Chapter Text
"I'm trying to tell you something about my life. Maybe give me insight between black and white. And the best thing you've ever done for me. Is to help me take my life less seriously. It's only life after all”
"Tara, that’s not what it looked like. I was joking.” Jax tried to throw out casually like it was meant as some off kilter stand up schtick that she should be laughing along with him like his latest hook up did back in the grocery store.
Tara found her mental footing for the first time since she saw and heard him in the grocery aisle. “Seriously? How is that even funny? Talking about me like some sort of low-rent Croweater you knocked up to one of your hundreds of cheap thrills? I’m good. Did you talk about Wendy like that? You know what, don’t answer that question.”
“I get that we aren’t a couple but just a basic level of respect for me as the mother of your child isn’t too much to expect. I guess ‘baby mama’ is on par for the course for your basic bitch garbage dumpster bargain bin misogynistic motorcycle gangbanger, though.”
The look of shock on Jax’s face was matched only by the sadness on Tara’s face.
“Tara, we need to talk.”
“About what? About how you keep finding new ways to humiliate me? First Ima, then ignoring me for eight weeks, now this. Nope. Look, I’m going to be late for my prenatal yoga workout session and you’ve done your check-in with me for today. I’ll see you later.”
She was exhausted and reached for her purse on the seat. She saw the pamphlet that she picked up at the hospital when she was there last week to get some things from her office. “Oh, and here is a packet I was going to show you tonight about Lamaze classes. Think about it. It’s actually helpful, if you’re interested. If you’re not interested, I’m going to ask Donna because I need a partner to take the class. I’ll talk to you soon.”
As Tara drove away, she realized how much better she actually felt. The level of clarity she felt in that moment was like she had flushed out a septic system that had clogged her mind. She was glad she ran into this. It’s the universe once again reminding her why she shouldn’t put faith into things she has no control over. Jax has his life and she has hers. They just don’t fit together anymore.
She has to be rational.
He lives by a different moral compass and she’s resetting hers closer to fine. Back to the way it’s meant be. His life is the one that’s not normal. Hers is.
When she got home she texted David. “How about that lunch?”
Jax watched as Tara drove away from him and all he could think was, how the hell did he manage to fuck up this chance, again? The universe brought her back to him after ten miserable years where all he did was pray to a God he’s not sure exists to bring her back.
She came back and instead of owning his shit he tried pushing her away in the worst way possible. Since he first noticed her all those years ago in that folk dress and ballet outfit, all he has ever seen is her beautiful face, her black shiny hair, and her shy smile.
Then he saw her at the Apothecary and the Earth tilted its axis closer to right and he had been given another chance. She told him that she couldn’t be with him anymore but he was determined to change that. Those trips to Sacramento were the best part of his week. He noticed that Tara was warming up but he was giving her space and knew that she wasn’t easily wooed. She had always been that way.
She guarded her virtue like Fort Knox when they were dating and it drove him crazy. A girl that actually respected herself was new to him. All of the usual lines and moves didn’t with on her. As he got to know her, he fell hard and fast.
Of course his dick had to do the thinking after running into one of the newer Croweaters at the store which led him like a magnet to the condom section. All the girls knew about Tara and were careful not to say anything even remotely disrespectful. He thought it was a harmless comment that got the girl giggling and his dick twitching. When he turned and saw her face, his heart dropped 10,000 feet off the cliff.
He drops Melanie, Mandy, Melissa or whoever she is, off at her house and tells her he can’t make it to the clubhouse tonight. She gets it and he heads back to TM to try and figure yet again out how to fix yet another one of his fuck ups.
December 1994
As Donna and her prepared for their double date, Tara asked her what Opie and her do on their dates. “Well, mostly we’ve gone to the movies and I have hung out at TM. We leave before the parties start on the weekends though. We come back to my house and we hang out, watch movies and talk. We have made out but he respects me and hasn’t pushed for sex. We discussed it and when I’m ready we’ll figure it out”
Tara was shocked that they discussed sex. She was a year younger than most of her classmates due to skipping a grade so she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She wasn’t naive or prude but she definitely wasn’t ready for sex. With Jax’s reputation she figured they would get through one date and he would move on because he needs to get laid.
“My parents love Opie. My dad knows that the Sons of Anarchy aren’t Boy Scouts, but he knows Piney too and says he’s good with him as a chaperone if we do stay for parties.”
Tara was nervous because she still couldn’t believe Jax asking her out on a date that wasn’t some idea of a joke again to play her. She liked the guy that she got to know at Opie’s party. It would be interesting to see if he could actually maintain the maturity level of at least a sophomore.
The guys show up and the girls get on their bikes. Jax is so good looking it’s unfair. In turn, Jax is overwhelmed by how beautiful Tara is.
She’s absolutely ethereal. Suddenly, he remembers reading and watching Doctor Zhivago in Honors World Literature and History, the only two classes he gives a shit about. Lara was the classic blonde beauty and the great love of Zhivago’s life but it was the black-haired Tonya, Zhivago’s long suffering wife, who appealed to him. She was darkly beautiful like Tara and faithful to a fault. She understood his flaws and loved him to the point that she risked everything to save their family after Zhivago seemingly abandoned them.
As Tara approaches, he still just can’t believe how beautiful she is. Her almond eyes, porcelain skin, poise, and grace remind him of one of those ballerinas in a music box. And that’s exactly what he wants to do, put her safely somewhere where only he can have her. A place where nothing evil or violent will ever come near her.
What the hell is happening to him? Something has fundamentally changed and he decides whatever it is, he wants to hold onto it for the rest of his life.