Day After Day

The Ropes

AN: September 2017. So for those of you who aren't aware of the overarching timeline, this takes place between Lost in the Middle and Even When You're Gone, but before A Football Game. Anyway Happy One Year Anniversary to the LitM 'verse! Exactly a year ago I posted the first chapter of Lost in the Middle. (Also crossing off my free space for KCWS Bingo).

CW for injury

The new season hasn't started yet so they all have slightly more time, even after school has started for the year. And Richelle manages to talk Emily into letting her put the ropes back up one Saturday afternoon. It's not a formal class or anything, but some of the younger dancers have shown up, either to watch, or to ask Richelle to show them how to climb the way she does. Some of her J-Troupe kids have shown up, as well as a few kids who aren't on any troupe but heard from their friends what was happening.

Richelle gets one rope strung up at the front of the room, she won't be able to swing around like she really wanted to, but once the rest of the kids have left hopefully she'll be able to use the other ropes hung around the room.

Even though technically Richelle would argue that she doesn't need a crash mat under her rope (Emily fights her on that) she knows that it's a bad habit to teach the younger dancers. A couple of the kids who are just waiting for siblings take some of the extra mats and work on tumbling in the corner, but the rest all line up around the edge. Richelle scales the rope practically to the ceiling, climbs about halfway down, and then drops the rest of the way onto the crash mat.

"You don't have to climb that high, just go as high as you feel comfortable." She shows them the safest way to climb up and how to loop the rope around their feet to keep from sliding down as they climb. And of course how to get down, without just dropping like she did. Most of the kids only go halfway up, but a couple of them join her near the ceiling.

About an hour later there aren't many kids left, only a handful of J-Troupers. And they're mostly goofing off and showing off on the extra crash mats. So Richelle takes the opportunity to do what she originally wanted to do when she set the ropes up. Taking care to avoid the pre-teens in the corner, Richelle pulls the rope as close to the wall as she can, carefully climbs partway up, and pushes off against the wall.

"Oof." Richelle groans when she hits the ground (maybe the crash mats were a good idea after all). Her J-Troupers all rush over.

"Are you okay?" Presley asks, looking extremely concerned.

Richelle sits up and tries to regain control of her breathing, "I'm fine, just had the wind knocked out of me." Trying to climb, while swinging on the rope, was certainly not one of her better ideas.

One of the kids must've run off to the office because suddenly Emily is checking her over.

"I told them I was fine," she argues.

Emily shakes her head at her, "I just watched you fall at least eight feet. You're not 'fine'. Come on, you're going to come sit in the office with me, we can deal with the ropes and the mats later."

Richelle playfully rolls her eyes at her sister, but gets up to follow her anyway. The remaining J-Troupe kids disperse around the room, putting away the mats without being asked.

"Look, you're probably fine, but I still have to fill out the incident report. So what happened?"

"I thought you saw it?" Richelle tries for innocence, but a little bit of snark and sass peek through.

Emily swats at her, "I saw you fall, I don't know what led up to it."

Richelle slumps in her chair, "I pushed off the wall and then tried to climb higher and lost my grip."

"Did you hit your head?"

She shakes her head, "No, I fell on my back, but I put my arms down behind me like I learned when I first started tumbling." And now that she's said something about her arms she realizes that her wrist hurts and maybe she didn't brace herself as well as she thought. "Although I think I landed wrong." Upon closer inspection there's definitely some bruising on her right wrist. Richelle throws her head back when she realizes that Emily's going to have to call Natalie.

"It looks like you probably sprained it. I'll go get the first aid kit so we can wrap it. Remind me to supervise the next time you wanna do something like this, Riche."

AN: Those of you that follow me on tumblr will know I'm also working on a Dancing with the Stars AU, but I couldn't let this anniversary pass without writing anything. And for those who missed it, I posted pictures of my finished TNS A-Troupe jacket, which you can find in the external link of this chapter.