"I know, baby, I know - we're going inside now to see Daddy!"

Denise was in the process of pulling baby Sofia out of her carseat, outside of Juice's house - the house that she'd once considered her own home too. She hadn't been back in a year, but it still looked very much the same. She stood at the sidewalk where she had parked with the baby in her arms, feeling a sense of trepidation when it came to actually going back inside, but with a few deep, heaving breaths, she made her way up the front walkway, awkwardly using her elbow to ring the doorbell.

The smile on Juice's face when he saw that they had actually shown up was nothing short of a sunrise, and in spite of herself, Denise found herself smiling widely too when she saw him. There was something strangely natural about the situation, because with Sofia babbling and cooing the entire time, there was hardly any time for awkward silences.

Juice had gone into the kitchen to test out the baby food he had been working on making - boiled and pureed spinach. He didn't divulge to Denise, of course, that he'd had to play with the amount and with the little machine itself quite a few times while home alone to get it right, and he'd needed to eat all of those test batches. He was in the process of getting it ready, while Denise stood leaning against the kitchen counter next to him, bouncing Sofia with a bright smile on her face.

"Hey, baby, you wanna show Daddy your favorite noise?" she said, her eyes twinkling with a kind of life and vibrance that Juice had to admit had been missing from her in the last days they had been together - being apart and having their daughter had, somehow, turned her into something more whole and more beautiful than she had been before. "Show Daddy bubbles! Bbbbbtttt!"

Denise made a comical blubbering motion with her lips, which baby Sofia immediately imitated with an excited squeal, albeit spritzing baby drool, mostly in Juice's direction as he was approaching with a spponful of baby food. He groaned, but laughed nonetheless, brandishing the spoon gently in his daughter's direction.

"Say ah! C'mon, sweetheart! Numnums!" he beamed, and Denise watched him with a distant smile until he looked back at her with a devilish smirk as Sofia happily chomped down on the mouthful of spinach. "Babygirl, show Mommy bubbles!"

Juice made the same blubbering noise, and again, Sofia imitated the action, this time looking at her mother and spraying a mess of spinach all over the place. Denise let out a small yelp, and Juice laughed heartily as he took Sofia from Denise's arms, giving her a chance to wipe her face.

"Juice, you're such an idiot," she laughed, wiping her sleeve across her cheeks and trying to get what she could off.

This, Juice thought as he watched her actually smiling, actually laughing, was the way things were supposed to be.

Eventually, Denise realized that she probably was better off not having chunks of pureed spinach sticking to her, and so she excused herself to the bathroom to wash up - Juice called after her that she still had shirts in the closet, and she briefly froze in her tracks. Juice's breath hitched as he clung to his daughter a little more tightly, afraid that he'd crossed a line and had spooked her, like she was some kind of nervous doe, but when she simply proceeded down the hall, he breathed a sigh of relief.

While Denise was washing up in the bathroom, Juice settled onto the couch and kicked his feet up, letting Sofia lay down on her stomach atop his chest - and for the first time, he got to simply stare at her. Her one baby tooth that just barely peeked out from her gums when she smiled, her big brown eyes, her dark hair. He remembered, when he had first learned that Denise was going to have a baby, that he had hoped the baby looked like him, that the baby was a total Ortiz. Now, however, looking at baby Sofia, who was almost a perfect half-and-half of himself and Denise, he found that this was ten times better. She was the inextricable connection between him and his wife, the means of having Denise in his life again.

"You're my little princess," he beamed, reaching up and gently smoothing a hand over Sofia's hair before gently kissing her head. "Daddy loves you - daddy loves you, and mommy." Sofia let out a loud squeal of delight, as though she actually understood, and Juice grinned at her, which only made her more excited.

"You're really good with her," Denise said, coming up behind the back of the couch and leaning gently. "She knew you were Daddy right away."

For a short while, she simply watched them playing - the two people she cared about more than anything in the world, finally both in the same place. Seeing that she seemed to have, in some capacity, softened up a little, Juice felt a strange sort of boldness. He cleared his throat - the vibration and rumbling it caused in his chest caused Sofia to laugh and pound on him with her tiny fists - and looked up at Denise.

"Can you two stay over tonight?" Juice asked suddenly. Denise blinked gently in disbelief, and her eyebrows crept upward in barely restrained surprise. He looked away momentarily and let out a breath. "I mean, if you're busy or you got other things to do -"

"No, no, it's not that," Denise said quickly. "It's just - well, I'm not used to..."

Juice frowned slightly at her pause. "Not used to what?"

"Well, at home, we have this little thing that goes in the bed that's kinda like a pen, so she can sleep in the bed next to me," Denise rambled with a nervous laugh, tucking her hair behind her ear. "So, I - well, I've never gone to sleep without her next to me since I was born..."

Again, the strange silence settled between them as they mentally tried to hash out where the conversation was going from here. To Juice's surprise, Denise was the first to break the stalemate with a solution.

"Well," she said carefully, scratching the back of her neck and looking away nervously. "I mean, she could sleep - between us. I mean, we could -"

"Sleep together?"

"Yeah, I mean -"

Juice and Denise both looked away from each other, and neither felt much like a mature adult at this moment. It took a few seconds of pointed throat-clearing and deep breaths before they could look at each other again.

"That... that would work," Juice nodded stiffly, trying not to smile.

Getting settled into bed for the evening, as it turned out, was another exercise in awkwardness. Denise felt awkward going into the closet and finding some of her clothes still in it - and not covered in dust, either. Still, she had settled into a t-shirt and cotton shorts that she'd left behind, the ones that had always been her favorite, and Juice had changed into a pair of basketball shorts without a shirt. He had thrown the extra pillows off of the bed at Denise's request, and after some awkward, almost dance-like shuffling, they were both on the bed with Sofia squirming and giggling in between them in her pajamas.

Denise settled comfortably on her side with Sofia's bottle and directed Juice to pat the baby's hip gently and rhythmically. Sofia's squirming immediately calmed, and Denise immediately began humming a song that Juice recognized - vaguely at first, but he grinned widely when Denise began singing the words to their daughter as well. Eventually, he joined her in the chorus of what he found out was their daughter's favorite lullaby - Carry On My Wayward Son.

There was something strangely sweet about it, Denise's soft, feminine voice crooning the song softly to the baby as she drifted off to sleep.

"She snores like you," Juice joked quietly once Sofia had completely fallen asleep. Denise rolled her eyes with a lopsided grin. The pair laughed gently, and suddenly, Juice found himself, in this moment of fleeting contentment, unable to restrain himself from speaking up again. "I wanna be like this. A family," he said suddenly. "I wanna be like this all the time."

Denise smiled back distantly and, after a short hesitation, reached out and briefly placed her hand on top of Juice's, giving him a small squeeze before withdrawing. "Maybe soon," she said quietly.

It was probably for the best that Denise woke up before Juice the next morning and slinked away with Sofia into the living room to prep a bottle for her - falling asleep in the same bed was one thing, but waking up together was, strangely enough, something even more emotional. Those had always been the times that they'd felt the closest, the bleary-eyed, half-awake morning hours before getting up.

Sofia was having a particularly fussy morning, and Denise grimaced when she heard a knock on the door - she knew from experience, albeit long ago, that knocks on the door usually heralded cops, or club business. Rather than waking Juice, however, she moved to answer the door herself.

"Chibs."

She blinked incredulously as she opened the door, greeted by the sight of Chibs Telford, covered in what looked like blood. Denise instinctively turned her daughter away from him so not to look at him before nodding for him to go inside.

"Juice is sleeping, what the h-e-l-l happened?" Denise asked - Chibs chuckled slightly at the fact that Denise actually spelled out the more delicate language while her daughter was around. Before Sofia, Chibs knew that Denise was capable of cursing it up with the best of them.

"It's not as bad as you're thinking," he explained. "Just sending Althea a message from the club. Jax just gave me a -"

"A test," Denise supplied knowingly. "Jesus Christ."

"You're starting to sound like him," Chibs pointed out. "Not sure if that's a good sign, lass."

"Did you -"

"I didn't hurt her - just wrecked her house -"

"So her furniture bled all over you?" Denise asked, her eyes narrowed as she covered her daughter's ears. Chibs, for the first time, truly saw the distaste she held for him in her expression.

"Rush."

"Excuse me?"

"Her dog, Rush," Chibs explained, his gaze downcast. "Good dog. Protective of his master - he knew there was an intruder and..."

Denise inhaled sharply through her nostrils, shaking her head. She felt on some level that she shouldn't have been relieved that no people had been hurt, but at the same time, any unnecessary lives lost were hurtful. She sat down on the couch with Sofia, bouncing her gently. But, even more than that, she was disappointed in Jax. She thought she had talked him out of vengeance. While this was a far cry from the vengeance he would have once demanded against Jarry, and a far less difficult test of loyalty for Chibs to simply break into a home and vandalize it, she thought she had talked him out of it.

"You should get cleaned up," Denise said shortly, unable to look at the older man. He wordlessly complied, but soon came out to join her again, sitting down on the armchair across from her.

For the first time, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, making eye contact with the younger woman. "You hate me, lass. I can see it."

"Not anymore," Denise replied simply, holding her daughter a little more closely nonetheless. "But I did. There was a while where I was pretty sure you had ripped my family apart -"

"You made that decision," Chibs pointed out. "You decided to leave."

"You decided to break off from SAMCRO," Denise retorted. "So unless you're about to defend that decision and say that you were right to do it, don't start with me, Chibs."

He chuckled - she still had the same fire to her. Perhaps even more, he realized, now that she was a mother. It dawned on him just how brave the girl was - the fact that she was here in Juice's house was proof enough that she still wanted to be around him, and she had given that up for the sake of her daughter. Because of his poor decision. And then, the instant there was trouble, she had been the one to come back with solutions.

"Thank you," he said in a barely audible voice, looking down at his shoes. Denise stiffened, and before she could reply, Chibs held up his hand. "I know you didn't do it for me - getting me out of jail, setting up the meeting with Jackson. I know you did it for Juice, because he asked it of you. But thank you all the same."

Denise nodded silently, the quiet punctuated only by Sofia's babbling. It was possibly even more surreal finding peace with Chibs than it was reconciling with Juice because with Juice, Denise knew that a part of her had always expected it. She had never expected Chibs to extend an olive branch, even something as small as a 'thank you'.

"I love Jackson. He's my brother," Chibs spoke up suddenly, his gaze fierce. "But lovin' someone doesn't make you a saint. It's not some kind of magic that turns you sinless."

"I know that."

"I'm not sure you do," Chibs interrupted. "Juice loves you. Be forgivin' with him, aye?"

"He and I are good. We're fine," Denise said, her eyes narrowing slightly at the direction of the conversation. "You don't need to-"

"He wants you in his life. He'll screw up time and time again, it's what he does," Chibs continued. "But he will always love you. Always want to get right with you. We had you to help rebuild the bridge between Jax and I. But the boy has no one to help him rebuild that bridge with you. He's doing what he can. Don't make him do penance for my sins, lass."

If Juice had been worried that Denise and his daughter would fade away again, that the one moment of happiness was merely a fluke, those worries were quickly alleviated. Whether because of Chibs' advice or not, Denise started coming through Charming on the weekends fairly regularly, even leaving Sofia with Juice from time to time when she had photoshoots that brought her through town. Once, she had even brought by a framed photo of Sofia at Juice's request that he kept on the shelf in his living room. Eventually, he vowed, he'd have a picture with them both - with his wife and his daughter, all of them together.

While Juice was quickly growing closer and closer to his daughter, however, Denise still kept an amiable distance from him - the occasional fleeting glance that Juice knew well enough how to interpret, sure, but always keeping distance.

One evening after a particularly long wedding shoot in Modesto, she came back to pick up Sofia - she had expected to perhaps see Jax there, because since Juice had Sofia, Jax had decided to leave the boys there for the day so that Juice could play nanny rather than accompany them on a run. When she saw that a formidable number of bikes were parked outside, however, she felt her body tense up. The entire club was there.

Denise, glad that she'd worn sensible shoes that day, practically sprinted up the steps and in the unlocked door, glancing around the room at the familiar faces, many of which she hadn't seen in many months as well.

"What's going on?" she asked, feeling her chest sag in relief when she saw Juice holding their daughter, who was happy and fidgety as ever. "What's everyone doing here?"

"It's Unser," Jax said gruffly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "He's been MIA for about two weeks now - we just found out he checked himself into a hospital. St. Rose's in Hayward where nobody was gonna find him... he's gone."

Denise let out a small gasp, clapping her hand over her mouth. "The... the cancer?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. Wayne Unser had just been so resilient, they'd nearly forgotten he was sick at all. "Oh my god..."

"He didn't want anyone knowin'... didn't want anyone to see him go," Jax said, shaking his head. This, Denise realized, explained all of the grim faces. She shut the door behind her and leaned back against it, letting out a breath and processing the news before a realization dawned on her.

"I... I'm gonna need to tell Gemma," she said carefully, mentioning the woman in front of Jax for the first time. "She's gonna wanna know -"

"I don't really care what she wants," Jax said shortly. Abel was sleeping on the couch, and just the small boy's presence was reason enough to keep him from saying exactly what he thought of the idea. Denise, however, pursed her lips and exhaled through her nostrils.

"Jax, this isn't about you," she said gently. "He cared about her too. He'd want her there."

"Well, I don't."

"Then at your funeral, you can make that call," Denise hissed, her eyes narrowed in challenge though her voice didn't jump the slightest in volume. "This isn't about you, Jax."

Jax's expression was stony and blank for a moment before resignation set in, and he shook his head with a sigh. Another point for the Chinadoll. "Okay," he said throatily. "I'll let you know the details. For the funeral and everything, okay? You deal with this. You should get going, it's gettin' late."

"I..." Denise cleared her throat. "I actually was going to head back... in the morning..."

Jax's eyebrows rose in slight surprise as he processed the statement - Denise was staying here. "Do I wanna touch that one?"

"Not with a ten-foot pole," Denise said with a vague smile, walking over and collecting Sofia from Juice's arms. "But you all look exhausted. Maybe you're the ones who should get going."

"Yeah," Jax shrugged. "Yeah, you're right." He walked over and kissed the side of Sofia's head, muttering, "Bye, princess."

Again, Juice felt his hackles raise at the fact that Jax called his daughter 'princess' - of course, he would be close to the girl. Sofia had known Uncle Jackie for longer than she'd known Daddy, and whether Juice liked it or not, he would never push someone out of his daughter's life who genuinely cared about her. That didn't mean, however, that he had to be happy about it. Chibs shot Juice a pointed glance, however, and leaned over to mutter in his ear before following the rest of the men out the door, "Not the time, boyo. Not the time."

And indeed, Juice was content to let this one slide for the time being, because he was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth - it was fairly miraculous enough that Denise from time to time actually came back with his daughter, stayed the night, sometimes even in the same bed. He wanted so badly to touch her, to hold her like he used to, but he felt secure simply having faith that such things would come in time.

Tonight in particular, Denise looked particularly perturbed by Wayne Unser's death after everyone had left. She sat with Sofia on her lap while Juice sat in the armchair across from her.

Denise had never been particularly close with Unser, but their limited interactions had always been amiable - Unser had always said that Denise was refreshing to be around because she simply wasn't as much trouble as the boys of SAMCRO and the women that usually came with them. She was young and simple, and in what turned out to be the twilight years of his life, it was probably what the former sheriff needed. Maybe, she mused to herself, she should have been around more.

"I guess... I should call Gemma," she said gently after a short while, during which she had shifted so she was lying down on the sofa and Sofia was nestled warmly onto her chest. Juice gave a silent nod, and moved over to pick up their daughter without waking her, but in the process, the sides of his knuckles brushed gently across Denise's collarbone. She gave a small gulp, and Juice struggled to keep from reacting.

It wasn't until he had scooped up Sofia and turned to walk off towards the bedroom, away from Denise, that he allowed a small smile to cross his face, knowing that he still had some kind of effect on her.

A/N's

So, this chapter was a little all over the place, but I hope you guys didn't get yanked around too much. Please don't hate me for what happened to Unser! It's probably a very unorthodox story choice, I haven't seen a lot of "Unser dies" storylines. But please stick with me on this one! I know character death is a very touchy topic for a lot of people. But, just hold on tight and stay on the ride.

I also want to thank my reviewers, of course, and all my readers for sticking with me, even with my unreliable updating schedule. I've been doing a little bit of publicity work for my original fiction work as well, but I won't do shameless plugging here. Just wanted to make some excuses for where my time has been lately!

Anyway, stick around for the ride, I promise it's going to be worth it! Cheers!