Tara Knowles (
drownedindreams) wrote2014-04-20 07:44 pm
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i'm a dead man walkin' here
Tara had to brush her teeth. That was the thought that drove her to the staff locker rooms, and it was while she was staring at herself in the mirror that she realised something.
She'd thrown up two days ago. Two days ago, when she'd finished sewing back together the Locos Lobos kid who'd been shot. She'd thrown up today.
Jax was still in surgery. Thankfully, a surgeon had been able to step in, but Tara had a hair-thin line on her own mental state. She'd stopped crying, but right now, right as she finished brushing her teeth, she spat in the sink and dropped the toothbrush with a clatter of plastic on porcelain. Shaking hands gripped the cold lip of the sink as she tried to breathe and fight the panic and (again) welling nausea. "No, no, no, please, God, this can't be happening." She murmured it to herself, not even realising that at some point, she'd lost the privacy she'd not even realised she'd needed.
She'd thrown up two days ago. Two days ago, when she'd finished sewing back together the Locos Lobos kid who'd been shot. She'd thrown up today.
Jax was still in surgery. Thankfully, a surgeon had been able to step in, but Tara had a hair-thin line on her own mental state. She'd stopped crying, but right now, right as she finished brushing her teeth, she spat in the sink and dropped the toothbrush with a clatter of plastic on porcelain. Shaking hands gripped the cold lip of the sink as she tried to breathe and fight the panic and (again) welling nausea. "No, no, no, please, God, this can't be happening." She murmured it to herself, not even realising that at some point, she'd lost the privacy she'd not even realised she'd needed.
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The locker room was a public place — isolated from the public, but shared by the staff — and still Katie had the distinct and uneasy feeling she had interrupted something she shouldn't have. She wasn't about to turn away, though. Whether or not someone else was here, she needed to change and get her things so she could get home, and it wouldn't have been right not to announce her presence. Besides, she liked Tara. If something was wrong, she couldn't just walk away from that.
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"I can't be pregnant," she says as she looks back at her toothbrush in the sink. Her face crumples, and she covers her mouth with one hand as she tightly closes her eyes. "He's still in surgery, I can't-" That's when she starts to cry, half-turned away from Katie, her shoulders hitching as she gave up trying to hold herself together.
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"Shh," she murmurs, reaching up to stroke her hair. "Take deep breaths. Tara, who's in surgery? What happened?"
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Because, right now, all the good things were sliding away from her so fast that she could barely catch her breath. She lets Katie hug her, and she sobs into her hands, nearly into Katie's shoulder, but she manages to speak after a moment. "Jax. Jax's in surgery, he was stabbed-" She's hiccuping the words, her face still hidden. "I've thrown up three times in as many days and I can't do this."
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She shushes her softly, but manages to bite back the words on her tongue, it's okay. It isn't. It might be later, but it isn't now. "We have amazing surgeons here. They'll take care of him. If there's anything that can be done, they'll do it. He's in good hands."
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She's not wearing the brace now, since she'd taken it off to scrub in for surgery, and it'd been the last thing on her mind when she'd left. The biggest scar that tore through her hand was jagged and misshapen, the others thin and straight from the amount of corrective surgeries she'd had. Still, she'd done neonatal thoracic before that; she'd been the one to repair the damage to Abel's heart and to close the tear in his belly. Tara knew what she was doing, but she was terrified that she'd somehow made a mistake. That she hadn't done enough, soon enough, and add this to it...
"He was stabbed twice and they kicked his bike into an SUV," she finally said quietly, and she's still shaking her head, before she closes her eyes tightly and looks at the ground. Taking a deep breath, she forces herself to stop pressing her fingers to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm okay. You... god, are you your break?" She's trying to somehow pull herself together even though she's so scared - and she's not even thinking about Abel and Thomas, even though she should be. Right now, it's just Jax in her mind.
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She's used to being the one who needs a shoulder. That was always the case back home, but her life there was not what it is now. Now things are better than they've been in a long, long time, and she has the strength to be there for others the way they always have been for her. Nodding towards a bench, she says, "Here, you should sit. Don't be sorry. It's alright. You don't have to be okay."
It's a terrible thing that's happened. She can't imagine what she would do if that happened to Russell — even if it happened to David.
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She feels useless. She feels hopeless. Tara's shoulders hitch as she starts to cry, the stress of all of it being too much. "And I've thrown up three times, and I can't have a baby now, I can't." The words are thick and unintelligible through her tears - and she has no idea what the hell she can do. What she should do, or how to even move forward.
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"Jax is gonna get through this, okay?" she murmurs. "You are going to get through this. I'm right here, Tara, I'm not going anywhere." If she has to, she can call Molly to watch Jamie for the night or see if Paul has plans. She's not about to abandon Tara now, though. "Are you having any other symptoms?"
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Her words were raw and heartfelt, the tears slipping down her cheeks before she shook her head. "Just- I mean, I guess I've been emotional and I normally don't cry, but nothing else." She pulls in a breath, and looks up at the ceiling. "Sometimes," she said after a second, 'I wonder what we did, you know? Because things keep happening." Every time it seemed like things had been going well, everything fell apart. ... But she knew what they did. What they both did, starting with Josh, and spiraling out of control. Maybe... this was because of that.
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She hesitates, thumb running over the back of Tara's hand. "Is he... does he do things he shouldn't?" she asks. "I mean, has he... ever hurt you?" I can never leave him. God knows she's said that before. Oh, how she was wrong.
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He didn't have the club. She couldn't protect him.
Tara's head lifted when Katie asked the first question - because the answer to that is unequivocally yes, because Jax has always done things he shouldn't, but the second.... her eyes widen because while there's a whirlwind of thoughts that come with that sentence - Ida. Belfast. We're not your family. The brothel. The secrets. The violence. - she knows that's not what Katie means, and even if she did.... she's said worse to him. God knew she'd hurt him worse, even though in the end.... she knew how it would have ended.
She'd asked him - this him, she'd asked him to make it look like an accident so their boys wouldn't know, which had horrified him to the point that she wondered how much it'd hurt him.
"No. No, he's- He's a good man. He tries hard - we've been together since high school, he's never laid a hand on me, or... or emotional... or anything. He's... he's a good man. I came back- I'm from three years, and things- they broke him." It was the first time she's said it like that. "They ruined us," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Things ruined us. I thought this was a chance-" Her voice caught, and she shook her head yet again.
"He's still good. I... I'm not, and I can't- I can't- he'll hate me, you know that? He'll hate me, and I can't- I was running with my boys, I took them and I was running away and I ended up here, and I know so much and it would kill him--" That's when she looked away, trying to gain some semblance of composure, because this... this wasn't helping, this wasn't her being able to carry on.
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"Tara," she says softly, "look at me." Maybe if she can hold her focus, she can break through the pain and panic enough to help steady her. All her questions will have to wait until Tara seems calm enough to answer, but right now, Katie suspects they would only make things worse. "Listen to me. We all do things we shouldn't, okay? That doesn't make you a bad person. You're good. You help people. You don't have to be perfect. No one is."
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"I changed," she said quietly, flexing her hand reflexively. "I changed and so did he, I just- I couldn't tell him. When I showed up here, I pulled a gun on him - he didn't even know why, he just... let me. He's been there for everything, and now... all I can think is that I'm going to lose that." All her words are quiet, but they're even and actually strung together in coherant sentences - which is an improvement, because Tara's not letting herself think of her worst fears - that she could be pregnant, that Jax could die... none of it. She's not thinking of any of it because if she does, she'll break.
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"Think about it if you have to," she suggests. "He isn't dead. Don't write him off yet." If it happens, she'll hurt plenty later. There's no need to borrow trouble. That's easier said than done, though. "Even if you changed, it sounds like you still both love each other." She's lucky for that. David changed into someone Katie didn't know.
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"I never stopped loving him," she says quietly. "I'll love him until the day I die. I.... I'm not the woman he left behind, Katie. I did things- he hated me, I think. Part of him, he hated me, because of what I did. I took our sons, and I can't keep hiding the things I did. If he lives- When he is better - it's killing me." She whispered the last three words.
"I can't have another baby, I can't-" When she and Jax had offhandedly discussed it, she'd found herself saying she couldn't, but what she thought - from her gut, what she thought was that she couldn't run with three children. She couldn't keep three children safe. "If I tell him - when I tell him, he's going to hate me, and he won't let me near my sons." Everything's come to a head; it's not just Jax's stabbing, it's not just her own crisises, it's not just the pregnancy scare; it's all of it, all together - it's cracked that foundation she'd just patched two days ago.
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She doesn't want to bring child protective services or anything like that into the equation if it can be helped, though. Tara has enough on her plate, and that would probably cause a rift that she clearly doesn't want. "You don't have to have another baby if you don't want to. And if that man loves you, he will love you no matter what you choose, no matter what you did. We forgive each other. That's part of love."
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She shook her head. "And now he's gotten stabbed, and it's just like it was before. Before, back home. I'm- I'm so scared that when he finds out - that it's going to hurt him, that it's going to make him more like the man I married. More like the Jax who I left behind, and-" Tara shook her head. "I can't lose him. I don't know what to do."
She didn't expect Katie to have the answers, but any sort of advice.... it would be a far sight better than what she'd had before.
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"People change," she says slowly. "You change. He changes. You either... learn to do it together or you don't. At home, you couldn't. But if you're open with him, Tara, if you're honest and he's honest, too, then... then maybe you can." She shakes her head, an old hurt in her eyes. Things have been so good lately, so much better than they've been since she was a very little girl, before David, before her father died. Russell is a good man. He does what he can to make the ache dissipate, but deep down, she knows it'll never fully go away and some part of the light inside her will never come back. "David changed. My husband. He didn't tell me anything. He just shut me out. I don't think we ever could have fixed it anyway, not the way he was, but I... it doesn't have to be that for you."
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She nods as Katie speaks, forcing herself to breathe slowly as she tries to really, really listen.
Seeing that hurt, Tara squeezes Katie's hands and it's the two of them against the past. "Jax... he did... too. Shut me out, not fixable the way he was, and the way... our situation was. I'm sorry that you lived through that." She means it, deeply, and she feels like someone finally understands the gravity of what happened. "He became a monster," she said quietly. "The club made him a monster, and it changed him. You're right. And if I'm honest with what happened... with what changed me..." She's afraid both that he'll hate her, and she'll hurt him, but... "Then maybe we can be okay?"
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"The club isn't here," she says. "If he knows what you're afraid of... you can both work on it together. David... I think he was always a monster. He just hid it." It was too late when she realized it, and she loved him too much, so much she couldn't admit what she was saying, what was happening to him, what he was doing to her. "But you know Jax. You know that doesn't have to be him. And it doesn't have to be you. You can learn from what happened. You have a chance to change it."
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"Some people are like that," Tara says quietly. "Some people are, and it's good that you know that. That you got out." She means it, even as she's holding Katie's hand and she feels like she both understands and never can quite understand. "Jax... he became that way, but it wasn't- it was like he was pulled under." She said it quietly. "So... I can help him stop that from happening. We can help stop it from happening, and he can... help me. From where it pulled me under, too." She's saying it like it's the thing that's giving her hope.
Like if she gets through this, if she makes it to the other side.... things may be better- and saying it helps solidify it.
"I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't come in," she said lowly, honestly. "I can't even tell you how much I owe you." She's still not great - of course she's not, Jax is in surgery and she's been up for twenty-odd hours and she's had a hell of a few days, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel, instead of falling down a well.
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"And it helps me, too," she adds after a moment. "I never talk about him to anyone. But at least it feels like it wasn't a complete waste if I can help my friends." She'll take what she learned the hard way and help others. It feels like the best way to avenge what was done to her: to reclaim her own life and help others do the same.
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She's still holding Katie's hands, and she squeezes them a second time. She needs to show her, somehow, just how grateful she is. How much it means.
That's why when Katie says it helps her too, Tara nods - agreeing, obviously, because yeah. Yeah, she gets that as well. "It makes you stronger. I know it doesn't seem like that sometimes, but... make sure you remember it. I know- God, I know I have problems with that." She feels like she's failing on actually trying to communicate and instead there's this waterfall of words, but she forces herself to pull in a breath, then breathe out slowly as she finally lets herself let go of Katie's hands.
"God, I can't even believe this is happening."
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"I wish it weren't," she says. "I'm so sorry this is happening. I — so what actually happened? You said he got in trouble again, like back home. Was this — did someone attack him?"