Chapter 24: Audere est Facere

Kaylie took a deep breath, the Olympic village was huge, she could hardly believe she was here. This felt like a dream. She wasn't like her teammates who had iron clad focus, who had believed in themselves since day one, she always had some niggling self doubt that made her question whether she really deserved her achievements. But now she was here she just wanted to do her best. Austin linked his hand with hers and Kaylie tucked her head under his chin. He stood strong and steady.

"Excited?"

She smiled "I think so."

Austin pulled her into a hug. "You think so?"

"Mmm, I mean it's amazing and all but I miss Lauren. I never thought I'd say that but there you have it and I guess I'm nervous I'll make a mistake."

Austin grinned at how cute Kaylie was "Lauren's proud of you, finally. And of course you're going to make mistakes. I know it sounds stupid but just relax and enjoy it, this is the chance of a lifetime: don't waste it being nervous."

Kaylie rolled her eyes "yes Mr Kolbalt"

"I'm serious, Kaylie. You've earned your right to be here. Do your best, make Lauren proud. You're not going to help anyone by being scared."

Kaylie felt tears spring to her eyes. Austin could read her so well. She hugged Austin tightly. "I'll try. For you, and for Lauren, and for everyone else."

Austin kissed her. He loved how Kaylie was so down to earth when she was an Olympian, gorgeous and loaded. But sometimes he worried about her lack of confidence. "I know you will."

XXX

The girls sat in a circle, stretching in the royal blue leos they were going to wear for qualification: Sasha, worshipper of punctuality that he was, insisted that they be at the arena 45 minutes before they were meant to be there. Payson thought Sasha was the best coach ever but she couldn't help thinking that if this was her team she wouldn't do this because it was psyching Kaylie and Rosa out. The two girls looked progressively more nervous as she led them in each stretch.

"And stop. Good work." Sasha said, taking a deep breath. It was one thing to be an athlete competing, it was quite another to coach. At least being an athlete you had some sort of control: over your own performances at least, coaching just meant watching, hoping and praying that years of hard work would pay off.

He looked each of them in the eyes "how are we feeling?"

Kelly grinned at him, Payson looked at him seriously, Emily and the other two looked down. "We're ready" Payson said calmly.

Sasha smiled. "Well just in case you aren't, your assistant coach wanted to give you a few words." Payson was confused, she knew each team had to have one male and one female coach on the podium but she hadn't thought much about it, Rosa's coach was a guy but his wife helped out with the coaching so she assumed that she'd be the assistant coach, or maybe Darby, but that would have looked biased towards the Rock girls. She hadn't really worried about it much, all she needed was Sasha on the podium with her.

Then Kaylie and Kelly squealed and Payson looked up. Lauren was standing there! Kaylie sprinted over to hug her friend tightly, Emily followed closely behind her. Kelly gave one of her famous half smiles "it's about time you showed up, Tanner."

Lauren laughed "some of us have been busy, us coaches are very important people, we can't all play around in leotards all day." She quipped, almost keeping the pain out of her voice. Sasha gently squeezed her shoulder. The simple gesture helped her incredibly "now girls gather round. Very soon you'll walk through that door into the arena. I want you to ignore the cameras, the commentators, even the judges. You are the best in the world, all you need to do is your usual routines – you have absolutely nothing to be worried about. Go out there and show them who you are!" She put her hand in the middle of their huddle, Payson smiled and placed her hand on top of Lauren's the other girls and Sasha followed suit. Lauren nodded at Payson.

"Girls U-S-A on three, one, two, three..."

"USA!" they yelled.

Sasha smiled. That was more like it. "Line up ladies. We're about to get called in. He went to the front Rosa, the shortest, followed by Kaylie, Kelly and Emily. Payson thanks to her injury and time off was now the tallest, she hung back a bit with Lauren. "That was very big of you, Lo, agreeing to be assistant coach."

Lauren looked at Payson, to anyone else she would have lied and said it was a pleasure. But this was Payson, perhaps the person she admired more than anyone else in the world. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done, taking Sasha up on it, but I had to. For Kaylie."

Payson blinked rapidly to stop herself crying and making her mascara run, she hugged Lauren fiercely. "She is truly lucky to have you as a friend."

Lauren was almost in tears herself. Never, in a million years would she expect someone to say that to her. "Come on Keeler, we can't be a mess, not now, we have some finals to qualify for."

Payson grinned "sorry coach."

"You should be."

XXX

The USA drew Olympic order for qualifying. Sasha had had an agonising decision about who to put up on some of the events but vault wasn't one of them. Emily was easily the weakest vaulter compared to the other four so it was fairly easy to decide who to put on vault, even the order was straightforward. He walked over to Payson, his most special athlete gave him a small smile, but she was in her zone: she knew what she needed to do and there was nothing more he needed to say to her. He gave her a brief hug, then her name was announced, she smiled, ran towards the vaulting table and did her round off back handspring then her two and a half twists. She stuck her Amanar cold, her teammates were screaming. Payson grinned genuinely this time and saluted the judges. That would show people who thought she couldn't recover after nationals! She hugged her coaches and teammates then went over to Rosa who was vaulting next. The 15 year old looked like she might throw up.

"You've got this" Pay whispered "you're the winner of Olympic trials, and your vault is one of the best in the world. Now it's time to show everyone why. Don't worry about anything else, it's just you and the vault."

Rosa nodded forced a smile and then went to compete the best Rudi Payson had ever seen her do, then she came back and performed her double twisting yurchenko. It was the best DTY in the world and when Rosa's score came up the crowd went crazy – her vaults received a 16.1 and a 15.5: an average of 15.8. Sasha grinned, and the crazy thing was, those scores probably wouldn't be enough to qualify her to event finals because Kelly and Kaylie were better. Kaylie was up next, Lauren went up to her "you're ready, Kaylie. You can do this." Lauren looked earnestly at her friend.

Kaylie gave Lauren a quick fist bump and saluted the judges. Everyone who she cared about was in the arena, nobody could stop her now! She, like Payson had an Amanar vault, she also had a Mustafina. In typical Kaylie fashion she had fantastic execution on both, she received a 16.15 for her Amanar and at 15.9 for her second vault. As always Kaylie got a huge cheer from the crowd. No matter what happened results wise, Kaylie would always be one of America's sweethearts Sasha thought to himself. That would get her into event finals for sure though. Finally Kelly saluted the judges, she had the two hardest vaults in the world, apart from Lauren and she walked up to the podium like she knew it. She did her Amanar and her Cheng, almost sticking her Amanar and sticking her Cheng cold, she received a 16.1 and a 16.2. Sasha let out a whoop and picked Kelly up and spun her around. Kelly pretended to be unimpressed but inside she was ecstatic that she'd finally found her place in the team and that she managed to shine, even if she wasn't going to be in the all around.

And suddenly it was time for bars. The butterflies in Emily's stomach that had been fluttering quietly during vault while she was watching her teammates went absolutely crazy. She forced herself to breathe, long deep breaths, visualising her routine. Lauren came and sat next to her, holding her hand and not saying anything. But she didn't need to.

Meanwhile Sasha was adjusting the springboard for Rosa. He saw that she was shaking. This was not good. He looked over to his second gymnast up on bars "Kelly?"

Kelly walked over to him "you want me to go first." It wasn't a question.

Sasha nodded. It was a rough thing to ask, for a gymnast to anchor one rotation then be first up on the next, especially since scores tended to get higher later on, usually the first score was the lowest. It would effectively end her chances of getting in an event final, one she was unlikely to make since Pay and Emily had been consistently outperforming her. Even so she was the reigning silver medallist on the uneven bars. "Only if you want to, I understand it is a lot to ask."

Kelly nodded, Sasha genuinely meant that, if she refused he wouldn't hold it against her. "I'd be happy to." A year ago that would have been a lie but Kelly had learned a couple of things since then. Putting the team first was second nature to her now.

Sasha gave her a brief hug. "And I'm also going to switch places with Rosa's coach."

Kelly nodded "I was about to suggest that, she needs her coach now, and we've got Lo."

Sasha smiled and hugged her "I'm proud of you."

And with those words of encouragement Kelly went and smashed the bars routine of her life. She got a 15.6. Rosa after a pep talk from her coach managed to do well on her weakest event scoring a 15.1: it would be a great score for any other country, but it was almost certainly going to be the score that the USA dropped. Sasha and Rosa's coach switched places and Sasha walked over to Payson. "You. Are. A. Champion he said slowly." Payson simply nodded at him. She was in her zone, like the fierce Payson of old. No one could stop her; the only difference now was that she had amazing execution to match her crazy power moves. She saluted the judges and jumped to the low bar, swinging fluidly, handstands perfectly perpendicular to the bars, tkatchevs sky high and finally dismounting with her double twisting double layout, sticking it cold. The crowd went crazy: Payson was their favourite. She smiled regally and went to hug her coach, when her score was announced the cheers from the crowd became full on screams. Payson's routine had a 7.1 difficulty value and her routine had scored a 16.4, although Sasha had no idea what the deductions would be for. He kissed Payson on the top of her head "I cannot express how proud I am of you." He said before moving over to the team's anchor on the event.

It broke Sasha's heart that he couldn't really use Kaylie on this event, and taking her out of all around contention but Emily, Kelly and Payson were all miles ahead of her, and there was no way he could keep Rosa out of the all around. He walked over to Emily, handing her her grips. She took them quietly. "Look at me" Sasha whispered, Emily obeyed. "this is your time, Emily. I have watched you evolve from an unconfident young girl to one of the most confident, exquisite gymnasts in the world. All I ask of you is to believe in yourself. Can you do that?"

Emily looked at Sasha, the coach who had pushed her harder than she'd thought possible, then up at the stands where Darby was smiling at her. Next to her was Chloe, then Margi, then Summer with James and finally Damon and Brian. Now she understood what Kaylie meant when she said that if she had her friends and family around her, she could do anything. "Yes, Sasha I can."

"That's my girl."

Emily saluted the judges, the way the Russian girls did one arm in the air, the other at her side. She jumped to the high bar, feeling at once like she was part of the apparatus and it was part of her. She let her body take over as it remembered the routine that she'd practiced more times than she could remember and then she dismounted. The stadium erupted. Emily was shocked; she'd never heard cheers that loud for her before, she saluted the judges and went to hug her coach, she grinned at her 16.4: she was tied with Payson!

The balance beam was the nemesis of many gymnasts. Sasha was thoroughly relieved he had enough strong beam workers not to have to use Emily on here, but this was the event where the USA would miss Lauren the most. She'd been rock solid on the apparatus since she was a junior. Lauren stood next to Kelly, the table setter for the beam "you've got this"

Kelly looked at her former arch rival. It was weird that they were the closest of allies now, united in support of their teammates. She felt so sad for her. If she'd been on the team she would probably be anchoring the event, or at least be second to last. "Lauren, I don't want to sound soppy and pathetic, but I'm doing this routine for you." She put a quick hand on Lauren's shoulder and mounted the beam.

Sasha's hand flew to his mouth. Kelly was usually steady on beam, she rarely fell but her execution wasn't great, she usually had a couple of balance checks but today she was BAMFing beam. Her execution was almost perfect, it didn't have the fluidity of Payson's routine but her connections were instant, her leaps always at least 180 and she stuck her Patterson dismount. When she dismounted, he saw that Lauren looked like she might cry. Then he understood, Kelly was doing her routine as a tribute. His heart swelled with pride, these kids were finally learning the meaning of team. He really wished he could have had her try for the all around, she had been amazing so far today but all the others were far better than her on floor. The only consolation was that she now had a legitimate shot a beam finals which he would not have expected of her. Her score came up 15.6, that was huge on beam for Kelly.

Payson was up next, Sasha gave her a brief hug, she returned it but she looked tired. Sasha swore under his breath. She needed to conserve her energy! But they were halfway through and he didn't want to spook her. Payson saluted the judges and did her routine. It was exquisite as usual, but it lacked the passion that Kelly's did. But she still earned a 15.55. Rosa looked more confident than she had on bars, she did the first half of her routine beautifully but she had a big balance check and almost grabbed the beam, but instead of falling off, she kept going and stuck her double tucked dismount. Sasha hugged her tightly "well done" the kid's mental toughness was amazing. Her 15.2 was mammoth considering her balance check. He looked at Kelly, she looked less than thrilled. Sasha knew why. After three rotations Pay was on 48.05, Kelly on 47.35 and Rosa on 46.10, if Kelly was doing floor she would probably be the second all arounder. It had to hurt, especially since Kelly was the only one on the team who had been an all around world champion and who had competed in the AA final the year before. Sasha pushed it to the back of his mind, he still had one beam routine to get through.

Kaylie looked calm. That was good, she smiled at him "I'm ready." He hugged her tightly and watched her compete the routine of her life. Resting her on bars had been wise, Sasha realised. Kaylie dismounted and received a 15.75. The former national champion had just won herself a spot on her second event final. Lauren hugged Kaylie tightly.

Then it was time for floor. Sasha was torn, he was seriously considering pulling Kaylie and putting Kelly in. Kaylie would outscore Kelly but Kaylie wouldn't make event finals in floor because Emily and Payson were better than her. He took a deep breath. Even if Kelly only got 14 on this event, she'd probably qualify to the all around. He sighed, but then Rosa had won trials, he ran his hands through his hair and sighed. It was almost time for Rosa to compete. There was a tap on his shoulder, "Sasha?"

He looked down and saw Kelly looking up at him. She had a funny look on her face. He groaned inwardly – he had to let her have a shot at least of competing AA. "Kelly I want you to go on floor, instead of Kaylie. You're on the verge of breaking 60+, maybe 65 if you have the routine of your life that deserves some recognition."

Kelly shook her head vehemently. "No, coach."

Sasha frowned "but Kaylie probably won't make floor finals" he whispered, he could tell people were staring at them, wondering what was going on. He glanced over at the other girls who were quickly warming up on floor.

"But if I qualify for the all around, Rosa won't make any finals at all. And she deserves it." Kelly gulped, swallowing to avoid tears "I've..I've had my time. It's Rosa's time now." She was fully crying now. And Sasha's heart was breaking. He hugged her tightly and motioned for Lauren to look after her. Why did his girls have to be so damn noble, he was struggling to hold back tears as well.

"Rosa" the younger girl looked at him, he had a funny feeling that she knew the gist of his and Kelly's conversation. "I want you to go out there and absolutely nail your floor routine. You were the top qualifier at Olympic trials, go and show the judges why."

And she did. With her peppy choreography and sky high tumbling Rosa won the crowd over and they were soon clapping along. She posted a respectable 14.8 – good for a floor score, the most harshly marked apparatus. Then Kaylie competed her routine, a huge smile on her face. The girl was passionate about her sport again and it showed: she played to the crowd and they loved her for it, Superchick instrumental definitely suited her, she received a 15.1: that would be the top score of many teams, but not this one. When Kaylie finished she went and hugged Kelly tightly, for a long time. "You're amazing, thank you for letting me do that routine one last time, she whispered with tears in her eyes." Kelly hugged her back but didn't say anything, she couldn't. She'd just given up an opportunity to compete for Olympic all around gold, but she'd learned that some things were more important. Her voice a little wobbly from crying she cheered Emily on.

Emily looked at the floor – looked at the stands and saluted the judges then her music started and she danced. She threw her life into the music. It was hard to explain but Damon understood what she meant. He said he did the same when he was songwriting. She ran into her tumbling passes putting the passion for her sports, for Damon, for James, for her family into it. She used her dancing to show how much she appreciated them, her eyes alive. Finally she knelt into her final pose. She could hear Darby and Chloe screaming from the stands. Lauren ran over to her and almost knocked her over. "You're a freaking legend Em." Emily grinned, still out of breath. She looked up to the scoreboard at 15.8! Her routine was valued at 6.3 difficulty, she'd got a 9.5 execution on floor! She quickly gave Payson a quick hug before her captain finished the day for the USA.

Payson saluted the judges and walked to the centre of the floor. Her routine told a different story every time she did it. She had decided what this story would be, the most special story of her life so far: Sasha. When she tumbled she thought of all the times he'd pushed her to her limits physically and mentally, and when he'd carried her dream for her when she had nothing left. Her quadruple turn she used to indicate her excitement when he was around, her dancing showed how much she loved him. When she finished she centred herself so that she looked at him just before she fell into her finishing pose. When her music stopped she suddenly became aware of the crowd going absolutely insane. She'd barely saluted the judges and walked off the floor when Kelly, tears streaming down her face ran to hug her. The other girls were close behind, but they moved out of the way when Sasha walked over. His eyes looked desperate, like he wanted to kiss her. Instead he settled for picking her up and hugging her tightly. "Thank you, Payson no one has ever done anything that nice for me ever." He kissed her on the cheek then gave her back to her teammates, scared that he'd go too far otherwise. Payson wanted to answer him but she found she couldn't, instead she just nodded. It had been a very emotionally charged day.

The crowd went even crazier, Payson's score had just been posted – a 16.5. Payson blinked, that couldn't be right, her start value was only 6.5, that would have to mean.

"Holy freaking wow Pay, that's a perfect ten!" Lauren screeched, Payson's jaw dropped, stunned. Sasha uncharacteristically fistpumped the air. "God Pay you're amazing."

Payson couldn't believe it. She looked at her teammates. She was so incredibly proud of all of them. They'd qualified first, by almost three points. Kelly, Kaylie and Emily were in two event finals each, Rosa was in the AA and Lauren had acted classier than she could have believed possible. But she was most impressed with Kelly's selflessness. She had not expected that at all. She hugged them all tightly before they went to talk to the media and then get a well earned rest.

OT Eep I can't believe we're at the Olympics. And with the real Olympics I was so sad for Jordyn but so happy for Aly! Totally conflicting emotions! Can't wait for team finals. Anyway I hoped you liked the chapter especially Lauren coming in and Kelly being such a class act, who knew she had it in her? Any way as always let me know what you thought! xx