A/N: I've been in between being inspired and not. Also, I'm kind of sad that this is coming to an end soon. Here's hoping it satisfies you, otherwise let me know!

January 13, 2007

There were a few things Cam was certain of when he grew big enough for his first pair of ice skates. In fact, there were two things. Whenever he was quick enough to steal and deck his older brother for a winning goal, his father would flash him a beaming grin, and, in turn, Cam returned his grateful one. Though he quickly learned that a misstep here and puck deflected from scoring there meant that that same warmth in his father's face would drain almost completely, almost permanently until the correction was made. He wasn't a terribly mean man. In fact, Donald Saunders wasn't known for yelling, cursing, or raising a hand to any of his children, but there was a certain way he showed his disappointment-out in the open and without much remorse.

You could easily win his acceptance. But, Cam realized early on that to lose it would mean that a stubborn, stormy cloud would hang over you for as long as you did not fight for it back.

On a particularly cold, grim scrimmage day, one he remembers even now because of how winded he felt from standing up to his father for the very first time, he realized he was quite certain of nothing. Certain of nothing except that that day his skate-less feet lead him off the ice and someplace else.

Like every visit to grandfather Sam's florist shop, he was put to work in the greenhouse. The elderly man would often tell him to pull out his frustrations as he would pull at the unsightly weeds near the greenhouse's outside border. Otherwise his grandfather would teach him how to tend to the plants, and how to squash any distress that made him shake with anger by concentrating on finding calmness so as to be gentle to the fragile greenhouse inhabitants.

It only took one uncontrolled, too heavy hand with the pruning sheers to effectively sever his grandfather's prized purple orchid. He groaned, frustrated, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. Holding the forlorn flower in his trembling hand, he fleetingly thought of propping it up against the leaves or the stem of the plant, but thought better of it.

Grandfather Sam, a quiet and often blunt man, would most likely drain his face of any semblance of his usual mild contentedness. So, he sat, shaking under an ivy laden trellis, waiting for the sting in his chest to swell and burst from the eventual scolding. His grandfather approached him, seemingly knowing what had happened.

'Shame,' was all Sam stated, joining Cam on the bench. He took the severed flower and peered at it closely as if to inspect it. 'I was hoping to sell it to Mrs. Wagner.'

Cam bit down hard on his bottom lip, and he felt stinging in his nose, feeling a new wave of tears coming. 'I'm sorry,' he choked out weakly.

Sam whistled low, and pushed himself off the bench, then gave a gruff grunt. 'Can't be helped now.' He turned his back on him. 'Come and help me fix up a new plant for that fussy old bat.'

When Cam hesitated, the indifference in Sam's voice hardened, calling him again. The younger boy instantly got up on his feet and found his side.

Sam gestured his gardening gloves to a potted Peace Lily. Its petals and long stem gleamed in the Spring light.

'Your clumsy grandmother knocked this plant down weeks ago. Broke the stem clean in two. Good as new though. See,' Sam explained, and when Cam audibly sniffed instead of answering he continued. 'Do you think Mrs. Wagner would mind?'

Cam shook his head, but in his ten years worth of living experience he was still dwelling on the dreaded punishment for his actions. 'I'm sorry. S-so sorry-I-'

'Stop, boy,' Sam cut him off. 'What's done is done.'

'But-'

'Plants are forgiving.' He interrupts again, meeting his eyes, making him understand not to continue on spluttering.

Cam nods, wiping his tears away.

'They can be torn, ripped apart, and wilt and die. But, with warm, patient hands they tend to grow again. They forgive and forget. Do you see?'

Cam glanced back at the gleaming white flower and felt a tug curling his frown upwards. 'Does it make you happy?' Cam eagerly asked. 'Helping things come back and grow?'

'Yes.'

'Do you think I can try?'

Sam studied him carefully, cocking a brow, possibly wondering what he meant by this sudden interest. 'Try.' He nods. 'Or you make due with the people around you who help bring a smile out of you.' His eyes trail Cam's grandmother as she brings them lemonade, and the light in his eyes is unmistakable.

Pieces and flashes come back to Cam some days of the yelling match with his father, with a wish to one day quit his father's dream. Though the longest and strongest pull back to that day belongs to his time in the greenhouse with his grandfather, the sun streaming through the glass panes of the greenhouse's rooftop, warming his neck, thawing out his cold hands, and the promise of the orchid he snapped to grow again.

March 22, 2017

Cam feels a pang in the chest as he scans the backyard from his bedroom, his real bedroom, and he feels the pinched sensation tighten as his tired eyes focus on the man-made rink his father had construed before he could remember.

He has to look away because his mind starts on the ice, the smell of the pine trees at the border of the rink, and his father's hands trying to warm his. The pinch doesn't come from all the happy memories but from the one that he is trying very hard to push down, repressing it from surfacing.

Maya distracts him as she always does, pulling him out of the grays and darks of his mind's eye, when she pads into his bedroom from the adjoining bathroom. He's had dreams of this before. Here, in his childhood bedroom. Her, dressed only in his loosely fitted, collared shirt. And now her arms encircle his neck. That pinched throb in his centre is gone, though a pleasant warmth stays.

'Morning,' she says before kissing him. She scratches lightly at the ends of the hairs skimming the nape if his neck. 'Your hair is getting long again.'

He ignores her. 'Do you mind staying dressed this way for the rest of the day. For the whole weekend.' He tugs at the hem of his shirt, then pulls it closer, her hips aligning flush against his.

'I don't think the rest of your family would appreciate my half nakedness at the kitchen table.' She yelps when he pinches teasingly at her bare thighs, and she idly plays with fabric of his tank top.

'But I would appreciate it,' he argues, taking her hands and guiding them back around his neck. 'And I would generously show my gratitude.'

Then she bows her head to follow his downward gaze to the open shirt she wears, her cleavage baring and not leaving much for the imagination, and when she lifts her eyes back up she knows the spark in them does not go unnoticed. 'I should really help your mom and sister with breakfast.'

'Or you could give me back my shirt.'

His collared shirt flies and lays strewn over his junior hockey league trophies in no time.

With her skin soft and against him, her pink pout swollen from his hungry lips, and her long blonde tresses falling, cascading messily around her face, he's sure anyone could appreciate how she looks this way. It's easy to see her this way-irresistible. It's easy to see that this irresistibility causes the strangled, blissful cry he releases into her hair. Anyone could easily find happiness with her this way.

It's not this though.

It's not the fact that she is completely and still very nude sitting atop his dresser. She's currently allowing him to come down from his high, her hands on his hips steady him as he rests his weighty head on the damp surface of her temple. It's not the fact that her fingertips trace over the pebbled, shallow marks her nails have left on his back, reminding him of how much she's always showing how much she wants him. And she's practically asking for more as she wraps her bare legs around his waist, pressing her new wetness against him.

'Again?' He knows better as his breathing hitches expectantly from her mouth warming the crook of his neck.

It's none of these welcome and obvious privileges that makes him admit an 'I love you'.

In fact, he admits this after their second session on the dresser, as they lie in bed. Well after, since Mick had interrupted midway through a halted climax of the second session. And after the awkward exchanges during breakfast between the three. What's more, she's fully clothed, hunched over her finals notes, and squinting through her black rimmed Ray Bans when he tells her the three words.

Her eyes do not lift when she hands him a crisp, white envelope. It's when he's read the letter for a second time and finally meets her knowing eyes that he bursts with the sentiment, 'I love you.' He kisses her cheek. 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.'

Then, he bites the inside of his cheek before he asks, 'Did my dad see this?'

Maya still has no idea what she's watching when he plays this game. Luckily, the youngest Saunders, Lily, has taken up the cause and tries to commentate on her older brothers and father as they duke it out on the ice. Even Mrs. Saunders, who Maya calls Audrey by insistence, joins in on the fun by showing her new pictures of his first games that she's dug up to add to the embarrassment of Cam from her last visit.

Really, the only distinguishable detail she can make out is the effort Cam places in this game. He skates lazy circles around his older brothers, Mick and Justin, and even Mr. Saunders gets a goal past him. The Saunders boo Cam good-naturedly, and it's amusing that Cam just shrugs and throws faces towards the sidelines.

'Show us what all the fuss is about. Your school's blog won't stop talking about you, blowing up my phone with alerts. But, what is the fuss?' Mr. Saunders says, and she's knows all three cheerleaders by the makeshift sidelines do not miss his irritated voice.

'Cammy's just being silly daddy!' Lily pipes up. 'Besides he doesn't want to show off in front of Maya. Mrs. Collins at school says it's not very nice to do that.'

Audrey laughs and Maya does too, and they both relax when Mr. Saunders' squared off shoulders and frown finally slacken.

It wouldn't take too many hours to witness and understand the almost visible tension Cam and his father carry around the household. Maya had noted it on her first visit during the Christmas holidays, and she notes it now at the dinner table on their last night. It's not that Mr. Saunders, who she is always hesitant to call Donald for some reason, has said and any real mean-spirited things to Cam on both visits. In fact, she has noticed Cam and Donald usually and mostly converse with each other, as oppose to his other siblings. And then there is the uncanny resemblance, similar mannerisms, and their shared knowledge of the professional hockey leagues. But, Donald doesn't actively try to stop himself from saying what everyone knows Cam would rather not talk about. No, Donald has never been a mean person, but there is something about his benign negativity that even leaves Maya feeling sore.

'Coach Healy told me about the scouts that watched your last game before the break.' Donald says before munching into his garden salad.

'Don,' Audrey warns him.

'Did you hear back from them?' Donald presses.

Cam chews slowly, stalling, then swallows. He only shrugs. 'No.'

'Strange.' Donald puts his fork down. 'The scout is a friend of a friend of mine. I heard he's been talking you up. You sure you haven't heard anything?'

Cam sighs, and puts down his own utensils. With the rest of the Saunders clan, Maya quiets, holding her breath as she silently watches the two.

'They'll give me a call when they give me a call. Or Healy will let me know.'

'Huh.'

'Just say what you want to say, dad. Dinner's getting cold.' Cam shakes his head, not meeting his eyes.

Donald scoffs, shaking his head. 'We drove you all the way back to Toronto because you were finally getting better, and we finally got you back on track to your old goals.'

'Dad,' Justin, the oldest brother, interjects with a similar warning tone to his mother's.

Donald puts his hand up to quiet his son. 'I spoke to Debra Healy. She tells me you've given her husband notice for your hockey season at school, that you won't be returning next year for the team.' Donald pauses, then continues in a calm voice. 'I'm sure all of this doesn't mean we should be concerned-not like last time.'

'What?' Cam frowns, anger flaring. 'Why would-I'm not relapsing.'

'Of course, of course.' In that continued even, collected tone, Donald sighs and takes a swig of his Moosehead. 'It's just interesting. I don't know anyone who would pass up the chance of making it into a professional league—the NHL. Christ. I mean, I don't even know anyone your age being considered. And we're not even considering what happened or what people have speculated over the years after Degrassi.' Donald shrugs as Cam silently fumes from his seat.

'Dad,' Cam starts, inhaling deeply to calm himself.

'Makes me wonder if there isn't something else going on.' Donald turns to Maya, and he eyes her belly. 'There's nothing we should be concerned about, is there?'

'Donald,' Audrey scolds him sternly.

Maya stares blankly at him, her mind trying to grasp that he's actually addressing her.

Cam's fist slams down, his plate jumping and clattering with his utensils from the impact. 'Don't ever bring Maya into this.'

Donald's chair falls behind him as he stands on his feet, and then he leaves abruptly. Cam follows suit, but exits the kitchen in the opposite direction.

Maya hears Lily's faint confusion break the thick silence first. 'Mommy,' Lily says. 'Daddy's not being very nice.'

'Sorry about my dad,' Mick, who had not risen his eye level to Maya since the dinner had started, offers. 'He's reached a whole new of boss level of passive aggressive asshole territory tonight.'

'Mick!' Audrey claps Lily's ears closed too late, and looks completely drained from this situation.

'It's fine.' Maya shakes her head, still concentrating on Donald's empty, fallen seat.

Then, after a beat, Mick asks, his eyes cast elsewhere, 'But are you...you know...'

Maya breaks out of her trance to give Mick a sympathetic smile, shaking her head, and laughs nervously. 'No.'

'Thank God,' Audrey laughs too. 'Although that might be a lot easier to admit to excuse their ridiculous behaviour.'

Justin drops Maya off at the Saunders' Florist later on, where he's assured her Cam had often gone for solitude ('or after a nasty fight with dad') in the past. It's a quaint, cream-bricked square building on the corner of Peche street, five minutes away from the Saunders' home. Outside, the sign bearing their family name is embossed on clean bronze, though it's visibly aging. The lights are all off, and the closed sign hangs at the door handle. The only sign that someone is left behind is the light glowing in the distance behind the flower shop, inside the outdoor greenhouse.

'Tell him mom's worried, we all are. Whatever he's worried about telling us, tell him I don't give a shit...and I'm behind him for whatever he wants.' Justin says.

'Haven't you tried telling him that yourself?' Maya asks.

'He listens, but he only ever seems to really change around you, Maya.' He takes her in an unexpected embrace. 'Everyone can see it. He doesn't seem to stop smiling. My family doesn't really know how to put it, but...tell me you know how much you're helping him stay...with us.'

Maya hugs him tighter because Justin has never shown to be one for sharing these thoughts openly.

Cam is pruning something in the corner of the back wall inside the greenhouse, she can tell. He's hunched over in the stool he's sitting on, and in deep concentration. She almost doesn't want to disturb him.

Then, 'Hey May, take a seat.'

She finds an extra stool nearby to join him.

'Sorry I stormed out of there without you.'

'You needed some time alone.' She shrugs.

'But I knew Justin would've brought you here eventually.'

'That looks just like the one in your apartment. Peace lily?' She asks, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him.

He puts down his sheers to look up at her, and she can tell he's calm now, content even, like nothing interesting had happened just an hour ago. 'I haven't been here in a while, I almost forgot how much it helps.' A soft smile spreads across his face.

He scratches the back of his neck, and this familiar habit worries her. She wonders what he's trying to stall, and when she finds him staring all around him, she feels her stomach start to churn.

'Well, it's out now. Everyone knows you're moving on from hockey. Are you worried about...finals?'

'May...' He removes his gardening gloves, and a hand covers her knee.

'Did you bring me to your family home for the weekend, fatten me up with your mom's sweets just to break up with me in a dark greenhouse?' She tries to chuckle here, but she gulps when he stays silent. 'Cam...'

'Of course not,' he shakes his head, serious. 'I wanted you to be the first to know-'

'You're majoring in...plants?'

'Environmental science?'

'You are?'

Cam shakes his head again, then sighs, 'I'm staying here.'

'All night? It's a bit creepy in the dark, isn't it?' She starts to retrieve her hands back.

He looks guiltily on. 'I'm transferring to the college here after the semester is over. Restart in a business program, then take over this shop after my grandfather trains me.'

She stares blankly as he looks terribly anxious for any response she gives him.

'I had a feeling you'd have a plan after you asked me to help you write that notice letter to Healy,' she barely hears herself say this as a numbing sensation washes over. 'I'm not mad. I swear.' She tries her best to keep her lips from quivering, and it frustrates her that it breaks through her painful bite because she really means it.

He takes her hands in his lap, smoothing the inside of her palms. 'I know this means it'll be different for us. Almost ten hours apart different-'

'I'm so proud of you.' She has to say first. 'I knew you had plans, but I just didn't exactly prepare myself for this moment. But, I'm fine, really. I am.' She tugs him close, tightly against her in an embrace. She fears he'll see her brimming tears.

She releases him, watching him figure out his words.

'You know, I was terrified of coming back to the city last year. And even when I settled in with my team, found new friends, nothing felt right. I was so paranoid that I was getting that crazy homesickness again, that nothing would help. That is, until I saw you again. Maya, you were that missing something, something that reminded me of home, you always have been.' He's holding her hands again, as if she were an anchor. He has no idea that she's using him this way too. 'It's funny. After this summer, when I come back home, go back to all my familiar routines, I know I'll get that homesickness again, because I'll know that missing something will be back in Toronto.'

She wipes away the flood of tears that breach, and inhales deeply.

'But, as long you want me, I'll be fine.' He cradles the side of her face, and he smiles as she leans into it.

She grins weakly. 'Just fine?'

'Complete.'

She lets out a sigh, and takes him in, kissing his mouth urgently. And though she knows it's not the moment for the real farewell, that she still has him for a few more months, she lingers against him longer than usual.

In the corner of her bleary vision she sees the glow of tiny lights above them. Then as she opens her eyes wider, she tilts her head to view the string of hundreds of bright white lights strewn, crisscrossing above their heads, blanketing the greenhouse's ceiling.

She watches Cam's confused features shift into realization as he sees past her. Behind her, she sees the briefest passing of a cast shadow.

'For a really private and straight to the point kinda man, Grandpa Sam was always for the dramatics.'

'You mean, you're not going to take credit for this super romantic gesture?' She takes hold of his collar, leaning in close.

'I helped. Not knowing what it was for-er-I mean, I helped.' He fumbled, laughing.

'I'm joking.' She presses a quick peck on his lips. 'Now, I need info.'

He's puzzled as she waits patiently.

'Er-'

'I want to know all the species of these...' She points to the potted pink flowers under her feet, though she knows she's obvious in her forced curiosity. 'I mean, I should probably get used to you talking about them sooner of later…'

He only chuckles.

'Are they-'

'Do you want dessert?' He smirks to see her openly salivate at this. 'Grandma left me some of her key lime pie, and she had a hunch you'd be stopping by too. Unless...you want to hear about these plants.'

'I can deal with both.' She's bubbling with smiles.

Cam sees her. Even after she tries to pass her wavering smiles for cravings to scarf down her piece of pie, she knows he knows. It's only comforting to know he understands, that he feels the same way as his hand periodically finds hers, squeezing it firmly between laughter and silence.

She faintly stirs from a reverberating hum over her skin. It's concentrated on the crook of her neck. Then it's gone, as is her interest in waking.

Next the light shines orange and and yellow hues through her closed lids.

'Cam?' She's wide awake all of a sudden, holding her head as she sits up in his bed.

The side of the bed where he would be is not cold, but the slightest bit warm for her to know he had just gone.

'Cam?' She says louder, grabbing the robe hanging from the bed post at the foot of the bed to cover herself as she tries to drag herself toward the bathroom door.

The distant, muffled shouts outside his bedroom window brings her shuffling back into his room. For a moment, she matches the yelling voices to Cam and his father, and she's worried, wondering if their building tension had finally erupted into a full-fledged fight. But, she eases some, seeing them back on the ice. Only, it's just the two of them, and when she fumbles to put her glasses on, she can see that Cam seems to be enjoying himself. Even more surprising, his father is too.

'I'm not seeing things, am I?' She asks him later.

'I hope not.' He feigns concern. 'That would not be a good thing.'

She teasingly punches him near his ribs. 'This morning, before breakfast, I saw you out on the rink with your dad.'

Cam appears as though he had heard her, and nods, but continues to busy himself with packing his last pile of belongings into his duffle bag.

'You two made up?'

When he looks around, trying to locate something, and finally pounces to capture the stray toothbrush, he sits back down next to her on his bed. She had already packed her bag, and had been waiting patiently for him.

'Just played some one on one,' he tells her, shrugging as if this was enough explanation. But, as she waits again, he sighs. 'An incredibly wise person reminded me that we're lucky to have the time we have now with our loved ones. Anything could happen. I could be gone tomorrow. He could. I didn't want him to think that this whole time I've been recovering, I was thinking that it was all his fault or that the only thing he knows to help me with-hockey-wasn't enough for me. '

She nods, understanding. Then she smiles coyly from his nudge. 'Anything else about this amazing person?'

'Still drools like an angel.' Cam dodges another attack.

The drive back to Toronto is shorter than usual. Maya has to bait her surfacing sadness with the thought that he will be coming home with her this time. Though she can't help but think of their dwindling time together, in months, weeks, and days.