This bed is as hard as concrete, but it's all I could afford. The tank's almost on E, and there's another 40 miles til' I reach Charming, California. My mind's spinning, always turning with questions about who I am and where I came from. I know bits and pieces, part of the story that I had thrown together from newspaper clippings and premium detective work. My parents were always vague about their time there. I started asking questions young and I was always met with the same dower faces, the same sad eyes. Even with my brother, who seemed to know something, but would never say anything.

I was five years old when my dad, Nero, picked me up from school. I was standing with a classmate and the kid turned to me and said with surprise in his voice, "Is that you're Dad?"

Of course it was my Dad, who else would it be? No one had ever told me any different. I looked at him, confused, and nodded in response.

"Oh," the kid continued. "You just don't look nothing like him."

I looked up at Nero as he walked toward me. It was the first time, I think, that I really looked at him. His dark complexion, salt and pepper hair bore no resemblance to my milky white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. He walked up to us and put his hand on my shoulder, looking down at me and smiling. We walked back to the car and he buckled me in the backseat. Abel was already sitting in the front seat, waiting for us to return.

Nero started the car and pulled off, looking back at me through the mirror like he usually did.

"What's on your mind, NiƱo?," he asked, his forehead crinkling in concern. "Looks like you're thinking on something real hard." I wasn't sure I should say anything. I looked at my brother through the side mirror. He didn't look like Nero, either. But he at least looked a little like our Mother, Wendy.

"Are you my Dad?," I asked timidly, my eyes focused on the hands in my lap. I could hear his deep intake of breath. He seemed to think for a minute, probably looking for the appropriate words to say. Abel broke in and filled the silence.

"No," he said softly. "He's not our Dad. And Mom is not your Mom," he said in the snotty way that older brothers talk to their younger ones. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. Nero jerked the car to the side of the road, glaring at Abel angrily before looking back at me.

"Do I love you like a Papa, Tommy?," he asked in the gentle way he has. I nodded.

"Do we do fun things together, like go fishing and see movies?" I nodded again.

"Do you love me like a Papa?," he asked. I nodded again.

"And your mom. Does she treat you nice? Tuck you in bed at night and give you lots of hugs and kisses like a mama should?" She did. They did. There was no denying that. Wendy and Nero Padilla loved me.

"Then we're your parents. No DNA would ever make that more true. Understand, miho?," he asked gently. I smiled softly through my tears and sucked them back. I understood, but I still didn't understand. If they weren't my real parents then who was?

Later that night after they had tucked me in bed, I snuck my way down the hall. I heard them say my name, and I couldn't help but listen in.

"Well do you think we should tell him?," Wendy asked as she sat on the couch, her legs tucked underneath her. Nero shrugged.

"I don't know, ma," he said as he ran a hand over his face. "Jackson told me that when the time came, he wanted the boys to know everything, all of it. He wanted you to paint him like a monster, and I guess in a sense he was. Especially in the end. But I loved him," he said softly. "I loved him like a son, and I don't want those boys growing up thinking their father was anything other then a good man."

"He didn't want that life for them. He didn't want them to know anything about any of it so that they could create their own futures. We let it go for now, I think. We wait." Nero nodded and that was the last of it. For awhile.

But that was the day I learned his name, the first time I had ever heard it spoken aloud, and that was why I remember it so clearly. Jackson. I saw the emotion in their eyes when they spoke of him. I was only five, but I was far from unnoticing, and it just made me all the more curious. I would spend the next 13 years putting together the pieces of the puzzle; a puzzle my "parents" never wanted me to solve. And it led me here:

To this hard bed, in a cheap motel with annoying as shit Christmas lights flickering through the holes in the curtains. Twenty three dollars in my pocket, my bike on E and 40 miles to go.

I know who you are now and what you did. I love you, Dad. And I'm coming home.

A/N:

I wanted to be among the first to start a post series finale fic. I figured a lot of people will probably keep Jax alive, and others will probably write from Abels POV. But we can't forget poor orphan Thomas, who has lost every blood relative that he has.. Of course he's going to want to figure out where he came from. I haven't written any SOA fics, this is my first. And I have big plans if I can generate enough interest. So please, REVIEW! Let me know if you're interested. Thanks for reading.