Payson's taste for the classier events of the gymnastics world was usually simple and elegant, and Sasha loved seeing her dressed like that. She could wear a paper sack and still look beautiful, but when she put on a Valentino dress and swept her hair back from her face, she was absolutely breathtaking.

The dress she was currently wearing was nothing like that. He had no idea what had gotten into her, but her golden dress was short, skin tight, and a little bit slutty, and while her elegant style was still his favorite look for her, he had to admit that he liked it. A six time Olympic gold medalist ought to have a little bit of sass.

He was so incredibly proud of her, and of his other girls. In addition to the team gold, Kelly won silver for the All Around, floor, and bars, Lauren came out on the losing side of a tie with Payson on beam and ended up with the silver, and Kaylie took the bronze on vault. Team USA, and the Rock in particular, had dominated the Olympics. The flip side of that, though, was that the Olympics were over and his girls would be going their separate ways. Sasha had no idea what he was going to do with himself without Payson, Kelly, Lauren, and Kaylie to coach.

He was beginning what could have turned into a lengthy brooding session when Payson came to him and said, "Come on, Sasha, dance with me. Don't think that you're getting away with just standing in a corner brooding."—How did she know him so well?—"This is a party; we're supposed to celebrate."

He gave a heavy pretend sigh and said, "Well, I suppose since the party is in your honor, I have no choice. I have to do whatever you say."

"Whatever I say?" she asked. There was a look in her eyes that he couldn't quite interpret.

"Perhaps we should impose some limits," he teased as he led her onto the dance floor. "For instance, please don't ask me to commit any felonies."

She picked up on the tone and joked back. "Well, damn. I was going to ask you to kill Lauren for me."

"Oh? Why?"

"She made me wear this dress," Payson groused. "She guilted me into letting her play dress up with me because of the way beam turned out. I knew it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be this bad."

He glanced down at the dress in question, but since she was standing close to him as they danced, his only view was straight down the front of her dress—and with the deep V that plunged all the way down to her midriff, it was one hell of a view. He knew that she had an amazing body, but with so much of it on display, it hit him hard. It wasn't until her blush spread to the skin of her chest that he realized how incredibly inappropriate he was being.

He reluctantly dragged his eyes back up. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, but she hid it well. Sasha wasn't sure what came over him, but he found himself saying, "I wouldn't kill her for that anyway. You look bloody amazing."

Her only response was to step closer to him, and it was his turn to blush. His body was betraying him, and with her so close, there was no way that she wouldn't notice. She didn't say anything, though. She just rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

He only spoke out of desperation, to distract from the fact that he was completely, inappropriately aroused by his nineteen year old gymnast. He would do just about anything to draw attention away from his, uh, problem. "So what are your plans, now that you've conquered the world?"

She looked up at him but didn't lift her head from his shoulder. "That depends on you, I guess. Are you staying at the Rock?"

"I hadn't decided yet." He'd been purposefully not thinking about it for months.

"Well, I've been thinking, if you were staying around, that I might keep competing for a while. I don't know if I could make it to another Olympics, but I could at least do another Worlds."

Ten minutes ago he would have been thrilled to hear her say that, but now, for reasons that he couldn't (or wouldn't) determine, he was disappointed at the idea of remaining her coach. He tried to hide his feelings as he said, "As long as you want to compete, Payson, I'll be there to coach you."

Her sigh was loud enough to hear, but the words that followed it were barely audible. Sasha had to strain to hear her say, "I can't really imagine my life without you anymore, anyway."

He was afraid to respond, so they slipped into silence. It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't. Nothing had ever been uncomfortable with Payson except those first few hours together after she kissed him. From the very beginning they had been too comfortable, too close, too important to each other.

When the song ended, they stopped revolving together but didn't separate. She finally lifted her head from his shoulder and asked, "You said since the party was for me that you had to do whatever I want, right?"

"Except for felonies," he reminded her.

She smiled at his joke and shook her head. "This isn't a felony. I… I want you to kiss me, Sasha."

She could actually have asked him to commit a felony and he would have been less surprised. He wanted to so, so badly, of course, but he couldn't. He was her coach. "Payson, I—"

She didn't let him finish. "You said anything, Sasha. My party, my rules."

She caught him at a weak moment; he just didn't have the willpower to fight like he should have, so he lifted his hand to her cheek and tilted her face up toward his. He brushed his mouth lightly against hers, but Payson didn't allow him to get off so easily. She pressed her lips more firmly against his until he relaxed into the kiss and deepened it.

Kissing Payson was every bit as wonderful as he might have imagined, had he ever let himself imagine it. He had been very careful never to let his mind head in that direction, for reasons that were still very present, but he found himself not really giving a damn anymore. This was right.

When they finally drifted apart Payson said, "Sasha, before you start freaking out about this, I need you to understand something… Since I was a little girl, my whole world revolved around gymnastics. The single most important thing in my life was getting to the Olympics, and compared to that nothing else mattered."

He didn't understand where she was going. Surely she wasn't about to tell him that she only wanted him to be in her life as a coach, was she?

"But when I went to find you in Romania," she continued, "I knew that I might lose my chance to get here. I knew that I could get kicked off the team if I was caught, and that they would never let me back on. And Sasha—I didn't care. As long as I got you back then I was okay with that risk, because for the first time that I can remember, something was more important to me than gymnastics. You were. I only wanted the Olympics if I could have it with you.

"So before you start telling me all of the reasons we shouldn't do this, I just want you to understand. I'm not the same person that I was when you first came to the Rock. I grew up. I learned that life is more than just gymnastics, and you are a huge part of that. I do want you to keep coaching me, but I want… I need more from you, Sasha."

He opened and closed his mouth several times trying to say something, anything. Payson started to look scared, and it was clear what was going through her head. She thought he was rejecting her, and wasn't he? He was supposed to tell her that this was a bad idea, that they could just pretend like nothing happened and go back to the way things were… but instead he did the stupidest thing imaginable. He kissed her again.

He was vaguely aware of the fact that people were staring at them, and probably had been for several minutes. Ever since Ellen Beals showed up at the Parent's Board meeting with that picture of Payson kissing him, he'd gone out of his way to make sure they didn't look like anything other than a coach and his gymnast when they were out together, but that went down the drain almost as soon as they stepped onto the dance floor. He couldn't make himself care, because for the first time in weeks there wasn't a tight band of dread across his chest. He wasn't going to lose her now that the Olympics were over. He wasn't going to lose her ever.

Slowly the kiss died away and they started dancing again, and Sasha noticed a strange new feeling. No, that was wrong—it wasn't a new feeling, it was the absence of an old one. The bitterness that he'd been holding onto since his mother's death, since MJ's betrayal, since his injury, since Emilia—it was gone, and all that was left was the hope that wormed its way inside of him the first time Payson said she needed him. He had a future to look forward to now. A future named Payson Keeler.