Chapter Text
I own none of these characters
"My love is stronger than the universe. My soul is crying for you and that cannot be reversed. You made the rules and you could not see. You made a life out of hurting me.”
"You know you’re going to have to tell him eventually. It’s either that or just show up on his doorstep when you go into labor. Or you could do one of those Maury Povich episodes and have it narrowed down to between Jax or Hale. We could sell tickets. That shit would sell out the Charming movie theater in a heartbeat.”
Tara snorted and spit out the chocolate shake she was drinking. She was having lunch with Donna at Daisy’s Diner on Main Street. They staked out a booth in the corner, and were trying to discretely brainstorm ideas for how to break the news to Jax. “That would require me to actually have sex with David. Honestly, he is good looking and I’m really horny so I’m not ruling it out.” Tara replied half-jokingly.
Donna wasn’t ruling it out for her friend either. It had been about a month and a half since the Ima incident and she knew Tara was trying not to let the rumors around town get to her. Jax was wasting no time burning through the fresh stock of Croweaters at the clubhouse, local dive bars, and all of the strip clubs between Charming and Sacramento too.
According to Opie, at least Jax had enough of Ima after that one time though. She had started showing up uninvited at TM so he told her she was not welcome there or at the clubhouse. If she needed an oil change, she could drive to the Jiffy Lube in San Francisco for all he cared.
Donna knew Tara was living in her head because of all of this. Tara was lonely. She had no family in Charming and almost all of her friends through Jax stopped talking to her out of their fucked up allegiance to SAMCRO, Jax, and Gemma. Donna told Opie she was not abandoning her friend, and neither was he, out of some twisted sense of loyalty to Jax’s wayward dick.
October 1994
Tara and Donna were finishing up at cheerleading practice when Opie Winston showed up. He walked over to Donna and was talking to her. After a few minutes Donna came over looking dazed, confused, and a little bit giddy. “Opie just invited us to his birthday party at the SAMCRO clubhouse this weekend. We can go right after the football game. He said Jax is out of town on some kind of run, so he won’t be there to bother you.”
Tara was beyond shocked. “Those parties they have are notorious. I am pretty sure they aren’t PG-13. My dad barely lets me watch PG-13 movies, let alone go to a SAMCRO party.”
It was true, her father barely let her watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and she had only seen a R-rated movie for the first time when Donna snuck 9 1/2 Weeks into their section of the cheer camp slumber party that previous summer. After watching that, Tara said about 100 rosaries and never looked at honey the same way again.
“It’s Opie’s birthday, I highly doubt there will be strippers at a teenager’s birthday party.” Donna replied. “Come on we never go anywhere except the jock parties after games and this will be fun.”
Tara relented, “Well, I guess it won’t be so bad if Jax isn’t there. I don’t want to get dragged off anywhere by that Neanderthal. I’m still getting shit for what happened in the smoking area by half the football team. All of them are too chicken shit to fight him though.”
After that incident, she had decided that no matter how good looking Jax was, she could not get caught up in him after seeing how he was with girls at school and around town. He was going out of his way to irritate her at school and it took everything she had not to kick him in the nuts again.
That Friday, as she was leaving for school, she told her dad about her plans to go to Opie’s birthday party at the SAMCRO clubhouse. To her eternal surprise, he agreed as long as Piney was there. “John Teller was a good man, and Piney is a great guy too. I’m not so sure about Clay Morrow, but if it gets crazy call me and I will pick you up.”
Tara was nervous about the party but made sure to pack a change of clothes and Donna was over the moon about how cute Opie was so she stayed positive for her friend. As she was leaving the game, David Hale approached her and asked if they were coming to the bonfire at his parents property outside of town. “Opie invited us to his birthday party, so we are headed there. Maybe next weekend?”
David was shocked that Tara was going to a SAMCRO party. “Are you serious? Those parties are insane.” Tara responded that her dad was ok with it because Piney was there and that she was a big girl who could handle herself. Besides, she could call her dad if it turned into a Bacchanalian orgy.
As they entered the SAMCRO lot, Tara noted the scantily clad women. Donna was shocked too. Opie went to Piney and they had a hushed and heated conversation. He came back and told Donna that the SAMCRO president, Clay Morrow, had changed up some plans for the party. Opie looked pissed because he really liked Donna and didn’t want to scare off Donna and Tara five minutes into the party.
Donna and Tara stayed close together, and Opie made sure none of the hangarouds bothered them. Everyone was chatting it up when suddenly a loud noise like a few dozen engines came closer to the lot. Suddenly, a storm of bikes pulled in and Opie was shocked. “They weren’t supposed to be back from the run until tomorrow.” He looked nervously at Tara when Jax pulled up with Clay.
Tara was shocked and Donna grabbed her hand. Tara internally wanted to run, but told herself to get it together so that she wasn’t a nervous wreck. Neither her nor Donna had a chance to change out of their uniforms so the group of bikers were interested immediately.
“Who brought the jailbait?, it looks like Clay really did plan a welcome party for us. I’ve always wanted a couple of cheerleaders” yelled a guy with curly hair and piercing blue eyes. Opie stepped menacingly up to him, “Tig, they are my friends from school so stay away from them unless you want to go to the hospital and jail instead of the party. Shut the fuck up and go find a Croweater to blow you.”
Suddenly, a guy Tara recognized from the football game shouted in a thick Scottish brogue, “Hey, isn’t that the lass that kneed Jax in the balls a few weeks ago? I bet he’s ready for round two.” Tara wanted to run right then and there when Jax Teller turned and sauntered up right to her, looking like a spider closing in on its catch.
Tara was holding onto Donna for dear life and a feeling of an unsettling combination of fear and desire trickled from her chest to the core of her stomach. He regarded her with a wicked grin as he grabbed her hand. “Well, well, if it isn’t little Tara Knowles. It looks like you’re on my turf tonight and we are going to have some fun.”
December 2010
With the information on The New Adventures of Jax’s Dick, all Tara could think was that she was glad she wasn’t here for Jax’s last bout of man-whoring after she left for college. After Abel had been kidnapped she told him that she wasn’t meant to leave Charming and that they were better people when they are with the person they were meant to be with. How wrong had she been? Now she was watching the person she thought she was meant to be with move on so easily; now she was alone and preparing for the baby that she had told Jax she wanted when she also told him about the deal breaker.
She wondered how long he had wanted to hook up with Ima. She was fairly certain she got pregnant during their bout of hot sex in the bathroom after her confrontation with Ima at the porn studio wrap party. She had to stop going down that emotional drain though and went back to preparing for the neonatal consult research for work.
Tara was also officially 16 weeks pregnant and her lawyer was trying to get her to talk to Jax as soon as possible so that they could figure out the starting point and where Jax’s head was at. Tara knew Jax’s head was buried in a murder of Croweaters and most of the strippers in Northern California. She was anxious because the possibility of Jax not wanting to be involved made her even more nervous to talk to him. The pregnancy hormones were doing a number on her emotions and she was afraid that she was going to have a complete breakdown when she finally talked to him.
She missed Abel so much it hurt, but reaching out seemed desperate. She was just so confused and tried to stay busy to avoid the downward spiral that her brain took when she thought about Abel. She was hoping they could at least keep things amicable so that they could have a pleasant sibling relationship if Jax wanted to be involved. She was also already on the receiving end of pitying stares and didn’t want to come across as bitter too.
Tara was on a sabbatical and working from home doing neonatal cardiology consults via Skype. This helped her avoid having to try and find more ways to camouflage her belly which was still fairly small. She could thank those genetics for helping to avoid the inevitable conversations that would occur when she did start showing.
After lunch, Tara went to Charming Apothecary to pick up her refills on Zofran and new prenatal vitamins. As she checked out, she was distracted by a text from Donna. The pharmacist started explaining the dosage change in the Zofran dosage for her morning sickness to her and also the newer prenatal vitamin formulation as indicated by her OB/GYN.
If she had not been distracted by the text, she would have stopped the pharmacist because of her being a doctor she already understood the medication changes. As she grabbed the bags, she turned around and was face to face with none other than Jax Teller right behind her holding a box of condoms waiting in line to checkout.
Tara was beyond mortified. This was her first encounter with Jax since the Ima incident. She felt her lunch trying to come up and her mind completely went off the rails when she saw the condoms and exactly what that implied. In that moment, all she could think to do to was try and get around him as fast as she could.
Jax looked at the prescription bags she was carrying and then back at her. He was visibly shocked from what he heard the pharmacist say about her prescriptions and reached out for her hand. Tara was not ready for this conversation to happen at all but it looked like the universe had other ideas.