Chapter Text
The first thing Shane saw after waking up was the white ceiling. It wasn’t the ceiling of his cottage, nor the one from his bedroom at his parents’ place.
It was clinical. A geometric square pattern across it.
He realized immediately where he was.
Hospital.
Next to him he heard the constant sound of the heart monitor, beeping to his own heart rate. His entire body felt tired, absolutely drained, limbs heavy. For a moment he wondered if he was completely lucid or if there were still drugs in his system.
“Shane?” A voice came from next to him.
Blinking twice, trying to get more focus, Shane turned his head and found his mother next to him. Worried expression on her face.
Something had gone wrong.
“You are okay.” Her voice cooed. He felt her hand squeeze his.
What happened? He tried to ask, but the words didn’t come out.
The lights were blinding. So he shut his eyes again. He didn’t fall asleep again, not with the beeping monitor and the gently pressure on his hand.
He heard a door open, steps across the tile flooring and the press of buttons on the monitor next to him.
“Good afternoon. Are you awake?” Another voice asked him.
He blinked against the light, his eyes adjusting to the sudden change. His head was aching, or perhaps it already had been before he woke up.
“Good to see you. How are you?” A nurse.
He let out a grunt as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make sense of the room. “My head hurts.”
“I will see if I can get you something for that. But I need you to answer some questions for me first.” The nurse told him.
Again he blinked into the lights and finally focussed on the nurse that was next to his bedside. He didn’t recognize her. She looked at him kindly, smile on her face.
“Can you tell me your name and date of birth?”
He breathed in deeply.
“Shane Hollander. May 10, 1991.” He managed. Voice hoarse.
He felt his mom squeeze his hand again. It took energy but he managed to shift his head to the other side. Her eyes full of worry and relief.
“Hi mom.”
“Hi sweetheart.” It came out as a sob. She looked tired as if she hadn’t slept in days. Shane had seen her like this before when he’d been in a similar bed, years before.
“Can you tell me what month and year it is, Shane?” The nurse asked.
Shane focussed on the nurse again. “May 2021.”
A gasp escaped his mom. Had he gotten it wrong? Hopefully not.
“Good. Thank you. And finally what is the last thing you remember?”
He thought he was at home. The living room perhaps. He remembered the migraine that took him by surprise.
“I think I was at my parents place, living room. I had a headache.”
He still had one. It felt as if his head was being split into two.
“Okay, thank you so much, Shane.” The nurse then turned to his mom. “A doctor will come by later for further check up, but for now everything looks okay. There is no reason to worry.”
She pressed another couple of buttons on the monitor connected to the tubes that Shane was attached to. “I’ll up the dosage. It might make you a bit sleepy.”
Then she put the clipboard back into the holder at this bed end and left the room quietly.
Shane looked back at his mom, eyes searching hers, begging for her to tell the truth. “Did I forget again?”
It came out softer than he wanted to.
She smiled at that, and squeezed his hand. “No, though I had been dreading that you had. You got all of them correct sweetheart. You were unconscious for three days.”
Well fuck. He’d blacked out before since his injury back in 2017, but never had it been for more than a couple of hours.
“What happened?”
“You collapsed out of nowhere. We were so worried.”
Shane nodded, trying to recollect whatever he remembered. But his head was heavy, hurting less than before. The new dosage of medicine probably already working. He felt his eyes slowly shut.
He wanted to ask where Dad was, but he couldn’t find the strength to talk. And eventually sleep took him.
He was discharged, four days later. They’d run every possible test on him; blood work, MRI, CAT. His brain was perfectly okay.
No further trauma.
No new trauma.
No reason as to why he passed out in his parents’ living room. Yuna insisted that he’d stay at their place a bit longer at least for a couple of days. Just to get a bit of extra rest. He wanted to argue that he’d gotten enough rest for the remainder of his life over the last four years but could not find the energy to do so.
The doctors reasoned that there perhaps had been a trigger. Something that his subconscious recognized but failed to recall. It had happened before. But that had been two and a half years ago, and he’d only been unconscious for a couple of minutes.
His memory was still a mess.
Vague images, feelings of highs and lows. He missed the thrill. Missed hockey. The cold of the rink. The purpose he had. But names of players, and events were still wiped from his mind. Everything he knew was from what he’d bothered to relearn.
There was nothing new, nothing that he knew from his own memory. So why had he collapsed? What had been the trigger?
Nobody could tell him.
And as he sat in the car, watching the world pass as they drove towards his parents’ cottage, Shane realized that he was done waiting. If he could collapse without proper reason in the middle of his parents living room, then he was maybe never fully recovering from the TBI he sustained four years ago. They had told him to follow additional physical therapy. Also a psychologist. He could do that.
But he wanted to do it on his own this time. Not hidden away from the world in a clinic where his mom had everyone sign a NDA.
He wanted back into the MLH, knew he could not as a player. Not with the muscle damage in his upper leg. It withheld him from properly skating on that level ever again. Moreover the risk of getting hit and suffering more damage to his brain was far too great. But maybe he could get involved in another way in the league.
“Farah called yesterday.” Yuna said carefully.
“Oh?”
“The league wants to honor you and induct you into the Hall of Fame. It would involve you going to the awards ceremony and I don’t know if…”
“I want to go.” Shane cut his mom off. He rarely did so, but he could sense where she was going with that sentence.
“You just got out of hospital, Shane. I can go and accept it on your behalf.”
“It is in what, two months? I want to go myself.”
Vaguely he registered his mom going on about his recovery program, but he tuned her out and thought about the award ceremony. It had been years since he’d been there.
He would hate everybody asking about how he was. But he would be involved again. And perhaps there were other ways he could be involved in the league again. Coaching? Maybe something lowkey. He needed to make his connections in the league again especially if he wanted to go back in there.
So in that car, as they drove, Shane made up his mind. Tonight he would tell his parents at diner. They wouldn’t like it. Or at least, his mom would raise her concerns. But Shane was done. He wanted out of the secure shield that the cottage had provided him from the rest of the world.
He kept calm as they arrived at his parents place. Set his shoes aside and hung up his jacket. His dad walked his bag upstairs towards his room while his mom busied herself in the kitchen.
Shane stopped in the living room. His eyes fell on the large bouquet his father brought home earlier this week. A gift to celebrate their anniversary.
Nostalgia hit him but he couldn’t place it and yet it further solidified his plan and desire to return to the city in his mind.
He was done waiting.
His eyes drifted back to the bouquet.
The lilies were absolutely beautiful.