SWAT Short Stories

[Stris] Complications (post 4x18)

"There may have been complications, but nothing about this sucks. I got more than I ever wanted in you."

*General*

The minute Chris got the call, she was on a plane back to the States. She had only been in Germany for a day after traveling when she was summoned back, and Luca opted to come with her. 

Chris had talked to Street the minute she landed in Germany. Everything was fine. He was awake and doing well following his surgery. Karen was one room over being monitored for her liver. But 24 hours later, it all fell apart. Karen's body rejected the transplant; she was going to die. And Jim developed blood clots in his lungs and was rushed into emergency surgery to have them removed. They both could have died that day, and Chris was across the world.

She and Luca abandoned TLI and boarded the first plane back to them.

After a full day of nothing but flying and jetlag, Nora met them at the airport to drive them straight to Jim's hospital room.

The car ride was silent, just as Chris had been since she got the worst phone call of her life. She had barely even been able to tell Luca what was going on. No one expected her to say a word until she saw him, and they certainly didn't expect her to forgive herself for leaving him anytime soon.

Hondo was sitting in the waiting room across from Jim's door when the three arrived. Chris went straight into the room without a word to anyone else. They didn't object.

The sight she saw would be one that haunted Chris for as long as she lived.

Jim was sedated and asleep when she entered the room. He had so many attachments Chris couldn't even distinguish what half of them were. However, she did know that he was hooked to oxygen, and that fact scared her more than any of it.

Chris attempted to reason with herself. He did have blood clots in his lungs; it was silly of her to think he could breathe on his own after that. And she knew all she had to do was ask, and Nora could undoubtedly tell her precisely what was going on with him. She was a medic and had been with Street the entire time.

The scene's weight rushed over Chris at once and made her dizzy and nauseous. She sat in the chair beside his bed and cried as softly as possible. Chris felt the need to let her emotions out and compose herself before talking to him or anyone else. 

Chris had felt numb after the call. She felt numb on the plane ride, and she felt numb on the car ride to him. But seeing Jim made it real. It made Chris' worst nightmare come true.

As the stream of tears lessened, Chris looked down at her hand. The Street family ring shined bright on her left ring finger. That ring had sat on her finger for less than a week, and somehow it felt a part of her inherently now. She never wanted to take it off; it was the most precious gift she had ever been given.

That ring was a promise. A promise to fight for each other. A promise to be together forever. A promise to be a family. That was a promise she was going to fight. Jim fought for her long enough to arrive at his side; he fought the transplant and the emergency blood clot surgery, now it was Chris' turn to fight. And she wasn't taking that ring off for anyone.

---

After Chris gained her composure, she joined her friends in the waiting room. She had been advised Street was unlikely to wake up anytime soon.

The minute she walked back through Street's hospital door Hondo had her tightly pulled into a hug.

That was the first time Chris felt her shoulders unclench and her held breath release since she received the phone call.