Jax watched as Keesha walked silently over to the window, staring outside.

"If that is what you wish..."

Keesha took a deep breath as Jax spoke

"...that is what will occur. You will have our child, and then you may go."

"Thank you." Keesha had been sure Jax was going to fight her on this, yet he had relented without much of a protest.

Jax fought the urge to go to her. He shook his head with a quiet sigh.

There was no way he was going to allow her to leave.

Yet if she wished to delude herself into thinking so - he would let her. For the sake of the child, as well as her own health.

A woman who was expecting was fragile...both physically and emotionally. And it was best to not tempt fate; it was best to keep things quiet and their surroundings peaceful.

"You must take care of yourself."

Keesha nodded. She turned around, forcing herself to look into Jax's eyes. "I promise. I will deliver to you a healthy baby."

"Of that I have no doubt."

Keesha nodded once more. She looked out the window again.

Yet, delivering a healthy child was only part of his worries.

Jax had watched as his cousin, Jasmine, went through her labor of Jules.

He was the only one she allowed in the room with her and the doctor. He had listened to her cries.

That last, blood-curdling scream...

Jax winced as the sound rang in his ears. Still so deafening after all these years.

It was the last sound she ever made...

"I am tired."

Jax shook his head, trying to get the sound out of his head. The same could not happen to Keesha...

"Then you should rest."

Jax left, closing the door behind him.

Morning

"Why do you look so tired?" Jules asked before finishing his juice.

"Jerry was here. We spoke from evening into the daytime," Jax answered.

"About what?"

"What do you say we go to the park?" Jax changed the subject.

Jules' eyes lit up. "You have nowhere to go?" he asked Jax.

"All of my long trips are finished. You and I will spend many days together now." Jax finished his tea. "Go and change, and I will meet you at the carriage."

Jules climbed down from his chair. He began running out of the room.

"No running..." Jax warned.

"Oops." Jules stopped himself before running into Keesha. "My apologies." He bowed to Keesha.

Keesha could not help but smile. However she managed to keep her voice stern. "What have Agnes and I told you about running in the hallways."

"I am not in the hallways..."

Jax chuckled. "No, he is not."

"No, you are not." Keesha agreed. "Go on."

"Are you coming Keesha?" Jules asked as he looked up at her.

"Coming?"

"To the park..."

"Oh...well..."

"Hurry upstairs before I change my mind."

With that order from Jax, Jules excused himself, running down the hall.

Keesha watched him go before turning to face the front of the dining room once more. "You are taking Jules to the park?"

"Yes. There will be other children I gather. He can play, while I avoid the stares of all the female care-takers."

"You are normally the only man there?" Keesha sat down across from Jax, pouring herself some juice.

"Usually...you know, if you came..."

Keesha stared into Jax's eyes, her own questioning.

"Never mind."

"I am not sure if it is a good idea. Jules should not be used to me..."

Jax already realized he could not take eight months of this madness..."He is already used to you," Jax snapped. He stood, walking out of the room.

Keesha sighed deeply, staring out into nothing as her hand rested absently against her stomach.

"I hear congratulations are in order."

Keesha looked up from her book at the male voice which joined her in the sitting room.

"Thank you." She smiled at Jerry. "Jax is not here."

"Where is he?" Jerry sauntered over to the bar, mixing himself a drink.

"He took Jules to play in the park."

"No matter. I am here to see you anyway."

"Me? Why?"

"First, Victoria asked me to deliver her thanks."

"She needn't thank me," Keesha mumbled. Nauseousness grew in the pit of her stomach, and she buried her face in her book once more.

"She seems to believe she does."

Keesha did not respond so Jerry continued.

"You know that Jax did not sleep at all last night. He was up with me, talking."

Keesha turned the page in her book, pretending to read, though she was not.

"I know what you did, and I know you believe it is your fault. However Victoria...she says she lives because of you..."

"I have received your message. So, if that is all, I really would like to continue my reading."

"You realize, Jax only allows you to speak the way you wish because he is love with you. I am not Jax, and I will not have you disrespecting me," Jerry finished his drink.

Keesha's head shot up - she stared at Jerry. "I was not being disrespectful..."

"Good. You are looking at me again as my words planned," Jerry smiled.

Keesha rolled her eyes.

"Now that is disrespectful." Jerry laughed. "However, I will let it slide, because Jax is in love with you. Do you hear me?"

"You will let my so called attitude slide."

"Because Jax is in love with you." Jerry repeated for the third time.

"I know very well that Jax is in love with me," Keesha stated honestly. "And I love him, more than words can express. But it does not change what type of woman he married, what type of woman is carrying his child. I murdered someone. I ended his life. That is the kind of woman that I am; and Jax will be far better off once I am gone."

"You cannot honestly believe that! You instinctively take Jax at his word, as evidneced by the fact that you married him based upon a promise he made you a mere thirty minutes after you met. You have treated Jules as one of your own, going far beyond your own promises...you have protected him, even at detriment to yourself. Most of all you were able to do what no woman has ever done; you brought Jax out of the wall he built around himself...he trusts you. And after all the pain life has burdened him with, let me tell you, trust is not an easy thing for Jax to give."

"Do you think this will be easy for me? This is the most difficult decision I have ever made; but I make it because I do love Jax. And I realize how hard it was for him to love me, and to trust me like he has. But he should not trust me-and he surely should not trust me with Jules, or..." Keesha's voice trailed off and she looked away.

"Your child." Jerry finished for her.

"His child. I am not the type of woman who should be a wife or a mother. So I will go, and that is that, and nothing you can say will change my mind."

"I was trying to make this easier for the both of you. Because you seem to have forgotten, all that my brother has done to keep Jules, all he has done to protect you. He does all of that not just for Jules, or for you, but also for himself. Jax has lost too much in his life. His fiance was unfaithful, Jax watched her die...he..." Jerry looked away, realizing Jax did not want Keesha to know. Yet...

Jax could not always get what he wanted.

"Let me explain my brother. Jax, in his mind, with his sometimes too strong sense of loyalty, has kept the real cause Adrianne's death a secret to everyone, including our own parents, out of respect for her memory...for her name. No one knows that she took her own life..."

Keesha's eyes grew at Jerry's words.

"...She took her own life, and made Jax watch. And all Jax has done is allow everyone to actually beleive he killed her. Our father took ill and died. Our mother left us for the otherworld soon after...Jasmine died...Jax has lost enough."

Keesha wiped the tears from her eyes, her heart aching for Jax, and all that he had to suffer through.

"But hear me, Keesha, because you have fallen in love with him, and you have forgotten his other side. But it is still there, that side which can be cold and angry and stubborn. And if you try to leave, you will be reminded of it because it will not allow him to lose anymore. I know it, and he knows it. And you are deluding yourself if you think he will allow you to merely walk away without a fight."

"You are right." Keesha realized. "Thank you."

"For bringing you to your senses?"

"For showing me what I have to do. I have to leave Jax now, before he has eight more months to get used to some insane idea that we can be a normal family."

"Keesha..."

Keesha closed her book, tossing it on the desk. "I will have the child, and then deliver it to him. By then he will have had more time to be used to the idea, and everything will be fine."

"Where are you going?" Jerry started after her as she left the sitting room.

"To say goodbye to him of course."

Jerry froze and Keesha continued down the hall, still speaking.

"Jax has gone through too much pain; I will not add to it by being cruel. I will not worry him by leaving without a proper goodbye."

Jerry watched as Keesha turned the corner, leaving him in the hallway alone.

Slowly a smile crept across his face.

She was so naive. Keesha still thought she could get away from Jax with a "proper goodbye".

All this was going to do, was speed up the inevitable. It may be loud, it may not be pretty, but as Jerry told Jax last night, all of those words of love and pain and worry that Jax expressed last night, were feelings Keesha needed to hear.

Jerry heard the front door close.

Naive.

Or perhaps...

Keesha, on some level, knew that Jax would never let her go. And that was precisely why she was going to him now.

"You have your piano lessons!" Jax reminded Jules. Jules groaned, running over to Jax. "I will send you off in the carriage, and Agnes shall pick you up when you are finished."

"Can Keesha pick me up?"

"I need to talk to you about that. For now, you should not expect Keesha to do anything."

"Why? Is she angry with me?"

"Are you stalling? You still have your lessons."

"She is angry..."

"Keesha...Keesha will have..." Jax struggled. "Keesha will be going through changes. And at the end of the changes, she will have a new person."

"That will live with us?"

"Yes, a tiny one."

"A babe?"

"Yes." Jax nodded. "I take it you approve."

Jules' smile grew. And then, suddenly it faded. "So she will not want to do things with me anymore?"

"Right now, she does not want to do things with anyone. It is not about you, she adores you. I promise. But do not fret, she will be fine, given some time. And things will be even better than before. I promise that as well."

Jax lifted Jules, placing him in the carriage.

"Jax?"

"Hm?" He buttoned Jules' coat.

"You said once, that my mum..."

Jax literally froze.

"...had to go to bring me to you. So is Keesha going, where Mum went?"

Jax looked down at the ground. Jules stared at the top of his head, his own heart racing at Jax's silence. Obviously he asked sonething he should not have. He reached out.

Jax blinked as Jules touched his hair softly. "I am sorry Jax."

"Do not be. You asked a very wise question." Jax cleared his throat, looking up into Jules' eyes. He smiled and Jules instantly relaxed. "Keesha is not going anywhere, not if I have any say about it."

"Do you?"

"You have now reached the qouta of questions allowed for the day..."

Jules laughed as Jax reached out, tickling his side.

"Go. And if you are late, apologize." Jax kissed Jules on the cheek. He stepped back closing the door.

He watched the carriage pull off. Slowly he went over, sitting on the bench.

"Do you." Jax repeated Jules' question with a whisper.

"Jax?"

Jax turned at the light touch on his shoulder. "How long have you been here?"

Keesha pointed at the carriage she arrived in. "I just stepped off."

Jax nodded, standing. "What can I help you with?"

"I...I...I realized something." Keesha finally began.

"What?"

"It is, very unfair of me, to...put you through...I should not ask you to take care of me for months, only to leave you. It is not fair."

"No, it is not. I am glad you came to your senses..." Jax walked away from the bench.

"So I am leaving now." Keesha finished with a mumble, looking down at her fingers as she played with her ring.

"Pardon?"

"I am leaving now."

Jax turned back around.

And he actually laughed, the deep sound taking her by surprise. She looked up at him, confused.

"This insanity ends now. Let's go," Jax commanded.

"I will still...deliver...and I promise I will take excellent care of myself..."

"Come on..." Jax walked past her, heading for a trail.

Keesha turned watching him. She continued, "...and you of course will have the..."

"NOW!" Jax yelled, so loudly the people nearby looked over at them both.

Keesha looked around, taking a deep breath. She walked over to him, and he nodded up the trail. She looked at him for a moment and began to walk. Jax glanced around. "Is there a problem here!"

The spectators stopped gawking, pretending to go back to their own affairs.

"Excellent." Jax finished, following Keesha up the road.

Keesha continued walking, looking straight ahead, wondering exactly how she thought she could live with her husband, and his odd mood swings.

Of course she understood them now; Jax's defense mechanisms were up.

He, as Jerry had warned her, was being angry and cold. He was going to be stubborn. But at least she felt prepared.

Somewhat.

His footsteps from behind her stopped and she froze. "I have asked you not to yell at me," she reminded him.

"You can come to see me with stupid ideas of leaving me, yet I am not allowed to yell?"

"They are not insane nor stupid...you merely do not understand..." Keesha whirled around...

Keesha gasped, shocked to find Jax directly across from her.

"You do not give me enough credit," Jax whispered.

Keesha forced herself to continue staring into his eyes. She played with her ring. "I do not doubt you, Jax...I have never doubted you. This is not about you."

"Yet, it effects me in the most personal way."

"You just do not understand..."

Jax glanced down. "You can twist that band until it slips off your finger, getting lost out here in the grass, and perhaps neither of us will be able to find it." He looked up into her eyes once more. He managed to step closer, and Keesha took a step back.

Jax arched his eyebrow and Keesha's eyes grew as he smiled softly. He stepped closer to her again, again she stepped back.

"But you can not twist the love we have for each other..." Jax continued as he backed her further and futher. "...that will never be lost...we are destined to spend our lives together. And if you run, I will always find you..."

Keesha could no longer move and she inhaled sharply, glancing behind her

"Bloody hell..." she mumbled to the tree trapping her. How did she always, always, manage to be stuck in between Jax and some object.

"You even speak like me now." Jax's smile grew. "We are forever linked. Jules, me, you...and the little one that you and I made, which you are carrying."

Keesha looked back at Jax once more, her eyes flashing in anger,

Confusion,

Self-doubt.

"I killed someone! All of your talk of love and destiny and links...they do not change the fact that I killed someone..."

"Keesha..." Jax sighed, looking down.

Keesha tilted his face back up to meet hers. She tried to calm herself and spoke more softly. "Look at me, Jax. Do you fully comprehend what I have done? I took a knife, and I stabbed someone to death. These hands, that you want to hold our baby were used to..."

Keesha blinked as Jax reached up, taking her hands in his. "Do not speak to me of hands, Keesha. I know these hands better than you. You have used these hands to touch Jules' cheek, just so, before bending to kiss him goodnight..." Jax whispered as his fingers played with hers. Suddenly his eyes darkened in an intesne hatred he would always feel. "A simple touch from them has stopped me from killing that lech myself."

"Jax..."

Just as suddenly, his eyes sparkelled, making her protests remain caught in her throat. Keesha stopped breathing as Jax lifted her hand to his mouth.

She was not prepared for this, she couldn't think clearly, she couldn't form her thoughts.

She was prepared for Jax to be angry and hostile...the loud, somewhat unreasonable man she had first met.

But she could not fight *this* Jax. She never could. That warm, touching, loving, tender, yet devilishly rogush man that captured her heart from that very first kiss.

His voice lowered, and he spoke in that deeply soft whispered tone that always dared to send a shiver through her body. "These..."

Keesha looked down as Jax placed a small kiss slowly on each of her fingers.

"...have wrapped into my hair, stroking as I fell asleep against your shoulder...you have used these hands...."

Jax kissed each of them lightly and Keesha managed to make eye contact once more

"...to nurse me back to health, even when I tried to push them away. And these..."

"Jax..." Keesha closed her eyes with a quivering sigh as Jax's lips trailed gently up her arm.

"...have sheltered me when I thought my world was ending...and they have held me close as..." Instinctively Jax pressed his body into hers, draping her arm around her neck. His tongue ran up her neck, he trapped her ear lobe between his teeth, pulling gently. She called his name again with a quiet moan and he smiled. "...the earth comes to a shuddering halt evey time we make love."

Keesha's eyes flew open; she did not know how much more of this she could take.

Jax drew himself up, and Keesha looked down, watching as his lips drew nearer to her own.

"I told you after our first kiss, that I do not wish to have anyone's mouth upon mine but your own," he mumbled against her lips. "Do you honestly beleive you may take them away from me now, after you have so expertly used them in your quest to completely capture my heart?"

Keesha found herself standing tip-toe, her fingers brushing lightly against the back of his neck. Jax closed his eyes with a shudder.

His eyes opened once more, and he caught her chin between his fingers. "Your fingers, your hands, your arms, your lips...they are no longer just yours. They are mine. So do not try and tell me what they are capable of, I know what they are capable of. More than you will ever realize. And you will not take them away. Not now, not eight months from now. Not ever. Am I clear?"

Keesha stared at Jax silently. Then her answer formed on her lips.

"Yes, my lord," Keesha breathed.

She kissed him slowly, and, as always, her feathery caress touched his heart.

Early Evening. Jacks Manor

Jax downstairs with Jerry, Keesha was left alone with her thoughts once more. She stared out the window, knowing that over that hill was the house of a man.

An evil, sick, destructive man.

Yet, a man none the less. Garcia. And she had killed him.

But she had to work through that. She had to. Spending her life without Jax, and Jules, and their child, was a punishment Keesha realized she was not willing to inflict upon herself.

Or Jax.

Yet...Keesha closed her eyes, shaking her head as Garcia's flowing blood invaded her vision yet again.

What had she done? Keesha covered her mouth, certain she was going to be ill...

"Keesha?"

Her eyes shot open. She turned around, managing a small smile. "Hello."

Jules walked into the room. "I came to wish you well...with..." He grew flustered.

"Jax has told you." Keesha noted. "Thank you, Jules."

Jules nodded. He looked up at Keesha once more. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course." Keesha walked over to the chair. She held out her hand, and Jules smiled, taking it. She pulled him onto her lap. "You have gotten bigger."

"You always say that." he laughed. "Keesha?" Jules leaned back into her body, closing his eyes.

"Hm?"

"My Mum...she had to go, so I could be here..."

Keesha sighed, brushing Jules' hair with her fingertips.

"Jax said you would not. But, he did not promise. Why?"

"There are some things Jax cannot promise. Neither can I. However..." she pulled away to look into Jules' eyes. "I promise that I love you, and I will love you wherever I am. Okay?"

Jules nodded. "Good evening." He hopped down off her lap.

"YOU ARE IN BED, ARE YOU NOT?!" Jax's voice bellowed upstairs.

"YES JAX!" Jules called as he ran down the hall.

Keesha shook her head. The poor baby...in all of her pain, she had not even thought of what questions Jules might have about her pregnancy, given...

Keesha's eyes grew.

Jax...she covered her mouth.

What was going through Jax's mind.

Jax came back into the sitting room. "I wonder if we can get a doctor from the States here..." Jax wondered out loud to Jerry.

"Aren't you ahead of yourself."

"Maybe American women are...different..."

"Jax, a woman is a woman is a woman. They are all built the same. You are being crazy..."

Jax stopped in front of the bar. "Jules asked me if I had control over whether Keesha would live or die through this..."

Jerry looked over as Keesha stood in the doorway, but he didn't say a word.

Jax poured himself a drink. "When she was talking her stupid ideas of leaving, that had to be my focus...but even then...I kept thinking...women die giving birth...I know that better than anyone...I was there."

Jerry looked back at Jax. "Jax..." he tried to warn.

"...now that she won't be leaving me of her own free will...all I can think about is that damn...scream...you didn't hear Jasmine, Jerry. That very last scream froze my blood. I knew...I knew..."

"Jax!"

Jax looked up at Jerry's urgent call. He stared over at the doorway as Keesha stood there, frozen.