So as always, I don't own the SOA characters, not do I make money from this story, they belong to Kurt Sutter. Esther, Everett and Jack belong to me.

-Happy!

He tossed a fist, it connected, to what and whose he could not tell, but it connected to flesh. What asshole dared waking him up during such a delicious dream?

-Jesus hell, brother?
-Sorry, Jax.
-You've been sleeping for fifteen hours. Montez thought you might be dead, but then you pitched a circus tent.
-I was dreaming.
-Obviously.
-Of the time Esther and I set Neptune Inn on fire.

The guys laugh as he tosses to his side, he isn't in the van anymore. His ribs hurt, but not too badly, he can't open his eyes, but it really doesn't hurt as bad anymore. he's gentle in reaching to touch, it's been set back in place. Why did they have to wake him? They couldn't wait eight minutes and a half for him to continue his dream, and wake him up just before the cops showed up to arrest them both for public indecency?

He has a sigh, rises his arm up and holds out his hand, it's Ben's voice he hears.

-What you need, brother?
-Ice.

A bag of crushed ice, or maybe peas ends up in his hand, he presses it against his face, this feels so good. The guys leave him alone, and it gives him time to process. Process every word she said, every gesture she had. Every telling look she gave him.

The most obvious was that she was neck deep in financial trouble. It bothered him that even then, she is still taking care of his mother in Bakersfield. And she is obviously trying to do right by their kid, because even at 32 years old, she still has a rocking body from what he could tell, and there was no doubt in him mind she could still work a pole, and make a ton of money from it. But she had been that kid with the stripper mom, and she had been teased relentlessly growing up. Right now, she was still trying to establish herself as legit.

And he had just helped trash her living room in true Sons of Anarchy style.

-Jax?
-What, brother?
-Find Esther. Give her money. A couple thousand.
-You know she ain't gonna take any money from the club.
-Force her. She's got my kid and I wrecked her living room.
-Ok. I'm going now.
-Thanks, brother.

He hears Jax walking away, before dissecting the next thing on his mind. Esther's interactions with her husband. The softness of her voice when she would speak to him, and that little face she had made, when she had rested her chin on her shoulder when he stood behind her. There was something, there. Something genuine between them. But the fervor she had put into the kiss he had given her had nothing to do with a goodbye forever kiss. It was identical to the kiss that always lead to steamy make-up sex after they went at each other's throats. Did her husband see it? If so, did he say anything? Did she hop on his dick for the make-up sex part? The idea that she did hurt.

And his daughter. He hadn't seen her but her shadow as Esther's husband had brought her back to her room, but she had a gravelly little voice, not the clear voice of eight year old kids he'd ever heard before. She was gorgeous. And she was mixed really well, in terms of looking like the both of them, from the few pictures he'd seen. She has his nose, her cheeks, his eyes, her eyebrows and forehead. And now, she had his voice.

Esther had his gun, but didn't shoot him. Why? She had opened fire on him on three different occasions, in the past, why not now? Because he was already down on his back? Nonsense. When he had cheated on her, three year into their relationship, she had barged in the clubhouse dorm he was sleeping in with Ima Tite wrapped all around him, and she had not only shot her in the ass, Ima, but him, too. Each a nice bullet in the left ass cheek, a little something to remember her by. Was it because her kids were up? It surely wasn't because Jax had his own gun at her, that crap has never put the fear into her. She wasn't scared of Jax then, and there's no way she's scared of Jax now.

There was history between the two of them. Fifteen years of history. She was seventeen, then he first met her. Nineteen when he put a crow on it. Never quite cared about being sixteen years older than her, she'd always been special. They had went to get married in Vegas, for his thirty-fifth birthday. They were pretty drunk by the end of the ceremony, but her words had been clear, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Just the two of them, in Charming, with him in Samcro, and her bring a stripper for as long as she possibly could.

But now they weren't two. She was two and he was alone, she wasn't a stripper in Charming, and he had just gotten out of jail, today he'd probably receive his Nevada rockers.

It was Clay's fault. All of it was Clay's fault. Had it not been for his last arrest, he has the conviction that she would still be there. With him. In Charming. But Clay had been a loose cannon, a paranoid one, for a valid reason, yes, it had been the plan to push him out of the president's chair in favor of Jax, who was younger, maybe not smarter, Jax was very impulsive, but Jax cared a lot more about the club as a whole. Redwood Original was not a mean for Jax to line his pockets with cash and use the club members to justify his personal vendettas.

-Poor baby. What happened to him?

Happy can't help the smirk that pops on his lips. Gemma Teller-Morrow. The Queen of hearts. So he was back in Nevada, already? Made some sense, if Jax had slept a few hour and went back to get his bike, Ben had probably drove the van back to Indian Hills. He was already sleeping in there. But how did they manage to set his nose and bring him back to the clubhouse without waking him up? He'd probably never know.

-Esther.
-What's that, baby?
-I went to see Esther.
-Why would you want to see that crazy gash? She was never any good to you.

Really? No one ever told Gemma? He knows he had asked Tig, Chibs and Jax not to tell her, they were the only three he had told, but he had expected one of them to babble. And Gemma was wrong. Esther, even if she was indeed a crazy gash, was good to him. For him. She always had been. She kept him even, for six whole years before he went to jail. He had dated a ton of women before her, but she had been the only one to have been long term. Because she got it. He knew it wasn't easy to sit there, and listen to him ramble on about the sick things he sometimes had to do for the club. It couldn't be easy. And as pathetic as it was, he was man enough to admit that he could not do this life alone. It had taken him this long to find a girl that not only would sit there and listen, and mostly manage a straight face, but would not have the first reaction to go to the cops. And Esther wasn't so messed up in the head that his confessions would actually turn her on.

Then again, no one was ever good enough for any of Gemma's boys. Wendy wasn't good enough for Jax, Brooke wasn't good enough for Rat, and Esther had never been good enough for him. And Gemma was like a weathercock, most of the time, she hated any female competition, but the girls had to be there to help and pick up the slack, and when they did something very good, then she told them she loves them.

Esther tough she genuinely hated. Because Esther was not weak. And Esther rarely fell for Gemma's manipulations. But Esther for some reason really liked Gemma. She would never aspire to be like Gemma, but she had a lot of respect for the woman

-When I got locked up, she...
-She helped Clay set you up. Why else would she vanish like that?
-I sent her away.
-You what?
-She was pregnant. I sent her away.

A total lie, but his eyes were covered with the bag of peas, she couldn't call him on his bluff. She has a scoff, she could not believe this. The smile played on his lips longer, lying to Gemma was incredibly easy, when you didn't have to look at her.

-I went to see her, and she welcomed me home like none of my exes ever did. You know how she gets, Gem. Not a phone call for nine years, and I couldn't even send cash.
-Why did you not tell me, you fucking moron?

He chuckled from the sharp slap behind his head, he had pissed her off, she was a mama hen like that.

-I would have set her up in a nice place, and helped her with the baby. You both knew that. What is wrong with the two of you?

And she would have found Esther a place to work, and a car to drive a lot nicer than her Honda, and she would have babysat Everett anytime Esther would have needed, and she would have taken care of the bills, and Esther would have no control over her own life, or her own child, because with Gemma, it would belong to the club. That was most likely one of the reasons Esther had left for LA. That baby was theirs, hers and Happy, not the club's. LA was still California, but it was far from Gemma's and the MC's claws.

And as he had expected, no apology from Gemma for having said that Esther had set the lot of them up along with Clay. That woman was dense, sometimes, not looking at the big picture because she was so busy micro-managing everyone. If Esther had set them up, she would have needed whatever protection Clay could have offered her. She would still be in Charming. And Happy's daughter would be calling Clay daddy.

Ew, right? Haha! Review!