If We Ever Meet Again

Sipping the heavenly liquid known as coffee from a beige ceramic mug, Eleanor left the dark painted front door ajar as she walked down the three stone steps and followed the stone slab path, only stopping once she reached the large driveway where only a black Ford pickup was parked almost in the street. Leaning against the corner of the three-car-garage, she cradled the mug in her hands and smile at the sight before her.

Located at the cul-de-sac, the home was a suburban dream. Light grey, two storied stone house, a genuine porch swing, a sunroom and a pool in the large open backyard…

However, in her mind, the best thing about the place was the scene playing out before her right in that moment. Father and son playing street hockey in the driveway.

No one was looking at them, no one was scrutinizing what they were going, they were just like any other family on the street. Out there it didn’t really matter that Jack was a successful hockey player.

She’d never experienced anything else, she hadn't lived it, but with the friends they had, she’d certainly seen it, and she loved fate for not putting that kind of pressure on her. Now they were just another family on the block, living their lives, and they loved it…



-x-x-

“John Joseph Louis Johnson IV,” Ellie 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, Jack 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.”

The silence was deafening as he waited for her to say something, anything, he knew that putting himself out there was risky, it was opening yourself up to pain and hurt, but… He’d just seen the woman laying in the bed next to him go through the pain of labor, of giving birth to a baby, his son…he could take the pain of heartache if she didn’t return his feeling.

“What?” he jumped as he felt her soft hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently as he realized he’d disappeared off into his own thoughts.

“I love you,” she smiled softly as she reached up and ran her fingers through his short hair, for the first time voicing the words that had been playing on her mind the past month.


-x-

Spring had come early to Los Angeles, and Jack and Ellie was making the most of his day off, having taken JJ on a long walk along the beach before stopping at a small outdoor café overlooking the coast. JJ was only a little over a month old, but he was already a dream baby, sleeping practically through the night, but if she trusted Jack’s mom – which she did – that would change once he started to crawl and climb. Then all hell would break loose…

Jack’s phone ringing as they were having lunch, he frowned slightly as he saw who was calling him and she only assured him with a nod as he looked at her before getting up from the table. Watching as he talked on the phone, pacing slightly, she soon turned her attention to the small boy sleeping in the pram next to her.

She’d never believed that you could love someone so completely unconditional with just one look, and then she’d seen her son and nothing else came even close to how much she loved him.

Stretching out her leg, she placed her foot on the frame of the beige Bugaboo Cameleon and carefully moved the expensive pram back and forth in an attempt to keep the sleeping boy sleeping. It had only taken her weeks in LA to learn that out there, everything about your appearance was scrutinized.

From what brand shoes you wore to who cut your hair, from the bag on your arm to the keys in your hand. Everything was used to grade you on the social ladder, and whilst she to an extent was used to it in her line of work, the lengths some people went to scared her. They would shamelessly use their pets, or even their babies as accessories, all to further themselves.

Personally she could have done without a lot of the –expensive – things they’d bought for JJ; if she’d been alone she wouldn’t even have thought about buying him designer anything. Just cause it came with a fancy name and a massive price tag, didn’t mean that it was better, or safer for her baby…which in the end was all that mattered.

But, she’d caved and they’d bought the pram that had been a favorite among celebrities and as well as people like them in the past several years.

Looking up as Jack returned to the table and dropped his phone into her small purse lying in a heap on the table; she frowned as she saw the look across his face. “What is it?” she asked concerned, worried that something might have happened.

“I’ve been…” he sank down in the chair, his shoulders slumping as he looked over at her. “I’ve been traded.”

“What?” the words coming out of his mouth right then wasn’t even registering with her.

“To Columbus,” he revealed, seeing the shock spreading across her features.

Not knowing what to say, or even how to react, she once again turned her gaze to the sleeping boy in the pram. When she departed that plane on LAX some 4 months earlier, she’d deep down known that her life was going to change, that allowing Jack entry to her life meant changes. He was a hockey player first, and only a handful of players were lucky enough to only play at one club in their careers. Most of them moved around at least once or twice.

With his contract extension signed just the previous January, she’d clearly been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that he wasn’t going to be moving any time soon.

“That’s in…” she trailed off, wracking her brain to remember the geography lessons back in junior high.

“Ohio,” he supplied easily, observing her as he tried to gauge her reaction. They were in a fairly new relationship, they were parents to a gorgeous little baby boy, but he had already asked her to leave her life and move across the world for him – even if she hadn't yet given him a final answer – he wasn’t sure that she’d follow wherever his career took him.

Los Angeles was one thing, no matter how much she didn’t want to raise their son out there, but Columbus, Ohio…that was a totally different ballgame. In LA she could potentially pick up her career when she felt like it, or even change careers, but out there… He didn’t even want to think about her returning to her home country, taking their son with her, it would break his heart.

“That’s like Civil War country, right?”

The question surprised him, but he still managed a slight nod, even if she couldn't see him as she was still staring at the pram standing next to the table.

“You know about the civil war?” he asked surprised, he didn’t remember much from those history lessons in school, so he hadn't expected her to know any about it, she’d grown up in Europe, a world away from American history.

“No, not really,” she shook her head slightly, feeling his heavy gaze on her.

The only places she’d ever entertained living if she migrated to the United States were LA and New York, maybe Chicago on a good day. Columbus, Ohio had never even crossed her mind…she barely knew where the place was even located…

Yet, that’s were Jack was moving in the matter of days…


-x-

Pushing the pram in front of her as she walked through the halls that were slowly becoming familiar to her, Ellie smiled as she finally reached the people she recognized. Putting the brakes on the pram, she straightened out her sweatshirt as she smiled down at the child who was looking at her with very familiar blue eyes.

Shaking her head as one of her closer friends motioned for her to come up to where they were sitting, she reached into the pram and pulled away the thin cover and picked up her son. Perching him on her hip, she stepped around the pram and closer to the glass, smile growing as she could see recognition in the blue eyes that were identical to his fathers. He had her nose, her hair color and even her lips, but his eyes were all Jack’s.

Pressing a kiss to his smooth forehead she turned slightly so his complete attention could be aimed at the ice on the other side of the boards.

He’d kicked like crazy whenever she watched a game of hockey, or even soccer before he was born and they quickly learned that whilst other children his age were almost frightened by the loud noise during a game, to him, it seemed almost soothing. It was obvious that he loved simply hearing the game when it was on the TV and the first time he’d been at an actual game, she’d thought something was wrong with him from the way he was acting. But he was only excited, even at just a couple of months old.

“Who’s that?” she asked as she pointed towards the glass during a break in the practice.

“Dada,” JJ’s whole face lit up as he recognized the man on the ice.

“Yeah, that’s daddy,” she smiled as she glanced over at the man who’d captured her heart in the strangest of stories, and had caused her to move to a city she’d barely heard of just a year earlier.

Jack had noticed them the second he glanced over, knowing that they would be visiting the open practice, and he smiled widely as he skated over, jumping slightly into the glass and earning himself a loud squeal from his son. Removing his glove and placing his hand against the Plexiglas, he chuckled slightly as the small boy struggled in his mother’s arms and pressed his chubby face against the glass instead of just his hand.

Kissing the top of her son’s head, Ellie sent Jack a wide smile before stepping away from the glass and walking over to where one of her fellow WAG’s were standing, having watched the whole exchange.

“You two are disgustingly cute,” Julia – Mark Letestu’s wife of several years – announced with a smile as she reached her.

“Shut up,” Ellie mumbled under her breath, her cheeks flushing bright red. She was pretty sure that no matter how long she and Jack were together, someone talking about their relationship would continue to cause her to blush.

Taking a seat next to the other woman, she shifted JJ so that he was sitting on her thighs, leaning back against her chest. It didn’t seem to matter if he could actually see what was happening on the ice before them, as long as he could hear it, just be around it, he was perfectly content.

“That boy is going to grow up to be a hockey player,” one of the older wives announced as she too joined them. And she probably knew what she was talking about, she had three sons and a daughter, all of them playing hockey…

Smiling, Ellie glanced down at the boy in her lap and ran her fingers over his small beanie-clad head. “Well, like father like son, I guess,” she shrugged as she looked up just in time to see Jack glancing over at them before focusing back at the drill at hand.

She was one lucky woman, and she knew it…



-x-x-

11 Bay Street, a stone’s throw away from the Pacific Ocean and a view of the Santa Monica Pier had become 3521 Greenwich Road, a calm suburb in Columbus, Ohio. It was many miles away from the sea, it had none of the opportunities and the excitement that Los Angeles offered…yet there she was, happier than ever…

Many people commented that she was living the American Dream, and if she allowed herself to think about it, she realized that she probably was. But it wasn’t just the American dream, it was a dream that her friends had had since they were all young and which she had been steadily running from. And now, all that was missing was the dog and the picket fence…

She’d never dreamt of the whole ‘settle down’ routine; the ring and the marriage and the baby and the dog and the house in suburbia… Her dreams had been about seeing the world and meeting people from different cultures and having a successful career.

Her friends had officially declared her insane when she told them that she would be staying in the US, settling down in Ohio of all places. Her boss had been visibly disappointed when she’d handed in her resignation and her mother had been worried that she was giving up on all her dreams.

But everything had changed the moment she first held her son in her arms, even more so during her first months living in Columbus. She’d been exposed to the WAGs and everything they did out in LA and the Wives Association to the Blue Jackets were as involved in charities and the community as they were, but for some reason she found it a lot easier fitting in with them than she had in LA.

Sure, the team had sucked pretty badly when they moved there, and they weren’t exactly strong Stanley Cup-contenders now either, but they were better, slightly… It wasn’t nice knowing that the dream Jack had chased for so many years, wasn’t getting any closer to being fulfilled, but from a strictly egoistical standpoint, she loved her life at the moment.

She loved spending her days being a mother to JJ and using her skills as an event coordinator when the Wives Association was planning events, and meet-and-greets and whatnot. And sure, she didn’t have her job, but practically met new people on a daily basis when she was involved in the charities and the like, and they usually spent a couple of weeks every summer traveling.

All in all, she hadn't given up many of her dreams; she’d just gained a few…

“Mommy! Look!”

The shrill voice of her only child caused her to focus all her attention onto the blonde hair boy where he was standing in the middle of the drive, a too long hockey stick in his hand and a wide grin across his tanned face. “I'm looking,” she assured him, sharing a glance with Jack who was on his knees in the goal, only barely attempting to save the ball his son shot at him, catching him in a hug mid-celebration as the ball hit the garage door with a resounding smack.

Like father like son was right, JJ wasn’t even in school yet and he’d already managed to hit a puck hard enough to dent the wooden garage doors… He’d apologized profusely afterwards, even offering to skip his Saturday candy, they’d assured the small boy that it was fine, but it had left her slightly worried what would happen when he grew older.

He clearly had hockey in the genes, and if she listened to her mother-in-law’s stories about her first born, their garage doors would only be the first casualty in a long line of many…

Not that she really minded, it would be a pain to repair, but she could take that. After all, she was living her dream.