Jax seeing his mother

Clay is not a good man. Jax has known that for a while now, but he's always pushed it aside. Gemma, his mother, had always loved him. That had been enough for Jax, or at least it had to be.

Not anymore. Not now. As he looks at his mother, he realizes that the last remaining thing standing between him and Clay is gone. Clay has touched the one thing Jax had always thought he would never- Gemma.

He is stunned, first and foremost. He's not even sure how this could happen, not to Gemma. His mother has always been tough. She has always seemed above it all, the queen. This makes her oddly human, in a devastating way.

Then he is furious. This is his mother. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the world can justify what Clay has done to her. He has broken her, and Jax cannot stand for it. He cannot let this happen. His mother deserves justice.

Clay has been out of line for ages now. He has been since before Abel was born. Any peace they had was temporary, Jax realizes. It had been a band-aid hiding a larger problem, that Clay only ever hurts the people around him.

He wants to kill him. How could he do this to his own wife? The woman he claims to love? All Jax can think about is that night she sat them down and told them about what those skinheads had done to her, how he and Clay had been so repulsed and devastated. Now Clay does this?

He's dead. He's past the point of return. He needs to be put down, and now his mother will not be able to deny that fact. There is no time to think about the past, or how Clay was his father for a decade of his life. Those times have passed. Those things no longer matter.

He hasn't felt this rage for ages. But there is one promise he will make to his mother and that is that no one, especially not Clay, will ever raise a hand to her ever again. Jax will protect her.


Wendy hearing about Thomas

"Hey Wendy." Julie sits down next to her at the coffee shop. Wendy glances up at her friend, smiling.

"Hey Jules. How are you?" She asks.

"Good." Julie plays with the straw of her iced coffee nervously. "You going to the meeting tonight?"

"Of course." Wendy says, watching her with concern. "Are you?"

"Yeah." Julie fidgets, avoiding her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Wendy cuts straight to the chase, folding her hands over the top of Julie's.

"I have something to tell you." She confesses and Wendy is already counting the number of days she has sober, knowing Julie wasn't far behind her. "I heard something from Charming."

"Oh." Wendy stops her count, blinking in confusion. "What about it?"

"It's about Jax." Julie admits and Wendy's hands find her cup while her stomach sinks.

"What about him?" She asks, trying to remain carefully neutral. Julie is watching her in pity, so she gets the feeling it's not working.

"He, uh, he had another son." Julie says carefully. "I was talking to some friends back there, they said it was that doctor. Taylor or Terry?"

"Tara." Wendy says automatically before she can stop herself. She will never forget that name.

"Yeah." Julie's watching her carefully for a reaction, but Wendy can't bring herself to do anything but sit there, stunned.

Tara and Jax have a son. Of course they do. She's gone, she's out of the picture. In all honesty, she was out of the picture the second Tara reentered. Jax loves Tara more, he always has, he always will. The only thing she ever had over Tara was being the mother of Jax's son.

That's gone. She doesn't even have that. Jax will love this new baby, perhaps even more than he loves Abel. Because he wanted this baby. He wanted Tara to be pregnant. He never meant to knock up some junkie whore. But this baby? He wants this one.

And undoubtedly, Tara will be the best mom. Her son will not have any defects or problems. He was probably healthy, perfect, and flawless. Everything Abel wasn't. Gemma will fawn over her, proclaim that Tara is the best mother ever. She will have the second son, the perfect son.

She feels a deep well of jealousy burning deep in her soul, something she can't even control. It is just a fact. Jax has everything he wants. A perfect wife, a perfect son, his perfect club. He's probably forgotten she even exists. Tara is Abel's mother, has been since the day he was born. Wendy never was. She never got a chance. A deep need opens in her heart.

She's sober now. She's clean and healthy. She could go back. She could meet Abel, tell him the truth. She is his mother. Even if she didn't raise him, she loves him. She is his mother, he deserves to know that. Jax deserves to remember that Wendy didn't just leave her child.

It won't be easy. No, Gemma will fight tooth and nail. Jax will flat out refuse. Tara. She'll approach her, mother to mother. She'll understand how devastating it would be to be ripped from her child. Tara will see how much she's improved. She'll have to. Wendy needs her to.

"Wendy." Julie brings her back to present with a gentle touch to her wrist. "Are you ok?"

"What? Yeah, fine." Wendy flashes her a bright smile. "That's good, that's good for Jax. He's always wanted lots of kids."

"Another boy." Julie repeats, taking a sip of her coffee. "I heard they named him Thomas." Wendy's hand clench her cup. Of course. The name that was off limits to her isn't to Tara. Named after the little brother he so adored. She gets everything, even that name.

"Abel and Thomas." Wendy tries the combination out. "They sound like good brothers."


Wendy in Abel's room

It's perfect and that makes her hate it even more. She hates the light blue walls, and how Gemma and Jax probably painted them while Abel was in the hospital, in an incubator, trying to get better from her mistake.

Of course there's motorcycle posters on the wall, classics. Jax has probably already taught his little son all the names and styles, sat him on his knee and told him stories about what kind of bike he'll have when he's big.

There's little reminders here and there of the little boy, a stuffed animal in the corner, toy cars spilled everywhere, clearly left out. Wendy wonders if Tara makes him clean up his room often or if she's content to let Abel play, kissing his blond head.

The thing that breaks her heart the most is the little bed. Not a crib. A bed. Her baby, forever locked in her mind as this fragile figure, is old and big enough to sleep in a normal sized bed. Do Tara and Jax lay with him as they put him to sleep? Does he snore lightly? Does he sleep with one hand over his head like Jax does? Does he wake up crying from nightmares?

She never even decorated his room. She thought she had plenty of time. Then she didn't. And then she never came back. There's nothing more that she wants to do than bury her face in these pillows, inhale his scent, and weep for the little boy she's lost.

But she can't. Not in front of Gemma. Even battered and broken, Gemma cuts a commanding figure. Wendy had known coming into this that Gemma wouldn't yield to her. But she'd hoped. And so as she sits in her son's room, desperate to know the boy who sleeps here, she tries not to show Gemma just how much her heart is breaking.


Fathers

Clay never knew his father; only that he never had an interest in raising a child. Neither did his mother, for that matter. He was raised by his grandparents, who also had no interest in raising another child. He was mostly free to roam as a child, do whatever he pleased, so long as he stayed out of jail. And, as he found out one night, that rule wasn't even strictly enforced. He would catch tidbits from his grandparents here and there- he has his father's eyes, his mother's nose, the like. But Clay never cared. His parents did nothing for him. As far as he is concerned, he raised himself. They don't matter.

Chibs has hazy memories of his father. He remembers a burly Scottish, with a thick brogue and long hair. That's it. His father left his mother when Chibs was hardly old enough to go to school. That's when they moved to Belfast, to be closer to his mother's family. She never spoke of his father again, not to him or to his siblings. And when Chibs slipped further and further into his life on the street, all she can do is grit her teeth and tell him he is too much life his father.

Bobby's father was, by all accounts, a good dad. Besides the mafia thing, he was a doting and caring man, eager to sit Bobby on his knee. He'd smell like cigars and whiskey, the shades tilted against the sun, showing Bobby books filled with his chicken scratch handwriting, pointing out numbers amidst the scribbling. That's where he learned accounting, from his father. He recalls these days fondly and though he can never admit it, part of him is consumed with guilt that he is not the father he should be to his own son.

Tig isn't really sure if he even has a father. He knows that factually he must have a dad. But in all honestly, there really isn't proof. Not in his birth certificate, which has a blank space where his father's name would go. Not in pictures of his childhood, where he is alone. Not in his memories, not in anything. His father has always been absent, and it doesn't really bother Tig. How can you miss something that you never even had?


Tig stepping down

Guilt. Overwhelming guilt. That's all he can feel. Of course Clay gets injured when he steps away. If he had been there, if he hadn't been so selfish, if he hadn't been so angry and frustrated with Clay. He could've stopped this. He should've stopped this. It's his job.

No, it was. When you can't do your job, you get fired. His pres is sitting in a hospital room, fighting for his life. He is fired. He should be fired. He'll fire himself. He doesn't deserve this title.

He's always protected Clay. Mexicans. Blacks. Irish. Gemma. Sons. Skinheads. Doesn't matter. He's dived in front of bullets. Taken punches to the face and kicks to the balls. He's lost a lot of blood to prevent Clay from having to, but he's done it gladly. It is his job.

But Clay doesn't trust him anymore. He's shutting him out and Tig doesn't know what to do. He's losing his brother. His best friend. He doesn't know how to stop or prevent it. Tig hasn't been very good at many things in life. Not school, which became unbearable after middle school. Not having a normal job, which would prove unbearable after a couple months, tops. Not at being a father, which could hardly tame him for a year.

But the club, that he's good at. Being Clay's right hand man, that's what he's good at. The hammer, the muscle, the gun hand, that's what he's good at. Or at least, that was what he was good at.

The guilt feels like it's burning him from the inside out. All he can do is replaying that argument. Stupid. Clay was vunerable, especially with this cartel shit. This was not the time to leave him alone and yet Tig had done just that, leaving him exposed to the world.

Another thing he failed at.

AN: Man, a lot of Wendy, because when are you not rooting for her? Reviews yes no?