Chapter Text
The music starts wrong.
Anna knows it the instant her blade meets the ice, her timing half a breath off, her body already compensating before the jump even arrives. She files the sensation away automatically. Not panic, not even worry, just information.
She tells herself it’s fine. She’s done this a thousand times.
She sets up anyway.
The entry feels familiar, but something underneath it isn’t. A hesitation she can’t quite name, like her body is waiting for confirmation instead of giving commands. It’s subtle enough that no one else would catch it.
Anna catches it.
She goes up.
Breath.
For a moment, she thinks she’ll save it. She often does. Midair corrections are instinct now, reflex layered over muscle memory.
Her blade touches down and slips.
The sound is sharp, wrong. Her knee hits the ice hard enough to sting, a bright line of pain that makes her inhale through her teeth. It’s not catastrophic, it's just enough imbalance that there’s no pretending it didn’t happen.
The rink holds its breath.
Anna stays down a second longer than necessary. Not because she’s hurt, she knows she isn’t, but because getting up feels heavier than it should. The cold seeps through the fabric at her knee. She can feel the weight of attention settle around her, that particular stillness that comes before judgment organizes itself.
She hears someone swear.
The voice cuts through the quiet, sharp and furious.
Sasha. She says in her mind.
“Are you kidding me?”
Anna pushes herself up as Sasha is already moving across the rink, skates biting into the ice with no hesitation at all. Someone says Sasha’s name—too controlled, too late.
“Why are you pushing her like that?” Sasha demands. The anger in her voice is immediate, unfiltered.
A coach says something clipped. Another reaches for her.
Sasha shrugs them off without slowing. “She didn’t need to do it again,” she says, words spilling faster now. “She never needs to do it again. You just—” Her voice breaks, sudden and raw. “You just wait for her to mess up so you can call it growth.”
The silence that follows is different. Not the quiet of focus. The quiet of shock.
Anna straightens fully, heat rising in her face. Embarrassment, yes but something else, too. A tightness in her chest that has nothing to do with the fall.
“Sasha,” she says, keeping her voice low. “Stop.”
She searches for her automatically.
Sasha isn’t looking at the coaches anymore.
She’s looking at Anna.
It’s the way she always does—direct, narrowed, like the rest of the rink has dropped out of focus. Anna has noticed it before, even if she’s never named it. Other people miss it. Anna doesn’t.
-
Eventually, Sasha backs off. Not dragged but rather guided, firm hands steering her toward the edge. Training dissolves into movement and murmurs. People turn away with deliberate disinterest.
Anna is the last to leave the ice.
She waves off concern with practiced ease. Near the boards, she catches Alina watching her—sharp-eyed, thoughtful. Anna gives a small shake of her head. Not now.
She doesn’t let anyone follow.
-
The hallway near the locker rooms is quiet. Sasha stands with her shoulders tense, hands trembling like the adrenaline hasn’t burned out yet. Like she’s still bracing for impact.
For a moment, neither of them speak.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Anna says finally. Her voice is steady, but it costs her something to keep it that way.
Sasha exhales, the sound short and humorless. “I know.”
The silence that follows presses closer than the one on the ice.
“I wasn’t hurt,” Anna adds. “Just… off.”
“I know,” Sasha says again. She turns slightly toward Anna, not fully. “That’s what scared me.”
Anna studies her profile—the tight jaw, the brightness in her eyes, the way her body still looks coiled, like she hasn’t landed yet.
“You don’t get to protect me,” Anna says. There’s no softness in it, no cruelty either. Just truth edged with restraint.
Sasha finally looks at her.
Up close, Anna is aware of familiar things she never lets herself linger on: the warmth of Sasha’s presence, the faint scent she’s carried since they were younger, colder rinks, earlier mornings.
Sasha’s gaze flickers over her face, searching, like she’s checking for damage no one else would notice.
“I know,” Sasha says again, quietly. “But I couldn’t stand there and watch them turn you into something fragile the second you slipped.”
Anna’s chest tightens because she understands them.
She steps closer. She doesn’t touch. She never crosses that line first. She just closes the space enough that Sasha’s attention has nowhere else to go.
“You always lose it when things feel unfair,” Anna murmurs, without looking directly at the green-eyed girl.
Sasha huffs out a breath. “And you always pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
Their eyes meet.
There’s recognition — the kind that’s existed longer than either of them wants to admit.
Anna reaches out then, fingers closing gently around Sasha’s wrist. Steady. Grounding.
“I’m okay,” she says, knowing exactly why she needs to say it.
Sasha swallows. “I know. I just needed to hear it.”
They linger there, suspended between what just happened and what comes next. When Anna lets go, Sasha’s hand stays lifted for a second, like it hasn’t decided what to do without her.
Later, walking back toward the rink, not together, but close enough, Anna becomes aware of the shift.