drownedindreams | (no subject)

She's got a tiny, squirming ball of fur in her coat.

Tara's thinking about calling her Isis - and she hasn't the faintest idea why. She took the dog after one of the aides casually mentioned that it was so hard for pits to get adopted, even when they were babies.

Two hundred dollars and some paperwork later, and Tara's got a tiny, squirmy gray and white puppy. She text Jax - not I got a dog, or So how do you think about moving a little faster on buying a house, but just:

Something came up, I'll be home in a couple of hours. Everything's okay! <3 T.

She went to the beach. She went to the beach and dropped to her knees and let the tiny puppy explore, picking it's way through rocks and branches and barking - a high-pitched squeak of a bark - at an old horseshoe crab shell.

She looks at Tara and her tail wags, and it's not long before Tara bundles her up. She goes to a pet store, and buys things. Lots of things; a crate and toys and food and a bed and they all go into the back of her SUV, and she's got a collar and a leash (neither is black; they're a bright blue that remind her of Jax, that remind her of Thomas's hat when he was a baby.) She doesn't think of it that way, but they're Jax's favourite color, and when Tara looks at the ball of fur that's nestled on her front seat, sleeping already... she smiles.

And she grabs one of the bags out of the SUV, the puppy in her coat as she comes inside. She doesn't even know if they allow pets in their apartment, and she doesn't care. She doesn't care, and she shuffles her bags in her hand so she can unlock the front door, slipping in. She's glad that she's there in time before the boys go to bed, and the chorus of Mommy and Ma happen at the same time, and she flashes a smile at Jax. "Hey, babe," she says as she puts down the bag - clearly from a pet store - and something inside her coat makes a squeaky yawn sound.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No, that's not true," she said without even a pause, even as her brows furrowed, and she moved to get the bags she'd bought at the pet store, moving to put away the things she'd picked up. "I do things for myself all the time, Jax. And getting a dog, that's not something that's for me, it affects our whole family." She never really thought of herself as someone who didn't do things for herself; the sheer thought of that didn't quite sit right, since... since that sort of made everything even harder to make sense of, in a way. "I should have called you. And, I mean- we have an apartment, and the boys - they're so young. I just- I just did it, but I should have... thought... about it."

"Maybe, but not enough," Jax supposed. Tara was always running around with surgery or with the boys.

"And hey, that's just what I think. I'm not God," he said. Jax turned to kiss her softly before grabbing the remaining bags. If nothing else, it looked like Tara had had them covered in terms of puppy needs, but he'd likely do some reading up on his own.

"I like her, Tara. I'm glad you brought her. The rest we'll figure out."

It brought her to a stop, her brows furrowing even more. She'd just sort of paused, the package of biscuits in her hand. "Do you really think that?" She'd said it after he'd said they'd figure it out. "That I don't... do things for myself?" Her voice was low, and she chewed on her lower lip for a second.

"That's... not really... normal."

She looked away from him, because while it made her uncomfortable - god knew it did, that didn't mean he was wrong. "You know? Who doesn't do things for themselves?" Her eyes flicked up to his, and she shook her head once.

"Apparently, now, I guess we have a dog." She tried to put a good spin on it, even though she was still thinking about what he said, and she couldn't figure out quite why it bothered her so much.

Jax shrugged, thinking about all the people he'd known here and in Charming and their varying personalities. "I've known a lot of people who spend so much time caring about others they forget to care about themselves. I don't think it's all that weird, just that you..."

He shrugged, trying to parse it out. "Things are good here, safe. Safe enough to have a puppy and buy a house and enjoy ourselves."

That was the issue, she supposed. It didn't sit right with her, because... she didn't take it the way he might have meant it. He might have just been talking about the way people did that, but what Tara was thinking.... she was thinking about it. About the last thing she'd done for herself, and.... it was when she'd taken Abel and Thomas to the park after work, a month ago, and had run into Katie.

..... That.... was the only thing she could really think of, and it drew her up short. That things here were that safe, when in comparison...

"Tig's daughters." She paused, and then licked her lips. For her, the transition made sense. It made it even more stark the difference between this place and home... even though this was home now. Between home, and Charming.

She looked down at the floor. "Dawn's-" She paused again, and then said quietly, "Gone." And it was clear when she looked up at him, that gone meant dead. She bent, and scooped Macha up in her arms, holding her to her chest. "Fawn apparently left town. It was-" Her brows furrowed. "Because of the club. Closed casket."

Her eyes finally flicked back up to his, then to the ceiling as she shook her head. She was holding Macha a little bit like someone - not him, from her body language - might just take her away. "I keep feeling like this isn't real, still. Because everything's- it's good, and I'm still telling you about things like that."

"Jesus Christ," Jax said, both a curse and a prayer. Closed Casket meant something very specific in their part of society and Jax didn't want to know who'd dared to fuck up Tig's kid and in such a messed up way. There was something dark in Tara's eyes, pained. He moved in close, one arm around her as if Jax could be her shield. His free hand rubbed over Macha's ears.

"This is real Tara. We've come from some dark shit but that doesn't mean we can't ever have anything good again." Maybe in a different world where God responded as they did, an eye for an eye, they wouldn't have this chance but here...Here it was different. Honestly and truly good and different.

"That was our old life. That was gangs and Clay and dark, bloody things and..." He couldn't say it hadn't touched their lives, so Jax paused, breathing in. "I slipped up, yeah, but this isn't gonna be the way things were."

"I know that this place is real," she said lowly. "I just... I feel like it's too easy. That I left a line of headstones, and here, what, we get a puppy and the boys grow up and we have another baby and everything's storybooks and white picket fences? I don't mean that I think you think that, it's that.... it can't be that way," she tried to clarify.

"The shoe's got to fall," she said softly, and she's nervous, jumpy. "There have been a lot of closed caskets," she said softly. "And a lot of people who just.... they're dead, but there's no funerals at all, Jax." She swallows thickly. "How can we have gotten away? How?" She's curled close against him, and her hands are full of puppy, but she wants to be as close to him, and so she tucks herself so her cheek is very nearly resting on his kutte.

"I think the amount of shit we've been through, maybe we deserve easy," Jax said. He knew he was trying to convince himself of it too, because he knew the kind of man he'd been and he knew he didn't deserve anything to come easy to him. Tara though. She was different.

Carefully, he shifted Macha between them so he could hold them both close, running his fingertips over her velvety ears. "I don't know what's coming next. Maybe some dark shit. Maybe...giant monster marshmallows. Hell if I know anymore. But if I have my say? No more caskets."

"We might deserve easy," Tara said quietly as she stared up at him. "But we don't get easy, Jax. You know that. Our lives don't do easy. We'll never be white picket fences and easy. This is hard. It's hard, and it sucks, and-" She leaned in against his shoulder, trying to even herself out. "I love you," she said quietly. "I love you, and I'm just-"

I'm so scared, Jax.

She didn't say it aloud, she instead took a second to pull in a deep breath. "I'm just tense," she said finally, quietly. "I know it'll be okay. That we'll find our way - we always do." Her fingers smoothed on Macha's furry belly. "I know it'll be okay."

"I don't want white picket fences and easy. I want what we got, however hard that is," Jax said. He stepped back only because Macha was starting to squirm but he kept his gaze on her. "I want easy, but if the choice was easy or this? I'd fight through it."

He reached up, laid a gentle hand on her cheek. "You're right. We'll find our way. I trust you, babe. Now...let's get this girl settled in, huh?"