A/N: This story is about to get really intense, stay tuned!

Despite her disaster at Classics, JJ's first night of nationals was going surprisingly well.

Surprisingly was the operative term, because for some reason... everyone was struggling. There had been falls, wobbles, and mishaps left, right, and centre.

Her parents had opted not to attend the competition this time, as her dad was still feeling under the weather, but somewhere up in the stands were Will and her grandmother. JJ was more than aware of their presence and support, and she also knew her parents would be watching back home.

As far as the weird vibes went, the first rotation hadn't been too bad. JJ had nailed the crap out of her beam routine, earning a stirring round of applause and putting an enthusiastic smile on her face.

They had headed around to floor for the second rotation, where JJ had finally put the double double successfully to her feet, getting a huge round of applause as she did so. Her floor routine had been a hit, and she'd walked off all too happy with herself for finally nailing down the skill that had been giving her so much competitive grief.

Minutes later, however, she'd watched in disbelief as Simone, who seemed impervious to everything, seemingly fell out of the sky on her final tumbling pass, landing it on her knees and throwing her hands down to the floor. To say she was surprised was an understatement. Simone had looked completely defeated as she came down from the podium, and JJ knew she was internally beating herself up for falling on what was literally her easiest tumble.

But as she stood at the end of the vault runway, JJ had to shake the weirdness away. Out of the top gymnasts competing that day, she was the only one who'd avoided a major issue so far; and seeing as the last time she'd competed her Amanar, she'd sat it down, she wanted to keep it that way.

"First of two vaults for Romero's, Jennifer Jareau!"

Saluting the judges, JJ focused completely on the table in front of her. Pushing the noise, the falls, everything out of her mind, she readied herself for the first attempt.

She took off in her usual fashion, her run powerful and measured. She hurdled in, flipping back and blocking hard from the table.

'Clear the table, hold it in!' she screamed in her mind as her hands lifted clear into the air. She wrapped it in tight, holding on just a fraction longer than she thought she needed to.

And then she was on her feet, facing down towards the camera at the end of the vault, a huge smile spreading across her face as she realised she'd just landed the Amanar successfully in competition.

"That was GREAT! She looks very happy with that! That's going to bring in a very good score!"

So far, so good.

Her second vault had gone just as well as the first, and as a result, JJ was happily sitting in second behind Simone for both vault and the all-around.

Now, she just had to tackle her last event of the day. By now, almost everyone had had weird issues, and the girls had all unanimously agreed it just wasn't their day at all.

Over on the beam, she'd watched Aly fall from the apparatus, much to her own shock; Aly was as consistent on beam as she was. She'd never seen Aly fall!

But she couldn't worry about that now, because she was standing beneath the bars, waiting for her green flag.

"She's had a brilliant day. Simone still has a small lead over her, even with the fall on floor, but JJ is looking strong to set herself up for top three as we head into night two on Sunday"

There was her flag, and she wasted no time in saluting, adjusting her grips, and mounting the bars.

The first half of the routine, which was mostly her more intricate skills and her transition skills, felt great. Everything felt clean, and perfectly on, which only invigorated her with more confidence. It was rare for her bars to feel so fantastically on.

In Pittsburgh, Sandy and Michael were glued to their TV, watching as JJ swung around the bars with the most ease she'd ever displayed on the event.

From a handstand, JJ swung down for her first release, a piked Tkatchev. Her catch was a little far, but she managed to hold on as she swung up and readied herself for the next release, the same move but in a straddle.

She flicked it up, soaring backwards over the bar. But she was too close, she could tell as soon as she let go for the release. Her timing was all off.

As she came back down, she reached out for the bar, but was so much closer than she had anticipated. With a hard smack, her face hit the bar, pain erupting through her nose like an explosion. Her arms slid feebly across the bar, before she fell to the mat with another hard THWACK.

"OW, oh my GOSH!"

"Oh my god!" Sandy gasped as they both watched JJ crumple to the mat in a heap. The microphones attached to the bars had picked up the sound of her face making harsh contact with the high bar, and as a result, it sounded so much worse on TV.

"Mihai, go, go!" came the faint sound of Nick's voice somewhere down on the sidelines as gasps of shock rang out through the arena.

Too dizzy and in too much pain to stand up, JJ simply put her hand in the air to signal to Nick that she needed help. Already, Mihai had come up onto the podium, being the closest to her, and was kneeling down beside her.

"Stay still... move your hands for a minute," Mihai said gently as Nick thundered up the podium steps with one of the medical staff at his side. JJ did as she was told, pulling her hands away from her face. Nick immediately took a wad of tissues being offered to him and pressed it gently to the bottom of her nose.

"Is it bleeding?" JJ asked, in somewhat of a daze.

"Yeah," Nick nodded. "You'll need to sit up so you don't breathe it in"

Reaching up, JJ held onto Nick to get herself up into a sitting position. Nick kept an arm across her upper back, while she kept the tissues pressed to her nose with shaking hands.

"You can see here on the replay... she caught her first release a little far, and I'd say it wigged her out a little bit... she keeps going... but when she releases for the second release, she goes up and hardly goes back at all... and right there, she hits the bar and it all just goes way downhill. I don't think she'll complete that routine, so it's going to be a low score"

"Can she still be in the hunt for all-around silver?"

"Absolutely, if she's clean and consistent on Sunday night... everyone has had mistakes today which has kept the scores lower than their potential, so she definitely still has a chance"

"Good thing this was your last event, imagine doing beam with a nose like that," Nick said with a chuckle, getting a grin out of JJ. "Think you're ok to move now?"

"I can stand," JJ affirmed, allowing Nick and Mihai to help her to her feet. The crowd applauded as she walked off, clearly glad it wasn't more severe.

"Oh my gosh, are you ok?" Simone asked worriedly as they reached the bank of chairs. JJ nodded, accepting a quick yet gentle hug from her teammate before taking a seat on the nearest chair to allow the medical team to properly check her over.

"I just wanted to call you and let you know she's fine, since there's a camera following her around, just a little banged up... yeah, I'll get her to call you after the meet's over," she heard Nick saying to someone on the phone. Without a doubt, that was her mom.

Way to go out with a bang.

Hours later, she was cleaned up, dosed up on painkillers, and resting in the hotel room she was sharing with Aly. Having wanted to hang out after the odd day of competition they'd had, most of the girls had joined them in their room, squished up with each other as they watched YouTube videos, browsed the internet, and just generally talked and laughed with each other.

"Your nose looks so painful JJ, are you actually going to compete on Sunday?" Simone asked worriedly as she sat squished up beside her older teammate, Aly on JJ's other side.

"Yeah, of course," JJ said with a smile. "If I'm really lucky, both my eyes will have turned black by then too"

"God, could you imagine?" Aly laughed. "Tim Daggett would start calling you the Flying Raccoon"

JJ and Simone burst out laughing, as did Gabby and Maggie who were sitting within earshot.

"Oh look, I found some hate!" came the triumphant cry of Alyssa Baumann, making the girls laugh. "You ready for this?"

"Go on!" Aly urged.

The girls were no stranger to internet diatribe, being in the public eye as often as they were. They often made light of it, laughing together at camps and meets about the latest uninformed stupidity they'd come across.

"Aly Raisman looked like a tired sack of potatoes when she fell off beam. Time for her to move on and become a glorious bag of potato chips"

"What the heck!" Aly exclaimed as everyone started laughing. "I want whatever they're having"

"Ok, ok, next one!" Alyssa called out. "Wonder if JJ is ever going to get through a competition without screwing something up. Hm... probably not"

JJ laughed. "Have they watched anything prior to last year's Worlds? Better yet, they can come do my routines for me"

"JJ, Simone, and Aly are NOT good on bars. JJ falling on bars made my heart sing... because the routine was OVER"

The three sitting on the bed all looked at each other, before starting to laugh.

Couch gymnasts could say what they wanted. But at the end of the day, all the girls in that room were the best gymnasts in the United States, and some of the best in the world.

And nothing could take that away from them.