I do not own any characters from Sons of Anarchy. I own Sara and any other original characters.
August 2004
Sara Harris' gaze drifted briefly to the façade of Teller-Morrow Automotive Repair before flicking back to the clubhouse pouring heavy music across the lot. The stark contrast between the silent garage and the booming clubhouse was made even more apparent by the dark shadows falling across the closed business. She was sure that the garage had been busy earlier in the day but now, at nine at night, the clubhouse was the one demanding attention. It was Saturday night after all so she shouldn't have been surprised by the rager happening inside but it was still very impressive through her nineteen year old eyes.
She wasn't supposed to be here, not really. Her father—Skip— had told her she was supposed to meet Clay at his house and under no uncertain terms was she to go to the party but who knew when Clay'd show up there—she knew how late these parties went—and she didn't feel like waiting around in his driveway when she could at least wait at a party. Besides, Skip was always a little too protective of her anyway; always acting like she had no idea what went on behind clubhouse doors and, really, what he didn't know couldn't hurt him. Hell, he was the one that raised her in a clubhouse.
Still, to go to Charming without an escort had been a fight that she had barely won and would certainly feel the weight of when she got back—especially if he caught wind that she had ignored his explicit directions concerning location of her meeting with the SAMCRO president. A meeting that she only had a brief gist of what it was about; damn motorcycle clubs loved their mystique.
As she flicked ash from her cigarette she leaned on her car and crossed her black bootie-clad ankles enjoying the stretch in her straightened legs. Her neck cracked loudly as she worked fatigue from her neck. She had to give it to these guys: the five-hour trek from San Bernardino hadn't been comfortable in a car so she couldn't even imagine it on a bike.
The nineteen year old pushed her long blonde hair out of her face but the wind blew it back. She smirked to herself, musing that even the night air was rebellious in Charming. For August in California it was a relatively cool night and she felt the skin of her bare arms pimple in response to another draft of air.
With a sigh she pushed off the car, heels clicking loudly on the asphalt as she made her way to the heavy wooden doors. She pried them and was immediately hit by a pungent cloud of smoke followed by a couple groping each other on their way out. Delightful.
"Well hello darling, can I get you a drink?" Tig asked tossing his arm around her shoulders; she scoffed as she shrugged it off. Good ol' Trager. Nothing had changed.
"Tigger. It's me. Sara." Silence. She could almost see his mind going through the mental rolodex of croweaters. "Harris." She added after a silent beat. With a look of startled recognition, he pulled his arm back as if it were on fire.
"Holy shit! Jesus fucking Christ. Aren't you like seventeen?" He asked eyeing her critically. She didn't miss his eyes rake across her body. Clearly he wasn't that put off by her age. She felt a swell of feminine pride beneath her breast.
"Nineteen, Tig. Besides, I was eighteen the last time you saw me. Actually I think we had a very similar conversation then." She answered smartly with a slight roll of her eyes. The look he shot her very clearly conveyed his doubt about her age. As if she had any reason to lie—it wasn't like any of these guys really cared about the legal nuances of age.
"So what're you doing here now?" He bluntly asked after a moment. She snorted. Good to know he was polite as ever.
"What? I can't just drop in on a SAMCRO party?" She teased before continuing, "I had some business in the area. Is Clay around?" She asked casually and scanned the crowd around her looking for the older man.
"He ain't here right now. He'll be around later though. Why? Whatcha need?" Tig's blue eyes sparkled with curiosity.
"To talk to Clay." She responded firmly but threw him a flirty smile of reassurance, "How 'bout that drink while I wait?"
With a nod he led the way through the crowd to the bar. She spied an empty stool next to a blonde biker and hopped on, looking at her neighbor expectantly. Finally he threw her a glance and had to do a double take.
"Well ho-ly shit. Look who came out to play." Jax was a few years older than Sara and she had always thought of him a little like a cousin: they shared the unique experience of growing up in the club bonding them in a way that few in the MC world could relate. Their paths had crossed quite a bit over the years when their fathers had dragged them around but, like most parent-mandated things, the trips tapered off in the rebellious teen years.
"Jackson." She greeted warmly as he pulled her into a side hug. Tig yelled for the Prospect to come over and bring them beers.
"What brings you up to our lovely town?" Jax asked after exchanging a few pleasantries.
"Uhm just some business to take care of. I actually need to talk to Clay but I guess he's not here yet." She said with a dismissive wave of her hand as the Prospect placed a bottle in front of her. Her eyes tracked the tan young man as he ran up and down the length of the bar, trying to serve all of the brothers belligerently shouting at him.
"He's cute." She said flashing a coy smile at the Prospect.
"I thought you don't fuck Prospects?" Jax mocked echoing the same words she had said to him during his prospect year.
"I never said I was going to fuck him. Just that he's cute. You should definitely vote him in." She teased back and took a sip of beer. Tig had wandered off in search of either liquor or pussy— Sara wasn't sure which, but she was pretty sure Tig would stop at whichever he found first.
"Thanks for your input. Not sure how the guys are running it down south, but in Charming we don't usually vote in brothers just because teenage girls think they are cute." He responded with an eye roll.
"Well then you should reevaluate your criteria... Hey, I'm just looking out for future of the club." She quipped with a giggle. Jax shook his head and laughed.
"You're so thoughtful." He jokingly praised. "So what's so pressing you're gonna wait to talk to Clay?" Jax finally inquired with interest. She shook her head and smirked.
"Just because you got your top rocker doesn't mean you got your crown yet, Prince Charming. Don't try to get information out of me." She teased. He snorted at the nickname and took a swig of his beer.
"I suppose that makes you the Ice Princess." He ribbed and she nudged him with her shoulder in response. Shortly afterward, Opie arrived and greeted her with a warm hug. She hadn't seen either of the men since they were Prospects themselves a few years prior. Opie informed her that he had finally married Donna and had two kids, and Jax told her about his girlfriend Wendy, and she told them about her boyfriend Ryan and her internship at a rehab clinic. As the night wore on, she was introduced (or re-introduced as it were) to the current members of SAMCRO but there was still no sign of Clay. She was really starting to be glad she hadn't decided to wait for him in his driveway as she was initially instructed to do so.
The last time she had been in the Redwood clubhouse she had been sixteen and her father had dragged her and her older brother Jason up to visit the Mother Charter. Her father was the Vice President of the SAMDINO chapter so he was naturally combing her brother—a legacy in his own right—to take the seat at the head of their chapter table someday. As for Sara, he didn't want to leave his only daughter home alone so she was brought along by default. In retrospect, part of her was sure it was because Ryan had started showing public interest in her that summer.
At sixteen, Sara hadn't quite fully blossomed yet. She had been in that awkward stage where you hate your body, and your skin, and just don't even know what to do about your hair. Her mother moved to Omaha to get away from the club when Sara was little, leaving her daughter to either learn how to be a woman from the croweaters or put off the topic for as long as possible. She had chosen the latter, and needless to say, hadn't been flaunting any assets—although Ryan still argued otherwise.
In the end, she was pawned off on the SAMCRO women for the weekend and spent most of the visit shopping with Gemma— who took it upon herself to teach Sara to put on make-up, shoot a gun, and bought Sara her first push up bra—which her father had raged about for a solid month. It certainly had solidified Ryan's interest, and the two began their tumultuous relationship shortly after her return.
She had seen Tig and Kozik when she was eighteen and they were on a protection run down south and stopped in at the SAMDINO clubhouse for a night, but that was pretty much it.
Sara had spent much of the last three years trying to climb out from under her father and brother's thumb and to establish herself as her own person. She had started by graduating from highschool with honors at seventeen.
Senior year she had been accepted into a couple bigger state schools, but her father had bitched and moaned about the cost and that it wasn't good for her to be that far away from family, so being the ever dutiful daughter that she was, she ended up at a local community college taking classes whenever she could. She was now in her second year, had an internship at a rehab clinic in L.A., and was putting in about 30 hours a week with SAMDINO's various "legitimate" business enterprises.
For all of that, here she was, once more at the beck and call of the club. Her father had reminded her that when Clay said 'jump', you asked 'how high'.
She sat twirling a piece of her long blonde hair around her finger lost in her own thoughts as she half-listened to Jax and Ope. She was used to feigning interest in topics she couldn't care less about. She loved the club but they really only talked about three things—bikes, pussy, and guns. Her blue eyes darted to the door when it opened and the crowd parted a little. Finally. She hopped off her seat in response.
"Well gentlemen, I need to go see the Prez." She finished her beer and left it on the bar as she made her way to Clay.
"Clay." She greeted and he gave her a small nod of recognition and a long look.
"Thanks for coming, sweetheart. Come on, we'll talk in the back. How's your pops doin'?" She nodded and answered noncommittally as the guys watched her follow him to the back. They didn't miss how tightly her dark skinny jeans clung to an ass they couldn't for the life of them remember being there the last time they had seen her.
"Well she grew the fuck up." Jax said with an amused scoff.
"That was weird." Opie stated ignoring Jax's comment. Jax nodded and hummed in response, brows furrowed. He hadn't seen Sara in years and all of a sudden Clay is taking her for private meetings?
"Hey, who is that girl you guys were talking to?" The Prospect asked as he wiped up the condensation and spilled beer accumulating on the bar top.
"Sara Harris. She's the daughter of the San Bernardino VP." Opie answered absently watching one of the guys toss a croweater over his shoulder and the crowd cheered loudly as she squealed in delight.
"She seems cool." The Prospect prodded eagerly and both Jax and Opie rolled their eyes.
"Shut the fuck up and go get us more beers, pissant." Opie directed gruffly.
After about a half hour, Sara and Clay emerged from the back and watched the crowd for a moment whispering between themselves. Jax and Opie followed their gaze to Kozik sitting with a girl on either side, high as a fucking kite; he was beyond even pretending he didn't have a $3K-a-week coke habit and was beginning to be more trouble than he was worth.
Sara grimaced briefly before nodding and turning to Clay. They watched as Clay placed a hand on her shoulder gently and she smiled reassuringly before clearly excusing herself and making her way back to them at bar. The two men watched her intensely as she flagged down the Prospect to get another drink.
"Meeting go well?" Jax pressed further.
"Pretty much as expected." She answered vaguely. "What's your name, sweetheart?" She asked the Prospect as he handed her a drink. His eyes flicked to Jax and Opie briefly before answering.
"Uhh. I'm JC."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Sara." She answered with a flirty smile before taking a sip. Opie and Jax turned around on their stools to face away both grumbling something about 'so much for not fucking prospects'.
"Anyone know where the fuck Kozik is?" Clay asked with a grunt of frustration at the absence of the brother. It was the afternoon following the party and Kozik was the only one who hadn't managed to make it to Church.
"Probably in a bathroom somewhere powdering his nose." Tig responded dryly, with an implicating nose-rub. The comment got a few chuckles but mostly everyone grumbled about how they were sick of Kozik's shit.
"Well I have something to bring to the table then." Clay said after a moment. "We got two options: kick him out or clean him up. Now, he's a brother who I know we all love and he's been a loyal brother for years, an asset, and personally, has had my back more times than I can count. If you can't count on your brothers for help, who can you trust?" The men nodded in agreement as Clay continued.
"I want to send him to San Bernardino. Skip Harris' daughter has had some success cleaning up some of their guys. She going to school for addiction counseling or some shit," Opie and Jax exchanged look as Clay continued, "Anyway, hopefully she can straighten him out because he's of no use to us right now. All right, let's take a vote. Those in favor of sending our brother on a detox vacation?" A resounding 'AYE' filled the room—and one "Get him the fuck outta here!" that sounded suspiciously like Tig.
Sara sat at the bar while the guys were in Church, her wayfarers resting delicately on the top of her head. That JC kid was behind the bar straightening up after the party the night before and the two were chatting pleasantly. Apparently he was quite the tech wiz.
She liked the new Prospect.
He seemed like a good kid but she worried he was getting into the club for the wrong reasons. He seemed more like someone who should be at ComicCon or working at a Blockbuster. Not in an MC. Brotherhood was great and all, but it came at a steep price. Brothers had to kill for each other, and taking a life didn't seem like something that would come easy to JC. He struck her as someone who would be haunted by the ghosts of his kills. Her thoughts were derailed by the sound of the chapel doors opening behind her.
"Hey sweetheart, how's the family?" Chibs asked with a half hug on the way to the bar.
"They're good. How's yours?" She asked politely. Chibs shrugged and took a swig straight from a whiskey bottle in response. She chuckled as Clay approached.
"Well?" She asked after a moment.
"He's all yours. Gemma'll come down and help you manage him, maybe you can teach her some tricks so we don't have to outsource in the future. No offense, but it ain't much use to have a SAMCRO brother laid out six hours away." She nodded in agreement.
"With all due respect, he doesn't see like he'd be much use even if he was six minutes away." She responded before biting her cheek at her own gall. Fortunately, Clay cracked a smile and nodded in concession.
"And does he know yet?" She asked glancing around and not seeing Kozik among the brothers.
They worked out the logistics and by that evening she, Gemma, and a fuming but compliant Kozik were heading south.
Author Note: Thank you for reading. I have posted information as to what I am envisioning Sara to appear like as well as my inspiration for the story. Reviews are appreciated and strongly recommended.