A/N: This should not exist. I intended this as a one-shot! But a couple of people added it to their alert list. So I thought, 'Meh. If I come up with something to come next, I'll post it'. I wrote this in like 20 minutes. I dunno how good it is, in particular the characterisation. Jax is kinda hard to write. Drop me a review and tell me what you thought - please?
Oh by the way - my other SoA fic, 'Like Father, Like Son' is now up and I'd really appreciate some feedback on it. So go check it out. Go ooooon! Help me out. :D
Epilogue
Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
The regrets are useless in my mind
She's in my head, I must confess
- 'Whatsername', Green Day
Jax Teller glanced back over his shoulder in shock. He could have sworn he'd just seen –
But no. The Saturday morning foot traffic of Charming was made up of a large variety of people, but she certainly wasn't one of them. Never would be. She'd made her choice years ago. Jax clearly remembered how stubborn she was. Never once had she ever changed her mind.
Jax returned his eyes to the road, knowing full well that looking behind him at the people on the footpath was dangerous as well as pointless. He revved his Harley and sped up, suddenly struck with the odd desire for a bit of privacy.
When he reached the garage, he grabbed a beer and a packet of cigarettes and made his way up to the roof. Settling himself down on the old tiles, his mind wandered to what he'd just seen – or rather, thought he'd seen. Thinking about it now, he realised that he probably wouldn't recognise her even if he did ride past her. It had been eleven years since she'd left, and people didn't look the same forever. He hoped she hadn't changed too much, though. She had been so pretty.
Not that he'd ever see her again anyway.
Jax briefly considered indulging his sudden bout of nostalgia by going over to the house and digging out some old photos of him and her together as teenagers. He wasn't really in the mood to deal with Wendy, though, and besides, he was pretty sure he'd gotten rid of all those pictures. Burnt, no doubt, in a heart-broken nineteen-year-old's fit of rage. This realisation, much to his annoyance, caused more than a twinge of disappointment in his mind.
Jax sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Missing someone he hadn't seen in over a decade was so pointless. There were so many things he should have been thinking about, but for some reason, the only thing in his head was her. He'd been brought up to have no regrets, but he couldn't help but feel sorry for losing her.
Jax threw his burnt-out cigarette butt at Juice down in the court in anger, thankfully missing. Why the hell could he suddenly not stop thinking about a girl he'd dated for a few years back in high school? If he was going to be preoccupied with any ex, it should have been Wendy. But it wasn't her face that kept appearing in his mind.
He rubbed his right wrist absent-mindedly; a red patch of skin that still tingled occasionally. It was the sight of the only tattoo he'd ever had lasered. It had been one of his very first tattoos – her name on his wrist in curly black letters. It had been done on the same day that she'd had the SAMCRO old lady crow inked on her back. They'd promised each other that it meant forever, like the SAMCRO version of wedding vowels. Jax had inked his heart on his sleeve, literally. Then he'd gotten rid of it, just as he'd gotten rid of all the photos.
Jax knew that she would have lasered her crow as soon as she had the cash to do so. She wasn't his old lady, after all, and SAMCRO had no place in her new life as a respected doctor or whatever it was that she did now.
Jax made his way down from the roof, intending to loose himself under the hood of another almost-dead car. There was no point in thinking about Tara Knowles. Because, after all, he was never going to see her again. That was just the way it was.
