Four Women (Jack/Avery, Jack/Liz, Jack/Other)
Title: Four Women
For: ham_napkin
Prompts: second divorce, brutal honesty
Pairings: Jack/Avery, Jack/Liz, Jack/Other
Spoilers: through "I Do Do"
Word Count: 2,219
Rating: PG
Notes: So, I had some issues with Jack, and the way he treated Avery, Nancy and Liz in the final episodes of season four. I'm trying to deal with my issues by writing this. Hopefully, this will be cathartic and allow me to writing fic that's happier, or at least angsty and Jack/Liz friendly, and more sympathetic to Jack. I don't know, people, I'm trying my best.
Summary: Jack falls in love again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue!
*
Jack and Avery's daughter is born in January, three weeks before the anniversary of their first date and five months into their marriage. Avery picks the name.
(He's never considered baby names beyond his first son who will, of course, be named after him, but Avery already had a list of possibilities, sorted by gender and order of birth, that she narrowed down further based on compatibility with his last name.)
She's called Claire and, for a while, for almost a year, Jack would describe himself as (basically) happy.
*
Jack falls in love again. It happens quickly -- in a matter of moments, he'll tell Lemon later, and he couldn't stop it, didn't want to stop it -- and they end up in bed -- her bed -- that night.
(Avery is out of town; she took Claire with her.)
He never says that he's married, but he knows Priscilla -- and later, Lemon will sneer at her name, say, "Priscilla? Really?" and he'll assume her odd objection is born out of judging him, again, judging every aspect of his life -- is aware of the wedding ring on his finger. She mentions it in the morning, says:
"Is your wife out of town or does she not care what you do?"
Thinking of Avery, he does feel guilty. But he didn't plan this. He didn't plan to encounter a woman who makes him feel the way Avery used to.
"The former," he replies. She looks disappointed, troubled-- "But you know this means something, don't you? You know what happened last night means something."
--but not wary. She trusts him. They make love again before he leaves her apartment. (He checks his phone when he's in the elevator; there's a missed call from Avery.)
And as he steps out onto the sidewalk, this amazing woman on his mind, Jack, for the first time in months, feels elated. (It's too cliché to say he feels alive; wrong to imply marriage has killed him when it's simply made every day too predictable, too ordinary.) He feels like there's still the possibility of surprise in his life.
Avery returns two days later. He doesn't tell her anything about what happened, or what he believes is going to have to happen.
(What he knows has to happen, if what he feels for Priscilla is as real as it seems. He has obligations, doesn't want to be like the man he thought was his father, but he knows it's possible to be there for a child despite divorce. Knows even more that he's too old to let what ifs rack up.)
He doesn't stop sleeping with Priscilla -- though he allows Lemon to believe he's put his relationship with her on hold while he tries to figure things out -- and, one month away from their second wedding anniversary, he tells his wife the truth.
His daughter is eighteen months old when they stop living in the same house.
*
Lemon says, "I hope you're happy."
She refuses to meet his girlfriend.
*
His new relationship is over before his lawyers draw up the final divorce papers... not to imply the process is exceptionally quick -- though, compared to his first divorce, it is -- but he thinks it means something, that he didn't stay in love with Priscilla as he learned more about her. It means he never should have brought up divorce.
(He never should have slept with anyone else; he knows this. He knows this, but why shouldn't he try to be as happy as he can?)
He still loves Avery. He never stopped loving her.
She stares at him as if he were insane. "You're kidding, right? We're done," she says. "I should have been done with you a long time ago, but--"
(Maybe she spends a moment thinking, "I got pregnant," and by extension, "I wish I hadn't gotten pregnant." Maybe such a thing never crossed her mind.)
"I loved you. I don't even know why anymore. I don't know why I loved you. All I can think is that I should have known. You were seeing someone else when we first got together. I knew what kind of guy you were. I should have spent a night with you, which was the plan. I should stick to my plans--"
On the last sentence, her voice goes up an octave, like she's going to scream at him, but she stops. Then says evenly, "Leave, Jack. I need you to leave."
*
Lemon has no sympathy for him.
*
He's not invited to his daughter's second birthday party. (He assumes there was a party; there was a celebration for Claire's first birthday, and you don't skip a year when it comes to your children.) He doesn't think it's fair, that Avery would freeze him out of such an occasion. Liz agrees, but says it's not like he's cut off from her entirely. He has visitation. Avery didn't drag the divorce out.
"It would be better," he said, "if she'd allowed reconciliation."
She rolls her eyes. "Seriously, you leave your wife for another woman and get annoyed when she doesn't want to get back together with you?"
He's sitting across from her, holding a glass in his hand. Lemon refused his offer of a drink. "You don't think it would be best for a child to be raised by two parents?"
"You don't think it would be best for you to stay faithful to your wife? Because that would've helped her want to stay married to you."
Sometimes, he can't stand to be around Lemon when she's like this, sarcastic and without an ability to see things from his side.
(She used to understand him much better than she does. He doesn't know what changed.)
"Really, Jack. You can't treat people this way. You can't call wanting to sleep with someone 'love,' you can't treat a woman you had a child with like she means nothing to you, like her feelings don't matter, you can't jump from lady to lady--"
"I doubt it would be a good idea to take romantic advice from a woman who's a cat away from being the perfect cliché of a desperately lonely single woman who's accepted she's well past marrying age."
She sits there in silence for a moment, lips parted slightly, before she stands up. "You know what? I'm done."
"You're done with what, exactly?"
"You. I'm done with you."
She leaves his office.
She doesn't come back.
*
After a couple days of terse, business-related phone calls to the sixth floor, Jack goes to Lemon's office.
She glances up. Swiftly returns her attention to her laptop.
"You're done with me?"
"Yes."
"May I ask why?"
She looks at him again. "You can't guess?"
"I'd assume some premenstrual mood swing, but I suppose at your age that's not probable--"
"Stop."
He's surprised by the way she says it, softly, sadly. Not angrily. He stops smirking at her.
"I can't listen to you talk about your wife, your ex-wife, or your girlfriend, or the new woman you're so in love with and this time you know it's going to last. I can't be okay with the fact that you throw these women away, and I can't be happy that all I get in return for listening to you is being treated like crap. You don't care about me, about anything that's going on with me, at all, Jack--"
"That's not true."
It's not.
(And he wonders where all this is coming from. When it was that she became someone who doubts him.)
She averts her gaze from his again, stares at her computer screen. "I don't know. Maybe you do, but I don't need this anymore. And I used to think it was my fault. I used to think, well, I'm just irritating. Too negative. Too much of a jerk. I know I'm a jerk. That's why Floyd didn't want me, that's why Carol left, that's why my staff never wants to hang out with me. But this isn't my fault, because I'm *nice* to you. I'm nicer to you than I am to most people. I'm nicer to you than you've ever been to me. The way you treat me isn't my fault--"
"Lemon--"
"And, the thing is, the weird thing is, I knew what sort of guy you are. I knew, but I started to think you were... more than that. Different. But I remember the day we met, I said to Jenna, 'That's a bad man'--"
He raises his eyebrows. Says mockingly, "You think I'm a bad man?"
She meets his eyes. "I don't think you're a good one."
Her words sound anxious, like she's surprised she's said them. They surprise him, too, and he takes a step back. He feels his jaw clench.
She's still nervous when she spits out, "Okay, just go ahead and fire me--"
"I'm not going to fire you, Liz," he says. "You can think whatever you want about me. You can have whatever relationship you'd like to have with me."
She hesitates. "Then, okay. This conversation is over." She's silent for a moment. "This is over."
*
Liz no longer comes up to his office every morning. He no longer goes down to hers every afternoon. He conducts business with her the way he would with any other employee.
He misses her. (More than he thought he would.) He never tells her this.
The cancellation of TGS is announced in March. Jack's not responsible for the decision, had no input at all, but he assumes Liz believes differently; though she never accuses him of anything, he knows what she thinks of him.
(And part of him is happy that her show is going to be gone sooner rather than later.)
*
He spends every weekend with his daughter. Picks Claire up at Avery's apartment on Friday night -- the nanny is there to meet him, and he still hasn't figured out if, before the scheduled time rolls around, his ex-wife retreats to one of the other rooms or leaves her place, her street, altogether -- and takes her back to his apartment. To what used to be her home.
He believes he's a good father. He learned from Avery how to take care of a child; instinct has told him how to make her laugh. He loves her. He takes care of her.
He knows he's a good father.
(He wonders how he'll be when it's more difficult.)
*
The final episode of TGS is imminent. (At the end of the week, they'll be gone. In September, something new will take their place.) He considers saying goodbye to Liz. (Personally, not in the general way he addressed the staff on Monday, thanking them for their hard work.)
He doesn't. It seems pointless to try to speak to her anymore.
*
He runs into Avery, but not where he'd expect to. (He hasn't forgotten they work in the same building, though it's easy to ignore that fact since he never sees her. He wonders if she plans her entrances and exits from the building, calculates the best time to go for the elevator.) It, their accidental meeting, happens in a restaurant. She's with a man (a new boyfriend?). He's with a woman (it's nothing serious).
She acts as if she doesn't hate him and, after Andrew (he is her boyfriend, and Jack notes that the man is younger, less polished than Jack is; if he could blame her for what happened between them, he'd snidely remark about how searching for his exact opposite wouldn't guarantee success in her new relationship, especially when she'd settled on an inferior model of 'rail-thin thirty-something nebbish who's a contributor to MSNBC,' and ask if she's going for a less jarring version of Mary Matalin and James Carville by letting herself be paired with Andrew) goes back to the bar, and Celeste (he's slept with her three times before, but this is the first time they're going on what could be called a date) has gone off to the ladies' room, Avery says:
"Okay. I'll see you Friday at six."
"Will you?"
"Yeah. I shouldn't... I shouldn't avoid you anymore. I don't want it to always be tense between us. I want Claire to see her parents being civil to each other as she gets older. I want things to be healthy for her. I need her to be happy, Jack, so I don't want to be one of those divorced couples who are at each other's throats for years."
"I have no interest in fighting with you. I never wanted to fight with you. "
He knows the words are too pointed, too much like it's always been your problem.
(But it's true; he doesn't want to fight with her.)
But Avery doesn't react to whatever subtext is inherent in his words. Simply says, "Then everything will be fine. We'll be fine."
It occurs to him that Avery finally feels nothing for him.
(Or she's pretending she does. Either way, it feels the same. Truth or façade, it's not something even he can pretend he doesn't deserve.)
*
One night, when he's alone in his bed, in his empty house, he suddenly wonders if his daughter will always care about him.
(She has to, doesn't she?)
END
For: ham_napkin
Prompts: second divorce, brutal honesty
Pairings: Jack/Avery, Jack/Liz, Jack/Other
Spoilers: through "I Do Do"
Word Count: 2,219
Rating: PG
Notes: So, I had some issues with Jack, and the way he treated Avery, Nancy and Liz in the final episodes of season four. I'm trying to deal with my issues by writing this. Hopefully, this will be cathartic and allow me to writing fic that's happier, or at least angsty and Jack/Liz friendly, and more sympathetic to Jack. I don't know, people, I'm trying my best.
Summary: Jack falls in love again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue!
*
Jack and Avery's daughter is born in January, three weeks before the anniversary of their first date and five months into their marriage. Avery picks the name.
(He's never considered baby names beyond his first son who will, of course, be named after him, but Avery already had a list of possibilities, sorted by gender and order of birth, that she narrowed down further based on compatibility with his last name.)
She's called Claire and, for a while, for almost a year, Jack would describe himself as (basically) happy.
*
Jack falls in love again. It happens quickly -- in a matter of moments, he'll tell Lemon later, and he couldn't stop it, didn't want to stop it -- and they end up in bed -- her bed -- that night.
(Avery is out of town; she took Claire with her.)
He never says that he's married, but he knows Priscilla -- and later, Lemon will sneer at her name, say, "Priscilla? Really?" and he'll assume her odd objection is born out of judging him, again, judging every aspect of his life -- is aware of the wedding ring on his finger. She mentions it in the morning, says:
"Is your wife out of town or does she not care what you do?"
Thinking of Avery, he does feel guilty. But he didn't plan this. He didn't plan to encounter a woman who makes him feel the way Avery used to.
"The former," he replies. She looks disappointed, troubled-- "But you know this means something, don't you? You know what happened last night means something."
--but not wary. She trusts him. They make love again before he leaves her apartment. (He checks his phone when he's in the elevator; there's a missed call from Avery.)
And as he steps out onto the sidewalk, this amazing woman on his mind, Jack, for the first time in months, feels elated. (It's too cliché to say he feels alive; wrong to imply marriage has killed him when it's simply made every day too predictable, too ordinary.) He feels like there's still the possibility of surprise in his life.
Avery returns two days later. He doesn't tell her anything about what happened, or what he believes is going to have to happen.
(What he knows has to happen, if what he feels for Priscilla is as real as it seems. He has obligations, doesn't want to be like the man he thought was his father, but he knows it's possible to be there for a child despite divorce. Knows even more that he's too old to let what ifs rack up.)
He doesn't stop sleeping with Priscilla -- though he allows Lemon to believe he's put his relationship with her on hold while he tries to figure things out -- and, one month away from their second wedding anniversary, he tells his wife the truth.
His daughter is eighteen months old when they stop living in the same house.
*
Lemon says, "I hope you're happy."
She refuses to meet his girlfriend.
*
His new relationship is over before his lawyers draw up the final divorce papers... not to imply the process is exceptionally quick -- though, compared to his first divorce, it is -- but he thinks it means something, that he didn't stay in love with Priscilla as he learned more about her. It means he never should have brought up divorce.
(He never should have slept with anyone else; he knows this. He knows this, but why shouldn't he try to be as happy as he can?)
He still loves Avery. He never stopped loving her.
She stares at him as if he were insane. "You're kidding, right? We're done," she says. "I should have been done with you a long time ago, but--"
(Maybe she spends a moment thinking, "I got pregnant," and by extension, "I wish I hadn't gotten pregnant." Maybe such a thing never crossed her mind.)
"I loved you. I don't even know why anymore. I don't know why I loved you. All I can think is that I should have known. You were seeing someone else when we first got together. I knew what kind of guy you were. I should have spent a night with you, which was the plan. I should stick to my plans--"
On the last sentence, her voice goes up an octave, like she's going to scream at him, but she stops. Then says evenly, "Leave, Jack. I need you to leave."
*
Lemon has no sympathy for him.
*
He's not invited to his daughter's second birthday party. (He assumes there was a party; there was a celebration for Claire's first birthday, and you don't skip a year when it comes to your children.) He doesn't think it's fair, that Avery would freeze him out of such an occasion. Liz agrees, but says it's not like he's cut off from her entirely. He has visitation. Avery didn't drag the divorce out.
"It would be better," he said, "if she'd allowed reconciliation."
She rolls her eyes. "Seriously, you leave your wife for another woman and get annoyed when she doesn't want to get back together with you?"
He's sitting across from her, holding a glass in his hand. Lemon refused his offer of a drink. "You don't think it would be best for a child to be raised by two parents?"
"You don't think it would be best for you to stay faithful to your wife? Because that would've helped her want to stay married to you."
Sometimes, he can't stand to be around Lemon when she's like this, sarcastic and without an ability to see things from his side.
(She used to understand him much better than she does. He doesn't know what changed.)
"Really, Jack. You can't treat people this way. You can't call wanting to sleep with someone 'love,' you can't treat a woman you had a child with like she means nothing to you, like her feelings don't matter, you can't jump from lady to lady--"
"I doubt it would be a good idea to take romantic advice from a woman who's a cat away from being the perfect cliché of a desperately lonely single woman who's accepted she's well past marrying age."
She sits there in silence for a moment, lips parted slightly, before she stands up. "You know what? I'm done."
"You're done with what, exactly?"
"You. I'm done with you."
She leaves his office.
She doesn't come back.
*
After a couple days of terse, business-related phone calls to the sixth floor, Jack goes to Lemon's office.
She glances up. Swiftly returns her attention to her laptop.
"You're done with me?"
"Yes."
"May I ask why?"
She looks at him again. "You can't guess?"
"I'd assume some premenstrual mood swing, but I suppose at your age that's not probable--"
"Stop."
He's surprised by the way she says it, softly, sadly. Not angrily. He stops smirking at her.
"I can't listen to you talk about your wife, your ex-wife, or your girlfriend, or the new woman you're so in love with and this time you know it's going to last. I can't be okay with the fact that you throw these women away, and I can't be happy that all I get in return for listening to you is being treated like crap. You don't care about me, about anything that's going on with me, at all, Jack--"
"That's not true."
It's not.
(And he wonders where all this is coming from. When it was that she became someone who doubts him.)
She averts her gaze from his again, stares at her computer screen. "I don't know. Maybe you do, but I don't need this anymore. And I used to think it was my fault. I used to think, well, I'm just irritating. Too negative. Too much of a jerk. I know I'm a jerk. That's why Floyd didn't want me, that's why Carol left, that's why my staff never wants to hang out with me. But this isn't my fault, because I'm *nice* to you. I'm nicer to you than I am to most people. I'm nicer to you than you've ever been to me. The way you treat me isn't my fault--"
"Lemon--"
"And, the thing is, the weird thing is, I knew what sort of guy you are. I knew, but I started to think you were... more than that. Different. But I remember the day we met, I said to Jenna, 'That's a bad man'--"
He raises his eyebrows. Says mockingly, "You think I'm a bad man?"
She meets his eyes. "I don't think you're a good one."
Her words sound anxious, like she's surprised she's said them. They surprise him, too, and he takes a step back. He feels his jaw clench.
She's still nervous when she spits out, "Okay, just go ahead and fire me--"
"I'm not going to fire you, Liz," he says. "You can think whatever you want about me. You can have whatever relationship you'd like to have with me."
She hesitates. "Then, okay. This conversation is over." She's silent for a moment. "This is over."
*
Liz no longer comes up to his office every morning. He no longer goes down to hers every afternoon. He conducts business with her the way he would with any other employee.
He misses her. (More than he thought he would.) He never tells her this.
The cancellation of TGS is announced in March. Jack's not responsible for the decision, had no input at all, but he assumes Liz believes differently; though she never accuses him of anything, he knows what she thinks of him.
(And part of him is happy that her show is going to be gone sooner rather than later.)
*
He spends every weekend with his daughter. Picks Claire up at Avery's apartment on Friday night -- the nanny is there to meet him, and he still hasn't figured out if, before the scheduled time rolls around, his ex-wife retreats to one of the other rooms or leaves her place, her street, altogether -- and takes her back to his apartment. To what used to be her home.
He believes he's a good father. He learned from Avery how to take care of a child; instinct has told him how to make her laugh. He loves her. He takes care of her.
He knows he's a good father.
(He wonders how he'll be when it's more difficult.)
*
The final episode of TGS is imminent. (At the end of the week, they'll be gone. In September, something new will take their place.) He considers saying goodbye to Liz. (Personally, not in the general way he addressed the staff on Monday, thanking them for their hard work.)
He doesn't. It seems pointless to try to speak to her anymore.
*
He runs into Avery, but not where he'd expect to. (He hasn't forgotten they work in the same building, though it's easy to ignore that fact since he never sees her. He wonders if she plans her entrances and exits from the building, calculates the best time to go for the elevator.) It, their accidental meeting, happens in a restaurant. She's with a man (a new boyfriend?). He's with a woman (it's nothing serious).
She acts as if she doesn't hate him and, after Andrew (he is her boyfriend, and Jack notes that the man is younger, less polished than Jack is; if he could blame her for what happened between them, he'd snidely remark about how searching for his exact opposite wouldn't guarantee success in her new relationship, especially when she'd settled on an inferior model of 'rail-thin thirty-something nebbish who's a contributor to MSNBC,' and ask if she's going for a less jarring version of Mary Matalin and James Carville by letting herself be paired with Andrew) goes back to the bar, and Celeste (he's slept with her three times before, but this is the first time they're going on what could be called a date) has gone off to the ladies' room, Avery says:
"Okay. I'll see you Friday at six."
"Will you?"
"Yeah. I shouldn't... I shouldn't avoid you anymore. I don't want it to always be tense between us. I want Claire to see her parents being civil to each other as she gets older. I want things to be healthy for her. I need her to be happy, Jack, so I don't want to be one of those divorced couples who are at each other's throats for years."
"I have no interest in fighting with you. I never wanted to fight with you. "
He knows the words are too pointed, too much like it's always been your problem.
(But it's true; he doesn't want to fight with her.)
But Avery doesn't react to whatever subtext is inherent in his words. Simply says, "Then everything will be fine. We'll be fine."
It occurs to him that Avery finally feels nothing for him.
(Or she's pretending she does. Either way, it feels the same. Truth or façade, it's not something even he can pretend he doesn't deserve.)
*
One night, when he's alone in his bed, in his empty house, he suddenly wonders if his daughter will always care about him.
(She has to, doesn't she?)
END