Work Text:
Tim has never been a religious man.
He used to pray when he was younger and his dad would fly off the handle. He would pray that his dad would stop drinking, that he would stop getting angry, and that he would turn into a regular dad like the other kids had. But year after year with no change, Tim stopped. He hardened, he endured, and when he was 18 and graduated high school, he joined the army and booked a one-way trip to Fallujah.
He prayed once in the army, when the roof caved in, and the air was hot fire to breathe. He prayed that they survive, that Ray would pay. But when two of his finest men didn’t make it out, he knew it didn’t make a difference. There was no point- no one was listening to Tim's prayers.
He tried to pray the night Isabel left. He didn’t know what to say, but he tried to pray for her safety, that she be returned to him. It didn’t matter; in the end she was shot and the divorce papers were signed. Praying hadn’t helped. Maybe he was doing it wrong.
So when Tim replays this moment later, forever etched in his brain like a terrible dream, he finds he’s not surprised he prayed. He has never felt desperation like he does in this moment, and the realization shocks him. He is half out of his mind, his hands bloody and bruised and caked in dirt, as he helps pull Lucy’s lifeless body from the barrel and lay her gently on the ground. When he puts his ear to her mouth and listens for a breath that doesn’t come, he feels a panic he has never felt before- not during Isabel or the army or even his father. This panic is only for Lucy Chen’s life, but he doesn’t have time to register that or think about what it means. He has to save her.
He breathes air into her lungs and administers CPR to her chest, and prays. And unlike all the other times in his life, his prayers finally come true when Lucy shudders and gasps beneath him.
He is grabbing her instantly, one hand sliding behind her head, the other on her arm as he gently lifts her face up. As she takes a shaky breath and begins to sob, he doesn’t think twice before curling her into his chest. He cradles her to him, and whispers reassurances to her: “It's okay, you’re okay, you’re safe now.” They’re as much for him as they are for her.
If Tim could get himself to think about anything other than Lucy, here and safe in his arms, he would think that there are other people in this circle around them that are closer to her. Jackson, definitely, and even Nolan would be better choices to comfort her, since they know her best. But Lucy grabs his uniform shirt in her fist as she shakes, and Tim thinks that there’s no way anyone is taking her from his arms. No one tries, they must understand this unspoken truth like Tim does; Tim has Lucy. No one tries to separate them.
If this was any other boot, Tim would pass her off to her friends, and dust himself off. If this was another one of his boots, Tim doesn’t think he would’ve felt the same desperate panic. He knows somehow in this moment that Lucy is different, but he doesn’t have the time or energy to decipher how. He just knows that on this whole hunt to save her, he was dead set on finding Lucy- not his Boot, or Officer Chen. Just Lucy. The difference matters somehow.
He can hear Grey on the radio calling for an ETA on the ambulance, and he can hear the relief of the other officers surrounding him and Lucy, but he is more aware of Lucy’s sobs slowly tapering off. She’s still shaking, harder now than before, but those terrible sounds have stopped. He lowers her away from his chest enough that he can look at her, and he can see a plethora of emotions in her eyes- hurt, fear, desperation, anger, sadness, relief. He reaches down and brushes her hair lightly out of her eyes with one hand, the other still supporting her back and head. Her breaths are coming in too fast now, and her eyes are wildly darting around, and Tim knows she is panicking. He lowers her fully to the ground, one hand still cradling her head while he places the other gently on her shoulder.
“Hey, Lucy, look at me,” he tells her softly, and waits until her brown eyes find his blue ones. “You’re alright, this is real, you’re going to be okay. You’re safe. We’re here now, I’m here now. Just breathe.” Tim whispers, and coaches her through a few cycles of shaky breaths. Everyone around them is still giving them space, and Tim is grateful. He doesn’t think everyone rushing to Lucy would help her right now, and they seem to understand that.
Grey puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder and says gently, “The ambulance will be here in a few minutes. We have to get her back to the house.” Tim nods, and looks back to Lucy. He debates asking her, but she is still shaking so hard that he decides to go for it. He has to get her to the house and to the ambulance, and there’s no way she can walk right now. He slides one hand behind her knees, the other behind her neck, and he lifts her into his arms. He’s never been so thankful of his strong body than at this moment- he doesn’t even falter as he swings her up. Even with the exertion of digging her out and giving her CPR, he is unwavering, and he is grateful.
Lucy curls her face back into his chest as he walks back to the house, the others surrounding them. He notices they have formed in almost a protective bubble around Lucy and him, and the unconscious thought that they are still protecting Lucy makes him smile for the first time since he realized she was taken this morning.
The walk is short, but by the time they’re back at the house the ambulance is there waiting. The protective bubble of friends and colleagues splits to allow two EMTs forwards, who urge Tim to place Lucy onto the gurney they have. Tim gently lowers her down, feeling numb as he straightens up. He is about to ask if Jackson wants to accompany her in the ambulance when Lucy reaches for his hand. Instinctively, he takes hers, feeling the warmth return to his body. She grips his hand like it’s a lifeline; considering that they brought her back to life, she's not wrong.
He hears Angela tell him that they will follow them to the hospital in their shops, and he nods. He sends what he hopes is a grateful look her way, and she squeezes his shoulder before walking with Jackson to where the shops are haphazardly parked. The crowd around them follows, and suddenly it’s just Lucy and him, plus the EMTs.
He has to let go of Lucy’s hand to allow the gurney into the back of the ambulance, and the brief time not at her side seems to upset her almost as much as him. As soon as Lucy is in the ambulance, Tim is following, sitting next to her and grasping her hand that was reaching for his. She relaxes a little until the doors to the ambulance close, and she is staring at the cold metal ceiling. He feels her tense up, and watches as she begins to shake again.
“Can we sit her up? She needs to see out the windows.” Tim asks one EMT, somehow knowing that without seeing the outside she feels like she is back in that barrel. He knows this ordeal will change her, will change all of them, and he adds “claustrophobic” to the list of possible new fears. There will be a lot. Near-death experiences always bring new fears, he would know.
The EMT hesitates, and Tim jumps in quickly; “Her spine is fine, it's not injured. She can sit up. She's panicking and she needs the window. Lying her down is more harmful here.” Tim feels like he may shake this poor EMT if she doesn’t agree, but as she takes a look at how hard Lucy is shaking, she relents. She raises the gurney so that Lucy is sitting up, and can look out the small windows in the back. Lucy calms slightly, turning her head to him and speaking her first words since being brought back: “Thank you.”
“For what, doing my job?” Tim replies on autopilot, but it makes Lucy crack a light smile, which he counts as a win. Neither of them mention that holding her hand in the back of an ambulance is not his job. It may not be in the TO job description, but it’s where he needs to be right now. It’s where he wants to be right now.
The EMTs work around Tim as best they can, but eventually they have to look at the deep-set wounds on Lucy’s wrists, so he lets go of her hand again. It feels almost painful- he has been touching her since she was brought back, since even before that, since the moment the lid was free of that awful barrel. They clean the skin there, which causes Lucy to hiss out in pain. He knows they’re just doing their jobs, doing what they must to help Lucy heal, but seeing her brow furrow in pain has Tim wanting to scream at them. He takes a deep breath instead- he needs to pull himself together. Once they’re done cleaning the wound, Lucy’s hand finds his again. He feels calmer immediately, and he tells himself it’s been a long emotional day. His emotions are heightened, that’s all. Her hand holding his means she is okay, a fact he has doubted all day. No wonder it’s calming to have a reminder that she is alive.
They ask Tim details about how Lucy was when they got her out of the barrel, and Tim already feels the familiar prickle of discomfort when he is forced to relive it. He adds “digging Lucy’s lifeless body out of a goddamn oil barrel” to his list of traumas and soldiers on, like the army taught him.
“She wasn’t conscious or breathing,” he forces out, and he can almost feel his panic again. He sweeps his thumb absentmindedly over the back of Lucy’s hand, and the repeated motion grounds him. She is alive, she is safe, he saved her. He takes a deep breath before continuing, “We pulled her out, and I performed CPR. I was on the first round when she began to breathe again.” The EMT notes this down, and Lucy’s hand tightens on his. He looks at her, and smiles lightly at her. Her eyes are watery, and he brushes the few tears that fall off her cheeks with the hand not gripping hers. “Thank you,” she murmurs softly again. Tim smiles gently at her, and instead of quipping back, he displays a rare case of vulnerability as he says “thank you, for not dying on me.” Lucy smiles lightly back, just a ghost of a smile, but he feels like he is on fire.
He doesn’t have time to unpack this, because the EMTs are then lifting her shirt to examine her ribs, to see if Tim cracked any when performing CPR. He sees her brown, dirt caked stomach and he averts his eyes quickly, feeling his cheeks warm. If Tim was capable of thinking clearly and rationally right now, he would realize his cheeks have never gone red when he’s seen Rachel’s stomach, or any part of her. A quick glance at Lucy’s stomach had made him feel more than seeing all of Rachel. But he is not capable of rational thought right now after the day he’s had, so he subconsciously pushes the feeling aside. He’s good at that.
The EMTs decide that Lucy's ribs are likely fine, but only the hospital will be able to tell for sure with a scan. Tim knows he did what he must to save Lucy, but the thought of adding broken ribs to her list of growing injuries, knowing he caused them, is almost too much to bear. He wishes he could take her pain on, shoulder it for her. He is used to physical pain by now, he's experienced so much. Lucy must see something in his eyes, because she is squeezing his hand and saying “Don’t. Don’t do that” to him sharply. He looks at her, confused, before she clarifies: “Don’t feel guilty. You saved me. I can’t handle you feeling guilty right now, so don’t. Please.” And just like that, Tim is exhaling and letting go of the guilt. How could he say no to Lucy right now? He can’t, he could never. So he lets it go, and murmurs an apology to her before continuing to sweep his thumb across the back of her hand.
They stay like that, silently holding hands while the EMTs continue to work around them, until they get to the hospital. It feels more intimate than Tim wants to admit, and he chalks it up to the bond of shared trauma. He tells himself to stop questioning his actions; today has been far from normal, so it makes sense he’s acting differently.
The EMTs are then throwing open the ambulance doors and unloading the gurney. Tim lets go of Lucy's hand before she can drop his, somehow knowing that feeling her let go would be more painful. He trails behind the EMTs as they rush her through the hospital doors, into the swarm of waiting doctors. He sees Grace there, and feels relief that there's at least a friendly face waiting to receive Lucy.
Lucy is quickly transferred from the gurney to a hospital bed, and is surrounded by doctors and nurses. Tim rationally knows that they’re here to help Lucy, but they’re blocking her from him, and Tim wants to fight his way through them to be at her side. Lucy must feel the same, because he hears her calling his name, the tinge of desperation in her voice unlocking something in him, and he elbows his way through the crowd. He finds himself by her once again, holding tightly to her hand. He hears someone say he can’t be here, and he shoots them a glare. He's perfected the scary TO face, and apparently it works on whoever admonished him, because he hears no more complaints.
They wheel Lucy down the hall, Tim still glued to her side, until he can't be anymore. This time, when they approach the double doors that boldly state “No Entry Without Approval”, Grace is the one to pull him aside, as the rest of the team wheels Lucy away from him. “I’m sorry, Tim, but this is as far as you can go right now. We need to check her out properly, and cop or not, you would only slow us down. Once she's set up in a room we will come get you, and you can see her then,” Grace tells him, giving him a sad, knowing look before following Lucy through the double swinging doors.
On the other side of them, Tim feels a sliver of what Lucy must have felt in that barrel: desperate, panicked, and alone. He knows she will be okay, and that she is in safe hands now, but it doesn’t matter. This is the first time he has been physically separated from her since he pulled her from that barrel; it almost feels like with her gone, she could be back inside it.
He's not thinking clearly, but he can't find it in himself to care. The emotions he's been holding off hit him at full force now, and the tears start escaping his eyes without permission. He hates crying, he hardly ever does it, and he chastises himself for being weak- why is he crying? He isn’t the one who was buried alive by a serial killer. He isn’t the one who was injured, who died, who was brought back to life. He is stronger than this, he needs to be stronger than this. He roughly scrubs a dirt-caked hand over his face, turning sharply away from the doors that separate him from Lucy. He walks robotically down the hallway, into the waiting room, and picks a chair at random to sit in. He’s got his face in his hands when he hears the automatic doors to the hospital opening, familiar voices floating through. He steels himself, not wanting to be weak around his fellow officers.
Angela reaches him first, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder and sitting next to him. He gives her a shaky smile as the rest of the cavalry joins them in the waiting room. He hears Jackson and Nolan talking, their voices low and strained. Grey approaches him and asks what they all want to know: “How is she?”
It’s a simple question, theoretically, but in this context, it's loaded. How is Lucy? Physically, she's fine- or is she? The doctors are still performing tests, so he changes the word 'fine' to ‘alive’ in his brain. He chooses his words carefully, clears his throat, and tells the room, “She’s stable. The EMTs seemed to think she will physically recover, but the doctors are performing their tests now. We should know more soon.” He hopes they know more soon, but he's worried that hearing the details about what Lucy endured may confirm his worst fears. As much as he tried to not think about it, his brain has been coming up with possibilities all day. He shoves the thoughts away and tells himself that Lucy is safe now. He holds onto that thought like a life raft.
“She’ll get through this. She’s strong.” Nyla says, and hearing Harper call Lucy strong carries an extra weight to it. Tim shoots her a small, grateful smile. He knows Lucy is strong, the strongest person he knows, but to have Harper say it so confidently makes him sure everyone else will agree. No one can doubt it now.
“And she has us to help her,” Nolan adds, which gets a murmur of agreement from the crowd around them. Tim exhales slightly because Nolan is right. Lucy isn’t alone, and will never be alone. He will make sure of that, as will the rest of them.
So they wait, together. Tim sits, surrounded by his friends, his colleagues, his supervisor, and feels less alone. But as much as he wishes he could ignore it, he still feels the Lucy shaped hole, a puzzle piece clearly missing. He keeps expecting to turn and find her sitting next to him, or hear her voice joking with Jackson and Nolan, or chatting with Angela and Nyla. He is used to seeing her around, the brightest presence in the room. Instead, without her, it feels dark. He doesn’t want to examine that closer, because pulling at that thread scares him. He writes it off as the fact she almost died, that her light was briefly extinguished, and he is worried that the tests will show lasting physical damage. What if she can’t be a police officer after this? He wouldn’t get to see her, to get to ride in the shop with her. He wouldn’t hear her voice incessantly chatting constantly, something he claims he is annoyed by, but he doesn’t feel relief when thinking it may be gone. He feels another wave of terror grip him, and he takes a shaky breath.
He is so caught up in his thoughts, he misses the look Angela throws his way- one that indicates she understands his feelings more than he does. She places her hand on his shoulder, grounding him and bringing him slowly back to the present. “Get out of your head and join the rest of us, Timothy.” She says quietly, and the use of his full name brings him fully back to this moment, so he lightly elbows her. He turns to join the conversation she is in with Wesley- when did he get here?- and listens as Angela recounts the story to him. He butts in every now and then with his own recount, but he mainly lets Angela tell the story.
At some point, he goes to the bathroom and tries to scrub the dirt from his hands. He spends five minutes scrubbing, and while his hands are mostly clean by the time he's done, his nails are a different story. They’re cracked and broken, and dirt is caked under them, but he doesn’t care. Nothing could have slowed down his panicked clawing at the dirt when he found Lucy's burial site. He splashes water on his face, and takes a look in the mirror. He looks the same mostly, just dirty and tired, but he feels entirely different on the inside. He feels like he woke up this morning Tim Bradford, and now he's not that man, he is someone else entirely. He feels like his thoughts have been rearranged, his priorities shifted, into something he doesn’t quite recognize. He knows this ordeal will change Lucy, and it seems like it changed him too. Trauma will do that to you, he thinks.
When he comes back from the bathroom, Rachel is there, and he isn’t sure who called her. It wasn’t him, and he knows as her boyfriend, it should’ve been. Truth be told, he hadn’t thought of her since finding out Lucy was taken. She comes to Tim quickly and wraps him in a hug. It should feel more comforting than it does, but Tim hugs her back anyway. He pushes everything away, and focuses on the small comfort Rachel does bring. If she feels something off, she doesn't question him, and for once, is thankful that today has been as traumatic as it has; he can get away with acting strangely. He hopes that after hearing the results of Lucy’s tests, seeing her again, and a good night's sleep, he will be himself again. He smiles weakly at Rachel and thanks her for being here. He knows she's here for Lucy just as much as she is here for him, and he is grateful Lucy has such caring people in her life.
They sit down next to Angela and Wesley, and continue to wait. Tim does a poor job at conversing with those around him, but Rachel smooths the gaps for him. He is grateful she's here, even if her hand holding his isn’t feeling a fraction as comforting as Lucy's hand did. He supposes that if it were Rachel who had briefly died, it would feel different. Lucy holding his hand was proof she was alive and well, and after spending the day worried she was dead, having a concrete reminder she was okay was comforting. Didn’t he vow to stop questioning his feelings earlier? It seems like a smart idea given how crazy today has been, so he decides he will ride the wave without judgment. Ignoring his feelings he's good at, but not judging himself for having them is different. He tries to give himself a pass today, and almost succeeds.
Grace comes into the waiting room, and addresses the crowd of cops at large; “Lucy is going to be alright,” she begins with, and Tim would’ve waited 100 years in this waiting room to hear that sentence. “She’ll be in the hospital for a few days, minimum, barring any complications. She’s dehydrated and needed stitches, and we have her on antibiotics for her cuts and-marks.” Grace hesitates as she says marks, and Tim realizes what she means a moment later, but she carries on, a doctor who has truly seen it all. “No broken bones, just some heavy bruising on her ribs, likely from the CPR Tim provided. We’re getting her set up in a room, and we have a few more exams to perform before you can see her, but it shouldn’t be long now. She's a fighter,” Grace says, and smiles at them before going over to Nolan to chat with him quietly.
Tim feels the room deflate, the news that Lucy is alright finally setting them at ease. Rachel, however, has tensed up at his side, and he wonders why before she turns to him and says, “You performed the CPR?”, tears in her eyes. Tim nods, and she wraps him in a hug again, repeating “Thank you” under her breath over and over. Tim just holds her and rubs her back- he doesn’t know how to respond. It feels entirely different then when Lucy thanked him. He pulls away from her and offers her a small smile.
“What did Grace mean by marks?” Rachel asks, and he watches as Jackson and he wince in unison. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to tell her a sadist serial killer tattooed a DOD into Lucy's skin, even if Lucy survived. He's thankful when Jackson explains, and he hears Rachel's sharp intake of breath as more tears begin to fall. She excuses herself to the bathroom, and Tim is thankful. He doesn’t think he could help comfort her much right now.
Grace seeks him out after she finishes talking to Nolan. She approaches where he is standing with Angela and Jackson, and begins to answer his question before he can even ask it: “You can see her soon, we just have a few more tests to run and then I’ll come get you. Normally you would have to wait longer like everyone else, but she’s been asking for you ever since she was admitted. Considering what she has gone through, keeping her calm and feeling safe is more important than the usual protocol here. It should only be about 10-15 more minutes.” Grace says, shooting him a small smile before departing down the hall.
Tim feels like he is floating; Lucy has been asking for him, being apart may have been just as bad for her as it’s been for him. He doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the fact that Grace says she wants to keep Lucy feeling ‘safe and calm’, and having his presence there would accomplish that. If he does, he feels like he's been set on fire again. He is so wrapped up in the fuzzy feeling that has overtaken him, he misses the glance Angela and Jackson exchange. If Jackson finds it odd that Lucy asked to see Tim before him, he doesn’t say anything.
Tim doesn’t think he's ever had 10 minutes pass so excruciatingly slowly. He paces the waiting room, eventually stopping when Rachel comes out of the bathroom and asks him to. He sits with her, knee bouncing, fingers drumming against the arms of his chair. He thinks he might explode if he can’t see Lucy soon; he needs to see for himself that she is okay. He is just about to start literally climbing the walls when a nurse comes to grab him. He shoots a smile at Rachel before hurrying after the nurse. He walks fast, and Tim is grateful; he would be sprinting right now if he could. They come to a stop outside a room, and the nurse motions at Tim to go in. He steels himself and pushes the door open.
Lucy is lying on a bed, in a hospital gown, hooked up to an IV. She has bandages around her wrists, and he can see her face has been stitched up. He clocks the rise and fall of her chest, and feels relief wash over him; she's alive, that wasn't a dream. As the door closes behind him, she looks up and they lock eyes: Tim feels the now familiar feeling of being set aflame again. One look from Lucy and he feels like he's been struck by lightning.
“How are you feeling?” He asks, tentatively approaching the side of her bed. He doesn’t reach for her hand, and she doesn’t offer it; it somehow feels different than it did in the back of the ambulance. As much as he wants to hold her hand, he knows she probably needs space now.
“Like a million bucks,” Lucy croaks, grimacing as she feels pain somewhere in her worn body. She closes her eyes against the pain, and Tim makes worried eye contact with a nurse.
“Her ribs are pretty bruised; talking is probably not the best idea right now.” The nurse explains, and Tim nods his head. “You don’t have to talk Lucy, just know I’m here. There's a waiting room full of people here for you too.” He tells her, giving her a soft smile as his words cause her to open her eyes again.
“We’ve finished all our exams, and we’ve just started you on some pain killers. They’ll make you drowsy, but they should also help with the soreness you’re no doubt feeling. Try to rest, it’ll help your body heal.” The nurse tells Lucy, noting something down in his chart before exiting the room.
Just like that, Tim and Lucy are alone together for the first time since yesterday. Tim is intimately aware of how much can change in a day- one day he was fine, and the next he was recovering from a gunshot wound- but these past 24 hours feel like they have rewired his entire relationship with Lucy. He isn’t looking at her in the hospital bed as his Boot, but instead something else. A friend, maybe. Tim should be used to being alone with Lucy, they spend 12 hours a day alone in the Shop together, but this feels foreign to him. Luckily, Lucy's eyes seem to be fluttering closed, so Tim is spared figuring out how to navigate a conversation with the whirlwind of feelings overwhelming him.
“Will you stay?” Lucy whispers, eyes slipping shut. “I’ll be right here, Boot. You can relax.” Tim says, throwing in the old nickname to make things feel more normal. He pulls up a chair beside her bed, folds his hands in his lap, and stands watch.
He stays all night.