Ashton's POV
The game itself feels like a formality after everything that's just happened, though we play it anyway, the crowd's energy shifting into something electric and strange, cheering louder than usual at every hit, every save, like they're all still processing what they witnessed during warm-ups and channeling it somewhere.
We win, comfortably, though I barely remember most of it afterward, just fragments, Kane's booming laugh after a goal, Dalton checking in on me between periods with a quiet, steady look that says more than words could. The Flyers play like a team lost, which, in every way that matters, they are.
By the time the final horn sounds, my legs feel like lead, exhaustion catching up properly now that the adrenaline of the last few hours has nowhere left to go.
Bran
