bracing for support - cristiana girelli x reader
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It didn’t feel dramatic when it happened.
That was the first betrayal.
She had endured far worse tackles—played through rolled ankles, bruised ribs, knocks hard enough to blur her vision for a second before it sharpened again.
This moment was nothing like that.
There was no crunch. No collision. No opponent anywhere near her when her left foot planted into the turf.
She turned to shield the ball, hips rotating first and her body following—but then something inside her knee gave way.
It wasn’t pain at first.
It was a sudden, hollow instability, like the ground beneath her had decided not to exist anymore.
She went down immediately—not because she was hurt, but because her brain understood faster than her body did. She dropped onto her side and grabbed her left knee, as if she could physically hold it together if she tried hard enough.
The whistle was sharp. Urgent.
From the damp turf, she stared up into the harsh floodlights of Stamford Bridge, the edges of her vision blurring as she blinked hard, chest rising too fast. She tested it—just a micro-movement, barely a flex.
“Hey, hey, hey.”
A shadow blocked the lights as Erin Cuthbert skidded into her line of sight, kneeling beside her, eyes scanning her face.
“What happened?” the midfielder asked quickly. “Was it contact?”
She shook her head, suddenly too heavy.
“I turned. It—”
Boots skidded behind her. Barça’s captain was already calling for a physio, voices overlapping.
“It moved.”
Sam was standing a few meters away when she turned her head. She was staring at her with an expression she had seen far too many times—the one where you already know it’s bad, but nobody wants to say it out loud.
The physios arrived fast. Way too fast.
And that was the second betrayal.
“Alright, talk to me,” one of them said, already pulling on gloves. “Where do you feel it?”
“Left knee,” she hissed, pain finally beginning to invade her head alongside a thousand screaming thoughts.
They worked with cold hands—practiced, efficient. Every word grew heavier as the crowd noise faded into something distant, replaced by the pounding in her ears.
“Okay. I’m going to touch it,” he said. “Tell me if anything feels unstable.”
His hands moved along the joint line, gentle, testing. He extended it slightly. Her fingers tightened on the fabric of her shorts.
“Try not to tense,” he murmured.
“I’m not,” she snapped, voice cracking. “I swear.”
He glanced up at her, not unkind. “I know.”
He tested again—minimal, careful, the way someone does when they’ve seen the same injury far too many times. And when he applied the slightest pressure, her knee shifted.
Her breath caught violently in her throat.
“There,” she said immediately. “That—don’t—”
That was the third betrayal.
Another physio crouched beside him, murmuring something too low for her to hear. Erin’s hand found her shoulder, squeezing once—an anchor, a promise. Keira stopped nearby, calm but edged with concern, asking questions she wouldn’t get real answers to.
The stretcher appeared at the edge of the pitch. The crowd swelled—confused, restless.
“We’re going to get you off,” one of the physios said.
“I can walk,” she replied automatically, pushing herself up with Erin’s help.
As they lifted her, careful and precise, she felt it—the pain finally catching up, blooming hot and deep inside her knee. She bit down on her lip, refusing to make a sound.
They walked slowly, one step at a time, under blurred lights and the applause of the crowd, which swallowed her and carried her away into places she would never belong to.
She had been invincible that season.
A starter for Chelsea. Trophies lifted one after another. Finally at home in London. Finally proven right.
But fate, as it so often does, didn’t care.
All the cups she had raised, the medals placed around her neck, the victories she had celebrated flashed through her mind as the physios helped her sit on the bench. And when she was sure the cameras had moved on, she lifted the jacket Sonia had handed her, pulled it up over her face—and finally let herself break.
Later, back at the hotel after yet another Champions League win, the first person she thought of was a woman who had always watched her legs more than the ball.
It felt natural—to take the scans and the brace they gave her, and book the first flight to Turin. The city that had taught her how to win. The city she hoped would remind her again.
The doctors kept talking—timelines, percentages, protocols—but she stopped listening the moment the word months left their mouths. She sat across from their desks, knee swollen, face exhausted, wearing the expression of someone who didn’t want to hear plans that sounded abstract. Plans for someone else. Other players. Not her.
She nodded anyway. She was good at nodding—whether in press conferences or when people told her she wouldn’t see a ball for a long time.
The day of the surgery, her apartment filled with flowers. Everyone said the same thing: she’d come back stronger. But Chelsea was learning to train without her. Winning without her. And every teammate, rival, fan, and person she hadn’t spoken to in years felt farther away.
Her agent was the first to know. Then Sonia.
Despite doctors advising her not to leave the house for at least a week—and absolutely not to fly—on the third day, she did.
She hadn’t really seen Cristiana in six months. Not properly. Only brief overlaps—ceremonies, rushed coffees before one of them disappeared back into international duty.
Their thing had always existed on the margins. In borrowed hours. Stolen spaces. Moments that never asked for definitions. Messages no one else would ever see.
Cristiana answered on the second ring. She always did.
“Hey,” the Italian said, voice warm and surprised—already smiling.
She exhaled, sinking into the pause that always lived between Cristiana’s words.
“I heard,” Cristiana said softly. “I was going to call.”
“I know.”
Her knee throbbed. Her suitcase waited at the foot of the bed. All she had to do was call a taxi and drag herself through the terminal.
“Listen—this is probably a terrible idea.”
Cristiana laughed quietly. “Those are usually your best ones.”
The words came immediately, as if Cristiana had sensed what she was about to say—about rehab in Turin, about finding her own place.
“My place,” Cristiana continued, like it was obvious. “You take the spare room. I’ll drive you to rehab. I’ll make sure you don’t destroy the other knee too.”
She could picture her perfectly—probably in the gym at Juventus, on her favorite bike by the column, wearing one of those black shirts, hair tied back badly.
“That’s a full-time job,” she huffed.
And just like that, the decision was made.
That evening, she took a taxi from Hampstead, crossing London toward an airport that felt strangely calm. The runway lights glowed softly, illuminating quiet waiting areas where people slept.
She knew flying so soon was risky. She also knew she’d follow every rule her physio gave her—because she wasn’t the kind of person who stayed still.
And the thought of Turin made everything feel a little less unbearable.
Her pants didn’t rub painfully. The brace pinched less. She figured out how to manage security with crutches and a carry-on.
The city welcomed her like an old friend—with the smell of good food and the warmth of familiarity. It reminded her of life before London. Before the blue shirt. Before becoming unstoppable.
She hid her exhaustion well, even though the flight had been the only sleep she’d had since the injury. The curve of the Alps in the distance made her smile.
Cristiana was waiting at arrivals, hands in the pockets of her jeans, bomber jacket zipped up, looking younger than she probably felt. She’d clearly been there a while—but when she saw her, she smiled like she couldn’t help it.
Cristiana hugged her carefully—one arm around her shoulders, the other hovering, unsure. She leaned into her, eyes closing against Cristiana’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent that had always undone her a little.
“You made it,” Cristiana murmured, hands buried in her hair.
“Barely,” she joked weakly.
Cristiana pulled back just enough to look at her, eyes scanning her tired face with attention that felt almost invasive—but she never would’ve stopped her.
She missed being looked at like that.
“Come on,” Cristiana said. “Car’s this way.”
The walk to the parking lot was slow. Cristiana had already learned how to match her pace without making it obvious, stepping closer whenever she faltered. She’d parked as close as possible—probably stealing a family spot and earning a string of insults.
“What?” Cristiana asked when she smiled.
“Nothing. Just imagining a family hauling luggage through the entire lot just because I'm lame.”
Cristiana helped her into the passenger seat, placing the crutches in the back.
“Tell me if it hurts,” she said.
Soon they were driving toward the apartment Cristiana had lived in since 2018—one she remembered so well it felt like she’d never left. She watched the city slide by, then turned to look at Cristiana’s profile as she sang badly along to the radio, talking about how things had changed.
The rest of the drive passed in fragments—
Cristiana pointing out a new café near her building.
Her teasing her about her music.
Cristiana laughing when she complained about Italian drivers, like she hadn’t been one herself.
She parked in the garage, turning the engine off once she reached the tenth parking space. Egocentric, the English-league player thought, before the other could reach her and open the door, throwing in one of her terrible jokes to get her to the elevator faster without her even realizing it.
The first morning she woke up in the Juventus player’s house, she had only slept a handful of hours, spent tossing and turning in a bed that wasn’t hers. She was used to her routines; everything in her felt disoriented at the thought of not having to get up for training, at the absence of London’s frenzy on an ordinary Tuesday morning.
Her knee throbbed, as if it were trying to escape the brace it had been trapped in, and her head hurt too as she lay there, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
She didn’t know if getting up was a good idea.
Cristiana was learning to recognize the sound of the crutches on the floor, the way they seemed a little heavier before the painkillers and on the days when everything felt darker. Sometimes she was in the kitchen making coffee and would turn around to wish her good morning; other times she stood in the doorway of the bedroom she had given to her former teammate, trying to find a way to help while the pain kept her awake and made her sweat.
Slowly, a rhythm formed there too.
Rehab appointments, long mornings at the hospital pushing past limits to get back to being strong and fast like before; slow afternoons, where she pretended not to look at the clock to see when Juventus’ forward would come home.
She felt lonely when the apartment was empty, and all she interacted with were videos of her injury and messages from London telling her she would soon shine again.
Lies wrapped in optimism.
The hardest days were the ones when the rehab plan changed, when she got back pain on top of everything else, not to mention the discomfort of the brace that made her sweat and pinched her skin. Cristiana would come home calmly, almost silently, leaving her shoes by the door and her keys hanging at the entrance.
Every time, she found the girl more tired, more on edge.
One day, just after setting the grocery bags down by the fridge, she lifted her gaze and saw her with her head tilted back against the couch cushions, arms crossed.
Her leg was bent wrong, unnaturally, as if she had raised a white flag to the pain.
“Hey,” she said casually, filling her blender with some leftover fruit.
The other didn’t answer, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
But she didn’t push.
After a few minutes she stopped blending and poured the contents into two glasses, getting lost in her thoughts for a moment before turning back to the injured player.
“Did you ice after therapy?”
The Italian turned slightly, eyebrows lifting in mild surprise. “Okay.”
The Chelsea player sat up straight, irritation spreading fast, warming her body and making the scar throb. “You don’t have to check on me like that.”
“I wasn’t checking,” she replied evenly. “Just asking.”
The forward ran a hand over her face, moving back toward the kitchen to give her space. “Alright.”
“You always do this,” she heard her mutter from the living room couch.
Cristiana leaned against the counter, drinking what she had made while looking at her over her shoulder. “Do what?”
“Act like you’re so calm all the time. Like I’m the only one with a problem.”
The Italian sighed, turning fully toward her. “I don’t think that.”
“You don’t have to say it.”
“I really don’t.” She stepped closer, taking an ice pack and wrapping it in a cloth to make it less uncomfortable.
There was still anger in the girl’s tone, though she wasn’t really angry at the Italian—and probably never had been.
She was tired, worn down by the alternation of easy days and the ones that punched her in the stomach and left her alone with the worst thoughts: the ones telling her she didn’t have the strength to get back to her old level, and the ones that labeled her a whiner dragging herself through an injury dozens of players had already suffered.
“So what, you’re just going to stand there and let me spiral?”
“If that’s what you need,” the homeowner said gently.
She laughed, sarcastic, eyes stinging. “Unbelievable.”
She shrugged. “I’m not fighting you.”
“I’m fine.” Her voice dropped a little as she kept her gaze fixed on the pale ceiling of the Turin apartment.
Cristiana nodded. “Okay.”
That word had become worse than an insult.
The girl shifted on the couch, holding her breath at a wrong movement that sent a sharp pain racing through her leg. “You know what, forget it. I don’t want to talk.”
She grabbed her phone and turned away, hugging a pillow tightly to her chest, now watching the cars moving through Turin’s busy center.
Cristiana waited exactly ten seconds.
Then she walked around the sofa, stopped in front of it, and gently slid a pillow under her knee, careful not to hurt it.
She stiffened. “Don’t touch it.”
The Italian pulled her hand back immediately. “Sorry.”
The apology was quiet. Sincere. No edge.
And when Cristiana lowered herself to her level, blocking her view of her favorite street in the city, she saw the way her lips were pressed together and how her chin trembled slightly.
“Stop being so nice,” she burst out. “It makes me feel like an asshole.”
Juventus’ captain finally smiled a little. Not smug. Just fond.
“That’s because you’re being one,” she said lightly. “But I know it’s temporary.”
It was heavy for her to depend on someone, and even heavier to recover from an injury like that while she was at the peak of her career.
Her eyes were veiled with tears, tired, her nose slightly red, while half her face was buried in the pillow she clutched as if searching for something to hold onto, something to keep her from sinking.
She huffed, her voice breaking as she looked into the Italian’s clear eyes. “I don’t want to be like this.”
Cristiana laughed softly, resting her chin on the armrest of the sofa, looking at her through her lashes. “Also normal.”
She stood up, checked the ice pack she had wrapped in the cloth to see if it was still cold, and placed it gently on her leg.
“Put that on,” she said. “Then you can be grumpy in peace.”
The forward stepped away for a while, putting her training kit in the wash and cleaning the mud off her boots, before coming back to find her calmer, the ice resting on her knee, the surgery scars still red and threatening.
Chelsea’s strongest player muttered, “I’m sorry I snapped.”
Cristiana stepped closer then, tying her hair back as she sat on the couch, looking at her with that reassuring, gentle expression—the one she had learned to love over the years together.
“You’re allowed to be difficult right now.”
She sighed, feeling the girl slowly move toward her, awkward with the brace and her uncooperative mind.
She rested her head against the Italian’s chest, wrapping her arms around her torso and curling into one of the old shirts Cristiana loved to wear at home, feeling instantly disarmed, warm, and light all at once.
Their fights didn’t end with a big, dramatic scene of apologies, with a heart-to-heart conversation that fixed everything, but in a more subtle way. As if the player had finally resigned herself to reacting to what had happened and giving everything to heal and live it as best she could.
Her knee still hurt—of course it did—but it was different. It felt less like a personal affront, and every time she moved she didn’t snap at everyone around her, and above all she didn’t wait for the day to end hoping not to wake up with that pain again.
She had learned a few tricks with the crutches, and even though she still moved carefully around the apartment, she had started cooking and picking up the mail from the concierge downstairs, or going to buy milk at the small supermarket a few streets over.
Every physiotherapy session gave her a piece of herself back—a degree of movement, a fraction of strength, the quiet certainty of someone who had realized her body wouldn’t betray or abandon her forever.
And so she began to see progress instead of rejecting the process.
She started waking up earlier than she needed to—not because she couldn’t sleep, but because she knew she’d find Cristiana up in the kitchen, making those breakfasts she would never understand, her hair still messy from sleep and the dawn light coloring her face.
“You’re predictable,” the injured player smiled, every time the Italian made too much coffee.
“You’re in love with my predictability,” the other replied, leaving her with a grin on her face as they lifted their mugs.
The Turin team’s forward had learned how to adjust the straps of her brace, and she always left her freedom intact until she noticed it was becoming difficult. Then she helped her undress, stepped into the shower with her, and they took a little time for themselves, as if one of them had never left for the English league and as if their relationship had always been simple, deep down.
She texted her from inside the rehab clinic, receiving countless proud of you messages in return.
And at home, every day became an excuse to invade each other’s personal space a little more.
Cristiana carried her to the bedroom with her weight slung over one shoulder, like they had done so many times when they were younger, laughing while some kind of music drifted from the living room vinyls and the dog from the neighboring apartment barked like it did every evening.
“You’re getting heavier,” the Italian murmured.
“You’re getting weaker,” she shot back.
They laughed—the kind that vibrates deep inside. And they danced while cooking, or walked through the rain of Turin, the kind that either washes the dust away or decides to seep straight into your bones. They fell asleep on opposite sides of the same bed, only to wake up tangled in the morning, with a kiss on the temple from the older one as she adjusted her leg on a pillow, without even opening her eyes.
In the end, the others were right.
The ones who said it was, after all, just an injury.
That it wouldn’t end her career, much less her life.
She joked more, kissed more, existed without being afraid of every corner of the house.
And all the anger that had followed her since that terrible match against Barcelona was gone—the anger that had put her on that plane and made her miserable for weeks.
“You’re going to be unstoppable again.”
She smiled. “I already am.”
The Juventus player raised an eyebrow. “Confident.”
The other turned, letting her forehead rest against hers. “I have good support.”
One evening, she decided she would be the support.
She didn’t tell Cristiana—not before, not while she was buying the ticket, and not even the day before the big clash between Juve and Manchester United, set to take place at the Bianconere’s home ground.
It was one of those matches that made every player tense, even those who weren’t called up, or people like her who weren’t even on a team roster anymore.
The captain had left early that morning for the pre-match training session the coach loved to hold before meetings and tactical briefings.
Her hair was messy as usual, disappearing into the team jacket, her face already focused—the look of someone who would strap the armband to her arm and lead her teammates toward victory, pushing forward in the prestigious Champions League.
“Wish me luck,” she had written under a post-training selfie she sent her, earning an As if you need it in reply.
She could imagine her smile.
The same one she wore a few hours later as she walked toward the main entrance of the Allianz Stadium.
She hadn’t imagined her return to the stadium like this: an old baseball cap pulled low, a scarf wrapped tight against the sharp mid-December cold, credentials glowing on her phone—remnants of her past on that pitch.
She moved a little slower than she remembered, but she was sure of herself, like people who know exactly where they’re going—season-ticket holders, or those lucky enough to have once called that place home.
She entered like any other fan, into the part of the stadium reserved for legends or for those with enough connections to secure a seat in the most important stand.
They checked her ticket, shook her hand, and wrapped the identification band around her wrist with practiced ease. She thanked each of them out of habit, like a former tenant returning to a place that, in some way, had never stopped being hers.
Inside, the frenzy was the same as always.
People split off into the different restaurants, children bounced with excitement at the idea of eating among former stars and seeing the players, and hostesses escorted everyone to their tables with polite smiles.
As she entered the room, she smiled instinctively, as if the smell of food and the familiar voices alone could bring her back to the time when she had truly given everything.
“You’re with some old friends,” the hostess who had escorted her said with a smile before leaving.
At the table sat, elegant and composed, the girlfriends and partners of her former teammates. There were some new faces, and others who, like her, had left Juventus for new leagues.
They didn’t greet her with surprise, as if they had known she would return.
They welcomed her as though no time had passed at all.
One of them already had her arms open, careful as she hugged her. She wore the same perfume as always, relaxed and happy as ever.
“Look at you,” she said, stepping back and immediately glancing down at her leg. “Brace and all. Very dramatic.”
“Please, you can’t even see it,” the English-league player laughed, the jeans she wore doing a good job of hiding the brace.
They settled on one side of the table, among a group that had already formed, and for a moment it felt like they could still argue about locker-room habits, tactics, or the questionable music they blasted after matches.
“How’s the knee, really?” she asked, softer now.
The guest shrugged. “Better. Slower than I want. Faster than the doctors promised.”
The woman across from her had left the team a few years before she did, but she had remained dear to the fans—and to her partner, who had stayed in Turin until the year before.
“And London?” she asked. “Treating you okay?”
The Chelsea player smiled, running a hand through her hair as the waitstaff began serving them in their perfect, elegant uniforms. “Yeah. Won everything there is to win. Still doesn’t shut me up.”
The food was the same Michelin-starred fare they served at every match—hot and comforting, meant to be eaten for pure enjoyment rather than hunger, letting the stadium and the pitch blur into a steady backdrop.
“So,” the ex-Juve player said eventually, as if commenting on the weather, “back in Turin for long?”
“Long enough,” the injured one answered.
The woman hummed. “You always said you’d come back.”
“Mhm. Usually after a glass of wine.”
There was a pause between bites, while someone talked about plans for kids, someone else about adopting a dog, and another about preparing to move to America after the transfer window opened in a few weeks. It was an eclectic table—people who had known each other for years, others who had just arrived, and those who, like her, had returned to Bianconeri soil.
“She talks about you,” the woman beside her said gently.
“You all talk about me,” she replied lightly. “I’m unforgettable.”
“You were the only one who fed strikers exactly where they wanted the ball,” the other shrugged, thinking of the fixed pairing she and Cristiana had formed on the pitch—the perfect combination to dismantle opponents and leave them empty-handed.
“Chemistry,” the Chelsea player replied simply, smiling as she leaned back in her chair.
The other tapped her fingers against the table. “Funny word.”
Through the glass walls of the room, they felt the stadium begin to wake up, signaling that the moment the players would step onto the grass was getting closer.
They finished dessert, put their jackets back on, still chatting, before heading out to the main stand and choosing their seats. Around them were old sponsors and a few season-ticket holders, while in the distance flags exploded into motion, striped scarves waved, and chants rose toward the lights illuminating the stadium. She buried her hands in her pockets, her breath faintly visible in the cold, legs stretched slightly forward so as not to bend her knee too much.
From afar, she looked like just another fan.
But anyone who saw her up close knew that a star like her was still an open wound in the losses of the Turin team.
After warm-ups and the lineup announcement, the players emerged from the tunnel, smiling and focused, to the anthem’s melody.
When everyone else stood to applaud, she chose to stay seated for a moment longer, one hand on her brace, eyes intent on memorizing every detail of the day.
Cristiana was a machine on nights like that.
All sharp movements and physical duels, in a rough, tense match where United pressed relentlessly.
She dropped deep to play, shielding the ball as defenders bounced off her and shoved her to the ground. Her frustration built as chances didn’t convert and fouls went uncalled.
And she always demanded more.
It was cold.
And it was one of those matches that drained you.
But later, when the tension had become unbearable, it happened.
A loose ball. Half a second of space. Cristiana took it without thinking. One touch to set it, another to lift it, and then she struck—clean, powerful, impossible.
From the stands, it looked unreal.
The ball curled and dipped, slamming into the net like it had always been meant to be there.
And the stadium erupted.
From her seat, she was laughing even before standing up, the sound tearing out of her—unrestrained and bright. Around her, strangers jumped and screamed Cristiana’s name, hugging each other and celebrating an impossible goal that would carry the Bianconere forward in the Champions League.
Number ten ran with her arms wide, looking toward the curva and then toward the stands, eyes full of emotion like it was the first time.
Then she stopped, teammates rushing toward her.
Her expression shifted mid-celebration, something sharp flashing across her face.
The smirk that took over was arrogant, playful, entirely too familiar.
And she turned—after flashing the number on her back to every camera—and, completely unapologetic, lifted her leg and exaggerated a limp, mocking and dramatic.
The dedication was unmistakable.
The crowd roared even louder, laughing at the joke even if they’d never fully understand it.
Every camera swung toward her, searching.
And they found her—baseball cap low, arms crossed over her jacket as she shook her head, laughing beautifully, as if she couldn’t believe the audacity of that woman.
The cameras lingered on her.
She didn’t care.
Because in that stadium, no one knew what that celebration truly meant.
No one knew that the captain went home to her every night, helped her up the stairs, and kissed her goodnight before bed.
That she was hers in a way no crowd would ever get to see.
