A/N: Hi and thanks for checking out my fic! It was a plot that I just couldn't get out of my head. This is actually my first SOA fic, so please be gentle. If you notice any inaccuracies, please assume that they are intentional, as this story will not be canon-compliant.
Disclaimer: I own nothing! Literally. I own absolutely nothing.
"It ain't the blows we're dealt that matter, but the ones we survive." - Stephen King. Bobby's estranged daughter, Collynn, has been dealt enough blows in life to be considered a survivor. What happens when she gets herself into more trouble than she can handle? A certain Scotsman may be the difference between simply surviving and truly living for Collynn.
Bobby Munson closed his eyes. It had been a long fucking day. He and the rest of the Sons had just returned to Charming from patching over the Devil's Tribe in Indian Hills. Bobby was hoping for a moment to lay on the couch in the clubhouse, spark up a joint, and let a croweater go to town on him.
Just as he was bringing a lighter to his joint, his cell phone rang. He was half-tempted to ignore it, but knew that it could be important. Shit was going down with the Mayans, and he couldn't use the excuse of getting his dick wet if he missed something big.
Bobby furrowed a brow and waved off the croweater who was currently seated in his lap. His daughter was calling him. It was nearly three in the morning on a Wednesday night. His stomach dropped when he thought about all the reasons that she could be calling.
When he was first patched into SAMCRO, Bobby had an old lady. They had tried to play house when he moved to Charming, living together, really trying to be parents, but it was not meant to happen. When his daughter was three, she left him, and moved them both to San Francisco to "start over."
Bobby and his oldest, Collynn, had a good relationship. They got together a few times throughout the year, usually around Christmas and each of their birthdays, but not in Charming. As much as he loved his club, Bobby didn't want Collynn being involved in anything less than savory. Aside from the first few years of being the club baby girl, she didn't know his life, and he was okay with that.
He cringed inwardly and steeled himself for whatever was waiting for him on the other end of the call.
"Hey, Collynn, baby. What's up?"
The line was quiet for a few moments before he heard a quiet sob. "Daddy, he's dead."
Every hair on Bobby's body stood on end as Collynn cried on the phone. She hadn't called him "daddy" in years. She started hiccupping and sobbing out the words too quickly for him to understand.
"H-he was fucking h-hitting me. Too much blood." It felt like ice water had been thrown onto him. She was still crying manically into the phone.
"Slow down, baby girl. What happened?" Bobby stood up, looking for the keys to the TM van. When he spotted them on the bar top, he snagged them.
"I killed him!" She cried shrilly into the phone. "I hit him over and over and over. Oh god. What have I done?"
"Collynn, where are you? I'm coming. We're going to fix this. Just, hang on, baby, and tell me where you are." Bobby hustled over to the pool table, where Tig had his face enthusiastically buried in the tits of a sweetbutt. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him away, still waiting for his daughter to respond to him.
"I-I'm at home." She sobbed freely into the phone, sounding so scared. Her fear made Bobby want to throw up.
"Stay put, baby girl. I'm coming to get you." Bobby said as comfortingly as he possibly could into the phone. "Lock the door. I'll be there in three hours. Don't touch anything. I'll fix it. I love you, pumpkin." If the scenario had been any different, he would have felt mildly embarrassed at the endearment, but now was not the time for that shit.
"I love you, too, daddy." The line disconnected and he swore. She must have hung up.
Tig glared down at him over interrupting his motorboating session with the skanky sweetbutt. "What the fuck, man?"
Bobby returned the glare, his filled with far more venom than Tig's. "Call the fucking cleaner. We have shit to take care of tonight. My kid needs me. And by extension, you. She fucking killed someone."
Tig's eyes grew wide. "Collynn? Jesus Christ." Tig was always the person to call when someone gets murdered. Grass is green, the sky is blue, and you call Tig when someone kills someone.
His portly friend just gave him another glare to get his ass in gear. "We need to go. Now."
A few hours later, in San Francisco, the sun was threatening to break over the horizon. Collynn Rourke was sitting on the floor of her kitchen, hugging her knees to her chest, and staring at the face of a man that was once handsome and loving. Her large brindle boxer, Maggie, laid her body protectively over Collynn's lap.
That face was now a bloody, caved-in mess, thanks to the cast iron skillet that she used to fight him off. Everything had happened so quickly.
Every time she shut her eyes, she replayed the entire night. She had been in the middle of making a midnight snack after having to stay at work late, and her fiancé started accusing her of cheating. Cheating had been one of his favorite new ways to pick a fight with the young woman. It had escalated to screaming matches a few times, but had never gone further, until that night.
While she was scanning the cupboards for the box of Pop-Tarts that she knew that she had put in there that morning, Trent had grabbed her by the hair and smashed her face into the cabinet door in front of her. After that, everything was a blur.
The only thing that she clearly remembers after that first hit was lying on the floor, with his face hovering over hers, and swinging the heavy skillet toward his face. She doesn't even remember how she got the skillet in the first place. When she was pulled out of shock, she heard Maggie going ballistic in the bathroom. Trent had locked her in there before he decided to lay a hand on Collynn. The angry dog had very nearly chewed through the door to get to her.
Collynn knew vaguely that she was hurt, but her entire body felt numb. She had no idea how she was going to fix this. She just ruined her career. Collynn was a couple of months into being an associate at a large corporate criminal defense law firm. It was all she had worked for for years. Gone. Completely gone. Now she was going to prison. Her life was over.
Collynn had called her father because, even though she didn't know details, she knew he was into some shady shit. The MC that he was involved in wasn't just a group of Harley enthusiasts, there was definitely more there than that.
Her heart leapt into her throat when she heard footsteps outside her door and a heavy knock. She bolted upright, vaulting the dead body and pool of blood in her kitchen to answer the door. Maggie was hot on her heels, snarling at the door, practically frothing at the mouth to protect Collynn.
Standing on her tiny front porch was her dad. He looked like this trip had aged him by thirty years at least. She threw herself into his arms and started sobbing all over again. Even though she had about two inches in height on him, she still felt so small.
Bobby let her cry while he motioned for Tig to start on the mess while they wait for the cleaner to show up. They stood in her doorway for about ten minutes while Tig took a look around.
Collynn's sobs turned into hiccups and she slowly pulled away from her dad. He grasped her chin and surveyed her face, his other fist curling tightly. If the fucker laying on the floor wasn't already dead, Bobby Munson would have killed him himself.
There was a deep gash on her forehead, nearly in her hairline, allowing her face to become awash in her own blood. Her nose was also broken, and there were handprints around her throat.
"Don't worry, dad. The other guy looks worse." Collynn tried to joke weakly, giving her dad a watery smile.
"He truly does, big man. You put that son of a bitch down." Tig chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen. "Go take a shower and put on clean clothes. Put your bloody clothes in this bag. We'll take care of everything, kitten." Collynn gave him a disdainful look at the nickname. She was not a kitten, dammit.
Tig handed the young woman a plastic trash bag and frowned deeply. He could remember when she was born. The whole club had crowded into the hospital room. How could the tiny blob of mush that he held at the hospital twenty-five years ago be the woman standing in front of him today?
She nodded quietly, barely catching the quiet sentence that Tig muttered to Bobby. "His face looks like fucking hamburger meat. She did good."
In a moment of bravery, she called out shakily. "Don't fucking throw out that skillet! It's too goddamn good to beat people with." Collynn heard the slightly stressed laughter come from her dad and Tig. She vaguely remembered Tig. Vaguely in the sense that she knew who he was, but couldn't remember anything else about him.
Contrary to her bold words, more tears squeezed out of her tear ducts as she walked down the hall to the bathroom, Maggie trotting along beside her. When she surveyed the damage to the bathroom, she was proud of her girl. The inside of the bathroom door was nearly shredded, and the dog had been about a centimeter away from breaking through the door.
Carefully, she peeled off her clothes and placed them into the plastic bag that Tig had given her. She couldn't tell what the temperature of the water was when she stepped under the spray of the shower. By the time she was done rinsing out her hair, the water that pooled at her feet was a bright pink, tinged with blood.
After scrubbing her entire body for what felt like an hour, she stepped out of the shower and stood in front of the floor length mirror in the bathroom. She really needed to survey the damage.
Collynn met her own icy blue gaze in the mirror as she studied herself. Her normally bright, honey blonde, curly hair hung in a wet pile on her shoulder. The broken cartilage of her nose seemed to stick out like a goddamn neon sign as the bruising had begun to spread across her face and around her eyes.
The gash on her forehead was still trickling blood, so she bundled up a washcloth and pressed it to the wound. She hissed in pain as it did its job. While she tended her forehead, Collynn pushed back her hair and noticed that the fucker had ripped out one of her earrings. The forked skin that once held her earring made her want to gag, but she kept going.
On her long, pale neck, two distinct handprints were cropping up. It made her blood boil and she wanted to go further mutilate the body lying on her kitchen floor. She had to stop looking at her reflection and put a towel over the mirrored medicine cabinet.
Collynn wasn't exactly a vain person, but, like nearly every other young woman out there, she cared about her appearance. She liked to think that she was pretty, in a girl next door sort of way. She had long, curly blonde hair that falls to the middle of her back, and bright blue eyes. She wasn't a little girl, standing at 5'10" with dangerous curves.
Collynn rolled her eyes. No child of Bobby Munson could ever be considered "small." Instead, she had a small belly that seemed to be proportionate with her broad shoulders, narrow waist, wide hips, and full chest. Her chub made her body look more soft and feminine where she would otherwise be built like a linebacker. Her weight had been something that she had struggled with for many years. Hell, she still struggled with it sometimes, but it no longer forced her into a cycle of extreme dieting and binge eating.
She had several strategically hidden tattoos, including a half-sleeve that wrapped around her shoulder blade and down to her elbow that showcased all of her favorite horror movies.
Her face, as mangled as it was at the moment, was classically pretty, with round doe-eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Collynn cringed to think about her nose. It wasn't looking so good. It was going to be a bitch to have reset.
Wrapped in a fluffy towel, Collynn tiptoed across the hall to her room. She was infinitely glad for the fact that she and Trent hadn't pulled the trigger and moved in together yet. He had begun to spend more and more time at her small house, but he hadn't dragged all of his shit over yet.
Quietly, she pulled on a worn pair of jeans that were fairly holey and a hoodie. The hoodie blessedly hid the bruises that had formed on her neck. Her mind had gone blank, the gore of the previous night thankfully staying locked into the safe inside of her.
When she emerged into the kitchen, expecting to see a dead body still sprawled across the floor. To her surprise, her kitchen was spotless. Her head whipped around, and she saw her dad and Tig sprawled across her living room couch and chair, watching television.
"He's gone?" She whispered, catching their attention.
Bobby gave her a small smile, "Like he was never here, sweetheart. We need to get you back to Charming to get the rest of this sorted out. And have our medic take a look at you. You definitely need some attention."
Collynn nodded solemnly and retreated to her bedroom to gather her shoes, purse, and an extra change of clothing. She cursed loudly, she needed to do something about her job. Luckily, she had no court hearings for the rest of the week, but she would need to send an email to her boss to let her know that she wouldn't be in the office.
Sighing, she sat on her bed, sending an email to her boss and a text to her neighbor, begging him to let himself in to take care of Maggie. She had a "family emergency" to attend to.
Her face had begun to throb, the shock of the night finally wearing off. She needed to get the fuck out of her house before she started climbing the walls.
Bobby, Tig, and Collynn pulled into the lot at Teller-Morrow Automotive just as the sun hit its peak, sitting high in the clear sky.
The hours in the van on the way back to Charming passed much too quickly for Collynn. She had finally drifted off for the first time, and it felt like she had only been asleep for three minutes.
Collynn had a good life. She had two parents who loved her, albeit divorced, she rented a small house near her office, and she had previously had a loving fiancé. She and Trent had known each other since they were in college.
Trent was an academic. She always had admired that about him. He was so damn quick and clever. He was handsome in a harmless, nerdy sort of way. They were cut from the same cloth, determined, smart, and ambitious. Collynn and Trent worked like a well-oiled machine together, until their relationship shifted a few months previous. Trent had begun to drink and accuse Collynn of sleeping around.
She ground her teeth when she thought about some of the vitriol that he had spewed at her recently, asking if she had liked being on her knees for the partner at the firm she had just started at.
Her forehead had still yet to completely stop bleeding. It seemed that every time it would finally trickle to a stop, something would happen that would reopen the cut. She had resigned herself to leaning on a McDonald's napkin against the wall of the van to keep it from bleeding.
Taking a deep breath to ground herself, she tugged her hood up onto her head, trying to expose the least amount of people as possible to her unfortunate facial situation. Her golden blonde curls tumbled out of the hood and around either side of her face.
Collynn smiled at her dad when he offered her a hand down from the old black panel van and into the scorching sunlight. The garage was what she had remembered. The memories that she had of TM were aged and almost sepia-toned. They were the sort of memories that you really had to focus on to discern whether or not you had actually dreamed it.
"Thanks, daddy." Her voice was small and quiet as she kept her head down. Collynn was surprised at how well she was able to keep her composure. Her past twenty-four hours had been hellacious to say the least.
"Don't mention it, pumpkin." Collynn's cheeks burned at her childhood nickname. She hadn't heard it in a while.
Tig flanked her other side, resting his arm lightly across her shoulders. She looked up at him and gave him a grateful smile, which he returned. He reached inside his kutte and pulled out a small Ziploc baggie that made her sigh in contentment.
"You're probably going to need this, darlin'." Tig gave her a shit eating grin, his gray eyes dancing mischievously.
"Oh, fuck yes." Collynn had to bite back a moan as she snagged the baggie of weed from Tig. He then produced a small piece and a lighter. "You're a man after my own heart, Tig."
"Shit, darlin'. Don't do to me what you did to the last guy after your heart." He winked at her as she picked apart the buds, reveling at the slightly resin-y coating that was left on her fingers.
She laughed too hard at the shitty joke and packed the bowl tightly as they entered the clubhouse. It was dark and gritty, but it smelled homey to the young woman. Bobby and Tig led her over to one of the well-worn leather couches.
"I'm going to go grab Chibs. You might want to get her a little more than pot." Tig said lowly to Bobby, hoping Collynn wouldn't hear. She cringed, knowing that the impromptu doctor's visit was not going to be a fun one. It goes without saying that she couldn't very well go to the emergency room on the same day that her fiancé goes missing. It's True Crime 101. No body, no motive, no proof.
"Yeah, I thought as much." Bobby sighed and walked behind the bar, pulling out a bottle of Don Julio Real Tequila and a bottle of Jim Beam. "Can't let you get fucked up by yourself, pumpkin." He smiled at her and she traded him the pipe and lighter for the bottle of tequila.
"My favorite? Oh, you shouldn't have," she chuckled drily, taking a long slug from the bottle. The burn from the alcohol burnt her nose, making her eyes water.
"What can I say? Only the best for my baby girl." Bobby smirked back at her, cracking into his own bottle. This was about the extent of their relationship, getting stoned and tossing banter back and forth. It took a lot to rattle members of the Munson/Rourke family; they'd both seen a lot of shit.
For about a half hour, they sat, passing the pipe back and forth between them, Collynn hitting a little harder than her dad, but the silence was companionable. Collynn's brain was getting mercifully fuzzy, and she had drank enough of the expensive tequila that her lips were finally becoming numb, the first sign that she was, indeed, drunk.
"M'ready. Somebody break my nose," she slurred contentedly. Bobby wheezed a laugh and she heard a couple of other laughs join in. She had to take a moment to make sure that she wasn't just multiplying sounds the way that her vision would soon be, and she looked around, gaze locking in on Tig who had another biker in tow.
"Here, pumpkin, a couple more good drinks, and you won't remember any of this tomorrow." Bobby nudged the bottle at her again and held his out to clink it against hers in cheers. She nodded glumly and tilted the bottle into the air, not even tasting the tang of the tequila anymore.
Shaking her head lightly, she focused on Tig and their medic that he had with him.
"Sorry for tha wait, love. Had ta stop by the hospital for some more supplies. Yer da said that you had quite tha night."
Collynn locked eyes—well she tried to, anyway—with the man who was speaking. He was a roguishly handsome man probably in his mid-forties. His Scottish brogue was a little hard for her to decipher in her inebriated state, but she managed.
"S'fine, Mr. Doctor. Just fix my face, please."
A wide grin broke across the Scotsman's face, showcasing dimples as well as two deep scars that ran from the corners of his mouth and almost to his ears. Collynn had to check herself before she asked about the Glasgow Grin etched into the man's handsome face. That was definitely not a first conversation sort of topic. The Scotsman's smile reached his kind brown eyes. Good god damn, this man was so handsome. She had always had a soft spot for older men, and this guy was downright delectable.
"Chibs is fine, love. No need ta be so formal. Mr. Doctor was me da." The small joke made Collynn cackle, even if no one else thought it was as funny as she did.
"Like a knife? Cool name! I'm Collynn, because my parents thought I was going to be a boy!" Collynn giggled. The tiny sober self that was currently trapped inside her hazy brain was face-palming up a storm. Chibs' smile only grew as he heard her prattle on about nothing he could actually discern.
Bobby rolled his eyes, much more sober than his daughter. "She got the shit beat out of her, Chibs. The asshole broke her nose, busted her head open, and ripped her earring out. Please patch her up. I'm keeping her here for the weekend, so we can figure out her shit."
Chibs nodded soberly. He assessed the young woman's injuries and his fist clenched tighter and tighter. He didn't know the whole story, having only just woken up not too long before he got the SOS text from Tig, but he knew that Bobby and Tig wouldn't be sitting in front of him so calmly if the fucker that hurt her was still with the land of the living.
Collynn took a deep breath as Chibs donned a pair of gloves and placed his fingertips on either side of her nose. She flailed wildly for Bobby's hand and tried not to hyperventilate in anticipation. It had hurt enough to have her nose broken the first time.
"Arigh', love. I'm gonna count ta three, an' then I'm gonna reset yer nose. It's gonna hurt like a bitch, but it'll be over soon." Chibs tried to soothe her as best he could while gently prodding the broken cartilage, wanting to realign the break as perfectly as he could.
The son of a bitch snapped her nose back into place on the two-count and Collynn howled in pain. It was almost like fireworks had exploded behind her eyes.
"Shit! Mother fucker! You said you were counting to three, you limey bastard!" She cried out. She was too drunk for this fake-out nonsense. Tears coursed down her bruised cheeks.
Chibs was torn between chuckling and feeling bad for causing the young woman any more pain. Collynn's mother had already taken her from Charming by the time Chibs was patched into SAMCRO, but Bobby always spoke proudly of his daughter. Now, he finally had a face to put to all of the stories that he heard from his portly friend.
Even past all of the bruising, he could tell that she was a lovely girl. Her wide blue eyes were expressive and full of fire and full lips that had stretched into a mirthful smile only a moment before.
"That was the worst warning ever, Chibby." Collynn pouted before bringing a tissue up to stem the flow of blood that had recently started all over from her nose.
"Sorry, love." He wasn't sorry. It would have hurt worse when she was expecting it. That way, he had saved her a moment of anticipation and worry.
"S'okay. Just don't lie to me again, okay?" She had finally turned the corner into being a sappy drunk.
"Alrigh'."
"Pinky promise?" She held a hand out to him, pinky outstretched. Chibs rolled his eyes and wrapped his pinky finger around hers.
"Pinky promise, love. Now I'm going to stitch up your ear. It won't hurt nearly as much as yer nose did, but it won' feel ta good either."
Collynn shrugged and let Chibs finish patching her up. Her eyes had begun to grow heavy while he was stitching up her forehead, and by the time he was done, she was only a tick away from being completely gone to the world.
"C'mon, kitten. Let's get you into one of the apartments. Then you can sleep all you want." Tig pulled the pliable girl to her feet, allowing her to catch her bearings.
Chibs was surprised when he saw the young woman standing. She was much taller than he had originally thought, her forehead coming to about eye-level with him. He also admired her soft curves that were slightly hidden by the sweatshirt that she was wearing. Chibs needed to get a grip. Bobby would sure as hell not appreciate him checking out his daughter.
Chibs watched as Tig led her to the stairs and helped her up and into one of the cleaner apartments that were in the clubhouse. God, she had a nice arse too.