A/N: This continues off of the last chapter, still on pilot episode. Please leave a review or two.

~X~

That Night

Gracie had opted out to go to the Hairy Dog, and instead made her way back to the club. She was exhausted, her migraine in full swing and in great need of a beer. The sun was just about to set as she put her Harley back into her parking spot. She sat on her bike for a couple of seconds, and really breathed in that cold Carlifonia dusk air. Her custom paint job on her 2003 harley davidson fxd dyna super glide, bit of a mouthful, made her proud to be a mechanic and a painter. The reaper on one side of the tank and an angel on the other was some of her proudest work, and speaking of the designer.

"Happy!" Gracie shouted as the Tacoma Killer walked out of the clubhouse.

The man smirked with a lit cigarette between his lips as he walked up to her. "Hello Bernice"

"Oh fuck off" She hissed and took his cigarette from him and inhaled those lovely toxins again. How many had she smoked today? "All good on the road?" She asked while she tried best to get her mind off her poor health choices.

Happy shrugged and looked at her with a look of disbelief. "You should know, going over to my mama all the goddamn time" he muttered and took back his cigarette from her.

"She misses you" Gracie said and looked at the man in front of her. She got off her bike to stand somewhat taller, as she was of average built, but he still towered over her. She had started to drop by his mother when he himself couldn't deliver medicine or food. And after one visit she was hooked to help out whenever she could, which had become more and more often as the assassin of the club had to be a bit all over the place recently.

"I will see her this weekend, if I can" Happy said with an honesty Gracie found oh so attractive. There was no bullshit between them, as none of them believed in such tomfoolery to be useful. Because that's what they both needed to be for the club to function, useful.

"Good" Gracie nodded and followed him inside of the clubhouse, almost everyone was gathered. It didn't take long for the rest to file in as well.

"Table!" Clay shouted and everyone did the normal procedure. Leave the drinks and the games, put your phone in the box and sit your ass down at church. Gracie took her spot between Juice and Happy.

"What's the, uh, Nords' roster looking like these days?" Clay asked, he got straight into business.

"Fifteen, 16 guys. A few new kids are breaking in. Same extreme hate shit" Bobby explained.

"Still got meth labs outside of Lodi. Selling mostly to truckers, some of the Mexican gangs" Juice said, he got the intel as usual. Something that also impressed Gracie, as she herself had bad luck with technology to begin with. Finding out shit like that, mind blowing.

" You think they're stepping up?" Jax asked his step-father. The smoke of both cheap cigarettes blended with the rich smoke from Clays' cigar, the air in the room felt thick.

"Hmm. Only two things feel good in the joint: Jerking off and thinking about the shit you're gonna do when you get out. Darby's been in there for three years. I just wanna make sure all his big-shit dreams ended up in his cum rag... and not on his to-do list." Tig and Chibs laughed at that, which made Clay smirk that his joke landed. "How's his guy doing?" Clay asked and looked between the three guys who had been to the Hairy Dog.

" Fractures cheek, broken nose, left nut swinging solo." Juice said, as he had looked up the medical history before church.

"Yes, it was beautiful! That's my boy!" Chibs exclaimed, he slammed his hand on the table in celebration a couple of times.

Jax didn't feel that happy though, that darkness was still in his eyes. "Yeah, he's lucky to be breathing" he said, voice low.

"So, uh, any luck up north?" Clay asked, he wanted to switch the topic over to Happy.

"Tacoma can help with the Glocks, but there's no M4s anywhere. Washington State, Oregon, Nevada, nobody's got stock, man" Happy explained. Gracie felt the pit in her stomach grow larger. That was their emergency plan, but they were screwed.

"We'll have all the Mayan intel by the morning. We'll get our guns back" Jax said, he tried to boost some morale back into the meeting.

"Oh, yeah, we will. Treasury?" Clay said, done with the conversation of guns for now.

"All the bills are paid. Bar is stocked. Uh, run fund is covered for the next two months. Tig's the only man who owes me dues" Bobby said and looked over his spreadsheets.

" I'm a little short. Catch you next week" Tig joked, but Gracie noted that he looked tired of not having cash.

"Guess those little Thai boys are getting expensive, huh?" Happy said, which made Gracie snort a laughter. She hid it badly behind her hand.

Tig didn't find it as funny. "Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, they are. How about I slit your eyes and have you suck my dick?" he said. Happy, ever the man to never accept a threat of any kind. Only motioned with his hands for Tig to fight him. Gracie shook her head, they were practically in the ring at this point.

"All right, all right. Anything else?" Clay said as he broke up the banter.

"Yeah, I, uh, just wanna say to Jackson on a club level...the Sons of Anarchy, the Redwood Original, is here for you. Your father would be proud of the man you've become, you know. Every time I see you sitting at this table, well, I do a double take at you." Piney said, which made the rest of them very quiet. That was a lot of emotion from the old man.

"Never seen you this sentimental Piney,'' Gracie stated with a smirk.

"It's probably just the weed, Pop" Opie joked, which made the rest of them laugh.

"Probably. I mean, he's... Anyway, whatever you need, son, it's yours." Piney stated, Gracie couldn't help but smile at the old man.

"Thank you, Piney. Thanks guys" Jax said, and looked around the room and met the gaze of his family.

"Meeting closed" Clay said and hit the gavel. They all moved back into the bar, with Gracie and Happy returned to their now warm beers by the tattered sofas.

"Here you go, Clay" The prospect said and gave a beer to the president.

"Thanks, kid" He said and took a sip, before he stopped and smelt something really bad. They all did, but most of them didn't care.

"Bourbon?" The prospect asked the member for a drink as well.

"Yeah" The man said and took the glass from the young man.

"What the hell is that smell?" Clay muttered, he felt himself go crazy over the stench. He wanted it out of the clubhouse.

"I don't know. God if I know. I smell it too" Bobby said and looked around for the origin, both men smelled around like bloodhounds while the rest watched on. They landed by the pool table where Jax sat, and finally found the box tucked away under it.

"It's that box" Clay stated, and now the smell was really bad. Every member still in the clubhouse went over to see what it was.

"What is it?" Clay asked, Gracie and Happy shared a look. They both knew the smell of a corpse when they smelled it. But this smell was bad, even to their standard.

"I don't know" Bobby said and opened the box, only to pull out the head of the fucking dear that the propect was supposed to take care of earlier that day. "Oh, damn" Bobby hissed, and backed away so as to not get any gross juices or blood on him.

"Hey that's mine!" Half-sack shouted and ran over from the bar.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Bobby said and tossed the head over to the prospect. Gracie and Happy looked at Chibs, the guys sponsor and raised their eyebrows in question. This was the guy the man thought would be a good fit for the club?

"No I just... You know, I thought it was like a surprise. We could mount it in the club. You know, like on the wall" The man in question said and held up the head like a trophy.

"It's gotta be stuffed and treated, you idiot" Jax said with a look of disbelief.

"Yeah, I know, I just... Stuffed with what?" This made everyone that heard the guy laugh. Gracie took it with a grain of salt that this was a good start to a good night. If that was the bar for the level of crazy the night needed to beat, it was smooth sailing from there on out.

The hours ticket on and around midnight, like she predicted, Happy and Tig got into the ring to solve their issues with each other. Gracie sat on the opposite side of the ring to the rest of the members, she needed to take some moments to herself. That day had been crazy, yet her heart felt empty. Her hands were still itching for something and her mind was racing away from Charming. Finally Bobby broke the two men apart, with Happy going out of the ring to stand in front of her.

"You look really good there killer" She said and handed him a towel from her room inside of the club. Happy took the towel with a smirk and wiped the sweat off his toned body.

"Could have gone for longer" He said before he handed her back the towel and took a swing from the beer that was in her hand.

"I know," She said and stood up. Together they went past the crowds and to a picnic table by the entrance to the club. Gracie was silent the whole time, that frustrated Happy.

"You know I can't read your mind" He said as they sat down, he lazily threw his arm around her. His hand moved to play with her short dark hair that curled around the nape of her neck. She kept it short as she rode so much, with an open helmet like she had as well, long hair just seemed impractical to have. She also thought she looked cute with the shorter style.

"Mm?" Gracie hummed, she closed her eyes as Happy massaged her neck.

"You have been silent all fucking day, what's going on?" He asked. This would shock other people if they heard Happy Lowman ask another human being how they felt, but he was actually a decent human being.

Gracie sighed and took a swing of their beer. "I am thinking about going nomad"

Happy stared at her for a second. "Seriously?"

"Yeah" She said and took another swing of the drink. It was the last in the bottle.

"Why?" He asked. He had known Gracie since she patched in at age 18, over ten years had passed together. He knew what an absolute beast of a person she was, and a good asset to the club she had been all these years. He also knew the deep relationship she had with Charming, she was born there, raised there. But then again, both of their parents were gone. She didn't have any other blood relatives in the area.

"I feel so lonely here, I love the club, I love my brothers… But I think I can rake in more money on the road and get my head back in the game" Gracie explained, it was complicated to tell exactly what the reason was for her feeling lonely. She was always surrounded by her brothers and the club. She had a great job, some profiting side hustles and people she could rely on in Charming. But it all felt shallow.

"Charming too charming for ya?" Happy grunted and looked out over the parking lot at the people at the party. This wasn't his scene at all, usually he would take the hand of a crow eater just to escape the noise. Gracie was the same, only she would go to bed with a book or some shit, he guessed.

Gracie looked at Happy and smiled. "Kinda, yeah"

"We can put it to the table" He suggested, which made the woman tense up under his arm.

"They won't vote it through, not with the warehouse blown up and the Mayans having our shit" She shook her head, leaned her head onto his shoulder. This was new territory for both of them, they had never gone past that threshold before. Much less cuddle on a picnic table.

Happy smirked, and wanted to test the limits. "Well if you need to get your blood pumping" He suggested and looked down on the woman in his arms. Gracie looked up at him and smiled. Gently, as usual. She then stood up, looked once again over the parking lot of their friends and family they needed to get past to get inside of the clubhouse before she stretched her hand out towards the Tacoma Killer. She wanted to take that road, see where they would end up.

"Let's go" She said, and Happy took her hand.