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chapter eighteen: working toward the goal

a/n:

this takes place over the course of a week(?). the timeline is loose. don't pay too much attention to it. :).

tw(s) - rory's childhood, discussions of pregnancy and marriage, and oliver myrtle

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Rory's never had a patient teacher. Her father's method is equal parts pushing her past her limit and unforgiving punishment, her mother likes to weaponize silence, and her grandfather will, on the occasion, smack her for speaking out of turn. All of her coaches before Bombay were in line with Wolf Stansson-- a handful of formerly professional, typically Eastern European men who got kicked out of the league for one reason or another-- and, not only did they make sure that she'd associate hockey more with complete physical exhaustion than she ever would the word fun, but they all also made sure to assign her an equally as rough, and equally as European athletic trainer every single time. (It's difficult to cry about someone digging into the tissue of her back when they've survived horrors she could never imagine.)

So, when part of Bombay's plan to 'get them back on their feet' involved Luis actually learning how to stop, and Jan thought it would be best for his friends to help him, Rory was sure that disaster would fall.

She knew, going into it, that she didn't want to be mean to him or lose her patience, she just didn't know how to approach the issue.

She had no idea how she was supposed to do it without calling him names.

"And then you're gonna rotate your hips and bend your knees like this."

Luis is also, as it turns out, a terrible student.

That certainly isn't helping things along.

Standing amongst Luis and Jan on the ice, Rory demonstrates a hockey stop for what feels like the fifteenth time in the past twenty minutes. A patient, gentle smile is on Jan's face as he nods along to what Rory's saying, but Luis continues to wear this confused expression that's spreading her too thin.

Kenny's standing off to the side with Tibbles and periodically sends her 'help me' glances as their sponsor's representative yaps away.

Rory would feel bad, but she has too much of a burgeoning headache to help them both.

Luis crosses his arms over his chest as she stands up straight again.

"Look, I'm hearing what you're saying, chica, but it's not making any sense."

She rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh. A scathing retort is on the tip of her tongue but Jan intervenes before she can say it.

"Perhaps you should show him."

He's still smiling.

(Rory, who grew up in a home with an old man whose favorite turn of phrase is fuck off and his demented wife who became increasingly unruly until she died, would never admit that something about how jolly he is really gave her the creeps.)

Gnawing on the inside of her cheek, Rory looks up at the old man before shrugging and skating away-- if anything, just to get away from his encouraging looks. When she gets to the other end of the ice, she skates back toward them and skids to a stop in front of them both.

"See that? That's how you do it."

Luis stares at her for a beat before nodding and turning his legs in the way she told him.

"Alright."

Rory stands next to Jan to move out of the way so Luis can take off down the ice.

"He's a good skater." The man comments, hands stuffed into his pockets.

She nods with a concise bob of her head. "Yeah."

There's a yelp as Luis tries the stop, fails, and trips over his own feet.

"There he goes." She groans and pinches the bridge of her nose.

He falls chest-first into the ice with a solid thump and starts to slide across the cold surface as they all wince. Kenny, happy to break away from Don, skates up to him and helps him off the floor.

Jan doesn't seem quite so upset, though. "He needs an obstacle."

She wonders for a moment if he's going to make Kenny lie down across the ice.

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Rory walks into the floor's common room after a visit to the ice machine, handing a washcloth full of ice to Luis for his head and handing Charlie a heating pad that she snagged from the medical center. All day, he watched tapes of Iceland's games with their coach and took notes on their plays; he had been complaining about cramping, so she figured that she'd kill two birds with one stone and help them both.

Charlie thanks her with a gentle smile but Luis says nothing.

She sits sideways on the couch next to Averman, swinging her legs over his lap.

"This is killing me." Luis huffs, wincing as he puts the ice on his head.

Jesse snorts and mutters something, consumed by the game of Mario Party he was playing with Dwayne and Goldberg. Rory hums, tired but not willing to show it, and rests her head on the back cushion.

"Me too. You're a terrible student."

He makes a face and she returns the gesture.

"What? Making a fool of yourself on the ice isn't something you enjoy?" Averman puts a hand on her knee and rubs circles into the fabric of her sweatpants.

Luis removes an ice cube and throws it at him, forcing both him and Rory to duck. It hits the wall behind them and shatters.

"Jeez, man, you sure you weren't supposed to play baseball?"

He sneers at Averman, who grins in response.

Adam, who's sitting next to Charlie across the room, stretches and yawns and resumes their previous conversation. "Me three-- Bombay's got me beat. I ran on the treadmill today until I almost puked."

"You need to work on your breathing." Rory cuts in, staring at the television. The game quickly enraptures what's left of her attention. "If you don't breathe right, you're gonna keep getting sick-- speaking from personal experience."

When she finally tears her eyes off the screen, she finds everyone in the room is staring at her.

"What? I was just offering advice."

Before anyone can respond, Dean and Fulton join them in the room, the enforcer meandering right over to the couch.

"Scooch."

Rory scoots closer to Averman and the bigger boy sits behind her. She watches him as he pulls the tab on a can of Surge.

"Want some?" Dean asks after catching her and gestures with it.

Her nose wrinkles before she can help it and she shakes her head. "No."

Dean rolls his eyes at her and drinks from it.

"Here you go with that bullshit-- learn to eat like a kid, you freak."

She both smiles and sneers at him and his affectionate bullying. Her eyes drift back to the can, though, and he cocks a brow.

"Do you want me to move, your highness?"

Rory shakes her head again. "No. You just gave me an idea, though."

"Huh?"

He and Averman share a confused look as she gets right up and leaves the room.

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Seeing Dean's can of soda made something click for Rory.

Jan wanted an obstacle, so Rory, after paying a janitor in the cafeteria a stupendous amount of money, got him one.

Just hours later, her eyes tight from staying up half the night, Rory crouches down on the ice beside a trash bag full of soda cans and tries to stack them into a pyramid with Kenny's help.

Jan thinks it's brilliant.

"Now this is just demeaning."

Luis isn't thrilled about it.

"Well, it was either this or one of us had to lie down on the ice." She grumbles as the cans fall again. "This way has less lawsuits. Seeing as we both like Kenny, and my family could bury this entire organization in so much litigation that they will never throw another Junior Goodwill Games again, this is definitely the best option."

Kenny smiles warmly at being mentioned but Luis still doesn't seem entirely convinced.

"You need an obstacle. It will help your brain make your body do what it needs to." Jan tacks on, patting him on the back.

Luis sighs but, at least, stops complaining.

Eventually, with a lot of sweat and tears, Kenny and Rory get the cans all stacked and steady. They both stand off to the side and watch with bated breath as he starts to skate toward the obstacle--

(!!!!)

-- and falls right through it.

The cans scatter with loud, hollow rattles and Luis just lays there, defeated, on the ice for a second. Rory and Kenny go up to him as Jan worries himself with Tibbles who fell over the boards and into the bench.

"Hey...you okay?"

"I hate you, Rory."

She rolls her eyes and Kenny snorts a laugh. "No, you don't."

Feeling betrayed by his friends, he rolls onto his back and stares up at them with narrowed eyes.

"C'mon. We have to fix the cans up again and start over."

Sighing again, Luis lets himself be dragged to his feet.

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A few days later, Rory takes a break from their tireless efforts and meets her father at a fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills. Though, if anyone were to ask (and nobody was going to), she'd much rather be working herself to the brink of exhaustion than doing this.

"So... How are you?"

Rory shrugs, picking at the layers of a pain au chocolat. Every single joint in her body aches, and she's going to kill Luis, and she's still so angry at Bombay that it's hard to take orders from him, so making her father feel better for how he spoke to her is just about the last thing she wanted to do today, but she knows better than to show any weakness. That thought was what got her out of bed that morning. It got her bathed, it got her dressed, and it got her into the car.

Besides, he's buying, and she'll naively let herself think that this lapse in his behavior will stick this time.

"Oh, come on, poppet, don't be that way." He chides. His knife scrapes against the plate as he cuts through his eggs Benedict and she grits her teeth at the sound. "Tell your dear old dad how things are."

"I'm... It's fine. Everything's fine."

The croissant is heaven. It's flaky and soft and it's familiar, nothing like all of the heavy breakfasts her friends have been making her eat but better than plain eggs.

"You're not overworking yourself, are you?" He asks, skeptical. "I would hate to see you end up... like me."

Rory's face scrunches in the middle of a sip of lemonade.

"You're an egregiously wealthy hockey player turned regent CEO of a multi-billion dollar company." She rests her chin on her fist. "There are worse things to be than the most important man in all of hockey right now."

The corner of Oliver's lips pulls up but he shakes his head. "You know what I mean, Lola."

She does.

She figures that he means he doesn't want her to end up a fifty-five-year-old alcoholic divorcee with a bad leg and a baby on the way (even though he can't go out to eat with his other child without having his new assistant plan it all out for him.) There's no telling, though, and she'd rather him be in a good mood.

Rory couldn't handle him having a fit in public.

The press would spread it like wildfire.

(They've been stalled outside, taking pictures of the two of them when they entered and waiting to take pictures of them as they leave.)

A correction of her preferred nickname dies on her tongue. "I know, dad. I do. I'm taking care of myself, don't worry."

Oliver nods. The beat of silence is punctuated by him taking a bite of food.

"So, uh, how's Krystal?"

"She's lost the plot, that's how she's doing." He says, sounding thoroughly vexed. "You must speak to her. She keeps asking me to pick a color and then crying when I don't have a bloody answer."

As her father bursts into a rant on women and their boundless emotions, Rory blinks at him.

She'd asked the question in terms of pregnancy. Her mother always said that carrying a child was the worst thing that ever happened to her, that it was like carrying a parasite that greedily sucked all of the calcium out of her bones and all of her autonomy as a person to survive, so, even if she doesn't really prefer her stepmother's company, she's a little concerned. That is her little brother or sister in there, after all, and, with how much her father is distancing himself from the issue, Krystal is probably all alone with her wedding planner and her hungry little parasite. Is she taking the right medicine? Is there anyone to hold her hair when she throws up?

All of these questions she's never thought to think come so fast they make her mind foggy.

"I, uh, I meant in terms of the pregnancy, dad." Rory cuts him off hesitantly at a moment where his misogynistic words turned into ellipses. "I wanted to know how she was doing with the pregnancy..."

If Oliver is shocked or angered by this, he doesn't show it. He washes down more poached egg with a hearty gulp of mimosa and then licks his teeth to make sure there's no residual food. She stares at him, pulse-quickening with every second that it takes him to reply, and watches every twitch of his expression vigilantly.

"I don't... She's fine, I suppose. Hasn't been as sick as your mother was. She knows it's gender, but she won't tell me. She wants to tell you. Says it'll be a great surprise."

"Okay." She nods, noting how uncomfortable he is. "I'll ask her about it. I'll, uh, I'll ascertain how she feels and everything there is to know about the pregnancy, and I'll be a better maid of honor from now on, okay? You can delegate that all to me."

"I can delegate it to you?"

"Yes. You can. This is a family thing. No outside assistance needed."

Oliver nods and then, to her surprise, smiles. "I like that. Delegate. You've got such a funny way with words, Lola."

"Thanks?" Rory tries to smile back. "Thank you."

"No. Thank you. You being so kind to her despite everything, it's the only wedding present I could have wanted."

"I don't hate her." Is all Rory can think to say.

"Yes, well," He doesn't seem convinced, "either way, you're a very good girl, Lola."

Her skin feels warmed by his praise. It isn't even glowing praise-- she has heard him say more profound things about Manchester United F.C.-- but it's enough.

(If she were a dog, she'd be wagging her tail.)

"Thank you." She says again, flustered, and looks down at her plate. Instead of blabbering on, she takes another bite of her croissant.

Oliver clears his throat.

"I've bought you something."

From his inside pocket, he pulls a box. It's larger in her hands than it appeared in his, cardboard wrapped in faux leather, patterned to look like some sort of reptilian skin. Rory lifts a brow at the sight of it but opens it when he gestures for her to do so.

Inside the box is a dainty golden necklace.

The pendant is a galloping horse. No bigger than her thumbnail.

Her smile withers at the edges. "Oh."

"Beautiful isn't it?" Oliver hums around another mouthful. "I saw it while looking for something for my bride-to-be and just had to get it for you... It is alright, isn't it? I was worried that it might be too childish for a girl who kisses boys on live television..."

"No. No. Dad, it's perfect."

Rory takes the chain and fastens it around her neck.

(It's a collar, she thinks, but at least it's a pretty one.)

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"How can you tell the difference between this pink and that pink." Rory scoffs, her brows pinching together as she gestures with a picture of color samples.

Connie just looks at her like she's said something insulting.

Like she told her father she would, Rory called Krystal as soon as she returned from breakfast. Presumably lonely, the woman talked her ear off for the better part of three hours. They touched on everything from the wedding (which is going to be held in her grandmother's ancestral home, apparently) to the pregnancy (which was going well so far, despite everything her mother told her.) Krystal wouldn't budge on the gender so Rory didn't push her and instead pointed their conversation to maid of honor duties. Which turned out to be a mistake. A big mistake.

That morning, after yet another training session with Luis went awry and some time in the gym with the rest of the team, a staff member of the games met her at her homeroom and, with what could only be described as an exasperated look on their face, handed her a stack of papers that Krystal's wedding planner had faxed to her.

She and Connie have been sitting on the floor of their room, sorting through a handful of colors for the theme and last-minute menu decisions, since then.

"How do I-- How can you not?" Connie asks, incredulous. "This is a dusty pink, and this is a baby pink. How can you not see the difference?"

She waves the two photocopies in Rory's face. She blinks uselessly at Connie.

"They're both just... pink."

Connie throws her head back with a frustrated, guttural sound. "How do you even get dressed in the morning?"

"People tend to pick my clothes for me."

Rory considers asking Connie to just think about something else for a while but the girl purses her lips.

"Yeah, well, you need to pick a pink before I claw my eyes out."

"I just-- I don't think any kind of pink is a good fit for a centuries-old English castle."

"Take it up with your stepmother, not me, and pick a pink."

Before their argument can devolve into anything further, someone knocks on the door.

Guy appears in the doorway a second later, Adam peeking around him, with a plate of food in his hands. Connie greets him softly but Rory turns back to the papers spread out in front of them, her elbows sitting on her knees and her chin resting on her fists.

"Hey," Guy's smile is audible in his voice, "we thought you two might be driving each other up the wall. Figured that food might ease the tension a bit."

"Oo, yes. Come in. I'm starving."

Guy plops himself down beside his girlfriend and presses a chaste kiss to her lips. He takes the two shades of pink from her so she can take the food and dig in. Adam approaches Rory like she's an animal that's easily spooked and holds the food out for her (with his non-dominant hand).

"You have to eat something." Adam reasons in a pleasant voice. "Brain food and all that."

Rory lifts her head to look up and stares at the plate.

"You know, Ror, if you don't eat, I'm going to do what my mother would and force-feed you." Guy says, flipping through the photos almost mindlessly.

"You should." Connie hums around a mouthful of food. "She eats like a bird."

Rory takes the plate from Adam with a huff.

"She is sitting right here."

"Maid of honor duties getting out of hand?" Adam asks, head tilted to the side as he looks down.

"A little." Rory admits. "I just don't get-- Why does my father feel the need to... get to know every young woman biblically? For all I know, I could have a thousand half-siblings, and he can't marry all of their mothers instead of paying hush money."

Adam shifts from foot to foot, uncomfortable, but both Guy and Connie look amused.

"I'm sure a man of his position knows how to use protection." Connie tries to be reassuring.

Rory glances up at her momentarily, though, and asks, "What do you mean?"

There's a beat as everyone in the room processes what she said. Guy's eyes glimmer with mischief but Connie clamps her hand down over his face.

Adam simply points at him and goes. "No."

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With everything going on, Rory thought that she was safe from any confrontation with Bombay for at least a few weeks. She thought wrong.

Just days after Oliver dragged her out of bed so he could play the conscientious father, Gordon stopped her after they finished training for the day and told (not asked) her that she was going to get ice cream with him. Unwilling to fight in front of friends, and collapsing under the weight of Charlie's puppy dog eyes, Rory begrudgingly agreed. She figured that getting ice cream didn't mean that she had to speak to him. She was good at silence, at making herself seem and not heard as she played in the hall outside her father's board meetings, so keeping this up would be child's play.

And she'd get free ice cream out of it. There was always that.

Sitting in the passenger seat of that stupid car he can't drive, she tilts her body away from him and toward the door. Rory's not sure where they are going because he won't say but she prefers the silence to the sound of his voice.

Almost as if he can hear her thoughts, though, he promptly opens his mouth.

"Look, Lorelei--"

Rory's nostrils flare. Glaring at him, she turns on the radio and turns it over to an alt-rock station.

"Lorelei--"

Maintaining eye contact with him, Rory makes the volume louder until Been Caught Stealing drowns his voice out completely. Bombay sighs and turns the dial back down immediately.

The words fall out of her mouth before she can help it. "Don't sigh like you're some kind of martyr, man."

Bombay glances away from the road to lift an eyebrow at her.

"You're the adult who called me useless."

She crosses her arms over her chest and turns back to the window. Watching the cars speed past them is much more entertaining than this conversation, in her opinion.

"I know. I'm sorry." He says, fingers awkwardly tapping on the steering wheel. "I shouldn't have done that."

An ugly snort leaves Rory's body. "Seriously?" She turns to look at him again. "You're sorry? You shouldn't have said that? Is that all you could come up with?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"That isn't how this works, Coach. I shouldn't have to tell you how to apologize to me."

"Yes, well, this situation isn't exactly one I often find myself in."

She stares at his side profile for a moment. The people at Hendrix built him a playground and he thought it was the whole world.

"I really am sorry, Lorelei." He glances away from the road again. "I was angry. I was consumed by this idea that I was finally going to make it big that, when you guys lost and Hendrix told me I might lose it all, I lost sight of things. I shouldn't have taken it out on any of you, but especially not you. Not with how your father is--"

"Where do you get off bringing my father into this?"

He doesn't even flinch at her tone.

"You know, my father is an ex-Brit, an ex-hockey player, and an ex-human being, but he's still my father. My father." Rory taps her finger on the center console for emphasis. "You've only known him for ten minutes. You, of all people, don't get to judge his character."

Bile burns the back of her throat worse than the tears burn her eyes.

"I at least know where he stands. He doesn't go from being some happy-go-lucky coach one day to a complete douche the next-- and he has certainly never called me useless."

Bombay does flinch at that, though.

"You aren't useless. Don't you ever think that for a second."

"Then why'd you say it?"

She goes quiet and wipes her tears from her face, resisting the urge to laugh at the absurdity of the song still playing in the silence.

Bombay pulls into a parking lot.

"You are Lorelei Myrtle." He says. "You're a great hockey player, and you are a whiz at school, and you're kind, and you're a damn fine addition to my team-- you're anything but useless, kid."

Rory sniffles. She doesn't know how to meet his eye, so she stares out the windshield and fiddles with the charm on her necklace.

"Are we good?"

She shrugs and then nods. Bombay reaches over to squeeze her shoulder.

"Okay."

A beat of uncomfortable silence follows their talk and she continues to play with her necklace.

"... where are we?"

Bombay looks out the window. "No clue."

Rory laughs a watery laugh.

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"Yes!"

After countless hours stacking those cans over the course of several days, Luis manages to stop.
Rory and Kenny cheer for him loudly, Jan, albeit much more quietly, joining them.

Luis, who's still on his feet, stands there shocked for a moment before skating over to the group.

"Did you see that?!"

"Yeah." Rory nods, grinning. "You did it!"

Kenny gives the other boy a double thumbs-up, grunting in surprise when the speedster wraps both of them into a group hug, one of them wrapped up in each arm.

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a/n:

isn't rory's mother delightful? (she's so bad i actually physically had to take a break from writing the second book bc of her.)

i love kenny, luis, n rory so much :(

ik some of you will be kinda ticked off with how I changed rory and eli's relationship, but it's more realistic this way. the poison drips through. I know from experience that a man who abuses his children will not entirely change his behavior toward his grandchildren if he doesn't want to!

rory does eventually get a safe sex talk. she then proceeds to make many big mistakes with that knowledge, but that's a discussion for another time. ;)

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you