"Thanks for the love note you left me, sweetheart." There was a twisting of intentional irony in Tig's voice as he caught the door open for the other man, the two of them meeting along the sunshined sidewalk.

Chibs gave him a sharpened up glance of confusion from behind his sunglasses, keeping them on even as he stepped into the ice cream shop. "What?"

"Had Rat clean it up before Jax saw it."

"Think I gave a shit if Jackie saw it?" the Scot tossed off as he stepped full into the counter, sharpening a whistle toward Montez and patting the counter. "Brown bottle."

"It's ten in the morning." Montez murmured in surprised reply.

"Oi." Chibs leaned into the counter, elbowing into it as his gloved palm slapped a bit harder. "I don't give a shit, Midget."

"I knew you'd end up there, man. You just can't help yourself." Tig caught up from behind him with a tint of jaded humor, shifting into the stool beside him so that he could lean into the way the other man set an open beer onto the counter, his arms back as his shoulders laxed.

"And where'd you sleep last night?" Telford took up the bottle after dragging his sunglasses off to the counter, pointing at Trager as he curled the rest of his fingers about the glass neck, "I don't need details. It was rhetorical."

"That and this are so far from being the same thing, Chibby." Tig was lazing his upper body even farther back on the counter. "Complete different time zones."

"And m'point was that I don't comment even though I've plenty say." Telford struck sharply between them, his hand curling hard and tight around the bottle. "Back off it, Tigger."

"A'ight." Trager's smile was wide but didn't reach the bright turn of his eyes or draw the sudden flux of emotions from them. "You got it, VP."

He pulled a swill off the bottle with a darkening glance and shook his head slowly into the knowing way his friend was watching him, "Where's Jackson?"

"Upstairs."

He turned his shoulders broadly into the way both men were watching him, "Time to go to work, boys. Shake ass."

"Chibs."

The soft pulling of his brother's voice stalled him by the stairs and he swayed his shoulders back around, the beer close to his lips as he caught Trager's eyes. "What?"

"She got ya drinkin' before noon?" Trager teased humor back between them with a wry grin. "That's bad juju, brother."

"She lets me sleep in. You're the one makin' me drink." He aimed the bottle between the both them, a smirk flicking in his jaw as he caught the way Trager was grinning. "Get your asses to Church."

She hadn't seen him in over two days, and hadn't been the least surprised by the fact. At the very least she'd gotten more work done in forty eight hours than a near week's overtime. It had kept her pointed on the little things that may have slackened off a bit. The menial distractions were enough to balance the fact that he never did once give her a tether to let her know that he was still breathing.

At least until he throttled the engine a half a block away from her, echoing the rumble of the Harley back and forth between Main Street buildings.

"Think someone's tryin' to get your attention, LT." Carreira was giving her a crooked smirk, amusement making his face seem suddenly very young.

"Thank you, Deputy Obvious." She dipped her sunglasses half down her nose as she cocked him a sardonic glance. "I'm busy."

"I'll take her statement." He nodded to her with a lifted jaw, waving toward the woman that was waiting on the sidewalk. "I got it."

"You're not helping." Ally threw softly in his direction as the bike growled off behind her again, "Jesus Christ."

"Seems important." The younger man jerked his jaw behind her. "I got it. I can hang her back a few minutes and wait."

"What?" Ally cast in his direction, "Don't wanna join in?"

Her deputy just gave her a brash and humored grin before lifting his hands with a shake of the head, letting his ass drop back against the hood of the patrol car. "Leather's not my kink, Lieutenant."

She waved between the two of them brashly before turning her steps toward Telford, shaking her head at him slowly as he cut the engine on the bike and the member angled behind him did the same. It took her only a moment to recognize the crazed up crooked grin Trager was giving her from behind the way Chibs was leaning his arms into handles.

"You boys sure do know how to make a girl feel special." Her hands laid against her gun belt as she cocked her head, steps angling closer as her voice carried.

"Missed you too, AJ." Tig tossed back in humor, kissing at her playfully.

"It's true." Chibs nodded as he tucked a cigarette between his lips and lit it, sucking down the swallow of smoke as he motioned to the man behind him. "He's been prattlin' on about you for days. Won't shut the hell up."

"He's broody." Tig explained with a shrug, jaw shying an angle as his eyes winced a little playfully. "Drinkin' too much. Not talking. Sorta whiny."

"Shut your fuckin' mouth." Chibs exhaled the smoke on an angle before laying a smile back in her direction.

"Been jumpy too. Might be a heart condition." Trager inserted in giddied humor.

"What do you need?" she rolled the question over him on a sigh, letting her glance drift the stretch of his arms for a moment.

"Nothin'." He shrugged at her on a smirk. "Not in a ditch yet."

"You could have just called." She started back stepping slowly away from him. "Any other time you don't have a problem making demands via telephone."

Trager's laugh was a warm echoing over them.

"Didn't I tell ya?" Chibs tossed back at him as he lifted the cigarette. "I make an effort, I get sassed."

"Ride safely, boys." She started turning away from their teasing and her spine caught startled up into the sharp whistle that came off him.

"Don't you whistle at me, Telford." Her voice cut across the asphalt before she turned back at them. "I am not your dog."

"Miss ya, Cu Sith." He winked at her on a softened smile.

Tig let a sweetened and sighed noise off his chest as he leaned forward on his bike, "I am so into this shit, guys. It's like Nora Ephron on crank."

"Shut up, Trager." She shook her head at him blearily before banking her eyes back in the Scot's direction, brow arched in scrutiny. "What do you need?"

"May've left a couple very angry Aryans tied to some pipe." He dropped the last of the cigarette and stubbed against it with the toe of his boot. "Didn't wanna starve 'em out."

"Cuz that'd be ironic, see?" Tig bounced amusedly between them.

She snorted into the comment and nodded slowly. "I'll pick them up when I have a few minutes free."

"Pine and Whitmore." He gave her an unavoidable grin, "Gray house. No rush, love. They're just hangin' about."

Another round of Trager's laughter fed into Chibs' widening grin as they cast humored glances between themselves. "Oh, that was good. Nicely done."

"Good bye, boys." She sighed off and lifted a hand as she started to step away from them once again.

"I'll call." He shrugged the offer up after her compliantly. "Yeah?"

Ally just lifted her hand as she kept moving, "I'll believe it when the phone rings, Scotty."

"Jesus Christ." Unser's voice rattled along the thin walls of the trailer, his hands bracing a balance where he could as he glared over the way the younger man was relaxed onto the cushions of the small couch. "Giving me a goddamn heart attack would only solve a couple of your problems, Scotty."

Chibs just panned him an intentionally withered glance. "Don't call me that."

The older man perked him a half amused glance at the annoyance that was breathing still between them. "Right. That's a pet name."

"I'm not here to dick around, Wayne." The accented flow of the words was slowly relaxing as Telford leaned forward, his shoulders looming large in the small space as he dug his elbows onto his knees. "Truce. Peace for five minutes, yeah?"

"Peace?" Unser snorted a laugh before tugging open the small fridge, searching over the contents before cautiously pulling two beers from it and lifting them in questioning, "You boys all tend to say word that like it's just a dinner order that you're not all that enthused about."

The Scot just swallowed the commentary and lifted a hand in acceptance of the bottle, twisting the top but not taking a drink as he watched the former Chief lean back into the marginal counter top. He seemed suddenly frail and a cage of hopeless desperation and unrealized sympathy cradled into the Vice President's lungs as he watched the other man swallow down half the bottle in a pulling gulp. Chibs sipped against his own beer before setting is aside, the taste of it a sudden bitter warning to his senses.

"I need help." He offered the weakness into the small space of the trailer, knowing the disgust of admittance in his voice was the loudest sound within the cramping walls.

"I'm not qualified." Unser's eyes didn't meet his, and at first he assumed that the shunting of those three words would be the only response. "You have two minutes before I shoot you."

Chibs snorted an unintentional laugh of disbelief into the room, laying his shoulders back as a sort of hysterical amusement broke between them. Unser gave him a helpless shrug of resignation as their eyes finally passed against each other between breathy laughter, the older man finishing off his bottle with a couple smaller swallows than the first. The Scot reached for the beer he'd started and offered it up as another treatise. They held a tenuous silence for a moment before the retired cop shrugged his shoulders up, the second bottle carrying between them.

"What?"

"Althea." He softly savored the fact that he could let his voice over her name in this place, his upturned glance true in his concern.

"I've been trying to help." Unser's eyes pinched thin. "You're both too stupid or stubborn to actually listen. I'm tired of getting bitch slapped by the both of you, Chibs. I'm just gonna be Switzerland."

"Not help in losin' her, Wayne." Chibs broke the words tightly between them. "Help in keepin'."

"Then you're an idiot." The older man's face suddenly soured and went ashen. "And somebody's gonna end up hurt."

"Wayne - "

"And I don't mean crying in their beer, hurt. I mean dead." The sudden deafening snap of the other man's words hummed the trailer silent.

"She's not Tara." He slowly let the words into the thick and sweaty air that hung between them, letting his eyes focus on a non-existent point before him. "There was no reason to lay that on her."

"Bullshit." Unser sharpened over him with a sudden authority that made his tired looking limbs rebound into tightness. "You're setting her up to be one of two things, Scotty - "

"Wayne."

"She's gonna end up scraping through this but come out mean. Not a scrap of humanity left in her." The bottle clapped down against the thin counter to echo the inference, "Or she's your Tara. And we all know how that ends."

"That's why I'm sitting in the middle of your fuckin' stink, trying to…" the younger of the two's jaw suddenly jerked higher as he let the words fade off, his head turning so that he could pass a scattered glance out into TM's lot. "I'm not walkin' away."

"Why?" Unser finally softened his tone again, his arms crossing over his chest in a cautious shift. "Is this the club or is it you?"

"I'm not walkin' away from her." It was the only answer he was willing to lay between them, glance still pointed toward the garage.

"You're never gonna put her before that club." Wayne murmured slowly over the other man's tensioned and tuned up frame. "How long you think that's gonna last on a woman like her?"

"If she goes, she goes." Chibs admitted in sullen despondency. "That's her choice."

"You can't walk away." Wayne surmised quietly. "It's not that you won't. It's that you can't."

"I need help." The Scot's eyes were ferociously dark as he finally caught back into the other man's glance. "And I'm here askin' for it. You can play at making prophecies all y'like, Chief, but that's reality."

"Jax know how far this goes?" Wayne asked as he shifted wearily.

Chibs swayed his head to an angle, nodding slowly. "Mostly. To a point."

"And?"

"And I'm here," the younger of the two sharpened, "talkin' to you."

"Yeah." Unser sighed into it as he finally reached for the beer again. "I see that."