This is my first MD fic, but I'm not sure exactly where it's going. I've been in a pensive mood lately and this is what's come out of it. I've got a couple of ideas about how to continue this, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pull them off. We'll see…
Just a note before I get started…Even though they are the most fun as far as stories go, this isn't a romance. Mainly because I am the world's suckiest romance writer. Trust me…it's really messy.
And I would love to know what you guys think of this. So either way, let me know, ok?
And…the usual disclaimer: Disney owns the Mighty Ducks. The name, the characters are not mine. However, I do own any characters you don't recognize…i.e. Ken's parents, grandfather, Elaine, etc.
So…here we go!
Shivering in the damp cold, Kenny Wu hurried across the asphalt parking lot toward the ice arena, hockey skates in hand. After spending several months in Minnesota, Ken though he would be used to cold weather, but the humid San Francisco air turned a would-be winter chill into a biting arctic cold he could feel cut through his bones. Jogging the last few feet to the arena entrance, he welcomed the warm air of the ice arena lobby.
Ken paused in the lobby to warm up and looked around, feeling slightly nostalgic. It had been several years since he had been in this arena; the last time was just before the Junior Goodwill Games, just over two and a half years ago, when he had made the decision to give up figure skating in favor of playing hockey. Though he didn't recognize the attendant working behind the front counter, it seemed as if nothing else had changed. A set of glass doors to the left of the counter led to a walkway between the two ice rinks below. A set of stairs just to the right of the doors led downstairs to the rink entrances, a skate rental counter, a concession stand and the pro shop. Which reminded Ken why he was here.
He hurried through the glass doors and down the stairs, praying that the pro shop was still open. Ken had noticed he was sliding on his edges a bit during one of the last practices at Eden Hall before winter break but never found the time to take care of it. He berated himself for letting it go so long, but as he saw the "open" sign still lit in the window the pro shop, he slowed down and breathed a sigh of relief.
Ken walked towards the shop, which was situated at the far end of the building between the two rinks and watched the skaters on each. On the rink to his left was an open public session, but there were no more than twenty people on the ice. Ken didn't find this too surprising since it was –he checked his watch– 4:38 pm on New Year's Eve. On the opposite rink was a lone figure skater, which did surprise Ken. For most of the serious skaters, the only days they took off from skating were the ones when the rink was closed.
Turning his attention back to the pro shop, Ken walked in the open door and up to the counter where a kid a few years older than Ken was looking very bored. Ken slung his skates onto the counter, saying, "I need to get these sharpened. Is there any way I can get them back in the next two days?"
"Sure, man." The kid replied. "Shop's closed tomorrow, but you can pick 'em up on the second."
"Perfect." Ken replied; he was leaving for Minnesota on the third.
"That's ten bucks."
Silently grumbling at the price of sharpening, Ken handed over the money, knowing it was worth it.
Nodding a goodbye to the kid behind the counter, Ken walked back between the two rinks, watching the skater on the rink now to his left.
She wasn't the best skater he'd seen before, but she was pretty good, he thought, watching her land a double Axel. He continued watching her as she went into another attempt and cringed as she let her shoulders get ahead of the rest of her body and crashed to the ice on the landing. As she got up, knocked the ice off her legs and skated around for another jump, Ken got the feeling he had seen her somewhere before.
She was tall for a female skater, maybe a few inches shorter than him, with a slender, muscular build and long dark brown hair pulled into ponytail. She carried herself on the ice a bit like a dancer; back straight, shoulders down, head up, and had the speed and power to her skating that looked like she had been skating for many years. But Ken knew that wasn't why she seemed familiar; there were hundreds of skaters that matched that description. She seemed to give off an energy through her skating, something that pulled your eyes to her and impressed her emotion upon you. Ken had only known a few people who held that kind of passion in their skating, and as she flew past the boards closest to him, he realized who she was.
"Hey Elaine!" Ken shouted, leaning out the door in the boards, onto the ice. The girl skidded to a stop at hearing her name and skated towards him. For a few seconds she stared at him, unable to place him, and then an expression of recognition flashed over her face.
"Kenny!" she exclaimed, grinning wildly. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing." Ken replied, grinning back. "The last time I saw you here was…" he paused, thinking, "when you got injured." He finished lamely, not sure how she'd react to the memory. Elaine, who was about five years older than Ken, had been one of the top skaters in their San Francisco skating club. She was a top competitor in the Senior ladies division at competitions before she'd badly injured her hip just before the 1994 National Championships, leaving her unable to skate at all. Ken made his decision to drop figure skating just a few months after, and hadn't seen her since.
But Elaine smiled. "Yeah, I took some time out to finish high school and let my hip heal and all that. I even got accepted to Stanford, I'm studying sports psychology now. I picked up skating again about a year and a half ago."
"Wow," said Kenny, impressed. "So are you training for the Olympics again?" he asked.
"Oh goodness, no!" she laughed. "My competitive days are long over, I'm just skating for fun. What about you? I haven't heard from you since before the Olympics! Aaron Plested told me you quit skating and started playing hockey."
"I did." Ken told her. "After the Olympics I got an offer to join the USA hockey team for the Junior Goodwill Games. After we won, my teammates and I got scholarships to play hockey for a prep school in Minnesota, so that's where I am. I'm just home for winter break."
"Wow, that's awesome." Elaine said smiling, then shook her head in disbelief. "Of all the people I expected to quit skating, you sure weren't one of them. Why'd you decide to quit?"
Ken hesitated. "It was just time for a change." He replied slowly.
Elaine nodded. "Well, I've only got fifteen minutes left before they kick me off the ice, so I'd better quit talking. But it was really good to see you again, Kenny. Good luck with your hockey."
"Thanks," he replied. "Good luck with school and stuff." he called after he as she skated away. As an afterthought, he called back to her again.
"Hey Elaine!"
"Hey Kenny!" she replied, turning to face him.
"Did you miss it?" he asked, almost sure of the answer.
"Every day." She grinned and took off around the ice.
Ken grinned back and began climbing the stairs back to the lobby. Once there, he zipped up his winter jacket, bracing himself for the cold. Somehow, walking to the ice arena seemed a much better idea when he had been sitting in his warm house.
Half and hour later, Ken burst through the door of his house, relieved to finally be home. He shrugged off his coat, hung it in the closet and jumped up and down a few times to warm up. If it's gonna be this cold out, it should at least snow, he thought to himself as he heard a voice from the down the hall.
"Kenny? Is that you?"
"Yeah, Mom, it's me." He answered as he wandered down the hall to the kitchen, where he found his mother, still wearing her winter coat, emptying several bags of groceries. He grabbed several cans of soup from one bag and opened the pantry.
"Where've you been?" his mother asked, not accusatory, simply curious. Ken liked that about his parents; they always trusted his judgment and his actions. He knew a lot of kids, from school mostly, that had terrible relationships with their parents for one reason or another. Ken was thankful he didn't have to worry about that; along with trusting him, his parents were his strongest support no matter what he chose to do.
"I ran over to the rink to get my skates sharpened. I've been meaning to do it all break, but I just kept putting it off. Charlie would kill me if I came back to school sliding all over the ice."
"And how was the rink?" his mother asked, her slightly muffled voice coming from the fridge. "It been several years since I've been down there."
"Same here," replied Ken. "Not much has changed. It's probably gotten a new coat of paint in the last couple years, but it was pretty much the same." He paused a moment, thinking. "Do you remember Elaine Porter?" He asked.
"The wild girl?" Ken's mother asked.
"That's the one." Ken nodded, laughing. When Elaine had moved to San Francisco to train at the age of twelve, she quickly earned a reputation for being a wild skater. She fell more than any other skater Ken had ever seen. She used to jokingly refer to herself as " the human Zamboni."
"I was always amazed at some of the falls she took." Ken's mom reminisced. "I remember sitting in the stands with her mother and several other mothers watching you guys practice one day. It was when she was still fairly new, so she was probably working on double Axels and she took this horrific looking fall. All of us either cringed or gasped in shock and her mother just laughed. And Elaine was just sitting out there on the ice, grinning like a maniac and laughing along with her mother. I couldn't believe it." Ken laughed along with his mother.
"Once she was able to get her skating under control, she was a beautiful skater. It was a shame when she got hurt."
"Yeah," Ken agreed. "But she's skating again. I saw her at the rink."
"Really? Is she training for Nationals again?"
"No." Ken answered. "She's definitely not up to the level she used to skate at. But she's going to school now. She said she going to Stanford."
"Good for her." Ken's mother smiled. "I'm always amazed by how many things you guys are able to succeed at. Not many people would be able to balance so much."
Ken's smile was unsure. Was his mom talking about him? Or about the kid he used to be? Like most of the figure skaters Ken trained with, he had always excelled at school and worked hard in the rigorous training regiment high level skating required. While he still got excellent grades, some days Ken felt like the training Coach Orion put them through was nothing compared to what he used to do. Though those were usually the days he didn't have to do fifty laps.
"Oh, Ken," his mother's voice broke through his thoughts, "I almost forgot. We got a package from you grandfather today. It's our holiday gifts. He's always a little late." She pointed to a large box sitting on the table, surrounded by grocery bags. Ken shoved the bags out of the way and opened the box. Inside were two smaller wrapped boxes; one addressed to Ken and one addressed to Lynn and Tom, his parents. Ken handed his mom her box, which he knew contained tea. Every year his grandfather sent his parents tea from China; they always thought it tasted better than American tea.
Ken sat down and ripped the paper off his present but stopped when he saw the box.
"Mom."
There was a sudden chill in Ken's voice that made Ken's mother abandon her groceries. She crossed the kitchen to stand next to her son's chair and looked at the box. She sighed, opened it and pulled out a brand new pair of men's figure skates.
"Oh Kenny, I'm sorry." She said, setting the skates back in the box and putting an arm around her son.
"He knows I quit skating over two years ago!" Ken cried angrily.
"He does know. But he was disappointed when you quit skating. He hasn't been able to handle it like the rest of us have. I know that's no excuse…" She tried to reassure him.
"Were you disappointed?" Ken asked quietly, his mother's words ringing in his ears.
His mother pulled up another chair from the kitchen table and sat down facing her son. "The hardest part was seeing you give up something you dreamt of your whole life, something you worked so hard for. But your father and I just wanted you to be happy, and if that meant trying something new, that was fine. And I know hockey has made you happy." She smiled warmly at her son. "I can tell by the way you talk about it, the way you talk about your team. And by the way you've spent several hours nearly every day you've been home at the gym, working out so you'll be ready to go back. And look at you now. You aren't my little Kenny anymore." She ruffled his hair.
"Mo-om…" Ken complained, trying to hid a grin. His mom was right. He was still on the smaller side compared to most of his teammates, but he now towered over his mother, who stood five feet flat.
"That's better." She said, spotting his grin. "Why don't you stick those up in the attic until we decide what to do with them. Your father will be home soon. I thought we'd have something interesting for dinner and if you wanted, we could do our usual New Year's ritual."
"Yeah, that sounds good." Ken smiled. His family had never celebrated the New Year quite as elaborately as most. More of their attention went to the fourteen-day celebration for the Chinese New Year, even though Ken was often in school. But New Year's Day was one of the few days of the year the rink was closed, so Ken and his parents had always stayed up a bit later, not having to be up at 4 am the next morning. They'd watch movies or play board games, stuff that seemed pretty uneventful to most people, but Ken had always enjoyed the time off with his parents.
He picked up the skate box and walked down the hall to the stairs. On the second floor, he pulled down the stepladder in the ceiling, leading to the attic. With the box under one arm, he climbed the ladder, breathing in the smell of dust and mothballs, and nearly tripped. Once his feet were firmly on the attic floor, he looked around, not quite sure where to put the skates.
The attic was a mess. One thing about his parents; they never threw anything away. At least, judging by the attic, they didn't. The entire far wall of the attic was completely hidden by piled furniture; a broken bookcase, ripped overstuffed chairs, a very tiny kitchen table, an ancient looking desk that appeared to be molding, and the mattress Ken had busted wide open when he was eight and decided to try triple Axels on his bed. He still had the scar on his back from getting caught on one of the metal springs. The rest of the attic was filled with boxes. Ken knew quite a few of these held various holiday decorations, but he couldn't point them out to save his life. Several battered and shabby looking boxes were marked with heavily faded Chinese characters; Ken could just barely make out what he thought was his mother's name, so he figured they were from when she moved from Beijing to San Francisco.
Ken spotted a few newer looking boxes with his name on them. He carefully made his was over to the boxes and dropped the skates on the floor. He tugged open the first box and pulled out a few Polaroid photographs. He looked at them, quickly threw them back in the box and shut it. No one must ever see those. He shoved the box behind another, containing what looked like old baby clothes.
"Why do adults insist on making babies wear ridiculous hats?" Ken wondered out loud, pulling another box toward him. This one, to his relief, was filled with old school books. He spent a couple minutes laughing at his atrocious spelling before moving on to another box.
Ken opened a particularly large and heavy box and immediately wished he hadn't. This box was filled with some of his old skating stuff. On the top was a framed picture of Ken when he was nearly four years old with his grandfather at his very first skating competition. That photo had hung in Ken's room for ages and he only now realized it was missing. Ken felt a wave of guilt and anger wash over at the sight. How dare his grandfather assume so much as to send him a new pair of skates! It's not like he was my coach anymore, thought Ken, staring at the photograph.
Ken's grandfather was the first to recognize Ken's talent for skating. His grandfather had learned to skate when he came the U.S. from China after World War II and skated several years in shows around the country. After he got married and settled in San Francisco, he turned to coaching. Ken's father had learned how to skate, but he had neither the talent nor the drive to continue with it. But very early on, his family found that Ken had both.
His grandfather first put him on skates at 2 1/2 and after watching him startling adults by darting around them on the ice, fall and pick himself up again, his parents agreed to let Ken take ice skating lessons. He progressed quickly, picking up jump after jump, spin after spin, always eager to learn more difficult maneuvers. After taking first place in his first beginner competition, Ken's aspirations grew even bigger. But by the age of seven, Ken had outgrown his grandfather's expertise and began working under the instruction of one of the top coaches in California. A year later Ken's grandfather made the decision to return to China and spend his remaining years in his homeland, but continued to support Ken's skating, often calling long distance to hear every detail of Ken's most recent performances and training and reminding Ken of his enormous talent and potential, which continued to develop. At the age of nine, Ken won the National Championships on the Novice level; a year later he took the same title as a Junior. Skating in his first Senior level Nationals at age eleven, Ken placed fifth, skating against skaters twice his age. That same year he won the Junior World Championships. The next year, he won the silver medal at Nationals and qualified for the U.S. Olympic team. For years, people had been talking about the little kid with a big future.
Ken placed the photo on the floor and pulled a large pile of magazine and yellowing newspaper clippings from the box. At the top of the pile was the cover of a Skating magazine featuring the U.S. Olympic Figure Skating team, with Ken standing near the center, looking very young. I can't believe I was ever that small, he thought. Under that was a clipping from the local newspaper after Ken made the Olympic team, bearing the headline San Francisco Youth Skates Onto World Stage. Under the headline was a large picture of Ken wearing his silver medal. Next to it was a smaller picture of Ken in mid-jump. Casting these aside, he found a series of articles from a national newspaper by AP writer Debra Deering. The first of these articles was just after he won the Junior National title and continued through the Olympics; the last article screaming the headline Olympic Skater Disappointed With Performance; Future In Jeopardy.
Ken quickly shoved these aside and dug back into the box. He pulled out a handful of clippings that were slightly less aged than the others and bearing headlines like USA Downs Trinidad and Flying V Soars Over Germany. Ken grinned, recognizing the articles from the Junior Goodwill Games. He dug further, pulling out team photos, his old Team USA warm ups and a squashed Wheaties box bearing another picture of Team USA. Ken laughed, he couldn't believe his parents saved all this stuff. Still, it made him feel a bit better to know his parents had saved some of his hockey stuff too. Now that he had mentioned it, he couldn't help wondering how much he had disappointed his parents when he quit skating. And he was angry with himself for not thinking or asking about it sooner. His parents had put just as much into his skating career and Ken himself had. They both worked hard to pay for his ice time and coaching and for a short time, his mother had taken on a second job, working nights. Had he really been so self-centered? You were upset and angry and only twelve years old, Ken reminded himself. Not that he was much older now, having just turned fifteen in late November, but at least he was beginning to realize there were people just as important as himself in his life.
Ken sighed. Was this what he deserved for coming home? He hadn't ever felt the need to worry or wonder about his decision; why was it bothering him now? Was it being home? Seeing the rink and all his memories?
"Ken?" a voice filtered through his thoughts. "You up there?"
"Yeah Dad." Ken replied.
"Well hurry on down. Dinner's almost ready." His father called to him from below.
"Be right down." Ken called back. He waited till he heard his father's footsteps on the stairs. He gathered together the articles and clippings and the photo of him and his grandfather and for lack of a better place to put them for now, stuffed them in the skate box. He pulled the box under his arm and climbed down the ladder. He sprinted to his room, tossed the box on top of his hockey bag and joined his parents for dinner, pushing the attic from his mind. He'd be able to sort it all out later, once he was away from everything and back at school with the Ducks.
