DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except original characters created for this story. More author's notes at end.

Charming, California. August, 1990

"Where am I going, Daddy?"

John Teller looked eight-year-old Frances Rose Teller - no. He looked Frances Rose Morrow in the eye and shook his head.

"I'm not your daddy, Frankie."

He swore that he felt his heart break a little bit more at the look of pain and confusion on the little girl's face. She was a sweet girl, even if a little tomboyish, clad in a plaid shirt and Wrangler jeans with pigtails braided into her curly blonde hair. But this wasn't news to her. He'd been trying to ease her into this for a month now, if easing into turning a little girl's world upside down was in any way possible. Frankie Rose had been told over and over again that John Teller was not her father. She simply wouldn't have it.

"Where am I going?" she repeated, following John as he rolled the small rolling suitcase out of Frankie's bedroom. She stopped in the doorway, stomping her foot angrily. "Daddy!" she said shrilly. "Where. Am. I. Going?"

"Your Mama's got a new place out in Fresno. With Clay," he said, inhaling deeply through his nostrils. "Your Daddy. Clay's your daddy," he reaffirmed, almost feeling as though he needed to convince myself as well.

John Teller wasn't sure of that right now. John felt like he had lost two children. Thomas was gone now, and that had perhaps been the final straw in their already failing marriage. He had raised Frankie like his own, even knowing that she was Clay's daughter. All these years, John thought to himself, looking at the little girl standing in front of him - she had Gemma's strong will, but somehow, even without his blood in her veins, had somehow inherited John's inquisitive nature, his tendency to be introspective, to brood, to express herself in a way that for her age was almost poetic. Even when he knew all along that Frankie wasn't his by blood, that she had been conceived through an illicit affair with one of his good friends no less, JT knew better than to be a hypocrite. He'd been in Belfast when it happened - he was not blameless. Whatever the case, John Teller loved this little girl, and if his older son, Jackson, wasn't staying with him, he might have lost the will to live entirely. Frankie was his sweet little girl, with as developed a sense of honor and hard work as one could expect in such a little girl, and the idea of seeing her turn into someone like Clarence Morrow was heartbreaking.

Frankie, for her part, seemed to have no interest in going anywhere with her Mama and her new Daddy, who were both waiting in an SUV out in front of the house for John to bring her things outside. She stood in the doorway of the room that had always been hers in the house she had grown up in the little town of Charming. Frankie Rose was not easily forced into anything.

"I don't want to," she said calmly. "I don't think I wanna go. You can put my stuff down now, Daddy." In most matters, if Frankie Teller said she didn't want to do something, John could barely muster the will to make his little princess do it - but he had no right this time. Her parents were waiting for her outside. He continued walking, unable to turn and look at her again, instead dragging her little rolling suitcase out to the car while she chased after her, trying to pry the luggage from his hands and bring it back into the house. Instead, John looked into the car where his ex-wife, Gemma, sat in the passenger seat, and Clay sat in the driver's seat. Not long ago, hadn't he had a wife and three children? Hadn't they been trying to be a family? Thomas's illness and his death had been the last straw.

John had thought taking the high road would be the best route as far as the parting of the ways - Clay had made his demands, and while everyone agreed the demands were ludicrous, John had conceded. Clarence Morrow, or Clay as he was more often called, had spent the better part of the past two years forcing in his choice of prospects, and when the time came to bring a few of his ideas to the table, he was difficult to stop. Paired with a loaded vote was the fact that Clay Morrow had the woman JT still admittedly felt some level of love for under his thumb, and could easily turn Frankie against him as well. That was all the ammunition he needed.

The first matter of business, Clay wanted his own charter that he would take down south to Fresno - and he had enough defectors to do it. And next, to dig the knife in even deeper, he thought that as a member of the First Nine, and as President of a sister charter in a close location, he too deserved the title of Redwood Original. So, the table granted Clay Morrow a charter of his own that he deemed SAMCRO South. In an effort to preserve his pride, John Teller dubbed his chapter SAMCRO True North.

And now, here he was, whisking Gemma and Frankie off to Fresno. Had John not been so noble a man, he could have put a great many ideas into Frankie's head - but he didn't. The last thing he wanted was her misery. John knew that as despicable as the action may have seemed, Clay would be a loving father. He would love Frankie, and he would love Gemma - and he wouldn't begrudge his daughter the opportunity to have more love, more protection in her life.

"Daddy, stop it!" Frankie said, growing agitated upon being ignored and now resorting to beating on John's weather, muscular forearm with her tiny fists. Her earlier even tone, her calm and diplomatic demeanor, had now melted away completely to reveal the fact that she was very much a regular eight-year-old girl and not above breaking into hysterics to make a point. "Bring it back inside! I'm not going!" she wailed. "I'm not going anywhere! I'm not!"

She gave an enraged wail and suddenly diverted her attention from John, running up to the SUV in the driveway and giving the tire a sharp kick. And another. Another.

"Frankie," Gemma spoke up from the passenger seat, unable to turn and look at her only daughter. "Come one, baby, it's gotta be this way, okay?"

Realizing then that it was futile to try and force her way when all of the adults, who had never seemed to agree on anything else before, now suddenly agreed to defy everything that Frankie wished, the little girl ran off in tears around to the back of the house where her older brother, Jackson, was playing football with his best friend, Opie Winston.

"Jackie," Frankie said miserably, rubbing at her eyes and tugging at the back of his shirt to get his attention. "You're - you're not comin' with me?"

"No, I'm not," Jax said, his voice laced with as much angst as a twelve-year-old could muster. "Just you - you're goin' with your Daddy. He's a bad man," the blonde boy sneered at his younger sister, who looked at him in shock. Jax, however, had created a bigger crack in the floodgates than he'd anticipated, and the next statement came out of his pre-teen mouth with such angst and conviction that the little girl looked at Jax like she'd just been slapped across the face.

"We don't need anybody who's half-loyal, and I sure as hell don't need a half sister."

"Jax, c'mon, man," Opie said, tossing the football so that it hit Jax between the shoulderblades, hoping to draw his ire away from the little girl. Opie had always been a good sport about the little girl always insisting on tagging along with them - mostly because John was protective and hardly allowed her to spend time with other friends from school. "Don't be a dick, she's just a kid."

Jax looked back and forth between his best friend and his younger sister - his half sister. How was he supposed to explain that he felt betrayed by a little girl? She hadn't done anything - Jax knew that the little girl idolized his, would never do anything that would so much as hurt his feelings. But he felt betrayed. He was hurt. He hated the idea of his mother having a new husband, and the the idea of Frankie not being his full sister - but the fact that he would miss her, in all of his anger, came off only as him resenting her.

"You should scram before they make you chase after the car," he said coldly. "Now that you know Ma doesn't mind leavin' people behind."

Frankie's jaw clenched, and Jax turned away from her, picking up the football and turning back to playing catch with Opie. He knew that Frankie was trying not to cry - he didn't want to see her cry because then he'd forget that he'd made up his mind to be angry at her and feel the urge to protect her, the way he always did. For a long time, especially because Thomas was weak and sick, Frankie became one of the boys. She rode her bike with training wheels alongside them, and when anyone gave her a hard time, they answered to the prince of SAMCRO. But that was over now. That was gone. Only Opie spared her an almost apologetic glance as she stormed off back to the front of the house, wiping at her face. When she got back to the front of the house, she realized that everyone - John, Gemma, and Clay - was looking at her. She froze in place for a moment and looked back and forth between all of them, determined now to do the same thing as Jax: to be angry, because they deserved it. She stormed over and threw herself wordlessly into the backseat of the car, slamming the door behind her.

"You take care of them. Take care of my girls," John said stiffly, looking at Clay as his former friend eyed the little girl in the backseat, making sure she was buckling up properly. Once he'd seen her click the clip of the seatbelt into the buckle, Clay looked John in the eye and nodded.

"I can keep my family safe, JT. Don't you worry about 'em," he said, possessively slinging and arm over Gemma's shoulders. Gemma looked down at the floor, unable to really look at either man at the moment, knowing what this was doing to her children. She'd lost a son just two years ago, and now, she wasn't sure what her other children would think of her anymore either. She fiddled with the crucifix hanging around her neck and, with resolution, lifted her head proudly and stared straight ahead.

"C'mon," she said to Clay. "Let's get outta this town, baby."

And as the SUV rolled away, Jax peered around the side of the house with a blank expression. He wasn't going to miss her. She was just a half-sister. He and JT would be fine on their own. They had to be.

"You didn't have to make 'er cry like that, man," Opie pointed out, crossing his arms. Even though he was barely any older, he was a taller, burlier boy than Jax, with darker hair and an already-growing smattering of scruff starting to appear on his chin. "She's just a kid. She doesn't know anythin' about all this."

"She's Clay's little girl. Frankie's that old bastard's problem now," Jax said coldly, turning around and snatching the football from Opie's hands again. "Are we playin' or what?"

A/N's

Hello readers! If you're coming this way from one of my other Sons of Anarchy stories ("On the Rocks" or "Lay Me Down"), this is a completely separate storyline from those, but fear not! I'm alternating between writing these stories and just wanted to get this one started, admittedly because I wanted a reason to include Opie in the storyline.

I've always been intrigued by the idea of what could have happened if John Teller had lived, so this is my take on it! This story may not be updated as frequently as my Juice/Denise storyline, but I should still have chapters done on a fairly regular basis. Unlike "Lay Me Down", this story is still very much up in the air - I still am planning out the way everything is going to end, so your ideas and suggestions would all help immensely. Hopefully, this story clicks as much as my others!

Anyway! So excited to start this new ride! Until next time, cheers!