content warning: tooth rotting fluff, dad!jack abbot, mentions of children, pregnancy, pregnancy reveal, mention hospital, mentions of food & eating, slice of life, not proofread, slightly edited
pairing: jack abbot x black!reader
summary: you think you’re pregnant due to a dream you have and jack is already a few steps ahead of you.
author’s note: fun fact — my mom’s great aunt knew she was pregnant with me because she had a dream about me as a fish. thanks for reading 🫶🏾
IT came to you first in a gentle thought that soon manifested itself to a dream. A dream where you trudged through a fogged, hazy meadows with golden sanctioned flower that reminded you of sunny side up eggs. A dream where you could hold your breath a bit longer in the water of the pond, where the water was clear enough to see nothing but a small magenta fish swimming toward you before you awoke. Awoke with a new feeling — something that you could feel churning underneath your skin. A warm pool spreading across your abdomen, it growing and expanding as you moved through the familiarity of your home you and Jack had been building for years. Walls made out of stone that was soft around its edges as it learned to become tender overtime. You and Jack carried out your normal morning routine where you two could still burn more hours before your night shift. After your girls had their share of breakfast and enough dewy kisses across their cheeks to last them throughout the school day.
It started with the fullness in your cheeks you noticed as you brushed your teeth. Then it traveled to your abdomen — a familiar feeling that tickled and prodded at your skin.You caught the fullness in your dark skin as you spat out the frothy toothpaste in the sink. The mirror was foggy due to the warm steam coming from the shower as Jack bathed. Your fingers dipped in between the flesh around your cheeks, like you did in your dream when you dipped your fingers in the crystallized bond. You turned to the side for a second, hands resting against your hips as you studied your abdomen. Breakfast slightly stretched the fabric of your shirt (actually one of Jack's old shirts), but that same odd feeling in your heart trudged on. A feeling that you knew. It visited you like an old friend in a dream. Your body knew what was happening and perhaps that was the part that frightened you the most. Your body was miles ahead of your mind, twisting in and out on itself, chasing each other around like an infinite carousel.
The water suddenly stopped. The empty droplets echoed on the ceramic structure and you heard Jack clear his throat. A gruff sound, followed by a squeaky sniff. He sounded like a rusty car engine, something that almost brought comfort to your heart. Jack reached for the towel draped over the railing, stepping out with the towel around his waist. The droplets rolled down his body, like hot coals that dripped past his belly. He gave you a quick smile, face slightly reddened from the warmth that traced his face, the same red that emphasized his body when he had been to close to the sun from harvesting your peach trees almost all afternoon.
You had been growing your peach trees in your backyard since you and Jack had purchased your house. Pieces of your love that would grow and that you would harvest once the time was right. A time when the world needed it the most. When you could spread its seeds around, blessing the ground where you two walked; blessing the paths the two of you had crossed into a golden, hallowed threshold.
Jack stood besides you, giving your bottom a quick squeeze, knocking you out of your gaze, "You okay?" The question was soft. The tenderness in his voice something you could easily pick out when he either spoke to you, your girls, the women in his life.
You nodded, finding your reflection again, toothbrush now meaningless in your hand. A haze blurring your brain out as you entered in a trance of the pond water and the foggy bathroom.
He ran a coarse hand through his damp silver curls, taking his face towel and patting dry his face, "'Bout what?"
Something tugged down in your abdomen as you steadied yourself, pressing your palms against the dewy counter, that still felt somewhat cool at the touch, the morning chill still lingering after the warm steam, "How my mom found out she was pregnant with me. She had a dream about a fish. Just a simple fish swimming around in the pond. She called her doctor to see if she could schedule an appointment. When she got her results back, her dream hadn't been so random. I was the fish in the pond."
Jack watched your eyes. Watched as the seemed to glow if possible. How quick your pupils grew, how quick your brown irises churned so quickly he thought they would begin to produce golden spools. He didn't say anything, his face neutral, but he knew that he would soak in every word that got past your lips. Instead, he pressed a hand against your back to provide you some sort of comfort.
You continued on, rubbing your palms together, "I didn't tell you this, but I found out I was pregnant with Bonnie so early on is because I had this dream that felt so real. I had this dream where I was in front of this pond and something urged me just to stick my head under for a second. I could hold my breath for a bit longer, the water seemed so easy to see out of. And then I saw our Bonnie girl for the first time: this little bright pink fish swimming toward me. When I was pregnant for the first time ever with Madison, I told her father that I had this dream about a fish swimming toward me. This little pink one. He laughed at it for a while. Until I showed him the proof later that evening and—shit sorry, I'm rambling."
Jack chuckled softly. A noise that you could easily catch and reel up. He shook his head to himself, reaching for his own toothbrush, "Why a fish? Why not a bird, or a butterfly, or even a rabbit?"
You rolled your eyes, a smile tugging at your lips as you caught his reflection in the mirror that seemed to be less hazy, "I don't know," you began, running a hand through your coils, "I never questioned it. Maybe it's something hereditary." You pressed your palms against the counter, while pictures of the fish came swimming back to your mind all over again , and you couldn't stop the pounding in your heart.
"If you weren't a doctor and I never told you about the fish dreams, how do you think you would've found out I was pregnant if I didn't tell you?" You question, breaking the silence along with the sound of Jack brushing his teeth.
He paused his brushing for a second, giving you a raise of his brow before he spat in the sink, "Well, you start craving one specific food. Always. Like with Bonnie, you craved those shortbread cookies that they no longer carry in stores anymore. You told me with Maddy, you always wanted to eat pudding cups, and with this one, all you want are peaches."
You stopped for a moment. Your lips parted, eyes growing wider that they stung a bit from the wave of fresh air.
He wiped his lips with a towel before he turned back to you, as you shook your head in disbelief, "You can't know that."
His hands cupped around your bottom, before he found the sector near your hips. His eyes softened a bit, "Can't know what?"
A little noise came out of your throat like you were gargling water as your eyes blinked rapidly and you stumbled to find your wording. "That I think I'm—I didn't even tell you the fish dream I had last night and somehow you can manage to figure it out and I didn't even say anything to you." You placed your hands on his bare chest. It was still warm, and you could feel the gentle thumping of his heart underneath your palm. You shook your head again, leaning your forehead against chest, "And the funny thing is, I haven't even taken a test yet, so we actually don't know… It could all be in my head for all I know and—"
"—Hey, hey, hey," he pressed on in front of you, keeping his arms steady around you, tucking your coils behind your ears, his tender voice maneuvering you through a wave of emotions threatening to catch you, "Look at me. Okay. We're gonna figure this out, okay? We'll get you tested as soon as possible, but you gotta calm down for a moment, hon. We don't need you stirring yourself into a panic. I don't think it's in your head. I think that—"
He took a moment to steady himself, looking down at your belly, pressing his hand against it, you could've sworn he had to swallow back his own tears, "That fish… that you saw our baby. And that you are pregnant and I feel over a thousand thoughts running through my head regarding what the nursery will look like, what Maddy and Bon, are gonna say— oh our Bonnie! God, she's gonna be so excited to be a big sister!"
You laughed. A break from the clawing emotions you felt; the ones that ran all over your head that brought forth your greatest anxieties and fears. Perhaps that lingering fear of having to start all over again. Lingering fears of even having another child together. A film of clearness lined your eyes as you blinked back the urge to cry, "We're really doing this again?"
"We're really doing this again."
This time, laughter echoed from the both of you guys; he moved his hands up to the planes of your face and he cradled it, gently brushing his thumbs against your cheeks that became shiny from the tears that kept streaming down. His hands were rough, but there was this uncovered softness who had dug out over the years, the kind of softness that spread all over his body. Jack learned to lean into this softness, letting you see all the tender sides of his body. These were one of these moments where he could cry in front of you and you could admire the beauty of when the creases across his face folded in on themselves, when his eyes grew a bit tender and he could admire you like your eyes were painted by the sky.
He held your face for a second longer, before he took the lead on kissing you; a slow and steady kiss, one that ignited the golden flames tangled with all the kisses he's given you before.
This one was different though.
It bridged the gap between the moments in the past, the moment now, and the moments to come as a family of five.
The next weeks progressed a bit more slowly. Moving with a slight ease as the both of you navigated the secret growing between the two of you. You both decided not to tell anyone right away, including your girls; just to make sure everything was progressing well since you were still in the earlier weeks of your pregnancy. You and Jack made adjustments as necessary as they came, still trying to soak things in as they came. They were as small as planning your maternity and paternity leaves for the hospital, figuring out where to make room in your house for a nursery, muttering out a potential name or two.
It felt like your body was progressing at a rapid rate, your nausea appearing earlier than your other pregnancies. You could barley keep any meals down if they weren't any kind of peaches. It didn't matter if they were the peaches from your trees, or even the diced peach cups you would pack for Bonnie in her lunch. Even as much as Jack warned you about the high amounts of sugar the peach cups contained, it was the only food could manage to stomach and if you ate enough of them, they could keep you full for a couple hours.
"You going for the world record or something?" The question echoed from your coworker and other night attending, John Shen, who cradled the watered down Dunkin coffee in his hand as he strolled into the break room not long after you. His eyes immediately landed on the stack of peach cups surrounding you.
Heat pooled to your cheeks and you looked down at the cups around you, and you gave him a sheepish smile, "Uh…no. I'm starving and we haven't been to the grocery store all week, so I've been stealing Bon's fruit cups to tie me over."
Jack Abbot couldn't keep his eyes off you. From across the emergency department is where his eyes followed you down and traced the figure of your body. If you guys were on cases with each other, he'd follow your lead, command the attention of the room back to you; it was always, "Perhaps we should listen to what Dr. Abbot has to say." He followed you around like a lost lamb, giving thumbs up from across the illuminated rooms, giving you little nods. The fruit of his actions all noted back to why you had to purchase a size up in scrubs, the reason why your cheeks looked a bit fuller, the reason why your body had grown more softer over the past couple months — a small secret growing between the two of you guys. A secret you guys wanted to keep private between you two for just a few moments longer.
Of course you noticed the actions that he never said out loud. He noticed when he steered you toward mild cases, you noticed when he would slide you a granola bar every other hour even if you couldn't bare to stomach granola, he noticed when you would brush a hand over your belly; subconscious to the fact that you didn't even realize how much you'd been doing it. He checked on you more often, almost to the point of hovering near your personal space. You had memorized his routines of when he came around to check on you — after every patient, every time you came out of the bathroom, the second you had a moment to do your charting.
It happened during the early morning hours of your shift with about a couple hours to go, you had some time to catch up on your charting. Your glasses hung low on the bridge of your nose at you typed languidly, the ache and lethargy catching up all over your body as you trudged through the rest of the grueling shift. His presence didn't need a proper introduction or format to it as you just knew you felt his eyes burning into your back. You didn't need to break away from your work as he cleared he throat, rubbing his hands together.
"Hey." His voice was softer, a complete 180 from the often brash attitude he'd taken during severe cases.
You continued typing, not losing the rhythm against your work at hand, "Hey."
The gaps of the silence were filled with the bustle of the emergency room. Some loud chatter there. Some softer ones there. The squeak of a gurney rolling by. Ironically, it was probably the most calmest of the night shift.
"How's your stomach doing? I can get you a granola bar or some juice." He questioned, moving a bit closer to your chair, placing his hands on your shoulders.
"Nope. I'm good. My stomach's fine." You replied, more deadpanned and not leaning into his physical contact.
He nodded, pressing a chaste kiss on top of your hair, and giving your shoulders a quick squeeze, "Let me know if you need anything or if you start feeling sick again."
Jack didn't expect you to respond as he knew you hadn't been your best. He gave you that benefit. The benefit of time. He saw the changes to your body happening with you and wanted to give you time to adjust. He wasn't the biggest fan of you being on the night shift if he were to be honest with himself. He didn't like seeing you so exhausted when the two of you got home to the point where you could spend some time with your girls. Where your movements were more slower, the moments where you could only find comfort within yourself. He wanted to respect your space, but all at once, he wanted to make sure everything was going good.
You were thankful that you had a moment to catch your breath, and steady it after a string of cases to attend to. You sat down near the nurses station, a soft sigh leaving your lips as you leaned back in the chair, closing your eyes just for a second. The rhythm of the hospital moved quickly, fast paced, and that was why you liked it (obviously when you weren't pregnant). But it made you realize the moments of quiet that you always took advantage of. The moments of silence were most important to you. Those moments where you could take a step back out of your body and watch the night life fold around the edges, taking in the breaths of humanity. Realizing how important the job you worked was.
"You alright, honey?" Your sweet, red-haired night shift charge nurse, Lena questioned, rubbing a hand over your shoulder.
You pressed your lips together, giving a nod. A couple of strands of your dark hair tickling your forehead became quickly damp from the film of sweat forming at your forehead. Your skin became dewy causing you to wipe your hands over your face. It prickled your skin like dessert heat pooling through your body, a tightness crawling up your throat as nausea began to peak through.
"I'm okay. 'M just hot. Just give me a second and I'll be good to go back on my feet."
She gave you a nod, but she hesitated as she went back to her area behind the desk.
You took another breath before you got up and headed toward the lounge area. You bee-lined straight toward the refrigerator, grabbing one of your plastic cups of diced peaches. The only thing you could seem to stomach these days that wouldn't have you running to the bathroom in the middle of your shift. You sat there, slowly eating your peaches in an attempt to regain some strength to finish out your shift strong. There were still a couple hours left before you could go home and it was taking all your mental capacity to not call it quits and leave early.
It seemed as if the chaos outside had quieted softly; there was still some prominent chatter and hurried voices that echoed back in, but for the most part, you had found your own pocket of peace.
As you were on your sixth peach cup, the door opened, gently shutting behind the figure. You didn't have to look up to process who it was as the soft clink of metal gave it away, alongside the lingering smell of your vanilla perfume wafting in. The seat across from you screeched on the floor before a moment of silence traced after and bathed in between the crevices of the silence.
You looked up after finishing the last peach, the sweetness filling out on your taste bud and around the apples of your cheeks.
Jack stood up from his chair, instead occupying the seat beside you. He sat down, at ease almost. His tenderness leaking through, a softer he approach he'd taken for years while speaking with you. The flesh around his eyes appeared slightly worn like a piece of old cloth, but the skin creased as he smiled at you again, pressing a kiss to your cheek, resting his hand on your belly and the other hand right underneath the bowl of your ribs. A new action that lingered with some familiarity at he had done the same for when you were pregnant with Bonnie. His hand was warm against your scrub top and you could feel the slight twinge of his fingers thumping. You were far from showing as you were still in the later weeks of your first trimester, but Jack could've sworn that your belly was in fact growing at a rapid pace.
"How's peaches doing?" He mused carefully, siding his other hand from your ribs to the other side of your stomach, his thumbs brushing against the fabric of your scrubs. Peaches was the name you decided to call your baby while you two were still keeping it a secret. A fun little callback to your diet this pregnancy.
You stacked the empty fruit cups along with the other ones before you placed your own hands on top of his, "They're okay. Like when you asked the past five times."
He hummed lowly, the sound resonating through his chest, as he placed his hand on the small of your back, "Well I was only asking because Lena let me know that you didn't look to great and you went to rest in the break room."
You leaned in closer to him, "I—we're fine, Jack. I promise. We're nothing but peachy."
He nodded, his eyes finding yours. He was about to say something when his eyes saw your stack of plastic peach cups, "How of those have you eaten?"
Heat rushed up to your cheeks, the redness blooming through your dark skin as your let out a loose chuckle, "Probably five. Maybe six."
He laughed. Not in a taunting manner, but it was rhythmic. Something you could follow along and chase the tune to. He pressed another kiss to your cheeks, "How about we get some breakfast after our shift ends. Some proper food in you, yeah? Can't have you eating peaches this entire pregnancy."
You nodded, the tug in your lips growing with almost an overwhelming sweetness, "Yeah… I guess not."
