Their eyes are intensely trained on each other now, but before Jax can utter a reply, the car behind them is honking, and they suddenly realize that the traffic light has turned green again.
Jax turns his attention back to the road, and quickly starts driving, momentarily relieved at the fact that he can take a couple seconds longer to think about what Tara just said.
And then to Tara's obvious surprise, yet relief, he pulls off of the road, brings the truck to a stop again in the empty parking lot of what used to be a small mom-and-pop convenience store that now held an oversized 'out-of-business' sign in the front window.
"Of course, we are together, Tara, that goes without saying." Jax grimly replies suddenly, before he even turns to meet her eyes in the same instant he puts the truck in park, the vehicle jerking when he's letting his foot off of the break. "But I don't like you giving me ultimatums." He adds just as grimly.
Tara scoffs at that, shaking her head, "I don't like it either, Jax, but at least I'm giving you a choice here, unlike what you're giving me. I feel like I'm with my back against the wall. Alone again. Your way or the highway, right?" Her voice is rising, yet at the brink of breaking again too, filled with emotions that are threatening to spill over. "This happens every time, everything is going alright for a while, and then something bad happens, and you ... you shut down and ... you shut me out."
"Jesus Christ, she tried to kill you." Jax suddenly yells out furious, before he hides his face in both his hands, sighing in frustration while he's trying his best to reign in his temper again, to not let all this boiling anger he's feeling toward Gemma spill out and over onto Tara instead.
But Tara can't just let it be, too much is at stake here, so she speaks up again before he has a chance to say more, "So what, was it all just a lie?" She says with a high-pitched sound to her voice, still fighting the tears, but finally daring to look over at him again.
"Was what a lie?" Jax meets her eyes now, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
She shakes her head slightly, and raises her hand, gesturing to him and then herself, then back and forth for added emphasis. "You, me, us, this?" She stammers out the words along with her hand movement. "You following me up here, to start over together. Did I have it right when you first showed up? ... It's all just another lie, another broken promise, it's all just bullshit, right?"
"No, Babe!" Jax cries out in reply, his eyes are sorrowful when they try to hold her gaze. "Of course not." He adds, shaking his head at what she was implying, and Tara's surprised when she sees tears filling his eyes now as well when he adds, "You and me and our boys ... and this baby, that's all I want."
He swipes his hands over his face once more, then leans forward, draping his left arm across the steering wheel, while he wipes at his eyes with the other hand, too choked up to speak for a moment, trying to get his composure back. Doesn't she know that they mean everything to him?
Maybe it's odd to look at it like this, but to Tara, his tears are a good sign, like some sort of proof that the man she loves is still in there, not all is lost. That she's managed to crack his hard shell after all.
"I'm sorry, but that's not good enough." She takes in a shaky breath, her words equally shaky when she speaks. "I'm not going in for another round of this." She pauses, and he looks up and over at her, meeting her eyes that are brimming with new tears just in time for her to add, "I won't do it. Either you let me in, or I'm out."
Tara sits back now, folding her arms in front of herself, face forward, sullen, yet fighting back tears. She's feeling devastated inside, because she's fearing this might just be the end of everything .. the end of them, but at the same time, she won't let him push her away anymore, keep her at arm's length. In or out! All or nothing!
Jax sits back too, his shoulders stiff with tension, his head turned toward his window, he can't stand to look at her while he's trying so hard to sort out his thoughts and emotions in his head, so they'll make sense when he finally speaks.
Can't she see that he's just trying to protect her? That he's just trying to keep the ugliness of what's to come away from her, and carry the burden of it all on his own.
He finally dares to look back at her, noting the tense set of her jaw, how she can't even look at him, or rather refuses to look at him. The rift between them is palpable in the air, and he can't stand the thought that that's what this is leading to.
So he unbuckles his seatbelt to be able to lean past her, invading her space when he reaches for the glove box on the passenger side of the truck. He opens it, hesitating just for a split second before he pulls the stack of five small journals he used to write in all the time, for Abel and Thomas, out.
He sits back again, his voice almost sounding horse, raspy with emotions when he speaks up, nodding at her when he holds the journals out for her to take. "Here."
Her eyes meet his in an unspoken question, but Jax just nods his head at her again, his eyes trained on her. So she takes them, lays them into her lap, fanning them out, and thanks to the streetlight, the city lights all around them, she can see well enough to read her name scribbled on the front of these journals.
"You wrote these ... to me?" She asks hesitantly, looking back at him, and swallowing away the lump in her throat the instant he nods his head once more at her.
He reaches over, and runs his fingers over them for a long stretched-out moment, as if he's contemplating whether or not to snatch them back, until his eyes flicker back up to meet hers, and he tries to explain. "I wrote these in the hospital, sitting by your bedside, praying and hoping for you to wake up."
Tara can't help but smile at the thought of him writing all of this to her, filling all of these pages for her, but Jax catches her expression, and is quick to clear something up, shaking his head, "They're not exactly love letters, Babe. I mean, some of it is, but most of it is me trying to figure out what to do with myself. The guilt I felt for what happened to you. The unquenchable need for revenge, without knowing who was to blame, besides me."
He sighs, facing away from her now, steepling his fingertips together, and lowering his head in shame. "I wrote these for you, because I wanted you to know ... I wanted to explain my side, in case I'd die, or end up back in prison, trying to find the person who did this to you."
Tara wipes a tear that falls, before she hesitantly dares to open a journal to a random page and starts to read. She has to squint to focus her eyes on his handwriting in the dark interior of the truck, but Jax flicks a light on inside the cab, trying to make it easier for her, before he holds up his pack of smokes in way of explaining why he's slipping out of the truck a moment later.
'Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself. And I get that now, and I think that's what scares me the most. I'm scared because you and our boys mean more to me than anything else. You are everything I think about, everything I need, and everything I want. I'm not going to lie, I used to get a high out of uncertainty, but now, sitting here, it scares me to death. What if you don't wake up? What if you don't come back to me? You have to come back to me, Tara! I mean, what's the point in worrying about a future, when you don't have one? Without you, Babe, I don't have one.'
She's almost glad he left the truck, because she can't stand to look at him, the emotions too raw within her as she ponders over the lines she has just read. She's always known that he has a way with words, and she fears these words will break her resolve, that she'll break down and give in like she's done a million times before. But she can't help herself, curiosity wins out, so instead she flips through the pages, stopping at chance, and begins to read some more.
'They say let he who is without sin cast the first stone. And to be without sin requires absolute forgiveness. But when your memories are freshly opened wounds, forgiveness is the most unnatural of human emotions. Over time, we all commit acts with intentions, either good or bad, which will require their own forgiveness, or retribution. In its purest form, an act of retribution provides symmetry, the rendering of payment for crimes against the innocent. But the danger of retaliation lies in furthering the cycle of violence. Still, it's a risk that must be met when the greater offense is to allow the guilty to go unpunished. Justice, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some see an innocent victim. Others see evil incarnate getting exactly what they deserve.'
She puts the journal down, and presses her eyes shut for a long moment, before finally glancing over to him, his back is turned toward her, leaning against the driver door of the truck, so she pulls another one open instead, and starts to read.
'JT wrote in his manuscript about how the value of life can be directly measured by our will to endure. He references his time in prison, that we have a remarkable ability to resist fatigue, to withstand pain, to keep fighting, as long as we don't lose sight of what we're fighting for. And as I sit here, watching you bound to this hospital bed, these machines keeping you alive while keeping you a prisoner at the same time, I want you to think of this. I hope you remember what my father wrote. I want you to not lose sight of what you're fighting for. The life you've dreamed of, away from Charming, away from SAMCRO, just you and me and our boys. That's what you need to hold onto, that's what you need to keep fighting for, Babe. That's what will bring you back to me."
Tara reaches for another journal, flipping through the pages faster now. There's a shift in her, a change, instead of feeling empathy for what he had been going through when he wrote this, she feels anger start to rise in her now the more she reads.
'People are fond of saying that you can't unring a bell, and while that may be true, you can certainly smother its ring under the dull roar of conjecture, lies, and make-believe. But, some words ring out like church bells, rising above the dim, calling us to the truth. I hear your words now, over and over in my head, like an unrelenting bell ringing in my ears, finally waking me up, and opening my eyes. I hear all the times you expressed your fears to me, the warnings of what you think will happen if we don't pack up our boys and just get the hell out of here. I didn't listen then, but I'm listening now. Couldn't stop the bells from ringing in painful truth, even if I tried. It's all so clear now that you were right, and I was wrong. I'm so sorry!'
Tara closes the journal abruptly, having read enough, she reaches over toward the door, knocking on the window to get his attention.
He quickly turns, seeing her wave for him to come back inside, so he tosses what little is left of the cigarette to the wet ground, before he pulls the door open and climbs back in. A wave of cold winter air rushes into the cabin of the vehicle with him, making her shutter, before he closes the door behind him, turning the heater back up the instant he's seated to warm himself as much as her.
"What is this supposed to be, Jax?" Tara spews, tossing the stack of journals at him, trying her best to constrain the anger she's feeling still rising inside of her.
To say that Jax looks surprised by her reaction, is an understatement, but before he can even reply, Tara speaks up, gesturing toward the little booklets he's gathered in his hands now. "You've got some interesting quotes in there, and the way you're elaborating on them sounds very deep." She frowns, eyes furiously looking back at him, before she adds. "But you're not the only one well-read in this relationship, I know some, too. There's that old saying about those who cannot remember the past being condemned to repeat it. But those of us who refuse to forget the past are condemned to relive it."
"Tara." He starts, and tries to chime in, guilt written all over his face, but she's quick to interrupt him again.
"I'm not finished." She almost hisses at him. "How about this quote, 'Instead of writing about it, he should've done something. He should've taken me and Thomas and gotten the hell out of Charming'. Does any of that ring a bell?"
Tara shakes her head, tears welling up in her eyes. "You can say you're sorry a million times, say that you love me as much as you want, write a goddamn novel about your feelings, but if you're not going to prove that the things you say are true, then it would be better to never have said or written them at all. Because if you can't show it, your words don't mean shit, Jax. They're just words, lacking truth, and any meaning behind them. They're just more lies. And I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings, if this isn't the reaction you've hoped I'd have after reading some of what you wrote, but this is the real truth!"
She reaches out, and snatches the journals from him again, practically waving them in his face. "If you really meant what you wrote in here, then fucking prove it to me. Let me in, don't keep shutting me out."
"When I wrote all of this, I kept playing back a thousand memories of us in my mind, Babe, thinking about everything we've been through, everything you've been through because of me. I hate that I failed you, too many fucking times to count. The last thing I want to do is lose you now!" Jax says, finally having found his voice again, even though she's right about not having expected this reaction from her. "I love you, Tara. And it's because I love you, that I'm willing to do whatever it takes to protect you from her. And I'm not gonna give up until her murderous ass is gone for good. There is no other way this is gonna end!" He lowers his head in shame, can't look at her now, when he adds, "I have to do this my way. I have to ..." His voice breaks and stops, wiping at his eyes again.
"You have to do what?" Tara asks, trying to figure out the rest of that sentence, her chin quivering for a moment, when she adds, "Kill her?" He's neither shaking his head nor nodding, just averting his eyes, but it's still clear that she's right, that this is where all of this is heading. That he wants to kill his own mother, for her.
So Tara shakes her head instead, taking a deep breath, trying to get herself back under control, steeling herself for this ongoing battle with him. "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. It's a quote from Confucius, and God if it isn't the truth, because if you do this ..." Her voice breaks at that, and she struggles to take in a breath, before she adds in a shaky voice. "If you do this, if you go after her to kill her, it'll be the end of you, too. Can't you see that?"
Jax shakes his head, still not looking at her for a long moment, before he finally turns in his seat, enough to face her, to meet her eyes. He swipes his hand down his face again, fingers scratching over his bearded chin in uncertainty for a second. "This is what I know to do, Tara, this is who I am."
"This isn't about who you think you are, it's who you think you're not. I know that there are still days when you look in the mirror, and hate what you see. I have those days as well. I'm not just some innocent bystander, God knows I've got enough blood on my own hands, too, Jax. But ... you've got it all wrong, you're not your father, you're not Clay, and you're not your mother either. It's true that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but you still have free will to choose who you are, or who you ultimately want to become. Don't ever let the place where you started dictate where you finish. You want to be a good father, a good husband, then break the fucking cycle, Jackson, make that choice once and for all, and commit to it, come what may. Don't allow Gemma to do any more damage to us, by allowing her to drag you down with her."
Jax remains quiet, but the expression on his face, in his eyes lets Tara know he's listening, he hears her, letting her words sink in. She wipes at her eyes, wiping away the tears that are falling so freely now, "You know, I sat in that parking lot of the police station for hours, ... just crying for hours, not knowing which way to turn, what the right thing to do is. And you know what ultimately made me walk into that station?"
Their eyes are still locked on each other, but she doesn't wait for him to respond, but rather continues telling her story, "It was something Gemma said to me, on that day we found that death threat in the front seat of my car. I said to her that normal people call the cops when their lives are threatened, and she said, you don't have a normal life, you have this one. When I remembered her saying that, it was when I finally pulled myself together enough to walk inside. I'm done doing things her way, the SAMCRO way. Because this is the life I have now, this is the life I want to keep, with you, Jackson."
She reaches out, palms his cheek, trying to smile at him through the tears. "I know what you're doing ... pushing me away, because going through this while keeping me close hurts too much. I know what that's like. How it hurts to smile. How you want to hurt yourself on the outside, to try to kill or at the very least dull the pain on the inside. I've been there. But, Jax, numbing the pain this way, even for a little while, don't you know it will make it so much worse when you finally allow yourself to feel it?"
He reaches up, and covers her hand on his cheek with his own, but scoffs, and to her surprise, he admits, "I would do just about anything right now to feel nothing, Babe. To make it all stop." He looks away, and shakes his head to himself when he asks her out loud. "How do I come back from this? The damage she did ... the hurt she inflicted on you, and to the boys when she almost took you from them."
"I don't know." Tara shakes her head, a weak smile on her lips, that doesn't show in her eyes at all. "I wish I knew. I don't have all the answers, but I do know that a son killing his mother, that's a wound that's too deep to heal, baby. It will kill you right along with her."
Jax's chin is quivering now, no longer able to meet her eyes, instead looking away, anywhere but at her, when he swallows the lump in his throat and makes his second admission. "I know."
He takes in a deep, yet shaky breath, fighting through the tears that are beginning to well up in his eyes. "That's the part that hurts the most about all this, Babe." He pauses then, his face contours in pain and loathing all the same, chin quivering more and more with each passing nanosecond ticking by. "I mean, after everything she did, my father's death, what she did to you, all the lies, all the wreckage ... I still love her." He finally looks up and meets her eyes now, tears streaming down his face along with a humorless chuckle escaping his throat, because he can't make sense of his own words, even as they leave his lips. He must be crazy. "You know? She's my Mom."
He swipes his hand down his face, covering his eyes, his face, a mix between trying to hide his tears, and wanting to shield her from the pain he's feeling. But his voice breaks, the pain unmistakable in the sound, instantly causing Tara's tears to fall too, when he asks through his own. "How could she do this to you?" He cries, no longer holding back, another pause and he finally dares to meet her eyes, "How could she do this to you, Babe?"
Tara swiftly unbuckles her seatbelt in one fluid motion as she wraps both her arms around his neck, pulling him close to her, against her to comfort him like she had when she'd first told him the truth earlier at the police station.
And unlike earlier, at first, she could feel him stiffen under her touch, fighting it, fighting the emotions that her embrace evoked even further in him, but at last, he wraps his arms around her as well, pulling her against him, chest to chest, holding her close, his body shaking once more as he starts to cry in her arms. She's crying, too, no way to avoid that, but she's fighting with everything she's got to not fall apart on the account that he already was, trying to be the one comforting him for a change, now that he's finally let her in.
He cries in her arms for merely a few long minutes, yet it feels much longer to him. He finally takes in a deep breath, several actually, before he slightly pulls away and meets her eyes, letting her wipe at his tears, before he returns the favor and swipes the pads of his thumbs beneath her eyes as well.
His face is red and blotchy from the emotional outburst, his eyes red-rimmed and still watery, when he shakes his head to himself, almost ashamed at his actions, to let himself appear this weak in front of her, when he asks her wearily. "More than you wanted to hear?"
"No." She answers without hesitation and shakes her head, reaching up to run her fingers across his chin, along his jawline, playing with his beard. A familiar and comforting gesture long overdue tonight. "I'm so glad you told me. I want to hear it all. I promise you there is nothing I can't handle, as long as you don't shut me out and we're in this together."
She smiles a sad smile, fighting back her own tears again, when she adds. "And let me say it again, just in case it isn't clear to you. You are nothing like them, nothing like Clay, nothing like her. And if you ever doubt that, you just need to turn around and ask me, okay?"
"Yeah? Are you gonna be there?" He asks without missing a beat, and his meaning is clear. He's talking about her threat from earlier.
"As long as you let me in, I'll be there, I'm not going anywhere. Not without you!" She replies, her voice firm, her expression steely, leaving no doubt that she means what she says, before she adds. "But you need to understand that I can't just sit at home hiding. Cameron, Salazar, Gemma ... if the past has shown me anything, it's that I'm safest when I'm with you, not away from you. That day in the park, I would've been taken if anyone other than you had been there with me. You know that's the truth."
Jax swallows the lump in his throat, his face solemn when he's meeting her determined gaze, and nods his head at her in agreement, before he pulls her back into his arms once more. He takes in another deep breath, closing his eyes when he sighs in relief as he exhales, placing a kiss against her soft brown hair.
But it's Tara who pulls away now a few moments later, just enough to meet his blue eyes again, unable to keep the worried expression from showing on her face. "We have to talk about Gemma ... For once, the law is on our side, let's use that to our advantage, let's be smart about this. Violence is only one way to take someone down, Jax. Brains before bullets!" She's rattling out the words, practically begging him, it's evident in the desperate tone of her voice.
Her words are followed by a sudden downpour outside, rain beating down on the roof and the hood of the truck, for a second capturing both their attention when their eyes drift away from one another and instead taking in their surroundings outside.
But the distraction of the rain doesn't hold their attention for long, before their eyes connect again, and Tara's heart is almost beating as loudly as the raindrops hitting the vehicle while she awaits Jax's response, hoping for his agreement to do this differently, to do this right for once.
He frames her face with his hands now, leans his forehead against hers, closing his eyes in deep thought for a long moment, before he finally pulls away to look at her and nods his head, "Yeah, okay."
Tara still searches his eyes for confirmation, her voice unsure and high-pitched when she asks, "Really? You mean that?"
Jax nods his head again, his eyes fixated on hers when he replies, "Yeah, I do."
Tara's lips crash onto his the instant that the words have left him. It's a forceful, yet quick little kiss, but it's followed by another, and another, and yet another. Each little kiss lasts longer than the one before.
And then their lips part, allowing each other entrance, much more forceful, downright needy now, when the kiss turns deep and passionate in just the blink of an eye, along with their roaming hands, tugging and pulling on each other to get closer as well.
But when Tara's hands slide down from around his neck and start working his belt open, Jax can't help but pull away from her in obvious surprise, searching her eyes to reaffirm himself about what she's suggesting.
His unspoken question is answered when she doesn't stop, just meets his eyes for a second while she's still making quick work undoing his belt, before skillful fingers begin undoing his fly now.
Without a second to waste, he reaches down for her leg, unzipping her brown leather boot, pulling it off in one smooth motion before he tosses it to the floor of the passenger side, followed by her sock too.
Now it's his turn to reach beneath the hem of her shirt, working the button and zipper of her tight-fitting jeans open. He leaves her no choice then to let her hand slip from within his jeans, abandoning her mission of stroking his already hard shaft, when he pushes her back onto the seat, laying down, so he can pull her jeans down past her hips.
Tara's eyes are filled with need, and so is the sound of her voice when she asks, "Do you remember when we first moved in together, what you'd say when we used to argue?"
He knows exactly what she's getting at, what she's talking about, but he wants to hear her say it. Wants to hear the words come from her lips. And he's too impatient to bother with the other leg, just pulls the stretchy denim fabric off one leg, just enough to get to what he wants, what he needs, while he answers her in a raspy tone of voice. "No, why don't you remind me?"
But he climbs between her legs and his lips crush onto hers before she can answer, there's the distinct snapping sound of fabric ripping when he's pushing her panties aside, stretching them too far, all the while she's hurriedly pushing his pants, and boxers past his hips, just enough to free his cock. Both of them are almost frantic in the way they need to connect with one another on this more primal level now.
He breaks the kiss, braces himself on one arm, and reaches between them, lifting his hips just enough to position himself at her entrance, when she answers between ragged breaths, "You'd say, 'Let's just fuck it out, Babe'." And then she gasps, and moans when he fills her in one fluid motion, filling her to the hilt, before he rocks his hips back and does it again, and again and again.
X
Author's Note: I can't wait to hear what you think of this chapter. Please leave me a few words. Thank you.
P.S. I can't take credit for everything that Jax wrote in those journals, since a lot of it was inspired by quotes I read online some time ago, and I just weaved them around to make it fit this story.