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gymwrites · 7 years

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Second Thoughts: A Fan Sequel to First Times

[Author’s note: My deepest apologies for the huge wait. Here’s Part I of the latest and longest ST chapter (it’s pretty much the equivalent of two chapters). I recently lost someone very close to me and have been going through the motions these past few weeks. It made finishing this chapter a real struggle, but I hope it doesn’t disappoint. I will post Part II within a couple hours. Thank you Anons and everyone for all your messages, it’s really amazing to feel the love from such kind and supportive readers. I have every intention of finishing ST :) As always, any thoughts, feels, songs or suggestions would be really appreciated. Love, Kai.]

Links to: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 (Part I), Chapter 5 (Part II), Chapter 6 (Part I), Chapter 6 (Part II), Chapter 6 (Part III), Chapter 7, Chapter 8 (Part I), Chapter 8 (Part II)

Chapter 5: Impossible (Part I)

The second thought Aly Raisman has when the back and forth swinging of the gym door comes to a creaking halt... isn’t really a thought. It’s not quite a feeling, either. Rather, it’s the scary absence of both thought and feeling. A numbness that steals its way into the dull hollowness left by a sudden, ripping away of hope.

Her thought preceding this not-quite-thought-nor-feeling was just as dismal.

That’s that then.

Aly keeps still. Doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t breathe. As if staving off the next intake of air might somehow delay the fact that she’s standing in the dead quiet of a ghostly gym. Very much alone. She closes her eyes, feeling the blood in her veins slow to an uncomfortable, sluggish pace.

Thinking there was a way back to London had been about as crazy as thinking billions of years could be undone and the universe folded back into a single, infinite point.

The realization that some things when lost, are lost forever, seizes Aly with a suffocating force. She drops the now meaningless piece of paper to the floor and buries her face into her hands, taking in sobbing gulps of air. Each new ragged breath cuts her deep, each sharp as an obsidian blade’s edge.

None so sharp as the parting words the Russian had left her before walking out, without a single glance back.

-----

“Ya tebya lyublyu.”

Aliya trembles, hardly believing what she just heard. A confusing cocktail of dismay and joy explodes somewhere deep inside of her. She’s waited for those words for so damn long, dreamt about them so often, part of her thinks they’ve been cruelly conjured up by her imagination.

Yet there she is. Aly Raisman, holding out her heart towards Aliya, shining hazel eyes creased with uncertainty.

The Russian directs her entire willpower towards not throwing herself at Aly, partly in a wild rage - why did she wait until freaking Rio to do this to me?! - and partly in pure, unadulterated longing. Her hand automatically comes up to press down on the left side of her chest, where a throbbing pain is growing.

Gesturing towards the crumpled list still clutched in Aly’s nervous fingers, Aliya manages to stutter out, “You. Russian.”

Aly quickly lowers her eyes, her already flushed cheeks deepening to a dark wine red. She awkwardly scuffs her shoe on the gym mat.

“I know. I know it was really bad.”

“Aly.” Aliya utters a sound that’s halfway between a cry and a soft whimper. The self-consciousness in the girl’s tone makes her desperately want to draw closer and grab Aly’s hand and press it to her lips and tell her it was the most adorable, breathtaking thing ever. But the stubborn, rational streak in her forbids it.

“I meant what I said, Aliya,” Aly says, her voice trembling. “In Russian. In English. I’ll learn to say it in every other language if I have to. I would say it in Hebrew, but that might be just as bad as because I’m really rusty. Although to be honest, it’s probably impossible for anything to be worse than my Russian.” Her words, clearly not coming out as articulately as she wants them to, dies on her lips.

The American’s signature rambling is every bit endearing as it is distressing for Aliya. She waits, unmoving as a statue, pulse racing with the frightening velocity of a runaway freight train.

“What I mean is,” Aly swallows down a lump in her throat, “I love you. In every language. In every way.” The slow, fiery intensity of her words makes Aliya’s heart swell up to fill her entire ribcage.

“Would you give me another chance, Aliya? Will you have me?”

Yes. Yes times a million. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.

They’re the answers that sit, right there on the tip of Aliya’s tongue, begging to jump off of it. They’ve been there ever since she first caught the strangely captivating way the girl laughed with her eyes, the easy kindness she wore on her sleeve and charmed everyone with, without even knowing it. How could not being with Aly ever be right?

It’s true; Aliya had learnt to live the last four years without her. There started to be days where she wouldn’t hate the sun for peeking up over the horizon. At times, it even felt like she was beginning to enjoy herself again. But by every measure that mattered, she hadn’t really lived. Life passed her by without Aly searching her out like she was the only star in the sky. It didn’t count when she wasn’t wrapped in Aly’s arms, an impenetrable shield against everyone who ever judged Aliya and tried to tear her down. Her days dragged on without Aly’s kisses, especially the ones that felt like small drops of warm lava blazing a trail down her body...

Shivering, Aliya swallows back tears and watches anxiously as Aly takes a cautious step forward, the girl’s gaze unfaltering and deliberately reassuring, as if wary that Aliya might bolt at any second. Time stops being measured in minutes, instead surging forward in furious heartbeats and terse breaths.

Aly takes another step. Then another. The closer Aliya lets her get, the more she can detect faint stirrings of hope in the American.

Hope.

Aliya involuntarily tenses up. A chill flashes through her, crawling up her skin and causing the hairs on her neck to stand on end.

Her naturally suspicious nature had always treated hope as a dangerous thing to hold onto. But it wasn’t until Aly cut her off four years ago that she was completely vindicated for doing so. Never in Aliya’s life had she been raised so high, only to be brought crashing back down by a dizzying disappointment that left her sick to the core.

Aliya is suddenly, jarringly reminded that little has changed. Some supernatural force would always draw Aly and her together. It was straight out of one of her favorite stories she had read as a child, about a couple Fate had mischievously joined together with an invisible red string. It didn’t matter where on earth they were born and died; they would always find each other again and again, in a never-ending cycle of reincarnations. In this life, though, she and Aly couldn’t keep meeting every four years, falling for each other again every four years, and breaking each other into pieces every four years. Sooner or later, they had to confront the fact that they were both tied to their home countries in ways they couldn’t or wouldn’t change.

What had changed was that they weren’t wide-eyed teenagers chasing their Olympic dreams for the first time anymore; the same ones who didn’t think through what would happen once the Games concluded. Aliya knew it all too well. If they didn’t get off this collision course, there would eventually be nothing left of them to break.

“Aliya.”

The nearness of Aly’s voice exhaling her name snaps Aliya back to attention. Only two or three tiny steps separate them.

Shit.

Her eyes still anchored on the girl’s perfectly framed face, Aliya takes in a deep breath. As she does, her heart sinks. “Raisman, we cannot.” Her voice catching in her throat, Aliya forces it out more vehemently. “I... cannot.”

Aliya watches Aly’s brown orbs cloud over in confusion, then comprehension, and finally hurt. She really wishes things were different, wishes her common sense and the fear and the memories and the pain weren’t so ingrained in her. But stumbling backwards, barely smothering the protesting parts of her begging she give into her raw emotions just one goddamn time, Aliya wrenches her gaze away.

“Take care yourself. Please.” Her last words come out colder than intended. They’re brashly polite, to the point of clinical. They had to be, if she was going to do this with any sort of decisiveness.

Before Aly can say anything to change her mind, Aliya abruptly wheels around and powers away from the girl she can have, but never hold.

Only when her back is safely turned, when she’s forced her way out of the building and is blindly careening down the concrete footpath under a dark blanket of stars, does Aliya allow the hot tears to rush down her face.

-----

“You did it. You did it, Aly!”

Mihai’s usual contained self is gone, replaced by an unrecognizably ecstatic coach jumping up and down on the lime green carpet. Aly watches, a small grin curled at one corner of her mouth as he puts on a very public display of fist pumps and wild arm waving to celebrate her second chance at an all-around Olympic medal.

Soon, she finds herself wrapped in one of his giant bear hugs, the kind that sweeps her off the ground and constricts her breathing for a number of seconds. As soon as Mihai sets her down, she’s immediately swamped by her teammates; Simone, tears gathering at the edges of her eyes at being one step closer to Olympic hardware; Laurie, giving everyone high fives, still in shock over how the crowd - most of them not even American - had chanted her name the moment she stepped into the stadium; Madison, her enigmatic smile expressing tempered delight at finishing with the highest qualifying score on bars.

And Gabby.

As Mihai enthusiastically lifts her arm up in a gladiator salute towards the cheering USA section of the stands, Aly catches Gabby’s eye over his shoulder. The 2012 all-around champion flashes her a big smile. The sparkle in her look conveys something that sets Aly’s mind a little more at ease: Enjoy this moment. You deserve it.

Aly returns the smile faintly, a little relief spreading through her. All week, she had both anticipated and dreaded this moment.

Qualifications had turned out as good as Team USA could have hoped. Still, at the back of Aly’s mind lurked the unpleasant prospect that either she or Gabby would have to swallow the bitter pill of missing out on a spot. And now, she had to deal with being proud enough of her achievement so as not to seem annoyingly modest, but not so proud as to seem completely insensitive to how awful Gabby must be feeling.

Extracting herself from the flurried mess of hugs and congratulations, she makes her way over to Gabby, who has discreetly gone to the side and is bent over removing tape from her ankles.

“Gabby, I...”

Straightening up, her teammate turns to face her. As soon as she catches the turmoil on Aly’s face, Gabby reaches out and pulls her in for a heartfelt hug.

“Als, I know. I know what you’ve been worrying about. And I’m telling you now, don’t. I’m happy for you.” Gabby emphasizes the next word by giving her teammate a light squeeze on the shoulder, “Really. I know you would be just as happy for me if - well, if things had turned out differently.”

Aly winces. Clasping Gabby’s hand with her own, she says with a fierce certainty, "It could have just as easily been you. It was all luck.”

The girl shakes her head. “Hey. You deserve it. You were amazing today. There’s no luck in this. And there won’t be when you and Simone wipe the floor with everyone else at the final.”

A tiny smile finally breaks on Aly’s face, but the unfairness of it all still weighs heavy. Gabby had come in as the third greatest gymnast in the world, and she wasn’t going to get her shot at defending her Olympic title. “How are you feeling?” she asks softly, feeling the inadequacy of the question.

Gabby looks down, spreading her fingers and inspecting each one distractedly. “I’m okay, I think. Well, I will be.” Glancing up, she lets a bit of the regret holing up inside trickle through in her features. “I really wanted this. But then, we all did,” Gabby says in a resigned voice. Without warning, she shifts the direction of the conversation. “How are you feeling?”

The careful, searching tone in her voice lets Aly know she’s not just asking about the upcoming team and all-around competitions. Thrown by the question, Aly gives a near imperceptible shake of the head, her tongue feeling like it’s just become glued to the roof of her mouth.

‘Raisman, we cannot. I... cannot.’

Seeing the hidden pain surface in her friend’s eyes, Gabby wordlessly nods in sympathy. The girls share a quiet moment together, bittersweet that the incredible feat of making back to back Olympic teams had to come with such mixed emotions. Aly wants to express how grateful she is that Gabby’s there with her - out of everyone, she knew most why getting to Rio had meant so much - but they get hurriedly herded back towards the rest of the group.

Martha wants to debrief them right away.

It didn’t matter that they had finished almost a record-breaking ten points ahead of the next best team, China, and in all likelihood would take out the team gold even with several falls. There would be no time for resting on their laurels. A no-nonsense post-qualifications meeting would take place in one of the small backrooms. Martha would go over every tiny detail that went wrong (not much, really, but she was sure to find something), and they would get the same pep-talk they always did: You girls have done this a million times. Just treat the next competition as you would any other training session. Left unsaid was that the next competition will make or break the dreams of an entire nation, as well as the one you’ve had since you were five years old.

As Team USA prepares to march out of the stadium in formation, Aly can’t help wondering if Aliya had caught their qualifying round on one of the live cable channels. She wonders what she thinks of the fact that they’ll be competing in the all-around together. Most of all, she wonders if Aliya had noticed her not entirely coincidental choice of floor music.

Then she remembers the loud, scraping noises the gym door had made when Aliya stormed past it, as if she couldn’t bear to be with Aly for one more second. She recalls the way Aliya had told her to ‘take care’, the way you tell a distant second cousin you don’t remember the name of to take care as they board a plane to god knows where, because really, who cares?

The smile Aly has from seeing her teammates chatter excitedly about how they had totally dominated qualifications falls from her face.

She tries not to think about how there’s no reason for Aliya to care about anything she does anymore.

-----

Twenty minutes to go until warm-ups for qualifications begins, and Russia’s gymnastics team captain is nowhere to be seen.

Masha is frantically trying to pull the younger girls together, even as she fights down the familiar flood of nerves welling up within. Melka looks like she just ate a can of worms. Dasha, for her part, is facing the corner of the dimly-lit foyer muttering some kind of Orthodox mantra meant to help calm her down, but it’s only setting everyone else on edge. The only girl who doesn’t look like a walking catastrophe just waiting to happen is Seda. That’s because she’s wondering whether the eggs benedict from this morning’s breakfast will make an encore appearance on the menu tomorrow.

She really, really hopes it will.

Grebs, staggering under the weight of no less than five large red-and-white duffel bags slung around his neck, beckons for them to start making their way down the athlete’s tunnel. Frowning at the four girls milling around, he snaps his head automatically towards Masha.

“Where the hell is Aliya?”

Masha sighs exasperatedly. “I’m not her handler, I don’t know! She must have stayed behind in the locker room. I think she was having trouble adjusting her leotard.”

Grebs narrows his eyes. “Is there something I should know?”

“Nope. No, she’s fine. I’ll get her.” Masha gives him her best no-of-course-she-isn’t-pining-over-a-rival-team-captain smile.

“Well. You better find her right now. They don’t kid around with warm-ups. You get your thirty seconds at the exact time they say so, and then they literally bring out a firehose to make sure you get off the apparatus.” With an air of gruff impatience, Grebs ducks out again.

Muttering under her breath, Masha wraps an arm tightly around Melka, now staring into space with frightened eyes the size of watermelons. She grabs her own personal backpack sitting in the middle of the floor and slings it on her back.

“Seda! I have to head out with the others. You run and check the locker room for Aliya. Chyort, that girl could blow up the moon and still get away with it. Tell her to hurry!”

Nodding, Seda hands over the rolls of spare tape in her hands to the stressed out second-in-command and rushes in the direction of the mostly empty holding area. The other gymnasts were already congregating near the mouth of the tunnel, where they would be introduced by the booming voice of God and enter the imposing stadium to thunderous applause and more cameras than most of them had ever seen in their lives.

Breathing heavily, Seda reaches the wide hallway where the locker rooms are located. She pushes open a heavy wooden door to her right and pokes her head in. “Alka?”

No answer. Not that she was expecting one.

Once inside, Seda frantically scouts the locker room, her shoes squeaking on the gleaming white floor. Rows upon rows of puke-green storage lockers spread out in front of her like a regimented forest that’s been stripped of all its leaves and colors. Weak light filters in through the paneled windows lining the tops of the walls. There's the odd used towel strewn on the floor, and the chirps of a small sparrow unwittingly trapped inside somewhere.

Seda feels a line of sweat form on her brow. But before she starts to properly panic, she walks in on Aliya, seated alone on a narrow wooden bench wedged in between the very last row of lockers. An audible sigh of relief escapes Seda.

Dressed in the same sparkling red and blue leotard as the rest of the team, Aliya’s jacket is zipped up tight around her neck, her bun done up perfectly without a single out-of-place hair. She doesn’t appear to be doing much except staring at the ground, dense eyelashes obscuring nearly all of her velvety, unfocused gaze.

“Grandma, we’re warming up soon. We have to go. Now.” For some reason, Seda finds herself speaking very softly, the way she would to a frightened baby rabbit.

After a long stretch of unpunctuated silence, Aliya looks up at Seda. She briefly makes eye contact and acknowledges the girl’s presence, but then sinks back into her own little world, looking straight through Seda like she isn’t even there.

Worried, but familiar enough with Aliya’s moods to let her come around in her own time, Seda slows her breathing down. And waits.

Finally: “Can I ask you something, Seda?” Aliya is distant, like she’s speaking from a place far, far away.

“Da. Of course. Anything.” Seda steps towards her team captain and sits down next to her. A mental clock ticks loudly in the back of Seda’s mind, but she ignores it. Trying to force this conversation to go any faster would only have the opposite effect.

When Aliya doesn’t respond, Seda glances sideways to check if she had heard her. She notices how tightly Aliya’s hands are gripped together, tight enough for her knuckles to have turned completely white.

“Alka? Are you okay?”

“Why do we put ourselves through all of this?”

The question catches Seda off guard. “All of... this?”

“This.” Aliya waves an arm in the space behind her. “Years of hard training. Just to come here. To compete.” Her sentences come out short and dulled, like she’s been drained of all the energy to speak in more complete ones.

Seda takes a moment to collect herself. Aliya usually asked these questions without expecting any kind of specific answer, since she almost always had decided for herself what the answer should be already. What she really needed was someone who wouldn’t pretend like they knew what she needed to hear.

Wisely, Seda chooses to keep her answers short and sweet. “Because we love gymnastics.”

“Isn't it to achieve something great, something that makes our country proud?”

Seda chews thoughtfully on her lip. “Both. Because we love it, and because we want to make our country proud.”

“So if we love something a lot, we’ll do anything for it?” Seda detects a faint hint of bitterness in Aliya’s voice.

“Yes...” Seda slowly begins. She’s unsure whether Aliya is still referring to gymnastics, or something - maybe someone - else. The Russian captain had returned to their suite late last night, without saying a word about what had happened between her and Raisman. Judging by how reclusive she had been since then, Seda guessed it hadn’t been good.

“And if what you love hurts you?” The bitterness is unmistakable this time. Almost accusatory.

In her mind, Seda silently replaces the ‘what’ with a ‘who’. “How do you mean?”

“We get hurt all the time. From where we are now, in Rio,” Aliya reaches out her right hand to mark an invisible point in the air, “all the way back to when we started training...” Her left hand travels in the opposite direction, as if drawing a horizontal timeline, until her arms are stretched out wide. “How many injuries have we all had in that time? How much have we sacrificed just to end up with broken bones and backs?” She sounds positively angry now, her sentences streaming out much quicker.

Seda hesitantly says, “A lot.” Even now, Seda knew that Masha’s back injury was giving her hell. She would eat a stick of burning dynamite before complaining about it in front of any of the coaches, though. It was the Olympics. You put up, you shut up, and you did what you’ve been trained to do.

“Then why do we keep doing it?”

“Because getting hurt is part of it.” Seda answers without thinking. She says it like she’s saying the sky is blue. There’s no moral tinge to her statement, no attempt to persuade Aliya that this was something she should just accept. “If it wasn’t worth it, we would have all become... I don’t know, accountants.” Seda wrinkles her nose. "I'm terrible with numbers."

Taken aback, Aliya stops to consider her answer. After a long pause, she lets out a low unexpected laugh. “Accountants.” Aliya repeats the word like an inside joke only she knows the punchline to.

Seda gawks at her with wide eyes. What had Raisman said to ruffle their normally unruffled team leader? Was this the part where Aliya walked out on them just before qualifications, to protest how ridiculous it was that gymnastics had taken so much of their lives, but seemingly given so little in return? Surely, she wouldn’t...

A crazy grin now on Aliya’s face, she suddenly pulls Seda in for a big hug, her chin coming to rest snugly atop the younger girl’s head. Aliya closes her eyes, heaving in a deep sigh and then exhaling it in a big huff.

“Alka?” Seda’s voice is muffled against Aliya’s jacket. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Oh Seda. You never say anything wrong.”

Releasing the girl from her embrace, Aliya swiftly gets on her feet. She unzips her jacket and stretches a muscle in her neck, before grabbing a still puzzled Seda’s hand and pulling her up. Like a switch has been flipped, Aliya seems to have suddenly returned to her usual, commanding self.

“Come on. We have a job to do.”

As she faithfully follows her unpredictable team captain out of the locker room, Seda decides - again, wisely - not to over analyze whatever the hell it was that just happened.

-----

Aly couldn’t have stabbed any more holes into the sad piece of lettuce on her plate if she had tried.

She’s slumped uncomfortably in one of the plastic seats in the huge cafeteria, lost in a hard-won moment of solitude after dinner. Very few other athletes remain, having retired early to their bedrooms, or gone outside to lounge on one of the many lawns to wile away the humid summer night.

The other girls had headed back to the apartment for a covert celebration of their success at qualifications earlier today. With two days to go before team finals - and despite Martha’s constant lectures about the ‘creeetical’ importance of a healthy diet - there was plenty of time to ingest a decent amount of smuggled chocolate and Doritos without serious consequences.

It had taken some wheedling and a little help from Gabby, but Aly had finally convinced her adrenaline-pumped teammates to go on ahead of her. Promising she would join them shortly to help restrain Simone from carrying out her vow to consume an entire party bag of M&Ms, she just needed some time alone to get her feelings in order.

Aly was caught in a fix, a weird twilight zone. She was still one hundred percent committed to winning - it was the Olympics, after all, the pinnacle of any athlete’s career. At the same time, she was fully one hundred percent demotivated, because no Aliya meant nothing. It all meant nothing. Didn’t it?

She taps her fork irritably against the food tray. The team final was coming up soon. She had to be all there for the girls. Her duty towards them far outweighed any personal issues she was dealing with. She just needed to get out of this funk. But how? How was she was going to get over the fact that Aliya -

“Hi. Did that lettuce murder your entire family?”

A cheerful, teasing voice with a lightly melodic accent - it sounds European, but not French or German, or any of the usual suspects and certainly not Russian - rings out from behind.

Aly twists in her seat to search for the source of the strange question. Her surprised eyes find Eythora Thorsdottir, the Dutch gymnast making waves in the gymnastics world with her impeccable sense of artistry and fresh takes on a fairly straitjacket code of points. The girl’s long, dark hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail that travels a good way past her shoulders. She’s wearing a snug, bright orange jacket with a stark blue zip. On anyone else but the infamously photogenic Dutch girls, the outfit would probably be unflattering, like a tanning job gone terribly wrong.

“I’m sorry?”

Aly thinks she heard something about the lettuce committing murder, but she’s not sure because no one really says things like that to a stranger, right? She finds herself shifting under the intensity of Eythora’s graphite grey eyes. They hold a sharp but friendly sort of intelligence, like they’re trying to figure out something complex. The high cheekbones and ivory paleness of her face bring out their shapeliness even more.

Eythora points a slender finger towards the tattered, hole-ridden lettuce. It does look a bit like Aly has been exacting some kind of gruesome revenge on it.

“It’s something we say back home, but,” she shrugs apologetically with a tiny smile, “I think it loses its funny-ness - if there is such a word - in English.” The girl taps her chin thoughtfully. “Or more likely, no one else would find it funny, even in Dutch.” Her English is flawless. The precise way she pronounces and rounds each vowel is makes the language sound more charming, more soothing than usual.

Glancing at the lettuce, Aly laughs embarrassedly. “Oh no, that’s - you’re good. If anyone can appreciate a weird sense of humor, it’s me.” Her eyes widen in horror at the implication of the words she just uttered. “Not that your sense of humor is weird! Just... just mine.”

Eythora tilts her head to the side, a steady gaze fixed on the stuttering American.

Face burning, Aly hurries to leave behind the cluttered chaos of words tumbling out of her mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you before. I was zoned out, thinking about…” She pauses and flicks her eyes guiltily downwards, because she suddenly remembers all the times Martha had grilled into them not to interact in such close quarters with rival teams at this crucial point in the Olympics, “… team finals.”

Signaling her understanding with another smile, Eythora doesn’t seem at all fazed by Aly’s slight hesitation. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but could I join you for a little while? My girls are still out at some all-you-can-eat restaurant, but I decided to stay here. Annoyingly,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes, “I’m vegetarian. And they serve meat there like - how to say, water uit de kraan. Water, from a...” Unable to recall the word, Eythora makes a motion in the air with her hand, like she’s twisting a faucet.

“A tap?” Aly offers. Eythora gives a satisfied nod as Aly’s mouth drops open in disbelief. “Wow. Your coaches let you go out during competitions?” She might as well have said that dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

The girl chuckles, bemused by the question. “Of course. Training and stressing out twenty-four seven don’t really help us do well. Don’t you think?”

Nodding her agreement, without saying if Team USA went to an all-you-can-eat before their meets were over that Martha would personally flay them alive, Aly gestures towards the empty seat opposite her with a bashful wave of her hand. Eythora responds with a wide grin, but instead pulls the chair closest to Aly and settles herself into it.

“I’m Eythora, by the way.” They don’t really need a formal introduction, but ingrained manners and the realization that this is the first time they’ve spoken to each other one-on-one prompts Eythora to extend her hand.

Aly reaches out and gives it an awkward shake. “I’m Aly. You didn’t have to... I mean, I know who you are. Your gymnastics is amazing. I’m a huge fan.” As Eythora’s eyes light up at the unexpected compliment, Aly ducks her head shyly. “Although it seems I’ve been saying your name wrong this whole time.”

“Really? How have you been saying it?” Eythora angles forward, lips curled up in anticipation.

After a little coaxing from the other girl, Aly finally sounds out ‘Eythora’, with an extended ‘e’ and a rolling American ‘r’. It’s not terrible; it’s the way a lot of people unfamiliar with the elven-like intricacies of the Dutch language say it. Still, Eythora catches the trepidation in Aly’s expression and bursts into laughter, the kind that breaks into a thousand pieces and skips all over the place.

Aly turns bright red.

Noticing the flustered change in her complexion, Eythora hastens to add, “That’s pretty good. Most people find the sounds in Dutch really difficult to get right at first. It gets better with practice.”

Aly has half a heart to tell Eythora that based on her track record with new languages, she highly doubts it will get better. A stab in the gut, and then the fleeting memory of Aliya backing away from her like she might be contagious, reminds her of how disastrous the last time she attempted to speak a European language had been. She swallows hard and quickly changes the subject. “You and your team did really well today in qualifications.”

Smiling widely, Eythora thanks her. “It’s kind of crazy. We haven’t had a national team in the Olympic finals since 1976. The press is going a bit wild at home.” With the first hint of shyness since the conversation began, Eythora clasps her hands together and says, “Your team blew everyone else away, as usual. It was awesome just to compete with you in the same division.”

Aly looks at her lap. She’s never been good at dealing with compliments, other than to acknowledge them humbly and promptly throw the spotlight back onto the other person. “Thanks. I’ve always enjoyed the routines you girls come up with, though. There’s something about your choreography that makes it really exciting to watch.”

Eythora’s eyebrows draw together in a slight grimace. “We try. Today, I didn’t do so well with my floor exercise. I messed up my last pass.”

“Don’t worry, it happens to all of us.” Aly’s reassuring tone elicits a grateful grin from the other girl. “I know your national program is huge on dance elements and execution. It really shows. If I could do spins and turns as well as you all, I’d die of happiness.”

The corners of Eythora’s eyes crinkle in delight. “I like your choreography too.”

She says it so warmly, it makes the American blush again. Aly wonders why it is she’s blushing so much. Then she kicks herself for overthinking. This was a completely normal conversation between two gymnasts with mutual respect for one another. It was a welcome reprieve in such a nerve-wracking setting as the Olympics.

“It’s okay. I’m not really a great dancer, but I get by.” Out of self-consciousness, Aly reaches a hand up to smooth her hair down. “Sylvia, my choreographer, helps me out a lot.”

“Why do you say you’re not a great dancer?”

“Oh... just...” Aly flounders. Her hand stops mid-sweep, falling to her side. She struggles to come up with anything else besides, ‘because I’m not?’ No one’s ever really asked her that before. Nor is she used to having astute questions so casually fired back at her. It’s also odd that she doesn’t mind the probing, even though she barely knows the girl.

Aly twirls the fork contemplatively in her hand. “I’m super clumsy. I was definitely born with it, but it might also have something to do with growing up really self-conscious, I guess.” Reading the surprise on Eythora’s face, she continues quietly, “I got teased a lot.”

“Who would tease you?” Incredulity breaks through in the girl’s voice. “And even if there were people stupid enough to do that, what could they possibly find to tease you about?”

Aly laughs, touched by Eythora’s instant, wide-eyed indignation. “Trust me, the kids I grew up with said all sorts of things that got to me. About my body, about my muscles being too big, about my two left feet. But all of that made me stronger. And made me who I am today.” She looks reflectively down at the floor with a rueful smile. “Still, dancing’s never felt natural for me.” Her stint on Dancing With the Stars had boosted her confidence in that department, and she used her visibility to speak out against body shaming every chance she got. But underneath the layers of self-affirmation she had built up over the years, there would always remain a part of her that feels she falls short of the world’s idea of an ideal gymnast. Even if in reality, there is no such thing.

Eythora is silent for awhile. Her thoughts remain hidden from Aly, who’s concerned she might have said too much. The girl’s slight build, perfect bone structure and approachable demeanor make Aly wonder if Eythora has ever been seriously teased in her life. She looks like the girl that becomes class president by default, because she’s the only person practically everyone likes.

“So, are you good friends with Aliya Mustafina?”

It’s an innocent question, but the totally left of field reference to Aliya startles Aly. The fork clatters to the plate. Her pulse starts uncomfortably pounding in her ears. How does she know? Who else knows?

“We’ve known each other for some time. We compete a lot against each other... Why do you ask?” Aly rushes her words just a little too much.

“I saw the both of you walking together outside in the Village the night before. I waved, but I don’t think you saw me.” Eythora looks intrigued by the American’s reaction. “It just seemed like you two know each other really well.”

Feeling panicky, Aly blurts out, “No, we just - sometimes we run into each other, that’s all. Aliya was giving me a few pointers on um, bars. She’s really, really good at bars.” Aly plasters a weak smile over her face, kicking herself mentally. And suddenly catches a glimpse of the giant digital clock mounted on the wall behind them.

“Wow, I didn’t realize the time. I’m sorry, but I should go. My team’s expecting me.”

Aly gets to her feet reluctantly; she really does have to split, but the timing now makes it seem as though she’s dodging further questions about Aliya (in all honesty, she probably is). There’s another reason for her reluctance; she’s actually enjoyed chatting to Eythora. There’s a likeable quirkiness about her that had helped distract from the twinge of losing Aliya for good. Up until the last few moments, anyway. She just hopes all her awkwardness hadn’t left the girl thinking she’s some sort of neurotic mess.

Though they’re technically rivals, Aly wishes Eythora well with her whole heart. “It was great seeing you. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again. Good luck with the rest of the competition.”

Eythora stands to see her off. “I hope the bumping into each other will be soon. Very soon.”

At that, Aly leans in for a friendly hug, partly to hide the flush she feels rising on her cheeks again. Catching a sweet citrusy scent on the Dutch girl that reminds her of early spring, she feels Eythora return the hug with a surprising familiarity, her hands coming up to touch Aly’s waist for the briefest of moments. The girl’s ease at striking up a friendship with someone she’s only talked to for less than twenty minutes makes Aly think Eythora might do really well running for Prime Minister of Netherlands one day.

Stepping back from the hug, Aly picks up her plate - still containing that fateful piece of lettuce - gives Eythora a last sheepish smile, and leaves.

-----

The second thought Eythora Thorsdottir has as she watches Aly Raisman make her way to the cafeteria exit causes an irrepressible smile to spread across her elegant features.

Her first thought was how adorably Aly had managed to trip over a chair on the way to a cafeteria bin. She had then clumsily tried, but failed multiple times to stuff the plate into the bin’s opening. It had been too full.

Despite her interest in Aly’s connection to Aliya Mustafina, particularly after the girl’s cute, bumbling explanation of their appearance together the night before, Eythora had chosen not to dig any further. She had only mentioned Mustafina to steer the conversation away from the sensitive topic of childhood bullies, but it seems talking about the Russian had inadvertently caused even more discomfort.

Plucking up the courage to approach Raisman had paid off in a big way. Eythora still can’t believe that conversation, and that hug, actually happened. She had hidden it well, but it was surreal to have talked with the American she’s harbored a bit of celebrity crush on ever since watching the Fierce Five take out team gold in London.

She knows she looks like an idiot, standing there frozen in the middle of the cafeteria. All her suspicions had been confirmed. It was the natural glow the girl had, the way her teddy-bear brown eyes spoke kindness in more ways than words ever could, a tangible solidness in her character she’s never felt before in anyone else.

Aly Raisman is every bit as fascinating - and beautiful - as Eythora suspected she would be.

#raistafina #fanfic #second thoughts #first times

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