A/N: I do not own any SOA characters.
Love you guys, guess who this is?
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for whoever has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go will think
themselves lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together."
-William Shakespeare
2029
The ground was frozen with leaves, grass and memories of loved ones passed. The flattened grass formed a slippery, cool carpet. The icy fingertips of winter bit through the air, telling of a long winter to come. The trees continued to shed their leaves, the freezing winds helping to push them from their life giving branches to the ground to die.
He made his way through the cemetery, navigating the maze of his fallen brothers and family without thought. He turned his head and watched as she walked away from him, her waist length salt and pepper hair swinging gracefully in the breeze. There were so many graves now, some more fresh than others, that they shared the duties of paying respects to those that had fallen to preserve the life they love.
He smiled to himself as he observed her with equal parts fascination, envy and fear. Yes, he loved her, but he also feared her.
She was cunningly smart, an experienced chameleon. He had watched over the years as she turned their enemies inside out with her mind.
Through him.
She was the brains behind his power, the catalyst that changed everything. For the better and for the worse. The old ways had died off, to be replaced by new ways, new traditions, new rules that could not be broken.
Because of her, and all that she was to the power of their world.
He watched her disappear over the first hill that lead to the headstone that seemed to draw her more than any of the others.
He stopped in front of the white marble head stone and his breath caught in his throat. He touched the cool stone and felt the familiar connection shoot through his arm. His connection to this person; though he had only met him through the reading of journals, books, poems, and pictures, was strong. He looked at the now tarnished sterling silver rings lining the top of the grave.
He picked one up and held it in his hand. In the twenty year that he had been coming to this grave, he had never thought to pick this ring up. Now it seemed right, appropriate. He slipped the ring on his finger and tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away, trying his best to hold his emotions in check.
He sat down on the cold, wet ground and pulled a rag tag book out of the inner pocket of his black leather vest. He looked at the cover and smiled, a familiar picture of a giant, golden redwood with two black crows sitting on the top most branches was the only art on the burgandy cover.
A stranger looking at the picture would have misinterpreted it as a tribute to the northern California redwood valley.
He knew better. He knew it was a copy of the tattoo she had imprinted on her back at the young, tender age of fifteen. He had stood by her side scared and impressed that she could get body art that covered her entire back without blinking an eye or shedding a tear.
He wanted to kiss the picture, the way he had kiss the skin that originally displayed the image. He ran the fingertip of his middle finger down the trunk of the tree, and imagined her spine arching toward him that way it had so many times over the last twenty years. He could almost feel her warm silky skin, almost feel the pressure of her tense muscles as she waited for him to build her up.
He traced his fingers around the title of the book, "A Charming Life" and then around her pen name E.L. Crow. He smiled at the name; another tribute to the pieced together family that had cradled her in their arms until she flew away.
But she always came back.
He opened the book and read the first paragraph:
I do not ride to gain attention, respect, or fear from those that do NOT ride, nor do I wish to intimidate or annoy them. For those that do not know me, all I wish from them is to ignore me. For those that desire to know me, I will share with them the truth of myself, so that they might understand me and not fear others like me.
The biker's creed. It seems that I was born with this imprinted on my heart, in my mind. For an outsider looking in, our world seems insane, but being born into it, makes it all as easy as breathing. As inbreed as helping those weaker than yourself. In our world, much more was at stake, and something as simple as giving respect to those that knew nothing of what you really were was a sanity saving thing.
We were the children of Anarchy, the sons and daughters of the sons of the grandfathers of our world. The path, however rocky, had been blazed for us before we were even zygotes. Our parents were made to make the path easier, but what was our purpose?
Being a female in a world designed by men for men was not nearly as difficult as it seems. Growing up with it, made it easier to understand the traditions and customs of our society.
A woman, in our world, is property. Females only have a say over domestic matters, and even that say is very little and only bestowed to the few that stick it out and are branded and give the titles of "Old Ladys".
Of course there are exceptions.
The queen-bee is an important spot, in which many, if not all women in our world covet. The ones that end up with the responsibility of this position are often worn and torn by the end of it. Dying with little to show except a hand full of children and the bruises that only the love of a man on the back of a dyna can bring.
If women could be equated to anything in this world, it would be tissue. To be used when necessary and thrown away when worn out.
The wind blew the well-worn pages of the book back and he stood up to move on to the next grave. He tucked the book back into his cut and he walked over the cold ground.
It still pissed him off.
She always loved and hated their world. Sometimes the love outweighed the hate and she would come home, and they would welcome her. Inevitably, she would leave, her hatred outweighing her love, her fear strangling her to a different state, and sometimes a different country.
He had hated her at first for it, but eventually he had come to expect the drifting away of her mind, the wanderlust in her eyes and then the dear john letter to follow.
He buried himself in other women, telling himself that eventually someone would come along that would burn her from his mind, from his heart.
Never. No one compared to her.
He tucked his hands into his pockets as he approached the headstone of the next person. He felt the familiar lump in his throat, tears threatened again and again he choked them back.
He muttered hello and began talking about the days and weeks since his last visit.
This was the only place he talked, the only place he allowed himself to cry.
He thought of the last time he had seen the face that had saved his life, thought of the efforts he made to save the life that had so changed his own, and finally he felt the hot slide of tears down his cheeks.
He looked down at the tarnished ring that he had taken from his John Teller's grave, and then back at the headstone in front of him.
The book weighed heavy against his heart.
"I love you." John said quietly as memories of that night washed over him like acid rain, burning away at the healed over scars on his heart.