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There weren’t many constants in Tim’s life. He liked predictability - knowing how his day was going to start and end. He thought it ironic sometimes that he chose a career as an officer - a job that was anything but predictable - when he placed such great value on stability. But his job had always been important to him. Inserting stability in a situation that is out of control was something that he was good at. He had to be, growing up in his childhood home.
In a world full of unpredictability and confusion, Tim Bradford was a beacon of stability. He prided himself on this fact. As far as Tim was concerned, unpredictability was an enemy; something to be snuffed out.
When Tim started dating Isabel, he saw a path set out in front of him. He would propose when the time was right, they would get married, have a couple kids, a white picket fence, the works. It seemed perfect to him; a plan with no disruptions and a shared life with someone he loved. But he was very quickly reminded that things rarely go his way. He had let his guard down to the world for too long and the unpredictability of life took hold once again.
Isabel left in the middle of the night without so much as a note and for the first time in a while, Tim found that the familiar feeling of fear had settled deep within his gut. He was scared for Isabel of course – he spent every waking moment feeling scared for her. But he also felt fear for himself. For the first time since his childhood, his own life was out of his control again. Without control of his surroundings and a plan for where he was headed next, what did he have?
Tim needed something he was familiar with, a situation he knew how to handle. So when Lucy Chen was assigned as his new rookie, he viewed it as an opportunity to once again reign in the unpredictability of life. And maybe with any other rookie that would have been the case. He would train them as far as they could go in the program and Tim would have his life back. He thought he could be right about his newest plan.
He couldn’t be blamed for making this plan before he met his new rookie; he didn’t know what Lucy would be like, after all. Though if he had waited, he might just have known that he’d be wrong.
“It’s not going to change her, but it’ll sure as hell change you.”
When Isabel had come back into Tim’s life and asked for his help, he saw it as a miracle. He could have her back; return to the stability of his old life once he got her help. Everything surrounding Isabel in the past year had been muddled with confusion, but this was something that he could fix.
So when his rookie who had only known him for a few months tried to stop him, he didn’t want to consider her words. This was his only chance to set his and the woman he loved lives back on track. He couldn’t give that up - it simply wasn’t an option.
It would change him, Lucy had said. It was only when he turned away from her that the anger cleared from his mind and he let her words settle inside of him. He was her training officer. He was supposed to be responsible for her, not the other way around. His job was to make the chaos of their work into something that she could understand and navigate. Who was she to get involved in his personal business and insert herself into a situation that he had already handled?
Tim drove away from Isabel’s apartment, content with his decision. It was only when he made it halfway home, Lucy’s words still ringing in his mind, that he turned around.
Lucy was taken. Stolen from her life and used for the purpose of someone else’s sadistic pleasures. She was facing death, but she was still able to keep enough of a level head to drop her ring on the ground. A way to find her - buried in the desert. She saved herself.
Tim had pushed her to go out for drinks with Caleb. That was what brought her into that situation. Tim, who was supposed to be a figure of calm and stability in her life - someone who she could lean on during her rookie year, someone who would always have her back; he had almost gotten her killed and she had to save herself.
Sometimes Tim thought that Lucy might be an adrenaline junkie with the way she threw herself into their job. She was fearless and she never gave up on something that she set her mind to. It reminded him of himself in a way. He wanted to protect Lucy from what he saw of himself in her. With determination and confidence came disappointment and heartbreak. With fearlessness came danger. He thought if he just trained her well enough, if he could teach her the right way of doing things, she would be safe.
But things weren’t always as straightforward as Tim wished them to be. Caleb had got to her and it was Tim’s fault. When he was meant to be her pillar of stability to fall back on, he had betrayed her trust and led her to a situation where she had only herself to rely on.
Lucy saved herself with the ring that currently resided in Tim’s possession. He knew he should have given it back, but every time he felt it in his hand he couldn’t quite let go. He left it on his dresser while he was at work, but whenever he returned home his eyes landed on the opal sat atop the flat wooden surface. Lucy was strong and he felt her strength shining through her ring, but that didn’t mean that she had to be alone.
“If you need anything, you let me know.”
“You got a time machine?” Lucy had asked, her voice heavy.
“I wish I did.” Tim responded.
More than anything, he wished that he could stop it all from happening. That he could stop the tired, regretful, sad feeling he saw on her face now from ever appearing. If he could only go back and ask her to get a drink with him, instead of sending her off to deal with the stress of the day alone.
It may have been too late to fix what he had already done, but he could still make sure that it never happened again. Tim knew that Lucy was strong enough to stand on her own, but he didn’t want her to; he didn’t want Lucy to know what it felt like to be alone ever again. He had stood on his own for a large part of his life and he refused to let her feel that again.
He would stand with her.
Lucy was one of the most outstanding officers that Tim had ever trained, not that he would ever tell her. He credited some of that to himself, but he knew that once Lucy set her mind to something, she wouldn’t stop until she excelled at it. Any task, any job required of her, she could handle it. Tim knew this, but that knowledge was unable to prevent the twist in his gut when he found out that she would be going undercover.
It wasn’t a long-term operation. All she had to do was put on a show as a chemist so that an exchange could occur and they could make an arrest. It was simple in theory, but Tim knew far too well that undercover work rarely went as planned. He knew that she wouldn’t be alone and would never be in any real danger, but the image of a gun pointed at Lucy’s head as her cover was blown had already seared itself into Tim’s mind.
It shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did. He knew that there was an easy explanation – Tim’s past with Isabel’s undercover work made him wary of the profession. That was a part of what made him so uneasy, he was sure. There was something else, though. Another nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite place. He only let that feeling halt him for a moment before he confronted Lucy.
“They know the gladiator cage you’re walking into,” Tim began, more anger present in his voice than he preferred. “You don’t. That’s not volunteering, that’s being used.”
Tim heard Harper’s voice dispelling his words to Lucy as he stormed away and it was only then that guilt settled within him. He knew that Lucy was capable of making her own decisions – that she would never let herself be “used”- but he had to say something, anything to express his concerns to her.
For all that Tim hated unpredictability, Lucy was nothing but a whirlwind to him. She embraced change and new opportunities like the sun embraced the ocean at the end of the day and Tim didn’t know what to make of it. He wanted to be the calm in a storm for her, but it seemed to him like she could do that on her own. How she managed to be a beacon of stability while also embracing change and throwing herself into unpredictable situations amazed him.
He knew that she would be successful, but that didn’t stop him from making sure he would be the first person there if she needed rescuing. He felt his heart stop in his chest when she entered a van on her own with no backup, but she emerged safely just like he knew she would and the operation was a success.
Maybe for all that Tim prided himself on being a steady figure, it would do him some good to embrace change. It could only help him be better equipped to provide stability, after all. Unpredictability was a fact of life – he could learn to coexist with it. Maybe he would start by letting Lucy in. She was his greatest example of someone who knew how to remain steady while embodying change. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from her.
With the way that Lucy had worked her way into his life, Tim was confident that she wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. She wouldn’t leave.
Maybe they could walk their dog together.
It was Lucy’s first time going undercover for an extended period of time and Tim did not like it. He knew that she was capable of going undercover, but with only a couple days of focused training and preparation it felt like a trap that he wasn’t willing to send Lucy into. Unfortunately for Tim, it wasn’t his choice.
Harper kept him updated, which Tim appreciated. He was certain that she was annoyed with him for how frequently he had asked for updates, but he didn’t have the state of mind to care. He just needed to know that Lucy was okay.
When Harper told Tim that Lucy had missed her check-in, Tim didn’t remember having any sort of rational lines of thought. He remembered Harper telling him to either get his head in the game or get out of uniform. He remembered getting in a shop with her and stopping at every possible location Lucy could be cooking. He remembered trying to keep his voice steady as he talked strategy with Harper, all while his hands shook in front of him. He remembered equal amounts of hope and fear coursing through him when Lucy called Harper to give her a location.
When they did find her, Tim was not surprised to see that Lucy had handled the situation on her own. It had been a long time since Lucy excelling at her job came as a surprise to him. What was unexpected was when he saw her later at Angela’s wedding.
Tim was making small talk with another guest when he saw her approaching him. He always logically knew that Lucy was an attractive woman, but as she walked toward him with her emerald-coloured dress swaying with her movement and loose waves cascading down her shoulders, Tim granted himself a moment of weakness and looked at her - really looked at her. It had been a long day after all, he thought he could afford a moment of weakness.
His eyes swept over her form and then finally met hers as she stopped in front of him, and Tim was given an insistent reminder of how easy it was to find himself lost in her honey-coloured eyes. They joked about their run-in when she was undercover, how she – or Nova, but Tim didn’t want to think about the difference at that moment - had flirted with him. He then congratulated her on her success and that was the end of their conversation. It was normal for them – a little bit of joking mixed in with sincerity. It was expected. That was why as Tim watched Lucy walk away, he didn’t understand why he felt incomplete - why they felt incomplete.
“Hey Chen,” he called out before he could stop himself. “Save me a dance.”
Tim hadn’t planned to say that. He hadn’t planned to say anything really, but there was something about Lucy that brought out a side of him he didn’t quite recognize. The part of him that loved to take risks and chances on the unpredictable. A part of him that he had long ago buried. Tim saw the beginnings of a smile on Lucy’s lips before he quickly turned away and engaged in more small-talk; before he could say anything else without thinking first.
He wished that they could have had their dance that night. He wished that the cruelty and unpredictability of the world hadn’t taken Lucy’s best friend from her. Tim had taken a risk that night and the world had taken life from a good man - from Jackson.
Tim concluded that there had been enough unpredictability for a lifetime in that one day. He didn’t want to engage in it again. It had caused enough pain.
He believed that thought, so he couldn’t explain why there was still a part of him urging him to take more risks with Lucy. If unpredictability was inherently bad, then why did he feel a rush of excitement when he asked her to dance?
If Tim didn’t like surprises, then why did he still see Lucy in that dress every time he closed his eyes?
When Tim left home for the first time twenty years ago, he swore that he would never lay eyes on his father again. He was free for all intents and purposes, going no further than standing outside of his childhood home while waiting for his sister so that they could spend time together. So he could make sure she was okay.
Tim always got the worst of his father’s anger. He never quite managed to sort out his feelings about this fact. He was glad that Genny didn’t see the worst of their father; he would never wish that upon her. At the same time, he hated a small part of himself for wondering what he did to deserve his father’s wrath. Tim was successful in physically protecting Genny, but why was his father so intently focused on hurting him in the first place? Did Tim’s mere existence really infuriate him that much? Would things have been better for everyone if he had left sooner? Was it all his fault?
These were the kinds of questions that Tim tried not to think about, that he buried twenty years ago, only rarely allowing them to resurface in the dark hours of the night. As far as Tim was concerned, his father was a person of the past. That was until now.
Tim had never thought about his father’s death much. Only in the worst moments of his childhood did he wish death on the man. Once both he and Genny were out of that house, Tom Bradford might as well have been dead to him already. So when Genny had told him that their father was dying, it caught him off guard.
She wanted Tim to visit him, which was never going to happen. He knew that she had a different experience with the man and Tim would do almost anything for his sister, but she couldn’t expect him to do this. Renovating their childhood home, however, was something that he could handle. He wasn’t happy about it, but if this was how he could support his sister then he would do it.
If he were to psychoanalyze himself (which Tim would never admit to doing), Tim might say that his hatred for unpredictability began at his childhood home. He wanted to say that he had conquered this, that although what he had experienced in that house had stayed with him, he knew that it was just a house. But when he walked through the entranceway for the first time in twenty years, all he could do was stare. He hated himself for that. Hated that it could still get him, that his old man still had power over him. If he still had power over him, what other parts of Tim had been influenced by him? Was he even really free at all to be his own person?
Tim found the gun in the wall and he worked the case. Although it was unexpected, Tim couldn’t say that he was surprised by the notion of his father being responsible for one of the few memorable crimes from his childhood. He had come to expect his father's guilt from the moment he uncovered the gun.
He saw his father again. He found the courage to shout at him – all of the pent-up thoughts and feelings that his father had burdened him with coming to the surface in that moment. Tim feared that his father still had power over him - that he had somehow influenced the person he was now. Although yelling the words that he is who he is in spite of his father was cathartic, it did little to make him believe it. That was of course until he spoke to Lucy.
Whether intentionally or not, Lucy had played into this fear of his. She had said that the way Tim’s father treated him had reminded her of his training methods, or “Tim Tests” as she fondly - at least he thought fondly until recently - referred to them. Tim had told his father that he didn’t make him who he was, so then why was facing Lucy still so difficult? The difference, Tim realized, was that he cared what Lucy thought of him. Tim could deny his father’s thoughts - he always had - but Lucy? Lucy, who always managed to bring out the good in him? Lucy, who was positivity personified? If she thought that Tim was similar to his father, then it must be true.
It must be true, but he told her otherwise. Even though it felt like a lie, he thought it needed to be said. He saw a realization settle over her features as Tim’s words stayed in the air between them. He didn’t particularly enjoy speaking with raw honesty, but just as much as he dreaded it, he craved to hear her response. If Lucy thought that Tim shared any similarities with his father, then at least he would know the truthful answer to a question that had weighed over him his entire life. His fate was in her hands but he would gladly die by her sword if it meant he would be set free.
“You’re nothing like him,” she responded with a sincerity that only she could offer and Tim felt a twenty year old weight lift from his chest. He didn’t know how to respond but as his eyes began to fill with tears he turned away from her, trying to avoid letting her see how her words had affected him. He turned, but Lucy told him to come to her, and how could he ever refuse her? She held him in her arms and it was only then that he could let go. He held on to her tightly, but he let go of the past. Let go of his fears, let go of his questions, let go of his father. It was only in that moment that Tim was finally truly and purely himself.
It was only in Lucy’s arms that he was set free.
All day Lucy had been pestering Tim about his relationship with Ashley. He wasn’t going to propose to Ashley. He wasn’t. He told Lucy he wasn’t. So he couldn’t comprehend why she wouldn’t drop the subject.
It all came to a head when she finally asked him during a quiet moment in the shop if he could see himself marrying Ashley. She was hesitant when she asked him and when Tim turned to look at her, there was an apprehensive expression written across her face. Almost like she didn’t want to hear the answer but she couldn’t stop herself from asking anyway.
Lucy was confusing to him. For all that Tim thought he had gotten to know her over the years, for how well he knew her, she still managed to confuse him. He had spent more time lately than he would be willing to admit thinking about her. There was no specific reason or purpose when Tim found himself thinking about her, he found it just sort of…happened. He would leave on a show he wouldn’t normally watch because he knew Lucy liked it, he would buy Lucy’s favourite snack just to see what she liked so much about it. There were so many little things that were inherently Lucy that had worked their way into Tim’s everyday life. That was why it baffled Tim that she could still confuse him just with a question and an apprehensive look.
He liked Ashley, was the thing. She was funny, kind, and he had fun with her. Tim thought about the plan he had once laid out for his life. Marriage, kids, a white picket fence. He knew he still wanted that, but something had changed along the way. Tim pictured the future moments that once seemed so perfect to him with Ashley, but he couldn’t make it feel right. Logically he knew that was what he wanted, so why did it feel wrong?
In a word, Tim’s relationship with Ashley was safe. It was everything he had once wanted. Maybe once Tim could have answered Lucy’s question without hesitation, but he had changed. Long gone was the version of Tim who wanted safe and easy. He wanted someone who could challenge him, someone who could bring out the best parts of himself, and someone who he could do the same for. He had fun with Ashley, but that wasn’t her.
Tim didn’t know if he would ever find that person, someone who he craved and yet seemed so far out of reach. Maybe it was just an idealized fantasy that had come to him sometime after his relationship with Isabel fell apart. He wasn’t sure if what he found himself craving was even attainable.
Tim had once been content with safe. He had loved it once, so he could find that part of himself again. He could see himself marrying Ashley, it just didn’t feel right yet. So he responded affirmatively to Lucy’s question.
He didn’t believe his words, but he could only hope that one day he would. If what he craved didn’t exist, what other choice did he have but to accept his reality?
He would make it feel right.
Lucy tasted like honey.
At least, that was the single surviving thought coursing through Tim’s mind after she pulled his face down to hers and pressed their lips together.
They were in her apartment preparing to go undercover together and Tim, for all of his stoicism and straightforwardness, couldn’t get himself to kiss her properly. They had to, he reasoned, so that they could present themselves as a convincing couple while undercover. It only made sense. But when he presented the issue to Lucy and she lightheartedly strung him along as he fumbled over his words, he thought that she might have been the more stoic of them after all.
If Lucy could act normally, if a bit flustered, about a practice kiss between them, then so could he.
So he kissed her.
Tim thought it was a good kiss. Really, he did. They had never kissed before and for all of the time lately that Tim had found himself trying not to think about Lucy, kissing her any further than he did felt like a bad idea. Lucy however, disagreed.
She made fun of his attempt at a kiss. Her mockery was familiar to him, something he could bite back to, so he did. Despite the fact that they had just technically shared their first kiss, nothing had changed and Tim felt secure in that. That sense of security was why it came as a complete surprise to him when she brought his lips down to hers a second time. And she tasted like honey.
Tim was right - kissing her was a bad idea. It was a bad idea because now that they were kissing, really kissing, he didn’t ever want to stop. The way her lips felt against his - soft and pliant and all too content to cause a short circuit in his mind - made him wonder, much later when he was able to gather his thoughts, when exactly Lucy had gained the ability to make him feel like that. Everything about her went against everything Tim thought he believed in. He believed in consistency and predictability. She believed in going with the flow and trying new things. Any other person Tim would have brushed off without question. So when did she get past his defenses? And why was he kissing her again?
He proposed that they should practice kissing so that they could be prepared for anything when they went undercover. Lucy, in what Tim was beginning to realize was a consistent pattern with her, derailed any semblance of stability that Tim thought he would receive in that act. Tim admired her strength and her strong moral compass. He admired her compassion and her innate sense of good. It was only now, after they were interrupted by Tamara and he stood outside their door, that he realized he also admired her unpredictability. He had grown addicted to it. Something that Tim once avoided at all costs had become something he craved from Lucy. Only from Lucy.
That thought stayed with Tim throughout the operation, refusing to grant him any peace from the revelation. When she had kissed him on the plane, when he saw parts of her body that he had only dreamed of. It was becoming clear to Tim that it wasn’t just the unpredictability that he craved. He craved Lucy. Just Lucy. And that was a problem.
Tim couldn’t want Lucy. That wasn’t something he could even consider. They were both dating other people and he was her superior officer. Wanting Lucy should have been so far off of the table that it didn’t even cross his mind, but his mind was treacherous and he considered it. By the time they made it back to Lucy’s apartment and she had invited him inside, there didn’t seem to be any other choice.
He said that he shouldn’t and he was right. It was a bad idea. He knew it was a bad idea, but every part of his body and mind were calling out for her, begging him to take the few steps inside her apartment and over the rapidly vanishing line that they had drawn in their relationship. Just colleagues, just friends, just them. He supposed that it had always been just them, after all. So he stepped inside. He crossed the line.
For all that Tim thought his relationship with Lucy was unexpected, at that moment he thought that they were always going to end up there in the end. As he stood across from her in the entranceway of her apartment, he thought that maybe meeting Lucy Chen was the one good thing that he never saw coming. That he couldn’t have predicted.
Then they saw Chris - near death and dropped on Lucy’s couch as a punishment from Rosalind, and everything came crashing down around them.
Lucy may have been the one good and unexpected event in Tim’s life, but this was a stark reminder that he shouldn’t get used to that. The world was cruel and unrelenting and they were all still at its mercy. Just when Lucy – someone bright and good – was finally within his grasp, she was torn away. Tim figured he had grown too comfortable with her presence lately. He should have known that she would be gone from his life eventually.
He didn’t think he would lose her so soon, though.
It shouldn’t have gone wrong.
Tim knew in his gut that it was a bad idea. Everything surrounding the operation had been thoroughly planned out to the finest details, so logically there was nothing he should have had to question. However there was an itch in the back of his mind that he couldn’t rid himself of. He should have trusted it.
At the time, Tim thought that he was only unsettled because Lucy was going to be on her own. It wasn’t a long-term operation; they had an informant provide them with the time and location of a meeting between two particularly troublesome gangs. Lucy had an established cover that allowed her to gain access, but the location didn’t allow for any immediate backup. There was no room for mistakes.
It wasn’t that Tim didn’t trust Lucy, but he didn’t trust the people she would be dealing with. He expressed his concerns to her numerous times before the operation kicked off to the extent that he knew she was growing frustrated with him, but he needed her to hear him. It probably only sounded like nonsensical rambling to her - Tim trying to explain that he simply ‘had a bad feeling’ - but she assured him that everything was going to be okay and that she was just going to be observing the meeting. So he trusted her. Lucy said that she was going to be back in no time and he believed her. But it wasn’t trusting Lucy that was his mistake.
Tim did his due diligence looking into the gangs and all of their members. He read over each file twice and made certain that the presence of Lucy’s cover wouldn’t be questioned. Every detail was perfected and he supposed that if Lucy was walking into what he thought, nothing would have gone wrong. He trusted Lucy, but he shouldn’t have trusted the informant.
Lucy had done some serious damage to the gang’s operations the last time she had gone undercover and they were heavy hitters. He should have known that they wouldn’t let it slide, that they would find out who infiltrated their operation. He should have known they would find Lucy.
Tim wasn’t part of the rescue squad. He had tried, but Harper was already involved with the op and Tim had to fill in for Grey as acting watch commander that day, so he didn’t have a choice. Harper promised to keep him updated. That would have to be enough.
As Tim sat in Grey’s office, he stared at the paperwork in front of him. It could have been any other mundane day. He glanced at the clock. It read 10:27pm. He could have gone home, but he wasn’t going to leave until he knew the results of the operation. He looked at the paperwork again. It wasn’t going to get finished for a while.
Harper walked into Grey’s office at 11:17pm. Tim heard her footsteps before he saw her and he jumped to his feet with renewed energy as she walked into the office. Then he saw the look on her face.
He had seen that look before, when he was just a teenager. He had gone to get some fresh air away from the hospital room that his mother resided in. It was all very sudden. She was healthy, and then she wasn’t. He had just got back to the door of his mother’s room when Genny walked out and he saw that look on her face. The one that told him their mom was gone.
Tim fell back in Grey’s chair as Harper stared at him, her eyes distinctly watery. He wasn’t sure how long silence filled the room then as he stared back at her. He wasn’t sure time was passing at all until she spoke.
“I’m so sorry, Tim,” Nyla began, taking a breath before she continued. “The informant was working for the gang that Lucy had infiltrated last month. It was a setup.”
Tim had never been known for abundantly speaking on any particular topic. That was what he had Lucy for. She was always the more talkative of them and he loved that part of her, no matter how much he pretended to be annoyed by it. Tim wasn’t talkative because he chose not to speak, but at this moment all of the questions and thoughts that he had refused to form. Any words at all had refused to form. Every word was overtaken by the all-consuming thought that Lucy was gone.
Harper had continued to explain the details of Lucy’s death. That it was quick, that they hadn’t been able to get to her in time. The people who did it had been arrested, but it had been too late. Beyond that Tim couldn’t make sense of her words. He couldn’t make sense of anything in a world where Lucy Chen wasn’t alive. That thought hit him harder.
They had seemed to have returned to something that was more them after Lucy had returned from undercover school. It wasn’t quite what they were before their undercover operation, but it wasn’t bad either. It was new. There was something between them that hadn’t been there before. Something that felt like potential. Neither of them had acted on it yet, but Ashley had broken up with him and Lucy broke up with Chris shortly after. They were so close.
If Tim had known how much time together they had left, he would have never wasted so much of it. If he could go back and do it all again, he would have taken her out to dinner the minute after she broke up with Chris. But he didn’t have a time machine.
Nyla had sat silently across from Tim once she realized that he wasn’t hearing her and he wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Angela showed up. He saw the tears in her eyes as she hugged him and it wasn’t until he felt a tear drop on his arm as he hugged her that he realized he was crying too. They stood like that for a few moments taking comfort in each other’s arms, but Tim found that the coldness he felt wasn’t so easily sated.
Angela asked him if he wanted to stay with her that night, but he found that he didn’t have the strength to respond. He didn’t think he could speak if he wanted to. Angela shared a concerned look with Nyla at his inability to respond and Tim noticed - never quite able to turn his cop eyes off - but he didn’t say anything. He just let Angela lead him to the locker room to help him get changed out of uniform, and then to her car as she drove them to his house.
As they stood in the entranceway, Tim turned to Angela like he didn’t quite know what he was supposed to do next.
“I figured you’d be more comfortable here,” Angela said in response to the confusion written on Tim’s face. “I’ll stay here with you tonight.”
It was then that Kojo trotted up to Tim, waiting for his owner to greet him. Tim looked down at the dog that had once belonged to Lucy and it was only then that everything came crashing down around him. He slumped to the ground and reached out a shaking hand to pet Kojo and once his hand made contact with the dog, a sob escaped his lips. Kojo would never understand why Lucy stopped visiting him. He would have to tell Tamara that Lucy was gone. He would have to tell Lucy’s parents that they would never see their daughter again. He would have to accept that he would never hear her laugh again.
He was only vaguely aware of Angela dropping to the ground beside him and wrapping her arms around him in an attempt to stop his shaking, in an attempt to comfort him. But the one person that Tim wanted comfort from was exactly the person he couldn’t get it from. Who he would never get it from ever again.
He could have loved her, Tim thought. She was everything he had never expected and everything he had always craved, and he could have loved her. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that he was the only one hurting. He was one in dozens of lives that Lucy’s brightness had touched - just one person who was fortunate enough to have Lucy take him in, to bring out the best in him. She never made him feel like there was something wrong with him, she just spent the time it took to break down his walls. She uncovered a part of him he thought that he had lost. The part of him that knew how to love.
Tears began relentlessly pouring down Tim’s face then as he realized that he never told Lucy what she had done for him. He never told her that she had saved him. He knew that there was something broken in him when they had first met, and she had put him back together. She had taken the pieces and mended them, then put them back where they belonged, and in that he was transformed. Still Tim, everything that made him who he was – good and bad – was still present, but touched by Lucy's warmth. And she would never know.
He tried to articulate this to Angela so that someone would know, but the words never came. Another strangled sob escaped him, and then nothing. There were no words to express the immeasurable loss that he felt – the feeling that the glue that was holding him together was suddenly gone. Even if he did have the words, he thought that Lucy would be the only one who could interpret them the way he wanted to be heard. So if she wasn’t there, what was the point in speaking at all?
Tim managed to calm down eventually. The tears and shaking had stopped, but the loss was no less present. Angela told him to get some rest, so he mindlessly followed her instructions and went to lay in bed. As he lay staring at his ceiling, Angela asleep on his couch, it felt all too reminiscent of when Jackson had died. He wasn’t supposed to be back here. It wasn’t supposed to be her.
She had died alone, Tim realized. He swore to himself that he would never let her be alone like that again - that he would stand with her, but he had let her die alone. He imagined that she was scared. Lucy was one of the bravest people he knew, but in that moment she couldn’t have been anything other than scared. She had probably maintained her cover to the bitter end to stall, or to make it easier to find someone to take her place once she was gone. Did she have to accept that she was going to die, or did she still hope that someone would find her? That he would find her? He knew that he had let her down, but was that one of her last thoughts of him? She probably hated him.
Tim closed his eyes and felt a tear pass over his cheek. He pictured himself going to work and Lucy being there to meet him. She would smile and ask him how his morning had been and he would grumble something in response before handing her a coffee mixed with a ridiculous amount of sugar and cream, just how she liked it. She would work her shift, helping as many people as she could in the kindest ways she knew how. She had a future in the department - Tim thought she had the potential to become captain – to bring her unique gift to inspire change in everyone she met.
The image in Tim’s mind changed then and he saw her alone in a room with gang members. He saw them interrogating her and the hardened look on her face faltered into fear once near the end, in a way imperceptible to anyone other than Tim. He saw her scanning the room, looking for a way out, never giving up. He heard the boom of a gunshot and he startled awake, the image of Lucy bleeding out on a cold concrete floor as her life left her eyes lingering in his mind.
Tim glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It was 2:00am.
He didn’t get much sleep after that.
It took Tim three days after Lucy’s death to realize that he loved her.
More specifically, it took him two days to realize that he missed her, three days to realize that he loved her, and five days to accept that he did. He thought it would have taken him longer to come to terms with it, but he also realized that he had been learning how to love Lucy for as long as he had known her. Every moment they experienced together - every shared smile and glances across the room, every case, dance, embrace, and kiss – had been leading him to this moment. He only wished that she was there to share this moment with him.
Angela checked in with him periodically. She told him that Grey had given him the all clear to take as much time away from work as he needed. He didn’t know how much time that would be, was the thing. After the first day, simple communication was an issue for Tim. Once he found his voice, he had to remember when to eat, and when to sleep. After that, he had to remember how to make it through a day without crying. And it had only been a week.
If Tim eventually went back to work, it would feel like moving on. It was different, when Isabel left. He could throw himself into his work as a distraction; he could use his resources to find her again. He still had some control, no matter how little it was. It still hurt, but at least he could do something about it.
Lucy however, was just gone. He would never see her again; there was no hope that she was still out there, waiting for him to find her. He was too late for that. He had no control. In that sense, going to work almost felt pointless. Tim always thought that he had been good at his job, but it was Lucy who showed him how to do good with it. If she wasn’t there anymore and there was nothing he could do to find her, what was the point?
He knew if Lucy was there, she would reprimand him for this way of thinking. Tim had once told her that he wasn’t going to train a quitter and she would throw those words right back at him. But she wasn’t there to do that. Wasn’t it also true that ‘Tim Bradford finishes what he starts?’ He had swore to himself that he would never let her be alone again and he had already failed to do that once. Should he fail her again?
Tim thought about the gun safe in his bedroom. It caught his eye, three days after she had died. The day he realized that he loved her. It would be quick and painless. It would put an end to everything he was feeling. He would be with Lucy again. It was something he could control. He didn’t open the safe that day, but it caught his eye as he was going to sleep every night since.
Seven days after Lucy died, Tim found some tequila in his liquor cabinet. He was looking for his whiskey, but he must have drank it all already. He didn’t remember. He was having trouble remembering most things those days. Lucy had gifted him the bottle years ago, after he had received the Light of the City accommodation. She said that it was her favourite kind and it would be an injustice to her if he never tried it. Tim had just laughed and later put the bottle in the cabinet. He never opened it, but he never got rid of it either.
He opened it now and took a long swig directly from the bottle. It tasted smooth and sweet, and it tasted like Lucy. Tim let out a mirthless chuckle as he was reminded that he knew what she tasted like. They had kissed only three times and it wasn’t enough. He wanted to explore her; Tim knew Lucy better than he knew anyone else, but there were still parts of her that he hadn’t uncovered. He had kissed her, but it was supposed to be the beginning of something, not the end. Tim took another drink from the bottle. It wasn’t what he would normally look for in a drink, but it would have been rude if he didn’t try it before he saw her again.
He thought about what he would be leaving behind; Genny, his nieces and nephews, Angela. A pang of guilt briefly coursed through him, but he knew that they all had other people. They cared for him, but they didn’t need him. Not like he needed Lucy.
It had only been seven days, but his life had spun completely out of control without her. For most of his life, Tim had hated unpredictability. He hated unstable environments and he hated feeling a loss of control. It was Lucy who transformed him. She showed him that unpredictability didn’t have to be a bad thing. That he could embrace it and take the good with the bad. He hadn’t expected to lose Lucy. When the bad moments of unpredictability felt like this, how could he ever continue to see the good in it? How could he ever see the good in anything anymore without her?
Tim walked into his bedroom and looked at his gun safe again. This was something he could control. Losing Lucy had felt like losing everything good in himself. He figured that if there was nothing good left in him, then taking his life wouldn’t be much of a loss. Reuniting himself with the better part of him was the only path he saw forward. This was how he could fix everything that had gone wrong.
It was as Tim was entering the combination to his safe that he heard a knock at his door. He thought it was Angela checking in with him again. He thought that he could discreetly take the opportunity to say goodbye to her. So he went to open the door.
Then the unexpected happened.
The woman standing on his doorstep was shifting on her feet hesitantly, an apprehensive expression on her face. Her brown hair was cascading down her shoulders and she was fidgeting with the large opal ring on her right hand. She was looking down at her hands, but when she brought her gaze up to meet his, he couldn’t help the gasp that escaped him. Tim thought that he would never be able to look into her honey-coloured eyes again, after all.
“Hi, Tim,” she began cautiously.
Tim didn’t respond. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out. They stood there – Tim on one side of the door, her on the other - for what felt like seconds and hours all at once and once she realized that Tim wasn’t going to respond, she spoke again.
“Can I come in?”
He moved to open the door wider to allow her to step inside. She toed off her boots and set her purse and keys on the table in the entranceway. Then she walked into his living room with Tim following closely behind her, as if he let her walk too far away from him, she would disappear. She turned to look at him again and it felt all too reminiscent of when they last stood together in her apartment. He met her eyes, then found the only word that he knew how to utter.
“Lucy.”
Lucy nervously smiled back at him, trying to gauge how he was reacting to her presence. Was he happy to see her? Relieved? Upset? Angry? Tim hardly knew himself. A beat of silence passed between them, then Lucy spoke again.
“I know I have a lot to explain,” she began. “The people running the op knew that the informant was lying, so they came up with a plan to deal with it. I begged them to let me bring you in, but they claimed they had to maintain complete secrecy.”
As Lucy spoke, her gaze flitted around the room as if she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. Tim tried to take in everything that she was saying to him, but all he could think about was that she was here and alive and he was actually listening to her speak again.
“I thought I lost you,” Tim stated, his voice thick with emotion.
“I know,” Lucy responded, finally meeting his eyes.
She stepped forward and raised her hand to his face, pausing only for a second before she let it rest on his cheek. She wiped away a stray tear with her thumb that Tim hadn’t realized had fallen and he let his hand rest on her waist. Tim could have believed that he was dreaming, until that moment. But he felt the warmth of her hand on his face and the warmth of her body under his palm. So he had no choice but to accept that she was really there. That she was alive.
“I’m so sorry,” Lucy continued, tears trailing down her own face in response to Tim’s emotion.
Tim pulled her into his arms completely then, his head dropping to her shoulder. They both knew that this wasn’t easy for either of them and that they would have to talk about it, but just in that moment, this was enough. Being able to hold each other was enough. Tim now knew what it felt like to think that he was never going to see Lucy again, let alone hold her. So for now, embracing her was enough.
He wasn’t sure how long they stood there frozen in time, but when they finally separated – Lucy only taking a small step out of his arms – there were no more tears. This wasn’t a sad occasion at all, Tim reasoned, so why should he cry? He placed his hand on her cheek, leaning in and pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. There was no heat to it – they had time for that later – it was just soft and gentle and filled with something that could only be described as love.
When he pulled back, he saw a grin on Lucy’s face that probably matched the one on his own. It was their first real kiss Tim realized, and his joy only grew as he realized that it would be the first of many. Tim’s hands rested on her waist again and he thought that he might never want to let her go.
“You taste like tequila,” Lucy stated, a puzzled look appearing on her face.
“I tried that tequila you gave me,” Tim responded with a chuckle, his voice still slightly hoarse from crying.
“I gave that to you years ago!” Lucy exclaimed, a pout forming on her face in offense.
“I did tell you that I don’t like tequila.”
“Always so stuck in your ways, Tim,” Lucy said, rolling her eyes. “What did you think of that one? It's my favourite so answer carefully.”
As Tim looked down at Lucy, exasperated fondness written on her face, something settled back into place in his heart. There was a lot he wanted to tell her. He wanted to thank her, for saving him from some dark places, and for seeing the good in him. He wanted to tell her that he’s endlessly amazed that she had transformed the part of his life that he hated the most into something beautiful. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t know how to survive without her, when she was gone. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. But all of that could wait. They had time. For now, Tim just let himself be consumed by her goodness. He let himself be happy.
“I think I could grow to love it.” Tim responded, and he knew that he could now. He once feared change and unpredictability, but that was before Lucy. She gave him the strength to change, to be the best version of himself. The one thing Tim didn’t predict the day he had first met Lucy was that he would only know how to truly be himself with her by his side, and he was glad that he didn’t expect that.
She was a surprise to him, and he loved it.