"You have to see all of him." Lyla's voice was a sympathetic softness as she shook her head, glance thrown forward blankly into the back yard that was full of bikes and toys and a swing set that stood high sentry. "You can't pick and choose the parts you like or dislike. He's all of it. The good and the bad."
"It's not just him." Ally matched the forward staring. "It's who I am. I shouldn't be where I am and some of them make that pretty clear."
"Gemma?" Lyla asked softly, her head turning as her fingers curled around her coffee cup on a snorted laugh. "She'll keep pushing at you just to find the line. It's not just about you being a cop. In her mind it's about her showing you your place if you plan on sticking around. She did the same thing to Tara. It didn't last forever."
"And Jax?" she questioned tightly to the side. "Just putting me in my place?"
Lyla shrugged up a slow agreement, "He is, in a way. Not kindly, I'll admit. But he's finding you a way to fit, whether it's comfortable or not. But do you really think that any of us are completely comfortable with this life?"
"Gemma seems pretty pleased with where she's sitting."
"Gemma's been through more shit than any of us." There was a quick shunt of defense in the younger woman's voice and Ally turned her glance toward a brash blue brightening the other woman's voice. "I'm not surprised she acts the way she does. Disappointed, but not surprised."
There was a breathing of resigned silence between them as Lyla took another swallow of coffee into a slow shrug.
"Ally, Gemma doesn't like you because you're the kind of woman that could take her place someday if you really went all in on this." Lyla finally dropped tightly between them. "But that's not her only worry. Her worry is that if you ever do, you'd do exactly what Tara did. You'd own it and him and not question yourself in doing so. And the fact that it's not Jax doesn't matter to her. Chibs is only one step down and one fuck up away from being the face of the club. And she's terrified it's your voice he's gonna hear, not hers."
"I don't know if I'm okay with caring about a man who would want to take a bullet for nothing but brotherhood or loyalty."
"Sorta like a cop might?" Lyla teased off in a quiet whispering before sipping her coffee, brow arched in subtle accusation.
Althea blinked quickly into the comment. "Damn."
"Yeah." The blonde nodded before turning her glance back out over the yard. "But that's not your real problem."
"No." she shook her head softly. "It's not."
"Because you have to see all of him. You have to find a way to accept all of him, Ally. They're not completely good or completely bad. They're just men." Lyla hushed off on a look that said she was still wearing a lot of a lot of pain on thin shoulders. "But then, I'm just a porn star. And you're kind of a bitch."
Ally snorted into a laugh as she shook her head on a smirk. "I know."
"And you're proud of it." Lyla added into humor. "Jesus. It works for you. And he likes it. Own it. Own him. Because that's all he's waiting for - he's waiting to see if you've got the balls for this. He can't trust you until he knows you can handle a hundred miles of bad road bullshit with a nod and a smile."
The phone sounding off inside the house broke the smirking way the blonde was angled toward her and Ally watched her dump the dregs of her coffee into the scrub grass beside the porch as she stood.
"Thank you." She offered softly as the other woman made a move to answer it.
"You're welcome."
"Hey," the blonde's voice was a soft tripping of caution behind her as Ally jerked the door handle open on the cruiser. "hang on."
"I have to get back to the station." She shook off, feeling slightly scrub worn by the entire conversation, her skin prickling with nerves and near embarrassment.
"That was Rat." Lyla's eyes carried a deeper blue than they had just a few moments before. "Gemma and I are pulling everybody in. We're gonna lock down Red Woody."
Ally flicked a hardening glance over her, "They on their way back yet?"
Confusion lifted Lyla's head a little. "You know where they are?"
She intentionally ignored the other woman's surprised realization that she had more information than she'd been fronting, "Are they on their way back?"
"Not for awhile, I don't think." Lyla answered. "He said we'd have a couple Nomads and that was it until another Charter got here. Keep everyone in house."
Ally nodded slowly as her fingers tightened on the door framing, "I can have my guys take some runs by the place. I'll keep them close."
"You should come when you're off." Lyla was nodding tightly as she stepped backwards toward the house. "Seriously."
"I really don't think that's a good idea." Ally shook it off. "Thanks, though."
"You should." There was a swift rebuttal of blue eyed frustration between them. "You may think you're badass, Ally, but they don't lock everyone down for no reason. And, frankly, you carry a gun. I wouldn't mind you having to use it if it was for my kids, ya know?"
She gave the woman an apologetic nod, feeling her face flush into understanding, "Yeah, okay."
"All in or not, Sheriff." Lyla told her with a sudden lack of patience as she headed for the front door. "You can't be both for long."
That long waiting headache had lost patience with her too, ripping up the nerves behind her eyes as she squinted into her office lighting, "You're gonna start in too, huh?"
Unser lifted his hands in a sort of helpless shrugging, his body leaned up back against one of the shelving units. "Hey, I just took a phone call, LT."
"From?" she asked sharply as her palm shunted the door closed.
"Told me to tell you that the deal you made with his dick supersedes both your shitty attitude and Jackson Teller." Even the ill looking paleness on him held a little humor.
Ally cocked her head slightly, letting her tongue ride her teeth as she exhaled a guarded relief between them, "That actually sounds about right. He okay?"
"And that you're spending the evening with the lovely ladies out at Red Woody."
"Wayne." She exhaled tightly.
"He's all right. I was told to expressly remind you about the dick part." The older man made a distinctly uncomfortable face, hand lifted between them to wave it off. "Which… is completely unnecessary and I'm pretty sure he was just doing it to squick me out."
She smirked into it reflexively, letting her body lay relaxed into the way she still had a flat palm pressed to the door, "I already told Lyla I'd go out there after shift."
"Yeah." He blinked on a slowly serious nod. "I'm gonna need you out there sooner than that. They've got three green Nomads on the place because they couldn't spare anybody else and it's gonna be a couple hours before Eureka or Reno can get here. Apparently, they fucked the time table. "
"Apparently." Her lungs blocked up in her chest as her other hand rested into her belt, "Wayne, when you and I are back-up for these jackasses, Teller really needs to start analyzing his leadership choices a little better."
The older man gave her a derisive snort, "Tell me about it. Maybe it should be brought to the attention of his second in command."
She rolled her eyes into his sarcasm, clipping her hand against the door handle but not opening it as she nodded, "And maybe you should shut the hell up and fake an illness so I can haul your ass out of here."
"The one I got ain't enough for you, Lieutenant?"
"Jesus Christ." Unser was watching her load the Ruger with widened eyes, his glance tipping to the full magazine and back up to her face. "Were you like this before you started sleeping with him?"
"Like what?" she asked blankly as she jacked the clip into the nine millimeter with a heeled palm, her hair pulled back in a pony tail and her uniform stripped off in exchange for jeans and a long sleeved shirt that was flush to skin.
The older man just shook his head slowly, "No wonder he's a walking woody around you."
Ally snorted a nearly silent laugh as she thumbed the safety and set the gun to the table, the Glock already settled in the holster she'd switched to a regular belt. "There's another one in the bathroom."
"Taped to the back of the toilet? I don't doubt it." Unser agreed with a knowing look over her face, any further comment stalled up by the chirping of his cell phone.
She watched him answer it, her lungs clinching as he just lifted the phone in her direction, his other hand aiming toward her fridge. "If you have beer in there, you're driving."
"That's helpful, Wayne." She chided as she took the phone and curled it between her ear and shoulder. "Hi."
"Two minutes, love." His voice was a weary rush of near on blatant appreciation. "Hi."
"You boys wanna come home now, please?" she turned away from the way the former Chief was already tugging a chilled brown bottle from her fridge, trying to keep her voice lightened as she listened to him inhale into the sound of her voice. "Because I'm about to become a security guard for a porn studio."
"Ally."
"And I'm really trying to be more open about this whole escort to porn thing but - "
"Althea." The rolling accented sigh of her name over the line caught up her shoulders as she leaned into the counter and dropped her glance to her boots.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, avoiding the way Unser was watching her as he took a hard swallow off the bottle.
"I'm fine." The assertion was shakier than she'd wanted it to be and it raked nerves raw and flared a branching of the headache she was still carrying. "I called the boys. They're expecting you. Shouldn't be a problem."
"You're bringing me back a souvenir or something from this trip, right?" she intentionally threaded a teasing through the words, keeping her voice humored soft to steady the balance.
He almost gave her a laugh but it died into a heaved sigh. "I'll figure out somethin'. You okay with this?"
She considered it only a tempered time before what Lyla had said earlier rattled through her head and got caught in the fingers of the headache that was gripping on her eyes.
Ally nodded slowly as her glance lifted to find Unser watching her with a saddened sort of affectionate sympathy, "I'm fine with it. Go ahead."
"Are y'really, Ally?"
"Really, Filip." She murmured. "The sooner you go, the sooner you come back, yeah?"
"Darlin'," he breathed the sound of heat into her ear and suddenly he sounded so much closer than he really was, "half a bottle of wine isn't gonna be enough."
"You better hurry, then." She smiled sadly in response to the thready concern in his voice, regardless of her assurances, "Unser's drinking your beer."