…

Everything was so different now and sometimes, she felt as if all she had done was blink and when she looked again, it had all changed. Just like that. She wondered if things always changed that quickly and she had just never noticed before.

Happy didn't talk about it – not that she ever expected him to. Something had happened – with Jax, with the club – and whatever it was, he had gotten shot in the arm and so many people had died. But she knew better than to ask; knew it would just be a waste of breath because whatever it was, it had left so many people dead and she was just relieved that he wasn't one of them. Jax, Juice, Gemma, Unser, all of them dead and the boys were now gone, off somewhere to live with Nero and Wendy but again, she didn't ask and she could only hope silently to herself that the two boys were safe and happy.

Sometimes, she felt guilty for being happy in her own life.

Emily continued working at St. Thomas and every day was busy – the next never the same from the previous. And at the end of her shifts, she went back to her apartment though she wasn't sure when it happened but it was no longer just her apartment. It was his, too.

They hadn't discussed it. She didn't ask him to move in and he hadn't asked if he could stay there. It was just one of those things. More of his clothes slowly found their way over to her apartment each time and stayed there and he kept a lockbox on the top shelf of their closet. She didn't ask what was in it but she just assumed it was guns and she really didn't want to know anyway.

Happy still sometimes slept over at the clubhouse – which was still in the Red Woody studios. If he was doing something for the club and felt it was too late, he stayed in one of the spare bedrooms there if he didn't want to come back and possibly wake her up. Emily knew that most of her friends – other nurses at the hospital and Natalie, too – would not be alright with their boyfriend spending the night at a porn studio with porn stars around and Emily knew it definitely wasn't normal but she couldn't help but wonder why they wouldn't be alright. Didn't they trust their boyfriends? And why were they with their boyfriends if they didn't trust them?

It wasn't ideal, of course, but Emily had no reason to not trust Happy. He may not have been a good man but he had been a good man to her. He had lost his temper but she had lost hers, too, and every couple fought but he never hit her or cheated on her and he loved her; something she still couldn't entirely believe but he had said it to her that one time and she was his old lady and she had learned that with Happy, that was more than he ever had with anyone else. She didn't have to worry about porn stars.

She didn't think about Happy with porn stars but she did sometimes think about the porn stars themselves. Tall and thin with long hair and big breasts and plump lips made for sucking all sorts of things. Emily had enough confidence in herself to know that she was pretty. She was pretty but she was not beautiful. She was a bit on the short side and she was too pale and she certainly didn't dress in any sort of style that could be confused as sexy.

And it wasn't as if Happy said anything about not liking the way she looked. She figured that if he didn't like the way she looked, he just wouldn't be with her. And it wasn't as if she was obsessing about it. There wasn't too much she could do about it. This was her and she wasn't going to change just so she looked more like Lyla Winston or one of the other women. That look worked for them but Emily knew she would have just looked ridiculous if she suddenly started making herself look that way, too.

Still, there were little things she figured she could do – more for herself than to keep Happy happy, if she was honest with herself. Sometimes, she wore scrubs ten days in a row and there was a part of her that wanted to feel sexy.

"What about this one?" Natalie asked, holding up a black lace set complete with garters.

Emily wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "I'm not trying out for a burlesque, Nat," she reminded her best friend.

"Would Happy like it?" Natalie kept holding it up, pushing it closer to Emily, but Emily wasn't looking at it anymore and digging through the sales bins of underwear.

"I don't know. He's never said anything about my underwear one way or another. He usually just cares about how fast he can get it off," Emily commented off-handedly.

Natalie laughed at that. "Then why are we doing this?"

That made Emily frown at her. "For me. And because of this," she said and held up the bottom of her shirt and pushed down the top of her jeans just enough to show the underwear she was wearing – white cotton briefs with little cherries on them. And it wasn't as if she didn't like her underwear. She just wanted to have something different in her drawer to choose from.

She resumed looking through the bins and tried not to think of Natalie's question. They had been best friends since high school and they had always been different when it came to most things in life. Natalie was very much in love with men and the idea that she had been put on this earth for their pleasure. With each new boyfriend she had, she developed a new personality. Emily sometimes found it exhausting to keep up with her and she wondered if it was exhausting to actually be Natalie – constantly changing yourself for a guy who would only be in your life for a few months before you both moved on to the next.

Emily had never been like that. She hadn't had nearly as many boyfriends as Natalie – and Happy was definitely the one relationship who had lasted the longest so far – but Emily had never had the urge to change herself and she knew that if she hadn't changed herself for Happy, she never would. She supposed for other women dating a club member, it would all be too easy. Too start wearing leather and drinking and getting into fights with everyone but that wasn't Emily and she and both Happy knew that and Happy had never even hinted that he wanted her to be like the other women. If Emily had to guess, he seemed to like that she was so different from everyone else.

She didn't judge Natalie for what she did when in a relationship. It was just who she was.

And it definitely wasn't her.

When she got back home, Happy was there, lying on the couch, watching television and he sat up when she walked in.

"Hi," she gave him a smile.

"Hey," he grunted, muting the television and sitting up.

"Good day?" She asked as she came to sit down beside him. His hand found the back of her head and he leaned in, kissing her in his usual short, hard way. His eyes landed on the pink and white striped bag in her hand and she laughed softly as he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Me and Chibs went looking at a house today," he said, not addressing the bag from Victoria's Secret for the moment.

"A house?" She asked, confused, not sure if she should already know what he was talking about but Happy talked about so few things, she remembered everything he did say.

"Yeah. Jax's house," Happy said and his eyes were set intently on her. "Was left to the club. Chibs was thinking one of us should move in."

He really didn't have to say anything more than that. She couldn't read his mind still after their time together but this time, she knew what he was implying. Emily wasn't too sure what to say about that or how to even feel. It was a nice house. Small and in good condition. But Tara had been murdered in that house. Right in the kitchen, dying on the floor by the sink. How could any of them live in there after that?

Happy didn't say anything further about it. "You think about it," he said and she nodded.

"I will," she promised.

She wondered if it had been Happy's suggestion to have him and Emily live there or if Chibs had been the one to suggest it. She supposed it wasn't that important because no matter who suggested it, Happy didn't seem to think that living in that house with her was the wrong next thing for them to do.

And just knowing that Happy was thinking about something like for them, she smiled and leaned in, kissing him again. Unlike him, she always kissed him softly and slowly.

"Come on," she said, getting to her feet and grabbing his hand, pulling him with her. She held up the bag, swinging it back and forth. "I want to show you something," she smiled, a giggle bubbling in her throat, and Happy broke into a grin, bending down and Emily broke out into a loud laugh as he easily tossed her over his shoulder like he was a fireman and he smacked her ass as he carried her towards the bedroom.

Deep in her mind, even though she felt guilty for thinking it, she couldn't help it. She thought of how happy she was that despite everything that had happened to the club, she still had him.

...

Thank you very much for reading!