We Can Burn Brighter Than The Sun
Four years.
Four years of growth, four years of experience, four years of life.
Keira is an entirely different person when she steps on the pitch for the World Cup Final against Canada. She’s grown in ways that she had never thought that she would, and had somehow come out on top.
She had never expected what those four years would hold.
A global pandemic.
Lucy coming back to her.
The Euros.
Lucy moving away to Barcelona.
Their relationship almost snapping in half because of the distance.
Keira taking a chance on herself, taking a chance on Lucy, and moving to Barcelona.
It’s been the highest of highs, and truly the lowest of lows. But above it all, moving into this game, Keira feels prepared in a way that she hadn’t four years ago. She makes eye contact with Lucy as the whistle to start the game goes off. They’re both ready.
The world cup final is against Canada, a formidable team led by the legendary Christine Sinclair, but the English girls are tenacious and ready. They want this, and they’re going to do whatever they need to do to get it.
It’s a tough fought match, with both teams equally desperate for it. An early goal from Sinclair puts Canada up just thirty minutes in, putting the entire English team on edge. The atmosphere during half time in the changing room is deadly and silent. Sarina is going over strategy, and every single pair of eyes in the room is on her like a laser.
They all want this, more than anything.
The English team comes on for the second half, in an absolutely explosive way. Alessia Russo manages a quick and succinct equalizer in the fifty third minute, but it’s Rachel Daly who finally puts one away in the eighty third minute to put them ahead. Keira is practically sobbing with relief when the ball hits the back of the net. They can do this. They can win this.
The final seven minutes of the game the girls are absolutely wasting time. Three minutes of stoppage time added. They can do this. They’re this close.
When the final whistle blows, Keira can’t quite comprehend the noise. She’s sure that it’s a dream, a figment of her imagination.
Surely they couldn’t have done it?
But then Leah is slamming into her, and she’s sobbing, and Keira realizes that this is really, very real. Keira hugs her best friend back with nothing but ferocity, her own tears beginning to stream down her face. She feels like she’s floating, like this can’t really be real.
But then Leah finally lets her go, and she’s looking her best friend in the eye, at the tears flowing down her cheeks, and she knows they’ve done it. And suddenly, Leah turns to go find Jordan, and Keira knows where she needs to go, who she needs to find.
It takes her a surprisingly long time to find her, as she gets stopped by Georgia, then Nikita, then Tooney. Each person is in tears, with smiles bigger than she’s ever seen, maybe even bigger than the Euros. Leah is attached to Jordan’s side, their hands threaded together.
But then, finally, Keira sees her. It feels a bit like a movie scene, how it happens. She presses past Millie and Rachel, who are holding each other's heads, their foreheads pressed together, both crying. Right as she does, she sees Lucy look up from her spot besides Demi, clearly searching for something or someone.
For Keira.
And for a moment, the two look at each other, maybe twenty feet from each other, and it all just strips away. All the noise, and the chaos, and the tears. It’s just her and Lucy, staring at each other. There’s tears flowing down Lucy’s cheeks, but she’s got on the brightest smile, and somewhere deep down Keira feels a small part of herself heal.
Because Keira has discovered that there’s nothing more beautiful in life than to see those that you love, to see your partner so clearly happy. Their loss four years ago feels so far away, and it’s just here, now, seeing Lucy with unbridled joy that fills Keira’s heart to the brim.
And there’s nobody between them somehow, and Keira’s feet are moving before her brain even tells them too, and she’s picking up speed, and Lucy’s moving toward her too, and it feels even more like a movie now.
Because Lucy goes down and Keira jumps into her arms, the force of her hug both sending the brunette staggering backward and twirling the two around. The world feels like it slows down, like it’s just the two of them. And she knows that there's a stadium full of people, and her family, and thousands of fans, but she doesn’t even care. It’s just her and Lucy in that moment.
And it doesn’t even matter, because she’s got her hands around Lucy’s neck, and on Lucy’s face, and she’s wiping at the wetness on Lucy’s cheeks, just touching every inch of her that’s available as Lucy holds her securely.
“You did it, Luce. You did it,” Keira says quietly, just for the brunette, who quickly shakes her head with a wet laugh.
“You did it, Keira. We did it,” Lucy amends, keeping Keira securely in her arms. They stay like that for what feels like forever, looking into each other's eyes. Keira feels like she’s seeing Lucy for the first time, she’s practically radiating with joy.
The trophy ceremony, the celebrations on the pitch afterward are all a blur for Keira. Everyone is everywhere, and there’s confetti and suddenly her family is there, hugging her tightly and congratulating her.
Lucy is there, throwing confetti on her head and wrapping her arms around Keira from behind, making the ginger laugh so hard her stomach hurts.
It’s the same joy she felt after they won the Euro’s, but somehow it’s so much sweeter. It feels like victory, truly, purely, unabashedly. Keira knows that she could retire right in this moment and be completely content. This feels like victory after the deepest of defeats, and Keira lets herself absolutely revel in it.
The trophy is passed around from person to person, everyone taking pictures with it, bringing their teammate and family over to take pictures with it. When it gets passed to Keira, the photographer hardly has time to snap one single photo of her by herself before the ginger is looking around for Lucy. The brunette comes right over when Keira calls her, standing on her left side, her hand slipping under the trophy, and directly over Keira’s hand.
Her palm is radiating warmth, and it reminds Keira so vividly of the Euros, holding the trophy with Lucy, that she can hardly comprehend it. It feels like deja vu almost, the joy, the trophy, Lucy. It’s all too good to be true, people just don’t get this lucky in life.
When the Euros had happened, the two had been in a rough place. Things just weren’t the way they usually were in their relationship, and both look back on it now as the two becoming complacent. Lucy was planning to move away, and it made Keira nervous. She remembered long distance, remembered how much she hated not getting to see Lucy. So, as a result, she had distanced herself, as if that would somehow make it easier when Lucy left. In the end, it had just hurt the two more than it helped at all.
They had spent the past year fixing that, though. Keira realized when Lucy left, that this relationship, what they had was worth fighting for. And so she leaped, without looking practically, to make it work. She took the biggest step in her career, in her life to make this, and her football career work. And god had it payed off.
Because Keira got the girl, yes, but she also got to win the biggest football accomplishment with said girl, undeterred by their formerly failing relationship woes.
When she looks over at Lucy, the brunette instinctively looks at her at the same time, and suddenly there’s that smile.
The smile that is Keira’s absolute favorite. It’s the one that's reserved for when the defender is at her happiest, like these moments right here. There’s just something in her eyes that's different, and it makes the ginger melt and want to start crying all over again.
Because they did it.
The photo of the two of them looking at each other, with so much hope and love in their eyes, is on the mantle of their home in Barcelona. It’s Keira’s favorite picture of herself, really. Because in that one photo, she sees her past, present, and future.
It’s everything that's been, everything that got her to this point, all the hard work and hours of grueling training.
It’s the moment itself, the blissful happiness as they all felt on top of cloud nine.
And it’s the future. It’s the rest of her football career in herself, and the rest of her life with Lucy. When she thinks of the future, Keira no longer frets about what could, or should be. Because she knows that above all else, she and Lucy will figure it out, together.
What they had? That was special.
Winning the World Cup type special.