Most of what followed the fight didn’t register in my mind.

I remember my breath getting caught in my throat. I remember the deafening silence of the arena, the stillness that surrounded us all as we stared down at Kris’ unconscious body laying on the ice. Even Chris Neil seemed completely shocked, clearly not having meant to knock Kris over that easily. Every person on the ice seemed still, a shock rippling through them as they stared down at Kris.

It was Crosby who moved first, the grip he had had on Kunitz dropping as he slid across the ice to give Kris a small shake. He yelled something towards the bench, where one of the medical staff were already making their way over. I remember watching them lift his head up and seeing the blood.

And then it’s all black.

---------------------------

“Katy?”

I snapped my head up, meeting Marc’s worried eyes and blinking a few times. “Where am I?” I asked, looking around me.

“At the hospital. You came with Sara, but she said you haven’t said a word since Kris went down.”

I rubbed my eyes, glancing around and realizing that I was indeed in a waiting room. I gave my head a small shake. “I don’t remember leaving the arena.”

Marc nodded. “I figured that. You’ve been in a daze since he went down, Sara said.”

The reminder of what had happened at the arena made me feel sick to my stomach, and my head filled itself up with a cloud of dizziness as soon as the image of Kris lying on the ice returned. “How is he?”

Marc finally sat down in the vacant seat beside me, scooting it a bit closer. “He’s okay. He has a concussion, and they had to put a few staples in the back of his head,” he paused, giving my hand a squeeze as I winced at the mention of staples, “but he was awake by the time they got here. He didn’t remember what happened, though.”

I looked around me to see f I could spot a clock somewhere. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost two in the morning,” Marc answered me.

I looked closely at him, noticing the way the skin beneath his eyes seemed weighed down with tiredness, and how his mouth seemed to be tightened with the strength of worry. He looked exhausted.

“I guess we should probably head home, huh?” I asked, realizing how tired I was as well. “Did I sleep?”

He laughed. “No. You’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours now. We asked if you wanted to see Kris once they were done with the staples, but you didn’t answer.”

I nodded, trying to stand up from the chair, struggling at fist as my legs had fallen asleep. “Is Sara still here?”

He shook his head. “No, she went home an hour ago. School starts for her tomorrow, so she needed to sleep a bit,” he reminded me.

“Are they sending Kris home?” I asked, stretching my arms up above me.

“They’re keeping him tonight and for part of tomorrow to run tests,” he answered, yawning. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

“Wait,” I said, frowning. “Is he alone?”

Marc shook his head again. “His parents are here. They just arrived, few minutes before I came to talk to you.” He reached up to scratch the back of his head before sighing. “Mr and Mrs Daniels are, too.”

I almost passed out at the mention of the Daniels, Evan’s parents, being in the hospital. I had barely seen them since Evan’s passing, mainly because it brought out all of the emotions in me that I was constantly fighting to keep a grasp on. It made sense, after Travis having just told me that Kris still saw the family on a weekly basis, that they would drive down to make sure he was okay.

I chewed on my lip for a moment, stopping when I had bit to hard and my mouth was filled with the taste of the copper, snapping me back into the present moment. “I should go see them. I can’t just leave.”

Marc nodded, looking as though he had expected that response from me. “I’ll be here. I need to call Vero, anyways.”

I had to ask Marc where everyone was before I headed off, stopping by the bathroom to try and fix my hair and smudged make-up first, then rounding the corner to where Kris’ room was. Both of his parents were outside, his mom looking frazzled, her face drained of its colour, and his father trying to compose himself, the weight of worry heavily placed upon him. They were talking to one of the doctors quietly, both of them doing a lot of head nodding.

Just to the side of them were the Daniels, both of them holding a cup of what I could only assume to be coffee. Paul spotted me first, his dark eyes seeming to light up in surprise as he recognized me, nudging his wife to point me out.

I approached with hesitant steps, the nerves cycling throughout my veins seeming to weigh down and postpone each movement. I smiled, standing just over a foot away from them. “Hi,”

Analyse, Evan’s mother, looked me over, her face seeming void of emotion for the moment it took to do so. Once she was done, she let out a long sigh, reaching out to pull me into an unexpected embrace, her one hand immediately running through my tousled hair in a comforting manner. “Katy, it’s so good to see you.”

I found myself returning the embrace without even thinking about it. “You too,” I said back, eventually being freed from the hug so I could move onto another hug from Paul. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much,” I apologized. “I was busy getting counselling and-”

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about that,” Analyse said immediately, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Your mother told us all about your therapy sessions, and about how hard it’s been for you.”

“Hard for me?” I repeated. “I can’t even imagine how you two are,” I said. There was a moment of silence that followed my statement before I glanced over at the room Kris was in. “How is he?”

“Lucky,” Paul answered, the smirk that I had gotten so used to seeing appearing across his face. “He got his own room.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Is he still awake?”

Analyse nodded. “I’m so glad he’s okay. We were watching the game at home, and when he went down…” she trailed off, her eyes growing glossy at the thought of earlier events, causing her to take a moment and clear her throat. “Kris has just become a part of the family, you know? Ever since Evan’s passing, he’s been with us. He keeps us updated, he was there for all of our birthdays, he came over on the anniversary of Evan’s death. He’s just a part of our family now.”

I felt my chest tighten as she spoke, trying to absorb each word. Paul had moved over to talk to the Letang’s, asking about updates on when Kris would be released, if they had somewhere to stay, etc.

“I know he was hard on you, Katy,” Analyse began, “and I know that there’s no excuse for the things that he said to you. But that boy,” she pointed into the room, “lost so much in the last two years. I don’t know if you remember how 2008 was for him, but he’s been trying to sort himself out for a long time now.”

The reminder of Kris’ past tragedies was something I hadn’t even had cross my mind. Everyone had heard about the loss of Luc, an amazingly talented defenseman playing in Vancouver, and also one of Kris’ best friends. Evan had only met Luc a few times, and I don’t think I had ever seen him face to face, but the tragedy of Luc’s passing, followed by the Penguins losing to the Red Wings in the Cup finals, was enough to destroy the joy inside of Kris. Thinking back on it, he had just started to piece himself back together when Evan was killed.

I felt nauseous, so many realizations coming to surface before me. It explained so much about the drastic change in behaviour that Kris suffered. I knew he was a complete mess from Luc’s passing, but once I had lost Evan, that seemed to fall from my mind. Kris’ dislike for Evan constantly being with me instead of him even seemed more clear to me. The rush of guilt that was blasted into my body was enough to almost make my knees clash together in weakness.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Analyse, turning and heading back over to where Marc was still waiting, his eyes closed as he leaned his head against the wall behind him. I gave him a small shake, awakening him before he was fully asleep. “Marc, I think I’m going to stay here.”

He seemed surprised, but didn’t press the issue, nodding his head tiredly. “Call me if you need a ride home tomorrow, okay? I think Sid is coming by in the morning, so he’ll probably offer too, but if not, call me.”

I nodded, stopping him before he could leave. “Marc, wait. When you were at my place, and I told you that Kris….” I shrugged, choosing not to actually repeat the announcement, aware that Marc would know what I meant, “what was it that you wanted to tell me? You never told me what I needed to know about him.”

Marc looked like he had to think about for a moment before nodding. “Oh yeah, I guess I never did,” he realized, chuckling. “You remember how you said that soon enough Kris would be back in Sainte-Julie?” He waited for to nod. “Yeah, he’s not coming back to Montreal. He signed up for a years of worth of counselling out here, in Pittsburgh.” He grinned at me, the amusement on his face shining through the fatigue. “Looks like he’ll have lots of time to apologize to you.”

I reached out to smack his arm but was too slow, shaking my head as he ran away from me, as fast as his tired body would let him.

I headed back over to where the Daniels were, frowning when I saw that the Letangs weren’t there anymore.

“They headed over to our house to get some sleep,” Paul said, answering my unvoiced question. “They’ll be back in a few hours, I assume.” He yawned, looking over at Analyse who was doing the same thing and letting out a small laugh. “We’re probably going to head out, too. Do you need a ride?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m going to stay here,” I said, looking over at the room. “I think I owe that to Kris.” The two of them nodded as if they completely understood, hugging me goodbye before tiredly heading out of the hospital.

I made my way over to the doorway of the room, noticing that Kris was still awake, his tired eyes staring up at the ceiling. I had to urge my body to move into the room, surprised when he didn’t seem to notice my presence. I sat down in the chair net to his bed and cleared my throat, seeming to snap him out of a trance. “Hey.”

He looked completely confused, rubbing his eyes before leaning in to look at me closer. “Katy?”

I almost laughed at how genuine his shock was. “Yeah, it’s me. How’s your head?”

He shrugged. “They gave me a lot of medicine. I can’t feel anything.”

I let out a small laugh, nodding my head. “That was really scary, the way you went down on the ice.”

He let out a small sigh, almost seeming embarrassed by the reminder. “I shouldn’t have fought Neil. I don’t know what I was thinking,” he explained, muttering afterwards, “I guess I wasn’t.”

Neither one of us spoke for a minute, probably because of how exhausted both of us were. Kris lifted his head up once more and looked at me. “Kaitlin, I meant it when I said that I was sorry.”

I looked at him, again taking note of the genuineness of his voice. “I know.”

He studied me again for a moment, most likely confused by how easily I accepted the apology that time, before letting his head rest on the pillow again. “They ruined my hair.”

I nearly laughed. “I’m sorry?”

He sighed. “They ruined my hair,” he repeated. “When they put the staples in my head, they cut some of my hair.” He shook his head, still staring up at the ceiling. “You can’t just do that.”

I couldn’t help but laugh that time, the tiredness that I felt making the amount of hilarity in Kris’ statement even high then it actually was and causing me to be incapable of stopping. Kris began laughing as well, the contagiousness of laughter being intensified by the lack of sleep we both suffered from.

I don’t know how long both of us laughed, laughing so hard that we both ran out of breath and our pale faces had been tinted with the hues of comedy, but when I finally gained control of myself again, I sighed, wiping the tears that had been freed from my eyes away from my face. “I don’t remember the last time I laughed. Honestly, laughed,” I shared, glancing at Kris.

He didn’t reply for a moment before he moved his head enough to look at me, a hint of sadness returning to his face as he gave a small nod. “Me either.”

There was another pause of silence, both of becoming absorbed in our thoughts momentarily following the realization. The weight of my head seemed to be increasing, my neck beginning to throb from the weight of it. I glanced down at Kris, surprised to find his eyes closed and his chest moving slowly up and down, his breathing having slowed as he surrendered to sleep. The peace that seemed to accompany his slumber ignited a brief sense of jealousy in me until I let my head rest against the edge of the bed, falling asleep before I could even take in my next breath.