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Tim knew Lucy like the back of his hands at this point. She needed time, and she needed to be alone. It was the only way that she would be able to process anything that had happened during this godforsaken day, to move on from it.
(As impossible as moving on from today felt.)
But leaving her in the living room as she came back to herself, as she tried to calm herself down and accept not just what had happened but also what she’d had to do to get out of that situation alive, whilst he did his usual nighttime routine made his gut clench.
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done — second only to leaving her in that parking lot a year ago.
He was a protector. He yearned to protect her, to shield her, from the crushing, agonising guilt that he had no doubt was weighing her down right now. He wanted to be with her, sat on that couch beside her, holding her hand as she fell apart.
But he knew he had to let her lead, to trust that she would tell him what she needed and when she needed it.
To trust that she would come back to him — or, at least, that a part of her would.
There was a part of her that was lost today that would — could — never come back again.
He turned his eyes to his own reflection in the mirror, noticing just how tired and weathered he looked.
With each blink, images of finding Lucy, curled in on herself, blank eyes fixed on the knife pointing out of the man’s — the suspect…the victim? — chest, flashed through his mind.
All that he’d wanted to do, when he’d found her, was hold her. He wanted, so much, to abandon all protocol and just be her boyfriend.
Not her colleague. Not her watch commander. Her boyfriend. Her person.
He wanted to be the person for her that she’d always been for him.
But it wasn’t about what he wanted, not now. It was about what she needed.
And what she needed was for him to be Sergeant Bradford. Stoic, I’ve-seen-worse, entirely unflappable…
Strong.
She needed him to be strong for her, to do whatever he needed to do to make sure that her life, when she was ready to return to it, was waiting for her.
That was if she decided to come back. He’d seen other cops leave the force for less.
Tim swallowed thickly, his iron grip on the sink almost painful, his head throbbing from the exhaustion that was plaguing him.
Why— how on earth did everything go so wrong today?
Why did it have to go so wrong for her?
Then the unwanted and painful thought hit him square in the chest: what if this morning was the last time that he got to see all of the Lucy that he’d fallen in love with despite, in spite of, his best efforts?
Because, no matter how much he wished otherwise, he knew that it wouldn’t matter how much time passed, she would never be the same again.
This chain of events would change her, in one way or another, forever.
She would never be the Lucy that he’d kissed in the parking lot of the station this morning, all smiles and blissfully unaware of the nightmare that was to come, again.
It didn’t matter how much time passed, how healed she became, how far removed she was from the situation as each day passes.
There would still, there would always still, be a distinct difference from here on out — the Lucy from before today, and the Lucy from after.
A distinction of those two sides, once perfectly aligned now snapped into two, didn’t matter all that much, not really, not anymore.
Because the former, the Lucy from before everything had gone to shit, was gone.
And there was just no way of knowing if she would ever return.
He’d forgotten about this part that came with caring about someone, that came with being in love with someone — especially someone that is also a cop.
The fear. The worry. The terror.
It was infinitely worse for Lucy, but it was happening to him, too.
Which is exactly why leaving her out there, alone, was growing harder and harder with every passing moment. He needed to be next to her almost as much as she needed to be alone.
He was infinitely aware that today could’ve ended entirely differently. It could’ve been Lucy lying there, dead, and not the man whose name he couldn’t even remember.
Lucy would remember, though.
She’d probably remember his name, his face, for the rest of her life.
Tim knows that he does. He remembers every single person whose lives he has had to take. It was a short list, single digits, but that didn’t change the simple fact: someone was once alive, and now they weren’t. Because of his hand.
And now because of Lucy’s, too.
It was something he so hoped that she’d never have to experience.
He should’ve known that hoping was a futile thing when it came to their jobs.
It was taking every ounce of his willpower to not go out there and hold Lucy, try to put her back together piece by tiny piece with his own hands.
If it hadn’t been for what Angela had said to him whilst Lucy was being interviewed, there would’ve been no way to stop him from sitting there, trying to keep the light that she’d always had from pouring out of her.
“She’s going to want to be alone, Tim.” Angela had murmured to him, his voice sympathetic and gentle in a way that was almost condescending.
Luckily for Angela, he didn’t have the energy to call her out on it.
“She’s not you, Angela.” Tim bit back, although he knew that his best friend was right.
He might know her more, know her better, in some ways, but Angela understood Lucy in ways that he just couldn’t. She could impart wisdom and help her through this in different ways, and he knew that he had to let her.
Tim was a natural born protector and, whilst he may always want to be the one to protect Lucy, to shield her from the agony of what she’d been forced to do today, he forgets that she’s got a whole village of people that want to do the same.
“She’s going to want to be alone, Tim.” Angela repeated, her voice firm. Solemn. “You have to give her the space that she needs to come to terms with all of this.”
He nodded, eyes blank and chest tight with a pain he never wanted to feel ever again.
“Why her?”
The words escaped him before he was able to stop them, finally voicing the question that had been running through his head on repeat for the last hour and a half.
“This is one of the hazards of the job, Tim, you know that better than anyone. We’ve both been through this before.”
Tim shook his head, his eyes downturned. “I think I had convinced myself that she’d never have to go through this. I never wanted her to have to go through this.”
Whilst he had always believed that Lucy’s empathy was her greatest superpower, he knew that, in this instance, it would be her greatest downfall.
It would only serve to aid in her pain, her guilt.
His best friend’s hand grasped his own gently, making his tenuous grasp on his sanity and patience thin even more.
“I know that you’re scared. I know that you want to shield her from all of this, that you wish that you could take her place,” Angela had started, knowing the mind of her best friend almost as well as she knew her own, “but you can’t. She will come back from this, Tim. We both know that she will. But it’s going to take time and patience. I know you’re not great at the last thing, but…”
The joke, this ghostly attempt at levity, fell short. It hung desperately in the air, heavy with intensity.
“Let her process this how she needs to, okay? She’ll come back to you. She’ll need you. She always does. But first, she needs to be able to learn how to live with herself.” Angela gave Tim a small, sad smile, before nodding in the direction of the interrogation rooms. “Looks like she’s coming out now. Take care of our girl, Timothy. If she— if either of you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call, okay? Any time, day or night.”
Tim mumbled something barely coherent under his breath, nodding as he accepted the brief, gentle hug from Angela, before moving, as fast as his tired legs could carry him, the remnants of the adrenaline he’d felt when he’d realised Lucy was in danger fading with a quickness.
“Are you ready to go home?” He remembers asking.
More than that, though, he remembers that, when Lucy had smiled and nodded, it was almost believable — apart from one thing, one thing that set this smile apart from all of the others that she’d been giving him recently: it didn’t reach her eyes.
He could only hope and pray that those smiles would come back. It killed him that he didn’t know when, or if, they would.
There was almost a kind of violence to the oppressive silence that cloaked the living room where Lucy sat, the room shrouded almost entirely in darkness, save for just a single table lamp.
Her chest ached. Not even metaphorically, it truly, physically hurt. It was hard to draw in a full breath.
If she was able to think coherently, logically, she’d be able to understand that it was because, during the attack, she’d strained the muscles of her chest wall, bruised her ribs and her sternum. But, as she sat there in the numbing silence, she could only conflate it with what she’d done.
After all, why should she be able to breathe easily, breathe freely, when, by her hand, someone else will never take another breath?
She didn’t deserve to breathe without difficulty. At the moment, she wasn’t entirely sure that she should be able to breathe, point blank.
That thought, sudden and oppressive, jarred some kind of sense into her, bringing her back to some semblance of reality.
She didn’t mean that, not really, but her brain was stuck. Suddenly, it was all that she could think about.
He should still be here. He should be alive. I shouldn’t. What makes my life more important than his?
Why do I get to live when I was the one that took away someone else’s ability to do the same?
Lucy shook her head, almost as if she was trying to rid herself of this sudden and intense onslaught train of thought.
God, why hadn’t she just gone to bed with Tim? She shouldn’t be alone right now. He’d know what to do, what to say. He always did.
Except she knew exactly why she’d insisted he go to bed — why it was that she’d told him that she needed a ‘moment of solitude’.
It wasn’t just because she needed to process, because she wanted the space to think over every single action, actions that she’d carried out, that had led to a life being taken.
That had been a part of it, though.
But the other part of it was simple yet agonising. And entirely unfounded.
If logic was something that she was capable of right now, she’d be able to recognise that.
Instead, another thought, every bit as terrifying and painful as the feeling that she shouldn’t still be alive and that he, the man whose name she’d never be able to forget or whose face it is that she’d see every time she closed her eyes for as long as she was alive, was running, unwanted and unwarranted, inside of her head over and over again.
What if, now that she had taken someone’s life, Tim didn’t love her anymore? What if he thought of her the way that she thought of herself now — as a monster?
They arrested people on the daily for less than what she’d done today. Self defence or not, she’d still taken a life.
Someone innocent, someone that didn’t — couldn’t — know wrong from right.
His name was Martin. He was 38 years old. He was a son, a fiancé, an expectant father. He was innocent. He was dead.
Because of her.
Her world, although turned upside down, continued turning, and his was at a standstill.
She got to be with her family, whilst his was reeling from a loss that never should have been.
He had gone to work this morning entirely unaware that it was the last time that he’d make the commute, that he’d kiss his partner goodbye, that he’d feel the rush of cold, winter air fill his lungs.
Because of her.
Lucy rubbed her hands up and down over her face, wincing as the movement caused her bruised eye socket and cheekbone throb with pain.
She let herself feel the pain. Forced herself to notice it, to acknowledge it. She deserved to feel it. It was pain that she was deserving of.
She wondered if he’d felt any pain, if he knew that he was dying.
If he was scared.
The thought came quickly, suddenly, but it hit her with all the grace of a garbage truck.
Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose despite knowing the pain that it would cause, allowing the pulsing of pain center her, before letting out an unsteady and shaky exhale, forcing herself to stand up.
It was only a few steps from the living room to her and Tim’s bedroom, but it felt like miles separated the two rooms.
Each step was hard, heavy. It was like she was wading through inches of thick molasses.
She was almost there, just one or two more steps to go, when her legs buckled underneath her weight, sending her crashing to the floor.
Unbidden, taking her by complete surprise, a sob, broken and loud, escaped her lips, quickly followed by another. Then another. Soon, her entire body was shaking with each sob, gasping for air that she couldn’t seem to find.
The shock had finally worn off, making space for a type of pain that Lucy had never felt before.
Pain that was all consuming — pain that overwhelmed her very core.
The all too familiar coppery scent of blood mixed with the foul scent of sewage water and litter was suddenly all that she could smell, making her stomach churn and bile rise up into her throat, the acrid taste barely noticeable in her haze, though she felt it burning in her chest.
The edges of her vision began to blacken, tunnelling down to what was in front of her, sound drowning out.
But the scent, that remained.
Insistent. Stubborn. Keeping her trapped in that crawlspace.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed between her falling down, and her subsequent falling apart, when she finally felt arms, strong and familiar, wrap around her.
His scent broke through, invading her senses and replacing It was the first real thing to break through her haze of panic, terror, pain and shame that she’d remained stubbornly stuck in.
“Tim,” she gasped out. “Tim, I can’t breathe.”
He was rocking them both, back and forth, in repetitive motions. It was a futile attempt at comfort, at holding his world together as he held her in his arms.
“You can.” Tim encouraged, one of his hands snaking upwards to cradle her head. “You have enough air, baby. It’s okay, take a deep breath.”
She shook her head, the movement almost frantic.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t take a deep breath. She couldn’t calm herself down. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
“It’s not okay. It’s not okay, Tim! I’m not okay. Nothing about this is okay. I— I killed someone. That’s not okay!”
There was something quietly ominous about the word ‘okay’ now. Nothing would ever be okay again.
At least, not in the way that it used to be.
Tim squeezed his eyes shut tightly, a lone tear tracking its way down his cheek, his heart breaking more and more with every single panicked, gasping sob that came from the woman in his arms.
His brain, with no regard for the fragile and tenuous grip that he had on his own emotions, suddenly reminded him that the last time he had held her like this was after he’d pulled her out of the barrel — limp, lifeless. Broken.
Not all that unlike she was now.
It didn’t escape his attention that, back then, he’d been able to rescue her from a kind of hell that no one should ever have to experience.
Now, she was living in one. And he was powerless to stop it.
He was barely holding himself together, but that didn’t — couldn’t — stop him from giving every last effort to hold his heart, living outside of his body, together from within his fragile embrace.
If he could only go back in time and shoulder all of this pain for her. If he could’ve made this happen to him and not her.
He’d do anything to make sure that Lucy didn’t have to go through any of this — that her light remained undimmed, untarnished.
Lucy’s limbs were starting to buzz and fizz, both her body and brain sluggish. It was like she was having an out of body experience.
She barely felt one of her hands, a closed and shaking fist, being moved and opened so that it was splayed across Tim’s chest, allowing her to feel the way that his chest moved, each movement exaggerated.
“Follow my breathing.” Tim encouraged her.
She shook her head, letting out a small, pained whimper. “Tim.”
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, burying his face into her hair, willing himself to hold it together so that he could help hold her together.
“Follow my breathing.” He repeated, though this time his voice broke. “Come on, Luce. Just breathe with me.”
Despite his repeated encouragement, Lucy stayed struggling to breathe. Each intake of air was choppy — strangled almost.
It was painful. Physically and emotionally. Draining her of every remaining ounce of energy that the residual adrenaline had briefly provided her with half an hour ago.
“Do you want to do the five senses exercise?” Tim asked, his voice cracking, the vicelike grip of emotion tightening around his throat.
He was clutching at straws here, but he couldn’t just sit there and watch as Lucy fell to pieces right in front of him, wrapped in his arms.
“Tim—“ Lucy whimpered, the end of his name coming out as a broken sob.
His arms tightened around her reflexively again, continuing to rock them back and forth, almost as if he was attempting to calm an infant.
If you asked either of them, neither of them would be able to tell you exactly what was said, but as he moved their practically conjoined bodies to and fro, Tim whispered anything that he thought might pull her out of this nightmare.
Except both of them knew, intellectually, that the real nightmare would start the moment that she came back to herself.
The real nightmares would be the ones that she’d have every single time she closed her eyes.
Slowly but surely, full sensation returned to Lucy’s limbs, her senses recalibrating. Her vision, though still blurred from the tears in her eyes, was now whole, her ears now sensitive and hyperaware of every single creak and crack.
It was the return of her sense of smell that made her really begin to calm, though. Her every inhale, every exhale, was now filled with Tim — full of safety, of home.
Full of love that she was certain that she didn’t deserve, yet was too weak to deprive herself of.
Neither of them spoke for a while, though they weren’t sure quite how much time had passed.
They simply sat there, on the floor of their hallway, wrapped in each other’s arms, praying for a way to make this right. To make everything okay again.
But ‘okay’ was nothing more than a distant memory now, something that neither of them were sure they’d ever get back to again.
Each second dragged in a way that left you unable to know how much time had passed, but the two remained on the hallway floor, clinging to one another despite the uncomfortable position.
Another choked, wet sounding breath brought Tim back to his senses, to the here and now, deciding almost immediately to try and coax her into coming to bed — to free herself from this self imposed isolation.
He found himself wanting to ask if she was alright, if she was in any pain, but he knew the answer. It was an answer that set a wildfire, suffocating and heavy, alight inside of his chest.
“Can you walk?” He asked quietly, his voice soft and full of understanding.
Lucy couldn’t find the words, but she could feel her tired, aching limbs shaking at the mere thought of moving.
She opened her mouth to reply, but the words died on the tip of her tongue, mouth dry, so she opted to simply shake her head.
It made her feel weak, needing him as much as she did right now.
But as much as she wanted to put on a brave face, to pretend like she was okay, as much as she wanted to shield him from the devastation and grief that was creating a war inside of her chest, she needed him.
He was there — strong, real, consistent. He was there, and he wanted to be there for her.
And, for once, against the judgement of her traitorous mind that insisted that she didn’t deserve it, that she didn’t deserve him, she let him — take care of her, that is.
Getting through, getting past, today felt impossible enough as it was, but there was no hope if she didn’t have him by her side.
Maybe that was partially why she’d declined going to bed with him earlier — after all, why should she be able to ‘get through’ today when today had been someone’s last?
Because of her.
She hadn’t so much as registered being picked up and carried into the bedroom, her state of dissociation still ever present, until she felt Tim pull the covers over them both.
As if mechanical, her body acting on muscle memory alone, she slid into the space between his arms in the same way that she had every other night since moving in.
Except this wasn’t every other night.
It was far from it.
“I’m sorry.” Lucy whispered into the still air, her voice so quiet it went almost unheard.
Almost, being the operative word.
Neither she nor Tim knew whether she was apologising to him, to herself…or to Martin.
“You don’t need to be sorry, Lucy.” Tim murmured, his arms reflexively tightening around her, his lips brushing against the crown of her hair.
She turned her head a little bit further into Tim’s chest, her head fitting almost perfectly into the crook of his neck.
Almost immediately, he felt the unmistakable wetness of tears against his skin, dampening the fabric of his worn, threadbare tee.
He held her just a little tighter, as if he could put things to right, as if he could put the fragments of their now fractured happiness back together, by sheer force of will alone.
“You did exactly what I would’ve done.” He told her, his words true but falling upon deaf ears.
It didn’t matter. He’d tell her that same thing tomorrow, and the day after that — as many days in a row, as many hours in a row, as he had to for her to finally be able to listen, to take it at face value, to be able to accept that truth.
He’d tell her it for a lifetime if he had to, for as long as she was there, beside him. Because that meant that she was still here with him.
After all, he was acutely aware that there was a version of today where that wasn’t the case.
It might not have occurred to her yet, or at least not in its entirety, but it had sure as hell occurred to Tim.
If just one second, one action, had been different, he could’ve been coming home — to their home — alone.
Forever.
“I love you.” Tim said, his voice tight with controlled emotion. “I love you so much.”
The words were said more for his own benefit than for hers. There had been several moments, agonising pockets of time, where he had convinced himself that he would never get the chance to tell her again.
Lucy let out a harsh sob that sent tendrils of pain through his gut and up into his chest.
“Still?”
His heart, already splintered and aching, shattered completely at the disbelief, the shock, in her voice.
She had managed to convince herself that his love for her would have changed, disappeared altogether, even, because of what had happened today.
As though he would see her in a completely different light, that he would see all of her and not like, let alone love, what he saw, he realised with a sickening jolt.
The realisation sluiced over him like a bucket of ice water.
He knew, logically, that she didn’t want him to relieve her of the burden that she would carry for the rest of her life, but if he could take even just a little bit of the weight that was slowly suffocating her, then he would.
Tim would do anything to put the world to rights for Lucy — for their world, their own private universe, to continue moving forward.
But, for right now, all that he could do was make sure that she knew this one thing for certain.
“Always.” Tim stressed. “No matter what.”
His words eased the aching in her chest for a brief moment, before it slammed into her all over again, even harder than before.
She felt like she was going to be sick.
“How do I get through this?” Lucy asked, voice croaky. “How— how do I live with myself now?”
Her pain, her grief, her every deeply rooted fear — raw and real — was exposed with just seven words.
A broken, hiccuped sob escaped her lips, one that, this time, she didn’t even try to keep hidden.
She was far too exhausted to hide anymore.
Tim paused, considering his next words carefully.
He wanted to tell her that it would get easier. That she wouldn’t feel the weight of guilt pressing down on her when she woke up the next morning.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t lie to her — she needed the truth. No matter how hard, how painful.
In all honesty, tomorrow would probably be even harder.
The shock will have worn off. She’ll feel all of the physical wounds that had been inflicted upon her.
It would be even worse for her mentally.
When she wakes up, she’ll probably have forgotten. When she remembers, it’ll be crushing all over again.
He wished he had an easy answer, a way to ease her pain, to make everything better.
But he didn’t. All he could offer her was the truth.
“I don’t know.” Tim answered truthfully. “But you will. I promise you that you will. You won’t ever forget, but you will move on. You can get past this, Lucy. You’re the strongest person that I know.”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel strong.”
With a shaky exhale, Tim spoke, his words full of conviction. “Then I’ll be strong for you, okay? We’ll do this together. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?” She asked, her voice small and uncertain, sounding so unlike Lucy.
It suddenly dawned upon him that this might be the only kind of Lucy he’d see again. She might never sound like the assured, strong, bubbly Lucy that had been by his side, in the same exact spot that they laid together now, not even a full twenty four hours ago.
He would always love her, no matter what, regardless of what comes next, but he knew that, from here on out, there was a chance that Lucy’s light would always be just that little bit less bright, that she would always be just a little bit broken.
Just like he was. Just like he still is.
But she loved every fragile piece of his broken self, and he would always do the same for her.
Willing himself not to acknowledge the unwanted train of thought, Tim nodded, pressing another kiss to the top of her head, his hand gently, carefully, stroking the skin of her hipbone where his hand lay atop, mindful of any bruising that she’d sustained.
“I promise.” He murmured. “I’ve got you.”
It was there, just as the clock changed from the middle of the night to the wee hours of the morning, that the first piece of the scattered puzzle started to find its way to its rightful place.
The water may be rising over their heads, trying to pull them down deeper and deeper until they were drowning in it, but it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter that this dark cloud was now hanging over them, this pain that demanded to be felt.
None of it changed the fact that they’d get through this. They could, and they would, weather this storm together.
Always together.