Skeletons

Clay had just announced Otto's latest prison deed of bashing ATF Agent Stahl's face into the metal table of the interrogation room and all the others cheered.

Juice was sitting at his computer working when he caught movement on the screen above his head. He looked up just in time to see a large group of cops almost at the door. "Clay, cops!"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the door was smashed in and a bunch of ATF agents rushed inside, holding their guns up and screaming for everyone to get on the ground. They wasted no time in grabbing Chibs and Juice, slamming them onto the ground. Jax came running out from the dorm room to see what was going on, only to get slammed against the wall then onto the ground.

Once everyone was on the ground, ATF Agent Smith handcuffed Bobby Elvis, much to his surprise. "Robert Munson, you're under arrest for the murder of Brenan Hefner."

The rest of the men looked on from the floor as Bobby was read his rights and pushed out the door. "I'll call Rosen, Bobby!" Clay called after him, only to be kicked in the ribs by one of the agents.

"Hey, bitch!" Gemma shouted to Agent Stahl, spitting in her direction.

Stahl sneered as she kicked Gemma in the gut, prompting Clay to get very angry. "Manners, darling," she chided sarcastically.

Once Bobby was in a cruiser on his way back to Charming PD, the rest of the men in the clubhouse were allowed back on their feet. Stahl gave Clay one last smirk before she turned to follow the other agents out the broken door.

"Hey, since you're here and all," Jax sneered, "I gotta question."

The bitch turned on her clunky boot heel with a devilish smirk, making all the other officers turn as well. "You want my help?"

He ignored the look she gave him. "Why you draggin' Falyn into this shit? Whad'ya got on her?"

Agent Stahl's eyebrows rose about a foot off her forehead and her smirk widened. "I thought you'd never ask."

"The fuck does that mean?"

All the other Sons crowded around Jax to hear the agent's explanation, while Gemma stood by the door with her arms crossed and her bitch face on, waiting for the secret to come out. Clay kept his cigar hanging between his fingers as he crossed his arms over his broad chest and looked at her expectantly.

Agent Stahl took a few steps forward so that she was directly in Jax's face. "I said I would give her a week, but since you asked....."

Jax stood up straighter so that he was looking down at the haughty bitch. "Spit it out," he demanded lowly.

"Now, now, let's not shoot the messenger." She automatically took a step back from the crowd of men and placed her hands on her hips. "Jax, you used to be good friends with Falyn Fitzpatrick, isn't that right?"

His eyes narrowed at the woman. "Yeah, so?"

"Well, didn't you ever wonder why she just left in the middle of the night without telling you or any of your other friends?"

"She went to live with her Mom in Oregon. Wasn't that big'a deal."

Agent Stahl raised a finger and pointed it at him. "While that's not untrue, it isn't the reason."

"Alright, so what's the reason?"

"Jax, did you know that Falyn has a daughter?"

Of course he didn't know. Unser and Hale found out; so had Gemma and Luann. Maybe even a few other people in town. Opie had found out just the day before, and Donna had known all along. Hell, some of them even knew the kid's paternity. But no one had wanted to tell Jax.

Jax knew that the agent would get some sort of weird satisfaction from the fact that he didn't know something about someone who used to be his friend. So he simply shrugged his shoulders in response to her question.

Agent Stahl knew what he was doing and it only made her smirk become permanently planted on her face. She took that step forward again, getting right in Jax's face and staring directly into his dark blue eyes. "She's a beautiful kid really. Got the same blue eyes and long blonde hair as her criminal daddy."

With one more haughty look, she turned and walked out of the clubhouse, leaving all the men standing around confused and surprised.

Jax made a move to head toward the door but his mother grabbed him by his arm as he passed her. "Baby, I've seen the kid. The bitch ain't lying this time."

He nodded his head and she let him go, but Clay immediately called him out. "You can deal with all your personal shit later. Church. Now." With one last look at his mother, Jax sighed and followed the other men into the chapel, shutting the doors behind him.



Sleep hadn't come the entire night as she lay in her bed, imagining all the possibilities stemming from her visit to the SAMCRO church. Honestly, she was scared. She didn't know what was going to happen next and that kept her up the entire night, refusing to let her shut her eyes for even a mere fifteen minutes.

She finally climbed out of bed when she heard her father moving around downstairs. He and Savannah were making breakfast together when she reached the kitchen and they refused to let her help, insisting that she sit down and just wait to be served. They had a nice, quiet breakfast and then Falyn was sent out while they cleaned up the kitchen.

She went upstairs to shower and get dressed in some comfortable clothes. When she returned downstairs, her father had left for the day to go fishing, which gave her the perfect opportunity to have that talk with Savannah that she'd been meaning to have.

All day the two spent together watching movies and eating ice cream. But every time Falyn thought about bringing it up, she'd look over at her daughter and the smile that always seemed to be gracing her features and she backed out. She just couldn't do it no matter how hard she tried.

Her father came home just in time for dinner. He could tell that Falyn seemed to be preoccupied with something but he just decided not to ask her in front of Savannah.

She got up from the table to clean up the kitchen and a few minutes later, her father joined her. "I'm gonna take the kid to a movie. You wanna come?"

Falyn looked up from the pot she was washing and shook her head. "No thanks. I'm really tired. Didn't get any sleep last night."

"Something going on?" he asked concerned.

She sighed, dropping the pot back into the sink full of soapy water and drying her hands on the dish towel. "It's just a lot, you know? Feds questioning me. Sons finding out about Feds questioning me. Sons questioning me."

"Feds'll do anything to get what they want."

"Yeah, no kidding," she muttered bitterly.

"Don't let 'em get to you, baby."

"You say that like it's so easy, Dad."

"Hey, you're not the only one who's had a sit down with that fed bitch." He set his empty glass beside the sink and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. "She came around here a couple of weeks ago, askin' if I knew anything on the boys."

Falyn's eyes widened in surprise. "Seriously? Does the Club know about it?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "I talked to Clay."

"Well, at least they didn't try to blackmail you into telling your kid's father about her."

The older man looked at her surprised, but it soon turned to sympathy. "Have you?"

"Not yet. But it's going to have to be done soon, or the bitch'll do it herself."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, baby. Of course I think Jax deserves to know, but you shouldn't have to tell him just because somebody's makin' you."

"I guess I'm gonna go over to the clubhouse tomorrow and sit him down. Maybe it won't be as bad as I'm expecting it to be."

Craig wrapped an arm around his only daughter and planted a kiss to her temple. "Good luck with that."

"Papa, you ready to go?" Savannah asked, sticking her head into the kitchen.

"I'm comin' baby."

She disappeared from the doorway and Craig said goodbye to his daughter before following his granddaughter out.

Once she had finished the dishes, she went into the living room and curled up on the sofa with a blanket, turning on the tv in hopes of finding something to watch that would take her mind off the past couple of days.

She was just getting really into a cheesy lifetime movie when there was a loud, harsh pounding on the front door. She turned off the tv before she tiptoed silently over to the door and peeked out of the peephole to see Jax standing there looking pretty angry. Before she had a chance to open the door, he pounded on it again.

She hurriedly opened the door, trying not to make him any more angry than he already was. "Jax? What are you doing here?"

He forced his way into the house, grabbing her by her upper arms and shoving her against the wall. "Were you ever gonna fuckin' tell me we had a kid?!"

She struggled against him but he just held her there, her back pinned up against the hard wall. His fingertips dug painfully into her pale skin and she whimpered. "Jax, you're hurting me."

The angry look on his face disappeared and his eyes dropped down to his hands where they were tightly squeezing her arms, as if just realizing what he was doing. He quickly let go of her and stalked into the living room, dropping heavily onto the sofa and putting his head in his hands.

Falyn breathed a heavy sigh as she gently rubbed over her now sore arms. There would surely be bruises there tomorrow. She timidly moved into the living room and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa from him. "Ope told you?"

The blonde man's head snapped up and he stared at her in disbelief, the anger starting to rise back to the surface. "Ope knew?"

Shit. "He, uh, he just found out yesterday," she muttered, mentally smacking herself in the face.

"Who else knows?"

"Just Ope, Donna, my dad, Davey, and Gemma."

"And you didn't think that might be something I would like to know?"

She stayed silent, looking down at her hands in her lap guiltily.

"Why didn't you fuckin' tell me, Falyn?"

She shook her head, her eyes still on her dark purple nails. "You didn't want to know," she replied quietly.

"Don't you fuckin' give me that shit!"

"Come on, Jax. You were barely nineteen years old. Tara had just left. You were.....heartbroken. And lonely. And I was just a warm body to fill the void for the night."

He rolled his eyes. He didn't like that she was making him out to sound weak and he also didn't like that she was making herself out to be just some slut he'd found for a few hours' enjoyment. "That's bullshit."

"Is it? Jax, we were really drunk. And we were alone in the clubhouse. And maybe in your hazy mind I resembled her and that's why you made a move. Because you missed her and I was the closest you could get. But I cheated on my boyfriend with you. Davey loved me more than anything, and I threw it all away to be your comfort for a few fleeting hours. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that."

"You left so you didn't have to be honest," he clarified mockingly.

"No," she automatically responded. "I left for a very complex reason."

"And that would be?"

"When I found out I was pregnant, I was.....scared. I was eighteen years old for Christ's sake. And on top of being so young-" she paused to take in a shaky breath. "I knew you were the father, not the boy I was supposed to be in a relationship with. Davey and I always used protection. So I thought about, you know, what would happen. And the more I thought about it, the worse it got for all of us."

She took a half a second to glance over at him, but he was just watching her curiously.

"It would've broken Davey's heart."

"But leaving in the middle of the night without saying goodbye was so easy on him?" Jax was surprised at himself, defending the deputy chief who'd given him so much grief about the Club.

"I know. I was terrible." She ran her hands over her face, thankful she hadn't put on any makeup today.

"That still doesn't answer my question. Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were prospecting for the Club, Tara had just left. You weren't ready for a kid."

"Neither were you," he told her softly.

"Yeah, but I couldn't do anything to help myself. I could help you. Jax, we were teenagers. You didn't want to be tied down to a kid you had with a girl you didn't even love."

"We were friends, Falyn. I did love you. And at the very least, I could've helped you out with the kid."

She briefly lifted her eyes to meet with his dark blue ones. "Yeah," she mumbled.

"You should have stayed."

"I couldn't."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because I didn't want her to grow up around you, okay?!" She automatically shut her mouth and bit down hard on her bottom lip, embarrassed that she'd shouted. Embarrassed that she'd even said it at all.

"Finally, the truth," he sneered.

Falyn shook her head, leaning back slightly in her chair. "Growing up in Charming showed me what the Club can do. How much damage it can cause. How many people it can hurt. I watched you and Opie become prospects and I listened to all the stories you guys told us about Club business. SAMCRO was dangerous. Especially to a member's kid. I wasn't going to put my kid through that, in that much risk."

"I would never hurt my own kid."

"Well, not intentionally. But there would always be a risk. That's what happens when you're in the Club."

He didn't have a comeback for her. Of course he'd never hurt his own child on purpose but being a part of the Sons of Anarchy meant accepting a certain amount of risk.

"I'm sorry, Jax. I did what was best for everyone."

He scoffed, his temper flaring again. "No, you did what was best for you. You took the easy way out because you were a selfish bitch."

"Maybe," she muttered, half agreeing with him.

"Did you even think about what would happen when the kid found out after all-"

"My first thought is always her," she snapped, cutting him off. "Don't you ever for a second think that I haven't thought about how all this would affect her. I'm going to have to sit her down and tell her who her father is and what happened and that's going to be the hardest part of all of this. You're not my main concern in this whole thing, Jax. It's always always my daughter."

"Our daughter," he corrected her.

She closed her eyes and exhaled loudly. "Yeah."

Jax sat back against the sofa, his anger finally beginning to dissipate. "So....you ever gonna let me get to know her?"

Her eyebrows rose and she looked over at him unsure. "You want to?"

"Yeah, course I do. But it's up to you whether or not that happens. I ain't gonna push you."

Honestly she was surprised by his words but she nodded her head.

"But that ain't no guarantee Gemma won't."

She half smiled at the thought of Savannah and Jax's crazy mother spending time together. "I know."

He dropped his hands to his thighs and rose from the sofa, crossing the room to head for the door.

"Hey, Jax?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll tell her tomorrow. Let you know how it goes."

He nodded his head, a small smile forming on his lips. "Yeah. See ya, Fal."

Once he was finally gone, she fell back onto the sofa, a few teardrops finally falling down her cheeks as she curled up into a ball under her blanket, dreading the morning when she'd finally have to tell her daughter the truth.