Chapter Text
It took a while to kill him. The drugs, that is, or his own recklessness. Either way there was this weird stretch of… waiting, he supposed. He would have held his breath but for the tubing they had shoved unceremoniously down his throat, so that he was no longer in control of his own breathing.
It was something he was becoming steadily more aware of. That and the shaking of the ambulance, his father clutching his hand in one of his own while the other tried to contact his mother on the phone, the doctors…
This wasn’t how he normally became aware, waking up in the morning to blink against the brightness leaking in through the curtains, starting to notice the warmth of the duvet. He wasn’t becoming aware of it because he was waking up, he was becoming aware of it because he was watching.
They wheeled him into a bland room. More doctors. Strange machines. His father’s stricken face and then his mother’s blank fear when she arrived. Nurses and words of comfort and waiting room magazines that would be available if his parents left the room to pursue them. Jack felt separated from this whole world, watching these people he grew up with as they struggled to comprehend something that he knew was significant, but couldn’t quite feel. This was the waiting part; he didn’t realise what was happening just yet.
The constant movement didn’t slow but now his mother was crying. His father too, with red ringed eyes and shaking hands that didn’t belong on the quintessential male athlete that Jack had grown up being told his father was. This was how things worked in his world; when Jack was crying and shaking it was in private and as hushed up as he could manage, his father did neither because he wasn’t supposed to. But this behaviour seemed normal to the doctors and nurses who tried to console them as alien fluids were injected into Jack’s arm. More wires on his chest. A strange clip on his fingers that he didn’t understand but must have been important. Once, then twice more, the entire contingent removed their hands from his pale frame so one of their number could press paddles to his chest and shock him back to life.
The third time this happened, it didn’t work.
They were still trying, but it wouldn’t help. Jack knew this because suddenly he could feel again, and what he could feel was nothing like he’d ever experienced in his life. It was the sort of clarity that was sharp enough to hurt as he understood for the first time what everyone else seemed to know. That so many of his problems were made up in his own head. That his parents loved him and were terrified of losing him. That the doctor had told him not to mix his meds with alcohol for a goddamned reason and he should have listened but he couldn’t because it had hurt.
That was over now. The doctor trying to restart his heart didn’t know that it was futile. For the first time, Jack had discovered a problem that couldn’t be fixed if he would only push himself just a little bit further. He was dead, and he’d absolutely fucked up.
It was strange how much he wanted to scream, when he’d never wanted anything of the sort while he was alive. He wanted to run as fast as he could and fight back at everyone who’d done this to him and… and see the pyramids. That’s what he wanted. And Stonehenge, where the only people allowed close to it were the Druids, even though Druids were never a religion, they were the name of the Celtic priests and, anyway, Stonehenge predated the Celtic invasion and still no one knew what it was really for.
He wanted to visit the Isabell Gardner museum. He’d never done that. It was ridiculous; it was in Boston, he could have gone there without too much difficulty. That was the site of the greatest art theft in history and there was still a five million dollar reward for the paintings. They had been stolen on Saint Patrick’s day in the year of his birth. The mystery had outlived him.
He wanted a dog. And a twenty-first birthday. And his own home where he struggled to cook his own food and forgot to change the bag of the vacuum cleaner until it lost all suction. He wanted to choose the colour he’d paint his house. God, he wanted a house he’d paint himself.
He had no idea what to do now.
There was supposed to be a tunnel, wasn’t there? Or some light he was supposed to walk towards? He’d read stuff about Saint Peter and the gate of heaven and, sure, he’d never been exactly Christian but he liked the idea. At least that way he’d have someone to plead his case to. Ask for a do-over. Or, if that didn’t work, ask why he had to have this life. What a waste of time.
There was no manual for the newly dead. Jack shut his eyes and waited for something to happen. Heaven, he thought, the people who believe in it are always so damn sure. If I’ve ever done anything worthwhile in my life, please let me go to heaven.
When he opened his eyes, he was in an ice rink.
Because of course he was. There was a moment when he genuinely considered raising his arms to the heavens and asking of the Lord, “Is this a fucking joke?” but he wasn’t sure that this was an afterlife at all. For a start, there were no lights on. He could see only by the moonlight that poured in through the huge window at the end, glittering off the smooth ice and flashing off the blades of the boy at the other end of the rink.
Jack had been expecting something a little more… ethereal. Even the effect of moonlight on ice was ruined somewhat by the deep lines and the faceoff circles that made it clear that, apparently, Jack was nothing more than a hockey player.
‘Erm.’ he said. There was a split second where all he could think was how glad he was that he was already dead so that his last words weren’t “erm”.
The boy at the other end of the ice slipped over mid-spin with a startled little ‘Gosh.’
‘Sorry,’ Jack said, skating towards him (and why was he wearing skates?), ‘I didn’t mean to, uh, frighten you. Um.’
The boy was back on his feet when Jack made it over. In the half-light what must have been large brown eyes appeared black.
‘It’s just…’ Jack continued, still at a complete loss, ‘well… where am I?’
What he really wanted to know was if this boy was some sort of angel. He could certainly pass for an angel, with the blond hair and the graceful movements on his blades. But he wasn’t going to ask that because he might not be an angel, and then Jack would just seem weird.
‘You’re in an ice rink.’ the boy said.
‘Yes.’ Jack agreed. ‘I worked that much out.’
There was a pause that Jack entirely refused to acknowledge as awkward.
‘I don’t know where the rink is.’ the boy added, in an accent Jack recognised from American television as deeply southern.
Now what he wanted to know was if the boy was also dead, but that seemed somehow impolite so instead he held out his hand and said, ‘I’m Jack.’
‘Eric.’ said the boy, shaking the offered hand. So they could touch. One point for dead. Besides, Eric wasn’t a particularly angelic name. Eric sounded like a heavenly intern. Like he was doing administration for the real angels who were all too busy dancing on the heads of pins, presumably, or whatever it was angels did.
‘Um.’ Jack said, because apparently he was confused enough that real words were difficult, ‘Can I ask why you’re here?’
Eric – who surely couldn’t have been more than fourteen – seemed to be digging a hole nervously in the ice with his toe pick, ‘I didn’t break in,’ he said, ‘If you work here, um, I’m just practicing and… well… you did sort of ask where we were so I guess you don’t work here so. Hm. I’m sort of… dreaming? I do this a lot. It’s a good way to practice-’ he was talking so much that Jack was beginning to wonder if he even needed to breathe ‘-I just try to get to an ice rink but I always seem to end up at this one and I’m not really sure why but I think it’s somewhere that’s going to be important to me in the future. That’s Grandma’s theory anyway. She’s a witch, by the way, and so- so am I.’
He finished strangely self-consciously and Jack knew enough about how he felt to want to reassure him, ‘I’m a witch too. Well, I mean I thought I was. I never did stuff like visit ice rinks when I was asleep. It was mostly just, um, herbs.’ he finished, lamely.
Eric grinned, ‘Herbs are great! I never meet other witches where I’m from. And besides, you’re here now, that must count for something. I wonder if this place will be important to you someday too? It’s a really nice rink. You can watch the sunrise if you stay long enough and-’
‘It won’t.’ Jack said, cutting him off and then internally cringing at how rude he must sound.
‘What d’you mean?’
Deep breath. Not that he needed breaths anymore, ‘It won’t mean anything to me in the future because I, sort of, don’t have one anymore. A future, I mean. I guess I just died.’
‘Oh.’ Eric said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I ask…’
‘Accident, I suppose.’ Jack supplied, having no intention of explaining to this kid what had really happened, ‘It didn’t hurt but…’ shit, ‘They took me to a hospital and…’ this almost felt like a panic attack, except Jack was pretty sure those didn’t happen to the dead. He was shaking, though, feeling the truth of what had just happened suddenly become something real that he had to acknowledge, ‘And my parents were there and I’m their only child and I’m- I’m only nineteen. I was supposed to be moving out soon. Jesus,’ (why couldn’t he stop talking? Why did this all still hurt if he was dead? It was supposed to be over) ‘I’d thought that I just needed to get through the Memorial Cup and everything would be fine but we won it and I was supposed to just relax but I can’t ever seem to relax and,’ he took another deep, shaky breath, ‘My parents are still at the hospital. When I left the doctor was still trying to get my heart to start beating again but it won’t.’
Eric had been letting him talk in complete silence, the expression of horror on his face just visible beneath his polite mask of sympathy.
‘I don’t want to be dead.’ Jack admitted, in a quiet voice.
There was a good chance that Eric had no idea what to say to a dead person. He certainly seemed pretty startled by this turn of events. But he pulled himself together and, a little awkwardly, said, ‘Well, you can stay here if you want. It’s nice. I like watching the sunrise from the rink.’
For once, Jack didn’t particularly want to skate. What he wanted was to find the way out, find a loophole in this whole life and death thing. A few hours ago he was so scared about his future and now he apparently didn’t have one.
‘I want to see my parents.’ he said, eventually, ‘Though I’m not sure how to…’
‘I can take you.’ Eric offered, ‘Just help me out and think about where they are.’
Eric placed a hand on his arm for presumably magical reasons, and Jack closed his eyes once more, thinking of the hospital room and the doctors and his parents crying on the edge of the action.
‘Oh no.’ Eric whispered, next to him.
He opened his eyes.
It was much brighter here than in the rink, with white walls and white sheets and his own skin, whiter than it should ever appear. It seemed as though no time had passed and the doctor was still standing over him, trying to bring him back. Jack turned his face away and towards his parents.
Oh, he thought, shit.
Jack had, on occasion, wished that he wasn’t an only child. Just so he didn’t have the same pressure. So his parents had a back-up child in case he turned out wrong. It was a terrible thing to wish for, but he’d never wanted it more than he did in that moment.
His mother had her arms around herself, fingernails gripping so tight that she could have broken skin if not for the jacket she was wearing. Her face was utterly pale, with salty tear-tracks from where she’d been openly allowing them to fall. The expression she wore was rigidly caught on the edge of terror, like she wasn’t quite sure that this was actually happening just yet. But his father was something else; one hand on his wife’s shoulder as if he were in a fit state to comfort anyone, the other covering his mouth. There was red in his wide eyes and horror on his face and Jack just wanted to fix it somehow. They were both staring through Jack to his body on the bed, not moving, barely breathing, shaking minutely as they waited.
The doctor swore softly as the next jolt failed to save Jack.
‘Sorry to bring you here,’ he said to the boy next to him, ‘you probably don’t want to see this.’
I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to see their faces when the doctor gives up and they all realise I’m dead. I don’t want to be dead… I don’t want-
‘I never remember my dreams anyway.’ he said, but he flinched when another shock was sent through Jack’s chest. Any moment now and they’d call it. He wasn’t waking up.
The boy was trembling, and then he’d apparently struck a resolution because he was saying, ‘It’s going to use all my magic but there’s something my grandmother taught me.’ in a rush. Next he was moving with urgency to the body on the bed, dragging Jack over by the wrist.
‘You want to live?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Jack said, because he didn’t have to think about this at all. It was the strongest impulse in his mind, like he was a scared animal caught between the moment he realised it was over and the moment the predator got him.
‘Okay then,’ was the response, and Eric placed the hand that wasn’t grasping Jack’s wrist on the breastbone of the body on the bed, waiting for the tiniest moment as the doctor lowered the paddles once more. ‘I shouldn’t do this.’ he assured him, and then he did it anyway.
This time Jack felt the jolt through his chest, and then he felt nothing at all.
. _/
Darkness. And then
(beep)
A dull ache. Like the ache from lying in one position for far too long, except he wasn’t entirely sure he could move.
(beep)
It was worse around his ribcage, a feeling as though he’d been bound like a barrel and each of his steady breaths hurt them more. Maybe he should
(beep)
Maybe he should take shallower breaths. Except that didn’t seem to work and he didn’t seem to be in control of his breathing at all. Why did he feel like this? He dimly remembered
(beep)
Okay, whatever that was, it was distracting. He dimly remembered a shock right through his chest and…
Beep.
…and a feeling like he’d lost more than he’d ever thought he could. His parents’ desperation,
Beep.
An ice rink, that boy.
Beep.
Yet another moment of weakness in a long and inglorious train. The feeling
Beep.
Of cold tiles under his cheek. The childhood-nightmare
Beep.
Sensation of not being able to scream.
Beep.
His dad was in the house. Beep But Jack couldn’t tell him Beep that he was dying.
Beep. Beep. Beep, beep, beep beep beep beep…
‘Jack?’
That was his mother’s voice. But again he couldn’t call out. The beeping kept going, faster than before, and he could feel his fingers curling but he couldn’t seem to move.
‘Jack, honey, are you awake?’
She sounded scared, now. But there was a hand on his forehead and Jack wanted to explain how much trouble he was in but his tongue couldn’t seem to move.
There was something in his mouth. And harsh sheets beneath his hands. His mother brushed a lock from his forehead while the beeping gradually began to slow. The darkness was stained red now, and Jack slowly realised that it was light filtered through his closed lids.
It took all of his drained mental capacity to remember how to open his eyes.
‘Oh Jack-’ relief ‘-thank god. I thought… but it’s alright, I should get a nurse or…’
She trailed off, and Jack wanted to fill the silence somehow but there was still a plastic tube restricting his speech. The machine that was beeping was also moving air in and out of his lungs. This was a hospital, clearly, and the doctors apparently wanted him to have as few things to do as possible. With his mind still thick and sluggish, he couldn’t begin to make sense of what had happened. And then his mother wasn’t there anymore, and he was left alone with the pale ceiling, and in the next moment she had returned with someone to check the machines and to tug the tube out of his mouth. It was longer than he’d expected, slowly being dragged out from his throat.
He was left with a strange taste and cracked lips. A smaller tube was placed under his nose and the nurse was asking if he wanted water. Eventually, he remembered how to nod.
‘Your father should be back soon.’ his mother informed him, holding his hand in both of hers and Jack struggled to gulp down the water.
Speech was next, if he could remember how that worked. They waited in silence for a few minutes while his mind slowly cleared and he could better understand what had happened.
He should have known better. He should have asked for help when he knew he was losing control. He should have-
His father arrived soon after, looking as though he hadn’t slept in all the time that Jack had been unconscious. He took the seat next to his wife with a weak ‘Hey.’ as his whole frame seemed to relax as though it hadn’t for a long time. Already, Jack could feel himself start to drift back to sleep.
‘I’m sorry.’ he managed, unable to meet either of his parents’ eyes.
His mother was shaking her head, and his father responded, ‘Don’t. It’s our job to look after you, this isn’t your fault.’ It sounded as though he’d expected Jack to apologise, but after that statement he seemed to get more nervous, watching Jack closely as he added, ‘We just need to know-’
‘It wasn’t intentional.’
It was a mistake. A giant goddamned fuck up. But his answer must have come as a relief because both his parents took steadying breaths and his mother ran a thumb over this hand.
‘Okay.’ she said, ‘We’re going to sort this out. You’re going to be fine.’
. _/
This was a strange definition of “fine”. Jack was sure he had the only parents in the world who could be disappointed in him for going to college.
They weren’t actually disappointed, of course, because they had taken to being so supportive and protective of him that he almost missed those teenaged years when they’d actually be exasperated with him now and then.
No matter, ESPN was disappointed enough for everyone.
This was his life now; go to his therapist, attend his lectures, play hockey, and keep his head down. He could still make it to the NHL if he could just keep his head down. Keep your head down, he told himself, every time the world started to overwhelm him. Keep your head down, he repeated, whenever he needed motivation to work on assignments. He was there to do what he was supposed to and to try to be forgotten. The Stanley Cup could still be in his future if he managed to just…
Keep your head down. It was there in the back of his mind as his fingers fidgeted over the table. He wasn’t precisely doing a very good job at that particular moment.
The first time he met Officer Erangi was a Tuesday, and Jack was trying his best to seem inconsequential.
‘Good afternoon.’ he said, as he walked into the room with a small stack of paper. The door was closed behind him and Jack couldn’t help but notice the hoop on the table for people to be handcuffed to.
It took a few moments for Jack to remember that he was supposed to respond, ‘Afternoon.’
‘Don’t look so nervous, you’re not any in trouble.’
The papers were placed on the table and the officer took a seat on the other side, hands clasped in front of him.
‘My name is Officer Hemi Erangi and I’m here to take your statement. It’ll be over quickly and won’t hurt a bit.’
He had a strange accent, with a habit of pronouncing more of the letters in each word in a vaguely English way, and a lilt at the end of the sentence.
‘Okay.’
‘Just start from the beginning.’
Jack nodded politely, opened his mouth to speak, and then realised that he had no idea what he was going to say.
‘I… saw someone being mugged.’ he tried.
Officer Erangi raised his eyebrows, ‘Okay, go back just a little bit. Why were you there?’
Just keep it simple. Don’t make him suspicious. ‘I was going for a walk.’
Erangi frowned down at his pile of papers, ‘You live at Samwell?’
Oh good. An easy question.
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s two hours away, how did you get there so fast?’
Shit. He should have thought about that before. This was ridiculous, he had practice soon and he hadn’t even met the new frogs. What was he going to say? “Sorry I’m late guys, I was stuck at the police station”?
‘I was going for a run.’
‘You said walk.’
‘Yeah… I was walking and then I started running.’
‘You’re wearing jeans.’
His mother was an actor, god dammit, he should be better than this. At some point in his life he should have learnt how to lie.
‘It was a spontaneous run.’
It’s not like this was the first time he’d been in this situation. It was, he supposed, the price he paid for still being alive. All he had to do was keep his head down and ignore the memories that drifted through his mind like the moment you realise that that thing you remember only actually happened in a dream. That was probably the best way to think about it, yet he’d begun to let himself acknowledge that those memories were things that hadn’t happened yet. But that wasn’t the biggest problem that that witch had caused.
‘A spontaneous run.’ Erangi repeated.
‘I’m a hockey player.’
The biggest problem was his ability to know when people were going to die. And there was no pretending that this one wasn’t real; it had been a part of his life for years now and he was stuck with it. One sudden vision that a mugging was going to go wrong and he had to be there to stop it or that was blood on his hands.
‘So you were out running…’
‘Uh huh.’
‘…you saw someone being mugged…’
‘Yep.’
‘…and you decided to break his nose.’
Jack was already trying to work out how to hide his bruised knuckles from the team.
‘I’m a hockey player.’ he repeated, ‘It’s just instinct I suppose.’
Eventually the confusion turned to boredom, and Jack let work fatigue and the low level of offending sap Erangi’s interest in “getting to the bottom of this” or whatever it was that police officers did.
He was out in another half hour, heading for the bus stop at a brisk walk and just hoping to get back to the rink on time.
Shitty was there. He and his moustache seemed confused.
‘You’re… late…?’
‘Shut up.’
He did, in fact, shut up. But Jack could tell that he was thinking, which was just as bad.
‘I had a thing.’ Jack added, unnecessarily.
‘Okay fine, don’t tell me anything.’
From their past two years of friendship, Jack knew enough about Shitty to tell that he was trying to somehow pout without actually pouting. Telepathic pouting. There was intent to pout, but no actual action.
Jack irrationally wanted to apologise. Instead, he mumbled, ‘let’s just get started.’ and kept his eyes down as he headed into the locker room.
New season. Deep breath. Just the process of getting all his gear on and slipping his jersey (Samwell red; he’d come to appreciate it, even if it wasn’t where he thought he’d be by now) over his head. It wasn’t as if this would be his first time on the ice that year – it wasn’t even his first time on the ice that week – but it was the very start of a brand-new season and Jack tried to keep his heartrate slow as he assured himself that this year would be the year they’d win.
One of the frogs was holding what was left of a pie. It wasn’t the most auspicious start that Jack could have hoped for. The other players were towering over him, finishing off the last pastry and leaving the man with his empty pie dish, while the frog looked smaller than he no doubt really was. Not that he wasn’t small anyway; he looked short even in his skates. It didn’t help that he had blond curls and huge eyes, and was looking suddenly nervous as he noticed Jack watching him.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘The uh, the boys finished off the pie already.’
The deep southern accent was a bit of a surprise as well. Of course, there was no way to predict how good someone was at hockey just by their accent, but somehow this drawl wasn’t exactly filling Jack with confidence.
He didn’t respond to the new guy’s apology, choosing instead to turn to the rest of the frogs and clear his throat, ‘Welcome to Samwell,’ he began, mostly because Shitty told him that that was a better way to begin than a lecture, ‘I’m your captain, I go by Jack. You’ve already met Shitty, he’ll but running the Haus tour and generally welcoming you all to the team. Our manager, Lardo, is in Kenya at the moment but she’ll be back later in the year. And if you need any advice, you can talk to any of the upperclassmen. The coaches will be explaining most of what you need to know, but if you have any questions, now’s a good time.’
Shitty was looking at him approvingly, so Jack took that to mean that he’d done alright at appearing “approachable” and “friendly” or however he was supposed to come across.
The frogs shuffled a little in their skates, looking too nervous to be the first to ask a question. A few silent seconds passed until Jack decided that that was that and added, ‘Well then let’s get started. And, uh…’
It took a few moments for the blond man to notice that Jack was looking at him.
Shitty cut in, ‘We’re calling him Bitty.’
Of course he’s called Bitty. ‘Right. Bitty, do you want to put the pie dish down?’
‘Oh.’ he said, ‘Right.’
At least he skated over to the benches looking natural on the ice. The pie dish was set on the away bench and he skated back in quick, fluid movements. Maybe, Jack began to think, he might have judged Bitty too quickly. Height, and baking ability, weren’t really indicators of hockey talent, and the coaches must have chosen the guy for a reason.
Five minutes later, Bitty was curled up on the ice.
With all his captaincy experience, Jack hadn’t needed Shitty’s suggestion to start with a game of shinny. It was a good way to get an overall sketch of how the new guys play and, with the world’s smallest forward getting his first taste of checking, there were two people on the ice now abjectly panicking.
Bitty was lying in the foetal position, Ransom objecting that he’d barely touched him, and Jack was watching his hopes for the season slip away already.
He didn’t know how to deal with this. But it was his job as captain and what he knew was that yelling was not going to fix anything at this moment. Later, there would probably be yelling, but for now…
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, crouching down to talk to Bitty. For an instant his mind was filled with the thought that this frog was vulnerable, in that position, to Jack’s deathly sharp blades. But the image passed and Jack was too used to intrusive thoughts not to push on through.
‘Nothing.’ Bitty replied, peeking out at Jack even as he kept shaking.
‘Are… are you sure?’
‘I’m fine.’
His arms were still pulled in tight to his chest.
Deep breath. ‘It’s just that you appear to be lying in the foetal position.’
‘Oh. Right. That.’
‘Yeah. That.’
‘Let me just…’ with some evident difficulty, Bitty forced himself to uncurl and sit upright, one side of his face flushed from proximity to the cold ice, ‘There, I’m fine.’
This, Jack knew deep in his soul, was going to become a real problem for him later.
‘Alright.’ he said, ‘You want to stand up? We should be getting to the hard work now anyway.’
Bitty was rising unsteadily to his feet and avoiding eye contact, but everyone else was grimacing at the phrase “hard work”.
It was time to see how much they were willing to push themselves, and to make it clear what Jack expected of the team. This was serious. And yeah, it was more serious for him in particular than the rest of the team as a whole, but this was still varsity level hockey. People were supposed to take it seriously.
People weren’t supposed to curl up on the ice at the first suggestion of contact.
This was turning into a particularly bad day.