Four: Blessed Relief

"I love Fiona," Chibs said, after a long pause, his tone firm and the look on his face daring anyone to suggest otherwise. "She gave me my wee Kerrianne, made me a da. But even I gotta admit she could be ..."

"A stone-cold bitch?" Gemma suggested, the smile on her lips not quite reaching her eyes.

"I was gonna say hard work," he said wryly, but coming from the queen, he let the harsh remark slide. He'd defend his family to the death, but Gemma was part of that family too and he knew her distaste for his wife only came from that over-protective place she reverted to when she felt any of her boys were in need of support.

"You're too generous," came the cool response.

"Maybe. But I ain't a total eejit," Chibs sighed. "I know the cause always came first wi' Fi. Just like I know the way she had to grow up made her the way she was – a closed book, never trustin' anyone. We had somethin', but she was never gonna let me in like I wished she could. Until she got knocked up, it weren't even like we were really together. She'd never have married the likes o' me, if it weren't for the baby."

"You ever think Jimmy told her to keep you close?" Gemma asked, with every ounce of her usual bluntness.

His gaze shifted to his feet as he thought about all the times he'd begged her to let him get both her and their daughter away from that poisonous, murderous bastard – and all the times she'd made their excuses. It had crossed his mind more than once that, if she loved him at all, she wouldn't have let anyone come between them.

Not even Jimmy.

And, more than once, he'd found himself wondering why his own wife – the mother of his child - hadn't found a way to be with him and put the pieces of their family back together. She was far from some helpless little girl ...

Seeming to take his silence as her answer, the queen rose to lay a gentle hand on his back. "And this Aoife?"

Aoife.

The girl who had never pushed him one way or the other; who had understood his hatred for what he'd been caught up in, but knew the dangers of trying to get out. The girl who had understood his need to have something, someone, to hold onto amid the dark savagery of the life they were both trapped in.

"She was me only wee bit o' escape," he whispered, guilt written as clearly on his face as those wretched scars.

April 1992: Falls Road, Belfast.

Tangled up together beneath the covers, with Aoife's arm draped over his waist and her face nuzzled into his neck, he couldn't quite bring himself to feel guilty. Not with those soft, breathless words still so clear in his mind.

He'd been trailing hot kisses down her throat as she arched beneath him. "Filip ..." she'd managed, one arm thrown above her head and the other curled around his shoulders as her eyes drifted closed in pleasure. "Oh god, Filip, I ... I love you ..."

It had been enough to stop him in his tracks, even buried to the hilt inside her tight heat, and make him stare down at her in lust-dazed wonder. As far as he was concerned, she was too young for him, too sweet. Too everything he wasn't.

"If I thought ya were gonna stop, I wouldn't have ..."

But he'd simply cut off her half-teasing, half-unsure response with a long, tender kiss. "I love ya too, darlin'," he'd said huskily, reaching to stroke her cheek and kiss her again as he eased almost all the way out, then back in with a groan. "Jesus, Aoife ..."

"Don't stop," she'd all but begged him. "Please, Filip, just don't stop."

For once - sticking to the same intense, yet agonisingly slow pace that made them both tremble and brought tiny beads of sweat to their skin - he did as he was told.

To those waiting not-so-patiently, it must have seemed like he'd drifted off down memory lane and gotten lost. But some things were not to be disclosed. There were clubhouse nights that were beyond hazy, but every second he'd spent with Aoife was still etched on his mind. She was no easy conquest to be bragged about with the lads and he didn't give a flying fuck if that made him sound like a pussy. Some things were just too precious to share.

Her wrapped safe and content in his arms, both of them spent and drifting somewhere between awake and sleeping ... That would always be just for him.

Realising they were still waiting though, he cleared his throat and fumbled for his smokes again.

"Things had cooled wi' me an' Fi," he mumbled, as he sparked up and took a long drag. "She knew I was outta favour wi' the IRA, kept naggin' at me to get back in their good graces – do whatever the fuck it took. She had a point. They weren't men ya wanted to piss off. But I didn't want to hear it. One day, I snapped. Told her I wanted out. For good. She near went off like a bloody rocket, screamin' at me that ya didn't get to decide. That they'd tell ya when ya were done – usually wi' a bullet in the back o' yer skull."

"Always did think she had to be right, that one," Gemma said, with a contemptuous roll of her eyes.

"Aye," Chibs exhaled grimly. "And she was."

to be continued ...