aravenamongcrows on Tumblr! (ask and submissions are open!)

General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death.

CHAPTER 72: CLARITY

;

Sydney hung her head as she listened to the sound of Tig's bike firing up, which was followed by the sound of his tires screeching and the loud exhaust fading as he drove away from her house. She tried to take a deep breath, but all she could manage was a shaky, shallow one as she reached for her phone - pulling up her contact list where she went to click the third name on her speed dial. But she hesitated as her bright red thumbnail hovered over Half-Sack's name, realizing that his name had moved up the list and into Happy's old space. In fact, everybody's names had moved up the list and into Happy's old space since she had moved to the new town. Just a few short months ago he used to be the only phone call that she cared to make, but now she wasn't sure that she would ever call him again...

She sighed, locking her phone and squeezing it in her hand as she lowered her head into her hands and shook it slowly from side to side. She was so overwhelmed with the backlog of shit to process that the day from hell had plagued her with - she had no idea where to start, no idea how to feel.

She shook the thought away, snapping her head up and clicking on the prospect's name before bringing the phone to her ear. She needed to focus on one task at a time, and this was the only one that she felt she might have a chance at accomplishing.

;

"Feds picked him up in the middle of the night." Jax paced around the chapel as he relayed the information that he had so desperately wished he hadn't found out.

"He go out in cuffs?" Clay asked with his head down as he stared at his ring covered hand that was resting on the gavel.

Jax's eyes fell closed as he sighed. "Neighbours say no." He admitted begrudgingly. He knew that it was no use lying - the whole town would be talking about it by morning, and lies were what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

Tig nodded slowly, scoffing as he raised a brow when his conclusion became more and more likely - just as he knew that it would.

Clay ground his teeth, throwing the bank statement that Juice had pulled down onto the table where Jax could see the proof. "Ope's debt has been cleared - federal wire transfers."

Jax picked up the papers, pretending to look at the evidence as he shook his head. "It's a setup." He tossed it aside. No matter what it was, he wasn't going to let it be his best friend's death sentence.

"Maybe." Clay nodded, looking at Tig who clearly shared in his opinion more than his biased VP.

"Or." Tig glared right at Jax. "He gave Bobby up. Now he's gone witness protection."

"Why?" Jax raised his voice, praying that the Sergeant would offer up something that he could poke holes through. "If he wasn't arrested, what's the leverage?"

"Who knows how long they've been chipping away at him, Jax…" Tig shook his head, his voice staying level. "Hell, ATF? They could've gotten to him while he was still in Chino."

"That's paranoid shit." Jax continued pushing as hard as he could, pulling out a joint and bringing it to his lips as he felt his anger growing - knowing that he couldn't show any signs of his own worry right now.

"Is it?" Tig squinted. There was nothing that he considered to be paranoid shit anymore - everything that he'd told himself that he was paranoid for worrying over had come true in the course of a single day. "Opie's been a miserable prick since he got out. Maybe they've offered him a new debt free life - just what Donna wanted."

"Ope's not a rat." The blonde man stared deep into Tig's bright blue eyes - the eyes that he knew were capable of murdering his best friend over this. "He did five years for this club." He reminded him.

"Maybe he doesn't wanna do twenty-five more." He countered, watching Jax's jaw go slack. If he had been in a better mood, he probably would've patted himself on the back for the way that he had learned to fight with his words and not just his fists - something that he'd undoubtedly picked up from Sydney.

"I'm going to see Rosen tomorrow, we'll get some clarity." Clay told the two men sitting on either side of him, hoping to appease them both as he tried to decide what he wanted to do, and who he could trust.

;

Half-Sack hid in the storage closet for as long as he could as he waited for church to wrap up, praying that if Tig couldn't find him, maybe he would just go to his room for the night and calm down before delivering the beating in the morning. But as the private meeting between the highest ranked officers dragged on, so did his worry that he wouldn't be able to escape the Sergeant's wrath the way that he had the first time.

"Hey man!" He heard a chipper voice behind him, turning to see Juice. "What're you doing?" The bald man scowled as he watched him swaying back and forth in the corner of the room, awkwardly clutching a broom.

"Oh, uh- j-just sweeping back here. It's real dirty." He nodded.

Juice blinked a few times, looking at the spotless tiles below the prospect's feet. "Whatever." He shrugged, getting back to doing what he was doing. "Piney needs you back out there!" He called over his shoulder.

Half-Sack grimaced at the thought, but he knew that he couldn't keep the heavily influential man waiting - that would get him in even more trouble. He pouted as he reluctantly made his way out the door and down the hall, rounding the corner right when the chapel doors opened…

"Uh, hey man!" He yelled as he ran over to Piney, hoping that if he looked like he was already occupied by another member, Tig would for some reason decide to leave him alone - at least for now.

Piney looked at the spunky prospect with a deep scowl - his eager voice only adding to his annoyance over the events of the day. "Tequila." He grumbled, sliding the empty bottle across the bar.

"Sure!" Half-Sack nodded, ducking down behind the counter as Tig stalked out the door without a word - peeking over the bartop to be sure that it hadn't just been a sike-out, that he was actually gone.

;

Tara had just gotten out of the shower and changed into her loungewear for the quiet evening that she'd had planned before her shift tomorrow. She padded across the living room carpet, setting the plate of microwave stir-fry down on the coffee table and turning on the TV - hoping to catch up on the latest episodes of Grey's Anatomy that she'd missed. But just as she was about to take her first bite, she heard the sound of a bike coming up her street - the loud chugging of the exhaust getting closer and closer. It wasn't a particularly unusual sound, but what was unusual was the memory of Jax telling her that he wouldn't be seeing her today.

She set her food down, the crease remaining on her forehead as she walked over to the front door and peered through the peephole - but her confusion didn't fade when she recognized the dark hair and messy curls of the man walking up to her door, it only grew.

"Uh, hi." She stepped outside, greeting him before he could reach the door which she had closed behind her - still having her reservations about the wild man.

"Hey…" Tig hung his head uncomfortably. "Uh, I uh, I need to talk to you about Sydney…"

"Is she okay?" Tara's confusion was replaced with concern for her friend.

"I don't know…" He shook his head with a painful grimace. "You remember those pills that I told you about? Well I found some more…"

The lightbulb went off in Tara's head as soon as the truth came from the man standing before her. It suddenly all made sense: why Sydney had asked her to look at her leg before she saw the doctor, why she had seemed to be walking with no problem, why she hadn't been able to properly diagnose her with a concussion earlier when she had only been displaying some symptoms - symptoms that were similar to drug use.

"Um." Her face contorted a bit, unsure what exactly it was that he was asking of her. "Do you think that she's abusing them?"

"Uh… I-I don't know." Tig stammered, caught off guard by the question. It was what he had been thinking, but hearing it out loud suddenly made it so real, but also so wrong... "I don't know why else she would hide them from me." He tried to explain, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized how ridiculous they sounded. "Uh." He lowered his head as the frustration began building, realizing that not only had he just let his shock embarrass himself, he'd let it embarrass his old lady too - and in front of a fellow old lady, nonetheless.

"Well I'd imagine she's in a great deal of pain with the way that she stresses muscle damage that severe…" Tara softened her voice, hoping to help ease Tig's clearly tortured mind.

"Muscle damage?" He scowled, lifted his head back up.

"So she didn't tell you." Tara chuckled - she'd had her suspicions that Tig hadn't known the full extent of her injuries, but now she knew for sure.

"No." Tig chuckled humourlessly as he rubbed the back of his neck. "No, she didn't."

"Can't say I'm too surprised. You got yourself a handful, that one." She offered a friendly smile.

"That I do…" He chortled, shaking his head.

"Well, it sounds like you've found your reason." Tara nodded gently. "A doctor won't prescribe anything that isn't in a treatment plan. Since the amount of mobility she's had wasn't in her plan - there was no reason to be prescribed the pills." She explained her thinking.

"So she really is just taking them to help the pain." He surmised.

"That's what it seems like." Tara agreed.

Tig nodded slowly, feeling some of his panic fading as the truth became clearer. He supposed he was glad that the answer hadn't been simple - that there had been more to the story, even if he was upset that she hadn't felt like she could trust him with the truth. But the more he thought about it, the more he understood why she didn't. He wasn't calm or collected or logical, and the reaction that he would've had to finding out the severity of her injuries was probably the exact reaction that she'd wanted to avoid - the kind of reaction that had him standing on Tara's driveway, flooded with guilt because he had let his mind go to the worst case scenario. Sydney hadn't been seeking out drugs behind his back because she wanted more than the doctors would give her, she had been seeking out drugs behind his back before the doctors wouldn't give her any at all.

Tara watched the slight changes in the facial expression of the distraught man as he dove deep into his thoughts - his jaw clenching and his nose twitching. "Unless… There have been signs of something else?" She broached the subject gently - she didn't want him to feel stupid for whatever conclusion he had come to, but talking it out was the only way for him to see the truth.

"What?" He refocused his eyes, snapping out of his thoughts and realizing what it was that he was still doing. "Nah." He shook his head, turning back towards his bike. "Thanks doc." He tipped her a nod as he grabbed his helmet, he needed to get out of there before he said anything else that he would regret.

"Tig, wait!" Tara could tell that he'd gotten spooked - whether it was her doing or his own, but that was the last thing that she wanted.

Tig turned back to the brunette, raising his brows expectantly before she walked over to his bike, lowering her voice as she leaned in closer to him. "If you really think that she's abusing them, you can tell me. I can help. And nothing you've said to me will leave this driveway." She assured him.

"No." Tig shook his head. "No, it's not that - I thought it was, but I see now that I might've overreacted…"

"Yeah." Tara nodded sympathetically. "I know how that can happen when we aren't given the whole truth… But I also know how strong Sydney is, and anything she's hidden from you is to try and protect what she feels for you." She defended her friend, knowing it to be true because it was exactly what Jax had done to her in the past - and she'd never been able to understand it until this very moment.

;

Sydney sat in the same spot on the couch in her backyard that she had been sitting in since Tig had left hours ago - only having gotten up to sweep the pills off of her kitchen floor. She stared distantly into the red coals in the centre of the stupid iron table that all of these recent incidents had her growing to resent - listening to the crickets getting louder as the sun set lower. She had no idea what she wanted to happen, all she knew was that her nerves spiked each time that a car could be heard in the distance, and her heart sank when each time, it passed.

She sighed, letting her sore and exhausted body tip over onto the white cushions below her, curling up into the fetal position as - even through the numbness that the abundance of shock had caused - she felt her eyes welling up.

;

Donna bursted into the small room where her husband was being held, running into his arms as soon as she saw that he was okay. "Opie." She sobbed into his chest as the weight of her decision became heavier, the clear answer getting murkier as he held her tightly.

"Are the kids okay?" He whispered into her hair as he rubbed her back.

"Yeah." She wiped her eyes and pulled away, remembering why she was here in the first place - for the safety of her kids. "Your mom's coming to get them in the morning."

"My mom?" He scowled. "You serious?" He hadn't spoken to his mother in years - not since she walked out on him. She was the last person that he expected to show up for his kids when she couldn't even show up for her own.

"ATF spooked my family." Donna told him bitterly, now remembering that though she was here for the safety of her kids, it was because of what Opie had done.

Opie looked at the mirror on the wall as he sat down, hoping she would understand that ATF was watching them at this very moment - the last thing he wanted was to give them any more incriminating evidence.

"Stahl said the club thinks you turned on them." Donna began the conversation in the safest way possible.

"They hauled us in here to make it look like we took a deal." He explained. "That bitch hung me out as a rat. Hoped that she could scare me into giving something up about a crime that I knew nothing about."

Donna scoffed as she looked into the deceitful eyes of her husband. "They have a witness who saw you and Bobby."

"It's bullshit." He tried to stay calm as he watched the pain wash over the only woman that he had ever loved - the pain that he was causing her, that his lies were causing her. "I didn't kill anyone." He promised, hoping that it would be enough…

Even if Donna thought that he was being truthful, she knew that he had enough involvement to put her family in danger. "Ope…" She reached for his hands. "They can give us a chance… To start over. Shouldn't we look at that? For the kids?"

"Donna." Opie sighed. "Witness protection is a joke. Did she tell you that most of the guys go back to the life, or end up dead? Usually by their own hand because they can't stand living a lie." He couldn't let his wife fall for this scam - the scam that would undoubtedly be his demise.

Donna shook her head as tears of anger came to her eyes. She couldn't believe that she was sitting in front of a criminal - a criminal that she loved - listening to him tell her that he would rather put her life in danger than try to make things work the way that millions of people made them work everyday.

"Is that what you want for me?"

"I want us to be a family." She grit her teeth. It was all she had ever wanted - why couldn't he just want the same thing?

"Getting in bed with these people is gonna be the worst thing that ever happened to our family." He seethed, watching as she struggled to comprehend how any of what he was saying could be true. "You gotta trust me…" He whispered.

"What are you gonna do, Miss Donna?" Stahl whispered as she watched the desperate couple from the other side of the glass - shaking her head with a smirk as the final part of her plan came to life before her eyes.

;

Tig cracked the throttle as he sped down Main Street, turning left at Sydney's favorite coffee shop where he coasted up the small hill, the engine revving as he took another left onto her street - pulling into the driveway and cutting the engine the second that his feet hit the pavement. He tossed his helmet over the handlebars, making a beeline for the gate between the house and garage that led to the backyard where he knew she would undoubtedly be.

Just a few short months ago, the Sergeant would've found himself drowning his problems in booze and pussy. A few short weeks ago, he would've found himself drowning his problems with booze and a long ride. But today, for the first time in his life, he found himself tackling his problems head on - the ones that he could, at least.

Sydney jolted awake when she heard the unmistakable sound of Tig's loud exhaust outside of her house, sitting up quickly when she heard the engine cease. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes as fast as she could, ignoring the tenderness that she immediately felt as she tried to mentally prepare herself to try having this conversation again.

Even though she knew that he was coming by the loud slapping of his heavy footsteps against the tiles, she still flinched when he pushed the gate open - staying silent as she watched him briskly walk across the yard and up the steps to the patio where he took a seat, rubbing his goatee and inhaling deeply as he broke the silence.

"Okay, so maybe I jumped the gun a little…" He didn't take his eyes off of the fire in the middle of the table as he spoke.

Sydney raised an eyebrow slightly as she waited to find out what had been the cause of not only this revelation, but the calmness behind it - something that she had not expected from him at all.

"I talked to Tara..." He nodded slowly. "She told me about the muscle damage."

Sydney hung her head, nodding slowly as another one of her secrets was brought to the surface - the secret that had caused the other secrets.

Tig watched her body shrink guiltily as he confronted her with the new information. "So that's why you didn't want me at the doctor." He surmised.

Sydney didn't know what to do except continue nodding - getting as much out on the table while she had the motivation of guilt and the numbness of shock on her side.

"Will you at least tell me if you're okay…" He whispered pleadingly.

"They said that I'm healing up fine." She lifted her head but still avoided the pain of looking into his eyes. "But I'm not supposed to be walking on it as much as I've had to-" She stopped herself. "As much as I have been." She corrected her statement - if she wanted to move past this, she had to take accountability for her actions. "That's why-"

"That's why you're feelin more pain than the doctor expects you to be and why you needed the pills… Couldn't get them from him so you had to get them from Half-Sack." He finished the sentence for her.

Sydney nodded slowly once again as she chewed her lip. She was glad that he seemed to understand why she'd done it, but she knew that asking him to be okay with it would be too much.

Tig hung his head as she confirmed his theory, rested his forehead against his folded hands. "That why you've been so emotional?" He asked regrettably, feeling a confusing wave of both sadness and relief when she nodded in response. Part of him was hurt to find out that what he'd thought was her opening up was actually just a display of guilty compensation and heightened sensitivity from the narcotics. But the other part of him was glad to know that he didn't have to keep worrying about her fragility nearly as much as he had been.

He took a deep breath. He knew now just how severely he had misjudged the situation - no thanks to her vow of secrecy - but he also knew that the only way that they could properly move past the issue was if she knew why he had severely misjudged the situation.

"My buddy…" He began. "That one that I told you about in Tacoma - the guy I used to live with?"

"Boxed food?"

"Yeah, him." He smiled briefly before the corners of his mouth quickly turned back down as he thought about the awful memory. "He became an addict… After the army. I got him into SAMCRO to kick that." He explained.

"Tig, I'm not-" Sydney sighed.

"Colleen - my ex." He cut her off. "She was into some real heavy shit… Probably still is."

"Alexand-" Her voice got louder and firmer as he grouped her in with the junkies of his past. She understood the point that he was trying to make, but being compared to such lowlives by the one person who she wanted to think the world of her was not something she was eager to entertain.

"My old man." He cut her off again with a voice even louder and firmer than hers as he stared deep into her glossy eyes. "Would get real high and beat me and my mama until he couldn't beat us any more. Hours. Every night, until it wore off."

Sydney shut her mouth the second that the words left his. Her mind drifted back to the night at the clubhouse when they'd first had this conversation, wishing that she would've remembered how guilty she'd felt in that moment for being so selfish. But now she finally understood why he had been upset. The whole time, all she had been focused on was how he'd reacted - not why. If she'd really known why, she never would've done this - but if she'd been honest with him from the start, maybe she wouldn't have had to.

Tig reached for her hand once he saw the gears turning in her mind, knowing that awful things that she was telling herself right now because they were the same awful things that he had been telling himself just minutes ago. "I know you're nothing like them. Okay?" He told her as he rubbed his thumb over his ring that sat on hers. "You are nothing like your mom." He assured her. "I just can't go down that road again… Not blind, at least."

Sydney nodded as he rubbed her knuckles soothingly, feeling the anxiety leaving her body under the comfort of his touch. She'd always known that they'd had a lot in common, but as they learned how to trust each other with their demons, she could see that they were even more identical than she'd thought.

"If you need to hide things from me to protect your seat at the table, then that's what you need to do." He nodded. "But please, just don't do it with this…" He now knew that she had just been trying to ease her physical pain, and he had no problem with that now that he knew she was doing it safely. But the struggle of finding out the truth had been far too triggering for him to possibly have happen again in the future.

"I'm sorry…" She whispered as tears pooled in her eyes, ignoring the sting that they caused.

"It's okay." Tig nodded, proud of the way that he had been able to resolve the situation using logic and rationale - something that was a first for him.

"I wish I would've known…" She told him sadly, realizing how much easier things were when they opened up to each other…

"This transparency thing is killin us, huh doll?" He chuckled.

"Slow and painful…" She chortled in return.

"Come here." He smiled as he pulled her into his lap gently and hugged her against his chest, stroking her long braids and rubbing her back as she twirled her fingers into his curls gently - staying in the blissful position until he began to doze off.

"Can I ask you something?" He heard her soft voice in his ear.

"Of course." He blinked a few times, waking himself up as she sat up from where she had been laying against his chest.

"Don't punish Half-Sack." She let her eyes fall closed as she made the bold request. "Please… I know you did before…"

Tig felt his chest bubbling with the plentiful anger that he had to spare over the issues of the day that he hadn't been able to tackle head-on. "He tell you that?" He seethed. Apparently Opie wasn't the only rat around here...

"He didn't have to." She shook her head before he could get the wrong idea and get even angrier at the poor prospect.

"You know how shit works. He's a prospect. He needs to know his place." He pursed his lips tightly.

"He's a good kid… You know that."

"I don't give a shit what he is. He crossed a line."

"He did? Or I did?" Sydney leaned down where she stared into his eyes sincerely. She wasn't going to let the carelessness of her actions blowback on someone who didn't deserve it.

Tig stayed silent when she posed the question - the question that held a correct answer of which he refused to acknowledge. He knew that Sydney was impossible to say no to - clearly - and he appreciated that she had people here in her corner besides him, he had just wished that the people in her corner were not eager young men willing to disobey orders from their superiors.

"Tig, he's been through enough. He was just trying to help me-"

"That's my job." He snapped. "You can't trust a prospect to keep you safe."

Sydney opened her mouth to retaliate, but she stopped herself. She was the one in the wrong here - he had every right to be upset. She just needed to make sure that he was upset with her and not with Half-Sack.

"I know." She nodded, hoping to patch up his bruised ego. "And I promise I'll get better at letting you do it." She sighed, forcing herself to break the padlock that she'd tried to keep on her guard after he had broken his for her.

"You really think that's a promise that you can make?" He didn't expect her to be able to let go of her reservations overnight - he sure as hell hadn't been able to - but he didn't want to get his hopes up if she wasn't serious about being able to make the effort.

"I think so." She nodded confidently - finally realizing that Gemma had been right all along, transparency was the only way that this worked.

;

Ok so… Y'all know by now that I HATE Donna and I aint ever been no Opie hoe either but writing out these scenes between them has totally changed my perspective. That monotone ass deadbeat gaslit & manipulated the SHIT out of her each time that ANY of his actions had some kind of consequence and I am MAD