Tara Knowles (
drownedindreams) wrote2014-05-06 10:59 pm
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It takes her hours to actually let herself call him.
The first time had been a mistake; she'd fumbled around, calling everyone she knew like a cry for help. She couldn't hold herself together, couldn't manage this on her own. What she said then was simple; I need you to come to the hospital. It's Jax. She'd meant to call him, too, but now that the surgery was done, now that people were gone and he was in recovery and there was nothing she could do...
She felt so alone. She'd meant to call him in the beginning, but she'd called Mary instead. Now... now that Jax was resting, and the boys were with Melissa, and she found herself alone. She found herself in the bar across the street from Darrow General, and it didn't matter what time it was. It didn't matter how little sleep she'd gotten. She'd get sleep - she would, but everything was in pieces and broken; everything was a mess, because he told her-- because Jax told her that he'd gotten her a ring and she'd started crying. Because she'd lost it.
And now she was in this dive bar with a rum and coke and she looked like death. She'd been thinking to call him - she didn't know how late or early it was, but she needed a friend, and somehow... there was something about John that made Tara think he'd understand, maybe.
What she said in the phonecall wasn't actually important. It was pretty much I'm going to be honest - I need you to come to Flannigan's, I can't do this. Please. Just you. Not Mary, who had been well meaning but her saying that this place was a new start after Jax had been stabbed again, just like he'd been back home... that wasn't something she could deal with.
She sat there - and had drained at least two drinks, enough that when he comes in, it takes him talking to her for her to notice him. She's still in her scrubs, and even though she's washed Jax's blood off her arms, she's not wearing her brace; the raised ruin of the scar across the back of her hand and the thin, straight scars from the repeated reconstructive surgeries go unnoticed by her, even though the only person who'd seen it before today was Jax.
The first time had been a mistake; she'd fumbled around, calling everyone she knew like a cry for help. She couldn't hold herself together, couldn't manage this on her own. What she said then was simple; I need you to come to the hospital. It's Jax. She'd meant to call him, too, but now that the surgery was done, now that people were gone and he was in recovery and there was nothing she could do...
She felt so alone. She'd meant to call him in the beginning, but she'd called Mary instead. Now... now that Jax was resting, and the boys were with Melissa, and she found herself alone. She found herself in the bar across the street from Darrow General, and it didn't matter what time it was. It didn't matter how little sleep she'd gotten. She'd get sleep - she would, but everything was in pieces and broken; everything was a mess, because he told her-- because Jax told her that he'd gotten her a ring and she'd started crying. Because she'd lost it.
And now she was in this dive bar with a rum and coke and she looked like death. She'd been thinking to call him - she didn't know how late or early it was, but she needed a friend, and somehow... there was something about John that made Tara think he'd understand, maybe.
What she said in the phonecall wasn't actually important. It was pretty much I'm going to be honest - I need you to come to Flannigan's, I can't do this. Please. Just you. Not Mary, who had been well meaning but her saying that this place was a new start after Jax had been stabbed again, just like he'd been back home... that wasn't something she could deal with.
She sat there - and had drained at least two drinks, enough that when he comes in, it takes him talking to her for her to notice him. She's still in her scrubs, and even though she's washed Jax's blood off her arms, she's not wearing her brace; the raised ruin of the scar across the back of her hand and the thin, straight scars from the repeated reconstructive surgeries go unnoticed by her, even though the only person who'd seen it before today was Jax.
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Tara is hunched like she wants to disappear into the heavy pine of the bar, but she’s easy to spot. He slides into the stool next to hers and orders and whiskey - and for good measure, “Another for her.” He manages a half-smile for her. “Long day?” It isn’t really a question.
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She's starting to go way past tipsy to drunk, and she doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything, right now. "Jax got stabbed by some guys on motorcycles and hit by an SUV, so I guess it's the same old, same old."
Sarcasm is the only thing that she can hide behind, her scarred hand pressing flat against the wood bar to stop it from trembling.
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That doesn't make the current situation much less shit, of course.
“How’s he doing?” For now, he lets ‘same old, same old’ slide without asking questions.
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She swallows thickly. "He's sleeping. He'll live." Which was a miracle, considering. "I was the surgeon on staff when he came in." She says that shortly, because she knows he'll understand. That she was the one trying to put him back together.
"You know, funny story, this exact same thing happened back home, but on the other side. Same positioning, same number, roughly the same depth - I wasn't the doctor on call then because he was in Stockton, but I guess getting hit by an SUV is the same as being left for dead, right? This time he got help, last time he didn't?" Her voice cracks at the end, and she's still staring at the bar, and takes another drink.
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“Well, fuck.” He exhales, tipping the whiskey around in its glass, and then taking a sip. “And they say lightning doesn’t strike twice. Tara-“ he tips his head to the side to look at her, “the important part is that he did get help. He’s gonna be okay."
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"Yeah. Yeah, that's the important part." Tara takes a deep swallow of her drink, and then she stares into the glass. "He's higher than a kite right now." Obviously, and Tara- who was not a drinker, who didn't really get drunk, she clearly was a woman on a mission. "He apparently was heading home with a ring," she said it quietly, to the glass that she turned in her fingers. With a ring only really meant one thing, when you were talking about your significant other that you weren't married to.
"And you know, all I could think - all I could think was that if he actually knew who I was, he'd hate me. He wouldn't even want me in our house, much less around my sons, and he wouldn't have had a ring. You know, he probably wouldn't have even gotten stabbed, because he'd just have kept doing side jobs and getting back into this shit." The last word's a little too loud, and she has to force herself to take a deep breath in, and out. "Sorry. I... Sorry."
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Not for the first time, he wonders if he and Tara have more demons in common than either of them quite realize.
He downs his drink and waves down the bartender for another. “Nah,” he says after a beat. “Nah. Love’s way more messed up than that. Doesn’t matter what he knows. He loves you. He’s crazy about you. You won't get rid of him that easily.” Another beat, and then, casual as he can, “What’s he gotten into?” The attack on Jax had been planned, a retaliation of some kind, you’d have to be stupid not to see that. Why does’t matter that much to John, except that knowing would make it a hell of a lot easier to track down the bastards.
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"Club shit, but he doesn't have a club. Some... prospect, from Locos Lobos, got him to fix up his car, and I flipped my shit. I... thought it was going back to bad shit, and I told him to stop. To just... suck up the fact that he wasn't the breadwinner." She hadn't said it that way. Hadn't meant it that way, but she was blaming herself so much for what happened. "And he stopped. He stopped, even though they kept coming around to the shop, even though they gave him shit and picked at him and he ended up getting in a fight, and now? This."
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He wishes he believed that a little more, but for now, he’ll believe it for Tara’s sake. “So some stupid kids get rattled ‘cause Jax won’t mess around with them ‘cause he isn’t an idiot, and they come after him, and that’s your fault? You’re full of shit. The gangbangers on their motorbikes, they’re the ones to blame. Trust me, I saw them do it."
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"I'm trying," she says finally. "And it's- He doesn't have the club. He doesn't have the backup that he should have, and they tried to kill him, and-" her hand with the glass starts to shake, and she sets it down on the table harder than she should as she takes a deep breath. "This has never been who he is, John. Never. He's always been outlaw, for as long as I knew him, and he wasn't stupid about it, but this shit is out of his territory. He did it because I asked."
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“From what I’ve heard, you’re both a lot better off without that motorbike club. You’ve just gotta learn to live with that, learn to pin your problems on something else.” His voice goes gentle at the end, more gentle than the words might imply. “They didn’t kill him. Jax is alive, and he’s gonna stay alive ‘cause he’s gonna stay away from those guys. And if he does ever need backup,” he rolls his shoulders a bit, “Jax has always got backup."
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"That club- it's who he is. I don't- I don't know what I'm doing, I don't- We always talked about getting out, but- but not what would after, and-" She's twisting herself in circles, and getting more upset as she tries to explain. "I'm not pinning my problems on the club, I- There are-"
"That's not who he is," she says as she finally looks at him. "Jax is not the kind of guy who stays away from those guys, John. He never has been, and he won't be, and if he tries, it'll work for a little while until one of them pushes too far and then I'm going to get a phone call because either he's in jail or dead or needs to find a place to put a body. That is the kind of backup he needs, and- Just- I don't know why I called. I'm sorry." She's shaking, and she's trying not to cry because everything's in pieces and she's slept three hours out of the last thirty and the man who's functionally her husband is lying across the street in the ICU - and the last two and a half days, even without this, have been a trial.
She called him because she buckled under the pressure, but she'd forgotten that she'd been hiding so much of herself from the world that nobody knew what the hell was going on. It was how she'd sort of made it be - even Jax didn't know, she'd been carrying all of these burdens herself and just trying to bear up under the weight of them for him and their family. Jax isn't in the hole she's in and so can see a way out; Tara's going to need to be lead, because she's so deep that she can't even see what John's saying is even possible.
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“And...” He downs the rest of his second drink. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say, except I’ve got your back, yours and Jax’s, and I don’t really care what you’ve done, or even what you might do. It’s all...it’s all fine.” John almost laughs at the memory that springs to mind. “I know exactly what kind of backup you mean, and you've got it."
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The smile that comes from the way he says It's all fine is one she can't control, as is the virtually hysterical laugh she manages to swallow. "You know, I think I need to be a lot more drunk." She looks over at him. "I need to be way more drunk, and then I think things would be okay, right?" Right. She says so. Right.
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She was alone. "I hadn't realised you were with him when they took him to the hospital, when I called you. You must have had a hell of a day." Her voice sounds not quite right - it's pitched just a titch too high, and sounds hollow to someone who knew her. She's trying to make this not be about her, because the last thing she needs to hear is another person telling her to keep fighting and trying when it's been her life for nearly a year.
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Her hand - the scarred one, when she picks up her glass it's shaking like she's... well, like she's got nerve damage and is exhausted and has lost a lot of fine motor control when she's fatigued, and it's the final straw because she puts down her glass abruptly with a thump and she covers her face with her hands and just starts to cry. It's quiet - hell, it's telling in and of itself that Tara cries silently - she has since she was a little girl, all pulled into herself because she's used to being the only person she has.
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