Chapter Text
Hannah
It's the beginning of November by the time they finally discharge me, four days after my second surgery, this one on the burns across my back, another round of grafting the doctors say should be the last major procedure I need. I've got a whole new collection of scars now, careful lines mapped across skin that used to just be skin, and I'm still getting used to catching sight of them in a mirror without flinching.
My parents fly back to Indiana the same week, my mom crying at the airport in a way that makes me cry too, though hers are relief tears now instead of the terrified kind, and mine are some complicated mix of both.
"Call me every single day," she says, gripping my face in both hands the way she used to when I was small. "I don't care if it's just to tell me what you had for lunch."
"I will, Mom. I promise."
"And you're doing your exercises? For your leg?"
"Mom."
"I'm allowed to ask a hundred questions, sweet pea. I flew four hours and sat in a hospital chair for three weeks. I've earned the right to be annoying about it now."
I laugh, and it doesn't hurt as much as it used to, my ribs finally starting to feel like they belong to me again. My dad hugs me last, tells me he expects a rematch at Euchre next time, since he's apparently been practicing this whole time and actually thinks he's got a shot at beating my mom now (He never will).
Then they're gone, and it's back to normal life, or whatever normal looks like now.
There isn't really a big decision about where I stay, honestly, not the way it might sound. I basically lived at the hockey house half the week even before the crash, my toothbrush already in their bathroom, half my clothes already migrated into Garret's dresser over the last year without either of us ever officially discussing it. It just makes sense to keep doing that now, especially with my leg still in its cast, still not fully trustworthy on crutches.
My own apartment is the actual problem. No elevator, and the stairwell up to our floor feels endless even on a good day, three full flights that I used to run up without thinking twice and now have to plan around like a whole expedition.
The first time I try it after getting discharged, going back to grab more of my things with Allie, I make it about halfway up the second flight before my crutch catches wrong on the edge of a step and I have to stop, breathing hard, gripping the railing.
"You okay?" Allie asks, hovering close behind me.
"I'm fine. Just need a second."
Tucker, who happened to be dropping something off at the same time, comes jogging up the stairs behind us the second he sees me stop, already reaching out like he's about to just pick me up and carry the rest of the way himself.
"I'm good," I say quickly, holding up a hand before he can actually get to me. "I got it, Tuck. Seriously."
"You sure? I really don't mind."
"I know you don't. But I've got it." I adjust my grip on the crutches and keep going, slower this time, more careful, and I do get it, eventually, sweating and a little shaky by the top, but upright the whole way on my own power. "See. Got it."
Tucker just grins, hands up in surrender. "Never doubted it, Wellsy."
Garret, for his part, has finally lost the sling, which should mean less careful handling all around, except he's still supposed to be taking it easy on that side, still building back range of motion slow and gradual, and he apparently interprets taking it easy to mean absolutely anything except actually resting his own arm.
"You are not supposed to be lifting me," I tell him, for probably the fourth time in a week, when I catch him eyeing the stairs at the hockey house like he's calculating whether he could still manage it.
"I wasn't going to lift you."
"You were absolutely about to try and lift me."
"I was thinking about it. Thinking isn't the same as doing."
"Garret. Your physical therapist would have an actual heart attack."
"My physical therapist doesn't need to know everything."
"Garret."
"Fine. Fine, I won't lift you." He holds both hands up, mock surrender, though I catch him still hovering a half step behind me the entire way up anyway, close enough to catch me if I stumble, careful enough not to actually touch me unless I need it. It's not lifting, technically. It's still very Garret.
I go back to classes slow, one at a time, the same way he apparently did weeks before I even woke up. It feels strange walking into rooms full of people who have no idea what happened to me, no idea I spent nineteen days gone from my own life while they were all just having an ordinary semester. Allie walks with me the first week, matching her pace to my crutches without ever making a thing of it, and by the second week I manage most of it on my own, proud in some small, private way I don't fully explain to anyone.
I've been to plenty of Briar games before, obviously, years of standing in the student section freezing half to death cheering for Garret and Logan and the rest of them, so getting into this one isn't any kind of production, just my student ID and the usual walk in with Allie and Grace, except this time I'm on crutches instead of on my feet, and this time Garret's sitting beside me instead of out on the ice.
He's still not cleared for full contact, weeks out yet from actually playing, so it's strange watching from the stands with him there instead of somewhere out on the bench, his good arm slung loosely along the back of my seat, Grace on my other side already halfway into a conversation with Allie about something completely unrelated to hockey.
"This is weird for you, right?" I ask, during a break in play. "Watching instead of playing?"
"A little." He watches the ice a second, something complicated crossing his face. "But honestly, right now, I'd rather be sitting here next to you than out there. Never thought I'd say that about hockey, but here we are."
"That's genuinely the sappiest thing you've ever said to me."
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation."
Logan scores in the second period, a clean shot from the blue line that gets the whole section on its feet, Grace and Allie both screaming loud enough that I'm pretty sure people two rows down can hear them clearly over everyone else, and Garret's up too, cheering, wincing slightly at the movement but not caring at all, grinning the widest I've seen him grin in weeks.
"He's going to be insufferable about that for a week," Garret says, sitting back down.
"You'd be worse if it were you."
"Absolutely not. I'd be very humble about it."
"You would not."
"I would be extremely humble."
"Garret, I've known you a year. You'd find a way to bring it up at Thanksgiving."
He laughs, actually laughs, easy and unguarded in a way I haven't heard in weeks, and something in my chest settles hearing it, some proof that whatever's still sitting underneath everything hasn't taken that away from him completely.
I still don't remember any of it, the crash itself, or even the drive leading up to it beyond that one flat wall where the memory should be, Garret's Jeep, the parking lot, and then nothing. I've stopped waiting for it to come back on its own. The doctor said it might never fully return, that the brain sometimes just doesn't hold onto the moments closest to a trauma like that, protecting itself in whatever way it can. Most days I've made a strange kind of peace with the gap. Tonight, watching Garret laugh beside me, easy and whole for a few minutes at least, I think maybe not remembering isn't the worst version of this. Maybe some things are allowed to just be missing.
Later, walking slow out to the car after the game, my crutches clicking against the pavement, Garret half a step behind me the way he always is now, careful without hovering, I catch him watching me instead of where he's going and he nearly clips a parked car with his shoulder.
"Watch it," I laugh, catching his arm before he can actually collide with anything.
"Sorry. Got distracted."
"By what?"
"You. Obviously."
"Don't be an ass, Garret," I say, rolling my eyes, though I can feel myself smiling anyway, some old, familiar rhythm settling back into place between us for the first time since before any of this happened.
"You love my ass, Wellsy," he says, grinning, and it lands exactly the same way it always has, exactly the same way it did that night in the car before everything changed, before any of it, and something about hearing it again, whole, unbroken, standing upright instead of hanging upside down in a wrecked car, makes my whole chest go warm and full in a way I don't think I have the words for yet.
"Some things never change," I say.
"Good," he says, quiet now, serious underneath the joke. "I don't want that part to."
I don't either. Not that part. Not ever.