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Grief is all encompassing. Grief makes you feel like your whole world has come crashing down around you. Grief comes in many forms, but it always hurts the same. They’d dealt with loss in their line of work. There were the people they lost that they mourned greatly, like Captain Anderson or Jackson West. There were people they lost that they didn’t really know, but felt a kindred spirit to, like Jake Butler or Deputy Suriel. Then there were the people that they didn’t love or know, but still felt grief at their deaths, Like Diego De La Cruz, or Riley Templeton. You’re never really ready to experience grief. You’re dropped into it unaware and unassuming due to circumstances outside your control. Grief never comes on a schedule, and it never comes at a good time. Because when is a good time to learn someone has died? Someone you love, someone you care about more than most.
Grief is always harsh and cold and is ready to break you. There’s no trick to overcoming grief. There’s no cheat code for getting over the death of someone you care about. All it takes is time. There’s no way around it. Some grief is easier to get over than others and sometimes it hurts so deep down into the soul you think you’ll never recover.
So when Tim walked in the front door to his home that night, he never expected the grief that would hit him the moment he walked in the door. “Lucy?” He called out. She’d had the last three days off, recuperating from an undercover stint that had nearly gotten her killed.
“In here.” She called out from the bedroom. That was the first clue that something was wrong. Because her voice sounded hollow, withdrawn and utterly despondent. He slowly toed off his shoes at the front door and walked into the bedroom. He was unprepared for what he was about to walk in on.
Laying there on the floor of the bedroom, the bed pushed against the wall, and her body curled around their sleeping dog, he was floored. Because the look on her face, and the fact Kojo never opened his eyes when he walked in, told him that their dog wasn’t actually sleeping.
“I woke up this afternoon and couldn’t find him.” She whispered, tenderly stroking Kojo’s fur as he got a better look at her bloodshot eyes and her cheeks stained with tears. “Spent twenty minutes searching the house until I came back in here and saw his tail sticking out from under the bed. But he wasn’t moving.”
“No.” Tim said, shaking his head, but knowing denial was futile. He knelt down next to his best buddy and felt his chest, he was cool to the touch, and his body was stiff.
They were expecting it - he was 13 years old by now and dogs like him don’t live much longer than that, but expecting it didn’t make it hurt any less. Lucy sat up and the two of them hugged over the body of the boy who helped bring them together.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Lucy whispered as Tim helped her stand up and embraced her tightly. He couldn’t either. Kojo had been there through all their major moments, and it felt like they were losing a part of their relationship with him gone. He’d been the first big decision Lucy made after recovering from her abduction, and even though he proved too difficult for her to handle on her own, Tim had stepped in to help. It was a mixture of guilt and grief that he chose to do so. Guilt that he’d pushed her towards Caleb, and grief that he’d almost lost her. He had been responsible for her, and pushed her into the arms of a psychopath. So in his mind, the least he could do was make sure she could still see her dog and wouldn’t have to give him up entirely.
But Kojo’s impact on their lives didn’t end there. Even when she was still a rookie, Tim had allowed her to see Kojo whenever she wanted. She’d been the only rookie he’d ever invited into his home up until that point. Certainly she had been the only coworker that he’d ever given a key and the code to his security system to. After she graduated to P2, she’d spend many of her days off with Kojo. Taking him for runs, going to the park. She spoiled that dog more than any dog ever should be. Tim had to get a bigger container to keep all the toys that Lucy had bought for him. When they started riding together again as sergeant and aide, she’d still spend her days off with Kojo, and sometimes, they’d spend them together.
The first time she had ever slept at his house, Kojo had spent the night at the foot of the bed, despite Tim’s protestations.
“He has a perfectly good doggy bed.” Tim reasoned.
“Would you want to sleep on something that thing?”
“You recall I served two tours in afghanistan, many nights sleeping straight on the ground, right?” Tim deadpanned.
“As a 70 year old?” Lucy argued. “Becuase that’s how old he is in dog years.”
She’d won, of course. Tim was willing to do anything for her, even letting their mutt sleep in the bed with them. He’d almost rescinded that concession when Kojo had tried to settle in between them to sleep, but instead just shooed him to the edge of the bed.
Kojo had even once tried to pull a 101 Dalmatians on the two of them when he and Tim were out for a run, and ran into Lucy. As the two former lovers talked awkwardly, Kojo had run around them, his leash corralling them close together until Lucy lost her balance and fell right into Tim’s arms. Holding the two of them steady, Tim tried to extricate themselves from the bindings of the leash.
Kojo had attempted to follow her and Tim into his bedroom the morning of April Fool’s, until Tim slammed the door in Kojo’s face, not wanting to risk a cold nose against his ass - something he’d unfortunately experienced once before in the throws of passion and ever since, kicked the dog out of the room when they started fooling around at night.
He was their first kid, h had joked that night.
“I bet if you ask Lopez, Harper, or Nolan, they’d tell you they’ve all been interrupted by their kids at some point… our first kid just happened to be covered in fur.”
Lucy had quipped that their first child was really Tamara, who had a habit of interrupting them. Tim then pointed out that at least Tamara only interrupted in communal spaces, Kojo was always up in their business.
But now he would give anything for Kojo to be all up in their business. He would give anything to take away Lucy’s pain.