We don't speak of it.

I see her at training, she continues to drive me home. We don't acknowledge what happened.

I never get called into the psychologist's office, but I think about the amount of times I've only just escaped a panic attack recently, deciding that living alone isn't ideal, and I need some sort of help. 

So I get a cat.

He's called Oliphant because he's grey and has a longer-than-average nose. I end up calling him Oli more. I adopted him from a local shelter, but he's only a year old. Jaimie (and Leah)'s teasing evolves from calling me a spinster to a cat-lady, but I mind the latter less as it doesn't bring up the same worries about what the actual fuck I'm going to do with my love life. Is now a good time to reappear on Instagram? Will I be judged for being happy?

Alexia and I manage to not scream at each other in front of everyone again. Jonatan isn't as impressed as we are, calling it the 'bare minimum'. He benches us for our game against Levante. We come on as a double substitution in the eightieth minute; Alexia and I assist a goal each just to prove to Jonatan that we can play football quite well in case he has forgotten. It takes some pressure off us both though, once the world realises the team is just fine without us.

The next day at training, we bicker over me wanting to be with Mapi for some passing practice because she is apparently reserved for Alexia. I call her childish and immature, and she calls me antagonistic and provocative. Mapi leaves us to it, going with Ingrid, resulting in Alexia and I begrudgingly pairing up. Jonatan shakes his head disapprovingly, having watched the entire argument play out. We find ourselves still on the bench again for the Valencia game.

I sit as far away from her as I can, but the girls tell me to move so they can sit together, giving me either the option to stand or claim the empty seat beside Alexia. When I sit, we both silently edge to the end of our seats, avoiding closing that gap.

She drops her bottle in front of me during the celebrations for Salma's goal in the sixtieth minute. I hand it to her without meeting her eyes. She thanks me so quietly that she may as well have stayed silent.

After the game, I realise I will get home to Oli later than expected, having had to wait for Alexia to wash her hair at a purposefully slow pace despite her knowing I like to shower at home. Mapi couldn't give me a lift because she and Ingrid were busy doing something or other.

My car will be a saving grace.

"Hola," she says as she finally meets me outside the changing room. "Vámonos." The fans shriek at us when we go outside, but nothing compares to the noise level as I get into her car. I roll my eyes.

"Imagine if they thought we were dating," I say off-handedly. She almost reverses into the steward directing her out of the car park.

"No," is all Alexia responds with, turning up the volume of her stupid playlist. I swear I know all of these songs off by heart at this point. I don't need any more Rosalía in my life.

When I get inside to my whining cat, I flop on the sofa, pulling him into me. "Alexia is still the worst," I mumble into his soft, grey fur. He's a tabby, and would probably be called Tiger if he were orange. He purrs as I hug him close, finding comfort in being fussed over constantly. Mapi and I have been talking about introducing him to Bagheera, considering how friendly of a cat he has turned out to be.

Just as we are getting settled in front of the TV to watch the highlights from Ajax's latest game post-shower, a high-pitched barking spooks Oli. He darts out of my lap, hiding underneath the dining table. The dog scratches at my door, whining.

"Nala!" Alexia scolds. Of course it's fucking Nala. Alexia lives above me, and usually takes the lift to the ground floor when taking Nala on her walk, because whenever she takes the stairs, this happens. That dog, for whatever reason, hates me. She always wants to get inside my apartment. "Aquest és l'apartament de Fleur." I don't need to understand Catalan to understand that. It's kind of nice to hear her sound so embarrassed.

I decide, rather rashly, to worsen the situation.

I get up and open my front door, only catching a glimpse of the ball of fluff before it's charging straight towards Oli. Alexia lunges inside after her dog, not hesitating to chase her around my table before bending down and scooping her up, walking back outside like it wasn't her first time in my home and she was totally invited.

We don't speak of that, either.

Things only become more awkward from there.

We bump into each other in the foyer. I am sweaty from my run, body on full display as I sport only a bra and tiny shorts. She stares at my abs before she realises it's me. Her gaze fixes on my face from then on, but she looks stunned to have been almost knocked over. I open my mouth to say something, but Alexia gathers herself and struts off.

A day later, she walks past my door just as I am saying goodbye to a one-night-stand; some girl from a café who didn't know a thing about football and therefore wouldn't know why us sleeping together might be surprising to some. It means nothing to me, I have no intention of seeing her again. I don't even remember her name. Alexia catches the tail end of her kissing me and saying she had fun.

She never mentions it.

We actually never talk, now that I think about it.

The team has flown to Rome for the Champions League quarter-final, and I only find out that Alexia can hold a conversation in Italian by overhearing her order Patri an ice-cream. Mapi nudges me with a suggestive look. I'm not sure why.

At the Colosseum, I sit in the shade away from the team, texting Jaimie (and now Leah, because we seem to have a groupchat?) about how terribly the Ajax men's team has played this season. Leah asks me to send her pictures of little Jaimie in Ajax kit going to watch their games – pictures my sister would kill me for showing anyone. Mapi snatches my phone before I can find them.

"Ale is being miserable too. Do it together." She nods to Alexia, who is also separate from the team. It is then that Jonatan catches my eye. I stand up, making sure he watches as I sit beside Alexia on the bench. I'm getting us both back into the starting line-up.

"Hola, Fleur." Alexia's sigh is visceral. I reciprocate. "¿Qué quieres?"

"Nada," I reply. María says my Spanish is actually really good now. Oli and I are on the road to speaking an extra language – totalling me at four, and him at three. "Jonatan was watching."

"Que inteligente." I nod. "Quiere ganar así que vamos a jugar. Es claro. ¿Me entiendes?"

"Sí, puedo hablar contigo ahora. Con Mapi, no. Pero no te gusta hablar en inglés."

"Eh," she shrugs. "English is fine. Not Dutch." This is the first time either of us has acknowledged the day she completely cared for me in my tragic state. "Dutch is too hard to learn."

I don't want to think about what happened that day, so I steer the conversation in a different direction, assuming that Lieke attempted to give the Spanish girls a few lessons. "Lieke is a shit teacher." She tried to explain a trick to me once. I eventually told her to keep it to herself. "When we go to Eindhoven, I will do the talking for the team. Don't you worry, capitana." She smiles at me. Only for a moment.

Jonatan puts us both back in the starting line-up, and I am happy that my plan worked. The first leg goes well, though we could have played better. We still have the second leg with a game against Real Madrid in between.

El Clássico is a hard fought match that I do not play in. I am being rested for the second leg, but I'm not going to play the whole match so I think this is more about Jonatan wanting me to be mentally prepared.

I haven't been at Camp Nou since the night that Scarlett died.

The last time I walked out of this tunnel, I was in the Chelsea away kit. Scarlett was behind me, but she didn't squeeze my hand like she usually did. Instead, we ignored each other, knowing that nothing was going to be sorted out until we talked after the game.

The last time I stood on this pitch, I was watching the paramedics stretcher her off.

I am glad I left Chelsea, proud to be playing in a Barcelona kit. If I hadn't escaped, I would be drowning in the grief the team is dealing with, and while I do feel bad for abandoning them, I know that here is where I can move on.

Keira and Lucy don't leave my side during the warm-up, and they hug me tightly before I take my seat in the dugout. I look up at the fifty-five thousand people, wondering how many of them were there the last time I was here. I turn away from the camera that I know is zooming-in on me, burying my face into Ingrid's shoulder. She isn't surprised. "Weather's nice," she says calmly. The whistle blows and the game begins.

The first half is very good, but we can score more. Jonatan tells me I will be coming on in the sixtieth minute to bring back the link with Alexia in the midfield. Our play is disjointed, not switching smoothly from side to side.

Keira kisses my head when she comes off to make room for me. Patri waits patiently for her own substitution to be announced, switching with Aitana. "Don't die," Keira whispers. Though I know that it is a joke, my stomach feels like it could lurch at any moment.

My first touch on the ball is lousy. It allows a Roma player to tackle me. I tackle her back and pass it forward. Patri scores because of my pass; my second touch. Alexia pats me on the back when we set up for Roma's next play.

I look up at the fifty-five thousand people. If I dropped dead right now, how many would need therapy? Scarlett was always one for spending money.

I focus my entire being onto the game. It means that I won't remember it the minute I get off the pitch. It's a skill that I think I picked up the last time I was here. Like a by-product of the trauma from that night.

Weirdly, I am called over for a post-match interview. I am caught off guard, not having my media face on. The journalist beams at me, obviously trying to be welcoming before asking me a question I am not going to like. "Brilliant game tonight. How would you compare tonight to the last time you played in this stadium?" As I said.

"Well," I try my best not to falter, "tonight was very different for obvious reasons. We played well, and it's a great result. One step closer to Eindhoven."  He nods enthusiastically, pushing his glasses up as they slip down the bridge of his nose. Someone joins me, and the journalist can't stop grinning. I turn my head to see that it is Alexia. "La Reina is just being nosy," I explain with faux fondness.

The interview, from there, is a lot tamer than I expected.

"His first question was not good," Alexia states as we walk back to the crowd of our team dancing with the fans. "I came to put a stop to it."

"I don't need you to protect me," I reply, rolling my eyes. Always with the arrogance.

She places her hand on my shoulder. "Soy tu capitana, Fleur. It is my job."

Mapi jumps onto my back, startling us both. She shouts for me to take her to the stands, commanding me to run. I laugh and obey, leaving Alexia standing on the edge of the group. When I put Mapi down, I glance at where she was when I left her, but she is no longer there.

"Fleur! Fleur!" exclaim the fans, surging forward. I sign the things handed to me, taking an excessive amount of selfies. Someone asks for my shirt, and I oblige. Alexia appears beside me, thrusting a warm-up shirt in my face.

"Thought you liked my abs?" I tease her, smirking. She doesn't react. She looks guilty, like she has leaked something to the press that would end my career. I wonder what she has done.

Alexia told the team doctor about my periods. I find out when I am called into her office the day after we qualify for the semis. She interrogates me, telling me off for not having it on my medical records if it affects my health in such a way. She finds out about the panic attacks. I end up in a meeting with the club's psychologist. Exactly where I did not want to be.

"You did well at keeping it a secret," she concedes after trying hard to get more information. "I know that they're not grief-related."

"If they were, you'd have to tell Jonatan, right?" She nods, crossing her legs. I slump in the leather armchair. "They're not. Just... I've had them all my life. It's fine. Nothing is going on."

"Okay," is all she says, and the session pretty much ends there. I take this as confirmation that there is nothing wrong with me – not that I needed it.

Mum used to have panic attacks a lot. She was an athlete too. She won gold in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 for the 100m sprint. Australia's record holder to this day.

She retired after the Olympics with a qualification in physiotherapy, moving to Amsterdam because a clinic in one of the expat neighbourhoods was in need of native English speakers. That's how she met Papa.

Mum, Jaimie, and I all get them. I think it runs in the family.

Anyway, fuck Alexia for reporting me to the club, because now I have to see the doctor every week to track my cycle. And they won't let me play through them, probably. She's basically sabotaged my career; made me a liability, needy, difficult. No club wants their highest paid player to be out every few months because of something every other woman seems to be dealing with just fine.

I'm irritated about it the whole day, meaning Mapi has to physically appear in my flat to persuade me to come to her party later on this evening.

"It will be fun," she insists, ransacking my wardrobe for a top I own that Ingrid wants to wear. "I saw it a moment ago!"

I hold up the desired piece of clothing. "You threw it over your shoulder very dramatically," I explain with a smug smile, enjoying her frustration but not wanting to prolong her visit. "And I don't want to come if she's going to be there."

"I thought that you were friends now. You have not had a fight in a long time, no?" Mapi tilts her head to the side, brows furrowed as if she is recounting the past few weeks of peace. "I saw a video of you in her car."

"She always drives me around. Drives me around, drives me mad – she does a lot of driving." I watch Mapi lose her mind over this new information about Alexia and I. "We sit in silence, Maps. Don't get your hopes up."

"You have been juntas the whole time?!" She stands up rapidly, pacing around the room with wide eyes. She takes the index of her right hand and matches it with her left, jabbing at my stomach. "You and Ale. Together. In a car." Mapi scratches her jaw.

"In silence," I remind her.

"Ya, whatever. In a car, together. So close, so tense." She is smirking now, and I fear she is thinking about things I only dare to imagine when I'm really, really bored. "So tense, Fleur. You should kiss her."

"I think I'd get knocked out if I did," I reply, amused by how hard this is for her to process. "Alexia is good-looking, but she is the worst person I have ever met. I hate her." Mapi doesn't sound convinced.

"You think she is good-looking?"

"I have eyes," comes my indignant reply. I regret it immediately. (I regret the whole conversation, if I am being honest.)

"Huh," Mapi mutters, deep in thought. "Ale said the same thing."

notes:

here's oli

somewhat of a filler chapter, though i do find it a little funny that jonatan benches them both

a few translations this chapter because sometimes english feels unnatural in the dialogue

Qué quieres? = what do you want

Quiere ganar así que vamos a jugar = he wants to win so we're going to play

Me entiendes? = do you understand me?

puedo hablar contigo ahora = i can speak with you (in spanish) now

no te gusta hablar en inglés = you don't like to speak in english

soy tu capitana = i'm your captain

juntas = together

guys just learn spanish at this point por favor

and if you were interested, the story started on 16th Jan 2023, and it's currently 18th March 2023 (and fleur bought her car a few days after 16/01 so it's on its way lol)

thanks for reading, and you'll be pleased to know that i have future plans for fleur and jaimie de voss already xxxx