AUTHORS NOTE: Hey guys! Sorry this update took me awhile - Halloween activities kept me busy. I also wanted to say that I did take some creative liberties with the unfolding of the story, and hopefully you guys don't hate me too much for tampering! I appreciate all the love and support, I'm overwhelmed with the positive responses!

Tara

Two days later, her face is everywhere – a nightmare I cannot escape from. Television stations, newspapers, memorabilia in the Charming High hallways, and on the face of every saddened civilian. They should be outraged and terrified, but they have soaked up and accepted the false information of an "electrical fire", claiming an innocent. Heather Moore, only sixteen years old. Student council member, prom committee, and fried to bits inside of the Sons of Anarchy clubhouse.

Heather is dead, and it's his fault.

When I first discover it, I try to justify it for him, already foolishly at his defense. It isn't his fault that his life is ludicrous and dangerous, I lie to myself. It isn't his fault that he endangers his friends by thrusting them into the hands of evil, forcing them to walk a highly suspended, burning tight rope in the name of some outlawed brotherhood. And the more I disbelieve it, the more I defend him for no reason at all, the more I try to make him an angel instead of demon, the angrier I become. With Jackson Teller, and with myself – for ever believing, even for an instant, that he could be trusted.

She's dead. It's his fault. And he didn't tell me.

I'm restless and exhausted at school, pencils shaking in my trembling fingers and brain straying to rage every chance it gets to wander. I barely have a grip on reality, so I coast through my day, never jotting down a single note and sipping water during lunch because I can't stomach anything at all. I see her face everywhere, and though we grew apart so long ago and I barely considered us close, I feel an insurmountable bought of guilt for her death. I know I couldn't control it, and she had been dancing in their grasps long before I peaked my toe in, but I stew on it anyway – on action and reaction, cause and effect, running down every single thing I've ever done that could have possibly pushed her in the direction of Jackson Teller and his bike gang ghouls.

I convince myself that I hate him, and ignore the parts of me that know it isn't true.

I'm walking home at the end of the day when David catches up to me. I don't want to see him either – he's been all over the news as well. The paperboy turned town hero, placing an emergency call just at the right time. Never mind the fact that I had to scream at him to do it.

"Tara, hey!" He jogs into stride with me, slowing down so our paces match.

"Hi." I deadpan, existing no where on the same galaxy. My mind is far away from here, somewhere in a big city where I can easily disappear into a sea of insignificant people.

"Are we still on for this weekend?"

I have no idea what he's talking about, but I don't really care either way. "Hmm?"

"The Homecoming dance. Remember?" His voice sounds crestfallen, but I don't even care enough to look at his face.

How could I have trusted him? How could I have let him touch me? Press his lips on my forehead? Tell me that he doesn't want to stay away from me?

"Sure, yeah."

"Tara, are you okay?" I finally look at David now, mostly to persuade him that I am fine, I am just fine, and not to prod in the sore places I'm trying to hide. I'm not very convincing – I can see it on his face, but I don't try harder. I just need... I need...

"I'll meet you there at eight, okay? I have to go." I curl around the opposite street to my address, and make way to the cemetery. I think he calls something out to me, but I don't hear it. I can't hear anything but the sound of my own heart, thrumming against my chest so hard that it hurts.

I sit at my mother's grave for so long that it starts to grow dark outside, and as the streetlights come on, I finally pull myself up off the dying grass and head home.

That's when I see their headstones. John Thomas Teller and Thomas Teller.

I wonder, very darkly, if they were fried to bits, too.

Jax

"We have to hit back now, and hit hard."

"Think wisely, Clay. We can't afford more violence in Charming."

"It's my goddamn back yard they're taking a piss in! We have to hit back before these wetbacks think they can kill our women and children without consequence. It's personal now."

"Aye, but personal revenge won't take us far. We need to be smart about this, Clay, before the next retaliation blows a hole right in the middle of our club."

"They blew a hole right through my son!" Piney thunders, slamming his fists onto the table. "We hit them back right now, goddammit!"

"We vote it." Clay grabs his gavel.

I don't have a say, I don't have a vote. Opie and I aren't technically allowed past the church doors, but we're allotted tonight because the chaos has struck us, too. The clubhouse is burnt up and a team works on fixing it to its former glory. Opie has a cast on his leg and a crutch to support him, and I have a sore head and a guilty conscience.

Heather –

I barely hear the votes. It's like I'm drowning under twelve feet of freezing water, stilling my body and numbing my brain. I hear them through a muffled tunnel, barely paying attention as I chain smoke my last few cigarettes. Among many others, an innocent girl is dead. And I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell Tara that she burned to death because of me, because of this club. What was I supposed to say? How could I have made that right?

She would never look at me the same again.

The gavel slams down and it snaps me back into reality.

"We hit them back, hard."

After church lets out, I saunter out of the doors and perch myself at the half ruined bar, continuing to smoke and stay lost in my head. I don't want to think, but it's all I can do, drowning in a sea of what ifs and buts and how the hell can I carry this weight and bear this cross at only sixteen? I hadn't been expecting to pledge in during a time of war, and though the fight is buried deep within me, there's something holding me back from diving over this cliff. I see Tara's face, hazel eyes welling with nickle sized tears as I held her wrist and kept her from walking away from me. And all I can think about is how everything that I am, everything that I will be, will keep her walking away from me for the rest of my life.

It hurts. I don't want to lose her, when I barely have her to begin with.

"Ya alright, Jackie Boy?" Chibs sits next to me at the bar, slapping my back affably.

I nod a little, absentmindedly pushing the ash tray back and forth with my index finger. "Yeah. I'm alright."

"How's that noggin of yours?" He messes up my hair like a big brother would, lightheartedly pestering.

And then I put it together. It was Chibs who knocked me out of the way that night, shielding my body with his to protect me. It was Chibs who'd carried me out of the clubhouse. It was Chibs who saved my life.

I look over at him in realization. "You?"

He lights a cigarette and gives me a half shrug, taking a long drag before responding. "Someone has to keep the Teller legacy alive."

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude as I smile back at him, setting a hand on his shoulder affectionately. I tell myself that if I ever live past this shit, and I ever make it to the head of the table, Chibs will be on my right. My Sargent at Arms, the one who will always have my back and save my sorry ass when I get in too deep. I know it's a silly promise to make, bearing only the Prospect patch while my body buzzes with unrelenting anxiety at what this club will make of me, but I make it anyway. Because Chibs is my family. Because Chibs reminded me that I will never take this on alone, and that I gave it all up for this. This brotherhood.

"Thank you," I say.

"Anytime, kid." He tells me. And we chain smoke together.

When Opie and I are released for the night, Opie stays to catch a ride with his pop and I ride out into the night. I already know what I'm going to do before I even make the conscious decision to do it, kicking my bike down through Donna's street. It's not exactly the best plan – I know her folks are pretty straight laced, and when she comes anywhere with us, she does it discretely. But I go there anyway, and park my bike several houses away.

I'm doing it for her. I'm doing it for Tara.

I'm thankful that Donna answers the front door when I knock, and then guilty when I see her expression. She's absolutely terrified, lip trembling and eyes wide with fear.

She immediately questions me. "Is Op – Is he okay? What happened, Jax? Why are you here?"

And I understand then. She's not afraid of me being here, she's shell shocked from the shooting and thinks that something else has happened. And all I can think of is Tara's face when she put her hands over Opie's bullet hole, and how she looked in the emergency ward after. How can I let myself ruin her innocence along with my own? Donna is already in too deep for saving, but Tara?

I know it's illogical, but I can't give her up. I'm exhausted from forcing myself to do it, and I can't anymore.

"No, no, Donna. Op's alright, everything's fine," I tell her, settling a hand on her rigid shoulder. She relaxes a little at that, releasing a heavy breath with a small nod. "I came for a favor." I add.

"What do you need?"

I shift a bit uncomfortably, hating to admit the one weakness I have – especially in the midst of everything that I am. "Do you know where Tara lives?"

And Donna gives me that look – the same one that everyone gives me when I mention Tara. At first it's skepticism and disbelief, because someone like Tara doesn't belong within a lick of me. And then it's this pitiful hopelessness, directed towards me and my apparent pathetic interest in her. No one thinks we belong together, and no one sees us surfacing through the muck of our star-crossed lives as something, anything other than so far away.

I don't care. I can't fucking care, because there's a sick feeling in my gut, festering every second I spend without at least knowing her. I can't shake her. I can't breathe or sleep or eat because I've wronged her by wanting her, wronged her by hiding what I did, wronged her by pressing my lips on her forehead when I should have let her go. And the longer I sit in the depths of this silence without her near me, the sicker I feel, like an illness that could be cured with her acceptance of me – even the monster that sleeps inside.

"Jax, Tara is a good girl," Donna starts, her voice small. I can tell she doesn't want to break it to me. "She's... smart and driven. She's not like –"

"She's not like me, I get it." I cut her off, a bit venomously. I'm not mad at Donna, I know her intentions are good just like they always are. But I'm sick of hearing it, sick of staying away from Tara, sick of feeling desperate. I am desperate now.

"Don't you think you should just leave her be, Jax? She's different. And..." Donna looks at me innocently, because she doesn't want me to snap at her again – I can tell. "You'll break her heart."

I don't say anything for a long beat, releasing a heavy sigh and itching to light a cigarette. I know I don't have the best track record with girls, and I've never claimed the white hat and called myself a saint with them. I've broken many hearts, and I've used more people than I care to admit, but it's not the same. She is not the same.

I don't care to show my weakness now, it's seeping from my skin and the stronger I try to pretend to be, the more it brings me to my knees. "Please, Donna. Please just tell me where she lives."

"Okay."

Tara

I'm walking out of my house, making way to the Homecoming dance, as he's walking up my driveway.

Jax.

I can't breathe.

I stop in my tracks and attempt to regain myself, trying to force air in my lungs and my body to keep moving. But I'm a statue on the pavement, staring at him like a deer in headlights with my mouth slightly agape. He's here, he's at my house. And he looks like absolute Hell – his messy hair is even messier, his clothes are wrinkled like he'd slept in them a few nights, and there are dark circles under his eyes that can only come from restlessness. He looks at me with this tortured expression, eyebrows furrowed and lips set into a firm line.

I shrink under his gaze like I always do, folding my arms across my sequined chest. I feel like an idiot in my white Homecoming dress, hair curled, and spare bits of make-up splashed on my face because I never had my mother to show me how to do it. I'm so shocked by him standing there that I forget to be angry, and then when I remember, the rage nearly rocks me out of my heels.

"You look..." He begins, and I don't want to hear the rest.

I immediately say it before he can say anything else. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tara –" He steps towards me with his hand outstretched, and I flinch away from him.

"Don't touch me." I sneer at him, and I'm terrified at the pain I feel. It hurts me to hurt him, and I hate it. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I didn't know how to tell you!" He shouts back, and I flinch again. His voice... His pain... "I didn't want to hurt you. I knew you wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't what, Jax? Understand? Oh, I understand perfectly well. I understand your club killed an innocent girl, it's crystal clear! You put her in danger! She is dead because of you!" I feel tears stinging my eyes, but I won't let them fall. I won't be weak in front of him.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, as if he's taken my blow below the belt and accepted it's force without reckoning. I know I'm irrational. I know I shouldn't place the death at his feet – he didn't start that fire or shoot those guns. But with the death of Heather, and the death of so many other innocents, his path became more real to me. A path I know I cannot follow without placing the entirety of myself, my future, and everything I have into his palms. Because his path is straight to Hell, the most wicked, dangerous game that I can't play, and how could I fall for him?

How could I have fallen for the one thing that might just kill me?

His voice gets low when he looks back to me again. "No, I knew you wouldn't look at me the same, Tara." He takes a breath and then continues, even smaller. "I'm sorry about Heather. I'm so sorry, but I can't change what happened."

I look away from him and I can't look back. I can't see him when I do what I need to do, because I'll be too weak and breathless to do it. "I can't see you anymore. I can't... I can't do this. I can't start this with you." I whisper, holding my torso because it feels like it's about to shatter into a million glass pieces.

"Don't."

It kills me. He kills me. "Please, just go. Please."

"Look at me Tara," I hear him close the distance between us, see his feet from my peripheral vision, but I still can't. "Tara, look at me!"

"I can't." I whisper again, shaking my head as my hands turn to balls and my nails dig into my skin. I can't stop the burst from my chest, releasing all the things I couldn't say. I stare at my feet, and let it out. I let myself say it, because this is the end. I cannot be his.

"I don't even know you, and it's like you own me. You own me! I can't do what's right! I can't concentrate, I can't eat, I can barely breathe when I look at you and this isn't me, this isn't the kind of girl I am! You terrify me. You own me, and I can't belong to you. You're going to hurt me. You're going to kill me."

"I own you? You own me!" Jax shouts back, and my eyes snap up to meet his again. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't expecting to see his expression contorted to so much unimaginable pain, or to hear him say that. I own him? "I can't eat, I can't sleep, and you are all that I can think about! I kill myself wondering how much of you I'm allowed to have, how much you want me to have, and it's this relentless back and forth of never fucking knowing whether or not I should let myself feel this way about you! But I can't stop it! I can't, I've tried," His voice breaks, and I break with it. "You are going to hurt me, you are going to kill me! You own me just as much, Tara, but unlike you, I want to know what this is! I have to know. There's something here, and I am done ignoring it."

I can't breathe.

He takes in my expression, searching, but I barely know what it is. I'm so taken aback that my body feels numb and my head is disconnected from me. It resonates through every single fiber of my being.

We fell for each other.

There's a long moment suspended between us. We don't say anything, we just breath in synchronization, staring at one another – ocean on earth. It's real now. It's as unavoidable as malignant cancer, sucking our health dry and leaving us unable to be inoculated. Because he owns me, and I own him, and we may just destroy each other and tear down our entire lives in the process.

Jax breaks the silence, voice raw and contorted. "I'm not going to stay away from you. I can't. So please, don't ask me to."

I don't say anything because I can't make my voice work. I know that what is about to happen between us will become wildly intense and world changing, toxic and unhealthy and codependent. I know that he will be dangerous and crooked with crime, and I will drown under the weights of his chosen life. I know that I could become the next Heather, dead at his feet before life even had a chance to be lived, and that no one in his life will trust me like they do their own.

There are so many reasons that I can't be with him, and yet they all feel meaningless now. Because it's true. We've already fallen. I don't have a choice, because I'm already his.

"Tara, say something. Say anything."

I suck in a deep breath, and let my arms drop from my own embrace. "Do you dance?"

Jax narrows his eyes at me, skeptical. "No, I don't dance."

"But for me, would you?" I try again.

He catches on then, his face finally smoothing out into relaxation and understanding. His lips even curl at the ends in a half smirk, so captivating and devious that I forget to breathe again. He's so beautiful. "Yes. For you, I would."

"Okay," I say, offering my hand to him. Jax looks at me longingly, and then at my hand, offering to pull us across that final threshold. He takes it in his and holds it to his chest, as if he can't get me close enough. A fire starts in my belly, and I know that I will never get used to touching him. "Will you be my Homecoming date?"

He lets out a small, helpless laugh as he nods. "Yes, Tara. I will."

We walk to the school together, and even though Jax is no longer a student at Charming High and he's wearing a wrinkled flannel, jeans, and his Prospect leather vest, and absolutely everyone in the building stares at us with aghast and angry eyes – including David Hale – it doesn't matter. He takes me to the middle of the dance floor, holds my hips in his hands, and draws me close.

I put my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, and all of my anxiety falls away. We're the only two people in the entire universe, and nothing matters but us. Nothing matters but the way we feel about each other.