Author's Note: I come to you with this new chapter as a high school graduate, hence the long wait between chapters. I also published this from my phone, so sorry for any page issues. I hope to have the new SMM chapter up this evening, too. And Dr. Manning from the previous chapter is from Chicago Med, by the way.
Disclaimer: Is Olake canon? No? Then it's not mine.
If Olivia Pope had learned one thing in all her years of knowing Jake Ballard, it was that he was quite possibly the most stubborn man on the face of the earth. Somehow, it seemed that she always forgot that that particular quality increased tenfold when he was injured. Also, it probably didn't help that they were newly engaged and she was pregnant. Then again, Jake had been stubborn when it came to asking her for help back when they were little more than strangers and there was absolutely not even the minutest possibility that she was pregnant, so she supposed that it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to her that his overprotectiveness was still in place when it came to her even after the person who needed protection more and more often seemed to be him.
They had finally been allowed to leave the hospital by a very amused Dr. Manning, who reminded Jake that taking his pain medication was sure to be a good idea and was even kind enough to take Olivia's blood pressure just to assure the only man in the room that she wasn't going to stress herself to death just because her father had almost beaten him to death. Now, they were back at the apartment after stopping to pick up his prescription. She should have known that actually getting him to take that prescription would be a little more difficult.
"You do realize that Dr. Manning went to medical school for eight years, did a surgical residency, and then did two fellowships, right? She's a specialist in emergency medicine and trauma surgery, so when she tells you that you need to take pain medication, you should probably just take the pain medication," Olivia tried to convince the man on her sofa for the fifteenth time that hour, but he stubbornly refused the bottle. "You have four cracked ribs and a concussion, Jacob, you cannot tell me that you're not in pain. I haven't had cracked ribs, but I'm pretty sure Quinn once compared it to breathing in fire and being unable to breathe it out."
"Your blood pressure was a little high," he stated, seemingly ignoring her. "Are you sure you should be worrying about me?"
"First of all, my blood pressure is almost always high, because I'm engaged to an idiot. Second of all, I worry about you all of the time, injured or not, because as I previously stated, you are an idiot." She sighed. "When it comes to taking care of yourself, you are an idiot. And when other people try to take care of you, you're stubborn. There is no winning equation for me here, Jake. I feel like there's absolutely nothing that I can do to make this better, and even if there was, you wouldn't let me try." She sank onto the sofa next to him. "I don't want my father around our son, either, but if it's between that and our son not having his father, I will choose the former every single time." She blinked away tears she didn't want to allow to fall. "I mean, this kid's going to be a Ballard. I'm not sure I have a high enough level of stubbornness to do this without a Ballard on my side of things."
"Please, you're at least ten times as stubborn as me when you want to be," Jake replied, coaxing her towards him so that her head rested on his undamaged shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her curls. "I'm not leaving you, Olivia. I'm not leaving our son. But I don't want your father near him. I know you understand that."
"Of course I understand it, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it," Olivia grumbled under her breath.
"Of course it doesn't mean you have to like it," Jake agreed in a pacifying tone, causing Olivia to glare at him without much heat in her gaze. "But Olivia, I'm going to come home to you. No matter what your father does, no matter what he tries to put me through, you can take that to the bank. I'm always going to come home to you." He paused, smiling against her hair. "I mean, what kind of idiot would I be if I didn't?"
"An even bigger one than you currently are," Olivia murmured under her breath, causing Jake to grin and then shush her. They basked in the relative peace of the apartment for a few moments before Olivia's phone rang. Jake groaned, glancing at the device that had been thrown on the end table when Olivia had begun to try to force pain medication down his throat. "Who is it?" she whispered.
"It's my mother," Jake replied with another groan.
"We like your mother. Between us, she's the only sane grandparent that this child is going to have." Olivia sat forward slightly, reaching for the device and answering it. "Oh, no, we're fine," she stated after the pleasantries were over. "Yes, Jake…" She trailed off, obviously listening to the woman on the other end of the line. "Quinn told you what happened? Oh, well, I'll have to thank her," Olivia stated drily, causing Jake to grin. "No, baby clothes shopping tomorrow sounds… great. Yeah, I'll tell Quinn and Abby, but they're probably going to be…" She trailed off again. "I'll tell them right now so that they can get time off from work, yes, ma'am," she confirmed with a smile. "Okay, well… yes, it was nice to hear from you, too. I'll talk to you… yes, I'll tell him. All right. I'll talk to you… yes, ma'am… oh, of course, you should go. Yes, ma'am." She smiled again. "Okay, then. I'll see you tomorrow." She shook her head, the smile still in place. "Goodbye."
Jake started laughing the moment that the call had been ended. "My mother just tricked you," he informed her, "and you weren't even aware of it."
"What, with the baby clothes? Of course I'm aware of what's going on. Her baby boy was hurt and is stubborn, so she wants information without showing up here and playing Mama Bear. I get it. I'll probably do the same thing if our son inherits your inability to back away from a fight." Olivia glanced at the device in her hand when it started to ring once again. "Huh, it's Quinn. I just saw her, though…" She accepted the call, pressing the phone to her ear. "Yeah, what's up, Quinn?" Her face went blank when Quinn responded, and Jake was instantly on alert. "He what?" she breathed, nodding as though she understood when her eyes conveyed that she truly didn't. "Okay, yeah, of course. No, I'll, uh…" She blinked rapidly, "…Jake and I'll meet you at the hospital, all right? Okay, yeah. I, um, tell him we'll see him soon, please." She ended the call without a farewell, and her eyes were full of tears when they met Jake's.
"Babe, what is it? What happened?" Jake asked urgently, extremely worried about whatever it was that had made Olivia Pope, a woman he had only seen cry a handful of times in all the months that he had known her, crack enough to shed tears that seemed to be completely unrelated to her hormones.
"It's Huck," she replied blankly, staring at the phone in her hand. "He was… he was stabbed at OPA while Quinn was at the hospital with me. He's, uh…" She shook her head. "They don't know if he's going to make it."
For about the hundredth time in much too short of a time span, Jake and Olivia's worlds seemed to simultaneously collapse.