Welcome Bac

Author's note.

First I would like to thank all of you who have taken the time in reading my stories. I would also like to thank my new editor Ishui, who has done so much to help me try to improve my work. I greatly appreciate the time and support you have given. You have my deepest respect and my prayers of good fortune to you and yours.

Second Welcome back is a sort of sequel to Welcome home. Welcome home was supposed to be a standalone story. However, it seemed like I wasn't done with Sarah and Bash because I ended up writing this story late one night when I couldn't sleep. Will we see these characters again in another story? I can't say, I think it is up to them.

Lastly, I remind anyone reading this that any mistakes are mine, and mine alone. I am still working on improving my skills and sometimes something will slip by without my notice. I will still appreciate anytime you guys point out my mistakes to me. Just try not to be too harsh. Now without further delay, I present welcome Back.

*****

Welcome Back

When Bas heard the doorbell ring, he stupidly hoped it would be his wife. Yet some part of him knew it wasn't her, because why the hell would she ring the doorbell? He thought that maybe it might be one of her friends. Even though he didn't want to, he could deal with one of her friends. He would, just so that they could pass along a message to her. He expected that when he opened the door he would get one of those "burn-in-hell" stares. What, he did NOT expect, however, was the big meaty fist, that belonged to a big, burly biker to crash into his face!! He would have been laid flat on his ass if he hadn't been holding onto the door.

"What the hell is the matter with you boy?" Jax boomed in his "I-will-shove-my-size-15-boots-so-far-up-your-ass" voice. "Why, would you even say that to her?"

"Jax, how about you come in and you can chew me out while I get some ice on this eye."

"Alright."

"Wipe your boots or Sarah will go on a killing spree."

"With the way she's spitting fire, I don't doubt you," said Jax, as he wiped his boots on the mat before following Bas into the kitchen.

Bas went through the motions of putting Ice in a zip-lock bag to make a makeshift Ice pack before he turned to look at Jax with his remaining good eye.

"What I want is to know what the hell was going through your head. She was so excited to tell you, and then the next thing I know she is asking to stay at our place. Not that I'd ever deny her."

No, he wouldn't. Jax was more of a father to Sarah then her actual father. He gave Sarah a chance and took her under his wing. Now she was one of the most sought after Tattoo artists in the city, hell whom was he kidding? She was one of the most soft after artists in the country.

"Well how's Mi Ángel?" Bas asked.

"Your daughters fine, a little fussy," Jax said, rubbing his knuckles.

"Ali is teething; right now Jax. She is fussy because she has a new tooth coming in, more than one actually, pretty soon she'll have all her teeth."

"Ali's teeth aside that has nothing to do what you said to Sarah."

"Actually, it has everything to do with it Jax," Bas sighed. "Jax whenever Ali's teeth start popping up the pain and swelling from her gums makes her cry as though someone had committed bloody murder. Now, that's nothing new for me, hell, or even for you."

Jax nodded his head at the comment since he was a father of ten children.

"Now add that to the four days of no sleep and I mean real deep sleep. Not the quick nap's I have managed to get here or there and that's only if I was lucky. My brain was fried! I can now understand why half of the women who have had babies suffer from post partum depression. You know how heartsick I felt when I thought about smothering Ali."

"Gee-zus"

"Yeah, a quick cold shower and coffee got me running again, but the point is, that when Sarah came to tell me that she was pregnant again. I was so fried that my head and my heart weren't communicating properly. Hell, my mouth and my head weren't communicating either, because I said what was in my head and not in my heart and my head was being realistic and seeing pitfalls in the future."

"So you're not disappointed?"

"Jax are you fucking kidding?" A grin spread across Bas' face. "I'm so damn happy that after I got some sleep, I literally told at least half a dozen strangers. I would've told my mother, but Sarah would see it as a maneuver to get back on her good side."

"Aren't you?"

"Of course I am, but it won't happen until she lets me apologize to her, and so far she has done her best to avoid me. Hell, she even got Butch your manager to make sure I wouldn't get into the shop."

"The girl can hold a grudge," Jax replied with a chuckle.

"No kidding, look I have an idea, but it is going to require you to help me. I know you and Barbra will take Sarah back, no matter what, she's your honorary daughter but give me the benefit of the doubt and a chance to fix this royal screw up that I've made."

Jax looked at Bas who looked ridiculous holding the ice bag against his eye, but the uncovered eye never wavered from his. Bas would never fit the profile of what a man should be in Jax's mind, but Jax couldn't help but respect him as a man. He knew he had screwed the pooch and now he was doing his best to fix his mistakes and take a licking for it.

"What would you need us to do?"

"First do you and Barb think you can handle Ali for the weekend?"

"I don't see why not,"

"Okay good, second I need you to help me build something."

For those who knew Sarah well, knew she was generally a happy person, she greeted everyone with a smile and was a polite as she could be with everyone. What most didn't know was that Sarah had a bit of a temper, now Sarah could manage her temper, by being upbeat cheerful and just generally trying to avoid things that made her unhappy. Yet, when someone did manage to make her loose, her temper Sarah became a pit-bull with a bone. She held onto that anger and didn't let it go.

Her anger affected her mood so much that people could tell her mood, just from the music she listened too, most of the time the music she played was fun and upbeat. Yet as she drove towards her house, the smooth blues rhythm sounds of "I put a hex on you" by Candye Kane boomed from her car. The song adequately harmonized with the melancholy of her soul and with the anger bubbling in her stomach.

Sarah parked in the driveway of her home, killed the engine, and simply sat in her car looking at her home. Listening to the final lingering cords of the song, Sarah couldn't help but sigh as she recalled the events of the last week. It had started out happy and then it turned miserable when she got into a fight with her husband Sebastian. She still couldn't believe he said what he had to her. After the fight with her husband, she took their daughter and went to stay with Jax and Barbra the two people she considered more her parents, than her actual parents.

Jax and Barb had been taking care of her since she ran away from home at sixteen. She loved them and went to them whenever she needed something. This time it had been a place to stay and some advice, the advice being that she need to hash it out with Bas, but only after she had made him suffer a little this is exactly what she was here to do.

He wanted some alone time fine she would give him some alone time, she only came home to get some extra clothes for herself and her daughter, Ali. Though she knew that her husband would not be home for a good long while because he was called to substitute a class, she couldn't help but feel that she needed to hurry and accomplish her task. Even so, she couldn't make herself get out of the car.

The weariness from the last few days was settling on her, from the disappointment of her husband's reaction, to Ali's fussiness as her new tooth finished growing in, along with work and the new art gallery she was supposed to have made new paintings for. All she really wanted to do was sleep in the car. Unfortunately, she couldn't. Even though it wasn't ten o'clock yet, the sun would soon raise the temperature and then her warm car would become an oven. She took a deep breath before she got out of the car and made her way inside.

Her plan was simple: get in, get the clothes, put them in one of Ali's diaper bags, and go home. However, her stomach started growling from the smell of food that was lingering in their home. She guessed that Bas must have awakened late and forgotten to open up the windows before he prepared his breakfast. She took a quick look at her watch and decided she had more than enough time to make something quick to eat, especially since she had missed eating breakfast.

Sarah found all that she needed to make herself an omelet; she also found some leftover coffee. She reheated the coffee and drank her first cup fast, after eating her omelet. Then she grabbed a second cup of coffee to take with her. As she stepped into her daughters' room, she found a diaper bag and her daughter's clothes. She finished her coffee in her own room, while putting her things away in the bag. But despite the coffee, a wave of drowsiness washed over her and she yawned, rubbing her eyes before heading to her bathroom and splashing some water on her face. The drowsiness, though, refused to abate and seemed to settle more heavily on her.

Her limbs felt so heavy as she stumbled into the room ... her gaze fell on her bed which looked so inviting, yet at the same time brought up the memories of why she was avoiding her husband. Though anger stirred in her belly, it wasn't enough to get her moving again. She looked to the clock on the nightstand and decided for the second time that day that she had more than enough time. She crawled into her familiar space and shut her eyes, intending to rest just for a moment, but immediately fell asleep.

Gentle guitar riffs were what slowly dragged Sarah back to consciousness. She recognized the music because Bas would play it for Ali when she was still in the womb. He still played it at times to sooth her when she was fussy. Sarah yawned as she slowly drifted back from the depths of sleep. Her mind was awake now, but her body felt so heavy and sluggish. Her eyelids felt as though they were carrying lead weights and they just refused to open.

She tried to rub the sleep from her eyes, then felt her hands progression suddenly halted. She felt something gripping her wrist - though it wasn't painful it still sent a rush of adrenaline through her that kicked her heart into gear. She tried to move her other hand and found its progress halted as well. Her heart jumped into second gear and washed away the last remnants of sleep.

She opened her eyes and found her wrists' wrapped in leather manacles attached to a chain. The chain was connected to some contraption that had been attached to her bed frame. It now looked like a four-poster bed that was just missing the hanging curtains. The first thought that wandered through her mind was "How in the hell hadn't she managed to hear the construction of this contraption when it was going on, because for one, she was usually a light sleeper." Secondly, her husband was not a quiet man when he built things. She could remember exactly how many times he cursed while he was assembling their daughter's bed.

The next thing that came to her attention was that the room was pleasantly cool, which was another surprise because the weather claimed that it would be another hot day, and the indoor temperature of her home was generally only a few degrees different from the temperature outside.

The final thing to gain her attention was that the fact that she was also naked.

Now normally, if someone were to wake up and find themselves tied to a bed naked, they would likely panic, with good reason. Because they would have no idea, why they were captured and for what nefarious reason, however, Sarah didn't panic. She had a good idea of who was behind her current predicament, and knowing that, she knew that the bindings were more of a way for her husband to protect himself because, if he hadn't bound her, when he next got in reach of her, she would have done him bodily harm.

Now that the last of sleep had washed away from her senses, she began to notice things. For one, the candles in the room where lit, but the curtains were still open letting light from the world outside seep in. For another, she could hear the sudden "click, click" as her husband tapped his razor against the sink. She could also see the steam crawling gently from the slightly open door of their bathroom. She wanted to get up and go smack him but knew that struggling against her bindings would just be a waste of effort, so she began to devise her escape.

While she was wondering how long it would take her teeth to loosen the buckles on one of her wrists, her husband stepped out of the bathroom. A towel was hanging over his face while he dried his hair. He wore only wore a pair of black jean shorts - the rest of him was bare. Bas was in decent shape; she wouldn't say that he was a sculpted man, like those actors or body builders she would see on T.V., but he was heavy with muscle. He didn't work out for vanity's sake, or because he enjoyed it. In fact, he hated working out. But his family had a history of obesity and heart failure and when a beloved uncle died, when Bas was twenty. Bas became dedicated to making himself healthy with great success.

She watched him as he made his way to their dresser and grabbed the bottle of rubbing alcohol he kept there and poured some into his hand before he brought it to his face. She watched as her husband applied his poor man's after-shave, as he liked to call it. Her attention fell to his back, where the portrait she had done was imprinted onto his back: it was of Hades and Persephone, the Greek gods of the Underworld.

Unlike most portraits that had them sitting side by side, this Hades stood slightly behind and to the side of his wife. He was dressed in gold and black armor and a gentle smile played on his stone hard face. He held a sword in one hand while his other arm wrapped around his wife's shoulders. The dark god's wild main of hair contrasted with his neat beard, but what really garnered the viewer's attention was his gaze ... it was as though he was daring anyone to try to take away what belonged to him.

Persephone in the portrait smiled a Mona Lisa smile. She stood in armor as well, but it was silver and black. A teasing glint was in her eye despite her stoic expression. She held a sword in one hand and a pomegranate in the other. Her expression was also daring the viewer to something, what she was daring them to do, was the question.

"You're awake," he said to her, drawing her attention away from the portrait.

She looked into the mirror from which he was watching her. From that angle, she could clearly see his face. She could tell that he had recently shaved, by the small nick at his throat and the red flush on his face from the rubbing alcohol. Her husband wasn't fond of shaving, but neither was he fond of facial hair. The few times he did grow facial hair, it was generally a small trimmed beard around his mouth.

His semi-dry hair hung loosely around his neck - he had been letting it grow long lately. She found this odd because he was precise about his grooming and he never let his hair get too long. He had it long enough that she could grab a hold of it, but never really long enough that he could actually start tying it back to get it out of the way. She took stock of all of this as he walked over to a cooler that she hadn't noticed was sitting in the corner of the room.

He pulled out a bottle of water, walked over to the bed, and opened it in front of her before he placed a straw into the bottle. He placed it close enough to her that all she needed to do was take the straw between her lips and drink. Since she'd seen the bottle, Sarah hadn't realized how thirsty she was; but despite her thirst, she just glared as him, silently refusing to drink.

"Fine," Bas replied before he took a sip of the water. He stood there holding the bottle out to her. Sarah just kept glaring at him.

"Look, I am sorry for drugging you, but for god's sake, woman, you really didn't leave me any options. This was the only way I could think of to get you to at least talk to me."

At this, Sarah rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I know I managed to get you to stay here and you are still refusing to talk to me. I see the irony. For the love of god, woman, please just drink the water." Again she only glared.

"Damn it woman, please drink. Those pills have a tendency to dehydrate you and you need it."

She only stared at him.

"come on if not for you, how about drinking some for the babe."

At this remark, she gave him a very angry glare,

"Yes, woman, you know I care. Damn it!! If I didn't care, I would be like your god-damned parents!"

That was a low blow. Sarah turned her head away from him. Sarah had loved her parents still loved her parents. The problem with her birth parents was that they treated their children more like dolls than children. They wanted to control everything in her life her clothes, food, what kind of friends she could have. When she was young, she did as they said, believing that would earn their love but when her teenage years hit she began to realize that no matter how good she was it was never enough for them.

Things only got worse when she discovered her talent for art, and when she expressed her desire to go to art school. They told her in no uncertain terms that her only choices were to study to be a doctor or a lawyer or leave their home. Her friend Rachael helped her move out a week later, a month later Rachael would introduce her to her Uncle Jax. The man who would help change her life.

"Ah...I'm sorry - I know that was low." Bas said apologetically pulling her back from her thoughts. "Look could you just please drink even a little, I know you're thirsty, those dammed pills always gave me dry mouth. Por favor, mi luz."

"Mi luz" was a term of endearment that he used with her. He said it suited her, because she was the light of his life. She liked hearing it. Though she didn't want to, she turned to look at him. He knelt by the bed, bottle in one hand, his emerald green eyes staring up at her full of concern and sorrow.

Sarah knew in that moment that she had fallen for his damned puppy dog act. A part of her was a little pissed at herself for doing so; another part of her was proud of him because it would be something she would do in order to get her way.

Sarah reluctantly opened her mouth and took hold of the straw. She sipped slowly, giving her mouth and throat a chance to absorb the water's moisture. She drank until at last the straw began to make noise. She knew she had been thirsty, she just didn't realize how thirsty. Bas took the bottle away and set it aside.

Despite the fact that she was grateful for the drink she wasn't one to beat about the bush, he wanted to fight, that was fine with her, but she wasn't about let him control the tempo of the fight.

"So! You want to talk! I guess you want to tell me how much more of a burden this thing growing inside of my stomach is going to be. Well I heard enough la-"

"Chingado, Mujer, si no dejas de hablar te voy a poner," he stopped mid-sentence Bas did this whenever he forgot a word in Spanish. Sarah was about to use this opening to her advantage. When he pulled a piece leather with a ball at the center, it was a gag.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Really, you're saying that after what I have done already." He said crooking an eyebrow at her.

Sarah narrowed her eyes in response, but held her tongue. Her Husband also had a temper, yet unlike hers his flared mostly when he got frustrated.