15

Jax Is Really Alive

Chapter 25 Recap

Law enforcement swarms the fast food restaurant and all the officers are excited to catch the spree killer Jax Teller. Jax tells the officer he isn't Jax Teller. The aliens have done a perfect job and Jax's new identity withstands tough examination.

Tara continues to suffer from hormone sex craziness. When Jax offers more romantic sex, she turns him down. She just needs sex. He finds the experience unfulfilling. He tries to get closer to Tara by kissing her, but she stops him. She needs to tell him something about Kohn.

Chapter 26 Hit Me Baby One More Time

Author's Note: This story is written strictly from Jax's POV (except the Juice chapter). I did that deliberately when I started the story because I want readers to experience what Jax's going through exclusively. You are on the roller coaster with him.

You will never know what Tara's thinking. You have to look at what she says and what she does and figure it just like Jax's trying to do. I wanted to explain to readers why I'm not writing Tara's thoughts. I think only knowing what Jax is thinking creates more tension in the story because you don't know what Tara is thinking.

Tara sat up, pulled her dress down to cover herself, and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"There's some stuff about Kohn that you need to know. I talked to Ry last night for a couple of hours. He really made things clear to me. He thinks that we should get back together. I'm still not sure if . . ."

"You and Ryland are getting back together?" Jax asked, raising his voice in disbelief.

This conversation made no sense to him. He and Tara had just had sex and now she was telling him that she and Ryland were getting back together. Could Ryland be that much better at sex? Was that even possible?

Tara shook her head.

"No, Ry and I aren't getting back together. He thinks we—you and me—should get back together."

Jax was even more surprised. Ryland had told him that Tara was the first woman he'd been in love with since his wife died a couple of decades ago. It didn't make sense that he would suddenly give up his pursuit of Tara. Maybe this was some kind of alien trick.

"He's right."

"He told me that if our relationship meaning us," Tara said, pointing at Jax and her, "is ever going to work then we need to change how we talk to each other. He told me I needed to picture the perfect relationship and then see if you fit into that picture. He told me that I need to tell you what I need from our relationship and to do that I have to tell you about some stuff from my past."

"I'm listening," Jax said.

He looked at Tara's legs and his attention began to wander.

"I can't believe you! I'm trying to have a serious adult conversation with you and you are checking out my legs and trying to look up my dress. You just saw it all a few minutes ago. It hasn't changed," Tara said clearly annoyed.

"I wasn't trying to look up your dress. I was thinking about trying to look up your dress. In the car, I wasn't trying to look up your dress then either. I was thinking about putting my hand up your dress."

"Is it too much to ask that when I'm talking about the future of our relationship you pay attention to what I'm saying?"

"Of course not, but it's hard for me to focus when I see your legs and know you don't have panties on. You know I've always been intensely sexually attracted to you and I'm still in the after glow from just having sex. That's a good thing."

"Damn you. You always find a way to sweet talk your way out of trouble."

She grabbed the pillow next to Jax and put it in her lap to cover her legs, leaving just her ankles and feet visible.

"Better?" she asked.

"You have my attention now. You were about to tell me about Kohn. See, I was listening."

Tara rolled her eyes.

"When I met him, I thought he was kind of a legal version of you. It started out as more emotional abuse. I blamed myself. If only I were a better girlfriend, everything would be fine. When it got physical, I didn't end it after the first time. It isn't always clear cut. When does a shove go from playful to abuse?

"I'm ashamed that I didn't end it immediately," Tara said, looking down at the white comforter. "Kohn wasn't the first abusive guy I was with. It's a pattern. My father was a very mellow, laid back person. I pick guys that are the opposite of that. I was trying to pick guys like you only they weren't like you."

"I had no idea that you had such a terrible love life. If you give me their names, I'll kill them for you."

Tara looked at him and laughed.

"My hero," she said with her hand over her heart. "When I called you the night I shot Kohn, I think I knew that you would kill him. He tried to kill me before I left Chicago (this is in Tara's Story).

"If I had filed charges, he would have used ATF power to get out of it. If he had done time, it wouldn't have been long. He would come after me again. I was scared when you killed him because it seemed like you lost your temper and shot him. It's the temper thing that scares me.

"Loen called me after your meeting with her. She told me that you knew everything (SOA season 6) about my plan. I was scared. I thought that you were going to kill me. I felt a little like I deserved it for all the things I'd done and how I manipulated you by telling you I was pregnant and Gemma caused me to lose the baby.

"The only way I could calm down a little was by holding and rocking Thomas. Now, I think I was using him as protection. You wouldn't shoot me while I was holding our son. I also had a handgun under my leg in the rocking chair."

Jax hated hearing Tara's words. It was like opening an old wound. He thought they had moved past that. It crushed him to picture Tara with a gun believing he was coming to kill her.

"When you came home the next morning," Tara said continuing, "you told me that you were leaving because if you stayed someone might get hurt. I had flashbacks to Kohn. All of the physical and emotional abuse from every relationship I've ever been in hit me.

"It isn't me just being afraid of you or even Kohn; it's all the stuff I've been through. The fear I've felt in all my relationships replays inside my head, multiplying my fear, and that becomes my fear of you. I know it isn't fair to you. I know it's irrational, but I am working on it. It's getting better."

Jax remembered Ryland telling him that Tara was more fragile than she seemed. He was stunned to hear about everything she had been through.

"Tara, I will never hurt you. The day in the park," Jax's voice grew husky with emotion, "when I learned that you thought I was going to kill you, it hurt me to the core of my soul. I still carry that pain with me."

"This isn't about that. It's about me having a voice. You terrorized me with the escorts. I never knew if you were going to call one of them and order my death. It felt just like Kohn.

"You treated me with such coldness; that scared me even more than if you had lost your temper and went off on me. I didn't know you anymore. You were a stranger."

"A monster?"

"Yeah. My fear made me weak, so I didn't stand up to you. I saw you kill Clay. I felt like it was a warning to me. I saw some of the horrible things you did after my death. I haven't been able to get rid of all the fear."

"You're still afraid of me?" Jax asked softly.

She nodded.

"Yeah. It's when you lose your temper that really freaks me out because you lose self-control. There's more. When I got arrested, I was humiliated. I didn't want you to see me like that. You showed up on your motorcycle to pick me up. I felt like I was on display for the whole damned world to see. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. If I didn't have the boys to live for I think I would have just killed myself.

"I was going to kill myself that day you came over to my house for the first time when we were in high school. I'd figured out a really good way to do it. If you had been five minutes later, I'd have been dead." (Tara's Story)

"I had no idea," Jax said. He thought back to that time. There was nothing in the way she'd acted that hinted to him that she was on the edge emotionally.

"You saved my life and you never even knew it."

"I just had a feeling that I needed to be with you."

"I felt like you were my destiny. I started to fall a little bit in love with you that day," Tara said, pausing to gather her thoughts. "That first day out of jail was when I began to distance myself from you emotionally. I thought you should have known how I felt about the motorcycle. We had that bond in high school. I thought we still had it, but we've spent longer apart than we have together."

"Our bond is still strong," Jax insisted. "I have that same connected feeling that I had in high school. You're right, though. When you got out of jail, things changed. I was just so focused on my plans for SAMCRO that we got lost."

"When you didn't talk to me about the arrest, I thought that you were leaving me to figure it out on my own. I know now when I got out of jail, I should have told you what I needed from you. I shouldn't have expected that you would know.

"I was depending on you to magically know how to fix things. It wasn't fair to you, but my thinking was distorted by my fear of going to prison. I'm trying to learn from that experience.

"I'm telling you what I need from you now. I need you to control your anger if it's directed against me. I will never allow you to terrorize me again. I need you to be the strong, tough one now. Since the boys got taken, I'm barely holding together."

Tara looked Jax in the eye.

"And then there's Gemma. I don't want her in your life, in mine or in the boys' lives. She's toxic. It isn't that she killed me. It's about who she is as a person. Your mother has never liked me. There have been some times when we did kind of get along, but it's always felt like me doing all the work to get her to like me or hate me a little less.

"She and Juice were responsible for the hell they put you through when they made up the Chinese lie. She knew it would set you on fire. She saw what her lie was doing to you and she did nothing to stop it. How can you do that to someone you love? If you want to have a relationship with Gemma, then we are done. That's a deal breaker for me."

"Do you want me to kill her?"

"If she isn't behind this kidnapping and if she leaves us completely alone, I'm OK with her living."

"I can give you what you're asking for," Jax said softly. "How can I help with the fear?"

"When you're in control, you might not hurt me, but if you lose your temper, I don't know what you'll do. I liked the drama and danger that came with your world. It was exciting. I like the passion that you have and with it comes the hot temper. In some sick way, I like being a little fearful of you."

"When I first learned the truth about your plan, I was hurt and angry. The idea that you were going to divorce me," Jax paused and remembered how he felt when he learned the news, "cut deep. It's easier to be angry than hurt. I never took the murder charge against you seriously. When you didn't say anything to me, I thought you felt the same way. We should have talked. We have to turn to each when we have problems."

"I agree. I'm not without blame. My stupid crazy plan to free us from Gemma wasn't my best work."

"You wouldn't have come up with a crazy plan if I had been there for you. I should have talked to you when you got out. I didn't know that I shouldn't have picked you up on my motorcycle. It never even occurred to me."

"Did you ever even consider how I'd feel about anything?" Tara asked her voice rising. "You terrorized me every day with the escorts and your cold, callous treatment and I was powerless," Tara said, jumping to her feet. "I saved Bobby's life and you told me that we would talk after my trial. You couldn't spare ten minutes out of your damned day filled with fucking whores and killing people to talk to me about our relationship and our sons?"

There it was finally, Tara's true emotion. Behind all the fear, Jax could feel how deeply angry she was with him. She rarely got mad at him, but now her anger was white hot and when Tara got angry, she stayed angry.

Fucking hell. He was sure that if he and Tara had sex, that would fix everything because if you got the sex right, you got the relationship right. Could his theory be wrong?

All he wanted was to figure out what to say to get himself out of this. If he could figure out what he needed to say to calm Tara down, he could get everything back to . . . normal . . . whatever the hell that was. Or, he could suck it up and tell her what he really felt. He decided to give honesty a shot just for the hell of it. It might work. Maybe. OK. Probably not, but what the hell.

He stayed on the bed because he didn't want to stand over her. He didn't want to scare her in anyway. Most of all, he needed to control his temper.

"The anger was easier to feel than the pain of knowing the most important relationship of my life was screwed up possibly beyond repair, mostly by me. That morning I was furious with you because of the pain I was feeling.

"I sent escorts with you because I was afraid you would take the boys and run. I was a shit father, but in my mind, in the future, I was planning to be a good dad. I was so fucking focused on getting SAMCRO out of guns; I didn't see anything else. I thought with SAMCRO out of guns and Clay dead, we could stay in Charming. I thought you would get off on the murder charge and we would have a happy life."

"You terrorized me and you couldn't even spend time with your kids because you were too busy fucking a whore!" Tara yelled, her face flushed with anger and her hands were clenched into fists.

Oh, fuck. This was bad. He had never seen Tara like this. He could tell now there was nothing to say to make things right. They were either going to get through this or split for good. Maybe this was Ryland's plan all along, encourage Tara to talk hoping they would have this fight.

"Tara, I don't know what to say. From the day you got out of jail until the day you died, it was just one long fuck up after another. I didn't do a damned thing right until that last day. I can't undo any of the bad shit I did to you.

"I can learn and change, but I need you to forgive me for not being around for you when you got arrested and all the craziness that happened including my cheating. An apology won't fix it. What do you need me to do to make it right?" Jax spoke carefully, keeping his voice low and calm.

Tara stared at him for a couple of seconds. Her breathing slowed and she appeared calmer.

"It helps me that you aren't getting mad at me or yelling. Ry made me see that I need to talk to you about stuff even if the idea scares me or you scare me."

Fucking Ryland. What the hell was he up to anyway? Jax shook his head as if that might clear his brain.

"OK, I'm listening. Just be careful with your arms or you'll distract me with the underwear situation."

"Look at you using your words," Tara said in a bright chirpy voice imitating a preschool teacher.

It broke the tension between them and they both laughed.

"You have this physical side that is very sexy, very dangerous and very seductive," Tara said as she curled up on the bed, using the pillow to block Jax's view of her legs. "I love that side of you even when it frightens me a little. I know that you may need to get violent with people as we look for our boys. I'm OK with that. I know it's just part of finding our boys. I know you will do whatever it takes to find them and get them back. I like that strong kind of ruthless side of you."

"That part of me also scares you, doesn't it?"

"If it's directed at me."

"That's why you thought I was going to kill you. You've see me do it. You had enough on me to send me to prison for the rest of my life or death row. With Gemma in my ear, I can see how you might have thought I would hurt you.

"I've never laid a hand on you and I will never hurt you. I get now why you thought I could kill you though because you've seen the violence I'm capable of. I did terrorize you. You're right. Shit. I never saw it like that."

"Ry said that we need to either forgive each other completely or split up. I'm ready to forgive you and take responsibility for not talking to you. If you ever put your hands on me or cheat, we're done. If you want Gemma in your life or our boys' lives, we're done."

"OK," Jax nodded. "I can do that. I wish there was a better solution to Gemma, but you are right; we can't have her in our lives. I can forgive you for your crazy plan and for not talking to me. I need you to tell me if I'm scaring you. Don't expect me to read your mind. If you cheat, we're done."

"OK."

Jax hesitated. Everything seemed good between them, but it was in his nature to push things. He decided to test out this new honest relationship style and see how it worked.

"Why don't you want me to be romantic with you?"

Tara looked up at him startled.

"Truth," Jax added.

"Since I got out of jail, I don't fell sexually connected to you. I didn't think you noticed."

"I didn't at the time, but I do see a difference now. You still don't feel sexually connected to me?"

She looked at him and slowly nodded her head.

"I thought after we had sex, we would feel bonded together, but I'm not feeling it either. Maybe it's because it's just been sex," Jax said.

"I can't believe you know the difference," Tara said with a small smile.

"I only know the difference because you're the only woman there's ever been a difference with. It's just sex with no emotion. I want that emotional connection with you."

"With my hormones being so crazy, I really just need sex. I can't give you more than that now."

"I thought if we had sex then I would know that you were still in love with me. I don't mind being your sex toy to get you through your hormone craziness. After that . . ."

"Let's just get through the hormone thing and go from there," Tara said interrupting him.

"I like this talking about stuff."

"Yeah, it took me long enough to figure it out. Ry helped a lot. I could really use a nap. I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Me too."

"Would you mind putting your arms around me while I sleep if you can behave?"

"I like holding you in my arms when we sleep. I'm too tired to misbehave right now anyway."

They settled into bed together, Tara wrapped in Jax's arms. He shut his eyes and expected instant sleep, but his mind kept working. It felt like they had finally settled everything and put their past to rest.

Jax had a revelation. He spent his time with SAMCRO working on making the club into something. He never put any time or thought into his relationship with Tara. It was her job to take care of their relationship and the boys. His father and Clay had been the same. Old ladies were the ones who took care of the man and the relationship.

He was in the relationship. He was equally responsible for the condition. He should have devoted time to taking care of their relationship and making Tara happy. Now with his boys missing, Tara needed him not to only pull his weight; she needed him to be the relationship leader now. Protecting Tara, being strong and showing her the kind of man he was growing into would help her see they belonged together.

Maybe Tara was smart not to immediately take him back. If she had, he probably would never have had this breakthrough. This was the future for them—loving and taking care of each other, putting each other and their boys first and working together to solve problems. With the conversation they had just had, he was more optimistic than ever about their future. All they had to do was get the boys back. Finally, he fell asleep.

When Jax woke up, Tara was gone. Light was coming from the open bathroom door. He got up and found her curling her hair with a curling iron.

"I don't think I've seen you with curls before," he said.

"You were lucky enough to miss the time I got a perm when I was in college. It was so tight; I couldn't get a comb or brush through it. I checked in with Louise. There's not much to report. Hale talked to Rat. I guess Rat was pretty cooperative given that he's in SAMCRO. He said that he and Brooke broke up about a week ago and he hasn't seen her since. She sent him some pictures showing her at a couple of bars with Wendy.

"Louise hacked Rat's cell and got the pictures. The pictures had geotags. Louise traced them to some bars in Norco. Rat did tell Hale that if he heard from Brooke again that he would let him know. Louise is going to monitor his phone now."

"That's good news. It fits with the theory that Brooke took the boys."

Tara walked over to Jax and ran her hand up under his T-shirt and leaned close.

"I need you inside me now," she whispered in his ear.

"Preference?" he asked, sliding his hands under her dress.

"The wall really works for me. We get the perfect angle."

"OK, but the next time, do you think we could take our clothes off first?"

"I can't make promises. It's just the urge takes over and you are so hot. I can't wait."

"You know the perfect thing to say to me," Jax said lifting Tara off her feet.

Sex was amazing, but it still felt empty. Jax wondered if they would ever get back that physical connection. Maybe Tara's crazy hormones were the reason and things would fix themselves.

Jax didn't think Nero's uncle and his old lady would be of much help, but the uncle was the easiest way to find Nero. Nero had to know something that would help them find the boys or Brooke.

Nero's uncle lived in a neat two story straw colored condo in a new subdivision. A short plump woman with auburn hair came to the door when Tara knocked.

"I am so sick of you reporters. I don't know anything," the woman snapped impatiently.

"We're not reporters and we don't want an interview," Tara said.

"I'm not buying anything."

"My name is Jax."

The woman opened the door wider so she could get a look at Jax.

"You're Jax Teller."

"No, I'm not. I do look like him though," Jax said, flashing her his winning smile. "Makes for lots of law enforcement fun."

"I can imagine. It's a good way to get shot."

"It definitely keeps life interesting. I'm sort of a business partner to Jax Teller. I just have a couple of questions about . . ."

"I don't think I'm going to be of much help," the woman interrupted him. "I told the private investigator everything I know."

"What private investigator?"

"The one Jax Teller hired to find his boys."