30 Rock, Jack/Liz, Random One, Prompt #10. Expectation
Title: Years and Years
Author: michellek
Challenge: drabble123
Fandom: 30 Rock
Pairing: Jack/Liz
Table: Random One
Prompt: #10. Expectation
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300
Summary: Jack is sometimes surprised he's ended up here. Sappy-ish future ficlet.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
*
Jack is sometimes surprised he's ended up here.
This isn't to say he periodically views his marriage and children with a sense of detachment; that he finds himself in moments which, if he were in a movie, would be accompanied by that irritating Talking Heads song. What surprises him: he never relates to his life (one a younger -- if not exactly young -- version of him would have dismissed as a possibility left behind when he and Bianca gave up on their future, an existence he wasn't cut out for) with a desire to escape. His fears from right before he and Liz got married, that he would consider years-long monogamy impossible to handle, that he'd find living with a woman for more than a few weeks to be an encroachment, that he'd run from his second wife carrying new layers of resentment and failure, are as foreign to him as the worry he was seized by the first time Liz got pregnant, that he was right to not want kids. That they'd be more trouble than they were worth, that his history and nature precluded him from being a good father.
He often wonders if he was wrong about himself or about what having a family would be like.
This isn't to say his life is perfect, that he and Liz never fight, that his sons always listen to him. But it wasn't perfect before, when he went from whirlwind romance to whirlwind romance, using the time in-between to sleep with women he felt nothing for. At least now he's not alone (or lonely). Now he doesn't have to tell himself he's happy (with the declarations losing their tenuous link to truth on each reiteration). Now he knows what he wants (and has it).
Sometimes, that last part surprises him, too.
END
Author: michellek
Challenge: drabble123
Fandom: 30 Rock
Pairing: Jack/Liz
Table: Random One
Prompt: #10. Expectation
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300
Summary: Jack is sometimes surprised he's ended up here. Sappy-ish future ficlet.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
*
Jack is sometimes surprised he's ended up here.
This isn't to say he periodically views his marriage and children with a sense of detachment; that he finds himself in moments which, if he were in a movie, would be accompanied by that irritating Talking Heads song. What surprises him: he never relates to his life (one a younger -- if not exactly young -- version of him would have dismissed as a possibility left behind when he and Bianca gave up on their future, an existence he wasn't cut out for) with a desire to escape. His fears from right before he and Liz got married, that he would consider years-long monogamy impossible to handle, that he'd find living with a woman for more than a few weeks to be an encroachment, that he'd run from his second wife carrying new layers of resentment and failure, are as foreign to him as the worry he was seized by the first time Liz got pregnant, that he was right to not want kids. That they'd be more trouble than they were worth, that his history and nature precluded him from being a good father.
He often wonders if he was wrong about himself or about what having a family would be like.
This isn't to say his life is perfect, that he and Liz never fight, that his sons always listen to him. But it wasn't perfect before, when he went from whirlwind romance to whirlwind romance, using the time in-between to sleep with women he felt nothing for. At least now he's not alone (or lonely). Now he doesn't have to tell himself he's happy (with the declarations losing their tenuous link to truth on each reiteration). Now he knows what he wants (and has it).
Sometimes, that last part surprises him, too.
END