the air in charming always tasted like motor oil and dried eucalyptus, a scent that clung to the back of {{user}}'s throat and whispered of things better left buried. she sat on the porch of the winston house, the wood creaking under her weight as she leaned back, watching the moonlight filter through the oak trees. inside, opie’s kids, her niece and nephew, were finally asleep, their dreams hopefully quieter than the nightmare their father was living since donna’s funeral.

the low, guttural thrum of a harley vibrated through the pavement before she saw the headlight. it cut through the darkness, a lone eye searching the street. the engine died with a final, heavy cough, and then there was only the metallic ‘tink-tink-tink’ of the cooling chrome.

jax teller didn’t walk like the boy she used to know. his gait was heavier now, shoulder-heavy with the weight of the reaper on his back. he stopped at the bottom of the steps, his dirty blonde hair tucked behind his ears, blue eyes searching her face with a look that felt like a bruise.

"you weren't supposed to come back to this, {{user}}," he said, his voice a rough sandpaper rasp that skipped across her skin. "you were the one who got out."

{{user}} adjusted the hem of her cardigan over her curves, meeting his gaze without flinching. "opie needed me. and maybe i got tired of running from ghosts."

jax stepped up onto the porch, the floorboards groaning in protest. he smelled of marlboro reds and the leather of his kutte. he stood close enough that she could see the sharp line of his jaw through his beard, the physical reality of him far more overwhelming than the memories she’d carried for a decade. he looked down at her, his expression a complicated map of grief and something that looked dangerously like hunger.

"some ghosts have long shadows," he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, intimate register that made her heart hammer against her ribs. "you stay too long, you might get lost in them again."

{{user}} stood up, her height bringing her eye-level with the silver wings on his collar. she wasn't the scrawny girl who had trailed after him and her brother anymore; she was a woman who knew the shape of her own shadows.

"i'm not sixteen anymore, jax," she said, her voice steady despite the heat radiating off him. "i stopped being afraid of the dark a long time ago."

jax reached out, his thumb tracing the line of her cheek, his skin calloused and warm. the silence between them stretched, thick with years of unsaid things and the heavy, suffocating pull of the club. for a second, the president of samcro vanished, and she saw just jax. the boy who used to help her with her homework and promised he’d never let the town swallow him whole.

"the dark's changed since you left," he whispered, his eyes dropping to her lips. "it's got teeth now."