Chapter Text
Knock knock knock.
Lucy stands under the shallow overhang of the front door, hands desperately rubbing her arms as goosebumps ripple down her spine. Rain beats down around her in sheets, the biting wind making the night air feel especially unforgiving.
She trembles—not from the cold, but from the crushing weight of the day and every suffocating thought that has cycled through her brain since she clocked out.
‘I told you this was a mistake, Lucy.’ A voice sounding eerily like her mother’s disappointed, clinical tone echoes through her head. ‘You just had to prove something, didn’t you? And now you’re all messed up.’
A frustrated tear slips down her cheek, and she furiously wipes it away with the back of her hand, cursing her own mind for dragging up the open wound that is her relationship with her parents on today of all days.
Growing up in that house, Lucy had never known the weight of encouragement. There was little to no praise, no matter the achievement. Even though she tried to be the picture-perfect daughter—doing everything asked of her and more—her hyper-critical parents still found something to tear apart and make her feel small. And when she’d chosen the academy over finishing grad school, any conditional warmth vanished entirely.
The porch light suddenly snaps on, casting a harsh yellow glow over her shivering frame.
Lucy squints at the intrusion, lowering her gaze to the ground as the heavy door swings open.
Her head shoots up.
Tim stands there in pajamas, hair disheveled from sleep. He runs his hands through it, and narrows his eyes, confusion clear as day.
“Lucy?”
—
Tim takes in the sight that greets him when he opens the front door. His rookie, shivering and wet from the downpour, staring at him like he’s the one who showed up at her door unannounced at eleven o’clock at night.
Then he notices her glassy, sunken-in eyes and the fidgeting of her fingers, and his confusion morphs into concern.
“What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.” He opens the door wider and she flies through the entryway, straight past him into the kitchen where she begins pacing.
He shuts the door, locking it, before hurrying after her. “Lucy, what’s wrong?”
She doesn’t even acknowledge him, just continues pacing back and forth, hands tangling in her own hair.
He chuckles, but his throat only tightens. “Okay, you’re starting to freak me out. Talk to me.”
She stops suddenly, turning back to face him. Her shoulders drop, and fresh tears form in her eyes. She swallows.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she finally mutters.
Tim’s brow furrows. “Do what?”
“This,” she echoes, her voice rising, cracking under the strain of a sob she’s trying desperately to choke back. “This job! I can’t—Tim, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
The admission hangs heavy in the air.
Tim freezes, the words hitting him like a physical blow, but he doesn’t pull back. He steps into her space, his large frame cutting off her path, because she’s not just leaving him with that.
“Look at me,” he commands, voice dropping into his authoritative, T.O. register. “Lucy. Look at me.”
She finally lifts her head, chest heaving as she tries to find air. The ghosts of her parents’ words scream through her ears, telling her she’s weak, she’s a disappointment, that she’s broken.
“You had a panic attack in the shop today because we found a victim in a barrel,” Tim says, recounting the triggering case they’d been called to today that he suspects is what led her here. “And you think that means you’re failing.”
Lucy lets out a broken, breathless laugh, blinking a tear from her lashes. “I completely froze, Tim. Cops can’t freeze. My parents… they always said I’m not cut out for this kind of job. That I’m too soft. And today proved it. I’m in way over my head, Tim, and I need you to tell me what to do here because I’m freaking out and I don’t know how to fucking fix it,” she rambles, voice cracking over every word, and by the end she’s sobbing, descending into a full blown spiral.
Tim’s heart lurches, but he forces himself to focus as he takes a step even closer, invading her personal space until she can see nothing but him.
“You listen to me,” he urges, voice losing every bit of rigidness and replacing it with a fierce, quiet intensity. “Your parents are dead wrong. You hear me, Lucy? They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
Lucy shakes her head, violent sobs racking her frame as she tries to pull away from his eyes, but Tim doesn’t let her escape.
“Cops freeze, Lucy. It happens to everyone when they’re pushed to a point beyond what humans should be able to handle,” he pressures. “You didn’t freeze because you’re weak. You froze because you went through hell that day, and what you saw today dragged you right back to it. Lucy, everything you went through is still fresh. You’ve only been back—what, a month? And the resilience you’ve shown continues to amaze me. Amazes everyone. And you know what you did after you caught your breath? You got back in the shop, and you finished your damn shift. You’re human, you’re allowed to not be okay sometimes. These moments aren’t what defines you as a cop, you hear me?”
He waits until she gives a weak nod and blinks up at him, watery gaze locking onto his. He reaches out his hand, grabbing her bicep gently, grounding.
“You are not ‘too soft’,” he tells her, each word an undeniable truth. “You are the strongest rookie I’ve ever trained. You have more grit in your pinky than half the veterans on this force, and I don’t ever want to hear you say that you ‘can’t do this’ again. You are meant for this badge, Chen. It’s about time you start believing it.”
For a girl who’s spent twenty-eight years starving for a single scrap of unconditional praise, the weight of his words hits her like a wave. The choking noise of her parents’ disappointments—the years of cold dismissal—suddenly goes quiet, drowned out by the absolute conviction in Tim Bradford’s voice.
She doesn’t need to be perfect. He doesn’t want her to be perfect. He just wants her. Exactly how she is.
A shuddering breath hitches in her chest, the rapid speed of her heart finally slowing under the steady pressure of his hand on her arm. The tears still come, but the panic is gone, replaced by an overwhelming sense of relief, of profound clarity.
“Okay,” she whispers, her voice small, but steady. She swallows hard, looking up at him through wet lashes. “Okay.”
Tim lets out a quiet breath of his own, thumb rubbing small reassuring circles against her sleeve before finally letting his hand drop.
“Go wash your face,” he murmurs, tone returning to the familiar bluntness she’s come to appreciate. “I’ll make some tea. And tomorrow, you’re getting back in my shop, and we’re doing it again.”
Lucy wipes the last of her tears from her cheeks, a small, genuine smile finally breaking through the shadows of her face. “Yes, sir.”
As she walks down the hall, the lingering warmth of his words stays wrapped around her like a shield. She’s not broken, she’s healing, and for the first time in her life, she knows that she’s exactly where she belongs.
—