“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

The one person Geno wants to build a family with already has one.

Sidney’s wedding day doesn’t go quite as he’d planned. When he’d bothered to imagine it at all, he’d thought of a nice June wedding in Nova Scotia, outdoors with the sun streaming down. He hadn’t imagined this hurried affair on the tarmac on a rainy and unseasonably cool day in early September, a month after his twenty-fifth birthday.

Beyond that door is a boy Sid has skated with six times, and spoken to twice. He’s a year older than Sid is, and drugged out of his mind on Bonding agent.

Over the years, Mario has become accustomed to Sidney's many idiosyncrasies, but he has to admit the spontaneous de-aging is a bit unexpected.

Zhenya rode the Pens charter plane with the rest of the media crew: Michelle and Sam and the ROOT team. He went to bed too late and woke up way too fucking early. “Good thing you’re behind the camera instead of in front of it,” Michelle said one morning. She had a donut from the continental breakfast. Zhenya had two. “You look like me, too, if you don’t have all that makeup,” Zhenya told her crankily.

Magnitogorsk doesn’t hold much for him. He stares down the barrel of his future there: toiling away at a factory job, living and dying streets away from where he was born. He rubs the water-smoothed stone in his pocket, and thinks of the thunder of the waves. He knows that staying here will kill some essential part of himself. And so, he leaves. For PatriciaKoiFish, I hope very much that you like it :)

For Anna’s sixth birthday, they take her to the ballet. [Sidney Crosby becomes a dance dad. Geno is bemused.]

It’s already embarrassing enough when you accidentally call your teacher ‘mom’, but it’s a lot worse when it’s your captain, as Conor is about to discover. Sid just doesn’t remember signing any adoption papers.

“I adopted a dog,” Sidney explains, pointing to the bundle of grey fur on the other side of the dog park. “The vet thinks he’s probably a husky or malamute.” Phil glances at Sidney's dog, and then at Sidney. “... that isn't a husky," he says after a beat. Sidney shrugs. "Yeah, no. Probably a mutt, but I have to put something on the registration forms."

AU: Sidney Crosby is a foster kid growing up in Nova Scotia. Geno Malkin is a Russian transplant. They play hockey. And also have sex. I claim to know very little about the junior hockey league and even less about Canadian Childrens Aid Services.

Sid's hair is a thing. It's her thing, and she's always a girl even when she's a hockey player.