The Known (On Hold)

42

With a little over 10 minutes remaining against Washington, both teams are still looking to break the scoreless draw and avoid going to the dreaded extra time. 

Charlotte retakes her place on the field and almost immediately is fed the perfect ball but gets a bad touch and sends it wide of the goal. 

A few minutes later, the Cardinal advance on the counter and Tierna sends a low cross in which is redirected by Kyra Carusa past the Washington keeper and allowing them to maintain their winning ways by the slimmest of margins. 

After the game, Charlotte heads back to the dorm and collects what she needs for the following few days before heading to the apartment where Mal is waiting for her with food and open arms. 

She unlocks the door and lets herself in, locking it back up behind her before heading to the bedroom and finding Mal watching a movie. She puts her bag down and kisses Mal on the cheek. 

"Hey, beautiful." 

"Hey, yourself. Good game, Baby." Charlotte takes a deep breath and releases her frustration. Mal looks at her, "Sit, talk, what's on your mind?" 

Charlotte sits and shrugs, "Nothing much, just frustrated with my inability to finish today." 

Mal wraps her arms around her and kisses her neck, "I know it's going to continue to eat you up, so how about tomorrow we hit the pitch together and get your confidence back."

"Thanks, Mally. I'm going to get something to eat, do you want anything?" 

"I'm good, Babe." They share a quick kiss before Charlotte makes her way out to the kitchen to nuke some leftovers. 

After eating Charlotte gets herself changed and climbs into bed beside her girlfriend. 

"Did you set an alarm for the morning?" 

"Yeah." 

They share a few kisses before snuggling up together and drifting off to sleep. 

The next morning the alarm sounds out and even though she really doesn't want to get up out of the nice warm, comfy bed or leave her beautiful girlfriend behind, Charlotte knows the importance of maintaining her recovery schedule with the team. 

She shuts off the beeping and then lays back before leaning over and kissing Mal on the cheek. 

"Morning." 

"Morning, beautiful, I'm heading out for recovery I'll be back in a few hours. Go back to sleep." Charlotte kisses her once more before climbing out from under the covers and heading into the bathroom to complete her morning routine and then getting changed. 

She repacks her bag and then takes a look back towards the bed where Mal has already fallen back asleep and smiles before making her way out to the kitchen and making a quick bite to eat along with grabbing a coffee and her water bottle to go.

She finishes up her recovery and then eats with some of her teammates before making the trek back to the apartment. 

She finds Mal talking on the phone and smiles. 

"Hey Babe, Mom says to say Hi." 

Charlotte waves at Mal, "Hi Mom!" causing Mal to laugh at her. 

Neither feeling inclined to go anywhere and being quite comfortable laying with each other watching some television, they opt to put off their mini-training session until the following day.