Chapter Text
Tim Bradford was royally screwed. There was a reason he didn't do undercover work and it didn't all have to do with the disaster that his marriage to Isabel ended up being. It was because he got attached. Despite the gruff exterior he was very good at projecting, Tim Bradford had a very big heart. He thought that he could handle this operation. It was supposed to be short-term, two weeks max, and honestly, they were desperate to find this suspect. A cop had been killed and that meant all hands-on deck, preferred jobs or not, and he wasn't going to let a cop killer get away just because he didn’t like undercover. Besides, once he was in, they were pretty sure they could nab their suspect within days. It had been three months.
None of that was why he was screwed, though. No, he was screwed because of the gorgeous woman sitting across from him and smiling at him like he had personally given her the world. And god, that smile made him want to give her anything she asked for. More specifically it made him want to break every rule of undercover and tell her to run, that she needed to leave before the police descended on the warehouse they and the crew he has worked his way into were holed up, surrounded by drugs. Because they were coming any minute; the tracker he had activated would see to that.
He wasn't supposed to get attached to one of the criminals he was surrounded with, but he had never expected to meet Nova Lin. She was a hurricane that had blown in and destroyed everything he thought he knew, completely captivating him with the sunshine in her smile and intelligence in her eyes. Three months and she had completely wormed her way into his heart. She was the chemist, and he really couldn't understand how she had ended up in this situation. She didn't belong in this life, and he wished he could get her out of the warehouse, but that wasn't his call.
The noise of the door slamming shut as his suspect, Dayvion Mosby, came into the room broke him out of his thoughts. It was an impossible dream anyway. To keep himself in the present he tried to focus on the conversation between Dayvion and Nova.
"Any new information on where we need to take this load?" Was Nova's first question, and Tim watched as she turned away from him and her entire being seemed to dim. It was like she had shifted into a different person, someone harder. She'd been like that with him in the beginning, but somehow three months together had her lowering her walls a little when it was just her and him. But even this harder version of her was kinder than anyone else he had met on this operation. He'd seen her put herself between more than one woman and a member of the crew, though she had been very unobtrusive about it. She had been less careful about her distaste for gun violence against innocent civilians, to the point that Tim had to de-escalate the situation before she ended up shot. He had already started falling for her by that point.
"Nah, Hajek’s orders are to lay low until he says otherwise." Dayvion responded to the question Tim had forgotten Nova had asked. He really needed to get his head in the game. He was minutes from the end of the operation and now was not the time to get shot or caught because he got emotionally compromised. Lopez would never let him live it down.
His return to awareness came at just the right time. The next few minutes seemed to almost play in slow motion.
The cops swarming the warehouse.
Dayvion shooting at them and ending up shot in the leg before he surrendered.
Tim immediately threw down his weapon and put his hands behind his head. Thankfully, he saw Nova doing the same thing and breathed a sigh of relief because even if she was going to prison, she wasn't headed to the morgue. After being cuffed, they were led out to waiting shops and Tim saw several officers from his own station among the cops securing the scene and handling the crew. Finally, Angela Lopez in all her smirking glory took over handling him.
"You good?" Was the quiet question as he was maneuvered into the shop. Before he answered, he caught a glimpse of Nova being put in the next shop, a pained expression on her face as she looked over at him. Somehow it seemed almost wistful.
"Yeah, just been a long op." Was his answer as he slid into the back and tried very hard to push down any emotions he was feeling. He had done his job. He was a cop and she was a criminal and nothing was going to change that.