Hey guys,

sorry it took me so long (again!) to write the chapter. I suck ;)

Also it's kind of a bla-bla chapter with a bit of a look back and stuff.

Contains kinda spoilers for episode 2x23 but not really :p

Hope you enjoy

Next chapter will be online sooner I hope!

Nick hadn't been able to sleep very well that night, so after hours of staring at the ceiling he decided to get up and do something useful, which turned out to be an apology breakfast for Jess.

After the food was done, he opened the cupboard and looked through the different sorts of tea in there. Pregnant women shouldn't drink too much caffeine. That much he knew. After a few seconds he chose the lemon tea. Lemons could never be wrong. They had vitamins and all that stuff.

"Nick?", he heard her voice and turned around.

She was standing there in a light blue pajama with little stars on it. Her hair was messy and her eyes were still sleepy and framed by one of her round glasses. Nick got this well-known warm tingling feeling in his stomach. She looked adorable.

"What are you doing up? It's like 7 am", she asked confused.

"I made you breakfast", he greeted her and smiled.

"You made breakfast?", she sounded more mocking than mad, which gave Nick hope. Maybe she didn't totally hate him.

"Well, I made you tea and a sandwich. I will not play with this fire thing again", he pointed at the stove and made a face as if it would be something evil.

Jess chuckled and Nick's heart made a little jump.

"Wanna sit down?", he asked hopefully and pointed at one of the bar chairs.

She nodded. "I'll just jump in the shower really quickly"

"Here you go", he handed Jess the plate and the mug and placed himself on the chair on the other side of the table.

"Thanks"

She peeked between the slices of bread with a nosy expression on her face.

"Wait, is this peanut butter and jelly on the same sandwich?", she asked almost shocked.

"Yup", he smirked, "And I made it without getting the urge to destroy things"

He hated Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwich. He just couldn't understand how someone could ruin something as good as peanut butter with something as disgusting as jelly. But he also knew that Jess loved it.

She gave him a little smile and took a bite. "It's delicious"

"I doubt that", he said with a sarcastic laugh.

Jess took a few more bits and an unpleasant silence filled the room. Nick started to play with his hands nervously. She looked up at him from her plate. Her eyes had a demanding expression.

Nick realized that he could joke and be nice as much as he wanted, but the elephant in the room would not disappear. She wouldn't just forget about his behavior the last three days.

"Jess...", he started and reached out his hand to take hers, but she pulled away.

He broke the eye contact and looked at his hand, slowly taking it back to him, and stayed silent, daunted by her gesture.

She sighed heavily. "I'm really trying to be understanding Nick, but I NEED to know what you think about this whole baby situation. You haven't even said anything about..", her voice broke off and she paused.

He looked back up. "About what?"

Her hand was clenched around the mug and she looked at his eyes searchingly. "About...if you want to keep it", she finished the sentence in a shaky voice.

"What?!", his eyes widened. Not one second had it crossed his mind to not keep the baby, "Of course I want to keep it! You don't want to keep it?"

Panic crept in on him. Maybe she didn't want a kid with him and his messed up genes.

"I want to keep it", she said without hesitation.

His body relaxed and he sighed in relief. "Okay. Good"

"Okay. Good", she mimicked him but her voice was still shaky.

Why in the hell would she think, that he didn't want to keep the baby?

His stomach clenched, when he realized the extent of his behavior. Of course she would think that, after the way he reacted. It must have been terrible for her. He deserved so much more than that little punch from Schmidt.

He jump of his chair,walked around the table, pulled her into his arms and was relieved about the fact, that she let him do it.

"I'm so sorry Jess", he said quietly and stroke his hand over her back, "I never wanted you to feel like I don't want the baby. That's definitely not the reason why...you know...", he started to stumble again, "I'm just an idiot"

She leaned his head on his shoulder and he could feel how her body relaxed slightly.

"Okay", she whispered.

"Okay", he repeated.

Nick knew that that wasn't the end of this conversation. But for now, it seemed to be enough for her.

"I'm sorry sir, but we really don't need another bartender", the young blonde woman said a second time with an apologetic shake of her head.

Nick let himself fall on one of the bar chairs and nodded in defeat. He had spent the whole day searching for a new job and this was the last bar he had found within a bearable distance of the loft. But apparently no one was in need of a 31 year old bartender.

"Can I have a beer then?", he asked the woman behind the bar. One beer was justifiable. He needed something to wash away the frustration.

"Sure", she walked away, came back with a bottle of Heisler and placed it in front of Nick.

"Oh and...a little tip", she said with a shy smile, "Next time you ask for a job somewhere, maybe wait until your face is healed. You know, that crooked nose and that shiner make you look like...well.. a brawler. No offense"

She disappeared quickly and left a turtle-faced Nick alone. He looked up and spotted a mirror at the wall behind the bar. He took a look at himself and grimaced. He couldn't argue with that woman. The shiner looked really dangerous, his nose was just his nose and in addition to that, he hadn't shaved since the day Jess told him that she was pregnant. Plus, his shirt was dirty.

After the conversation with Jess this morning, he was so eager to make things right, that he had grabbed the first piece of cloth, he could find and left the loft to go on a job hunt.

He went back to his beer and almost emptied it with one huge gulp.

Classic. Even if he tries, he still messes it up. His last try, 'Guy's night', turned out to be a flop too. Although there were more people in the bar than ever before, since no one had to pay, the profit wasn't really huge. He really wanted it to be a success. Of course, the whole responsibility thing was to impress Shane a little bit, but in the long run he really wanted to get his crap together. But then his Dad died and shortly after that he got together with Jess and he had other things in mind than improving his career.

When he and Jess were finally officially together, he felt like the luckiest bastard on the planet. Although the start of their relationship was anything but easy. First the kiss after True American, her breakup with Sam followed by a very weird week, where both of them didn't know how to behave towards each other. Then this idiot Jax, followed by Shane. The fish tank incident. Finally their first date, which couldn't have gone more wrong. Again days of weirdness and 'Middle school dance rules'. And then that one night, that Nick would never forget. The tension between them was just too much and they couldn't take it anymore and crossed Jess's self-drawn line by having sex. After that, they couldn't go back, but it still wasn't clear what they were. So Cece stepped up and did one of Jess's famous parent traps, expect it wasn't for her parents but for them. She locked them into Jess's room and refused to let them out until they had defined their relationship. After what felt like hours of them arguing with Cece and telling her she watches to much 'How I met your mother', Nick finally had the balls to tell Jess, that he would like to upgrade their friendship into a relationship. It was an understatement, but it was enough for Jess.

But maybe he should have never tried to get her. He was good at two thing. Denying and pretending. He should have stuck to that. Denying his feelings for Jess and pretending everything was okay. Pretending it wouldn't kill him to see her with somebody else. She would have been just fine without him. Probably even finer.

Because he had to face the truth. He never was and he never would be good enough for her.

Jess told him once, that Spencer never really had a job and always depended on her. And that, in the end, she was glad that he cheated on her, because she would have never broken up with him because she never realized how unhappy she had been in this relationship. Maybe it was kind of Jess's thing. To fall for some loser who makes her miserable without her noticing it until it was too late. Maybe he was Spencer 2.0

He ordered another beer and tried to get rid of that thought, but somehow it got stuck in his head.

Don't worry. Nick gets his shit together soon. cause this self-pity starts to annoy me :D