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She’s going to tell Jackson, she vows to herself. John too.
She really should; it would be exponentially easier to date Tim if she didn’t have to carefully craft her day-to-day schedule in order not to make it obvious that she’s dating, let alone that she’s dating Tim. Sleepovers are a cascade of excuses, convenient circumstances, and planning around Jackson’s dating schedule.
(Tim hid in her closet more than once.)
(It’s embarrassing every time.)
“I can’t help but feel like I’m your dirty little secret,” Tim teases as he pokes her shoulder and she laughs.
“You’re not,” she says as she settles herself across his lap and his hands fall on her hips, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her yoga pants. “We said we’d wait. Before people know.”
And they did. Because they’re both painfully aware of how bad the situation looks, what with him being her TO, and them riding together every so often and him now rising in the ranks as Sergeant, and her being a woman – which is the most ridiculous thing to be an issue, but somehow seems the biggest – and they both agree that not rushing things publicly is the best course of action.
Except... It’s been eight months. She has a shelf and a drawer at his place, and her clothes smell like his detergent. There’s a designated Lucy spot on his couch and her conditioner is in his bathroom.
(Sometimes, she wants to scream it from the rooftops. I’m dating Tim Bradford. I’m sometimes so in love with him that it hurts. I’ve never been happier.)
She’ll tell Jackson. And John. And it would probably be alright if she told her parents, but they can wait.
She runs her fingers through Tim’s close-cropped hair and kisses him – slow and then dirty – and she sighs his name when he pushes down the waistband of her pants and grabs her ass roughly.
She’ll tell Jackson. And John. And the whole department.
He pushes her down on her back, and she shivers when he kisses her neck, and she fantasizes not about what will happen – that part she knows, and pleasant heat warms up her belly – but about kissing him in public and not looking around her to make sure that no one they know is near them.
-.-
“Look, don’t hate me,” Jackson starts and Lucy’s immediately guarded. “You have a date tonight.”
“I... What?” playing stupid is a good idea, because if she plays stupid, it may turn out that Jackson’s having a stroke and isn’t telling her that he knows she has a date with Tim tonight.
“That guy from the bar the other night? Caleb?” he says and Lucy blinks in faint recognition.
“Okay?”
“Well, he came by the station today,” he says and there’s a teasing smile on his face. Lucy’s stomach sinks. “He’s cute! And you’re a single pringle! You gotta live a little, Luce.”
“I...”
I’m dating Tim Bradford. I love him so much it hurts.
“I...”
You want to risk your reputation to get it on with Nolan, that’s your call.
“Hey, Sarge!” Jackson yells out happily and Lucy freezes in her spot. “Come here and tell Lucy that she has to live a little.”
“What’s this about?” Tim sounds clipped and somewhat annoyed which is not unusual for Tim and he stands next to her.
“I arranged a hot date for Lucy tonight, and for some reason she’s not jumping at the chance,” he says and Lucy sneaks a glance at Tim while Jackson scrolls his phone in search for a photo.
He’s closed off, guarded, ignoring her gaze.
Lucy’s heart sinks to her feet.
Jackson is blathering on about the Caleb guy and Lucy’s head is abuzz, and her hands are shaking a little. They’re in the middle of the station. She can’t tell Jackson now.
“He is cute,” Tim says, voice dripping with sarcasm as he takes Jackson’s phone and scrolls Caleb’s Instagram. “And look, Chen, there’s a puppy!”
She laughs hysterically.
“I... Am busy,” she says to Tim and then to Jackson. “Tonight.”
“You’re not!” Jackson whines. “Come on, he’s super cute and he came to look for your number and everything. Don’t you want your romcom moment?”
“Not really, no, paperwork awaits,” she says and pushes past Jackson. “You better not have given my number to him!” she yells behind her at Jackson as she rushes her way to the locker rooms.
-.-
She waits, hiding around the station until well after what she deems to be a normal time for a date. She doesn’t respond to Jackson’s flurry of apology and pleading texts, and she doesn’t send panicked texts to Tim.
She also ignores the fact that Tim doesn’t send her any texts, not panicked ones, not dirty ones, not sarcastic ones.
She finishes all her files, and she doesn’t eat through six chocolate bars she’s dug up from her locker, and she’s probably sweated through her uniform at least three times in the course of the afternoon. By the time 11 PM rolls up, she’s quite certain that she’s managed to avoid everyone she wants to avoid, from Jackson to Tim to the Caleb guy and decides she’s probably safe to go home.
She’s tired and upset and none of this is fair, not to her, not to Tim and not to her friends. It’s silly – they’ve already cleared it with Grey, and IA have probably rolled their eyes but they did sign off on it, so everything is... Good.
Everything is great, actually, she thinks to herself as she shakes her head. She’s being needlessly stupid and, if her suspicions are correct, and they are, because she can read him like a worn-out book by now, she’s being needlessly hurtful to Tim.
In the dim, flickering light of the garage, she digs through her bag for her keys and fore her phone. Her car is parked in the furthest corner and she’s already swearing as she almost trips in the darkness of the garage. When she grabs her phone, she opens up her chat with Tim and types out a single message:
I’m going to tell J&J tomorrow.
She chews on her lip as she sees the ‘read’ checkmarks turn blue. She hurries to type another message.
I know I should have told them before
I’m sorry I didn’t
I love you to the moon and back ok
I know saying it over text isn’t that romantic
But I do
The checkmarks turn blue the minute she sends them and she sees the three dots jump up as he types.
“Lucy!” she hears her name being called when she gets to her car and she turns around, squinting at the shape in the darkness. It’s only when he gets closer that she recognizes him.
“Oh, hi – Caleb, was it?” she asks with a tight smile, the hair on her neck standing up. He looks perfectly normal – tall, blue eyes, nice, white smile – but there’s something about him that raises her heckles.
“Yeah, you remember,” he says as he stands in front of her.
“Look, I’m sorry. My colleague had the best intentions and all, but I’m not interested and – wait, how long have you been here?”
“Oh, Lucy,” he says, taking another step closer. “I don’t care about the date.”
Her hands are full – her bag, her phone, her keys – and by the time the swing comes, she hardly has the time to respond. The world goes black and just before she loses consciousness she hears her phone buzz.
-.-
Tim arrives at the station early in the morning and the first thing he does is spill coffee all over his uniform.
“God damn it,” he mutters as he dabs at the spillage with an ineffective plasticky paper towel.
“You’re in a cheerful mood this morning,” Angela notes from behind him and he turns only briefly to glare at her.
Cheerful, even in the heavily sarcastic way Angela means it, is definitely not what he’s feeling. He’s tired, and frustrated, and above all worried. Lucy hadn’t responded to his text, hadn’t come over, hadn’t so much as read the texts. There’s a billion reasons – her phone died, she went home, she fell asleep, the internet didn’t work – a million billion reasons for her lack of response and he can’t check any of them because that would be... Suspicious. Still.
He rubs a tired hand across his face. He understands the difficulties that come with their decision, with their entanglement. He went through it with Isabel – not to this level, because by the time they were rookies, they were already dating, and by the time they became officers she already had a ring on her finger. There was still teasing and remarks sent Isabel’s way, but she didn’t do what Lucy did. She and Tim were equals in every sense of the word, and Lucy and Tim are not. Not in rank, not in experience, certainly not in age.
The point is, he understands why she’s hesitant. He doesn’t like it – if you ask him, he would have announced it to the world months ago, no hesitation, no stammering. But she has more to lose, from her reputation to her job.
It’s always harder on the women in their line of work.
He really does wish that he can just corner Jackson and interrogate him about why the hell Lucy hasn’t responded. Or come over.
“Didn’t sleep well,” he says in response to Angela. She hums sympathetically as she pushes a new cup of coffee his way.
“Watch how you drink,” she says, not unkindly, and he smiles at her in thanks.
At roll call, Tim looks around as the other officers enter and Lucy doesn’t. Jackson and Nolan are talking in hushed tones and there’s an edge to Jackson’s shoulders that Tim doesn’t like a bit.
Sergeant Grey walks into the room with a dark shadow over his face, and Tim’s alarms are raised.
“Good morning everyone,” Grey says as he stands behind his podium and Tim notices there’s no papers, no nothing. The door opens again, and detective Armstrong enters and stands behind Grey and Tim’s arms loosen from where they’re crossed over his chest.
“There is no easy way to say this,” Grey starts and the whole room feels like it’s run out of air. “Officer Lucy Chen was attacked and kidnapped last night.”
Tim’s been in war. He has 12 years of active policework behind him and, when x-rayed, his body looks like a cracked up vase sloppily glued back together. He’s been shot at, beaten, ran over, pushed, shoved, seriously injured –
All this to say, it feels like he ran into a brick wall, head first.
Lucy Chen was attacked and kidnapped last night.
There’s pressure on his fist and he looks down to see Angela’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. He feels like he’s drowning. He has no idea what Grey is saying. Nolan is asking some questions, and he may as well be completely mute. The thudding of his own pulse in his ears drowns out everything.
“Tim,” Angela’s voice reaches him and he turns his head slowly to look at her. She nods to the side and he looks there as well to realize that Grey, Jackson and Nolan are waiting for him.
When did everyone else leave?
He stands up, Angela at his side, her fingers still wrapped around his wrist, and she all but pulls him to the front of the room.
“Bradford,” Grey says. “You and West were the last to speak to Chen yesterday. There’s footage of you discussing something in the hallway and Chen leaving.”
“I got her a date,” Jackson says and Tim’s fingers twitch. “This guy from the bar from the other night came looking for her at the station, wanted to see if she’d like to go out with him. I wanted it to be a surprise for her, she...”
“Why would you think setting her up on a date with some random man from the bar would be a good idea?” Grey asks, genuinely confused as he looks at Tim.
“Because he didn’t... He doesn’t know,” Tim says, finally finding his voice. All eyes are on him. “Lucy has concerns about how it would influence her reputation, she wanted to wait-”
“What are you talking about?” John asks, highly alarmed. “What’s endangering Lucy’s reputation?”
“Me,” Tim says through grit teeth, and the gasps would be funny if the situation weren’t this serious. “Lucy and I have been dating for the last eight months.”
“You what?” Jackson asks dumbly and Angela squeezes Tim’s wrist. “But you didn’t – you said the guy was cute!”
“Because I obviously couldn’t say ‘lay off, dickhead, she’s taken’,” Tim snaps while looking at Jackson. “Because she wanted to wait and you were being a good – you were being a good friend.”
“The guy you wanted to set her up with,” Grey interrupts, a hand between the two of them in order to break eye contact. “Who was he?”
“Caleb,” Jackson says, looking at Grey. “Caleb Wright. But I checked him, I checked his socials, he has a history on them, he-”
“Caleb Wright doesn’t seem to exist,” Armstrong says and Tim feels like he wants to throw up. “His social media is gone, completely.”
“We have a surveillance recording of the kidnapping,” Grey says, and Tim thinks he’s almost being gentle. “It’s fairly obvious that he knocked her out-”
“I want to see it,” Tim says and Grey studies him calmly. “I want to see it, I need to...”
“Alright,” Grey nods. “Follow me.”
It doesn’t escape Tim’s notice that Angela hasn’t let go of his wrist since Grey told them about Lucy. They follow into Grey's office and watch as he pulls up the surveillance.
The image is gritty and darker than Tim expects it, and the lights are flickering, but he can see her walking – he’d know her anywhere. He watches as she walks, digging through her bag, tripping slightly over her feet as she pulls out stuff. He watches her text and he feels the breath knocked out of him.
The image gets progressively worse, but he sees her typing as she walk, and he sees a shadow behind her. The image of a man appears as the lights almost completely disappear, but they’re on enough to see the rough image of the events – a swing at her head, her belongings falling everywhere. The man collecting them calmly, as if there’s all the time in the world, and placing them in her bag.
The bag on his shoulders, he picks Lucy’s slack body up from the floor.
He stares at the camera for a second before it goes black.
“He disabled the feed,” Grey says. “And the lights in the garage. He knew what he was doing.”
“Or he had help inside the station,” Tim states emotionlessly.
“Or that,” Grey nods. “Bradford, I assure you, she is top priority.”
Grey’s hand is heavy on Tim’s shoulder. The gazes of everyone else are also heavy and full of pity. His blood is loud in his ears again.
“Excuse me,” he says and shakes off Angela’s hand, blindly finding his way through the station to the locker rooms. His hands are shaking, his breath is heavy – people move out of his way, and by the time he bursts into the locker room, it is empty and he is gasping for air.
He stumbles towards the showers and hits the first one he can see, cold, freezing water cascading down his face. The cold sinks into his uniform, drowning out his skin. His hands are shivering, either from the cold or from the massive panic attack he’s currently experiencing. It all feels the same.
Lucy Chen was attacked and kidnapped last night.
He hears the door of the locker room open and steps echoing around him – heels, so he’s not exactly surprised when the water stops beating against his face and Angela stands there, with her hand on the shower knob, looking up at him.
They stand in silence, her looking up at him and him looking down at her, the water dripping from his wet uniform, from his hair down his face and into his eyes.
“She’s gone,” he says, and he doesn’t even recognize his own voice. Angela reaches up to hug him and he holds onto her probably more tightly than it is strictly necessary. She doesn’t seem to mind as she cradles the back of his head and shushes him.
“She’s gone, for now,” she says quietly, calmly. “Currently we are unaware of her whereabouts and soon enough we will be. And she will be fine and good and not a hair on her head will be harmed,” she continues, and he feels like a child being comforted by his mother as she pets his head and soothes him.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but after a while, he’s all cried out, all the emotions firmly in their place. He puts on a fresh uniform, and Angela waves him off when he tries to apologize for the wet splotches left on her clothes.
There’s only one thing that matters now. Lucy.
-.-
He ignores the phone with the live feed of Lucy Chen dying.
“He wouldn’t have buried her close to the house,” he says to Jackson. “Come on.”
The desert sun beats heavy on his back, the sand kicking up with every move he makes. It’s useless. It’s looking for a needle in a haystack, buried under the sand, in a barrel, losing air by the minute.
He’s desperate, and his fingers twitch, and his breathing is loud.
And then he sees it.
The faintest glint among the beige and bare vegetation. His legs burn as he runs towards it, and he falls to his knees to pick it up. It’s her ring, her goddamn ugly ring which he teases her about every time but she loves so much. It’s here, and it may be a trap, but Caleb’s not that smart, no, this is all Lucy, this is –
“I’ve got her!” he digs up the sand with bare hands and the barrel is there, and his chest is tight. “I’ve got her, right there!”
There’s a commotion as the other officers come to help him, and he opens the tightly shut lid with strength he didn’t know he had.
“Help me,” he requests as he grabs her by the underarms and pulls her up and out, and other hands are helping him.
When he pulls her out onto the ground, she’s slack and her eyes are closed. Her lips are blue and her skin is pale; he checks her pulse. There’s nothing.
“No,” he mutters to himself. “All right.”
He performs CPR. The counts are automatic, the breaths as well. He presses hard, vaguely remembering something about the importance of having her blood pump, having her brain receive oxygen, and he breathes into her, hoping that it’ll help, begging and praying to whichever deity is listening.
Please. Please.
The first strangled breath she takes is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.
The moment her eyes focus on him and she starts crying is the first time he’s been able to breathe since she disappeared. She reaches up and grips his shirt and he holds he close and kisses her head, running a hand down her hair.
“You’re okay,” he mutters as she trembles in his arms. “You’re okay.”
The ride to the hospital is a blur, but he doesn’t let go of her, not for moment, not like she’d let him at this point. She holds onto his wrists to the point of pain.
He’s rude to the paramedics and he’s rude to the doctors, but he lords over his status as officer and boyfriend of the victim over them. They need him to answer questions. Is she allergic to anything? What medications is she on? Is she pregnant?
He’s the only one who knows.
When they finally place her in a room and they’re left alone, he takes stock of her injuries. Her face is full of cuts and bruises. There’s steri-strips on her chin and her cheek is swollen. He knows the entire list of her injurie because he, in what is most definitely not a proud moment, bullied the attending into reading them out to him. There’s a broken rib, and there’s hematomas, and her wrists are cut up where the zip tie rubbed her skin raw, and there’s an ugly, half-infected tattoo announcing her day of death on her ribs.
He's almost afraid to touch her, and she looks too small in the hospital bed. He has to really – really – focus on the way he’s breathing because there’s no showers here, and there’s no Angela, and if he starts to panic, he’s not going to stop, and that’s not helpful now.
So he pulls up a chair and he holds Lucy’s hand carefully until the heavy pull of exhaustion drags him under.
-.-
When she opens her eyes, the first thing she registers is the bright annoying sunlight filtering through the windows of Shaw Memorial.
The second thing is the pain. She groans lightly as she slowly becomes aware of more – a dull pulsating in her ribs, the pull in her chin, the ache in her leg. There’s also a heaviness on her hand and –
Oh, that’s not an ache, that’s just Tim.
Tim’s head, actually, and Tim’s fingers wrapped around her wrist. His mouth is slightly open, and he’s drooling on her hand a little bit. She pulls out her hand carefully – she doesn’t want to disturb him, but her fingers are dead and the pins and needles are distracting. He doesn’t even stir and she smiles as she stretches her fingers.
She turns her wrist lightly and rubs at her eyes, wincing immediately – there must be a bruise next to her eye and she tenderly touches the skin. Yep, definitely swollen.
“Careful,” she hears Tim’s hoarse voice and when she looks at him, he’s sitting up, stretching his neck, and swearing softly when he leans his head to the left.
“You’re one to talk,” she says. “Old age catching up with you, Bradford?”
“Shut up,” he gives her a dirty look, which is immediately replaced by concern. “How are you feeling?”
She vaguely remembers that they spoke last night, but she was crashing from a mix of exhaustion, adrenaline and pain meds. She remembers he held her hand all the way to the hospital and she remembers him shushing her calmly as she cried because the way the paramedics disinfected her wounds hurt.
“I’m in pain,” she says and he looks around, looking ready to conjure up a doctor with the good drugs from thin air. “But I’m good. Above-ground,” she says with a weak smile and he doesn’t find that as funny as she does. “I really am, you know. Okay.”
“Good,” he breathes out. He reaches for her hand again, and she doesn’t even tell him that her circulation is still barely returning. He intertwines their fingers and scoots forward before he brings her hand to his mouth and kisses her knuckles, one by one.
“I should have told Jackson why you couldn’t go on a date,” he says, and his voice breaks and his eyes are glassy. “I should have-”
“No, I should have,” she shakes her head. “I should have, but no matter what I – or you, or Jackson – did or didn’t do. Rosalind Dyer had an agenda. I didn’t go on a date with him, and he cornered me in the garage,” she says and he closes her eyes and kisses her knuckles again.
“I should have been walking you home,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re my – you’re my responsibility.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says and smiles at him. “You found me, in the end. That’s all that matters.”
“I did,” he nods. He stands up and leans over her, his face not five inches away from hers. “Lucy,” he whispers her name reverently, and the heart monitor beeps a little wilder. They both laugh and she feels color in her cheeks. “I love you, Lucy,” he says and his words and his gaze are as steady as can be. Her eyes are suddenly very wet.
“I love you too,” she says. Her voice isn’t steady, but she’s fresh out of a traumatic kidnapping. She wagers he’ll forgive her. “I’m sorry I said it over text first.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to read my response,” he says and he kisses her gently. “In which I told you that I love you too,” a kiss to her cheek. “And that I wanted you to come home that night,” and the other one. “And screw Jackson and Nolan and whatever they may think-”
“Well that’s unnecessarily rude,” a voice says from behind them and Tim jumps as he turns around to see Jackson entering the room, Nolan right behind him. “And here we were, bringing you gifts,” he adds, raising a white-flower bouquet, as John shakes an obnoxiously pink bear. Lucy laughs and regrets it immediately when the pain in her ribs flares up. All three men are at alert immediately, and John and Jackson run into each other in their rush to find the first available doctor.
“I’m fine,” Lucy waves her hand, although she’s not exactly fine, and she wouldn’t mind an ibuprofen or five. “I’m fine, come back, come on, I have something to tell you.”
Tim takes a step back, but Lucy grabs his hand firmly and holds him in place.
“I’m dating Tim,” she says ceremonially and Jackson snickers as John smiles warmly.
“We kind of figured that out by now,” he says, smiling at Tim as well.
“I didn’t know, Lucy, or I wouldn’t have-” Jackson starts but Lucy’s already rolling her eyes.
“I’m too tired to repeat myself,” Lucy says to Tim and he nods before turning to Jackson.
“Whatever we did or didn’t do, we were dealing with a maniac,” Tim says dutifully. “It doesn’t matter. She’s here and she’s good.”
Jackson nods before setting the bouquet on the plastic tabletop before turning to her.
“So,” he claps his hands. “How long has this been going on?”