Between 6x24 and 6x25

Piper just wanted to be by herself.

The first day of Regionals had come to an end, and if Noah and Richelle hadn't performed the duet of their lives tonight, The Next Step would be going home. All because of Piper's mistake.

She couldn't believe that after all of the hard work and extra time she had put in to learn and nail her aerial, she had still managed to mess it up onstage. And everyone had seen it. Her team. The judges. All of the people watching at home. And worst of all- Miss Angela. All season long, everyone Piper trusted most – Finn, Noah, Amy, James, Riley, Emily – they had all told her that Angela was wrong- that she was a good dancer, and she would nail her aerial, and she belonged on A-Troupe.

She had proven them all wrong today.

At least she could take a little consolation in the fact that even after she had humiliated herself and their team, Finn still wasn't embarrassed to be seen with her. He was the only person who had come to check on her after she'd run off to be alone and had tried to cheer her up with that silly Fruity Moons song. And to his credit, he had succeeded – for a moment at least.

The last thing Piper had wanted to do after messing up the contemporary routine was go back and face her teammates, but Finn hadn't given her much of a choice. She'd held onto his hand like her life depended on it until practically the moment Noah and Richelle walked onstage for the Pas de Deux. Throughout their duet, she had felt physically ill, knowing that if it wasn't good enough for the judges, the whole team would be going home.

But miraculously, the team had qualified for the finals, and Piper felt like she could finally breathe again. Maybe her teammates would hate her less now for messing up the contemporary routine. She allowed herself to celebrate with them all onstage and hugged Finn extra tight as if doing so could somehow communicate her gratitude to him for being there for her when no one else was- something that he had been doing all season in fact, not just today.

The whole team was on cloud 9 as they ate dinner in the food court of the convention center. Piper stuck with Finn and Henry, and they spent a good portion of dinner telling Finn about last year's Regionals competition and all of the drama that had led up to it. As Henry enthused about his friendship with the Prince Alfie of Switzerland, Piper pointedly made no comment and focused on her stir fry instead.

The thought crossed her mind that if they hadn't qualified for the finals tonight, this would be the second year in a row that The Next Step lost at Regionals after her brother's team had become Internationals champions.

But we did make it to the finals, she told herself crossly, trying hard to focus on the positives instead of the negatives for once in her life.

Everything had turned out fine. They still had a shot at winning this whole competition.

It was when Emily and Michelle stood and began going over the schedule for the next day that the realization suddenly hit Piper. Her fork dropped to her plate with a clatter, and she rigidly sat back in her seat, no longer able to hear what her studio heads were saying over the blood rushing through her ears.

She had an aerial in the finals routine.

Oh no.

Oh no.

If she messed up tomorrow, there was no coming back from that. The studio would lose for the second year in a row, and it would be entirely her fault. The team would hate her, her parents would be disappointed in her, and gosh, what would James say?

This was too much pressure.

Despite the fact that she'd only eaten half of her food, her appetite was gone. Feeling like she was about to be sick, she excused herself to the bathroom as discreetly as possible and practically ran all the way there. When she reached the (thankfully empty) bathroom, she collapsed in one of the stalls and dry heaved into the toilet bowl. When it became clear that nothing was going to come out, she slumped against the stall, breathing hard until she had enough strength to pull herself up and walk on shaky legs to the sink. After washing her hands, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were glassy, and her cheeks seemed a little pale, but she didn't look too worse for wear. She hoped Finn wouldn't notice anything was off.

After taking a couple of minutes to compose herself, Piper reluctantly returned to the food court. Her team was cleaning up their trash and getting ready to leave for the hotel. Finn looked up as she approached their table, holding his empty tray in one hand and hers in the other. "I didn't know if you wanted a to-go box or something," he said when she reached him.

She simply shook her head, taking her tray from him as she said in the most composed voice she could manage, "No, that's okay. Thanks."

He didn't seem to question it, which she was grateful for. If it had been her brother, he would have made a big deal about her not finishing her dinner and how "you need energy for tomorrow, Pipesqueak." Needless to say, she was really glad an out-of-town gig for his band was keeping James (and Riley) away from the competition this weekend.

Piper kept her head down as the team made their way out to the bus that would take them to their hotel. The chatter of her teammates and studio heads surrounded her, but she was so nervous about tomorrow now that she couldn't focus on anything else if she tried. She was one of the first to board the bus and headed straight for the back of it, wanting nothing else but to be by herself for the next twenty minutes on the ride to the hotel.

At this point in her friendship with Finn, however, she really should have expected that he would follow her to the back of the bus anyway.

It might not have been that bad if it had just been Finn that had plopped down next to her, but he was followed by the rest of the boys. Noah and Henry took the seats in front of them while Kingston and Ozzy filled the row across from them, Ozzy in the midst of a detailed rant about how the finals somehow related to Legions of Lasers. Piper wasn't really sure what the connection was, and she really couldn't care less.

She could hear Henry and Noah talking about their girlfriends in the row in front of her, and Piper sighed, resting her head against her fist dejectedly as she stared out the window, trying desperately to tune the boys out. She knew it wasn't Finn's intent to annoy her by bringing the rest of the boys with him to the back of the bus, but boy, had he done a good job of it anyway.

As the bus was pulling out of the convention center's parking lot, Piper's phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen to see a text from Amy.

Her best friend didn't even have to say what she was referring to. Piper knew she was asking if she was okay after what had happened in the contemporary dance. She opened her text messages to respond, but her thumbs simply hovered over the keyboard. What was she supposed to say? 'Yeah, I'm fine! Thanks for asking!' That would be a total lie, and she knew it. But at the same time, she couldn't tell Amy how she was really feeling, not when they would be competing against each other in the finals tomorrow.

It was absurd that they were even competing against each other at all. It didn't seem fair. It didn't feel right. She needed her best friend. She had Finn, of course, but he was currently busy poking fun at Ozzy with Kingston, completely oblivious to the fact that she was fighting back tears right next to him. She turned her body so that she was facing the window and away from the boys as a couple of tears rolled down her cheeks. She hastily wiped them away, hating more than ever that Amy was on a different team and a different bus right now.

"Bro, this is nothing to him! He's already competed at Internationals!"

"What's it like?"

Kingston and Ozzy's awestruck words somehow broke through Piper's pitiful reverie, and she bit her lip as she heard Noah tell them, "It's on a completely different level. The competition is way bigger, and they throw all kinds of challenges at you to keep you on your toes."

"He was blindfolded in one of his dances," Henry added enthusiastically.

"No way!" Kingston said, his eyes wide. "That's not even safe."

"They had spotters at the front of the stage to make sure no one fell off."

"Oh, good. Yeah, that makes it totally safe," Finn commented sarcastically, and Noah grinned.

"Okay fine, maybe it's not that safe, but think of all the bragging rights you get from it. I've got a lot of bragging points."

"Is that what Jacquie told you?" Kingston asked teasingly.

That set the boys off on a tirade of jokes about Noah's relationship. Meanwhile, Piper chewed on the inside of her cheek at the talk of Internationals. She already knew of the kinds of crazy challenges the Internationals board threw at the dancers, having heard James talk about it plenty of times before, but hearing about it had never made her so anxious before.

If she couldn't even perform at the Regionals level, was there hope for her at all at Internationals? If they ever even made it to Internationals, which was dependent on her ability to do a proper aerial in the finals tomorrow.

Their chances weren't looking good.

After what felt like the longest (and loudest) bus ride of Piper's life, the team finally arrived at their hotel. Piper stood at the back of the group while she waited to get her suitcase off of the bus, once again surrounded by the chatter of her teammates. When someone suddenly appeared on her other side, she didn't even have to look to know it would be Finn.

"I can't believe we're competing in the finals tomorrow! I mean, I knew we were gonna make it. We're gonna win this whole thing, Pipes! I can feel it. Where do they hold Nationals? And where do you think Internationals will be? I'm hoping for somewhere in Europe."

He started rambling about German pretzels as Piper half-listened, more focused instead on finding an opening to grab her suitcase off the bus and get inside. All she wanted was to take a shower and go to bed. As soon as she was in bed, she could go to sleep and try to forget that this horrible day ever happened.

When Henry and Summer finally moved away from the bus, luggage in hand and smiling about something, Piper took her chance and leapt forward to grab her suitcase. Finn followed her lead, still talking her ear off and completely oblivious to the fact that she was hardly listening to him.

"Did you know Chuck Anderson grew up, like, twenty minutes from here? Do you think he's ever visited this hotel?"

"I don't know," Piper told him shortly, making a beeline for the hotel lobby and wondering who she would be rooming with for the night. Hopefully not Jacquie and Richelle. They would definitely be up half the night talking, and she would never get any sleep.

Finn's long legs allowed him to easily catch up with her. He was still talking incessantly about Chuck Anderson, and Piper couldn't help herself as she finally asked, "Why do you know so much about him?"

Finn paused, looking at her as if she had just told him the sky was red instead of blue. "Piper, the man's a legend. He's been at SNR for fifteen years. He's shaken hands with Luther Brown!"

She simply raised her eyebrows at him, too downcast and anxious to bother mentioning that her brother had worked with Luther Brown in the past even though she knew such information would excite Finn even further. Frankly, she wasn't in the mood to be around his enthusiasm right now. Wordlessly, she stepped inside the hotel, leaving him to follow after her again, which he did without missing a beat.

Once the whole team was inside, Michelle and Emily passed out room keys and gave out room assignments. Piper would be rooming with Kenzie and Summer, which was a relief to her. Summer was the least likely of all of the girls to make critical comments about her aerial, so she would gladly take her as a roommate over any of the others.

As the team began to disperse, Finn stopped Piper, and she sighed before turning to face him, hoping he wasn't going to continue raving about Chuck Anderson. Instead, however, he was frowning curiously at her as he said, "You're really quiet tonight. What's up?"

For a split second, she considered telling him that she was fine and not any quieter than any other night, but Finn somehow always seemed to be able to tell when she was lying, so she sighed and gestured sadly instead. "What do you think?"

"Finn, come on! Level 89's not going to beat itself!" Ozzy interrupted, yelling at him from across the lobby.

Finn glanced at him and nodded, gesturing to show he'd be there in a minute and ignoring Emily's strict instruction to not stay up playing video games as he looked back to Piper. "Come on, don't beat yourself up over what happened today. It could have happened to any of us."

"But it didn't," she retorted quietly, swallowing thickly and looking away from him. She wanted to tell him about the aerial in the finals routine and how she was worried that she was going to blow their chances at Nationals for the whole team, but the hotel lobby didn't seem like the place for that. Besides, Ozzy interrupted her once more.

"Finn!"

Finn rolled his eyes, an irritated look crossing his face. This time, he ignored Ozzy as he told her seriously, "Just get some sleep tonight, Pipes. Tomorrow's a new day. You'll feel better in the morning, I promise."

Piper highly doubted that, but she knew he meant well and simply nodded. "Yeah, maybe."

With a grin that was probably supposed to be encouraging, Finn nodded towards the elevator where their teammates were waiting for them. He slung an arm around her and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze as they made their way over to them. The touch didn't make Piper feel that much better about her predicament, but it was a nice reminder that he cared about her at the very least.

The team crowded onto two elevators and made their way to their rooms for the night. The first thing Piper, Summer, and Kenzie did when they reached theirs was decide who was sleeping where. Kenzie didn't have a preference, and Summer said she didn't mind sharing a bed with someone, so the two of them paired up, leaving a relieved Piper to claim the other bed for herself.

"I think I'm going to take a shower," Piper said, her back to them while she grabbed her pajamas out of her suitcase.

"Okay," Summer said, and Piper made a beeline for the bathroom without making eye contact with either of her roommates.

When she was finally alone in the bathroom, she set her pajamas and hygiene bag on the counter and just stood in the middle of the bathroom, taking a few deep breaths through her nose and slowly exhaling. The muffled voices of Kenzie and Summer travelled to her through the door, and she was certain they had to be talking about her.

"How can she not know how to do an aerial? It's so easy."

"She almost sent us all home. Michelle and Emily should have put me in the dance instead."

She didn't know that was what they were saying, of course, but surely it had to be something along those lines.

Clenching her fists and biting down on the inside of her cheek, Piper turned on the shower water, waiting for it to get as hot as she could bear before climbing in. She willed her mind to go blank as she scrubbed on her body wash, but the memory of falling out of her aerial and the absolute horror that had followed as she fumbled around on stage afterwards kept replaying in her mind as if an awful movie on repeat.

Like a flood, the tears she'd been holding in all evening burst out of her. She covered her mouth and slumped against the shower wall, hot water pouring down on her as silent sobs wracked her body.

"I don't know why you're putting Piper in this dance. She can't even do acro."

"You know Finn, the longer you dance here, the worse of a dancer you'll become. I mean, look what you're dancing with."

"Your weak link is Piper."

She'd thought that after enough time had passed, Miss Angela's words wouldn't sting anymore. That they wouldn't bother her anymore. That she was fine.

She was wrong. It all still hurt.

Maybe she should've quit dance after all. It certainly would have saved her the pain and humiliation of today.

As much as she would have liked to cry in the shower until there were no tears left to cry, Piper knew that she couldn't stay in the shower forever because Summer and Kenzie needed to get ready for bed too, so once her tears had slowed, she forced herself to turn off the hot water and changed into her pajamas. Thank God she had thought to pack her favorite pair – the soft purple ones with the sheep on them that Nana Gardiner had gotten her for Christmas last year. It was a little thing, but it made her feel just a smidge better.

After finishing her bedtime routine, Piper crawled into bed while Kenzie took her turn in the bathroom. Summer gave her a small smile but seemed to pick up on the fact that she wasn't in the mood to talk and didn't try to force a conversation. Piper rolled onto her side, keeping her back to her roommates as she scrolled through Facebook mind-numbingly. Around the time that Summer and Kenzie switched places in the bathroom, Piper remembered Amy's text and opened it again.

She still didn't know how to respond to it. Amy hadn't been around much since leaving The Next Step, but even before then, she had often been preoccupied with Henry. There was so much Piper hadn't told her as a result. When her communication with her best friend was so limited, the last thing she wanted to talk about was the crippling self-doubts and anxiety that had been weighing her down for months. So instead of being honest, she simply told her:

P: Yes, I'm okay! 😊 good job today! You were amazing!! 💖

Was she overdoing it with the exclamation points? Probably. They all felt so fabricated and fake given her current mood. At the same time, she couldn't care less. Her phone lit up with a new text a minute later.

😊

Piper stared at the text, reading it then re-reading it. Numbly, she tossed her phone aside, not bothering to reply. Yes, Amy. Yes, it is weird competing against each other. Where were you when I needed you tonight?

(It didn't escape her notice that Amy hadn't returned her compliment.)

She couldn't be mad at Amy, she knew. But she wanted to be. Last year at this time, the two of them had been staying up late against Riley's orders with Sloane and Cassie to watch a movie because that was what Sloane had wanted to do to distract herself from getting disqualified from the competition. Piper couldn't even remember what movie they had watched on Cassie's old dinosaur of a laptop, but she remembered laughing with her friends and trying to order room service before realizing that they would have to pay for it. They had all rallied around Sloane to help her in her time of need, and that somehow made her feel even worse now, knowing that the Zero Percent Club would have rallied around her too if they were there.

But they weren't.