Chapter Text
I own none of these characters.
"Why do you have to be a heartbreaker? When I was being what you want me to be. Suddenly, everything I ever wanted has passed me by. This world may end, not you and I."
October 1994, cont’d
As Tara left the football game, she was pumping herself up for the inevitable confrontation with Jax Teller and his motorcycle gang. She told her best friend, another cheerleader, Donna Costello, what happened and Donna was ready to kick ass and take names. Donna was 5’2” and a gymnast. She was the one they threw up in the air during the more complex routines, so being able to kick guys twice her size’s ass was actually not out of the realm of possibility.
The fiery Irish redhead was ready to do some backflips and take them all out. Her nickname was Tiny Beast for her temper. As they approached the gate, Tara was laughing uncontrollably at the thought of her drop-kicking Opie Winston, Jax Teller, and the rest of SAMCRO in one fell swoop.
Jax stepped in front of her again, regarding her with a smirk. “What are you laughing about Knowles? I think you owe me an apology.” Tara was aghast, “Are you freaking kidding me?! You owe ME an apology, Teller, for molesting me when I was just trying to get to the game. You’re lucky if you can ever piss again after I sent your nuts back in time before puberty. I can do it again for your friends amusement, if you like. Now let us through.”
Jax looked stunned and all of the guys with him were laughing as Tara pushed her way through the crowd of bikers. Donna followed and gave all of them the evil eye, daring with a glare to even look at them funny. Tara knew that Jax and his crowd weren’t used to girls not falling at their feet. She heard once that they had a motto that girls were there for, “sucking dick and serving beers.”
That was definitely not going to be her place in any world. Apparently, they had some real classy wedding vows too but she couldn’t remember them off the top of her head. With all of this information in her minds eye, she told herself that if Jax Teller wanted her, he was going to put the work in to get her.
November 2010
Tara sat in her living room going through the Neiman-Marcus baby section on her phone when the doorbell rang. The nausea was getting more frequent so she was sipping on ginger ale and trying not to eat too many bags of BBQ potato chips. She was also on high alert for any signs of the baby, physically and around the house and swept the room for any evidence.
Her stomach was starting to pooch too so she made sure that she was wearing baggy clothes at home and the loosest scrubs layered under her lab coat at work or out in public. She closed the browser on her phone, cleared the cache and cookies which coincidentally was not helping the snacking thoughts, locked the phone screen, and headed for the door.
It was 8 pm, so it was too late for any deliveries and since splitting with Jax, almost all of her friends stopped texting or calling her. As if catching him with the porn skank wasn’t humiliating enough, it was even more depressing getting dropped like a hot rock by people she thought of as friends.
Team Tara, 0
Team Jax, the entire town.
Oh well, she figured if they weren’t her friends now, after all she had been through, then she didn’t need them. It was just as well, it would make it easier to start from scratch.
When she looked through the peep hole, she saw that it was Donna Winston, her best friend since high school, and she was so happy that she flung open the door and hugged her without even saying hello. Donna started laughing but then pulled back and looked at her with a combination of indignation and relief.
“Where the hell have you been, girl?! I haven’t heard from you in weeks. Opie said you were probably staying away because of the “Rancid Pussy Incident.” I have been working swing shifts all month at the hospital and seriously just now have had the time off to get a hold of you at a decent hour.”
Tara brought her inside and they sat on the couch. She was trying to keep it together but finally broke down. She told Donna how she didn’t get any news on Abel returning until over a week after the club returned from Ireland. And that the only reason she did get any news was because Unser checking up on a noise complaint from Old Mother Hubbard two doors down about the remodeling.
Donna looked flabbergasted and told her that the assumption when Tara didn’t show for the party was that she was being petty after being dumped by Jax. Jax was groping two Croweaters when the subject came up and Gemma did nothing to refute it either.
Donna then dropped the bomb that Opie did tell her that he called Jax out on Ima being a dick move right after she caught them at the clubhouse. Jax responded, saying that he was pushing Tara away to protect her from his life.
Donna went on to elaborate that Opie then told Jax that after all he and Tara had been through over the last fifteen years, it was going to take more than some rancid porn pussy to scare her away. In true Jax form, he responded that he didn’t want to talk about it right then and there when they had to be at the table; he would figure out what he is going to do with his dick after he finds his kid and gets back home.
Leave it to Jax to so crudely and thoughtlessly dismiss their breakup like she was just another one of his Croweaters or “hundreds” of cheap thrills during their ten year separation. With that bit of information, Tara has even more motivation to steer clear of Jax, Gemma, and the club. She knows it’s not going to be easy to set and maintain boundaries with people that can treat the people they claim to love so flippantly.
Their treatment of women as disposable by the men and cheating as expected to be tolerated by those women “lucky” enough to achieve Old Lady status could not be passed down to their child, boy or girl. She would not have a son treat women as interchangeable and disposable. She would not have a daughter expected to be submissive in such a way that they compromise their basic sense of worth and dignity for the honor of hooking up with some garbage dumpster bargain bin men on motorcycles.
Tara was lost in her thoughts when Donna excused herself to use the bathroom. Suddenly, Tara heard her scream like she had been scared by a ghost. Tara ran back to her and Donna was holding up her copy of What to Expect When You are Expecting that she forgot she left in the bathroom. The look on Donna’s face was like she had a heart attack and a cocked eyebrow. “Now we know why you’ve been a hermit.” The first thing out of Tara’s mouth was, “Oh shit! Girl, you better keep this on the down low or I’ll lock you in the haunted closet in my old bedroom for the rest of your life.”
Donna was beside herself with giddiness. “I’ll move into that closet right now if you let me pick out the baby names AND I get to shop til we both drop.” Tara then grabbed her hand and ran with her to the newly remodeled nursery and pulled out her stash of Neiman’s, Bergdorf’s, and Saks catalogs. She knew she still had to be careful but Donna was over the moon.
Tara was so happy in that moment to finally be able to share this openly with someone, especially her best friend. She knew it wasn’t the end of the world when “whatever this is” with Jax crashed and burned, but having her friend to share the struggle with snapped her out of the of the end of the world and other depression clichés. They even did their old school pinky-swear but this was so much better than the last time when they were fourteen years old and planning their response to-the “Jaxass”incident.