All characters, etc from Sons of Anarchy belong to Kurt Sutter.

Ashleigh Carter is my own small piece of warped imagination.

Any mistakes are my own. Feel free to point them out but please be nice.

CHAPTER 4:

Tig had been right, this woman was her double. Except that she had her father's eyes.

"I suppose you better take a seat." She nodded at the spare office chair under the window. Ashleigh pulled it in front of the desk and sat down.

"How did you find me?"

"You left this with me when you turned me over to the state." Ashleigh pulled the worn photo out of her bag and handed to Gemma.

Gemma took the photo and stared at it remembering the afternoon it had been taken. "It didn't seem right to leave you without anything at all. I thought about writing you some sort of letter, but nothing sounded right." She said almost to herself.

Ashleigh watched Gemma looking at the photo. "I don't want anything from you." Gemma's head snapped up at the abrupt statement. "I just wanted to meet you."

Gemma tilted her head considering the woman across from her. "And now that you've met me?"

"I'm thinking about moving to Charming with my little girl. Her daddy lives out here and wants to make a go of it. I figured it was a small town and that it'd be better if I introduced myself rather than bump into you on the street."

Gemma smiled wryly "That would have been interesting."

Ashleigh smiled back "Yeah I thought so. So, here I am, introducing myself."

"You said you had a little girl, you got a picture?"

Ashleigh knew that Gemma was a grandma already so the news that she had a granddaughter wasn't going to be earth-shattering. "Yeah, here she is." She said pulling another photo out of her bag and handing it to Gemma. "She has her daddy's eyes."

Gemma looked at the photo of the little girl with dark hair barely contained in pigtails and huge black eyes. There was something familiar yet unnerving about her. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. "How old is she?"

"She's two." Ashleigh smiled thinking about her daughter who was probably dancing in front of the oven right now, impatient for whatever she'd made with Nanna to be done baking.

"What's her name?"

"Rose, Rose Annabelle."

Gemma looked up shocked. "Rose was my mother's name."

"Yeah, I found that when I was looking for you."

"So I guess you also know you've got a brother and two nephews."

Ashleigh nodded "And that I had another brother."

Gemma handed the photo back across the desk and tried to ask casually "Did you find out anything about your father?"

"No, I was hoping you might help me there. I know it's unlikely to have been John Teller, but there were no records for me to follow. You didn't name him on my birth certificate or any of the surrender documents."

"I do know who he is and I will tell you. But he doesn't know anything about you. Never knew I was pregnant with you. He still lives in Charming, we're still….connected ….I'm not sure how he's going to take this, and believe me when I say this is a huge can of worms you've opened by coming here."

"I can leave without anyone having to know I've been here. I didn't expect that this would be easy for you or that you'd necessarily be happy to see me."

"And what about your baby-daddy and moving to Charming?"

"He'll understand."

"He must be some guy not to mind you refusing to bring his daughter to live with him just because it's too close to home for the woman who gave you up when she was seventeen."

Ashleigh couldn't help laughing "Oh he's some guy alright. Neither of us is exactly what you'd call conventional though. He'll be OK with it."

Gemma sat back and looked at the ceiling thinking things through. Clay was sleeping at the club house these days, she didn't really give a shit what his view would be on all this, but she didn't want him to react badly. If she followed this through, told Ashleigh's dad about her, introduced her to Jax; it would all have to be done very carefully. She couldn't think of a really good reason to put a roadblock in this woman's way just because it would make her own life more complicated than it already was. In fact, this might even be a good thing. Gemma looked back at Ashleigh, if Jax found he had a sister and a niece, who suddenly moved to Charming, it would cement his ties to the town and the club even more. That would piss Tara off, Gemma grinned at the prospect of annoying Tara even just a little bit. She didn't think this would cause Ashleigh's father too many problems. He was past having to worry about maintenance payments and dirty diapers and this woman didn't look like the crazy divas that were Dawn and Fawn.

Ashleigh sat quietly letting Gemma come to her decision. She had her poker face well and truly fixed. She hadn't expected that she'd feel dread that this woman would make it impossible for her to stay in Charming. She hadn't realised moving here had become so important to her.

"OK honey, tell you what. You bring yourself to this address tonight," Gemma grabbed a pad and pen from the chaotic desk and scribbled her address "about 6 o' clock. I'll cook dinner, introduce you to your brother, and I'll see if I can arrange for your father to drop by, depending on how he takes the news when I tell him about you."

Ashleigh almost laughed with relief. "That sounds great, should I bring anything?"

"Wine, and possibly whisky for Jax, I think he's going to want a drink when we drop this on him" Gemma said wryly. "You got a place to stay tonight?"

"Yeah, I'm at the motel on the edge of town. See you at 6." Ashleigh stood, took the scrap of paper from Gemma.

Gemma stood too, "In case your father decides not to show tonight and you want to find him out yourself, his name is Trager, Alex Trager, but give me a chance to speak to him first OK?."

"OK. Thank you." Ashleigh smiled at Gemma, turned and walked out into the sunshine feeling like she might start dancing. She'd found out a lot about Gemma already and was under no illusions about the sort of woman that she was and what she was capable of. That didn't worry Ashleigh though, she was more than capable of dealing with her, and having grown up as the princess of the Lone Star MC in San Leon, she had no problem with SAMCRO. She laughed to herself, Charming had no idea what was about to hit it.