Disclaimer: Do not own Payson Keeler or Sasha Belov. Scenes taken out of MIOBI, but given my very own context. Because we all know things didn't really go this way, but this is what fanfiction is for.

She flew up on the tips of her toes and she kissed him.

Sasha Belov is not a good man. He's average, he's stubborn, and all that he has to show for himself - proof that he's been alive for thirty years already - are the three gold medals buried deep inside his trailer. The fourth gold medal, as he very well knows, he's given away. There's a metallic clank when the keys to the Rock slip out of his hands and down to the cold, tiled floor, and a groan escapes his mouth when he has to bend down to retrieve them.

It's 6 AM, time to open up the gym, and the same routine starts over again. One by one, gymnasts begin filing into the Rock to start their training for the day.

There's the usual thuds caused by feet stamping onto the mat, people sticking their landings, the slap of bare feet against the beam, the tick-tock of the clock hanging on the wall of his office, the slam of the front door as it closes with no one stopping it from the other side. He turns his head and sees her.

There was no one but them on the floor, in the entire building, which should've already told him it was a bad idea to begin with. Her movements were graceful, her extensions seemed endless. He could see nothing but the story she was telling with her body, her every emotion flowing through with the accompanying music that surrounded them.

It was taking a great deal of effort to keep his eyes on the video-camera taping her current exercise, and so after a while he stopped trying altogether. He saw Juliet, her breathless sighs, her lovestruck expression, and there was the crazy part of him that wished he could be her Romeo, the one awakening her to such a feeling. Sasha was quick to stash that thought away, to analyze and probably dissect later, and focused again –mind and soul– on the young woman taking center stage. Baring her heart to her audience of one washed-up coach and a lowly-humming recorder set aside on a corner.

The last of the music notes died down as her piece came to an end, and the only background track at the moment was their beat of their own hearts. Almost as if in sync. It was all he could hear, then.

"Payson," he started, his voice cracking. She lifted her head from her cocooned position, smiling up at him in question. "That-That was amazing. The story you just told, it was... inspiring." His words come out rusty, lack of use, maybe too filled with emotion. She'd pushed herself to her feet, and he rushed towards her before even realizing that he's moving. He picked her up in a movement that's too swift to be calculated, and she's laughing while he spins her in the air, sucking in his breath. And he didn't exactly let go of her once her feet were solidly back on the ground, the echoing thumps of their matching heartbeats filling the minimal space between them.

"It was you, Sasha," she said, more than a little breathless, and some sort of a rumble started deep inside his chest, but he was simply staring as he waited for her to elaborate. "You inspire me."

There was a time lapse he's not willing to own up to yet. He's back in his trailer – that godawful thing parked in the back of The Rock - and he distinctly remembers crying out her name. He's bumped into some cabinet in the cramped space and growled out a curse – some mixture between his native Romanian and his adopted English. Because she's been doing things to his mind he shouldn't allow. He drops his clothes on the floor of his bathroom and they land with an almost satisfying thud. The groan the pipes made before they conceded and the water turned from ice cold to pleasantly warm sounded almost like a lecture.

And then there's a pause, a brief interlude in time when their eyes meet. It feels like someone is playing everything in slow motion, the background sound muted as they are simply allowed to stand there, looking at one another.

She moves away.

The moment passes.

Everything inside the Rock has never seemed noisier. Louder. Almost deafening.