A/N - "Since Paige is just as good as Emily (maybe better) why doesn't she go pro?" - guest

Thanks for your kind review.

As much as it hurts me to write this (because Paige is my heroine), in this Paily universe, Emily is the better swimmer. Paige is a great swimmer (the top of her class), but Emily is the kind of swimmer that comes around once every decade or so.

Paige won this race because she played to her strengths. Emily excels as a sprinter, so Paige chose 400 Meters. Over the longer distance, her years of experience and coaching gave her enough of an advantage (especially in the turns) to edge Emily out at the end.

If they were to swim the same race again after Emily had another year of training under her belt (especially if she decides to go pro), the outcome might well be different.

Sorry - this is way more information than you asked for, but thanks for reading this fic!


Paige and Emily settled in on the couch, where Paige ordered Chinese while Emily found something for them to watch. Not that it mattered what they watched, or even what they ate. They just wanted to be together under a throw blanket, holding one another. It had been too long.

They didn't exchange many words that evening. Few words were necessary. They had each other, some bad take out, and an irrelevant movie. They were content.

Emily relished the feeling of Paige's strong hand, gently smoothing circles on her back. The circles spanned the space between her shoulders, with Paige's hand making the occasional foray down to Emily's dimples. Emily cooed appreciatively, and, at the sound, Paige leaned in close and brushed the hair away from Emily's neck, depositing an open-mouthed kiss there.

"Paige!" Emily shrieked out in laughter, pushing Paige's face away from the sensitive spot.

"Shit! Sorry, Em! I forgot." Paige kicked herself for having destroyed the mood.

"Like hell you forgot!" Emily pushed Paige down onto her back and climbed astride her, forcing Paige's hands over her head with a devilish scowl.

Okay, this night is taking an interesting turn, Paige thought. As she struggled to gain the upper hand, she realized just how effective Emily's strength-and-conditioning workouts had been. She made a mental note to compliment Coach Straughn. But that wasn't what mattered right now. "So what are you going to do about it?" she asked, in defiant bluster. But Emily could feel Paige struggling futilely beneath her. She knew that she was in control.

"Whatever..."

Emily used her knees to push Paige's thighs apart.

"... the hell..."

Emily put her full weight atop Paige's chest and leaned her face in tight.

"... I want!" she growled into Paige's ear.

Paige chuckled, only slightly nervous. Not nearly as nervous as she was wet. "What happened to my shy little girlfriend?"

"Ooooh!" Emily growled. Paige knew that those words would set Emily off. Emily bit hard into Paige's shoulder, and Paige's body bucked at the sensation. Emily was still firmly atop her, decisively immobilizing her arms.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Paige laughed.

"Not yet you aren't," Emily barked, "but you're going to be!"

Emily sat up on top of Paige. "Don't move!" she commanded, and Paige shook her head submissively, smiling widely. Emily let go of Paige's hands and roughly undid the buttons on Paige's shirt, watching her fingers as they went to work on each one, her lips pursing and unpursing slightly at each new morsel of exposed flesh. When she pushed the shirt to the side, Paige tried to help by shimmying out of it, but Emily shot her a look. Don't move, Paige remembered, and she lay still again.

Emily slowly pulled her own shirt over her head and cinematically unlooped her bra and removed it. Paige was doing her best not to move, but she couldn't control the spasming of her legs at the sight of Emily's ample breasts unleashed. Emily smirked at the reaction. Evidently, that movement was permissible.

Emily pushed the cups of Paige's bra off of her breasts and leaned in, intently rubbing her hardening nipples against Paige's as she gave her a deep, searing kiss. Paige's head rose as she met Emily at the kiss, stroking and sucking on her tongue, but she made sure not to move her hands from the spot where Emily had left them, above her head.

Emily gave Paige's cheek the most tender caress - the tenderness out of character with the rest of the encounter - and stood up. With her back turned to Paige, she pulled down her jeans and panties with an exaggerated bend at the waist. Paige let out a frustrated moan, using every last bit of her self-control to comply with the "Don't Move" directive, despite the tantalizing sight before her. Emily wiggled her hips ever so slightly, just to add to the torture.

The next thing that Paige knew, Emily was sitting on her face, working at getting Paige's pants off. Paige grabbed Emily's ass and began rubbing it as she licked between Emily's folds.

"Yeah, Baby," Emily cooed, not missing a beat as she got Paige's pants down as far as her knees and started kissing and rubbing Paige's thighs. Paige felt the hardness of Emily nipples against her lower abdomen. She would have to thank Coach Straughn for the flexibility work, as well.

Paige heard a rip. Apparently, Emily couldn't be bothered pulling her boyshorts out of the way. Paige wasn't complaining. The underwear was already ruined, at that point, anyway. Emily's probing fingers met no resistance, and Paige let out a gasp as they entered her. Her head flew back against the cushions as she wilted under Emily's ministrations. "Don't fucking stop!" Emily said, with more pleading and desperation than authority in her voice. Paige dug her fingertips into Emily's cheeks and resumed her rhythm. She moved her hand between them and stroked Emily's clit, the movement finally breaking Emily's concentration on Paige's needs. Emily let out a desperate moan, and that was all the direction that Paige needed.

Paige flipped Emily underneath her, giving her mouth a better angle at Emily's entrance. Emily put her hand on top of Paige's head as it bobbed in and out, the waves of her auburn hair massaging Emily's thighs with each piston-like movement. Paige rubbed firm, smooth hands over Emily's thighs and her waist. When her hands drifted down to Emily's ass, Emily screeched, "Smack it!" Paige obliged with a loud grunt, the smack sending shock waves from Emily's core straight to the pleasure center of her brain.

The sounds coming from deep within Emily's throat were driving Paige crazy with delight, desire, and lust. She had never felt more connected to Emily in all of their time together.

Emily would have agreed with that feeling had her mind been capable of coherent thought. She was holding on to only one thought: hold on. She wanted to make this last and last. It wasn't just the mind-blowing sex. It was that feeling that she hadn't experienced in so long: The feeling that it was just the two of them, with nothing and nobody else in all of time and space. She was losing herself; she had never been so ecstatically lost in Paige; in their oneness.

Only with Paige did Emily feel safe enough to allow herself to lose herself like that.

When she finally shuddered into climax, she almost would have sworn that felt the earth quake. Paige immediately turned gentle. She realized that this was no ordinary orgasm, and she knew that Emily would need time to come back to herself.

Emily reached out a desperate hand and grabbed tight onto Paige's arm. She had a faraway look in her eye, and her breathing was shallow and quick. Paige lovingly stroked her arm, smiling at her to let her know that she was there. Still there. And that she would always be there.


Emily woke up sometime in the middle of the night, not sure how she had gotten into bed. She was naked, and she could feel Paige's body, naked, behind her. Her arm had fallen asleep, but when she tried to move to relieve the pressure on it, Paige's arms tightened around her, keeping her firmly in place. "Paige... Paige!" she moaned.

Paige shook the sleepiness away. "Huh? What? You okay, Emily?" she groaned

Emily laughed to herself. "I need to move."

Nothing.

"Paige?"

"Oh." Paige realized how tightly she was gripping Emily and relaxed her arms. "Sorry, Em."

"How late were we up?"

Paige shrugged. "I woke up and we had fallen asleep on the couch," she yawned. "12:30, maybe?"

"I don't remember getting up."

Paige smiled, tugging on a strand of Emily's hair. "You didn't. You just looked so angelic that I couldn't bear to wake you."

"Oh." Emily smiled and kissed the hand that was fiddling with her hair. "So, sleeping naked was your idea?"

Paige smiled shyly behind Emily's head. "Well, you just looked so angelic that I couldn't bear..." Paige trailed off.

"When are we getting up?"

Paige shrugged. "What do you have to do today?"

"I don't know." Emily yawned. "So, we can just sleep in?"

"Yeah. It's nice not to have to get up every day and train, isn't it?"

"Psssh! As if you'd know anything about training! You're losing your edge, McCullers! You couldn't even knock me off of you."

"I didn't want to," Paige claimed.

"Admit it, Paige, I dominated you!"

"Yeah, whatever, Em! The way that I dominated you in the pool?"

"Yeah, whatever, McCullers." Emily giggled, reaching back to touch Paige's cheek. She cuddled into Paige and yawned. "I missed this. I missed us."

"I did, too, Em."

"I like waking up in your arms. I like knowing that you've got me all night long."

Paige squeezed Emily to confirm that she did, indeed, have her.

"We're going to have to talk about the future, aren't we?"

Paige nodded her affirmation into Emily's shoulder. "Not now." She kissed the shoulder. "Sleep now. We've got plenty of time to talk." she squeezed Emily again. "We've got all the time in the world."

Emily turned around, smiling, and gave Paige a quick kiss. She loved the sound of that.


The next time Paige awoke, she found that Emily had switched positions so that her head was down at the foot of the bed. She could feel Emily's finger gently the tattoo on her lower calf.

When Paige sat up to take a closer look, Emily sat up as well, and moved the circling finger up to Paige's triceps. "Did you ever think about getting another tattoo?" she asked, not realizing that she had punctuated the question by drawing a question mark on Paige's bicep with her finger.

Paige shrugged. "Not really. That one wasn't really even my idea." Emily scrunched up her lips. "Disappointed?"

Emily shrugged. "I guess not."

"Emily, do you want me to get another tattoo?"

Emily smiled shyly. "Back at Hollis, I used to think about whether or not you had any other ones."

"You used to fantasize about it?" Paige was suddenly a lot more interested in the conversation.

Emily looked down. "No, not really," she said through a smile. "Nothing bad. I just used to think about what it would be like. You know, if you had a tattoo, and you and I were the only ones who knew about it."

Paige blushed a little, in spite of herself. "And the tattoo artist." Emily smiled. "And where were you thinking that this tattoo would be?"

"I don't know," Emily said demurely. She pulled the hair off of the back of Paige's neck and made an X with her finger there. Paige was starting to feel something. "Maybe like a Chinese character there, or..." She stroked her finger on the side of Paige's still-bare breast. "I don't know," she said again, with a shrug. "Just something that I could play with on a lazy morning in bed like this." She idly bit her lip and gave Paige's breasts a playful squeeze.

Paige had just about all that she could take, at that point. She pushed Emily down on the bed and started kissing her wildly. Emily let out a squeal of delight. This wasn't the result that she had envisioned, but she was definitely glad that she'd brought the subject up.


Once the season ended, Emily began spending less and less time in her dorm room and more and more time in Paige's apartment. She felt bad for Sydney, but Sydney insisted that she was fine. "I'm not an only child," she teased, making light of the matter, "so I've never had my own room before. It's a nice change!"

Emily knew that Sydney was joking, but she half expected to get back to the room someday and find that Sydney had redecorated; moving the beds together to form a single king-size bed, or packing all of Emily's clothes into boxes to clear up drawer and closet space.

They still saw a lot of each other, of course. If for no other reason, they were each other's off-season training partners. They invited Paige to join them, but she declined. If she did it for them, she would have to do it for all of the freshmen, and she really didn't have that kind of time. This ended up working in favor of Emily and Sydney's bonding time, as they made lunch after their sessions in the pool a part of their training routine.


"So, I hear that you're going to turn pro?" Sydney offered over pizza during one of their after-training feasts.

Emily rolled her eyes. "Oh, God. Please tell me that that rumor isn't making the rounds..."

"But you are being recruited?"

"I guess," Emily shrugged dismissively.

"So?"

"So, what?"

"Are you going to abandon us to go swim for the big bucks?" Sydney's tone was teasing, but her concern was genuine.

"I honestly don't know, Syd. That seems to be the 'proper' thing to do. Whether or not it's right for me doesn't seem to figure into the equation," Emily concluded in frustration.

"Who's telling you that it's the proper thing? Paige?"

"No. I mean, Paige always tells me that I should do whatever's best for me, and that I should get the most out of my time in college. But we still haven't really discussed my turning pro. I think that we're both avoiding it."

"You're avoiding it? It sounds as though you don't want to do it?"

Emily sighed again, leaning back in her chair. Before she spoke, though, she leaned over the table, almost as if what she was about to whisper was top-secret information. "Is it bad if I say that I don't?"

Sydney's head snapped back. "Why would that be bad?"

"Well, it's as if I'm letting everyone down. You know, 'I've been given this gift,'" Emily said in a mocking voice, echoing the words that everyone, it seems, had been telling her, "and I'd be wasting it if I didn't go pro."

Sydney laughed. Emily looked at her confused. "Emily, by that logic, you should be bi!"

Emily was still confused.

"I mean, you've got this great body, but you're wasting it by not sleeping with guys."

Emily dipped her head and smiled shyly, shaking her head.

"Exactly," Sydney said. "You've got to do what's right for you. Be true to yourself."

Emily got up to hug Sydney. She had given her something to think about, although the decision was still not going to be an easy one.