Chapter Text
“Speak softly, love and hold me warm against your heart. I feel your words the tender trembling moments start. We're in a world, our very own sharing a love that only few have ever known.”
When Tara returned home Jax made sure everything changed. If she wanted to be with her children, she had to adapt in order to survive in his world. So she stepped into the role Motorcycle Mafia wife effortlessly, but on some of her own terms. It was the old adage her mother taught her, “The man may be the head of the house but the woman, is the neck and she can turn the head any way she wants.” She didn’t have her medical license back yet so she adjusted by becoming the Carmella Soprano of the MC world.
Jax had tried but always gave into the baser instincts his mother and Clay had carefully curated in the eleven years they had been apart. He finally embraced the monster to keep his family together as Tara’s love changed from romantic and idyllic to pragmatic and realistic in order to keep her family together. This was the tradeoff women had been making since time began and she learned quickly that she could curate him now too.
At first it was as long as he kept his road pussy on the road and they didn’t traipse into Charming, she would stay in his gilded cage like one of his mother’s birds. Otherwise, she would make the beat down Collette received look like child’s play. Psych evaluation or not, she would take him to the cleaners with all of his under the table dealings that she knew he had. In turn, he knew that she could blow the lid off of SAMCRO and take them all down. No judge, not even one on his payroll, would deny her full custody if any of that came to the light of day.
Her transformation then made any idea of road or whore pussy negligible anyways. She took notes from the World’s Oldest Professionals playbook and brought a whole new set of skills to the bedroom that kept him coming home every night.
It was like being teenagers again, except he had changed into what she feared. She had tried to get them away from Charming, Gemma, and the club when they were young and again when they tried to leave recently. That was until Clay and Gemma’s machinations turned him into the monster she now had to learn to love.
This led to an addition to the Motherhood as the World’s Second Oldest Profession position and she gave him the baby girl he had wanted when she faked the miscarriage.
She was beyond happy when Eva came along though too. The beautiful baby girl looked just like her pictures as a baby. She couldn’t wait to dress her up like a living doll in all the best clothes she could spend Jax’s money on as a distraction from the reality of the life she was trapped in.
It was on this note that Tara was returning from a shopping trip to San Francisco when she stopped at the gas station to fill up. While the prospect that was shadowing her was filling up her new Porsche Cayenne she picked out for her birthday, she went into the station to get Jax a pack of cigarettes. The doctor in her hated it but she knew Jax and it was a lost cause. Some deep part of herself also associated the smoke with his masculinity.
When he came home she would revel in the scent and they usually ended up in bed as soon as the boys and baby Eva were down for the night. She thought if they weren’t careful she’d end up with a herd of babies.
She was lost in her daydreams when she noticed a man who looked vaguely familiar staring at her. She became nervous; Jax still had plenty of enemies and while she hoped that they weren’t stupid enough to try anything with her, she was always on high alert after the ordeal with Salazar, even with a prospect shadowing her. Now the prospect was outside and she was inside alone.
The man quickly approached her. “Tara? Tara Knowles? How are you?! He read the confusion on her face. “Hank Lin, from UCSD. We were in the same class in pre-med.”
Tara breathed a sigh of relief, “I thought you looked familiar! Sorry, I’m tired from a trip to San Francisco.” She remembered Hank from their study groups. Back then he was gangly and awkward. He had definitely glowed up and was extremely handsome now. She thought of how he used to flirt with her, but she was still pining for Jax in that first year and rebuffed many advances.
Hank smiled, “I’m visiting family in the area. You look amazing, and even more beautiful than I remember. So what have you been up to? If I remember correctly, your specialty was going to be Neonatal surgery.”
The friendly smile left Tara’s face. “I’m married with three beautiful kids and was practicing until an accident crushed my hand.”
He looked at her hand in its soft cast and immediately reached for it. Tara’s instinct kicked in and she drew her hand back. Hank realized his forwardness was overwhelming and didn’t mean to upset her. “I am so sorry, but my specialty is orthoplastic, hand, and orthopedic neurosurgery. I’m an attending at Stanford University Medical Center. I would love to look at it if you don’t mind.”
Tara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had lost almost all hope of regaining any fine motor skills in her injured hand and now she was talking to one of the top surgeons in the exact field she needed for her injury.
What are the chances? It usually took months to years to get consults from the doctors that she needed and here was one right in front of her offering a consultation on the spot in a dusty old gas station outside of Charming.
Hank looked at her hand and completely turned her world upside down in the next sentence. “You should come to the medical center for a consultation. We have some new experimental procedures that help restore nerve function and range of motion in crush injuries like this. What days are good for you? I’m actually teaching next week and have some time off on Wednesday.”
Tara was almost dizzy from everything that had gone down in the space of less than fifteen minutes. “Let me talk to my husband and I’ll let you know as soon as I can arrange for the nanny to watch our kids. I really want my husband to come to the consultation too.”
Hank was disappointed at the news that Tara was married but thinking that he could help her recover from such a horrific injury made him hopeful that they could at least be professionally connected. He had such a huge crush on her back in college and she was even more beautiful than he remembered.
The prospect came in to check on Tara at the exact moment that Tara and Hank were saying their goodbyes after he gave her his card. She immediately put it in her purse and he drew her into a hug. He softly spoke into her ear as they hugged. “I can’t wait to see you soon.” Tara’s body reacted to his proximity in a way she didn’t expect. She had goosebumps, as he gave her a friendly kiss in her cheek.
The prospect walked over to them, looking at Hank suspiciously. “Mrs. Teller are you ready to go?” Tara didn’t catch the look of surprise when Hank heard her married last name and as she said her goodbyes, she didn’t notice his realization of who exactly Tara was married to when he saw the kutte on the prospect. He couldn’t help but think that this was going to be interesting on so many levels.
Tara smiled happily at him and said, “I will get in touch with you in the next couple of days, Hank.” He smiled at Tara, and replied, “I will be looking forward to seeing you again soon, too.
As Tara prepared dinner for the family she couldn’t remember the last time she felt this hopeful and couldn’t wait for Jax to come home. She was so hopeful when she heard the door open. She went to kiss Jax as he came into the kitchen but the look on his face made her step back. “What’s wrong, Jax?”
The look on his face made her nervous and the next words he dropped made her heart and hope drop into her stomach.
“What the hell were you doing hugging and kissing all over Henry Lin’s cousin, Tara?”