It's Emma's turn for a run, her second of the day and third of the week. There's less pressure to perform today than there was yesterday, than there will be in the future, but she still feels nervous as she straps her feet onto her board. She's not expecting as much excitement from the crowd as Ruby got when her name was announced. Actually, she's kind of banking on it. Emma has landed flawless jumps when nobody else is around. It's the giant crowd, both online and live, that makes her anxious.
She takes a moment to breathe and stare out at the slopestyle course, trying not to be aware of the cameraman standing on her left. She wonders what people see when they saw her on-screen when her eyes aren't hidden behind a pair of goggles. If she wants to go by Twitter's opinion? It's probably her resting bitch face. The camera pans away from her shortly afterward, turning out to the crowd, and Emma rolls her shoulders back to stretch her muscles. Killian Jones' pleasant voice floats through her mind, totally unbidden, the second she moves.
Shake your shoulders out before you go down on the slope, he'd told her, smiling like she hadn't completely blown him off. You're stiff as a board.
She looks down at herself now, trying to see what he means, and slowly rolls her shoulders again. They lower an inch or two on their way down and she frowns, trying to remember when she let them rise so high. She can't, but she doesn't have time to ponder it, because the cheer rising from the crowd means the Danish snowboarder just finished her second run.
Emma slides closer to the unceremonious slant of snow that separates her and the flock of press waiting below. She waits for someone on the sidelines to give her the go-ahead and presses her weight forward, immediately picking up speed, and seconds later her board leaves the ground.
The crowd screams louder as she inverts in the air, twisting backwards, but it all falls away in Emma's ears. She only hears the rush of snow falling in wake behind her as she launches off the ramps, the grind of her board cutting across railings, the solid thump each and every time she lands. She feels perfectly at home every time she's in the air like this, ice-cold wind rushing at the sliver of uncovered skin of her nose, and by the time the final ramp approaches she feels like she's having fun.
Emma lands her flip unsteadily, but she doesn't feel a thing as the cameras flash and cheers erupt from the sidelines. She stands upright and faces them with a smile — one she's sure will be called rare once it airs — and carries her board away to prepare for her final run.
She's halfway up the hill when her ankle begins to protest, even while she's sitting in the chairlift. Just one more jump and then you can go ice it, she tells herself stubbornly as the lift approaches the drop-in area, hoping it's a momentary ache, but it's obvious from the second she touches down on the ground that she's done for the day.
Emma angrily hobbles over to the area where the trainers are standing, confusing everyone around her, and seeks out Kristoff in particular. She doesn't know him well, but she knows him better than anyone else standing around, so she asks him to check her out.
He's so easygoing that she thinks he's going to tell her everything is fine, but then he raises a hand to help her up instead of strapping her boot back in.
"It's not that bad," she tells him quickly, as if that'll change his mind. "I was walking on it before."
"Maybe," he allows, "but you're swollen. Another wobbly landing and you'll hurt it worse. I think you're done for today."
Emma wants to refuse to use the crutches the athletic trainers offer to her, but she's sure she won't get to compete if she doesn't use them. Being back in the hotel was supposed to be a reprieve from the endless reporters on the slopes, but there's no escaping the recaps here when all the lobby televisions are tuned to her event. Headless voices contemplate what, if anything, went wrong in her final jump, and she can't take the assault on her ability. Emma moves as quickly as she can to the elevators, thankful for the silence that envelops her once the doors slide open.
It doesn't last. The moment the doors shut, she realizes she's not alone in the elevator, that someone's looking at her with careful eyes and far too much concern.
"Are you all right?"
Killian Jones stands opposite her, pink-cheeked and winded like she is. She'd heard he competed earlier, that he'd placed first in a six-point lead over his competitors. Talking to him suddenly seems worse than watching her own replays, but the elevator doors are already closing. She can't hobble up that many flights of stairs.
"I'm doing great," she grits out, impatience evident in her scowl as she keeps her eyes ahead of her and away from him.
"You don't have to do that. I heard about your leg."
Emma doesn't answer him.
"Look," Killian continues, wading deeper into the tense silence between them, "I know it's frustrating not to finish, believe me, but it was the wiser move. You should be glad it wasn't worse."
He means well, but it's exactly the kind of sympathy Emma doesn't want. In fact, it's exactly the kind of sympathy that sends her whirling in his direction, trying to stay balanced while fire blazes in her eyes.
"Don't give me that bullshit," Emma interrupts. "What makes you think you can tell me to be glad it wasn't worse?"
"How about the fact I heard them speculating that you'll likely recover in time for tomorrow's event? How about the fact I've been in your shoes before?" Rather than shrinking back at her frustration, he steps forward. "One little mistake isn't going to make that much of a difference for you."
He must see how much the comment stings once it's out, because he sputters to correct himself.
"I didn't mean that the way it came out."
"Are you sure?" Emma bites back, rounding on him despite the protest from her ankle when it holds her weight. "You're not the only one saying it. And you'd be right if you did," she adds, "because it doesn't matter, does it? I'm some nobody who can't even complete three runs without hurting herself on a landing, and barely made it here in the first place. Why would I matter?"
She stares at her reflection in the door while his eyes linger on her face, wishing there hadn't been so much truth in her words. When she sighs it's like the entire day's energy leaves her. If she was alone, she would have sank down to sit on the floor by now, and the thought is so ridiculous a manic sort of chuckle leaves her. Killian seems to take it as a good sign — either that, of he has a dangerous knack for reading her.
"Is it bad?"
She shakes her head. "The crutches are more of a precaution than anything else."
"No, I meant...what are they saying about you?"
She turns wide eyes at him, feeling a bit of deja vu, and isn't sure she wants to answer at first. The elevator slides to a halt and opens up on his floor, but he's still waiting for her reply.
"It doesn't matter," she eventually tells him, trying to give him the excuse he needs to leave. He surprises her again by staying, to the point where she almost says something about it, but he speaks before she can.
"You're not going to be able to avoid it if you go up there on your own, Swan. I've been there — it feels easier knowing the worst of it than wondering."
She's been asking herself why he'd care, why he'd bother reaching out to her after she'd been so abrupt, and now the question echoes louder in her mind. Anyone else, even one of her roommates, would have left her alone by now, but he hasn't.
"Where are you suggesting I go, then?"
The corner of his mouth lifted in the slightest of smiles. "With me, of course, if you're willing."
They end up at some little tavern, a complete hole in the wall. It's the last place anyone would expect to find her, and even if they tried, the windows were near-papered over with local advertisements. It's perfect, basically, and Emma feels a smile threatening her face when he sees only one of the TVs on the walls are tuned to the X-Games.
"Quit looking at that," Killian tells her, sitting down with two of the tallest mugs she's ever seen. She lifts a brow but he pushes it toward her, and she's pleasantly surprised to feel warmth in the curl of her fingers. "We're here to get your mind off tomorrow, remember?"
"Easier said than done," she comments, taking a whiff of her drink. Parking was extremely hard to find, tourism being what it was, and they'd both ordered hot chocolate to keep the chill off their bones, but she was still surprised by the spicy warmth wafting up from her drink. "What's in this?"
"Take a sip and see if you like it. I had Granny whip up something special."
Emma obliges, and understands what he's on about immediately. "Cinnamon?"
"Cinnamon." He repeats proudly, puffing his chest out as if she's already proclaimed it perfect.
Somewhere between taking in his smile and the bustle of conversation that has nothing to do with extreme winter sports, Emma forgets about her foot. She forgets Twitter, the third jump she didn't take, the looks on the faces of her every hotel staff member who saw her on crutches a few hours ago. He's got this way of making her forget that she's even an athlete, and it's more refreshing than she ever thought it could be, whether he has a motive or not.
"How'd you find this place?" She asks him when their mugs are empty. "It doesn't seem like many athletes come here."
"It took a while," he admits, putting down his own glass, "but that was exactly what I wanted. I scored terribly on my first race, badly enough that I thought about taking an early flight home. I got myself drunk at the hotel bar and wandered around from place to place until I started to feel the cold again. This was the only place I remembered the day after."
"Really?" It's not the story that surprises her, really. It's the way he recalls it for her so without an ounce of hesitation.
"Well, nearly. I remember being tossed out of another bar, but it's the worst place in town. Terrible food, worst management I've ever come across...it's a lucky thing they threw me out before I could have a drink."
"So you're a troublemaker, then."
"I prefer scoundrel," he grins, that pride back in his voice.
Emma tries to picture it. She hadn't followed him much in his early years in the sport, but she dimly remembered a bit of press about his reputation. She felt embarrassment at the thought; she would have probably seen more of it if she wasn't so concerned with what people said about her.
Forget her ankle, Emma barely feels the cold on the walk to the cab, even when the cracked leather seats barely warm while they ride back to the hotel. She makes him promise he'll let her pay him back when he covers the fare, and together they trek up the hill to the hotel entrance, somehow avoiding every patch of ice in their way even in the low light. She doesn't have a name for what she feels when he smirks at his own jokes in the elevator, but she knows annoyed isn't it.
"And where have you been?"
Ruby gives her less than a minute to sit down and change out the ice packs on her foot before she comes forward, phone in hand. Emma feels terrible all at once, thinking of the texts she'd ignored after her jumps, but then she catches sight of Ruby's grin.
"Out," Emma tries, knowing that answer won't be enough. "I just wanted to clear my head."
"Out with Killian Jones?"
"Who told you?"
She sticks the phone in her hand for the second time in two days, showing her yet another re-tweet from Killian Jones' account.
"This was five minutes ago. You want to see the one he wrote when you got hurt after your jump today?"
She bristles, but Ruby's already scrolling.
Emma Swan deserves a chance. I say we let her take it before we start publishing false reports of what happened on the slopes today.
"What reports?" Emma asks, frowning at the screen, but Ruby's already pulling the phone away with a triumphant look on her face.
"That's what you're focusing on? Seriously?" She gives up, falling back on the chair next to the couch and grabbing the remote. "Emma, I don't know what to do with you. You've got this guy taking you out to fancy places off the resort —" Emma snorts at this, thinking of the dive bar they'd been to "and you act like it's not special."
"It's nothing. He doesn't even know me," she responds, more knee-jerk reaction than anything else, but Ruby's point lingers in her mind later on when she falls into bed. Emma resists the urge as long as possible, but eventually she pulls her phone off the nightstand and pulls the tweet open again, scanning it over and over.
Emma Swan deserves a chance.
It's not much, but it's more than enough to coax her to sleep, her sore ankle completely forgotten.