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natu29

May 30

takeitslowtakeiteasyonme

sweet - jack hughes

unplanned

summary: "pregnant. pregnant. pregnant." - or - the one where honey just couldn't be anymore pregnant.

word count: 4.1k

honey learned fairly early in life that the universe could be unusually cruel.

it explained why she was an only child. why her mother died of glioblastoma. why her father, as if he couldn’t bear the shape of the world without her in it, followed not long after. loss seemed to stalk her; quick and merciless. as if it were seeking payment for sins she must’ve committed in another life. her mother once called her god’s strongest soldier.

but honey always wanted to ask why?

why must she be his strongest?

what if she was tired of being the only one who had to take it?

and now, staring down at an unfamiliar pink stick in her trembling hand, she could only think this had to be another cruel joke.

some sort of punishment. tailored. precise. personal. crafted just for her. because of course this would happen like this. a part of her couldn’t really believe it.

after slipping out of jack’s apartment the second the pale morning light broke through his blinds, she stopped at CVS on the walk back to her apartment with knots in her stomach. of course she had bought a plan b with numb fingers as she prayed to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in.

she prayed, please, just this once. for the universe to leave her alone. spare her.

don’t let a ghost of her past plant himself into her uncertain future.

and yet,

pregnant. pregnant. pregnant.

one test could’ve been a fluke, two could’ve been just her bad luck. but six was a message.

a loud and clear one.

two pink lines. a tiny blue cross. a glaring red line.

every damn brand was saying the same, questionable, impossible thing. she couldn’t be more pregnant if she fucking tried. and everything from the last couple of days clicked into place with a sickening, nausea-inducing ache. the sharp pain in her chest, the way coffee suddenly made her gag, the constant trips to the bathroom, the exhaustion.

oh, yeah.

and her missed period she had waved off because stress had littered her life. the move back to jersey, starting her new job, and pretending she wasn’t quietly losing her mind felt like enough explanation for everything.

but it clearly wasn’t stress.

it clearly wasn’t just in her head.

she was fucking pregnant.

a knock at the door yanked her back to earth.

right.

because she wasn’t alone.

sadie and eleanor were outside, hands wrapped around the nicest wine glasses she owed, because, naturally, they didn’t understand the concept of leaving honey alone when something was wrong. and usually, she loved them for that. easily one of their most redeeming qualities.

usually.

“honey?” sadie’s voice floated through the door. “please come out. you’re starting to really scare us.”

there was a pause. and then faint whispering.

is she crying?

i can’t tell.

oh my god, what if she, like, killed herself in there?

dude, no way she’s even pregnant. she’s been practically celibate for years.

honey closed her eyes.

she had been celibate. up until her little run in with jack fucking hughes after the devils lost the first round of the playoffs. she really couldn’t get any stupider.

“i didn’t kill myself, idiots.” she muttered flatly through the door. “just pregnant.”

silence consumed them in the small of her hallway and bathroom.

then a sharp inhale.

when she opened the door, both girls stared at her like she might dissolve if they blinked too hard. she looked almost normal, which felt offensive somehow. no dramatic mascara tracks. no fistfuls of hair torn out. just her pale skin, puffy cheeks, and six stupid pregnancy tests.

“oh my god, honey,” eleanor breathed, voice cracking as her hand flew over her mouth.

sadie didn’t say anything at first. because she wasn’t good at offering verbal comfort but she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around honey like it was instinct. honey grimaced immediately. the floral accents of sadie’s perfume hit her full force - disgustingly sweet and heavy - her stomach twisted. she didn’t know what was harder; the urge to pull away or try not to throw up on one of her best friends.

eleanor, standing two feet away, had fresh tears already gathering in her eyes.

“congratudolences?” she offered weakly, a dry laugh ending her sentence.

honey pulled back from sadie enough to get a breath of fresh air, face blank in that eerie way it got when she had just too much on her mind. almost as if her body had shown up, but her mind was still stuck inside of that bathroom. staring down at six different positive pregnancy tests.

“why are you crying?” honey asked, voice flat. “you aren’t the pregnant one, eleanor.”

it wasn’t mean. not really. not to them at least.

eleanor sniffled, long hands rising to pat her cheeks. “why are you not crying?”

the question alone made honey look away. “i don’t know.”

and it was the honest truth. but it didn’t make sense. honey was the biggest crybaby to grace this earth. she cried at videos of senior dogs getting adopted. she cried over lonely old people in grocery stores. she cried at songs if they caught her on the wrong day. for god’s sake, she cried during children’s movies. this should’ve destroyed her. it should’ve cracked her wide open and left her sobbing on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. but it didn’t.

instead, all she felt was this weird, suspending numbness.

her body could only process one catastrophe at a time, and this one was shelved for later. maybe the universe had tipped too far right. maybe it had run out of ways to shock her. sadie, unusually quiet, looked between them both.

“how are you feeling?”

honey snickered sarcastically.

what kind of question was that?

logically, her only response was pregnant.

but she bit her tongue.

instead, sadie took her by the wrist and guided her gently towards the couch like she was afraid honey would float away if she happened to let go.

“i don’t know,” honey admitted softly.

both girls hummed in that helpless, uncertain way when they didn’t know what to say but loved and adored you enough to stay regardless.

it was what honey had called the ‘funeral hum.’

they fell into a comfortable silence, as if they were all weighing out their possible options here. after a moment, honey rubbed at her temples and said, “i know i need to schedule an appointment.”

both girls nodded, mouths opened to ask questions but honey beat them to it. and, then quieter, as if she was ashamed to say it, “and i have to tell the father of this thing inside of me.”

eleanor blinked, head tilting,” do you… know who the father is?”

a shiver ran down honey’s spine.

of course she knew. her life wasn’t some cheesy rom-com where she blacked out at a club and stumbled into a mystery pregnancy.

she knew exactly who the father way and somehow that made it worse.

“i do,” she groaned, hands coming to rub at her puffy face.

“who is it?” sadie practically whispered to the ghost in honey’s apartment.

honey stared at the coffee table, “jack.”

jack?

jack who?

“jack espinal?” sadie guessed first. “from high school? the one playing for cincinnati?”

“jack sullivan? the weirdly hot office nerd?” eleanor added.

the mere thought made honey groan.

“we know a lot of jacks,” sadie defended weakly.

then it clicked.

and it was evident in the way her eyes widened, pupils nearly dilated and jaw dropped.

“oh my fucking god,” she whispered.

“jack hughes?”

eleanor screeched, “honey!”

and it made her wince.

“you hooked up with jack hughes and didn’t tell us?” eleanor pushed at honey, nearly pushing her off the couch.

“not the first time,” honey shrugged.

“not the first time!” eleanor slapped a hand to her heart. “what do you mean?!”

and that’s how eleanor and sadie ended up spending the rest of that sunday on honey’s couch, wine glasses in hand, listening in horrified fascination as she explained the great and tragic love story of jack hughes and y/n l/n.by the end of it, eleanor was devastated and sadie looked like she had come across the juiciest and saddest fan fiction written by a devastating sixteen-year old at the peak of wattpad.

“okay,” sadie said carefully after a while of lingering silence between them. “what’s the game plan? do you want to keep it?”

it.

the question hit honey a little harder than expected.

keep it.

not a pregnancy. not a baby. it was just an it. a small, ugly and selfish part of her appreciated that. it made the decision less enormous.

it made her feel less human.

but the truth was, she had thought about it.

the first time she threw up, the idea of pregnancy had haunted her. but motherhood hadn’t. because those were not the same thing. not even close. if - no, when - she told jack and he wanted nothing to do with this, her and this baby growing inside of her - she’d be okay.

because she had to be. eleanor’s mom raised three kids on her own and somehow produced functional human-beings. for the most part. honey had built a life surrounded by loss, sharp corners and doing things herself. she knew how to survive without anyone. she’d done it for years now. she didn’t need jack’s money. didn’t even need his name on a paper. didn’t need a man to make a life happen for her. if she kept this tiny little thing growing inside of her, she would do it alone. because she could.

still, there was a quiet, embarrassing part of her - soft and old-fashioned like her parents once had been - that had once imagined marriage, children, a shared life with someone and a white picket fence. but she refused to look too closely at that part.

because love was dangerous and unpredictable. that was something she had learned young. so, she buried it once again.

“i’ll decide after the appointment,” honey said finally.

“i scheduled it.”

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

“confirmed, ladies,” honey sighed into her phone, standing outside of her doctor’s office. “a thousand and one percent definitely pregnant.”

eleanor snorted through the speaker. “no fucking shit, sherlock. you couldn’t tell by the way those tests practically combusted the second you peed on them?” her tone was airy and light, laced in the sort of humor that always made honey laugh.

and despite everything, she smiled a little bit. not because this was funny, because it sure as hell was not. but it was a little bit.

“how far along?” sadie asked.

“five-ish weeks. approximate due date is january twentieth.”

“oh my god!” sadie shrieked. “another aquarius in the group!” honey dragged her phone away from her ear with a slight wince. “do you know what you’re doing?” eleanor’s voice was gentlier this time around.

honey sat on a park bench, perfectly in the middle of her house and her doctor’s office. it was sweet, the sun was out, the birds were chirping and to her left was a playground littered with little kids no older than four.

“i scheduled a prenatal ultrasound. so… i guess i’m keeping the lentil-sized creature in my womb.”

saying it out loud made her dizzy. like this sentence and this life belonged to someone maybe a little more deserving. like any minute a nurse would come hunt her down and utter apologies.

our bad, we mixed up the results. you’re not pregnant. just insane. we recommend the psychiatrist on the other side of the park!

but nobody came. nobody called with bad news. it was true. for now.

“yay!” eleanor said, her voice already going watery. “our threesome becomes a foursome!”

honey giggled, the kind of giggle that was true and sweet, that came from the bottom of her heart.

“yeah. i guess so.”

“you haven’t cried yet, have you?” sadie muttered knowingly.

“nope.”

“get ready, honey,” eleanor started. “because the second you tell jack, you’re gonna become a sobbing hormonal disaster.”

honey groaned, “yeah. i know, i know.”

“i’ll text you his address,” sadie said. “not far from your complex.”

for one stupid, blissful empty second; honey forgot. forgot that jack existed. forgot that he was the father. forgot that she had to walk up to his stupid apartment and break the news to him.

she could’ve texted him. she should’ve texted him.

hey, we need to talk. hi, how are you? i’m pregnant. hello, surprise?

she could also call him but that just felt wrong.

cowardly. disingenuous.

and honey was a lot of things but that.

and so, she walked to his apartment with both hands clenched so tightly together her knuckles turned white. she had walked herself through fifteen different ways this conversation could’ve gone.

in some, he was cold. in one, kind. in others, there was a blonde girl in one of his t-shirts.

she pressed the doorbell before she could lose the nerve. with a hand clutched tightly around the strap of her purse, nausea creeped up in her throat. some sick and twisted part of her hoped and prayed there was another girl in there. one that almost looked like her and she’d just nod and walk away.

raise a hughes’ baby all on her own while it’s father fucked bitches in every state while flinging pucks into tiny nets.

movement sounded from the inside.

“i’m coming!” jack called.

“luke, i swear to god, if you forgot your passport again.”

and her stomach dropped because

oh, fuck. oh, fuck. oh, fuck.

the door opened. and there he was.

jack in all his off-season glory - messy hair, oversized and faded t-shirt from high school and grey sweats that clearly didn’t belong to him. but upon opening the door, his face shifted from annoyed to stunned in half a second.

“h-honey?”

“hi,” she smiled awkwardly, voice soft and shaky. “are you busy?”

his eyes flickered over her face, then down to the death grip on her purse, and then back up to her.

“not really, no.” he stepped aside so fast he nearly tripped over himself. “come in?”

she slipped past him, suddenly hyperaware of every little thing. how clean his apartment was with a suitcase lingering at a door, how familiar it smelled, how much nicer it was than the first one she vaguely remembered from years ago and how loudly her own pulse thudded in her eyes.

“do you need anything?” he asked a little too quickly. “water? something to drink?”

he was already halfway in the kitchen and she followed because standing awkwardly felt impossible.

“do you have ginger ale?”

“yeah. yeah, always.”

ugh, of course he did.

he moved around the kitchen with an awkward energy she didn’t recognize. almost as if showing up unannounced threw his world off its axis.

well, it was only gonna get worse.

“sorry,” she said quietly. “i should’ve called. or texted. or given some kind of warning. i’m sorry.” jack leaned against the counter, waving her off. “it’s okay. i’m not doing much anyways.”

he meant it casually, but she caught the edge of it anyways. his season was over, way too early and all he got out of it was some half-assed hook-up with her.

“what’s up?” he asked, softly. then, his expression shifted. “are you okay?”

honey physically stiffened at that.

the worst part about this whole thing was that he could still read her. years later, after all that time apart, hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and one look at her face and he fucking knew something was wrong. she hated it.

most importantly, she hated how much she loved it.

“i just..” she wrapped both hands around the glass to prevent herself from shaking so much. “i wanted to tell you in person because you deserve to know. and i don’t want anything from you. much less need. i don’t expect anything from you either.”

that made his eyebrows pull together, “honey, what the fuck are you-”

“i’m pregnant.”

silence. absolute ringing silence.

the words hit him and passed right through him before circling around and doing the same thing over and over again. his face went blank with shock, all possible color drained. but honey kept talking because if she stopped, she’d never start again.

i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. i’m not trying to trap you, if that’s what you think. i can do this on my own, i don’t need you. you just deserved to know.

“what?”

and honey finally looked up.

he sounded wrecked. not angry. not cold. just completely and utterly stunned.

“i’m pregnant, jack.” and her voice cracked in a way that used to break him. “and if you want nothing to do with it, that’s fine. i’ll walk out of here and you’ll never have to see me again, so help me god-”

“honey,” his voice was shaky now too. “slow down.”

“i’m pregnant,” she repeated, much louder this time, tears finally burning at her eyes. “with your kid.”

“w-well yeah,” he said automatically, looking like his own brain had betrayed him.

“i-i got that part, y/n. just-”

he dragged a hand over his face and honey could see him physically trying to catch up. after a few awful minutes, they sat at his kitchen island while she explained.

a crumbled CVS receipt where she had bought the plan b. her missed period. the nausea. the six tests. the confirmation from the doctor.

her thin, shaky hands slid over a few pieces of paper. “plan b’s only work if you haven’t ovulated,” she stated, finger tapping the highlighted notes of her appointment. “apparently, i was, like, at peak ovulation.”

jack gave a short, disbelieving huff of laughter. not because it was funny, really. well, it was a little bit. not really though but it was.

“there’s stuff in there about next steps,” she added. “and paternity testing, if that’s something you want.”

“do i need one of those?” he asked, eyes wide as he looked up from the papers.

honey blinked, “what? no, i just asked because… i don’t know. in case you wanted one.”

jack was almost offended at the idea, but he continued to stare back down at the packet. truthfully, he didn’t know what half of it meant. every now and then some test result screamed positive in his face. silence settled over the kitchen, it wasn’t empty. it was heavy. alive almost. stretching dangerously thin amongst their shoulders.

finally, honey asked, very small, “so…what do you want me to do?”

jack lifted his head, it took him a second to answer. “it’s not my decision to make, honey. you know that.”

and that, that was what broke her. her shoulders caved and her bottom lip wobbled in a way jack hadn’t seen in years. he was right. he was being kind and every part of her being had braced for a cruelty so hard that simply decency felt unbearable. one second she was holding herself together and then the next she was crying so quietly it was worse than if she’d sob. something in his chest twisted hard.

because he had imagined it, once. many moons ago, a life with her. not vaguely or some immature fantasy. something real, something feasible.

a house. three kids; a boy and two girls.

summers in michigan with quinn and luke and their future families tangled up together. chaos and laughter.

and in the middle, his sweet honey stood.

but this was the farthest from the truth, now she was here. standing in his kitchen, pregnant with his baby, crying like she was apologizing for merely breathing.

oh, my sweet honey.

jack moved around the island before he thought way too hard about it, resting a calloused hand on the small of her back. “i’m gonna support you in whatever you decide.”and that made honey cry harder. it all came gushing out - every second of numbness, every attempt at holding herself together, every horrible iteration of this conversation. she hated herself, just a little bit. so raw and so exposed. sobbing in the arms of a man who had haunted her past and somehow cemented himself as the father of her child.

stupid sadie was right, she should’ve cried before coming over.

but it was way too late now.

jack didn’t say much while she cried. he just stayed there. a warm hand on her back and watched sobs wreck themselves through her. after a while, she dragged in a breath that scraped her throat on the way in and looked up at him with her stupid wet lashes and blotchy red cheeks.

“i think..” she started but paused. “i think i want to keep it.”

jack’s face changed. it wasn’t fear nor regret. something steadier, softer around the edges.

“okay.”

honey swallowed, “and if you don’t want to help. that’s fine. really. i expect nothing from you.”

and that did it for jack. his expression pulled into a scowl, “what? no.” her eyebrows pinched together in confusion. despite his warmth and kindness, she was bracing for the absolute worst. “no,” he repeated, voice firm. “i’m helping.”

“jack please-”

“i got you into this mess too,” his voice was turned into that low and earnest tone that made her chest ache. “you’re not doing this alone.”

honey just stared at him. and he kept going. “i’m not ditching you for hockey,” he said. “and i’m not ditching hockey either. it’ll be hard and messy but..”

he took a deep breath. “we’ll figure it out.”

we.

the words landed between them with a strange and impossible softness.

we meant him. and her. and the tiny lentil-sized life neither of them had planned.

“i-i don’t wanna hold you back,” she whispered. “or tie you to me.”

and he laughed, in a way that made his chest ache.

tie him to her?

as if there’s a universe out there where he isn’t tied to her. as if he hadn’t been so hopelessly tethered to her for years already. “that doesn’t matter, honey.” and maybe at this moment, it didn’t but it very well could in the future.

“we’ll take it day by day. week by week. co-parenting.”

right, co-parenting.

as if things between them weren’t murky and complicated, adding a baby to the mix wasn’t the smartest idea.

for a second, neither of them spoke. the kitchen was too quiet while the outside world kept moving. cars passed, someone’s dog barked, kids giggled out in the hallway but inside this apartment, everything felt suspended.

things had changed. they weren’t fixed. they weren’t magically easy.

they had just changed.

“who have you told?” jack asked.

“oh. uh- just sadie and eleanor,” she muttered, hand picking at her nails.

jack hummed but visibly stiffened. “sadie’s gonna keep her mouth shut. if this…”using her hands, she motioned vaguely between them. “... gets out, i already got a lecture on the possible headlines.”

new jersey devils’ dumped from the play-offs all thanks to jack’s pregnant girlfriend? situationship? co-parent? jack hughes impregnating women left and right! who’s next? you?

honey physically shivered, almost feeling the weight of new jersey on her shoulders. jack simply nodded. he looked conflicted, like there were way too many thoughts in his head. his voice was steady, measured in an almost calculated way. “look, i’m not done freaking the fuck out about this,” he stated. “but whatever it is you chose to do, i’ll support you.”

before her eyes, jack had grown. physically, a lot but mentally, so much more than she had truthfully expected. because his panic took the form of silence. clearly what she did not possess.

“the whole nine months? or…?”

the question made his eyes roll, her knack for asking stupid and oblivious questions had simply not gone away. it was oddly comforting.

“the whole eighteen-years. however long. i had two parents growing up. so did you. i want our kid to have two parents as well.”

the words sat heavy in honey’s chest.

our kid.

and then she found herself asking another ‘stupid question, “did you always see yourself having kids?”

with me?

the question stunned jack but his answer came with no pause. “yeah, eventually. at some point in my life.”

with you, honey.

“we’ll make it work, honey.”

and for now, for right now.

that would be enough.