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Tim stands in the small conference room, looming over the IT guy frantically working over his keyboard, the light from the screen casting shadows as it illuminates the immediate area.
He knows that hovering probably isn’t helping, but he can’t help it.
“How much longer?”
The guy barely even looks up at Tim, his eyes flickering right back to the source code endlessly scrolling across the screen. “Combating hackers isn’t exactly my lane. I’m not even a programmer. I usually spend most of my day fixing printers and helping nurses that forgot their passwords.”
Tim lets his silence speak for itself.
The man sighs, sinking further into his shoulders. “I’ll keep looking.”
Tim nods, his jaw tight as his eyes wander to the clock on the wall, all too aware that every minute that the hospital's system stays down, is another minute that puts every single critical patient’s life in jeopardy.
His phone starts to buzz in his pocket. Tim groans, knowing it’s Grey calling for an update—
If not someone higher up the chain of command.
And they’ve still gotten nowhere, completely at the mercy of a desperate man holding hundreds of lives in his hands.
He releases the back of the chair, fishing the device free—
And is momentarily startled to see Lucy’s name on the screen instead.
He starts to shove the phone back away. He can call her back later, once he has the situation under control.
But then guilt finds its way heavily into his gut, sinking it like a stone.
The way it did anytime something reminded him of December 9th, 2019.
Lucy was at trial prep.
Something he’d been keenly aware was coming for weeks even if he tried to stay unperturbed about it in her presence.
He rubs at his jaw, the first hint of 5 o’clock shadow scraping roughly against his palm.
He can’t duck her calls.
Not today.
“Excuse me,” he mutters, taking his phone back out as he quickly crosses to the door.
He barely catches the line before his voicemail picks up, still half in the doorway as he presses the device to his ear. “I’m a little busy right now, Chen. Can I call you ba—?”
That’s when he clues in to the harsh sound of her breathing, crackling across the line.
He freezes, a prickling sensation crawling out from his spine. “Lucy?”
She inhales sharply. “I…. I can’t.”
He lets the door click shut, unconsciously scanning the hallway. There aren’t many people around, and those that are are probably too preoccupied with the current crisis to eavesdrop on a stranger’s conversation. But still Tim feels the urge to find somewhere more private.
His eyes lock with Nolan’s, standing by the nurse’s station. Tim jerks his chin toward the end of the hall and is eternally grateful when the older officer seems to understand, nodding his head in acknowledgement.
Without a second glance, Tim takes off.
“You can’t what?” He asks quietly, injecting calm into his voice.
She lets out a soft sob that tears right at his heart, and for a moment everything else falls away. “Breathe, Lucy,” he implores, slipping into the seclusion of the stairwell. Glancing out the window, he finds his shop still parked along the edge of the parking lot. “Where are you right now?”
Another shaky breath as she tries to pull herself together. “Hiding out in the bathroom,” she admits quietly, a hint of a self-deprecating smile changing the tone of her voice.
He raises an eyebrow, pressing his shoulders back against the door as it closes behind him. At least she hasn’t fallen into a full blown panic attack. He exhales. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She takes a few beats, working through calming herself down.
He waits, letting his head fall back against the cool metal of the door.
“You said you were busy—”
“Chen.” He cuts her off, his voice commanding.
He can almost see her wince. “Sorry, it’s just—”
“I can take a few minutes,” he assures her. And he’ll make that the truth. Nolan could handle the situation for a little while. Things shouldn’t fall apart without him. “Now tell me why you called.”
She lets out a long sigh, and he can picture the way she’s chewing into her lower lip, fiddling with her thumb nail the way she does when she can’t find any other outlet for her nervous energy.
“I can’t do this,” she reiterates, her voice coming through more steady, but no less defeated. “The trial,” she clarifies. “I’m trying so hard but… But—”
His stomach tightens. He’d never thought she needed to testify in the first place. But he’s also sure that isn’t what she needs to hear right now.
What she needs is to talk things out. They’ve been here before. He didn’t understand it before, but after riding with her for so long, he thinks he’s starting to.
So without a word, he sinks down onto the edge of the closest step and waits.
“I was so confident that I could do it,” she continues. “And I know how important it is. I’m one of the only living victims. One of the only ones that still has a voice.
“But today it all became so real. I’m not even in front of a jury, or a packed courtroom. It’s just me, in a safe place, with someone I should trust. And yet the minute he started questioning me I fell apart.” She starts to get worked up again. “I know that he had to phrase the questions in a way that made it sound like he didn’t believe me. But it still felt real, and I couldn’t help but get defensive. And with all of the evidence laid out on the table like that I couldn’t focus—”
She forces a deep breath. “If I can’t even do this in front of Chris, how the hell am I supposed to do it in front of strangers and whatever media circus this trial attracts—”
Tim’s brow creases in confusion. “Wait— what does Sanford have to do with any of this?”
She goes silent for a long moment, and he leans forward, feeling the tension ripple through his body.
“Sarah called in sick today,” she supplies quietly. “Chris stepped in.”
The aggravation that builds up in his chest is shocking with its intensity. “That is so inappropriate—”
“I told him it was fine, Tim,” she interrupts. “I just wanted to get it over with.”
“It’s not fine, and you know it,” he asserts, scrubbing at his forehead in exasperation. “There’s no way that he could remain impartial. Not to mention the direct conflict for you.”
She hums, then mutters something under her breath that he doesn’t quite catch. He’s about to ask her to repeat herself when the words start pouring out anyway.
“I umm… I needed a break. And while we were in the break room he started—”
She cuts herself off abruptly, and he’s about to ask, but she changes the subject too quickly.
“H-he watched the video, Tim. I don’t know why that makes me feel so violated. But it feels like my skin is crawling. Like I’m trying to breathe but there’s no oxygen in the room.”
He hears a muffled swish like she’s shaking her head, then a shuddering inhale.
A new weight finds it’s way onto his chest, the guilt pressing down until he’s finding it a little hard to breathe too.
“I— I get it. It’s evidence. A-and he works here. So it makes sense that he watched it. But he never said anything to me. How do you watch something like that, about someone you care about, and never mention it? How could he— He was so—”
It’s at that point that she must have realized that he’d gone silent.
He hears her swallow, the tinny sound on the line forcing another dagger into his heart.
“You’ve watched it, haven’t you?”
His eyes pinch shut, his chin dropping.
“Lucy, I—”
She lets out a breathy sob, and he wants to just disappear.
“I was responsible for you. I needed to know what you went through in order to be able to support you when you returned to the job,” he hurriedly explains.
“Hmm.”
“I haven’t seen the whole thing,” he defends pitifully, trying to continue his explanation. But he ends up just opening and closing his mouth a few times, words failing as the memories overtake him.
He couldn’t. Even knowing the outcome, he couldn’t watch her die. He’d tried, knowing that if she’d lived it, he should have the mental fortitude to get through it as well. Part of him felt like he’d owed it to her.
But the second her whispery voice had started to fade in and out, her head bobbing down towards her chest, before too slowly… shakily… raising back up—
He’d slammed the laptop closed, unable to continue.
Haunted for weeks.
“Why—” she chokes out, her voice shaking with frustration. “Why does it feel like everyone else has a front row seat to my trauma? That everyone has more of a right to it than I do? You know— sometimes I’m not even sure if I’m remembering right, or if my nightmares have twisted the memory so far away from what actually happened that I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
He winces. She’d called him because she needed support, and instead he’d ended up making her feel worse. “Lucy—”
Once again he hears the rustle of her shaking her head. “No. I don’t— What am I even supposed to do with this? My own boyfriend watched a video of the lowest moments of my life and he—” she cuts off into a soft hiccup.
Tim straightens, a new wave of determination coursing through him. “Do you know what I saw in that video?” He asks in a low voice. Steady. Calm. Resolved to be the tether that she needs. “I saw the strongest person I’ve ever met, refusing to give up.”
She lets out a quiet squeak that tears at his heart, but he keeps going.
“Anyone who watches it would think the same thing, Lucy. They’d have to.” He becomes aware of the way his shoulder blades are tensed together and makes an effort to force them back down. “They wouldn’t see a victim— they’d see you.”
She takes a deep breath. And then another. He waits, sitting there until the soft sounds of her cries fade into the occasional sniffle.
“Thanks,” she murmurs once she finds her voice.
One corner of his lips twitches up into a faint hint of his usual smirk. “Don’t mention it.”
“I umm…” the phone shuffles for a moment as she wipes the sleeve of her sweater across her cheeks. “I think I might have an idea.”
The smile grows a bit. “Yeah?”
But before he can ask for any details, a commotion starts up in the hall. He hears raised voices - Piper’s father arguing with one of the doctors. Tim pushes up a bit until he can see them through the window of the stairwell door.
“Shit,” he mutters, not even realizing he’d cursed out loud.
“You have to go.” It’s not a question. She knows.
He sighs, slouching back down. “I do.”
Lucy exhales, the sound still coming out a little ragged and his jaw stiffens with regret.
Scrubbing a hand over his hair, he clenches it into a fist then uses it to help push him back to his feet. “I can’t tell you what to do about the trial. But I know you’ll figure it out. You always do.”
She hums in some form of agreement.
Getting ready to step back out into the chaos, he pauses with his hand on the door handle. “You’ve got this, Chen. And you’ll tell me all about it tonight. I’ll catch up with you, once this crazy day is over.”
“Sure,” she offers, sounding clearly unconvinced.
He holds back a moment longer. “Lucy— We’re going to catch up tonight.”
His determination wins him a soft scoff. “Okay. Fine. Now go be a Sergeant.”
He smiles, more genuine. “Yes Ma’am.”
Just as he’s tucking his phone away, all of the lights go out and sirens start to blare from every direction.
Of course.
He breaks into a run.
***
Despite his insistence earlier, he leaves the ball in Lucy’s court when it comes to reaching out.
He’d almost given up, resolving to check up with her in the morning before shift, when his phone buzzes on the coffee table, a message asking him to meet up at a cop bar not far from the station lighting up the screen.
To say he’s surprised is a bit of an understatement.
Still, he hauls himself off the couch, grabs his keys, and hits the road.
He arrives first, finding a pair of empty seats in a quiet corner at the darker end of the bar top.
Lucy arrives a few minutes later, silently sliding onto the stool beside his. “Sorry,” she murmurs, as she adjusts to get a little more comfortable.
Before Tim can respond, the bartender chooses that moment to ask for their order.
Lucy doesn't answer, her eyes far off, appearing to almost look through the man.
Tim watches her for a moment, before shifting and clearing his throat. “Two Blue Moons. Unopened.”
That seems to snap her out of it. Her chin jerks in his direction, one of her eyebrows pointedly raised.
He’s always been more of a Coors kind of guy.
He raises a shoulder in a small shrug, and the corner of her lips curves up.
The bartender looks between them, puzzled, but backs towards the fridge just the same. “Coming right up.”
Once their drinks arrive, Tim slides her bottle the rest of the distance until it’s sitting right in front of her.
She reaches for it, but ends up just fiddling with the label, the moonstone on her finger glowing softly in the low light.
He stares at it, half mezmerized, letting the silence surround them.
If she needs to just sit with things for a bit, then that’s what they’ll do.
She tilts her bottle, balancing it on one edge, the dew collecting along her fingers.
“I decided not to testify.”
He pauses with his own bottle part way to his lips. But once he takes her in from the corner of his vision - sees how steady she is in her decision - he brings it the rest of the way up, feeling the cool liquid ease its way down his throat.
She lets her beer clunk back down. “I’ve been looking at this trial as something I had to prove. To show the world that I was still tough enough to handle this job. But I realize now that I don’t owe that to anyone.”
Tim puts his drink back down carefully. “No, you don’t.”
She nods resolutely. Her shoulders deflate. “I, uh— I watched the video.”
He looks over at her sharply.
“Twice actually,” she mumbles, starting to ramble on as her anxiety threatens to creep back in. “The first time felt like this weird, out of body experience. So I needed to watch it again to actually process things—”
“Lucy.” He interrupts sharply.
Her eyes snap up to his.
“Are you okay?!” It takes everything in him not to reach out, his fingers twitching in place.
She blows out a long, slow breath. “Yeah,” she murmurs, and he can hear the wonder and relief in her voice. “I think I actually am.” A soft smile starts to grace her lips.
And the weight finally starts to ease off his chest.
Reaching up, she finally twists the cap free from her bottle, bringing the cool glass to her lips for a long pull.
He still hasn’t been able to take his eyes off of her. The warmth of the sparkle in her eyes. The subtle confidence in the steady set of her body.
“I’m proud of you.”
A blush flares at the height of her cheeks. Putting the bottle down, she wipes at her lip with the cuff of her sleeve. “Thanks.”
He nods once, finally turning his gaze back over the bar as he takes another sip.
But then her hand finds his knee under the bar, squeezing it lightly and a surprise jolt of electricity rockets through him.
“And thank you again— for taking my call. I know you had a lot on your plate.”
His hand covers hers, his thumb swiping over her knuckles before he pulls back again. “Anytime, Lucy. I mean it.”
She absorbs that for a moment. Then she lets out a soft hum and goes back to playing with her beer bottle, though this time the movement is absentminded rather than a nervous compulsion.
“So,” she implores over a wry smile. “Regale me with tales of how you and Nolan saved the day. A little bird told me I would have been impressed with your technique.”
He slants a look in her direction. “A little bird?” He scoffs.
“I never reveal my sources.” She asserts, taking another sip.
Tim rolls his eyes in fond exasperation.
Lopez. It had to be Lopez.
“We muddled through,” he explains, allowing a cocky twist into his tone. “Could have definitely used you as my gopher though.”
She kicks him under the counter. “Aide.”
He chuckles into the mouth of his bottle. “Alright, aide.” He takes another pull. “You would have totally found some sensitive, kind hearted, Lucy way to get everyone to see sense and stop behaving like selfish toddlers.”
She smiles, doing a proud little shimmy, as she shifts in her seat.
“Tell me more.”
So he does - settling into the comfortable dynamic they’ve always somehow shared. And as her bright laugh fills the air around them, he realizes that despite all of the heartache and the trauma that will always be a part of their history—
They’ll be all right.