-x-
In the weeks following Nate's death and Street's return to the team, Chris tries.
She tries to keep her jaw from clenching every time Street walks into the room, tries to say more to him than a curt hello or goodbye, and tries to go back to the way it was before.
It's all Street asked of her, and she knows it isn't his fault.
But for all her trying, Chris can't help that every time she lays eyes on Street, all she can see is herself, standing in HQ and telling Hondo that Street was about to do something stupid, and then letting him go. The living room of Nate's house when Street told her and Tan to leave. The texts that went unanswered until she couldn't bear sending another. The fear of him walking out again, and never walking back in.
She can't pretend that it's not suffocating to be around him when she's still so hurt, and that she doesn't feel like a terrible person for every minute of that.
So, Chris avoids. She gets in early so she doesn't have to see him in the motor pool and is at the bag or in the ring by the time Street arrives. She throws general hellos and goodbyes over her shoulder in the locker room and excuses herself whenever Street walks into a conversation. She does her job and leaves.
Street walks out with Molly half the time anyway, and from what Chris has heard through the grapevine, they couldn't be happier together.
That doesn't help how much Chris misses her best friend.
But the expanse between is as wide as it is deep, and she's afraid that even a step will send her falling to an end she can't come back from.
It doesn't take long for Hondo to notice, her boss pulling her to the side one day not long after everyone else has left and Chris is standing in the kitchen, unsure of what to do with herself.
"Real talk, Chris, what's going on? I need to know you're sharp out there."
Chris swallows her water and leans back on the counter, meeting Hondo's eyes.
"I am. I've got everyone's six, and I trust that everyone has mine. I mean that."
Hondo narrows his eyes, wanting to push, but not too far. Chris can sense it, and she starts talking before he has to.
"I know it's no one's fault, but we told you before that it was tough. You know how important my family is, and how hard I worked to bring Street into that. It's not easy for me to think about, even though it was fake. I'm working on it."
Sighing, Hondo looks down before meeting her eyes.
"I am sorry, Chris. If there was another way to do it, we would've."
"I know that. I'll get there."
He trusts that she will. Patting an arm on her shoulder, Hondo tells her good work today and then leaves her alone in the kitchen.
Chris wants to scream.
The thought of going back to her Aunt and Uncle's garage-turned-storage-turned-bedroom is as nauseating as staying in HQ, so she gets in her truck and finds the nearest bar she can.
That night, Chris is quiet getting back in, not wanting to disturb her family and feeling like a teenager sneaking around which only makes her feel more like her life is a total mess. On the small table sits her photo of Champ, and looking at it blurs her vision with tears.
Her phone is heavy in her hand. She wants to text him. To apologize, to invite him over, to fix this. But when she opens their chain, all she sees are the two times he reached out to her afterward, and disappointment fills her stomach again. It doesn't take Chris long to get out of her clothes and into pajamas, hoping the morning takes its time to get here.
Street lasts another week before his own anger is too much. If Chris won't come to him, he'll go to her, he decides, after another case where doesn't say a word to him. He wants to say something every time he sees her, but her back is so tense and she's so touchy as of late that he doesn't think it would get him anywhere, at least not if he tried at HQ.
He waits an hour and a half after their shift has ended. Sits at home with Duke, trading texts with Molly about the following night's dinner plans and keeping his breathing even.
The clock ticks slowly, counting down the minutes he told himself he would wait. As soon as it hits 7:30, Street is up and on his bike, determined not to drag this on any longer.
It's a short drive to her Aunt and Uncle's house, and Street sighs when he sees Chris's truck parked across the street.
They hardly talked after she left Ty and Kira, and the realization settles on him that she's lost a lot recently, too.
Reaching over the gate, he undoes the latch to let himself into their backyard, and walks to the side door of the garage. Street's stomach is turning, phone in his pocket, and he wonders if he should've tried to text her first, but he brushes that off because he knows she wouldn't have answered anyway.
Now or never, Street thinks, rapping his knuckles on the door.
The knocking startles Chris, no idea who it could be.
Her family would just come in through the door that leads into the house, and there's no one else she knows of that they invited over that would need to get in.
A glance out the window shows her Street's bike. Chris sighs and bites her lip, thinks about just letting him knock until he tires himself out, but on the next round, he's speaking, too.
"I know you're in there, Chris. Please, can we just talk?"
The desperation in his voice is harder to ignore.
Getting up, Chris steps over the obstacle course of her own belongings to get to the door. She looks behind her and realizes how much of a mess the garage is, how tight it feels, and talks through the door instead of opening it.
"What, Street?"
Street feels impatience fire in his gut that he tries to tamp down.
"Please just let me in, Chris. It's been three weeks."
It's been five weeks, really, and a day and nineteen minutes, Chris corrects in her mind. Every single second since her and Tan walked out, like Street asked, has carved itself into her skin and made it impossible to forget exactly how long it's been.
With her hand on the doorknob, she can imagine Street in the exact same position on the other side. Exhaling, she turns the handle.
He isn't sure what he expected when she opened the door, but it certainly wasn't this.
Boxes litter the floor, and two clothes rack lean tilted against the back wall. There's a twin bed shoved in the corner with a mess of blankets on top. Next to it sits a small table, and at the foot, her TV is balanced precariously on plastic bins and plugged in with a bright orange extension cord. Just enough floor is clear to walk from the house to the garage door in a straight line.
Chris watches Street take it in and rolls her eyes. He's good at fixing his face back into neutral quickly, but she sees every fleck of emotion that runs across his mind before he manages to. As if to prove her point, entrench him in the same misery she's in, if just for a minute, she starts the trek back to her bed without sparing him another glance.
"I'm just grabbing a jacket." Chris says a breath later. "I'll go through the house and meet you in the backyard."
Street nods, grateful he's even getting that much out of her, and closes the door to give her the little privacy she has. Walking around the side of the house, Street takes a seat at one of the small, uncovered picnic tables, and scrolls on this phone until he hears the sliding glass door open.
Chris walks to the table but refuses to sit, standing a foot and a half away with her arms crossed.
"Why'd you come here?"
Street knocks his knuckles against the wood, stained from years of beer bottles and family parties, and pinches his eyebrows.
"Are you kidding, Chris?"
She raises an eyebrow, and, though he wanted to keep his cool, Street comes to his own feet.
"It's been three weeks and you've barely said a word to me. What is the problem?"
Shaking her head, Chris looks at the sky as tears start to form in the back of her eyes.
"There isn't a problem." She says, and it feels like a lie. Feels like when he told her and Tan that he wasn't in any trouble. Refusing to let her go that easy, Street grabs her forearm, not tight, but enough that she knows that he's serious, that whatever is going on is being hashed out today whether she planned on it or not.
"Yes, there clearly is. You can hardly stand to be in the same room as me at work, I can count on one hand the amount of times you've even looked me in the eyes since after—"
Street forces himself to stop before he barrels right through a red light and into a crash. Talking about Nate is still hard, the loss of his brother as heavy now as it was when it happened.
"You told me that you didn't know if things could go back to how they were right away." Street redirects. "I respected that, and I gave you space, but enough is enough."
His tone is harsh, and Chris rips her arm out of his grip as she scoffs, rising to his challenge and shouting.
"Are you serious? Are you really trying to tell me how to feel right now? Enough is enough?!"
Chris is shaking her head like he's the one acting like a child. His heart tells him that they both are, neither one hearing the other, but he's too fired up not to yell back.
"Yes! It wasn't my fault that Hondo didn't tell you, or that I couldn't. It wasn't easy for me either, Chris. It killed me not to tell you and Tan, and I'm sorry for that. But whatever bullshit you're harboring against me for that, you need to get over it!"
She smacks her tongue against her teeth, changing from a yell to a gravely, low tone that she knows means she can't keep her tears in check much longer.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
Turning so her back is to him, Chris takes two steps back towards the house. She's grateful her family wasn't here to witness this.
In all other cases, Street would take the hint and give her what she wants and drop it. Walk back to his bike and give her the same silent treatment for a few days, full of sharp, but longing, looks and heavy breaths. But he can't. Not this time.
"So what is it then, Chris?!" He yells. "There's nothing I can say or do? You're just gone?"
The second his words hit her, she's turning on her heel and marching back to where she was, stepping up to him so they're chest to chest. The pitch of her voice cuts even her own ears, but tears are starting to stream down her face, and the little control she's had slips right out of her hands.
"You were gone! You were gone, and there's nothing to say that you won't do it again!"
Street's brow furrows, this time in confusion, as he tries to make sense of her words. Just as they start to come together, Chris is meeting his eyes again, brown and wounded and it makes Street nauseous, and continuing.
"How do I know you won't up and leave for your mom or some undercover mission or God knows what again, huh? And leave me here? Blaming myself and wondering what I did wrong to make you choose something else over me every single goddamn time?!"
Chris's voice cracks. Somewhere in the fray, her hands wound up against his shoulders, pushing him, and when she realizes, she drops them limply. The fight drains from her body, and she takes a step back, looking at him again and speaking normally.
"That's what I need to be sure of before things can go back to how they were."
Street feels like an explosion just went off in his chest. He knew she was mad, furious even, but never would he have guessed that she was scared he was going to leave again. SWAT is his family, she's his family, she said so herself.
How that got lost or taken away in the mess of his mother and Nolan and everyone else, he doesn't know. He feels his heart break more for the both of them.
"Chris," Street starts, moving to take a step towards her and put a hand on her arm, hoping to comfort her this time, but she shakes her head and jerks her body back as more tears start to fall.
Heavy, Chris falls onto the bench of the picnic table, head buried in her hands as waves of hurt roll over her.
Street is at a loss for words as he stands over the table, his eyes glues to her back as her shoulders shake. Blowing out a breath, he sits next to her and places a careful hand over her denim jacket, watching to make sure she's okay.
"I'm sorry, Chris. I didn't know you felt that way, like I was choosing everything else over you."
It cuts him like a knife just to say it out loud. He can understand, now, exactly how and why she felt that way.
"I never meant to make you feel like that."
Rubbing a hand up and down her back, Street scoots ever closer.
"I promise, I'm not going anywhere."
Like the first rays of sunlight after a gray thunderstorm, his words bring her a comfort she didn't think she'd feel again. The relief that comes over her is indescribable, and out of habit her body turns towards his, needing to be back in his space.
Street is quick to wrap his arms around her and hold tight. Their legs are wedged at an awkward angle under the table but neither care, too caught up breathing the other's air again and finally feeling their pulses settle after so long apart.
"I promise, Chris," Street repeats. Just thinking about losing her makes his hands start to shake. He needs her to know that, so long as he has a choice, he's staying right where he is.
Chris nods against him, her tears slick on his neck as she works on stopping them. They're the only two people in the world right now, Chris is sure. Street keeps his hands on her, dropping gentle shushes and apologies and promises into her hair, each one acting as a stitch to put her heart back together.
After another few minutes, Chris is confident that no more tears are threatening to fall. She picks her head up from his shoulder and brings one of her arms up through his to wipe her face without breaking away from him.
Their eyes meet and he pulls her back into a hug, dropping a feather-light kiss on her hairline that he can justify as a platonic comfort (though the feeling in his stomach tells him otherwise). Barely, her lips quirk up at the sensation, and she squeezes him for a second longer.
"I'm sorry, too," Chris says, leaning back and sighing. "For dragging this out. I should've come to you sooner, I couldn't figure out how. I'm sorry."
Street gives her a small, sad smile, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder as he says that it's okay.
"I promise you're not losing me anytime soon," he reiterates. "As long as you're sure of that, I'm good."
Chris nods.
"We're good."
Chris's instinct tells her to make a joke about how she'll kick his ass if he pulls another stunt, but that's the kind of armor that she doesn't want to wear around him. She shakes off the thought instead, looking over the fence where the sun is starting to set in the distance. Street follows her gaze, the pair ending up shoulder-to-shoulder again.
"Did you eat?" Chris asks after the sun has set some more. "We have leftovers from last night. Sarzo and Helena are visiting some other family and they dragged Tomas and Isabel with, so it's fair game."
Next to her, she feels Street relax more into her space.
"You had me at leftovers."
Standing, Chris looks back at Street until he's following her, sliding past her and into the kitchen. Like he's done it a million times before, he opens the cabinet and pulls down two plates, shrugging his shoulders when he catches Chris smiling at the scene.
"I know you just got moved in here," Street says, cautious not to overstep. "But you are always welcome to stay at the house if you need some breathing room."
Chris sighs, her lips in a line when she thinks about sleeping on her twin bed that's nearly three decades old.
"Thanks. I'm," she takes a second to collect herself, "managing. Sarzo wants to clear out some more of the garage, too, it's just a matter of having time to do it."
Street nods. He doesn't want to push for more details if she's not ready or wanting to give them up, their newfound peace fragile.
"I'm sure you'll get it figured out. You always do."
The compliment warms her chest, the feeling spreading out through her whole body. Smiling, she moves past him with the familiarity of two people who know each other better than anyone.
"Thank you. How's Molly?"
Street perks up at the mention of his girlfriend, and Chris ignores the way it feels like a thousand shallow cuts when he does.
"She's good," he starts, "but I want to know what I've missed out on with you lately."
Street grabs two beers from the fridge and collects napkins and silverware, watching Chris slide the door open with her elbow and then catch it at her ankle to push it open the rest of the way. He can't help but smile at her, because of everything about her, and she's smiling, too, when he sits across from her at the picnic table.
His hands are still.
The sunset paints everything gold. Around them, the air feels fresh and calm. Between them, it's safe.
"So," Chris says after a mouthful of rice, "where do you want me to start?"
-x-
hello! thank you for reading, and i hope you enjoyed! 3x10-3x12 are some of the most amazing Stris episodes, so it doesn't surprise me that this idea also popped into my head until i wrote it out. the scene once Street is back, in the kitchen, is perfection, and i wanted to expand on how that might've been playing out in Chris's internal monologue that we didn't really see much of after that. i know the next chapter will also revolve around 3x12, with a focus on her comforting Street and exploring his recovery from the undercover op. if there are any episodes/scenes/moments you want to see, let me know! thank you all so much for the comments/kudos. i love connecting with people especially through fandom! if you want, come say hi on tumblr streakyglasses 3 stay liquid! xo