what i want - 30 rock, jack/liz, PG, prompt: "i can't do this" and "food poisoning"
(Written for ham_napkin)
“
I - we - can’t do this,” she whispered to him, but even then her words lacked any real conviction.
His mouth was close to her throat, his lips touching the soft skin of her neck. His voice caused tiny vibrations to ripple across her flesh, eliciting a moan from deep within her. “I know what I want, Lemon,” he murmured, his lips resuming their passage down her skin. His hands slid up her thighs, moving upwards and inwards, and she could feel her breathing becoming less controlled the higher he moved. Suddenly, his lips left her neck and pressed against hers hard, less restrained and more desperate then she’d ever imagined (and yes, she had imagined) his kisses could be.
After that, any chance at rational thought was lost, as she pressed her body against his and hoped the consequences would never come.
--
When she woke up and instantly felt the urge to vomit, her first conclusion as she stumbled to the bathroom was food poisoning. It would make sense - she had decided to eat that frozen pizza that she had forgotten on the counter (but hey, cooking it would solve any issues, right?). But three days later, when she had to lurch off of the subway to expel the contents of her stomach into a nearby trash can, she started to wonder. What else could it be?
The answer came to her as she sat waiting at the writers’ table for their meeting to start. Jack was supposed to be presenting to them a new product integration scheme that head office had approved for all network shows. She’d been the last of the writers to make it to the table; she had hid out in her office into the last possible second, sliding into her seat mere moments before Jack was to begin. Even so, she’d still felt his eyes on her as she entered, watching her take her seat without saying a word to anyone.
It had been two months since the night they’d slept together. And two months minus one day since they’d woken up and realized that everything had changed. He had come over after a disastrous evening with Avery; naturally, he’d responded to his latest relationship crisis by drinking one too many scotches and then ringing up his best friend for a supposedly healthy session of commiseration. Liz, for her part, had spent her evening watching sappy romances in a fit of middle-aged depression and had polished off a bottle of cheap wine all on her own. It was like the perfect storm of bad circumstances - both drunk, but not drunk enough to forget what they were doing, and both caught in their own versions of relationship hell.
So when Jack had gotten a little too close to her while they half-watched some cheesy 80’s B-grade movie on late-night television, she’d said nothing at first. But as he touched her leg, and then her arm, and then, finally, pressed his lips against her neck, she knew it was wrong.
“I - we - can’t do this,” she’d whispered. He had a girlfriend.
“I know what I want, Lemon,” he’d answered. She had no one.
The feeling of a man against her, wanting her, needing her, was so much more than anything she’d felt in months. And as he brought his lips up against hers, crushing his mouth to hers in a desperate attempt to get closer, she’d thrown her morals to the curb and thought to hell with the consequences.
It was those consequences that dawned on her at that moment, sitting in the writers’ room, waiting for Jack to start his presentation. One consequence, in particular, hit her like a ton of bricks: she was pregnant.
Pregnant with Jack Donaghy’s baby.
Her breath hitched in her throat, and her hands reached out to grab the edges of the table. The other writers, who had been involved in their own conversations until this point, turned and looked at her.
“Liz? You okay?” Pete asked, eyeing her with concern. Jack, she noticed, had stopped his preparations and had also immediately turned his attention to her.
She attempted to crack a smile. “Oh, I just forgot to PVR Top Chef. Ughhh...” she answered lamely.
“Right,” said Pete, rolling his eyes at her.
“Shall we get this meeting moving?” Liz stated, eager to distract herself from the realization she had just come to.
“Yeah, of course,” Pete replied, standing up from the table and addressing the writers. “Right, everyone, we’ve got something new going...”
Liz couldn’t pay attention to Pete no matter how hard she tried. Was she really pregnant? With her best friend’s baby? Her best friend who has a girlfriend? Her hands, still on the edge of the table, gripped on even more tightly, her anxiety rising. Almost subconsciously, she found herself turning slightly to look at Jack across the table.
As her eyes moved over, she found him already looking at her, his blue eyes etched with concern. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it a moment later, deciding against it. They just continued to stare at each other, while the meeting progressed without them.
What now? Liz couldn’t help to think to herself. What next?
However, even in her panic, somewhere deep within her responded with a glimmer of hope.