"Conscience Does Make Cowards of Us"

[Rating: In the world of SAMCRO, there is always the chance of mature subject matter and coarse language. With the Arrowverse, this means it's not as common as it is on FX. (Hello, crossover!)]

Michael "Mickey" Halloran was a patched member of SAMSTAR. With his stringy grey hair and unkempt beard, he looked like an aging 1970s-era rocker. A founding members of the Starling charter, he served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War and helped SAMCRO founder John Teller to set up a brother charter in Starling City in '71. The MC was his life and he wouldn't have it any other way.

He sat across the table from the Starling ADA in the interrogation room, confident that he'd be out on bail within the hour. Both the cops and the ADA tried in vain to pry the truth from him about the port lands shooting. He was no rat and was having none of it.

"The SCPD is leaning hard on your club, Mr. Halloran," Laurel said, skimming through her notepad. "SAMSTAR's been active at the port for years. We know your MC's association with the Russians. We also know that you were at the meeting between Igor Zakharov's crew and one of the Asian gangs that operate in the Glades. Things went south and a security guard was killed. Tell us who pulled the trigger and we can keep your MC clear of the murder."

Mickey laughed. "Sweetheart, I've survived Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive in 'Nam. I'm not easily spooked, by cops or lawyers. I don't know nothin' and won't say nothin'." He leaned in closer. "You got nothin'."

An hour later, Mickey and the MC's lawyer walked out of the SCPD downtown precinct and drove away in a late-model sedan with an escort of SAMSTAR bikes. Laurel knew that he'd be at the MC's Glades clubhouse within hours, celebrating his release.

She was about to leave the precinct when someone tugged at her shoulder.

"A word, counsellor?" It was her father, Captain Quentin Lance. He ushered her into his office.

"Halloran walked," Laurel said. "He didn't give up the shooter. Either he's protecting the club member who did it, or he just doesn't want to rat out the MC's business partners" And by 'business', she meant the gangs who used the port to house and transport their illicit goods.

"That's probably a dead end," Quentin acknowledged, "but our mutual puppetmaster friend in Charming just sent me a PDF file that could help us put pressure on the MC."

"Lincoln Potter?" Laurel said.

"Yeah, I know he's a bit odd, but the intel he provided could be helpful." Quentin showed Laurel a photo print-out of a gas station security video capture, date-stamped about month ago. It showed a blurry figure lying spread-eagled on the pavement. There was a pool of blood near his head. She couldn't make out the faces, but she recognized the cuts of either SAMSTAR or SAMCRO. And someone with a mohawk buzzed across a shaved bald head, with two lightning tattoos etched on either side.

"Now where have I seen that ink before?" Laurel said, flipping through one of her files. She had mugshots of all current members of SAMSTAR and SAMCRO. "Juice, from the Redwood Original charter?"

"Juan Carlos Ortiz, to be exact," Quentin said. "He's a newer member and their so-called tech expert. There was an unsolved murder of a Mexican gangbanger last month, on the Northern Cali - Oregon border. The evidence pointed to a local beef between gangs, but it turns out it may have been an orchestrated hit with SAMCRO's blessing. He could be our leverage against SAMSTAR and the mother charter too!"

Laurel studied the Juice mugshot. His face was all defiance and swagger - a new member trying to prove his toughness to the world.

"I'll look into it," Laurel said. Her father was putting on a flak vest and gun holster. "Where are you going?"

"Now that Jax Teller and SAMCRO's in town," Quentin said, "it's time the SCPD - at least the clean ones here - lets them know that this isn't Charming and it ain't business as usual for the MC."

On the border between the glass-and-steel towers of the downtown core and the abandoned city blocks of the Glades, an entourage of SAMSTAR Harleys escorted Mickey Halloran's sedan. He was free and the club wanted to show support for a fellow member. With Jax and the others laying low, it was left to Chibs to ride out with them this morning to represent SAMCRO.

In moments, two black armoured trucks blocked the main road into the Glades and half a dozen SCPD squad cars pulled up with sirens blaring. Dozens of uniforms lined both sides of the road.

"What is this shite?" Chibs cursed. He was at the head of the Harley entourage with SAMSTAR president Jim.

Quentin stepped out of one of the trucks, in a full SCPD flak jacket and bearing a shotgun. Two heavily-armed ETF officers flanked him.

"Welcome to Starling City, boys! If you've seen the news, then you already know who I am. Captain Quentin Lance, head of the SCPD anti-gang task force."

"What do you want, Captain?" Jim said. "We all have helmets and we're riding within the speed limit." A few of his members chuckled.

"I'm glad you asked, Jim," Quentin said. "Some of you I'm already familiar with, some are new to me. I'm sure a quick database check will tell me which ones have strict bail conditions or are on federal release. Associating with an outlaw biker gang would sort of go against those conditions, wouldn't you say?"

"We're not a gang, mate," Chibs said. "We're a club of motorcycle enthusiasts." More chuckles erupted from the MC.

"Chibs, is it?" Quentin said, brandishing his shotgun as he approached Chibs' bike. "Or should I just call you Filip. I haven't forgotten our esteemed visitors from Charming either. I hear Jax Teller's in town. If you could be so kind as to send my regards to the V.P. of SAMCRO, thanks. Oh, and one other thing. Some of your boys are on federal release. If I see any of your crew outside of the Glades sporting their cuts, well, their cuts will belong to me. Understand?" He lowered his voice, so that only Chibs could hear. "Or do I need to translate all of this into Gaelic, so that your thick Celtic skull can comprehend it?"

Chibs wanted to knock the captain's smug grin from his face, but he couldn't risk it. Lance's task force was combing the port lands after the shootout with the Arrow and the cops would be looking for any excuse to detain MC members.

"Aye, I understand," Chibs said, adding under his breath: "You pig."

"What did you say?" Quentin said, tempted to detain the whole lot of them, run their ID's and impound their bikes.

"We've had a long day, Captain," Jim said. "We'll stay in the Glades. Don't worry, you won't see patched members fetching lattes downtown or shopping in your shiny rich boutiques, scaring the local vegans."

"Fair enough," Quentin said, motioning to the trucks to pull back. "Because I'll be watching."

The armoured trucks pulled away and the cops stood down as the SAMSTAR bikes rolled through. SAMSTAR cleared the police roadblock and soon reached a stoplight.

"Stupid pig bastard," Chibs said.

"Lance is a piece of work," Jim said. "He's the real deal. Can't be bought or intimidated."

"A clean Starling City cop?" Chibs said. "First time for everything, eh, boys?" The MC chortled at the joke.

The SCPD was a dirty organization, full of corrupt cops on the take. Informants for many of the Glades' underworld gangs infested every precinct in the city. Lance's by-the-books investigations into the club's activities worried SAMSTAR, though they would never admit it.

SAMSTAR also wouldn't admit that hosting Jax and SAMCRO could bring more heat down on the Glades - and on their MC - than they wanted.


Jax and his crew left the factory safe house in the morning. SAMCRO's V.P. again extended an invitation to Roy to come by Jim's Auto Works to check on parts for his broken vintage Harley Softail. Roy was officially a friend of the club and it terrified him.

During his criminal days, he was on the lowest peg in the underworld: a petty thief and fence. SAMSTAR was a serious, mid-level player. As Arsenal, he knew his goal was clear - to stop the bad guys. As a lifetime Glades resident, he knew SAMSTAR's relationship with its neighbours was more complicated that this.

Roy was now on the local Starling Downtown Express public transit bus. Ollie had given him a prepaid burner cellphone and it was buzzing like crazy the whole morning. He had no opportunity to check it until after SAMCRO had left the safe house. Soon, the Glades' abandoned warehouses and aging public housing apartment blocks were behind him.

He pressed the STOP button and got out in the redeveloped Chocolate District. Only a few years ago, this had been a swath of dilapidated candy factories, warehouses and crumbling turn-of-century buildings on the frontier between the glittering city and the ruin of the Glades. Developers had bought out the lands and it was now a booming neighbourhood with fashion boutique stores, pretentious coffee houses, snobby prep schools and new condos and townhouses. Half a dozen construction cranes cluttered the skyline for blocks. City officials hoped this was the future of the Glades.

Full of homes that the Glades' poor could never afford to live in and full of schools that their kids could never attend, Roy scowled to himself.

He hated the Chocolate District, not because it erased the area's eye-sore reputation, but because of what it represented. The people who now lived and worked there acted like this place was always like this, as if it came at no cost to the mom-and-pop business owners and struggling families who became exiles when the developers rolled in. But, it was close enough to the Glades and the city that Ollie could appear as himself in broad daylight. Here, Oliver Queen blended in with the white-collar professional, latte-sipping crowd.

In the Glades, the heir to the Queen legacy would stand out like a Rolex watch in a dollar store.

Ollie was waiting for him at one of these hipster coffeehouses, the Café Arabica. Moroccan music was playing from an old record player – because the owners were convinced that music on vinyl gave their establishment that 'oh-so-cooler-than-you' vibe to it. A few tables away, a pair of uniformed schoolgirls in plaid skirts nibbled on pricey cranberry scones. They glanced at Roy's rugged jeans and no-name hoodie and snickered derisively at his blue-collar appearance.

God, I hate this place, Roy thought.

A male barista in a pale green t-shirt with a single fir tree logo stopped at their table.

"One cappuccino, Colombian half caf, skim milk, with a dash of Madagascar cinnamon please," Ollie beamed at him.

The barista glowered at Roy with a look that suggested that Roy was out of place in this gentrified neighbourhood, now reclaimed from the barbarism of the Glades. "And you, sir?"

"Coffee, black, no sugar," Roy said.

"We have our house blend, Colombian, Chilean, Moroccan Dark, Arabica Light, Hawaiian Sunrise …"

"Let's just go with the house blend," Roy said testily.

When the barista had left, Ollie lowered his voice. "You have got to pick up the phone when I call. This was important!"

"Yeah, well, I couldn't exactly pick up the phone when you called," Roy said.

"Where were you?" Ollie demanded.

"I was following that lead about the heroin trade in skid row," Roy said, trying to recount his steps. "I think the pusher was with the Three Dragons crew, maybe the Lotus Two's – I wasn't close enough to see any ink or colours on him. He lost me in the Glades."

"Did you know SAMSTAR's mother charter is in town?"

"Yes. Sin told me. We saw them roll in."

"And?"

"They're here to back the local charter, because of all the heat from the port lands shooting."

"Quentin has been leaning hard on them for weeks. He and I both know something's been brewing in the Glades for some time. I'm thinking the h-trade or SAMSTAR's guns have something to do with it." Ollie winced at the pain in his shoulder. "I panicked them when I interrupted the Russian-Yakuza meet last night. All hell broke loose."

"Are you okay?" Roy asked.

"It'll heal," Ollie said. "Look, I know SAMSTAR has this mythical hold over the Glades but it all boils down to this: they sell guns to criminals in Starling City – the drug dealers, mobsters, outlaw biker gangs like the Mayans … they feed off the violence and their guns put lives in danger."

"I met Jax Teller," Roy couldn't keep his encounter a secret any longer. He explained how it was by chance that he struck up a conversation with SAMCRO's V.P., but he didn't elaborate on what happened after the Arrow's attack or that he housed SAMCRO in one of Ollie's own safe houses. Some truths were best left unsaid.

"This could work to our advantage," Ollie said, as he sipped his cappuccino. He was completely at ease in this café, while Roy felt anything but comfortable. He trusted Ollie, but there were times that he felt Ollie's elite upbringing clouded his judgment on all things Glades. SAMSTAR was one of them.

The MC had done countless charity rides in support of Glades Memorial and its children's hospital. The SAMSTAR president's legit repair shop sponsored a pee-wee baseball team that gave the Glades' disadvantaged kids a safe place to play every summer – but all Oliver Queen could see were patches, cuts and outlaws on bikes. Agents of chaos.

As Ollie explained how Roy could exploit his new friendship with Jax to obtain intel on the MC, Roy felt the pull of conflicted loyalties within him. Ollie trusted him - but so did Jax.

The café was full of yuppies and preppy couples in designer clothes. Their kind had taken over yet another city block that once had affordable housing. Now it was affordable to no one, except the well-to-do. SAMSTAR fought against all this. For this reason alone, he wasn't about to offer up all the truths he knew about Jax and the club. Not yet. He would tell Ollie just enough, only the truth he needed to know. What he didn't need – Roy wasn't going to divulge it.

"Will you be paying for both of you," the barista said to Ollie, as if Roy didn't exist, "or will you be splitting the bill?"

"Mr. Queen can pick up the bill," Roy said. "Seeing as no one in this stuck-up neighbourhood thinks that I belong here!" Roy stormed out of the café and brushed past a woman clutching a coffee tumbler and tiny Yorkie with silver ribbons in its hair that yapped incessantly.

Ollie excused himself and chased after Roy. "What is up with you?"

"You don't know SAMSTAR," Roy said, "You may think you know the Glades, but you don't!"

"Roy, you need to knock the Sons and Jax Teller off this pedestal you have them on," Ollie said. "One five-minute conversation with Jax ... and you think you know this guy and his club? Don't kid yourself. He's on federal release, with a rap sheet full of violence and mayhem. He and his crew nearly killed me at the port last night! Whatever he's mixed up in with the Russians and the Yakuza is going to get innocent people hurt or killed in this city. My city!"

Roy knew in one sense that Ollie was right, but he thought the Jax he knew was a good man. Jax was the man who would lead the Sons and the MC back to being a club about freedom and brotherhood. It had lost its way with the gun-running, but he believed that Jax could fix it all. Somehow.

"Look, I'm sorry about making a scene, but maybe if you took the time to –"

"Keep your head out of the clouds and on task," Ollie said. "It's not the 1970s and the MC isn't all about love and fellowship. It's about money and guns – nothing more. SAMSTAR and SAMCRO are public enemy number one. Starling PD and I are on the same page on this. I'll do whatever it takes to bring down the MC – Jax Teller included. Answer the phone when I call next time." Without another word, Ollie returned to the café.

Roy was steamed. He wanted to believe that Ollie valued him as a team member on his mission to fight crime, but lately he felt like an inconvenient junior sidekick that the Arrow would only call if he needed a morsel of information or a lead in the Glades.

He understood that Ollie's near-death experiences changed him, yet Ollie still acted like the team answered to him without question. We kept the streets clean when he was M.I.A., he thought. Roy knew Laurel and even Diggle shared some of his concerns and Felicity seemed to be more distant around Ollie. What they had built was being frittered away by lack of trust and confidence in each other. He didn't know if they could fix what was broken. He felt guilty that his own secrets were contributing to this too.

His personal smartphone buzzed. "Roy, it's Sin. Where are you?"

Roy watched as the woman with the Yorkie stepped gingerly around a piece of crap that her own dog had left by a lamp post. She looked around furtively, then left it without picking it up - her phone conversation and latte more important than cleaning up after her pet.

"In the Chocolate District," Roy grumbled.

"It's full of trust fund brats and hipsters in ponchos." Sin said."Why the hell are you there?"

"I had things to take care of," Roy said. "Lemme tell ya, I can't wait to get back to the Glades."

"Mickey Halloran's out," Sin said. "It looks like SAMSTAR's finally in the clear with the port killing. Marnie says there might be a Reaper party. It'll be nothing crazy like the Memorial Day bash, just a gathering of members and friends of the club. Free food and free booze. I got an invite, but something tells me Jax Teller's new best friend gets one by default."

Mickey had coached the pee-wee baseball team for decades and was a fixture in the Glades. A good man, Roy thought, like John Teller. And Jax.

When Sin's conversation ended, his burner phone buzzed. He thought it was Ollie or Felicity texting him about mission intel, but it wasn't. It was from Jax. He had exchanged numbers with him, never expecting a call.

The text message read:

"Roy. SAMSTAR party. Clubhouse 7 p.m. 2nite. Booze, burritos and babes! Consider this your VIP pass. See u there, bro! J.T."

Roy saw this as an opportunity to get to know the club better. Whether he could obtain valuable intel on the MC at the party or not was unclear.

"There goes the neighbourhood," Roy laughed. Reaper parties were notoriously unpredictable.


When he met Sin at the clubhouse later that evening, he buzzed the clubhouse gate. Loud rock music echoed across the parking lot. One of SAMSTAR's baby-faced prospects lumbered to the gate. Prospects were not fully-patched members and did the MC's grunt work. This one was stuck with doorman duties tonight.

"It's a private gathering," the prospect said. "For members only."

"Members and friends, you little punk!" Sin said, with no malice. She had gone to high school with the prospect a few years ago.

The prospect looked warily at Roy. "You're ok, Sin, but what about Hollister poster dude over here? Who the hell is he?"

In the distance, a long-legged blonde strolled towards the gate. Every eye at the party was looking at her. She was dressed in what looked like a green leprechaun or elf Halloween costume. That was his best guess.

A scandalously sexy, X-rated leprechaun stripper costume, Roy thought. He could only assume that celebrating Mickey's Irish roots were reason enough for the outfit.

"You're Roy Harper, right?" the blonde said, smiling. "I'm Lyla. Opie's old lady. Come on in!" The prospect grinned sheepishly and unlocked the gate.

"That's right!" Opie hollered from across the lot. "My old lady - so don't get any ideas, Harper!" A roar of laughter erupted from the dozens of patched members, who were gathered around folding tables and benches. Metal barrels flickered with flames, lighting up the dark parking lot. A pair of leather-clad crow eaters were table dancing nearby.

Bobby, whose breath stank of cigarettes and liquor, wrapped one arm around Roy's shoulder and the other around Sin's. "Sin, have you ever heard of the Saffron Sisters?" Bobby had visited SAMSTAR over the years and had known Sin since she was a child.

Sin played dumb and knew something was up. "Why, no, Bobby Elvis, who are the Saffron Sisters? Do tell."

Roy's jaw dropped when he learned that Lyla Winston was a porn star with a successful franchise of direct-to-DVD adult movies. She had been on a West Coast promotional tour. The other Saffron Sister, Ima, was still up in Portland. Lyla had leaped at the chance to see Opie while he was still in Starling.

Sin's crow-eater friend Marnie, wearing a black tank top, studded belt and ripped jeans, gave Roy a plate of food and salad. "We've got more Tex-Mex than all of Dallas tonight. Help yourself, don't be shy, honey." Members were offering him beer every other second and he declined most of them. I need to keep my senses about me, he thought.

Jax exited the clubhouse and immediately spotted Roy's red hoodie. "This guy, right here, made sure me and my boys stayed whole last night!" He embraced Roy in a bear hug and clapped him on the shoulder.

"You really stepped up last night, Roy," Opie said, embracing him like a brother. "Igor's got a bottle of vodka with your name on it. The Russians might even want to adopt you!"

Jax raised his bottle of beer in the air. "To Roy Harper - a true friend of the club!"

"To Roy!" the members toasted him. A loud cheer rattled through the compound.

"Thanks for keeping my man safe," Lyla said. Opie stole a kiss from her.

"You're in the Reaper's embrace now, my friend," Bobby said. He was drunk and lazily hobbled over to Opie and Lyla with a plate of nachos. "He won't ever let go now." Roy felt a chill stab through him after these words, as if the Devil were clawing at his soul.

There was a lot of booze flowing at the party and local hearsay told Roy that MC parties could quickly descend into brawls, orgies or wanton vandalism, but it seemed that Jax's presence kept everyone on their good behaviour. So far.

Within hours, the party did become rowdier and Roy had real concerns for Sin's safety around the more lecherous MC members. But she was safe among the gaggle of crow eaters and old ladies smoking near the gate. Roy had moved well away from the rowdier members and was eating some cake alone at a picnic bench. He was on his third beer, now lukewarm after nursing it for hours.

Jax had sobered up a little, lit up a cigarette and sat beside Roy. He took out a photo of Tara, Abel and Thomas standing outside a playground.

"That's my family," Jax said, proudly pointing them out on the photo. "That's Tara, she's a surgeon in Charming. This is Abel. And Thomas. My beautiful family. Everything I do is for them, for their future." He looked up in the sky in silence for several moments. Tears began to sting his eyes. "They deserve better," he said, wiping his eyes. "Maybe it's the booze talking, with me cryin' like some 13 year old girl watching one of those damn Twilight movies. Shit."

Roy nodded towards the photo. "I can tell you care about them a lot."

"More than you know, bro," Jax said. He glanced over his shoulder to watch as one of the crow eaters and a SAMSTAR member were play-fighting. Someone else had thrown a beer bottle, which smashed against the clubhouse wall. "I'll be leaving all of this behind soon."

"Leaving what?" Roy asked. He wasn't sure what Jax was getting at, or if it was just the ramblings of an intoxicated biker.

He looked at the photo again, then stomped the butt of his cigarette into the ground. "I'm getting out of the life." He paused, unsure if he should confide this truth to someone he had only met a day ago. But Roy was from here, from the Glades. He had lived the life of a criminal too, done some time. He was out of the life, pursuing his dream of becoming a mechanic. For the sake of his own family, Jax believed that he had to make his own dream come true: freedom from the life and security for his sons.

It wasn't the beer talking. He felt more convinced than ever about pursuing this distant fantasy and claiming it as his own.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," Jax continued, "maybe it's 'cause you're not a member but know the life. You know what it's like to march outside society's borders, just like the Sons. You understand, bro. I can trust you."

He paused again, hesitant about admitting a potentially dangerous truth. "I'm leaving SAMCRO. I'm taking my family out of Charming and out of the life for good. I've told very few people about my plans and nobody here knows, so it would be a good idea to keep this to yourself. I'll break it to the MC when the timing is right. Now is not the time, not when we're so close to scoring big. I want to keep my club whole with this Irish deal. Then I'll cash out, and give my boys a better future. Me, Tara and my sons."

Roy wanted to learn more about SAMCRO's plans with the Irish and the 'big score' when an argument broke out between two drunken SAMSTAR members over a crow eater's affections. Bobby was trying to separate them, but it was becoming noisy. One of them pulled out his knife and began slashing it in the air.

"Jesus Christ," Jax said. "I think the party's officially over. You might want to split before things get out of hand for real." While Jax, Chibs and Bobby struggled to separate the feuding SAMSTAR members, Roy took the opportunity to collect his tipsy friend Sin and leave the party.

As they were leaving, Roy glanced back at the parking lot. With the silhouettes of the Reaper's minions swearing and wrestling each other against the ominous glow of the flaming barrels, it looked like he was staring into the gates of Hell.

Jax, the Reaper prince, was fighting an uphill battle to keep the chaos from consuming both his club and his family. Roy knew that Jax had to leave the life, soon.

Before the Reaper took everything he loved.

To be continued ...