. I deserved to read it. He was my dad too! Just because you wear the kutte, grew the hair you get to have it all to yourself, but you don’t!”

“He was my dad too?” Jax laughed almost mocking her. “I think I should be the one saying that to you. Dad spent every free moment with you, you have memories of the asshole, so forgive me for taking this one thing.”

“Don’t give me the boo-hoo daddy didn’t love me song, like you didn’t rub Gemma’s favoritsm of you in my face every fucking day.”

“I had to, it was the only thing I had.” Jax was yelling now and the two other members were just staring not knowing what to say or do since this clearly felt like a family matter.

“What are you even saying?!” She ran a hand through her hair. “When Dad left, when Thomas died, I was by your side every fucking day. I took you to school while Mom couldn’t even get out of bed, I fixed those dirt bikes with you and Opie because you needed someone with a license to take you to get the parts, I helped you get ready for Dad’s funeral because Mom was already halfway down the aisle with Clay, I was fucking there, Jax, don’t ever say I wasn’t there for you.” She was hurt by the statement he said, he might not have exactly said that she wasn’t there for him, but the insinuation was enough.

“You weren’t. And you know it. When Dad died, you could have told me, told me about the demons. What you saw. But you didn’t.” His face was red.

It was that moment that Jo looked at Jax and almost didn’t recognize him. He didn’t look like her younger brother anymore, he looked older, like his face had given in to the fight of aging. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he wasn’t a kid anymore, he had a life, a family, but Jo knew it was deeper than that. It wasn’t just that he looked older, more exhausted, it was that he looked JT. And not the JT that’d sit at the table and eat family dinner, or taught the kids how to ride bikes, he looked like the JT who’d come home from a day at the club and TM to walk right past both kids at the table and go straight to bed, the JT who’d spend weeks across seas in Belfast, and come home disheveled and stressed without so much as a nod in anyones direction. The JT who was losing himself.

Jo was in shock by what Jax had said and also from just taking him in. “You were a kid, I was protecting you.” Now she shook her head in disbelief trying to grasp at any morsel of Jax Teller, her younger brother.

“Well I guess that’s what I was doing now. Protecting you. From club business. You’re just a member’s sister, you’re not even an ol’ lady.” Those last words were pointed, and they dug deep, he knew they would.

She did.

They didn’t know how his smile never sat straight or that he knew where to find the best berries or that he was kind. They’ll spout some ancient poem about heroism, sing praises for how his sword (rusted, flimsy, dull) is the one that pierced the Drowned, but only after the algae had taken root in his lungs.

If he had a proper sword, one polished sharp, he could have killed the thing faster.

She doesn’t want to go to the funeral and see the blacksmith who refused to accept the promise of the Drowned’s corpse in return for a flimsy iron blsde. He wanted silver shillings and shillings were something he couldn’t offer. So he took the sword too broken and rusted to be salvaged and went off alone. Or, almost alone.

He’d pressed a cold kiss to her cheek and promised to return by sunset.

She’d waited, watching the treeline until the sun sat firmly behind them, the last dregs of daylight. She wandered into the woods with a pink-red sky above her and she found the battle. She found him.

He was not dead, though that is not what she will her mother later.

What she tells people later is true but not complete. Things are different in the moment. In the moment, the Drowned is twitching  and dying and he is choking on his own lungs swelling in his chest. Dying too. In the moment, she takes his sword and she delivers the blow that stills the beast. In the moment, she arrives too soon and it is still not soon enough.

Later, she lays the sword by his hand and wonders what he would say if he was able to breathe. Later, she leaves the woods with a wet hem and muddy boots. Later, she tells everyone that he was one to do the deed, that she had found him too late to do anything.

Later, she doesn’t arrive in time.

She is annoyed by everyone. How they presume to know him. How they leapt to their conclusions from her barren truth (and she wanted them to, didn’t want to ruin herself by admitting it, but it still grates how they assumed).

They did not know how he promised to marry her, knees in the mud, bags under his eyes, hands warm in her own, so so tired but so happy at the thought of their union.

Her fingers brush the strand of tin woven around her neck, a birthday gift he’d had to steal to get. It never sat straight and dug into the nape of her neck something fierce, but she loved it. It was from him.

The last gift he’d ever give her, now.

The others sit in a small box beneath her bed -- the husks of dried flowers and bits of smoothed glass from liqueur bottles. Tiny pieces of treasure he squirreled away for her like a dragon’s hoard. All things he didn’t pay half a shilling for. 

All things that she loved deeply. Like him.

Her mother’s steps clunk closer and stop at the door. “Joanna? Are you coming?”

She looks at her mother and wonders how to say her feelings -- how is she supposed to go to the funeral of her beloved (her future betrothed as soon as he saved enough for a real ring because it was something he insisted upon despite his utter lack of wealth) and not weep? How is she supposed to smile as she speaks of the heroism he didn’t need to act out and could’ve lived through, if only someone had offered a hand?

How is she supposed to sing his praises when she only wishes to mourn his loss?

“Is it starting? she asks instead of answering. She’s been avoiding the question for days, dreading what her answer would be. Either way, she has to lose something after she’s already lost too much.

“Soon enough. We must leave now if we aren’t to miss it.”

It’s starting and she still doesn’t know if she’s going. She laughs a little, internally, and knows what she must do. Pain lies before her either way -- of missing his funeral or smiling through it.

Her path is filled with thorns now, constantly pricking at her arms and legs and catching in her dress. She’ll crawl for a while, her blood marking the point where he stopped cutting the path free for her at the price of his own hands. The point where it narrows to where only one can walk. He’d let her walk in the middle of the widened path, just so she wouldn’t get nicked, even if he’d cut away the longer branches, the smaller ones still poked through.

She takes a deep breath and examines her reflection again. She looks unremarkable. Forgettable. If she shed a few tears in the midst of the crowd, maybe no one would pay enough attention to notice.

Slowly, she blinks and steels her heart again, turning to her mother.

Walking up to her, she links their arms together, elbows bumping into the other. “Off we go then,” she smiles, forced. “We wouldn’t want to be late.”