Everything Has Changed

That's Another Song

*I used to sing to her, it used to make her smile
She knew all the words for a while
I sang love me tender always and forever
Hold me baby all night long I could go on and on
But that's another song

The quiet that engulfs the house after the kids have left for school in the morning is normally a very welcome reprieve from the non stop life of a mom with three kids, but this morning it is the most annoying sound. It gives her brain too much time to think. Too much time to see Jax's face as he leaves that room. So when she opens the door to see that very man standing in front of her she's not even close to prepared.

He stares at her directly in the eyes almost daring her to invite him in. He knows he's itching for fight. He wants to say so many things to her, to hurt her the way he hurts, but seeing the sad look on her face he pulls it all back, at least for the moment.

"Can I come in?" he asks.

She doesn't know if she trusts herself to speak so she simply steps aside and lets him in.

He stands just inside the door and looks around the tidy living room of the house that belongs to Chibs. It's covered in pictures of his brothers, not that he still considered Chibs one of them.

However there are also tons of pictures on Tara, and HIS sons. The meek hold he had on his temper is fading away. The life he has always known he and Tara should have is unfolding in front of him in photographs of a life he doesn't recognize. Abel in his first football uniform. Thomas playing T-Ball. It was hard to believe that Abel was now 11 and Thomas was 7. Tara in the hospital holding her and Chibs daughter.

We used to go for walks on a country road like this
It's funny all the small things you miss
Like puttin' pennies on a train track, the way you brushed your hair back
The sun on your face, I wish I were there today
But that's another place

He forces himself to turn away from it, least he destroy the entire house. She motions for him to follow her into the kitchen. "Tea?"

"Sure."

"What kind?"

"Kind that goes good with a shot of Jameson." He sits at the modest kitchen table. "Kids at school?"

"Yeah. Chibs went to the garage too."

"Did I ask about him?" he says before he can control it. He sees even from behind that she sighs and her shoulders drop, but he's not about to offer any sort of apologies.

A few seconds later the water boils and Tara brings them both cups over, along with a bottle of Jameson. She dumps a shot into the tea glass for him, and tea bag for her. Though after a sip of the tea she reconsiders and adds a shot in hers also.

Tara wants to laugh because even though there's so much to say, and answer for on both sides, they are both still just as stubborn as always and neither wants to be the one to speak first. She inwardly takes a breath as she knows it's going to be her... like always.

"I know I have a lot to explain, but I think you do too." He speak first and it surprises her.

"I think we both have a lot that needs to be said, but can we do it without fighting?"

Jax chuckles sarcastically, "I come home to find you living with Chibs, and raising our kids with him and you want to have a civil conversation?"

She doesn't respond since she knows that he right. She's livid and trying to control her own emotions is going to be hard.

"Care to explain yourself?" he pushes.

"Me?! You go to prison and completely lock me out, then apparently get out after only a few years and you just bail?!"

"Bail?!" He yells

"Yes, you just bail on me and kids! You completely leave your family behind and run off to God knows where to do God know what and you want to ask ME to explain myself?!"

Jax takes the shot in his cup, pours himself another one, and downs that as well before getting up from the table to look out the kitchen window.

He opens the back door and goes out onto the patio and sits on the bench. After a few minutes Tara follows him out.

Oh, the way I used to hold her
The things I should've told her
If I could make the clock unwind back to she was mine
But that's another time

"I went to prison Tara. I went to prison not for the crimes I committed, or for club. I went to prison for YOU. For my family, my boys. To take away the pain my crimes had inflicted on those things that I love the most. I loved you enough to let you go. To give you the life away from SAMCRO that you wanted, that you needed to make you and my kids safe. Of course it helped my club, but the only people I was concerned with were my family."

Tara stares straightforward, unable to speak, so he continues.

"I didn't want you to visit me because I wanted you to start the life you'd been fighting for. After Patterson left and you told me you loved me, I was amazed that after all I've done to you, all the promises I'd gone back on that you did. I never expected to hear that again, and it broke my heart, and made me love you more then I ever knew imaginable. And then you let me kiss you, and hold you and make love you, and then it all vanished when my mom tried to kill you. All the goodness I'd been hanging on to went right out the window. As long as I had connection to her and the club I could never be the man who deserved you. I had to keep you away from me. But I made plans, plans to get out, and make good, and be the type of man you deserved. So when Lowen got me out I didn't want to just run right to you, and make you promises I might be unable to keep."

"So you just left?"

He shrugged, "I left. I got out. I moved to Oregon and started over. Tara I am different man now. I knew that you would be different too, and that everything has changed, but I never thought that after all I did, you would be the one to let ME down."

Tara stared at him in shocked silence. He stood and kissed her softly on the forehead. "I love you Tara. Goodbye."

************************************************************************************************

It seems like this was the day that would never end. Jax knew that going to see Tara was going to be hard but it had been worse then he could have ever imagined. She blamed him. The woman he had done everything for blamed him for the end of their love affair, but she was the one that turned on him. She moved on, with a man he looked up to.

After their talk and his hurried exit from the house he couldn't imagine just going back to his moms place and sitting there. He knows from years of experience that all it will do is amp him up to just sit there and think about it and without any doubt he knows he'll end up at the club house again and into it with Chibs. So he just drives. Drives until he's out of gas and refilled the tank and just stops at the first hotel he finds.

He'd should go back for his things, but he wants nothing more to do with Charming or Tara, and he most definitely wants nothing to do with the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club every again. He wants to go home, and home definitely isn't Charming anymore.

Oh, the way I used to hold her
The things I should have told her
If I could make the clock unwind back to she was mine
But that's another time
I could go on and on and on but that's another song

*Lyrics That's Another Song by Bryan White