AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just to be clear these outtakes aren't from previously posted chapters. In the original drafts of this story, I planned to actually depict the beginning of Jax's and Noelle's relationship starting in high school while he was still with Tara. So these are just small scenes I had envisioned for them. I hope you enjoy these little outtakes!
Jax creeps to the doorway of the greenhouse where his Mom is working diligently on her plants. It's May and he knows his mom has just come from the store with fresh soil for her spring time plants. Sometimes he thinks she may love her plants more than him and Clay combined. Yet, he knows her love from planting is somehow connected to her own childhood – parents. The grandparents that he barely knows and has seen only two times in his whole life, both of those circumstances weren't exactly great.
It's strange to him that for a woman who is so protective of her family, and values of what it means to be a family that there is such an estrangement between his mom and her parents. He knows that the estrangement is most likely from the fact that his Mom had ran away, gotten with his Dad, and was a driving force in making Charming the roots to his father's dreams.
It's history though he doesn't think about very often, but now he thinks that he should.
After all, family is very important and he is about to learn that very very soon. If his mom doesn't kill him first that is.
Even at the age of 21, Jax can admit that his mom is downright fierce when she wants to be. Considering he has never put his mom in this situation before, he doesn't know how to predict her reaction.
"Are you going to come in or what?" She asks as she places her shovel down and turns to look at him.
Jax gives her a sheepish smile as he swaggers in the greenhouse that Clay had built for his mom simply because she asked him to.
And he wonders what his Mom and his Dad had and even her and Clay now have will be something he will be able to have. Although now that he thinks on it, he is following in his father's footsteps a little too closely. So maybe he will.
"You know I love you, Mom," he tells her as he comes up and hugs her tightly.
He knows his Mom is the strongest woman in his Life and possibly the whole world. Despite his Dad's and Thomas' death, she had managed to remain strong for him and their family of outlaw bikers.
She smiles at him softly. "I love you too, baby." She replies sweetly before her eyes narrow slightly. "So what the hell did you do?"
Jax sighs as he moves and sits in the armchair in the greenhouse directly across from where his Mom is standing.
There were a lot of things Jax knows that he does his mom simply overlooks, but he knows she knows about the shit he gets himself entangled into. But right now, he knows for certain she has no idea about what he has been doing since this past February and really longer if he thinks about the beginning – the seeds that have grown into what has now become. If anything, his constant parade of croweaters has probably kept her off his trail.
So in the end he decides to just rip off the band-aide.
"You're going to be a grandma." He tells her in one breath.
He watches for the first time that he sees an unguarded reaction from his mom as her eyes widen in shock and a hand goes to her heart. He thinks he might see her eyes watering a bit as she sags against the table behind her. But it's all swept away in seconds as her eyes narrow dangerously. His fierce spitfire mother is back, "So help me god, Jackson, it better not be that fucking junkie croweater Wen –"
His own eyes widen. "What! No! It's not!"
"Is it a croweater?" She hisses.
"No."
"Who?" She demands as she cocks her hips.
Jax wipes a hand down his face as he leans back in his chair. "Noelle Harper."
The greenhouse goes quiet as his Mom sucks in a breath and turns around to face her plants. He knows what his mom is thinking another outsider.
"Have you lost your goddamn mind!" She hisses. "Did you learn nothing from Tara?"
Jax winces at the mention of Tara, but he also feels a flare of anger. "Noelle isn't like Tara."
Gemma snorts. "When it comes to pussy, I don't think you're the best judge of that."
Jax openly glares at his mother. For one thing, Noelle isn't just pussy.
"What is Noelle going to do when she finds out about the croweaters? The gun running? Or were you too preoccupied with being a knight in shining armor to get her out from her uptight parents?"
"You don't know what you're talking about." Jax says with a clenched jaw.
"Is she your old lady?"
"That isn't important at the moment, Mom." He tells her sadly. He's about to become a father and he's scared out of his mind. He's going to have a baby. A small, precious baby that will depend on him.
At least his mom takes some pity on him as she backs down. The fire is slowly receding in her.
She comes to stand next to him and sighs.
"When's she due?"
"November." He tells her. Apparently their kid is due around the same time as Noelle's birthday.
"When did this all start?"
"February," he tells her. Valentine's Day to be exact when Noelle finally let him in.
"Like father like son." His mom replies.