What To Expect When Liz Lemon's Expecting (Part 2/4)
Pairing: Jack/Liz
Spoilers: Season 4ish. Avery is not a thing (no offense to Elizabeth Banks!).
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Tina (as it should).
Month 4:
After their celebratory dinner, weekly meals quickly become part of their routine. Sometimes it’s breakfast before a shareholder meeting. Other times, Jack will show up at her office unannounced with subs from her favorite sandwich shop in the middle of the day. Liz finds herself enjoying the dinners the most though. Because Jack always takes her someplace nice - a place that encourages her to change out of her ratty day clothes and forces her to put on a dress and look pretty. The date-like feel of these evenings makes her feel like she isn’t quite doing this alone. That she has a man in her life that cares about her, who is emotionally invested in what happens to her and her baby.
Of course, she never deludes herself into completely believing this illusion. She knows that after their dinners, after Jack walks her to her door and says goodnight, he most likely has plans with women younger, prettier and less pregnant than her. The thought, surprisingly enough, never makes her jealous. She just feels sad. And, sometimes, coming down from these exhilarating post-dinner highs, is enough to make her cry.
One night, she is in her bed watching Fallon and she’s currently in one of those melancholy moods because Jack took her to a restaurant that night which served the best dessert she ever had. She got the tiramisu; he ordered a slice of Boston cream pie. “To commemorate the greatest city in the world, Lemon,” he explained with the smirk. When she predictably rolled her eyes, his affectionate smile in response made her feel…something. Loved? Well, maybe loved is not the right word. It certainly made her feel nice. And warm. And fuzzy. It made her realize that she liked the way Jack looks at her (more than she probably should).
Her mind is consumed with thoughts of babies and food and Jack, when she gets a text from the man himself.
Jack Donaghy:
Breakfast tomorrow?
Without hesitation, Liz grins and fires off a quick response.
Liz Lemon:
Believe it or not, I’m actually going to have to turn down free food. I have an ultrasound appointment tomorrow. Sorry, buddy.
Liz is utterly surprised by immediate text she gets in response.
Jack Donaghy:
You still need to eat. I’ll join you and we can get breakfast afterwards.
Well, this is certainly unusual. Liz knows she should protest (boundaries!), but it would be nice for once to not be the recipient of pitiful looks from the other expectant mothers who ask her about the nonexistent father to her baby. And it would also be nice to go to the doctor’s office with her head held high and not feel like a loser. So she happily accepts Jack’s offer.
----
The next morning, Jack’s car promptly picks her up at 7. Despite hardly being a morning person, the minute she gets into the car she enthusiastically launches into a detailed description of what’s going on with the baby at this stage in the pregnancy.
“So can you believe that apparently this kid is already the size of your palm?” She grabs one of Jack’s hands to demonstrate, but then frowns when she sees how big his hands are. “Well, maybe not your palm. Your hand is huge.”
Jack smirks and extracts his hand from her grasp. “Possessing large hands is a strong sign of masculinity, Lemon. It’s certainly nothing for me to be ashamed about.” He glances down at Liz’s hand, before lifting it up and examining it. “But I’m sure the book meant the size of your palm. That seems more reasonable.”
She sucks in a breath at the feel of his hand grasping hers before saying, “Yeah. I prefer not to give birth to a freakishly large baby.”
“I also believe you can determine the sex of the baby at this stage, correct?”
“Yeah, but I decided I’m not going to. I mean, I’m going to love it regardless of whether it has a penis or a vagina.”
“And I assume in a desperate and naïve attempt to curb cultivating any gender bias, all of your baby related purchases will be gender neutral anyway.”
“Exactly.” Liz then sits back in her seat and stares out the window, observing the New York hustle and bustle on the sidewalks when Jack begins speaking again.
“I would want to know in advance, I think.” He announces.
Liz raises her eyebrows in surprise. “I thought you didn’t want kids.”
He clears his throat and seems almost embarrassed before revealing, “To be honest Lemon, watching your excitement…seeing you evolve…has started to change my mind on the subject.”
She assumes, of course, that Jack’s hypothetical future baby mama will be the polar opposite of her. So Liz is both dismayed and flattered that she’s gotten him to change his mind about such an important topic.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll have a chance to become a father. You’re Jack Donaghy! If you want something, you get it.”
She playfully punches his arm and Jack nods decisively before looking away and saying, “Truer words never spoken, Liz.”
Month 5:
Now that the horrendous morning sickness phase is behind her (and, boy, is the term ‘morning sickness’ a misnomer -“morning, afternoon and night sickness” is more like it), she thought the second trimester would be smooth sailing until the third trimester when she’d get too big to move. She certainly didn’t count on being constantly agitated and tired.
“Pete!” She calls out from her office while standing behind her desk and riffling through the mountain of papers in front of her. “I told you I needed Tracy’s rehearsal schedule by noon so I can go over it and it’s not here!”
Pete timidly tiptoes into her office, calmly extracts a small binder from underneath Liz’s stack of random papers and speaks slowly as if she was a child. “Liz. It’s right here. I put it on your desk this morning.”
Liz’s anger quickly fades away and then irrationally morphs into indignant rage, “Well, how was I supposed to see it underneath all my crap? Did you ever think of that, you balding goon?” Pete is about to open his mouth - although what kind of rejoinder he can come up with to her question eludes him - but Jack enters her office and interrupts their one-sided argument.
“Pete, I’ll handle this.” With a grateful nod, Pete waves to Liz and bolts out of her office, hastily shutting the door behind him.
“May I ask what’s going on here?” Jack asks as calmly as possible.
“Well, my office is a mess, I can’t find anything I need in order to do my job and I want to stab pretty much everyone I see.”
“So what else is new?” Liz scowls in response and carefully eases herself onto her chair. After overhearing her earlier interaction with Pete, Jack realizes that a more calming, but not patronizing, tactic is probably needed when attempting to reason with Liz when she’s in this mood. “You do seem a bit on edge.”
“Well, duh.” Jack crosses over to her desk and leans his hip on it casually. Liz looks up at him and asks, “Hey, you’re important. Maybe you can talk to those idiots and make them do what I say.”
Jack stares at her blankly before saying, “Liz, they already are doing everything you ask. TGS ratings are up 3%, the staff has never worked with such efficiency and HR hasn’t reported any instances of Tracy sexually harassing the Hispanic custodians in weeks.”
“Oh.” She says, scrunching up her face in confusion. “Really?”
“Yes. Congratulations, Liz - your pregnancy has transformed you into a Machiavelli-like manager and, as a result, your staff is terrified of you.”
“Yay me?” She asks with a false upbeat sense of enthusiasm.
“For now, yes. But I fear if you continue on this route, you may very well have a mutiny on your hands.” He exhales and takes a breath before pointedly saying, “I suggest you go away for the weekend.”
She scoffs, “I can’t do that! I’m saving all my money for the baby and anyplace worth going to requires me to get on a plane and show everybody my feet, which are even grosser now that I’m pregnant…”
“Where I’m suggesting you go is free and doesn’t require you to hop on a plane and terrify the public with whatever foot issues you have.”
“Really? Where is this magical place?” She asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“My home in Connecticut.” Before Liz has a chance to protest, Jack continues. “It’s peaceful and quiet. Exactly what you need to…take the edge off.”
“Don’t you have a date tonight? How are you going to explain having a pregnant lady at your home to your lady friend?”
“Firstly,” he says smoothly, unperturbed by her question, “my place is large enough that whatever guest I bring would probably never even see you. Secondly, I only bring potential lovers to my apartment in the city. If tonight goes well, as it should, you won’t see me tonight and you’ll have my staff and home all to yourself.”
“Jack…”
“Liz, this is not up for debate. For the health of your baby and your show, I’m ordering you to spend the weekend at my house. My car will be waiting outside the studio once the show wraps.” Liz is utterly surprised when he bends down and gives her a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Okay?”
Her breath catches in her throat at his uncharacteristic display of affection and it succeeds in preventing her from voicing any additional objections to his request. “Yeah. Sure.” With a satisfied smile, Jack backs away and exists her office, leaving Liz utterly confused as to how Jack has immersed himself even more in her life than usual.
Spoilers: Season 4ish. Avery is not a thing (no offense to Elizabeth Banks!).
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Tina (as it should).
Month 4:
After their celebratory dinner, weekly meals quickly become part of their routine. Sometimes it’s breakfast before a shareholder meeting. Other times, Jack will show up at her office unannounced with subs from her favorite sandwich shop in the middle of the day. Liz finds herself enjoying the dinners the most though. Because Jack always takes her someplace nice - a place that encourages her to change out of her ratty day clothes and forces her to put on a dress and look pretty. The date-like feel of these evenings makes her feel like she isn’t quite doing this alone. That she has a man in her life that cares about her, who is emotionally invested in what happens to her and her baby.
Of course, she never deludes herself into completely believing this illusion. She knows that after their dinners, after Jack walks her to her door and says goodnight, he most likely has plans with women younger, prettier and less pregnant than her. The thought, surprisingly enough, never makes her jealous. She just feels sad. And, sometimes, coming down from these exhilarating post-dinner highs, is enough to make her cry.
One night, she is in her bed watching Fallon and she’s currently in one of those melancholy moods because Jack took her to a restaurant that night which served the best dessert she ever had. She got the tiramisu; he ordered a slice of Boston cream pie. “To commemorate the greatest city in the world, Lemon,” he explained with the smirk. When she predictably rolled her eyes, his affectionate smile in response made her feel…something. Loved? Well, maybe loved is not the right word. It certainly made her feel nice. And warm. And fuzzy. It made her realize that she liked the way Jack looks at her (more than she probably should).
Her mind is consumed with thoughts of babies and food and Jack, when she gets a text from the man himself.
Jack Donaghy:
Breakfast tomorrow?
Without hesitation, Liz grins and fires off a quick response.
Liz Lemon:
Believe it or not, I’m actually going to have to turn down free food. I have an ultrasound appointment tomorrow. Sorry, buddy.
Liz is utterly surprised by immediate text she gets in response.
Jack Donaghy:
You still need to eat. I’ll join you and we can get breakfast afterwards.
Well, this is certainly unusual. Liz knows she should protest (boundaries!), but it would be nice for once to not be the recipient of pitiful looks from the other expectant mothers who ask her about the nonexistent father to her baby. And it would also be nice to go to the doctor’s office with her head held high and not feel like a loser. So she happily accepts Jack’s offer.
----
The next morning, Jack’s car promptly picks her up at 7. Despite hardly being a morning person, the minute she gets into the car she enthusiastically launches into a detailed description of what’s going on with the baby at this stage in the pregnancy.
“So can you believe that apparently this kid is already the size of your palm?” She grabs one of Jack’s hands to demonstrate, but then frowns when she sees how big his hands are. “Well, maybe not your palm. Your hand is huge.”
Jack smirks and extracts his hand from her grasp. “Possessing large hands is a strong sign of masculinity, Lemon. It’s certainly nothing for me to be ashamed about.” He glances down at Liz’s hand, before lifting it up and examining it. “But I’m sure the book meant the size of your palm. That seems more reasonable.”
She sucks in a breath at the feel of his hand grasping hers before saying, “Yeah. I prefer not to give birth to a freakishly large baby.”
“I also believe you can determine the sex of the baby at this stage, correct?”
“Yeah, but I decided I’m not going to. I mean, I’m going to love it regardless of whether it has a penis or a vagina.”
“And I assume in a desperate and naïve attempt to curb cultivating any gender bias, all of your baby related purchases will be gender neutral anyway.”
“Exactly.” Liz then sits back in her seat and stares out the window, observing the New York hustle and bustle on the sidewalks when Jack begins speaking again.
“I would want to know in advance, I think.” He announces.
Liz raises her eyebrows in surprise. “I thought you didn’t want kids.”
He clears his throat and seems almost embarrassed before revealing, “To be honest Lemon, watching your excitement…seeing you evolve…has started to change my mind on the subject.”
She assumes, of course, that Jack’s hypothetical future baby mama will be the polar opposite of her. So Liz is both dismayed and flattered that she’s gotten him to change his mind about such an important topic.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll have a chance to become a father. You’re Jack Donaghy! If you want something, you get it.”
She playfully punches his arm and Jack nods decisively before looking away and saying, “Truer words never spoken, Liz.”
Month 5:
Now that the horrendous morning sickness phase is behind her (and, boy, is the term ‘morning sickness’ a misnomer -“morning, afternoon and night sickness” is more like it), she thought the second trimester would be smooth sailing until the third trimester when she’d get too big to move. She certainly didn’t count on being constantly agitated and tired.
“Pete!” She calls out from her office while standing behind her desk and riffling through the mountain of papers in front of her. “I told you I needed Tracy’s rehearsal schedule by noon so I can go over it and it’s not here!”
Pete timidly tiptoes into her office, calmly extracts a small binder from underneath Liz’s stack of random papers and speaks slowly as if she was a child. “Liz. It’s right here. I put it on your desk this morning.”
Liz’s anger quickly fades away and then irrationally morphs into indignant rage, “Well, how was I supposed to see it underneath all my crap? Did you ever think of that, you balding goon?” Pete is about to open his mouth - although what kind of rejoinder he can come up with to her question eludes him - but Jack enters her office and interrupts their one-sided argument.
“Pete, I’ll handle this.” With a grateful nod, Pete waves to Liz and bolts out of her office, hastily shutting the door behind him.
“May I ask what’s going on here?” Jack asks as calmly as possible.
“Well, my office is a mess, I can’t find anything I need in order to do my job and I want to stab pretty much everyone I see.”
“So what else is new?” Liz scowls in response and carefully eases herself onto her chair. After overhearing her earlier interaction with Pete, Jack realizes that a more calming, but not patronizing, tactic is probably needed when attempting to reason with Liz when she’s in this mood. “You do seem a bit on edge.”
“Well, duh.” Jack crosses over to her desk and leans his hip on it casually. Liz looks up at him and asks, “Hey, you’re important. Maybe you can talk to those idiots and make them do what I say.”
Jack stares at her blankly before saying, “Liz, they already are doing everything you ask. TGS ratings are up 3%, the staff has never worked with such efficiency and HR hasn’t reported any instances of Tracy sexually harassing the Hispanic custodians in weeks.”
“Oh.” She says, scrunching up her face in confusion. “Really?”
“Yes. Congratulations, Liz - your pregnancy has transformed you into a Machiavelli-like manager and, as a result, your staff is terrified of you.”
“Yay me?” She asks with a false upbeat sense of enthusiasm.
“For now, yes. But I fear if you continue on this route, you may very well have a mutiny on your hands.” He exhales and takes a breath before pointedly saying, “I suggest you go away for the weekend.”
She scoffs, “I can’t do that! I’m saving all my money for the baby and anyplace worth going to requires me to get on a plane and show everybody my feet, which are even grosser now that I’m pregnant…”
“Where I’m suggesting you go is free and doesn’t require you to hop on a plane and terrify the public with whatever foot issues you have.”
“Really? Where is this magical place?” She asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“My home in Connecticut.” Before Liz has a chance to protest, Jack continues. “It’s peaceful and quiet. Exactly what you need to…take the edge off.”
“Don’t you have a date tonight? How are you going to explain having a pregnant lady at your home to your lady friend?”
“Firstly,” he says smoothly, unperturbed by her question, “my place is large enough that whatever guest I bring would probably never even see you. Secondly, I only bring potential lovers to my apartment in the city. If tonight goes well, as it should, you won’t see me tonight and you’ll have my staff and home all to yourself.”
“Jack…”
“Liz, this is not up for debate. For the health of your baby and your show, I’m ordering you to spend the weekend at my house. My car will be waiting outside the studio once the show wraps.” Liz is utterly surprised when he bends down and gives her a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Okay?”
Her breath catches in her throat at his uncharacteristic display of affection and it succeeds in preventing her from voicing any additional objections to his request. “Yeah. Sure.” With a satisfied smile, Jack backs away and exists her office, leaving Liz utterly confused as to how Jack has immersed himself even more in her life than usual.