Status: Just started :)
Times of Change
Chapter One: Milan & Raina
September 26th, 2032
Sunday
Boston, MA
1:30 P.M.
Raina walked down the busy street, pushing past people as she talked quickly on her phone. It was a sunny but chilly day in Boston and her dressy black blouse and pencil skirt weren’t enough to keep her warm. She was talking to her boss on her cell phone about a new case she was taking on. She was holding it tightly between her shoulder and ear as she carried large grocery bags in both of her hands. As she was talking she thought about what she had to do for the rest of the day. Go home, drop off groceries, go pick up Emmett from school, bring him to hockey practice, go home and make dinner for herself, go pick him up and drop him off at Milan’s. Her night seemed endless. She finished talking to her boss and managed to slip her phone in her pocket. She looked up at the TD Garden as she passed by. There was a large advertisement plastered across the side. It said: “Win a chance to skate with old Boston Bruin legends! Star guests will be Milan Lucic!” There was a large picture of Milan on the billboard. Raina made a sound of disgust and looked away from her soon to be ex-husband’s face. She walked to her car parked along the side of the street. She would remember to not park there anymore so she wouldn’t see Milan’s face every morning. It had been a full year now that Raina had been separated from Milan. It had been the longest year of her life. The beautiful home they had bought in Middleton together was now only occupied by her and their eight-year-old son Emmett. They had come a long way from when they were hopelessly in love so many years ago. The twenty years had changed them.
Raina had a half an hour drive home from Boston to Middleton. She had twenty minutes to unpack her groceries. She went in through the garage and lugged all of her groceries up into the kitchen. She slumped down in a kitchen chair and took a moment to rest. She shut her eyes and opened them to see a picture of Luca and Willow as toddlers hanging on the wall. She smiled at the thought of her now 20-year-old twins. She was proud of them both. Luca had been drafted like his father, to the Boston Bruins. Raina had been relieved that he was staying close to home and not going far. Tuukka’s son Vladimir had also been drafted by the Bruins a year later. Becoming good friends, Vlad and Luca decided to room together in an apartment in the city. Being quiet and down to earth Luca was always a good kid. Willow had been the one to give her trouble. She had been rebellious all through high school and to Raina’s relief she had gone off to attend the University of New England to get a degree in Marine Biology. She lived on campus and Raina was always worried about what she would get herself into. Last year Willow had started going out with one of the players on the college’s hockey team who had seemed to ground her a bit. Then there was Emmett. Luca and Willow had been born in 2011 when Milan was twenty-two and she was only nineteen. They decided to put all of their focus on the twins and hockey and have another baby much later. Emmett was born in 2024. But it had not been all fun for her. If things had gone perfectly for her she would have another little one running around the house.
Raina’s life after Luca and Willow was pretty normal. She decided to not work and be a stay at home mom. In 2015 Milan was traded to Minnesota Wild. It was an easy move for them. They kept their house in Middleton and moved into a new house in the suburbs of Minneapolis. There wasn’t much they had to adapt to, the weather and scenery was the same as what’d you see in Massachusetts. They remained there until 2020 when Milan was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers. Raina didn’t like Philadelphia. Instead of the country they lived in a condo in the city. Raina could easily live in a city like Boston but she didn’t like the atmosphere of Philadelphia. It was smoggy and she didn’t like the set up of it. In 2024 when Luca and Willow were thirteen and she and Milan decided that it was a good time to have another baby. Raina had been thrilled when the pregnancy tests came back positive but little did she know it was going to be a long and rough pregnancy. For nine torturous months there were close calls and something was always going wrong. Raina was haunted with doctors repeatedly telling her that Emmett was weak and he might be stillborn. The birth was long and painful. Emmett was a weak baby and was put into emergency care before she could even see him. He pulled through. All of the pain was over when Raina finally got to hold him a few days later. She and Milan had been so excited and spoiled Emmett from the moment he had been brought home.
It was from there that life seemed to go downhill. In 2026, Milan’s 20th year in the NHL, tragedy struck. In one of the first games of the season he was hit hard by a player on the Red Wings and tore several important muscles in his right leg. At the age of thirty-four he wasn’t ready to retire. It was devastating to receive the news that he could no longer play hockey. It was the first factor that seemed to pull them apart. They moved back to Middleton. Feeling miserable, Milan stayed inside most of the time. He did an over amount of exercise in the gym in their home. He stayed there most of the time, getting all of his unused energy out on the treadmill or weights. He pushed his body to the limit. They didn’t talk during the day while he stayed in the gym and Raina took care of Luca, Willow, and Emmett. It was around this time in 2028 that Raina found out she unexpectedly pregnant. It made her feel uneasy with how rough her pregnancy with Emmett had been. The upside of it was that Milan came out of the gym and started paying more attention again.
Like Emmett, it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be harsh pregnancy. They found out it was a boy and started setting up another hockey-themed nursery, excited for his arrival. When Raina went into labor on the 30th week she knew something was wrong. It was far too early. After spending hours in labor Raina was left with nothing. Their son was stillborn. She couldn’t remember much of what happened after. She went crazy, screaming and crying. They had to medicate her to calm her down. The only clear thing she could recall was the way Milan reacted. She had never seen him completely break down before. It was almost like an alien experience when he fell to the floor sobbing. When she finally held her son in her arms he looked like a regular sleeping baby. She remembered looking at his perfect little toes and fingers. They gave him the name they had decided on when they found out she was having a boy months earlier, Benjamin.
It had been the final factor that pulled her and Milan completely apart. In a strange way she blamed herself for her son’s death. She spent days alone grieving for her son and Milan returned to the gym to deal with his emotions with exercising. That was what they had done so wrong, they didn’t support each other. They tried to deal with their emotions on their own. When Milan did try and make the effort to comfort her she was to withdrawn to let him in at all. She wouldn’t go anywhere, do anything, or let him touch her. She felt like she had failed him. Milan started to go out on his own and by this time Luca and Willow had left home and she only had Emmett to take care of. They started fighting when he would come home late and wouldn’t tell her where he had gone. Eventually she kicked him out and that was the end of it.
Raina felt a few tears roll down her face as she remembered everything that had happened. They had stayed separated for a long time. Milan had gone to live with Nathan Horton in New Hampshire until the divorce was over and done with. They were almost officially divorced. They had a thirty day waiting period before the court would make things final. She felt like she had lost everything. She thought back to when she was a happy naïve teenager living with Milan in their old penthouse in Boston. That had been the happiest time in her life. She glanced at the clock with blurred tearstained eyes and saw that it was time to go pick up Emmett.
Milan felt beads of sweat drip down his forehead as he lifted the heavy dumbbell above his head. He brought it back down to his chest and lifted it once more before setting it back onto its holder and sitting up. Bench pressing was his last exercise of the day and then he could go relax before Raina got there with Emmett. He wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and stood up. Nathan’s gym had been completely redone last year and Milan loved using all of the new machines he’d put in. Milan saw himself in the mirror on the opposite wall and looked at himself. His extreme exercising had kept him looking good for forty one-years-old. His physique had stayed solid. He pulled his shirt back on and went out into the garage where the gym connected to. He went upstairs to his bedroom and turned on the shower. There was no one home but him. Nathan was at hockey practice and his daughter Evangeline was out shopping with Margaret, the live in nanny Nathan had hired. Nathan had asked him if he wanted to come to practice but Milan wasn’t going to torture himself by watching them play hockey when he couldn’t. He had to admit, he could get jealous of Nathan sometimes. He was forty-five, in his last year of hockey, living out his dream of retiring as old as possible. Milan could have made it that far if it wasn’t for his leg. He had been checked hard into the boards and his leg had been bent completely in the wrong direction. A lot of knee muscles had been torn and it had taken him almost two years before he could get all of his physical therapy done and he still had a limp. He felt so useless not being able to play hockey. Maybe when he got older he’d become a coach or trainer.
He quickly showered and went to get dressed. He’d promised Emmett he’d take him out to eat and then to the movies. He threw on a nice button-up shirt and a pair of jeans before heading downstairs. He loved spending time with his son. Emmett was the light of his life. When the doorbell rang he looked out the window to see Raina standing with Emmett. He hesitated for a moment. He always hated facing Raina. Seeing her reminded him of everything that been good in his life before it all went downhill. His leg injury, the lose of his son, and the separation. He swung open the door and Emmett jumped up into the doorway and hugged his leg tightly.
“Dad are we still going out?!”
“Ya buddy,” he said. Emmett turned back to Raina and said
“Bye mom, I love you,” Raina kissed him on the forehead before Emmett turned and ran into the family room, leaving Milan and Raina alone. She looked at him and coldly said
“He has a hockey game tomorrow in Topsfield at 8:30 in the morning if you didn’t remember.”
“I remember,” said Milan. She handed him Emmett’s suitcase and hockey bag and said
“Call me if anything goes wrong,” she turned to leave,
“Yup,” he said, shutting the door. He hated seeing her face, still so beautiful. He regretted everything that had gone wrong with them. He went back into the family room to find Emmett sitting on the couch watching TV.
“Where’s Evangeline?” he asked. Nathan’s four-year-old daughter and Emmett were best friends from the moment they had met.
“She and Margaret went out shopping and Nathan’s at hockey practice.”
“When are we going?” asked Emmett.
“Right now if you’re ready,” Emmett shut off the TV and hopped down from the couch.
“Will I see Evangeline later?”
“Ya she’ll be home.”
__________________________________________________
So how do you guys like it? :) Please please comment and tell me your opinion.
All the characters are posted up also!
Sunday
Boston, MA
1:30 P.M.
Raina walked down the busy street, pushing past people as she talked quickly on her phone. It was a sunny but chilly day in Boston and her dressy black blouse and pencil skirt weren’t enough to keep her warm. She was talking to her boss on her cell phone about a new case she was taking on. She was holding it tightly between her shoulder and ear as she carried large grocery bags in both of her hands. As she was talking she thought about what she had to do for the rest of the day. Go home, drop off groceries, go pick up Emmett from school, bring him to hockey practice, go home and make dinner for herself, go pick him up and drop him off at Milan’s. Her night seemed endless. She finished talking to her boss and managed to slip her phone in her pocket. She looked up at the TD Garden as she passed by. There was a large advertisement plastered across the side. It said: “Win a chance to skate with old Boston Bruin legends! Star guests will be Milan Lucic!” There was a large picture of Milan on the billboard. Raina made a sound of disgust and looked away from her soon to be ex-husband’s face. She walked to her car parked along the side of the street. She would remember to not park there anymore so she wouldn’t see Milan’s face every morning. It had been a full year now that Raina had been separated from Milan. It had been the longest year of her life. The beautiful home they had bought in Middleton together was now only occupied by her and their eight-year-old son Emmett. They had come a long way from when they were hopelessly in love so many years ago. The twenty years had changed them.
Raina had a half an hour drive home from Boston to Middleton. She had twenty minutes to unpack her groceries. She went in through the garage and lugged all of her groceries up into the kitchen. She slumped down in a kitchen chair and took a moment to rest. She shut her eyes and opened them to see a picture of Luca and Willow as toddlers hanging on the wall. She smiled at the thought of her now 20-year-old twins. She was proud of them both. Luca had been drafted like his father, to the Boston Bruins. Raina had been relieved that he was staying close to home and not going far. Tuukka’s son Vladimir had also been drafted by the Bruins a year later. Becoming good friends, Vlad and Luca decided to room together in an apartment in the city. Being quiet and down to earth Luca was always a good kid. Willow had been the one to give her trouble. She had been rebellious all through high school and to Raina’s relief she had gone off to attend the University of New England to get a degree in Marine Biology. She lived on campus and Raina was always worried about what she would get herself into. Last year Willow had started going out with one of the players on the college’s hockey team who had seemed to ground her a bit. Then there was Emmett. Luca and Willow had been born in 2011 when Milan was twenty-two and she was only nineteen. They decided to put all of their focus on the twins and hockey and have another baby much later. Emmett was born in 2024. But it had not been all fun for her. If things had gone perfectly for her she would have another little one running around the house.
Raina’s life after Luca and Willow was pretty normal. She decided to not work and be a stay at home mom. In 2015 Milan was traded to Minnesota Wild. It was an easy move for them. They kept their house in Middleton and moved into a new house in the suburbs of Minneapolis. There wasn’t much they had to adapt to, the weather and scenery was the same as what’d you see in Massachusetts. They remained there until 2020 when Milan was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers. Raina didn’t like Philadelphia. Instead of the country they lived in a condo in the city. Raina could easily live in a city like Boston but she didn’t like the atmosphere of Philadelphia. It was smoggy and she didn’t like the set up of it. In 2024 when Luca and Willow were thirteen and she and Milan decided that it was a good time to have another baby. Raina had been thrilled when the pregnancy tests came back positive but little did she know it was going to be a long and rough pregnancy. For nine torturous months there were close calls and something was always going wrong. Raina was haunted with doctors repeatedly telling her that Emmett was weak and he might be stillborn. The birth was long and painful. Emmett was a weak baby and was put into emergency care before she could even see him. He pulled through. All of the pain was over when Raina finally got to hold him a few days later. She and Milan had been so excited and spoiled Emmett from the moment he had been brought home.
It was from there that life seemed to go downhill. In 2026, Milan’s 20th year in the NHL, tragedy struck. In one of the first games of the season he was hit hard by a player on the Red Wings and tore several important muscles in his right leg. At the age of thirty-four he wasn’t ready to retire. It was devastating to receive the news that he could no longer play hockey. It was the first factor that seemed to pull them apart. They moved back to Middleton. Feeling miserable, Milan stayed inside most of the time. He did an over amount of exercise in the gym in their home. He stayed there most of the time, getting all of his unused energy out on the treadmill or weights. He pushed his body to the limit. They didn’t talk during the day while he stayed in the gym and Raina took care of Luca, Willow, and Emmett. It was around this time in 2028 that Raina found out she unexpectedly pregnant. It made her feel uneasy with how rough her pregnancy with Emmett had been. The upside of it was that Milan came out of the gym and started paying more attention again.
Like Emmett, it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be harsh pregnancy. They found out it was a boy and started setting up another hockey-themed nursery, excited for his arrival. When Raina went into labor on the 30th week she knew something was wrong. It was far too early. After spending hours in labor Raina was left with nothing. Their son was stillborn. She couldn’t remember much of what happened after. She went crazy, screaming and crying. They had to medicate her to calm her down. The only clear thing she could recall was the way Milan reacted. She had never seen him completely break down before. It was almost like an alien experience when he fell to the floor sobbing. When she finally held her son in her arms he looked like a regular sleeping baby. She remembered looking at his perfect little toes and fingers. They gave him the name they had decided on when they found out she was having a boy months earlier, Benjamin.
It had been the final factor that pulled her and Milan completely apart. In a strange way she blamed herself for her son’s death. She spent days alone grieving for her son and Milan returned to the gym to deal with his emotions with exercising. That was what they had done so wrong, they didn’t support each other. They tried to deal with their emotions on their own. When Milan did try and make the effort to comfort her she was to withdrawn to let him in at all. She wouldn’t go anywhere, do anything, or let him touch her. She felt like she had failed him. Milan started to go out on his own and by this time Luca and Willow had left home and she only had Emmett to take care of. They started fighting when he would come home late and wouldn’t tell her where he had gone. Eventually she kicked him out and that was the end of it.
Raina felt a few tears roll down her face as she remembered everything that had happened. They had stayed separated for a long time. Milan had gone to live with Nathan Horton in New Hampshire until the divorce was over and done with. They were almost officially divorced. They had a thirty day waiting period before the court would make things final. She felt like she had lost everything. She thought back to when she was a happy naïve teenager living with Milan in their old penthouse in Boston. That had been the happiest time in her life. She glanced at the clock with blurred tearstained eyes and saw that it was time to go pick up Emmett.
Milan felt beads of sweat drip down his forehead as he lifted the heavy dumbbell above his head. He brought it back down to his chest and lifted it once more before setting it back onto its holder and sitting up. Bench pressing was his last exercise of the day and then he could go relax before Raina got there with Emmett. He wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and stood up. Nathan’s gym had been completely redone last year and Milan loved using all of the new machines he’d put in. Milan saw himself in the mirror on the opposite wall and looked at himself. His extreme exercising had kept him looking good for forty one-years-old. His physique had stayed solid. He pulled his shirt back on and went out into the garage where the gym connected to. He went upstairs to his bedroom and turned on the shower. There was no one home but him. Nathan was at hockey practice and his daughter Evangeline was out shopping with Margaret, the live in nanny Nathan had hired. Nathan had asked him if he wanted to come to practice but Milan wasn’t going to torture himself by watching them play hockey when he couldn’t. He had to admit, he could get jealous of Nathan sometimes. He was forty-five, in his last year of hockey, living out his dream of retiring as old as possible. Milan could have made it that far if it wasn’t for his leg. He had been checked hard into the boards and his leg had been bent completely in the wrong direction. A lot of knee muscles had been torn and it had taken him almost two years before he could get all of his physical therapy done and he still had a limp. He felt so useless not being able to play hockey. Maybe when he got older he’d become a coach or trainer.
He quickly showered and went to get dressed. He’d promised Emmett he’d take him out to eat and then to the movies. He threw on a nice button-up shirt and a pair of jeans before heading downstairs. He loved spending time with his son. Emmett was the light of his life. When the doorbell rang he looked out the window to see Raina standing with Emmett. He hesitated for a moment. He always hated facing Raina. Seeing her reminded him of everything that been good in his life before it all went downhill. His leg injury, the lose of his son, and the separation. He swung open the door and Emmett jumped up into the doorway and hugged his leg tightly.
“Dad are we still going out?!”
“Ya buddy,” he said. Emmett turned back to Raina and said
“Bye mom, I love you,” Raina kissed him on the forehead before Emmett turned and ran into the family room, leaving Milan and Raina alone. She looked at him and coldly said
“He has a hockey game tomorrow in Topsfield at 8:30 in the morning if you didn’t remember.”
“I remember,” said Milan. She handed him Emmett’s suitcase and hockey bag and said
“Call me if anything goes wrong,” she turned to leave,
“Yup,” he said, shutting the door. He hated seeing her face, still so beautiful. He regretted everything that had gone wrong with them. He went back into the family room to find Emmett sitting on the couch watching TV.
“Where’s Evangeline?” he asked. Nathan’s four-year-old daughter and Emmett were best friends from the moment they had met.
“She and Margaret went out shopping and Nathan’s at hockey practice.”
“When are we going?” asked Emmett.
“Right now if you’re ready,” Emmett shut off the TV and hopped down from the couch.
“Will I see Evangeline later?”
“Ya she’ll be home.”
__________________________________________________
So how do you guys like it? :) Please please comment and tell me your opinion.
All the characters are posted up also!