I looked at the man in front of me as the puck dropped to the ice, sucking in a breath.

"Game on," Bobby shouted.

I raced forward and caught the puck, fluid in motion as I looked to my left where Angel was. I passed it off to him just as I was slammed into the wall, pushing away the man even as I screamed, "Get it Angie!" The puck hit the back of the net as we scored the first point, Jack skating around me.

"Get off that guy's dick and play!"

With a growl, I raced off after the youngest Mercer child, the mutual anger between us fueling the match. And then as I became the target of the other time- aside from being the smallest player, I was also the best on my team. The Mercers would be hurting without me.

I cried out as I was smashed into the glass by a guy atleast twice my size, my legs going out from underneath me.

Jack was there, pulling the guy from off of me and starting to beat the shit out of him, "You… dick!"

I struggled to catch my breath as pain rippled throughout my chest, knowing from experience that I had at least three seriously bruised- if they weren't broken- ribs. Jerry was helping me up off of the ice as Bobby struggled to separate Jack from the brawl that had broken out, Angel fighting alongside his little brother.

Bobby lifted me up into his arms and my whole torso felt like it was on fire, my hand tightening on his forearm. "Goddamn, that hurt but we gotta finish the game," I groaned, clutching at my chest. He grinned and skated off of the ice, shaking his head at my tenaciousness.

"You are fucking amazing Kate."


"Fuck you!"

I leaned against the kitchen table as Bobby wrapped my ribs, Jack watching me carefully. He had a bag of ice pressed against his eye from where he was hit in the face, "You went down hard Katie. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" I took a swig from the bottle of whiskey in front of him before shaking my head, panting. "All I need is the bottle of Vicodin out of my purse and the rest of this whiskey and I'll be fine. I'll just sleep it off," I replied, smiling at him.

When Bobby was done, I pulled my tee shirt on, groaning in pain even as I laughed.

"Alright Jack- its your turn."

"Oh you're going to kill me," Jack said, setting the ice on the table as I began to tend to the gash on his eyebrow. Jack's eyes were intent on my face as I worked, deep and full of something I didn't understand. "Why did you listen to us all those years ago when we told you that you didn't have a choice to play hockey if you were going to be a Mercer," he asked quietly.

I smiled and pulled out a needle and thread, "Because I needed a hobby. And because I wanted to be a Mercer, wanted to be as close as possible to you."

"Oh really?"

"For all my efforts to ignore you, for all my efforts to resist you- for all my efforts to ignore the fact that I loved you Jack Mercer, hockey was the only thing that helped because then it was like none of that mattered except the fact that we were together. Despite how I felt, I couldn't help but to gravitate towards you," I replied, starting to stitch up his face. "It was our thing, wasn't it? All those late nights sneaking out with our skates over our shoulders, your little hand wrapped around mine and this excited smile on your face like I had just given you the world. For me, hockey opened my eyes- I watched that intense look come over your face, watched you psych yourself up and then I followed you as you took off across that ice. You were the most amazing thing to me…"

And then I looked at Jack, his arms wrapping around me and pulling me into his lap. He smiled, his dimples captivating me for just a moment before his lips met mine.

I kissed him, deeply and with a vicious hunger that took me by surprise. "Jack."

I pulled away and ended up with my back against the fridge, blue eyes searching my face. "Mmmhm- no, I can't Jack. I cannot do this with you," I whispered, biting down on my bottom lip.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm going to kiss you again and I shouldn't," I murmured, Jack shaking his head as he stared down at his tattooed arms.

I heard him sigh and waited for him to speak, his eyes taking in the ink upon his skin. "Do you know what this is like for me Kate? What it feels like to be… alive after all that we went through together, after all that I went through alone? What it feels like to have the one person you thought you'd lost forever- the one person you refused to truly live without- walk back into your life and have yourself hope for the first time in six long, painful years?

"Its like having everything that defined you ripped away and then suddenly thrust back at you, but you don't know what to do anymore. Its like being born again and having to learn how to speak, how to walk- how to run all over again. I know I'm not making any sense here, I know," he chuckled, looking up at me sadly.

It scared me the way that Jack seemed like he was being followed around by ghosts every moment of his life and I knew that I was surely one of them.

I swallowed painfully, "I can live with false hope, drag out the inevitable- but I will not surrender to that, to you Jack- not again. I don't know how this mess of emotions and broken hearts and long-forgotten oaths will end, but it will; it always has to. I can do this... but I won't surrender myself to that pain, to that love. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."