"Eye on the ball, honey!"

Abel beamed with pride at the fact that his Aunt Deedee had come to his game, as he had told his teammates she would. Aunt Deedee, he had already proclaimed to his friends on the Charming Little League team, was the coolest lady that he knew. Denise, clad in a t-shirt, jeans, and Converse shoes, was fidgeting slightly under the weight of a diaper bag, a camera bag, and her infant daughter, Sofia, but did not cease in whooping and whistling for Abel. With everyone except Jax on club business, Abel had one of the smallest cheering sections - but Denise more than compensated with her loud cheering.

"Easy there, don't blow out a vocal cord," Jax smirked. "Abel's gonna have more games, so you might wanna save your voice."

Denise rolled her eyes good-naturedly. As skeptical as she would have been to believe it to be the case, she and Jax Teller had become surprisingly good friends in the past year, though they only met in person on the rare occasion that a run brought him near the state line - she'd meet him at a diner around Truckee and send him back with a few Tupperware of food. Of course, it was food that Gemma had prepared, but for the sake of maintaining the peace, Denise always put up the facade that she'd made it herself.

"You want me to take the princess? Let you get in a few pictures of my little guy at the plate?" Jax Teller chuckled, holding out his arms. Denise groaned in relief and allowed him to scoop the baby into his arms. "Alrighty. C'mon, Fifi, you just watch some baseball with your Uncle Jackie while your mommy gets some work done."

Denise smiled as she pulled her camera out of its carrying bag and weaved her way to the front of the bleachers to get a good shot of Abel at bat, getting his first base hit. Upon arriving at first base, he turned and gave the camera a proud thumbs up - Denise made a mental note to get that one printed and enlarged. She managed to practically fill up the memory card of her camera before she decided to head back over. She first went over to the baby bag she had put down next to Jax and pulled out Sofia's bottle, but at that moment, a little boy in the stands darted around behind her and bumped into her, causing her to drop the bottle. She groaned slightly, but gave a chuckle and waved her hand, assuaging the boy's fear that he was in trouble

"You wanna run back to the house, clean that up?" Jax asked, glancing over at the bottle, which had hit the ground and become speckled with dust and dirt. "Here, I'll give you the keys and you can just -"

"There's another bottle in the icebox in my trunk," she shrugged. "And Fifi looks like all the noise is getting her pretty riled up. She could probably use a little time out from the excitement. We'll be back."

Jax helped Denise balance her bags and the baby before she walked off - but just as he sent her off and he was turning to watch his son play ball again, he saw off in the distance, across the way at another field in the Charming Sports Complex, two men on bikes flanked Althea Jarry's station wagon as they met up with someone in a blacked out sedan.

Juice and Chibs were here.

"We can move your cargo over the Delta through Oakley and Mountain House," Chibs said, reaching out and shaking the man in the sedan's hand. "No need to pass through Charming anymore."

"Yeah. I hear SAMCRO isn't quite what it used to be," the man in the sedan shrugged. "So if I can avoid taking the route through Charming, I'd be much obliged."

"My VP is a master, it'll be a clean job. Every police signal, scrambled, no foul-ups." Chibs nodded proudly.

Deals, as it turned out, were easy for SAMBAY to seal - especially (to their surprise) with Althea Jarry present. They had initially had qualms, coming off as being under the thumb of the police, but Jarry quickly made it clear that her only interest was to keep any such business out of Charming, and she would aid any effort to bring such business elsewhere. She kept it very subtle, however, how much her career stood to gain.

This deal in particular was a small but easy one - a six month contract to run a small syndicate's supplies bit by bit to their new headquarters in Buttonwillow, near Bakersfield. A steady stream of small enterprises, Chibs found, was what drew in new prospects eager to prove themselves but lacking any skills. They had immediately noticed upon arrival that there was a baseball game going on, and that Jax Teller was front and center, but their policy was very clear to avoid associating with him as much as possible. All for the best. The last thing SAMBAY needed was for Jax to get wind of any of their new deals and get any... ideas.

When it turned out, however, that Denise's car pulled up in the parking lot however, Chibs and Jarry had both noticed before Juice, sharing a glance. The familiar head of long, dark hair emerged and pulled a baby out from a carseat in the back. There was no way they would be able to go long before he noticed - but they said nothing quite yet.

Once their transaction had fully wrapped up, Jarry drove off to take care of business at the precinct, while Chibs clapped a hand on Juice's shoulder when he saw Denise walk away from the stands, back to her car - he couldn't point the girl out while they'd been doing business, but now, he felt obligated to. Chibs knew that the girl had left Charming because of him, but he also knew what it felt like to have a girl and a child somewhere in the world, but no ability to do anything about it. Chibs nodded again in the direction of the far parking lot. Juice looked as though he'd seen a ghost when, across the stretch of a couple baseball diamonds, he saw her - he had never said that he thought he'd seen her probably dozens of times in the past year.

"Catch up with the lass," Chibs said throatily. "I'll give ye a few minutes."

And Juice didn't need to be told twice. He nearly sprinted over across the complex, his eyes trained solely on the petite form that he knew, even from behind, was Denise and the small, flailing baby in her arms had to have been his baby - his daughter, judging by the pink baby Converse and the little bow adorning her small tuft of a ponytail. She had gone to the trunk of her car and opened it, so when Juice finally caught up to them, flushed and short of breath, Denise was facing away from him.

How was he supposed to get her attention? Hello didn't seem sufficient. Nothing did. So, he said the first thing that came to mind as he caught sight of the baby she was holding.

"Is that her?"

Denise froze just as she finished up preparing another bottle for Sofia when she heard a familiar voice behind her - she didn't even know that she'd been spotted. She inhaled sharply before turning around and seeing Juice Ortiz - her husband - standing behind her and staring, still standing over a yard away as though he was scared to scare them off.

Juice, admittedly, sometimes wanted to be angry at Denise for leaving - and he had always expected that anger would come to a head when he finally saw her again for the first time. But now, his heart was thumping too fast and his palms were sweating too much to think about being angry. He just wanted to see them - and the fact that Denise didn't immediately take off in the opposite direction cemented in his mind even more that if there was a time for anger, for digging up old grudges, it wasn't right now.

"Yeah," Denise said with a nervous smile. "This is Sofia."

"Sofia..."

Denise felt her breath hitch in her throat at the fact that Juice sounded legitimately enchanted upon learning his daughter's name for the first time. Denise bounced the little girl slightly, and she gave an excited coo when Denise turned her slightly so that she was facing Juice. "Fifi, baby - you wanna go to Daddy?"

The infant gave a flurry of loud babbles, clumsily clapping her hands when Denise closed the space between herself and Juice, holding Sofia out so Juice could hold her. He carefully extended his arms to hold his daughter and found himself being almost comically careful, fearful of breaking her or, as silly as it seemed, having her disappear like this had all been a dream. But now, he was holding his baby girl, his wife was standing in front of him. Denise couldn't help but smile at the sight of Juice holding Sofia.

"You know Sofia is my -"

"Your mom's name. I saw it on the marriage certificate," Denise said with a choked laugh, looking away and tucking her hair behind her ear. Juice gulped to keep himself from blubbering like he was the infant when he realized that this meant that Denise still thought about him. "She knows your face. She has a picture of you by her bassinet - she doesn't like strangers," Denise rambled slightly, wanting to fill the silence. Juice, however, was completely enthralled by the little girl in his arms. It took him a few moments before he saw the camera bag hanging from her shoulder, and he cleared his throat nervously.

"Could you - I mean..." Juice began. "Could I get a picture of me and Sofia?"

"Sure," Denise said - she and Juice couldn't help but laugh at the fact that in her attempts not to show how completely terrified she was in the moment, she instead sounded over-eager, clumsily fishing the camera out of her bag and fiddling around until she had it ready, poised to click a few shots of her husband and daughter. Juice didn't need to be told to smile - he was already beaming widely in the way that had always made Denise melt. She grudgingly had to concede that it still did. He bounced his daughter happily in his arms and took in her babbling while Denise clicked a few pictures, doing her best to conceal the fact that her hands were shaking, ever so slightly.

"You're beautiful - Daddy's gonna have to buy a new shotgun to keep the boys away from you. Show those nasty boys how Daddy cleans his guns," he said, craning his head to look his tiny daughter in the face. "You don't look like a potato at all!"

Denise couldn't help but laugh as she continued taking photos - admittedly, more than she probably needed to. After a few more for good measure, she stopped to review them, and Juice gravitated over as well to look at the pictures on the small screen on the back of the camera.

"Can I - can I see her?" Juice asked, feeling suddenly brave. Probably, he decided, because he knew Denise wouldn't sock him in the face while he was holding the baby. "Can I see you both? I just miss you..."

Denise inhaled sharply, and Juice suddenly held Sofia a little tighter in fear that he'd said a little too much, a little too soon. Denise, however, quickly recovered and gave him a lopsided grin. "Of course you can see her," she replied shakily. "She's your daughter -"

"You're my wife," Juice pointed out. "And I love you both -"

Denise froze again, and she gulped nervously, looking away in hopes of concealing the color rising into her cheeks. Juice knew, and he felt a great deal of hope in knowing, that Denise felt the same still, even if she couldn't bring herself to say it. His heart sank a bit, however, when she spoke up again. "I... I asked you a long time ago to pick me and her over that patch," she said, reaching out and gently tracing a finger over the Vice President patch on his kutte, then slowly, almost unconsciously tracing her fingertip down his arm. The brief moment of skin-to-skin contact caused Juice to inhale sharply. "But you picked the patch. Sofia deserves one of us to pick her, at least," she said sadly. "You could've tried to find us, you know. Anytime, you could've."

She looked away, feeling that the conversation was becoming too heavy, and as she looked away, she noticed Chibs standing next to his bike over by the next field over, watching them. Seeing Chibs again and knowing that Juice was here with him - most likely on club business - caused her to snap back to reality.

"It looks like your prez is waiting for you," Denise spoke up, clearing her throat. Juice looked back over his shoulder and realized she was probably right. He reluctantly handed Sofia back to Denise and found himself close to crying yet again, knowing that he had just found them again and needed to leave them. Denise, after putting her camera away and getting Sofia settled back in her arms, sniffed in a way that betrayed the fact that she too was trying her best not to be overwhelmed. "I'll - I'll email you those pictures. See when I can bring Fifi by your place," she nodded.

Upon hearing this, Juice couldn't help himself. He practically lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Denise and Sofia, hugging them gently before pulling away. Denise was visibly flushed, and couldn't help but inhale deeply, taking in the still-familiar scent of aftershave, the same one that her husband had always favored ever since she'd met him.

"I'll - I'll talk to you soon then," Juice nodded. Denise smiled weakly.

"Yeah. Tonight," she nodded in reply. "I'll send you the pictures tonight."

And for the first time in over a year, even if he had to walk away, Juice felt an emotion that was at this point somewhat unfamiliar, but nonetheless welcome: relief.

A/N's

I went back and forth so many times about how the Juice/Denise first reunion should go down, so I hope you guys enjoyed it! Trust me, if this wasn't dramatic enough for you, there will be scenes in the future that are more (ahem) juicy.

Anyway, I'm so glad to see that you guys have made it over to this story! I'm having a bit of a hectic time in real life again, so I'll work on getting the next installment ready. Until then, cheers!