drownedindreams | Debut: And everything falls apart, and comes back together.

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Debut: And everything falls apart, and comes back together.

“Sometimes, baby, people say things they don’t mean. Because they’re angry, they lie. Do you understand?” Tara shifted in the driver’s seat of the SUV so she could see Abel in the rear-view mirror, ignoring the throbbing pain in her hand. Things had sharpened into pinpoints ever since she’d gotten Thomas and Abel into the car. Pinpoints.

Where were they going.

What if they find us.

What if Abel remembers what Wendy said.

There was nothing that bitch could have said that was worse than she had. Tara knew she’d have to tell Abel someday that she wasn’t his mother - of course she would, because it wasn’t something that you could keep from a child, especially when he got older, but that day? That day wasn’t fucking today. It wasn’t the day that she was going to do what she had to, that she was going to run, or make the deal - it felt like the bullet in her purse was burning a hole inside, a hole that said and they all go away for RICO, the people who were the only family she’d had for years - but they weren’t her family now. They were her jailers, they were the men who had turned on her when she tried to save her sons from the life of guns and death and drugs. She was doing, as she’d told herself a hundred times, what she had to do. It didn’t matter if they hurt her, if they killed her, if it meant that Abel and Thomas could have a better life… it was worth it. If they could live, it was worth it. More than worth it.

“Abel, honey, I said, do you understand?”

“Yes, mommy.” The small voice made her exhale slowly, and she took a deep breath, wishing she could somehow put even more miles between her and Charming, between her and Jax - even now, she wondered. She wondered what he would do, even though she knew. She knew she was a dead woman for getting them out, she was a dead woman walking, and she wondered, honestly, if he’d kill her himself. Probably, it seemed like the sort of thing that the club would do, and what the club would do--

There was so little left of the man she fell in love with, it was all what the club would do. Everything Jax was, the smiling, bright man who was good, who was so inherently good that it oozed out his pores even when he was doing bad shit… he’d tried to do good things, but that man was gone. She wondered, as she let the highway roll under the tires until she’d find a small, no-name motel to stay for the night, how he’d do it. If he’d even feel remorse, if he’d realise what she was trying to do, or if he’d just see the stark betrayal.

“Mama loves you,” she said as she looked back in the mirror, thankful that she got a murmur in response. He was falling asleep, and Tara took a deep breath, her good hand clenching the steering wheel, her bad hand - throbbing where she backhanded Wendy - scrubbing at tears she’d only just now realised streaked her cheeks. “You have to do this,” she said to herself, her voice low. “Stop it. Stop it.” She took another deep breath, the road still rolling under her tires, every minute a minute more she’d have with her sons.

Tara pulled into the motel at around 11pm - it was forty miles off the interstate, and was as non-descript as she’d been able to find without it being seedy. She left the boys sleeping in the car, keeping one eye (and one ear) out for motorcycles while she paid with cash, smiling as she was handed the key. “Thank you,” she said sincerely to the night clerk, before she moved out to the SUV, moving to open Thomas’ door first. “Abel, honey, we’re here. Wake up, okay? We’re on an adventure.” She unclipped Thomas’ carrier from the cradle, and turned around to grab the door to close it, and her hand found only air. She turned full circle, and the carrier banged against the door she was standing in front of, jerking in her hand and waking up Thomas. She was in a non-descript hallway, in front of a door labeled 15. “Abel? Abel?” Her voice rose as she turned around in another circle, even as Thomas began to cry. “Where’s my son? Where is my son?”

She pounded on the door, not knowing who or what was inside, but the SUV was gone, Abel was gone, and Thomas wailed.

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Tara tipped her head back when he got that close, and she wasn't looking at Abel - she was looking at him, her eyes searching his face like somehow the answer she was looking for was there. He looked younger - he didn't have that wall he'd built after he'd taken the gavel, that distance that she was partly to blame for after she'd gone to Stockton.

Everything'd changed when that happened. When Pamela Torric died, when they came and took her away. It was the wakeup call that this life - that they were trapped in this life, and she was the only one who still had enough sight left to get the boys out. He used to have that, too. He used to be able to see it, and the man in front of her, he hadn't lost his sight yet.

She finally shook her head when he asked if he'd talked about vanishing, about him mentioning it. "You've never talked about it. So.... So I'm there. I'm still there, with him? He's okay?" Her lower lip trembled, and she finally looked at Abel, even as Thomas realised his father was there, and his cries quieted to mere hiccups, and he reached for him, lunging in Tara's arms in the way that babies who didn't realise that gravity was a concern, do. "Daddy. Daddy!" Tara looked at Thomas suddenly, like she just remembered that she was holding their son, and then back at Jax, and she shook her head. It wasn't her rejecting this, it was that she didn't know what to do, but she had to hold it together for their boys. For their sons.

"Thomas, sweetheart," she finally said thickly, "Daddy's going to put Abel down, and then it's time for bed. Daddy will come say goodnight, okay?" Her eyes found Jax's again, and she licked her lips, her voice low, and it was clear she wasn't talking to Thomas anymore because it didn't have that fake, up-lifted tone she just used. "We can figure this out. We- The boys need to go down, but then we can figure it out."

"I only got one crib," Jax said, walking backward to Abel's room. "Think they'll both fit?"

Think you'll look at me like I'm not some kind of monster and trust me to put my sons to bed?

The fact that both Thomas and Tara referred to him as Daddy was a balm to his fear and confusion. Whatever had happened in those years between, she still thought of him as the father to their children, thought of Abel as her son. It was what he'd always wanted, delivered in the most warped and twisted package. They must have shared a life together, had all these memories that he couldn't even guess, and then it must have gone so sour in ways he couldn't even guess.

"Seems to me..." he tried to smile and it faltered. "Mommy could use some rest too."

"Yeah, they'll fit," she said with barely a breath, the words small as she hesitated before following him. "He'll fuss for a while, he's not sleeping as much as he used too - it's a thing that happens, when they start really getting their teeth, and he's eating some solid foods, so you can give him Cheerios and baby food-" She stopped herself, because she was trying to tell him what she needed to before things went bad. Tara closed her eyes for a second, swallowing thickly.

"I just- We can try them in the same crib, and then if it doesn't work, maybe if you have a pack and play or something, he's not picky." She was still holding onto Thomas like she had to be ready to run, even though she didn't realise she was doing it. "We should... talk."

It was odd that they fell into this without a thought - fell into taking care of their kids, like it was just... normal even though it was anything but. Even though everything she saw said that he was really from Belfast, she thought she'd gone crazy. That when she saw him, she saw the man she'd loved, she saw him when Abel was still only a year old, even though it wasn't true. Even though the reality was much harsher, and she knew it, so she assumed it was insanity. That they were in the motel, maybe, but that he found her, and this was how her mind was processing it.

If it was going to happen, she'd rather have the boys somewhere else. She'd rather have them anywhere else, and now, if they were in the back room, that was far enough away that even if they heard it, it wouldn't somehow be in front of them. She wasn't ever afraid that Jax would hurt the boys, and she held Thomas close for a second, and she pressed a kiss to the top of his head, holding him before she moved to put him down in the crib. She stared at Abel - it had to be Abel, she knew it did, and she took another deep breath. "Mama loves you," she said again - not knowing anything else to say, before she looked up at Jax, and her hand lightly pressed against Abel's chest, before she nodded. "Okay." She was ready, and she exhaled slowly, because she'd tried. She'd tried, she'd done everything she could, and now it was this.

Edited 2014-01-21 19:26 (UTC)

"Bedroom's across the hall," Jax said, trying not to see that fear in her eyes, to make this a normal, straightforward conversation. This was no heavier than stopping to talk about what they'd have for dinner. It was sadly optimistic. Tara looked at him like he could burn her; he seriously doubted she'd spend the night next to him.

He filled up the space around them by fussing over Abel, getting him soothed and back to sleep. Thomas seemed used to this, to being close to another body, though Abel squalled a little bit. He took out another blanket and wrapped them each in one and bent to kiss their heads.

"I got some old pizza, bread and shit like that. Scrambled eggs?"

He didn't know how to be this, to be softer and safer. She'd never demanded that sort of safety from him and he'd never thought about how to provide it.

Tara stared at him for a long moment, her brows knitting in confusion. 'I- um. Eggs. Coffee. You mentioned coffee?" It wasn't adding up, to her. If he was going to do it, to take her away, if the guys were waiting or he was going to shoot her, she didn't know why he asked her about food. Why he did anything, really.

She pulled in a breath, and looked away as she exhaled, as Thomas stared up at his father, his eyelids growing heavy from being wrapped in a blanket. He still got security from that, and it tended to put him to sleep.

"I think," she said after a second, "I think I've gone crazy. So. There's that." She said it quietly, and it seemed like every muscle in her body was tense, on edge, ready for fight or flight, and she didn't know what to do.

It was starting to hit him right in the gut that Tara wasn't just scared. There wasn't something nameless pursuing her. She was scared of him. She kept looking at him like he was the monster coming out from under the bed.

"Your stuff's still out there. In the hall," he said, commenting on the stupid shit because the harder stuff was getting to be too horrible to contemplate.

Jax walked to the kitchen, pretending not to listen for the sound of Tara following. "Where do you want to sleep?"

She nodded when he said that, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she moved to go get it. She was cold, but more than that, she was afraid, and confused. "Okay. I'll go get it." She licked her lips, and when she went to get her things, she palmed the knife out of her purse, moving it to an outside pocket so she'd be able to get to it easily.

She came back, and she carefully shut the door, not chain locking it, just in time for his question, which made her brows knit even more. "I- I'm not really tired-" She was exhausted, it was two in the morning, not that she knew that. She'd barely been sleeping, the last few nights. "Just a cup of coffee," she said after a second, and she licked her lips, her eyes darting around his apartment like a nervous rabbit, until her eyes flicked over the bike posters, and she rolled her eyes. "I'm amazed you don't have those calendars and shit that's plastered all over the office," she was trying to keep it light, but it was so forced, and she was still waiting for that shoe to drop.

Finally, she just said it. "If you're-" She stopped, having to take a deep breath as her face crumpled. "When you do it, I'd- I'd rather it not be in front of the boys, so." She pulled in a deep breath. "It's better, if they're asleep-" her hand was shaking as she shook her head a second time, her fingers scrubbing at her face. "I can't just pretend like it's okay, until then. I can't, Jax. I can't- coffee, and talking about where I'm going to sleep?" She pulled in an uneven breath. "I know it's coming. I don't know what's going on, but I know it's coming, I can't pretend."

Edited 2014-01-21 22:01 (UTC)

There it was. The cagey fear, the implications in her words. All of them were like a sledgehammer to the chest.

"Tara...what do you think I'm gonna do?" he asked, refusing to acknowledge the obvious.

Three years. Three years apart and in that time, he'd become a man that Tara thought capable of killing her. Maybe, to her, she wasn't even a man anymore. Maybe he had become a monster. The look she gave him now? He felt like he'd transformed into one before her eyes.

"Tara. Do you really think I'd–" he couldn't even say it, could barely comprehend it.

Jax closed his eyes, leaned back against the counter and tried to begin to under stand what was happening. "Jesus Christ..."

Her voice rose as she stared at him, not understanding his disbelief, that he didn't just immediately understand. She was so wound up that she didn't get that he didn't know, that his questions had been sincere, and she shook her head, her face twisting. "You know. You know, and I can't- I did what I had to do, at least I tried, Jax. I know I tried my best to stop our boys from having this eat them alive the way it's eaten you."

"I've gone crazy," she said then, taking a deep breath. "When I look at you, I see the man I loved, not the man who you've become, and it makes this worse, I think. You wanted to get them away from this." Her eyes flicked up to his, and she pulled in a deep breath. "Just- Please, tell them- tell them that I- that it was an accident. Tell them that I loved them."

"Tara," he said, his voice beginning to shake a little, because being strong was so goddamn hard right now. Tara, the one person for whom he tried the most to hold up that strength, was expecting to die tonight. Worse than that, she expected it to be by his hand.

Swallowing, he tried again, reaching out slowly with open and empty hands. "Tara. I'm not going to hurt you. Please, you have to believe me."

Jesus, what had he done?

"What happened?"

Her eyes bounced up when he said that, her expression clear with disbelief - not that she thought he was lying, but that she didn't understand. "What do you mean, what happened?" She pulled in a deep breath, then another.

It was fucked up, but when he said that - when he said that he wasn't going to hurt her, she believed him. She believed him, because even in the end he'd never been the sort of man who would lie to her. Not about this, he'd tell her, he'd tell her what he had to do, she knew he would. She just didn't know how it was going to happen, but what he said--

There was hope, maybe, but there was also so much confusion. "I- I don't understand." She was standing in his living room with toys littering the couch, watching him in the kitchen, and nothing made sense anymore. "I've gone crazy. I just- I lost it, I must have." She shook her head as she bit her lip. She was shaking with exhaustion and stress, but she took a deep breath as she tried to speak evenly. "This can't be real."

Edited 2014-01-22 00:35 (UTC)

Slowly, with all that wild animal approach, Jax came forward and rested his hands on her shoulder. All he wanted to do was kiss her, hang on tight and never let go, tell her how everything would be better now. He'd be able to get to know his new son, make up for all the gaps. He'd do everything right by all of them and never look back if only Tara would look him in the eye with a fraction of the love that used to overflow from her.

"You have to believe me, Tara. I swear on those kids over there that I'm not gonna hurt you."

He didn't know how to make her believe him. He'd never had to before, never had to fight to prove to someone like this that he wasn't gonna kill her. The fact that it was Tara who looked at him like the fucking reaper himself...it just about killed him.

"I know how insane it all sounds but I swear to God. It–I'm–real."

She didn't pull away from him, her eyes searching his. "I don't know how to tell if you're who I'm seeing, or if I'm seeing something that's not real," she said quietly, her hands coming up to rest on the old hoodie, on his chest. "It makes no sense, Jax. You- I know you wouldn't lie to me, that you wouldn't say that you weren't going to hurt me-" Her lower lip trembled as she spoke as tears slipped down her cheeks. She looked away from him as she tried to find the right words, to gather her thoughts.

"You'd tell me that you were doing what you had to do, so I don't know what to think, because- It's all that's left, isn't it?" Her eyes came back to his. "But you wouldn't lie to me, and- I don't understand. Abel was in the car, and then I was here and he was gone, and he's a baby, and you don't have the scars, and you didn't know Thomas-" She shook her head, forcing herself to take a deep breath. "Our son," she said softly. "He's twenty-one months, Jax. Is- Is this real? Is this somehow real? Are you not- you're not-" You, is the only word she can think to say, but she knows it makes no sense, none of it.

Instinct led him to move his hands off her shoulders, circling her into his arms. He couldn't think of a single word to give her. There were no platitudes or consolations that he could dredge up and lay on her pain like a bandage. All he could do was hold tight to her and hope that she'd be convinced that he wasn't the monster.

Maybe he needed to convince himself of that too.

"I wish I knew what to say." He wished he knew what he had to do so that he had something, some seed of hope to offer her.

"I swore to myself, after we served and we got out, I'd never miss another day of my kids' lives..." And now he had an almost two-year-old son that knew him, but Jax had never seen before.

"God. He's our son and I've missed so much of his life."

It was a dream, maybe. Maybe she wasn't crazy, maybe it was a dream, and she wasn't alone now. Maybe things were okay here because she dreamed it, and she let herself fall into him, let him hold her. She buried her face against his neck, her eyes tightly closed as she cried. "Don't leave," she said thickly. "I don't know if this is a dream, but I don't want to wake up." Her breath hitched as she tried to keep her voice even. "I love you." It was the first time she'd said the words since she'd gotten out of prison. "I love you, Jax, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," The hoodie was balled in her fingers as she let him hold her, as he could feel her tears against his neck and soaking into the worn fabric.

If she could turn back time, she would have this man, this man, instead of the man who currently sat at the head of the table, who carried the gavel. She'd try again, to save them both - even if it was a dream, she had to tell him how much she loved him, because she didn't know how long she had. She pulled back enough that she could lean upward and kiss him desperately, her eyes tightly closed.

Edited 2014-01-22 02:06 (UTC)

"I'm right here," he promised, holding her as tightly as he could. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."

When she kissed him it was like a sigh of relief. All the tension drained out because Tara finally looked at him with something other than fear. Those words meant so much right now. Her kiss felt like more than any other kiss he'd had lately. It was symbolic of something now, of him having a chance to banish that fear that haunted Tara's face.

Eggs, coffee, toast, making up the couch into a bed if need be. They could all wait until after Jax kissed her.

Edited 2014-01-22 02:13 (UTC)

Everything she'd done, everything she had to do, it melted into the background because for now, for just these minutes until she woke up, until she got back her sanity, until whatever the hell had happened changed back, she had him. She had him, not the man who was alone in a room full of people, who was so eaten up by the club and violence that he'd turned into the man he'd despised.

"Don't change," she said as she pulled back slightly, her hands cupping the back of his neck, the bandage rough against his skin. "Don't change. I need- I need you to stay." She finally opened her eyes, looking up at him. "I need you, Jax. I can't do this anymore. I can't." It wasn't just wanting the good old days, it was that without him, she'd lost everything. She'd lost him, and she'd lost everything.

She looked up at him, her hand finding his cheek. "I love you. I would do anything to keep you." Her eyes shined with tears that she had yet to shed, and she tried to blink them away, the small smile on her face was one of self-deprecation. "You have no idea what's going on, I know that, but just- I need you to know that. That I have never, ever stopped loving you, I just- I had to try." She had to try to save their sons.

He nodded, holding her close, bending his head to kiss her hair and just linger in that place, try and take away some of that fear. "I never stopped loving you. I let those feelings go dull, lost you a while. Lost myself on the road and the club and in the easy shit right in front of me." In Wendy and porn stars and vengeance and violence.

"I found you again and I'm not fucking this up. Not here."

Jax wanted so badly for her not to be scared of him.

"It's...almost three in the morning. Jesus Christ. You've gotta be so fucking tired."

The offer was unspoken; the bed was big enough for two and he'd hold her until this was her reality. Until she had faith in him again. "I don't have work tomorrow so we can figure all our shit out."

She reached up to his hand that cupped the side of her neck, and held it there, the bandage rough and not helping the continued throbbing - she'd fucked it up some when she'd hit Wendy. She closed her eyes as he pressed a kiss to her hair. She shook her head as he said that he lost her. "This- what you did, it's nothing. It's nothing, baby. It's- You're a good man. You're a good man." The tears-- she wasn't a crier, but it had been too much today, she didn't know what was happening to her.

She pulled in a breath, and nodded when he said she must be tired. "I've slept like... ten hours in the past week," she said with a soft, breathless laugh. "I- I'm terrified that if I go to bed, you'll be him when I wake up." She whispered the words, holding his hand that cupped her neck tighter. "Promise? Promise-" She took his hand finally, and pressed a kiss to his fingers, her eyes flicking up to his. "We need to talk. Tomorrow, if- if this is real, we need- god." Her eyes ran over his face, her hand finding his cheek. Her thumb smoothed over his cheekbone as she shook her head. "Okay?"

"I promise, babe."

When she called him that, Jax only nodded, because he had a harder time seeing the good in himself. He could see how necessary it was to try and live like a good man, to try and do what he saw as right to take care of the people he loved. "C'mon. I got some shirts and shit you can put on." He wasn't stupid enough to mention sex right now, not when Tara had only just let him kiss her again.

"Make up the couch if you want. Bed's big enough for two, if you want to make sure I'm still me in the morning."

And he would be. Not only that, he'd be better in the morning. He'd kiss his boys and make something that wasn't cereal in a bowl. Maybe even take them out. Anything to make them happy.

She looked up at him, her eyes searching his, and she leaned up and kissed him, and it was remarkably similar to years and years ago, when he'd shot Kohn and there'd been a body bleeding out on the floor. She whispered against his lips, her fingers featherlight on his cheek. "If you're not you tomorrow, I'm not going to throw away tonight." Her eyes found his, and she pulled in a breath, her hands slipping under the hoodie, down his chest to his waist.

"I've missed you so much," she breathed, and she had to close her eyes, so that he couldn't see the pain in them, but she needed to be close, to touch him, to not lose him yet.

Edited 2014-01-22 05:16 (UTC)

Jax laughed then, honest to God laughed like all the tension had just been pulled out of him and he could hold her again. "You're gonna have tonight," he promised. "And tomorrow morning. And every fucking day you want after that I swear it."

He ran a hand down her side, fingers hunting out the familiar places hidden under the change of having had a baby. He was going to enjoy discovering those changes too, reacquainting himself with the person he knew he needed more than anyone else. After four months here and weeks before that without her, it was like breathing again after too long underwater.

"I missed you too," he said, laughing and kissing her again before bending down to grab her around the hips and carry her away.

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Debut: And everything falls apart, and comes back together.

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