The Three C's

-Maggie-
After breaking two of my ribs, I took the next four games off; although, I fought against it, Pat and Jon managed to convince me to take some time off; I was in pain and needed some time to heal. I missed three home games, Vancouver, Nashville and Philadelphia, all losing games, and then one away game against Washington, the boys managed to win that one in overtime. James Neal came to visit me when he was in town and tried very hard not to make me laugh, because it hurt to breathe let alone laugh.

When a week went by, even though I was still in pain, it was time to come back, I attended practice and did my best to suck it up and deal with the pain, which I managed to do, but damn did it hurt. My old team was flying in today for our game against them tomorrow night, my first game back, I just had to make sure that when I saw them tomorrow, none of them hug me, I might actually cry or die if they did. I knew that when you break ribs it took at least three weeks to heal, I just had to make sure that when I played, it wasn’t too rough.

After practice, we all went into the locker room, got undressed and headed for the showers, I heard my name and saw Coach, he called me over and held a clipboard in front of me. I looked at the paper and saw that it was all my times and stats for today’s practice, I was beyond slow and sluggish.

The pain wanted me to say something to my Coach, something that I knew I shouldn’t, so I just stuck with, “I’ll make sure I improve for next time.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard, kid,” he said and then walked away and left the locker room.

I clenched my fists and then took a deep breath, then took two more, ‘…You’re fine, don’t milk the injury, you need to push through the pain…’ I thought and then headed for the showers.

When Pat and I got home, he made some soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, there was a blizzard going on outside, so our satellite for the TV was out. Bella and Stanley were outside playing in the snow while Pat and watched and ate from the kitchen island.

Once I finished my food, I headed upstairs and decided that I was going to lay in the tub for a little, I found that being in the water and making me feel weightless, made the pain hurt a little bit less. I lit some candles, threw some bubble soap into the water and watched as the warm water rose. Half way full, I slowly got in, lying back and just taking a deep breath. I looked down at my stomach and saw the ugly yellow, green, blue bruised skin, it honestly sucked to have your ribs broken and I was surprised that it hadn’t ever happened sooner. I kept going the hit over and over in my head, and I figured it was just one of those weird hits, because I could not for the life of me, figure out how my ribs broke, unless I just landed on the ice weird.

I don’t know how long I was in the water, I must have drifted off to sleep, because I was being woken up by Pat’s cold hand gently being placed on my shoulder, “Don’t fall asleep, don’t want you to drown,” he said and I gave a small smirk as he sat down next to the tub and placed his hand in the water, “I’d ask to join you, but I figure you don’t want extra weight.”

“Nope,” I smirked, “But I will need your help to get out.”

“How’d you get out before- When I was gone?”

“Held my breath and cursed,” I said and looked at him, “A lot.”

Pat chuckled and nodded his head, “Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” he said and then kissed my head.

-Kane-
“Maggie, Maggie, Maggie-“

“STOP!” I yelled as half the Pittsburgh team was coming over to greet their former teammate.

The young ones were running over when I stood in front of Maggie and stopped them, “Come on Kane, move! I wanna hug Maggie!” Bennett whined and I sighed.

“Sorry guys, hugging would not be the best, I’ve got some broken ribs and they hurt like a bitch,” Maggie said from behind me and then moved next to me.

“Oh yes they do,” Pascal Dupuis said as he came over gently wrapped an arm around Maggie’s shoulder and kissed her cheek, “Good to see ya again, squirt.”

“Thanks Duper, missed you the last time I was in,” she said and I smirked.

“Aw, stupid knee, was giving me problems again,” he said and Maggie nodded her head and then moved to the next friend.

They were all gentle to her, even the giant Russian manage to show some restraint. After she said her hellos, we headed or the locker room and got ready for our game against Pittsburgh. Coach had changed some plays for today’s game so that we didn’t include much of Maggie since she was still healing; however, we still were going to need her on the ice, and we had a feeling that since the Penguins knew of her injury, they wouldn’t purposely try to go after her.

The whole game ended up going by really fast, nothing eventfully happened other than we won with the final score of four to one. After the game, Maggie and I headed home and headed to bed, it was pretty much a boring night. However, as I laid in bed, I couldn’t help but like this boring night.

Morning came and I woke up before the alarm, I looked at the clock and saw that it was after seven in the morning, out alarm was set for eight. The team didn’t have a practice until this afternoon and Maggie and I didn’t have anything planned to do this morning or night other than to look at wedding books. Our wedding was going to be this summer and we barely had anything started, I looked at the box of books that Abby had brought over the other day that had nothing but wedding things inside of it, and to be honest, I was scared.

-Maggie-
I laid in the tub soaking my sore muscles, just coming home from practice an hour before. There was a knock on the bathroom door and Pat walked in, “You ready to look at these books?”

“Sure,” I said and then sighed, “Can you help me?”

“Yup,” Pat said and then rolled up his sleeves, walked over towards the tub and took my hands, slowly pulling me up and apologizing everything my face scrunched up in pain.

“I’m fine, I’ll meet you in there,” I said and Pat nodded his head and left the bathroom and I just threw a big shirt over my head and slipped on some shorts, “All right, let’s do this.”

Pat and I had books spread all across our king size bed, tabs were turned down, ideas were written on paper, lips were being bitten and frustrating sighs were being heard.

“Did we even come up with a color?” I asked and Pat nodded his head, “If you say red and black, I will kill you,” I growled and he looked at me and then shook his head, “So we don’t have colors?”

“Um, nope,” he said and I sighed, “What do you want?”

“What do we want?” I asked him and he looked at me and smiled.

“A happy wife,” he said and I let out a few laughs, which then turned into groans and painful curses, “You all right?”

“I will be,” I said and Pat sighed, walked over towards me and kissed my head.

“What about a light green?” Pat asked and I looked at him and thought about it, “It’s a summer wedding, so maybe a light green would look nice.”

“Well, here’s my question,” I said and looked at Pat, “Are we doing this traditional or-“

“What do you mean?” he asked confused.

“Church or no church?” I asked.

“Well, I like the church idea, but I also like a beach idea too,” he said and I smiled and nodded my head, “We’re both not really formal people-“

“Hawaii?” I asked and Pat smirked, “Your family and my family, some friends- Shit that’s gunna be a lot of people,” we both laughed.

“Big wedding on a Hawaiian beach- Why not?!” he said and I smiled towards him, “You only marry your dream girl once!”

“Ok, we have a place,” I said as I wrote the location down.

“Towards the end of July,” Pat said, “The last Friday of the month.”

“All right, we have a random date,” I smirked and Pat chuckled, “Now,” I looked at him and handed him the other notebook and pen, “Start your guest list.”

“Fuck,” he breathed, “That’s a lot of family.”

“See what I mean! We both came from big families!” I said and then winced at the pain in my ribs, “I’ll work on mine, then get a hold of Abby to see if I can schedule a day for us to look at dresses.”

“Who are your bridesmaids?” Pat asked and I looked at him.

“Who’s your best man?” I asked and we both looked at each other and then sighed, “Yup, we’re fucked.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Pat said and then we were quiet for a while, “Ok, It’s either, Tom, Matt, Mike or Tazer.”

“Well, I know Tazer better than your boys- Though I do love their company,” I said and Pat chuckled and nodded his head, “But it’s up to you.”

“What about you?”

“Emma’s my maid of honor, but I think, Dana, Amber, Abby, Vero- They’re my bridesmaids,” I said and Pat chuckled and nodded his head.

“Sounds like you’ve got it,” he said and I nodded my head and wrote down the names, “You know, if the weddings in Hawaii, I don’t think light green would be the best color.”

I look up at him and smirk, “Are you going to let me pick pink as the color?”

“Fuck no!”

“Then color,” I wrote on the paper, “Question mark.”