Work Text:
The thing is, she always thought he’d be there for her.
“No,” she said after Vancouver, because they were so very young and he was sometimes kind of a douche. Sure, he was the best athlete she knew and worked so hard, but he was also Scott, ladies man, goofball, and sometimes-best-friend, sometimes-stupid-boy. (She can’t call him a brother because no matter what they are to each other, he’s never been that.)
And so they dated other people and it was good, and it was healthy, and even if all of Scott’s girlfriends appeared to hate her (she tried, she really did, but they always viewed her with suspicion even when she told them nothing would ever happen between them because she’d known Scott since he was a kid and that just meant she couldn’t see him that way.
“So you see him as a brother?” they asked.
Maybe she should have lied and said yes.)
“Not now,” she said after Sochi, because they were both burned out and broken-hearted and even the sex they had after winning the silver medal was more of a mutual heartbreak than anything else. They never spoke about it again and sometimes she wonders, did it even happen or was it just a fevered dream?
She remembers pasting a smile on her face as she spoke to the media. Leaning on Scott, saying how proud she was to have competed with him and how they worked so hard and that silver was a triumph (when everyone knew that it wasn’t) and she just had to Keep. On. Smiling. because if she didn’t she risked people seeing the truth, that she wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be and it was brutal, being in the constant spotlight, being asked the same questions over and over, and knowing that whatever friendship she’d had with Meryl was in ruins.
At least she had Kaitlyn.
And so when Scott asked her if they could take a vacation together, just the two of them, and get the hell away from this mess, she said, “not now”. She needed time to get her own head together. Time to breathe. She knew she and Scott would be friends forever; there was no need to rush into something just because the Olympics were over.
She missed him intensely the next year or so.
Tessa still didn’t know what she wanted apart from skating. Apart from winning. She tried school. She tried modelling. She could do all of these things but were they her passion? Her agent told her she was brilliant. The money kept rolling in. It made sense. Her old career was over; she just had to keep trying new things until she won.
The second Scott told her he wanted to try again, she knew she was in.
After PyeongChang, there was no question. They lived in an euphoric bubble for two weeks, stealing sidelong glances at each other. Touching more (was it more? Or did it just mean more?) while telling the cameras they weren’t together and didn’t the media realise the pressure it put them under? How were two people ever supposed to figure out their shit when the spotlight was constant? When it was supposed to be about how hard they had worked to make their dream come true instead of did they love each other? Of course they loved each other!
It was in Belgium that she found herself in his arms, in his bed, when they were as far from everyday life as they could be, but still together. Connected. Like they had always been but this time she didn’t have to worry about training or the Olympics or the French or were they good enough?
It was bliss to be free of everything. No decisions to be made; for a brief heartbeat, she could be just Tessa, loving and enjoying life. Laughing with her best friend every day as he treated her like a princess. For once, she didn’t have to think.
But thinking couldn’t be avoided forever. She knew what Scott wanted. A wife, a rink, and babies. And he deserved that. He’d worked so hard; he’d grown so much. She knew Scott through and through, had seen him through his worst years and his best, and even their counselling sessions had shown her new, more nuanced sides of him. This was a strong, confident man. A man who knew what he wanted. A man who knew how to communicate (although not how to dress) and a man who knew how to set goals, fulfil them, and be there.
It was overwhelming. How did annoying Scott turn into this fully realised person? A man who was every woman’s dream husband? A man who was ready to give up this crazy life they had and get married?
How were they so far from each other after everything they had been through?
And when he came to her, and dropped on one knee, her heart fell through the floor. She wasn’t ready. It was too early. Why did he have to ask now, when they’d barely had a chance to breathe? When they weren’t done figuring out what was next? When she didn’t even really know who she was outside of Tessa-and-Scott even though they had both fought so hard to maintain their own identities, to be separate people, and she needed her own dream.
She wasn’t ready to be a wife. And she couldn’t take Scott’s dream from him.
“I can’t,” she said.
---
She knew she’d broken his heart. She wanted to explain why, but now they weren’t competing, they didn’t have their regular counselling sessions, and he was all-business when they talked. He still looked at her like that, with hearts in his eyes, but he didn’t mention it. And foolishly, she had convinced herself that he understood.
She thought he would wait.
But he was Scott and she should have known better than that. Scott lived life large, with his heart on his sleeve, and he wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Tessa to change her mind.
Academically speaking, he was right.
And what if she was never ready? There were so many things she wanted to do. So many things to explore; she wanted to live in Paris, she wanted to learn more about fashion. She wanted to actually spend some time in her beautiful house instead of it remaining pristine, like a magazine shoot, because no one actually lived there. She wanted to be new and yet…she felt like she was letting Scott down because … because it was her dream. Not theirs. And she didn’t know how to untangle her life from Scott’s and be happy because the last time they had tried, they had inevitably been drawn back together.
Sometimes she’s terrified because she did try this last time. Maybe she just hadn’t given it long enough.
And then she’s terrified because if she’s supposed to be with Scott, then why didn’t it happen already and did she fuck it up and part of her, the stubborn part, doesn’t want to be with him just because everyone expects it.
--
It was New Year’s and she was at home with her mom and sister and everything seemed so quiet.
Last year they had been in the depths of training. No parties, no midnight celebrations, and certainly no alcohol.
This year, she didn’t want to drink anyway.
She knew Scott would either be partying it up or, well, she didn’t want to think about the alternative, but she’d seen Scott through so many relationships and she knew what he did. He’d treated her in the same way, after all, made he feel like the most important woman in the universe. (The jealous part of her, the part that she tried to quash down, wondered how that could compare to a twenty-year-relationship?)
“Tessa. Honey. Just be honest with him.”
This was her mom. Her mom, who for years had told her that she didn’t have to date Scott just because everyone thought she should. Her mom, who had always advocated for her being her own person, and doing what she wanted to do, not what she was expected to do.
Tessa had all of the arguments ready. How she couldn’t be what he wanted her to be and how it wasn’t fair to expect him to give up what he wanted for her.
“But how do you know that if you don’t even tell him the truth?”
“If he knows me so well, he should already know,” she said darkly.
Her mom just sighed, and took her hand. “Sometimes when we love someone so much, we can’t see the truth that’s right in front of us.”
“What changed, Mom?” Tessa asked.
“He grew up,” she replied. “He’s a good man. Those are hard to find.”
“I know,” she said sadly, thinking of her own relationships. Relationships that had imploded because of distance, or lack of communication, or both. In retrospect, she’d been looking for everything except Scott, but the truth was, her relationship with Scott was the healthiest thing in her entire life.
And now she had a choice. She could let things continue, wait and hope that his current romance would fizzle out like they all had before. But what if it didn’t? What if Scott really was ready to settle down and have a family? What if he did it with someone who wasn’t her? Was she really okay with that?
She had to be okay with it. She’d pushed him away. It had been her choice.
But why did it hurt so much, knowing that he was moving on without her even though that was what she had wanted for herself?
And in that moment, she realised that she’d made Scott’s choices for him. By not telling him, he hadn’t had the chance to tell her yes or no, that he could wait, or that he couldn’t. She had just…expected it. Which had backfired on her now because for the first time, she knew there were no more Olympics in front of them; no reason to be drawn back together, living in each others’ pockets 24/7.
Was it fair to tell him now? When he seemed to be so happy?
But this was Scott. She owed him. Above all else, she owed him the truth, because that had been the foundation of their partnership. Honesty, integrity, truth.
And even though it was almost midnight, she picked up the phone and sent a text.
“I miss you. Can we talk?”