A short story based on characters created by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon.

DISCLAIMER: The characters described herein are the property of Columbia Pictures Television. This is a work of fan fiction and there is no intention to profit from the use of these characters.

TIMELINE: Season Seven. Jo and Blair are juniors at Langley. Natalie is out of school. Tootie is a senior at Eastland.

RATING: PG13. Adult themes and violence.

CREDITS: Thanks to Blair n' Jo Rock for the idea that set this in motion.

***********

BLACK DIAMOND
by Devon King

"Ohmigosh! Guys, look at that!" said Tootie Ramsey as she leaned back in the plush chair. Her dark eyes were wide at the wonder of the sunset over the mountains. It was all the senior could do not to point at the display beyond their window.

That would be immature, Tootie decided. It would also peg us as tourists. Being thought of as gawking out-of-towners was not part of their rest and relaxation plan. So instead of hopping up and down in her seat, she tapped her fingertips excitedly upon the tabletop.

Jo Polniaczek's dark head turned in the direction of her friend's gaze. For long moments she just watched the interplay of colors as the fading light danced through the shades of the spectrum.

A slow smile spread across her lips as she rested her chin in her hand. You're getting soft, Polniaczek, she thought to herself. Who would've thought that I'd ever find myself in a fancy-schmantzy ski lodge like this?

She remembered a night, many years ago, when a skinny kid with a ponytail and a king-sized chip on her shoulder thought she'd never fit in at Eastland Academy for Girls.

Oh, sure, she'd had it all figured out. Hitch up the highway. Get back to the city. Nevermind that Mrs. G was doing everything possible to be kind to her. So the other kids were reaching out to her -- big deal. Not interested.

She could still see the rich kid in her navy blazer. "I thought we were in this together," she had said.

A waiter strolled by and smiled at the girl who was lost in her thoughts. The brunette's eyes drifted around the table, secretly watching as her friends enjoyed the dazzling view.

Their personalities, interests and goals couldn't be more different from one another, Jo grinned.

I'm glad I stayed.

Natalie continued to stare at the sunset. Her mouth hung open for a moment. The redhead, who was always on the lookout for experiences that she could use in her writing, recognized that this was one of those important moments.

"Oh, that's ..." Nat gestured toward the western range. "Look, it's so..." she sputtered.

The blonde across from her slid her dessert plate to the center of the elegant dinner table and leaned forward with a grin. "Natalie? Are you okay?"

Nat's hands were still moving animatedly as she struggled to make her point. Finally, she let them fall to her lap. "I have no words," she said in defeat.

The other girls looked at one another.

"Call 'Ripley's Believe It or Not,'" whispered Tootie. Blair and Jo chuckled.

"I heard that, Ramsey," Natalie growled. Then, suddenly, the scowl dropped away from the writer's face.

She snapped her fingers. "I got it! Resplendent!" she announced proudly. Blair Warner nodded approvingly.

Her brown eyes drifted over nature's vivid display. The hues were deepening now, turning to blues and indigos. "Good word," she murmured.

"Ditto," said her roommate from the Bronx.

*************

Jo spread her trail map out on the picnic table. "Which ones?"

"These over here," replied Blair as she swung a foot over the bench seat and set her coffee cup on the wooden surface. She raked a finger down the full color illustration.

"Demon Bends and Velocity?" Jo asked. She squinted at the drawing of the mountain and its ski corridors. "I don't know, they don't look all that fierce," she hedged.

Blair tapped part of the map with a fingertip. "See this, this middle part of Demon Bends? Locals call it 'the vile mile,'" she confided. "The ski patrols have threatened to shut it down."

The brunette grinned wickedly and swatted her roommate playfully on the shoulder. "Now, that's what I'm talking about!"

"Talking about what?" inquired Tootie. She and Natalie had just arrived on the deck outside the lodge. Nat carried a bagel in her hand.

"Demon Bends and the Vile Mile," declared Jo. "I'm going to get my first black diamond this trip, I just know it!"

Natalie swallowed noisily. She looked at Blair. "This is the part where you tell me they don't all have names like that," she said nervously. The writer stepped up to the table and looked over the map.

"Where's all the trails called 'Walk in the Park' or 'Leisurely Stroll?'" she asked. Blair laughed.

"I think those are on another mountain," she chuckled. "But there are plenty of trails you should enjoy, Natalie. Just read the legend and look for the green dots..."

"Forget dots," interrupted Nat, "I want to see ears!"

Jo cocked her head. Maybe I didn't hear that quite right. "Ears?"

Natalie held up two fingers and bounced them forward. "Yup, ears. As in bunny slopes," she grinned.

Tootie groaned and covered her face with a mitten.

Blair sighed. "Think green, Natalie. You might like the tubing hills in the lowlands," she suggested.

"Don't worry, not everyone has a death wish like Speed Racer here," she angled a thumb toward Jo and smirked.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Warner," countered the brunette. Jo leaned toward the late arrivals. "She's just afraid she can't keep up," she taunted.

Blair stood and glared at her roommate. "In your dreams, Polniaczek," she retorted.

Well, that didn't take long, thought the Eastland senior. Tootie shook her head. "Please tell me we aren't going anywhere with them," she said to the writer.

Natalie rotated on a heel, putting the loud difference of opinions behind her. "We most certainly are not. Come, my friend, let's find the bunny slopes before these two hot-heads melt the mountain," she quipped.

*************

The girl held onto the safety bar and looked all around in delight. Tootie kicked her skis back and forth excitedly.

"Tootie! What are you doing!" yelped her best friend Natalie Green as the seat beneath them rocked on its cable. She cast a worried glance overhead as the chair rocked along the sturdy wire. The redhead folded a glove over her eyes.

"Natalie, would you relax?" chided the calmer of the two. She shook her head and the pompoms atop her toboggan bobbed in tempo. "We're perfectly safe up here."

Nat's head swiveled about to face her friend. "Well, excuse me! It ain't up here I'm worried about!" she said. "It's that first step to down THERE that makes me just a tad nervous!"

The duo was aboard one of the main lifts to the top of a trail in the Aspen Mountains Ski Area. Their morning had begun on the beginner slopes and after their confidence grew, they had decided to try something a little more difficult.

The Eastland senior giggled and gave their seat another rock.

"TOOTIE!" bellowed Natalie.

"Okay! Okay!" laughed the girl in the purple ski coat. She leaned over the side of the car and waved at the snow below. "Hey, look! All the people on the trails look like ants..."

Her pal grabbed her by the sleeve and hauled her back toward the center of the bench seat.

Natalie pointed up the mountain and gave the girl her most serious glare. "Do you see the top of the trail up there?"

Tootie nodded and Nat continued. "Unless you are prepared to spend the rest of the day by yourself, you will not say or do one more thing until we get there and our feet are on the ground. Is that clear?"

Tootie's mouth opened to respond and Natalie narrowed her eyes into a warning look.

Oh, yeah. No talking, Tootie though sadly. The senior pouted and nodded glumly.

Natalie's face brightened. "I'm glad we had this little talk," she quipped. Beside her, her friend's jaws worked in a snide, silent mimicry of the reporter's final comment.

********************

Jo Polniaczek shifted her weight onto the inside edge of her ski and dug into the crisp snow, executing a perfect stop. She stabbed her poles into the white powder and then lifted her goggles away from her face.

Her cheeks were reddened from the wind and the sun. She grinned up at the mountainside. That was intense! she thought to herself.

Her gaze sought out the movement on the slope. Closer and closer came the skier in the royal blue jacket. Jo nodded as her roommate traversed an icy patch that rattled her skis, the slick planes chattering as she bent further at the knee to hold the edge.

That's the way, Blair! she cheered to herself as the blonde performed a tight turn that blasted her into fresh powder and away from the rough area. Seconds later, Jo's roommate whizzed to a stop that dusted the brunette's feet with snow.

Pleased with her performance on the hill, the new arrival smiled in a jaunty fashion.

"What took you so long?" taunted the girl from the Bronx. She pushed up the sleeve of her anorak and looked at her watch. "If I had known I would have to wait, I could've gone in for some hot chocolate!"

Blair tilted her head down and gripped the edge of her Wayfarer sunglasses, nudging them so she could look out over the dark frames. A blonde brow arched skeptically at the comment.

"Style over speed, Jo," she grinned. "So you got here first. You made the fast run. I made the clean run."

Jo rolled her eyes. "Oh, well, when you put it like that!" she scoffed. The brunette was getting ready to launch into an explanation from her old neighborhood that second place was really first loser when she noticed that Blair wasn't listening.

In fact, the girl looked right past Jo, gave her hair a toss and smiled.

That was classic Warner behavior and it could only mean one thing. Jo angled her head about. Sure enough, she grinned. Cute guys at three o'clock.

The green eyed beauty bent down and freed her boots from the bindings. She snuck another peek at the young men who had begun walking over toward them.

"Blair?" she whispered to her roommate who was now unbuckling her own skis. The blonde gathered her gear into one hand.

"Jo, listen to me. Concentrate on what I'm about to say. We cannot ski at night." The soft crunch of footsteps in the snow beside them announced the arrival of the guys.

The brunette's face brightened. "You've got a point there, Warner," she admitted.

Jo looked up to see a pair of smiling blue eyes in a ruggedly handsome face twinkling back at her. She stood up as the other fellow reached down gallantly for Blair's hand.

"That was a great run," said the voice behind the mirrored sunglasses as he helped Blair to her feet.

Blair deferred the praise. "Thanks, but it was nothing compared to hers," she clapped Jo on the shoulder. "I just can't seem to master the speed thing," she shrugged.

"Maybe I could help you with that? I'm Kurt, by the way," he said as he extended his hand again. "This strong silent type over here is my buddy, Aaron."

The blonde shook his hand. "Blair Warner, and this is my friend, Jo Polniaczek." Jo stuck out a glove.

"Hiya, Aaron. Nice to meet ya, Kurt," she smiled. The brunette looked down the slope toward the lodge.

"You know, guys, we were just heading in for something to drink, care to join us?" Since Blair baited the hook, the least I can do is reel them in, she decided.

Oh yeah, thought Jo. Ski vacations are the best.

************

"Chad! Where are you? You've really gone and done it now!" bellowed the sturdy fellow as he pounded through the warm office of public safety. When he turned the corner he discovered why the gangly teenager wasn't answering.

Chad Bartholomew Pinkus was busy conducting a drum solo on the stacks of salt and de-icer in the storeroom. He had his walkman turned up nearly full blast and rat-ta-tat-tatted on the packs with road flares clutched in his hands like drumsticks.

With his back to the doorway, Chad was completely oblivious to the shrieks of his supervisor. The boy doo-wopped his skinny shoulders in time to the beat of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," punctuating the cymbal crashes with sturdy hits to a roll of safety fencing.

His boss, shook his head and watched the strange gyrating display before him for several seconds. Then, he spied the walkman dangling from the teenager's hip pocket. He winced as the kid began adding background vocals to a song he could barely hear.

"Wooaah, yeah! Half - way there-er!" Chad screeched.

The supervisor allowed the boy to reach a particularly loud part of the song, chuckling as the kid blurted out a nasal whine along to his own unique beat, and then he pulled the headphone wires out of the player's socket.

"Woh oh! Livin' ... uh, huh?" the teenager frowned and reached back to check the play button.

His boss cleared his throat. Chad's eyes widened and then he shut them tightly.

Busted! he thought to himself. The boy with the unruly mop of brown hair turned around slowly and wiggled his fingers in a tiny wave.

"Hey, Mr. Livingston! How's it going?" he grinned as he pulled the headphones off his head and let them dangle around his neck. "Some storm we had last night, huh?"

Livingston crossed his arms over his burly chest and stared at the kid. "It sure was, Chad." The public safety office at the resort was responsible for keeping roads, paths and walkways free of snow and ice for the tourists. They had plows out well before dawn cutting down to drivable surfaces so the wintry white mountain could be enjoyed by all who visited.

Chad bundled his "drumsticks" together and tucked them back in a box over the bags of de-icer. He smiled at the dark skinned man and got a growl in response.

"This morning, when you were driving the snow plow along the southern cabins, did you happen to notice a gray Mercedes parked outside the Mayor's house?"

The teenager puzzled back over his morning behind the wheel of the big industrial plow. "Yeah..." he answered carefully. He did remember it. "It looked like a sweet ride. Really sweet."

Livingston smiled and his eyes glittered dangerously as he raised up on the balls of his feet to get closer to his employee. "Then maybe you can explain to me why you buried the car under eight feet of snow!" he yelled.

The man's face was nearly purple with strain. "Of all the cars on the whole stinking mountain! The mayor's mother's Mercedes!" Livingston wiped at his chin and paced the small room.

"What were you thinking? What do you do when you approach a car with that damned plow?"

Chad squared his shoulders, but refused to look his boss in the eye. "Switch off the snow discharge until you pass," he answered sheepishly. He rubbed the back of his neck and prayed that the sermon wouldn't go on for too much longer.