The first thing that Percival Kane could make sense of was a faint sound, a slight monotonous beeping noise that sounded in the distance. It was steady, consistent, each beep coming in perfect time after the previous one. As the noise grew gradually louder the beeping sped up, slightly pounding out a fast rhythm that was so loud it had him wishing he could cover his ears with his hands.

He tried to move his hands, but couldn't even feel the appendages, trying to look down to see why his arms weren't working and realizing he couldn't see anything. He began to panic as voices joined the loud beeping, random yelling and loud frantic talking in a language he couldn't understand. He tried to make his body do something, desperately willing itself to pull away from the hell it was stuck in. The voices grew louder, deafening in their yelling as he lay helpless and immobile, unable to escape.

From the darkness a slight light appeared, casting a warm glow over him as it grew. A faint pink haze clouded his vision, providing little comfort over the noises around him. He felt a twitch in his eyelid, a promising motion as he struggled to regain his vision. Drawing strength from wherever he could he struggled to open his eyes, regretting the decision immediately when he was blinded by a harsh light. He blinked rapidly, the noises around him all at once silent as his vision strived to right itself. The strength was leaving his body quickly but he could sense his vision clearing and he struggled to hang on, if only to see what this hell he was caught in looked like.

He only was able to get a glimpse of a white tiled ceiling before he was pulled back under.

Everything was black again, that faint beeping sound steady and consistent in the distance. The warm pink light was back again, comforting him as he felt his eyelids struggle to unstick from each other. When he was able to open him the light wasn't as harsh, only a faint glow in the darkness. He blinked rapidly as his surroundings came into focus. The only light in the room was coming in from the hallway, the open door allowing the small room to be lit enough to see that he was in a hospital.

He tried to move, his body unresponsive to his brain telling it to get up. He grunted in frustration and looked down at his body, staring in fascination at what seemed to be the hundreds of wires disappearing into it. He opened his mouth to yell out, the only sound escaping him a high-pitched whine that was barely loud enough to reach the door.

A large red button to his right caught his attention as he began the tedious process of trying to reach for it. He focused with all his might on moving his arm, getting only a twitch from his pointer finger for all his efforts. His eyes burned in frustration, his mind trapped inside of this immobile body. A movement from the door had him snapping his eyes up to meet that of a man in scrubs. The man's eyes widened slightly before he was quietly saying something into his radio.

An older woman in a white lab coat, who was obviously a nurse or doctor, came skidding into the room, eyes wide as she looked at her patient. She gave him a slight smile as she approached his bed, pulling the seat next to it closer to him and sitting down.

"Welcome back."

He blinked in confusion, the words seemed familiar but he couldn't piece them together.

"I'm going to need to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."

Once again he was stupefied, some of the words jumping out at him but the rest remaining a mystery. He could vaguely remember the word "question" and his mind began to revolt. He wanted to scream, wanted to yell at the woman and tell her that he had a million questions he needed answered first but when he opened his mouth to do so all that came out was that little pathetic squeak again. She carried on as if she didn't hear it.

"Do you remember your name?"

He tried to tell her that he didn't understand, couldn't answer any of the questions because he didn't know what they were. When he replied he looked around as a high pitched voice filled the room, wondering who else was there before realizing that it was coming from him. The woman sighed as talked to him some more before starting her physical exam, a light shined in his eyes had his head screaming in pain, but he was pleasantly pleased to find that he could feel the pressure when she squeezed his toes and fingers.

He was left alone for a few minutes before she returned with a larger man in tow. She spoke first, the man speaking after her in a language that sounded much more familiar. It took a while but he was able to piece together the first sentence.

"Do you remember your name?"

He came up short at the question, mind whirling as he attempted to find any bits of information about himself in the inner recess of his brain.

What was his name?

Where was he?

Why was everyone speaking in a language he couldn't understand?

His gaze flicked to the machine to his right, to the wires and tubes that snaked like serpents into his body. He cried out as pain ricocheted through his head, the room spinning as he squeezed his eyes shut. He could vaguely hear the voices in the room, talking quickly to each other. A hand on his arm burned like fire, although he did not possess the strength to pull away from it. The heat spread through his veins like an inferno, burning him from the inside out before he descended into darkness once more.

When he awoke again the room was bright, the light not burning his eyes the way it previously had. He looked down to see his hand encased by a much smaller one with petite fingers. The woman's eyes widened when his met hers, glassy with unshed tears as a smile burst across her face. She ran her fingers over his hand, bringing it up to her lips and placing a watery kiss to it.

"Oh Percy, I was so worried. I love you so much."

She reached her hand over and pressed a red button before lightly stroking her hands over his face. He lay there, immobile and confused as this beautiful stranger caressed him. Who was she? They both looked over as a doctor came into the room, bright smile on his face as he took in his patient. He spoke a little to the woman at his side in a language he didn't understand and nodded, speaking and then waiting for the woman to translate.

"It's good to see you awake. Do you remember how you got here?"

He shook his head no and the doctor nodded.

"He says it's going to be okay, he's just going to ask you a couple of questions and then do a physical examination. I'm sure you have some questions of your own and we will do the best to answer them for you. Now, do you remember your name?"

He closed his eyes, wracking the fuzziness of his brain for anything. One word stood out, clearer than the rest. "Percy?" He winced at his own voice, high and squeaky. The doctor smiled and he nodded.

"Very good. Do you know your last name?"

After a minute of thinking he shook his head in defeat, frustration causing his eyes to burn with unwanted tears. He answered a few more questions and after deducting that he knew nothing but his name the doctor nodded.

"Sweetheart," the woman next to him squeezed his hand and looked at him through glassy eyes. "Your name is Percy Kane, you are 19, almost 20 years old, you play hockey for the Boston Blackhawks and you were in an accident during one of the games. You suffered a pretty traumatic brain injury, you were fine, kidnapped by a group of angry messed up fans and then you have been in a coma for the past month."

He didn't realize that he was crying until a hot tear dripped from his eyes down his neck, hitting his collarbone as he started to sob.

From there on out it was a barrage of questions and examinations, doctors poking and prodding him as he started to regain some movement throughout his body. He spent the days waiting, listening to conversations that he barely understood as people came in and out of the room. The woman that had been sitting with him left as soon as he admitted he didn't recognize her, he pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes.

Every now and again he would get glimpses, pictures playing out quickly in his mind of a life he had. There was the woman from the hospital, beautiful and a brunette, a flash of skates cutting across ice, the roar of a stadium, a glimpse of an ornately decorated house. Little by little things started to come back to him, pieces of the puzzle slowly fitting in.

A commotion from the door had him opening his eyes to a middle aged couple bickering with the doctors. He met the older woman's eyes and a wave of familiarity washed over him, comforting in this ridiculously confusing time.

It was his parents. The woman was his mother. He knew her! He knew her well.

"Percy!"

The woman grabbed onto the older man to her left and tears flooded her eyes before she rushed to Percy's side, grabbing his hand in a tight hold as she peppered kisses over his face. Another person was there two, younger....maybe a cousin, or a friend...no, it was his sister!! Erica? Erica! Erica was there too!

"Oh Percy, my boy! We were so worried, but I told your father, "Percy, he is a fighter, he will pull through this." And look at you!" She planted a smacking kiss on his forehead and gestured his father over. His father nodded at him and reached down to lightly embrace him over the wires and tubes, his voice was choked when he told his son hello. Erica, his sister, was there as well, with tears in her eyes. Even though they were rivals at home, she still cared for his baby brother and didn't want to see him hurt.

"The doctors, they say that you understand more, but still aren't sure of a lot of things. But they say things will come back to you, that it is a miracle you are awake. Do you remember anything else?"

He told them about the brief flashes, the ice, the stadium, some of his teammates and the woman. His voice wasn't as squeaky as when he woke up but still wasn't normal. He asked about his mobility, why he couldn't move parts of his body and his father went to go get a doctor.

The doctor explained to Percy that when he hit his head, suffering the ugly concussion during the game, his brain swelled so rapidly that he needed emergency surgery. Lack of mobility was common with such injuries and there was a chance he might regain full mobility with the proper rehabilitation. When he asked to get up to go to the bathroom he was mortified to know that he had a catheter installed.

As the days droned on, his memory started to return; it was a terrifyingly odd experience, like watching a movie about your own life and by the end of the week he truly realized what a life he had lost. He had been the superstar rookie hockey player in Boston. He found himself longing to feel the ice beneath his skates again, the smooth glide and the cutting sound of a blade as he raced across the glassy surface. It taunted him, day in and day out.

The feeling had eventually come back into his extremities but his movement was still limited. A nurse accompanied him with daily exercises that had him feeling all of two years old. Raising arms and legs was akin to the worst days of conditioning during the preseason, the simple acts leaving him exhausted as his brain struggled to relearn the movements. His doctor had explained that the brain took its own time in healing itself, and with an injury such as his, needed time to relearn what normally came naturally to him.

After a month in the hospital he was finally able to get up to go to the bathroom without the help of nurses. He no longer having to sit through the mortifying process of using a bedpan. The first time he had looked himself in the mirror he had almost fainted, the skinny sickly looking man staring back at him nothing like the professionally toned body he recalled. His eyes sat jauntily in his skull, the shaved hair from his head still showing a nasty looking scar around the side of it. The reminder of what had happened to him.

He kept up with his daily therapy, every once in a while one of his teammates would stop by to say hello and he would pretend not to notice their wide eyes as they took in the emaciated form of their teammate, showing all amounts of concern. Crow or Brampton Benn or even Jonathan Getzlaf, his linemate, would often come to chirp him with a joke or some kind of sarcastic remark that would cheer him up and make him laugh.

By the end of month two he was able to make it to the hallway on his own, his skinny legs shaking with the effort of the short ten step walk. He was wheeled down daily to the physical therapy unit where he would lift embarrassingly low amounts of weights. Nurses were with him every step of the way, encouraging him and pretending not to notice, or care about, his weak body.

The time finally came for him to go home, dressed in comfortable sweatpants that were too big around the waist and a baggy Blackhawks' t-shirt he sat on his hospital bed waiting for the nurses to return with his paperwork. He ran his hands through his spiky brown hair, fingers brushing over the shorter part where his scar was and sighing.

Between all that had happened with waking up from the coma and not having his memories he still hadn't asked the million dollar question: would he ever play hockey again?

He was terrified of the answer.

He looked up when his General Manager walked through the door, completely surprised that the GM was visiting him now when the man hadn't shown up during the two months he had been there to begin with. He gave Percy a tight smile and took a seat in the hideously patterned chair next to the bed. The rookie watched as his gaze flicked up and down, taking in the once muscular stature of his star second line winger.

"Kaner. It's good to see you up and moving."

Percy nodded but didn't say anything back. Wondering to himself if this was it, was he here to tell him he wouldn't be playing hockey again?

The GM cleared his throat and crossed his legs over one another, leaning back in the chair and looking Percy Kane over once again. "The Blackhawks have secured the finest at home care staff for your recovery, I see."

"Does that mean that I can play hockey again?"

"There is a chance, yes-" The Blackhawks' GM was interrupted by his doctor walking into the room, giving them both a warm smile and a cooler one to the man to his right.

"Good morning Percy, all ready to go I see?"

Percy nodded, swallowing nervously as his GM looked from him to the doctor.

"I was just telling him about his recovery time-"

"Ah yes," the doctor interrupted Teemu Selanne, the GM, forcing an awkward smile from Percy at the look on his GM's face.

"Mr. Kucherov, as well as various other Blackhawks staff have been inquiring as to the state of your recovery and if you will be returning to the rink anytime soon. I am actually surprised that you didn't ask sooner."

Percy held his breath and nodded at the doctor to continue.

"There is a chance that, with the proper rehabilitation and therapy, that you may play hockey again."

Percy let out a breath, feeling as if the weight of the world was removed from his shoulders as he felt tears burning behind his eyes.

"Your brain has been through a lot, the coma was the body's way of healing yourself. All tests that we have done have showed improved brain function, however you still have a very long road ahead of you. You've got to make sure you ease yourself into the on-ice stuff. You need to watch and if you feel ANYTHING, get off immediately. You were lucky that there was no permanent damage or bleeding, things would have been much different if there were. You will need to give your skull time to heal as well, the hole where the shunt we used to decrease the swelling will need at least another week before it is back to normal density. That's if you are lucky, which I believe you are Mr. Percy Kane."

Percy breathed out, torn between the joy of knowing that he had a fleeting chance at his old life and realizing that it wouldn't be that way for a long time.

"Mr. Kucherov has arranged for a flight home for you in a week, we will expect to have you back on the ice within the next month of March...we'll shoot for March 4."

A knock at the door had his parents and another doctor lady bustling into the room, exchanging hellos with Selanne and the doctor. He explained what the doctor had told him and watched his parents ask questions about his home care. After that came the paperwork, and then he was being led out of the hospital a week later in a wheelchair, ready to go back to Boston. It was March 3rd and he was more than ready to return to his life on the ice!

He felt much better and he was remembering more things now. It had taken him a full two months, but he considered himself extremely lucky and grateful that he could be back on the ice in a day. He didn't necessarily need the wheelchair, but it was some kind of weird hospital rule; he had to leave in it.

Percy Kane bid his parents farewell at the airport entrance, insuring them he felt fine and was ready to do this! His sisters had to return to their teams to play, but all three of the Kane sisters and his parents kept him in the loop with what had happened with the Blackhawks winger.

Percy stepped into the airport and was soon in his seat, waiting for the flight to come to take him back to Boston and the Blackhawks and hockey!

It was time to finally return to the ice and resume his superstar status! It was time to rejoin the boys and his friends and score goals and get them to the Finals and the playoffs!!

It was time for Percival Kane to shine!