Pale Clouded White

Jax startled awake less than an hour later. There was no shocking noise, no sudden bright light. The same dim bedside lamp that had been on when Jax found the asshole cop assaulting Tara, when he lined his gun up to the man's temple and snuffed out his life, when Jax had sex with Tara, and when he fell asleep afterwards was still on. He didn't have to go to the bathroom, his arm wasn't numb, and he wasn't too cold or too warm. Waking wasn't even his body's natural instinct for self-preservation kicking in, seeing as how there was an obviously edgy and upset woman pacing beside him and holding his gun. No, Jax had come to bewildered alertness, because that same woman was no longer in his arms.

Forty-five minutes and just one fuck with Tara, and she already felt like she belonged next to him.

Without saying anything, Jax pushed himself up so that he was braced against the headboard, the sheets pooling in his lap and leaving his bare arms and chest exposed to the bedroom's chilled air. He wasn't sure if Tara had adjusted the thermostat intentionally or if the house's temperature had tripped on the air conditioning, but, exposed, he was now too cool. Tara, on the other hand, was partially dressed, having slipped on his t-shirt, though her legs and feet were still naked. A flare of pride shot through him at the sight.

As if sensing his attention, his appreciation, Tara snapped, "it was the closest thing I could grab without…," gesturing towards where her closet door was, its path partially blocked by a dead body and its detritus.

"Hey, I wasn't complaining."

"Don't," she snapped, glaring at him with a furrowed brow. "Don't get cute and flirty with me like this is some date that ended back at my place or even a one night stand."

"But it's my natural state of being," Jax tried to distract her. He knew they needed to talk - seriously talk, and it was a good sign that he didn't wake to sirens in the distance and intrusive blue and red lights pulsing through the window blinds, but, belatedly, he had realized just how much he had wanted to really and truly get to know Tara… while she got to know him, only, now, it was too late.

"And does being a cop killer come easy to you, too?"

Any humor stripped from his mood and voice, Jax corrected, "I killed a rapist."

"Newsflash: the two are not mutually exclusive." When he didn't reply, Tara stopped her steps and turned to face him, his gun she held down against her right leg. Leveling off her volume, she stated, "you're the guy from the bridge pile-up."

It wasn't a question, but Jax confirmed her realization anyway. "I am."

"Why did you follow me?" Before he could respond, she started to ask a stream of inquiries, one right after another like rapid fire. "You had to be following me? But why? And for how long? Did it start after the accident, or were you there that day because you were already watching me? And why did you help me; why did you kill someone for me?"

"I'll tell you everything," he started to promise her. When Tara snorted - a caught, pinched off sound of disbelief and desperation, Jax rushed to add, "I'll tell you the truth - all of it, but you need to let me; you need to be patient, because, if you interrupt me or jump to conclusions before I've finished, then we'll never get through everything."

"Oh god, you say that like there's a lot." Practically growling, Tara demanded, "what the hell is going on here?"

He ignored her - at least so much as what she had directly asked him. There was no way Jax could ever actually disregard her. "What I'm going to tell you, it's not pretty, Babe, and it's going to paint me in the worst fucking light, but this is how you'll know that I'm telling you the truth."

"Alright fine," she nodded towards him once with her chin, the gesture encouraging. "Go on then."

Jax almost faltered under the weight of all of his confessions, all of his secrets, but he knew that Tara's patience would only last for so long, and it was already wearing thin. It was just… where the hell did he even start? Quickly, as she waited for him to begin, standing as far away from him and the body as she could, Jax ran through the timeline of the last couple of months, weighing his options but all the while knowing that, to do the story justice… and to give himself even a smidgeon of hope that Tara wouldn't turn him in at the first chance she had, he had to first ask her about the man who had, unwittingly, set them on a collision course.

Based upon what the crazy ATF agent had ranted about while attacking her, Jax knew that Tara was at least aware of the basics concerning Tig… and that, while no DNA test, that basic knowledge pretty much confirmed her paternity as far as Jax was concerned. Meeting her anxious and bloodshot gaze, Jax wondered out loud, "what do you know about your father?"

"I know that calling him that is far too generous," Tara bit off without a second's thought. "I know that, after he nearly got my mother killed when he put his bike down on a highway and she rolled into oncoming traffic, he broke her heart, pushed her away, refused to have anything to do with her. She was eight weeks pregnant at the time. With me. I know that my mom was never the same after that. Her injuries healed, but she didn't. I know that he's a coward who was too scared of the consequences of his own actions to actually do anything to change them. I know that, while my mom's autopsy lists cancer as her cause of death, he killed her before I was even born."

Tara's speech might have been short on details, but the vague and blunt words and the angry sentiments behind them told Jax that she knew enough that he didn't need to explain Tig to her. So, instead, he launched right into his actions. "Four months ago, your father rolled up behind my best friend's truck and emptied a clip through the back window, murdering his wife and the mother of his two children. A week later when we buried her, he walked out of the cemetery and ate his own gun. Tig - that's what your father goes by - might not have been the idea man, but he was the yes man."

Gasping in shock and horror, Tara brought her free hand, the hand that wasn't holding Jax's gun, up to her mouth and exclaimed, "oh my god!"

"I didn't… I'm not handling it well," Jax confessed. It would prove to be just one of many, but, somehow, he believed that it would be the hardest to admit. "Around the same time, I also learned that the same man who ordered the hit on my best friend also had my dad killed years ago, staging it to look like an accident. I have all this… rage. It's constantly gnawing at me, but I have nowhere to put it. I don't know how to contain it, or suppress it, or accept it. So, I let it fester. I let it feed. And then I heard Tig talking about the one woman he ever really, truly loved, and, suddenly, everything was calm again. I knew what I had to do. Except… that woman, your mother? She was already dead."

Jax could see recognition in Tara's emerald gaze. She didn't need for him to say the words; she had already put all of the terrifying pieces together. But she deserved the words, and… maybe Jax needed to say them. "But then I found you - this extraordinary, talented, bright, beautiful woman. Grace's daughter - Tig's Grace. Maybe you were his daughter, too; maybe you weren't. But it wouldn't really matter, because, if I could kill the only child of the only woman Tig had ever loved? Yeah, that felt like a start. That felt like exactly what Tig deserved."

Sighing, Jax scrubbed his hands roughly against his face, closing his eyes for a few moments as he regathered his focus, restrengthened his resolve. He wanted a cigarette so badly that his hands shook. Or maybe that was nerves. "So, I found you," Jax admitted, picking up his narrative once again. Although he was still completely naked and in Tara's bed, he sat up a little straighter, rolled back his shoulders. "I started following you." Before she could ask, he clarified, "it was right after the holidays, right after the new year. I told myself that I needed to make sure that you were a worthy target for my revenge, that you were who my best friend and his wife deserved."

Apparently unable to contain her curiosity, her questions any longer, Tara queried, "if you wanted to kill me, why did you ever reveal yourself to me; why did you help me triage those accident victims?"

"By then, I had so many justifications for why you were still alive. If I wasn't actively following you, then I was somewhere close by, watching out for you. I was barely sleeping, barely eating. I knew you had a stalker… one that wasn't me, and I was trying to protect you from him. If he got to you first, my plan for payback would be ruined; if he got to you at all…," Jax let his thought trail away, unwilling to finish it and unsure if he even could. "Then, on the bridge, I didn't know what you were doing, where you were going. I just knew that I had to protect you from yourself, too."

"Why?" It was quietly asked, but the desire to know, to understand, to somehow be able to wrap her mind around what he was telling her and not hate herself for ever being so vulnerable around him, with him, was anything but reserved.

"Because, Tara," Jax shrugged his shoulders in a helpless gesture. "Despite what I kept telling myself, promising myself, as soon as I saw you that first time, there was no way I could have hurt you."

"Oh, come on!," she exclaimed, obviously not believing him.

Whatever her reasons, Tara could not accept the emotions he was giving her, so Jax decided to take a different approach. "Look, I'm not claiming to be a boy scout."

"Well, if the vest and badges fit…." Despite the fact that she had nearly been raped, witnessed a murder, slept with a stranger who also happened to be the culprit behind the murder, and found out that the same stranger had also been following her for months, Tara was able to still display a little humor. Jax took it as a good sign.

But he sure as hell wasn't letting her little taunt stand. "It's called a kutte, and they're patches, Babe, not badges."

Tara dismissed his protests with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, waving him on to continue his explanation with her free, non gun-toting hand.

"This," Jax nodded towards the dead body sprawled on the floor, "tonight? It's not the first death on my hands." When she went to interrupt him - with a question or a comment, he wasn't sure, Jax spoke again quickly to cut her off. "But it was my first murder."

With narrowed, focused eyes, she commanded, "explain what you mean."

"Everything before? That was business, not personal. Kill or be killed."

"Okay, let's say that I believe you," Tara prefaced, this time not letting him interrupt her. "Even if tonight was technically your first murder… at least by your own personal definition, you also told me that you intended to kill me out of revenge. So, I don't think it's a stretch for me to wonder if you executed my attacker simply because he was in your way and that I'm next."

"You're the one holding a gun on me right now."

"Stop it," she yelled, frustrated. "Just… stop it. This is my life we're talking about here." Before Jax could try to defend himself and his intentions towards her, Tara said, "and I don't want to hear why you couldn't hurt me or won't; give me facts. Logic."

Locking their gazes together, Jax stated bluntly, "if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. I could have just waited until after that asshole raped you. The only thing that would hurt Tig more than knowing that I killed the secret daughter he shared with the only woman he ever loved would be to let him know that I stood by while she was traumatized and did nothing. Or I simply could have killed you both, staging it to look like a murder/suicide."

He could see that his reasoning was sinking in, that Tara was accepting it, so Jax decided to keep going. "There's something you need to understand about my world: families are supposed to be off-limits, women and children protected. Even when Tig killed Donna, she wasn't his intended victim. My initial plan to go after you in retaliation was the antithesis of what my MC is supposed to be about. That tells you just how badly I was rocked by my best friend's suicide and his wife's murder. But it should also tell you that, despite my actions for the past two months, there is honor in our code… at least, there's supposed to be."

Standing up, Jax confessed, "I have feelings for you, Tara."

Immediately blushing at his nudity, she turned her face away from him and enjoined him, "oh my god, put on some pants!"

He ignored her. "But if you can't believe how I feel, then you won't be able to trust me either. And that's understandable. I haven't exactly given you a reason to have faith in me." Still naked, Jax reached out and wrapped both of his hands around the hand in which Tara held his gun. With gentle persuasion, he pried her fingers from the weapon. Tara's face snapped towards him, her eyes locked on Jax's. Looking away just long enough to snag the edge of her flat sheet, Jax started to wipe down the Springfield Custom. "So, if you ever feel like you're in danger because of me, you have the ultimate way to protect yourself."

Once the gun was wiped clean of her prints, Jax purposely handled the weapon. He went through the motions of releasing the clip and then reloading it, he pulled back on the stock to put a bullet in the chamber, and then he wrapped his right index finger around the trigger, doing everything shy of actually firing the gun. And then, still without a stitch of clothing on, he padded across the room to the cool air return, lifting the grate in order to tuck the gun inside.

Finished, he returned to a shocked, gaping Tara and told her, "now, you have the proof you need to see me fry for killing a Fed. I'm going to burn and bury the body, but I'll give you its location. Whether you go to the cops today or a year from now, given your history and my background and record, no one will doubt your innocence and my guilt."

Practically speechless, she murmured, "I… I don't even know your name."

"It's Jax. Jackson Nathaniel Teller. My California state driver's license and social security card are in my wallet if you'd like to see those, too."

Unamused, Tara soberly remarked, "Jax will suffice."

Wincing, he admitted, "I am going to need to use your car, though. I mean, I guess I can ride back to Charming, trade my bike for Opie's truck, and then come back for the body, but I kind of thought you might like it out of here before your home permanently smells like a morgue."

"I think acting under the cover of darkness is the most important thing." That was it. With that simple statement, Tara signified that, whether she believed he would intentionally do her no harm or not, she was finished with fighting him. Perhaps putting his freedom and life in her hands convinced her, or maybe she just really wanted the corpse out of her bedroom, but, whatever the explanation, Jax watched as Tara shed any and all of her former timidity, fear, and shock. Instead, she became practical and even cunning. He wondered if this was what she was like in the operating room.

"Get dressed," she ordered. In response, Jax just quirked his brows, eyeing his shirt that she was still wearing. Huffing in indignation and exasperation, Tara stomped out of the room, returning moments later with her robe tied securely around her waist and Jax's tee held out towards him at arm's length. While she had stepped away to cover herself, he had slipped on his boxers and jeans. Once his shirt was over his head and his torso covered as well, Tara continued with her instructions. "There are plenty of tarps in the garage."

"Covering the art work. I know."

Apparently forgetting that he was already quite familiar with her house, Tara ignored the reminder. "While I move some things around out there, so there's room to pull in my SUV, you need to get this body wrapped up. And, please, be thorough. These are original hardwood floors. If blood seeps down between the boards, they'll be a bitch to clean."

"Got it. Double bag him."

Jax didn't think Tara was going to respond to his cheeky rejoinder, but she surprised him. Just before she crossed through the threshold into the hallway, she tossed over her shoulder, "as a medical professional, I feel it's my duty to tell you that double bagging is not an effective preventative measure. In fact, the increased friction could actually cause ripping or tearing, making double bagging actually a risk."

After completing their respective tasks, Tara helped Jax carry the body to the garage and load it into the back of her SUV, which she had also lined with yet another tarp. There was the issue of the cop's vehicle - whether personal or a rental, but Jax decided that he'd keep that worry from Tara, handling its disposal himself after the body was taken care of and Tara was secured away.

"You work today, right?"

"I don't know," Tara snarked, hands on hips, "you tell me."

Exhaling forcefully and dragging his teeth against his bottom lip, Jax allowed himself to decompress for just a moment. "Shower. Eat breakfast. Get dressed. Whatever your normal routine is, do it."

"What about cleaning up?"

"I'll do it when I get back." He could tell that she was about to argue with him, so Jax reasoned, "you need to act as normally as possible. Go to work. Get there on time. You can't break your routine because of this. You need to act above suspicion."

"Yes, because constantly looking over my shoulder for my 6'1'', leather clad shadow isn't dubious at all."

"After I bring your car back, Tara, unless you want to or you need me, you'll never see me again."

With that pronouncement, a stunned silent Tara wordlessly handed over her keys. Under any other circumstances, Jax would have lingered on her touch, braiding their fingers together or whispering the pads of his fingers down to circle her wrist and find her pulse there. He might have also used the exchange to pull her into his body, stealing what should have been a fast, hard kiss but somehow finding a way to lengthen and deepen it. Instead, all he could do was offer her a nod of reassurance before rounding the back of the vehicle and climbing inside. By the time Jax used the garage door remote to close the big, overhead door once more, Tara was gone from his sight, locked inside the house once again. Only, this time, at least she was alone.

Pressed for time and more than slightly worried about how Tara would hold up on her own and without him there to bolster her nerve with his confidence and their discourse, Jax briefly considered heading towards Mt. Diablo or any of the many Preserves in and around Contra Costa County. But no matter how many times he had driven by the exits for those places over the last couple of months, he wasn't actually familiar with them. The last thing he needed - no, the last thing Tara needed - was for Jax to get caught disposing of the dead ATF agent. So, he headed towards home, towards not just the roads but also the land that he knew so well.

Taking advantage of the light, pre-dawn traffic, Jax made good time. While he pushed his speed slightly over the limit, he also didn't drive too fast to draw attention to himself. He kept the radio on, listening to the local news for any early reports of traffic accidents that could mean increased police presence or a potential delay for Tara… not to mention a BOLO with his name. But it was quiet, the news stories being told just the usual 'the world has gone to shit' tedium. The constant chatter was also meant to serve as a distraction, for Jax did not want to be alone with his thoughts.

However, by the time he arrived at the out of the way, private dump site, there was no more avoiding what was on his mind. As Jax dug the shallow grave, he considered what would be worse: having Tara and then almost immediately afterwards losing her… which was going to prove to be his fate, or never having had her at all? The latter felt like damnation, so was the former, his reality, finding salvation only to be damned all over again?

While Jax was unloading the body, carrying it over his shoulder, and then tossing it into the dirt hole in the ground, he thought about all the things he still didn't know about Tara but, for the first time in his life, found himself curious about. How did she take her coffee? Did she have any allergies? Could she carry a tune, tell a joke, whistle? Why did she become a doctor, a surgeon? What did she want for her life beyond her career?

Scrounging for kindling, he was regretting the fact that he was only able to kill the Fed, Kohn - Jax had pulled his wallet, badge, and keys out of his pockets before encasing him in blue plastic and duct tape - once. Not wanting to risk exposure by stopping to buy any kind of accelerant, Jax was just lucky that, unlike Concord and the rest of the cities that dotted the coast, Charming didn't get near the humidity nor the rain, so there was plenty of last year's fallen foliage to be gathered, the dry and brittle leaves, sticks, and brush just waiting for a spark to set them ablaze. Add in the nearly full bottle of liquor he had swiped from Tara's and poured over the body, he didn't doubt that the contents of the grave would burn. But that was already in death. Not only did Jax wish that he could murder the cop again and again, but he also knew that a gunshot to the head and instant death were too good, too easy, of an end for the sadistic asshole.

But most of all, as he flicked his lighter and tossed it into the grave, Jax contemplated how, despite his assurances to Tara, he was ever going to stay away from her. And it had nothing to do with his need for revenge or with having swapped one obsession for another. He simply wasn't the same man anymore. Knowing Tara, even peripherally, changed him. Made him better. SAMCRO liked to say that they did good for their community, but Jax didn't know the meaning until he helped Tara tend to the accident victims that morning on the bridge. He wanted to feel that way again - useful, but he feared, once he left her behind and returned to the club for good, the desire to be more would get drowned out by all of the noise. No, strike that. Jax knew he'd get bogged down by the mess that awaited him back in Charming.

But missing Tara was more complicated than that, too. Deeper. Somewhere along the line, Jax had realized that he liked having a purpose, a goal, and something for himself that existed outside of Clay, and Tig, and his mother, and everyone else in his life. Despite why he knew of Tara and how she had entered his world, Jax no longer saw her as anything more or less than herself. It had also been nice to feel like he was good at something. Stalking wasn't exactly a skill to put on a resume, but Jax wasn't applying for any jobs, and he liked to focus more on how, in following Tara, he had been able to save her, to keep her safe… even if at the eleventh hour. Plus, he had enjoyed using his mind for the past couple of months rather than just his might.

To leave all of that behind and return to futility? Without Tara to watch, without the hope and distraction of being with and not just near her, Jax would have to once more face the reality of his life. Opie and Donna were dead. His father was dead. Two of those three premature deaths were at the behest of the man he called president and had once called his stepfather. Yes, Clay and Gemma were still married - and that raised questions of just how much did his mom know and perhaps even condone about her husband's actions, but Jax no longer felt any sort of familial connection to the older man. His trigger man was ready and able to kill for him again, and Jax had no proof of any of it… at least nothing that he could take to the table. After all, it wasn't like he could march David Hale into church and have the local deputy wax philosophically about precedence and theory.

Once the fire was sufficiently aflame, Jax left it momentarily to go back to Tara's SUV and remove the tracking device he had planted on it months earlier. The tech obviously worked, but Jax neither wanted the temptation nor the reminder, so he returned to the pyre and tossed it in as well. Deciding that he'd leave the dead cop's personal effects in his rental car and then drop it somewhere it was sure to be stripped and chopped within a matter of hours, Jax just stood there, waiting and watching as the body slowly but steadily broke down into bits and pieces, into ash. It wasn't exactly a fast process, though.

By the time Jax was on the road once more and headed back to Tara's, he worried that, despite his instructions that she act as normally as possible, he might be the reason she was late for work. Even if he returned her SUV to her in time for Tara to drive into San Francisco and make her morning rounds, there'd be no time for anything more significant than passing off her keys. Jax couldn't imagine what she would want to talk to him about after she watched him execute a man, but he'd take any time he could get with her… even awkward moments full of tension and mistrust on her part.

There was a thin, creeping band of color warming the horizon when Jax put Tara's vehicle into park out in front of her garage. It started with orange, faded to yellow, and then almost appeared green where it merged and blended with the still dark, navy sky. Given that Tara wasn't standing on the porch, tapping her toes and staring at her watch, Jax decided to loop into the backyard and take off down the alley towards his bike. He figured, if anybody was going to see him leaving Tara's later that morning after she had long since gone for work, it would look better if he simply walked out of the front door like he was supposed to be there rather than sneaking out of the back like the outlaw he was.

This time, when he drove up to the little bungalow, Jax parked on the street. On his ride around the block, he'd kept an eye out for a cheap sub-compact. There were two possibilities for the Fed's rental car, but all it would take was a slightly closer look to identify which one was a loaner. Later, when Jax went to ditch the car, he'd take his bike up the street, park it far enough away from Tara's neighbors' so that they wouldn't be able to see it from their kitchen windows… with or without binoculars, and then he'd have to have a cab drop him back off in Concord. It was going to be a long, frustrating, and not to mention expensive day.

Deciding to let himself into the house versus knocking or ringing the bell, Jax used Tara's garage door opener to get inside, luckily finding the door from the garage and into the laundry room unlocked. The house was silent, still… but not in a dangerous or suspicious way, just peaceful, which was odd given its state of turmoil and upheaval the night before. Stepping lightly so he could listen out for Tara, Jax was startled when she called out to him, obviously just as focused on tracking his movements. "I moved the gun."

Rounding the wall of the kitchen that would take him into the front living space and towards the hall, Jax caught a glimpse of Tara standing in the bathroom… just facing the mirror and her own reflection, though he wasn't sure she was actually seeing anything. Propping himself against the doorway, he observed her, not reacting to her announcement. She was showered and dressed in street clothes, her hair long and wet against her back and leaving damp pools on the fabric of her button-up shirt. She wore no makeup, further emphasizing her already pale but circumstantially more wan complexion. She appeared almost… vacant. If Jax had not seen her in action, treating people, for himself, he would have been more worried about her ability to function at a normal level at work that day.

When he continued to just stare at her - Tara not looking at him but obviously sensing his attentions, she explained, "I know you can tear this place apart for it, for the gun, as soon as I leave, but, if you're going to take it and your promise to me back, then I was at least going to make it difficult for you to do so."

"I'm not going to take the gun, and I'm not going to look for it either."

In a sharp, direct movement, Tara whipped her head around to stare at him. "Because you're above snooping through someone's home, a stranger's things?"

It was a fair point, but he didn't address it. "I didn't want to risk stopping to fill up your car, but I left gas money in the center console."

Tara's gaze returned to the mirror. It appeared like she was looking through it. "The cleaning supplies you need are in the cabinet below the sink in the laundry room." She seemed to make some kind of decision, because, in the next moment, Tara reached out to turn off the bathroom's lights, leaving them standing there in the shadows. There wasn't enough light yet outside to broach the windows' blinds, and the overhead light in the kitchen was bright enough to make sure one didn't trip but dim enough so that the space between them was as murky as their brief yet tumultuous history together.

Jax turned his body to follow Tara's movements out into what should have been a living room but had obviously served as her mother's music room. With his shoulders against the door jam and his lower body angled outwards, hands in his pockets, Jax watched as she put on her shoes and picked her bag up off of the floor, sliding it onto her arm. Tara had done so little to the house to make it her own that she didn't even have a place to store her purse between shifts.

With her hand held out in demand, Tara waited until Jax had deposited the keys to her SUV within her grasp before advising, "proper blood removal is all about oxidation, so skip the bleach."

It was probably the wrong thing to say - reminding her of all the reasons why she should take him up on his offer to stay far away from her and her life, but Jax also didn't want Tara distracted all day long as she worried about how he was screwing up and making an even bigger mess of their situation… if that was even possible. "This isn't the first time I've cleaned blood out of an area rug, Babe."

At least outwardly, she didn't react. Instead, for several seconds, she simply observed him coolly before nodding once and pivoting around on the heels of her boots, heading towards the front door once more. As she walked out, she offered one last, parting comment, but it seemed to be more to herself than to him. Yet, still, it further reinforced all of Jax's doubts about his ability to stay away from her, because it made him just that much more curious about her… everything. "Maybe you should just burn the whole house down."

Before Jax could respond or even react, he was alone once more, Tara's departure punctuated by the quiet sound of the door catching and snicking shut.