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Chen is a bundle of nerves. Why was it that she could walk into a hostage situation or be buried alive and she didn't sweat nearly this much? There is no danger lurking in the chapel. She and Sergeant Grey had done a thorough check - once, twice, three times over. Most of those invited were cops, military, or social workers. Still the whole situation didn't feel RIGHT.
She shivers with the arrival of a low strain of romantic music. She is only moments away from watching her best friend Rachel Hall walk up the aisle into her happily-ever-after. So, why did she feel this way? Like she is teetering on an impossibly high precipice about to fall into an endless void?
Chen inelegantly paces the hallway, peeking occasionally in to see the commotion in the chapel. Every floral arrangement appears perfect there are dozens of white lilies amongst sprays of red roses. Every guest sat perfectly dressed, polished in shades that felt expensive.
She paused by the back doors, her porcelain digits furled around the bouquet she was handed as Rachel's maid of honor. Every echo of her heartbeat screamed that this is wrong as she watches Tim try to pretend he is okay. He is standing at the altar in his crisp dress blues. The creases are so well pressed, they could cut glass. To a casual observer, he looks calm. Unflappable. Steady.
Lucy knows him better. Years of riding with him had taught her all of his idiosyncrasies. She knows the twitch in his left hand as it reaches for his cufflink means that he is anxious. His shoulders were squared, stiffened in a way that spoke only of discomfiture as if he is forcing himself through this to get over Isabel, or worse, to get over her. She knows the countenance he wears when he is about to walk into danger, and this looked a hell of a lot like that very expression.
Angela leaned towards her. "you know you're staring at him like a lost puppy. Right?"
Chen hates that Lopez can read her like an open book. Visibly, she bristles. "I-- I was just checking on him."
"Uh-huh." Angela challenges with a click of her tongue. "We all know how you feel. In fact, the only person who doesn't, is about to make the biggest mistake of his life. Go do something before it's too late."
Chen's amber eyes widen in astonishment. "What? I-- I could never." She glances back at him and a terrible pang erupts through the chamber of her heart. That doesn't change the fact that she desperately yearns to. But disrupting a best friends wedding is uncouth.
Lopez huffs wistfully. "Then you're going to lose him forever." It's a warning spoken like a threat. A threat meant to needle beneath Lucy's skin. "Did he tell you that he and Rachel intend to move to New York for her job?"
The revelation catches Lucy off guard. She feels herself slip with a soft thud against the door. Her eyes rake over Lopez with a fresh sense of panic. "Ne-- New York?" She hates the strained timbre of her voice. He can't move to New York!!! She needs him!!! The department needs him!!! Nothing about Tim Bradford says he'd enjoy New York.
"I mean, do you- think- I should?" There is weighted hesitation to Chen's inquiry.
Angela gave her a look that practically screamed are you kidding me right now? "You better do it before the bride decides to walk down the aisle early." Then as if to bolster the plot, Lopez shoves her into the aisle.
No pressure. Huh? All eyes turn to her and she feels her cheeks burn. Tim's gaze falls over her expectantly. His perfectly manicured brow arches in surprise. There is an unspoken inquiry that falls over his countenance.
In fact, he is so unnerved by her appearance that he takes more than a few hasty steps in Chen's direction. He is so accustomed to things going wrong, that this felt oddly normal.
Lucy swallows thickly as his powder-blue eyes rake over her for an explanation. One, she is hesitant to give on account of Rachel waiting in the wings. "Don't do this." The words start before she can bar them between her clenched teeth. "You deserve better." Chen can feel the weight of every gaze upon her now. Onlookers begin to stammer. "And I know this, because --" The words catch in the corridor of her throat, "because I love you."
His movements cease save for the recoil her careless words had caused. Turbulence enters his once steady gaze and he swallows. Tim is used to being in control, accustomed to knowing what to say and do in every circumstance, and for a moment, he can't speak, can't breathe. All he can do is stare in wide-eyed wonder.
The revelation that his love for her is not unrequited feels like a gut punch. He has given a ring to another. He spent months having to shelve his desires, to bury them beneath his sworn duty, logic. The muscle in his jaw tightens in a way that makes his cheek twitch.
Why now? Why did she wait? Grieved. Annoyed. He is all too aware that this, what should have been a private conversation, has been turned into a rather public spectacle. Hapless, desperate, his fingers snare about her elbow and he marches her to a quiet corner, behind the altar.
Chen allows him to maneuver her to the side of the altar, where the grim flickerings of candles illuminated even the deepest of shadows upon her face. His grip is the only tangible sensation in the room; other than the heady, forceful thunder of her heartbeat.
"Boot, what do you think you're doing?" He hisses with an undercurrent of vehemence swelling beneath his words. His gaze bores restlessly into her. For a moment, he forgets that he is the groom and picks up the mantle of a drill sergeant, or well, training officer.
God. What was she doing? Panic grips her in a way that causes her entire form to tremble. When did she become such a feckless wrecking ball? When did she become that friend? The monster who fractured what could have been a good marriage? His gaze is shrewd, intense in a way she almost wants to hide from.
"I," she opens her mouth and her expansive lexicon fails her. Uncertainty crinkles her perfectly manicured brows. "I don't know," she shifts apprehensively on her feet. "It's just-" Apologetically, amber orbs meet his fairer ones. "I -- I thought you should know." Good lord. Chen could kick herself for how positively pathetic she sounded when tangled in the web of her own words.
"Why now?!" Tim demands, continuing to apply pressure. He searches her as if the answer might be made plain upon her features. She is gorgeous bathed in silken green. Her make-up is done to movie star perfection. Perfection, in a way that made her impossible not to notice. Impossible not to yearn for. Tim actively has to bite back the urge to tuck a straying curl behind her ear. "You've had weeks." He starts, pausing to correct himself. "Months to say something." Somehow changing the span of time only made things WORSE.
Chen swallows thickly under the brutalistic brunt of his words. Why now? The question has been plaguing her, haunting her every inhale and every exhale of her venture down the aisle. Obviously, she can't throw Lopez under the bus.
Agony, a thousand fathoms deep, sweeps over her amber eyes. Tim Bradford is the love of her life. She would know the timbre of his voice anywhere. She'd recognize it blind, wounded, or buried alive. She knows every inflection, every annunciation, every pressure he puts on syllables with each of his moods.
Right now, he is angry, disappointed. She can't blame him. There could not have been a disastrous timing for her outburst. After all, she is the one who set him up with Rachel in the first place. Having regrets now, it felt like poor taste. A grievous pang rattles through tightening ribcages and Chen turns her mascara burdened gaze away from him.
After a tense moment, Chen finally speaks. "Because I realized I am losing the most important person in my life today. If you marry her, if you move to New York,---" Her face crumples in a way that is destined to ruin all of the make-up painstakingly caked on. The implication speaks where her voice fails. She'll never see him again. She'll never be able to consult him on the job when she felt uncertain. She wouldn't be able to see the way his eyes lit up when the job was well done. Chen wouldn't be able to trust that if something bad happens to her, her captor's worst nightmare lurked like a ravenous shark on the horizon.
His eyes soften, if only by shades of a degree upon witnessing just how much emotion has crept into her confession. Though he abhors it, he can understand her silences almost as clearly as her speech. He has been analyzing her from day one and he knows the courage it was taking her to have this conversation now.
"Tim," his name is quivered with endearment and need, "I can't live without you." Lucy briefly turns her mournful eyes to him. "I know, and you are right. I -- I was always waiting for the right time -- and-- it never came." He saved her life. He made, correction, makes her a better cop, for better or worse. Truth comes down to cowardice. She never told him because she was frightened. She never intended to hurt him nor to blow up whatever shards of friendship they may have still had.
He blinks. How long had he hoped to hear those very words roll from her tongue? He convinced himself he was forever doomed to her friend-zone. That every time he would reach for her in a way that was remotely romantic, he would be turned away. How could he have misjudged her so severely? Tim tries to process the flood of emotions pouring over him but he is drowning in all of them, all at once. His fingers raise to fuss with his crisp, black bow-tie. Was it getting hot in the room? Or was he sweating from the stress, the stress of having her, of having everything has ever desired, standing before him vulnerable and raw.
The onlookers are growing restless. In her peripherals Chen can see Nolan, Tim's groomsman rushing up the aisle to fracture this already forbidden rendezvous. They have already been conversing scandalously long.
She sucks in a breath. Batting several tears away, she mutters, "I-- I should go." The horrible truth is, she doesn't want to. Abandoning her post at his side doesn't feel right. "I -- I should have never said anything."
Instinctively, he reaches for her. His fingers curl commandingly around her delicate porcelain wrist. Tim is aware he shouldn't be doing this. He is well aware that he needs to let her go, but he can't. This is Lucy. His Lucy.
Nolan rounds the corner hard enough to nearly skid on the marble, freshly waxed floors. "Uh-- Tim," He clears his throat, looking between them both with poorly concealed alarm, "people are starting to notice that the groom has disappeared. They're starting the music for the third time now…." Being an officer himself, Nolan realizes that music is the least of their worries. "Ohhhhh-" He rasps loudly in understanding. His expression of confusion dawns into comprehension. Nolan's eyes flash open wide. "Should I tell them you need a minute?"
From the chapel came the soft swell of the organ music beginning again, uncertain and slow this time. Stalling.
Grimly, Tim nods. Nodding is far easier than expressing any verbalized sentiment. Tim shuts his eyes briefly in order to gather himself. He has never been a man of impulse. The military had beaten that out of him as a teen. Since then, he had always been methodical. Practiced. Moving with measured precision.
For months he had convinced himself that his feelings for Chen would fade. That eventually Lucy would stop being the first person he'd look for after a difficult call. That he would stop seeking her out. That he would cease comparing every conversation, every silence, every laugh to her's. Rachel is good. She is safe. She is easy. There is a level of assurance there that he didn't have with Isabel and certainly wouldn't have with Chen. Rachel is a social worker. She wouldn't be getting shot at daily. Lucy-- Lucy challenges him. She understands him and nettles under his skin the way no one else ever had. Somehow that terrified him enough to put a ring on Rachel's finger.
"You should go back inside," Lucy instructs before he can put his racing thoughts together. "Rachel deserves better than this."
His chest tightens with shame. Tim knows Rachel deserves better than having a groom wishing the maid-of-honor walked towards him. But he stares down at Chen. Her mascara had begun to smudge in charcoaled blurs beneath her glassy amber eyes. Her hands were shaking despite her efforts to hold them still. Fear is etched deeply into her countenance. Not a fear of rejection, but fear she has ruined everything. And maybe she had.
"Boot." He chokes. The sound is authoritative in spite of being whispered.
Running her tongue over her lip slowly, her gaze lifts with caution.
His jaw flexed once. Twice. "If I walk out there," he murmurs carefully, "nothing about this stays simple."
Chen stubbornly wipes at a fresh pearlescent tear that managed to stripe down her cheek. "I know." The anguished whisper comes.
"No," he jarringly corrects, "I don't think you do." His voice softens in spite of himself. "YOu don't drop something like this on a man five minutes before a wedding and not expect it to change everything."
Chewing her lip, she grumbles. "I said I was sorry."
He refutes with ease. "And I said that's not the problem."
Nolan, wisely sensing emotional crossfire, took a step backwards. "I'm just gonna… monitor the crowd." That felt like the safest choice but neither Chen nor Bradford acknowledged him. Nor did they acknowledge his absence when he leaves.
Bradford exhales sharply through his nose before scrubbing his calloused hand across his mouth. His ironclad composure was beginning to crack at the edges. "When?" The one word question is followed by the full question. "When did you really figure it out?"
Lucy laughed once. Small. Miserable. "When you found my ring in the dust of the desert and brought me a veggie burger and magazines in the hospital." She supposes she always knew the red string of fate tethered them together for a reason.
Her answer visibly affected Bradford. He broached the scant space between then. Tim's stare drops briefly to her painted lips before he caught himself. The urge to kiss her is nearly irresistible. He leans in, ready, willing...
"Tim?!" Rachel's voice beckons faintly from a bridal suite.
All three of them freeze at the exact same moment.
Lucy immediately steps away from him, horror flooding her features. "You need to go."
Bradford, as if his feet were set in drying concrete doesn't budge because for the first time all morning, walking down that aisle felt impossible. Doing as Lucy bids felt like a betrayal to himself, to Rachel, to the onlookers.
Finally, he sees Lucy pulling away again. This time, her back is towards him and she is moving with enough haste that he has to lunge to recapture her wrist. "I can't." He rasps. He isn't quite sure if he is saying this for his own sake or her's.
Bewildered, Chen stops. She glances back at him from over her shoulder. She has to convince herself she heard those two words. There was nothing that Tim Bradford couldn't do. Not a single thing. He was a powerhouse. But those words are followed by a breath of doom. He can't leave Rachel. Surely. That is what he means.
It is not.
Tim huffs. He lets out an unsettled breath in a way that feels like he is casting off shackles of frustration. "I can't let you go." His free hand runs down his face, trying in vain to get ahold of himself. He moves, his footsteps gravitating towards Chen as if by magnetic pull. He doesn't care about the cliche, nor the restlessness of onlookers. And for a moment, he forgets to care that Rachel is waiting. Gently, he turns Chen towards him. "When I proposed to Rachel," he admits quietly, "I thought I was making the smart choice." Lucy's expression crumples, but he carries on before she could mournfully apologize again. "She deserves someone who can give her everything." His voice lowered. "And the truth is... I was trying to convince myself that the person was me."
Silence stretches painfully between them. His hand moves to cup Chen's cheek. The gesture is infinitely more dangerous. Bradford gently sweeps his thumb along the globe of her cheek.
Lucy's eyes widen. "Tim." His name is etched with hesitation and warning. Yet, she doesn't pull away from his tender touch.
Then from behind them rose a voice. "Then you weren't happy?" It's spoken as a gentle question but it startles Lucy and Tim both. Tim pales, his hand drops from Lucy's face as though it burned. For one horrible second, nobody moved.
Rachel stood at the mouth of the choir alcove in a gown of ivory satin and lace. Her hand is curved around the edge of the wall as though she needed it to steady herself. Somewhere behind her, continues the muffled glee of music now feeling more unfitting of the occasion than ever.
Lucy's stomach hits the floor as Rachel's eyes knowingly meets her's. Understanding dawns with terrifying speed.
Tim found his voice first. "Rachel..." There is something entreating burdening her name.
"No." Her interruption was curt, quiet. Far too quiet. "Don't lie to me right now. My family is out there."
Her words landed far harder than shouting them ever could have.
Lucy immediately interjects. "Rachel, I am so sorry."
Their eyes meet and somehow the gaze she gifted her hurt worse than being branded by Caleb. There is no hatred in the way Rachel's eyes linger, only hurt. Pure, unadulterated devastation.
"How long?" Is the whisper that beckons.
Tim closes his eyes briefly.
"We never, we didn't--" Lucy tremulously attempts to answer first.
Remarkably perceptive, Rachel's aching voice banters back. "That is not what I asked." Every word is more crisp and sharp than a blade of a knife. The ache in her voice hollowed the grandeur of the room.
Tim straightens instinctively, shoulders pulling taut beneath his dress blues. "It wasn't an affair." He assures her.
Rachel laughed once under her breath in a wounded fashion. "I know that, Tim." Honestly, she did. Chen wasn't the type. That was the tragedy of it all. If this had been cheating, betrayal would have been far easier to categorize. Easier to hate. But this? This was two people loving each other so obviously that everyone in the room had apparently noticed, except for the three of them trying their hardest not to.
Rachel turns to look more fully at Chen. "When were you going to tell him?
Guilt and shame crawls over her countenance. Lucy's painted lips part helplessly. "I wasn't." It is the God's honest truth.
Then sharkishly Rachel turns to look at Tim. The question she asks is barely audible, the way a tortured breath sounds. "If she hadn't said something today..." her voice trembles for the first time, "would you have still married me?"
Tim freezes. His head hangs and his jaw twitches with guilt.
And Lucy, sensing his anguish, immediately whispers. "Rachel-- don't ask that."
But Rachel is laser focused on Tim because somewhere deep down she knows the answer.
His silence stretches on too long. It felt like an eternity. His powder-blue eyes don't know where to focus, Rachel or Chen, or Nolan lurking in the background.
Rachel inhaled sharply through her nose, the sound brittle enough to fracture something inside the room. Her gaze drops for a perilous second before lifting again, steadier this time. Resolved. "I think," she utters carefully, "that is my answer." When Tim tries to speak, tries to find some semblance of movement in his limbs again, Rachel held up a hand. She isn't angry. She isn't dramatic. She is only done.
Lucy feels physically ill. Her stomach churns like violent seas. Every instinct in her screams to fix this somehow, to rewind the last fifteen minutes and shove every careless confession back down her throat where it belonged. Rachel deserved joy today. What she didn't deserve was this humiliating disaster unfolding behind the chapel altar while guest whispered in the pews. "Please don't blame him." She beseeches. "This is ALL my fault."
Rachel's gaze slid towards her. "No," she replies quietly, "it isn't."
The simple honesty of it stuns both of them.
Rachel swallows, visibly fighting to remain composed. "You know what the worst part is?" A somber laugh escapes her. "I think some part of me always knew."
Bradford's expression tightened as Rachel gazes at him with heartbreaking fondness. Not rage. Not hatred. "You never looked at me the way you did her."
The statement hit like a gunshot.
Lucy's breath snares.
Tim couldn't deny it. God help him, he couldn't.
Rachel notices the answer immediately. Her eyes gloss with tears, but she blinks them back before they could fall. "I kept telling myself that eventually you'd get there." Her voice softened, "that maybe you just needed more time after Isabel. After everything."
Guilt carved visibly through Tim's expression. "Rachel, I never wanted to hurt you."
"I know." She whispers back, "and that was the problem." Tim Bradford would rather walk into gunfire than deliberately break someone's heart. He had tried to force himself into a future that made no sense because he thought it was the right thing to do. "You love her." It wasn't a question any more.
Tim's powder-blue eyes turn to Lucy instinctively. They way they do, it is answer enough.
Rachel let out another uneven breath before untwisting the delicate band of gold from her finger. It glittered softly beneath the chapel lights as she presses it into Tim's opened palm. Stunned, his gaze lift in question.
"I can't marry someone whose heart is with someone else. I would be doing a massive disservice to both of us." Rachel answers, this time sounding more certain than she has all night.
"Rachel.." his voice cracked roughly around her name.
So rough is the inflection that Lucy had never quite heard that sound from him before.
But her gaze is no longer fixed on him. Instead, it is on Lucy. For a terrifying second, Lucy anticipates anger. Rachel steps closer, reaching for Lucy's hand. "Take care of him. Okay?" She chokes in a whisper.
Lucy's face crumpled instantly. The tears come harder now in spite of her effort to stop them. "I'm -- so -- sorry."
Rachel nods grimly. Her own eyes are brimming with tears despite the bravado of her composure. And it cuts Lucy to the core. Rachel gifts them both one final look-- one of grief, affection, and resignation, all tangled painfully together, before turning away. The soft rustle of satin disappeared slowly down a corridor and then, she was gone.
Silence engulfed the alcove. Heavy. Suffocating.
Nolan stared after the fleeing bride with open-mouthed horror before cautiously looking back towards Tim. "Should I go after her?" He questions. Tim grimly nods "no". "Uh-- should I stop the music then?"
Tim tiredly dragged a hand over his reddened face. "yeah, he muttered hollowly, "probably."
Nolan skitters away quickly, undoubtedly fleeing before emotional sharpnel caught him too. Leaving Tim and Lucy in the alcove of low candlelight.
Neither one of them spoke at first. The silence is cumbersome enough to take up far too much space. Tim still held Rachel's engagement ring in his palm as if it weighed ten-thousand pounds. Lucy couldn't even look at it.
"This is a disaster," Lucy finally whispers, unable to endure the silence any longer.
A humorless huff of laughter escapes him. "Yeah." He pauses thoughtfully. "I would have ruined this eventually because I was too scared to admit what I actually wanted," he admits. "You just stopped me before I made it legally binding." Tim steps closer this time, like approaching volatile and dangerous.
Tears well in Lucy's eyes all over again, leaving ruddied trails beneath amber. "That isn't exactly romantic."
A startled laugh escapes him then. It is genuine this time even if it is brief and exhausted. God. There was again. That unbearable gravitational pull between them, even now. Even standing in the wreckage of what should have been a very different day.
Tim looked down at the ring still sitting in his hand before curling his fingers around it tightly. Then he looks at Lucy, and for the first time all day, everything felt RIGHT. This time, when he reaches for her face, she leans warmly into his touch. Tim's hand lingers upon her cheek like he was afraid this moment might fracture, might disappear before it is fully grasped.
Lucy could feel the tremor in his fingers now. Tiny. Barely perceptible. But after years of knowing him, she notices it instantly. He is impossibly shaken. The realization stole what little breath she had left.
Delicately, Tim's thumb swipes once more beneath her eye, catching the black streaky mascara and tears. His paze of powder-blue searches hers carefully, intensely, as if giving her one more opportunity to rip herself away from this moment unfolding between them.
Chen doesn't. Good Lord, she couldn't. Not when he was gazing at her like that. Like she had just set the stars on fire. Not when years of restraint were slowly unraveling between them in quiet, devastating pieces.
"Lucy," he ushers her name like a prayer he had been afraid he had forgotten the words too. It's delicate in the way a singular snowflake is.
The timbre of his voice nearly undoes her. She can feel the yearning, passionate warmth of it lodged in her spine. Chen covers his hand with her own instinctively, leaning in before fear could convince her to do otherwise. "If you kiss me here," Lucy whispers shakily, "I don't think either one of us will come back from it."
Something dangerous, all-consuming flickered through his expression then. Absent hesitation. Bradford stepped into her space fully at last, one hand still cradling her face whilst the other settles carefully at her waist.
Even now, even after everything, there was a polite restraint in him. A deliberate gentleness that made Lucy's chest ache. "You say that," he murmurs, eyes dropping fully to her lips, "like it is a bad thing." His breath is close enough to tangle with her's.
Lucy barely manages to suppress a gasp when he kisses her.
Abandoned is caution, it rough, zealous, brimming with years of longing that had once been buried. Every emotion seems to be bursting to the surface at once.
Chen makes a small, broken sound against his mouth as he pulls her close. That sound, that piteous brief sound, shatters whatever composure Tim had left. The hand at her waist tightens instantly, drawing her flush against his solid form. There is no space left between them. She melts herself against him, their kiss deepens with drightening ease. Every almost. Every interruption. Every stolen glance across the shop, hospital rooms, and dimly lit precinct hallways seem to ignite at once. He kisses her like a man several stages beyond famished. And she answers with equal desperation.
Delicate porcelain digits curl into the front of his dress blues, wrinkling the perfectly pressed fabric as she rises onto trembling toes to meet him fully. The scent of starch, cologne and faint aftershave surround her completely, achingly familiar in a way that made this feel less like something new and more like something wholly inevitable. He is her home.
Tim's control dropped another centimeter lower. A low sound rumbled from his chest before he broke the kiss just long enough to press his forehead against hers, breathing jaggedly. He is too snared in the moment to speak.
Lucy could barely think herself. Her lips are swollen, her heartbeat echos against her eardrums, and Tim is holding her like letting go might physically pain him. Which, judging by the look on his face, it probably would.
For a startling moment, neither of them spoke. They stood there breathing the same air, wrecked by the reality of finally crossing the line they had danced around for years.
She laughs then. Once. Breathless. Overwhelmed. "We are in so much trouble." Of course they were. What other recourse could there be?
Tim stares at her for half a second before another laugh escapes him, softer this time. "What do you mean "we", Boot?" He teases. His lips gift her a quickly fleeting teasing grin. But even as he speaks, his hand slid back into her hair and he places a ravaging kiss upon the breadths of her lips.