Two Saturdays later - the third of the month, otherwise known as Visitor's Day - Tig waited anxiously with Clay, Jax and Opie to be led into the visitors' room. A while back Clay had let slip about the photo shoot the women planned after Gemma had told him about it in confidence and they knew that today was the day they girls were bringing them.
"Oh man" Tig said, rubbing his hands together. "It'll be nice not to be forced to try and find the images of naked women in you back hair, Clay." This comment earned him a swift punch to the arm.
"I don't know what you're complaining about." Jax said, holding his bandaged wounds while chuckling, "Charlie brought you that picture from your wedding weeks ago."
"Yeah" Tig said, thinking fondly of the picture Phil had gotten of Charlotte standing at the altar, smiling over her shoulder at someone in the crowd, the white silhouette of her lace clad body glowed in the lights of the arch and her shoulder was raised, playfully, to her cheek so that her crow tattoo was clearly visible. Tig's presence in the picture was barely noticeable due to the hypnotizing beauty of her beaming smile and twinkling green eyes but Phil had captured him, in that moment, looking wistfully at her. He jolted out of his reverie and said, "But she's not naked in that picture."
They were finally permitted to file into the meeting room and embrace their visitors for the allotted seconds. Tig sat across from her and smiled excitedly. He was so caught up in his hunger to see the pictures she had taken that she didn't notice that Gemma, Tara and Lyla were 'shush-ing' the men sitting opposite them and attempting to eavesdrop on the coming interaction with Charlotte.
"Well" he said, looking at her and spreading his hands in confusion, "where are they?"
"Where are what, darlin'?" she asked, the sweetness of her voice emphasizing her accent.
"My pictures!" he said, smiling boyishly at her
"Ohhh" she said softly, pulling a folder out of her bag. "You want pictures."
Her smiling ceased and was replaced with pursed lips when he tugged the folder out of her hands and flipped it open on the table in front of him. She crossed her arms over her chest while he looked at the small, blotchy, black and white picture in front of him.
"What's this?" he asked, confused and disappointed, finally looking at her.
"Oh" she said, leaning closer to him, her eyes flashing angrily "That?" He was suddenly aware of the eyes on them but nodded anyway to let her know that's what he was referring to. "That" her voice was a low growl now, "is the result of your dumb ass, Michael Phelps sperm." He blinked stupidly at her so she picked up the sonogram picture and held in right in front of his eyes. "You knocked me up, Tigger."
"What?!" he said in disbelief, taking the picture from her hands. "How?" She couldn't help but be overcome by a genuine sense of glee at the basic idiocy of this question and started laughing good-naturedly at him. "I-I mean" he said, trying to correct himself "I just…" he fell back into his chair and breathed, "wow...wow" his voice got stronger and he sat up slowly, smiling at the picture in his hand. "Wow." he said, turning his smile up to Charlotte who was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her own.
"Pretty wild, huh?" she said softly, looking at her hands.
In response he sprung to his feet and kissed her firmly on the lips to the applause of the men around him to whom he turned, waving the sonogram in the air and shouted, "My Charlie's pregnant!" He pulled her close to him and kissed her again despite the warning he had received from the guard the first time.
When the guard advanced toward him he put his hands up quickly and sat back down to show he was being compliant with prison protocols, the smile never wavering from his face. He eyes dropped from her face and looked more closely at the picture. "Hey...it looks like a baby" he said, tilting his head to the side.
"Yeah, well, Tara tells me that when you've been pregnant for five months that tends to happen. She says it even has eyebrows." Charlotte said, scratching her nose.
"F-five months?!" he said loudly, "There's no way you're five months" he scoffed, looking at her still relatively flat stomach
"A little closer to six months at this point, actually."
"That means I must've-"
"Gotten me pregnant, probably, the first time we had sex?" she said, the corner of her mouth turned up. "Yeah," she wrinkled her nose at the irony of their situation. "that's what I figure as well." They sat in a happily stunned silence before Charlotte said, "Nice going, shithead."
"I guess I wanted to pin your down before I pinned you down." he chuckled, smiling over at her then took in the delicate features of her face and became suddenly serious. "Oh Charlie" he whispered, running his hand through his hair, "I'm so sorry." he shook his head, "I'm sorry this was a surprise." he looked around the room, "I'm sorry I'm in here and you have to do this all on your own."
She shrugged and reached over to hold his hand, "Well, I figured - when I married you - I wasn't exactly going to be living a cookie-cutter, picket fence life."
He laughed with her and nodded, "Yeah, I guess that's pretty obvious." he looked down at their fingers woven together, "Damn, I love you. Even in here I feel lucky."
She smiled at him but before she was able to say anything on of the COs said, "Wrap it up, boys." They both stood up to kiss each other goodbye and Charlotte handed him a manila envelope before her left her side.
"Those are what you were expecting when you came in." she said, her voice a playful whisper, and bit her lower lip.
"Ha ha!" he said triumphantly, holding the envelope tightly in his hands then looked at the sonogram he was holding. "Can I keep this too?"
"Of course." she smiled sweetly at him as he was led away from her behind the rest of the SAMCRO men.
"Wait...WAIT!" he called back into the visiting room before the door closed behind him, fighting against the CO who was trying to force him out. "Do you know what it is?! Charlie! Do you know?"
She turned quickly from where she had gone to stand by Gemma, Tara and Lyla before they, too, left the visitors' room and cupped her hand over her mouth so that he could hear her when the door inevitably closed on him. "It's a boy!" she yelled
"A boy?!" he repeated, pressing his hand against the glass of the door that closed between them. When she nodded to affirm what he had heard, he spun around to the men in the hall behind him and exclaimed, "I'm having a son!" he pulled the CO closest to him and planted a kiss on his cheek in his excitement. "I'm having a son!" he repeated to the wild cheers of the men of SAMCRO who were beaming at him. "Oh…" he staggered a little into Jax as the weight of the situation hit him "I'm having a son." he said again, softly this time as Jax and Opie helped him back to his feet.
"Yeah buddy." Jax said, clapping him on the shoulder and smiling at him "Congratulations."
Once back in his cell Tig had just enough time to stow the unopened envelope under his mattress before going to lunch where the first thing he did after sitting down across from Chibs was pull the sonogram out of his breast pocket and slide it across the table to him.
"Hey!" Chibs said, dropping his spoon onto his tray and snatching up the picture, "Looka tha'! Way to go Tiggy" he pat Tig on the shoulder in congratulations then passed the sonogram to Bobby who automatically started laughing.
"Oh man, Tig." Bobby said, handing the picture back to him after Juice got a look at it. "What'd you do to get that poor girl to put up with you?" he laughed and shook his head.
Tig smiled at Bobby then down at the sonogram, "No idea, brotha. I feel like the paperwork got messed up up there and they gave me someone else's life." he glanced discreetly over at Opie and flushed with embarrassment, "God knows I don't deserve it."
Tig had just pulled the ski mask down over his face despite the fear that was bubbling in his stomach. After taking a deep breath to quell the terror that was surging through his body he pointed the automatic rifle at the the pick up truck and fired at the back of the figure sitting inside. When he pulled up, however, he saw Charlotte's face drained of all color, her head flopped over on the driver's side window while a woman with a perfect hole in the back of her brunette head had her hands on Charlotte's swollen, bleeding stomach screaming, "Help!" over and over. The woman turned to look at Tig to beg him for help and Tig saw the big, brown, unseeing eyes and stiff, shiny, porcelain skin of a doll version of Donna.
"Fuck!" he screamed, sitting up straight in his bed underneath Clay's bunk; completely drenched with sweat. His heart was beating like the wings of a hummingbird against his chest and he was trying unsuccessfully to catch his breath. when his hands finally stopped shaking and his breath had evened out he got out of bed and dug around under the mattress Clay was sleeping soundly on until his hand closed around the cell phone Clay had stowed there.
"Wha-what?!" Charlotte answered after three long rings, her voice frantic.
"Charlie." Tig said softly, closing his eyes; grateful to hear the sound of her voice.
"What's wrong?" her voice was nervous
"Nothing...I-I…" he took a breath, "I had a bad dream."
"Are you kiddin' me?" she said, all the groggy charm gone from her voice.
"I was bad, okay?" he said defensively, baring his teeth. He held his head in his hands as he continued. "Donna was a doll and I shot you and killed the baby."
Charlotte was quiet for a second as she softened her approach to the situation. "Oh, honey, everything's alright, okay? I promise."
"Okay." he said, letting this comment settle into his brain as a truth. "Okay." he repeated, nodding with acceptance. "The shit I've done in my life is going to come back for me, Charlie." he said sadly, "I just don't want it to affect you."
"Live your amends, remember?" she said softly after emitting a small yawn that gave him goosebumps.
He was quiet for a while, thinking, when he finally said, "Did you know I was inside when the girls were born too?"
"No, I didn't" she said sadly
"Yeah. I mean most guys would be more than happy to miss this part...but I missed it once already and then I missed the rest of my daughters' lives. Like it was predetermined that way or something."
"Listen," he heard her rustling the sheets as she sat up in bed "I am not a picnic on a day-to-day basis so, honestly, if I were you - I wouldn't want to be here either." she waited for him to chuckle at her joke but he didn't and just stared sullenly at the cinderblock wall. "Alex, if there were something I could sign saying that I will never take your son away from you, I would. Until then you'll just have to trust me."
This thought just opened up more worries for Tig as he thought about what kind of life his son would have being raised so close to the path of destruction that followed Tig wherever he went. While he tried to determine the implications of the conflicting fears of him losing his son and simultaneously being worried about keeping him he couldn't zone in on what Charlotte was saying until she yelled his name into the receiver.
"Tig!"
"Yeah" he said, shaking his head to rid his thoughts from it.
"Do you trust me?"
"Yeah" he said softly. "Yeah, I do. I miss you."
"I miss you too...I'll see you in a month, okay?"
"Okay." he said with a sigh. He waited until she hung up the phone before slipping it back underneath Clay's mattress and attempting the go back to sleep.
After his attempts had failed and he laid awake in his bed when the early morning light started to stream through the bars of his cell from the outer wall of the hallway he decided that sleep at this point was pointless.
"Oh!" he said softly to himself when he remembered the other pictures Charlotte had brought him then quickly moved to retrieve them from under his mattress.
He sat up against the wall and emptied the contents of the envelope onto his bed. He shuffled the pictures in his hands so they were all facing the same direction and began examining them. The first of the four photos was a Polaroid, different than the rest since it was the one that Gemma had taken months ago during their last stay in Stockton where Charlotte was standing in the garage, her hair pulled back and face smudged with grease; wearing Tig's work shirt. This picture made Tig smile and he stuck it on the wall next to the sonogram with some tacky.
The next picture made the blood rush from his head to be evenly distributed between his cheeks and his penis. Charlotte was kneeling on the leather seat of his Dyna in black underwear that he could see hugging her smooth curves through the sheer, red fabric of the flyaway teddy she was wearing. She was exposing her neck by holding her full, blonde waves in her fingers with one hand while she was biting playfully on the pointer finger of her other hand. The sun illuminated the fair hairs on her upper thighs and arms making her look illuminated.
When his eyes had finished travelling the curves of her body silhouetted by the sheer chiffon of the teddy he flipped to the next picture. In this one she had taken off her teddy so that the lace and embellishments of her underwear were much easier to see and he could even see her nipples through the lace and she was leaning against the bike with her hands spread, resting on the handlebars and the seat. Standing in front of the bike now he could see that she was also wearing high-heeled, patent leather boots that zipped all the way up to her knee.
At the next picture he instantly slid his hand under the elastic of the navy blue, cotton, standard issue pants. Charlotte's bra was off and she was laying on her stomach on the seat of his Harley with her legs bent at the knee, having traded the boots for some red high heeled pumps. She was positioned on the bike in such a way that he could see the mounds of her breasts pressed against the gas tank. His eyes moved from her chest and base of her neck where her hairs was draped softly, down the soft slope of her back and hesitated at the thin, black fabric that hugged her hips but didn't obscure the supple skin of her round ass cheeks.
"Hey!" Clay yelled at Tig when his feet hit the floor of the cell and he saw Tig with his hand down his pants. "Cut that shit out." Tig grumbled and rolled his eyes, pulling his hand out of his pants, but continued to look at the picture in his hand while Clay relieved himself in the metal commode in the corner of their cell.
When Charlotte and Tig sat across the metal table from one another in the visitors' room a month later they both had noticeable changes in their appearance.
"What's that?" Charlotte asked, reaching across the table to open the collar of his shirt a little so she could see the new ink on his clavicle, peeking up onto his neck slightly.
"No touching." the CO barked, causing her to pull her hand back quickly and rest it on her suddenly bulbous stomach.
"Who the fuck is that guy?" she snapped, glaring at the CO by the door.
"Guy that came off of leave...he's a real pain." Tig said, shrugging. He spread the collar of his shirt so she could see the new tattoo he had gotten. It was a black and white of a doll with buttons for eyes holding a smoking AK-47 in one hand and a rose in the other. When Charlotte had finished looking at it and raised her eyes to his, he explained, "After those dreams." he cleared his throat, "I just needed...something" he waved his hand over the spot on his chest where his tattoo was.
Understanding his sick, twisted mind she smiled sweetly and said, "It's beautiful, Alex." He smiled back at her, proudly, until she jumped and put her hand to her stomach. "Oh!" she yelped and rolled her eyes impatiently, "Will you desist, you little jitterbug?" she groaned at her stomach
"Wha-what's happening?" he asked nervously
"What's happenin' is that I am carryin' Billy Elliot's twin is what it is." she looked at Tig's innocently confused face and sighed. "He's kickin'."
"He is?!" he asked, his face glowing with excitement; eyes wide.
"Yeah" she nodded and stood up to sit on his side of the table. When she was sitting the warhorse of a CO came right over to them and glared at Tig's hand on her stomach.
"No touching." he growled
Without raising her eyes to look at him Charlotte hissed through a smile, "My husband is feelin' his son's first movements while he attempts TO CLIMB MY BLADDER." she yelled the last part and looked coldly up at the CO. "So why don't you go back by the door and watch to make sure that nothin' actually bad is happenin'." The CO blinked defiantly at her until she stared him down and he went back to his post.
"You know I'm gunna pay for that later" Tig said, a smile on his face as his hands continued to roam over Charlotte's stomach.
"Oh, I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you. Do you mind?" she spat sarcastically.
"Not at all." he chuckled then sat up when he felt movement under his hands, "Oh. Oh!" he laughed heartily and smiled down at her stomach. "He's kicking." he whispered happily.
"Yup. It's a goddamned miracle." Charlotte said cynically
"Oh, c'mon darlin'. Sure it is!" he said, taking her by the hand.
"Sure" she snorted, "Just like these clown feet I got now and the fact that this parasite won't let me eat fried chicken or rare meat 'm just chock fulla miracle." she shifted uncomfortably on the round, metal seat at the table, "I can't even concentrate on my visit because all I'm thinking about is how long I have to wait to pee again."
He laughed and pulled her head towards him to kiss her on the head. "You're a trooper, Charlie." He called over to Tara and Jax at the other table, "Hey Doc! How's my girl doing at taking care of my boy?"
Tara chuckled at the indignant squeak Charlotte made at this question but said, "She's doing fine. She's awfully good at pretending to be unhappy but it's more than obvious that she can't wait for that baby to get here."
"Get out, you mean" Charlotte said, rolling her eyes but smiling down at her stomach.
"What's the official count on you two?" Clay asked, smiling at the two pregnant ladies.
"I'm, uh, twenty-six weeks. Right?" Charlotte asked Tara, who nodded, "So I have a little less than four months to go."
"And I'm fifteen weeks so I have a little over six months to go." Tara said, rubbing her stomach.
"Well, we'll have plenty to keep us busy." Gemma said, smiling at the two women.
"Wrap it up." the CO barked from the door, spurring the women and man to stand up from where they were sitting and say goodbye.
"Hey, we'll have gotten some more good behavior time that we'll be able to have less strict visitation." Clay informed the women, "Gemma will let you know more about it."
"Okay." Tara and Charlotte nodded, taking their turns to kiss Clay goodbye on the cheek.
When Tig and the men had filtered out of the visiting room Tig turned before the door closed to see Charlotte holding her stomach and breathing through her mouth while she said, "Damn jitterbug." He smiled in utter bliss and held onto the heavenly memory of her visit as he entered back into his hell.