Author's Note: Yes, this story is listed as 'complete'. However, I made a deal with two of you that I would add a coda chapter as a holiday gift for all my wonderful reviewers. It was so absolutely wonderful to fall back in with these two characters, even if they don't belong to me. I love them dearly. I hope you enjoy the extra chapter and enjoy your holidays!
"I committed no crime today, Lieutenant." His eyes were a glazed with a tired but intentional watching, lips slightly parted as he leaned up into the frame of the door, all warmed leather and denim as he slowly pried his gloves off stretched fingers. "Didn't perpetuate a one."
She smiled lazily into the way she'd laid her head sidelong onto the back edging of the tub, shoulders laxed back as she caught the slacking of his jaw, his tongue running his teeth as he stayed unmoving. Ally lifted her shoulders in a slowly intentional taunt of shrugging, damp hand lifting from too warm water so that she could catch against the condensation layered wine glass.
"You want a prize, Telford?" she murmured wryly into the rim, letting a slip of the dark liquid lay her tongue as his eyes followed the damp bend of her wrist, his own hands stalled in a pausing. "You're staring, Scotty."
"Technically," he murmured the words quietly into the way he shifted enough to stuff his gloves into his back pocket, chest swaying forward even as his arm stayed balanced into the doorframe, "I'm no criminal at the moment."
"On furlough?" she smirked her eyes away from the subtle simmered heaviness of brown eyed wanting and smugly let her head roll farther back, blindly settling the glass back to the tub edge.
"Keepin' you an honest woman today, my love." There was a chippy mischief to the tone he laid across the otherwise hushed room.
Ally snorted as her eyes dipped closed, "Put out or get out, Filip. Water's getting cold."
She kept a quietly leaning lesson of patience before grinning sightlessly into the sound of his belt buckle loosening, her shoulders instantly softening farther back as she rounded the way she'd knotted her hair up into the shower wall. She let her eyes open into the hushing creak of leather, turning her jaw a fraction enough to watch him strip his cut and lay it folded over the stretch of the sink. He was otherwise distracted in studying the length of her in clear water that smelled sugared but wistfully homey.
"You think twenty four hours of not breaking the law is going to forgive the debt you've racked up?" she loosed the question quietly into the way she watched him unbutton the leather shirt he was wearing, a lackadaisical shrug coming off his shoulders. "Huh, my good Catholic boy?"
A blushing grin rose over his face without his eyes even meeting hers and she watched him rub his hand down over his beard with another shrug. "Don't think bringin' religion into this room is necessary."
Ally smirked and leaned an unintentional sigh over the curved strength in his shoulders as he stripped shirts and let them tip off his fingers, a cocked glance of amusement perking his lips as he caught the thrummed sound off her throat. His face shifted in sure and cocky humor, belt undone and pants slung low as he kneeled into the edge of the tub.
"But I think the effort's earned me a little kindness tonight." His voice was a heat that twisted into the warm curling of water's steam, his glance intentionally shifting down the length of the way she was stretched in the tub. His arms were crouching onto the edge after nabbing the wine glass up, considering it a moment before cocking her a semi amused glance of reproach as he handed it in her direction.
"Snob." She murmured as she finished off the glass, shifting it into the corner of the shower as he laid his jaw into one forearm, eyes still craving over her as he dropped a loose wrist down. "Filip."
"Water's still warm." He countered a taunting into the way he'd dipped his fingers into sweet smelling water and wiped against her stomach, teasing a circling down around the gunshot scar.
"Then get in it." Ally caught his jaw up at her with damp fingers, letting her thumb catch along his bottom lip because she just didn't see a reason not to do so.
"Gonna be sweet to me tonight, Ally?" the teasing hush of his voice as he pressed the words into her thumb raised up a chill on her damp skin that had her pushing into the way his teeth scraped against her skin.
"I can be." Her other hand tipped over the expanse of the tub to catch his face into the way she leaned a kiss toward him, letting both damp hands slide the stretch of each scar before pulling him closer as she laid her tongue along his. The groan he gave her was less rushed and ragged and tightened up taut than usual. It was slow and appreciative and welled into a comfort zone that made her sink farther back in the water as he lifted his head slowly from the kiss.
"You okay?" she questioned softly into her damp fingers riding his forearm as he pulled his hand from the water.
"Aye." He nodded quickly, a sleeked smile riding his lips as he pressed up from the edge of the tub, turning from her to strip his leftover clothing boots first. "I'm tired, gràdhach."
Her head perked into a smirk at the affectionate rounding of his accent on another sweetened up round of Gaelic. Besides the usual nickname, he hadn't used it on her since Dulane. He hadn't otherwise brought the reference of home between them since and the softly breathing usage of it slackened her shoulders back again, a wet hand wiping against the flushed skin of her throat as he shifted back toward the tub. His fingers crowned her knotted back hair as she pushed back in the tub, drawing him into the water with her. Ally smiled into the way he simply curled her legs against the stretch of his hips, a groan grating off him that was built more of weariness than anything else, the warm water forcing his muscles to release. Her jaw shied back and to the side quickly, letting him lean his head back into her shoulder.
"Not a single crime?" she asked as she looked over the pass of his tired face, noting the way his jaw slackened loose with lips parted and his eyelids looked dark. Her hand lifted to wipe a warm dampness against his forehead as she rubbed her lips along his temple.
"None." He turned his head into shunting the words against her jaw.
"Not even coercion?"
He grunted a snort of charmed amusement, "Not even."
"What'd you just call me?"
"Nosy." He murmured his lips along her cheek. "None of yer business."
"What's happening right now, Filip?" she framed her hand against his forehead, forcing his head still as she turned a questioning look over his passivity, keeping her tone calm to avoid anything accusatory.
He gave her a slow smile but it was raked tight by a furrowing on his forehead, head tipping harder onto her shoulder as his hands brought her legs tighter around him, "Havin' a bath with a beautiful woman?"
"Don't bullshit me." Ally kissed quick and light against him, a purposeful smile laced over her lips as she wrapped her other arm against his chest, still rubbing the tension from his forehead.
"I can love on ye without bein' an ass, Althea." He shaded his face down against her throat, voice hashing tighter in a sort of embarrassed frustration. "It doesn't always have to be a fuckin' fight. I know y'can be soft so stop swipin' at me, Cu Sith."
"Okay." She whispered the murmur over his turned head, fingers tracing along his ear and catching the way he winced his head tighter into the bend of her shoulder as he stroked his fingers along her legs. "Filip?"
He grunted a questioning noise into her throat, large palm curling the muscled run of one calf so that he could press his thumb up and down along muscle.
"I do believe you're often a good man. And that your intentions are well meant." She whispered the words on him, leveling them quietly into the way she rubbed against his ear. "You wouldn't still be here if I didn't."
His voice jerked on her skin in warning worry, beard roughing her skin, "Ally."
"I'm just saying." She rubbed the words on him, feeling him shift tighter as the water shifted and swayed around them. "I see it in you, Telford. You fight for it."
"Yeah?" His accented whisper went teasing as he banked his head back again, "And what's it gotten me, Lieutenant?"
"Me." She hushed the word along his ear in a quieted way that had him groaning a full laden lust as he clutched against her thigh, her tongue teasing against his earlobe as he dug his nails into tensed up muscle. "Got you me, Scotty."
"That was devilish." He chuckled into the sweated air around them, his eyes still closed but a broad grin raking his lips.
"Well, you were good today." She shrugged both arms tighter around his shoulders, letting her hand slope down the tattooed front of his chest to flat palm on wet skin, "You let me handle the sinful stuff, huh?"
Water sluiced off his hand as his lifted his fingers into a crossing over his chest and shoulders, a groan lathing off him as her hand slid between his legs. "Fuckin' amen."
She snorted as she shook her head, steps soft on the bedroom carpet as she moved toward the bed, the lazily relaxed movements of her long lithe length drawing his head cocked up so that he could watch her. Ally just gave him a semi amused glance, the towel wrapped around her with corners tucked up into her hands as she looked over the stretched length of the way he was back on her bed, newspaper held above himself and the darkness of his glasses making his eyes seem more shaded than they truly were.
"What?" he murmured, eyes trailing the twists of damp dark hair that were still plastered along her neck and throat even though she'd kept a knot of hair up and back.
"That's yesterday's paper." She offered softly into teasing. "I've never seen you read the newspaper."
"I read, Althea." He griped at her in annoyance. "I'm not - "
"I just meant that it's cute." She whispered an interrupting hush into his sharpening, hands still clamped up into fabric as she leaned forward onto the mattress, tipping her head to search over him, "And the glasses are sexy."
Chibs smirked into the way she straddled against his waist, the still damp coolness of her skin pressing through the crisp sheet he'd tucked against his hips. He lifted the crinkled paper enough to shift a hand toward her, cocking a smirk in her direction as he tugged against the terry cloth and winked at her. Ally rolled her eyes as he drew the fabric away slowly, letting his glance drift along the front of her before he made an appreciative noise in his throat. Her head shook slowly back and forth in amusement as he clutched away the fabric fully before laying the newspaper along the front of her, riding his shoulders up so he could settled on his elbows and continue reading.
"Really?" she upped her jaw into the low questioning. "Thought we weren't going to do the things that normal couples do?"
"Hale?" he asked as he continued reading, ignoring her prodding as he squinted through an article on the mayor's most recent press conference. "Where's he land on your radar, Lieutenant?"
"Fairly intelligent but duplicitous." She shrugged into the slow murmur, her hands dropping lax against his flexed forearms so that she could stroke against his skin, "But publically charming. Socially savvy. Occasional misogynist."
His jaw lifted a fraction of a moment before he cocked a brow at her, "That last one had a bit of bite to it."
She shrugged unapologetically, curling her palms against his drawn tight arms, "I don't like the way he speaks to me."
"In what way?" the flexing of his muscles was barely perceptible and she probably wouldn't have otherwise noticed except that she felt it in the pent strength of his arms as his weight pressed into the mattress.
Ally flushed a smile over him, drawing her hands off him so that she could shift the paper to the side, crumpling it away so that she could stretch forward into the way he was leaned up as she studied the glasses he was wearing, "I'm a big girl, Filip. I can handle a suit with an attitude."
"In what way, Ally?" he repeated in a whispered hush of nervy threatening.
"He's a man, Telford." She murmured a kiss against his lips. "And he looks at me like I'm just a woman."
"You are a woman." His hips lifted up teasing into the stretch of her, head tipping slowly into the way she was still studying him. "I'm a big fan of that part."
"No, see," she lifted her fingers up to tap against his bottom lip, "there's a difference. To him, I'm just a woman."
His glance thinned heavily over her, "You watch him move, love. Y'get me?"
She blinked into the subtle intimation. "From what I hear watching Hale too closely has me putting eyes on Samcro. That really what you want, Vice President?"
"Nope." He shook his head slowly, letting his shoulders back into the pillow as he drew her down into his chest. "It's the other shiftings I want your pretty eyes on."
"I don't work for you." Ally bit down over him, drawing up higher against his chest as he shunted his hips flat and tugged at the sheet, lifting a bared knee up against her side before both his hands caught into her hair to loosen it from its knot.
"No," Chibs cocked back over her, "Y'work for Charming, yeah?"
"Yes. I do." She nodded her jaw down into his chest, letting her fingers ride his tattoos before scrawling over the letters of his daughter's name. "You're a cryptic bastard."
"And y'love it." He rubbed his fingers through her hair on a sighed breath, angling his head into the way she was silently starting another tracing of Kerrianne's name, feeling his lungs heat at the stroking of her fingertip. "She'd be a fair bit defensive of her mother but I think she'd like y'well enough anyhow. She's a good girl mostly."
"Mostly?" she turned a prized smile up at him, full appreciation for the whispered admission lighting over her face.
"Belfast isn't easy on good girls, Ally." He shied his eyes shut as he let his head sink back, letting his fingers ride back and forth along her scalp. "And her da's not a blue ribbon himself. Fi's kept her straightened up as possible."
"Why didn't you go back, Filip?" he met the honest concern in her whispered worry with a slow glance because he felt as though it was the only decent thing to do when she'd owned up the guts to ask the question.
"Wasn't my place anymore, Althea." He blinked against the obviously aching admission, shaking his head back onto the pillow. "M'not that man anymore. My life was here. And my own daughter doesn't… I'm not the father she needs me t'be. I love my girls. But I didn't belong with them. Or to them."
The flinching that discolored her eyes made them twist with more greened gold than usual. Like corroded copper.
"You wouldn't dare put me in the same room with your wife and daughter." She shunted into his chest, her body shifting to lean away but stalled into the way his hand drove up the chilled lay of her spine to catch along the back of her head.
"Ex wife." He blinked at her on an edging of assertion. "Paper's been signed a long while, Ally. Not goin' back broke a lot of things between us."
"That's why you're not fighting this as much as I thought you would." She murmured a shade of surprise over him, jaw angling into the way she watched his face.
"Fightin' what?" he squinted at her, glasses still darkening his eyes toward black.
"Me." She shrugged higher onto his chest. "And you."
"You're a constant fight, darlin'." He caught both hands up into her hair with a sleepy glance, lifting his head cockily into the way she was laying a surprised smile over him. "Keeps my head up, though. Waitin' for your next swing."
Ally let her lips brush along his, enjoying the fact he was still sifting through her hair as she let her head drop against his collarbone so that she could kiss against warm skin, "Mine."
He snorted his jaw against his shoulder, glancing down the naked stretched length of her before letting his head drop onto the pillow, "Y'like to think."
"I'll prove it, Telford."
The swift authority in her voice had him double-shot-sure that she damn well meant it. And the curled up heat of her pressing him down into a mattress that felt like assurance, it seconded her fervor. And he didn't necessarily want to fight the claiming because it felt like a choice made and a chance earned.
"Do it then, Althea." He let his eyes close into the rub of her fingertips on his chest again, spreading out the length of her cool dark hair. "Don't much think anyone could get in your way on it. You're stubborn."
"You love it, Scotty." She cheekily countered with his earlier teasing.
And he didn't necessarily want to fight that assumption either.
