Master of Timing

When he had woken up the next morning, at a not so horrible time of six a.m, he found himself actually feeling a whole lot better. There was no headache, his stomach felt fine, and as he stretched he accidentally hit his curtain, but the sun coming through instantly didn’t blind him anymore than it normally would if he caught the light.

He felt great.

Deciding that it was probably going to be a good day, he made his way downstairs to see if he even had anything in his kitchen to make breakfast with. He was halfway down the stairs before he remembered his phone. He was never usually the guy to check his cell in the morning and scroll through all his unread messages before he started his day, but the night before had felt weird that he and Lyndsey hadn’t said goodnight to each other. She had mentioned that she was going out, maybe she got distracted by her friends.

He thought it was a good thing. She seemed to have worked too much lately.

He had to search through his covers to find his phone, and when he did he noticed that the battery had died. So he’d put it on charge, the symbol coming up on the screen straight away telling him that it hadn’t actually been flat for the whole night. A quick shower to wake himself up was enough for it to power up so he could open his screen, the passcode disappearing quickly as the main screen loaded.

He clicked on her message, and was floored at what he read. He slowly sat down on the edge of his bed, his eyes moving across the words, but they weren’t really sinking in.

Sidney couldn’t remember the last time he had ever felt this confused.

In his whole 27 years of life.

And he couldn’t stop the queasy feeling that she had broken up with him.

Which wasn’t true because they weren’t together. Sid had thought that maybe, at some point, in the future something could’ve worked out, but he was happy enough just to be her friend.

He read the message again.

He wasn’t very hungry anymore.



His thoughts were distracted as he drove to the Penguins head office. He had a meeting with the team doctors and he hoped with every fibre of his being that they were going to clear him to play. Yesterday’s spew fest aside, he had been feeling alright and he knew that he needed to be cleared so he could start training again and getting back into game shape. He had already accepted that he was going to be on the skinny side for the rest of the season, but he hoped his legs still had the same amount of power in them that they had before.

“Early as always, hop up,” Dean greeted him, pointing to one of the benches as he set Sidney’s file down. He was used to this by now - sit still, move his eyes around, coordination tests to make sure his balance was out of whack. “How’re you feeling?”

‘Confused and worried but you would have no idea why’ ran through his head. “Better,” Was what came out of his mouth. “Apart from yesterday, but I feel fine now.”

Dean nodded. “Mario filled me in. I still think you should’ve gone to hospital.”

“I’m sick of hospitals,” Sidney muttered, crossing his arms across his chest. “They bring me nothing but misery and grief.” Dean paused, looking at the man in front of him. He raised an eye brow. “Never mind.”

“Sure?”

Sidney nodded. It wasn’t worth getting into it. “So, can I play?”

The trainer sat against the bench opposite, capping his pen. “All your coordination tests look good. Episodes like yesterday don’t really give me much reassurance, and you’ll need to head back to hospital to have another MRI, but if all that clears I don’t see why you can’t start training.”

He was relieved. While the past ten weeks hadn’t been the longest he’d been off ice, not by a long shot, it still killed him not putting on skates every day. Last time he had a concussion, he had been four years younger and had the world at his feet. He didn’t know if this time around he was going to be as lucky to bounce back. The media that surrounded his life had speculated since about an hour after the game had ended if his career was a write off. The headlines sprawled across the front page of nhl.com, the Pens website, the cover of the sports section in the Pittsburgh Confidential.

He knew that being the face of a franchise, and one of the few faces of the city that a certain amount of pressure was to be expected. And he had handled it all before, and he knew he could handle it again, but he didn’t want to. He wished that everyone would try to understand that he had more of a chance of getting better if he was just left alone to recover, to work his way back into the game on his own time. He knew that no one was going to rush him, and in all honestly, he wanted to push his luck as best he could to get back out there and play.

But even then, the focus would be on him & his return - whether they win or lose.

It was exhausting being him, sometimes.

“What’s going on, Sid?”

He was brought back to the present and noticed that Dean had moved to sit beside him. He blinked and shook his head.

“Just got some stuff going through my head.” He wasn’t about to lie down on some shrink’s chair and spill his life secrets, but he didn’t want Dean to worry. Not when it had nothing to do with hockey in the first place. He had to get back into the mentality of leaving everything personal at the door of Consul before he stepped inside.

Wake up, skate, lunch, nap, game, repeat. He just wanted to get back to doing what he knew best.

“Everything okay at home?”

Sid nodded. “Yeah, it’s- it’s fine, man. I’m gonna head up to the gym - you’ll let me know when the scans are booked?” He left with a fist bump, picking up his bag with his gym gear and took the stairs up two floors, turning right through the doors, walking straight into the back of his Russian alternate.

“Sid! You back!”

He laughed, and shook his hand. “Came in for some gym time.”

“You train soon? I do too much media. Don’t like it,” Geno grumbled, the both of them making their way to their respective lockers.

“Hopefully. And don’t lie to me, Malkin. You eat up all the attention.” He ducked as a pair of socks made their way across the room towards his face, and he sat down to pull out his clothes. “I’ve got scans sometime this week. Fingers crossed I’m back after that.”

Geno knew how down his captain would get on himself when things regarding hockey were out of his control and he walked over, resting a hand on Sidney’s shoulder. He looked up. “Don’t rush.”

Sid nodded. “I know man, I know.” Geno stepped back. “I miss being out there with you guys.”

That got a smile. “Me too. I get top line D men. Not as easy to score now.”

They both laughed as the door opened, Beau and Kunitz walking in sharing a joke of their own. “Hey buddy!” They chorused, walking over a little faster to shake Sid’s hand. He realised he hadn’t actually seen any of them for a while (if 6 days counts as a while), and it had been even longer since he’d shared a locker room with them. He felt good to be back.

It almost made him forget his phone. He wanted to come to the gym to try and work out some of his anger, because he had already decided that he wasn’t going to leave things be with Lyndsey. And if he wanted to have a real conversation, he needed to not being wound up and take his frustration of everything out on her. He knew it was going to happen; it did last time he had a concussion. He drove away his girlfriend then with how pathetic he had generally acted, and he couldn’t do that to her. She was too nice and he wouldn’t forgive himself.

“That’s a welcome sight.”

Sid looked up to see both Mike’s standing together by the whiteboard in the corner, going over plays. “Coach, Kadar,” He addressed them, shaking their hands.

“What’d Dean say?”

Sid shrugged. “Didn’t like what happened yesterday, but wants to send me for an MRI, and if that’s all good, then…”

Coach nodded. “The boys need you back out there. Even if it is in a red jersey.”

Sidney hated that thing. It was like someone dangling the Stanley Cup in front of his face with their name on it as the champions, but he wasn’t allowed to lift it. Non contact jerseys were the bane of his existence.

“Fingers crossed. I’m gonna hit the bags.” They nodded, Kadar muttering a ‘take it easy, yeah?’ as Sid moved away, heading to pick up a pair of boxing gloves. Someone had plugged in an iPod, and something heavy came blasting through the speakers. It was a little deafening, but Sid realised that it was probably something he needed, something to help him get into the mood to smash his fists against a punch bag.

If he couldn’t check anyone into the boards at practise, he was going to have to be able to get angry some other way.



He didn’t know how long he’d been at it. Hours, maybe. It had only felt like minutes. He could faintly hear the sound of Geno and Bennett running on the treadmill, and a few of the others guys had come in on their day off just to work on conditioning. He had nodded a hello to Duper, but had been pretty much left to be in his own world. He liked it. Every hit to the bag felt like tiny chip away at the burdens of his life.

The pressures of being captain.

The pressures of winning.

The pressures of hockey in general.

Their losing streak.

His concussion (that earned two punches).

The message he woke up to.

“Fuck,” he panted, landing one more punch as hard as he could before he leant against the bag, the sweat running down his face. He could barely breath, and when Kadar came over to check on him, he knew he was in for it. “I’m fine,” he huffed, standing back up, raising his fists. Mike grabbed the bag to hold it still.

“I can see that.”

Sid rolled his eyes. He was pissed off by now, and not in the mood for sarcasm. Who the fuck sends a message like that anyway? Punch. He tried to think back to their earlier conversation but he didn’t think he had done anything to piss her off. Two punches. Maybe her friends had talked her out of it? “Fucking. Pain. In the Ass.”

He hit the bag as hard as he could. Two right hooks and a left upper cut.

He stopped once more, leaning down on his knees, gulping for air. “C’mon, Sid. Up ya get.” He shrugged off Mike’s arm and ripped off the gloves, holding them behind his head to get as much air into his lungs as possible. He could feel every inch his shirt was sticking to his skin and he purposely ignored the look he knew Geno was sending him from where he was on the bench press. “Take a few minutes, yeah?”

Sid shook his head, reaching for the gatorade and a towel, wiping his face. “No. I need to get back to being game ready.”

Mike sighed, biting his lip because he knew arguing was pointless. Sid’s face looked like he was itching for Mike to tell him no, and he didn’t really feel like getting into with the Penguins captain so he just sighed, pointing to the bikes. “Ten minutes. Alternate 90 second sprints.”

This is what he needed. To get into a rhythm and have his mind taken off whatever a mess of his personal life was. This was clockwork. This was easy.



He had calmed down a little near the end of his workout, the exhaustion getting to him quicker than normal, and he figured that’s how it was going to be until he had a few games under his belt. And all the joking around in the locker room, hearing the guys chirping each other, hearing the guys chirping him, lifted the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for weeks. This was his home, this team was his family. They made him feel better, and he hadn’t realised how much he had needed it.

He sent a silent prayer up to whoever was watching that he was feeling good enough to train. He hadn’t even puked.

It wasn’t until he was on his way back to his car that he pulled out his phone again, looking at the message. What the fuck did she mean about not wanting to be sad all the time? He knew he could be shit at relationships sometimes but they were just friends, or so he thought. And she had either passed out and not woken up yet or had seen just what she had said to him and was now choosing to not explain what it meant, because he hadn’t heard from her at all.

It left a bad taste in his mouth. If she wanted to hate him, that was fine (well, it wasn’t really but he didn’t know how he could’ve made her angry), but to just decide for him that they ‘were kidding themselves’ was not okay. She couldn’t decide that they weren’t going to friends. That wasn’t fair.

His thumb hovered over the little phone icon in her message. But when he ran through his head what he wanted to say to her, he decided it was too long to text back, and he pressed ‘dial’.

The car alarm beeped as he disabled the immobiliser, throwing his bag on the back seat of his car before he moved to the driver’s side. He dial tone rang and rang through his ear, before it eventually stopped, the tell tale sign of her voicemail kicking in.

He hung up.

“You’re such a pussy, Crosby,” He said to himself, slamming the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. The clock on his dashboard said it was 11.30 in the morning, and depending on the kind of person she was after a night of drinking, he wasn’t sure if she’d be awake by 9am.

So he tried again.

Except, this time, the phone only rang three times before going straight to voicemail.

She’d hung up on him.

What the fuck?

’Hey its Lyndsey, sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message.’

If he was able to think past his anger, he would’ve realised that it was the first time he’d heard her voice in a little over two months. But he was already pissed off about everything, and then knowing that she had hung up on him to ignore his call, he struggled to get control of his voice.

“Uh hi, it’s Sidney. Listen, I just wanted to talk to you about that text you sent. I-” He cut himself off with a huff, clenching his fist against the wheel. “I don’t know what happened last night, or what I did but… well, first of all, you're not just some girl in Canada. I don't know what's making you think that but it is 100% not true. You were...you know what, I don't want to talk to your voice mail. I want to talk to you. Call me back."

He threw his phone across the car and it bounced off the passenger door, landing on the seat. He looked at it for a moment, knowing it was useless but wishing it would light up with her name across the screen. He stared for what felt like an eternity before a car door closing broke his concentration.

“Shit,” He sighed, turning his car on, running his hand down his face in defeat before he pulled on his seatbelt, heading home.



“Good Lord, what did you do last night?”

Jackie had never seen Lyndsey look this hungover in all her years working together. Lyndsey was actually pretty sure she was still drunk, but she couldn’t call in sick when everyone knew she was going out the night before.

“Don’t. Please don’t.”

She just laughed, turning around in her seat to continue her paperwork. Lyndsey sat down and moved the mouse on the keypad to wake her computer up. If her computer had gone to sleep, she hoped that they would be in for a slow night. She didn’t have the energy to deal with a million people, or the stomach to handle a rough night in the ER.

When she had woken up that morning (afternoon, really), she had already felt like dying. She had only just made it to the bathroom to hurl, and when she thought she was good, she made the stupid mistake of turning her phone on again (She vaguely remembered waking up early to check it when it rang in her hands. She hung up straight away and threw it across the room). And then brushing her teeth.

Because it wasn’t like seeing the evidence on her screen of what she had said to him, and all his missed calls and the voicemail he had left didn’t make her throw up even more.

God, she was beyond stupid when she was drunk. Why anyone a) left her alone with a phone and b) got her that drunk in the first place was beyond her. She saw the start of a message from Claire but couldn’t think of what to reply.

She remembered what she had said in the cab.

“You’re so stupid,” She whispered to herself, sitting on the edge of her bed as the phone fell out of her hands and onto the floor. Why. Why had she texted him? Even though what she had written was true, she was happy to ignore the reality of the situation just a little bit longer and live in some fantasy world where he actually wanted to talk to her.

She hated drunk Lyndsey.

The one thing she couldn’t do was listen to his voicemail. There had been a couple of texts, mostly along the lines of ‘uhh, wtf?’ but she didn’t reply. How could she? She had just royally messed up everything because she couldn’t stop overthinking. And he was probably just as confused as she was and what was the point in trying to explain something that she didn’t even understand herself?

“Lynds, we’ve got a whole lot of nothing going on right now, do you want the supplies run?”

Perfect. Away from her desk, taking inventory. Things to distract her. “Yeah, I’ll get it.” She took the notepad from Jackie, scanning the list quickly as she moved down the hallway, making her way through the hospital to the supplies room. She wondered how long she could drag it out before someone would miss her back in the ER.



“I’m going to tea,” She said quietly, and Jackie nodded from behind her book. It was unusually quiet for a mid December evening, but she wasn’t going to complain. It just put her on edge more than normal, making it harder to not try to expect the unexpected.

She pulled her cell from her pocket. She had three new texts; one from Kate, two from him.

’So, did you get totally spastic or what? because you haven’t texted me back and I’m just assuming that you died in a gutter.’

That was okay. She could get back to the later. But she bit her lip as she hovered her thumb over Sidney’s name, the cafeteria deserted as she headed for the tea. It buzzed in her hand.

’Okay, I’ve tried calling and texting but you’re obviously ignoring me. Please just call me back.’

‘Please Lyndsey’

and the last one, that had just came through. ’I’m going out of my mind here and I can’t sleep. What the fuck is going on? What did I do?’

She blinked at the screen. She knew she was being a chicken shit, but that was only because she had no idea what to say. Without bursting into tears, and where would that get them? She gave up on the tea and sat in a chair, re-reading the messages he had sent through the day after her bombshell.

She couldn’t understand why he was freaking out so much. Yeah, the message itself was unexpected but what she said in it wasn’t all that alarming. They lived worlds apart, literally and figuratively and she knew she was setting herself up for disappointment. How could he not see that? She clicked on the voicemail anyway.

“Uh hi, it’s Sidney. Listen, I just wanted to talk to you…”

Her face instantly crumbled and she put her head in her hand, the sound of his voice making her feel even more lost. He sounded broken, but even more angry and an Angry Sid is something she loved to see on the ice, but not hear it directed at her. It hurt.

She didn’t realise she was crying until there was a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, what’s going on?” She looked up to see Sam, his face instantly frowning once he saw hers. She opened her mouth to reply but no words came out, and he crouched down to bring her into a hug. She clung to his white jacket, and took a deep breath to steady herself. Now was not the time to lose it. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

Except, she wasn’t. He rubbed her back for a few more moments before she pulled away. “I… I-”

She still didn’t have words.

“Is everyone alright?”

She nodded. “It’s not family,” She whispered, running her fingers under her eyes, taking a shuddering breath. And, like always, Sam seemed to know just what was going on in her head. She clasped his hand over hers that was holding her cell and he directed her face to look at him.

“You should probably take that call in the locker room.” He smiled sadly, pulling her to her feet. It was just after 11pm, she still had another half hour before she needed to be back in the ER.

That would give her plenty of time to lose her cool and then regain it so she could finish her shift, go home and forget any of this ever happened. “Okay,” She said in a small voice, nodding as Sam squeezed her hand again, stepping back so she could leave the room.

She had just reached the corner leading to the locker room when her phone buzzed in her hand.

‘SC’ flashed on the screen.

He was calling her. Again.

It took her a moment to open her mouth to speak, once she had answered. Just as she was about to say hello, he beat her to it. “Lyndsey? You the- fucking voicemail, god damn it,” she heard his voice get quieter, like he was moving it away from his face, and she couldn’t not let him know she was there.

“Hi.”

“… Lyndsey? Did you- hello?”

She cleared her throat, and sat down on a bench. “Hi, Sidney.”

His sigh on the other line came through loudly. “Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“…I know,” She said in a tiny voice, running her thumb along the lines of her scrubs. Neither of them spoke for a moment, his soft breath coming through the earpiece as she held her own.

“Are… are you okay?” He asked timidly. She still didn’t answer, her eyes glued to her pants. His voice sounded distant, and all she heard was the pounding of her heartbeat.

She was such an idiot.

“Okay, fine. I’ll talk.” She gulped. He carried on. “I’m at a loss, here. I don’t know if I’d done something, or if you were upset and took it out on me, or you were drunk… but I am just really confused right now. If you don’t want to be friends with me, then you could’ve just said it. I’m not that much of a douche, I’d understand.”

Her bottom lip quivered. “I don’t think you’re a douche.” Her voice was so quiet she was surprised he had even heard her.

“Well, okay then. Thank you.” He sounded so sweet, it caused that first tear to slip down her cheek. “You wanna explain to me what’s going through that head of yours? Where were you last night?”

Okay. She could do this. He had given her somewhere to start, somewhere to focus her thoughts on. “I was out, with my friends.”

“Did you have a good time?”

No. “…. yeah, for the most part.” It was okay except for the girl in the bathroom, the excessive drinking, Jared Leto, the cab ride, the text. “Actually, no. No I didn’t.”

He stayed silent on the other end. So she took a deep breath.

“My friends were teasing me about you. I didn’t tell them anything, it’s just… they know you’re my favourite hockey player, and you texted me and they saw your name - well, it’s not your name, just your initials- come up on the screen and then they got carried away trying to guess who you were. And it just made me feel like shit because I couldn’t tell them, my best friends, who the guy was that I was texting because who would believe me, ya know? I mean, you’re you and I’m… just some nobod-”

“Don’t say that.” He cut her off, and he sounded angry. Uh oh. “Don’t say that you’re a nobody, that you’re just someone random from Canada. I don’t think that way about you, and you shouldn’t either.”

She was stunned by his outburst. Was he out of his mind?

“Well…” She paused. “It still makes me feel like an idiot,” She whispered, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.

“Why?” He sounded exasperated. Why? Why didn’t he get it?

“You really don’t know?”

He huffed through the phone. “What- because I’m me? You can’t be yourself around your friends and it’s my fault because we met once? I can’t help that I have the life I have, okay? And I obviously wouldn’t change it for the world, I thought you understood all of that.”

“I do,” she mumbled, meekly. He didn’t hear her.

“And another thing; you essentially push me out of your life and then don’t even have the decency to explain why? You don’t even let me have a say, I just have to wake up to a text message telling me to have a nice life like we haven’t- like we’re not…” he broke off and Lyndsey thought she could faintly hear the sound of something loud hitting the wall in the background. “I respect the hell out of you Lyndsey, and I thought you were more than that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry! Do me a favour; start from the beginning and when we get to the end and you still don’t want to be friends then, well. I tried.”

“That’s not…” She curled her leg underneath her knee, biting her thumb nail. “I don’t… I guess I just read too much into things and get myself confused and then I don’t know how to back out of it so I just run and I- I-”

“Whoa, hang on.” She broke off and pulled the phone away from her face for a moment. She could hear his voice still but she needed to put her hand over her mouth to cover her cries. “Lyndsey. Hey, please tell me you’re not crying.”

She hiccuped. “Okay… I’m not?”

He groaned, she heard the rustle of bed sheets near him. That’s when she realised that he had probably stayed awake to talk to her.

God she was an idiot.

“Please, don’t cry. It’s okay, we’ll figure this… And what- reading into things? Do you not want to talk anymore? Is that what this is? Because if I make you this upset then maybe we shouldn’t-”

“I’m saying that I’m confused,” She gasped, and she had given up on trying to wipe the tears away at this point. She was glad she was in the locker room and she stood up to get some tissues, her nose running more than she’d like to admit. “Sidney, I don’t know what this is, what you want… from me and-”

“I don’t want anything from you,” He said softly, his voice soothing and calm against her quiet sobs. “I mean, that’s- no, that’s not what I mean. I do, you’re great and you mean a lot to me and I know it’s hard because, obviously we don’t live near each other-”

“Have you told your team mates about me?” her voice broke through his, stronger than before. If they were laying things on the table, she was going to put it all out there. What’s the worst that could happen?

He’d break her heart and she’d go back to work and life would go on. It always did.

“…No. I haven’t told any- what is that supposed to mean? You think I’m sitting in that locker room after games re-living our conversations to the guys? I’m actually enjoying talking to someone who gets what the fuck it is I’m going through & they don’t need to know everything going on in my life.”

And just like that, he was back to angry. Which just made Lyndsey angry too.

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s nice having that luxury. They don’t know I exist, so you can have something secret while keeping up the hockey persona- not having to work for someone’s attention, walking into a bar and then leaving with some model ten minutes later-”

“First off, my life is nothing like that. What you saw in that hospital room is exactly who I am.”

She scoffed. “That’s great for you! You’re Sidney Crosby! Concussions suck but your life isn’t the worst thing in the world.” It was a low blow and she knew it.

She knew because he sighed again and neither of them said anything for a minute.

“I don’t want to fight with you. Please, can we just try & work whatever this is out? I don’t get why you’re so mad at me.”

“Because…” It was now or never, Lyndsey. Just tell him, then it’s done. Hey presto, your break was over 5 minutes ago. “Because, I can’t tell anyone about you and I’m fucking confused and if you’re not telling anyone then that just makes me think that you want it to be a secret and how the hell is that supposed to make me feel?”

He didn’t say anything.

“I’m not just some puck bunny that will ask ‘how high’ when you say ‘jump’,” She said adamantly.

“I-whoa, yeah I never said you were. I never thought you were.” She knew she had offended him, but she didn’t care. “I… I didn’t realise that’s what you thought. I’m not keeping a secret on purpose, that’s not what I- I’m sorry. I really am, that’s not it at all.”

“Then what the fuck is going on? Are we friends? Are we just people that happened to meet from a shit circumstance? Are we more than…” He could hear her take a deep breath, and quietly sniffle a few moments later.

“Lynds,” He sighed wearily, his head in his hand. “I don’t… I honestly don’t know. I like talking to you? It’s not every day you meet someone and just… kind of have a connection, ya know? You.” He stopped for a second, swallowing to gather his thoughts. “You’re pretty amazing, okay? Not just for helping me in the hospital, but for being there for me even now and I’m so, so sorry that I’ve made you feel like… Like you’re not important. Because you really are and this is… distance is such a bitch, this would be so much easier if I could just see you.”

Lyndsey was quiet. She had curled up against her locker, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I…” She saw the time on her watch face. “I have to get back to work,” She whispered.

“No, wait, please don’t hang up-”

“My break was over like 10 minutes ago.”

“I’ll call you once you get home.” He was grasping at straws and he knew it. But, fuck if he wasn’t going to fix whatever it is that was broken. She didn’t say anything. “Please, Lynds.”

She bit her lip as another tear fell down her cheek. “I’ll text you.”

He could hear the defeat in her voice. That was even worse than hearing her upset. “Okay,” He muttered, and dial tone meeting his ears immediately.