Chapter Text
Sometimes you really can go home.
"Now I used to call her Cindy, she changed her name to "Sin." I guess that's the name of her game. Yeah, I really used to love her."
Tara never thought it would come to this.
She came back to Charming to get the fuck out of Chicago after her psychotic ex, Joshua Kohn, was sentenced to thirty years with no possibility of parole after attempting to murder her when she tried to break up with him and had an abortion. Then he got shivved in prison which let her finally sleep easy for the first time in two years. That motherfucker was not going to bother her ever again.
The court records were sealed and she was off to a fresh start, well more like restart, back in good old Charming/Podunk, California. Saint Thomas offered to pay off all of her medical school loans if she set up practice there. It would help their hospital get badly needed federal funding and certification in Neonatal medicine.
She would also be making more money than everyone in town, except the Oswald’s. Maybe even more money than SAMCRO, and that was the best revenge.
When Tara left Charming it was on a sour note, to say the least. Jax would not leave with her to go to college, Gemma had turned half the town against her, and she was just sick of the whole situation. At least her dad was supportive. He told her that SAMCRO wasn’t any kind of life for her and drove her to San Diego the day after graduation.
He used to party with Piney Winston and John Teller when they first came to Charming. He was young, the biker parties were epic, and the girls were easy. Then he met her mom and he started a family. The biker parties also lost their appeal after half the club went to prison for smuggling and gun running.
When they got out of prison, the club took an even darker direction. Everyone in town knew to stay away after the ATF raided their clubhouse. They made it clear to the town that they if they were associated iwith SAMCRO it would mean all kinds of problems. So the club kept the drugs and prostitution out of Charming and everyone acted like they were just Harley enthusiasts and a weekend warriors club. They let Lodi and Stockton have all the drug and whore fun.
Then John Teller was killed in a horrific accident on the highway. Clay Morrow took over and the club went further down the dark path. There were whispers that the accident might not have been an accident but everyone knew to tread lightly when it came to Clay.
Jax Teller was the golden bad boy all the girls dreamed of, and Tara was no exception. She didn’t throw herself at him like a lot of her friends, but did indulge in a harmless unrequited crush here and there. It was just part of growing up girl in Charming. You daydreamed of making out with him because it pissed off your parents.
Tara’s dad told her to get it out of her system but don’t expect it to be some kind of fairy tale. He saw exactly how women were treated in that culture and knew making it forbidden fruit would only lead to an ABC After School Special on teen girls gone wild and the biker bad boys that knock them up.
She didn’t think it would ever happen and had been dating David Hale off and on for a year. Two totally different crowds. Then she ended up in the same Chemistry class with Jax Teller. He was two years older and she tested into the junior level classes as a freshman.
This rarely happened at Charming High School. Actually, it had never happened until Tara came along. The school board jumped on it because AP accreditation brought desperately needed money for the school and good publicity for the school district. Charming had always been seen as Lodi and Stockton’s ugly duckling cousin when it came time for education legislation in Sacramento.
So when Little Tara Knowles came along, with her Mensa-level test scores, they made sure to put her into the basic junior Chemistry class. It met the state requirements for graduation and would get her through the fall semester. This gave the district time while they scrambled to put together an AP curriculum that they could implement the next semester. That also meant that the smart kids and the kids just biding their time until they could legally drop out were all in one egalitarian educational melting pot.
With this in mind, when Tara walked into class the first day of school her freshman year, it was all abuzz with talk of the freshman nerd girl. The funny thing was that she wasn’t a nerd. Well, she was a Weird Science combination of cheerleader, nerd, and MTV cover girl for Headbangers Ball.
In middle school she had discovered The Runaways, Joan Jett, and Lita Ford. She decided to learn guitar and ended up taking lessons with her neighbor and dad’s friend, Bobby Munson, after cheerleading practice. He was like an uncle to her. His full time “job” was SAMCRO. He left that at work though when he was at home and taught Tara how to play everything and anything under the sun.
It was on this note that she was running late on the first day of class and threw on her cheerleading uniform. The top hadn’t dried so she threw on her Dio t-shirt that Bobby brought back for her from one of his “runs” that he did at work. It was way out of the dress code because of the album cover having a Dungeons and Dragons looking demon on it. But fuck it all, it was the only thing clean and she didn’t want to be late.
So she walked to class with her hair up in a pony tail bow, heavy metal T-shirt, and cheerleading skirt. The dropout club that sat in the back of class almost fell out of their seats. Well, Kyle Hobart actually did fall out of his seat, Lowell Harland, Jr. almost died. Donna Costello was just happy that there was finally another decent looking female in the class. She was tired of dealing with those perverts trying to stare up just her cheerleading skirt. Jax Teller and Opie Winston instantly clocked Tara and said , “Dibs!” at the same time.
Donna smacked both Beavis and Butthead with her Trapper Keeper and they finally shut up. Then Tara, Donna, Jax and Opie were assigned to the same four top lab table. Donna groaned, and told Tara to stick with her and ignore anything and everything they would probably say.
Opie was trying and failing miserably to flirt with Donna and Jax just stared at Tara. She felt super uncomfortable and started talking to Donna about cheerleading to distract from the awkwardness. Donna smacked Jax again with the Trapper Keeper and Tara laughed at the weirdness of it all.
Jax was in love. Well, lust. He wasn’t sure. It was confusing as hell. This girl was a strange combination and not what he was expecting at all. When they said that a freshman was going to be in a junior class he had to laugh. That kid was going to get eaten alive.
He loved that the district was dangling this poor kid as a sacrifice in the high school social hierarchy so they could get a few more dollars from the state. They always poured money into the smart kids while the vocational tech kids got to work on 1950’sengines and band saws that were around during the time of Christ.
He wasn’t going to hate on the poor schmuck; they were going to get enough shit from guys like Hobart. But fuck the district for using the extra tax dollars on one group while the other just waits for the scraps.
Then this girl walked in and blew all of that righteous indignation to hell and back. She was fucking beautiful and she was only fourteen years old. He felt like a pervert for even looking twice at her. He had plenty to choose from in the upper class but shit this girl was smart, hot, and wearing a Dio T-shirt from the concert the club went to on their last “charity run.” Holy shit, was she there?
He had so many questions.
This was like dream come true for him. He was getting tired of the airhead chicks at school and his mom was keeping Croweaters at bay until he turned eighteen. She wasn’t keen on him and the highschool gash’s either.
Gemma refused to be a grandma in her 30’s. That shit could wait ten to fifteen years. Plus, she really didn’t want to end up on a Dateline special about statutory rape where Jax knocks up a club whore and then the whole club ends up in Stockton because Tig’s vices are uncovered too.
Hobart started talking some shit about getting in the new girl’s skirt and he shut that shit down real quick. None of them needed to be messing with this girl. Opie had been barking up Donna’s tree since middle school but they were the same age. Donna was starting to give in to the big oaf’s charms too.
His staring was unnerving the poor girl, so Donna smacked him with that goofy binder. He distracted himself by looking at Candy Eglee’s Daisy Duke shorts. Damn that girl had an ass like a peach. He really needed to tap that this year. The teacher then started talking so he cut his eyes back. That’s when he caught the new girl shyly smile at him and it all was downhill from there.