He blinked a sleepy glance over the way she was curled up on the couch that had been shoved back into the wall, her denim clad legs drawn up as she leaned into the tattered arm. Tig smirked into the quieted solitude of her, leaning forward slightly as Rat caught up into his back in confusion, the both of them tipping their glances over her stillness in the early morning.

"Mornin', AJ."

"Seems it." She sharpened off without lifting her head from the book she was reading, a white mug with SAMCRO emblazoned in black across the front looking infinitely odd in her long curling fingers.

"Cold shoulder." He banked an arched glance into the way Rat was watching the interaction between them with a perked glance. "Got it."

"Not intentionally." An apologetic roving claimed her voice as she shook her head, jaw lifting into the way she watched him curve both his palms against his own coffee cup, catching up the way he'd almost kept walking with the other man at his heels. "Sorry."

Tig gave her a cocked glance, inhaling into the way she was biting against the inside of her lip, obviously awkward and uncomfortable as she glinted a look back and forth between them. "Naw, it's cool. Just didn't realize the dick shaking contest was starting this early. Pretty sure you just beat this one."

Her smile went wide into the cuff Rat gave him in response for the taunting, her head angling into silent appreciation as she watched them both slowly angle closer rather than away in the half re-made clubhouse.

"Gaige is leaving gifts in my car while I'm working." She thumbed her place in the book, letting it lay against her updrawn leg as she sipped against coffee and nodded in the direction of the garage, "He's on a war path this morning. Very little sleep and a whole lotta rage. Just a warning."

"Shit." The swaying of concern leaned the man's steps forward, his foot kicking one of the short step stools up between them so he could stretch his legs to the sides, sitting easily as he leaned into her, "This can't screw us, AJ. It can't get in the way with the Irish. We're too close to a clean break."

"I get that." She nodded as she took another swallow of coffee, carefully lifting the cup between them as he kept his own curled up and Rat banked another cautious step sidelong to them. "I'm not arguing, Tig."

"Gaige needs to stay in place. Chibs can work this." Tig murmured into her. "You hear me?"

"Yeah, I get it. I don't like it. But I get it." She let the mug settle along her lifted knee, head tipping a slow angle to study how tired he looked in his pale face, realizing that his age was more visible when it was shaded by agitation, "He told you about Caffee?"

"Yeah." A smile suddenly cocked his lips wryly and blued his eyes beyond phenomenal, "Also told me you're not telling him everything about your, uh, break up."

Ally let her shoulders lax, lifting a glance into the way Rat was watching the conversation interestedly before she shunted the book aside, not caring about her lost place on a shrugging that caught Trager's glance, "He's a professional sell out, Tig. He gets himself tight up in a crew, lulls them for years if he has to. Sets himself up as high as he can get and then flips for cash. Sells them out and uses the law to get himself clear and flush. He's been doing it for as long as I've known him."

"And the law doesn't pin him on it because he becomes an asset." The older man nodded into the way he trapped his look between her and Rat and back again, "They cover his tracks for him so they can use him again."

"Over and over again." She dipped into agreement.

He was lazily sipping at his coffee as he considered the curled up draw of her on the ragged couch, her hair tangled up and tied off on top of her head in a way that made her so oddly casually approachable as a woman, "That how it played out? You figure it out with that pretty little head of yours?"

"Pretty much." Ally murmured as she matched his tinted and knowing smile.

"You tellin' us you were on the other side of that badge once, Lieutenant?" Rat's voice suddenly cut low between them with a rashing of amusement, "Bullshit. Not sure I can see that."

"Oh, I dunno. I can see that." Tig's smile was broadening hers as he held her glance, catching the slight tip of her jaw as she blinked her lashes lower into a humored but silent agreement, something complicit and warm between them that had Rat hushed, "A young and wild and angry, Ally Jarry? But it doesn't hook up, right? So you, you think too much, Ally. Got ya in the cross hairs, huh?"

"He knew I was a liability. He knew I'd figured it out." She shrugged into lifting the mug again, finishing off the last of it with a thick swallow.

"Rat, go help Chibs." He nodded the other man toward the door, ignoring the sharply offended and hurt look of distrust the younger man shaded briefly between them before swallowing it and stepping backwards, "Take him some coffee or somethin', huh? Slow his roll."

"Got it." Rat waved off as he headed toward the battered bar, leaning over it for a cup to fill.

"You're in your business because you know this business, right?" Tig took another swallow of coffee and let his lungs rattle an exhalation as his glance dropped to the worn in but definitely feminine cowboy boots she'd dumped carelessly along the front of the couch. "How bad was it? That it suddenly made you need to be clean?"

"We both know I'm not clean." She moved to lean the cup to the floor and perked a surprised smile into the way he took it from her, palming it in one hand while he held his in the other, "Don't make it sound like I'm being a hypocrite, Tig. I'm trying to - "

"How bad was it, AJ?" He pressed a concerned quietness between them, his eyes prettier than she'd expected.

Ally kept the glance he was giving her, forcing herself to hold the sympathetic warmth of him, "Everything changed."

"Sounds like you're putting two men you want dead into a cage match and letting my brother referee." Tig cautioned into a suddenly pitched quiet murmur, "Sounds like you're thinking too much again. And I don't like where it puts him. "

"He'd murder Caffee if he knew everything, Tig." She admitted into an honest hushing exhalation, shaking her head paled into the way she'd curled her body smaller into the corner of the couch, "But he keeps asking and looking at me like…"

He winced into biting on his lip and scraping his teeth into it, "Like what?"

"Like he already knows it broke me." Her eyes had brightened up in the sallow temporary lighting of the work space.

"Okay." He just nodded once into an acceptance of her non-explanation, seeming so oddly peaceful in comparison to how sharp and brash she knew he could be.

"He can't be the one. I want his hands clean. Caffee will get you information, keep you ahead of Gaige. You can use him. And if that kills him, so be it." She watched him stand, glance following the shift of his slim body as he stepped into the bar and filled the cup she'd been using back to full, his head leaned into listening as he turned back toward her, "At least it's not Filip. At least he's not the one getting his hands dirty or ratting out his club. It keeps him clear and loyal."

Tig offered the cup down into her waiting hands, "Solves the little domestic issue you two have goin' pretty nicely too."

"I won't disagree with that." A small smile curled at her lips as she lifted him a slightly guilted glance.

"You realize you never left the business, AJ?" He was already clearing away from her, knocking the step stool back a little and out of her way with a boot, "You just put a prettier face on it."

"You're wrong." She broke tightly between them, letting her glance bank into vacant space even as her voice went clear and strong, "I left it to make sure stupid and angry young girls don't get mutilated in front of their fathers while I'm around. Tell me again how old Kerrianne is?"

The stilled thunk of his boots against the floor braced the sudden silence in the room and she shook her head, wincing into the realization that she'd probably stepped a little too far. "Tig?"

"What'd you just say?" the sheered sharpness of his profile had grayed off pale and she watched his jaw go loosely slack, lips parted.

"I was just… are you okay?" her fingers tented tightly around the hot mug, head angling a sudden concern into the swayed way he shook his head in silent response.

"Stop thinking, AJ." He hushed off before swallowing a large breath. "Just stop."

"Look at me."

Chibs lifted his head into wiping the back of his hand along his forehead, dragging off sweat and wiping it into his work shirt as he blinked into the blank way Trager was staring at him, "I'm lookin'. Y'look like shit."

Tig let off a dump of breath, his head shaking back and forth just once, "Did you tell her?"

The already haggard way the older man was staring at him shot his jaw up into a tracked caution, jaw angling as his glance thinned. "Tell 'er what?"

"Chibs."

"Tiggy… what?" Chibs shook his head between them, stepping into the way Trager's palm reached into grasping against the side of the open hood of an SUV, his lean frame tipping into the front grill, "What's wrong, brother?"

"Dawn." Tig murmured dankly.

"No… I didn't." He lifted a hand into the darker man's leather, fingers gripping into it to lean them closer, "You look at me now. I didn't. Hear me?"

The nodding that came off of Trager seemed momentarily despondent and so he kept them clutched up together, kept their leaning balanced toward each other, "She said... shit, man. That woman's too goddamn smart."

"What'd she say to you?" He demanded on a rigidly hushed tightness.

"I don't think she even realized." Tig finally slacked them apart with a lift of his forearm and a shirking of his shoulder, swinging his hips around to lean into the front of the car with both palms braced back. "Nothin'. It's nothin'."

Chibs squinted over him, keeping close into his side, "You want me to get her outta here?"

"Naw, it's fine." Trager brushed off with a slow shake of the head, wiping and tugging into his wild hair ask he glanced down the other man's clenched up hand. "What the hell are you using?"

"White silk." Chibs supplied softly as he lifted a scrapped up strip of previously white fabric, now sooted and swiped with oil and grease and road grit.

"Used to be." His Vice President snorted between them.

The Scot lifted it higher between them, studying how mottled and mussed the previously immaculate color had become, "Used to be a very expensive dress that was left in the Lieutenant's car last night as a message meant for me."

"He's just testing you, Chibs. Let it slide. Keep it evened." Tig pressed slowly off the front of the car, leaning forward to tug at one of the stools so that he could angle himself onto it tiredly.

"It's even." The other man shrugged into a supposed calmness.

Tig nodded, pursing his lips up in a near smile as he watched Chibs glance over the fabric again, "That's why she's here?"

"I can get her out if - "

"No, it's a good idea." He lifted his palms off his thighs, flat and open as he shook his head, "Seriously. It's okay."

"Okay." Telford nodded out an intentionally evened breath.

"Chibby?"

The younger of the two gave him a shaded smirk into the nickname, "Aye?"

"Let's get drunk tonight. Right here. Boys and booze and broads. Fire shit up. Have Chucky stir up some chili and call everybody in for a wind down. We need it, huh? Her too. Know for a fact it's not easy dealin' with your maudlin."

"Sure." Chibs nodded slowly into the way the older man's voice had bottomed into a sort of emotionally exhausted pleading, smiling affectionate acceptance as he playfully passed a mocking kiss between them, "It's a date, sweetheart."

Tig slowly reached out, tugging against the cloth that was fisted up in the Scot's hand, "Shoulda given it to one of the girls."

"It was exactly her size." He tossed the dirtied silk into the engine block on a shrug, the words spitting off him distastefully, "Wasn't givin' it to anyone."