Disclaimer: I don't own MIOBI or these characters, and I'm not making any money off of this story.
A/N: Wow, this chapter was way longer than I thought it was.
Waking up to the sound of Payson in his kitchen was relieving in a lot of ways. She hadn't cooked in several days because she was too tired, so he was glad that she was feeling well enough to get back to one of her favorite pastimes. On the most superficial level, he was happy that he was going to have a good breakfast again. On the most profound level, he was relieved that she was still there with him at all. Her dad had left it open for her to come back, but she chose to stay where she was. He didn't know what he would have done if she left. He couldn't imagine his apartment without her anymore.
He rolled off the couch and headed toward the kitchen, stretching the knots out of his back as he went. Next time he bought furniture he was going to be more careful. The Keelers' couch was much more comfortable than his. He quirked a smile when she looked up at him and said, "It's nice to see you cooking again."
"It's nice to be cooking again," she said, grinning. "Don't get me wrong, I'm so thankful that you took care of me while I was sick, but I was getting tired of eating food you brought home from Central Market."
He laughed. "I was getting tired of it, too. You have a special talent for making healthy food taste good." He glanced over her shoulder to see what she was making. Pancakes, probably whole-wheat, and blueberry sauce. He would bet his Olympic title that it tasted amazing.
They sat on the couch to eat as usual, and it occurred to Sasha that he should probably buy a table. The food did taste amazing, just as he predicted, and it was nice to just sit with her and enjoy breakfast again. She'd slept in everyday for the last week, so they hadn't had a chance to do this in a while.
While they ate, Payson said, "You know, I should probably figure out what I'm going to do when I turn eighteen. It's just a couple of weeks until my birthday. I've got the Olympics and whatever crazy press tour MJ makes me do, but I need to know where I'm going to live when that's done."
Sasha had been thinking about this too, and it was a conversation he was dreading. He'd gotten used to her living with him, and he wasn't so sure he wanted her to move out. They worked so well together. "I've been thinking about that," he said, putting his plate down on the coffee table, "and feel free to tell me I'm crazy, but maybe we should stay together for a while longer, at least until the baby is born. I don't like the idea of you living alone, or even living with Emily. She wouldn't be able to help you if you got sick again."
Her reaction surprised him. She set down her plate and leaned into him, settling into her favorite place against his chest, and said, "We'd have to get a bigger place, and three bedroom apartments are hard to find. We'd probably have to get a house."
"So you've thought about this already, huh?" He wasn't sure if she would still want to live with him once she didn't have to anymore, but he should have known better. They were so similar that he should have realized she felt the same way about it as he did. He couldn't help but smile.
"Umhm," she said, nuzzling into his shoulder. She picked at his t-shirt absentmindedly and asked, "So… just until the baby's born or longer?"
"Longer," he answered without hesitation. "For as long as you want me there."
She pulled away from him and smiled. "That's going to be for a long time, then."
She handed him his plate again and picked up hers, and they ate the rest of their breakfast while talking about finding a house suitable for them. It was an easy, comfortable conversation, and Sasha was disappointed when it was interrupted by a knock at the door.
He opened the door, expecting a neighbor come to borrow a cup of sugar or something. It had taken Payson all of three days to get to know his neighbors, and he'd had more people knock on his door in the last week and a half than he had in almost an entire year that he'd lived there. It wasn't a neighbor this time, though. It was a very unexpected MJ Martin.
"Hello, love."
He was too shocked to respond. He stood looking at her, unable to say anything, until the silence became so uncomfortable that MJ noticed. It was right about that time that Payson stopped on her way back from the kitchen to see who it was. She took one look at her manager, rolled her eyes, said, "It's like summoning the devil. I said her name once and she appears," and then walked back into the living room.
It was MJ's turn to stare with her mouth hanging open, but she recovered faster than Sasha. "What in the bleeding hell did I just interrupt?"
Payson scoffed from the living room and called back, "Breakfast."
MJ shoved past him to stand in front of her client, who was calmly folding his blanket like nothing was wrong. Hands on hips, the older woman demanded, "Have you lost your bloody mind, Payson? It's a week before the Olympics and you're shagging your coach?"
"Why does everyone think we're sleeping together?" she asked, ignoring MJ and looking at him.
"I think it might be justified this time," he said, laughing. "You are standing in my living room in your pajamas." Which were rather skimpy now that he thought about it. After the first couple of days he stopped noticing what Payson was wearing, at least consciously.
She turned back to MJ and motioned to the pillow and blanket she'd just stacked in the corner of the couch. "Obviously," she said, "Sasha is sleeping on the couch. We are not 'shagging.'"
"Then why are you here?"
She lost some of her bravado in the face of that question. They might have chosen to stay together, but the living arrangement had originated out of necessity, not choice; Payson was still a bit uncomfortable about that. She answered in a much more subdued tone. "My dad threw me out. I didn't have anywhere else to go."
MJ looked like she'd been slapped in the face. "You're dad, Mark Keeler, threw you out? What could you have possibly done that was bad enough to make him do that?"
Sasha understood her surprise. He knew what she'd done and he was still surprised by it. Mark Keeler was not the type of man who kicked his kids out of the house over a stupid mistake, or at least that was what he thought. Payson didn't answer the question. She just looked at him and said, "I'm going to take a shower," and then pushed past them to the bathroom.
MJ watched her go in disbelief, and Sasha took advantage of the moment of silence to say, "It's none of your bloody business why she and her dad are fighting, so drop it."
She turned on him like a teacher scolding a student. "It is my business if it affects her public persona. I've never met anyone so protective of their children as Mark Keeler, so if she did something bad enough to make him chuck her out of the house, it's bound to be bad enough to ruin her reputation. Whatever this is, I need to control it."
"Not unless she asks you to, you don't. Why are you even here?" As far as he knew, MJ wasn't scheduled to meet with Payson until they landed in London, and then only briefly. Payson had been adamant that the Olympics be about gymnastics, not publicity. The publicity stuff wasn't supposed to start until after she was done competing.
"NBC Universal wants footage of them training in the days leading up to the Olympics," she explained. "I left a message for you at the gym, but you never returned my call."
He tried to recall if he'd seen a message from her on his desk, but he couldn't remember. He'd been distracted the day before, anxious to get out and get back to Payson. "I've had more important things on my mind, MJ. With four girls getting ready for the Olympics and Payson in the hospital, I haven't had time to check my messages for days."
"What?" she shrieked.
He quickly thought through his last sentence to figure out what she was screaming about, and could have hit himself over the head when he figured it out. "Shit. I can't believe I just said that out loud. Listen, MJ, you are not using this as a publicity angle. She doesn't want people to know she's sick."
She narrowed her eyes and pinned him with her gaze. "How sick is she?"
"If this leaks I will personally kill you," he threatened, hating himself for letting it slip. "She has some kind of rare blood disease. Her blood cells are killing themselves. She had to get a transfusion to replace them."
She furrowed her eyebrows, confused. "Does this have something to do with why her dad kicked her out?"
"Not exactly," Payson's voice said from behind them. They turned to see her standing in the bedroom doorway, wearing jean shorts and a tank top with her wet hair piled on top of her head. Again, she ignored MJ and looked straight at him. "I called Austin."
He understood what she was telling him. She'd talked to Austin and they agreed to tell MJ. She was also telling him that she wasn't brave enough to do it this time. He kept his eyes locked on her as he said, "Payson's pregnant."
He heard rather than saw MJ collapsing to the couch. He ignored her. Payson walked straight to him and he enveloped her in his arms, not caring what his former flame thought of the intimate position. She burrowed her head into his neck, both thanking him for doing what she couldn't and asking him for support. MJ was the first non-family member she'd told, at least if you counted Sasha as family, which he did.
MJ broke into their moment. "You're pregnant?"
Payson pulled away from him and he used his thumbs to wipe away the tears that had collected in her eyes. She turned back to MJ and nodded. "Yeah, eight weeks. Pretty much on the dot."
"And you're keeping it?" she asked incredulously, somehow guessing Payson's intentions.
Payson narrowed her eyes, understanding the deeper condemnation beneath her agent's tone. "Yes, we're keeping him. And I would appreciate if you didn't refer to my child as it anymore." Everyone called babies 'it' before they knew the sex, but there was something derogatory in the way MJ used the term. She thought any relationships outside of sex and business were useless, as Sasha knew all too well, so she would never be able to see a child as anything but a burden.
"Who's the father?"
"Austin Tucker," she said, not offering up any further details. MJ would only use them against her.
"And what does this have to do with your…" she waved her hand in the air as if that would explain what she meant, "you blood disease or whatever drivel Sasha was just spouting."
"Maybe nothing. I'm anemic, which is pretty common during pregnancy, and that might have triggered the eryptosis," Payson explained, managing to keep her cool. "But eryptosis is rare, so we don't know if the anemia caused it or if it caused the anemia. I may have had the problem even if I wasn't pregnant."
MJ seemed to come out of her shock and jumped right back into her role as Payson's agent. "If this ever comes out, we're going with the story that the disease had nothing to do with the pregnancy. We can't have people thinking that you did something to put the baby in danger. In fact, we're going to say that you didn't know you were pregnant until after the Olympics. You don't get a normal period, so it's perfectly reasonable for you not to know. Just don't go telling people how far along you are. If we knock you a couple weeks back nobody will suspect a thing."
Payson accepted the advice without complaint. She wouldn't say it, but she was concerned about her reputation, too. "You should know that I'm going to test positive for blood doping. It's supposed to stay confidential, but things don't always go the way they're supposed to. It could get leaked."
"Why are you going to test positive for blood doping?" It was proof of how shocked MJ was that she didn't catch on. Normally she was quick on the uptake.
"I had a blood transfusion. I may have more. That's going to show up on the drug screen. They've already waived the first transfusion and we're working on a TUE for any future ones, so I shouldn't send up any red flags. But shouldn't doesn't mean won't. You need to be prepared in case this gets out."
MJ nodded, slipping back into her professional persona again. "I'll get to work on it. We'll have a press release prepared if the test results leak, and one in case you look like hell and people start to notice you're sick. Now, you and Austin have to start acting like a couple. We're not ever going to confirm or deny a pregnancy, but when you start showing people need to automatically know who the father is. Having to guess makes you come off like a slag, not to mention that someone would inevitably guess it was Sasha."
Payson grimaced. "That'll be tough. The girls think I hate him. They'll notice if we suddenly start holding hands or something."
"Why do they think you hate him?" MJ asked warily.
Payson turned her head away again and Sasha knew that she couldn't answer. He laid a hand on her shoulder and she turned to hide her face in his chest while he explained, "Austin didn't take the news very well at first. He said some things about her. Loudly. The whole gym heard."
MJ asked what he said and he answered, even though he didn't want to. "Mostly he made accusations about us. Well, more about me. And he made some crude comments about having sex with her."
"Stage a make up," she suggested. "People stage break ups all the time, why should this be any different? Just have a loudly whispered discussion where he begs you for forgiveness and you resist for a little while and then give in. Problem solved."
Payson turned so that she could se MJ again, although she left her cheek pressed against his chest. "You want me to stage a make up for a relationship that doesn't even exist?"
"You mean you really were just shagging around?" She was really off her game today. He'd known MJ Martin since he was seventeen and he'd never seen her lose her professionalism like this. Even when they were sleeping together, she would put her clothes back on and get right back to work.
"MJ," he said, pulling Payson tighter against him, "This is not helping. Can we please get back to controlling the situation instead of making it worse?"
She pulled herself together again and started over. "You're right, Sasha. Payson, I'm sorry, that was completely inappropriate for me to say. It does, however, prove a point. If I was surprised enough to lose my cool, I can assure you that others will be as well. If you want to maintain even a shred of your reputation, you have to do this. Call Austin and set up your act. I'll give you until Wednesday, but when you pull up to that airport you and he are going to be lovey for the cameras. And be careful around Sasha. This," she said, gesturing to their intimate posture, "is not okay. There are rumors enough about the two of you already, we don't need any more."
"Fine, done," Payson responded, but she didn't draw out of their embrace. He suspected that he was actually supporting her full weight at this point. "But can we please just stop talking about this? I've had a rough weekend and I really can't do this right now."
MJ nodded and headed toward the door. "Wednesday, Payson. Work this out however you want, but on Wednesday you're a couple whether you like it or not." Then she looked Sasha and said, "I'll be at the gym tomorrow morning with the camera crew. Make sure your girls are looking their best."
"Wait," Sasha said, halting her before she could open the door, "That's not going to work. If Austin has to come by the gym it needs to be in the morning before he leaves for Denver, and you can't catch that on tape."
She frowned, considering the options. She was contractually obligated to NBC Universal, but Sasha knew that she wouldn't jeopardize Payson's career by allowing her 'make up' to be recorded. "I could probably put it off until the afternoon and still make my deadline. Would that work?"
"Not really, no," Payson interrupted. "Not unless we want people to know I'm sick. I'm feeling better since the transfusion, but I'm not delusional enough to think that I can get through an entire day of training without wearing out. I'll last 'til noon at best."
"Why don't you come in a little later in the morning? Give Austin an hour to get in and out of the gym and then set up at nine o'clock. You can shoot Payson first, before she gets too tired, and then move on to Lauren, Emily, and Kaylie." Personally, he would rather they not be there at all, but he knew that wasn't an option. NBC Universal was practically the Word of God in U.S. gymnastics.
MJ agreed, and as soon as she was out the door Payson mumbled something into the fabric of his shirt. "I didn't quite catch that, Pay," he teased.
She pulled away from him and repeated herself. "I said I can't believe this is my life. Seriously, if someone told you when you first came to the Rock that one of us would get pregnant, wouldn't you have guessed Lauren?"
"Actually, I would have guessed Emily." She gave him a quizzical look and he elaborated. "She was all over the place when she first came here and she had some serious acceptance issues. I honestly wasn't sure if she would ever make it to the Olympics."
"Kaylie was boy-crazy; Lauren was slutty; Emily was needy. And yet… I can't change it now, though, so I shouldn't waste my time thinking about it. I have to go talk to Austin. We need to plan whatever is going to happen tomorrow."
She moved away from him but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back. "Payson, be careful."
As usual, she knew exactly what he was talking about. She raised one eyebrow and asked, "Really, we're having this conversation? Because I already talked about this with my mom and the answer is still the same: it's none of your business."
"I'm sure your mum was talking to you about this from an emotional standpoint. I'm not talking about emotionally, I'm talking about physically. You really think that it was a coincidence that you got sick right after the last time?"
"What is it with men?" she asked, jerking her hand away from his. "Yes, it was a coincidence. Pregnant women have sex all the time and it does not start morning sickness or kill your blood. Having sex did not make me sick."
Technically it did. Having sex got her pregnant, which in turn made her sick, but he didn't think he should point that out right then. Instead he asked, "What about the sunburn?"
Her cheeks turned scarlet at the implication and her answer was a little more subdued than her first fiery response. "No, it didn't cause this. Burning isn't really the problem about being outside while you're pregnant, overheating is. It was a cooler day and there was a breeze, so I wasn't anywhere close to overheating."
"Fine, you win. It was a coincidence," he admitted. "Listen, Pay, I can't stop you and I'm not going to try, but you need to be careful. You might feel better right now, but you are still sick, so nothing rough and no more having sex outside. Let him act like the man he ought to be and take care of you."
Instead of being embarrassed like she should have been, she chuckled and grinned up at him. "Did you seriously just give me sex advice as my coach? It's weird enough for you to say that to me as a friend, but you were definitely using your coaching voice. No wonder people think you cross lines with me."
He blushed and she laughed. "I'm just worried about you," he grumbled. "Someone has to look out for your health."
"Okay, I'm leaving," she said, still laughing. "I'll be sure to tell Austin how you think he should act in bed. He'll just love that."
A/N: MJ Martin… slightly horrible person, completely awesome agent. She's fun to write anyway, and then I got to fit in the word 'slag,' which is my all time favorite British slang word, so I had a blast writing her this chapter :) Also, the fake make-up she suggested happens chapter after next, and it might be my favorite thing I've ever written.
Go ahead, click on the shiny blue button. You know you want to. I'm not above begging, and between being sick, finishing up grad school, getting licensed, and applying for jobs I really need some review love. Reviews are like sunshine; they make my day brighter. (Yes, even I'm cringing at how cheesy that was.)