Los Angeles, California, 1999


"Stop doing my homework, Juice."

"Or what?"

"Or I'm gonna tell my dad that you come out here just to hook up with my friends, you little shit," Frankie laughed, walking over to the kitchen table and yanking her "Intro to Game Design" textbook out of Juice's reach where he sat at her dining table in her Los Angeles apartment. True to form, he had been very dutiful in coming to Los Angeles every weekend. He was this close to being able to get his top rocker, and all he needed was to make sure he didn't screw things up. Now, however, he'd been charged with the additional duty of making sure Frankie Rose Morrow stayed away from Charming - no visits home, no holidays, no anything.

In recent months, the feds had started coming down hard on SAMCRO South, and Clay Morrow wanted Agent Stahl to stay as far as possible from his only child. While there was very little that Frankie knew about the inner workings of the club, it wouldn't stop Stahl from harassing her to no end and getting what she could. So, it became Juice's job to keep Frankie distracted, though in fairness, she was so busy with school and her new friends that she didn't mind much.

And, Juice found out quickly, Frankie Rose Morrow had quite a few very attractive friends. So, Juice didn't need to be told twice to spend weekends out in Los Angeles even if it meant crashing on the couch in Frankie's apartment.

"C'mon, this stuff is badass," Juice chuckled, reaching over with his much longer arms and yanking the book back. Another reason he found to like his rides out to Los Angeles was the fact that he, as a humble hacker, had a chance to poke through Frankie's school stuff and pick up a little more than he already knew. "And who cares if I did your homework? All the answers are right!"

Maybe it was because Frankie didn't have a great people she honestly trusted, but right now, Juice was as close as she could get to a best friend - which was fine by him. As much as he tried to build a sense of brotherhood with the guys in the Club, there always seemed to be a disconnect. He was still just the screw-up prospect. Frankie Rose was like his bro. His wingman.

"Jessica's been stalking me outside of my calc class, by the way," Frankie said as she strode over to her pantry and pulled out the box of peanut butter cup cereal, bypassing the formality of grabbing a bowl and instead reaching in, bringing a fistful of the cereal to her mouth. "Says that Juan Carlos never calls her and that I should make sure you have her number right - you owe me," she added with raised eyebrows. Juice simply chuckled, reaching into his pocket and holding a small baggie of weed over his shoulder to her, which she took and tucked into her own jeans pocket for safe keeping.

"Your dad's gonna kill me when he know that I've been supplyin' you with this shit," Juice smirked, to which Frankie simply grinned and shrugged.

"Better you than me."

"One day you're gonna lose that metabolism and I'm gonna donate you to Sea World," Juice retorted, earning a sound thwack across the back of his head with the cereal box. "I'm just sayin', you gotta keep your munchies in check. You don't get to be eighteen forever -"

"Coming from the guy who has been mentally thirteen for, what, ten years now? Your interests are Call of Duty and tits - in that order," Frankie pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "When that changes, you can lecture me about getting old and fat. But until then..."

Frankie grinned and batted her eyelashes with deceptive, false sweetness before retreating back into her room.

Truth be told, she enjoyed the banter with Juice. She didn't mind being his wingman. Los Angeles was a little more lonely than she had expected, and being away from home was a little bit harder. She had thought a few times about maybe giving Tara a call since she wasn't too far away, but that meant dealing with Jax, and Jax was in Charming, and True North was in Charming. Who else was in True North?

Frankie had long been able to admit, even if only to herself and her mother, that something had stung about the fact that Opie had gotten married. It wasn't like they were anything to one another, but it wasn't like there was any reason not to just... tell her in person, either. But it didn't matter. It was just among one of the many things in her life that she had to simply get over.

Her thoughts were interrupted with a loud banging on her door, followed by Juice shoving it open without waiting for her to answer. Frankie was about to let out a string of rather unladylike expressions of her annoyance until Juice held up a hand to shush her.

"Problem back home," Juice said, raising his eyebrows. "Your dad wants me to bring you back. Got somethin' to tell us."

"What?" Frankie asked, sitting up straight in bed but also reaching over for her hoodie to pull over the faded t-shirt she had on. "What's going on? I thought I didn't get the all-clear to go home because of that - you know, that Fed bitch -"

"Clay says it's important," Juice said, raising his eyebrows. "C'mon. We'll ride together -"

"You expect me to ride bitch with you for five fuckin' hours?"

"Frankie," Juice said, his jaw clenched in annoyance. "Can you please just do me a solid here? I'm supposed to keep an eye on you or else -"

"Or else you'll never get into my daddy's stupid little motorcycle enthusiast club, I got it," she said with a roll of her eyes, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and shoving her feet into the shoes she had shoved under the bed. "Alright, let's go."

In the months since she'd gotten her place in LA and started going to school, working part time at a swanky Santa Monica restaurant and pocketing the tips, Frankie had grown used to her independence. In Los Angeles, she wasn't Clay's daughter. She wasn't the princess of SAMCRO - what kind of title was that, anyway? So, as she rode on the back of Juice's bike all the way back to Fresno for the first time in months, there was a certain heaviness she carried with her, like a ball and chain being put back onto her. By the time they reached the Morrow home with all of the other bikes lined up along the sidewalk outside, Frankie was trudging tiredly, and not just because she'd been stuck on a bike for five hours.

"Just be cool," Juice said, gently elbowing her with the intention of nudging her arm, though because she still swung her long arms as she walked much like her brother did, his elbow caught her in the ribs instead, eliciting a glare. "Frankie Rose, please. Please be cool," he said, raising his eyebrows. "Tell 'em I drove super fuckin' safe, and that -"

"That you took good care of me, got it," she said with a smirk. "Don't be such a -"

"My baby girl."

Frankie's head turned to face forward when she saw that her father emerge from the front door, lumbering towards her and immediately pulling her into a tight embrace and kissing the side of her head and Juice stood to the side with his hands behind his back, much like a loyal watchdog.

"Get inside," he said, placing an arm around his daughter's shoulders and ushering her towards the house and gesturing for Juice to follow. "You eat okay? The drive go alright?"

"Yeah, Daddy," she nodded. "The usual traffic, but stopped at In-N-Out Burger. It wasn't too bad." Juice had to hold back a laugh at the sudden change in her demeanor when she was around her father. Juice knew for a fact that Frankie Rose Morrow was no shrinking violet, but far be it from him to try and convince Clay Morrow of that. Frankie Rose was his princess.

"Your mom'll tell you what happened," Clay nodded. And that was when Frankie knew that it had to be bad. Clay Morrow only passed the buck to Gemma when it was bad news that he didn't want to deliver because for all his machismo, all his pride, he still felt sick at having to deliver bad news to his daughter. It didn't mean that he didn't utilize her when it became necessary, but he would never be the one to tell her about it.

Gemma, too, hugged her daughter with uncharacteristic enthusiasm and tightness, even for her when Frankie got into the living room, walking her over to sit down on the sofa, barely giving her a chance to acknowledge the other members of SAMCRO South gathered in the dining room.

"We're - we're going to a funeral tomorrow."

Frankie blinked, tilting her head to the side in confusion and apprehension. A funeral? Who had died? Before she could even get the question out, Gemma reached out and squeezed her hand.

"The club is riding out to Charming. We just - we found out that Donna Winston was murdered last night."

Donna. Donna Winston. Frankie felt her mind racing to make sense of everything she had heard. Donna Winston - Opie's wife. They'd only been married a matter of months, and she'd already been murdered.

"Niners," Clay said, shaking his head in disdain. "No confirmation but -"

"But why are we going?" Frankie asked in confusion. "We never do this shit for True North. We didn't even go to their wedding. Why now?"

There was a silence, and a brief, almost electric glance from both of her parents confirmed what Frankie was afraid of. They were hiding something around Donna's death, and they needed to put on a front. They needed a fool-proof front, and naturally, that meant Frankie had to be a part of it. She lfelt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She would need to show up, to see Opie for the first time since he'd dropped her off in the driveway, and even worse, she had to do it with the sneaking suspicion that his wife's death wasn't even what he thought it was.

"We just need to do this, and then you can get back to LA," Clay said, reaching over and running a hand over his daughter's blonde curls. "Back where it's safe, away from that Fed."

The biting distaste in Clay's tone when he mentioned the Fed was clearer now than Frankie had ever heard it, and she turned to him questioningly. "Daddy," she said carefully. "What do I have to hide?"

"Nothin'," Clay sneered. "But that bitch has no business draggin' you into any of this shit and I'm keepin' you as far away as possible. She's been gettin' too close."

"Is she comin' down hard on True North too?" Frankie asked. "What does she -"

"It's just us. True North's too clean," Clay said succinctly. "It's better you don't know too much."

"How about you get upstairs and wash up, get some rest?" Gemma suggested, placing a hand on Frankie's shoulder and prompting her daughter to face her instead. Frankie's jaw clenched slightly. She hated the feeling of her parents ganging up on her this way. "We're gonna have a long day tomorrow."

And as Frankie trudged tiredly up the stairs, leaving her parents and the club to talk amongst themselves about this latest happening, she couldn't help but feel that she didn't the least bit to face Opie Winston right now. But, like anything else that had to do with the club, it wasn't as though she had a say in the matter.


A/N's

As you can tell, I've played with the timeline of things and re-worked some pieces of canon in this story. It'll be fun, I swear! The next chapter will take place at Donna's funeral and we'll see more Teller sibling tension there, as well as a few more interesting interactions. Also, for those of you following all of my Sons of Anarchy stuff, "Lay Me Down" will be updated by Saturday at the latest. That story has just reached a pretty big turning point, so I'm trying to get the direction of the story straight in my head so I can write the chapters the way I want them.

Thank you all for being so patient with me! I've definitely had a hectic past few weeks and fell off the writing wagon for a while, but I'm getting back into the swing of things and I'm going to try and get back to a semi-regular posting schedule. In the meantime, thank you for all of your support! Until the next update, cheers!