Catch Up With Fate

***Read “If we ever meet again” chapters 1-11 before this***

“Are you sure? You want to stay?” he wanted confirmation.

I was undecided. On one hand I wanted to be as far away from my sister and C.A. as possible, on the other hand I barely knew Marc although I felt comfortable with him now. Niklas, and Viktor, too, would probably be able to comfort me more, maybe even better - they knew me and I knew them. My boots’ dirty toes became amazingly interesting as I tired to steal some time, tried to avoid a decision, tried to make a decision nevertheless.

Comfort in distance or comfort in friends?

“No,” I finally said, shaking my head ever so slightly. Someone exhaled a breath like they’d been holding it, releasing it in a sigh of relief. With the way Niklas’ shoulders relaxed, I guessed it was him. I turned to Marc, no idea what to say to him, but the way he looked at me told me he understood.

“Keep in touch, okay? If you need something, don’t hesitate to call either,” he told me and gave me a short, but tight hug. “Take care, Natascha.”

“Thank you, Marc, for... everything,” I replied, although it sounded foolish and emotionless even in my ears. But Marc just smiled slightly.

“You’re welcome,” he said and the tiny start of a smile tugged on the corners of my mouth, remembering our talk before the game in New Jersey. He nodded at Niklas and Viktor, then turned around and left.
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“This is a mess,” I sighed rubbing my face.

“Come on, let’s go get your stuff, then we can think about everything else,” Niklas suggested and I was glad that someone was taking the lead a little bit.

“Can I ask what exactly happened?” Patrick (Sharpie) asked softly. I shrugged.

“She’s decided to cut the trip short and go back to Chicago with Jon after the game today,” I explained as shortly as I could. Patrick nodded, I was pretty sure he understood the situation well.

“And how does Staal come into all of this? Hard to fight the Thunder Bay charm, huh?”

I cracked a small smile. “We ran into him a few days ago. I couldn’t stand to be at the hotel with them, so Marc let me stay in his guest room.”

“Guest room?” Patrick was always teasing me, I knew that, so I just shrugged again.

“Do you want us to come with you?” Niklas asked when we got to the elevators.

“Nah, it’s alright,” I shook my head.

“Tack, Niklas,” (Thanks) I smiled weakly. He gave me a smile back and returned to the team lunch with Sharpie. I hoped that they would make sure that neither CC nor C.A. came up while I was packing. The last thing I wanted or needed was another fight with one or both of them.

While I collected my things, I had a lot of time to think. Not only was CC leaving the trip early, no, I had now also decided to leave earlier than planned. I tried not to think about all the things I was missing out on now. Thinking about the situation that was going to await me in Chicago was just as unpleasant though.

It probably wasn’t a good idea if CC and I spent a lot of time together in the next few days, which was going to be difficult since we were living together. Unfortunately I didn’t think this was something we were going to resolve within a few days either, which was going to pose a serious problem. For a few days I might be able to stay the night at friends’ places but that couldn’t last forever. This really was such a mess!

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Niklas was waiting for me when I got to his room. He looked thoughtful and almost sad, which wasn’t something I was used to seeing on the calm Swede’s face. I knew he probably didn’t agree with the situation, but it was which parts of it he didn’t agree with that was the question.

“If you’re going to tell me that I’m overreacting - I know I am but I just can’t help it. This is one too many times,” I cut him off before he could even begin to speak.

“I don’t think he means to stand between you,” Niklas remarked softly. He knew how I felt because we had talked about this a few times before. I really appreciated how well Niklas and I got along - he was easily my best friend on the team. We had gotten close while working on my Swedish speaking abilities.

“But he does and he knows he does,” I replied angrily. “Why did this have to be a fight over who was more important?”

“Because the two of you are making it one,” Niklas pointed out calmly and ignored the dark look I gave him for being right.

“It’s just not fair that I always get the short end of the stick,” I complained and pulled my knees to my chest. “You should be napping.” Niklas ignored that, too.

“What are you going to do?” he said instead.

“Probably stay at a friend’s place for a few days. If I see either of them, I might lose it...”

Niklas just looked at me and I knew he was thinking about that. “If you think that’s best...”

“Yeah...” I’d never known how exhausting, truly exhausting so much emotional turmoil could be.

Niklas got comfortable in his bed, his room mate came in as we were getting ready and I curled up on the couch. Only to find out as soon as I closed my eyes, my mind was much too busy running on overload to let me relax and fall asleep.
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When I woke up it was dark and quiet in the room. Nobody was here and for a few moments I was disoriented. Then I fell back into the pillow and let out a big sigh. I wasn’t sure what time it was but if Niklas had already left then it was definitely closing in on game time. That I’d slept at all surprised me but that I’d slept for so long didn’t. Last night I’d barely slept, too much had been on my mind. Now that I was awake again, everything was starting to cloud my mind again. And it wasn’t only my sister that was running through my mind. Marc was also part of it.

I wish I could have been able to say that he’d taken advantage of me in my emotional and vulnerable state when we kissed, but he hadn’t. The kiss last night had come from me and I didn’t know how or why. Everything that was happening with CC right now was exactly why I had made my ‘no dating’ rule. I’d wanted to avoid the drama, especially the drama that was bound to come at the end of this semester when we both had to leave. With how things were right now I could already see CC applying for another semester again.

What was going to happen so far into the future wasn’t my main concern at the moment though. I needed to think about and plan how I was going to deal with things in Chicago now. It was a little hard to grasp that things had changed so much within two days.

Niklas had left me a note explaining how to go about things now. They’d already taken my big suitcase with them to the arena and I was going to meet them there so I could fly with the team. That was going to be fun. I already knew that C.A. and I on the same plane was going to be trouble for sure.

The game had already started when I got the arena but I wasn’t that keen on watching it anyway. The flight would be a little easier to bear if the boys won though and right now it looked like that was going to be the case.

Running around with a pass hanging from my neck usually made me feel special, but right now it seemed to be for all the wrong reasons. The only thing it was doing for right now was allowing me to watch the game, and at the same time avoid CC as she no doubt sat in one of the boxes. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid her forever because we were going to be on the same flight later, but for right now I held on to my maybe childish game of avoiding her and C.A..

The guys did win the game and the general mood was good, I was the only Debbie Downer sitting in my corner waiting until we were leaving. CC didn’t come over and try to talk to me, which I was thankful for. I just needed some distance right now. There were people that ignored my obvious state of upset though.

“Finally got up, sleepy head?” Sharpie grinned down at me. I just rolled my eyes which made him laugh. “I talked to Abby, you can have the guestroom as long as you need,” he added in a quieter voice.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get into trouble.” It was hard to tell how C.A. was going to act in the future and the last thing I wanted was to disrupt the team chemistry. There was already too much drama outside the team with this situation, I didn’t want it to carry into the locker room as well. If there was any chance that Niklas, Sharpie or anyone else was going to have any kinds of problems because of this... I didn’t want that.

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” he tried to reassure me but it really didn’t. Maybe everyone else felt and thought it wasn’t as bad as I did. Maybe I was making a mountain out of a molehill, more than need be, but this was how it felt for me and I couldn’t just pretend that it didn’t.

“If you say so.”

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The flight was less tense than I thought but that was because I sat far away from C.A. and CC and neither of them said a word to me. I could tell that CC wanted to but she didn’t. I didn’t either and spent the flight trying not to think and catch up on some more sleep.

Like Sharpie had offered, the guestroom was ready for me. Abby had gone to bed but it was already way into the night or early morning, so no one expected her to wait up. Somehow I was still exhausted enough to shut my eyes, turn off my brain and fall asleep almost as soon as I lay down.

I dreamt a lot that night but when I woke up I couldn’t remember what it was about. It made me feel a little confused and kind of shaken up for some reason that I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was just my subconscious telling me that something was off like I didn’t already know that. Every time I woke up, it took me a while to fall back to sleep and that time I spent thinking about the situation. I couldn’t really make a clear thought - a mix of sleepiness, anger, hurt and sadness making it impossible to think in a productive way. It made me so angry to think that CC had willingly chosen to cut the trip short and come back early, it made me want to strangle C.A. to think that he had persuaded her, although he knew how much it meant to both of us and although he had promised not to interfere. Part of me wanted to find a way to hurt him like he had hurt me but I knew that it would involve CC getting hurt as well and I didn’t want that, not really. It wasn’t her fault that her boyfriend was a lying, conniving asshole. But it was her fault that she had allowed him to influence her like this.

Slowly I started to understand what people meant with the saying of being caught between a rock and a hard place. No matter which way I turned, it just didn’t seem to help any. If I acted on my hurt then CC would get hurt as well, but if I didn’t... well, I couldn’t just pretend that these feelings didn’t exist! I fell back asleep with the knowledge that this might take a while to figure out. A long while.

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When I woke up the next morning, well, you couldn’t really call it morning actually, it was noon. When I finally got up Sharpie was busy preparing for the game and that left Abby with some time to dote on me. Sharpie enjoyed the fact that I skipped right to lunch without any breakfast, he noted it with a big fat grin, while his wife only rolled her eyes. I guessed it was a well known fact around the team that I liked to eat, I just wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing though. If you asked the scales, there would be an obvious answer, but it was easy to avoid the stupid thing if you didn’t own one.

As I shoveled the food into my mouth mindlessly, I could tell that Abby was trying to talk about anything but the one thing she really wanted to talk about. Eventually I caved.

“Say what you wanna say, Abby, and get done with it. I’m not promising any answers, comments, explanations, justifications or anything,” I told her. Abby was a sweet, amicable woman and we’d gotten along well ever since we had been introduced last year. The Sharps were good friends but also the ones that were trying the hardest to crack my ‘no dating’ nut, so to speak. I could tell you many stories about how they had tried to set me up. From inviting friends to coincidentally be at the same bar we were having a drink at to arranging for me to have ‘seat buddies’ to enjoy the game with, they had done it all. The Sharps were the only ones that I couldn’t stay mad at for that though because they showed on many occasions that they had my best interests in mind. They were maybe the only ones that could give input to the situation that I might actually consider.

Abby looked at me for a few moments. “I just don’t understand. Patrick’s told me everything he knows but I just don’t get it.”

“Which part? Captain Asshole behaving like this giant spoiled brat, CC behaving like a... a woman that’s got no say or me behaving like a bitch?” I gave back dryly.

“Captain Asshole? Nice,” Patrick commented as he was retrieving himself a bottle of water. Abby just gave him a look, you know, where Patrick immediately knew to hightail it out of the kitchen and to keep his mouth shut from here on out if he valued his balls and his sleeping place in the bedroom. Patrick just smiled, held up his free hand in surrender and disappeared, probably to take his pregame nap.

“See, that’s about one of the only times right now that I wish I had a guy. I love that ‘shut up and fuck off if you value your manliness’ look,” I grinned slightly making Abby laugh.

“Sorry, that’s reserved for married couples only,” she grinned back and I rolled my eyes.

“Gonna be a while till that happens, trust me,” I sighed.

“So you do want to get married?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I do! I want a husband and a couple of kids!” I gave her a look like she was crazy. “I just don’t need it now.”

“Need... or want?” Abby looked at me.

“It’s not like I enjoy being alone, Ab. That’s just the way it’s gotta be right now,” I shrugged and went back to shoveling food into my mouth.

And it wasn’t like there was anyone on the horizon that seemed worth giving into my wants, not needs for.