Chapter Text
Jim groaned, dropping his head to the bar. “Aurelan met Carol?”
“Yeah, imagine her surprise as this visibly pregnant woman she’s never met introduced herself as your girlfriend,” Sam said casually, as he indicated to the bartender that he would have one of what his brother was having.
“Uggghhh.”
“I take it I’m going to be an uncle?” The bartender brought his drink over. “Congratulate me! I’m going to be an uncle!” Sam told her.
“Congratulations,” she replied, dryly, before going to help another patron.
“She hates me,” Sam commented with a wry smile.
Jim looked up. “Carol?”
“The bartender.”
“Oh.” His head dropped back down. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Sam,” he admitted into the surface of the bar.
“Who’s playing the playboy now?” Sam joked.
Jim looked up again, frustrated. “I’m serious. I’ve just gotten this promotion, everything is going great career-wise, and then Carol tells me she’s pregnant. She wants me to take a desk job at Starbase 1.”
Sam gave him a side-eye. “Has she met you?” He took a sip of his drink. “I mean, you did talk before you knocked her up, right?”
Jim rolled his eyes. “Classy. Yes. We’ve been in an on-again/off-again relationship for years, but it’s always come down to how much time I’m away on the ship. How I won’t settle down. It’s always what breaks us up.” He shook his head. “I have a sinking feeling that she just wanted a baby and I was… convenient.”
“Yikes,” Sam grimaced with another swig of his drink.
“We got in another fight today,” Jim added. “I… may have talked too much about La’an.”
Sam finished his drink with a flourish. “You’re an idiot,” he proclaimed.
“I might be.”
“Does La’an know about Carol?”
“She does. She told me… how she feels about me, and I had to shoot her down. Because of Carol.”
“Your pregnant sometimes-girlfriend. Again, I say, yikes.” Sam leaned over to look Jim in the face where he leaned on the bar despondently. “Is that the only reason you shot her down?”
Jim nodded. “I feel like a total shit, ‘cause I’d been flirting with her hard, too. But there was… a connection . I can’t explain it.”
“How’d you leave things with Carol?” Sam wondered.
“Uh, she said that if I couldn’t be in our kid’s life full-time, I shouldn’t be in it at all.” He groaned, head down again. “Fuck, I hope she didn’t mean that.”
“Do you love her?”
“Carol?” Jim sighed. “I thought I did… I thought about asking her to marry me at least once. But… it shouldn’t be this hard, should it? Loving someone?” He looked up again at his older brother, imploring him for advice.
Sam shook his head. “It shouldn’t.”