Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s easier to keep it loose and without a label because Damien is gun shy and he’s done the dating a co-worker before and it didn’t end that badly.

“You’re not a secret, you know,” Damien says.

Jackie lifts her head from where it is pillowed on his shoulder and looks into his eyes as he blinks at her and studies her face. She keeps eye contact with him for as long as he’ll let her, his eyes shifting away nervously to drop to where her hand is over the top of his own.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, a secret feels bad, feels like something negative and that’s not you, that’s not us.”

Jackie gives him a smile. This conversation is coming out of nowhere. They had been watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy because Damien has never really seen it before and Jackie has watched the first few seasons and doesn’t mind when Damien makes fun of the more ridiculous storylines, the same as he doesn’t make fun of her when she tears up over an episode. Since they are mid-way through an episode, Damien’s mind must have been wandering, must have been fixated on the topic and Jackie knows sometimes he can’t let something go until he speaks it out loud.

“I know that, Damien. We both agreed it would be better to keep this on the downlow, remember?”

Jackie knows Damien is not one for casual hook ups, and really, neither is she, so it’s surprising that the two of them find themselves in a loose space between dating and being friends with benefits and being so much more than that all at the same time.

Damien squeezes her hand and then draws it to his mouth to place a kiss against the back.

“I know. I’m just a little gun shy about it all, I guess. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t value you and us enough to announce it to the world like I did before with Saige.”

That’s true. Damien’s done the dating a co-worker thing before and while it didn’t end in a giant mess, Saige still left Smosh, and their relationship was still on public display.

“It isn’t really a comparison type thing,” Jackie says, “I don’t need all of Smosh and our fan base to know that we’re seeing each other. Do you?”

“No, as long as you like seeing me I’m fine with keeping it between us.”

Jackie uses her hand to tilt his face so he’s looking at her again, and she leans in to press her mouth to his in a soft and sweet kiss, all set to the ending credits of Grey’s Anatomy. She can feel Damien smiling against her mouth and she deepens the kiss, her tongue sliding into his mouth as he hums and slides his hands to her waist.

They end up pressed together on his couch, her leg over his hip as they share slow and warm kisses, the show long ignored in the background. At some point Damien rolls her gently on to her back and hikes her leg up against his hip, grinds down against her through her leggings as they kiss again.

It isn’t long before they are shedding clothes in the dim lights of Damien’s living room, the television a blue glow across their bodies as Damien lifts her leg so she can hook it over his shoulder and press himself inside of her. Jackie holds him close to her, shares breaths with him, collects his sounds and touches like secrets, like a scrapbook, memorizing every moment.

Afterwards they are in Damien’s room, having made their way there from the living room, lying in his bed in the quiet evening. She can’t spend the night because they work tomorrow, and it would be too hard for Jackie to leave Damien’s place in the morning and make it back to her apartment to get ready and then still make it to the studio on time.

He’s tracing odd patterns on her bare back as she lays against his chest.

“I have to go,” she says, her mouth against the pale smooth of his skin.

“I know,” Damien says, “but I wish you didn’t.”

Jackie scoots up the length of his body, so they are face-to-face, and she smiles as she presses her nose against his.

“Well, good news is that I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

Damien steals a kiss from her lips. “The bad news is that I can’t kiss you there, or hold your hand, or act like your boyfriend.”

‘Boyfriend’ the word makes something warm bloom in her chest like a flower that grows just for him. He is and he isn’t, and she wants him to be but is scared of the title at the same time. He takes her silence as a mistake and a ghost of worry crosses his face.

“I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have- “

“Shh,” Jackie says, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sorry,” Damien says.

She puts a finger against his lips to quiet him and kisses his cheek.

He looks like he wants to say that he’s sorry again, she gives him a small laugh.

“You apologize too much.”

“It’s second nature,” Damien says, “my bad brain, you know?”

Jackie runs a hand through his purple hair, carding her fingers through it.

“Your brain is beautiful.”

--

The way that Jackie has learned that Hollywood works is that sometimes it’s as much about your talent as it is about the people that you know. She knows someone who posts about open auditions for Second City in New York City. Jackie is a person who believes in fate, in a power higher than herself, a strength in religion and God. There aren’t many people like that at Smosh. Jackie doesn’t hold it against any of them for their lack of a higher faith, it just limits her options to those whose advice she can go to about her feelings.

Lucky for Jackie, on this particular shoot block, Keith is in a handful of Smosh Games episodes. She slides into a plastic colorful chair next to him at lunch and smiles as he glances up at her.

“Jackie, my girl, what’s up?” Keith asks, setting down his phone to focus on her.

She shrugs, “I am debating trying for something big and I kind of, feel like, I don’t know, it’s a sign from the universe? Or from God. It’s scary, but I don’t want to turn away from a blessing just because I’m scared.”

Keith reaches across the table and sets his hand over hers. He’s got bags under his eyes from his treatments, but it hasn’t dimmed his spark, the light that shines from the inside out when he smiles at her with a knowing and toothy grin.

“Girl, you know that if something big has come into your path then it was put there for a reason.”

It’s just the advice she was hoping to get, maybe some confirmation that she isn’t seeing what she wants to see. She just so happened to check Instagram at the right time and see the right post about the auditions.

“So, you think I should go for it?” Jackie asks, appreciating Keith giving her advice even without the full picture.

“Absolutely. You know, unless it’s illegal or something, then we never had this conversation.”

Jackie rolls her eyes and feels confident, feels renewed in spirit and putting her trust into the universe. What could it hurt to send in an audition? The worst thing that could happen is they reject her, which, it’s Hollywood, Jackie’s been rejected hundreds of times. Rejection, she feels, is infinitely better than never trying, never knowing.

“If it’s for work, you’re going to kill it,” Keith says as he picks his phone back up.

Jackie nods, not ready to fully spill what it is, she can’t. She owes that to someone else first.

As if she summoned him, across the lunchroom, the far door opens and Damien walks in with Shayne and Amanda. He catches her eye from a distance and Jackie holds his gaze for a handful of seconds before she looks away.

--

Jackie doesn’t tell Damien or anyone else when she records an audition tape for Second City. She doesn’t want to say anything if she’s rejected – which she knows is a very big and very real possibility- and it’s better to keep this close to her heart for now, a secret for her, though deep in her belly the guilt eats away at her for keeping it from Damien.

He would be supportive, she thinks, but the hard part is explaining, that if for whatever reason, if this works out, if by some miracle they do want her, that the job is in New York.

Jackie doesn’t want to leave him, not really, the thought is painful and sharp across her chest like fine glass splintering through her. As she edits her audition on her laptop, her cat curled next to her thighs on the couch, Jackie tells herself it doesn’t matter because she won’t get it. She’s trying just to try, to alleviate the idea of regrets. She and Damien will be fine. Life will go on.

--

The last week of May the cast is out having dinner sans their big boss Ian. He’s been missing in action a little more often lately, acting stranger than usual, and Jackie knows she isn’t the only one that has noticed. They are at Buca, Jackie across from Damien, Damien next to Shayne, Courtney on his other side, then Kimmy, with Amanda next to Jackie.

“So, Ian’s been kind of weird, yeah?” Shayne asks out of the blue, sipping nervously at his water.

Courtney shrugs, “Ian’s always kind of…” she trails off and then shrugs again.

“Weird,” Amanda fills in, “Ian’s a weird guy.”

“Yeah, but he’s a little weirder than usual, don’t you think? And now Let’s Do This is going to end. What’s up with that?”

“Shayne,” Damien says, “Are you scared something big and bad is happening?”

Shayne sips again, and though Jackie adores Shayne Topp, the man has no poker face, and his nerves show right through.

Jackie’s stomach twists at the thought that something might be going on behind the scenes, something bad, something none of them know about quite yet.

“Ian would tell us if it was bad,” Courtney insists.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Damien says, and his eyes flit over Jackie as if wanting her opinion.

“I don’t really know Ian as well as you all do,” Jackie says, though she feels queasy at the thought of her job, all of their jobs, being on the line. “All I can say is that I hope nothing bad is going on.”

A quiet settle over the table and Shayne rubs at his face. Jackie is used to seeing him, well, not like this. He’s typically their rock, their cheerleader, Mr. Positive. It’s strange to see him so solemn and it scares Jackie. She thinks of her audition sent out two months ago and the radio silence since then.

Their waitress arrives with a tray heaving with food and the conversation drops but the silence is thick and heavy, like a blanket settled around them, one they can’t shake.

After dinner the cast goes their separate ways. What the cast doesn’t know is that instead of driving to his own house, Damien drives to Jackie’s apartment.

They are in her bed, cuddling, kissing. Damien’s lips brush her temple.

“What did you think of what Shayne said?” Damien asks.

“I said what I thought,” Jackie tells him.

Damien looks at her and nods, “Sorry, I just. I’ve never seen Shayne rattled like that, not since Defy and all that shit.”

Jackie curls closer to him, their knees brushing, and she links her fingers with Damien’s.

“Do you think we need to worry?” Jackie asks, voicing a fear that she’s scared to give words to, to give power to them, as if she’ll manifest the end of Smosh just from asking this question to Damien.

“I wish I could tell you Jackie,” Damien says, “I just don’t know. I trust Ian and I trust Rhett and Link. I don’t trust YouTube, and I don’t trust Hollywood.”

She nods and rests her head on his shoulder. Her dinner doesn’t agree with her, at least that’s what she’s telling herself, denying that it’s the nerves that have her on edge.

--

It’s the middle of June when Jackie’s at a staff meeting. Ian’s at the front and he does seem oddly nervous, flitting around, glancing backwards at the long hallway that leads to their sound stage. Jackie’s a table away from Damien and she tries to catch his eye, as if she can decipher Ian’s actions through the lens of Damien’s quiet stare.

“The eagle has landed,” Ian mutters into a walkie talkie.

Jackie sees the moment Damien has it all figured out. Her brain doesn’t work like his and she doesn’t know what that means. Ian is bouncing on his heels and the sound stage door opens and then a man that Jackie doesn’t immediately recognize strides up to Ian, a huge grin on his face, as he pulls Ian into a tight hug.

“Oh my God!” Courtney says, her eyes growing wet, “Anthony?!”

It all unravels after that. Ian was being weird because he was keeping a secret, but it wasn’t their destruction, it was their rebirth. He and Anthony own Smosh. Jackie breathes a sigh of relief.

--

Two days after Ian announced that he and Anthony bought Smosh and were now effectively in charge, Jackie is at home. She’s on Instagram when her phone chimes with the signal of a new email. She almost swipes the notification away, but then she notes the address and how it’s from Second City.

Jackie, heart in her throat, opens the email, her fingers shaking. She’s not even sure she’s breathing as she scans the email over.

One word does stand out to her though.

Congratulations.

Jackie screams, tears filling her eyes and she drops her phone before scooping it up, terrifying her cat, and re-reading the email as if she can’t believe this isn’t a mistake, that this wasn’t meant for her, that this is real.

She re-reads the email four times before it sinks in that this is happening. She’s been offered a job for Second City in New York.

Then, as if lightning strikes in her brain, the realization hits.

Damien.

What does this mean for her and Damien?

Jackie feels cold, she feels sick. The joy in her feels hollower at this point. She wants this so badly. The fact that Second City thought she was good enough to join them, that they want her and chose her, it means everything, but then there is Damien and what accepting the job means for them, and not only that but she would be leaving Smosh now when Ian and Anthony have control, she’d be leaving as they entered this new era.

Could she, do it? Could she leave him and Smosh and California?

She had applied for the job not expecting to get it, but she had and now there are decisions to be made and conversations to be had. She wants to tell him, she wants to call Damien and tell him the good news, tell him how happy she is, but then the inevitable conversation would come with it all, under that joy would leave a sense of pain and wondering.

Where does this leave them?

--

It takes two days for Jackie to broach the subject with Damien. She wasn’t shooting this week and Damien has been busy, so they hadn’t seen each other. Finally, though, they both have time and Damien texts her offering to bring over dinner and hang out at her place.

Jackie is still nervous but more than that, she misses him and does want to see him, so it is easy to agree even though she’s terrified of telling him about the job offer, the one she needs to reply to, to officially accept, and Jackie doesn’t need Damien’s permission to take the job, she still wants to talk about it with him and weigh it in her brain before fully committing to accepting it.

Within the hour she and Damien are at Jackie’s kitchen table. His eyes are warm as he smiles at her and takes a bite of his pasta.

Jackie reaches across the table and puts her hand over his own. Damien quirks an eyebrow at her in surprise.

“You okay, Jackie?”

She nods, but then she sighs, and then she shrugs.

“I don’t know.”

Damien’s eyes shift into worry, into a genuine concern for her. He always makes her feel safe, cared for, secure. He’s a good man. He’s hilarious. He’s what she wants, but his life is here in California and Jackie can’t ask him to give all of that up for New York and for her.

“You can tell me anything, you know?”

She looks at him and squeezes his hand with her own.

“I know. It’s good news really. I…I got a job offer, Damien. An incredible job offer with Second City.”

Damien’s eyes light and he smiles and jumps out of his seat.

“Jackie! That’s amazing!” He’s around the table and he’s hugging her, his arms warm around her middle as he leans down to meet her.

Jackie lets her arms shift up to wrap around his shoulders and hold him close, tucking her face into his shoulder.

“It is, but…the job…it’s in New York,” she says into his shirt, chickening out on looking into his eyes as she tells him, as she bites the bullet, as she hurts them both.

Jackie can feel it when Damien freezes in her hold and when he understands. He pulls back and looks down at her. She searches his hazel eyes for what thoughts might be cycling through his head, what he might be thinking. He can be a puzzle for her at times.

Damien blinks hard and then he cups her face. “Oh.”

“I know,” she says.

Damien grabs the spare chair next to Jackie’s and not the one he had originally been sitting in. He pulls the chair close, and their knees are touching.  

“Okay, let’s talk about this then. Did you accept it?”

“Not yet, I wanted to talk about it with you first- “Damien opens his mouth and Jackie raises her hand to stop him, “not because I felt like I needed your permission. I just wanted to talk to you about it first because you’re important to me.”

He nods, “I appreciate that.”

“So, tell me what you think.”

Damien takes her hands and rubs his thumbs over the backs of her hands.

“I think you have to take it, Jackie. It’s a great opportunity.”

“What about us though?” she asks, and she can already feel the tears that begin to prick in her eyes. She knew he would tell her to take it. She knows he’s selfless in that way, that even if it hurt, he would tell her to go because it was good for her.

Damien stays close to her and keeps a hold of her hands as he smiles, easy, but laced with pain and he finally lets go of one of Jackie’s hand to bring it to her face and wipe away a tear with his thumb.

“I’m not sure. It wouldn’t be easy to be long distance, but it isn’t impossible.”

“But even if we’re long distance, Damien. Eventually, a decision would have to be made, wouldn’t it?”

“Eventually,” Damien echoes with that sad smile.

So, what would be better? To pull the band-aid off now and admit defeat? Or prolong the inevitable? She doesn’t want to do any of it. That sadness has settled like a stone on her chest and not even Damien’s gentle words can remove it.

“Here’s what I know,” Damien begins, “you and I can’t live a life with regrets and what-ifs and I don’t want you to give up something amazing for me and then regret it later on. Life is a series of choices and actions, Jackie, and it would suck ass to lose you and to not do this, but it would suck even more to not take this shot you deserve.”

A few stray tears escape, and Jackie pulls her hand free to wipe her eyes herself.

“What if I’m not even good enough? What if I go and lose you and Smosh and then I’m not what they want? Or they realize they made a mistake, or- “

“Jackie, they aren’t ever going to think that about you. You’re hilarious and talented. They would be lucky to have you just like we are, but if for whatever reason if it didn’t work, you know you wouldn’t lose me and you know Ian and Anthony would let you come back.”

“You think so?”

“I do,” Damien says. He leans in and presses a kiss to her temple.

“I’m not really hungry anymore,” Jackie says.

Damien nods, “You want to go and cuddle on the couch?”

“Bed?” Jackie asks.

Damien smiles and leads her towards her own bedroom. They settle on her bed, and she curls next to him, his hands around her. She closes her eyes and soaks in the feeling. They both know what she needs to do, what’s the best thing to do. Time is fleeting faster than ever before, a sudden countdown that they didn’t know would exist in their time together. Jackie memorizes the sound of his breathing as he presses a kiss to her forehead.

--

The next morning with Damien sleeping next to her, Jackie opens her email and officially accepts the job offer from Second City.

--

The next week Jackie is on the shoot schedule, and she comes in to film a podcast episode with Amanda and Shayne. She’s vibrating with excitement, a constant combination of joy and sorrow, and fear. They’re doing a special episode where Amanda is going to interpret tarot cards for the three of them. Jackie doesn’t put a ton of stock into it, but it’s a fun notion and she wonders if the cards will echo anything relevant about her actual life.

When it is Jackie’s turn to pull her card for the present time in her life, she pulls card 2 of Air. It has a picture of a tree and small animals and nature on it. Amanda flips through her book while Shayne cracks jokes and Jackie tries to memorize this too, the people around her, the simple joy in Shayne’s dumb jokes and even dumber laugh, and the way you can never predict what Amanda might say or do.

After this podcast she has a small break in filming where she’s due to meet with Ian in his office and tell him that she’s going to be leaving the company. It’s scary and though Jackie would never really be afraid of Ian or what he might say or do, she is afraid of making it official, of cementing her decision and not being able to take it all back.

“This card is about vulnerability and also connected with life,” Amanda reads as she glances from the book to Jackie and back again, “the breath of life moves back and forth between the tree and the hedgehog. So, work less in your mind and breathe it all in as it is,” Amanda says finally, just enough of an air of confidence that Jackie believes her.

She’s surprised that the card seems accurate that she’s living for now and trying to breathe in Smosh and Damien and hold on to all the things that will soon be a memory.

Jackie hums, “Interesting.”

Amanda smiles and offers the cards to Jackie again, “Future card now.”

Jackie chooses a card and hands it to Amanda.

“Another air card! Seven of air or The Witch’s Ladder. A spell to make a dream come true.”

Jackie feels her heart lurch in her chest. A dream come true? Second City? New York?

“You know what’s funny. Seven of Air is always a warning card. If you don’t heed the advice from the universe, advice won’t be given.”

“Oh shit,” Shayne says, “like if the universe gives you a sign and you ignore it, the universe will be like, ‘fine, no more signs.’”

“Yeah!” Amanda says with a laugh, “magic is afoot.”

Jackie lets them rattle off with one another as she holds back her emotions. She didn’t expect the card pulling to hit her as it has, but maybe it’s because she is so close to something she wants but it means saying goodbye to so much, to everything she knows, to Damien, and just fucking hoping that she’s doing the right thing.

The focus shifts to Shayne and Amanda shuffles the cards so he can start his pulls. Jackie makes it through the recording and afterwards hugs both Shayne and Amanda.

“I’m working on being grateful like the cards suggested,” Jackie says, “so thanks for having me on.”

“Aww,” Amanda says, rubbing Jackie’s back, “of course, we love having you on.”

Shayne squeezes her shoulder and smiles and neither of them know she is leaving, not yet, but it feels like it would be easy to say. This is not goodbye, and she will still be here. She still has videos to film.

 Jackie leaves them on set and makes the walk to Ian’s office. She pulls her phone out and taps out a text to Damien.

‘Meeting with Ian.’

It only takes a second before he replies.

‘It will go great. You got this.’ 

Jackie takes a breath and tucks her phone away as she knocks on Ian’s office door.

--

The next week Jackie comes down with a bug. It isn’t unusual for the cast considering how close they all are and how many people work on the shoots, how easily germs pass around. She spends a full day on her couch miserable before Damien suggests she go to the doctor on day two.

Jackie doesn’t want to go anywhere but she drags herself to the doctor even though she feels sick as hell, no energy, a headache, stomachache, all that jazz. Damien texts her consistently trying both to comfort her and distract her.

Half an hour later Jackie is sitting at the examination table in her doctor’s office as they check her blood pressure and listen to her breathing. She goes through the motions and answers their questions and doesn’t object when they ask her to give a urine sample and if they can give her a Covid test.

That day Jackie is sent home with a prescription for some medication, a negative Covid test, and instructions to buy some over-the-counter medication. Damien is the one that drops it off for her, leaving it on her doorstep because he can’t afford to catch whatever she has, and if he did, it would only look suspicious.

‘Feel better, beautiful.’  

Damien texts from his car. Jackie goes to the window, and she can see his car as a pin prick of glowing light on the street down below.

‘I will, thanks to you.’

--

Jackie is still sick two days later. She’s frustrated because it’s cutting into her time with Damien. Time is closing in on June and inching ever closer to July. She’s gotten an email from Second City that they want her in New York by August. Every day she’s sick is another day stolen from her, a day to spend here in the state she grew up in, and to spend time with this person she cares so deeply about.

Jackie’s bingeing a series she’s seen one hundred times before when she gets a call from her doctor’s office. She quickly forces herself to sit up and pause the show before answering the phone.

“Hello?”

“Is this Ms. Uweh?”

“Um, yes, it is.”

“Hi, this is Maria from your doctor’s office. I’m calling with some results from your visit the other day?”

Jackie swallows, “Uh, okay? Is everything alright?”

“We just wanted to call and inform you that according to the urine test you’re nearly two months pregnant. We’d like to schedule a follow-up appointment with you for next week if we can.”

“What?” Jackie says, her heart dropping to her feet, “Pregnant? I just…I have a cold. I…this has got to be a mistake.”

“The stomach issues and the fatigue and headaches are common side effects of pregnancy, Ms. Uweh.”

Jackie’s mind reels. She couldn’t be pregnant. She and Damien were always careful and always used protection and on the off chance they didn’t she was on birth control. Had she missed a dose? Had they fucked up? She looks back at the couch behind her and the memory of fucking on that very couch enters her mind, useless and commonplace until this moment, until suddenly it means everything.

“Ms. Uweh?” The woman says, snapping Jackie’s focus back on her.

“Yeah,” Jackie says breathlessly.

“Can you come in next Friday?”

“I…yeah,” Jackie says, all of this feeling unreal, feeling like a dream. She caught a bug at work, that’s it. She’s not fucking…no way she’s two months pregnant with Damien’s child.

Then Marie is rattling off the times and Jackie is numb as she chooses one. Then Marie hangs up and Jackie stands frozen in her apartment. How could she possibly tell Damien about this? She had just told him about Second City and now…

Wait.

Second City…

How could she go to New York now? She’s pregnant. Would Second City even want her now that she’s pregnant? Could she work? Could she go? Jackie feels like the world is collapsing under her feet, like she’s falling and nothing and no one can save her or stop her from crashing to the ground.

Jackie is crying when she sits on the couch. Every part of her wants to call Damien now, but this isn’t something she can tell him over the phone. It’s too big. He deserves to hear it in person. Jackie holds her head in her hands and mourns the life she had before taking the phone call, before hearing the news that she’s pregnant.

She and Damien had never talked about long-term goals in life. He had mentioned numerous times that he didn’t want to be a father or be responsible for raising a child due to his own childhood. Jackie feels somewhat the same. She has older siblings she doesn’t talk to, and her dad died when she was young, but she wasn’t ruling out having children of her own. Now wasn’t the time for it though. Now was the time for growth and change but not in the form of a child that she wasn’t sure either of them was prepared for.

What if Damien was upset? What if he were angry? Jackie doesn’t think she could stomach if he were angry at her if she saw something in his eyes directed at her besides the usual kindness and affection she was used to.

She opens her messages and sends a text to him.

‘Can you come over?’

She sees when he opens the message and the dots that pop up to indicate him responding, her heart in her throat.

‘I can’t. You’re sick, sweetheart.’

‘I’m not sick after all. I do need to talk to you.’ 

She could put this off, she could wait until tomorrow, but the longer Jackie waits the more she’ll overthink, drive herself crazy in her head going over what to do, how to solve this, because Jackie is used to fixing and doing, and solving, but this isn’t something with an easy fix.

Damien reads the message and then it’s a minute or two before he replies.

‘Are you okay, Jackie?’

Jackie shakes her head, as if he can see her, and wipes her eyes. She taps out a reply.

‘I need you, Damien.’

This time the reply comes faster than before.

‘I’ll see you soon.’

She feels ill, whether from the pregnancy or the nerves, she doesn’t know, but her stomach churns as she curls in on herself on the couch. It feels both like hours and mere minutes before Damien arrives at her apartment, knocking on her door. Jackie has stopped crying by the time he arrives, but she wipes at her face and walks to the door, hoping she looks something close to normal, so as not to scare him immediately.

Jackie opens the door and Damien already looks worried. His eyes find her face and he might not be the best at picking up on certain cues, but he knows her enough to see right through her like glass and he knows something is wrong, she can tell, with the way his mouth dips and his eyes search her face like he’s trying to find the answer to a riddle.

“What’s the matter?” Damien asks.

Jackie steps aside and lets him into her apartment. Damien shuts the door behind him and the two of them walk quietly towards the couch, as if pulled by an invisible string, no thought behind the movement, just needing to be in a space where they can talk. They sit together and Damien is quick to take her hand.

“Jackie, you can tell me anything,” Damien says, sounding a little like a plead.

“My doctor called,” Jackie says, shaking her head and feeling the pressure of the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

“I thought you said you weren’t sick?”

“I’m not,” Jackie says, biting her lip.

“Then what? I’m confused, Jackie, and kind of scared.”

“I know, I’m sorry. This is just…this is so fucking hard.”

Damien’s eyes widen and his hand goes limp in hers.

“Oh,” he says, “Oh, is this a…are we breaking up?”

“No!” Jackie says too quickly, even though they aren’t officially together so they can’t even really break up, but she knows what he means, and that isn’t this, though without context she can see why he would think that. “Damien, no. I don’t want to break up.”

Damien looks no more reassured at her words than he was when he thought they were ending things and Jackie knows it’s like a band-aid, it has to be now.

“Damien, the doctor called to tell me I’m pregnant.”

Damien is quiet, his eyes flickering with thought, and they are both comedians but not a bit of this is a joke. It’s out there. It’s real. It was real before but now it’s real for them both.

“What the fuck?” Damien says, breathlessly. “Jackie, what the fuck.”

“I don’t know!” Jackie says, “I just thought I was sick. I thought my stomach was hurting from nerves about accepting the Second City job. I didn’t think…I didn’t know.”

“I believe you,” Damien says, and his hand is shaking as he covers her knee with his palm, “How, um, far? Do you know?”

“Two months.”

Then the tears start again, and she pushes her face into her hands as she lets out a sob.

“How am I going to be able to go to New York now?”

“Fuck,” Damien says, as if the thought just occurred to him. “You didn’t tell Second City, did you?” Damien adds a moment later.

“No. I haven’t told anyone except you. I just found out. Why?”

“Don’t tell them. They can’t rescind their offer if they don’t know.”

“And what? Just show up to New York pregnant and alone and say ‘Hey, surprise! I’m pregnant, sorry!’”

Damien’s face looks momentarily wounded.

“You wouldn’t be alone, Jackie.”

She looks at him through her hands and tears. He doesn’t look away, he’s good at that, sitting in the silence no matter how thick or choking it feels.

“What are you saying? That you would be there too?”

“If you were pregnant with my kid, yeah,” Damien says simply, like it’s that easy, like that doesn’t mean giving up his job and life in California.

“Do you even want kids? We never even talked about any of this.”

Damien sighs and puts his head back against her couch, tipping his face to the ceiling and she watches his profile, the curve of his nose, the way his jaw is clenched tight.

“Not really, but it is your body and your choice, Jackie. I accept what you choose to do.”

She didn’t doubt that. Jackie is so tired, tired in every sense of the word. She leans against him, her head on his arm and Damien leans to press a kiss to the top of her head.

Jackie is religious though she has leanings far less conservative than other Christians around her, and she fully believes in giving the choice to the person carrying the child. In her heart of hearts, the moment she found out, she knew she couldn’t have an abortion.

“Damien, I…”

“I know, and it’s okay,” Damien says, rubbing a hand down her arm, “I meant it when I said it’s your choice.”

“But I don’t want to force you into being a father,” she says quietly, closing her eyes and leaning her face against his shoulder, wishing she could sink into him, disappear, that someone else could solve this for them, take her right out of the equation.

“You’re not forcing me,” Damien says sincerely, though quietly, and though she believes him because he’s never given her a reason not to believe him, at the same time he’s making promises while reeling from the news, they both are. Are either of them really in the right frame of mind for this conversation? “My dad wasn’t…great. I want to be better than that.”

Jackie tilts her face up to look at him and she isn’t surprised to see him looking down at her.

“I can’t believe this,” Jackie says.

“I know. I know neither of us planned this, but we can figure it out, Jackie. If you don’t want to go to New York now, we can talk to Ian and Anthony. I know they would let you stay.”

That meant telling them. Telling Smosh. It also meant telling them all about her and Damien, and though while Jackie is not ashamed of all of being with Damien, she likes the privacy of what they are, what they mean to each other.

“Am I…selfish for still wanting to go? Isn’t this a big mistake? What about you? I can’t ask you to give up Smosh and come with me to New York!”

“I can do voice over work there,” Damien says, “I can also stream on Twitch full time. I don’t exactly want to leave Smosh, but I can’t stay there forever. That’s never been the plan.”

Jackie hears him but her body feels cold, wracked with guilt, drowning in the fear over having Damien feel that he made a mistake, that he fucked up by leaving his life in California for her.

“I’m tired,” Jackie says a moment later. She feels exhausted, her eyes heavy.

“Do you want me to stay?” Damien asks.

“Please?”

“You don’t have to say please. I’d always stay.”

Quietly, they go to Jackie’s room, and they lay in Jackie’s bed. Damien covers her stomach with his hand as she lays back to his chest. It’s reassuring and scary at the same time. That is their child, a future they created together.

In the morning Damien wakes a few hours early so he can go back to his place to get ready for work. Jackie already has the week off because of her ‘illness’ so she stays in bed and lets him kiss her goodbye and she stares at the ceiling drenched in the blue of the impending dawn.

Is she ready to be a mother? Does she still want to go to New York? Can she really ask Damien to leave his life here? He took it well all things considered, but the fear bubbles in the back of her head, persistent, nagging at her, telling her that it’s so early and so much could change and what if Damien changes his mind mid-way through? What if Damien turns tail and runs?

Jackie is pregnant, but as she wakes in the morning, she doesn’t feel any different yet. She stands in front of the mirror in her bedroom and turns sideways, looks at her stomach. There’s really no difference, maybe she’s a little heavier, and her mind reels as she tries to imagine a piece of her and a piece of Damien growing slowly inside of her.

--

Time slips by quickly and then it is the Fourth of July. She and Damien are on a blanket at a park. It’s crowded and not exactly Damien’s scene. Still, she lays between his spread legs, her back to his chest, and his hands planted in the blanket spread across the grass, supporting them.

They haven’t really talked much about the situation beyond Damien checking in with how she’s feeling, if she’s okay, if she needs anything. They haven’t talked about what will or won’t happen. Jackie’s been looking at apartments in New York online. She had before, but that was before realizing she would need more space, two bedrooms, enough room for a baby, maybe enough room for Damien?

Above them, the fireworks explode in bursts of color. Jackie feels Damien breathing against her back, his hand at her waist. In this moment, she wants him to come with her, she wants to be selfish and ask him to stay with her, to be hers, to raise their child, and they can always do this, they can always have this, and always be together.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Damien whispers into her ear, surprising Jackie. He laughs a little, the sound warming her. “Sorry, you just seemed far away.”

“I was just thinking I guess.”

“About?”

“The future,” she says, sighing as the fireworks shake and boom above them.

“A big topic. Any specific thought?”

She turns in his hold and then she’s looking up at him, at the way his face catches the glittery remnants of the fireworks, hazel, gold, a smile of white as he looks down at her.

“I want you to come with me.”

He doesn’t look surprised, but he doesn’t look like anything. He’s good at creating a mask and wearing it, holding it like a shield to the world until he’s ready to let that part out, to let out his thoughts and opinions.

“Did you…change your mind?” she asks, fear tight in her throat.

“No!” Damien says, “it’s just, everything is so up in the air. You want to go to New York?”

“Yeah,” Jackie says. “I’ve…been looking at apartments.”

“Oh?” Damien asks.

She shrugs, “I’m on a deadline. Second City wants me there by August. I understand if it’s too fast, Damien. I understand if I need to go alone and then you can come later, but I still want you to come.”

Damien cups her face, thumbs over her cheekbone.

“Thank you, maybe it’s the timeframe freaking me out. I’m too neurodivergent to make all these decisions and actions in two months, Jackie.”

She nods, “I don’t like it either. I thought I had it all planned out.”

“And then baby D.J.J. threw a wrench in those plans.”

Jackie snorts out a laugh, her first in a long while.

“D.J.J?”

“Damien-Jackie Junior,” Damien says, like it’s obvious, “unless you like Jackie-Damien Junior?”

He’s grinning and Jackie lets out an honest to God laugh though it’s drowned out by another firework exploding overhead.

“We cannot name our kid either of those.”

Damien hums, “So how do you feel about Sephiroth? Should we name our kid after Ian because we met at Smosh?” he jokes, a warm smile on his face.

“Oh my God,” Jackie groans, pressing her face against his neck. “Ian would hate that.”

“Exactly why we should do it,” Damien says, “Ian Haas-Uweh or Ian Uweh-Haas has a ring to it.”

“Damien!” she laughs, and it’s nice to laugh, to have this moment, to joke about this unexpected situation.

--

Jackie spends all her free time packing up her apartment. She hasn’t signed a new lease yet on an apartment in New York, but she’s been looking, and has a realtor she emails constantly. It’s mid-July and she’s three months pregnant.

“How are you getting all this stuff to New York?” Damien asks as he tapes up a box of books for her.

It’s Saturday night and they are sitting on the floor of her living room, listening to a podcast that Jackie isn’t really following, and absentmindedly packing boxes.

“One of those shipping companies,” Jackie says, “they load up your boxes and deliver them to the new place.”

“Let’s hope everything arrives in one piece.”

“It better,” Jackie says, “I can’t afford to replace my furniture and buy baby shit.”

Damien laughs, but there are nerves behind it. The topic is still scary, but Jackie is trying to adjust and the best way she knows how to do that is by turning it into a joke, into something to laugh at.

“I’m not, like, expecting you to give me a bunch of money or anything,” Jackie says.

‘Yeah, I know, but I’m not going to be a deadbeat dad either,” Damien says, running a hand through his hair.

“I know that. I know it’s important to you to be a good dad and you will be.”

Damien smiles but again it’s all nerves on his face and he blinks long and uncomfortable at the pile of books that he’s stacking into a new box.

“That’s the goal. If the kid wants to know about Yu-gi-oh, I got them covered. Everything else…”

“Everything else will come with time,” Jackie says, “I don’t know what I’m doing either. I don’t think anyone does.”

“But not just anyone has a human life depending on him.”

Jackie gives him a sad smile and tapes up a box of her own with some odds and ends inside of it.

“Sorry,” Damien says.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“Of all the guys to get pregnant by, right?” Damien says his tone is self-deprecating.

Jackie sets the tape down and then she crawls to him across the rug of her floor, over boxes, until she’s perched on his lap, their chests together and her arms around his shoulders.

“Right now, there’s no one else I’d rather it be than you.”

Damien’s cheeks flush pink and he dips his head, his eyes so heavy. Jackie wishes she could erase all the weight from them. That guilt fills her again, even hanging on to him with all she has, even trying to tell him she loves him and is proud of him and believes in him. She can’t help but feel she’s robbing Damien of something. That she’s chaining him to her and hurting him in the process, like a bird with an injured wing, and she’s trying too hard to make him a pet when he’s still meant to be free.

“Thanks Jackie,” Damien says, and he kisses her cheek and then her mouth.

They exchange slow kisses, languid, like they have all the time in the world, like their lives don’t have deadlines and time limits hanging over them.

Eventually, Jackie is pulled from their embrace by the sound of her phone chiming. Normally, she wouldn’t bother checking it when she’s spending time with Damien, but with the pregnancy and the apartment hunting, she’s been a little more glued to her device. She slips from his lap and scoops up her phone on the nearby coffee table. The chime was an email and as Jackie taps the notification she gasps.

“What?” Damien asks, alarmed and jerking up to reach her.

“No, sorry! It’s good news! There was this apartment. It was so cute and perfect and I had my realtor put an offer in on it. It was a longshot, but…I got it. I got it, Damien! They accepted my offer!” Jackie says, nearly crying.

The apartment was in a good neighborhood, two bedrooms, though still too small but doable, and on the high end of her budget.

“Wow,” Damien says, a grin on his face as he hugs her, “That’s incredible, Jackie.”

“The payment will be a little higher than I expected but once you move in, it should be more manageable.”

Damien makes a face, something odd, he doesn’t think to school his features and she would never ask him to mask himself when he’s with her.

“What’s wrong?” Jackie asks.

“I just…we didn’t really talk about that. Of course I wouldn’t mind living with you, but is it smart to live somewhere that’s on the higher end of the budget? What if I can’t get there quickly enough and you struggle in the meantime?”

Jackie frowns. “I mean, I can afford it, it’ll just be a little tight. I can manage.”

It’s a symptom of something bigger. They are forced to deal with issues bigger and more serious than they were prepared for because of the baby.

“I’m not doubting you can, Jackie. I just worry about you. I’m right here. I’m supporting you.”

Jackie is kneeling next to him on the floor, and she knows he isn’t lying, but a part of her is scared, is scared because she is on a time limit, and he isn’t. She’s terrified that if she leaves maybe, it would be easier for Damien to change his mind, to not come to New York, a lot easier to bail on her and their child, but logically that goes against everything Damien has told her.

“Did I fuck up?” Damien asks, because she hasn’t said anything for several minutes.

“No, I guess I’m scared,” Jackie says.

“That I won’t come to New York?”

She shrugs and turns her face away and then Damien shifts closer.

“Hey, you can talk to me. We have to be able to talk to each other honestly.”

“I know. I am scared. I’m scared it will be easier to just stay here.”

“But then I wouldn’t see you and I wouldn’t see our kid.”

She tingles inside when he mentions their kid, their baby, they together are creating a person, someone who will be a mix of them, will interact with the world, have friends, have a job, and a life, and fuck, probably have conversations exactly like this and it’s all stemming from Jackie and Damien.

“I would never leave you alone, Jackie,” Damien says softly as he takes her in his arm and noses against her cheek, kissing her skin and then hugging her.

Jackie holds on to him, her hands stretched wide against his shoulders and across his back, clinging, terrified. It was never supposed to go this way.

--

The last day of July is a Monday morning, and it is when the leadership team decides to hold their August staff meeting. Once a month, typically at the beginning of each month, the Smosh cast and crew come together for a staff meeting to get the lay of the land for the month, go over goals, progress, and whatever else seems fit to announce.

Jackie is three months pregnant, soon to be four, and sitting at the same small table as Damien, Shayne, and Courtney. Jackie is wearing an oversized sweater to hide the barest hint of a bump from the rest of the cast and crew, and fidgets nervously at the table. She is slated to film her final Smosh video this week, and she knows that along with it, they will be announcing her departure officially both publicly and privately.

Selina manages the cast and when it’s her turn to speak she stands before the grouped tables and gives a sad smile.

“Our biggest takeaway from this meeting is that our lovely Jackie Uweh will be leaving us this month for New York,” Selina starts and Jackie smiles at her and then looks at Damien who pats her back, and Shayne and Courtney who look stunned, along with the murmuring of another cast and crew. “While we’ll miss you Jackie, we know you’re going to go so far and do so many amazing things in New York with Second City.”

Jackie feels heat on her face, tears in her eyes. She nods and she sniffs, and Courtney lets out a soft aw and Shayne pulls her in for a hug.

“No tears!” Jackie says, waving a hand at her face to calm herself down as the room laughs, “But I’m going to miss you all so much.”

The cast and crew clap for her which is very hard to sit through without falling apart. The rest of the meeting goes on and Jackie takes a breath. That was it, it was public for one half of the public that mattered. All that was left was the impending social media post on Smosh and the filming of her final Smosh video. It was strange and sad, but Jackie was going to try to enjoy it. Even now, in the meeting, she scans the faces of the people she’s worked with for so long, because eventually, she knows, she will miss this too, even something as simple as a monthly staff meeting.

--

Before it gets too late in August, before she has to leave, Damien takes Jackie to the beach. At this point she’s close to four months pregnant and she does have a small bump, her stomach rounded more than it has ever been before. She wears a one piece and stands in her flip flops on the warm sand of the beach in a one-piece suit. Damien is behind her, and he cups a hand around the small bump of her stomach.

“First family beach trip,” he teases.

Jackie laughs, “I don’t think baby can appreciate this, but I can and do.”

She’s not a big swimmer but they had been talking about the ocean and how Jackie would miss it, the salty ocean air and the warmth of the sun and the sand, even the crowds.

“Alright, well, we can bring Junior back someday to visit the ocean,” Damien says, “and how overrated it really is on a busy California Saturday.”

Jackie pictures it a moment. A real person joining them, a small child that is there’s and introducing them to this moment, this place, revisiting where they had been prior to the baby being born. The most important part to her is the idea of doing that together.

“I know we’re both members of the Dead Dad Club,” Damien says, “it’ll be nice to give Junior some good experiences.”

Jackie, she does have good memories with her dad, even if her relationship with her family is strained at best. She knows Damien does too, but to an extent he carries scars from that relationship. She knows, she can see the earnestness in his face when he talks about their child. He wants to be better than where they came from.

“That will be nice,” Jackie says, and she cups her hands around his own as they both hold the swell of her pregnant stomach and watch the waves crash into the shore.

--

All too soon Jackie films her last Smosh video. A games video with Ian, Anthony, Keith, and Arasha. It’s funny and the perfect video to end on. Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones or maybe it’s the genuine sadness she feels in the video being over as Jackie looks into the camera, Ian’s hand warm on her shoulder as she announces that it is her last Smosh video.

“If they don’t stop recording it will truly never end,” Ian says.

Jackie wipes at her eyes and they do unfortunately have to call cut. Afterwards they all hug her, and Jackie idly wonders if they can feel the press of her stomach in the hugs, she’s hiding her belly under a flowing dress, but if anyone suspects they don’t let her know they do.

Damien isn’t shooting but he’s at the studio and Jackie suspects it’s mostly for her. After the video is done, she seeks him out and sits next to him on a couch in the Games Pod. The pod is empty at the moment because of another shoot. She feels safe to rest her head on his shoulder.

“How does it feel?” Damien asks.

“Weird, sad,” Jackie says.

Damien hums and Jackie feels he might be thinking about his own eventual goodbye. They are in the middle of shooting Sword AF and she knows he can’t walk away until the season is done, but she feels it again, that guilt, that pull that tells her she’s asking too much of Damien to walk away from Smosh when it isn’t his time.

Damien picks up her hand and presses a kiss to it.

“Smosh is losing a comedic genius, but Second City is gaining an incredible talent,” Damien says.

Jackie smiles and leans over to kiss his mouth. They are still kissing when they hear someone clear their throat.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I- “Shayne stammers.

Jackie and Damien pull apart like they are burning each other, and Shayne is standing there, red faced and embarrassed.

“I was looking for Damien…” Shayne says, “I’m really sorry.”

Damien glances between Jackie and Shayne, “Okay, we can trust Shayne. He’s my best friend, he wouldn’t rat us out,” Damien says.

“No!” Shayne says quickly, “I mean, I won’t say anything if this is a secret…God, I didn’t ruin your first kiss, or something did I?”

“No Shayne,” Jackie says, her heart racing but a part of her feels good that someone else knows, someone is in on the fold, “don’t worry.”

Shayne shuffles over and drops into the office chair at Damien’s desk as he looks at them, like he’s expecting something.

Damien sighs, “We’ve been kind of seeing each other for a while.”

“Oh shit,” Shayne says carefully, “that’s great. Congrats.”

“There’s more,” Damien says and Jackie tenses up, “but I don’t want to talk about it here.”

Shayne nods and Jackie laces her fingers with Damien’s, squeezing his hand. Shayne watches their movements and his eyes are studious, she can practically see the wheels turning in his brain, and how easily Shayne can piece so many things together.

“Jackie’s leaving though,” Shayne says.

“Yeah,” Jackie confirms and Damien nods.

There’s a lot unsaid, a lot that exists outside of Jackie in that moment. As close as she is to Damien, Shayne and Damien have a best friend bond that runs as deep as any ocean in California. They are perfectly capable of having a conversation with just their eyes, Jackie’s seen Ian and Anthony do it, she knows what it looks like, and she can see when Shayne relents and backs off to wait to be told more before jumping to any conclusions.

“Did you say you needed to find me?” Damien asks.

“Yeah, they need you on set.”

Damien nods and then looks at Jackie and she releases his hand.

“I’ll see you later?”

She nods and he presses a kiss to her cheek before standing to follow Shayne back to the Games set. Shayne throws her a wave and Jackie returns it, feeling both nervous and relieved at the same time.

--

Turns out Damien told Shayne everything. He had asked Jackie’s permission first and she had given it, and Damien had spilled to Shayne about the pregnancy, about moving, about leaving Smosh, and following Jackie to New York.

“What did he say?” Jackie asks, grabbing a slice of pizza out of the box and setting it on her plate.

Damien shrugs, “That he was happy for us. I know he means it.”

“Did he think it was a bad idea.”

“You know Shayne’s not like that.”

Jackie takes a bite of pizza. “I just don’t see him liking the idea of his best friend leaving.”

“Shayne and I can exist separately,” Damien teases, “besides, FaceTime exists. The baby’s gotta know Uncle Shayne after all.”

Jackie laughs at the thought, but it makes sense, and the thought warms her. It gives her an idea of community, a feeling of family outside of biological, outside of she and Damien.

At this point the majority of Jackie’s apartment is packed up and boxed and the pod shipping company has already picked up her things. Jackie has her tickets for a flight next week for her and her two cats. Damien has already agreed to drive them to the airport.

Tonight, they are sitting at a rickety table she’s leaving behind and eating pizza and listening to music on Damien’s laptop set on the kitchen counter. It feels more real than ever before. Her apartment is bare bones. The social media post on Smosh’s Instagram has dropped and people know she’s leaving, some are happy, some aren’t, but the overall response is positive, and Jackie has been riding the wave of love all week.

They threw her a surprise party last week and Jackie had to think of an excuse to not down shots with Erin and Tommy. She used the excuse of wanting to remember the moment, the people, the party. It was easier because of Damien and Spencer, because Shayne also decided not to drink, made it less strange that Jackie also wasn’t drinking.

Her life in California was slowly being wrapped up, all the loose ends tied, except for the biggest, the most important, Damien.

“I’m going to tell them after we finish filming Season one of Sword,” Damien says around a bite of pizza.

Jackie nods.

“They aren’t going to want you to go.”

Damien shrugs, “They can hire a replacement. White, neuro spicy, guys are a dime a dozen in L.A. Jackie.”

“You’re way more than that and you know it,” she says rolling her eyes, but she reaches out and squeezes his hand.

“Smosh doesn’t live and die with me,” Damien says, “they’ll be fine.”

--

It’s the last week of August and on an early California morning Damien drops Jackie and her cats off at the airport. He helps her carry her luggage in and they stand in front of one another way too early in the morning. There’s a lot she has to say but it all feels trapped in her throat.

“I’ll see you soon,” Damien says, “I’ve already got my ticket for two weeks from now.”

It’s a visit, not to move, but Jackie will take that for now. She nods and she wants to cry in this airport surrounded by people. Her cats mewl pitifully, their sleeping medication from the vet starting to hit them. Damien smiles down at the carries at Jackie’s feet.

“It’s going to be okay girls,” he says to the cats before he pulls Jackie in for a hug, “you’re going to be okay.”

“You have a lot of faith in me.”

“For good reason!” Damien says, cupping her face and kissing her.

Jackie tries to drink in the kiss, the feeling of him against her and his arm at the small of her back as he keeps her close to him. It’s hard, so hard to leave him. Despite her best efforts she feels tears prick the corners of her eyes.

“Don’t cry. I’ll cry too,” Damien whispers.

“Sorry,” she says against his mouth, and she steals another kiss from him.

They don’t have long, and Jackie can feel the ticking of the clock, the sand escaping the hourglass, every second putting distance between the two of them. Overhead they announce Jackie’s plane taking off soon and Damien presses another kiss to her mouth.

“Will you call me when you make it to the new place?”

“Of course, I’ll give you a virtual tour.”

“I’m honored to be given the first tour.”

Jackie smiles, but it’s sad and it matches the look on Damien’s face. She presses up on her tip toes and kisses him again. He tugs her close a hand in her hair, her face in his neck. His mouth moves to her ear.

“Worst timing in the world award goes to me, but…I love you, Jackie Uweh.”

Jackie sniffles into his chest. She really has to go but she doesn’t want to.

“I love you too, Damien.”

Then, he lets her go, then she picks up her cats and her luggage and forces herself to turn away from him, to walk to her gate, to leave California and him. Jackie can feel Damien’s eyes on her for a long time, she can feel him standing there but she can’t turn around because if she does, she knows she’ll run right back and she’ll change her mind and she’ll give up on the idea of leaving without him.

She doesn’t look. She makes it to her gate. Half an hour later Jackie is on the plane with her cats safely at her feet in their carrier, a book in her lap though she feels sick and doesn’t want to read at all. She thinks of Damien, imagines him walking alone back to his car, driving back to his own place, that sad look on his face, in his eyes.

As Jackie sits on the plane. She feels a fluttering in her stomach, her hand pressing to her belly, she realizes with a start what it is. She is feeling their child move for the first time.

--

The apartment in New York is what it looked like online. That night Jackie unpacks just enough to get by, some sheets, a pillow, her cats’ beds and food and water bowls. She lays on the bed she paid extra to be set up for her when she arrived. New York smells different, feels different. She lies in her bare bones bed, in a box stuffed apartment in New York and she feels so desperately home sick and exhausted.

Still, she fishes out her phone and hits the FaceTime button to call Damien. He picks up and she sees his own tired hazel eyes, the bags under them, the way he smiles when he sees her.

“Sweetheart,” he says fondly, “how are you?”

“Tired,” she says, “but we made it.”

“How’s the new place?”

“Full of boxes but no trick, it looks like it did on the listing.”

“Good,” Damien says, “listen, it’s okay if you don’t want to show me around tonight.”

“Thanks,” she says, rolling on to her back and holding the phone above her. “Guess what?”

“Hmm?”

“I, ah, I felt the baby kick today,” Jackie says excitedly, though a little nervous, not wanting to hurt him or make him sad that he wasn’t there to feel it too.

Damien’s eyes light up. “You did? When?”

“On the plane. It felt weird and it only lasted a second, but it was like, I don’t know. Some sign from the universe that I was going to be okay and that you were with me.”

Damien’s eyes soften and he rubs at them.

“I am with you. I’m always with you.”

Jackie rubs her pregnant belly and nods, “You are.”

--

Jackie has been in New York for a month now. She’s settled in enough to get by, unpacked some boxes, started to buy a couple of pieces of furniture for the second bedroom that would become the nursery. The cats seem to notice her loneliness because they are quick to curl in her lap and next to her on the bed or couch.

Most importantly Second City: New York is amazing. The people are hilarious and kind, and though Jackie misses Smosh, the Second City cast is easy to love and are more than welcoming. She’s five months pregnant and it’s September, still blazing hot in the city, and Jackie can’t really hide her pregnancy anymore. She lets the bosses at Second City know about her pregnancy and it doesn’t go as horribly as she had thought.

Emma, a girl on the cast alongside Jackie, is eager to throw her a baby shower that she’s been planning for next month. No one has really asked about the father of her baby, but Jackie makes it simple, he’s still in California, he’ll move here soon. A part of her hates what it looks like, like she’s only fooling herself or that she’s lying and she’s a single mom. She doesn’t care if people think she is, but she isn’t, and Damien is active in picking out furniture and he sends her articles, and she FaceTimes with him during doctor’s appointments, so he can hear what the doctors have to say.

Damien has come to New York. He came two weeks after she left, just as he promised. He helped her unpack a shitload of boxes, putting away heavy things he doesn’t think Jackie should be lifting. They watch TV together, he plays with her cats, and she tells her stories about Smosh and what everyone has been up to, Jackie shows him her favorite pizza place near her apartment, and they had hit up a few museums. He had come to Second City and watched them build the set and get things settled, had introduced himself though a handful of her new co-workers already knew him from Smosh or otherwise.

While Damien was in New York it was easy to pretend he wasn’t leaving. It was easy to believe that he was going to be here for good. Jackie knew it wasn’t true, not yet, but soon, eventually, it would be.

--

It’s four in the morning when Jackie hears her phone ringing. Groggily, she picks it up and sees Shayne’s name flicker across the screen. Jackie’s heart races as she slides the answer button across the screen.

“Shayne?” she says, her voice thick with sleep.

“Jackie, hey, I’m sorry. I probably woke you up, didn’t I?”

“Well, sort of, Shayne. It’s four in the morning.”

“Shit,” Shayne curses, “I forgot about the time difference.”

Jackie is still nervous as she lays in bed, her phone to her ear.

“Is everything okay?”

Shayne hesitates across the line and Jackie sits up in the darkness of her bedroom, disturbing her cats that are laying by her feet.

“Shayne?” she tries again.

“It’s Damien. He’s okay, but I’m worried about him. He’s been…really stressed and acting off and I’m worried about him, Jackie.”

Shayne sounds serious and Jackie knows he would never call her and tell her this unless he meant it, unless he really was worried, and if Shayne is worried about Damien, Jackie has every right to also be worried about him.

“Do you think he’s up?” Jackie asks, her voice tight and her heart racing against her chest.

“Yes,” Shayne says simply, “I don’t think he’s been sleeping well.”

Worry tugs at her belly and Jackie takes a deep breath to calm herself.

“I’m sorry,” Shayne says again, “the last thing I want to do is worry you.”

“I know, Shayne,” Jackie says, “if you’re calling me then it’s serious.”

“Yeah,” Shayne says, “I think he misses you and he’s struggling.”

Guilt slices through her and she breathes again.

“Thanks Shayne, I’m going to call him.”

Shayne bids her a good night and she hangs up with him. Jackie’s heart is racing as she taps Damien’s number, a regular call, her stomach not strong enough for a FaceTime and to see him like this, to see him on edge, and tired, and missing her.

The phone rings three times. It feels like forever before Damien finally answers.

“Jackie? It’s four in the morning there.”

“I know. Are you okay?”

Damien is quiet.

“Damien?” she tries carefully.

“Shayne called you, didn’t he?”

Jackie bites her lip. He sounds so tired, so miserable.

“What’s going on, Damien?”

Damien sighs deeply. “I…I don’t know. Fuck. I don’t know. I’m fucking pacing through the house and it’s one in the morning, but I can’t sleep. I just…fuck, I’m sorry. You don’t need this shit.”

Damien sounds so wrung out, so unlike himself that Jackie immediately understands why Shayne called her.

“Dames,” she says quietly, “I need to know shit like this, of course I do. If you’re struggling…I need to know.”

She can hear him across the line, so far away, so far from her and she longs for him, to touch him, and hold him, and hold all his crumbling pieces together until he’s whole again.

“I don’t know what’s going on in my head,” Damien says weakly.

“Just tell me why you can’t sleep. Tell me anything,” she pleads.

“I got hired for a voice for an anime on Netflix,” Damien says.

“Damien! That’s amazing!”

“It’s a long job, Jackie…and it requires me to be here…and Smosh is putting pressure on me to stay on for a season two of Sword AF because it did really well. I don’t know what the fuck to do, Jackie! I’m…I am letting everyone down no matter what I do!”

“Breathe,” she tells him, though her heart is flashing with pain. His career is picking up the same as hers and she left California for her career, but his is there, and how can she ask him to step away from that? She can’t. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not! I’m not there and I told you I would be there! It’s September and the baby is due in January and what if I can’t be there until then Jackie? Until later?”

Jackie closes her eyes and allows a few silent tears to slip out. She was worried about this. Like her worst fear coming to light, playing out right before her eyes.

“Stay in California, do your work, Damien.”

“Jackie,” Damien says desperately.

“I can’t ask you to give up your life,” she says, “you weren’t ready to leave California like I was.”

“But…the baby.”

“We can be a long-distance family. You can come once a month to see the baby. We can FaceTime. I’ll send pictures. We’ll get together for holidays.”

Even as she speaks, she cries, and she wants to hide it from him but she can’t. The thought breaks her heart but it’s the best thing for him. She can’t ruin his life or his career.

“No, I can’t do that! What kind of man or dad would I be if I did that?!”

Jackie wipes her eyes. “What do you want me to say, Damien? There will always be more jobs in California for you because you’re so talented and you deserve to follow your dreams the same way I am. I don’t want you to come here and hate me and resent me because I made you give up your life.”

There is quiet and Jackie sobs into the darkness of her bedroom.

“I told you I’d be a good dad, better than my dad,” Damien says.

“I know that” Jackie says. “I still believe that.”

Damien sounds like he’s crying.

“I’m just…I’m fucking mentally ill, and you and the baby deserve anyone but me as their partner and dad.”

“Don’t say that” she says, “I love you, Damien. I’d untangle your thoughts and rest your mind if I could.”

“I know,” Damien croaks, “I’m sorry, Jackie. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Her heart is heavy, cracked, tangibly broken apart at the seams. They tried and they couldn’t do it, and it’s okay, it’s no one’s fault. She sniffs across the line.

“I love you,” Jackie whispers into the darkness.

“I love you too, Jackie Uweh,” Damien says, crying across the line.

There’s nothing left to say or do at this moment, at four in the morning.

“Can you promise me you’ll be alright? That you’ll text Shayne and tell him you’ll be alright tonight and I can call you tomorrow after work?”

“Yes, of course, fuck, of course, Jackie. I’m not going to…I would never…”

“I know, I trust you. He loves you and I love you. It will be okay, Damien.”

“I’m sorry,” Damien says again, “I love you.”

Jackie quietly bids him good night and then lays down and she sobs into the night, sobs until she tires herself out and falls asleep.

--

Damien had an emergency session with his therapist the day after their late-night phone call. She talks to him, and he lets her know that he had his medication dose upped. That his therapist said it was an anxiety attack. He always sounds tired. They don’t talk about where this leaves them, how he has more work to do, how he might not make it to New York until after she has the baby, if at all.

Jackie spends a sleepy and rainy Sunday in New York painting the nursery and she doesn’t ask Damien for his opinion on the color. Jackie has splotches of paint on her arms and her overalls and the baby kicks as she listens to music and sings loud as she paints. It’s a neutral sunny color that is pale and warm and reminds her of California. The crib is gray and the company she ordered it from had put it together when they delivered. Damien had ordered her a matching rocking chair and when Jackie is tired, she sits in it and rocks, hands on her belly, closing her eyes and wanting the universe to tell her what to do, how to make this all work.

--

In October her Second City co-workers and the small group of friends she’s made in New York throw Jackie an in-house baby shower. It is quiet and Jackie asks for pictures to not be posted as she doesn’t want anyone to know about the pregnancy until she can untangle the threads of her relationship with Damien and what it all means. She’s six months pregnant. He’s been dutifully recording his Netflix show. They text all the time. She watches all his Instagram stories, and he watches her, but she feels a disconnect that wasn’t there before, a gap building between them.

She told him about the baby shower, and she knew he couldn’t make it, didn’t expect him to. Jackie gets a handful of presents from her co-workers, neutral clothes, cute toys, and a baby sized plastic bathtub. She’s thankful, beyond thankful. She feels that adage about a village raising a child, and that’s what she feels now.

That night Jackie FaceTime’s Damien and she shows him each individual present, article of clothing, the furniture. Damien is quiet, but he smiles and ‘Awws’ at the right times, but he seems so tired, and that gap between them feels huge, too wide, too big to cross. She doesn’t have the energy to dissect it.

After she shows him the gifts she looks into his eyes. They are so distant, and so sad.

“Damien,” she says, unsure of her own words or what she might say.

He looks at her and he’s both terrified and sad all at the same time.

Jackie, she bites her lip.

“Get some sleep okay?”

Damien nods, “I will. I’m pretty tired. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

She nods, “Good night, Damien.”

“Good night, Jackie.”

They hang up but Jackie doesn’t go to sleep. She folds their baby’s clothes and she tucks each outfit into the little dresser against the wall. When she’s done, she feels lost, and she’s scared, and for some reason there’s one person she wants to talk to.

“Jackie?” Ian says in surprise.

“Hey! Hi, Ian.”

“You, okay?” Ian asks, because they don’t do this. Ian hated it whenever she would send him a voice memo, they’d never talked on the phone, but he isn’t her boss anymore and she wants to talk to him.

“Yes, and no. Second City is good, great even…I just…”

Ian waits and Jackie can hear him breathing across the line.

“Did you feel the distance between you and Anthony when it was happening?” she asks, out of the blue.

“Um…” Ian says, “Jackie, what is this?”

“I just need to know.”

“Yeah,” Ian says, and he sounds tired too, and she can almost see the walls going up to protect the parts of him that still ache from this memory, the same way she feels, the same way Damien feels. “I could feel him getting further away from me, but it felt like I couldn’t stop it. Sort of like a car crash waiting to happen and I was powerless. I was just watching, waiting for impact.”

Jackie hums.

“What’s going on, Jackie? Are you okay?” Ian asks, genuine concern in his voice.

“I am, I promise. I just have sort of the same feeling lately.”

“For Anthony and me…we had to fall apart to come back together. We had to decide to come back together on our own.”

“And you’re living happily ever after,” Jackie says, smiling a smile that he can’t see.

“Stop that,” Ian says, and Jackie can picture him rolling his eyes. “Maybe it can be like that for you?”

“Maybe,” Jackie says, aware she’s leaving too much out for any of this to make sense. “I miss you guys at Smosh.”

“We miss you,” Ian says, “but you’re doing so great. We’re so proud of you.”

“Thanks Dad,” Jackie says and tries to keep the thread of tears out of her voice.

Ian sounds like he has more to say, but then Jackie catches a voice in the background.

“Ian! I think the soup is ready!” Anthony is calling for him.

Jackie smiles, again, it’s like she can see the blush on Ian’s face.

“You better go. Don’t want your soup to scorch,” she teases.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ian says. “Listen…if you ever need me or need anything…don’t hesitate to call, Jackie, okay?”

“Okay, Ian, thank you.”

The two of them hang up and Jackie sets her phone down on the carpet next to her. She lays down on her back on the carpet. Ian’s words echo in her head. She can’t force it. She can’t force him. If she and Damien are supposed to be together…would the universe find a way?

--

It is early November and Jackie has a doctor’s appointment. She had been wanting to keep the gender of the baby a secret from herself and wait until she gave birth, but she was too excited, and she wanted to know and booked an ultrasound appointment at a nearby clinic to find out the gender. She had told Damien about the appointment and asked if she wanted her to call him. He did and while they’re in the room she calls, it rings and rings, but she never gets an answer.

“He is probably at work,” Jackie says, as she disconnects the call. “It’s okay. We can go on with the appointment. I’ll, uh, tell him later.” Her face burns and tears well in her eyes.

The worker gives her the ultrasound and smiles at Jackie as she turns the screen to face her.

“There,” she says, pointing on the screen to the outline of a baby who clearly is sucking their thumb, “that is your daughter.”

“Daughter?” Jackie says and the technician nods as Jackie cries. A daughter. Their daughter.

She’s cute, sucking her thumb. Jackie thinks she can see the curve of her lips and maybe Damien’s nose? Maybe she just wants it to be, wants to see him here, have him represented in some way.

She orders prints of the sonogram. After the appointment, in the taxi, Jackie calls Damien again. Still no answer.

She texts him.

‘I have something to tell you.’

By the time she gets home she still hasn’t heard from him. Jackie sticks the photos to her fridge with a magnet she got at a museum in California. She eats dinner, checks Instagram, but Damien hasn’t posted. A part of her is annoyed, a bigger part is worried. She opens her chat with Shayne and almost asks him if he’s seen Damien, but she shakes her head and locks her phone.

Instead, she thinks of Ian, his advice. Don’t force it.

She turns a movie on. She rubs her belly softly and carefully.

Outside, it begins to snow. The first snow of the year.

--

Jackie falls asleep during her movie and wakes up to the sound of her phone ringing. She sees Damien’s name on the screen and Jackie rolls her eyes, even as her heart leaps in her chest. She answers it.

“Damien?”

“Hey! I’m so sorry, I had an extra long session today,” Damien says.

“It’s okay.” Though it hurts, a slight sting that she wasn’t important enough, their kid wasn’t important enough for Damien to answer until several hours later.

“What did you want to tell me?” Damien asks.

“I, uh, had that appointment this morning. The ultrasound to find out the baby’s gender?” Jackie reminds him.

“Oh, fuck. Oh my God. Jackie. I’m so sorry!”

“You forgot?” Jackie asks, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy.”

“Yeah,” Jackie says. “Well, do you want to know what-“

“Hang on, Jackie,” Damien says, cutting her off.

“What the fuck?” Jackie says, an anger rising in her. She thinks she can hear him breathing across the line.

“Damien, you know what. I think I’m going to let you go. I-“

Then, Jackie hears a knock on her door.

“Okay,” Damien says across the line, “I’m back. The girls were fighting I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I…hang on. I heard a knock on my door.”

“Are you expecting someone?” Damien asks.

“No,” Jackie says carefully, her heart speeding up. Prior to moving here she’s heard a million true crime stories about single women being attacked, being victims and targeted. She swallows and cups her belly.

“Oh…well, do you have one of those little peep holes in your door?” Damien asks.

“Yeah,” Jackie says, “I have pepper spray too.”

“That will go in your face too and might blind you,” Damien says, his voice worried.

“Then, what? A knife from the kitchen.”

“Yeah, that should do the trick.”

Jackie is scared as she sneaks towards the kitchen and grabs a knife from the holder. She creeps back to the door and leans against it, Damien still on the phone as she peers into the peep hole.

Jackie pulls back quickly, gasping, dropping the knife as she unlocks the door and tugs it open in one motion.

On the other side is Damien. He’s grinning. His phone is to his ear, his hair is silver now. Snow sticks to the black of his long trench coat jacket.

“Damien?” she asks, her voice wobbling without her permission.

“Hi, please don’t stab me?”

Jackie sobs and pulls him in for a hug. He wraps his arms around her, tucks his face into her shoulder, rubs her back as she cries against him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I did it, Jackie. I left.”

“What?” Jackie asks, holding his shoulders as she pulls back to look into his eyes.

“I talked to Ian and Anthony. I’m sorry, but I told them everything. They swore to secrecy, but don’t tell them I told you so, I think they are more scared of pissing you off than pissing me off.” He laughs a little and the sound fills Jackie with something, even as the cold of the snow melts under Jackie’s touch and Damien’s jacket gets damp under her fingers.

“I told them to wait until January to announce my departure,” Damien says.

“What about the Netflix show?” Jackie asks, unable to take in anything he’s telling her beyond that he quit Smosh and he’s here.

“I told them either I record here and send them my takes or I’m out,” Damien says with a shrug, “You need me. I need to be here for you and our…” he trails off.

“Daughter,” Jackie fills in, “we’re having a daughter.”

“Daughter,” Damien says, and he picks her up into his arms, spins her gently, shutting the door behind him. “I wanted to know. I didn’t forget about the appointment, Jackie. I was making arrangements, and I was packing to get to the airport, to get to you.”

She wipes her eyes as he sets her down.

“That’s why I couldn’t get a hold of you?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Damien says.

“It was. Trust me,”

“Yeah, you almost stabbed me,” Damien says around a laugh.

“I thought you were a burglar or something!”

“Because burglar’s knock?”

“Shut up,” she says and pulls him in by his collar, kissing him, desperately, needy, his face and mouth cold from the frigid November air.

It’s a quick shedding of clothes. It’s a locking of mouths and warm hands, and so much relief and joy shoved into their touches. Jackie leads him to her bedroom, and he sets her on her own bed as if she is a precious jewel as she shucks out of his clothes and then goes for hers.

--

Afterwards, she lays on his chest, her hand open against the pale of skin.

“You’re here to stay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Damien says, rubbing her back, “I mean, I have to go back and pack more shit and get the girls. But I’m here, Jackie. I’m going to be here. I’m going to stay here.”

She looks up at him from where her chin is on his chest.

“And you won’t regret it?”

“Not for one second, Jackie. You, our daughter, and our cats, that’s what matters to me. It should have been my number one priority from the get-go. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jackie says, “you’re here now.”

Damien picks up her hand and presses a kiss to the center of her palm.

“So, since we’re having a girl…I guess naming her after Ian is off the table.”

Jackie laughs and it’s like all the weight she has been holding melts away, evaporates into nothing. Before long, Damien laughs too.

--

On January 19^th, 2024, Jackie delivers her and Damien’s daughter.

--

Their daughter is just shy of five months old when Jackie and Damien fly back to California to be there for the one-year celebration of an independent Smosh. The company is filming a retrospective on the year and invited both of them to take part in the celebration. They’re also planning to film a handful of videos on the channel during their visit.

“Look, Junie,” Damien says, pointing out to the water, “that’s the ocean.” He tilts June just a bit so she can see the water. She’s little enough that she marvels at the water, at the seagulls overhead, a far cry from the city they live in. “She loves it,” Damien says, “too bad the water is too cold.”

“Way too cold,” Jackie says, adjusting June’s flowered little baby sized sun hat that’s protecting her from the harsh California sun.

She blinks her hazel eyes up at her mother, her tanned chubby little fists reaching for Jackie.

Damien passes her off easily and Jackie takes her, booping June on her cute nose, the same nose as her father’s. June is perfect and beautiful with dark curls and light eyes and a skin tone somewhere between her parents. She laughs at the cats; she hates sweet potatoes. She’s everything Jackie could ever ask for.

 “You get to meet all your extended family tomorrow, Junie,” Damien says, “your Uncle Shayne is very excited.”

“So are Grandpa Ian and Grandpa Anthony,” Jackie adds.

Damien cackles, “Oh, they are going to hate that.”

She smirks and presses a kiss to her daughter’s chubby cheek as she shrieks happily at a nearby gull.

“He already hates that we honored him with her middle name,” Jackie says, “what’s one more thing?”

They had given their daughter the middle name Illianna, committed to the bit to name her after Ian, but in a way honoring the place they met, and the person who brought them together. Ian does hate it, but secretly, Jackie thinks, maybe a small part of him is honored at the same time.

Damien’s phone starts ringing, and he answers a FaceTime call to see it’s Shayne calling.

“Hey, bud!” Damien says.

“Hey! A bunch of us are meeting at Buca. You guys in?” Shayne asks.

“Of course,” Damien says.

“Bring the baby!” Courtney shouts from somewhere behind Shayne.

“Of course, Junie’s first Buca trip,” Damien says, “she wouldn’t be a Haas-Uweh if she didn’t love Buca from a young age.”

Shayne snorts, “Well, if we get here before you guys do, we’ll save you all a seat.”

Damien nods, “See you soon, buddy.”

Shayne nods, and they hang up.

Damien pockets his phone and then offers Jackie his hand.

“Ready to go?”

Jackie smiles, nods, takes Damien’s hand and squeezes as she cradles their daughter with her other arm.

“Absolutely.”