The Anarchist's Heart

I was woken a few hours later by the sensation of someone sitting on the bed. My heart thudded rapidly in my chest and I sat up with a gasp, only to find a freshly-showered Jax blinking at me in astonishment.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“Yeah, no, it’s okay,” I stammered. Slowly, my pulse came back down and I relaxed. I laid back down, resting my head in Jax’s lap. I felt him relax too and shortly after his fingers were running through my hair. I breathed in the scent of shampoo and body wash that clung to him. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Missed me?” he murmured.

I nodded my head. “I was thankful for the protection, but I feel safer when you’re here.”

“I wish I could be here whenever you need me, but I can’t. Decisions are made, and if I don’t come when called it could put me in some serious shit.”

“I get it, I think,” I whispered, picking at my bottom lip with my fingers. I sat up, twisting to look at him. He had a cut on his temple that he’d cleaned up but was starting to bleed again. My brow creased in worry. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. It’s nothing; don’t worry about it,” Jax waved me off, taking my shoulders and urging me over to sit between his legs. “Come on, come here.”

I did as told; he faced me away from him. His fingers ran through my hair once more, separating piece from piece, twisting them together into what I figured was a French braid. He used to give me French braids while I did my homework and he ignored his. I knew now that this time, much like when we were younger, he was only doing it to postpone the thing he wanted to avoid. When we were in school, it had been the homework; now, it was me asking too many questions that he was avoiding. He didn’t want to confess something that may upset me, like where he got the injuries from.

Regardless of his intentions, I relented, and rested my hands on his pyjama-clad legs, shutting my eyes and relishing in the feeling of his fingers in my hair.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. His voice was a warm rumble in my ears.

“Still a little freaked,” I answered quietly. “I just wasn’t expecting that to happen to me and I just wasn’t prepared for it. So…it jolted me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come.”

He remained silent; his constant fingers on my scalp his only response that I could sense. I thought back to the moment when I pulled into the gas station. I didn’t have to wait long at all before Jax had shown up. No doubt he’d been busy when I called him; he’d dropped everything to come help me because he thought I was in danger. While it had proven to be a false alarm in terms of action, he had not seemed, nor did he seem now, to be annoyed by the interruption.

“You came really quickly to help me,” I said out loud.

He scoffed gently. “Of course. Ella, I love you. If you’re in danger I’ll cross the whole damn planet to fight for you.”

I turned my torso so I could look at him, pulling my hair out of his hands. His eyes met mine with a small bit of uncertainty.

“Still?” I whispered.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jax said, pulling me close to kiss me. “You know I still do.”

I smiled, placing my hand over his as it warmed the right side of my jaw and throat. We kissed again and again, and I turned to face him completely. We kissed on the lips, the nose, the jaw, the collarbone; we nipped at earlobes and throats and held the other as if they’d float away if we let go. We loved each other in the purest of physical forms and every fevered breath was a vow to never let go.



Two weeks had passed since the incident and with no further sightings of the truck or the man with the knuckle tattoos, I was feeling considerably better about it. Maybe it was just a one-time thing and I’d really never see him again. It hadn’t meant anything; it was just an empty threat to the Sons. That was all.

Word had spread throughout the charter faster than light, of course. Security tightened significantly at the house over the next couple of days. It wasn’t my definition of a good time, but there was no convincing the club otherwise. It was a big deal to them when one of their own was threatened. I hadn’t had a meal with just Jax and I or even just myself since it happened, except for the stolen lunch hours at work. It was starting to get on my nerves, but I will admit it was nice not having to cook everything myself all the time.

This particular evening, Gemma, Opie’s wife Donna and myself were in the kitchen, preparing the salads and cooking the ribs and potatoes, and none of us were speaking. I tried my hardest to distract myself with the sounds of the men talking in the kitchen, soaking up bits of their conversations, instead of focusing on the heavy silence that was weighing on me. I didn’t have a problem with Donna and as far as I knew she didn’t have a problem with me; we’d always been civil acquaintances. But I knew Donna had a problem with the club and what it did to her family. I’d heard Opie talking about it; they were behind on their mortgage and car payments and they could barely afford to pay the power bill and buy groceries in the same week. It was because of Opie’s decision to rejoin the club after his five year stint in Stockton Jail that Donna was going prematurely grey and their children were eating Spaghetti-O’s on a daily basis, or at least that’s what I got out of it. If he’d stayed working in the real world and bringing in monthly paycheques, they could be living a slightly more comfortable lifestyle. It kind of freaked me out, watching how the club had affected Donna’s life. She was trying so hard to hold onto the man that she loved, but I could see in her eyes that she dreamed of something bigger, something outside Charming. I could see it because I’d seen it in my own eyes before. I suddenly realized just how uncertain my future was if I stayed with Jax. Would I still be teaching here in ten years? Would we have kids? Would we be financially stable on real, hard-earned money instead of outlaw cash? Would I even be alive in ten years time? I had no idea. It made me feel funny, not knowing that.

I was draining the potatoes in the sink and prepping them to be mashed when I heard Gemma clear her throat behind me. Slowly, I looked over my shoulder at her.

“Let me do that,” she said, shooing me away from the potatoes. Slightly confused, I watched her add butter, milk, and seasonings and begin mashing. “How you feeling?”

I blinked and used my forearm to wipe sweat from my forehead. The kitchen suddenly felt ten times hotter than before. “Um, okay I guess.”

“I know I haven’t talked to you about it, but what happened must have been really hard on you.” She said. She kept working on the potatoes, never looking at me as she spoke. “I was with Jax when you called him. I couldn’t hear anything you were saying, but I knew you were in trouble. See, Jax gets this look about him when you’re in trouble. He’s always been that way and as a mother I noticed. He looks like he’s scared, but I only see fear in his eyes, and only for a second. Then it gets replaced by this fierce determination and anger, like he’s ready to kill someone. As soon as he hung up the phone and left, I knew something was wrong with you. And you know, it was weird, but I got worried. If something had happened to you Jax would never forgive himself and it pains a mother to see their child torturing themselves like that. It hurts you when your kid is heartbroken.”

She stopped mashing and turned to me, one hand on the countertop and the other on her hip. I stood stock still, unable to form a response just yet.

“When you have a kid you’ll understand my attitudes towards you. You were like a daughter to me, and then you broke my kid’s heart and messed him up and I hated you. I told myself I’d never forgive you for the pain you inflicted on my son. You didn’t have to watch what it did to him, I did. Trust me, I had reasons for my actions. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, when I thought you were in trouble I realized that you matter not only to my son but to me and to the club. We all feel protective of you, if you haven’t gathered that from all these family meals.”

She leaned in and kissed my cheek, making my eyes go wide. I looked over her shoulder just in time to see Donna hastily turn her shocked face away from us.

“If he needs you, we all do,” Gemma whispered. “But I’ll still be keeping an eye on you, runaway.”

As she walked away and I turned back to the food trying to recollect myself, my vision of my future suddenly cleared. I saw what was to come. Me, watching my blonde-haired, grey-eyed little boy grow up and fall in love with his best friend who had no idea what she was getting into. I saw me watching my son getting patched into the MC and his whole world changing. I saw his heart break. I saw my own heart break for him. I saw the need to protect my child from ever being hurt again swallow me whole while he grew angry and sour. I watched him crumble and fall, having to pick him up time and time again myself. I saw my beautiful little boy grow up into his father and ascend to the throne, even though he was damaged beyond repair on the inside. I saw myself wanting so much more for him but being trumped by his father’s desire for him to carry on the legacy that he himself could never let go of. It made the funny feeling inside of me become a torrent of fear and other emotions and they climbed up my throat and choked me so I couldn’t speak. My hands were shaking, my chest was heaving as I tried to breathe. I shut my eyes tight and thought of Jax and only of him. He had a glow about him; a sort of golden shadow that surrounded him. I saw him smile at me and I listened to every time he had ever told me he loved me. I felt his arms wrap about my waist and his chin rest on my head. I opened my eyes.

“Hey, I love you,” he whispered in my ear.

I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I put my steady hands over his and rested against him.

“And I love you.”