Round 2: Jack/Liz Drabble Submissions
Below are the prompts. Please submit your drabble as a reply to this entry. If you are new to the community or are just needing a refresher on how to post/respond to drabbles, please visit this post first. And remember - HAVE FUN!
( the prompts: round two )
( the prompts: round two )
He really wasn't good with these emotional situations. The embracing, the comforting, attempts at soothing - it was never his cup of tea. But he doesn’t comment on her somewhat disgusting appearance or make another crack about her desperate need for a child to fill the void in her personal life. He just hands her the box of Kleenex from her desk and sits with her on the couch. She keeps blowing her nose violently between more bouts of tears. He looks over at her. Her face in her hands, her elbows on her knees. She looks so sad. Sadder than he's ever seen her before. He moves his hand behind her and rubs her back. Not real intimacy per se, but pretty endearing for him. Just a little reminder that he’s there and she doesn’t have to go through this alone.
She wants to be a mother so badly. All the time and effort she’s invested the last six months trying to adopt is astounding. Her resilience and persistence impressed him greatly. But she'd obviously reached her breaking point. And working so hard for something and not getting it was an emotion he could relate to after that ridiculous - and no doubt medication-induced - "beam of light" spoke to Geiss during his coma and convinced him not to retire.
Liz was his friend and he didn't like seeing his friends so distraught. He tries to do some of his patented brainstorming on the fly, searching his brain for any way he could help her. Adoption was looking futile. No one was going to give a baby to a single woman with her unconventional career and horrendous work hours. She previously mentioned she was vehemently opposed to sperm banks because of the numerous “deposits” from the Duffy lineage. So, that really only left one option - the old-fashioned way. And Liz’s love life was almost too pathetic for words. Unless...she asked someone she knew to be her sperm donor.
“Lemon?” he asks quietly. She mumbles an affirmation without looking up. “Lemon, this might be an inopportune time to bring it up, but I have an idea that might help you become a mother.”
She puts her hands down and looks over at him. “Jack, I know. There’s a lot of other adoption agencies I can try. You tell me this every time I get rejected. I don’t -”
He puts his hand up to stop her. “Whoa, whoa, Lemon. No, that’s not what I was going to say. What I was going to say is, what about in vitro? If you had someone you know be the donor so you don’t have to use a sperm bank.”
She gives him a quizzical look. “Oh, yeah, great idea. What am I gonna do? Go out there with a bunch of plastic cups and a turkey baster and say, ‘Who wants to be my baby daddy?’”
A look of horror spreads across his face. “Oh, God, no! Those neanderthals?! Absolutely not! No one who works on your show would be remotely acceptable.”
“Well, who the hell else is there, Jack? My entire life is this damn show. What other males do I even know? What, my doorman? My dentist? Jonathan? It's a stupid idea.”
“Well, thanks a lot, Lemon! I was only trying to help,” he fires back. He gets up off the couch and spins back around towards her. “Did it ever occur to you I was referring to me?” There’s only a short pause before she bursts out laughing. “Why is that so funny, Lemon?” She just keeps howling away on the couch. “Why wouldn’t you want half your child’s DNA to come from a man as handsome, intelligent and successful as I am?” She still doesn’t say anything. “I’m also fluent in three languages, gifted in the musical arts; I was an outstanding athlete in my youth, I’ll have you know. I mean, come on, other than my regrettable predisposition to early onset heart disease and Irish alcoholism, what’s the problem?”
“You can’t be serious.”
rest of the story here...
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