I do not own any characters from Sons of Anarchy. I own Sara and any other original characters.

Content Warning: Language, references to violence directed towards women

October 2007

Happy Lowman was in the TM garage working on a particularly boring tune-up. He'd been on loan from Tacoma to Redwood on-and-off for a few weeks now. Things had been pretty quiet up north and he was of more use here in Charming since Opie had gone to prison almost four years ago because Kyle fucked up.

Working at the garage was just another way to earn a little bit more money to send to his mom in Bakersfield. He heard a car pull onto the lot and barely spared a glance at the white car. Nothing special. His attention turned back to the job at hand as his mind drifted back to his mother. He would have to make sure to call her later to check in.

"Who the fuck is that?"

Happy rolled his eyes as Half-Sack's annoying voice carried through the bay. The new hang-around was a good kid but couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut. Fuckin' chattered away all goddamn day. He said he had some attention deficit whatever, but regardless of a diagnosis, he still drove Hap nuts. Still, he was on the docket to become the next SAMCRO prospect so Hap couldn't scare him off just yet. Happy heard a few more murmurs and finally looked up.

Apparently, the unremarkable car held a blonde.

His brows furrowed in recognition as he watched as she leaned briefly against her car and stared, he supposed, at the clubhouse. Her dark aviators hid her direct line of vision but not the small frown pouting her pink lips. Happy watched as Jax ran over to her and a broad smile graced her features, lighting up her face completely.

"Yo, is that one of Darby's girls?" Sack asked after a moment. The fuck did this kid know about Darby?

"Nah man, if she was one of the Nords crank-whores she'd be missing teeth," Happy noted absently, ignoring the chuckles from the other guys in the bay as he walked out on the tarmac only distantly aware of Sack following him.

Was it her?

"Hello, Jackson!" Happy heard as he crossed the lot.

"Hey, sweetheart. How you been?" They exchanged pleasantries as she let Jax lead her into the clubhouse.

Yep. Definitely her. She still had a purebred deference to authority within the club that only came with being raised in it.

Happy followed them into the clubhouse, curiosity getting the better of him. He hadn't seen her in two years and wasn't sure how much she even remembered of meeting him. All he knew was that she was there one weekend, outwardly flirted with him, and then left and went back home without a word and life moved on.

He certainly had heard what was going on in San Bernardino lately. The chapter wasn't just falling apart: it was burning down to ashes in a fucking blaze.

"Yo, Clay. You got a visitor from SAMDINO," Jax shouted loudly with a grin.

"Well if it isn't Miss Sara Harris," Bobby sang, clambering off his barstool with some effort. Sara slid her sunglasses up onto her head, revealing her stunning blue eyes.

Happy definitely remembered those.

He refused to admit how many times in the weeks after sharing that couch with her that he had imagined it was her looking up at him as a croweater sucked him off. He'd never admit it out loud, but it wasn't completely lost on him that his pussy preferences had shifted almost exclusively to blue-eyed blondes.

"Hey Bobby. How've you been?" Her voice still carried an underlying sweetness but now possessed a resonance demanding respect that he didn't remember. Chibs pulled her into a familiar hug that had Happy's brows furrowing deeper.

Why was everyone hugging her? He knew they all knew what her family had been doing down in SB and it wasn't good. Bitch should be in the doghouse with the rest her fucking family. Who knew if she was to be trusted, especially showing up out of the blue like this?

"Well hey there neighbor, you finally of consenting age?" Sara laughed loudly at Tig's greeting and gave him a side hug, dodging his playful lean for a kiss.

"Not gonna happen Tigger." Tig shrugged it off with a mumbled 'it was worth a try' as Clay emerged from the back. Happy walked behind the bar and grabbed a whiskey bottle, pouring himself a glass and pretended not to eavesdrop.

It wasn't like he was into her or anything, he just wanted to know why she was showing up in Charming all of a sudden—you know, he was just worried about the club.

The truth he refused to accept was that she had got under his skin those years ago and a part of him hated her for making him think about her as much as he did when he knew she didn't give a fuck about him—why would she? He was just some guy she shared a couch with one time. He just couldn't shake her for some reason and to have her here again, in the flesh, was already screwing with his carefully curated equilibrium.

Who the fuck was she anyway? Just some bitch.

"Well, well, well. What brings you up here, darlin'?" Her smile faltered briefly, and she let out a sigh.

"Got some business for you. A bit of… clean-up if you will," she said nervously. Clean-up could mean a lot of things to a club like SAMCRO.

"Listen, honey. No offense, but I ain't gonna talk shop with you," Clay answered abruptly with his usual candor.

"Because of my dad or my brother?" she asked with a cocked head and a cheeky smirk. Happy watched as Half-Sack started to put things together in his head. The kid didn't know too much— a hang-around never does—but he had heard some things in the last few months working in the garage.

It was hard to get a bunch of outlaws to keep their mouths shut when a rat down south had turned on his own club for a major payday. Half the charter had been arrested in a federal raid on SAMDINO—including the President. It had been a huge blow to the organization as a whole and had earned SB a permanent black spot in the SOA ledger; the only thing that kept them from total destruction was the fact that the arrests did not blowback on the Club as a whole.

"Get back to work, kid," Clay ordered with a pointed nod and Half-Sack begrudgingly went back to the garage. The room waited in silence until the clubhouse doors closed behind him.

"Because your family, and the whole SAMDINO chapter, ain't in a position to be making requests from SAMCRO," Clay finally responded to Sara with a pointed look. She sighed and handed him a folder that Happy hadn't noticed. He absently noticed her perfectly manicured nails and briefly imagined those nails skimming his tattoos on the way to his jeans before pushing the thoughts away and observing their interaction.

"I'm not my father. Just hear me out, Clay. Please." The president took the envelope and rolled his eyes.

"Why're you here? Where's your brother or, really, any of the patches? They voting in pussy now?" Clay joked and Sara politely ignored the chuckles of the other guys. She knew better than to try to make a political statement when asking for a favor.

"You know they can't spare anyone right now… and anyway, I volunteered," she said quietly as he opened the envelope. Her tone and sudden but brief avoidance of eye contact betrayed the fact that there was more to her story than she was sharing, "It's something that's kind of personal to me. There has been a string of sexual assaults against some of the girls."

It wasn't a secret that SAMDINO made major cash selling pussy. Somehow it hadn't been shut down in the raid—Happy had heard the pigs couldn't find any sign of foul play and were forced to leave the escort service open—and it was the only thing keeping that drowning chapter's head above water.

Happy couldn't help but wonder if it was personal because she was a working girl now. It wasn't unheard of for MCs to force girls into work, and if shit were as desperate as he thought, it wouldn't be completely out of the realm of possibility for her. Prior to ratting out the organization, her father had the reputation of being an old school hardass when it came to women, but selling his own daughter's pussy? Somehow, he couldn't picture Sara spreading her legs for any john with a wad of cash; she carried herself with a certain degree of dignity and class that he had never seen on a whore. Besides, didn't she have some kind of fancy college degree now?

"Some of the girls who had been working parties had reported some sketchy stuff happening—threatening notes, messages, shit left on their cars— but it's not exactly unprecedented and, honestly, comes with the territory. Then a few of them were grabbed," she let her sentence hang briefly before continuing with a thick swallow, "Clay, two of our girls have been assaulted. One of them was a working girl –not that that makes a difference— but they were supposed to be protected at least. Three have been grabbed but one managed to get away relatively unscathed."

"What'd the girls do to piss them off?" Clay asked gruffly. Sara had to bite back the bile at his assumption the girls were anything other than victims, as if anything they'd done could ever warrant being violated so brutally.

"The club killed one of their wives or girlfriends or something in crossfire, I'm not really sure because the guys wouldn't tell me. Anyway—this is retaliation. We've been trying to keep the girls close but short of lockdown there's not much we can do. They're smart enough to just wait patiently to pick off girls. Look, the charter is halfcocked. Half the guys are in prison and they aren't comin' out anytime soon. We have barely been getting by, as is. This is just too much for the guys to handle." Clay looked through the Intel in the folder and she watched him silently.

"Dammit Sara. This isn't SAMCRO business. It's not our fault the guys started some shit at a bad time. Maybe they deserve the retaliation." Clay mumbled absently as he flipped through the pages, leaning against the pool table. Happy saw Sara recoil slightly but she kept her mouth shut. Smart bitch. The rest of the brothers sat or stood in various locations in the clubhouse, silence fallen over them.

Sara could feel them all staring at her but tried to keep her eyes on Clay. She knew she couldn't let them sense weakness in her. They were sharks and she was treading in their water. She was sure she was breaking some rules or protocol, but she also knew how far SAMCRO's loyalty would go for a friend of the club and that's what she was counting on.

"I know it isn't SAMCRO. And I know I have no place to come ask this of you and if it was just affecting the guys, I wouldn't have made the trip. The girls are our main source of income and our income is your income. At the end of the day, a scared girl won't make very much money." Clay looked up at her as she sighed. She knew she wasn't fooling anybody by playing it off like a business transaction but while she was personally invested in the safety of these girls, she also knew that Clay responded best to dollar signs.

"A few of the girls were able to identify the guys. We have their names. We know who they are; we just don't have the manpower to stop them," she continued frustration evident in her voice, "The guys were able to chase them out of San Bernadino for now but the chapter's in such a shit spot with everything that… went down." She swallowed again and averted her eyes, knowing that every man in the room knew she was talking about her father's betrayal of the club.

"One of the asshole's credit cards pinged at a motel in Lodi which officially puts this shit in your backyard. I asked Jason if I could come up and talk to you. Try to convince you guys to finish it. Help some brothers avenge their women and keep some good business going," she finished with a sigh and a shift of her weight. She didn't want to have to barter further but she was ready to remind him that she had sobered up at least three brothers for the MC over the years. They at least owed her this.

Clay watched her for a moment. He had known this young woman her whole life. She had grown up in the club. The SAMDINO chapter had been collapsing for the past decade or so; her father's betrayal only accelerated the demise an already sinking ship. They could barely control their territory anymore, and Clay knew—hell, everyone knew— Jason Harris wasn't ready to be the new President. Clay certainly didn't trust the son of a rat to lead a chapter. Yet here in front of him stood a strong young woman begging him for help. She had helped the club out more than her useless family ever had; he knew that.

"We'll take it to the table," he said after a pregnant pause. She released the breath she was holding and nodded.

Author Note: Now we are starting to get into the bulk of the story. There will be less time jumping going on for a while. Review please. Thank you!