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A/N: People just don't seem to remember things in the past in any sort of order, oh, there may be bits that string together, but for the most part, it's a sight, a sound or a smell that sets off the memories. Sometimes it's that flash as you turn a corner, or turn around, that little glimpse of something you can't quite explain. So indulge me, just read along and let events come into your mind in bits n bobs...and remember with Leann, It's fun...trust me.

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST, OR MAYBE I SHOULD GO BACK TO BEATING HOOKERS

Coffee, I smell the most amazing smell of coffee! I must be dreaming, nope, it's still there. "Leann, wake up doll, we gots to talk about." Said a voice I dimly remembered from the past.

No way my brain screamed! Tig, he's as dead as all the others. I still refused to open my eyes. Again, I hear."Wake up!" "OK!, Fuck I'm up!" I say as I sit up in bed.

Wait, is that Tig? I ask myself as I try to rid my brain of the fog that sometimes descends on me at the oddest time.

I remembered I was sitting on my bike last night and a truck pulled into the lot. The man in the truck never got out just turned around and drove away. I didn't think much of it at the time.

Wow, how could I have forgotten, Tig was still alive, he was in prison when all the shit went down, doin 15 years. So he could be out by now. Apparently my brain was in dire need of the coffee which was next on my list, right after the bathroom!

Finding the floor and looking around, I find that here, in this house, I miss him deeply, the most I have in years. I miss that tattooed arm that would keep in the bed just a minute longer, just so he could feel me squirm to get away, because I had to pee, like he did every morning he was with me. Seems to be quite a bit more than I have the past couple of years.

With a heavy sigh, I trudge on in the bathroom and take care of my morning business, decide I don't look too bad anyway.

Then It it hit me.

Tig woke me up.

Why did Tig wake me up?

And just what the fuck, it's my fucking house fucker, and just how the fuck did he get in here anyway!

I mentally grouse to myself.

But then again, I remind myself, it is Tig and Tigger always had one up his sleeve, It almost makes me grin to think there is someone else left.

I still to this day sleep in old samcro shirts, now they are all soft and comfortable. Not the vibrant blue they once were. But I love the few I have left and sometimes it's a little bit of comfort to pull one over my head. It makes it all bearable, some nights.

There was a time in the beginning of this ending that I simply could not sleep. So I told myself lies. He's out on a long run, everything is fine, just wait, you'll be cussing his ass out at 3 am.

Then I could drift off.

Sometimes that was a bad idea.

Sleep can be a dangerous thing.

It might just be better to stay up, rather than to wake up screaming because of the dreams, the nightmares. It took me almost two years to not want to scream when I heard the sound of a vehicle slamming on the skids and locking it up. The smell alone would be in my nose for days. Making me want to just throw up and get it over with.

He was gone out of the bedroom, so I snagged the still warm cup and my smokes and head on down the hall to the kitchen.

"What the hell Tiggy, why are you here?" I ask as I come in the kitchen. I stop and take a good look. His hair is all gray now, gone are the dark crazy locks he once sported, but mine has plenty of gray in there now too. He had both hands on the counter by the sink, his knuckles were white, he was gripping the edge so hard and just glaring out the back kitchen window.

"Where the fuck have you been." He asked me.

"Well, that's a long story and will sure as hell gonna more than just coffee to get me to go there. I think there should be several well aged bottles of jack under the sink, pull us a good one out and let's head outside, it's way too crowded in here to even begin this shit." I say as I grab a couple of glasses as I head out the back door.

"Ya, some days it is. Way too crowded for sure," I could hear him mutter as he shook his head, to himself as I went out the door.

The sun was warm and not too hot yet, the spring was always my favorite time of year here. Not so much neighborhood noise, it was real quiet now. Not the way it was back in the day. No dogs barking, no traffic sounds, Charming was slowly turning into a ghost along with everything I ever loved.

It was so very sad to see the shape the place was in. Everything was so hugely overgrown, all crazy from the rains of the past years, uncared for and just plain a mess. We worked so hard on this place, Me and Hap, improving things year after year. Building the deck, the shed, adding on to the garage. The fence was an adventure, He had sent the two new prospects to put it up. A huge mistake! Neither one of them had ever put up a fence. They got into a fist fight over it. After they had beat on each other long enough, they finally tried to put it up. How they got a zig zag pattern out of what should have been a straight line I will never figure out!

When Hap and Tig got here to inspect the job, it cracked me up! I watched from the kitchen window, as they tore into those poor guys!

Hell!, they were just city kids. I doubt they had ever had anything to do with a yard, let alone ever build anything. So the guys made them take it all apart, constantly on their asses, yelling about how stupid they were and that they would have to go and replace any boards they fucked up. They had them out there pounding all the nails strait, way into the night, those poor fuckers didn't get the fact that there was a big box of nails, and it was highly unlikely that even a quarter of them would be used on the dam fence. All the while Hap and Tig sat in lawn chairs and drank beers.

It was not until the next day that my fence was up. They made the prospects stay right there with them the whole time, and watch as the two of them put up that fence. Having them fetch and carry everything. But as I watched the way they treated them, I'd come to see they weren't being near as nasty to them today, as they had been yesterday. This day was a lesson, one of many I saw them pass along to up and coming brothers. It's just how it was done. Tear them a new asshole, then turn around and show them the right way to do what ever it was.

And the dreaded clothes line, that silly thing caused so many fights! He hated clothes lines, something about haulin ass through a back yard and getting tangled up in one. Said I should just use the dryer like everyone else, But when I changed the sheets I could hear him inhale the smell of outside off line sheets, when he got into bed. So after I noticed him doing that, I made sure to always have fresh off the line sheets on the bed. Just because he liked the smell so much. Years later he told me he always liked comin home n sleeping in that smell. All those years, and he never said shit about the fact his Mom always hung clothes on the line.

So I guess he just let me win on that one, sneaky fucker!

The old me, would have been on the phone asking for suggestions from the queen as to what she would do with this mess, but the me that I am now, just parked my ass on the steps and took a welcome sip of now getting lukewarm coffee, as I set down the glasses I'd brought out with me, as I let the sun do its job and help wake me up. Then I could hear Tig's footsteps as he came up behind me.

Was a time I would have had to turn and keep an eye on his crazy ass, you just never knew what his friggin sicko mind might come up with back in the day.

As he eased himself to sit down beside me, I could tell that the one knee had never healed right, it was part of why he lost his vote at the table. Can't ride, Can't vote. I remembered what happened to that knee. It was when Tig had made the last major fuck up, and it was just plain stupid. As usual, he acted before he had all the facts, took off all hot headed yet again and this last time it helped to bring on the end of this life for us all.

Not to mention that he got fifteen years in Stockton for a weapons charge that nothing to do with the club and everything to do with his temper, it could have easily been a garage full of twenty five to life for the whole reaper crew. There was no getting out of this one, no deals to be made, no just do the time and stay whole, not this time. But in true Tiggy fashion, he just couldn't stay out of trouble even in prison. He managed to piss off enough people in Stockton that his protection was almost non-existent. This time they went after him and broke both his legs, so he could never ride anything, ever again. And by the time he got out, it was all over and done with anyway.

At that point he had enough of the alternate universe that this charming place seemed to exist in for the last 50 odd years. In what may have been the smartest thing Tig ever did, he walked away from this life. And just slipped off the radar, I hadn't heard from him or anything about him in years, I just always kind of figured he had met the same fate as all the others. I didn't know for sure until today, if he was alive or dead too.

He poured us a healthy shot and we sat and drank in silence. "I don't do this much anymore." As he tipped his glass toward me. "Meds I was takin didn't mix well, just made me sleepy, but I been off them a while now and man! I sure did miss the burn!" He said with his old grin back in place. And then he refilled our glasses.

He slung an arm over my shoulders, leaned in and said, "I thought I was seeing ghosts again, needed to go back on my crazy pills n shit, when I saw you sittin on them steps, so I turned around n got the hell outta there!. Figured I'd better start taking that shit again if I was seeing more dead people.

I drove all the way back out to the cabin, and when I got there I just sat on the steps for a bit. Thinking over what I'd just seen back at the old lot, then it hit me. It was a real relief when I finally got it.

You looked older, not dead and all shadow lookin like the others I see. You stayed there when I looked back, cause most times when I look again, there ain't nothing there, ya know?" He asked me.

I just nodded my head, because I did understand the guys were still all here. That in some whacked out way they were all tied to this place, I guess I was too.

"So when I came back later with a flashlight and there were the little freaky boot prints you left, so I knew you were real. You are the only one with them little freaky alien feet!" He said as he pointed to my feet.

"So I came here and there was a strange bike in the garage. The same one I had seen you sittin on earlier today. I had to sit out there some, so many memories in that room. It's almost as if, well, I know this might sound crazy, hell it is crazy. But I been seeing ghosts since I got out, what some seven years ago now."

He turned more toward me and looked into my eyes as he said. "Brothers long dead, from way back before I ever laid eyes on you. All the way back to the war, and even bloody 92. Hell, sometimes I can even hear Missy's nails on the wood floors, but I know she ain't there either. Fuck nobody is ever there, I'm always alone now.

It's almost like I can feel them just behind me, all the time and then I turn around and there's just nothing there. Just me, it can be fuckin creepy down here, that's why I don't come into town much anymore, I just stay up at the cabin.

Just so you know, Leann I don't get freaked out by them alien feet you got anymore, I just really glad you are real and here now."

All this was said to me with what I can only call cold detachment, he may have been looking at me, but it was more like through me, and his stiff back told the story I knew all too well from my own life. Alone, that's all I got now. I can't help but wonder why me, why was I the one left. But now I'm not alone, I'm with one of the craziest people I ever met in my whole life.

I grabbed his hand on my shoulder, laced my fingers in with his. We each gave a squeeze at the same time. I leaned my head over to the familiar shoulder, I missed the full smell of the leather, but there was a ghost of it," Where's the leather?" I asked.

"Up at the cabin, I don't wear it anywhere I can be seen, don't want to call any attention to me." He stated, and I got it, no one that survived those ugly bloody days wanted to draw anyone's eye.

"But I feel naked without it you know, so many years with the reaper on my back." I patted his hand and said," I know, I keep his, well, what's left of it for the very same reasons." We both just stopped and looked off into the distance and emptied the glasses yet again. This time I refilled them.

I could tell he was seeing the past just as I seem to always do. It's just the way it is now. "Ya know," he said. "It was the weirdest fucking thing when I got out and no one was there, ya know, like waitin like we always did on a brother gettin outta the slam, made it all real." Tig said in a far away voice, then he continued. "I guess in my mind, I just made up a story where everyone was in a different slam and I was just in Stockton alone.

Then shit got way too real when I walked down that last little bit of chain link fence and there was just no one there. I thought I'd lost my fuckin mind! Then I let the reality of the truth come and sink in and I knew just like I always had, everyone was just fuckin gone. Like dead n shit. Sorry doll." He said as he looked over at me.

"No," I said, "It's fine, my bad. I should have been there for you, I remember looking at the calendar the day before you got out and thinking I need to plan get to Stockton today, meet up with the others and head on out. Then it hit me all over again and I just couldn't move the that night or the whole next day. I came back to this world when I fell off the couch, early in the morning of the day after. Sometimes it just hits like that, you know?"

Tig just pulled me over a little closer and whispered, " I know doll, I know. I used to beat hookers when shit got too bad, can't even do that nowadays, ain't any left here anyways." He said with a crooked grin.

"Life has sure calmed down in comparison." I said as I thought about days gone by. I could see him nod next to me, but neither of us said much more for a little bit. Tig was never one to be quiet for very long, he always had to fill the silence with his own voice. Me, I liked the silence sometimes, other times like the past few days I needed the voices to be real for once. On this day I just needed to have an old crazy friend sittin on this old deck, drinking Jack before noon, talking over our past life.

As I sat there with his crazy man I had known for the better part of my life. I can't help but see flashes of his life from my view.

Tig, his head thrown back, a german shepherd licking his face, Miss,y her name was, the two of them asleep on the clubhouse couch. I remember taking a picture of them that morning.

Tig and Koz And Happy, always together, the triple threat we ladies used to call them. To see the three of them swagger across the lot, kings of their world and all they surveyed. When we would go on a run to a rally, they would constantly jockey for who was gonna be first in line as they were all of equal club status at that time.

Get to a rally or some bike show and off they would go three abreast, just seeing who they could intimidate with nothing more than a glare. Happy was the best at that one, with Tig a close second. Koz was not so great in the glare department, he was more the wink and flirt type.

They would make one circuit around the event, letting the whole place know that the Son's had arrived. Once that was done, they would come back to where we were waiting, Happy would hold my hand as we walked back through, he'd stop to show me things he thought I might like. Tig would be right there, sometimes holding the other hand, mostly just to piss off Hap.

I'd come back to the old place last night, the one place that was a constant in our lives other than the clubhouse, the little house we shared together for all those many years. It would always be home to me.

The one I rode away from quite a while ago. I'd had come back here after a day on the old lot where the clubhouse used to be. The life and times that surround and fill this small place has created a life of their own.

In the kitchen I can still remember the feeling when he would sneak up behind me and wrap me in his arms, and that always ended in table, counter or floor sex. My memories should make me blush, but now they only make me sad.

I remember each time I stood In the bar part of the clubhouse and looked in to see one of the guys I held so dear to me, laid out in a coffin on the reaper table. Each time it hurt just like the very first time. In the beginning, the very first MC funeral, I ever attended was at Olympia Washington charter. The guy's name was Switch, I asked later on after they were past the tight faces, whenever his name was mentioned, how did he come to get that name? Tig turned and gave me a hard look, and said " Fuckin fucker always had det cord, timers and detonators on him, wonder how he never got blowed up in all the shit we been in and to get fucking creamed by an old broad in an ugly ass green ford truck. Man, tha'ts just no way for a brother to go out ya know?"

Sometimes I only see the intense green of Washington, others I see the cedar box on the reaper table there. Every charter had the same table, it was the guys symbol of unity, It helped a brother that had changed charters due to whatever reason, to feel at home and remind him he is among brothers. Brothers always got your back, as you would cover any of them. It worked for the ole ladys too. We had our own club as it were. I never realized it at the time, but we did. We ran our part of our world, and the guys ran theirs. Like they say, love the man learn to love the club.

I have felt since the day I lost the love of my life, that each day has been a lesson in how to handle myself, to stop and appreciate these simple moments, to learn from the silence that is my world now. Know that being alone is not all that bad. You learn to keep your own counsel, learn when it's time to walk away, when it's better to just hold your ground no matter what.

I can still hear the things he would say to me, teaching me the things I needed to learn. He would take the time to point them out so I would remember, and learn to take care of myself.

I know now, he felt that the day would come that I would have to stand alone. I know he did try. They all did in their own way, They never treated me like a prospect. They all taught me with infinite patience. Showing or telling me over and over until I got whatever it was. For all these lessons I am eternally grateful.

Because without them I would not have survived one day, let alone these past years out in the world. Sometimes there is just too much damage to continue on the path you're on.

It just means you step back, take another look at things and do the best you can.

RICCO, that is a huge thing to have hanging over the club's head, over all our heads. It was always there, just at the edge of everything. It's just another thing you learn to live with, in this life. Like the blood, bullets, and the loss of good men.

Because at the end, we all die alone, it's just the way it is.