Fic: First Correspondence
Title: First Correspondence
Author: simply_aly
Fandom: Make It or Break It
Pairing/Characters: Sasha/Payson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 400
Summary: He almost writes back.
Author’s Note: Companion to Last Correspondence
His first thought upon receiving her letter is spoken aloud to his pile of mail. “How did she get my address?” And a part of him desperately wishes to open the letter and see what information is contained, but after examining the outside, he doesn’t give it another thought. The letter, while plainly from Payson Keeler, is addressed to Mr. Belov, and he refuses to be addressed in such a way by her.
He promptly sends the letter back to her, along with the one that arrives the next week.
Almost a month passes before the third letter arrives. It, like the others, is addressed to Mr. Belov, but it’s handwritten, not typed, like the others were.
That letter sits unopened on his dining room table for two days before he returns it, only to receive another. He sends that one, and the one after it back with only a brief moment of hesitation. He vows to send back every letter she writes. He convinces himself that she’s better off-that they’re all better off-with him gone. He has not helped her-them. He’s only been a hindrance. Going back will surely be more of the same. Of course, he breaks the first vow a week later when a letter-addressed to Sasha Belov-arrives. And that makes all the difference.
The letter reads like a diary or a very personal conversation, and he almost writes back in kind, but he refuses to break that vow too. She’s better off, he insists, if he’s far away from her.
Fourteen more letters, all very personal in nature, arrive over the next three months. He opens each one, and images what he would reply, but he never actually puts pen to paper.
The last letter-in which she promises to leave him alone and stop writing him-he cannot ignore, however, for she tells him she’s done with gymnastics. And he realizes, maybe for the first time, how he should have talked with her, at least once, before dropping out of her life completely. He sighs, but hurriedly grabs pen and paper.
(I’ll not train you, he writes, but we should talk.)
In the end, he decides that what is best for her might simply be to have someone unconditionally believing in her, and she seems to believe that to be him. For this reason, and this reason only, he’ll return.