Title: Always a First Time II

Author: Mindy

Rating: K

Disclaimer: Definitely not mine.

Spoilers: Can I just say ALL of season 2 is up for grabs?

Summary: Jack/Liz. Jack finds out when it comes to Liz, there's a first time for everything.

II.

We

The first time Jack took Liz Lemon's hand in any way other than a mutually professional handshake, it was greasy with ham fat, despite having been wiped on her sock. And he hadn't cared one bit. That's how he knew just how bad he had it.

He didn't care that her glasses were sitting halfway down her nose, her hair was more of a mess than usual and she looked absolutely bonkers, sitting slumped in a wedding dress she knew as well as anyone she did not need. He hadn't cared that, in her distress, she was practically yelling at him or that her brow scrunched unattractively whenever she glared up at him.

What he cared about was getting her back on her feet, making her smile. What he cared about was restoring a little of that incredible optimism that she'd paraded about his office so recently and so flagrantly. What Jack cared about was helping his friend feel better. Because that's what they were – good friends.

So, he deliberately employed the O-word. Within his 'our' was an implied 'us', which was not that far off a 'we'. Jack hadn't been one half of a real, legitimate and lasting 'we' in a long, long time. And neither had Liz, he knew. Strangely enough, he didn't mind casting himself in a 'we' if that 'we' also included Liz Lemon. Lemon didn't seem to mind the veiled presumption either.

He saw the shift in her expression, the wary comfort of knowing someone was on her side, the faint relief of not feeling quite so alone. She stopped eating and peered up at him. She held his gaze instead of looking away again. She smiled – a small smile but a real one. And, for once in a relationship, Jack knew he'd said exactly the right thing at just the right time to precisely the right person.

He remembered feeling oddly comforted himself, and secretly pleased that whenever times might get tough, as they undoubtedly would, he could count on Lemon and likewise, was capable of being counted on by her. They were an odd match but a match nonetheless. He could feel the perfection of it as her palm slid into his.

And that was the moment when Jack knew for sure that the hiatus hadn't cured him nearly as well as he'd hoped. He'd kept his distance from Liz Lemon deliberately. He'd made every effort not to call her, tried not to even think of her. He'd traveled, dated, decompressed. He'd healed and fortified himself, without her constant company and support. He knew well how to starve an infatuation. He'd done it before, countless times and to great effect. It was pure common sense. Absence did not make the heart grow fonder, however old and indisposed that heart might be.

He had done absolutely everything within his power to rid himself of his strange inclination towards his strange friend. But, as Liz Lemon's grubby hand clasped his, Jack wondered whether his private diagnosis might have been absurdly inaccurate. Until then, he hadn't allowed himself to consider that the feelings he'd been developing over the past year might not be those of mere, fleeting infatuation.

For the first time, Jack wondered whether the changes happening in his heart indicated something far more acute.

TBC...