Thank you for all of the reviews. I know the last chapter was hard to take.

On a side note, I am feeling a little better. I have written 3 chapters over the past 3 days and Casper has finally come home! I'll leave you with that little tease while you read this chapter.


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.

2031

Age 39

1 week after funeral

Gabby dropped the wet sheets back in the clubhouse washer and fished the ringing phone out of her pocket. She saw it was from the prison and pressed the necessary buttons to talk to her husband.

"Hey babe."

"Gabby. Tell me some good news." Casper asked.

Gabby huffed. "I don't know. I don't think Bull got laid all week." She chuckled but the other end of the phone stayed silent.

"Sorry, I'm at the clubhouse. I took Becky's laundry duty this week."

"Why can't she do it?"

"She and Lexi did everything for the funeral. I just wanted to return the favor. I'm so glad Mitch settled down. An extra old lady is a god send."

"How'd the funeral go?"

"Okay…I guess. Lots of men showed up. You know, with him being nomad for so long and staying at so many different club houses over the years. He was close to a lot of his brothers." Gabby turned around and leaned against the washer to talk.

"What's going on at home?"

"Well…Kristen is…being 17. And she's mine…so…she's being a little bitch. She doesn't want to admit she's grieving. She's more snappy than usual. Matthew is doing okay. He's here with me, if you want to talk to him."

"Kristen isn't?"

"You know she doesn't like coming to the clubhouse." Gabby huffed.

"Doesn't mean she doesn't have too."

"It's not worth the fight. I can get the chores done twice as fast without her."

"You need to be sterner with her." Casper snapped.

Gabby bit her lip to keep from snapping back. "I wanted nothing to do with the club at her age. I'm not gonna force her to participate like I was forced."

"It's family."

"Casper," Gabby was exasperated. "It's laundry day. It's not fucking Christmas dinner. I know how to raise my daughter."

"Without me." Casper snapped again.

'Yes!' Gabby thought in her head, but knew better than to say it. "I'm doing the best I can." She answered instead.

"Yeah…I'm sure." Casper didn't sound impressed. "Put my son on the phone."

"No problem." Gabby muffled the mouth piece and called Matthew into the laundry room, handing over the phone to him. It didn't get past her that neither her, nor her husband, had said 'I love you.' He didn't even use his pet name for her anymore.

She turned back to the washer and pulled the wet sheets out and threw them in the dryer. By the time she had the washer going with the towels again Matthew walked in the door holding the phone out.

"Does he want to talk to me?" Gabby asked.

Matthew did his little sway that meant he was uncomfortable. "He had to go." He handed the phone back to his mother and walked back out of the room. Gabby sighed and pocketed the phone.


A few weeks later

"I'm not saying I'm not proud of you, I'm just trying to lay out all the options." Gabby repeated herself to her daughter, exasperated. They were sitting at the kitchen counter with college pamphlets laid out and Kristen's praised acceptance letter to the University of Houston.

"You're trying to talk me out of going there!" Kristen yelled back and threw a pamphlet across the table.

"Just for one year. Kristen, Houston is expensive. Spend just one year at community college. You can take English, Math, Science, Psych 101, Speech. These are pre requ's you need at ANY school. They are totally transferable."

"You just don't want me to leave Fresno!"

"Oh, trust me sweetie, I want you to leave Fresno." Gabby ground her teeth. "Community college is a quarter of the price. You will save THOUSANDS of dollars."

"I'm not going to community college. That's for dumb kids!"

"HEY! I went to community college."

"Yeah, and your job pays jack shit." Kristen picked up the community college pamphlet her mother had slid back in front of her and threw it across the table again.

Gabby heard the front door open and knew Shark was home from baseball practice with Matthew. She listened close at their first few steps to make sure Matthew had taken his cleats off and then turned back to her ornery daughter.

"Yes, you know what? You're right. I went to community college, I got an associate's degree, and I didn't end up getting rich. But I sure as hell put a roof over your head and food in your belly. Now this isn't about me. This is about you making your first real adult decision. The college fund does not have infinite money in it. And I'm going to help cover Matthew's costs as well. I need you to help me save some money."

"I'll take loans." Kristen snapped back.

"And start out your life in debt? In debt tens of thousands of dollars? Is that really what you want to do? How you want to start your life?"

"If it means getting away from this city and YOU then yes!" Kristen got up from the table and started to stomp away.

"Kristen we aren't finished here!" Gabby yelled at her.

"I'm finished! I hate you! I hate my life! I want to leave and never come back!"

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD YOUR LIFE IS!" Gabby yelled loudly over the pounding up the stairs. When she heard her daughter's door slam shut her rested her head in her hands.

"Tough crowd." Shark finally spoke up and walked up behind Gabby. He started messaging her shoulders. "And here I was hoping for pity for sitting in the sun all afternoon watching batting practice."

"You don't have to sit and watch him." Gabby said calmly instead of snapping. Shark picked Matthew up from baseball twice a week after school and Gabby was trying very hard to remember she was grateful for it. "I didn't cook." She added as Shark moved his magic fingers to her temples and worked out her daughter induced headache.

"I didn't say a word about food." Shark said playfully. He stopped rubbing and Gabby almost whimpered. He sat down next to her and picked up the acceptance letter. "She got in to Houston, huh?"

Gabby nodded her head and started to straighten the pile of papers and pamphlets on the table.

"She's been dreaming about going to Houston for a year now. It's got her program."

"I know it has her program. But so do schools that are a hell of a lot cheaper."

"How much are you short?"

"For the full 4 years? With room and board? About $16,000."

"Damn." Shark whistled. "And how much are you setting aside for Matthew?"

"That's everything, Shark. Every penny I have in the 529. And I can't cover her dream school. And I can't even send my son to a trade school." She set the papers back down and sat back in her chair.

"Loans aren't the end of the world. She can apply for scholarships. She can get a part time job."

"She's not in any sports and she's a merit role student. The only scholarships I found for her to apply for involve the children of felons. She refuses to let the school know her father is in prison."

Shark nodded his head. "I can see that…" He sat quiet for a few minutes, gaging Gabby, until Matthew came down the stairs.

"Hey mom." Matthew said as if the argument he walked in on hadn't happened at all. He was used to his sister and mom arguing at this point.

"Hey little man." Gabby grabbed him and pulled him into her lap on the kitchen chair.

"Moooom" Matthew whined. He had decided, at 12, he was no longer a 'little man.'

"Oh just give me one more year. One more year until you're a teenager and you hate me."

Matthew got up from her lap and headed to the fridge. "I'm never gonna hate you mom. I love you. And I'm not a psycho." He added, referring to his sister.

Gabby smirked. "Didn't cook anything, there's left overs in the fridge."

"Do we still have any stuffed peppers?"

"They're frozen."

"That's okay." Matthew happily went about finding what he wanted and heating it up in the microwave. Gabby watched him. He really was a mini Casper. Right down to the growth spurt and the long and lanky limbs.

"Gabs?" Shark kicked her lightly under the table. He knew the look on her face meant she was starting to wallow.

"Yeah?" Gabby turned to him.

"Let the kids fend for themselves. Come to the clubhouse for a drink."

"Not in the mood." Gabby turned back to her son who was now shoveling food in his mouth, standing in front of the microwave.

"Then come over to my place, we'll get take out and trash talk the mini Gabby upstairs." Shark gave her his best smile.

Gabby looked back at him and rolled her eyes. "Fine, take out sounds good."

"I like take out!" Matthew added with his mouth full.

"You like everything. You even like your mom's lentils." Shark teased him and grabbed Gabby's purse so she couldn't back out. "See you tomorrow, behave."

"Don't fight with your sister." Gabby added.


Gabby laid out on Shark's couch drinking wine. He kept it stocked especially for her. The remains of their Thai food was on the coffee table. Shark was in the recliner drinking beer.

"I haven't seen you with anybody lately. Where'd that one girl go? Hannah?"

Shark finished his beer with a gulp. "Didn't keep her around." He shrugged. He'd gone on 2 dates with her, the second one a Friday night party at the clubhouse. He knew then he wasn't gonna get serious with her. Dropped her off at her apartment with a chaste kiss on the cheek. She had been quite confused at his early departure.

"You told her though, right? Didn't ghost her?"

Shark leaned forward and grabbed the last beer from his six pack on the table. "I told her good night. Didn't elude to any more plans or dates."

Gabby let out an mmhhmmm and turned over onto her back, setting down her empty wine glass on the floor. "How many does that make now?"

"Make for what?" Shark asked.

"Make for girls you shot down since Kaye."

Shark closed his eyes at her name. Thinking about what he lost still tore him apart. "I don't know. 7, maybe 8."

Gabby let out a chuckle. "Maybe that you brought around to the clubhouse. Try double digits."

"Let's talk about your sex life." Shark shot back at her.

"Fine, me and my vibrator are doing just fine thank you. Started buying my batteries at Costco."

Shark let out a loud laugh, as Gabby had intended after bringing up Kaye. His set his beer down on the table and squeezed himself into sitting next to Gabby on the edge of the couch.

"The way you and Casper were always going at it, I didn't think you were gonna make it." He ran a finger from her forehead, down her nose to her chin. She made a play to bite it.

Shark laughed and got up from the couch, grabbing his beer on the way to his recliner.

"You're in some serious need of getting touched." Shark remarked.

Gabby sat up on the couch and flattened her hair. "You think I don't know that?" She paused to pour more wine in her glass and take a long sip. "It's not even the sex I miss. It's the cuddling, the touches and stroking and just…the feel of another human against you." She finished her wine and set the glass on the table.

"That's gonna have to be enough. I gotta drive home." Gabby got up off the couch and Shark jumped out of the recliner.

"I can do that for you, you know."

"Do what?" Gabby scrutinized him. He was definitely drunk.

"Give you some touch. No sex, like you said, just, cuddle." He tipped his head to the left like a dog and forced Gabby to smile.

"Shark, go out and get laid. You need it." She patted him on the shoulder and grabbed her purse on the way to the front door.

"You okay to drive home?" Shark asked, holding the front door open.

"Yeah, some of us know when to quit." She quipped and left for the night.


5 months later

Gabby tapped her fingers on the wheel in time with the music. Kristen was lost in her phone, head phones in her ear and Mathew had long since fallen asleep in the back. Gabby glanced at her rearview mirror, making sure Shark and Tig were still behind her and signaled to get off at the next exit.

She and Kristen had come to an agreement. Gabby would pay for the first year of college in Houston in full, and after that, if Kristen couldn't get scholarships, she would take out a student loan she had to make payments on immediately. It gave her a lower interest rate. Gabby promised to make all the payments until 3 full months after Kristen earned her bachelors. Hopefully by then she would have found a job with her environmental science degree.

She went over in her head her mental list of last-minute reminders for Kristen. No drugs, no alcohol till she was of age. No birth control is 100% effective. Never go to a party alone. Never set down your drink and come back to it later. Never feel pressured to do anything she didn't want to do.

She had told her daughter all of this before, but Kristen's hatred of her had made all the advice hit a brick wall just before her brain.

She could admit she was a nervous wreck. Her oldest child was going to be living in another state. Somewhere she would have to drive hours and hours to if there was an emergency.

Tig had reminded her a dozen times that there was a charter in Houston, but it didn't matter. Kristen would never call up a brother for help. She refused to even go there and meet them before going on to the dorms.

She could see the big sign for the college at the exit. It would be only minutes before she pulled in and her daughter would be unpacking…and ushering her out the door. Gabby kept trying to tell herself their relationship would improve when they weren't butting heads everyday and just checking in with each other. She didn't even insist on hearing from her daughter every day. She had told Kristen a few texts a week and one phone call. Meme's counted as text messages. So did messages like 'a hoard of zombies did not try to eat me today;' that had been Shark's addition to the stay in touch conversation.

Gabby drove down the impressive winding front path past the main building and to the dorms. She had never been on a campus this big in her life. She was overwhelmed. But she was stern with herself she wouldn't push those fears onto her daughter.

She looked over at Kristen. Her 18 year old daughter who insisted on straightening her hair every day just so they didn't look alike. Gabby wondered if she would keep that up now that they weren't in the same time zone.

"Kristen," she called to her daughter as she parked the SUV. "Kristen." She called again and pushed her daughter's knee. She pointed to the windshield and Kristen slowly pulled her head phones out of her ears. "Ready or not, here you come girl." She whispered.


Reviews make me happy! Let me know what you think, if you like it, if you're frustrated and just want Casper home already, if you thought for one split second Shark and Gabby were going to hook up...I want to know what you think!