Notes: This is the third of 6 one-shots that I've already posted to Ao3. Originally posted 10/28/2013.
Alright folks, this is going to have to ignore quite a few things, making it a bright & shiny AU. We are ignoring Tara's prison conundrum here (it would just make this vastly complicated, and I honestly have zero idea of how Sutter or anyone else is planning on wrapping that up, so, again, ignoring it); she still attempted a divorce/custody coup, without the fake pregnancy, leaving Gemma to remain in the mix of things. She does not lose custody of the boys but does divorce Jax and therefore their time with them is split. I'd rather not give anything else away so I'll stop there, but I think that's all you would need to know before reading. Thanks for your time & interest! All comments and criticisms, greatly appreciated! Oh, and in case anyone's interested, I made a mix for these two (I actually wrote much of this while listening to it) and posted it on 8tracks, here.
The air is still
warm, flesh moves over
flesh, there is no
hurry
- "Late August," Margaret Atwood
The skin of his knuckles was cracked and bloody. The fine bones of his hands scraped together with every maddeningly hard blow of his fists. The pain was only a side-note; it would scream relentlessly later that night, as she gently wraps a soft ice pack around his fingers, shaking her head in disapproval. Her head would disapprove but her heart would betray her – thumping loudly in her chest, so loud it was as if her cries choked out in rhythmic beats.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Her bed was stripped the next morning, the sheets thrown in the hamper along with dirty underwear and a t-shirt that wasn't hers. The curtains were pulled shut to keep out the sun but the windows were left open to let in whatever kind of breeze was to be had in the summer heat. A surprisingly strong gust blew the drapes aside, and a ray of light shone blindingly across the bare, white surface of the old mattress. Sitting tiredly at the edge of the bed, she watched the light play in among the hilly dips of the fabric, and thought cautiously of the night before.
There was an oddly suffocating feeling associated with living in an empty house that had once been so full. The silence of the boys' absence was louder than any temper tantrum, any stabbing, or any gun-shot. Without the children there to distract her she stared listlessly at the tiled kitchen floor, the faded stain, now only faintly visible under her intense scrutiny.
She sighed at the feeling of the warm air whispering across the back of her neck – her feelings of loneliness and death culminating in an unwarranted attack of lust, gnawing at her stomach like a hungry beast. It was going to happen sooner or later, all of those long talks in the dark of the backyard, the quiet corners at the backs of bars – barely there touches that made the soft hairs of her arm stand on end, tugging at her skin, making her restless and wanting. But she had somehow managed to keep it at bay; the hunger that she had become accustomed to. Tara had never been that kind of girl – sex was always time-consuming and unsatisfying; until Jax, until all that violence and all that intimacy seemed to have tangled itself up in her head and now sometimes she could barely breathe with all that wanting.
There was no knock at the door, no polite raps against the screen, only the swift opening and closing, the repetitive stutter of the wood knocking in its frame. The silence dissipated; there was only one other person when before there had been none, but the house suddenly seemed full again – packed to bursting with life, and breath, and beating hearts.
He had stood at the entrance to the kitchen, silent; the only noise the quick pants of his breath. There was a small line of red dripping from his forehead, his knuckles were bruised and slightly bloody but other than that he looked no worse for wear.
"What…" she started, quiet and more timid than she preferred. Her words were stolen by the gentle firmness of his lips, and she let them go – his kisses stealing all she could have dreamed to say.
There's a knock at the front door and the wind suddenly dies, and with it goes the light. She tugs on a pair of jeans left on the floor of the bedroom and sticks her hand inside the back pocket as she heads down the darkened hallway and feels for the soft piece of medical gauze, crumpled down at the bottom. She's thinking of the reddened contours of his knuckles and the calloused skin of his fingers when she opens the door and stifles a gasp at the sight of Jax's face – one eye sealed shut, a bruised cheek, and bloody lip. She had seen Jax after fights before, but it was different knowing who had done it and quite possibly why, giving her a vague feeling of satisfaction that made her guts clench in a not altogether unpleasant way.
He had Thomas asleep in his arms; Abel was standing nervously down by his feet, his hand in his mouth. "Stop that sweetie," she said quietly, lifting him into her arms when he glanced up at her with big, sad eyes. He buried his face into her neck and she felt the cracks in her heart widen.
"What happened to your face?"
"Rough night," he answered casually, as if the split skin of his lips didn't burn whenever he opened his mouth; as if seeing those brief glimpses of anger in the eyes of his VP hadn't made him feel like a small, misbehaving kid again, those one or two hits that had hurt to the point of unbearable confusion.
"Do you need me to look—?"
"No," he interrupts, the hard lines of his face softening, "I'll be fine."
She nods and places Abel on the ground, his feet barely hitting the floor before he's running towards his coloring books still scattered across the coffee table from his last visit a week earlier. She usually didn't like to leave a mess, but if she didn't clean up after they left at the end of the week, sometimes she could pretend that they weren't going anywhere, that she was just sending them out for ice cream with their father and they would be back in just a few minutes.
Finding her hands no longer burdened with Abel's weight, they were free to fidget, tugging at the ends of her sleeves or pushing her hair behind her ears.
"How did everything go this week? Okay?"
"Yeah," he went to place Thomas in her arms and she deflated with relief at having something to do with herself besides revert back to being an inexperienced 17 year old girl, nervously wrapping her arms around her boyfriend's waist as he drove them out into the desert.
"Mom had to watch 'em for a few days," her lips clenched and he darted his eyes to the ground, "we had some business up north."
"Oh, that's…" the bones in her hand ached, "…nice."
"She's been taking good care of the boys Tara, I promise."
She wanted to laugh, cruelly smile at his promises, but she couldn't bring herself to conjure the spite. All she could do was think, bitterly, that she had lost; she had tried and failed to deliver herself and the boys from Charming. A short time ago she had realized that Jax was never going to give up the life, no matter how often he preached the changes she so desperately craved. She had been pushed to the point of "wrathful mother with nothing to lose," hell-bent on saving her children and herself if possible, from a life that Jax had not had the luxury of being spared of.
Sometimes she had to remind herself that she had gotten off lucky; that Jax could have easily, at Gemma's insistence no doubt, taken the boys for good. But he had been surprisingly understanding when he'd found out. How she and Wendy had been involved in a plot to rid themselves of the MC and all that came with it, to take the boys out of California if necessary, to prevent them from feeling the ever-present heartache of living as outlaws. It had been sheer chance that he'd encountered a woman that day, a mother with the feeling of the devil about her, smelling of cheap perfume and nicotine, screaming to anyone who would hear about her vile "son," doomed to destroy his child.
"I should be furious with you," he spoke with a frightening firmness, but he held her hand carefully, as if afraid she would break if he squeezed too tight.
"But I can't bring myself to hate you, Tara. Not even for a second."
"Jax," she pleaded, "let me take the boys out of Charming. I don't need the divorce; I just need them to be safe."
She felt tears wetting her cheeks but kept her free hand clenched in a fist of relentless determination. Fight till the end.
"Please."
When he had come home that night with Gemma in tow, demanding explanations, they had escaped to the dark of their bedroom, leaving her to gloat in the silence of an empty living room. A light from the street bathed the bed in a sinister yellow glow, and Tara had known before they had even said a word; she had failed. She had doomed herself and her children to a life of complacency.
"I know that I haven't been the best father…" his voice shook but he continued, "…I understand why you thought you needed to do what you did."
She felt more than heard the sob in her throat, and although she had sworn to never apologize for what she had done to protect their children, a whimpering "sorry," escaped from between her lips. She had almost started tearfully confessing how much she loved him, how much she never in a million years would want to see him so hurt, but he interrupted.
"Don't apologize. I know you're not sorry."
But I am! She had wanted to scream, I never wanted this for us!
"I pushed you to this Tara, I know that. But I can't live without my boys; I need you to understand that."
She had remained silent the rest of the night, listening to their terms, to divorce filings and "weekly visits," Gemma's constant scoffing. She would drink an entire bottle of wine before the night was over, after the two of them had left, and in the midst of uncorking the cheap bottle that had been stashed hastily in a cupboard above the sink, she would see him. A cigarette dangled lazily between his lips, a hand on Jax's shoulder, the comforting of a brother, a look of severity that seemed to burn like the embers of his cigarette.
Had he looked at her then? Had he glanced up and stared into the aching, bleeding places of her heart and think of her, gasping beneath the very hands he was placing upon Jax's tired frame?
"No," she nearly shouted, an adamant stuttering of denial, dripping from her memory-induced haze.
"'No,' what?"
"Nothing," she choked out, "Nothing. Sorry. Is that it?"
"Yeah, Tara," he frowned in curiosity, turning to leave, "you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, fine," she smiled shakily, "see you next week."
—
The people of Charming were begging for an end to the mid-summer drought. The heat had become oppressive and exhausting. It had become a rarity to see anyone else on the street, anyone with a fully operational cooling unit stayed in their homes; if they were that stir-crazy they would just jump into their air-conditioned car and drive to the nearest theater or mall, the lack of sunlight and cool air being the only determining factors. The morning following Jax's visit was breezy and overcast, and the entire town, Tara included, breathed a weary sigh of relief. The crappy old radio on her nightstand confirmed a storm for later in the afternoon, bringing with it a break from the 90 and over temperatures.
Her bedroom was quiet except for the comforting hum of the AC unit, that had been, undoubtedly, illegally obtained, but in this instance she was grateful. It had run blissfully all through the day and night the past few weeks, and after everything she had seen and done she couldn't exactly get behind being mad about a, frankly, amazing air conditioner "falling off the back of a truck." When she heard the soft rumble of thunder behind the droning of the morning DJ she decided it was time to get up and give her stolen AC a break, opting instead to open all the windows in the house to let in the wind and fresh air.
The sudden silence that filled the void left by the air conditioner was broken only by Thomas' small gurgling sounds. She recalled her emptiness from the previous evening, only moments before her screen door had been blown open with an animal-like magnitude, Chibs' large frame filling the doorway; how barren her house had seemed with her children absent. Thomas' inane little noises brought a smile to her lips, and she was almost ready to admit that maybe it would be a nice, quiet day, filled with the lull of childish chatter and shrill animated voices from the TV, the sound of the rain gently pattering on the roof while the boys took a nap and she could sit, unmolested at her kitchen table, maybe sip a small glass of cheap whiskey, and just be.
There was a soft whistling of wind from the back of the house near Thomas' bedroom so she padded softly down the hall towards his door, open at a crack with a brief strip of light peeking through. Her hand was resting against the hard wood of the door, but she paused suddenly and frowned, hearing what she thought was a deep, vibrating hum – a distinctly masculine sound that had her heart racing and her palms clammy. She shut her eyes, steeling herself, and pushed the door open slowly, attempting to placate its creaky hinges.
She opened her eyes having been prepared for the worst; some large, imposing man clad in black, holding her son with a knife to his neck, a crazed look in his eyes. It came as something of a shock to see Chibs standing there instead, with Thomas in his arms, barely singing in a sweet, Scottish lilt that somehow hurt worse than any slap or fractured wrist she'd received in the last few years of her life.
Her eyes slid shut in relief, the wind howling just a little bit louder than when she'd first heard it a moment ago, and she let out a shaky breath in an attempt to quell the confusing tide of emotion that had welled in her breast at the sight of him.
"I have a daughter you know."
She offered a hesitant smile, "Yes, I know."
She heard the familiar sounds of Thomas being placed back in his crib, the rustling of blankets, the sound of the wood, and his soft, sleepy noises. Her eyes remained closed as a wave of exhaustion descended in the wake of his voice, in his confession, and by the feeling of his very presence. She could suddenly smell the scent of his aftershave and a brief hint of cigarette smoke and she knew he was standing before her, silently observing the pathetic sadness in her expression and the involuntary flushing of her cheeks.
"It's alright darlin'," he whispered, wiping his thumbs beneath her eyes.
"It's all gonna be okay."
—
It was never going to be a one-time affair – this she knew with absolute certainty. Letting him in once was like letting him in 1,000 times, and if she was being honest with herself she wasn't entirely opposed. She wasn't certain how he was dealing with remaining so close to Jax while at the same time seeing her almost every night. If she had to see Jax more than the once or twice a week she saw him now while also indulging a new lover who just happened to be his right-hand, she wasn't exactly sure how well she would be faring.
A dry, stifling July was followed by a warm, humid August. By the third week there was a feeling of fall in the air, but it was hidden beneath the last days of summer that clung to her skin. After her falling-out with Jax and losing full custody of Thomas and Abel, she had decided to take a break from the hospital for the summer. When the boys were around she spent as much time with them as she could, but there were still days of crippling sadness and existential boredom… at least until she heard the familiar sounds of his bike outside her window. While after that first night there had been a creeping feeling of guilt and sadness at the back of her mind, now she allowed herself that little bit of happiness, twisted up and shoved sloppily within the walls of her heart that seemed to beat so fast these days.
It was reminiscent of the summers of her youth, except this time she was a woman, wandering aimlessly into the arms of a man and not a boy. It was hard to explain, but the seat of his bike felt differently underneath her body, the vibrations that thrummed through her veins pounded to a different beat. The smell of his skin did not suffocate, it did not overwhelm, and sometimes she swore she could smell the salt of the sea against the pulsing of his neck.
Often they didn't stray too far from Charming, opting to hide within the cool walls of Tara's house or his apartment (which he hated, because it had no windows and sometimes he felt like he was being buried alive). But every once in a while, when Chibs had a spare moment away from the club and Tara was feeling despondent about not having the boys, he would ride, her arms wrapped around his waist, her face pressed against the leather of his jacket, far outside of Charming's borders, and she would finally be able to breathe.
And then he would take her hand and lead her towards the back of some stuffy bar in another town, and she would laugh to herself, at the irony of leaving their suffocating lives in Charming only to literally suffocate at the back of a dark, smog-filled bar for the sake of getting a little tipsy. But then she would stumble right on out again, clinging to the sleeve of his jacket while he walked steadily, the same infuriatingly attractive swagger in the movement of his hips.
He was resting against his bike, gently placing the helmet he had brought for her over her head, tightening the strap beneath her chin. "You drank just as much as me," she said laughingly, grasping the front of his jacket to keep from stumbling, "how are you so delightfully sober?"
He gave her helmet a "good to go" tap and placed a painfully sweet kiss against her lips.
"It'd take a lot more for this 'ol man to get as wasted as you are darlin'."
She loved the way "darling" rolled off of his tongue, how the 'g' just became lost, like the word had been given a shortcut all the way to her ears and then parked itself deep inside her belly, giving her butterflies that wouldn't dissipate until his skin was slick against her own, and the feeling of his hands gripping her waist would steady the constant fluttering.
"Well," she said nervously, smiling, "you'll have to show me that some time."
—
There was something about that summer that she knew would change her life forever. It was a bit like that last summer before she had fled Charming as a girl, hoping to take Jax with her. There was just something in the air, as if the changing of the seasons coincided with the ripples of her life. How it could only take a moment, just one, and the world would flip, and all of a sudden things just weren't how you thought they would be.
Thomas had been hurt; Chibs had been there, Tara hadn't. It was nothing to do with guns or drugs, the IRA, or some other sinister, organized crime syndicate; it was the supposedly legal and "trouble-free" kind of business. It was some pissed off, sad, drunk woman who had gone off of her meds and trashed the place; glass flying every which way, a piece of it giving Thomas a small slice across his cheek. Chibs had seen every shade of red before restraining her, holding her immovable against the alcohol-soaked rug, screaming obscenities.
"It's okay Filip," she said later that night, kissing Thomas' bandaged cheek, "he's okay."
"It's not a'right!" he shouted, surprised at his own anger as much as she was.
There was a moment of shocked silence before he had stormed out of Thomas' room and towards the kitchen, pouring himself a fairly large glass of whatever alcohol he could find. Tara entered moments later, shutting the window against the cool breeze.
"Okay," she said, attempting to alleviate the tension, "okay."
"I saw what happened to Opie," he said quietly, his fingers loosening against the sides of the glass.
"I know."
"An' I saw what happened to his kids, and to Jax, and my own—" He gulped down the rest of his drink.
"Doesn't matter. Point is, none o' that should happen to these boys, Tara. Or to you."
At the near mention of his own daughter, at the emotional breaking of his voice, she had knelt in front of his chair, gripping his hands between her own.
"What would you have me do?" she asked, nearly begging, "What would you have me do?"
She had a hunch that it was the bandage on Thomas' face, the place where he himself had been cut, ages ago now. He had even said that sometimes he woke up wondering if he'd been born with them, that maybe God just had a surprisingly dark sense of humor.
He pulled his hands from hers to grip the sides of her face, proclaiming in a deep, rumbling voice, "You don't have to do a God-damn thing."
His kiss was the kind that you would think of when you heard the word "ravishing." He had her pulled to her feet and pressed firmly against the wall of the kitchen before she'd even had a moment to process his words.
"Are you wasted now?" she asked, almost afraid to smile, the heat of their combined breathing swirling in the briefest of spaces between their open mouths.
"Not even a little," he answered roughly, his hands sliding up and underneath the thin sweater she wore, the feeling of the leather gloves against her skin igniting the fluttering in her stomach that she had thought only his touch could calm.
—
Autumn in Scotland was bleak and cold, but she would don a thick pair of socks, a sweater with the threads that smelled of him, and start a fire. The bleakness was easily remedied so she would never complain about the weather, never stare longingly into the perpetually overcast sky and dream of California. She might dream of her final summer there, of smelly run-down bars and rides along the coast, but she couldn't bring herself to regret having moved overseas, with Thomas and Abel, finally safe.
He had promised her that he would try to come with them, if he could work it that way, but he had said that he would rather she get there, alone, and with nobody following, then them being able to leave together.
"You're more important," he had said, arms around her waist and lips pressed to the back of her neck, "this would've been my life whether I'd met you or no'."
She thought back to the way she had been only months earlier, the spring and summer right after the divorce proceedings and custody battle, about how she had finally given up and accepted her life the way it was. Now her life was quieter than it had ever been; the only time she heard a bike was when she ventured into the city, and the sound of gun-shots was a welcome rarity. She worried for his safety occasionally, but if anything truly horrible had happened she would know.
"Anything goes wrong, Juice'll let you know."
"Filip— "
"He'll let ya know."
Halloween being only a few days away, old newspapers were splayed over her kitchen table, covered in seeds and the orange, stringy insides of pumpkins, which made her a tad queasy. There were old "spooky" cartoons playing on their TV set that had to have been made in the age of antiquity, and she had a few candles lit to set the mood (as well as to avoid using the harsh kitchen light, but she preferred to think of it as ambiance).
She didn't know exactly what Chibs had done to get them there, safe, getting ready for Halloween like normal people, but she was grateful, and she hadn't kicked up too much of a fuss about how he had gone about it. After the first time had failed so epically, she'd given up caring so long as it worked this time.
"Hey Abel, watch Thomas for a second okay? I'll be just outside."
He nodded happily at being promoted to babysitter while Tara grabbed a sweater hanging over her chair and stepped out onto the front steps for some fresh air. Not that she didn't like the candles, but the smell of perfumed wax combined with the pumpkin-smell was getting to be a bit much.
Chibs had found them a small house in the middle of nowhere, the town was about 25-30 min. away, and their closest neighbors were an older couple that she hadn't quite gotten around to trusting yet, but she was enjoying the isolation so she wasn't in a huge hurry to make friends; or enemies, if it came to that. Her front steps overlooked hilly greenery, interspersed with a few rocks and some giant trees that looked like they were moments away from lifting their roots and walking away. The night before they had planned to leave, Abel had had a nervous look about him, suddenly smaller than she had ever seen him, plopped silently at the center of the couch. Chibs had taken a seat beside him, telling him stories about Scotland; about the trees, animals, and legends that he'd been told as a child. Abel had smiled, and for just a moment she had felt devastated at the loss of him – at having yet another sacrifice to make, but it passed as quickly as it had come when she saw the relief in his eyes when he had told her he had finally come up with a plan.
The beeping of a phone in her pocket broke the calm quiet of the afternoon and she reached for it quickly, seeing a "1 New Voicemail" message flash across the screen.
The recording was fuzzy but she knew his voice well enough, accompanied by the sounds of engines running and men shouting echoing behind his words.
"I'm hopin' everything's okay on your end. I've been cravin' some real whiskey, so—" his voice became muffled for a few seconds and then she heard, "…seein' you soon."
She heard a shout of his name in the background before he hung up, the line going dead.
She shut the phone and placed it back in her pocket, smiling; not hesitantly or nervously, but genuine, so hard that it hurt. There was a quick flutter in her stomach and she placed her hand there as if to settle the commotion. The wind blew wet and cold between the hills, and she basked in the air of autumn before returning to the warmth of her new life.