Author: Me
Title: A & F
Pairing:  Liukin/Sacramone
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Disclaimer:  Totally, 100% false.  Everything.  All made up for the purpose of story -- or lack there of.
Summary:  Based on a picture that Alicia has to come to grips with.
A/N:  FriendFic with a hint of Slash – if you look really hard.  I got hit with a moment of sadness.
Word count:  1,599



The phone crackled alive and the familiar voice broke through the din of static.

“Oh right… I remember that one.  There are so many others though; like that one group shot in front of the complex, in our shades – You made us go gangster…”

“Babygirl… that’s gangsta” , corrected Alicia with a chortle.

“Ok fine, whatever…So why that one”, responded the girl on the distant end.
 
Alicia cradled her chin on the nest of her palm, regarding the picture carefully, thoughtfully.  True there were other pictures that represented the type of relationship they had.  From goofy, to the asinine, to triumph and then to heartache… their rapport had been captured through the open and prying eye of the camera lens.  Each picture ever taken of the two of them (majority in groups) offered a little story based on their captured actions.  This particular photo paled…but its subtext was subtle.  They were two girls who transcended their friendship; they literally grew up together.  Now they stood at the precipice of time’s whim. Time and distance would dictate what happened to them.

She heard the line go dead for a moment, then heard her friend’s hitched breathing, “Sorry, trying to make my gate; I really need to just learn how to travel light… still there?”

“Yeah…Hey, I can…should let you go,” Alicia’s brow furrowed.  She didn’t like the way those string of words tasted.

“Don’t you dare!”

Alicia’s lips curled into a faint smile.

“Besides we have something important to decide.”

Alicia snort-laughed.  “It’s not like I can’t text or email you, dork.”

“Sacramone…” Her friend sighed dramatically, “to be able to get me ON the phone is a rare thing; out of everyone in this world, you should be honored I’m talking to your butt.”

“The word is ass. You’ve used it before, Nast.  Say it with me… aahhh-sssss.  Emphasis on the ‘S’.  Seriously it’s not a,” Alicia’s voice hitched lower as she whispered conspiratorially, “bad word.”

“Alicia!”  Her friend’s raspy laugh wafted from the phone’s mono-toned speakers.

“Are you getting sick again?” the trace of worry was evident in her tone when she heard the girl answer breathlessly.

“I seriously don’t think I got over whatever it is I had. And…You do know your captaining duties ended in Beijing right?”

“Wow, thanks buddy.  Way t’make me feel so important in your life.”  She paused then quickly added, “I’m blaming you for my drinking problem, and subsequent derelict actions that MIGHT lead me to jail; just so you know.”

Alicia grinned widely, barely managing to stifle the bubbling laugh at the back of her throat.  Despite the rib, she felt her friend smile through the receiver as her following words were delivered, seriously intoned.

“You best be taking that back, Sac.”

“Or…?”

“I’ll punch you in the throat.”

Silence.

“What the fuck??” laughed Alicia.

“It’s how I rolled in pre-school, someone looked at me the wrong way,” the girl offered impishly before laughing along with Alicia, “I read that somewhere online – I know what you’re gonna say, I spend way too much time on the net… It’s just…” the line crackled and clicked “..it might be the only way I can keep in contact with everyone; that and texting, don’t judge me.”

When it came down to it, it was the simple truth.  That fork in the road came too soon… Everyone had their own lives to return to and some won’t be looking back.

“Anyway… The picture?”

Alicia’s eyes drifted back to the picture walled on the desktop of her MacBook Pro.

There was nothing remotely spectacular to define this picture by.  It was simply two friends standing right next to one another.  They were framed by the obnoxiousness of Miami or LA’s (she couldn’t recall) twisted neon lit terminal-tunnel while they rode the flat escalator to baggage claim.  The younger blonde towered her just a few inches. No arms tangled with the other, no faux-pucker kisses and no exaggerated faces.  Their heads rested gently against one another and their bodies leaned towards the other in a show of support; yet they were buffered by a little space that hung between them.

It was still one of Alicia’s most prized photos.

Just her and Nastia. 

Composed and older, their eyes relayed everything.  They made it through the worse; they’d conquered Worlds, and were en route to making their mark in Beijing at that point in time.  This was the marking, at least in Alicia’s eyes, how things weren’t going to be the same, how they matured. How Nastia matured.  It was Nastia who wanted to temper their photo-op.  And Alicia listened – so they toned it down and that picture was born.  Nastia was growing into her own person and no longer needed a mentor. 

But behind her very own rosewood gaze, Alicia recognized the frightened girl; she knew it back then apparently.  Alicia was the type of person that reveled in people around her and selfishly – she loved being needed and wanted. This picture just reminded her there would be a time when people won’t need what she had to offer.

Alicia hoped that Nastia would still need and want her friendship no matter the circumstance.

“Alicia?”

Snapping to, she tucked the handset between the crook of her neck and shoulder, already beginning to click through her graphics-editing program and began to clack away at the keyboard.

“Yeah… I’m here…”

“So…?”

Alicia mulled over her Alicia-polished-answer, “I looked good.  And you’re not half bad in it.”

“You’re serious. That’s the only reason?”

“Yep.”

 “I swear you have the biggest...”

“Rack?  Yeah I know.  Jesus Nast, I didn’t think you looked at me like that!”

“They’re constantly out there Alicia, can’t be helped…and while that’s true… I was going to say: Ego.”

Alicia warmed at their late-night quip. “So… you like it?  Not my breasts, but I wouldn’t blame you if you admired ‘em…and…”

Nastia snorted and cut her off, “It’s a photo of us from April.”

“Why not?”

“I just thought you’d like something more recent, but, if you want to use it in your birthday slide, I’ll text Sammy tonight since she’s setting it up.”

She smiled, “Great.”  The line went quiet again.

Alicia’s eyes skimmed towards the nearby hanging wall-calendar.  December was just around the corner.  The young woman’s attention spirited towards her bulldog.  A loud snort rumbled from the dog’s flopped lips; gently Alicia allowed her feet to massage at her baby's scruff.

Her tone sobered, adopting a more intimate ambiance. Alicia was careful to not speak at a louder timbre, afraid that it would break the tender thread that linked the pair,

“So…Are you gonna be able to make it?” 

When Alicia hadn’t received a response, she could almost guess what the younger woman was about to say. “Uhm, you know what…”

“I’ll try.” Nastia murmured, ending Alicia’s comment.  “I can’t promise, it’s just…” The blonde ended in a static whisper that sounded like Nastia had been asking for her forgiveness, “Alicia…”

She let the quiet draw out.  Alicia used the back of her hand to swipe at her nose.  She really should have expected this.  Breathing in, the one-time team captain said in a playful manner as she could muster,

“Lookit you – ballin’!”

“Leesh, you know it’s not that…”

“Flyin’ here, goin’ there.  On TV here…”

“Will you please...Leesh – I can’t control that, it’s not that I don’t want to be there.”

Alicia nodded despite knowing her friend couldn’t see the acknowledging bob of her head, “I know.”  In truth, they hadn’t seen one another in a month or two since the end of that damned tour.  How many more months would it be till they resort to nothing more than idle comments left on Facebook?

“Hey, don’t give up on me.”

Then the arrogant blaring of the airport’s overhead speakers ripped through Alicia’s cell, so much that she had to tear the phone from her ear.  Once the sharp tinny subsided, the phone was returned to its place.

“…Sorry…  They just…uh, announced my…hang on,” the line went muffled, but she had heard Nastia speaking in the background, telling someone she was on her way; but to give her a few more minutes.

Alicia let her eyes fall to her roughshod cuticles of her nails, she found herself quietly willing the girl to be allowed more time.  Their conversation really didn’t have any substance; it took on the tone of acquaintances asking the other party how they were, what’s going on in their lives, setting up appointments – peppered with a sense of urgency.

“I have to go.”

Breathing in sharply, Alicia answered, “Yeah. Hey… don’t be a stranger, ok?  Text me once you get there.”

“Absolutely” a pause was given,  “Listen…”

“Yeah?”  Alicia softly questioned.  Again she heard faint rustling, Nastia’s voice became clearer, and she assumed the blonde brought the handset closer to her lips.

“Just like it said on that pic…Always and forever, right?” 

It was a caption added on to the picture… Always and forever.  Friends normally uttered those words without understanding the connotation.  But Alicia never said anything like that without meaning it. 

Before Alicia could respond though, Nastia whispered her final goodbye; something in way it was uttered rendered Alicia’s heart. Then the line clicked and pulsed with the familiar sound of a call that ended.

The phone slipped from its precarious spot and landed with a weighted feel to her lap.  She stared at her laptop, burning the image into her mind. With a few quick keystrokes and mouse-clicks Alicia changed the wallpaper to something a little more generic.  Non-gymnastics related, non-team related.  Looking back through all those memories… wouldn’t let her move on.

And…It was time to move on.

~end~