Baby of the team - WSL

part 14

16th september

Tally woke up cuddled into Leah. She felt confused. I'm so confused. How had she gotten there. Leah smiled and stroked her head when she realised she was awake. "Good morning, sweetheart?" Leah said as Tally separated herself from Leah and sat up next to her. "How exactly did I end up in your bed?" Tally asked weakly. Leah chuckled and said, "You got into my bed at like 2 last night saying you missed Esme and felt lonely!". Tally had no memory of this. "We're doing the fitness resting today, right?" She asked, wanting to change the topic. Leah nodded and got out of bed. "We should probably head down to breakfast, but Esme made me promise that I would make sure you take your meds!" She said apprehensively. She knew how private the kid was.

Tally looked unimpressed but not surprised. She got the bag of her meds out of the suitcase and emptied them onto the bed, quickly shoving the little bag of offensive items into her bag again, hoping Leah hadn't seen. Of course, Leah had seen, worry, how filled her. She couldn't let anything happen to the kid she promised Esme that she would look after her. Tally went and filled her water bottle, ready for her to take the meds. She always did it in an order, so she started with her antidepressants and finished with her OCD meds. She went through loads of water doing this, so at least she was hydrated. Always got to think about the positives. She saw leah watching her closely. She wasn't sure if Esme had told her about what they were or not. She guessed, not judging by the way she was looking at tally. 

She finished her meds and got changed into her plain royal blue Nike pros and the training shorts and a long sleeve base layer and the training t-shirt. "Are you going to be too hot in that kid?" Leah asked worriedly. Tally shrugged before saying, "I'm used to it now!". Leah found this heart-breaking. They were just about to leave when tally exclaimed, "Shit!" Remembering she hadn't done her inhaler. She grabbed it and shook it up and down taking a second to slow and control her breathing before doing it and grabbing her blue inhaler and putting it in her pocket and  emotional support water bottle with her squash sports drink in that she had to drink to keep her blood sugar up that she had started drinking when she began to struggle with eating and it was mango and orange flavoured so it tasted good which was a bonus. Leah looked unsure. "You have asthma?" She asked gently, not wanting to ask any questions that could stress the girl out before her first training session. Tally nodded "Yeah had it since I was a little kid but it turns out smoking kinda fucks with it so now my lungs are kinda dead but now I'm on the steroid inhalers there doing better," she explained. 

Leah nodded before opening the door, and they walked down to breakfast. Leah stopped tally just before going into the dining room. "Sweetheart, you don't have to eat if you don't want to just try and eat something even if it's just a piece of fruit!" She softly said, crouching a bit to see eye to eye with the small girl. Tally nodded and whispered a quiet thanks, giving her a quick hug before they walked in with Leah's arm over the kids' shoulders. They went into the room and gravitated towards Beth and Viv, who were sat at one of the large circular tables with Jordan and jill. 

Tally was now feeling the nerves kicking in, and she knew the others could see it all over her face. Beth noticed straight away the little nervous things she was doing that she probably wasn't even aware of herself. She was repetitively pulling the sleeves over her hands and fiddling with her fingers. she shuffled her chair away from Viv closer to tally and grabbed a hold of her anxious hands. tally looked at her, slightly confused, and it was obvious she wasn't even aware of what she was doing. Leah went to go grab some food, knowing the kid was in good hands. She decided to grab a bowl of fruit salad for Tally. she made her way back to the table and placed the bowl down in front of Tally, who looked nervous. she comfortingly placed a hand on Tally's knee. Tally shot her a small smile and picked up the fork and tentatively placed a strawberry in her mouth, trying not to grimace. she loved fruit. In fact, it was probably her food of choice if she had to pick, but right now, she didn't want to eat. 

She saw leah and beth watching her cautiously as she slowly ate the fruit. She shot leah a quick glance of irritation. "Leah, I'm fine. Stop looking at me like that. You too, beth. I don't know what Esme told you, but stop looking at me like I'm a crazy person!" She said quietly, her Portuguese accent coming out a bit. Beth chuckled at this, whereas leah just looked down. Leah felt guilty for looking at her, studying her, but she was nervous and worried about her girl. 

Soon, it was time for training, and as it was the first day, it was fitness testing. Tally aced all of the tests, of course. She was the fasted runner and one of the best endurance runner, she could pull double her body weight and was much stronger than anyone ever thought, considering her size. Tally found the tests a bit boring as it involved quite a bit of waiting and wasn't particularly action-packed, and waiting was not her strong point. In any way. While she was waiting, she had to do something, so she spent a good 40 minutes doing keepie uppies and other tricks. The other girls were watching her out of the corners of their eyes marvelling at the girls' skills. "That's tooney level shit!" Beth whispered to jordan as they watched the young girl mess around with the ball. 

After they had finished the fitness testing, they were doing some mini matches. Tally managed to score 2 goals! 2 goals!!! She won the bal of of leah 3 times, and leah was sulking. Tally found it hilarious, as did beth. Well beth found it funny until she was megged by the young player twice. Then she sulked aswell. After the match the team did a cool down and began to stretch themselves out. "Kid your amazing I mean we saw you play on some videos ans saw that you were really good, but your skills and ability to control the ball is incredible!" Jill said in her strong Dutch accent. Tally became embarrassed and awkward as all the attention was on her, she wasn't used to it and really didn't enjoy it. She smiled and shrugged it off. Leah came up to her and wrapped her up in a hug "Good job kid, glad I'm on your team!" She said quietly to the embarrassed girl. Tally smiled and nodded. 

They had dinner and tally ate a small portion and then they all went back to the lounge room. They put on a movie and bearing it was 930 at night they chose a short one. Tally was sat next to leah and Jordan. Leah wrapped her arm around tally and about 10 minutes in she noticed the girl starting to nod off. She brought her head down onto her lap and jordan grabbed her legs draping them over her own. She texted beth asking her to get a blanket from her room and gave her the key. Beth smiled at the young kid and went to go grab her a blanket. She grabbed the one on her bed and smirked when she saw it was a man city one. She went back down to the room and gently draped the blanket over tally and stroked her head before going back over to where she was sat. Tally fell asleep shortly after that. The girls all cood and awwed at their youngest teammate. Beth took a photo of the kid smiling at it. By the time the movie had finished it was almost 11 and time for them to head to bed. Leah picked tally up and jordan grabbed the blanket and they went up to leah and tallys room. Tally was already in her pyjamas as were all of the other girls as they decided to get comfy for watching the film so leah laid tally down in her bed and covered her up with the duvet and blanket putting the Teddy she noticed that the kid brought with her next to her. Jordan said goodnight and then leah got into bed.
The next morning was smooth and tally was relived she managed to stay in her bed all night which was a bonus. 

The rest of the week went pretty much like this until Thursday
Friday they were travelling up to Manchester ahead of their game against man city on Sunday. Tally had grown close with the team over the week and was looking forward to the match. She got to see esme.

Sorry for the delay in update I've been unwell
Comment any suggestions or ideas x