Chapter Text
Jax wakes up with a start, needing a moment to realize where he is, and who he is with. He looks over and sees Tara curled up at his side, leaning over to kiss her forehead gently, accidently waking her up, at least partially. She cuddles more into him, playing with the scruff on his face.
“I love you.” She whispers, mostly asleep while Jax takes her hand and kisses it gently.
The calm atmosphere did not last long unfortunately as her phone started ringing loudly on her bedside table. Tara rolls over and answers her phone, sounding far more awake than she did two seconds before. “Dr. Knowles.” Whatever the person on the other end of the phone said got her sitting up and out of bed in about 2 seconds flat. She tossed some clothes at Jax and gestured for him to get dressed, which he does, watching her. “Tell St. Thomas I need my OR set up to configuration 2. Yes they will know what that means. What's the ETA on the ambulance? sh*t. Okay put me through to the EMT. Thanks. Hi there this is Dr. Knowles I'll be meeting you at the accident site, I need you to prep all the blood you've got, I'll have the IV already prepped and ready, get there ASAP.” Tara hangs up her phone and turns to Jax.
“Hey baby, I need a ride. Not far from here, a 10 year old got hit by a truck, the truck didn't even stop. Ambulance is over 15 minutes away.” Tara grabs her med bag and is already heading for the door having gotten changed while on the phone.
“Jesus Christ. Yeah, let's go.” Jax finishes getting dressed before starting his bike and speeding them to the scene, David Hale already there. The second Jax stops the bike Tara is off and rushing towards the little girl, gloves on, examining her. Jax hangs back and watches Tara at work, amazed at the woman he has loved since they were 16. She is so calm and collected, and so f*cking smart he doesn't even know how he tricked her into being with him.
While Tara and Jax are at the accident site Opie wakes up with his kids between him and Donna, something they hadn't done since he got his ass locked up. His life finally seems to be getting back on track, he's got his wife on his side, his kids are finally remembering him, and he's got his sister back. Opie smiles and closes his eyes again enjoying the early morning cuddles with his family.
Meanwhile Clay and Tig are making plans to take out Opie. Because even though Jax swore up and down Ope ain't a rat, and even though Ope himself said he wasn't a rat, Clay and Tig both think they know better.
Clay goes and makes a stink to Stahl for absolutely no reason before Church.
In Church Clay makes the decision to sell the security surplus to the Mayans in order to get enough cash in case Bobby's case goes to trial.
At the hospital Tara gets out of the long surgery putting that little girl back together and decides to go see Abel, her little ray of sunshine. To her surprise Jax is there, signing all the liability forms for when Abel gets released.
“Hey.” Tara smiles and walks over to him, placing her hand gently on Abel's chest quickly in greeting before Jax hands her the clipboard.
“I think that's all of them.” Jax smiles at Abel but looks up and sees a look on Tara's face. “Is something wrong?”
“No. No. It's just with Abel leaving, I just realized it's not just you. You have a son… with someone else. We need to think about what we're doing.” Tara has been putting off this conversation but she can't anymore. She can't dig her head in the sand and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist.
“You really wanna talk about this, huh?” Jax knew this conversation was coming, Tara has tried to have it many times over the past few months but he's been avoiding it. “You know the one upside of Wendy is that she was usually too wasted for relationship chats.” He regretted it as soon as he said it, mentioning Wendy as a relationship, as more than just a release was bound to hurt Tara but that wasn't his intention.
Tara crosses her arms, putting herself on the defensive. “Well I'm painfully sober.”
“I can see that. I'm not getting out of this, am I?” Jax watches Tara carefully.
Tara shakes her head, remaining resolute in her decision. “No.”
Jax plays with Abel's toes for a second before moving away from him to have this discussion. “My sh*t was crazy Tara. That I gotta be with you every minute or I'm gonna kill myself type of crazy. Look, the way I feel about you hasn't changed, and I can still go there, but this can't be that.” Jax steps closer to her.
“I don't want this to be that. I know your sh*t was crazy Jax, mine was too. You had to be with me every minute of every day, I had to make sure you were still breathing every minute of every day.” Tara needs him to know it was never one sided.
“What are you talking about?” Jax tilts his head to watch her.
“After Tommy I started volunteering at the hospital. I told everyone it was because I realized after spending all that time around the doctors and nurses that I wanted to work in the medical field. But really it was because I needed information. I needed to know everything I could find out about CHD, especially your family's type of CHD. I learned that even people like you, who outgrow it, or people like Gemma who have open heart surgery to correct it, can still have a heart attack if your heart is strained, emotionally or physically. I started listening to your heartbeat to make sure there were No Skips, No Jumps, No Pauses. I'd stay up all night just listening to your heartbeat. My mantra became No Skips, No Jumps, No Pauses. After Abel was born I started doing the same thing with him. It's not just you who's been a little crazy Jax.” Tara smiles a little self-deprecatingly at him.
“So we gotta figure out what's right. But I'm not trying to avoid this, what we have okay babe? I just want to take a minute to know what to do.” Jax looks her in the eyes, taking down all his walls so she can see how sincere he is.
“Okay. You can have a minute.” Tara smiles slightly at him and he reaches over to hold her, pulling her towards him and kissing her deeply, resting his arms on her shoulders and smiling at her.
For Wendy to see.
Wendy goes back to the house and helps Gemma set up for Abel's welcome home party, as well as confront Gemma on her manipulation to hurt Tara and Jax.
Agent Stahl puts the witness to Bobby committing murder in a safe house.
Jax and Ope are gathering their security surplus while Jax lays out his concerns with the past few months, and more importantly his concerns about where the club is going. Mentions to Opie that JT had plans for the club, something Opie knew on some level.
Donna stops by the Clubhouse with a smile on her face letting Opie know that Mary wants to take the kids out. Opie and Donna make plans to go to Abel's homecoming party, even though it gets in the way of their alone time.
Clay makes a plan to double cross the Mayans with the Niners because… Clay.
Meanwhile Wendy confronts Tara during lunch, staking her claim, defending her territory and Tara does her best not to engage but it sets the whirling off in her head again.
The meeting with the Mayans… goes to sh*t.
But Tig can't pull the trigger because Opie saves him.
The men are lamenting all the terrible sh*t when Gemma calls Jax and asks him to pick up Wendy before coming to the hospital to bring Abel home.
Tig and Clay make a new plan to kill Ope, make it look like a drive-by tonight.
Hale has a crisis of conscience regarding the ATF and Opie.
Tara watches as Jax, Wendy and Gemma take Abel out of the hospital, as a family unit, her insecurities whirling that much louder in her head, especially when Jax calls her Doc.
Hale warns Stahl that something bad can happen to Opie if she pulls her detail on him, but she doesn't care.
Tara grabs a cab to her place since she arrived by ambulance that morning, to change and grab her bike before heading over to the party.
At the party she feels both right at home and completely out of place at the same time. She watches Wendy sit next to Piney, her Pops and feels weirdly territorial. She leans down to kiss Jax, feeling him pull away, once again pushing her insecurities to the surface. He asks to talk to her alone and leads her to Abel's nursery.
“What's the matter?” Tara crosses her arms, already defensive from all her insecurities and doubts swirling in her head.
“Nothing. It's just… Wendy is like a heartbeat sober okay? We don't want to do anything that is going to set her off.” Jax might not love Wendy, but he doesn't want her going off the deep end.
“Because she's still in love with you? Or maybe you're still in love with her.” Tara refuses to let her guard down, even when Jax gets closer to her.
“No. Of course not. I'm just saying we should be cool with whatever this is around her.”
“Whatever this is?” The ice in her tone tells Jax that he should be very careful what he says next.
“You know what I mean.” Or maybe he wasn't that careful.
“No. I don't.” Tara starts to walk away from him but he won't let her do that again, not if he can help it so he goes to reach out for her but she sobs “No.” And slaps him across the face, hard before rushing out of there.
She does her best to maintain her composure enough that the whole party doesn't know how close she is to losing it before grabbing her bag and storming out, getting on her bike.
Jax follows her out of the nursery and asks Juice to make sure she gets home alright.
Opie asks what happened and Jax says he has got no idea. Opie laughs slightly, very used to Tara's outbursts and apologizes but doesn't mean it.
Donna and Opie say their goodbyes to the party before heading out with the kids.
And this is where it all goes wrong.
Donna gets into Opie's truck and Opie takes the kids home in Donna's car.
Unser warns Clay about Stahl setting Opie up to be the rat but he's too late.
Tig, unaware that this switch took plays rolls up behind the truck and shoots Donna three times in the back of the head, killing her.
Tara is barely home when she gets the call and rushes to the accident scene with her Med Bag, nearly breaking down when she sees that it's Donna, and that there is nothing she can do to save her best friend. She waits onsite until Opie and Jax gets there. Jax tries to talk to her but she just brushes him off, barely able to hold it together.
Opie loses it, seeing Donna dead on the road like that, his beautiful wife, the woman who stuck with him through everything, his little ball of sunshine, gone, forever. What the f*ck is he gonna do, what are his kids gonna do?
Jax holds Opie up, hugging him, keeping him standing, barely. His grief completely overtaking every possible sh*t he could give about his image right now.
Tara heads to Opie and Donna's, figuring maybe she can help with the kids, help Opie, just be more useful than sitting alone in her house wondering who Jax is f*cking to get over their fight and get through the grief of losing Donna.
The answer is no one, he almost f*cked Wendy but he realized if he was serious about being serious with Tara he can't f*ck it up day one of a fight. Losing himself in Weed, Booze and puss* might be his MO but he's a father now, he's gotta step up, be better.
Just another terrible day in Beautiful Charming.
