Again! A super special thanks to Elbeewoods who still believes in me and my story! :-)

The group managed to get to the fundraiser and only be 10 minutes late. Gemma however pounced on them as soon as they walked out.

"You're late." Gemma points out.

"Ma, it's only ten minutes. Cut us some slack. We were at the hospital until almost three waiting on word about Abel."

Gemma face softened. "I'm glad he's going to be okay. That's a strong little man."

Gemma sent everyone off to do a task and asked Tara to stay with her. Tara looked to Jax and he nodded his head. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

" I'll be close."

When they were alone Gemma asks Tara what is going on with her. Tara isn't sure how to answer so she deflects and tells Gemma she should talk to Jax about it.

"Honey do you know who did this to you?"

Tara gives up on talking to Gemma and backs away from her.

"Please Gemma, just ask Jax."

Tara walked away to help Bobby set up the Elvis stand. They worked in companionable silence for a half hour before Bobby spoke up.

"So, I hear you got a nice birthday gift from Jax a few years ago." Bobby had talked to Chibs about the necklace when he showed up this morning. Bobby was surprised, because Jax had never shown interest in anyone other than a crow eater.

Tara gave a demure smile while lifting the necklace out from under her shirt.

"Yeah. I keep it with me all the time. I feel like sometimes my strength comes from this necklace alone."

"Well, I think that's a beautiful necklace, and a nice thing for Jax to give you." Noticing the look in her eyes when she thought of Jax and the necklace, Bobby realized that Tara would be a good fit. She seems like she'd be able to center him, and keep him level headed when he needed to be.

The rest of the time Bobby spent with Tara was filled with him asking questions about Abel and his long road to recovery.

-AHW-

On the other side of the field, Jax and Chibs were sitting on a picnic table smoking. The necklace seemed to be the hot topic of the day.

"So Jackie Boy, about the necklace." Chibs asks innocently.

Jax took a deep breath, arranging his thoughts before he replied.

"What do you want me to say? I fell in love with her in high school, and it just escalated from there. I knew she was too good for me, so I kept her at arms length. She put off college for a few years to stay and help out her old man. I didn't want to get my heart broken so we stayed friends, nothing more. Around her 21st birthday I decided I'd had enough of staying away from her, and enough using a crow eater as a distraction. I bought her the necklace, but didn't tell her what it meant."

Chibs contemplated everything that Jax had told him, but knew there had to be more.

"That all Jax? Is there more history between you two? Or is she just the love that got away?"

"Brotha, if I tell you this, you can't call me a pussy. I need to tell someone other then Opie, because he's known everything from the beginning."

"I'm not here to judge you Jackie Boy. I can be serious ya know. I have a feeling you feel about her the way I still feel about Kerrianne."

"Okay, the night of the Nevada run on New Years Eve 2002, I came back and Tara was passed out in my bed. We talked for a while and before I know it, I'm kissing her. Things escalated and we ended up sleeping together. It was different though. I never felt such intensity before, Chibs. Sex was always just a means of release, but this was not. It's almost as if the whole world got turned, and all there was was her and I. Neither of us mentioned it after that. Not that I didn't' want to, but I didn't know how to. Then one day I heard her telling Donna things about how it wasn't fair that someone was using her for their own enjoyment. THen she told her how she wished she could go back and make it so things never happened. I thought she was talking about me because not even two days later, she was gone. Packed her bags and left Charming." Jax couldn't hold back the emotion in his voice when he spoke of her leaving.

"I'm assuming now you know she was talking about Kyle and not you?" Chibs questioned.

Jax let out a dark chuckle. "Yeah, but after she left, I didn't know so I had a bunch of guilt. I felt like I had taken advantage of her and ruined our friendship; and with that, the potential for more."

They sat silently after that, contemplating all the information that had come out.

"Hey! You two shit heads just going to sit here and gossip all damn day, or are you actually going to do something productive?" Gemma asked, interrupting their quiet.

"What do you want us to do ma'am?" Chibs asked Gemma.

"Go set up the bouncy house. I'd ask the Prospect to do it, but he'd probably play in it."

"Yeah Ma, we're on it." Jax replied.

-AHW-

Kozik was over helping Opie set out a floor plan for where the fire works were going to go off. Gemma demanded that they get them in place before people showed up so that Opie could have his time spend doing other things, instead of being a pyro, which he so loved.

"Hey Op, can I ask you a question?" Kozik asked Opie.

"Sure man, what's up?" Opie replied, not looking up from what he was doing.

"What's going on between Jax and the good ol' doctor?"

Opie's head shot up in surprise. He looked at Kozik to gauge his level of seriousness. He then broke out into hysterical laughter.

"Dude, you have no chance. For all intents and purposes, Tara is already Jax's old lady. They've been blindly in love with each other since we were young."

"Yeah, I figured that. I'll admit I felt some attraction there at first. I mean look at her, she's hot. But now I just am concerned about her. She's been through a lot and I already feel protective over her."

Both Opie and Kozik were startled by the voice that appeared behind them.

"I'm not gonna hurt her Kozik. I love her. I'm glad you think she's hot though." Jax takes a step closer to Kozik. "Just a heads up. Touch her and I'll kill you." He smiles and walks away.

Jax walked around aimlessly pondering his feelings. He knew that Tara was gorgeous. Hell, she always has been. But he didn't know how he felt about his brothers thinking so. He trusts Kozik, but he is jealous of him. He's even jealous of the relationship Tara has with Opie, which is ridiculous because they are like brother and sister. Shaking his head, he heads off to find Tara.

-AHW-

Finally, everything is set up and people started showing up. Jax and Tara took the first shift in watching over the bouncy house. They had been there for over two hours before a woman walks up to talk to Jax.

"Hello Jax." she greets.

Jax stands stiffly next to Tara, wondering what to do.

"April." he nods his head.

"Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me." She says, sticking her hand out to Tara. "I'm April Hobart." She shakes Tara's sweaty hand and turns back to Jax.

"I talked to Kyle this morning, he said he'd be here around 3:00. Thanks again, Jax, for letting him come. He hasn't gotten to see our boy play because of his cut ties with the club."

"Yeah, no problem. Have a good day." He dismissed her and focused his attention on Tara.

"You knew?" she accused him.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I was going to tell you, but you rushed out to be with Abel and then you got attacked. I'm sorry I let you get hurt Tara." he says sadly.

"It would have happened even if you'd told me. I still would have went to the hospital to be with Abel. It's not your fault Jax, it's his." she kisses him on the cheek and walks away to check on the kids inside the bounce house. She could be mad. But what point would there be to that. It doesn't change anything, and she knows that Jax would never intentionally keep things like that from her.

By the time she got back to where Jax was standing, Chibs and Kip were with him.

"Hey Doc, it's time for your first hour break. Sack and I will be watching over the bounce house."

"Yeah. But Gemma gave strict instructions that I couldn't go inside." Kip said, sounding quite sad.

"Jesus, we have a five year old as a prospect." Jax laughed, pulling Tara away from the two.

They go and meet up with Donna and Opie, who are also on their down time. They go over to the child center that was set up and pick up Ellie. They decide that they are going to get something to eat and just sit and relax while they can. Everyone had just gotten situated with their food when they see Kyle walk over with a young blond attached to him.

Jax and Opie immediately get up and block Tara from his view, in the most casual way possible.

Kyle spoke up as soon as he got to the table.

"Hey guys, I don't want any trouble. I just came to see my kids, thanks for letting me."

Being face to face with Kyle, Jax could see the small bruise on the left side of his face. Jax assumed it had to be from Tara slapping him the night before. Before he could say anything, Kyle noticed Tara and Donna sitting at the table.

"Donna, it's nice to see you. Time's been kind to you." He greeted.

Dona smiled, then flipped him off.

"Are you going to introduce me to your friend?"He asked, gesturing towards Tara.

Tara stiffened, while Jax tried to reign in his anger.

"Don't talk to my old lady."

That statement got Kyles attention. He craned his head to see Tara, and gave her a hard look before turning his attention back to Jax.

"You hit your old lady, Teller?"

Jax laughed and put his hand on Tara's shoulder. Noticing that this time she didn't physically flinch at his touch.

"Naw, we like our sex rough. Fucked her so hard she fell off the bed."

Tara couldn't contain the laughter that was building inside of her.

"Anyways, have a nice day, because as soon as your kids band wraps up, SAMCRO will be escorting you out of Charming." Jax said, all teasing in his voice dissipated.

"Would expect no less." Kyle says as he turns and walks away. Before he leaves, he sends one more hard look Tara's way.

"Ugh, that guy is such a creep." Donna exclaims as soon as he's gone.

Jax turned his attention to Tara and immediately started to apologize for the things that he said.

"I'm so sorry, Tara. I just wanted to see the look on his face when I said those things. I shouldn't have assumed you'd be okay with it. It was kind of degrading towards you." Tara put her hand up and covered Jax's mouth with it.

"It's fine." Feeling lighter then she thought she would, she decided to play dirty. "Plus, you never know. That could be a reality soon." she finished with a wink.

Jax's mind was immediately bombarded with images of him and Tara in different sexual positions. He was getting hot just by the scenarios he was acting out in his mind. He was brought back to the present by Opie's loud guffaw.

"Dude, if you could see your face right now. It's priceless. I can only imagine the things you're picturing doing to Tara right now." Everyone laughed, while Jax looked a little sheepish.

Tara got up to get something to drink. She bent down and whispered in Jax's ear, low enough that only he heard it.

"Whatever you're imagining, I bet mine are way better." She kissed his cheek and left. Behind her she could hear Opie laugh even louder. She turned around and saw that Jax's face was frozen in shock. She gave herself a silent pat on the back, and continued over to the concession stand.

-AHW-

The fundraiser had been going off without incident and it was nearing 7:00. Tara knew she only had a few more hours of being on edge before Kyle would be out of Charming. She looked around yet again for Jax. She hadn't seen him or Opie for almost an hour, and she was starting to get concerned.

She was so deep in thought that when Jax came up behind her and said her name, she jumped and letting out a tiny squeek of surprise.

"Whoa darlin' you alright?" Jax asked her.

"Yeah, I've been looking for you actually."

"Sorry. Opie and I had to run to the market real quick. We were almost out of buns and pop. Did anything happen while I was gone?"

Tara laughed recalling Bobby's incident just a few minutes prior.

"Yeah, Bobby got over heated in his awesome white polyester suit and about passed out. Made a big production of it too. Oh, and Kozik burned his hand on the grill trying to show off, so Gemma banned him and stuck him on face painting duty for the rest of the night. The kicker is, he's not doing the painting, he's the canvas."

Jax laughed, hearing the stories. He loved how at ease Tara felt around his club, and hoped that after some time, their friendship would strengthen and they could work on becoming more. Jax pulled Tara aside to talk to her.

"Hey, I wanted to let you know that once I leave to escort Kyle out of Charming, I won't be back for a little while. We're going to leave the prospect and Kozik to hang out with you and Donna." Tara immediately knew it had something to do with Kyle.

"Jax, you said that you weren't going to do anything tonight."

"We're not. This is long overdue. That tattoo that he has to supposed to be blacked out, and he didn't. He can't still bear the mark of the club when he was tossed out. Tonight he's going to get it covered one way or another."

"What do you mean, 'one way or another'?" She asked hesitantly.

"I mean that either he goes to the tattoo shop and gets it blacked out, or we will burn it off his skin."

Tara shivered, thinking of how painful it would be to have your back burned so badly that it covers tattoos.

"So, the prospect and Kozik huh?" Tara asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah. Oh by the way, Kozik thinks you're hot. Just figured I'd let ya know."

"Well ya know, I do have a thing for blond men." Tara winked at him. She pushed his shoulder into hers and laughed with her. Jax put his arm around his shoulder and drew Tara to his side.

"I miss Abel." He said into her ear.

Tara smiled, thinking of the tiny child she already loved so much.

"Me too. He's going to be okay Jax." she reassured him.

"I know, I just worry about him. He's such a little guy."

"Yeah, but he's strong. He's going to be great." She stopped and looked up at him. "And you know what Jax, we're going to be great too."

Jax smiled at her and kissed her on the head. He knew that she didn't mean right now. They both had so much on their plates, but slowly and steadily, they were going to work on their relationship. He knew that Tara was right, things were going to be great.

A/N: So that sounds like an ending to a story, I know! But it's not. I wanted to end the chapter on a lighter note, because the next chapter is going to go a little dark with the tattoo situation. Hope everyone enjoyed Jax's potty mouth in this chapter, cause I just see him saying something like that! :)