By the Stars Above
A Jax and Tara One Shot

It was the night before he was supposed to become a married man, and all Jax Teller could think about was burying himself so deep inside of another woman, a woman who wasn't his soon to be wife, that he'd lose all sense of time and place, causing him to miss his own wedding. But he wasn't looking for an easy lay with a cro-eater - something Wendy, his in-name only fianceé, had been for years before his mother got a hard-on for some grandbabies and started shoving Wendy towards a lonely and bored Jax, and he didn't want one of Luann's girls, or a stripper, or anyone else his brothers could throw at him. In fact, Jax had skipped out on his own bachelor party… which, really, was nothing more than yet another Samcro blowout at the clubhouse. It had just started even earlier than their parties usually did.

If Ope hadn't been in prison, he might have tried to do something more for Jax or, at least, he would have noticed when Jax took just two steps into the clubhouse before turning right back around and hightailing it towards his bike, peeling out of the Teller-Morrow lot like he was running for his very life. And maybe he was. If nothing else, Opie wouldn't have encouraged Jax's marriage to Wendy, to a woman Jax didn't love and didn't particularly like either when he wasn't wasted or balls deep inside of her. But Ope wasn't there, and he wouldn't be there again for a couple more years, and the one woman Jax actually wanted and couldn't stop thinking about had left him so many years before that he shouldn't have been able to still see her face, yet it was the only face he could see.

When he raced away from the garage and headed towards the edge of town, when he passed by the 'you're now leaving Charming' sign and turned his bike towards Stockton, and when Jax careened his Harley onto the I-5 South ramp, going far too fast but unwilling, unable, to slow down, he refused to admit to himself just what he was doing, just where he was going. But he knew. It had taken him nine years to reach a point where he was desperate enough to risk everything - his heart, his pride, his reputation, his place within the club, but the temptation had been there all along, a whisper in the back of his mind, buried deep within his heart, seducing him, provoking him, luring him, tormenting him - a siren's song of his own making.

Yet, the pull could only take him so far.

When she had split, to Jax, it had seemed sudden. It didn't matter that he'd lost track of how many times she'd begged him to go away with her, how many times they'd fought over their future, how many tears she had shed in frustration and fear, in anger and anguish, in desperation and desolation. Jax never thought she'd actually go, and he saw her determination to get away as selfish - like she was too good for him, his club, his family, his dreams for them. So, when one day she was just… no longer there anymore, he didn't try to find her. He didn't contact her, he didn't look for her, he didn't even keep tabs on where she went. All he knew was that she had gone to San Diego and that was hours away from him - too many hours to make it work. She didn't say goodbye, and he refused to admit he was sorry to see her go.

But now here he was - surrounded by people at all times but never lonelier. Besides her, he had everything he'd ever wanted, and, yet, it wasn't enough. What was worse, there was no one Jax could confide in, no one he could unburden his doubts onto and then continue to ignore them. It had taken nine years… and hundreds of other women… for Jax to finally understand why the only woman who had ever mattered had left him, that maybe, in refusing to even entertain the dreams she had for them, he had been the one running away the whole time. It was safer to do what was expected of him, to want what he had been taught to want, than it was to think for himself.

Even now - even after taking off less than twenty-four hours before his wedding without word or explanation, Jax knew that, if he didn't find her, he'd fall back into old habits, bad habits, and do what he was supposed to do. The temporary surge of self-awareness and courage would wither and die in the light of day. He had the night only - the night that reminded him and the night that empowered him. So, he pushed the throttle and he pushed himself just that much harder, further, faster, but he had no idea what or where he was pushing himself towards. Just who.

By the time he hit the edge of the city, it was raining - a misting, blanketing rain that felt more like the ocean had surged right on up and consumed the land, the sky. Jax was swimming through the damp, not riding through a shower. The gentle breeze was warm, and it smelled clean, and fresh, and sweet. It was like being back in her embrace again… only not - a wraith of the woman he sought. She was real until he looked too close; until he reached out to touch her, to hold her; until he said her name and, instead of his own murmured in response, the streets, and the wind, and the rain, and the dark echoed her name back to him.

He rode through the vibrancy that was a city at night. The neon glow of the stores, and the bars, and the cars blurred together until Jax saw her in every glare of light, in every silvery reflection made that much more convincing by the gentle storm that swirled around him. Or maybe Jax himself was the storm - the anomaly, the thing that didn't belong. Because, while it didn't rain often in San Diego, he never did anything that wasn't about the club.

Eventually, the shops and restaurants closed, and the bars saw last call come and go. It seemed like everyone else in the city of more than a million found what they were looking for, leaving Jax alone on the unfamiliar streets and in his unexpected endeavor. The glares and the reflections faded, but she didn't. She was in every shadow, every empty and dark window he drove by - on the back of his bike, holding onto him tight… a specter of what once was and a vision of what should be. But he had to find her first… or, maybe, he had to have her in order to find himself.

There was a thin band of gold along the horizon - like the sky had married the land - when Jax came to a stop at a light. His was the only vehicle there either coming or going, waiting or passing through, and, as he sat there lingering in vain while his one chance slipped through his fingers, he glanced up at the sky. The rain had stopped, the clouds had passed, and all the stars seemed to couple together to form one large, guiding presence… only it wasn't a clear and fair shimmer but green - emerald green, the green of her eyes. Jax blinked, and he realized the traffic light had changed. He drove through the intersection, and he finally drove towards the one place where he might be able to ask the questions he should have posed so long ago.

He had wasted so much time - not just the nine years between when he lost her and when he realized he needed to find her again but also that night as well. For hours, Jax drove around a strange city, up and down strange streets, trying to find the person more familiar to him than himself. But, while he had failed her in so many ways when she left by not asking where she was going or what she planned on doing, he had always known who had helped her go. If he went there, though, and he didn't find her, then it'd all be over. His last shred of hope would be severed, and, with the rising sun, she'd vanish again. If he went there, though, and he did find her but she turned him away, turned him down, then Jax feared he might be the one to vanish… but not for nine years this time; he'd be lost forever.

The house was small - a bungalow. It was all bright colors, and warm tile, and surrounded by a lush garden. Jax parked his bike down the street, and then he strolled confidently, quietly, right by the sidewalk which led to the front porch and door, easily hopping over the decorative wrought iron fence to walk around the side of the cottage and towards the back yard. Nearly a decade stretched between them, but he still knew his girl. She'd claim the room with the best means of escape for her own. Some shit, including the scars of living with the death of one parent and the alcoholic result that was the other, didn't, wouldn't, couldn't fade with distance or time.

Escape wasn't just his girl climbing out of her window to slip off into the night and away from her drunk old man; it was also a way for Jax to climb in, helping her escape without ever having to step foot out of her bed. So, that's what he did. He found the room that would be hers, silently lifted one of the windows, and he scaled the stucco to push himself into the house… and into a bedroom he immediately realized was empty. And its emptiness had nothing to do with the made bed where no one slept and everything to do with the fact that she had been more of a presence to him as he drove through the night on his bike than she was to him in that room. It wasn't even the same motorcycle Jax used to ride with her, but the imprint of her was still his constant companion.

As he sat down on the unoccupied bed, Jax leaned forward. He ran his hands down his thighs until they cupped his knees, the last vestiges of his strength and resolve deserting him. Shoulders rolling inward, head falling down to hang between his legs, he breathed harshly through his failure and tried to reconcile his heart to his reality. She wasn't there. Even if he waited, she wouldn't be there in the morning either. Jax didn't need to ask to know that she hadn't been there in a long time - years probably.

A floorboard creaked. Jax didn't bother to look up. Instead, he lifted his hands to drag them through his long, still wet from the rain hair. He clenched his fingers in his locks until the point of pain, and then he clenched them just that much harder. It made the hurt less. "You should know that I have a gun, and I'm calling the cops."

Jax ignored the threats. With his head still bowed and his voice a scratchy whisper in contrast with the shouted warnings, Jax demanded to be told, "where is she?"

At first, there was confusion, "where's…?," but then the older woman stepped into the bedroom and really looked at him - the man who had broken into her house. "Huh. So, you're Jax Teller."

He thought about asking her who else would come looking for her cousin in the middle of the night, but Jax wasn't sure if he really wanted to know that answer. And he almost questioned what other outlaw bikers did she know, but then he glanced up through the loose strands of blonde hair falling into his eyes and, in doing so, was reminded of the fact that he wasn't wearing his kutte. Sometime between leaving Charming and nightfall, the unforgiving sun beating down upon his leather clad shoulders had become too much, so, when he stopped for gas, Jax shrugged off his kutte and stowed it in his saddlebag. It rocked him to realize that he had never missed the weight of it on his back, that he could feel so much like himself without it that he forgot that he wasn't even wearing it.

The reminder now, though, helped him focus. "Where. Is. She?"

"She doesn't live here anymore." The response was unflinching. The middle-aged woman across from him wore an actual pajama set - all flowery and girly, and her slippers were furry flip-flops. She was nothing like her cousin… and, yet, she reminded him of her anyway. It was the way she spoke - her composure, her strength, her spark of temper.

"Yeah, no shit." She set her small handgun down on a bare but dust free dresser, though she kept her cell phone in her left hand. "I could tell that for myself the second I stepped into this room. What I couldn't tell was where she lives now, and I'm going to need you to tell me."

"No."

Jax stood, folded his arms across his white t-shirt clad chest. He still wore his motorcycle gloves. "What did you just say to me?"

Instead of repeating herself, the older woman asked, "why should I?"

"Because I need to see her, talk to her."

"Now - after all this time?"

"Exactly," Jax grasped onto a point he believed he could use to his advantage. "It's been nine years, and, after I let her go…."

"You didn't let her go," she contradicted him, searching his face as she talked. "You dogged her every step, made her doubt everything. Every single time she heard a motorcycle, she'd light up, believing you'd finally come after her, picked her, chose her… only to be disappointed all over again when it wasn't you. You've haunted her."

"You think she's the only one who sees ghosts?" Throwing his arms up to encompass the room, the house, the city, Jax yelled, "why the hell do you think I'm here?"

"Frankly, I have no idea," her cousin sighed. "You're years too late."

"Me," he scoffed, laughed, though the sound was void of humor and ugly in its bitterness, its disillusionment. "I thought she'd come back to me years ago. She said she wanted to go to college. That's what? Four, five years, max. She'd get a business degree or study accounting, and she'd run TM while I ran the club. Or she'd become a teacher and embarrass the shit out of our kids when all their pimple-faced friends jerked off to thoughts of her at night after having her for class during the day. But she never came back. Four years slipped into five, and then six, and, now, it's nine years later, and I've heard nothing from her. No visits. No letters. No calls. But enough is enough. It's time for her to come home."

"To Charming?"

"No, to me!" To emphasize his point, Jax stabbed his right index finger into his chest directly over where his heart beat frantically beneath his skin. "I'm her home!"

The older woman's delayed reaction helped to calm him back down. It was obvious that she wasn't simply going to outright dismiss his claims, that she was thinking about what he had said, and Jax found himself curious and desperate to hear what she had to say in return. Finally, when she spoke, her gentle, thoughtful tone told him that she was done fighting him. Her shoulders slumped, and then she shrugged them. "Maybe you are her home, and maybe she needs you to realize that she is yours as well before she can come back to you."

"I've always known that we were meant to be together. I've known that since I was sixteen years old."

"That's not the same thing, Jax." He nodded, conceding, and then he sat back down on the bed once more. She waited for him to get settled before she surprised him by admitting, "she's in Chicago."

An instinctive ache made him snap, "what, an entire state between us wasn't enough? She had to go all away across the fucking country?"

Her cousin ignored his complaints. She folded her arms across her abdomen, and she leaned against the doorjamb as she smoothly continued like he had never interrupted her. "She's a doctor, you know - a surgeon. That's why she's been gone so long. She's in her first year of residency at Chicago Presbyterian, was top of her class at Loyola Med."

In proud awe, Jax echoed, "she's a surgeon?" It wasn't that he was surprised by her accomplishments. He had always known how smart she was, how capable, how talented, how amazing. He just…. In nine years time, he'd managed to fuck his way through Northern California and go to prison a couple of times, yet she became someone who literally saved lives.

"You still haven't told me why you're here. Why now? Why tonight of all nights did you finally come for her?"

He decided to give her the truth. "I'm supposed to get married tomorrow… or, well, I guess it's in a matter of hours now." The sun wasn't up yet, but it was too damn close for comfort.

Just like that, the defensive accusation was back and ringing through her voice. "And, what, you wanted one last night of fun with your high school sweetheart?"

"No, of course not," he shot to his feet, glaring at the older woman. "It's not like that. I don't just want one night with her. I want her to give me a reason to not get married; I want her to stop the wedding."

"Stop it yourself," she challenged him. "If you don't want to get married, then don't. Obviously, you don't need her as an excuse to not go through with the wedding. The fact that you're here is reason enough."

"You don't understand," Jax told her, shaking off her arguments as he began to pace back and forth within the confines of the small, dark bedroom. "It's not that simple."

"Actually, it is," her cousin contended. "Love is the simplest thing in the whole world. You either go after it, or you don't."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," she confirmed. "Hell, this man before me - the one who recognized that he shouldn't be marrying one woman when he's in love with another? I'll take him to the airport myself. I'll buy him his ticket."

"It's too late for that now. I need to get back. I shouldn't have left in the first place."

Her cousin picked up the gun, but the gesture wasn't meant to intimidate; she was just signaling to him that, because of his resignation, their conversation was almost through. "If you go back there and if you marry a woman you do not love, then you have to let her go. For good this time."

"Why? Because I was with someone else?" Scoffing, Jax denied, "you can't honestly tell me that she's been alone all these years."

"It's not about being alone; it's about being weak. She deserves the man who came here tonight, not the one running back to and settling for a life he doesn't want." Before Jax could respond, the older woman was turning her back on him and walking away. "You let yourself in. I'm sure you can show yourself out."

Five minutes later, he was back on his Harley. But he just… sat there. He had his helmet on, but he didn't start the bike. He flexed his gloved fingers against the handlebars, but he didn't start his bike. He pulled out a pack of smokes, lit one, took a long, burning drag. He finished the cigarette, flicked it away. He coughed, looked around him, but no one was there to hear. He inhaled deeply, held it in his lungs until his vision started to go blurry, and then he exhaled loudly through his nose. He licked his lips, ran his teeth over them, and then wiped his right hand over his mouth and through his facial hair, tugging on the coarse strands. He scuffed his left tennis shoe against the pavement - back and forth and side to side, but, still, he didn't start his bike. He remained there, stuck in indecision, and he watched the sunrise as it slowly chased the night, and the moon, and the stars away… for at least another day.

Sometimes, Jax found himself questioning his memories, his sanity. But, then, all he had to do was look up at the night sky, and he knew they were true, that he wasn't crazy. With Tara, it had been more. He knew want. He was familiar with want - always had been, always would be. But, with Tara, it wasn't just want; it was also need. He needed to be near her, to hold her, to kiss her, to touch her, to fuck her, to lose himself inside of her; he needed to claim her, possess her, mark her, make and keep her his forever. And he needed Tara to need him just as desperately, just as obsessively. So, when Jax could finally escape from the bullshit of the day, of his life, when he was alone, and it was late at night, and he was in the middle of fucking nowhere with his bike and the open road beneath him and the stars above, it wasn't just memory that reminded him, haunted him, of Tara Knowles; it was knowledge. He knew he didn't just want or need her, and she didn't just leave him. They had been in love.

Hell, he was still in love with her, would always be in love with her.

But he only had the night to find her. The question was, though, was the night just time - seconds, and minutes, and hours - that faded, and looped, and left, but would always come back again, or was the night life without the person he was supposed to be with?

Jax started his bike, and he revved it to shatter the early morning stillness, and he drove off, heading north on I-15.

A/N: The title, the mood, and even some of the words used for this story were inspired by Lord Huron's "When the Night is Over."