Payson looked down at the Chicken Francese and smiled. It was absolutely perfect. She heard a knock at the front door and smiled, "It's open," she called and suddenly the house was awash with noise as Becca ran inside.

"Payson!" Becca shouted and she turned just in time to be nearly bowled over by her younger sister, who was practically glowing. "We won," she said breathlessly. "And I won silver on the bars!"

Payson beamed at her younger sister, "I know, Becca. I'm so proud of you," she said as her mother and her father approached the kitchen. She smiled at them over Becca's head. "Hey guys."

Her parents were smiling brightly. They'd just returned from the Pan American games in Vancouver where Becca's first international competition had been a rousing success, a tea m gold medal, individual silver on the bars, along with finishing 5th in the All-Around and Becca Keeler was suddenly one of the nation's top elite juniors, an amazing accomplishment since she still only viewed gymnastics as something she did for the fun of it.

"That smells amazing, Pay," her mom said, walking towards the stove and looking at the chicken and potatoes.

Payson smiled, "Thanks, I'm really getting a handle on this cooking thing."

Her dad joined her mom in admiring the food, "You do this a lot? That's a lot of work, cooking for one," he said, impressed.

She shook her head, "It's rarely for one. I'll usually drop some off for Austin and Sasha and sometimes Boris. All three of them have terrible eating habits," she said, which was not a lie. She obviously cooked for Sasha often, but she had taken to saving leftovers for Austin and Boris, who she'd adopted into this little surrogate family she was building. She sighed and smiled at her real family, her flesh and blood, people she loved more than anything, but slowly she'd been building a wall between them. She knew it was a good possibility that her parents wouldn't be speaking to her a little more than a year from now. She knew they'd be bitterly disappointed in her and angry. She just hoped they didn't make her choose.

She shook herself from the rather maudlin thoughts and focused on the dinner. "Let's eat," she said. "Mom, could you grab some glasses from that cabinet?" she asked as she slid the chicken onto a serving plate, which was quickly taken from her by her father. She wiped her hands on a dish towel.

Her mom was looking into the cabinet oddly, "Champagne flutes?" Kim asked when Payson stepped next to her to see what had fascinated her.

"Housewarming gift," she said with a smile.

Kim narrowed her eyes and Payson shrugged, "From whom? Austin?" her mother guessed and Payson rolled her eyes.

"Austin's not nearly that thoughtful," she said. Payson had found it was better to be as honest as possible in these situations. "They're from Sasha actually. When he took me to that ballet last year, we had a whole conversation about the plastic champagne flutes they serve sparkling cider in and he bought these for me when I closed on the house."

Kim nodded. "That was thoughtful of him. You sent him a thank you, didn't you?" she asked.

Payson fought desperately to keep the blush from rising in her cheeks when she thought about exactly how she'd thanked Sasha for his thoughtfulness that night. It was much more effective than a thank you note. "Yes, of course I did, Mom." She took two glasses from the shelf and Kim took two more.

They sat downand for a moment everyone was silent and Payson realized that somehow she'd become the focus of their attention. "What?" she asked, looking down at her shirt self-consciously. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Nothing," her dad said, with a small smile, before picking up his fork and serving himself as they all dug into their food.

Kim smiled, "What your father means is it's nice to all be together again. It's been a while."

It was said innocently enough, but Payson sighed. "You guys understand why I had to do this right? I mean it had nothing to do with you, I just needed to get out on my own." She looked at each of them carefully. She had assumed that after their initial conversations on the subject her parents had honestly understood, even if they hadn't known the entirety of her reasoning.

Mark shook his head, "We told you we understood, Payson and we meant it. It's just nice to sit around the table, all four of us, especially since you're headed to Turkey in 48 hours."

She smiled and then focused her attention on Becca, anxious to change the subject, "So I want to hear everything, right down to the look on Li Chang's face when she realized you beat her on bars."

Payson smiled enthusiastically as Becca regaled her with tales from the event. She sounds just like I did, but different. She'd expected a full run down on skills she'd successfully completed, others that she hadn't and the newest phenom to hit the junior circuit, a last minute addition to the junior National team, eleven year old, Julia Harrison. It was thenPayson realized that Becca's stories were much more about the people she'd been with and the places they'd gone and with just a little bit of gymnastics thrown in, almost as a side note. Her sister and her parents were so normal; sometimes she wondered where she herself came from.

"So, how was lockdown?" her mom asked, startling her out of her reverie.

Payson rolled her eyes and grimaced, "Awful, but not worse than last time. Boris was tough and I think he's probably going to make some changes."

Kim raised her eyebrows, "Who?" she asked, looking afraid of the answer.

"Kaylie," Payson said with a sigh, "She was shaky all weekend, not terrible, just not strong. And maybe Emily, although she got better as the weekend went on." She sighed. Emily had gotten better the further into lockdown they got, but Boris had seemed far from convinced that she was an All-Around option for Worlds. Payson originally thought that Emily would be competing on floor and bars in Istanbul, but it was possible she'd lost her floor spot to Andrea Conway, who'd looked very solid all weekend, while Emily had issues with her tumbling passes.

"And Lauren?" Kim asked, her expression still awash with concern for the other girls.

Payson nodded, "Strong on beam and vault. Really strong on beam. She's got a great chance to medal at the event finals if she hits that routine in Istanbul. Kelly was strong on all four and he didn't say anything to me all weekend except, 'Excellent job, Payson' so I'm assuming nothing's changed."

Mark snorted, "You're the World Champion, Pay. Of course you'll be competing all-around in the team finals."

Payson shrugged, "Its team gymnastics, Dad. Sometimes you have to do what's best for the team and not what's expected."

Becca rolled her eyes, "Please, you're DOD is the highest in the World. The level tens were doing the math one day and you could step out on all four of your tumbling passes and still medal."

"Well, whatever, all I know is Boris is giving a press conference tomorrow morning where he'll be announcing the six girls attending."

Her mother stopped her fork halfway to her mouth, a piece of chicken falling back on to her plate. "I can't believe he would change his mind this close to competition. You all leave the day after tomorrow," Kim said, frowning.

"He's Boris, Mom and he can do whatever the hell he wants. He's a little crazy," she said with a shrug.

"Crazier than his son?" Mark asked, not having much contact with the elder Beloff.

Kim snorted, "A lot crazier and that's saying something."

Payson grinned a little, unable to completely keep the affection from her tone, "Sasha's not crazy, he's just…Sasha."

Becca rolled her eyes, "He's just like you and you're crazy."

Payson shrugged, "If you say so."

"So you're all packed and ready to go?" Kim asked.

Payson smiled at her mother, thinking of the suitcase sitting at the foot of her bed. "Yep, another stamp on the passport, Istanbul here I come."

The next two days flew by, Payson and the rest of the National team had time to train, eat and sleep and not much else before they boarded a chartered flight out of Boulder to Istanbul, with short stops in New York and Paris to refuel, overall, it was nearly eighteen hours in an airplane and all anyone wanted to do when they arrived was sleep, unfortunately it was noon and going to sleep would have just set their body clocks off completely.

"I'm so tired," Emily said, flopping back onto her bed. Payson just groaned an agreement from the bed opposite her. Lauren and Kaylie were back to being best friends, this week, after Kaylie confided in her that she and Nicky had broken up.

"We can't just lay here, we'll fall asleep," Payson said, sitting up, a yawn escaping.

Emily pouted, "Well, it's not like we can go anywhere." Emily was not about to leave the hotel room after the debacle in France where she'd been suspended for breaking curfew. It was better to be safe than sorry and the safest place right now was in her hotel room.

Payson sighed and turned over on her side, "How's Damon?"

"He's going to try to come," Emily said, suddenly, sitting up kneeling on the bed, a grin plastered across her face. She'd been dying to share the news with someone, but it hadn't been official until this morning when Damon had texted her, with a short but sweet, 'Got my tix, C U Fri.'

Payson sat up as well, shock written across her face. "Seriously? Em, that's awesome. He's got time off?"

Emily nodded, "They just wrapped production on the second LP and he's going on tour, but that doesn't start until next week."

Payson grinned, "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked. "You must be so excited."

"It wasn't official until this morning. I am so excited though; I haven't seen him in months. "

Payson smiled at her and then flopped back onto her pillow. "I can see you guys after the Olympics, living in LA, jet-setting all over the world, not locked in hotel rooms, unless you want to be," she said, her eyes twinkling at her friend mischievously.

"Speaking of…" Emily trailed off. "I'm going to have another one of those moments when I pretend Sasha isn't our coach." It was something she struggled with, understanding exactly what was happening between Payson and Sasha. She had a hard time separating Sasha, their coach who barked out orders on the gym floor with the Sasha, the man, who made her normally stoic teammate smile dreamily.

Payson rolled her eyes, but couldn't help the silly grin that plastered across her face. She sighed and looked at Emily expectantly, "Hit me with your best shot," she said. It was exactly what Emily was hoping to hear. She'd been dying to ask one question in particular. The more she thought about it, the more it nagged at her. Sasha was someone who was obviously experienced, a quick Google search revealed more than Emily had ever wanted to know about her coach's personal life and Payson, as far as Emily knew, Payson's experience level was similar to her own.

"I can't believe I'm asking you this, but I'm so curious, are you two…" she trailed off again. She couldn't even say the words.

"No, we're not," Payson said with a sigh of what sounded like regret. "Not for lack of trying though."

Emily's eyes grew wide at the implication of that statement. There were a lot of things Sasha Beloff was, but she'd never though impotent was one of them, "You mean he can't," she said, lifting her eyes in suggestion.

Payson's eyes grew wide, "No," she cut her off, "that is not a problem at all. We're waiting until after the Olympics. We crossed so many lines already; I think there's a part of him that can't bring himself to cross that final one."

Emily furrowed her eyebrows, "That's actually kind of sweet," she said. She had never thought of Sasha as sweet,

Payson laughed, "Sweet, but very frustrating."

"You mean you don't do other things?" Emily asked.

"Everything but," Payson said, with a shrug. Emily's eyebrows shot up in surprise, she hadn't actually expected that, though she wasn't sure what she expected. "I swear the other night; I thought it was going to happen. We fought over something totally ridiculous and later we were apologizing and we were so close and it just didn't happen. He wants to wait until after the Olympics, I swear, the way he told me he didn't want to, it made me want him even more. 'I'm going to make love to you every way I know how. You'll never want to leave my bed.'"

Emily swallowed harshly, she could practically hear Sasha's voice in her head, "Wow, he said that?"

Payson sighed, "He really did. My knees nearly gave out on me."

"Yeah, I bet," she said. "So obviously, you want to?"

"I want to, but he's right. We should wait. I mean it's not like we're suffering the way you and Damon are, barely seeing each other. I don't know what I would do."

Emily looked at her closely, before she asked something that she'd wanted to ask for a long time. "You really love him, don't you?"

Payson smiled. "I really do." Emily shook her head. She just couldn't picture it. She'd seen glimpses of it, the night she found out, little touches and a kiss good night before she and Payson left Austin's house, but they were extremely good at hiding it at the gym. If she hadn't known any better, she would never be able to guess by the way they behaved. It probably took a superhuman amount of self control, something they both had in spades.

"I don't know who has it worse, you and Sasha having to pretend every day or Damon and I not seeing each other."

Payson didn't even hesitate, "You and Damon. We get time to ourselves; we spend almost every night together. Honestly, Em, I don't know how you do it."

Emily shrugged and sighed, before looking away, "It's hard, but our dreams are coming true and that's more important right now than being together all the time. He's doing his thing and I'm doing mine. My dream just has an expiration date, August 12, 2012."

Payson laughed, "Not that you're counting down or anything."

Emily shook her head, "I try not to look at it like that, this is my dream and I want to live every moment of it."

"We're almost there," Payson said with a grin. "Less than a year now and it'll be over."

"Easy there, captain. We've got a pretty big meet this weekend, don't we?"

Payson laughed, "I suppose we do. Are you ready for it?"

"Absolutely. I finally fixed that stupid tumbling pass, even though I don't think I'll be doing anything other than bars in the team finals." Payson grimaced and Emily knew her friend agreed. She wasn't exactly one to mince words or lie to save someone's feelings. "Sasha didn't say…"

Payson shook her head, "Em, I can't…."

Emily sighed, "I know, I know, I'm sorry, I won't put you in the middle. Besides it's not Sasha's decision."

"Nope, it'll be Boris who decides," Payson said, stating the obvious, but biting her bottom lip. Emily could tell it was making her uncomfortable.

"Don't worry about it, Pay. I know I choked at practice; at least it was physical mistake this time and not a mental one. If I do well during day one here, I'll qualify for the All-Around and hopefully I can show Boris that I'm ready for the big time."

Payson smiled and nodded, "You will," she said, firmly and for the first time since her disastrous performance during lockdown, Emily felt like it was possible.

Down the hallway, Lauren Tanner sat up, trying to stay awake. She'd nearly failed in the attempt when she remembered that she'd been waiting for days to talk to Kaylie. Their friendship was finally back to the point where it had been before the Carter mess and Lauren was determined to keep it that way. The first step, sharing. They'd always shared everything with each other, told every secret and Lauren had the mother of all secrets bouncing around in her head.

"Oh my God, I can't believe I almost forgot to tell you," she began, grabbing Kaylie's attention immediately.

"What, Lo?"

"You won't believe what I saw just before we went into lockdown," she added, giving it as much build up as she could.

Kaylie shook her head, urging her to continue, "What?"

"Payson's having sex." The words burst out of her mouth uncontrollably.

Kaylie's reaction was not what she was expecting however. The petite brunette stared at her for a moment before she burst out laughing. "You're kidding. Seriously, Lauren, this is Payson we're talking about here. You saw her having sex."

Lauren rolled her eyes, "Of course I didn't see her having sex. It was when we were helping her pack for lockdown, I went into her bathroom to get something for her and there was a used condom in her garbage pail."

Kaylie shook her head, "No way, it's has to be another reason. She's taking a bunch of science classes at UC Boulder, maybe it was for class, an experiment or something."

"Yeah, because they do condom testing in college," Lauren said and then paused, knowing there was something funny about what she just said, but not wanting to stop and make a joke when she needed to convince Kaylie of the truth. "It wasn't just that either. There were two toothbrushes in the holder and I found men's cologne, expensive men's cologne in her medicine cabinet."

Kaylie's mouth dropped open in shock and Lauren smirked in victory, "Lauren, that's a complete invasion of her privacy. Why would you do something like that? Wait – did you say men's cologne?"

Lauren nodded, "Lacoste Essentials. Whoever this guy is, he's practically living there if he has his things in her master bathroom."

Kaylie looked stunned, "Any ideas on who it is?" she asked, her focus drifting towards the wall.

Lauren shrugged, "I thought Austin at first, but I don't know. She flat out denies it and he's pretty open about that disgusting and totally inappropriate thing he has with MJ." She shook her head and pursed her lips. "What does he see in her anyway, she's so old."

Kaylie shrugged noncommitally, "I'm pretty sure she's not with Austin."

"Why would you think that?" Lauren asked, narrowing her eyes. "I mean they've been out together, paparazzi photos and everything."

Kaylie shrugged, "Payson mentioned it to me, they are pretty close, but I don't think it's him. It's probably someone we don't even know. Maybe he's a classmate or someone from her neighborhood?"

Lauren shook her head, "All of her classes are online, she doesn't have any classmates. I guess it could be someone from her neighborhood, but she's only lived there for a couple of months and it's not like she's there all the time. She practically lives at the Rock."

Kaylie shrugged, "No idea then. Besides maybe there isn't a guy at all and there's a perfectly reasonable explanation behind all that stuff. You could always ask her about it."

Lauren rolled her eyes, "Right, so she could deny it and then be super careful. No way. I want to find out who it is. We're her friends, you'd think she'd tell us."

It was Kaylie's turn to roll her eyes, "Sometimes secrets are secrets for a reason, Lauren, because people could get hurt. I think you should just leave it alone."

There was a knock at the door and Lauren bounced off the bed to answer it. It was Boris, here for bed check. "In for the night, Lauren, Kaylie?" he asked, nodding towards the both of them. "Good night."

It was then Lauren smelled it, citrus and sandalwood, the same scent from the cologne she found in Payson's bathroom. "Good night," she responded weakly and shut the door behind him.

"Lauren, are you okay?" Kaylie asked.

Lauren could feel the bile rising in her throat; she raced towards the bathroom. "I think I'm going to throw up."