"Hey." Shea wakes her up with a hard poke to the side. Tara grumbles a protest, trying to roll away.

"What time is it?" She mutters.

"7:30 am, now let's go." Shea pokes her again, harder, and Tara rolls over to glare.

"Go where? How the hell did you get in my house?" She demands.

"I stole Jax's key." Shea informs her, as if it should be obvious. "Now let's go."

"Where are we going?" Tara stays in her bed, refusing to move, so Shea huffs and gets up, exploring her room.

"I don't know, the mall or wherever it is you want to go." Shea waves a hand. "But I'm bored. I want to do something."

"Shea," Tara tries to keep her tone patient. "Has anyone ever mentioned that you may have an attention disorder?"

"Yeah, a couple teachers in middle school." Shea inspects a picture of Tara and her mother. "Why?"

"No reason." With a groan, sensing that Shea isn't going to disappear and leave her to sleep, Tara sits up. "Alright, what's up?"

"I'm bored." Shea opens a drawer, pulling out an oversized tee-shirt of Jax's. "And I'm sick of the club and I'm sick of Jax and Opie and I'm sick of being alone, so I think I need to hang out with you."

"Why me?" Tara tries to keep the pleading tone out of her voice, but Shea's too busy pulling apart the Russian nesting dolls on the bookshelf to notice.

"We can do whatever you want." Shea concedes. "I just need to get out, you know? I'm starting to feel trapped."

"Trapped." Tara repeats, rolling out of bed. For a second, she's standing and Shea is sitting on the floor. It gives her a strange perspective, looking down at her like she's a child, though Shea is older.

"Yeah." Shea ducks her head so her hair covers her face, fiddling with the dolls. "Like I need to run again."

"You've been home two weeks." Tara says, bemused, and Shea says nothing, just looks at her with wide eyes. "Ok, fine, let me eat something at least."

"Ok!" Shea grins, cobbling the dolls back together. Tara sighs, rubs her eyes, and heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Once she's done, tied her hair into a bun, and had toast, she turns to face Shea. "So what do you want to do?" Shea asks her brightly and Tara holds back a smile.

"I don't care. You're the one who woke me up bright and early for an adventure." She says easily and Shea slaps her knees, standing.

"I've got the best idea." She declares. "You got closed toed shoes on?"

"Yes?" Tara glances at her sneakers then at Shea. "Are we going to a chemistry lab?"

"Better." Shea gives her a wicked grin then pulls her out the door.

"Should I tell Jax where I'm going?" Tara pauses in the door and Shea rolls her eyes.

"No." She says firmly. "He's at work. If you're really worried I'm trying to kidnap you, we can stop by the garage on the way out of town."

"Let's do that." Tara grins at her and Shea mutters something darkly, but slides into her slightly banged up car. She pulls into the garage a few minutes later and Tara hops out, trying to ignore the clubhouse and instead head for the garage. Shea follows at a leisurely pace.

"Hey." Gemma appears from the doorway of the office, eyes narrowed, look cutting Tara to the bone.

"Hi." Tara stops dead in her tracks, eyes wide. Not a moment later, Shea breezes past her.

"Gemmy, do you need help for family supper this weekend?" Shea drawls, diverting Gemma's attention to her with rather startling ease.

"No, sweetheart, I'm ok." Gemma tears her eyes off her and looks at Shea, face softening. "How you settling in at your dad's place?"

"Things in the fridge can move, but I'm alright, I guess." Shea draws Gemma into the office, glancing over her shoulder at Tara with a pointed look. Tara scurries into the garage, on the lookout for Jax. He finds her, eyebrows knitted together in concern.

"Tara." He reaches out to touch her cheek. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She smiles to reassure him. "I just wanted to let you know that Hurricane Shea is taking me on a little day trip, and to not worry if I'm not home when you're done with work."

"Ok." Jax chuckles, shaking his head. "Have fun."

"What?" Tara asks, unnerved.

"Nothing." Jax insists, kissing her cheek. "It's just if you think that I have trouble sitting still, you can't even imagine what it's like with her. I'll have an ice bath and a strong drink waiting for you at home."

"Should I be worried?" Tara wonders and he gives her an affectionate smack on the butt.

"Have fun, see you later!" He disappears under a car and she weaves back towards the office, pausing where hopefully Shea can see her but Gemma won't be able to.

"Ok, I gotta go." Shea stands, kissing Gemma's cheek. "But I'll come over tonight, I promise."

"We should go grocery shopping. You're getting skinny." Gemma grabs Shea's shoulders and shakes her just slightly. "Too skinny."

"I've always been scrawny." Shea tries to wave a hand. "No big deal."

"So what are you doing?" Gemma's voice carries out the open door.

"Tara and I are going to go bond."

"See if you can dig up some dirt on Miss Prissy." Gemma says dryly.

"Nope." Shea says firmly but cheerfully. "See you later Gemmy!"

"Bye darling." Gemma watches her leave, eyes darkening when she sees Tara hovering in the doorway.

"C'mon." Shea takes her hand and drags her towards the car. Tara waits till they're out of earshot before rounding on her.

"Are you just hanging out with me so you and Gemma can ridicule me later?" She demands and Shea rolls her eyes.

"No, that's just Gemma being protective mom. I'm hanging out with you because I like to. I promise I won't even ask you anything, we can talk about me the whole time if you don't trust me. But where we're going, I don't think we'll need words." She declares, turning the radio up louder as she peels out onto the street, rolling the windows down.

"Are you going to murder me?" Tara demands, entirely serious, and Shea just grins at her, hair blowing in the wind. When they arrive at a dirt parking lot at the edge of the forest a decent ways out of town, Tara isn't reassured.

"Oh stop." Shea catches the look on her face as she turns the car off. "I'm not going to kill you. This would be a stupid place to hide a body."

"And where is?" Tara mutters and Shea looks thoughtful. "No, stop, wait, I don't want to know."

"Well, I did promise I'd answer questions." Shea says sunnily, grabbing a backpack from the backseat.

"Where are we?" Tara asks, spotting a small opening in the trees.

"Hiking trails." Shea sets out for the opening. "I use to come here when I was in school, or cutting it at least. Wander around. Now I know it like the back of my hand. So I promise you, no murdering or abandoning. Trust me?" She turns to Tara and extends her hand, eyes twinkling.

"Fine." Tara takes it with a sigh. "But only because I trust that Jax would be annoyed if you killed or lost me."

"He would." Shea agrees and then they're out of the bright sunlight and into the cool shade of the trees, she relaxes and looks at the beauty around her.

They hike for a long while is silence, stepping over downed branches and exposed roots, quietly nudging each other to point out squirrels, rabbits, and birds. Then, they round a bend in the trail and a large tree has fallen, crashing across the path, splintered and fragmented.

"Oh, we'll have to go a different way." Tara says, going to turn around.

"No we won't." With a wiggle, Shea is clambering over the tree. "C'mon."

"Oh boy." With a grunt, Tara heaves herself up onto the tree, scrambling for purchase. Shea, without looking back, offers her hand to Tara and she takes it, letting Shea pull her up.

"Trust me, it'll be worth it." Shea is already sliding down the tree to the other side of the path, landing crouched. Tara tries to mirror her, the jolt shocking her knees.

"It better." Tara mutters, a little darkly and Shea grins, pulling her along. A few minutes later, the trails flattens out and after a couple feet, spits them out on the beach of a small lake, still and tranquil. Tara gasps despite herself.

"Worth it?" Shea questions smugly, knowing the answer, and Tara just opens and closes her mouth wordlessly. "Thought so. This is my spot. Was my spot? Whatever. Here, want some water?"

"Yeah." Tara kicks off her shoes and socks, then runs headlong into the water, making Shea shout in surprise.

"I meant to drink!"

"This is better." Tara beams, seeing the tiny fish scatter when she splashes. "This place is amazing!"

"Yeah," Shea sits on the shore with her water bottle. "Only place that doesn't make me feel like I'm crawling out of my own skin, you know?"

"Can I ask you a question?" Tara asks hesitantly and Shea nods, rummaging in her bag for snacks. "Why do you feel that way? Why do you feel like you need to constantly be running?"

"Always have." Shea says easily. "Since I was a kid. Hated school, hated home, hated everything. Still do. Just trying to find a place where I don't hate it all, you know?"

"Sort of." Tara lets the water and dirt settle, the fish slowly coming back. "I want to leave Charming too, but because there's a huge world out there, you know? And I've seen so little of it."

"Yeah, I've seen a lot of it." Shea reclines with a granola bar, looking up at the impossibly blue sky. "But seeing it and being comfortable with it, that's two different things."

"I don't have to be comfortable with it, I just want to see it." Tara says, her heart clenching. "I don't want to waste my life away."

"Yeah, but when you start doing all that traveling, sometimes you realize that you'd like to travel home." Shea says wisely and Tara is quiet. "I know it seems crazy, coming from the girl, who just, not ten seconds ago, was talking about not being comfortable here. But it's familiar. And sometimes, that's good enough."

"Familiar is drunk dads?" Tara asks, grinning when she feels the tiny fish nibbling at her toes.

"Familiar is Charming." Shea waves a lazy hand. "Nothing ever changes in Charming, not really. You can always trust that the club's going to be there, people are going to fuss and talk but accept that they do the dirty work, and that makes them valuable."

"Do the dirty work." Tara mutters, wiggling her toes to scare off the fish.

"Yeah." Shea kicks off her own shoes, laying down to sun herself. "Like keep drugs out, sort out the issues with guns instead of laws, and they do it a lot quicker than the police or mayor could, even if it's not legal. They keep Charming all bright and shiny for the good people, because they're the ones getting their hands dirty."

"Just not always what a girlfriend wants to hear about her boyfriend's club." Tara complains, hiking her shirt up. It's hotter in the sun, even with the cool lake water.

"Old lady, not girlfriend." Shea corrects and Tara frowns at her. Shea gestures for her to spin. "Nice tattoo."

"Oh." Tara drops her shirt to cover it. "That's nothing."

"Uh huh." Shea drops her head back down. "That's a crow. That's a symbol."

"It's not a brand." Tara says hotly. "Jax didn't ask me to put it on. I picked it. It's a crow because—"

"Because Jax is SAMCRO? And you are too, even if you don't want to admit it?" Shea points out and Tara's mouth snaps shut.

"It's pretty." She says mulishly.

"Very pretty." Shea agrees easily. "But you and I both know what it is. It's familiar, isn't it now?"

"No." Tara lies, thinking about the ring on her finger, that declares 'SON' loudly, all the tee-shirts and sweatshirts she wears, the emblem and symbol slowly becoming engrained with her.

"Familiar is comforting, even if it's not comfortable." Sage advice, and to complete the look, Shea pulls a joint from the backpack. "Want some?"

"I'm good, thanks." Tara says absentmindedly, swaying in the water, walking a couple steps deeper.

"Suit yourself." With a flick of the lighter, they fall into silence, Shea smoking on the beach and Tara wading in knee deep water, lost in their own thoughts.

Is she SAMCRO's or just Jax's? Is it possible to belong to one and not the other? She feels sometimes like she is a plain, white piece of paper and Jax is an explosion of colors, bleeding onto her and staining her with his hobbies, interests, and preferences.

She's not though, she knows she's Tara, fair and square, her own person. But Donna and Jax, even now Shea, are such overwhelming personalities, that sometimes it feels impossible not to just fade into them. She studies her reflection, feeling oddly detached from herself, like an imposter is wearing her skin and she's floating outside it, no way to figure out how to reconcile the girl in the water and her mind.

She wonders if this is how Shea feels all the time, ill at ease with who she sees and who she thinks she is, two conflicting parts that never quite correctly align. Tara, a strong willed young woman with a bright future, excellent student, side by side with Tara, a drinking, tattoo sporting old lady, confident on the back of a bike, cutting class to stay at home in bed with her boyfriend.

"Shea." She calls.

"Yeah?" Shea is on her second joint, words slow.

"When you look at yourself, who do you see in the mirror? And who do you hear in your head?" Tara wonders and Shea sits up, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"In the mirror, I see the girl who's always down for a good time, a freewheeling, happy go lucky spirit, who can hold her whiskey and has a weakness for blondes with killer legs and shy smiles." She declares and Tara smiles. "But in my head, I hear the scared little girl who's always questioning if she fits in, if she belongs. If she really wants to be there or if she should run for the next place. Who cannot hold onto love, because she simply does not know how."

"Things ended with Claire?" Tara guesses and Shea exhales lungs full of smoke.

"Not so much with a bang but a whimper." She closes her eyes. "Like they always do. I ran, cause it's easier to pretend to be Shea in the mirror than it is to someone who knows the voice in your head."

"Yeah." Tara lets them drift back into silence. "I get that."

They stay in the peaceful bubble of the lake awhile longer, before Tara's stomach rumbles and Shea has finished her joint. A little hesitantly, they acknowledge, wordlessly, that it's time to return to the real world. Tara glances over her shoulder at the lake and wishes desperately she was there to stay. Then it's gone, and they're back over the log, down the trail, out of the trees, and back into a warm car.

"Hey." Shea turns the car on, cranking up the cool air. "Thanks for taking the day to do that with me. I appreciate it. Some people wouldn't."

"It was nice." Tara admits. "I liked it, honestly."

"Good." Shea smiles as she puts the car in reverse. "And I promise not to tell Gemma about the tattoo. Even if it would make her like you more."

"Really?"

"God no. She'd rip your face off if she ever found out about that thing."

AN: Because my last chapter was sad and I love Shea and this was pretty fun to write. Hey, reviews?