Baggage Claim

“You didn’t say anything back?” Kayla asked handing Brooke a cup of tea as she sat back down on her couch. Brooke shook her head and rested it on her hand propped up on the back of the couch. “Wow,” Kayla said before taking a sip from her own glass.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Brooke said, feeling the tears coming to the edge of her eyes.

“Well do you love him back,” Kayla asked. Brooke didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t want to love anyone because of her dad. She didn’t want anyone to show her that they loved her and then just destroy her like her dad did. But she does love Sidney. She wanted nothing more than to say it back to him but she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him that she loved him because if he decided one day that he didn’t love her back, she didn’t know if she was going to be able to take it.

As soon as Sidney had said it Brooke froze up. She sat there looking at him waiting for her to say it back to him and she said nothing. She had gotten out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself as quickly as possible and ran to her room. Brooke hadn’t bothered to grab her clothes from his floor, or stop and turn around when he called after her. She just threw on some pants and a sweater and drove to Kayla’s apartment.

“I’m a terrible person,” Brooke said putting her head in her hands and feeling the tears coming to her eyes.

“What you did wasn’t up there on the list of perfect reactions but you got scared, it happens,” Kayla explained rubbing Brooke’s arm.

“I do love him though,” Brooke said finally admitting it out loud. “I think I have always loved him, I just never knew what it was. Ever single guy I have ever gone out with since I was sixteen always had to live up to him. And I just ran out on him.” Brooke’s phone vibrated on the coffee table for the second time since she had gotten to Kayla’s an hour ago and she hadn’t looked at either message.

“I think you should read those,” Kayla said picking up the phone and handing it to Brooke. “I’m going to go and see if I have any ice cream left in the freezer just I case,” She said as she got up from the couch and set her mug on the table. Brooke opened up her messages to she that they were both from Sidney. She opened up the conversation.

Sidney: can you please just let me know where you are.
Sidney: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.

It broke Brooke’s heart knowing that she had hurt him so badly and that he was regretting having said it at all. She knew what she had to do but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to do it. She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks by the time she had re-read his messages for the fifth time and took a deep breath trying to clam herself down.

“Hey, it’s okay, what did he say?” Kayla asked as she came to sit back down next to Brooke and wrapped her arm over her shoulder.

“I thinkI broke his heart,” Brooke said shaking her head. “ I need to go and see him.”

…

Brooke pulled into the driveway and saw that Sid’s truck was nowhere to be found. She looked at the time and realized that he would be at practice for next couple of hours, taking a deep breath she turned her car off sitting there looking at his house. In such a short amount of time Sidney had become a huge part of her life. Every single day she was thinking about him all the time. She would wake up in the morning to see him sleeping next to and study his face to know every line and dip and look at the scars from where he had been cut or hit. During the day he would text her and she would have the hugest smile plastered across her face and at night when he was home, they would talk about their days and about what was going on in the world and she would wait all day to see him smile or hear his weird laugh. She had allowed her to become so attached so quickly that it scared her.

She knew that she loved him. She knew that she had probably loved him ever since she was sixteen but she just didn’t want to feel broken again. Nothing could help her get over that again but she knew that Sidney wasn’t her dad. She knew that he would never treat her that way and she had let herself believe that he would. She could feel the bile rising up her throat and she rushed to get out of the car. As soon as the cold air hit her she felt better. She knew what she had to say to him and she knew that it was probably going to take a lot of proving but she was going to show Sidney that she loved him more than she could explain through words.

…

“Hey, what’s up,” Pascal asked Sid tapping his foot as he walked past him heading out to the ice. Sidney sat there holding his shin pad in his hand looking down at the ground off in space. Sid looked up at him and was confused as to what he had said.

“What?” Sid asked him.

“Are you feeling okay?” Pascal asked looking down at him a little worried. “you don’t look so good.” Sid really wasn’t feeling well but he wasn’t going to let it get in the way of practice. They were 5 days away from the first game and there was no way he was letting this get to him.

“I’m good,” Sid said as he bent down to strap on the shin pad.

“Sid, if you’re sick take the day off. We’d rather have you rested for Thursday than here for practice,” Pascal said before heading out to the ice. Sid sat in his stall and looked around at the remaining players in the room. He needed to go home.

…

Brooke put the dish in the oven when she heard the door leading form the garage open. She looked at the time figuring it to be to early for it to be Sid, but was surprised to see him standing in the in the kitchen seconds later. “Why aren’t you at practice?” Brooke asked.

“Would you rather me go back?” Sidney asked turning towards the door.

“No, no, I just didn’t think that you would be here for another couple hours was all. Are you okay?” Brooke asked walking towards him worried that something was bothering him. He moved to sit down, walking in the opposite direction of Brooke causing her to stop walking in his direction. Obviously he wasn’t okay because she wasn’t okay.

“I don’t think you really want me to answer that question,” Sid replied sliding onto the stool at the island. Sid pulled his hands up in front of him and looked at Brooke. She could see that he was hurt, big time, but she could also tell that something else was wrong.

“Can we put everything aside for five minutes because I’m really nervous that you’re not telling me what’s wrong and there is 100% something wrong,” Brooke said walking up beside him and Sid turned so he was facing her. She brought her hands to the sides of his face and looked him in the eyes. They looked tired and she could tell that the light was bothering him slightly by the way that he was squinting. Brooke moved so she was in between his legs and Sidney rested his hands on either sides on her hips. “Why didn’t you tell me,” Brooke asked sounding mad.

“Because I wasn’t sure,” Sidney said taking a deep breath.

“When did your headache start?” Brooke asked, softer now, rub the side of his face with her thumb.

“Yesterday, it's not a concussion though, just a little banged up” he said sighing and pulling her in closer. Brooke kissed the side of his face and wrapped her arms around his neck while Sid held her tightly against his body with his arms around her back. They stayed there for a bit, Sid just needing her to be with him until she spoke.

“I’m sorry I left like I did,” Brooke apologized and she felt Sidney slump slightly under her.

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t because you should be really mad at me. I’m so sorry for hurting you and I am so sorry for running away from you. I am so sorry that I ever made you feel sorry for telling me how you felt and I am so, so sorry for thinking that you were ever going to hurt me or treat me the way that my dad did,” Brooke apologized again and Sidney could feel her crying. He pulled her away so that she was facing him now and held her face and kissed her forehead.

“Hey, look calm down, it’s okay, please just talk to me, I’m not going anywhere,” Sid said kissing her forehead again. Brooke looked up into his eyes and knew what she wanted to say.

“I love you. I love you so much that it scared me. I don’t want to be hurt by someone as bad as my dad hurt me and I don’t want to love someone like I loved him and feel destroyed in the end. But I do love you, more than I ever though it was possible and I just hope that I’m enough for you because I don’t know if I can deal with being hurt again,” Brooke poured it all out, letting him know things she had never spoken out loud. Sidney looked at her, even more broken and sad than he had before and pulled Brooke in to meet her lips with his. Sidney wanted to kiss her until her worries faded away and the tears stopped falling but he knew that that wasn’t going to be enough. He pulled away and looked Brooke in the eye, one hand still holding the side of her face and the other tracing small circles on her hip.

“What’s it going to take for you to believe me when I promise you that you are enough and that I will never hurt you or leave you. I left you out of a huge part of my life and I have been regretting it ever since you have some back into it. I wasted the past nine years pretending that I didn’t have feeling for you and that you were just a family friend and fighting with you because I was angry with myself. I am never going to make that mistake again Brooke and I hope you understand that,” Sidney said wiping away some of the tears that had fallen down her cheeks. Brooke leaned in and kissed him to let him know that she had heard every single word that he had said. He held her tightly to his body and could feel his headache dissipating with her being there. Brooke was the first to pull away and she wrapped herself around Sidney again holding him and not wanting to let go. “I love you Brooke.”

“I love you too Sidney.”

….

Brooke sat in Dr. Leviey’s office on Wednesday morning waiting for him to respond about her treatment strategy regarding Mr. Codwell’s case. She had put a lot of time into researching different method and techniques and watched some surgery tapes dealing with similar patients including a surgery done my Dr. Leviey himself. She had spent most of the past two days in the medical library trying to put together a plan of action and was pleased with what she had come up with. “Not bad,” Dr. Leviey said reading over her notes. “I take it you used the notes my surgery where I used this technique on a patient a quiet a few years ago, Carl Watto,” He asked in which Brooke nodded yes to his remark. “I was one of the smoothest surgeries I had ever done, from start to finish, the surgical staff was perfect, not hitches, he responded well through out the surgery and I was able to salvage more bone than I was expecting too.”

“I was surprised and how little bone had to be taken out actually, I was figuring that you were going to have to take the entire lower left side but you kept most of it,” Brooke pointed out. Dr. Leviey nodded as he continued to read the plan.

“He died 3 days post-op. His heart wasn’t strong enough after the surgery and the trauma to his face put too much of a strain on him and he had a heart attack and died. I sat in my office going over every test that we had done, going through step of my surgery trying to figure out if I could have done something differently or if I would have seen something on his EKG that would have saved him but there was nothing. It was just one of those things that happened.” Brooke didn’t know what to say or what Dr. Leviey was getting at so she sat there silently waiting for him to go on. “the reason I’m telling you this is because Mr. Codwell has a hole in his heart and cannot be cleared for surgery because if we put him under…”

“He wont wake up,” Brooke said resting back in her chair felling defeated.

“This was very good work though, I’m quiet impressed. Had his Echo and EKG come back fine, I would have used your notes so don’t feel like this was for nothing.” Brooke nodded knowing that he meant well but she felt as though she had just lost her first patient. With out getting either of the surgeries Mr. Codwell would probably be dead in the next two years or so. Brooke felt like she could have done something to help him and now there was nothing that could be done. She got up to walk back out to the front of the clinic to go over some other patient files to make some notes for upcoming appointments.

“Thank you for letting me do that, I learned a lot, it was nice to feel like I had some sort of part in helping them,” Brooke said before heading out of the office. Dr. Leviey smiled at her a nodded before she walked out. Brooke walked to the desk and too a seat next to Kayla.

“So are you excited about tomorrow?” Kayla asked, typing something’s into the computer.

“Uh, yeah, I’m just not excited for him to go on road trips to be completely honest,” Brooke admitted going through a magazine on the desk.

“Well they aren’t that bad are they? Like he’d only be gone for three nights at the most right?” Kayla asked looking away from her screen. Brooke shrugged her shoulders and felt a chill go down he back.

“Sometimes it can be for a week o more, depends on their schedule. I haven’t really looked at it to in depth to be honest so I don’t really know but even thinking about 3 nights alone sucks.”

“Well if you ever want to come crash with me you can, there’s always the spare bed room!” Kayla suggested smiling at Brooke.

“Thanks,” Brooke said smiling back at her. She knew it would be nice not having to stay alone all of the time but it just wouldn’t be Sid.

…

Brooke had stayed at work later than usual going over cases and researching anything possible to help with Mr. Codwell’s chances. When she had finally given up for the night it was around seven and all Brooke wanted to do was curl up in bed.

When she pulled into the driveway there was an SUV sitting next to Sidney’s truck, blocking Brooke from parking in the garage. It wasn’t a huge deal but she knew that she was going to have to park behind Sidney and then move it before going to bed that night after the owner of the truck left. She grumbled, not being in the mood to have to do anything or deal with anyone and put her car into park. She made her way up the front steps and unlocked the door and headed towards the kitchen to grab an apple before heading upstairs. As Brooke rounded the corner to the kitchen she found a man standing there leaning against the counter by himself and she stopped immediately.

“Who are you?” The man asked once he saw her standing there.

“I’m Brooke, I live here,” She said looking around for Sidney. She knew who the man was standing in front of her but that definitely didn’t mean that he knew who she was.

“I don’t remember Sidney mentioning someone moving into his house,” The man explained standing up from the counter and crossing his arms.

“Uh where is Sidney if you don’t mind me asking?” Brooke asked, feeling as though she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. She was nervous and a little scared to make to wrong move.

“I’m right here,” Sidney said coming up from behind her into view. She relaxed a bit, feeling better that he was there now and let out the breath she had been holding. “Sorry it took me so long, I had put it in my cabinet and forgot that is was in there,” Sidney explained handing the man the paper he had been holding. “Also, Mario this is Brooke, she’s a family friend who’s staying with me while she’s studying at the hospital. Brooke this is Mario Lemieux.”

“Nice to meet you,” Brooke said smiling. He chuckled slightly, nodding his head.

“I guess you weren’t lying about living here than were you.”

“I guess not,” Brooke said chuckling back. Sidney looked a little confused but just played it off. “I’m just going to grab an apple and I’ll be out of your way,” Brooke said as she walked over to the fruit bowl sitting on the counter. Sidney watched her and she walked past them, admiring the way that her skirt tugged in certain places and turned his attention back to paper sitting in front of them. “It was nice meeting you Mario,” she said before heading out of the kitchen.

“It was nice meeting you as well,” He yelled after her. He looked down at Sid with a knowing look and waited until Sidney made eye contact with him. “When were you going to tell me?”

“That she was living with me? Now I guess,” Sidney said shrugging his shoulders.

“No, that you were seeing someone.”

“We’re not together,” Sidney said trying to play it off.

“Sid, you can’t lie to me, I hope you understand that.”

“Well I’m not lying so about this program, do you think that this proposal is going to be enough or are we going to have to make some changes to it?”

“Let me take it with me, I’ll look it over, get the lawyer to look it over and then we can sit down and talk about it,” Mario said heading towards the door.

“Sounds good,” Sidney said following behind him. He saw brooke’s keys sitting on the table by the door and figured that he would move her car for her so she would have to come down and do it herself.

“How are you feeling about tomorrow?” Mario asked standing in front of his truck.

“Good, I feel like the team is ready, I feel like I’m ready, it should be a good season,” Sid said, answering the same question for the fifth time that day.

“Good, well I like her Sid and I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mario said climbing into his truck and smiling and him. Sidney shook his and laughed as Mario reversed out of the driveway.

Notes

Here you go!!!!! This was an emotion filled chapter but I feel like it got a lot of stuff out there.

I really am sorry about such a long wait for this chapter but school just got in the way and i was really stuck on where to go from here.

This is sort of a filler chapter because I need to cook up some ideas but I hope you enjoyed it non the less.

Happy rivalry day!