I once again didn't get back to all of my reviewers. I am very sorry for this. I had my last class start last week as well as an internship that I badly needed for my resume. Please know I really, really enjoy getting your reviews. I check for more every day, they let me know all the work I put into my stories is worthwhile.

Even though I am busy the updates will continue weekly (roughly, I don't have a set day). I have up to chapter 48 completed. The story is winding down, it will probably end before we reach chapter 60.


For anyone looking for a short and sweet story to read I posted a 3 chapter fic a few weeks ago. It can be found on my page as: The lockdown, The dogwalker, and The feud. It is set in 1993 after JT dies and tells the "real" story of Tig's dog Missy dying and the start of the feud between Kozik and Tig. It won't take more than 20 minutes to read start to finish!


Disclaimer: I do not have the rights to SOA and make no profit from my writing. Anything you don't recognize from the show I have created.


Content Warning: This fanfiction is rated M. Please respect that warning and do not read this if you do not want to read M rated material.


I no longer have a beta, so all mistakes are my own.

2023

Age 31

Gabby settled herself in the uncomfortable plastic chair and picked up the phone as her father did the same. As long as the men behaved, they each had once monthly visitations. Phone privileges were given and taken away at the guards' whim it seemed like. Gabby had seen Casper last week, as soon as she was able after the trial. Now it was her turn to see Happy.

Gabby put her fingertips up to the plastic partition and Happy matched them.

"I love you, dad."

"I love you too, sweet heart."

Gabby was at a loss of what else to say. "How are the kids?" Happy offered her a topic.

"Sad. Kristen can't fathom how long 20 years is, she just knows it's longer than she's been alive. They both miss you. I dropped pictures for you in the mail yesterday that they colored."

"Thanks, I like getting them."

Gabby smiled and sniffed back a tear. She would not let him see her cry.

"How are you Gabby? Really?"

"Really? A mess. I guess. But I'm adjusting. Got the morning routine down pat on my own. Night is worse, the kids get clingy. Kristen likes to listen to all the bed time stories on the iPad. Half the time Matthew sleeps in my bed."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"He kick's in his sleep." Gabby tried for a chuckle.

Happy smiled. "The club is taking good care of you?"

"Real good, too good. I've got a houseguest most every evening. Tig bought a house. Set rooms up for the kids. Used your twin beds. He hasn't had them overnight yet. Tom Tom and Becky have taken Kristen a couple of times for me for a whole weekend."

"Tom Tom is babysitting now?" Happy asked.

"Tom Tom is almost fully domesticated." Gabby laughed for real this time.

"Good for him. Before you know it, Becky will have a ring on her finger and a bun in the oven." Happy froze after he said it and Gabby swallowed back more tears.

"I don't know about all that. Not sure he's the marrying kind. And no talk of more kids. Though planning doesn't always happen before the making I suppose."

Happy nodded. "Are you taking care of yourself Gabby?"

"Sure, I went from no appetite at all to eating my feelings. I've gained 5 pounds." She hadn't, but she hadn't lost the few early pounds of baby weight she had put on so it wasn't an entire lie.

"You know I'm gonna keep Casper safe in here, right?"

"I know you'll try. But you can't be by his side night and day. You and Casper both had Lenard's back and look what happened to him."

Happy put his hand back up to the partition. "Gabby that will NOT happen to Casper." He almost added over my dead body, but didn't think that would go over well.

"Casper wants me to bring the kids to come see him. They've talked to him on the phone, I just…I think they'll get scared if they come here. The fences, the armed guards, the metal detectors and check points. I don't want to put my kids through that. Not at 6 and 3. I can't do that. Casper doesn't understand."

"He understands, he just misses his family. I'll talk to him."

"Thanks dad."

The guard on Happy's side called for time, and Happy sighed.

"I have to go sweet heart. I'll call, And I'll see you in a month. I love you, tell the kids I love them too."

"I will. I love you too dad. Stay safe." She hung up the phone and watched him get up to leave her. He looked back and gave her a wink before he was out of sight. She smiled for him, but her heart was heavy.


3 months later

Gabby grabbed her phone on the last ring. She put it on speaker, she knew the number for the prison pay phones now. She pressed the requisite buttons to except the collect call while she held her daughter's hair back above the toilet.

"Hello?"

"Hey Love." Casper answered.

"Oh god, baby, I love hearing your voice." Matthew started to cry in his bedroom and Gabby tucked the phone up to her ear to hear her husband.

"Matthew's crying. Tell him daddy's on the phone."

"I will, we all have the stomach flu here. Maybe you can calm him down for me."

"I want to talk to daddy!" Kristen grabbed for the phone while Gabby wiped off her mouth with toilet paper.

"Okay sweetie, you stay right here on the floor and talk to daddy."

Gabby handed her the phone and went into Matthews room. He had thrown up all over the front of his shirt. She carefully pulled it off of him and carried him into the bathroom.

"Kristen put the phone on speaker so Matthew can hear daddy too."

"No, I want to talk to him!" Kristen whined. She held the phone to her face and told her father, again, how much she missed him. She begged him to come home. She wanted to see him, she wanted him to read her a story, she wanted to play tickle monster. She started to cry and Gabby took the phone away.

She walked Matthew into Kristen's room as she wailed. "Talk to daddy little man."

Gabby sat on the bed with Matthew in her lap and listened to her husband tell her son how much he missed him, how much he loved him. Matthew talked back, understanding he was talking to daddy but not apt enough to have a 2-sided conversation.

Kristen's wailing got louder then was interrupted by the sound of more vomiting.

"Casper, I'm sorry, we need to go."

"Wait! Gabby, I want to talk to you."

"I want to talk to you too, but the kids are sick, Kristen is throwing up. I'm sorry babe, I love you."

"Gabby don't hang up the phone. I want you to bring the kids to see me this Saturday."

Matthew started tugging on Gabby's shirt. "Mommy I'm sick again, mommy I'm sick again."

"Casper, I don't know, they're too young to go through a prison.

"Gabby, I NEED to see my kids."

"MOMMY" Matthew got louder and Gabby carried him by the armpits back into the bathroom. Kristen had thrown up on the floor and Matthew was throwing up down his naked chest now.

"Casper, I'm sorry I have to go. I love you."

"GABBY! GABBY! Don't hang up the phone!"

Gabby clicked the phone off and started running the shower. She tugged Matthews pants off and stuck him under the water. She wiped off his chest and pulled him back out, wrapping him in a big towel.

Kristen was clinging to her mother's back as she dried her son off. "Kristen, sweetie, sit down on the rug, I need to wipe the floor off.

"But I want to talk to daddy!" She wailed.

"Well so do I, but daddy's not here right now. Kristen sit! Stop crying! You're a big girl. Let me clean up the floor." She snapped at her daughter. She grabbed a wet wash cloth out of the tub and started to wipe the floor before feeling vomit coming up her own esophagus. She gave up cleaning and heaved into the toilet; wishing someone was around that would think to hold her hair back for her while she was sick.


"What the hell are you doing here?" Casper asked as soon as he sat down behind the partition and picked up the phone.

Shark didn't take it personally. "Gabby's home sick with the kids. One of 'em brought a stomach bug home. She told me you knew about that."

"She didn't tell me she wasn't coming." Casper snapped.

"She's still sick man. Give her a break. I got club news anyway."

"What do I care about club news? It doesn't concern me in here. Tell Gabby the kids are old enough to come see me in here."

"I will, when I think they are. Your son is 3. He's not gonna be okay walking through this place."

"I want to see my kids, Shark." Casper demanded and wiped a hand over his face. "You don't know what it's like in here."

"I do, I've done time. More than you have so far."

"Yeah, right. What the hell do I have to complain about." Casper leaned back in his plastic chair.

"Look, you're depressed, and angry. I get it. But you can't take it out on Gabby."

"Gabby is keeping my kids away from me."

"Gabby is raising your kids for you, alone, while you sit in here watching cable and eating 3 meals a day you don't have to make yourself."

"You telling me I got the better deal out of this. Gabby's the reason I'm in here in the first place!"

"You did NOT just say that." Shark snapped.

"Charlene was HER friend. SHE brought her into my life."

Shark shook his head. "I better not ever hear that come out of your mouth again, brother. Don't you think Gabby blames herself enough for the both of you? She does, you have no idea man. She hated herself over all of this shit. What happened to my best friend, Casper? What happened to the guy that called his wife Love, and made pancakes for his kids, what happened to my best friend that told me to assure his wife, the love of his life, that he didn't blame her for what happened and she better not blame herself either?"

"Maybe he died, alone in his cell, cut off from the outside world, and his damn family!" Casper shouted and hung up the phone hard, getting up and storming away.


"Kaye?" Shark opened the front door in the early evening surprised.

"Shark, I need to talk to you."

"Umm, okay, come in." He swept his arm in as an invitation and Kaye stormed in the house.

"I need to know what we are."

"What we are?"

"Don't play stupid. What we are, where we're headed. Am I your girlfriend, are we a couple, are we involved?"

"I...don't know. I just thought we were good…what's up your ass Kaye?"

"I want to know where this is headed. I've been sleeping with you for months. You still treat me like a sweet butt. But you don't sleep with anyone else and neither do I."

"No…I haven't slept with anyone else." Shark admitted.

"So, are we a couple?"

"I don't know Kaye; can't we just hook up and be together when we want to be?"

"So that's it, I'm here when you want me and stay away otherwise?"

"I didn't say that. What's gotten into you?"

"I want to know if you want me to be your old lady."

"Kaye, no…I mean, I like you. We're good together. We have fun. But I thought you knew we weren't serious."

"So…you don't want me. Not in the long term?"

Shark sighed and wiped a hand down his face. "No, I don't see us together in the long term."

"That's all I needed to know. Goodbye Shark." Kaye stormed back out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

"What the fuck was that?" Shark asked himself.


Next day

"Shark? Can I see you a minute?" Carol peaked out from the kitchen as the men came in at the end of the day.

Shark nodded his head and grabbed a beer from behind the bar on his way to Carol.

"Kaye didn't come by today." Carol started.

Shark sighed. "Does she usually?"

"She always comes in on Monday's. It's her day off. We restock the bar after the weekend."

"Okay, well, call her." He shrugged. He was sick of female drama. He needed to remember to tell Gabby to talk to the sweet butts.

"Shark…this isn't my place, and I don't want to cause any problems…but…Kaye told me last week…" Carol fidgeted with a towel and looked down at her feet. "Kaye's pregnant." She looked back up and said quickly.

"Pregnant?"


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