Author's Note: We're struggling here in Number 81 land. Not only is the story going slowly, it's also getting off-track (I'm struggling to juggle the college storyline, the abuse storyline, and the religious underpinnings that really are the background of the story, and which I'm really adamant about keeping). Two quick notes: 1) I had to change Dom Lutia's name. For any of you who have done research on the Gophers when reading this story, you'll have realized that that's a close pseudonym for a Gopher coach, and I'd rather not have that pseudonym going anymore. I apologize for the confusion this will undoubtedly cause, but Dom Lutia is now "Gio Contadino". Matt is still Matt (Contadino) and Katy is still Katy Contadino; nothing else has changed. I'll be going back to the previous chapters and editing that around; until then, I hope it's not too confusing. 2) In an effort to finally get this chapter to you, I didn't edit very much. There's probably a severe drop in quality, but hey, at least there's some quantity =P

Love you.


Number 81

Part III: Corinthians

Chapter Nine

Nikolai couldn't believe that it was really over. He and Matt were racing back to their dorms on a hot September night, shaking and sweating with relieved nerves, unable to fully comprehend that they had made the team; that the overwhelming tryouts were finally done and over with; that tomorrow their collegiate careers actually began. Matt's teeth chattered a little bit as he talked non-stop - not from the cold, as it was around seventy degrees out - but Nikolai kindly pretended not to notice.

"Man, we made it! We made it! We're on the team!"

That was all Matt could say for the duration of the walk from Mariucci Arena to their corner of Frontier Hall. Nikolai was content to listen, a feeling of great sleepiness and contentment washing over him as he finally came to terms with the fact that he had kept his end of the bargain by making the team. Unsurprisingly, Matt wasn't nearly so calm yet, and followed Nikolai into his room. He threw himself down in Nikolai's chair, and Nik settled himself on the bed.

"But man," Matt finished unhappily, "We have to start classes tomorrow."

This transition was so intense that the corners of Nikolai's mouth turned up before he knew it.

"Oh, don't smile," Matt frowned. "It'll be all right for you; you like school. And I'm sure you're good at it, too, Mr. Aerospace."

Nikolai made no verbal response; but instead sat up and swung his legs to the floor. He crossed to his desk and reached behind Matt, who tried to fend him off as if expecting an attack. Nikolai ducked under the defensive fingers and took his drawstring backpack off of the desk; began loading it with everything he would need for tomorrow's classes. Tomorrow he had Physics, Calc 3, and Statics and Dynamics, and the three books weighed a lot when combined with the rest of his school supplies. He briefly considered coming back to the dorm halfway through the day to change books, before rejecting the idea. He barely had time for lunch as it was.

Matt was watching him. Nikolai looked up and gave him a small smile.

"Those classes look terrifying," Matt said.

Nikolai shook his head. "I read the first chapters for each of them. They're not so bad."

"My God, you're a nerd."


Monday dawned bright and hot, and Nikolai wished, as he did every day of every summer, that he could throw on a short-sleeved shirt like everyone else. The white scars gleamed when he looked at them, and, disgusted, he quickly covered them. Matt met him in the hallway and they went to breakfast at Centennial Hall together.

"This stuff looks suspicious," Matt muttered at nearly every offering of food, and Nikolai tried hard not to laugh as his friend loaded his plate with everything, anyway. Hastily they ate and parted ways.

Nikolai's classes passed in a blur that day. The first day of college classes turned out to be a lot like the first day of high school classes; syllabi were passed out, expectations were gone over, the course schedule was laid out, and everyone tried desperately to avoid both falling asleep and getting any homework on the first day. Unfortunately, Aerospace instructors didn't seem to believe in letting their students off without any homework at all, even on the first day, and Nikolai left Statics and Dynamics with a worrying amount of reading ahead of him.

All of Nikolai's courses had either labs or discussions – or both – associated with the lecture portion of the class. It filled up his schedule very quickly, and he was forced to eat a sandwich from Erberts and Gerberts on the run as he made his way to his Statics and Dynamics discussion. He made it to the right building – thanking himself the whole way for mapping out his classes the night before – with ten minutes to spare, and cautiously entered the basement classroom labeled '105'. The room was long, dark, wide, and the ceiling was very short. Though Nikolai was only six feet tall – comparatively short when standing next to some of his teammates – he felt the need to duck as his head nearly made contact with an alcove that ran the length of the room – it was apparently used for storing coats, as there were little hooks in the wall that the new students hadn't needed to try out yet.

He took a seat on the aisle, two thirds of the way back from the dimly lit blackboard. The other students in the room were scattered around in their nervousness and friendlessness, and Nikolai didn't feel quite as isolated as he had upon walking in. He took out his book, his notebook, pen and calculator, and waited patiently for the instructor to arrive.

When the man finally came through the door, Nikolai was surprised by his youth. This discussion session wasn't going to be taught by a professor? Well, he should have realized that, he thought, because professors probably didn't have time to run ten discussion sessions for every lecture they taught. The instructor introduced himself quickly as Carl Rosewater, a fourth-year Aerospace Engineering undergraduate student, then began to call roll. Nikolai raised his hand when his name was called, and kept his mouth shut for the rest of the discussion, which turned out to be more watching the TA solve problems than actually discussing anything. That suited Nikolai just fine – the less he had to talk, the fewer groups he had to be in… the better.

The dorms were a welcome sight at the end of his day – his discussion got out at one o'clock, and he had just enough time to take a short nap before leaving for hockey practice. Some of the older players had been grumbling about this quick start to the season's practice, but Nikolai didn't mind. It was something he knew; something he felt good at; and he was still so jazzed about making the team that he would have skated all night had his coach required it.


It was enthusiasm he would need. The coaches worked them hard for an hour and a half; building up their endurance with skating drills, then beginning work on figuring out the lines that the players would be on. Forwards skated for a while, alternating centers and wingers; then the defense took the ice, alternating left and right defensive partners. No decision seemed to have been made by the end of practice, and Andrew Laurent told him that that was normal; that there, in fact, would probably be changes to the lines until the last weekend of October.

The goalies rotated through, stopping shots in a simulated power-play and penalty kill. Positions on the two powerplay units were still up for grabs, and Nikolai pushed himself hard on this drill in particular. He had always been on the first powerplay unit on every team he'd been on, and while he considered himself best at five-on-five play, he wanted ice time with the man advantage all the same. Though he ended up blocking more shots as a member of the penalty kill unit than he created on the powerplay, he was satisfied with his performance.

"Nice work," Assistant Coach Hillen told him as he swung a leg over the bench to make room for the next powerplay unit. "You might be good on the kill. We need guys that will go down and block shots."

Nikolai nodded at him in appreciation of the compliment. He'd always been on the offensive side of the special teams. Would he really be good at the defensive side? He was willing to block shots. He would rather be on the powerplay, but whatever the coaches needed from him, he would do.

Hmm, he thought, Nikolai Graham, penalty killer..? He smiled privately to himself as the final whistle blew, and the team tromped off to the locker rooms for showers.

"How'd it go?" Matt asked him later.

"Fine," he said quietly. "Hillen said maybe I should be a penalty killer."

Matt's smile bloomed. "That's great! He told me that too! Maybe we'll be on the same unit!"

That sounded good to Nikolai; at least he'd have a friend to help him figure out the new position. "Never been a PK before."

"It's easy," Matt said dismissively. "I played that position in high school. We play the trapezoid here, obviously, and all you gotta do is stay in the trap, make sure you stay with your man, and don't get yourself turned inside out. How were the uber-hard classes? Did you build a nuclear missile today?"

Nikolai shook his head in amusement and deftly turned the conversation back. He listened somewhat distractedly as Matt rambled about the fact that his College Algebra and Probability professor didn't speak the best English (if Nikolai understood Matt right, the man was a French Guyanan who had lived in Britain for a few years… or maybe Holland… and so had a completely unintelligible accent), the good-looking girls in Statistics, the incredible amount of homework sustained in his Business Principles class, the uselessness of his Freshman Orientation class.

"Wonder what your Freshman Orientation's gonna be like," Matt said dispiritedly, "Maybe in Aerospace they don't treat you like you're three years old."

Reflecting on the amount of homework he'd been given on the first day, Nikolai was inclined to agree. Externally, he made a noncommittal sound.

"We have our first break this weekend," Matt continued. "They aren't going to make us skate because we don't have a game until October… should we go home for the weekend or stay here?"

Nikolai pondered that as they reached the dorm and Matt took out his U-Card to beep them in. "I have to work on Saturday," he sighed. Matt waved a hand over his shoulder as they turned into the hockey hallway.

"You worked in the summer too, and took the bus in. You're avoiding the question."

Nikolai studied his back.

"The question is," Matt continued, "Are we going to miss out on something if we don't stay here?"

"It's college, Matt," Nikolai said with exasperation (both at the last comment and the amount of speech he was being required to react to). "You miss something every time you go home."

"Hooooome," Matt giggled, mimicking Nikolai's heavy accent. "Gooo hoooome."

Nikolai rolled his eyes and put his key in the lock to his room.

"Good night, Matt," he said firmly, closing the door on Matt's laughing face.


The bus ride to the hospital where Nikolai saw his psychologist was longer than usual; he realized that he needed to start accounting for the fact that now there were actually students on campus, making the buses stop for longer and more frequently. He reached the office with only minutes to spare, thanking himself, once again, for his detailed planning.

Dr. Rosenberg burst in on him in no time at all, again a flurry of hands, many worrying near-accidents, and a volley of words.

"Nikolai!" she said happily. "How's it going?"

Nikolai sighed in response, remembering all at once how much she tried to make him talk. He wasn't really in the mood (not that he ever really was in the mood to talk) and he wasn't ready for any sort of ice-breaking chatter. What was it about him, he wondered, that made people always try to get him to talk?

"You're having trouble with your scars, aren't you?" she probed after a minute of silence. "I can tell by the way you're interacting with your shirt."

Nikolai pushed down his sleeves with finality, annoyed with himself for giving it away, annoyed with her for the unnecessary use of the word 'interacting'. She eyed him in the way that he now knew meant 'speak, or I'll stare at you until I break you'.

"They're… disgusting," he finally muttered.

Her eyebrows hoisted themselves up at this sudden clear emotion from the boy who barely spoke. Maybe they really were getting somewhere. She spoke carefully.

"Why are they disgusting to you?"

"Well look at them," he said, suddenly, violently jerking the sleeve back and offering the arm to her.

"I've seen them, Nikolai," she said calmly. "I want to know what you see."

He stared at her with a hard light in his eyes. Hunter's eyes, Dr. Rosenberg thought. Killing eyes. Then the hard look faded, as Nikolai regained his self-control.

"I see ruined skin," he said. "That's all."

"You're reacting to the physical appearance of the scars?"

"Yes."

She scrutinized him carefully, then wrote in her notebook for a while. Nikolai stared out the window and tried to remain calm. He didn't like staring down people he didn't know; and he didn't do it often… mostly because he didn't look too many people in the face. It was good that he'd stopped talking. Talking, he felt, would make him lose control, and who knew where he'd end up after that? Losing control was, after all, in his genes.

She'd advised him to seek out more social interaction. He stepped off of the bus, chewing on a nail in nervous contemplation. That was exactly what he didn't want. She said that it would help him get things out and move on, or at least learn to function normally in a social environment, if he couldn't move past things completely. She'd been honest that he might not ever truly get over his problems, though she was hopeful for a solution if he'd take her advice and try to meet her halfway.

Social. Nikolai squinted up at the sun for a moment. He was being social, he thought (almost defensively). He was! He talked to his teammates. Didn't that count?

True, he often shied away from things that were happening in the hockey hallway – though he kept his door open while he was in his room, just like everyone else, he wasn't too interested in joining in the games of hallway football or the loud conversations and gatherings with too many people and too many decibels. He explained it away by saying that he needed to study, and the boys of the hockey squad had poked a little fun at his choice of major, but had mostly left him alone when he wanted to be that way. It was hard, he thought angrily, to suddenly open up to people. He wasn't sure he could do it with his teammates, let alone anyone else. He set off back to the dorms with uncomfortable thoughts whirling through his head.


The September weeks flew by; classes and hockey practice competed for his time, leaving little room for anything else. He liked it that way. It was uncomplicated and the amount of work cut down on the opportunity for nightmares to present themselves. Before they knew it, the hockey team was taking its post-practice speech on the ice the day before the first game of the year.

"Men," Coach Contadino addressed them, and everyone was silent. "Tomorrow we play our first game. Yes, it is an exhibition. Yes, we have watched lots of tape of our opponent and have realized that their team isn't as good as it has been. But we will take this challenge seriously. This is, for some of you, your first game in the Maroon and Gold. We will make this game count. We will score as quickly and as often as we can, and we will remember all that we've learned in the past month about defense. Our special teams will outwork theirs. Tomorrow, we will make our state proud."

Nikolai's nerves sang as he left the building, but not with fear.

Friday night. The campus crawled with students and ticket scalpers. Traffic was paralyzed by the season ticket holders in their vehicles coming in from all over the state. Exhibition games weren't usually so packed, but tonight, by the look of it, would easily be a full house. Standing room only tickets went on sale and were gone within the hour. A fifty-five piece pep band assembled at the top of the student section, maroon and gold striped rugbies and black windbreaker pants creating a block of super-fandom in the seats. One of the flute players had maroon and gold patent leather shoes, Nikolai noted idly from his seat. He and Matt were sitting on the Gophers bench before getting into uniform, looking at the ice and trying to relax before their first game. Finally, Matt stood without a sound, and Nikolai followed him into the locker room.

Nikolai could hear a great commotion above him in the locker room as the athletic department opened the gates to the stadium - students stampeded into the student section, where the seats were first come, first serve. Cheers of "Let's go, Gophers" immediately broke out with such force that the team below them could actually hear it. Pads, skates, and jerseys were pulled on. Sticks were taped. Equipment was checked. A massive roaring above them as the pep band passed overhead in their nightly march around the arena. Distinctly, they could hear the sounds of the "Minnesota March", a fight song written for the University of Minnesota by John Philip Sousa himself. The Gopher color commentators moved from the lobby of Mariucci Arena to their press box. Television screens flicked on all over the state.

Then, it was time to go. The tunnel; red carpet underneath Nikolai's skates. He concentrated on not tripping. A light ahead, hands waving in front of it, hoping for a high-five, then…

"Youuuuurrrrr University of Minnesota Goldennnnnnnn GOPHERS!!"

They blazed out the tunnel to a deafening roar, hands slapping down on their shoulder pads as they shot past the seats onto the ice. Nikolai positively leapt over the lip onto the ice, skates digging in hard as his adrenaline pushed through his veins. The Minnesota Rouser blared over the crowd, which was cheering too hard to do anything but clap along. The practice drills flew by as the crowd chanted, "M! I! N! N! E! S! O! T! A! Minnesota! MINNESOTA! Heyyyyyyy Gophers!!" Rink announcer Jamey's voice came on, addressing the crowd, as Nikolai and the rest of the forwards pelted starting goalie Joe Aubin with pucks.

Lineup time. Anthem time. The lights went down, a spotlight on the singer. Nikolai was aware of his teammates shifting from side to side restlessly, but remained completely still, as if a statue rooted to the ice… a characteristic that would become a trademark for him. The Anthem ended, the crowd cheered, and the band struck up a cadence, then silenced it with much embarrassed shaking of the heads.

"And now," Jamey announced, "The starting lineup for the Red Hawks."

Booing from the crowd.

"A junior from Lake Meade, Wes MacMillian."

"SIEVE!" yelled the crowd.

"A sophomore from Detroit, Michigan, Aaron Jordan."

"HACK!" jeered the audience.

"Assistant Captain for the Red Hawks, Mike Raulk."

"WHO CARES?"

"Captain of the Red Hawks from Bloomington, Illinois, Zachary Mitchell."

"NEVER HEARD OF HIM!"

"Sophomore from New Ulm, Minnesota, Ben Schmidt."

"WHO'S HE?" ("TRAITOR!!!")

"Senior from Des Moines, Iowa, Lance Orvik."

"GO HOME!" ("IOWA SUCKS!!")

"Coaching the Red Hawks is Ernest Newcastle."

"NICE TIE!"

The band struck up their cadence again.

"And now, the starting lineup for your University of Minnesota Goldennnnnn Gophers!"

Nikolai remained completely still as his teammates danced in place around him, head lifted slightly to the light in the otherwise dark arena, thinking about nothing, waiting.

"Starting in goal, senior from Albert Lea, Minnesota, Joe Aubin!"

Nikolai could register the student section making bowing motions to their goaltender, and had to stifle a laugh.

"On left wing, senior from Blue Earth, Minnesota, Captain Neal Matson!"

Neal skated out to the red line, stopping just on it and staring menacingly at Zachary Mitchell.

"On center, junior from Red Wing, Minnesota, Andrew Laurent!"

Andrew glided easily to center ice, glancing affably at his opponents. Nikolai knew that all of that good nature would disappear as soon as the puck dropped.

"On right wing, freshman from Stony River Township, Minnesota, Nikolai Graham!"

Nikolai pushed forward and set a medium pace to his spot beside Andrew, bumping fists with the center when he got there. The crowd applauded just as loudly for him as they had for the upperclassmen, and Andrew muttered, "Looks like they've heard about you already!" and grinned. Nikolai grinned.

"On right defense, sophomore from Bemidji, Minnesota, Christian Coughlin!"

Christian skated forward with a grin on his face. Nikolai thought he would be afraid of that smile, were he one of the Red Hawks, and was suddenly intensely glad that the fiery redhead was on his team.

"On left defense, junior from Rochester, Minnesota, Martin Mireles!"

Martin moved his stocky weight forward and bumped gloves with them.

"Head Coach for the Golden Gophers, Gio Contadino!"

"CONTA-DINO!" roared the crowd in approval. Nikolai could have sworn he heard a chant go up that sounded suspiciously like "Ma-fi-a! Ma-fi-a!"

The officiating team was introduced to loud booing, and Nikolai noticed that the official named Shepherd got the worst of it.

Andrew skated forward to the face-off dot; put his stick down… and the puck dropped. Shoulders collided, sticks and skates flashed in every direction, and the game was on. Mireles came away with the puck. He circled back, and the two teams fanned out. Mireles passed to Coughlin, and they made their way to neutral ice. Two quick passes, and Laurent had the puck. He fired – wide of the net. The crowd groaned. The Red Hawk Captain went back for it and tried to send it to his linemate, but a quick deflection from Laurent's stick put the puck into neutral ice.

Nikolai hurtled toward it, playing positionally, and he saw his counterpart doing the same. He arrived first, saucering the puck against the near board. Schmidt saw the move too late, hurtled past, and Nikolai was off. He concentrated hard and building his speed – he saw the pressure coming – passed to Matson – drove toward the net – he was at the right face-off dot – the puck was hurtling toward him again, the goaltender following it too slowly. He wound up and took the slapshot, and though it was a rocket of a shot, it seemed to Nikolai to fly off the ice in slow motion.

The red light went on as the puck slammed into the back of the net and dropped back to the ice behind the goalie, and pandemonium broke out in the stands. Nikolai found himself in a pile of yelling, back-slapping hockey players. He was too stunned to even realize what happened, and as he skated back to the bench, he only barely registered the sound of the fight song and the chant that began to follow it: "Eighty-one! Eighty-one!"

He looked up at the clock, ears buzzing, not understanding the numbers on the clock at first. 18:38. He'd managed to score not only in his first game, but in the first ninety seconds of his career. He looked back at the ice, hardly daring to believe it.

"Scoring for Minnesota," Jamey was saying as the second line took the draw, starting the play again, "One minute and twenty-two seconds into the game, his first goal in Maroon and Gold, freshman from Stony River Township, Nikolai! GRAHAM!"

The world was shaking under the applause. Nikolai kept his eyes on the game.


Nikolai emerged from a small side door of Mariucci Arena, well after the main body of the crowd had already left the building. The night was warm under a pitch-black sky, humid and heavy summer wind pressing on his face. All around the stadium end of University Avenue, isolated pockets of spectators discussed the game while walking back to cars, restaurants, and dorms. Those wearing the Block "M" of the University of Minnesota on their shirts and jerseys were considerably happier than the Red Hawk fans (who had seen their visiting team defeated by a miserable final score of 7-1). Nikolai lowered his head against recognition and turned toward the football stadium, intent on taking the road next to it to the string of restaurants on Washington Avenue. Noodles and Company sounded like a good idea.

The restaurant was three-quarters full, and Nikolai kept his head down, intent on getting his food and getting back to his dorm room so he could finish his Statics and Dynamics homework early. Just as he was nearing the front of the line, however…

"Are you Nikolai Graham?"

Nikolai looked up with his eyes, keeping his chin tucked as he always did. A group of three students, dressed identically in black wind pants and maroon-and-gold striped rugby tops, eyed him with keen interest. They already knew the answer, so Nikolai simply gave them a small smile.

"Great game today," the tall boy who had initially addressed him said with approval.

"Yeah, do that every time," the girl next to him laughed, shaking her brown ponytail off of her shoulder. The other boy in the group smiled back at Nikolai and introduced his group.

"We're in the pep band, so we'll be at every game. I'm Mike, this is Josh –" he waved at the taller boy "- and this is Katie."

Nikolai shook hands with them and nodded to each.

"Are you here alone?" Katie asked, looking around him in concern as if expecting a few more hockey players to be behind him.

"Yeah. Decided to grab some food last-minute."

"Want to come sit with us?" Mike offered. "We won't be here long, but if you want…"

Nikolai's mind went through two separate lines of thought at once, natural shyness warring with the memory of Dr. Rosenberg advising him to seek out social opportunities as often as he could. He looked once more at the small, earnest group, and decided in their favor.

"Yeah, okay," he said quietly with a smile. "Thanks."

The little group of band people proved to be entertaining and very enjoyable company. Nikolai spoke little, as always, but their calm and cheerful chatter put him at ease. He alternated between listening to them speak and looking through the window, watching people go past the restaurant. He felt a strong sense of peace and a strange camaraderie that was different than that which he felt with his teammates. That particular feeling was a bracing, rough one… this one was reassuring, encouraging in a way. He wondered if that was normal, or if it was just an effect of this particular group. He even felt a twinge of regret when they parted ways on the sidewalk, the brightly colored rugbies waving at him as they headed back to the band part of the football stadium. He smiled, lifted a hand in their direction, and made his way back to his dorm.


Author's note: Hope it was worth the wait! I can't guarantee posting times anymore, but I'll keep trying if you keep the faith ;) One more thing – what would you guys think if I changed my author name? Would you mind? I made it when I was much younger and I don't like it much anymore =)