John Noble looks out his window and sighs heavily. He hates the winter, he really does. Snow and ice everywhere, bad roads and grumpy people. And he can't run outside in the winter. The sidewalks are too treacherous, even if it took him a few years, several falls and multiple sprains to admit it. He can't give it up, though. He's a runner. It's all he has...besides his shop and his somber flat and his general opinion that the world can go arse itself.
Luckily, an old army buddy of his owns a small gym just around the block where he can add a few hours of boring treadmill running to his usual lifting regiment in the winter season. It's not much of a life, he supposes, working on cars in his shop all day, lifting with Benton, going for a run and then heating up a sad frozen meal to eat while staring listlessly at the telly for a while before starting all over again the next day, but he has a routine now and that's fine. He doesn't see any way out of it (not that he's been looking too hard) and he doesn't really care. A broken old soldier and the drudgery of his boring old life.
It's a Tuesday evening like any other Tuesday evening as he closes up his shop, grabs his gym bag and heads around the block to Benton's, pulling the collar of his leather jacket up against the frigid air. Benton's gym is a small affair, nothing like those giant, shiny, white conglomerates they have downtown, boasting their seventy treadmills and gigantic televisions and intimidating patrons. It has about ten treadmills, a few stationary bikes, a telly that seems continually stuck on the BBC, a collection of eclectic lifting equipment and a room with a glass front that's used for aerobics classes and such. Benton claps him on the back as he enters, greeting John like the regular he is.
There aren't usually many people here (it's a big deal to see a new face - and there are almost all men here); it's safe and comfortable and he likes it, so it's a huge surprise that when he comes out of the locker room, there are about ten new faces moving about the space, faces that all seem to be attached to female bodies. Female bodies all clad in tight, spandex-y materials even though some of them probably ought not be.
"S'going on?" he mumbles to Benton, trying not to be one of the men gawking at the flock of unknown women, moving instead to fumble with his already tied shoelaces.
"Yoga class!" Benton says with a large grin. "Thought it might bring in some new faces!"
"Among other things," comments a smooth American voice to their left. The man who belongs with the voice is a young, handsome, insatiable ex-pat who is much more bark than bite. John (and the rest of the patrons here) have learned to ignore him most of the time. Once past his almost constant need for innuendo, he is really a fairly nice man.
"No scaring off the women, Harkness," Benton says firmly, admonishing.
"Who said anything about scaring them off?" Jack replies, his eyes firmly planted on the willowy, thin red-head shepherding the women into the other room.
"I'm serious, Jack," Benton cautions. "That class is going to be meeting Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and I need the extra money to keep this place afloat. Most of those women are here because they don't like the way they get treated by men at those big gyms. So back off."
"Ok, ok," Jack laughs, holding up his hands. "I solemnly swear that I will not leer at the women."
"Thank you," Benton replies.
"Can I still leer at John?" Jack calls, making John snort as he steps up to his treadmill.
"Sure!" comes Benton's call from the back, over the clinking metal of weights.
-
After about two weeks, he grows used to the sudden influx of chattering, giggling women who invade his workout place every other day. Some of the women have joined the gym and he sees them around more (Jack has very conveniently offered to help some of them 'learn the ropes' - but he has been a perfect gentleman). John doesn't need a woman in his life, doesn't want one, doesn't deserve one and other than the occasional glance at some well-displayed, ah, assets (he's not dead after all) he ignores them and they ignore him and, he thinks, everyone is happier that way.
It's another normal, boring Tuesday when all of that changes.
The wave of gently-perfumed, perky humans has passed him by already (indicating that class is nearly ready to begin) and he is sitting on the bench press preparing his weights, when a blast of cool air from opening the door makes him look up. Standing silhouetted in the doorway, the last golden vestiges of the setting sun over her shoulders, is the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen. She steps in and closes the door, pulling off her coat and shaking out the snow. She's wearing those mysteriously tight trousers all the women here have been wearing, those trousers that seem to lift and firm, well, everything and a vest top that is doing the same miraculous thing up top and, though he is a genius, he probably couldn't form a sentence right now if he tried. All of his common sense (and blood) seems to have flown in a direction that is decidedly not up.
What is happening to him? He sees those other women dressed like that all the time in here! What's so special about this one?
(Besides her honey-golden hair, braided back from her face and her wide, sincere mouth and those hazel eyes that look like a cool glass of whisky on a hot night. Besides the fact that he's looking at her in a way he hasn't looked at a woman in, well, a long, long time. Besides the fact that - oh dear God- she's coming this way)
"Um, hi," she says, walking over to him, looking a bit nervous, folding her coat over her arm and oh, he hopes he hasn't been gaping at her this whole time. "I'm new, ah, looking for the yoga class? A friend of mine told me about it and I got a bit lost on my way here. I'm completely rubbish with directions. M'probably a bit late."
He wordlessly points in the general direction of the other room, not trusting his voice Her smile brightens as she looks over his shoulder, at least he presumes it does, because he's a bit distracted (Her breasts are right at his eye level, it seems. How did he not notice that moment ago? Ah, probably because he should be looking at her face, right). His eyes dart back up to hers, hoping she didn't notice his little detour there. "Thanks!" she exclaims, bouncing (yes, bouncing, that's a good word) away from him. "I'm Rose," she adds over her shoulder as an afterthought when he turns to watch her go (he can't help it, he really can't. It's an involuntary reaction to the bouncing, he'd claim).
"Nice to meet you, Rose," he mumbles before turning back to stare at his hands, the tips of his ears flushed in a way they haven't been for years.
Well all right then, what the devil just happened?
-
That night, he walks back to the flat above his shop, drops his bag by the door and continues on into the shower. As he shucks his clothes, his thoughts drift back to the mysterious Rose and the way she smiled at him like he was someone special. And her especially magnificent arse. And...her well, fantastic everything else.
Those thoughts start him down a surprising path that brings him to a frantic, fist clenching, chest heaving, shuddering release, the walls of his shower echoing her name back to him.
He should probably be very embarrassed by what just happened, but it's been a long time since he's fantasized about a woman like that and all he can think about is seeing her again. Maybe she'll be back on Thursday. Maybe he'll get up the nerve to talk to her.
Maybe not.
In the meantime, he'll just have to keep thinking about her.
Rose.
Huh.
He doesn't even know her last name.