drownedindreams | a mother's hands are her comforts

Her hair was still too short.

Jax was head-down in writing in his journal and it reminded Tara of JT's 'manifesto' that he'd left his son. That that's what started all of this, that and the letters. Until they'd seen those pieces of Jax's father reaching out from the past, there had been no questions or doubt.

Now her hair was a foot shorter than it should have been. It was all connected in a weird way, and she found herself staring in the bedroom mirror. She combed out her wet hair with her fingers, the towel wrapped around her as she dripped into the beige carpet all apartments seemed to have. She looked... tired, she felt. Tara didn't know when she'd become the woman in the mirror, but she didn't really like it. "I'm going to keep growing my hair out," she said quietly, without so much as a Hey to get his attention.

"D'you think that'd be good?" She eyed it for another second, before she looked at him over her shoulder even as she moved to pull clean clothes out of the dresser.

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Jax listened, tried to picture it. The first part was easy, the four of them bundled together. Thomas in his carrier and Abel in his car seat and bigger than Jax had seen yet. The park, in his mind, was wide and green, ready for them.

And then the van careened into his imagination and Jax went quiet again. If the scar on Tara's hand was hard to look at now, he could only imagine how scared and in pain she had been when it happened. Just imagining it made Jax hold her closer, try and fill the intervals with kisses and tiny physical reassurances.

"Cartels, huh?" Jax shook his head heavily. "Clay's bank account always held him more than any fucking sense. Stupid fucker."

Whatever Clay might have done for him before, it was all blown away in the face of what he'd fucking done to Tara.

"Guess we anchor each other huh?" It was the last puzzle piece, Jax realized. Why Tara wanted him to do the parenting. She'd stepped back and seen it and seen something in Jax that he'd never seen.

"I'll still be there, okay Tara? For you. For the boys. For anything or anyone else that comes along."

Tara paused before she spoke quietly. "Clay had you guys running coke, Jax." Her brows furrowed for a second before she nodded when he said they anchored each other. "If I didn't have you, I wouldn't have made it. The boys- they would have been even more messed up. You took care of us, and..."

She searched his eyes for the reassurance of what he was saying. "I know you'll be here. I know you'll always be here, I do. I just- I don't want to hurt you with the stuff I know. With the things that happened."

She's trying to be good, to him. With him. For him to not lay awake at night, wondering how the hell it got so messed up - but she was doing that, instead, which was just as bad.

"That ain't what hurts me," Jax said, trying to articulate what he felt. "Scares the shit out of me, yeah, that I'm gonna end up repeating your past."

He leaned back and ran his thumb over her lower lip, knuckles against her jaw. "I wanna make you happy. Make our boys happy. That's what keeps the hurts from coming."

No Clay. No coke. None of the bullshit that Tara was telling him about. They were going to start fresh here. Do shit right.

"I want to feel you sleep next to me. See you smile when you wake up. I want to be part of that."

Tara's brows furrowed when he said it's not what hurts him. It's the last thing she expected to hear from him, to be honest. "My past?" She doesn't get that he's sort of talking about their past. "It can't repeat, here. I- I thought that what happened, that it'd just... eat you up, Jax. To know that it went that bad." She's confused, now, because that's why she's been so worried about the whole thing.

About everything.

"I want that, too. I want our boys to be happy and safe, and you and me--" She leaned towards him, her forehead against his cheek as she closed her eyes, her hands on his neck. "When I left, it'd been months since we were like this." She's trying to tell him how bad it'd been. How alone she'd been - and he'd been, as well. It was the furthest and longest they'd ever been apart since he'd come home from Belfast.

"Yeah. God it would," Jax admitted. "I don't want to become the man you were fleeing that night. What if I do some little thing. Turn the wrong corner someday, and that starts off the whole wheel and suddenly I'm the man I was?"

Or worse. What if he had become like Clay?

"I never wanna stop being like this Tara. We grow, we change, but we don't lose each other. That's what I want."

And maybe, someday, they could grow their family and buy a house. But first, they had to work on the now. And, as if it was a way of sealing that promise, he raised Tara's right hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers and palm.

Tara paused, and then found the right words, she thought. The right words, when she tried to explain. "The man I was running from was changed from taking the gavel and having to try and get the club out of all of the shit Clay got it into, Jax. The death... every time it happened, it killed part of you. I could see it." Her hand found his cheek. "You won't be that man, now. You won't. This is a new life for both of us." Her eyes searched his even as he took her hand, telling her that he didn't want to lose her.

"I love you," she said lowly as he pressed his lips to her hand. "We'll talk. When these things happen, when they come up - we'll talk. I know you can't know it all, that it won't help you or me to say them, but... but if it comes up, we'll talk it out, I promise. I won't just... not tell you." It was important, to her. It was important that they stay honest. That they work together, and build a family.

"I will always be here for you," she said softly. "And I won't let it happen. Not again. I won't lose you."

a mother's hands are her comforts

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