CHAPTER TWO
Blinking awake in the morning I hear a child crying, then footsteps halt right outside my room before there was a gentle knock.
"I'm awake." I call as I roll over. I'm still struggling to sit up seconds later when I realise it's Opie coming in, not Donna as I expected.
"Shit, when did you get all that done?" Opie asked looking at my arms, and what was showing of the edge of my back, having remained hidden last night in the long sleeves I was wearing.
Extending out my arms I looked at the vines, flora and fauna that cover one arm and the contrast of flashes of bare skin and metal on my upper arm and the bright slices of colour that had been painstakingly inked to my skin. "I started it a week after I left Charming, when I landed in New York I needed something to remind me of home. But that was tiny, something obliterated by what I have now."
Stretching a leg out from under the blankets I showed Opie the charm bracelet that I have round my right ankle, perfectly encasing all the things of home that I missed the second I left.
"Well, you better get up. Donna is making breakfast and she's going to want to see them all, and hear about what they are for." Opie said, hoisting his son up and leaving the room again.
Throwing my feet out of the bed I stand up and look around the tiny bedroom I'm in. "Yup, Sarah you really are back." I say aloud, just to remind myself that I hadn't dreamt my return like I did so many times when I first arrived in New York.
10 minutes later, after dressing and a quick visit to the bathroom I enter the kitchen to hear Opie say "She's got more ink then that. I'm sure."
Donna laughs at her husband then said "I'm sure you're wrong there, you're more ink than skin."
"Morning." I call in a bright voice hoping they'd stop talking about me when I was right there.
Donna hands me a cup and points to the coffee pot which was a blessing as even with a solid 10 hours sleep I still feel like a zombie, and I know today will be harder than yesterday.
Pouring a cup of the strong bitter black liquid I walk to the table, adding milk from the pitcher before sitting down, looking at them both and saying, "Alright, ask."
"Why?" was all Donna asked.
Sighing, I looked at my arms, completely bare in the singlet I had purposefully worn that morning I took a sip of coffee before saying "You both know I hated the thought of tattoo's when I left, I hated that SAMCRO felt it had to brand it's women, and that it was a rite of passage for the prospects. Well, when I got to New York it wasn't even blinked at. I was probably the most out of place I have ever been. I had no ink, no piercings, nothing to make me stand out and here I was about to go to chefs school in a city I had no connection too." Lifting up my foot I show Donna my anklet before continuing.
"The anklet was the start, the connection to home. I had that planned out within 2 days of arriving, and then I had to find an artist. Someone like I realised Happy was, more into the art than the money. I took a shitload of sketches and photos. Everything I wanted to incorporate. The 'Welcome to Charming' sign became the base of it; everything else was added to that. The mile marker, Lumpy's logo, the bike wheel, the photo frame, the broken heart. All the things that I hoped to leave behind, but I knew I wouldn't. I'm lucky I found the artist I did, I was about to give up when I met my tattooist, Al's done all my ink."
Drinking half my coffee in one go I turn one arm to them, showing them the scene that encased my entire left arm. "The gardens, the spring flowers, the deer that used to wander into the yard at the cabin, the midnight sky and lighting on the lake, I guess I knew right when I started with Al on this design that it would be more of what I couldn't fit in the tiny scenes."
Stopping and taking a few minutes to gather my thoughts before moving on the other arm I wonder just how much to tell them about that sleeve and why it was the way it was.
Opie, somehow knowing me just as well as he always did ignored the other sleeve and asked me about my back.
Grinning at that memory I turn my back to them, lifting the singlet bottom over my head so that my whole back was in view. "I don't know, you tell me on that one."
Looking over my shoulder I can see them both looking at the intricate lines that formed a major part of my artwork. The helicopter in flight, it's rotors slightly blurry, the tank suspended underneath by the twisting steel ropes, the massive gun that took up the bottom portion of my back, the mist of clouds being pulled down to the haze of gunpowder. The shell casings seeming to fly out of my skin and scatter towards the ground. But I knew that most of all they saw the name, rank and serial number that was etched on a tattered fluttering banner between my shoulder blades.
"Fuck." I hear Donna mutter under her breath knowing exactly why I had the scene of war dominating the pale skin of my back.
"My tribute, to a father I barely knew who died cause of a war that he shouldn't have been fighting in. A connection to the man who made me what I am today, the person who took away my family when he died." I say softly.
Knowing that the conversation for the moment was done with I looked at Opie while fixing my top and asked "When can we go to the Clubhouse? I guess I have to face the music with Gemma as well don't I?"
Donna grimaces "I think she's going to be harder for you to deal with then seeing Tara again."
I snap my head over to her, "What do you mean, seeing Tara again, I thought she was at medical school in Chicago."
Opie stands up, kisses his wife on the head and says "She was. Come to the garage in about an hour, I'll see if I can soften up Gemma." Grabbing his kutte he walks out the door and a few minutes later we hear a bike start and rumble down the street.
I turn my head back to Donna "Tara..."
Donna brings the coffee pot over to the table, before plopping the twins in a little play area in the kitchen. "She showed up at St Thomas' 2 days after Abel was born. She was in the operating room with him when he was having his heart and guts fixed. She told Jax that she did the heart surgery, I don't believe her but Jax does and is back to thinking that the sun shines out her ass again." With a look on her face like she'd smelt the sun shining out of Tara's behind Donna fills both coffee cups again and shakes her head.
"I can't get Jax to look, properly look, at Abel's notes to see who the main surgeon in his operation was, but I just KNOW that it wasn't Tara. She's only been in medical school for 18 months, even with finishing college in 2 and a half years there is no way she can be a trained surgeon yet, but Jax is barely 23 with a sick baby, whose mother is dead and now his ex has showed back up claiming to be the one who saved his son. He doesn't know what to believe; he's hiding himself in someone he thinks he knows and ignoring what the rest of us are telling him." Donna has given up on the pretence of appearing mellow, she's tapping her fingers and her eyes are flashing dangerously.
I nod, "Well, Jax always had a talent for ignoring the obvious."
Donna snorts and then grins, "Yes, he did. He managed to ignore the perfect woman right in front of him, but you're back and he's here."
"D, nothing's going to happen with me and Jax. The fantasy life that I thought we could have was just that. We're friends, well we were. There won't be a picket fence, 2.5 kids and a dog in any future I have with him. It'll be seeing him at events if I'm invited and running into him in town. I mean, shit, it's my fault that he and Tara ended up together, isn't it my penance to have to see them together?"
Donna's eyes glint at me and I can tell she wants to tell me that it's not my fault, but she relents and changes the subject to New York and spending the next 45 minutes grilling me on where I lived and worked.
Finally getting to the end of her questions I look over at the clock and I climb to my feet, "Right, I better go get the firing squad over and done with."
Walking past the kids, I drop a kiss on each of their heads before giving Donna a hug "I'll see you later, if Gemma lets me live."