Sorry about the wait! This chapter is dedicated to the lovely Elsie, JeremyShane and SunStar123 who all keep reviewing almost every chapter. Thank you so much! Reviews really keep me going.

Chapter 12: Take me home

Kaylie was wondering what was taking Payson so long: Sasha wasn't one for big speeches she thought he'd give his decision either way pretty quickly. After what seemed like forever Payson emerged from the locker room beaming. She looked even happier than she had when she'd won gold on bars at worlds, and she certainly looked happier than she had these past couple of weeks. Sasha came out slightly after her, looking completely dazed.

Payson hugged Kaylie, taking her completely by surprise. "Wow Payson! You're happy I'm guessing he said yes."

"He did."

"Ok you're creeping me out here. What happened back there?"

"I'm just happy Emily's coming back." Payson said serenely and Kaylie just smiled knowingly. There was something else but Payson wasn't going to talk and that was fine. She was just glad to see Payson back to normal. Sasha walked over to them.

"My office ladies and bring Kelly and Lauren too." Kaylie went to get the other two elite girls and the joined Sasha in his office. When they entered Sasha closed and locked the door and pulled the blind.

"You trying to surreptitiously murder us Sasha?" Kelly asked jokingly. She and Sasha hadn't started out on the right foot but they were getting along much better now. Sasha liked Kelly's work ethic and simple personality. She had issues of course but she had both feet on the ground and knew where she wanted to go and was sure of herself. He also enjoyed her dry sense of humour.

"I highly doubt I'd be able to take one of you let alone all four. Especially with your new double Arabian dismount Lauren." His rare praise made Lauren smile. "What I am going to tell you is strictly confidential. You are to tell no one, and if you do then you will be out of the gym. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes Sasha" the four girls said quietly and obediently.

"Thanks to some words of wisdom from someone wise beyond her years" his eyes met Payson's: they were full of an emotion Kaylie didn't recognise "I have decided to invite Emily Kmetko back to the Rock. She will train here at night in secret and during the day in a separate destination. I expect all of you to support me in this decision and to support Emily. I am going to be travelling over to LA in two days to make the offer to her and I thought I would give any of you who wanted to come the opportunity to join me."

"I'm there." Payson said.

"Me too. She deserves a shot at nationals and she needs us to help her." Kaylie added.

Kelly looked at her teammates "I would like to come too, I don't know her well and I'd never admit it, but I admired her. Is that ok?"

Kaylie smiled and wrapped her arm around Kelly's shoulder. Lauren shoved the blind up, ripped the door open and slammed it behind her. There was a stunned silence for a while where everyone was deciding how to react then 3 sets of eyes all looked at Payson expectantly. Payson frowned then realised that there was no point in arguing.

"Fine I'll talk to her but you all owe me."

"Ta Keeler, we all know Barbie wouldn't listen to me anyway, and she explodes with jealousy whenever she comes within three feet of Kaylie." Kelly said flippantly. Growing up under Sheila's roof had made her immune to all but the worst drama so she was amused rather than angry at Lauren's behaviour.

Payson rolled her eyes and went to follow Lauren.

Lauren was sitting on the bench on the lawn in front of the gym. Sasha had dubbed it the meltdown bench because it was the place everyone seemed to go when they stormed out of practice. It was certainly living up to its name today. Lauren was sitting there; legs crossed pulling apart a handful of grass she'd pulled out of the ground. Payson came and sat beside her.

"That was an impressive slam; I'm surprise you pulled it off. I'd be worried I would screw it up and trip over or the door catch in my hair or something." Payson said, ignoring the tears that were rolling down Lauren's cheeks.

"Why are you being nice to me?" Lauren said dully.

Payson pulled Lauren into a hug and Lauren started crying in earnest, big sobs that made her whole body shake. "I know I'm a bitch Payson but it's just that I'm lonely, all the goddam time. Daddy's never home and I feel like the only way I can get him to notice me is if I pull out amazing routines but all of you are better than me and no matter how hard I try I can't seem to get anywhere and I know it's petty to not want Emily back but if she makes it back she'll beat me too."

Payson was silent for awhile. Lauren made her want to scream most of the time but then she tried to remember that the bitchy part of Lauren's personality was like her guard. She didn't let anyone in so that she wouldn't be made vulnerable. But for some reason she was letting Payson in and that made Payson happy.

"Lauren, you are an amazing gymnast. You're powerful, you have personality when you want to show it and you're determined. Were you at worlds? Do you not remember getting a team gold and silver on the beam? Who cares what your father thinks, or what anyone else thinks. You, Lauren Tanner are amazing and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Lauren cried even harder, not for herself this time but for what she did to Payson: she had to tell her about the video. "Pay, there's something I have to tell you."

"Of course you can tell me anything." Payson said, confused.

"I-I" Lauren faltered, this was a perfect moment. She couldn't ruin it, she couldn't hurt Payson more than she already had. "I'm so glad you're back at the Rock and you deserved to win at the rankings."

Payson beamed, that was possibly the highest praise a Tanner could give. "That means a lot, coming from you Lauren. Now can you do me a favour? Come to LA with us. I know Emily isn't your favourite person but she's your teammate, and to be honest it's not even like she's a threat to you, you're all power and she's all artistry. Kaylie and I are the ones who have to be worried."

Lauren nodded. "Ok I'll come. I haven't seen Darby in ages anyway."

XXX

"Again." Darby said quietly, almost angrily. Ever since nationals had been moved she'd been increasing Emily's training to three times a day, six days a week. She was working Emily has hard as she could without risking an injury. Not that it was likely with Emily, she was so instinctive with her gymnastics that she hardly ever under rotated or made an error of judgment.

Emily sighed. The news that nationals had been moved forward had shocked her completely. Her confidence had been rocked, ever since finding out she was pregnant she had tried her hardest to turn her mental mindset around and become determined and focused. She had believed in herself completely but now...she lost her train of thought while she was doing a summersault on the beam, her left foot missed the beam altogether and she fell on her butt, hard.

Darby came over to her and pulled her up. "I'm not usually one to yell at my gymnasts and certainly not at you because you work so hard but what the hell was that? That was sloppy and lazy and totally uncharacteristic of you Emily."

Emily stared at the ground, angry at herself for letting Darby down. Her coach had sacrificed so much to get her this far, she'd rented out her house in Boulder and left a whole life behind to work with her. "I'm sorry Darby but with nationals being moved forward I just don't feel like I can make it. Could we at least leave out beam? Three apparatus should still be enough right?"

Darby was shocked for a second, then burst out laughing. "Oh Em, you're so naive. No offence but the NGO hates your guts as it is and you're going to have to impress the hell out of them to even make a shot at the national team let alone the Olympic team. And to do that you're going to have to go all around. And you're going to have to go all around well. And I don't want to hear another word about you not believing in yourself. I've put in far too much work for you to flake out now."

Emily nodded, and tried to force herself out of her mental rut. She mounted the beam. Her centre of gravity was different to what it was before James, it was lower and it took a lot of getting used to, especially on the beam which pretty much had always been the bane of her existence. She made her way through her routine without falling off but she knew she was overtime but a long way.

Darby sighed, Emily needed to be giving more but she couldn't think of what else could motivate her to do that.

XXX

Sasha had a headache. A long car ride with three seventeen year olds and an eighteen year old girl was nobody's idea of a good time. Especially if two of them were intent on teasing him the entire way. Kaylie and Kelly wanted to know everything about his life, particularly his love life during his period of being the bad boy of gymnastics. Kelly did not give up asking about who his first kiss was, where it happened and who was his first crush. It was so draining that he would almost have preferred to be filling out paper work listening to Steve Tanner lament the fact his daughter did not do as well as he liked, almost. He was also acutely aware that Payson had been listening intently to the conversation, despite pretending to be absorbed in her book.

He sat at the bar and took a deep sip of his scotch. The girls had gone to bed and he was trying to think of what to say to Darby in the morning. He knew she would be harder to convince than Emily but he was not going to go behind the back of another coach. That was tacky, something Ellen Beals might do but never him. Still he had nothing in common with Darby. She was only a couple of years his junior but she acted much younger. And she had done a fantastic job with Emily and was not going to want to give that up. But Emily needed to be at the Rock if she was going to have any hope at all of making the national team, he hoped Darby would be able to see that.

The next morning Sasha explained the plan to the girls. He was going to talk to Darby one on one first, and it turned out that Lauren was going to make herself useful for once. She was going to be the ploy to bring Darby to the hotel. Kelly, Kaylie and Payson all went back up to their rooms while Lauren and Sasha waited in the Lobby. Lauren stood in the middle while Sasha sat towards the other end of the lobby hiding his face with a newspaper.

After a while Darby emerged, looking peppy as usual wearing oversized sunglasses and a 60s style summer dress. She looked more like a carefree highschool senior than a former Olympian and tough gymnastics coach. She saw Lauren waiting for her and beamed.

"Lo! How are you babes?" She said, embracing the younger girl and kissing her on both cheeks, Sasha resisted the urge to vomit.

"So good, Darbs. I love your nails." Lauren said without looking at Darby's hands.

"So why are you in LA?"

Lauren paused, feeling slightly guilty that she was tricking Darby. "Actually, I came with someone who wants to see you."

Darby raised one eyebrow. "Who exactly is this mystery person?"

Sasha decided to spare Lauren any more discomfort. He put his newspaper away and walked over to Darby. "I'm Sasha Belov. We met briefly in Hungary." Sasha said it as though they had met in passing rather than him yelling at her for her poor coaching of his gymnasts. "I wondered if we might have lunch. I have something important to discuss with you."

Darby glared at him, she knew this must be about Emily, she knew Payson and Kaylie knew about her returning to gymnastics. He instinct was to laugh in his face and say that he had had his chance with Emily and to get lost. But Darby wanted Emily to do well and if Belov had found a way to help her then it wasn't Darby's place to turn him away.

"I'd be delighted, your shout?"

Sasha rolled his eyes, "of course." He motioned for her to lead the way to the hotel's restaurant. Lauren made to follow them but Sasha turned around. "Don't even think about it." He said to her, Lauren grinned ruefully and made her way up to the elevators.

Darby waited for Sasha to talk, she wasn't going to provoke him. Finally Sasha gave in. He placed his utensils down and cleared his throat. "I recently saw a video of Emily Kmetko performing a new uneven bars routine. I was informed that she had accomplished this after giving birth just months before. I was impressed, she seemed a different athlete than the one I had coached. You have done well with her Darby."

"Yes I have, and I'm going to continue doing well. She is going to make the national team, and then the Olympic team." Darby said defiantly. She was secretly quite scared of Sasha but there was no way she was going to show it.

"No she won't."

"Excuse me? Didn't you just say the bars routine was amazing? That kid is going to the Olympics."

"Maybe, if nationals hadn't been moved but she won't be ready in time."

"She will!" Darby said, although she didn't believe it.

"Oh come on Darby, you know that at the rate she is progressing she won't be good enough. Sure she'd probably get a spot if she hadn't pissed of the NGO so many times but now she has got to be one of the best to even be considered."

Darby sighed "you're right, but what the heck are you going to do about this. What do you have over me that's going to get her there? It sure as hell isn't good reps from the NGO."

"I'm close to her son and I have four girls who competed at worlds. If those two things can't motivate her, nothing will."

Darby folded her arms. "She can train at the Rock."

Sasha punched the air, he hadn't been expecting things to be this easy.

"But I'm still going to help coach her."

Sasha frowned. "I'm not sure that's going to work, I usually exclusively coach my elites."

"Well Emily is different, my coaching style suits her more. Also, you will take me on as one of your assistant coaches. I'll train Emily during the day, in a different location so that we can avoid all the messy publicity that would occur since the NGO is always around. And then you'll train her at night. Also I get the final say in her routines, her health and any aspects of her lifestyle outside the gym."

Sasha glared at Darby, a glare that would send most people away crying but Darby met his eye steadily. A lot had changed since her humiliation at the Rock and she wasn't about to just give her best gymnast away. Sasha sighed "fine, but I expect you as my assistant to follow my lead, you will not go easy on my gymnasts, and you will not coach any of my other elites unless they ask you to and you check it with me, understood?"

Darby stood up and walked over to Sasha "yes boss" she shook his hand jokingly, Sasha grinned. Darby was going to be as much of a handful as his gymnasts.

"Now we just need to check it over with Emily. Do you think she'll want to come back?"

Darby paused "well she knows that her chance with nationals being moved so close is slim to none and once we explain that moving back to the Rock is her best chance, I think she'll come. It also depends on what Damon wants to do. They've got a house now that they've just finished doing up and they're quite attached to it so we'll have to see what he wants as well."

Sasha curled his hands into fists "she's living with the piece of crap that knocked her up? How could you let this happen, don't you even think to learn from her getting pregnant in the first place, this will only end badly."

It was Darby's turn to glare at Sasha "I get the final say in her lifestyle remember? Otherwise this agreement is off. I trust both Emily and Damon. And your opinion doesn't matter."

Sasha sighed "fine." He said through gritted teeth.

"Good, I'm glad we agree." Darby said sweetly, now you said you'd shout me lunch and I want another coffee. Sasha rolled his eyes for what felt like the 20th time half an hour and walked over to the counter.

A/N another filler chapter, but don't worry things are going to get exciting soon. Next time we're checking in with Damon and Emily and whether they want to move, everyone realises how evil Lauren is and Payson finally finds out the video.

Also if you want to know what really happened between Payson and Sasha in the locker room when she was convincing him to invite Emily back, read my outtake The Locker Room. It's set between chapters 11 and 12.

Please let me know what you thought, I have to say I feel so lucky to have had so many reviews because I didn't think that many people still liked Emily after the end of season two so thank you all for reading =)