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Tim had always been a protector. He couldn’t quite pinpoint as to what in him gravitated towards this but when, at a young age he was protecting his family it was something that had cemented in him.
Genny
The first time Tom Bradford turned violent Tim was 6.
No one knew the assignable cause but one day Tom was a good husband the next day he changed.
Tim was immediately thrown into a position where he wanted to protect his little sister from all the unpleasantness that went with domestic abuse.
The tone is his dad’s voice changed. After a few months Tim by now could tell. It had only been a few months but if you were listening for it, you could tell when the shift occurred.
Genny was organizing the crayons on the floor singing a little song happily when the house went still.
“Let’s go outside.” Tim said and Genny thought a moment before nodding in agreement. Tim took Genny’s hand and they stepped outside. Tim took them to a little shaded area that had once been grassy but, because of the constant shade was now nothing but a mud spot.
“I’m gonna make a castle!” Genny announced plopping down on the ground. Tim went and got the hose so Genny could get the water she needed. He heard a noise from the house and turned to see something had been thrown against the window; there was a liquid running down the window. Thankfully, Genny wasn’t facing the house was completely unaware.
He carried Genny’s childhood as a piece of him.
Joy
Genny’s situational awareness increased in the next couple years. When the house went silent Genny knew to go to her room or outside. She learned to not be seen, something that Tim had taught her over 4 years. Tim’s focus turned towards his mom. How could he protect her? He was a boy, could he take the beatings better?
Tim was in the kitchen when the atmosphere changed. His father had his mom backed against the counter. Tim saw her flinch before his father even raised his hand.
Tim crossed the kitchen in three strides and shoved himself between them. The first hit caught him across the mouth. It was a hard hit causing his head to snap sideways. His tongue swiped across his lips, he immediately tasted the metallic taste of blood.
“Tim—” His mom said horrified. Tim stood straighter and looked at her from his periphery, “Go.”
His mom didn’t move.
“Go!” He gritted through his teeth and she obeyed, scurrying away.
His father slugged him again before he grabbed the front of Tim’s shirt and hauled Tim towards him. Tim tasted blood where his teeth had cut into his cheek.
“Think you’re a man now huh? Boy you’re just the man of the house now aren’t you.”
Tim didn’t make a move, or a sound. If his father was holding him, he wouldn’t reach for his mom or sister. His father threw him to the floor before kicking him as he fell.
He stood back up determined to keep himself between this monster and his family. Tim kept his eyes up, kept his father looking at him. His determination was working, his father’s eyes stayed on him even if it did make him angrier.
He carried his mom’s fear through these years.
Tom… Joy part 2?
It’d become habit now. Instead of coming for Joy, Tom Bradford looked for Tim. In hindsight Tim didn’t know why he didn’t say anything when he saw his father with the neighbor. Why was he protecting his father? He should tell on his father maybe that meant they could leave.
He thought more, maybe he was protecting his mom too. His father was gentle with the neighbor and somehow Tim wondered if that would hurt his mom more. He never told her, he carried this secret.
Country
Tim counted them again he knew them by heart but he counted anyways.
One name, then another. Every man who had looked to him for an order. Every man who had trusted him to know when to move and when to stay.
When he finished his list he started again. The number never changed.
A ship flew over. Tim didn’t pay attention. His hands were covered in dust and blood, but he could not remember whose. It had all happened so fast. The explosion had happened and he was left reflecting on how he had failed his men. All of them. He looked down at his hands as if there might still be something left to do.
There was always something to do. He went through a checklist Stop the bleeding. Clear the road. Call for support. Get them behind cover. Count every head.
He had done those things and yet the explosion has still happened, the men were still dead.
Tim counted a different list.
His mother had made it out of the kitchen, Genny had made it into the yard.
For most of his life, moving first had been enough. This time, Tim had survived but no one else had.
He joined the army to help people, protect his country. The first tour he had done that. He had fulfilled a purpose. Yet now here he stood, a failure. He had carried their lives because that was what being in command required. Now he would carry their deaths because there was no one else left to do it.
He enrolled in the police academy a few months after he got home.
Isabel
Tim finally thought he found a new family. Danger appeared to be gone. Isabel was a good detective and a good cop so when she stopped coming home he figured it was an affair. He tried looking into it and found nothing. Not until it was too late.
Danger still lurked within Isabel. Beneath her skin, following her wherever she went. It talked to him through her lips growing dryer by the day. He’d failed to protect her from the substances she had fought so hard to get off the street. The only way he could protect her know, was to learn this new Isabel.
So he watched her. He learned how she started to lie. He learned the tell tale signs of when she was using, and the silences that came before she disappeared. He memorized the places she went, the people who covered for her, the hospitals that would answer his questions and the ones that wouldn’t.
He searched for her and when he found her, he brought her home. He continued to do this hoping that his determination to never give up on her would make her realize that this addiction wasn’t who she was.
Every time, he thought this would be the last time and every time, he thought finding her meant he had saved her. It took him too long to understand that bringing Isabel back home alive was not the same as bringing her back.
One day she told him that he was suffocating her. Tim loosened his grip and she disappeared. When he tightened it again. She made sure he knew that she hated him for it.
He convinced himself that there had to be an amount of pressure that would bring her home for good. There had to be the right combination of vigilance and trust. A moment when he could have said the correct thing, made the correct choice, and kept the woman he loved from vanishing in front of him.
Tim never found it. His wife was gone and at the end of the day he found himself going to an empty house. He carried her addiction until there was nothing left in his arms but the weight of everything he had failed to stop.
This one is different…
Ever since he became a TO he took being a teacher seriously. These rookies needed to be good enough to protect the city and the people. If they weren’t good enough they got bounced. He wasn’t here to sugar coat things, he was here to make sure the city stayed a safe place.
This next round of rookies was going to be no different. He didn’t care that his new boot made an arrest before clocking in, she picked some low hanging fruit and he wanted to make sure she, on no uncertain terms, would get any praise for that.
Then he ran into Isabel. All the pain and loneliness he tried to bury came instantly to the surface and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He kept running into Isabel too, it was pissing him off. As a superior officer he needed to be locked in, gruff because if he wasn’t he would be seen as soft and he wasn’t soft; he bounced boots for breakfast.
He started noticing a pattern. When Isabel showed up, when he got shot, when Isabel kept showing up and he almost made a poor decision. The person that stopped him was this rookie. This one didn’t want him to carry anything for her. On the contrary the way she was behaving it gave the impression that she wanted to carry things for him.
It threw him off his game. Generally he found immense pleasure in washing out rookies on plain clothes day but this one, this one felt different. She had messed up because she was passionate about the well being of an animal. She wasn’t brazen, or overly confident she was considerate, empathetic.
He had found someone new to protect even if she wasn’t asking him to carry anything, he wanted her to do well.
The crazy thing happened after he had recovered from his exposure to the virus. His boot had written a report detailing what had happened and hadn’t written that he said he wanted to go out on his own terms. He was fuming. Had he not taught her to be better than that? How dare she lie on a report he could wash her out for this.
“I was trying to protect you. You weren’t actually even suicidal.”
He stared at her confusion writing over the anger he had displayed before.
She… was trying to protect… him?
Why?
That was the million dollar question wasn’t it. He had done nothing to warrant this protection and yet she gave it freely anyways.
He had carried Genny’s childhood, his mom’s fear, his dad’s secrets, his squad’s death and Isabel’s addiction. Now she wanted to carry these things too just because she cared for him. He fell in love with her before he could even identify the feeling.
She was too good for him so when one of these things he carried for so long came back up, he left her.
She was still his safe place, she still showed him that same empathetic heart even though he didn’t deserve it. It made him want to put in the work and win her back. When he did he realized he could let go of all the things he had carried for so long.