He'd come to wait for it in the middle of the night. Because it had happened most every night since she'd settled a saving bullet six inches from his temple and lately she'd been too tired to fight over who got to fall asleep first. She'd find a way to puzzle piece them together in the center of her now familiar mattress, twining every bit of muscle so that when she startled herself awake from the nightmares he watched sift along her sleeping features, he was the one so inextricably wrapped around her. He was the one she gave the bad dreams to for safe keeping. And he wasn't so sure he could keep on carrying nightmares for the both of them. He had plenty of his own to shoulder without her gifting hers on him so innocently.

And the startled snap of her toned up body on his was the end of him carrying the double weight of guilt. She needed to shoulder her own in this and he was ready to settle it down on her. If she was going to be so assertively bold in claiming him as something she planned on keeping, then she'd have to have fortitude enough to keep on claiming. He wasn't about to let her go weakened on it. Not when he knew she could be methodical and conniving and confident in taking what she wanted. If she was out to own anything, she was damn well going to be sure and strong in it. She had to be in this place. Or they were both well and truly fucked.

"The first boy I killed was raised on the Strule. County Tyrone." He made sure that his jaw was angled up against the way she was burying her face against his throat, avoiding her eyes as his voice hummed quiet against her.

"Why are you telling me this?" she didn't move at first and he appreciated the very fact that as she tried to settle her breathing, she didn't try to look at him.

Because he wasn't sure he could tell her if she was looking right directly at him.

"He was a constable."

Her body startled again but this time she was in complete control of her shifting and she shunted her palm directly into the center of his chest, her shoulders stretching back even as their legs stayed tightly tangle between each other's. He left his hand curled up under her shirt but closed his fingers into his palm, the side of his fist pressing heat directly beneath her breasts to keep them blocked apart. The searching contempt on her face was sleep muddled but sharp enough to tell him that she was furious – so angry that he would deliberately break the peace between them. So betrayed by the reality of what they were versus what they wanted.

"Why would you tell me that?" Sadness cradled into her tone, eyes muddying up as she shook her head against the pillow. He hadn't realized her hand had been wrapped completely against his forearm until she loosened it from skin and wiped palm sweated confusion over her features.

"Because y'seem to think that killing a cop is beyond redemption for you." Chibs let his head lay sidelong on the corner of the pillow she'd allowed him in sleep, twining his voice softer and intentionally more patient as he saw realization discolor her eyes.

"I am a cop." Ally shunted off, intentionally rolling away from him and onto her back, forcing him to disengage most every touch, save for the fact she left one calf pressed tightly between his.

He'd expected that move much sooner and good on her for the waiting.

Self righteous, indignant, and all angry muscle under sweetened skin.

He wasn't about to let it go without levering her glance back to him, his fingers clipping at her jaw and jerking her angry eyes back his way. "And y'did your duty. Stop thrashin' yourself up about it."

"Filip"

"Dulane was a shit cop." He nodded tightly into his heavily accented argument, his face nearing hers in the leftover scent of mid-nightmares, "And that boy I killed was Ulster through and through, Ally. He was shit too."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She shook off his argument but blinked into the way he slanted a glare of disbelief over her, "Don't act like it didn't have an affect on you."

"Damn near lost my mind."

"Then don't be a hypocrite." There was a defensive petulance in her tone as she scrabbled her body up and back against the wall, spine angling against the low headboard so that she could draw her knees into wrapping arms.

"Me bein' a hypocrite?" he studied the drawn bend of her legs as a wry smile of defensive weariness waned his lips. "Christ, woman… You're takin' the prize."

Her silent glare gave him the time he needed to shake his head into patience, breathing in through his nose while his hand lifted, a fingertip tracing down a pronounced shin bone.

"We're evening up, love. Finding middle ground." Filip lifted his glance as he let his palm wrap her ankle, watching the way she stared straight ahead into his assertion. "You can hate it much as you like but it's coming round and you need to find your peace or it'll get one of us buried. It doesn't matter that he was a shit cop, because he wasn't a good man in total. He was sick and twisted up and a junkie, Ally. You did that boy a service."

He watched her suck against her teeth and she shook her head slowly back and forth, her cheekbones awfully pronounced in the shadowed light from the bathroom. "I cannot believe that, of all people, you're going to judge a man good or bad."

"Me of all people?" his fist reflexively curled tighter on her ankle.

"You're a murderer." That strength that had been in her eyes hours earlier, that crystalline clear knowing he'd found on her – it was glinting true again.

It was laying low an unfortunate truth between them.

At least she'd finally dropped it ugly bare between them.

Because it'd been cancerous dark for long enough.

"Aye." Contempt in the face of reality bred a feral smile to his lips and it laid his scars heavier than she'd seen them since he'd near killed a man in front of her. "And so are you, darlin'."

He truly didn't enjoy making her hurt.

But the distasteful cost of their balance had finally been paid.

"And that's the real problem here, yeah?" He whispered the question as he shifted himself up, dragging a palm against her leg as he angled sharply up into her side and leaned the truth on her ear so that she couldn't avoid facing it anymore. "Because y'could have shot that boy in the head in the middle of the sunny street if it hadn't been for me. But you did it for me. So it was in the dark and it was dirty and it brought you down to my level."

Ally shook her head tightly, eyes still centered forward and away from him, "I've never - "

"At least down here, where I live, we're fuckin' honest with ourselves about who we are."

"Bullshit." Her shoulder shunted up and away from his leaning, her body angling toward the edge of the bed as she pulled from his touch and put space between them, her shoulders tensed and legs dropped. "None of you are honest with yourselves. Or each other. You and I trade little lies all day long but it's Teller who deceives your loyalty."

"Don't you dare." His voice caved into a threatening drag of disdain and it just barely preceded the hedging of his fingers braced on the back of her neck, hair pressed warm between skin and palm.

"Why?" She leaned back into the pull of his palm, letting him jerk her into his chest as he pressed up and forward, blankly repeating his question back, "Because that's the real problem here, yeah?"

"You know nothing." Telford's voice was a slaying hiss along her ear and it tingled a rise of both fear and unexplainable faith along her spine. "I tell you nothing."

She'd expected more anger, more force for the proverbial slap she'd given this time.

She'd temporarily, and stupidly, forgotten that his internal control was always in the shifting of his hands.

"You can't lie to me while you're fucking me, Filip. Not while you're inside me." Ally finally turned her head into meeting his eyes and found them blanked so dark that she could only see the light of reflection in them. "But he screws you over and over again. He gets in your head and twists you up. Who's the good man now?"

The usually pretty angles of her face were downright mutinous. And drawing desperate.

"You're jealous of the boy." He surmised slowly, watching her eyes widen up as he spoke, his jaw angled so that he could crown over her, hand still braced on her neck to down her rebellion.

"You're goddamn right I am." The threat of truthful tears on her was the only thing that could have loosened his hand the way it did, and she damn well knew it too. "You will always choose him. You love him."

"I do." He admitted with a grace that she hadn't expected, his eyes finally showing some softer color as he shook his head, "You gonna let that be what breaks us, Althea? When we could have a chance to make something out of this?"

"I don't know."

"Gutless." Filip leveled his whisper so tightly along her ear that it terrified her more than the weight of his hand at her head, "You're puttin' the match to the powder keg, love. It's not on me. Y'don't search out the things that crash and burn. Y'light the fires yourself just to watch 'em go."

Her shoulders didn't flinch into the accusation and she didn't make a movement to argue with his assumption. And that writhed more anger on him. Because she should have wanted to fight back on that, and it made him too true nervous that she didn't.

"Coward." He hissed into the back of her head.

"I'm a coward, Vice President?" The snapped up anger of her answer was clear in the sudden sharp angling of her jaw back in his direction and he watched it glow on her pale skin like kindling taking light, giving him the response he'd wanted. "You can't even bring yourself to corral the man you love like a son while he burns up your entire fucking world."

"Too far, Althea." His hand was a righteous warning against her words, suddenly gripping so tightly into her hair that she bit down into the tweak of pain in her scalp as her head levered back.

But she let him drag her head back. Let him jerk his frustration and fury into the darkness of her hair. Because then, at least, he still hadn't let go. He was just digging in tighter and somehow hooking closer. And she could make that be enough for awhile. She could hold onto that tether until this came back around again.

"Too true, Filip." She whispered a finality back him as she angled her head into the way he'd prized her hair in his fisted fingers. "He's gonna make you choose, Scotty. Not me."

"Ally." The shunting of her name down her collarbone should have made her stop but he'd once told her that she had no compass for bad ideas. And she'd steer straight into this one if it could force some ounce of truth between them.

"Not me. That's your answer." She told him tightly. "When he makes you decide. It's not me."

"Stop."

She didn't know that he'd ever begged for anything from her. But it almost sounded like he was.

"Please, Cu Sith?" Had he not known that his good mood was going to nosedive into a bloody mountain? "Just stop."

"But I chose you, Telford." Her head laid into his slowly and he was wrackingly surprised by the slow movement, forehead driving tighter down on her shoulder. "So I guess it really doesn't matter."

"Chibs know you're here, Lieutenant?"

"No." Ally shook her head slowly, letting her eyes drift along the way he had a sleeping toddler cradled into his bare shoulder as he held the door wedged half open. "He doesn't."

"Shouldn't he?" Teller asked into an intentionally darkened accusation.

"No." Ally let her eyes drift back over the boy with a softness. "He shouldn't."

Jax nodded slowly into a layer of understanding that made his eyes wiser, "This… it's been brewin' for awhile, here."

"I know." She nodded as exhaled and let her shoulders drop, turning out every inch of defensive posture from her body, intentionally loosening as she looked over his face. "I just… we need to talk. Just talk. No power trips. No bullshit, Teller."

"Yeah." He finally stepped back to let the door swing wider. "Not yet, though. Lemme see if Wendy can watch the boys."

"I can wait." She nodded into agreement, letting her arms curl against the tank she was wearing.

"You can come in." he cocked her a disdainful glance from a step down the hall. "I'm not gonna threaten you in front of my kids, Jarry."