Chapter 3 - Minnesota Miracle Man

Ted felt Charlie's finger brush his hand again as Adam and Fulton came rushing in, having seen what Ted had seen.

"Is he waking up?" Adam demanded, his face paler than Ted had seen it before.

"I don't know. I think he's trying." Ted turned to Lucy. "Go get Mommy, honey. Tell her Charlie's moving. And wait outside in the hallway after you get her, you hear me?"

Lucy nodded, pushing her chair along and leaving the room. Ted didn't want her seeing anything that could potentially upset her; the grim circumstances around Charlie's condition were terrible enough, and she'd seen enough. How she wasn't traumatized by what she saw at the accident site, Ted didn't know.

Gordon leaned over, his face draining of even more color as he grabbed Charlie's other hand tightly in his, bringing his free hand over to smooth it across Charlie's forehead.

"Come on, Charlie, open your eyes," Gordon pleaded.

"Come on, Captain," Ted murmured. "Come on, wake up, son."

He held his breath as he watched Charlie's eyelids flutter slowly, lashes parting to make way for those blue eyes. Ted watched as Gordon brought Charlie's hand up, kissing his knuckles as Bella came into the room, leaning over Ted's shoulder to get a closer look. Charlie's eyes finally opened widely, and Ted saw them flicker between scared, pained, and confused as the boy registered the ventilator strapped across his mouth, breathing for him, snaking down his throat, and the other tube crawled up his nose into his belly. Tears suddenly streamed down the boy's face, and Ted could tell the boy wanted to talk, but he couldn't say a word with the tube down his throat.

"Don't cry," Ted murmured. "It's okay. Don't be scared. You're safe now."

Ted had seen the boy angry. He'd seen him carefree. But he'd never seen fear there. And he decided he hated it. He would do anything to take it all away so Charlie would never have to be scared ever again.

"No, shhh, you've gotta keep that thing on," Gordon whispered. "It's okay, it's okay, I'm right here. Look at me, eyes on me."

Charlie shook his head, crying harder even as Gordon leaned down and kissed his forehead. The heart monitor beeped wildly, signifying the kid's racing heart as he panicked, desperate for the breathing tube to come out. Bella leaned over, putting her hand on Charlie's shoulder.

"Charlie, Charlie, can you hear me, honey? I'm Orion's wife, Bella; I'm your nurse, okay? I need you to relax. We're gonna get the ventilator out, but I need you to calm down first."

Ted could hear the sobs escaping the boy's chest as Bella pressed the call button beside the bed. "Dr. Hanson? Charles Conway is awake. And bring a mild sedative just in case."

Ted ran a hand over his forehead before seizing Charlie's Ducks jersey, pressing it into the boy's hand; he watched as Charlie's hand instinctively clung to it, and he looked up at Ted in confusion as more tears swam in his eyes, but he seemed to calm slightly.

"Shhh, it's okay, you're safe now. Nobody's gonna hurt you again. Gordon and I are right here, shhh."

Charlie could only gaze back at him, his blue eyes as broken as the rest of him. Ted was amazed at how much Charlie could communicate with his eyes, how his gaze could yell louder than his voice. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Charlie's doctor came in.

"Charlie, I'm Dr. Hanson," the doctor said. "Listen, I'm gonna get this out of you. But I need you to give me several good coughs to get it out. Can you do that?"

Charlie nodded as Bella and Dr. Hanson unstrapped the ventilator. The boy coughed loudly as Bella seized the ventilator, pulling the tube out, and the sounds of retching followed as the tube slowly came out. Bella then put the nasal cannula into Charlie's nose, allowing oxygen to pass through his lungs. Charlie lay there, panting and choking as tears rolled down his face. Bella then pressed the button near the bed, adjusting it so the boy could sit up slowly. Once he was elevated enough, Bella gently passed her fingers through Charlie's hair.

"It's okay; just catch your breath and relax, sweetheart."

Charlie only stared back at her. "Where's my mom?" His voice sounded rough, which didn't surprise Ted at all; the kid sounded like all he'd done for the past seven months was scream.

"We're gonna call for her, okay? Now, you're in Hennepin County Medical Center. Do you remember what happened? You were in a car accident; you got thrown from the backseat through one of the windows," Bella said softly.

Charlie nodded tearfully. "I . . . I was lying there in the back. My hands were tied, there was tape over my . . . my mouth so I wouldn't scream but . . . but I couldn't anyway. I . . . he forced me to take something, might've been fentanyl or . . . I don't know!" He closed his eyes, sobbing harder. "All I . . . I know was I was in that bag!"

Ted shuddered. He remembered what the police told him, how Charlie had been found bound and gagged in some zip-up duffle bag, how there were traces of fentanyl and heroin in his system; the police had suspected Charlie's father was planning on dumping him into a river over a bridge somewhere, where he'd eventually drown to death.

Ted never thought he'd be thankful for that car accident. At least with the car accident, Charlie still had a fighting chance to live.

"Shhh," Bella whispered. "You're safe now, baby. Do you remember anything about the driver? Who was with you?"

"My . . . he said he was my dad. He told me . . . after he brought me to his house that . . . that he wouldn't let me leave again and that if he couldn't have me, no one else could! What happened to him? Where is he?"

Ted bit his tongue, contemplating telling Charlie that Robert Galloway (Casey, thankfully, never took that bastard's last name; she'd never even married him, he'd dated her, and Casey had left after realizing Robert had a severe drug problem) was in the hospital, but he was on life support in a vegetative state. Since Casey had never married Robert and the man's parents weren't alive, the doctors and police were trying to track Robert's next of kin; according to the hospital's records, Robert had one older sister named Dolores who was still alive who lived in Michigan, and they were trying to track her down so she could decide what to do with her brother. Ted ultimately decided not to tell Charlie about that, though. The kid didn't need his head filled with worries. The kid had been through enough in the last seven months.

"Let's not worry about that right now. Okay? Do you want me to get you anything? Water, maybe?"

Charlie nodded, and Bella whisked away to get a bottle from the vending machine in the hallway. Ted noticed Adam and Fulton had left; seeing Charlie like that probably frightened them half to death. He watched as the boy's gaze went down to the Ducks jersey, and he registered that his "C" was on it. Ted saw Charlie's eyes widen as he glanced up at him. The confusion returned as he clung to the Ducks jersey, crying harder as Ted wound an arm around him.

"It's okay," Ted whispered. "You're okay."

"Why?" Charlie looked at him, still utterly confused as to why Ted was there. Ted still remembered their bitter spat before the boy tried dropping out of Eden Hall, how Charlie called him a "washed-up pro," how the kid glared at him with so much hatred, and that was how they left things off, with Charlie getting kidnapped by his biological dad feeling like Bombay dumped him and thinking that Ted hated him.

"Why are you here?" Charlie sobbed.

"Because I've been worried about you. I've been helping your mom and Bombay and the Ducks look for you for the past seven months," Ted whispered earnestly.

"Why?" Charlie's gaze pierced into his.

"Because the team's been a wreck without you. We won against the Varsity, and we won the state championship while you were missing, but none of that mattered since you weren't there." Ted swallowed, noticing Gordon had left to give them some privacy. This was a long overdue conversation, one that was necessary, though Ted didn't know how he was going to tell Charlie that Hans had passed away the same day he disappeared; he decided he wouldn't say anything about that until Charlie had some time to process that he was home and safe.

"And because when Gordon talked to me about taking over, he told me about how you gave him a life," he continued. "He told me how you were the heart of the team. He called you the real Minnesota Miracle Man."

Charlie just stared back at him brokenly before whispering, "He did?"

Ted nodded, smiling at the boy softly. "He did. And things haven't been the same without you. Once you're well enough, you'll be back on the ice next season. We'll be waiting for you."

Charlie nodded, though it appeared the thought Ted had been dreading discussing with him suddenly occurred to the boy because he asked, "What about Hans? I said some pretty bad things to him when he was trying to talk me into rejoining the team."

Ted swallowed thickly. Damn. So much for holding off telling the kid about Hans. "Your mom had been trying to reach you the day you went missing. She'd been looking everywhere for you and called me asking if I'd seen you because she wanted to tell you herself. Hans . . . He passed away."

Charlie shook his head in denial. "No! No!" More tears rolled down his face as it twisted up, turning a hot shade of red.

"He died in his sleep. He had a heart attack; a customer came in looking for some tape and noticed the shop was still closed; he ended up calling for help, and Hans was found back there."

"It was like he knew!" Charlie sobbed harder. "When he told me goodbye, it was like he knew he was gonna die; I noticed he didn't look okay; I asked him if he was all right, and he told me he was fine! I should've stayed with him; maybe he wouldn't have died alone!"

"He didn't want you worrying about him," Ted whispered. "He didn't want anyone knowing, not even me."

Charlie shook his head, burying his face into the Ducks jersey, his tears soaking into it as Ted pulled him a little closer.

"At first, I thought you ran away," he admitted to the kid. "Your mom called me crying, telling me she was so scared and worried that you hadn't come home. And then Fulton came to me the next day asking if I'd seen you, that he'd left you because you told him to leave or something. Banks came up to me asking to come back to J.V.; he thought maybe you ran away because of him because you blamed him for what happened with that dinner. Then came rumors from Riley and the Varsity suggesting you ran off trying to chase after your deadbeat father or that you were trying for a career as an underage hustler; God, when Banks heard that one, he jumped on Riley and started beating the living crap out of him, nearly got suspended from school for it, too. I thought, 'Maybe he's just mad and needs to cool off; he'll come home in a couple of days.' But your mom told me you didn't take anything with you, you didn't pack a bag, she checked your bank card, and it wasn't active, and I knew that something was wrong."

Ted pressed his chin to the top of the boy's head, tightening his arms around the Ducks' captain as Charlie kept sobbing, crying out months of loneliness and abandonment and sheer terror. Sighing, Ted just rubbed the boy's back gently.

"When my wife told me you had defensive bruises, I knew you fought back when you weren't doped up on whatever that animal forced you to take." Ted clenched his teeth around the words, spitting them out in disgust as he brought a hand up to cradle the boy's head, smoothing his fingers through Charlie's hair, scratching his scalp like he'd do with Lucy whenever he lolled her to sleep at night.

"He wouldn't let me watch the news." Charlie's voice was muffled, but Ted could still hear the sobs. "He would blast the radio all the time, kept me locked under . . . under the basement stairs in some closet. I was never allowed out unless it was for him to beat me. People would come by, I knew that, but when they came, he'd turn the volume on the TV up, blast music to keep them from hearing me, threaten me to keep my mouth shut, or he'd do something worse."

Ted shuddered at the thought. He couldn't imagine it, that this poor boy had been held prisoner all those months and that Robert Galloway had every intention to kill him. He still remembered the look of the duffle bag that Charlie had been stuffed inside; the police had shown him, Casey, and Gordon photos of the inside of the house, how there were empty alcohol bottles everywhere, and there were bottles of water tainted with fentanyl, empty pill bottles, bags of cocaine, syringes filled with heroin. The car that Charlie had been riding in hadn't even been Robert's car; it had been a friend of Robert's who loaned it to him. He remembered how Casey reacted, screaming and crying when the police showed her the photos, how Gordon had broken down and cried.

"I . . . I thought he was gonna kill me!" Charlie continued. "And then he told me we were going to 'Disneyland.' He . . . He . . . forced me to drink a whole bottle of . . . of water laced with fentanyl and he . . . he . . . he tied me up and put the tape over my . . . my mouth; next thing I knew, he was stuffing me inside that bag, and I just thought, 'He's gonna kill me; I'm gonna die alone and I'll never see my mother again and I'll never get to apologize to Adam and Fulton and everyone else!'" Ted heard the boy growing hysterical and hugged him even tighter.

"Shhh," Ted murmured. "He can't hurt you anymore. You're gonna be okay. You're safe; I've got you."

Charlie shook his head, letting out another distressed wail.

Ted sighed. "You want me to get Bombay for you?"

Charlie nodded vigorously, but on that cue, Bombay came into the room with Casey, whose blue eyes were rimmed bright red as she reached for her son. Ted instinctively unwound his arms from around Charlie and allowed Casey and Gordon to take over; he stood off to the side as he watched them smother Charlie with kisses, ruffling his hair, hugging him tightly as Adam slowly walked back into the room, his blue eyes wet as he stood there trembling. Ted wound an arm around Adam as the kid patiently waited his turn. Still, Casey and Gordon weren't going to let go any time soon, so Adam just walked over and sat on the bed, grabbing Charlie's hand, and suddenly, Charlie jerked out of his parents' embrace and hugged Adam tightly.

Ted's eyes misted as he watched the two hug. He knew when the team got split up, Banks and Conway's friendship got broken as well; the icing on the cake had been Varsity's dinner party where they abandoned the freshmen with the check – the prank hadn't just been an embarrassment, but a reminder that Charlie and the others didn't come from money and would always be viewed by more affluent people as "white trash." The idea of Banks going along with it made it sting even more, and Ted knew that Adam had felt the guiltiest out of everyone and was the most torn up over Charlie going missing; he'd have his head in the game during practice but would cry his eyes out in the showers after every practice leading up to the J.V. versus Varsity showdown.

And Adam had been the most active in the search, having his dad put in a word with the mayor's office to have the police work overtime to search for Charlie, printing out missing person flyers, and even calling his older brother, asking Luke Banks to put in word at his college so that Luke's fraternity brothers could search. He was just determined to bring Charlie home; he refused to believe that Charlie was alone, dead somewhere in the cold; the kid even went to church every Sunday and prayed and prayed. Ted had never seen anyone so endlessly determined in his life, but it had been Adam who'd helped them score the winning goal at the state championship, and he and Fulton had led the team for Charlie.

Watching the two boys, Ted knew they'd be better together than apart. He knew that the team would be even better if he had them co-captaining next season.

Adam choked out, "At the J.V.-Varsity game, Goldberg scored; we're now the Eden Hall Mighty Ducks."

Charlie briefly pulled away to look at Adam in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yeah." Adam nodded. "You would've been proud. Goldie did it."

Charlie smiled; it was slight, but Ted could see it, and he knew the kid would be well on his way.