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The morning after West and Nolan’s last day as P1s started like any other day for the Bradford-Chen household. Tim woke up about 15 minutes before Lucy’s alarm was set to go off. His military training about getting up at the crack of dawn continued to serve him long after he left the army fifteen years earlier. He slipped out of bed and padded into the kitchen to get the coffee brewing. Then as it brewed he pulled out two mugs and filled them with the appropriate amount of sugar and creamer. For him, that meant maybe a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of milk. Lucy on the other hand, enjoyed her fancy almond creamers and more sugar than anyone should have before eating breakfast. He didn’t have to work that day. The reward for successfully getting a rookie across the finish line: a day off. Normally the first day off after getting his rookie through, he would sleep in a bit, get in a workout and then go spend the evening with Genny and the boys.
That wasn’t on the agenda today. Nothing he thought he would be doing a year ago was on his agenda today. He never anticipated having a five year old living with him that he’d be expected to watch all day. He definitely never anticipated said five year old being his daughter and someone he would gladly spend all day with when he could. Catching up on the four and a half years that he missed with his daughter was his main priority on his days off, only diverting from that goal when he would spend the day with his godson. So that was his agenda today.
Pouring the finally brewed coffee into each mug, he picked them up and returned to their bedroom to make sure Lucy was up. She wasn’t an early bird like him, magnified by the fact that she sometimes had trouble falling asleep. He remembered one night a few nights before she returned to work following her abduction, he’d woken up at 3am to use the bathroom only to find her still awake.
“Oh sorry, did I wake you?” Tim asked as he slid back into bed.
“I’d have to have been asleep for you to wake me up.” She grumbled, and rolled over to face him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Having trouble sleeping.” She sighed and curled up next to him. They’d gone to bed in this position hours ago, but when he was sleeping soundly and she was still wide awake, she let him go, not wanting to wake him up with her tossing and turning.
“Insomnia?” Tim asked, rubbing her back as she lay on his chest.
“I thought so, but my therapist says its a defense mechanism. My brain not wanting to accept sleep as a safe activity.”
“Sleep is unsafe?” Tim frowned.
“Feels like it sometimes.”
“This happen often?” Tim asked, not having noticed her sleep issues before.
“Sometimes , usually by now I’ll have gotten up and gone out to the living room to let you sleep and try to distract myself.” She muttered. “She says my brain is constantly in problem solving mode, even when there are no problems to solve. And in the absence of problems to solve, it creates them.” She admitted. “Tonight its the bubble bath… ”
“What about it?”
“I can still smell it… and it's not evoking good memories.” She sat up. “All I can think about is the bubble bath and what it represents.”
“What does it represent?”
“Fear… pain… abandonment… despair. It’s the same scent I used that day in the tub.” She explained. “And all I can think of when I smell it, is how I felt that day… doesn’t make for compelling reasons to sleep.”
“Could we use another scent to cover it up do you think?” Tim suggested. “Might not be able to get rid of it easily, but I’m sure if something else is strong enough it might break the cycle?”
“Not sure I want to risk losing another scent I enjoy.”
“What if it's a scent you don’t know you enjoy?”
“Do you have any?” Lucy asked.
Tim cleared his throat, “Possibly?” She could hear the hesitance in his voice.
“Possibly? Either you do or you don’t.”
“I was saving it for Valentine’s Day, but…” he untangled himself from Lucy’s arms and flicked on the lamp before crossing the bedroom to get to his closet. He’d pulled out a couple of boxes from the top shelf of his closet, and then dug a small perfume bottle out of the top one. Putting the boxes back, he brought the perfume over to the bed. “...I’d rather give it to you now, than wait a week while you struggle to rest.” He brought the bottle over to the bed and handed it to her.
She sniffed the nozzle, and finding it was a flowery scent with hints of a fruit like cherry; maybe a cherry blossom? So vastly different than the honey and vanilla she had been smelling all night.
It did work. Spritzing herself on the neck with her new Valentine’s Day perfume did the trick. It had been enough to trick her brain into not constantly thinking about her fears, and before long, she had fallen asleep, her head once again on Tim’s shoulder as her right arm wrapped around his torso.
Not every night of insomnia had such an easy solution. Sometimes the trigger wasn’t a scent but a word or a phrase and that was harder for her to get through. He didn’t know if she had issues last night. When she does, he usually finds her asleep on the couch having doom scrolled herself to sleep. But this morning she was still sleeping in their bed, so it probably wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Even so, he took on the task of getting their mornings started right. He could fall asleep at the drop of a hat - a hold over from his time in the Army. So if it gave her a bit of extra time in the mornings to sleep, he’d do it. He wouldn’t leave without her though. He’d learned that lesson the morning of her abduction.
“Wakey wakey.” Tim sat on the side of the bed, placing both mugs on the end table and gently shaking her awake. “Time to get up.” Her groan told him it hadn’t been an easy night. But he didn’t think it had anything to do with nightmares or fears about her abduction.
It was the fact she was the only P1 left at Mid-Wilshire. For a couple of days anyway. Come Monday there would be two new rookies to torment.
“Morning.” Lucy grumbled, slowly opening her eyes at the smell of the coffee permeating the room. “Gimme.” She muttered, sitting up and reaching for the coffee he prepared for her, like he did most days.
“Sleep okay?”
“Could have been better, but could have been worse.” She shrugged letting the first sip of caffeinated ambrosia hit her tongue. “But this just made it slightly better.” She smiled and leaned up to peck his lips. “Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” He asked.
“You mean because today should have been my first solo shift, but isn’t? It is what it is.” She shrugged, taking another sip. “Not like I can do anything about it.”
“You’re still allowed to be upset about it.” Tim pointed out.
“Right.” She sighed.
“I know this year hasn’t gone how either of us initially wanted it to, but the good outweighs the bad, right?”
Lucy smiled and thought about all the good that came out of this year. Her daughter has a father. Her daughter isn’t sick anymore. She’s in a loving relationship with the father of her daughter, and they’re starting their life together. “Yeah…” She took another sip. “It does.”
As Lucy finished her coffee and got up to take a shower, she slowly started coming to life. An hour later, as Lucy was just about to head out the door, she heard movement upstairs. “Incoming.” Lucy chuckled as they heard their daughter running down the stairs.
“No running!” They both yelled at the staircase, and the thunderous roar of little feet slowed to a low rumble.
“But it’s Daddy and Kaylie day!” She said excitedly. She was always excited for these days. The days where Tim and Kaylie would take off for the day for their daddy-daughter days. The first time they had one of these days, hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, with Kaylie growing uncomfortable being in public with all the fawning single (and some not so single) women who were trying to hit on her dad while they were at the children’s museum. When they’d gone home, she’d gone straight for her nap, clutching the stuffed animal he’d gotten for her.
But over the months, they’d gotten better. She was stronger than she had been physically and could handle doing more exciting things. It being the beginning of May however, all Kaylie wanted to do when not at daycare, was swim. Their current pool was bigger than his old one was, it had a diving board and before they moved in, they’d also purchased a slide for it so she wouldn’t have to give up the one she loved at the old house.
“Yes, and it will still be Daddy and Kaylie day when you get down the stairs like a human and not a herd of wildebeest." Lucy deadpanned.
“What’s a wildebeest?”
“They’re the animals in the stampede in The Lion King.” Tim pointed out and Kaylie’s face turned from excited to horrified.
“Okay.”
“Okay as in you won’t run down the stairs anymore?”
Kaylie nodded. “I won’t run down the stairs anymore.” She promised. Lucy looked up at Tim and shook her head.
“Years of her running down the stairs despite my best efforts to stop her, and it all came down to her not wanting to kill Mufassa.” She rolled her eyes.
“Take the win.” Tim chuckled. “We’ll see you later.” He said giving Lucy a kiss goodbye. “Be safe out there.”
“Always.” Lucy smiled and gave Kaylie a hug goodbye. “Be good for your dad.”
“I’m always good.” Kaylie said innocently.
“Says the girl who just had to promise she wouldn’t run in the house anymore.” Tim deadpanned.
As Lucy left, Kaylie walked into the kitchen and climbed up onto a stool. “So what are we doing today?” For the past few months, whenever they’d have their daddy-daughter days they would go out and do something fun. A couple weeks ago they went to a mini-golf course and she only hit her ball off the course twice. Then they’d spent some time in the attached arcade, as she wanted to win a prize. Tim spent way too much money to get her a small plush animal that he could have picked up for $2 at any superstore. But seeing her happy made it all worth it.
“Well, I figured since it's a nice day you’d want to spend it all day in the pool.”
“Can Jackson come over?”
“So you want it to be Daddy-Daughter-Best friend day?”
“Sure!” She shrugged. Tim smiled and pulled out his phone to text Wes - he knew that Angela was already on her way to the station - and invited the father/son duo over. Once he got a response, he began pulling some ingredients out of the fridge. “Whatcha making?”
“I was thinking we could make some muffins for breakfast.” He pulled his phone out and pulled out a recipe that Genny had sent him around Thanksgiving. When he’d mentioned that he didn’t have his mother’s recipes, she’d spent that Saturday scanning all of their mother’s recipes and sent them to Tim. Now that he had a family to feed, he finally needed them.
“Ooh, what kind?” Kaylie asked.
“I was thinking blueberry orange.”
“I’ve never had those.” Kaylie said. “Are they good?”
“They’re delicious. My favorite kind.”
“More than chocolate?” Kaylie asked, her eyes widening; scandalized that anyone could think Chocolate muffins weren’t the most superior muffin.
“I like them better than cupcakes.”
Her jaw dropped. “No way.”
“Yes way!” Tim chuckled. “The sweetness of the blueberries, mixed with the tart orange with drizzled honey on top…”
“Can I help?”
“Sure, but wash your hands first.” Kaylie hopped off her stool and went over to the kitchen sink, where there was a small stepstool for her to climb on. She washed her hands, Tim watching as she did so, before he went into the pantry and pulled out the large kitchenaid stand mixer that Lucy had gotten when she was in her baking phrase during recovery. The few times he’s used it to make a meal, he had to admit, it made things easier than his little handheld one Isabel’s great Aunt had gifted them at their wedding.
“First thing we do is read the recipe.” Tim told her. “Last thing you want is to start the process only to realize you don’t have an ingredient ready or you didn’t preheat the oven…” And so began an hour and a half long exercise in which Tim tried to keep the recipe organized, while Kaylie found it a lot of fun to make a mess. When they got to the part where they have to coat the blueberries in flour before adding to the batter, Kaylie spent more time than necessary swirling them around the bowl, creating a full on flour storm in their kitchen.
He had just put the muffins in the oven to cook when his phone rang from the other side of the kitchen. “It’s mommy!” Kaylie said, seeing Lucy’s picture pop up on the caller ID.
Tim, quickly closed the oven, reached for his phone, and answered on facetime moving so Kaylie was behind him as the camera turned on.
“Hey.” Lucy said as she appeared on screen. Alarm bells rang in Tim’s mind when he saw the look on Lucy’s face.
“Hey.” Tim repeated back to her. “You caught us as we were making breakfast.”
“What are you making?” Tim studied her face as she asked wondering just what caused her to call this soon into her shift. When she worked days he didn’t, she never called earlier than lunchtime to check in. But she wasn’t even 2 hours into her shift and that spoke volumes.
“Cupcakes!” Kaylie announced and Tim shook his head and corrected her.
“Muffins. There’s no icing going on these.” Despite the name, it might as well be a cupcake with the amount of sugar that went into it.
“Aww…” Kaylie frowned to which Tim just pointed at the honey sitting on the counter as a reminder. He heard Lucy’s laughter through the phone and relaxed for a moment. If she’s laughing, it can’t be all bad.
“Everything okay?” He asked, already knowing the answer.
“I’ll tell you later. I just needed to see you two. Needed to see the two people I love most.” If her demeanor earlier set off alarm bells in his mind, that comment set off sirens.
“What’s wrong?” Tim took Lucy off video call. “You’re off speaker.”
“MVA.” Lucy said, and that wasn’t abnormal for their jobs. He couldn’t remember a shift where he didn’t have to deal with an MVA. “You know that street sign on Santa Monica Boulevard that was damaged in the high speed car chase two weeks ago?”
“Yea.” Tim nodded. Tim distinctly remembered watching the pole bend as a drunk man going down the wrong side of the road at high speeds collided into it after a pit maneuver he himself pulled off.
“Someone must have removed the street sign from the pole, because it was bare and facing traffic, and a woman lost control of her car and drove right into it. She was impaled on contact.”
“Is she alright?” Tim asked, once again already knowing the answer. The hitch in her voice on the word impaled told him more than words ever could.
“No.” A beat, during which he was sure he heard sniffling, “She died on scene. I was trying to keep her calm but…”
“I’m sorry, Luce.” Tim said softly. “Are you okay?”
“No. She’s an organ donor and,” There was a pause as she seemingly took a breath to keep her composure, “it’s just bringing up a lot of memories of Joshua.” He thought back to Joshua’s birth and organ recovery. He wasn’t there, but he was there in the immediate aftermath of Tyler receiving Joshua’s kidney. He’d sat by his sister in the waiting room as they waited for news that her son’s surgery was a success. He remembered how Genny burst into tears the moment the doctor told them it went well. It was the second time he’d seen her shed happy tears in years, the first being that morning when she’d received word from the doctors that a kidney was available.
At the time, he didn’t really consider how the parents of that little boy who died so his nephew could live were feeling, he was just relieved that he wouldn’t have to stand by his sister’s son’s grave trying to keep himself together while trying to keep her together as well. Now that he knew the true and full story about that donation, and his subsequent marrow donation to his daughter, he had a newfound respect for organ donors and their families.
“I get it.” No words could make her feel better at this point, and he knew it. It was just going to take some time. “She’s going to save multiple lives as well, just like Joshua did.” Tim tried being optimistic, because it didn’t hurt to try. “Just like you did.”
“Tell that to her husband and son.” Tim was trying to think of something to say, when he heard her say, “What the… lights went out.”
“They should be up in a few seconds; hospitals have emergency generators.” Tim reminded her and he heard muffled voices for a second, she was clearly covering the phone with her hand or shirt while speaking to someone, and when she came back, she relayed that the entire hospital had been hacked and she needed to go.
“Be safe.” Tim told her before she hung up, “I love you.” Her identical reply came a split second before the call ended.
“Everything okay with Mommy?” Kaylie asked.
“Uhh yeah.” Tim said, rubbing the back of his neck. “She’s having a difficult day at work and just wanted to make sure we were alright.” He didn’t think Kaylie needed to know about the poor woman whose son was now without a mother.
“Did someone get hurt?”
“Yea.” Tim nodded. “And she’s going to save a whole bunch of people.”
“Like Joshua?” She asked, and Tim nodded.
“Exactly like Joshua.” As Tim looked at his daughter, she looked contemplative, well as contemplative as a 5 year old can look. “What’s on your mind?”
“How did he die?” She asked and the question threw him for a loop, not having expected it.
“Joshua?” He asked and Kaylie nodded. “Well…” He said, starting to clean up the mess they’d made before the phone call. “He didn’t develop the way you’re supposed to when he was growing in your mommy’s belly.” He began.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Tim shook his head. “No one really knows why… it just happens sometimes.”
“So if Joshua is my brother because we have the same mommy… and you’re my dad… does that mean you're Joshua's dad?” That was an unexpected question from her, especially since he thought she knew that Noah was Joshua’s father.
“No sweetie, I’m not Joshua’s father. Your mom was engaged to Uncle Noah at the time… he’s Joshua’s father.”
“Oh.” Kaylie frowned. “What’s engaged?”
“It’s when two people love each other and make a promise to get married.” The awkwardness of Tim having to explain to his daughter, who has only known him for about a year, when she’s known Noah since birth was palpable, but only to him. Kaylie was oblivious to the awkwardness she was creating with her questions.
“Are you and mommy going to get married?” She asked.
“I hope so.” He confides in his young daughter.
“So you’re engaged?” She asked.
“Not yet.” He told her. “But one day, I will ask her to marry me and when I do, I like to think she’ll say yes.”
“I think she will too.”
“I hope we’re both right.” He said and paused. He had a plan. Well the beginnings of a plan. He knew when he wanted to propose, but he was still trying to find the perfect opportunity to pull it off. What he didn’t know was that come Monday, Lucy would take care of that part for him without her even realizing.
“When are you gonna ask?”
“Well, I was thinking about this coming Friday.” He said, and she gasped.
“That soon?”
“Mhm.” He nodded. “But I need you to keep that a secret, okay? No telling anyone until Saturday… we want it to be a surprise for her, and you wouldn’t want to spill the beans, would you?”
“I can keep it secret!”
“Good.” It was at that moment that Tim heard the timer for the muffins go off. He reached for a pot holder and opened the door to pull the muffins out. Sticking a toothpick through the center of each one to make sure they’re cooked all the way through, he sets them on top of the counter to cool.
“They smell good!” Kaylie said excitedly.
“They’ll taste even better.” Fifteen minutes later, when they were cooled enough to eat, Tim poured a small drizzle of honey over the top and sprinkled it with some leftover orange zest. Then he handed one to Kaylie for her to try. She took a nibble of the top and her eyes went wide before she took a larger bite.
“So, better or worse than chocolate?”
“So much better!” Kaylie grinned and shoved another piece into her face.
“Your grandmother would be so happy.” Tim said softly.
“Grandma knew about these?” Kaylie asked, almost offended that her grandmother hasn’t made her these before. Tim chuckled softly and shook his head.
“No, not Vanessa. I meant my mother.” He explained.
“You have a mom?” Kaylie asked, as if the thought never occurred to her before.
“Yes, I have a mom. Well, I did. My mom is gone but… I know she would have loved you and loved the fact that you also love her favorite muffin.” Had Lucy been home for this conversation, she would have noticed the hitch in his voice at the word gone, the pained look on his face when he spoke about her. Lucy knew the truth of what happened, but how do you explain cold cases to a 5 year old?
“What was she like?” Kaylie asked as she continued to eat her muffin.
“She was a lot like your mom actually.” Tim smiled as they sat down at the table to eat their breakfast. “She loved to bake, loved to spoil her kids… You even have her eyes.” Tim recalled the first time he looked into Kaylie’s eyes at the park the Saturday Jackson got away from him. A lot of things about Kaylie reminded him of his mother.
“Really?” Kaylie asked, immediately abandoning her muffin to go look in the mirror. Tim followed her into the bathroom.
“See how they look a little grey, but when you look at them in just the right light… they look pale blue?” Kaylie nodded. “Her’s were just like that. She used to take your Aunt Genny and me to the beach a lot as kids… and when the sun shined right, her eyes sparkled.”
“What happened to her?” Kaylie asked, still examining her eyes in the mirror.
“She died… a long time ago.”
“Was it cancer?”
“No.” Tim shook his head and sat down on the edge of the tub, wiping his eyes as he thought about his mother for the first time in years, having pushed her out of his mind out of self preservation. “I’m not sure how she died.” She was there one day and gone the next, the only evidence that she even existed being Genny and Tim’s continued presence on the planet. “No one knows.”
Kaylie turned to look at him, the remnants of tears he’d wiped away still staining his cheeks. “Do you miss her?” She asked, stepping closer to give him a hug.
He enveloped his daughter in his arms and kissed her head. “Every day.”
__________________
“Hey, can I pick your brain about something, legally speaking?” Tim asked, as he came out of the house with two beers and two juice boxes for the kids. Both kids were taking turns doing cannonballs off the diving board while Wesley supervised - and provided judgements on who made the biggest splash.
“What’s up?”
“Hypothetically, how difficult is it to get someone declared dead?”
“Do you mean your mom?” Wesley asked. In all their years knowing eachother, Tim had never mentioned his mother to either Wesley or Angela. It was a sore subject and he didn’t like discussing it with anyone, especially no one at work.
“How did you–?” Tim sputtered, taken aback at the knowledge the other man had that he didn’t know about.
“You honestly think that Genny and Angela don’t talk on a regular basis?”
“Was it really too much for me to hope?” Tim shook his head. “But yeah… my mom.”
“I mean, yes and no. The process can take awhile, but a lot of that is the due diligence period where you need to exhaust all efforts to find them. When did she go missing again?” Wes asked.
“2003.”
“Well that would satisfy the time requirement by 200% and then some. Why haven’t you done so already? I’d imagine you’d have done it years ago.”
“Because then it would’ve been real… and if this past year has taught me anything, it’s not wise to live in the past. Too many ghosts.” The trajectory of his life changed when he stopped being held down by the mistakes of the past. He’s always been a family man in the sense that he loved his family made up of Genny and the boys. But this past year the term had taken on a whole different context. He’s a family man in the father and partner sense. The kind that comes home at the end of a long day and cooks dinner for his family, the kind that prefers hanging by a pool with his daughter and their friends on a Saturday afternoon, rather than just drinking beer and watching the game. The kind that bakes muffins first thing in the morning just to make his daughter happy.
As he watched his daughter swim, the sun glinting off the water and shining in her eyes the same way it did his mother’s, Tim was struck with a need for closure. Because he wanted to be the kind of family man who no longer had any reason to fear the past creeping back into his life.
Some things are not meant to be.