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Jeff Budney is dead.
When they walk Lucy into the station, it only takes one look at her face for Tim to realize how bad this is. This is going to destroy her. He knows her heart. Knows the reasons she chose this job. Knows how much she cares and how deeply she feels. Knows that every single question she has to answer, every action she has to justify and defend is going to break a little piece of her.
He doesn’t hesitate, trailing the officers, IA, and the ADA as they lead her back to interrogation.
He’s immediately stopped when he tries to enter. “I’m her companion officer,” he snaps without hesitation as he pushes past the uniform.
“Officer Chen, you’re allowed to talk in private with your companion officer. Would you like a few moments with Sergeant Bradford?”
Lucy shakes her head — she looks scared and overwhelmed, and Tim knows he can help her. They can get through this together. She glances toward him in confusion, barely meeting his eyes before shaking her head again, more vigorously this time.
“No… no. I — I want someone else.”
“Lucy —” he tries, even as his stomach drops. Because she needs him. She’s hurting. He can see how much. He can help her.
“I want someone else,” she says more forcefully, cutting him off.
He’s already being escorted from the room when he hears them asking who she would like her companion officer to be.
“Officer Nolan.”
Tim paces the empty roll call room as Angela watches him from one of the seats.
“I just — I don’t understand why she wouldn’t let me help her.”
Angela stares at Tim in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself right now, Tim?”
He blinks in confusion, “What?” Then he rolls his eyes, “No — this isn’t the same as the stuff with Ray, Angela. That didn’t have anything to do with her.”
“And what exactly does this have to do with you, Tim?”
He glares, because what kind of idiotic question is that?
“It’s different,” he reasserts through clenched teeth. “This isn’t about our relationship. This is about her job and her career, and I’ve been through this. I know her. I know what this is going to do to her. She needs —”
“What does she need, Tim? You?”
And he’s seriously regretting his decision to talk to Angela about this because she is being the opposite of helpful right now.
“She needs someone who’s been through this. Someone who knows her and how she’s gonna feel and react and what she needs to hear — I mean, come on, Nolan is supposed to help her get through this?” he scoffs. “She could have at least chosen Grey.”
“She and Nolan are close.” Angela shrugs.
“He doesn’t know her like I do.”
Angela purses her lips, “Uh huh, if you say so…”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Tim barks.
“Nothing… it’s just … they were at the Academy together, Rookies together, together together… I’d say he knows her pretty well. You don’t have the market cornered on caring about Lucy, you know?”
Tim shakes his head, opening his mouth to explain again that this is different when her words finally hit him. Together together.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Angela rolls her eyes, “Exactly what it sounds like.”
He shakes his head, because no, he would know that if it were true. There’s no way Angela knows something like that about Lucy and he doesn’t. He’d spent years trapped in shop with this woman who had zero concept of professional boundaries at work, droning on and on about every person she passed on the goddamn street, not to mention the people she actually dated.
“No. They weren’t.”
Angela rolls her eyes, “Okay. Sure, Tim. I just made that up to get under your skin… Jackson told me a few years ago, but… it was a big secret… some drama with IA or something.”
Tim’s brow crinkles because what the hell is she even talking about? How it possible that Angela knows all this stuff about Lucy that he doesn’t. It just feels… wrong.
“Anyway, point being, she’ll be fine with Nolan, Tim.”
He shakes his head, dismissing Angela’s reassurance. “This is serious, Angela. What is she thinking? This is her job. Maybe even her freedom and she just —”
“Just what, Tim? Shut you out? Pushed you away? Didn’t want your help even though you showed up for her and she really needed it? Tell me again how different this is from the Ray situation.”
“It’s not the same,” Tim growls, clenching his hand into his fist. “I already told you I was trying to protect her. I’m just trying to do what’s best for her.”
Angela snorts, “Ah yes, here we go again. Cause Tim knows best, right? Heaven forbid giving Lucy the respect of getting to make her own decisions.”
He shakes his head because how can she not understand this? It’s not about respect. Of course he respects her — more than that, he admires her. He loves her.
“She chose you, Tim. She chose to fight. And you just decided that none of those choices were hers to make. And then you just walked away.”
Tim frowns. Angela’s always told it to him straight, but things have been different since he ended things with Lucy. Strained.
He knows she doesn’t agree with his reasons, but he really fucking needs his best friend to be his best friend right now. Because he is so worried about Lucy — the look on her face… what she is going through right this moment. He should be there.
“I’m trying to protect her,” and he knows he sounds like a broken record.
And from Angela’s aggravated sigh, it’s clear that she doesn’t buy it now anymore than she did the first 100 times he’d tried to explain it to her.
“You broke her heart, Tim. The only thing she actually needed you to protect — the only thing you were supposed to protect, and you shattered it."
And he feels like he’s been slapped. It’s the harshest Angela has been toward him since the break up.
She sighs, seeming to sense his distress. “I’m not saying you were wrong to end the relationship, Tim. You’re allowed to walk away if you can’t give it 100%. You’re allowed to put yourself first. But you don’t get to keep acting like you’re doing some noble thing here. You didn’t do this for her. You did it to her.”
“You just don’t understand,” Tim sighs, at a complete and total loss because he has never ever felt so disconnected from his friend.
“Argh, you’re going to make me rip my hair out, Tim. You lied to her. You shut her out. You ghosted her for days. And then you dumped her. None of that is protecting her. You protected yourself because you’re scared Tim, and you have every right to do that. But you have to own that you did it at her expense.
"Have you even apologized? Had an actual conversation with her yet?
"You’re lying to yourself, and you’re using this story to avoid taking accountability for what you did.”
Tim shakes his head because this is all wrong. It’s all backwards.
It wasn’t like that… was it?
Tim starts to blink rapidly because he can’t handle this. He doesn’t want to hear anymore.
Because admitting she’s right means he has to confront the fact that he betrayed and hurt the one person he loves most in this world, the one person who has loved him and supported him and shown up for him like no one else in his life ever has. The one person who had trusted him with her heart.
He shakes his head.
She just doesn’t understand.
And he just can’t do this right now.