Trigger warning; mention of miscarriage!

Right after they had dinner, Cleo got the kid's backpacks ready for their sleepover at her mom's house. Katelynn hadn't much time the last few weeks and missed watching Abel and Thomas. She had offered the pair to take the boys for the night and the whole day tomorrow so Jax and Cleo could plan the rest of the family trip.

Jax didn't hesitate and took Katelynn's offer, especially because his boys really loved spending time with Cleo's mom. He was more reserved when his own mother asked if she could have her grandsons over. The blonde knew Gemma was toxic and the fear she would brainwash Abel left a bad taste in his mouth.

If Gemma had no control over things, she wasn't happy. It was different with Katelynn. She was kind, a sweetheart, down to earth and the complete opposite of his own mother. She treated the kids like she should, without wanting them to turn out all though. Of course, he would be proud as hell if his Sons would follow in his footsteps⸻ but it would be okay if not. He wanted them to make their own choices but with Gemma's influence, that was never going to happen.

Maybe it was wrong to push her out again but everything she tried since he let her back in was gaining control over his family once again. After the Mayan thing he noticed the looks she gave his Old Lady and how she tried to make Cleo feel bad for it although it was Adrian's fault, not Cleo's.

Things between Tara and him had always been complicated, it wasn't only Gemma's fault their relationship fell apart. But it wasn't complicated at all with Cleo, he wouldn't give Gemma the power to ruin what they have because his mother didn't get enough attention for her liking.

"Daddy!" Abel ran out of his room with his arms full with stuffed animals. "Can I take all of them? I can leave two of them at Cleo's mom's house so I can play with them everytime we're going to visit her."

Jax, who looked pretty amused, let out a chuckle and got another backpack from the hallway. "Fine, stuff them in there, buddy. But you have to ask Katelynn first if that's okay for her, okay?"

The little boy nodded eagerly. "I'll ask her, I promise!"

Jax helped Abel stuffing all his stuffed animals in the backpack before sitting him down on his lap with Abel's face pointing in his direction.

"You listen to Katelynn and keep an eye on your brother, okay? I'm gonna pick you up tomorrow afternoon", he told his son, ruffling the boy's hair.

"You don't have to tell me that, daddy", Abel said with a wide smile and giggled as Jax ruffled his hair. "What are you and Cleo are going to do without us? I don't want you to get bored."

The blonde biker laughed. "Don't worry about us, we'll find something interesting to do."

"That's good", Abel sing-sang.

"Okay, we're ready to go", Cleo chimed in, balancing Thomas on her hip and two backpacks on her other shoulder.

Jax got up with Abel on his arm and walked over to his girlfriend. He pressed a kiss on Thomas' head before he studied the brunette.

"You okay, babe?", he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry", she smiled reassuringly.

A little over a week ago she found enough courage to tell him about her little relapse. Since it wasn't a super bad one it was easier to talk about it, yet it was still hard. The fear that he would be mad at her was big but to her luck he wasn't mad or angry at all, not even disappointed. Instead he blamed himself for her relapse after convincing her that one pill couldn't hurt.

She had to promise him to throw them away and not buy new ones. As stupid as is was, Cleo wasn't able to flush the pills she had left down the toilet⸻ she simply couldn't bring herself to do it. So, Jax had to do it.

Watching her getting all nervous again for the last few days worried him but it wasn't as bad as her first withdrawal, not even close. The good thing was that she wasn't close to the amount of pills she was used to in the past.

"If you don't feel comfortable driving alone I can do it", he told her sympathetically and brought a hand up to her cheek, running his thumb over her soft skin.

The brunette, with her eyes closed for a moment, leaned into his touch and sighed softly. She loved that he was so understanding and that he didn't judge her for the relapse. He still trusted her with his kids and she wasn't going to fuck up.

"No, it's okay, really. It's only twenty minutes away", she assured him after opening her eyes again and looked right into his beautiful blue ones.

"Alright", he nodded briefly. "Be careful, babe."

"Always", she gave him one more sweet smile and pecked his lips before she glanced at a happily excited Abel. "Say bye to daddy, we gotta go, buddy!"

Jax bid his boys a goodbye and pulled his Old Lady towards him to capture her lips once more. His grip around her waist was so firm as if he didn't plan on ever letting her go while he deepened the kiss, taking away Cleo's breath.

"I love you, darlin'." His smirk said everything. He looked proud everytime he noticed Cleo blushing.

"I love you, too", she, still tasting his lips, whispered. Her rosy cheeks gave away how much she loved the feeling of the blonde's lips on hers. She didn't know what it was about this man that could make her feel like she was melting as soon as he touched her. One look from him was enough to make her knees go weak.

"Cleo? Can we listen to the one song from last time?" Abel's voice rang in her ears and pulled her back to reality.

"What? Uh yeah, sure", she replied softly and hushed the little boy out of the door.

"Yay!" Abel ran towards Cleo's car and waved at Jax before he got inside. The brunette made sure he and Thomas were strapped in securely.

"Drive safe, babe", Jax shouted and leaned against the doorframe.

"Of course. See you later", she shouted back with a smile, then she got in her car and drove off. After she put the song on Abel wanted to hear, she sang along with him making the younger Teller brother giggle the whole time at their little concert.

⸻

Gemma nervously bit down on her nails while waiting in a free spot next to the road. Tara informed her about where her kids would stay tonight. Since she was Thomas' biological mother Jax had to inform her about such things.

It angered her a lot that Jax had no problem with the kids staying at a strangers house. Sure, it was Cleo's mother but how well did he really know her? She never knew that Katelynn visited them often. And if she couldn't visit in a while, they made sure to stop by at the diner at least twice a week so the kids would see her, too.

The older woman, smoking her second joint in thirty minutes, kept her eyes on the road. This was the only way from Jax' to Katelynn's house, Gemma made sure to plan that through.

After two hours of waiting, she finally saw Cleo's car drive by. As inconspicuously as possible, she followed her son's Old Lady. The road was quiet and empty without any cameras.

Somehow, either because of the alcohol she drank before or the two joints she had, she was no longer able to think straight. Her vision got blurry and opening her window didn't help much. In fact, it made things worse. With the fresh air, the few drinks she had before kicked in pretty hard and made her head spin.

Gemma panicked when she lost control over the car, over the ability to react in time, after she closed her tired eyes for only a second. Her foot was still on the gas pedal and the car got progressively faster. The car Gemma drove and Tara bought last week, which was a pretty big vehicle compared to Cleo's sport/drift car, crashed into the brunette's small one at full speed.

"No!" Gemma screamed hysterically as tears were already flooding down her face at the scene that was given to her. Cleo's car overturned once and landed a few feet away in the field next to the road. Gemma herself only hit her head on the steering wheel when she hit Cleo's car but otherwise she was fine.

That's exactly what she wanted, yes, but not with the kids in the car. She wanted to wait until Cleo dropped the kids off, keep following her and then hit her car. It was never planned to hurt her grandbabies, yet she couldn't get out in case one of them was still conscious, which would be a wonder. If they recognized her she would never see those kids again. Hell, she would have a bullet between her eyes before she was done counting to three.

The vibration of her phone made her all nervous. Looking down at the screen, where Nero's name popped up, she felt immense guilt. He would also hate her for this and she couldn't even blame him.

The matriarch ignored his call and quickly dialed 911, giving them a quick explanation about what happened and where Cleo's car was. After that, she broke her phone into two to make sure no one could track down this number before she sped off, praying that her grandkids were fine. Cleo? Not so much.

⸻

"Where are they?!" Jax' voice was filled with panic as he stormed through the doors of St.Thomas where Katelynn and Enrico were already waiting for him. Tig, Chibs and Dawn were right behind him. His brother's couldn't let him ride alone, not in the state he was in and Dawn wanted to know what happened to her friend.

Katelynn's eyes were swollen and red, her face was covered in a deep shade of pink from all the crying. Enrico's face was blank but the look in his eyes gave away that he was in shock.

"Your younger kid is fine. He was lucky, no injuries at all. The Doctor's still wanted to look him over. Abel on the other hand got injured more. They said something about a broken arm and his head was bleeding", Enrico's words started to blur together as he told Jax the news. Too overwhelmed to even move much. "She- she's.."

Angel, who rode with his best friend, put a comforting hand on Enrico's shoulder and squeezed it when he couldn't finish the sentence. They had been close at the diner, that's how they managed to get there faster.

Jax had to process the man's words first. Totally relived that Thomas was fine but worried as hell about Abel. A broken arm wasn't too bad, it was more the head injury that scared the shit out of him.

"She what?", his voice cracked as he asked. Was she dead? Would Enrico tell him those exact words? Jax started to feel jittery as the bile in his throat rose. The thoughts in his head got so loud he was afraid he was loosing his mind. "Is she dead?", he asked boldly, his voice so low that if it didn't sound so desperate, it would've sounded downright menacing.

"No", it was Katelynn who spoke up next, a heart-wrenching sob managed to escape her throat. "But she lost lots of blood and-",

"Don't mom, he needs to hear it from a doctor or her", Enrico said with a sad sigh and put an arm around his mother's shoulder to give her some comfort.

"No, I want to know now! What the hell is going on and where's my Old Lady?" His voice was raised to a level where they had all the attention from the other people in the hallway now.

"Brother", Chibs said calmly and, just like Angel did with Enrico, he put a hand on the younger man's shoulder and pointed towards a young doctor coming their way. They haven't seen her before, she was probably new here.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Miller and I'm in charge of Cleo Hernandez and the two boys. I'm assuming they're yours, right?", the woman asked with a sympathetic smile.

"What happened to my family? Where are my sons..my girlfriend?", he asked desperately.

"Your younger son is fine, you can take him home with you as soon as you're ready to leave. It's a wonder he wasn't injured, but we all have a guardian angel, right? So did your other son. Abel's head injury seemed worse than it actually is. It was just a big laceration that needed stitches and his arm is broken. We need to keep him for a few days to make sure he has no concussion", she explained, earning a relived sigh from Tig, Chibs and Dawn in the back.

Of course Jax was relieved. Those news finally let him take a breath again. It could've been much worse and he knew that but this was already bad enough and he couldn't be more grateful that his boys were fine⸻ kind of, at least. But now he wanted to know where Cleo was and why no one was telling him shit.

"And Cleo?", he swallowed dryly.

The doctor's look filled with pity. "She was still passed out when she came here from hitting her head hard on the steering wheel. The airbag caused a concussion and broken ribs. But that's not all", she paused for a moment and led him further away from the rest to have more privacy with him. "She sat in her own pool of blood. Her pants were covered in blood but we couldn't find a open wound anywhere near her legs or abdomen. We immediately ran a few tests, they came back twenty minutes ago and as we thought, your girlfriend was pregnant. I'm sorry, Mr. Teller."

The doc's last words echoed through his head and his face went chalk white. Cleo was pregnant? Was? He ran a hand over his face as tears build in his eyes. They hadn't planned a baby but he would've loved that kid with every fiber of his body. Knowing the miscarriage probably broke Cleo's heart, broke him. She always talked about how she would love to add one or two more children to their little family.

"Can I see her, please?", his voice cracked again, this time he didn't even try to hide the pain he felt⸻ it was simply impossible. It didn't matter that he had no idea about the baby, it was still a heartbreaking loss.

"Of course", the woman nodded quickly and led him to the room Cleo was in and closed the door once they were inside. She stayed in the room in case they had more questions.

Jax swallowed hard as he looked at his girlfriend. She just sat there and fiddled with her hands that lay in her lap, staring at the wall with silent tears streaming down her face. It didn't seem like the pain from her broken ribs was bothering her and it didn't surprise him. The loss of their child caused her more pain than anything else could. Or it was the fluids or pain medication the doctors were running through her veins.

Without a word, he walked over to the bed, put his arm around her shoulder and carefully pulled her towards him, making sure he wouldn't rip the thin tube from the crock of her arm.

Once he was holding her in his arms and she had buried her face in the flannel he wore under his kutte, she let out a strangled cry and clung to him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist while her hands clutched the back of his kutte.

"I'm so sorry, babe", he hardly whispered. None of this felt real, it was too painful to accept but he had no other choice. Black spots formed in his vision from holding back the tears, yet a few managed to slip and fall down his face. "I'm so, so sorry", he repeated in a shaky voice.

Cleo couldn't get out a word, she couldn't pull herself together at the moment. Her heart ached like it never did before and the pain was real. She never missed a period and had no idea about the growing human inside of her, but now she knew they had a baby on the way and lost it before they could even get all excited about it.

Jax already knew it was a hit and run, that the other driver took off, the hospital had informed him on that over the phone already.

Fact was, he would find this person. Man or woman, it didn't matter⸻ he would make them feel the pain he or she caused his family.