Thanks for all the reviews! Means a lot :D

Thanks to my beta EmeraldJewelSparkle

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Disclaimer: I do not have the rights to SOA and make no profit off 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.

2022

Age 30

Tom Tom parked his bike on what was once a driveway and rolled his eyes as he waited for Tony to negotiate the crumbled curb. He kept reminding himself that he had taken Tony voluntarily. Tony was better than Bull. So far that was his mantra for today; repeating it over and over again in his head as Tony followed him through town. Tony is better than Bull; Tony is better than Bull.

"What are we doing here?" Tony asked as he finally made his way around the giant cracks in the concrete and parked next to Tom Tom.

"Seemed like a nice place for a picnic." Tom Tom said sarcastically showing off the dilapidated crack house to the prospect.

"Was just a question." Tony sulked and lowered his head.

Tom Tom huffed. "Snitch lives here. He's on our list."

"And we think Snitch knows X?"

"His name's not snitch. He IS a snitch. And no, I doubt he knows X personally. But he's a good source of street shit."

Tony looked at Tom Tom and bit his lip. He didn't see how buying 'street shit' was going to help them.

Tom Tom saw the confusion clear on his face. "Not drugs idiot. Information off the street." He sounded out slowly.

Tony mouthed 'oh' as he nodded his head and started to get off his bike.

"No." Tom Tom put his hand out. "Please just stay here and guard the bikes. He's…skittish." Actually he was anything but. Fuz would tell anyone and everyone what he heard on the streets. The trick was understanding his constant murmuring and following his often fuzzy train of thought.

"How long are we gonna sit here?" Juice asked Frankie as he tried to get more comfortable behind the car they were hiding behind.

"Till the family leaves." Frankie answered evenly, keeping the annoyance out of his voice, for now.

Frankie and Juice were checking on the house from yesterday, making sure X hadn't decided to try his luck and come back. So far there had been no hint of a problem. Normal sounds of a family getting ready for a day of school and work was all Frankie could hear. If they followed the same schedule as yesterday they would be leaving in ten minutes or so.

"So what went wrong yesterday?" Juice asked, unable to keep quiet.

Frankie glared at him. "Jumpy bitches; had guns on us before we were all through the damn door. X was hiding upstairs. Ran out the door like a coward while we took out his men."

"You didn't split up?" Juice asked innocently.

"Bull was covering the door. Took a bullet." Frankie couldn't help but ground his teeth as he said it. "Prospect broke cover, slowed him down, but couldn't stop him. Took the initiative to try at least."

"Tony seemes pretty solid. Needs to grow up a little, but I'd vote him in."

"Appreciate your input." Frankie said sarcastically.

"Sure thing." Juice answered, not understanding.

Frankie took a deep breath and looked down at his watch; eight minutes and counting.

"All I'm saying is; you dished out the assignments. You could have picked a more interesting one for us." Shark continued to complain as they searched their third vacant building.

"And what, exactly, would be interesting?" Casper placated him, running the heel of his hand over his bruised sternum.

"Talking to people." Shark suggested.

"Not in the mood." Casper mumbled.

"Obviously." Shark said to himself. "We done here?" He added louder.

"Yeah, got one more on this block." Casper informed him. The pair was searching vacant houses in the vicinity of the first house they had spoken to D-27 in. The house they had oh so wisely killed Deus in. Casper was starting to wonder about the wisdom in that plan. Not out loud, and not as blatantly as Bull was questioning things; but questioning none the less. Surely whatever after life Chris was living in, their former president was questioning it as well.

Casper followed Shark out to the bikes and led the way to the next address. He signaled Shark to pull over and parked on the street.

"Squatter." Casper explained with one word and nodded to their target house. A squatter was a good thing; if X had no one to turn to he would be squatting somewhere. There was an extension cord running through an open window from the neighboring house. The windows were efficiently if not decoratively covered as well.

"Kitchen?" Shark asked, weighing their options of going in alone.

"Not supposed to be. Take the front. I'll take the back."

"Casper." Shark stopped him. "We can call in more guys."

"I just want to take a look around. See if anyone's home."

Shark shook his head but dutifully followed his best friend across the street. Casper made his way around the back as Shark looked through the front windows; gun in hand. He couldn't see anything. He tested the door; it was locked. He heard Casper whistle and ran around the side of the house.

Casper had pushed the window with the extension cord further open and pushed back the old raged towel hanging in place of a curtain.

"Empty. But they've nested." Casper informed him.

Shark looked in; there was a mattress and a few jugs of water, an extremely old fridge in the middle of the living room as far as the extension cord reached. There was also trash. A lot of trash; food wrappers, used condoms, needles, wads of tinfoil, and a rather questionable bucket with toilet paper next to it.

"Bit much for just a day." Shark agreed. Whoever was squatting here had been here a lot longer than X had been on the run. "I have no desire for this smell to get any stronger." He added as he stepped away from the window.

"Agreed." Casper nodded. "Next block is industrial."

"Of course it is." Shark put fake cheer in his voice and followed Casper back across the street to the bikes.

Tig stood, arms crossed, staring at Bull. He had half a mind to leave the pussy here. Maybe shoot him, or just handcuff him to something sturdy. Scare the shit out of him.

He understood Fresno's problem. It wasn't all that unique really. Bull just didn't fit in. He was a waste of space that the men put up with hoping he'd take the hint and leave. And a waste of space was fine in peace time; every wolf pack had an omega. But when a club was at war it was never the omegas that got killed first. They were the ones that ended up making things worse.

"This is a waste of time." Bull whined and Tig ground his teeth. Bull kicked a large chunk of charred drywall and stalked back to Tig. "What the fuck could we possibly find here that could be even remotely helpful?"

Tig looked at the ruins that had once been the first kitchen of D-27. The city had deemed it just another meth lab explosion but Fresno suspected the gang had blown it up themselves, on purpose. One last fuck you to the city and the club on their way out of town. But it hadn't been on their way out; they had never left. So why blow up the kitchen? Why not just abandon it?

"What do you see?" Tig asked patiently.

"I see shit." Bull spat at him.

"It's been over three weeks since this place blew."

"Cleaning up rubble isn't high on our mayors to do list these days."

"What do you smell." Tig kept the conversation moving.

"What?" Bull asked only half paying attention.

"This place blew three weeks ago. What do you smell?" Tig got more specific.

Bull rolled his eyes but turned back to the ruble. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned back to Tig. "Gasoline."

"They doused the place. They didn't blow it up. Why would they do that? This was a fucking meth lab. Don't take much to blow it up on accident, takes even less to blow it up on purpose. But they doused this place in gasoline. Why?"

"I don't know." Bull said sarcastically.

"Figure it out." Tig uncrossed his arms and stalked toward Bull. "They didn't douse all of it. They were trying to get rid of something specific. We need to know what that was."

"There's no way…"

"And we're not leaving till we do." Tig ignored Bull's attempt to interrupt him and dived into the ruble.

Happy perched on a picnic table, keeping a lookout while the other officers ate lunch.

"Where to next?" Vin asked Lenard.

"We went through everything on the list." Lenard threw the paper he had been checking down in disgust.

"Don't seem possible." Happy stated to no one in particular. "He's got to have someone helping him."

"Depends on how smart he is. Could have checked into a motel with a fake ID, paid cash. Laying low till the heat dies down a little." Vin predicted.

"Casper said he checked the motels. All questionable check ins are on Frankie's list." Lenard disregarded the idea.

"Casper's on top of this shit ain't he." Vin was impressed.

"Casper's got his head up his ass." Happy mumbled.

Lenard smirked at Vin. "Just another episode of emotionally stunted wife versus possessive worry wart husband. All I could get out of her."

"She certainly gives him a reason to worry." Vin agreed.

Happy turned around, his interest was piqued. "Walking out on him and all." Happy said evenly and watched Vin's face.

"You make it sound like she packed her bags. She just needed to blow off some steam. Was spouting off some disturbing shit when I found her though."

Happy's brain flashed immediately to his 16 year old suicidal daughter climbing out her second story window. "What kind of disturbing shit?"

"Just umm, stuff, you know? About addicts I guess. And…" Vin trailed off and eyed Lenard, but his president was no help, he was listening as intently as Happy.

"And what? Vin?" Happy lost patience.

Lenard looked from Happy to Vin. Vin met his eyes and Lenard raised his eyebrows. "Any of the guys check in yet?" Lenard asked, clearing his throat.

Vin glanced at Happy before turning his body fully to face Lenard and pulled out his phone. "Tom Tom said he got info from Fuz, but nothing to help with finding X. Frankie reported X didn't go back to the house. Shark and Casper came up empty."

"What about Tig and Bull?" Lenard asked, as Happy turned his back on his brothers and scanned the immediate area again.

Vin smirked. "Tig's got Bull sifting through ruble. According to Tig, Bull is 'hot, tired, sweaty, thirsty, hungry, his shoulder hurts, he's done with this shit, and he thinks no one cares or remembers that he got fucking shot yesterday.' Exact quote." Vin read off his phone. "But they haven't found anything yet either."

"Jesus." Lenard groaned and got up from the table, chucking his garbage in the nearby trash can. Happy and Vin automatically followed him as he walked back to the bikes.

"Pres?" Vin asked.

"I hope Tig knows what the fuck he's doing." Lenard mumbled. "I need him to break Bull, not drive him off."

"I thought that was the point. What about Happy beating the shit out of him and you telling Tom Tom to get a place so we can kick them out of the dorms." Vin reminded Lenard about the plan.

"That Was the plan. Now we're at war. I need every able body I can get my hands on."

"Since when is Bull an able body?" Vin asked Happy, receiving only a glare in return.

"No, no, hold them out like this." Gabby splayed her fingers out to show Suzie what she meant. "Okay, now blow." The little girl blew on her freshly painted nails as she examined the bright purple color.

"Can we do toes too?" Kristen asked excitedly as she went through the rest of the colors, her nails already dry.

"Sure." Gabby went through the colors as well. She and Becky had decided to take turns with all three kids so both could eventually have a break. Becky was in the office with Vivica who had finally decided she'd like a little bit of company, but according to Becky's last text message they were simply watching a movie, Vivica couldn't be enticed to have any type of conversation.

"Mommy!"

"Mathew." Gabby leaned down and kissed her son's nose.

"Mommy." Mathew reached for the nail polish Gabby was shaking.

"Oh no, your daddy will kill me."

"Mommy want." Mathew grabbed for the bottle again.

"No Mathew." Kristen shoved him over a bit. "Not for boys."

"Oh sweetie, he doesn't understand that. You and Suzie are getting your nails painted; he just wants to be included.

"Mommy mommy." Mathew continued to try to get his mother's attention.

"What do you want little man?" Gabby put the polish down and picked up her son. He splayed his fingers out in front of her and Gabby laughed and kissed each hand.

"Mommy peees."

Gabby laughed and hugged her son. "Mommy please." She corrected him.

"Peees." Mathew repeated.

"Okay baby." Gabby gave in. "Hand me that one Kristen."

Kristen's eyes grew huge as she handed her mother the bottle she asked for.

"Oh chill!" Gabby laughed at her daughter's expression. "It's just quick dry. It's clear."

Gabby carefully coated just Mathew's thumb in the clear solution. "Okay Mathew, hold it up and lets blow on it." Mathew stuck his thumb up and he and Gabby both blew on it. "Oh it's so pretty." Gabby smiled. Mathew held out more fingers and bounced in Gaby's lap. "Nope, all done." Gabby held her hands up.

"All done Mathew." Kristen joined in and lifted her brother off her mom's lap.

"All done." Suzie said as well, when Mathew tried to climb back up.

"Done." Mathew said looking at the two girls in front of him.

"All done." Kristen took his hand and took him back over to his pile of toys. Gabby shook her head and started shaking a bottle of polish for her daughters' toes. If she was lucky enough to have another child she really hoped it was a boy, Mathew was gonna have a hard life with only Kristen and Suzie to play with.

"Can I ask you something?"

Casper stopped walking and rolled his eyes. "If I say no will you shut up?"

"No." Shark shrugged.

"Then ask away." Casper said while continuing to walk through the empty warehouse they were searching.

"Are you not talking to Gabby because she won't talk to you?" Shark asked point blank.

Casper wiped around and shined his flashlight in Shark's face. "You have to fucking kidding me!"

"So that's a no?" Shark asked, unfazed by Casper's anger.

"She talked to you." Casper stated instead of asked, and turned back around to storm through the building. "She talked to you but she won't fucking talk to me." He continued to rant to himself.

Shark was close behind listening, he stopped actually looking for X, if the man had been here he was long gone now.

"What did she say to you?" He turned around again to face Shark. "What did my wife say to you that she can't say to me?"

"No dude, she…it wasn't like that. It wasn't about her. She didn't…okay. I woke up Mathew. On accident."

"Shark…."

"No, no. Just listen. She came up when she heard him cry. I apologized. I asked her if she was okay, I didn't think she was gonna say anything other than yes. But she didn't say anything about why she was upset, she just…she doesn't know why you're so upset. You know Gabby. She's…she doesn't get social nuances sometimes. She doesn't know why you're mad, and she doesn't want to ask you because she feels like a hypocrite because when you ask her she won't talk, so…so how can she ask you and expect an answer." Shark spat out the whole story as quickly as he could to stop Casper from interrupting again.

Casper shook his head. "You know, it's not all about what Gabby needs and wants."

Shark scoffed. "Your wife is on the brink of a full on nervous breakdown. And you're moping around with your head up your ass because for the first time in 10 years you aren't her knight in shining armor. Gabby needs time and space, and she needs to know that you love her. She doesn't need you going all macho on her. If I can help her, or Happy or Vin, or a fucking therapist can help her; then good. You should be fucking glad."

Casper shook his head and started walking again.

"I never took you as the kind of guy whose pride was more important than his family." Shark yelled after him.

Juice and Frankie were the first of the bunch to make it back to the clubhouse. Gabby let Tabby and Kaye handle making dinner for them. The rest of the hang arounds, minus two that had walked out half way through the day, had already been fed and Gabby had her hands a little too full for more cooking. At least Harry had dealt with the fed up hang arounds, she'd had three more sweet butts to deal with herself at dinner time that wanted to leave. Threats of not being allowed back had stopped them however. Not that she would have minded a few less bodies in the clubhouse.

Tig and Bull were next to arrive. Bull stormed up the stairs, presumably to get in his dorm while Jen was still at work. Gabby decided she was right when Evan sulked his way down the stairs and claimed a corner of the couch she was on with Mathew.

Gabby did her best not to smirk at him. No matter how friendly she was to him he wanted nothing to do with her. And like all teenagers, she couldn't convince him that she knew what he was going through, even though she had been in the exact same position as him her entire childhood. She could appreciate that he wanted nothing to do with the men that he knew his mother slept with. It wasn't a fun position to be stuck in.

Tig started walking over toward Gabby with his plate of food and then seemed to change his mind and sat down with Kristen and Suzie instead. He nodded at her as he sat, well aware she had seen him on his way over to her.

Gabby nodded back. Tig had yet to actually speak to her except for the vague 'hi' or 'good morning'. Gabby had a firm suspicion he had been warned off her, but couldn't decide if she was glad about it yet. She was relieved not to have any more drama than she already did, but she also couldn't help but wonder if Tig was trying not to talk to her, or was happy not to.

"What do you think Mathew, huh? Should mommy go talk to Uncle Tig?" Gabby whispered to her son.

"Tiggy!" Mathew answered.

"Tiggy it is." Gabby stood up with him and went over to the table.

"Hey Uncle Tiggy." Gabby greeted him as Mathew squirmed in her arms.

"Hey Gabby." Tig put his fork down and reached up for Mathew. "Hey Mathew. You miss Uncle Tiggy?"

Mathew turned around in Tig's lap and snatched a fry off his plate. "Hot." Mathew said as he held it up and blew on it before taking a bite.

Tig laughed and picked his fork back up. "Yes little man, fries are hot."

Gabby walked around the table and stood behind Kristen and Suzie. "What have you girls gotten yourself up to?"

"Playing school." Kristen answered as she drew letters on a piece of paper and gave it to Suzie to copy.

Gabby shook her head. "Couple hours ago you were wining about reviewing spelling words, now you're playing school?"

"Playing, mom." Kristen said in a voice to rival her mothers and Tig choked on his food trying not to laugh.

"Yeah." Gabby let go of Kristen's chair and walked to the bar, "teenage Kristen's gonna be a fucking blast."

"Seem to remember you being quite a handful too." Gabby turned around to Happy walking in the door and slapped his chest.

"If you knew half the shit I got into you would be completely gray by now." Gabby crossed her arms and stared him down.

"Why do you think he shaves his head, sugar." Vin grinned and patted her shoulder on the way through the door behind Happy.

Happy glared at Vin's back as he walked away and then turned back to Gabby. "I need to talk to you." He put a hand on her shoulder and led her out of the bar.

"Why does everybody want to talk to me? I'm not that interesting." Gabby teased as they walked into the kitchen. Kaye took one look at Happy's face and scrambled her way out of the kitchen with an arm full of plates.

"Food's hot." Tabby smiled at him, a lot more used to the guys than the newbie, and followed her out with another plate.

Gabby walked up to the oven and spooned casserole onto a plate for Happy. "What's up?" She turned back and handed it to him.

"Did you eat?" Happy asked looking at the plate.

"Yeah." Gabby answered automatically. "I fed the girls an hour ago."

"So they ate." Happy confirmed. "Did you?"

Gabby set the plate on the small table in the corner. "What's up dad?"

"I'm worried about you."

"Join the club. Oh wait! You're already in it." Gabby pointed at his cut with a fork before handing it to him. "I'm good. I'm not great…but I'm good. You don't need to worry."

"Vin tells me otherwise. So does the fact that you're not eating."

"Okay fine. Things suck right now and I'm a giant ball of stress. Now it's your turn dad. Did you talk to Kristen about Emily?"

Happy's eyes narrowed. "Umm…."

"And did that conversation involve Jax, and pictures?"

Happy's eyes went wide. "Jax was gonna…

"Send pictures to Kristen. Yeah. He did." Gabby walked up to her father and crossed her arms. "Anything else you want to talk about?"

Happy sighed and wrapped his arms around Gabby, squeezing her tight. He kissed the top of her head and smoothed her hair down. "Guessing you didn't appreciate the pictures."

Gabby pulled away slowly. "That's one way of putting it. Look, I'm not mad at you I'm not mad at Casper, I'm not even mad at Jax. None of you knew how I would react to those pictures. I didn't even know how I would react to those pictures. I just need some time to get all this crap out of my head. I'll be fine."

Happy nodded his head and let Gabby walk around him back out of the kitchen. Things started to click into place in his head. Gabby was trying to go through the motions, pretending she was okay, and more than likely pulling away from Casper.

Gabby walked back into the main bar and smiled at Shark. She looked around and saw Casper standing with Mathew. "Hot food in the kitchen if anyone's interested." Gabby announced to the newly arrived men.

"You aren't gonna serve me?" Shark pouted and braced himself for the slap to his shoulder Gabby gave him.

"Gabby." Casper called and walked over to her. She took a breath and walked toward him, meeting him in the middle of the room.

"You want to explain this to me?" Casper held up Mathew's hand.

"It's a hand. Don't worry, it'll get bigger as he grows." Gabby took her son's hand out of Casper's and waved it, making the boy giggle.

"You polished My son's nails."

Gabby scoffed. "I polished My son's thumb nail with quick dry because he begged me to." Gabby rolled her eyes and turned around to get the guys food.

"Hey!" Casper yelled, getting the attention of the other guys as well. "Don't walk away from me."

Gabby stopped mid step and turned around. "You don't like the way I entertain the kids. You stay here tomorrow and take care of them. I'll ride around all day."

"Don't…"

"I'm not fighting in front of the kids." Gabby cut him off, looking at her son.

"That might work in our favor." Bull suddenly arrived in the bar. "I mean, it was Gabby that found X the first time."

Gabby looked at Bull and shook her head. She walked past him and stormed up the stairs.

Casper turned around to the rest of the guys who were all blatantly staring at him, or the stairs.

Lenard came up to him and took Mathew. "Come here little man. You're daddy's an idiot. You know that." He said to the boy, staying right in front of Casper. "You stay with me while he goes and apologizes."

Casper scoffed and Lenard caught his cut before he walked away. "I don't need you two fighting during a lockdown. Go fix it. That's an order."

Thanks for reading :D