Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing.

Note: I was just finishing the first draft of my new story – A Payson/Sasha Make it or break it fic – when suddenly this story idea got into my head, and I just had to write it.

This is a one-shot, but if people like it I might continue it one day. I always thought that Lauren could be a fun a deep character to write!

On another note, I will now start writing Part 2 of my Heddara series. Meanwhile I will be posting Part1 of my semi-finished Payson/Austin fic – Part 2 is, for now, on the waiting list. The Payson/Sasha fic I mentioned before will be put on standby for now – it needs a loooot of editing before I'll feel comfortable publishing it, and I'm too pumped up for Heddara to take the time right now.

I Hope you enjoy!

Part 1

Lauren Tanner always got what she wanted.

And everyone knew it.

Well, it was more that Lauren Tanner never gave up on getting what she wanted, while others were easily derailed.

And what she wanted was an Olympic Gold Medal. Yes, it deserved capital letters. It was the Olympics after all.

A flimsy slip on her balance beam routine and she was down to fourth place in the gym rankings, and that was not acceptable. At. All.

Not to mention that Marty's new pet project had been the one to pass her, even after falling off on her first vault. Lauren had been tempted to help that scenario take place by messing with the girl's vault distances, but had managed to refrain her impulse. Her therapist would be so proud!

But anyway, the girl had fallen all on her own, and that meant a big fat 0 for that vault. How she then managed to pass Lauren, even with the other Vault, she had no idea.

There were so many things wrong with what followed after that she couldn't even name them all.

Just to start, if one person did two Vaults, then the final scores were made from an AVERAGE! This wasn't the 1980's or some lousy junior meet!

Second, you couldn't just do your routines when you very well pleased. There was a time limit on how much time you could take before starting your vault, after the judges gave the green light. Kmetko had been out of it for about fifteen minutes. The meet had already been over when she did her second vault!

And third, how unprofessional could Marty be for ignoring all these rules and take her bronze medal and flowers from her own hands, without so much as a word!

She smelled something fishy. Probably Marty trying to get on someone's good graces or something. Or trying to make the new girl feel welcomed.

Big mistake in her opinion. No one would be giving any favors at nationals. Ellen Beals certainly wouldn't.

She had been so pissed off that she'd had to use the punching bag in her gym at home to let of some steam – or she might have done or said something stupid.

Her therapist was going to build her a freaking shrine if she carried on like this. This saintly behavior better be pilling up good fortune points with karma, or she would be pissed.

The beating she had given the punching bag had helped with her stress and anger, but nothing could make her let go of her fury towards Marty. Since the meet two weeks ago, her coach had been completely ignoring her – more than usual, that was. In twelve gym days he had not even once come to work with her, instead focusing most of his time on trying to get his pet up to speed on all the apparatus.

She had tried asking for help on bringing up her bars difficulty, he had answered they would do it after nationals.

She had asked about a new floor pass. He had said after Nationals.

She asked about a new move on beam, he said after Nationals, and asked her to go to Jake for any other questions she had on her training, since he was busy.

Yeah, busy with her pet. And Kaylie. He never did stop paying attention to her, and if Lauren was interpreting the glances he exchanged with Mrs. Cruz on a daily basis, then things were bad, very bad.

And for God's sake, Nationals were almost five months away! Did he expect her to what, just marinate until then?

Payson was fine. She was the number one and Marty and she had things running. She was in a place where she only needed to work out the kinks in her routines and make them perfect. There was no where she could upgrade that wouldn't hurt her back, so she wasn't feeling their coaches' absence like Lauren was.

Things couldn't go on like this anymore. It seemed like Marty had given up on her ever going anywhere on the national team.

Yes, she had placed eighth last year at nationals, but that the past and she refused to accept that it would have any impact in her future.

She wanted new moves on her weakest apparatus so she could move up on the ranks and become an all-around threat. She wanted new moves on Beam so she could be the best she could be on her favorite apparatus and at the same time use her high scores there to compensate for lower scores in other events.

She wanted to be best in the world.

And Lauren Tanner always got what she wanted.

It took her a while to find out how to get what she wanted without maiming anyone, or gaining incredible amounts of enemies.

In the end, a simple raid of her father's office had provided the answers she needed.

And that brought her to this piece of dirt road.

Stone and wood house? Check.

Beet up jeep? Check.

Old boots laying on the porch? Check

No one home? Check.

Fishing gear? Nowhere to be found.

Hum, now where was the river?

"Lauren?" Her dad called from the car. "Are you sure about this? Maybe I should go with you."

"Don't worry Daddy! It'll be fine. I want to be the one to talk to him first. I'll come get you when it's time to do your magic!"

She turned around and decided to check out the back of the house. She thought could hear running water coming from that direction.

She had first considered coming alone, but Cambria was very far from Boulder. It would take more than a day to get there by car and she would never get back without her dad noticing she was gone, and as a minor she couldn't go alone by plane.

In the end, she had decided to tell her about her problems with Marty, subtly steering him in the right direction. Her dad had agreed with her proposed solutions, and then had revealed the last piece of the puzzle himself. From there, it had been easy to set things in motion. It had taken a bit of work to let her come along and do the convincing herself, but it hadn't been too hard.

Spying a head of blond hair a few passes ahead, Lauren smirked. Men, they were so predictable.

"I never understood the lure of fishing." She said as soon as she got within two feet of the man, prompting him to turn around. One thing could be said about Belov. He was much more handsome than Marty. Mrs. Cruz didn't know what she was missing. "Pun intended." She added with a smirk.

The man, snorted, before turning back to the gear in front of him. Not wishing to be in a place where he could ignore her, Lauren advanced so she was standing next to him, looking down at the line he was tying on his fishing... rod?

"That looks complicated..." She mumbled.

"What are you doing here, Miss. Tanner?" He asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

She raised an eyebrow at his tone, but shrugged. "I have a business proposition for you, Mr. Belov" She answered in the same tone.

It was his turn to raise his own eyebrow. "I'm not interested."

She snorted. "Really..." She drawled, her face clearly showing her doubts in his statement.

He turned his serious eyes to her. "I have no interest in gymnastics. I haven't for many years." He frowned then, his eyes searching her face. "And you have a club already. With my old friend Marty. Or am I wrong?"

She smiled, shaking her head. "You are not wrong. I do train at the rock with Marty. The thing is, the rock is no longer the right place for me. I need a new coach with new perspectives."

"Not interested." He said simply, looking back at his line.

She rolled her eyes. "You haven't even truly heard what I'm proposing."

This time it was his time to snort. "I can see that you don't fish. If you did you would know that to get what you want, you need the right lure"

She cocked her head "Lure?"

Sasha nodded. "Yes. You see. If Marty had for some reason left the Rock, then I might, just might, be interested. The club team he has built there is quite incredible. But other than that, I think I'll keep being uninterested."

Lauren raised her eyebrow, unimpressed. "Let me destroy all possibilities of that lure ever happening then. Do you wonder why I want to leave the Rock?"

He shrugged. "Why don't you tell me, since you obviously want too."

Her smile was bitter, but she didn't care. "If I had to guess you went to Romania not for the money, but for the conditions the National team offered. All the good gymnasts nicely put on display in a single gym, where they trained and lived, 24/7. Am I right?"

Seeing as he didn't say anything against it, she took his silence and the expression on his face as agreement.

"In the US, things couldn't be more different. That's why you think the Rock is the best place. It reminds you of Romania due to the number of Elite Gymnasts there, and the number of National team members."

Sasha was apparently in a better mood now, because he deigned her with a lifted eyebrow.

"What you don't understand is that that, is exactly why I want to leave."

"Color me surprised. Why exactly is the number of elite gymnasts making you want to leave? It should be pushing you harder."

Lauren rolled her eyes. "In my opinion, Marty Walsh hasn't been my coach in, at least, about two months now." She stated, looking him firmly in the eye.

"Excuse me?" He asked, his voice showing his incredulity.

"That's right. He doesn't supervise my training, he doesn't choose my floor music or my acrobatic sequences. He isn't the one who I have to go to if I want to upgrade my routines. Therefore, he isn't my coach, he is simply a coach at the gym I train at."

Sasha frowned. "Who is your coach, then?"

She shrugged. "Honestly? I don't really know. I guess I get help from the assistant coaches when they have the time. Mostly Jack Larson is the one helping the Elite girls."

"But why?" Sasha sounded befuddled.

Lauren crossed her arms. "The system in Romania worked because it was mostly state funded. Girls progressed from level to level, from gym to gym. There was virtually no mixing between different leveled and experienced athletes. The gym you were at only had the National Team girls, no one else. And you had enough coaching staff to take care of all their training needs, so you had the time to see each girl individually every day. Am I right?"

Sasha nodded, and by the frown on his face, she would bet that he was almost getting to the answers by himself.

"Here, gyms are business. And what brings in the money?"

"Numbers" He mumbled, fishing rod forgotten.

"Exactly. And where do you have the numbers, considering that many girls give up on becoming elite as they grow up?"

"Juniors."

"Right." She nodded to herself. "There are about twenty junior girls at the Rock. Then there are classes for little kids on certain days of the week. And then there are the boys, all ages but most of them around sixteen to eighteen, looking for a college scholarship."

"What the hell?" Sasha said, bewildered.

"The Rock is full of people at all hours. Granted, there is a good number of staff, but it is just not the same. The quality of coaching suffers. And considering no one can add new elements to their routines without Marty's approval, and he has been shooting down everything I say, I've been in limbo for two months."

Sasha blinked. "I still don't get your problems with Marty. Why would he ignore you? You're at the top of his team."

"I've told you. Too many elites. We were seven elites at nationals last year, and it was already a mess. There is a reason why usually only a gymnast per club gets on the national team, sometimes two. It's because clubs don't have more than three elites, tops. Maybe four, if they're pushing it." Seeing him about to interrupt her, she continued. "Why is that? Because there is no chance they would have the means to give them the focus they would need to get them to that level if they had more, while still having the younger girls that bring in the money. So, when a gymnast starts seeing herself be put aside for someone else, she moves to a better place."

"And that is what you are trying to do?"

"Yes, whether it is you or someone else, I will be leaving the Rock by the end of the month." She said.

"Who are you being put aside to? If you only want to move now, something must have changed recently."

She raised her eyebrows. The man was sharp. "Marty found a new pet, a girl he saw at the Y in Fresno. She is good for someone who never had any formal training, but nowhere near the National team level. So, he is using all his time trying to bring her up to what he thinks is acceptable."

He smirked. "Did she beat you?"

She shook her head. "Not under any acceptable rules, she didn't. Marty decided to ignore the big fat zero of her first vault, and her second was made after the awards had already been given away."

He frowned. "I can see why that would make you upset." He twirled his fishing rod absentmindedly. "What about Kaylie and Payson?"

Lauren shook her head. "Marty being occupied leaves Kaylie free to watch her secret boyfriend in peace. And Payson is not looking to upgrade because of her back. She is working on consistency, so she doesn't need him as much."

He looked at her, searching for something.

"You've talked a lot about upgrades. Is that very important to you?"

Lauren snorted. "The world doesn't stop spinning if we stop moving Sasha. I was eight in the all-around last year. I don't intend to repeat that this year. I want to make the podium. And to do that, I need to upgrade. Everywhere."

"The podium huh?" His face turned into a slight smile. "Why do you need to upgrade on beam? You won gold last year.

She smirked. "I knew you still watched!" Seeing him roll his eyes, she pressed on. "I want to upgrade on beam because I can. I want to be the best in the world on Beam, not just the best in the US. And upgrading there will cover my lower scores on Bars." She shuddered. Her bars had always been quite terrible.

"You need to watch your pikes. Your losing execution points there."

"You can tell me that again when you're my coach for real." She offered, with a winning smile.

He snorted. "What's the proposal?" He asked, and she smiled for real then, because that meant the he would truly consider her offer.

"Have you ever heard of the Monterey Health Center?" She asked.

He frowned. "Yes. They specialize in post injury recovery. Mainly geared towards athletes, but they take in everyone."

She nodded. "That's right. What you don't know is that the Center is my Dad's Brain Child."

"Really?" He asked, surprise in his voice.

She guessed that it was a natural reaction. The Monterey Health Center had opened just five years before, and had quickly become a well-known institution amongst athletes. It was the best place to recover from injuries, as it had an incredible 90% rate of full recovery. Many other people also sought it out for it possessed in its staff experts on all fields of physical therapy and orthopedics.

Noticing how he shifted his right leg, she guessed that maybe his knowledge was centered on a more personal reason.

"When I was ten I injured my left elbow, and had to have surgery. It's a very delicate area and I needed extensive physiotherapy, so my dad found this place in Germany that specialized in helping athletes. He fell in love with the place and the idea of making something like that in the US wouldn't leave him alone." She smiled. "A couple of years later and the center was created."

"And what does that have to do with the proposal?" He asked.

She resisted the urge to huff. Dam, the man was impatient.

"Most people don't know this, but there are several sports clubs attached to the center. The patients use them for light training during their recoveries, but the clubs have a permanent coaching staff and members form the towns in the area all the way up to Santa Cruz, who pay fees. During the setup of the center my dad had planned to move to Monterrey and get a Gymnastics club going, where I could train. Only he couldn't find someone as good as Marty, and I didn't want to leave because of the friends I had at the Rock. So that gym never opened."

He looked at her, considering what she had said. "But now it will?"

She nodded. "The guy my dad had running the Center wants to go off for a better paying thing. Oh, the center is very financially healthy, but the money the director made doesn't compare to most other private hospitals. The greedy guy leaves, my dad takes over like he initially planned to. If we can get someone to be head coach, my dad already got into contact with several people interested in the other coaching positions. The place itself is ready, but empty of any equipment."

He cocked his head. "How would the gym make money? How would you pay the coaches? You don't want a crowded gym, but without gymnasts, you can't keep it running."

"We would allow local kids to attend on certain days of the week. And we would accept a certain number of elite men and woman. Besides that, for any patient that used the gym, a percentage of their fee would go to the gym itself." She smiled impishly at him. "It will be just like in Romania. Dorms for gymnasts from all over the country and only the most dedicated taking up your time."

He frowned. "Why men?"

She snorted. "Trust me, if a guy gets out of college and truly wants to keep going, then he is in it for the long haul. And for them, if they don't find a gym to accept them, they have to stay at the OTC So there will be a lot of interest on their part." She shrugged. "Plus, they're men. Not hormonal driven, dramatic teenagers. That's a step up from the girls."

He nodded, before frowning. "You seem very sure that athletes will come. How easy could that possibly be?"

She laughed. "You think I would come here with that bad of an offer? Sure, I've never been able to sit still for enough time to enjoy fishing, that's why I'm a gymnast, but I still know business 101."

"Really?" Sasha drawled. "So, who have you managed to entice to this new gym of yours?"

She smirked. "Oh, no one very important. Just Kelly Parker, Andrea Conway, Kyle Duncan and... Austin Tucker"

She managed to keep her snickers in, but just. Sasha looked like a fish out of water. Well he had a good reason. She had just given out the names of last year's national champion on both men and woman's side. Then there was Kyle Duncan, a crazy vaulter well on his way for a world title, and Andrea Conway, the eternal sixth member.

All of them had been relatively easy to convince, but Andrea had been the easiest. On the verge of college, she had been oscillating between accepting one of her scholarship offers, or keep on trying for an Olympic spot. Only, while being a member of the last two world teams, Andrea had never been given an important role on team finals, and never managed to qualify for an individual final. She had been feeling like her coaches couldn't take her any further, but had had no chance to move away due to her parent's jobs. Lauren's offer had been just what she had been needing – a legendary coach and boarding for the price of one.

And how had Lauren known that Andrea was looking for an opportunity like this? Well, she listened, and watched, and at the last National team practice, she had made conversation with the other girl, who had been subtly trying to find out if the Rock had a foster system.

Lauren was a good observer. She had noticed Andrea's wish to move gym's, just like she had noticed Kelly Parker's need for a coach who understood her damn ankle, and Austin Tucker and Kyle Duncan rising unease as their college careers came to an end. Oh, Tucker certainly didn't compete for any university, what with his... various endorsements, but he still used their facilities and staff – how he managed that, she didn't know for certain, but would bet on a mix of his money and his name.

"Seems like we do have something to talk about then, Miss Tanner." Sasha said, finally starting to stash his fishing gear back into its box. "Maybe you should come back with your father soon."

She snorted. "Who do you think got me here in the first place?" She took her phone out of her jeans back pocket, before quickly calling her dad. "Hey dad! You can come out back now! He wants to talk details!"

Sasha shook his head. "As anyone told you that you're a dangerous girl Lauren?"

"Why, thank you!" She said, smiling up at him, her face the picture of innocence.

As her dad came around the house and greeted Sasha, she couldn't help but feel proud of herself. Who would have known what she would have come up with if she had let her frustrations control her? No, this was a much better outcome. Rational, workable, and best of all? It had gotten her the best coach in the freaking world!

Oh, her therapist better give her a freaking halo when she got back.