PART ONE.

before.

They were both eight.

Her mom doesn't tell the story anymore, hasn't in years, but Allie remembers bits of it faintly. She remembers that they were both eight. That they were tiny back then, the youngest in the entire competition. They could barely see over the boards, felt like specks on the ice.

She remembers that it was the middle of winter, snow falling fast outside, piling up high, and that the snowflakes caught in her hair and melted too fast. That she wasn't allowed to stand in it. That they had to leave.

They were both eight and Allie remembers being so nervous that it had hurt. She remembers him being nervous too, quiet and shaking. She remembers the crease between his brows forming. She remembers holding his hand, later though, later, when it was over.

She doesn't remember much from that day, but looking back, she thinks that the ice must have been cold against her skin, that the fluorescents above must have been too bright, and the people too loud.

No, her mom doesn't tell the story anymore, doesn't like how it sounds against everything else, but here's how it goes; Cassandra collapses mid skate, eyes closed, head first onto the ice, and Harry steps back like he's afraid he'll go down with her. Allie screams, and their moms stop whispering about how Harry and Cassandra could really be something.

They were both eight, and Allie was seven, and Cassandra never skated competitively again.

i.

Will won't look her in the eye.

There's a spot, one just above her left shoulder, close to the boards and the sound of Kelly Aldrich's laughter, that his eyes keep falling on. It's familiar to her now, the feeling of Will's focus shifting farther and farther away.

Her aunt Lynette, her coach, doesn't say anything, not this time and not the last time either. Two minutes later, when their ice time is up, Allie lets Will cut in front of her on his way over to the edge of the boards. Kelly Alrdich is still laughing.

Sometimes, Allie wonders if Will really wants to be her partner. It's when it's dark, when it's quiet only because it's late and Allie is counting the hours of sleep she'll get if she falls asleep right now and gets up at five for practice. It's when he doesn't talk to her after the music stops, or how he seems to look everywhere but her eyes.

Skating's her entire life, so Will should be too. Will and skating should be so deeply intertwined that she can't imagine one without the other. Should should should.

She was twelve when they met, and twelve still when he became her best friend. And she was thirteen, nearly fourteen, nearly old enough for her parents to let her leave home for Canton to try this figure skating thing out for real, when he took her hand and danced her around the rink and asked her to skate with him.

And then she was fourteen, too young to be making any real decisions, but still picking ice dance with Will over an entire future that was just beginning to lay itself out for her.

But it's been two years, only two years, and Allie wonders in the quiet moments if Will wants to be her partner anymore.

When it's bright out again, though, when there are fluorescents overhead and a buzzing in her ear, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, the feeling will go away. (Then she catches herself staring across the rink. She catches her eyes drifting, drifting to a mess of dark brown curls, and suddenly she's just as bad as he is.)

Allie met Harry the same day Cassandra did. It was early in the morning and she was four and now, when she looks back, all she can remember from the moment is the vague outline of wild hair and a smile so bright and wide and carefree that it really can't be anyone else's.

After Cass's heart failed her, while she was lying in a white hospital bed, there was discussion over whether or not Allie would take her place. It was almost her, her hands held tight in Harry's, his eyes on her. She doesn't remember the discussions. Harry says he does, quietly while Kelly talks with Will.

Only Harry was nine and she was eight and he wanted a break and she wanted a future that she could almost see that didn't involve anyone else. After that, Harry went through four partners in five seasons before settling on Kelly. Allie was there when he met Kelly. She likes to think that she knew that Kelly was it before Harry did, by the way they skated mostly. Harry didn't skate like that with anyone else.

(Sometimes, and only sometimes, Allie wonders what it'd be like, skating with Harry.)

She remembers how a week later, a week after Harry met Kelly, a week after Harry decided on Kelly, Will came to her with a proposal, with a question. Now, now while she lays in bed and it's quiet, almost silent, she thinks that maybe she wouldn't have said yes if it wasn't for Kelly appearing.

God, isn't that stupid?

None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that it was cold the first time she met Harry, her breath coming out in puffs. Every important moment in her life has happened while it was cold; watching Cass fall, dancing with Will, meeting Harry. It's always snowy and frosty and tainted the lightest pastel blue.

But somehow, she associates the snow with him. When she sees it in the morning, in the parking lot of the rink, filtered through the streetlamps, the first person that comes to mind is Harry Bingham.

God, that is stupid.

Because they're not even proper friends. No, not anymore, maybe not ever. She has his number, but she doesn't text him. They don't hang out away from the rink. She's never eaten a meal alone with him, unless vending machine snacks, candy bars and stale chips count.

But sometimes, usually while it's snowing and cold enough that the air feels blue, when she sees him on the ice, she thinks that that's a whole world that could've been.

"Tell your partner to stop staring at mine."

Harry appears behind her suddenly. It's always sudden with him; she never sees him coming. Maybe it's because he shouldn't even be in the kitchenette right now; his ice time is starting soon. His name is right below hers on the schedule. They're part of the same ice rink group text. She knows his training times just as well as he must know hers.

He's got to know them, there's got to be a reason why he's early on Tuesdays, why on Thursdays he spends extra time near the changing rooms, why he's always there, peeling an orange in the kitchenette on Sundays when she gets an extra fifteen minute break between sessions. He knows her schedule just as well as she knows his and she's near sure of that.

"Tell your partner to stop laughing so loud. It's distracting," she bites back, too breathy to really be biting.

Harry snorts, smiling at her all bright and loud. His hair is just a little rumpled. She looks down to try to avoid his gaze. The lineloem is shiny. His sneakers, fancy, expensive looking ones, are just barely tied.

"How are you, Pressman?" he asks, stepping closer to her, close enough that she can smell his cologne, close enough that she has to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. When it's just the two of them, he always focuses on her. She hates how his voice sounds almost husky. She hates how she doesn't want to step back when he moves closer to her.

She feels guilty when they talk. She feels hidden, like they can only interact in the dark corners of the rink, in the places where no one will see them. She feels guilty when he pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, guilty when his fingers rub smooth circles into her wrist. She feels like she's stealing something from Kelly, like she's hiding something from Will.

She only really talks to Harry on the quiet days, the days when Will won't look her in the eye, on the days when she wants to feel better about herself. Harry's her rival, but, on those days, that doesn't matter. She can forget that Harry's her rival, that he has his own skating partner who he looks at like she's his entire world. Allie can forget that all she really is in his eyes is a competitor, the younger sister of his former partner. He only talks to Allie in the dark, forgotten corners.

But, fuck, she doesn't care. She feels guilty, but doesn't care.

So she tilts her head back. She stares up at him, and blinks just once when the fluorescents above them shine into the corners of her eyes. "I'm good, Bingham."

Harry smirks at her. All he can ever seem to do sometimes is smirk. She hates that too. "Good." They stare at one another. Allie picks out the flecks in his eyes. She hates how hard he focuses on her. She hates how easy he makes it seem. "My ice time is starting," he tells her. She nods.

He brushes past her on his way out. Allie grabs an orange from the bowl that sits in the middle of the table off to the side in the too small kitchenette. She counts to three before following him.

A list of things she likes about skating with Will (in no particular order).

How in sync they are. While they skate, it's sometimes like they're a single person rather than a pair. Sometimes it's like he knows what she's going to do before she does it. Besides maybe Cassandra, Allie doesn't think there's a single person in the world who knows her better than he does.

The costumes. She likes to feel pretty. She likes the short dresses that twirl just right, the pastels and jewel tones. She likes the idea of dressing up for something, like somehow that makes it more important. She likes to feel important too.

The music. It's loud on the rink, sweeping and grand. It pulls her in everytime. She'll listen to it off the ice, over and over until it's all she hears. It's constant and comforting. The music becomes the soundtrack to her life.

Not being alone. She was an individual skater up until she was just barely fourteen. Looking back, it was lonely, lonelier than she'd care to admit. It's nice to have someone else who is there. It's nice to be able to share the burden. It's better somehow, winning as a team versus winning alone. She's not sure how.

Winning. Standing on the podium, she feels like she's actually done something. She feels accomplished and powerful and not like she's wasting her life on the ice. She thinks then, on the podium, under the harsh lights in the cold rink, that maybe there's a future here, maybe it's all worth it.

The future. Sometimes it feels like it's all coming together, like the Olympics are real and tangible and a goal that's not insane. She likes thinking about that, how sure the maybe she tells herself in the middle of the night is starting to become. She'll close her eyes and see the Olympic rings, so clear and bright and real that for a second she really thinks they can actually do it.

Allie tries to remember this list in the too quiet moments. She tries to remember it when Will's looking right past her, when Harry's standing too close, when she feels herself drifting. She tries to think of this list while her Aunt tells her that the next step is training in Canton, far away from home, while she's driving home in the dark from a practice that'd gone late. While she's standing in the dark corners. While she can't sleep.

She tries to remember that she likes skating with Will, that there's no point in wondering what it'd be like if things were just a little bit different.

Allie falls at a competition in Canada and they place fourth.

Harry and Kelly leave with gold medals around their necks.

Her cousins hate skating.

Allie doesn't understand it, how two people with parents who seem to never leave the ice can hate it so much.

They're both good at it too. If Sam wasn't deaf, if he hadn't lost his hearing as a child, Allie knows that Lynette would've forced him to stick with it. He's good, when she forces him into the ice, graceful and light. It's easy for Allie to imagine a world in which her cousin is good, the best, a world where a gold medal sits around his neck.

She likes to do that, think about what-ifs.

Allie's never seen Campbell skate. She wouldn't trust him on the ice, doesn't trust him off it either.

Together, her aunt and uncle make up the best pairs ice dance coaching team in Connecticut. When people ask why she switched events at fourteen, why she let go of individual skating, she mentions them. She doesn't mention Will.

God, she'd been so young, too young to be making a choice like that. She'd been stupid to think that Will could ever be someone she'd love, someone who'd care enough to want it all in the same way she does.

She thinks about kissing Will just once, in that time between slipping on skate guards and sitting in the kiss and cry, while they walk towards the couches and wait for results. Will's arm is around her shoulders and they're in Nice and she thinks about how easy it would be, turning and leaning and pressing her lips to his. How easy it would be to make Will her everything.

Maybe she hates skating now too. Maybe she understands how her cousins feel, how the ice is too cold and her dreams don't seem like they'll ever stop feeling like dreams.

They beat Harry and Kelly by two full points in Lake Placid. It's not how things are supposed to go.

It's been over two years since this started. Two years. This is their first time beating Harry and Kelly.

God, it feels good, standing above them on the podium, the gold around their necks. It feels good when Harry won't look her in the eye, when Kelly mumbles a soft "congratulations," when Will grins at her, swings her around and around in the air.

"There's a party," he tells her, flushed and happy and bright. "In some Canadian figure skater's room. You wanna go with me?" Yes, that's exactly what she wants. She wants Will to pull her away to some party full of people they barely know. She wants to dance and drink cheap beer that she's too young to drink. She wants to take a deep breath and be hungover on the flight home.

She wants it so much.

Only Cassandra's here, somewhere in the crowd, maybe rushing to the back. She wants to see Cassandra, for Cass to tell her what a good job she did, for Cass to shit on Harry.

Cassandra hates Harry. Allie can't remember a time when they weren't at each other's throats. Even at eight, when she collapsed mid skate, when it was snowing outside and Harry grabbed Allie's hand, Cassandra hated him. Allie's pretty sure Harry hates her too. Their mom's thought it was funny, something they could grow out of. Allie imagines a different world where gold medals hang around their necks and they get into vicious fights on the ice.

No, don't listen to Allie's mom. They never would've worked.

Allie thinks that the only reason why they ever even skated together was purely competitive. They both like being the best so fucking much and, yeah, they definetley could've been the best, but god, they would've killed each other long before ever getting anywhere.

Will walks away, grinning back at her once before disappearing into the changing rooms. Allie watches him leave, watches him bounce on the balls of his feet up and down, watches how he holds one strap of his sports bag close to his chest, her eyes lingering on the door for a second too long as it swings shut.

From her own sports bag, she pulls out her phone, moving to text Cassandra where are you? and tapping the screen twice when it starts to go black.

And then Harry Bingham's there, sudden, like always, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her next to him into a seat. He's not wearing the silver around his neck anymore. Allie can't say she doesn't miss it.

"Good skate," he tells her, scooting just a little too close. Her phone screen is black now. She makes no move to turn it back on.

"Thanks."

Sometimes, she wishes that they weren't competitors. She wishes that she'd stuck with individual skating just so she could look at him and say nice job without it sounding insincere.

"Where's Kelly?" she asks because that's where he should be, somewhere with Kelly. Allie wonders if they're dating, if they'd risk it like that. She thinks that maybe she would, if it was that or nothing. Yeah, she thinks that she would.

Harry swallows. "Don't know." He's too quiet, too small, too dim. He's not being what she needs him to be, not being loud and bright and happy. She thinks back to the medal ceremony, to Kelly and Harry parting immediately.

He's staring down at his feet and she's staring at him. It feels like a much needed change of pace. "I think silver suits your complexion better than gold," she says after a moment.

He smiles softly and her breath catches in her throat. "Yeah?"

She nods. "Yeah. I guess you're just going to have to learn to not go for first."

"If you say so, Pressman."

He's the only person who calls her Pressman. It started when she was thirteen and sometimes she wonders if he even remembers her name. Sometimes she wonders what it means, him calling her Pressman when everyone else calls her Allie. Sometimes she wonders why it makes her stomach flutter as much as it does.

(Because she has Will, sweet, kind, wonderful Will and she really shouldn't be thinking so much about Harry Bingham.)

Her phone screen lights up with Cassandra's name. Harry's gaze shifts and Allie move's quickly to answer, like Cass and Harry still need to be kept in two very separate spheres.

"Hello?"

"Hey," Cassandra answers, bright and a little distorted. The sound feels fuzzy and Allie shifts sharply away from Harry as if that'll help. "Nice job!"

"Thanks. Ummm..." Allie stands, making too direct eye contact with Harry. He nods her away slowly and she nods back. Somewhere in her bag is a gold medal that she thinks he wants. It feels like it's weighing her down. She almost wants to give it to him.

She lied earlier; gold, silver, bronze, doesn't matter. Harry always looks good.

She turns away from him, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before asking her sister, "Where are you?" Allie doesn't turn around as she walks away, but swears she feels his gaze follow her.

She almost wishes she'd stayed. Almost.

Cassandra had told her not to skate with Will, and Allie hadn't listened.

As horrible as this sounds, sometimes Allie's glad Cassandra's heart failed her, because there's no way to know how good she could've gotten, there's no point to comparison. Cass stopped when she was eight; ice dance never became her entire life.

In New York, in the parking lot of the rink in Lake Placid, the air is cold, cold enough to leave the tip of Cassandra's nose a bright pink.

"So what's next?" Cass asks softly, grabbing Allie's hand as they walk towards her car. Cassandra drove here, all the way from West Ham, nearly five hours. Tomorrow night, she'll drive back.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean do you want to stick with this, all the way through, move up to the senior level and move to Canton and really go for this or what?"

Allie swallows, shifts her bag on her shoulder and tilts her head back just a little so she can see the sky. It's clear, speckled with stars. She wishes it was snowing. "Canton," she finally answers. "I wanna win gold at the Olympics. I wanna be the best."

Cassandra nods, like she gets it, like she wasn't forced to quit as a child. Allie wonders if Cass ever thinks about what could've been. Probably not. That doesn't sound like her sister.

It's snowing in Greenwich, big flakes that get stuck on her windshield as she pulls into the parking lot.

Her favorite season is winter. It makes sense, when you put it in terms of her life. Everything fits. Her favorite season is winter, her entire life is ice skating.

When it's cold, really cold, winter at its worst, a pond a little over a half mile from her house will freeze over solid enough to hold weight. She's never skated on it, no, when she was younger, Cass would tell her it was too dangerous. Now, now the ice seems like it'd be too rough beneath her skates. Now there's too much to lose; an entire future.

And it's only in winter that her mom likes to tell her that she skated before she ever walked, that she was on ice from the very start. It's only in winter that her mom likes to walk past outdoor skating rinks and point to them saying that's where it all started like Allie's accomplished something big already. She hasn't.

It's in the middle of winter and she's sixteen and when her mom points at ice skating rinks, Allie wants a gold medal to hang from her neck so badly it hurts.

That's why it's six a.m. and she's outside the rink. Why it's still dark out, the streetlights on and the roads empty. It's snowing, of course, little flurries that catch in your eyelashes, that melt in your hair. She's in no rush getting from her car to the door, Will's just texted her that he'll be late, that he only just woke up and forgot something at someone's house and a million other excuses that she doesn't care to read. The important part is that he'll be at least an hour late. There's no point in going home now though, so she takes her time approaching the building, tilting her head back to look up at the sky just once, only once letting the snowflakes fall onto her eyes.

Near the door, while she's reaching for the handle, preparing for the too cold metal against her hand, taking the smallest step forward, she lands on a patch of ice, her feet slipping out from under her. And then he's there, God, he's always there, like he's waiting to catch her.

Harry's already too close, steadying her with a firm grip. When she looks up, tilts her back just a little, she sees the snowflakes that have caught in his hair. She wonders how she didn't notice that stupid Maserati that he always drives in the parking lot, how in her own world she must've been.

"You good, Pressman?" he asks, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist. He's smiling at her, his head just barely angled down.

She tugs her wrist from his grasp, smiling too, just a little, and stepping back to pull open the door. Harry catches it, holding it open above her head. "I'm fine, Bingham. Thanks for catching me."

Behind them, the door swings shut. He shrugs, too casual. Too carefree. It's six a.m. and she's trying very hard to remember his schedule, the rink group text with the names and times and promises for empty ice.

He's keeping in stride with her as she walks past the empty front desk and moves toward the changing rooms. "Can't have people thinking I'm trying to take out my competition."

She shifts her sports bag on her shoulder, feels her skates press up against her side. "What are you doing here? It's six in the morning. I didn't realise you got up this early."

He smiles at her again and she feels herself slowing to barely a crawl as they approach the changing rooms. He's still next to her. "Sarah wanted to come in early to practice. I said I'd take her. Forgot my phone in the car, though, and had to go back for it." He holds up his phone, shaking it a little like he's trying to prove something.

Allie turns towards the ice, imagining the sound of skates against the ice as she watches as little Sarah Bingham flies around the rink. Allie thinks about being eight, tiny and so incredibly sure that dreams, no matter how big, are possible. God, she'd give anything to be eight again.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asks. They're outside the changing rooms now. Allie makes no move to head inside. She returns her gaze to him, forcing herself to focus on him and only him as if it's practice for when it's her and Will on the ice.

"Wanted to get in an early practice."

"Where's Will?" He sounds too curious. She shifts her sports bag again. Reaches for her phone.

"He woke up late I guess. Won't be here for a little while," she answers, trying not to sound upset. It's not like she didn't remind Will last night, or like it was easy for her to get up early and drive all the way to the rink. No, she fucking hates being up before the sun, but here she is. "Maybe it'll be nice to be alone on the ice for a change."

"Weren't you a figure skater before?" he asks. There's something in his tone that suggests he already knows the answer, that he's just reminding her that he remembers. There's the tiniest of butterflies in her stomach.

"Yeah."

Harry pauses, biting down on the inside of his lip before asking, "You wanna skate with me for a little while, just until Will gets here?" he asks quietly, almost nervously. He's got nothing to lose; she wonders why he's nervous. She's not used to him being nervous, at least not outwardly. Sometimes, at competitions at least, it's like he's never nervous. God, it pisses her off.

"You have your skates?" she asks after a moment, because she just can't help herself. Will won't be here for another hour. What does she have to lose?

He nods, a smile forming on his face that she's quick to mirror. "Meet me out there?"

She swallows, breathless, wishing that she'd thought this through just a little bit more. She still replies with a quick, "sure," like it's nothing.

In the changing room, while she slips on her skates and pulls the laces tight, she tries very hard not to think about what a bad idea this is. He's the competition. He's her rival.

But she's never skated with Harry, no, not even when they were little, not after Cass collapsed on the ice and Harry was looking for a new partner, not before that either, when they were tiny and it would've been so easy. No, she's never skated with him. Just the idea of skating with Harry feels like one big what-if, like it's some alternate universe where everything was just a little different.

He's already on the ice waiting for her when she comes out. His sister is off to the side, a water bottle in hand. Allie waves and Sarah waves back.

"You ready for this, Bingham?" Allie calls out, and Harry grins back at her, loud and bright and almost comforting in how familiar it feels; she's seen that grin a million times on the ice before, now's no different.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he jokes, skating towards her in long strides, stopping just a little too close.

That feels familiar too.

He reaches for her hand, grabbing it as it leaves her side, pulling her along beside him as they glide around the rink. He spins her as they near the boards and she laughs, feeling bright and loud and happy. Sometimes she forgets that she's supposed to feel happy on the ice, sometimes that gets lost in the training and the long days and the sore body.

Somewhere behind them, a waltz is played, so soft that she wonders if it's just in her head. She smiles up at him, her hand still in his as he moves to grasp her waist. He stares right at her and she lets her eyes settle on his, picking out the flecks in the brown. She lets herself fall into it, lets herself forget that Worlds is in two weeks and he's her biggest rival. She forgets that they both have partners, that this is fake, nothing.

It feels different, skating with him rather than Will. His grasp feels more firm, his focus almost too sharp, his smile bigger.

She wishes it felt worse.

A list of things she does not like about skating with Will.

How in sync they are. He always knows what she's going to say and he always beats her to it. In conversations, he won't let her get a word out. He takes over. Will thinks he knows better, thinks that he's the better half of the partnership. She's struggling now to think of one person who really knows her.

The costumes. They're uncomfortable and expensive. Her mom complains every season about the costumes she has to buy. Allie wears them for a year, only at competitions. Sometimes, she swears she hears Cassandra mumbling about how wasteful it all is. They make her feel like a child playing dress up, like that's all she'll ever do- pretend.

The music. It's too loud on the rink. Before practice, she'll take two ibuprofen and wait for the noise in her head to die down. She hates how it's the only thing she can listen to for months, how that's the only way to drill it into her mind. She gets sick of it, of the grandeur and familiarness. God, she hates the repeat button. She just wants to listen to something normal. She wants to have a choice.

Not being alone. It's not just her; there's a whole other person dependent on her performance. And she hates depending on him, waiting for his focus to drift back in her directions, waiting for him to take it as serious as her. She gave up everything for him, an entire future, and now it feels like it's all slipping away.

Losing. The number two beside their names. Standing at the bottom of the podium, so low that they're practically on the ground. She hates looking up, looking up and seeing him, smug and waving, the way he says good skate when it's over, when there's a medal other than gold resting against her chest.

The future. Sometimes she feels like her dreams will only ever be dreams, like the Olympic rings will only appear on her TV screen, and the weight of a gold medal around her neck will only ever be imagined. She hates how impossible it all feels, like she's wasting her life, like she's making the wrong choice.

She tries to forget this list, tries to forget how skating with Harry felt, how light and airy everything was. No, she has a future to focus on, there's no point in dwelling on things that'll never be.

ii.

They were both eight.

He barely remembers the story now, only the most important parts all filtered in that faded way memories always seem to feel.

But they were both eight, only barely tall enough to see over the boards, the smallest people in the entire competition, both wanting to win so bad that it hurt.

And he remembers being nervous, so nervous, shaking before his skate guards were even off. He remembers fighting with Cassandra in the warm-up area over a lift. He remembers how cold the ice felt, colder than the ice in Greenwich, almost as cold as the snow outside.

He remembers Cassandra falling, watches that part play over and over until all he sees are the little flecks of blood on the ice, until all he hears is Allie's scream, sharp and loud over everything else.

He doesn't like to think about the story now, no, it's in the past, almost a decade ago, barely anything in the grand scheme of things, but here's how it goes; Cassandra falls, he steps back like he's afraid he'll go down with her, and they get last place in their first competition.

Kelly won't look him in the eye.

There's a spot, just above his left shoulder, close to the edge of the boards, to the way off the ice, where they're skate guards sit, that her focus keeps falling on.

He watches it drift.

He remembers meeting Kelly, the sun outside, and clear blue skies that made him long for summer. He likes when the temperatures force the mercury up, likes when he can leave the rink and strip off the sweaters he has to wear on the ice. He likes dipping his feet in the pool, and beach days, and air so warm that your breath catches a little when you step outside.

It's been two years and sometimes he wonders if Kelly even wants to be his partner anymore. It's when it's dark, when he's lying in bed, surrounded by the dark blue comforter his mom picked out for him out of a catalogue. It's during the late night drives home, after Kelly showed up late to the rink because her ballet lesson went long. It's when it's snowing, too big flakes that catch in Allie's hair and melt as he stares. It's when Allie tilts her head back and takes his hand and glides around the rink beside him.

God, that was a mistake.

It's just that Allie's there, constantly, always at the rink. It's just that they're on the same ice rink group chat and, fuck, he knows her schedule way too well, and sometimes he sees her skating and thinks that that's a whole world that could've been.

And Allie… Harry doesn't know one person who wants to go to the Olympics as much as her. Not even him, and he dreams in the colors of the rings. She's just so certain of it.

It's like when she was eight and he was nine, and their mom's told them they could skate together, that that could be the next step, and she told him, so clearly, that she wanted to be the best there ever was. And it was snowing, snowing when he grabbed her hand, but the sky was a clear blue when he let go, when he let go and told himself that no, no he can't be the best no matter how hard he tries, but she could. He decided when he was nine that he wasn't going to hold her back.

And maybe this is wrong, but he never felt like he was going to hold Kelly back.

Sometimes he thinks that Kelly wants to quit ice dance, that she has a completely different idea of her future. But not him, no, his future is one thing, the Olympics, a gold medal, and the national anthem playing while he stands on the top of the podium in front of an American flag.

(He decided this when he was fifteen, six years too late.)

At fifteen and sixteen (but just at the start, though, just as summer fades) he's near certain that he loves Kelly Aldrich. It's just so easy.

Nothing was that easy, as easy as thinking he could fall for Kelly, not since he was nine, not since Cassandra collapsed, not since his dad died. No, nothing was as easy as thinking he could ever fall for Kelly.

Skating is everything, so it only makes sense that Kelly is too.

He likes how it feels, after the music stops when everything is still for a moment, when Kelly smiles, wide and bright and loud, the loudest she ever is. He'd kissed her once during one of these moments, right after they'd slipped on their skate guards, while they walked toward the kiss and cry. She'd kissed him back, soft and sweet.

Kelly tells him that he's obsessed with skating, that it means too much to him, that it matters more than it should. That it's unhealthy. He doesn't care. At sixteen, he kisses her and she kisses him back and it never goes anywhere and she tells him that that's why. He doesn't care.

Because back then, he was fifteen, then sixteen, and he liked Kelly because it was easy to like Kelly, because Kelly didn't come with a million what-ifs and an entire past that no one can ever seem to forget. Kelly is new, brand new, and he likes that.

Only then he's sixteen, nearly midway through the year, and Kelly's barely there even when she's one the ice, and he can't stop staring at Allie Pressman's hair.

"Heard you and Allie skated together yesterday."

Kelly finds him in the training room, standing next to the barre. She's leaning against the doorframe, changed into a leotard, pale pink and a matching ballet skirt. It looks more her than any ice dance costume.

Is it bad that he hates that?

At the start, just months after they'd skated together for the first time, Kelly had told him with a soft voice that once upon a time she'd wanted to be a principal dancer for the New York Ballet. It was between sessions, while Allie re-learned the basics of skating somewhere across the rink. It'd made sense then, explained the gracefulness that seemingly came with everything Kelly did. It makes even more sense now.

"I came in early with Sarah and she was there," he says simply, like it's nothing, like skating with Allie was nothing. God, he wishes it was nothing; he wishes it was nothing just as much as he wishes Kelly and ballet are nothing.

She approaches him, he can see her in the mirror, the smile on her face as he moves into first position. "How was it, skating with her?"

"Different, I guess." Which is one way to put it. It'd felt right, light and airy and right in a way he wasn't ready for. Maybe it was how she spun, how she glided across the ice, in step with him. Maybe it was the look in her eyes, how she tilted her head back just barely to stare up at him. Maybe it was the waltz in the background, just barely loud enough for him to know it was real.

It doesn't matter now, though. No, it doesn't matter; it's over. Now, now he can cross skating with Allie off the list of what-ifs he'll make sometimes in the dark while surrounded by the familiar blue of his room.

Kelly moves his arms up higher, corrects his posture. He tries to make eye contact with her, tries to smile, wants to make a joke about all the pink, but she's avoiding it, too focused on fixing his stance.

"You're not bad," she tells him softly, circling around him slowly, finally allowing herself to stare up at him.

He grins. "High praise coming from you."

She smiles back, her eyes flitting from his to the ground. She pauses, bites the insides of her lip, her smile fading slowly. "I.."

"Yeah?" he prompts. She looks nervous, nervous in the one place at the rink where she's always seemed the most comfortable, where he's found her a million times over the course of nearly three years.

She forces the smile back, looks the same as just before a skate, when they glide onto the ice, when her hand is trembling in his, and her stare is always blank. "Forgot what I was going to say."

"Tell me when you remember?" he asks softly. He feels just as quiet as her now and stupid in his too rigid ballet stance; he was never good at this, not like Kelly who seems breathe ballet, who exudes grace and poise and all of those other adjectives people use.

Kelly nods, her fingers tapping against the barre once, twice, three times before she swivels around, her pink ballet skirt billowing out around her. It's not until she's gone, until her footsteps, soft like everything else about her, disappear down the hallway, that he finally releases the position. And it's not until he's left too that he realizes Kelly didn't even do any training.

Harry met Allie and Cassandra on the same day. It was early in the morning and he was five and now, when he looks back, all he can remember from the moment is the vague outline of a girl so tiny and wild and bright that it really can't be anyone else.

His mom still brings up Cassandra sometimes, will ask how she's doing, ask if Harry remembers what dancing with her felt like.

He does. He hadn't felt good.

His mom tells him that they could've been something amazing. He doesn't doubt that, but god, he would've hated every second of it.

Dancing with Allie felt different. It felt right somehow.

In August, just as summer was coming to an end, Kelly had told him in no uncertain terms that he had a crush on Allie. Back then, back as the sunsets became earlier and earlier, he'd thought it was impossible if only because he barely knew her. But now, now, as the snow falls outside, he realises he was wrong; he knows Allie, he's known her since he was five and she was four. He knows that her favorite color is a pale blue and that her favorite song is Just Like Heaven by The Cure. He knows that she spends all of fall waiting for the cold and that sometimes she hates skating but still can't imagine a world without it.

Fuck, he knows her so well.

It doesn't make sense, how easily he remembers these little things, how much he enjoys the moments he spends in the dark corners of the rink, the times he sits behind her on flights and kicks her seat until she turns around, her throwing clementines at him in the too small kitchenette. It's how he knows her favorite vending machine snack, the cheeto puffs in the blue bag. How he knows the hydroflask she carries around, the one with the dent in the bottom that she refuses to replace.

He'd wondered what skating with her would feel like too often.

He remembers when Will first came to the rink, it's been years now, how Allie had looked at him with wide eyes, skated with him so easily, like it was nothing. He thinks now that maybe Kelly would've been like the other girls, just another partner that he was done with before the season even ended, if it wasn't for Will.

Fuck, isn't that stupid.

It doesn't matter, though. No, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is that it was cold the first time he met Allie, a layer of snow on the ground, everything frozen over. He remembers being ten and her saying, just as the weather turned from crisp to cold, that winter was her favorite season, but god, that doesn't matter either.

No, the only thing that matters is that he was five and she was four and that there's a whole universe out there where it was them right from the start.

He's never wanted to go to Estonia in March, but here he is anyway.

It's freezing outside, and everyone at the corner store, the one five minutes away from his hotel room, only spoke Estonian, and he's a sixteen hour flight away from home, and god, none of this was worth it.

(Mostly because Junior Worlds is just about over, and there's a silver medal around his neck.)

He's sitting on a chair somewhere in the back. Individual skating titles are being crowned and soon he'll have to take a shuttle back to the hotel room. It's dark out by now. He thinks the moon is full tonight, could see it bright and shining the night before from the window in his hotel room.

He moves to grab his phone from his bag, to text Sarah about how things went, though he's sure that she'd found some way to stream it, to text Kelly asking where she is, how she is after second place.

And then Allie Pressman's there, sudden and bright. There's no medal around her neck, no bronze because that's how it'd gone, the first change in standings since Lake Placid. A pair from Russia had won and god he wishes that it'd been Allie and Will on the step above him, that at least then the American flag would hang and the Star Spangled Banner could've been played in the background.

"Hey," she says softly, settingly in beside him. There's a sports bag around her shoulders. She shifts it to the side as she sits.

"Hey."

"You really took that thing I said about you and silver to heart, huh?" she comments, nudging him with her elbow. The medal is still around his neck this time. Her eyes flitting to it, once then twice.

"I'm not sure bronze is your color," he says, nudging her right back. She smiles, something shining in her eyes that he blames on the fluorescents above.

"I'm not sure it is either."

They're silent for a moment. He pulls the medal off, stuffing it in his bag dramatically. He swears he hears her laugh, light and a little tired. It must be getting late.

"You leaving soon?" he finally asks, turning back to her. Her hair is down. It was up during her skate, pulled back into some braid. He likes it better down.

She nods. "Yep. Taking the shuttle back. Lynette said it runs every hour or something."

He bites down on the inside of his lip, "You wanna leave?" She must hear it, what he's implying; that he leaves with her, that they ride the shuttle back together, walk up to the hotel rooms, the ones next door because they were all booked as a group.

She must hear it, because she smiles a little, nodding her head. "Sure."

They stand up in unison, both shifting their bags at the same time, but it's not until they're outside, not until the too cold air is just hitting his face, not until she's gasping, smiling up at the sky, that he realizes how close they are.

"It's snowing," she says in a voice very much full of awe. It's barely snowing, flurrying, tiny flakes that drift to the ground. It's just tiny bits of ice falling from the sky, but it's worth it, standing out in the cold, if only for the look on her face.

"That it is, Pressman."

She turns her attention back to him, her head tilted just barely up. She's smiling, so wide and so bright. Somewhere in the background, the moon sits high in the sky, just barely covered by clouds.

He wants to kiss her.

He doesn't, because that's a bad idea, worse than skating with her, worse than every single time he checked her schedule and showed up early just to talk to her for a few minutes in the kitchenette.

"Sorry about the silver," she says.

He shrugs. "Sorry about the bronze."

She shrugs too. "Doesn't matter much. We're moving up to the senior level next year anyway." She's right. This is it, this is their last year competing against kids, competing in competitions no one really pays any attention to. It's the Olympics now, Olympics Olympics Olympics.

"Canton?" The training center in Michigan. He swears he saw her looking at the website once, at the google search images of the rink and the training room and the cafeteria.

"Yep. I'm kind of excited."

"They have automatic doors there. No more cold door handles in the winter."

She snorts. "I think you've told me about that."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the shuttle approaching. She follows his gaze and smiles.

"It's a little scary," she says. "Canton. It's like... it's real after that. It's not just some crazy dream."

"We'll be away from home," he adds softly.

"We'll practically be adults. In fucking Canton. Michigan. God, we'll be living in Michigan."

"Fuck, don't say it like that, Pressman. You're making it sound more real," he jokes. Next to them the bus pulls up to the curb. He lets her board first.

She sets her bag down. "Do you think you're ready?"

He pauses. No, the answer to her question is no. He doubts he'll ever be ready for any of this, ever be ready to come in second, ever be ready for the Senior level. "I don't know."

Her lips press together and the bus lurches to a start. They're sitting next to each other even though the shuttle is empty. They're close, maybe too close, but she doesn't move away. He doesn't either.

"I don't think I'm ready," she admits.

He stares at her. God, it's like he's always staring at her. He needs to stop. "Yeah you are. You've been ready since you were eight."

She smiles, her eyes soft. The bus is just barely lit. It's still flurrying outside. It's her favorite weather.

It almost feels like this isn't real, sitting on the bus here with her. It almost feels like a dream. There's a whole other universe out there where this is his life. And he shouldn't say this, no, just mentioning it is a horrible idea, but here he goes anyway. "Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like if…"

She nods as he drifts like she gets it, like she's wondered too. "Yeah, me too."

They're silent. On the shuttle radio, some old pop song is playing. She looks out the window and he stares at her because fuck he really just can't help it.

"I think I like Estonia," Allie tells him after a moment, quiet and soft. "It's kinda nice here."

He agrees.

It's the very end of March, practically April, two weeks before they're set to leave for Michigan, when Kelly asks if they could talk over lunch about something important.

She picks a cafe two blocks from the rink, tells him that they can go after practice and that she tried to make a reservation but was laughed at. Kelly all but pencils the lunch into his non existent planner; she's efficient like that, takes charge when she has to.

And he's not scared, no, not really. What does he have to be scared of?

(So much. She's injured. She's dying. She's quitting. She's done.)

Practice is only an hour; Will and Allie are working with Lynette and Doug for the rest of the day to prepare for the switch to Canton. Him and Kelly should probably be doing that too. Practice is only an hour, but it feels like three.

After it's finally over, they drive to the cafe in seperate cars. Kelly makes a joke about hurting the environment that he laughs at if only because it's her. They park next to each other. It's nearly April, but he can still see his breath puffing out in front of him.

He holds the door to the cafe open for her. He's shaking just a little bit, but thinks that maybe he can blame the cold.

They've just sat down at some booth way in the back, and Harry hasn't even had a chance to pick up the menu, when Kelly says, with a level of force that he's not quite used to, "I'm quitting."

And god, he was expecting that, he knew it was coming, knew it somewhere too close to the surface, but fuck he wasn't ready for that at all. She's quitting; two years down the drain. He has to go to Michigan alone in two weeks now. He has to find a new partner.

He swallows, puts the menu down and tries his hardest to remain calm. Everything feels a little like it's crashing down around him. Everything feels like it's going wrong. "Have you been here before?" he jokes half-heartedly and Kelly cracks a small smile. She shakes her head.

"No, but Will said that the key lime pie is good." She did not need to bring up Will. That was uncalled for.

"I think I like peach better."

"Me too."

They stare at one another. Kelly's studying him, watching his reaction like she doesn't know what comes next. God, he doesn't even know what comes next, is barely handling this. It's like she's breaking up with him, like she's ruining everything which is strange and maybe not entirely true; he's not sure if he sees her beside him on the podium under the Olympic rings, not sure if he's seen her for quite some time.

He doesn't want to admit who he sees standing next to him, who his mind always drifts back to when dreaming of the Olympics.

He's studying the menu, staring at the hamburger options, at how much it costs to add bacon even though he knows he can't, knows that he'll get a salad and a water and then go to work out later, when he finally asks, "Why are you quitting?" with a steady, calm voice that doesn't feel like his own.

Kelly bites down on the corner of her lip, staring at the table, fidgeting with her menu. She's nervous, Harry realises, Kelly is nervous. "I just… I don't think I ever liked skating as much as I like ballet; I don't think I've ever liked anything as much as I like ballet. It's like, I can't get over it, like no matter how good we do or how many times we win, ballet is always first to me, ballet's always what I think of when I think of my future." She pauses, glances up at him, eyes just a little wide.

"And I wish it wasn't, and I wish I could be the partner you need because fuck, Harry you deserve someone who wants all of this just as bad as you do." Kelly takes a deep breath. It's shaky, just a little bit, like everything's crashing down for her too.

"I got into the School of American Ballet in New York and I accepted. I leave next week."

Next week. Seven days. In seven days, Kelly will be on a plane to New York and he'll be here, trying to decide which of his belongings go with him to Michigan. Everything's changing so fast and he's not ready for it.

He's always been shit with change.

But here, here sitting across from Kelly in some corner booth at a near empty cafe, he tries to keep himself steady. "I'll miss you."

Only now she's crying and he's never seen her cry, not once, not when he dropped her in Nice and they came in third, not when she sprained her ankle their first summer skating together, and never when they won. Never.

And he's crying too (only that's not nearly as rare. He cried in Nice, backstage, in some corner on some bench while a bronze medal rested against his chest. He cried when he sprained his wrist that spring, afraid he'd fucked up their entire season. He cried when they won worlds their first year competing together, back in his hotel room, holding the gold in his hands and wondering if they could really go all the way).

After a moment, after Kelly's dried her tears and after her cheeks have faded to only a dull pink, she tells him, "One day I'm gonna turn on the TV and watch you win gold at the Olympics."

He wants to believe her.

A list of things that he'll miss about skating with Kelly (in no particular order).

Grabbing breakfast after practice. Only on Saturdays, though, and always something healthy. They'd eat fruit cups and bowls of oatmeal and Kelly would talk about that one day where they'd gorge themselves on pancakes. After worlds he'd said and she'd nodded. (Only then they'd come back with silver medals around their necks. She disappeared to ballet rehearsals and he never left the ice. Lynette pulled down sandbags for him to dance with.)

Her skates. She'd leave a bit of pink tied somewhere in the laces and he'd take comfort in staring at it when he wasn't supposed to.

Watching tapes on that couch in the break room. She'd always leave space between them, the crack between the cushions, and he'd never minded. She studied the tapes just as hard as he did, took notes even in a little notebook, scribbling out things in gel pen.

Winning. The first time he ever placed first in a competition, she was skating with him. He wonders how long he'll associate the feeling of a gold medal around his neck with her hand in his. He hopes it's not long.

The future. For two, nearly three, years, he really did think that she could be it, that they could be it. But now that's over.

Mostly, though, he's just afraid that he's never going to be able to find someone who skates with him like Kelly had. (He tries very hard not to think of Allie Pressman, because that's not fair to anyone.)

He's got five days before he's in Michigan. Kelly's already gone, landed in New York City, probably moved into the dorms by now. He's at the rink, of course, the sun shining in through the windows masking the fact that it's only forty degrees out.

He doesn't even need to be at the rink; he's auditioning new partners in Michigan, his new coach supposedly in the process of looking through applicants, but here he is anyway, because he'd woken up this morning and checked the schedule and decided that why the fuck shouldn't he skate.

And he doesn't regret it now, driving the half hour to the rink, no, he doesn't regret it at all, even though Allie and Will are across the ice from him, far away, but their voices still echoing as they fight.

Actually wait, that's wrong. It's mostly Allie's voice echoing.

"Excuse me?" he can hear her say, loud and clear, and something like the start to a lot of things that Harry probably isn't supposed to hear. "What do you mean this isn't working out? We've been doing this since we were fourteen. I've known you since we were tweleve and we were about to move six hundred and fifty fucking miles to Michigan so we could have shot at the Olympics and now you're telling me that this isn't working!?"

Harry can feel his eyes widening. He can't seem to stop staring at them, at her. He can't seem to stop watching everything go wrong. It feels like some alternate version of the cafe scene.

Will says sorry, too quick, too loud. Allie shouts a fuck you so loud that nearby skaters turn to watch, before skating away with long strides, barely slowing down when she hits the boards, barely stopping to put on her skate guards. Will doesn't move to follow her. Harry does.

Because fuck, it seems like Kelly might've taken all of his common sense with him when she left for New York.

She's just slipped into the hallway, and he's just caught the door behind her when she turns around to glare at him. "Not now, Bingham." The words are caught somewhere between harsh and desperate.

He takes another step closer to her and she moves to sit down, back pressed against the wall. She's staring up at the ceiling, studying the patterns in the plaster. He sits down beside her.

"Fuck Will," Harry says forcefully and she snorts, messy and sad. There's a tear running down the side of her face closest to him, a second somewhere else. She's trying to blink them away.

"I'm so stupid," she says slowly, stretching out each word. Harry's quick to shake his head.

"No you're not."

She lets out this half laugh that's completely devoid of any humor. It's more like a breath; shaky and loud. " I… I had a chance to be something great all on my own and I gave it up so that I could skate with him and now that's over and I think I fucked up."

"Kelly quit."

"I heard." Allie swallows, wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes. "Ballet?"

"Yep." He pops the P. She snorts a little again.

"Sorry about that."

"Sorry about Will."

Allie makes a face, her nose scrunching up and the top of her lip rising. "Can we please not talk about him."

They sit for a moment. Allie slips off her skates, sliding them as far away from herself as she can. He copies her, tossing them beside hers with a level of recklessness that almost makes her laugh. He wants to tell her that he's got new ones at home, ones that he wants to use for the first time in Michigan as though that'll make them special. It doesn't feel like the right time, though, no, not now, not with Allie's head leaning just barely against his shoulder. It's wrong how much he wants it to stay like this for forever.

He needs to stop thinking in terms of forever; it never works out like that.

So Harry gives himself a minute, one minute with her head on his shoulder, one minute to pretend like this is normal, before he pushes himself up and offers her his hand.

"You want an orange?"

She stares up at him. "Will you peel it for me?"

He laughs, breathy and normal and Allie smiles, just the corners of her mouth rising. "Sure, Pressman."

They're both barefoot and he slides a little as he pulls her up. She slides to the kitchenette on purpose, and he follows, their socks garnering little friction on the cold linoleum. He wonders what Canton's going to be like, if it'll ever compare to this tiny rink in Greenwich where everything started.

From the bowl in the middle of the kitchenette, he grabs a clementine. Allie plays with her hands while her eyes flit around the room, never settling on anything for more than a second.

"I'll miss this place," she says finally, quiet and deliberate.

"Yeah?"

She nods. "Yeah. It kinda feels like home sometimes, you know?"

He does know. It's like how he knows about the outlet that doesn't work in the corner of the kitchenette, about the bit of the boards on the far left that shake a little from when he crashed into them five years ago. It's like how he knows that the front door squeaks in the winter, and that the lockers stick if you don't put the combo in quickly enough.

"Canton will feel like this one day." Harry's not sure if that's true. He wants that to be true, though. He hands her the orange, tossing the peel in the trash. She takes it apart slowly, handing him a piece.

"I'll have to find a new partner there," Allie says just as a small group of skaters, kids (once upon a time Allie was that small and Cassandra was that small and he was that small and everything was different), walk past the open door.

He pauses, tries to choose his next words carefully as he attempts to figure out what exactly is happening. He was nine and she was eight and maybe he fucked up but now there's a chance. There's a chance, and then there's also a solution to all of their problems and somehow they're the same.

"What about us?" he asks, nervous, more nervous than he ever is before performing. It's like that day Will was late and he got to skate with her. He was nervous then too.

"What?" she questions, soft and rushed.

"You and me, Pressman. Partners." She stares at him, like she's not quite understanding something. He continues. "You just lost Will. Kelly just quit. This is perfect."

She bites the inside of her lip, the orange separated into pieces left sitting on a paper towel on the table beside her. "I wouldn't call it perfect."

God, this was stupid, stupid of him to ever think that she'd want to skate with him, stupid of him to ever think that this was some kind of second chance.

But then Allie nods, slow and sure. "Okay. Let's do this."