Disclaimer: Don't own The Mighty Ducks, except for in my happy dreams of Charlie and Adam and Disney can't take that from me. So ha!

Author's Note: This story contains several elements that may be unsettling to readers. It involves the ideas of slash and strong depression. Also there is reference to drug and alcohol abuse as well. Oh and language, I forgot the foul language. It's dark. You have been warned so please don't flame me.

What's Meant to Be

By Bottles

So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery tree

I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dying dreams
I think her death it must be killing me

-The Wallflowers, One Headlight

Charlie Conway, already awake, rolled over at the sound of his alarm clock. He looked in the mirror only to verify what he already knew: that he looked bad, although bad was not even close to describing what Charlie had become. Sleep deprivation was obvious in the dark circles that framed his sunken eyes, but perhaps even more frightening than the circles surrounding his eyes were his eyes themselves. Two years ago their bright sparkle could not be ignored by anyone who met him; they held the sparkle of someone with a limitless future and all the options of the world at his fingertips. Now the sparkle was gone, replaced by a desolate look that would send chills down the backs of all those who dared to meet his eyes. A week old beard littered his narrowed face and his neglected hair lay flat against his head.

Charlie forced himself to get out of bed and put on clothes. His old shirts now hung loosely around his withered frame, while a belt was necessary to prevent his pants from falling to the ground. He knew that he shouldn't do it; perhaps it was the lack of sleep or tomorrow's date, whatever it was Charlie threw his inhibitions to the wind and opened the drawer. His vacant eyes fell upon a piece of green fabric that he could now only look at once a year— an old green jersey, 99, Banks. Charlie's eyes closed as he was bombarded by memories.

"Hey sweetie," Guy said as Connie walked up, her face etched with worry.

Charlie also greeted Connie but she seemed to ignore their greetings, "What's wrong with Adam? I just saw him sprinting from this direction. I think he might have been crying."

Guilt and fear possessed Charlie as he thought of his previous conversation with Guy and realized Adam must have overheard. He took off towards Adam's dorm without a word. Endorphins surged through his body, aiding him in running like lightning streaking across the sky. He ascended the stairs and reached Adam's locked dorm room. There he pounded on the door, trying to force the lock open but it stayed in place.

"Come on Adam, open the damned door. I know you're angry, but I just want to talk," he firmly yelled through the barricade. Frustrated, Charlie tore downstairs and found Dewayne, Adam's roommate, in a study lounge.

"Dewayne," Charlie panted, "I need your room key."

"Why," questioned a concerned Dewayne as he rummaged through his messy multitude of papers, before finally locating the key.

Charlie replied, "I pissed off Adam and now he's not opening the door."

Satisfied with Charlie's answer, Dewayne tossed him the key and looked back to his homework.

Growing continually angry at Adam's childish behavior, Charlie stomped back up the stairs. Slamming the door open he yelled out, "Alright Banks, I've finally got in here. I know you overheard me but it's not like you think." He looked around the room without seeing him. "Damn it Banks, you better be in the bathroom because I went through a lot of fucking trouble to get in here."

Charlie heard the sound of running water in the bathroom and strode in the direction of the closed door. He thought to himself, 'Sometimes I wish I didn't have to deal with all this drama,' before opening the door. The sight that met his eyes had been permanently etched into his retina and haunted his subconscious for the next two years.

Adam Banks was lying on the floor covered in his own blood. His obviously slit wrists dangled over the ledge of the shower into crimson water, and resting in his lap was his green jersey, 99, Banks.

Charlie fingered the jersey and lapsed into a torrent of self-hatred and loathing. He knew it was his fault. He knew that Adam had not only been rejected by him but felt his ridicule when Charlie should have been supporting him instead. He knew that if he had run faster or been a better friend he could have saved him. He could have rescued him. Charlie realizing that he was tearing up slammed the drawer shut and punched the closest wall. He hated himself for what he had done; he had killed his best friend.

After the news of the suicide seeped out everyone was more sympathetic to all the Ducks, but to no one more so than Charlie Conway. Everyone knew that Adam and Charlie had been close friends and that Charlie was the one who had found him. They all were personally distraught but no one, other than Guy, knew all the reasons Charlie blamed himself. The Ducks kept telling Charlie that it wasn't his fault and that he didn't need to blame himself. Sick of the assurances that he was not to blame, Charlie began to push all his friends out of his life. Charlie tried to avoid everything that reminded him of Adam and how he had betrayed him. The next step was quitting hockey and soon Charlie couldn't even be at Eden Hall. The story of Adam Banks was becoming a legend, complete with myths about why he took his life. Charlie had to escape.

"Fuck," cried out Charlie when he realized that hitting a concrete wall was not the best idea in the world. He opened another drawer that contained numerous brown bottles of prescription drugs until he located the pain relievers he was looking for. After swallowing a few of the pills Charlie made his way outside to go to class.

Two years ago when Charlie walked to class he was greeted by almost everyone he walked past. Always surrounded by a few of his closest friends, he was the most well-liked boy in all of the school. Now Charlie walked through the quad alone—solitary and broken. He was a shell of his former self. He had transferred to Cretin-Derham Hall outside of St. Paul, Minnesota the fall following Adam's death. Here the students looked at him with pity. Everyone knew his story; they figured he did not want to associate with anyone, so they avoided him.

Charlie returned to his room that afternoon with a determined resolve. He knew what he needed to do. After spending ten minutes trying to locate and clean his disregarded rollerblades, he put them on and headed out the door.

It was nearing dusk when Charlie arrived at his destination: Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Charlie took off his rollerblades in an attempt to pay respect to those who had gone before him. He surveyed the rows, prying to the depths of repressed memories in hopes of easily locating his ultimate destination.

It was an overcast day. Clouds hung low in the sky as they seemed to be mourning along with the crowds. School had been cancelled and rides provided for all students of Eden Hall who were planning to attend the funeral of Adam Banks. Many girls clad in black wept openly as young men in suits held them closely, pushing back their own tears. Long queues of grievers were expressing their sympathies to the family and close friends. A long figure stood on the outskirts of the crowd. He kept his head down and stood between two old Norway pines looking down a hill to where the mourners congregated. Though he stayed in the shadows, his heart ached more than anyone else the dismal day everyone said their final goodbyes to Adam Banks.

Seeing the two Norway pines, Charlie walked down the slope below and sought out a relatively unweathered grave.

Adam Robert Banks
May 16, 1982 - March 28, 1999
Beloved son and friend, taken too soon.
May you watch over us until we see you again.

Charlie crouched before it, tired from the enormous strain he had just put his body through by skating the distance. He thought how ironic it was that he found himself here talking to a grave. He used to joke how people only did that in movies. Irony always was a bitch.

"Hey Adam," Charlie began to speak out loud, "I don't know if you can hear me or not, but if you can I bet you are wondering where I have been the last two years. I was here for the funeral but I just could bring myself to look your parents in the eye. I didn't want those who gave you life to be in contact with the one who took it away." Two years of unshed tears began to pour forth from his eyelids as he continued, "God Adam, I hate you so much for leaving me like this. I wish that I could have just done something. I know that it's all my fault. I know. I would give anything I have to take back the words I said that day. Why did you have to leave? I didn't love you like you wanted me to Adam, but dammit I loved you. I still love you. You were my best frie—" Charlie's throat was wracked with sobs and he couldn't force any more words out. Instead he fell to his knees, hands braced against the headstone, pouring out his soul.

An older woman walked by and paused beside Charlie's crumpled frame. She placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Are you okay?" When Charlie did not respond verbally but suppurated harder she tried one final time to soothe him, "You'll see them again. One day. Until then all you can to is wait," she surveyed the headstone, "Many of my friends died young so long ago." Charlie calmed himself long enough to look at the woman and into familiar eyes. The woman's eyes held emptiness that Charlie had only seen in his own. He could feel the pain and loss in her life, but not a ray of happiness poked through. He rationalized with himself that if this woman could survive all these years without her friends he could make it without Adam. But then again, she didn't have their blood on her hands. Disturbed by her presence Charlie quickly rose, rollerblades in hand, and walked to the nearest bus that would take him to St. Paul. He turned around for one last look at Adam's grave and shivered upon seeing the reddish hue the setting sun cast upon it.

The brisk March air chilled Charlie to the bone as he walked back into his dorm room. He knew the buses were going to stop running in two hours and if he wanted to do everything he had planned and make it back to Lakewood before then he was going to have to work quickly. He stripped himself of his bulky clothing and took a rapid yet thorough shower. Then he shaved, styled his hair, and put on cologne. Next he put on one of his better pairs of khaki pants and a clean button up shirt. Gazing at the finished product in the mirror, Charlie, other than the dark circles and thin structure had to admit that he almost looked back like his former self. After throwing several items into an oversized green and yellow duffle bag and scribbling a quick note, Charlie Conway walked out the door, almost like a new person with a bounce in his step that had been missing for a long time.

While Charlie sat on the bus he sorted through his duffle bag, he reached inside and fingered a full brown prescription bottle. A conversation with Casey Conway echoed through his mind.

Charlie sat exasperated on his bed with the phone to his ear, the voice of his mother blaring loudly through the phone, "Charlie, did you go to your meeting with Dr. Leery today?"

Charlie had considered skipping the meeting completely but he knew that if he missed the appointment he would have to suffer the wrath of his mother. "Yes Mom. I went, we talked, and I really don't see why I have to go."

"Charles Conway, you know as well as I do that you need these psychiatric treatments. You haven't been sleeping and you have all these anxieties. Your stepfather and I can not continue to pull you out of schools and activities because you are not dealing with your problems. Did he change your medications?"

"No Mom," Charlie sighed, "he just told me to keep taking the Nembutal." Charlie stood up and threw the full bottle of pills into his top drawer. He then went to his closet and pulled out a half empty bottle of Absolut Vodka and a shot glass. He always said these conversations with his mom drove him to drink; then again everything drove him to drink these days. He chuckled silently thinking how much his mother would disapprove of his slight alcohol problem that was developing.

Casey continued to lecture Charlie about the necessity of taking the medicine and Charlie continued to take shots. It was a great game he had created, every time he said 'yes Mom,' he would take a shot of vodka. By the time he finally hung up with his mother Charlie was quite drunk indeed. He laid down on his bed and entered a dreamless sleep. Charlie's doctors always said the Nembutal would help him sleep better but Charlie always felt that he didn't deserve to be without the pain. True the alcohol helped him sleep but it always compensated for this with a raging hangover in the mornings.

Charlie was pulled out of his memory when the inertia of stopping jerked him forward and allowed him to see that he had reached his stop. Once more his feet carried him to a spot down the hill from two Norway pines, Adam's final resting spot. Charlie sat down and began to unload his duffle bag: candles that were necessary for light around the gravesite, glasses, a full fifth of cheap tequila, champagne, and a brown bottle. Charlie immediately went to the tequila and turned the bottle upwards. After 15 minutes he had consumed three quarters of it and was becoming extremely inebriated. The intoxication allowed Charlie the courage to begin to speaking.

"Are you happy Adam, are you? Can you see me," he screamed out vehemently. "Do you see what my life is? It's entirely your fault. Why in the hell do you have to go out and kill yourself? I told you I was sorry, why won't you let the pain end? The last two years of my life are wasted. I spent those years feeling bad for what I thought I had done and trying to reconcile with myself. Now I've realized that there really is nothing I can do. The guilt is stronger than any feeling that could consume me Adam. Some days I wish I could have just told you I was gay and really meant it, but couldn't Adam, I'm really not gay. But dammit I love you. I would do anything for you. I will die for you. You are that special to me."

Charlie took out the brown bottle and dropped six all yellow capsules with the word "Abbott" inscribed upon them into his hand. He had researched and read a heavy dose of Nembutal was 200mg. He had decided that 600mg would be strong enough to serve their purpose, not to mention all the alcohol he had imbibed. He then took both glasses and filled them with champagne he had procured from a local grocer. Charlie placed one on top of Adam's gravestone and held the other up in the air.

"To you Adam." The wind carried Charlie's last words across the vacant cemetery as he washed six yellow capsules down his throat with a glass of champagne.

Charlie Conway laid down in the quiet darkness clutching only an old fabric in his arms. A green jersey, 99, Banks.

Author's Note II: I wasn't really planning on continuing this but then someone mentioned something about a sequel and then the plot bunnies started eating away at my soul until I wrote this. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed the previous chapter and especially no banksie for betaing and dealing with me as I bitched about the chapter. Although I admit that I really like how this chapter turned out. So please review and tell me what you think.