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General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death.

CHAPTER 83: LOOMING

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Gemma chuckled to herself as she watched Wendy climb onto the back of Jax's bike while Tara stood across the street, watching her future ride away. Once she was sure that Tara wouldn't spot her, she climbed out of her car - heading into the convenience store that was owned by the same family who owned the toy store down the street.

She felt her pace slowing as she passed a dirty, disheveled looking woman sitting on the pavement outside of the store - reading the cardboard sign that she was holding up which read 'Bailout my kids. We need food'. She felt a scoff form in the back of her throat as she snapped her eyes back up and shook her head, she just couldn't escape the deadbeat junkies. But as she tried to walk away, she felt something pulling her back. For some reason, something about this deadbeat junky felt different…

"You really doing this for your kids?" She sighed as she turned back around to the woman who avoided her shameful gaze.

"Yes ma'am." The ratty brunette responded. "Got two boys." She nodded. "Uncle Sam cut off my aid… Again."

Gemma felt another twinge of unexpected sympathy. Maybe it was the mention of two boys, maybe it was the name Sam, maybe it was the coincidental similarity to the situation that she was dealing with - or maybe it was just the need to re-establish herself as somebody's lifeline since her dependents had decided that they weren't so dependent anymore.

"You look pretty able-bodied to me." She raised a brow as she removed her dark sunglasses. "There's gotta be something better you could be doing than holding up clever signs and begging."

"It's hard for me to hold down a job, ma'am." The younger woman explained shakily. "On account of mental illness… I tend to fly into rages - no apparent reason."

Gemma chuckled. "Since when is that a mental illness?" She smirked as she opened her purse, deciding that the odd feeling of generosity had to have just been some kind of intuition. "Don't shoot this into your arm." She told the woman pointedly as she narrowed her eyes, handing her a twenty-dollar bill.

"That's kind, and generous. Thank you, ma'am." The woman accepted the money gratefully.

Gemma nodded curtly, finally turning back to the store where she intended to buy her cigarettes and make it to the hospital in time to see Tara's reaction to Abel leaving the way that he should've left the day before.

"Abel will help my little boys." She heard from the woman behind her.

"What?" She scowled as she whipped back around.

The poor woman looked around, confused by the outburst. "Able to help my little boys." She repeated herself as she held up the money. "Bless you."

Gemma blinked slowly a few times as she tried to reconcile the explanation, but something just didn't feel right about the whole thing. The way she'd felt uncharacteristically drawn to the struggling woman in the first place, the coincidences, and now the slip of the tongue that she knew she'd heard. This would be the last time that she gave to beggars.

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Sydney sat at the bar with Tig, Half-Sack, and Opie in what had to be the most awkward round of small talk that she'd ever experienced in the circle where each person had been keeping secrets from the next. She wished that she could sip her whiskey and look pretty next to Tig while the men did the talking - but if she did that then they would be sitting in silence.

"What'd you get him?" She turned to Opie, purposely taking her time going around the circle asking each person what they'd chosen as a gift for baby Abel and why.

"I don't know, Donna picked some of Elly and Kenny's old shit." Opie chuckled. He wouldn't have known what the items were even if she'd told him before wrapping them.

Sydney nodded slowly, trying to appear engaged in his half-assed answer while she tried to think of another question to keep the group occupied after this round of answers ended.

"What about you?" Opie nodded to Tig.

"Dunno." Tig shrugged as he was put right back in the same position that had tripped him up the day before: having to make conversation with the man that he was about to kill. "Syd picked some shit." He nodded to Sydney.

"Ope!" Juice called from the door where he obliviously waltzed in, far too chipper for the tense atmosphere in the room. "Donna's here."

Sydney and Tig both flinched at the mention of Opie's wife - and fellow rat - shooting each other a side glance as Half-Sack scurried off and the taller man stood to greet her as she entered the clubhouse for what had to be the first time in years. Sydney watched as she looked around, wrapping her arms around herself tightly as she tried not to appear uncomfortable.

"Hey!" Donna greeted cheerfully as Opie came into view - walking up to her with a crease in his forehead. "Uh- I'm sorry to bother you." She quickly realized how out of character it was for her to stop by - not wanting to give him the wrong idea.

"No, it's fine." He shook his head, more surprised to see her comfortably walking into the clubhouse than anything, maybe she really was serious about wanting to get right with this... "What's up, babe?"

"Your mom wants to take the kids to Fun Town and then to dinner…" She told him with a knowing glance. "I didn't wanna say yes until I talked to you…"

"Mom's volunteering to spend time with the kids?" Opie blinked a few times as he tried to make sense of the shocking words that had just come from his wife's mouth.

"Yeah… I guess she had a good time with them." Donna shook her head slowly, hoping that Opie would see this as a good thing the way that she did. "You know, you really should talk to her, Ope…" It seemed that she wasn't the only Winston woman who'd had a change of heart about her family this week, and she felt that Mary deserved the same chance that she'd been given - especially because Mary had been the whole reason that she'd decided to take the chance in the first place. "I think she's just finding excuses to stay around until she sees you." She spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Yeah. Maybe." Opie nodded slowly, considering her words but not letting himself get too hopeful that his mother had finally realized what she was missing by not being a part of his life when it was too late. "Yeah. She can take the kids." He decided - realizing that even if he couldn't let her be there for him, he could let her be there for his kids.

Donna felt a giddy smile coming to her face, biting her lip as she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. "That means we'll have the house to ourselves for a while…" She grinned at the thought. Between Opie's jail time and their estranged families, time alone with her husband was something she hadn't gotten to experience in far too long.

Opie felt a smile coming to his face as well, leaning down to kiss his wife before it could grace his lips. He could feel the vibration behind his chest… The butterflies that she used to make him feel all of those years ago, before things got heavy. He held her in place as he deepened their kiss - feeling the same passion radiating from her as well. He knew that she could feel it too - that this was a new beginning for them.

"Shit." He groaned in the middle of their embrace - realizing he'd jumped the gun by getting too excited about a night alone with his wife. "Jax is having that party for Abel… The homecoming thing." He closed his eyes as he shook his head slowly, still not letting her go.

"Ugh." Donna groaned with a humorless chuckle as she hung her head, resting her forehead on his chest. Of course.

"You don't have to go." He told her. "But I have to swing by and drop off the gifts."

"No." Donna shook her head as she straightened back up, realizing that this was her chance to prove not only to him, but to herself and to everyone else that she really was ready to join the family that Gemma had so adamantly tried to get her to recognize. "I wanna go." She looked into his eyes sincerely as she nodded excitedly. "Abel coming home is a big deal. Our family should be there."

"Yeah, we should..." He agreed, pleasantly surprised that this was her idea and not his - squeezing her a little tighter in appreciation for the effort that he knew she was trying to make. "I'd like that."

"I'll tell Mary to bring the kids home before dinner." She smiled again.

"Okay." He didn't try to hide his giddy smile this time and she looked up at him with her gorgeous, sparkling blue eyes - leaning down to kiss her again. He was finally getting everything that he'd always wanted.

"Look at them." Sydney sneered to Tig from where they sat at the end of the bar, watching Opie and Donna revel in their Bonnie and Clyde act in disgust. "Thinks she can just fucking play old lady now and we're all supposed to believe it." She scoffed, looking out of the corner of her eye at him for a reaction - still trying to figure out what his true feelings were about the situation.

"Thought that's what you would've wanted?" He responded dryly as he chewed his thumbnail.

"Yeah, if it was what she wanted." She scoffed again. "It's all just a fucking act to throw us off." She rolled her eyes, looking over to see that his mind was clearly elsewhere as he didn't even acknowledge the second part of her statement.

She felt her own anger with the situation itself beginning to mix with the frustration of being kept in the dark, deciding that now was a more perfect time than ever to try and find out the truth. "Where are we with that?" She asked tentatively, peeking up at him through her eyelashes.

Tig flinched when she asked the dreaded question, hoping that maybe she meant something else but knowing by the look in her eye that it was exactly what he thought it was. He chewed the inside of his lip… It was the perfect time to tell her, but he just couldn't. Not when he knew what would be waiting for her if he did.

"Not the right time." He shook his head.

What Sydney felt wasn't complete and total relief, but it was enough for her to feel like she could breathe around him again as he finally addressed the situation - and with the same answer that she'd gotten from Clay, hoping that it was the truth. But just in case it wasn't…

"You're right." She nodded, narrowing her eyes at him knowingly. "It isn't the right time."

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Tara begrudgingly led Gemma out of the room where Abel had spent the first two months of his life - the two months where she had fallen deeply in love with him. She loved starting her day by looking into his beautiful blue eyes, listening to his happy coos while she pondered her life, and his sleepy snores when she needed something to calm her down - all of the things that the hateful woman before her was making it her life's mission for her to never experience again.

"This might be your most insidious move yet." She told her bitterly as they walked down the hall. It hadn't taken her long to realize where Wendy had gotten the ideas from, and spotting Gemma's Cadillac at the end of the street after the confrontation had only confirmed her suspicions. She couldn't believe how naive she'd been to think that Gemma had actually given her blessing to her and Jax… She'd just wanted to build her up so that she could knock her right back down.

"You have to be more specific." Gemma scoffed with a smirk.

"Convincing Wendy that she might actually have a shot at winning back Jax and her family." She knew deep down that Jax wanted nothing to do with Wendy, but part of her hoped that saying it out loud with some confidence would help her stop worrying about it. "That's a lot of false hope to lay on a recovering addict."

"You're right." Gemma shrugged as they rounded the corner into the waiting room. "But forging hospital documents so that you can hold onto your own false hope a little longer is just as bad." She whispered as Jax and Wendy stood from their chairs.

Tara felt every bone in her body stiffen as she tried to plaster a fake smile on her face while Jax and Wendy approached to collect their son. Gemma had known what she'd done the whole time, and she had waited for the perfect opportunity to retaliate.

"Hey, little man. We're busting you out of this place." Jax grinned as he gently took his son from his mother's arms. "Thanks, doc." He gave Tara a flirty smile.

"Yeah." Tara nodded awkwardly, avoiding Wendy's eyes at first until she couldn't avoid them anymore - giving a small smile.

"Appreciate it." Wendy nodded genuinely, feeling guilty for the way that she had cornered her earlier.

"Alright." Gemma looked between the two women, moving the encounter along before either of them could get thinking too deeply. "Let's get this family home!" She looked directly into Tara's eyes, smiling as she led her family out of the hospital and hopefully out of Tara's reach.

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"I should be ready by 6:00 P.M." Sydney told Tig as she sat behind the wheel, the rumbling of her engine pulsing a soothing vibration through her body that was still sore from the events of the past few weeks. "Are you gonna come get me on the bike, or?" She looked up at him hopefully where he was leaning into her open window.

Tig contemplated the question very carefully as he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to pull this off. "Why don't you, uh." He chewed his lip. "Why don't you ride your bike?" He asked in a cautious tone, hoping to appear as if the hard decision that he was making was about her condition and not about how he could best cover his ass - trying the one thing that he thought might be able to take her focus off of what he knew she was worrying about him doing.

"Really?" She asked excitedly, feeling a rush of heat hit her cheeks as she thought about being back on her Ninja.

"Yeah." Tig chuckled. "A day late, but… Better late than never." He rubbed the back of his neck as he shrugged.

"It's more than a day late." She chuckled, noting by his mood that he seemed to be feeling a little better. She wondered if maybe what Clay had told her really had been the truth - that he had just been burdened by the wealth of bullshit lately and that was why he was suddenly so eager to get some normalcy back. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She knew that as the Sergeant, something he was also eager to do was eliminate threats - maybe having to wait to eliminate this one was what had him so pissed off all along. That had to be it. She realized. The way that he had come home so upset over what had happened with the Niners… He must've had the same thought that she'd had - that it was an opportune moment so stupidly missed.

"I'll meet you there." He smiled. "We can race after." He winked, knowing that there would be no such thing occurring so he didn't actually have to worry too much about her riding while she was still technically in recovery.

"You sure you're ready for that kind of humiliation?" She asked with a cocky smirk.

"Baby, I was born ready." He grinned, leaning down to her lips. "I love you." He told her sincerely, peppering her lips with kisses so that she couldn't deepen the embrace, knowing that it would've flooded him with too much guilt - guilt that he knew would choke him up again.

"I love you too." She smiled, reversing from her parking spot and cruising out of the lot with the newfound relief that she'd been so desperately searching for.

Tig watched as she drove away, shielding his eyes from the sun as he heard the heavy footsteps approaching from behind him. "I can't do this if she's onto me." He stated firmly as he shook his head. If Clay wanted him to go through this kind of stress again and this time potentially ruin his last shot at any kind of decent relationship, the least that he could do was honour his one request.

"I'll take care of it." Clay assured him with a nod, placing an appreciative hand on the shoulder of his only reliable soldier.

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Hale wandered through the barely lit station house as the sun began to set, making his way to Stahl's office after hearing about what had taken place in Oakland the previous day, rounding the corner to see that the room was in boxes.

Stahl looked up from the files she'd been packing when she heard somebody enter the room behind her, fighting the urge to physically recoil when she saw Hale. "My boss is pulling the plug on Charming." She bit her tongue as she begrudgingly told him exactly what she knew he wanted to hear.

Hale's head barely moved as he nodded, his jaw clenching so hard that it felt like it could pop at any second. "Why?" He grumbled. He was thrilled to hear that she was leaving, but what he wasn't thrilled about was knowing that he would now be the one held responsible for her unethical tactics.

"The Mayan body count in Oakland pissed off the FBI. I have to settle for Munson - squeeze him for the rest."

"And what about Opie?" He had fully expected his childhood friend to meet his demise - shocked when he'd heard that no white blood had been spilt after the shootout, which had only made him realize how much he truly regretted not putting a stop to it when he'd had the chance; a mistake that he wasn't going to make twice.

Stahl stared into those pure blue eyes for a second, seeing a chance to cut a little deeper before she would be pulled away from her prey. "Opie made his own bed." An evil smirk ghosted across her lips as she looked back down at the stack of paperwork.

"Yeah, and Clay thinks you're in that bed with him." He growled, his lip turning up in disgust at her deviousness. "This guy is in danger."

"The witness' identity will be out on Monday." She rolled her eyes. "SAMCRO will know that he is not the snitch." She slammed the lid onto the box that she'd been packing with the bones of her dead case.

"Look." Hale shook his head slowly. "A lot of shit can happen in two days… Okay? You cannot pull your security team off of him." He was relieved that he didn't have the burden of a dead man on his conscience after what had happened yesterday, but he worried that if he spent another day doing nothing - it would be a burden that he would have to bear tomorrow.

"It's out of my hands." She shrugged, turning away to grab a new box.

"You know, you guys are unbelievable." He growled as he began pacing around the room with his fists clenched at his sides - understanding more and more why Otto had slammed her face against that table. "You storm in here and you turn this town upside down, and then you just walk away. And you leave us with this mess." He snarled.

Stahl fought the chuckle that formed in her throat as the man that was just as corrupt tried to lecture her, leaning over the desk where she stared directly into his eyes. "We had some fun though, right?" She reminded him with a smirk.

As she glared at him with that sinister glint behind her eyes, that was when Hale saw it - the certificates hanging behind her head… The loophole that he had so desperately been looking for. He couldn't make himself give his potentially lifesaving intel to a criminal or even a friend, but if he gave it to a fellow officer then he wasn't betraying his badge or his honour. Maybe it wasn't too late to do what was right.

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