Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 23:05:27 -0400 Reply-To: JillMari@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Spetoskey Subject: Crosscheck in D-Minor 1 of 3 c.1995 by Jill Spetoskey This is a continuation of sorts of "One Goal", but should be readable as a stand alone. Don't worry, its not all ice hockey. Time frame-wise, this falls midway through the third season, and I'm assuming that there was no NHL lockout in the Highlander universe. As always, comments are welcome at Jillmari@aol.com or jilkey@grfn.org **Crosscheck in D-Minor** Tampa, Florida, November 1994 Breathing hard, Kyle finished his shift on the ice and skated back to the bench. After taking a few pats on the back for his play, he pulled his helmet off, and tried to de-fog his face shield. Another broken nose had led to playing with the face shield, and he grudgingly would wear the sissy equipment under normal circumstances. However, a heat wave had come through Tampa lately, and the combination of cold playing surface and ipoor air conditioning systems had left near fog on the ice, and a blurry view of the game for him. "Tampa Bay goal, his first of the evening, and his seventh of the season. Number 33 Enrico Ciccone. Assists on the goal go to number 27 Kevin Evans, and to number 88 Kyle Johnson..." Kyle smiled as he pulled his helmet back on, and took a gulp from his water bottle. He had made it back to the NHL, and was scoring a decent number of points for the Lightning. The management had indicated he would probably be staying in Tampa for the rest of the season, too. Beaches and palm trees. No movie stars, but LA would have been just too crowded for him anyhow. Amy was talking about buying a house down here soon, too. Time to change gears on that thought, and do your job now, he chided himself. Porter tried to take out our goalie last time, and he needs to know he can't do that again. Time to earn your pay, boy. His shift came up, and Kyle confidently skated back on the ice. He made a few trips up and down the ice before finding himself trying to work the puck away from Porter. He got his stick on the puck, and passed it out to Ciccone, who started to move the puck down the ice. Kyle saw that the officials were watching the play move down the ice, and knew that his chance had come. He saw Porter a few strides ahead of him near the boards, and sped up. Taking a jump, he checked Porter into the boards. He felt Porter bringing his stick up, and suddenly everything started feeling so cold. So cold. He heard a drum beat, and a voice count out. "Five. Six. Seven. Eight." Hockey. He had been playing a game, and had tried to check someone. "Okay. Clear!" Porter. He needed to stop Will Porter from hurting his goalie. "Hold it! I have a rhythm." Tensing his hand into a fist, he took a swing at the voice and felt it sink into an unprotected stomach. He opened his eyes to see a paramedic standing over him clutching his stomach. "Are you okay? God, I'm sorry about that." "Small price. To pay." The paramedic wheezed between clenched teeth. "We thought. Lost you." "What happened to me? I tried to check someone, and suddenly I wake up here." "Heart Failure. I don't know why, but your heart stopped beating. Beyond that, you'll have to ask the doctor." A few minutes later, Kyle found himself being wheeled into the hospital emergency room. He was placed on some sort of monitor, and they started to run a zillion different tests on him. Between tests, he got a glimpse of Amy. Her eyes had circles under them, her hair was nearly standing on end, and it looked like she was in her pajamas, but she was the most beautiful thing he could imagine seeing. He mouthed an "I love you" as he was wheeled past her. Hours later, they were reunited in his room. He gingerly kissed his wife, and gave her a gentle hug around the wires attached to his chest. The cardiologist entered the room, and Amy took a seat by his bed. "The good news is that we think we found out what happened to you out there. The heart has a distinct rhythm, and if something disrupts that rhythm at a precise millisecond when the heart beats, then the heart will stop. When Ported hit you in the chest, it was at this precise wrong time. The chances of this happening are about a million to one in a contact sport like yours. You were the unfortunate one. You don't have any sort of heart defect or disease that we've been able to locate. It was most likely simple bad luck." "You mean I can play again?" "No guarantees, but I'm not going to bar you from playing at this time. However, we want to run some more tests. Your heart stopped for more than eight minutes, and we want to make sure that you didn't suffer from any brain damage. I'll leave you to rest, now." "You have to play again, don't you?" Amy quietly asked and pulled him into her arms. "Yes, I do. It's something I've trained for since I was four years old. Even when I bounced through a dozen foster homes, it was there for me, and it's something I can do well." "I know. It's like breathing or something." Amy Brooks Johnson, cop's daughter and hockey player's wife knew very well. His Amy, who he always thought of as velvet-covered steel. He pressed his head against her shoulder, only a small corner of his mind noticing that his broken nose was not hurting any more. They talked a little while longer, Kyle in Amy's arms, and feeling like he was drawing strenght from her. When dinner came, she started to make fun of the dull hospital food. Finally, after she had detailed the exact process that his red gelitan had taken to get to his room, he grumbled out a "Woman get away from me!" Amy stormed away from him in mock indignation, and grabbed the television remote, flipping on the overhead screen. After a cat food commercial, and a diaper ad, the local news came back on. "And in other news tonight, police and FBI agents are searching for Matthew Harris, a local stockbroker and martial arts expert, who is now considered the main suspect in the killing of German tourist Hugo Schmidt." The screen flashed a picture of a frowning man's driver's license. "At this time, police have not established a motive for the bizarre beheading death, but they have not ruled out a drug connection." "Gruesome, eh?" Kyle said, playing with the Jell-O. "Yeah, reminds me of a couple of cases my brother's working on in Vancouver. They think that they're drug-related there, too. They've got a bunch of gangs that are trying to establish turf up there. Kind of strange to see a stockbroker involved in that sort of thing. He musta been behind on his payments." "You got a few cops in your family or something, lady?" "Only a father, two brothers, a sister, and three cousins. Family tradition, you know." Suddenly, Amy's eyes started to tear."I thought I was going to lose you. You were supposed to be safe to be in love with. With Dad, there was always that chance that he may not come back, but you were supposed to be safe. Not to see you lying on the ice like that, not moving." She started to sob then, her body shaking too hard for her to talk, and it was his turn to hold onto her. ***** They ran several more tests on him, and they all came up negative. The only difference was that his pulse rate was slightly higher than his normal 42 beats per minute, and Kyle felt that that was because he had been sitting in bed for a week. Finally, Kyle was able to go home with his doctor's blessing, with the instructions that he was to rest for another week before he rejoined the Lightning. After they got back to their rented house, Amy had to drive in for a job interview. Kyle, feeling bored, and sick of watching soap operas, decided to go out for a walk. He walked through the garage, and seeing a pair of rollerblades that one of his former foster-parents had sent him two Christmases ago, decided that rollerblading around the block was the same as walking, therefore he could do it without incurring the wrath of Dr. Baker. When Amy tracked him down for dinner two hours later, she dragged him away from a street hockey game a few cul-de-sacs over. The high schoolers grumbled at his departure, and started to scramble to rebalance the teams.With a half-smile, Amy pulled him back to their house like a toy on a string. "Honey, how much longer before you can start practicing with the team again? I'm going to have a heck of a time keeping an eye on you until then." "You know I'm ready to go whenever they'll have me. I want to be back before we play Toronto, though, or I'll miss the whole trip across Canada." "Speaking of which, could you get tickets for my Dad in Winnipeg as well as in Toronto, and get Chris some tickets for the Vancouver game as well?" "Sure Aim, which game do you want me to get for Chris, though? Wednesday or Sunday? Only the Never in the Heat League would schedule a trip to nice, warm, LA in between trips to Vancouver. At least it's not Calgary, though." Amy smiled. When Kyle started to grumble about the weather, you knew that he was felling all right. End Part One... =========================================================================