Disclaimer: I do not own Sons of Anarchy. I do, however, own Marlowe and any other OCs that appear in the 2 Sons Universe.


Charming, CA – Sunday, April 11, 2010

Jax was livid, his strong jaw clenched and his nostrils flared as he sat seething in the driver's seat of T-M's tow truck.

Freedom was a precious commodity, especially to an outlaw like Jax Teller. Unlike most ordinary citizens, he knew what it was like to live without it and hated it. After fourteen months of imprisonment, Jax had finally walked out of Stockton Prison less than 24 hours ago a free man, a feat he had feared would be impossible after getting shanked a month into his sentence.

Sitting in the shitty junk pile of Aadlen Auto Wrecking in Oakland, watching as Clay climbed into the passenger side holding a large and crumpled brown paper bag, the sense of freedom Jax had enjoyed the moment he had slipped into his kutte was gone. Now, the kutte he had coveted as a young boy but was now forced to hide underneath a zip-up hoodie weighed heavy on his back. Jax was feeling the binding constraints of the Club he loved so much as the truth of just how deep a shit hole the Sons of Anarchy were in was revealed to him. SAMCRO's President had once again made an executive decision without fully informing his brothers. A decision which could have dire consequences for the entire organization.

Feeling his rage build exponentially, all Jax wanted to do was plow his balled up fist repeatedly into his stepfather's face. Instead, he ran a frustrated hand over his closely cropped hair, his blue eyes shooting daggers into the steel blue eyes set in a craggy face looking back at him void of remorse.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Clay, getting us into this shit?!" Jax raged.

"I was thinking about the Club, Jax, about getting us solvent for one," Clay shot back angrily. "This is a deal of a lifetime. What we're gonna earn over the next year is more than what we earned running guns for the last ten and muling the coke for the Galindo Cartel is a necessary part of that. It was all or nothing. More important than the money, son, they promised us the protection we needed so that I could keep us—you—fuckin' breathing. The Cartel—"

"Fuck that, Clay! Go blow that smoke up somebody else's ass," Jax interrupted heatedly, the extraneous sounds of the junkyard not loud enough to mask his fury. "Don't use concern for my welfare to shift the responsibility of this clusterfuck on me. This shit here," he pointed an index finger at Clay, "is all about the fuckin' money!"

Clay's eyes widened wildly. "Don't you fuckin' tell me what my motives are! You and this Club are just as important to me as this Cartel deal. Getting in bed with Galindo protected us in Stockton and we need that protection now more than ever after taking care of the Russians last night."

Shaking his head, Jax slumped against his seat and used his thumb and index finger to massage the bridge of his nose in an attempt to get his anger under control. "You do remember throwing a brother off the roof of a building in Belfast because he got in bed with Jimmy O, right? He sidestepped the Club in order to pad his retirement plan, and now you're doing the same shit," Jax said in an eerily quiet monotone.

"McGee betrayed the Club for his own gain, which resulted in the death of several of his brothers, including one with ties to this charter. I'm doing what's best for my Club in the hopes that it will benefit all of us. That's the difference that you need to recognize," Clay said tersely.

"And it never occurred to you to bring up the fact we'd be trafficking coke for the Galindo Cartel when we voted on the deal?" Jax challenged.

Sighing, Clay ran a hand over his silver hair. "Son, with you out of play, I made a judgment call, but I talked it over with Tig and we felt—"

"What the fuck did you just say?!" Jax exclaimed in exasperation. "What the fuck did you do?!"

Clay winced as he saw the heat in his VP's eyes. In his haste to make Jax see reason, his tongue was quick to drop some knowledge he had meant to keep to himself. Considering the bad blood stirred up by the Donna Winston situation, Clay knew that having Jax find out he had gone to Tig with the truth about the Cartel deal would just stir shit up further. His VP and SAA were constantly at odds, one not trusting the other. Tig questioned Jax's commitment to the Club while Jax felt Tig was too loyal to their President.

Sighing deeply, Clay tried to make his stepson understand his reasons for going behind his back. "Son, maybe you forgot this already, but you almost died in Stockton. The last thing I wanted was to pile any more stress on you. Besides, you were in the infirmary for months. I needed to give Galindo an answer and reaching out to you for your input was impossible. I needed a sounding board, so I took my brother into my confidence."

Jax rolled his eyes as he absorbed Clay's admission. "Yeah, you went to Tiggy, who is all about killing shit and less about figuring out whether killing shit is the right way to go. You went to him because you knew he'd side with you, Clay. If what you wanted was a no-bullshit, honest-to-God opinion, you would've gone to Bobby and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now because we both know that Bobby would have squashed this shit."

Clay ran a weary hand over the stubble on his chin. "Maybe you're right," he admitted.

"There's no 'maybe' about it," Jax smirked distastefully. "Have you even contemplated an endgame? Like how the fuck we get out of bed once we're 'solvent' again? We're just small fish in a big fuckin' pond. The only way we get out of a Cartel drug deal is in a pine box."

"You don't know that, son," Clay waved a beefy hand impatiently. "Besides, that's not something we need to worry about right now. We'll have plenty enough time to figure out the endgame later. I've been running this Club for over 15 years. I think I know what the fuck I'm doing."

"Do you really?" Jax asked irritably. "You know, I guess you're right. Why worry about getting SAMCRO out of a deal we never even voted on in the first place."

Clay's gaze snapped up to look at Jax as he shook his head. "Voting against it is not an option, Jax," he warned.

"Then why even pretend like a vote counts, bro? Just walk up to the Club and tell them we're fucked and there's nothing they can do about it except patch out," Jax suggested sarcastically.

"That can't happen either," Clay said soberly. "I need everyone at the table on board with this and I'm counting on your support to make this deal happen, Jax. They'll follow your lead if you can convince them that you're sincerely backing my play and you'll even have a prop for your pitch to use as an incentive," he said, nodding at the innocuous brown paper sack that sat between them holding half a million dollars, the Cartel's down payment on their first order.

He's probably right, Jax thought bitterly as he ran a hand over his whiskers. Not many people would turn down a cut of $750,000 every two weeks.

Jax shook his head. "You're putting way too much faith in my ability to sway the Club, Clay."

"And I say you're not putting enough faith in yourself, son. It was you, not me, that got us out of the shit with the ATF gash. You got us short time in Stockton. You got your mother free from having to serve two consecutive life sentences for murder, and you got your son back. You're a strong leader, Jax," Clay grinned with genuine pride as he slapped a meaty fist on his stepson's shoulder. "I know what I've built."

Maybe, but are you willing to pay the price for making me so much like you? Jax thought grimly.

After John Teller died, Clarence Morrow had taken up the task of raising Jax, helping him become the man and the Club member he was now. Since patching in, Jax had spent his time at Clay's side, learning as much as he could from his savvy President, mentor and stepfather. From him Jax had learned to think ten, thirty, even fifty steps ahead of their opponents. Clay had been the one to teach him to always have an endgame in mind and then plot the course of action that would see him to that goal. But in spite of being the one who taught him those lessons, it was becoming increasingly clear to Jax that Clay's focus was on the here and now, and not on the future of the Club where it belonged.

Shit! Jax cursed to himself, knowing that he was between a rock and a hard place.

Jax had spent his time in Stockton carefully plotting out SAMCRO's future in an effort to restore his father's legacy to what JT had originally planned for the Club. If Jax was honest with himself, he was just as much about making money as Clay was. The only difference was that Jax's incentive wasn't personal gain, but saving the MC from dying a slow and bloody death. In order to move the Sons away from gunrunning and into more legitimate businesses, they needed capital and lots of it and selling guns to the Galindo Cartel was the way to make that happen. But that was before Jax knew that muling coke was part of the deal.

Once again, Clay had overstepped his bounds as President. This time around, his desire to do whatever necessary for an easy payday could result in the entire Club having to pay for its way out of the Cartel deal with blood. There was only one way Jax could think of that would give him the power to keep that from happening. All he needed to know now was just how much Clay was willing to sacrifice to get what they both wanted.

Taking the bag that was sitting on the seat next to him, Jax tossed it on the floor underneath his seat before turning slightly to eye his brother. "I'll back you on the coke," he said quietly. Clay nodded his approval, fighting to keep the grin of self-satisfaction as he got his way from widening further. Jax smiled in return as he proceeded to drop the anvil on Clay's head. "But I need something in return," Jax said, his casual but fierce grin never making it to his icy blue eyes. He was going in for the kill. "And it's non-negotiable."

As Jax started to outline his plan in great detail—one he had hatched in the last ninety seconds of their conversation—he watched with a sense of satisfaction as the color drained from the face of the greedy bastard he had always thought of as a father.


Lying on his back, Jax had his arm tucked under his head as he cradled his old lady against his naked chest with his other arm. In the darkness of their bedroom, Jax was staring up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes as he mulled over the first 24 hours of his life as a free man. It had certainly been anything but uneventful, not that he had expected any different. With so much game-changing shit happening, it felt more like an entire week had passed instead of just one day.

Starting with running into the new sheriff's welcome wagon in the middle of Main Street, Jax's day had segued into a much happier and long-anticipated but brief reunion with his family. With Clay resuming his role as the Club's President, they had quickly moved into their first official Church in 14 months where they discussed their meeting later that afternoon with Viktor Putlova at the Jellybean Lounge. Returning home, Jax was able to enjoy a brief respite before Opie's wedding by losing himself in Tara's arms after a long and frustrating sexual drought. Reconnecting physically and emotionally with his old lady had been good, soul-cleansing even.

Shit had taken a turn into the unexpected, however, when Tara had asked what his plans were for getting out of Charming, her tone suggesting that it was all but a done deal. After all, she had hoped that almost dying in prison had been the wake up call he needed since his son's kidnapping and the Salazar situation had failed in that regard. As much as Jax had hoped to delay having such a heavy discussion on his first night home, it was inevitable that Tara would bring up plans for leaving Charming and he couldn't get mad at her because of it. After all, that had been her plan for them since they were nineteen years old and not much had changed in the ten years they had been separated.

Although Jax would admit to briefly entertaining the thought of leaving SAMCRO as he lay bleeding on the cold concrete in Stockton Prison, reality had soon caught up with him once he was breathing on his own again. Outlaw was what he did best. In the ordinary world, Jax knew he was nothing more than just a so-so mechanic with a GED. Even if the Galindo gun deal enabled him to accumulate significant bank within a year, allowing him to give Tara what she wanted by leaving Charming in the rearview, the question still remained: Who the hell was Jax Teller without the Club?

It was with great regret that Jax soon realized that as much he loved Tara, he loved SAMCRO just as much, if not more. Worse yet, this fact was not lost on his old lady.

Although Jax felt that he had much to make up for after all Tara had been through with him and for all she had lost, the fact remained that if out was what she wanted so desperately, he had given her an out before going inside. As a matter of fact, after Abel's kidnapping, Jax had spent a considerable amount of time trying to push Tara away. He had gone as low as fucking porn star Ima, an absolute deal breaker in Tara's book, in his efforts to get her to leave Charming. By the time he had left for Belfast, Jax was sure that when he returned, he would find her gone. The thought killed him a little inside, but he was prepared to be okay with that. Tara, the savior of sick and dying babies, deserved a life less complicated, and he loved her enough to let her have it.

But that had been before I knew she was pregnant.

Once he had his son back in his arms, Jax realized that he couldn't let Tara and their unborn baby go anymore than he could Abel. But in the end, staying in Charming had put her in Salazar's crosshairs and had resulted in the devastating loss of the baby she had carried. Jax knew that if he lived to be a hundred, he would never forgive himself for the danger being with him had put Tara and his children in. Although she never spoke about what had happened, Jax knew that if given the opportunity, he would do what he could to make it up to her.

Except leave SAMCRO.

Jax had tried explaining his business plans that would enable the Club to shed its outlaw reputation, making life in the Club and in Charming that much safer, but he doubted she had heard any of it through her sobbing. Although in the end Tara had agreed to give him the time he needed to turn the Club around, their discussion had ended with Jax feeling a nagging sense of resistance from his old lady, almost like she was on the verge of saying something, but held herself back. It had been that hesitation on her part that had kept Jax from proposing.

Jax squeezed his eyes shut as he thought about the vintage engagement ring he had asked his mother to secure for him. At the moment, it was nestled in the inner breast pocket of his kutte instead of on his old lady's finger, and it bothered Jax on a deeply emotional level that that was the case. He tried justifying that fact to himself by thinking that maybe he was probably too much like JT, unable to really commit himself to one woman.

Or maybe, deep down, I know Tara's not ready to commit to me, Abel and the Club.

So until he could find the time to figure shit out, sort through all of the fuckin' noise in his head, Jax decided to table the idea of getting married again. He had already made the mistake of blindly making that commitment once. In order for it to work the second time around, Jax was going to make sure that they both knew what they were signing up for and then sticking to making it happen. So instead of trying to put a ring on it, Jax had spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the Main Event—finally extracting his pound of flesh from Putlova and the ROC at his best friend's wedding reception.

Jax had watched as Clay had taken the first shot, taking out one of Putlova's guards as Happy dispatched the other from behind, slicing a knife across the man's throat before he could make the move to grab his sidearm. The satisfaction that Jax had felt as he stalked towards Putlova and repeatedly plunged his KA-BAR into the man's gut had been anything but "just business". It was all personal, down to the wad of spit he had tossed on the dying man before he casually strode away, leaving the Prospects behind to bury the bodies.

By washing away old injuries with blood, this one event was the catalyst that set Jax on the course of finally putting his plan to save his father's dying Club into motion. But as was par for the course when one lived the Life, one shit or another was always on the brink of going sideways. The following morning just proved that to Jax at their introductory meeting with Galindo representatives Romero "Romeo" Parada and his associates. He and Clay had gone to Oakland to get the ball rolling on the Club's new venture with the Cartel. Blindsided by an unexpected twist had nearly sent Jax into a tailspin. However, like his President, Jax had taken the new deal and twisted it to give him the advantage over Clay.

Muling drugs for the Galindo Cartel was the absolute last thing that Jax wanted SAMCRO into. After all, his ex-wife's drug addiction had nearly caused the death of his prematurely born son. Despite the fact that gun running was no cleaner a crime than trafficking drugs, preying on people with addictions that could bring otherwise rational human beings down into the gutter was particularly vile to the outlaw.

Looking down at Tara's soft, dark hair, he absently stroked it with his ringed fingers and wondered how he was going to break the news that in addition to gun running with the added risk of dealing high-powered weapons, he was now about to embark on a life as a fuckin' drug runner to boot!

There were no longer any doubts in Jax's mind. The Sons of Anarchy had lost their way. What had seemed like a lost cause after going into Stockton had flipped on him in less than a day back home. For the first time since finding his father's manuscript, Jax felt like he was making some steps in the right direction. He grinned mirthlessly as he recalled the look of shock on Clay's face as he laid out his demands. The older outlaw had not seen it coming, which was why the impact had hit him particularly hard. Clay minced no words in making it clear to Jax that he felt betrayed. Jax himself was amazed that he had managed to walk away from the exchange intact after dropping his demands on Clay.

Jax finally decided to keep the fact that SAMCRO was now muling coke from his old lady, at least for the time being. If the first twenty-four hours of freedom had been a rough ride, the next twenty-four were going to test Tara in ways he wasn't sure she was prepared to handle. Jax knew what her reaction to the drugs would be, but he also knew that Tara was going to have to suck it up and get in line with everyone else who would give him and Clay shit about this new move. After all, Tara knew where the endgame would take them. Even though they wouldn't be leaving Charming, Jax's goal was to provide his family with a stable and financially secure future.

Having made the decision to not run away from his responsibilities, to stay and save his Club, Jax knew that he would not be able to pull it off alone. Jax winced in the darkness as he thought about his brother from another mother. Opie Winston had been his best friend since birth and Jax knew he was doomed to failure without him by his side. But SAMCRO's gentle giant had already been asked to sacrifice too much for his brothers. The nickel Ope had served in Chino thanks to Kyle Hobart had almost killed his marriage. Clay's paranoid distrust of Opie, thanks to the treacherous ATF bitch June Stahl, had cost Donna Winston her life.

Although Jax had promised his brother that one day they would eventually run the Club, bringing it back to what had been JT's and Piney's original vision, Jax knew the journey to that point wasn't going to be an easy one. Aside from Opie, Jax needed to call upon another brother who could help him make the hard choices and whose only loyalty was to the Club.

Realizing that it was almost four o'clock in the morning, Jax closed his eyes. Falling asleep would never happen if he didn't at least try to still his thoughts. He was going to need as much rest as he could get. In a few short hours, Clay was going to drop the bomb of the Son's obligation to run drugs for the Galindo Cartel. If Jax was successful in swaying the majority to back the deal, an old era would be coming to an end as a new one would begin.

For the sake of everything Jax loved—his son, his old lady, his family, and his Club—he could only hope that he and his brothers made it through the next twenty-four hours in one piece.


Monday, April 12, 2010

Sitting at the far end of the Redwood table, Happy sat back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed his brothers. The atmosphere in the Chapel was grim at best and considering the level of craziness they were operating at, the outlaw biker was hard-pressed not to wonder if SAMCRO had set itself on a course of self-destruction. Or maybe, the Club was just in the process of collectively losing its fuckin' mind.

Happy never thought he'd long for the simplicity of his days in Stockton as, home for only a couple of days, it seemed like he and his brothers had fallen right back into a big pile of bad shit. Or maybe, it was just business as usual for the MC.

Who the fuck knows anymore? Happythought sourly.

Just the day before, Clay had delivered the stunning news that, without the Club's knowledge or consent, the gun deal he had brokered with the Galindo Cartel came with some seriously twisted strings attached.

The mother charter was about to branch out into drug running for the Cartel.

Even now, after having born witness to the troubles the Club has had to deal with the last couple of years first-hand, Happy was still having trouble wrapping his head around just how they had ended up in such predicament. In the over forty years of its existence, the Sons of Anarchy had made it a point of steering clear of drugs. Some of their greatest beefs with other crews like the Mayans and the Nords had festered over SAMCRO's resistance against allowing the drug trade through or within the borders of Charming.

Needless to say, the revelation that the Club would now dabble in the drug business had not gone over well with some sitting at the table. It didn't matter that the Cartel was dangling a big fat carrot in the form of an additional $100K every two weeks as payment for trafficking thirty kilos of cocaine. And it certainly hadn't come as a surprise to Happy that one of the Club's founding members, Piney Winston, had been the most vocal opponent to the newly proposed business venture.

"If I remember right, and I know I do," Piney directed at Clay, his voice a deep growl. "You resisted SAMCRO venturing into porn. You called it a dirty business."

"That was different—" Clay started in his own defense, but was interrupted by Piney's meaty fist slamming onto the Reaper table.

"The hell it is! Drugs are way goddamn dirtier!" Piney bellowed down the table. "You're stupid and delusional if you think we'd be working with the Cartel. We'd be working for them and when that relationship stops producing results, all we'll get out of it is quick passage to an unmarked grave."

The old and ornery biker wasn't the only one at the table opposed to the idea of muling drugs for Galindo. What surprised Happy, however, was just who turned out to be Clay's most ardent supporter: Jax Teller. Considering the hell the young VP had endured since the birth of his son, Happy would have bet his Harley that Jax would have been quite vocal in his opposition. Instead, Jax surprised everyone at the table by voicing his support. Listening to Jax's level-headed and impassioned plea for his brother's to do the same had made an impression on most who had initially opposed the idea, including Happy.

After being given only less than half a day to consider the deal, Church had been called to order as the sun had started to set that evening. Clay had called for the vote and the agreement to mule coke had been voted in by a very narrow margin. Now that the die had been cast, all Happy could think about was whether or not a divided Club would be able to survive this hurdle intact.

Happy refocused his gaze on Clay as he cleared his throat. With the most crucial vote in the Club's recent history finally over, Happy was anticipating that his President would slam the gavel down, calling an end to Church. He sure as fuck was looking forward to being the first out of the door as he made a beeline straight to the bar as he had a sudden urge for a really stiff drink.

Reading Clay's tense body language, Happy's brow furrowed as he got the feeling that there was some more shit about to drop, and for some reason, he suspected that muling for a drug cartel wasn't the worst of it. It would soon become clear just how much Clay's decision to commit the Club to a venture out of their wheelhouse would impact Happy personally.

Clay held the gavel in his right hand as he twirled it around slowly in his fingers before speaking. "There's one more piece of business that needs tending to tonight," Clay said quietly, his voice hovering over the group of outlaws, his next words sending palpable shockwaves around the room. "We need to vote in a new President."