A/N - Longer than normal chapter ahead to make up for the fact that I've been M.I.A. lately. Enjoy!

Los Angeles, California, 2001

Knock knock.

"Come in!"

Knock knock.

Frankie's expression soured at the realization that she was going to need to get up from her chair and open the door. Juice always let himself in, and she had every intention of letting him have it. Clad in a white tanktop, frayed denim shorts, and socks, she slide across the wood floor of her living room towards the from door.

"Jesus Christ, you have a key," she began with a roll of her eyes as she pulled open the door, only to find that it wasn't Juice Ortiz there after all. "Ope?" she said in disbelief. He looked at her with a smirk, pulling off his riding glasses and crossing his arms over his chest.

"You're a real gracious host, shrimp," he chuckled as she allowed the door to open the rest of the way. He glanced behind her and caught sight of a smattering of clutter in the living room, things that didn't belong to her. Riding boots, a gun holster, riding gloves. Clay Morrow would never accept his little girl packing riding paraphernalia like that.

Following Opie's gaze, Frankie laughed uncomfortably and scratched the back of her neck. "Juice's shit," she shrugged. It wasn't that she felt bad about Juice's things being there, or about what that implied, but she knew that she and Opie had made a deal not to be strangers, and here they were. They hadn't spoken for almost eighteen months - during which, Frankie and Juice had decided to 'try things out', to see where they went - and now suddenly, Opie was here at her door, fully cognizant of the fact that Juice's stuff being all over the apartment when he clearly was elsewhere clearly implied one thing.

Frankie Rose was his ol' lady.

The flighty, evasive look of shame that crossed Frankie's face when she caught on that Opie had put the pieces together was enough to raise questions. What did she have to be ashamed about out?

"Can I come in?" he asked, raising his eyebrows - Frankie responded by clearing her throat and nodding, gesturing inside. Eager to change the subject but not knowing why the subject was so tense in the first place, Opie did a slow turn and glanced around the apartment with his arms crossed. "Definitely a change of scenery," he pointed out. "You like it out here?"

"Gets me outta Fresno," she shrugged. "How'd you figure out where I live?"

"Word of mouth travels," Opie said with a lopsided smirk. "Jax knew, Tara asked about ya and said she'd come and check on you some time while she was out in San Diego. Found out from her."

Frankie bit back a smile at the realization that Opie had actually asked around to figure out where to find her. She'd broken her promise she'd made at Donna's funeral to not be a stranger, because things with Juice had honestly happened so quickly afterwards, though she had no idea why. And Opie Winston brought about such strange confusion in her, a small part of her decided, consciously or otherwise, that avoiding him might have been best.

"Jax and JT out here too, then?" Frankie said, glancing back over her shoulder out the door before shutting it behind her, half expecting to see the rest of True North rolling up the block. "Club business doesn't usually bring you guys this far out. This is Dino's stomping grounds -"

"Nobody's tryin' to step on Dino's toes," Opie chuckled. The San Bernardino charter was doing a good enough job on its own of handling its business and needed no real intervention anyway. "Just came out here on my own. Went out for a ride," he said casually.

And ended up here, Frankie thought to herself, to see me. Why did that seem like such a good thing?

"You got anythin' goin' on today?" Opie asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Class? Work?"

"Nothing today," Frankie answered.

"Good. Then we're goin', get dressed."

"What?"

"Unless you're too good to spend time with an ol' friend, college girl," Opie said in jest. Frankie's face wrinkled in mock distaste as she picked up the flannel shirt that was draped on the side of the couch and tying it around her waist. As she moved to slide her feet into the pair of Converse shoes at the door, Opie strode over and plucked her car keys off of the hook near the door.

"Don't you have your bike?"

"If we take it, you ain't gonna have room for souvenirs," he shrugged, peeling his kutte off of his shoulders and laying it neatly on the back of a chair. "C'mon."

Frankie felt strange, riding in the passenger seat of her own car, but the surreal feeling quickly faded into realization as the surroundings began to give away where they were headed. Immediately, her face snapped to face Opie, who was now smirking as he drove.

"I made a promise to you, kid, and now you're gettin' it," he shrugged. "You're goin' to the happiest place on Earth, whether you like it or not."

Frankie couldn't have explained, even if she was asked, why the idea of going to Disneyland somehow made her nervous out of her wits. Even as Opie was gracious enough to foot the cash to get them into the park, even as they made their way on foot into the park and into an area the little tourist map Opie handed her indicated was called Main Street, Frankie felt antsy, even out of place. This wasn't the kind of place where she had ever belonged, and now here she was.

"C'mon, shrimp," Opie said, elbowing her gently as they walked down the street among the others who had arrived this early as well. "At least humor me and pretend you're having fun."

"But... what do I... do?" Frankie asked in a hushed voice, her brow furrowing in confusion. It seemed to finally really dawn on Opie that Frankie Rose had never really had a chance to just live, to just exist, to just be young. Turmoil was all she really knew.

That seemed to change, however, when after continuing down a short way, Cinderella's castle came into view - and Opie was surprised and amused to see the way her face lit up in wonder. They stopped just short of a statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, and for a short while she just stared up at the castle.

She looked different, Opie decided, when she wasn't trying so hard to be poised and mature and grown up, to keep things under control. He chuckled a little. Something about being around her was relaxing. It was peaceful.

Finally looking as though she was sold on the possibility of the happiest place on Earth actually being fun and not too childish for her, she linked her arm around Opie's and started walking forward, past statue.

Opie admittedly couldn't help but watch her a little bit more as they wandered deeper into a part of the park - she glanced down at the tourist map in her hand and muttered 'Fantasyland' to herself. They were finally starting to hit a steady pace in their walk when suddenly, in a sudden blur of green, Peter Pan leapt out into the pathway directly in front of Frankie, leaning close to her and yelling, "Boo!"

Opie very quickly process a large amount of information in a matter of milliseconds. He knew Frankie was easily startled, and for most girls, that was cute. It was endearing. But for a girl who grew up around the club, someone who knew how volatile life could be, the response to simply being startled was far different.

Practically foreseeing her reacting, he reached out and caught her around the waist and almost completely hoisting her off the ground as she jumped in surprise, her arms flailing defensively out of reflex. She wriggled slightly until, a couple of seconds later as they watched Peter Pan run off laughing and then looking back at her and pointing from a distance before turning another corner. Opie laughed openly this time as he lowered her back to her feet and she ran her hands over her curly hair, pushing it out of her face.

"Quit laughin'!" Frankie yelped, though she was struggling to suppress a smile herself. "D'you bring me here just to make fun of me?"

"Nah, but it sure makes the drive worth it," Opie grinned. "C'mon. We'll find somethin' more your style."

It took a good deal of wandering around and a fair few snacks to find a ride that Frankie was enthusiastic about trying. By the time they ended up in Tomorrowland, Frankie had her heart set on Space Mountain - and while they waited in line to get on the ride, a pair of other girls about her age in line with a pair of boys groused to one another.

"I can't believe they're bringing us on this shit," the girl muttered with a slight sneer. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Right?"

"See? This ride ain't for no pansy-ass little girls," Opie chuckled, leaning over and whispering in her ear. "You sure you can keep down those churros now?"

"I've ridden on the back of your bike, this'll be cake," Frankie retorted with a smirk. She didn't let on that something about the brush of breath over the back of her ear when Opie whispered to her sent more shivers down her spine than she expected any roller coaster could.

Finally, they were able to clamber into a car on the ride, and Frankie chuckled a little at the fact that Opie struggled a little more to get buckled in because of his size, while Frankie easily clicked into the seat in front of him.

"I warned you, shrimp," he joked one more time as the ride got ready to move. "Don't blame me when those churros come back up a second time."

At first, as the ride came to motion, Frankie wondered if maybe Opie was right. It was dark, save for the bright lights along the chamber that the car was shooting through. But with the first sudden jolt and drop in the dark, even as the girls they had been in line with started screaming as though they were being murdered, Frankie felt a strange freedom akin to what she felt on a bike flying down I-5, in a fast car. For a a few brief moments as they hurtled around on the ride, she felt good. Feeling good was something Frankie Rose could say she had done for a long while now.

She was almost reluctant to get out of her seat as the ride came to an end, but as she and Opie made their way down the moving walkways to the exit, she turned and immediately wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly in glee.

It was only after she had already done it that either of them realized, the last time they had been close like this, hugging one another, had been that night in front of her house in Fresno - before Opie had married Donna, before any of it. Unsure of what to do, unwilling to be the first to react, they lingered that way for a moment, strangely comfortable.

Frankie was the first to pull back, still beaming brightly but considerably more pink in the face than she had been moments earlier.

"That was the best," she said breathlessly. "That was literally the best thing that I've ever experienced. Ever."

Despite the uncertainty of what had made the sudden embrace so unusual, the day continued without a hitch. Opie eventually managed to get Frankie into a pair of Minnie Mouse ears with the caveat that he had to change into Cinderella t-shirt of her choosing. Frankie smirked evilly for a moment - this was something she was going to commit to memory forever.

When it finally came time to leave, Frankie seemed so tired out that, Minnie Mouse ears and all, she fell asleep practically seconds after settling into the passenger side of the car, and she snored lightly for the entire drive home, which with traffic took probably an hour longer than it should have. Opie carried her back in with ease and put her down on her own couch, though once she was there, she stirred awake just as Opie was pulling off the Cinderella t-shirt so that he was clad in a white wife-beater tanktop instead.

"You, uh..." Frankie stammered, slowly getting to her feet. She glanced around, trying to find a way to finish whatever statement she was about to make, but her apartment gave her no answers - just the same old place, thoug she could have sworn she'd left it messier than this. "You want a beer or something?"

There was an expectant pause, and Opie slowly met Frankie's gaze. He'd planned on starting the drive back towards Charming now, but a beer or two with one of his favorite people clearly seemed the more desirable option. He walked over and took a seat on the couch. Taking this as agreement to stay a little while, Frankie grinned and walked over to her fridge, pulling out a pair of beers and handing one to Opie before taking a seat next to him.

At first, it was simply quiet while they drank their beers, while Frankie felt the welcome and familiar warmth of alcohol faintly hitting her system. She'd already thanked him four or five times for the day, there was no point doing it again. But what else was there?

"So, you've been out here a while," Opie pointed out calmly, looking for something to break the silence between them. "Graduatin' soon. What's next?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Move back to Fresno, I guess. Things seem to be quieting down again back home."

"So you miss it?" Opie asked, his brow knitting slightly. "You miss home? Miss your dad?"

"Somethin' like that."

"I'll take that as a 'no', then."

"Well, you already know," she said with a dry laugh. "My daddy's not always the easiest guy to miss."

Opie bit his tongue at the temptation to ask if Frankie was moving back to be closer to Juice. To her ol' man. For whatever reason, he simply didn't want to know that. Instead, he said the first thing that came to mind.

"Did you ever think about movin' back to Charming? Jax misses you. JT misses havin' you around," Opie pointed out before adding after a long pause, "I miss you too."

He flinched slightly, the confusion on her face visible at the statement. But it was true - she was easy to be around. She wasn't confusing.

"I can't do that," she said quietly. "You know I can't move to Charming -"

"Why not?"

"Because my Dad -"

"Why does it matter what he thinks?" Opie pressed, his brow again creasing as he slowly got to his feet. "Why does Clay Morrow get to decide where you wanna have a future?"

"Because he's my daddy," Frankie said, getting to her feet as well, though she couldn't even figure out why the conversation bothered her so severely. "He's my daddy and I've already lost one -"

"You mean JT?" Opie asked in disbelief. "You didn't lose him, Frankie, you can always come back - you've been back. He loves you. Jax loves you."

The statement cut off there - it was territory that they weren't yet in a position to explore, if it went any further. "Everything you're doin' is because you're scared of losin' your dad? You don't lose dads like that, Frankie," Opie continued heatedly. "If you're scared of losin' him over living your own life, then you're scared that he don't even love you -"

"Stop it."

"You're just scared, and you're gonna keep livin' your life tryin' to keep people in it and never making yourself happy -"

Overwhelmed, Frankie turned on her heel to leave, but Opie reflexively caught her by the crook of the arm and tugged gently to that she came spinning back, her face now barely a few inches away from his.

Didn't she get it? He wondered. Didn't she fucking get it?

And, without thinking, Opie found himself lowering his lips to meet hers, her mouth that still tasted of cinnamon sugar eagerly reciprocating. Suddenly, it was as though she had become a completely different entity from the Frankie Rose he remembered as a tomboyish, sunflower-seed spitting child.

Frankie Rose wasn't that child anymore. She was someone that he wanted to touch, to hold, to feel against him like this. Opie instinctively pulled her closer so that her body was pressed close to his, and though she froze momentarily, her next movement was to look up at him through hooded eyelids with a warmth and willingness that, right or wrong, finally broke Opie's resolve when it came to keeping away from Frankie Rose Morrow.

It didn't need to happen anymore.

He lowered his lips back to hers and kissed her fervently for a few more seconds before he hoisted her off of her feet with ease so that she could wrap her legs around his waist, her hands roving over his shoulders and arms, her fingers digging gently into his skin as his mouth traced down to the side of her neck.

"Bedroom?" he asked, not lifting his face to look at her - he felt the movement of her head nodding and the tightening of her legs around him, reason enough to practically stumble, still carrying her, to the door to the single bedroom in the apartment, placing her down on the bed and situating himself on top of her. "Frankie," he said, burying his face in her neck again with his voice a near-groan. "You sure?"

It would probably kill him if she said no, Opie thought in the back of his mind. But if she said she couldn't do this, he'd accept it. Of course he'd accept it.

On Frankie's part, the tiny voice that told her she shouldn't, the little voice that restrained her from so many things she might've wanted out of her live thus far, was conspicuously silent. She knew that she shouldn't, that she was in position to say yes - but this was Opie, and a larger, more adamant part of her insisted that she had wanted this for too long, whether she admitted it or not.

"Yeah," she finally answered, her breath hitching in her throat as her brain registered the intense warmth where their midsections met - unwittingly, she ground her hips against his, eliciting. "I want this."

Validated, Opie's hands rushed to work pulling Frankie's shirt off over her head and tossing it aside, enthralled by the feeling of her warm bare skin under his rough hands.

It vaguely registered in Opie's head that Frankie had done this before with people other than him, even though he too admitted that maybe this had been on his mind for longer than he wanted to acknowledge. She did this with Juice, because she belonged to him. Just the thought might have otherwise convinced him to stop, but right now, after having spent a day with her - a single amazing day where everything else faded into nothing - it simply fueled his blind desire to have her.

There was no hesitation, no dramatics, just a flurry of hands and lips and clothes cast aside onto the floor by the bed. It was maybe only when he was inside her, in the heat of the moment, that both of them reached the same conclusion. This was happening because it was supposed to, because it was supposed to and they had ignored it for a long enough time now that it came forward in a tidal wave that they could no longer have stopped.

Frankie wasn't sure if she had memories or dreams when she stirred the next morning, though her wondering was answered when she registered the weight of Opie's arm still wrapped around her waist, of his breath and his gentle snoring behind her. She smiled gently and gave her shoulders a small, gentle roll. Opie...

But now, after the euphoric haze of the previous night was spent, her mind - the same mind that had always prevented this from happening - managed to resume control.

There had been a reason she had tried to stay away from Opie after Donna's death - because she knew somewhere in her mind, her father was hiding something. Clay Morrow knew something about Donna Winston's death, and Frankie had convinced herself to stay away from Opie because she couldn't be around him, couldn't be like this with him, and not say anything.

And Juice...

Frankie felt her stomach in knots. She had someone, someone who cared about her. Right when they'd gotten back to Los Angeles from Donna's funeral, Juice had admitted to her that he wanted to see if they could be something, if together, they'd get somewhere because she was important to him.

Frankie Rose Morrow remembered that there was a reason that she did the things she did, because now that she'd forgotten that, someone was going to have to get hurt. Being selfish and doing what you wanted for yourself got people hurt.

Slowly, she rolled onto her other side to see Opie as he slept, only to find that he was already awake, looking at her sleepily. For a short few seconds, they stared at each other, and Frankie slid her arm around his midsection and hugged him one more time, rested her head sleepily against his bare chest. He reached up and smoothed a hand over her tousled blonde curls.

"This is tearin' you up, isn't it, Frankie?" he asked knowingly. She stiffened slightly in his arms and pulled back to look at him, and Opie gave a slightly melancholy laugh, reaching out and pushing a strand of hair away from her face. "This don't gotta be anythin' that you can't get into," he said carefully.

"Opie -"

"Listen," he said, raising his eyebrows gently as he reached out and touched her face. "I haven't been with anyone, not since Donna," he said, his voice wavering slightly. "And if this doesn't go past last night, I'm happy it happened with someone important to me. You're important to me, Frankie."

"You're important to me too," Frankie said weakly. It was a cop-out on both ends. They were more than important to each other, and both seemed to wait for the other to say as much. Neither of them did.

"I should go."

"If you gotta..."

Frankie seemed to hold out hope a little longer than Opie did that something bigger, some greater confession, would come out of the moment, but when Opie moved to get up, she turned away and reached out for the shirt she had discarded the previous night, pulling it back on over herself and reaching over to her bedside drawer to pull out a pair of sweatpants while Opie got dressed again too.

"Come back to Charming sometime," Opie managed to say aloud while Frankie wasn't looking. Once she had pulled her clothes on, she turned and glanced at him, taking a deep breath before answering.

"I will."

"Just like you weren't gonna be stranger?" he asked with a dry laugh. "Gimme somethin' that I can hold you too."

Frankie chuckled to herself, getting up and walking towards Opie with her hand extended. She curled it into a loose fist, only her pinky left held out to him. Smirking Opie reached over and linked his little finger with hers.

"I'll be back," she nodded. "It's a promise."

Their hands lingered for a few more moments, giving each other one last chance that neither of them took to say something, say anything. Opie cleared his throat, leaned over and gave Frankie one more kiss on the cheek, and left her room.

Once he was out of sight and Frankie heard the front door close behind him, she sank onto her bed and scratched the back of her neck in frustration. He was here. He had been right there, and she'd let him leave - because she had to.

But hell if she wasn't tired of all these things she had to do because of her father's goddamn club.

A/N's

First of all, I want to say thank you to Love Ink for being my Disneyland consultant for this chapter. I haven't been back in years, and I needed some expertise. She is a badass wealth of ideas, so if you haven't already, mosey on over and read her work! It's absolutely brilliant!

Second, the next chapter is going to jump forward to closer year-wise to where season one starts, but things are going to be in a very different place than they were in the show.

I'm also going to be updating "Lay Me Down" again soon, I promise! I've just been having a bad case of writer's block, and the little spattering of drama that happened about the title derailed my motivation a little, but I'm working on getting back on track. Anyway, as always, thank you for reading, especially if you stuck through this longer-than-usual chapter! Until next time, cheers!