I'm no expert in the field of figure skating, nor am I an English native speaker so there will surely be mistakes here and there. I apologize for that in advance. Also, don't worry if you know nothing about figure skating because neither do I and I'll try to make it as understandable as possible.

**In this story, I used real competitions, years and places because it's easier to construct a timeline and semi-realistic universe this way. This is a completely fictional story and the characters have nothing to do with any figure in real life.**

"Aww, why the long face, Carebear?" Katherine looked up from her laptop when the door to their office- the intern's office- opened, "wait, I wanna guess. Did Damon ask you out?"

Caroline gave her brunette colleague a dirty glare before flumping down on her chair, "Worse than that. And, ew no, I'd never go out on a date with our chief editor, Kat. I fought the shit out of myself to get an internship in The Chicago Daily, I'm not gonna ruin this opportunity by fooling around with my supervisor. Plus, he's not my type."

Katherine shuffled her chair towards the blonde while still sitting on it, "it can't be that bad."

"Yes it can." Caroline rolled her eyes, "Salvatore assigned me a sports column. A sports column, Kat, A. Fucking. Sports. Column. Out of all those different pages this newspaper has, he had to kick me into the sports section. That wasn't even on my preference list! I chose front page, education or supplement!"

"Well, look on the bright side. Maybe you'll get to meet hot football players while interviewing them." Katherine shot her a naughty grin, "the shower room sounds like a fantastic idea."

"Kat, I'm serious. This is not funny."

Katherine gave her an innocent pout and shrugged, "I am serious as well. Don't you like sweaty, hot athletes with six packs?"

The blonde shook her head and sighed. She fished out her phone and started googling, "Damon seems to have set making my internship miserable as his new life goal, so nope, hot football players are definitely happening."

"What then? Another kind of football? Is David Beckham happening then?" Katherine leaned in towards her to get a look of the screen.

"You're almost right Kat, but only about the British part. Damon wants me to do a tag-along close-up interview with Klaus Mikaelson," Caroline replied, showing her friend a picture on her phone.

It took Katherine a while to finish savoring the image she saw before she finally commented, "he's cute. But who is Klaus Mikaelson though?"

"Right? That was my exact reaction when he assigned me this long-term interview. Who the hell is Klaus Mikaelson?" She threw her phone on the desk, not caring if it's going to break or not. "Apparently he won the Winter Olympics in the men's figure skating discipline two years ago, and has been slaying and breaking world records in rows before and a year after that Olympic gold medal. He's the best figure skater the UK has had in the past few decades. But suddenly he started fucking up since last year and he haven't been on the podium in any of the competitions last season. People have been wondering why and he's been mysterious as fuck, even the British paparazzi's couldn't find out what's wrong. Somehow Damon thinks I can find out, with a stupid weekly interview column."

"That doesn't sound that bad. He not only cute but also a world champion. You get to interview him for what, 3 months?" Katherine pried through the files Damon gave to Caroline for details, "do you need a reminder for how sexy British people sounds, if that makes you feel better?"

"Katherine, no! Do you not understand how ridiculous this internship has become? Of course this is bad, bad bad. Horrible." Caroline punched her computer to turn it on, "we're in the US, Kat. People watch baseball and the NBA, or maybe soccer every four years because of the World Cup. But no one gives a shit about figure skating, except the skating geeks. No one cares about skating, at least not after Michelle Kwan. How am I supposed to use my internship experience as a stepping stone to land an interview in The New York Times if all I do is interview an athlete that's no longer at his summit anymore? I have my ambition all planned out!"

"And here comes the control freak." Having long gotten used to Caroline's control freak meltdown every once in a while, Katherine turned to sip her coffee calmly.

"Well, what did Damon assign you then, you don't seem to have any complaints." Caroline queried as she accepted the truth- albeit reluctantly- and started researching for the up-coming interview.

Katherine hesitated for a while, and finally confessed in a low voice, "he asked me to help Alaric."

"What!" Caroline swore she could've crushed the mouse it she hadn't let go of it before hearing Katherine's answer. "Alaric's the editor of the front page! No offense but how come I got a figure skating column and you get to work with the top editor?"

"Because Salvatore asked me out last week and I not only said yes but also went home with him?"

"Katherine!"

"He wasn't that good, if it makes you feel better." Katherine patted her back before sitting back into her cubical, "in fact, he was not good at all."

"Next, on the ice of the 2016 Skate Canada figure skating competition, we have reigning Olympic champion, Klaus Mikaelson. This 24 year-old Brit broke numerous world records, won countless golds during the 2013-14 Olympic season and has kept that impeccable condition throughout the 2014-15 season. It seems like he's going through some trouble last year, however, as he hasn't ranked higher than bronze in any ISU official competitions in the 2015-16 season. With all those popped jumps and low step-sequence scores last year, People have been wondering if the ice prince has already gone over the hill and started going downwards. So far in this year, at Finlandia and the Autumn Classics, his scores hasn't gained him any place on the podium. Now let's see if Mikaelson can bounce back to his champion glories with his short program, music Tristesse by Chopin."

"His first jump is a quad. Quadruple loop. He's been on the passive side since the younger skaters started the quad battles, probably due to his age. And his quads are not the most stable- ah! That was an under-rotation!"

"Here after the spread eagle, Mikaelson enters a triple Axel jump- he landed it! After a failed quad loop and a under-rotated triple lutz, he finally stepped up his game with a clean triple Axel. Here comes the quadruple Salchow... no! He doubled it! Only two spins instead of 4. That's going to cost him a lot of points. I'm not expecting to see him on the podium after all that ..."

Caroline paused the video as she spotted her destination building. Toronto Cricket Skating Club was a compound of plain yet huge buildings. No one would have guessed that this very rink was the cradle of the best skaters in the world just viewing from the outside. Maybe this was the reason why Klaus Mikaelson has chosen it as his training base instead of anywhere else in England, Caroline thought to herself. aside from the glorious list of gold medalist trainees, this place also holds a certain degree of privacy, serenity.

Sighing, she asked the Uber driver to pull over by the entrance. She was still not happy about Damon's decision to have her do this interview, let alone having to leave Chicago for a 3-month business trip- ugh, she would've called it a journey- in Toronto. Truth be told, she was still in denial when she boarded the flight this morning. How could she not be? Born in a little southern town where no one cared about skating, she'd never dreamt of dealing with figure skaters in her life, high school cheerleader captain or not.

She thanked and paid the driver as the car stopped. "Think positive, Forbes. Think positive." She took a deep breath after hopping off the car, "it's only one year and two months away from the next Winter Olympics. Klaus Mikaelson might still be a competitive skater in the next Olympics. If you do your job well- as you always do- and write a kickass coverage series about Mikaelson, you'll still have something decent to list on your curriculum vitae."

With that, she walked towards the gate of the ice rink, without knowing this was the turning point of figure skating history.

There were several skaters gliding on the ice when Caroline entered the rink building. At first, she couldn't really distinguish Klaus Mikaelson from the rest of the athletes, as they were all wearing similar training garments. It was the coach's loud instruction that brought her attention to the man that was kneeling on the ice, apparently just fallen due to an unsuccessful jump. "You need to keep your arms closer to your torso if you want to land that quadruple Salchow, Klaus."

Walking towards the pair, Caroline fished out her journalist ID tag. "You must be Coach Schulz, and Mr. Mikaelson." She put on her best Miss Mystic Falls smile as she showed them her tag, "I'm Caroline. I believe I have an interview with Mister Mikaelson this afternoon?"

Clearly as unwilling to do the interview as Caroline was, the gold medalist rolled his eyes as he pulled himself up from the ice surface while his coach exchanged handshakes with Caroline. "As if I have a choice to say no," he scoffed sarcastically.

"I'll leave him all to you, Miss Forbes. The rink closes at 6 but Klaus has a gym appointment at 5. You can interview him for as long as you want before that," the coach smiled politely, "we'll continue tomorrow, Klaus, 9am sharp."

Arms crossing reluctantly in front of his chest, Klaus initiated the conversation, "let's get this over with, Miss Forbes."

Hey guys, I know it's been a loooong time since I last updated anything. Please accept my sincere apology. As I promised, I'm not abandoning anything. It's just that I've got a lot going on in my life now so updates will take longer. Please be patient with me.

This new story is a getaway from the real life shit. It's just me testing the water after a long break from writing so please leave a review if you want it continued.

My next update should be Beauty, around end of June or mid-July. After that will be Red Carpet, and then MAYBE Caged.

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-A