Work Text:
“Lucy, catch!” Angela Lopez calls out, throwing her partner a manila folder filled with dozens of documents.
“Another one?” The younger detective groans as she carefully tears it open and begins flipping through it.
“Yeah… we have about 6 more of those to get through before lunch,” Nyla Harper tells her.
The LAPD has been slammed with dozens of open cases, many of which Detective Lucy Bradford has been tasked with solving. And with Tim’s Metro hours ramping up as well, they were both struggling to keep their eyes open at home.
Their young daughters, of course, didn't like this lack of attention one bit. Andie and Ivie were generally sweet, well-behaved girls. But just like every child, they had their moments. Of course, though, these moments happened to be at the worst times.
As Lucy reads through the prior arrests of homicide suspect Jeremy Fisher, the telephone starts to ring. This is a common occurrence; it’s often someone calling in to give an obviously-false tip, or their Sargeant ready with new leads and cases. Both dreadful of course, which is why Lucy lets one of her other partners answer the call.
“Lucy, it’s for you,” Angela sighs as she hands Lucy the phone.
Odd, Lucy thinks as she presses the plastic against her ear. She couldn’t recall giving her card out to anyone recently, so a call to her station number wasn’t expected.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Bradford?” An older woman asks cheerily on the other end.
“Yes, this is she,” Lucy responds cautiously, furrowing her brow.
“Well, hello Mrs. Bradford! I’m Ms. Lorraine from Mid-Wilshire elementary school. I’m sorry to bother you right in the middle of the day on your work phone, but both you and your husband's cells went straight to voicemail.”
Lucy’s mind initially goes to panic. She has never received a call from school before, which means something must really be wrong. “Wh- what happened? Are the girls alright?”
“Oh yes, everyone is okay. Ivie was a little upset today, and she’s been throwing quite a few tantrums. Now, we usually handle these things ourselves, but we wanted to proceed with caution here because little Ivie has been going around and telling her classmates that ‘mommy and daddy are going to die at work?’ We were just hoping you could pick her up and have a little chat before she returns to class. It’s… scaring the other children, ” the sweet woman explains calmly.
Wow. “Oh, I’m so sorry about that. We’ll come grab her right away,” Lucy agrees and hangs up the phone.
“Harper, Lopez, I’ve got a situation at the girl’s school,” Lucy announces. “Do you think you could manage without me for a few hours?”
Her partners immediately assure her that everything will be fine, and wish her the best of luck. She was incredibly grateful to be paired with detectives who also happened to be mothers. The Bradford’s have lost count on the amount of times they’ve had to leave work for a child-related incident.
Before she leaves, Lucy conducts a quick peek into her husband's office, and is incredibly relieved to find him focused on a scary-large pile of paperwork.
“Hey,” she knocks softly, letting herself in.
“Hi babe, what’s up?” he asks, but his eyes still glare down at the documents in front of him.
“Think you could slip out of the office for a few hours? The girls' school called, and apparently Ivie’s been giving them a hard time.”
“Really?” Tim pauses and furrows his brow. Ivie wasn’t one to cause trouble at school, so this definitely came as a shocker. “What did she do?”
“She… well, she’s been going around saying that we’re going to die at work,” Lucy tells him apprehensively. Tim is NOT going to take this well.
“What?”
Before they had kids, Lucy and Tim spent hours deciding how they were going to handle explaining their careers to their daughters. Over the past 8 years, they have been deliberate about station and hospital visits, and are very mindful about their work-related conversations in front of the girls.
Or so they thought.
“Yeah, i- i don’t really know where it’s coming from.”
“I guess we need to talk with the girls.” Tim takes a deep breath as she stares at the pile of paperwork left for him. Though, not a moment goes by where he considers staying to finish his work over going to sort out the situation with his youngest daughter.
And that’s what Lucy loved about Tim. His family came first to him, no matter what. She never needed to ask him to help the girls with homework, or cook them dinner while Lucy caught up on other housework. They truly shared the job of parenting, and loved to do so.
_________
The couple arrives at their local elementary school ten minutes later, both of their daughters already waiting for them in the front office.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bradford, lovely to see you both!” The front desk attendant greets them sweetly.
“You as well,” Lucy smiles as Tim scans the room for his daughters. Before he can find them, though, Ivie is already running up to him.
“Daddyyyyy!” she screeches, jumping onto his leg with a wide grin on her tiny face.
“Hi honey,” Tim begins calmly, but a scary glare from Lucy causes Ivie to retract and back a few steps up. Tim might be cold blooded as hell on the streets, but when it came to parenting, he was… well, a softie. Lucy tended to play the bad-cop in their household, and she balanced out the coddling Tim inflicted, especially upon their youngest.
“Let’s have a little chat outside, shall we?” Lucy suggests, and everyone nods their heads.
Lucy stifles a laugh as a fear-stricken Ivie grabs onto her father’s hand, following as they step out of the office. Andie, who knew she wasn’t in trouble, prepared herself for the show, as a true older sister would do.
“So, Ives, do you know why we came here today? Tim asks calmly. The little girl furiously shakes her head.
Lucy bends down to her daughter’s eye level and runs a hand through her little blond girls, which have been brushed back into 2 ponytails. While Andie’s darker eyes and hair take after her mother, Ivie is an exact replica of her father, truly a daddy’s girl to the end.
“Baby, why are you telling your friends that daddy and I are going to…” she pauses and bites her lip, “that we’re going to get hurt at work?”
“Ivie!” Andie immediately squeals in horror, ready to reprimand the youngest Bradford on her own.
“Hey, not right now,” Lucy huffs. Like a typical older sister, Andie loved to boss Ivie around, and teach her right from wrong in a very strict manner. Lucy and Tim liked to joke that she acted more like a parent to Ivie than they did.
Lucy turns back to Ivie, whose green eyes are quickly filling up with tears. “I’m sorry!” the little girl begins to wail, letting go of Tim’s hands to cover her face.
“Baby, it’s okay!” Tim reassures her gently. He grabs onto Ivie's waist and hoists her up onto her lap. “You’re not in trouble, we just wanted to see what was going on, that’s all.”
“We- well…” the little girl begins to explain, though her bottom still trembles. “At lunch, I heard the big kids talking around this video of a cop on ClipTalk!”
Tim groans at the mention of ClipTalk. He cannot count the amount of calls received over an incident related to a video someone saw on ClipTalk. Just the other day, he was attached to a call from a woman who ingested a laundry-detergent pod because “someone on ClipTalk said it was good for immunity.”
“In the video,” Ivie begins to choke over her words… “he got really hurt.”
Both Lucy and Tim sigh in tandem; they know exactly which video Ivie is referring to too. A few weeks ago, a police officer from North Hollywood was killed on the job by a suspect. The situation caught a lot of attention and was blasted on a number of news outlets. Of course, they tried their best to keep this from their daughters, but it seems like their efforts failed.
“Oh, honey,” Lucy shakes her head, running her hands up and down her daughters back as she shakes from crying. “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
“You know... You guys have been working late a lot. We get worried when you take a long time to come home,” 8-year-old Andie quietly admits.
“Oh.”
The Bradfords were incredibly deliberate about sharing their work life with their children. They rarely brought the girls to the station and refrained from sharing the scary details of the job at home. And when they were injured, they tended to blame the bruise on a clumsy mistake.
When Andie was around Ivies age, Tim was stuck bringing her to Shaw Memorial after Lucy took a tumble in a foot pursit. The six-year-old did not take it well, and cried for about 4 hours straight, refusing to leave her mothers side. After that, the girls were kept as far away from the hospital as possible.
But of course, their attempt at secrecy had finally backfired on them.
“Girls, nothing lilke that is ever going to happen to us,” Tim assures both of his daughters. Lucy pulls Andie into her side and squeezes her into a tight hug.
“Aw, my sweet baby,” Lucy coos gently as Andie giggles. “You know, it’s perfectly okay to be scared. Mommy and Daddy have… different jobs than most people, which can sound scary. But if you have any questions, we’d be happy to answer them.
The young girls go on to ask tons of questions, ranging from How long is your lunch break to what happens if you get hurt?
And their parents answer every single one with confidence and reassurance. Being a police officer isn’t just abliut taking down criminals; they have to be calm and caluluated, talking down citizens in distress, which is why they can handle these obscure questions from their daughters.
“Alright my babies,” Tim sighs as he stands up from the tiny bench, Ivie still hanging on his hip, “let’s get you back in class.”
“Actually…” Lucy stops him, “do you think your paperwork can wait until tomorrow?”
“Um, yeah, I guess it can,” he shurgs.
“I think it would be good for them to spend a little time with us, since we’ve been so busy. I’m sure that Lopez and Harper can cover for me.”
“Yeah- yeah, that is a great plan,” Tim agrees with a smile.
“Perfect!” she turns to her daughters, “how do you feel about spending the rest of your day with Mommy and Daddy?! We can go shopping, have a nice dinner, play some board games…”
“YAY!!” Both girls squal simultaniously, Andie jumping up and down as Ivie hugs Tim.
“Okay, I guess the Bradford family is taking the day off!”