I am so sorry it's been so long people, life's been really hard for me for a while now, I got a new job around the time of my last uppdate and it's slowly been draining the life out of me. This is the first time I've even been able to contemplate writing again, I hope that I'll be able to keep it up for all of my loyal readers. Honestly, some days your reviews are the only things keeping me going, so thank you.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my O.C's

It was four days after the attack and Mia was getting tired of her permanent escort everywhere, Link wasn't due to be released from the hospital for another week so she was glad for the company, especially since Jax had insisted he be put on her protection detail. The two were spending a lot of time together, most of the time, Jax would have the prospect be the other guy on protection so he would be waiting outside while the other two would talk and laugh and even watch a little TV with each other.

Zoe similarly was having a blast, not only was she getting all this extra attention from her Daddy, but she was also getting to spend time with the other Sons, all of which she had wrapped around her little finger. Case and point, whenever it was Happy's turn to be on her detail, she would have Nomad Enforcer give her piggy backs, everywhere. It was becoming a running joke around the club, of course not to Happy's face, but behind his back the guys made jokes, Gemma and Mia took pictures and the Crow Eaters were a mixture of hating the fact that Happy's time had been taken up by a little girl and finding the two absolutely adorable together.

But the continuous monitoring was really getting to Mia, when it was Juice with her it was fine, they would just spend time at her place while whoever was with him would just watch TV and raid her fridge. But when Juice wasn't there, it was like the guys kept getting underfoot. She knew they were just doing their job, hell she was the one that paid them for their protection, but it was like they were everywhere, doing everything that she didn't need them or want them to do. Sighing she looked up as the little bell to the bakery door rang and watched as Piney and Happy walked in, it looked they were replacing Tig and Opie, "Shift change already?" she asked and Happy grunted, walking in and scanning the place immediately for threats. The Sons all greeted each other before Tig and Opie left, "They roped you in old man?"

"Well I wasn't doing anything," Piney grumbled, the two may not have gotten off to the best start, but Piney respected the woman who not only knew how to stand up for herself, but was also clearly sticking with Juice, despite the fact that many of the Sons had tried their hand at flirting with her, Sons with Officer positions in the Club, and she didn't bat an eye at them. "Figured sitting in a bakery wasn't going to be too much work."

"Well hate to break it to you, but I'm just about done here," she took her apron off and grabbed her purse and car keys, "I have to pick Zoe up, so you're welcome to go back to TM."

"I don't think so," Happy shook his head, Mia had been trying to get rid of the Sons for the past three days now, "We go where you go."

"Come on! It's not like I won't have any protection, Koz and Frankie are outside the nursery."

"Not happening sweetheart," Piney said, "You paid for round the clock protection."

Mia groaned "Fine," she headed out of the door, "Best keep up then boys!"

Juice was sat in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs in Link's room, his feet were propped up on the bottom of her bed, a tablet in his lap, he was sat up right by Link, the two bent over the tech, trying to locate Alex Davies, who so far, was doing everything right to hide from them. Clearly he had done enough research to know how to hide from a hacker, he obviously had someone with him who was able to keep him from triggering Link's firewalls, while Juice was learning the finer points of hacking from Link, he was developing his own style, so was having slightly better luck. Unfortunately, it was slow going, so far all Juice could find was where this guy had been, not where he was, it looked like he was paying top dollar to keep himself safe. Link sighed as they hit another wall, "It's no use, he's covered his tracks way too well, he's spent years planning this."

Juice frowned, he didn't like the idea of someone being so well informed about his girl and their friends, "Wait, he's got all of his money and power focused on keeping him hidden wherever he is now. But, we know where he was, which means we can find out who was with him, and maybe we can use that to find out who he's with now, there's gotta be a loophole somewhere!"

"Juice," Link smiled, "that's brilliant!"

"So how do you want to do this?"

"I can't do it, if I start to look, Alex's hacker is going to figure out what I'm looking for. You have to do this Juice."

"Wh-what? Anything can go wrong, I don't have enough experience with this, what about your friend? Hardison? He should do this!"

Link shook her head, "Juice, Alex doesn't know about you, he doesn't know what you can do, and we can use that. You've come a really long way in a month Juice, you had skills before and now you're a genuine hacker, I trust you, Mia trusts you, Harp trusts you, you can do this."

Juice looked at Link, receiving praise from anyone was so strange for him, despite the strides he'd made in his tech skills, and business, his brothers, bar Tig, still didn't treat him any differently. Mia loved him, and never failed to give him her support, but it didn't make him any less surprised to hear praise from Link. They'd been working together for over a month, developed a bond very different than the one he had with his brothers, they never understood his affinity for tech, whenever he spoke about it, they switched off or made fun of him, but Link was different. She understood him on a level that the people that he'd grown to call his family didn't, a few more months and she'd probably be one of his closest friends.

"I can do this," he repeated a little uncertainly.

"You can do this," she confirmed.

"Ok, ok let's do this." He sat back in his chair, and pulled up a screen on his tablet.

"Hey, just because I said you were doing this, doesn't mean I don't want to watch!"

"Sorry," Juice smiled and brought the tablet into her view.

It was this position that Jax found them in, the two of them squashed up on her hospital bed, bent over the laptop screen, now Link wasn't the VP's girl, but it made Jax feel weird seeing them so close. He wondered if Mia had ever felt uncomfortable at the apparent bond the two hackers shared, he wondered if she ever felt left out. He'd felt that before, when he was with Tara, near the end of their relationship she'd become so into her schooling, anyone she'd hung out with was the same, they all talked about the same things and Jax had felt completely disconnected from her. He wondered if Mia ever worried about her relationship with Juice, did she ever feel disconnected from him, the way Jax had felt with Tara?

Harp was in an apartment in Barcelona, Spain, with Eliot, the Hitter from Original Team Leverage, "You didn't have to come," she said to him.

The two were chasing a lead on Alex, according Hardison, the Hacker from OT 'Leverage', one of the men that Alex had used in his attack on Link had fled to Spain and Hardison had found him. "Don't be ridiculous," Eliot replied, watching the computer screen that showed a view of the guys villa, "This guy used us to get to you three, if you don't kill him then I will."

"Yeah, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you've been carrying a torch for my girl since you met her."

"Shut up," Eliot didn't want to talk about that, he'd never be good enough for her, not that he'd admit that he wanted her to anyone, least of all one of her partners.

Harp smirked, Eliot's torch still burned bright, even though it had been nearly five years since he'd first laid eyes on her friend. It was good to know that they would always have one of the deadliest men on the planet on their side. "There he is," she said, looking out the window, at the villa down below, "How's his place look?"

"We've got two exits, one in the back and one out front,theground floor windows are big enough to climb through though." Eliot replied, "How do you want to do this?"

"Wait until it's dark, I'll take the front, you take the back, I've got a storage locker here, we can take him there."

The other Hitter cocked an eyebrow at her, "I've got a place here too…"

Harp gave him a wicked smirk, "Well then, I guess whoever gets to him first, gets to decide what happens to him." Eliot returned her smirk and then bolted out of the room, "Hey! It's not dark yet!" she ran after him, determined to get to the guy before Eliot.

One week later Harp was back in Charming, her little trip to Barcelona had been fruitful, and with the information she'd received from Juice, they had a good line on where Alex was holing up. He had a McMansion in Pacific Heights San Francisco, Harp assumed that it was because the girls had chosen to open up their own offices in the city. Of course, their headquarters were in a much less affluent part of town, it was people that didn't have the benefit of money that needed their help.

Harp was sat with Mia, Juice and Caleb in Mia's office, the four of them discussing what to do next. Mia knew that Juice would want to involve the MC in whatever their plans were to take care of Alex. But this problem was something that the girls needed to take care of themselves, at least that's what they felt. The MC only knew as much as they did because Juice was their hacker on this, but the girls weren't about to let a bunch of 'big, strong, men' sweep in and fix their problems.

"He's got a state-of-the-art alarm system, we've got cameras covering all entrances and exits, motion sensors, heat sensors, real life security guards, and of course Mia's favourite security measure, laser trip wires." Juice said, bringing up the plans on the big screen in Mia's office.

"He has to know that Link's still alive right? I mean, there's no way he hasn't been keeping an eye on her, plus we're not exactly hiding." Mia said.

"He definitely knows she's alive," Harp confirmed, "we haven't had any sightings of him yet, but all that security is there for a reason."

"So what's the plan?" Caleb asked, three sets of eyes turned to him, "What? Come on guys, I know I'm not like you, but he hurt my baby sister, he nearly killed Link, I'm not about to let that stand!"

"Caleb, I'm going to take care of this," Harp said.

"We're going to take care of this," Mia butt in, gesturing to Harp and herself, "your job is to take care of our girl."

"Hang on," Juice cut in, "you're not doing this on your own, you paid for protection, the Sons aren't about to leave you high a dry."

Mia sighed, this was exactly what she hoped wouldn't happen, "Baby, this isn't the MC's problem, we paid for protection while we looked for Alex, we've found him, now Harp and I will head over there and deal with him."

"You can't be serious!" Juice exclaimed, "You really think Jax is going to be ok with you going off on your own? You think I'm going to let you do this without protection?!"

"Let me?" Mia looked at him with anger, it looked like they were about to have their first ever fight, "Let me? Juice you don't 'let me' do anything, I decided what I do and don't do, because this isn't the 50's and you don't own me."

Caleb gestured for Harp to follow him out of the room, neither one of them really wanted to witness the couple's argument.

"Oh come on Mia, you know that's not what I meant!" Juice exclaimed "But you're not going in there without the MC!"

"Oh I'm not? What you're forbidding me now, is that what this is? You're not in charge of me Juice!"

"Damn it I know I'm not in charge of you, but I'm not having you go in there and get hurt!"

"What hell do you think I do for a living? This is my job Juice! We deal with people like Alex all the time, we don't need the MC to deal with something that we do every day!"

"Bullshit!" Juice was yelling now, "THIS IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE, THIS GUY NEARLY KILLED LINK HE COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! YOU'RE NOT GOING AFTER HIM WITHOUT US!"

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE JUICE, YOU DON'T GET TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR ME!"

"I DO WHEN YOU'RE BEING RIDICULOUS!"

"I'M BEING RIDICULOUS?! YOU'RE RIDICULOUS! I'M DOING THIS WHETHER YOU LIKE THIS OR NOT!"

Juice clenched his fists, he was furious, "You know what, I'm going to the Clubhouse, call me when you stop being so fucking crazy!" he stormed out of the house, got on his bike and headed straight to TM.

When he got to the lot the look of anger in his eyes was unfamiliar to everyone, he'd never been so angry at anyone in his life, and it was his girlfriend he was pissed at. He stomped into the Clubhouse, ignoring everyone inside, but the Croweaters who were there didn't ignore him. It was rare to see him in the Clubhouse on his own when he wasn't on official business and they weren't about to let it go to waste.

A skinny blonde Croweater scurried over to him, she'd had her eye on him for over a year, and she wasn't going to let the opportunity pass her by. She reached out and stroked his arm, "Hey baby, you want me to help you relax," she simpered at him, pushing her breasts up against him.

Juice turned his head to look her in the eyes, frown never leaving his face, "Don't fucking touch me!" he snarled, shaking his arm out of her grip causing her to stumble back into the pool table. He ignored her gasp of fright and headed straight into his dorm, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jax, Opie and Kozik were all in the Clubhouse at the time and watched the exchange, "What the hell was that all about?" Kozik asked. Juice was the nice one out of all the brothers in Charming, seeing him so angry was shocking.

"No idea," Opie muttered, before giving a look to Jax.

"What?" Jax asked as Kozik looked over at him too, "Oh guys I'm not going in there."

"You were his sponsor," Opie pointed out.

"Yeah, and if Juice needs to bitch he's got a girl to bitch to," Jax dismissed, getting up and walking out before the guys tried to push any harder.

"What about you?" Kozik asked, "You gonna see what's up with the Juicy Boy?"

"Hell no," Opie shook his head, "I've got enough drama at home, I don't need any here." He followed Jax's lead and left the Clubhouse.

Kozik sighed, lighting up a cigarette, whatever the hell was going on with Juice, it could not be good.

Well there you have the latest Chapter, I'm hoping to wrap up this Alex thing soon so that we can start moving to the S1 timeline.
Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, please review.