Sacrifice

The rain falling outside the window easily matches Jay's mood for the day. Sighing, the young woman looks down at the piece of paper laying out before her; the first sentence bright as day, the words burned clearly into her brain.


It is with our deepest regrets to inform you....



Taking in a shaky breath, the brunette slowly removes herself from the chair she had been sitting in all day. Making her way towards the small bedroom in the back of her apartment, she begins to get herself dressed into what would be considered appropriate for her brother's hockey game.


Exiting the bedroom, she finds herself stopping for a minute, fingertips gripping the edge of the kitchen counters, turning white.


'Why?'


Shaking her head she tries to snap herself out of it, 'Not tonight, not until after the game at the very least.'


Snatching the keys to her Chevy truck off the table in her small front hall, Jay makes her way out to her car and sets off towards the United Center to watch her brother play.


--^--


The National Anthem was almost impossible to get through. Jay found herself choking back tears at the sight of the Marine standing at center ice while Jim Cornelison belts out the lyrics that seem to jumble in her brain.


"Jay, sweetheart, you know that you can tell me what's wrong, right?" The beautiful wife of Patrick Sharp, Abby, asks from Jay's left, obviously noticing her struggle.


"I'm just hoping that these guys win tonight. Because otherwise it's just going to be so much harder to tell him," The brunette replies after a short silence in which she was trying to find out a way to break the news to her blonde friend.


"Tell him what?" Jonathan's girlfriend, Lindsey, pipes up from the right.


Breathing deeply, Jay pulls the crumpled piece of paper from her back pocket and hands it to Abby who reads it intently before sucking in a sharp breath.


"Oh hun," The mother of two finally says after a long silence that was soon filled with the sound of cheering fans around the Madhouse. While most were celebrating a goal made by none other than Jay's brother, Martin Bradley, the three women in the stands - Lindsey by now, had read the letter as well - were silent, unknowing of what to do.


--^--


The Hawks ended up winning 3-0, with both Morin and Kane scoring two more goals while Corey Crawford recorded his first shutout of the season. The locker room was buzzing with electricity as the men on the ice returned, celebrating their victory.


"Jayden!" Martin Bradley wildly yells through the locker room upon seeing his sister," Did you see my goal?"


She smiles sadly," Yeah Mart, I did." Obviously noticing her pain, the glorious look on her brother's face slowly fades into one of concern.


"Jay what's wrong?"


Choking back tears for what seems like the thousandth time that night, Jayden steps closer to her younger brother, not knowing how he would react. The other players in the room are noticing in the shift in mood of the once ecstatic player and are closely paying attention to the interaction between the two siblings.


Pulling the white paper from her back pocket for the second time that night, she gives it to her brother, hand shaking.


"H-he...they said that they don't know how...I guess it was a roadside bomb or something," Her voice is surprisingly strong, despite how shaky she feels on the inside. Meanwhile, Martin, while hearing his sister's words, could not comprehend the ones on the paper.


The young Captain, noticing the angst beginning to form on his teammates face, slowly approaches his friend, unsure - like the rest of the players in the room - of the situation.


Finally Martin speaks, looking up and meeting his sister's eyes," So it's just you and me then now?"


Patrick Kane is the first to realize the hidden meaning in their vague words. Approaching his teammate, he claps him on the shoulder, giving the younger rookie a sympathetic smile when he turns his head.


Realization begins to crawl throughout the locker room as the players begin to realize that one of their own has lost a loved one to the tragedy that is the Middle East.


Martin, however, was in a mild state of shock. His twin brother, his baby brother, was dead, and nothing could change that. His parents weren't even in the picture, long ago killed by a drunk driver that was serving his time, making it so that it was just him and his older sister left.


Sure, there were aunts and uncles, and cousins and grandparents, but nobody could compare to the sometimes careless personality that was Alex Bradley.


"This doesn't make any sense, he promised," Martin breathes, disbelief turning into anger," He promised he would return. I spoke to him the other day and he said it would be three weeks. Three weeks!" He yells, anger reaching a boiling point.


"I know what he promised Mart! But that piece of paper right there? That thing you're holding in your hand? That's our reality! Because at the end of the day, regardless of what he promised he's not coming home, and we can't change that," And in that moment, the realization of the fact that her baby brother is dead finally dawns on Jayden Bradley. Choking back a sob, the taller sibling rushes out of the locker room and into the hallway where she finally lets herself cry in big, heaving sobs.


Watching his sister flee from the room, Martin too makes a realization that this might be harder for his big sister than it is for him. She had been old enough when their parents died to remember them, and while she had put up enough of a front so that nobody would notice just how sad she really was, the death of his twin brother - her baby brother, the one that he sometimes felt she favorited - had been enough to make all those walls come crumbling down. What most saw as just grieving for their youngest sibling, Martin realized, was actually grieving for their parents as well. Something that Jayden hadn't done in the wake of their parents' death.


Making his way out of the locker room, hockey gear and all, Martin stops short upon finding his older sister sobbing in the hallway. It was an odd sight for him, she had always been the strong one, the motherly figure. She had always been their to clean his cuts and bruises after an especially rough hockey game, and wasn't one to turn him down in their younger years when he would have an especially horrible nightmare, waking her up just so that he could crawl into her bed and have her hold him.


She was the one that had held the family together when it was so close to falling apart, and now, when she was so close to falling apart, Martin realized that it was his turn to hold his sister together and keep his now family of two together.


And so he did. Crouching down - made difficult by his gear - Martin leans back against the wall and pulls his sister close. Closing his eyes, Martin thinks.


His brother had made a huge sacrifice for the country that he loved.


His sister had sacrificed her childhood for the family that she loved.


And now he would sacrifice too, for his fallen brother and his beautiful sister that he loved.

Notes

Just a little bit of a thing I had in my brain that I thought would be good on paper. For now it's a one shot but that might change. Let me know what you think!