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He learns what a yellow person is from one of the women in his veterans’s group. She reminds him a lot of Celina; always talking auras and astrology, soul ties and spirits. She tells the group it’s someone who brings you great happiness, love and a sense of peace. Someone who you rely on, that helps you see the world in a better light.
Tim doesn’t put much stock in it, in the same way he doesn’t with the former rookie. It doesn’t make any sense, no one is a color because of some characteristics they have. It’s all just fantastical nonsense.
So when he gets in his truck after his meeting and heads home, he has no intentions of ever thinking about it again. And he doesn’t, not really.
Until he gets home to Lucy later that week after a grueling shift, catches her smiling at him, laughing at Kojo chasing his tail and the terrible joke Tim throws at her over dinner, and he realizes she’s his yellow.
She’s his comfort, the only thing that instantly makes his mood better. Fills his chest with a fuzzy warmth that sort of feels like home. Calms his racing thoughts until there is nothing but images of her perfect smile and a blissful silence in his head. She is always right by his side, knowing what to say and never wavering in her support. Even when he thinks he may not deserve it.
She’s the whole reason for the constant smile on his face now. Has been since before he can even remember. Somewhere between “it’s gonna be okay. I really believe that” and “do you wanna get dinner sometime?” It took him a long time to admit it, even longer to accept it. That his former boot was — is — his favorite source of happiness, but she is.
She’s sunshine in summer. That beam of light that instantly warms your skin when it hits you. Cashing away every cold winter night, every shadow, every dark corner.
She makes him better, makes him want to keep being better. She makes him want to see the world the way she does, all smiles and optimism no matter what life throws at you. Finding joy in the smallest of places.
(The dessert she always orders at dinner because “life is short, babe, we deserve to share something delicious.” Or the flowers she finds on their hikes, excitedly putting one in her hair, giggling when she tucks one behind his ear too and he pretends to be annoyed by it. The coffee he buys her when their paths cross on shift. Always too sweet for his liking but it makes her smile and do that happy little wiggle after she takes a sip so he never says a teasing word ever again.)
He wants to love her the way she loves him.
So completely and unconditionally.
He’s been alive for almost half a century, and no one’s ever loved him like that before. In every way, in everything she does.
(Little touches to his forearm when they pass in the bullpen, his coffee already made with a protein bar waiting for him on the counter on the mornings they’re running late, happily spending her night watching a game with him instead of one of her reality shows. Patience when he has a tough week in therapy, ready to listen when he’s finally willing to talk about it but never pushing him to do it before he’s ready. The way she trusts him with every part of her; heart, body and soul.)
He wonders if she knows — when she looks at him with a cross-eyed, toothpaste filled grin as they get ready for bed side by side, her hip bumping his playfully — that she brightens the world by simply existing. That everything she touches, everyone she meets or lends a helping hand to without hesitation is better because of her.
She probably doesn’t, because that’s who she is. Kindness, empathetic to her core, doing it all because she believes in the good of the world. That everyone, no matter who it is, deserves to be treated fairly, with an open mind and open heart. Never expecting anything in return.
It’s a kind of light that he once tried to run away from, because it was too bright and he was too dark, but he didn’t get far.
She was always there, peeking through the cracks until he was ready to embrace it all again, even though he was the one who had put the cracks in her heart.
Tim doesn’t tell her she’s his yellow, and the notion of auras and colors is eventually forgotten completely with the chaos of their lives. But he never stops trying to show her, because he knows how lucky he is to love someone like Lucy Chen and be loved by her in return.
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It comes up one night — while Lucy and Celina are drunkenly watching reality TV and sleuthing the internet like FBI agents for information on the guy that gave Celina his number while out on patrol — the color of their friends auras and birth charts and which signs match the best.
Celina mentions, while pouring another glass of wine, that Tim and Lucy’s auras always change depending on who they’re with and that Tim’s is always pink with shades of blue around Lucy.
Pink is love. Tenderness, affection and kindness.
Blue is comfort. Calm and peace.
She’s not surprised in the slightest, because she knows how much Tim loves her, and that he feels safe around her. Just like she feels safe around him.
It spirals from there, the two women looking into the TikTok trend of colors and deciding who is their yellow person, their pink, their purple or green or blue.
“A blue person is someone who provides comfort, support and a sense of stability.” Celina reads off her phone, pausing to take a sip from her glass. “Someone who came into your life when you needed them most, a person you can always count on.”
It only takes a second for Lucy to know who that is for her.
Tim Bradford is Lucy’s blue.
Her anchor, her ocean of tranquility.
For as long as Lucy can remember, probably somewhere around the barrel if she’s honest, Tim has been her comfort. Her person.
She had Jackson, and John, but she’d always gravitate to Tim. For reassurance, guidance, advice, he is who she looked for when things got too hard.
Because he is always there, no matter the circumstance or state of their relationship (platonic or romantic), quietly in her corner with unwavering support and an ear to listen when it feels like no one else will.
It always seems like Tim came into her life when she needed him most, and while she didn’t know it at first, he helped shape who she is now.
Or maybe just gave her the guidance, safety, and space to be her true self.
And though he tried, as her training officer, to break her naivety about the good in people, and show her how dark the world truly is, outside of the job he’s always encouraged her to be herself.
Her hobbies, her wants and dreams.
Even if it was at the expense of his own desires.
Like how he didn’t immediately move up to sergeant so that he could keep training her, or taking a desk job so she could stay at Mid-Wilshire and they could spend as much time together as possible, and even, in its own twisted way, walking away when he was drowning so he didn’t take her down with him.
No one has ever loved her, seen her, cared for her the way Tim does.
Just one look from him — even more so now, after years of friendship turned into a deep rooted romance — and everything feels safe.
His arms are her haven. Her mind, her heart and soul, finally quiet the second he holds her close. When he cradles the back of her head, whispers words of solace in her ear, and kisses her forehead with a reverence that brings tears to her eyes.
(Like after Jackson died, or when Aaron was shot, or when she was the one who had to pull the trigger on a suspect, twice. He was there, no questions asked, to comfort her. To be solid and strong so that she could fall apart if she needed to.)
She’s never had someone that she could turn her mind off around, like she can with him. Being sergeant, as fulfilling as it is, takes so much of her energy, and there are nights when she comes home and even just thinking about dinner is too much. But with Tim, now that she lives with him and they share a space, she doesn’t have to.
Lucy can come home, throw her things by the door and just tune it all out, turn her mind off and simply be. Because she knows Tim is there to catch her.
He is always there to catch her, whether she needs it or not.
Her favorite shade of blue.
Her fierce protector.
Her comfort, her sanctuary, her home.