Thank you SO much to everyone who has fav, followed or reviewed! You guys are the best and I can't even begin to explain how much it means to me! This chapter is way longer than the first one, as that one was just an 'experiment'. From now on, chapters will be approximately this length!
The ice rink was incredibly silent that morning. After a weekend of barely any practice, Beth had gotten up at the sound of her usual 6 am alarm.
After Zach's accident, Rick had decided to give her (and himself) a couple of days to recover from the shock, but he had been determined that Beth went back on the ice first thing Monday morning. It made sense to her, because while Rick started looking for a new partner for her, she had to make sure she didn't lose her form. That alone was gonna be difficult, not being able to do any throws or lifts without a partner.
She had woken up feeling groggy from all the crying she had done during the weekend. Sunday had been especially hard, because she had gone to the hospital to visit Zach.
The guy was absolutely devastated, and Beth's soul was even more empathic than usual, since they had been training, winning, losing together every day for the past four years: his pain was hers, and to know that while she still might have a shot his career was over forever was just unbearable to her.
"I don't wanna skate with anyone else, Zach" she had murmured, feeling tears prickling her eyes once again.
He had held her hand then, as they always did awaiting for the results of a competition, or right before they went on the ice to perform.
"Beth. You have worked so hard to get where you are. You are such an incredible skater" he had squeezed her hand harder "I want you to skate again. I need you to win for both of us."
She had started sobbing then, her face buried on Zach's shoulder.
"It's.. s-so unf-f-fair."
"It is. But trust me, I'd rather see you skate with someone who isn't me that not skate at all."
She knew he was sincere. Sweet, kind Zach, always wanting the best for everyone. Never in her life had she felt more connected to him than in that moment, as all they had shared together passed in front of her eyes.
"If I'll ever win a medal again, it'll be yours. They all will be yours, Zach. I wouldn't be half the skater I am today if it hadn't been for you" she said, softly, a new determination in her voice.
She was gonna do it for him.
Jacqui, the receptionist of the ice rink, had welcomed her with a sad, understanding smile, offering her a hot cup of coffee without saying any word. Beth was incredibly grateful for that.
She went to the changing rooms to put on her training clothes, black leggings, a bright pink tank top and a black sweatshirt. She put her skates on, but she didn't go on the ice yet, having to stretch first, which she started doing on the gym mats placed right outside of the ice.
She wasn't alone.
"Hey, Bethy"
Glenn Rhee was the current national champion in Male Figure Skating, and had come in third at the last World Championship. Beth was ready to bet he was gonna snatch an Olympic medal in Sochi, and she really hoped he did.
She really liked Glenn. He was funny, laid back and very friendly and humble. He had moved to Massachusetts one year ago to train with Karen, and every day they shared the rink. They also shared their choreographer, as Carol had come up with the programs for both Glenn and Beth and Zach.
From the day he had arrived, he and Beth had instantly clicked, and they had quickly become close friends, with Glenn making fun of her for being such a perfectionist and a neat-freak, and her teasing him for the crush he had developed on Maggie the last time she had come to visit from Atlanta.
"Hey Glenn" she looked up at him and she saw the concern in his eyes.
"How are you holding up?" he asked, sitting down beside her and pushing his dark hair out of his forehead.
Beth shrugged, offering him a small smile.
"I saw Zach yesterday" she said, knowing that would be enough for Glenn to understand.
He nodded, placing a warm hand on her shoulder.
"He'll be alright. He's a smart guy, he will find something else he loves and be great at it".
This was the thing she liked the most about Glenn: he was an incurable optimist, and he always managed to make her feel better when something was wrong.
'But what about me?', she wanted to ask, but she didn't. She felt incredibly selfish even thinking about herself after what had happened to Zach.
"You'll be alright too" Glenn added, as if he was able to read her mind.
She smiled a little then.
"Thank you"
Rick was late.
In all those years of being her coach, he had never once been late, his work ethics one of his main character traits.
Beth was confused. Why had he insisted for her to go to the rink anyways if he wasn't gonna show up?
She was skating aimlessly, working on her jumps and feeling more and more perplexed. She kept looking at Carol, as if the woman could have an answer to her unasked questions. The choreographer kept giving her a reassuring smile, but Beth could read it in her eyes that she was starting to wonder what was going on as well.
Beth almost wanted to take her skates off and go home, get some rest, call her dad. But she knew what he would have told her if she had explained her the situation.
"We all have jobs to do, and yours is being on that rink skating as your coach told you to do."
She could hear his calm, firm voice so clearly in her mind that she didn't dare step off the ice.
When she had called him after Zach's accident, he had been very clear with her: if skating was still her dream and passion, don't she dare give up on it. If she had kept working hard, he had said, amazing things could have happened.
Although Beth had always been a happy, positive person, it was hard for her right now to believe him. But her father had always believed in her, and she owed it to him not to give up until the cause was lost. It's not over until it's over, she told herself repeatedly.
It was almost 10 in the morning, and Beth was starting to lose her mind.
Carol had kindly offered her to work together on some of her elements while she waited for Rick, and they were halfway through a spin when the door at the top of the bleachers opened loudly.
Beth's spinning came to a sudden stop that resulted in her falling flat on her butt.
She didn't care though, because Rick was here and he wasn't alone.
She squinted, trying to see who the man behind her coach was. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a lean body. He had shaggy brown hair and a scruff on his face, and he was wearing a dark tee and dark jeans with boots. He was handsome in a rugged way, but his blue eyes were darting everywhere as he looked incredibly pissed off for some reason.
He wasn't totally unfamiliar to her. The more she took his presence in, the more she thought she recognized him from something; she just couldn't place her finger on where she had seen him.
Apparently though, Carol, Karen and even Glenn knew who he was, because she could hear them murmuring, and Karen audibly said "Oh my God".
Beth hurriedly got up and skated towards them, the two man had walked down the benches and were now waiting for her at the edge of the rink.
"Hi" she said uncertainly, nervously pulling on a loose strand of her, her eyes moving from Rick to the stranger.
"Beth, I wanna introduce you to someone" said Rick, who looked strangely nervous. "This is my old friend Daryl Dixon."
Daryl Dixon. Of course. It all came back to her in a flash. She had seen the man on a picture on the Grimes living room's wall. He looked younger then, and his face was completely different because he was smiling, his arm around Rick's shoulder.
She knew he was a family friend, but that wasn't the only reason she remembered his name.
Daryl Dixon used to be a skater, an incredibly talented one. He had been Andrea Harrison's partner for years: they had won two world titles together, but he had mysteriously chosen to retire two months before the Olympics, at only twenty-five years of age, and had seemingly vanished into thin air.
Rick had once told her he had moved back to Georgia to steer clear of the media's attention, and from what Lori had said he lived a very private life somewhere in the woods.
His name still turned many heads, and the speculation about his retirement had never really stopped even though almost six years had passed.
Andrea had been furious, bashing him at every chance she had, and Beth couldn't really blame her for that. Luckily for her, Andrea had found a new partner in Philip Blake, and the two of them had won an Olympic Silver medal only two years ago, before retiring and joining forces to become coaches themselves, back in Chicago, where Andrea was from.
"Nice to meet you, Daryl" Beth said, feeling a little intimidated under the man's stare.
He grunted in reply, and Beth could see Rick rolling his eyes.
She was starting to get curious as to why Daryl Dixon was here and not in the wild, hiding from the public. Why had Rick called him? It couldn't possibly be to skate with her, that didn't make any sense.
Right?
She looked at them expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
Behind her, Glenn had completely stopped skating, and him, Carol and Karen were all intent in trying to understand what was going on too. Daryl looked extremely uncomfortable that they had an audience.
Rick nodded his head towards the locker rooms door, and Beth quickly stepped off the ice, grabbing her blade covers and putting them on before following them.
They stepped into the locker room and Rick closed the door behind them. Beth was starting to feel more and more nervous.
"Beth," Rick started, looking at her with his steel blue eyes and a dead serious expression on his face "I've thought about it a lot, and I asked Daryl to be your new partner" he announced.
Was this a joke? Beth stared at him for a minute, incredulous, waiting for the part when he told her he was joking, but it never came.
"He has agreed to try and see if it works for a trial period of two weeks," Rick explained, and Beth could see that he was tense, and he kept looking at her as if she was going to blow off any second. And, to be fair, she probably was.
As for Daryl, he hadn't stopped frowning since he had stepped into the building, and, if possible, he looked even angrier than before, refusing to look at her, eyes fixated on the back of Rick's head as if he was trying to set it on fire.
"I know this is a bit out of the blue, and I know Zach's incident was just days ago, but... what do you think?"
Wow. He was serious. It wasn't a joke, and it wasn't a nightmare even though it sounded like one.
"Rick…I… I don't know, uhm…" she was trying really hard not to start crying again and to hold herself together, but she was about to have a meltdown.
The guy hadn't skated in what, six, five years? And he looked like he was only there cause Rick had somehow forced him to, and the last thing he had done as a skater had been ditching his long time partner months before the Olympics.
This had to be a nightmare.
"Good. She don't wanna do this, an' I don't neither. Looks like I can leave now."
Daryl's voice was low and gruff, and she and Rick both turned towards him. He was glanced at her before pointing his frown towards the coach.
"She didn't say that. She's just surprised, and I'm sure you understand that, Daryl" Rick's tone was menacing and cautious at the same time, as if he wanted to remind Daryl that he had no choice but being there, but he also expected him to run away anyways.
"Course she's surprised, for fuck's sake! Christ, I ain't no damn skater anymore, 'least one of you can see that!" Daryl lashed out, his temper lost and one finger pointed towards Rick.
"Daryl.."
"No! I fucking retired, I'm outta the game!"
Rick sighed and tilted his head. Oh, this wasn't good. The head-tilt was very dangerous: Rick Grimes was mad.
"You didn't retire, you quit!" he snapped "And you and I both know that if you hadn't you would have won that Gold. We both know that you still had many good years ahead of you, and I wanna give you a chance to redeem yourself. You need that redemption, and Beth needs a skater that can measure up to her"
This was why he was such a good coach. He was a natural leader, and people couldn't help but follow him.
Even though she was absolutely against the idea of skating with Daryl, she knew she would have given him a chance if Rick really wanted her too. No matter how old he was, or the fact that he had a mouth like a sailor, or that he definitely didn't wanna be there and that they would have ended up killing each other: she trusted Rick with her life, and he had never failed her.
Daryl Dixon looked like an extremely stubborn man though, and she was holding her breath waiting for his reaction.
He seemed to have calmed down a bit, and he was now looking at Rick with a dead serious look on his face.
"Rick, I ain't no good at skating anymore. Haven't properly trained in years… hell, I pro'bly don't have the body or the breath for it 'nymore. I can't be your man" he said, and he looked almost embarrassed, his eyes not falling to the floor.
"Yes, you can" Beth herself was surprise at hearing her own voice, and so were the two men, both of them staring at her.
She blushed, but she continued: "If Rick says you're the right person for me, I believe him. I trust him. If you're willing to commit to this trial period, I'm in" she declared, trying not to sound as scared as she was.
Daryl looked angry again, shaking his head.
"You're gonna regret this. Don't say I didn't warn ya" he grunted.
Rick tried to hide a smile, and Beth couldn't believe she had just set herself up for this torture. It was gonna be hell, she knew it.
"Do ya want me t'change in front of ya?" Daryl snapped then. "Get out"
She blushed again and hurried out of the door, Rick following her with a smirk on his face.
Oh, this was gonna be bad.
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