Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Authors Note: I feel like I need to be honest here and tell you that I'm really, really bad at finishing what I start. With that out of the way, I am trying out my very first SOA fic AND my very first use-of-an-OC fic. God help me. Reviews are appreciated & read.
xxxx
Leaning back against the hot metal of the garage siding, Emma Reid closed her eyes. The metal would be scorching hot sometime this afternoon but for now, at least, it was just pleasantly warm against her bare shoulders and the places that her tank top didn't cover. Which was a two inch strip just above the waist band of her jeans.
Even through her wayfarers the sun was bright on her eyelids, she could see tiny spots of light dancing in the blurry darkness.
No one was up yet, but it was a Saturday morning, so she wasn't surprised. Friday nights around the Teller-Morrow garage were usually a good time with the booze flowing like water and plenty of croweaters hoping they could fuck and suck their way to old lady status. Not that that usually happened. There were few of the boys who would make an old lady out of a chick they knew had gotten up close and personal with the dicks of every single one of their brothers.
It was only nine in the morning, she knew she had a few more hours before everyone was up and moving around, but she didn't care. It was just nice to stand here, smell the motor oil and all the scents that had been so familiar to her once. Her mother had kicked it when Emma had been six. She'd had the big C word although Emma hadn't really understood that when she'd been a kid. All she'd known was that mommy smelled strange and couldn't live at home anymore. She'd stayed with a friend of her mom's until after she'd died and CPS had swooped in on her. They'd contacted the man listed on her birth certificate, although she could only recall having met him once or twice before that.
Conner Reid had rode in like a slightly off-white night on a Harley and scooped her up even though he'd had no idea what to do with a six year old daughter and she had no experience having a full time dad. They'd picked their way through that mine field together, though, and somehow come through on the other side.
Mostly.
She'd grown up in this garage with her dad and all of his brothers from another mother. Emma had slowly figured out that the club her daddy spent most of his time hanging around in wasn't just a club for motorcycle enthusiasts who also happened to all be mechanics. But by that time she hadn't cared. The boys Conner called brother had all become silly Uncles or second father's to her and to be honest, she didn't really care what they did to earn their incomes. They were good people, people she'd known and loved. So even though she'd had her suspicions and her share of worry when her dad wouldn't come home until four or five in the morning, she'd kept her mouth shut and hadn't pried.
She didn't need the truth spelled out for her, although she was almost positive that her dad would have told her if she'd pressed him.
The corners of Emma's lips turned up as she thought about those eight years she'd spent learning how to fix a carburetor and spending the night in the bedrooms above the clubhouse while her dad had partied into the wee hours of the morning. The thump of the bass had always lulled her to sleep on those nights.
She could remember Uncle Bobby's banana bread and macaroni and cheese. The home cooked meals he would always make her before she was sent upstairs with a movie to watch and her favorite stuffed animal. He always chided her father, telling him that he needed to learn how to cook because Emma needed some meat on her bones.
In Emma's mind, she'd had the perfect childhood. Though she was sure that many would disagree with her. In fact, the state of California had disagreed so vehemently that when her father had gotten locked up behind some murder charges, they'd thrown her into foster care without a second thought.
Gemma and Clay, they'd fought to keep her with them. With the club and her family where she belonged. But the state hadn't even considered their pleas, their offers. She'd kept in almost constant contact with them through letters she'd mail off in secret and phone calls if she could get to a payphone without being caught by her first stet of foster parents. They were the straight and narrow type, yuppies with an SUV and a pretty little beach house in Cabo. Jeannette, her foster mother, couldn't have children of her own and it might have been okay if it hadn't been for the fact that she missed her father, her family, more than she would have missed breathing.
But when her Jeannette's husband got caught with a roaming eye and equally roaming hands with Jeannette's best friend the divorce papers hadn't even been drawn up before they'd been shipping her back. Jeannette had sat her down, told her how sorry they were but that with everything going on in their lives they didn't think it was fair to drag them down with her.
That was when Emma had realized that she was disposable. She hadn't been a member of that family, not really. Half because she hadn't wanted to be and half because they'd never cared about her half as much as they cared about themselves.
Halfway through her second foster family was when she'd stopped calling, stopped writing. Stopped accepting the once every two months visit the state allowed her with her father. She knew she was hurting him, hurting all of them. But if they'd known how bad things had gotten there would have been no keeping them away and someone's blood would have ended up on her hands.
And what then? The state would have just shipped her to another home, another family that hadn't really wanted her as much as they wanted the fat paycheck that came along with giving her a roof over her head. No matter what, they weren't going to let her go home again.
At eighteen she'd rounded out her resume with a total of 17 foster homes. It was a pretty good record, she thought grimly, especially when each had been progressively worse than the last. Except for Ms. Newton, the grandmother of five whose kids wouldn't bother to bring them to see her. So she'd taken up fostering so that she wouldn't be so lonely.
It had been a bright spot in an otherwise dark few years.
But Ms. Newton had been pushing seventy-five and when she'd broken her hip and ended up in the hospital the state had decided that she wasn't fit anymore and yanked her license to foster. Emma hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Her last foster family had definitely been the worse and she'd been more than happy to be shown the door the morning she turned eighteen.
She hadn't been legal for more than a few minutes before they'd given her the boot. She couldn't blame them though, she had a long history by that point and more than one juvie booking photo to hang on the walls of the clubhouse.
She'd spent a few days near Sacramento, getting her head on straight and figuring out what her next move should be. But it had been clear from day one that the only thing she'd want to do was head straight home.
So she did.
Although, now that she was here her stomach was twisting into knots and she was starting to second guess herself. What if she wasn't welcome any more. Her dad was still locked up and she wasn't sure exactly what that meant for him with the club.
"Party's over, sweetheart." The voice was familiar and Emma's eyes darted over to Tig, leaning against the door jamb while he took a piss in the parking lot. Rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses, Emma straightened up from her slouch.
"Oh yeah?"
Tig nodded, giving her the once over she remember seeing him give a long line of croweaters. Like he was at an all-you-can-eat buffet and she was the dessert table. "Yup, so you'd be better off to make yourself scarce before the old ladies start rollin' in."
He was obviously still hung over, squinting into the bright California sunlight. While the croweaters and the sweetbutts might hold sway over the Sons at night, the old ladies kept them on the straight and narrow during the day. Usually, they'd be gone before Gemma or Luanne rolled up to collect Clay and Otto and drag their still drunk asses home.
"Can I bum a smoke?" she asked, her lips curling up into a smile when she thought about how little things had changed since she'd been gone.
Tig shrugged, still giving her a patented leer that somehow had all the sweetbutts dropping panties for him left and right. She'd never understand that but maybe she'd keep him going for a few more minutes before she shut him down.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of American Spirits and a lighter and tossed them her way. She'd taken up smoking somewhere in between foster home four and five, when she'd finally realized that things weren't gonna get much better.
Fishing a smoke out of the beaten up cardboard pack, she tucked it between her lips. She took the first few puffs to the head, the nicotine hit making her a little dizzy. It had been a while since she'd been able to get her hands on some cigs.
She pocketed the cigarettes, giving him a sweet smile. "How about I hold on to these for you."
Tig's leer deepened, "Sweetheart, I'll let you hold on to a lot more than."
Taking another quick hit off of the cigarette, Emma pushed her sunglasses up higher on the bridge of her nose. "And then," she drawled, pulling her words out slow. "When my daddy gets out of the slammer he can gut you real slow," she teased.
Confusion fluttered over Tig's face. He wasn't really that sharp when he'd spent a long night drinking Jack and going face down in some sweetbutt's pussy. "Emma?" he asked, slow and uncertain.
"In the flesh, Tigger," she confirmed, letting a happy grin slide across her face for the first time in a long time.
"Well, I'll be goddamned," he muttered, looking equal parts disappointed that she'd suddenly crossed into out of bounds territory and happy. He looked genuinely happy to see her.
Do not cry, she told herself sternly. Do not fucking cry. Someone looking happy to see her, actually happy to see her had been rare these last few years. In fact, almost nonexistent.
Quicker than she thought he could move that hung over he slapped the cigarette out of her hand. "And your daddy would also gut me real slow if he knew that I was letting you smoke. Shit, you ain't even old enough, are you?"
"Legal," she said, plucking the smoke up out of the dirt and bringing it to her lips again. "In the eyes of the state of California, I am legal to smoke, fuck and gamble."
The crunching of tires hitting gravel drew both of their attention as a sleek black Beamer slid up to the front door of the office that Emma remembered spending so much time in as a kid. Gemma looked perfect, as usual. Her hair was flawless like she was getting ready for a business lunch with the goddamn President. Except that maybe if she were she wouldn't have been wearing skin tight black leather pants.
Or maybe she would, Emma though with an internal giggle. She was Gemma, after all.
Emma took another long pull off of the cigarette, trying to quiet or kill the fucking butterflies that had suddenly erupted in her middle. Was Gemma going to hug her or hit her, she wasn't really sure.
"Gem!" Tig grabbed a hold of her arm and she was caught up in his wake as they made their way over to the Beamer. "Look at what the cat dragged in. Took her for a croweater overstayin' her welcome at first…"
Gemma pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and her eyes narrowed as she tried to catch a good look at Emma's face.
"That had better not be who I think it is," Gemma said and her face was completely unreadable.
"I don't know," Emma said, trying to retain at least some of the ground she'd started out on. "Would it be a bad thing or a good thing if I was who you thought I was?"
Gemma's face broke into a smile, finally, and she reached her arms out. "Oh baby, we've missed you."
Choking down tears, Emma stepped into the arms of the woman who had been a second mother to her, who had taught her father everything he knew about taking care of little girls not that Gemma had had any herself.
Maybe that was the reason that Gemma had latched on to her as hard as she had. She'd never gotten the chance to braid hair or buy dresses, not that Emma had been much willing to wear them past the age of six.
Growing up around all those boys and overgrown boys, she'd been a little tomboy right up until the very day she'd left in the back of that gray sedan. Leaning against the back glass like she could fall through and run back home.
In an instant though, Gemma's hands were vices around her upper arms. "Now, where the fuck have you been?" she snarled. "Don't you know what you've been doing to your poor daddy? You haven't seen the man in… what? Four fucking years? You stop calling, you stop writing… you think that's okay?"
Emma's lips folded into a tight line. She'd halfway been expecting this. She'd known that Gemma would be angry, shit… maybe they all would. She didn't blame them, but at the same time she knew in her heart she'd done the only thing she could have.
To hear their voices, to look at her father… she wouldn't have been able to hold it all in and then someone would have died and someone else and who knew how much blood would be on her hands right now. She already had enough; her hands would never be clean again.
"And get those stupid sunglasses off of your face," Gemma growled. "I want to see your eyes when you tell me how sorry you are!"
Before Emma could untangle herself from the Queen of Charming's quick hands, her sunglasses had been knocked on the ground and Gemma hissed, a sharp intake of breath.
Emma met her eyes, just as stubborn as the day was long. She refused to feel ashamed for the state of her face right now. Gemma could dig at her all she wanted but Emma had grown up more in the last few years than a girl her age had any right to.
"Baby," Gemma pulled her in again for a hug, her angry forgotten for a moment. "What happened to you? Who did this to your face?"
Emma shrugged, "Nothing."
The older woman pushed her back, holding her at arms distance. "That is not nothing."
Tig was still hovering in the background and Emma cut her eyes to him, full of meaning that fortunately Gemma caught. "C'mon, baby girl," Gemma said, thankfully catching Emma's meaning. "Let's get you into the office so we can catch up."
The tone of her voice brooked no argument and Emma let herself be towed along behind the older woman into the small office. A calendar of half-naked women was still hung up on the wall and everything looked almost like it had looked when she left with the exception of a desktop computer finally perched on the desk. Looked like Clay had finally broken down and agreed to buy one.
Gemma sat her down and perched on the corner of the desk, conveniently blocking Emma's path to the door just in case she decided to bolt.
"Now, tell me," Gemma insisted, "What happened to you, sweetheart?"
"Nothing important," Emma lied again, "And it's already been taken care of, so it doesn't really matter anyway."
Gemma looked like she was going to argue but Emma cut her off at the pass. "So, what'd I miss?" she asked, leaning back in her chair and propping her feet up on the desk. "I feel like I've been gone an entire lifetime."
The older woman sensed that the conversation she wanted to have with Emma wasn't going to happen, so she begrudgingly allowed her to steer the conversation to safer waters. "Oh, you know," she said, "The more things change the more things stay the same. Your daddy's parole was denied, again. He'd really love a visit from you, you know. He's been worried sick. We've been trying to get some information for him from the state but they wouldn't breathe a word. Said he'd lost his rights to make decisions about you when he'd put a bullet in that sonofabitch."
Emma let herself relax, finally, caught up in the familiar lull of Gemma's voice as she rattled off a list of everything that had been going on while she'd been gone. She heard about Unser's cancer and the last few Taste of Charming benefits that Gemma had run. But Gemma was obviously dancing around the subject that Emma had been fishing around for when she'd first asked for news from back home.
She wanted to know if Jax had actually gone through with marrying Tara. He'd been dating her pretty seriously when she'd been hauled off and there'd been talk about buying a ring.
"Oh," Gemma exclaimed, suddenly, like she'd just remembered some unimportant detail that might be of at least a little interest to Emma. "And Jax went off and got himself married."
Emma hoped the disappointment wasn't obvious on her face. Once, she'd been an open book and her eyes had given her away each and every time she'd tried to get one over on her dad or anyone else. But four years in the system and she thought that she might have gained at least a passable poker face.
"Good for him," she said, when she thought that she could finally force herself to speak without her voice shaking.
She liked to think that nobody noticed but she couldn't lie, she'd been secretly harboring a crush on Jax for a very long time. Before she'd left she'd known that she would follow that boy to the ends of the earth. But he'd been so far up Tara Knowles' ass that she'd wondered if he would suffocate to death up there.
She doubted Jax had ever thought of her as anything more than an annoying little sister, pestering him to teach her how to change out some brake pads. It had faded over time because she'd had more important things to worry about like keeping herself from going insane over the last four years but she'd still thought about him from time to time. More often than she probably should have.
"Not really," Gemma said coldly. "After Tara took off and left town he kind of went into a tail spin. Started fucking everything with a pulse and a pussy. Ended up with some junky slut. If everything goes well, though, it'll be over soon."
Emma struggled to keep her composure. So it wasn't Tara, at least, she thought with some triumph. She'd had a feeling that Tara had been hoping she could take Jax away from the life. Keep him happy and well fed on a steady diet of bullshit and uptight pussy while she dragged him off to Chicago to become a doctor.
"So, who's the lucky ho bag?" she asked, as nonchalantly as she could manage.
"Wendy Case," Gemma said, her voice reeking with disdain.
The name didn't sound familiar, although the hang around biker sluts and croweaters had rarely registered on Emma's radar. She'd know a face if she saw one though, although to be honest she was hoping that she wouldn't run up against Wendy Case.
"But," Gemma continued, "Once the divorce is final, I'm running that bitch out of town on a rail."
Emma couldn't help but smile; this was the Gemma she had grown up with. The no nonsense, trash talking bitch of the biker world that had taught her almost everything she knew about being a strong woman. If it hadn't been for everything that Gemma had pounded into her head growing up Emma wasn't sure she could have survived the four years in foster care without turning into a blubbering mess.
Instead of damaged she liked to think of herself as forged by fire, hardened into something solid and unbreakable by years and years spent dealing with the bullshit that life and the state of California had shoved her way.
Gemma reached out again, slowly, and gently touched the bruising on Emma's face. "I wish you would tell me about this, baby."
Emma shrugged her shoulders and shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She was really starting to regret that she hadn't given her face some time to heal before she'd blown back into town. But she'd been running out of money and the ticket back home was burning a hole in her pocket.
"Gemma," she said, her voice strained. "I have a favor to ask…"
"What is it, baby?" Gemma's hands were still fluttering near Emma's face but they pulled back when she realized that she wasn't going to get anything out of her surrogate daughter.
"I need a place to crash until I can figure things out… like, where I'm going or what I'm going to do. I'd like to stay in the clubhouse if that's okay. I know you'll have to run it past Clay and the guys and that the clubhouse has kind of been a sausage fest kind of thing but it would really mean a lot to me."
She breathed it out all in one long, fast sentence. Emma hadn't asked for help from anyone in years and she hated that she had to start now especially when she had only just come home. She'd learned up front and fast that asking for help made you weak and being weak got you nowhere. But now, she was in between a rock and a hard place. Most ex-foster kids would be the first to admit that they spent at least a year or two homeless, bouncing from couch to couch or sleeping in their cars if they had one. Unless you happened to be a lucky fuck and you ended up with that one family who actually gave a shit about you.
Most didn't. Emma didn't. And when she'd finally left that shithole she'd done it with nothing more than the clothes on her back and some busted knuckles. Her foster father was handsy but most of the time Emma's jail bait status had kept his hands from wandering even if his eyes couldn't stay in his head half the time.
She'd only been eighteen for less than ten minutes before he thought he'd seize his opportunity. It hadn't gone down too pretty and she hadn't exactly been thrown a going away party before unceremoniously being dumped out on the streets.
She'd had enough money to buy a one way ticket back home and something off the value menu at McDonalds. But that was it. And now, here she was, fresh off the bus and looking for a hand out. It stung.
"Baby," Gemma's voice was firm. "You're gonna stay with me. Your daddy would tear a strip off my ass if he knew I was letting you stay at the clubhouse."
Emma swallowed back the hot sting of tears. She hadn't known what to expect when she came home but the open warmth that Gemma had welcomed her home with had done a lot to sooth the frazzled ends. But she couldn't and wouldn't accept this.
"Gemma," she said, her voice making it clear that she wasn't willing to argue. "I love you for that, honestly I do, but I can't. I need to figure things out. The last four years haven't exactly been a trip to Disney Land, if you know what I mean, and I think I'd rather stay at the clubhouse. My dad will have to understand."
Gemma's eyes narrowed but she nodded, a noncommittal nod that meant that she didn't like her answer and that it wasn't the last Emma had heard from her on this subject.
"I'll talk to Clay," she said finally. "But if the answer is no you're coming home with me and that's final."
Before Emma could push the issue any farther there was a brief, hard knock at the door and the last person that Emma wanted to see right now pushed his way in.
"Hey, mom. I need—," Jax broke off, staring down at Emma with a mixture of confusion and shock on his face.
"Emma?" he exclaimed and she offered up a half smile. She'd thought, once, that the four years she'd spent as a ward of the state had killed her ability to bend the corners of her lips into anything but a teeth baring grimace. But half an hour home and she was starting to think that maybe she could learn again.
Jax swooped her up into a hug, nearly lifting her off of her feet. "What the hell?" he demanded, giving her a once over. He grabbed her chin with the same familiarity she remembered and twisted her face gently into the light.
"Not important," Emma said firmly, brushing his hands away and forcing the half smile to stick. She was absolutely certain now that she should have waited it out a few more weeks and made do doing what every other ex-foster kid does before she came back home to Charming. If she'd given her face a little more time to clear up she wouldn't be dealing with these questions.
"What do you mean, not important?" Jax demanded, "You show up here after four fucking years of no contact with your face beat up and you think it's not important?"
She hadn't really thought that Jax would have been too pressed by her radio silence. When she'd left he'd been wrapped up in Tara to the exclusion of everything and everyone else and from what she'd gotten from Gemma, it sounded like everything after that would have been a blur of pussy, booze and weed.
"Sorry?" she offered, fidgeting with the silver ring she wore on her right hand. She hadn't worn it in four years because in the system if you acted like anything you owned was important to you it was sure to be the first thing they took. It was unfamiliar now and she would have to get used to its weight again.
It had been her mother's engagement ring and it was one of the only things she still kept. She'd learned, over the years that the lighter you traveled the better off you were.
"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head. "Sorry?"
Emma gave him a sheepish smile and a quick shrug of her shoulders. "So… you. How have you been?" she quickly changed the subject because the state of her face and her four year radio silence were subjects she wasn't interested in talking about yet.
Jax's face darkened but when he answered her he didn't let on that she'd struck a nerve. "Same old, same old. When did you get back?"
"This morning," she said, watching as Gemma quietly got up and slipped out of the room from the corner of her eye. "Eighteen and out," she joked.
"So, you forgot how to use a phone or send a goddamn letter while you were gone?" he demanded, once his mother was out of the room. "I—we missed you. Had no idea what was going on with you. Courts wouldn't tell Gemma where you were and after that first foster home we lost track of you."
Emma sighed and ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back off of her face. "Look," she said, "I know that that was shitty of me. But a lot was going on and I don't want to talk about it. Gemma already read me the riot act anyway," she assured him. "I really am sorry though."
Jax didn't say anything but his sharp blue eyes searched hers, looking for answers she was sure. He'd always been smart, she knew that he'd pick up quick that there were reasons behind her decision to go off the grid where her family was concerned. And he'd want to know those reasons.
But she wasn't ready. She probably wouldn't ever really be ready to talk. She wasn't sure if she could if she wanted to. Maybe she'd tell him one day, let the story pour out of her like it had threatened to do so many times in the past.
"Where are you staying?" he asked, looking around for any luggage she might have toted in with her.
"At the clubhouse if Clay says it's okay," she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "At least until I figure out what to do next."
And she would need to hurry up and figure that out because she had next to nothing to her name. Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd be able to scrounge up some change from the very bottom of her pockets for the drink machine in the back of the garage.
But besides that, she didn't have anything to speak of. She knew though that she was still faring way better than some of the kids she'd passed along the way in the system. Eighteen and out for them usually meant finding a place to sleep underneath of an overpass and panhandling so that they could buy some booze or a cheeseburger.
"He'll say its okay," Jax said matter of factly, and it was then that she noticed the back patch on his kutte. So he'd moved up in the world, she thought wryly. Good for him. When she'd left, Jax was in the middle of prospecting the club with Opie. Clay and Piney had been riding their asses hard too, determined that no one would see them skate in on a First 9 legacy. "C'mon, let's go see if we can find you a bed that Tig hasn't slept in."
Emma couldn't keep the smile off of her face as she followed Jax back into what was slowly becoming a blazing heat, the kind of slow burn that peaked out just after noon but smoldered until the sun went down.
Yeah, maybe she could manage to re-learn this whole smiling business after all.