Clay Morrow.

@corruptedgavel hit the ♥ for an SOA quote starter ↳ season 1 episode 1  “ PILOT ”

“ Hey, you heard from my crazy ex-wife at all ? Never answers her goddamn phone. ” Jax knew it was a long shot asking his stepfather        but Wendy and Clay had always seemed to get along well enough when they were around each other, so he figured it couldn’t hurt. 

“ She’s s’posed to be sendin’ me the doctor bills, an’ I haven’t seen one in weeks. ”

Clay got along with Wendy. She had been good for Jax for quite a while, even though he knew Jax didn’t see it now. Shit had fallen apart, but then again, shit seemed to fall apart around them a lot. He felt bad for Wendy though. He understood what it was like dealing with people like Jax, people like Gemma.

_____ has died — > @rcdwoodprince – > Accepting!

Ever since arriving in Ireland, Clay kept to himself. He just did. He didn’t bother anyone, did his work with the IRA and all of them and he enjoyed it. But, it wasn’t home. He’d not seen Gemma, since he’s gotten the hell out of Charming. He’d heard a thing or two from Gaalan about what went down in Charming, what had happened to Tara but not being a part of SAMCRO, he didn’t hear back.

That was until he ran into Maureen Ashby and she had told him the news, every bloody bit of it. She told him Tara was gone, how what the news had said, was they’d uncovered who did it. They had named names, since it was Gemma Teller. 

Clay made himself sit down then. He knew if it was in the news, Jax had found out too, and that Gemma was…his head and he couldn’t hear anything. All he could hear was that Gemma was dead, that she had to be. Jax only knew one way to handle this shit. How he had gotten out of Charming before Jax got there was a miracle in itself.

That’s when she had told him that they later found Gemma and the old Sheriff up at her dad’s place, how the club had lost long members like Bobby and Juice, how Jax had gotten in a wreck on 580, and hadn’t survived.

Clay couldn’t process any of this. He couldn’t process that Gemma was gone. He couldn’t process what he was hearing. He couldn’t process that Gemma was gone. He hung his head and thought, he never should have let things get out of control. The club was in bad shape and Gemma was gone. Jax too. 

He managed to barely speak. “Who’s in charge now?” Chibs and Tig. 

He wasn’t an apologetic man but all he could think was, if he hadn’t let shit get so out of hand, none of this would have happened.

                         The reminder that he understood what it meant to be married to a Teller brought a proper smile to her face, albeit a slightly crooked one. Gemma was probably ten times worse than dealing with Jax- although she knew her husband’s mother would never stray from Clay, she was still a serious handful, she was sure. They were both the outsiders in the situation, the replacements, and she sometimes wanted to talk to him about it, about he dealt with it, being in JT’s shadow. But it never seemed a good time to bring it up.

         “ A drink, AND a smoke, both sound great right now. But I got, like, five pounds of potato salad to make for Gemma before the dinner tomorrow night. If I show up without it, I think your son’ll be a widower sooner than anticipated. ”

                  Being married to a Teller, that shit was never easy.  But, he loved Gemma. She was his whole life.  Gemma was a handful, but Clay was pretty good at dealing with her, trying to keep her from doing stupid shit, which was a hard feat in itself.  He’d always felt like Wendy got it, given that Jax had a lot of Gemma in him. He could be annoyingly difficult like his old man, but he was a whole lot of Gemma too.

“ You go right ahead      not like my opinion’s ever stopped you from doin’ shit anyway. ” He replies, gesturing towards his mother’s office next to the garage. If that was how Clay was going to handle things then fine. He was also sure some petty side comment from his stepfather wasn’t actually going to upset his mother, but at least he’d be prepared for it just in case      

“ I never said that guilt ain’t on Stahl’s head too, she’ll get hers. But you’re the one who actually thought Opie would turn rat. ” Jax narrows his eyes, not quite as skilled in the art of schooling his expression as Clay was. 

“ I am gonna do whatever it takes to make shit right. For Ope’s sake. ”

“And tell me, when does my opinion stop you from doing things? Shit’s changed. You’ve not been the same, since the boy was born, since Tara came back.”  He wasn’t sure how things had gotten this bad. There was a time that Jax actually listened when he said something. Shit was a mess. 

“I believe I said we weren’t discussing this shit. It’s done. You can’t tell me that you never thought it too. The evidence said that he did.” 

                         Donna was gone. And no, they hadn’t been close in awhile, but there had been a point when Donna had been the best friend she’d ever had. They’d been close as sisters, junior and senior years high school, and even when she’d gotten back to Charming, in spite of the fact that Donna had been married and settled and domestic and shit, they’d still been close, again. She’d helped babysit Kenny and Ellie. She’d helped Donna stay sane, while Opie was inside. And it was only after a particularly nasty fight with Donna about her partying getting a little out of hand that she’d pulled away. There had been a small reprieve to that, when she’d gotten back from rehab, and it was Donna who had taken her to the first few doctor’s appointments when she was pregnant with Abel, but they’d drifted again. Opie was back, and Jax was gone, and Opie, obviously, had sided with Jax, and Donna had gotten pulled into that. She didn’t blame her. But it meant that when Donna died, she hadn’t really ever had a chance to try to make things right with her. She hadn’t fixed their friendship. And she now she never could.

And the stupid shit Jax pulled at the funeral was just…icing on that cake. And as much as she knew she needed to keep herself on her path, she also knew that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all. Even if she got her shit together, even if she was clean and around, even if Gemma wanted to try to use her to push Tara out, it wouldn’t matter. Jax had Tara back. He wouldn’t want anyone else, and it wouldn’t take long for Tara to worm her way into his brain, and all his talk about wanting her to be in Abel’s life would end. She knew that. She knew Tara. Insecure and petty. That was Tara fucking Knowles. And her being back, her demanding Jax’s attention again, her wanting to be in control of everything in Jax’s life just…was the writing on the wall. She was never going to get her family back. She was never going to have that. She was never going to get to be Abel’s mom, if Tara had her way, if she got Jax to think that he didn’t want it either.

So why bother staying clean? Why bother with that fucking half-way house? She hated that shit, hated communal living like that. There was no point. And she was half way to figuring out how to get herself enough cash to go score something- she didn’t even give a shit what- when Clay appeared, spoke to her.

She’d always loved Clay. He was like her- not really a part of the family, but clinging to the edges. A replacement for JT as much as she was a replacement for Tara. And she figured he saw that, too. That he knew that, too. But they’d never spoken about it. It was just this unspoken understanding. And his reassurance that he liked her better did bring a smile to her lips, because she believed that- although she was less sure that Gemma liked her better so much as Gemma knew she wasn’t a threat to her. But the faint smile was as far as it went.

          “ It doesn’t matter. You know that, Clay. You remember what he’s like, with her. I could stick around, for my son, and maybe be go from being his wife to being his piece on the side, again. Or I can just… ” She had to swallow down a sudden overwhelming need to cry, eyes falling, fingers fumbling for a cigarette, anything to mask that she was starting to fall apart. “ I can just…accept that stuck up skank is gonna be the woman my son thinks of a mother. And go away. I’m sure Jax would much rather that. Less trouble. ”

Jax could be an idiot. That was a given. Clay didn’t often tell the boy that, although he was hardly a boy, but it was true. He didn’t tell Gemma that either, because then it became one of those fights. Clay felt like shit about what happened to Donna, and after the look on Jax’ face at Donna’s funeral, he knew that was going to become an issue. But, he didn’t like what Tara did at the funeral. That was not the place to bring Jax drama to.  He knew all women were full of drama, but that had frustrated him. It had frustrated Gemma too, but for other reasons.

He knew the kid was important though, and he was Wendy’s son. Sure, she’d made some shit choices, but so had Jax. He’d walked away.  Again, he tried to stay out of that whole thing, but still, it had been a big fucking mess, just like this situation with Donna. But, he still didn’t like that Wendy felt like shit about it.  He could be notoriously hard to read but Wendy had been important to him. She spent more time talking to him, looking him in the eye than Tara did. She’d always seemed to respect him and didn’t look at him like he was beneath her. He knew what it was like to feel on the inside, but not completely.  Truth be told, JT would always be Gemma’s Tara. Sure, she’d fucked Clay, but she still talked about JT at times, like he’d been a God with a golden dick.