Sean had barely said a word to anyone in a week, even though they’d played four games. So far it had been the worst week of his career. After getting destroyed in Dallas on his birthday, they lost in a shootout against Ottawa, got destroyed by Chicago, barely squeaked by a win against Montreal, and lost in a shootout against Washington. He was playing like complete shit, and once again felt like he was the cause of the whole team’s problems.

He had sent Charlie dozens of messages, trying to find out if she was okay, but he still hadn’t heard from her. As soon as he saw the story on the news, he knew she had been one of the first responders. She had been on duty when it happened, and she was one of the best medics they had on base. They reported that almost thirty kids had died, most of them on their way to the hospital. He hoped she wasn’t taking that personally. The first three people that had died while she was treating them were devastating. She called him almost immediately each time, crying about how incompetent she was. It broke his heart to hear his girl like that.

They were getting ready for their next game, the second of their home-and-home with the Caps. He was struggling to find any reason to push through practice, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by his teammates. He heard them whispering about him during their breaks, but he didn’t really care. Nothing mattered because the only thing on his mind was his Charlie. He barely even noticed his assistant captain skate up to him.
“Cheer up, Couts,” Kimmo said. “The world isn’t as dark as you think it is.”
Sean watched the older man skate away, smiling to himself. ‘What the fuck was that about?’ he thought, shaking his head and joining his teammates back on the ice for the rest of practice. He tried to push the thoughts of the crazy old man’s comment to the back of his head as they started running the new drill.

Nearing the end of practice, he noticed Johanna walk out to the rink and nod her head at Kimmo. The assistant nodded his head back and smiled at his wife before she left. Apparently Sean wasn’t the only one who noticed the strange exchange.
“What was that about?” Hartsy asked. All eyes turned to Kimmo.
“You’ll see soon enough, my friends” he responded.

As the boys headed off the ice to their locker room, Sean hung back a little, not wanting to get off the ice. As distracted as he was on the ice, he was worse once he got off it. At least on the ice he felt some sort of comfort. He finally followed his teammates to the locker room, expecting to hear the loud shouts and conversations he was so used to. But he was surprised when he reached the door to hear nothing. Not even a whisper. He gently opened the door and walked in, only to find all his teammates and coaches staring at him with goofy grins on their faces. He felt so awkward standing there, wondering why they were all looking at him so funny. He put his head down and started to head to his stall. He got about half way across the room before he looked up again only to be met with the chocolate eyes he had been missing so much.

His heart stopped.

There she was, standing in front of his stall in her blue Air Force uniform. Charlie just smiled at him as he tried to process what was happening.
“Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to welcome me home?” She teased.
He didn’t know how or what, but something clicked inside of him. His heart started racing and his palms started sweating as he finished crossing the room.

It felt like an eternity before he finally reached her. He tossed his stick, helmet and gloves to ground and stared down at the beautiful goddess standing in front of him. Before he had time to think about what he was doing, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. His one hand lightly grabbed her chin and tilted it up so she was staring right into his eyes. He bent down and pressed his lips to hers, catching her off guard. She stiffened for a second and he started to panic. What was he doing? He was ruining everything. But then she relaxed and, to his surprise, grabbed the back of his head deepening the kiss. His brain hardly registered the whoops and catcalls surrounding them because this was actually happening. Charlie was kissing him back.

They eventually pulled apart, gasping for breath. She rested her hands on his chest and looked into his eyes. “Now that’s a way to welcome a woman home,” she said with a huge grin on her face. Sean couldn’t help but smile. And this time, it wasn’t forced like so many others the months before. His woman was here, kissing him back. And he had never been so happy before in his life.

Notes