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In the months to come after retirement, Tessa would love to say that she remembers every single moment of their last show.
She tries, really. Her family come out to see she and Scott off — his family too, but she never even remembers looking up and seeing them in the stands. She doesn't remember seeing her cast mates whirling around her, their hands holding her up as the music soars. She forgets the choreography within weeks, can't remember what she whispered to Scott before they took to the ice for their solo, joking around. She'd never be able to remember the faces of the audience, anything beyond the shadowed, blurred haze of excitable smiles and cheers, the energy she feels reflected back at her a hundred times over.
But she always remembers one thing: one moment, clarified and singular. And it's always with him.
The moment changes from show to show — can be as simple as the way he looks at her. A shared smile, his eyebrows crooked up in delight when he coaxes an answering grin from her. In the middle of their routine, he'll mutter an inside joke that nobody else would ever be able to stand, but she'll roll her eyes and laugh along with him, because they've never been able to resist anything when it comes to each other. Sometimes there's a singularity to his expression that tells her nobody else in the world exists in that moment but him and her, that he would fend off the world for the two of them to have this for a few seconds longer.
Their very last show, she remembers nothing but their final position.
It should be familiar: they're back in their ending pose from their very first Olympics, finishing where they started.
She remembers Scott pressing his face against hers, so close that she can barely breathe; the quick, heavy inhale and exhale of her breathing blows out against his cheek. He's trembling. His arms are wrapped around her, one at her waist, the other at her back, cradling her to him, and although he tries not to, she can feel his fingers digging in. Maybe there will be bruises there tomorrow. She thinks she'd like that — something permanent. Underneath the midnight blue, star-spattered sheen of their costumes, something that lasts and lingers, the shape of him branded against her skin.
In the breathless, lingering seconds before their music fades, she thinks of the future to come. She might never know who he is again, not the way she does now — when she can look at him and know every thought that shivers under his skin. There's no pause to their story this time, no maybe or what if. There's a finality. Sometimes, she thinks she's accepted it.
But the lights go down, and just for a moment, she wishes they'd never come back up again.
In the darkness backstage, she and Scott find each other.
They step off the ice and slip into a wardrobe storage room for a moment alone, the roar of the crowd still thundering behind them. It's a cramped, dark little room, full of empty wardrobe cases waiting to be loaded up and carted off back to the production office, before being shipped out to display in the various rinks they've toured across. The light is dim, and she's glad for it. They're better like this, when she can't see the look on Scott's face. She can see him trembling, though, little shivers that ripple through him every few seconds. It's a strange energy, one that she doesn't have to interpret beyond understanding that it's the same energy that courses through her: exhilaration, pride, melancholy, all wrapped up into one.
People will come looking for them soon.
Scott steps towards her, his arm half-outstretched, fingers slipping up across her jaw to cup the side of her face — and even now, even after everything, she's still not sure that he's not going to kiss her.
He doesn't, of course.
His touch prickles against her skin, raising goosebumps like a static charge, and even when he wraps his arms around her and folds her into his chest, she's unable to settle. She's sure he can feel it too: her heart beating out of sorts with his, her breathing ragged and inconsistent, feels it in herself like some sort of betrayal. Eventually, he drops his arms and steps back. There's a long, lingering moment where they stand in silence, both waiting for the other to initiate something — exactly what they're waiting for, Tessa can't say.
She wonders whether she should tell him that she's looking forward to the next few years, that she can't wait to see where this new chapter takes them. That she's happy for him, truly, and she wishes him all the best. That they'll keep in touch. She wonders whether she should tell him all the things she thinks she ought to say, the things that sensible people say to their lifelong partners.
What comes out of her mouth instead is: "I'm scared."
Scott makes a funny sound. He pulls her back into him, clutches her so tight that she feels like she might break; his fingers dig in at her spine, his nose buried against the dip of her neck. On the ice, they'd managed. Here in their private space, she's never felt him so desperate — like an exposed nerve against her, raw and shivering. She clutches him with the same need, presses herself into him. If they try hard enough, maybe they won't be two people any more: they'll just be one entity, as undefinable and inseparable here as they have been at every stage of their lives thus far.
If, after that, she’d cried against his shoulder, and he had cried against hers, what would it matter?
If she’d kissed him then, would it have changed anything?
In the familiar confines of a repurposed changing room in the back of an arena roaring their names, they find an ending together.
And then, the next morning, they begin again.
They meet over breakfast at a tiny, family-run diner round the corner from the hotel, so early that the place is entirely deserted, the smell of cleaning fluid still hanging in the air, but it works for Tessa. Scott’s there when she arrives, pushing open the door and stomping the rainwater out of her sodden sneakers. It makes a change, she thinks, to have him waiting on her, him calling her name with a grin and waving her over. Better late than never.
He's got her coffee, too, pushing the mug across to her when she slides into the booth. Flat white with a double shot of espresso — the price to pay when he asks her to get up at five in the morning for breakfast. He knows her ever-changing coffee order like the back of his hand, like it's the only job he has in life (he hasn't gotten it wrong for the entire tour, he points out to her).
"I've obviously let you have it too easy," she mumbles, bleary-eyed, as he watches her inhale the contents of her mug. "Too predictable. I'm gonna come back in six months with a fondness for almond milk chai decaf."
He leans across the table to tug on the end of her wet ponytail. "Oh yeah?"
"Mm. You just wait. You won't know what hit you. Whole new Tessa."
His smile is lazy and warm; it curls at her insides, spreading a funny sort of lightness in her chest. It says that he knows her — knows her, inside-out, without the pretense of flattery or indulgence. He knows the little idiosyncrasies that she insists upon; why, when she says she's changing her coffee order, what she really means is she'll do no such thing, but he'll need to get it wrong just to make her feel better every once in a while.
"Sure, Tess," he says, grinning. "Decaf. That'll be the day."
"It will," she insists.
"Uh-huh."
They're both too tired to say much. He lets her drink her coffee in companionable quiet, reaching over to slip his hand across her forearm under the pretense of warming her up. He's broad and over-familiar, touching every part of her that he can manage, every part that he's allowed, and she doesn't mind one bit. He can be a little much this early in the morning — crowding where she needs space, pushing himself into the quiet corners that she carves for herself. But this morning, his hand on her arm is comforting, solid, and his eyes on her are warm.
She doesn't say anything, and neither does he. They sit there quietly, studying one another as the rain patters on the pavement outside, trickling down through the grey-green sunlight.
And studying, she thinks, is the right word for it. Because as they look at each other, gaze holding fast, all Tessa can think is that they're both trying to remember as much as they possibly can. Wan and tired and bleary-eyed, she'd rather remember this Scott than anything else. This Scott, at five a.m. in a diner that smells of bleach, his smile wordless and familiar — this Scott is hers. This Scott will still be hers.
A long time ago, they made a promise to one another.
They've made many promises: some forgotten, others upheld. There were silly childhood promises that her sister would coerce them into, the kind made with crossed pinky fingers that spoke of everlasting love, back when Scott couldn't even meet her eyes without blushing. Before her first surgery, he promised to come see her every week. She promised to always be truthful when she thought he was making a mistake. Some promises fall by the wayside. But the one they've never forgotten is this: no matter what, no matter when, their last skate together won't be for an audience.
In many ways, their last skate is the same as their first.
The rink they skated at for their final show was disassembled overnight, so they call in at a local rink instead. At barely six a.m., the proprietor is understandably surprised to see the Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir appear at her door, but she waves them on through with a promise that they'll have the place to themselves until the beginners' class gets on the ice at seven-thirty.
It's a shitty, grotty little rink, just like all the shitty, grotty little rinks they skated in for their entire career.
The roof leaks onto the rubber matting by the boards, and the boards are dented and scraped with the impact of hockey sticks and body tackles; flaking red stains are scratched across the grubby white paint, and Tessa's unsure whether it's blood or just rust. There's no chance of commandeering the sound system, a few roughshod speakers hooked up to a mixing desk that looks like it doesn't take any form of media more recent than a cassette tape.
And yet, Scott takes her hand and they step onto the ice together, and it feels like home.
"I feel like we should have planned more for this moment," he says, grinning, as they slip into an easy dance hold. They don't have to think about it; his palm curves across her shoulder blade, elbow raised precisely, and her hand settles against his shoulder. "Could've busted out our greatest hits, you know? Tango Romantica, Finnstep, line them all up and knock them down. Blam, blam, blam. Carmen. Valse Triste. All the old favourites."
She shakes her head, smiling. They spin around the rink together, their feet finding a natural rhythm. They move so easily with one another, hips pressed tight together, bodies perfectly parallel that it's like they're finding invisible handholds that are only perceptible to the two of them; bodies made and moulded exactly for one another.
"This is all I want," she says.
Scott sticks out his tongue at her. "What, just waltz hold? You can dream a little bigger than that, Tess. C'mon, my eight-year old niece can do a waltz hold."
"Don't spoil the moment.”
"That's my job."
They’re whirling around the rink at a fair speed, fast enough that she can’t really focus on anything beyond his face, beaming down at her like she brings the sunshine into the rink with her mere presence. She’s going to miss that.
"No,” she tells him, “your job is getting my coffee every morning.”
"I'm holding down two jobs at once. Such a hardworking guy, me."
"Jeez, unemployment is going to be cruel to you," she says.
He laughs harder, and spins her faster. Faster and faster and faster, until the world is barely a blur around them, but she always manages to see him. She wonders if that will ever go away: if ten, twenty, thirty years down the line, she’ll be able to feel anything but his hand in hers, his smile crinkled up at the corners, remember the grim determination of his jaw when they would take the ice at competition, and she would know that this was it, that this was their moment.
It'll take time for the rest of the world to stop paling in comparison to what she feels on the ice with him.
They sneak out at seven a.m., just before they're ambushed by the beginners' figure skating class. It's still raining, but something possesses them to walk out to the cliffs (Tessa possesses them — she wants a photo for Instagram, she tells Scott, and ignores the little pit in her stomach when she checks her phone and sees the notification reminding her of her flight to Toronto in a few hours' time).
After a lame attempt at taking photos that almost ends with Scott toppling off the cliffs to an unfortunate demise, they sit huddled together on the bench overlooking the cliff edge. Tessa's legs are draped halfway across Scott's lap for warmth, his thumb rubbing idly across the top of her thighs; his hands are freezing cold, but she doesn't have it in her to complain. It's nice enough, sitting here with him, even in the drizzling rain — and she suspects, when she looks back on today, she'll have wished she sat there for hours longer.
They make plans to meet again in a few months' time, just before their Olympic anniversary. That'll be their day: that, and the anniversary of their partnership. Two days of the year, two moments to bring them back together again.
"And, y'know, you can always call," Scott says. "I'll even give you my new number, let you go straight through to my personal phone instead of getting sent to voicemail."
Tessa rolls her eyes. "You're too generous."
She won't call. They don't do things like that, calling, and it would seem strange to start breaking the habit of a lifetime now. There's something about it that seems unnecessary. She knows Scott inside out — knew, perhaps. She doesn't need to text him about her day, or message him funny cat pictures. She doesn't need any of that to understand that he'll be there in her life as long as she wants him.
Looking out across the cliff edge, she watches the rain spatter gently against the waves, the dim, grey clouds rolling into the vanishing line of the ocean like smoke.
"Twenty-two years, eh?" Scott says, and she hears the weight in his voice, his hand slipping up to settle at her hip.
"Yup," she says. "Twenty-two years."
He sighs, the sound contented. "Pretty impressive. Who would've thought, those two little kids from London and Ilderton? You reckon I should tell that cocky idiot that he'll be the most decorated Olympic figure skater of all time?"
"Please don't," Tessa says, with a small smile. "You were insufferable enough already."
Scott snorts a laugh, bringing up a hand to push the rain-soaked hair out of his eyes. He looks younger with his hair slicked back like that, his eyes bright and clear, looking down at her with a smile that's so fond it sends a twinge of something painful through Tessa.
"I dunno how you put up with me for that long, Tess. Honestly. Patience of a saint."
"Mm," she says, folding her hand across his at her hip. "You made it up to me later. You're still making it up to me, really. It'll take you another twenty-two years, but I think we might get there."
His smile creases at the corners then, all rucked up and messy. It's her favourite smile of all, and she clings to it.
"I'm not so sure twenty-two will be enough, you know. I think we'll need at least fifty. Maybe sixty. A hundred? I can be real bad at doing things quickly, T. Think about how long it took me to graduate."
"A hundred, then," she grins. "A hundred years from now, and I'll call it square."
"Perfect. So, this February thing... you wanna go to Montreal for the weekend? After that anniversary dinner in Toronto, I mean. We could go see Marie and Patch again. It's been ages since we've seen them. Plus Patch already owes me for that one night–"
"Scott," she laughs, throwing back her head to shake her hair free from her face. "Shut the hell up and let me enjoy my first morning of retirement."
"Our first morning of retirement," he corrects, sounding far too pleased with himself, but he does indeed shut up.
If their first twenty-two years together has brought them anything, it’s companionship and stability: a home built from the way Scott looks at her, the warmth of his hand around hers. Their paths diverge now, but they’ll have twenty-two years more, and twenty-two more to come after that. Each and every one of those twenty-two years will be different, and Tessa welcomes every single one of them.
In the end, her hand will still fit perfectly in his, and his smile will still be the one she remembers. His arms will still open for her as easy as breathing, and their names will still belong together in one word.
One story ends and another begins, but she’s bringing all of her favourite parts along with her.