Chapter Text
The first time she sees Tim Bradford, Angela’s first thought is that he’s hot and she wouldn’t mind taking him for a ride. Her second thought is that he’s obnoxious and has way too many issues for anyone to want to fuck him. He just has that brittle, damaged vibe she can spot from a mile away. No, thank you.
Over the next few months, she gets to know him a little better. She works with him on a few rough cases, has beers with him, and eventually he moves from the “work acquaintance” to friend category. Tim introduces her to Isabel, his girlfriend. Angela likes her well enough, but juggling three cops’ schedules is challenging, especially with one at another precinct, so they don’t see much of each other. That said, she’s there ready to help them move into the place they pick out together. They laugh into the night once they’re done, eating pizza and drinking beers. It’s warm, it’s friendly, it’s nice. She’s happy for Tim and the future he’s so excited to build (in his stoic, taciturn way) with Isabel. If she feels a twinge of envy for what they have and she doesn’t, well, that’s her business.
Tim is there for Angela, too, when she finally moves out of her mom’s house. He’s there for consolatory beers when she dates a series of idiots, and he even lets her cry on him a little when one of the guys she dates leaves her…for his own cousin. (“Lopez, I don’t need to tell you that you’re better off, do I?” “No, but please, shut up and let me stew in my humiliation for a while.”). When the professional doldrums hit, he tells her she wouldn’t be a bad TO. She thinks maybe he’s right, and when she aces test, he and Isabel take her out for dinner and drinks.
There’s a new camaraderie once they’re both FTOs. Sitting and joking around during roll call becomes second nature, and when Talia joins their ranks, it gets even better. They can joke around, mess with their rookies, understand each other when no one else can.
Tim and Isabel get married. Angela goes to the wedding, and it’s nice. She hooks up with one of his groomsmen, a friend from his Army days. Once Tim gets back from his honeymoon, she cackles as she overshares about the (honestly, relatively bland) night with his friend, all calculated to receive that awkward, horrified please-don’t-talk-about-your-personal-life look that he gets.
Angela remembers with near-perfect clarity the morning she sat next to Tim as they got coffee before roll call, the one he stood jerkily, tense. “Isabel didn’t come home last night.”
Okay, not good, but they’re cops, and things happen. “Extended shift? Didn’t you say she’s started doing some undercover work?”
“She didn’t mention anything ahead of time. Didn’t even text me. That’s weird, right?”
Her heart sinks, but she tries to reassure her friend. “It’s probably some big op where she didn't have a chance to tell you. She’ll probably text you any minute.”
Isabel does text him a few hours later, apologizing for going incommunicado, but letting him know she’s back.
She has a bad feeling, and can’t let out a relieved sigh to match Tim’s.
Over the next few months, Tim’s face develops new lines as Isabel’s absences due to “work” start to pile up. Things are all wrong, he tells her and Talia over beers after their shift one day. “I think she’s having an affair. She comes home smelling like men’s cologne and she’s just so…nervous whenever I ask her what’s going on.”
Angela and Talia exchange looks. Maybe it is just an affair, but Isabel looks more unwell and twitchy every time she’s seen her lately, like the tweakers they have to deal with during their shifts.
“I-I’m sorry, man,” Talia says.
Angela murmurs something and reaches over to squeeze Tim’s shoulder. He tries for a smile, but doesn’t manage it. Something is breaking in him, and Angela worries that it’ll be broken beyond repair.
One night, she gets a call.
“Isabel…she’s gone, Lopez.” Tim sounds so exhausted, so done.
Angela lets out a breath. “Shit. You sure?”
“She cleaned out our joint account, took that signed Valenzuela baseball and my grandpa’s watch. And knocked over all our glassware. So yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Fuck.” God, she wishes she had the words to help.
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t remember ending the call, but she texts Talia, and they go over to Tim’s with a bottle of Jack Daniels. They clean up the mess in the kitchen, drink themselves into a stupor, and she and Talia eventually wrangle Tim into his bed. The two of them decide to take the couch, facing opposite directions. It’s snug, but god knows Angela doesn’t mind a little human contact just then.
“Hey, Bishop?” she asks.
Talia sounds sleepy when she replies, “Yeah?”
“You think Tim’ll be okay?”
“I don’t know. I dunno,” she says with a sigh.
“Me neither.”
She doesn’t get the answer to whether Tim will be okay for a long while. Eventually, they find the baseball and his grandad’s watch in pawn shops, but Tim is lost. She watches as he withdraws back into himself. He’s never been chatty or outgoing, but his rough edges are even more brittle than she remembers them being before. He doesn’t come out for drinks with her and Talia anymore, isn’t interested in hanging out. She overhears some people telling Tim to just cut his losses and move on as the months without Isabel drag on, but they’re wasting their breath. Tim just isn’t the kind of guy to give up on people he loves, no matter his damage.
It’s almost two years since Isabel disappeared when they get a new batch of rookies, one for each of them instead of the usual one-at-a-time rotation. And to Angela’s enduring surprise, those rookies? They change everything.
Angela’s first thought when she sees Lucy Chen is that she’s a hotshot and she hopes Grey assigns her to be her rookie. She’s not the old-as-fuck rookie, and she’s not the IA commander’s son, and that alone would be a recommendation, but she also has an air of competence to her. Angela knows she could teach her so much as another woman of color in the LAPD.
Alas, it’s not to be. She gets West, the commander’s kid, and Tim gets Chen. At least they’re not Talia, stuck with the world’s oldest Boot.
(She doesn’t miss the considering look Chen gives Tim, and she smirks to herself. Every now and then they get a thirsty rookie, but it doesn’t last beyond one hard shift. The smirk fades when she notices Tim’s gaze lingering, and a tightening in his hands. Interesting, she thinks.)
Over lunch, the three TOs bitch about their new rookies, and it feels normal. Tim is too hard on Chen, but that’s par for the course for him with a new Boot. He prefers they wash out early and not waste his time, so he does everything he can to test them ruthlessly in the first shifts. Chen is still there at the end of the first day, though, looking exhausted but determined.
Tim gets shot the next day, and it shocks her. Angela knows they’re not infallible, but Tim has survived so much, so him going down…it’s not right. Fortunately, he’s fine, but when she and Talia go to pick him up from the hospital, she promises herself she’ll try harder to keep him from being so damn isolated.
Angela’s glad she promises herself that, because Tim…well, he’s falling apart. The brittleness that’s been growing is cracking, and she’s a little terrified of what will become of her friend when all is said and done. He helps her with Jackson and his fear of guns, but she’s at a loss for how to help him. When the Roundup comes along that year, she’s worried he won’t win, and god does the man need a win.
She and Talia are in the locker room discussing how they’ll have to get creative with points, and she’s almost forgotten that Chen is there.
“Okay, how do we split up the points?” she asks.
Talia keeps digging in her locker. “I told you…”
“I know, I know that you’re not playing. But we need to figure out how to split them up right.
“It’s not tricky. Just give him more,” Talia replies, sitting on the bench to put on her shoes.
Not only is Chen there, but she’s listening. She comes around the corner, surprise and what looks a little like judgment on her face. “Wait…are you guys trying to rig it so Tim wins?”
Angela exchanges a look with Talia, who asks flatly, “Oh, no, why would we do that?”
Chen shakes her head, looking down. “I don’t know, this competition is clearly an emotional thing for him. I just…”
Angela decides to give her just enough information without sharing things that would make Tim uncomfortable. “It’s personal. From when he was a rookie.”
With a nod, the rookie says, “Oh.”
Then Angela gets the shock of the year..
“Is it Isabel?”
Angela can only stare at her, fumbling with the last of her jacket’s buttons.
“I-I met her once. I know that they were rookies together before they got married.”
Tim’s boot knows about Isabel. And not just her existence, she seems to know almost as much as either she or Talia do about the situation. Still, Lucy hasn’t seen Tim over the last year or so to know how much he needs this.
Talia seems to agree. “Yeah. Yeah, and they loved the Roundup. They had an epic competition.”
Chen lets out a little, contemplative laugh. “Do you really think holding onto this is what he needs? Maybe it’s better for him to lose.”
“This contest is the one day a year he feels connected to her. Do you really want to take that away?” God, rookies can be sanctimonious, even well-meaning ones like Chen.
But to Angela’s surprise, Chen’s good for it. After announcing Team Bradford’s win after “complicated math” and seeing Tim show some excitement, Lucy cheers and gives Angela a subtle nod. It’s…well, it’s unexpected, seeing how quickly she got on board to support Tim. Angela feels a surge of affection–not just for Tim, either, but for his rookie, too. She just might be good people.
Angela hugs her, and Lucy hugs her back. “Thanks, Lucy,” she whispers in her ear.
“Don’t mention it,” Chen returns, squeezing her once more.
After that, she hugs Tim, giving an internal sigh of relief at how openly he accepts the gesture. He’s even smiling. It’s not the way it used to be, but…it’s good to see.
Well, Angela thinks, this might be one of those unfortunate “one step forward, two steps back” scenarios.
Her career, her future as a detective, is in the shitter after she messed it up. Of course it would be her own hubris and ambition taking her down. Reprimanded by the fucking captain. Worst of all, she’s caused irreparable damage to someone who didn’t deserve it. She doesn’t want to be jealous of Talia, especially not after the days Talia has had yesterday and today with that idiot movie director.
And Isabel was arrested for drug trafficking. As soon as Jackson tells her, Angela runs to find Talia, and they hurry off to intercept Tim before he leaves.
Fortunately, Tim is still in his trusty old Subaru when she and Talia get into the parking garage. Catching Talia’s eye, Angela nods, sliding into the backseat while Talia gets into the passenger side. Tim looks…rough. She ignores the moisture in his eyes, as surely as he’d do for her.
Tim huffs in exasperation, as much as he can muster. “What are you doing?”
“Hanging out with you,” Bishop tells him.
“Look, I appreciate the thought, but…I’d rather be alone.”
Not on her watch. That’s the last thing he needs. “Too bad.”
“I’m not gonna talk about it,” Tim says mulishly. Angela can barely hold back a chortle at that, because when has he ever wanted to talk about anything?
Talia says, “You don’t have to.”
“But we’re gonna be here if you change your mind.”
Tim swallows, nodding. “So what do we do now?”
Angela and Talia exchange a knowing look, and answer in unison, “Drink.”
Tim shakes his head, smiling a little. After a moment of silence longer, he starts the car. “Do you all have somewhere in mind?”
Both of them turn to look at her. Bishop is as introverted as they come, preferring to spend her nights with a book and a new record than out on the town, and Tim’s, well…he’s Tim. Angela takes mercy on both, deciding on a cop bar for familiarity’s sake. Las Torres would normally be a good call, but it’s too busy for a night like tonight. They need somewhere quieter. “Charlie’s?”
Talia nods her assent, but Angela sees Tim grimace in the rearview mirror. He schools his face quickly, but Angela won’t let this go. “Problem with Charlie’s, Timothy?”
“Nope,” he says quickly. He pulls out of the parking garage and turns in the direction of the bar.
“You sure? I thought I saw…”
“It’s good, Lopez. Let’s go.”
They pull up to Charlie’s and head in. They grab a table, but the bartender signals Tim to come up before they even have a chance to sit. Tim goes up, hands over some cash, and returns with a receipt. He slides into the chair across the table from her and Talia.
Talia quirks an eyebrow at him. “What was that about?”
Tim mumbles something under his breath, not making eye contact with either of them.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you,” Angela says, eagerly awaiting his explanation. Mumbling means Tim’s embarrassed, and anything that embarrasses Tim? That’s a good story.
He clears his throat. “I, uh, I owed the bar from the last time I was here.”
Ha, this man thinking he can get away with leaving it at that? Not likely. Wandering off and leaving a tab open is not Tim Bradford behavior, so there’s definitely a story there. She and Talia exchange a look, both smirking at him.
“And when was the last time you were here, Timothy?”
“About a week ago,” he says, shooting her a dirty look.
Talia tilts her head at him. “Pretty unusual for you to leave a tab open. How much did you drink?”
The bartender—Angela thinks his name is John—comes by at that and laughs, clearly having been eavesdropping. “Tim here forgot his whole money clip about a week or so ago. Story is his rookie lifted it from him,” he says, cackling. “Now, what can I get you all to drink?”
They all place their orders, and as soon as John leaves, she and Talia face Tim as one.
Angela can’t hold back a laugh. “ Lucy stole your money clip?”
“I would like to hear this story,” Talia says. She’s not laughing, but her eyes are wide and she’s smiling broadly.
Tim splays his hands on the table, not making eye contact. “No. No, no, she just…it was her version of revenge.”
“Revenge for what, Bradford?” Talia asks, her smile dimming.
“Nothing you need to worry about, Bishop,” he says, rolling his eyes. “She just wasn’t too appreciative of my methods of teaching the DEAR method. And I might have implied she didn’t have it in her to think like a criminal.”
Angela full-on belly laughs. “So she pickpocketed you?”
By all rights, Tim should be furious. But to her everlasting surprise, he cracks the tiniest of smiles, finally looking up. “It was a good lift. And I deserved it.”
“How did you know it was her?”
He clears his throat, glancing back down at the table. “I may have told her where I kept my money clip earlier that day. And she might have called the bar to, uh, to tell me.”
Even Talia’s shoulders shake at that. “Well, can’t deny she has spirit.”
“No, that I can’t,” Tim says, and Angela is struck…that’s respect in his eyes. No other rookie he’s ever had, not even Talia, would have been able to get away with something like this, but Tim seems to like Lucy all the more for it. Huh.
Their beers arrive, and the topic changes. They manage to keep Tim distracted, and Angela gives a silent prayer of thanks for beer, friends, and Lucy Chen.
The next month passes quickly. Angela tries to make peace with being on patrol for the foreseeable future, but it’s hard, especially once Talia gets the tap for detective. Training Jackson has been a distraction, and she finds herself growing more fond of her boot. Tim, too, seems to be having a better time with his rookie. Occasionally, she finds him looking at Lucy like she’s a puzzle he can’t quite figure out, but their interactions aren’t as tempestuous as they were at first.
Then everything implodes. The brass somehow get the hair-brained idea to make Isabel a CI in exchange for getting out of jail, and Tim is livid. Angela gets it—it’s a horrible plan, one bound to hurt Isabel, at the very least.
The same day, Nolan kills someone in the line of duty. It brings up bad memories, ones she does her best to put aside. She’s sitting with Jackson and Lucy in the breakroom, and he asks if she’s ever dealt with anything like what Nolan is going through, from the guilt to the IA investigations.
“Yeah. My second year as a TO, a prisoner transport went sideways. My boot didn’t search the suspect properly. Lost her gun. They guy would’ve killed us both if I hadn’t pulled the trigger,” Angela explains, doing her best to push aside the twinges of guilt.
Lucy and Jackson exchange a look, and Lucy asks, “What happened to the boot?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t a cop after that.” There’s another twinge at that; she’d reached out to Taylor afterward, only to be told never to talk to her again.
“Is there anything anyone said or did that helped you through it?” Lucy asks, and Angela is about to snap at her when she looks over and sees only compassion and contemplation in the younger woman’s eyes. She’s trying to help Nolan.
Even so, there’s not much reassurance she can offer. “No, I just had to make my peace with it.”
Later that same night, Isabel’s turn as a CI is as much of a mess as she was afraid it would be. It starts out about as well as one could hope, and Angela joins Tim in his unmarked shop so they can keep an eye on things in case Isabel needs a rescue. She wasn’t initially in on the op, but with Tim edge the way he is, she knows he needs all the help available.
She stops by McDonalds, then goes to find him, sliding into the passenger seat.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, as if that were any question.
“Are you kidding? Hanging out near the airport is a normal Tuesday night for me,” she jokes, trying to make the situation lighter, but it doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t. Instead, it’s time for some truth she knows in her bones. “You’d be right here if the situations were reversed.” She smiles and takes a sip of her drink. “And I brought fries.”
“Thanks,” Tim says, pausing momentarily before saying, “You know, you’d have to be in an actual relationship for the situations to be reversed.”
Angela appreciates the attempt at levity from him when he has to be breaking under the stress. “Who are you, my mother?”
Unfortunately, everything goes wrong after that. They lose their surveillance, and then go to find that Isabel isn’t in the apartment where she was making the buy from Vance. Hearing Tim tell her that he thinks his wife is dead, that he’s known he’d find her like this sometime…it breaks Angela’s heart a little. He deserves so much more than the hand life has dealt him, and there’s nothing she can do to help.
Talia radios them minutes, hours, lifetimes later. They’ve found Isabel. She’s alive, but it’s touch-and-go. And Angela’s heart breaks, fully and completely, as Tim reaches for Isabel on the gurney, calling out, “I’m here, baby, I’m here.”
Angela prays. She prays and prays and begs for hope, for a little kindness.
They catch Vance after a hellish special op at the fucking Bronson Estates, of all places. They all come out of it okay, though Lucy ends up with both a namesake and a pretty massive bruise on her chest. They go to the hospital to get checked over just in case, and after making sure Lucy’s fine, Tim heads up to Isabel’s room.
Miraculously, Isabel will heal. She agrees to rehab, too, and Angela wonders if maybe everything will be okay.
Admittedly, Tim’s issues fall to the background. Her brother’s wedding is coming up, and her mom won’t leave her alone about bringing a date. Normally, she’d ask Tim in a pinch, but that’s not an option right now.
Then something happens. Or, rather, someone.
Enter Wesley Evers.
It’s not love at first sight. No, it’s biting words and antagonism…and sparks. Sparks like she’s never known before, had never even imagined.
One minute they’re arguing about due process, and the next they’re getting drinks, frantically making out against the side of the hipster bar they went to. Then he’s going with her to a wedding, and then they’re spending nights together.
Everything else kind of fades into the background for a while. The rush of energy she gets arguing with him, the peace she finds in sitting beside him, the heat from when they’re in bed (or various storage closets)...everything else pales.
And then…Angela messes everything up. She tries to play it cool with Wesley, but then she does something unforgivable—she looks through his phone when he has other mysterious plans he doesn’t tell her about. (God, they’ve been dating for two seconds, it shouldn’t matter.) It fractures things with Wesley, but she can’t get him off her mind.
She tries to distract herself, but finds herself a little at a loss. Talia is increasingly distant, especially after Angela calls her on staying entangled with a married guy. And Tim is getting divorced.
He doesn’t tell her much, just that it’s over and it’s for the best for both him and Isabel. He’s obviously hurting, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. “Not yet,” he said when she pushed him, and Angela let it go (temporarily, at least).
But that kind of leaves her at loose ends, and she finds herself confiding in and leaning on her rookie more. Jackson, for all his youth, is a good listener. He’s occasionally a little self-righteous, but he’s fun. And with Jackson comes Lucy. While they don’t spend a lot of time together, they chat a little more during shifts, occasionally drink coffee together in the mornings. Lucy is…she’s great. Her compassion isn’t a front, and she genuinely cares about the people they serve. She’s good for the department, and for all of them. Angela even has a sneaking suspicion that kindness is particularly good for Tim right now.
Angela, perhaps, while missing Wesley, pays a little more attention to her coworkers’ and friends’ lives than she typically does. She comes to several conclusions:
- Officer Jan is into some weird shit and she doesn’t want to know more.
- Grey is thinking about retiring.
- Jackson will be a wonderful cop if he can make it through training.
- Lucy is good for Tim. Oh, Tim’s good for Lucy, too. He’s training her well and is tough on her, which is expected. What’s harder for Angela to wrap her brain around is that Tim openly compliments Chen to her and Talia. And, she finds out, he actually went out of his way to reassure her when she got stuck by a dirty needle. He doesn’t just respect his boot, he likes her. And frankly, he needs more people he can like right now.
Plain Clothes Day comes along. For all she and the other TOs tease their rookies, it’s a stressful day for everyone. Obviously, it’s harder on the rookies, but still. Striking a balance between getting into a boot’s head, keeping an eye on them, and evaluating them is hard. This year, she and Jackson end up stuck at the station, cataloging evidence. It’s not her favorite, but she does enjoy watching Jackson try to temper himself. Ultimately, he acts with grace and compassion, and Angela is so proud.
Tim and Lucy had a much more eventful day, but ultimately Lucy catches a fucking murderer. Hell, even she’s proud, and she had nothing to do with it. No one is as proud as Tim, though, and he’s all but busting his proverbial buttons, even if they did both get chewed out by Captain Andersen.
They all go for drinks later, once they’ve cleaned up, where they separate into their typical groups of TOs and rookies. It’s a nice night, and Angela’s enjoying having a beer with her friends. They’re shooting the shit when Lucy approaches them, walking right up to Tim with an envelope in hand, the same kind of envelope he uses for his evaluations.
Lucy smiles—a little flirtatiously?!—, holds out the envelope, and says, “Before I leave, Officer Bradford, I just wanted to give you this. It’s my evaluation of you.”
“That’s not how it works, boot.” Tim says patiently. Even if he is a little nonplussed, he takes the envelope from her.
“Yeah, well, if you don’t want to read it, don’t.” She smiles boldly up at Tim, then walks off.
Lucy was bold. Perhaps too bold. Angela’s immediately suspicious…and amused. She asks, “You gonna open it?”
Tim scoffs, but opens the “evaluation” after a quick, uncertain look at her and Talia.
Talia is curious now, too, and asks, “What is it?”
“Their bar tab.”
Angela and Talia break into laughter, watching as Lucy hurries Jackson and Nolan off, keen on their escape. Angela raises her glass to Lucy.
Tim stares at Lucy’s departing back in shock. “That little…”
“So, you going to pay it, Bradford?” Talia asks, eyes full of laughter and challenge.
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh. Then his face lights up with glee. “She’s going to regret this so much when I get my revenge.”
Angela smirks. “You mean when you continue training, right?”
“Obviously, Lopez. What else could I possibly mean?”
They don’t stay out much later, but Angela reflects that she learned a few new facts about Lucy tonight. First, she cleans up very well, and Angela’s not sure if she should be jealous or secretly thirsty. Secondly, Lucy is a mischief-making prankster. She should have figured it out with the money clip, but this is confirmation. Third, Lucy actually likes, not just tolerates, Tim. In fact, Angela strongly suspects Lucy has a little crush on him.
But Tim? Angela knows that Tim Bradford had more fun tonight than he’s had in a long time, and if she indirectly has Lucy to thank for that? Angela’s prepared to keep her around for a while.
As Angela drifts off to sleep that night, she wonders how Tim would have finished his sentence, what noun he’d use to name Lucy Chen.
Tim ends up asking Angela for help with his revenge plan, and it’s a doozy. She takes the opportunity to haze Jackson and Nolan a little too, and they film a “promotional video” for the department. It’s awful, and Angela loves it.
The cackling at the rookies’ expense brings her (and Talia and Tim) life.
Soon, though, they’re all involved in a manhunt for escaped prisoners, and that takes precedence. Angela is thus unprepared for Tim to start a serious conversation while they’re at the station figuring out next steps.
“Hey, you, uh, you think I’ve changed since you met me?” Tim asks, and he’s nervous.
Angela is so thrown that she defaults to her signature snark. “You got more annoying.”
“I’m serious. Have I changed at all?”
“Sure,” she grants, trying to regroup and think of how to answer him when she’s not sure where he’s going with this.
“How?”
“What do you mean? You’re older. What you went through with Isabel certainly changed you,” she adds carefully.
Tim is still restless. “Made me different or just made me more me?”
“What’s this about?”
He sighs and says, “Just wondering if I’ve been treading water a little, you know, not challenging myself.”
Huh. “Since when does Tim Bradford do introspection?”
Tim looks over her right shoulder, then says, “Never mind.”
A moment later, Lucy and Jackson approach on her right, and Lucy hands Tim a cup of coffee before asking, “We got a plan of action to find Marcos?”
Huh, indeed.
Tim answers, and then bids Angela farewell. Angela smiles.
“Hey, Bradford,” she yells, and both Tim and Lucy turn around. “You’ve also gotten dumber. Does that count?”
Tim is one of her closest friends, but she’s beginning to harbor several suspicions, chief among them that he’s an idiot.
Captain Andersen dies. It’s brutal and horrible, but it’s the impetus for Wesley coming back into her life.
Angela feels a peace she couldn’t have imagined with him back around, knowing that arguing with him is something she’d rather do than have a million quiet nights with anyone else. She hesitates to name what she’s feeling until they get a decently severe earthquake, and she can’t get in touch with him until hours later. Between working and cell service being jammed, it’s nearly 8pm before she can get in touch. When she finally can, Wesley comes over. They spend the rest of the night in bed, alternating between—and she gags a little internally at the phrase—making love and holding each other.
After she and Wesley nearly get caught coming out of the storage closet together, she knows she has to tell people. Wesley’s going to be part of her life, and she needs to tell her family and friends before they find out in some horribly awkward way.
She’s…she’s nervous about telling Tim. With him going through a divorce, even an amicable one, it doesn’t feel right to rub her newfound happiness in his face. Still, he’ll hate it if he feels like she’s not telling him out of pity. One Saturday when Wes is busy with a client, Angela drives over to Tim’s to tell him that she’s in an actual serious, committed relationship.
He has the day off, too, and she knows he pretty much just stays home on his days off right now. So she’s surprised to find the house empty, and she sits a minute on the front stoop to figure out if she should just call.
As she’s deliberating, Tim drives up in his car. He gets out, and he looks like he’s had a long shift at work, except he’s wearing his civvies. She’s about to ask him what the hell happened when she sees a splatter of orange paint on his leg.
“...did you go paintballing?” she asks, a little in shock.
Tim rolls his eyes, side-stepping her to unlock his door. “Hey, Lopez. How are you? Yeah, good to see you, too.”
“Yeah, hi. I’m good. Did you go paintballing? Without me?”
Tim gestures for her to go inside, and she heads straight to the fridge, She pulls out two beers, handing one to Tim. He twists off the lid, and takes a long drink of it before turning to her. “So, what brings you by…without calling?”
Angela gives him a look for the snide tone, but takes a deep breath and confesses, “I’m seeing someone.”
“Congratulations?” He raises an eyebrow, clearly nonplussed.
“I—it’s serious, Tim.”
“How long have you been with this mystery person?”
Angela blushes, and she deeply wants to wipe the answering smirk off Tim’s face, but she answers anyway, “It’s Wesley Evers—one of the public defenders? And we’ve been seeing each other off and on for a few months.”
“A lawyer? And not just a lawyer, but a public defender? What the hell do you two have in common, anyway?”
If his questions didn’t make her feel so defensive, she’d appreciate the appalled look on his face way more. “I know, I know. But he really is good people, Tim. He’s…he’s really great. We want the same things, we just take different approaches.”
“Yeah, his approach is getting criminals released back onto the streets, Lopez.”
She raises her eyebrow at him. “You know as well as I do that things aren’t always what they seem, and that an arrest doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s done something wrong.”
Tim purses his lips, and after a moment, he nods. He raises his beer, gesturing broadly, and asks, “He treats you well?”
“Really, really well.”
“Good.”
“You don’t think it’s too soon?” she asks, looking over at him.
He looks back, one side of his mouth quirking up in a smile. “Listen, I can’t answer that for you. It would be too soon for me, but for you? You…you rush into things, and—”
“—excuse me, I do not, and—”
“You do, Ange, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you say this works for you, then it does.”
She smiles over at him. “You know, I always thought that ‘when you know, you know’ thing was bullshit. Then I met him and…”
Tim smiles back. “...and you knew.”
“I knew.”
They clink their bottles together, falling into companionable silence. Finally, Tim clears his throat and says, “Isabel and I got an early judgment on our divorce. It’s…it’s done.”
Angela glances over. “How you feeling about it?”
“I don’t know. Fine, I guess? It was the right thing to do, for me and her.” He shrugs, feigning a nonchalance that he doesn’t quite manage.
“You don’t have to pretend, Bradford. It’s okay to say it sucks.”
Tim sighs. “It-it does suck, but I really am doing okay. If I’d stayed with Isabel, I’d always have reminded her of the worst time in her life. And for me, I don’t know if, if I’d ever be able to trust her again. That’s no way to have a marriage.”
“I guess not.”
“Don’t worry about me, Lopez. I’m…I’m starting to move on.”
She raises her eyebrows at him. “Oh? Do tell.”
“Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter,” Tim says, shaking a finger at her reprovingly. Then he takes a deep breath and tells her, “I’m studying to take the sergeant’s exam.”
“Oh my god, Tim! That’s great.” She sets down her beer, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. He hugs her back for a second, then steps away.
“Yeah, yeah. It was time, you know? Hey, do you want another beer?”
“Sure. Wanna order in for dinner, too? I’m dying for Thai, and that one place near here is good.”
Tim scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, you’re welcome to order for yourself, but I actually ate when I was out.”
“Did you do some sad loner thing and eat hot dogs by yourself after your paintballing adventure?”
He shoots her a dirty look. “No, dumbass. I ate with the person I went paintballing with.”
“Does this person have a name?”
“It was Chen. She’s on this kick about me needing hobbies or some bullshit like that, and I simply humored her.”
“ You, Tim Bradford, humored her, your rookie.”
“Settle down, Lopez. There’s nothing wrong with bonding with your boot,” he says, rolling his eyes again.
“Mmhmm.” Angela does not point out that he has never before shown any hint of trying to bond with one of his trainees. He didn’t so much as grab a beer with Talia until she’d been out of training for six months, and she’d only trained with him a few weeks.
Angela orders her food, and they spend the rest of the evening watching TV and drinking the beers in his fridge. They make plans for him and Talia to meet Wesley soon, and Angela relaxes, enjoying how life seems to be looking up.
She feels like she jinxed something, because when L.A. is the target of an attempted bioterrorist attack, it rocks Angela’s world.
She and Wesley argue, but the thing wrecking her is how damn worried she is. She’s so scared that they’ll lose each other, and they just found each other.
If they make it out of this, she never wants to be apart from him again.
Fortunately, they do make it out, though she, Jackson, Talia, and Nolan all show up to support Tim and Lucy, who didn’t have it as easy. God, Tim was exposed to a deadly virus.
Lucy comes out of the decontamination tent a little after they show up at the scene. She’s obviously shaken, but otherwise seems okay.
“How’s Tim?” Angela asks, unable to keep her worry in check.
Lucy nods, meeting her eyes gravely. “I think he’s going to be alright.”
“That’s good news,” Nolan says, letting out a sigh of relief. Amen.
“What now?” That comes from Jackson, who’s clearly doing everything he can not to scoop Lucy up in a hug. She clearly needs it, even if she’s trying to keep it together and be professional.
But Lucy is a consummate professional. “Twenty-four-hour observation at the CDC.”
Then Tim emerges, walking out of the tent. Angela feels some of the past day’s tension drain from her, and she smiles. “I’ll bet my pension he just told doctors Tim Bradford does not ride in a wheelchair.”
Talia smiles back, ribbing Tim as she mocks, “‘Only way I’m leavin’ out of here is on my own two feet.’”
Lucy laughs, clearly aware of her TO’s hardass persona. She probably even knows it’s just a persona.
“Don’t you guys have paperwork to finish?” Tim asks, exasperated, right on cue.
Lucy smiles at the rest of them. “He’s back.”
“Yeah he is. So stubborn,” Angela teases, speaking loudly enough for him to hear.
He stops in his tracks where he’s walking away, and Angela waits for whatever pathetic response he has.
Then, to her everlasting horror, Tim collapses, falling on the ground.
There’s a ringing in her ears as she and the others run toward him, but she hears the panic in Lucy’s voice as she yells out, “Tim!”
Later, Angela will think about all the emotion in that one syllable, the way Lucy made her way into the ambulance, claiming to be Tim’s partner, and how no one disputed it.
Right now, though, she’s in a panic about losing one of her favorite people.