A/N: A new fic that ventures heavily into AU territory. Warning, character death, and it gets VERY dark in places. Jax and Tara fans should stick through it though. I promise to reward you with good flashbacks and fluff-BUT you must read it to the end. If you don't, you'll miss out on integral plot points. SIXshot, short and sweet, but something with substance, again, don't start what you can't finish.
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CHAPTER 1: FUROR: rage
The room smells like beer and sweat, the heat inside clinging to everything. Gemma feels filthy just being there, but she has to see her son. She brought Opie to out muscle him with his brute strength. Plus, she thinks she needs the emotional backup. Light is filtering in from the boarded up window. Clay nailed them on from the outside to keep him locked up, three days ago. She sees the glass and blood and her heart seizes up again. He'd been trying to get out… Her black heart had been doing that a lot lately, which surprises her only because she thought it had been through and experienced everything before. She spots his messy mop of hair in the corner of the dark room, his back leaning on the side frame of the rumpled bed. He is shirtless and his eyes are glazed. He smells like he hasn't showered in days, and she can tell by the fully stocked shelves, that he hasn't been eating. The once optimistic and smiling person that was her son is now a hollow, broken shell of a human. This is Jackson Teller at his worst.
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Please don't do this! I'm begging you!
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His mother came to see him again. He can hear them moving the heavy furniture that barricaded the door. His back is against the sweaty bed, and he gazed into the partial opening of the bathroom door. Tara was there, weeping. She wasn't looking at him and hadn't said a word since it happened. His heart broke as he contemplated how long it would take her to forgive him, maybe never. The thought horrified him. He looked at the angry purple bruises on her neck, her swollen eye, and hates himself for letting this happen. The cheap yellow lights from the bathroom are harsh on her ivory skin. She looks like what she is, a victim of abuse.
He'd only become aware that his mother was talking to him when she blocked his view from Tara. Her voice is muted and he is too exhausted to focus and listen. He gauges from the look on her face that he must look like shit. Her eyes are hard and black, but he can see the desperate pity lurking behind them, the guilt is there too.
"—can't stay like this," she says. He wonders how long he's been locked in this room, trying to get Tara to talk to him. She hasn't said a word, hasn't touched him. Every attempt to reach out to her is buffed away, and she leaves him. He hasn't eaten and his energy is shot. He still hasn't responded to Gemma, he can tell she's frustrated by her impatiently stamping stiletto.
"Can't see Tara," he groans, and his throat is burning. He spent his first day of captivity screaming and fighting, destroying his room and the walls trying to get out. The second day, Tara was there, and he spent it chasing her around the cramped room, weeping like a child, begging her to look at him, speak to him. By day three, he was dehydrated and his throat and lungs felt like they'd been worked with sandpaper.
"What?" she says, and there is genuine confusion in her voice. His mother usually gets furious when he talks about his lady, but this time she meets him with a look of pity…again.
"Baby, you've got to let this go. There's nothing you can do about what happened," she says comfortingly. She finally notices that his eyes have been locked on the bathroom door, where Tara has been sitting, silently. Gemma gets up and closes the door, irked that he hasn't been listening to her. He catches Tara's eyes before she is shut away, and isn't sure if the look of loathing is for him or his mother. Gemma kneels down before him, stroking his hair. It's a gesture of comfort going back to his childhood days, and the contact is almost too much. His eyes fill with tears of sadness and then rage, and he croaks out,
"You have to let me do this!"
Please don't do this! I'm begging you!
She doesn't say the words again. Instead she motions for Opie as he swims in and out of consciousness. The energy from talking and the pain his body has endured has left him spent. He vaguely hears his mother say something about the hospital as Opie picks him up like a fucking princess and carries him out of the room.
His pride would normally dictate he protest, but his arms are dead from throwing punches through the thin plaster walls.
"It's gonna be okay, brother," says Opie, and his beard tickles Jax's eyebrows. It was a strange childish sensation, and it reminded Jax of his own father. It's the last thought he thinks before the blackness overtakes him.
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Jax awakes two or three times throughout the week. After his initial struggle with the feeding tubes and IV drips, they'd decided to sedate him before he caused any more damage to himself. He remembers Chibs, Piney, and even Tig speaking to him, urging him on in his slumber. It was the same crap they'd spouted when it first happened. Don't do anything crazy, you can't fight the law. It won't change anything.
Please don't do this! I'm begging you!
They made the first mistake nine days later. The club had been exhausted, taking rounds to keep an eye on him. That Special Agent bitch had been harassing the club, trying to get close to Jax, and question him about Tara. They're off dealing with some Mayan bullshit and leave him unattended. He gets up and starts to pull out the needles and tubes from his flesh. He ignores the panicked beeping sounds of the machines and makes his way to the bathroom.
They'd taken him off the feeding tube a day or so earlier, and his stomach aches from the stiches. His numbness goes away, as the incisions and punctures on his body start to sting him into lucidity. He runs the cold water and splashes it on his face, wavering only slightly. His mind sharpens and he ignores the pounding of the nurses on the door. He takes a deep drink, and the cool liquid soothes his throat, revitalizing him. He can fill the liquid falling into his empty stomach, and realizes that he's starving. Now that he's escaped lockdown, he can't get things into motion, but not before saying goodbye.
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He waits until the nurses leave, one of them muttering something about calling his mom. He knows that time is ticking away. He sneaks bare assed into the lost and found, stealing a pair of sweats and a bright blue scrub top that's two sizes too small, and makes his way to the NICU corridor.
He has to see his baby boy one more time. Abel is sitting there encased in his little plastic box, like his shining treasure in his secret box. He's the only thing Jax values more than Tara, more than himself. He's grown bigger in the last few weeks, and he's starting to flesh out and get some color on his skin. Tubes and monitors and wires are stuck all over him, the steady beep beep is alien and strangely comforting. He's sympathetic knowing how uncomfortable it is to be pricked that many times. His son is strong, and it makes him proud.
Tara is there. He remembers in his drug induced haze that she came to check in on him. She still wouldn't speak to him and he caught fleeting glances of her walking out of his room as he drifted in and out of the blackness. Why was she back to work so soon? She was wearing her hospital scrubs, looking vulnerable in her white overcoat, but at least it covered up her bruises. Excepting the ones on her face, of course, they stood out like Rorschach prints on her skin. What do you see when you look at this? Rage, guilt, remorse, failure.
She is looking over his son with a motherly affection. It warms his heart and makes him wish that he was hers. "I'm sorry for everything," he says out loud. He's not sure who he's talking to…both of them, he surmises.
"I've never deserved you, and I'm so so sorry for what happened." At this he starts to cry, and his throat closes up and burns again. "I wish I didn't have to do this, but you know I have to. I have to make it right."
She's tearing up now, and shaking her head. He knows that she doesn't want him to go, but he has to avenge her. No man could lay hands on her and live. He reaches out to her, and she flinches. It hurts him more than anything, the fact that she's afraid. Afraid of him. He feels that he's so morally black that nothing could darken him further. This has to be done, for her. Even if she doesn't want him to.
He looks back as he's leaving the door, to the both of them, his reasons for living. "I love you."
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After evading the hospital staff and security officers, he makes his way back home, grabbing his cell phone and taking a much needed shower. He reckons he has an hour or so before the club tracks him down and locks him away again. They can't stop him. Nothing and no one will. The hot water pours down his back, and he feels himself renewed. He can't believe how much grime and dirt come off, but he needs this, the ritual of preparation. He's already mentally prepared to perform the kill and begin the hunt.
He raids his fridge, knocking back food and drinking a jug of milk like he has no stomach. He's lost weight since it happened. He wasn't big to begin with, but now he's even leaner, the muscle is corded and he looks wiry. He needs to get his strength back in order to battle. After he's satiated his appetite on Gemma's leftovers, he goes to don his armor.
He puts on the vest, and knows that it's going to be raining bullets. His hoodie is black like midnight and his kutte bears his sigil. That bastard will know who's coming and why he's there. He grabs his weapons, a 9mm semi-automatic and his KABAR knife. He's getting in close for this one. He puts on his gloves and goes out to his bike. He's ready for what could be the last ride of his life, and he would trust nothing but his Harley to take him there.
His cell phone is already buzzing, it has been for the last hour. He doesn't stop until he's out of Charming, and he hopes it's Tara. He longs to hear her voice again, maybe she'll beg him to come back like he secretly wishes. Anything to get her to speak to him. He checks the caller ID. Gemma, again. This time he answers and she's screaming obscenities—
Please don't do this! I'm begging you!
He cuts her off, nothing will assuage him, "I'm gonna get this bastard, and nothing's gonna stop me," he can hear David Hale in the background, of course the police were involved. Officer Hale had been trying to flag him down for days, but Jax wouldn't hear it. Nothing's gonna stop me.
Hale is trying to talk through his mother's babbling, talk him down from the situation, but Jax will have no interference, and sends one last message to the inhabitants of his hometown, "And I'll kill anything and anyone who gets in my way."
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AN: I just finished episode 9 of this season, and WTF? I've wanted to write this story for a long time, (about 8 chapters into DYR) but I didn't know if I wanted to venture into territory this dark. Well if KS is willing to scare the crap out of us and mess with our emotions, then it shouldn't feel so bad when I do it. Anyways, about five more chapters of this as my muse comes and goes. As always, hit that review button and show me some lovin! Thanks peeps!