Work Text:
The entire ordeal feels surreal.
The fact that, what feels a lifetime ago now, Tim proposed to her.
The fact that they were kidnapped and tortured for weeks.
The fact that they're out of there and they're now safe.
She feels oddly numb about all that.
Then again, it's not like it's her first time being kidnapped, Lucy thinks, scoffing to herself at the ridiculousness of the thought. She really shouldn't be getting used to being kidnapped.
The doctors check them out and clean them up as soon as they're back in Los Angeles. Luckily, for all they went through, their wounds and injuries are rather superficial. Lucy's wounds aren't as bad as Tim's are - he needs more stitches than she does, and they're worried about him possibly having a low grade concussion.
The doctors tell them they're lucky, given everything they've been through.
She knows they are.
And she's so thankful. But, she's terrified of the aftermath.
Her engagement ring is gone, and now it almost feels as if the proposal never happened. The tangible proof is no longer on her finger,, and this experience has taken focus and prominence the biggest thing in their lives right now. Worst of all, Tim's got that distant look in his eyes and she knows him well enough to know he's feeling guilty that she got brought into this because of him, that he feels like he failed her, that the ruined proposal is his fault, that he let her down, mad at himself for not being able to protect her.
Lucy feels like she's back in the Mid-Wilshire parking lot - specifically, that moment when she realized what was happening and the anxiety and dread coils tight. She worries that he might once again fall back into old habits, think she deserves better than him. This is their first real test of going through something big enough to break them since they've recovered from the last thing that broke them. And this is huge. It's not a simple disagreement, it's a traumatic event that most couples will never have to face. He's made so much progress and worked so hard, but this is enough to send anyone backwards.
Seeing him be tortured, hearing him in agony, the feeling in the pit of her stomach when they said when Tim dies, as if it was a foregone conclusion - all she wanted in those moments was for him to be safe and home with her and Kojo. Of course she doesn't blame him in the slightest for any of it. None of this is his fault. The only thing Tim ever did to incur Everett's wrath was reject a bribe and arrest the man (twice), everything a good cop should do. It's an unfortunate case of wrong place, wrong time in many aspects, and being the unsuspecting targets of an international war criminal who has an unlimited network and resources.
But she knows he's going to beat himself up.
"Hi," she says softly as she sits down next to him while the nurse begins to suture the deep cut on his shoulder. They'd just finished an x-ray of her swollen wrist - and it's the first time they'd been apart since they'd been found. "I'm back."
"Hi," he breathes back, almost as if he's still trying to talk himself into believing this is real, that they're here and she's next to him. "You okay?" He frowns then, and she can tell he's deciding those were a stupid choice of words, because of course she's not okay.
But she knows what he means.
"Yeah, I'm okay," she assures him softly. "Few cuts and a lot of bruises, a few stitches here and there, the wrist isn't broken or fractured. But overall,I think you're worse for the ware."
He lets out a little chuckle and the nurse stops suturing as his shoulder jostles from the laugh, waiting for him to stabilize again. Tim murmurs an apology to him and returns to sitting still.
She takes his hand opposite the shoulder the nurse is stitching up and gives it a squeeze, intertwining their fingers together.
Lucy notices his eyes drop to her hand - her left hand, where her ring should be - and a look of pure disappointment and defeat washes over his face, so intense it almost breaks her.
"It's okay," she says softly, squeezing his hand as he strokes her bare ring finger. "As long as you're okay, it's all okay."
Tim nods. "I'm so sorry," he says, almost in a whisper., not even minding the nurse who is listening to their vulnerable moment.
"It's not your fault," she tells him instantly, hoping that if she starts drilling it into his head now maybe it will sink in.
"We both know what we lost," she remembers saying on the docks, all those months ago. "Hopefully, we'll fight to make it work."
"We will," Tim had replied confidently. "I love you."
It feels like this is the test. Are they going to get through this, together and fight, or is this going to put a wedge in between them?
She knows that if he tries to pull away this time, she has a prayer of being able to reel him back in after everything they've been through, after all the work he's put in.
She just hopes this isn't too big, too traumatic to prevent a setback.
Angela drives them home.
She offers to stay with them to help out since they're both sore and injured, but Lucy steps forward and hugs her tightly, the strongest embrace the two women have ever shared.
"You don't have to do that," she says softly, though her eyes are glazed over with appreciation for her support. "We know what you risked to save us. You've already done so much. You should go home and be with your babies tonight."
Angela nods, eyes teary, as Tim nods his agreement and lowers himself down onto the couch, groaning in pain. "Are you sure?" Angela asks again, eyeing him.
"We'll be okay," Tim assures her. "The kids must miss you."
"I'm going to go change," Lucy says then, as if she can sense that maybe Angela and Tim need a moment together.
"All right, I'll go," Angela relents with a soft smile as Lucy disappears down the hallway toward their bedroom. She sits down onto the couch next to Tim and gives him a careful, gentle hug, eyes shining with unshed tears. "That was pretty terrifying."
Tim lets out a little laugh. "A little bit, yeah." Then his eyes turn serious, looking at Angela intensely. "Thank you," he says sincerely. "Lucy's right, we know you risked a lot for us - everyone did - and I don't know how to process that."
Angela nods, knowing Tim as she does, knowing that it's hard for him to accept love and feel deserving of it from anyone, to feel that he's worthy of people risking their safety and their careers and their families just to save his life.
"Hey, I get kidnapped from my wedding and you guys come and save me and my fiance, you get kidnapped from your proposal and we come and save you and your fiancee. That's how it works. No biggie."
"Very big biggie," Tim counters with a smirk as he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the couch. "Maybe we can all stop doing that."
Angela chuckles, and there's a moment of comfortable silence before she speaks.
"She said yes, right?" Angela asks softly, seeking clarity. Tim lets out a soft sigh, eyes closed, before he opens them and turns his head to look at her without lifting it from the back of the couch. "You were able to ask, before, and she said yes?"
"Yes," he says softly. "Yes, it was perfect and we had about thirty seconds of happiness what feels like a lifetime ago, and now… that's all gone. Even the ring's gone. All that effort picking out that ring and…"
Angela smiles, reaches into her pocket. Tim lifts his head, looking at her curiously.
"This better be the last time I have to find this thing for you," she jokes with a playful grin as she holds out Lucy's engagement ring to him, diamond catching in the light.
Tim finds he has absolutely no words. "How…"
"Don't question it. I told you, I'm good at finding things,," Angela says with a wink. She gives him a gentle pat on the knee and stands. "Now, I know that I told you before you don't owe me, but I swear to god, Tim, if you make me find this ring again, you might."
He laughs - really laughs - and despite the pain he feels from his aching body when he does so, it feels good to feel light.
"Understood."
Angela nods and stands, pausing before looking back at him. "Just don't…" she begins, unsure how to say it.
"I'm not going to," he assures her.
"Okay," she says with a satisfied nod. "I'm going to go. Call me if you need anything."
Tim agrees and watches as she lets herself out before he uses his remaining energy to push himself up from the couch - figuring that, after everything, locking the door is a fairly decent idea.
When he steps into their bedroom a few moments later, he finds Lucy lying on her back on his side of their bed, fully clothed in the clothes she had worn home from the hospital, a few pieces of discarded clothing on the bed beside her.
"What's going on?" he asks carefully, sitting down beside her on what is normally her side of the bed, next to the clothes lying there.
She turns to look at him. "Those are clothes I was wearing before we left to go to the beach," she says simply, pointing to the sweatshirt and leggings next to him. "I came in here to change and they were just… lying on the bed where I'd tossed them before we left and it felt…"
He fills in for her as she trails off. "Like it was frozen in time."
"Yeah. Life was so normal then and I had no idea then that we would be kidnapped and not be home for weeks, that these clothes would just be lying here the whole time."
"And meanwhile the only thing, you should've gotten that you hadn't expected by the time you got home and saw your clothes there was the proposal," he notes and though she nods, he can see her react at the mention of the proposal.
Standing, he goes to their dresser and pulls out her favorite pair of pajamas - the ones she'd splurged on because they are so soft and comfortable, the ones she likes to wear after a physically demanding shift - and hands them to her. She accepts them with a smile and when she winces trying to remove her shirt, her wrist still painful as well as her ribs, Tim helps her change into the top before she changes into the shorts while he puts on a t-shirt and sweatpants as well, both of them moving slowly.
When Lucy's done changing she sits back down on the bed, on her own side this time, folding the pre-proposal clothes and stacking them gently near the foot.
"Okay. Can we talk?" Tim asks softly.
Lucy looks over to face him, and he can see the anxiety on her face. "Uh oh," she says, an attempt at being casual as if she's teasing, but she's staring at the clothes with an intensity that tells him she's worried about what he's going to say.
"Lucy, I'm not going to walk away," he assures her, sitting down next to her and gently brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, his heart breaking at the deep purple bruise that's revealed on her cheek. "If that's what you're thinking."
She blinks, looks up at him, and suddenly she looks both guilty and relieved at the same time. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't go there and hold that against you, I trust you, I do, it's just this was so huge and...."
"You don't have to say you're sorry," he says softly, pulling her closer to him. "I'm aware of my track record. But I promised you I wouldn't hurt you like that again, that we'd fight for this, that I'd spend the rest of my life working to deserve your love, and I meant it. I might feel guilty but I'm going to work through it the right way right here with you. And I would never, ever leave you to deal with this trauma alone."
"Yeah. Okay," she agrees, nodding.
"The way you love me," he begins gently, "no one else has ever loved me like that. And sometimes, that's still hard for me to process. But we fought like hell for each other in there. So instead of feeling guilty over what went wrong, I'm going to focus on how insanely lucky we are to have a love like that."
"You feel guilty?"
"Of course I do," he returns. "I know I didn't… do anything wrong, really, but I feel guilty that I didn't notice anything at the beach. I should have, I let my guard down."
"We both did," she reminds him carefully. "I could've noticed something just as much as you could have, but we didn't."
"They hurt you like they did just because you're so important to me. If we weren't together, you wouldn't have had to go through this."
"And, what kind of trade-off would that be?" she asks, sincerely. "I love you. You make my life so much better. I agreed to spend the rest of my life with you. So, yeah, this kind of sucked, but my commitment to you means we go through things together, even the things as horrible as this, and the tradeoff is we get to love each other. Things happen. It's no one's fault. And from here on out, what happens to you happens to me and vice versa because it's our life now."
He takes a deep breath, asking the question he needs to ask though he's sure he knows what she'll say. "So you don't blame me?"
"Tim," she says, turning carefully and looking him straight in the eyes. "No. Not at all." She pauses and says, "When they kept telling me you were going to die, I just… none of what was happening to me even mattered. I was only thinking about you. You know, I would've died for you in there," she admits, recalling the thoughts that had gone through her mind in several instances. "I kept thinking about all the times you've saved me and been there for me and I thought, if it comes down to it, I can give that back to him. And I know you would've hated me for it, but I would've given my life up in a second for yours. That's not something to take lightly. That's not something I can say I've ever been prepared to do for anyone else. And that's definitely not something I'd do for someone I blamed for the situation."
He gives a dry little chuckle, though his eyes are watery at her words. "I would've given my life for yours in an instant, too," he admits.
"Believe me, I knew that." Lucy looks down at her hands for a second. "And I was terrified you would."
She gives him a careful, gentle kiss on the lips - avoiding both of their most severe injuries as he smiles at her in return and reaches into his pocket, pulling out the ring.
Lucy gasps in surprise. "How…?"
"We might owe Lopez our firstborn," Tim retorts, and Lucy laughs, shaking her head in amusement at his words. "I want to give this back to you with the promise that I'm not going anywhere. I love you, and we can let this make us stronger if we do it right," Tim says, eyes teary. "I'm in this with you through everything, good and the bad. I'll keep going to therapy, keep doing the work to make sure I don't fall back into old patterns. Unless, of course, you want an out, then…"
Lucy shakes her head and laughs at him. "Shut up," she teases. "Give it back to me."
"Well, that's romantic."
Lucy snorts. "I mean, you already gave it to me, so technically it's mine."
Tim laughs, gesturing for her hand and llooking into her eyes, ring poised at the tip of her left ring finger. "No matter what comes our way, we're in it together. I promise. Marry me?"
"My answer will be yes every single time," she answers with a grin as he slides the ring onto her finger.
The moment feels bigger, somehow, than the original proposal. That one had been romantic. Lucy had been surprised, the sunset had been beautiful, his words had come out just right, they were so happy and hopeful right after.
And he thinks, with time, they will always be able to appreciate that one, be able to separate it from what came after. Because it was a special, perfect moment and once they are able to put the kidnapping behind, they can focus on the beauty of what happened before.
But this moment is different - bruised and battered in their bed, no doubt about to relive the ordeal in their nightmares for quite a while - the commitment and the intention between them feels stronger. With his words, his proven he's holding up his promises. Their loyalty and love has been tested in a huge way. Having each other seems more precious than ever. He thinks with time, having gone through this together, might actually bring them closer and make them stronger.
"Better story for the grandkids, right?" he teases.
Lucy lets out a laugh. "I think the story is interesting and adventurous enough, now. Maybe we can let it be sort of boring from here on out."
"Oh, come on, you'd do that to our grandkids? They need to know Grandma and Grandpa lived an interesting life."
Lucy quirks an eyebrow. "No way are they calling me grandma. That sounds so old."
"Maybe we can worry about that later. We have to raise our kids first."
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes playfully, both of them feeling at east and comfortable with their banter, a return to a semblance of normalcy, the talk of the future bringing back hope and excitement. "I guess we've got a couple decades to think about it."
Suddenly, her words remind him of something. "I didn't get to tell you the story of the ring," Tim realizes, tracing it with his thumb as she looks up at him, curiously. "Aaron's jeweler helped me find it. He asked me to tell him about you, and mentioned that you love hearing people's stories. So he found some antique rings that all had stories behind them. I picked this one up first - and he told me it belonged to a couple who were friends for many years before falling in love. He said that they went through struggles, but overcame them and were together for fifty years." He raises his eyebrows. "Now at the time, I thought struggles was appropriate given the breakup, but now…"
Lucy shakes her head, understanding. "That's a beautiful story."
"I love you," he says, softly and reverently.
"I love you, too," she replies. "More than you can know."
"No. I know," he tells her and she lets out a breath and gives him a soft smile. "Let's sleep?" he asks, exhaustion hitting hard, and Lucy nods, lying down and cuddling up to him. "You know, this is not what I thought our first night in bed together after getting engaged would be like."
She can't help but laugh at that. "Oh, well, just you wait, because once we're healed up it's going to be celebratory engagement slash life-affirming sex and it'll be the best you've ever had. Until the wedding night."
Tim laughs, pulling her as close as he can, kissing the top of her head. "Looking forward to it."
No doubt they've got hurdles to overcome, but the future is within reach again, looking bright.