Tig's Visitor

Too much free time can be a dangerous thing. It allows the mind to wander. For a man like Tig Trager, who's seen and done worse things than most people could ever imagine, time is the last thing he needs. Time to think. Time to reflect. But time seems to be all he has left.

It's been nearly a month since the entire club went down for various crimes, some worse than others. Tig still can't believe he never saw the rat at the table. None of them did, until it was too late. But how? His name is Rat, for God's sake! Although, that probably isn't his real name. And it doesn't really matter now. While they're all facing different charges and sentences, Tig knows he deserves what's coming to him. His most serious charge is murder in the first degree, for the death of Donna Winston.

Of all of the things Tig's been reliving over and over inside his mind since being locked up, Donna's death haunts him the most. That, and the sound of his daughter's tortured screams as Damon Pope burned her alive. Tig slams his head against the concrete wall in his tiny cell. He has no reason to live anymore. Maybe he can do himself in, or give himself brain damage so that at least he doesn't have to be aware of the cruel fate he is doomed to suffer.

"Trager," a guard interrupts him. "Visitor." Visitor?

As the guard leads him toward the visiting area, Tig wonders who the hell could possibly have come to see him. All of his brothers are still locked up, to his knowledge. His daughter disowned him long ago. And Gemma…he swallows hard, trying not to think about how badly she suffered in the end.

And then he sees her, dressed in a skin-tight red dress, her hair perfectly coiffed, fiddling with her big hoop earrings.

"Venus," he whispers, taking his seat on the other side of the plexiglass partition.

"Hey, darlin'," she croons, pressing her manicured nails against the translucent wall between them. Tig smiles. Maybe he's got something to live for after all.

Chibs' Homecoming

Every moment of every day since Jimmy O stole his family, mangled his face, and chased him from his home, Chibs Telford had dreamed of returning to Ireland. But as he traveled down a desolate country road, the rolling hills stretching for miles all around him, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He'd been brought home to die. That was the only possibility. While most of his brothers were rotting in county, waiting for their bullshit trials that would likely land them in prison for life, or worse, he'd been spirited out of the country on a private plane in the middle of the night. His captors hadn't said a single word to him the entire trip back to Ireland. Not one fucking word. It was driving him mad.

The Kings. It had to be the Irish Kings. They were the only ones with enough clout to overpower the criminal justice system and steal one of the FBI's biggest "gets" in years. They were probably seeking retribution for the deaths of so many of their men at the hands of the Sons. Or for the loss of revenue now that their entire west coast gun running operation had been shut down by the feds. Or maybe they just decided they'd finally had enough of Chibs, that he was a loose end that should have been tied up long ago.

Didn't really matter either way. Chibs was powerless to stop whatever fate awaited him. As the covered truck transporting him into the heart of Ireland came to a stop on the side of the road, his heart began pounding. This was it. A man young enough to be his son grabbed him by the arm and pulled him from the truck without a word. Chibs squinted in the bright afternoon sunlight as a sleek black sedan inched toward them, coming to a stop in the middle of the street, completely blocking traffic. Not that there even was any traffic out in no-man's-land, but still.

The door opened, and two faceless shapes climbed out of the car. Their silhouettes were black against the glaring sun. Instinctively, Chibs tried to raise his hands to shield his eyes, but was quickly reminded that he was handcuffed. He took a deep breath, weaving his fingers together and bowing his head. One final prayer.

A tear rolled down his cheek as he spoke to God for the last time, and he prayed that his death would at least be quick.

"Filip." Before he even had time to register the all-too-familiar voice, Fiona's arms were around his neck, her lips kissing his forehead, his eyes, his lips. Kerianne stood nearby, a smile on her face and tears in her eyes as one of her mother's men released her father from his shackles. Once his arms were free, he used them to embrace both of his girls.

"Fiona, how did you…" Fiona silenced him by placing the tips of her slender fingers over his lips. She shook her head. There would be time to talk later. "My girls," Chibs breathed, choking back a sob.

Kerianne kissed him quickly on the cheek. "Welcome home, Da."

Juice is Dead

Guilt is a motherfucker. You can't outrun it, no matter how far you go. As Juice Ortiz watches the snow fall outside the window of the tattoo shop he helps run, he's never felt further from his home in sunny California. But he still carries every bit of the guilt he's been trying to escape.

"Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?" she asks, slipping her delicate, tattooed arms around his neck from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Nothing, boss," he says. He stands, turning to face her. God, she's beautiful. He kisses her sweetly, his soulful eyes locked on hers.

"I love you, Carlos," she whispers in his ear. Carlos. He's still trying to get used to that. Juan Carlos no longer exists. And 'Juice' is dead. Which is just as well. Juice was a lost soul. An imposter.

He tried so hard to be the SAMCRO soldier he was supposed to be, tried to numb himself to the ugly side of life in the MC. But the rougher things got, the more he struggled to find his place in it all. And then Gemma…

He gets a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, thinking about that day. There was so much blood. So, so much blood. Oh God, Tara. He acted purely on instinct. Gemma had always been good to him. He felt obligated to help her. Once he disposed of the evidence linking her to Tara's death, he disappeared- fled as fast and as far as he could. He was across state lines before they even found Tara's body.

He read about Gemma's death in the news weeks later. "A bizarre accident," they called it. But he knows the truth. And he knows the same fate awaits him if they ever find him. So do several outstanding warrants, he's sure, now that the MC has been taken down.

He kisses her again, knotting his hands in her black and fuchsia hair. She smiles. He rests one hand on each side of her ever expanding belly. Not much longer, now.

Happy's Ending

The most dangerous man in the world is the man with nothing to lose. That's why Happy Lowman made such a good assassin. He was afraid of nothing, had no weaknesses. He did not fear death, karma, or incarceration. Which is why it didn't phase him in the slightest when he was arrested on a variety of charges, along with the rest of his SAMCRO brothers.

His only regret was that he didn't kill Rat Boy when he had the chance. It all happened so quickly. One moment they were in church, talking club business for the upcoming week, and the next there were feds everywhere, screaming and attacking. Within seconds, the entire Sons of Anarchy empire had crumbled. They were all on the ground, their faces pressed into the floor, hands shackled behind their backs. Happy silently took inventory, making sure everyone was whole. One was missing. Rat Boy.

Happy sat at a table near the basketball courts, watching over the prison yard. He smiled. What was there to be upset about? He looked good in orange. He got three meals a day, regular showers, and fresh linens weekly. He was allowed to watch cartoons for an hour a day. He even had a small army of followers in his cell block, ready to do his bidding. He missed his kutte. He missed pussy. But other than that, he was good.

Besides, he had a goal now, for the first time he could remember. Someway, somehow, either from the inside or the outside, he was going to find the Redwood rat and make him squeal. And then bleed.

Bobby's Heaven

You can plot and plan your entire life, but sometimes fate steps in and takes over, rendering you powerless. And while that sudden loss of control over your own future can certainly be unnerving, it can also be incredibly freeing.

Free. Bobby Munson is free. While the rest of his brothers await whatever sentences the criminal justice system sees fit to saddle them with, Bobby is in a Spanish villa on the beach, trying to drink away his guilt.

It was a cruel twist of fate that he was out of the country the day the club he'd devoted his life to was taken down. Chibs was able to get a message to him through the club's lawyer, ordering him to stay where he was. They were all going down, and there was no reason for Bobby to go down with them. He couldn't help them, he could only join them.

So rather than travel back to Charming like his heart was telling him to do, Bobby fled…further from California than he'd ever been. His life with SAMCRO is over. His life as a half-ass father to his children is over. All that's left is…this.

He lights a joint and holds it to his lips for a long moment, then chases it with a swig of tequila. His thoughts are too clear. He needs to fuzzy them up in a hurry.

"Aye, Mamacita!" he croons as a dark beauty who doesn't speak a lick of English appears in his bedroom doorway, completely nude. Best thousand euros he ever spent. She smiles a playful little smile, making insincere bedroom eyes at him as he holds his joint in one hand and his booze in the other. He smiles back and takes a deep breath- a sharp, sudden pain ripping through his chest and traveling down his arm.

He drops the bottle of tequila and clutches at his chest, sticky brown liquor staining the satin sheets. The Spanish whore hurries to his side as his breathing becomes labored, asking him frantic questions in Spanish, over and over. For just a moment, he is afraid. Then the pain subsides, and a thick, invisible blanket covers his entire body, starting at his chest and spanning outward. He can't move, can't speak. This is it.

He turns his head and watches out the window as the sun begins to set on the horizon, spilling bright colors as far as the eye can see. It's impossible to tell where the sea ends and the earth begins. Heaven. Good thing he's already there, because there is no way the man upstairs is ever going to let him in. He chuckles at the thought. And then closes his eyes one final time.

Jax's Word

A man is only as good as his word. Jackson Teller's father used to tell him that all the time growing up, and he'd never found a cliché to be more true.

Tara's death had utterly destroyed him in a million different ways, but the main thing that kept him up at night was the regret of all his broken promises. He'd promised that woman the world. Fucked up thing- he really thought he could deliver. A life away from SAMCRO, from Charming…and from Gemma.

Tara hinted at it when they were dating, begged for it once they had a child together, and flat out demanded it in the end. It was all she ever wanted. And if Jax had given it to her, she'd still be alive. That truth was as bitter in his mouth as the bile that rose up in his throat every time he pictured her dead on the kitchen floor, her blood and his broken promises staining the walls.

Jax had failed his wife in life, but he would not fail her in death. He would honor her by giving their boys the life she wanted them to have. Oregon. She'd always wanted to go to Oregon. When he fled Charming, he took the boys there first, hoping to settle in some indiscriminate little town with the new woman in their life, the only person he trusted to help raise his children.

But when news broke of Gemma's untimely death, he knew he would be the chief suspect, that the police would come looking for him. Honestly, that was one crime he would gladly confess to- if he was guilty. Bobby and Chibs urged him to take the boys and hide out in Canada. Bobby had a cousin who lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, far beyond the reach of familiar faces and the arm of the law. It was while Bobby was helping them get settled north of the border that news of the raid on the SAMCRO compound broke. There was no going back now. Not ever.

Jax stood at the kitchen sink, washing the grease from his hands following a hard days' work at the auto body shop he helped run. He watched out the window as the boys played in the wide-open backyard, not once fearing for their safety. When they saw him, they raced toward the house, their smiles contagious.

"Daddy!" Abel shouted as he burst through the back door. Jax scooped his son into his arms and squeezed him tightly, breathing in the scent of sunscreen and bug spray. He smiled when his youngest son entered, safe in the arms of the red-headed spitfire who'd been a Godsend in the months since Tara's death.

"Hey," she said, ruffling Thomas' hair, which was getting darker by the day. He was looking more and more like Tara. And he was quiet, reserved, just like she was.

"Hey, sis," Jax answered her. "What do you guys want to do for dinner?"

As they sat around the dinner table that night- Jax, his sons, and his half-sister Trinity, Jax was content. Sad, but content. This wasn't the family Tara so desperately wanted to give her children, and it wasn't the life either she or Jax had planned on for them. But it was a life she would be proud of, considering. Jax was sure of that. And in keeping his word, he felt himself becoming a better man every day.

Unser's Last Ride

Protect and serve. It's what Wayne Unser's been doing for most of his life- serving his community, protecting the townspeople of Charming. He wore his 'Chief of Police' badge with honor for decades, and even after he was stripped of it, everyone still called him "Chief," still looked up to him.

So how did it all go so terribly wrong? How did he wind up with so much blood on his hands? Driving through the town he once took so much pride in, all he sees now are ghosts. The ghosts of Clay Morrow and John Teller at the boarded up repair shop beside the charred remains of the SAMCRO clubhouse. The ghosts of Eli Roosevelt and David Hale lingering at the police station. The ghosts of Donna Winston and Tara Knowles haunting the neighborhoods where families still raise their children. And Gemma…she's just everywhere.

He protected her so fiercely for so long. How did he never realize that she was the one people needed protection from? She was the one who brought the Sons of Anarchy to Charming, and then killed her own husband and left the club in the hands of that psychopath Clay Morrow. And Tara? She killed her own son's wife, just because she was afraid to lose time with her grandchildren.

All the violence, all the insanity- it was all because of her. Someone had to stop her. Who better than the person that had been enabling her for years? Wayne loved Gemma, but he loved Charming more. The only way his hometown would ever get out from under the weight of the evil that Gemma had burdened it with was if all traces of it were gone.

And they almost were. The club was no more, the Teller family was no more, and Gemma….Gemma was no more. Only one thing left.

Wayne's heart is heavy as he passes through town one final time, making his way toward the highway. For a moment, he considers a different path- hopping on the interstate and driving out to Sacramento to take Nero up on his offer to help him out on his ranch. But Wayne knows he doesn't deserve such a life. And he knows he can't leave Charming. It has to end here, now.

As the "Welcome to Charming" sign comes into view, the one carved from the trunk of a giant sequoia, Unser guns the engine, aiming straight toward it. He will forever be a part of Charming. And it will forever be a part of him.