Chapter Text
Chapter One
Chaos.
It's a word that stays secure at the top of Hallie Mavis “Fireball” Kerner Seresin's daily vocabulary list. Most of it's description, in Hallie's mind, has to do with her twins.
As precious as Noah Jude and Marley Elizabeth Seresin are, it's the man they share half of their DNA with that makes Hallie's world be turned on its axis.
But to throw Jake “Hangman” Seresin into her work world is totally chaotic.
On this particular late spring morning, the dark blonde-haired Hallie is holding a clipboard against her hip. Hallie's hazel green eyes suddenly got that much wider when they fall onto the chicken claw handwriting version of Jake's surname. “Okay, guys. Joke's on you. Lieutenant Seresin isn't a patient here today. He's playing football on the beach.”
Norah, one of only a handful of middle-aged nurses, is a very sweet and nurturing (especially with Hallie and the twins) Caucasian woman. At first Hallie…after being raised by Norah…thought of sweet as any black woman who becomes the bonus grandma her kids needed and when Marley & Noah accidentally overheard their mother call Norah “Nana”, the nickname stuck. Not that Rhonda minded. “I'm afraid it's true, Doc Hallie. Some man with the same accent as you called for a police escort before telling me that he was bringing the injured person by Jeep.”
Bronco. “Okay,” Hallie replies, her voice soft. She's still in shock at the thought of having Jake…her ex-husband…the other half of her heart…the man who gave her three more spaces to fill her heart with an overflowing waterfall bursting kind of love for her babies…as a patient is too much for Hallie to handle. Luckily for Hallie, Norah is there to help through the unexpected impending wave of Hallie's hormones getting ready to make themselves known.
“Just let it all out, child. Nana Norah is here,” the older woman says in a soothing maternal tone, rubbing Hallie's back in gentle circles to help calm the young single mother down.
Just as Hallie is finally calmed down, her older psuedo-brother comes into the ER with a hobbling Jake beside him. Hallie's ex-husband takes one long look at her and then pinches Bradley's shoulder that blonde-haired and green-eyed Jake's arm is wrapped around. “Really, Rooster? We just had to come to this hospital out of all the others closer to the beach or base?”
“You two need to work stuff out. As great as it's been to have you crashing on my couch…” the older of the Bradshaw siblings, ignoring the glares he gets as he pats Jake's chest before leaving.
“How am I supposed to get back to base!? Rooster? Rooster. C'mon, buddy, don't make me switch our call sign names! Rooster, you owe me big time for this!” Jake continues yelling even as Hallie's ears pick up on the loud backfire of her brother's ages old Bronco truck. “M'sorry 'bout him, Hal. I don't know what's gotten into him bringing me here. I…I'll just call for a cab and get out of your hair.” Just as Jake is about to do that, a pain-filled grimace flashes onto his expression and he collapses against a cart with trays of food from the cafeteria.
“Giovanni Jakob! Rhonda, go get some more nurses and a gurney, stat!” Hallie asks her older friend in gentle demand. Her slender hands cradle either side of Jake's face, patting the flesh of his cheeks. “Jakob, stay awake for me, okay?” Hallie loses all sense of time, barely noticing anyone but her ex-husband or the hormonal echo of emotional steam once again pouring from her ears.
Norah comes back with a big enough team of doctors and nurse that Hallie can focus on Jake, the father of her twins and the baby inside of her. One of the doctors…the hospital administrator to be exact, a three-way tie between Andy, Carroll and Dick…kneels beside a worried Hallie. “We've got it from here, Miss Hallie.” Hallie…the stubborn woman Jake always calls her when they would argue…shakes her head firmly.
“It's the bottom of the third, the bases are loaded…” Hallie begins, slipping into her anxious state, the one where she starts spewing off wins of her hometown team, the Houston Astros as well as the San Diego Padres.
A sigh escapes Dr. Collin Arnold's lips as soon as he realizes the best female doctor from the southern part of the Midwest had no plans to move. He gets to his feet, gestures for Rhonda to follow and steps away from Hallie. “Can you try and detach her for a brief moment so we can at least get Lieutenant Seresin into a room?”
“Yes-sir, Dr. Arnold,” Rhonda says in the sweet, charming tone that's reserved for him.
Although Hallie wants to refuse the idea, she knows it's for Jake's health and safety. Letting him go the young female doctor gets unsteadily to her feet.
J&H // F&H // J&H
It's just under a month's time before Hallie sees Jake again but, this time, it's on a personal level. She is hanging some laundry out to let it dry when her ears pick up on rustling grass blades at the side of the house.
“Venimus.” Jake speaks the Latin phrase softly; the word sliding off his tongue with a dramatic sensuality.
“With the bases loaded, it's Dylan Baker up at the plate,” Hallie murmurs, hands trembling as she attempts to pin another item from the laundry onto the wire clothing line. Another rustling reaches Hallie's ears and she turns in a slight circle to find a now shirtless Jake reaching for the tiny door handle.
“Vidimus,” Jake continues, dropping his loose grip on the door and his heather blue (gray blue) T-shirt as soon as he's inside the screened in porch.
“Baker gets into position. He swings and misses,” Hallie keeps up her sports talk…more specifically about the Houston Astros.
It's something Jake picked up on early in their relationship as something Hallie only did when she would become anxious or nervous. So…he'd come up with his own spoken word code to break down Hallie's walls.
But the closer he got to her now, the faster her heart pounds like a loud bongo drum inside her chest. “Baker takes another swing and this time the crowd goes wild as he knocks it right out of the park.”
“Amavimus,” Jake says after she's finished. As Hallie's now visibly hard, trembling hands lift to pin another piece of laundry into place on the thin wire, she is aware of how close he is.
Close enough for Hallie to find out that her heart isn't the only one pounding, ready to burst free.
Near enough to feel goose bumps rise along the flesh of her arms.
Breath circulates like an electric ceiling slash floor fan as his head and face lower to Hallie's bare shoulder. “You know that laundry day always got me all hot and bothered,” Jake murmurs before grunting in slight pain as she jabs her elbow into his gut. “And so does your gentle violence. Why are you so determined to stir up trouble by throwing random women at me when the only one I want is standing right here in front of me, wearing a tiny sports bra and skin-hugging leather work-out leggings?”
“Don't you know by now that I like to keep you on your toes, Hangman?” Hallie quips in response, preparing to move past him if he hadn't chosen just then to yank her toward him. “Because I enjoy testing your resolve!”
Jake's mouth comes crashing down onto Hallie's, swallowing the sharp gasp that's about to emerge from her throat.
Passion quickly ignites into a raging inferno. Coiling tension makes the room feel as if the walls are closing in on the couple. Carnal eroticism comes with every sweep of their tongues dueling for control though neither really claim victory.
Within a few moments Hallie is letting air back into her lungs as Jake presses kiss after kiss…each one soft and gentle, unlike his pilot persona…to the side of her face. “It's not fair how much you could even still want me,” Hallie mutters under her breath.
“Speak up, darlin'. I don't think everyone in the Bay Area heard you.” There's a gravelly edge to his southern Texas accent that also holds a distinctive sliver of demand in it.
For a response legs of a length that is nearly close to Jake's own tall stature slide up the side of his hips. Taking her hint the blonde-haired pilot grips the underside of Hallie's thighs, lifting her higher against the muscles of his six-pack. Hallie locks her ankles at the base of Jake's spine, digging the edge of her toes into the dark denim shorts which do very little to conceal Jake's arousal.
Hallie moans at the immediate contact of their bodies' lower halves meeting as if there had been no time lost. Jake lets out a matching sound of pleasure into the corded veins of Hallie's neck, latching onto the flesh with gentle nips from his teeth. Stumbling toward the door with the mesh screen, Jake jerks it open and carries her the short distance past the mud room until he's reached a door that's closed.
Reaching behind her at the same time as Jake, Hallie turns the door knob before Jake pushes the door open with his foot. Turning slightly Jake closes and locks the door then carries Hallie to the bed. Within minutes both of them have left a pile of clothes on the floor, neither of them caring as Jake begins to reclaim the passionate flame he knows has never died out with Hallie.
Kissing her forehead, eyelids, nose, cheeks, lips, ears. Hands gently caressing just past the spot where Jake is once again nipping at her flesh, leaving a mark behind. Slowly crawling down Hallie's slender form until his face is buried between her thighs.
Hallie writhes and makes incoherent, stuttering sounds but makes no sudden movements to jerk away from his furiously lapping tongue. Her hands comb through Jake's blonde hair, gripping as his five o'clock shadow rubs against Hallie's thighs. “Jakob…” Her voice is a hoarse plea and Jake squeezes the flesh just inches away from his face, silently urging her through the peak of her orgasm. She comes with a soft cry, the sound bouncing off only the walls of the bedroom before Jake is levering himself up by curled fists.
Standing to his full height Jake asks in a brusque tone, “From the front or from the back?” Hallie also stands to her full five feet and five inches, brushing the tip of her tongue along Jake's cum-covered chin.
“I want it any way you do, Bagman,” Hallie whispers seductively.
Jake fuses their mouths together instantly; the evidence of Hallie's quite intense orgasm getting rubbed all over the smooth, sensitive skin of her face's lower half. Although his original mission had been to go clean himself up, he rethinks his strategy and ends up taking a tumble onto the bed with Hallie getting control and leverage over him. She straddles his lap before reaching out for the top knob of the bedside nightstand.
Frowning Jake attempts to keep her from rolling the condom on him. “Hal? What's going on? First you were emotional a few weeks ago when Rooster brought me to the hospital and now you want me to wear a condom that is 50% foolproof?”
“Can we either get on with this or you leave and we pretend that this conversation never happened?” Hallie lets out an annoyed huff of air, ignoring the heat that is stirring once again between her thighs when Jake moves closer to tug her tense arms away from being crossed over her chest.
“Wild horses won't chase me away, Fireball, and neither will you,” her ex-husband says in a quiet tone, Jake's index finger smoothly going into a crooked position as he guides her chin around. “Now tell me what is going on with you so we can figure this out.”
“Fine. You're going to find out one way or the other.”
Hallie lets out another huff slash sigh. “I'm pregnant again, Jake.”