Master of Timing

The next time Sidney opened his eyes, the door was being held open by another nurse, who had a new jug of water in her hands. She smiled politely at him and then walked to the bedside table to switch them over and Sidney nodded in thanks, blinking slowly the focus his eyes around the room.

From what he could see out the window, it was well into night time, and he could see snow falling. He frowned a little at the thought of being stuck inside; walking around during some of the first snow falls with a hot coffee was one of his favourite things to do in the fall.

"How are you feeling?" He looked to his right quickly and saw Andy, one of the team assistants who stayed back to help organise his stay at the hospital and then his transfer home. Waving his hand in a "so-so" manner, he re adjusted the pillows and sat up a little higher. "Can I get you anything?"

Sid thought for a moment, before making a motion with his hands that could only be interpreted as a cell phone. Andy hesitated to hand it over,  as the doctor told him that squinting at the phone screen wasn't allowed, until his headaches and vision cleared up 100%. Sid rolled his eyes and held his hand out, his limit for patience having finally been reached.

He couldn't even be bothered to attempt to tone down the sass.

His iPhone came to life once he pressed the 'home' key and he quickly swiped in his passcode. Once the screen loaded, he immediately went to his call button, listening to the voicemail from his Mom first.

"Hey honey, I'm not sure when they'll let you have your phone but Mario called us after he spoke with the coach. We're going to fly down to Pittsburgh as soon as your home to help there, I know you can't call right now but please text me once you can so I know you're alright. I mean, I know you're alright but... Whatever, you know what I mean. Your father and I love you honey."

He scrolled through the others and exited out, not wanting to hear them. He opened his texts and his headache got worse as the little '184' number disappeared. He didn't even think 184 people had his number in the first place.  

thinking of you dude-Nealer
hell of a block man, hope you're okay-Getzlaf
I hope it's not as bad as espn are saying. We’ll all be playing for you til you're back- Jonathan Toews.
hope you're not stuck in that bed too long. Got my fingers crossed for you buddy- Cabbie
you're insane and we need our cap back ASAP. Anything you need, the whole team's here, you know that- Fluery
don't be too hurt, I don't want to be captain for long- Geno

The last one made him laugh, as best he could. He swallowed the pain that fed through his jaw and quickly sent a text to his parents and Taylor, explaining the situation and that he would probably be back in Pittsburgh in a couple of days, so they could arrange flights.

The doctors had been in during the day to explain the situation - the dentistry would have to wait for up to 4 weeks until all of the swelling in his jaw had gone down. He ran his tongue down the side of his mouth to feel only top teeth, and internally cringed when he thought about how much the bill was going to be. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money, but he still appreciated how what might seem like spare change to him meant a whole lot more to others.

He had been cleared to fly but was still experiencing some concussion symptoms, so Andy had organised for the flights back for Friday night, they would leave at about 2am as so to avoid a media circus. Crosby didn’t want to fly commercial, but he knew even he wasn’t special enough to charter a flight back to PA just for himself and one other person. Nor did he have his head that far up his ass.

“Don’t stay on that too long, otherwise those doctors will bust my ass tomorrow,” Andy warned, standing up to put his hands in his pockets. “Do you need anything else before I head out?”

Sidney shook his head, noting the phone and a charger were next to him. He held his hand out for Andy to shake, and once he did was bid goodnight.

Great, he thought. Now he had to find more ways to pass the boredom.



Lyndsey yawned into the back of her hand, rubbing her eyes behind her glasses as she stared down at the pages before her. Ponyboy’s words had started to blend into one, and she realised that she had been reading the same page for about 5 minutes. A quick flick of her eyes to the clock on her screen showed 22:27, and she groaned, stretching her arms above her head and looking up over the desk into the ER.

It was another quiet night. Well, patient wise anyway. She had some mid 30’s guy snoring like a fog horn to her right, and she couldn’t wait until he was sent home or sent to a permanent bed. She was as close as she could get to not putting a pillow over his face just to shut him up. She had a little girl in her care too, only 3 years old with some sort of virus. She was cuddled up in her bed, cuddling her teddy as her parents sat wearily in the chairs next to her, doing what they could to make their little girl more comfortable as she coughed her way through a restless sleep.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” She muttered to Jackie, who ‘hmmm’ed back with about as much enthusiasm as Lyndsey felt. Moving down the halls, she stopped for a bathroom break, and made her way into the lunch room, intending to fix herself a large cup of tea to pull her brain into focus. She was just about to toss the empty sugar packets into the sink when her hand collided with someone’s arm. “I’m so sorry!”

Kath laughed, putting her hand on Lyndsey’s shoulder. “No harm, no foul.” She smiled and made herself her own cup of tea, stirring the contents slowly as Lyndsey’s braved the hot beverage for a sip. At this point, she didn’t even care if she burnt her tongue. “So, I haven’t had a chance to sneak away until now, but I was going to come find you.”

Lyndsey’s eyebrows shot up behind her bangs, and she lowered her cup. “Me? What for?”

Kath’s eyes shined with secrets behind the lid of her cup. “Someone was asking for you earlier.”

Lyndsey did what she could to not roll her eyes. Not this whole nonsense about him asking for her after surgery. “Sam told me about what he said post-op.”

That was news to Kath, but she wasn’t going to make anything of it. “Not sure what you’re on about, but I went in earlier to check on him - you know, help with the bathroom breaks and stuff.” They shared a knowing look and continued their drinks. “He looks so bored and wanted to talk somehow so I found a whiteboard and marker and took it in, so he could communicate as best as possible. He wrote down, asking me to see if you could go say hi.”

She finished what she was saying in a low tone, leaning in closer to Lyndsey’s shoulder. The younger nurse flushed and looked down at her shoes. What the hell did he want to see her for?

“He looks a little bit like a lost soul, maybe I could tell him that you’ll see him in the morning? I know it’s not fair to ask you to stay back once you’ve clocked-“

“No,” She interrupted, smiling. “That’s okay, I’ll stop by at about 7, Jackie should be able to cover my last half hour. It’s beyond quiet down there.”

Kath nodded and sent her a wink, moving past to sit at one of the tables and pull up the paper. Lyndsey sighed and finished her tea, before turning to head back to her desk.

Anyone who cared to look would’ve noticed a slight spring in her step.



“Go,” Jackie insisted, handing her the belongings on her desk. “No one’s here, there’s plenty of staff, no one will notice.”

Lyndsey tried to contain her smile as best she could and she bit her lip in the process, swiping her phone and book from Jackie’s hands before moving quickly to her locker to quickly grab her bag. She didn’t want to change out of her scrubs, just in case someone needed her back downstairs before her shift was actually supposed to end.

Taking the stairs to level 2, she rounded down the hall and nodded quickly on the reception desk. Kath looked up from a file, and nodded Lyndsey through to room number 8, and she slipped in quietly, closing the door behind her as quick as she could. She wasn’t sure why she wasn't expecting Sidney to be awake when she turned to face him, but two chocolate eyes on hers still surprised her. He took a moment to focus on who had just walked in the room, but sent her a lopsided smile once his eyes had stopped playing tricks on him.

“Uh, hi,” She said shyly, moving to his bedside slowly, placing her bag on the floor next to the chair. He waved back and reached for the whiteboard Kath had mentioned earlier, taking off the cap with a ‘pop’ and scribbling across the board.

Hi. Thanks for stopping by.

“No problem,” She laughed and he gestured for her to take a seat, while he swiped his palm across the board again, to write a new message. Lyndsey looked around to see a un used hand towel resting on a shelf, so she grabbed it before she took her place, leaving it on the bed next to his thigh so he wouldn’t have to keep getting his hand dirty.

I wanted to say thanks for all you’ve done while I’ve been here, I leave tomorrow for Pittsburgh.

Lyndsey’s eyes scanned across the board, and Sidney couldn’t help but notice the frown between her eyebrows that flashed as she read the last part of his message. He flipped the board around again and wiped it clean, looking up at her face and pausing for her reaction before he continued. “You don’t have to thank me, it’s my job. I’m glad you’re getting to go home though, I’m sure you’re sick of this place.” She laughed a little and smiled wider when he nodded sheepishly, not wanting to offend her but not being able to help being honest.

I don’t mean to take up your time, if you’re supposed to be somewhere else then that’s okay.

She shook her head and settled into the seat more. “My friends downstairs helped me sneak away, I figured you’re probably stir crazy and needed some company?”

His eyes widened and he nodded furiously, before groaning and putting his hand to his head. He had somehow forgotten that he’d had a thumping headache for 5 days and made a mental note to not get so enthusiastic next time. Lyndsey sat forward in her chair, but he put a hand up to stop her from checking on him, and he sent her what he thought was possibly a smile, but his bottom lip was still a little numb from the surgery, so he wasn’t so sure.

“Is there anything I can get you? A change of clothes or something,” She suggested, seeing his bag with the Penguins logo stitched into the side resting on the other side of the room. He shrugged for a bit, then shook his head carefully, before he glanced down to the floor to see her bag. He saw the corners of a book poking out of the top, and picked up the board to write again.

What are you reading?

Sidney loved to read, it was his favourite hobby that wasn’t hockey, and he hated the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to pick up a book for a while. Even just writing now was hurting his eyes, but he was so excited to talk to someone that wasn’t with the team or a doctor, he refused to give in. He could get through last year's playoffs with a busted wrist, he was going to be able to write a few sentences down.

Lyndsey raised an eyebrow, then plucked the novel out of her bag. She held up the cover to him and he nodded slowly again, giving her a thumbs up. “You like The Outsiders?” She asked, not really pegging him for a fan.

A autobiography/crime thriller/Steven King kind of reader, maybe. But she had loved this book since she had to read it in high school. He wiped away his previous note and jotted something down again, turning the board to face her.

one of my favs. where are you up to?

She flicked open to her bookmark and quickly scanned the first sentence, refreshing her memory since she didn’t take any in last night when she was reading to pass the time. “Dally has just taken Johnny and Ponyboy to the church on the hill,” She summarised, looking up at him with a smile. “Do you…” She hesitated, running her thumb along the bottom pages.

His eyes lit up as he nodded again and moved the board and marker to the side, leaning back in the bed to get a little more comfortable. He quickly made a note that he should download some podcasts from iTunes so that he could pass the time away listening to books, instead of reading them. It was better than nothing. Lyndsey smiled again and took a breath, her eyes drawn to the page as she started to read out loud. Sidney stared at the ceiling of his bland hospital room as her voice carried through the space between them, painting a picture he could imagine in his mind as her words took from the pages. It had been forever since he’d watched the movie, so he tried to imagine a different setting in his head than what he remembered from the screen, how the church looked, the kind of faces he'd thought up for Ponyboy and Johnny.

Lyndsey glanced up every now and again, not quite sure she could imagine the situation she was in. Of all the things she thought she would do if she ever got to meet the man in front of her, reading from her ratty, 9th grade novel was not on that list. She glanced down at the new page and continued where she left off, leaning back further in the chair as she told the story.

Quietly, and slowly as to not scare her, Sidney turned his head so he could watch her read. He hadn’t seen anything but doctors and white walls for days, and she was so pretty sitting next to him in her scrubs, her hair falling around her cheeks, he couldn’t help but watch her. After a while, the words drowned out and he concentrated more on her features, the little frown between her eyebrows, how easily the words fell from her lips, the little smile she had when a character on the page said something funny. Her hands gripped the book tight, but not too tight and her right leg was crossed over the left, her pants rising a little so that he could see her white Nike socks under her shoes. His eyes glanced upwards at her but she kept hers focused on the page, moving back and forth across each sentence. He zoned back into the real world and picked the story back up again, smiling a little to himself at the situation.

She was so incredibly nice, and didn’t have to do this, but he couldn’t begin to think of how he was going to thank her for keeping him company, right when he was about to lose his mind.

Lyndsey got lost in the story too, reading all the way through the chapters, occasionally sharing eye contact with the man in front of her, before she glanced down again. She had just reached the part of the story where Ponyboy was quoting “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, when the door to the room opened, and both of the twenty-something’s attention snapped towards it quickly.

“Oh, hi,” Rose, an older nurse who had seen her fair share of everything, made her way into the room, intent on replacing the jug of water at Sidney’s bedside. “Are you keeping our Lyndsey out of trouble, Mr Crosby?” Lyndsey flushed and looked the book in her lap, her index finger holding the page. Sidney smiled slightly and gave her a thumbs up, making Rose laugh before she refilled his water jug and cup, leaving a new straw next to both.

“Good,” the older lady commented. “She’s a bit of a wild one.”

“Oh my God,” Lyndsey muttered, holding her head in her hand. Sidney wanted so badly to crack a grin and laugh, but since he couldn’t he raised an eyebrow and winked at Rose, who winked back and shut the door quietly. He was going to miss the older nurses around here, that’s for certain. They all reminded him of his grandmother, who loved to cause a stir. “She’s lying.”

Sidney gave her a ‘yeah, sure’ look, before taking a sip of his water. He looked around for another cup to offer her, but couldn’t find one, and leant back into his pillows defeated. She got up from her seat and moved to the bathroom, finding an empty cup in the cupboard to pour herself some water, clinking their plastic mugs together before taking a sip. She couldn’t help but glance at the machines, and took in his vitals before she could really help herself.

Sidney had taken hold of the board again and quickly wrote, turning it around. When she read the message, she checked her watch and shook her head with a smile, making her way back to the seat to pick up the book, opening to the page where she left off. “I can stay here for a little while longer, if you want,” She answered his unspoken question. He nodded again and got comfortable as she resumed the story, beginning the poem again.

He hummed in agreement at the last line as she read the words, and he didn’t realise that she had stopped speaking until he looked at her. He grabbed the board again, thankful as ever to Kath for finding it, and jotted down it’s my favourite line in the book.

“Mine too,” She agreed.

They continued like that for a while, Lyndsey reading and Sidney listening, and sometime’s writing down his best his thoughts at certain parts. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but this was the longest conversation he’d had with a woman in the last 6 months, and he hadn’t actually said a word. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Just as she went to start a new chapter, a yawn snuck up on her before she could stop it, and she covered her mouth before shaking her head awake. She could hear the marker moving across the board, and she paused where she was at to look up, seeing his face frown in concentration as he wrote.

You’re tired, you don’t have to stay here with me. Although a large part of him wanted her to.

She read his words and looked up at his face, he smiled so softly she almost didn’t see it. She glanced at her watch again, and noticed it was nearly 8am. How had she been here for almost an hour? She didn’t even think it would take that long to read the whole book, let alone a few chapters.

She sighed and put the book back in her bag. “I don’t want to go, but I probably should. Don’t need Rose gossiping to all the interns,” She joked, with a little sadness. They both shared a fleeting look at each other before dropping their gazes to their laps. She knew when she walked out the door that she would probably never see him again, in person anyway.

He picked up his marker and wiped the board clean, starting his message at the very top, and blinking his eyes slowly so he could concentrate fully on what he wanted to write. Lyndsey put her bag over her head, and moved to place her cup on the tray near his jug, so they wouldn’t get mixed up. When she turned around, the board facing her was filled with scribble, and she bit her lip as she read.

I can’t thank you enough for all your help. And thank you for reading to me, you didn’t have to stay to do that, but I’m glad. The rest of today will be boring until I can go home. I’ll make sure to have tickets for the next time we’re in town, so be sure to schedule the night off so you & Dr Michaels and whoever else can come. Maybe I’ll be playing.

Lyndsey looked up at him and he nodded, then had a second thought and pointed to the last line, before shrugging his shoulders. She giggled softly, it was one of the cutest sounds Sidney had ever heard, and held her hand out for him to shake. Shaking his head, he put the board down and opened his arms, to give her as best a hug as he could. She felt the heat radiating off his shoulders before anything else, and he couldn’t help but take in the smell of her perfume as he gently put his arm around her waist. It seemed that neither of them wanted to let go, but they had no reason to stay hugging so Lyndsey backed away with a smile, moving her hair behind her ear.

“It was an absolute pleasure to meet you Sidney. I hope everything works out really soon,” She said quietly and he nodded, ignoring the pain in his jaw to give her the best smile possible. Just as reached the door to pull it open, she heard a tapping and looked back over her shoulder to see a new note directed her way.

Stay gold.

He kept smiling as best he could, through his lashes with a hint of blush on his cheeks. All she could think was ‘Oh shit’.



They were short staffed again.

When Lyndsey returned back to work the next night, she knew that he was already gone. No one told her, she just had a feeling that the room two floors up was now vacant. She had left him the day before with a smile on her face and a slight flush to her cheeks, but she bailed out of that hospital and to her car as quick as possible before anyone (Sam, mainly) could find her and comment on it. Once she had sat in the driver’s seat, the key pushed in the ignition but not turned, she stopped. Unknowingly, the last week had been the best of her life. Which was pretty sad, in retrospect but she was going to take those good, warm fuzzy feelings as they came.

The drive home was a distracted one and she went to sleep that night (early morning to the rest of the world) deflated and a little lonely that their worlds were so far apart, both literally and figuratively. In another life, maybe they would’ve been friends.

She wasn’t sure why she was feeling the way she was; like someone had taken what was hers and didn’t show any intention of handing it back.

Which was silly because… well, Sidney Crosby wasn’t actually hers at all.

Her desk was an array of paperwork, and she was grateful for the distraction from her brain working overtime to over-analyse her thoughts. And it seemed that every man and his dog needed to see a doctor immediately, so she was on her feet and moving at break neck speed to try and cover as many patients as possible. She just about lost her mind when she was in the middle of treating a mid-twenties patient, who said he was having trouble breathing and showed signs of arrhythmia and was trying to get the full story out of him for nearly 50 minutes, before he caved and admitted to consuming his fair share of cocaine and didn’t think anything bad would come of it.

Her patience snapped, and she calmly stepped away from the bed before she “accidentally” stabbed her pen into his thigh. Screw bedside manners. She hated dealing with stupid people.

The only plus side to an ER being jam packed full of people, was that the minutes on the clock slipped by un-noticed. Moving from one bed to the next around the ward, Lyndsey and the other nurses busied themselves with work. As far as emergencies go, everyone seemed to actually be okay, most having treated their wounds/illnesses before they even walked through the ER doors.

Until.

“Staff to trauma 1!”

The call came through the loud speakers with no warning. Lyndsey and two other nurses were the only ones free, and they moved quickly down the hall to the first bay, where only one word could be used to describe the scene: chaos.

“BP 80 over 40.”

“The airway’s blocked-“

“Ma’am, your son has experienced severe trauma-“

“Fracture to the left fibula-“

“BP 75 over 40.”

“Lynds, gauze.”

The last one broke Lyndsey’s trance and she grabbed the materials from the nearby counter, handing them to another nurse who pressed the gauze firmly into the patient’s side. She quickly scrubbed her hands clean and put on some gloves, moving to the patient’s broken leg and cutting open his jeans to pull them away.

The poor kid was a mess. She could only imagine what the wreckage looked like at the accident scene if he was barely held together in front of her. Together with one of the other nurses, they put the leg in a splint and bandaged it as straight as possible, while trying to stay out of the way of the nurses attending to the deep gash in his torso. In the background, she could hear his mother hysterically crying, trying to get through to the doctors and to her son. It all became a blur, and she focused on how many loops of the bandage she was putting around the patient’s leg, before she heard her name being called.

“Can you hold him?”

She moved from his leg to around the top of the bed and placed her hands on either side of the kid’s head, as he shook from side to side and groaned loudly.

“What’s his name?”

“Adam.”

“Hey Adam, can you look up at me?” She asked, doing her best to hold him still while he thrashed around as best he could. She noticed they were covering his torso in antiseptic and didn’t want to imagine the pain that would be shooting up his left side.

“Adam, my name is Lyndsey and I’m here to help you okay? I need you to relax for me, I know it’s hard.” He cried out again, his voice muffled a little behind the oxygen mask, his eyes unfocused and directed to the ceiling.

“Mom!” He called out, and Lyndsey looked up to see the woman, clenching her fist to her mouth as tears poured down her cheeks. “I want my Mom!”

“BP 120 over 80, he’s coming back up.”

“Adam, you need to relax.”

“Mom!”

He wasn’t even looking at anything now, and he clawed at Lyndsey’s hands to let go of his face. But she had to hold him still as they had removed the neck brace, and they hadn’t been able to test properly just yet if he had any nerve damage in his spine.

“Adam, you’re alright. Your Mom is just at the end of your bed okay, she just can’t come right up to you.”

“BP 145 or 90, doctor we-“

“This isn’t slowing.”

“Okay, we need him upstairs into surgery ASAP, let’s prepare for transport.”

“Adam! What’s going on, where is my son going?”

“Ma’am, we need you to-“

Lyndsey shut it out and looked down at the face below her. He couldn’t have been more than 15, same age as her younger brother. He had stopped trying to grab her hands and was now just sobbing quietly, the noise around his bed drowning him about. But Lyndsey could feel the tears sliding from his eyes onto her gloves. “Adam, just take it easy. We’re here to help you,” She said quietly, leaning down to be right next to him. “It will all work out.” When she heard him sigh, she closed her eyes for a moment, and thanked whatever powers at be that he’d managed to calm himself down. The effects of shock are always different.

Except, he hadn’t gone into shock.

“BP 200 over 160. Doc-“

It happened way too quickly.

Adam had gone quiet.

Everything had gone quiet.

Lyndsey went from holding his head, to ripping the oxygen mask off his face and replacing it with a bagger. She counted to 10 in her head, timing it with the amount of times she manually put oxygen into Adam’s body. His eyes had closed, his skin had gone pale, and someone was doing compressions on his chest while the defibrillator was charged.

“Clear!”

She stepped back, his chest rising and falling with the charge.

She stepped forward and resumed counting.

“Clear!”

She stepped back.

She could hear Adam’s mom’s voice was further away. She was glad. No mother should have to witness this.

“Charge to 300.”

She stepped forward again, and had counted to ‘4’.

“Clear!”

There was nothing.

Her heart beat pounded in her ears and she could feel her hands shaking. Her mouth had gone dry and she didn’t dare look up.

The doctor, who she didn’t even realise until now was Sam, moved forward with his stethoscope, moving it around the young boys’ chest. He had blood all over his gloves.

“Time of death,” He sighed, and that was the last she heard.

Everything became mechanical. Put this piece of equipment here, move patient’s head there. Step back to let parent come forward to grieve.

She couldn’t take it. Ripping off her gloves, she put them in the closest trash can and kept her head down as she moved further away from the bed. Adam’s mom was crying over his body, his lifeless hand held tightly in her own. A tight grip on her arm brought her back to reality – not because it distracted her, but they had grabbed her arm where Sidney’s skate had cut her.

That was another wave of emotions all together.

“I’m okay,” She said quietly.

“I know.” Sam. She stopped moving for just a moment, and he put his hand up further on her shoulder. “Go take five.”

She felt like she was moving underwater. She originally thought she was walking to the cafeteria to get a cup of tea, and take her first break of her shift, until she found herself sitting on a floor in the locker room, sobbing.

Losing a patient is always hard, but some deaths hit her harder than others. There was an elderly gentlemen who had passed away in her care only a few short days after her own grandma, and the waves of grief that hit her were unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It always hurts when you have time to get to know your patients and then they unfortunately have to leave.

But she didn’t know Adam. Yes it was sad. He was a young kid who was in a very tragic accident. Maybe it was the image of his mom crying that was burned into her brain that she couldn’t shake. Or how he cried before falling still.

She was so confused about everything; she didn’t even notice Jackie was holding her against the lockers as they sat on the floor. Lyndsey couldn’t try to hold it back. Everything had built up to a point and she had nowhere else to go with her emotions, so it all came out at once. She leant forward, resting her head on her arms as the tears fell onto her scrubs, that she noticed she was going to have to change when she saw the blood stains. Jackie just sat there, her arm around the young nurses shoulder, while a few silent tears came from her as well.

Lyndsey told her everything – through staggered breaths and a couple of hiccups for good measure. How much she hated this part of her job, did she do all she could to help him? Why didn’t they notice his BP rising so fast? It quickly spiralled out of control to a full on meltdown about life in general, should Lyndsey go back to school to get her degree in nursing instead of just her diploma? She wanted to move out of home but at the same time she also didn’t, she read ’The Outsiders’ to Sidney Crosby and he smiled at her and she was confused at how it left her feeling.

“I’m not starstruck, I swear I’m not. Maybe because he wasn’t actually my patient and I didn’t have to see him all the time, and that way it was easier to talk to him, well he didn’t really talk because he couldn’t but why would he want to talk to me anyway? I’m not-“ She choked up again and tried to force a breath into her lungs.

“Okay, okay, that’s it.” Jackie held Lyndsey’s face up to look in her eyes. She took off her glasses and wiped away the tears. “You’ve got to calm down. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

Lyndsey knew that. It had happened before.

“I just…” It dawned on her what she had actually just said. “Oh God, I’m sorry,” She exclaimed, hugging Jackie close. “I didn’t mean to put all that on you.”

Jackie shushed her and hugged her back. She had been in the game long enough; she knew the stress they were all under, every single damn day of the week. She helped Lyndsey up, and once she was sure there were no more tears, gave her another hug and told her to take her time coming back to her desk.

Lyndsey gathered herself and splashed water on her face to shock her system, calm the red splotchy spots over her skin and to bring her back down to a sane level of professionalism. The bloodshot eyes staring her back in the mirror were void of any brightness and she resigned herself to writing off the rest of the shift, praying that it would go quickly so she could just go home and collapse into her own world.

Alone.
 


 

“How’s that taste?”

Sidney glared at his sister; she smirked in that Crosby way straight back. He was trying his hardest to finish his shake without running to the bathroom to throw it all back up again, but it tasted absolutely foul. How the hell he was going to survive another 2 weeks of them, he had no clue.

“Like shit,” He muttered, finishing with a grimace and walking over to rinse his glass, tossing the straw in the trash can under the sink. His parents were still sleeping, and since he and Tay were still on an athlete’s body clock, they had taken the opportunity as early risers to catch up. Sidney had missed his sister; much like he had missed most of her life. He took off at 15 to really kick start the whole NHL track and she had only been 9 years old. It must've been hard to grow up in a town where everyone knew she had an older brother who isn’t actually home much to be an older brother.

“I think I failed my paper.”

If there was one thing to summarise the Crosby family- ‘failed’ wasn’t a word that even crossed many people’s vocabulary. The kids were lucky to have parents as supportive, yet non-invasive, as they did. They both grew up knowing it was okay to make mistakes, as long as you took the chance to learn from them. That old busted up dryer in the basement of their old family home is proof that ‘practise makes perfect’.

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

He was allowed to talk again. He had been back in the ‘Burgh for a week, and had only had the wire loosened on his jaw yesterday. Even though he was a quieter guy anyway, his voice sounded foreign to him for a couple of hours after. His face looked more like normal today than it had in a while, and he was surprised that he only felt the need to take one pain killer instead of two. He was happy about that. It might not be much, but it was a small victory and he was going to take as many of those as he could get.

Taylor shrugged, moving to clear her plate and put all her dishes in the dishwasher. She knew she was being lazy, but couldn’t be bothered rinsing up when she knew her Mom & Dad was going to make some of their own mess, too.

These two never really spoke with words. It was weird, and everyone who had experienced it firsthand put it down to being a ‘Crosby thing’- like their smirks for smiles, quiet demeanour, the ability to draw the attention in the room without saying a word, the silent commanding posture. Sidney and Taylor had gotten used to being called out on it, but it didn’t matter.

“How do you feel?”

Sidney didn’t want to answer that question. He didn’t want to hear it in the first place. Because he knew that she meant something more than if he just had a headache when he woke up this morning.

Which he had, but it wasn’t too bad.

“And tell me honestly.” She cut in before he had the chance to practise some ‘media answer’ on her. Damn his younger sister. Damn broken jaws and concussions and slap shots gone awry.

He nearly wanted to damn hockey too, but that was taking it a little too far.

He shrugged, leaning down further into his chair, shoving his fists into his pockets of his Pens hoodie. “I don’t want to think about anything.” It still hurt to talk a little. “This doesn’t feel like last time.”

Last time was horrible; he would go weeks with concussion symptoms, then wake up fine for 6 days straight. And just when he thought he was ready to entertain the idea of getting back into the swing of things - bang. Straight back out, lying in bed and not being able to focus on anything but trying not to throw up from nausea.

He hadn’t had that so far. Yes, his stay in hospital sucked (for the most part), but he felt good about his jaw. They could give him a game plan, how many weeks until this, only certain meals until that, rescheduled for checkups on this date. Bones were easy, concussions were proof the devil exists.

It was like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knew it was inevitable and he was bound to wake up one day and feel like he had been run over by a steam train. He knew because it gave him headaches to carry on a conversation for too long, to try and watch a bit of the news, see what was playing on the NHL network. It was a miracle he was feeling the way he was right now, and able to sit outside in the morning sun and not squint too badly at the sun breaking through the trees in his backyard. But he couldn’t stand the thought of going through missing another season of hockey because for some reason his body wanted to turn against him. He wasn’t sure he’d stay as positive this time around.

“Sid?”

He looked at his sister, who was waiting for him to answer her question. He hadn’t been listening. “Sorry, what?”

“You’ll play again.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, before standing up to move inside.

God, he hoped so.