Chapter Text
Static. That’s all Tim can comprehend.
It’s rushing through his ears, filling his limbs, flooding his mind, his entire existence overwhelmed with absence.
He tries to pull himself out of it, but it’s like he’s dragging himself out from under a thick, black tar, every part of his body resisting the weight of consciousness. He focuses on the only clear sensation he can pinpoint amidst the endless nothing—the sharp, cold edge to each breath he takes. In, and out. In, and out. It’s all he can do, buried beneath static and tar and darkness.
With each breath, he starts to come back to his body.
The ache in his chest makes itself known first. It’s wrapping around his ribs, concentrated and yet all-encompassing at the same time. The dull pain in his shoulder surfaces next, and then the sharper agony in his arm, and the faint burning in his wrists—they’re unpleasant, but they’re all rusted, fragile anchors he can use to just about settle back into himself, the static dissolving into his bloodstream as the rest of his body materialises. He’s lying on his side, one arm outstretched in front of him, the other curled against his torso. The rushing in his ears doesn’t let up, though, not even when birdsong begins to cut through it.
That’s when Tim realises—it’s not static. It’s water. Waves, crashing against the land in a rhythmic, perpetual cycle, the push and pull creating white noise that only exacerbates his internal confusion.
All the same, he uses the sound’s identity as something to hold onto, letting it slowly pull him a little closer to the surface, back into his surroundings. When he tries to wrench his eyes open, harsh, blinding light forces them shut again, white-hot pain slicing through his skull.
As much as it hurts, the agony shocks him more alert, and so he tries again, slower this time, prepared for way the sunlight feels like a knife driving into his temple. He blinks his way through it, letting his eyes adjust even as the building headache makes his vision blur. It takes a minute, but soon, he can just about make out the brown, dusty ground beneath him.
Sand.
Even half-conscious, his head pounding, the puzzle pieces aren’t hard for Tim to slot together. Sand. Waves. Birdsong. He’s on the beach.
But why? How?
He blinks hard, again and again and again, until his eyes adjust enough that he can see a little further away, the bright blur dissipating. The first concrete thing he comprehends is an all-too familiar form laying right across from him. His eyes don’t even need to completely focus for him to recognise what it is—who it is.
It’s Lucy.
Lucy’s here.
His outstretched hand is holding hers, he realises, her fingers limp where his are curled around them. Her eyes are closed, body unmoving except for the rise and fall of her chest, and her right arm is awkwardly folded beneath her. She’s hurt, her cream sweater covered in blood and sand and dirt, her face bruised and hair tangled beneath her cheek. It’s only when Tim trails his gaze down her arm to their clasped hands that he clocks the blood on the sleeve of his jacket, too, and the bruising around his wrists.
Swallowing, he tries to say something, anything that might get her attention, but his tongue is too heavy for his mouth. Nothing more than a strangled groan makes it past his cracked lips.
And then another voice filters into his awareness.
“Sir? Can you hear me?”
Tim blinks, and something moves in his periphery. No—someone.
Another low groan sounds from the back of his throat as his head spins. The world drifts of its own accord, and he could swear the sand beneath them is shifting with the distant pull of the waves.
“Don’t worry.” It’s a woman. “I’ve—I’ve called 911, and they’re coming, okay? Everything’s going to be alright.”
Her voice is trembling, and she sounds terrified. Probably a passerby, one who’s never stumbled across anything worse than an injured animal—it would explain why she’s talking to him like he is one, her voice airy and an octave higher than sounds natural. She’s trying to force the calm, but Tim can hear right through it.
He doesn’t get to make another attempt at responding to their good Samaritan, though, because when a small sound escapes Lucy’s throat, Tim’s world tunnels to just her, zeroing in on the creases forming at the corners of her eyes as she starts to come to.
“Lucy.” Her name comes out a slurred, scraping sound, but he tries again anyway.
Her eyelids flutter before screwing shut. At least he knows for certain she’s waking up.
And then a vibration comes from his back pocket—his phone. Tim only thinks about letting go of Lucy’s hand for a split second before deciding he can’t, so he awkwardly shifts his left arm under himself to retrieve the device. The movement sends more pain shooting through his forearm, and he bites back an agonised cry, running his thumb over the back of Lucy’s hand for both their benefits.
The screen swims in front of his vision when he tries to lift it, his arm protesting the movement, and the top corner ends up propped against the sand. In an attempt to get his eyes to focus, Tim blinks harder at their surroundings: the distant water, the birds soaring above the waves, the beach, the passerby crouched beside Lucy.
The woman’s fingers are splayed out, hovering like she’s terrified to touch them—good. She’s got a sports band pushing her hair back, and she’s dressed in cheap athleisure and worn-out sneakers. A runner, then. Wrong place at the wrong time. Tim would tell her to leave if he could. He can’t spare any concern for a stranger right now, not when he can barely comprehend what’s happening to him and Lucy.
Lucy’s fingers twitch against his palm as she sucks in a sharp inhale, and Tim squeezes her hand a little tighter, hoping to be an anchor, some source of comfort.
And that’s when he feels it. The ring on her finger.
With the familiar coolness of the metal band beneath the pad of his thumb, fragments start to come back one small shard at a time. Each blink sends an ache through his skull, another flicker of a memory playing out against the backs of his eyelids.
This isn’t just some random beach.
This is the beach they’d walked across, arm in arm. It’s where they’d stood and watched the waves crash against the shore, lit by the setting sun, before he’d gotten down on one knee and asked Lucy for forever. It’s the sand that had scraped against his skin as the pain bloomed sharp in his neck, the same sand in his periphery as he’d grasped Lucy’s hand the very way he is now, her ring pressing into his thumb.
It feels like barely a single blink has passed since then. Tim could easily be convinced they’re still in that same moment, the world still hazy around the edges as he watches Lucy’s eyelids flutter, trying to process how their happy moment has ended up like this.
But according to the lock screen finally coming into focus, Angela’s Good luck! text came through three days ago, and has been followed by 14 missed calls.
He scrolls through his notifications, overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, the words and contact names and phone numbers swirling together as his chest tightens, exacerbating the ache already residing in his chest. Most of the texts are from Angela, so he opens their conversation to try and make sense of everything from a single source.
The first text exchange from three days ago, he remembers. He’d texted Angela when they’d pulled up on the curb near the steps leading down to the beach, tilting his phone away from Lucy’s view while he’d pretended to check something.
At the beach — 20:47
20:48 — I figured, watched you pull out of your street. Good luck!
He’d had to keep his expression neutral for Lucy’s sake, suppressing his exasperated headshake as he tucked his phone back in his pocket, because of course Angela had camped out in her car for twenty minutes until they’d left.
The rest of the texts below that, he doesn’t remember. The first few had come through a few hours later.
23:17 — I’m assuming you’re too busy celebrating to actually tell me, so let me get ahead of the crowd. Congratulations!!!
23:17 — I’m so happy for you. You guys deserve this
23:18 — I’ll save most of my sappiness for when you call me, don’t worry
23:18 — Enjoy your weekend off ;)
23:20 — But don’t leave me hanging too long. I need details
23:20 — That ring basically became my third child
23:21 — She loves it, right???
And then Angela seemed to remember herself, because the next text didn’t come through until Saturday morning.
10:32 — Over 12 hours, must be making the most of your celebrations
10:32 — You do you. Or… Lucy, probably. I’ll leave you to it
10:34 — But remember my BFF privileges. I want to be the first to hear about it
The tone of the messages has shifted a little by the time it gets to Sunday morning—
09:36 — Good morning
09:36 — It’s me, here with your reminder that the rest of the world still exists
09:37 — You’re kind of killing me here
—and more than a little by Sunday afternoon.
14:56 — Getting a little worried now
15:02 — No one’s heard from Lucy either
15:02 — Quit having sex with your fiancée for one minute to text me back
15:03 — You don’t even have to say anything, just send me the selfie I know she made you take
15:10 — I’m serious
15:11 — Just let me know you’re alive and you can go right back to what you’re doing
And then today. Monday, apparently.
[Missed call from Angela Lopez]
08:57 — Bradford
08:57 — Where are you???
[Missed call from Angela Lopez (2)]
09:02 — You’re late for roll call, idiot
[Missed call from Angela Lopez]
09:02 — Did something happen?
09:03 — Pick up the phone
09:03 — Please
[Missed call from Angela Lopez (3)]
09:10 — I’m coming over
The next several missed calls from Angela are interspersed with various texts and calls from everyone, Harper and Penn and Juarez and Nolan and Grey, his notification centre flooded with concern. But he soon reaches the reason his phone had buzzed just now—it’s Angela, again:
09:36 — Tim where the hell are you
His head is spinning at the onslaught of information, trying to pinpoint anything even close to a memory from the last few days, but all he comes across is an empty pit, a void that feels mere moments wide. These texts don’t answer a single question, they just confirm what he already knows—something’s happened to them.
They’re bloody, and have apparently been unconscious on a beach. His body hurts, and he’d bet anything that Lucy’s does too, and he can’t even begin to think of why.
The last thing he remembers with any clarity is Lucy’s smile as he’d slid the ring onto her finger, both their hands shaking. Their lips had clashed and it had been clumsy and overwhelming and perfect, and when he’d looked at her it was with the realisation that he was looking at his forever.
And then a couple had called out their congratulations. Tim’s gaze had briefly flitted in their direction, cheeks aching with an uncontrollable smile, but he wasn’t really looking at them, his eyes back on Lucy soon enough. That’s when the pinprick pain had burned sharp and bright in the back of his neck, vision blurring in an instant, his veins filling with liquid concrete.
He thinks the woman might have said something. In the memory, her face looms above Lucy, a shapeless, anonymous blur, features redacted by the light of the sunset blurring his vision. Helpless, he’d done the only thing he could think to do with the last dregs of consciousness: he’d reached for Lucy’s hand before the bag was pulled over his head. I’m here.
And… that’s it.
What feels like a matter of minutes later, they’re still here, still lying on the sand, hands still clasped as though no real time has passed. Except, time has clearly passed—the sunset has been traded for blinding daylight, he has a seemingly endless list of texts and calls, and there’s nothing filling in a single gap except blood and lingering pain.
Tim goes to type some kind of response, anything at all to assuage—or, more likely, fuel—Angela’s worries, but that’s when Lucy’s fingertips dig into his palm, and his focus is redirected.
She lets out another low groan, and then a shaking exhale. Her eyebrows scrunch as she blinks, trying to adjust to the light.
“Hey,” he breathes.
Brown eyes sparkle in the blinding sunlight as Lucy's gaze finally finds his. “Tim?”
“I’m here.” The weak reassurance tastes of copper.
Lucy swallows, her breath catching as she looks at him, looks around at where they are. He watches her clock their hands, and the blood on their clothes, and the sand, everything filtering in piece by piece, the same way it had for him.
“What… what’s—what’s happening?” she murmurs.
The million-dollar question. Tim squeezes her hand tighter, and she presses her thumb against his in return.
“I don’t know,” he admits. He hates that that’s his answer, if only for the way her expression tightens.
His phone buzzes in his hand, and Tim reluctantly tears his eyes from the fear in Lucy’s expression to check his phone. Angela’s calling.
It takes him a couple of tries, his co-ordination shot, but he manages to swipe a shaking thumb across the screen.
The loudspeaker doesn’t air anything except silence for a few seconds. And then—
“Tim?”
“Angela.” It comes out through a broken, shaking breath, as he’s suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed at the sound of another friendly voice, like he hasn’t heard one in years. The feeling doesn’t make sense, but it settles heavy in his chest all the same.
“Tim—fuck. Oh my God.” Angela sounds some awful mix of terrified and relieved and angry and out of her mind, her voice flooded with water. “Where are you?”
He swallows the wave of nausea rising in his throat at the unguarded terror in his best friend’s voice, trying to tamp down the overwhelm sitting behind his ribs. His throat constricts, and Tim’s eyes find Lucy’s again. He’s met with his own fear and confusion staring right back at him.
“Tim,” Angela pleads, desperate. Through the speaker, her car door slams shut, the engine roaring to life. “Where are you?”
“At the…” Out of nowhere, the world starts to blur, everything suddenly too bright. The words die on his tongue as his mouth goes dry.
Angela says something. It’s warped and incoherent, snowed under the static steadily rolling back in.
And then Lucy adjusts her grip on his hand, squeezing tight, almost to the point of pain, his name coming out hoarse and pleading. The sensation drags Tim back out from the nothingness, and his eyes zero in on their clasped hands, watching the way the sunlight catches the ring on her finger.
“At the beach,” he finally responds.