Archive of Our Own ^beta

She hadn’t called. 

Tim stared at his phone trying to think of literally anything else, but his mind just kept coming back to one thing. Lucy hadn’t called. 

It had been in the back of his mind all day, every moment of his awful day at the hospital had been compounded by the fact that she hadn’t called. 

Logically, he knew that didn’t mean anything. That maybe the day had gone perfectly fine for her, that maybe he was making a big deal over nothing . He didn’t need to hear from Lucy 24/7, he would see her tomorrow on shift. He would ask about trial prep then. He didn’t need to hear from her now.

And yet Tim kept staring at his phone because she hadn’t called. No texts, no voice notes, no links to Youtube videos. Nothing from Lucy Chen, and Tim hadn’t dealt with that type of silence from Lucy since she’d been trapped in a fucking barrel, and he’d felt her dead body. 

And he knew she was physically safe right now, and that there were a myriad of possible reasons why she hadn’t called him, but it felt off. It felt wrong. Because she always called, she always called.

Something was wrong, and Tim knew it.

And then, almost as though it had sensed his thoughts, Tim’s phone began to ring, and her familiar contact picture flashed up at him.

“Hey Chen,” Tim said, trying to sound as normal as possible instead of conveying the deep relief he felt. However, instead of her characteristic greeting Tim could barely hear her on the other end of the phone. 

“Lucy, are you okay?”

“Tim,” Lucy breathed over the phone, barely audible, “Can you come over? I need you to come over.”

Tim felt his heart jump into his throat, and he swallowed down the lump as he responded. 

“I’m on my way over, do you need me to stay on the phone?”

“I…can’t,” Lucy’s voice was quieter than before, “Just get here, okay?”

“Of course,” Tim said, his foot becoming lead on his accelerator, “I’m on my way Lucy.”

Lucy felt like she was floating. 

Her entire body was weightless and her thoughts were fuzzy. She knew where she was. She was sitting on her bed in her apartment, she was in Los Angeles. She could feel the air conditioning in the apartment. She could see the colourful couch and kitchen through the doorway.

Lucy knew all this, she could see all this, she could feel all this. Yet Lucy was still floating, she couldn’t focus, everything blurred around her. It was like she was underwater. Her body wouldn’t move the way she wanted it. 

The only thing clear in her head was the sound of humming. The sound of her boyfriend humming the song she’d sung as she died. 

Stars shining bright above you

Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"

Birds singin' in the sycamore trees

Dream a little dream of me

All she could hear was Rosalind, all she could feel was the desert, and the barrel, and Caleb, and she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe.

She reached her hand to a specific spot right on her ribs, to the tattoo she knew was there, and she pressed, and she pressed but it wasn’t helping, and she couldn’t fucking breathe. 

She needed…she needed, she needed to stop fucking floating. She needed to be weighed down, she needed to be brought back down to earth.

She needed her anchor, and she knew it wasn’t Chris, and it wasn’t Tamara, it was Tim.

She needed Tim. 

When Tim got to the apartment he knew something was wrong. Tamara wasn’t there but the door was unlocked.

“Lucy?” Tim called tentatively as he let himself in, his stress levels rising even more as a cursory glance at the living room revealed it to be empty. Quickly, he made his way to her bedroom, and found her sitting on her bed staring blankly at the window. She didn’t even look in his direction when he walked into the room. 

“Lucy?” Tim gentled his tone and went to kneel in front of her. She still didn’t seem to see him. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying, and her hand was pressed against her side, underneath her rib.

Exactly where Tim knew she’d been tattooed. He didn’t know if she’d kept it or burned it or gotten it removed, but he knew that occasionally he’d catch her reaching for it when she was scared or stressed. It seemed to center her. He hoped it would do the same now. 

Seeing that his words were having no effect on her, he reached out and slowly placed his hand over hers. Her reaction was immediate. Instead of pulling away or flinching her eyes immediately focused on him and where he was kneeling and she sprang at him, throwing herself into his arms with a sob. It was only through a feat of extreme balance that Tim didn’t fall over and instead managed to sit with her on the floor as she began to sob in his arms. 

With each sob that wracked her body, Tim held her more snugly in his arms as he whispered comforting nonsense into her hair. He did his best to ignore that he was also shaking. Seeing Lucy hurt and so upset was breaking him. 

Lucy Chen should always be smiling and happy and making stupid jokes at his expense. She shouldn’t feel so…small. So fragile.

If Caleb Wright wasn’t already dead, Tim would’ve cheerfully put another bullet in his brain.

Eventually her sobs petered out, and she managed to relax in his arms, loosening the stranglehold she’d had on his shirt. 

“You’re here,” she said quietly, looking down, “You came when I called.”

He nodded, unable to really vocalize what he was feeling right now, then shrugged. 

“You needed me.”

She nodded again, before leaning her head back against his chest. 

Later, Lucy and Tim had moved to sitting on her bed, his arm still thrown around her shoulders. They hadn’t spoken much since she’d stopped crying on him, but that was okay. They didn’t need to talk. Tim being here, being a solid presence here, being her lifeline, today was enough. 

The floating feeling was gone, the sense of weightlessness had disappeared as she felt the presence of Tim’s arm around her like a weighted blanket. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly into the silence between them. 

“For what?” he said just as quietly, seemingly not willing to break the bubble that’d been created over the last hour. 

“For coming when I called,” she said smiling at him, for the first time today, “You didn’t have to.”

Tim snorted despite himself, she clearly didn’t understand the hold she had on him.

“I’ll always come when you call, Lucy.”

And Lucy believed him. And later she would tell him about the real details of trial prep, and Chris humming the song, and deciding not to testify. And watching the video, and she’d ask him about CPR, and about finding her ring. 

Later he will go back to Ashley, and she will go back to Chris. And later they will be Chen and Bradford, Aide and Sergeant.

But for now they were Tim and Lucy. 

And she wasn’t floating, and he wasn’t antsy, because she’d called and he’d answered.