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Come With Me Tonight	By : copperleaves Category: S through Z > Sons of Anarchy Views: 2631 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don't own Sons of Anarchy, and I'm sure as hell not making any money off of this. I do own Olivia Gable and any characters associated with her history.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
got a heart lost in kindness

a mind that's mostly mindless

i can hold you up for air

i won't let you down i swear

Bob Schneider, "Honeypot"
It was her day off, and she was going to the hospital. She hated hospitals, as cliché as that was, and she wondered if she weren't making a mistake. Was this weird? Maybe she shouldn't have gotten the flowers. But they were pretty. And if you were gonna go cliché, you might as well go all the way.
She stopped by the nurse's desk and a harried-looking woman glanced up with a distracted smile. "Help you, honey?" she said.
"Yeah, I'm looking for Juan Ortiz. He's on this floor somewhere, but I…" She trailed off and gestured at the huge map on the wall behind her.
"I was just about to go check on him," another nurse said. "Follow me."
Olivia fell in step behind her and struggled to keep up. The woman was about Olivia's height, but she strode the halls like a battle general. After a few turns she stopped at a door just like all the rest and knocked. Didn't wait for an answer before she burst in.
"Juan Carlos, chico, como estas?"
"I told you I don't speak Spanish," he said, sounding irritable. "And it's Juice."
"You will by the time you leave here, I promise. Look, chico, you've got a visitor." She waved Olivia into the room, checked Juice's blood pressure numbers and his IV, and then scooted out. "He's on a lot of meds," she whispered as she passed Olivia. "He might not make much sense."
"He doesn't make much sense on a good day."
"I heard that!" Juice said.
The nurse rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. Olivia took a deep breath, summoned up a smile, and spun around.
"Hey, you," she said.
He was pale and sort of fuzzy-eyed, with dark circles under his eyes and an IV snaking up his arm. His hair had grown in around his mohawk and it made him look younger. That combined with the generic hospital gown gave him the air of a wayward orphan. Oliver Twist gets shivved. She didn't think anyone would realize he was a badass biker in his other life—except maybe for the tattoos.
"Liv." A slow grin unfurled across his face. "You came to visit me."
"I certainly did," she said. She held up the potted plant. "I even brought flowers."
He grinned even harder, kind of drunkenly. "Flowers. They're pretty." They were bright yellow and cheerful, with small, happy faces and a burst of petals on each one.
"That's what I thought," she said. She stepped deeper into the room and looked around with a frown. It was cold and sterile. Empty. At least he didn't have a roommate, but— "Am I the only one who's been to see you?"
"Huh? Oh. No. Chibs came by yesterday." He gestured to the corner by the bed. "He brought that."
Olivia blinked. A jaunty blue balloon floated there, one of the mylar kind you got at the gift shop. It had a fat, grinning baby on it, diaper swaddled, with a perfect blond curl on its perfect cartoon forehead. It's a Boy! huge powder-blue letters proclaimed.
"Umm…?"
"Kind of an inside joke," Juice said.
"Right." She stood awkwardly, holding the flower pot and casting about for something to say. "So the nurse is trying to teach you Spanish?"
"Trying," he said with an affable shrug. He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. "I think she thinks I'm cute."
Her mouth curved in a wry smile. "You are cute, sometimes." She relaxed a little and set the flowers on the bedside table. "When your mouth isn't screwing it up."
"Isn't that from The Goonies?"
"Sort of," she said.
He craned his head around so he could see the flowers. "Real pretty. What kind are they?"
"Button mums. For fall." She hesitated. "My mom used to plant them in her garden every year. I thought they would cheer you up."
"They do." He blinked at her, his expression puzzled. "You look real pretty, too."
She was wearing high-wasted navy blue trousers and a gauzy white blouse that ended just where the pants began. When she moved he caught a flash of skin, a different shade of pale than her top. He could see the shadow of her tattoo through the light material. The bruise on her elbow was mostly faded, finally, but there was a new one on her upper arm. She really did bruise like a peach.
"Thanks," she said. "It's my day off. I try to look as little like the garage as possible in my real life."
"You look like one of those girls from those posters."
She stared at him. "Posters?"
"Yeah, you know." He saluted. "Buy war bonds! From the forties, like."
"Ohh. Yeah. That's kind of what I was going for."
"Good job," he said with another wide grin.
She muffled a laugh. The nurse hadn't been kidding about the meds.
"So, Liv," he said, "what brings you by?"
"Oh, you know. I was in the neighborhood, with a plant, and thought, hey, there's the hospital! I wonder if there are any doped up Puerto Rican bikers feeling lonely and pitiful? And I decided to stop in."
She snorted at his expression. "I came to see you, you idiot. The other guys got out and you weren't with them. Tig told me what happened, and I thought you could use some company."
"Oh. That's nice." His eyes were back on the flowers. "Your mom planted them every year?" he said. "They aren't the…whatchacallit kind? The kind that come back?"
"Perennials. No. They're fall annuals. She was obsessed with her garden, and every season she cycled in new annuals. Impatiens and geraniums for spring and summer; pansies for winter; button and spider mums and marigolds for fall."
"You're from the South, right? Originally?"
She frowned. "How do you—"
"It's in the way you talk, sometimes. Right there, when you said marigolds." He pronounced it mary-golds, three distinct syllables. When she said it she almost swallowed the long e, shortened it to a quick breath and skipped past it: mare'golds.
"You also say y'all."
"A lot of people say y'all," she said with a little scowl.
"I guess." He shrugged a shoulder. "It's not often. Just sometimes. You don't really have much of an accent at all."
Her eyebrows flicked upward. "Good," she said, and that was all.
"You can sit down, if you want. The chair's kinda shit, but the bed's okay. It's one of those air mattress things that adjusts to you, so it's like your ass has its own personal cloud."
"Well there's an offer too intriguing to refuse," she said, dryly.
She stepped out of her shoes and scooted onto the foot of the bed. Pulled her dangling legs up to sit with them crossed in front of her. She faced the door rather than him, and he took the opportunity to drink in the clean, Classical lines of her profile: high forehead, straight nose, strong chin. Her hair was in the same style as the night they met, and the long braid dangled over her shoulder.
"You're thinking about something you don't want to talk about," he said.
She glanced at him, startled. Pink brushed across her cheeks and he knew he was right.
"You've got a tell."
Her eyes went wide. "I do not."
"You do. It's subtle, but you do." She just stared, so he hurried on. "When you're thinking like that, sometimes you do this sorta nose-scrunchy thing. Just a little. Like whatever you're thinking about…has a weird smell or something."
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I never noticed," she said, frowning.
"Like I said: subtle. Barely noticeable, really."
Her head tilted. "You noticed." Her tell (which she still sort of refused to believe). Her accent. What else had he picked up on when she wasn't paying attention?
"Yeah, well." He threw out his hands in a shrug. "I spend way too much time looking at you, what can I say?"
"Hmm," she said, a soft noise of amusement.
They sat quietly a moment, and the silence was easy and full. He was content just to look at her in his drowsy, dreamy state. She was wearing more makeup than usual (another day off thing, he figured), and her lips were a bold red contrast to her pale skin. She had her nose scrunched again, but this time she caught it and her face went smooth.
"You gonna tell me, or just sit there brooding about it?"
His voice seemed to startle her. "Oh," she said, "it's not—"
"Don't say it's not important. Come on, Liv. Take pity on a wounded man and spill it."
Another brief chuckle. Then, quietly, "Hospitals always remind me of my mom. It's so stupid." She rolled her eyes. "Everyone hates hospitals, right? Sick people and bad food and no privacy. What a fucking cliché."
"Yeah, well, clichés are clichés for a reason."
Her only acknowledgement was a brief quirk of her brow, like a nod without moving her head. She still faced the door, but she wasn't looking at it. Her eyes were trained on some point in the middle-distance, and they had that sort of glazed look he remembered from the night of the explosion.
"What happened to her?" he said. "Your mom?"
The question seemed to bring her back. She looked his way and brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. "We were in a wreck. One of those stupid random things, you know?" She rolled her eyes. "So fucking pointless."
He thought she wouldn't say any more. She dipped her head and fiddled with the cuff on her wrist. He watched her carefully. Waited her out. He hoped she would keep talking, but he knew if he tried to pry it out of her she'd probably never tell him.
"I was fifteen," she said abruptly. "She'd picked me up early from school because it was my birthday. We were gonna go shopping, have lunch, maybe see a movie. She was finally going to let me get my ears pierced. She was really old-fashioned and thought it was tacky for young girls to have pierced ears, but I'd been begging for ages and had finally worn her down from eighteen to fifteen."
"Huh. You don't wear earrings."
She had pierced ears, but in the full month-plus he'd known her he'd never seen her wear earrings. He figured it was partly a garage thing—better not to have anything dangling that could catch on something—but today, when she was in non-work mode, he thought she'd be wearing some. If she were going to.
She tugged at an earlobe with a distracted frown. "They're mostly closed up now. This was done…later."
Was done. As in done to her. She had other tells, too. Certain turns of phrase. Every word she spoke was important, meant something, and if you really paid attention you could learn about twice as much as she actually ever said. He decided not to mention that.
She raised her head. Her face was still, but her fingers had dropped down to toy with the cuff again. "We had the music cranked up in her car. Hootie and the Blowfish," she said with a sardonic little smile. "This truck just—he just fucking ran a red light. That's all. Hit the passenger side and drove our car into a telephone pole."
"Jesus," he said with a wince.
"Yeah."
He caught the flash of the dimple in her chin. Not a happy dimple this time; her smile was bitter, her face dark.
"I broke my hip, femur, and a couple of ribs. They had me in traction, knocked out pretty hard. They had to operate a couple of times." A quick shake of her head and she waved it away. "Anyway, I was so blotto from all the drugs and stuff it was over a week before I even knew she was gone. They said she died right away, but who knows. Maybe that's just what they tell the kid, no matter what."
He drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "Is that why you got your tattoo? To cover the scars and stuff?"
She looked at him then, and he could read the relief on her face. He knew from his own mother's death that words of comfort were pointless, and I'm sorry only pissed you off. Of course you're fucking sorry. Everyone's fucking sorry. It doesn't help a goddamn thing.
"That was part of it," she said. "Not the scars. I don't care about the scars. That just worked out because I had an amazing artist. But, yeah, I got it on this side on purpose. The side that aches when it rains or gets creaky after a long walk. But the tattoo itself…" Her shoulders rippled. "It's for a lot of things."
"Like that?" He pointed at the cuff she hadn't stopped messing with.
Her hands stilled and her eyes turned sharp. "Ahh, well. Let's not talk about that, okay? One Hallmark moment per visit."
"Yeah, okay. Fair enough," he said, his head bobbing in a sort of half-nod.
A crease formed between her brows. "You look wrecked, Juicy. I should go and let you sleep." She started to slide off the bed, but he held out a hand to stop her.
"Don't leave. Keep talking. Tell me about your mom's garden."
"You really want to hear about that?"
"It sounds nice," he said. "I grew up in an apartment. We had some dinky potted plant in the window, but no such thing as a garden."
"Mmm. Okay, then. Close your eyes."
He did and let his head fall back against the pillow. Her voice was soft and warm, soothing like honey, and he could see the pictures her words painted. She talked about rose bushes and hydrangeas (whatever those were) and her mom's struggle to grow a pink dogwood. Apparently the soil wasn't right. She could grow white ones all day, but the pink ones always died. Who knew dirt mattered so much?
When he woke up hours later she was gone, and part of him wondered if he hadn't dreamt the whole thing. Then he turned his head and saw the sunny flowers. Button mums, he thought. For fall.
A nurse came in—a different one from earlier—and adjusted the pinchy thing on his finger. Messed with his pillows and smoothed his blankets.
"You need anything, hon?" she said.
"No," he told her. "No, I'm real good."

Juice was tired of being in the hospital. He was sick of the food and the nurses' constant coming and going. He was sick of the stupid hospital gown that left his ass flapping in the wind every time he got up to take a piss. The lights were too bright and his head itched as his hair grew in and he missed his bike and the club and beer.
The TV only got like four channels and they all sucked. He had paused to watch a lion take down a zebra when Bobby and Jax burst in on him. He'd been thrilled to see them, but his excitement vanished once they told him the reason for their visit.
Jax had just left, and Bobby lowered himself into the chair beside the bed. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
"It's some fucked up shit, Juicy," he said after a moment, his voice gruff and thick.
Juice shook his head and squeezed his eyes closed. He didn't want to fucking cry in front of Bobby. "Is he really gonna do this? Go Nomad and just leave?"
Bobby lifted his hands in a helpless shrug. "Yeah. I guess so. Like you said, it's been comin' for a while. I don't know why we're all so surprised."
He glanced over, his brow furrowed and his eyes still over-bright. "He and Clay have been butting heads for ages. I didn't think he'd actually leave." He swallowed. "Does Gemma know?"
"Pretty sure Tara told her," he said with a sigh. "She might be Jax's mama and Clay's old lady, but she's still just an old lady. It's not her decision."
Just an old lady, Juice thought. What a thing to say about Gemma Morrow. Yeah, technically it was true, but he had no doubt the club would've fallen apart years—hell, decades ago—if it weren't for Gemma. No wonder Olivia didn't want to be an old lady. No wonder she made that face any time someone mentioned it.
"Look, this whole thing fucking sucks, but it is what it is. Jax thinks Clay burned down Caracara, and even if he gets proof that he didn't I don't think it'll make a difference. I mean, maybe it might to Jax, but Clay is done with the whole thing. It's poisoning the club, and something's gotta change."
"Do you think he did it?"
Bobby shook his head, his chin lowered to his chest. "I don't know. I wanna say no. That's extreme, even for Clay. He never liked the porn business, but it was legit and it was making us money. Clay's ruthless, but I don't think he's stupid."
"Huh," Juice said, a soft, thoughtful grunt.
"So you got a vote for me, brother?" Bobby said, his tone turning gentle.
Juice let his head drop back against the pillow. He stared up at the ceiling without seeing it, and when he thought he could speak without choking he said, "It's yea. Of course I vote yea. Jax has his mind made up. The vote's just a formality."
Bobby grunted and hauled himself out of the chair. "Formalities like that are what separate us from the bangers. Don't forget that, Juicy."
"Yeah, Bobby," he said. "I got it."
He hesitated a moment by the bed. With another gusty sigh he let his hand drop lightly onto Juice's shoulder and squeezed. "We're gonna get through this, brother."
"Sure." He sniffed hard and managed to dredge a smile from somewhere. Turned his head and nodded. "Of course we will. Just another bump in the road."
"Yeah," Bobby said with a cynical snort. "That's all it is." He gave Juice's shoulder one last pat before he turned to go. "Get better, bud. We'll see you back in the clubhouse soon."
"Thanks, man. And thanks for stoppin' by." He smiled a little and looked away, out the window. He heard the door open and dual exclamations of surprise.
"Oh!" a woman's voice said. "I didn't—"
"Ollie. Sorry, didn't see you there. You comin' to visit our boy?"
Juice craned his neck to get a look, but he couldn't see her beyond Bobby's big frame.
"Yep," he heard her say. There was a pause. "Are you—is everything all right?" she said, her voice careful.
"Yeah, we're great. Just had some club business I had to run past Juice."
He stepped aside and gestured for her to come around him, and after a brief hesitation she did—but Juice noticed she never took her eyes off him, even once she was in the room.
"Good to see you, Ollie," he said with a nod. "Get some rest, Juicy," he called.
"Yeah, Bobby. Later."
The door closed behind him, but she stood facing it for several moments after he'd gone. "I hope that's not going to be awkward later," she said as she spun on her heel and walked to the bed.
Juice shrugged. "You stopped by to visit me in the hospital. Other people have, too."
She noticed there was a new basket of flowers next to the mums she had brought last week. "I see that."
"Gemma brought those." He pointed to a Tupperware container tucked in behind them. "Some of the crow eaters brought cookies, but they wouldn't let me have them. I've been givin' 'em to the nurses."
"Trying to bribe them?"
"To leave me alone," he said with a scowl.
She cast a look over her shoulder, back at the door, then at him. Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "What was that about? You look…" She trailed off and waved a hand.
"You wanna sit down?" he said, like he had last time.
"Um, actually—I just stopped by on my way—" She laughed and tried again. "I ran out of trim paint, so I was on my way to the hardware store when I thought I'd stop in. Hence." She flicked her fingers to indicate her outfit—short, ragged cutoffs and a Yes concert t-shirt. Her hair in a long, untidy braid down her back. Paint-spattered Chuck Taylor low tops.
"I like it," he said with a grin. "But Yes?"
"It was fifty cents at Goodwill."
"They ripped you off."
"Ha. You're a funny man, Ortiz."
"I try," he said.
She studied him. "You're dodging the question."
He shifted in the bed. "It was club business, like he said."
"Ah," she said. A slow nod of understanding. "Okay, then."
"Liv, come on, don't be like that."
"Then you don't be like that. Play the super-secret MC business card on me. That's bullshit."
"Jesus. If this's what it's like to have an old lady then I don't want one."
"I am not your old lady, Juice Ortiz."
"I know, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—Olivia, come back! I can't chase after you and that's not fair!"
She spun around and marched back. Leaned over the side of the bed. "If you don't want to talk to me about what's bothering you, that's fine. Just say that. Don't try to hide behind your club and try to make me feel like the air headed bimbo who couldn't possibly fathom the deep intricacies of your business because it's so fucking important and top fucking secret."
He blinked at her. "Wow. You said that all in one breath."
"I have excellent lung capacity."
Their eyes stayed locked, the air between them tense. He caved first, and the second she saw his ridiculous grin she couldn't help but smile back. "Fuck you, Ortiz," she said.
"Promises, promises."
It made her laugh harder, a real laugh, bright and clear. Her smile faded when she saw his face. He looked suddenly…lost. Frightened and impossibly sad.
"Juice, what—?"
"Would you do something for me? Please?"
"Yeah," she said. She brushed her fingers over his hand. "Of course. Name it."
"Could you—do you think you could just climb in with me? Just lay here with me while I fall asleep?"
His voice was thick with unshed tears, and she was alarmed by the sudden shift. Part of her wanted to say no. Wanted to turn and run and not look back. But they both knew she wouldn't. Instead she gave a jerky nod and walked around to the other side of the bed. She toed off her shoes and crawled up next to him. He shifted over to give her more room—not that she took up that much—and put his arm around her as she settled in.
She rested her cheek on his shoulder and he turned his head to bury his nose in her hair. Closed his eyes and took a long breath. Her hand was on his chest and she could feel the steady drum of his heart beneath her palm.
"Your legs are gonna get cold," he said.
"They already are."
"You could get under the covers."
She opened her mouth. Closed it again. "I'm okay."
He nodded. Better, he thought, to accept what she was offering and not try for more. Pushing would just send her away, and that was the last thing he wanted.
"You gonna tell me what Bobby was doing here?"
There was a long silence. Finally, "Jax is going Nomad. They needed my proxy vote for church tonight."
"Oh." She raised her head a little to look at him. Her own face was clouded. "Because of the fire?"
"That was just the final straw, I think. But yeah."
"Hhmm."
"Club's supposed to be family," he said after a time. "Thicker than blood."
"Things get complicated when dealing with actual family. Clay and Jax are brothers in the club, but outside it there's a whole mess of shit goin' on." She paused. "Hopefully it's that shit that'll help bring them back together. Gemma and Abel and all the things that they both love."
"Yeah," he said, but his voice was doubtful and small. "Let's hope."
She touched his face and he turned to look at her. She smiled a little. Kissed his jaw. "Try to get some rest, Juicy. You'll be out soon and you can worry about all of this then."
"I'm glad you're here." He brushed strands of hair off her face and her smile widened.
"I bet you are. Here." She leaned across him and swiped the Tupperware off the nightstand. "Have a cookie."
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Come With Me Tonight