AN: I don't own the familiar, Kurt Sutter does, I own the unfamiliar.

3.5 Years Ago

"Okay, so first we need to do hand to hand combat. You've gotta be able to protect yourself if your weapons get knocked away." Opie began, taking off his shirt in the Teller-Morrow parking lot.

"You want me to fight you?" I asked incredulously.

"Most of the guys you're gonna go up against are gonna be ruthless, and big like me. So you have to practice fighting the worst of it." He explained. "You did well with Darby's guy, but you're gonna need more than that." He continued. I nodded, keeping all my jewelry on. I wanted to fight him as I would fight anyone if I was unprepared. My mind was foggy though. Ever since Indian Hills, Jax had been too careful around me. He wouldn't touch me, he would barely look at me. I was basically alone. He only spoke to me if he had to, if it was a necessity.

"Yeah, okay. Let's go." Opie circled me, watching my every move. I kept one eye on his eyes and the other on his feet. An ex-boyfriend once told me that boxers are constantly being betrayed by their feet. But Opie's feet weren't doing what they were supposed to do, so I was shocked when he clocked me in the face. Jax, who was smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer on the picnic table, winced when I hit the pavement directly in front of him.

"Ouch." I deadpanned, getting up.

"You're watching my feet too much. It's instinctual. You're a spiritual being, I can tell. Just follow your instincts. You relied too much on logic. Street brawling is NOT a logical thing. You can't expect anything from the other fighter." He told me.

"I'm ready."

"Good." And he punched at me again, but I dodged it, choosing instead to tackle him. We both went down and I took the opportunity his surprise awarded me to punch him in the face over and over again. Then, even more suddenly, he picked me up and slammed me onto the pavement.

I woke up to Jax staring at me. I was in my own bed, but he was still hovering over me like a fly, checking my pulse in my neck and feeling my forehead.

"I'm still alive." I said.

"I know. I can feel your pulse." He replied, sitting down at the edge of the bed, near my feet.

"Glad that's settled." I rolled over and curled into the fetal position. "Opie apparently doesn't know his own strength."

"Tell me about it." He sighed. "I told him it was a bad idea." He added.

"Yep. It sure feels like it." I responded as the lump on my head made its presence more and more hard to ignore. "I'm surprised to see you, Jax." I added, scooting against my headboard and leaning my head back so I wouldn't have to hold it up.

"Why?"

"Because you've ignored me for the last 6 months." I responded, closing my eyes.

"You have to stay awake, you might have a concussion." He said, gently nudging my foot. I opened my eyes and then narrowed them at him. "I can't feel whatever I'm feeling for you, Cass." He confessed, running his hands through his ever growing blond locks.

"I don't even know what that means."

"God, when you got shot I felt like a bullet had ripped through me too. Seeing you open like that and hurt. I just couldn't stand it. And those kisses, the way your lips just fit to mine. I know you felt it between us back in Nevada." He shook his head, like he was trying to erase the memories of us kissing. "I wanted to think of you like you were just another crow eater. I wanted to believe that you were just another bitch that I'd used up and thrown out. And I was, at first. But it stopped working, if it ever was. I kept remembering that gown in your closet and I looked up your Miss America pictures and I'm reminded of how skilled you are with a gun and your knife on a daily basis. I am constantly reminded that you're so much more than what the club thinks you are. I'm madly in love with you. I'd do anything for you. And it scares the shit out of me, Cassia."

"Understandable reaction." I continued in my dry tone, rocked by his sudden proclamation but still unable to meet him there, regardless of how true it was for me too.

"You're not made for this life. You weren't trained for it." Jax lamented.

"I held my own against Opie today, until he slammed my head into the ground."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"What the hell ARE you talking about?" I cried, throwing my hands in the air.

"You! In SAMCRO. You should drop your bid for a patch."

"I do that, I die. You and I both know that. I'm not dying in the near future. Plus, I'm an asset to the club. You need me as much as I need you. I'm fucking good at this. Who cares what I was going to do when I was 18? That's a lifetime away from right now. It doesn't matter anymore."

"It matters to me, Cassia. I don't want you in the life." He said firmly. "You're going to do what I say, Cassia. It's for the good of the club." He continued in a tone that meant that the conversation was over. I chose my next words carefully.

"Jax. Baby, I love you. I really do. But I'm not your Old Lady." And then it was out there: all of the things he'd been unable to say to me since Nevada, and all of the things I'd felt since kissing him at that gas station and they collided together, bouncing around the silence like ping pong balls. We were still as far away as we were all those months ago.

Present Day

"Please, for the love of God, stop talking." I begged Jennifer at the breakfast table. She was hammering on about life in SAMCRO, Happy, Opie, being a Prospect, and loving this ten times more than being a Pageant Queen.

"Is that you talking or is that the Sergeant at Arms talking?" She giggled.

"Let's assume, from now on, that whenever I speak to you, I'm speaking as your Sergeant at Arms." I glared at her.

"Someone need your breasts more than I do, Cass." Jax said in a sing-song voice as he came into the kitchen. It was nearly 6 am, but we were all awake and ready for a day of the Outlaw livelihood. Chibbs and Opie were sitting at the kitchen table with us, eating the traditional southern breakfast I had gotten up early to make. But even so, I whipped out my left breast and gently coaxed Katherine to my nipple. Jenny was the only one who looked outraged.

"Don't worry. My best friends have seen my girlfriend's breasts probably as much as I have." Jax smirked darkly, feigning pride in this fact.

"Aye, Prospect. Miss Texas here does have an excellent rack. But it's locked up tight." Chibbs winked. He gave a respectful nod towards his President as Jenny gagged.

"Momma would be disgusted." Jenny spat out, glaring at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Everything disgusted Momma. And watch your tone, missy." I glared back, readjusting my daughter. Jax had sat down at the head of our dining room table, his spot at every table that was graced by his presence. I was at his right, Chibbs at his right, Opie next to Chibbs, and Jenny next to me. Abel was in the kitchen, trying to balance his bowl of cereal and his glass of orange juice in his too-small hands. I was overwhelmed by the family that surrounded me, old and new, and started to beam. Jax caught the smile no one else did, the guys were too busy giving Jenny hell.

"What's that for? I haven't seen that in days." He whispered, stroking Katie's hair before holding my free hand. Don't get me wrong, I could see the dysfunction. Everyone at the table was armed to the nine's, and none more than me. Jax's holster was filled, the guns clanking together if he moved too quickly. I could feel my knife digging into my hip and my right ankle was twice its weight because my old 357 was stuffed into a garter I wore with my combat boots. I was an Outlaw. I was leading my sister into this life. And it all seemed perfect. I leaned over to my hot, badass boyfriend and kissed him full on the mouth.

"I love you." I whispered back when I pulled away. He gave me the same, searching, impressed look he always did when I surprised and pleased him.

"I love you too, Cassia."

"So, the first thing you need to know about SAMCRO is how to ride a motorcycle." Jax told Jenny that night at Teller Morrow. The lot was empty and locked down, Gemma had the kids, and Jenny had forgotten to tell us that she didn't know how to ride a bike. Jax had laughed at first, and then got really angry that we had accepted a Prospect with zero basic skills. I had to convince him to teach her, since he was the best rider in the entire club. I dragged my old Spyder from storage and had it dusted off for her to use. There was no way she was going to learn how to ride on my Suzuki. Or any of Jax's precious bikes. Jax used me as a model to explain the basics of motorcycle riding.

"Watch how Cassia mounts the bike, keeping it steady. You need to have control over it when it's not moving if you ever hope to actually go anywhere. Now, kick up the kickstand. She settled down onto the bike, feet planted. Start it up, rev the throttle, one hand on the break…see?" Jax went painfully slowly as Jenny copied my movements. Whatever her shortcomings, my sister was always a brilliant mimic. Her talent was singing. She couldn't hold an original tune to save her life, but she could memorize and imitate perfect copies of the greats with only an hour of practice. She did a rendition of Whitney Houston's And I Will Always Love You that brought one audience to tears. She won her 9th grade talent show with a show stopping version of Toni Braxton's He Wasn't Man Enough after her quarterback boyfriend dumped her for a Varsity cheerleader. She used to do my dance routines back to me, better than I did, when I was practicing for Miss America. So, she copied me exactly, spurting off in the same perfect half circle that I had just done, as my mirror image. Jax was impressed.

"What's in the water over in Houston?" He laughed.

"We have a very specific set of skills." I said, imitating Liam Neeson in Taken. That made him laugh harder, and once again I was struck with how much I loved him and SAMCRO. To love one was to love the other, I realized early on. After a few more hours of practicing, the three of us sat on the picnic tables, drinking beers.

"Can you guys be my sister and her boyfriend for a second and not like King and Queen?" Jennifer asked seriously. I downed my first beer and reached for another.

"Sure. What's up?" I replied, poking Jax in the ribs to go with the flow. He nodded solemnly.

"What…what have you had to do?" She blurted out.

"Me specifically, or us?" Jax looked at her, not even a bit of malice in his eyes.

"Both. What do you guys do? What's the worst that I can expect? I need to prepare emotionally." She clarified.

"Before we answer that, Jenny, I need to know why you want in. You know that you can't just leave now. You're here forever now. With SAMCRO, in Charming, whatever you call it, you can't leave."

"I know. I wanted this. I needed something to tie me to somewhere."

"Why?" You were happy in New York."

"I was anorexic in New York. And on crack. All up the nose. Every modeling paycheck I got was spent on shoes and blow. And the funny thing is, I didn't even like the drugs that much. I hated how it made me feel, but I felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing, so eventually, I left. Ran away from everything. I was released from my contracts anyway. I had to get away from there. I spent weeks in the Midwest, fucking random men-bikers mostly-and I heard stories. I heard about you. I heard about SAMCRO. You sounded like such a badass, like a superhero. If you can be saved, why can't I?"

"You go to church to be saved." I agreed, staring at the Clubhouse. That's where my Chapel was.

"But some of the stuff I heard about you, especially getting closer to Charming, I just couldn't believe. So I have to know what I'll be expected to do."

"Right now, you're not expected to do anything. You're a Prospect." Jax said sternly, forgetting that he had promised to be the older brother type and not the President.

"Are you asking if you'll have to kill a man?" I took her hand and squeezed. "Probably. But not because we like murder. Sometimes, all the time, it's a necessary sacrifice. But I'm very good at it, so you won't need to do much of that. You'll mostly fire your gun in self defense. But make no mistake, people want you dead now. It's not personal, babe, it's just business and that's the way it goes sometimes."

"Do I have what it takes? Tell me straight." She asked, looking me and Jax right in our eyes.

"If you're anything like your sister, you're going to be fine." He promised.