O Captain, My Captain.

"Soooo what's up?" Aubrey asked, grabbing Sidney's hand as they strolled out of the hotel lobby and out into the chilly Detroit afternoon.

Sidney took notice of his hand in hers and gave it a small squeeze. "This is nice."

"What? Us holding hands?"

"Yeah," he smiled.

"Babe, you act like you've never been touched affectionately by a woman before," she smirked.

"And this is exactly why I don't do the whole relationship thing," he joked. "Because I wind up dating smartass girls like you who make fun of me when we make the slightest bit of progress. Just let me bask in the moment."

"Sorry, sorry!" she giggled. "I didn't realize you were so sensitive to it."

"I'm not," he grinned. "I just like giving you a hard time."

"You're so weird," she said. "But in all honestly why don't you do the whole relationship thing?"

"I'm gonna tell you," he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I just wanna walk a little bit further to get away from all these crowds of people. The last thing I need is giving Detroit fans another reason to bitch about me."

"Point taken," she said as he guided her down the street.

He led her to a quaint little park located just a couple blocks away from their hotel. It was big enough that no one would really recognize him but small enough that they could still have their privacy. Still walking with fingers interlaced with one another's, they sat on an old wooden bench at the edge of the park.

"This is one of my favorite spots in Detroit," he looked around. "I have a favorite spot in Detroit, shocking I know."

"You said it, not me," Aubrey took in the scenery around her.

"Soooo," he said nervously.

"Sooo," she crossed her legs.

"I'm sorry. I've never really done this type of thing before so I don't really know how to start it off," he looked down at the ground. "So bare with me."

"Just speak from the heart," she placed her hand on his knee. "Feelings are scary, I know."

"Okay," he said taking a deep breath in. "So you know how I told you that I've never really been in a serious relationship before?"

"Yeah?" she gave him her full attention.

"Well that may have kind of been a lie," he glanced at her wearily.

"Go on," she pressed.

"It was kind of similar to your situation except I never proposed and she never cheated," he continued. "At least not to my knowledge."

Aubrey didn't say a word. She just listened, her doe eyes completely fixated on him while he kicked at the ground nervously. She could tell that this wasn't easy for him. Sharing feelings wasn't easy for anyone but obviously this was really important to Sid, and he needed to get it off his chest.

"Her name was Caroline and we grew up together in Cole Harbour," he finally said. "Our families were extremely close so of course we spent a lot of time together. We'd all get together on holidays and she and I just got really close. We were pretty much inseparable up until the time I started getting serious about hockey. Even then she made it a point to still be in my life. She'd come to all my hockey games and would hang out with me and some of my teammates. But throughout all of this we were never dating. Just really good friends. But I knew I always had feelings for her."

"Sounds like a really chill girl," Aubrey broke her silence.

"She was," Sidney smiled. "Anyway we kind of lost contact with each other when we went on to high school. I went to school here in the states while she went to the local high school back home. But even then we still tried to keep in touch every week."

"I forgot you went to Shattuck St. Mary's," she said, still giving him her undivided attention.

"Yep. That's where I met my best friend JJ."

He was referring to Jack Johnson who plays for the Columbus Blue Jackets. They had become extremely close at Shattuck's through hockey and still kept in weekly contact with one another, discussing the interworking's of their organizations.

"So around my junior year, like you, I realized that I wanted to make her a serious part of my life. She'd always been there for me and it's hard to find people like that, ya know? People who still stick around even though you're not giving them a whole lot of your attention. So when I went home for the summer, that was the first thing I did. I asked her to be my girlfriend and you know what she said?"

"What?" Aubrey sounded curious.

"She told me that she'd been waiting for me to ask her that ever since the day we first met. And I was happy. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could juggle hockey and a girlfriend yet still make quality time for both," he sighed.

Aubrey pat his knee again and gave him a sympathetic smile, silently letting him know that it was okay to open up like this.

"Even though I was constantly traveling we still made it work. If my tournaments were in driving distance, she'd come and make a weekend trip out of it. Fast forward to 2005 when I got drafted and everything was perfect. We'd been dating for a solid year and there was no doubt in my mind that we couldn't keep a steady long-distance relationship. I mean we were already used to me being away for long periods of time, surely to god this wouldn't make much of a difference. And again, similar to you, I caught myself starting to fall in love. I really thought she would be the one, Aubs," he sighed.

He looked so sad the way he was kicking at the ground and clasping and unclasping his hands. Aubrey could tell that he had really had a thing for this Caroline girl and that it was slowly breaking his heart resurfacing old memories.

"Sid," she looked deep into his eyes. "You don't have to open up to me like this. I mean I love that you feel comfortable enough to do this with me, but if it's hard, it can wait."

"No," he said firmly. "It's something that I need to do. I'm never gonna get over it if I keep my emotions bottled up inside."

"Then I'm all ears," she said, continuing to look deep into his eyes.

"My daily life routine got more rigorous and training became extensive. I had always known that it took serious dedication to make it far in this league, but I literally had zero time for loved ones. Hell I could hardly take care of myself. The weekly phone calls stopped and so did our relationship, all because I never had time. And neither one of us wanted to end it because we were both afraid to. We'd both been in love with each other for so long, we each didn't wanna come to terms with the fact that everything was ending," he sighed.

"So what happened?" she asked.

"She finally ended it. I got a text from her one day saying how my career was putting a huge strain on our relationship and that she wasn't gonna compete with hockey anymore for my attention. I mean I knew she was right but I was still hurt. I don't know if I was more hurt by the way she ended it or from her actually ending it," he smirked.

"Yeah getting dumped via text message is pretty shitty," Aubrey agreed.

"Yeah no shit. It sucks because she had made a promise to me back when we first started dating that no matter how tough our relationship got, we would get through it together every step of the way," he said softly. "So much for that."

Aubrey couldn't stand to see how pitiful he looked. It was absolutely heartbreaking. How could anyone just give up on one of the sweetest human beings on the planet like it was nothing?

"So after we broke up, I was pretty depressed. I thought maybe going out and seeing other girls might help me get over it but it just made things worse. They were more interested in my wallet than helping me restore my emotions."

Aubrey thought back to her conversation she had earlier with Kuni on the plane. He told her that it was almost impossible for the guys to get Sid to go out with them and now she could see why. So many women had used him for materialistic purposes as opposed to really getting to know him and that was emotionally draining for him. She couldn't imagine being with someone who was with her for all the wrong reasons so she could see why he was a little gun shy.

"And that's why I don't do relationships," he hesitated. "Because I guess I'm just afraid of falling for someone only to have my heart broken again. And I hope to god you would never do that to me."

"Sid, let me clue you in on some things," she said taking his hand. "First off, I would never want to compete with hockey for your attention. Maybe it's because I work for the team too and I see how straining it can be but, I'm a grown ass woman. I don't need you to constantly entertain me. And secondly I could care less about your money or your fame. I make decent money myself and material possessions don't mean a damn thing to me. I'm with you because I genuinely like you as a person and I love that you're willing enough to open up to me like this. We're making huge strides here."

"You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that," he breathed a sigh of relief as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"You know it goes against everything I stand for for us to be together but here we are," she smiled. "I love you for you and I love that you're so passionate about your job. I'd never wanna change that."

Before she had time to say anything else, he leaned in and gave her a quick, passionate kiss. All of his buried feelings for Caroline were slowly starting to wash away the more time he spend with Aubrey. Everything was finally starting to feel normal again.

"We should probably head back now," he glanced down to check his watch. "Or everyone's gonna start to think something's up."

'If only you knew,' she thought, again recalling her conversation with Kuni. It was visibly obvious to him teammates that he was much happier whether he knew they knew or not.

"Shall we?" he stood up and offered her his hand.

"We shall," she said wrapping his warm hand around hers.

'This was good. We're making some serious progress,' she thought, never realizing just how emotionally scarred Sidney was. It was something that they could work on together in the future. But for now, their future was beating the Detroit Red Wings so "Sidney Crysby" haters didn't have a reason to talk.