LAX is eerily quiet when Chris and Luca arrive at just past two in the morning, but her echoing footsteps and the buzz of the fluorescents through the air still aren't as loud as her thundering heartbeat. It grows stronger and more wild with every step she takes.
Closer to her future. Further from him.
TSA eyes them, suspicious and unenthused, as they hand over their passports and enter the security line. She zombies her way through untying her shoelaces and rifling through her bag with clumsy hands, and blames her lethargy on the time instead of the insistent tugging in her gut that she's leaving unfinished business thousands of miles away for months. She can't help but look back towards the entrance before it disappears.
"Alright!" Luca, far too awake, claps her on the shoulder once they're through the line and into the cavernous terminal. She jumps underneath his familiar touch, offers a tired smile to appease him. "Gate's down a ways. You wanna stop for anything? Coffee stand is still open."
His energy is infectious even now, pulling a low, airy laugh out of her, and she tightens her grip on the plastic luggage handle when the joy starts to slip back into anxiety. She focuses on his smile instead, meeting his eyes.
"I'm good. Lead the way."
They pass countless empty chairs and other weary travelers buried in their phones, vending machines full of anything someone could want, and art pieces more elaborate than her early-morning mind can decipher, before finally arriving at their gate. The destination sign hasn't even been turned on yet although they aren't the first people there, and they find two seats along the windows to park themselves, Chris propping her feet up on her bag and leaning her head against the glass.
"You're going to love Germany." Luca says warmly, and he's grinning when she flutters her eyes open to spy him. "It's beautiful, the food is amazing. Don't get me started on the music."
"I didn't get you started at all," she murmurs, earning herself a playful punch on the arm, but he's undeterred.
"I can't wait for you to meet Captain Geiger. He oversees the entire K9 training protocol in Germany, and I might've talked his ear off about you."
A dusty blush warms through her cheeks, and she feels him press closer, winking at her. His sweet, woodsy cologne hasn't changed in the months he's been gone, and it's a nice reminder that there's still so much she hasn't lost. Their shoulders touch, the back of his calloused hand ghosting against hers, and his voice falls soft raspy into the thick midnight air.
"I'm really proud of you, Chris." He says, and refuses to break his gaze from her profile as she fights off the instinct to shrug his words away before they can sink into her heart in case they kill her. Her nails bite into her palm until the static dissolves, and he reads it like a book. "You've been through so much, but you still worked hard and pulled through. You deserve this."
He always manages to ground her in a way she can't deny. Lips twisting into a small grin, she nods and hopes that the tears building behind her eyes stay there.
"Thanks, Luca."
"I mean it," he says, a glint in his eye and a tone of finality. "It's going to be awesome."
Her mouth cracks into a smile. Some things never change.
She's read three chapters of her book and eaten the in-flight breakfast and shoved Luca's sleeping head from her shoulder back onto his neck pillow not once, but twice, by the time ten rolls around. A tugging in her gut tells her before her eyes find her phone for confirmation, fingers swiping to the recently-added Los Angeles in her world clock. The numbers glow bright across her screen in the dimmed cabin. Then to her texts, where his thread sits at the top.
Check-in at 8, surgery at 10. I'll call you when I can. Have a safe flight.
Her response stares back at her.
The second you wake up. We will.
Twelve-hour-old memories swarm her. The feel of his soft lips imprinted on hers, responsive to her every need. One of his hands cradling her cheek and the other holding hers tight. The gold string wrapped around her heart and connected to his, glittering between them as she looked back at him in the locker room.
Closer to her future. Further from him.
She wills sleep to come but she knows it won't. Not when he's in a cold, unforgiving hospital, flayed on a table trying to save someone that's never deserved him. Anger is a bitter taste festering her mouth but it's that or she chokes on her own concern, so she swallows it down.
Her blood is short-circuiting electricity in her veins as she bids a good morning—good night—good whatever to Luca and opens the door to her hotel room. She's met with dark burgundy furniture and a fluffy beige comforter on a mattress she could drown in, but her nerves aren't settled by the thought of sleep. It takes her addled brain a minute to do the math backwards. Three am in Germany, seven pm in LA.
All her logic about how he'll be in recovery for a few hours before moving to a room and that he has much more important things to worry about than calling her fly out the window. Street has to be awake by now, right? Probably giving some nurse his dimpled smile that has no right to be as perfect as it is. Safe and sound and far, far away from his mother. Her knuckles go white around the bedpost as her phone rings in her ear.
"Jim Street, leave a message."
Or maybe not.
She's too tired to hold back the tears, letting them roll free and slow down her face as she tries in vain to calm down her confused heart. Nothing is wrong. If it was, someone would've called her and Luca. Wiping angrily at her cheeks, she thinks about blaming the episode on the toll of the flight or how out-of-sync she feels in the foreign land. A chill runs through her like her body is punishing her for trying to lie.
With nothing else to do, Chris scrubs at her face in the bathroom sink until she feels half-herself, peels off her jeans, then plugs her phone in and turns the ringer all the way up, and waits for him.
There's no clock ticking to mark the passage of time, just her own uneven breathing and racing thoughts. Mere seconds but entire decades have passed when her phone finally lights up with his name at quarter past four. She scrambles to answer.
"Street?" The breath in her lungs suspends like someone trying to catch their balance on a tightrope, and the only safety net beneath her is him.
"Hey."
"Hey," she exhales. He sounds groggy, a twinge of pain hanging in his tone, but like himself. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. But that could be because I'm not feeling anything yet. Lot of drugs."
"Yeah, they'll do that." She says with a wet chuckle. "But everything went okay?"
"Like layin' on a gurney," he murmurs, voice willowy but she can see in her mind's eye the exact look on his face. Eyes half-lidded through the haze of drugs, cheeks pale but pink, the smallest part between his smiling lips. She's pulled from the image by him speaking again, and hangs on his every word. "I promised I'd call."
"You did," she nods as if he's there and wipes her face. "I tried when we got to the hotel but, uh, you weren't up yet, I guess."
"Was in and out for a while. And then they had me stand up and sit back down. Just got settled in the actual room."
"How is it?"
He answers with a soft whistle and a low laugh-groan.
"I've had worse living conditions."
I know , she thinks, because they've told one another almost everything. But oceans are between them and she doesn't know if giving in will make things better or worse, so she lets the idea go all together.
"You'll be back on your feet in no time." She decides on, hoping it soothes him. "Rest, take the meds if you need them. Don't go too fast."
"Anything else?"
The corners of her lips quirk up and she rolls her eyes. In the wake of hearing him, letting go of the bone-gripping fear she's had all day, she's starting to become aware of how the mattress cradles her body, the millions of tiny aches from sitting in the sky for so long, and her own lungs expanding fully.
"No," she whispers it like a secret shared between them, never for anyone else. "But I'll let you get to it. We've got an early start here, too."
A soft gasp escapes him as if he's become aware of something for the first time; one of the beeps behind him gets louder for just a second before falling back into its steady pattern.
"How is Germany?"
Curling her fingers into the comforter, she rolls onto her back and closes her eyes for a moment to take it all in.
"Well right now it's night." He hums understanding, but it trails off at the end as sleep comes for him, too, and she falls even further. "I'll tell you more later. Get some sleep."
"You too. G'night, Chris."
"Good night, Street."
The call ends and Chris is shrouded in the darkness of the hotel room, but her heart feels calm in her chest. Taking a deep breath and stretching all her muscles so she can curl onto her side to sleep, she thinks of the impending sunrise. For the first time since they left California, she feels ready to face whatever opportunities the summer brings. Whatever steps she'll take.
Closer to her future. Maybe closer to him, too.
hey, y'all! thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed ️
i know this one is long-awaited, and it was long-awaited on my end to write it so i hope it lives up to expectation. the end of season four is full of such charged emotion and angst for these two, and i think chris would absolutely spend her flight worrying about street and waiting to hear from him, so i wanted to focus on her inner monologue. also, her and luca, because we all know that luca sees through both of them right away and i think he'd really want to make her understand how loved and deserving she is in the light of erika's death. (in short, chris and luca bestie moment! yay!)
as always, please comment/kudos- i love to know what everyone thinks! on this one especially
wishing everyone well, especially those in the us for whom today is scary. i love you all.
xx, A