Camp Nou roars as we walk out, screaming for the club in a way that only Barça fans seem to be capable of. It's hard to get used to the atmosphere, but the task is a lot easier when you are playing for the club they are chanting for.

Thousands of voices combine into one as Cant del Barça booms out of the stadium's speakers, and the Chelsea players look positively intimated as we bask in their support, as we have learnt to do. I treat this like a normal match, pretending it holds no more meaning than playing a team in the grassroots league. That doesn't stop me from taking in the crowd; the sheer size of it is both terrifying and something to be proud of.

Keira places her hand on my back after we take the starting XI picture, wishing me luck. "You've got this," she says, back to our technical area. She doesn't see the worried glances I get from a few of the staff, but I catch them and throw them out of my mind so I don't get put off my game. Jonatan has instilled his confidence in me to cope. I will cope.

I look at Alexia, who offers me the same smile everyone else is wearing. "So have you," I reply, walking with her to the correct starting positions. "Let's win this."

Head down, passes precise, I keep up a good attack despite Erin trying to mark me out of the game. It means that I have to pull into the middle quite a bit to send the ball to Alexia's side, but I can run more than her and her tiredness will be useful later on. Caro's disallowed goal lights a relentless fire in us, but it isn't enough to score before halftime.

The Chelsea players lose their momentum as the clock nears the minutes that changed the course of their season. She went down in the fifty-fourth minute. We seem to be taking advantage of their hesitation.

Jonatan makes two changes in the sixtieth minute, and the intensity we are playing at only increases with the fresh legs now on the pitch. I blink and Caro has scored again – this time the goal is allowed – but it feels wrong to cheer. Instead, I give her a quick hug and nod at AKB. Her and Scarlett were close. They spent a lot of time practising shots together.

Four minutes later, Guro has scored an equaliser, but we are still one up on aggregate. Their celebrations are amplified by the fact that they are all playing for her.

Seconds tick by as we fight for possession and a spot in the final, and the crowd's volume does not falter. They sing and shout and chant Alexia's name if she has the ball. They are doing just that when Alexia deliberately sends the ball into the advertising boards. The crowd's silence makes me feel sick.

I remember how the stars flickered above us that night. How Scarlett lay there, motionless. Everything has changed.

Jessie retrieves the ball slowly, the tempo of play coming to complete halt. Emma stands at the edge of the technical area, looking up at the sky. Lauren and Pernille walk to the sideline to be subbed on.

The world has not stopped moving, but this new speed makes me feel as though someone has built four walls around me, caging me so that I cannot move beyond the spot on which I currently stand. Earlier, I had told Jonatan that it would be fine to play through. He is watching me closely, using the pause in play to assess the game as those who are not personally involved in Scarlett's death would obviously do. I swallow hard, and the minute is over. Erin sends me a look that pulls me back to reality, and I shake my head to get rid of the sluggishness of my movements.

Cautiously, the crowd builds the soundscape back up, finding an opportunity to return to their usual volume the minute I intercept a pass from Magda and sprint down the right wing in search of a goal. My feet tumble underneath me, as if my mind can't keep up. It feels as if I am flying and no one can stop me. It's dangerous for me to be in this position. Niamh's tackle is a necessary foul. And a deserved yellow card for two-footing me and sending me to the ground with a thud.

I get up quickly, not hurt by it, feeling the urge to plough ahead. I collect the ball and half-listen to what the referee is saying, but she holds her hand up just as I am about to take the free kick. Jonatan is making a substitution, putting Geyse on to presumably push for another goal. I peer at the board, wondering who he is going to take off.

28.

Me.

I wanted to play the whole game. Now people are going to talk. I can already hear it.

All eyes focus on me as I hand the ball to Mapi and walk off the pitch, holding in my frustration as best as I can. Alexia watches me carefully, I notice when I look back. She looks sorry. I ignore it and take the electrolyte drink from one of the trainers, huffing as I sit down next to Keira. She pats my shoulder sympathetically.

The final whistle blows and Chelsea practically implodes, devastation hitting them as they fail to do what we have just accomplished. Our bench is in a frenzy as everyone runs to celebrate in the middle of the pitch, and Keira pulls me along with her as we forget about the fatigue in our legs and join our team.

Despite my irritation with my manager, I find it in me to shake his hand as he walks past. He looks sorry, too. My feet get impatient with being rooted to the spot for a moment, and carry me into the centre of the team's dancing, joining them as they sing along to the Barcelona anthem. "Sabes las letras," Mapi shouts in my ear, surprised. Of course I know the Barcelona anthem. Johan Cruyff is my favourite player.

We move around the Chelsea huddle, running to the stands as the crowd continues to cycle through every Barça chant in existence. Talia pauses her seemingly choreographed dance with Geyse to jump on my back, screaming 'vamos' in my ear. "What happened to 'hala Madrid'?" I tease, running ahead to catch up with Mapi.

"Tía, callate," she replies, her grin loud and clear in her voice.

I put her down when we stop moving so that we can both clap. She nudges me with raised eyebrows as Alexia stops beside us, but I pretend not to notice. I walk away from the celebrations before Alexia can talk to me.

"Well played, Fleur," Emma says as we meet near the technical area. I go to shake her hand, but she only pushes it away with a laugh before crushing me in her embrace. "Oh, how I've missed you!"

Ez and Sam appear. I promised to swap shirts with Erin this time. "I'm sorry that we beat you," I tell all three of them, the crowd becoming so loud that my brain is starting to automatically tune the noise out.

Sam shrugs; "Don't be. You don't mean it." Emma gives me another hug and leaves us to it.

"True," I say with a smile, wrapping my arms around both of them. "Now you can watch me in Eindhoven. You should probably try a bit harder if you want to catch up to the amount of Champions League medals I have." We walk into the tunnel together.

"Bit full of yourself, aren't you?" Erin jibes, poking my side.

"I've got one hand on the Ballon d'Or." It's mine this year. I can feel it.

"And the other hand on the Barcelona bench," Sam jokes, untangling herself so that she can pull her shorts up. I stop, waiting for her. Erin flicks my forehead (it's a marvel how she reached that high) and reminds me about our shirt swap, giving me no time to reply to Sam's unintentionally enraging quip.

I need to speak to Jonatan about that.

As Erin and I pull each other's shirts on, the Chelsea social media manager records us, asking us to wave at the camera. One of the photographers takes a picture too, and then they stand back to make way for the hoard of Barcelona players coming down the tunnel in a conga line, heading into the changing room with energy that makes it hard to believe they just played a match. "Go celebrate," urges Sam, giving me a little shove towards Talia, who is holding the door open for me. "We're proud of you."

"Let's go on holiday during the break, yeah? Just us three," I suggest as I stand in the doorway; the bridge between my old family and my new family. "I miss you guys."

"We'll text you!" Erin calls out as Mapi pulls me inside and shuts the door.

"No Chelsea," Mapi whispers before we get into the main room, pointing at my shirt. I roll my eyes at her mischievous expression, but I comply and enter the room with it tucked into my armpit.

Half of the team are in the same state I am in, but they are more than easily convinced to sing and dance upon mine and Mapi's entrance, finding any reason they can to party.

It continues like this until the changing room has emptied out. With no obligation to rush because Jaimie and I are going out for a late dinner in a michelin-star restaurant that is apparently really private. I think she knew that neither of us were going to cook tonight, and if it isn't busy I will gladly have a complete mental breakdown over dinner.

Jai: Can you wait twenty more minutes?

I sigh. She's busier than she is when she's on the tour.

Me: sure

Our reservation must have been scheduled late enough to account for her lateness. It's not like I don't need a moment to decide if it is worth being annoyed with my manager for taking me off. It could have been a miscommunication; a simple misunderstanding.

Distracted, I sit in my jeans and clean bra, too busy thinking to pull on the button-up Jaimie told me to wear tonight. My head rests against the wall, hoping to cool off as if that will help me.

"Hola." I sit up, the tears that were pooling in my eyes suddenly breaking free down my cheeks. Fucking gravity. "Perdón, I left my... ¿Estás bien?"

I hurriedly wipe my face, embarrassed that Alexia has caught me crying. "Have you seen Jonatan? I need to talk to him."

"He went with the team." She reaches down to the floor and retrieves the eyelash curler lying there. I was wondering who that belonged to. "What are you going to talk about?" she asks, more curious than concerned. I stretch my arms out, uncomfortable. She looks away.

"He said I was playing the whole game, so I was surprised to be taken off. I wish he did it at halftime, when no one would have seen it. It was embarrassing and people are going to talk about how I'm so fucking traumatised that I can't even do my job," I rant unexpectedly. I think her expression mirrors the shock I can feel plastered on my face.

"You are upset with him?"

"Yes, Alexia!" Why is she being stupid? She also hates being subbed off for no reason. "I earned us a free kick and then he took me off? Of course I'm upset," I snap, my annoyance increasing in size as I begin to want to shout at her, too. Alexia sits down in an empty cubby with the same sorry look on her face as the one she wore when I walked off the pitch.

"I told him to do it," she admits quietly, not brave enough to speak any louder.

But I hear her loud and clear.

Recently, she has not been that bad. Now that has all changed.

"You might have caused a whole media shit-storm because you don't like me?" I explode, not caring if I make her jump from the sheer rage in my voice. "Alexia, this is my... this is my fucking career. It's not training. That match was important, and I needed to prove to them all that I can and will cope. They were watching me and what they saw was me not even playing the whole match. I could have scored!"

"Geyse can score," she fires back, though she remains calmer. "There was a lot of pressure on you."

"I am fine under pressure, Alexia." I did not grow up with the father I have to be taken off in a game because of pressure. That is pathetic. It makes me look pathetic.

"Yes, but there was a lot. It was not needed. Geyse could score, and you could relax. You do not need to prove yourself to the whole world. You already have." All I hear is that I wasn't needed, because that has to be what she means. The mutual dislike for one another has crossed the boundary into unprofessionalism, and it is going to affect me more than her. "I could see that you were frustrated and it was not worth the risk. I am your captain. I did what was best for you and the team."

I scoff, finding this hard to believe. "Best for me? Yes, I was frustrated, but it was not enough for you to take me off. You assumed that I would crumble under pressure when you hardly know me."

"I am the captain," she repeats, growing angrier at my insitience that she made the wrong decision.

"I am the one who will suffer!" I stand up, grabbing my things. It will be empty enough in the corridor for me to finish changing there. "The pressure on me is mine to deal with, and it is nothing in comparison to what I have experienced before. You are not–"

"Joder, I can see the pressure on you, Fleur!" I stop in my tracks, her voice echoing, bouncing off the walls with the same sharpness every time. "I feel the pressure too."

Closing my eyes, choosing not to listen to her, I walk outside, leaving her there to watch me go. 

notes: 

this took me ages for some reason 

thanks for reading!!!