Midnight River

Familial

Gemma's pov
Song inspo - I can't carry this anymore - Anson Seabra

I was incredibly anxious as I sat at the small table by the window in my kitchen. I was picking at my nails and my leg wouldn't stop bouncing on the chair's support.

I'd convinced Price to let me go home for a few days. I didn't want my mother coming to base and I didn't want her to have any idea of what was going on. I didn't need her to know I was in more danger than she could ever imagine, I didn't need to give her ammo in her war to try and make me move back home.

Of course, convincing Price, and Senna for that matter, had not been easy. They were still on edge, still waiting on news before they could make their move. So leaving put me at risk.  I didn't come home alone, the agreement contingent on knowing I was not alone and that someone was with me always.

I'd try to argue a bit, not wanting to explain to my mother about the man staying in my apartment with me but John insisted on it being him and I wouldn't have accepted anyone else anyway. I trusted all of them but I was most comfortable with John, I knew he'd be able to make me feel at ease although the last time I had been in my apartment there had been a dead body on the hallway.

Stepping inside with him behind me had been easier than expected. It was clean, no evidence that anything had happened that night. The blood had been cleaned off the floor, the walls, my pistol tucked back onto its place underneath my mattress with the two bullets missing having been replaced. I knew he had help in the cleanup, but I also knew it had. Even him that had made sure every part of that night had been erased. Every part but the memory.

Beans was happy to be home for a few days and while I thought I would have been, I was hoping my mother's visit would be short and that I'd be able to return to base soon. It was easier to think there.

"Mo chridhe." John said softly as he placed a freshly brewed cup of coffee in front of me on the cherry stained wooden table. His voice helped to ease me a bit but I took the cup in my hands to keep them busy and warm.

"Thank you." I muttered as I took a sip and let out a breath. At any minute there'd be a knock at the door and I could hear my pulse in my ears, feel it throughout my body.

It wasn't that I hated my mother, we just saw things very differently. And I hadn't seen her since I moved away not long after my father passed.

I knew she loved him but she had shut down after his death, pushing herself into the ranch work. I understood, I myself had done the same but at the time I needed her. I needed her to be my mother, the only person I had left, and she hadn't been.

She eventually tried to get me to come back, I think once she realized that my will to travel and get away from home was more than just a phase.

When my fiance passed away she had been cold though, telling me I should have learned my lesson after my father. I knew she didn't want to see me hurt, but in her eyes she had tried to warn me. She'd much rather I take over the ranch, marry one of the hands I'd grown up with.

But that wasn't me.

My father would have understood, he always did. Seeing her was only going to remind me how much I missed him.

"It's going to be okay." John said then, tucking my hair behind my ear as he stood by me and sipped his own coffee instead of sitting down across from me.

"You haven't met my mother." I argued weakly.

He was dressed casually, and only he and I would know that knives were tucked away hidden along with the pistol in the back of his pants. But it didn't matter, my mother would know as soon as she saw him. She'd know what he was and I didn't doubt she'd say something rude off the bat, something blunt.