A/N: WHO IS PUMPED!

"I love you so much Dad… thank you for everything you've done for me to get me to this point," she said softly, her emotions staying surprisingly in check as she held her father's hand tightly between her own.

Michael could barely stay awake for more than a few minutes in his current condition. Always in pain, his constant flow of medication kept him as comfortable as possible, but also served to make him less lucid. Nevertheless, he didn't have to open his eyes for JJ to know he had heard her; squeezing her hand, he filled her heart with warmth as she managed a now slightly watery smile.

"I'm gonna go make that team for you"

"Good evening ladies and gentleman and welcome to the first night of the 2016 Olympic Team Trials for the women of USA Gymnastics! There will be two nights of competition, tonight and Sunday, and when all is said and done on Sunday, we will have an Olympic team! I'm Al Trautwig, here with Olympic gold medalists Nastia Liukin and Tim Daggett… we are in for a BIG night tonight!"

2016 OLYMPIC TEAM TRIALS

It was plastered everywhere the eye could see. The arena had been decked out in the same equipment that was being used for the Games, meaning the floor was a bright white rather than the blue they were used to in domestic competitions.

Nerves were running high all throughout the room. JJ knew Will, Jason, Katie, and Nandy were all up in the stands somewhere supporting her, but she didn't want to know where; it would only make her more nervous. Not too far away from them were Will's parents, Lani and Clayton – tickets to Trials had been a hot commodity and they hadn't been able to all be seated together.

But they were there. And somehow, it made her feel better.

The competition was already underway. She was in the same rotation as Aly, Madison, and Mykayla, all starting on vault, with Simone and Laurie in the rotation behind them, starting on floor. Aly had already vaulted, doing very well to put up a high 15 to open her bid for the Olympic team.

More determined than ever to remain focused on her routines, JJ pushed out the noise of the crowd as she awaited her turn. They were exceptionally rowdy and excited, and she could understand why; if she was a fan watching the final selection of an Olympic team, she'd be excited too.

It felt like forever, but finally, it was her turn to vault. She was only going to be doing her Amanar here; even though there was a vault competition being awarded, none of the three girls with two vaults had elected to do their second vault, effectively meaning the vault standings would all be awarded based on single vault scores. Their reasoning was that they had demonstrated their vault capabilities at Nationals, and Marta knew they could do two vaults; here, it was about demonstrating one more time that they could hit in an all-around setting to make that final push for the team.

"So we have JJ coming up on vault now. I don't think she's got too much to worry about. She's been so good all quad, with that meteoric rise from 2012 onwards, that she's basically locked onto the team barring a major injury. She's gotten so good that I think if she had a clone here competing exactly as she did in 2012, they would place much lower in the all-around standings… they certainly wouldn't be a guarantee for the team. Maybe a strong consideration"

"She wasn't guaranteed to the team in 2012, however. She was definitely a strong contender, but I don't think it was until Trials, when she came out and proved she could be more consistent than Jordyn Wieber that Marta decided to actually put her on the team. She knows that too, and I think this quad has been about proving her worth to this team, proving she is better than people think she is"

With floor music playing in the background, she saluted the judges and took a deep breath as she centered herself on the runway.

Seconds later, she was running full speed towards the table. Hurdling beautifully into her roundoff, she rebounded from the springboard and blocked hard off the table and into the air.

Her form was impeccable, but her forward momentum was a little too overpowered, causing her to stagger forward slightly as she landed. Quickly reigning it in, she steadied herself, managing a smile as she saluted the judges and walked from the podium.

"Not your best, but certainly not your worst," Nick said warmly as she came down the stairs. "All you did was forget to absorb the landing, you came in with your chest over your feet when ideally you should be coming in with your chest slightly behind your feet. We can probably play that off on nerves, just make sure you work on it for Sunday"

Nodding, JJ smiled as Aly came up to give her a hug. The two remained silent as they hugged; maybe they were afraid of revealing how nervous they really were.

But just moments later, they were forced to refocus on themselves, for it was time to move onto the next event.

Bars.

"Now… JJ had a HUGE disaster on bars on the first night of the national championships. She fell three times and just kinda fell apart. Even though she was much better on night two, she will definitely be looking to redeem herself further here tonight"

"It makes me sad that she can so easily fall apart on this event too, because she is SO beautiful to watch when she's on!"

Her green flag had come and she was on.

Casting up into her first handstand, she steeled herself against all distractions; she was not going to mess up bars again.

The first transition came without headache, as did her first release move, caught spectacularly to much applause from the crowd.

"Come on JJ," Will muttered beneath his hands, barely able to watch from his seat in the stands. He was forcing himself to watch JJ's routines all the way through, as much as he wanted to close his eyes until they were over.

He cheered when she successfully made it through the Pak without making a mistake, before reverting to nervously watching as she shot back to the high bar for her dismount.

A high and flighty full twisting double layout was the perfect full stop at the end of a brilliant routine. JJ couldn't contain her joy, pumping the air excitedly after saluting the judges; she'd survived her 'worst' event, and survived it she certainly had.

"JJ has done pretty well so far. Her vault was… well, it was decent enough for her purposes, and Marta KNOWS she's better than what she showed… her bars was fantastic, and now she's just about ready to go on the event which she is the REIGNING World and Olympic Champion… she's thinking, 39 days until she tries to defend that Olympic title. I don't think she'll need to try, to be honest, I think if she's on the team, she's got that gold medal in the bag"

"Is it really only 39 days until the beam final?"

"Absolutely"

Will looked elsewhere in the arena as JJ took off to mount the beam with her front tuck; he could watch everything else, but the mount made him far too nervous.

Luckily, she landed it no problems, as was her custom. Straightaway, she swung back into her standing Arabian, landing it with a defiant puff of chalk exploding up from the beam. Swinging her arms back, she performed her Onodi, linking it immediately to two consecutive front aerials, connected to a simple split leap at the end.

Her next hurdle was the layout full series. Breathing to focus herself, she swung back into it, driving through her shoulders and easily landing the difficult skill at the end of the series.

That was the hardest part over.

Her body went into autopilot as she worked through the final bits of the routine, mentally checking off requirements as she went.

Next minute, she was tumbling into her dismount.

"Look at the height off the end of the beam!"

With a confident thwack, her feet hit the mat and she straightened up, a proud smile on her face as she saluted the judges. Off to the side, Nick was clapping, nodding happily as she approached him.

So far, so good.

The nervous energy had mostly dissipated by the time they reached the final rotation, but that didn't stop Simone from flubbing her wolf turn, the very first skill of her beam routine, in a very uncharacteristic move.

But JJ had to ignore that, because she was about to go on floor.

"I'm curious to see if she's going to finally put in that upgrade we're all certain she's got. She didn't do it at nationals, which is probably understandable, but I think Marta has a rule that any upgrades going to the Olympics HAVE to be performed domestically first, so we'll see what happens!"

Settling into her opening pose, JJ took a deep breath.

The music began, the powerful intro filling her ears. She waited for her cue, and when it came, she whipped into action, dancing back into the corner exactly as Teagan had taught her.

Leaping off her foot, she ran powerfully across the floor, hurdling into her roundoff, backflip, and rebounding high into the air.

The second her feet left the ground, she began to twist, also rotating in a layout as she did so.

When she successfully landed her first competitive double double layout, she could've sworn half the crowd had screamed in surprise.

"WOW! OH WOW!"

Fighting back the smirk that had wanted to appear on her face, she continued through with the routine.

"Oh my goodness that was terrifying," Nandy moaned, making Jason and Will laugh as JJ turned into her double double. "What was that?"

"The hardest skill in women's floor, as I've been told," Will chuckled, right as JJ landed her double double with a defiantly loud thud on the floor.

The rest of the routine was solid, if not for the connection Will knew she had missed in her third tumbling line; instead of the whipback he knew she had been intending, she had played it a little safe with a simple backflip, probably because she was tired.

When she landed her final pass and danced through the final bars of music into her ending pose, she received a rapturous round of applause.

Standing up, she saluted, waving briefly to the crowd before jogging back over to Nick, tears cresting her eyes. Beaming from ear to ear, Nick pulled her into a tight hug, lifting her off her feet as he squeezed her.

"Kiddo, that was awesome. You should be really proud of yourself"

"Thanks Nick," she said softly, trying to fight back the emotion that had risen at the completion of her first day of Trials.

One more night. One more night, and she would hopefully make hers and her father's Olympic dreams come true one last time.

"One more night like that, and that girl is, one hundred percent, going to Rio"