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Tim doesn’t remember pulling out of the station parking lot. God knows where he is. Can’t think of how long he’s been driving.
It had been late when he’d finally finished with IA, somewhere past midnight. He’d been officially cleared, but of course Grey had stuck around to condemn him personally, the disappointed stare piercing right through him. Another layer of guilt and shame piling atop the mountains of it already accumulating in Tim’s head.
Lucy had offered to wait for him at the station while he was in his interview, but they both knew the process could take a while—he’d insisted she go home. She’d agreed, but only as long as you come back home when you’re done, okay?
An invitation.
Last time he’d set foot in that apartment, she’d asked him to leave.
He’d deserved it.
Still does.
He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d cut it off right there. Him. Them. Protected her peace and moved on to live a life with someone who doesn’t have something fundamentally wrong with them. Someone who doesn’t have years of trauma locked inside vaults that just got burned to the ground, baggage that he didn’t even know he had spilling out and destroying everything it touches.
He has half a mind to do it for her, right now, pick up the phone and set her free from the darkness that’s pulling him down before she gets dragged into it too, before she becomes stained with the red covering his hands. But the other half of his mind is fizzing like TV static and Tim doesn’t know anything right now. He’s barely coherent of his surroundings, streetlamps and occasional headlights blurring together in his periphery. It’s probably bordering on dangerous, but he doesn’t have enough awareness to care.
Everything is just… heavy.
And then the sudden sound of his ringtone sends a jolt through him.
He fumbles with the touchscreen on his car, unfocused vision not reading the caller’s name and stiff fingers missing the right button a few times, but eventually he answers with a faint, “hm?”
“Tim?” It’s Lucy. She sounds… relieved? “Hey, I was just checking in to see if you were finished up with IA yet; it’s seriously late.”
…What?
Tim blinks and it’s like he’s only now seeing his surroundings for the first time in a while, the faint blue neon display of the clock on the touchscreen coming into focus.
02:13 a.m.
Shit. Has he really been driving around for two hours?
“Uh—” His voice catches. He’s desperately trying to collect all his pieces, to pull himself together, but it just feels like he’s imploding.
“…Tim?”
It’s just guilt and shame and self-hatred, all collapsing in on him. Dust and debris overlaying the pile of rubble he’s made of his life and beginning to suffocate him.
“I—I know you’re still there,” Lucy sounds anxious, tired, “what’s going on?”
Listen to what you’re doing to her, you monster.
“I—uh—sorry, I’m—” He stops, tries to take a breath, but it provides no real relief, almost like there’s no oxygen in it. “We finished up not long ago. I’m—I’m just pulling out of the station now.”
“Okay,” she says, her hesitation clear as day. His fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Drive safe, alright?”
“Mhm.” He hangs up halfway through his response and screams into the silence, everything coming crashing down. The sound echoes off the windows and every surface and seeps into his skin.
She deserves better.
All she’s doing is worrying about him, because all he’s done is make her worry.
She deserves better.
She deserves so. much. better.
Lucy is light and sunshine and a blue sky with a gentle breeze, and Tim… Tim is the storm clouds rolling in overhead, grey and dark and oppressive. A signal of impending misery. The start of a ticking clock on everything bright turning dim, that moment when thriving gardens become drowned in acidic, polluted water.
The thought crosses his mind that he should swerve off the bridge as he drives over it. Pull over and dive into the ocean as he speeds past the coast. Miss the turn back towards the centre of the city and just… disappear into nowhere. Out of the city and the state and far away from everyone that thinks they know him. Because, as it turns out, this whole time he hasn’t even really known himself.
He’s just a fucking liar. That’s it.
But he drives over the bridge. Flies past the coastline. Makes the turn. Because Lucy asked him to come home, and after everything he’s put her through he owes her that much.
He’s still not quite come back to himself when he pulls into the parking lot of Lucy’s building, head still cloudy with static. It’s like someone else’s body is drifting up the stairs, another person’s trembling hands are using his key to unlock the door to her apartment. Like there’s a stranger trying to break in and he should be warning Lucy of the danger in her hallway.
Key clicking in the lock, Tim pushes the door open and takes a single step inside, his feet refusing to take him any further.
Curled up on the couch under a blanket, Lucy is watching re-runs of Friends. Upon hearing the door open, she lifts her head before pushing the blanket off herself to stand.
Tim is frozen, even as she crosses the gap between them. The warmth of the apartment permeates deep into his bones but the hollowness in his soul just won’t leave. Exhaustion and emptiness leave his feet planted firmly on the floor.
And then Lucy places a gentle hand on his elbow, and something inside him snaps under the soft touch of her fingertips.
The first tear wells up and spills over before he’s even registered the prickling behind his eyes and Lucy pulls him in before the second one has a chance to fall, cradling his head into the crook of her neck. He accepts the warmth even as it tears him up inside.
He feels so safe and he doesn’t deserve it.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, broken words muffled by her shoulder and the flow of more tears. In her arms, the last of the adrenaline that’s been running through him since he first picked up the phone to Mark Greer’s voice finally fades, and he feels like his legs could give out.
Lucy had broken through the emptiness with one single touch, and now Tim is truly feeling everything. Every emotion he’d locked away behind shutters over the last week. The fear, the anxiety, the overwhelming devastation that he’d ruined everything. He’d made an earth-shattering mistake more than a decade ago, cost the lives of two of his brothers for his own self-interest, and he’d come this close to repeating history all over again. He never fucking learns.
“It’s okay, Tim—” It’s clearly an autopilot response to his tears and his apology, but he’d be doing her a disservice to accept it.
“No, it’s not.” Pulling away, Tim doesn’t quite let go, but refuses to allow himself the comfort of her arms any longer. “It’s not okay.”
She sighs heavily, knowing he’s right, and he can see the weight he’s burdening her with—fucking hates himself for it. The shadows under her eyes betray the exhaustion, the worry, the anxiety he’s causing her, and he’d leave right now if it meant she was okay.
“No, it’s not,” she concedes eventually, echoing his words. “But it will be.”
“Will it?” Self-loathing crawls under his skin like ants when his eyes finally meet hers and he sees the love waiting for him there. No hesitation, no wariness, no walls or guard around her heart. “You deserve so much better, Lucy.”
Her fingers don’t let up their grip on his forearms as her eyes flit between his, staring straight into the pieces of his soul and not once breaking away. “Isn’t that for me to decide?”
This gives him pause. He’d never, ever want to remove her agency, try and make her decisions for her. But, at the same time, he knows Lucy, is all too aware of how loyal she is. She’d never choose to leave him, no matter how far down he falls or how close he might get to dragging her under with him—not until it’s too late.
“Of course,” he sighs, eyes falling shut. “But—”
“No.” Lucy’s voice is stern, filled with firm conviction, her fingertips digging slightly into his arms, like she’s trying to make sure he listens. It’s not painful, but it’s enough to keep him grounded. “There’s no ‘but’ about it—there are no exceptions here. I decide what I deserve, or whether what I ‘deserve’ even matters. Sometimes, it’s just about what I want.” Expression softening, her hand reaches up to stroke his cheek, gently encouraging him to meet her eyes again. “And what I want is you, Tim.”
His breath catches at the sincerity in her voice.
“Still? I—I just betrayed everything I thought was right about myself.”
“You messed up,” Lucy shrugs, shaking her head lightly, “but unfortunately, that’s inevitable. It’s a part of life, and sometimes it fucking sucks, but it’s okay. You’re going to make it alright because you’re a good person.”
A strangled noise escapes his throat as another tear falls from his cheek. It drips into Lucy’s palm, and she tenderly strokes away the trail with her thumb.
“You’re just human, Tim,” she whispers, “like the rest of us. You’re not a soldier, or a robot, or a machine. No one’s asking for perfection, and you can’t expect that of yourself.”
“I—”
“You can’t.”
Her tone is steady, and firm, and final. No further argument allowed.
The responding silence surrounds them for a moment before Tim leans into Lucy’s touch, closing his eyes and exhaling softly. Feeling his shoulders relax, he relishes in the feeling of something he knows he has every right to lose.
“Sometimes I worry that one day you’ll realise what you’ve signed up for by staying with me,” he murmurs.
“Trust me,” Lucy breathes, “I know exactly what I’ve signed up for: a future with a man who has spent his whole life being exposed to the absolute worst parts of humanity, and is somehow still kind, and selfless, and courageous all the same.”
It’s killing him that she’s not getting it. “I’m—I’m broken. There is something wrong with me, Lucy. How can you—”
“Because I love you,” she says emphatically, tears now welling up in her eyes, too. Tim starts to shake his head, but Lucy continues. “Listen to me. We—we can get you help, get you out of this, alright? But in the meantime, I’ve got you. I’m right here. We’re going to get through this.” Her words echo the ones she whispered at Nolan and Bailey’s wedding, and Tim is transported right back to that moment. The light buzz of whiskey in his veins, the taste of Lucy’s red wine on his lips. Twinkling lights and joyous music and love.
Something in him settles for the first time in days.
“I love you too, Lucy. More than I’ll ever be able to say.”
“You don’t need to be able to say it; I know.”
Overwhelmed with love, Tim presses his lips to her forehead before pulling her in tightly. Lucy rests her head on his chest, fingertips curling against his jacket.
“I think we should head to bed,” she murmurs. “It’s late.”
He can’t help but repeat himself, just in case. “I’m sorry, for everything.”
“We can talk more in the morning, alright? It’ll be easier when we’re not exhausted out of our minds.”
Tim just nods, the weight of the last few days crushing his shoulders. “Okay.”
He shrugs off his jacket and toes off his boots, leaving them in their respective places in the entry way—right next to hers. Suddenly it’s like he never left the apartment at all, his belongings feeling like they’re part of the perfect jigsaw that is her home.
But the guilt still looms over him as he follows Lucy to bed. As he takes his pyjamas from his drawer at the bottom of her dresser. As he watches her climb into bed and pulls back the covers on his side.
He just can’t shake the feeling that he’s tricked her somehow, that one day she’ll wake up and realise she’s made a mistake.
“Tim.” He blinks back to awareness from where he’s been staring absently at the pillow, and Lucy gestures to his side of the bed with her head. “Come on.”
His mind is screaming at him not to, but his heart is begging for her comfort. For once, he ignores his head completely, getting into bed and letting Lucy pull the cover over him.
They intertwine, a tangle of arms and legs and safety and home. And as he gazes at Lucy’s eyes drooping closed as she burrows her head into his chest, Tim wonders how he’d ever thought he could give this up.