Title: Father and Son

Rating: K+

"Dad?"

Adam Banks looks up and feels like he's looking into the mirror back in his childhood bedroom in Edina, Minnesota. Of course, he's no longer in Minnesota and he's sure that another child in another family has taken up residence in the room he once called his own. 'Mini Adam' had slight differences to child Adam. While the colouring – dirty blonde hair, pale skin, and grey eyes – was the same, it was the shape of the face in general that was different and ironically hawk-like. The eleven-year-old boy looked at Adam expectantly, waiting for a response.

"What is it?" Adam asked; the spell that sent him back to his childhood broken. The boy shifted nervously.

"I don't really wanna play hockey," the boy said cautiously. Adam motioned for his son to follow him, and they both sat down on the couch in the living room.

"I love watching hockey," the boy continued, "but I don't wanna play anymore."

"How come?" Adam asked, "it seemed like you were really enjoying it out there."

The boy shook his head, "The coach expects me to be this hot-shot player and I'm not."

The unspoken inference was loud and clear to Adam – the coach expects me to be this hot-shot player like you.

"Do you feel you have to be?" Adam asked his son. The boy returned with a confused look.

"When I was not much older than you were, I used to play on a Peewee team called the Hawks. They hardly ever lost, and won championship after championship. Your uncle played for them, as did many of our friends. However one day they told me I couldn't play for the Hawks anymore," Adam explained.

"That sucks!" the boy replied, "that's not fair!"

"You're right," Adam replied, "at the time I felt it wasn't fair, but if I didn't play for the other team then I couldn't play at all. Your grandfather was furious, and he tried to make it so I'd stay with the Hawks."

"Did it work?"

Adam shook his head, "No, so I showed up to the next game and the new team hated my guts – I'd done a lot of stupid stuff to them."

"Oh," his son was disappointed.

"That's not the point of the story though," Adam explained, "as time went on and I began to get to know the team things became great. We kept winning and all of a sudden we're in the playoffs and in our final game we had to play against my old team. I got knocked out during the second period and had to go to hospital – my old team mates were told to take me out of the game."

"But weren't they your friends?"

"They were once," Adam conceded, "but my new team proved to be greater friends than I could've ever hoped to have. If we had done things my father's way, then I would never have become friends with your honorary aunts and uncles. I also would've never gone to the Junior Goodwill Games, or went to the school I went to, or even got into the NHL. The point is, you don't have to do what everyone else expects you to do – you need to do what you think is right for you."

The boy smiled at his father and threw his arms around him. "Thanks dad, so you'll let me quit hockey?"

"If that's what you want," Adam replied as he returned the embrace, "all I want for you is to enjoy whatever it is you want to do."

Author's Note: Its been a long time since I wrote anything of any substance, especially for this fandom. I'm planning for this to be a series of mostly unrelated shorts with various themes and pairings (or not...).

This short was inspired by the interaction between Adam and Phillip Banks during D1/Champions. The bit that really got me was the idea around tradition, especially the scene where Ducksworth tries to get Bombay to withdraw the complaint about the 'incorrect' district lines; the argument being that because Adam's brother and friends are/were Hawks then Adam should remain as one even though its against the league regulations. So fast-forward a number of years and Adam's son faces something similar: just because the father was a great player, does it mean the son has to be as well?