Skeletons

Ten hours later, they finally passed the large wooden sign informing them that they were now entering Charming. Falyn immediately felt a headache coming on and she'd only been in the city for fifteen seconds. The drive through town was a heavy dose of nostalgia. Every store and house looked exactly as she remembered it.

Craig Fitzpatrick was the second richest man in Charming, only after his neighbor and good friend Elliot Oswald. His house was on the outskirts of town, nice and quiet and away from town. The long paved driveway was lined with trees on both sides and led up to a large two-story brick house with lots of windows and a grand porch. There was a police cruiser parked in the driveway when they pulled up.

Falyn parked in front of the garage behind the black Mercedes and climbed out of the car, taking a moment to stretch her limbs before heading to the front door with Savannah following behind her. She rang the doorbell then waited patiently for her father to answer the door. After a minute or two, the heavy wooden door opened slowly.

"Falyn? Is that you?"

"Chief Unser! What are you doing here?"

"Visiting your old man. I could ask you the same question," he answered, wrapping her in a hug.

"I'm moving back to Charming. Didn't he tell you that?"

"No, he sure didn't."

Her father walked up behind the police chief and patted him on the back. "Come on, Wayne. I couldn't ruin the surprise!"

"Hey, Daddy."

"Hey, Princess. It's so good to see you," he smiled, pulling his daughter into a tight hug. As soon as he let Falyn go, he turned his eyes to the young blonde standing next to her and wrapped her in a hug as well. "Savannah, you've grown up so much since I last saw you."

Chief Unser gave Falyn a strange look. "Who's this?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Chief. This is my daughter, Savannah." Falyn knew before she told him that it was a mistake, but there was no way to avoid it.

"Daughter? No way you're old enough to have a daughter this grown."

"Aww, I'm not as young as I look," she joked.

Just as Chief Unser was about to respond, her father threw his arm around her shoulders. "Come on, let's go inside."

"Oh, but we have a ton of stuff to bring in first."

"We'll get it tomorrow. Come inside. You two have to be tired and hungry after that long drive."

Falyn agreed, nodding her head. "Sav, could you go get the pup?"

"Sure."

Falyn waited at the door while Savannah went back to the car to get their dog. Gage ran past her into the house and Savannah followed, stopping when she reached her mother. Chief Unser turned to Craig, patting the man on the back. "I should get outta here and check up on Hale. See you later, Craig. It's nice to have you back, Falyn." She knew that Unser was probably going to get straight into his car and drive over to Teller-Morrow Garage and she couldn't help but be a little annoyed with him.

As soon as the old man got into his police cruiser, Craig ushered his daughter and granddaughter inside the house to the kitchen where he had been cooking something. "Daddy, what the hell happened to your kitchen?"

He chuckled as he went to open the oven to check on the lasagna he had made for dinner. "I'm not used to cooking very much. Might've made a bit of a mess."

"A bit?" she asked with a grin.

"Hush your mouth and get out some plates and silverware," he scolded her jokingly.

"Plates and silverware....." she said to herself, looking around the kitchen.

"They're in the same place they've always been."

Falyn smiled to herself as she went to the cupboard to retrieve some plates then opened the drawer next to the stove for forks. She had grown up in this house from the time she was born until she left at the age of seventeen. She remembered every single detail of the place and it seemed like nothing had changed.

As they all sat down to eat dinner, Falyn recalled what Unser had said before he left. "Hey Dad, did Unser say he was going to check on Hale?"

"Yep. David's the deputy chief of Charming now."

"Really?"

"You know how his dad was, and how Jacob is. David's following the same path. They'll do whatever they can to get rid of SAMCRO."

Falyn automatically stiffened at the mention of the morotcycle club that practically ran Charming. Savannah looked between her suddenly tense mother and her oblivious grandfather. "Um, what's that?"

"They're a motorcycle club in town."

"Like a gang?"

Falyn and her father exchanged looks. "Their goal is to protect Charming, not hurt it."

"Then why does that deputy guy want to get rid of them?"

Falyn wasn't sure what to tell her. She couldn't tell her that David had a personal grudge against the vice president of SAMCRO. She couldn't tell her that SAMCRO actually did participate in illegal activities.

"SAMCRO and the PD just don't get along sometimes," her father answered for her.

"Why not?"

"You're being super inquisitive tonight."

Savannah shrugged her shoulders and went back to eating her lasagna while Falyn turned back to her father. "So what else is going on around Charming?"

"Not much. Tara Knowles is back in town. Jax Teller's wife had the kid."

"Jax got married?"

"Yeah, awhile ago. They're getting divorced though because she's a junkie. That's the reason she had the kid so early."

"How early?"

"A few months, I think. He had a ton of problems so they didn't think he was going to make it at first. He's in the NICU over at St. Thomas."

"Damn."

"Tara's taking care of him though. She's a big surgeon now."

"Why'd she come back?"

"Her old man died a few months back. She came to go through all his stuff but then ended up sticking around. For now, anyway."

"Wow. Anything else I've missed?"

"Well, Opie just got out of prison."

"How much time did he do?"

"Five years down in Chino."

Falyn shook her head. She had grown up with David Hale, Jax Teller, Tara Knowles, and Opie Winston. Though she was a year younger than the rest of them, she was always around them. Tara had been a good friend of hers when they were young teenagers. It seemed strange that so much had happened to them all since they'd last seen each other.

After they had finished eating, Falyn insisted, much to her father's protests, on cleaning up the kitchen with Savannah helping. As soon as they were done, Craig pushed his daughter and granddaughter up the stairs to their new bedrooms, giving them both a kiss on the forehead. "Get some rest, girls. I know you're both tired."

He left them alone and went down the hall to his bedroom while Savannah made herself comfortable in her new pale yellow bedroom that Craig had fixed up just for her. Falyn stepped inside her room, which had been the same one she lived in for the first seventeen years of her life. Her father had remodeled it since then, with a larger bathroom and a big window, complete with window seat. The original purple that she had painted it as a teenager had been changed to a pale blue. Even though it was barely 8pm, she collapsed onto the large king-sized bed and almost instantly fell asleep, the dreams of the night focusing on her childhood friends.