Piecing it Together
Chapter 1: Cleaning House
This is a follow-up piece to the one-shot I Loved You First (/s/7641456/1/I_Loved_You_First). I hope you like it and please review!
I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.
- Margaret Mitchell -
-o-o-o-o-
If everything was the same the day of Donna's funeral, now nothing was. The half-dead lawn that surrounded the vacant driveway had grown out from weeks of neglect, a dismal addition to an already sad house - with its empty, unlit windows, leaf clogged gutters, and wooden porch that was in desperate need of being swept of all fallen foliage.
The woman parked her car on the side of the street, allowing the driveway to stay free in case Opie came back. She knocked on the door, but knew that nobody would be there to answer. There was no truck in the driveway, and no bike either, but she knocked again, out of courtesy before trying the knob. She didn't know whether it was from forgetfulness or not caring, but the door was unlocked, so she tentatively eased it open and stepped inside.
Oh, Opie...
The interior of the house was more battered than the outside. Beer bottles covered every empty space. A half-empty pizza box sat tottering dangerously close to the edge of the crumb covered coffee table. Dirty clothes littered the floor and furniture, and she picked up a big black hoodie from the back of the sofa, holding it up in front of her. SAMCRO it said it white block letters and she sighed.
Her sister had hated the club. Even as a prospect, when Opie came to their house bruised and bloody after being on the wrong end of an uneven fight, she had warned against it. Donna had yelled at him and cried, worried that next time he may not be so lucky. That the club would be the death of him...
But that was years ago. Best not to dwell on the past. Now was the time to focus on the problem at hand - the sorry state of this once welcoming home and what she could do to fix it. The clothes would have to be washed, that was the first thing, so she threw the hoodie in a corner and began to pile more ontop of it.
-o-o-o-o-
She hadn't heard him pull up. He didn't want her to. He had seen the car as he rounded the corner to his street, his mind in a drunken haze so he couldn't remember exactly where he had seen it before. He parked his bike on that corner, and walked to his house. He pulled out his gun, preparing himself for whatever would greet him in his own home and silently opened the door.
"What are you doin' here?" he asked, gun up and ready while the woman at the sink turned around.
"Shit, Opie, what are you trying to do?" she replied, placing a soap-soaked hand on her chest. Jesus, to anybody else he would be frightening - tall and thick, wearing black leather and an angry scowl. To her, he was just Opie, with his bright brown eyes and perpetual blush. Even with his beard, she could see that he was the same boy that she had fallen in love with.
He relaxed his arm and stared at the woman, his eyes glazed and rimmed with red. He said nothing, only placed the gun back in his shoulder holster and retrieved a beer from the refrigerator.
"I came by," the woman continued, wiping her hands on a dry towel. She followed him into the living room and he sat down on the sofa. "The door was unlocked and I thought I'd straighten up a little bit."
"You shouldn't've done this," he said, taking another drink of his beer. He placed his elbows on his knees, bottle clutched in his hands and head hung, hair hanging long and loose, so that the woman couldn't see his face.
"It was no problem, Ope, really -"
"No." He slammed his bottle down on the coffee table, spilling the contents on the newly cleaned surface. "You shouldn't have done this. You have no right to come in here and, and -"
"And what? Clean? I was just trying to help."
The man stood up quickly, so quick that she gasped and took a step back. He hovered over her, a whole head taller than her and then some, so she had to crane her neck to look up at him as he spoke. "I don't need your help," he growled.
She took another step back and crossed her arms. "That's just the booze talking."
"Fuck the booze, Danny. You shouldn't be in my house. You shouldn't be back in Charming!"
"Maybe I should've called first -"
"You don't belong here!" he yelled. And his brown eyes were boring into her own, his cheeks flushed, and teeth bared, and she felt the words like a slap in the face.
So she struck him back.
"Pull yourself together," she spat, her palm stinging and throat tight. She gathered her things as Opie watched, and she walked out the door.