Silver Lining

twenty eight.

"I'll give you some privacy; I'm going to get a soda," Charlotte excuses herself, and I nod, silently walking further into the room.

Tears begin to stream steadily down my face as I approach the bed, and my heart aches in my chest at the sight of his left arm over his chest in a sling. The bruising has begun to form on his face and neck, and seeing him in such a state has a sob erupting from me.

At the sound, Nathan groans, turning his head toward me, "Please don't cry, baby."

"For the past hour, I thought you might have been dead," I swallow a deep breath, "You scared me so much, Nath. Fuck my life, if you weren't injured right now, I'd slap you silly."

His body shakes with a chuckle, "I'm alive, Iris, I'm sorry I worried you, but you don't need to worry about me anymore; I'm okay."

"I'll never stop worrying about you; what don't you get?" I wipe my cheeks for the thousandth time in the past hour, "Every time you leave our house to step on that ice; there isn't a single moment in that time that I stop worrying about you, not until you're with me again because I love you so much, you idiot."

At the confession, a grin spreads on his lips and my anxiety rises as I await his response, "And every moment of that time I want to be home with you and the girls, do you want to have a guess why?"

"Why?"

"Because I also love you all so much," he tells me, reaching his hand out for me to take, "I love you more than you'll ever know, Iris. I'm sorry I made you worry, my phone is still at MSG, I would have called."

"You have more than enough on your plate," I stand, looking at his poor arm, "Have the doctors said what you've done to it?"

"Grade two shoulder dislocation according to the x-rays," he winces as he tells me the news, "It should heal in six weeks apparently; it could be a lot worse."

"It could, you got lucky," I'm not sugarcoating it for him; he could have died tonight.

Nathan's going to heal from this accident, but there are players out there who couldn't say the same.

"I can't say I feel it," he admits, "The drugs have kicked into my system now, but the pain I was in before has to be the worst thing I've ever felt."

"I'm glad you're not in as much pain," I sigh, rubbing my thumb against his knuckles, "Did your doctor say if they had any other concerns?"

He gently shakes his head, "No, just that I have a mild concussion and because of it they want to monitor me overnight, so I'll be moved up to the wards soon."

Another sigh of relief leaves me, "You'll be home tomorrow?"

"By the morning hopefully," he murmurs, "I'm sorry this happened, baby; after I leave here, I have some serious thinking to do about the future. It's not fair on you and the girls; I'm thirty this year, I think it's time to revisit the idea of retirement."

"Let's not think about it for now, yeah?" I don't want him to get in his head about the subject, not after everything that's already happened tonight.

"I love you," he tells me, squeezing my hand.

"I love you most," I whisper back, a giddiness filling my heart in a way I've never felt before.

"I'll never get tired of hearing that," he smiles lazily, closing his eyes in utter exhaustion.

✯✯✯

The kicking of both babies wakes me and I groan as I stretch from my uncomfortable sleep, blinking my eyes open. Nathan got moved to a private room on a ward in the early hours of this morning, and I've been in the waiting room since, sleeping on a chair.