Current mood:	cheerful
Current music:	Augustana-Boston
Entry tags:	austen, austenkin, figure skating, writing post

At least I got this done
Title: A New Kind of Mid-Life Crisis
Part: 11: Think I'll Go to Boston
(Prologue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Fandom: The Cutting Edge/Jane Austen(sort of)
Characters: Characters channeling Colonel Brandon, Mr. Bennett, Elinor, Marianne, and Emma
Warning: Shameless use of national stereotypes in ice dance
Musical Accompaniment: Nessa & George's Free Dance Music:Johannes Brahms-Hungarian Dances
Note: This started out as a simple straightforward sequel to The Cutting Edge, but I waited too long to start it and it went a little...awry.

Logan International Airport, Boston, Monday, October 1, 2012

George supposed that when Ms. Kerrigan had come to greet them at the airport, complete with a sign with their names on it just in case they didn’t already know what she looked like, she meant it as a nice gesture. But it just made things more difficult, because he had to bite his lip to keep from demanding why she had booked them onto British Airways, with its high rate of losing bags. He and Nessa never took that airline if they could help it. They never even went through Heathrow if they could help it, which they’d also had to do thanks to her choice of airline.

She greeted them with a friendly, “Hey!” and shook all three of their hands. “How was your flight?”

“Most atrocious,” replied Betsy. “They lost George’s bag, and he is now lacking his skates.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” And she genuinely was, George thought, but only because she would never dream of blaming herself in the slightest for it.

“Still,” said Betsy, “better it should happen here than at a competition.” They all took a moment to mentally flinch at that possibility. “So is everyone here? Is anyone here with skates big enough for George to wear?”

Ms. Kerrigan took a look at George’s six foot frame, then looked down at his feet, then said, “He’ll have to wear Evan’s. No one else is nearly tall enough. Guess we won’t be able to rehearse the finale yet.”

George had met Evan Lysacek only once, and hadn’t gotten along with him at the time. But then again, they had both been younger.

Like most American cities, Boston was a little bigger, a little louder, and a little more boldly decorated than Edinburgh. It also had no public transport worth speaking of. Apparently there was talking about changing that state of affairs, but of course here in America noone could ever seem to find the money for such things. Instead the four of them crowded into Ms. Kerrigan’s car, which at least was not uncomfortably large, something George had dreaded, so she could drive them to their hotel. George sat down behind what he only realized a moment later was the driver’s seat, looked out the window at the cars moving not just on the wrong side of the road, but also very, very slowly and whispered to Nessa, “The folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can!” It made her snicker, but he saw her surprise also; she had not thought he had read so far into Emma already.

“You’ll like the hotel,” said Ms. Kerrigan, which George thought was arrogant of her. “It’s a great place, all the trimmings, even internet access if you have a laptop, and it’s within walking distance of the arena.”

“That last detail is indeed a great asset,” said Nessa, “but what about the arena itself? What about the rink? What size is it?”

“Olympic sized and state of the art,” said Ms. Kerrigan. “The ice may be a little crowded, though.”

“We can bear crowds,” said Betsy. “Though I should prefer us to have the ice to ourselves at least a couple of times.”

“You can do that; you have to talk to the right people. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you who to talk to; I’ll set it up.”

And, George thought, they would owe her a debt of gratitude. “How far away is the hotel?” he asked.

“A long way away, young man,” said Betsy, before Ms. Kerrigan could answer, which made all three of the women laugh. “Does anyone want to see me tonight?”

“Don’t think so. A few people only just got here; I’m not even sure Sasha’s arrived yet. You can go to your rooms and rest for a bit.”

Later

Betsy had never been very fond of hotel rooms, and in Sheffield she had found herself feeling a positive loathing for them. Though at least neither of the ones she had stayed in so far had been too offensive; she didn't know how she would deal with it should she end up in a more expensive one. On the other hand, the circumstances of her stay became far more unpleasant when she walked into the room and found Joshua sitting on her bed.

"How on earth did you get here?" she asked. Were these people capable of teleportation?

"I took another flight out of Heathrow," he said. "One that went to New York, and then I took another flight here from there. Hopefully that should throw them off for a while."

"And why?" asked Betsy. "I thought you said you needed these two weeks to teach Kate and Doug."

“I left them with written instructions. But I think I need to teach you more.”

“What do you mean?” Betsy asked, confused. “I thought Doug was the one getting your extra instruction.”

“He was, because he’s the one with the brute power. But I think I’ve pointed out these past two weeks you have more Control than the other two, which means that you’ll be the best of them at Creation. So we’ll be starting that this evening.”

“Might I at least eat something first? I haven’t eaten in about twelve hours.”

“Yes, I haven’t eaten either. We should order something from the room service.”

As they waited, and Betsy unpacked, Joshua explained more to her about the basics of Creation. “It starts at the atomic level,” he explained. “Protons, electrons, and neutrons. You don’t actually create anything; that would violate laws of physics even magic has to obey. What you have to do is sense the existence of the components of an atom-this is why I insisted the three of you learn how to do that-and then use Motion and Control to combine them into new atoms. You can learn how to manipulate quarks too, but it’s really not worth the bother.”

He also instructed her to try to view their food at the atomic level when it arrived, but she had already had difficulty breaking past the molecular level without really concentrating, and her stomach was truly growling. Also, she found it a little disturbing as it was, being aware of the molecules of her steak being broken apart between her teeth as she chewed on it, the little clumps of zillions of molecules each left on the plate. It made her mind dizzy to see just how many molecules made up one tiny spec near the plate’s edge. And she’d thought that as a coach she’d been scrutinizing things from up close.

Once their plates were cleared, however, she got herself to look closer at the atoms that made up all those molecules. When she had it, she nodded to Joshua, who said, “Subatomic level.”

In her current state of concentration that wasn’t too hard; Betsy soon had the knowledge of all the protons, neutrons, and electrons in front of her.

“Now,” said Joshua, “Take a proton and an electron, just detach them from an atom and isolate them.”

They’d already learned how to do that. Doug and Kate had had trouble with this level of control, and not yet mastered it. Doug had also demanded the point of the exercise. Joshua had said they would need to have the ability later. He’d meant now, it seemed.

“Good,” he said. “Now put them together. Just bring them close enough and concentrate.”

Protons and electrons, Betsy vaguely recalled, were attracted to each other because they were positively and negatively charged. But the amount of space she had to bring them across was so many times their tiny size that she couldn’t think of a number with which to measure it, and as a result it took her time, careful, meticulous time, to bring them together, time which she lost track of, but it might have been ages, until, at last, there it was, she felt them join, the electron assuming an orbital path around the proton, and now, among the nitrogen and oxygen that floated in the air around them, there was a single tiny hydrogen atom where before there had been none. She held its existence in her mind for several more moments, but the effort of the exercise caught up with her; her mind was exhausted, and she lost track of it.

“Two hours and 13 minutes,” Joshua informed her. “Not bad.”

Betsy glanced at the clock to confirm this. “I do have to sleep tonight,” she saw the need to warn him. “And I don’t know if I could do that again before I do.”

“Probably not,” said Joshua. “We’re done for tonight.”

“Good,” she pulled herself up, and stumbled over to the dresser for her nightdress. “You are not going to sleep here,” she said. “I do not care where you sleep, but it will not be in my room.”

“I’m not sleeping tonight,” said Joshua, also pulling himself up. “I’m going to investigate magic use in the city.”

Observing the exercise had exhausted him, too; his posture was very limp and he was unsteady on his feet. “Are you sure you can?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted. “Good night.” He limped out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Betsy could not help but worry; though she did not care what happened to Joshua himself, she was worried about the loss of his protection should be killed or otherwise separated from them. But she was too tired to think, and she could sense Joshua more or less steadily moving away from the hotel room, until he was quickly out of the range she could do without expending mental energy she didn’t have at the moment, and so, it seemed, she was still helpless to improve her situation.

Having taken Thomas Bennett’s most reasonable attitude towards that state of affairs, she went to sleep, and dreamed that night of receiving word of Lydia’s ruin.

Tuesday morning, Edinburgh

The day after George and Nessa’s departure, Sheila woke up in Nessa’s bed, having decided, due to the circumstances, to spend this night and probably the next one also near Diamond, a measure with which his parents had agreed. The first thing she did was check his and George’s room, where, much to her relief, she saw he had fallen asleep, and was still sleeping away.

Unfortunately the lack of ice time that day did not allow her to linger; she had to work that morning. He was still asleep when she left the apartment; she suspected that it had been very late at night when he had succumbed to sleep.

She was busy for most of the day, and did not return to the apartment until it was nearly five in the afternoon. By that time Diamond was gone; these next two weeks there were not only his usual classes but he was also substituting for Betsy, which would have him at the rink almost from sunup to sundown Wednesday through Friday. Even today she did not expect him back for nearly another hour, so she sat down and again opened her copy of Sense and Sensibility.

In anticipation of this event, Sheila had forced herself to sit down and read to the end of the sixteenth chapter of the first volume, and now she reviewed its beginning:

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough!

Sheila knew that Diamond had wept, and having held it in the entire day at the rink he had been all the more effusive once they had safely gotten away. She knew he had slept, but suspected he had lain awake a very long time indeed before exhaustion had taken him. But she did not known if he had eaten, and so she put the book down and went to the kitchen to see if there was any evidence of his having done so.

She found more used dishes in the dishwasher, so he had at least tried to eat. This was a very great relief to her; urging him to eat would be a complicated matter for her. Even as it was, she considered preparing a meal for when he got home-under her eyes he would definitely eat-but did not, instead returning to the living room and to Sense and Sensibility.

This was a difficult section of the book for her to read, however, for it concerned Edward’s first visit to the Dashwood family in their cottage, which had been to both him and Elinor a very painful one, and that was only a prelude to greater pain still to come. Still it was not as hard going as she had initially feared; she found she could enjoy the memories of some of the conversation the family had enjoyed, as well as the visit of the Palmers that had occurred just after. But then she came to the part she dreaded most, the arrival of the Miss Steeles, and it was to her great relief that after several minutes of delaying reading further she heard the door unlock, and Diamond came in.

When she saw the fatigue in his every movement Sheila moved to embrace him, and he sighed as she did so, and said, “Mrs. Davis knows.”

“Oh!” said Sheila. “She has never given you trouble over it!”

“Not out loud,” said Diamond. “It was Faye who gave it away; I was in company with both of them and she teased me about ‘missing your boyfriend,’ her words exactly. I don’t know how she knew; I certainly did not tell her. I do not think Mrs. Davis would have dared say much in her presence, but her shock was obvious enough.”

“Oh, Diamond,” said Sheila. “Do you not know everyone at the rink knows by now? Except those who have actively refused to see, like Mrs. Davis.”

Diamond blushed, then said, “But, wait Sheila. You will eat tonight, will you not?”

“I would ask the same of you.”

“I shall cook for us both, then, and immediately.”

Sheila was glad to let him do it, and to see him thus occupied. She sat at the kitchen table as he worked, and her head was very full of Elinor’s thoughts and reflections, and she deemed it prudent to give him an immediate warning. “If you are unable to sleep quickly, enough, Diamond, I shall insist on your being drugged.”

“Sheila...” he started.

“I’m serious. Marianne was able to indulge in this grief to her heart’s content, but yours is not a life of gentility. We practice at five in the morning tomorrow, and you must be rested. Need I remind you we open our season in less than a month? You said George purchased Ambien, did you not?”

“Yes,” said Diamond, “he has a supply.”

“Good. If I see any further signs of distress tonight, Diamond, I shall put one in a glass of milk.”

“Sheila,” laughed Diamond, “if I knew the milk had been spiked, do you truly think I would drink it?”

“Yes,” said Sheila, “you would, because you know it would be what was best for you.”

“You are right,” Diamond admitted after another moment. “As always.”

“Always?” Sheila repeated in confusion, before remembering.

Diamond too, remembered. “Well,” he said, “you are very often right as well, Sheila, even if not always, the way Elinor was.”

And yet when he set down their dinner the roles were reversed; Diamond was staring intently at her, the way he always did when they ate together; he was always worried. Sheila was too used to it for it to annoy her any longer, and tonight, she was glad of it. The one thing that was certain to keep Diamond composed and on task was if he thought she needed him to be, especially if her welfare was at stake.

Tuesday evening, Boston

George’s skates still hadn’t arrived. He and Nessa were currently running through their gipsy-themed free dance with him wearing Evan Lysacek’s skates. The owner of those skates was watching from the boards with some other older skaters. Nessa hoped it didn’t make George feel self-conscious; it didn’t bother her any, though admittedly their free dance was not at all performance-ready-though on the other hand, it was a relief to not have to worry about the character of this particular piece just yet.

They finished with a flourish and everyone in the rink applauded. Nessa couldn’t help but notice the single skaters applauded much louder than the ice dancers.

“If any of them besides Shae-Lynne Bourne tries to offer criticism,” Nessa whispered to George.

“We’ll take it,” George whispered back firmly. “We really shouldn’t be proud, Nessa.”

As it was, it was only Betsy who had anything particular to say. “Good,” she said, “but do the circular step sequence again.”

They skated to the part of arena, roughly, where the sequence began and waited for Betsy to set the music to the proper point. When it started they were off, performing a complicated series of difficult dance steps around the rink. The speed with which they were trying to do it made it harder, and Nessa made at least two mistakes. Of course during the run-through she had made three. Not the kind the audience would necessarily notice, but the kind the judges-and, more importantly, the technical panel-would.

“You’re worrying about the edges too much, Nessa,” called Betsy. “Try the choctaws again.”

When they tried isolated choctaw turns without the music, Nessa executed them perfectly, if slowly. “A little faster.” Again perfectly, despite a fleeting moment of panic. “Try to make it smoother.” Several more times they drilled their choctaws, then their rockers and counters, before Betsy returned them to the step sequence, complete with the linking footwork just before and after it. This time Nessa made only one mistake.

Betsy considered, then looked at her watch. “I think we have just enough time for a final run-through.”

Then Shae-Lynn Bourne commented, boldly matter-of-factly, “I think you should try for more expression this time.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to her, noticing for the first time she had made her way towards Betsy and was now standing very near her. She now leaned over and whispered something.

“Why can’t she let us hear what she’s saying?” grumbled Nessa.

“You do dislike being left in the dark, don’t you?” George chuckled in reply.

They looked uncertainly at Betsy, awaiting her judgement. “She’s right,” said their coach. “Try for some expression, at least between the elements.”

So now, though Nessa as she and George skated to their opening positions, I must become a gipsy.

It had been all very well back when they had settled upon this choice of music, for then the gipsies had been known to them only as romantic figures from fiction. To be sure, they had known that real Roma existed, but that had not signified. But to Emma Knightly, at least, gipsies had been very real, and not very romantic, but rather a menace to her sheltered world. Nessa refused to think of them with Emma’s blind prejudice and fear, but somehow to play at being them in this manner still felt wrong. Matters were further complicated by the music not at all being real gipsy music, but instead a very stylized version of it, though how exactly this altered her mind Nessa was not entirely sure.

Such were the thoughts she harboured until the music started, at which time her training kicked in and she forced herself to concentrate. Yet she could not yet do this with her whole heart, these opening gestures, raising her arms up and whirling around in counterpoint to George. The first twenty seconds or so were far too long, particularly since they weren’t yet doing the moves as fast as they wanted to, thus making it seem longer still. It went better when they finally hit the synchronized twizzles; Nessa’s mind went very deep into automatic when she and George were whirling around four turns on each foot. But then she had to get out of that, and keep dancing until they reached several seconds of slow music, and the first lift. George held her up in the air in front of him while she held her hands out. Slow down, but now she had to be very expressive for several seconds, and even more so when the music then turned quick again-then slow again. Betsy’s voice kicked in, and in Nessa’s mind she sounded oddly like Miss Taylor had when Emma had been younger, Don’t forget to vary your speed a little! She and George hadn’t very much this time; hopefully they would be able to more later.

This had only been the first minute of four. By the time they were finishing up the third minute of constant energetic and usually difficult movement Nessa’s muscles were starting to burn, her attempts at expressing the music had devolved into holding a single over the top “wild” expression on her face, and though this time she and George made no mistakes, she wasn’t entirely sure how they did not.

To her mild surprise, when they finished with that final flourish, the applause was much more enthusiastic than it had been for the previous run-through. Though maybe they were just glad the whole affair of the practice session was over, and it would soon be their turn to take the ice.

“Care to watch them practice?” George asked Nessa.

“No,” said Nessa flatly, though very quietly.

“Me neither,” admitted George, equally quietly. It was not that they had no respect for the skaters, perhaps; on the contrary, there were a couple of skaters there that they had the greatest respect and admiration for. But they were in the minority, and meanwhile, the two cousins were expecting a message at some time within the next few days from Alice Fiddleson, and they were anxious for news from her. Nessa knew that George also wanted to call Diamond, which he was hardly willing to do in their current company.

Yet Nessa found herself wishing she had stayed to watch the other skaters, who, after all, had included Shae-Lynne Bourne, practice their routines for the show, once she stepped into her hotel room and found Joshua sitting on her bed.

“Evening, Miss Ross,” he said. “Did you know you’ve been photographed by someone who ought to have no interest in you?”

“Who?” she inquired.

In response, Joshua pulled out a photograph. It was of Nessa leaving the hotel that morning. Written under it pencil was Scottish magic woman? “There’s a Disciples cell here in Boston. It’s got eight members, one of whom, a certain Mike Rollins, is fully trained in magic; the others are waiting for permission to learn. I believe Rollins sensed Mrs. Weller’s and my presence here. How he determined her nationality I am not certain. I assume the photo was taken by one of the others, who was able to only listen for a Scottish accent.”

“Then why are you not having this conversation with her? For my part, I need merely be stalked by this Mr. Rollins and he would very shortly determined that I am not his Scottish magic woman.”

“I will be conversing with her shortly, but you have the opportunity here to protect two people, Miss Ross; you are still in danger. There’s a strong chance that very soon Mr. Rollins will tail you, yes, and he finds you in the company of your coach, he will not only identify her as his magic user, but you as her associate. We are all lucky you chose to leave the hotel early today. You will have to continue doing so for at least a week. By that time I think he will have checked you out and you will be safe for the time being.”

“But what about Betsy?” asked Nessa urgently. “How are we to protect her?”

“You ask that now, Miss Ross? You should have thought of that back when I offered to teach you magic. Without it there’s not much you can do for her. I’m afraid you’re simply going to have to leave the protection to your elders.”

“I refuse to accept that,” she told him. “That even without magic, I and George and all the others are completely helpless. Yes, I am aware of what they can do to me. Betsy told us about what you did to her muscles that night. But if it is a choice between sitting around and waiting for someone to reach me and kill me, or maybe seeing if I can take Lord Voldemort down with a machine gun, I prefer to take action.”

Joshua’s stern face momentarily showed confusion. “Lord Vole-more with a machine gun? Who is Lord Vole-more?”

The astonishment that he did not know was so great Nessa needed a moment to gather up a response. “My point is, allow us to do what we can. At least tell us your general plans. You do have a general plan to take care of Betsy, do you? Who knows, maybe George and I can help somehow. You never know.”

But when he paused, she found herself demanding, “Don’t you have a plan? My God, sir, how do you expect us to entrust our safety to you?”

“I am planning to deal with this, but I only just found out! Give me time; I want to talk with Mrs. Weller first.”

“If you don’t tell me any more,” Nessa declared, “We’ll have to get it from her, George and I together. You’re lucky you had this word with me, rather than with him.”

“Would he have punched me out again?” Joshua asked sardonically, and this, his mockery of her cousin and lifelong partner, she could not bear.

“If you have no more to say to me,” she said coldly, “remove yourself from my hotel room, and kindly do not speak to me in that manner about my partner.”

“You act in this way towards me,” he commented, without moving. “You act in this way towards me, when I hold your lives in my hands.” He held up those hands, half-clenched, and Nessa wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, or if the air around her throat truly did constrict ever so slightly.

Either way, it raised within her a savage anger, and it was only with the developed restraint of both a media-trained elite figure skater and the highest-ranked lady in her particular Regency miniature society that she was able to even partly hold herself in. “Is this your self-righteousness?” she cried. “Your lack of shame? You truly believe we owe you gratitude for such paltry and self-serving aid, when it is still your fault we have need of it? Or do you merely bully, let yourself be in the wrong and not care? I would say neither option is very Christian of you, but I know better; that hardly matters to you at all, does it?”

As she hurled this last charge at him, she thought she might have seen the tiniest flicker of guilt, or possibly only acknowledgment, cross his eyes. But then it was gone, if indeed it had ever been there at all, and he replied to her, “I merely state facts, Miss Ross. I find your group has a tendency to ignore them.”

“Spare the lecture,” Nessa told him. “You’ve no moral justification for it, and on practical grounds it won’t have any impact. You may think you can scare me into hanging on every word you say, but your words tell me nothing I don’t already essentially know. Come to me when you have news and specific instructions, go from me when they are spoken. Good night, Mr. Joshua.”

Ironically, Emma was now complaining to her that she had been too impolite. But Joshua was unlikely to care whether Nessa had met Emma’s standards or not. His face remained dark and thunderous, but he bowed, somewhat sarcastically, and finally removed himself from the room.

The moment he was gone, Nessa felt the day’s fatigue hit harder than usual, and she had to sit down and breathe. For the first time since that Saturday back in Edinburgh when Joshua had first brought his complications into their previously nicely one-dimensional lives and orderly heads, she felt genuine, bone-chilling fear.