Disclaimer: Copyright infringement of any kind is not intended.
Author's Note: I've always found the female characters of Sons of Anarchy fascinating (tragic endings and all). This one-shot is based on an episode that always pulled on my heart-strings, the one when the Teller family's van was shot at while they were trying to leave Charming and start a new (drama-free life). Tara's reaction after learning of the ramifications of her injuries always got to me.
Enjoy!
Hands
Her profession was a hard one. Stressful, infuriating at times. Years of schooling, years of training. Brain going on overdrive with each new scientific it absorbed—she was a surgeon, and a damn good one.
Abel Teller was a testament to it.
She was born to work with those hands. Hold delicate tools with those hands. Save lives with those hands. Each movement would bring air into the lungs of the injured. She cherished them and then she lost them. Only one, but it could have been both. It happened. It was fate. She could and should move on with her life.
She would, for the most part.
But today wasn't that day.
"What I can do now?" She cried. She wanted to collapse on her bed; she wanted to arm off her cast. Run away. Cry and cry. "Just be your old lady? Be around the sons? God forbid become your mother?"
If Gemma was here, watching her son and her daughter-in-law, she would have called Tara selfish.
Maybe, she was but she couldn't give a damn.
"Tara—"
"Don't Tara me."
Jax didn't deserve to be the target of her frustration. Her sadness. Her anger. But then again, maybe he should be. Maybe she should be. She could have stayed in her own lane those years ago—just as Gemma had said. Save Abel because it was God-given duty and just move on. Not reminiscing about being Jax's girlfriend; accept that it would just a teenage fling, one that barely worked. She could have just accepted Jax's thanks and just… move on.
But she didn't. Jax wouldn't let her. That damn ATF agent who she refused to name wouldn't let her. Her determination (stubbornness) to prove Gemma Teller wrong wouldn't let her. Her goddamn heart wouldn't either—
It wasn't the end of the world, some would tell her.
One hand would be fine. The arm that was attached it hadn't been a causality of the shootout. It would perfect. But one perfect hand, in her field, wouldn't suffice. Her field demanded, commanded the use of both perfect hands—she might as well have lost the both of them.
"You can still use them," Jax would later tell her. He tried to be sympathetic; he was sympathetic. He didn't want the shootout to happen. He had wanted to leaving Charming right along with her and the boys. He had been ready to start something new, far away from that godforsaken town—
But a man like him, no matter how wonderful and loving and caring and supportive, would always have ghosts chasing after him. He had done things and fate would not let him absolve them.
"It's all my fault," he would say.
Tara could've told him that it wasn't. That it had all been an accident. That he couldn't prevent it—it probably would have been the best thing to say. But she couldn't form those words. She wanted to pull her hair out. Throw something at the wall, throw something at him at him. Blame him for her injured arm, injured nerves and therefore, injured hand.
Leave him.
But instead, she remained silent, staring outside through the kitchen window of house she should have been able to leave behind.
One day, she would tell her that she forgave him. One day, she would tell him that it hadn't been his fault. People were assholes. Charming was den full of assholes. They would get over this— she, him and the boys.
But today wasn't that day.
