Lamb Of God

"He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to each other and..."

Wendy could nothing but smile about the cosiness of the scene enfolding in front of her. She stood in the door to the room of the boys, leaning against the doorframe, and watched Steven while he read for Able. Thomas already laid in his crib and slept peacefully.

Today Jax had been released from prison and it was Opie's and Lyla's wedding day, so Wendy had offered to take the boys. Tara and Jax deserved a night on their own. It had been a wonderful evening, they had made pizza together and watched "Finding Nemo" for the hundredth time – Wendy could synchronize the movie by now. And while she observed Steven reading Able his bed-time-story, Wendy wondered how it would be if she could pregnant again, this time planed and together with someone who was ready to raise a child.

But before Wendy could end that thought, she heard a knock on the door. She threw an apologizing glance at Steven who had interrupted his reading and closed the door to the children's bedroom before she went to the door.

Of all the people Wendy had expected this night, Jax was probably the last one. It was the first time she saw him since he had gone to jail – he had refused to put her onto his visitor-list – and he looked horrible. The long blond hair which Wendy had loved so much was shorter now, and the beard was gone. But all of that couldn't hide the fact that he had lost a few pounds and looked like a skeleton who just got out of the grave.

"Can I come in?"

Wendy couldn't express how helpless this question sounded and so she nodded only. Jax stepped in and she directed him to the kitchen and she closed the door behind him. But before she did that, she stepped out on the porch and looked up and down the street, to make sure that Jax really had come alone.

When Wendy entered the kitchen she walked right into Jax who admired the mess she and Able had left on the counter. An absent smile played around his lips.

"I'm sorry, we made pizza and I hadn't had time to clean up yet." Wendy excused while she took a beer out of the freezer and gave it to Jax. Then she began cleaning the counter. "So, what unforgivable thing did you do that Tara banned you on the first night back together?"

"How do you know that I was thrown out?" Jax asked a counter question.

"Please, Jackson. I know you. If she didn't ban you, you'd be balls deep in her until tomorrow noon. So, what did you do?"

"I proposed to her." Jax sighted and opened his bottle to take a deep sip.

"Well, I don't see this as such a heavy crime, but I guess everyone is different. Say her you take it back and everything is alright again." Wendy proposed shrugging.

"It isn't that easy. And the proposal wasn't the problem. Tara said … she demanded that we would leave Charming before she said yes, as a sign that I was serious."

Wendy had been wiping the counter, but now she stopped and turned around, her eyes narrowed to slits.

"What's the problem? I thought you were planning on leaving Charming anyway? I already started looking for houses in Oregon."

Jax eyes were glued to the floor and like always when he was nervous, he started peeling off the label of his bottle. Wendy became the feeling that she wouldn't like his next answer.

"Many things changed while I was in prison. I can't just leave like that, there are things that need to be planned, I have to inform mom..."

"Oh please!" Wendy interrupted him. "I was married to you for three years, Jax, I know when you are looking for an easy way out."

"Alright!" He sighted and looked up, fixing Wendy like a lighthouse in a stormy night on the sea. "I don't think leaving Charming is the right decision anymore."

Before Wendy could say anything, Steven entered the kitchen, the book he had read to Able still in his hands.

"Hi Jackson" He greeted Jax like they had just seen each other a few days ago, then he turned to Wendy. "Able's finally asleep, I will go to bed now too. Are you coming when you two are done here?"

"Of course, good night." Wendy wished him with a shy smile. Steven pressed a light kiss onto her lips, then he left the kitchen and nodded to Jax on his way out.

"You really like him, do you?" Jax asked, as they heard the bedroom door close behind Steven. Of course, he wanted to change the topic, but Wendy would let him have it this time.

"He makes me the happiest I've ever been." Wendy answered shrugging, she couldn't stop smiling. "I can't explain it otherwise and for someone like you it might seem silly but..."

"No, I understand." Jax interrupted her. "He gives you steadiness. For people like us, who often decide by emotion it's a nice change. He keeps you grounded and I'm happy to see you happy. I once thought we could have something like that."

"No" Wendy said thoughtful. "Our marriage was different. We thought only strong emotions would be enough, but it made us miserable most of the time. And we both weren't able to talk about it. Our marriage was destined to fail. But I always thought you found someone who completes you in Tara..."

Jax didn't have an answer for that one.

While Wendy made the dishes and wiped the table none of them said a word, their thoughts laying heavy between them. But after a while, there was nothing Wendy could do anymore so she had no other choice than to turn back to Jax who had come near the bottom of his bottle by now.

"So, what's your plan?" She asked. Jax raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Please, Jax, you might be a hothead, but you aren't stupid. If you changed your decision, you have an alternative plan."

"Clay can only drive a few more years, three or four at most." Jax started to explain. "And when he steps down, I become president. Than I have real power, I can change things."

Again a smile appeared on Wendy's face, but this time it wasn't due to happiness. It was the smile she gave Able when he told her about some fanciful dream he had.

"You really think you can do that?"

"I know that it won't be easy. We might lose Tig and Happy on the way, and I don't know who else, but… I just have to try, you know. That would be what my dad wanted."

For a second, Wendy wanted to ask Jax how that had turned out for his Old Man, but then decided against it.

"When I came back from rehab, a part of me wished we could just start over again, at the point where I had left." She said instead. "Do you know why I decided against it in the end?"

Jax shook his head no.

"It was Donna's funeral. I saw Kenny and Ellie standing in front of her grave, so alone and I… Able has gone to through much in his life already, I didn't want to do that to him as well. But it will happen again, as long as the club is involved with guns and drug cartels. Because violence only causes violence, it doesn't solve anything. And wether you want it or not, where violence is, there will be collateral damage. It's one of the basic rules of human society. You can't change that."

"So what do you want me to do?" Jax asked, he sounded desperate. His prison time must have really messed him up.

"We both know that I can't tell you anything." Wendy chuckled. "In the end, you have to do what you think is right. But take in mind that you'll have to live with the consequences in the end, you can ask Opie how that feels. And you can't stop Tara from leaving you, if she thinks you are doing it the wrong way. So in the end, you have to decide what is more important to you."

"My family or my club?"

"No. You have to decide if you want your family to be safe, maybe with the costs of not being with them, or if you want to keep them close with the possibility that they might get hurt. Because we both know, whatever Taras imagination is, you can't just get out of the SONS like that."

When Wendy finished, Jax eyes had wandered to a picture which was pinned at the fridge. It showed a photo Steven had taken on a trip to the Wahewa-reservate. Thomas was laying agains Wendy's shoulder and Able had taken his mother at the hand to show her something he had found in the bushes. Although it might was only a few weeks old, it seemed impossibly far away for him.

"I'll go to bed now." Wendy said after Jax had remained silent for a while. "You can crash on the couch if you want, but be warned – Thomas likes to wake up at night and scream very loud."

With that, Wendy pressed a kiss onto his cheek and left the kitchen – leaving a Jax lost in thoughts behind.

"Did you and Jax settle everything?" Steven asked as Wendy laid down beside him a few minutes later.

"I hope. He might sleep here tonight." Wendy explained while she snuggled into her boyfriend. "Is that a problem?"

"Not if he makes breakfast in the morning." Steven suggested with tired chuckle.

"If you want to have a food poisoning…" All Wendy wanted now was a bit sleep, taking care of two boys could be really exhausting. But she couldn't sleep until she made something clear. "You know that I really love you?"

"Of course." Steven muttered. He seemed just as tired as her.

"But sometimes I think I don't say it enough. So, I'll just go ahead and say it again: I love you and I'm the happiest woman in the world for being with you."

"Well, you aren't so bad yourself." Steven answered, then he laid one arm around Wendy's hip and pulled her tighter against him. And in this position, both of them fell asleep.

Needlessly to say that Jax was gone when Thomas screams woke the whole house up about three hours later, but the tower of blankets on the couch was a sign that Jax had tried to get at least some hours of sleep. Wendy didn't see him again for a few days, when she took Thomas and Able back to Tara her friend told her that Jax hadn't been there since yesterday evening. Tara seemed impossibly tired and exhausted, so Wendy didn't mention that Jax had come to her place in the night.

They didn't leave Charming in the next few month and after a while, the topic dropped – at least it seemed so between Jax and Tara. Wendy didn't know what happened between those two, but Tara stayed, although now she was only a shadow of her old self. Wendy would have felt with her, if there hadn't been a small part in the back of his head which was happy that her boys would stay with her for a while longer. Was she a terrible person because of that?