Forever Was A Sentence (Alexia Putellas x McCabe!Reader)
Part 5 Part 4 here
Your plane landed in Dublin and you took a deep breath. It hadn’t been an overly stressful flight, you did the usual of reading your book and going to sleep. It was just the destination of where the flight was leaving you had you stressed beyond belief.
You were sitting against the window and allowing everyone to get off the plane before you moved. You grabbed your bag off the floor and felt around for your AirPod case, to put your AirPods back in, and that was when you felt something odd in the front pocket of your bag.
Your thumb and index finger held the cold, long metal chain between them as you pulled it out of your bag.
“What the hell?” You mumbled, taking out the necklace you had handed Alexia back the night you arrived in Germany. The necklace she told you she needed when she flew.
You examined the necklace and couldn’t understand how it had ended up in your bag. You’d spoken briefly with Alexia this morning and hugged her goodbye when you headed your separate ways at the airport. Now that you knew she needed that necklace to keep her calm on planes, you were really panicked for her. You took your phone out of your pocket and your signal came back as soon as you turned off airplane mode. That’s when her messages kicked in.
Alexia
Vuelo seguro ✈️
I packed you my necklace to make sure everything would be okay
Y/n 🍀
Will you be okay without it?
I promise to take good care of it until I see you again
Alexia
Sí, estoy bien. I have landed safely already
I know you will
You smiled and put the necklace around your neck, tucking it under your t-shirt. You stood up from the seat, grabbing your suitcase from the overhead and throwing your bag pack strap around your shoulder. You went through the airport and found the driver holding your name at the arrivals section.
The driver took your bags for you and ushered you towards the car. You were flying in from Germany so nobody else was in your car from the squad thankfully. You knew this was going to be the last silent moment you got before seeing everyone.
You arrived at the hotel and mumbled a quiet thanks to the driver when he handed you your suitcase. It was intense from the very first second, the media girl stood waiting with a camera pointed towards you, wanting to get a clip of you arriving. Another staff member handed you a door key when you got inside and you rushed to your room, trying to get out of sight from everyone here. You saw a few players loitering in the lobby, catching up over coffee, and you knew you’d never be able to do something so simple with anybody here again.
“I dunno how ye swung this” Katie huffed from the door opposite yours.
You ignored your twin sister and continued to fumble with the key to your room to try and get the hotel room door open. You never caught any type of luck. The door wouldn’t open, and of all 25 other people here, not even including the staff, you’d ended up in the room opposite to Katie.
“Barcelona’s resident bench warmer and ye still worm your way in where ye are not wanted” Katie continued.
You knew Katie didn’t want you here. She’d told you to leave Arsenal and was probably happy with your lack of minutes at Barcelona, because she presumed you’d never be called into the Ireland squad with how little you were playing.
“You’re the captain” you began, still facing your door. “If ye don’t want me here, say it to Carla. I can’t do anythin’” you finally got the door open and pushed your way inside, shutting it fairly quickly.
“Oh, I will” you heard her shout back and heading off down the corridor to go talk to whoever she wanted. They all liked her.
You put your back against the door, taking deep breaths and trying to relax. When you came around, you realised you were clutching to Alexia’s necklace that was still around your neck. You weren’t ever one to wear jewellery, especially not something like this, but you found it comforting. It was like she was here and you needed someone like Alexia here right now.
You slouched down on the bed and pulled your phone out again. You don’t know why you did it, but you pressed call.
“Hola” Alexia smiled as her face appeared on your phone.
“Hola” you nodded back. You quickly remembered you called her and needed to say something. Anything.
“I got to the hotel okay” you said.
“Good” Alexia replied. “I am at my hotel too” she said, proceeding to turn the camera around to show you her room and the view.
“Looks nice” you mumbled, before proceeding to do the same.
“Have you seen your sister yet?” Alexia innocently asked when you returned to sit on the bed.
“Uh, yeah” you nodded. “She’s in the room opposite mine” you sighed.
“It’s just a few days” Alexia reminded you. “And you have my necklace” she smiled.
“I do” you said and patted your chest, to let the girl know you were wearing it. Alexia’s mind tried to stay in one place then.
“And you have me” Alexia said and you were waiting for her to bust your door down. “You can call me on the phone anytime” she clarified as you understood what she meant now.
“Ye can call me as well” you said before you watched the girl smile and hang up.
You would have been happy to sit in your room all day, but you didn’t pack snacks and you were hungry, so you eventually had to go downstairs to get food. You felt a bit more confident after speaking to Alexia that you could get though this.
When you got downstairs, you could feel the tension before Katie even came into your eye line. She was sat with a group of girls from the team, and the second they saw you, they all relaxed back into their seats and went quiet.
“Ah, Y/n. I didn’t see you come in” Carla said, putting her arm around you and walking both of you towards the food area.
“I got in a little bit ago” you mumbled quietly when your manager finally released you.
The two of you were stood over the table with fruit and snacks on it and you picked up a few things, as did she. Carla knew you were quiet in comparison to Katie and a lot of your other teammates. Even before the move to Barcelona you would stray from the group for the majority of time while you were on Ireland camp.
“Much longer of a flight for you now coming home, isn’t it?” She asked.
“A bit. I was comin’ from Germany this time” you explained to a woman who you knew already knew that.
“I saw the match” she nodded. “You had a great game” she said.
“Thanks” you replied.
“I’ve been meaning to ask” she began, picking her own things up from the table. “What happened with Arsenal?”
“Uh” you stuttered, looking around and seeing the group Katie was sat with all now staring at you. “Ye know how it is, I just go where I’m told” you shrugged. Now wasn’t the time. You don’t think there would ever be a time.
“Barcelona’s not a bad place to be” she joked.
You nodded back politely, before you let silence fill the air for a minute.
“Something on your mind?” Carla asked.
“Why am I here?” You asked. “I know ye said ye saw the game, but I was called in before that”
“You don’t want to be here?” She frowned.
“I don’t deserve to be right now” you groaned. “I’m not playing in Barcelona” you continued.
“But when you do, you’re ten times the player than the next person in the pool of players we have” Carla explained.
“Ye just don’t need to call me in”
“If you don’t want to be here, you say the word and you can be gone. But for now and for this camp, you are here and being paid as my player. Is that understood?” She said, sternly.
“Yeah” you nodded. “Sorry” you said.
Carla shook her head and walked away from you, back towards her staff and you were left stood like an idiot. You grabbed whatever you had to and decided to take it back to your room.
“What ye in her ear about?” Katie frowned, still sat with a group of the team who were all trying to contain their laughter.
“Nothin’” you shook your head, tone a bit aggressive as you were frustrated.
“Calm down, don’t want ye thinkin’ ye can hit me too” Katie challenged as she stood up. “Ye gonna hit me?” She asked.
“No” you said.
“Think because ye got away with it and got your fancy move to Barcelona that anybody here likes ye?” She continued.
“No” you repeated.
“So ye got away with it, did ye?” Katie asked. “Runnin’ to Barcelona doesn’t change what ye did ye know?”
You didn’t reply. You should have replied. You wanted to reply. But what was the point? They were looking at you like you were guilty and nothing you could say was going to change that. So, you turned away from them and walked back towards the staircase to get back to your room.
“Yeah, run away. What’s new?” Katie shouted after you.
“Katie, that’s enough now. You said your piece, drop it” Carla snapped, having had enough of the McCabe twins in the first hour of camp life already.
Carla hadn’t heard the first part of you and Katie’s one way conversation. She’d overheard Katie’s raised voice and had made her way over to the group.
To the coaching staff, they didn’t know what the players knew, or thought they knew. To them it looked like you took an unexpected move to Barcelona and your ex teammates weren’t happy. They knew Katie was more popular with her Irish teammates than you, so when it appeared you two were arguing, naturally they took Katie’s side. The coaching staff believed it would blow over. Boy, were they wrong.
After that encounter with Carla and with Katie, you vowed you would not leave your room unless it was time to go to training. You did leave the hotel however around 11pm that night, after curfew, to go to a shop to get enough snacks to last you through camp so that you didn’t even have to go back downstairs again. You were tossing and turning for quite a while before you gave up and turned the TV on. It was only about 5 minutes later your phone buzzed.
Alexia
Are you sleeping?
Y/n 🍀
No
Within two seconds the girl had pressed call and you were clearing your throat and sitting up straight before you answered.
“Hola” you said.
“Hola” she smiled, sitting in a similar position to you on your bed.
The second you saw her, a thought flashed in and out of your mind as quick as lightening. You wished she was here. You wanted to turn your head to the side and see her sitting beside you rather than through the phone. You had to say something quickly to get the thought out of your mind.
“Couldn’t sleep?” You mumbled.
“No, you also?” She asked.
“No” you shook your head.
“You are still wearing my necklace” Alexia said and you saw she smiled.
“Can’t lose it this way” you chuckled back.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“Just was about to watch a film” you explained.
“Which one?” She hummed and picked up her own TV remote. “We can watch together” she added.
“Ye can pick one then”
“Okay” Alexia said straight away.
Whenever you watched something together you had to make sure there was Spanish audio or subtitles available. Usually you’d watch things in Spanish with English subtitles. Once you’d settled on a movie, you both simultaneously clicked in and paused it.
“I’ll text ye” you mumbled to the girl.
“¿Qué? No, stay” Alexia pouted. “It will be like you are here” she said.
Sometimes you thought Alexia was flirting with you, even if it was low level flirting. But then again, she also mainly spoke to you in a language that was not her natural one, so maybe it was just a language barrier.
“Okay” you nodded and both of you pressed start.
You’d started nodding off at this boring movie Alexia had picked, but she was glued to it. She’d picked out some romance film you can remember dozing off to when Laine had picked it out one evening in your London home. Back when things were normal. Maybe it was because Alexia was so invested in the movie, it took her way too long to realise what you’d done.
“Wait, pause” Alexia shouted and paused the movie, waiting for you to wake yourself up to press pause.
“Yeah?” You grumbled, waking back up.
“Why are you watching it in Spanish?” She asked.
“Hmm?” You mumbled.
“I can hear your TV. You are watching in Spanish and not English. Why?” She continued.
“Well it wouldn’t be like ye were really here if I was watchin’ it in English, would it?” You said softly.
“No” she smiled and shook her head. “You feel tired?” She asked.
“Yeah” you nodded.
“You sleep, but stay?” She said and you nodded back. “Good night” she whispered.
“Buenas noches” you mumbled back.
-
Due to your late night call, your phone was dead when you eventually woke up. You woke to a banging on your door and you jumped out of bed to answer it. You knew you were in deep shit when you swung the door open and Carla was standing on the other side.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Y/n” she huffed. “Get up and get dressed and be downstairs in 2 minutes”. She snapped.
You had never stepped a foot wrong in your career. You were well respected in the football world, maybe not to players, but definitely to staff members. It appeared to Carla that you were rebelling on this camp from your conversation yesterday and now being late to the bus.
“I’m sorry, my phone died and-”
“2 minutes” she shouted, walking off down the hall.
You practically jumped into your training gear and sprinted downstairs with your boots in your boot bag smacking your back with every step you took. You knew you were the last one on this bus because the minute both of your feet were inside, the bus driver closed the doors and started driving. You sat up the front, leaving a three row gap between you and the next person.
The drive didn’t take too long and you had just been smacking your dead phone off the palm of your hand for the entire drive. As usual, you let everyone get off first before you attempted to move. You were content to just stare out the window.
“Nice of ye to actually show up” Katie huffed. “Ye are such a twat”
“My phone died” you explained.
“It’s bad enough ye are here and I even have to look at ye” Katie shouted. “So do me a favour and just do what we have to do and then fuck back off to Barcelona until I have to see ye again”
“Okay” you nodded.
The worst training session of your life commenced shortly after that brief conversation. They were playing everyone against Y/n by the seems of it. Every time you missed a challenge, a shot, a pass, Katie would make a loud jeering noise. Every time you got the ball, someone would tackle you way too harshly. You couldn’t concentrate. You felt like every pair of eyes were on you.
“Get up” someone sneered at you as you dropped to the ground following a studs up challenge to the ankle.
“Barcelona’s finest” another laughed as they shouldered you in the box, sending you tumbling to the ground.
But worst of all, came Katie. Your sister was rough and had a catalogue of yellow cards to back that up. She always found a way to be near you, and always found a way to be pushing you, kicking you, knocking into you. But there was one thing this entire training session that was pissing her off every time you dropped to the ground.
You got back up. If any of them thought what they were doing to you was worse than what Laine had done, they were fooling themselves. Anytime Laine had done anything to you, you’d managed to pick yourself up. Katie and your teammates didn’t have a patch on her.
The coaching staff seemed to be turning a blind eye to the unnecessary roughness directed towards one person. You’d pissed them off this morning. You were making it seem like your move to Barcelona had boosted your ego so much you felt like you were too good to be here. This wasn’t fair. You weren’t the person they thought you were, any of them. This is how you were being treated for trying to protect yourself when Laine was getting the princess treatment after years of treating you badly.
“Okay, that’s time” someone eventually called and the game stopped.
You lay on the ground with your eyes closed for a few seconds. You were covered in cuts, marks and bruises again. Not even your Barcelona teammates did this to you, even if they didn’t really like you.
“And that was only day one” Katie smirked, standing over you intimidatingly.
You didn’t respond. You just got up and walked away, grabbing your water bottle and heading to the changing rooms. You got straight back on the bus, practically limping there and sliding into the first seat you could get to. Your body was aching and after a couple months of being free from this, your body was really taking its toll.
“Not nice when it’s someone your own size, is it?” Katie asked as she stopped at your seat, her mates gone to the back of the bus.
“Look, ye made it clear alright?” You bit back. “I’ll reject anymore call ups. Do whatever ye want to me and rule me out of this camp and I’ll leave tonight”
“Wouldn’t give ye the satisfaction” Katie shook her head and walked off to the back of the bus.
You managed to get yourself up the stairs and into the shower before crawling back into bed. You were a professional at suppressing your feelings, so you never cried. You’d only broke that one time and that was enough. You just lay on the bed, clutching the parts of your body that hurt the most and tried to close your eyes to pretend like it wasn’t real.
Camp continued like that as the days ticked on. Every morning, you dragged yourself out of bed to be absolutely battered by your teammates and then limp back to your room. But you hadn’t cracked. Katie wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of letting you leave camp, so you wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of showing her how badly this was hurting you. Not that any of them would care anyway.
Your messages with Alexia started to become a bit short. You were making up meetings and physio sessions to avoid her calls. Ignoring the messages to ask if you were awake, much rather pretending you were asleep. You liked Alexia, she was a good person and it appeared she cared for you. But you couldn’t face it right now. What Laine had intended was for you to be isolated, and maybe the last thing you could do would be to give her a feeling of accomplishment.
-
You played the full 90 minutes of football by the time you checked out of camp in Ireland and had to fly to the away camp in The Netherlands. You must have kicked the ball five times in the game. Nobody would pass to you, it was like you were the opposition stood in the wrong jersey. You couldn’t make any type of impact and you ended up losing the game. It somehow was your fault. You didn’t get on the ball enough. You didn’t create enough chances. You you you you you.
You’d had it at this stage. You had began to lose your mind. You couldn’t cope with this stress or pressure anymore and you felt like putting your fist through a wall anytime you had a second to think. You didn’t want to be here anymore, in every sense of that phrase. Laine had ruined your life. Nobody could help now.
But then unanswered message 15 turned to unanswered message 16.
Alexia
Hola? I know you can understand hola so you better hola me back 🙄
Y/n 🍀
Hola
I’m sorry.
Alexia
Why?
Alexia didn’t let you answer that though, because she’d requested to FaceTime straight away.
“Hola”
“Why?” She repeated, now face to face, as much as you possibly could be right now.
“It’s been real hard” you mumbled.
“Camp?” She asked.
“Yeah” you nodded. “I don’t like it” you sighed.
“It’s making you sad?” She continued.
“Yeah” you replied.
“I don’t like it when you’re sad” Alexia pouted and the call fell silent for a few seconds. “So, you will stay with me the night you come home, sí?”
“Huh?”
“You will stay with me and we can watch a movie you will not fall asleep to” she smiled.
“Right, okay” you said.
“And we will talk until you are not sad anymore” Alexia stated.
“That might take forever” you chuckled anxiously.
“I could talk to you forever” Alexia swiftly put as you gulped and stared at her.
“I think” you stuttered. “I think it’s makin’ it harder bein’ here cause I miss ye”
“I miss you too” Alexia said quickly to leave no room for you to regret what you said. “Don’t ignore my calls or messages again, okay?”
“Okay” you nodded. “Good night”
“Good night” Alexia cooed in the phone before she hung up.
That night you didn’t really toss and turn much when you were awake. But when you drifted off to sleep, you started having a very bad dream. It wasn’t a dream so much as a flashback, but it was vivid and it terrified you, even your sleeping self. You woke up feeling yourself sweating, throat sore as you’d obviously been shouting or screaming. But worst, you woke to see Katie stood there in your room.
“Ye alright?” Katie asked from the bottom of the bed. “Heard ye screamin’”
“Yeah” you mumbled back, sitting up slightly and rubbing your eyes.
“Then will we shut the fuck up? I’m tryin’ to sleep” Katie huffed and walked towards the door.
“Yeah, sorry” you sighed and let your head drop back on the pillow.
“Ye haven’t done that since we were kids” Katie mumbled. “The screamin’ in your sleep thing” she continued.
“I’m grand” you said.
“Alright” your sister nodded and left the room.
Katie had small glimpses of care every now and again, and that’s how you couldn’t fault her or her reactions to any of this. You knew if you told Katie everything and if she believed you, that she’d spend a lifetime apologising to you and looking out for you. And maybe that’s why when you wrote that letter, you wrote it to her. But maybe you were an absolute idiot who was just kidding yourself.
-
You played the away game and really thought about telling Carla you were retiring from international football there and then. But your club captain would have asked too many questions when that happened, and due to the fact you were seeing her the second you landed, you decided against it.
You’d had a lot of time to kill while you were in The Netherlands. You had more space to roam free, so you spent less time in your hotel room and more time rambling about the streets. You were sending Alexia photos of the city, but she was in Barcelona for the Spain game so she didn’t need to send you photos.
You’d picked up a small gift for her to say thank you for being so nice while you were on camp. In fact, it was just for being so nice since you joined Barcelona. And you were excited to give it to her. Alexia made you nervous, but nervous in a good way.
You didn’t so much as say a goodbye to anyone at camp, you headed straight to the airport in The Netherlands and went straight back to Barcelona. You hopped into an Uber, stopping off at your place to have a shower, get changed and leave your stuff before you went to Alexia’s apartment.
You felt like you could breathe again when Alexia’s arms wrapped around you in her doorway. She kept hold of you while she turned the two of you around so she could close the door behind the both of you.
“I missed you” she said, slowly dragging her arms away from you and letting her finger tips feel every inch of your shoulders as she did.
“I missed ye, but knowin’ I’d see ye straight away definitely helped” you nodded and the girl smiled.
“Sit, sit” Alexia said, pointing into her living room. “I made dinner and you will eat”
Alexia was the type of person who told you what to do, but she did it for the benefit of you rather than her own benefit. She cared about you and wanted to look after you. So, you did as you were told and sat down and ate the dinner she had made you.
“Thanks, that was lovely” you hummed as she whipped your empty bowl from you and took them to the kitchen.
“Pick a movie” she shouted, gathering a few snacks together for both of you.
You picked a similar movie to the one she had picked the night you watched one together over FaceTime. You felt it was a safe bet because she liked those types of movies. Romcoms. You set the subtitles to English and left the audio in Spanish. The girl smiled at you as she came back into the room with a handful of snacks.
“Oh, I love this one” she said when she peered over to the TV, throwing the snacks on the table in front of you.
“I love these” you chuckled, picking up the bag of jellies she’d dropped.
“I know” she stated and sat beside you.
She cuddled into you and you pressed play, beginning to munch on the jellies she’d brought in and somewhat watching the movie. Alexia was watching the movie but was slightly distracted due to something on you being uncomfortable to lean against. Her head had been buried in the crook of your neck, so she lifted it slightly to see what it was causing the issue.
“My necklace” she said, pulling at it lightly which grabbed your attention.
“Oh shite, yeah” you mumbled with a jelly in your mouth.
You threw the bag of jellies on the table and your two hands began to reach around your neck to take it off. You’d kept it safe for her and were very thankful she’d trusted you with it.
“No” she whispered and caught your hand. “I want you to keep wearing it”
“What?” You frowned.
“It’s safe here” she replied, patting your chest. “I see you, I see it. I like that you have it” she added.
Alexia’s hand was still on your chest, covering the small charm on the necklace. Your heart started beating quickly because it had been a long time since you’d ever felt so close to someone without being afraid. You knew if you stayed in this position any longer that Alexia would feel your heart beat.
“One second ’” you exclaimed.
You stood up from the couch and walked out of the room. You completely freaked Alexia out when you did it because she thought you were running away.
“Y/n?” Alexia called, hearing you fumble at your jacket.
You came back into the room holding a small box in your hand that you’d retrieved from your jacket pocket.
“Here” you tried not to stutter as you held out the box in front of her. “I got it for ye”
“What? Why?” She asked.
“I didn’t know ye would tell me to keep this” you gripped to the necklace you were wearing. “But I thought I’d lose it or it would lose effect for ye, so I got you that” you finished with a nod of your head towards the box.
Alexia opened the box to reveal a beautiful, subtle necklace. It was similar to the one she’d just gifted you, because you knew that was her style.
“Y/n” she whispered aloud.
“I just thought I can wear this when I go away and ye can wear that when ye go away” you explained. “When we can’t be together”
“Will you put it on me?” Alexia asked.
You nodded and took it from the girl’s hand. She turned her back to you and you wrapped the necklace around her neck before attaching the latch at the back.
“Es preciosa” Alexia smiled, turning back to you and holding on to the necklace. “Gracias” she added.
“Está bien” you shrugged. “Will we continue?” You said, pointing at the TV and reaching for the remote control.
“Wait” she blurted out, taking hold of your hand that had been trying to get to the remote. “You know since you got here there’s been a story”
“I don’t wanna-” you shook your head and tried to pull away from her.
“No, listen” Alexia stopped you. “I want you to know, I don’t believe what people say about you” she said as she let go of your hand and gripped onto your t-shirt, staring at your lips.
“Ye shouldn’t believe it” you shook your head and subtly licked your lips.
Alexia waited for you to pull away, she was lost in her own thoughts on if she wanted you to pull away or lean closer. But then you leaned closer and her mind was made up. You felt the Spaniard lean in and push her lips against yours, so you completely relaxed and melted against her mouth.
Alexia kissed you like it was her full time job. It wasn’t intense but it had an element of longing from both of you. Something had changed between the two of you, even before the kiss. Maybe it was from the late night calls on camp or the distance that had been put between you, but there was something different in the way you saw her now.
You never wanted anything with anyone after Laine, but Alexia was different. It had been a show with Laine, constantly at her beck and call, showing off in front of people and online. But with Alexia it was like this level of calm, where nothing was forced or pushed. You didn’t have to be anything other than yourself with Alexia.
“Dios, te he deseado” God, I’ve wanted you Alexia practically groaned as she sat on your lap and continued to kiss you. You had no idea what she said so you just continued to kiss her.
“I promise ye, none of what ye heard about me was true” you said before you kissed her neck. She let you continue for a few seconds more before she pushed herself away from you.
“I want this” she clarified, tugging your t-shirt again. “But you need to tell me everything that happened with you and her” Alexia challenged and you sighed.
“What do ye wanna know?”
