“… What?”
The blood drained from Jack’s face, leaving it a sickly-looking gray. He felt as if his stomach had dropped out – as if something inside him had gone cold and crumbled away. He heard the words, but could only gape for a moment as the full impact settled in.
His son had gotten someone pregnant. After all the hard work Jack and Katelynn had done to educate their children about sex and safety, one of them had still gone and made the ultimate screw-up (pun very much intended). There was no way Ulric was ready for a baby of his own. He was too young – he hadn’t even finished school! – and worse, he was stuck twenty-five years in the past.
When he turned to Ulric, there was no happiness in his expression. Only anger, grief, and fear. “Is that true?”
Ulric winces, recognizing that expression on his dad’s face. Katelynn was one thing, he knew it was likely she’d react well, but Jack… this wasn’t going to be easy.
“Uh, y-yeah… ?”
Mira’s body felt like it was going to tremble out of how nervous she was. Jack did not look happy. Breaking the news to them was much, much harder than it was to Gail. One of Mira’s immediate thoughts was thinking she shouldn’t have said anything at all. Or maybe she’d spilled the beans too soon. But either waiting longer or saying it sooner, it really didn’t matter.
At any rate, the cards were out on the table. Mira hadn’t expected a somewhat happy reaction out of Katelynn and that did make her feel a little better. But it was Jack that she was scared and worried about. She could see the way his face paled it it made Mira cringe, biting the inside of her lip and moving in closer to Ulric. If this progressed, Mira was going to have Joey move to the other room.
“…y-yes, it is.” she brought her hands together, holding onto the engagement ring around her finger. She didn’t want to say much. Not right now when the news was still sinking in.
Being unable to hardly speak, Katelynn’s hand merely traveled down to clasp her husband’s, knowing this wasn’t going to be pretty. Words of comfort would hardly work, knowing he needed to let out the emotion and have his say.
Still it slightly broke her heart, glancing at her son from the corner of her eye and giving him a fearful glance. She wanted to be encouraging but was torn between that and wishing her son had waited until he was older. The deed was done however and she squeezed Jack’s hand.
“Love..” she tried, but failed to form any words.
But Jack ignored his wife’s plea. He didn’t notice the ring on Mira’s finger, either. All his attention was on his son. When he spoke, it was in that cold, rough whisper that had always came out when he was furious with his children – in a way, it was worse than yelling.
“Ulric, how could you have been so stupid? You … look, I don’t want to know the details, but weren’t you being careful at all? For god’s sake, we had this talk with you!”
He could feel his old stutter creeping in, he was so distraught, and it made him even angrier. “And you’re in the past. You might be altering all our lives. Dammit, didn’t you think?!”
Jack Maple 