Prison Break Fic: Scenes From A Life
Title: Scenes From A Life
Rating: R
Category: Het, AU
Pairings: Lincoln Burrows/Jane Phillips
Characters: Lincoln Burrows, Jane Phillips, Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, Original Character
Warnings: If you know who Jane is you're fine.
Disclaimer: If I owned this show, it would've turned out much better.
Notes: This fic is 5 fics that I combined into one. I was going thru my old fics and decided to combine them. Some of these fics are as old as 2007.
By now she knew to expect the unexpected because something unplanned, unforeseen, most times unimaginable usually happened. But it never bothered her. Not after the second time and her surprise had nearly cost her life. She was prepared for everything. Or so she thought. She expected to be told Plan D is how we’re doing things now. To be shot at. She even expected to be hit so the head butt wasn’t that surprising. What came later, she’d stopped planning for a long time ago.
She gave up the dream of the husband and the kids, of being the most powerful woman in the FBI. She fully expected to have one, maybe two kids, hopefully twins, knocking it out in one shot. She was going to have it all.
Having it all went out the window when Aldo opened her eyes about who really signed their paychecks. Unforeseen occurrence number one in a long list of things that further eroded a belief in a normally ever after. That is until within a few hours of meeting Lincoln Burrows she was…warm. That’s no other way to describe that feeling. That feeling that wasn’t the rush of blood to her face or the rush of pain.
It was another kind of warm. A kind of warmth that she hadn’t felt since Mitchell Springfield admitted he liked her that’s why he pushed her off the swing that day.
The warmth generated by Lincoln Burrows was definitely unforeseen and unimaginable. And it only got worse. For one being with one Lincoln Burrows, Jr. in Washington afforded her more time to think and ponder what had she done with her life? Why hadn’t she somehow, someway figured out how to disappear? She wouldn’t get to be the most powerful woman in the FBI but at least working without waking up and wondering if today will be her last. At least she have someone to come home to - a shoulder to cry on when thing got rough, a distraction from work, a physical reminder that life can be sweet. And that although we may die alone, up until that day you don’t have to be. Sure she has Aldo, friend and mentor, but she would never love him that way and he would never love that way either.
She wondered sometimes what if he was hers, really hers and they really lived in Washington and really his dad was off fighting in a real war. Sometimes looking at him, she felt like she was looking in a mirror if she was many years younger and a boy. All blonde hair, blue eyes, and heart even in the face of tragedy. She’d lost her mother to cancer instead of at the hands of someone else. She loved her father fiercely even if he hadn’t been equipped to raise a teenaged girl.
She expected to connect with him over those shared emotions, Aldo and the fact that her life was like a video game only there’s no clear winner or loser. That was expected. She didn’t expect to feel a connection to him like a mother would to a child not that she acted like his mother. She didn’t there. She was his ‘big sister’ and acted as such all the time. In her quiet moments though, she thought on that mother-son thing.
She cursed herself for the thoughts, hating that she seemed to be no different from millions of other career women that fell victim to the ticking of some clock only women can hear. She then left herself off the hook attributing the feelings to not having had a say in the matter, at least not really anyway. She had to make up for all that she had done when she thought she was working for the good guys. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t meant to harm anyone. All that matter was she did.
She always blamed it on the fact that she was ready for it to be over, at least for her any way. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that the tape could bring the entire Company down. There were too large, too enmeshed in the fabric of too many lives, companies, countries to be taken down like David did Goliath. But she knew her side could seriously wound them so the baton could be passed to the next group willing to finish what they had started.
She chalked it up to being out of her control. Hadn’t she read in some book in college about how the human brained is hardwired for love? She couldn’t help but want it.
She most often shook her head when the word love creeped up in relation to Lincoln Burrows. She wanted it alright but it couldn’t be with him. He’s wouldn’t be interested. And she didn’t know him. She only knew him from the papers, files, a father’s recollection and a son’s admiration. So what if once or twice she thought in another life time or place, perhaps they could have had something. She’s not sure what but something is better than nothing, which is all she’s known since quitting The Company.
####
He knows he shouldn’t feel anything but gratitude for this woman. Jane. Nothing but heartfelt thanks and a knowledge that he could never repay her for all that she’s done even though she’s told him more than once that it was nothing. That she was just doing her job.
He knows he shouldn’t feel anything other than that. Nothing like desire when the woman he had, has loved since he first saw her even though he had no idea what love was, is gone. It’s been some months, almost a year. He thinks no one should be occupying his thoughts but her.
Every day it was the same. He wanted to do nothing more than roll over to a different position in bed and go back to sleep, wasting the new days that Michael gifted him. Days he’s not sure he deserves. Days he can’t give back. Days he wants to give back when the nightmares wake him up. They don’t come often but they come often enough that the level of respect and awe at the fortitude his brother possesses grows that much more.
He wants to pay for his sins, the greatest consequence of which was the sound of gunshots piercing flesh and the barely audible sound of her last breath in his ear.
And he did. For a while, when everything was said and done - Michael free, LJ back in school, memorials for Vee and Aldo that are fresh memories but memories nonetheless.
He did it all with the needling feeling that he couldn’t do this forever, that this second chance needed to be captured and stepped into like a second skin before he became the man he once was - a man so wounded by the past that the each day was met with surprise because he was still alive.
He wasn’t stupid or stubborn enough to not ask for help this time. He had no more pride, at least not that kind of pride.
He told LJ because he’s his son and he should know that he was finally getting the father that he deserved. He told Michael because he didn’t want Michael to think that he still believed that Michael should have left well enough alone. He told Sara because she understood his need to self-medicate better than the others.
He told Jane because she stood on the periphery of his world as if she had known something about him that he hadn’t known about himself. She just waited patiently, never saying a word, walking and talking around him as if that wasn’t what she was doing. As if none of them had no idea what she was doing.
For a while he didn’t. Too wrapped up in his own head - as was his right - to notice her. When he did, it was like he was seeing her for the first time.
It probably helped that now the tiny lines around her eyes and mouth were from laughing and not plotting. Now she didn’t carry herself so straight that he wondered if she ever relaxed. Now he could read something in her eyes other than calculated emotion or the lack there of.
He saw a real woman, flesh and blood, with a something humming just under the surface that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Not that it needed a name. It didn’t matter. All that matters was, is the way she makes him feel.
Like he wants to be the one to brush away that strand of hair the falls into her face. Like the way she smiles at him in greeting, a smile he doesn’t see her give to anyone else. Like the way she seems so close even when she’s not.
Like now. She’s across the room at his kitchen sink putting dishes into the dishwasher. He remembers the first time she did that he commented on how it seemed so unlike her. It was domestic and she was decidedly not. She wasn’t offended as he thought she would be. She just said he must have forgotten LJ regaled him with stories how she kept house in Washington.
Before he hadn’t noticed her profile, the softness of it. He hadn’t noticed the jut of her breast or her behind. He hadn’t noticed how her clothes fit her curves.
Something’s different. And he knows it to be him because if he had the feeling that he has now - like he’s standing mere inches from her instead of several feet - he’s sure he would’ve noticed all of that stuff before now.
She asks him if he’s going to stand there all night as she wipes her hands on the dish towel before leaning against the counter. He doesn’t answer at least not with words. He just closes the distance, stepping to her, leaning into her. His legs fit between hers and he snakes his hands around her - one hand caressing the warm flesh of her neck, the other pressing into her back.
He doesn’t kiss her right away, preferring to ask her a question first.
“Do you know what you do to me?” he whispers.
Her hands, one on his arm, the other pressed into his back. “If it’s what you do to me, I think we’re in trouble.”
####
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he whispers. He’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, chin resting on his clasped hands.
“I do believe my lips were moving but I wasn’t saying much,” she whispers back before giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” Tricia tells them from her side of the desk.
They’re all in the house’s home office - Lincoln and Jane on the chocolate brown leather sofa Lincoln falls asleep on regularly and Tricia seated in the desk’s chair fiddling with the camcorder.
“It’ll be fun,” she tells him as she leans back against the couch’s back. He laughs softly to himself. He’s sure her use of the word ‘fun’ is a joke. Though there are definitely worse things than sitting next to his beautiful wife - dressed in blue jeans and crisp white button down, hair hanging in loose waves around her face - as they talk about their lives. Past lives. Everything about her is calm, cool, relaxed as she sits with one foot tucked under her and both arms resting on the couch back.
“Yeah, fun.” He looks down at his bare feet, pushes the sleeves of his black shirt up some more and just breathes. He feels Jane’s hand press between his shoulder blades then work its way up his neck to slide across his closely cropped hair. His eyes close of their own volition.
“Really babe, I can do it by myself if you really don’t want to.”
He turns to look at her. “No, I want to.” He really does. She wants to do it with him and he wants to make her happy. It’s his goal in life along with being a good father and brother and uncle and just all around the kind of human being people want to be around. Someone worth losing everything for.
“Ready?” Tricia asks. She’s a friend of LJ. She’s lives a few doors down with her parents while she goes to school. She’s got some project for some course called “Love.” It’s some kind of sociology or anthropology, some kind of -ology course. She’s interviewing Michael and Sara, too. Jane explained what the project is about but he kind of forgot since his mind was taken to an entirely different place during the course of the conversation. Lincoln’s pretty sure Michael and Sara had the same conversation.
“Ready,” he tells her for them both.
“So what did you think when you first saw him?” Tricia asks.
“I saw a picture of him first. I thought, ‘God, his head and neck are huge.’”
“And when you saw him in person?”
“I don’t remember. I lost my train of thought pretty soon after laying eyes on him.” Lincoln groans.
“Why?”
“He hit me.”
“Really?” Tricia says, looking from Jane to Linc like he’s a bastard. Linc’s pretty sure Tricia wants Jane to be her mother.
“In my defense, I thought she was one of The Company’s people trying to get me. So I head butted her.”
Tricia doesn’t look confused over the mention of The Company. When everything was happening, Tricia was in high school. Everything that happened was on the periphery of her world. Jane pointed her to some websites and some books so the interview wouldn’t get bogged down in those kinds of details. They could just focus on love under extreme circumstances, which is the gist of her project.
“That must’ve hurt.”
“Labor was a cake walk compared to his head hitting my face at full speed.” Linc looks at Jane and she just smiles. It’s the same old joke; same old reaction.
“Your first date?”
“Some little cantina in Panama.” Janes doesn’t remember the name, looks to Lincoln for help and finds none. “We were giving Michael and Sara some alone time. I wore shorts and tank top because I didn’t know it was going to be a date.”
“I kinda sprung it on her.”
“You didn’t think she’d say yes?”
“I thought she would punch me,” Lincoln says laughingly.
“We had a very love-hate type of relationship then.”
“Still do.”
“Shut up.”
####
“I want to have a baby,” Linc says after a lull in the conversation.
“Wow! I’m flattered Linc but I think that’s impossible,” Michael says laughing.
“Shut up,” Linc tells him before he drains the last of his beer.
“I take it you haven’t discussed this with Jane,” Michael says as he straightens up in his chair. They’re sitting on the deck of the beach house, watching the sun paint bright colors against the sky as it sinks into the horizon.
“No, I haven’t. I haven’t even talked about the marriage thing so it’s kinda hard to bring up the kids thing. I wanted to make sure I knew how I felt on the kids thing first because what if we get married and I decide to want kinds and she doesn’t?” Linc lets loose. He could totally blame the alcohol but he’s had barely enough to fully relax.
Michael laughs again, choking a little on his beer. When he’s finally composed, he asks, “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”
Linc shoots him a look that’s meant to be a glare but doesn’t quite turn out that way. He winds up laughing. “Shit, I know.”
“Well, bro,” Michael says, reaching in the cooler to hand his brother another beer. “Welcome to the club.”
***
“So you think Linc wants kids?” Sara asks as she tugs the dress over her head.
“Yeah and that dress really brings out your eyes,” Jane tells Sara as she surveys her reflection in the mirror.
“You sure?” she throws her hair over her shoulder. “I wasn’t sure about it but brought it anyway.”
“I’m sure,” Jane assures her as she sits on the chest in front of Michael and Sara’s bed, one leg tucked under her.
“How do you know he wants kids?” Sara asks from inside the closet.
“I can tell. He thinks I don’t see. How he believes that I don’t know. When we’re out and there’re kids around, I see him looking with this expression on his face.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Couple months.”
“So he hasn’t said anything?”
“Nope.”
“And you haven’t said anything?”
“Nope.”
“So how long do you think this is going to go on?”
“I’m trying to see how long it will take for him to break.”
Sara laughs as she crosses the room to sit next to Jane. “And by break you mean?”
“Finally know, we’re on the same page.”
####
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It’s the only word in his head as he walks into their bedroom listening to her cries from the closet.
He hates it when she cries. He doesn’t know a man that doesn’t hate it when a woman cries. She cries a lot now. Tough as nails Jane is no match for pregnancy.
He braces himself the closer he gets to the closet. He wonders if her crying spells are worse than the average woman’s because of who she is. Before she got pregnant, she could take him. He’s man enough to admit that. Now it seems like when there’s angry tears, he’s pretty sure she could take him and a couple of other guys. And then there are the times she cries like someone ran over the dog. Those tears usually come because she can’t do things for herself like she used to. She refuses until the very last minute to use pregnancy as justification for taking it easy.
Here we go.
“Janie, sweetie, are you alright?” he asks, hesitantly sticking his head into the closet. He has to suppress a smile because it’s never good to smile before she does when she’s like this. He learned that the hard way. She looks adorable sitting on the floor of the closet - how she got there he doesn’t know - surrounded by clothes looking like someone did run over the dog. Damn, the man or woman that ever hurts Millie. “Sweetie, did you hurt yourself?” he asks, crouching down in front of her.
“I’m so fat,” she whines, her lower lip quivering as fresh tears streak down her face.
Don’t laugh.
“Oh, baby.” He reaches out to touch her face. “You’re not…”
She cuts him off by declaring “I’m fat” and thrusting a pair of black pants toward him. “I brought these two days ago. And now I can’t wear them.” Her voice breaks on the last couple of words.
He reaches out, wiping her tears away. “You’re not fat. You’re pregnant. Bi…Not the same thing.”
“I’m huge.”
“You’re pregnant. You’re supposed to get…”
“Fat? Go ahead say I’m fat,” she challenges.
Yeah, okay.
“You’re not fat. Again, you’re pregnant. And you’re beautiful.”
She snorts and gives him a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’re a man. Shut up.” The slight edge to her voice leaves no room for argument, at least not with words.
“Help me up.” He does. The length of time it takes them brings new tears. He doesn’t give her time to say anything before he’s leaning into to kiss her left cheek and then the right, tasting the tears on her cheeks. Then he’s kissing the corners of her mouth before his tongue slides across her lips. His hands cup the full weight of her breasts as she leans into him.
Just like that.
The only pregnant woman he’s been around as an adult was Lisa and he wasn’t really around then. He never got to see the changes as they happened, not like now. Every day Jane’s different - a little fuller, a little brighter.
He pulls away to whisper in her ear, “Bed.” She smiles lazily as he takes her hand. That the only thing about pregnancy. She may think she’s fat and less than useful when she can’t do for herself but she’s never one to turn down his advances. Like she’s always ready to go. Well, now. Not so much the first few months when sickness (morning, afternoon, night) and exhaustion took over.
He sits her down on the bed. She goes for her top and he tells her to leave it for him. He undresses quickly.
Her shirt first. He kisses the exposed skin, sliding his tongue just under the edge of her bra. She sucks in a breath at every flick of his tongue, with every scrape across her nipples once her bra is removed. It doesn’t take much nowadays.
He moves to her stomach, kissing it almost reverently. He smiles against her skin remembering the day they found out she was pregnant. They stood in the bathroom looking at the pink line and then at each other. They both started crying, totally uncharacteristic behavior for them both. They just couldn’t help it. They weren’t trying having just gotten married. He was still getting over the shock of her saying ‘yes’ to his proposal. They were going to take their time even if they both wanted kids.
“Um, Linc?” he hears her ask.
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“Just reminiscing.”
“How about you do that on your own time? You can’t just get a girl going and then stop. It’s not a good idea to piss off a pregnant woman,” she muses, one hand coming up to stroke his jaw.
“Definitely don’t want to do that,” he says, pushing her down on her back once he’s removed her pants and underwear. He kisses her hard on the mouth, careful not to put his weight on her. She groans in the back of her throat. Then she’s pushing him away so she can lay on her side.
He lifts her right leg, angles himself before pushing into her with slow, smooth thrusts until he’s fully buried in the moist heat of her. He rocks inside of her over and over, coaxing whimpers from her. She’s with him every step of the way. Then she’s sucking in air through clenched teeth as his pace speeds up. It takes her no time to still before she shudders in completion. He follows soon after.
“You know what this means don’t you?”
“What?”
“You’re a chubby chaser.”
Rating: R
Category: Het, AU
Pairings: Lincoln Burrows/Jane Phillips
Characters: Lincoln Burrows, Jane Phillips, Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, Original Character
Warnings: If you know who Jane is you're fine.
Disclaimer: If I owned this show, it would've turned out much better.
Notes: This fic is 5 fics that I combined into one. I was going thru my old fics and decided to combine them. Some of these fics are as old as 2007.
By now she knew to expect the unexpected because something unplanned, unforeseen, most times unimaginable usually happened. But it never bothered her. Not after the second time and her surprise had nearly cost her life. She was prepared for everything. Or so she thought. She expected to be told Plan D is how we’re doing things now. To be shot at. She even expected to be hit so the head butt wasn’t that surprising. What came later, she’d stopped planning for a long time ago.
She gave up the dream of the husband and the kids, of being the most powerful woman in the FBI. She fully expected to have one, maybe two kids, hopefully twins, knocking it out in one shot. She was going to have it all.
Having it all went out the window when Aldo opened her eyes about who really signed their paychecks. Unforeseen occurrence number one in a long list of things that further eroded a belief in a normally ever after. That is until within a few hours of meeting Lincoln Burrows she was…warm. That’s no other way to describe that feeling. That feeling that wasn’t the rush of blood to her face or the rush of pain.
It was another kind of warm. A kind of warmth that she hadn’t felt since Mitchell Springfield admitted he liked her that’s why he pushed her off the swing that day.
The warmth generated by Lincoln Burrows was definitely unforeseen and unimaginable. And it only got worse. For one being with one Lincoln Burrows, Jr. in Washington afforded her more time to think and ponder what had she done with her life? Why hadn’t she somehow, someway figured out how to disappear? She wouldn’t get to be the most powerful woman in the FBI but at least working without waking up and wondering if today will be her last. At least she have someone to come home to - a shoulder to cry on when thing got rough, a distraction from work, a physical reminder that life can be sweet. And that although we may die alone, up until that day you don’t have to be. Sure she has Aldo, friend and mentor, but she would never love him that way and he would never love that way either.
She wondered sometimes what if he was hers, really hers and they really lived in Washington and really his dad was off fighting in a real war. Sometimes looking at him, she felt like she was looking in a mirror if she was many years younger and a boy. All blonde hair, blue eyes, and heart even in the face of tragedy. She’d lost her mother to cancer instead of at the hands of someone else. She loved her father fiercely even if he hadn’t been equipped to raise a teenaged girl.
She expected to connect with him over those shared emotions, Aldo and the fact that her life was like a video game only there’s no clear winner or loser. That was expected. She didn’t expect to feel a connection to him like a mother would to a child not that she acted like his mother. She didn’t there. She was his ‘big sister’ and acted as such all the time. In her quiet moments though, she thought on that mother-son thing.
She cursed herself for the thoughts, hating that she seemed to be no different from millions of other career women that fell victim to the ticking of some clock only women can hear. She then left herself off the hook attributing the feelings to not having had a say in the matter, at least not really anyway. She had to make up for all that she had done when she thought she was working for the good guys. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t meant to harm anyone. All that matter was she did.
She always blamed it on the fact that she was ready for it to be over, at least for her any way. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that the tape could bring the entire Company down. There were too large, too enmeshed in the fabric of too many lives, companies, countries to be taken down like David did Goliath. But she knew her side could seriously wound them so the baton could be passed to the next group willing to finish what they had started.
She chalked it up to being out of her control. Hadn’t she read in some book in college about how the human brained is hardwired for love? She couldn’t help but want it.
She most often shook her head when the word love creeped up in relation to Lincoln Burrows. She wanted it alright but it couldn’t be with him. He’s wouldn’t be interested. And she didn’t know him. She only knew him from the papers, files, a father’s recollection and a son’s admiration. So what if once or twice she thought in another life time or place, perhaps they could have had something. She’s not sure what but something is better than nothing, which is all she’s known since quitting The Company.
####
He knows he shouldn’t feel anything but gratitude for this woman. Jane. Nothing but heartfelt thanks and a knowledge that he could never repay her for all that she’s done even though she’s told him more than once that it was nothing. That she was just doing her job.
He knows he shouldn’t feel anything other than that. Nothing like desire when the woman he had, has loved since he first saw her even though he had no idea what love was, is gone. It’s been some months, almost a year. He thinks no one should be occupying his thoughts but her.
Every day it was the same. He wanted to do nothing more than roll over to a different position in bed and go back to sleep, wasting the new days that Michael gifted him. Days he’s not sure he deserves. Days he can’t give back. Days he wants to give back when the nightmares wake him up. They don’t come often but they come often enough that the level of respect and awe at the fortitude his brother possesses grows that much more.
He wants to pay for his sins, the greatest consequence of which was the sound of gunshots piercing flesh and the barely audible sound of her last breath in his ear.
And he did. For a while, when everything was said and done - Michael free, LJ back in school, memorials for Vee and Aldo that are fresh memories but memories nonetheless.
He did it all with the needling feeling that he couldn’t do this forever, that this second chance needed to be captured and stepped into like a second skin before he became the man he once was - a man so wounded by the past that the each day was met with surprise because he was still alive.
He wasn’t stupid or stubborn enough to not ask for help this time. He had no more pride, at least not that kind of pride.
He told LJ because he’s his son and he should know that he was finally getting the father that he deserved. He told Michael because he didn’t want Michael to think that he still believed that Michael should have left well enough alone. He told Sara because she understood his need to self-medicate better than the others.
He told Jane because she stood on the periphery of his world as if she had known something about him that he hadn’t known about himself. She just waited patiently, never saying a word, walking and talking around him as if that wasn’t what she was doing. As if none of them had no idea what she was doing.
For a while he didn’t. Too wrapped up in his own head - as was his right - to notice her. When he did, it was like he was seeing her for the first time.
It probably helped that now the tiny lines around her eyes and mouth were from laughing and not plotting. Now she didn’t carry herself so straight that he wondered if she ever relaxed. Now he could read something in her eyes other than calculated emotion or the lack there of.
He saw a real woman, flesh and blood, with a something humming just under the surface that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Not that it needed a name. It didn’t matter. All that matters was, is the way she makes him feel.
Like he wants to be the one to brush away that strand of hair the falls into her face. Like the way she smiles at him in greeting, a smile he doesn’t see her give to anyone else. Like the way she seems so close even when she’s not.
Like now. She’s across the room at his kitchen sink putting dishes into the dishwasher. He remembers the first time she did that he commented on how it seemed so unlike her. It was domestic and she was decidedly not. She wasn’t offended as he thought she would be. She just said he must have forgotten LJ regaled him with stories how she kept house in Washington.
Before he hadn’t noticed her profile, the softness of it. He hadn’t noticed the jut of her breast or her behind. He hadn’t noticed how her clothes fit her curves.
Something’s different. And he knows it to be him because if he had the feeling that he has now - like he’s standing mere inches from her instead of several feet - he’s sure he would’ve noticed all of that stuff before now.
She asks him if he’s going to stand there all night as she wipes her hands on the dish towel before leaning against the counter. He doesn’t answer at least not with words. He just closes the distance, stepping to her, leaning into her. His legs fit between hers and he snakes his hands around her - one hand caressing the warm flesh of her neck, the other pressing into her back.
He doesn’t kiss her right away, preferring to ask her a question first.
“Do you know what you do to me?” he whispers.
Her hands, one on his arm, the other pressed into his back. “If it’s what you do to me, I think we’re in trouble.”
####
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he whispers. He’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, chin resting on his clasped hands.
“I do believe my lips were moving but I wasn’t saying much,” she whispers back before giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” Tricia tells them from her side of the desk.
They’re all in the house’s home office - Lincoln and Jane on the chocolate brown leather sofa Lincoln falls asleep on regularly and Tricia seated in the desk’s chair fiddling with the camcorder.
“It’ll be fun,” she tells him as she leans back against the couch’s back. He laughs softly to himself. He’s sure her use of the word ‘fun’ is a joke. Though there are definitely worse things than sitting next to his beautiful wife - dressed in blue jeans and crisp white button down, hair hanging in loose waves around her face - as they talk about their lives. Past lives. Everything about her is calm, cool, relaxed as she sits with one foot tucked under her and both arms resting on the couch back.
“Yeah, fun.” He looks down at his bare feet, pushes the sleeves of his black shirt up some more and just breathes. He feels Jane’s hand press between his shoulder blades then work its way up his neck to slide across his closely cropped hair. His eyes close of their own volition.
“Really babe, I can do it by myself if you really don’t want to.”
He turns to look at her. “No, I want to.” He really does. She wants to do it with him and he wants to make her happy. It’s his goal in life along with being a good father and brother and uncle and just all around the kind of human being people want to be around. Someone worth losing everything for.
“Ready?” Tricia asks. She’s a friend of LJ. She’s lives a few doors down with her parents while she goes to school. She’s got some project for some course called “Love.” It’s some kind of sociology or anthropology, some kind of -ology course. She’s interviewing Michael and Sara, too. Jane explained what the project is about but he kind of forgot since his mind was taken to an entirely different place during the course of the conversation. Lincoln’s pretty sure Michael and Sara had the same conversation.
“Ready,” he tells her for them both.
“So what did you think when you first saw him?” Tricia asks.
“I saw a picture of him first. I thought, ‘God, his head and neck are huge.’”
“And when you saw him in person?”
“I don’t remember. I lost my train of thought pretty soon after laying eyes on him.” Lincoln groans.
“Why?”
“He hit me.”
“Really?” Tricia says, looking from Jane to Linc like he’s a bastard. Linc’s pretty sure Tricia wants Jane to be her mother.
“In my defense, I thought she was one of The Company’s people trying to get me. So I head butted her.”
Tricia doesn’t look confused over the mention of The Company. When everything was happening, Tricia was in high school. Everything that happened was on the periphery of her world. Jane pointed her to some websites and some books so the interview wouldn’t get bogged down in those kinds of details. They could just focus on love under extreme circumstances, which is the gist of her project.
“That must’ve hurt.”
“Labor was a cake walk compared to his head hitting my face at full speed.” Linc looks at Jane and she just smiles. It’s the same old joke; same old reaction.
“Your first date?”
“Some little cantina in Panama.” Janes doesn’t remember the name, looks to Lincoln for help and finds none. “We were giving Michael and Sara some alone time. I wore shorts and tank top because I didn’t know it was going to be a date.”
“I kinda sprung it on her.”
“You didn’t think she’d say yes?”
“I thought she would punch me,” Lincoln says laughingly.
“We had a very love-hate type of relationship then.”
“Still do.”
“Shut up.”
####
“I want to have a baby,” Linc says after a lull in the conversation.
“Wow! I’m flattered Linc but I think that’s impossible,” Michael says laughing.
“Shut up,” Linc tells him before he drains the last of his beer.
“I take it you haven’t discussed this with Jane,” Michael says as he straightens up in his chair. They’re sitting on the deck of the beach house, watching the sun paint bright colors against the sky as it sinks into the horizon.
“No, I haven’t. I haven’t even talked about the marriage thing so it’s kinda hard to bring up the kids thing. I wanted to make sure I knew how I felt on the kids thing first because what if we get married and I decide to want kinds and she doesn’t?” Linc lets loose. He could totally blame the alcohol but he’s had barely enough to fully relax.
Michael laughs again, choking a little on his beer. When he’s finally composed, he asks, “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”
Linc shoots him a look that’s meant to be a glare but doesn’t quite turn out that way. He winds up laughing. “Shit, I know.”
“Well, bro,” Michael says, reaching in the cooler to hand his brother another beer. “Welcome to the club.”
***
“So you think Linc wants kids?” Sara asks as she tugs the dress over her head.
“Yeah and that dress really brings out your eyes,” Jane tells Sara as she surveys her reflection in the mirror.
“You sure?” she throws her hair over her shoulder. “I wasn’t sure about it but brought it anyway.”
“I’m sure,” Jane assures her as she sits on the chest in front of Michael and Sara’s bed, one leg tucked under her.
“How do you know he wants kids?” Sara asks from inside the closet.
“I can tell. He thinks I don’t see. How he believes that I don’t know. When we’re out and there’re kids around, I see him looking with this expression on his face.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Couple months.”
“So he hasn’t said anything?”
“Nope.”
“And you haven’t said anything?”
“Nope.”
“So how long do you think this is going to go on?”
“I’m trying to see how long it will take for him to break.”
Sara laughs as she crosses the room to sit next to Jane. “And by break you mean?”
“Finally know, we’re on the same page.”
####
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It’s the only word in his head as he walks into their bedroom listening to her cries from the closet.
He hates it when she cries. He doesn’t know a man that doesn’t hate it when a woman cries. She cries a lot now. Tough as nails Jane is no match for pregnancy.
He braces himself the closer he gets to the closet. He wonders if her crying spells are worse than the average woman’s because of who she is. Before she got pregnant, she could take him. He’s man enough to admit that. Now it seems like when there’s angry tears, he’s pretty sure she could take him and a couple of other guys. And then there are the times she cries like someone ran over the dog. Those tears usually come because she can’t do things for herself like she used to. She refuses until the very last minute to use pregnancy as justification for taking it easy.
Here we go.
“Janie, sweetie, are you alright?” he asks, hesitantly sticking his head into the closet. He has to suppress a smile because it’s never good to smile before she does when she’s like this. He learned that the hard way. She looks adorable sitting on the floor of the closet - how she got there he doesn’t know - surrounded by clothes looking like someone did run over the dog. Damn, the man or woman that ever hurts Millie. “Sweetie, did you hurt yourself?” he asks, crouching down in front of her.
“I’m so fat,” she whines, her lower lip quivering as fresh tears streak down her face.
Don’t laugh.
“Oh, baby.” He reaches out to touch her face. “You’re not…”
She cuts him off by declaring “I’m fat” and thrusting a pair of black pants toward him. “I brought these two days ago. And now I can’t wear them.” Her voice breaks on the last couple of words.
He reaches out, wiping her tears away. “You’re not fat. You’re pregnant. Bi…Not the same thing.”
“I’m huge.”
“You’re pregnant. You’re supposed to get…”
“Fat? Go ahead say I’m fat,” she challenges.
Yeah, okay.
“You’re not fat. Again, you’re pregnant. And you’re beautiful.”
She snorts and gives him a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’re a man. Shut up.” The slight edge to her voice leaves no room for argument, at least not with words.
“Help me up.” He does. The length of time it takes them brings new tears. He doesn’t give her time to say anything before he’s leaning into to kiss her left cheek and then the right, tasting the tears on her cheeks. Then he’s kissing the corners of her mouth before his tongue slides across her lips. His hands cup the full weight of her breasts as she leans into him.
Just like that.
The only pregnant woman he’s been around as an adult was Lisa and he wasn’t really around then. He never got to see the changes as they happened, not like now. Every day Jane’s different - a little fuller, a little brighter.
He pulls away to whisper in her ear, “Bed.” She smiles lazily as he takes her hand. That the only thing about pregnancy. She may think she’s fat and less than useful when she can’t do for herself but she’s never one to turn down his advances. Like she’s always ready to go. Well, now. Not so much the first few months when sickness (morning, afternoon, night) and exhaustion took over.
He sits her down on the bed. She goes for her top and he tells her to leave it for him. He undresses quickly.
Her shirt first. He kisses the exposed skin, sliding his tongue just under the edge of her bra. She sucks in a breath at every flick of his tongue, with every scrape across her nipples once her bra is removed. It doesn’t take much nowadays.
He moves to her stomach, kissing it almost reverently. He smiles against her skin remembering the day they found out she was pregnant. They stood in the bathroom looking at the pink line and then at each other. They both started crying, totally uncharacteristic behavior for them both. They just couldn’t help it. They weren’t trying having just gotten married. He was still getting over the shock of her saying ‘yes’ to his proposal. They were going to take their time even if they both wanted kids.
“Um, Linc?” he hears her ask.
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“Just reminiscing.”
“How about you do that on your own time? You can’t just get a girl going and then stop. It’s not a good idea to piss off a pregnant woman,” she muses, one hand coming up to stroke his jaw.
“Definitely don’t want to do that,” he says, pushing her down on her back once he’s removed her pants and underwear. He kisses her hard on the mouth, careful not to put his weight on her. She groans in the back of her throat. Then she’s pushing him away so she can lay on her side.
He lifts her right leg, angles himself before pushing into her with slow, smooth thrusts until he’s fully buried in the moist heat of her. He rocks inside of her over and over, coaxing whimpers from her. She’s with him every step of the way. Then she’s sucking in air through clenched teeth as his pace speeds up. It takes her no time to still before she shudders in completion. He follows soon after.
“You know what this means don’t you?”
“What?”
“You’re a chubby chaser.”