Aspiring

Getting Back to Hockey

The hockey players and Lillian made it back to the Boston College Arena. There, Tyler was reunited with all his teammates. He had to inform the Boston Blackhawks about what had happened and that issue seemed to be okay.

Lillian became his girlfriend and vowed to keep him safe and to never let anyone cross the line again. And Tyler vows to keep Lillian safe as well.

A few days after recovering with Lillian’s help, Tyler finally made it to the Blackhawk’s interview. But first, he had to brush up his skills and get back into the swing of playing hockey once again.

On his second night back from his kidnapping, Tyler Marchand tossed and turned in his bed. He had slept but briefly, and fitfully at that, and he now found herself unable to fall back to sleep. His throat felt painfully dry and raw, so that he would have loved nothing more than to reach some sort of claw back down there and scratch away. But of course, that wouldn't have solved anything. It felt like he had been screaming or yelling.

Not to mention, there were much bigger problems to worry about. He was shivering with an undeniable fever, and a hacking cough rattled inside his chest. He tried to keep quiet for Lillian’s sake, but finally the cough became too unbearable, and he was forced out into the open common room.

Lillian was still fast asleep. And Patrick and Fiyero had crashed in the living room on the couch. 

Great, he thought dismally, now I can wake everyone up.

Still hacking away, Tyler shuffled his feet over to the kitchen area and fumbled blindly around in the dark for a glass. Logic naturally told him to turn on the lights, but a sudden, glaring light in his face was absolutely the last thing he wanted. What he really needed now was some ice-cold water on his tortured throat!

After a few more failed attempts, he at last found an empty glass and held it with clammy, shaking hands under the faucet. One full glass he finished on the spot before refilling his cup and plopping pitifully onto the couch that wasn’t occupied. It was certainly good to be off his feet, but Tyler realized much too late that quickly draining a cup of ice water had brought his fevered chills back with a vengeance – and he did not think he now possessed the strength to get up again and retrieve the inviting blanket from his bed. 

He knew he couldn’t be sick. He rarely ever got sick. He was certain it was just from his traumatic experience. With time it would go away, but for now he had to deal with the night terrors and the fever and everything. 

Why, oh why, hadn't he thought to bring it with him in the first place?

"Tyler? Are you all right?" 

Oh no! That was Patrick's voice, if ever he'd heard it. What cruel, horrid luck that he should find him in this pathetic state! So much for trying to look his best these past few days; the image he'd striven so carefully to construct was about to go up in flames.

Feverish flames.

"Yeah, it's me," he croaked, already hating the way he sounded. He cleared his voice and luckily the swelling and hoarse feeling in his throat faded away. 

Patrick came around the couch so that he stood in front of the future Blackhawk, and his voice when he next spoke was layered more with outright concern than mere politeness. "What's wrong?"

Tyler sighed and tried not to sound overly childish as he lamented, "I'm just recovering from a night terror – you know..."

“Oh!”

Another fit of chills overtook him just then, as he remembered all the events and assaults his body had taken at the hands of the twisted women who had captured and kidnapped him. Patrick suddenly vanished from his sight. The young adult's heart sank. Was he truly that repulsive, that he had to run away from him as though he were carrying the Black Plague? But then he came back and – bless his heart – laid a most welcome blanket overtop of him where he sat curled up on the couch. He was a good friend and he was glad that Patrick Cleary had matured and wasn’t mad at him anymore.