12
Jax Is Really Alive
Chapter 19 It's Hard to Keep a Bad Woman Dead
There's nothing quite like having the mother you murdered come back to life to throw cold water all over what was going to be some very hot sex. Jax felt deflated—literally. Even double drunk Tara seemed to partially sober up.
She ran into the bathroom. Jax could hear her vomiting. Automatically, he walked into the bathroom and knelt beside her, holding her hair back as she continued to throw up crouched over the toilet.
Jax wondered if Tara might be interested in sex when she finished throwing up. He wanted to put off thinking about Gemma for as long as possible and sex was the perfect diversion.
Tara finally finished vomiting and stood up.
"Thanks for holding my hair," she said.
"Brings back memories," he said with a smile.
"My wild child days," Tara said.
She got to her feet, went to the sink and brushed her teeth.
"Indigo coming up isn't nearly as tasty as it is going down."
Jax laughed.
"Oh, no!" Tara gasped before dropping to her knees in front of the toilet. Once more, Jax was by her side, holding her hair back.
Tara thought she had finished vomiting and she brushed her teeth. Within a minute, she was again crouched over the toilet vomiting.
"There can't be anything left," she said with a moan.
Before she could get to her feet, she began throwing up again.
"I hate vomiting," Tara said after brushing her teeth for the third time.
"Are you still drunk?" Jax tried to make the question casual, so she wouldn't know he was thinking about sex.
"Yeah, but not in the fun way. Sorry, we'll have to postpone sex. I'm going to get a little sleep and then we'll figure out how Gemma is alive."
Damn, Tara. How did she know he was thinking about sex? Oh, yeah, that's right, he was always thinking about sex.
It was pouring rain, so he could watch videos or beat up on the robots. He decided to beat up on robots. Maybe that would help some of his sexual frustration. He should be having hot sex with Tara. He should have known she was drinking too much, too fast and stopped her, but the idea of sex with a double drunk Tara had clouded his judgement.
She should be completely recovered by tonight. Maybe just a couple of glasses of indigo would bring out the wild side to Tara and they could still do the mirrored closet sex and sex on the bench with steam all around them. It was too cold to have sex outside on the rock. He might shrivel up or something.
Jax worked out with all the gym machines for more than an hour before fighting the robots until he was so physically exhausted he collapsed on the training mat. He fell asleep and for that brief period of time, his thoughts were on something other than sex.
He was running in a maze filled with mist. Each time he turned a corner, he expected to see his boys. Instead, he saw another corridor. He tried running faster, but the boys and whoever had them were always too many steps ahead.
He decided he would not share that dream with Tara. There was no point in upsetting her further and it was just a dream. It might not be easy, but he knew they would get their boys back because whoever took them had a connection to him and sooner or later that person would make him or herself known with a list of demands.
Finally back to Gemma. He still wasn't ready to deal with Gemma killing Tara, her and Juice's Chinese lie and his shooting her, but he could think about Gemma kidnapping his boys. It was exactly the kind of thing she would do.
He returned upstairs and checked on Tara. She was still asleep, but he decided to leave the bathroom door open in case she woke up, wandered in and wanted a show. He smiled ruefully remembering her accusing him of using shower poses when he thought she was watching him shower. She knew him a little too well sometimes.
Tara was sitting at the counter sipping iced tea when Jax walked into the living area after his shower, his hair still damp. Tara loved it when he was freshly showered. He was hoping that this would translate into sex in the very near future.
"When I walked past your door, I heard the shower. I figured you hadn't eaten, so I ordered BLTs."
"No fries?"
"I ordered fries and onion rings for us to share."
"You must be feeling better if you are thinking about eating," Jax said. He increased his odds of having sex with Tara in the next hour to 90%.
"Yeah, once I finished throwing up, I got better pretty fast. I'm never going to drink that much again."
Jax laughed.
"I've heard that before."
"How do you feel about Gemma being alive?" Tara asked softly, concern on her face.
Jax thought about it. He couldn't get past the door in his mind that he put Gemma behind. It would open when he was ready and he wasn't ready yet. It was also possible that he would never be ready. His relationship with his mother was too complex to resolve quickly.
He shook his head.
"I'm not ready to think about Gemma and everything that happened. It's the past and there's nothing I can do about it. When I'm ready, I'll figure it out."
Tara put her hand on Jax's thigh, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
"I'm sorry, baby. She's put you through so much. I thought it was over when you killed her."
"It's hard to keep a bad woman dead," Jax said wryly.
Tara laughed.
Jax got up to get the food. He put the two plates with sandwiches on them in front of them and placed the third plate with fries and onion rings in the middle so they could share.
"I think that there was a group of Paralorns who secretly began genetic experimentation before us. We're not the first generation of hybrids."
"It makes sense. Gemma has to be part alien or that shot to the head would have killed her for good. Do you think Ryland was involved and he lied about us being the first generation?"
Tara shook her head.
"No, I don't think he was lying. From what he's said about when the Paralorns arrived, he was pretty busy setting up everything needed for the Paralorns to live and blend in. Every society has some rogue elements. I can see how a group who wanted to have kids decided that when they found out they were infertile, they turned to humans to carry their kids with the same results Ry had with us. They didn't know until after one died and returned that humans and aliens had combined DNA."
"Just my luck that my mother turns out to be part alien from another planet."
"I wonder if I can prove my theory by running your DNA from before the conversion."
"Wouldn't that just show 100% human?"
"I don't know. I think it's possible some of the alien could be picked up. We don't know everything about how the DNA works with hybrids, so it's worth a try. I want to run your DNA from before the conversion and after the conversion."
Jax revised the possibilities of sex with Tara in the next hour as under 1% and that was optimistic.
"You can use the DNA from inside the pocket of my cut for my DNA before the conversion."
"Great idea."
"How long is it going to take?"
"It should only take about ten or fifteen minutes. Almost as fast as the TV crime shows. I'll just swab the areas for DNA and then I'll put the swabs into individual test tubes. After that, the medical system will do the rest."
"Don't you have to wait until the system comes back up?"
"No, that's the communications system. The medical systems are centered here. That means we have all the medical systems and anyone who wants to access the systems has to do it through the com system who routes it to the medical systems here."
"Great," Jax said with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
"It will help me focus on something other than worrying about our boys being missing," Tara said, trying to get Jax to feel a little enthusiasm for her project.
"Somebody has to be helping Gemma," Jax said, changing the subject. He wasn't interested in DNA. "She couldn't have gotten back to Charming without help. Either that or she woke up in cold storage and got herself out of the medical examiner's office before she could be cut open. If anyone could do it, it would be Gemma though," Jax said.
"That's true. I don't think it was an accident that she showed up on Hale's video. Maybe she shot out the glass at SAMCRO's and then deliberately appeared on the video. Charming has few traffic cams. She had to know that Hale would look at that footage and know the exact one she needed to be seen on."
"It all makes sense especially if she took the kids. She wants us to know she's alive again."
"She's luring us back to Charming."
"That might not be such a bad thing," Jax said. "If she's got the kids, that might be the best answer for us too. We wouldn't have to worry about their safety. She wouldn't hurt them. At least not physically. She could also have taken the kids with help. Whoever is helping her will play the role of the kidnapper. When the time is right, she will "find" them thinking that will fix all of the past and we'll be so grateful, we'll let her back in our lives."
"I can see Gemma doing something like that," Tara said with a sigh. "You are right that it would be easiest for us. We don't have to chase all over looking for the kids. We just need to watch Gemma. Even if she's using someone to care for them, so she can play hero, she's going to go and check on the boys, maybe wearing a disguise so Abel won't recognize her."
"I'm going to kill whoever took the boys even if it's Gemma."
"Oh, God, Jax I almost hope that someone else has the boys. I'd hate for you to have to go through the trauma of killing Gemma again."
Jax's sky blue eyes turned steely.
"If she took the kids, I can't let her live. Who knows what kind of shit she would do if I let her get by with taking our kids?"
"I'd just hate for you to have to go through that again."
"Quit treating me like I'm fragile," Jax snapped angrily. "If Gemma is behind the kidnapping of our kids, I'll kill her and not think twice about it."
He wasn't looking forward to having to face his mother again, especially if he had to kill her, but if she took the kids, she would have no one to blame except herself. He had little hope that Gemma had learned not to lie, scheme or manipulate. It was her nature. He didn't think she was capable of change. Whatever changes she may have experienced through death and then returning to life would not have made her a better person. The bad was just too deep in her.
As soon as they finished lunch, Jax got his cut from his closet, carefully handling it by the shoulders.
"In about fifteen minutes, we'll see if we can figure out some of Gemma's DNA by looking at yours."
"I wonder how the coroner's office is going to solve the mystery of Gemma's disappearing body." Jax said with a ghost of a smile curling his lips.
"Cover it up. Basic organizational procedure."
"They ought to teach that in college—true life organizational procedures or the ways to do a cover-up that won't land you in jail," Jax said.
"Colleges never teach anything that useful. You would make a great teacher though," Tara said. "Think of all the things you've taught me." There was a sexy gleam in her eye as she looked at him.
Jax upped his chances of sex to 50%. They would have some time to kill while they waited for the test results and sex was always a great way to pass time.
Once they were in the medical unit, Tara put on a white lab coat and gloves. She swabbed the inside of his cut, his cheek and her own cheek and placed each cotton swab into a separate glass test tube. She put them inside a machine and pressed a few buttons.
"I did my DNA so I can compare it against my previous DNA test just to make sure I did the test correctly."
"Who knew we would grow up and still do lab experiments together?" Jax said.
Tara grinned.
"And who knew we would turn out to be part alien from another planet?"
Jax shook his head. "It kind of freaks me out being part alien from another planet. I keep wondering if something alien's going to start growing out of me or I'll turn into a lizard creature."
"I never really thought of that but most sci-fi movies if someone is part alien bad things happen."
The computer beeped and a nearby printer came to life and printed a sheet of paper. Tara grabbed it and gave it a quick look.
"This is my DNA," she said, showing it to Jax.
He noticed the line that said that Tara was the half-daughter of the King and Queen of Paralorn. It was even printed in purple ink, the color of royalty.
The printer began printing again. It printed two sheets before quitting.
Tara grabbed the results and frowned. She kept staring at the pages so intently, it made Jax uneasy. What the hell could be wrong with his results?
"I've never seen results like these. It says that before the conversion you were half human and half Sliven."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"If the DNA works like ours, you got half your DNA from your mother and half from your father. That would make Gemma 100% Sliven."
"What does my DNA show after the conversion?"
"That's even stranger. It says you are 25% human and 75% Sliven. The normal DNA rules don't seem to work."
"Maybe you made a mistake in the test and the samples got contaminated," Jax suggested.
"I'll do it all over," Tara said. She carefully swabbed Jax's cut and placed the swab in a test tube. This time, she yanked out several head hairs from Jax, making sure that the root end was included. She placed them in a test tube. Once again she ran the tests and got the same results.
"Ryland is ten minutes away," Cas announced.
"I thought the roads were impassable," Tara said.
"He's flying in. My sensors detected his spaceship and his identity."
"I thought the spaceship was still here," Jax said.
"There are multiple spaceships," Tara explained. "Cas is the com system still down?" Tara asked.
"Yes."
"When Ry lands, tell him Jax and I are in the medical unit and ask him to come down here."
Ry came down to the medical unit, looking tired as usual. There were large gray circles under his eyes. Once he saw Tara, his face seemed to light up. If Jax had any doubt about Ryland's feelings for Tara, they were gone. Ry was definitely looking at Tara with love in his eyes.
"Do you have news about the kids?" Tara asked.
Ry shook his head.
"No. I met with Hale briefly before I flew here. There isn't any news. Hale's taking point on this. He also filled me in on Jax's mother's return to life. When things slow down a little, we'll figure out how that happened."
"I did a little work on that," Tara said proudly. "I looked at Jax's DNA before his conversion."
"That would just show Jax as being all human," Ryland said.
"I thought so too, but I just had this feeling that I should run it, that there was something there."
She handed him the two sheets she printed out on Jax's DNA.
Ry looked at the sheets, frowning.
"Oh, fuck," Ry said.
Jax didn't think perfect Ryland ever swore, but he was staring at the pieces of paper in his hands looking unhappy.
"Did I do something wrong?" Tara asked anxiously.
"If it gets out that Jax is part Sliven, it's a death sentence."
"I'm the Queen's daughter and my son is a prince in line for the throne and Jax is his father. They can't kill him. Meg would never let them."
"I don't have more time to explain. If I don't get it fixed before the system comes up, the information will be pushed out to all the computers everywhere. If that happens, Jax is as good as dead."
Next Up: Hard Truths
Ry reveals disturbing information about the boys' disappearance. He also confides some hard truths to Jax.