drownedindreams: ([doc] sick)
Tara Knowles ([personal profile] drownedindreams) wrote2014-04-20 07:44 pm

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.
toanend: (Default)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-04-21 09:16 am (UTC)(link)
"Tara?"

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.
toanend: (just don't go without me)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-04-26 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
There's a lot of information in those scattered fragments, and the only sense Katie can make of it is this: that she has to go to Tara and wrap her arms around her, hand rubbing gently along her back. It doesn't matter that she hasn't known her long or that she's not sure what the details are. All that matters is that Tara is hurting and she needs someone, and Katie won't let her do this alone. She's been alone with the pain too often to let anyone else go through that.

"Shh," she murmurs, reaching up to stroke her hair. "Take deep breaths. Tara, who's in surgery? What happened?"
toanend: (keep pushing the bruise)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-04-28 09:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh, my God," Katie breathes out. Stunned, she keeps moving her fingers gently through Tara's hair, body on autopilot as her mind freezes. The boys must be down in the daycare with Jamie or else with friends, and she hopes to God that neither Abel nor Thomas had to see their father hurt. It's bad enough Tara's had to. It's bad enough she has to go through this at all, without something more to worry about.

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."
toanend: (don't you let me lie here and die here)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-04-30 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie shakes her head, hands steady on Tara's arms now. "No, I was going home," she says. "But I'm not in a rush." Jamie is down in the daycare, and they're understanding. Nurses and doctors run overtime constantly, and she knows her son is safe in the meanwhile. At this moment and time, she feels like Tara needs her more — or, at least, that she needs someone.

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.
toanend: (Default)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-04 09:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie reaches for her hand, biting her tongue to keep her own emotions in check. It's hard to see a friend hurting like this. She doesn't understand some of what Tara is saying, but she gets the gist of it and she understands the sentiment. This is meant to be a safe place, somewhere to start over, free of the pain and the trials of the life before. At least, that's what it's been for her, for the most part, but there are old wounds and troubles that never fully die.

"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?"
toanend: (Default)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-07 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie shakes her head. "No," she says softly, "Tara... It doesn't mean you did anything wrong, you hear me? Sometimes terrible things happen. And it doesn't matter how good you are or how hard you try, they happen. It doesn't mean you deserve it." It's something she's struggled with for years. Even now, saying it, she knows it's true for Tara, but it's harder to believe it for herself. Sometimes she catches herself thinking that all the terrible things David said about her were true. Sometimes she finds herself wondering if things will really be okay or if she'll start making the same mistakes again, the ones that made David hurt her like he did. Reminding herself it isn't true, that he hurt her because he was sick and something inside him was twisted and wrong, is a feat she finds herself having to take on time and again. She never deserved it.

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.
toanend: (at the end; always the end)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-11 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a small relief, at least, in the middle of all the awfulness Tara's facing. Katie would wish that on anyone else, but she knows she would have understood. Something like that, your husband beating you, it always seemed so simple on the other side of it. It used to be easy to assume she would just leave. Now, now, she knows it's not like that at all.

"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."
toanend: (an ache I still remember)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-15 01:14 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a start, Katie thinks. She's more coherent now, though it must be difficult to talk about this at all, about much of anything right now. Katie takes a deep breath, slow and solid, as if leading by example, and reaches up to brush some tears from Tara's cheek.

"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.
toanend: (Default)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-18 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie shakes her head, giving Tara's hands a squeeze. "We won't let that happen," she says. She has no proof of it, no anchor for her decisiveness, but she means it all the same. There is no way in hell she's going to let children be kept from a fit and loving mother, not if she can help it, and she knows those boys love Tara. She doesn't know Jax, but she is certain that if he loves Tara half as much as she loves him, he won't even try, but if he does, she'll find a way to stop it. "He can't keep you from them. Legally, unless he can prove that you're harmful for them in some way, he can't do it."

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."
toanend: (played me like a little game)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-20 06:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie looks down at their hands, heart aching for her friend, and prays for the words to convey what she feels to be true. It's a thought that's given her comfort over the last few years, but not one she's ever quite put into coherent words. Instead, she's let the truth of it sit like a warm weight in her heart, unspoken, understood.

"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."
toanend: (to anyone I trust enough to listen)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-25 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie nods, emphatic, and deep down she knows this is what she's been put in the world for, to help others. Nothing feels as good or right, and she could never let a friend wade through this alone. No one should ever have to, and if her experience can help Tara, then that pain becomes worth something. It makes a difference, makes the hurt seem less in vain.

"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."
toanend: (an ache I still remember)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-05-26 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Katie shakes her head. "I'm just glad you don't have to be alone with this," she says. Too much of her life, she had to face the darkest moments alone. As a child, at least, when she lost her father, she had her family around her. When things got difficult with David, though, she turned inward. Every time she got the strength to complain to her friends about the way he treated her, it would falter again when he came home to her. She let herself say it was nothing, that they would work it out, too many times. But that's just taught her to see a little more clearly, or so she hopes. Some things can't be saved, but others can.

"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.
toanend: (an ache I still remember)

[personal profile] toanend 2014-06-01 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
The reminder is a potent one, badly needed. Katie knows things are better now, that she's happier than she's been in a long, long time. When she looks back, though, it's with regret, trepidation, guilt, shame. It's hard to see what she lived through and not think she was at least partially responsible for the way David treated her. It's hard to think about how he hurt her and know she still loves him a little, that she always will, that it was love that kept her with him all those years. She never really thinks of her life here as one of strength, of what she did as surviving. She just knows she wasn't going to let him own her anymore. With what Tara says, though, she feels it for a moment, and it's like falling, weightless and stunned, but knowing the landing will be soft.

"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?"