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.
2042
Age 50
2 weeks later
Gabby was on her knees in the front yard planting bulbs when Shark rode up the drive. Since Casper had left, or been sent away, he had come to see her every day again.
"You look good." He said, walking up.
"You like me dirty." She teased.
He laughed loudly, holding his stomach as he walked up to her. He sat down next to her and spread his legs out in front of him.
"You have news. I know that face." She remarked as she looked him over.
"Casper went to Tucson, Arizona. They just called to let us know. He didn't go right there. He only spent a night."
Gabby nodded her head. "He left again?"
"He's going to Houston. He wants to see Kristen." Shark told her. "Did you ah…did you tell Kristen what happened?" He asked carefully, not bringing up the event in question.
"I told her we fought and he left." She pushed dirt over the last bulb and Shark stood, pulling her to her feet.
"Will she see him?"
"Maybe, somewhere no one she knows might wander, if he doesn't wear his cut or take his bike." Gabby shrugged as she walked in the garage. She rinsed her hands in the utility tub and rubbed the water off on her pants as she walked inside.
Shark followed her inside, right behind her to the kitchen. She pulled them each out a bottle of juice.
Shark hopped up to sit on the counter as he drank. "How are you doing?" He asked.
Gabby shrugged again. "I just…I keep thinking that I wasted my life waiting for him. I spent 20 years convinced we could be what we once were. 20 years." She shook her head and touched the scar on her forehead. "Not anymore. I'm not waiting for him to come home this time."
"Good for you." Shark squeezed her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "You didn't just wait for him, you raised 2 great kids, you have a career you love. You lived your life." He assured her.
Casper sat in the Houston clubhouse drinking. Their president had already called Vin, and got the honest truth of what he was doing there. He felt bad for the man, but he also told his girls to steer clear of him.
"She still not answering the phone?" He asked Casper, sitting beside him.
"I call, I text, I leave voicemails. I just want to see her. 5 damn minutes. Give her a damn hug." Casper threw back the rest of his drink. "She hates me."
"Women are fickle."
"She's my god damn daughter!" Casper shouted, slamming his glass back on the bar.
"Casper, cool your role man, I can't have you coming in here stirring up trouble."
"I know, I'm sorry. I appreciate the bed."
Brad, the president, patted him on the back. "It's what we're here for."
"I got her address." He confessed. "Thinking about just showing up there."
"Not yet. Give her a day or 2, tell her, before you go. Tell her you're going to be there, to give you 5 minutes and you'll stop hassling her."
"You got kids, Pres?"
"3 girls. 15 to 21." Brad answered. "So trust me. I know what I'm talking about."
Matthew came home from another night out with Suzie and peaked around the house for his mom. Shark's bike was still in the driveway, so he headed to the living room.
There they were, on the couch. Shark's arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest. Both sound asleep.
He shook his head and went up to his room.
He meant what he had said to Suzie. Shark and his mom were what he thought of when he pictured a healthy relationship. Friends first, friends always. Supportive, there for each other through good and bad. His mom had gotten Shark through those first months without drinking without batting an eye. Jumping up and going to his place at 2 in the morning when he was depressed and sitting in front of a bottle.
And Shark. Everyone knew the man was in love with his mom. But he never pushed her, never pressured her. Never told her to forget about the husband she felt loyal to and take up with him instead. He just stood by her side, holding her up when she felt like falling down.
Matthew stripped down and laid in bed. He wanted a life like that with Suzie. They had been friends his entire life. He felt like he could share anything with her. He was proud of her accomplishments. She understood him, understood the club, and knew he was never going to walk away from it.
He just needed to man up and make a move. But maybe that was the problem. He had watched his mom and Shark for so long, and neither one had ever made a move towards the other. What was he supposed to do to get Suzie's attention? Make her understand that he wanted to be more than friends.
He grabbed his pillow and wrapped an arm around it, imagining Suzie in his bed. He just wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to smell her hair, he wanted to hear her laugh. He wanted everything with her.
Casper spent 3 weeks in Houston before Kristen gave in and agreed to meet with him. She was meeting him at a diner he could walk to from the clubhouse. He stood in his dorm debating about his cut. Obviously, she didn't want him to ride his bike to go see her. She probably wouldn't want to be seen sitting in a booth with a man in a cut either.
He groaned and sat on his bed. When had things gotten so damn complicated? She was his daughter. He changed her diapers, he read her bed time stories, he taught her how to ride a bike, and now he didn't even know what to wear to have dinner with her.
He threw a zip up hoodie on over his cut as a compromise and set out to the diner. He got a booth along the windows and sat facing the door. He was a nervous wreck. He fiddled with his phone. She was running late. What if she didn't show up at all? No, he wouldn't think like that. She had agreed to this. She had picked the time and place. She would be here.
It was 15 after when she walked through the door. He waved her over and stood to hug her, but she slid into the other side of the booth, not giving him a chance.
"Sorry I'm late, I got out of work late and hit traffic."
"That's okay, you're here. I appreciate it."
"Yeah well, just don't start talking about how you knew me when I was this big." She held her arms out into the size of a baby and Casper smiled.
"You were a cute baby." He teased her. "But look at you know, all grown up. Working in the big city. I'm so proud of you."
Kristen took a sip of the water he had ordered her. "Yeah, well, I guess. So, I'm here. What did you want to talk to me about?"
Casper swallowed a lump in his throat. "I just wanted to see you. It's been so long. Too long."
"That's not my fault."
Casper thought of all the phone calls she refused to take from him, when she stopped talking to him on his weekly calls, when she wouldn't go back to the prison. "I was gone. I know. But I'm back now."
Kristen ran her hand down the cold glass. "Yeah, you're out. Mom said you had a fight. You left."
"You talked to your mom?" He asked nervously.
"We text. It keeps her off my back. She gave up everything for you, waited for you. And you just left."
Casper nodded his head slowly. "Adjusting was difficult."
"So you gave up."
"I put some space between us." He rephrased it. Not mentioning he was sent away by his president.
"But, Houston is down a few men. Guy just had a heart attack, and another is out of state with family problems. So I'm gonna stick around for a while. I really want to connect with you, sweetie."
"I don't know. I'm kind of passed that point in my life."
"Your mom told me you have a serious boyfriend. I'd love to meet him."
"No." Kristen said sternly. "Look. My friends don't know about you. I don't want them to know about you. I don't want them to meet you. I'm here because you wouldn't stop bothering me. I'm ready to listen to what you have to say. But I'm not here to jump back into some daddy-daughter relationship."
Casper sat back in his booth and swallowed the start of his anger. "You're a lot more like your mother then you would probably like to admit."
"No. I am like mom. I'm proud of that fact. I'm strong, and independent. I understand now I got chances in life she never got. It let me have a better life. I'm not going back."
Casper stretched his arms across the table but Kristen snatched hers away and put them in her lap.
"Kristen…I love you. I missed you so much. I wanted to come home and jump back into my family, and I understand now that isn't gonna happen. But I'm here to try and have a relationship with you." He was exasperated.
"You left your family. I moved on. You want to jump back into family life you shouldn't have walked out on the woman who spent 20 years waiting for you. I don't want a relationship. I think I should go."
Kristen stood up and Casper tried to grab her hand. She stepped back and looked around the diner. "Don't make a scene." She chastised him, and walked away.
1 month later
Gabby and Shark were sitting on her office couch sharing cheesy bread. Gabby preferred it over pizza, and Shark had picked up fresh fruit to go with it for extra points. They were fighting over the last container of dip when there was a knock on her office door.
Gabby checked her watch and stood up. She wiped her greasy hands on a napkin as she walked towards the door.
"Yes?" She asked the stranger at the door.
"Gabby Russo?" He asked.
"Yes." Gabby answered.
"You've been served." He said simply and handed her an envelope.
Gabby closed the door and walked over to her desk. She started to open the envelope.
"Another custody case?" Shark asked, getting up off the couch. He started to gather the garbage.
"No." Gabby said in a quiet voice.
Shark turned around to face her.
"Casper wants a divorce."
She set the envelope on her desk and leaned on the hard surface.
"Gabby?" Shark came over and rested a hand on her back.
"That son of a bitch." She whispered.
Shark stepped back, confused.
Gabby picked up her metal pen cup and flung it at the wall. It crashed hard and fell with a rattle.
"20 fucking years. He wouldn't see me, he wouldn't speak to me. And I waited. I waited every day like an idiot. And now, after I waited all those years, now he wants a fucking divorce!" Her anger turned into grief as she started to cry. Her knees gave out from under her and Shark grabbed her as she fell. He held her close as she sobbed into his chest.
He rubbed circles on her back and shhh'd her as she cried. He didn't know what to say. He had no comforting words. She was right. Casper could have filed for divorce in prison, freed her from waiting for him. But he waited till now, after she had brought him home, welcomed him back into her life, and gotten her head bashed in for it.
They had talked many times. Shark knew Gabby would never allow Casper back into her life. She wasn't upset that he wanted a divorce. It was everything else. All the frustration of the last decade that poured out of her.
Matthew and Shark sat on the couch in the living room as Gabby spoke on the phone to her newly hired divorce attorney. She was pacing back and forth down the hall to the front door and back to the kitchen.
She hung up the phone and threw it on the kitchen table. She grabbed her glass of wine and came into the living room, sitting in the recliner.
"He wants his clothes and other possessions, and ten thousand dollars. Nothing else contested."
"That's bullshit!" Matthew immediately yelled. "He's been gone! He didn't make any of that money! What gives him the right to ask you for anything!"
"He could ask for half the house, Matthew. He could ask for half my 401(k). He wants $10,000 to, and I quote, 'start a new life.' I understand. Patches still get a cut of the club income when they're inside. His cut went to me. He came out with nothing."
"His cut went to feeding his children." Matthew seethed.
"Matthew." Shark warned, giving him an eye to keep it down. This was hard enough for Gabby as it was, without him yelling at her.
"It's okay. I know you're angry. It doesn't seem fair. I can do it. I'll have to dip into my 401(k) a little, but a loan won't kill me."
"No, mom. No loan. You need that money. I'll cover what you can't."
"Matthew, I'm not gonna let you do that."
"Can you even keep the house without the club money coming in?"
"Yeah, I paid off the mortgage 2 years ago. I'm safe there. I just want to get this over with."
"You should let me ride out there. Finish it for you." Matthew mumbled.
"No more fist fights." Gabby said in a warning 'mom' tone. "For either of you. He's staying in Houston for now, who knows what charter he'll go to after that. He's not gonna show his face here again. That's all that matters."
"Good attitude." Shark agreed. "He knows better than to show his face here." He held up his coffee mug to toast her.
Gabby rested her elbows on her knees and lowered her head to her hands.
"Mom?" Matthew asked quietly. When she didn't answer he got up and knelt in front of her. He pulled her hands off her face. "It's gonna be okay mom." He assured her.
"I know, honey." She leaned forward and kissed his head. "I know."
One more chapter to go!
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