If We Ever Meet Again

Hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, Jack stood in the middle of the arrivals hall for international flights at LAX, waiting for Ellie to appear through the doors from baggage claim and immigration. He was nervous – something he rarely was – about seeing her again and had ended up getting to the airport around half an hour before her flight out of London, England was even scheduled to land.

And with her being an out-of-country visitor, probably carrying more luggage than he wanted to imagine, it was going to take her some time to go through the whole process and that didn’t include any potential problems with her paper work…

Not to mention, the flight had been thirteen minutes late due to storms up in Canada.

Rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet, trying to appear inconspicuous standing alone in the middle of the busy airport, he started chewing on his bottom lip as the worries and the doubts started seeping back into his brain once again.

There was a part of him that couldn’t help but think that this whole thing was just too good to be true.

She’d been so set against coming out to LA when he first threw the idea out there and then all of a sudden, she changed her mind.

Just like that…

It caused him to worry and think that maybe she’d change her mind halfway there; maybe she wasn’t even on the flight that had landed some twenty five minutes earlier. She had texted him before she left her apartment and then called him a she had a three hour long layover in London, but he didn’t actually know that she’d then stepped onto the plane for the transatlantic leg of her journey…

Shaking his head slightly, trying to get those thoughts out of his mind, he reached up and ran his fingers through his short hair, looking around at the many different kinds of people milling about around him.

No one seemed to take any notice of him, a few had to steer around him as they were heading for the exits, but that was about it. And for once he was actually happy that he played in a market where hockey wasn’t all that high up on the food chain.

Fishing up his phone from his pocket, he sighed as he found that he had no new messages and took a breath, telling himself to stop worrying as he saw the time. She would emerge through those doors when she was done; when she’d gotten her bags, her visa had cleared and….

His thoughts trailed off as he spotted a familiar, surprisingly tall blonde weave her way through other travelers.

A smile spreading across his lips, he watched as she looked around, appearing a lot more comfortable with the prospect of being in an unfamiliar airport than he would have expected her to be, but nonetheless he took a step forwards, trying to catch her attention. Her dark blue eyes finally landing on him, his smile grew as he saw her whole face light up and brilliant smile spread across her pink lips before she headed straight for him.

Considering that it was quickly approaching the middle of November, he wasn’t all that surprised as he saw that she was wearing an eggplant wool pea coat and a scarf draped over her shoulders. He might never have been in her home country in November, but he had been there over New Years once and it wasn’t much different from where he’d grown up, she had probably needed that coat when she headed to the airport some many hours earlier.

But now they were in sunny LA and there was definitely no use for it.

Quickly reaching her, he wrapped her in a close hug before she even got a word out and buried his face in her loose curls, causing her to laugh softly as she moved her arms around his much larger frame to return the hug. “Hi,” she whispered, gently running her smooth hand over the back of his neck.

Letting go of her and taking a step back, looking down at her, blue meeting blue, he realized just how invested he was in this already. How much he’d missed her in just one month… “Hi,” he smiled at her, his gaze flickering down to where her coat hung open, a vertically striped top clearly visible.

Having heard his teammates’ wives complaining about how much they hated people who just reached out and touched their bellies when they were pregnant, he hesitated for a second before reaching out and seeing the smile across her lips it was obvious that she knew exactly what he was thinking. “It’s okay.

Placing his hand against the swell of her belly, he smiled softly. “I missed you,” he admitted quietly, his gaze never leaving hers.

“I missed you too,” the words were honest and enough to cause his smile grow. “They’re probably sleeping,” she told him as she placed her hand over his and moved it slightly, “they were really active, kicking me all over the place a while ago,” she told him. “It’s probably the time zones and everything.”

“Will you tell me when they wake up?” he asked hopefully, wanting to feel the baby kicking again and moving his hand, he laced their fingers together.

“Of course,” she promised him with a smile.

“So how was your flight?” he asked as she removed the scarf from around her neck and reluctantly let go of her hand so she could stuff the off-white knitted material into her large tote bag.

“Long,” was her simple reply as she shrugged off her coat and draped it over her arm as she once again moved her tote to her shoulder, shifting her stance slightly and he once again refrained from commenting on the sort of shoes she chose to wear – this time a pair of brown leather boots that reached just below her knee and had a heel on them that he would always consider too high. “And tiring,” she added.

Nodding understanding, he reached for her lone suitcase and motioned towards the doors before grasping her free hand and lacing their fingers together.

“So am I going to freeze now?” she asked with a smile as they quickly moved through the thinning crowd in the arrivals hall and approached the doors, glancing between him and her arms that were left mostly bare in the short-sleeved, hip-long t-shirt she was wearing.

“Naw, I don’t think so,” he shook his head slightly; after all he was wearing a short sleeved polo shirt himself so he should now. It was one of the perks of living on the West Coast during the winter months, even if he did miss the snow during the holidays. “I’ll keep you warm if you do,” he promised with a smile as they walked out through the doors and he led them towards the parking garage where he’d left his car.

“Thank you,” she leaned slightly against him as they crossed a street and rode the elevator up to the fourth floor of the five story car park.

“No problem,” he brushed his lips against the top of her head before leading her to the dark grey BMW X5 that was parked along the edge of the garage. Stopping to dig out the keys from his jean pocket, he unlocked the vehicle and placed her large suitcase in the trunk after telling her to take a seat, asking if she needed any help which was quickly declined.

Climbing in behind the wheel of the large vehicle, he’d soon started the car and slowly drove out of the garage, easy chatter about everyday matters filling the air between them.



Her fingers laced together with Jack’s, their intertwined hands resting on the center console, Ellie watched as unfamiliar streets, neighborhoods and landmarks passed by outside the large car. She had spent a substantial amount of time in LA at one point in her life some years earlier, and even if she didn’t really recognize more than the look of the street signs hanging above, she felt like she did.

The airport she didn’t have much memory of from the last time, but in all honesty it wasn’t much different from the ones in London, Madrid or even Stockholm so she was certain she hadn't missed anything. And the free way…it was one thing she was sure she was never going to forget; the endless traffic jams at rush hour and the annoying reflectors that caused a bus ride to feel like a ride down a never-ending cobblestoned street.

“So where are you taking us?” she asked quietly, breaking the comfortable silence between them after a short while.

“Home,” Jack replied simply, glancing over at her as he drove through the familiar streets.

“Well I sort of figured that out,” she playfully rolled her eyes at him before sending him a look. “Where is home?” she questioned, suppressing the feelings the bubbled up inside of her as the use of that particular word; home…

“You’ll see,” he replied evenly, only to break out in a smile as she glared at him. Squeezing her hand slightly, he made another turn and she couldn’t help but notice that the air was slightly less smoggy than it had been just moments earlier.

“I don’t like surprises,” she warned him with a smile.

“Fine,” he shook his head slightly, slowing to a stop at an intersection. “11 Bay Street,” he stated simply before turning his head to look at her. “Does that tell you anything?” he questioned after a second.

“No,” she replied reluctantly, pouting slightly. “Shut up,” she mock glared at him as he laughed at her, continuing to drive down large streets that to him were familiar and she was pretty sure she’d never seen before.

“You’ll like it,” he told her, and even if the look across his angular face was confident, she couldn’t help but pick up on the slightly uncertain undertone in his voice.

“I hope so too,” she decided to pry anymore and simply shifted slightly in the cream leather seat as she took in the unfamiliar sights they were passing by, trying to remember if she’d seen any of them before.

A rather large part of her was still questioning what she was doing. Convincing her friends that she was doing the right thing, getting onto the plane…those had been the easy parts.

This, sitting in a car with Jack, driving through the streets of LA, that was the hard part.

Reality was surprisingly easy to ignore when it wasn’t looking over your shoulder and from where she was currently sitting…well, it might as well have been sitting in her lap.

Jack could paint the most beautiful picture about how things were going to work out between then, how their child would have a great family, how they were going to get along perfectly and live together and… Getting reality to live up to that picture was going to be the hard part…

Nibbling slightly on her plump lower lip, she silently observed Jack as he made a left turn followed by a right one that lead them down a ramp to an underground garage where the doors slowly parted as they approached. Arching her eyebrow in question, she suppressed the urge to voice the questions that bubbled up inside of her as they slowly drove through the large garage, the car soon parked at the far end, next to a number of other – equally expensive – cars.

“So where are we?” she asked curiously as she closed the door after climbing out of the car, pushing her tote onto her shoulder.

“Home,” he smiled at her as they met up at the back of the car, causing a slight smile to spread across her lips as well.

Realizing that he wasn’t going to say anything more, she grabbed her coat from the trunk and watched as he easily hauled her bag out, placing it on the ground and pulling up the handle like he’d done it a million times. Which, when she thought about it, he probably had considering how often he traveled across the continent.

Neither of them saying anything, she easily reached out and let his fingers wrap around her own hand as they walked along the row of cars and towards the metal doors that most likely concealed an elevator.

Both of them stopping, she turned slightly to look at him expectantly, silently urging him to make the first move. After all, she had no idea where they were, much less where they were going.

Looking at her for a second, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a key ring with a single key on it. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her, urging her to take it.

Hesitating slightly, she watched him before reaching out and taking the gold key from him, the size and shape of it different from the ones she was used to from back home.

Having already seen the keyhole next to the doors, she recognized the elevator as the kind they’d had when she’d been working at a medical research company when she was still in high school, and she inserted the key, turning it slightly to the right and hearing the familiar sound of the elevator starting, moving down the shaft.

Pulling out the key, she looked up at Jack whose blue eyes had been following her every move, an unreadable look across his face. “What…?” she began asking.

“I know that things between us are far from ideal, or even normal,” he interrupted her, reaching out and brushing a strand of soft blonde hair behind her ear. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, with us, but I know that I already love that baby growing in your belly right now and I want to be best dad in the world for them, and…” he trailed off, gaze flickering back to where his cars were parked before he looked back at her again. “What I'm saying is that we don’t know what’s going to happen, and I'm fine with that, as long as we do this together.”

“Damn hormones,” she blubbered slightly as looked down at her bump.

“Good tears, bad tears?” he asked carefully, a hand gently placed on her shoulder as he leaned down slightly to catch her eye. His captain had warned him about this when he revealed that she was flying out there.

“Good tears,” she smiled up at him. “Definitely good tears,” she added as she looked at the key in her hand, tears still spilling over onto her cheeks as the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival.

“Come on,” he smiled at her, brushing his lips against her forehead before letting her step into the elevator first and pulling her large suitcase behind in, instructing her to press the button marked 4.

Doing just that, she couldn’t help but fidget with the key in her hands as they slowly traveled upwards, towards the third and second highest floor in the building.

The ride passing quicker than expected, she watched as Jack stepped out first into a bright corridor before following down the hall that was lined with navy-colored doors. All with brass colored numbers and doorknobs.

Stopping in front of one of them, she looked up at the tall defenseman at her side who simply motioned towards the door, a small smile playing across his lips, deep down excited as well as nervous about finding out what she would think about the apartment.

Looking down at the key still in her hand, she reached out and pushed it into the look, turning it around and breaking out in an excited smile as the door slid open slightly. Pulling the key from the lock, she pushed the surprisingly heavy door open and took a first hesitant step forwards, over the threshold and into the unfamiliar apartment, her heels clicking against the oak hardwood floors.

“Did you decorate this place yourself?” she asked, her tone taking on a pitch of surprise as she looked around the open-planned apartment that was tastefully decorated, all in soft, earthy colors with furniture that complimented the space in a very inviting way.

She’d never really stopped to think about who his place would look like, simply figuring that he was a somewhat rich athlete in his early twenties…to which her brains simply screamed ‘Bachelor Pad!’. And she hadn't done much to change those thoughts, leaving her very surprised at the place she was now standing in.

Not only was it impeccably decorated, it was clean, the only clutter she could see being the number of controllers laying in a heap before the flat screen hanging on the wall in the living room.

Despite her not looking at him, still taking the place in, Jack couldn’t help but squirm as he debated his answer, in the end figuring he might as well be honest. “My mother helped.”

“It’s amazing,” she smiled as she turned around to look at him. “Not at all what I would have expected,” she admitted softly.

“What did you expect?” he frowned slightly, having closed the door behind them as he followed her inside and leaving her suitcase standing next to the stairs leading up to the master bedroom.

Licking her lips slowly in an attempt to stall, not quite sure what to say so that she didn’t sound like a completely spoiled brat. “You're a bachelor,” she shrugged slightly, avoiding meeting his eye.

“I wouldn’t really consider myself a bachelor any longer,” he said honestly as he took a step closer to her, reaching out his fingers just brushed against the warm and softly tanned skin of her upper arms.

“I don’t expect you to…” she shifted slightly under his intense gaze. This was one of the many, many things they really hadn't talked about….

“Well, I do,” he replied, thoroughly surprising her with the sincerity and determination in his voice…