A/N: Sorry I haven't been around, I've spent the last two months travelling the United States and Canada! It was an amazing trip, and one of the biggest highlights… I ACTUALLY MET AJ COOK. No word of a lie. I have a photo to prove it.

I also met Jordon (littleoblivion) in person and we had such an amazing weekend in New York City! It was unreal going from online friends who just text to stay in touch to actually standing in front of each other and having a real conversation! I was so sad when we said goodbye at the subway station at the end of it all, but I'm sure we'll see each other again soon!

Jordon is also my 'witness' (she wasn't really there but she knows it happened) to meeting AJ! Haha!

"Next!"

Stifling a yawn, JJ shuffled up to the desk, hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulder as she handed her passport over to the immigration officer.

"What brings you to the UK?" asked the officer as he took her passport from her hand.

"Competing in the Olympics," JJ mumbled halfheartedly, fighting to keep from yawning again as she spoke.

"And how long do you intend to stay in the United Kingdom?"

"Twenty eight days," JJ replied. "I fly back on the thirteenth of August"

"You're not intending to work, study, or live in the UK on your current visa?"

JJ shook her head. The officer gave her a smile, stamping her passport and closing it before handing it back to her.

"Enjoy your stay, and good luck in the Games"

"Thank you," JJ said quietly, readjusting her bag once more before walking away from the desk. Just ahead of her were Kyla and Gabby, and so she quickly fell into step beside them as they joined the throng of passengers making their way to the baggage claim hall. The three of them remained silent as they shuffled their way towards the carousel that had been assigned to their flight.

With a sigh, JJ dropped her bag down by her feet as they stood alongside the carousel. They had clearly come through immigration quickly; the carousel was not live, and there were no bags on it.

"I saw you yawning at that immigration officer," Kyla giggled, breaking the silence between them. "He must've thought you were the most disinterested Olympic athlete ever"

JJ laughed, shaking her head. "Yeah, you know, the Olympics are great and all, but there's so many other things I could be doing right now. Like sleeping"

Gabby and Kyla both laughed. At that moment, the alarm on the carousel rang, signaling that the bags were mere moments away. They stood in silence once more, watching as the assortment of luggage began dropping down onto the carousel. The plane had been mostly carrying the US Olympic team, so all the bags were near identical, save for the identifying tags and ribbons they had all tied to them.

It took a while for them to identify their bags amongst the flurry, but soon enough, all eight of the girls and the national team staff had collected their things. It was a quick pass through customs with nothing to declare, and finally, they were outside in the early morning London sunshine. It was there on the concourse that they bid goodbye to the alternate training squad. Jordyn looked positively miserable as she said goodbye to the five girls on the team, and the hug she gave JJ was as brief as it could possibly have been.

As the official team made their way over to the buses taking athletes to the Village, JJ had to wonder if she was ever going to see Jordyn, Sarah and Elizabeth again. For many, the Olympics were the decided end of the road, whether they made the team or not. She knew Sarah and Elizabeth were heading off to college soon; Sarah to LSU, and Elizabeth to Stanford. She herself had given up her NCAA eligibility the previous year, when she'd turned professional on the back of her success in Tokyo. That meant that unless they actively sought each other out, she was unlikely to see the girls again.

She shook her head slightly as she passed her duffel bag off to the driver in front of the cargo hold. Now was not the time to worry about whether she'd see her friends again. After all, they were at the Olympic Games, and now was the time to knuckle down and concentrate on the job at hand.

Some hours later, they had been cleared into the Village, registered as Olympians, and accredited to allow them access to the competition arena. Their area was set off in a quad section of the entire USA apartment block. At the entrance to their quad was Martha Karolyi's room, followed by a set of stairs. Going up the stairs to the second floor led to the coaches rooms and a room that was to be used as a therapy room. On the third and last level were three more rooms and an open living space. JJ and Aly had been put in one room, McKayla and Kyla in another, and Gabby had happily taken the last room for herself.

After having a rest and something to eat, the team was now in the Olympic training gym getting their first London workout under their belts. Seeing as floor was the only event not taken by another training group, they had elected to start there with conditioning and strength training, before running through their routines and continuing on in the Olympic order of vault, bars, and beam.

Conditioning and strength had taken an hour, and finally Martha had felt they were ready for routines. Kyla, Gabby, and McKayla had already gone, and Aly was in the throes of her single run through. None of them were even close to perfect – tiredness and a little jet lag was showing in all their moves, but they had put forward enough to satisfy Martha that they were on track for a good competition.

"Just focus on staying tight and setting all your skills," Nick said softly as JJ moved to the edge of the floor when Aly was done. She nodded, swinging her arms to loosen them before assuming her starting position at the edge of the floor. On the other side, she watched as Mihai pressed play on the stereo, bursting her music into life. She loved this music. It was a famous Irish folk song called 'Reel Around the Sun' from Bill Whelan's famous show, Riverdance. It had also been used by Andreea Raducan of Romania in the Sydney Olympics; Andreea was something of an inspiration to her.

She danced back into the corner, noticing how sluggish her arms felt as she set herself up for her first tumbling pass. A beat later, she took off across the floor, launching herself into her run. She rebounded hard off the floor into her double layout, but even so, her legs already felt tired, and she landed it extremely low. Any lower, and it would have been a total crash.

She sucked it up, taking a deep breath as she continued through her choreography. She allowed the music to fill her up as she resettled herself in the corner, before taking off again. This time, it felt a little easier, her double Arabian seeming to soar through the air before her feet hit the ground with only a little stumble.

'Better,' she mused to herself as she broke into her main section of dance, many of her moves similar to those that had been performed by Andreea in 2000. She loved this routine, an homage to a gymnast she had adored as a child, similar and yet so different in many ways.

Her third tumble was her triple twist, which was highly under-rotated and earned another stumble. She grimaced slightly, pushing through what was left of her choreography as the music began to build to its final crescendo.

And then she was running for her final pass, hurdling and then flipping seamlessly across the floor. But her punch was weak, her legs tired, and she landed her double pike straight to her knees, keeling over onto the floor from the momentum behind the impact. Wincing slightly, she pushed herself up and assumed her final pose, trying not to let Martha see just how much the shoddy routine had rattled her.

She walked off the floor to an uncomfortable silence. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martha pursing her lips in disdain, and thought it would be best not to look for the time being. So she trained her gaze on Nick, who looked less than impressed as she approached him.

"That wasn't fantastic," he said softly as she came to a stop before him.

'Really Nick? You didn't like the part where I landed a skill on my knees? I thought for sure we would keep that in,' she thought sarcastically to herself, fighting back the urge to roll her eyes. She took a deep breath, steeling the frustration deep down inside her as she found her voice again.

"I know," she finally said. "But I can, and I will do better"

"Alright," Nick said stiffly. "Grab your bag"

Lost in her thoughts, she had barely paid any attention to the other girls as they went through vault timers. Her own timers had been ok; the height off the table felt good, her direction was alright…

But when it came down to it, it had gone haywire. The first of her three vaults was ok… the landing was iffy, but otherwise, the vault was fine. The second one had been under-rotated, which was manageable. On the third one, however, she had thrown as much power into it as she could muster, causing her to over-rotate it to the point of being an Amanar, before staggering out of it and down the entire length of the landing mat. It was certainly not how she'd wanted to finish her run on vault. The other girls had not had great vaults either, with the exception of McKayla. In fact, Aly had actually sat one down completely, meaning she and JJ were on even footing as far as performances went.

Bars brought its own brand of trouble. Historically never her best event, but one she certainly wanted to prove her worth on, JJ was muscling through a largely ok routine. She almost breathed a sigh of relief as she got to her dismount, until a wild tap sent her peeling off the bar too early. Improvising, she pulled her body shape into a tuck as opposed to a layout, managing to pull it around just fast enough to land it on her feet, albeit with an incredibly low chest.

By the time she straightened up and walked off the mat, Nick's mouth had formed an extremely thin line, and she knew he wasn't impressed at all. Ducking her head, she passed him in silence, wanting a few moments alone to gather herself together for beam.

'You're at the Olympics. Everything is at stake. If you don't pull it together for at least your best event, Martha is going to replace you'

She remained silent as they moved to one of the practice beams, choosing to stand off to the side as Aly and Gabby took their turns. She ran through the routine several times in her head, breathing deeply as she worked to settle her rattled nerves.

In the blink of an eye, she was up on the beam, working cleanly and calmly through the opening moments of her routine. She felt solid and secure. Finally, something was going right.

She lined up at the end of the beam, swinging back into her flight series. Her hands rebounded twice from the beam in rhythmic motion, her feet punching her high into the air as she wrapped in a tight full twist.

Seconds later, her foot brushed the top of the beam, sending her crashing down the side of it to the floor.

Tears welled up inside of her as she placed her hands flat atop the beam. With stunning willpower, she swallowed them back, pulling herself back up on top of the beam and continuing the routine. She was so numb, so robotic, that the rest of the routine was practically perfect, right to the stuck landing on the dismount.

"JJ," Nick started softly as she walked away from the beam towards her bag.

"I'm fine," she choked out, holding out a hand to stop him coming closer. "I'm fine"

Nick looked like he was going to argue, but he decided against it, nodding once as he stepped back to give her some space.

Taking a mouthful from her water bottle, JJ stayed at the bank of chairs, facing the wall as she tried to keep her composure.

Surely that was it. Surely Martha would have Jordyn in to replace her by tomorrow.

She was pulled from her thoughts a few moments later by a loud thump, followed by a groan of pain. She whirled around, surprised to see McKayla sitting on the landing mat holding her foot.

The foot that had had a fractured toe since May.

Anxiety seemed to course through her as she watched McKayla limp off the mat with the help of her coach.

Would Martha have to replace two of her chosen gymnasts?

She and Aly had barely entered their room in the Village that evening when JJ felt the tears rising up uncontrollably inside her. Not wanting Aly to see her break down, she quickly excused herself to the bathroom, shutting the door and collapsing against the wall as the tears began to flood down her cheeks.

Surely she wasn't going to be kept on the team after that. There was no way Martha would believe she was capable of keeping it together. All she had managed to show today was that the pressure was getting to her by falling every which way possible. Add to that the revelation that McKayla had further injured her fractured toe and would be reduced to vaulting only meant that JJ's poor showing on floor was so much worse.

"JJ?" came Aly's soft voice at the door.

"Go away," JJ sobbed, burying her face in her arms as her body shook with tears.

"I'm not gonna do that," Aly said softly. "Can I come in?"

JJ stayed silent, working to fight back her tears as the latch on the door clicked and Aly slipped into the room. She sat herself down opposite JJ, stretching her legs out alongside her teammate.

"What's going on?"

JJ didn't reply, instead choosing to avoid Aly's concerned gaze.

"JJ…"

"I don't think I can do this," JJ admitted, her voice barely above a whisper as more tears spilled over. "I'm the worst one on the team, Aly, I'm a total disaster"

"No you're not," Aly said quickly. "JJ, you had one dodgy training session. It's not the end of the world. Better to get the falls out of your system now than out on the competition floor. Besides... you're tired, we all are. None of us had a great day and Martha recognises that... I mean, McKayla broke her freaking toe!"

"What if I go out there and screw everything up?" JJ asked timidly, her voice full of fear and worry as she overlooked Aly's last sentence.

"You won't," Aly said reassuringly. "You're our world champion beamer. You've always hit when we need you to, it's why you're on this team"

"Marta should have picked Jordyn," JJ said softly. "You saw me out there, I even fell on beam, that's the one event I'm counted on to hit"

"Would you have been happy with that decision?" Aly asked gently. "You've worked your whole life for the Olympics, JJ, and now you're here, you're about to have the competition of a lifetime"

JJ sniffed as Aly put her arms around her and gave her a squeeze.

"Please don't tell anyone about this," JJ whispered pleadingly, allowing Aly to hold her as she tried to stem her tears.

The Olympics were an amazing opportunity... but the pressure was mounting. And JJ didn't know if she was up for the challenge.