I let out another deep sigh as I look at my rat who is watching me like she always does. I now get why when I started they told us not to name our rats. I named her Penelope, and now I don't want to say goodbye.

"Drew, do I have to?"

"Ryder it is protocol, you know this is out of my hands dude."

"But look at her Drew! Save Penelope!" I pick up Penelope and shove her in Drew's face. Over the last 4 months I have been raising her and using her to help with my research. My work wasn't being tested directly on her; it was to test the odor and gases to see if they were harmful. Other people accidentally killed their rats already but my solution passed to the next round and now I have to say goodbye. Tomorrow she will be killed with the other surviving rats since she can't be used for other experiments since we can't prove my testing had no effect on her.

"Listen Ryder if I could save Penelope I would but I can't. I told you not to get attached."

"I know," I tell him sadly, pulling Penelope to my chest gently. When I signed up for this research I didn't think I would get so attached to a silly little rat but now here I am, getting all choked up over the stupid thing.

"Why don't you cut out early and head to the ice. Beat your figure skating nemeses there."

"Me and Beck are cool now, but yeah I guess I'll head out." I kiss the rat on the head and she lets out a soft noise. I turn away quickly feeling intense guilt. I think she knows what is about to happen to her.

I walk to my car and speed to the rink needing a distraction desperately.

I walk inside, throw my skates on and jump on the ice not even bothering to grab cones. I skip warm ups and stretching and begin skating as hard as I can push myself. I have no regard for the fact I am destroying the entire ice not just my side because the thought of this stupid fucking rat has me all sorts of fucked up. My parents would be laughing their asses off if they saw me upset over a goddamn rat.

"Ryder! Hey asshole, what the fuck!" I stop short and look at a fuming Francesca standing there staring in horror at the ice. I did a number on it pretty quickly. Another wave of guilt washes over me. I didn't mean to fuck her over, I just needed a distraction.

"Fuck. Beck I am so sorry. Fuck." I continue to curse as I skate over to her and we both look at the ice. For me it is no problem but for her it will definitely make practicing a little, well actually a lot, harder.

She doesn't even reply to me, she is still just looking at the ice while I lean against the wall trying to catch my breath. "I will go get the cones," she says sadly and I let her.

I would normally chase after her and try to crack jokes and make this all better but in a way I think I did this intentionally? My dad was notorious for making sure if he was upset everyone else around him too and I think subconsciously I just did the same to Francesca. I feel utterly sick to my stomach at the possibility that I am just like my dad. The crushing weight I felt in the lab and even more when Francesca arrived feels heavy enough to literally bury me.

"Ryder? Shit Ry it is just ice, it is ok."

I must look as bad as I feel as I frantically shake my head. Nights of my dad tearing me down to match his miserable mood are flying through my head but I am suddenly my dad and now I am destroying peoples lives around me.

Francesca grabs my arms and physically shakes me pushing the memories away as I look at her. "Breath, in through your nose, out through your mouth."

I take a deep breath and she breaths with me. She breathes slow, steady breaths and I try my best to match her. "Wanna talk about it?"

My parents? Never. Not even my team knows about them. Just Bray and Stan which is how I intend to keep it. But I can tell her what originally got me here. "It is Penelope. I have to let her go."

"Oh, I wasn't aware you were seeing someone. Well actually, I did think you and Maddie had a thing but Bray told me about that and I saw her kissing your teammate... actually I think it was a couple of your teammates. Pretty badass she has your whole house pussy whipped like that."

I laugh because of course Francesca, as always, goes on one of her tiny tangents. She does this often not straying too far from the original topic but definitely moving the conversation off course. I don't mind it, I actually enjoy the way her mind just seems to shift topics that seem completely unconnected but in her mind they seem to me one linear thought. "Penelope is my rat."

"Oh, was she in your room? I didn't see her but maybe she was hidden under all your filth."

"My lab rat, Beck." She turns a light shade of pink.

"Why do you need to release her? Where is she going?"

I let out a bitter laugh. Release her? They're murdering her. My poor Penelope who I have raised since birth. "They are killing her because I no longer need her."

"Killing her," she shrieks. "Ryder you can't let them do that!"

"I don't want to let them do anything. I tried to get Drew to save her but he said there is nothing he could do about it. It is university policy."

"The poor baby." Francesca looks on the verge of tears and I pat her shoulder sympathetically. I have never been good with emotions like this. Handling emotions because of a lost game or something related to sports, that I can handle, but real life shit, I am the last person to come to. If there is a death or a break up or anything like that, the guys know that even though I am captain I am not the guy to go to about that stuff.

"I am sorry again about the ice. I will skip Thursday so you can use the full ice since I ruined today."

"Don't worry about it, I am too sad now to practice anyways."

"Well I am sorry for that too, I didn't mean to ruin your day over my silly rat."

"She isn't silly and it is ok. Besides, isn't that what friends are for? Listening to each other's problems? You listened to me when I had costume issues two weeks ago."

"Thanks butt," I tell her sincerely before we both begin practicing. Today I am more distracted than most and I spend a lot more time than usual watching her. I guess since I found out she knew so much about hockey I have wanted to learn more about figure skating. It only seemed fair.

I watch as she pulls her leg up behind her grabbing her skate and holding it. I have seen her do it more times than I can count and I still don't know how she doesn't slice her fingers off. As she does it again, I skate to our cone wall and watch trying to figure it out. She reaches back without looking at all and perfectly grabs the skate without slicing her fingers.

"Question," I interrupt, something I don't usually do especially if she seems really focused but today isn't most days and it is clear neither of our heads are in it today.

"Answer, maybe. Well I hope I can answer at least."

"You can," I assure her. "How do you grab your skate without cutting yourself."

She seems pleasantly surprised by my question and comes over to me for an up close demonstration. "You see instead of grabbing the blade you grab this little part where the blade and boot attach. It takes a long time to master grabbing it right, especially when you are going fast and aren't looking. I definitely have scars from past misses."

Francesca flips over her hands and sure enough her hands are riddled with little scars from times she grabbed the blade. I reach out and trace a particularly deep one. "That was from during a competition. I placed first but I missed the medal ceremony because I was at the hospital getting stitches."

"Sounds painful."

"Definitely wasn't pleasant, that is for sure." I nod and she returns to her skating and I return to mine. I still have lots of questions but I don't want to bother her too much since I already feel bad today. Thankfully, she seems to be pretty productive despite my royal fuck up.

When the hour is up and the cones are clean, we are walking to my car with Francesca still seems deep in thought. I am too so I don't try to strike up a conversation.

"This rat of yours."

"Penelope," I supply.

"Yes Penelope, do you know where she is being kept?"

"She is being kept in the lab tomorrow they will collect her and you know."

"Interesting," she hums as she gets into the passenger seat. "Your lab?"

"My lab what?"

"She is kept in your lab? Like you have access?"

"Yeah I have swipe access so I can work on stuff whenever I want outside of my set hours. Usually I stopped in once a day to feed Penelope and on Sundays when I had time off I would go and play with her. She is really smart."

"So you could theoretically get in tonight?"

"I mean yeah Beck, I can get in whenever, that is kind of the point."

"Including tonight," she asks again.

"Yes including tonight, why?"

"Do you have plans tonight? After practice of course."

"No, I was going to watch the hockey game with the guys at the sports bar in town but I don't really count that."

"Perfect, you now have plans." She smiles brightly at me and I am definitely intrigued.

"I do?"

"You do."

"Care to explain butt?"

"We are stealing Penelope, duh Ryder," she says like it is so obvious.

"Excuse me?," I yell back in shock, slamming on the breaks in the middle of a semi busy road. "Say that again, I am sure I misheard you."

"Me and you are stealing Penelope. We can't let them kill her Ryder and since no one else will save her it has to be us. We will sneak in tonight, take her and make it look like she escaped. No one will suspect a thing!"

I look at her like she is crazy because she must be. Steal Penelope? That is insane. "That is insane," I tell her.

"Just insane enough it might work, are you in or out?"

I mull it over the rest of the drive to her apartment. If we do this right everyone will assume she escaped and I will get to keep her. She is only about 6 months old meaning she has about 2 years left. She deserves those two years; not being killed because someone thinks she has served her purpose and no longer deserves to live.

As I pull up to Francesca's apartment, she sits in the passenger seat still waiting for an answer. I see her hope slowly slipping as each minute ticks bye. I am still not even 100% sure about this when I finally turn to her to give her an answer.

"I'm in."

She squeals in delight and bounces happily in the passenger seat. "Operation save Penelope is a go! I will see you after practice, we will meet by the front doors of the arena, ok?"

Before I can reply she is out of my car and running to the door as the wind whips her hair around violently. When she gets inside she waves through the back door window and then disappears, still basically vibrating with excitement, into the elevator.