Chapter Text
"I know you don't like him, but this is my life and it's not your choice."
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Her blade was ever as effortless. Her arms ever as graceful. Her face; beautiful. To him, she had no flaws. Sure she wasn't 'perfect' by definition, 5 am practices for God knows how many years were evident of that, but she certainly was excellent. From the way her spotless apartment was perfectly laid out, to her meticulous and perfect hair and makeup, to her perfect scheduling for anything and everything. To him, she was as perfect now, standing in his arms and sobbing profusely, as she did 25 or so years ago. His Tessa: his best friend, his partner, his soulmate. She could do him no wrong in his eyes, regardless of their past and now present. It was all his faults by default. So standing here, with her centre ice, somehow he believed this was his fault. A voice. At the back of his head wondered, "his?".
"I told you, no one really will notice that we're keeping it low-key this year,"
They walked, side by side to his home rink, over the brown covered slush on the sides of the roads, opting for boots and not trucks. The layer of black ice shone on the mid morning sun light, halting even the snow ploughs from working. The snow fall had ceased, leaving little traction on the slanted sidewalk.
Placing her hands further into her pockets, she sighed heavily into her scarf protecting her nose. "I know. It's just now that we're not in the spotlight, I just feel like we should be trying harder to stay relevant."
"Why?" He looked over, slowing down at the end of the curb and testing the shiny slag road. "I like my life right now, I'm happy with where we are and what we do. Aren't you happy?"
She hesitates, thinking over the multiple ways she's answered this question in her head over the last few months. She never landed on a yes or no. Even when Kevin's wife caught up with her, she couldn't bare to lie to her, her family who she lost too many years with.
He noticed. "Tess, what is it?" She breathed heavily. Letting him open the doors to the quiet rink, she went to reply, yet nothing came out.
"Is it work? School? Kate? Ja-" she looked away. Swallowing hard and rubbing his bare palms together, he followed after her as she entered their rink. She smiled as she was greeted by the loving woman in front of her.
"How is my lovely girl?" Carol squeezed out of her. Tessa arguably squeezed back harder, clinging onto her for dear life. "Still very much alive,"
"No thanks to my nephew, I'm sure,"
Both women pulled away, Tessa slightly more reluctant. Scott walks over and places a kiss upon her cheek and claims their private slot for 30 mins on the ice that they have everyday they're in town and free.
Although he argues that this isn't another post-Sochi, in many ways it is. They don't skate or see each other everyday, they talk for bursts and then nothing, and they see other people. Yes it didn't start like this, and yes they did promise that it wouldn't happen again, but Scott can't help but think that this new distance is so similar. Although they meet up and have dinner or lunch together 3 times a week, and keep a text conversation going for weeks without either needing to say "hello" or "goodbye" and can keep it going smoothly, and they occasionally find themselves in awkward yet tempting situations that neither want to address first. This is nothing like the life they planned out 5 years ago but they're not in much of a position to change things drastically without there being severe reproductions.
But skating laps around his home ice, the ice he first took her hand, on a cold Sunday morning was all he wanted. The noise of the under 11's boys hockey team had died off and he took this time to initiate conversation. Throwing his fingers roughly through his hair, "You still on for Christmas Eve dinner?" She nods. "Leanne and her boys coming it this year?" He nods. Silence falls over again. Half a lap and an aeon later, he speaks up again.
"Tess-"
"Scott-" they speak at the same time. "No no, you go first," She breathed heavily knowing he'd always say that when she was like this. "Scott, I don't know what to say."
"Is it about James?" She nods after a few moments, her hand visibly and physically tense in his. He knew things had been rough between the two of them recently, otherwise she wouldn't have confined herself to him not to long ago, but things did seem on the rise and they did seem to be working it out. "I swear Tess, if he dare-"
"No it's not that. I just don't know how to tell you," She swallowed before crossing over before him. After completing the rest of the lap in silence, she forces herself to speak up.
"We're…we're moving in together..." He stops skating, letting the momentum of his last push and her hand guiding him keep him from stopping suddenly.
"Because…because..." Her mouth was dry, she dropped his hand and turned towards the centre of the rink as her eyes tear up. He followed, slowly making his way to her. She had stopped with her back towards him,
"Say something Scott," He took her arm and turned her to face him. "You know what I'm going to say."
"Yes I know but I need you to support me, and this isn't even the part I'm worried to tell you."
"Tessa, you've never moved in with a guy before and you know how I feel about him,"
He huffed taking both of his hands the same way he had for years when he was overwhelmed or scared. "You've been together for how long!? 9 months?"
"10 actually."
"9, 10, so what. My point is is that I don't understand why you're putting so much into this when you and I both can see it's not worth it," His hands tense at every word he speaks, squeezing hers more and more.
"Just don't raise your voice, please." He looks away to avoid it from looking like he rolled his eyes. She squeezes on his fingers to get him to look back at her and he does.
"Scott, what we're doing...it needs to stop. For serious this time. Things are going to be different now 'cause-"
"'Cause yeah, I get it. You go and have your perfect life, with your very much not-perfect boyfriend!"
He swings his hands in the air, fingers stiffening as he waves them in front of her.
"I actually can't believe you. We agreed that what we do together is nothing personal and has no repercussions. That you never wanted to feel uncomfortable and now...now you just want to put an end to a 20 year cycle?"
The slight look of hurt flushes though her eyes and he sees it. Ever since their comeback of 2016, he learnt to deal with his anger, especially with Tessa and especially on the ice but it's not 2016 anymore and he certainly isn't feeling just anger.
"God!" He circles her. "You don't even sleep in the same bed!" He circles again. "His mother hates you!" His hands grip the sides of his hair. "I can't stand being in the same room as him!"
He stops in front of her staring her in her straight in the eyes. Her gorgeous green eyes. That we're so small yet so large. Her pupils very much small and scared, surrounded by a sea of red.
"You told me that this wasn't serious, that you don't think he's the one. His ego is as big as his bank account and don't get me started on his friends and mother. Jordan's met him once, he's only bothered to visit London once, forgot your birthday and is back wherever the fuck he is getting so fucking drunk in the spirit of Christmas!"
He paces the ice, digging his toe pick into the ice as he spits his list of reasons Tessa's new significant other is unsuitable.
"I know things have been rough, and I know what we've been throwing on the side doesn't help your conscious, but I don't care because I love what we do and I love that no one has to know our dirty secret. Tess, I tell you this with all my heart, don't move in with him. In fact...leave him, end it all,"
His hands take hers, one by one, holding them up to his cheeks after kissing each knuckle and ridge made up on her hand.
"Move back closer to home where your family is, where you're loved for every inch of you..."
"...you say that as if it's so easy, Mr. I-just-bought-a-five-bed-manor-in-Montreal." He winces at her comeback. She takes back her hands and crosses her arms, breaking eye contact.
"Scott, our communication isn't up to par because of that relapse. This is why it's coming to you as much of a shock as it will be when the press get their filthy hands on it."
"On what? Tess?" Her hand grips her trembling mouth, looking to the side, he sees a spec of silver catch in the energy saver lights overhead. A muffled sob breaks from her throat, one he hasn't heard since she told him about her surgery over 14 years ago. One where he knows it's more than what she says at face value. He scoops her up into his arms, pushing his nose into her hair and kissing her forehead. Listening to her cries, even when she exclaims, "No, you'll freak out." And ignoring her weak and pointless attempts to push him away.
Eventually her breathing steadies and they sync. Her head resting firmly against his chest and arms weakly gripping his sides, reluctant for the embrace but grateful nevertheless. "He proposed..." Her voice breaks. His arms, no matter how much he desperately wanted to fight the pain, they still tensed and she still noticed. He let out a heavy breath, one he held for too long, and kissed her forehead again. They stood like that, letting the silence engulf them in the empty rink. "...and I said yes."
It wasn't long till she began to cry again; this time, although muffled by his jacket, he could hear her wail louder and louder than before. One she only reserved for mourning or grief. It reminded him of April 2008, hearing the news of her grandmothers passing and how he held her all the way through the church service and burial as she wept and wept. She hardly cried. Sure she's shed a single tear now and then when watching a movie on her couch or looking through old photos albums in her mother's attic; and sure she may and cried when she held her first nephew or when she saw the last of her siblings say their 'I do's; and sure she sobbed when Kaitlyn told her she was finally getting married or when she saw Kaetlyn graduate top of her class the summer after she skated at the Olympics. And he was there to see it all - there by her side when a tear would fall - and the media called him the emotional one.
Scott needed to know, he couldn't stand to see her cry in pain and sorrow than in happiness in arguably the most happiest moments of a woman's life - regardless of the fact her lifelong partner hated her fiancé's guts. "Why?"
She breathed slowly, a sigh getting caught every few moments. "It's far more complicated than you realise." He listens, waiting and waiting, not caring that he won't understand but just wanting her to talk her pain away. "It'll be a small event, this spring. It's because his family is religious and thinks we should keep it in wedlock,"
He tense at the thought of her being given away in less than 5 months. Let alone someone else's family decide the reasons behind the push but he stays quiet, not interrupting or arguing 'why?' over and over again. She coughs, struggling to say the next of her monologue. "It's so I won't look so big and we can keep it all a secret..."
A secret? Secret?
"Scott..." She sobs, her shoulders shaking, fingers gripping, head burying itself further in his chest.
"...I'm pregnant."