Author’s note: Kristy Sargent’s a real person, a pairs skater. (Well, she’s Kristy Wirtz now.) What I talk about here really happened to her. Perception is everything, of course, though <G>. Some of my readers think that the capriciousness of skating federations to their skaters is made up completely in my own mind. Nope, sorry. Some things in DoaL come from real life.

Warren and Sophia were as relieved as it gets just to get back to Oceanview for Christmas. After their fall semester, and after the Grand Prix Final, the three weeks they’d be home would be very relaxing. Yes, they’d have to prepare for Nationals, but that’s all they’d have to do.

Since they no longer had a coach in Wisconsin, they were very glad to see June again.

"You’ve done well this fall, guys," she told them after their first practice with her. "I know it’s been tough on you, what with school and the wedding and competing and Betsy, but you’ve done well."

"Thanks," Warren told her, "but I think our luck is due to run out sooner or later. We’re still waiting for the backlash from what happened last year."

"It’s possible, but all you can control is the skating."

"Yeah."

They had an enjoyable Christmas, with everyone—especially the grandparents—getting the traditional pile of presents for Betsy. With no school to worry about, their sex life got back to normal—meaning two nights out of three! Jessie, also home for Christmas, joined in, but only some of the time. She knew what the last semester had been like for them, and didn’t want to wear out her welcome—she knew they needed "alone" time.

A couple of days after New Years, they were happy to get a visit from Warren’s sister Kristin. They’d only really seen each other at Christmas.

"How you been holding up?" Kristin asked them. "You looked horrible at Christmas, Warren. You look a little better now."

"I was so damn tired I was lucky I knew what my name was," Warren laughed. "My schedule this semester was particularly brutal."

"How are you two doing?" Kristin asked perceptively.

"Great," Warren told her. "She cuts me a lot of slack."

"I learned my lesson," Sophie said ruefully, "from freshman year. Now that we live together, I can see it for myself, anyway. And I see how hard he’s tried to be attentive to me—but I also watched the poor guy studying five, six hours a night."

"Yeah, and with babies screaming and practice interrupting and whatnot," Warren sighed. "Next semester will be much better. I’m back down to 15 credits instead of 18, and I won’t be taking embryology or genetics."

"But you have Worlds smack dab in the middle," Kristin reminded him.

"True, but we had two competitions in the middle last semester," Sophie reminded him.

"What are you going to do when it’s your first year in med school and it’s an Olympic year?" Kristin laughed.

"I’m not," Warren declared. "Do I look insane to you? I’m taking a year off before med school. That year is going to be the last of our skating career, so that’s what it’s going to be about—skating, and only skating. We’re going to do every competition and show we can get away with that we get invited to, and then go knock ‘em dead at the Olympics. And then I’ll go to med school."

"And we’ve squirreled a lot of money away," Sophie told her, "and we have a few more endorsement deals coming up after school gets out for the summer. So I’m not going to be working when Warren’s in med school. Except we’ll probably still choreograph. And that’s mostly going to be me if he’s in med school."

"And that’ll make things a lot easier," Warren said. "Having Sophie home with the kid."

"Well, if I have my way, kids by then," Sophie grinned. "I want him to put another baby in me as soon as the Olympics are over."

"And I won’t take much convincing," Warren smiled. "We always said we wanted a houseful of kids. We just started too early. As much as we love Betsy, and we’re glad we had her, it’s not easy," he sighed. "Kris, try not to get pregnant until college is over, OK? It’s easier." Then he grinned. "Of course, why on earth am I telling this to my innocent, naive, virginal sister?"

Kristin blushed bright red, and got a strange look on her face.

"OK, hold on!" Sophie burst out. "I saw that blush! And that sheepish little look!"

"Huh?" Warren said.

"Warren, I think innocent, naïve, and virginal is erroneous," Sophia grinned. Kristin gasped, and blushed deeper. "Well?’ Sophie demanded, still grinning.

"Oh, all right," Kristin sighed. Then she smiled softly. "New Years Eve."

"Congratulations!" Sophie said.

"OK, I’m slow on the uptake," Warren said.

"Tom took my virginity on New Year’s Eve," Kristin confirmed softly.

"Wow. Color me stunned," Warren laughed. "Was it OK?"

"Yeah," Kristin grinned.

"He didn’t push you, I hope," Warren said sternly.

"Tom?" Kris laughed. "Yeah, right. Warren, in the way he treats girls, Tom’s like you. I initiated everything."

"Yeah, I remember that," Warren laughed.

"I’ll bet you do," Sophie chimed in.

"No, this was my decision," Kris continued.

"Any regrets?" Warren asked.

"Not one," Kris smiled. "Oh, and he’s moving, because his coach got a better opportunity. He’s moving to Acton."

"That’s great!"

"I can’t wait to go to nationals!" Kristin enthused.

"Oh, isn’t that sweet," Warren teased. "She’s all excited to go see her big brother skate. I’m touched, Kris, I really am."

"Whatever you say," Kris laughed.

They arrived at Nationals, which were in Denver this year, January 10^th. Warren celebrated his birthday the next day—his 21^st—by practicing. "Well, at least I will be able to buy the champagne for our one-year anniversary," he joked. On the next day, there was a phone call in their hotel room. Curtis wanted to meet him, to talk. He specifically asked for Warren. Sophie, knowing why, just laughed.

Warren was commonly thought—and obviously by Curtis—to be the reasonable member of the team. Sophie was the loose cannon. Of course, that only works if you don’t know, as Curtis didn’t, that both the Pink and True Colors exhibitions were Warren’s idea. They both knew this existed, and they both found it amusing. Neither of them was afraid to break rules—and Warren was the one whose artistic vision more often strayed "out there". Not that Sophie disagreed with any of this, mind you. But the vision of the team that lots of outsiders had—that of Sophie the extremist twisting Warren’s arm to go along with her—was erroneous.

Warren was willing to play his part, however, and met Curtis at the coffee shop in the hotel.

"First question. Any surprises with the exhibitions?" Curtis asked.

"No," Warren laughed. "You’ve seen I Knew The Bride. If we do two, the other one will be to an REM song called At My Most Beautiful. It’s romantic, it’s sweet, and it’s fully clothed. No worries."

"OK. There has been a hubbub within the USFSA at that Sports Illustrated article. Some people were offended by it. But, I have to tell you, some people, well, it made us think of a few things."

"Do you really think there was a problem from the organization because of Sophie’s pregnancy?"

"From some people, yes," Warren told him. "We had things said."

"Look, having a young skater get pregnant hasn’t really happened," Curtis said. "We didn’t know how to handle it."

"Well maybe you should’ve talked to the Canadian Federation. I wonder if they feel good about completely abandoning Kristy Sargent when she got pregnant years ago? 18 years old, unmarried, her boyfriend dumps her, her partner dumps her, and the federation writes her off. It’s a miracle she was able to come back and start winning Canadian championships again. At least Sophie and I had each other."

"Look, an unmarried skater getting pregnant at 19 is a scandal."

"What is this, 1950?" Warren laughed. "Happens all the time, Curtis. It was a mistake and an accident and bad timing, but a ‘scandal’ it was not. The fact that some people at the USFSA thought it was is what frosted our bottoms."

"OK. I do think you guys might have had a bit of a legitimate complaint on that. But why do these things build on each other?"

"What do you mean?"

"It’s a constant game of one-upsmanship."

"You’re wrong," Warren told him. "The only thing we’ve ever done as one-upsmanship was True Colors. Pink wasn’t. Pink was an artistic choice based solely on that. We didn’t think of how anyone would react."

"Come on, Warren! How would you think there wouldn’t have been a reaction to that!" Curtis said.

"You read the SI article. It’s all in there. Michael Weiss. And, I have to say, that we got criticism and Allison Bowman didn’t—well, that really pissed us off. Jesus, Curtis. First of all, we choreograph our own stuff so we don’t skate a step we haven’t designed. Can Allison say that? Someone made her skate that program. And that program bordered on kiddy porn. Sophie and I are adults. And we look it. Every pedophile that watched nationals is drooling over Allison. Quite honestly, I almost called her ‘camp’ and offered to do her exhibition this year, but she’s coached by Ron Aztov and he’s a complete ass. They’re playing with fire with her, and she’s a talented skater. And we get the flack from you."

Curtis sighed. "Well, I thought you’d be reasonable. We were trying to use you as an example." He sighed again. "We knew that would never work with Ron Aztov."

"Ah," Warren said. "I see. But it was still stupid, Curtis. Allison needs protecting. She’s 15—well, she’s 16 now—she still looks 13. She’s a minor. If you go after Aztov in the guise of protecting Allison, you’d be looking like an organization that cares about the skaters. Since Sophie and I make our own decisions, and everybody knows it, you going after us only makes you look like prudes."

"Yeah, but it wasn’t just Pink. It was the Maxim thing, too."

"Curtis, the Maxim thing was the greatest bit of publicity that American ice dance has gotten in a very, very long time—and you know it."

"We’re not sure we want that kind of publicity."

"Remind me to remind you that you said that, when the television negotiations come up again," Warren laughed.

"Touché," Curtis laughed back. "But True Colors was over the top."

"Yep," Warren agreed. "We don’t do things halfway."

"Well, it’s done, so that’s why I wanted to talk to you—to make sure this thing doesn’t escalate any further."

"We won’t if you won’t. Curtis, don’t push us."

"Look, you’re part of an organization."

"Oh, fuck that," Warren told him. "Come on, Curtis, do you really believe that all-for-one bullshit? And we’re the two people with more friends among our fellow skaters than anyone! But we don’t react well to being pushed, no matter what fancy title someone has."

"You need more discipline."

"I am self disciplined, as is Sophie. We only react when pushed to the wall. Curtis, you need to remember that you are dealing with two rape victims, OK? When you push us into a corner, our first instinct is to go for your balls. That’s never going to change. Stop pushing, and we back off."

"Fine. How do we end this, right now?"

"Easy. The way it stands now? We’ve made our point—however, to keep it from escalating, you need to swear to me that the judging at this championships is on the up and up."

"I swear it. That was an idle threat. The judges, in fact, have been specifically told not to pay attention to anything except what goes on on the ice here. It’s been made clear. We don’t need any more questions about the legitimacy of the sport." He sighed. "However, I can only speak for American judges, Warren. It might be different at Worlds. There are elements in the ISU that are pissed off at you—and the Eastern European, and Italian, and French judges have never liked you guys anyway."

"Fine. That’s not your problem. We won’t take it as such. If you tell me American judges haven’t been instructed to hammer us, that’s good enough for me."

The National Championships themselves were anti-climactic. The four defending champions—Warren and Sophie, Tom, Liz, and Brett and Andrea—won without a problem. The biggest near-upset was Evan and Shawna barely beating Courtney and Ryan for the silver.

Warren and Sophie got to do both exhibitions. I Knew The Bride was well received, as it had been all fall, and the reception for At My Most Beautiful was rapturous. Liz did a thing that Warren had worked up for her, a playful number skated to Martina McBride’s My Baby Love Me (Just The Way That I Am). Crash was in the audience to see it, he had flown out to Denver for Nationals.

And Allison Bowman, who had moved up to the silver, did another kiddy porn number. This time, Curtis did say something to the press. "If we speak out about the Kellehers, two adults that do their own choreography, we have to speak out about this. This isn’t Allison’s fault, but her coach has to get his act together." Allison was distraught, but Warren caught up to her and quickly offered to choreograph an exhibition for her next year. She accepted. Her coach blew a gasket, but Warren told Allison, "Don’t forget—coaches and choreographers work for you, not the other way around. Don’t put up with it. He’s got no say. This is your decision." Allison agreed—and Allison’s mother, a nice woman who loved and worried about her daughter, backed her up. Allison would be visiting Boston to work with Warren and Sophie this summer. She asked Warren to do her competitive programs, as well. After checking with Liz—who didn’t have any problems with Warren and Sophie doing both of them, even though they were competitors—Warren and Sophie agreed.

"Another one for the stable," Sophie laughed.

"Yup, because Liz, Tom, and Andrea and Brett all want to come to us again."

"What a nice little sideline we’ve developed!"

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