Run the Show

As of late, pretty much nothing in her life had gone quite as she had planned it. Not her choice of careers, not her love life, certainly not her family life and right in that moment, as she stood backstage at a large fashion show in downtown Toronto, watching the pre-show craze take place, Katie Johnson was pretty sure that with her recent track record, something was bound to happen. Something that wasn’t necessarily a good thing…

Taking a deep breath, she reached up and ran her fingers through her blonde hair that was hanging loose over her shoulder, letting the air out through her nose as she tried keeping her nerves in check and her blood pressure down.

A heavy hand on her shoulder cause her to jump in surprise and let out a slight yelp before she spun around on her heel, only to break out in a wide smile as she saw who was standing there. "What are you doing here?" the words were out before she even had time to stop them.

"We wanted to see how you were doing," Luke smiled at her, gently running his hand down the back of the small baby boy who was securely strapped to his chest in the black Baby-Bjorn carrier, bright blue eyes curiously peering over his father's shoulder, before he leaned forwards and pressed a light kiss to her soft lips.

"So much better now that you're here," she smiled tiredly, reaching out and running her fingers over her fiancé's cheek before turning her attention back to the little boy that was her whole life.

Pressing her lips against the top of his head, breathing in his familiar and soothing scent, she slowly opened her eyes and looked up at Luke, something dawning on her. "How did you get in?" she asked suddenly, security was supposed to be top-notch during the whole of fashion week – of the LG Fashion Week as it was now called – and no one without a pass was supposed to be able to get in anywhere. She would gladly have gotten him one, but he had a game that night and had been pretty certain that he wouldn’t be able to stop by so they had decided it should probably go to someone who knew they would be able to use it. Yet here he was….

"Publicity has to be good for something," Luke smiled his slightly crooked smile and shrugged lightly, melting her heart all at the same time. Neither of them was really interested in that part of his career, but they were both well aware that it was a necessary evil. For both of them.

"Did you charm some poor intern with those blue eyes of yours and your over all sexiness when you're carrying your son around?" she asked knowingly, glancing down at the boy that seemed to be taking everything in.

"…yeah," he reluctantly agreed, a soft blush gracing his cheeks as he smiled slightly and she laughed at him – he was so predictable – standing on her tippy toes and pressing her lips against his in a chaste kiss.

"I love you," she smiled against his lips. "Thank you, for coming out here," she looked up at him.

"Anything for you," he said seriously, brushing his thumb over her cheek as he did.

She's almost lost her life just months earlier, whilst giving him the best gift life had to offer; next to his son she was his everything. "Do you have time for us or do you…?" he began asking.

"I always have time for you," she smiled up at him before pressing her lips to her son's head and whispering a few words to him. "Do you want to see the runway?" she asked, her eyes lighting up as she looked at him. There were still a few hours till the show was about to start and the runway was covered in black plastic and people were running all over the place, but he would still be able to get a bit of a view of where everything was going down, the place where their life might just change forever.

"Absolutely," he nodded, following her as she laced their fingers together and they walked through the craze of backstage. "This place is huge," he stated frankly as she led him up a few steps and they suddenly stood at the very beginning of the runway, looking out over the brightly lit room that was packed with fold-up chairs in neat rows.

"Says the guy who plays hockey in front of 20something thousand people three nights every week," Katie rolled her eyes at him, a smile across her lips as she looked out over the room. She'd never ever dared to really believe that she was actually going to get there…

"That's different," Luke insisted as he looked over at her, reaching up and letting Jamie grasp onto his index finger.

"Yeah, right," she humored him, shaking her head slightly before taking a step further out on the runway, looking out over all the empty chairs that in just a couple of hours would be filled with people from all over the fashion world.

Taking a deep breath, she was about to turn back around and join her son and her fiancé when a woman around her own age waved at her, trying to catch her attention. Hesitating for a moment, she glanced back at the two boys that meant everything to her.

"Go," Luke told her with a soft smile across his lips, having seen the woman approaching before Katie did.

"Are you…?" she began asking as she turned to face him completely.

"We'll be fine," he promised her with a slight nod.

"I love you," she stated frankly as she walked up to him, cupped his cheeks and pressed her lips against his before whispering goodbye to the small blonde-haired boy nestled into his chest.

Reaching up and gently running his large hand over his son's head, Luke watched as his fiancée stepped off the runway and walked over to the redhead who had a large pile of papers in her arms, the two of them hurrying along the length of the runway before disappearing out through the double doors.

"Well, I guess it's just you and me then, eh bud?" he said softly, looking down at his son before turning around and walking out the same way he'd arrived.



- x -

The show having already started, the music filtering through to the backstage area, Katie was all but sewing one of the models into one of the more intricate dresses when she could start feeling a very unwanted pounding behind her forehead. She didn’t have time for a migraine, so of course one would appear and attack when she was least expecting it.

Gritting her teeth as she finished what she was doing, making sure to only cut the thread and not the expensive, one-of-a-kind dress, she stood back up and spun around on her heel, hurrying across the cornered off area all whilst knowing that there were still about a million and one thing to do. Still…

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down as she straightened skirts and fluffed girls' hair, she found herself nervously nibbling on her bottom lip as she tried to assess the crowd's reaction. Which, of course, was an impossible task.

There was nothing she could do about it now anyway, but that didn’t help calm her nerves down and she found herself sinking down into a crouching position, rubbing her hands over her face as the second half of the show started. Her heart was beating so fast she was sure it would soon beat out of her chest.

"I've seen outed politicians look less nervous than that."

The familiar voice from right next to her caused her to freeze for a moment before turning her head slowly and actually squealing as she jumped to her feet and flung her arms around the short brunette standing there. The woman who knew her better than her own sisters, who knew every single one of her dirty secrets; her best friend Britney Tomlins.

"Oh my God! What are you doing here?" Katie managed to get out despite the sudden and very unexpected surprise.

"Did you really think that I was going to miss your debut into the fashion-world?" Britney asked rhetorically as she dropped her handbag on the ground and shook out the short military styled jacket she'd had draped over her forearm.

"I just can't believe that you're here," Katie said honestly, for a moment forgetting all the nerves wreaking havoc on her body.

"Well, I am," Britney smiled at her. "I can't stay too long, I'm here to report on another fashion show but…I couldn't leave without seeing you," she said simply. "Now get ready," she ordered her friend. "You need to look presentable when you strut down that runway, showing the world just who they are dealing with."

"Thank you," Katie smiled widely, reaching out and hugging the shorter woman before taking the jacket from her and shrugging it on, pulling her long blondish hair from beneath the collar as the last model took to the runway, wearing the 'wedding gown' dress that was the supposed masterpiece of the whole show.

"You're my best friend," Britney shrugged slightly. "And I'm proud of you," she said as she looked at the sometimes crazy and impulsive blonde she'd shared a dorm room with for her first year in LA.

She'd seen the small-town Canadian girl transform into a big-city fashionista during their years in the City of Angels, and standing before her now, watching as she got ready to face the harsh world of fashion, she honestly couldn’t be more proud of her.

When Katie had first told her that Luke had asked her to marry him, that she'd accepted, she'd thought she was crazy, they were still so young. And then when the blonde had called her and announced that she was pregnant, she'd been all but ready to send her to the loony-bin. They had their whole lives ahead of them, why rush into things?

And then, just months earlier, she'd gotten the call that turned her whole view on the world and on life upside-down. Katie was so ill that they feared she might not make it…

She'd been on the first flight out after getting the call. The whole thing was crazy, they were young, in prime health, things like that wasn’t supposed to happen… Yet it did and the scare alone had been enough to make her appreciate life just so much more, realize that all you have is now. Waiting ain't going to get you anywhere.

In the end she quit her job as an assistant in a pr-agency specialized in fashion and began working for a fashion magazine, writing pieces on fashion shows and upcoming trends. She loved every second of it and just by looking at her friend in that moment, disheveled by stress and nerves; she could see that she loved her life just as much…

And now she was in Toronto during the biggest fashion happening in the whole of Canada, watching her friend put on her very first fashion show, showing her own clothes…

"I'll call you," Britney stated with a smile, causing her friend to nod and break out in an equally wide grin as she hugged her once more before the model wearing the most detailed dress of them all joined them and grabbed her hand, tugging her towards the entrance to the runway.

It was time for Katie to make her debut, to face the world as a designer for the very first time…



- x -

Her head spinning from all the questions thrown at her in the last hour, Katie took a deep breath as she ran her fingers through her hair and quietly distanced herself from the people buzzing backstage. Pushing her hands into the pockets of her jeans, she slowly walked towards the entrance to the runway and stepping out from behind the corner keeping the backstage area out of view, she couldn’t help but break out in a wide smile as she took in the dimly lit room.

Sitting in one of the front row seats were the man that was her rock. Looking completely out of place in loose-fitting jeans, a gray and black striped Henley-style shirt and sneakers on his feet, his hair sticking up in whichever direction…

"Someone's going to be late," she said softly, her voice just barely carrying over to where he was sitting as she walked along the length of the runway where her life might just have changed less than two hours earlier.

"Important people always are," Luke shrugged as he looked at her, seeing the happiness radiating from her as she approached him.

"Someone's cocky," she shook her head slightly. "Where's Jamie?" she wondered as she stepped off the slippery surface and onto the wooden floor, taking a seat next to him, gladly accepting the kiss he planted on her lips as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, brinigng her closer to him.

"With Colby and Melissa," he told her, pressing his lips to the top of her head as he breathed her in.

"They need to watch out or they'll want another one of those," she smiled against the side of his chest. The second she'd stepped out in the bright lights of the runway, her eyes had found his bright blue ones. It had been such a surprise to see him there that she would have stumbled had the model not been holding her hand.

Luke was the quintessential country boy, coming from western Canada and thinking that picking the color of his dress shirt was a major fashion decision. He didn’t fit into this part of her life, yet he made an effort to be there, to support her when in reality he should have been at the rink, getting ready for the game they had that night…

"So what did you think?" she asked softly, almost scared of what his answer might be. She'd never been one to crave validation from the people around her, she never fished for compliments, yet here she was… She wasn’t actually looking for compliments or words of praise that were about as see-through as organza; she just wanted him to be proud of her. Like she was of him every time he pulled on that jersey and stepped out on the ice.

"I think that you were amazing," he said honestly, knowing that it was sort of a hollow compliment, after all he had no idea about what fashion really was. "And I can't even describe how proud I am of you," he told her, pressing his lips to her forehead.

"Thank you," she smiled at him, the kind that could light up the darkest of days and always reminded him why he loved her as much as he did.

"What if you change your name when we get married?" Luke asked after a moment of comfortable silence between them.

"What?" Katie asked confused before she followed his line of sight. The white backdrop at the head of the runway, the very backdrop where her name was spelt out in a swirly scrip that few knew were her own creation from back in junior high when she first decided she was going to become a designer.

"When we get married, what if you change your last name, what are you going to do then?" he specified as he traced the black print on the backdrop with his eyes; Katelyn Johnson.

"Then I'll chance my name legally," she replied simply. "I'll be a Schenn in everything but fashion and Johnson will be my stage name," she shrugged slightly, a soft smile across her lips as she looked up at him. "Hopefully, it'll be more than my name at one point, it'll be a brand, and then I can't change it. But my name…I can change that whenever I want," she reminded him.

"I love you," he told her, pressing his lips against her once more before resting his cheek on top of her head, looking at the runway where their life might just have taken yet another turn just a while earlier…

Sitting there in silence for a short while longer, letting everything sink in, Katie pulled away from him, startling him as she did, and got to her feet. Holding out her hand, she pulled him to his feet as he placed his large hand in her much smaller one.

"What are you doing?" he questioned as she all but dragged him to the doors.

"Someone has a game in just a couple of hours," she reminded him.

"What about all the…press or whatever," he nodded towards the door leading towards the backstage area.

"They…they can wait till tomorrow," she told him with a wide smile. The experience brought on by Jamie's less than normal arrival into the world had taught her that nothing is as important as family and friends and love… And the love of her life had just watched her take the final leap into the fashion world, now she wanted to watch him in his element, hosting Senators on a shiny sheet of ice in the ACC.