As the morning sun lifted the shadows out from underneath the concrete fortress of Teller-Morrow garage, the life that Matilda Delaney had been raised to accept as her own could almost pass for peaceful. A lone figure nestled atop the roof, a book perched precariously on her knees, Matilda was embracing the quiet solitude that had seemed to escape her life since the age of six, when her junkie mother, Beatrice, had died and she had been escorted into the arms of SAMCRO, arms she was beginning to wonder if she would ever want to let go of.
Matilda had been raised on fairytales. Her mother had been a real-life princess in her eyes; her uncle had shown her the photo evidence to support her waning memories of the red-headed vision in cotton dresses, cigarette smoke veiling the vibrancy of emerald eyes. Where Beatrice had lived a fireball existence, a vivid beauty with equally destructive tendencies, Matilda was dissimilar. Aside from her obvious physical resemblance, Uncle Otto had sworn she had grown into her mother's twin, Matilda had suspicions of other likenesses to her mother and at times felt all too well the simmering volcano that threatened to burst from beneath her skin but as always, kept her control tightly reigned. She was good at hiding things, fooling them all. Except Gemma. She couldn't hide a whole lot of anything from that woman. She loved that woman. Loved her as her mother. But god it was as if she could sniff out your very being better than any hunting hound, one that wanted blood.
Matilda carefully pressed the book's pages together and lifted her head towards the sun, the long tendrils of her hair blending into the burnt oranges of the sky, a mane like her mother's that her earnt her the name of Red from Tig. Tiggy was her favourite, although she'd never let the cocky bastard know it. God knows how much pleasure he'd get out of that one. She wasn't one for violence but since the age of sixteen he had developed a tendency to appreciate her ass in cut-offs and her right hook, which was surprisingly substantial, had to come into contact with his smug face. She laughed thinking about it, he'd probably love that too. Aside from that, she had a close bond with Chibs, a fellow storyteller; the Scot beguiled her with tales of red headed warriors, not stories for children as Chibs liked to put his own spin on things, but stories nonetheless. In a way Matilda was a warrior, she loved so deeply and fiercely that it scared her, the power within her heart. The club was all she had. After her mother's death, Otto and his wife Luann had taken in his little sister's baby. She missed Otto and his fierce sense of loyalty after he had gone to jail; she supposed she had that in common with him too. She had been taken in by Otto and Luann and loved them dearly although her upbringing was more of a collective club effort. She was adored by the club and fiercely protected by all. Growing up she had been raised up above the clubs shoulders, kept safely out of harm's way but her perception was always keen, even as a little girl. She had seen and heard more than any of them had every realised and although she never knew the true darkness of the club that she knew today, she had never been far from the shadows.
Matilda had grown up as exhausts had been repaired and bikes had been ridden off into the distance on faraway voyages she had known as 'runs'. She had grown up with barely made friends dragged away by guarded parents, eventually turning into no company inside the school walls apart from her trusty books. She had always been studious, thrown herself into it, which hadn't gone unnoticed by Gemma who had invited nine year old Matilda into her office to do her math homework after she had watched her constant interruptions from Tig, whom she sat next to cross legged, passing him tools as her worked. These afternoons with Gemma formed the basis of what would become their solid and unbreakable relationship as it was today. While Aunt Luann was always all too eager to provide boy advice to the teen Matilda whose growing beauty seemed to attract too much attention for her own good, according to Clay, Gemma was the one who really took on the mother role, guiding Matilda into role of a young woman who had to hold her own in order to make it amongst the Sons of Anarchy. Although Gemma had groomed her with the aim of producing a mini-me in mind, Matilda possessed a far less demanding presence than the Matriarch. Where Gemma was the hurricane, albeit the hurricane than still managed to hold the club's foundations together, Matilda was more like a soft Southern Californian breeze, a breath of fresh air to invigorate the congested haze of the club. She provided a kind of solace and despite her nineteen years, possessed thoughtful wisdom that many of the sons hadn't seen since the likes of John Teller himself.
She remembered in her senior year, in English Lit they had been reading Shakespeare, Hamlet, and she had drawn up similarities between the heavy presence of the ghost of King Hamlet and the looming influence of the late John Teller that had never really seemed to leave the club. Her heart had hurt for the crazed Prince Hamlet and she had sworn that she would do whatever it took to protect Jax from that insanity. Matilda had idolised Jax and Opie growing up and as she aged, her maturity levels fast catching up to and quickly over taking their own, the three had formed a close friendship. She was their confidante. Jax especially had tried to protect her from the gritty details but when it came to those two, she had seen it all, she knew them inside out. She remembered the brief period in junior high when she had developed a crush on eighteen year old Jax after he had allowed her to ride on the back of his bike. She had sworn he was a real life prince charming as he wrapped the too big helmet atop her red curls and looked at her with his blue eyes so bright she had to blink, concern in his voice as he urged her to "Hold on tight, Tilly". She had of course clung to dear life but was soon tipping her head back with glee, the barren landscape rushing past in a whir of colour that matched her colourful life. She chuckled to herself thinking back to those memories. Jax the giant, she had thought of him.
She still thought of him that way, only now he was a little more real to her. She had watched him fall in love with Tara as Opie had with Donna. Athough, as Opie and Donna had married fresh out of high school, Tara, who had always been friendly to the young Matilda, had split from Charming as soon as the chance arose, opening wider the hole in Jax that Matilda knew had been gaping since the death of his father. After that she had witnessed the extent of his self-destruction and his corresponding rise in the ranks of the club to VP. Only recently, over coffee at the Winston household with their godchild Kenny playing at their ankles, she had seen a sort of happiness or maybe relief in the lines of his face as he had told her about Wendy. She had liked Wendy, despite having little in common with her, and was sad to find out about her relationship with Crank, reminiscent of her own mother, especially when she had found out about her pregnancy with Jax's child. She had helped Gemma assist Wendy during that time. But yesterday, finding Wendy limp on the kitchen floor stained both with blood and ice-cream, Matilda's heart had sunk low into her chest, only intensified when she had witnessed Jax's reaction. They were waiting on news now. That's why she had come up onto the roof, for some peace from it all. Abel. She knew Jax had named him Abel. Son. He had been born into this empire. She had been welcomed into it. It was as much apart of her now as she was of it. An empire of dirt and grit. But it was hers.