Guys...I have a problem. I keep saying that the Disease will be my last Sess/Rin and after I write the Book of Kagome I will be done with the Inuyasha fandom and then I go and watch Simone Biles story and this pops in my head. I have no buffer on this, so updates will be very slow.

And we can all thank the wondeful Lemonlush author of Hearts Abduction and Dog Tag's for the title Fire and Ice.

I should be studying, I should be working on a paper due this Sunday...no...Okay here we go.

Rin

This can't be. There should be a law against twenty-four year old ex-ice skaters having to wear business suits. I'm sure my full length mirror is lying and my hips have not filled out that much since I looked at them last. I tug on the front of my blazer to try to make it look neater and pull my hair into a tight ponytail. All that's left is to give my bangs a bit of a lift with my straight iron but all that happens is that I burn my forehead and curse loud enough my brother Kohaku comes running in asking me what happened. "Nothing I just singed my forehead. How do I look?"

"Like you'd rather eat lead than go to the interview." He's a tall boy…man at twenty seven with deep brown eyes that girls just die for and thick hair that makes all the ladies drool. I know because they tell me when they leave our apartment in the morning. By day he is a barista at the local Starbucks and at night he works as a bouncer at a club.

"Shut up," I laugh at him and take another pass at my messy bangs, finally getting them into a proper bounce and slide on my most comfortable flats. "Band of Seven Rehabilitation Center, here I come."

"Go knock 'em dead sis," he wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on top of mine. "I bet you'll kill it."

I take a cleansing breath like they teach in my yoga class every morning and head out the door. We live in a simple seventh floor apartment in the middle of Denver, Colorado. It's in Glendale which is the only reason we can afford it on our salaries. I just finished my PhD in Rehabilitation Science. I fell in love with it after I injured my knee in high school skating. Skating, yeah I'm a former figure skater. I won Worlds two years in a row and was slated to skate in the 2010 winter Olympic but during practice I was going to throw a triple axel, triple loop, double toe combo and sometimes what goes up comes down really fucking hard. I landed sideways, slammed my head into the ice and my knee twisted. That was it, my career was over.

At sixteen I already had my GED so I could focus on training, so I went straight to college. If it weren't for my amazing therapists who helped me see the sun shining when I couldn't, I would have stayed in my bed and cried. I was that close to an Olympic Gold. Now my medals decorate a hidden space in my closet and everyone has forgotten about Rin Matthews. I bet you're wondering how I don't have more money? Well, when you spend more time skating than studying there is no scholarship out there waiting for you and when your knee is so busted up it takes two years to even be able to walk normally again, well you get my point. All my sponsors dropped me and to be honest, I haven't set foot on the ice since.

Kohaku and I moved in together to save money on rent and so we didn't have to keep living with our older sister Sango and her husband Miroku, they just had a set of the most adorable twin girls six months ago. So here we are, if I can nail this interview, I can quit my job at the coffee shop and trust me, my income will more than make it possible for me to live by myself.

The tinkle of a gold bell above my head announces my entrance into the Band of Seven Rehabilitation Center. It has that sweat smell that I fell in love with when I was doing my own physical therapy. It's run by seven brothers who all took turns working to make sure the next brother had enough money to pay for school. I graduated with Jakotsu, the youngest. "Hey girl!" He runs over to me and pulls me into a big hug smiling. "You look like you have a pipe up your ass! What's with this suit?" He's sporting two pigtails today and a bright pink sundress and I swear he has bigger swagger in his hips than I do.

"You said dress professional," I follow him through the therapeutic tables in the facility. There are elderly working on their endurance on bikes and treadmills, but it's in the back that I want to work. A man in a wheelchair lifts himself onto the table to do exercises with what little strength is left in his legs. The goal is to keep them from atrophying and help them keep the circulation strong in their legs. Another woman looks like a recent leg amputation, she'll be learning balance all over again. You've never experienced hope and meaning until you've worked with someone who feels like they've lost it all and come back stronger than they were before.

"I said dress to accentuate your assets and those dumps are too covered, take that off." He grabs my jacket and twirls me out of it. "Can I take scissors to that skirt honey, because if I had legs like that."

"You do have legs like that," I remind him and he starts laughing. "I'm here to interview for a job not to sell my body."

"Whatever honey, come on, Bankotsu is waiting for you." He pushes me into the office and shuts it behind him. Inside is an intimidating man that towers over me by easily eight inches and I take a seat waiting for him to finish on his computer.

"Stop fidgeting," he says as his eyes don't leave the computer screen. "I once saw someone so nervous they tore a hole through their skirt doing what you are with your fingers."

I stop twirling the cloth in my fingers and say, "I'm Rin Matthews."

"I know that. Rin Matthews, GPA 3.87, you graduated top of your class. You Interned with Kagura at the Wind and you're looking for what I hope is a full-time job." He finally turns and leans back in his chair. "I run a busy facility, I'm sure you saw from outside. It's slow right now, but gets busy again after 3pm. We work with a diverse set of clients from children up to geriatrics, some are former athletes, some have survived cancer, leukemia and they all have a story to tell. So tell me Rin, what's yours?"

I purse my lips and take a deep breath, just like I practiced with Kohaku, "well I'm twenty five years old and I just graduated—"

"Beyond that Ms. Matthews, I know you just finished at University of Colorado but what else can you tell me about yourself? I'm looking for someone who is a go getter, who will help my clients reach their goals and achieve their dreams."

It's then I know while I stare into eyes that have iced over that it's time to tell my story. "I was a professional figure skater on the Olympic track until I had a bad fall in practice and broke my knee. I spent two years in rehab and it ended my career, which when you're fifteen and skating is all you've known, you lose hope. My therapists helped me see that the sun does come up the next day, that pain is part of the process and that I was so much more than what happened to my knee. I want to give back what was given to me." Another deep breath is needed after all that because I forgot to breathe in between sentences.

"You're the Rin Matthews?" he asks like I've fallen from heaven into his lap. "The first female to land a perfect quad double?"

"That's me." I raise my hand sheepishly.

"You dropped off the face of the planet after that fall," he says quietly flipping through some papers on his desk.

"Wouldn't you?" I ask him nervously and maybe more defensive than I meant to. "I was fifteen and my career was over. I had three operations on my knee, and couldn't walk again for a year. School was my lifeline, it gave me hope and I guess that's why I'm here."

He smiles and I finally feel like I've said something right.

"Well, we might have a position for you then, let's go on a tour and you can tell me more about your internships, and I see you volunteered at Wind during your undergrad?"

"Wind had a pediatric ward and I really liked that. But during my internships I really fell in love with paraplegic physiotherapy. I dated this guy that was into Neurosurgery and he got me into spinal care and how with the right help they can get back on their feet, literally and even if they can't, there is so much they can still do."

We rove through the facility, seeing the baths where they use hot and cold water to treat chronic injuries and then through the exercise equipment and then he stops at the front desk where a woman in her mid-twenties answers the phone. I tell him more of my story about the boy I helped learn to walk again after he was in a car accident, the woman who was walking in the street when a car hit her and how her happiest moment was being able to hold her baby again and my personal favorite, a young football player who was injured cliff diving with his friends. He had a full ride to UCLA and lost it. He thought he had nothing left after his neck broke but as the swelling went down and he kept working, he gained use of his arms again and became a paralympic athlete. He's set to win the ski competition.

"You never thought about competing again?" Suikotsu, the second brother asks me as he helps a teenager into her wheelchair.

"No," I say quickly shaking my head. What I don't say is that the first time I tried to get back on the ice, my palms got so sweaty and my knees so shaky I couldn't make myself do it. "It was a bad injury."

"How is it now?" Bankotsu asks.

"It only hurts when it rains," I say proudly shaking out my right leg.

"Honey those legs are to die for!" Jakotsu calls while helping a boy walk using the parallel bars. "I'd tap her myself I didn't like—"

"Jak!" Renkotsu calls from next to him, where he's helping a teenage girl do sit-ups.

"You like boys," the little boy says with a grin that's missing a few teeth.

"Honey I don't like boys, I like men. We're talking tall, built, square jaw, high-cheekboned…oh honey, here comes Puddles."

"Puddles?" I turn around to see rolling through the facility are two silver haired men. One is pushing the other, they look similar and different all at once, but one thing is for sure, the one in the wheelchair looks pissed.

"I would tap that ass even if he couldn't move it," Jakotsu throws an arm around me. "Hey Ban, what if we gave little Rin here a test run?"

"She's not covered by our insurance," Bankotsu throws back.

"I'll supervise her," Suikotsu says.

"What?" I can't speak. I interned at Wind but that was always with another therapist.

"If you can get him to do more than sit in that chair, the job is yours," Bankotsu says circling me then walking away.

"Jak!" I call him running over. "Quick, give me the rundown on this guy."

"Sesshomaru Takahashi. Danny, you sit tight in that chair until I come get you," he points at the little boy who made it all the way across the parallel bars. "He's twenty eight."

"The Sesshomaru Takahashi?"

"Lord Sesshomaru himself honey listen to me, he is grumpier than a snake that's been stepped on by a drunk. He had lumbar injury after flipping out of control on his last salto pike on the rings four years ago. His brother brings him here, that cutie with those doggy ears. I wish he was gay."

"Jak!" I need details to get his ass out of that chair, not how hot his brother is.

"So he comes here five days a week, at 3pm exactly. He rolls up to that bed and he refuses to get out of that chair. He's been with us four years, if we get lucky we get him to do some stretches in his chair but he is something else. He had it all and he lost it all."

"I know what that's like. Why do you call him Puddles?" God do I know what it's like to think you are going to win and then fall. I just didn't do it during competition, and that was his third Olympics.

"Puddles pity party, don't you watch AGT?" He gets Danny out of his chair and back onto the bars.

"No wonder you nearly failed your last semester."

"Girl shut up! If Mukotsu hears that he's going to kill me. I cut in line, he was supposed to go to college next, not me. Oh baby look at your bad self!" Jak jumps up and down laughing as the boy makes it to the end. "You keep walking like that your daddy is gonna have to lock up all the candy and the pretty girls!"

"I don't like girls," the little boy giggles.

"You got a boyfriend in second grade?"

"No, I like cookies. Girls are gross."

I swallow the incredibly large lump in my throat as the silver haired man is rolled past me and left next to one of the physical therapy beds. "Great," I tighten my pony tail. "I can do this."

Please review! This is me trying to write a fluff piece...emphasis on the word try, show me the love people this is so out of my comfort zone.