7 months later

"Street?" Chris asks as she walks into the locker room, anxiety on her voice, but her stomach settling when he looks up from his locker to smile at her.

"Yeah. What's up? You seem nervous." He closes his locker and steps closer to her while Chris leans against hers. Taking one of her hands, Chris flits her eyes around the locker room to make sure no one else is in the vicinity, and then relaxes into him with a small smile.

"I am. Now I know how Luca felt with his 3 mile PFQ."

Street takes a deep breath and nods. He looks at Chris's hair when she tilts her eyes down, giving her space, and waits for her to look at him again before he speaks.

"You're ready for this, Chris," he assures her. Memories of her doing her PT while the team trained and seeing her get stronger, back to herself, more every week come to his mind. How she'd ice her knee while her legs were thrown over his lap at her apartment, a movie on the TV, and how she'd let him walk her to her bedroom when she fell asleep in the middle of it.

"You've passed all the other PFQs with flying colors, and you've been running more miles on the treadmill every day recently than you're going to run out there tonight."

"I didn't time them." She counters. Fear rises in Chris that she hasn't felt since she first woke up after her surgery. Street's lips quirk to the side in a small smile.

"After everything you've survived, a 3-mile run will be like a walk in the park. Worse comes to worst and you are over time, which you won't be, you retest in another month."

Chris still doesn't look like she believes him, her own motto that "failure isn't an option" not as comforting as it once was. Street sighs. He checks again that they're alone, squeezing her hand and leaning closer to her ear.

"You know that I love you, right?" He asks, voice low and lips brushing against the shell of her ear. Chris's eyes widen just a hair, like they have every time he's said it after they laid out their ground rules and she didn't tell him he couldn't, before she gets herself in check. Goosebumps flush over her arms as warmth spreads through her core.

"Yeah," she exhales and meets his eyes.

"Sure as I am about that, I'm sure you've got this."

Chris presses her lips together, trying to bite back her smile as her worry starts to subside, but the blush that crawls up her cheeks is a dead giveaway. The rest of her nerves easing, she focuses on his thumb grazing over her knuckles.

"You'll be at the finish line?" She asks. Street's smile is all dimples and sparkling eyes. Glancing around, he steals a kiss to her forehead.

"The second you cross it."

And then her lips.

"Cheering you on the entire way."

hello! thank you so, so much for reading, and i hope you enjoyed! i know this epilogue is quite short, but it just felt right when i wrote it ? ﾟﾒﾕ to everyone who read, commented, and sent kudos, thank you from the bottom of my heart. it's hard to believe that she's all done and out into the world now! when i started this, never did i think it would become what it has, and it's been a super fun journey. sending everyone all my love. xo, A