Everything Has Changed

Here Without You

*A hundred days have made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face.
A thousand lies have made me colder
And I don't think I can look at this the same.
All the miles that separate
Disappear now when I'm dreamin' of your face.

She knows the pain is real because the tears have been falling for hours. It's been one hell of a morning and she's not sure she wants to ever have another one like it. This morning her attorney handed over the final paperwork for her divorce. It was real. This was it, the end of the line for her Jax. Even though she knew by heart every single thing that had led her here she's still not quite aware how they ended up in this place. The dream had always been her and Jax. Her and Jax and a couple of kids.

That dream seems like another lifetime. She had spent all of her youth trying anything to become a part of Jax's life and in turn the MC life, and it seems the entirety of her adult hood doing everything to ruin that. She knows that Jax isn't blameless in all of this but from the day she came back she did nothing to accept who he was and everything to make him think he had to be someone else to deserve her love. To deserve her, and their kids and that they needed to get the hell away from the MC and Charming.

Yet in the strange twist of fate he did get out, and she got more entwined in the world she supposedly wanted out of, and now here they were. One signature from them both and a judge's gavel would end the love that she thought would last forever. She signs her name on the line but it looks wrong. It looks incorrect, like seeing some forged version of her name on some foreign document.

She hadn't expected it to be this hard. She was after all the one that put the nail in coffin with her relationship with Filip. Jax had confessed his love, had pleaded his case and he was right, she had let him down. He had always loved her and even if he wasn't faithful with body he had always been faithful with his heart, even the years apart hadn't taken her from there.

It had however put someone else in hers. A man very much her senior, a man very much the wrong man, not that loving anyone else would ever have been acceptable, but being Jax's best friend was a betrayal she knows she could never come back from.

Thankfully Filip has left for work before the paperwork arrives. He won't have to witness her breakdown. It isn't fair. She goes back into the kitchen to look once more at the divorce decree and custody agreement and being unable to see those words any longer she folds them and put them in the envelope to drop off with the attorney on the way to visit Charlie. She feels numb.

In what seems the distance she can hear a phone ringing and it takes a minute for her to realize it's her cell ringing. Answering it brings another flood of tears. The tiny, fragile voice on the other end says, "Mommy where are you?"

"Hi baby." She cries, trying to hide the sound of the tears escaping. Her little girl laughs and says, "She's not saying anything daddy."

Tara laughs as she hears the phone being taken. "Filip, when...." She stops when the voice on the other end surprises her.

"It's Jax. I came by early to check on her before church. I kissed her head and her eyes opened." He lets it sink in for a second before continuing. "She really wants to see her mom."

"Of course! I'm already in the car. Be there in 10."

The drive seems to take forever and Tara feels like the hallway to Charlie's room keeps getting longer and longer and when she finally gets there she felt like she's hit pay dirt. Charlie sits on her bed between Chibs and Jax. Both men have smiles like she's never seen across their faces. They both love that little girl so much.