Work Text:
Hannah doesn't immediately panic. For all her rain-soaked fuck-it of a breakdown the year before, she is generally a very level-headed individual --- and this expands to personal crises as much as any other. True, this might, possibly, somewhat stem, to some degree, from a slightly unhealthy level of omnipresent denial, but the point stands: Hannah is not the sort to panic prematurely, or to jump to conclusions, or to leap for the worst-case scenario.
As such, when her period doesn't hit on March 14th, she reminds herself that it has been a day or two late before.
When March 16th joins March 14th and 15th in periodless obscurity, she reminds herself that three days isn't that much longer than one or two.
Even five days isn't terribly concerning --- a full work week, spent white knuckling her Bic and being very, very calm about the whole thing --- and she spends those days reminding herself of all the many, many things that might explain away the situation with innocuous mundanity. (She's been stressed, and sleep-deprived, and not eating well, and all because her new job comes with a dream salary and a nightmare workload and--)
Hannah doesn't immediately panic, but, all the same, it is important to recognise that she is a realist. And so, as that full work week turns into a full week, she maybe, possibly, somewhat begins to panic. A little bit. A perfectly reasonable and realistic amount. Because the thing is--
The thing is.
The thing is, she's just started a new job! A good job --- a great job --- at one of the premiere law firms in the country! Not Watkins, Goldberg, and Schmidt, no --- she's not quite that pathetic, thanks, and she still considers the look on Richard's face when she got around to turning him down to be one of her most satisfying memories to date --- but a damn good one, with plenty of upward mobility if she does her time well enough in the start-up trenches and fingers in enough pies that she'll more or less be able to set her own future after the slog is over! A fabulous job that will turn into a phenomenal career, and all she has to do is get through this rough patch at the beginning! And if that means that she barely has time for herself these days --- and if that means she's left to feel like shit for the way that definitely doesn't leave much time for the combo deal that is herself and Jacob --- then that's okay, that's fine, that's good, but it definitely doesn't leave room for a child, too! Let alone the fact that she's barely a year into her relationship with Jacob --- a strong relationship, a healthy relationship, but so very, very new a relationship --- let alone when she's not entirely able to fight her own uncertainties about life and the future and--
And it's possible that Hannah is panicking now.
It's not really fair, she knows that. At least as far as Jacob is concerned anyway, since he's been nothing but supportive as she applied for jobs and interviewed for jobs and started one such job and cried over that job in sleep-deprived hangriness (which he had taken in infuriatingly perfect stride without a smudge to his infuriatingly unflappable amiability and somehow known how to handle --- because of course he did --- and she'd fallen asleep over an infuriatingly good stir-fry whipped up in, like, two seconds and a smidgeon of peanut oil). He hasn't even made a big deal of the fact that, with work meetings and video conferences and training certifications and onboarding and precedent searches and everything else that keeps being laid at her feet, they've barely seen each other in weeks. To the extent they have, it's been her crawling in on their pre-scheduled date nights (which have, in this economy, been reduced to a singular date night), half-alive and entirely too late. (She's had enough self-respect to feel bad about scarfing down whatever incredibly delicious meal he's put together and kept warm for her before passing out against his still-ridiculously-comfortable Brookstone pillows; she just hasn't had the energy to do anything more than sleepily uncoordinated making-out and sickeningly PG-13-rom-com levels of cuddling.)
And yet... How does that make the basis of a real family? One larger than just the two of them, anyway?
Hannah's own family has always been... messy, to say the very least. Even before the David Lindhagen debacle, Hannah had known her parents weren't actually happy anymore --- had known that there was a burgeoning, unspoken discontent in Emily Weaver's eyes when she contemplated her life, her future, her husband. Had known that Cal had some blind-spot that kept him from noticing, too. (Perhaps it was naivete, but, until the David Lindhagen thing, Hannah hadn't really thought her mom would do anything about it. Perhaps it was cynicism, but, until the David Lindhagen thing, she didn't think her dad had noticed, either.)
And for all they tried to hide it from her, and from Robbie and Molly, they hadn't managed it. Not long-term, anyway, and especially not because Hannah is relatively sure she'd figured it out before either of her parents had. And this left her in the awkward position of watching her parents drift apart and not being able to do anything to stop it. (Left her in the awkward position, too, of being more or less convinced that it was because of her. Not her fault, no --- not really anyone's fault --- but because her entire presence had... ripples. Because her parents had married so young, so suddenly, so abruptly. Because it had been a necessary marriage instead of a carefully considered one. Because one mistake when they were too young to know any better meant a lifetime commitment when they did.)
She'd told herself she'd never do the same. That she'd find a partner on whom she could rely. That she'd carve out a practical relationship for herself: safe and secure and, sure, maybe not happy but at least content. It's part of why she'd stayed with Richard for as long as she did, even though they hadn't really... clicked. He'd had the makings of a good partner, with his steady job and good pay-check, and he'd been fine with her outright refusal to even think about starting a family before she got her career going. He had been everything Cal hadn't been --- at the start, at the middle, even (though she hadn't quite known it yet) at the (temporary) end --- and she'd been fine with a lack of passion if it meant a lack of regrets. She hadn't thought there was anything better.
She knows better now, of course. Not just because of her own experiences --- though, true, her relationship with Jacob is already enough to correct the idea --- but because it's hard to deny the existence of a love-filled relationship when her parents are looking at each other like that. When Cal has retained enough of Jacob's instruction to not take Emily for granted, to put in the effort; when Emily has remembered why she fell for him in the first place, why she cares enough to stick through the moments when she forgets.
And yet it's not quite enough to fix that instinctive sense: the understanding that rushing into things --- making spur-of-the-moment decisions on the basis of necessity or pure emotion or anything other than calculation and logic --- only ruins things. Ruins relationships and families, and leaves children stuck in the middle, and-- and is stupid!
And, again, it's only been a year! Even if she were considering long-term things with Jacob --- marriage or family or whatever else --- there is absolutely no guarantee that Jacob would even feel the same! What if he didn't? What if he's not really into the idea of a family at all? Or with her? Hell, he's been more than acquainted with the utter disaster that is her mother and father and ensuing family dynamics, and he's also more than familiar with the reason their marriage reached the point it's at! Hell (x2), he's also practically the only reason it hasn't actually collapsed (even if he did almost help it along first)! If anyone had justification to draw the line, it'd be him!
She hates herself a little for thinking it --- hates how much it makes her sound like her father when they first started dating (and then has a more-than-a-little crisis about that because... Is this what her future will be like? What her child's future will be like? A lifetime of repeating her mistakes, Jacob's mistakes --- of embodying their flaws and hating them for those very traits? Can they even do this?!) --- but she really doesn't mean it in a bad way. She really wouldn't blame him, and the fact that she has doubts isn't really about him at all. It's about her, and her family, and nature, and nurture, and--
Okay, yeah, definitely panicking.
She's honestly lucky that today's her very, very rare day off. It's a perverse sort of luck, since she now gets to wile away the hours, not in sleeping or cooking or relaxing or even getting ahead on work, but in panicking (yes, okay, fine, that's what she's doing, okay?), curled up in an appropriately foetal position on the bed, trying very, very hard not to think about the fact that she'll have to go out to a convenience store and get an actual pregnancy test soon, and talk to her doctor, and change the dosage on her anxiety meds, and talk to her parents, and talk to Jacob, and--
The doorbell rings.
It does not precede the sound of footsteps, as might a package delivery, nor another ring of the doorbell or a knock, as might a salesman or census taker or colleague. It is, in fact, not followed by anything, save for a very respectively (and precise) two minutes of silence and then, through that polite quiet: "Hannah?"
Speak of the devil.
Jacob already sounds concerned, which does not bode well for their upcoming conversation, though he at least does her the ever-kind courtesy of not making it too obvious. She wouldn't notice it at all if she didn't know him as well as she does, but notice it she does, and regret it she does even more.
"You there?" he asks a moment later, and he must really be worried to be breaking his two-requests-for-entry-and-no-more rule.
It's this that gets her moving. She must look a mess --- hair mussed and tangled, still in her pyjamas, probably pale and definitely bloated and almost certainly with bags under her eyes and so forth --- and she knows he'll see it all immediately, but she pulls herself over to the door and works it open anyway.
"Hi," she says, and the fact that her smile is weak hopefully doesn't change the fact that it's there. "What's up?"
He shrugs, looking... rather uncharacteristically uncertain, actually. "Thought you might still want breakfast," he says, and then he's lifting what seems to be an honest-to-God picnic basket from halfway behind his back and she feels her stomach plummet.
The fact of the matter is --- as she finds herself abruptly remembering with the rush of sudden and immediately regretful realisation --- they'd had plans, hadn't they? Breakfast plans, at his place because it's bigger than hers, arranged precisely because she doesn't have to go to work today, and expressly intended as the prelude to a day spent wholly together because they've hardly seen each other in so long, and all very much something she'd been excited about until... well, until she started panicking. And now she's back to panicking: about the fact that she's definitely fucked everything up by forgetting their date and getting (possibly) pregnant and not calling and getting (probably) pregnant and being too focused on work and getting pregnant and--
"Hi," she says again, and smiles, and realises too late that it's not actually a reasonable response. She steps back anyway, swinging the door back with her. "Come in."
He smiles. It probably should be suave. It comes across slightly strained. "Thank you."
She clicks the door carefully closed behind him. "I'm sorry," she says, almost immediately. "I just-- I wasn't thinking."
The picnic basket gets set carefully on her counter. "Don't worry about it," he says, and the words sound pretty damn genuine. Enough so that it doesn't actually help because she just feels worse --- and even more so when he starts unpacking the damn brunch and it's a collection of so much food: eggs and bacon and waffles, complete with all of the fixings he knows are her favourites --- and he looks so unbothered and genuinely understanding and--
"Fuck," and she doesn't initially realise she's said it out loud, but then he's looking at her with his eyebrows drawn together in pure, simple concern, and then there are tears in her eyes, and she's crying. It's not pretty crying either, but ugly crying, with the pressure of the world pressing down on her shoulders via the narrow channel of her sinuses, and, if she had the presence of mind to control herself, she'd be trying (admittedly, pointlessly, because he can always read her too well anyway) to hide these facts, but she just stands there instead. "I didn't-- I'm sorry, I wasn't-- I didn't mean-- Fuck!"
She doesn't realise he's come closer until there are arms around her, warm and comforting, and yet it almost makes her feel worse because-- well, because reasons. He's saying something, too, and she has the absent thought that he's probably being very sweet and thoughtful except she can't quite hear him over her own distress and she can't bring herself to ask again because it would make it clear she didn't listen and is the air getting thin? Because she feels like it's getting a little alarmingly hard to breathe and she can't quite make herself pull in air the way she should be able to.
He's always patient --- and familiar enough with her brand of anxiety to know better than trying to interrupt. He just waits and lets her listen to the steady pulse of his heart in his chest until she feels a little less prone to shaking apart. And that does, perhaps, take entirely too long --- certainly long enough for her to feel a little bad about it, in addition to all the other things she already has to feel bad about --- but she does at least get there in the end.
"Gotta say, Hannah, I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I set out, but you're worrying me a little here." A half-laugh --- more nervous than she typically thinks of him as being, though perhaps that makes sense given the givens --- and he half-turns, too, finishing unpacking and then tucking the basket out of sight. Perhaps he wasn't going to ask from the beginning, or perhaps he sees something in her expression that makes him backtrack; either way, he doesn't continue the thought and says, instead, "Then again, there's nothing like some comfort favourites, right?"
"Yeah." The waffles do smell good, it must be admitted. Not quite enough to override her nausea --- which might be plaguing her for a variety of reasons, now she thinks of it --- but good. Besides, she doesn't want to be ungrateful, and especially not with the conversation they have to have. "Smells good."
He shoots her a smile, still overtly debonair, still quietly apprehensive. "Ah, well, you'll have to try and guess the secret."
"Secret?"
"Of course," and he's opening her cabinetry, pulling out plates. She doesn't ask how he knows the locations. Knowing him, he's looked at market research about the most common storage locations for flatware and silverware among different population demographics. Or he knows her well enough to predict where she'd store hers, anyway. Or he's just a good guesser --- there's always that. "Anyone who makes waffles has to have a secret ingredient."
"Is that so?"
"What, don't you?"
"No."
"Do you make waffles often?"
Wry: "No."
"Well, no wonder."
Despite herself, she laughs. Watches as he starts plating the breakfast, ever careful, ever elegant. He's dressed more casually than usual --- still expensive, what with his simply cut sweater being made of buttery cashmere, but not as formal, not a suit --- and she finds herself marvelling at the fact that it's still immaculate, still spotless. Were she the one wearing it, there'd be stains aplenty from half a second of puttering around her house, let alone handling food, and yet his is as resplendent as it must have been when he bought it. (Absently, she finds herself wondering if he wears an apron while he cooks or if he's just that controlled.)
"I didn't realise there was such a ritual to it," she says, doing her damnedest to pretend that she's not holding onto the normalcy of their exchange by the skin of her damn teeth, the tips of her fingernails. "Widely known, is it?"
"Oh, yes."
"Of course."
"Naturally." He nods, as if to prove the point. Smiles at her as he bustles. "Can't believe you didn't already know."
"We mostly had Eggos growing up."
His reaction is a slightly undignified snort that looks like it surprises him. It makes almost amusing contrast with the decadence of the breakfast he's prepared, the consistent elegance of his styling, the affect he prefers. It is, she thinks, the Eggo waffle of good humour. "Of course you did."
It's a common refrain between them, the differences in their lifestyles. Ever since that first night --- since the massage chair, and the coin bears, and the calf pants, and the Brookstone pillows --- she's found great delight in plumbing the depths of his accustomed lifestyle, and he's found equal amusement in examining hers. (She has to laugh over the differences, because otherwise she'll be left to cry over them, and what they mean about their respective childhoods.) It's why her responding, "What's that supposed to mean?" isn't heated at all --- is, if anything, just as heartily amused.
"No, no, nothing." The twitch of his lips does not seem like nothing. "I should've known, is all."
"Can't see Cal Weaver cooking up special-ingredient waffles before we went off to school?"
The tilt of his head suggests agreement, but he still counters. "Can't see Mrs. Weaver putting up with his cooking long enough to let him."
"One of these days, she'll get you to call her Emily."
He chuckles, familiar with the path, used to the response. "One of these days, she'll stop frightening me and we'll see about it."
Hannah's eyebrows lift of their own accord, though whether it's because of the comment or because he's just set a plate in front of her bearing what might be the most decadent breakfast she's ever seen before 8 o'clock in the morning, even she's not sure. Her physical response addresses the latter, for her nausea gets forgotten as she grabs a fork before she can worry about seeming over-eager; her verbal one addresses the former. "My mom? Intimidating? You're kidding, right?"
"Oh, hell, no." He settles down at the place setting next to her, face open with an earnest sort of transparency. "She's absolutely intimidating. Reminds me of you."
Hannah almost chokes as her first bite of waffles clashes with a startled sort giggle. "Wait, wait, now I'm intimidating, too?"
She expects a continuance of their repartee. A joking, conspiratorial sort of agreement; an affirmative that might be downplayed or affected. She gets a solemn nod and a too-genuine, "Yes," that only gets repeated after she laughs again, as though he can't fathom her not being aware of it.
"Oh." She settles her fork down again. (Thinks that maybe --- just maybe --- she shouldn't be so surprised, since she's been scared for most of the day, not exactly of him, but of his reaction. Acknowledges that, somehow, she is anyway.) Waits for a moment, in silence, considering. Can't help asking, eventually, "Really?"
He looks slightly abashed, but he conceals it with a shrug that doesn't much help with obfuscation and direct eye contact that prevents it. "Yeah."
Hannah considers not asking for more information. Sure, they've gotten better on the whole honest communication thing, but it's still hardly second nature to either of them --- her because of her previously mentioned slightly unhealthy level of omnipresent denial, him because of his... general life history... and the both of them because, as she hasn't been able to help considering, the idea of them is entirely too new for that --- and she doesn't entirely know that she wants to push that boundary further. Especially not now, when she's feeling like a human being's worth of fractured supports and splintering beams in a cobbled-together shell of personhood that might just fracture with too much added stress placed on it, when he looks like he's got a thin veneer of cool-calm-togetherness spread overtop equally unsteady foundations.
She can't help it though. "Me?"
He takes it well --- amused enough that he's smiling at her as he sips coffee from his mug, perhaps lightly bemused even as he nods. "Yes, Hannah," he says, as though the phrase's full weight will convey his certainty... which, she admits, it kinda does. "You."
"So much for PG-13 cute, huh?"
"No, no, you're still cute." It's not as much of a hasty back-track or blind platitude as it could have been. It sounds genuine, and endeared, and so sickeningly unaware of the secret that she's holding that she has to fight a wince at it. "And intimidating."
"I'm not scary."
"Oh, yes, you are." Jacob looks endlessly pleased with this fact --- with her, frightening as that is --- though there's a residue of... something. Possibly the same something that's still sitting unhappily in the purse of his lips and the cast of his eyes. "I'm surprised you didn't notice sooner." A drop of his voice, newly solemn, drenched in gravitas. "You flipped the script on me, that night at the bar. Say what you will about my path through life until then, but at least I knew how to walk it. And then... You."
He says it like a revelation. She swallows that fact harshly.
"I lost my footing," and yet his words do not bear regret in their wake, "and you helped me find a new path." Whatever he sees on her face, he doesn't look away, or retract the words, or falter at all. "We're off the script now, Hannah, and that's a frightening place to be. Exhilarating, yeah, but still frightening. And now, today, something is clearly wrong, but I don't quite know--"
"I'm pregnant."
She doesn't mean to say it. She intends to not say it, in fact, because saying it now --- saying it when they're having a pretty good morning despite her previous forgetfulness, saying it when they're already barely recovering from slightly uneasy footing --- feels like a terrible idea. She very much intends to not say it because she hasn't actually managed to calm the queasy, uneasy knot in her stomach enough for this and, in fact, said knot is making a resurgence only worsened by the sudden souring of the one, singular bite of waffle she'd managed to take already.
Jacob's face doesn't twitch. (This is not, in fact, necessary as good a sign as it might seem. It is also not necessarily a death knell either.) "What?"
"I'm pregnant," she says again, because she's too committed for backtracking now. "I think."
Now, there's a twitch. "You think?" It's at least as blank as the expression before, and equally uninformative. It's not good, or bad, or anything other than processing --- she thinks, anyway --- because he hasn't even thought to do anything with his fork despite the untouched bite of waffle that has been dangling from the utensil that has been dangling from his fingers since she first dangled the comment.
"I skipped my period," she clarifies. "It should've been a week ago. And yet..." A shrug. Fingernails worrying at each other; teeth worrying at her lip. "Here we are."
The fork is remembered, tremoring once between his fingers before he sets it down on the plate. Ever careful. The metal does not clink. The food is not dislodged. The napkin beside both is straightened. Still carefully, he asks, "How are you feeling?"
"With my hands," she quips, before she can think about the fact that it's not the time for jokes. "Sorry." He doesn't look judgemental, of course, because he's too collected for that, and because he's not jerk enough to do so. Because he's not Richard, with all his insincerity and his patronising, hidden derision. Because he's empathetic enough --- by nature and by intentional choice --- to have prioritised asking about her in the first place. "Um. Fine? I guess? How are you feeling?"
His fingers reach to smooth out the napkin again, even though it hasn't budged from when he last did so. Almost do it again, except that she can see the moment he realises what he's about to do, clamps down on his control, stills his hand in its place. (She winces to see both parts of the gesture. The first means he's nervous enough that she can see it through his tendencies towards emotional control; the second means that he's falling back into old habits and trying not to let her.) "First impressions?"
She nods.
He speaks with a clear, frank simplicity: words immediate as an honest answer and earnest as a genuine one. "I'd have said ecstatic except that you don't seem to share the sentiment." There's tension in the straight set of his shoulders, though that's not particularly abnormal with his ever-perfect posture. There's tension at the curve of his mouth, and that doesn't usually reside there. "Now, if I'm being honest, I'd probably say worried."
"Worried?" She tries for the sort of laugh that might downplay that emotion. Manages some deranged, half-mad thing that probably should've belonged to a hyena. "What is there to be worried over?"
Hannah probably shouldn't be surprised when he raises an eyebrow her way and says simply, "That."
It's unfair, she thinks, for him to look so ridiculously impeccable, so infuriatingly unperturbed, while he's calling her on blatantly obvious bullshitting. It's bad form. Poor sportsmanship. An easy victory, an easier target. Smug sonuvabitch, having the audacity to inadvertently taunt her with a togetherness she is not modelling right now.
"I'm fine."
He smooths out the still-unmussed napkin again. "Okay," he says, and the knowledge that she is being indulged doesn't help settle her slightly (read: excessively) turbulent emotions. "You're fine," he repeats, though she knows he doesn't truly believe it. "What if I'm not?"
Part of her almost retorts, almost laughs, almost rejects the idea. It's the gut-instinct part of herself, though. The part of herself that has found itself submerged in some emotional sort of fight-or-flight-or-freeze response that somehow checks all three boxes. The part of herself she's trying to nail into a little box because she knows she can't let it out, can't let it lash out, can't let it try to wound. (The part of her that sounds too much like the worst of both her parents: the snap judgements of her dad and the desperate rejoinders of her mom. The part perfectly willing to ignore the fact that Jacob looking unaffected doesn't at all mean that he actually is fine, and especially not when it comes to this sort of conflict, this sort of conversation.)
Instead, she nods. "That's fair." A beat, then, overly honest: "I thought you might say that."
No surprise flickers on his face. This, he already knew, or suspected, or expected. "Why?"
"Because it's... This is big, I mean... I don't even know how to feel. I don't..." Her fingers find their way into her hair, tangle there. Uncurl only when he reaches out, slow and gentle and cautious, and works them free by working them into his hand instead. His thumb traces patterns on hers, calm and comforting. "I don't know. I was... worried. I guess."
"About..." The barest pause. She'd never have heard it if she weren't listening for it. "...us?"
"No," she says instinctively, and knows he hears the lie in it because the pulse in his thumb jolts as it presses against the back of her hand. "Yes," she corrects, and knows it isn't fully true by her own emotions. "I don't know," she settles on eventually. "It's hard to say."
He still doesn't look surprised, but she can see the edges of that acceptance. Sees the way it's shadowed beneath the mask. "Ah," he says, and she thinks it's an accidental comment. Thinks he probably regrets it right after, once his mind catches up and judges it a failure of his once-normal role. His thumb doesn't stop its comforting, repeating pass across her knuckles and back.
She can feel him deliberating. It's by no means an obvious thing, but, then, that's always the way of Jacob Palmer, isn't it? There's always more beneath the surface than he'll show --- than he'll admit is there, possibly even to himself --- and reading him is rather akin to mapping out the undertow current before getting swept away by it.
She spares him that deliberation. "Not... Not like that."
He looks at her like he doesn't know what she's referring to with her, "that." Whether that's because he didn't expect her to notice or because he doesn't think she knows what he might be thinking or because he hasn't really processed the thoughts he'd been having in the first place, she can't be sure. "Like what?" he asks, and it settles nothing.
"It's not... It's not you." Something flickers in his expression --- perhaps a flash of discomfort, or dread, or recognition; perhaps a transient joke getting smothered --- and she knows where he thinks her sentence might be leading. Heads it off. "It's not me either. It's not really even us, per se, so much as it is... you know, everything." Cold frustration flops over her like a dead fish. Stinks. "I'm not explaining myself well. I think I'm still freaking out. God, so much for a cool head."
Jacob shakes his head. Passes his thumb over her hand again. "Take your time," and it sounds like he means it so thoroughly that she can't doubt it.
"I just... I feel like I'm just getting started. I mean, do I want kids? Sure, maybe. Eventually. I... I guess I don't really know. But now? I couldn't do a kid justice, and if I'm not sure I want one ever, then I definitely shouldn't be having one now, right? And with my job just starting and my routines all unbalanced from it, I just--" She falters. Feels the gushing tap of words that had driven her thus far being sputtering to a halt.
"You don't feel ready?"
She hesitates. Answers, in the end, only by asking a question of her own. "Is that terrible?"
"No." This time, she wonders if he means it. Not because of the tone --- he still sounds genuine, earnest, voice unchanged from where it has been --- but because she can't quite manage to reassure herself that he would tell her if the answer were rather more of a, yes. Decides to do him the courtesy of trusting him even so. "It is perfectly understandable."
"I'm surprised you're not more..." She flounders for the word. "Upset?"
Jacob tilts his head. He's not fidgeting the way he was before, hands still against the napkin and utensils and plate, and she thinks that's a good sign. "Did you think I'd be upset?"
She shrugs. Fiddles with her own utensils. Grabs the mug of coffee he's set before her plate and holds its warmth close, as much for the comfort of the motion as for the necessity of the caffeine. "Kinda."
"About the possibility that you're pregnant, or about the fact that you aren't happy about it?"
"Both?" The words have cut a little too deeply. It's not that they're cruel --- not least because she doesn't think she has ever seen him be cruel, and definitely not against her --- but that they've seized too keenly upon the crux of the matter, the way his perceptions often do. "I haven't really been able to think about it, honestly. Things just kinda... I don't know." She takes a sip of her coffee, and pointedly ignores the way her stomach roils at the incursion. "I'm a mess."
"Nah."
"Yeah."
"What you're feeling is perfectly reasonable--"
"Is it?" She tries not to feel bad about interrupting. "I feel like I'm losing my mind."
"No, but you are panicking." His fingers tighten on hers in a gentle press, then withdraw. Takes a sip of his own coffee and then sets it back precisely where it had been, down to the handle pointing the same way. "They're much the same."
She nods. Takes a breath, and ignores the way it shakes a bit. "True." Then, before the surge of uncertainty can return: "Are you? Upset?"
He's shaking his head almost before she's done asking the question. "No, not at all." Now he does waver for a moment --- and she spares a second deliberation on how she picks up on it so well: if that's an intentional openness on his behalf or a sign of the magnitude of that emotion on his --- but then he continues, steadied again. "I won't lie: I meant it earlier when I said that meeting you terrified me. I did my own short stint as a mess a year ago." Then, in clarity: "I'd never loved before you."
"I--" She pauses. Resolves not to interrupt. Tucks her freed hand against the cup to warm it as a substitute for his hand. "Sorry."
"The thought of raising a child with you does not frighten me nearly as much as that revelation. A life with you doesn't frighten me at all, except perhaps when I consider losing it." His eyes are steady on hers. His hands are still against the table. He doesn't exactly look calm --- looks somewhat uneasy about the admission, about the truth of it, about that communication whose alien nature she'd just been considering not an hour before --- but he does look genuine, and this is what matters. "What, precisely, that life looks like... That's up to us. Together." The word stutters, but only barely. "Whether you are pregnant or not --- whether you have the child or not --- affects nothing about us except the course that life might follow."
Hannah's breath hitches. "What if you regret it later?"
"I won't." There is certainty there. The same kind of confident, decisive self-understanding that he had once trained into himself, that he had made into an identity during the deep midnight hours of many nights and even more purchased drinks, that so called to the lonely, directionless souls clustered in the confines of Plus+ with only the hope that one more piece of human connection will give them purpose. The solid, steady sort of solemnity that feels more like an oath than a simple answer. "I could never regret a life with you in it."
She ducks her head. Stifles a laugh because it isn't fair to him to undermine so romantic and genuine a comment. Gives up when it comes out as a light snort. "I'm sorry," she says, waving a hand, but his expression only goes affronted in the way of good humour and not of genuine offence. "I just-- How do you say stuff like that with a straight face?"
"Stuff like what?"
"You know." She can't tell if he actually doesn't, or if he's hinting, or if it's a mix of both. Indulges either his curiosity, or his ego, or both, depending. "Sweet stuff. Gonna give me a cavity."
"Easy." He grins. His teeth are the perfect white of carved marble, but the expression softens it beyond the uncanny sensation of Photoshop moving before her eyes. "I mean them."
"Yeah, yeah. Flatterer."
"Flattery suggests insincerity." Jacob shakes his head. "Neither term applies."
Amusement sidles up to drape its tired length along Hannah's shoulders, and she welcomes its warmth as a balm for the remnants of her unease. She still feels shaky --- if she lifted her hands from the mug before her, she thinks they would shake violently enough to be easily visible --- but this is only the remnants of past fear, and these are already waning. True, nothing has actually been settled, per se, for they have not reached any sort of mutual certainty to match Jacob's personal sort, but that matters little; she feels, at the least, more secure, and this is, equally, more than she'd expected.
"Sorry," she says again, and it feels at once like the first time she's said it and the twentieth. "I didn't mean to-- you know." A gesture towards the food he's brought, the picnic basket in which he'd carried it all. "It really wasn't what I planned for today."
He shrugs. "Honestly, I expected worse."
"Worse than your girlfriend--" And, oh, the word still fills her with a quiet, blooming sort of warmth to say. "--standing you up on her one day off to have a slight breakdown in her kitchen instead?"
"Yeah," he says, simple and unbothered. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not glad your morning was so rough, but..." A chuckle. "In the grand scheme of things, I pictured worse."
Hannah is not unfamiliar with the sorts of thoughts he might have had when she didn't show up. No doubt they resemble her own when her period had stood her up similarly. "Yeah," she says, voice gone quiet with the contemplation of it. "Honestly, me too."
They sit in silence for a moment, companionable and still. Jacob's hand has found hers again, or she has found his --- either way, their arms stretch across the table to meet at the halfway point, and there is comfort found in the clasp of them. Even when they begin to eat, those hands do not part, for all the complications this adds to the process of eating waffles one-handed --- and with their non-dominant hands at that --- and Hannah does not suggest (nor even truly contemplate) the idea of changing this arrangement. She merely holds the fork in her left hand as firmly as she can, and steadies it on the plate when necessary, and smiles at her own lack of dexterity, and fumes good-naturedly at Jacob's utter lack of struggle, and finds comfort in the press of his palm on hers.
"What's the secret?" she asks eventually, hesitant to break the silence but confident enough in the decision, the relationship, them to do so anyway. "With the waffles?"
"A magician never reveals his tricks," he says, and smiles, and adds, "At least, not without hearing the verdict first. Do you like them?"
"That a serious question?"
"Was yours?"
"Yes," she says, and means it as an answer to both. Emphasises this by adding, "They're insanely delicious."
"You don't have to sound so upset about it," he quips, and she sticks her tongue out at him.
"It's rude to be good at everything. Makes us normal people seem bad." She's smiling as she says it. Can't stop, and especially not with steadiness returning to her. "What's the secret?"
"Ice cream."
"You're joking."
"Nope." The p pops gently. "Makes them fluffy."
"Boy, does it."
He points her way, fork in hand. "Don't tell anyone."
"Spill your secret ingredient? I'd never. Especially not if it'd cause you to stop making them."
"Glad you like them. I'll make them for you whenever you want," he promises, and there is an implication of longevity there that Hannah thinks they both hear. There is a vow in their still-clasped hands that she thinks they both feel. "All you have to do is ask."
"Thank you," she says, and she means for more than the pancakes. She thinks he knows it, too.
Whatever the future may hold, they will face it together, and there is little more reassuring than that.