Chances Risked

-Maggie-
“What time is it?” Pat mumbled against my head as we heard the sound of a vibrating phone against my nightstand.

I sighed and lazily peaked my head up and looked at the time, “Almost five.”

“Who the fuck is calling?” he growled.

A month had passed, Christmas was over, we had a nice little Christmas with our families, both my parents came up and his parents came down and stayed at my home. Everyone was obsessed over little Troy and I found it cute how even Pat was loving the little baby. Both mine and Pat’s parents stayed until New Years Eve, where they either flew or drove back to their homes. My birthday passed and it was spent just laying in bed with Pat, watching movies and ordering food.

We were five days into January, both growling, wondering who was calling one of us this early. I sighed, it was my phone, I grabbed it and saw Tosha calling me, “Hello?” I grumbled, wanting to be asleep.

“Maggie!” she said a little too excitedly, “Guess what?!”

“Tosha, it’s too early for guessing games,” I whined.

“The lockouts over!” she yelled into the phone and I shot up from the bed and started to jump up and down, wondering where all of this sudden energy came from.

“Are you serious?! Are you fuckin’ serious?!” I yelled and she giggled, Pat just looked at me confused, “The lockout’s really over?”

He was about to say something when he’s phone started to go off and he smiled, knowing what the phone call at five in the morning meant.

“Yes ma’am, your first game is scheduled on January nineteenth against the Flyers…” everything she said after that went through one ear and out the other.

‘…Flyers…’ I thought, the smile from my face disappearing, I hadn’t played that team since April, since Mike’s death. Kokorin had been kicked out of the NHL, and I know that it was all his fault, but I couldn’t help but feel that hatred for the whole team.

“Maggie? Maggie? Earth to Maggie-“

“Sorry, I’m here, I’m here,” I said and walked over towards the window, “What were you saying?”

“Your practices start next week, you gotta give the others time to get back into town and situated,” she said and I yawned.

“Yeah, I understand.”

“You all right? You kind of lost all of your excitement there,” she said and I sighed.

“The Flyers, Tosha,” I said and she sighed.

“It’s going to be all right, Maggie, you have your team and it’s not like Kokorin is there anymore,” she said and I nodded my head, knowing that it wasn’t like she could see it, “Get some sleep Maggie, it’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

“All right, thanks,” I said and we said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone.

“The lockouts over!” Pat yelled excitedly and I giggled when I felt his arms around me and he lifted me up from the ground and spun me around, “This is awesome!”

“Yeah,” I said and looked down, ‘…That also means that you’ll be leaving…’

“What’s wrong?” Pat asked and then cupped my chin and looked down at me, “You don’t look happy.”

“No, I am,” I sighed, “It’s just, our first game,” I looked down, “It’s against the Flyers.”

“Oh,” he said and then sighed, “You knew it was bound to happen eventually, Mags. You knew you were going to have to face them again.”

“I know,” I said and nodded my head, “I just need to breathe.”

“There’s my girl,” pat said and I smiled at him.

“The lockouts over,” I said and he nodded his head, “That means you’re leaving,” I said sadly.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “Only thing that sucks,” Pat said and then wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips against mine. He pulled me back towards the bed and then gently laid me down and climbed on top of me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, giggling when his hands tickled up my sides.

“When will you go?” I pouted and Pat chuckled.

“Probably tomorrow afternoon-“

“Tomorrow?!” I asked shocked, “So soon?!”

“I need to go back to Buffalo, make sure my house is all closed up for the season and then head to Chicago, we start practice in a few days,” he said and I looked down sadly, “Hey, hey, Mags,” I looked at him smiling down at me, “I love you,” he said and I gave him a small smile, “We’re going to do exactly what we did last season,” Pat said and I nodded my head, “We’re gunna try to see each other as much as possible and then video chat, text, call every chance we get.”

“I love you,” I breathed and then pressed my lips against Pat’s.

-Kane-
My time in Chicago didn’t last long, within the first few days, everyone was back in town, we met our rookies and then practice started. Our first game was also on the nineteenth and like Maggie, ours was an away game. We were all in California; we had a game against the Kings this afternoon and then a game against the Coyotes tomorrow night.

“So how’s Maggie doing?” Duncan asked as we were all on the bus waiting for everyone to get on so we could head to the arena.

“She’s doing well, her nephew was born, so she’s having fun being Auntie,” I said and the guys chuckled.

“She’s got a game today too, right?” Jon asked and I nodded my head, “Who are they playing?”

“Flyers,” I said and he just looked at me and I nodded my head, “Yeah, she was a little nervous.”

“Hope they win,” Crawford said and I sighed and looked out the window.

“Me too.”

-Maggie-
I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the buzzard went off; signaling that the game was over and we had won our game against the Flyers. I’d be lying if I said that I was me again. It seemed that as soon as my blades hit the ice for practice, I just wasn’t myself. The flashbacks, thankfully, haven’t started again, but it was like my body forgot everything that I trained it to do.

The only thing I was able to do tonight was keep my promise to Coach to stay out of the penalty box and help assist Geno in the second goal of the night, but that was it. we were all in the visitors’ locker room and I sighed, looking around, ‘…No Jordan, no Max, no Johnson, no Tangradi, no Lovejoy, and no Mikey…’ so far the only new teammate we had was former Capitals’ goalie, Tomas Vokoun.

As soon as we finished our afternoon game in Philadelphia, we got on the bus and headed for New York, we had a game against the Rangers the next night. The two hour drive to the Big Apple was a quiet one, I sat next to second year, Brandon Sutter. My head was leaning against the window, my hood over my head and I stared at nothing.

‘…It definitely was an emotionally and physically exhausting game…’ I thought and then just kept to myself the whole ride.

-Sidney-
We all noticed that Maggie was quiet, we knew that she was off her game, in fact, we were going to be surprised if she wasn’t. I knew the first game without her brother was going to be hard, and it was against the Flyers none the less. I looked over towards our sad teammate and sighed, she looked as if she didn’t want to be bothered and no one was going to bother her.

“She going to be all right?” Kunitz asked from his seat in front of me.

“I think the first few games will be hard, but she’ll be fine,” I said and he nodded his head, “This was how she was in training over the summer too, took her a week to finally come out.

“We don’t have the luxury of giving her a week though,” he said and I sighed and nodded my head.

‘…We don’t, he’s right…’ I thought, remembering back at the meeting and what was discussed, the league is trying to cram as many games into this half season as they could.

By the time we reached New York, we were all tired and ready for bed. Everyone grabbed their room keys and their normal roommates, Dupuis and I were going to be together again. I looked down the hall as he slid the card into the door, Maggie was walking into her room, she was by herself and I could feel her heartbreak from six doors down.

‘…I wonder if Duper will mind if I switch?...’ I thought, not really wanting Maggie to be alone. I turned towards my teammate and saw him smirking, I didn’t even have my mouth open to ask him before he closed the door in my face, ‘…I’m guessing that’s his answer…’

I walked down the hall and knocked on the door that I saw Maggie walk into. She opened the door and looked at me confused and then sighed, “Look, I know I played shitty today-“

“Not why I’m here,” I said, and I knew that she knew that she didn’t play well; I didn’t want her to feel even worse by telling her.

“Then why are you here?” she asked confused.

“Do you have an extra room key?” I asked and she looked at me confused and held up a key, “Good,” I said and took it, “Move over roomie.”