It took a bit to get this one back and cleaned up, but I really enjoyed - well, less 'enjoyed' than 'had a lot of feels' - writing this chapter. This is the start of really digging in to the who, what, when, where, why, and how, so . . . basically, we're about to spend a fair bit of time in Chris' flat (which isn't the worst place to be, right?), talking about Heavy Issues. I really hope you guys like it and comment if you're so inclined. I love hearing what you think and what is (or isn't) working for you.

::deep breath::

Rupture Front

May 8, 2012

For the second time in two weeks, Christopher Dean stormed down the hall with his partner cradled protectively in his arms, daring the universe to try and stop him from getting her somewhere safe.

Also for the second time in two weeks, Christopher Dean found himself in a world that wasn't quite right. Jayne Torvill was arguably one of THE calmest, most even-tempered people on the face of the planet. And yet, she was shaking against him, holding back sobs only because of her flat refusal to break down, and even he couldn't tell how much of that was because of her reaction to seeing — seeing that.

And how much was a direct result of her husband.

The memory of Phil snarling at her the way he had was enough to heat Chris' blood to dangerous levels, but he made a monumental effort to control his temper. The last thing Jayne needed was for him to haul off like a marauding elephant, no matter how satisfying it would be to pound that sorry bastard into a pancake. Of course, because his blood pressure wasn't high enough, this turned out to be a wasted effort, since Jayne had recovered her composure by the time they got to his dressing room and didn't want to talk about it. So naturally, the first thing she did was deflect both his concerns and his anger with the hard-won experience of thirty years.

To no one's surprise, he then proceeded to lose the subsequent argument — sorry, discussion.

And by 'lose', he meant that Jayne flat-out refused to say a single damn thing about what had just happened with Phil. She also didn't apologize for nearly falling that night, because they both knew it hadn't been her fault and neither of them was in the mood to play that game. Instead, she just sighed heavily from where she was seated on the edge of his bed and met his eyes, looking unusually serious.

"No, Chris," she replied gently but firmly to the objection she could see him trying to make. "I'm fine; it was just a surprise, seeing him. I really wasn't expecting him since he never comes here the day after the tour."

Unwillingly, Chris nodded; this was a years-old established fact.

"And seeing m—that," she amended hastily, not wanting to provoke unwelcome memories if there was any other choice, "was just a bit of a shock, that's all."

Only by sheer willpower did Chris keep his reaction to that under wraps. 'A bit of a shock'.

Yeah, sure.

And Colorado was just 'a short distance from England'.

But that was Jayne, so he let it go for now, albeit with an aggrieved sigh. He had other concerns, anyway. Concerns that she refused to let him address. Instead, she turned that 'you need to be reasonable and mature, Chris' gaze on him and said only, "Karen."

That stopped him dead, as she knew it would, and he slumped against the wall. His partner had been more than generous in helping him avoid his situation with Karen, but the reason for his avoidance was now gone and she was absolutely right that he needed to deal with it.

And he would, because to do otherwise wasn't fair to either of them.

But dear Lord, he didn't want to. Not today.

Unfortunately, 'want' had nothing to do with it. He had no choice, because it was today or the end of July, and like hell he was going to put anyone through that. As always, Jayne followed his train of thought; also as always, she verbalized it for him, because he really, really didn't want to.

"You have to talk to her, Chris," she said firmly, though not without sympathy. She didn't understand what the issue was, but she didn't have to; Chris was unhappy and that was all she needed to know, but whatever the situation, it had to be resolved. They both knew it, and they also knew he wasn't going to enlighten her, at least not until after he had broken the news to Karen. This was mostly because he knew she'd object and try to stop him, but even if that weren't the case, Jayne would readily concede that Karen deserved to hear it — whatever 'it' was — first.

So, for one of the few times in their lives, Jayne deliberately refused to follow his thoughts now; instead, she focused her efforts on making him face reality, however unpleasant it was, because if she didn't, he was more than strong-willed enough to talk himself out of . . . whatever he needed to do.

"You can't wait any longer, Chris," she insisted. "Not when the committee running Sam's rock climbing contest waited until your schedule was clear to set the date for this elimination round."

He didn't snarl at the reminder, but it was a close thing. She was one hundred percent correct and right now? He hated that with every fiber of his being, because it meant that he couldn't reschedule or postpone anything. His flight was leaving at half seven, so he had to be at the airport by six, meaning he could not dally at the studio . . . or force any kind of real conversation with Jayne. He was unable to stop the sardonic look he gave her at this realization, only to get an equally sardonic look in reply.

A knock on the door interrupted whatever Chris might have said and he yanked it open with an irritated huff, only to be met by a blank-faced Nicholas du Lac.

"What?!" he snapped, giving his friend a ferocious glare that he didn't deserve. Thankfully, Nick was neither unobservant nor stupid, so he didn't take it personally. He did, however, take a small step back.

"I'm sorry, Chris," was all he said, looking and sounding genuinely apologetic. "But Karen's come by three times in the last, like, five minutes. Is there anything you want me to tell her?"

Of course she had.

This time, he was unable to repress his irritated growl, which made Nick blink in surprise, though he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

"Yes," Chris bit out, abruptly fed up with the entire ridiculous situation. "Tell her I'll be at her house around three." This would give him a little more than an hour to at least try to prepare what he needed to say and also leave him enough time to get to Heathrow, assuming he could keep control of the conversation.

And if he couldn't, well, it was an excellent — and inarguable — reason for him to leave. With that settled, at least, he turned to go back into the room, only to pivot once more and give his friend a mostly-sincere, "Please. And thanks."

Nick nodded and turned away, and Chris closed the door with more emphasis than was strictly warranted, meeting Jayne's gaze. With no small amount of dread, he was hit with the realization that her eyes, face, and body language were implacable in a way that meant he was not only going to see Karen now, he was also going to cease his efforts to get his partner to talk, because trying to convince her otherwise would only result in him clutching a newly-sore, highly-sensitive part of his body and whimpering while she sauntered to her dressing room.

Their silent stalemate was broken when Jayne sighed and came to him, wrapping him in a tight hug.

"It's okay, Chris," she told his heart, her breath hot through his shirt and making him shiver for reasons he didn't understand. "Just . . . take care of whatever's wrong with you and Karen, have a safe flight, and we'll talk after you've celebrated Sam's win." She looked up as she spoke, her eyes earnest now. "We will," she said again, her words a promise this time. "But I'm okay and we just don't have time for anything else."

She was right, damn it all to hell, so Chris growled again in wordless frustration before crushing her to his chest in a fierce embrace that expressed the entire gamut of emotions he was feeling. Her return embrace was just as fervent, but she pulled away after only a few minutes, kissed his cheek, and left. She didn't look back.

Craning his neck, Chris caught a glimpse of Nick offering her his arm to escort her before the door shut and he was left to his own devices. He took about ten minutes to just wallow in feeling sorry for himself, but when his alarm went off (the same alarm that would have alerted him and Jayne that their skating session was over, and his mood darkened further at the reminder that they hadn't even gotten that little bit of respite after the last two weeks of utter hell), he blew out a heavy sigh, grabbed his stuff, and headed out.

Thankfully, if anyone was there, they had enough sense to leave him the hell alone, so he escaped unmolested and started the drive to Karen's in a marginally better mood.

Marginally.

But he was still pissed off enough that he got to her house too early to even contemplate going in, so he meandered around the neighborhood to kill time and blew out another frustrated, troubled sigh. This one also contained a great deal of sadness, because behind his irritation was the knowledge that he was about to hurt Karen a lot, and he desperately wished he didn't have to. Especially since he knew she wasn't going to understand, not really. And he couldn't hold that against her, because from the outside, it was a little ludicrous. Unfortunately, that didn't change anything, or make it better, so with a deep, bracing breath, he parked, futzed with his key ring until he'd gotten her house key off, and palmed it so he could put it on the small table just inside the door as he made his way, slowly and reluctantly, to the front stoop.

As expected, she was waiting just past the door, arms crossed and eyes blazing with anger that wasn't unjustified. She didn't say a word, just stared at him, and after a minute of incredibly tense, awkward silence, he gave her a soft sigh and said, "Let's sit down," as he moved past her and sank into one of her recliners, utterly exhausted all of a sudden and ready to just be done.

When she gave him nothing but a mutinous glare, he sighed again, controlling his irritation as best he could, and said, "Please?"

He was trying to be understanding, he really was, but his patience was already thin and brittle, so he flat-out wasn't in the mood to coax. Or beg. If she didn't feel like being an adult and actually talking to him, then he'd tell her they were over and leave. She deserved an explanation, yes, but he wasn't going to grovel. He'd had his reasons for doing what he'd done these past two weeks, and they were legitimate. She didn't have to like them — hell, he didn't like them — but that didn't invalidate them.

Fortunately, she realized that pushing him wasn't the best idea and dropped into the other chair, pinning him with a challenging look before saying, "So talk."

That was all she said, her tone more than a little condescending, and he bristled before checking himself. She was entirely in the right, both with her anger and her desire to know what in the hell he was on about, so with one more deep breath, he dived right in, thankful that he'd been composing at least part of this speech for the last week.

"I — Karen, I'm sorry," he began, meeting her eyes and hoping she would see his sincerity. "I probably could have handled things better, but—"

"You think?" she interrupted caustically, making his temper flare again. If she wasn't going to listen to anything he said, this conversation was going to be both short and pointless.

"Yes," he snapped back, no longer able to suppress his own aggravation. "But regardless what else I could have done, I DID have my reasons."

An arched eyebrow was her only response this time, making him grit his teeth for a few seconds in an effort to control his temper.

"And the main reason I just . . . stayed away," he continued in a fairly even voice, holding her gaze so she could see the truth in his own eyes, "is because I had a rather unexpected understanding hit me and needed time to process it. And you — no," he interrupted both himself and her when he saw that she was about to cut him off. "You have a tendency to not let things be and push, trying to get people to 'talk about it'," he continued, his eyes now boring into hers with an intensity that told her he wasn't going to let her interrupt this time. "And I couldn't handle that, Karen. Not after what happened."

Hurt filled her eyes, but then she blinked and her gaze was abruptly, unnervingly, blank.

"Okay. So what conclusions have you reached?" she asked calmly. Too calmly. Normally, this would have made Chris nervous, but not today. He had finally reached the end of his rope and what he was feeling right now, more than anything else, was relief.

It was almost over.

So he just ripped the Band-Aid off and said it.

"It's over, Karen. We're over."

There was a long, fraught moment of silence, and then came her stunned demand for an explanation.

He'd known it was coming and she more than deserved it, so even though Chris knew the screaming part of the conversation was about to happen, he didn't flinch.

"I just realized that — well, no, I was made to realize that I . . . our relationship . . . has been happening under false pretenses. And I didn't know," he added hastily, seeing the light of battle in her eyes and swearing darkly at himself. That had been the worst possible wording he could have chosen and it was all he could do not to cringe in reaction to his own idiocy. But somehow, even with that, he was able to keep talking. "I didn't realize how I really felt, or I would never h—"

"And how do you feel?" she snapped, cutting him off as she sprang to her feet, her body actually vibrating with anger. Oddly enough, that helped him regain his equilibrium and he sighed, not rising to her bait this time. Not with what he was about to say.

"Guilty," he replied quietly, freely, standing as well and meeting her eyes again. "And rather stupid, because I should have realized this a long time ago."

"Realized WHAT?!" she shrieked, making him flinch at the knowledge of what he had to do.

But he didn't hesitate to answer.

"That I care too much about you and I respect you too much, Karen, to let you — or ask you — to stay with a man who cannot and will not make you his top priority. Ever," he said quietly, but with unshakeable determination.

This made her blink several times before she looked away while she visibly worked through what he'd just said, and he waited as patiently as he could. But when she finally met his eyes again, he could see the challenge and the argument, and mentally braced himself. This wasn't going to be pretty. Nor was it going to go over well. But he was utterly resolved that this was the best and right course of action for both of them, so when she tried to marshal a counter-argument, he was able to head it off immediately.

"But—"

"No," he interrupted firmly. "I won't. I finally understand that. And I know damn good and well that you have more self-respect than to put up with it. But even if you didn't, I'll be damned if I stay in a relationship where I'm knowingly putting you second. That's not fair to either of us and you know it."

There was another long, pregnant pause.

"So, what?" she finally demanded in an eerily calm voice. "I'm supposed to just stand by and cheer you and Jayne on?"

And here it was.

"Cheer us on?" he repeated, annoyed. "Karen, Jayne and I aren't getting together. And this" — he gestured between the two of them "—has nothing do with her. No," he said sharply when she opened her mouth to object. "It doesn't. She doesn't know that I'm doing this and we're not going to become a couple or start sleeping together. I love Jayne, yes, but we're not in love."

"So why walk away from the woman you are in love with?" Karen demanded furiously, wrapping her arms around herself as tears trickled down her cheeks.

Chris paused and took a deep breath, looking down. As foolish as it — he — had been, he'd honestly hoped she wouldn't ask that particular question.

After another deep breath, he met her eyes and told her the truth, as gently as he could.

"Because I'm not in love with you. And I'm sorry, Karen, I am, because I thought—"

"You 'thought'?!" she spat viciously, her eyes blazing with rage now. "After everything we've done and been through, you thought you loved me?!"

He swallowed hard; she was fully entitled to her anger, but the problem was that he didn't have any answers she was going to like. And he refused to keep lying . . . not to her, and not to himself.

So—

"Yes," he replied calmly, not looking away. "I thought I did. But after — when Jayne fell, I realized . . . but it was after, really, that made me actually understand."

He would never know what it was that got her attention so completely, but she abruptly calmed down and searched his gaze for a long minute before hesitantly saying, "What, Chris? What did you understand?"

He closed his eyes before he answered, unable to prevent the stab of shame he still felt. It wasn't anyone's fault, but Karen was the one who was getting the worst of it. And what he had to tell her was only going to hurt her more.

Still, he had no choice, so with another deep, almost painful breath and a quick prayer for courage, he told her.

But he couldn't yet meet her eyes.

"It — after that show, I had . . . I had bad nightmares," he began quietly, not even looking her way as he started to pace. But he could feel her gaze on him, like tiny pinpricks of glass, and he swallowed again before he mustered the courage to continue.

She'd known about his dreams, but not the full extent, because he hadn't shared a bed with her for the last two weeks. Across from her on the bus, yes, to both her relief and her irritation, but he hadn't actually slept beside her since that night. When they were in a hotel, he stayed with Robin.

And oh, THAT had been a fun conversation the first night. And the second. He'd finally wised up and flat-out avoided her in hotels after that, thanking his lucky stars that Robin knew what was happening and why, which meant that he didn't ask any questions. And he ran interference when he could.

But every night, Chris would go to Jayne (who had her own room because, you know, she was Jayne Torvill) after everyone else could reasonably be assumed to be asleep, seeking what solace she could provide. Sometimes they curled up together on top of the duvet, with Jayne spooning Chris as they talked about happier, older times, back when it was just the two of them; sometimes it was Chris holding her on his thighs, his chest pressed to her back as they sat on the bed or sofa and stared out the window, on those occasions she actually had a view to admire.

Once, he had been so shaken up that she'd pulled him into the closet and wedged them both as far in the corner as they would fit, her sitting between his knees with him wrapped around her like a human limpet, while she talked through each step and lift of Barnum.

(It was a strange thing and for the life of her, Jayne couldn't remember how this had come about, but walking through an old routine was the best way she'd found to get her partner back on an even keel when he became that . . . that . . . over-stimulated. Or maybe his thoughts just came so fast and thick that sometimes, they overwhelmed him. But every so often, he would simply . . . disappear into himself. There was no specific trigger that anyone could identify, but suddenly he'd just zone out and be almost completely unaware of his surroundings.

The first time it happened, she hadn't realized and kept right on talking about the routine they were building. He didn't respond until she misspoke about a lift, and suddenly, he was back. Two similar occurrences later, she made the correlation and then made the note. It was concerning when it happened, yes, but such is the nature of that kind of artistic genius: sometimes it had to be protected from itself. In Chris' case, that meant mentally retreating from the world for a bit. The trick was making sure he knew when it was safe to come back.

So, when he went too far into himself, she'd pick a routine they could do in their sleep and start talking through the moves. She would always give him the correct steps for several measures, letting the rote recitation lodge in his memory, and then she would periodically and quite deliberately say the wrong move, because he was incapable of letting the mistake slide. And it worked, not only in drawing him back to the here and now, but also so she could see how far gone he still was. The longer it took for him to correct her, the worse he was. This last time, she got about halfway through before he was back with her. And five or so minutes later, it was safe to leave the closet.)

But they never actually fell asleep together. They'd discovered early on that it was simply too relaxing for both of them, and getting them up and moving took an act of Parliament. Even for Chris. So one of them might get some sleep, but rarely both, which had proved an interesting challenge on more than a few occasions during their competitive years.

Still, they got a great deal of comfort and security from simply being together, talking or not, and before his nightmares began to ease, Jayne was the only place he could find true solace. So he (and she, though she hid this from him for a very long time in an effort to help him move past the trauma of her fall) was able to get at least a little peace and rest before he sneaked back to his own bed an hour or so before anyone else was up.

Karen was fully aware of his visits to Jayne, of course, because she had suspected as much the first night he stayed away from her and so she had waited and watched and seen (more than once, she'd been in — or peering through the door of — a stairwell, as they'd been on different floors, but the absurdity of this escaped her). And those little nocturnal visits only justified her decision to call Phil that first morning on the pretext of asking about Jayne's whereabouts.

She told herself it had been out of concern, which some of it was, but . . . her primary motivation for doing so was one she wouldn't admit, because she'd been hurt and pissed off that Robin had been the one to tell her that her boyfriend and his partner had disappeared and wouldn't be back until sometime before they headed out for the next destination, but they were together and safe. Add that to the fact that she'd barely seen Chris during the rest of that show, much less spoken to him, and she . . . well, she wanted to cause some trouble for Jayne because she was, as always, Chris' primary focus. And since she still hadn't known the full story, Karen thought that he was just indulging his usual drama queen theatrics, with Jayne humoring him like she had their entire lives.

She had no way at all of knowing that the second — and final — turning point in Chris' decision to end things was his shocked realization that he didn't miss her. He didn't miss her presence at his side and his thoughts didn't drift to her, nor did he see things that reminded him of her. He didn't even really mind not having sex. It — they — Chris had discovered in those days that as much as he liked Karen, as deeply as he appreciated her, she wasn't integral to his life. At all. And that knowledge swamped him with remorse and guilt once he fully understood everything behind those feelings. He could and did do fine without Karen.

But being without Jayne . . .

Only . . . Karen didn't know any of this, so her assumption that he was overreacting wasn't wholly unreasonable, at least from her perspective. But, tattletale phone call aside, she'd said nothing about her boyfriend's childish antics during the tour, because despite Chris' fears, she did understand the need to keep that kind of personal drama as limited as possible.

She stayed silent now because there was no point. It wouldn't change anything and had no bearing on this part of the conversation. And she really didn't want to get sidetracked right now.

"I know," she replied instead, her voice just as quiet as his, sensing that she was finally about to get the real truth of things and suddenly wondering if she actually wanted it.

"Right," he said, glancing up for just a second before pacing away again. When he abruptly stopped and pivoted to face her, his face was set with resolve and she swallowed, unaccountably nervous.

"In all this time," he told her, his voice soft and his eyes begging her to understand, "and in all those nightmares, daymares . . . hell, even the 'drifting off in the stands between rehearsals and interview' mares, not once . . . no one else . . . I didn't . . . I never saw anyone else fall, not even — I — it was always Jayne. Every single time."

It took Karen several minutes to unravel the meaning behind that, that he'd never been afraid of her falling. Or dying. And when she did, it was like being punched in the throat: sharp, brutal, and rendering her unable to breathe.

"What?" she gasped almost soundlessly, stunned beyond belief at what he'd just told her. And hurt. Oh, it hurt so badly to think that the man she loved didn't . . . didn't . . .

When he nodded, his eyes full of apology, compassion, and shame, her heart cracked under the undeniable truth.

He wasn't in love with her, and he didn't see a future for them.

He'd been lying to them both all this time.

"Get out," she said quietly, because she refused to let him see her cry. Not again.

When he didn't argue, her heart actually splintered even more.

He made no move to touch her, and he didn't try to apologize. He simply gave her a sorrowful look and walked out.

It was more than an hour of crying, raging, and grieving before she realized that he'd left his key behind — and that she'd seen him put it there when he first came in the door.

Which meant . . . he'd known the entire time. He'd known, and had never intended to give her a chance to convince him that they had time, that she knew and understood his feelings for Jayne. Because like hell she believed that he wasn't in love with Jayne Torvill. She'd been there from the beginning to the Olympics, and been with them again for years after that. She'd seen everything.

(except she hadn't)

And she was okay with it. She'd always known she was second for him, even when he did put her first, and that was fine (only . . . it wasn't; it had started to grate on her recently. She just wasn't ready to recognize that, never mind admit it.). But he didn't respect her enough to even let her explain her side of things.

No, he had come here today to — oh, that bastard! That was why he'd asked to meet at her home instead of his flat. It was so much easier to walk away than ask someone whose heart you've just broken to leave. And she couldn't even go to his place to yell at him or try to plead her case because he was headed for the airport to catch his flight to Colorado and he would be booked solid until he came back over for the DOI special toward the end of July.

That sorry son of a bitch. He'd actually managed to orchestrate a clean break and also manipulate the situation to prevent any kind of meaningful discussion, because she couldn't just up and go to Colorado.

And that little speech . . . did he honestly think she'd just let him go to be alone and miserable?

It would — it — she . . . if he were leaving her for Jayne, she could have accepted that. She really could have. But . . . to deliberately make himself vulnerable and unhappy just because his conscience thought that now was a good time for him to have A Revelation?

No.

And if Jayne didn't want him — something she supposed was possible, regardless of his feelings for her — then there was no reason on earth for him not to be with a woman who did.

She loved him enough to let him go, had he been going to someone.

But she loved him too much to let him flounder and drown in his own despair out of some misplaced form of chivalry.

Only . . . Jayne was married and Karen knew from personal experience that Christopher Dean did not cheat. So she'd watch and wait, and see if there was something going on with Jayne and Phil, which she suspected for more reasons than the obvious. If Chris was waiting for his partner to become available, then so be it. She would be sad and upset for a bit at losing her chance at a future with him, but the stronger emotion would be happiness for him — for them. And, like the vast majority of people who knew them (or at least knew about them), she would also think, with no small amount of exasperation, 'it's about damn time!'.

But in the extremely unlikely event he was telling her the truth about his feelings for Jayne . . . well. She knew better than most just how poorly Chris did when he was on his own. He simply wasn't made to be alone. And she was damned if she let him leave her just so he could be the magnanimous one and 'spare her feelings'.

But right now, she couldn't do anything but wait. And watch. And plan.

Only Chris was a thousand times more stubborn and determined than she was, so this campaign would take more than just a great deal of planning and patience. It would also require very, very delicate handling.

So she went to work.

And she was blissfully unaware that, like Phil, she would end up facilitating the very thing she sought to prevent.