A/N: Hey all! It's been a wild couple of weeks. I hope you're all staying safe. Work has kept me busy. I live In the US, and luckily my state isn't as bad as NY or CA with COVID-19 cases, although we do have some. As a research scientist (I have a PhD in chemistry), we fall under mandatory employees (for so many reasons I cannot disclose, so yeas, I still go to work but I only come in when necessary now so there was some last minute preparations to make sure that our progress isn't cut short. I do hope everyone is staying safe, practicing social distancing, and washing their hands!
I'm no COVID-19 expert, but I do have a rudimentary understanding regarding the virus and the race to find both 1) an effective (symptomatic) treatment and 2) a vaccine (or a curative treatment, one that may need to be administered yearly like the flu vaccine). If you've any questions, worries, anxieties, or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm on twitter (at hypersomniacphd) so you can DM me. I also retweet informative articles backed by science and published by trustworthy resources.
That said, here's my delayed chapter 19! I'll try to get 20 up later tonight or, if not, by tomorrow!
This was the end.
Beca wasn't sure where she stood with Chloe. Things weren't as warm as they were between them. Beca never really thought about it, but she found a sense of comfort in that warmth as she got on the ice. It was like a nice layer of protection, a certain kind of magic that elevated her and made her feel invincible.
It made her believe in what Chloe had always seen in her.
It gave her the wings to fly.
And now, it was just all cold.
Chloe looked tired, torn, and teary eyed. They were on uncertain ground, just as slippery as the ice. One wrong movement and they would slip. It didn't help that Beca had always been so clumsy.
But this was the end.
The end to a wonderful journey.
It started with Chloe. In more ways than one. It was Chloe that touched her and inspired her to pick up a pair of skates and pursue the path she was on. It was Chloe she chased after, fueling her desire to win, to pick up each time she slipped. And it was Chloe who offered both her hands to her to help her one last time. To rise again and truly take flight. To fight like she had never fought before.
So this time, Beca was gonna give it her all. Because this was the end.
Her one last skate.
The Kommissar had a good skate to kick things off. Redemptive even. It was clear that she had nothing left to lose. The proud skater was humbled and in the end, it allowed her to turn in a skate that was truly breathtaking, as much as Beca hated to admit it. She may even claw her way for a spot in the podium. Flo's skate was also flawless and magnificent. No mistakes whatsoever. The stark differences in the difficulty in Flo and Luisa's programs was evident, however. Thanks to the combined scores from the short and free skates, Luisa's redemptive free program allowed her to retain the lead. She was the one to beat at the moment.
Beca already knew that Aubrey would land a spectacular skate. She wasn't about to let her lead go to waste now. She didn't even want to think about Stacie's program, much less the Russian prodigy's.
In a way, Beca truly didn't. Because if this was her last skate, the last time she would grace the crowd, she told herself that she would let things go. The medals didn't matter anymore. This was her chance to thank the people who have supported her every step of the way. To thank her fans, to thank her family, to thank her childhood friends and even the new found ones. And most of all, to thank Chloe.
So as Beca's turn was up, she found the courage to reach out to Chloe's hands, the ones resting upon the rails that lined the ice rink, separating them, and placed a gentle kiss on the ring on her finger. The one she bought. Look at me, Chlo. Watch me, Beca thought to herself as she met Chloe's gaze and gave her a reassuring squeeze before taking to the center of the ice. The last look in Chloe's ocean blue eyes was enough to give her comfort. There was uncertainty, yes, but there was also a kind of softness to them.
A look of love.
This skate wasn't about winning.
It wasn't about proving her worth as a skater anymore.
It was a skate to lay her heart on and show her love to the people who loved her in return.
Beca took her place at the center of the ice. She had never felt as calm as she did in that moment.
When the music started to play, Beca started to move on the ice, her thoughts locked on the simple sounds of the piano, the soft caresses on fingers against the keys to produce a sweet and yet humble sound. There was a lot of uncertainty in the first bit, with a growing spark of hope sprinkled in with the short, tentative notes that then accompanied the melody. It was her feelings expressed in nothing but notes. Her story written in musical sheets. It reflected her humble beginnings.
Then came the accompaniment. The piano wasn't the only musical instrument playing anymore. The sound of percussions started to pepper in and it made Beca smile with the thought of her friends, all while absentmindedly nailing her quad. A quad jump not on her submitted list of jumps, no. Because of course Beca emulated her idol, her love, her coach by changing her jump sets on the very last minute – a decision she landed on just before the start of the competition, literally minutes before Luisa's skate. It now contained the same level of difficulty as Chloe's last free program, with the jumps she had then tried to simplify by turning quads into triples in her swan song of a skate meant for Jesse's eyes only.
This was the best way she believed she could honor and surprise her. Because, yes. She did not tell Chloe. The percussions matched her heartbeat, reminding her of the people who never gave up on her, even when she was ready to give up on herself. They gave her life. The violin started to become more distinct, complementing the piano as it played, reminding Beca of Chloe, of her love. She nurtured her hope and her dream. She made her see what she couldn't see.
And with every step sequence and every spin, every movement on that ice, Beca could feel the music flowing through her veins, from her toes, to her fingertips, to the top of her head. Every emotion the music evoked ran through her, took over, and gave Beca a sense of freedom and release.
Beca's program went on marvelously well. She was already halfway through now, most her jumps still reserved towards the end. Again, another little change she decided to make in her split second decision. As the first wave of crescendo hit, Beca landed her quad combo flawlessly, leaving the crowd in awe, gasping and cheering. But that wasn't what occupied her mind then. She could barely even hear them.
Nothing in that moment mattered to her more than the music of her life, and the skate of her lifetime.
The soft hesitant notes played from the piano reminded her of where she was last year. When she was all but ready to quit after her disastrous debut at the Grand Prix Finals. Every not was like rediscovering a broken piece of her heart, with where she was now reminding her of how much she's grown since then. It reminded her of her flailing free program in Russia, and her disappointing short program just the other day.
But then the notes picked up a more cheerful tone, building up to a crescendo with the percussions and the violin accompaniment coming back up. Beca could see colors bursting into life, as jump after jump came, landing all her quads and combos neatly. She could feel goosebumps in her skin as she truly felt like she was flying for the mere seconds she spent spinning in the air.
Beca nailed her final jump, Chloe's signature quad loop, just as the music hit its peak, the second crescendo of the piece, with thoughts of how Chloe built her up, and kept believing in her, fighting for her, with her, every step of the way.
The music slowly died down as Beca entered her final spin. When she hit her pose, the music had come to a halt, and Beca was brought back to reality with a thundering applause. As she took her bows, her eyes scanned the tiny faces from the big stadium in an attempt to find her friends. She couldn't spot them, but she hoped she did them proud.
As she turned to find Chloe, she saw the redhead had an absolute look of awe on her face, pleasantly surprised by the performance Beca turned in. Beca felt a little smirk tugging on the corners of her mouth when she skated towards Chloe. The two remained silent as they made their way towards the kiss and cry.
The self-satisfied smirk on Beca's lips quickly disappeared when her jaws dropped upon hearing her score.
It was definitely a personal best.
And yes, it put her in the lead.
But it didn't just put her in the lead, no. It broke the current record for the highest free program score, previously held by none other than Chloe Beale.
What's more, the score alone put her back on the map. It meant that she was once again in the running to winning the gold, because no one could possibly top that performance. Kommissar's free program had the greatest technical difficulty, and from what she's seen in Aubrey's program, her best run of it – technical, artistic, and component aspects combined – had no way of reaching that free program score. They were her two greatest threats.
She was in the lead once more. Aubrey would need a flawless skate to secure the win thanks to her own record-breaking short program.
Beca was overwhelmed in that single moment. She had thought it was the end. She only wanted to make the most out of her time left.
Yet here she was. Her dream was alive, constantly finding new ways to get back up and fight.
It may mean that things aren't over just yet.
But most of all, it meant, to Beca, that nothing was impossible.
