SWAT Short Stories

[Stris] Set Up (post 5x13)

Chris' eyes widened with realization. She knew exactly what that meant. Nora had set her up.

*General*

Chris felt her heart stall when she read Street's message. Sorry, I can't wait forever, stung in the back of her mind. She knew he meant the dinner reservation, but a small voice somewhere told her that waiting on her forever wasn't a feasible option either. Only when Deacon left did she let her guard fall and sigh heavily. She really wanted to be on that date right now.

Nora's entrance into the locker room startled the brunette; she should have left by now.

The blonde gave her a warm smile and opened her locker to grab her things for the evening, but Chris' defeated look puzzled her too much not to ask.

"Everything okay, Chris?" Nora asked, turning to the older woman in front of her.

"Yeah," she told her friend. "Just a long day."

It wasn't that Fowler thought Chris would lie to her; her mom instincts were just strong. She knew the "fine" white lies all too well.

"Long day as in you want to go to bed and not be seen for three days or long day as in you want to punch something?" She asked, hoping Chris would be honest with her.

Chris laughed at the question. She had forgotten how nice it was to have a woman around.

"Probably the latter. I'm a little mad at the world," she answered honestly.

"Let's spar then," Nora offered as she set her purse back into her locker. "My son's bedtime was over an hour ago, so I'm not seeing him tonight anyway. Might as well get a workout in."

---

"I have something I feel like you need to hear," Nora told Chris an hour later as the two women sat on the edge of the ring chugging water.

"Shoot," she told her.

"You deserve this life, Chris," Nora said firmly but with care.

"What?" Chris asked, confused.

"I know it's easy to fall into a cycle of feeling like you owe the world a debt, especially after people who owed you nothing took a chance on you. But the people who helped you along the way did so as a gift because they love you, not because they were looking for a debt to settle down the line. That's from personal experience," Nora assured her. "You're a giver to a fault, Chris, and it's one of your best qualities. But you never give to yourself. If you invested half of what you do for others into yourself, I think you'd find life a lot happier and still be able to help people. I know the guys have been trying to tell you in their way, but I'm going to put it plainly: you deserve this life. You deserve to be happy. And I hope this isn't overstepping too much, but you deserve him. The only person who believes you don't is you."

Her brutally honest words left Chris frozen in awe. No one had ever called her out in that kind of way before. Tears prickled her eyes, but she didn't feel called out. She felt warm.

"How did you-" Chris started but couldn't finish.

Nora pulled her in for a hug just in time for the tears to roll down her cheeks.

"I didn't mean to make you cry," the younger woman told her from the embrace.

"I think that is the nicest yet most brutally honest thing anyone has ever told me," Chris assured her as she pulled back from their hug.

"Sometimes it helps to see someone else's point of view," Fowler told her.

"But back to my previous question," the brunette said as she jumped down from the ring with a laugh.