Dedicated to all the Chriseva fans left hurt, angry and disappointed by the finale. I wrote this as something therapeutic for myself to try and get over my sadness even though I didn't think I could ever bring myself to read or write another Chriseva fic again.
Snapshots
When Eva was fifteen, she thought she had everything figured out. If someone had asked her then where she saw herself in ten years, she'd probably said married to Jonas with two kids, a pair; one boy and one girl; the girl with a long mane of cascading black hair and the boy with a head of tight strawberry blond curls and the eyebrows to match. Or it could be the other way around, or neither, it didn't really matter to her. But she genuinely saw her happily ever after with Jonas and if she pretended hard enough she'd be able to ignore the agonizing stab of guilt that came along with it.
When Eva was sixteen, she just wanted to make it through the school year without too much trouble and she wanted Jonas to love her the way she loved him and she kept hoping that he wouldn't keep putting her in the corner with the rest of the things he constantly took for granted. At least that's what Eva felt on the inside, on the outside she was living her happily ever after with Jonas. Right?
When Eva was seventeen, she just wanted to party and she wanted to fuck, all the time and everyone. She partied with Chris most of the time and fucked him even more frequently than that. Chris was easy; he didn't expect anything more, just like she wasn't willing to give anything more. He always came prepared with his Cheshire cat grin and his devil-may-care attitude and he was hot as shit and fucked just as well. He was what Eva needed in the moment. But just that moment. Right?
When Eva was eighteen, everything suddenly turned out too complicated. Chris wanted something more, more than she was willing to give, and Eva fell back into old habits, doing the same thing she always did when things got too hard: she ran. This time the path led her to Jonas's door and his bed. But this was what she really wanted, right? Getting back on the right path, the path that included Jonas and their two kids and the white picket fence on their lawn and the big blue house that sat at the edge of the cobblestone path. Chris said he loved her and that he was ready to settle down with her even though she wasn't, and as it turned out, Chris wasn't ready either.
They came together but they left separately, but that was okay.
When Eva was nineteen she realized that Jonas would never really change; not for her, not for anyone. She'd fallen back into bad habits and lost the voice she'd finally acquired after so long. Once again her opinions always came in second; her needs were always put last and her feelings were always made to be a joke. One day, Eva just picked up her strewn clothes from off the floor and left, and she never looked back.
When Eva was twenty she put herself first for the first time in her life. She finally put men to the side and hooked up only on the weekends when she'd meet up with the girls for a night out. She went back to school and studied to be a teacher; perhaps one day she would be able to help a kid avoid making the same mistakes she had in her youth. She still partied hard on the weekends with her crew. They'd laughed when she used that term for the first time, but Eva thought it was appropriate. The little voice in the back of her head laughed at the irony of everything, but for some reason the laughter sounded too familiar, but it didn't belong to her.
Every night though, she'd go home alone, but that was okay.
When Eva was twenty one, she met Chris by chance at the club during the weekend she was out. He was DJ-ing at the club that night and meeting him had been purely by chance, or maybe it had been fate instead. She went back home with him that night and he left early in the morning after fixing her breakfast. He had another gig that night in a club in a different city. They promised to keep in touch.
They didn't, but that was okay.
When Eva was twenty-two, Vilde announced that she and Magnus had gotten engaged. Everyone thought it was too soon, but no one said anything, not even Sana. Magnus made Vilde happy and it was obvious and that was the only thing that mattered. She asked them to be her bridesmaids at her wedding and all of them were too happy to oblige. That night they went out and got shit faced drunk. Eva had sex with the bartender in the backroom of the club, but she left alone.
When Eva was twenty-three, Vilde and Magnus married. She, Sana and Noora were the bridesmaids and Chris was the maid of honour. Vilde looked absolutely stunning in her white dress and Magnus looked smart and sharp in his tailored suit. Eva didn't think she'd ever seen Vilde that genuinely happy in her life. Perhaps it was only in part because of the wedding, the other part was probably because her mom was there, present and sober and walked her proudly down the aisle.
When Eva was twenty-four, she finished her studies and moved out of her mom's house into her own apartment. She found employment in the elementary school just down the street from her new place and it was perfect. Everything was perfect. The day she graduated, her mom and her friends all managed to make it to the ceremony to watch her receive her degree. It was the proudest moment of her life. She went out partying that night with her girls at the club and the DJ playing the music winked at her from across the room. She was too drunk on alcohol and giddiness to really pay attention to the person until she was locking lips with him in the dark corner of the club while the music was blaring in the background.
Chris went home with her that night and they stayed in the whole weekend fucking.
When Eva was twenty-five, she'd spend the weekdays teaching and molding the minds of the younger generation of children and the weekend partying hard before going home with Chris at the end of the day. Chris had found a permanent position as a DJ at one of the local clubs and had stopped moving around so much. He had his own apartment not too far from where Eva was living, and on the weekends, after a night of partying and drinking, they'd find themselves stumbling home, either Eva's place or Chris's, and would spend the remaining time snuggling in bed and kissing or having sex. It was usually the latter.
Eva didn't expect it to be anything more, but that was okay.
When Eva was twenty-six, Noora and William finally tied the knot. She was Noora's maid of honor and Chris was William's. Vilde was pregnant with her first child by that point and Sana and Chris were both looking very cozy with their respective dates on that day. She and Chris were already undressing each other before they could even make it to the bedroom that night after the reception was over. That was also the first time Chris had brought that particular subject up.
Marriage? Eva had a vague recollection of wanting that so badly at one point in her life, but through the years somehow it had just become rather inconsequential. She said as much, and Chris had looked thoughtful but he didn't say a word.
Eva suddenly realized that it was exactly one year and eleven months to the day that she and Chris had made this rendezvous a regular thing.
When Eva was twenty-seven, Sana and Yousef married. It was a beautiful Muslim wedding which started with a ceremony in the mosque and then went onto the most extravagant wedding she'd ever seen in her life. It was one of the most breathtaking celebrations she'd ever seen. She went with Chris, but shot down all and every insinuation her friends were making about them together.
They were just fuck buddies; that was more than enough. Right?
When Eva was twenty-eight, Even and Isak got married. It was a small ceremony attended by only their closest friends and family. Even's mom cried. It wasn't funny, but it was kind of funny that she was the only one who cried harder than Elias. Everyone had such a proud look on their faces that day but no one glowed brighter than Even and Isak. Eva actually teared up, and a glance out into the crowd showed her that she wasn't the only one. Chris reached over to dry the tear off her face with the back of his finger and all of a sudden it was like Eva finally saw him for the first time.
When Eva was twenty-nine, girl Chris broke the news that she'd met a guy while on holiday and they'd had a drunken night out and gotten hitched at a pop up church down the street from a stripper bar. It wasn't a funny situation at all, everyone was rather gob smacked until she introduced them to her new husband.
It was Mahdi. They spent their honeymoon the next morning at the waffle house two shops down from the hotel they were staying.
She and Chris had been waking up in the same bed together for the better part of five years, two months and eleven days. It wasn't as smooth a road as it sounded. They weren't together, not officially anyway, even though he came to all her school functions and friendly gatherings, she'd invited him over to have dinner with her mom more often than not. He'd invite her to his special gigs and left VIP passes for her and her friends at the door and they spend the whole night making eye-sex with each other from across the dance floor.
But they weren't together-together, and that was okay. It was a ridiculous notion anyway, her and Chris. Penetrator Chris settling down with her of all people. Or rather Penetrator Chris actually settling down at all. Or her, for that matter. Her dreams of a marriage and two point five kids with a nice blue house and a white picket fence was something fifteen year old Eva yearned for, but older and wiser twenty-nine year old Eva knew better about. Life didn't turn out like you imagined when you were a kid. The guy you thought you'd end up with would turn out to be a serial cheater. Every other guy you meet would be nothing more than a fifteen minute hook up in a dark corner. You worked; you went to sleep; woke up and continued on the cycle over and over again.
That was the way life was, but that was okay.
But then for the first time, Eva really started looking. She looked at Chris properly for the first time in nearly thirteen years, since that very first encounter in the club when she mistook him for the wrong Chris. Then looking at his face when they were lying side by side on her bed, just before her mom made her unceremonious entrance. Then during all the sporadic encounters they'd have in the years that followed. Even though everything changed in the years that passed, one thing remained a constant in her life:
Chris.
She looked at his face properly for the first time, and he was the most beautiful person she'd ever seen, inside and out.
When Eva turned thirty; the big three-o, it was a monumental occasion. Everyone thought so anyway, she just wanted to curl up in bed with a giant tub of ice cream, a big bag of nachos and marathon the saddest Hallmarks movies she could find. Noora was pregnant with her and William's first child, Sana just had her and Yousef's first boy (the start of their football team, she'd said) and Vilde had just given birth to her second daughter, much to Magnus's excitement—being a father agreed with Magnus, Eva thought. Chris was still living off the bliss of her impromptu wedding and brushing off all of Vilde's attempts to get her to have a 'real wedding', as she'd put it.
They wanted to celebrate; Eva just wanted to curl into a ball and sulk while binge watching TV shows like a real adult, but they weren't having any of it.
Everyone was there at the party thrown at the hotel owned by Julian Dahl. It was a celebration much bigger than Eva was truly comfortable with but she powered through it with a smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye. Chris was by her side through the whole thing; holding her hand and laughing in her stead at all the terrible jokes being flung her way. She watched him while he laughed, and listened to the ringing sound of his laughter and the way it put her mind at ease. In that moment, there was no one else in the room besides her and Chris and she's looking at him and she's seeing him and all of a sudden she realized that maybe this wasn't nothing. Maybe this was actually something; something important and something beautiful and something she never before realized she needed in her life.
It was a beautiful realization.
Chris was beautiful.
Eva was thirty years, four months and three days old when she came to the realization that she loved him.
It took her too long to realize that but she knew what Chris would say if she told him that.
"That's okay."
She didn't say those words to him that night.
Instead, one night, when he had the day off; she came home from work with a bouquet of flowers, the same flowers he'd come to her door with all those years ago when he was still a fuckboy and she was still blinded by her fear. She didn't just slide the key into the lock, it didn't matter whose door it was, they had keys for each other's apartment anyway, and instead she knocked.
She was met by his confused face when he appeared to open the door, before it quickly morphed into one of humour and he said with a grin, "Lost your keys?"
"No," she'd said simply, an easy grin on her face mirroring his. "I just wanted to do something special tonight."
"Is there a special occasion I'm not aware of?" he asked, moving to lean one shoulder against the doorframe, eyeing her hungrily.
"Yes and no," she said. "Yes there is a special occasion, and no you're just not aware of it yet."
"Well, I'm kind of turned on right now," he said.
Eva didn't answer, she just pulled the bouquet of flowers from behind her back and presented it to him; watching a myriad of emotions play on his face before settling on the expression he'd started with: confusion. He reached for it almost hesitantly, looking between Eva and the flowers in his hand and back to Eva, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
Before he could verbalize the question though, Eva had her own question that she wanted to ask him. So without letting him get a word in, she reached into her pocket of her coat, grabbing at the velvet box resting snugly at the bottom near the lining and without a word, she slowly lowered herself onto one knee, opening the velvet box and revealing a sparkling silver ring nestled inside.
"Christoffer Schistad," she started swallowing the lump in her throat and watching his eyes widen, her heart thundering inside her chest. "Infamous cheating fuckboy and the best person I have ever met in my life. These past few years haven't been the easiest but you've always been there for me, as you'd been there for me many times in the past since I was sixteen years old. We've grown together, gone through shit together and matured together and somewhere along the way, I've come to realize that I can't imagine living my life without you in it and by my side," she said. "I love you," she added after a beat, feeling the warm tears start pooling in the corner of her eyes before she could even finish. "Will you marry me?"
Chris's mouth opened and closed like a guppy on dry land and Eva tried not to laugh, mainly because it might have caused her to burst into tears instead. But the corner of his lips soon curled up into a small smile and his eyes were warm and Eva felt the same warmth seep into her own soul.
He kneeled down without a word, right in front of her, reaching up to grasp her hands still holding the ring box to him with both his own and he held them there in front of him like they were the most precious things he'd ever touched.
"Eva Kviig Mohn," he said when he met her gaze. "The biggest dick tease in Oslo," he added. "I would be honoured to marry you."
And they hugged, and Eva was crying and she could feel the warm droplets of Chris's tears splash down onto her shoulder.
"I love you, Chris" she said.
"I love too, Eva," he replied.
It was short and simple and they were still kneeling out in the cold air but that was okay. For the first time in her life, Eva thought that everything truly was okay.
Eva turns thirty-one as Mrs. Chris Schistad, or does he turn thirty-three as Mr. Eva Mohn?
That's a story only time could tell.
The end.