A/N: CW for references to symptoms of panic, past minor injury, issues with memory, and negative internal dialogue.
She didn't want to board the plane.
She wanted to leave London as soon as humanly possible.
She didn't want to go home and face her family, whose texts and calls she hadn't answered in days.
She wanted to sit in her room with her weights and her cool motivational posters and never leave ever again.
She didn't want to memorize the number on the slip of paper that she'd found in her jacket pocket with the sandwich wrapper, one of the few things her stupid brain was able to cling to.
She wanted to remember what happened last night.
Her teammates offered little in the way of goodbyes. Many had an event later that day and were off preparing for it. Others were recovering from their own events or getting some last-minute workouts in.
There was no dramatic moment at the airport like there is sometimes in the movies. She flew and felt like she was going to actually die a few times, but that was nothing new at this point. She'd forgotten to take her anti-flying fear medicine so that didn't help.
The night prior was a complete blur. She hardly remembered any of it, and that was really frustrating because she knew that she'd been in a bad state of everything and Sky had been…there.
She'd been there.
How long would it take Jo to finally accept that was a good thing?
When she landed in Canada she was exhausted. She'd nibbled one of the free crackers they'd given her on the plane, but her hands had been shaking to a point that it was hard to keep it steady long enough to take more than one or two bites before it cracked and crumbled under the force of her fingers. She'd felt dizzy and sick, and still did. There was nothing in her stomach to come up again, so her nausea was just redundant at this point. The food from last night had long run its course, being the only real meal she'd consumed over the last several days.
Her parents picked her up. Her dad took her suitcase in his very stoic and former-military/pro athlete manner. He was a head taller than her and still well built for his age. Her mom, who came up to her shoulders with the aid of heels, had adjusted the strings on her daughter's hoody three times already. "You look a mess, Josephine. Did you not take your medicine when you were supposed to?" she asked with a straight face.
Jo didn't answer. It was almost two in the morning. Somehow she hadn't fully collapsed, but she certainly wasn't standing up completely straight like she usually did.
"You can tell us what happened after we get home. No more ignoring our messages," her dad spoke up as they got in the car.
I almost died on the plane, but sure, I'll tell you every single little fucking thing that went wrong, Jo thought as her eyes finally shut while the car left the airport. Like I always do. It wasn't like she'd ever withheld something from them before, like the entirety of her experience in that Egyptian sewer until she'd been woken up one night months later and told she'd been sleep-scratching herself to the point that her skin had started to break in a few areas and the blood poked through her pjs.
They came back last night. I heard them. They were above me. They were everywhere.
She was getting worse.
She was getting worse than before the therapy she stopped going to and all the prescriptions she couldn't stop forgetting to take.
London made her worse!
She was home in Canada now, but it wasn't going to be much better, she knew that. Her parents were disappointed, perhaps even mad at her for dropping the ball and having the gall to leave the Olympics early and empty-handed over what, some sore limbs? Everyone gets those, and you're not everyone, Jo, you're our daughter and we raised you to be better. To not fuck up. To reach as high as you can and shove everyone else out of the way because that's what needs to be done.
But you didn't do that. You let some tiny splinter tell you you're no good and you let it get to your head. You blew your one opportunity to be a real star instead of a wash up reality show loser.
You're a loser, Jo! A big, fat, ugly loser!
No one will care about you now, if they ever did.
You're not worth shit. You can't run, so what are you good for?
.
.
.
Her eyes were open after that.
Her parents weren't talking. They'd turned the radio on, but it was just early morning rock music.
They can't catch you in your dreams if you don't sleep.
One more chapter to go.
