"Name?"

"Quinzel."

"Jolene?" the woman asked.

"That's me."

She nodded, scribbling something down on the paper in front of her. "Third party or on-site drug testing?"

"Third party. It's—uh—my gym should have sent it over already. Gotham Gymnastics Academy?"

"Mmm…" the woman narrowed her eyes at the computer screen in front of her, and typed a few quick letters, all of which was contributing significantly to Jo's growing anxiety. "Ah, here it is." She said, finally. "Jolene I. Quinzel…just the initial?"

"Just the initial," Jo smiled.

"OK…" she made a note. "Is that your Mother?" she asked, referring to Harleen who was standing off to the side.

"That she is," Jo acknowledged. "Ma, they've got some medical waivers for you to sign or something, I'm gonna check out the venue if that's—is that cool?"

The woman nodded, so Jo picked up her duffle bag, mumbling "later" as she passed by Harley in search of the locker rooms. Wasn't too hard to locate once she found the "ATHLETE" signs pointing her in the right direction.

Yeesh, quit yellin' at me, Jo thought as she followed the last sigh around a corner to find a man sitting at a table in front of what she presumed to be the locker room.

"Name?" the man asked.

Jo sighed internally. "Quinzel, Jolene."

"No. Way." A shrill female voice said behind her. "Jolene Quinzel?"

OH MY FUCKING GOD PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME SAY MY NAME AGAIN. "Yes," Jo turned around with a broad smile. "How about I say it louder for the people in the back? MY NAME IS JOLENE QUINZEL!"

The girl—who was blonde, very small and someone who Jo vaguely recognized as a gymnast from the Central City gym—was laughing. "I know, right? Why do they act like somebody would want to impersonate us? Don't they know how much this hair hurts? I'm Courtney—but I'm not gonna yell it, if that's OK?"

"Oh, uh—yeah, that's perfectly fine," well now Jo felt a little embarrassed. "I'm Jo—but I guess we already established that."

"We did," Courtney giggled. "Sorry, I don't want to distract you or anything, I just—umm…" she set her bag down and unzipped it, shuffling around inside until she pulled out a roll of athletic tape and a sharpie. "Will you sign my tape?" she asked, biting her lip nervously.

"Will I—what?" Jo laughed. "You want me to sign your tape?"

"Well…yeah," Courtney blushed. "I'm probably not gonna make it, if I'm being honest with myself, and—uh—I'm pretty sure they've already printed up your posters because you're like a given, so…well now I feel stupid," she laughed. "I'm just a fan and if we're not gonna be teammates, I want people to at least know I was good enough to be in the same room as you."

"Hey, you never know," Jo grinned, searching through her mental gif library for the best 'internally screaming' option. "Anything could happen. But yeah, I'll totally sign your tape." She held out her hands and the girl excitedly deposited both items.

Courtney stared down at her feet as Jo scribbled her name. "You're really pretty—I mean!" her head shot up in alarm. "Your makeup! Is really pretty. I meant your makeup."

Jo just smiled at the bright pink of the girl's cheeks as she handed the autographed tape back to her. "Can't both be true?"

/

Selina opened the door before Pam even had a chance to knock, wearing a 'USA' t-shirt and sporting a smile that communicated her pity.

Alfred died roughly 7 years prior, and Selina had taken up the door answering duties since then because Bruce simply didn't have the heart to hire a new butler. Alfred did get to see Selina wearing the engagement ring before he passed, though, which seemed to be a great comfort to Bruce. Evidently, Alfred had wanted him to settle down for some time, so even though the ring was purely symbolic, it had meant something to Alfred.

Selina was wearing the ring now, along with a wedding band that she—again—swore she only accepted due to the quality and craftsmanship of the item.

"Hey…" Selina exhaled.

"No makeup today?" Pam asked, referring to the brunette's pale complexion. She just couldn't deal with Selina's sympathetic tone.

Selina shrugged. "I didn't see the point. It's just us."

Pam acknowledged her with a nod, starting into the doorway, trying to slide past her…but Selina stopped her by placing two hands firmly on her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. "What the hell are you doing?" Pam demanded.

"Hugging you. What the fuck does it look like?" Selina asked, not relinquishing her grip in the slightest

"Well stop, please." Pamela requested, frankly alarmed by this show of affection. "We're going to miss the thing. Are Barbara and Dick already here?"

"They are," Selina confirmed. "But how about we don't refer to the Olympic trials as 'the thing' ever again."

"Fine, apologies." Pam waited for Selina to release her, and made a b-line for the living room as soon as she did, finding that Babs and Dick were, indeed, there, sitting on one of the couches wearing similar nationally branded attire.

"Hey!" Dick greeted happily. "Check it out, Pam." He twisted in his seat so that she could see the name "Quinzel" printed on the back of his shirt.

"You all realize this isn't the actual Olympics, right? It's just the audition." Pam attempted to set them straight, as they were clearly confused.

"First off, it's not an audition, dumbass." Selina pushed past her to take a seat in the largest empty, leather chair. "It's a try-out." She curled her legs up under her body. "And it's the closest Jo's gonna get to the actual thing. This is her Olympics and we're going to treat it as such."

Pam felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to find Bruce standing there, holding out a shirt to her that seemed to be identical to Dick's. "She'll be happy to know you're watching."

"Thank you," was the best response Pam could muster as she took the shirt from him, sitting down in the chair next to Selina's.

"They've been talking about her for like a half hour straight," Barbara reported. "I'm honestly not sure if they're aware other girls showed up."

"Why?" Pam asked, remaining on the edge of her seat. "I mean, she's wonderful, obviously, and is clearly talented…but I don't quite understand what makes her so much better than the other girls. It seems like every competition she participates in; she's just expected to win. Why?"

Selina laughed. "Harley never explained this to you?"

"Well…no…but to be fair, I never asked." Pam admitted.

"It's because of her start value," Dick told her. "The judges evaluate each routine for its difficulty score, and Jolene's routines are so difficult that she automatically starts like a point ahead."

"Hypothetically, a girl could execute her routine to absolute perfection, just be flawless, and Jo could make a mistake and still beat her," Barbara explained.

"So, really…" Pam was trying to understand. "It's a completely individual sport. She's competing against herself, and even more so because of the…" she attempted to recall the phrase. "Start value of her routine."

"Exactly," Selina agreed. "And Jo's routines have the highest difficulty scores in the world right now—for a woman, anyway—which is a victory in itself. She'll change the sport, Pam, especially since they don't know they're competing against a meta-human."

Pam sighed, "and that's why her routines can be so difficult."

"Well sure," Selina conceded. "But also—OK—look." She pointed at the screen where the athletes could be seen warming up. "Watch the way her body moves once it leaves the ground."

Pam waited until it was Jo's turn on the vault, and watched as she sprinted down the runway, launching off the apparatus into a series of flips and twists before landing solidly on two feet.

"See?" Selina prompted.

Pam didn't see…she'd watched Jolene perform stunts like that countless times…but she nodded like she did, as Selina coming off somehow intellectually superior was a nightmare that had plagued her for some time.

Selina chuckled, obviously recognizing her bluff. "She understands her body in space, and the physics of each movement. Like, just there, she came off the table a little sideways, but was able to make an adjustment because she understood her velocity and trajectory. She's smart," Selina smiled. "A smarter gymnast than Harley was—and unless your plant DNA added some IQ points, that's all her."

Pam sat in silence for a moment, watching Jo conversing amicably with another girl, wearing her typical sunny smile—something Pam hadn't seen for over a month now. "She didn't want me there today." Pam murmured.

Selina cleared her throat as the rest of the living room occupants shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, we know. But hey, jokes on her! This is the best seat. We get to rewind, fast-forward through commercials…"

"And the camera angles," Dick added. "We get to see everything from all different camera angles."

"Hey, it's Harley!" Barbara changed the subject by pointing to the screen where it showed the blonde sitting alone in the stands. "Turn it up."

Bruce obliged.

"Little known fact," the female commentator was saying. "Jolene's mother, Harleen, was a pretty accomplished gymnast herself, won a collegiate national championship all-around in 1991."

"Well talent clearly runs in the family," the male commentator chuckled. "It seems Mr. Quinzel couldn't make it today, but—"

Pam grabbed what was nearest to her and rifled it at the television, and the others jumped to their feet as the object bounced off the screen and clattered to the floor.

"Pamela!" Bruce shouted. "Do you have any idea what this television cost?"

"I'm more concerned with where she found a Rubik's cube," Selina leaned over to pick it up off the ground.

"Did they do absolutely zero research?" Pam demanded. "This pervasive heteronormativity—,"

"OK," Selina gabbed her around the waist, pulling her down so that they now shared the large chair. "We're only 10 minutes in. How about you sit on that rant for a bit?"

"If I was there—,"

"They'd probably call you Harley's friend," Bruce cut her off. "Would that have been more or less offensive?"

"I just—I demand to know why our standards are so low." Pam rebuked. "How, after 31 years of marriage, is my relationship still less legitimate than yours or yours?" she posed the same question to both couples. If Pam was being honest with herself, she was just using this as a distraction from the fact that her daughter really hadn't spoken to her since that fated conversation around the kitchen table.

"Because people are assholes, Pam. You spent a career preaching that," Selina reminded her.

"No—," Bruce started to intervene, before Pam shot back with: "If you whip out your 'men are still good' speech I'm going to use that Ficus to strangle you, I swear."

Bruce just quietly closed his mouth, lightly clearing his throat as he leaned back into the couch cushions.

Pam fixed him there with a warning look before turning her attention to the television once more, which was—luckily—unharmed by the Rubik's cube assault. She couldn't help feeling melancholy. This was the biggest day of her daughter's life, and here Pam was…sitting in Bruce Wayne's living room next to Selina rather than next to her wife at the venue.

Jo was entitled to her frustration—absolutely. Pam wouldn't wish to take that away from her in a million years, but she'd hoped that after a month, she'd be able to put some of this aside for just one day, to allow Pam to witness her daughter's greatest joy in life. Maybe Pam would never be able to fully understand it. Maybe it would always be a bit easier for her to get along with Anthony being that he shared so many of her interests…but Jo would always be her little girl, and her triumphs and failures would always feel like Pam's burden to share. She didn't know how to apologize for the very thing that bound them together. What made Jo hers was now the wedge driving them apart.

Pam knew that this likely could have been avoided had she ignored her fear of a negative reflection and told Jo the truth when she was just a child—before her goal came within reach. But what good did that do her now? Regret, guilt, shame…what was the point of it all? She couldn't go backwards. She'd already apologized—profusely—for the choices she'd made, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Harleen told her to just wait until after the trails, after Jo was through with this period of her life and ready to move on. But Pam was afraid, frankly. What if moving through this period took Jo years? What if she held onto this forever just as Pam had everything her mother ever did?

"16 flat, at least, come on, baby…" Selina was crossing her fingers following Jo's floor routine. "16.2! no fucking way!"

Pam watched Jo graciously accept congratulations from the other athletes, her smile still wide and bright…but the hurt behind her eyes was easy to see.

By the time it was all over and they were ready to announce the team, Jo had only been deducted a cumulative four-tenths, which (according to Selina) meant she'd been nearly perfect on all of her routines. Harleen looked sad too—or apologetic, maybe—when they showed her in the stands. The commentators said it looked like it was all just too much to process, but Pam knew the truth: it was an empty victory.

/

Jolene smiled when they called her name. She happily waved to the crowd as she stepped onto the floor wearing her new, official USA sweat-suit, and gave an excited high-five to the other four girls whose names were called…though she wasn't really paying attention until they called the first alternate: Courtney Whitmore.

Her being first alternate meant that she would take over Jo's forfeited spot, and that knowledge provided Jo with maybe her first genuine smile all night, bittersweet as it was.

Afterwards, once Harley had informed the coach Jo would be pulling out, she caught up to Courtney in the hallway.

"Hey!" she called after her.

Courtney turned around immediately, her eyes wide. "Jolene, congra—,"

"Yeah, no, I'm not going." Jo panted, tired from the event and the fact that she'd just about had to sprint to catch up with her. "I can't go."

Courtey looked stunned. "You're—but—what do you mean?"

"It, umm…it turns out I didn't earn it." Jo had to fight hard to keep the tears at bay. "So, really, it's you who's deserving of congratulations, and I'll be watching—so don't fuck up." She'd meant it as a joke, but it came out sounding sincere and thick with emotion. "I hope it's as awesome as it looks on TV."

Courtney seemed to be at a loss for words, so Jo just started back down the hallway to where Harleen was patiently waiting.

You know what…

She quickly spun back around. "Oh, and just for the record, it's totally OK to think girls are pretty for reasons besides their makeup," and with that she grabbed the girl's face and pulled her into a kiss that probably didn't need to last as long as it did, but the shade of pink in Courtney's cheeks when they separated communicated her appreciation.

Harley looked thoroughly bewildered when Jo jogged to rejoin her.

"Did you just—,"

"Make her day?" Jo asked. "Yeah, I did."

Author's note: apologies for the bottle chapter