A/N

UndomesticatedSoA - Definition: A collaboration between Voracious Bitch and MuckyShroom, exploring the women of SAMCRO. Some characters are canon, some OFCs. Some situations are AU, some canon. If you want more info, just check out the bio.

Disclaimer: All characters, etc from Sons of Anarchy are the property of Kurt Sutter, FX, etc. We own nothing that you recognise from SoA.

Parental Advisory Warning: This piece contains strong language.

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It'll Always Be You

That lousy, bastard, mother-fucker...

Mary ran through the expletives as she closed the door, barely breathing the profanities past tight lips. How fucking dare he apologise now! Christ, this was three fucking decades too late. Not once, not god-damn once had he apologised. Not for the women, those skank whores that she'd caught him with in every position from sucking his dick to moaning for more on their hands and knees. Not for the booze; the beer, the tequila and the whisky that brought on brief but vicious belligerence before unconsciousness. Not for somehow, inexplicably, being something that her son wanted to emulate, despite the myriad flaws, despite never being there when it mattered.

She turned and leant back against the door. That big bastard had really put her through the mill. He'd been everything to her, he'd been her whole world; but eventually she'd had her naïve eyes opened. It had started with the drinking. All the boys liked to drink, but gradually it had dawned on her that her fella liked his drink a lot more than the rest of them. Liked it so much it was his companion from waking to passing out. First she'd tried suggesting that he cut down, then she'd tried asking, then she'd tried begging, then it had stopped mattering and simply became something she lived with.

Not many women would have put up with the shit that she had for as long as she had, but she had her reasons. They'd been sweethearts in high school. He'd been the star of the football team and she'd been proud to wear his letterman jacket. He hadn't quite made it onto a scholarship programme though and there was no way his family could afford to send him to college. He'd started work at the lumber mill and they'd started making innocent, tentative plans for marriage and a family, but it came as no surprise to anyone when in 1961, swept up in the fervent tide of patriotism that accompanied the Kennedy presidential victory, he'd enlisted in the Marine Corp.

She was so frightened of him going off to battle, but so full of pride for him at the same time. She knew he'd likely be shipped out to Korea or Vietnam, but he was doing his piece to safe-guard their country and their way of life; doing his bit to stop the commies from taking over the world. There were tearful kisses and impossible promises to write every day. They never did lose touch. Even when he shipped out to Vietnam he continued to write, if somewhat sporadically, but she could see from the news reels what was happening over there and was just grateful to receive any communication at all. Each letter meant he was still alive, that he'd survived just a little bit longer. All the hoping and praying had cemented the effervescent puppy-love until it had become ingrained into her, until she couldn't not love him because loving him had become as much a part of her as breathing. The strength of feeling over rode the nagging fear in the back of her mind that the tone of his letters was changing; the man that came home to her, if he came home, might not be the boy she'd kissed goodbye.

He did come home a few years later, bringing with him his new friend John Teller. They came roaring into town on their twin Harley Panheads. That whispering voice had been right, he wasn't the same youthful, enthusiastic boy that she'd kissed and sent off to war. There was a darkness in him, a cynicism that hadn't been there before. He seemed to space out for minutes at a time, staring wide eyed at things that only he could see. His normally placid disposition was a distant memory, now he was quick to anger, snappish. He constantly seemed to be on the edge of losing control. It was immediately apparent that he wasn't going to be able to settle into the normal grind of everyday life and it broke her heart all over again when she had to kiss him goodbye before he roared out of town in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes.

Just as her love for him had become embedded in her bones, it seemed to have worked the other way around too. She called to him, she was the last tenuous thread to the existence he left behind, to his innocence before the war, and it kept dragging him back. Every few months or so he'd ride back through town and spend a couple of days with her. Even when he was out on the road he wrote or called if he could. She'd barely ever left their hometown and he'd send her letters describing all the things he was seeing as they travelled the length and breadth of California, occasionally venturing into neighbouring states or further afield.

Sometimes he'd ride in on his own, but sometimes he'd be with John. They'd added another friend, Lenny, early on and then a few more here and there. Eventually there were nine of them roaring into town together, scaring the spit out of half the residents with their loud bikes, denim cuts and large knives strapped to their hips. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Her father forbade her to have anything more to do with him. She was twenty seven, living a spinster's life at home with her parents, reluctant to move on. She somehow wasn't able to put her finger on what she wanted and was restlessly unsatisfied with the thought of giving in to the mundane drudge of a housewife's life in a small town. When her father had thrown down the gauntlet she'd picked it up, packed a small bag and climbed on the back of her boy's bike, determined that she was never going to set foot in that town again.

She had loved him, so much. She had believed if she just loved him hard enough, well enough, he'd change; if only she could hang in there and just keep loving him. Those had been the only thoughts in her head when she'd said 'I do' in the small chapel in Vegas. It had been a strange epiphany one random day, when she realised he was never going to return to the boy she'd known. Her love was never going to be enough. He didn't see what he was doing as wrong. He just didn't see, was completely blind to the fact that it hurt her, cut her to the bone. Her pride kept her in place for just a little longer. She would not give up on him, would not give in. She would not walk away defeated.

When Harry had come along she'd been left alone in their house with a screaming baby while her man had been free, living it up with his friends and that had snapped something inside of her. Knowing that his indifference was hurting her child, her son, had caused her inner momma bear to rise up, teeth and claws bared, ready to maul. It seemed though like every time she needed him at home he was either closer to the bottom of a bottle than the top or dipping his wick into one of the club whores. "Croweaters", the term made her snort with wry laughter. Why not call a spade a spade; they were whores, end of story.

The explosion had been epic. The mushroom cloud of vitriol had overshawdowed the relationships of every member. All the married patches had behaved a little better for a while. In his semi-drunken stupor he had barely noticed what was going on when he'd stumbled into the house. He hadn't realised that she'd locked the door behind him, cutting off his escape, before venting all of her pent up anger, frustration and heartache. It had worked for a while. For a few years they'd had the life she'd dreamed of, even with its slightly unconventional MC tint. Her son had an attentive father and she had her loving husband. Of course he didn't change diapers, but he read stories, played with the plastic cars and trucks and taught his son how to navigate round a tool kit.

She'd just about had a heart attack when he started taking Harry out on his Harley. The little boy perched in front of him, gripping the handle bars as well as he could in his tiny fists with the miniature helmet strapped tightly to his head. It had helped that Gemma had her little boy Jackson around the same time. The fact that John was playing happy families too seemed to give her man licence, and a template, to do the same.

The old saying 'be careful what you wish for' certainly started ringing true though. Before long, if she wanted to find either of them, she had to take a trip over to the garage. They could always be found working on something with an engine, the two auburn heads, one small, one threaded with grey, almost touching. The arguments started again, even though she knew deep down it was pointless, and now she was also faced with her little boy begging to be allowed to go to the garage and throwing tantrums whenever he was detained in the house or dragged elsewhere.

Jackson, who she had once seen as a blessing, now turned out to be a curse. Harry wanted to be at the garage, if not to be with his father, then to be with his best friend. The lifestyle he saw being lived out there was glamorous and exciting to the young boy, full of swaggering, jovial men and loud, fast bikes. As their friendship developed, his father felt the constraints of the need to watch over his son lessen as the call of the tequila grew stronger. The two boys bonded, soaked in the blood of the club, as one father descended back into the bottle and the other into a mire of depression, paranoia and club politics. For months, every time she tried to get Harry home for dinner, she was met with some form of answer based around him having already been fed by Gemma. He insisted that she call him 'Opie' the nickname he'd been given by his father's brothers. The name stuck in her throat, she choked every time she said it, but he simply wouldn't answer to anything else.

She began to feel resentful, her role as a mother was being usurped. That arrogant bitch was taking her place and her son wouldn't even respond to the name she'd given him. Before she knew what was happening, she'd lost her husband to his demons again and she was losing her son to another mother. 'Opie' wanted to copy the way the patched members dressed, was desperate for his first bike and his sole aim in life was to wear a cut and sit next to Jackson at the table. Every time he spoke she heard Gemma's words coming out of his mouth. Her efforts to give him some distance, some perspective, from the club only drew anger from him.

Her pride was again the brick wall at her back. She would not be run out of her life, would not be forced out of her role as mother. She finally gave up on her husband. She let the bottle and the Reaper take him, but she would not sacrifice her son to the club. However, she had realised after a while that her resolution, that her pride, was only causing her pain. No one was gaining any strength or benefit from the drama, so she'd tried to take her son away from all the angst and forge a new life for them. It had ripped her heart out when her son had chosen is no-good father. She'd given everything, tried everything, and it hadn't been enough. Opie had run back to his father and back to that goddamn club the first chance he got; and look where he'd ended up. A five year stretch in Chino, his marriage in its death throes, his kids in the system.

That lousy, bastard, mother-fucker. Mary squeezed her eyes shut as she swore again. She couldn't decide what had made her more pissed. The apologies she'd needed to hear half a lifetime ago, or the fact that the big bastard still made her weak at the knees, even after all this time, after everything.

That lousy, bastard, mother-fucker...