Someone You Use - Part 6
Pairing: Jack/Liz
Spoilers: Takes place at the end of Season 4 (Pre-Carol)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Tina (as it should). Title is from a Vonda Shepard song featured on the Alley McBeal soundtrack. And, of course, I live for comments/feedback (of any kind!).
Liz is immersed in a Real Housewives of New York marathon when she hears her doorbell ring. She puts down her carton of easy mac, slips on her pair of Homer Simpson slippers and answers the door. Her heart skips a beat (okay, maybe it stopped beating entirely for a moment) when she sees Jack through the peephole. Has it really been three months since that evening at Plunder? She stares down at her outfit and she mentally curses herself for not investing in PJs that don’t have some sort of food on them. She knew she would see Jack Donaghy again at some point, but she didn’t think she’d be wearing 10-year-old PJs with pink and purple cupcakes on them when their reunion would take place.
She opens the door apprehensively and stands in the doorway so Jack can’t barge inside like he usually does.
“Jack, I don’t think you should be here. I still need time apart from you.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that.” Jack responds. “Which is why I brought a cheese sampler basket from Dean and Deluca.” He then reveals a basket stuffed with a variety of cheeses that he kept hidden behind his back and gives her his most charming smile.
“Well…” Her mind is pleading with her to turn him away, but she knows it’s rather impossible to turn down Jack when he looks at her so earnestly. “Okay, but you can’t stay long.” Liz backs away from the door and allows Jack to come in. “Do you want a drink or something? I have wine.”
“Red wine would be lovely, thank you.” While Liz is in the kitchen, Jack takes a moment to observe her new surroundings. Her new apartment is much smaller than her old one, and since there is less space, her clutter and disorganization is more evident than usual. Jack shakes his head when he sees the unopened mail from adoption agencies, the treadmill collecting dust in the corner of the room and the bulk package of Sabor de Soledad resting against the wall by the kitchen. There is so much about the apartment he wants to fix- so many aspects of her life he wants to fix- that it makes his him want to faint and he feels the desperate need to sit down.
“Good God, Lemon. We don’t speak for three months and you’ve already managed to undo all the progress that we made together.” Jack says contritely after Liz hands him the glass of wine.
“Look, if you came here to insult me, your wife already beat you to it yesterday.”
“That’s why I’m here actually. I wanted to apologize for Avery’s behavior…”
“You’re apologizing for that? How about apologizing for not telling me that you were getting married and that you’re going to be a father?”
“Lemon, I’ve sent you countless emails over the past few months asking to speak with you face to face and you never responded to a single one of them."
“I guess I was trying to employ the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ strategy to getting over a dude.” Liz says with a non-committal shrug.
“And how did that work out for you?” When Liz looks at Jack she expects him to be smug and arrogant about the whole thing, but instead, he’s looking at her with something that actually approaches empathy. Well, that’s a first.
“Not great.” She sighs as she shoves her stacks of US Weekly and Food & Wine magazines aside and sits next to him on the couch. “It turns out being unemployed makes forgetting about how much you suck at understanding men and relationships so much worse because lately it’s all I can think about. Between everything being messed up with us and Floyd getting married…”
“Floyd got married?”
Liz nods and continues her stream-of-consciousness-rambling, “Yeah, to some perfect and perky yoga instructor with killer abs. And he invited me to the wedding and it was the awful, Jack. Actually, come to think it of it, it’s probably better that you never told me about your wedding, cause then I’d have to go and pretend to be all okay with it….” She finally stops herself then, realizing she probably said too much. And here is why she hates having unrequited feelings for her best friend. Because Jack is the guy she goes to whenever she has problems with men. But since Jack currently is her guy problem, she finds herself not knowing what is or is not appropriate to say. “Ugh, I’m talking too much and it’s weirding you out.” She covers her eyes in embarrassment and Jack finds himself chuckling as he gently removes her hands form covering her face.
“You should have called me after you found out about Floyd. You didn’t need to go through that alone.”
“I didn’t go through it alone. I had…Jenna.”
“As I said, you shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.” During their conversation on the couch, Liz spent most of it staring at her slippers, but now she draws up the courage to look him in the eye. She expects to see pity, but instead he just seems concerned for a friend whose life is clearly in shambles. “Lemon…Liz…I’ve come to realize in your absence that I miss fixing your problems. I miss you barging into my office every morning. I miss your rants. I miss your frantic phone calls and pleas for help.”
“Jack, I’m not some damsel in distress that needs your constant rescuing.”
“Really? So you’re eating easy mac for dinner because it’s the epitome of fine cuisine?” He asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey! I’m not eating easy mac for dinner because I’m poor. I’m eating it because I’m lazy.” She says with a petulant pout and crosses her arms.
He leans forward, uses a knife to slice a few slices of cheese and hands her one. “I want you to be a position where you can hire someone to make gourmet mac and cheese for you whenever you want.” He takes a slice of cheese for himself and Liz smiles shyly when she realizes how easy it was for them to get back into their routine of hearing each other’s problems and eating junk food together.
“I need a job for that, Jack.” She says, waving a half eaten slice of cheese in front of his face. Grabbing her hand, Jack grins and steals the slice of cheese from her fingers and pops into his mouth.
“I know. You never took me up on my offer the last time we spoke. The screenplays?”
“Well…I wanted to do it on my own. I still think I should. I’m going to have to learn how to get by without you at some point.”
“Lemon….” Jack inches closer to her and says quietly, “I am not a good man. But I am a powerful one. Use me. Let me help you get everything you ever wanted.”
Liz sucks in a breath when she realizes how close they currently are. Her feet are pressed against his thigh and his arm is casually draped behind her on the couch. Liz is the first to inch away slightly so they are no longer in a dangerous kissing range. “I, um, actually wrote something, but so far I haven’t been able to get anybody interested in buying it.”
“Let me read it, Lemon.” Liz is about to protest, but Jack silences her and gently covers her mouth with the palm of his hand. “Let me at least read the damn thing, Liz.”
“Okay, I’ll email it to you.” She sighs and reluctantly reaches for her laptop sitting on the coffee table.
“No, give me your computer. I’ll read it now.”
Liz looks at him quizzically. “It’s 11 o’clock at night, Jack. It’s kind of long…”
“I don’t mind.” He shrugs.
“Where does your wife think you are, Jack?” Liz asks accusingly, but Jack ignores her and takes her computer off her lap and places it in his own.
“I didn’t lie to her, if that’s what you’re insinuating. Now, let me read this. You go watch The Daily Show or some other hippie nonsense.” Liz wants to object to being ordered around in her own home, but he’s reading her screenplay, so she feels that a mild degree of bossing around is warranted. She can also sense that he doesn’t want to hurry back home any time soon, a point that does give her a small sense of satisfaction.
So she switches the channel to Comedy Central tries her hardest to ignore the larger than life force that’s sitting right beside her. Liz is smirking at one of Jon Stewart’s quips, but she jumps when she hears Jack let out a loud guffaw. She turns to him, wondering what has come over him and sees him grinning gleefully at her.
“This is very good.” He says pointing at the screen. A large part of her wants to mock Jack for enjoying a screenplay about teenage girls, but she doesn’t want to distract him from reading. So smiles shyly and turns her attention back to the television.
An hour later, Jack wraps up reading the screenplay and glances at Liz. She has fallen asleep in a fetal position and is clutching the remote control in both of her hands. When he tries to extract the remote from her grip, she mumbles, “No, Jack. Wanna watch Jon Colbert show time…” He laughs quietly to himself at her sleep talking and when he manages to take the remote from her grasp, he drapes her body over his shoulder. Her body feels light in his arms and he is able to carry her to her bedroom with ease. Logically, he knows he has crossed several lines with Liz this evening and probably only muddled things further between them. He selfishly, and perhaps foolishly, doesn’t regret any of it.