Counting Stars

Avery’s been on the edge of her seat since watching the hit against Jon. It’s been an entire hour since it happened, since he went head first into the boards, finished his shift, and then was pulled out by the trainers and the last hour has been a constant flip-flop between worry and fury.

When her phone finally lights up with Jon’s name, she practically runs out of Elina’s living room, where the rest of the team’s wives, girlfriends, and children are watching the end of the third period against Boston. She’s still not sure if she’s going to end up yelling or crying.

“Hey,” Her voice sounds wobbly and she hates it, hates how a head injury is always going to lead to this for them.

“Hey,” Jon’s voice is calm and comforting, no trace of the shakiness that had been present during the last concussion. “Hey, take a deep breath, it’s okay. I’m okay,”

Avery slumps down against the wall, a single sob escaping as she slides to the ground. “What’d doc say?”

“Passed with flying colors, babe,” She can hear Jon’s smile. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m always going to worry,” She snaps, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

She hears him take a deep breath and release it. “I deserve that,”

“Why did you keep playing?” She sniffles.

“Ave,” Jon sighs. She waits patiently for him to continue. “It—it felt different. This didn’t feel like back then. I felt fine. I feel fine. They pulled me out for precautionary purposes only.”

“You know a concussion can manifest itself later,” She argues quietly.

“We’re keeping an eye out,” She can hear the promise in his voice. It should help, should make her feel comforted, but honestly it doesn’t. She swallows the lump in her throat. “I go in tomorrow for another test before we leave for Pittsburgh just in case, but sweetheart, I promise you, this isn’t like last time.”

Avery closes her eyes, leaning further back into the wall. “I’m so mad but I’m so scared and I don’t know which one of those is worse right now.”

“Well there’s really no need to be scared, but I’d prefer if you weren’t mad, so if you want to go with scared, that’s fine with me,” Jon teases, but Avery doesn’t laugh along.

“Jon,” She says quietly.

“I know,” He replies, just as soft. “But I don’t know want to do this right now and I don’t want to fight with you over with the phone, Ave,”

Avery chews on her lower lip. “Ok,”

She’s grateful when he stays on the line for a while; just hearing him breathe is making her feel better, but she’s dying for the team to fly back tonight, doesn’t even care that it’s going to be close to 3am when they get in. She’ll stay up anyway. “Where are you?” Jon asks.

“Elina’s,”

“Go home,” Jon says. “Go home and go to bed, actually go to sleep, and get the rest we both know you need and I’ll be there as soon as I get in, ok? Just—don’t let yourself sit there and think about it over and over.”

“Yeah,” She thumps her head against the wall. “Ok,”

Easier said than done.

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For once, Avery does what he says and goes right home. She hesitates only briefly before pulling out her favorite clothes to steal from Jon’s side of the closet—a cozy pair of Blackhawks sweatpants and a University of North Dakota long-sleeved t-shirt. It takes everything in her to not turn the TV on to see what’s being said, but she climbs in bed for what she knows is going to be hours of tossing and turning.

It’s evidently easier than she thought to fall into a deep sleep, or she’s emotionally exhausted enough that she slips right into one, but it startles her awake when Jon climbs into bed a little after 3:30 and immediately drapes his arm over her side.

“Hi,” Avery rolls over and slides closer so she’s as close to Jon as possible.

“Sorry,” Jon whispers back just as quietly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Avery reaches her hand up and rests it on the side of his face, creeps her fingers up until they’re resting against his temple. His eyes flutter shut for a moment, but quickly open to meet hers again. “I’m okay, babe; I promise,”

“Did you drive yourself here?” The silence is all the answer she needs. “Jon—“

“Hey,” He brushes a lock of hair away from her face. “It’s almost 4am and I don’t want to fight with you right now,”

“You didn’t want to do it over the phone either,” She huffs, but he’s right and she knows it.

“And I don’t want to do it now when we’re both so exhausted that we’re going to say things we don’t mean,” Jon reaches up and pulls her hand off his face. He kisses her palm and then leans forward and presses a soft kiss to her forehead before meeting her lips gently.

“Ok,” Avery agrees, moving her head to his chest the second he rolls onto his back. Jon’s arm comes around her; she squirms a little when his fingers brush lightly against her side but settles in easily when he presses one final kiss against the top of her hair.

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“Everything looks good,” Dr. Terry praises with a smile. It sounds like just as much a relief to him as Jon’s sure it will be to Avery. He continues with instructions to take it easy over the Christmas break and to call with any problems or if he starts feeling symptomatic.

“Thanks,” Jon grins, barely manages to shake hands before ducking out of the room to find Avery. His good mood dims almost immediately when he walks out and finds her exactly where he left her—leaning against the corner, knees pulled up to her chest, and head against the wall.

“All clear,” Jon grins at her.

Avery finishes her text before even looking up at him. “Good,” She says softly.

Jon frowns. She’s been uncomfortably quiet all morning—all through breakfast, while they were packing the last minute things for Pittsburgh, getting the car ready. She’d barely said a word to him the entire drive over to the appointment. “Everything okay?” He holds out a hand to help her up.

“Yeah, it’s just Schultzy,” She dusts herself off quickly but goes right back to her phone.

Jon frowns again. “Yeah? They all good in Edmonton?”

She nods. “Yeah, Justin was just telling me about this new girl Taylor’s seeing that they all hate.”

Jon grins, remembering girlfriends of Kaner’s past. “The Margot of Edmonton.” Avery only shrugs, which if Jon’s honest is not the reaction he was expecting bringing up one of her least favorite people; Jon sighs. “Ready to go?” She nods, following him out to the car and continuing her almost silence for the ride to the airport, throughout the wait, and all the way through their flight to Pittsburgh.

In fact, she’s so quiet that Jon is shocked when she immediately starts blabbering to Sid about anything and everything. It answers his question that yes, it is definitely him, and yes, they will be talking about this later.

‘Later’ turns out to be a mere two hours, when Sid, Troy, and Trina all trek out to the food store and Jon just can’t take it anymore. “Alright,” He says, walking into the family room where Avery’s curled into the couch watching Christmas specials. “Let’s do this.”

“What?” She snaps, sitting up to look at him.

“Let’s do it. Start talking. Battle it out now before the actual holiday,” Jon claps his hands together; he’s ready.

Avery’s eyes darken and narrow. “Fine. Let’s fucking go,” She gestures for him to begin.

Jon blinks, not expecting her to let him go. “Uhh ok. Well I’m sorry—“

“Congratulations,” Avery says snarkily. “You’re sorry. Sorry for what? How far back are we going here? You’re sorry for lying to me about a concussion? Sorry for cheating on me?”

“You were hardly perfect throughout all of this!”

“You KNEW what Sid was going through! You KNEW how it was affecting him and our family and everyone and you STILL CHOSE to LIE TO EVERYONE about concussion symptoms!” Avery throws her hands up and starts pacing the room. “You don’t get to put blame for this on me!”

“I needed you!” Jon shouts, stepping into her space. They’re pressed almost right against each other now, standing in the middle of the living room. “For fucks sake, some days it felt like that was all I needed and you goddamn left!”

“Did you really expect me to stick around? You lied to me and cheated on me FOR MONTHS!” Avery’s breathing heavily and Jon opens his mouth to respond but Avery cuts him off with a glare. “Do you have ANY IDEA what it’s like to watch someone you love RUN THEMSELF INTO THE GROUND? And you have no idea why but all the while know they’re cheating on you with every cheap, blonde, look-alike tramp they can get their hands on just because—“

“Stop,” Jon cuts her off. It wasn’t—it was never about that and he hates that he may never make her see that.

“NO!” Avery cries. “You have NO IDEA—“And Jon can’t take it anymore, has to lean in and shut her up the only way he knows how and she responds to the kiss beautifully, opening under him and meeting him instantly.

It’s a battle for dominance, a continuation of the fight, until they make it to the couch. Jon presses her down into it and then pulls back to look at her. Avery’s breathing kind of heavy, only half the fight as before in her beautiful, blue eyes, her lips already swollen, and cheeks flushed. Jon can’t help but lean back down and recapture her lips, until the soft skin of her neck becomes so tantalizing he moves on to that instead. Avery stifles a moan as Jon goes right to that spot that gets her every time.

“Wait!” She gasps. Jon barely picks stop the work he’s doing on her neck, so she pulls his head up. “Chr—Chri—Christmas dress,”

“Killing me,” Jon mutters, but goes back to her lips, only moves somehow closer when Avery starts running her hands up his shirt until he’s fed up with all their clothes and sits up to pull his shirt off.

“We can’t have sex on Sid’s couch!”

“Why not?” He demands.

“He’ll murder us if he finds out!” Jon groans, partially because she’s right and partially because he does not want to wait any longer. “Come on,” She wiggles out from under him.

“Where are you going?”

“Our room,” She blinks innocently back at him.

Jon doesn’t miss this one. Avery shrieks and laughs when Jon picks her up and carries her upstairs, and once they do get into their room, they’ve lost the fight they had in the living room. It’s—It’s more of their usual, laughing and teasing and Jon staring reverently until they finally collapse and he pulls Avery into him and she rests her head on his chest, moving in until he starts running his fingers through her hair.

“You have no idea how much you hurt me,” Avery whispers, after a while. She doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink as far as Jon can tell, so he knows she doesn’t mean it maliciously, but he—.

Jon presses a kiss to the top of her head and when she leans into, another longer one. “It was never supposed to hurt you,”