A/N: This is the earliest of all the chapters so far; it takes place eight months after the series ends, and about two months before Chapter One. It's when Jack was starting to be well-known to American sports enthusiasts, but hadn't quite broken through to mainstream culture yet. I hope this isn't too cliche or anything! I also noticed that so far, every fourth story has been longer, but that's just a coincidence.

"We need to talk."

When Jack heard those dreaded words, he froze like a deer caught in the headlights. Obviously, he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong. When Carly gestured at Jack to sit in a chair facing her, he did so without question so he wouldn't get into further trouble.

Carly took a deep breath. How was she supposed to lead up to news like this?

Finally, she said meekly, "Uh, Jack, I know we've only been living together a couple of months, but..."

"You want to leave already?" Jack butted in. "I mean, fine, I'll let you go, but I told you I was going to be busy most of the time."

"No, of course not!" Carly cried indignantly. She decided that she'd just have to break the news now, or else Jack would keep interrupting her.

"So...um..." she started, and then squeezed her eyes shut and said, "I'm pregnant."

Silence. Carly cautiously opened one eye and saw that Jack's facial expression hadn't changed. She hadn't quite been sure what his reaction would be, but she'd thought it would be more than this.

When he did speak, he asked a rather odd question.

"How do you know?"

"I got a test from the drugstore," answered Carly, trying to keep her voice level. That trip had been a chore in and of itself. She didn't know much English yet, so she'd communicated mainly through hand gestures. And thinking up gestures to ask where the pregnancy tests were had been rather humiliating.

"But you haven't been puking in the mornings. So how did you know to get the test in the first place? Are you psychic or something?"

Carly blushed. Was he making fun of her?

"There are signs other than morning sickness, you know," she mumbled.

"Like what?"

He looked completely serious. Carly turned even redder. Was sex ed in Satellite really that lacking? Well, she wasn't about to lecture him on the female reproductive cycle.

"L-look it up on the Internet, okay?" she managed to say.

"Okay."

Now came the difficult part.

"So Jack...um...I thought about this, and I decided I want to keep it."

There was no response from Jack. His face was still unreadable. Then, without saying a word, Jack calmly got up from his seat and walked to the door.

"Hey, where are you going? We're not finished talking yet!" Carly sputtered. Jack ignored her and walked out of the apartment.

What was going on? Was he so angry that he was just leaving her? No, he couldn't be doing that...he hadn't taken any of his stuff with him. Maybe he just needed to go on a walk and think things over...

"WHOO!"

Wait, that sounded like Jack's voice. What could he be up to?

Carly ran over to the window. She could see Jack on the sidewalk. Somehow, he had already made it down ten floors and outside, without even bothering to put a warm coat on in the December weather. She buried her face in her hand as she realized what he was doing.

"HEY EVERYONE!" Jack was shouting-Carly could hear him even all the way up here. "MY GIRLFRIEND IS HAVING A BABY! MY BABY! SO YOU SHOULD ALL BE CONGRATULATING US!"

He ran into the street, but realized his mistake when a taxicab nearly hit him and several dozen cars honked in unison.

By the time Carly made her way down there, Jack was still yelling at full volume and had attracted a large crowd of gawkers. Most of them had been doing their holiday shopping, but found this to be much more interesting.

"What the hell kind of language is that?" asked one of the spectators.

"I dunno...maybe Japanese?" opined his companion.

Elsewhere in the crowd, someone asked nobody in particular, "Hey, wasn't that guy in the Sports section of the Times recently?"

Carly, meanwhile, had walked up to Jack.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked.

"CELEBRATING! What does it look like?" he answered without really registering who was speaking to him. Then he did a double take.

"Oh. Hi, Carly," he said, as if only just now understanding the situation.

"I think we should go inside now," Carly hinted. She grabbed Jack's forearm and started walking back toward the lobby doors. She managed to say, "Sorry!" in reasonably comprehensible English to the onlookers.

So much for keeping this to themselves. It would probably go viral in a matter of hours, and sooner or later someone who understood Japanese would be able to decipher it.

Oh well. At least she knew that Jack was okay with the idea of becoming a father. Maybe later, they could have their own, private celebration.