Five Years Later
Tara couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that true happiness had stolen into her life, but somewhere between the moment when she was attack in Charming and now, five years later it had. The club had paid all her medical bills from St. Thomas, and although she didn't know where exactly she'd come from she was grateful. However, the day she'd been released from the hospital, two months after the attack something else had happened. In the waiting room of the hospital she'd been offered a way out for her and her sons from the last people she expected to include her in their chance at happiness.
Of course she was still blind, and heavily scarred and that would be her demon to carry with her for the rest of her life, and for a while she'd truly hated herself for it, but looking back now it didn't define who she'd become.
The path she'd taken was a strange one though. Now, the hands that had once performed precise surgeries on hospital patients built intricate floral arrangements. It was a profession she'd never considered while sighted and it seemed an even odder choice while blind, but she'd learned to identify the flowers by smell and feel and it wasn't as if she was without a partner in the business. It had seemed odd initially that Fiona Larkin was a gifted florist, but over time, the woman whom Gemma had once insisted was pure evil had become not only Tara's colleague, but one of her closest friends and eventually even her sister-in-law.
Marriage had also been one of the last things she'd expected for her path so soon after the attack, but somewhere in her attempts to keep her sons safe and happy while starting out in a new country with new challenges it had slipped in. Craig Larkin was Fiona's half brother. Initially he'd felt like everything she wanted to avoid. Like his sister he had an IRA past, and this seemed like something that would hint at a violent lifestyle. However, that wasn't who Craig Larkin was. At one point he'd been involved in the family cause, but he'd picked at fight with Jimmy O'Phelan over his sister's treatment and that had resulted in the murder of his first wife and child. That had been a decade before he met Tara, and it had caused him to disappear from the cause, instead moving to a small almost anonymous Irish village. There he'd became a mechanic. This too had sounded all too familiar to Tara, but his work was honest not a front for a criminal organization. In fact, in the present day the staff consisted of Craig Larkin, Filip Telford and two other men who'd spent their whole lives inside the village. The moment she'd met him she also felt something different than she had with her past boyfriends, including Jax. Initially it hadn't felt like romantic love, but like a friendship one similar to what she still felt for his sister and brother-in-law. However, over the days and weeks after she met him she noticed little things. Her boys felt happy and safe around him and he never once pried into what had happened to her even though whenever she needed an outside perspective on things he often became her shoulder. He also made her laugh harder than she remembered laughing in a long time. Three years ago they'd said their vows. She'd recruited Chibs to walk her down the aisle.
xxx
In the present day, they were at another wedding. Chibs had walked the bride down the aisle this time too, but as an actual father giving his daughter away. Kerrianne and her new husband were both beaming happily and dancing around the floor seemingly lost in eachother.
The parents of the bride had spent a good portion of the night dancing too, but Tara and Craig had remained seated. To add to Tara's obvious blindness problem, Craig seemed to be perpetually blessed with two left feet. There was another problem preventing the couple from taking the floor though, tiny two year old Faye Larkin had crawled up onto her father's lap and promptly fallen asleep. That didn't prevent the other members of the immediate family from taking to the floor though.
Eight year old Abel was now dancing with Maureen Ashby. Although Abel remembered none of his first meeting with the Irish woman and was even unaware that her daughter was the last living connection to his biological father, he seemed to adore her and although she was currently teasing him about stepping all over her toes, it was clear Maureen felt some protective paternal instinct towards him.
Seven year old Thomas on the other hand was loudly giggling while playing tag with several other children who were at the reception.
Although it had been a journey that had to be taken across many years and many thousands of miles, this was what true happiness looked like.
I'm sure this epilogue won't be everyone's cup of tea. Some of you probably can't see Tara sitting at the wedding of Chibs' daughter next to a husband that isn't Jax, let alone being truly happy with said man. I personally like the character of Craig Larkin, he's kind of like what Jax could have been if he'd made different choices I guess. Anyway, because he's such an integral part of the post Old Ghosts storyline, I'm going to point out that his face claim is actor Noah Wyle. Obviously some people might find that weird since he's a white actor and Fiona is a mixed race character. However, as mentioned in fic, they're only half siblings (they share a father, but his mother was the woman Fiona's father married after her mother died) and I thought he had a similar general facial structure to her otherwise, plus I decided it would be fun to use him since he was in ER, which Bellina Logan was also in.
Anyway, sorry about rambling and it's been a pleasure finishing this fic even when it grew difficult for me.
