Too Far

Jean had gone way further with Rebecca Catalina than he should have the other night. They'd had dinner and then parked the motor pool car at a "scenic outlook" point. But the scenery Jean had been looking at had been inside the car.

He'd managed to control himself before it had really gone too far, but Becca hadn't helped one bit. In fact, she had pouted and now she was avoiding him.

"What'd you do to get Catalina mad at you?" asked Breda as he sat down with Havoc, who was uncharacteristically alone, in the mess hall. It had only been their first date.

"Nothing," groused Havoc. "I think that's the problem."

Breda lowered his eyelids in the gesture that made him look shifty to most people, but which Jean recognized as meaning he was thinking. Usually about things that weren't making him happy.

"So maybe I am just a hick kid from the country," said Jean. "Why shouldn't I take what I could get? But dammit Manny, I've got sisters!"

And Catalina's got a reputation, thought Heymans. Still, she was Hawkeye's friend. She couldn't be all bad.

"Maybe she just wants you to marry her," said Breda. "Everyone knows that's what she's after."

"If she loves me, she could just say so," said Jean. "Oh. Maybe she was, sort of. Girls can get carried away too ... and then when I didn't ..."

Heymans wasn't sure Hav was quite on target, but it wasn't like he was some sort of expert himself. Catalina was just so aggressive, maybe that was how she showed she cared for a guy. Except that if that was it, Hav definitely wasn't the first guy she'd fallen in love with.

They were having dinner in the cafe again. Rebecca didn't expect this to end well, so she'd already arranged for a taxi to take her home. Last weekend had been a disaster and she knew Riza would never give her what she wanted. So now she had to bank on Jean being the nice guy everyone said he was and hope he could keep it together long enough to help.

When he met her at the table, Jean could tell by the look on Becca's face that it was over. Whatever last weekend had been about, she was dumping him now. Oh well, he'd been about to suggest slowing down anyway. He'd done a lot of thinking this past week and decided he didn't love her. Not that he was ruling out the possibility, but it hadn't happened yet and he needed more time.

"Hi, Becca," he said, handing her the flowers and sitting across from her in the booth. She laid them beside her on the seat. "Ready to order?"

"I'm not that hungry, Jean," she said. "How about we just get some coffee?"

"Look, I know what's coming, but I'm hungry," he said. "And we're still friends, right?" They always wanted to be friends afterwards and he wasn't in love this time, so why not?

Rebecca looked at him and for a moment, she wanted to agree with him and have a good meal and just be friends. But she knew what she had to tell him and then he wouldn't want to ever see her again, let alone be friends, and it would be awkward to be left with a table of food and a bill she couldn't pay.

"Jean, I'm pregnant," she said.

The waitress picked that moment to stop by for their orders. Jean was in shock, but one thing he knew. Pregnant ladies shouldn't have nothing but coffee for dinner.

Very uncharacteristically, he ordered for himself first and then looked over at her. "Becca?" he said. "Not just coffee." It was the voice of command. She ordered and the waitress went away.

"You know it's not yours," she said, confused, wondering for a moment if he could actually be that naive.

"I know where babies come from, Becca," Jean said angrily.

Rebecca winced, but this was more like the reaction she was expecting. "Then why don't we call the waitress back?" she said. "You know you don't want to eat with me."

"Not really," said Jean. "But you've got to eat. Especially now."

"What difference does it make?" she asked. "I'm not going to keep it. Falman can find out anything, he probably already knows where I can find a doctor who'll - "

"You're not going to kill it?"

"Look," Rebecca said. "I'm not asking you to pay for it, I just need to get the name of a doctor."

"No," Jean said flatly, crossing his arms. "I'll help you, but I'm not killing any more babies."

Rebecca looked at him with utter incomprehension. Could he have done this before? But the way he had said not "help kill" but "kill" was such an odd way to put it.

"Yeah," Jean said. "I meant that literally. Ask your friend Hawkeye what clean-up duty was in Ishval. Look Becca, I'm really mad at you, but not because you got pregnant. It's because you were trying to trick me into thinking I was the father. That's what last weekend was about, wasn't it?"

Rebecca nodded.

Jean sighed. "If you needed help, you could have just asked. Do you know how screwed up I've been this week?"

At that, Rebecca lost it. The hard-headed second lieutenant started crying. And Jean felt like an ass. Like how screwed up must she have felt? he thought. He moved over to her side of the booth and put his arms around her, but it just seemed to make her cry harder. Still, she wasn't pulling away, so he just stayed there like that until she stopped.

When they pulled apart, the food had come. He stayed next to her in the booth and they ate in silence.

"Jean," she said when they had finished eating, "I'm sorry."

He just shrugged.

"It wasn't fair of me to ask you," she continued. "I'll find someone else to ..."

"Becca," he said, "there are other options."

"What other options?" she asked.

"You could marry me and get out of the military," he said. "It's not like you were planning on staying in forever anyway."

"I don't love you, Jean," she said, and for the first time, she wondered how true those words really were.

"I know," he said. "Me neither. But is taking care of a kid such a stupid reason to get married?"

"Not stupid," she said. "But I'm not going to do it."

"Why not? You were gonna trick me into it last week and it almost worked, too. Now that I hand it to you, it's no?"

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Look, I was mad before and I guess I'm still kinda mad, but it doesn't last. Ask anyone."

"I know," she said, looking at him with a sad smile. "That's why I picked you. I needed someone who wouldn't explode when the kid came a couple of months too early. I've got a reputation but so do you. As a really nice guy."

"A 'nice guy,'" said Jean. "Is that like saying a plain girl has a 'great personality'? It sure doesn't help in the date department."

Rebecca laughed and as much as the whole thing hurt, it sounded good to Jean.

"What do you expect, Jean? You're looking in the wrong place. You spend most of your days where the guys outnumber the girls 10 to 1."

"8.5 to 1," he corrected. "I asked Falman once. That's the ratio here at East HQ."

"So what are my other options, Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc?" Rebecca asked, finally believing there might actually be some.

"Don't know," said Jean. "Breda's the guy who does options. You mind if I talk to him about this?"

"Okay," she said.

The waitress came back. "Do either of you want dessert?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Jean. "Becca?" While she ordered, he grabbed the flowers that had gotten scrunched up on the seat between them and stuck them in a water glass.