His backpack sits heavier on his shoulders than it ever has before. He's shaking, he can tell, his entire body lit up like a Christmas tree despite the warm California air.

Breathe, he tells himself, glancing down at his watch like Buck taught him all those years ago. In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

Again.

Again.

Again.

After what feels like hours, his heart slows down enough to look at his phone and not just see a jumble of letters and numbers and light. The urge to call her pools in the bottom of his stomach like a weight that won't let him get on his bike and go anywhere else besides to her.

Shoving off the thought that she still hates him for everything he did, he swallows thick, hits her contact, and prays that she picks up.

"Hey, Street, what's up?"

Her voice is like a blanket over his sharp edges. His heart skips a beat, and then it's calmer than it has been since he slammed his apartment door.

"Chris, hey…" he trails off, unsure of where to go now that he's got her on the other end of the line.

"Hey. Is everything okay?"

He hears movement. In the background, he's vaguely aware of her saying something in Spanish to someone, presumably her aunt or uncle, and then walking to somewhere quieter.

"Sorry, are you there?"

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat when tears start to block his voice. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were with your family tonight."

She pauses, and he can practically see her rolling her eyes and waving him off over the phone.

"Don't be. I was going to head home in a bit, but they'd love to see you. You're sure everything's okay?"

A laugh escapes him, a quick huff of sound that keeps him from dissolving further into tears while the headlights from traffic blur into the dark sky.

"Not really. I'll be there in half an hour?"

The uncertainty in his voice makes her stomach drop. If Chris wasn't sure that something was wrong before, she is now, and immediately her mind starts racing with what ifs.

"Yeah, of course," she tries to clamp down on her own worries to keep her voice steady. "I can come get you if you want?"

Looking up at his apartment window, he can see the living room light still on. When he takes another deep breath and looks towards the road, towards her aunt's house, towards her, the weight gets lighter.

"No, the drive will do me good."

"Okay, be careful. I'll see you soon."

He sees her form sitting on the front porch bench when he comes to a stop across the street. Her toes are dragging on the ground as the bench sways back and forth, and the yellow light catches every dip and curve of her body at just the right angle.

If hearing her voice on the phone helped, seeing her is equivalent to the gates of Heaven opening after he dragged himself out of Hell.

She stands when she hears his bike rev and the familiar sound of his helmet being hung on the handlebars. Every nerve in her body tells her to run to him, to make sure he hasn't done anything to get himself hurt like when his bike got stripped, but she refrains until he's on the concrete of her aunt's driveway. Leaving the porch behind, she walks to him and studies his face in the moonlight.

His body is tense, jaw clenched, and there's pain in his eyes that she can't get a good read on.

She hates it; the one thing she's always felt confident in is their ability to read one another, as infuriating as that can be.

"Hey," he breathes out, voice low and tired. It pulls her back to reality, where her hands have come to rest on his elbows, over his leather jacket.

"Hey," she returns, realizing how close their bodies are and taking a step back.

"My family's in the back, but I wasn't sure if you'd want to see them right away. Did you eat something? I have a plate, and if I didn't make one, Helena was going to come out here and—"

"Chris," Street says with a small chuckle, "It's okay, now. I'd love to say hi to your family real quick, and then I'd love a hot meal. Thank you."

"Yeah, of course," she says. She lets him lead the way through the back gate, trying to compartmentalize everything she's feeling, but the concern for him overtakes everything else. Her hip bumps the side of the gate when she walks through it behind him, and she shakes off how everything about him is distracting enough to make her world stop.

"Look who's here!" She shouts. Her family's faces turn towards the pair, lighting up with bright smiles as music floats through the air. He's already a few steps ahead of her, hugging her aunt and uncle and saying hi to her cousins.

After making the rounds, he finds his way back to her, where she sits perched on the edge of a wooden table. She notices again how tired he looks, deep sadness in the back of his eyes.

"I'd love that food now," he says, a short attempt at humor that she meets with a nod. Their hands brush when she stands, sending electricity through the both of them that they try to ignore.

"C'mon, I'll warm it up."

The sliding glass door to the kitchen shuts behind them and she unwraps a plate and puts it in the microwave without looking at him, afraid if she does, she'll see something that she can't fix.

"There's beer in the fridge, if you want."

He nods and grabs one, smiling when he sees a 6-pack of his brand shoved in the back of the fridge.

"It's been there since the last time you were over," she cuts him off with a small smile before he can make a teasing remark. She's lying, and they both know it, but he doesn't call her on it. It's been there since the last time they had a family gathering, one she planned for him to come to and then everything went to shit, but she wouldn't let anyone else drink it. "Porch?"

This time, he follows her out, and lets her get settled on the bench before lowering himself next to her. The chains creak under the weight, a slight rock as their bodies come down on it.

She starts to ask him if he wants to talk, but then she looks over and he's mid-bite, clearly as entranced by Helena's cooking as everyone always is, and she shakes her head for him to finish. In the meantime, she takes a sip of her own beer and eyes his bike. It's hard to see in the dark, but all she can think about is when he got kicked off the team, about how he's still clawing to make his way back on.

They sit in silence while he eats, just the crickets and the errant car engine.

"I left," he says some time later, and she swears that her heart stops so fast, she almost drops her bottle.

"What?" She says, quicker and louder than she means to. Realization settles on his face.

"Not SWAT! Sorry, I, my head isn't…"

She leans forward, pulse still racing and hoping that he'll say whatever he means.

"My mom. The apartment. I left her, I can't do it anymore."

They're outside, but the air is sucked from her lungs. A million questions start to run through her head, but she takes one look at him, lost and defeated in a way she's never seen, and they fly out the window.

"Come here."

Her arms wrap around him, strong and stable, everything he's never had and always wanted, and as soon as they do, tears start to run down his face. She shushes him when he starts to pull away and lets him bury his head in her shoulder, the denim getting wet but she doesn't care. Never could she have imagined something like this. He defended his mom, lost his job over her, got Chris in trouble for her, but she can't even bring herself to be angry with Karen over how worried she is for her son.

"I'm so sorry, Jim," she whispers into his ear. Her eyes are glued to the siding, trying to find anything to say, but there's nothing. Instead, she keeps dragging her hands up and down his back, feels his grip tighten around her like he's trying to hold himself together which only breaks her heart more.

"It's okay, I'm right here," she murmurs on a loop, letting the tension drain from her clenched fists when she remembers seeing Karen in HQ weeks ago.

She only breaks her focus from him when she hears the front door open. Shaking her head just enough to signal to her Uncle, he nods and closes the door without another glance.

He cries until his body physically can't anymore, a tissue-paper thin sheen of relief covering him in the wake of this upheaval. The denim is dark from his tears where he can see it, and he notices that even in the quiet, her hands are continuing to run up and down his back, her breath stays hot and gentle and soothing in his ear. He wants to stay there forever.

Sighing, he steels himself and slowly uncurls himself from her. His body is stiff, a headache already starting right between his eyes, and his bones feel as creaky as the metal chains of the bench, but he manages to sit up. Her hands stay on him, moving from around his back to run down his arms and settle at his wrists. They're hardly touching, but it's enough for him to focus on the soft edges of her skin and the callouses on her trigger fingers.

"What happened?" She whispers, afraid to break the moment, but trying to alleviate some of this weight from him. His hands clench involuntarily at her words, when his thoughts return to his mother and some 30 years of trauma and mistakes and confusion, but then hers slide into them.

"You were right," he says, voice cracking. The porch light he's staring at gets brighter and brighter until he has to blink. "All of you, every time you warned me and I didn't listen. I blamed you, and Hondo, when both of you just saw the writing on the wall and wanted to keep me from the crossfire. God, I feel so stupid—"

"Hey, no," she says, voice as gentle as before and patching every crack that's appeared in him tonight. It's enough to bring his gaze back to her. He realizes somewhere that she's never spoken about her parents, but she has some understanding, some knowing from her own life, about how he's feeling. He hates that for her as much as he does for himself.

She exhales as she gathers her words, wanting to make sure that she says everything exactly how she wants him to hear it.

"You trusted your mom and you wanted to see the best in her because you love her. That's not a bad thing."

He shakes his head, squeezing her hands tighter as anger bubbles up again and sits in his chest.

"She's been playing me since I was a kid. Who knows how soon after she got out she started pulling this— drugs, Chris. I found a bag of fucking coke in my apartment. While her PO was there."

She manages to hide her wince now that the whole truth is out. There are some things, she's learned, that you can't come back from.

"I can't do these games with her anymore, Chris," he begs her to understand, to shave away some of the shame and guilt that's sitting on him now. "So I left. Told her I'd pay rent and walked out the door."

"You deserve better," she says, small, because it's the only thing she can think to say, because she understands mothers and guilt, and because it's true. When he doesn't start to speak again, she continues.

"Your parents, both of them, you deserved better. I'm sorry that she can't be what she's supposed to be, and that this all happened. I'm proud of you for putting yourself first, I can't imagine how hard that was."

The ghost of a smile dances across his face, and it's enough to make her feet feel like they're on the ground again.

"It wasn't just for me."

It's her turn to be confused, her grip tightening on his wrists the tell that makes him explain.

"The job, SWAT, I can't let go of that again."

She nods, and then he continues,

"You."

It's one word, murmured low on an exhale as alcohol hangs on their breath and a moth flutters by the light. Swallowing, he looks over her face for any anger or tension, but there isn't any, and he doesn't know what to make of that.

"Oh."

And nothing has ever felt so fragile as the moment they're sitting in now.

Part of her hates it. Hates the way her heart yearns to be near him at HQ and her hands squeeze to keep him from letting go. Hates how she swears she can see the impending crash, but can't bring herself to jump from the train. Hates how she doesn't even want to jump from the track. She searches his face, looking for a place she can backtrack, get this conversation where it was, because there's too much emotion courtesy of his mother to add anything else right now, even if he would tell her that he's never been more sure of what he wants.

"Where," she clears her throat quietly, softening her features when she looks at him again. "Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?"

He freezes, the feeling of ice water hitting his bones like a tidal wave, and his stomach drops. He's sure, for a moment, that he fucked up beyond repair. Never mind that she asked no questions when he called, or that he just cried in her arms for god knows how long. There's a line, and he's far over it, and now she wants him gone.

"Street?"

Until he pulls his eyes from their still-conncected hands to her brown eyes, big and full of concerns and questions. Oh, he thinks.

"Uh, no," he says with a small chuckle, a sad attempt to cover up how horrible all of this is. "It's fine, I'll find a place to crash."

"No." She says, tone leaving no room for argument.

"My couch is a pullout. It isn't great, but you're not going to drive around all night and be dead on your feet tomorrow."

"Chris, you don't have to—"

"I want to." She cuts him off.

I want to.

It reverberates in his mind in the same way the gunshot that killed his dad often does. Until it's all encompassing and he's drowning in the unfamiliar, undeniable reality that someone, Chris, cares about him enough to upend their own life. He always knew Buck cared about him, Nate, maybe even his mother every now and again, but Chris is the only one who he believes, truly, cares about him unconditionally. The only one who knows him well enough to recognize that his response about having somewhere to go is bullshit, and to offer him a solution.

He doesn't, for a mountain of reasons, but he'd kiss her if he could.

"Okay," he says, and it feels like the easiest thing in the world. She gives him a rare smile, full of teeth and beaming through her eyes, and squeezes his hands one more time before letting go.

They both feel colder without the other's touch.

Checking her watch, it's almost eleven.

"Speaking of, it's late. I'm sure you have an early call, too."

She fishes around her jacket pocket and then pulls her apartment key off the ring.

"Aunt Helena will kill me if I don't stay and at least offer to help her pick up."

He nods, taking the key from her and turning it over in his palm. Buck's the only person who he ever gave an extra key to. Aside from her family, he can't imagine Chris is rushing to trust others with her keys, either. Warmth fills him up at the thought.

He starts to argue, to offer to stay, too, but she gives him a look that shuts him up.

"You're tired, and you're going to have a monster headache tomorrow. Tylenol's in the kitchen cabinet, blankets are in the closet. I'll meet you there soon, okay?"

He nods again, still unsure of what he can say to express his gratitude, and trying to shove the thought down that, even if he did know what to say, she wouldn't accept it anyway. His arms wrap around her again, holding her tightly.

She's smiling again when they separate, and she runs her hand down his arm once more for good measure.

"Drive careful, okay."

"Yeah, I'll drive slow, I promise."

It's another moment before he gets up to leave, his body needing a second to put itself back together and remember how to work. She watches as his bike comes alive and waits to go inside until she can't see him down the street anymore.

She's quiet as she opens the door to her apartment some forty minutes later. A blush sits on her cheeks, the look her aunt gave her when she said he was staying and their ensuing conversation at the front of her mind.

"That's not nothing, Chrissy," Helena chided, but with absolutely no disapproval behind it. Chris waved her off, unable to defend herself while she's still digesting everything.

"I'll see you soon." Chris said instead, kissing Helena's cheek and leaving before anyone else got a chance to comment.

Toeing off her sneakers, she sets her bag down next to them, and sees his own gear in the same order at the end of the couch. She smiles involuntarily, knowing SWAT still runs through his blood and hoping that she'll take his advice to talk to Hondo.

She hears his soft snores as she moves through the kitchen to get a glass of water. Over the island, she catches that the couch isn't pulled out, nor does he have a blanket, and rolls her eyes. Pulling a bottle of water and the painkillers out and setting them on the end table, she then moves to get an extra pillow from her bed and blanket from the closet. Carefully, she nudges at his shoulder until his murmurs stop and he looks up at her.

"C'mon, get up for a second and I'll pull the couch out."

He nods, moving slowly in his grogginess. He looks around, confused, because he remembers having the intention to pull out the couch and take off his jeans and brush his teeth, but then her apartment was quiet, and comfortable, and safe, and he fell asleep before he knew it.

She's quick to get the couch fixed up, fluffing the pillow and raising her eyebrows until he lies back down so she can toss the blanket over him.

"Tylenol," she says, looking pointedly towards the end table. "Take it, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks," he says softly, a gentle smile on his face. She turns to get herself ready for bed, but is stopped by his hand grabbing her wrist.

"Thank you, Chris," he says, a look in his eyes so full of love that she can't manage more than a tight-lipped smile and a curt nod lest she do something she knows she can't come back from.

"Goodnight."

He takes the meds and turns onto his side, curled up asleep before she's done in the bathroom, and she steals another glance at him before she closes her bedroom door.

Anxiety starts to sink into her stomach. A picture of Ty and Kira comes to her that she shakes off, too tired to think about the incoming storm, or to admit that she's already in the eye of the hurricane.

Her apartment is empty when she wakes up the next morning. The couch is put back together, blanket folded neatly at the end and pillow sitting on top. There's a dirty knife in the sink, evidence of a peanut butter and jelly that she uses to make her own. The ding of her phone pulls her attention, and his name lights up the top of her screen, just above something from Hondo about the day's training schedule.

Thanks again, Chris, for everything. I owe you.

She sighs and shakes her head small, tapping out a reply.

Nothing you wouldn't have done for me. But if it makes you feel better, you can buy the beer the next time you come to dinner.

"Who's that?" Tony asks, glancing over at Street, who's smiling at his phone something stupid.

Street clears his throat, but physically can't knock the grin from his face.

"A friend." He says, although he knows that it's deeper, heavier, than that. Right now, though, it feels light as air.

"Did they just pay off a hidden loan you've got? You must really care about them to be smiling like that for whatever they said," Tony teases, prodding further. Street rolls his eyes and tucks his phone away.

"She just cares, is all," Street says.

"Ah," Tony says, now with his own satisfied, knowing smile. "Sometimes that's all we need, right, someone who believes in us?"

"Yeah," he says small, and turns the thought over in his mind, "someone who believes in us."