many are the thoughts echoing into his heart that he deigns not to speak aloud. things are infinitely more complicated after all that happens, and he longs, not for the first time, to return to how things were a decade ago. simple. clean. he has hope that one day, they’ll return to that. but for now..? chibs, that insurmountable man, resides in that same spot in his heart as he always has; there’s little that could begin to change that. none deserves the title of president more than him. but there is a certain frustration, once all is said and done. that unflagging loyalty to jax, who tig doesn’t believe deserved it, becomes a sore spot. his having turned his back on juice, forsaking the bond they’d had with little regard to context, rubs just as raw. not enough to give friction, or anything born of anger, but... enough to stain. juice, for all that he did, deserves his compassion, his empathy. he mourns his passing, mourns all the deeper upon the realization of all he had been forced through on jax’s behalf. true forgiveness, perhaps, is impossible, but his love, his understanding? it comes easily and readily. for all of juice’s missteps, tig believes truly and deeply that he did what he felt was best for the club. none knows better than tig just what a man is capable of when his family is threatened. gemma could have walked through the pits of hell, emerged without a soul, and still tig would find it within himself to forgive her. he will bend backwards, break his back, to find a way to excuse her actions. though much of it is secretive, he knows that jax points the finger at her for tara’s death. and he doesn’t blame her for it. tara was their weakest link, had always tugged at the stitches keeping the club together, had twisted jax back and forth so often that he had lost sight of what mattered. he will love that woman for as long as he lives, and mourn her twice over. jax deserved it all. he is angry to think that, angry to turn upon his own family, but he feels as though he doesn’t have a choice. on hindsight, he realizes just how jax used him, treating him as little more than a toy to achieve his own ends; still he retains that residual fury at being stripped of his spot as sergeant. but further, he resents how he toyed with everyone else in the club. chibs was nothing but a lapdog; juice, a pawn; bobby, expendable. somewhere along the way, jax lost the way, and stopped recognizing them as family. in his mind’s eye, tig will always see jax as a child, when he still babysat him as an angry teenager. but that respect jax had demanded? it faded on the wind.
