It's the first day of Spring semester and he's warming up at the barre, waiting for his cohort of undergrads to gather. Professor Sylvester ticks their names off a list with an officious eagle eye and they all cower slightly under her gaze, despite being Seniors.
She's just directing him to lead them in warm ups – as her Masters level Teaching Assistant and therefore indentured slave – when the door opens and closes with a clang and another figure rushes into the room. Long dark hair flutters behind the young woman and a rehearsal bag is slung over her shoulder. Her eyes are circled dark. "I'm sorry I'm late."
There's a deathly silence: no one is ever late for Professor Sylvester's classes. She's been known to punish students with 100 push-ups and an intensive cardio workout for so much as joking about missing a class. This is why he doesn't understand when Sylvester simply quirks an eyebrow before turning back to her clipboard.
"Nice to have you back, Cohen-Chang."
X
Mike's paired with her to catch her up on pre-learnt choreography and even though she's behind she picks up the steps with ease. She's not as graceful as Brittany – the class star – but she's more careful than Sugar who seems more intent on getting noticed than actually following the right steps.
"Busy vacation?" he asks by way of conversation, taking her hand and letting her spin into his body. She ends up against his chest, her palms flat against his thin tank top as she quirks an eyebrow.
"If you call hanging out in a cancer ward busy, then yes."
X
The next time he bumps into her is in the college cafeteria. Her coffee is as dark as the night and she thumbs through Berstein's biography, glasses perched firmly on her nose and her hair twisted in braids that fall behind her shoulders.
"Do you mind?" he asks, pointing to the seat opposite her, holding his lunch tray in his free hand.
She looks up with a frown, as though it takes a moment to place him. "Sure," she says carefully, pulling her notebook towards her so the space is free. "Knock yourself out."
They're both quiet for a long time. He chews on his pasta salad and she sips her coffee, and he counts how many times she wrinkles her nose in concentration as she reads. He's up to twenty-three when she clears her throat. "Are you going to stare at me the whole time you eat or just during the entrée?"
Grinning, he swallows his food and holds out his hand. "I'm Mike," he introduces.
A sceptical eyebrow raise and a half quirked smile accompany her handshake. "Tina."
X
Tina's roommate is a Performing Arts major who never sleeps and so she spends a lot of time hiding out in the practice halls. Mike pretty quickly learns that while she considers ballet her weakness, tap is her strength, and she has a good eye for hip-hop, street and jazz. Sometimes he catches her – completely by accident, because he's coming to set up for his next class or practice his own Masters level choreography – with headphones in and the lights almost totally off, dancing in a bubble of her own creation. There's something almost mystical about the way her body ebbs, arches and spins; it's like a spiritual summoning.
She watches him too: in class, in rehearsals, when he's warming up with easy routines of his own creation. She's jealous of the way his body moves so lightly, like his bones are rubber and his muscles silk and part of her craves taking him to pieces – unzipping his chest so she can crawl right inside and find out what makes him work.
X
"Singing in the Rain! How can you question that?"
"You're seriously saying it's the best musical ever made? What about West Side Story? Les Mis? The Sound of Music for crying out loud! I mean seriously, you'd dismiss Julie Andrews?"
The two of them are sitting cross-legged in the classroom after everyone else has gone. He's found out in the month that they've been back at college that she's only a few credits short of graduating and this class is one of her last requirements. So it is that when everyone else runs off for their next class or study session, she ends up with her back pressed against the wall, backpack in her lap and her chin tipped up towards him with a smile. They've been arguing movies for the past fifteen minutes.
"I'm not dismissing her," Mike counters with a roll of his eyes. "How could anyone? I'm just saying – Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds – there is so much that's perfect about it."
Pushing escaping hair back behind her ears, Tina shrugs her shoulders. "Honestly, I haven't seen it since I was a kid," she admits with a small smile.
Shifting slightly, he knocks his shoulder against hers. "Maybe we can watch it some time?"
Looking up, she smiles almost indulgently. "Maybe we can."
X
She misses the whole next week's worth of classes and when she comes back her eyes are shadowed and she's clearly lost weight. She stumbles on an easy step and curses vehemently and the rest of the class look on in surprise. Brittany tries to put a comforting arm around her shoulder but Tina shrugs her off and when they break for lunch she sits in the corner alone and pushes a salad around on her plate. Conversation is quiet but genial, before being broken by a stifled cry. When they look over, Tina is blushing furiously, her nose dripping blood into her lap.
Up on his feet in a second, Mike finds an icepack and holds it against the back of her neck as she clutches a wad of tissue to her face.
"Are you okay?" he asks gently, not really sure he wants to know the answer.
"You get used to it," is all she replies.
X
It's two weeks before their graded performance when Jesse St James drops her out of a lift and she falls to the floor with a slam. Everyone gasps and winces and crowds around, but Professor Sylvester is the first one who gets to her, picking her up off the ground. When Tina puts weight on her ankle and winces Sylvester calls Mike over immediately to assist, and his arm goes under Tina's shoulders with ease.
"I'm sorry," Jesse says, running his hands through his curly hair. "I'm used to working with Rachel – she's more…lithe."
"Fuck you," Tina spits around wheezed half-breaths as she leans into Mike's side, her eyes blazing in Jesse's direction. "Dance it alone then."
X
She rehearses her own solo piece non-stop for the next ten days despite her strapped ankle and the fact she keeps losing her place in the choreography. Mike finds her in the studio night after night, moving around the room, muttering names of steps to herself and humming the music into the open air. After a week of this, he can't help himself; stepping from the shadows he reaches for her hand, and if she's surprised then she hides it well – she melts into his touch and lets him lead her around the room, bodies moving in tandem and wrapping around each other like pillars of smoke.
When they finish dancing their toes are an inch apart, and she looks up at him with an almost resigned gaze. "I can't remember it," she tells him. "It's like trying to hold on to sand – it just keeps running through my fingers."
In that moment he can think of absolutely nothing to say, and she knows it. Standing on tiptoes, she presses a kiss against his cheek. "Thank you for the dance."
X
He finds her in the library the next day staring down at a notebook full of illegible scrawl that he's pretty sure is supposed to be her choreography notes. He says nothing but sits down next to her, hesitating only for a second before reaching out for her hand. For a moment she tenses, and he wonders if she's about to pull away, but then her fingers lace through his. Neither one say a word, they just stay silent, holding hands as the world moves around them.
X
He doesn't even realise that she knows where he lives until she ends up on his doorstep. His housemate – Professor Anderson of the Drama Department – opens the door and calls him with a voice that is half urgency and half judgement, and when Mike comes to the door he understands why.
The rain is pouring and Tina is drenched and wearing only a sundress and sandals. Her hair is plastered to her head and she wears an aura of tequila and melancholy.
Despite the looks of unease from his friend, Mike hustles Tina inside and up the stairs to his room, grabbing large towels from the linen closet as he goes. She's not drunk enough that she needs help getting her clothes off, but there's enough liquor coursing through her system that she doesn't think to make him turn his back either. Her dress goes pooling to her ankles before he's had the chance to look away and her hands fumble with the clasp of her bra.
"It's too hard," she tells him as he wraps a towel around her shoulders, reaching his own hand up under the thick material to do battle with the metal fastening. "Everything's too hard."
She falls asleep that night in his bed with blankets piled on top of her shivering body and him sat beside her, phone is his hand and ready to dial 911 at the first sign of trouble. When she throws up the next morning he holds her hair and rubs her back and between gasped breaths and apologises, she promises him it's the alcohol and nothing more.
For the first time since taking on his scholarship he calls in sick and spends the day in bed, just holding her. They watch Gene Kelly dance around a lamppost as she dozes on and off against his shoulder, and he forces her to drink sips of mint tea to stop her nausea. Her phone alarm goes off at different intervals during the day and she diligently reaches for her purse each time, throwing back pills before climbing back under the covers.
When it's night again, they lay face to face, and Tina reaches out to touch his cheek. "Would you kiss me, if I asked you to?"
She never actually has to ask. Lips meet and fit like somehow they were always supposed to. As he moves inside her, he tries to ignore the tears on her cheeks.
X
He doesn't see her for almost a month. She's not in class, not in the library or the cafeteria and not answering her phone. He knows his poker face blows so he can't bring himself to ask Professor Sylvester if she knows about Tina's absence, but it makes his stomach clench and he spends most nights staring at the ceiling, sleep an illusive master.
Finally, as he's working through steps for new choreography in the practice room, he hears the door open and close and familiar tentative footsteps on the springy wood. "You're back," he says without looking round, taking a long drink of water before he's ready to face her.
"Not for long. I just told Professor Sylvester…I'm leaving the program."
The words are like a punch to the gut and he finds his feet moving, his hands reaching out for her. "Don't," he argues. "You're too good. Tina, you have so much talent and if this is about me, I swear - "
"I got in on a drug trial," she blurts, hands clutching his biceps, whether to keep him close or far enough away, he's not sure. "It's in California. So I'm going out there for a while."
"Tell me you'll come back."
She swallows thickly, avoiding his eyes. "You know I can't."
Nodding his head, he folds her into his arms and she goes willingly. Her head rests on his shoulder and he strokes her hair, and if he can feel tears wetting his t-shirt then neither of them mention it.
X
In a bedroom in Ohio a man jack-knifes from sleep, his heart racing painfully in his chest. For a moment he panics at the sight of an empty bed, but then hears the familiar sound of running water from the bathroom and when the door is pushed open – dim light streaming through the crack – and a pale foot steps out onto the carpet, his heart begins to stagger back towards a beat.
Seeing him up, Tina smiles apologetically and hops towards the bed. "I didn't mean to wake you," she tells him, snuggling back under the blankets and against his side. "I had to pee."
"It's okay," he tells her, even though he doesn't remember thinking the words. "I'm glad I woke up."
Spooning back against his chest, she pulls his arms around her. "Well go back to sleep now. We have a Chem test in the morning and then we're going roller skating with Kurt and Blaine, remember?"
"Mmm…" he answers vaguely, because he's still processing and still confused and he can't believe that she's here and okay and his. "Skating, right."
Giggling slightly, Tina picks up his hand, pressing a kiss to the centre of his palm. "Close your eyes, sleepy head," she tells him. "I love you."
Taking in a long breath, he inhales the familiar lemon scent of her hair, and presses his lips to her crown. "I love you too Tina."
X