"To Be, or Not to Be"
It seemed that some people were just born to fuck things up. That's all Jackson Teller ever did. He tried, and tried, and never could make things go quite right, never could make them hook up, make them fit.
He wasnt even sure when things started becoming that way. Maybe his brother dying, his father...oh god, his father. Dead by the man hed been raised by and most probably helped by his stifling mother.
He couldn't make things work the first time with Tara. He loved her so much, but they both knew it wasnt enough. Not then, and not now. He remembered perfectly how his mother and stepfather had laughed when he told them he was leaving to be with her after Tara decided to chase her dream of being a doctor in Chicago. He knew without being told that the rush to patch him in had been his mother pushing the life on him. He'd had no choice but to watch the woman he loved leave, breaking his heart. Gemma blamed Tara, but he secretly blamed her.
So he'd shut off those emotions and became what they wanted. Ruthless and dedicated, he made his way up the ranks quickly, and his new attitude soon had him taking his place as VP next to his proud stepfather who saw his loyalty to the club nothing more than he and Gemmas triumph of Jaxs dreams over thier agendas. Love died in the wake of lust, and compassion bled away under the needs of the club.
Now he was paying in spades for all the choices he wished like hell he could take back.
The club was in shambles, barely holding together. The damage in the past two years had finally taken its toll on the glue that held them together as brothers. Too much greed, too much death, too much betrayal. He was king of a broken country and all his grand visions...or more accurate...delusions...for fixing things had died with Opie in that prison.
Jax sat at the head of the table, ornately carved and marred by an axe swing from Roosevelt to proove a point. Now it seemed like another point. He wanted to burn the gavel, wanted to rip the patch off his cut.
And it had taken his family from him. She was hiding it, but he was pretty sure his long wished for and short lived marraige was coming to an end. Tara was making certain moves in silence, and making love with her had never been more unpleasant or unsatisfying. Although, he admitted that sex with anyone would be just as bad. His heart was broken and mind weary. The need for connection was almost irrelevant now. Right now, the act of survival was the only thing taking up space in his world. He silently bore that loss too.
Jax remembered the last time hed felt so horrid. Belfast, the day he'd gone after his firstborn, Abel. He'd been influened deeply by the words of the priest Kellan Ashby and the wishes of his father, who had never wanted the life for him he now lived. He guessed his first failure was becoming what his father desperately tried to keep him safe from.
He'd watched them all day, the couple. They were perfect. Married, thier money earned by the fathers normal and safe job. The mother was perfect. Sweet tempered and even looked like she could be Abels real mother. A dedicated home maker, not a strung out biker whore. Dressed in pinks with soft jewelry and simple long blonde hair. The father looking like a lawyer on his day off, or a banker, or someplace where he went to work with a briefcase and worked a simple and predicatable job, came home everynight on time for a family dinner.
He didn't torture men, he didn't shoot and kill them, he didn't run guns or porn studios. He didn't ride off and leave his kid vunerable to his enemies equally as low as himself. He wouldn't leave his son with a cursed legacy and a tainted future.
So he decided that Abel would be better off. Give the kid a chance not to live his life, carry that legacy. He loved him that much.
Irony takes many cruel forms.
He'd told his mother of his choice, only to have Gemma attack him for his hubris and add to his pain. Then to be told that the very woman he'd treated so horribly was pregnant was shattering. Tara was carrying another child. Another Teller to try and probably fail to protect. It didn't seem to matter what he'd done for Abel, because now he'd have to do it all over again. And he had no doubts his mother would eventually pour his sins into his younger sons ears as soon as the child was able to understand. Eventually he'd just burst into tears.
Then he realized the true horror of trying to do the right thing. Abel had been tracked down and kidnapped by Jimmy O as leverage and murdered the perfect couple entrusted with the perfect life he'd imagined for his son. His descision, while noble and with the best intentions had cost the perfect couple thier lives. He sat for a long time with Opie staring at the posed forms of what he'd thought was the best thing for his son. Knowing all along that the taint he carried already touched his son, if he could be used to do this. Out of options, hed taken his son back, and vowed to love him the best he could.
Out of options.
That seemed to be the words of his life these days. He could see the writing on the wall. A bunch dead ends and dead people. He was going to lose everything he'd cherished and fail at the one thing he'd ever done well. Trapped by circumstance and hindered by the same, Jax realized with horrible clarity that the problem wasn't that he didn't belong here...the problem was that he did.
His eyes as dead as his dreams, he looked around the table and started the meeting. He never thought that the long awaited privilege of banging that gavel down would sound so hollow.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles.."
From 'Hamlet' (Act 1:3) by William Shakespeare (1623)
A/N: This is the first attempt at fic for this canon. I had no beta, so the errors are my own. The characters herein are owned and created by the genius Kurt Sutter.