Reunited

This first part is a flashback, it will change from italics to regular when the flashback is over

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"Shea are we meeting up later to do the psych paper?" Shea nodded her head at her friend. They had just finished class, it was October. But in California October was not like it was in Canada. Shea looked down at her shorts and t-shirt, yep definitely not like October in Canada. She had been at school for about three months now, it was much different from the high school she went to, but that made it all the more exhilarating.

Shea got lunch with her friends, before separating to go work on a homework for a class none of them were in. Sports media. Shea didn't quite know why she was taking the class, she was studying to be a psych major, but something about it had caught her eye. Maybe it was the thought of hearing Sidney's name or at least something about the Pittsburgh Penguins. Her roommate had gotten all the dirty details, not that she believed them, but being the friend she was, Shea had promised her not to look Sidney up or watch sports center. If she did, she had to pay for Rebecca's drinks the rest of the year, and since she was practically broke, it wouldn't be a hard thing to do.

She talked to Trina from time to time, she was practically a second daughter. Without having ask Trina would tell Shea how Sidney was doing. Normally, Trina would call Shea after just catching up with Sidney, so got all the updated dirty little secrets. They weren't anything close to dirty or secrets, mostly just "Yeah I started a new workout regimen, it's really working." Trina would then normally ask how Shea was doing, she would lie and say that she was doing just fantastic, but something made it seem like Trina never believed him.

Shea walked out of the library to head to her next class. She had picked more afternoon classes than morning, since she didn't want to wake up too early. It was college after all.

Shea didn't even recognize him, she was late to class so she had been hurrying, almost passing him by. He was sitting on the steps of the lecture hall. His head down, but up enough so he could see Shea walking from a mile away. He was wearing a Pens hat, his hair longer than the last time Shea had twirled it in-between her fingers. He had circles under his eyes, and Shea couldn't tell if they were from a lack of sleep or being slammed during a game. She wouldn't ask.

"Shea."

She couldn't really speak, but the term cat got her tongue was not appropriate. More like ex love her life just showing up at her college and knowing where she would at that time of day was what had her tongue. She started the rest of the way up the stairs, hoping it was all a dream, maybe if she just closed her eyes for a second he would be gone. But the wrist pulling her back, snapping her head towards him, made it seem all the more real.

"Shea, I know I don't deserve it but please I needed to see you." He had tears in his eyes, them glistening when he finally got the courage to look her in the eye.

But Shea knew better, "Damn right you don't deserve it."

Sidney sighed. Shea could tell he had gone through a lot to be standing in front of her right now, and she wanted to know why for the life of her, but even just looking at him made her start to fall in love with him all over again. She couldn't repeat what had happened, not that that was why he came to find her anyways, but her heart still yearned for him, and this was not helping the healing process.

"Look Sid, you're a day late and a dollar short. Well actually not a day, more like ten months late, but it's all the same to me, because either way you're still late. You still left me standing in Cole Harbour, waiting for the day you promised would come, but it's no surprise to you that it never came. Was I just a joke to you? Did I mean that little to you?" Shea tried to get her wrist out of Sidney's grasp, but she knew it would never happen.


"Shea.." Sidney didn't finish his sentence, he couldn't. He didn't have the right words. He could feel the outline of the ring in his pocket, he had had a whole speech about how stupid he had been and how nothing seemed right anymore, but it was all jelly in his mind looking at Shea. She looked so hurt, so shattered and broken. He didn't know what to say, so he took the ring out of his pocket and showed it to her, "I had this whole thing planned. I was gonna tell you how much of an idiot I was and how every night I write out a million different texts to send and then I realize you're worth so much more than a text, so then I write out letters upon letters and then finally it started to sink into my mind that I had lost you. That I had left you standing there, without a goodbye, without anything to hold to other than me coming back for you, but I'm and idiot, as I already said, and I didn't have the courage to by a plane ticket, but here I am. Standing in front of you, holding out a ring after ten months of no communication, without anything, but to me those ten months won't matter in the future if this ring is on your future, because I can make up the ten months to you, with the rest of you life."

Sidney didn't even know what he was saying, for all he knew it was gibberish, but the tears rolling down Shea's cheeks made everything seem so much more real. She was looking between Sidney and the ring, as if thinking if this was a dream or not.

"Say the words Sidney."

Sidney breathed in, getting ready to say the words he had been practicing since he first met Shea when they were five years old.

So he said them, "Shea… Will you marry me?"

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"What the fuck Sidney!!! The same damn ring!"

Shea and Sidney had quietly made an exit towards the Crosby's dock at the end of the yard. It had been an awkward encounter with Brooke, but Shea made the most of it. She tried to cover up the heartbreak she felt all over again when she saw the ring. Everybody jumped saying they all just thought it was so pretty that something had swept them over, but Brooke didn't think twice about it. She just walked out to Sidney and put is arm through his.

Everybody had moved to join the rest of the party outside, Brooke asking Sidney to introduce him to everybody, obliged. Trina, on her way out the door, squeezed Shea's arm and giving her the "we'll be talking later." Shea nodded her head and looked around the room. Her brothers were waiting patently for her next move. Whether it was cry, grab a knife, want to go home, or walk outside a rain a wrath onto Sidney and Brooke, they were ready. But Shea didn't do any of those things, none were even contemplated. She simply breathed in and out and started to walk to the door leading to the backyard, her brothers on her tail before she even started to move.

She was gracious, and very good at hiding the fact that there was a girl wearing the ring she had been wearing just four years before. Shea could handle the proposal and the engagement but this was a whole new thing to weather, a storm she had not been prepared for.

After Sidney and Brooke had made the rounds, Sidney grabbed Shea's attention, mouthing if they cold talk. She walked to the dock, Sidney following close behind.

"Let me explain."

"HA explain what?!? The fact that four years ago you proposed to me with the exact same ring, a ring I thought meant more than it actually does apparently, because it's currently resting on someone else's finger." Shea was exasperated. She was so close to pushing Sidney into the water and tying a five hundred pound weight to his feet. But murder wasn't her forte and she didn't want to cause a scene.

"Shea, it's just.. it's just like a placeholder ring. When you sent it back to me four years go I was so heartbroken and I was going to throw it out but I knew it deserved more than that, we deserved me than that, so I put it on my nightstand. And the first time Brooke saw she asked why I had it, I told her it was grandma's, which is true, but I was saving it for someone special. I could of told her that I had proposed to the love of my life, she said yes, and then two weeks later sent it back along with my heart, but I didn't want to bore her."

"But why is it on her finger???" Shea crossed her arms over her chest. She was changing emotions too fast. One second she was infuriated and the next she just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. It was all too much, a sensory overload.

"Because it would of looked shady to give her a different ring. It would of made it seem like she wasn't the person I really wanted to marry." Sidney knew he should of bought a different ring, just to stop from causing this, but the ring so much to him, going to buy a new one meant there was no hope of him ever putting that ring back on Shea.

"Is she? The person you really want to marry?"

It was loaded question. Either way Sidney answered, Shea would already be planning his funeral. He honestly didn't know what to say, not that he could say anything. He just looked away from Shea, hoping she would understand that he wasn't going to answer the question. But the shaky breath her heard following his stare towards anything, but Shea, told him not answering that question just sealed his fate with Brooke.

"I'm glad I could keep the ring warm for the "special person" you were actually planning on giving the ring to." Shea started to walk away, not wanting to show Sidney that he still meant to world to her, while she wasn't even on the same planet as him.

"Shea, you gave the ring back. Not even two weeks after I told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, I was getting it sent back to me in the mail. Opening that box shredded my heart into a million little pieces. You gave the ring back, I had all intentions of you being the person I would spend the rest of my life loving, but YOU sent the ring back."

"Sidney you never called, never texted. For two days we were our old selves again, I forgot about the ten months that you had left me in the dust, but then all of sudden there I was. Caught in the middle of hurricane Sidney, you leaving me all over again. You said you would come back and visit, you promised, but maybe I was just stupid for letting myself believe you would actually keep your promise, you never kept them before. I gave the ring back because within two weeks you forgot about me all over again. I didn't fit into your superstar hockey life, and I tried to find a way to tell you to come get me, that I would give everything up for you, but we both knew you wouldn't. So here we are, fighting over a ring that meant nothing to us." Shea had let the tears to run, she knew everybody up at the house was watching them fight over a love that neither had the energy to fight for, or thought they didn't have the energy to fight for.

Shea started to walk away, go back to the party and pretend that Sidney hadn't come home and ruined her all over again, but his whispered voice brought her back to the present, "The ring meant everything to me, you mean everything to me."

"Well Sid, you're a day late and a dollar short."

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Shea left Sidney standing at the dock, he looked like somebody had just punched him in the gut, but Shea was walking away victorious, just being she was the one walking away this time. The satisfaction almost shadowed the heartbreak.

The party was starting to clear out, Shea could see Taylor talking to Brooke, looking like she would rather off herself right then and there than keep talking to Barbi. Shea waved to Taylor, getting a look that said "get me out of this conversation" but Shea just laughed shaking her head.

She walked in through the back door, she had guessed that her brothers had gone home, and she had seen her parents talking to their neighbors. Troy was in the kitchen with a bottle of tequila and a shot glass in front of him. As if expecting Shea to walk through the door, he slid one over for her, her gladly taking it and pouring it down her throat.

"How ya doing kid?" Troy asking before pouring Shea another shot. She downed it. "That bad huh?" Shea laughed.

Troy had never been a fan of anyone who distracted Sidney from hockey, but Troy was in Shea's fan club, he had practically made the fan club. Every time Shea showed up, at games or practices, Sidney's game would be on point. Whenever there would be a scout at a game, Troy would made Shea go and he would make sure Sidney knew she was there. Every game she went to Sidney would score and the teams would. He wasn't one of those "luck" people but he knew Shea was his good luck charm, always would be.

He was brought back to reality with the screen door shutting, it was a neighbor of both his and Shea's.

"Oh my goodness Shea, I haven't seen you in ages!"

"Hi Mrs. Wilson, it's good to see you." Shea had always loved Mrs. Wilson, she was the nicest lady in the neighborhood, and she made some damn good cookies.

Mrs. Wilson turned to Troy saying, "So I guess the surprise of the fiancé that nobody approves of was not a good surpass?"

Troy chuckled a little before turning to look at Shea, "I prefer his old girlfriend better."

Mrs. Wilson also turned towards Shea, "Well everybody likes his old girlfriend better, but you always need a different person to realize how good the first one was."

Shea sighed, how she wished that was true.

Mrs. Wilson walked over to Shea and put her arm around her, "Shea dear, if you don't run that girl out of Cole Harbour, you will never eat my cookies again." Shea laughed. Mrs. Wilson started towards the door before she turned around and said, "Oh and Shea, even if they're standing up at the alter, before Sidney and that girl say I do, I will stand up there and stop the wedding if I have to."

Troy raised his glass. Mrs. Wilson smiled, and walked out the door. Shea shook her head, hoping she wouldn't have to witness the wedding, but she didn't have the guts to do anything to stop it.

"So kid what's your plan?"

Shea looked at Troy, she honestly hadn't made on and wasn't planning on it. "She makes him happy, and the must love each other enough to want to spend the rest of their lives together. She's good him."

Troy put his shot glass down, and looked out the window at his son skipping rocks down at the dock. He only ever did that when he was trying to make decisions, or when he was pondering whether or not to drown himself.

Troy looked back at Shea, "But she's no you Shea."

Notes