Whatever it takes

The first thing that he could make sense of was a faint sound, a slight monotonous beeping noise that sounded in the distance. It was steady, consistent, each beep coming in perfect time after the previous one. As the noise grew gradually louder the beeping sped up, slightly hitching before pounding out a fast rhythm that was so loud it had him wishing he could cover his ears with his hands.

He tried to move them but couldn’t even feel the appendages, trying to look down to see why his arms weren’t working and realizing he couldn’t see anything. He began to panic as voices joined the loud beeping, random yelling and loud frantic talking in a language he couldn’t understand. He tried to make his body do something, desperately willing itself to pull away from the hell it was stuck in. The voices grew louder, deafening in their yelling as he lay helpless and immobile, unable to escape.

From the darkness a slight light appeared, casting a warm glow over him as it grew. A faint pink haze clouded his vision, providing little comfort over the noises around him. He felt a twitch in his eyelid, a promising motion as he struggled to regain his vision. Drawing strength from wherever he could he struggled to open his eyes, regretting the decision immediately when he was blinded by a harsh light. He blinked rapidly, the noises around him all at once silent as his vision strived to right itself. The strength was leaving his body quickly but he could sense his vision clearing and he struggled to hang on, if only to see what this hell he was caught in looked like.

He only was able to get a glimpse of a white tiled ceiling before he was pulled back under.

~~~


Everything was black again, that faint beeping sound steady and consistent in the distance. The warm pink light was back again, comforting him as he felt his eyelids struggle to unstick from each other. When he was able to open him the light wasn’t as harsh, only a faint glow in the darkness. He blinked rapidly as his surroundings came into focus. The only light in the room was coming in from the hallway, the open door allowing the small room to be lit enough to see that he was in a hospital.

He tried to move, his body unresponsive to his brain telling it to get up. He grunted in frustration and looked down at his body, staring in fascination at what seemed to be the hundreds of wires disappearing into it. He opened his mouth to yell out, the only sound escaping him a high-pitched whine that was barely loud enough to reach the door.

A large red button to his right caught his attention as he began the tedious process of trying to reach for it. He focused with all his might on moving his arm, getting only a twitch from his pointer finger for all his efforts. His eyes burned in frustration, his mind trapped inside of this immobile body. A movement from the door had him snapping his eyes up to meet that of a man in scrubs. The man’s eyes widened slightly before he was quietly saying something into his radio.

An older woman in a white lab coat came skidding into the room, eyes wide as she looked at her patient. She gave him a slight smile as she approached his bed, pulling the seat next to it closer to him and sitting down.

“Welcome back.”

He blinked in confusion, the words seemed familiar but he couldn’t piece them together.

“I’m going to need to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

Once again he was stupefied, some of the words jumping out at him but the rest remaining a mystery. He could vaguely remember the word “question” and his mind began to revolt. He wanted to scream, wanted to yell at the woman and tell her that he had a million questions he needed answered first but when he opened his mouth to do so all that came out was that little pathetic squeak again. She carried on as if she didn’t hear it.

“Do you remember your name?”

He tried to tell her that he didn’t understand, couldn’t answer any of the questions because he didn’t know what they were. When he replied he looked around as a high pitched voice filled the room, wondering who else was there before realizing that it was coming from him. The woman sighed as talked to him some more before starting her physical exam, a light shined in his eyes had his head screaming in pain, but he was pleasantly pleased to find that he could feel the pressure when she squeezed his toes and fingers.

He was left alone for a few minutes before she returned with a larger man in tow. She spoke first, the man speaking after her in a language that sounded much more familiar. It took a while but he was able to piece together the first sentence.

“Do you remember your name?”

He came up short at the question, mind whirling as he attempted to find any bits of information about himself in the inner recess of his brain.

What was his name?

Where was he?

Why was everyone speaking in a language he couldn’t understand?

His gaze flicked to the machine to his right, to the wires and tubes that snaked like serpents into his body. He cried out as pain ricocheted through his head, the room spinning as he squeezed his eyes shut. He could vaguely hear the voices in the room, talking quickly to each other. A hand on his arm burned like fire, although he did not possess the strength to pull away from it. The heat spread through his veins like an inferno, burning him from the inside out before he descended into darkness once more.

When he awoke again the room was bright, the light not burning his eyes the way it previously had. He looked down to see his hand encased by a much smaller one, petite fingers boasting an overly large diamond ring, attached to a woman. The woman’s eyes widened when his met hers, glassy with unshed tears as a smile burst across her face. She ran her fingers over his hand, bringing it up to her lips and placing a watery kiss to it.

“Oh Sasha, I was so worried. I love you so much.

She reached her hand over and pressed a red button before lightly stroking her hands over his face. He lay there, immobile and confused as this beautiful stranger caressed him. They both looked over as a doctor came into the room, bright smile on his face as he took in his patient. He spoke a little to the woman at his side in a language he didn’t understand and nodded, speaking and then waiting for the woman to translate.

“It’s good to see you awake. Do you remember how you got here?”
He shook his head no and the doctor nodded.

“He says it’s going to be okay, he’s just going to ask you a couple of questions and then do a physical examination. I’m sure you have some questions of your own and we will do the best to answer them for you. Now, do you remember your name?”

He closed his eyes, wracking the fuzziness of his brain for anything. One word stood out, clearer then the rest.

“Александр”

He winced at his own voice, high and squeaky. The doctor smiled as the woman next to him translated and he nodded.

“Very good. Do you know your last name?”

After a minute of thinking he shook his head in defeat, frustration causing his eyes to burn with unwanted tears. He answered a few more questions and after deducting that he knew nothing but his name the doctor nodded.

”Sweetheart,” the woman next to him squeezed his hand and looked at him through glassy eyes.
“Your name is Alexander Ovechkin, you are 28 years old, you played hockey for the Washington Capitals and you were in an accident during one of the games. You suffered a pretty traumatic brain injury and you have been in a coma for the past month.”

He didn’t realize that he was crying until a hot tear dripped from his eyes down his neck, hitting his collarbone as he started to sob.

~~~


From there on out it was a barrage of questions and examinations, doctors poking and prodding him as he started to regain some movement throughout his body. He spent the days waiting, listening to conversations that he barely understood as people came in and out of the room. The woman that had been sitting with him left as soon as he admitted he didn’t recognize her, he pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes.

Every now and again he would get glimpses, pictures playing out quickly in his mind of a life he had. There was the woman from the hospital, beautiful and blonde, a flash of skates cutting across ice, the roar of a stadium, a glimpse of an ornately decorated house. Little by little things started to come back to him, pieces of the puzzle slowly fitting in.

A commotion from the door had him opening his eyes to a middle aged couple bickering with the doctors. He met the older woman’s eyes and a wave of familiarity washed over him, comforting in this ridiculously confusing time.

“Sasha"

The woman grabbed onto the older man to her left and tears flooded her eyes before she rushed to Alex’s side, grabbing his hand in a tight hold as she peppered kisses over his face.

“Oh Sasha, my boy! We were so worried, but I told your father, Sasha he is a fighter, he will pull through this. And look at you!” She planted a smacking kiss on his forehead and gestured his father over. His father nodded at him and reached down to lightly embrace him over the wires and tubes, his voice was choked when he told his son hello.

“The doctors, they say that you understand Russian better and that you didn’t know Maria. But they say things will come back to you, that it is a miracle you are awake. Do you remember anything else?”

He told them about the brief flashes, the ice, the stadium, some of his teammates and the woman, Maria. His voice wasn’t as squeaky as when he woke up but still wasn’t normal. He asked about his mobility, why he couldn’t move parts of his body and his father went to go get a doctor.

The doctor explained to Alex that when he hit his head his brain swelled so rapidly that he needed emergency surgery. Lack of mobility was common with such injuries and there was a chance he might regain full mobility with the proper rehabilitation. When he asked to get up to go to the bathroom he was mortified to know that he had a catheter installed.

As the days drug on his memory started to return, it was a terrifyingly odd experience, like watching a movie about your own life and by the end of the week he truly realized what a life he had lost. He had been an idol in Washington, his lifestyle only outshined by his salary. An entire city had chanted his name, on their feet as he scored goal after goal for them. He found himself longing to feel the ice beneath his skates again, the smooth glide and the cutting sound of a blade as he raced across the glassy surface. It taunted him, day in and day out.

The next time the woman, Maria, came in he had recognized her. He had remembered getting down on one knee in front of her, slipping an overly large diamond onto her finger and the absolutely fantastic sex that had followed.

She had cried when he had said her name and planted kisses all over his face.

The feeling had come back into his extremities but his movement was still limited. A nurse accompanied him with daily exercises that had him feeling all of two years old. Raising arms and legs was akin to the worst days of conditioning during the preseason, the simple acts leaving him exhausted as his brain struggled to relearn the movements. His doctor had explained that the brain took its own time in healing itself, and with an injury such as his, needed time to relearn what normally came naturally to him.

After a month in the hospital he was finally able to get up to take a piss with the help of nurses, no longer having to sit through the mortifying process of using a bedpan. The first time he had looked himself in the mirror he had almost fainted, the skinny sickly looking man staring back at him nothing like the professionally toned body he recalled. His eyes sat jauntily in his skull, the shaved hair from his head still showing a nasty looking scar around the side of it.

He kept up with his daily therapy, every once in a while one of his teammates would stop by to say hello and he would pretend not to notice their wide eyes as they took in the emaciated form of their captain. By the end of month two he was able to make it to the hallway on his own, his skinny legs shaking with the effort of the short ten step walk. He was wheeled down daily to the physical therapy unit where he would lift embarrassingly low amounts of weights. Maria was with him every step of the way, encouraging him and pretending not to notice, or care about, his weak body.

The time finally came for him to go home, dressed in comfortable sweatpants that were too big around the waist and a baggy tshirt he sat on his hospital bed waiting for the nurses to return with his paperwork. He ran his hands through his shaggy hair, fingers brushing over the shorter part where his scar was and sighing. Between all that had happened with waking up from the coma and not having his memories he still hadn’t asked the million dollar question.

Would he ever play hockey again?

He was terrified of the answer.

~~~


He looked up when Don Fishman walked through the door, completely surprised that the GM was visiting him now when the man hadn’t shown up during the two months he had been there to begin with. He gave Alex a tight smile and took a seat in the hideously patterned chair next to the bed. Alex watched as his gaze flicked up and down, taking in the once muscular stature of his star center.

“Alex. It’s good to see you up and moving.”

Alex nodded but didn’t say anything back. Wondering to himself if this was it, was he here to tell him he wouldn’t be playing hockey again?

Don cleared his throat and crossed his legs over one another, leaning back in the chair and looking Alex over once again.

“The Capitals have secured the finest at home care staff for your recovery, Alex.”

“Does that mean that I can play hockey again?”

“There is a chance, yes-“ he was interrupted by his doctor walking into the room, giving Alex a warm smile and a cooler one to the man to his right.

“Good morning Alex, all ready to go I see?”
Alex nodded, swallowing nervously as his GM looked from him to the doctor.

“I was just telling him about his recovery time-“

“Ah yes,” the doctor interrupted Don, forcing a smile from Alex at the look on his GM’s face.

“Mr. Fishman, as well as various other Capitals staff have been inquiring as to the state of your recovery and if you will be returning to the rink anytime soon. I am actually surprised that you didn’t ask sooner.”
Alex held his breath and nodded at the doctor to continue.

“There is a chance that, with the proper rehabilitation and therapy, that you may play hockey again.”
Alex let out a breath, feeling as if the weight of the world was removed from his shoulders as he felt tears burning behind his eyes.

“However, at this time we are unable to say if it will be at the professional level. Your brain has been through a lot, the coma was the body’s way of healing yourself. All tests that we have done have showed improved brain function, however you still have a very long road ahead of you before you can even think about stepping foot on the ice. You were lucky that there was no permanent damage or bleeding, things would have been much different if there were. You will need to give your skull time to heal as well, the hole where the shunt we used to decrease the swelling will need at least a year before it is back to normal density.”

Alex breathed out, torn between the joy of knowing that he had a fleeting chance at his old life and realizing that it wouldn’t be that way for a long time.

“Mr. Fishman has arranged for live in at home care for your neurorehabilitation and your speech therapist will visit the house three times a week.”

A knock at the door had his parents and Maria bustling into the room, exchanging hellos with Fishman and the doctor. He explained what the doctor had told him and watched Maria and his parents ask questions about his home care. After that came the paperwork, and then he was being led out of the hospital in a wheelchair, ready to go home.

It was obvious that Maria and his parents had known about his in home care long before he did because when they pulled into the driveway of his house the first thing he noticed was the ramp leading up to his front door. His eyes narrowed in anger as his father rushed around to get the wheelchair from the back of the car. He growled and pushed the door open, gripping the handle tightly as he slowly slid his feet to the ground. His mother yelled at him in Russian about being stubborn and he ignored her, struggling to put one foot in front of the other because he was going to walk into his own damn house, thank you very much.

Maria was by his side in an instant, looping her arm around his waist in a way that was meant to be helpful but only managed to further anger him instead. He didn’t need his fiancé to help him walk into their house. He shrugged her arm off of him and gripped onto the side railing as he struggled to pick his feet up to climb up the steps next to the ramp. He shakily made it up them, opening his front door and ignoring the three sets of eyes on him.

He walked into the grand foyer and his heart dropped as he took in the large curling staircase in front of him. He was already sweating from the short walk from the car and all he wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep but he knew he couldn’t even make it up four of those stairs to do so and he’d be damned if he was going to ask for his fathers help.

A small hand squeezing his tore his gaze away from the staircase and Maria smiled at him tightly.
“I had our things moved to the guest wing downstairs. The doctors mentioned that it would be better if everything was on one floor.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief and slowly walked over to the wing that he would be staying in from now on, pushing open the door to the bedroom and not even bothering to take off his shoes before face planting onto the large bed and passing out.

He awoke the next morning with a groan and a pounding in his skull. He rolled over to find Maria gone and he sat himself up, waiting until the room stopped spinning before carefully placing his feet on the floor and pushing himself off of the bed. Maria must have taken off his shoes and clothes while he was asleep because he’s left in nothing but boxers and a thin white undershirt. The wooden floors are cold underneath his bare feet and he curses the guest wing, which didn’t have the luxury of heated floors like his master suit upstairs did.

He managed to pull on a pair of socks, almost falling over as he tried to balance on one foot. He has to sit at the foot of the bed for almost three whole minutes afterwards, just to get rid of the nausea and vertigo that came with the near miss. He shuffled his way down the hallway, hand always on the wall just incase, and hears voices coming from the kitchen.

The sight before him isn’t anything he hasn’t seen a thousand times before, Maria and his parents eating breakfast at the breakfast bar, only this time there is someone there with them.
She’s dressed in jeans and a simple black tshirt, her long curly blonde hair pulled off of her face in a ponytail. She is pointing out something to Maria in her binder and they both glance up at him when he clears his throat. She gives him a big smile and is around the counter immediately, extending her hand and giving him a firm handshake.

“Hi Alex, I’m Charlotte McGovern, but you can call me Charlie. I’m the Occupational and Physical therapist that Mr. Fishman recommended.”

“The one who’s living with us?”

She nodded and gestured to the wing of the house that his parents stayed in.

“Your mom and dad were kind enough to show me to my new room. I hope you don’t mind but I already put my bags there.”

He nodded and plopped down on one of the stools, rubbing at the pounding behind his eye. He eyed his mother who was currently fixing him breakfast at the stove and she huffed before muttering to him in Russian.

“She seems nice, Sasha. Although that name! Charlie is a boys name.”

Alex grinned and squeezed Maria’s hand, reaching for the plate that his mother put in front of him filled to the brim with eggs, bacon and sausage. His mouth watered at the smell, not missing the bland hospital food in the slightest. He reached for his fork with his right hand, his fingers sloppily closing over the utensil, his hand shaking as he struggled to hold it right. He narrowed his eyes and switched hands, his left hand easily gripping the utensil and using it to spear his eggs.

“You’re having trouble with your right hand?”

It was more a statement then a question and his eyes snapped up to meet Charlie’s steely blue gaze, narrowing at her as she stared at him knowingly. She came around to stand next to him and gestured to his right hand.

“May I?”

He ignored the eyes on him as she ran through a few exercises with him, touching his thumb to his pointer, middle and ring finger five times each before placing the fork back in his right hand. She had him grip the fork and hold it, loosening and tightening his grip as he picked the fork up.
He felt all of two years old as she taught him how to eat with his right hand again.
His parents and Maria watched him like he was some sort of science experiment but he finally was able to grip the fork properly, shakily shoveling some sausage into his mouth under Charlie’s watchful eye.

“It’s going to be tough, but the only way to get back your full mobility is by practicing. I hope I didn’t overstep my boundaries.”

His mother tutted and shook her head, speaking in rapid fire Russian causing Maria to smile and Alex to turn bright red. His father translated for Charlie.

“She says that Alex will be stubborn and fight you along the way but he needs to realize it’s for his own good.”

He growled and continued to eat his breakfast, each pass with the fork finding it more comfortable and by the end of the meal he was almost back to eating like his normal self.

The first days of Charlie living with them had been absolute torture. She had him on a strict schedule, up at 6 and walking down the stairs to his personal gym. The first day he had barely made it down the flight of stairs without being exhausted but the next day he was able to make it back up without any help. Charlie was constantly by his side, correcting postures, giving him pointers and helping him to remember how to do everyday things like tying the tie on his sweatpants.

Maria had stayed by his side the first week, encouraging him with his daily exercises and translating for Charlie when Alex forgot what word he wanted to use in English. He had started with his speech therapist, the large Russian man reminding him of a seedy club owner he once knew in Moscow. He cringed when the man would ogle Charlie, but according to the Caps, he was the best in town.
As much as he appreciated Maria being with him he also resented it. He was the man of their relationship, he was supposed to be able to provide for them and how could he do that when he had trouble tying his damn shoelaces? He breathed a sigh of relief when she had to leave for two weeks to compete in the Australian Open, and then felt immediately guilty for his relief.

His parents seemed to sense that he didn’t want spectators to his pitiful recovery and tended to stay out of his way, his mother feeding him everything under the sun and trying desperately to put some meat back onto his bones.

He knew that he was acting like an asshole, acting out at Charlie whenever his body wouldn’t cooperate the way he wanted to. No matter how much he screamed, snapped or cursed she stuck with him, giving it right back to him when he needed it or calmly talking him through one of his problems when she sensed he couldn’t take her yelling. The first time she had told him to stop being a brat his mother had spit her drink all over the counter, his father’s laughter only fueling his anger as Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and waited for him to stop being an ass.

When she noticed him getting frustrated trying to tie his shoelaces she would lean down and speak to him in a calm voice, placing her fingers over his and helping his digits to remember the motions. She knew exactly when to coddle him and when to give it back to him, not letting him turn her into his preverbal punching bag.

A month in, he was in his basement gym with Charlie, peddling slowly on the stationary bike and watching some TV show while she monitored him. He had barely gone a mile and he was already drenched in sweat, his muscles screaming at him as he tried to get them back into shape. When his twenty five minutes was up he did his cool down and wiped his face down with a towel, his legs feeling like jelly afterwards but he appreciated the burn that it gave his underused muscles.

“Alright, lets move on to squats. Think you can do them with a med ball today?”
She picked up the smallest one, a meager 5lbs printed on the side of it and handed it to him.

“Two sets of twenty, thirty second break.”

“Can do three today.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him, smirking at him and leaning back onto the bench she was sitting on.

“Oh really? You think so?”
Alex grinned and shrugged.

“Know so.”

“Alright hotshot, three sets of twenty, let’s see how you do.”

The first set was a breeze, the second harder and the third left him panting, but as he finished he grinned at her proudly returning the smile on her face full force.

“Good job, you’re not done yet though. Wall sits, 30 seconds each.”

Alex groaned but did as she said, sweating through the wall sits and thinking that maybe, just maybe, he could get out onto the ice again one day.

Notes