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I. I can see the darkness, through the cracks.
“We’re never getting out, are we?” She whispers it into his shoulder, hoping maybe he didn’t even hear that it got lost somewhere between, like everything else. Only he tenses and shifts, pulling away; just a bit further every day. She aches to reach a hand out and touch him, to feel something, anything. She starts rethinking the ‘we’, maybe she should have just asked if she would get out, or if she would just be another old lady who gets her head bashed in to send a message. That’s all the wives are anyway, ways to hurt the club, crush them a bit more. He never answers, his breathing slows and he turns away from her, because there are no more lies left, none that she’ll believe.
Tara used to love their house. It was small and cozy, always the right side of cluttered, with its mismatched furniture and that awful zebra blanket Abel had picked out for her last birthday. Only now the cracks start to show, that shiny veneer dulls a bit in the dark. She sits in the kitchen, listening to the tick of the clock, unable to sleep, afraid to dream. She starts seeing all the things she pushed to the back, buried deep. There’s the place she begged for her life, the spot half sack bled to death and the high chair Opie had helped her build while Jax was inside. Its little snippets of memories that start pouring out until she can’t stop them, it’s the hollow feeling in her chest that just won’t go away. Her hand still aches, this phantom pain to remind her every day that nothing will ever be the same. She’s a doctor without a license, a queen without a throne and a woman without a husband.
II. Go to him, stay with him if you can but be prepared to bleed.
Tara starts counting the times she bled for him, because of him. The wounds are little but build into marks, and scars all over her body. The slash on her hand, still red and raw that will never heal right, a scar from a skateboard, the dull thread of headaches that still linger from a concussion caused by the butt of Slazar’s gun. She traces the marks and tries to remind herself that this was all worth it, that giving up her career, her dreams and the safety of her family, all for him was worth it. Only it doesn’t seem like enough anymore, maybe it never was. She’s not even sure if they still love each other, or if its familiarity, comfort, the comfort of having known someone for so long that they remember who you were when you still had dreams. When you weren’t dead inside, like she is now. With every lie it pulls her in a bit deeper.
She asks him that at the kitchen table one night. It’s that rare time when the darkness creeps in and he isn’t gone, this ghost slipping through her fingers. There’s this thing about him that still makes her stomach flip, the little pieces that no one else notices, that she keeps trying to memorize. Jax’s hand reaches for hers’ but stops halfway, lingering in the space between, her eyes catch his but she doesn’t move forward.
“I love you Tara.” He seems so sure, makes it seem so simple, as if love could fix all the wounds, dry all the tears. She stands, touching a hand to his cheek, just for a second, and then she’s gone.
A day later she clings to him, bleeding on her office floor, carpet scratchy against her legs, and she cries because he won’t love her anymore, not after this. T
Tara likes to separate herself into before and after. Before Opie died there was still a chance for Jax, she still had a chance at a career and her boys a shot at getting out. After he died, everything became gnarled and the club tangled them back up, it became Jax’s family more than she could be; his comfort because it fed his need for vengeance. It’s always been about the violence. And now her life is too. Margaret, the nurse, Nero’s partner, Ima, Gemma; the list goes on and on. All people she hurt, because they hurt her first or threatened her family. Jax is a part of her but more and more she thinks he’s the violence, the teeth gnashing monster that threads its way through her until she can’t stop shaking with anger, he’s the pulse that quickens until she can hurt and punish. Maybe she’s that part of him, that reason, or excuse when he shoots. There’s blood on her hands now; such a good old lady.
III. Mommy moved away or mommy passed away.
She’s sick right after Gemma leaves, this heat works its way through her body a racking fear that makes her heart stop. She can imagine her boys growing up without her and it’s the worst pain she’s ever felt. Her head starts spinning as she jumps from one option to the next, desperate tears crowding her eyes. No, NO. She still has the gun close, but it’s not enough, no she has to fix this. She has to beat Gemma, make her go away, out of their lives. That part of her, the angry part that scratches and fights for everything, starts bubbling up. She isn’t weak, she’s an old lady. No.
IV. There is a house in Charming town, they call the Rising Sun. And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl. And me, oh God I’m one.
The cabin used to be their place, he took her up there for the first time when they were 16 and got her drunk and high as a kite. She sets the ash tray between them, her hands braced against the table. He won’t really look at her, but she needs him to, she needs him to believe. He lights a cigarette, fingers clenched. She used to hate the smell, now it’s a little part of home, a tick of something that makes her think of him. She can still feel the bullet in her pocket, but she hopes it won’t come to that, she wants to be smarter, needs to be better than a rat.
For a second she can look at Jax and see what Gemma sees, as she settles into a persona that isn’t second nature but in desperation she clings to it. Jax is lost and she can twist him the way she needs to, he loves her enough, even after she betrayed him, hope still lingered in his eyes, in the shift of his body. Tara swallowed covering his hand with her own, “I love you Jackson.” I’m sorry. I’m scared. I’m lonely. I miss you. I miss us. He doesn’t move away and she looks at him as she slides the papers across, copies of dog eared letters, that missing piece of their puzzle. “Read them, I’ll be outside.”
She lights a joint, pulling her jacket tighter, trying to ward off a bit of the chill. Juice ambles up the walk making a move to pass when she offers it to him. They owe you respect. She doesn’t say she’s sorry but he nods and maybe sees that little piece of her that hasn’t hardened, that she is still that same person who told him what a good job he’d done helping stitch up. Sometimes she still sees the little puppy, who’d followed the guys around for fun, but its less and less with every day.
“Are you going to be okay?” Tara watches Juice mull it over, weighing something. She knows that look, haven’t they all worn it at some point? She takes a deep breath, letting a bit of the smoke billow out her lips.
“It’s not worth it, trust me.” She can’t stop that awful sound from escaping the back of her throat, a half sob, half laugh. “Whatever they made you do, just swallow it and bury it down so deep you can’t feel anymore, okay? Otherwise they’ll bury you.” His eyes cut to her, but Tara is too busy wiping furiously at her own tears, hate. It’s hate that eats at her a bit more every day, not just for the club or Jax or Gemma, but for herself; for the blood on her hands. No matter how many times she stitches someone up or saves a little life, there is always more to take away. “We’ve all had to become people we hate.” Gemma.
Juice grabs her hand, startling her eyes up to his, so full of tears and for the first time Tara sees the collateral damage, beyond just her family. She starts wondering if that same look can be found in Tig and Chibs eyes. It’s the same one she saw in Piney and Opie and they died because of it. He squeezes her hand once and makes for the door, his gait slow and purposeful, and she thinks for a second maybe she stopped what was coming.
(She didn’t, Juice is dead two days later, a gunshot to the head; another example of how she falters and fails to save anyone.)
Jax doesn’t come to find her, after an hour or two, she checks on Bobby, lets Rat go home and goes to him. He’s worked his way through half a pack, the smell of smoke hanging heavy in the air, the room almost blue in the moonlight.
“You knew.” Tara pauses halfway through opening a window, her hand ghosting along the sill. “She told me Clay would keep trying to hurt me, us, I let her have them. I thought it was better, I didn’t want you to let her pull you back in.” She perches on the bed, watching the slow twist of Jax’s body, the tight line of his shoulders slumping a little further into the table.
“I don’t have anything left Jax, this is the only thing I can do to make sure she doesn’t raise my boys- I can’t leave knowing that, I just can’t.” Her voice skips and starts, breaking over words like she was learning to breathe again and failing. Tara can feel the tears falling, but she turns away and back to the window, covering her mouth to silence the sobs. She can feel her rings, heavy and cold against her lips.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Tara.” His hand grabs for hers, clutching it in his. She shakes her head, “mommy moved away or mommy passed away, that’s all that’s left Jax, this is who you are now, who I am, violence is all we have.” She meets his eyes, watching the emotions flit through them; she thinks maybe a part of him is thinking about ending it, taking his knife to her throat, making her bleed a little more for him. Only, there is still that boy she fell in love with, who she’s never seen in a suit, who absolutely refuses to buy vegetables and hates chocolate, it’s those stupid little things she clings to because it makes him human, it makes him hers’.
His hands cup her face, forcing her to look at him, through the tears and hiccuping breaths she can hear him trying to shush her, calm her down.
“No one is going to hurt you Tara, that’s the only promise I can still keep and I’m going to.” He rests his forehead against hers and she can’t help grabbing for him, bunching his shirt in her fist, trying to steal a piece of him back for her and her alone.
“She’s poison Jax.” He shuts his eyes, his nose brushing her cheek, breathing her in. “She killed him, Tara.” Her hand knots into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him back a bit to look her in the eye, “I know, baby.” Her hair is too short for him to really grasp onto, his fingers skitter through the blunt edges, over and over and she can see the weight settling on him.
“I’ll do it.” Jax rears back but she pulls him close again, burying her head against his chest, “It has to be me, it needs to be me.” His arms slowly wrap around her, a heavy weight of her own. Only she can see the pieces knitting back together, a bit of something left to dredge out of the fire. “It has to be me.”
V. I’m staying here to end my life, down in the rising sun.
When he hands it to her, it suddenly feels real; her fingers close around the vial, his hand covering hers and her breath hitches. This is up to her, instead of it being self-defence or her just being a bystander, she actually has to kill someone, watch them die in front of her. For a moment she thinks about backing out, going to the Feds and stealing her boys away from Jax, for a second it seems easier than taking on what’s about to come. Tara knows she won’t be able to undo this moment, that every time she touches Jax or kisses him, a little part of him will see her as a murderer. She knows because she’s started seeing him that way; blood stains even if you wash it off. It will stay with her.
“Are you sure you want to do this.” Tara bows her head, eyes fixed on their hands, his Son’s rings heavy against her fingers. She reaches for his other hand finding his wedding ring. “I’m sure.” Clay died his way, big and bloody and this isn’t going to be that. This has to be her way, only a Queen can take out another queen. She kisses his cheek, her eyes avoiding the hallway where her boys are asleep, afraid a little of what is eating at her will leech into them. An ‘I’m sorry’ dances on her tongue but she swallows it and makes toward the door. Just another moment to add to the list, another reason this house isn’t what it used to be.
Gemma has a weak heart. It’s ironic in a way, that a woman who can be so heartless has one that could fail at any moment. It also makes it easy. Tara knows how to manipulate the body, to work with chemistry and biology, to repair, but she also understands how to damage. The weakness in tissue and bone, in valves; Tara knows where to strike without leaving a mark.
It’s in the tea, Mr. Mayhem disguised as a peace offering. Tara almost chokes as she stirs it in, quieting the voices in her head, slipping a bit deeper, a little more every day.
“I guess you decided to leave, then?” Gemma sips at her tea and Tara counts her heartbeats, calming the frayed nerves with every breath. “No, I decided to make this stop.” Gemma smirks, leaning in close, her brown eyes almost black in the light. “That ain’t gonna happen darlin’.”
“You think I’d let you raise my boys?”
“You don’t have a choice Tara.”
She pauses setting a small vial on the table between them. “I chose to tell him the truth, bring it to a vote. I told you I know Jax better, remember?” Gemma rears back a bit, her hands gripping the table, pushing back and away, chair legs scratching against the linoleum.
“You stupid bitch, when Jax finds out.” Tara lets out a breath, cleaning up around her, hands shaking but strong. “He knows Gemma.” She takes a seat across from her again, watching a little realization slip through the fog of righteousness. “Where do you think I got it?”
“I told you to leave my family alone, that he was mine, those boys are mine. ” Tara watches her falter, launching herself forward, but she easily evades Gemma, staying out of reach. She tries to reach for a bbq fork in the sink but her hand isn’t strong enough to hold it and it falls to the ground with a clatter between them. Gemma’s eyes are wild, “How long?” There isn’t this quick gasping death, the body dies slowly; it panics, the synapses firing, only there is nothing that can be done.
“Twenty minutes maybe thirty.” Gemma nods, smirking at her. “You were always the smart one, mom.”
Tara lit a cigarette offering it to her, before settling back and crossing her arms, even with the table between them, there is a desperate violent energy, igniting the air. “I was smart, you taught me to be ruthless.” Gemma nodded her head, a sick laugh working its way through her, “my mistake.”
Her eyes flit to the door and back to Tara, “is he out there?”
“No. I’m supposed to call him once it’s over.”
“Ah, one old lady taking out another.”
“Seemed fitting.” Tara’s voice is tight, barely above a whisper, all the hate she had bubbling up for this woman started to fade, “he doesn’t need to see this, and not after everything you put him through already.”
“He knows about John.” She took a drag of her cigarette, “Smart.”
“A desperate woman is a dangerous one, should have remembered that.” Gemma pauses, looking at her hands, suddenly fixated on the tremors working through them. “He’ll never leave Darlin’, he is the club, we all are, there ain’t no way back.”
“I know.” Gemma’s head snaps back up at that, eyes’ narrowing ready to ask why but Tara doesn’t give her the chance. “This is my compromise.”
There are other things she could say to make these easier, things that are true but feel too false for where they are now. About how she never had a mother but Gemma was like one, that the worst parts of her are all she has left and that maybe she understands how Gemma became what she is. There is this part of her that still feels something, that wracking guilt and fear, but it ebbs further and further away each day, lost in the abyss of what she used to be. A doctor, a mother, a wife, an old lady; Tara realized too late that she couldn’t be all of those people, not anymore.
“Remember what it used to be like?” Tara can’t help it, she has to give her something, there is something other than hate, at least for now. She isn’t even sure what Gemma starts thinking of, maybe the start of the club with John, or the times with Clay, back when things were simple, when blood didn’t need to be spilt every day. They stay like that, in complete silence until it’s done. She leaves while Chibs and Jax take care of the scene, set it all up for the cops. Chibs kisses her hair and whispers, “a bhí le déanamh,” had to be done.
She sits in her car and sobs until the police lights start flashing in her rearview as they pass, then she wipes away the tears and pulls away, already starting to bury it deep.
VI. Everything you touch surely dies.
They have another wedding; this one is up at the cabin. It’s hot and sticky and there are people everywhere, most of them she doesn’t know. This isn’t for them; this is just a gesture of goodwill, proof that the Sons are out of guns. There are cuts everywhere, myans, Byzlatz and niners, all of whom would slit her throat and his in a second if they thought it would get them something. Except she knows to smile and kiss their cheeks and pretend that she doesn’t know what they would do and how, this is the cost of being out.
Sometimes when he looks at her she knows he sees the woman who killed his mother, the only other woman he’s truly loved, even as she twisted him up. Then it’s gone and he kisses her cheek and goes back to pretending there isn’t this thing between them now. Had to be done, I’ve got work to do, she betrayed him. Even as Tara repeats it to herself, it sounds more and more hollow, she killed someone she loved, even if that love had turned sour, it was there at one point. It sounds like something Gemma would say, just another thin justification, an excuse to stave off the guilt. She can’t go back to the hospital and they don’t have the money to leave Charming so they are stuck, between the club and the bodies at the edge of town, that’s their legacy now, a row of headstones.
RICO peters out eventually, and the charges against her get dropped once they find out the Marshall shot the Diosa girl, it wouldn’t hold up anyway. And so they’re left without these things hanging over their heads, there are no more deals to broker and power plays to stay ahead of, just lies to keep telling and looks to keep hiding. Nero looks at her like he knows; it’s the wife. At the wedding he gripped her hand a little too tight, but he doesn’t linger long in their lives and maybe that’s the best she can hope for. They take Morrow off the garage’s sign, and she takes up residence in the office and their lives stop and start again.
“Do you love me?” Tara watches Jax pull on his coveralls, his cut in a box somewhere in the back of the closet, beside the knife he used to carry. His hands pause and he turns to her, smiling a little, “I love you Tara. Question is do you love me?” Tara stands, wrapping her arms around him, “I do love you.” They aren’t the same people they were when they were sixteen, but whatever they have, it brackets them against the worst of it, makes them stronger. Tara thinks it’s the only thing keeping her from drowning under the weight of everything. The way he looks at her, it’s still home all these years later. His forehead rests against hers and his lips feel soft and familiar and she thinks maybe they finally got something right. Her hand falls to the patch over his heart, no VP or president, no redwood, just Jax, just her Jax.
VII. It’s too late to go back, I let the darkness seep through the cracks.
When it happens she doesn’t see it coming. It’s been a year, everyone moved on. Tig left for a charter in Wyoming, Bobby and Chibs are the only ones who stuck around to help out, going back to mechanics who ride bikes. Abel starts preschool and Thomas starts the terrible two’s and life becomes about bills and a,b,c’s and car parts.
Tara sticks around to help him close up, a nice break from being cooped up in the office with the books, trying to figure out if they can afford to hire another mechanic. Jax is still working on his dad’s old bike, tinkering with the same pieces over and over; it makes Tara remember why she loves him; his devotion. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, bending to kiss his cheek.
“Ready to go home?”
“Yeah.”
He slings an arm around her shoulder, dropping a kiss against her lips before turning back to close up the doors. It’s a ritual they’ve carved out, between finding out what’s gone and what there still is. This is their’s’ though and Abel and Thomas’s’, at least they have that.
“What do you want for dinner?” Jax yells over the din of the doors sliding down, only she can’t really hear, a car is pulling in through the fence and she’s ready to tell them they’re closed, only something stops her. Its instinct really, that sense of dread that seeps through her, she turns to yell for Jax, only it’s too late.
When the tires squeal and the gun goes off she doesn’t really hear it, the blood starts rushing in her ears so loud, and it’s only the beat of her heart and the desperate panic. She can see him lying a few feet away, blood pouring, his eyes open and bleary but when she takes a step forward, a dull ache winds its way through her, until it’s piercing and she can’t breathe. And just like that the sounds come back, a rush of traffic and somewhere she can hear screaming, maybe it’s her, she can’t really tell. Her knees buckle, and she has to drag herself the few feet to Jax’s side, hearing the wet sound of his cough, she knows his lungs are filling with blood, and a part of her wants to compartmentalize and start saving him, but she can’t, it’s too late for him and Tara knows she’s dying too.
She grasps his hand tighter, looking as he tries to fight for words around the blood in his mouth “I love,” She nods her head fervently, tears crowding the corner of her eyes “I know, I love you.” She leans in to kiss him, the blood slick against her lips. She can feel her own blood against her hand. His breath stops and when she opens her eyes, he’s gone, her whole body shutters down and she falls against his chest, not able to hold herself up anymore, but she refuses to let go of his hand, maybe that makes this all worth it and then she screams, only its hoarse and low, too low to hear, just a choking sob that lingers in the air and dies. It was never going to end any other way.
Oh look at us just another tragedy.