A/N the First: Ah, the dreaded chapter six, we meet at last. Thank you to all of the wonderful people that have been leaving reviews (this story has the highest review-to-chapter ratio of all of my stories, believe it or not, which tells me that Sarah in a bikini is a powerful force indeed. It is known). Thank you for all of the tweets, PMs, Tumblrs, so on and so forth. If you want to ask me about stories, follow the links in my profile to my Tumblr or my blog, where I've set up some FAQs for everybody's reading pleasure.
Special shout-outs: mxpw the bestest beta EVARRRRRR, Lindsay my diving coach extraordinaire, quistie, Aardie, lucky47 the brilliant pre-readers three. Joel, in case I don't forget to thank him next chapter for making sure I get my London partying in just right. Insomnia, for inspiring that this fic is the craziest fic of all fic I have ever wri...oh, right, forgot Scream and 405. Never mind. Hey, wanna read the chapter now? Here you go!
Chapter Six: Diving In
"Oh, my God!"
He didn't know if he was dating Sarah Walker, or what was really going on between them other than they liked each other and kissing was nice, but Chuck had learned one thing: where Sarah went, Carina followed. And when the blonde tackled him in a running hug, Carina wasn't far behind to throw herself into the frenzy. Ellie didn't let the fact that she was trying to keep up with two gold-medalists trip her up, either. She joined in the dogpile, which the NBC cameras caught in full high-definition.
"That was so awesome, dude." Once Chuck had extracted himself, Awesome pulled him in for a hand-grip-hug, pounding him on the back almost hard enough to bruise. "That last dive—totally killer."
"Yeah? I saw the shirts! Whose idea was that?"
"Mine, duh," Morgan said. "Though I have no idea where we're going to find a place open to wash them this late to wear again tomorrow because, dude! You made it!"
"I know!" Chuck went through another round of hugs, answering the questions fired at him without really comprehending them. He was floating. All through his post-dive shower and the coordinators telling him what time he needed to be back at the pool the next morning, and Anna analyzing his dives, he'd been floating in a perpetual state of stunned disbelief. He'd moved on to the next round. He was going to the semifinals at the 2012 London Olympics.
"Okay, okay," Anna said, appearing at Chuck's side. "The star needs his sleep. You can celebrate with him after he's won gold."
"I highly doubt that I'm going to," Chuck started to say, but he was interrupted by another dogpile, this time with all of them included. "Okay, fine! Fine! I'll win gold. Sheesh. Animals."
Anna tugged him away, shaking her head. "You need sleep. The semis are at an inhumane hour tomorrow. So go back to your room and get some rest. Alone. I'm putting an embargo on seeing any blonde volleyball players until you dive again."
"Don't worry," Chuck said. "I'll be good."
Anna gave him a stink-eye. "I know all about the condoms the Olympics coordinators gave you. Don't get tempted. You need to be clear for your dives tomorrow."
"Okay, okay. Though we haven't actually—"
"I don't want to know," Anna said, and shoved him out toward the pathway that led to the Village.
Two hours later, Chuck rolled over and punched his pillow, trying to get more comfortable. He'd gotten a couple of texts from Ellie, nothing more than her telling him congratulations and letting him know they were going back to the hotel to rest for the next day, as they were going to celebrate hard when Chuck won. He smiled at that. They were delusional if they thought he'd make it past the semis, but it was neat to make it even that far.
His cell phone buzzed with a new text. Grateful for something to break through his nervous thoughts, he picked it up, expecting it to be Morgan.
It was from Sarah: Text me when you get up? I'll buy you breakfast.
He wrote back, Are you sure? I don't want to bankrupt you.
You're awake?
Can't sleep.
Her text reply was almost immediate. Can I help?
Chuck debated. Though he was tired, he still felt restless. At Stanford, there would have been homework to complete, but in the Village, he had nothing. Most of the athletes would be in the bar, far away from the dormitories, or out on the town in London. For most of them, there was only the closing ceremony to look forward to.
But the basement would be empty, probably, and the basement had a lounge. Sarah's hotel was only a block away from the Village. Tired of trying to count sheep. Meet me at the pool table?
Be there in ten, Sarah texted back, and Chuck rolled out of bed to pull on a shirt.
She arrived only a minute or two after he did, brushing raindrops off the shoulders of her Team USA jacket. She wore jeans and her hair was down, so that she looked completely relaxed. Next to her he felt rumpled and out of sorts, like he should have dressed up rather than coming downstairs in his pajamas.
"Wired, huh?" she asked as he racked up the balls for the first game.
"It's my first post-Stanford competition," Chuck said, rearranging the stripes and solids so that they were in the proper order. "Making it also the first time I haven't come back and had to solve a twenty-page differential equation after a meet."
"I see." Sarah swung her pool cue from hand to hand as she regarded him. "You want to break?"
"No, you go ahead. You're going to kick my ass anyway."
"Glad to see those confidence levels are still sky-high," Sarah said. She bent over to the take the shot, giving Chuck quite a nice view down the front of her shirt. When she caught him looking, she raised an eyebrow and, without taking her eyes off of him, made the shot.
She knocked the two and the four in easily, but didn't hit anything on the next shot.
"Gah," Chuck said, both because that was incredibly hot and incredibly unfair. "Is there anything you're bad at? Anything at all?"
"Nope," Sarah said, and proceeded to dance-walk around him as he set up for his shot. When he lined up to take out the eleven, she hoisted herself onto the side of the pool table right next to him and gave him an innocent look. "What?"
"You're kind of blocking my shot."
"Oh, that one?" Sarah leaned over—the fact that her hair brushed his neck and shoulder had to be deliberate—to get a look. "You won't make that shot. Not from this angle."
Her hair tickled, breaking his concentration. She didn't sit back up, so her face remained inches from his. Through sheer willpower, he kept his focus. "I bet I can," he said, his voice deeper than usual. He almost cleared his throat, but he didn't want to alert Sarah to just how much she was getting to him. This would not be Pac-Man all over again.
Of course, it would probably be better than Pac-Man, but he had to have some pride.
"What's the deal?" Sarah asked, deliberately dropping her gaze to his lips.
It took an Olympic effort to not throw the cue to the side and kiss her. "If I make this shot," Chuck said, "I win."
Sarah smirked. "Deal."
"Eleven ball," Chuck said, his voice a little shakier thanks to that damned smirk. "Side pocket."
"I do have to say that there's no way you'll—"
Chuck took the shot. The cue ball took off with a perfect spin, easily nudging the eleven into the side pocket with just the right amount of force.
"—make that shot," Sarah said, and gave him a startled look. "Okay, wow. I did not see that—"
Chuck dropped the pool cue and closed the distance between the two of them. He felt Sarah's chuckle through his lips, but he didn't care. The woman knew exactly what she did to him. It was so unfair. It was perfect. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers toying with the ends of his hair as he shifted over so they weren't at such an awkward angle. The kiss deepened until every point of contact between their bodies felt like a furnace. Chuck didn't give a damn that they were technically in a public room or that he had never been in favor of excessive PDA. As long as Sarah kept doing that with her tongue, he'd sign off on anything and everything. He braced his free hand against the cool felt of the pool table, the other hand playing with the hem of Sarah's shirt, slipping below to feel the skin underneath.
Sarah must have liked that, for she tightened her grip, scooting even closer to him. When she tilted her head back in invitation, he moved his lips down her neck, smiling as she gasped. She bit his ear—gently, at least—in reply, and her fingers went for the hem of his shirt.
He needed no prompting for that. With the ease of a long-time diver, he whipped the garment off. Sarah's eyebrows went up; she leaned back, her gaze openly appreciative.
"What?" he asked.
"God bless all those hours you spend in the gym," Sarah said. "Oh, before we do anything else, I do believe..." She leaned all the way back on her elbow, reaching over. In an easy move, she flicked the eight ball into the corner pocket. "Victory is yours."
"So hot," Chuck said, and climbed onto the pool table with her. He leaned down to pick up exactly where they'd left off...and a throat cleared from the doorway.
Chuck went still. Under him, he felt Sarah do exactly the same thing, which told him they both recognized that cough. "Dammit, Bryce," Chuck said, forgetting in that second the ranged and complex history between his dive-partner and himself. "What do you want?"
"I don't think that's what that pool table's meant for, Chuck. You might want to get a room."
"Thanks for the tip, dude. Or you could leave."
"There's some folks coming in behind me, dude," Bryce said, his voice mild. "You've got time, though."
Chuck blew out a long breath and met Sarah's gaze. It helped that she looked just as annoyed as he felt. Somewhat. "Need a minute?" she asked him in an undertone.
He nodded tightly.
"I'll get rid of him," she said, and slipped out from under him, a peevish look in place. "Bryce."
"Sarah." Bryce gave her a nod. "Congratulations on the second gold. I knew you could do it."
"Thanks. I need to get some water. Keep me company?"
Chuck heard their footsteps recede, but didn't move for a minute. Sanity slowly returned: what the hell had they been thinking? He had a perfectly good room upstairs, where people like Bryce Larkin wouldn't just walk in on them and be privately amused at their expense. And he was due to dive again in less than ten hours, how the hell did he think he was going to concentrate?
But, he really, really had not wanted to stop.
When Sarah came back, he'd tidied up, pulling his shirt back on, putting the pool cues in the cupboard, making sure the pool balls were properly racked up for the next people to use the table. He sat on the edge of the pool table facing the door of the lounge. Sarah walked in, took one look at his expression, and her own face seemed to fall for a split-second.
"Dammit, Bryce," she said with a sigh. "I guess we're not picking up where we left off."
"I shouldn't. I need..."
"To be focused tomorrow. I get it."
"Can I walk you back to your hotel?" He could kiss her good-night like it was a real date instead of their undefined Olympic fling.
"Sure." Sarah held out a hand to him. "I'd like that."
They headed out of the Village together hand in hand. Chuck was grateful he'd remembered his pass and that they wouldn't have to go up to his room to fetch it, as he didn't want to be tempted. "What'd Bryce want?" he asked as they walked through the gate into the regular part of Stratford.
Sarah shrugged. "Apparently he couldn't sleep either and had the same idea we did."
"Jerk," Chuck said without much heat.
Sarah didn't disagree. "I'm sorry. I really was trying to help, and I think I've made it worse."
"Don't apologize. That was hands down the best game of pool I've played. Ever. I mean, after all, I won." He grinned. "Totally worth it."
They headed around the corner toward Sarah's hotel. Before they could reach the doors, though, she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and gave him a serious look. "Chuck, whatever happens tomorrow..."
"Yes?" he asked, nerves beginning to flutter in his midsection.
"Win or lose, and I personally think you're going to win, for the record—win or lose, we're picking up where we left off tonight. Tomorrow night. Got it?"
Chuck felt a smile take over his face by degrees until his cheeks physically hurt. "It's a date?"
"It's a date. Now go, get some sleep so you can win tomorrow. You'll need every bit of rest you can get." Sarah winked at him and, while he was standing there in a happy state of stupid shock, gave him a quick peck on the lips and a shove to get him started back toward the Village. He gave her a wave and headed off.
He had a date with Sarah Walker the next day. Win or lose, it was going to be awesome.
He let Sarah sleep and met Anna for breakfast, not in the Village but at a café a couple of Tube stops away. He'd expected that his stomach wouldn't be able to handle a single morsel, but instead he ordered what felt like one of everything on the menu and finished Anna's plate off for her, too. She watched him go with her eyebrows raised.
"I thought I said no volleyball players, Chuck," she said as he downed a glass of orange juice.
He choked. "What? N-no, this isn't post, um, this isn't post anything. I'm just hungry."
"You're never hungry before a big meet," Anna said. "So clearly somebody got up to something naughty last night—against orders!"
"Nothing happened. Well, okay, not much happened and—it's not that I'm hungry because of sex. Geez."
Anna looked around, clearly unimpressed. "I don't think the guy in the corner heard you, but everybody else did, so you're okay. You could say it louder, though, if you want."
"Crap," Chuck said, putting his head on his hands. "Kill me now."
"Can't do that. You've got to be at the pool soon and even though I'm pretty sure I could take your girlfriend, it'd be a pain to get bloodstains out of this official USA coaching jacket they're forcing me to wear."
"I'm not commenting on how you can take Sarah in a fight in any way, shape, or form."
"Okay. Then let's move on and talk about your dive list."
"Yeah." Chuck lifted his head and dug into his eggs. "I want to put the reverse first, get it out of the way."
"Nope," Anna said.
"You saw how horribly I screwed it up last night—if I get it out of the way early…"
"You've practiced this order," Anna said. "You're going to stick with this order."
"But I'm going to be freaking out about that dive the whole day," Chuck said. "I really think I should get it over with."
"Consider it motivation." Anna daintily spread jam on a scone.
Chuck scowled. "I bet another coach would let me change the dive order."
"Another coach convinced you that you were only good in synchros and piggy-backing off of another diver, and now you're in the semifinals for the Olympics on an individual event." Anna shrugged. "If that's not proof that I know best, I don't know what to tell you."
"Fine. But if I screw up the dive, I get to say 'I told you so.'"
"If you screw up the dive, I'm going to kick your ass, scary girlfriend or no."
"You're the best motivational speaker I know, Anna Wu."
Anna's lips twitched, but otherwise her expression didn't change. "Look at it this way," she said. "Yesterday, you had to beat fourteen divers to level up. This morning, you only have to beat six."
"Level up," Chuck said, rolling the words around on his tongue. "I like that."
"I thought you might."
"How cool would diving with armor be?"
"If you're not worried about your entry or drowning, completely cool."
"You know, if this fails, we could start up a company and sell T-shirts. They can say stuff like, 'My other Speedo is Mithril' and 'Sonic the Hedgehog Diving Academy.'" Chuck shook his head fondly. "Sonic's probably the best diver. Amazing tucks. Never had to tuck cowboy style in his life."
"Tails gets better height on his dives."
"Good point, but the second tail really screws up his entry."
"And on that note, we should probably get you in the warm up pool before you design an entire clothing line." Anna dropped money on the table, more than enough to pay for Chuck's truckload of food and cover a serviceable tip.
"What would we call it, though?" Chuck asked as they left. "The Diva Diver line?"
"Sure, Chuck, that's exactly what we'll call it. We'll be millionaires within days."
"I knew it. I so knew it. And I should spend less time around Morgan, huh?"
"Hey, you said it, not me."
At the pool, Anna hung around for his warm-up, shaking her head whenever he came up with a new nerdy slogan. The only time she engaged him was to argue against Luigi being the better diver ("Just because you're a statistical anomaly, Chuck, doesn't make all tall guys secretly good divers. Mario's way better, and don't even argue that Yoshi could kick their asses. He's so the wrong body type"), but for the most part, she left him alone to his rambling ideas. Their laughter did, however, draw surprised looks from the other divers stretching out to await their turns practice diving.
"What happened to you?" Cole asked, raising his eyebrows at Chuck, who was bouncing in place on his toes. "Somebody spike your morning tea?"
"Nope." Chuck stretched out his arms, flopping them around his body to keep his muscles loose. "Just feel good."
"Hm," said a voice behind him. "I'll have what he's having."
Chuck didn't turn. "Bryce," he said, his voice neutral.
"Chuck." Bryce seemed amused as he mirrored Chuck's tone perfectly.
"Oh, I can do this, too." Cole affected a terrible American accent as he said, "Bryce. Chuck. Cole."
Bryce shrugged, apparently not offended at all. "Just came over to wish the both of you luck."
"Thanks." Cole shook Bryce's hand. "Not sure we'll need it, but thanks. Good luck to you, too."
"Good luck," Chuck said, and shook his ex-teammate's hand.
Bryce headed to the other side of the platform with another nod, leaving Cole and Chuck behind. "Such an odd bloke," Cole said, shaking his head. "You two did the synchro thing, right?"
"Yeah. We used to be pretty good."
"I've no patience for synchro. I like having all the glory myself." Cole stretched, popping his shoulder. "Plus, if I'm going to synchronize my movements to somebody, I'd rather not have it be another bloke. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It's just not for me."
Chuck bounced in place again. "My coach never really let me compete in the individuals. I needed Bryce to keep me in line or something."
"Your coach was daft, then. Oh, looks like we're finally going. Good luck, mate."
"Same to you. See you at the bottom." Chuck clapped Cole on the shoulder and followed the Canadian diver, Lester Patel, up the stairs. Because he'd placed seventeenth the day before, he was diving second today. It meant he got his dives out of the way early, but it also meant waiting in agonizing purgatory at the end while every other diver had his turn.
Lester's first dive was his reverse dive. He stood back near Chuck and the volunteer at the top of the stairs and took a running start. The crowd, which was a little larger than the night before, let out an appropriate cheer, and Chuck felt the first nerves of the day set in.
He didn't like that feeling, so he simply pushed it away. If he did poorly, so be it. As he listened for the rumble of the scores to be announced—and cheered at by the Canadian contingent of the stands—he went through his routine, focusing on each individual part of his body as he always did. Toes. Ankles. Knees. The sharp edges and the planes, every part that made him Chuck Bartowski. He didn't think about Sarah or Ellie or any of the others in the stands. He simply walked out, tossed down his chamois, and assumed the position, resting all of his weight on his hands until his body was perfectly vertical.
Here goes nothing, he thought, and began to hum the Legend of Zelda theme song.
"Seriously, what the hell has gotten into you? Where can I get some?" Cole, a little out of breath from his third dive, leaned back against the wall under the shower, where Chuck had been standing, trying not to grin and to ignore the camera simultaneously.
"Dunno," Chuck said. "Woke up feeling great. It'll probably go away any minute."
"Did you see the glares you were getting from the Chinese coaches?" Cole ducked his head under the water and shook it, sending droplets everywhere. "Hell, from most of the coaches. Even my coach is out there trying to figure out who you are."
"Really?" Chuck scratched the back of his head. "I'm not really anybody."
"You just pulled three 90-pointers out of your ass. Nobody believes you're nobody anymore, mate."
"It was probably just luck."
"If I weren't so genial and charismatic, I'd punch you in the face," Cole said, laughing. "Seriously, you're a bit of a bastard."
"I'm in good company." Chuck flicked water at him. When a volunteer beckoned, he pulled his chamois from around his neck and saluted Cole with it. "That's my cue. I'll put a little more flair in it this time for you. Maybe some spirit-fingers." He wiggled his fingers at Cole as he left, grinning as the other man called, "Bastard!" after him.
In truth, Chuck wasn't entirely sure what was going on. He hadn't lied: even though he hadn't slept much the night before, he'd woken up ravenous and excited rather than beside himself with terror, like the day before. It was obvious that his feelings for Sarah and everything that had happened between them played a huge part, but that wasn't all of it. For the first time ever, he...just didn't give a damn. He'd woken with the idea on his mind that diving no longer defined him. It was something he did. It wasn't something that validated his existence.
Irony had a twisted sense of humor, Chuck thought. The minute he stopped using diving as a benchmark to measure himself against, he'd apparently started to excel at it. He'd heard of others having epiphanies—and he'd had a fair few himself, like the time he'd nailed his first three and a half somersault—but this hadn't even been that severe. It was just like all of the years of training, the hours in the pool, nights and days of sore muscles and injury, and everything stopped fighting him. So what if his coach was too young? So what if he was too tall? He was here. He could do this.
When it came his turn, he took his spot at the rear of the platform, ready to perform the same reverse dive that had ended disastrously the night before. He'd always hated the reverse. It was one of the two dives where his height really worked against him. Jumping outward and then spinning back toward the platform always seemed like the utter pinnacle of lunacy to him, but competitions loved those dives, and the Olympics required them. He just had to remind himself that once he made it through this dive, he'd get to do his back dive and his voluntary, two of his favorites. He ignored the nervous excitement running through the stands—after the first three dives, they were definitely paying attention to the underdog American diver—picked his orientation spot on the ceiling, hummed the right song, and stepped forward with his left foot. One step, two steps, one step to push off, coil the power in his legs, and launch. He drew his arms as tight around his knees—tighter, Anna's voice urged—as he could get them and let himself somersault down, sighting the water. A thrust of the hips to kick his legs out straight, a damn-near-vertical-entry, and he was in the water, the roar of the crowd in his ears.
There was no way in hell he was getting another 50 on that dive, not with that entry.
"Sorry, I forgot the spirit fingers," he told Cole when the other man finished his dive.
Cole laughed. "Damn. I was willing to let you try to beat me for gold in trade for proper spirit fingers."
"You'd have let me win gold? Aw, that's nice."
"I said try. Your lot did chuck a great big deal of tea into the ocean once."
"It's so nice that you English don't harbor long grudges or anything."
"I do have to ask: what the hell are spirit fingers?" Cole asked, and Chuck laughed.
His last two dives were pike, which he liked better than tuck. He got more speed on tucks, but pike required abdomen control. He'd always thought pike simply looked better, too, and Anna agreed, which was why she let him save these dives for last. "It gives you something to look forward to," she had said at the time. "Think of it as the carrot on the stick."
With Anna, it was usually more stick than carrot, but Chuck agreed in this case. He went through his second-to-last dive without much trouble, though he scored a little lower than he would have liked, and waited by the hot tub for Cole to come back for another round of banter.
When the audience let out a collective, "Ooh," he hurried out to the coaches' area. That was never good at a diving meet. A few seconds later, he was moving through the rest of the divers, trying to get near the edge of the water.
Cole had his head above water as he swam to the side of the pool, but his right arm dangled uselessly by his side. Immediately, medics in Great Britain polo shirts stormed the side of the pool, armed with ice bags and a stretcher. Cole pushed himself to his feet and tried to wave them off. "It's only dislocated—you can pop it right back in, it's fine, I've done this loads of times. Hell, there's no need for that..."
He looked back over his shoulder as he was hurried off by the medics. "Good luck, Chuck! Guess you can win gold now."
"Uh, thanks," Chuck said, but he wasn't sure Cole heard him. He stood with the rest of the divers and watched. None of them, he knew, couldn't stop the little voice in the back of the mind, the little voice that asked What if I'm next? Even more shameful than that was the voice that whispered, That's one less to beat.
Fourth.
Holy crap, he'd placed fourth. Out of eighteen of the best divers on the planet, he'd placed fourth. Chuck still couldn't believe it as he zipped up his bag. The divers had a few hours to rest, time for massages and proper cool-downs before the warm-ups for the evening's finals. The evening's finals where Chuck would dive fourth-from-last because he'd placed fourth in the semifinals.
The head diving coach had told Anna that Chuck was supposed to report to the Louganis room, where most of the sports medicine staff had set up. Cole's injury had put all of the other divers on edge; Chuck could see the two Chinese divers being shuffled off to their own ready-room, the remaining Great Britain diver being whisked off in another direction. He slung his gym bag over his shoulder and followed Bryce. Anna was waiting for him outside of the locker room. She didn't seem happy to share her charge, but she knew enough about the sport not to complain. "How're you feeling?" she asked Chuck as they walked along.
"Am I dreaming?"
Anna pinched his elbow.
"Ow. That was rhetorical."
"Either way, it answered your question. How's your shoulder?"
"A little stiff. My knee's fine. Overall, I'm pretty loose."
"Tired?"
"I could use a nap," Chuck said. "Anna, am I really in fourth place?"
"You were. Now you've got a whole new game level to get through." They approached a corner and Anna grabbed his arm to stop him. "Wait. There's reporters in the breezeway. You'll want to give them a little breathing room between you and Bryce."
"On a scale of one to ten, how much are the news outlets eating this up, this thing with Bryce and Sarah?"
"Well, let me put it this way, Chuck: for the first time in years, they're actually paying attention to men's diving, and it has very little to do with those tiny Speedos."
"Don't they get enough soap on daytime TV?"
Evidently not, Chuck soon found. The first reporter that called his name bore a microphone with the TMZ logo. Baffled and surprised by all of the cameras suddenly around him, Chuck wandered over. "Chuck, what do you have to say now that Bryce and Sarah have reconciled?"
"What?" Chuck asked as a paper was shoved at him. He looked at it in confusion. It didn't take him any time to figure out that it was a picture from the night before, though the image was blurry and grainy. Bryce and Sarah were walking together in the Village courtyard. He recognized Sarah's top because he had to figure two minutes before the picture had been taken, he'd been trying to get it off of her. "Huh. This is really blurry."
Anna snatched the paper away from him, glanced at it, and turned her most ferocious scowl on the reporter. Though said reporter didn't flinch, the cameraman backed up a step. "What the hell is this? What are you trying to pull? The man's in the middle of an international competition against the best divers in the world and you're trying to generate fake drama? What, do you write for the CW? Go away and come back when you have real reporting credentials. As for the rest of you, Chuck is not taking any questions right now. You can talk to him after he's won."
"So you're going to win the gold like your girlfriend, Chuck?" the reporter from CNN asked, all eagerness.
"I just want to go out there and dive well," Chuck said, ignoring the girlfriend comment since Bryce was still nearby, talking to one of the bloggers from ESPN. Even though there was still some residual annoyance at Bryce for interrupting him and Sarah the night before, he wasn't going to rub Bryce's nose in it. That felt all too high school for his liking. "But my coach is right, guys. I gotta go. Dives to do, medals to win."
In the Louganis room, he climbed into one of the hot tubs and let out a sigh. Six dives was actually a short regimen comparatively, but that sort of focus put a lot of stress on his muscles.
Bryce climbed into the other hot tub and sighed as well. "Is it over yet?" he asked, and Chuck flashed back to Stanford for a brief second, toward the end of one long, exhausting practice or another where there were sore muscles to rest and homework assignments awaiting them.
"God, I wish," Chuck said, and submerged himself under the water. When he came up for air, he rested his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to meditate. It failed, like it always did, but at least Bryce remembered that habit well enough that he didn't try to make small talk. Sometimes it helped to have a history.
After a post-mortem with Anna, a massage, an examination from the Team USA staff, and a more well-balanced lunch than he would have preferred, Chuck was allowed a nap. They stuck him in a little rec room, where Chuck imagined the other swimmers and divers reviewed tape between their heats. He and Anna, however, had been operating independently, so to Chuck, it was simply a warm room with a large-screen TV and the ever-present smell of chlorine, a familiar scent throughout his life. Chuck easily dozed off on the couch.
He woke to a light tap on the door. "Yeah, Anna?" he asked, groggy and disoriented. "Is it time?"
"It's me." Ellie poked her head through the door. "They told me you should probably wake up and eat something."
"What time is it?" he asked, looking around for a clock.
Ellie showed him her watch. He'd have preferred another half hour, but the minute he'd become a serious contender for the medal, he'd become official property of the dive team and had to follow their schedule. So instead he gave Ellie a smile, albeit a sleepy one. "Hey."
"Hi." She gave him a hug. "You were amazing. Congratulations. Do you want me to save my 'I told you so' for later or just tell you now?"
"Go double or nothing." Chuck scrubbed his hands over his hair, wincing as he felt just how much his hair was standing up. He let out a massive yawn and began to stretch out his limbs, popping his shoulders in a way that made Ellie wince. "Sorry. Who'd you have to kill to get back here?"
"Sarah and Carina are distracting the guard so I made a run for it." Ellie nudged him with her elbow, her grin taking on a mischievous glint. "I like them. They're a lot of fun. Far more down to earth than I was expecting."
"Down to earth? Carina?"
"Well, more Sarah. Carina put Devon in a headlock."
Chuck's laughter bubbled up, shaking his shoulders and making him drop down onto the couch. "Of course she did."
"How are you doing? You were killing it out there, Chuck. It was like you had no fear. It was, well, in a word, it was amazing."
"Completely different than yesterday." Chuck stretched out his back. "I don't know. It was the first time where I was like, 'this is fun to be here.' I don't know if it'll last, but I'm enjoying it while I can."
And trying, he thought, not to end up like Cole Barker. At least it was only that his arm had popped out of its socket, a fairly common injury for divers. Cole would be back and in training in a couple of weeks.
"Good," Ellie said, surprising Chuck. He'd been expecting a pep talk, but Ellie only smiled at him. "That's all I ever wanted for you. You used to love diving so much until you went to Stanford. It's nice to see that you're enjoying it again."
"On the world's biggest stage. In front of billions of people. I picked quite the comeback, sis."
"I know. It's so typically you that I have to laugh. Speaking of which…you know your girlfriend can only watch you dive through her fingers, don't you?"
"What?"
"Here." Ellie pulled her camera out of her pocket and flicked it on, sorting through the pictures. "This is what she looks like, every single time you dive."
Chuck took the camera, his brow crinkling. It was a close-up of Sarah, with Carina in the background munching on popcorn. Sarah had both hands over her face and was peering through her fingers, her expression clearly worried. Puzzled—the woman regularly threw herself to the ground to hit a ball aimed at her face at speeds of like fifty miles per hour—Chuck thumbed to the next picture, which was a motion-capture of Sarah and Carina in mid-jump, screaming. He went back to the first picture.
"It's really kind of cute," Ellie said.
"But she's fearless. She—well, you were at one of her matches, you see what they do every day. That makes no sense. I mean, it's just a dive. I do that all the time."
"You're cute when you're oblivious, too." Ellie patted his knee. "Anyway, I think my time's up, but I wanted to tell you that no matter what happens today, I'm proud of you. I've always been proud of you."
Since he couldn't really find words, Chuck just hugged her. "Thank you."
"Aces, Charles. You're aces."
"A Dad quote?" Chuck grinned. "I'm impressed. Tell everybody out there I love them and that I'll see them after?"
"Will do. Good luck."
Once she left him alone, Chuck took a deep breath, feeling the nerves that hadn't bothered to come around that morning finally come and settle in his stomach. It was time to go get warmed up to try to win an Olympic medal.
A/N the Second: If your computer monitor melted or you spat liquid all over your keyboard, this fic is not held liable by the Fanfiction Convention of 2003. Sorry about that. Here's a preview of next chapter:
He entered the water with one single thought on his mind: one dive left.
One dive to go, and then it would be over. Chuck pulled himself from the pool, trying not to wince as his shoulder let him know it was not happy with him. He scanned the stands for his entourage as he walked back to the hot tub, but he couldn't see the "CHUCK" shirts anywhere in the crowd. That was okay, he decided as he climbed into the hot tub to give his stiff muscles a reprieve. They were out there somewhere, cheering him on, and that was all that mattered.
When other divers needed the hot tub, he climbed out and headed for the shower instead. One dive left.
