The Last Good-Bye
Summary: Lyla Winston stood over his grave because she was finally ready to let the past be her past. Opie had been important to her, but she was finally ready to be important to herself and maybe someday important to someone else again.
Author's Note: I know this isn't an update to "Promise Me" but I couldn't let it go for some reason… I don't know it just stuck with me. Anyway, I hope you like this. It may be a little rough around the edges but I hope its okay. The lullaby is a traditional Cajun lullaby (at least I think so…) if you google "cajun lullaby" it comes up with a youtube link I'd highly recommend listening to it so you get a feel for what it sounds like.
Thanks for your support! And I promise a chapter of "Promise Me" is coming soon. I'm doing so final edits over the next few days. It should be up but next week, the week after that at the latest, but I'm not promising anything, ya'll know by now how flighty I am.
With Love, D.L.
Disclaimer: It's all Mr. Kurt Sutter's this time.
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Lyla stood just off to the side of the grave. Grass was just starting to grow over once was stark reddish brown dirt. The headstone was strong black marble and it looked handsome next to his father's grey and his fallen wife's white. All three stood proud over their fallen owners but Lyla was focused on him.
This is the first time she's been back since the casket was lowered, the bikers all returned to the Clubhouse to celebrate their fallen brother's life in the only way they knew how: drunken debauchery. Jax had stood with her for a long time, neither of them spoke a word but they were both thinking the same thing: was it his fault his best friend was dead?
Lyla didn't blame Jax. She blamed Opie. When Donna died he only existed. He never really healed. For awhile she thought she could heal him, make him whole again. Now she knew that was impossible, a part of Opie died with Donna, the most important part of him died and no one could get it back.
Lyla hated that dead woman for a long long time. Resented her because the man she loved couldn't love her as much because he was still in love with a ghost. Sure they had been on the brink of divorce when she had been gunned down but Opie still loved her, still wanted to give her the world, and if that world didn't included him he was more than willing to fall on his own sword and be the bad guy; no matter how much he resented it.
As she stood over what was left of her behemoth lover she remembered his smile. The little upwards curl of his lips when he sat at their kitchen table and watched her rush around like a madwoman getting the kids ready for school, making breakfast and attempting to get dressed. Usually she'd be halfway dressed: pants on, no shirt, and no shoes make-up half done. And he'd just sit there and smile and laugh and then chase Piper down the hall, making sure that the younger boy felt comfortable in his home with them.
Piper loved Opie, called him by his name but she could see that he considered him his dad just like Kenny and Ellie were his siblings and Lyla was his momma. Ellie never saw Lyla that way. Sure she didn't hate her, but she made it clear that she didn't want another mother and Lyla was okay with that. She never wanted to replace Donna as those kids' mother; she just wanted to make their lives a little easier. And now, Opie was gone and the only parent they had left was Lyla. Even Opie's mom Mary left. She didn't even stay to watch her son be lowered into the ground. She said to Lyla the day she left: "The Sons are poison. They kill everything around them. Get out before they kill you too." The old bat left her high and dry. She made it clear the entire time she had been in Charming that she hated Lyla because she had loved Donna. The Old Man had embraced her like his own long lost daughter, making sure she was okay even when Opie was gone, a million miles away in his own head.
"Oh baby," Lyla whispered. The graveyard was quiet but then again the only time she thought this particular graveyard had noise was when a Son died: then the air was filled with the sounds of Harleys. That noise used to give Lyla comfort, now it just made her sad.
Opie's bike was in a storage locker with the Prospect that had died trying to save Abel from being taken, Big Otto Delany, the Old Man's, and several other Original Nine's bikes. They called it the Fallen Brother's Locker. Juice had security cameras wired in there to make sure that no one tried to walk in and steal any of the incredibly expensive merchandise just sitting collecting dust.
Lyla had been there once; she had drapped the dust cloth over the bike and touched the handle bars before walking out of that sad place and those remains of a past life. Maybe one day Kenny or maybe even Piper would sit astride that bike among the Sons. Maybe. Mostly she hoped not, but sometimes, she hoped that her son and his son found what they were looking for even if it lead them to the Sons of Anarchy.
She tugged her buttery coffee colored leather jacket a little tighter around her as her arms crossed over her flat stomach. She regretted that abortion now that Opie was gone. They hadn't been ready for the baby then but now she wanted nothing more that to be holding a piece of Opie and her in her arms. That child could have stood for the love that had been between them no matter how briefly. She wished against all wishes that she had made a different decision but what is done is done.
She started humming the bars to a lullaby that her own mother had sung to her and she had sung to Piper. Her mother had been Cajun French and had worked hard so that her daughter didn't become what she was: a rundown waitress in a backwater Bayou town.
"Galine galine, galine, galo Galine galine, galine, galo Galine galine, galo, Galine galine, galo... Galo, galo... Mon petit bébé Galo, galo... Tu vas dormer…" She whispered quietly her singing voice smooth and mellow, like an old Jazz singer. Opie told her once that she should have gone into music, but he hadn't known that she had and that's how she got hooked on the coke and later started working in porn because she need to make more money to feed her habit. She got clean while she was pregnant with Piper but afterwards fell off the wagon more than once. Now, with three kids to provide for she can't afford the habit and she finally kicked it for good. At least she hoped so.
"I don't hate you Ope. Just so you know. I know you tried to love me and I know that a part of you did. I'm sorry for what I said before you went in. I'm sorry that I never believed that you had loved me at least a little. I'm also sorry that I killed our baby before he or she could really grow. I wasn't, we weren't ready for them I wish we could have had more time to become ready but I guess since Donna you were living on borrowed time."
"I'm doing the best I can for the kids, but it's hard. I'm trying to move on. The guys are trying but mostly they let me move on the fringes of their world; not really part of it now that you're gone. Gemma's being super helpful. She stops by whenever she can, and she even takes the kids when I need to work late or anything like that. I don't know what I'd do without her. Tara's in jail and Jax is just as lost as I am. We're stumbling through this together and I think we'll be okay."
"I really want you to know that: We'll be okay." She trails off and wipes away the tears she didn't even know she was shedding until the wind blew and chilled her face.
"I loved you Opie. I'm sorry that we didn't love each other more." She said quietly.
"Jax seems so lost without you, likes he's stumbling and doesn't even know why. Bobby turned in his patch and well, he's still in limbo, there's no one in the VP seat. It should have been you in that seat. I know they are all thinking it. Even Jax. He's trying so hard not to let the world corrupt him like it had Clay but I can see him struggling under the weight of a crumbling Club. I'm not sure what he's going to do but I think he's gearing up for a big change. Happy seems to be the most level headed out of all of them. He's waiting and watching everything around him. I think Jax'll name him VP soon. Maybe not though because like I said before I'm really just flirting around the edges and am no longer privy to the inside world. Not anymore."
"I miss you baby." She mumbles clenching her hands into fists at her sides.
"I'm trying to forgive you for leaving me the way you did, but I'm struggling. The weight of this is falling onto me and I don't have the strongest shoulders, you know that. Nero is helping. He's taking some of the weight off but mostly he's just making sure I'm home in time to get the kids. Primo is helping too. He's a good guy, honest, like you had been. But he's cold like Happy and I don't know: he makes me feel like I'm safe when he's around. Like you did. I'm just waiting and watching what is going to happen, not forcing it like I did with you."
"I loved you, but I'm going to move forward. I can't live like you did when Donna died." She says quietly. She hummed the bars to "Galine Galo" and stepped forward laying a single rose in front of Opie's head stone.
Harry "Opie" Winston
June, 1976-September, 2012
Father, Son, and Brother
She pressed her fingers to the headstone, stood straight, pulled down the hem of her oatmeal colored mid thigh length dress and walked carefully over the grass in her tall wedge coffee colored high heels back to the Prius parked in the gravel lot across the grass from Opie and his small dead family.
Lyla felt a little lighter as she slid into the vehicle and backed out of her space heading towards T&M Garage to pick up her kids. Gemma picked them up today so that she could do this, and she was eternally thankful to the matriarch of this fucked up family.
Opie had loved her, and she had loved him but she was determined to live on with her life. She wasn't going to let grief (and a healthy dose of guilt) force her to be so unable to give and receive love. But when that time arrives; she'd wait for it to come to her completely before she let herself believe.
She hoped Opie would understand that.
She hummed her mother's lullaby and left her past there with a single rose and some final words.
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Author's Note: Hi, I know it's rough but I'm hoping you can get past that. Let me know what you think!
As always: With Love, D.L.