Author's Note: Hi! Thank you so much for checking this story out!

I've only just started watching Sons of Anarchy and I honestly have no idea why it's taken me so long to do so! I absolutely love it; the characters are so complex and the chemistry between them all is amazing. I'm only half way through season 2 and I wanted to hold out a while until I knew more about the characters but this story wouldn't seem to stop creating itself in my mind.

I don't own anything except for my OC.

Chapter One
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The town of Charming, Los Angeles, was usually a quaint and peaceful place to reside in. For many of its inhabitants, the rolling hills, picturesque in its beauty and the way the sunshine would always beam down upon the streets, was an important feature for their lives there. For others, it was a place where hell was breeding more delinquents by the day and where biker gangs ruled the streets, casting a dark shadow upon the city.

For Millie Thornton, Charming was and always had been her home for as long as she remembered. Even when she left the area at eighteen years old, fresh out of school, to head to college in New York, she never forgot about how much the place meant to her. The faces, the streets, the stores, the feeling of home that overwhelmed her whenever she thought about it. And though it had been years since she stepped foot in the city for nearly ten years, she never forgot her first love.

Opie Winston had been her first best friend, and first love. He was a funny, softly spoken boy growing up, who would always look after her in school. He would go out of his way to make her laugh when the trouble at home would overwhelm her, distracting her from school. He would always walk her home, making sure she was safe, before doubling back and heading home himself. He never liked leaving her alone with her father, he once told her, and she had seen the look of concern that furrowed his brow.

Her father was an alcoholic and a drug addict who would rather drown his sorrows in liqueur all day and night or shoot god-knows-what in his arm than pay the rent on their trailer. Millie couldn't remember a time when the trailer had running water and electricity on at the same time; with her mother, Leanne, working endless hours at the diner to try and get enough money to cover the bills before Stanley would take it from her. Millie wanted better for her and her mother; knowing that as soon as they were far away from her father that they could truly breathe again, even live again.

Opie and Jax helped her leave that night with her mother in tow. They planned to stay with Leanne's sister who lived in the Big Apple, who promised to provide with a safe place to rest their heads for a while. With a scholarship and New York City awaiting her, she had to say goodbye to Opie. And even goodbye wasn't a true goodbye; it was a mere 'see you soon', and Millie had held him a little tighter, and he had held her a little longer. Neither one of them wanted the moment to end but time was running out before Stanley would become wise to their plans and stop them.

To say goodbye to Opie was harder than Millie had ever realised it would be. With her past in the rear-view mirror, and her future just states away, she had watched Opie driving when he thought she was asleep, and she faltered. She was leaving a part of her future behind in Charming, too.

..

For Opie Winston, life carried on without Millie.

There were moments when he wished he had gone with her, had escaped the chains that Charming had thrown around him, and had made a life for himself with her. He wondered if he had stayed in New York City with her, telling Jax that Charming was no longer his home, where they had been. Would she be the one sleeping beside him instead of Donna? Would she have become the mother of his children?

Life had simply moved on. She was a face and a name to everyone else, but she was more to him. She had been his future; his backbone; and his first love. Saying goodbye to her had been the hardest thing he ever had to do; and even though he had done jail time, he always knew he would see the outside and his family again. He never knew when or even if he would ever see Millie again.

He had kept a watchful eye on her father Stanley after their sudden departure. He had drunk himself into the grave pretty soon afterwards; despite his many attempts at trying to help put him on the right path. With him being taller and stronger than the boy who had taken a hit to the face at the mere age of thirteen when he tried to protect Millie, Opie was a calming figure for Stanley even up to his death. He looked after him: he made sure his cupboards and fridge were full of food and essentials he may need; he kept his bills paid even though sometimes they had already been paid by an anonymous account; and he had paid for his funeral.

But it seemed Millie never returned to Charming, despite her promise to. And so, life went on. He married Donna when they were both twenty-two and she was pregnant with Ellie. And they welcomed Kenny not even a year later. He loved being a father, thrived on seeing his own children grow and learn. He admired them so much, and he admired and respected Donna for bringing them into the world and being a caring and loving mother. Life wasn't as easy as he had hoped it would be, and he had gotten into some trouble. As soon as he was becoming settled, life turned itself upside down and he was thrust into jail.

He missed his children growing up, the five and four age range being a mere flash before him. He spent his days adhering to the rules of the jail with his good behaviour being documented and acknowledged, and the nights planning his life on the outside once he got out. He was planning to be the husband and father his family needed him to be. He was going to be good. He needed to be.

But life was always throwing him curveballs, especially when his lawyer came in the shape of Millie Thornton.