I Can Never Write a Love Song (Part 1/8)
Title: I Can Never Write a Love Song
Prompt: 100_situations #018. Numbered
Part: One of Eight
Fandom: 30 Rock
Pairings: Jack/Liz, Liz/Other, Jack/Other
Word Count (this part): 1,672
Rating (this part): PG-13
Table: Number Two.
Notes: This is a sequel I never intended to write until I suddenly started to do so. And couldn't stop! It's also the longest thing I've ever written, so I hope you stick in there/like it.
Summary: Twenty-five things that happen after Jack and Liz's divorce. (Follows ' Almost.')
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Tina/NBC/etc. Title is from 'Love Songs' by Brandi Carlile. Not suing me would be appreciated.
*
1. She gets a boyfriend.
(After a lot of first dates, a few guys who make it beyond date number one but don't lead her anywhere serious, Liz meets someone she connects with. His name is Mark. He's an oncologist, Jewish, and likes Thai food. These facts are what she lists to Jack over the phone and, while they're hardly the most important or interesting things about the new man in her life, they're what comes to mind. Because she can't tell him he wants kids, so that's good, or he never argues with me about what to watch on TV, or he likes to have sex in the morning just like you do.
"I've only been seeing him for four weeks... well, almost four weeks, but we've been spending a lot of time together. So." What she wants to say is, This is the longest relationship I've had since we split up, so that's got to be a good sign, right? But patting herself on the back for being with a guy for barely a month seems weird, especially when she's talking to her ex. Even if her ex is her friend. "You'd like him," she adds, though she's not sure it's true.
"I'm happy for you, Lemon.")
2. She goes on a double date with Jack.
(She's been seeing Mark for four months when Jack suggests it. He doesn't use the term 'double date,' but that's what it would be. Liz with her boyfriend, Jack with his girlfriend, all of them sitting at the same table in a restaurant they can all agree on and spending time together. It's surprising because he hasn't mentioned a girlfriend, let alone one he wanted her to meet. But Liz says yes, of course she'd like to meet her. Of course it wouldn't be weird. He met Mark, after all.
"There's a difference between a brief, accidental meeting and spending an entire night together."
They bumped into each other on the street, and Mark responded to Jack's, 'I've heard a lot about you' with 'I've heard a lot about you, too.'
Liz hesitates. "So, wait, do you not want to do this?"
"I want you to meet her," Jack says. "I'm the one who suggested the four of us have dinner together. I was simply pointing out that we haven't experienced this before."
"Well, then, let's experience it. I want to meet your girlfriend."
The girlfriend, Laura, is fortyish -- ages are not exchanged during this evening -- and a corporate lawyer. She has two kids: a ten-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl. You should come over and meet them sometime, is offered to Liz. She says she'd like that, but she doesn't know if she's ready to live in Jack's world. She likes the way it is now, seeing, talking to Jack alone, and letting other parts of their lives intersect occasionally. It seems more comfortable. More the way people who are divorced should behave.
Here's another thing about Laura, and maybe Liz shouldn't note this, but she does: Laura is much prettier than Liz. If she and Jack were in a worse place, she'd assume he was trying to hurt her by showing how much better he's capable of doing (as if she didn't meet any of the hot women he was with before their relationship turned romantic). But she knows he's trying to tell her, I'm okay. Of course he's okay. They've been apart for a year. But it's nice to know it, to see him gaze at Laura with affection.
"And he's great with my kids," Laura says, at the end of her story about how they met -- three months ago, and really, why didn't Jack tell her about his girlfriend sooner? -- that became a here's why I like Jack thing. "That's when I knew I should hang on to this one."
She runs her hand down his lapel. Jack doesn't say anything, but he's smiling.
A few weeks later, Liz does meet Laura's kids. She and Mark are exiting this barbeque place -- which she used to take Jack to and never thought Jack would go to without her... not like it's their special barbeque place, obviously, she brought Mark there, but she didn't think he liked it enough for it to be a place he'd take other people to -- while Jack and Laura -- and Meg and Jason -- are going in. Jack's wearing a Polo shirt and khakis, and it occurs to Liz she hasn't seen him in casual wear in a long time. She doesn't know why that seems meaningful. Not meaningful. Noteworthy. Maybe it's due to the fact that they've returned to a level of formality they haven't been at in years, where she only sees him in suits and the occasional tux. She used to see him in pajamas almost every night, used to lie naked with him, and now a different outfit throws her. Actually, the whole thing throws her because Jack looks like an average dad taking his kids out for ribs, and they should keep these parts of their lives from intersecting, but how was she supposed to predict Jack showing up here?
"Say hello to Liz and Mark," Laura instructs her kids, and Liz waves.
"Hi!" she says. Overenthusiastically, because she's used to striking up conversations with women who have babies. Who have little kids.
Mark's hello is more normal. There's a bit of small talk. Liz tells Jack and Laura that she and Mark are on their way to a movie -- a sequel to Mamma Mia!, and Liz asks, "Can you believe it took them this long to finally make it?" to which Jack says, "I still don't understand why the first one was ever produced," and Liz replies, "Dude, we are not having this conversation again," causing Jack to raise his eyebrows and smile -- and Laura says they've just come from the latest Pixar film.
She tries to picture Jack sitting in a movie theater full of families, of children, sharing popcorn with a couple of kids. He'd be wearing his glasses, she assumes, like he did when they used to go to the movies together. (And when the lights went up, he'd shove them into his breast pocket like strangers would look down on him for his nearsightedness. "You shouldn't be embarrassed. I wear glasses," she told him once, and he responded with, "And?") The image makes sense to her.
Later that night, after she and Mark have sex, she has him grab her a shirt from the dresser. He tosses it to her before he goes to the bathroom, and when she puts it on, she notices right away that it's too big for her. She doesn't have to look down to know it's Jack's shirt, and she wonders if she should get up and find something different to wear. Wonders why her old life is intersecting with her new one for a second time today, and admits she can only blame herself. She should have gotten rid of this, or hidden it away like she hid away her wedding ring. She's past the time when going to bed wearing it was comforting and depressing and okay (holding on to your romantic past is much worse when you have a man in your present). When she'd let herself think of Jack, of how it smelled of him the first time she wore it, of how she said, "Don't call me mannish or whatever. It's not my fault that the shirt smells like a dude, because it's your shirt. And I didn't want to walk to the kitchen naked--"
"Lemon?"
"Yeah?"
He gripped her wrist and brought her hand to his chest. She turned toward him, rested her chin near her hand.
"It's not masculine for a woman to put on a man's shirt when she's wearing nothing else but and the shirt belongs to a man she's spent an evening having enthusiastic sex with. I greatly enjoyed your enthusiasm, by the way."
She smiled. "I noticed."
And she'd think of him kissing her. Touching her. Later, sliding down the bed, lifting her leg and kissing her thigh as the heel of her foot pressed into his back. Of his hands underneath the shirt... and then she'd think that she still didn't -- she still doesn't -- understand what was missing. Why she wasn't sure about him, about what they had. Why Jack wasn't enough for her. If anyone would ever be enough. The weird thing was, when they first got together, she worried she was never going to be enough for him.
Mark returns from the bathroom wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else.
"I didn't go to Princeton," she says before he can even notice what she's wearing. "My ex-husband went to Princeton. I shouldn't wear this shirt. I'll get a different shirt."
He laughs. "Calm down."
"I was calm. No, I wasn't calm."
He gets back into bed. "I know you have an ex-husband. I know there's going to be something of his in your apartment." He kisses her cheek. "So you don't have to act like I walked in on you doing something awful."
"Okay." She smiles, allowing her shoulders to slump in relaxation. But, yeah, of course Mark would be okay with this. He's okay with her being friends with Jack, after all. Mark's a cool dude. God, that sounded lame even to her. Good thing she didn't say it out loud. She kisses his mouth. "Thank you."
"No problem."
Her fingers are curled against the hem of the shirt, and she thinks of Jack's hands and wonders if Mark is going to end up being enough.
"I'll get a different shirt, though," she says. "I should get a different shirt."
She does. But it continues to feels wrong, somehow. Like she's broken an unspoken agreement by letting herself think about Jack while she's with another man.
But, again, she has no one but herself to blame.)
End Part One of Eight
Go on to Part Two.
Prompt: 100_situations #018. Numbered
Part: One of Eight
Fandom: 30 Rock
Pairings: Jack/Liz, Liz/Other, Jack/Other
Word Count (this part): 1,672
Rating (this part): PG-13
Table: Number Two.
Notes: This is a sequel I never intended to write until I suddenly started to do so. And couldn't stop! It's also the longest thing I've ever written, so I hope you stick in there/like it.
Summary: Twenty-five things that happen after Jack and Liz's divorce. (Follows ' Almost.')
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Tina/NBC/etc. Title is from 'Love Songs' by Brandi Carlile. Not suing me would be appreciated.
*
1. She gets a boyfriend.
(After a lot of first dates, a few guys who make it beyond date number one but don't lead her anywhere serious, Liz meets someone she connects with. His name is Mark. He's an oncologist, Jewish, and likes Thai food. These facts are what she lists to Jack over the phone and, while they're hardly the most important or interesting things about the new man in her life, they're what comes to mind. Because she can't tell him he wants kids, so that's good, or he never argues with me about what to watch on TV, or he likes to have sex in the morning just like you do.
"I've only been seeing him for four weeks... well, almost four weeks, but we've been spending a lot of time together. So." What she wants to say is, This is the longest relationship I've had since we split up, so that's got to be a good sign, right? But patting herself on the back for being with a guy for barely a month seems weird, especially when she's talking to her ex. Even if her ex is her friend. "You'd like him," she adds, though she's not sure it's true.
"I'm happy for you, Lemon.")
2. She goes on a double date with Jack.
(She's been seeing Mark for four months when Jack suggests it. He doesn't use the term 'double date,' but that's what it would be. Liz with her boyfriend, Jack with his girlfriend, all of them sitting at the same table in a restaurant they can all agree on and spending time together. It's surprising because he hasn't mentioned a girlfriend, let alone one he wanted her to meet. But Liz says yes, of course she'd like to meet her. Of course it wouldn't be weird. He met Mark, after all.
"There's a difference between a brief, accidental meeting and spending an entire night together."
They bumped into each other on the street, and Mark responded to Jack's, 'I've heard a lot about you' with 'I've heard a lot about you, too.'
Liz hesitates. "So, wait, do you not want to do this?"
"I want you to meet her," Jack says. "I'm the one who suggested the four of us have dinner together. I was simply pointing out that we haven't experienced this before."
"Well, then, let's experience it. I want to meet your girlfriend."
The girlfriend, Laura, is fortyish -- ages are not exchanged during this evening -- and a corporate lawyer. She has two kids: a ten-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl. You should come over and meet them sometime, is offered to Liz. She says she'd like that, but she doesn't know if she's ready to live in Jack's world. She likes the way it is now, seeing, talking to Jack alone, and letting other parts of their lives intersect occasionally. It seems more comfortable. More the way people who are divorced should behave.
Here's another thing about Laura, and maybe Liz shouldn't note this, but she does: Laura is much prettier than Liz. If she and Jack were in a worse place, she'd assume he was trying to hurt her by showing how much better he's capable of doing (as if she didn't meet any of the hot women he was with before their relationship turned romantic). But she knows he's trying to tell her, I'm okay. Of course he's okay. They've been apart for a year. But it's nice to know it, to see him gaze at Laura with affection.
"And he's great with my kids," Laura says, at the end of her story about how they met -- three months ago, and really, why didn't Jack tell her about his girlfriend sooner? -- that became a here's why I like Jack thing. "That's when I knew I should hang on to this one."
She runs her hand down his lapel. Jack doesn't say anything, but he's smiling.
A few weeks later, Liz does meet Laura's kids. She and Mark are exiting this barbeque place -- which she used to take Jack to and never thought Jack would go to without her... not like it's their special barbeque place, obviously, she brought Mark there, but she didn't think he liked it enough for it to be a place he'd take other people to -- while Jack and Laura -- and Meg and Jason -- are going in. Jack's wearing a Polo shirt and khakis, and it occurs to Liz she hasn't seen him in casual wear in a long time. She doesn't know why that seems meaningful. Not meaningful. Noteworthy. Maybe it's due to the fact that they've returned to a level of formality they haven't been at in years, where she only sees him in suits and the occasional tux. She used to see him in pajamas almost every night, used to lie naked with him, and now a different outfit throws her. Actually, the whole thing throws her because Jack looks like an average dad taking his kids out for ribs, and they should keep these parts of their lives from intersecting, but how was she supposed to predict Jack showing up here?
"Say hello to Liz and Mark," Laura instructs her kids, and Liz waves.
"Hi!" she says. Overenthusiastically, because she's used to striking up conversations with women who have babies. Who have little kids.
Mark's hello is more normal. There's a bit of small talk. Liz tells Jack and Laura that she and Mark are on their way to a movie -- a sequel to Mamma Mia!, and Liz asks, "Can you believe it took them this long to finally make it?" to which Jack says, "I still don't understand why the first one was ever produced," and Liz replies, "Dude, we are not having this conversation again," causing Jack to raise his eyebrows and smile -- and Laura says they've just come from the latest Pixar film.
She tries to picture Jack sitting in a movie theater full of families, of children, sharing popcorn with a couple of kids. He'd be wearing his glasses, she assumes, like he did when they used to go to the movies together. (And when the lights went up, he'd shove them into his breast pocket like strangers would look down on him for his nearsightedness. "You shouldn't be embarrassed. I wear glasses," she told him once, and he responded with, "And?") The image makes sense to her.
Later that night, after she and Mark have sex, she has him grab her a shirt from the dresser. He tosses it to her before he goes to the bathroom, and when she puts it on, she notices right away that it's too big for her. She doesn't have to look down to know it's Jack's shirt, and she wonders if she should get up and find something different to wear. Wonders why her old life is intersecting with her new one for a second time today, and admits she can only blame herself. She should have gotten rid of this, or hidden it away like she hid away her wedding ring. She's past the time when going to bed wearing it was comforting and depressing and okay (holding on to your romantic past is much worse when you have a man in your present). When she'd let herself think of Jack, of how it smelled of him the first time she wore it, of how she said, "Don't call me mannish or whatever. It's not my fault that the shirt smells like a dude, because it's your shirt. And I didn't want to walk to the kitchen naked--"
"Lemon?"
"Yeah?"
He gripped her wrist and brought her hand to his chest. She turned toward him, rested her chin near her hand.
"It's not masculine for a woman to put on a man's shirt when she's wearing nothing else but and the shirt belongs to a man she's spent an evening having enthusiastic sex with. I greatly enjoyed your enthusiasm, by the way."
She smiled. "I noticed."
And she'd think of him kissing her. Touching her. Later, sliding down the bed, lifting her leg and kissing her thigh as the heel of her foot pressed into his back. Of his hands underneath the shirt... and then she'd think that she still didn't -- she still doesn't -- understand what was missing. Why she wasn't sure about him, about what they had. Why Jack wasn't enough for her. If anyone would ever be enough. The weird thing was, when they first got together, she worried she was never going to be enough for him.
Mark returns from the bathroom wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else.
"I didn't go to Princeton," she says before he can even notice what she's wearing. "My ex-husband went to Princeton. I shouldn't wear this shirt. I'll get a different shirt."
He laughs. "Calm down."
"I was calm. No, I wasn't calm."
He gets back into bed. "I know you have an ex-husband. I know there's going to be something of his in your apartment." He kisses her cheek. "So you don't have to act like I walked in on you doing something awful."
"Okay." She smiles, allowing her shoulders to slump in relaxation. But, yeah, of course Mark would be okay with this. He's okay with her being friends with Jack, after all. Mark's a cool dude. God, that sounded lame even to her. Good thing she didn't say it out loud. She kisses his mouth. "Thank you."
"No problem."
Her fingers are curled against the hem of the shirt, and she thinks of Jack's hands and wonders if Mark is going to end up being enough.
"I'll get a different shirt, though," she says. "I should get a different shirt."
She does. But it continues to feels wrong, somehow. Like she's broken an unspoken agreement by letting herself think about Jack while she's with another man.
But, again, she has no one but herself to blame.)
End Part One of Eight
Go on to Part Two.