Disclaimer: I'm only going to say this once: I don't own any of the characters and I'm not making money off of doing this. This is simply for fun.
Present Day (February 20, 2009):
"I thought there won't be snow today?" Jennifer asks as she stares out the picture window of the restaurant.
"That's just leftover snow from last week." Evan explains.
"You still ski Jennifer?" John asks.
"Sometimes. When I get the chance." Jennifer answers with a smile. She turns slightly and looks at Ronon at the corner of her eye. He took the seat beside her during dinner and has never left. When did they become so comfortable? His arm draped over the back of her chair. Not her shoulders. He's taking it slow. Agonizingly slow. She smiles at the thought.
Ronon looks at her, and she turns away, blushing. He smiles and scoots his chair closer to hers. His arm bending at the elbows to rest his hand on her nape. The tips of his fingers lightly grazing the hair on her neck. He feels her shiver a little bit. But she doesn't pull away which then prompts him to rub the pad of his thumb on her skin. He hears her sigh. He looks out the window and stares at the snow piled up in the corner of the deck and he forces himself not to bend down and kiss her on her mouth.
Flashback to Senior Big Bear School Trip (January 2000, Ronon's POV):
"See that?" John asks Ronon, cocking his head towards a grew-clad figure racing past them as they stand in the snow, putting their gloves on. "They've asked her so many times to join the ski team and she still refuses."
"I don't think Jennifer Keller's interest lies in sports." Ronon says through the gloves his teeth are clamped on as he ties his dreads together.
"You sure about that?" John says. "She watches all the football games."
"Doesn't mean that she wants to play the game like we do."
"Yeah, but skiing?" John gestures his hand towards her. "She's amazing." They watch Jennifer ski down the mountain. A grey blur whizzing past other skiers. Skiers that actually belong to the ski team, beating them.
X
The next day Ronon, Rodney, Carson and John are up on a small hill trying to teach Radek how to ski. Although, John and Ronon are really trying to persuade him to take up snowboarding instead.
"I don't see why I need to learn this." Radek says as he stomps his foot in the snow.
"Because it's fun." Carson says.
Ronon shakes his head and leaves the four to Radek's lesson. He trudges up the hill and looks around. Putting his goggles in place he pushes himself down the hill and slides down with his snowboard. He only started snow boarding last year. John took him to his grandfather's winter retreat house and taught him. John says it's nothing like surfing. John doesn't know what he's saying. It's exactly like surfing. Only on snow.
He hears whooshing noise behind him, but he doesn't turn around, which is okay because whatever was behind him is speeding past him and snowboarding it's way ahead of him. The snowboarder looks back at him and he can't tell who it is. The snowboarder is wrapped up in black. Covered from head to toe, not a single indication of who it is. But he can definitely tell that it's a she. Despite all the coverings and padding, the slight curves are still obvious to his eyes.
He races up to her to try to find out who this mysterious snowboarder is. But she's too quick for him and slides down the hill to avoid getting caught. A challenge. Soon enough it has become a race for them. Her shoulders are shaking, not from the cold but from laughing as she bests him at every turn they take.
"Ronon!"
He looks over his shoulders to see John yelling and trying to catch up with him. He looks back at his adversary and sees that she's already more than ten feet away from him.
"Ronon!" John yells again. Ronon stops and grunts. He pulls his goggles away and waits for John to catch up to him. "Dude! Where have you been?"
"Racing with –" Ronon stops to look around. "I was racing."
"With whom." John asks.
"I don't know." Ronon replies as he walks around to see if she's still in the area. "But I know it's a girl." He scans the hills and his eyes rest on something shiny on the snow. He bends down to pick it up and smiles.
"What is it?" John asks.
"It's a pendant." Ronon says, opening his palm for John to see. It's the letter J.
"Whose is it?"
"The other snowboarder."
"What other snowboarder?"
Back to the present:
Jennifer leans back a little bit more and enjoys the comfort of his hand on the nape of her neck. She tilts her head forward and then to the side, urging him to massage her neck further. She sighs a little bit when his fingers apply pressure on her neck and then quickly caresses it.
She tries really hard to focus on the conversation between Carson and Rodney. But thoughts of climbing onto Ronon's lap and kissing him all over is clouding her mind. She looks out the window to try to change the direction of her thoughts.
Flashback to Senior Big Bear School Trip (January 2000, Jennifer's POV):
Jennifer snowboards down the hill really fast. She and her dad have always loved the snow. Her mother taught her how to ski while her dad taught her how to snowboard. For some reason, she preferred the latter.
A few feet ahead of her is another snowboarder. And even from behind she already knows who it is. It's unmistakably Ronon Dex, with his dreads neatly tied at the base of his neck. Wow, of all the people to bump into, it had to be the one person that makes her uncomfortable.
There's a fork in their path so she darts past him, hoping that he would take the other route. She turns her head around just to see if he had taken the other path. Unfortunately, no. He's right behind her and has taken the turn of her head as a challenge.
He glides his way down and once in a while he would be able to catch up on her. She finds it funny after repeatedly doing so and this makes her chuckle. Moments later she hears somebody call his name. Twice. More then twenty feet away she looks around to see no one following closely behind her. She sighs in disappointment and decides to go back to the lodge.
X
She walked into the lobby and found the sitting area on the far side empty. She walks over to it and accidentally overhears Ronon and John talking. She slows down when she hears Ronon mention the 'snowboarder in black'.
"She was covered from head to toe." Ronon says to John. "I couldn't see her face."
"Why are you so sure it's a girl." John asks.
"Because she was small." Ronon tells him
"A lot of the guys can be small."
"Graceful. She was graceful."
"Gay?"
"I know it's a girl. Besides I…"
Jennifer is prevented from hearing more when Kate and Teyla flop down the couches with Ronon and John.
"Jennifer!" Teyla exclaims. Ronon's head jerks up to look at her. "Come sit with us."
"Uh. Thanks. But um, no, I uh, I'm meeting Carson in a little bit." She tells her, a blush forming in her cheeks at being caught by her crush. She subtly looks at Ronon. Is that disappointment on his face? You wish! Why the hell would he be disappointed that I can't sit with them? "See you later." She says quietly, quickly moving towards the sitting area.
X
"What's wrong Jennifer?" Carson asks as he takes a seat beside her in front of the fireplace, looking at her frowning face.
Jennifer looks at him and says "I dunno where my pendant is. I dunno if I left it in the room or if I dropped in the snow. Either way, it's lost."
"You weren't wearing it?" He asks her.
"I took it off before I went down the hill. It was getting caught on my scarf." She tells him.
"Maybe you left it in your cabin." He suggested.
"Nope. I just put it in my pocket. See?" She says, holding up a chain that her pendant was hanging onto. "This was in my pocket. But it was unclasped. So it must've fallen off my pocket while I was going down the hill earlier."
"Did you go back there? You know, where you where at." Carson asks.
"No." Jennifer answers. "The hills all look alike to me. It's okay, it's not that important. I just really like it coz it was the initial J." She turns around to see Ronon, John and Elizabeth talking right behind the chair she's sitting on. Ronon looking at her with creases formed on his forehead.
Back to the present:
Jennifer sighs at the memory. Snowboarding with Ronon was fun and. And the fact that he didn't know was both thrilling and somewhat sad. Her mind floats back to his hand. The hand that is massaging her neck, and then fingers sifting through her hair. A moan escapes her, catching everyone's attention. Laura and Marie stifle their giggles at this. John and Evan pretend that they didn't hear anything. Jennifer's eyes grow wide with embarrassment so she stands up slowly and excuses herself. She walks towards the glass doors, her back stiff and straight.
Ronon clears his throat with a cough and pushes himself away from the table. He follows her out the doors and stands beside her by the railings. He nudges her shoulders with his in greeting and they just stand there quietly as they look up at the moon.
Reaching around his neck he takes a silver chain off, grabs her hand and lets a 'J' pendant slide from the chain and drop onto her palm.
Jennifer shakes her head, he lips pursed, hiding a smile. She looks up at him and says "You knew."
He shrugs and says "I heard you talking to Carson that day in the lobby."
"Why didn't you give it back to me then?" Jennifer asks him.
"I meant to." Ronon tries to explain. "But never really got the chance. It was either I forgot about it or you were running off somewhere. And then that night, when I asked you to Prom, I was gonna give it to you, but I got so selfish because I noticed that every game I played, even during practice, I never got hurt, at least not badly hurt. So I thought that I'd do a little bit of experiment and see if it really worked."
"Did it?" Jennifer asks him.
"It did. Still does. I haven't gotten seriously hurt ever since." Ronon confesses with a sheepish smile. "It was sort of my good luck charm."
Jennifer takes his hand from his side and opens his palm to pick up the chain. She slides the pendant back into place and says "Then you should keep it." She smiles up at him and pushing the necklace back in his hand. "Don't want you getting hurt or anything."
TBC.
Note: We're getting very close to the wedding. Two more days.:)