Notes

Left and Leaving
pumpkinpasties

Summary:

When he was in his twenties and chasing skirt as though his life depended on it, he'd assumed that what he felt for Tessa was merely a byproduct of their long partnership. She was his favorite person, his best friend, his confidante when things went sideways. He didn't know if he wanted to cross that bridge from platonic to... something else.

But now he knows. And the realization is driving him insane.
Notes:

Hi everyone - I'm back again! You knew I couldn't go very long without getting to work on a new story, right? This one's a bit angstier than "Best Laid Plans" but will still feature plenty of self-reflection and fluff. I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 1: my city's still breathing but barely, it's true

Chapter Text
My city's still breathing, but barely, it's true
Through buildings gone missing like teeth
The sidewalks are watching me think about you
Sparkled with broken glass



It's taken a couple years, but friends and family members and minor acquaintances have finally stopped asking Scott how Tessa Virtue is doing these days.

He tends to freeze up when the question comes up, feels himself becoming tetchy and closed-off. He can't help it. Their relationship - or the lack thereof - feels like a bruise that people can't stop prodding.

It's not that he and Tessa never talk - she still texts or calls him periodically to catch up on gossip about their friends, or to schedule a quick coffee date when she's home (though he never seems to get more than an hour of her time now) - but the polite distance between them feels like an abyss after their decades of intense closeness, of being able to read each other with squeeze of the hand. He's not sure how it all disintegrated so quickly and he's almost embarrassed to admit it to the rest of the world.

People had always expected Virtue and Moir to be forever, best friends and soul mates. In the media whirlwind following PyeongChang, Scott had been so sure that this was the case. He remembers reiterating the same thing again and again, that they would always be in each other's lives. That they loved and respected each other too much to ever become simple acquaintances. The mere idea had been unthinkable.

And yet here they are five years later - with Scott firmly planted in Ilderton while Tessa lives in Paris, enjoying the glamorous life she always dreamed of. Sometimes he thinks that he should have known it would come to this; that he was always going to be the small town boy allowed to bask in Tessa's brilliance for a short time before she embarked on her "real" life.

When those thoughts come to him, he buries them as deep as he can and cracks open a can of beer. Because that's the healthy way to deal with things. Obviously.

***

He doesn't blame Tessa for their estrangement anymore. At least he can recognize the part he played in it.

Right after they announced their retirement, she told him that she's moving to Paris. She'd signed a lease on a charming flat in the Marais district and was already boxing up her life.

"I got calls from Chanel and Dior. I'll be able to work at actual fashion houses," she'd announced, giddy and pink-cheeked. "Can you believe it? What do you think?"

He knows now that he should've been the supportive partner and friend. The one she relied on to boost her up, to act as her greatest cheerleader. But instead he'd turned surly and resentful, suddenly furious because she made it sound so damn easy to leave everything behind. So easy to leave him behind.

"It's nice to know you're so excited to get the hell away now that you don't have any obligations in Canada," he'd said, relishing the shocked look on her face. At the time he truly wanted to hurt her - wanted to make her feel a part of the fear and abandonment that festered inside of him. What was he supposed to do without her, anyway? "Do what you want. You don't need my permission."

He can still remember the exact moment her face shuttered closed and her back stiffened. She'd picked up her purse and walked out of his apartment without a word.

Scott made a half-assed apology before she moved away and she said that she forgave him, but it felt like they were just sticking to the script - that something had been irreparably damaged between them and they were pretending to move on. When her family saw her off at the airport, Scott made an excuse about being busy that day. And then she was gone, out of his life for good.

Sometimes - even five years later - he dreams about the moment when she told him that she was moving to Paris. In his dreams, he says all the right things when Tessa gives him her news. He hugs her close, breathing in the strawberry sweetness of her hair, and tells her that she's vastly brilliant and can do anything she sets her mind to. He makes plans to visit her in Paris - hell, to help her move there. Sometimes his dreams keep going, and he's walking along the riverbank of the Seine with Tessa, her hand tucked in his, as natural as any hold from their skating days. She laughs at something and her eyes crinkle at the corners, flashing emerald green... and then she starts to flicker and fade away, her touch becoming intangible mist.

Scott wakes up from these dreams with his sheets tangled around his legs and reaches out to touch the empty space beside him, thinking about Tessa, Tessa, always Tessa.

***

The only person who dares to talk about Tessa around Scott is his mother.

He goes to his parents' house every Sunday for family dinners (although he sees them almost every day, what with him coaching at the Ilderton Skating Club and helping to manage the financial side of things) and always feels like the odd duck out - the only one of his siblings who doesn't show up with a wife and kids in tow. He dates here and there, but there's been no one that he's serious enough about to bring home to to meet the Moir clan. Sometimes he thinks back to that clever joke that Tessa made after PyeongChang - "Scott, get the minivan!" - and fantasizes about pulling up in the driveway with her in the passenger seat, a pink-faced baby secured in a car seat behind them. It's pathetic and he knows it.

He's thirty-five years old and starting to worry that his permanent role in the family will be as the weird bachelor uncle - the one who can't shut up about the time in 2018 when he won two gold medals with the most beautiful woman in the world by his side.

"Oh good. You're here - come help me carve the chicken," Alma says as soon as Scott enters the house. He hangs up his jacket and follows her dutifully into the kitchen. From the living room, he can hear the hubbub of his brothers, sisters-in-law, and nieces and nephews all talking over each other. He sets up at the counter with a golden brown chicken and a carving knife while his mother bustles over to the oven and pulls out a tray laden with over a dozen baked potatoes. The Moirs all have hearty appetites.

"When's Tessa going to be in town next?" Alma asks conversationally, ignoring the way Scott scowls at the mention of his former skating partner. "You know, you should really invite her over for dinner. We all miss that girl."

I miss her too. I miss her so much it hurts. But he can't say that because the only thing more demoralizing than constantly pining after someone who walked out of your life five years ago is running to your mother for comfort as a grown ass man.

"Mom, you know Tessa's busy," he says. He's glad for the distraction of the task at hand; it's easier to stare down at a dead piece of poultry than it would be to meet his mother's knowing gaze. "When she does come back to visit, I'm sure she wants to spend as much time as possible with her own family. Not me."

"Nonsense," Alma says. "You're as much her family as anyone."

"Not anymore," Scott says, and swallows hard - trying to dissolve the sudden ache in his chest.

Alma comes over to Scott and touches his shoulder, making soothing maternal noises. It makes him feel a little ridiculous, like he's still the kid who needs his mother to stick Ninja Turtle band-aids on his scraped knees, but he's nonetheless grateful.

"Oh honey," she says, her eyes bright with concern. "You need to make this right."

"I don't know how," Scott says, and it's like a dam breaking for the first time in five years. Alma doesn't say anything as his face crumples and he blinks through the tears, just pats him on the back with a matter-of-fact expression, using the same technique as when she's burping one of her grandbabies.

When Danny and Charlie pop into the kitchen to grab beers from the fridge and see Scott's expression, they both stop dead in their tracks.

"Darn onions," Alma explains with a shrug. "You two skedaddle before your eyes start acting up too. You'll get your drinks when we sit down to eat."

Scott has honestly never been so grateful for his mother in his life. His brothers (big, hulking grown men with their own families) slowly back out of the kitchen at their mother's command. Scott knows as well as they do that Alma - sweet and mild-mannered as she seems - is terrifying when crossed. How else could she have managed the Moir men all these years?

When he leaves after dinner that night, she presses a large Tupperware container of leftovers into his hand.

"Take care of yourself," Alma says. "And remember what I said about making things right."

He grumbles and rolls his eyes but takes the Tupperware with him. As the single bachelor in the family, he's entitled to all of the extra food that comes out of these Sunday dinners. Besides, his fridge is criminally low on supplies right now.

***

That night he can't get his mother's words out of his mind - you need to make this right.

He thinks of the texts that Tessa still sends him every week or two - all breezy and light - and how he's always resented the fact that her words float at the surface level, never touching the depths of intimacy they reached in their partnership. But now he realizes with a pang of shame that he's never the first one to reach out at all; it's always been her making the first move. He'd always assumed that she wouldn't want to hear from him, that she'd have better things to do than talk to Scott about the state of amateur skating in Ilderton.

But maybe his mother's right. Maybe it's up to him to repair their relationship, to bridge the gap in some small way.

The electronic alarm clock at his bedside reads just past ten when he hits her number on his cell phone. As he counts the rings on the other end - one, two, three - it suddenly occurs to him that he should check the time in Paris. He calculates six hours ahead and curses under his breath. He's an absolute idiot, calling Tessa for the first time in months (maybe even a year) at four in the morning. He goes to hang up but then there's a click on the other end and the sound of slow breathing, and all he can do is clutch the phone to his ear. Even the sound of her breathing fills him with longing; he thinks back to all the times they synced their breaths before a competition, how it was the most soothing feeling in the world.

"Hello?" Tessa says, groggy and confused. "Scott, is that you? Is everything okay? What's wrong?"

Of course she thinks that something is wrong. Scott can't believe that all this time he's neglected to call her and when he finally gets his shit together, he disturbs her in the middle of the night. Scott knows how Tessa's mind works - or at least he knows how her mind used to work - so he rushes to reassure her. He doesn't want her jumping to worst case scenarios.

"Yeah, it's me," he says, feeling stupid and inarticulate. "I was just thinking about you and wanted to uh, you know, see how you've been. I didn't check the time first. Sorry. I should probably let you go back to sleep... uh, so I'll call back another time?"

"No, it's okay," Tessa says, her voice drowsy and soft. "It's good to hear your voice, Scott. Really good."

He can imagine her tucked underneath the cream colored linens in her four-poster bed (although he's never seen her place in Paris, he's sure as hell examined all the photos she posts online), with her dark hair spilling over the pillow like tendrils of smoke.

Scott and Tessa may not have been together together during the years of their partnership, but they shared a bond that no one else could understand. He knows that people would assume the most sordid version of their relationship if he ever revealed that over the years, they'd fallen asleep in countless hotel beds together as they traveled the world - huddling close for that sense of comfort and home. Now he recalls her heavy-lidded expression when she first woke up, pale skin luminous in the morning light. What he would give to see that again.

"I can't believe it's been five years," Scott blurts out, saying the first thing that comes to mind. "And I haven't even visited you in France. Is that insane?"

Tessa giggles and the familiar sound still sends a thrill of pure joy through his body. It's the best thing in the world - making Tessa laugh. He misses the way her eyes crinkle when she's helplessly giggling, the way that she used to bend over at the waist and rest her hand on his arm or chest for balance.

"If you're angling for an invitation, then congratulations," she says. "You can come and stay anytime for as long as you want. I have an extra bedroom and everything."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know you're always welcome," Tessa say so easily that Scott feels a wave of dizziness. He had imagined an impenetrable wall - or maybe a whole ocean - between them all these years. But maybe he'd been wrong.

"Okay," he says, letting out a breath. He doesn't know if he'll make it to Paris anytime soon (or at all), but the offer of shelter coming from Tessa makes him smile. "That sounds good. And you know if you ever need a place to stay in Ilderton..."

"Mmm," she responds. He can tell from her voice that she's already drifting off again, can envision the way her long lashes flutter against her cheeks with each languid blink. "Thanks for calling, Scott. Next time just check the time first, alright?"

"I will," he promises. "And I'll call again."

"Good. Because I missed talking to you."

He's about to respond with everything he's been holding in - that he misses talking to her everyday, that life isn't as bright without her around, that he keeps trying to be with other women (perfectly nice, lovely women) but none of them can ever seem to compare to a relationship that wasn't even romantic. The urge to confess everything to Tessa, to ensure that she understands and knows him again, is overwhelming.

But then he realizes that the line's gone dead and Tessa is probably already fast asleep again.

Scott drops his head back onto the pillow and sighs.

It's for the best, he thinks. She doesn't want to hear any of that shit.