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It's been weeks.
They’re so far gone from the easy dynamic they once had. They exchange “good mornings” and passing nods, like co-workers who have no history, no connection beyond cordiality. They don't quite look at each other as they pass in the halls of the station; the closest they get to eye contact is glancing at one another’s lapels. But they're speaking, sometimes, even if in stilted, clumsy exchanges, and that’s something.
There are little points of progress. Like when Lucy wordlessly intervenes in Tim’s losing fight with the coffee maker (again), or when Tim jerks his chin toward James or Wesley, ensuring Lucy knows they're in the bullpen with offers of baby snuggles. They’re little steps, small doses of kindness, a gradual thawing of the outermost layers of ice encasing the permafrost.
So it's a bit startling when she finds Tim standing outside her car, waiting for her after shift one Tuesday.
Lucy's steps falter, and so does her expression. He's leaning stiffly against the back door of her sedan. If she were closer she might notice the swallow of his throat, or how tightly his fist is clenched around the strap of his backpack. From this distance, all she can see is the rigidity of his shoulders and the guarded look on his face.
“Hey,” he starts. “Do, um. Do you have a minute?”
Lucy stops maybe six feet away, fiddling with her keys. She’s not sure what to expect, or what she even hopes for. But she's feeling brave, so she decides to try acting vaguely normal.
“I have five of them, in fact. What's up?”
Tim shifts from foot to foot, and now Lucy can see the tension in his limbs, the thin line that his lips shrink down to when he's nervous.
“So…I've been seeing someone.”
Lucy jerks backward like she’s been slapped.
Tim immediately holds up his hands and fumbles out a clarification.
“A therapist! I've been seeing a therapist. Someone new. Someone who hopefully isn't blackmailing clients or recording my sessions.”
Lucy exhales, her shoulders and expression both softening.
“Oh, well that's…that's good. I'm glad you've found someone you're comfortable with.”
“Yeah,” Tim nods, hand shoving back into his pocket. “Yeah, it's been good. Helpful. I…I didn't realize how much I've been carrying around with me until I started really talking about it all.” He gives a small, embarrassed grin. “It's kind of awful, honestly. I didn't realize therapy was so hard.”
That draws a wry smile to Lucy's face. “Yeah, it's a bit of a misconception that therapy is just professional coddling. Good therapy is more like asking to be called out on all your crap.”
Tim gives a long, slow nod, expression thoughtful. “That's a good description. She—the therapist I mean—she compared it to opening an old wound and draining out the infection. Hurts like hell, but it keeps you from being poisoned over time, or something.”
Lucy nods herself. “That's a solid analogy.” They both trail off into silence, eyes flickering toward one another. It's awkward, and there's a vague understanding of their shared wish that things could feel normal again.
Tim clears his throat, realizing he's standing between her and her ride home and he still hasn't explained what he’s doing there.
“So, we've been talking a lot lately about…well, about us. And I wondered…I wondered if you would come with me, next time.”
Lucy's mouth opens and closes, her eyebrows raised and her eyes wide. “You want me to come with you…to therapy?”
Panic starts to build in Tim’s chest.
“Not like couples therapy or anything. Just for one session. I know it's a lot to ask, and you don't owe me anything. But I just thought, I mean I hoped that maybe—”
“Tim,” she interrupts, and he snaps his mouth shut. “...I'd be happy to.”
Tim feels his shoulders drop two inches from his ears and his breathing evens out. “Really? It's not…it's not weird? Or too much?”
Lucy gives a real, honest, Lucy-brand smile, the gentle kind with her lips closed, her head tilted just so, like she finds him endearingly silly. And Tim feels his heart thud, because a sizable part of him thought he would never get to see that smile directed his way again.
“No,” she says. “It's not weird. Or at least not to me. When and where?”
Tim gives her the time and date – next Saturday at 10am – and texts her the office address.
“Thank you,” he says, and even though it's quiet and she feels so far away, he sees the corners of her mouth quirk up just a fraction more.
“Thank you for inviting me. I know it's not something you take lightly.”
Tim nods, a soft hum of acknowledgement, then fumbles back into the autopilot of “have a good night” and “drive safe.” Then he's in the cab of his truck, watching her pull out of her space and eventually the parking lot, and he breathes out a huge breath and leans his head against the headrest.
Getting shot at is easy. Trying to make things right is fucking hard.
***
There's a bit more thawing the rest of the week. Nothing major, but the glances get a bit closer to actual eye contact and Tim stops trying to fake small talk, just letting himself ease a bit when he’s in her orbit. Lucy seems to soften a bit at these more genuine interactions, and she melts a little bit herself in response.
When Saturday comes, Tim gets to the therapist's office 30 minutes early and spends 15 of them trying to distract himself with the radio, leg bouncing so fast he’s nearly shaking the truck. He spends the next 10 minutes trying to keep his breathing even while he forces all his attention onto the sunlight dappling through treetops, the sounds of traffic on the next street over, the feel of the driver’s seat pressed against his back. He fights so hard to stay in the moment, to drown out his racing thoughts by focusing on his senses, but it feels like a losing battle. Finally, at 5 minutes to the hour, he watches Lucy pull into the lot, then steps out of the truck to meet her.
They exchange “heys” and the smiles are awkward and the eye contact has regressed to looking at each other's shoes, but they're both here and Tim kind of can't believe it.
“So I guess I didn't tell you who we’re actually meeting. Her name is–”
“Sara Wilson?”
Tim blinks for a moment, then catches himself. “Um, yeah. How'd you know?”
Lucy's cheeks pinken, and he realizes for the first time that she's nervous. Maybe not as much as he is, but there's something fraying at her edges.
“I looked up the practice based on the address, and she seemed like the obvious choice. Specializes in first responders and military families, right?”
Tim shakes his head a little bit, and as his mouth quirks into a smile he’s struck by all the little things he misses about her. “Yeah...yeah, that's her. So you googled my therapist, huh?”
She swats in his general direction, though there's several feet between them, and things almost feels normal for a second, like they're Bradford-and-Chen again.
“I didn't google her. I googled the address. I wanted to be sure I knew where I was going. A trauma specialist seemed like a pretty good clue.”
Tim’s smile falters.
He’s not completely comfortable with the "T" word yet, but he’s getting used to it. At least he doesn't recoil like the first time someone applied it to him, back in a support group at the VA. “Trauma” feels like too big a word to use, something reserved for people with wounds more devastating than his. Hearing it still makes his insides twist, like people are assigning some kind of credit to him that he doesn’t deserve.
He doesn’t know how to respond, so he just doesn't.
They walk toward the entrance, Tim getting the door for Lucy. He stops his other hand a few inches shy of gently resting on her back and guiding her through the doorway. They make their way up a narrow staircase, then take the first door on the left into a small but cozy lobby with a white noise machine and minimalist but comfortable decor, lots of creams and taupes and earth tones. Lucy doesn't look twice at her surroundings, and Tim supposes that once you’ve seen one therapist’s office, you’ve probably seen them all.
They each take a seat in not-uncomfortable silence, Lucy scrolling through her phone and Tim focusing intently on the barely perceptible color variants in the carpet. They're doing this, Tim realizes. He's here and she's here and this is happening. And he's both grateful and nervous, a confusing mix of emotions that kind of makes him want to hurl up the eggs and toast he had for breakfast.
A few minutes later a brunette in her mid 30s pops her head and shoulders through a doorway and smiles warmly in their direction.
“Hey Tim,” she says. “Come on back.”
Tim leads the way as they stand and follow Sarah down a short hallway and into a room not dissimilar from the lobby, but with many more plants and a large window overlooking the sidewalk. Sarah waits outside the door and gestures them in, and Tim awkwardly steps to the side upon entering. He nods his head for Lucy to choose her preferred seat; there's a three-seater couch situated under the window, with a pair of armchairs on one side and a matching third facing the couch. On the left wall is a desk with a well-worn office chair, the kind that swivels and rolls.
Lucy pauses only a second before settling into one of the armchairs, and Tim takes its mate beside her. Sarah softly shuts the door before taking her own seat opposite Tim and Lucy, looking perfectly comfortable and welcoming.
“Well Tim,” Sarah begins. “Tell me who you've brought today.”
Tim feels a little flutter in his chest as he looks up and over, making actual eye contact as he and Lucy exchange small, nervous smiles. “This is Lucy. She's…well, she's a lot of things. Maybe we just call her a friend.”
As soon as the word slips out he wonders if it was too presumptuous, and Lucy must clock the apprehension on his face because that smile is back, the gentle one, and she gives a little nod.
“Yeah,” she says quietly, “‘friend’ works.”
Tim exhales and has a passing thought about the odds of him having a heart attack before this session is over.
Sarah doesn’t miss a beat.
“Well Lucy, it's good to meet you. My name is Sarah, and I'm a licensed mental health counselor. I understand from Tim that you're familiar with therapy?”
“Oh yes,” Lucy says sardonically. “Very familiar.”
“Well then, nothing I'm about to say is probably new to you, but I do need to cover some housekeeping. Tim and I spoke about you possibly joining us for a session, and he's given me permission to speak freely in front of you. Is that still right, Tim?”
Tim gives one emphatic nod. “Anything we've talked about, she can hear.”
“Perfect. I do need to remind everyone that at the end of the day, I am Tim's provider and my focus is going to be on his goals for treatment. I’m also a mandated reporter, so if at any point I have reason to believe that a vulnerable person is at imminent risk of harm, I’m obligated to report that situation to the authorities. Which, I suppose, might ultimately mean your own colleagues. Does that make sense, Lucy?”
Lucy nods her head and begins checking off her fingers. “Abuse or neglect of a child, elder, person with a developmental disability, or an animal. Or imminent risk of suicide or homicide.”
Sarah smiles, and Tim can just picture a 10 year old Lucy eagerly raising her hand in school, ready to answer a question before the teacher has finished asking it. “That's exactly right. Outside of those situations, what we talk about here is legally protected as Tim's private medical information. So with all that said, Tim, I know it was important to you to invite Lucy in for a session. Why don't you tell us why.”
And suddenly Tim feels like he's standing at the edge of a cliff, peering down into blackness and trying to convince himself to step out into empty air.
“I, well, uh…” Tim clears his throat, shifts in his seat and grips the armrest more tightly. “Lucy's important. Important to me. Things really went sideways with us, and that's what finally made me realize that I have some baggage I need to work through if I'm ever going to be able to be there for another person the way I want to be. The way I…how I should have been there for her.” He swallows hard and can't help looking down at the floor as he says this, eyes roaming the fibers of the area rug for something to focus on.
“Lucy,” Sarah says, and it startles Tim to hear Lucy addressed instead of himself. “I see you shaking your head. That makes me think you don't quite agree with something Tim said.”
Tim glances Lucy's way, and he sees her pressing her lips together in that way she does when trying to keep her thoughts to herself.
“I…I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't mean to interrupt. I want to hear what Tim has to say.”
“No,” Tim hears himself saying. And it's like Sarah has opened the door for him to actually engage with Lucy, to talk to her in the way that used to be so normal, so easy. “No, what did I say that you didn't agree with?”
Lucy swallows and Tim can see that she's uncomfortable, like she's worried she's overstepped and holy crap, I thought she would be a pro at this but she's just as nervous as I am. Lucy stays frozen for a few more seconds, and then Sarah steps in again.
“Tim, it sounds like it's important to you to hear Lucy's perspective.”
Tim glances back at the therapist and feels a little awkward at how obvious that observation is. “I mean, yeah, of course I do. Lucy is…she's everything. Her opinion matters to me.”
He feels the side of his face burn with the weight of Lucy's eyes on him, and it takes him a second to realize how his words must have sounded. Lucy is everything, he’d said.
Well, he thinks to himself. It’s not wrong.
Sarah gives this soft smile, like she sees straight through Tim and knows exactly how much he’s struggling right now. “It sounds like she really matters to you. And it’s important to you that she shares what she’s thinking. Why don't you tell her that?”
Tim blinks rapidly.
“I just did.”
“No, you said it to me. But Lucy’s the one who needs to hear it.”
The room is silent for a beat.
“What,” Tim says. “You want me to say what I just said again? Right now?”
Sarah smiles in a frustratingly patient way.
“Look at Lucy, and tell her, directly, why you want her to speak up.”
Tim shakes his head, glancing over toward Lucy with his “Can you believe this?” look.
…But Lucy is staring hard into her lap now, lips set into a thin line and brow tense. He’s seen confused Lucy, sad Lucy, scared Lucy. But the look on her face now is something so tentative and unsure and hurt that it just about breaks him.
And this is why he’s here, isn’t it? To start trying to fix what’s broken?
He takes a breath, turning in his seat to face Lucy head on. And this time, he forces himself to look her in the eyes, willing them to find his own.
“You were…are, honestly…everything to me. I don't know when or how it happened, but just because I screwed everything up doesn't change the fact that what you think of me, what you see in me that I can't…that matters. It's why I'm here, why I asked you to come.”
She lifts her face, expression still tentative, but curious. He wants so badly to reach out to her, to take her hand in his or settle his palm over her knee, to have some sort of physical contact through which to emphasize the sheer truth of what he's saying.
“I asked you to come because, because there are things I'm figuring out about who I am, what I've been through, that built up into something that made me self-destruct and put you in the blast radius. I wrecked us because I was convinced that I was going to drag you down with me, and you don't deserve that. I'm figuring out what all that means, where it comes from, and it's…it’s hard, and it makes me all the more angry at myself for what I put you through. But you deserve answers from me, if you want them. And if you see something here that I don't…I want you to tell me, if you're willing. I trust your insight on this stuff more than anyone else’s, more than my own sometimes.”
Lucy’s expression shifts again, still sad, but softly blooming with compassion. And he is so far gone for this woman, it’s not even funny.
He waits, and after a few moments, Lucy opens her mouth to speak.
“You…you said that you're figuring out why you couldn't be there for me. But Tim…” God he missed hearing her say his name. “You were always there for me, until those last few days. You always had my back, even when I wanted you to back off and let me handle things on my own. Not being there isn’t what broke us.”
Her pause lets him take a deep breath, leaning forward to clench his hands together and rest his elbows on his knees. He's bracing himself, waiting for her to explain in that beautiful, insightful way of hers what his fatal flaw was, and how it detonated one of the best things to ever happen to him.
“You were always there for me, but the second you needed someone in your corner, you shut me out. You wouldn't let me take care of you, be there for you, have your back like you've always had mine."
Tim is already shaking his head.
“It's not your job to deal with my drama,” he says.
“It's not drama, Tim. It’s a relationship.” Her voice has hardened, just a bit. “It's letting me love all of you, even your demons. You decided for me that it was too much, that I couldn't handle it, or that you weren't worth the sacrifice.” She breaks eye contact, looking down and shaking her head like she's struggling to understand. “Do you know what that's like? You took away my choice. And when I tried to fight for you, for us, you punished me. Like you were my parent and knew what was best.”
Tim feels an ache in his hands, clenched so tightly together his knuckles are turning white. There's a burning behind his eyes and a tightness in his throat. His eyes have dropped as she speaks, no longer able to look at her face, and instead he focuses on the way she's clenching her car keys in her lap, like she wants desperately to do something but there's nothing for her to act on.
“I gave you all of me. I let you into my whole heart, my mind, what I thought and felt and struggled with. But anytime I asked you to let me in, to let me help you or at least be there for you, you pushed me away. You would say and do all the right things, but it always felt like...like a front, like what you were supposed to say. And the worst part...”
He hears her words cut off, the smallest hitch in her throat, and it's absolute torture listening to the hurt in her voice.
It’s quiet for about a minute, Lucy holding off from finishing her sentence. Tim almost forgot there was a third person in the room, but now Sarah offers a gentle prompt, voice soft.
“What’s the worst part, Lucy?”
Lucy takes a deep breath and a long, steady exhale. Tim makes himself look back up at her, wanting to meet her bravery with some of his own.
“The worst part is…you took away my person. You hurt me, and then took away the person I go to when I'm hurting, who makes me feel safe again. All I wanted for weeks was for you to hug me and tell me it would be okay. But I couldn’t have that, and even if I could, you…you aren’t safe anymore. I don’t trust you.”
There it is, the punch in the gut he was waiting for.
“You aren’t safe anymore.”
“You hurt me.”
“I don’t trust you.”
Tim’s shaking his head again, looking hard at the floor and trying to fend off the echoes of those words, all his missteps roaring to life in his skull.
“I shouldn't have brought you here,” he murmurs. “This isn’t fair to you. I'm just opening all the wounds I've already inflicted on you. This was a mistake.”
Lucy's response is stony silence, but she shifts her limbs, crossing her legs and her arms, leans back in her chair. He watches as she physically withdraws from him and all the ways he continues to hurt her, over and over again. That's good, Tim thinks. She should pull away from him. She'll be safer that way.
This time, Sarah levels her soft voice at him.
“You're doing it again, Tim.”
It takes him a minute to process what she's said. He waits a few seconds for the words to make sense, they still don't. He looks up toward the therapist, brow furrowed.
“What do you mean?”
Sarah's smile is sad, but understanding. Her words are slow, soft, and deliberate when she speaks.
“Lucy answered your question. You asked her what she sees that you don’t, and she told you. And you decided, based on her response, that this is too painful for her. You made a choice about what she can handle, and what's 'worth it.' You're taking away her choice again, right now, in this conversation.”
Tim’s brow furrows even more, but after a minute he gets it. He looks over to Lucy and she's staring down at her lap again, arms crossed. There’s a shine to her eyes that he’s scared to look too closely at.
“Is that…is she right? Is that what it feels like?” Tim asks.
Lucy lifts her eyes toward him, then gives a little shrug and a small nod.
Tim’s brow lifts, eyebrows raised. It takes a minute to find his words again.
“Well…fuck.”
He leans back, letting himself collapse down in his chair.
“But…I'm not trying to take your choices away. It’s the opposite. I don’t want to stand in your way. You shouldn’t have to deal with…with my bullshit. It’s not worth it.”
“And who gets to decide what's worth it?” There's a bite to Lucy's tone this time, and it’s a glimpse of the woman with steel in her spine that Tim admires so much. “That's the point, Tim. You don't get to decide if I can handle it, or if it's worth it to me. That's my decision. This isn’t a T.O. and his boot, making calls on my behalf because I don’t know how to keep myself safe. You don't call the shots here. I do. We were supposed to be partners. Equals.”
“We're not equals, though!” And he instantly has to raise his hands in defense, warding off Lucy's response. “No, not like I'm your superior. You're mine, Lucy, in so many ways. You deserve so much better than me. It's not fair for my mistakes, my baggage, to jeopardize your career, or your life, or your happiness.”
“You're doing it again,” Lucy deadpans. And in the corner of his eye he sees Sarah nod approvingly.
Tim sits up, leaning forward again as he tries to settle his agitation. It’s not working.
“So what do I do, then?” he asks, demanding of Sarah. “I'm trying to protect her, but in doing that I'm, what? Hurting her? Parenting her?”
“More like infantilizing me,” Lucy says.
Tim throws up his hands.
“Fine, infantilizing,” he says, glancing pointedly at Lucy before looking back to the therapist. “I'm trying to keep my own bullshit, my past, from bringing down someone I care about. But in doing so, I'm infantilizing her. Which is NOT–” he stresses the word, staring hard at Lucy again, “—something I have ever set out to do. So what's the right call here? How do I respect her… her autonomy, but still keep her from getting hurt?”
“Who says you can?” Sarah asks, and that is so not the answer Tim was looking for.
“Excuse me?”
“Who says you can keep her from getting hurt? That's not your job, is it? Not in your personal lives. Like she said, you're not her T.O. anymore, or her parent.”
She must see the aggravation on Tim's face, because this time it's Sarah who puts up a pair of placating hands. “Think of it this way. You two have ridden together hundreds of times on the job, both before and after you were a couple. When you're out on the streets, can you keep Lucy 100% safe from ever getting hurt?”
“Of course not,” Tim says. “I try my best, follow protocol, but things happen.”
“And what happens when something does go wrong? When she does get hurt? Do you have to stop everything, let the suspect get away while you determine what Lucy needs?” Tim glances back to Lucy, like this is a trick question and maybe she has an idea what the right answer is. She just raises her eyebrows at him.
“I mean…Lucy's a great cop. If she gets hurt, I know she'll do what she needs to to handle herself or get help. I trust her judgement. Well, usually.”
Lucy swats at his arm, making contact this time, and it's such a relief to feel that bit of normalcy–--or what used to be normalcy–--in the middle of all this angst and tension.
“So on the job, you trust her to take care of herself. You work together, as a team, looking out for each other but ultimately trusting one another to make smart choices and keep yourselves alive. If she needs backup, you know she'll make that call. She’ll tell you if she needs you to intervene or change tactics.”
“Right,” Tim nods.
Sarah gives a slow nod back.
“So…why is your personal relationship any different? Why can't you trust her to let you know if she's in too deep, or if she needs you to step up and protect her?”
Tim opens and closes his mouth a few times, silence filling the room.
“...Because.” he says finally, weakly.
Sarah makes a “go on” gesture, but keeps quiet.
“Because…I'm not worth her getting hurt over. Ever.” And suddenly his throat is tight and his voice is thick and he feels himself blinking back some tidal wave of emotion that he’s sure will drown him if he lets it loose.
He watches Sarah watching him, sitting in the silence with a steadfastness that he's seen before during hostage negotiations. Tim’s good at waiting people out; he can be very, very patient. But that wave is growing, a mounting pressure behind his eyes and in his lungs, and though he’s fighting desperately to keep it back, he can feel it start to swallow him up, choking out his breath.
He's not expecting it when a warm, gentle touch falls onto his bicep.
“Tim...” Lucy's voice is soft, like she's about to say something that she knows will be hard for him to hear. He looks back at her, and her expression is equal parts exasperation and sadness, a look that is so precious to him in its familiarity.
In the end, Lucy doesn't finish her sentence. She doesn't have to. Tim lets out a deep, heavy breath, and hears a roaring in his ears.
“...I'm doing it again.”
Lucy just smiles sadly back at him.
They all sit there in the quiet, holding space for whatever this is they’re witnessing. Tim feels like he’s broken the surface of something, coming up for air but unsure whether he’s just emerged into calm seas or the eye of a hurricane.
It’s Sarah who finally breaks the silence.
“Yes,” she says. “You were doing it again. Deciding on Lucy’s behalf what your ‘baggage’ is worth to her.” She pauses. “But this time, you caught yourself. You asked Lucy to be here, to give you insight, and when she did, you listened. She signaled that you were falling into that same pattern you’ve been following over and over, probably for your whole life. Protecting people by making the hard calls on their behalf, even when they don’t need you to, even when doing so leaves you in agony.”
She pauses again, and Tim feels so tired, but also dimly aware of the roar in his ears receding, of his heart rate slowing, of the pressure of Lucy’s hand still firm on his arm.
“And that awareness,” Sarah continues, “that act of catching yourself in the moment, and realizing you could choose to do something different, is the first step in changing course, in breaking out of this cycle that’s leaving you feeling stuck and alone.
“So, Tim,” Sarah concludes. “Instead of choosing for Lucy, what do you want to do instead? Right now, in this room, this discussion. What's a different choice you could make?”
Tim looks up to Sarah, searching her face for any clues or guidance. All he finds there is openness, an invitation to try something new. His therapist, it seems, does not operate by simply handing out the answers.
So for the second time in an hour, Tim decides to be brave.
He looks down at the hand still resting softly on his arm, and reaches over to cover it with his own. He tries to memorize the feeling of warmth there, wills it to seep into his muscles and bone to a place so deep he can never forget it, becoming a part of him he can never lose. After a minute he looks up and meets Lucy’s eyes.
“What do you want?” he asks, voice thick.
Lucy’s smile creeps wider but she’s trying to hold it back, fighting the corners of her mouth as they press upward into her cheeks. She’s blinking back that shine in her eyes that’s now welling up and threatening to spill over. And the look on her face is...it almost looks like pride.
“I…I don’t know,” she says, withdrawing her hand and the warmth it carries. Tim would feel disappointed, but that bit of contact was more than he’s hoped for since she hit the emergency stop in the station elevator and pulled him deep into a hug.
He doesn’t rush her. The three of them wait.
“...We can’t go back to how things were. There’s logistics, obviously. You’re in my chain of command again. But it also wasn’t sustainable. I…” She takes a breath, like she’s bracing herself. “I never knew what you were thinking or feeling, not for sure. And…and there’s a lot of trust that’s been lost. I know you’ll always have my six. But I’m not so sure that you’ll let me have yours. And I can’t watch you walk into the line of fire again, expecting me to stand back and let it happen.”
Tim swallows and nods, trying to take in her words without getting wrapped up in all the possible implications.
“...I want you to be my safe person again. Not even romantically, necessarily. You were always important to me. I just…I want to feel like it’s safe to trust you, that you trust me, that you won’t lock me out again because you’ve decided you need to be a martyr."
Tim nods again, and he tries to swallow but his throat is too tight. When he speaks it’s somewhere between a whisper and a croak.
“I’d like that too.”
They sit in silence again, and while it’s still big and daunting it’s less overwhelming, less a feeling of uneasiness and more one of possibility.
“Tim,” Sarah says softly. “What’s happening for you right now, hearing Lucy say that she wants to feel safe with you again? What emotions are coming up?”
It’s a testament to the respect Sarah has earned from him that Tim doesn’t scoff at the question, instead pausing to look inward and settle on a true response.
“I feel...grateful. And humbled. And honestly kind of terrified.”
Lucy chuckles, still keeping her hands in her lap. But the corners of her eyes crinkle and it makes the knot in Tim’s chest loosen just a bit.
“Why terrified?” Sarah asks. “Tell me about that fear.”
“Well…what if I screw things up again? How do I even know where to start? It took years for us to build the kind of trust and dynamic we had. How do I even begin to rebuild that?”
At first he looks at Sarah as he speaks, but before he’s finished he’s looking at Lucy, asking the question to the person whose answer really matters. Lucy considers a moment, then responds slowly, sorting out her thoughts as she voices them.
“...I need you to try and let me in, the way I do you. You don’t have to tell me everything. The things you’re working through are personal, and private. I don’t expect you to share everything with me like you might have if we were still together. But…I need to see that you’ll at least clue me in when you’re struggling, or when you need help. Even if you wish you didn’t.”
She looks up at him then, and Tim almost loses his breath when she reaches her hand back out to him, palm up in invitation. He reaches back with his own, twining their fingers together in a gesture so simple, yet full of meaning.
“Show me I can trust you to let me care for all of you, Tim. Even the parts you wish weren’t there. Show me that you have faith in me to stand by you, and never hold those dark parts against you. I can handle your demons; they’re part of who you are.”
Tim sits with those words a moment, eventually squeezing Lucy’s hand in his. He tries to communicate all the love and appreciation and hope he doesn’t have words for through that one point of physical contact, savoring the hold they have on one another in this moment.
“I’m not sure I know how to do any of that,” he says softly. “But I really want to try.”
She squeezes his hand back, and when he looks up at her their eyes meet, unwavering.
“Small doses?” she asks.
He gives the smallest of smiles back.
“Small doses.”