30 April 2006

Tacoma, Washington

Two little pink lines. Pregnant. She sucked in a breath, and slowly exhaled. Pregnant, you're pregnant, she thought to herself, and she let out a laugh. The thought felt foreign in her head, but she couldn't take her eyes off the cheap test she had brought home from the drug store. She was twenty-seven years old now, the age when people normally congratulated women for getting pregnant, when pregnancies were desired.

Most of those women, Sarah reminded herself, were married, or in serious relationships, at least. She had no idea where she stood with the baby's father, as evidenced by the fact that she had no idea what to call him, other than "the father."

"I suppose I should tell him," she muttered to herself, tossing the stick in the trash, "and set up an appointment with an OB."

Was she ready to be a single mother, if it came down to it? She couldn't figure out the answer as she washed her hands, watching the soap bubbles disappear down the sink. On one hand, she had a good job, steady employment with excellent benefits, and her next door neighbor, an older woman who just thought Sarah and "the father" were adorable, had already volunteered to babysit any of her future children (for free).

But, her finances were a mess. She still had a massive amount of debt, some of it from her undergrad, but mostly from her master's degree, which she had finished the previous year. On top of that, she was supporting her mother, who was close to the end of her stint at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center, working her way through her third DWI charge.

Then, there was the complication of "the father." She didn't imagine that he would be overly excited, mostly because he was about as easy to read as Moby Dick. They had never discussed children, and she had no idea where he even stood on the issue. In fact, they hadn't even defined what their relationship was. They were just… them. What had started as a hook-up at a party her roommate had dragged her to had turned into something more. They didn't live together, but he spent more nights in her apartment than not. He had his own key, and would let himself in after a long run.

She was a secret he was keeping from his brothers, she guessed. He thought that she didn't know anything about the Sons of Anarchy, but the secret that she kept from him was that she was already familiar with them. Her mother, the same who sat in prison, had long been a dancer for the North Las Vegas charter's topless bar, and her ex-husband, whose name left a sour taste in her mouth, had patched in in the years following their divorce.

It was probably for the best, she figured, that the Tacoma charter didn't know her, and that she didn't know the Tacoma charter. But would that change when she told him?

She laughed again to herself, as she left the bathroom and headed into the kitchen, intent on removing the items she could no longer eat. She wasn't "old lady material," according to her ex-husband. A stubborn, independent, well-educated woman with a well-paying job was at odds with the club's ideal woman.

"Sarah." She jumped, ripped from her thoughts, to see him standing there, in the doorway to the kitchen, his boots and kutte still on. "What are you doing?"

She realized she was standing in the kitchen, in front of an open cabinet, with a bag of coffee in her hand. How long she had been standing there, she didn't quite know. "Just cleaning," she mumbled, tossing the bag of coffee into the trash next to the counter and shutting the doors.

"I opened that bag last week," he rasped, his brow furrowing. He took a couple of steps forward and grasped her shoulders gently, his eyes searching her face for any sign of what was going on. "You good?"

Sarah sighed. "Yes and no," she told him honestly.

"You wanna explain?" he asked bluntly, his eyes narrowing.

"I, uh, well…" she trailed off, and bit her lip, before deciding to just give him the news straight. "I'm pregnant."

It was the first time that she said the words out loud, and it still felt foreign to her. Her hand almost instinctively went to her flat stomach, her fingers splayed out as if she were protecting the tiny life that was apparently growing inside her. For the first time, she saw his eyes widen in surprise, but the rest of his face remained in the same stony expression.

She grew alarmed. "Look, there was something wrong with my birth control," she began to ramble, just trying to fill the uncomfortable silence that settled in the room. "My last refill, the ones I've been taking since the beginning March, apparently, the manufacturer somehow forgot to add the hormone to the active pills. I just found out this morning and took the test, and now I'm freaking out."

He remained silent as she paused, her eyes searching for any hint of additional emotion.

"We never talked about this, Happy," she continued, saying his name for the first time since he stepped into her apartment. "I mean, we never talked about kids. Hell, I don't even know what we are. Fuck buddies? Roommates? Each others' dirty little secrets?" She sighed deeply. "I don't expect anything from you, I guess, because I don't even know what we are."

"You're my old lady," he cut in firmly, finally removing his hands from her shoulders and placing one over her's on her stomach. "You're my old lady, we're having a baby, and as soon as it's safe, I'm giving you my ink."

It took a moment for her to process what he just said, essentially answering all the questions that still hung in her head. She knew that taking a Son's ink was essentially the same as marriage, symbolic of his commitment to her, while also warning any other man that she was taken. Of course, she would have to wait a while, probably until she was done breastfeeding, but the promise was still there.

"Are we really doing this?" she whispered.

He pulled her to his chest, and kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, we are."


August 28th, 2003

Tacoma, Washington

The clubhouse was a three-story brick building, which looked like it had been a factory at some point. A garage clearly occupied the first floor, the metal doors closed for the evening, with the name Sam and Sons graffitied across each door. Broken cars, clearly in the midst of repair, littered the parking lot on one side, while a line of bikes was neatly arranged on the other. Some stragglers, a couple of scantily dressed women and a few bikers smoking cigarettes, hovered around small fire pits set up around the lot.

While the third floor windows were mostly dark, the second floor seemed to be alive and buzzing with activity. She could see people chatting, dancing, and playing pool, all with drinks in hand. As her eyes glanced over the windows, she chuckled when she saw a woman with her tits pressed against the window, panting in ecstasy, as a man nibbled at her neck.

"I can't believe you brought me here," Sarah muttered, loud enough so that only her roommate could hear.

"What do you mean?" Mackenzie asked, frowning at Sarah. "It's the hottest party in the city tonight. You're not going to find a bar in town throwing a better one."

Sarah arched one perfectly thinned eyebrow. "And why is that?"

A look of guilt crossed Mackenzie's face. "One of their members just got released from prison," she admitted in a low tone. "It's a homecoming party. No one does them better than the Sons of Anarchy."

This was something that Sarah knew to be true, dragged to a couple of coming home parties back in Las Vegas when she was in college. She weighed her options carefully. It was the last weekend before she started graduate school, and she was bound to be buried in textbooks from there on out. A party would give her a chance to relax, blow off some steam, maybe hook up with a guy without exchanging names and getting thoroughly fucked. The downside was that she was familiar with the type of men who joined the MC, and didn't always trust their intentions.

In the end, her more primal instincts won out, and she followed the bubbly, blonde Mackenzie up the stairs and into the belly of the beast.

One of the bikers picked Mackenzie out right away, a grin spreading across his face as he bounded over to them. He swept Mackenzie off her feet, spun her around once, and planted a sloppy kiss on her lips. "Kenz!" he shouted, his voice seeming to slur slightly.

"Koz!" Mackenzie squealed in response. She molded herself to the biker's side, allowing his arm to drape across her shoulders. "Kozik, I want you to meet my roommate, Sarah."

It took all of Sarah's energy to not flinch as Kozik's eyes gave her a thorough once-over. She almost wished that she had worn a flannel over her black tank top, to at least hide her chest a little bit. He nodded once, as if he approved of what he saw. "She our third?" he asked, turning his attention back to Mackenzie.

Before Sarah could answer, ready to tell this man off for the nerve of his comment, Mackenzie laughed, a pressed a hand firmly to his chest. "No, babe, you know I prefer blondes," she whispered, just loud enough that Sarah could hear.

Kozik studied her one more time, his eyes narrowing as he met her eyes. "You Tig's kid?" he asked.

Sarah frowned. "No, why?"

The man seemed a little uncertain. "You look like him, to, like, a scary degree," he said. "It's the hair. And the eyes."

She ran a hand through her thick, dark curls. "Are people going to ask me that all night?" she asked with a wince. He shrugged, and she sighed. "You have a bar here?"

He jerked his thumb in the direction of a large group of people, probably crowded around the bar. She gave him a small smile, and made a beeline for the group. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, the leather-clad bikers split in two as she approached, and she felt their eyes following her. It felt like she was a nice cut of steak at the meat market, and her eyes rolled as she leaned against the bar.

"Whiskey, please," she said smoothly, addressing the prospect that was staring at her with wide eyes. The kid, who was probably about her age, just nodded dumbly, and poured a shot out for her, which she slammed back easily. "Another," she demanded, slamming the glass down on the bar. She felt the familiar burn in the back of her throat, the warmth that filled her up from the inside out. He poured her three more, before she finally turned her glass upside down and turned to look at the scene around her.

She met his eyes from across the room, where he stood, talking to a couple of his brothers. His dark eyes burned into hers, with one of the most intense stares she had ever felt in her life. He oozed danger, of course, given the number of patches on the front of his kutte. In that moment, there was no one else in the room for her, no other man would give her the same savage look. He hadn't even taken a look at the rest of her body, but she could tell that he was the one for her that night.

With a smirk and a wink, she turned back to the bar, smiling again at the prospect. "What's your name, kid?" she asked in a pleasant tone.

"Lorca," he stuttered, clearly surprised that she was even addressing him.

"Tell me, Lorca, your brother, the one with the tattoo on his skull, is he staring at my ass?" she asked nonchalantly, her head tilting slightly to the side.

The prospect gulped. "Yes, ma'am," he replied, his eyes widening as he looked over her shoulder. "And now…"

"...he's coming over?" she finished for him, and he nodded.

The man appeared a second later, leaning back against the bar so he could study her face. She was tall, but he was taller, by a handful of inches at least. His eyes were dark, almost black, but there was obvious lust in them. The coiled snake tattooed on his head, and the "Unholy Ones" patch on the front of his kutte further warned her of danger, but the shots of whiskey she had downed were starting to hit her, and the self-preservation instinct she had was dulled.

"Prospect's a waste of time," he rumbled, his voice gravely. She could feel the vibrations of his voice against the bar, and she shivered.

"Yeah, he's got a ring on, I know," she replied lightly, a friendly smile on her face.

He grabbed a bottle of Jack off the bar without so much as a glance behind him. Lorca must have placed it there, and she rather suspected that it was the same bottle he had served her from. He took a long pull, before he finally spoke again. "I'm going to fuck you."

She hummed, sliding over to press her chest against his. "You promise to make me come?" she whispered, her lips just barely touching his earlobe.

The man gripped her ass, pulling her even closer. "Promise," he growled.


November 3rd, 2003

Tacoma, Washington

It wasn't unusual for police cars to be parked outside of the apartment complex she lived in. The neighborhood wasn't the best, and she had certainly seen at least a dozen drug or prostitution deals made in the shadier corners. But tonight, she found, as she climbed the stairs to the third floor, there was a cop standing in the doorway of her apartment, facing the hallway, his eyes fixed on the wall across from him.

"Excuse me," she said, approaching her door. The cop looked surprised, but smiled at her. "I live here. What's going on?"

"You're Miss Vaughn?" he asked, and she nodded. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he continued gravely, his expression becoming somber. "There's been a break in here. Your roommate, Miss Vanderburg, is quite shaken up. If you want to head inside, Detective Johnson would like to speak with you."

Sarah nodded, and stepped past the cop and into her living room. There were two more uniformed officers inside, chatting in her kitchen, and a man in a suit, standing by where their television used to be. After getting over the initial shock of someone swiping their 200 lb. tv, her eyes drifted over to the couch, where her roommate sat, curled up in a quilt, staring blankly at the wall.

"Are you Sarah Vaughn?" the man in the suit asked, and she nodded. "Miss Vanderburg has barely said anything in the last half hour, and keeps asking for her cousin. We were hoping you would be able to help us out, maybe get Miss Vanderburg's cousin, make a list of what's missing in your space and the common space, help us piece together what happened here?"

She nodded, taking another long look at her roommate. Mackenzie had never mentioned a cousin before, had she? In fact, she barely talked about anyone, other than her sister and the guy she had been sleeping with, that blonde biker, Kozik. Kozik. She had called him "Koz" before, hasn't she? Koz. That sounded pretty close to "cuz," and if she had been asking for him, the detective probably could have easily mistaken it for her asking for her cousin.

"Koz?" she asked, and Mackenzie jumped, her eyes snapping to Sarah for the first time since she had walked inside. The other woman didn't say a word, but Sarah could tell that that was who she was looking for. With a sigh, she walked into the kitchen, and pulled Mackenzie's notebook of phone numbers from the drawer under the phone.

"Little early, isn't it, Kenz?" she heard Kozik say over the phone, after it rang a couple of times.

"Hey, Kozik, this is, uh, Sarah, her roommate," Sarah replied. There was some clatter and shuffling in the background, and she thought that maybe he dropped his phone. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he said, any hint of lust or desire ironed out of his voice. "What's up?"

"Look, I don't know what your relationship is with Mackenzie, or what you're doing with her," Sarah said, "but there was a break-in here tonight, and she's asking for you. She hasn't given the cops heads or tails of anything. They don't even know what's missing, and we have to have a police report to get the renter's insurance to cover anything." She sighed. "Is there any way that you could come down here? I know it's a long shot, but…"

"Shit," he swore, and she could hear him shouting at someone in the background. "Someone's been hitting the homes of women connected to us. I bet it's that same bastard. We'll be down in a few."

"Wait, we?" she asked, her voice rising. "We?" But the phone had already been disconnected, and her words were delivered to the tone. With a hint of frustration, she slammed the receiver back down, the cops in the kitchen jumping slightly as she did.

The detective was pleased when she relayed that Kozik was coming, thinking that he would finally get Mackenzie to talk, and asked Sarah some of the routine questions. When was she last home? Was anything in the day leading up out of the ordinary? Did she lock the door when she left? (The answers of which were 2:15 pm, no, and yes.)

Her room had been tossed and turned, which she figured would make it difficult for her to list exactly what was missing. She didn't own much to begin with, but it seemed as though whomever had gone through the place had been thorough. All of the contents of the drawers and closet had been thrown all across the floor, her textbooks dumped on her bed. The diploma that she had worked so hard for in college lay smashed in its frame on the ground, shards of glass littered through the spare blankets that had once sat in her closet.

For a moment, she just stood there, looking at the damage. It was surreal. After living for so long in the shadow of SAMLAV, she had gotten comfortable. Even if her mother wasn't an old lady, she was an employee, and the protection of the Sons followed her and her daughter wherever they went. But now, it was hitting her that she was alone, and vulnerable. Her personal space, the little corner of Tacoma that she called home, had been violated, all her possessions turned upside down, someone else's hands all over them.

"Best not to think about it," she mumbled to herself, stepping around the damage to start with the textbooks on the bed. They were all undamaged, but clearly rifled through, in case she tucked any bills in the pages. Her floppy disks, which contained the beginnings of her master's thesis, also sat scattered on the bed, and she was relieved to see that each and every one was intact, and not a single one was missing.

The door to her apartment opened, and she figured that Kozik had arrived. Mackenzie certainly sounded happy from the living room, and she guessed that the detective was relieved that she might finally be able to provide some answers. Not wanting to face the biker, Sarah chose to stay in her room, turning her attention to the contents of her desk drawers, which had been dumped on top of her desk.

"You went to college." His voice, the same one that had whispered dirty things in her ear only a couple of months ago, made her jump. She hadn't heard him come into her room, but he stood just a few feet away, looking down at her smashed diploma. "And your name is Sarah."

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, going on the defensive.

"After we hooked up, Kozik told me you were his girl's roommate," he told her. "When he said you got robbed, I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Why?" she asked, the question tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop it. They had hooked up once, and she didn't feel like they owed one another anything. It certainly didn't warrant him stopping by her apartment to check on her after they'd been robbed. But he just shrugged, not really giving her an answer, and started picking up the shards of glass that had come from the frame.

They continued to work, slowly, around the room, straightening up, until most of her possessions were back in place. She was missing the small wad of cash that was normally wedged under her mattress, and the old desktop computer that she had bought secondhand to work on. Everything else seemed to still be there.

"You gonna get it reframed?" he asked, once he realized that there was no more work to be done.

She sighed, and sat down on the bed. "I don't know," she told him. The diploma hadn't been mounted in the frame, and it now sat in the same spot on her desk the computer had once occupied. "Those assholes took some of my savings, and my finances are stretched as is."

"It's a big accomplishment," he said, taking a seat next to her. "Should be framed."

She hummed in agreement.

"You're in school again," he stated, looking at the stack of textbooks on her desk.

"Master's of public health, epidemiology," she said with a smile. "My thesis is on how a needle exchange program would reduce the rate of HIV transmission in Pierce county."

He tilted his head. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-four. Why?"

The man chuckled, stood up, and grabbed her diploma off her desk, gently rolling it up and tucking it inside his kutte. "Should be framed," he repeated, before heading towards the door.

"Wait," she called, right before he stepped out. He paused. "You didn't tell me your name."

"Happy," he replied, before giving her a nod goodbye and letting Kozik know he was leaving.

She was not surprised when her diploma showed up a week later, sitting in a brand new frame that complimented it even better than the previous.