Chapter 23 : Outburst

He was stressed. Now that he started talking he didn't know if it was a good idea. But it needed to be done. Even if it meant Chris being angry at him forever. He didn't care. He just wanted her to be safe.

"It's about… Chris. I think… I mean I know she's pushing too hard on her lately… She's not sleeping well. Or at all. She keeps reading these files again and again, desperate for finding a clue we would have missed… Since I was hit… She imagined all that had happened is her fault… When it's obviously not but she's sure she is responsible and…"

He stopped abruptly. Lynch came closer to him. "And you think it's bad for the team?"

"Yeah but mostly for her… Next time, she could be hit by a bullet. Next time she could be badly hurt and not being able to come back to SWAT. She might… Die" He stopped and swallowed hard.

"I feel you, it's not safe for any of you… Yours included."

"Yeah but hers is more important." He told Lynch as he raised his head to look at her in the eyes. "I don't want you to blame her, I'm talking to you because I think she might listen to you and understand her stubbornness could cost her life. That her lack of sleep might put her life in danger. I just want you to talk to her, to explain her these things. Because she doesn't listen to us, to me and… I don't want to lose my teammate… My best friend because she she's too strong-headed…"

She looked at him with her keen gaze. The one she was giving every time something was serious.

"I hear you Street… I'll talk to her as I conduct her debrief. She's on her way back from the hospital. Hicks just texted me. Go home, I'm taking care of this… And thanks for trusting me."

He nodded at her and got out of the room. On his way to the locker room, he met Hondo and Rhokker. They had some paper works to do before coming back home but they didn't care staying a little longer. The men they had arrested earlier had talked, giving them precious information.

"Good night, Street!"

"Good night, boss. See you tomorrow."

In the corner of his eyes, he saw Nora and Chris coming back. Chris was smiling. Her fall was just a bad memory now. He smiled and let her enjoy the moment with Nora. They seemed to have a great talk. She was smiling and it was good to see her having a great moment with another woman. It had been harsh after Erika died and seeing her finding a new female friend was great to see.

He entered the locker room, took his stuff and walked to his bike in the yard. Time to go home. As he drove back to his house, he thought about Chris who must have been with Lynch at the same moment.

[…]

"Your turn!" Chris jumped as Nora was back in the locker room after her briefing with Lynch.

"You're scared me!" She laughed.

"Don't mean to. And now, go to Lynch, she's waiting for you. See you tomorrow!"

"Bye!" She hurried to go to Lynch. She really wanted to go home. Her fall had shaken her up.

"Commander Lynch?"

"Alonso, please come in. Will be quick. Just tell what you remember from this afternoon, including your fall and then you can go and take a good sleep."

"Ok." She started talking about what had happened in the warehouse. How Street and she climbed along shelves to have a better view, the hidden door, the running and then her falling while trying to jump over a small wall.

"It was nothing. I just misjudged the height of the wall and stumbled. My head hit the floor but I just have a big bump. No commotion or bleeding. Same for my ankle, no sprain. More fears than real damage. Lucky me!"

Lynch didn't stop looking at her. At the moment, she was about to leave the room, she opened her mouth. "For now…"

Chris turned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean next time it could be worse. Have you think about this?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Chris, please. Not to me."

"Don't play the woman card with me."

"I don't play anything. I just want to warn you that pushing you any harder has never been a good thing…"

Chris remained silent, frozen. She didn't want to answer. She didn't know what to answer. Lynch saw she had shaken her up.

"Chris, I don't want to blame you for anything. I just want you to be aware that doing this you put your life and the ones of your teammates in jeopardy. I imagine how you must feel right now when at the very beginning, Karlsson was going after you… But it's not about this anymore, it's about to make his trafficking kingdom fall down. It's about destroying one of the biggest traffic in LA history. It's not your fault. Karlsson targeted you because you represented LAPD at that precise moment but it could have been any of us… Don't be hard on yourself. You're an excellent cop. One of the best I've ever worked with. So please tonight, go home, relax and take a big sleep. Stop overthinking, just take some time for you… And go to see the therapist to talk, it helps, you know"

"Good night, Commander Lynch."

Chris left the room both stunned and pissed. She was not a danger for her teammates. She had been extremely careful. The fall this afternoon was just the result of a careless mistake. Who could have believed this wall which seemed so small was in fact so high? No one! She came back to the locker room to take her stuff and hit in the locker from rage.

Deep inside, she knew someone had talked to Lynch about her mistake from this afternoon. She could have not have learned it from herself. "Damn it, Street! What have you opened your mouth?!" She whispered, always pissed. He was always so worried when there was no reason to. He had this ability to make her crazy! She grabbed her stuff and walked furiously to her pick up.

She sat behind her wheel and tried to find peace. Driving was one of the only thing that could appease her in this mad world.

[…]

Today had been a long, harsh day. Street was relieved when he got home. Silence was surrounded him. Luca was not there tonight. He had something planned with his brother.

"Need to catch lost time with Terry. We only have one life, no need to remain bitter about past mistakes." He told him before leaving HQ earlier. Terry and Luca had recently decided to make a clean break with the past and to start over. He was glad for him. Luca was someone really good and giving. He deserved to reconnect with his family. He was almost sure Tuala or Nora had something to do with this sudden patching but he didn't tell him a word about this. He knew how secretive Luca could be about his personal life.

He took a box in the fridge, opened and put it in the microwave. He went to his bedroom, removed his shoes and clothes. He let out a sigh of relief as he entered the shower and felt the hot water rolling over his tired muscles. His scars were still aching from time to time. Today was this kind of day. But he didn't matter till he could continue working at SWAT. You could handle pain to live your passion.

He got out of the shower and heard the microwave beeping to tell him the meal was ready. Perfect! His stomach was growling, desperate to feed anything. He put his clothes on – An old Ducati tee-shirt and one of those large shorts – and went to the kitchen.

The smell of lasagna was all over here and he was even hungrier. He grabbed the dishes with envy and dropped it on the coffee table in the living room. He lit up the TV and played the first movie he found. He needed to take some time off.

As the film ended, he cleaned the table when he heard a loud sound coming from the entrance door. A knocking. Damn, it should be Luca coming home early because things had been badly with Terry. And he will want to talk about it the whole night when all he wanted was sleeping.

"On my way, Luca. But next time, think about taking your keys. I could have been sleeping, you…"

He stopped talking as soon as he saw Chris standing right in front of him. "Chris? What... Um… What are you doing here?"

He stumbled on his words. She was the last person he was expecting to see here. Especially the last talk they had was after she had fallen. And he knew that she was mad at him for talking to Lynch about her lack of sleep and anxiety about Karlsson.

"Can we talk?"

"Yeah… Of course… Come in…" She walked in front of him and stood in the middle of the living room.

"What were you thinking earlier when you went to see Lynch?"

He was surprised by the rapidity of her line. "Ummmm" was the only thing coming out of his mouth at that moment.

"She convoked me in her office for debriefing and then she asked me too many questions, I almost lost my mind! She told me to go back to therapist because I was still shaken up by what had happened with Karlsson, with you being hit and run. Really what were you thinking when you went and talked to her?!"

"I was … I was just worried about you."

"Stop then."

She was ruthless. As she knew too well. To hide her feelings, to hide her discomfort. "You know I won't…"

She let out a sigh. She was pissed. But yet she didn't seem so pissed after all. He couldn't manage to read in her. And this was something he usually excelled at.

"What do you want me to tell you? That I'm not afraid when you don't sleep for nights and then go on field? That I don't care if something happens to you? That I hate you so much that you could be hurt and I wouldn't care? That I don't want to see you anymore? Why would I do this? You're my best friend, you're the person I trust the most in this world, the person I trust my life with. Sorry Chris if I worry about you. Sorry but I'm that guy. The one who is concerned when one of his dearest friends is not being well. I won't apologize because I care about you."

She remained silent for a while, processing what Street had just told.

"I won't blame your for caring, I blame you for having talked to Lynch when you could have talked to me first."

"Talk to you? Really, Chris? You avoid any conversation as soon as I talk about your habits to overcompensate everything, to overthink and believe everything is your fault. For God 's sake, Chris, shit like this happens every day and this has nothing to do with you!"

She lowered her head when she heard him telling this. "But this day in the street, I didn't have your back and then… Then you were hit by this car when it should have been me instead. It's my fault, you almost died. It's my fault you almost lost your ability to walk, to talk, to move…"

"Chris, I just did my job. I'd have done this for any of us. Don't need to blame yourself like this."

"Oh hell I have to. You don't understand, Street. I've almost broken you. Everything that is near me end up broken, dead. Like my mom, like Erika… Like you."

"Seriously Chris?! You're still here? Blaming yourself for something that was not your fault. Come on, stop this negative rumination! It's not healthy."

"What? Let me blame me if I consider it has to be done! You don't know me, you don't know anything about my life. So don't judge, OK?"

"On the contrary, I think I know you better that you know yourself! I've been watching you. I've learned to get the mystery behind Christina Alonso. And believe me when I do say that I know you, I really do."

"You don't know me, Jim." He was surprised she called him by his first name but let her keep speaking. "Because I only give people the image they want to see. An image they would like me to be. But I'm nothing like this. No one really knows me. Even me because I don't allow myself to be me. This one is gone the day my mother died."

"Don't play with me, Chris. I know you. Whatever you can say, I do know that deeply, inside of you, I'm the only person you truly know you for who you really are. And it scares you because it means I can get you when you lie, when you're not OK, when you're about to break. You don't like that I get you. But blaming me for being able to do so. That's not fair, Christina!"

She was shaken when she heard him call her by her full name.

"Don't call me like that…"

"I'll do if I want to. And right now, I want to do so!"

He came a step closer to her to show her his determination. Tonight, it was her and him and the truth. Things needed to be said. He was tired of keeping everything secret.

"Don't." She knew what was coming after and she was shivering. She bit her lower lip to keep all her constancy.

"Tell me that you don't feel the same way when I'm around and I swear, I promise that I'll never come after you again about my feelings for you. I just need you to talk to me, to tell me you're not sharing this fire that I'm constantly feeling inside me, that I want to yell out loud. Just talk to me. A sentence, a word, a scream. I don't care. Just something for me to give up on you."

She remained silent. But still her eyes were screaming at him to stop talking because she couldn't handle it. She finally mumbled "stop" between her so loveable lips.

"Stopping what, Chris? Stopping loving you. Nope, it's impossible. I've loved you from the day we met. Since I've tried to hide my feelings, to cancel them but it's not how it works. So I'm telling this now, Christina Alonso, I love YOU. Not this girl, or this one. I love YOU! You like it or not! You're the best thing that has happened to me in this creepy and painful life. You've brought me in the right path when I was spiraling because of my mom, my foster brother and my old, bad gambling and racing habits. You have told me the truth. No matter what. Even if I could be angry at you. Which I've been. You didn't care. But later, I've understood it was the best thing that could have happened to me. You have made a better SWAT officer of me, a better man, a better human being. And as annoying as you can be when you think you're right, I want to be with you and no one else."

He marked a pause in his monologue. She remained frozen in front of him. "Even if the person in front of me doesn't feel the same way. I'll stick with that, I guess."

As he finished his sentence, she jumped over him and kissed him. Wildly. With all the strength she had, as if her life was depended on it. At first, he was surprised. He wasn't expecting this. But quickly the surprise let place to the passion. He needed to kiss this woman, to feel her underneath his fingers, to taste her skin, to smell her natural perfume.

She couldn't stop kissing him. It was as if she let all the feelings and frustration she kept for herself so long speaking. She was having no control over them as she was literally eating Jim's mouth. She needed to connect with him. To make one with this man, her teammate, her best friend she had rejected for so long but she couldn't live without. He pushed her against the wall. She joined the move and soon felt Jim's warmth and virility against her body.

She liked this, even more than she had thought. She deepened the kiss and let him eat her neck as it was sweet, little candies. She let out a moan, eyes closed. She bit her lip. It was good, so good. Street raised his face from her neck and looked at her in the eyes. "Are you sure? Because after this, there's no turning back… "

She nodded, not being able to say a word anymore. She wanted to let her body tell the things she had wanted to share with him for so long but her brain had prevented from doing. Today was their day, tonight was their night.