First crisis of the night handled, Street throws a glance at the clock to see that it's only 10 pm. He still hasn't figured out how time can move so fast yet so slow while on a job, and rolls a kink out of his neck.

"How's Chris doing?" Tan asks, in the middle of getting his own gear off. Hanging up his vest, Street fishes his phone out of his back pocket.

"Good as she can be, ready to be back. I'm gonna check in if you want to say hi." Street says, his fingers flying over his phone from muscle memory.

"Just tell her I said hi and to not do too much too soon. I miss her in the ring." Tan leaves Street, nodding in affirmation and sitting on the metal bench. Worry floats in his stomach as his texts from earlier still sitting unread in their chain. His fingers tap a wild pattern on his knee as the line rings.

"Hi, Jim."

Helena's voice fills his speaker, disconcerting.

"Hey, Helena?"

"Jim." She repeats, tone pressing like she wants to get off the phone. "Is everything okay?"

Every thought vacating his mind like a fire alarm went off, Street lets out a soft "uh," until Helena says his name again.

"Sorry, yeah, everything's fine over here. I was just calling to check on Chris."

Keeping his tone as even as he can, Street hopes that Helena doesn't read into that any more than she needs to.

"Oh," Helena sighs. There's no background noise, no laughter or music like he's used to hearing when he calls Chris and she's with her family, and the pit in his stomach grows.

"Is she okay?" Street needs to know, Helena's nervous hum reaching him.

"She had a nightmare. Sarzo's there with her now, she'll be alright."

Street's heart stops. The thought of Chris suffering through whatever she saw, alone, makes him want to pack it up and drive back to her apartment. He's used to bad dreams of his own after hard cases and rough days, but something in the way Helena says it, like walking on eggshells, tells Street this is more than a normal nightmare.

"Can I talk to her?" He asks, voice low and finding a corner in the locker room so he can face away from anyone who enters. He hears Helena swallow.

"I'll call you in a little while if she feels up to it." Helena offers, and Street understands the desire to protect her, so he agrees.

"Text me if she needs anything?"

"Of course," Helena replies, Street's tone too full of worry and care to not be truthful. She offers him a quick goodbye, wanting to get back to Chris.

Walking back into the Eagle's Nest to regroup, Street feels a buzz of anxiety in his stomach. There's no way he can leave— the team needs him, and Chris would kill him. So Street takes a deep breath and clenches his jaw until the instinct to run to her is suppressed enough that he can get through the rest of his shift.

"What did he want?" Chris asks as soon as the door opens and Helena enters on careful feet. She sounds tired, and she's itching to know what Helena said.

"Just calling to check in." Helena says with a soft smile. She turns the phone's ringer off and sets it on the dresser, crossing to Chris and Sarzo.

"What did you tell him?" Chris averts her gaze, running her hand over the soft comforter while Sarzo continues to rub her back.

Sitting on Chris's other side and opening her arms until she leans into her, Helena presses a kiss to her forehead.

"That you had a nightmare, and you'd call later if you feel up to it."

Jim Street has long seen Chris at her worst, and vice versa, but a stone still settles in her stomach at the thought of him knowing she isn't okay, and that she can't lie her way around it.

All she can do is exhale, any anger towards Helena flying out the window as Chris's body continues to relax into hers. Sarzo squeezes her shaking hand.

Maybe Chris can't tell them what she needs to yet, the ideas still muddled in her alert brain let alone the post-nightmare haze, but she squeezes Sarzo's hand back and thinks that maybe, hopefully, she can show them. Turning an ear to Helena's chest, she mumbles.

"Will you stay?"

In the moment of silence before they answer, she's sure that Helena and Sarzo are sharing a look, trying to see what lies below her surface that's scared her enough to seek them out.

"Yeah," Sarzo assures her, trying to put as much of a smile into his words as he can. "We haven't bunked with you in too long."

Movie nights and Christmases squeezed together on the couch come to mind, but she can only imagine they're thinking of the same memory she is. The only other time she can recall letting them truly take care of her, right after her mother died.

It was a Thursday, and Chris can still feel the weight of her blanket and how her gray bedroom wall started to morph in her vision after three days of nothing but staring at it. For every minute she lay in that bed, oscillating between hot tears and hotter anger and emotions inside far too big for her 13-year-old body to handle, they were there.

"I'm sorry," Chris whispers, the words barely reaching Helena and Sarzo before they fizzle into the ether. She keeps her focus on Helena's heartbeat and Sarzo's hand, slowly trying to break down some of the bricks she cemented in front of her heart before she knew exactly what she was doing.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." Sarzo says, the words coming from the depths of his soul and going straight to Chris's.

Helena drops another kiss to her hairline.

"Lie back down," she instructs, Chris following out of trust that's too strong to waver even as she does.

Sarzo adjusts the pillows behind her, letting go of her hand so she can find a position and sigh into it and the mattress.

"I'm so tired," Chris murmurs from between Helena and Sarzo. Her mom's face is stuck in her head.

"Then rest, Sweetheart."

Chris falls back asleep to Sarzo's hand carding through her hair.

Street does his job—research, cross-reference, pull blueprints—eyes glancing towards a clock so often, Tan picks up on it.

"Dude, you okay?" Tan asks at 3:30 from across the Eagle's Nest.

Words piercing through Street's walls, he nods, veins in his neck straining with tension.

"Yeah."

Tan narrows his eyes and talks at the screen, giving Street an out if he wants.

"Chris okay? What happened when you called?"

In his periphery, Tan notices how Street changes at just the mention of Chris. His fingers flex, like he's reaching for something, or someone, but the rest of him relaxes for a split second.

"Uh, nothing," Street lies, the betrayal Chris would feel if he told Tan about her nightmare unimaginable. "Helena picked up since Chris was asleep."

Instinct tells Tan there's more, but he doesn't press.

"Makes sense," he says, "with physical therapy and all."

Raising an eyebrow, Street gives a short hum and a small nod of affirmation, turning back to his iPad.

Every minute until 6am passes like a hot, sticky summer day, when the sun drips down the sky and the Earth hangs onto its light with every blade of grass.

When the second hand finally completes its last rotation of their shift, Street grabs his backpack and says his goodbyes as the door is swinging shut behind him. Early morning provides a small reprieve from otherwise often-gridlocked traffic. He finds a parking spot easily and bounds up the stairs towards Chris. The key she gave him for emergencies feels heavier now that he's actually using it, and he enters as quietly as he can into the stillness of her apartment.

Helena and Sarzo are nowhere to be found. Dropping his backpack and leaving his shoes by the door, Street turns down the hallway to see the guest room door open, and Chris's closed. Only able to assume that they're still with her, he settles on showering to keep himself awake.

He pulls a pair of sweats and a t-shirt out of the drawer, giving her door one last glance before going to the bathroom.

The shower relaxes him, taking some of the concern that's been swirling around him and letting it dissipate into the musky smell of body wash and shampoo. Stepping out into the guest room, a contentment washes over him, despite his wanting to see Chris surmounting all other needs.

They fit into one another's spaces so easily. Street wants to keep waking up and living in this room solely because it feels so connected to Chris. So safe.

He lets the thought linger and warm him through. He'll have to chase it off eventually, or Chris will do it for him, but for now it sits in his chest like the sun.

The unmistakable sound of the coffee maker followed close with the drink's scent lures Street out of the bedroom like a moth to a flame. He's been up all night, but he's determined to stay awake until he sees her. Walking into the kitchen shows him the back of Sarzo's head as he pulls down sugar from the cabinet and milk out of the fridge. He clears his throat to alert Sarzo of his presence, and gives him a smile when he turns.

"Morning," Street says softly, the clock showing 6:40. Sarzo yawns, nodding.

"Good morning. How was work?"

It's obvious to both of them that the question is no more important than polite small talk, Street only focused on one thing.

"It was good, thanks. How're things here?" He asks, because it feels safer than just asking about Chris.

"Okay," Sarzo says, taking a sip of his coffee and stepping to the side for Street to brew his own.

"Helena and Chris are still asleep. Helena should be up soon."

Street's finger freezes over the large cup button. Not knowing exactly how Chris is doing kills him, the same anxiety as when the chopper first landed in Lankford and he couldn't find her.

"How's Chris?" He finally rips the band-aid off. Sarzo sighs.

"She was able to sleep, but it was restless until just after 5. She didn't tell us what her dream was about. Something with the job, I'm sure."

Nodding, Street isn't surprised at Chris keeping her pain to herself, but it breaks his heart all the same.

"Did you stay up all night?" Street asks, the tiredness in Sarzo's voice and his recollection of the night spurring a new thought. In his periphery, he sees Sarzo nod.

"Helena fell asleep around midnight, I worked nights for a long time. I wanted to be awake in case I'd need to be."

The warmth in Street's chest grows into a wildfire blaze when he looks at Sarzo. Everything about him screams everything that Street knows about Chris, and the family bond he never had is overwhelming in its power. Nothing to say, he nods again and turns to his own coffee, both men listening for the creaking sound of the door and more careful footsteps that become audible ten minutes later.

Sarzo starts making Helena's coffee before she's in the kitchen, and Street waits with bated breath for anything she can tell him. Letting the silence permeate, she takes the coffee and a kiss from Sarzo. Street's just about to ask about Chris again, no longer able to care about upholding a guise of distance, when Helena speaks

"She's sleeping." She reports, Sarzo's arm around her shoulder. Helena smiles small at Street, the worry between the three of them mingling in mutual understanding. "I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't get up for a while."

There's a depth to her words that Street can't figure it out, but the tilt of his head garners no response so he files it away to ask Chris about at another time. A streak of milk swirls in his coffee, and he looks up from it when a hand rests on his.

"We have to leave at 8:00 to get Mirabel ready for school and to work. You'll be here in case she isn't awake when we go?"

Praying that tears don't fall from the feelings blooming in his chest about Chris's family and the trust they have in him, Street nods.

"Yeah, I'm not going anywhere."

Assured, Street sees both Helena and Sarzo relax into one another further.

Now standing in Chris's kitchen with them, Street wishes he waited to shower so he'd have something to occupy his time with or otherwise make himself scarce. He doesn't want to step on their time with Chris as much as his pulse races to see her.

"Do you want breakfast? Something easy to reheat?" Helena offers, and in her words, Street again gets the feeling that whatever Chris is going through is bigger than he knows.

"No, thank you," he says, "Hondo made breakfast close to the end of shift, so I'm good. But I'm sure we'll both be hungry later if you just let me know how to reheat the leftovers."

Sarzo's already back in the light of the fridge and making a small stack of ingredients on the counter.

"I'll cook," he murmurs to Helena, and her eyes fall to Chris's door in a move Street is intimately familiar with. Feeling like he's invading a private moment, he downs the rest of his coffee and washes the mug quickly.

"I am gonna take a quick nap while you guys are still here. Wake me up before you leave if I'm not."

hello! thank you all so so much for reading- i hope you enjoyed! a little bit of an intermediary chapter, but we get chris/her fam and street/her fam so that's always fun to write.

if you're watching the new season, i hope you're liking it! i haven't seen the premiere yet, and it's hard with kenny and alex leaving, but here's hoping the fandom grows a bit with the new eps, too. i haven't been able to write as much as i'd like/i've been in quite the funk lately, but i think i might try to rewatch a few eps and get back to 'if you never bleed' also.

thank you to everyone who comments and faves/follows. i read all of them and its crazy how kind you all are ?

until the next chapter! xo, A