Tribulation | Jax Teller

Wounds

"What's going on, Dad?" Noah asks confused and scared. His blue deep ocean eyes the same as Noelle's and Jax has never found is harder to look his own child in the eyes.

He's ashamed to admit that a part of him wanted to avoid his children – to avoid Noah. His son – his child – that resembles Noelle the most. He doesn't know how to explain that their mother was taken – kidnapped. Telling his kids make it more real. He can't even try to verbalize that she could be in serious danger. The fact Hector right now could be hurting her.

What's worse is he knows that this is personal for Hector. Jax had humiliated him. He had gotten the man stripped of his kutte. He stripped the man of his patch. He knows Hector is going to make him feel the pain he put him through and Noelle has to suffer the brunt of it.

Jax rubs a hand down his face as he tries to battle the raging war inside him.

Jax looks at his oldest son as he grips his shoulder as his throat closes up.

"Is something wrong with Mom?" Noah asks him as those blue eyes search for an answer from him. It hits Jax that his son's eyes don't hold the innocence of an 11 year old. They are his eyes. Jax knows he had the same eyes his son had at 11. Noah knows the answers to the unspoken questions that linger as Jax had. But this time, Noah's eyes moves pass him. They scan his grandfather and the men he considers Uncles as he searches for answers.

Jax leads Noah into the garage office for some privacy and sits his son on the couch. For some reason, he aches for the days when Noah was just born. Even though Jax had been like a chicken with its head cut off when it came to his newborn son, he misses those days.

And despite loving all his children more than anything, Jax can admit Noah – his firstborn son – has a special place in his heart. Noah was what initially linked him and Noelle. Noah is the child that made him a father. Noah finally gave him a purpose outside of the club. Noah gave him a reason to make sure he made it another day in this lifestyle.

Most of all, Noah survived the mistakes he made as a first time father. He remembers how he didn't even know jack shit about being a father as after Noah ruining a lot of SAMCRO tees by pissing on him before Jax discovered that it was smart to put a wipe over his son's privates. He remembers that Noah was very particular at bath time. Noah had precise instructions to never scrub his ears too hard and that he only wanted soap like his daddy's. And you could never turn your back on Noah in the tub or somehow the boy, naked as the day he was born, would run amok in the house causing you to have to chase him.

Then there was the time he was teaching Noah how to ride a bike and how the little boy fell into the little embankment at the end of the road when they lived in their first house. Jax smiles as he thinks about the shoebox he had bought for him, Noelle, and Noah. It was cramped, but their tiny house that Noah had no qualms in destroying with his toys everywhere. It was the place he had nurtured Noah. Where they would go outside and light sparklers to appease his son's pyromaniac tendencies.

And with Noah being the oldest, he knows his son sees a lot. He can comprehend and come to conclusions better than his siblings. It was a burden Jax had for a time before Thomas passed.

"Dad, you're scaring me. Where's Mom?"

"Your Mom..." Jax starts as he swallows the lump in his throat. "Your Mom was taken, but I'm going to get her back."

Noah looks at him silently and he blinks a couple times. "Taken?" He repeats and his nose scrunches. "By who?"

Jax opens his mouth and then closes it.

But Noah's brain is flying with questions as one manages to come out. "You weren't going to tell us!"

"Noah –"