To clarify - Alexis is not with Ric (the divorce papers should be signed any day) and Courtney had a baby boy but left him with Jax to raise, leaving town right after he was born. John is now around 3 months old and Molly is around 9 months and Kristina is 4. I hope that gets you up to speed or that chapter one is self-explanatory enough!

Who I Am With You – 1

“Lie to me and tell me it won’t feel like this forever”

The words out of his mouth stung. They weren’t shocking, they just hurt. They hurt because those words had never come out of the mouth of Jasper Jax though those words had been said a million times in Alexis Davis’ head

She lied to herself over and over; since she was a child… she would tell herself it wouldn’t feel like that forever. The hurt would pass, the physical and mental hurt that she or whoever had left inside her would pass

“I’m afraid it just doesn’t go away… or at least it hasn’t yet”

She didn’t lie to him. How could she? She would lie to herself but not to him, not to Jax. She couldn’t he was the one person who always stood by her, who always told her the truth. She wouldn’t lie and say the feeling would pass, that the hurt wouldn’t stay with him and potentially grow inside him like an infection… an infection to the heart

Jax reached over taking her hand in to his

He squeezed it just tight enough for the blood to rush quickly to the tips of her fingers before her let her hand rest now in between each of his palms

His hands were warm, comforting warm to her cold hands

“Are you cold?” 

His question out of context to his prior one

“No, I’m fine”

“Tell me when you are… we’ll go inside”

Alexis only nodded ok

Jax then put his arm around her and pulled her in to him

They had been sitting on the balcony of Jax’s penthouse for most of the evening

“I shouldn’t have said that” She whispered as if she didn’t mean to say that either

“Say what? The truth?” He asked but knowing what she meant

“Maybe it’s not the truth. I mean maybe we just deal with the cards we’re dealt and some can get past it and some can’t”

“And you think I can?”

Alexis looked at Jax

“Yeah… I think you can. I think you will. It’s just an open wound…”

“So how do I heal this wound, wise one?

Alexis gave him a half hearted smile

“You have John”

“And you have Kristina and Molly… they haven’t healed you yet” Jax said understanding her truth

“But they make it better… They make everything better and if I weren’t so lost and caught up in a life’s worth of self pity then they would be the cure all pill…”

“You’re not caught up in self pity Lex!”

“It haunts me Jax… my life haunts me… and my girls are my only redemption”

“I can see why you feel that way. But that’s not the way it seems to everyone else… you are a brilliant attorney, you’re beautiful, sexy… and some days you’re funny…”

“Only some days huh?”

“Most days” Jax said grinning “Alexis you’re all those things not to mention a great mother to two very beautiful little girls, a great aunt and the best ex-wife a guy could have”

“You’re good for the ego”

“It’s the truth, and why I love you as much as I do”

“And I love you” she said as she reached up to give him a quick kiss to the lips

“You know what? We’re going to get through this together”

“Jax”

“I want you to be happy just as much as I want to be happy. We’ll get through this” He said promisingly

Alexis smiled shyly

“See… I told you… I told you, you could get through this. You’re an optimist by nature”

Jax looked at her happily defeated

“And you can too”

“Ah but you forget Mr. Jax that I am a realist… and though sometimes I forget who I am and actually believe that I can just forget the past and move on... it’s not me”

“But as much as it hurts don’t you want to believe in some sort of happily ever after”

“Oh my God you are the real Prince Charming!” Alexis joked

“Lex!”

“Sure I want to believe that. I want my girls to believe that… but you remember those cards we’re dealt thing I was talking about?”

“You really don’t believe there’s something and someone out there that makes you truly happy?” Jax asked sadly

“I’m not sure anymore… and besides what if there is such a person, such a thing and what if I can’t find it? What if I was supposed to get my happiness and it got lost in the mail?”

Jax began to fidget with the ring on her right hand, circling it round and round

“I’m sorry” she said catching herself

“Don’t apologize! You’re strong and unwavering… and all that you want, that you need will come to you… Alexis…you just have to be your usual strong self…”

“I used to be strong”

“Lex?” he questioned making her look up at him “Why do you say that?

“I’m just not sure how strong I am anymore Jax”

He paused long enough to take what she was saying in

She wasn’t throwing herself a pity party, she was being frank, honest, real about how she felt

“You’re not sure anymore?” he asked truly concerned

 “At some point I just woke up and realized I wasn’t ever going to get to be the person that I deep down really wanted to be…. Fairytale or not”

“You’ve been through so much though shouldn’t that be a testament to how strong you really are? I mean right now it’s a bump in the road, another bump in the road ind you but you always get through…”

“Jax, I didn’t quit my job. I got a divorce!”

“What I’m saying is you just need time to adjust to things being the way they are now. I mean I know that days like today are really hard on you because you don’t have the girls and… ”

“You’re saying days like today it’s apparent I’m alone? Apparent that brilliant Alexis has to drop off her kids at their respective fathers and then is blatantly alone!”

“Alexis that’s not what I’m saying!”

“I’ve been through a lot of therapy… I know I’m doing the right thing, I know the girls both need relationships with their fathers but you’re right it’s just hard on me right now. And I know it’s ok that it’s hard on me on days like today when I’m without them”

“What’s really hard on you? Letting Ric and Sonny be with their daughters or you not being with Ric?” Jax asked bluntly

Alexis looked at Jax and then turned away momentarily ignoring his question

Jax waited for her answer

“Jax I grew to love the thought of the fairytale ok. And despite everything I went through with Ric I still believed it might actually happen… I can’t get over that it didn’t”

“Maybe you’ve had to go through all that you have for a reason… maybe he’s out there waiting for you…”

“Waiting for me? Who? The Grim Reaper?”

“Alexis, I mean the person who is really right for you”

“I admire your positive outlook and I sincerely hope that works for you but, fool you once you’re forgiven fool you twice you’re just a fool ya know…”

“Alexis”

“Sorry”

“Stop apologizing!”

“Ok! Then what about you?”

“Me?”

“You’re giving me the happily ever after run around and you’re the one who asked if the pain ever goes away…”

“Maybe I was hoping you would tell me it would just get easier…”

“Having John…seeing the grin on his face, watching him learn to crawl and then walk… seeing how pure and perfect everything is through his eyes makes it better…The constant reminder that you’re raising him alone…”

“I understand”

“I wish I could paint a prettier picture, the fairytale”

“But if you did John may not be in it”

“Exactly”

“So I just leave that empty space, empty?”

“At least until that someone or something comes along and fills it I guess” she said giving him a dimpled grin

“Yeah… until someone… comes along and fills it…”

They sat in silence for the longest time listening to the night and the sounds of the street below them

“Thank you” she said finally as she looked up at him

“For?”

“For being my Prince Charming and all that fairytale crap!” she said laughing

Jax grinned

“I always will be”

“I know” she said seriously

Jax pulled her back in to him

“You and Kristina and Molly always have me and John… you know that”

“I know… and you and John always have us”

Alexis settled further in to Jax’s arms

“Jax?”

“Yeah?”

“You think we would have had kids? I mean if our marriage had been real?”

The question out of the blue

“Yeah, eventually, maybe. I mean back then I couldn’t imagine either of us with children but now it seems so obvious that we would have… I mean if our marriage was real”

“The mistakes you make huh?”

“Talk about something you can’t get over…” he said agreeing

Alexis sunk her bottom lip in between her teeth as she held the palm of Jax’s hand against her chest, sure he could feel her heart beating a million beats a minute

Jax kissed the top of her head and they once again sat in silence

“I love being out here” she said her voice once again a whisper

“I love you being out here with me”

“It’s been nice hasn’t it?”

A faint fussy cry came over the baby monitor

“My boy, right on cue” Jax said as he went to get up

“I’ll get him” Alexis said, her feet already hitting the cool cement

Moments later she returned with John

“Hungry?” Jax asked as she sat back down beside him

“”No, I think he just woke up and needed a woman’s touch to get back to sleep”

“He is a Jacks”

“That’s how I knew what he needed” she said grinning as she ran her soft fingers soothingly down the side of John’s cheek

Alexis held John in her arms, he fit perfectly

It wasn’t first time or the last that John had been mistaken as her own

The way she held him, they way he was so peaceful in her arms… it was obvious she had been there for him from day one, the day his mother left him and his father…

Jax leaned in breathing in the scent of Alexis’ hair as he once again held her against him

And maybe if not for just one night Jax had his fairytale

End ch.1