A/N: Alright, so this is sort of a teaser type chapter. If anybody likes it, gets some positive feedback, I'll continue it on. This is in no way affiliated with my Sabina fics.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the computer I wrote it on. : )
Warnings: Violence, language, underage drinking, suggestive themes... basic stuff with any SOA fic lol.
My name is Nicole Rose Teller. And for most of my life, I lived in someone else's shadow. As my parents second child, and only daughter, I was often shunted aside for my older brother, the heir apparent, and apple of my mother's eye, or my younger brother, the cute, blue eyed, blonde haired baby of the family.
While my mother was never outwardly cruel to me, she was always distant. She went through the motions, and there are days when she really tried her best, but we were too much alike for us to ever really connect.
I was eleven when my father died. He had been the light of my world. Unlike most of the other men in his MC, he never tried forcing me into being someone I wasn't. When I expressed an interest in mechanics as a child, he started taking me out in the garage with him. My mother threw a fit; said it would only cause problems if he caved in now. I was a girl, and a garage was no place for a woman in the MC life.
Sometimes… I wish he'd listened.
But some of the best times I had with my father were when it was just the two of us, or sometimes my older brother, or my father's best friend, when we'd work on the Harleys, or the occasional car at the automotive shop. I usually just sat to the side, and handed my father whatever tools were needed, while we would talk about anything and everything. He'd hand me a dirty carburetor, and tell me to pull it apart, then put it back together again. When I was eight, he gave me an old junker VW bug to pull apart in our garage. We would spend hours out there after he got home, every night.
When I was nine, my father changed. He was gone for months on end, and even when he was home, he was distant. He no longer laughed like he had, or taken the time to play with my brothers and me. Mom told us not to worry; that he was just in Ireland on business, and thing would settle soon.
But they never did.
On one of my father's business trips, my youngest brother suddenly collapsed while we were all playing outside. The 'family flaw' as my mother liked to call it had finally claimed a victim. A genetic heart condition that left her mother, her, and all of her children with heart problems.
It took us a week to get a hold of dad, and let him know. After he came back… Well, the tension between our parents was obvious, even as young as we were. Dad spent most of the time at either the club or the automotive shop, while mom spent more and more time Clay.
The trips to Ireland grew longer, and more frequent, while his visits home grew shorter, and more rare.
Which made it even harder when, on one of his visits home, three years after Tommy's death, my father was killed. His brakes went out, and he was hit by a tractor trailer.
He never regained consciousness.
Mom wouldn't allow Jax or me to see him in the hospital. Said it wouldn't be good for us to remember dad like that; that if we saw him, it would forever be the last image we had of him. She wanted us to remember the healthy, happy man he was, not the broken, shredded shell he was. Clay told us that our father wasn't even there anymore; his spirit had left, and all that was left was an empty husk of what had once been our father.
It was Piney, our father's closest and most loyal friend who snuck Jax and I in one day, to say our final goodbyes.
Jonathon Thomas Teller clung to life for three days, after being dragged almost a hundred feet down the 580 highway.
He died four hours after Jax and I said our goodbyes.
Instantly, our lives changed. Within months of my father's death, my mother remarried Clay Morrow, who –as Vice President under my father –became president after his death, and instantly started grooming Jax to eventually take over as president when Clay stepped down.
And me… I was relegated to the back burner. I was still allowed at the shop, but I was told that I was too old for 'playing in the dirt with the boys', and put in the office doing paperwork. At home, both my mother and my new step-father treated me more like a boarder, until I came to feel that I wasn't wanted, or even welcome in my own home.
As the years went by, I watched as my father's legacy was slowly ripped apart, as I sat in the chair in that damn office, unable to do anything about it. I had no say in anything; I wasn't even an Old Lady. And so I watched my life slip by.
Jax was always 'Clay's step-son', or 'Gemma's son', or 'Jax Teller'. While I was lucky if I even got an introduction. If I did, it was always 'John Teller's daughter'.
I spent most of my teenage years, alone, isolated, and totally unloved.
And then, when I was seventeen, Clay got a phone call from Keith McGee, an old friend of my father's, and president of the Belfast charter, asking Clay for a favor. There was a man who needed out of Ireland, fast. An old friend of Keith's.
A week later, Michael McKeavy dropped off a man who would change my life forever.
I think Clay's intention was just to get me out of the shop. At least, that's the only reason I could think of for why I was put in charge of taking care of a man named Filip Telford.
Well… maybe 'care' isn't the right word. He arrived at our house, slumped over McKeavy's shoulder, fresh knife wounds still healing on either side of his face, eyes completely numb, covered in various shades of bruising.
McKeavy wouldn't say what happened to him. He'd just shrugged at our questions, passing the other man to Jax and Clay.
As the others turned towards the house, McKeavy grabbed my arm, and held me back.
" 'E's in a bad way, Nikki. Take care o' 'im, aye?"
I nodded, before heading inside.
By the time I got to the second living room, Jax and Clay had already set our visitor on the couch, and mom was covering him with a blanket.
Clay pulled me aside, both of us staring at the man, as he spoke quietly.
"I want you to stay with him 'til he gets better. Just keep an eye on him, get him shit to eat… You know the routine."
"Wait; why me?" I hissed. "I don't even know this guy! Why can't mom do it?"
"Because, I want you to do it. And that's an order, Nicole. I don't wanna hear any of your bitchin'. Your mother will watch the shop."
"For how long?" I grumbled, glaring at the now inconvenient visitor.
" 'Til he gets better."
"Clay –"
"I said, I don't want to hear it, Nicole," He said sharply. "For once in your goddamned life, just do as I say!"
I saw Jax glower from across the room, where he stood by our kneeling mother next to the comatose man. I knew he was struggling to keep quiet, but we'd both learned early on that him coming to my defense only made the argument that much worse.
I huffed. "Like I got a choice," I muttered.
Clay held up one finger in warning, as he and mom stalked out of the room. I promptly ignored him. He'd never actually hit me, and we all knew it. While my mom and I might not be best buds, she wouldn't stand for anyone hitting her kids. Other than physical violence, there wasn't too much else he could threaten me with. I didn't have any friends other than Opie and Jax, I didn't have a cell phone, and I didn't like television. Basically, I was a loser with no friends, no life, who liked to read. So what exactly could he take away from me?
I sighed as Jax came over, and pulled me into a hug.
"I'm sorry, Nick," He said softly. "I'll talk to him, alright?"
I pulled away from him, and shook my head. "Don't worry about it, Jackie. It's not a big deal. Somebody's gotta take care of the guy. And I guess any friend of Keith's was a friend of dad's and all that, right?"
Jax shrugged. "I guess. I gotta get to the garage though. Supposed to help Opie work on his bike. Give me a call if you need me?"
I nodded, and sighed again as he left too.
Nicole wasn't sure how long she stood there staring, before she finally walked over, and sat on the coffee table next to the man.
"I'm Nikki Teller," She said slowly. "And I'm gonna be takin' care of you."
No reaction. The guy didn't even blink, much less respond. She moved a bit closer, and took a good look at the cuts on his face.
They were deep; didn't look like they'd went through to the inside of his mouth, but must have come pretty damn close. Couldn't have been more than a week or so old. And they definitely needed a good cleaning.
Once she was moving for the first aid kit, she could feel herself warming up the role she'd be playing. She'd done it before; it wasn't all that hard. Granted, it'd never been on complete strangers before, but skin was skin, right?
Right…
She sat back down, peroxide in hand, and tried once more to get his attention.
"Mr. Telford? Filip? Hey, I'm gonna clean out those cuts on your face, alright?" She asked loudly. "It might stink a bit, but it's gotta be cleaned out, okay?"
Slowly, those dark eyes turned to look at her.
"John Teller's lass," Came the heavily accented response.
Nicole nodded, as she gently began cleaning the cuts. "Yeah, that's me. John Teller's other brat," She said, struggling to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
"Ya da used ta talk about ya… all the time."
Nicole stopped, and pulled her hand back. "You knew my dad?" She asked hoarsely.
"Always talked about ya. Said ya were the light o' his world, an' all that. Used ta show pictures of ya, covered in grease an' dirt, standin' next ta an old green car."
Nicole went to speak again, before noticing that Mr. Telford wasn't talking to her. After that first glance at her, his eyes had went to their half closed state, and he seemed to be talking to the air.
As she went back to cleaning out the gashes on his face, she wondered what had happened to him. While she didn't claim to know everything, after hanging out with McKeavy, and her father's other Irish friends, she knew enough to recognize that a Glasgow Smile was what adorned the man's face.
She tilted her head in consternation. The man's accent didn't jibe either. It wasn't Irish. It was close, but not exact. It was almost… thicker, more guttural in a way. Not English, that was for sure… Maybe Scottish, although she'd never heard the accent to judge it.
"Mr. Telford, I um…" She blushed a little, but forged ahead. "Do you have… I mean, should I check under…" Finally, she took a deep breath. "I'm gonna pull your shirt up, alright? I just wanna check, seeing as how the rest of you looks covered in bruises."
She couldn't hold in her yelp –part surprise, and part pain –as one of the man's thick hands grabbed hers roughly, halfway through the act of pulling his shirt up.
"It ain't a pretty sight," He said, his voice low. "I'll live."
"Mr. Telford, while my family might try to hide me in the corner, I'm a Teller; I've seen my fair share of bruises and blood. I doubt anything you have is gonna shock me," She said firmly. When he didn't release her hand, she glanced at it pointedly. "You're hurting me," She said, more calmly than she felt.
He slowly released her hand, and pulled it back, resting it against his chest. "I'm fine, lass. Leave it be."
Her eyes narrowed. "Do you have any idea what my mom and Clay will do to me if you keel over dead while I'm supposed to be takin' care of you?"
While she didn't exactly care for the man's stubbornness, she did appreciate that slowly –oh so very slowly –life was coming back to replace the cold, dead look in his eyes.
"Never met ya mum," He said, his voice low as he moved his hand, in what Nicole took as an invitation to look him over.
Nicole rolled her eyes as she pulled her shirt up. She forced her face to stay carefully blank, as she took in the mess. "Count yourself lucky," She said flippantly. "Most people don't wanna do it twice."
Jesus, it looked like someone had used him as a punching bag. She'd seen the other guys –Tig, her favorite uncle, especially –come out of fights looking bad, but this…
"I'm assuming somebody else already checked you over for broken ribs?" She asked, moving her hand lightly over the nearly black mass that was his bruised torso.
"Five cracked, three broken."
"Nothing internal?"
"Nicked a lung; nothin' serious. The docs patched it up."
Nicole sighed as she grabbed some ointment off the table. "This is a vitamin K cream," She explained, taking the top off, and getting a good mess of the stuff on her fingertips. "It'll be a bit cold, but it'll help with the bruising." As she slowly began rubbing the ointment in, she took in the slight grimace his face was set at. Off-handedly, she wondered how much it hurt him to make facial expressions with his face cut up like that. "Sorry, Mr. Telford. But it needs to be rubbed in for it to work."
"Ya can call me Filip, lass. Mr. Telford makes me feel old." His voice was flat, but Nicole almost thought she could hear the smallest traces of a smile in there, before his eyes went dark again.
"Alright then… Filip," She said with a smile, pulling his shirt back down. "You're as patched up as I can do. Are you hungry? I think my mom's got some lasagna in the fridge. Or I can make you somethin' if you want. I think we've got enough stuff for boxty or colcannon if you want." At his somewhat startled look, she shrugged. "My dad learned to love the Irish food while he was there. My mom couldn't ever keep enough potatoes in the house."
"Lasagna's fine, lass."
"If I'm gonna call you Filip, you can call me Nicole. Or Nick if you want. S'what my dad used to call me."
