Chapter Text
It’s raining, and Tim’s on his way home from the station, and Lucy’s trying to cook dinner.
Trying.
Usually, she’s an amazing cook. But tonight? Tonight, she’s a dumpster fire.
Tim loves her Spaghetti Bolognese. He’s had a long day – disastrously long. He’s been hunched over his desk since five this morning, face buried in paperwork and ear glued to the phone, after a city-wide power outage. It’s going on seven now. She wants to do this one nice thing for him; he deserves it. She can handle Spaghetti Bolognese, even though her feet hurt something fierce.
First, the water boils over.
And then Kojo freaks out when he sees the celery, under the impression he’s getting one of his favorite things: celery and peanut butter. They often share it as a midnight snack, long after Tim’s too exhausted to lightly scold her for spoiling him too much. But, this time, Kojo woofs and pouts until she gives in.
Which leads her to now.
Lucy has the pot of boiling sauce in her hand, carefully carrying it from the burner to the table, when all hell breaks loose.
She drops it.
It just slips from her grasp with no rhyme or reason.
And sauce, red and chunky, splatters everywhere because of course it does. It poofs up like a volcano when it hits the floor, drenching her pajama-clad legs and bare feet.
Her heart sinks to the pit of her stomach. Tears swim in her eyes.
The Spaghetti Bolognese is dead, and every part of her soul feels raw, open and exposed in a way it shouldn’t.
She drops to her knees with a roll of paper towels in tow. She’s halfway through cleaning up the mess when she notes how tender her right palm feels. She chooses to ignore it.
The front door opens.
Lucy freezes.
She hears Tim kick off his boots and pad softly through the hall.
And he’s a whirlwind of frantic energy the second he sees her on the floor, kneeling in what used to be their dinner.
“Are you okay?” he asks immediately. He crouches to her level and tilts her chin up to look at him.
Tears escape at that moment, and she kicks herself.
“Are you hurt?” Tim questions.
Lucy shakes her head. “N-No.”
“Let’s get you out of here and cleaned up.”
Tim’s impossibly gentle as he guides her through the messy kitchen, holding onto her waist with both hands as he steers her toward the bathroom.
“The floor… It’s messy,” she manages.
“I’ll take care of it,” he says. He presses a kiss to her forehead as he settles her on the toilet seat.
“I can clean it up.”
And she hates how defeated she feels. Hates how small something as simple as ruining dinner makes her want to shut down and hide away forever.
“Honey, it’s okay. It’s just some sauce on the floor.”
“I wanted to make you dinner,” she says. “I know you’ve had a long day.”
Tim shrugs. His eyes are really blue in this light. “So have you. Thank you for doing that for me. But let me take care of you for a bit, okay?”
Lucy sniffles and nods.
“Shower or no?”
“I just showered before I started cooking.”
Tim nods and carefully removes her (his) t-shirt and pajama pants, leaving her in her star patterned panties. He wipes the sauce off her feet and where it splattered on bare skin. He stops once he finishes washing her right hand.
Because there it is, that tender feeling again.
A jagged, shallow cut lines her palm. She expects to see blood, but she guesses the sauce clotted it. She only winces a little bit when Tim cleans her hand and thoroughly inspects the wound, making sure there’s no glass lodged inside. He pours alcohol over it just in case before bandaging it with years of care and expertise. She loves this about him. He’s rough and callous (but fair and respectful) at the station, but he’s always nothing but loving around her.
“There we go,” Tim says softly. “Any other battle wounds I should know about?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
He retrieves another one of his shirts, along with a pair of cartoon dog pajama bottoms, and eases her into them.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Tim looks at her, head titled. “For what?”
“For always being here. For taking care of me.”
Tim kisses her, short and sweet. She feels whole again.
“Always.”
It’s raining, and the perp is sprinting across the TRG Fulfillment lot, and Tim is close behind.
Well, he’s close behind until he isn’t.
His face meets the ground abruptly, swiftly, all at once. He tastes blood. There’s a faint ache in his back as he pushes himself up and staggers to his feet. He blinks away the rain and grimaces as Penn tackles the perp in the grass right before the intersection. It’s a hell of a lot more graceful than whatever he just did. Figures. His one time out on the field from behind the desk in months, and he wipes out within the first hour.
Maybe he’s not cut out for the streets anymore. Maybe the desk is making him soft.
He starts jogging – carefully – to Penn, wincing as his back protests.
Great.
“You okay, Sarge?” Penn asks, cuffing the perp and helping him to his feet.
“That was some fall,” the perp says, whistling for effect.
Tim rolls his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding,” Penn says. “Need me to call an ambo?”
“No, I do not need you to call an ambo, Officer Penn. I’m fine.”
Except he doesn’t feel all that fine when he sits in the passenger seat of the shop, his back hurting and head feeling like it’s been stuffed with cotton. He holds gauze to his busted chin, hiding his shivers as the mid-November rain settles against his skin. His hair soaked, rain drips from his hairline down his face and neck. But whatever. He’ll get through it.
Penn parks at the station and escorts the perp to a holding cell. Tim makes a beeline for his office.
Lucy stops him almost immediately.
“Tim, are you okay?”
He nods. His lower back spasms. “Fine,” he grates out. But Lucy is looking at him with those big, brown eyes. They’re beautiful. She’s beautiful. And, since she moved in with him, he’s promised to be more open, more honest, more accepting of help, even when he doesn’t exactly need it. “Relatively fine,” Tim says, changing his answer. Blood starts to pool onto his fingers as it drips through the gauze.
“Okay, I’m gonna accept that because I can’t have you bleeding to death.”
Lucy leads him to his office. Tim gingerly sits, a bright, white hot pain surging through his back as he leans into the chair. She grabs more gauze from his bottom drawer – his own personal first aid drawer for emergencies – and holds it steadily against his chin.
“You’re a mess,” she whispers. “I think you need stitches.”
He shakes his head. “It’ll clot.”
“You look like a drowned rat.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles. “I’m cold, but I don’t think I can move right now.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Your back?”
Of course she knows. She always knows.
Even though it’s not exactly a secret that his back acts up more often than not since his emergency surgery a few years ago to remove the bullet fragment pressing against his spine. He spends a lot of time at home with a heating pad and Tylenol and Lucy rubbing the sore spots.
He nods.
Lucy reaches up with her other hand and cards her fingers through his wet hair. “Let me help you.”
Tim’s shoulders sink, but he finds himself nodding regardless.
This is not weakness. Needing her is not something to be ashamed of.
Friendly reminders to not self-destruct later, courtesy of Lucy and his therapist.
She bandages his chin first, which thankfully is clotting up. She gets him out of his uniform jacket and top, leaving him in his white undershirt trembling. She helps him to his feet, and he nearly drops to the floor at the strain in his back as he hobbles into his office bathroom. Sometimes, there are perks to being the boss. She coaxes him into new, dry pants and shirt and rubs the lidocaine roller on the skin of his lower back. It’s all done wordlessly, efficiently, and without any hesitance or annoyance. Tim limps, skewed to the left, to his rolling chair, and Lucy places a heating pad at the base of his spine. His eyes water as she has him swallow Tylenol.
“Let me know if you wanna go home,” she says. “I know that’s not your style, but you should go if you need to.”
He nods. “I’ll let you know.” His voice is quiet, strained. “Thank you.”
Lucy, the absolute love of his life, presses a kiss to his knuckles.
“Always.”