Still Loving You

You're too proud to say that you've made a mistake
You're a coward to the end
I don't wanna admit that we're not gonna fit
No, I'm not the type that you like
Why don't we just pretend?

~ Marina and the Diamonds
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Ever since Jamie was born he'd spent father/son time with Sid at the rink. In the beginning Caroline tagged along as well, but as he grew older and Sid and Caroline broke up, it had become guy time. Even though it was never only Jamie and his dad, he never minded it since he was able to spend more time with his surrogate uncles that way.

Caroline had never been very fond of Sid's idea to spend his 'special' time with Jamie at the rink, since it never really was considered father/son time by her. Having grown up with two older brothers, she'd seen her fair share of such activities between them and her father, and she never would have considered her dad bringing her brothers to his job one of them. At the rink, Sid and Jamie were never alone, and it wasn't unusual for the five-year-old to spend more time with Max, Flower or Geno than with his dad. When she had voiced her concerns to her parents, her dad had only told her that everyone's different and that she shouldn't worry since Jamie was having fun. Caroline's mother on the other hand, slapped her husband around the back of his head before telling him to go do something useful. She then proceeded to agree with her daughter that it probably wasn't ideal, but that she should let them continue as long as it didn't affect Jamie negatively.

Even though she called her parents for advice, on some level she always knew what sort of advice they would give. Her mother would agree with her but tell her to keep a level head and take it with a pinch of salt, while her father on the other hand would tell her to take it easy and cut Sidney some slack. Caroline was convinced that the reason he was so laid back about it was because he was a huge Pittsburgh Penguins fan, and had always liked Sid. She was also convinced that that was because neither of her brothers were very big on hockey at all, instead preferring to watch football and cheer for the Steelers.

But, as previously mentioned, Jamie loved going to the rink with his dad. So when the suggestion from Sidney reached his small ears, he was ecstatic.

"Really?!"

Sid grinned and nodded. "Sure, we haven't done it in a while."

He had barely finished the sentence when Jamie took off to the car, where he opened the door and crawled inside, the height of the car was no challenge in his hyper state. Once seated in the backseat with his belt fastened, Jamie looked over at Sidney.

"Come on, dad! We've gotta go!"

His face was so serious that Sid couldn't help but chuckle, but nonetheless he walked back to the car and closed Jamie's open door before getting into the driver's seat. All of Jamie's hockey stuff was kept at the rink where he had practises and home games. This was actually not an idea from a lazy parent, but instead from the coach. It was because he felt like the kids would always forget something at home if they brought their gear home, and had arranged everything at the rink instead. And so they stopped by there before they could continue to Consol.
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Getting Jamie's things had been no trouble at all. Upon finding his coach, Jamie had thrown out something about needing his hockey bag and that they'd bring it back when they were done and then run off, leaving Sid to wait with Coach Hendricks. Not that the men really said anything besides the greeting phrases when Sidney and Jamie first walked through the door.

The slightly awkward silence ended when Jamie returned, pretty much dragging the too big bag on the floor behind him. Scooping it up and hanging it over his own shoulder, Sid nodded a good bye to Hendricks while Jamie happily announced that they were going skating but that they would remember to bring the equipment back.

Once outside again, Jamie hurried back into his seat while Sid loaded the bag in the trunk. On the road again, Jamie didn't need any more encouragement than the question "You excited?" to start chattering away. After a few minutes, he looked over at his father.

"Is it only gonna be you and me?"

Sidney looked at Jamie through the rear-view mirror. "No, I think at least Flower and Nealer will be there."

Jamie answered with a small 'oh' in a meek voice, the tone of disappointment that his mother would have intercepted went unnoticed by his father. When Jamie was younger he didn't notice his fathers absence in the same way and couldn't wait to spend time with his 'uncles' as well as his dad. But as he grew older, Jamie became aware of how little time he actually spent with his father and despite how much he loved spending time with Sidney's team mates, he couldn't help but wish that they wouldn't be joining them.

He didn't voice his thoughts, instead Jamie turned his small head to look out the window, the only sound in the car being the sportscast on the radio.
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When Sidney's car rolled in on Consol's parking lot, Jamie lifted his head and seemingly forgot all about his earlier thoughts, eager to skate on the ice his father played on for a living. Impatiently unable to stand still while Sid unloaded his bag, Jamie ran a few laps around the car. As an answer to his father's question of 'what are you doing?' he said: "I'm warming up," when he ran by.

Knowing the arena as well as he did, Jamie was always a few steps ahead of Sidney while they made their way to the Penguins locker room. Once the door was within sight, Jamie ran ahead and entered the locker room to a small chorus of greetings. When Sid entered the room, Jamie was being held like a football by the massive figure of Jordan Staal while Marc-André Fleury and James Neal watched from their seats.

"There you are, Cap. We were starting to wonder if you'd disappeared or something," Nealer said as a greeting.

"You try keeping up with this guy," Sid answered and motioned over to Jamie, who was making his way out from under Jordan's arm.

"Can we go skate now, dad? Please?" He begged and grabbed Sidney's arm that was holding Jamie's equipment bag.

"Sure. Just let me get my own skates and then I'll help you out." Sid placed the bag on the floor next to his stall.

"No hurry," Jamie told him while he started rummaging through his equipment. "I just need help with the skates."

As this was not the words he had expected, Sidney only nodded at his son before leaving the room to get his skates. While this was normally a good thing, a sign that Jamie was growing up and being able to do more things by himself, but to Sid it was some sort of wake up call. The last time he'd taken Jamie skating, the little boy hadn't been able to get ready by himself and had asked: 'can you help, daddy?'. Then again, it had been a while since he'd been addressed to as daddy.

Jamie was already fully dressed in his gear when Sid returned, his small skates were even on his feet but untied. At least something hadn't changed. Staalsy, Nealer and Flower made their way out of the locker room as he bent down to tie Jamie's skates, not missing the opportunity to mess with either Sid's hair or Jamie's helmet when they passed.

"We'll meet you guys out on the ice," James said.

"Be ready to have your butts kicked," Jordan continued just before the door closed behind them.

Father and son stayed quiet, not having anything to say or just not knowing what to say. Once Jamie's skates were sitting tight on his feet, he jumped off the bench and grinned at Sid through the cage on his helmet.

"Thanks, dad!"

While Sid set to tying his own skates, Jamie hurried over to his bag to fetch his hockey stick and then waited, quite calmly, by the locker room door for him to finish. With Sidney back on his feet, Jamie took off down the hallway, hurrying until he reached the opening in the boards where he carefully stepped down on the ice. After looking behind his back for his dad, making sure that he was on his way, he then quickly skated over to James, Jordan and Marc.

Sidney had barely been on the ice with them for ten minutes before bending down to Jamie's level, big hands covering his tiny shoulders.

"Jamie, I have to go talk to Mario for a little while." Seeing the look on Jamie's face, Sidney quickly continued. "It won't take long. No longer than five minutes, okay?"

Jamie nodded sadly and Sid gave him a smile and a pat on his helmet. As he left the ice, he shared a look with Marc that made him look away, and Sid heard the guys trying to distract Jamie. Though he noticed that, he didn't notice how Jamie wasn't as into it as before and how he half-heartedly continued playing with James and Jordan against Marc.
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It didn't take five minutes for Sidney to return. It didn't even take fifteen. Instead it was almost an hour before he was back, and by then Jamie and the guys had left the ice. He found Jamie and Flower sitting in the locker room, the boy keeping his eyes on his knees and neither of them speaking. Jordan and James seemed to have already left. Right away Sid walked over to Jamie.

"I'm really sorry that it took so long, Jamie," he started but Jamie wouldn't look at him as he jumped off the bench and took a hold of his bag.

"Can you take me home?"

While Sid was surprised over the way Jamie acted he didn't show it. Instead he took the bag from his son with a nod and watched as he said goodbye to Flower. Once that was done Marc nodded at him as a farewell before they left the locker room. Jamie stayed quiet during the walk out to the car as well as when he took his seat.

Sidney loaded up the car alone and looked through the rear-view mirror once in the driver seat to see Jamie looking through the window with his head against it. Closing his eyes, Sid let out a deep breath. He had no idea at all how to deal with things like these.

The car ride back to Caroline's house was just as quiet as the walk between Consol and the car earlier, Jamie's head staying against the car window the entire time. There was a change of pace though when Sidney stopped the car outside of the house and Jamie hurried out of the car. This was the first time since getting into the car that he actually moved since Sid had been the one to drop off his hockey bag with Coach Hendricks.

Caroline had opened the door and stepped out of the house when she saw the car pull up, and it was safe to say that she was surprised over the way Jamie didn't waste any time with leaving the car.

"Hi, mom."

"Hi, sweetie. Did you have fun?"

Jamie answered with a nod and a smile, something even he knew she would see straight through and he didn't miss the questioning half-look, half-glare she sent Sidney. He then barely turned around to say: "Bye, dad." before heading inside through the open front door behind his mother.

Waiting until he was seated in front of the TV, Caroline closed the door and turned to Sid with a full on glare upon her face. Even while wearing a pair of tights and a t-shirt, he had to admit that her petite figure still was quite intimidating at times like these.

"What the hell did you do this time?" Her tone was angry but still hushed enough so that Jamie wouldn't be able to hear her through the door.

"Me? How come that you always think I did something?" He asked even though he knew that she was right, as usual.

"Are you kidding me, Crosby? Jamie was so excited to spend time with you and then you come back here and he won't even look at you. So yeah, I'm going to blame you," Caroline ran a hand through her wavy hair. "This is what I've been worried about all along. You take him out for 'father/son'-" she made quotation marks, "-time but you barely spend any time at all with him. And I bet you everything I own that that's the case this time as well."

Opening his mouth, Sidney was about to either protest or ask how she knew that, he didn't know which one but he was interrupted before he could get out anything else beside: "I had to talk to Mario-".

"Life isn't all about hockey, Sid."

"I know."

"No, I don't think you do." By now her voice wasn't angry anymore and had instead taken on a sad tone. They stood there for another couple of seconds until Caroline gave him a sad smile before turning around and going back inside, leaving Sidney alone on the porch, thinking about what she'd said.