Disclaimer: I do not own anything that doesn't have my name written next to it in pretty pink pen. I don't even own my horse Tig…that's how broke I am. I only claim ownership on Asher Hayden, Sarah Stevenson and anyone else that you do not recognise.

Summary: She went to the shut the door but paused, smiling slightly to herself despite the glare from the girl on her knees in front of the biker. "You do realise this is a twelve year olds birthday party?" It started at a twelve year olds birthday party in a Tacoma backyard ten years ago. Happy/OC

Stylized Violence – choreographed violence used in film and television to portray the illusion of real violence.

Please- I repeat- PLEASE don't hate me - review instead it's plenty more productive.


Chapter Twenty-Eight – According to You

According to You
I'm a mess
In a dress
Can't get to work on time
Even if it'd save my life
According to you
I'm a girl with the worst attention span
you're the boy that puts up with that

But according to him
I'm beautiful
Incredible
He can't get me out of his head
According to him
I'm funny
Irresistible
Everything he ever wanted
-Orianthe

Tacoma WA

5th November 2003

Asher slipped quietly from the bed and pulled her clothes on. She chanced a glance back at Happy who was stretched out, naked on the bed spent and sore from their last night. Part of her wanted to curl up and go back to sleep with him, all of her really. But she knew if she didn't go down and meet Lorca, she never would and with Happy injured, he wouldn't be able to ride so she really needed to be in the Presidents good graces.

Slipping her duffle on her shoulder and picking up her handbag she made her way out the door into the quietness of the sleeping clubhouse. She slipped down to the spare room past Happys and knocked gently before hearing a muffled reply. Walking in she saw Taylor stretched out on the bed, his chest bare and his jeans slung low on his hips. He would have easily been around Happys age, maybe younger, and his skin was covered in colour it clashing against the stark white of his skin. It was a vast comparison to Happys.

"Morning darlin'." He said, lifting his head from the pillow as Asher stood in the doorway.

"I just wanted to check you were alright before I left."

"I'm fine, thanks to a certain pretty blonde." Asher gave him a grateful smile and went to leave but her called out her name. "I heard what you did for Happy, the real version not the other one," Asher nodded, she knew the one about her being a rat and Happy killing her was popular, "And I gotta say we owe you. Happy saved my life out there yesterday." He chuckled as if remembering something funny about the whole thing, "if you hadn't done what you did, he'd still be locked up and I'd probably be dead." Asher rolled her eyes, they never looked at the big picture.

"Or you never would have run into the Mayans in the first place cause I wouldn't be here."

"Doll, ask any Son, even the ones that don't appreciate a girl like you, and they'll tell you the same- it ain't your fault. There's been bad blood between the Sons and Mayans for a long time and your Old Man might have been part of it, but he wasn't the start and he wasn't the end, so stop thinkin' that." Asher nodded, deciding it was best just to let the crazy man believe this before he ripped his stitches out.

"I'll see you later." She said quietly and got out before he could say anything else about debts and who owed who.

When she made it down to the main bar, Lorca was sitting at the bar, waiting for her, Spanner by his side.

"Ready baby?" Lorca asked, putting down his coffee cup and Asher nodded. "Come on." She followed him out to the lot where a familiar red Camaro was parked, near their bikes. The drivers side door of the car opened as she stepped out into the sunlight and a dark haired man with short brown hair wearing tailored pants and a crisp white shirt, with a navy tie climbed out and stood beside the car, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Hey Col." Asher tried not to let on how impressed she was by the transformation of the strange but kind kid that had stalked her to the professional man that was standing in front of her.

"See you've met our PI." Lorca laughed and Asher grinned even bigger.

"Yeah well…" Collie shrugged, "Heard you had some car troubles, and this was sitting in the shed gathering dust."

"What?" Asher furrowed her brow, what the hell?

"The car." Collie gestured to the red Camaro. "Thought you might like it." Asher took in the vintage car that looked like it belonged in an episode of Dukes of Hazzard and not in her driveway in Sacramento.

"I dunno…" Asher started but Spanner interrupted her, wrapping a large tattooed arm around her shoulders.

"Come on baby, this car is all you."

"You realise you just called me old." She said, glaring up at the biker but Spanner just gave her a cocky grin.

"Asher." He pulled her in front of him, placing his hands on her shoulders, giving her a serious look. "This car is mint."

"So now I'm mint?" Asher laughed and Spanner rolled his eyes.

"Come on, you'll love it when it's out on the road." He spun her around and shoved her towards the car. "Just stop actin' coy and shit and say thank you will ya." Asher rolled her eyes but walked over to Collie, accepting that she was not getting out of this and considering her Jetta was fucked, she might as well take it. It was a vast improvement to the little box she'd been driving until a few days ago.

"Filled the tank up for you, should get you most of the way home." Collie said quietly when she approached.

"Thank you Col." Standing up on tiptoes Asher pressed a kiss to his cheek, using a hand to slip the five hundred she'd picked up in the bar the other night into his pocket. "I don't take handouts." She whispered quietly when he gave her a questioning look.

"'Kay, put your shit in and lets get the fuck outta here." Lorca ordered and Collie held the door open for Asher, holding the keys out to her, jangling the white Tacoma Auto keyring right in her face.

"It's right you have it, it spent enough time at your house." Collie laughed sheepishly and Asher had to smile.

"Yeah well, don't be modest, you saved my life, even if it was a bit creepy."

"Thanks Asher." He laughed off her teasing and she figured he probably still got a ribbing from the Sons about it.

Throwing her bags in the passenger seat she was about to slide in when a familiar voice called out.

"You forget somethin' hooker?" She tried to hide the smile as she turned around to see Happy standing in the lot, wifebeater on with sweats, his arm bent at the elbow and held against his chest while the other dangled a gun from his forefinger. Without a word she walked over and took the gun, assessing his arm as she went.

"You need to put that in a sling." She said quietly and looked up at his face which was stern as always, his lip twitching slightly and she tried to hide the blush as she remembered the stuff they'd done last night, in the bed, in the shower, on the floor. "I'm going for a job at one of the hospitals in Sacramento." He nodded and she took a deep breath and accepted that this was the best goodbye she was going to get in front of his brothers. "See ya Hap."

"Yeah, see ya Asher."


Sacramento CA

5th August 2004

"Asher!" Asher looked up from the desk where she was organising patients charts and saw Susie, one of the other nurses looking over the top of the desk at her. "There's someone here for you." Asher rose her eyebrow. She never got visitors at the hospital and automatically she went on the defensive, remembering that her gun was in the glove compartment of the Camaro. "Tall, green eyes, tatts and hot!" Susie giggled and Asher knew exactly who she was talking about.

"Thanks." Asher closed the charts, took her glasses off and grabbed her pager from the table, making her way down to the waiting room. She found Tina at the reception on the phone and tapped a hand on the top of the desk.

"Outside." Tina mouthed and pointed to the large automatic glass doors. Asher headed towards them as a familiar blonde walked through the door, his suit jacket over his arm and a tired smile on his face.

"Hey baby." Cameron, the banker.

"Hey, what're you doing here?" Asher asked, stopping and tugging on the sleeves of her thermal under her scrubs.

"I couldn't get you on your cell, thought I'd drop in on my way back from work. Don't think we can make it to dinner tonight. I'm not feeling so great." Asher didn't miss the way he said we.

"Well I've kind of got to go, it's Tonys birthday. You can stay home if you want." Home. She didn't know why she thought of it as his home. It was her home, he'd just moved his clingy ass in and she'd never objected.

She'd met him in a bar which only reminded her that she needed to stop drinking, and she'd been ordering Tequila for a few other nurses when he'd come up to her. He was good looking and charming, in that Riley kind of way. She'd taken him home for the night and he'd taken it upon himself to never leave. After three months he had announced that they should move in and had promptly shifted all his shit into her tiny two bedroom apartment.

It wasn't that she didn't like him, she did, but she needed her own space and just because normal people moved in together, she didn't, because she wasn't normal. He'd also offered to help her get surgery if she wanted to get the scar removed, also adding that laser treatment would get rid of her tattoo.

The scar she understood, the tattoo she didn't.

That tattoo, the daisies along her side, woven together with the words Tacoma SOA born and bred, where part of her, just like the person that had put them there. Just because she had moved away, started a life and started a relationship with someone, didn't mean that she'd left the old parts of herself behind. She was living a life that had been saved countless times because of the man that had put that tattoo on her. She would never part with it.

But Cameron, the banker, insisted that when they were married, because apparently they were getting married even though he like everyone else couldn't say he loved her, didn't want his wife sporting such distasteful ink that made her look like some kind of trailerpark white trash.

He'd slept on the couch that night.

Just because she had let him insert himself into her life and think he had control over her, didn't mean that he did. Happy had once told her that if she ever became a controlled woman he would kill her himself, and so she had let Cameron in, because she didn't mind having someone to come home to and pretend to have an interest in her life, but she had still reminded herself that if it ever came down to it, she would kick him out.

And six months later, he was here in the hospital telling her that they couldn't go to her step grandfathers birthday dinner.

"I don't want you going out by yourself." He insisted and Asher almost scoffed in his face. He'd never asked how she got the pink scar on her stomach, so she had never told him that she'd killed a man once. She hadn't told him that she'd decked a sweetbutt because she'd threatened her. If anything, she was capable to go out by herself.

"I'm going to my grandparents house, I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Not in that deathtrap of a car Asher, anything could happen. I want you to stay home." Asher rose her eyebrow and clenched her jaw. The Camaro, like the tattoo and the scar were just another sore point in Camerons vision of the future. "I forgot to tell you, I got a buyer for the Camaro."

"I never wanted to sell the Camaro." Asher bit out quietly, trying not to make a scene in the waiting room of the hospital. "Look I can't talk about this now, can we do this later?"

"Asher…" she didn't give him a chance to continue his argument as she walked out the automatic doors, trying to quell the claustrophobic feeling in her chest.

"I thought you were gunna leave me hangin' out here baby girl." Asher turned her head to see Spanner sitting on a chair nearby, cigarette in hand and smiling up at her. In her anger at Cameron she'd completely forgotten about Spanner. "Hey whats up." She knew she must have looked pissed and as he stood up and approached she didn't miss the call of her name from the doors. "What's this fuckwit doing here?"

Spanner had never warmed to Cameron and Asher never really knew why. On Spanners sporadic visits Cameron was usually on his best behaviour around Spanner, despite his opinion of Spanners tattoos and attitude towards himself. Cameron prided himself on being a mature man that knew his girl would never leave him for someone like Spanner. Spanner however never took the high road. He always ignored Cameron when he was around.

"Hello Peter." Another of Camerons "taking the high road" things- full names. "What're you doing here?"

"Came to see Asher."

"Right, well I was just off. I'll see you later, Ash. I'll get some takeaway and movies for tonight." Asher rolled her eyes and stepped closer to Spanner.

"I'm actually going to go to Madsters, I'll get Pete to take me." She didn't miss the disgruntled look on Camerons face, but he quickly covered it, giving her a cheery 'okay' before walking back to the BMW.

"Dinner with Madster? I think I'd rather stab myself in the eye." Spanner said flippantly and Asher turned to look up at him with a smile on her face.

"Come on, it'll be fun. Besides Madster likes you, thinks you're a total babe."

"That, doll, is cause I am a total babe." Spanner replied, wrapping a fond arm around Ashers shoulders and she leant into him.

"And so modest."

"What's with the douchebag? Can't find matching jocks for his shirt so he can't take you himself?" Spanner asked, releasing her and heading back to the chair, leaving room for Asher to sit beside him.

"Pete…" She sighed, taking a seat beside him.

"When are you going to realise he's not good enough for you?" Asher shrugged. Cameron was good to her. He didn't close off, he cared about her. The worst thing he did was call her a bitch and a 'biker whore' when they got into a fight, but she could dish it out as well, most of the time.

"What and you are?" Asher said coyly, falling back into old habits with her friend. Spanners smile disappeared and he shook his head slightly.

"He's going to come and see you." Asher was sure she knew who he meant but asked anyway.

"Who?"

"He found out about the boyfriend…" Asher felt a scowl cross her face, knowing someone had blabbed. "Don't scowl at me – it was Kozik." Asher frowned. Kozik had visited her once or twice since she'd started working in the hospital, and when he'd found out about Cameron, he was far from impressed to say the least. It really didn't surprise her that he'd gone back and said something to Happy. Kozik was the only one that knew exactly what had happened with her and Happy. From the tattoo to that New year's she'd taken Happy home.

"It's not his problem." She lied. She knew as soon as Cameron had moved in that she was asking for trouble. Just because her and Happy hadn't defined their relationship, just because they were free to sleep with other people, didn't mean that she could move in with some guy and just pretend he didn't exist anymore.

"You know it became his problem the moment you were involved Asher."

"I have to get back to my shift." She said, ignoring his words and standing up.

"Aight, I'll pick you up at eight." Asher nodded and left him sitting there on the chair. Suddenly all thoughts of Cameron were pushed from her mind and she was back to thinking about Happy, something that hadn't occurred in awhile.


Asher woke the next morning to a pounding headache and a pounding wall.

"What the fuck?" Staggering out of bed she stumbled out into the living room and saw Cameron, hammer in hand, nailing a fucking photo of her and him at a birthday party a few months ago, right above the sofa. "What the fuck are you doing?" She asked, clutching her head and wishing for some painkillers.

The painkillers won out and she walked over to where she'd left her handbag on the kitchen bench and rifled through it, stopping when her hand landed on the cool hard butt of her gun. She vaguely remembered coming home last night, Spanner kissing her briefly on the lips, the way he always did these days, before leaving, and going scrounging around in her glove compartment of the Camaro because she had the drunken notion that if Happy came back, a gun would be the only thing that would stop him killing her.

Now she was sober and reality set in.

A gun wouldn't stop Happy.

Deciding she would promptly put it back in the 'not-for-sale' Camaro she found her stash of painkillers and swallowed two without water before turning around to face Cameron.

"Don't you think it looks nice?" Cameron asked and Asher looked up at the picture. She thought it was hideous. She had too much makeup on, no eyeliner though, because Cameron had insisted she go without. She'd been sick the day before and Cameron had forced her to go to the party, his mothers birthday, which explained the flowery dress she usually wouldn't be caught dead wearing.

"Take it down." She said, not putting up any fight and walking back down to the bedroom. Changing into some clean jeans and a sweater she walked back out to see the frame was still there and now he was arranging the photoframes on the cabinet beside the TV.

Who was the woman in this place?

"Something happen with you and Pete last night?" He asked, looking up from the photos.

"Thought you were taking the high road when it came to Pete." She said tiredly, walking over and lifting the frame from the wall and dropping it onto the sofa and walking away.

"What'd you do that for?" He asked, his voice high pitched and rushed over to the photo frame.

"I told you to take it down." She replied, pouring some water.

"Well I like it. And I take the high road with Peter and Herman and that Colin." Asher rose her eyebrows as he rattled off Spanner and Koziks real names, and Collie hadn't even really visited, just stopped by to drop off some things from his mother who still thought Asher was the one with the thing for Collie. "When we're married they won't be coming around."

Asher inwardly groaned, here goes the imaginary marriage.

"Can't bring up our kids around that kind of riff raff."

Riff Raff? Deciding it was time to nip this whole thing in the bud, Asher lied.

"I can't have kids." Cameron stopped straightening the ugly photo frame and turned slowly to look at her.

"What?" He choked and Asher scoffed. She clearly had missed something growing up in a world of Sons who had always told her that condoms were the best invention ever.

"I can't have kids- the scar on my stomach." She said gesturing to herself. He walked over and tried to take her hands, trying to comfort her.

"It's alright baby, we have options."

"I don't really want kids." She admitted. She couldn't really imagine raising children with Cameron. She would definitely take up drinking permanently. "Or marriage, or…" She looked around the apartment, "this." It was a heat of the moment thing to say, but she meant it.

She tasted the blood in her mouth before she realised what had happened.