Chapter 2 - Still Waters

The apartment door clicks shut behind her, and Mia exhales for what feels like the first time all day.

Lemon cleaner, fresh wood, afternoon light pooling across pale oak floors—clean, quiet, nothing like the chaos she'd been bracing for.

Then her gaze lands on the suitcase wheel, bent at a grotesque angle, the metal axle fully exposed. She crouches down and prods it with two fingers.

Hopeless.

The front door opens.

A girl backs through the entrance carrying a tower of textbooks and a coffee cup balanced on top, blonde ponytail swinging. She freezes when she spots Mia, and the coffee sloshes dark across her sleeve that she doesn't even notice.

"Oh my God, you must be my new roommate!" She dumps the books on the entryway shelf and spins around, bright-eyed and completely unfiltered. "I'm Ellie Carter. Comm School. So happy you're finally here."

"Mia Conti." She stands, smiling despite herself. "Medical exchange student. Nice to meet you, Ellie."

Ellie's eyes land on the broken suitcase. "What happened to that?"

Before Mia can answer, she's already crouching beside it, tilting the case, examining the axle. "Okay. This is bad. Repair shop or just replace it?"

"I was thinking repair shop—"

"Okay." Ellie is already heading to the kitchen, pulling open drawers. "My dad's a mechanical engineer. I grew up in his garage. Give me ten minutes."

She reappears with a multi-tool kit and drops to one knee, working fast and clean.

"Campus tour this weekend?" she asks, not looking up. "I can show you around before orientation Monday."

"I'd love that." Mia watches her work, genuinely impressed. "You're incredibly capable, you know that?"

Ellie grins. "Years of trauma and a very hands-on dad."

Mia's eyes catch the red wristband on Ellie's wrist—Raiders printed clearly across it. "You're a hockey fan?"

"I work at a bar called The Blade. Raiders players come in after games." Ellie twists the band with a casual shrug.

"Honestly, the rules still confuse me. But Elias Weston?" She lets out a low whistle. "I don't need to understand the rules for that."

Mia hesitates. "Funny timing—I'm starting a placement at the Raiders' medical center in October. Injury monitoring, muscle recovery. Short rotation, but still."

The screwdriver hits the floor.

Ellie stares at her. Fully. Completely. "The Toronto Raiders."

"Just an internship—"

"Mia." Ellie grabs her arm with both hands.

"They won the Cup last year and this entire city lost its mind. Their arena is downtown. People sleep outside for playoff tickets."

She stops. Breathes. Then, "I will be the most supportive roommate you have ever had."

Mia laughs—a real one, surprised out of her.

Ellie beams, picks up her screwdriver, and clicks the new wheel into place. One firm press. Done.

"Good as new."

The apartment tour is quick and warm.

Ellie saves Mia's bedroom for last, pushing the door open so afternoon light spills across a single bed, a writing desk, and a window framing a maple tree just beginning to turn orange at the edges.

"Perfect," Mia says quietly. And means it.

Outside, Toronto's skyline burns gold in the early evening. Nothing like home.

Ellie appears with two mugs. "Green or black?"

"Green, please."

"Excellent." She sets the mug on the desk and leans against the doorframe, voice gentler now. "It hits weird at first—being this far from home. Took me two weeks in Montreal before I stopped feeling like a tourist in my own life."

Mia wraps both hands around the warm mug. "How'd you get past it?"

Ellie raises her cup with a small smile. "Found someone to drink tea with." A beat. "Welcome to Toronto, Mia."

Ellie leaves for her shift an hour later, pressing a spare key into Mia's palm on her way out.

The apartment settles into evening quiet.

Mia showers, unpacks the last of her things, and sits cross-legged on the bed with laptop opened.

She's here. She's actually here. The thought still hasn't fully landed, hovering somewhere between home and this strange, beautiful new city.

The airport, her parents' retreating figures, the broken wheel, a stranger's gray-blue eyes—

She catches herself. Closes the laptop. Turns off the light.

That man is a footnote. Their worlds don't overlap.

***

Across the city, long before dawn, Elias Weston is already awake.

His internal clock doesn't negotiate. 5 AM, eyes open, no transition.

Outside his apartment windows, Toronto is still ink-dark, the city quiet in a way it never quite manages during daylight.

He drops to the floor and moves through three brutal sets, push-ups until his arms burn, core work until his vision edges white, and doesn't slow down once.

Sweat cuts a path down the defined ridge of his abdomen, disappearing beneath the waistband of his training sweats, the V-lines of his hips catching the faint glow from the hallway.

He showers, pulls on his training jacket, grabs his bag.

At the facility's side entrance, old Jack the security guard gives him the usual approving nod. "First one in again, son."

Elias checks his watch. Still dark enough that it barely counts as morning.

He runs the outdoor track first, not because he has to, because he needs it.

By the time the automatic lights blink on above the rink, he's already loosened, already sharp.

He laces his skates methodically, wraps his right knee and left ankle with elastic support bandaging, and steps onto the ice.

The blades catch, hold, sing.

In the corridor outside the locker room, team photos line both walls—decades of franchise history.

He passes them every morning without stopping, but today his feet slow in front of last year's championship shot.

He's in the center, arms raised with the Cup, his face flushed and wild. Around his right shoulder, barely visible unless you know to look: thick medical wrapping, wound three layers deep.

He looks at it for exactly one second.

Then he pushes through the locker room door.

By the time teammates start arriving, bleary and yawning, Elias has logged fifty crossover sets and a full shooting sequence. His hair is soaked dark at the temples, a few damp strands stuck to his nose. His chest rises and falls in deep, controlled pulls.

Lucas Moreno skates over and stares at him. "You're genuinely insane."

Elias lines up a puck and doesn't answer.

"Hey." Lucas drops his voice, gliding closer. "Heard the new medical rotation starts in October. Some outside specialist. Young. Apparently very—"

"Moreno."

"I'm just saying—"

"Are you skating today?"

Lucas raises his stick and retreats, muttering rapid French under his breath.

Elias repositions at the blue line. Shoots. The puck buries itself top shelf with a crack that echoes off the boards.

His jaw tightens—just slightly. Something flickers behind those gray-blue eyes, quick and unreadable, there and gone before anyone could catch it.

He lines up the next shot.

He always buries it.

That's the only thing he knows how to do.