A/N: 2015 is gonna be steamed through quite quickly I think, because there's only a few major occurrences. But all the important stuff will be here!

Marta had worked them to the grindstone for the first few days of training in Jesolo. Everyone was looking as strong as they could be expected to be that early in the season, and the beautiful locale of Jesolo was definitely keeping their spirits up as they prepared for competition.

After a morning training session, the girls and their coaches had headed down to the beachfront to get lunch at a nearby cafe, before enjoying the warm sunshine for a few hours.

"I kinda can't believe the last time the four of us competed together was in London!" Aly exclaimed as they sat waiting for their food. JJ and Kyla were sitting across from her, with Gabby at her side.

"It's so crazy. I miss Mac though," Gabby said softly. "I hope she's feeling better soon"

"The Fierce Five will be together again, don't you worry," Aly said confidently, smiling as the waitress who'd come over placed her meal in front of her. "For now, we just gotta focus on what's ahead"

Once everyone's meal had arrived, they ate together, conversation flowing freely around the table. Simone had everyone laughing, her infectious giggles filling the space around them as they enjoyed their meals.

One thing JJ had noticed was starkly different to her last quad of competition was that Marta and the other national team staff seemed far more relaxed. The girls were still held to the same standards, but were also given much more freedom both at camps and when they were away on assignment. And she could bet it had a lot to do with Simone's entrance into the senior ranks. Simone was naturally bubbly and excitable, but still produced amazing results. To Marta, it must have been a wakeup call; the girls didn't have to be serious all the time to prove they were still at the World and Olympic standard of competition.

For the girls like JJ, Aly, and Gabby, it was a refreshing change.

"So we've finished training for today, we're kinda dying, but Grandma Aly and Mama JJ are taking us to the beach-"

"-again," JJ cut in before Simone's video stopped recording. The girls laughed as Simone saved the snap and sent it out to her story.

"Maybe we'll pick up some beautiful Italian men!" Laurie chimed in.

"Laurie, you're fourteen, that's practically a baby, you don't need a man," Aly said as they all giggled. "Besides, JJ doesn't need one, she's got a beautiful man waiting in Pittsburgh"

"I don't know if beautiful is the right word," JJ said with a grin.

"Oh shush, he's beautiful inside and out, you don't know how lucky you are," Aly laughed.

"What does he look like?" Laurie asked. "Does he look like a beautiful Italian man?"

At that, the laughter just continued.

"You're really hung up on that beautiful Italian man," Simone giggled. "Don't you know Italian men are quite hairy?"

By now they had reached the beach in fits of laughter. A little way behind them, Kyla, Norah, and Ragan were walking in more subdued conversation of their own, while Jazzy Foberg hung just behind Laurie, grinning at the comments being flung back and forth.

"Aly, I'm gonna start calling you Guru Aly," Simone said as they walked across the sand. "You always give great advice. About not needing beautiful Italian men"

"I'll add it to my list of nicknames," Aly said dryly before they all laughed once more. "JJ already calls me Grandma Aly"

"Says the girl who was calling me Cranky Pants last night," JJ scoffed.

"Well, I wasn't the one trying to rip Simone's head off in Charles de Gaulle," Aly teased.

"Do either of you actually go by your full names ever?" Jazzy cut in, changing the topic of conversation.

"Nope," JJ said. "Only if I'm in trouble. Which is never"

"Don't lie, Nick yells your full name if you're being an ass in the gym," Aly laughed.

"Ok, that too," JJ nodded, grinning.

"Oh man, this sunset is so pretty!" Simone gasped, having finally noticed the orange and pink tones streaking across the sky. "I love Jesolo"

Settling into a comfortable silence, the girls all sat down on the sand to watch the sun sink below the horizon, all squished together in a row. Smiles adorned all their faces, their heads bent down to each other's shoulders as the sky slowly darkened around them.

She was halfway around the world... but she was still with her family.

Two days later, JJ was standing at the end of the runway in the crowded and noisy gymnasium, blocking out the noise as she focused on her vault.

It was only Jesolo, a meet that really only attracted locals, family, and hardcore gymnastics fans. But it was the first time she was going to compete her Amanar, and regardless of how important the meet was, she wanted it to go well.

Seeing the judge raise the green flag, she immediately saluted, and lined herself up once more.

And then she took off, breaking into a measured run down towards the table. Her roundoff and flip back felt strong, allowing her to wrap the twist in quickly when she pushed off of the table.

Sensing the landing coming, she started to open out.

Her feet hit the mat, but just a split second later, she was sitting down.

'Damn it,' she thought, pulling herself back up to her feet and acknowledging the judges before walking over to Nick.

"There wasn't enough height and you opened up way too soon," he said matter-of-factly. "When you opened up the twist, I thought you'd decided to stick with your DTY, you needed to hold it in just a little longer"

"Ok," JJ said softly, starting to walk back to the end of the runway again; she was also using Jesolo as another competitive training ground for her second vault, which after how her Amanar had ended, she was more determined to make it a good one.

Less than a minute later, her score was up; 14.733, and she had her green light for her second vault, a Lopez.

She took off as soon as she had saluted, powering towards the table with more energy than ever. The roundoff was again strong, and her half turn onto the table was almost completely around. She pulled in another half twist, executing the laidout flip as well, before landing with her feet firmly beneath her on the mat. Nick gave a satisfied nod, clapping with the crowd as she walked off the mat and fell into step beside him.

"Really good. Really good. Do it like that every time and I won't have to say anything more," he said happily.

Despite the fall, she was smiling as she went to get her grips, stopping as she did to give an encouraging cheer to Aly, who was vaulting next.

Pushing vault to the back of her mind, she shifted her focus to the next event; bars.

Bars had gone pretty well for the Americans. For JJ, it certainly couldn't have gone any worse than vault, and when she landed her double layout dismount, she was just glad to have made it through without falling off.

Now, she was about to go on beam.

"You got it JJ, let's go!" the girls were calling out from the sidelines.

Her name was announced to the crowd, garnering applause, before she saluted and took a deep breath.

Running to the springboard, she punched off of it and flipped through the air to land solidly on the beam surface. Behind her, Nick pulled the springboard out of the way, before moving back to where the team was standing at the edge of the mats.

A little bit of choreography straight off the top moved her forward enough to safely fit in her standing Arabian, turning her back around to face the end of the beam. Breathing deeply to settle herself, she swung her arms down and back again, flipping into an Onodi, before connecting it directly to two consecutive front aerials. A little wobble at the end threatened to rattle her, but she held onto it. Three tenths max, she thought to herself.

Some low beam choreography turned her around, allowing her to take a powerful stride down the beam before punching into a front tuck. She was supposed to connect it straight into a wolf jump, but her landing wasn't completely on. Rather than attempt it and fall, she solidified herself on the landing and chose to omit the wolf jump altogether. One missed connection was not the end of the world, especially at Jesolo.

"Nice! Come on!" Simone called out.

A little bit of choreo took her to the end of the beam. Swinging her arms up above her head, she flipped back into a back handspring, to another back handspring, to her layout full twist.

She hit the beam slightly off balance, sending her weight flying to the side.

"Come on! Pull it back!" the girls yelled as she waved her arms around to try and keep her weight more centred.

By a small miracle, she stayed on.

"Yeah! Nice!"

Leap series. Switch split, to switch half. Full turn.

Just the dismount.

"Come on JJ, push it!"

She flipped easily across the beam, rebounding into her signature full twisting double, with only a hop on the landing to keep her balance. The girls cheered, glad that she'd nailed her beam routine to count towards their team total.

"Nice resurgence from vault," Nick said with a chuckle as she walked over to join them. "Good job, even without those connections, it'll be a decent score. Just gotta clean it up"

"Beam queen!" Simone exclaimed, running up to hug JJ as soon as Nick let her go. JJ laughed, hugging Simone back as they rejoined the team.

"If you don't win Worlds this year, I'll eat a gold medal," Aly teased, making the others laugh.

"You're all talk Raisman," JJ jibed, accepting a hug from her best friend as Maggie left to prepare for her beam routine.

"Only for you," Aly joked, making JJ laugh.

With the exception of vault, it was so far, so good.

"So... JJ's beam routine is the most difficult of the American team?" Will asked as Michael turned up the volume on the TV they were watching the Jesolo competition on.

"Yes, but only by about three tenths over Simone," Sandy replied from her seat on the opposite couch.

"The other girls look like they do more skills though," Will said, confused. Sandy nodded.

"They mostly do. The way Nick has built JJ's routine is actually very clever, and it's the reason Marta made him the national coach for beam. JJ has this fearless ability to do very difficult skills on the beam that many of the other girls can't do. Her layout full and her dismount, for example, are worth point seven in difficulty value each. So instead of having her up there working herself tireless doing a million skills to earn connection value, Nick has tried to pack most of her difficulty into her bigger skills, and the bulk of her connection value comes from her series instead of skills that have the potential to go awry. With her skill values and series alone, she still gets a D score of 6.7, which is more than enough to be competitive for titles"

"See, she's never really explained how the scoring works to me. I get it in little bits and pieces, but not a lot," Will replied. Michael chuckled.

"Ah, well you're in luck. She explained it all to me before the London Olympics, so I've had three years to learn it and understand it. Basically, every skill a gymnast can do has a skill value assigned to it in the context of the event – for example, a two and a half twist on vault and a two and a half twist on floor have different values because the vault version of the skill is much more difficult. Each event except vault has criteria that have to be filled, and that awards... I think she said it was 2.5 towards their difficulty value, and the rest of the D score comes from the skill values and connection bonuses between skills. Then you have execution which starts from 10-"

"- and that's where the deductions get taken from," Will finished.

"Exactly. Then the two scores are added together to get the final score. JJ's beam routine could get a 17 if she was absolutely perfect, but she usually scores around the mid to high 15s which, again, is a very strong score for a very difficult routine"

They had been watching the Jesolo competition for over an hour, and the girls were now moving around to floor. They'd missed vault, but with a quick search on Tumblr, Will had managed to discover that JJ had fallen.

JJ was going first, and her routine was completely new. New tumbles, new music, new choreo, everything. It was upbeat, energetic... and oddly fitting.

They watched as she took off into her opening pass, the double double which had been furiously worked on in the gym since coming back after worlds.

It looked good in the air, but upon landing, it was clear it hadn't been so great. A huge stumble forward followed by her hands being thrown down to the floor, much to everyone's dismay.

Looking a little deflated, JJ picked herself up immediately and carried on with the routine. Her next tumbling line was her double layout. Other than being a little bit short, it was largely ok.

By the time she'd reached the section of choreography in the middle, a hint of a smile had returned to her face. She was enjoying the music, enjoying the feeling of competing again.

Her double Arabian was high and flighty, with a hop forward to steady herself before she turned and galloped into her switch ring leap.

"The one thing Marta loves about JJ is her leaps – she hits 180 almost every time, and that's what the judges want, because they deduct for anything less," Michael explained as they watched.

To close out was her full in double tuck, finished with a stuck landing and smile as she struck her final pose.

"Not her best, but considering it's this early in the season, not bad," Sandy said with a shrug. "Plenty of time to fix things"

"Nick will have it planned out already," Michael chuckled. "She'll be a force to be reckoned with by Worlds"

JJ fell on her vault at Jesolo! She's always so consistent, what happened?

She was debuting a new vault, and decided to use Jesolo as the testing ground, even though it was said after the last camp that it probably needed another month or so before it was completely competition ready. The team competition at Jesolo wasn't exactly anyone's greatest day (save for Simone), but that's ok, they're not aiming to peak for Jesolo, they're aiming to peak in October for Worlds. JJ's fall wasn't anything to worry about, I'm sure. If the Amanar gives her trouble consistently, I'm sure Marta will have her compete her DTY instead, but judging from the height she got off the table in Jesolo, I don't think it's going to be a problem with some more work.

I was adding up JJ's beam D score as she competed in Jesolo... I'm pretty sure I got like a 7.0, and she said on Twitter that that was WITH a missed connection! Is that right?

Yeah, all I can say is the girl is crazy, in a good way! The routine she's aiming for in the future has a total D score of 7.2, which is INSANE for beam, but I mean, for her, it's like a walk in the park. She was supposed to connect a wolf jump out of her front tuck, and the connection on her leap series probably wasn't granted either, which is like NBD for her, let's be fair. Her routine has a lot of wiggle room, which is very clever. If she gets up one day and isn't feeling the standing Arabian, she doesn't have to do it – she only does it because she likes the skill. She can downgrade her turn if she's having an iffy day. She can take out the mixed connection. She can do all of that at once and still have a routine worth about 6.6-6.8 and still be comfortably in the lead on the apparatus. Her routine theoretically looks impossible but she makes it look easy and impressive, and that's what gymnastics is supposed to be.

Did you ever imagine JJ doing a double double?

Three years ago, I never imagined that JJ would be at all where she is today, so no, I never imagined that she would be doing a double double on floor by this year. It wasn't the greatest double double I've ever seen, but believe me, I've seen worse.

Do you think JJ was a bit of a mess in Jesolo?

Well, I mean, sort of, but not really? They're not trying to peak for Jesolo – they're trying to peak for Worlds. The thing with Jesolo is, the US is basically going to win unless they all lost a limb five minutes before the final, they have that much of an advantage over the other teams. So most of the girls use Jesolo as the testing ground for new skills they're planning on taking to bigger meets, and that's exactly what JJ did on both vault and floor. Her vault is going to happen, I'm almost sure of it, so forget that. Her double double... I don't know, her coach said it looked great in the gym so maybe it was just a nervy moment? I wouldn't worry about it for her future prospects – JJ's never taken a skill she's not 100 percent on to any major meet; if it's inconsistent, she'll take it out.

JJ's bars were like her best routine yesterday, I find that hilarious.

Oh me too, I mean, her bars are actually really competitive, but they outscored her beam after all those wobbles which is so funny.