So this is my first payson/sasha story...Uni work is always a priority and I have this huge draco/harry story planned that I haven't finished, but I just HAD to write this after reading a few. So hopefully you all won't be too impatient with me =).
I'm really not too sure of the time frame...but just assume that this is after Kaylie is out of rehab and they're all on the national team for 2010. AND THIS IS AFTER PAYSON AND SASHA KISS.
Italics are flashbacks!
Disclaimer: i own nothing unfortunately!
Chapter 1
Sasha Beloff had many qualities he prided himself on, but none more so than his ability to recognize change; whether that be adapting to change, helping someone else adapt to change or making the change himself. So as he stood outside the gym office watching the ex-National Champion; Kelly Parker walk into the Rock he silently smirked to himself.
He received the call from Kelly herself just two days ago asking to switch from Denver. To say he was surprised was an understatement. He knew his four elite gymnasts wouldn't be too pleased; but the knowledge of knowing he would have the ex-National Champion and the current National Champion under his watch was too much to turn away.
The 2010 National Championships were only 3 weeks away, he needed Kaylie to get her confidence up after being released from rehab, he needed Lauren to stop looking so distracted every time she did a routine, he needed Emily to try and separate her mind from gymnastics and her being on probation and most of all; he needed Payson to stop looking at him as though he was going to run away.
Admittedly he was part to blame for that last part. Kim Keeler had found him fishing down by the lake after he had tried to leave The Rock. Kim's guilt trip wasn't even the worst part.
"Come on Sasha, you of all people know this isn't about you! It's about the girls! You're their coach." Kim's voice got softer towards the end.
"They can do this without me. They have their routines...They'll replace me with someone better."
"Jesus Sasha...I don't even care right now that my soon to be 17 yr old daughter kissed you. But you made a promise to bring her to the Olympics, you made a promise to ALL of the girl you'd bring them to Olympics and you're going to pull out because...because of what exactly? What exactly is your reason?" she finished with a frustrated flourish of her hands.
"Yeah Sasha...what IS your reason?"
He and Kim spun around to find Payson, Kaylie, Lauren and Emily by what he assumed was Kaylie's convertible.
"Payson? Did you follow me?" He had asked.
"No. I followed my mum. But not the point...what the hell Sasha? We work our asses off doing my new artistic routine, you drag me to get the officials to watch me, they let you stay yet you walk away! What's the deal?" She had begun to stalk forward with the other three slowly following her.
"Me being there has led to more damage than anything else." He tried to continue but Kaylie cut him off.
"Even IF that were true, you think walking away is the solution? You forced me to face my anorexia as much as I denied it and because of that I dealt with it. It was hard; sure, but I sure as hell didn't run away." She finished.
"You abandoned me! You abandoned everyone!* I can keep going, but I think I'll let the others have a go." Payson said, a slight flush becoming her cheeks.
"Come on Sasha, you know you don't even have a valid point in leaving. We're all going through something right now and the last thing we need is our coach leaving us." Emily said with a softer but firm voice.
"This isn't about you! This is about US! We need a coach we trust to take us to Nationals, Worlds and eventually the Olympics." Lauren said her voice filled with spite.
He saw the other three girls do a slight eye roll at the typical Lauren attitude but they didn't disagree with her.
"You need to get your act together! We've all done stupid stuff to! I mean look at Payson, she kissed you for god sake and she's not acting like it's the end of the world! Emily, she's on probation...freaking probation that could possibly leave a criminal record and she's not running away from gymnastics. And Kaylie...well she already told you about that." She continued to rant.
The other three girls turned to her with slightly raised eyebrows.
"What? It's true...but the point is, we're working THROUGH it." Lauren said whilst doing a breast stroke action with her arms. "And what are you doing about your problem Sasha? Running away like a coward." She finished, her defiant stare challenging him.
He could hear Kim gasp behind her, obviously not believing Lauren could be so blunt. The other three gymnasts however stood their ground. There was a moment of silence before Payson spoke.
"Has Lauren said enough Sasha? Are you convinced? Should I take over? Because I assure you I can be much blunter than her."
It had taken at least another half hour of insane guilty tripping from all of them to convince him to get into his truck and drive back to the Rock. But now that he was back; he didn't regret it one bit.
"So...I have to call you Coach Sasha now don't I?"
He turned around to see Kelly Parker at the bottom of the stairs.
"Yep. It's good to see you, just wait here I'm going to call the girls over." He knew he really didn't need to call them over; they were already staring at Kelly with mixed expressions of confusion and in Lauren's case...anger.
"Girls!" he said, motioning for them to come over.
"Kelly Parker is now training at the Rock. Let's not forget that you're all on the National Team and I expect you to work as one." He said as the four girls stood in front him. They stared at him with stoic expressions.
"Ok...get to work. Payson I'll be seeing your floor first."
They all nodded and left.
"Where's Andrea?" Kelly said before walking to warm up.
Andrea Conway made up the 6th member of the National Team. The two alternates were Nina and Isabella; he could see them sharing the mat as they critiqued each other on their floor routines.
"Called in; her grandmother died over in San Francisco, I felt it was a plausible excuse to get a day off...now go warm up!"
"Yes Coach..." Kelly's face was serious, but he could hear a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she walked away to join the other four girls at the warm up mats.
"UGH! Can you believe the "devil horns" is training with us?" Lauren said as they stretched in splits on the warm up mats.
"This could be a good thing Lauren, we're all on the National Team...this isn't like club versus clubs anymore." Kaylie replied, her body flat to the ground as she stretched out her inner thigh muscles.
"Kaylie's right, this could be a real advantage to make our team stronger." Emily said, her back bent, leg behind her in a scorpion.
"Whatever! It's still Kelly Parker...Kelly. Parker." Lauren said punctuating her name.
"That's my name!" a voice said. They turned their heads to see Kelly; devil horns and all in a blue and yellow leotard bending down, legs apart stretching.
"Still working those devil horns Parker? You sure they aren't natural?" Lauren said as she held her left leg in a side mount.
Kelly gave a small smirk, ignoring the insult and continued stretching.
"Well...personally, you shouldn't get your hopes up about anything. I'm the best at beam here; everyone's DOD is up by at least two points...even the two alternates." Lauren continued with a smirk as she pulled her right leg into a back mount.
Payson interrupted any response Kelly was about to give.
"Enough. You heard what Sasha said, we're all on the National Team. We have to start acting like one. If we don't, we could risk losing team gold or worse, not getting any gold in the individual comps because we're all too wrapped up in this drama."
Lauren put her hands up in mock surrender.
"And anyway Lauren, we all know Payson's first on every apparatus right now." Kaylie said with a knowing smile.
"Not by much on beam, and besides, I'm just saying...don't think you're going to be awesome here Parker...this isn't Denver...there are actually GOOD gymnasts here." Lauren said defensively before heading over to the vault.
"What a ray of sunshine she is." Kelly said as she went down into a pin.
An unsuspecting laugh came out of Payson's mouth. Emily looked over at her with a surprised face before turning to Kelly. "She's just threatened by having you at the Rock is all. And it is kind of a surprise."
"Yeah...why the sudden change of heart Parker?" piped up Kaylie, her voice slightly muffled by the blood rushing to her head as she stretched her back in a bridge.
"It's not like Mrs Ray of Sunshine over there was right but...three-quarters of the National Team are at the Rock. It's better training as a team all under the one coach." Kelly replied.
"Dimitri Beloff was named the National Gymnastics Coach a week ago; he spends half his time here and half his time in Denver." Payson questioned, her toes pointed in front of her as she slowly lifted her leg in front of her.
"True, but Marty isn't as good as Sasha."
The Three Rock girls raised their eyebrows at her.
"What? It's true and you know it. No need to act all surprised." She snapped slightly.
"As nice as that compliment is Kelly you girls have stretched for long enough. Payson, to the floor; I'll come see the rest of you soon." Sasha's voice suddenly appeared behind them.
They all scrambled up and went their separate ways.
"I know I nailed this routine at the National Trials but I was thinking of changing it up a bit. Don't worry I'm not thinking too many power elements, but perhaps two or three more tumbling passes, I just don't think having one or two aerials is going to be enough." Payson said as they headed to the centre of the mat.
"What were you thinking?" Sasha replied.
As she began explaining the small changes she thought necessary his eyes flitted momentarily to her blonde hair. The fluorescent lights gave it a shine every time she turned her head. Her face was perfect; she had those beautiful blue grey eyes.
"So what do you think?"
His shook his head slightly before speaking; his voice slightly hoarse.
"That sounds good, but let me see you do the original and then again with the slight changes. We'll record both on the training cam and we can take a look later to see which would score higher. There's no point in establishing yourself as an artistic gymnast with an equivalent DOD to your past power style and then throwing in too many power elements; it wouldn't make sense." He rattled off; the coach part of him coming back into play.
She nodded understandingly as he stepped back to give her room to begin. As the sound of Tschaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty came on he sighed to himself. He couldn't help but notice something had shifted, a similar if not the same feeling as when Kelly Parker stepped through the Rock doors this morning.
*this part is taken directly from the promo that I saw on youtube!
What do you think? I had heaps of fun writing this and I hope you enjoy. Now I don't really follow gymnastics so I don't know much about the technicalities. So there's a national team who compete...then they do world trials to get onto the Worlds team. Then they compete in worlds and then the Olympics Trials and then the Olympics?
Someone PLEASE tell me if that's wrong; because it'd just be highly embarrassing.
Next chapter will be from Paysons perspective =).
Please review! I would appreciate it like...a fat kid who loves chocolate cake!
