After Avery couldn't get anything out of Lyla yesterday afternoon, she still didn't know what surprise her sister had planned, only that she would find out about it today and see it for herself.

However, it was already afternoon and almost time to pick up Debbie from kindergarten. Since Happy wouldn't be coming home until later, he asked her to do it, which wasn't a problem for Avery. As long as she didn't have a job, she could support him there and even if she got the vacant position in preschool, she would still have time to pick up Debbie.

In general, she and Happy were a pretty good team and had planned their daily routine well, which was necessary with a kid in the house. When things came up in the club, Avery simply took over his duties and, on the other hand, he made sure that she was never under too much stress and could relax as soon as he was home. One hand washed the other.

After Avery had unloaded the dishwasher, she looked at the clock and decided to get ready, even though she still had half an hour left. On the way out of the kitchen, her plans took a different turn when there was a knock on the door.

Oh, maybe it's Lyla, Avery thought, who jogged to the door with a grin, hoping to finally find out what the surprise was and that was exactly what happened, only Avery had never expected such a great surprise.

“Mom!” Without giving the older woman time to greet her, she literally threw herself into Celine Dvorak's arms, who wrapped her own arms around her daughter, chuckling.

“Hi baby.” Celine buried her face in Avery's hair and closed her eyes to blink away some tears. After her last child living still in Idaho moved away, she felt absolutely lonely most of the time. But she understood that Avery had to leave to get better. It was all the better to finally be able to hug her youngest girl again. “It's so good to see you. I've missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, mom.” The redhead pulled away from her mom and swallowed a few tears of joy. “What are you doing here? Come in!”

“Lyla and I have been planning this for a while. I had to wait until my boss gave me a few days off and now I finally had time. I hope it was a good surprise”, Celine said with a smile as she looked at her daughter. “You look good Avery, really good.”

“Are you kidding? The best surprise!” Avery replied, chuckling. The young woman just seemed happy. “Thanks mom. I’m doing really good. Thanks to all the people that have helped me.”

“I can see that, baby. I've been blaming myself for weeks for just sending you away and asking Lyla for help”, Celine paused with a sigh and looked down at her hands, which were tightly gripping the handle of her bag, a wistful smile on her lips. Then she looked at Avery again. “But when I see how well you are doing and how happy you are, I’m glad I did it.”

Avery raised the corner of her mouth as she listened to Celine, then she led her mom into the living room and pushed the blanket, which had not yet been folded, aside so that both of them could sit down.

“You did the right thing, Mom. If you hadn't asked Lyla for help, I probably wouldn't be here anymore”, she said with a shrug, knowing how extreme her addiction still had been half a year ago. “And without you asking Lyla for help, I would've never ended up here and met Happy.”

“I know that, that’s why I had to do it. I knew it wouldn’t have been long before something worse happened.” Visibly shaken at the thought of what could have happened to her daughter, Celine shook off the terrible thoughts and placed a hand on Avery's leg. She wouldn't have survived losing another kid.

“Speaking of Happy, where is he?”, she asked curiously.

Celine Dvorak never had a problem with the fact that her daughter was dating a biker. What mattered to her was that her children were happy, and the way Avery's eyes lit up when she mentioned Happy's name, Celine could be sure that the scary looking biker was treating her daughter well.

Even back then with Lyla, she had never had any prejudices against Opie, on the contrary. She had really liked the giant biker and his kids too, who also called her Grandma, just like Piper. The fact that her eldest daughter had suffered such a terrible fate and that she had lost her husband in such a brutal way still hurt Celine to this day.

That's why it was even nicer to know that at least Avery was in a happy relationship, only Celine hoped that Happy wouldn't end up like Ope.

“He's still at the clubhouse, but he should be back by dinnertime”, Avery said, who actually always had a smile on her face when she talked about Happy. “I hope you stay that long?”

“Oh okay, then I'll see him later”, Celine hummed contentedly and patted Avery's hand, an almost offended expression on her face. “Do you think I'll drive all this way just to leave my daughters after a few hours again? I'll stay for a few days, I hope that's okay.”

“Of course that's okay! You can stay here and have my room”, she said eagerly, making Celine laugh.

“Don’t you want to discuss this with Happy first, sweetie?”, the older woman asked with a raised eyebrow.

The redhead waved her hand and smiled. “Happy won’t have a problem with it, but of course I’ll ask him later.”

Her eyes fell on the clock again, realizing that she really had to get going. “Hey, you wanna go pick up Debbie with me? You only know her from the phone so far. I'm sure she'd love to see you there.”

Since Avery spoke to her mom on the phone regularly and Debbie now lived here permanently, the little girl always overheard things and wanted to get to know the woman on the other end of the line. Debbie was just a curious child, which Avery didn't mind at all, so with Happy's permission she started including the four year old in the phone calls with Celine.

“Oh, I'd love to! I was looking forward to finally meeting the little princess!” And Celine would make sure to treat Debbie the same way she treated Piper, Ellie and Kenny.

“She's an absolutely amazing kid, you'll love her”, Avery beamed, who again had that sparkle in her eyes when she talked about Debbie, just like she did when she talked about Happy.

ᚔ

As Celine discovered, Avery wasn't exaggerating when she raved about Debbie on the way to kindergarten. The four year old was an absolute angel. A bright smile on her face, polite, curious, maybe a little bit shy.

The little girl's stuttering only made her more special. As with her other grandchildren, Celine was blown away by Debbie. Plus, it was nice to be surrounded by something so little again. Sometimes she wished she could turn back time so she could experience this phase again with her own children. And change thingsᅳ maybe Ian would be still there if she had done things differently.

“Oh, can I have that?” Debbie grabbed a dress and ran with it towards Avery and Celine.

“That looks pretty!” Avery checked to see if the black and purple dress had any flaws and if it was even Debbie's sizeᅳ and sure enough it fit. “Sure you want this as a costume?”

“Yes! T-there are black c-c-cats on it, look!” Debbie enthusiastically pointed to every single cat that was sewn onto the dress. “T-then all I need is a w-w-witch’s hat!”

Shaking her head, the redhead chuckled, still amazed at how much Debbie had grown to love cats, although Avery was convinced that it was because of Cookieᅳ the two of them were inseparable.

“Want me to tell you something?” Celine crouched down to be on eye level with Debbie and pushed one of her long strands of hair away from the girl's face.

“Yes, please”, the four year old nodded curiously, her eyes wide with curiosity.

“I would have picked the same dress”, Celine winked. “If you like and Avery is okay with it, you can choose shoes that fit and I’ll pay for them. Maybe black or purple ones?”

The four year old and Celine looked up at Avery, who just rolled her eyes in amusement. How could she say no to that? Debbie gave her her best puppy eyes look and about her mom; Avery knew that Celine would enjoy buying Debbie some things.

“I don’t have a problem with it”, she finally said, ruffling Debbie’s brown hair after the girl gave Celine a high-five. “But then we’ll go home, okay?”

“Ohh, a-already?” Debbie stuck out her bottom lip.

“Mhmm, I have to take care of dinner. Or do we want to starve?” Avery asked amused, gently pinching Debbie's nose.

“No”, the four year old giggled, clinging to Celine as she stood up and balanced Debbie on her hip. “Daddy needs s-s-something to eat too! And I have t-to show him my new d-d-dress.”

“We haven’t even bought it yet, sweetie”, Avery chuckled.

“Well, let's take care of that right away”, Celine chimed in, who would be paying anyway. When she was here already she could spoil everyone a little. “Come on, let’s go look for shoes!”

With another shake of her head, Avery followed the two of them and pushed through the small crowd in the Halloween section. Since there were only two weeks left until Halloween, of course everyone wanted to buy costumes and decorations, of which Avery had packed enough for the Halloween party that Debbie had wanted.

ᚔ

After dinner, Celine had offered to put Debbie to bed, who of course was very enthusiastic about the suggestion. Plus, Avery and Happy had a moment to themselves, which the SAA wanted to use.

While the redhead was washing up, he put his arms around her from behind and pressed a kiss against her shoulder after pushing the strap of her top a little to the side, drawing a pleasant sigh from her.

“You seem more relaxed than usual”, he rasped, placing another kiss on her soft skin, this time on the side of her neck.

With a small smile, Avery leaned into his embrace and pressed her back against his torso. “Because I am. It’s nice to see that my mom is slowly getting better.”

After drying her hands on the small kitchen towel, she turned in his arms and wrapped hers loosely around his neck. The dishes in the sink could wait five minutes.

“Is it really okay with you if she stays here for a few days?” She hoped so, she would hate to send her mom away. However, it was still Happy's house and his rules.

“I don’t mind”, he grunted before shrugging his shoulders. “You pay rent, which I won’t accept any more soon anywayᅳ”

“Hap, we've talked aboutᅳ”

“Let me finish”, he interrupted her small protest and smirked when she pouted at him. “Plus, Debbie enjoys the attention. It can't hurt her to form a bond with your mom.”

“Mhmm, that's true.” Avery forgot her brief protest from moments ago and snuggled further into Happy's arms. “And it’s good for my mom too. I think she misses having kids around her.”

Happy just grunted in response and pressed a kiss on her forehead before pulling away and grabbing a beer from the fridge, which he sat down with and patted on his lap, telling her to sit down.

“I have to finish here, Hap”, the redhead argued, even though she would prefer to just enjoy the evening with Happy and her mom. Yet she knew that Happy wasn't a fan of chaos.

“We can do them later. And you're not my maid, woman. I have two fine working hands and can help you later”, Happy told her, who quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his lap.

“I know, butᅳ” Only when she had no other choice and Happy silenced her with one look did Avery give in and lean comfortably against her boyfriend, taking a sip of his beer. “How was your day, baby?”

“Long and exhausting, there were some disagreements with the Niners. But we sorted it out.” Happy ran a hand over his tired face, clearly exhausted from the tiring day.

“I hope nothing bad happened?”, she asked worriedly. She still didn't have a perfect understanding of who was who and who belonged to which club or gang, but she was always worried about Happy because she knew his lifestyle brought danger with it.

Happy shook his head as his gaze stayed on his Old Lady. He hadn't had enough time for her in the last few days, so he just looked at her for a moment. Happy gently brushed the ginger strands that had come loose from the messy bun sitting on top of her head and fell into her face to the side and let his fingertips slide over her skin, whereupon the redhead closed her eyes for a brief moment.

“You think we can go out sometime? Just you and me?”, she asked after opening her eyes again and looking into his dark orbs.

“Sure. Maybe Celine can look after Debs for an evening so we can go out”, suggested the SAA, his raspy voice sounding tired. Nevertheless, he raised one corner of his mouth, still enthusiastic about their date night. “Any idea what you wanna do?”

“Honestly? I think it would be nice to just go out and eat at a restaurant with you instead of just always ordering in.” And this way she had a chance to dress up extra again. “It doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy, just something comfortable where we can have a nice night.”

“If that’s what you want, we’ll do it too.” Happy placed a hand on her thigh and let it rest there. “Let’s just ask your mom later and we’ll see. I already have a place in mind.”

“Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Hap”, she whispered with a small smile before Happy put his other hand on her neck and pulled her face closer to his so he could kiss her.

“I heard Debbie finally got her costume, huh?”,  Happy asked close to her lips after he broke away from the kiss, a grin tugging on his lips.

“Yeah, we finally found one she likes.” Avery laughed softly, then slightly bumped the tip of her nose against his. “To see her this happy was even worth getting an elbow or two in the side”, she added with an amused tone.

“See, that’s why we men don’t go shopping. We don’t inflict such torment on ourselves.” A raspy laugh rattled in his chest as he shook his head. “Seriouslyᅳ thanks for taking over.”

“Well, we women are made to survive shopping, so don’t worry”, Avery countered jokingly and waved him off. “I love spending time with Debbie and I love Halloween. So it was a win-win situation for all of us.”

“I can live with that”, he grunted softly, massaging her thigh with his thumb.

Until Celine came back, the two of them just talked about other things that a couple would talk about. And even though Happy was tired, he didn't miss the chance to sit at the table with Avery and Celine for a while.

He liked the Dvorak woman and since she was Avery's mother, he wanted to get to know her properly. So far he had only seen her once when they had picked up Avery's things from Idaho and otherwise he had spoken to her on the phone maybe two or three times, but only for a few minutes giving her an update on how her daughter was doing.

And while he mostly just listened to the two women, he thought about finally introducing Avery to his mother. After five months of dating, he should really do thatᅳ and Debbie would be happy to finally give her grandma a visit again.