Page 47 of Speak in Fever

And yeah, he's been on the receiving end of some pretty heavy hits—shoulder checks that leave him seeing stars, hip checks that send him sprawling, the occasional late hit that earns the other guy two minutes and leaves Rath picking himself up off the ice with his ears ringing.

But he's not made of fucking glass. He can take a hit.

He's been taking them since he was twelve years old and decided that being small wasn't going to stop him from playing the game he loved.

Tonight, though, something feels different.

Maybe it's the way Warren has been eyeing him all game, like he's got a personal vendetta instead of just doing his job as a defenseman.

Maybe it's the cheap shot Warren took at him behind the play in the first period—nothing the refs caught, just an elbow to the ribs when Rath was focused on the puck.

Or maybe it's the way Warren grinned at him afterward, like he was enjoying the opportunity to rough up someone who couldn't really fight back.

The hit comes in the second period, just as Rath is chasing down a loose puck in the neutral zone. He's focused on the play, head up and scanning for passing options, when Warren comes out of nowhere with a hip check that's perfectly legal and absolutely devastating.

Warren checks him so hard he goes up in the air, he feels afraid for the first time in a while.

There's a moment of complete weightlessness where Rath realizes he's not in control of where he's going to land, and all those horror stories about guys getting paralyzed or suffering career-ending injuries flash through his mind in the space of a heartbeat.

He lands on his ass, not his head or his back, and he's so grateful even though it still pushes all the air out of his lungs.

The impact sends shockwaves through his entire body, from his tailbone up his spine, and for a terrifying moment he can't feel his legs.

Then sensation floods back—pain, mostly, but pain he can work with.

Rath stays down for a moment, more winded than hurt, waiting for his vision to clear and his ribs to remember how to expand properly.

The ice beneath him is cold even through his gear, and he can feel the vibration of skates as players circle around him.

Above him, he can hear the usual post-check commotion—teammates asking if he's okay, referees making sure the hit was legal, the crowd noise that accompanies any big impact.

"You good, Rath?" JP's voice cuts through the noise, and there are gentle hands helping him assess whether anything's broken.

"Yeah," Rath manages, though his voice comes out rough. "Yeah, just give me a second."

The crowd is buzzing, that particular mixture of appreciation for a good, clean hit and concern for the player on the ice. Colorado fans are cheering—it was their guy who delivered the punishment, after all—but Rath can hear the worried murmur from the section where his team's supporters sit.

He does get back on his feet, with JP's help, testing each limb as he rises. His ribs ache and he's going to have a spectacular bruise on his tailbone, but everything seems to be working properly. The relief is overwhelming.

He is not so disoriented that he doesn't see his captain come flying across the ice, right into Warren's face.

Percy moves with single-minded purpose, his skates throwing up ice chips as he changes direction so sharply that Rath's surprised he doesn't lose an edge.

There's something almost violent in the way Percy cuts across the ice, and every player on both teams recognizes the body language of someone who's about to start something.

"Percy, no," Rath tries to call out, but his voice comes out as more of a wheeze. His ribs are still protesting every breath, and he doesn't have enough air to make himself heard over the noise of the arena.

Percy either doesn't hear him or chooses not to listen.

He drops his gloves before he even reaches the Colorado defenseman, the sound of them hitting the ice like punctuation marks in a sentence that's about to turn violent.

Percy grabs Warren's jersey with both hands and yanks him into a confrontation that's clearly not going to end well.

"What the hell was that?" Percy snarls, his face inches from his opponent's. Even through his cage, Rath can see the fury in Percy's expression, the way his eyes have gone hard and dangerous.

"Clean hit, man," Warren replies, but he's already dropping his own gloves because Percy's intent is unmistakable.

There's a slight smile on Warren's face that suggests he's not entirely unhappy about this turn of events—fighting the captain is the kind of story you tell in bars for years afterward.

The referee is skating toward them, whistle raised, but he's not going to get there in time. In hockey, once the gloves are dropped and the jerseys are grabbed, the fight is going to happen whether the officials like it or not.

Warren throws the first real punch, a right hook that catches Percy on the shoulder as he ducks.

Percy responds immediately, grabbing Warren's jersey tighter and landing a solid uppercut to the bigger man's ribs.

They grapple for position, both trying to get the leverage advantage, their skates scraping against the ice as they balance and counterpunch.

The Colorado player is bigger and more experienced at fighting, and it shows—Percy gets a few good shots in, landing a particularly solid punch to Warren's jaw that snaps the defenseman's head back, but he's taking more than he's giving.

Warren has the reach advantage and knows how to use it, keeping Percy at distance while landing jabs to his face and body.

Percy's jersey gets pulled up over his head and suddenly he's fighting blind while Warren gets in several hard shots to his ribs and the side of his face. Rath watches, horrified, as Percy stumbles slightly under the barrage but keeps throwing punches, most of them missing their mark now.

The crowd is on its feet, that primal roar that accompanies every hockey fight.

Both benches are standing, players banging their sticks against the boards in support of their respective fighters.

The linesmen are circling like sharks, waiting for the right moment to intervene without getting caught in the crossfire.

"Come on, Cap!" Torres shouts from the bench, and half the team takes up the chant.

But Rath can see that Percy is in trouble. Warren lands a particularly hard shot to Percy's jaw that makes his captain's knees buckle slightly, and Rath feels sick watching it.

Finally, mercifully, the linesmen move in.

It takes two of them to separate the fighters, their whistles shrieking as they wrestle Warren and Percy apart.

Warren's jersey is torn and there's blood on his knuckles, but he's relatively unmarked.

Percy, on the other hand, looks like he went through a blender.

When the fight finally ends, Percy's lip is split and bleeding freely, there's blood on his white away jersey—his own, from the look of it—and a nasty cut above his left eyebrow that's going to need attention. But despite all that, his eyes immediately find Rath across the ice.

The concern in Percy's expression, the way he fights against the referee trying to escort him to the penalty box so he can check on Rath—it hits Rath like another check, this one straight to the chest where all his feelings live.

Percy still cares about him. Despite their fight in the parking lot, despite the cold professionalism of the past two days, despite being unable to voice what he's actually feeling—Percy just fought a guy thirty pounds heavier than him because Rath got hit.

"I'm okay," Rath manages to call out, finally getting his breathing under control enough to push himself up to his knees. The effort makes his ribs scream, but he needs Percy to see that he's functional. "I'm okay, Percy."

Percy stops fighting the referee long enough to really look at Rath, taking in his upright position and coherent speech.

Some of the panic leaves his expression, replaced by what looks like embarrassment as he realizes what he's just done.

The adrenaline is clearly wearing off, and Percy seems to be registering the pain from his various cuts and bruises for the first time.

The penalties sort themselves out—five minutes for fighting for both players, plus Percy gets an additional two minutes for instigating since he initiated the confrontation.

As he's escorted off the ice, Percy glances back at Rath one more time, and there's something vulnerable in his expression that makes Rath's chest ache.

The crowd is still buzzing as play resumes, but the energy has shifted.

Colorado fans are happy about the fight—their guy got the better of it, after all—but there's a tension in the arena now that wasn't there before.

Everyone can sense that something significant just happened, even if they don't understand exactly what.

Rath skates to the bench under his own power, waving off the trainer's immediate attention. His ribs are going to be sore tomorrow, and there's definitely going to be bruising, but nothing's broken. He's had worse.

"Jesus, Rath, you scared us there for a minute," Martinez says as Rath settles onto the bench. "That was a hell of a hit."

"I'm fine," Rath mutters, though he's still breathing carefully. Each inhalation sends a sharp reminder through his ribcage, but he can live with it.

"I haven't seen Cap fight anyone since rookie year," Torres observes as they watch Percy disappear into the penalty box. "And even then it was because someone was chirping about his girlfriend."