If We Ever Meet Again

Lying stretched out on top of the covers in his bed in the room he shared with Matt Greene, Jack had his hands behind his head, his long legs crossed at the ankles and his blue eyes trained on the generic white ceiling. Clearly it didn’t matter where in the world you were, hotel rooms were all the same…

He was supposed to be having his pregame nap before the game that evening which would kick off their season, but… well, his mind just wasn’t shutting off like it normally did. He’d been laying there for close to half an hour already; usually he would have been fast asleep by now.

And there we only one reason for this, and it was tall, blonde and blue eyed…and listened to Ellie…

The last time he walked out of her hotel room over in Kosice back in May, he’d known it would – barring a minor miracle – be the last time he saw her and he’d been fine with that, at first.

He’d gone back home, hung out with his family and friends, caught up with everything he’d missed during the season…

Then his mind had started wandering. Off-season workouts had been stepped up and usually he was able to shut out everything when he was working out but this time that hadn't been the case, he didn’t know what caused his mind to wander back to her but it did. Continuously and often at the most inopportune of times.

He told his trainer that his mind was focused on whatever he was doing, but it rarely was.

During one cardio session his mind had wandered back to those two nights in Europe and the pretty blonde who’d caught his attention the second she’d walked into the hotel bar with a group of people he would later learn were her childhood friends.

If they had met some other time, somewhere else, he would have gotten her phone number after that last drink and then taken her out on a date. But timing hadn't been on their side, he’d been in the middle of the only national tournament he would be participating in that year and his mind had been focused on that.

Besides, whilst he usually would have written-off a one-night-stand as not being a foundation for a relationship, and thought that pretty much every girl who put out before the first date was not relationship material, this was…different somehow…

They had talked, about everything. She hadn't know who he was, and she’d given him her undivided attention the whole time they’d been together in the bar that first night, as well as the second one. She’d genuinely liked spending time with him, talking about everything from favorite vacation spots to favorite sports. There had been no hidden agendas. She’d tried convincing him that soccer was almost as good a sport as hockey and he’d tried swaying her opinion on football.

Squeezing his eyes shut he willed sleep to come over her, but he already knew that it wouldn’t.

Sighing heavily, he shifted slightly as his mind drifted to the moment he saw her in the catacombs of the Ericsson Globe just the previous day.

Seeing the baby bump on her it had almost felt as if all air had been sucked out of him in the blink of an eye. He’d been thinking about her quite a bit, especially since they arrived in Stockholm as he clearly remembered her wearing the blue and yellow with pride down in Slovakia, and learning that she was pregnant felt like a punch in the gut.

Only the way she stuttered and acted like a spooked animal told him that there was more to the story than what was glaringly obvious. And hearing her confirm that he was father…it had been everything from terrifying to exciting…

It was weird, his first reaction should have been to question her, but…but however strange it sounded he felt like he’d known her for years from simply spending those two nights talking to her.

He knew that people around him would doubt her intentions the second he told them, but for whatever reason he didn’t think she would say that the baby was his if it wasn’t.

Of course, it could have been the oldest trick in the book; lure the pray in under false pretences. But he’d met women who could only be labeled as gold-diggers during his years in Los Angeles and surrounding himself with the friends he did, he’d seen them operate first hand, and most of them had the same sort of MO. Get the attention of their latest pray, lure them in, and then trap them so they couldn’t leave without fatal damages to their careers, their reputations, their families…

Ellie hadn't done any of that.

Thinking about it, he was pretty sure that if he hadn't asked her, she would never even have told him that the baby was his…

Sighing once again, he tried to wrap his head around it; he was going to be a dad…

“You're squirming like a fourteen year old before his first date,” came an annoyed growl from the other bed, causing him to glance over.

“Sorry…” Jack began apologizing; this was one of the biggest downsides of having a roommate on the road, never any alone time.

“Shut up and get napping,” Matt ordered him, eyes closed as he refused to pick his head up from his pillow, making the words come out slightly muffled.

Knowing it was better to not argue with his fellow defenseman who was five years his senior, Jack took a deep breath as he once again turned his gaze to the plain white ceiling.

He was becoming a dad….