If We Ever Meet Again

”Are you really sure?” Jack asked anxiously as he moved from the walk-in-closet and into the large bedroom, carrying a couple of clothing items that he proceeded to place in the small suitcase laying at the end of the king-sized bed. The very same bed that a heavily pregnant Ellie was sitting cross-legged on, watching his every move with a soft smile across her lips.

“Yes,” she stated frankly, refusing to waver. “This is your job,” she needlessly reminded him as she took the clothes from his hands and placed them neatly in the bag, having seen him do it just a handful of times before, each time coming away wondering how he ever managed to have wrinkle-free shirts for game days when he was on the road. “Besides,” she glanced up at him, “you were there, you heard the doctor, everything is progressing right on schedule,” she continued. “Everything is fine,” she added with a smile.

“I know that, but…” he trailed off as he watched her. He hadn’t been thinking about children and his future family before, but now…now he had a hard time imagine the days without her, or even remembering how his life had been just months earlier. Before she came back into his life, before she came out to live with him, before he learned that he was becoming a dad…

And the last one was exactly why he wasn’t exactly looking forwards to the team’s three game, five day road trip up to western Canada. Her estimated due date was less than two weeks away and no matter if her doctor had told him time and time again that everything was fine, the baby would come on it’s one schedule and she was most likely going to go a couple of days over, he was still going to worry.

Worry about her, about the baby, worry that he wasn’t going to be there when she went into labor and worry that he was going to miss the birth of his first child. After all, it wasn’t unheard of in the league for fathers, even first time ones, to miss the actual birth because of away games.

“No buts,” she told him simply. “You are going, the baby will come when the baby wants to,” she said softly, running her hand over her extended belly, a soft look in her blue eyes. She constantly felt like a beached whale with heartburn, though she looked like she’d swallowed a beach ball whole, but at the same time she knew that she was a lot smaller than her friend had been when she was expecting her first baby. Her doctor had told her it was probably genetics and because she was still pretty young, but she couldn’t help but worry that something was wrong with the baby, or that something was going to go wrong…

“But what if I'm not here?” he argued worriedly, breaking her train of unhealthy thoughts. He was honestly a bit annoyed at her lack of worry over the fact that he had to fly so far away right at the end of her pregnancy.

“You will be here,” she smiled confidently, reaching out and taking his much large hand in hers, pulling him close to her and pressing her lips against his. “They aren’t due for at least another two weeks,” she reminded him simply. “There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t travel with the team….”


Ellie was cursing herself and her own reasoning in that very moment as another, very painful contraction ripped through her body, leaving her feeling as if someone was quite literally attempting to tear her insides out.

Feeling a bit childish as a whimper passed her lips and a lone tear escaped the corner of her eye, she choked back a sob as she gripped the sheets on the bed, pretty sure that her surprisingly long nails was going to pierce the fabric whilst she as at it. Her mother who was the only one currently in the room with her coached her through the pain like she’d promised she would, occasionally dabbing her forehead with a cool cloth, but nothing could make the pain go away, the absolutely excruciation pain that she was in.

And despite her own mother being there, her mother-in-law being there, even a couple of the other wives and girlfriends being there, she couldn’t help but feel completely alone.

The only person she really wanted there with her was several hundred miles away, on her own insistence…


Sitting curled up in the couch in the living room along with her mother who’d been out there with them since Christmas, Ellie watched some sort of documentary on National Geographic, barely paying attention to what it was about, her gaze constantly flickering towards the illuminated numbers on the DVR.

It was five hours since she’d arrived back at the house after a pre-scheduled check-up with her doctor and the rain was beating against the large windows, the occasional rumble of thunder rolling in from the ocean.

She’d been told the weather wasn’t anything unusual for the season or the area they were it, but it still caused her to worry slightly. And matters weren't’ made better by the fact that the Kings had a game against Edmonton in just an hour or so.

The checkup was supposed to be nothing out of the ordinary, just a couple of blood tests and average…checkups, to make sure that nothing unusual was happening.

It was less than two weeks till her calculated due date, and considering that they’d only slept together on two different occasion, two days apart, her doctors’ were more sure than usual of that prediction. But considering that a baby was involved, a baby who had its own schedule and never bothered checking with anyone if they were ready, or if they were on time, the due date still wasn’t as certain as they’d all like to think.

As had been confirmed at said check up when her doctor had – once again – been informing her of the procedure should she go over time, the possibility of being induced and all the potential complications that could arise with that.

Stopping mid-sentence as she was talking about the risks involved, she’d unceremoniously stopped and exclaimed that it wouldn’t be necessary.

To which Ellie had pushed herself up on her elbows, and looked to where the woman she’d learnt to call Denise was partially hidden behind a drape, a wide grin across her lips as she sat up straighter on her stool. Her own response being a very confused, “What?”

Denise had pulled off the plastic gloves she’d been wearing and patter her knee as a silent cue for her to ease her legs down before reaching for the chart laying on the desk and stating, “You're already 3cm dilated.”

Beyond that point Ellie hadn't heard much of what the doctor had told her, having gone slightly numb.

Since she’d started showing, there had been no denying that she was having a baby, that she was going to have to give birth to a baby, but she’d still sort of managed to ignore the latter fact. After all, she wasn’t a big fan of pain…

What she did remember the doctor saying however, was that she would probably be coming back to the hospital in some 24hours, the following morning most likely, when she was expecting her labor to really start kicking off.

This was why she’d refused to take Jack’s call about 30minutes after walking out of the hospital, taking the chicken way out and texting him back, telling him everything was fine but she couldn’t talk as she was taking her mother to the cinema. It was a believable excuse, they had after all been talking about going and she knew that two or three hours later he wouldn’t be able to talk.

She didn’t want to tell him what the doctor had told her, knowing that he was just going to drop everything and try to get back home to LA. The team needed to win, badly as they had dropped one too many games as of late and she really didn’t want her own insecurities to be the reason for one of their best defensemen missing the game.

After all, he would have all the time he needed to get back home after the game, no need to pull him away before anything was happening anyway…

Sighing and shifting slightly in the couch, her hand rubbing soothing circles across her stomach, she couldn’t quite ignore the twinges in her back that seemed to be increasing every now and then. She’d been experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks, and she knew that they would hurt real bad, but…but even if she didn’t want to admit it, she knew that this was different.

That this was the real deal…

“Ellie?” her mother asked from the other couch, a worried glint in the blue eyes that were almost identical to her daughter’s.

“It’s nothing,” Ellie stated simply. “I just can’t seem to get comfortable.”

“I’ve been pregnant, twice,” her mother, Annika, told her frankly as she placed her coffee mug on the wooden coffee table. “Don’t think you can fool me,” she arched her eyebrow pointedly, causing her youngest daughter to look away and fidget slightly.

“I think I'm having contractions,” Ellie admitted barely audible, not wanting to admit it to herself, much less to someone else. She so wasn’t ready for this…

“Well, we better get going then,” Annika stated simply, standing from the couch and stretching slightly before taking her daughter’s hand and helping her off the couch. She was excited about becoming a grandmother for the first time and equally scared about driving through LA traffic, but hanging on to her calm, she helped her second born walk towards the front door, overnight bag having been packed for the past month.

Managing to climb into the passenger seat of the dark BMW X5 on her own, Ellie made a silent prayer that everything was going to go fine. She didn’t like hospitals, she didn’t like pain, and she honestly didn’t know if she could do this…

Arriving at the same hospital they’d left just hours earlier at record time considering Annika barely knew her way around her daughter’s neighborhood, much less the greater city of Los Angeles, Ellie was immediately admitted and taken away to a room for a checkup to see how far she’d progressed.

Watching her daughter being placed in a wheel chair and taken into a delivery room, Annika took care of all the paper work and then proceeded to pull out her phone from her purse and made one of the single most important calls of her life…


“He’ll be here,” Nicole Brown promise as she held Ellie’s hand, trying to not winch at the other blonde’s strength as her contractions got closer and closer.

“You don’t know that,” Ellie retorted with a growl and a cold glare in her direction as she sat in a chair by the hospital bed.

“Just keep your legs crossed a little longer,” Nicole told her with a gentle pat on the knee, knowing exactly how it felt to be in her position, having been in it twice before herself.

“If I’d kept my knees closed in the first place I wouldn’t be here right now,” Ellie whined in pain, she hated pain…

She didn’t want to do this any longer.

Because she was pretty sure that she couldn’t do this…



Getting into the mandatory gown before a nurse helped her get into a bed and the doctor who had greeted her as she arrived did a quick checkup, Ellie found herself feeling helpless and like a little girl again, surrounded by big words and situations she wasn’t used to.

It was hard grasping what was happening around her.

Everything she’d been told, that she’d read, that she’d heard from other first-time mothers went out the window as nurses got IV’s attached to her hands or arms, blood pressure cuff strapped around her upper arm, double patient-IDs on her left wrist…

But one thing was clear by the sped which the nurses and doctors were moving around with, this wasn’t going to take 30+ hours.

This wasn’t going to be hours and hours of disgusting hospital food, little to no sleep and a mountain of drugs and painkillers… This was going to…

It was becoming glaringly obvious as she realized that even when she’d gotten there maybe half-an-hour earlier she’d already been too far gone to have the epidural she’d decided on several weeks prior, when she’d been asked to write down her birth plan.

But the biggest part of her plan wasn’t even there yet.

As far as she knew, Jack might not even be across the Canadian border. There was a large possibility that he wasn’t going to get there on time, get there before the baby decided that it wasn’t going to wait any longer….


“…a last minute change to the lineup is that Greene will step up to play with Doughty while Mitchell and Scuderi makes up the second paring after Jack Johnson’s hastily departure from the team…”

“…team’s talented defenseman Jack Johnson is reported to have left the team just moment before taking to the ice for warm-ups. The team’s press-manager was reluctant to give out any information, but did say that it was a family…”

“Just shut it off,” Ellie groaned into the pillow beneath her head as her mother was sitting in the chair beside her bed, flicking through the channels on the TV that was suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room.

“El…” Annika said sternly. Her daughter might be in pain – she’d been there twice before herself so she should know – but that didn’t give her the right to start acting like a spoilt brat.

“Can you at least turn off the sound?” Ellie whined as another contraction started to build up. She felt bad as it was for pulling him out of such an important game, she didn’t need anyone else reminding her of it.

“Don’t think like that,” Annika said, knowing exactly what was flying through her daughter’s head right then and she turned off the sound before placing the remote on the table beside the bed and glancing at the clock as she did.

They’d been there for almost three hours now, and from the looks the doctors and nurses were giving them every time they were in, she knew that there was a large possibility that if Jack didn’t get there and soon, he was going to miss the birth of his first child.

The door to the room opening without the almost familiar knock of the nurses caused the two women to look over and watching the disheveled blonde man all but stumble into the room, Annika wasn’t sure who was more relieved; her daughter or her.

“What’s happened? Did I miss it?” Jack’s words were hurried and he sounded out of breath, kind of like he’d run from the airport to get there.

“Thank God you're here,” Ellie managed to get out as she looked at him; his suit was wrinkled, he wasn’t wearing a tie and his shirt was only half-tucked into his pants.

“You got here just in time,” Dr Denise McFadden smiled as she stepped into the room behind him. “I’m hearing that someone is a little impatient,” she grabbed a pair of plastic gloves from a box and walked over to the bed where Ellie was half-lying, Jack following in her tracks.

“Good luck, I love you,” Annika whispered as she kissed her daughter on the forehead and pried her fingers free from her strong grip, patting Jack on the shoulder and sending him a slight smile before she exited the room. She knew that this was a moment that should be shared just by the two of them.

“I'm sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” Jack apologized as he quickly took her hand and brushed his lips against her slightly parted once before he sat down in the chair that Annika had just vacated, watching as the familiar doctor talked with a nameless nurse who’d just entered the room.

“It’s okay,” Ellie breathed between contractions that were getting stronger and closer by the minute.

“No, I promised I was going to be here and I wasn’t and I left you on your own and you had to wait and I'm so sorry and…” he rambled, much to the amusement of the medical personnel in the room; they’d seen this before.

“Jack!” Ellie exclaimed, squeezing his hand particularly hard as she glared at him. “Focus!” she ordered him as Denise and the nurse she knew as Marissa instructed her what to do, even though she was surprised to realize just how much of it was coming natural, like her body already knew what it was supposed to do. “I know that you're sorry and all, but I'm kinda having your baby here!




“…traveled back home to Los Angeles where his girlfriend Ellie has gone into labor. This will be the couple’s first child and we want to wish them all the best as they welcome another member into the Kings family. One of the core defensemen on the team Johnson is…”

“Famous before he was even born,” Jack chuckled slightly as he walked across the room, glancing at the TV before focusing solely on the only bed in the room. The sight before him was better than he could ever have imagined it would be.

Ellie was sitting up in the bed, looking surprisingly fresh-faced for having given birth just an hour ago, holding a small baby in her arms.

He didn’t know much about labor and giving birth, but what he did remember from when his brother was born, and what his teammates had told him, it wasn’t supposed to take four to five hours. And not just a handful contractions before everything was over…

But it had, and he had truly made it just in time. Less than fifteen minutes after he stumbled through the door, his son had been born.

All 20 inches, 7lb 12oz of him…

Pressing his lips to hers when he reached the bed, he brushed his finger over the smooth forehead of the tiny baby that had just gone to sleep, looking more peaceful than he thought a baby could look. Carefully taking the sleeping boy from her arms before sitting down in the comfortable chair next to the bed, he couldn’t keep from getting slightly emotional.

“You did good,” he said softly, glancing over at Ellie who was watching him closely.

“No,” she disagreed with him. “We did good,” she corrected him, smiling slightly.

“He’s just…” he was in awe that something so tiny, could affect him so much. “He’s just perfect.”

“He’s got some good genes,” she joked, earning herself a wide grin from him as he tore his gaze away from the sleeping boy. “So, I’ve been thinking,” she said, causing him to suddenly fill with dread.

“About?” he asked evenly, not really sure why it felt as if something was about to change between them, and not in a good way either.

“What we should name him,” she said softly. They hadn't talked names, not knowing if they were having a boy or a girl if had felt almost pointless.

“Yeah?” he asked, perking up slightly as he was careful to not move the baby too much, making sure to have a good hold on him as he shifted slightly in the chair.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I think we should name him after you,” she said softly. “Keep with tradition and everything,” personally she wasn’t named after any of her relatives and neither was her sister, their parents had just kind of liked their names. But she knew that he was named after his dad, who in turn was named after his dad…tradition.

“Really?” he asked surprised, he wasn’t even sure she knew about that.

“Yeah,” she confirmed simply. “John Joseph Louis Johnson IV,” she smiled at him, seeing the excited spark in his blue eyes. “We can just call him JJ, or Junior.”

Carefully running his finger over his son’s eyebrows, he suddenly felt as if everything was falling into place…

Licking his lips, he looked up at her, blue meeting blue as a small, but tired smile was playing across her lips. “I love you.”