Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: One very bad word in here.
Payson dominated at the Pacific Rim Championship. She had swept the golds, an achievement which had the media chittering, but the victory felt hollow. Of course she won; she had turned into the gymnastics robot that Lauren always accused her of being.
Her win wasn't the only aspect of the competition that had the media in a frenzy. Gossip was flying about the reason for her haggard appearance and flat expression. She hadn't slept in weeks and hadn't smiled in even longer; she looked like hell and knew it. Her favorite of the current rumors was that she was dying of some horrible disease and her final wish was to compete at the Olympics. People were such idiots.
Her teammates knew that something was wrong—how could they not?—but they didn't know the reason. Even Lauren was worried enough to hover over her during practice. Lauren, Kaylie, and Kelly took turns watching over her, sending her concerned looks every twenty seconds as if their fretting would actually accomplish something. Kelly suspected the truth, so her efforts to help were slightly more successful than those of their teammates. She had surprised Payson their first night in Washington by crawling into bed with her and holding her as she cried. Payson got the impression that Kelly knew what it was like to spend the whole night crying.
Kelly had slept with her every night of the competition, which helped more than Payson ever thought it would. It felt rather like when her mom comforted her, except that for the first time in her life Payson had not confided in her mom. Kim and Sasha were friends, and Payson didn't want to destroy that. Enough had been destroyed already.
After a couple of nights spent crying against Kelly's shoulder, Payson had stopped. She had stopped crying, she had stopped caring, she had stopped feeling. She was nothing but an empty shell of a woman going through the motions of life.
Now she was alone in the deserted stadium, leaning against the low bar and dwelling on the memory of her fall. For the first time, Payson regretted the decision to have surgery on her back. She was happy in high school. She had missed gymnastics, but she was moving on and creating a new life. Now she had no life at all. If she hadn't gone through with the surgery, none of this would have happened.
She knew the moment he walked into the arena. She was so aware of Sasha that she could feel him across a crowded gym, much less an empty stadium.
"What do you want, Sasha?"
He came to lean against the low bar near her, their positions a similitude of that night on the beam. She vaguely wondered if he realized he was doing it.
"I'm worried about you," he said, gazing into the dark recesses of the stadium. They hadn't really looked at each other since they kissed.
She huffed out her scorn. "You're worried about me? Well, that's ironic."
He punched his palm against the bar, making it vibrate beneath their hands. "Damnit, Payson, I'm trying to protect you!"
"Well you're doing a shitty job of it. From where I'm standing you are the only one hurting me," she said, her voice completely dead. She didn't feel angry or sad anymore. She didn't feel anything at all.
"You don't understand what it would be like. This would ruin you."
Emotion was stirring within her; anger. Feeling again felt like reopening a deep cut, so she was eager to cut off the emotion and close the wound once more. "Can we stop pretending like this is about me? You're not a white knight, Sasha. You're not trying to protect me. This is about you and your issues, about your reputation. If we're together then you'll be known as the coach who had an affair with his gymnast. You're not willing to take that risk. You don't think I'm worth it."
He didn't bother to deny it. Tired of the conversation, tired of it all, Payson pushed away from the bars and turned to leave. She only made it a few feet before she stopped.
"I'm moving to Denver Elite," she said, refusing to face him. He didn't deserve that much. "I'm tired of being treated like shit all the time. Marty's a good coach; I trust him." The implication was clear: she didn't trust Sasha anymore.
She was almost across the podium when he called out to her, "You would end up hating me. I would ruin your career and you would hate me for it."
Turning around, Payson met Sasha's eyes for the first time in weeks. "Don't you get it? I already hate you."
"Do you really have to go?" asked Lauren. Payson was packing up her locker as her three teammates bid her farewell. "I can't imagine the Rock without you."
Payson felt a stab of guilt. Lauren had lost enough people in her life, she didn't need to lose one more. Then the guilt passed and she went back to feeling nothing. "I have to go. I can't be here right now. I just need to get away from the Rock for a while."
"You mean you need to get away from him." Kelly amended. Payson thought that Kelly would understand, but she sounded angry. Really angry.
"It's none of your business, Kelly."
"Like hell it is!" she shouted in return, tears gathering in her eyes. "You guys are the first team I've ever had and now you're just going to throw it all away. You're going to ruin everything because you fell in love with your coach!"
Lauren and Kaylie were looking at them in shock. "Is that true?" asked Kaylie. "Are you leaving because you have feelings for Sasha?"
Payson packed the last of her belongings into her gym bag and then straightened her back. "My feelings aren't the problem. His are."
Lauren looked horrified. "You mean he—"
"No," Payson interrupted. "That's not what I meant. He's never touched me. He loves me, but until he's ready to admit that, I can't be here."
Kaylie and Lauren took the revelation in stride, not bothering to question the veracity of Payson's statement. It was obvious to anyone who bothered to look. Kaylie asked the question that was on everybody's mind, "What if he never does?"
"Then fuck him. I'm not going to sit around pining for him like some stupid little girl. I can't work here, so I'm going somewhere I can work. We could have been great together, but he's not willing to try then it's his loss. I'll move on and he'll be stuck with his regrets." With those words, Payson picked up her bag and left the Rock. She hugged each of her friends in the parking lot and then never looked back.
Marty wanted to talk to her before she started training. Payson found this very annoying; she didn't want to talk, she wanted to work out.
"What's going on between you and Sasha?"
Payson barked out a laugh. Apparently Marty was more observant than she gave him credit for. "Nothing's going on Marty. That's the problem."
Marty frowned at her from across his desk. "You're going to have to be more specific than that, Payson. I don't know what that means."
She was tired of thinking about Sasha all the time. She was trying to escape this. "We can have this conversation once, Marty, and then I'm not talking about it again. I came here to get away from Sasha, I don't want to waste my time talking about him."
Marty nodded his agreement to the terms and Payson continued with a heavy sigh, "I was fine when it was just me. I was fine with unreciprocated love, I could deal with it. Then a couple of months ago I realized that he felt the same way. We fought, we kissed, he regretted it. He chose not to be with me. I'm not going to sit around and wait for a man who's not willing to take a chance on me, so I came here."
He ran his hand across his face, a clear sign of frustration. "God, Payson." There was a long pause. "You're not healthy. When was the last time you slept?"
She dismissed his concerns with a shrug of her shoulders. "I slept about an hour last night."
"You can't let this ruin you, Payson. You're better than this."
A sudden flash of memory made Payson laugh, then dissolve into giggles. There was the slightest ring of hysteria in her laughter.
Marty snapped his fingers twice in front of Payson's face, focusing her attention. "You're kinda scaring me right now. You want to tell me what's so funny?"
"Oh, God," she said as she struggled to control her mirth. "Back when the rumors first started, I guess Kelly believed them. She put on her normal bitch act at the exhibition party, but then she found me later and tried to show her concern with typical Kelly-style advice. She said, 'You know, screwing your coach is a quick way to ruin your life.'"
"Okay, Payson, you're going to have to walk me through this," Marty said with concern, obviously worried about her sanity. "I don't understand why that is funny."
She lost herself in another fit of giggles before she managed to answer him. "Who would have thought that not screwing him would ruin my life?"
A/N: And on that hysterical note….
Two things of importance: 1) I tried to get this across in the story, but in case anyone missed it, there was absolutely nothing sexual about Kelly and Payson sleeping together. 2) This is Payson's point of view, so don't assume Sasha actually thinks the things that she accuses him of.