"A sleepover huh?"

"What else would you call it?" Katrina trying to play the situation off as naive to what Mila was trying to imply as the two female figure skaters walked out of Mila apartment and made their way downstairs, dressed fully in their team Russia uniform and their team duffle bags under their arms.

The older female laughed, despite Katrinas attempt to play ignorant she gave herself away when she moved her hand to tuck one of her long strands of silver hair behind her ear, a shy tick Mila had noticed after watching the young Nikiforov day in and day out at her apartment, to only remember that she had tied her hair up when her fingers met empty air. "So what number date is that?"

"We aren't dating," Katrina sighed, walking into the building lift to head downstairs.

"But you wish you were kukolka*?" Mila nudging the blushing teenager with her elbow, "you like Yurrriiii," she sang playfully as the younger girl looked down embarrassed to her feet.

"Maybe a little," Katrina admitted quietly, half hoping Mila didn't hear her and the other half hoping she would so she'd stop with all the teasing. Mila of course heard, shrieking and hugging the younger girl, nearly swinging the girl around like a rag doll in the enclosed space of the elevator.

"I knew it. I knew it. I knew it."

"Mila let go!" Katrina struggling against the older girl to be let go of, luckily Mila did let go when the lift abruptly stopped and another resident of the building entered the lift, eyeing the national team uniforms and gave the girls a polite smile before turning away from them to face the elevator doors.

"Yuri and Katrina sitting in a tree," Mila singing softly in English, quiet enough for the neighbour to not hear clearly, like a child taunting her playmate, "k-i-s-s-i-n-g."

Katrina taking out her phone, keeping her eyes on the screen to avoid looking any more embarrassed than she was, checking social media and received messages, mostly full of encouragements and good lucks, even though Yakov always warned them not to on competition days in case it tipped their psyche in the wrong direction and thus bring down their performance. She checked her appearance with her phone camera, hair cleanly tied back in an elegant braided ballet bun (after Mila conceited to a heated debate of ponytail vs ballet bun), a small amount of natural looking makeup with a bold red lip colour, a debate she had to let Mila win as part of a compromise from the prior, and a small beauty mark under her right eye. They had spent the previous night prepping and woken up extra early to get ready; it had been a while since Katrina had anyone fuss over her like Mila had, her mother had always been too sick so Viktor usually did her hair but it was never anything too fancy (he spent 2 hours on doing her ponytail after proclaiming that it had to be absolutely perfect) but she enjoyed the way he'd fuss over the smallest detail.

'Nope,' she told herself, 'not thinking about him, not today.' She looked up from her phone, straightened her spine, rolled her shoulders back and looked straight ahead with all the confidence she could muster, 'today is for me and only me. Nothing is getting in my way.'

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"Nothing is getting in her way," the youngest Nikiforov was clearly on top form today and focused with pinpoint precision on the gold, Yakov could tell from just watching the women's warm ups that Katrina was going to be a force to be reckoned with. She wouldn't be pulling her punches, even if it was early in the season, "meaning she's not going to listen if I tell her to go easy on the jumps," Yakov muttered to himself, last year the trouble child had been Yuri, the year before had been Vitya, now it seemed like Katrina was going to be his biggest headache this year (since Yuri was currently his demon ex wife's problem right now).

He handed the silver haired girl her team jacket as she came off the ice, she was a lot quieter than normal, the calm before the storm it seemed, as they walked back to the skaters area for her to continue her warm ups in peace. The aging coach knew he was best keeping an eye on the young Nikiforov, he couldn't have her snapping out of this focused state when the stakes were high for her to succeed and her emotional state being so fragile instead of spreading himself between Katrina and Mila, whom he hoped was being a mature adult and warming up without the need to be supervised. Yakov knew better than to even breathe a word to her right now or he'd risk breaking the focus she had maintained since arriving at the venue. He wanted nothing to distract the rising star...like if her older brother decided to turn up to the women's competition completely unannounced...and was walking this way.

What had he done in a previous life to deserve this?

"Katrina! Yakov!" Viktor waved enthusiastically at the two, seeming as if their previous encounter had never occurred, "you look so pretty printsessa, braids look so good on you, I never thought to do braids like that but they look so pretty," he began rambling as he kept up with the twos quick pace, Yakov annoyed that Viktor would try to do something like this on a day like today and where his damn fiancé was to control the silver haired man-child, you could nearly see steam erupting from his ears, while Katrina coldly ignored her brother, keeping her eyes set on what was in front of her and her earphones blasting music to drown out his voice.

When Katrina had just about enough of his ramblings and accepted she couldn't outpace her taller older brother, she bluntly commented, "your hair looks thinner."

You could practically hear the words K.O. as the living legend stopped in his tracks, fell to his knees as if he'd taken a punch to the stomach by a world heavy weight wrestler, clutching his scalp, "so mean."

"Mean?" Oh she heard that. Katrina stopped, ripped out her earphones and did a 180 degree turn on her heels, marching up to her brother, she towered over him now he was on his knees. The whole backstage area seemed to ground to a haunting silence as they watched the skating royal family - this had been a long time coming argument and they all had front row seats. "You want to call me mean?" Katrina shouted with little care as to who heard, the frustration and pain from the last year boiling in her blood and the stress bearing down on her as she was about to go out, she let it all out in the heat of the moment, her nails digging into the flesh of her hands, clenched tight and straight down her side. "You hurt me Viktor! I never thought you could hurt me but you did! You hurt me more than anyone else possibly could! I know what people say about me, that I don't deserve my medals or that I will never be as good as you, but I learnt to turn a cheek because the only opinion I ever cared about was yours! I look up to you! Your my big brother! I've idolized you do as long as I can remember! And that was way before any medal! The Viktor I idolized was the one that helped me with homework and brushed my hair when I felt nervous and carried me home when I scrapped my knee and never let go of my hand at moms funeral. I kept my head high when it seemed like everyone else was against me because if my big brother could have confidence in me then I could do anything I set my mind to. It was never about medals or titles or money or anything like that, I just love skating, it's our special thing, it was our sanctuary when the world seemed so dark. But when you left without me, not even a note to tell my where you were or why you left, it was like you said your not worth me and took every bit of self confidence that I had managed to gather with you. You threw me away like I was nothing. I blamed myself for so long and I couldn't find any joy in the one thing I love to do, it hurt like hell to even look at a pair of skates. I suffered for months after what you did and now you just want to waltz your way back into my life as of nothing happened! How could you leave me behind Viktor?" Tears welled in her eyes and her hands shook, the adrenaline wearing off quickly leaving her voice just as shaky as her hands, "how could you?"

"Printsessa," tears pricking Viktors eyes as he watched his sister turn and run from him, run from him into the arms of another man, more precisely into the arms of the Ice Tiger who was now glaring at him with the same cold eyes Katrina had given him. He'd chased his sister away to another man and he understood now, why Yurio had been so intent on dragging him back to Russia, why he'd gotten so angry when he lost to Yuuri, why he was so full of anger last year - it had never been over a routine (although breaking a promise did not aid his defence).

He watched the blonde protectively throw an arm around his sister, glaring at anyone that tried to threaten her while she was so vulnerable before briskly walking out of the main waiting/warm up area, leading Katrina away to a more private setting. Yakov giving him the infamous 'I told you so vitya but you didn't listen' glare before walking after the two child prodigies.

How could he fix this? How could he win back her trust even a little after all he did? Was it possible?

"Viktor" a slightly disleveled Yuuri burst in to the room, "I finally found you," his demeanour softened from aspirated and stressed to warm and tender at the sight of the devastated state his lover was in. "Viktor?" Rushing to his side to find himself pulled into a bone crushing hug which just screamed a need for intimacy and comfort, "I thought I was the emotional one that cries all the time."

"I only cry over the ones I love," Viktor confessed, wiping his eyes with the wrist of his glove, standing up slowly onto his feet again,"and now I get up and fight for them...Yuuri."

The Japanese man now balling his eyes out, "you love meeeeee," now it was Viktors turn to cuddle his adorable yet crying fiancé.

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"The nerve," Yakov mumbled, walking in front of the two child prodigies, his glare causing people to quickly disperse from their path, from behind him Yuri held a similar glare yet refused to let go of the silver haired girl who's eyes were unreadable as she stared blankly at the floor. "Of all the days he could try to do something like that, just when your minutes from the ice, any coach worth his salt should know to never distract a competitor like that so close to their performance, that idiot couldn't chose a worse time to-"

"Don't call him an idiot," Katrinas interruption took them both by surprise, so much that the group stopped in its tracks, she exhaled deeply, seeming to realise all the tension from her body, "I don't forgive him for what he did but he's still my brother and I cannot waste anymore time or emotion on him, I have a national title to uphold."

And with that she released herself from the blondes arms and strode towards the doors at the end of the hall, leading to the ice, with her head held high, she was back in competition mode with even more focus than before. She truly was a princess, unfaltering in the face of turmoil and easily upholding her grace and elegance as the anger from before rushed out of her system. She turned her head slightly to the side, "are you coming?"

(See video for Katrinas performance - I seriously love Evgenia Medvedeva and I pretty much consider her Katrinas inspiration akin to how other Yuri on ice characters are inspired by real life skaters and we all know Evgenia is a YOI fan so I only seems right for her to have Katrina based off her)

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*Kukolka meaning doll/little doll