Chapter Text
“Wanna dance?”
Despite the screaming speakers and yelling crowd, Lucy could hear exactly what the rather large, intentionally homeless looking hipster man in front of her had snarled at her.
“I am not interested, Thanks,” Lucy Chen said slowly and clearly, so nothing could be misinterpreted. He ignored her completely, stepping up until his body literally pushed against her, his hands reaching around her butt to hold her close.
Her first thought was to go for his eyes, but she reconsidered – she was meant to be acting like a spoiled heiress at a music festival. Pulling police trained defensive moves would absolutely blow her cover. Her mind filtered through her LAPD training, searching for the most effective take down of this gross man without ruining everything. But she didn’t get a chance to put any move into action.
His hand was yanked away from her arse, and a man’s body was suddenly separating the two of them.
“Leave,” the intruder’s voice was very familiar over the beating music, “Before I call the police over and get you arrested.” The man sulked away into the crowd around them, and Tim Bradford turned around to glare at Lucy.
“I didn’t need you to save me, I had it under control,” Lucy called out so he could hear her, despite them not standing that far apart.
“It is literally my job,” he stepped closer so he didn’t need to speak so loudly, “I am your… body guard.” Bodyguard sounded almost soft out of his lips. Which Lucy was accidently staring at, before she shook her head.
“A title only,” Lucy reminded him, “Plus looking after me isn’t the real job, is it?”
It might have been his cover, but his real objective was to protect the young party goers around them. Actually, it was both of their missions.
There had been quite a few threats to a few of LAs wealthy and famous families, with a repeated pattern regarding a music festival at Santa Monica. Unfortunately, despite the warnings, a lot of the family’s teenage children were refusing to miss out in the festival. Whilst private security was heavily involved, the police commissioner requested a team of police officers to attend as well, as bonus security. Most stations had sent some of their own – some visibly amongst the crowd on patrol, and some of them undercover like they were.
From their station, Lucy’s name had been on the top of the list for her undercover work and training. Sargent Grey, with Sargent Bradford by his side, was excited to give her this mission. Nolan and Angela were quick to congratulate her on an amazing opportunity. But in her gut, something told her that she didn’t feel right about it - Perhaps she should sit this one out.
She was about to suggest that maybe someone else should go, but nobody was really listening. They had all assumed she would take it.
Why wouldn’t she! She was the up and coming under cover after all.
“I’m confident Lucy will be able to play the part of a spoilt rich girl,” Tim Bradford was saying with the slightest smile in her direction, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him. “However she shouldn’t be alone. I will be the second from our station to go, as Lucy’s body-guard,” Tim declared, with no room for negotiation.
Apart from Angela raising a single eyebrow at him, nobody else even blinks at the suggestion. In fact Sargent Grey seems to think the bonus back up is an excellent plan.
Lucy could feel her neck warm a little, the thought of going undercover with Tim reminding her of their last adventure together.
For some reason, Lucy no longer had the urge to turn down the offer, either.
Tim Bradford was standing just behind her. They listened to the band on stage, and the screaming festival around them without any words. Lucy was very much aware that Tim hated this kind of music. To be honest she wasn’t exactly feeling it either. But she didn’t seem to mind as much when people would push against her and she would accidently lean into him for a moment. His warmth held a lot of her attention.
Definitely more than it should.
She took a swig of water with lime, to look like vodka, and swayed to the music.
A blond haired girl in barely clothes, charged into Lucy.
“Steph!” The new girl squealed in delight. Lucy laughed at her false name, as she was squashed a little in the hug.
“Tiffany! How great is this band!” but Tiffany wasn’t even listening. She was eyeing Bradford closely as she loudly rattled on about how annoying her father was.
Tiffany was one of the girls at the hotel they were staying at. She did not know that Lucy was a police officer. She definitely did not know that Tim was her superior officer.
“He just thinks he is so amazing, cause he owns the internet,”
“What?” Lucy yelled back
“My dad, he owns the internet! That is his job!” Tiffany looked so confident at that. Lucy turned to look disbelieving at Tim.
“Actually her father is under investigation for drug manufacturing,” his breathe tickled her ear a little as he whispered to her. A much more believable job. Lucy couldn’t believe how clueless Tiffany was.
“Oh my god!” Tiffany yelled in Lucy other ear, “Your body guard is hot! You are sooo lucky! I know my dad only gets the best of the best, but my body guard is such a creep sometimes!” Tiffany grabbed Lucy’s hand to drag her off to meet friends. Lucy noticed Tim’s absence as she was marched away, and could see him looking frustrated at the drunken teenagers around them as he fought to be by her side.
Tim spend most of the time watching from the sideline, occasionally doing loops around the crowd but never gone for long. Every time she glanced at him, his eyes were always on her. And Lucy couldn’t ignore the flutter her heart would make.
The girls around her were very drunk. Lucy drank her water to keep up the act. It was hydrating, but definitely the lack of alcohol in it meant all it was making her need to do was pee.
Until suddenly, it did start to effect her.
When she went to look at where Tim had been standing a moment ago, and the whole world spun. The crowd seemed to fade out of her mind, and she stumbled a bit away from the girls. She felt her mind turn to fog. All she could register in her mind was 2 thoughts.
1. Somehow, she had been drugged.
2. She could not see Tim.
She pushed against people trying to get out of the crowd, and they pushed back.
The darkness started to fight the fog in her mind, and the feel for being trapped almost overwhelmed her.
And then Tim’s arms were around her.
His eyes were wide, he had seen her struggling to stand and had scrambled to be at her side.
“You are okay, I’ve got you,” he whispered, as he threw one of her arms around his shoulders. His other hand held firmly on her waist. He shoved his way through people, basically dragging Lucy with him, her legs barely able to move.
He had her away from the crowd within only a moment of minutes.
“I don’t… understand,” Lucy mumbled. Her eyes were closed now, but she felt like she could see red. How dare this happen! “I’ve been drinking that nasty water…. Urgh… all night,”
“I know,” Tim whispered. Now with less people, he reached down and lifted her completely into his arms. Her legs had felt like they where sludge, and it was a relief to be off them. She instinctually sighed against his chest.
“I was carefull,” Lucy complained,
“I know. I was watching you.” Tim’s voice confessed, drifting over to her through her darkness.
“Hmmm. Yes… The way you watch me is very… Distracting,” Lucy was pleased she found the word she was looking for. “You are why I got distracted! That must be... how they got me… Urgh.” Lucy’s head was killing her. Everything was screaming at her to go to sleep.
“You should have had your head in the game. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
Classic Bradford words.
She expected nothing less than to hear that.
But she was surprise to hear the lack of anger, in those words.
The fading music, the rhythm of his walk, and his heart beating as she rested her head against his chest, all made Lucy feel safer than she had in a long time. That, combined with the powerful drugs she had in her system, she was passed out before Tim had even gotten her into the building.
The bedside clock’s red numbers showed 2.17am when Lucy sat bolt upright in bed.
In the darkness, her sharp movements startled Tim who must have fallen asleep in the chair by the window.
“You’re okay! You're safe!” Tim reached out to her, but she waved him away. She could barely get the words out without throwing up,
“Bucket!” she gasped. Tim whipped a bowl from next to the bed into her hands immediately. She noticed pain killers and some water also next to her bed, already there waiting for her.
Lucy dry reached a little, but nothing came out.
Her hands were in her head and she sunk over the bowl. Tim dragged his chair a little so he was beside her, and rubbed her back in gentle circles. His fingers felt like fire through her clothes.
“I need you to distract me,” her voice was weak.
“That’s usually your thing Lucy. You are the one who can’t stop talking,” he chuckled.
“Your turn!” Lucy coughed a little, fortunately still nothing. Lucy dreaded the thought of throwing up in front of Tim.
“Fine.” Tim sighed at her. “Okay. Well. How about this - How did you know something wasn’t right with me the other day?”
“Be more specific!” she complained. Tim sighed again, but it sounded soft.
“When my radio went on an unwilling adventure around LA.”
The day he told they her that Ashley broken up with him. That day.
“Anyone who cares about you, could tell something was up.”
“Actually no. Literally nobody else did.”
“Oh.” Was all Lucy said.
She blushed, conscious that perhaps she revealed something she shouldn’t have.
“I have to – I have to get out of these clothes!” She declared, ripping of the sheets around her and struggling out of bed, her bowl with her.
Lucy was painfully aware that those words could mean a lot, in a different situation. But Tim seemed to understand perfectly, moving around her with ease and having the shower running before she even reached the bathroom. He hesitated briefly before shutting the door behind him, leaving her to strip her clothes off alone.
She didn’t have the legs, or the energy, to stand in the shower. And within a few minuets of lying on the floor, she was throwing up.
“You okay Luce?” he called out to her. She mumbled for him to go away, but noticed she had never heard that name from him before. “I have some clothes for you out here. And I’ve ordered some toast from Room Service. It’s on its way, probably 15 min.”
She had thought he had left, and then his voice whispered once more. “Try and get it all out of your system. It will give you the best recovery.”
When she heard the knocking at her front door, she turned off the shower. She felt week, and empty. But she did feel a little better. When Lucy snuck the bathroom door open a crack, she saw the clothes he had left for her. Pulling them into the bathroom, she got changed as quickly as she could.
The clothes Tim had gotten her were directly from her bag. She blushed a little as she realised he had picked a matching underwear set, and tried, unsuccessfully, not to picture his face as he selected them for her.
As she got changed, Lucy hoped Tim hadn’t been able to hear her throw up. But it’s a studio hotel room, so doubted she would be so lucky. The room was nice, but it was one of the cheapest studio rooms in the hotel. The LAPD weren’t big splurges in unnecessarily money. It had a king bed, tiny bathroom, and small kitchenette. Nice mood lighting from strip lights under the bed, and great pillows. But not many other luxuries. And definitely nowhere for Tim to escape.
Technically Tim a bed in one the rooms downstairs, with a few other security guys. To help with his cover. He declared when he met them that afternoon that they all smelt like feet.
When she stepped out of the room, those mood lights had been turned on, and she could see some toast on the bed with two tiny avocado slices on the side. Tim had been standing by the window on his phone and looked up when she entered the room.
“The avocado has to go,” Lucy almost returned to the bathroom at the thought of the green food. Tim immediately had it scraped into a serviette and at the bottom of a bin. He replaced the toast onto a new untarnished plate, and returned it to the bed.
“Gone.”
He didn’t even question her lack of logic. Just did it.
A startling thought dashed through her mind:
Tim would be an amazing Dad.
She blushed and bit the corner of a piece of toast. It tasted a little cold, but not too bad considering the time of night. Tim slumped in to the chair he has been sleeping on before, untied his shoes and lifted his socked feet to use her bed as a footrest.
Lucy offered him some of her toast.
“All yours. Guess how much it was? $23! What a rip off!”
“Not that bad a cost,” she chuckled, “considering it definitely has spit on it. Toast at 2.30am, the chef must have been angry.”
They could hear voices from the hallway out front. Drunken yelling of those returning to their rooms.
“Man I wish I was drunk, its so much better than this… So tell me this Tim, what I can’t work out is…” Lucy continued the conversation from before her shower, now with a little more energy, “You said Ashley broke up with you. When?”
“At…the hospital.”
“What? Before your surgery?”
”Um… More like right after.”
“Oh my gosh Tim, that’s not better! That super messed up! I am so sorry!”
With the toast all finished, she tucked herself into the sheets, being careful to leave Tim his space for his footrest.
“Can I ask, why did she leave? You were pretty cute together.” It had been a long time since Lucy felt like she could just talk about things with Tim.
Perhaps she had thrown up her fears of him rejecting her.
Perhaps she is just too tired to care.
Did they break up because of her?
“We had different. Priorities.” Tim told her, which didn’t really help clear things up. She had done the maths on the timeline herself. Whilst she had calculated that they must have broken up around the same time as her surgery, she never thought that Ashley would have done that.
Lucy felt a sad for Tim, and wish she knew when it had happened. She could have helped him more.
She turned off the lights and snuggled into her pillows, aware that he was watching her closely.
“There were security cameras all around tonight, right?” her eyes were closing as she brainstormed. “Did you take note of the time I got sick? We should be able to use them to catch who drugged me. Stop them from doing it to others.”
“Already have Angela onto it.”
“Oh great. Thanks a lot Timothy! Now Angela will think I can’t look after myself and get all worried.”
“I don’t think that’s what Angela is worried about…” Tim whispered through the darkness.
Just before Lucy fell asleep, she caught herself.
“You are staying here, right Tim?... Please don’t leave me. I feel. Safe with you.”
“I am not going anywhere. I can’t exactly keep an eye on you, if I have to commute…”
“Unless,” Tim added, “Unless me staying causes problem with Chris?”
“Hmmm…. Perhaps. But he moved away last week.”
“What!” Tim’s feet dropped to the floor and he sat up straight. Before shrugging a little and pretending like he hadn’t.
“Wow. Big change. You doing the long distance thing?”
“No... We agreed we need some time…. Everything is changing and a little space isn’t always such a bad thing...”
She could barely finish the sentence. In the back of her mind she knew it was important, she wanted to tell him about Chris. But the drowsiness was confusing her as to why it mattered so much.
If Lucy had been more awake, she would have seen one of Tim’s rare smiles that he tends to save just for her.