Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The drive back from Vegas is quiet.

Tim glances over at Lucy, who's fallen asleep against the passenger window, her face peaceful in a way it hasn't been for the past two days. Her hair falls across her cheek, and his fingers itch to brush it back, to feel the softness of her skin beneath his fingers.

He grips the steering wheel tighter instead.

For the first hour of their drive, they'd filled the car with mindless chatter, desperate small talk about the case, about food, about anything and everything except the thing they really needed to talk about. Lucy had even tried to make him listen to her playlist, threatening to hijack the radio if he didn't surrender control willingly. And normally, he would have argued, would have insisted on his superior taste in music, but today he'd just shrugged and said, "Whatever you want, Boot."

She'd given him a strange look at the old nickname, her brow furrowing slightly, but she hadn't pushed him on it. Maybe she was as afraid of a real conversation as he was.

And if she wanted to ignore it, then so would he.

By the second hour, they'd run out of safe topics, the silence growing heavier with each mile marker that passed. Lucy had lasted another forty-five minutes before her eyes started drooping, her head nodding forward slightly before jerking back up. He'd immediately suggested she get some sleep, and that he'd wake her up when they got close to LA. She'd protested at first—because of course she had, stubborn as always—but eventually surrendered to the exhaustion. Her head lolled against the passenger window, dark hair spilling across her face, and at first, every few minutes the uneven highway would force her head to drift toward his shoulder. Each time, she’d jerk awake, mumble a sleepy apology, and resettle against the window, pulling her jacket tighter around herself. It took another ten minutes before she fell asleep.

Now, with nothing but the hum of the engine and the occasional passing car for company, Tim is left alone with his thoughts. And that seems to be dangerous territory today.

Because he can't stop thinking about it. About her. About them. About how easily they'd slipped into the roles of Jake and Sava, how the line between acting and reality had blurred in that plane, in that casino, in those kisses that weren't supposed to mean anything but felt like everything.

His jaw clenches, a dull ache spreading through his temples as he stares at the endless stretch of highway ahead. It wasn't real. None of it was real. It was just a job. They were just playing parts.

Except parts of it had felt more real than anything he'd experienced in a long time.

Lucy shifts in her sleep, a small sound escaping her lips as her head slides back toward his shoulder before she corrects herself, settling against the window. Tim watches her for a moment before he exhales slowly, forcing his grip to loosen on the wheel.

This is ridiculous. He's being ridiculous. He has Ashley waiting for him back home. And Lucy has Chris. None of this actually meant anything; Lucy was right. Anything he might have felt could simply be explained away by a biological response. They're just professionals who did their job and did it well. End of story.

So why can't he stop replaying their practice kiss in her apartment? Why does his mind keep wandering back to the way Lucy had looked at him after that kiss in the back bedroom of the private plane, her eyes wide and questioning, like she was trying to figure out if it was still just an act?

The GPS announces their exit in twenty miles, effectively pulling him from his thoughts. They're getting closer to the city, closer to reality. To real life. Where he has Ashley. Where Lucy has Chris. Where they're Sergeant Bradford and Officer Chen, TO and former rookie. Nothing more.

The Los Angeles skyline appears on the horizon, city lights gleaming against the darkening sky, and Tim feels something twist in his chest. Their time in this strange bubble is almost over. Soon, they'll be back to their normal lives, back to their routines, back to pretending that nothing has changed.

Even if it feels like everything has.

Lucy stirs beside him, her eyes fluttering open as she straightens in her seat. "Are we almost there?" she asks, her voice rough with sleep.

"Yeah," he replies, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the road. "About fifteen minutes out."

She nods, stretching as much as the confines of the car will allow, and he tries not to notice the way her shirt rides up slightly, exposing a sliver of skin at her waist.

"I had the weirdest dream," she says, rubbing her eyes. "We were still undercover, but instead of drug dealers, Jake and Sava were actually professional poker players. And you—Dim—kept losing because you have the world's worst poker face."

He snorts, grateful for the easy shift in conversation. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have an excellent poker face."

"You really don't," she counters with a small laugh. "You get this little twitch right here—" She reaches over, her finger brushing the corner of his mouth, and Tim freezes, his breath catching in his throat.

Lucy seems to realize what she's doing at the same moment, her hand dropping away as if burned. "Anyway," she continues quickly, "you were terrible. I had to keep kicking you under the table."

"Sounds like I should be grateful it was just a dream, then," he says, aiming for lightness but missing it by a mile.

She huffs a quiet laugh before turning her head toward the window, and he can feel the awkwardness hanging in the air between them. The easy banter that had surfaced momentarily retreats, leaving them once again in that uncomfortable space they've been dancing around all day.

"So," she starts after a couple minutes pass, her voice a little too casual, "what's the first thing you're going to do when you get home?"

He takes a moment to consider. About his empty apartment. About the groceries he needs to buy. The dog he needs to pick up from his sister. And about Ashley, who's probably texted him a dozen times by now. There’s a lot of things he needs to do when he gets back. "Shower," is what he says instead. "Wash off all this disgusting gel in my hair. I still feel ridiculous."

"God, yes," Lucy agrees, a little too enthusiastically. "I swear I can still smell cigarette smoke in my hair. And don’t even get me started on this weave. It itches. "

She runs her fingers through the extensions, wincing slightly as they catch on a tangle. Tim tries not to watch the movement from the corner of his eye, tries not to think about how different she looked as Sava—all sharp edges and smoky eyes—compared to the Lucy he knows.

"I don't know," he says, clearing his throat. "I thought Sava's look kinda worked for you."

The words are out before he can stop them, and he immediately wishes he could take them back. Lucy's head turns toward him, her eyebrows raising slightly.

"Oh?" There's a hint of something in her voice that he can't quite place. "And what about Jake? Did you enjoy being a sleazy drug dealer for two days?"

Tim snorts, grateful for the redirect. "Hardly. The guy was a class-A jackass."

"He wasn't all bad," she says, her voice softer now. "He was protective of what was his, at least."

There's a weight to her words that neither of them acknowledges. His fingers flex on the steering wheel, and he forces himself to focus on the road ahead, on the exit sign they're approaching, on anything except the implication hanging in the air between them.

"Yeah, well," he mutters finally, "doesn't make up for the rest of his personality. Or his wardrobe choices."

Lucy laughs at that, the sound genuine this time. "Those shirts were pretty terrible."

"The worst," he agrees. "I'm pretty sure half of them were made out of actual plastic."

"And those ridiculous gold chains? I'm shocked you didn't get a rash."

"Don't remind me. Every time I turned my head too fast, I thought I was going to take an eye out."

They're both laughing now, the tension easing just a fraction, and Tim feels something loosen in his chest. This is better. This is how they should be—partners who can joke and tease and not get caught up in... whatever this other thing is.

"Seriously though," she says after a moment, "I'm glad we pulled it off. Grey seemed pretty pleased with the outcome."

"We got the job done," he nods, his voice a little more professional now. "That's what matters."

Her smile fades slightly, and she turns back toward the window. "Right," she says quietly. "That's what matters."

They don't talk for the rest of the drive to Lucy's apartment. The silence drifts back in, heavier this time, charged with all the things they're not saying. Tim keeps his eyes fixed on the road, but he can feel Lucy's presence beside him like a physical weight, impossible to ignore. Soon though he finds the words forming at the seam of his lips again, pushing to be released. And he suddenly wants to throw caution to the wind, to finally bring up the topic they've been steadfastly ignoring for the entire drive. For the entire operation, really. And he almost does it. His grip tightens on the steering wheel, his breath catching as he opens his mouth—

But then they're pulling into the lot in front of her apartment complex, and all the confidence he's been building in the last ten minutes evaporates. The moment slips away, like it always seems to do with them. Still, something lingers—a fragment of whatever courage he'd been gathering—because when she unbuckles her seatbelt and reaches for the door handle, Tim finds himself cutting the engine and stepping out too.

Lucy pauses, her bag slung over her shoulder, a question in her eyes. "What are you doing?"

He shrugs, closing his door and walking around the front of the car to join her. "Walking you up."

"You know, I'm a cop too. I think I can make it to my front door alone."

"Humor me, Chen."

She studies him for a brief second before a shy smile spreads across her face. "Come on, then."

He returns her smile before he falls in step beside her as they cross the lot. Their shoulders brush with each step, and he knows he should create some distance, but instead he simply jams his hands into his pockets and lets himself stay close. Too close, probably. Close enough that he can feel the heat radiating off her, even through his jacket.

At her door, Lucy rummages through her bag for her keys while he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. His pulse quickens for no good reason—or for a reason he's not ready to name yet.

"Look, I was thinking—" The words barely leave his mouth when a car horn cuts through the night air. Tim glances toward the sound, and his expression hardens instantly. Because two rows down, through the dim parking lot lights, he can make out Ashley's familiar black SUV. The woman's face remains hidden in shadow, but he'd recognize that blonde hair anywhere.

What the hell is she doing here?

"Is that Ashley?" Lucy's gaze has followed his, and he turns to see her staring at the car with a small frown on her face.

"Yeah. I didn't tell her I was dropping you off, though," he explains, his brow furrowing deeper. "I honestly have no idea what she's doing here."

And that's true. He hadn't even told Ashley that they were back in town yet. He'd texted her before they left Vegas, saying he'd call when they got back to LA, but that was it. He hadn't mentioned Lucy or where he'd be or when exactly they'd be arriving.

He’s not exactly proud of the disappointment that settles low in his gut. The moment—whatever it was going to be—is gone now, shattered by the intrusion of reality in the form of his girlfriend waiting for him in the parking lot.

"I should probably go see what she's doing here. I, uh..." The sentence hangs incomplete between them. Tim catches the flash of disappointment in Lucy's eyes, a mirror to his own, and it makes him feel both worse and vindicated. "I'll see you on Monday?"

Lucy forces a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "See you on Monday. Have a good weekend, Tim."

Then she's pulling the door open and disappearing inside, leaving him standing alone in front of her building. He takes another moment to compose himself, to wipe the disappointment and annoyance he’s sure is showing on his face, before he turns on his heels and begins to make his way toward Ashely’s car.

He rounds the SUV to the passenger side, his mind already crafting excuses for why he’s at Lucy's apartment, why he hadn't called first. Tim taps on the window twice before he's opening the door and sliding inside. The doors lock behind him with a soft click.

“What are you doing here?" he sighs, fatigue from the long drive and the emotional whiplash of the last few minutes catching up to him all at once.

The woman turns, and for half a second, she does look like Ashley. The blonde hair, the clothes, the shape of her silhouette in the dim light. But then she smiles as she faces him fully, and his heart promptly sinks into his chest.

"Don't sound so disappointed, Tim. Aren't you happy to see me?"

The voice slides through the air between them. Not Ashley's voice.

Shit.

This is bad.

This is so fucking bad.

Rosalind Dyer sits beside him, wearing his girlfriend's smile on a face that's both familiar and alien. The blonde wig frames her features just enough to have deceived him from across the lot, but those eyes—those are unmistakable. Cold. Patient. Amused. The eyes of a predator who's just watched her trap snap shut.

Tim's hand flies to his hip, fingers closing around his service weapon, but Rosalind tuts softly, shaking her head. She lifts her hand from her lap just enough for him to see the glint of metal—a small revolver pointed directly at his stomach.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she says, her voice almost gentle. "We both know how messy that would get."

His mind races through his options, each one worse than the last. He could try to grab the gun, but at this distance, she'd put a bullet in him before he could reach it. He could call for help, but Lucy's already inside her building, too far to hear him. He could—

"You're wondering about Lucy," Rosalind says, reading his thoughts with unnerving accuracy. "Don't worry. She's not on tonight's agenda. That honor is reserved just for you."

His jaw clenches. "How did you get out?"

"Oh, that's not important right now." She waves her free hand dismissively. "What matters is that I'm here, and you're here, and we're going to have such an interesting evening together."

"People will notice I'm missing," he says, his voice steady despite the hammering of his heart. "Chen thinks that Ashley just picked me up. It won't take long for them to figure out something's wrong."

Rosalind's smile widens. "That's the beauty of it. No one's going to be looking for you, at least not for days. Lucy thinks you're with your girlfriend. Your girlfriend—the real Ashley—thinks you're still in Vegas. And by the time anyone starts asking questions..." She trails off, her eyes gleaming. "Well, let's just say I've planned this quite carefully."

Tim studies her face, looking for any sign of weakness, any opening he might exploit. But all he sees is that same calm confidence, that same controlled madness that's made her one of the most terrifying serial killers he's ever encountered.

"What do you want?" he asks finally.

"Lucy Chen took something from me," Rosalind says, her voice hardening just slightly. "My freedom. My chance to finish what I started. And I always finish what I start, Tim. So I'm going to take something from her." Her eyes flick over his face. "You."

Everything clicks into place. This isn't about him. He's just a means to an end—a way to hurt Lucy.

"Put your seatbelt on," Rosalind directs, gesturing with the gun. "We're going for a drive."

He doesn't move. "And if I refuse?"

"Then I make a call," she says simply, pulling a phone from her pocket with her free hand. "And the people watching Lucy's apartment will pay her a visit instead. Your choice, Tim. You or her."

Him.

That’s not even a choice he has to make.

He will always put Lucy first. 

Tim reaches for the seatbelt and pulls it across his chest, his decision made before Rosalind even finished speaking. And as the engine rumbles to life, he takes one last glance at Lucy's building, committing it to memory. Whatever Rosalind has planned for him, whatever happens next, at least Lucy will be safe.

For now, that's enough.

Chapter Text

Tim's ignoring her.

At least she’s pretty sure he is.

She hasn't heard from him all weekend—not that she expected to. But, well, she kind of did. After everything that happened in Vegas, after that moment at her door Friday night, she'd thought she’d get... something from him. A text. A call. Some sort of acknowledgment that whatever had almost happened between them wasn't just in her head. Or at least a confirmation that things weren’t going to be weird between them now.

The silence she received instead feels deliberate. Not that three days without a single text or call isn't unusual for them under normal circumstances, but the thing is, these circumstances aren't normal. Nothing about the last week has been normal.

Yesterday, after staring at her phone all morning, she'd finally built up the courage to text him. Something about meeting for lunch to review their report before this morning's briefing. Professional. Safe. A perfect excuse to be able to see him without actually having to admit the real reason she wanted to. Those two sentences had taken her half an hour to compose, each word weighed and double checked mainly because she was nervous she might accidentally give away too much if she wasn't careful.

The message stayed unread. And that small detail bothers her more than a lack of response would have. At least if he'd read it and ignored it, she'd know for sure that he’s actively avoiding her. All the uncertainty is worse somehow.

Which is why she's here now, an entire hour earlier than she usually finds herself at the station on a Monday morning, fingers wrapped tightly around a cooling coffee cup, psyching herself up to confront him about it. Though "confront" probably isn’t the right word to describe what she’s about to do. Really, she just wants to get a feel for what he's thinking, what's going on behind those eyes that give away so little.

Because one thing she's learned about Tim Bradford over the years is that he’s nearly impossible to read when he’s on guard. He tends to keep his thoughts locked down tight, revealing only what he wants people to see. But Lucy's gotten better at spotting the cracks in his armor, the nearly imperceptible shifts in his expression that betray what's happening beneath the surface.

Lucy checks her phone again.

7:15 a.m. And still no sign of him.

Which is weird because Tim is always early. It's as much a part of him as his compulsive need to reorganize the shop or his insistence on checking his weapon three times before shift. She can't remember a single time in all their years of working together when he wasn't already at his desk before everyone else, nursing his first coffee of the day and reviewing reports with that intense concentration he brings to everything in his life. "If you're on time, you're already late, Boot," he'd lectured her more times than she could count.

Except that doesn’t apply to today, apparently.

Lucy shifts in her seat, unable to silence the whisper of worry building in the back of her head. Maybe he's sick? But Tim would have texted if he was—he's meticulous about everything work-related, almost to a fault. Car trouble? No, he'd have called someone for a ride. The explanations stack up in her mind, each less plausible than the last, but all preferable to the one she's trying not to consider: that he's so determined to avoid her he's willing to break his sacred morning routine just to do so.

The station gradually fills around her. Officers drift in with coffee and complaints about Monday traffic. Conversations build, phones ring, life resumes its usual rhythm. But with each passing minute, Lucy's concern deepens, evolving from worry about their unresolved tension into something more concrete.

"Hey, Lucy."

Lucy startles, nearly spilling what remains of her now cold coffee.

"Have you seen Bradford?" Aaron is asking her, glancing around the bullpen as if the man in question might be hiding behind a filing cabinet. "We're supposed to be going over some training scenarios before briefing and I haven’t been able to find him."

She shakes her head, trying to keep her voice casual. "Not yet. He's running late, I guess."

Aaron's eyebrows shoot up. "Bradford? Late? Are we talking about the same guy?"

"I know, right?" She forces a smile. "It's weird."

"Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just another one of his tests." He leans against the edge of her desk with a sigh. "Ever since I became Bradford's aide, I can never tell the difference between a normal interaction with the dude or some sort of weird Tim test. Like, is he actually late, or is he hiding somewhere watching to see if I panic and desperately try to cover for him?"

Under different circumstances, Lucy might have laughed. Aaron isn't wrong—she can recall dozens of times when Tim pulled similar stunts during her rookie year. Like the morning he texted that he was running late, only for her to find him already in their shop, stopwatch in hand, timing how long it took her to complete her morning vehicle check without supervision. Or the week he deliberately avoided giving her clear instructions just to test how she'd handle uncertainty in the field. Tim's teaching philosophy had always involved keeping his rookies slightly off-balance, constantly testing their adaptability. But today, Aaron's joke only deepens the unsettled feeling in her stomach.

"I don't think it's a test," she says quietly. "Have you tried calling him?"

Aaron straightens up slightly. "Twice. Went straight to voicemail both times."

That detail lands like a stone on water. Tim ignoring her texts is one thing—potentially awkward but explainable. But ignoring Aaron's calls too? That doesn't track. He always answers his phone. Always. Even at three in the morning, even on his days off. The man lives with his phone on full volume. The only time he doesn't is when he's—

"I'm sure he's fine," Aaron adds, apparently noticing the change in her expression. "His phone probably died or something."

She's been trying to convince herself of the same possibility for the past hour.

"If you see him before I do, tell him I'm looking for him," he continues, already moving away from her desk. "And that showing up on time is literally the first thing he taught me, so whatever this is, it's sending mixed messages."

Lucy watches him go, then turns back to her phone. The unread message stares back at her. On impulse, she types another text:

Hey, everything ok? You’re not here yet and Aaron's looking for you.

She hits send before she can second-guess herself. The gray message bubble appears on her screen for a second, then shifts to red with a small exclamation point. "Not Delivered" flashes beneath the text. Lucy frowns and taps the exclamation point, watching as the phone attempts to resend.

The same error appears almost immediately.

She checks the signal bars in the corner of her screen, hoping that maybe it’s her phone that’s having issues but no, she has five bars. Full service. So she tries calling him instead, the phone pressed tight against her ear as she listens to it ring once before an automated voice informs her that the number she's trying to reach is currently unavailable.

Lucy glances at the clock. 7:34.

Her cop brain is battling with her anxious heart. She's probably overreacting. Tim's allowed to be late. He's allowed to have phone problems, to have a personal life that doesn't include her. Hell, maybe he just decided to take a personal day without telling anyone. So she's not even sure why she's panicking. Yet the worry gnaws at her anyway, a persistent ache she can't rationalize away. Maybe it's the tangled mess of emotions Vegas left her with. Or maybe it's the knowledge that Rosalind Dyer slipped through police custody last week—the same woman who once led to her getting buried alive, who knows exactly how to get under her skin. Either way, she's not going to be able to calm down until she has eyes on him.

With another quick glance at the clock, Lucy pushes away from her desk as her decision solidifies. She knows exactly who to ask.

She finds Angela at her desk, one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee, the other furiously scribbling notes in the margins of a case file. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, the dark circles under her eyes suggesting another rough night with her son. Three empty sugar packets are scattered around her keyboard, and her normally pristine desk shows signs of sleep-deprived disorganization.

"Have you heard from Tim?" Lucy asks without preamble.

Angela looks up, a single eyebrow arching as a knowing smirk tugs at her lips. "Well, good morning to you too, Chen."

"Good morning. Have you heard from Tim?" she repeats, her fingers drumming against her thigh.

"Eager to see your Sergeant this morning, huh?" Angela's smirk widens. "Vegas that good?"

She rolls her eyes and exhales sharply. "Lopez. Have you heard from Tim today? Yes or no?"

The detective leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, studying her with an expression that's far too amused for this early in the morning. "Last I heard from him, he was dropping you off at your apartment on Friday." Her mouth quirks up at the corner. "When he didn't call me after, I assumed the two of you were... otherwise preoccupied."

Lucy's face flushes hot, her brain stuttering. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," the woman shrugs, looking entirely too pleased with herself. "What do you think I mean?"

"I haven't seen him since he dropped me off Friday night.” What she doesn't say is that if Ashley hadn't shown up, she's not entirely sure that would have stayed true. "He drove me home, but Ashley was waiting for him in my parking lot so we talked for a minute, and then he left."

"Uh-huh. And that's why you're prowling around my desk looking like someone kicked your puppy?"

Lucy sighs. "Look, I just want to know if you've heard from him. His phone's going straight to voicemail, and he's not answering texts."

Something shifts in Angela's expression at that, the teasing fading as it slides into something resembling mild concern. "Roll call starts in twenty minutes," she says, glancing at her watch. "Tim's never missed a briefing."

"I know."

"You try his place?"

She shakes her head. "Not yet. I was thinking about heading over there after roll call if he doesn't show."

The detective nods, already reaching for her phone. She taps at the screen, then frowns when she presumably gets the same result Lucy did. "Okay, that is weird." After a moment, she just shrugs, her expression relaxing. "He's probably just running late. If Ashley picked him up on Friday, maybe they had a long weekend. You know, holed up somewhere with their phones off."

She tries to hide her grimace at that, but judging from the detective's sudden smirk, she hadn’t done a good job.

"I know, you're right," Lucy says, forcing herself to push those thoughts aside. She takes a slow breath before adding, "It's just that... if we don't hear from him in an hour, will you come with me to swing by his house?"

Angela studies her for a long moment, her expression softening. "You're really worried, aren't you?"

She hesitates, then nods. "Something just feels off."

"Look, if he doesn't show up for briefing, we'll talk to Grey. And if he's still not answering by end of shift, I'll drive you over there myself." Angela reaches out, squeezing her arm briefly. "But I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation."

She nods again, wanting to believe her, but the reassurance slides off her like rain on glass. Because the one thing no one seems to understand is that she’s not going to be able to let this go. She recognizes this feeling—the same instinct that's saved her life more than once on patrol. Some cops call it a sixth sense. Tim calls it "listening to the quiet voice." Whatever it is, Lucy trusts it more than any logical explanation anyone might try to offer.

And it’s not going away anytime soon. Not until she sees Tim with her own eyes, hears some half-assed excuse about his phone dying or sleeping through his alarm. She'll take his irritation at her overreaction if it means confirming he's safe. The alternative—the possibility taking shape in the darkest corner of her mind—isn't something she can bear to consider just yet.

—————

Lucy's shift crawls by, each minute stretching impossibly long as she moves through her day on autopilot. Tim never showed up for roll call. His absence had been noted with a raised eyebrow from Sergeant Grey, who'd simply reassigned her to ride with Harper for the day. He promised to try to get in contact with him, but no alarm bells were rung. All that came from it was a routine adjustment that everyone but Lucy seemed to accept without question.

She'd tried calling Tim twice more before they headed out on patrol. It went straight to voicemail both times.

Which is why the knot in her stomach had only tightened as the hours passed. Even Harper had noticed her growing unease, commenting on Lucy's distraction during their lunch break with a pointed, "Whatever's going on with you and Bradford, you need to leave it at the curb when we're on patrol. I can’t work with you if you’re distracted. "

But that was the problem—Lucy couldn't leave it anywhere. The unease followed her through every traffic stop, every routine call, every moment of the day.

And then things go from bad to worse.

It happens just after three o'clock. They’re heading back to the station after responding to a shoplifting call when the radio crackles to life.

"7-Adam-19, can you respond to an abandoned vehicle at Laurel Canyon and Moorpark? Grey Chevrolet Silverado, license plate unconfirmed, reported by a local business owner."

Something cold slides down her spine as the dispatcher's words filter through the shop. Harper immediately reaches for the radio, confirming they're en route with a calm "Copy that, dispatch. 7-Adam-19 responding," but Lucy barely hears it. Her brain catches on the address, processes it, and then everything else falls away.

That's her neighborhood. Just two blocks down from her apartment.

She tries to stamp down the immediate rush of panic before it can fully form. There's really no reason to connect this to Tim. None at all. Abandoned vehicles are reported every day in LA which is why this is probably nothing—just a stolen car ditched after a joyride or someone who ran out of gas and left their vehicle in a loading zone. But the timing is too coincidental, and there's that feeling again, that quiet voice getting louder, more insistent.

"That's near my apartment," she says casually, trying to keep her voice neutral. But even to her own ears, it sounds strained.

Harper glances over at her before she flips on the lights and makes a U-turn across the intersection, tires squealing slightly against the pavement. "That area get a lot of abandoned vehicles?"

"Not really." Lucy grips her seat tighter, the material creaking under the pressure of her fingers. She hesitates for a second before adding, "Tim drives that same truck."

As soon as she voices the thought, she regrets it. It sounds ridiculous—how many silver trucks are there in Los Angeles? Tens of thousands, maybe? Harper gives her a sidelong look but doesn't comment, which somehow makes her feel even worse. The silence stretches between them, thick and heavy, punctuated only by the rhythmic wail of their siren as they weave through afternoon traffic.

The drive to her neighborhood feels impossibly long, though the dashboard clock tells her it's been less than fifteen minutes. When they finally turn onto Laurel Canyon, her heart is hammering so hard in her chest that she can feel it in her fingertips, in her temples, in the hollow of her throat. She scans the street ahead, searching for the telltale flash of silver among the parked cars lining the curb.

Then she sees it. A grey Silverado parked at an awkward angle halfway up the block, its front bumper jutting out into the lane.

It could be anyone's truck. It probably is someone else's truck.

But that voice whispering in the back of her head is saying that it’s not.

Lucy's out of the patrol car before Harper can even come to a complete stop, her boots hitting the pavement with a sharp sound that echoes in the air around them. She doesn't wait, doesn't look back to see if the detective is following. Her body is moving on pure instinct now, each step charged with a sickening mixture of fear and adrenaline. Her hand instinctively settles on the handle of her weapon as she approaches the truck. Not drawing it, there's no clear threat to justify doing that, but the reassuring weight of it grounds her as panic threatens to take hold.

The license plate comes into focus and oh god, it is his truck.

Her stomach twists violently, and for a second, the world tilts slightly sideways. This isn't just a coincidence anymore. This isn't her being paranoid. This is Tim's truck abandoned a couple blocks from her apartment after he’s been MIA for days.

"I was right," she calls over her shoulder, her voice sounding strangely distant to her own ears. "This is Tim's truck."

“Shit,” Harper's voice drifts from somewhere behind her.

Lucy takes a steadying breath before she forces herself to be methodical, to think like a cop rather than a friend. She has to because everything about this feels wrong. Wrong in a way that makes her skin crawl, that sends chills racing up her spine despite the warm afternoon sun beating down on her shoulders.

It doesn’t look like there’s any visible damage to the exterior. No flat tires, no broken windows, no dents or scrapes that weren't there before. Nothing to explain why Tim would leave it here without picking it up later or calling a tow truck. The truck looks normal—unblemished aside from the layer of pollen settling on its hood. It's just... empty. When she reaches the driver's side, her breath catches hard in her throat. The door is slightly ajar, hanging open just an inch or two, as if someone left in too much of a hurry to properly close it.

"Harper," she calls, her voice tight.

The other woman joins her a moment later, her expression carefully professional but alert. Lucy can see her taking in every detail though—the open door, the keys still dangling from the ignition inside, the jacket tossed haphazardly on the dashboard.

"There could be a ton of reasons why he left his truck here. Let's not jump to conclusions, Chen.”

The words slide right past her ears because how is she not supposed to jump to conclusions? Tim loves his truck. He would never just leave it here like this.

"This doesn't make any sense," she mutters, more to herself than to Harper. "Even if he drove home with Ashley, why would he leave it here? Why wouldn't he bring it home first?"

Harper doesn't respond immediately, her attention focused on the interior of the truck. She reaches in carefully, pulling out Tim's phone from the cup holder between the seats before holding it up for her to see.

"Dead battery," the detective says after pressing the power button. "That explains why he hasn't been answering any calls.” She looks up at Lucy, her brow furrowed. "You’re sure he left with Ashley after he dropped you off on Friday?"

Lucy nods, trying to keep her thoughts coherent despite the fear clouding everything else. "Yeah. We talked for a few minutes, and then I watched him get into her car before I went upstairs." The memory flashes through her mind—Tim's reluctant wave goodbye, the way he'd hesitated before turning away from her door. "When I glanced out my living room window a couple minutes later, they were gone."

Something about saying it out loud makes the knot in her chest tighten further. None of this is adding up.

Harper seems to be thinking the same thing, her expression shifting from professional detachment to genuine concern. She reaches for her radio, adjusting the frequency with a quick twist of her wrist. "Lopez, can you switch to channel six?"

There's a brief pause before Angela's voice crackles through. "I’m here. What’s up?"

"We just found Bradford's truck abandoned a couple blocks away from Chen's apartment. Door's open, keys inside, phone dead in the cupholder. Any chance you can swing by his house and see if he's there?"

The silence that follows feels unbearably long, though it can't be more than a few seconds.

"Copy that," Angela finally responds, her voice now carrying an edge that wasn't there before. "I'm heading over now. I'll update you as soon as I know something."

"Appreciate it." Harper secures her radio back against her hip, her attention fully on Lucy now. "You have Ashley's number?"

She’s already pulling her phone out, fingers trembling just enough to make typing difficult. "Yeah. Yes." She scrolls through her contacts, the names blurring together as her hands shake. It takes her three attempts to find Ashley's name—a contact she barely uses, saved months ago after a brief conversation with the woman about her being uncomfortable around Kojo.

Her thumb hovers over the call button, sudden doubt freezing her in place. What if Ashley doesn't know where Tim is either? What if something happened to both of them? Or what if—a thought that makes her stomach twist with a different kind of unease—what if they're together right now, and she's about to interrupt... something?

She pushes that thought away immediately. Tim's safety matters more than any awkwardness she might have to suffer through.

"Do you want me to call?" Harper asks quietly, noticing her hesitation.

"No." She squares her shoulders, steeling herself. "I've got it."

She hits the call button before she can second-guess herself any further, pressing the phone to her ear as it rings. Each electronic tone sounds louder than the last, echoing in her skull alongside the persistent drumbeat of her own heart.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

Her pulse races faster with each unanswered ring, that cold certainty in her gut spreading through her entire body now. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

And then, finally—

"Hello?" Ashley's voice comes through the line, sounding perfectly normal. Casual. Untroubled.

Lucy's knees nearly buckle with relief. "Ashley, it's Lucy Chen. I'm sorry to bother you, but I need to ask you something important." She struggles to keep her voice steady. "When's the last time you saw Tim?"

There's a pause, confusion evident even through the phone. "Tim? I haven't seen him since before the two of you left on your undercover thing in Vegas. I haven’t heard from him in awhile so I thought you guys were still there. Why? What's going on?"

The world stops.

Lucy's lungs seize, her vision narrowing to a pinpoint as Ashley's words register. "I... I thought..." Her words falter, her mind struggling to realign everything she thought she knew. "Friday night. You picked him up from my apartment on Friday night."

"What? No, I wasn't even in town on Friday. I’ve been in San Francisco for the past couple days. What's happening? Is Tim okay?"

The question hits her like a physical blow.

Because if Ashley wasn't waiting in her parking lot on Friday night...

If he hasn't been with Ashley for the past three days...

Then who the hell picked him up? And where is he now?

She meets Harper's eyes, sees the same dawning realization there, the same shift from concern to alarm.

"Tim didn’t show up for work this morning," Lucy says into the phone, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. "Do you know if he has any family in town? Anyone who might look similar to you? Blonde, drives the same car as you?"

"No, not that I know of. What's going on?"

Lucy swallows hard, her throat dry as sand. "I'm not sure yet. But I promise I'll call you back as soon as I know anything." She ends the call before Ashley can ask any more questions she doesn't have answers to.

"Someone impersonated Ashley," she says to Harper, the words sounding impossible even as she says them. "Someone who looked enough like her that Tim didn't question getting in the car with them. Someone who—" She stops, the implications crashing over her in a sickening wave.

Harper is already reaching for her radio again, her expression grim. "7-Adam-19 to dispatch. We need additional units at our location immediately. Possible 207 involving an officer."

The code for kidnapping hangs in the air between them, making it real in a way that her worst fears hadn't. And suddenly, with horrifying clarity, she knows exactly who might be behind this.

"Rosalind," she whispers, the name bitter on her tongue. "It has to be Rosalind."

"We can't know that for sure, Chen," Harper begins, her voice taking on that measured tone she uses when trying to stay calm. "There could be other explanations for all this. I stick by what I said before, we need to gather facts before we jump to—"

"I’m not jumping to conclusions. It's the only thing that makes sense," Lucy cuts her off, the words tumbling out with an urgency she can't contain. "What are the chances that Tim goes missing a day after Rosalind escapes from custody? We already suspected that she might try to go after the people I care about, and Tim... he's...I...” She stops, not knowing how to finish the sentence without revealing a little too much about the feelings she’s been trying to deny. Because putting those feelings into words would make them real, and she's spent months carefully avoiding that reality.

But standing here beside his abandoned truck, with the fear of losing him wrapping around her chest like a vise, the truth hits her with stunning clarity.

Tim is probably the most important person in her life.

If someone wanted to hurt her, really hurt her, he would be the one to target. Not her parents, not any of her other friends, not even her boyfriend. Because none of them occupy the space in her heart that Tim does—a space she's never fully acknowledged, never allowed herself to examine too closely.

He means everything to her.

The realization doesn't come as a lightning bolt of revelation. It settles over her like recognition, like remembering something she's always known but kept tucked away in some corner of her mind. Of course he means everything to her. How could he not? And Rosalind—Rosalind would know that. She's always been unnervingly perceptive, able to see the connections and vulnerabilities that people try their hardest to hide. During that long, terrible conversation in prison a few months ago, Rosalind had called Tim her fierce protector, watching Lucy's reactions with those calculating eyes, probably noticing everything that she had yet to acknowledge.

"We need to treat this as a targeted abduction," Lucy says finally, forcing steel into her voice even as her hands continue to shake. "If Rosalind took him, then I’m sure she has some sort of plan." Rosalind is many things, but meticulous and patient are chief among them. She would have planned this down to the smallest detail. She would have savored every moment of the preparation, knowing that when Lucy finally realized what had happened, the fear would be all-consuming.

Just like it is now.

"Harper." Angela's voice crackles through the radio, pulling Lucy back from the edge of panic.

Harper answers immediately. "Go ahead, Lopez."

"There’s no sign of Tim at his house. The place is locked up and everything looks normal. His bed hasn't been slept in, there’s no dishes in the sink. It doesn't look like he's been home since last week."

"Ashely just confirmed she hasn’t talked to him since last week either. Why don’t you stay there, we'll have CSU meet you so we can get both scenes processed. With everything that’s happening with Dyer, we're going to treat this as a potential 207 for now."

There's a brief pause before Angela responds with, "Understood. I'll handle everything here.”

All she wants to do right now is give in to the fear currently stealing the air from her lungs. Instead, Lucy takes a deep breath, forcing herself to compartmentalize the way Tim taught her. To lock away the fear. Lock away the guilt. Because none of that will help find him. What will help is thinking like a cop and following every procedure, every protocol designed for situations exactly like this.

"We need to check traffic cams," she says as soon as Harper clicks her radio back to her belt. "Get a timeline for when his truck was ditched here. And we need to know what vehicle the Ashley lookalike was driving. God, I can't believe I didn't pay more attention to it."

"You had no reason to," Harper reminds her, already moving back toward their shop. "What else do you remember about Friday night? Do you remember anything about the woman you thought was Ashley? Any details about her car?"

Lucy follows, her mind racing back to that moment in the parking lot, forcing herself to see it clearly, to separate fact from assumption. "It was a dark SUV. Black, maybe navy blue. I think... I think it was a Hyundai or something similar. Newer model." She strains to remember more, but the details are frustratingly hazy. She hadn't been paying attention to the car; she'd been looking at Tim, trying to read his expression, wondering if he was feeling the same reluctance to end their evening that she was.

"Good, that's good," the detective encourages as they reach their unit. "What about the woman?"

She shakes her head. "It was dark, and I only saw her from a distance. The person could have been the same height as Ashley, similar build. Blonde hair. I just assumed..." She stops, the guilt threatening to overwhelm her again. "I just assumed it was her."

Harper's hand lands on her shoulder, surprising her with the unexpected contact. "This isn't on you, Chen. Whoever planned this knew exactly what they were doing. Even Tim thought it was Ashley, you had no reason to suspect otherwise."

She nods, but the reassurance does little to ease the crushing weight of responsibility settling over her. Because regardless of who's to blame, the reality remains unchanged: Tim is missing. And if Rosalind Dyer has him, then he's running out of time.

If he hasn't already.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t remember most of the drive.

That's the first coherent thought that pierces through the fog in Tim's mind as consciousness crawls back to him. There are flashes—Rosalind’s voice humming along to the radio, her gleeful words as she taunted him, a sharp sting in his arm—but it’s all fragmented, slippery. Whatever she injected him with kicked in fast. It was only maybe ten minutes after he staggered away from Lucy’s apartment the needle went in. He vaguely remembers cold burning in his arm. And that’s the last thing that made sense.

Now, he’s here.

Wherever here is.

Tim forces his eyes open, immediately squinting against the harsh glare of a single fluorescent bulb swinging lazily above him. The light casts long, shifting shadows across what appears to be a basement—four concrete walls, a concrete floor beneath him, and not much else. Not even a chair. It’s just him, sitting awkwardly on the hard floor, hands bound uncomfortably behind his back.

He shifts slightly, trying to find a position that doesn't send pins and needles shooting up his arms, but it's useless. His back’s already starting to ache from the way his arms are pulled tight behind him and there’s a steady throb building at the base of his skull, probably from whatever cocktail she knocked him out with. His legs are stiff. The cold’s starting to seep into his spine from the floor.

And still, none of that’s what bothers him most.

What bothers him is the silence.

Because Rosalind’s not here. And he can’t help the wave of panic that washes over him as he considers all the reasons why she might be somewhere else. Lucy. The name drifts across the fog in his mind and for a moment, he can’t breathe. Is she okay? Did Rosalind hurt her? Is she here too?

He forces the rising panic back down and instead takes slow, measured breaths. Lucy is fine , he tells himself over and over again. Rosalind had made it clear that her business was with him, not Lucy. The relief Tim manages to feel is short-lived as his own reality sets in though. Because no one knows where he is. No one even has any reason to suspect he's missing. And by the time someone does realize something's wrong, by the time they start looking for him...

Well, he might not be alive if he’s found. He’s seen what Rosalind Dyer can do. He’s seen the bodies. The games. The way she makes people crawl out of their own skin without laying a finger on them.

Shit.

He glances around the room again, taking in his surroundings with a more critical eye. The basement is small, maybe ten by ten feet. The walls are bare, save for some old water stains in one corner where moisture has seeped through the concrete, and there's a metal door on the far wall—heavy, industrial, probably locked from the outside. The ceiling is low, with exposed pipes running along it. And that single light bulb, swinging slightly, creates shadows that dance across the floor like a scene straight out of a horror movie.

There’s no windows. No furniture. No tools. Nothing he can use to get out of here.

Tim shifts again, gritting his teeth as the movement sends a spike of pain through his shoulders. He lets his head fall back against the wall behind him, eyes closing momentarily as he tries to piece together his current situation. He at least knows enough about Rosalind to understand that he's in serious trouble here. This is the woman who convinced an attorney to kill a deputy just to help her escape custody. The woman who's shown a disturbing interest in Lucy ever since she survived being buried alive. And now she's using him for... what exactly? Revenge? To make some twisted point? Whatever game the woman is playing, Tim knows he's just a pawn. A means to an end that probably has more to do with Lucy than with him.

Which probably doesn’t bode well for him when he thinks about it.

A sound from beyond the door snaps his attention back to the present. Footsteps. Coming closer. Tim straightens as much as his bound limbs allow, muscles tensing in anticipation. He has nowhere to go though, no way to defend himself, but he's at least not about to let Rosalind see him defeated. Not if he can help it.

The footsteps stop just outside the door. There's a pause, then the metallic scrape of a lock being turned. The door swings open, revealing the woman in question, looking as composed and elegant as ever, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Sergeant Bradford," she says, her voice smooth as silk. "I see you're finally awake. It took you long enough."

Tim stares back at her, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing him flinch. Instead, he meets her gaze steadily. "I was enjoying the accommodations. I think I’d give it five stars. Really love what you've done with the place."

Rosalind's smile widens, a predatory gleam in her eyes as she steps fully into the room, letting the door close behind her with a heavy clang. "Humor as a defense mechanism. How predictable." She moves with calculated grace as she takes a step closer. "Though I suppose I shouldn't expect originality from someone who's spent his entire career following other people's rules."

“If you’re planning to kill me, just get it over with.”

The woman laughs, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. "Oh, Tim. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have woken up in the first place." She crouches down, bringing herself to eye level with him. This close, he can smell her perfume. "No, I have much more interesting plans for you."

She reaches out and Tim flinches instinctively, but she merely brushes a strand of hair away from his forehead with an almost tender gesture that makes his skin crawl. “So if you’re not going to kill me, then why am I here?”

Rosalind stands, smoothing down her clothes as she walks a slow circle around him. "I was originally going to skip town," she says, her voice light and conversational. "But then I remembered how much I really don't like to leave behind loose ends." She pauses behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. Tim goes rigid at the contact. "And while Officer Chen might have been Caleb's play thing, he was also mine. Which means I'm obligated to finish what he failed to do."

His voice hardens. "You're using me to lure Lucy here just so you can kill her?"

The woman tisks, coming back around to face him. She looks almost offended. "I'm here to right a wrong, not fix someone else's mistakes. Lucy will always be the one that got away, and that's fine by me. She wasn’t originally part of my plan. I just want to make sure she remembers who’s in charge, and that she's alive only because I let her be."

Tim stares at her, trying to make sense of what she's saying. If she doesn't want to kill Lucy, and she doesn't want to kill him, then what the hell is her endgame?

"You know what I've always found fascinating about police officers?" She continues, abruptly changing subjects. "The way you all cling to this moral code—this idea that there are lines you won't cross." She crouches down in front of him again, her gaze searching his face with unsettling intensity. "I wonder what it would take to make you cross those lines, Sergeant Bradford."

The implication sends a chill down Tim's spine.

"I've seen your file, you know. Impressive service record. Decorated officer. Model of integrity." She tilts her head. “But everyone has a breaking point. I'm curious about yours."

“What does that have to do with anything? If your problem is with Lu—"

"My problem," she interrupts, her voice suddenly sharp, "is multifaceted. I'm a pragmatist at heart and I believe in efficiency. Killing two birds with one stone, as they say. I want her to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, wondering when I'll come back to finish what I started.” She grins. “And destroying you will break her. I’m not going to kill you though, death is so...final. Unimaginative. All I want is for her to live with the knowledge that what’s about to happen—whatever you become—is entirely her fault."

Whatever you become. Not whatever happens to you, but whatever you become. The distinction is subtle but significant, and it sends a fresh wave of unease through him.

"I'm not going to play your sick game," he says, straining against the zip ties even though he knows it's useless. "Whatever you have planned, it won't work."

"Everyone says that at first," Rosalind replies, smoothing down another line on her clothes. "But you'll see. By the time I'm done with you, you won't even recognize yourself." She moves toward the door, pausing with her hand on the handle. "And neither will she."

The lock turns with the same metallic scrape as she leaves and when the door swings open five minutes later, Rosalind is back, but she's not alone. She has another person in tow—a man Tim doesn't recognize. Average height, thin build, wearing a rumpled button-down shirt that's stained with what looks disturbingly like blood. His face is pale, eyes wide with undisguised terror, and his hands are bound in front of him with the same type of zip ties cutting into Tim's wrists.

"Sergeant Bradford," Rosalind says, her voice cheerful as she claps her hands together. "This is Marcus. He's going to help us with our demonstration today."

The man (Marcus) stumbles forward as Rosalind pushes him into the room. He nearly falls, regaining his balance at the last moment before his gaze darts frantically around the room before landing on Tim. There's a silent plea in his eyes, a desperate hope that somehow the announced police officer might save him.

"Please," Marcus whispers, his voice cracking. "I didn't do anything. I have a family—"

"Quiet," Rosalind snaps, all pretense of politeness vanishing. She grabs Marcus by the collar and shoves him to his knees in the center of the room. From her pocket, she produces a small knife, and in the next second she’s slicing through the zip ties. Marcus rubs his freed wrists, but makes no move to run or fight. His shoulders slump in defeat as he looks anywhere but at Tim.

Rosalind moves to stand behind Marcus, placing her hands on his shoulders. "I've found that the most effective way to break someone isn't through simple pain." Her fingers dig into the man’s shoulders, making him wince. "It's through choices. Through complicity."

Tim's mouth goes dry as understanding begins to dawn. "Whatever you're planning on having him—"

"Marcus here has been given a very simple choice," she continues as if he hadn't spoken. "Either he helps me with my project, or his wife and six-year-old daughter join our little party." She squeezes Marcus's shoulders again, her smile never wavering. "Show him what I gave you."

With trembling hands, Marcus reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small object. It glints under the swinging light—brass knuckles.

"I don't normally approve of crude methods," she says with a disappointed sigh. "But we're working with limited resources, and sometimes the classics are effective for a reason." She leans closer to Marcus, her lips near his ear but her eyes fixed on Tim. "Put them on."

Marcus's hands shake violently as he slips the brass knuckles onto his right hand. His face is a mask of anguish, tears welling in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to Tim. "I don't have a choice."

"Everyone has a choice," Rosalind corrects him. "That's the beauty of it. The burden of decision." She steps back, gesturing toward Tim with an elegant sweep of her hand. "Now show Sergeant Bradford exactly what happens when you’re given a choice."

Tim's muscles tense as the other man takes a hesitant step toward him, the brass knuckles gleaming dully on his trembling fist. He can see the conflict in the man's eyes, the silent apology, the self-loathing. But he can also see resolution forming. The desperate calculation of a desperate man.

"It's okay," Tim says quietly, meeting Marcus's gaze. "Do what you have to do."

The words seem to break something in Marcus. A sob escapes him as he raises his fist. "I'm sorry," he whispers over and over again. "I'm so sorry."

The first blow lands against Tim's jaw—pulled at the last second, but still hard enough to snap his head to the side. Pain explodes across his face.

"That was pathetic," Rosalind says, her voice sharp with disapproval. "Again. Harder. Or should I make a phone call?"

Marcus's face contorts with anguish as he strikes again, this time with more force. The brass knuckles connect with Tim's cheekbone, and he feels something crack beneath the impact. Stars burst behind his eyes, and for a moment, the world tilts dangerously.

"Better," Rosalind comments. "But I think you're still holding back."

Tim spits blood onto the concrete floor, trying to blink away the dizziness. The zip ties cut deeper into his wrists as he instinctively strains against them. Despite the pain though, he keeps his eyes on Marcus, seeing the horror reflected there.

"Your daughter," he manages, his words slurring slightly from his swelling jaw. "What's her name?"

Marcus falters, fist still raised. "Emma," he whispers, voice breaking. "She just turned six."

"And your wife?"

"Sarah."

He nods, ignoring the fresh wave of pain the movement causes. "Think of them. Do whatever you need to do to get back to them."

"How touching," Rosalind interjects, her voice cold with mockery. "Attempting to humanize yourself to your attacker?" She steps closer to Marcus, her hand sliding up to grip the back of his neck. "Hit him again. And this time, I want to hear something break."

Marcus's eyes fill with tears as he draws back his fist once more. Tim braces himself, but there's only so much he can do with his hands bound behind his back and his body pressed against the wall.

The impact is blinding. Brass connects with flesh and bone, and Tim's world explodes into white-hot pain. Before he can even recover his senses, another blow lands against his ribs. Something cracks. He can't breathe.

Again. This time across his temple. Blood trickles warm down his face.

Again. His nose. The crunch is sickening, even to his own ears.

Again. His already injured jaw. The metallic taste of blood floods his mouth.

Again. Again. Again.

He loses count after the seventh or eighth blow. The room spins lazily around him and his thoughts scatter like leaves in a storm. He can't hold onto a single one for long. Lucy's face. The taste of blood. His mother's voice. The sound of brass hitting bone. Angela's laughter. The burning in his chest when he tries to breathe.

Distantly, he recognizes the signs of a concussion. And because of that, knows he should try to stay awake. But the darkness at the edges of his vision is so inviting, promising relief from the searing pain that's suddenly become his entire world.

So he fights it as long as he can, clinging to consciousness as best he can, but in the end, the darkness wins. The last thing he sees before it claims him completely is the light overhead, still swinging, casting its cold glow as it mocks him from above.

Chapter Text

It's amazing how twenty four hours can feel like both an eternity and no time at all.

Lucy stares at the incident board that's been hastily assembled in the back corner of Mid-Wilshire's largest conference room, now designated as the command center for Tim's disappearance. Her eyes burn from a mix of exhaustion, from staring at too many screens, from the tears she refuses to let fall.

The board in front of her is a mess. Photos pinned at odd angles. Timelines drawn, erased, and redrawn with different colored markers. Sticky notes clustered around every potential lead. Yellow for witness statements. Blue for physical evidence. Pink for theories. Green for BOLO alerts. A rainbow of hope and frustration that ultimately amounts to nothing.

Because they have nothing.

It’s been twenty four hours since they found his truck abandoned two blocks from her apartment building, driver's door hanging open, keys still in the ignition. Twenty four hours of calling in every favor, pulling on every string, pushing every resource they have to its limit.

And they're still no closer to finding him than they were when they started.

The traffic cameras near her apartment had been their first real lead. There’s six of them strategically positioned around her neighborhood, but whoever took Tim had mapped them out beforehand. The only useful footage they'd managed to retrieve after hours of scanning through recordings showed his truck being parked at 3:47 AM Saturday morning by a figure in dark clothing, face obscured by a hood. The person had simply climbed out of his truck and walked out of frame. Never once looking up at the camera. Never once appearing on any other surveillance cam in the area.

After the first dead end, they had to wait until CSU had processed Tim's truck later that night, but there wasn’t anything useful there either. The only fingerprints they managed to find belonged to her, Ashley, and Tim himself. There was no trace evidence that didn't belong to him. No signs of a struggle. Even the driver's seat was positioned exactly as Tim always kept it. As if the person who parked it there had made sure everything stayed perfectly normal after abandoning it on the side of the road.

The clinical precision of it all makes her skin crawl.

Rosalind had executed her plan perfectly. And that's probably what terrifies her the most. Because while they're here, chasing shadows and following dead ends, Rosalind is somewhere with Tim. Doing what, Lucy can't even stand to imagine. But her mind creates the images anyway without her permission.

Tim bleeding. Tim screaming. Tim dying .

Lucy's hand drifts unconsciously to her side, fingers pressing against the tattoo hidden beneath her uniform. The place where Caleb had branded her skin, carved his twisted symbol of ownership onto her body before burying her alive. Even now, years later, she still hasn't fully recovered from those hours she spent underground. Hours she spent slowly suffocating, not knowing if she was going to die alone.

But she hadn't died. They found her. Tim had found her.

Tim, who dug through the earth with his bare hands until they reached her. Whose face was the first thing she saw when he breathed air back into her lungs, his eyes wild with relief and something deeper she couldn't name at the time.

And now their roles are reversed. He's been gone for days—not hours like she had, days —and they have absolutely nothing. No leads. No witnesses. Not even a single trail to follow. Just the agonizing knowledge that every minute that passes, the likelihood of finding him alive diminishes.

Three days is a lifetime in cases like this. They all know the statistics. After forty-eight hours, the probability of finding a victim alive drops dramatically. And when the kidnapper is someone like Rosalind Dyer...

No.

She can't think like that. Tim didn't give up on her, and she won't give up on him.

Lucy closes her eyes, pressing the heel of her palm against the bridge of her nose. The pressure does nothing to alleviate the migraine that's been building steadily for hours, the pain throbbing in time with her heartbeat. She's moved beyond exhaustion into that strange, liminal space where reality feels slightly off-center. Where rational thought whispers that she should go home, sleep for a few hours, come back with a clearer mind and sharper focus. But the mere idea of leaving, of taking even a minute for herself while Tim is out there somewhere, makes her physically ill.

What if they find something while she's gone? What if the few hours she takes to rest are the difference between life and—

A hand presses against her shoulder, and Lucy startles, her body jerking violently at the unexpected contact. She whips around, momentarily disoriented, to find Tamara standing there, her young face etched with concern.

"Sorry," the teenager says quickly, pulling back her hand. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Lucy forces her breathing to slow, willing her heart rate to return to normal. "It's fine. I was just..." She gestures vaguely at the board, unable to find words to explain where her mind had gone.

"We might have found something," the girl continues. "I’ve been looking through these dark web forums where people obsess over serial killers. There's this whole group dedicated to Rosalind—like, actual fans of hers." Her face twists with disgust. "Anyway, there's an account that's claiming they've been in direct contact with her since the escape. Their most recent post was from yesterday."

Her heart gives a hopeful lurch before logic intervenes. They've been down this road before. Ever since information about Rosalind first hit the news years ago, the tip lines have been flooded with calls from people claiming to know where she is, claiming to be in contact with her, claiming to be working with her. Some are attention-seekers, others are mentally ill, and a few are just cruel—deliberately wasting police resources during a critical investigation. This new lead is tenuous at best, a desperate reach at worst. But the teenager's eyes are bright with a determination that Lucy recognizes all too well. The need to feel like she’s helping.

"Did this person share any relevant information?"

Tamara hesitates, her earlier excitement dimming slightly. "Not exactly. They're being all cryptic and weird, posting stuff like 'the queen has her knight' and talking about 'the game continuing.' But Wes thinks if we could trace the IP address or something, we might be able to figure out if this person actually knows anything."

She forces a smile she doesn't feel. "That's... that’s good. We should definitely check it out." She doesn't add that they've already traced dozens of similar posts, all leading nowhere. "Can you tell Wesley to send the forum link and account details to the cyber unit? They can add it to the others they're monitoring."

"The others?" Her shoulders slump slightly. "So this isn't new?"

"It could still be important," Lucy encourages, reaching out to squeeze the girl's arm gently. "Every lead matters right now, even if it's just to rule it out. And sometimes these people do slip up and reveal something useful."

Tamara nods, clearly trying to hide her disappointment. "I'll tell him to send everything over." She starts to turn away but hesitates, her eyes dropping to the floor. And for a moment, she just stands there, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. When she finally speaks again, her voice is softer, less certain. "I know I'm not a police officer or anything, but I just... I really want to help." She glances up briefly, then back down. "Tim's been really nice to me lately, helping me find a car and stuff. He was supposed to be taking me to dinner later this week and..." She swallows hard. "I just really want him to be okay."

That's news to her. She had no idea Tim even interacted with the teenager outside of what Lucy has seen when she was also there. But that just proves the kind of person she knows he tries not to let other people see he is—the man beneath the gruff exterior who quietly helps others without making a show of it. "I didn't know you guys were close.”

The girl shrugs, her fingers playing with the frayed edge of her sleeve. "You already know he's been helping me find a new car that's not a ‘total death trap’. And since you've been a little busy with Chris," Lucy doesn't miss the disdain in her voice, the slight curl of her lip when she says her boyfriend’s name, "Tim's been driving me around and stuff. Taking me to check out different cars, teaching me what to look for so I don't get ripped off. We go to dinner sometimes too."

Something warm and painful twists in her chest at the image of Tim patiently helping Tamara buy her first car, showing the same care and attention to detail he'd shown when training Lucy. It's so utterly him—stepping in to help, to teach, to protect, without ever being asked. "I didn't know," she says again, because she doesn't know what else to say.

"Yeah, well." Tamara crosses her arms, her posture defensive even as her eyes shine. "He's a good guy. Better than most people realize."

"He is," she quickly agrees, her throat suddenly tight. "And we're going to find him, Tam. I promise."

It's a promise she has no right to make, one she can't possibly guarantee she'll keep. But in this moment, looking at the fear in the younger girl’s eyes, a fear that mirrors her own, she needs to say it as much as Tamara needs to hear it.

Because the alternative is unthinkable.

Tamara's eyes land on something over her shoulder, and the girl’s expression darkens further, mouth turning down at the corners. "Your boyfriend's here.”

Lucy turns just in time to see Chris slipping inside the conference room, dressed in a crisp button-down and dress pants that look out of place among the rumpled uniforms and day-old clothes of everyone else. His eyes scan the room briefly before landing on her, and then he's making his way over, weaving between the scattered chairs and discarded coffee cups.

Her stomach clenches with an emotion she can't quite name. It’s not dread exactly, or relief, but something uncomfortable that sits heavy in her chest. She should be glad to see him. She should want his support right now. Instead, she finds herself wishing he'd stayed away just a little longer, at least until she had a chance to get her head on straight.

"Hey," Chris says as he reaches them before leaning in to kiss her. Lucy turns her head at the last second, his lips landing on her cheek instead of her mouth. If Chris notices the deflection, he doesn't show it, just shrugs it off with an easy smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Sorry I'm so late. I had a last-minute meeting with a client that went way longer than expected." His gaze slides to the whiteboard behind her, taking in the photos, the timelines, the red string connecting points of interest. "Did you guys find anything?"

The casual way he asks, like he's inquiring about the results of a routine investigation instead of Tim's life, grates on her already raw nerves. But she forces herself to breathe through it. He's trying to help. He's here. That's what matters.

"Not much," she says, running a hand through her hair, feeling the greasiness that comes from too many hours without a shower. "Traffic cameras caught someone parking his truck at 3:47 Saturday morning, but they kept their face hidden. We found no usable fingerprints in the vehicle. No signs of struggle. Nothing on Rosalind's known associates. It's like he just..." She swallows hard. "Vanished."

Chris frowns. "And we're thinking he's been missing since Friday?"

She sighs and nods, the weight of those lost days pressing down on her shoulders. "Yes."

"Well, that doesn't bode well for him." He says it so matter-of-factly that Lucy almost flinches. "Three days is a long time to go without any new information in a case like this."

Before she can respond, Tamara steps forward, arms crossed tightly over her chest, fire in her eyes. "That's why we're all here," she snaps, her voice tight with barely contained anger. "And we're not going to sleep until we find something."

The tension crackles between them, sharp and unexpected. Lucy hasn't seen this side of Tamara before—this fierce, protective anger. But she understands it. Feels it burning in her own chest. Still, she can't have the teenager starting fights in the middle of the station.

"Tam, that's not what he meant," she says gently, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder.

The teenager turns her glare to her, the betrayal evident in her eyes. And for a moment, it looks like she might argue further, might unleash whatever emotion is building behind that fierce expression. But then she sighs, visibly deflating as the fight leaves her body. "Whatever," she mutters, shrugging off Lucy's hand before walking away.

The silence between them feels loaded, heavier than it should. She watches Tamara rejoin Wesley and Angela across the room, the girl's shoulders still rigid with tension.

"What was that about?" Chris asks, confused.

Lucy shakes her head, not wanting to get into the complexities of Tamara's relationship with Tim, or the tension that's been brewing between the girl and Chris for months now. "She's just worried," she says simply. "We all are."

His expression softens slightly, his hand coming to rest on her lower back. "I know you are. That's why I'm here—to help. Or at least to make sure you remember to eat something." He glances around the room at all the half-empty coffee cups and discarded snack wrappers. "Have you had any actual food today?"

The question makes her realize she can't remember the last time she ate. Lunch, maybe? Or was that yesterday? The hours have all blurred together into one long, frantic search. Her stomach gives a half-hearted growl at the mere thought of food, reminding her that she's been running on caffeine and adrenaline for way too long.

"Not really," she admits.

"That's what I thought." His hand presses more firmly against her back, a gentle pressure urging her toward the door. "Come on. Let's go grab something real to eat. Just for thirty minutes. It’d be good for you to get a break from this room."

The suggestion—innocent, reasonable, caring—immediately sets off alarm bells in her head. She’s not leaving.

"I can't," she says, pulling away from his touch. "I need to be here to help.”

Chris's eyebrows draw together, concern and frustration mingling on his face. "Lucy, you're running yourself into the ground. Do you really think you can help Bradford like this?"

The question hits like a slap, even though she knows it wasn't meant that way.

"I'll eat something here," she compromises, nodding toward the break room. "Someone brought in sandwiches earlier."

Chris studies her face for a long moment, clearly wanting to push the issue. But something in her expression must warn him not to press further, because he finally nods. "Okay. Sandwiches it is." He glances around the room again, his gaze catching on Wesley who nods at him in greeting from across the room. "Oh, I almost forgot," he says, turning back to Lucy with a wide smile. "Someone dropped this off for you at the front desk. I heard them mention your name on my way in, so I told Jan that I could take it back to you."

He digs into his suit pocket and pulls out a manila envelope, holding it out to her like it's nothing important. Just a casual delivery. But the moment Lucy sees it, the uneasy feeling churning in her gut flares to life, spreading through her chest like ice water. Because the yellow envelope doesn't have a sender or a return address. The only thing on the front is her name drawn in pretty, flowing handwriting.

"Who dropped this off?" she asks, not reaching for the envelope yet, her hands suddenly reluctant to touch it.

"I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention to that."

She has to bite back the snarky comment that threatens to spill from her lips. Of course he wasn't paying attention. Because why would he think to ask who was delivering unmarked envelopes to a police officer in the middle of a high-priority missing persons case?

Without another word, she snatches the envelope from his hand and bee-lines it to where her friends are gathered at the other end of the room. Her heart hammers against her ribs, each beat carrying a growing certainty that whatever is in this envelope isn't good news.

"Someone just dropped this off for me at the front desk.”

All eyes turn to her, conversations falling silent as the atmosphere shifts. The envelope in her hand suddenly feels heavier, more dangerous, like it might burn right through her fingers. Angela must hear the waver in her voice, because a second later the detective is standing to her left, her expression sharpening with concern.

"You want me to open it?" Angela asks quietly, already pulling a pair of gloves from her pocket.

She nods, grateful for the offer. Whatever’s waiting inside, she doesn't want to be the first to see it.

The detective takes it carefully, examining the handwriting on the front, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Fancy penmanship," she mutters, pulling on the gloves before carefully breaking the seal.

Angela’s expression changes the moment she looks inside the envelope—a slight tightening around her eyes, a tension in her jaw—and Lucy knows instantly that whatever is in that envelope confirms her worst fears.

"What is it?" she forces herself to ask, though part of her doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to see what put that look on Angela's face.

Her friend hesitates, her eyes meeting Lucy's for a brief moment before she slowly withdraws the contents of the envelope.

The photograph shakes in Angela's gloved hand as Lucy steps closer, her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat. The room around her seems to recede, the sounds of movement and murmured voices fading into a dull roar as her entire world narrows down to that single image.

For a split second, relief floods through her— he's alive —before the details of the image register, and that relief curdles into horror.

Tim.

She can't tell where he is. The background is deliberately blurred or darkened, with just enough light to illuminate Tim himself, as if Rosalind had carefully staged the shot to showcase her handiwork while revealing nothing about his location. It's a photographer's trick. Shallow depth of field, Lucy thinks absently, her mind grasping at technical details to avoid processing what she's actually seeing.

But she can't avoid it for long.

Tim is slumped against what appears to be a concrete wall, his head tilted at an angle that suggests he might not have been conscious when the picture was taken. His face... God, his face. It's barely recognizable beneath the swelling and bruising. His left eye is completely swollen shut, the skin around it a sickening blend of purple and black while a deep cut runs along his right cheekbone, crusted with dried blood that trails down his jaw and neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt—the same shirt he'd been wearing when he dropped her off Friday night.

His lip is split open, more blood trailing from the corner of his mouth, and there's another gash across the bridge of his nose that makes her wonder if it's broken. The bruising extends down his neck, disappearing beneath his collar, suggesting there might be even worse injuries hidden from view.

And... is his arm broken? She can see the unnatural angle of his right arm, the way it lies limp beside him, bent wrong just below the elbow. Lucy's own arm throbs in sympathy, her fingers going numb around the edge of the photo she's now holding.

"Jesus Christ," Angela whispers beside her, and Lucy realizes she's been holding her breath, her lungs burning with the need for air. She forces herself to inhale, to keep looking, to catalog every detail no matter how much each one feels like a knife to her chest. Because somewhere in this horrifying image might be the clue they need.

The room has gone completely silent. She’s vaguely aware of the others gathering around them, looking over her shoulder at the photograph, but she can't tear her eyes away from Tim's face long enough to see their reactions.

"There's something written on the back," Angela is saying, her voice tight with controlled rage as she carefully turns the photo over. Lucy’s focus is pulled away from Tim's broken body to instead read the message written in the same flowing script as her name on the envelope:

He's been asking for you, Lucy. Isn't that sweet? Even with three broken ribs, a busted arm, and more bruises than I can count, he still manages to say your name. I wonder if he'll still be calling for you when I'm done with him.

The words blur as tears fill her eyes, hot and unwelcome. She blinks them back furiously as nausea suddenly churns violent in her gut. It climbs its way up the back of her throat and she has to clap a hand over her mouth, desperately scanning the room.

The garbage can. In the corner.

She barely makes it there before she's dropping to her knees, her body heaving as everything inside her rebels against what she's just seen. The sound of her retching seems impossibly loud in the quiet room, but she can't stop, can't control the violent reaction as her body tries to purge the horror.

Cool hands gather her hair back from her face. Angela, she realizes dimly. The detective holds her hair with one hand, the other a steady presence against her back as she continues to empty her stomach into the garbage can.

When the heaving finally subsides, she stays there for a moment, trembling, her forehead pressed against the cool metal rim of the can. Her throat burns, her eyes watering, and her body feels hollowed out.

There goes her earlier bout of hunger.

"Here," a voice says softly, and a bottle of water appears in her periphery. Nolan. She takes it gratefully, using the first sip to rinse her mouth before spitting into the can, then taking a small, careful drink.

"Sorry," she manages, her voice raw, embarrassment seeping in now that the immediate physical reaction has passed.

"Don't," Angela says firmly, helping her to her feet. "I’m right there with you."

Lucy nods weakly, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. When she looks back up, everyone is watching her with varying degrees of concern. Her eyes find the photograph again, now being carefully placed into an evidence bag by Harper. The sight of it, even at a distance, sends another wave of nausea through her, but she swallows it down, forcing herself to focus. "We need to get that to the lab.” Her voice sounds strange to her own ears, hoarse and strained yet oddly detached. "Check for prints, DNA, anything that might tell us where she's keeping him. Someone should also check the security footage from the front desk. Whoever dropped this off would have been caught on camera and we might be able to put a trace on them."

"On it," Aaron responds immediately, already heading for the door with Harper trailing behind him. The immediacy of their response, their lack of hesitation, steadies her slightly. She's not alone in this. They're all in it with her.

Nolan steps up beside her, and she can see the way his eyes linger on her face for a moment longer than necessary. "Lucy, maybe you should—"

"Don't," she cuts him off, knowing exactly what he's about to suggest. "I'm not going home."

"I wasn't going to suggest that," he says mildly. "I was going to say maybe you should take a moment to clean up." He gestures vaguely toward her face, and she realizes belatedly that there are probably tear tracks smudging what little remains of her makeup, maybe even vomit on her chin. "Then we can regroup and figure out what we can do next."

She should feel embarrassed, but she can't summon the energy for it. "Okay," she agrees, if only because arguing will waste more of the time they don’t have.

Chris materializes at her side then, his hand finding her lower back in what he probably thinks is a supportive gesture. "I'll go with you," he offers, already guiding her toward the door.

The thought of being alone with him right now, of having to hold herself together for his benefit, of having to explain or reassure or pretend that she's anything close to okay, is suddenly suffocating.

Thankfully, Angela steps in before she has to find a polite way to refuse. "I've got her," the detective says, firmly moving between them. "Why don't you go help Wesley instead?"

Chris looks like he wants to argue, but something in Angela's expression must deter him because he simply nods, his hand falling away from her back.

"Let's go," Angela says quietly, leading her out of the conference room and down the hallway toward the women's restroom.

Neither of them speak until they're safely inside with the door closed behind them. Angela moves further into the room and checks the stalls quickly before nodding to Lucy. Only then, when the door swings shut behind them and they're safely alone, does she allow herself to fall apart.

It happens suddenly, without warning. One moment she's stumbling to the sink, fingers gripping the cold porcelain as she stares at her reflection, wiping precariously at the smudged makeup beneath her eyes. The next, her body is convulsing with sobs that tear through her chest like physical things, ripping upward from somewhere deep inside her. She tries to fight it at first, tries to push the emotion back down where it can't hurt her, where it can't slow her down. But it's like a floodgate has been opened. The tears come faster than she can wipe them away, hot and relentless, her shoulders shaking with the force of them.

She's not sure how long she cries—seconds or minutes, it's impossible to tell. Time has lost all meaning, stretched and distorted by the intensity of her emotions. But gradually, the sobs begin to ease, her breathing shifting from desperate gasps to shuddering inhales. The tears still come, but slower now, more controlled.

It's only then that she notices Angela in the mirror, standing a few feet behind her. The detective doesn't try to touch her, just gives Lucy her space, her own eyes glistening with tears that stream silently down her cheeks. There's no pity in her expression, only a shared grief, a shared fear.

Because Angela loves Tim too, in her own way. Not like she does—and God, she can't even begin to unpack that right now—but as a friend, a partner, family in all the ways that matter.

Lucy takes a shuddering breath, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes are swollen, her nose red, her cheeks blotchy with emotion, and she looks like hell. But somehow, seeing her own pain reflected in the other woman’s face makes it more bearable, less isolating.

"Can I ask you a question?" She starts when the tears slow enough for her to speak.

Angela nods, reaching for a paper towel and handing it to her. "Of course."

She takes it gratefully, drying her face as she tries to organize her thoughts. Then she takes a couple of shaky breaths before asking, "Why did you think Tim was with me last weekend?"

She's not even sure why she asks it. The question moves them into a territory that's dangerously inappropriate given that both she and Tim are dating other people. But something about Angela's assumption yesterday, the teasing way she'd implied that Tim never left when he dropped her off, has been nagging at her all day, a loose thread she can't help but pull.

Maybe it's because she needs something else to focus on, something other than the image of Tim's broken body, the words of that message echoing in her head. Or maybe she just needs to understand why his best friend hadn’t even hesitated to assume that he'd been with her.

Angela's expression shifts at the question, something guarded settling over her features. She hesitates, leaning back against the wall as she crosses her arms, her eyes studying her with an intensity that makes her want to look away.

"I don't think that's really what you should be focusing on right now," she says finally.

"Please." Her voice cracks slightly on the word. "I want to know."

The detective sighs, pushing away from the wall to move closer to the sink, close enough that Lucy can see the fine lines around her eyes, the shadows of exhaustion beneath them. "Maybe I should be asking you a different question instead," she starts, holding her gaze in the mirror. "If he had wanted to stay that night, would you have let him?"

It's not what she expected her to ask. But the answer comes with ease, rising to her lips before she can even think to stop it. "Yes."

That’s the truth. If Tim had asked if he could stay that night, she would have said yes without hesitation. And if she's being honest with herself, if Ashley (Rosalind) hadn't shown up and Tim had been able to walk her all the way to her door, she's pretty sure that she would have been the one to invite him in instead.

The realization should shock her, should fill her with nothing but guilt when she thinks about Chris.

It doesn't.

Angela's smile softens as she watches the understanding dawn on Lucy's face. "Then I think you just answered your own question."

She huffs out a weak laugh, the sound strange and fragile in the quiet bathroom. But the brief moment of amusement fades quickly, reality crashing back in with crushing force. "Rosalind only took him because she knows that I...I uh...because she knows what he means to me. She’s just doing this to hurt me."

And it's working. God, is it working. Every time she tries to breathe, all she can feel is the crushing weight of guilt and fear pressing down on her chest.

"This isn't your fault, Lucy," the detective says firmly, as if reading her thoughts. "If it wasn't Tim, it might have been someone else. And knowing Tim," her voice softens slightly, "I'm sure he's probably glad that it's him Rosalind took."

She’s not wrong. Tim would rather it be him than anyone else. It's exactly the kind of person he is, the kind of cop he is. Always putting himself between danger and the people he cares about.

"That doesn't make it better," she whispers, fresh tears threatening.

"No," Angela agrees quietly. "But it's who he is. And right now, we need to focus on finding him, not blaming ourselves for something Rosalind did."

Lucy nods, the motion jerky as she swallows back the grief threatening to overwhelm her again. Angela is right. Guilt won't help him. Blame won't bring him home. Only action will. So she turns on the faucet, splashing cold water on her face, washing away the remaining tears and smudged makeup. The shock of cold helps clear her head, steadies her hands as she reaches for another paper towel.

"I'm ready," she says after a moment, squaring her shoulders as she meets Angela's eyes in the mirror.

She doesn't specify what she's ready for. Not that it matters. She's ready for all of it—ready to face the team, ready to follow every lead, ready to tear the city apart brick by brick if that's what it takes to find Tim.

Ready to finally stop pretending she doesn't feel what she feels.

Because when they find him—and they will find him—she's not wasting any more time on denial. On fear. On telling herself that what she feels for Tim is just friendship, just partnership, just the natural result of everything they've been through together.

It's so much more than that. It always has been.

And if she gets the chance, she's going to tell him.

Chapter Text

"Ah, shit. Marcus, will you please stop touching it."

Marcus finally pulls his hands back from the grotesquely swollen limb. Tim can't help the involuntary shudder that runs through him as the memory of last night resurfaces—the sickening crack as his bone gave way, the blinding pain that followed.

He'd rather not relive that particular experience.

"I'm so sorry, I know I'm not helping. It's just that... that looks really bad. And I swear I didn't even think I'd be able to do it."

Oh, he'd been able to do it. It's actually a little concerning how easily the bone had snapped in two. Tim himself didn't think the man could do it. He'd been proven wrong—painfully.

"It is what it is. If I don't try to move it, it's actually not too bad."

A lie. The pain is constant, a deep, throbbing ache that intensifies into sharp, white-hot agony whenever he so much as breathes too deeply. The swelling has turned his forearm into something barely recognizable, the skin mottled with dark, angry bruises that spread from his wrist all the way to his elbow. He can't even wiggle his fingers without feeling like he might pass out.

But Marcus doesn't need to know that. The guilt is already eating the man alive. He can see it in the dark circles under his eyes, the nervous, fluttering movements of his hands, the way he can't quite meet Tim's gaze. Adding to that burden won't help either of them.

"I really am sorry," Marcus is saying again. He's perched on the edge of an overturned bucket, the only piece of "furniture" Rosalind has allowed them since they both got here. He knows what it’s actually for, but that’s something he doesn’t want to consider yet. "I tried to make it as clean a break as possible."

Tim lets out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, well, I'm sure orthopedic surgeons everywhere would be impressed with your technique."

The joke falls flat, and the silence that follows is heavy and uncomfortable. Tim shifts slightly, trying to find a position that doesn't aggravate at least one of his injuries, but it's a losing battle. Besides the broken arm, his face is a mess of swollen tissue and dried blood. His right eye has swollen completely shut hours ago, and breathing through his broken nose is nearly impossible. The taste of copper still lingers in his mouth, and he's a little concerned about the constant ringing in his left ear.

"Did she hurt your family?" he asks after a moment, partly out of genuine concern, partly to fill the silence.

Marcus shakes his head. "No. Not yet, at least." His voice breaks on the last word. "When she... when she brought me back to the room where she's been keeping me, she showed me a picture of them. The time-stamped was from yesterday and she promised they'd be safe for now."

The relief in his voice is palpable, and Tim understands it all too well. The man did what he had to do to protect his family. He can't really fault him for that, even as the consequences of those actions throb painfully with each beat of his heart.

"How long have you been here?"

"Three days, I think? Maybe four?" Marcus runs a shaking hand through his hair. "It's hard to keep track. She grabbed me from the parking garage at my office. I work in insurance," he adds, as if that detail matters. As if knowing he sells insurance policies somehow makes the fact that he broke a man's arm less surreal.

Tim nods, the movement sending a spike of pain through his skull. He definitely has a concussion. Probably a severe one, judging by the nausea that rolls through him in waves. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

"Some kind of storage facility, I think. When she moved me from my room to yours last night, I caught a glimpse of other units. It kinda seemed like those self-storage places, but with bigger units like this."

That tracks with what Tim has observed.

"Has she mentioned what she wants?" He has to ask even though he already knows the answer. Rosalind made her intentions painfully clear the day before.

Marcus shakes his head. "Not to me. Just that I need to do what she says or my family..." He trails off, unable to finish the thought. "Is that why you're here? Is she threatening your family too?"

"No, she's uh..." He doesn't really know how to explain why he's here. It’s complicated. "She let me pick between taking me or one of my friends. I chose me."

"What's his name?"

"Lucy. Her name's Lucy."

For the first time since he's met the man, Marcus' lips curve into a weak smile. "She must be a really good friend if you're willing to put yourself through this hell for her."

Friend. Yeah. That's one way of putting it.

"We’re both police officers. I was actually her training officer after she got out of the academy," he explains, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the situation. "First day on the job, she arrested a guy trying to steal her car on her way to work." He'd been impressed despite himself, though he'd never have admitted it at the time.

"She sounds tough," Marcus says, and he can hear the genuine interest in his voice.

"Toughest person I know," Tim agrees. "She’s smart, too. Stubborn as hell, though. Once she gets an idea in her head..." He shakes his head slightly, careful not to aggravate his concussion. "She doesn't give up."

"It sounds like you care about her a lot." It's not a question.

His first instinct is to deflect, to put up the walls he's spent years building. But what's the point now? Trapped in a tiny room with a broken arm and who knows what else waiting for him, what good would denial do? "Yeah. I do."

“Does she know?”

Tim lets out another humorless laugh that sends pain shooting through his ribs. "No. At least, I don't think so." He rubs his good hand over his face, wincing when his fingers brush against bruised skin. "It's complicated."

"Because you were her training officer?"

"That's part of it. There are rules about that kind of thing. But also..." he hesitates, searching for the right words. How does he explain his relationship with Lucy to a stranger when he can barely make sense of it himself? "She's got someone else. And she deserves better than..." He gestures at himself with his good hand. "Than me."

Marcus frowns, looking genuinely perplexed. "Better than a guy who'd let himself get kidnapped and beaten half to death to protect her? Not sure the bar gets much higher."

Tim shakes his head. "It's not that simple."

"It never is," Marcus agrees with a sigh. "My wife, Sarah—I spent two years thinking of reasons not to ask her out. Too young, too smart, too good for me. I wasted so much time."

"But you did eventually ask her."

A small smile crosses the man’s face. "Yeah. It was the best decision I ever made."

A part of him considers mentioning that he has a girlfriend. But for reasons that are probably selfish, he doesn't want to think about Ashley right now. When he catalogs all the regrets in his life, when he considers all the things he might never get to do again, her face doesn't appear. Lucy is the only one that comes to mind. Even if that makes him a terrible boyfriend and a terrible person.

"I think she'll find us," he says after a moment. "Your Lucy. She sounds like the type who won't stop looking for you."

Tim nods his agreement, ignoring the way his chest tightens at the words 'your Lucy.' She's not his. Never has been. Probably never will be. But the thought of her searching for him, the determination that would set her jaw, the fire that would light her eyes—it gives him something to hold onto.

"I just hope she stays safe," he murmurs, more to himself than to Marcus.

Because that's the crux of it, isn't it? If Lucy is looking for him, and she would be, he knows her well enough to be certain of that, then she's putting herself in Rosalind's crosshairs. That’s the last thing he wants. The thought alone makes his stomach twist with dread.

"Look, I really want her to be safe too, but I..." Marcus's voice drops to just above a whisper. "I want to be straight with you. When that woman comes back, I think she's going to make me do—" his eyes flick to Tim's broken arm, "—that again. And I really don't know if I can do it. Jesus, I mean look at you. I did that!"

Tim can see the guilt heavy on his face. It's the same guilt he's felt himself when his actions have hurt others, even when those actions were necessary.

"You did what you had to do," he says firmly, despite the fear coiling in his gut at the thought of enduring more pain. "Your family comes first. That's how it should be."

Marcus shakes his head, his hands clenching and unclenching restlessly in his lap. "But there has to be another way. Maybe if we both rushed her when she opens the door—"

"She has a gun," Tim reminds him gently. "And probably other people who are helping her. You'd never make it back to your family if we tried anything."

"So what, we just wait for her to come back and make me torture you some more?" The desperation in the man’s voice is rising, edged with panic. "I can't... I won't be able to hurt you again. I won't."

Tim holds his gaze steadily. "Yes, you will. If it means keeping your wife and daughter safe, you'll do whatever you have to do. Don’t worry about me."

"How can I not worry about you? What happens when she decides breaking your arm isn't enough? What happens when she tells me to—" His words cut off.

"Then we'll deal with it," he says with more confidence than he feels.

Marcus stares at him incredulously. "How are you so calm about this?"

Tim almost laughs, but stops himself when he remembers what that would do to his ribs. "Trust me, I'm not calm." He shifts again, wincing at the pain. "But panicking won't help either of us."

"So what will? Help us, I mean?"

He shrugs. “I'm a Sergeant with the LAPD. The best we can do is sit tight and hope that my team figures out I'm missing and finds us before things get worse."

There's a strange comfort in saying it out loud. While he hates being so out of control, he at least knows without a shadow of a doubt that his friends would do anything to find him. Grey would have the entire department working overtime. Angela wouldn't sleep until every lead was followed. And Lucy... Lucy would tear the city apart if that's what it took.

"You really think they'll find us?" The hope in Marcus's voice is cautious, fragile.

"They're the best." Tim tries to sound more confident than he feels. "We’ll both be okay.”

————

Chapter Text

Someone's shaking her shoulder, the motion gentle but insistent enough to pull Lucy from the depths of unconsciousness. She fights it at first, clinging to the dark nothing of sleep where, at least for a few precious hours, she doesn't have to think.

"Lucy." A voice breaks through, low and careful. "Lucy, wake up."

Her eyes flutter open reluctantly, the world around her coming into focus in slow, disorienting pieces. Fluorescent lights. White board. Conference table. For a moment, she can't place where she is or why her neck aches so badly, why her mouth tastes stale and her back protests every small movement.

Then it all rushes back.

She's still on the floor of the conference room, half-propped against the wall where she must have finally surrendered to exhaustion sometime in the early hours of the morning. The files she'd been reviewing are scattered across her lap, pages spilling onto the carpet beside her. And there, using her leg as a pillow, is Tamara, still deeply asleep, her face peaceful in a way that makes her look younger, more vulnerable than the tough exterior she usually presents.

Lucy blinks up at Aaron who's staring down at her with an apologetic look, his hair damp from a recent shower and his uniform crisp in a way that suggests he's just arrived for his shift. Which means it must be...

"What time is it?" Her voice comes out as a croak.

"Just after eight," he says, keeping his voice low, glancing at the sleeping teenager. "Sorry to wake you, but we finally got a hit on the woman who dropped the envelope off with the front desk last night. Grey's putting together a team to go question her at her place. Thought you'd want to be part of that."

The news hits her like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. A lead. An actual, concrete lead. Lucy has to fight the instinct to jump up, instantly awake and ready to move, so she doesn't startle the girl still sleeping next to her. Instead, she carefully shifts, sliding her leg out from under Tamara's head with slow, deliberate movements, replacing it with her balled-up jacket as a makeshift pillow.

The teenager stirs slightly, mumbling something incomprehensible before settling back into sleep. Lucy watches her for a moment, a strange protectiveness welling up inside her. Tamara had refused to leave last night, insisting on helping with the search even as her eyes grew heavy and she began to nod off over the files she was looking through.

"What do we know?" she asks, keeping her voice low as she stands, her body protesting the sudden movement after hours on the hard floor. Her back aches, her neck is stiff, and her left leg is half-asleep from Tamara's weight, but none of that matters. Not when they might finally have a lead on Tim.

Aaron reaches for the tablet tucked under his arm, swiping to unlock it as Lucy attempts to smooth down her wrinkled clothes, running a hand through her tangled hair in a futile effort to look more put-together than she feels.

"Her name's Elaine Lancy," he explains, turning the tablet so she can see the driver's license photo displayed on the screen. The woman staring back at her is unremarkable in almost every way—mid-forties, short brown hair, glasses, the kind of face you'd pass on the street without a second glance. "Works as a receptionist at a dental office in Glendale. She has no priors, not even a single parking ticket. Cyber unit found her because we were able to get a hit off the security footage from last night."

"And we think she's working with Rosalind?" The woman in the photo doesn't look like she’d be a serial killer's accomplice. Then again, what does a serial killer's accomplice even look like?

Aaron shrugs. "Hard to say. She might have just been given the envelope and then told to drop it off here. Grey wants to bring her in for questioning, but Harper thought approaching her at home might be less confrontational and get us more information if she's not immediately on the defensive."

"Who else is going?" she asks, already gathering her things, her body humming with renewed purpose.

"Just me, you, and Lopez," Aaron says, glancing at his watch. "Grey wants us to head out in twenty minutes. That gives you time to grab coffee and..." he hesitates, eyes flicking over her rumpled appearance, "...maybe splash some water on your face and grab a change of clothes."

She should probably be offended, but his observation isn’t exactly wrong. A quick glance down confirms what she already suspects. Her uniform is a wrinkled mess, her hair is tangled, and she's fairly certain there are still traces of yesterday's mascara smudged beneath her eyes.

"I'll meet you out front in fifteen," she says, already moving toward the door, her mind racing ahead to what she needs to do. Clean up. Change. Find a toothbrush somewhere.

As she reaches the door, she pauses, looking back at Tamara still asleep on the floor, her face young and vulnerable in repose. "Can you...?" she starts, gesturing toward the teenager.

Aaron nods, understanding without her having to finish the thought. "I'll make sure someone keeps an eye on her and gets her some breakfast when she wakes up. She’ll be okay here."

"Thanks." The word feels inadequate for all the gratitude she feels. Not just for this small kindness, but for everyone who understands, without her having to explain, exactly what's at stake.

She slips out of the conference room, her steps quickening as she heads toward the locker room. For the first time since Tim's truck was found, Lucy feels something other than fear and desperation stirring in her chest.

Hope. Small and fragile, but undeniably there.

They have a lead. They have a name. And now, they have a chance.

—————

Elaine Lancy doesn't look the least bit surprised to find three police officers on her doorstep at 9:30 in the morning. It's not just that the woman doesn't startle when she first opens the door. It's the way her face brightens when she steps out onto the porch, as if their arrival completes some long-anticipated plan. The warning bells in Lucy's mind shift from a gentle chime to a full-blown alarm.

The woman stands in the doorway of her modest suburban home, morning sunlight glinting off her glasses as she studies each of them in turn. Her gaze lingers on Lucy though, a flash of recognition in her eyes that makes her skin crawl. Elaine's lips curl into a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"Officers," she says pleasantly, as if they're old friends dropping by for coffee. "To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Angela steps forward, taking the lead as they'd agreed. "Ms. Lancy, I'm Detective Lopez with the LAPD." She gestures to Lucy and Aaron. "These are Officers Chen and Thorsen. We'd like to ask you a few questions about an envelope you delivered to the Mid-Wilshire police station last night."

There it is, that smile again. Knowing, almost smug.

"Sure," she says, the single word carrying a weight that makes Lucy's skin prickle. The woman’s eyes slide to her, lingering there with unsettling focus. "Did the envelope not get delivered to the right person?"

Lucy tenses. "Yes, ma'am, it did," she manages, keeping her voice steady despite the cold dread settling in her stomach. "That's not what we're here about, though. May we come in?"

"Of course," Elaine says, stepping back and gesturing them inside with a sweep of her arm. "Please, come on in."

The interior of her home is as unremarkable as her appearance. Beige walls, generic furniture, a few bland landscape prints hanging in simple frames. Everything is meticulously clean, almost staged, like it’s a model home rather than an actual lived in space. Lucy’s eyes scan for any sort of personal touch—photos, mementos, anything that could offer insight into this woman's connection to Rosalind—but finds none.

The absence itself is telling enough.

"Can I offer you coffee?" Elaine asks, perching on the edge of an armchair while gesturing toward the couch opposite of her. "Or tea, perhaps?"

"No, thank you," Lopez says firmly. "We'd just like to know about the envelope."

Elaine's smile doesn't falter. "Of course. Please, sit down."

Angela sinks into the middle of the couch, her casual posture belied by the alertness in her eyes while Lucy remains standing, her pulse quickening as she studies the woman before them. There's something profoundly unsettling about the woman that has her instincts all but screaming that something is very wrong here.

She exchanges a quick glance with Aaron, whose expression mirrors her own unease. He nods at her once before positioning himself near the door, a subtle blocking of the exit that doesn't go unnoticed by Elaine, whose eyes flick briefly in his direction before returning to Angela.

"So," she says, looking between them with an expression of polite interest. "You have questions about the envelope I dropped of yesterday?"

"Yes," Angela says, shifting forward slightly. "Specifically, we'd like to know who gave it to you and what they told you about it."

Elaine crosses her legs at the ankle, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her slacks. " A friend gave it to me," she says simply, as if that explains everything. "She asked if I could do her a favor and I was happy to help out. She didn’t really tell me anything about it though, just that she needed me to drop it off and make sure it got to Officer Lucy Chen. She was really specific about that part."

An obvious lie.

"This friend," Lucy presses. "Does she have a name?"

The woman’s gaze shifts back to Lucy, something bright and eager flashing behind her eyes. "Of course she has a name," she says softly, almost to herself. Then, louder: "Her name is Rose."

Lucy feels her jaw tighten. "Rose. As in Rosalind Dyer?"

Elaine's eyebrows lift in a performance of innocent confusion. "Rosalind? I don't know anyone by that name." She adjusts her glasses, looking between the three officers with an expression of mild bewilderment. "My friend's full name is Rose. Rose Matthews. We've known each other for years."

"And where can we find this Rose Matthews?"

"Oh, I'm not sure where she is right now," the woman says with a small, apologetic smile. "She travels quite a bit for work. We mostly keep in touch through email. One of the reasons she needed my help yesterday was because she was heading out of town."

"What kind of work does she do?" Aaron asks from behind them.

Elaine tilts her head, considering the question. "Something in pharmaceuticals, I believe. She doesn't really talk about it much. Very hush-hush corporate stuff." She waves her hand dismissively. "Is she in some kind of trouble?"

Lucy fights to keep her expression neutral despite the frustration building inside her. The woman is clearly toying with them. "Ms. Lancy, the envelope you delivered contained information about a missing police officer. You do know that aiding a fugitive is a very serious offense. If you're in contact with Rosalind Dyer, now would be the time to tell us everything you know."

Elaine's eyebrows rise in a show of surprise. "Oh god, how awful. I had no idea." She presses a hand to her chest. "The envelope was really related to that? I promise Rose didn't tell me anything about what was in it. She just asked for a favor and it all seemed so harmless so I did it.”

Lucy studies the woman‘s face, searching for any crack in the façade. Any sign that would confirm what she already suspects: this woman is lying. But Elaine's expression remains calm, her eyes clear behind her glasses, hands relaxed in her lap. There’s no sweat on her forehead. No nervous swallowing or fidgeting. It's the kind of composure that takes years to perfect. The kind that comes from practice, from knowing exactly what you're doing and feeling utterly justified in your actions.

Either she's an exceptionally good liar, or she genuinely believes her own story. Neither option feels particularly comforting.

Angela leans forward, her voice taking on an edge of steel. "Ms. Lancy, I don't think you understand the severity of the situation. An officer's life is at stake. If you're holding back information—"

"I've told you everything I know," Elaine interrupts, her voice still calm but with a new firmness beneath it. The first fracture in her accommodating demeanor. "Rose asked me to deliver an envelope. I did. That's all."

Lucy doesn't believe her for a second. The way Elaine's eyes keep finding hers, the lingering glances, the subtle shifts in her expression when Tim was mentioned, all of it suggests she knows a lot more than what she's admitting. But they have nothing concrete enough to justify pushing harder. 

"Then you wouldn't mind coming back to the station with us to give a more formal statement?"

Something flickers in Elaine's eyes then. Not fear or concern, but something closer to satisfaction. As if this, too, is exactly what she expected. Exactly what she wants.

"Of course, Officer," she says, narrowing her eyes slightly at Angela before nodding. "I would love to help in any way that I can. Let me just grab my things and we can go."

The ease of her agreement only deepens Lucy's unease.

She moves slowly toward the entryway table where her purse sits. Lucy watches her slip a hand inside, checking for something, before slinging the strap over her shoulder. From a hook by the door, she retrieves a light jacket and shrugs it on with the same unhurried movement.

Angela rises and steps forward, positioning herself on one side of Elaine while Aaron takes the other. They don't touch her, there's no need for that level of control yet, but their placement makes it clear that they're escorting her, not simply walking her out.

Lucy trails behind, eyes locked on Elaine’s back, studying her rigid posture and measured steps. Even now, being taken in for questioning in connection with a kidnapped police officer, the woman maintains perfect composure.

They file out of the house, Angela and Aaron leading the way with Elaine following close behind. But for the brief moment that it’s just the two of them in the house, Elaine pauses unexpectedly as she turns her head just enough to catch Lucy’s attention over her shoulder. Their eyes meet, and something cold slithers down her spine at the knowing look she sees there.

"It's a nice truck," the woman says, her voice pitched low enough that only Lucy can hear. A small smile plays at the corners of her mouth. "I can see why he's so attached to it."

The words have their desired effect, stealing the air from her lungs. "What did you just say?" Lucy's voice comes out louder than she intended, drawing concerned glances from both Aaron and Angela. “You were the one who moved his truck.”

Elaine's expression remains placid, almost innocent, but there's a glint in her eyes that betrays her neutral expression. "The truck behind your patrol car," she clarifies, gesturing toward the vehicle parked at the curb. "I was just commenting on it. My late husband was very fond of trucks. Men and their vehicles, you know?"

The words, delivered with such casual menace, shatter Lucy's restraint. Three days of fear, of uncertainty, of staring at Tim's beaten face in that photograph, it all converges into a single point of rage that obliterates her training, her professionalism, everything except the need to know where he is. In one fluid motion, she has the woman by the collar, spinning her around and slamming her against the wall beside the front door. The door slams shut with a kick of her foot, the lock engaging with a decisive click that seals them both inside.

"What did you do?" Lucy demands, her voice a low, dangerous growl that she barely recognizes as her own. Her forearm presses against Elaine's throat, not enough to cut off her air, but enough to make her point unmistakably clear. "Tell me where he is."

She's dimly aware of Angela and Aaron on the other side of the door, of the insistent knocking, of someone calling her name. But it's all background noise compared to the roaring in her ears and the thundering of her heartbeat.

Elaine doesn't struggle. Doesn't try to break free. Instead, she smiles, her eyes lighting up with something close to ecstasy despite the arm at her throat. 

"There she is.” A wheezing laugh escapes her lips. "The real Lucy Chen. The one who would break every rule for him." She studies Lucy's face with an intensity that borders on reverence. "She said you would. Said you'd show your true colors if I pushed hard enough."

"Stop playing games with me. I don’t give a shit what she told you," Lucy snarls, tightening her grip on the woman's collar. "Tell me where he is, or I swear to God—"

"You'll what?" The woman’s eyes are fever-bright, her smile widening despite the pressure against her throat. "Beat it out of me? Kill me? Then you'll never find him." She tilts her head, as much as Lucy's arm allows. "Besides, we both know you won't. You care too much about being a good cop. About following the rules."

Lucy leans in closer, her face inches away. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

Something shifts in her expression then. A flicker of uncertainty, the first genuine reaction Lucy's seen from her. It's brief, there and gone in an instant, but it was there.

"I don't know where he is," Elaine says, the breathless quality of her voice making it impossible to tell if she's lying or just struggling to speak against the pressure on her throat. "She doesn't tell me everything. Just what I need to know to play my part."

The door handle rattles violently, followed by the sharp impact of a shoulder against wood. Aaron's voice, urgent through the barrier: "Lucy! Open the door!"

"You moved his truck. You were in contact with her," Lucy presses on, ignoring the commotion behind her. "Where are they?"

Elaine's eyes dart toward the increasingly violent rattling of the door, then back to her. For the first time, a hint of nervousness creeps into her expression. "We shouldn’t be talking about this here," she whispers urgently. "Not with your friends nearby. She said... she said if I told you anything in front of the others, she'd know and she’d punish him for it."

Lucy's blood runs cold at the implication. That Rosalind is watching them somehow. 

"Lucy!" Angela's voice now, sharp with authority. "Open this door right now!"

“You’re lying to me.” Lucy studies Elaine's face, searching for any sign of deception. The woman seems genuinely afraid now, but whether her composure is cracking under the pressure of whatever consequences Rosalind has threatened or if this is just another trick, she can’t tell.

"I swear I’m not. Check my left pocket," Elaine whispers, her eyes darting again toward the door. “I have something I’m supposed to give you. Please."

She hesitates, suspicion warring with desperation. 

This could be a trap. A distraction. Another layer of Rosalind's game.

But what choice does she have?

Keeping her forearm pressed firmly against Elaine's throat, Lucy slides her free hand into the woman's left jacket pocket. Her fingers close around a small, hard object. Smooth and cool to the touch. She withdraws it carefully, keeping her eyes locked on Elaine's face.

She can tell it's a key.

"What is this?" she demands, holding the key up between them. "What is it for?"

"I can't say any more," Elaine whispers. "Not here. She'll know. She always knows."

She studies the woman’s face for a long moment. It’s hard to tell if what she’s seeing is genuine terror. With all of Rosalind's accomplices, it's impossible to tell where the act ends and reality begins.

But the key in her palm feels real enough. Significant. A tangible lead when they've had nothing for days.

So with a swift, decisive movement, Lucy shoves the woman back forcefully against the wall one last time before releasing her grip. "If you're lying to me..." she leaves the threat unfinished, the implications clear in her eyes.

Elaine says nothing, just rubs at her throat with shaking fingers, her gaze never leaving her face. Then Lucy turns and unlocks the door with a quick twist of her wrist, pulling it open to find Angela and Aaron poised on the threshold, faces tight with concern and confusion.

"What the hell, Chen?" the detective snaps, her expression shifting from worry to anger as her eyes dart between the two women.

"Officer Chen attacked me," Elaine says instantly, her voice raspy and slightly breathless. "I want to press charges."

Angela's gaze shifts between them again, her eyes narrowing. "Ms. Lancy, we can discuss that at the station," she says evenly, before turning to Lucy with a look that promises a serious conversation later. "Officer Chen, you can wait outside."

Lucy nods, slipping the key into her pocket as she moves toward the door. Her mind is already racing, analyzing what just happened. She doesn't look back as she steps outside into the morning sunlight, its brightness a stark contrast to the shadows gathering inside her. 

The weight of the brass key burns in her pocket.

Aaron falls into step beside her as she moves toward the patrol car, his face a careful mask that doesn't quite hide his concern.

"You want to tell me what that was about?" he asks, voice low so it won't carry to where Angela is walking Elaine to her car.

"She knows where Tim is," Lucy says, the certainty of it settling into her bones. "She's playing the same games as Rosalind. And she made sure to let me know we're being watched."

He studies her face for a long moment. "Lucy, I get it. I do. But you can't—"

"Don't," she’s quick to cut him off. "Just... don't tell me what I can't do right now. Not when it comes to this.” Her voice catches slightly on his name, betraying the emotion she's fighting to control. "She could kill him, Aaron."

A muscle in his jaw tightens, but he doesn't push further. Instead, he glances down the sidewalk, where Angela is now guiding Elaine into the back seat of her unmarked car. The woman goes willingly, her earlier fear—real or feigned—now replaced by that unsettling placidity again. "You really think Rosalind's watching us somehow?"

The question sends a chill down her spine. "I don't know. Maybe."

It's not beyond Rosalind's capabilities. She's done it before, inserting herself into investigations, orchestrating elaborate scenarios to manipulate those around her. There's a reason she managed to evade capture for so long. A reason her body count is so high.

Lucy shudders at the reminder of the camera set up in her own barrel.

"We should probably assume she is," she says finally, lowering her voice further. "She's always ten steps ahead."

"Lopez is going to have your badge for that stunt," Aaron says as he opens the driver's side door, nodding toward the house. It's not a reprimand, just a statement of fact. "Grey too, probably."

He’s not wrong. She crossed a line back there. Violated protocols, assaulted a civilian, compromised the investigation. In any other case, she'd be horrified at her own behavior, at the loss of control. But this isn't any other case.

"I don't care," she says simply, and she means it. "If it helps us find him, they can have my badge."

Aaron holds her gaze for a long moment, something unreadable in his expression. Then he nods once, a small gesture of understanding that says more than words could.

"We'll find him," he says with quiet certainty. "And when we do, you can explain to him yourself why you risked your career for his sorry ass."

The attempt at levity almost works, almost pulls a smile from her. But all she can see is Tim's face in that photograph. Bruised, bloodied, broken.

"Let's go," she says, opening the passenger door. "I want to be at the station when Lopez questions her."

As she slides into the seat, her fingers brush against the key in her pocket once more. Whatever it opens, wherever it leads, she'll follow. Even if it means following Rosalind's twisted path. Even if it means walking straight into a trap.

Because the alternative, doing nothing, waiting helplessly while Tim runs out of time, is unthinkable.

Chapter Text

Survival has thresholds. Tim's known this since his first deployment, when his sergeant made them run until their legs gave out, then made them run some more. Since he walked five miles on a fractured ankle to reach an extraction point, carrying his rifle and another man's gear. He learned it again as a rookie, standing over his first dead body, realizing how the horror he used to see everyday wasn’t necessarily over now that he was back home.

But knowing pain through violence is different from living inside it day after day. Different from counting the seconds between breaths because each one costs something you're not sure you can afford to spend.

Tim's body is teaching him new thresholds now, ones he never wanted to learn in the first place.

"Officer Chen is remarkable, don't you think?"

Rosalind's voice cuts through the fog of pain clouding his mind, but Tim keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the concrete floor, watching the slow drip of his own blood forming patterns there. He's not even sure which injury it's coming from anymore. After days of this, it could really be any of them.

"I asked you a question, Tim."

He knows better than to stay silent. The last time he refused to answer, Marcus broke one of his fingers. The time before that, a rib. He can almost feel Marcus tensing beside him, the man's reluctance radiating from him in waves. But they both know he'll do what Rosalind asks. They've already established that pattern well enough.

"She's a good cop," he manages through chapped lips. Water has been scarce these past few days, and it seems like she’s only been offering it as some sort of reward for cooperation.

Rosalind laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls around them. "A good cop," she repeats with a sneer. "How... professional of you."

She’s pacing in front of him and every so often, her gaze flicks to Marcus, who stands rigid against the far wall, awaiting instructions. His face is gaunt now, dark circles under his eyes like bruises. Tim wonders if he looks as bad.

He probably does, if not worse.

"You know what I find fascinating?" She continues, stopping directly in front of him. "The way you say her name."

He keeps his expression carefully blank. "I don't know what you’re talking about."

"Lucy," Rosalind says, drawing out the syllables. "When you say it, even when you're delirious or half-conscious, there's something there. Something... intimate."

Tim can feel Marcus's eyes on him now, and he has to clench his jaw tighter to keep from yelling at the man. He doesn't respond to the observation, focusing instead on breathing through the pain.

"Tell me about her family," Rosalind says, abruptly changing tactics. "Does she have siblings? Parents?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Her answering smile is all teeth. "Curiosity. Or you could call it a professional interest in what makes Lucy Chen tick." When he still refuses to answer, she turns to Marcus and nods. "I think Sergeant Bradford needs a little encouragement to share."

Marcus steps forward, his movements stiff and mechanical. "I'm sorry," he whispers, so quietly that only Tim can hear. Then his fist connects with his stomach, right where the broken rib is. The world instantly goes white, and Tim doubles over as much as his restraints allow, struggling to breathe through the agony.

"Her family," Rosalind repeats once his breathing has somewhat stabilized. "Tell me."

"No," he manages, straightening as much as he can. He meets her gaze directly for the first time today. "You don't get to know about them."

Rosalind's expression darkens slightly. A small victory, but Tim will take what he can get. She nods to Marcus again.

This time, the blow lands against his jaw, snapping his head to the side. He tastes fresh blood pool in his mouth, feels a tooth loosen. He spits a mouthful of red onto the floor, adding to the growing stain.

"Parents. And don't waste my time with lies.”

Tim weighs his options quickly. Refusing outright means more pain, possibly until he passes out again. Lying might buy him time, but as Rosalind says, she has ways of verifying information. He wouldn’t be surprised if she already knows the answer and this is just some sort of test. Either way, the safest option would probably be to just give her a half truth.

"She's mentioned them," he says finally. "But she doesn’t get along with them. That's all I know."

It's not a complete lie. Lucy doesn't talk much about her family, and he's never really pressed her on that.

"What about her boyfriend? Chris, isn't it?"

Tim tries to keep his expression neutral, but something must show on his face because Rosalind's smile widens.

"Ah, that got a reaction," she says, her voice rich with glee. “Tell me about him. What’s he like? Do you like him?”

He knows he has no right to feel possessive of Lucy. She's free to be with whoever she wants. But the thought of her with Chris has always left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Ironic, given he's the one who set them up.

"I don't know," he says flatly. "It's none of my business."

Rosalind laughs, the sound like broken glass. "None of your business? When you look at her the way you do?” She shakes her head. "You're a terrible liar."

He is.

"He's a lawyer.” The words are bitter on his tongue. "He’s a good guy. And they seem... happy."

The admission costs him something, though he can't quite name what. Pride, maybe. Or the last shreds of his denial.

"And that bothers you. Seeing her with him."

"No."

The denial earns him another blow, this one to his already fractured collarbone. Pain explodes across his chest, stealing his breath, and for a moment, the room spins around him, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision.

"Let's try again," she says when he can focus on her again. "Does it bother you to see her with Chris?"

"Yes," he says quietly. "It bothers me."

She nods, as if he's confirmed something she already knew. "Why?"

Tim closes his eyes briefly. "I think you know why."

"I want to hear you say it."

He opens his eyes, meeting her gaze directly. "Because I care about her.” It's not the confession she clearly wants, but it's as far as he’s willing to go. Some things are still his to keep, even now.

"You willingly came with me just so I would leave her alone, yet you still can't bring yourself to say the word." She tilts her head. "Is it really that hard to admit that you love her?"

Tim says nothing, but his silence is answer enough.

“How tragically predictable. The stoic instructor falling for his bright-eyed rookie. That’s such a cliché."

Tim keeps his gaze fixed on the floor, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a response. But each word lands.

"You know she doesn't feel the same way, don't you?" She continues. "I've been watching her. I've seen how she looks at Chris. How she touches him." She leans closer. "Have you ever wondered what they're like together? When they're alone?"

The image forces its way into Tim's mind despite his best efforts to block it out. Lucy and Chris. Together. Happy. It twists something deep in his chest, sharper than any of his physical injuries.

"She sees you as a mentor. A friend, at most." Rosalind shrugs elegantly. "But love? No. That's not what I saw, and honestly, it’s a little pathetic that you’ve thought otherwise."

He knows what she's doing. Understands the psychological warfare well enough to recognize it. But knowing the strategy doesn't make the words hurt any less.

"And even if she did have feelings for you," she continues relentlessly, "what could you possibly offer her now?" She gestures at his broken body. "Look at yourself. Broken. Diminished. Do you really think she'd want you like this? Do you think anyone would?"

Tim forces himself to breathe through the wave of self-doubt that threatens to drown him. "You don't know anything about her."

"I know enough."

"No." Tim straightens. "You think you do, but Lucy isn't someone you can just... categorize. You’re just trying to get under my skin and it’s not working."

"Really?" She leans in closer. "I think it is working. Because while you're here, bleeding on my floor, she's out there living her life. Going to work. Coming home to Chris."

Marcus shifts uncomfortably against the wall, and Tim notices the slight tremor in the man's hands.

"If that's true," he says carefully, "then I'm glad. She deserves to be happy."

Rosalind studies him for a long moment, then laughs. "How noble of you. But we both know that's not what you really want."

"What I want doesn't matter."

“It’s about to.” She reaches out and pats his cheek, the gentle gesture a mockery of affection. Her hand lingers just long enough to make his skin crawl before she's leaning back and smiling wide, her amusement evident in her eyes. "Marcus," she says without looking away from Tim, "I’m going to need Sergeant Bradford unconscious for this next part. I don't care what you have to do to make that happen."

Marcus stiffens, his already pale face draining of what little color remains. "What? I don't—"

"You heard me." Her voice hardens, the pleasant façade dropping away like a discarded mask. "Knock him out. Now."

Tim's heart rate accelerates, adrenaline flooding his system despite his exhaustion. Whatever she has planned now, it can't be good if she wants him unconscious for it. His eyes meet Marcus's across the room, seeing the same fear reflected there.

"I can't," Marcus whispers, his voice barely audible. "I've already done enough. I can't—"

"Your wife," she interrupts coldly. "Your daughter. Need I say more?"

Marcus's hands curl into fists at his sides, trembling with a mixture of terror and rage. Tim can see the war playing out across the man's face, so he’s quick to speak up before he can make the situation worse. "It's okay. Just do it."

Marcus stares at him, conflict etched into every line of his face. "Tim, I—"

"Do it," he repeats, stronger this time. "Whatever she's planning, I'd rather not be awake for it anyway." He attempts a smile, though it probably looks more like a grimace through his swollen, bloodied face. "Just make it quick."

For a moment, he thinks Marcus might refuse anyway, consequences be damned. But then something shifts in the man's eye and he steps forward.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, the same words he's said countless times over the past couple days. "I'm so sorry."

Tim closes his eyes. "I know."

The last thing he hears is steps as the other man moves closer before darkness claims him.

Chapter Text

For someone who claimed she wanted to help "in any way possible," Elaine Lancy has spent the last two hours doing everything but. Lucy watches through the one way glass as the woman dodges another of Angela's questions with ease, her expression a perfect blend of confusion and concern that might be convincing if Lucy hadn't seen the calculation behind it earlier.

Each response was so transparently false that eventually she has to turn away, her hands curling into fists at her sides. The urge to burst into the interview room and shake the truth out of the woman is becoming harder to resist with each passing minute so she leaves the observation room without a word to Aaron or Grey, who are also watching the interview with grim expressions. They barely acknowledge her departure, their focus fixed on the psychological chess match playing out behind the glass.

The bullpen is quieter than usual, most officers either out on patrol or drawn to the drama of Elaine's interview so Lucy makes her way to Angela's desk unnoticed because she needs to do something, anything, rather than watch that woman play games while Tim's life hangs in the balance.

The key is still burning in her pocket like a hot coal, its weight a constant reminder of her decision not to tell the others about it. At least not yet. There's a voice in the back of her mind—one that sounds suspiciously like Tim's—warning her that this is exactly what Rosalind wants. Isolation. Secrecy. Making her vulnerable to manipulation. But knowing Rosalind's game doesn't make it any easier to resist playing it.

Lucy glances around before sliding into Angela's chair. The detective's desk is meticulously organized, case files stacked in precise piles, each labeled with Angela's neat handwriting. Her fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment before she pulls them back. The computer is locked anyway, and even if it weren't, Elaine hasn't really given them any new information to work with. It's not like she's going to find any new leads there.

Instead, she pulls out the key and places it on the desk, studying it under the fluorescent lights. It's old fashioned though still a kind that could open thousands of doors across the city, and the small tag attached by a thin metal ring shows the number 219 in faded black ink.

A hotel room? A storage unit? A locker of some kind?

Lucy begins rifling through Angela's desk drawers, looking for the list of properties associated with Rosalind Dyer that the team compiled yesterday. The top drawer holds only office supplies and a half-eaten protein bar. The second is filled with case files, none relevant to their current investigation.

She's just opening the third drawer when a shadow falls across the desk.

"Redecorating Lopez's space while she's busy?"

She looks up to find Nolan standing there, a cup of coffee in each hand and an eyebrow raised in question. There's no suspicion in his expression though, just mild curiosity.

"I’m looking for the property list from yesterday," she says, deciding that a partial truth is better than an obvious lie. "I want to check something."

Nolan sets one of the coffee cups on the desk in front of her. A peace offering, or perhaps just recognition of the exhaustion that must be written all over her face. "She usually keeps most of her case files in the bottom left drawer, organized chronologically." He pauses, taking a sip from his own cup before adding, "I heard what happened earlier."

Of course he had, she’s sure the whole station probably has by this point.

Lucy groans, her hand instinctively closing around the key on the desk, sliding it out of sight. "Not you too. I already got lectured by Grey about it." The memory of the Sergeant's stern words still rings in her ears. Unprofessional, reckless, grounds for suspension. "I get that I handled it wrong."

"That's not what I was going to say," he replies, his tone surprisingly gentle. He glances around the bullpen before pulling up a chair to sit across from her. "I understand why you did it. I would've done the same thing if it was Bailey."

It's funny, she thinks, how her friend makes the comparison to his own girlfriend like it's the same situation. Tim isn't even her boyfriend. He's her former training officer. Her colleague. Her friend.

Even as she thinks it though, she knows it's not that simple. Hasn't been for a long time. The emotions that drove her to slam Elaine against that wall weren't professional concern for a fellow officer. They were raw, desperate, and deeply personal. The kind that blur the line between friendship and something much more complicated.

"Tim and I aren't..." she starts, then trails off, unsure how to finish that sentence without either lying or revealing more than she's ready to admit. "It's not the same."

Nolan's expression is knowing, almost sympathetic, but he doesn't push. "Maybe not. But the point stands. When someone we care about is in danger, the rulebook sometimes..." he makes a flying motion with his hand, "goes out the window."

She should argue the point. Maintain the professional distance she's spent months carefully constructing. But she's too tired for pretense, too worried about Tim to care what Nolan or anyone else might think about her feelings.

"Grey's talking about taking me off the case," she says instead, her voice lower now. "Says I'm too emotionally invested to be objective."

Nolan grimaces. "Is he wrong?"

Lucy looks down at the desk, at her hand still curled around the hidden key. "No," she admits finally. "He's not wrong. But that doesn't mean I'm not the best person to find Tim."

Because she is emotionally invested. Which means she would turn over every stone in Los Angeles, break every rule in the book, risk her badge and more if it meant bringing him home safe. While others might eventually move on to other cases, other priorities, she would never stop looking.

He seems to read some of this in her expression. "Grey's not going to pull you off completely. He knows that would do more harm than good." He leans forward, lowering his voice. "But you might want to tread carefully for a while. No more throwing suspects against walls, okay?"

There's enough gentle humor in his tone to pull a reluctant half-smile from her. "I'll do my best."

"Good. Now," he gestures to Angela's drawer, "what exactly are you looking for in there? Maybe I can help."

Lucy hesitates, the key a heavy weight in her palm. This is the moment to decide. Either share what she knows and loop him in, or continue alone down whatever path Rosalind has laid out.

Elaine's warning echoes in her mind. She said if I told you anything in front of the others, she'd know. She'd punish him for it.

But Nolan isn't just anyone. He's experienced, level-headed, and—perhaps most importantly—someone who hates Rosalind almost as much as she does.

"If I tell you something," she says carefully, "I need you to promise it stays between us. No reports. No telling Grey or Lopez. Not until I've had a chance to check it out."

Nolan's expression shifts, caution replacing the earlier empathy. "Lucy, that depends on what you're about to tell me. If it's something that could put you in danger—"

"It might be nothing," she interrupts. "But if it is something, I need to handle it carefully. By the book wouldn't be careful enough." She meets his eyes directly, letting him see how serious she is. "I think Rosalind is watching us. Somehow. And Elaine said she'll hurt Tim if we don't play by her rules."

Nolan studies her face for a long moment, weighing her words. The bullpen continues to buzz with activity around them while he considers. Finally, he nods, his decision made. "Okay. What have you got?"

Lucy releases a breath and slowly uncurls her fingers, revealing the brass key in her palm. "Elaine slipped this to me while I was... when things escalated at her house. She said there was something in her pocket 'only for me to see.'"

His eyes narrow as he studies the key, his expression shifting from curiosity to focused concentration. He doesn't reach for it, just leans closer to examine the worn object.

"219," he reads, glancing up at her. "A hotel room?"

"That’s what I was thinking. Or it could be for some sort of house or storage unit. It could be anything, really." She turns the key over, running her thumb along its ridges. "She said if she told me anything in front of the others, Rosalind would know and hurt Tim for it."

Nolan sits back, rubbing a hand across his jaw as he processes this. "So you do believe her? That Rosalind is somehow monitoring us?"

"I don't know," Lucy admits. "But you know as much as I do that it’s something she likes to do."

He nods. "So what's your next move? Because I'm guessing you have one already."

Lucy hesitates, then pulls open the bottom drawer that Nolan had pointed out earlier. She quickly locates the property list from yesterday's briefing and flips to the section about Rosalind's known residences and associated locations.

"This place," she says, turning the file so he can see the entry she's found. "The Two Rivers Motel. One of Rosalind's associates owned it years ago, before it was converted into an apartment building. According to the notes, it used traditional brass keys."

Nolan studies the page, his eyebrows drawing together. "You think this key could be from there? Even after all these years, after the property changed hands and they updated the building?"

"It’s a possibility." She taps the file. "They checked the location a couple years ago and originally cleared it. But what if they missed something? Why else would Elaine want me to go there?"

The theory sounds weak even to her own ears, but it's the only lead she has.

"It's worth checking out," he agrees after a moment. "But Lucy, if we're going to do this, we need to be smart about it. No charging in alone. No rogue operation that could put anyone at more risk."

"We?" she questions, surprise coloring her voice.

"You didn't think I was going to let you go running off on your own after you just showed me this, did you?" There's no accusation in his tone. "Besides, if Rosalind is watching us, maybe she’ll be okay if it’s me who’s getting involved."

He has a point. A good one. Still, she hesitates. "I don't want to drag you into this, Nolan. Rosalind has it out for you too and I don’t want to risk—"

"That’s why it might work," he interrupts, his voice taking on an edge she rarely hears from him. "She has some weird vendetta against me too, so she might see this as a two-for-one deal instead of you breaking the rules."

It's easy to forget sometimes that Nolan has his own complicated history with Rosalind Dyer. And she hates the thought of involving him in this mess, especially since he has Bailey to think about, a life that's finally settled into something resembling normal after years of upheaval. But Lucy's past the point of refusing help.

"Okay," she says finally. “But we need a cover. Something that explains why we’re leaving without telling anyone.”

Nolan's already a step ahead of her. "We're following up on that tip from the woman who reported a 'suspicious character' near Echo Park Lake yesterday. The one that got filed but not followed up on because we've been stretched thin."

Lucy blinks at him. "There was a suspicious person report?"

"There's always a suspicious person report in Echo Park," he says with a hint of a smile, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "And if anyone checks the log, they'll find one from yesterday afternoon that I filed but didn't have time to investigate further. Totally a coincidence that it happens to be two blocks from these apartments."

She stares at him, momentarily taken aback by his foresight. "Sometimes I forget how good a cop you are."

"I’ll try not to be offended by that," he replies with a smile. "We'll need to leave separately. Meet at my car in twenty minutes. I'm parked in the garage today."

"Sounds good." She stands, tucking the property file under her arm. "And Nolan? Thank you."

His eyes soften immediately. "You’re welcome."

—————

The file had described the former motel as "renovated into modern apartments," which turned out to be a generous exaggeration at best and an outright lie at worst. Lucy studies the building through the windshield of Nolan's car, trying to reconcile the property's description with the reality before them.

The three story structure stands wedged between a discount furniture warehouse and a convenience store with bars on its windows, its faded yellow paint peeling in long strips to reveal patches of the original brick underneath. Several windows are covered with plywood rather than glass, and the small patch of landscaping out front has long since surrendered to weeds and discarded fast food wrappers. A rusted fire escape zigzags up the eastern side of the building, certain sections looking too corroded to hold any significant weight.

"Renovated" apparently meant "not actually condemned yet."

The only evidence of attempted modernization is a keypad entry system beside the main door, though even that looks at least fifteen years old, its plastic casing yellowed with age with several numbers worn nearly smooth from use.

"So much for the fancy apartment conversion," she mutters, her finger tracing the building's outline on the property record photo included in the file. The picture must have been taken a decade ago, when someone still cared enough to maintain the facade. "Do you think anyone actually lives here?"

Nolan nods toward a second floor window where faded curtains stir in the breeze. "Some, probably. Rent's cheaper in buildings the city forgot about." His eyes scan the surrounding area. "There’s no security cameras that I can see. No doorman either. Perfect if someone wanted to come and go unnoticed."

The observation sends a chill down her spine. It’s a perfect location for Rosalind. Anonymous, neglected, forgettable. The kind of place where neighbors mind their own business and unusual sounds are ignored rather than investigated.

"Okay," he says after a moment, his hand reaching for the door handle. "Let's do this."

Lucy grabs his arm, the sudden urgency of what they're about to do hitting her full force. "Wait. What if this is a trap?" The question has been circling her mind since they left the station, but saying it aloud makes the possibility feel more real. "For all we know, Rosalind could be waiting up there for us."

Nolan shrugs, his expression calm but resolute. "Then it's a trap." At her distressed look, he softens slightly, turning in his seat to face her more directly. "Look, I didn't want to say anything earlier, but judging from the picture she sent you..." He hesitates, choosing his words carefully. "I'm not sure if Rosalind's going to toy with Tim much longer. So if this even gives us a chance to find him, then I think we should take it regardless of the possibility of this being a trap."

"Plus," he adds, his tone lightening slightly, "I have a backup plan in place that may or may not work if this all goes wrong."

“What does that mean? What backup plan?”

"It's probably best if I keep that to myself."

Lucy narrows her eyes. "Okay," she concedes slowly, her hand moving to her pocket where the key sits heavy against her thigh. "But if we get up there and things go sideways, I'm expecting that brilliant backup plan to materialize pretty quickly."

"Deal." He checks his weapon discreetly, then reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a small flashlight. "Ready?"

Lucy nods, her hand instinctively moving to her own sidearm as they exit the vehicle.

The building's entrance is propped open with a broken cinder block, the electronic keypad apparently more decorative than functional. Lucy eyes the device as they approach.

"So much for needing to buzz in," Nolan mutters, stepping carefully over the threshold.

Inside, the narrow lobby smells of mold and stale cigarettes, its walls decorated with peeling wallpaper in a pattern that might have been fashionable when her parents were her age. A row of dented metal mailboxes lines one wall, most missing their doors or bent beyond repair. A handwritten sign taped above them reads "NO DRUGS NO SOLICITING" in faded marker, the irony of the request not lost on Lucy as she notes the empty baggies tucked into the corner by the baseboards.

"219 would be second floor," Nolan says quietly, his eyes scanning the dim hallway that extends beyond the lobby. "Assuming they kept the original numbering system."

Lucy nods. The elevator has an "Out of Order" sign that looks permanent, the metal doors sealed with what appears to be years of accumulated paint layers so they head for the stairwell instead, pushing through a fire door whose alarm has been disabled.

Their footsteps echo against the concrete steps as they climb, the sound seeming unnaturally loud in the stillness of the building. Neither speaks as they ascend, both too aware of how sound carries in the enclosed space. Lucy leads the way, her free hand trailing along the wall for balance while her other remains close to her weapon.

The second floor hallway is dimly lit by flickering fluorescent tubes that cast everything in a sickly greenish glow. Several apartment doors stand partially open, while others are secured with multiple locks. A sign that makes her think that there might actually be people living here.

Room numbers are nailed to each door, some hanging at odd angles, others missing digits. Lucy counts the numbers as they move forward: 201, 203, 205 on the left; 202, 204, 206 on the right.

"219 should be this way," she murmurs, pointing toward the far end of the corridor where it curves to the right. At the bend in the hallway, Nolan holds up his hand, signaling Lucy to stop. He peers around the corner, then draws back with a slight frown.

“Clear," he whispers. "But there's something weird about this section. It looks like it has a different carpet and newer doors."

Lucy follows as he rounds the corner, immediately noticing what he means. While the main corridor looks abandoned and neglected, this wing at least shows some signs of maintenance. The carpet here is darker, less worn, and the walls have been painted more recently, though the color is still dingy and worn. The doors are newer too, solid wood rather than the hollow core panels of the main hallway. “That’s a little strange.”

"Maybe they renovated this section first and ran out of money?" Nolan suggests, though his tone indicates he doesn't believe it.

They continue to move forward cautiously, and when they finally reach 219, they both pause, studying the door with wary eyes. Unlike the others, this door has no signs of wear.

It looks almost new.

"Someone's taking special care of this one," Nolan whispers, his hand hovering near his weapon.

She nods her agreement, pulling the key from her pocket. Her hand trembles slightly as she slides it into the lock. It fits perfectly, turning with a heavy click that seems to echo in the silent hallway. Lucy holds her breath, straining to hear any movement from inside, but there's nothing, just the distant sound of a television from somewhere down the hall and the faint hum of the building's ancient plumbing.

"LAPD," she calls out, pushing the door open while staying to the side just as Tim had taught her years ago. The memory flashes through her mind. His voice steady as he demonstrated proper entry technique during her rookie year, his hand on her shoulder positioning her correctly, his approving nod when she got it right.

She has to shake the thought away.

No response comes from within the room. Lucy exchanges a quick glance with Nolan, who stands ready on the opposite side of the doorframe, his weapon drawn and his expression mirroring hers.

He nods once and Lucy moves forward, her own gun leading the way as she sweeps into the room in a smooth, practiced motion.

The space beyond is nothing like what she expected.

Where the rest of the building speaks of neglect and decay, Room 219 has been meticulously maintained. The walls are freshly painted a soft cream color. A small kitchenette occupies one corner, its countertops spotless and empty save for an electric kettle while a neatly made bed with crisp white linens sits against the far wall beneath a window with new blinds while a desk and chair, both simple but well-crafted, are pushed against the wall on the other side of the room.

It's not just clean, it's pristine. Staged. And it's completely void of people.

"Clear," she calls over her shoulder, lowering her weapon slightly as she moves further into the room. "No one's here."

Nolan follows her in, closing the door behind them with a soft click. "This doesn't make sense," he says, his voice low as he scans the impeccable space.

He’s not wrong, the dissonance between the dilapidated hallway and this spotless room setting off every alarm bell in her head. "Check for anything that might tell us who uses this place," she says, holstering her weapon after a final sweep of the corners. "Bills, mail, personal items. There has to be something here."

They move methodically through the small apartment, opening drawers, checking cabinets, searching for any clue that might explain why Elaine gave her this key in the first place. There’s not much though. The kitchen yields nothing but a few basic utensils and a box of tea bags. The desk drawers are empty except for a notepad and pen, both unused. The closet contains nothing but empty hangers and a vacuum tucked into the corner.

"Lucy." Nolan's voice brings her attention to the small bedside table, where he stands holding a framed photograph. "You need to see this."

She crosses the room in three quick strides, her heart hammering against her ribs. Nolan hands her the frame, his expression unreadable as she takes it in trembling hands.

It's not Tim.

It’s her. Smiling at the camera, completely oblivious to the fact that she was being photographed. The image shows her leaving her apartment building, coffee in hand, dressed for work in the sweater she'd worn last Wednesday. The morning of the day Tim came to her place after work to ‘practice’.

Lucy stares at the photograph, a chill spreading through her body despite the warmth of the room. The angle suggests it was taken from a vehicle parked across the street, the slight zoom giving it the unmistakable quality of a camera rather than a picture taken on someone’s phone.

"There's more," Nolan adds grimly, opening the drawer of the bedside table to reveal a stack of similar frames.

She sets down the first photo and picks up another from the drawer. This one shows her alone at the grocery store near her apartment, examining produce with a distracted expression. Then one of her jogging in the park. Another of her leaving her favorite coffee shop, checking her phone as she pushes through the door.

Mundane moments. Forgettable moments. Moments when she'd felt completely alone, never suspecting she was being observed, documented, studied.

As she sifts through the stack, the photos begin to change. Tim appears in them.

In one, they’re standing in the station parking lot, leaning against his truck after shift. The camera caught them in the golden hour, sunset painting everything warm and soft. Tim is mid sentence, gesturing with one hand while the other rests casually on the hood of his truck. She’s not looking at whatever he's pointing to. She's looking at him, her head tilted slightly, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

Another shows them at a food truck, the one with the Korean fusion tacos they both love. Tim is offering her a bite from his plate, his hand cupped beneath to catch any falling pieces. Her eyes are crinkled with laughter while her hand is on his wrist to steady it as she leans forward.

The most recent seems to be from just a few weeks ago. Lucy recognizes the shirt she's wearing, a new one she'd bought on a whim during a shopping trip with Tamara. She and Tim are at their usual coffee shop, sitting across from each other at the small table by the window. The morning light catches in her hair as she leans forward, chin propped on her hand, listening intently to whatever Tim is saying. His coffee sits forgotten by his elbow, his attention fully on her, one corner of his mouth quirked up in that half-smile he seems to reserve just for her.

In any other situation, she would have loved these pictures. Would have wanted copies for herself. The lighting, the composition, the genuine emotion captured in each frame.

They're beautiful, in a way.

But knowing who took them, and why, twists that beauty into something sickening.

She can't stop staring at her own face in the images. In every single photo, her expression is the same: soft, open, illuminated with an affection so obvious it makes her breath catch. Her eyes follow Tim even when they're in the middle of a conversation with other people. Her body angles toward him instinctively. And her emotions are all over her face, written there for anyone to see.

She thought she’d been doing a good job hiding the feelings she's been trying so hard to shove down. The inappropriate attachment to her former training officer. The longing that goes far beyond professional respect or friendly affection. The way her heart still races when he walks into a room, even after all these years.

But if this is how she's always looking at him, she has no idea how anyone hasn't noticed.

Well.

That's not completely true. If anything, these past couple days have only proven that their friends have noticed. Angela's knowing smirk when she implied they spent the weekend together. Harper's pointed comment about leaving her personal life at the curb. Nolan comparing her relationship with Tim to his with Bailey. Even Aaron's careful way of navigating conversations about Tim, as if he’s afraid of saying too much.

Everyone seems to have seen it but her. So really, it’s not that surprising that Rosalind had too.

"She's had someone watching us," she whispers, her fingers tightening around the stack of pictures until her knuckles turn white. "For months. And I didn’t even notice."

This is all her fault.

"This isn't on you," Nolan says firmly, as if reading her thoughts. “There’s no way you could have known.”

Lucy barely hears him, her attention caught by something in one of the photos still in her hand. A detail she missed the first time she looked at it. It's the coffee shop picture, the most recent one. The window behind them reflects parts of the street outside, including a barely visible figure with brown hair, standing with a camera pointed in their direction.

"You can almost see who’s taking the picture," she says, holding up the photo and pointing to the reflection. "Look."

Nolan squints at the image. "Elaine?"

"I think so." She stares at the blurry reflection, trying to make out more details, but the image is too small, the figure too indistinct to be certain. Still, the height and build match what she remembers of the woman. "Rosalind must have her working as some kind of... I don't know, proxy? Stalker?"

"It makes sense. Rosalind can't exactly wander around taking photos herself while she's in prison. The question is, why give you the key to this place? What was she trying to accomplish by sending you here?"

Lucy sets the photos down on the bed, unable to look at them any longer. The weight of being watched for so long makes her skin crawl. "She probably wanted me to know how much information Rosalind has. How close she's been this whole time." Her voice hardens, anger beginning to overshadow the initial shock. "She's showing off."

“She might be," he agrees, "but there has to be more to it than that. Rosalind doesn't do anything without multiple layers of meaning. There's something we're missing."

He walks a slow circle around the room, examining every surface, checking behind the few pieces of furniture. When he reaches the bed, he kneels down, lifting the flowy white bed skirt to peer underneath.

"Ah, and here it is."

He reaches beneath the bed, his expression shifting as his hand closes around something out of Lucy's sight. He withdraws a small box, about the size of a hardcover book. It's made of polished dark wood with silver hinges, no lock visible on its front.

"Careful," she warns, though she's already moving closer, drawn by the possibility of finding another lead.

Nolan sets the box on the bed between them and they both lean in to examine it without actually touching it. The wood gleams under the overhead light.

"It doesn’t look like an obvious booby traps," he observes, studying the hinges and seams. "But with Rosalind, you never know."

It could be a trap. It may be an innocuous looking container, but Lucy knows all too well how easy it is to change that. The flour bomb she gave Tim after her last shift as his rookie comes to mind. "What do you think we should do?"

Nolan turns it carefully in his hands, examining each side. "There's a high chance we'll regret opening this," he says with grim humor, "but at the same time, I can't imagine there's actually a bomb or something in here. What's the point of taking Tim and then rubbing it in your face if she's just going to blow you up in an old apartment building days later?"

That's...a fair point.

"I guess that makes sense," she concedes slowly.

“It’s your call.”

“We’re already here, we might as well get it over with.” With one more steadying breath, Lucy reaches for the box and takes it out of his hand. The wood feels cool against her fingertips as she carefully lifts the lid.

The box opens smoothly and on top lies a photograph, face up, positioned directly in the center of what appears to be a folded white cloth. The image shows a hand, a man's hand, with a knife pressed against the skin of the index finger, just below the first knuckle. A thin line of blood has already formed where the blade bites into flesh.

"That's Tim's hand," she says without hesitation, knowing the shape of those fingers. She's watched those hands demonstrate weapons handling, adjust her stance at the shooting range, wrap around a coffee mug on countless early mornings.

She'd know them anywhere.

Nolan glances at her but doesn't comment on the certainty of her identification. Instead, he carefully lifts the photo so they can look at the white cloth beneath it, folded into a neat square. She reaches for the fabric first, her heart racing as she begins to unfold it. The material is heavier than it looks, high-quality and thick enough to be slightly stiff between her fingers. As she opens the final fold, revealing what's nestled inside, her body reacts before her mind can fully process what she's seeing.

She throws the cloth back onto the bed, jerking away so violently she nearly collides with Nolan. "Jesus Christ," she gasps, the words strangled in her throat.

Because wrapped in the white fabric is a human finger, severed just below the first knuckle. The cut is clean, surgical, and the tissue at the base looks like it’s been cauterized to prevent excessive bleeding.

"Oh God," she chokes out, her vision blurring as tears spring to her eyes. "That's—that's his—" She can't finish the sentence, can't bring herself to name the horror lying innocently on the bed. The room tilts violently around her. Lucy stumbles backward, barely making it to the tiny kitchen sink before her stomach rebels. She retches painfully, gripping the counter's edge as her body convulses. There's little in her stomach to expel—she hasn't eaten since yesterday—but that doesn't stop the waves of nausea from wracking her frame.

"Lucy," Nolan's voice reaches her through the roaring in her ears. His hand is on her back, steady and grounding. "Breathe. Just breathe."

She can't. All she can see is Tim's severed finger. Tim being tortured. Tim bleeding. Tim alone with Rosalind, enduring God knows what else. Another heave shakes her body, bringing up nothing but bile that burns her throat.

When the spasm finally passes, she turns on the faucet with trembling hands, splashing cold water on her face. The shock of it helps clear her head, if only slightly, and she cups her palms, rinsing her mouth, trying to wash away the acid taste in her mouth.

"She cut off his finger. She actually—" She can't finish the sentence, her throat closing around the words.

"I'm calling this in," Nolan says, already pulling out his phone. "This is evidence. We need CSU here immediately, and the lab needs to process—"

"No!" She whirls around, grabbing his wrist before he can dial. Water drips from her chin onto his sleeve. "She said if we tell anyone, she'll hurt him."

She hates the pity that fills his expression. Hates how her own voice sounds—desperate, afraid, everything she's trained not to be as a police officer.

"Lucy," he says gently, not pulling away but not lowering the phone either. "You're assuming that based on what a random woman told you and on Rosalind's past behavior, but we don't know what her game is this time."

He's right, and she knows it. But that doesn't stop the visceral terror coursing through her veins, doesn't quiet the voice screaming inside her head that any wrong move could cost Tim more than just a finger.

"Besides," he continues, "this is evidence now. We have to have the lab process this. DNA confirmation, fingerprints on the box, trace evidence. There could be something here that helps us find him."

Lucy's eyes burn with fresh tears as she swipes at her face with the back of her hand. She feels numb, hollowed out. "Can we at least take it to the station ourselves?" she asks finally. "Not call it in from here? I don't want to risk drawing any more attention. If she's watching us..."

The unfinished thought hangs between them. If Rosalind is watching, if she sees a parade of police vehicles and crime scene techs descending on this building, what might she do to Tim in retaliation?

Nolan studies her face for a long moment before nodding. "Okay. We can bag everything securely and take it straight to the station ourselves." He glances around the room, his expression shifting to something more professional, more detached. "We should still document the scene though, as best we can with what we have before we leave."

Lucy nods her agreement, grateful for his willingness to compromise even though they both know she is not thinking rationally right now. She can’t bring herself to care though.

Jackson once told her that Tim broke a whole list of rules when Caleb took her. Ignored direct orders, commandeered resources, went rogue in ways that could have cost him his badge if things had turned out differently. At the time, she'd been touched but also a little surprised. Tim Bradford was the department's most by-the-book officer, the one who lived and breathed protocol.

Now she understands why he did it.

And she's all too willing to do the same for him.

Chapter Text

When Tim wakes up, all he sees is nothing. And he means that literally.

Consciousness returns to him before his vision does. It’s a disorienting state where his mind is alert but his eyes register nothing but perfect darkness. So he blinks once, twice, then holds his eyes open for a couple seconds but nothing changes. The blackness remains absolute.

If it weren't for his now free hands—or hand, really, since the one attached to his broken arm is all but useless—Tim would worry he's gone blind. Marcus had certainly hit him enough times for that to be a possibility. But as his functioning hand moves through the darkness, he quickly realizes he's not in the concrete room anymore. 

From what little he can tell, where he's at now is far worse.

He's in a container of sorts. The smooth surface is cold against his skin, and more terrifying than the darkness is the size. Or lack there of it. Because it’s small. Really, really small. His shoulders are pressing slightly into the walls on either side of him and if he were to guess, he’d say there's only four, maybe five inches of space between the ceiling and his body. He can't sit up, can't roll over, can barely breathe without getting the feeling that the walls are closing in around him.

Tim flexes his functioning hand in the darkness, fingers exploring the cold metal surface surrounding him. He's never considered himself to be claustrophobic before, but the pressure of the walls against his shoulders is starting to send an unnatural surge of panic through his nervous system and his mind is screaming at him to escape.

Unfortunately for him, fight or flight isn't really an option when you can't do either.

At that thought, the panic rises, acting like a tide of adrenaline that washes through him until his heartbeat accelerates, each pulse thudding in his ears so loud he can actually hear it. He tries to regulate his breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—but the air feels thin, insufficient. 

Is he using it up? Is that even possible?

"Hello?" His voice sounds strange, muffled and small in the confined space. There's no response so he tries again, louder this time, ignoring the pain that flares in his bruised ribs. "Is anyone there?"

Silence.

Tim forces himself to think logically through the fear that now threatens to overwhelm him. If he's in a metal container, then there has to be seams, hinges, something that indicates a way out of here. His fingers resume their exploration, methodically searching every inch of the small space that he can reach. The pain in his broken arm flares to life as he shifts his position slightly, though he pushes through it. If he lets himself give into the ache in his arm (who is he kidding, his entire body) or the panic clawing at his mind, he might never get out of here.

Minutes pass as he traces the walls, the ceiling, searching for any imperfection in the metal. He eventually finds what feels like a seam running along the wall by his head, possibly a door or a hatch, but there's no handle on the inside for him to grab. It's apparently designed to be opened from the outside only.

Back to panicking then.

The air seems to grow warmer with each shaky breath that forces its way out his lungs, and his rational mind knows he's not actually running out of oxygen, there has to be some sort of ventilation in here or he'd have suffocated while he was unconscious, but the primitive part of his brain isn't entirely convinced by that. Which is why he’s suddenly gasping for air. It’s an involuntary response to the situation he’s in, and he would be embarrassed if anyone found out about how quickly his control is slipping.

What he should, no, what he needs to be doing is conserving as much oxygen and energy as he can. Because having a panic attack right now is only going to make things worse. So he closes his eyes. It’s a meaningless gesture in the absolute darkness, but the familiarity of the action is somehow calming nonetheless and eventually he’s able to get his breathing back under control.

I’ve survived worse is what he ends up telling himself over and over again. This is just another test of endurance. He can handle this. He can do this.

But as the minutes stretch into what feels like hours, as the darkness and silence continue to press in on him from every direction, Tim can't help but wonder if this is a battle he won't end up winning.

—————

He’s never really been afraid of the dark. Growing up, his father never gave him the option to be given how often he used to lock a younger Tim in the hall closet until he "got over it." A form of exposure therapy, the elder Bradford had called it, though there was nothing therapeutic about it. "The world's full of dark places, boy," he'd say. "Better learn to face them now than when it counts. Strong men don't fear what they can't see."

Hours would pass in that closet, sometimes an entire night, until his younger self had eventually learned to control his breathing, to master the panic, to find calm in the emptiness. By the time he was twelve, darkness had become just another state of being, neither comforting nor frightening. He'd almost found it peaceful then.

But this darkness is different. This darkness feels like death.

Tim tries to estimate how long he's been in here, but with no frame of reference, time seems to stretch and contract unpredictably. Minutes bleed into hours, hours into what feels like days, on and on until he can’t even say with confidence whether he’s been trapped for three hours or three days. The lack of food and water is starting to become more and more obvious, his throat is raw from shouting for help, and his bladder is so full that it’s almost to the point of hurting. On the bright side though, the pain in his broken arm has at least settled into a persistent throb that he can almost ignore as long as he doesn't move.

A small mercy, but he’ll take it.

His mind shifts to his training then, on the lessons on survival that’s been engraved in him since he was younger. Control what you can, accept what you can't.

What can he control? 

His breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The movement of his working hand, fingers flexing and extending to maintain circulation. His thoughts, though they're becoming more and more difficult to get a hand on. His will to survive.

What can't he control? 

The darkness. The confined space.  The fate of Marcus, wherever he is now. Whether his friends have any idea where to look for him. Whether Rosalind will return before dehydration claims him.

Ironically, the mental exercise that's supposed to be calming him down does the exact opposite. Mainly because it seems like the list of things beyond his control keeps growing longer, more overwhelming, until each thing becomes another weight pressing down on his chest, constricting his lungs until he can’t breathe . The panic he's been fighting rises again, stronger this time, a tide of terror that threatens to drown him.

“This isn’t real," he gasps into the blackness. "It’s not real."

But it is real. The dark. The thirst. The isolation. It’s all real. 

And no one is coming.

————

Tim had accepted his death long before the light returns. Somewhere between the endless hours of darkness and the increasing threat of dehydration, he'd made peace with it. Not with resignation, but with the quiet certainty of someone who's always known the job might end this way. He'd stopped fighting against the metal walls of his prison, stopped keeping track of time by counting heartbeats, stopped imagining rescue scenarios that grew increasingly implausible as hours stretched into what must have been days. In that final stretch of darkness, he'd focused instead on faces. His sister’s teasing smile, Lopez rolling her eyes at one of his jokes, Lucy's determined expression during her first day on patrol. If these were to be his last thoughts, he could think of worse ways to go.

There's no warning when it happens. No gradual build up. One moment he's suspended in the perfect blackness of his grave, and the next, light explodes around him, so bright and sudden he actually jumps. The assault on his light starved retinas is excruciating, sending white hot pain lancing through his skull, and his body, acting on instinct rather than conscious thought, flinches away from the source.

For one pathetic moment though, a moment he'll later despise himself for, Tim actually allows himself to hope.

They found him. He’s safe. It’s finally over.

That delusion lasts all of ten seconds. As his vision slowly adjusts, shapes emerging from the blinding light, the first thing his brain can process is the sight of red hair. And just like that, all that foolish hope turns to ash in his mouth. This isn’t his rescue. It’s just Rosalind, returning to continue whatever twisted game she's still playing. The brief spark of hope dying hurts worse than anything she's done to him so far. It's in this moment Tim truly understands the cruelty of hope when there is none to be had.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sergeant Bradford." Rosalind's voice cuts through the remnants of his disorientation. "Though I must say, you don't look particularly lively. I guess two days in a cooler will do that to you."

Tim blinks against the harsh light, his eyes watering as they struggle to adjust to the new environment. His throat is too dry to muster a response, or maybe it’s because the thirst has moved far beyond discomfort and quickly into a kind of delirium, making it difficult to focus on anything beyond the desperate need for water.

Rosalind seems to read his thoughts. She holds up a bottle of water, condensation beading on the sides and sliding lower. "I imagine you're quite thirsty by now."

He refuses to beg for the one thing he wants more than anything right now, even as his body screams at him to give in. So he fixes her with a glare that takes more strength than he actually has.

"Stubborn to the end," she says with something like admiration. "I expected nothing less."

She unscrews the cap and brings the bottle to his lips. He briefly wonders if it’s drugged with something but logic quickly wins over his suspicion. He parts his cracked lips and allows her to tip the bottle. The first splash of water is painfully cold against his parched throat, making him choke and sputter, but he recovers quickly, drinking greedily until she pulls it away.

"Slowly," she admonishes. "We don’t want you to get sick, do we?"

With the fog of dehydration lifting slightly, Tim ignores the woman and lets his eyes slide around the room, his police training kicking in despite his weakened state.

The room is larger than he initially realized, with a high ceiling where fluorescent lights flicker erratically, casting unsteady shadows across the space. The walls are covered with white ceramic tiles, many cracked, others missing entirely, revealing patches of drywall beneath while the floor appears to be concrete, stained with dark patches Tim doesn't want to identify, sloping subtly toward what looks like a drain in the center of the room.

On the other side of the room, metal cabinets line the wall, their doors hanging partially open to reveal empty shelves or scattered supplies he can’t make out from his position on the ground. What he can make out is the large table that dominates the center of the room, stainless steel with channels around the edges that leads to the ominous drain on the floor.

If he wasn’t already suspicious of where she’s taken him, the wall directly behind where Tim lays on the ground would have all but confirmed it. It's composed entirely of large metal drawers, stacked three rows high and stretching in both directions. One of the doors closest to him hangs open, and he realizes with a sickening lurch that it's the container he was just pulled from.

A body cooler in a morgue. He'd been stored like a corpse.

The realization comes not as a comfort, but as a quiet, creeping horror. They're in an abandoned morgue, probably on the floor of some forgotten building where no one would hear him scream. 

Isolated. Equipped. Designed for dealing with bodies. The perfect place for Rosalind to conduct her "work."

A gust of cool air from a vent somewhere nearby sends a chill across Tim's sweat slicked skin. The contrast between the decaying facility and the obviously new additions to the room tells him that she's prepared this place specifically for this. 

The thought settles in his stomach like ice.

"Why?" The single word scrapes past his raw throat.

Rosalind tilts her head, studying him as if he's asked a particularly uninteresting question. "Why what? Why not kill you? Why bring you back out? You'll need to be more specific, Tim."

"Why... any of this?"

"Ah." She smiles, setting the water bottle just out of his reach. "That's the question, isn't it? But I think you already know the answer." She leans closer, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. “It's time to finally get this show on the road." She turns slightly, her attention shifting to somewhere over her shoulder. "Marcus?"

There’s the unmistakable sound of reluctant footsteps, shuffling slowly across concrete, before a figure emerges to his left that Tim barely recognizes. Marcus's face is a canvas of abuse. One eye swollen completely shut, lips split in multiple places, cheekbone clearly fractured beneath skin that's turned a sickening purple-black.

But it's his hand that draws Tim's horrified gaze. Marcus's left hand is wrapped in a blood soaked cloth that does little to contain the steady drip of crimson falling to the floor below. Through the saturated fabric, he can see the unmistakable gap where his ring finger should be, a raw, jagged absence that sends bile rising in his throat.

"Jesus Christ," Tim whispers, his own pain momentarily forgotten. The wound looks fresh and he can see how the man is swaying on his feet, clearly in shock, his remaining fingers trembling violently.

Rosalind watches Tim's reaction with clinical interest. "He wasn't being cooperative," she explains, as if it’s totally reasonable to cut off someone's finger for being uncooperative. "I needed to make a point and he needed to understand that his actions have consequences."

Marcus flinches at that but says nothing. His good eye, the one that isn't swollen shut, stares fixedly at the floor near Tim's feet.

The look of a man who has surrendered completely.

Shit.

Chapter Text

Chris is waiting for her when she leaves Grey's office for the second time in the same day. The sight of him has her steps faltering momentarily before she squares her shoulders and continues forward, even though she is not in the mood to be dealing with him right now.

Not after what just happened.

She doesn't think she's ever seen her superior officer this mad at her before. The veins in Grey's forehead had been practically throbbing as he paced behind his desk, cataloging her transgressions with a volume loud enough that anyone walking past could hear. She hadn't just received a lecture on going off on her own. No, Grey had made sure to point out every single regulation she had broken: Unauthorized absence during active duty. Failure to follow chain of command. Pursuing an investigation without proper clearance. Tampering with a potential crime scene. Removing evidence without documentation. Interfering with an active kidnapping case. Insubordination. Reckless endangerment of herself and a fellow officer.

And right when she thought he was finally done, he had gone one step further and slapped her with a week's suspension without pay starting the moment Tim is found. Her badge and gun are to remain in her possession only because they're still actively searching for a missing officer.

She's lucky to have gotten at least that much. Not that Grey had much of a choice after Lucy had threatened to go rogue if he tried to take her off the case now. That alone should have gotten her fired. Instead, Grey had pinched the bridge of his nose and dismissed her with the conclusion that from this point on, she was to be supervised by either Lopez or Harper at all times.

She had accepted the terms, given she had no other choice but to comply.

Which is probably why her irritation skyrockets when she finally pushes out of Grey's office and finds her boyfriend leaning against a nearby desk with his arms crossed and a disapproving look on his face. As if she needs another lecture right now.

"I heard what happened," he says as she approaches, his voice lowered to avoid carrying across the bullpen. The caution is unnecessary—every officer in the vicinity is already making a point of looking busy while simultaneously eavesdropping. News travels fast in a police station, especially news involving severed body parts and officers going rogue.

"I'm sure you did," she replies, not slowing her pace. She doesn’t have time for this. Angela is waiting for her in the conference room to go over what they found at the apartment, and every second spent justifying herself to Chris is a second wasted.

He falls into step beside her, persistent in that calm, reasonable way that usually she finds endearing but today just grates against her already raw nerves. "Lucy, we need to talk about this. You can't just—"

"Actually, I can't talk right now," she cuts him off, gesturing toward the conference room where she can see Harper, Angela, and Aaron already reviewing photographs spread across the table. She’s not sure what happened with Nolan. "I'm needed in there. For the case that you're not a part of."

The words come out sharper than she intended, edged with a frustration that isn't really directed at him. Chris isn't the one she's angry with. He's just the convenient target standing in front of her when everything inside her is coiled too tight, ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

At least that’s what she’s going to tell herself.

He reaches for her arm, not restraining but a gentle touch meant to slow her down. "I know you're worried about Tim. But taking unnecessary risks isn't going to help find him any faster."

Lucy stops walking then, turning to face him fully for the first time. Something about the careful way he says Tim's name sets off warning bells in her head. It's not just concern she hears in his voice, it's something else. Something that sounds suspiciously like jealousy wrapped in forced concern.

"What exactly did you hear?" she asks, studying his face.

Chris holds her gaze. "That you and Nolan went off-book to follow a lead from one of Rosalind's accomplices. That you found—" he hesitates, glancing around before continuing in an even lower voice, "a body part that might be Bradford's. And that you're now threatening to throw away your career if Grey doesn't let you stay on the case."

It's an accurate summary, but it leaves out all the context that matters.

"I did what needed to be done," she says simply, not confirming or denying his assessment.

"And what about what needs to be done for you?" he presses, his concern apparently genuine despite the undercurrent she detected earlier. "When's the last time you slept? Or ate something that was actual food? You look like you're about to collapse, Lucy."

It’s not wrong for him to be concerned. Her body feels like it's running on fumes at this point. The brief stretch of rest on the conference room floor earlier with Tamara beside her is the only sleep she's had in nearly two days, and her stomach has been too knotted with anxiety to tolerate more than coffee and the occasional granola bar. That doesn’t even consider the fact that she’s thrown up twice in the matter of a day.

"I'll sleep when we find him.”

"And if that's not for days? Weeks?" Something shifts in his expression then, a hardening around the edges of his eyes, his mouth tightening into a thin line. "For all we know, he's already dead and we're never going to find him. Then you'll have ruined your career for nothing."

It would have been better if he'd slapped her.

The physical pain would have been preferable to the cruelty of suggesting Tim might already be... dead. It reveals a side of him she can't un-see. A fundamental selfishness along side a lack of understanding of who she is and what matters to her.

"What did you just say?" She asks, her voice dangerously quiet, giving him a chance to retract the statement, to apologize, to recognize the line he's just crossed.

But Chris doesn't seem to register the shift in her demeanor. If anything, having finally given voice to what he's really thinking, he seems determined to continue. "I'm being realistic," he says with that same reasonable tone that suddenly feels more like nails on a chalkboard. "We both know the statistics on kidnapping victims after the first 72 hours. Bradford's been gone for days, and now we find out Rosalind's been..." he hesitates, lowering his voice, "dismembering him. The chances of finding him alive—"

"Stop." The word cuts through the air between them, loud enough that two officers walking past actually pause before continuing on their way. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."

"Lucy, I'm just trying to—"

"No. You don't get to stand there and tell me that Tim is already dead. You don't get to suggest I'm throwing away my career for nothing. And you sure as hell don't get to speak about him like he's already gone when I am doing everything possible to bring him home."

The anger feels like a living thing inside her chest, hot and writhing, burning away the exhaustion that's been dragging at her limbs. It's clarifying, in a way.

“I'm just worried about you," He tries again, but there's a defensiveness in his tone now, a recognition that he's miscalculated. "About what this is doing to you."

"No you’re not." Lucy shakes her head, the certainty of it settling into her bones. "You're worried about us. About how this affects you. About how my devotion to finding Tim reflects on our relationship."

And wow, ok. That just came out of her mouth.

Chris's expression shifts, anger tightening his eyes. "Can you blame me? I've spent the last three days watching you tear yourself apart over him. Not eating, not sleeping, risking your job... all for another man."

And there it is. The real issue, laid bare between them.

"He's not just 'another man,'" she throws his words back at him. "He's my friend. My colleague. And even if he weren't any of those things, even if he were a total stranger, he would still deserve every effort to find him. Because that's what we do."

Chris looks away, his jaw working as he processes her words. When he turns back, there's a resignation in his eyes that tells her this conversation is far from over. "Is that really all he is to you? A friend?"

Lucy knows exactly where this is heading, and really, should deny the hidden accusation immediately. Should reaffirm that yes, of course Tim is just a friend, someone she respects and cares about professionally. It would be the kind and merciful thing to do. For Chris, if not for herself.

But she's too tired for pretense given everything that’s happened in the past couple hours. And standing here, with the fear still burning a hole in her lungs, she can't bring herself to lie about the one thing that's become crystal clear amidst all the chaos.

"No," she admits, the single syllable carrying the weight of a much longer confession. He's something she's never been able to define. Not while he was her TO, not while she was finding her footing as an officer, and certainly not since she started dating someone else. The honesty feels like relief, and even as she watches hurt bloom across Chris's face, even as she recognizes this is likely the end of whatever they've been building together, she can't bring herself to regret the truth.

She watches as his expression slides through several emotions before settling into something harder. "I think I've known that for a while, I just kept hoping I was wrong," he finally says, bitterness edging into his tone. "How convenient of you to realize this now."

"There's nothing convenient about any of this," she counters, keeping her voice low despite the anger flaring again. “You think I wanted this?”

The hurt in his eyes makes her chest ache, but it's a distant pain compared to the constant, gnawing terror that's been her companion as of late. It's not fair to Chris, none of this is, but life stopped being fair the moment Tim disappeared.

"I care about you," she continues because he deserves at least that much honesty. "I do. But you’re not the one I—" She cuts that sentence off almost as soon as it starts. What she was about to confess is the last thing Chris needs to hear right now. So she tries again. “You deserve more than what I can give you.”

Chris laughs, the sound hollow and pained. “Are you seriously breaking up with me right now?”

Yes. That’s exactly what she’s doing.

"I'm sorry," is what she says instead, and she means it. Despite everything, she never wanted to hurt him. “It just doesn’t make sense for us to stay together anymore.”

For a moment, she lets herself foolishly believe Chris might actually accept it, the end of something that was good but never quite right, with the same reasonable calm he approaches everything else.

She's wrong.

"You know what?" His voice rises sharply, drawing unwanted attention from the entire bullpen. "That's complete bullshit. You don't get to string me along for months and then decide it's over the second Bradford does something stupid enough to get himself kidnapped." His face flushes with rage, hands gesturing wildly as he continues. "You're in love with a man who's never even looked at you that way. And now you think, what? That if you find him, he'll suddenly realize you're the one?" He lets out a harsh laugh. "That's pathetic, Lucy. I can't believe you're really that st—"

"Okay, that's enough." Angela materializes beside Lucy, arms crossed and expression severe. The detective must have heard the commotion from the conference room. "I believe Lucy's made her position clear, so I think it's time for you to go now."

Chris's jaw works, defiance flashing across his features. "This is between me and—"

"I wasn't making a suggestion." There's steel in her voice now. "You're causing a scene, and we really don't have time for this. So you can either leave willingly or I’ll get someone to escort you out."

He narrows his eyes at the detective for a second longer before his attention slides back to her. "This is your last chance, Lucy. Is this really what you want to do?”

Her silence is answer enough.

Tears do burn at the corners of her eyes though when Chris offers her a final "Fine. Good luck with all of that," before he's stomping away, pushing past the small crowd that’s gathered to watch the show.

Let them talk. Let them judge. She doesn’t care anymore.

"You okay?" Angela asks quietly as soon as she pulls her through the conference room door, her expression softening slightly now that they're away from prying eyes.

"No," Lucy answers honestly.

"Well I think you did the right thing," the detective says, her hand still on her arm. "Even if the timing was..." she trails off, grimacing slightly.

"Terrible?" Lucy supplies. The breakup with Chris had been inevitable, but the timing really couldn't have been worse.

"I was going to say catastrophic, but terrible works too."

Angela's attempt at humor falls flat, but Lucy appreciates the effort. She forces a smile anyway, not trusting herself to speak about Chris anymore. She needs to compartmentalize, to push everything that just happened into a box she can deal with later. Right now, there's only one priority.

"What did I miss?" she asks, gesturing to the evidence spread across the conference table where Harper and Aaron are waiting. Their expressions suggest they heard at least some of what just happened outside, but thankfully, neither comments on it.

Angela moves toward the table, the focus shifting back to the matter at hand. "We actually have something to go off of now and there’s a chance we know where Rosalind is. There was a note tucked beneath the cloth with Tim's..."

She doesn’t finish the sentence but Lucy’s mind fills the space for her.

Tim’s finger.

"Anyways," Angela continues. "The lab found it when they were processing everything. It was folded really small, hidden in one of the creases of the fabric. Easy to miss if you weren't looking for it."

Lucy steps closer to the table where a small piece of paper lies in an evidence bag at the center. Even through the plastic, she can make out the same flowing script that's become numbingly familiar over the past few days.

"What does it say?" she asks, not sure if she wants to know the answer but knowing she has no choice.

Angela gestures for her to take a closer look. "See for yourself."

So she does. She leans over the table to examine the note in its evidence bag. All she sees is an address though.

1224 Regional Ave

There's nothing else. No instructions, no threats, no deadlines. Just a location.

"That has to be another trap, right?" She frowns, looking up at the others.

It's Harper who speaks up this time, her expression thoughtful rather than dismissive. "We're not exactly sure. I pulled the property records as soon as Lopez got the note." She slides a folder across the table toward Lucy. "It's an abandoned medical clinic that closed down three years ago. The kind of place you’d take someone if you were trying to lay low while also needing a place where you can be, uh… loud."

The implication hangs in the air, unspoken but understood by everyone present. The kind of place where someone could remove a finger and beat a person to death without being heard.

"I think it's safe to assume that Rosalind either wants to get you alone to finish whatever evil plan she's focusing on now," Harper continues bluntly, "or she's simply made her point and is done."

Lucy doesn't even want to consider what being 'done' might entail. Done with Tim could mean so many things, not all of them necessarily good. "So what are we going to do?" she asks, forcing the words past the constriction in her throat.

Harper exchanges a glance with Angela, some silent communication passing between them before she turns back to her. "We're going to go check it out."

She perks up at that. "Wait, really?"

"Not the way you’re thinking," Angela clarifies quickly, probably recognizing the hope flaring in her eyes. "We're not going to charge in blind based on a note Rosalind wanted us to find. SWAT is already setting up surveillance on the building right now. If there's any sign of activity inside the building before we get there..."

“Grey's authorized a tactical entry," Harper finishes. "We're doing this by the book. So no more running off on your own, Chen. Not if you want to be part of the team that goes to check this out."

The constraint chafes at her, but she’s already aware that she doesn’t really have any other choice but to accept it. "I understand. So what do you need me to do?"

"For now?" Harper says, her tone softening slightly. "Gear up. The tactical briefing starts in twenty minutes. We'll head out immediately after that."

It's more than she hoped for just minutes ago. They finally have actual forward movement, a concrete plan, and the possibility that, however slim, Tim might be at the end of this particular thread.

"There's something else you should know," Aaron says, speaking up for the first time since Lucy joined them. "Lopez identified the fabric the... evidence... was wrapped in."

"What about it?" she asks, her gaze shifting to Angela, who's pulling up something on her tablet.

"It's not just a random cloth," the detective explains, turning the screen so she can see. "It's surgical draping. But it's an older type that’s not commonly used anymore. The manufacturer actually stopped making this specific weave about five years ago."

"Which fits with the timeline of when the clinic closed," Harper adds. "It might just be Rosalind being theatrical, but..."

"But it could mean she's actually keeping him there," Lucy finishes, hope and dread warring within her. If Tim is at that address, they might find him alive. But they might also find him...

She cuts off that line of thinking before it can fully form. She can't afford to spiral into worst-case scenarios right now, not when she needs to stay focused.

"Okay," she says, squaring her shoulders. "Let's do this."

Harper claps her hands together before pushing away from the table. “Alright then. Everyone take twenty minutes and we can meet back here to go through how this is all going to play out.”

Lucy nods, already calculating how much time she needs to get her gear together. As she turns to leave, Angela catches her arm one more time.

"Hold back a second," she says quietly, so only the two of them can hear. "You know we're going to do everything possible to bring him home. But if you’re coming, I also need you to be prepared for what we might find there."

Lucy meets her eyes, the weight of the detective's words settling heavy in her chest. She knows what the other woman is trying to say without actually saying it. That they might be too late, that what they find might not be what she's hoping for.

That the finger might be just the beginning of what Rosalind has done to Tim.

"I am," she manages, her voice steadier than she feels. "I'm not going to fall apart. Not when we're this close."

Angela studies her face for a moment longer before nodding, apparently satisfied with what she sees there. "Good. Because if shit hits the fan, the last thing I need is to have to worry about you too."

——————

The sky has shifted to that indistinct shade between day and night by the time they arrive at the abandoned hospital. Lucy stares at the building through the tinted windows of the SWAT van, trying to steady her breathing as they wait for the final go-ahead. The structure looms against the darkening horizon. A hulking five-story monstrosity of concrete and broken windows, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with rusted barbed wire.

Nature has begun to reclaim the property in the years since it closed. Weeds push through cracks in the parking lot. Vines crawl up the exterior walls. A faded sign, "Regional Medical Clinic," hangs at an angle above what was once the main entrance.

At this point, she's pretty sure she needs a serious break from having to trudge through abandoned buildings. Two in one day is more than enough for her. Hell, two in one lifetime would have been plenty.

Lucy adjusts her vest for the third time in as many minutes, the familiar weight of it both reassuring and insufficient. In the sudden silence that fills the van, she can hear her own heartbeat, too fast and too loud in her ears. It's not that she's afraid, not for herself, at least, but the anticipation has her nerves singing and she just can't seem to sit still.

"Alright guys, we're about two minutes out," Angela's voice cuts through the tension as she suddenly stands up. Harper rises beside her, both women fully geared up with tactical vests over their clothes, weapons drawn but held carefully at their sides. "SWAT is just about in position. They've got thermal imaging set up, but the concrete walls are making it difficult to get a clear reading of the interior, which means we'll have to stick together."

Lucy nods, thinking back to the tactical briefing from earlier. Grey's directives had been explicit, and the warning behind Harper's accompanying stare couldn't have been clearer. 

She gets their concern. She does. She's already taken off on her own once today, and they have every reason to doubt her impulse control right now.

If she’s being honest, she doesn’t exactly trust it either.

“If you see something, say something," Angela continues, checking her radio one last time, the small crackle of static filling the van as she confirms the connection. "Don't get trigger happy, and remember this dump has been sitting here rotting for years. Which means we should expect structural hazards in addition to any surprises Rosalind might have left for us." She pauses, her eyes finding Lucy. "And I mean it when I say we stick together. Nobody tries to play hero. Nobody chases shadows into dark corners alone. We clear this thing room by room, together."

That last part is clearly directed at her. The detective locks eyes with her and she holds her gaze, giving a tight nod in confirmation even as her skin prickles with irritation.

The radio on Angela's hip crackles to life. "Alpha team in position. So far we have no sign of any movement coming from inside the building. No confirmation on the number of occupants."

Angela exchanges a look with Harper before responding. "Copy that. Entry team moving into position now."

The doors to the van slide open, letting in the cool evening air that does little to calm Lucy's nerves. She follows Harper out, her boots crunching on broken glass as they move toward the building's perimeter where SWAT officers in full tactical gear are already taking position.

Angela takes point, Harper and Nolan flanking her as they approach the main entrance. Lucy and Aaron follow several paces behind, covering their rear while maintaining enough distance to watch for signals from up ahead. The beam of her flashlight cuts through the darkness as they step inside, illuminating a wide reception area. Moonlight filters weakly through boarded windows, creating long shadows across the floor and the air is thick with the smell of mildew and decay, undercut by something chemical that catches in the back of her throat. Antiseptic, maybe, or some industrial cleaner.

Angela points toward the office space to the left, and Harper and Nolan head that way while the detective herself moves into the main area. Lucy hangs behind with Aaron to hold position near the entrance, keeping an eye on the way they came in.

The building is dead quiet, which somehow makes every tiny noise seem magnified. Glass crunching under someone's boot. A floorboard groaning. Water dripping somewhere deep in the building.

"Clear," comes Harper's whisper from down the hall, followed shortly by Nolan's echo from an adjacent room.

Angela glances over her shoulder and waves them forward. They move down the main corridor together, flashlight beams sweeping across peeling paint and abandoned equipment. Most of the rooms they pass are completely empty, gutted down to bare walls and whatever couldn't be hauled away.

When they reach the first intersection, Angela holds up a closed fist, signaling them to stop. "SWAT reports they've got a potential heat signature on the third floor, east wing," she says quietly, touching her earpiece. "It could be something but it also could be nothing."

Lucy's heart lurches painfully in her chest. “We need to go check.”

"We will," Harper cuts in, "but we're clearing each floor first. We’re not taking any risks so don’t push it, Chen."

She doesn’t, just like she promised.

And it ends up taking them nearly an hour to clear the first two floors.

The entire time, she does everything by the book, following instruction to a T. But with every silent hallway and every empty room they come across, the weight pressing against her chest grows heavier. Because the longer they go without finding anything, the louder the doubt starts whispering in her ear.

By the time they reach the stairwell leading up to the third floor, Lucy feels like her skin is stretched too tight, her nerves fraying with every breath she takes. She shifts her grip on her weapon for what has to be the tenth time, jaw clenched so tightly it aches. The metal stairs groan beneath their boots as they ascend slowly, and when they finally step out onto the third floor landing, her entire body vibrates with the effort it takes to keep herself in check.

Then her flashlight sweeps forward and the impatience drains from her in an instant.

A thin, dark trail stains the center of the hallway, dried blood soaked deep into the cracked linoleum. It leads away from the stairwell, winding down the corridor like a grotesque breadcrumb trail, and her heart lodges somewhere in her throat.

“Shit,” Aaron whispers from beside her.

Shit doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Lucy steps forward without thinking, just one foot, one movement toward the trail that might be leading them to exactly what they’re looking for, but a hand clamps down on her arm, fingers firm and unyielding as they keep her rooted to the spot.

She turns, already knowing who it is. “Lopez...”

Angela’s voice is low, even though the hallway is dead silent. “We’re going to follow the trail. But you’re staying here.”

“No,” she breathes, shaking her head once. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious.”

“You think I’m going to just stand here while you—”

“I think,” the detective cuts in, “that your head isn’t in the right place for what we might find up there.”

Lucy jerks her arm out of the other woman’s grip, her pulse flaring hotter now. Anger or desperation or both, she doesn’t know. “My head is exactly where it needs to be. I can do this.”

Angela takes a step closer, her gaze narrowing. “Chen, listen to me. If that blood trail leads to what we think it might, we need to be clear-eyed and focused. You are none of those things right now.”

“I can be.”

“No, you want to be,” she counters. “But I can see the way your hands are shaking. You’re two seconds from sprinting down that hallway, and if this is a trap, that’s probably exactly what Rosalind wants.”

Lucy swallows hard, her throat tight. “I’m not the only one here that’s freaking out. Are you really telling me you wouldn’t care if we found him dead in there?”

Angela flinches, just slightly, and it's the only sign her accusation landed. “Of course I care, but you’ve already proven that you don’t act rationally when your emotions get the best of you. I’m not letting you get yourself killed, Lucy. You think that’s what he’d want? You think that helps him?”

The silence stretches between them as they hold each other’s gaze. Eventually, Lucy’s jaw clenches, and she looks away first, eyes stinging.

Angela exhales through her nose. “I’m not saying you have to stay here forever. I promise. But for now, let us clear the room first.”

Behind them, Harper shifts back and forth on her feet. Lucy glances at the other woman, but when she offers no words of support on her behalf, she turns her attention back to Angela.

The trail is right there, taunting her, and Lucy can feel the seconds ticking by like thunder in her ears. But finally, she relents and gives a tight nod. Not because she agrees, but because she knows Angela won’t back down.

"Fine," she concedes quietly. "But I'm coming in as soon as it’s clear."

The detective doesn't argue further, accepting the compromise with a small nod before turning back to the others. "Harper and Nolan, you're with me. Thorsen, hold position with Chen and watch our six."

She doesn’t bother replying, just gives a jerky nod as she watches the three of them move down the hallway. Their flashlight beams dance along the walls as they follow the blood trail, weapons raised, voices low as they coordinate their movements.

"You okay?" Aaron asks quietly when the others are far enough ahead.

"No," she admits, the single syllable catching in her throat. "But I don’t need you to try to console me. Tim’s going to be fine."

"Never said he wasn’t," he replies, his attention still focused on the corridor ahead of them. "But I figured you could use someone who understands what you're going through right now."

She glances at him, skepticism clear on her face. "Do you? Understand?"

"More than you might think," he says, his voice dropping even lower. "I know what it's like to worry about someone you care about. To feel like you'd rather die than let anything happen to them."

There's something in his tone that makes her look at him more closely. "You do?"

He nods once, a tight, almost imperceptible movement. “I’ll tell you the story later, but yeah. I’ve been in a situation like this before.” He pauses, glancing down the hallway where the others disappeared, then back at her with a sheepish expression. “Well… not exactly like this. This is definitely a unique situation.”

Lucy huffs out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if anything in her chest felt capable of lifting. But there’s no real humor behind the sound. Mainly because she’s way past being able to feel anything other than the crushing weight of dread pressing in from all sides.

A full minute passes before Aaron speaks again.

“Can I ask you something?”

She doesn’t answer, just shifts her grip on her gun and keeps her eyes on the far end of the hallway, waiting. Then, after a few seconds pass, she says, “That depends on what you’re going to ask me.”

“I heard the fight you had with Chris earlier,” he says gently. “I didn’t mean to listen, it was just kinda hard not to. And you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but—” He hesitates, and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter. “Do you really love him?”

The question doesn’t land the way he probably expects it to. Because there’s no confusion in her mind, not anymore.

"Yes," she says simply, the word falling from her lips with surprising ease. "I do."

Aaron glances at her, the corners of his mouth lifting into something small but genuine. “For what it’s worth, I think he feels the same way about you.”

She wants to ask him what makes him think that. What signs she’s missed, or maybe deliberately ignored. But the question never makes it past her lips.

Because just then, Nolan appears at the far end of the hallway. He’s moving toward them slowly, his footsteps quiet against the stained tile. And the second he’s close enough for her to get a good look at his face, Lucy’s lungs seize.

Because pity is etched into every line of it. And that look in his eyes, that quiet, careful pity. It’s the kind you reserve for someone who’s about to be broken. “What is it? Did you guys find something?”

Nolan doesn’t meet her eyes. “We don’t think Rosalind’s here anymore,” he says slowly. “Or if she is, she’s not on this floor.”

Her vision narrows, heartbeat slamming in her chest like it’s trying to crack through bone. “I don’t care about her,” she snaps. “Did you find Tim?”

He hesitates. And in that tiny beat of silence, her fear becomes a living thing. Twisting, snarling, sinking sharp teeth into her ribs.

She barely hears the rest of it.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy,” he continues gently. “He’s… not in good shape. We think he’s been gone for a while.”

Gone.

Gone.

She doesn't even know what that means. Doesn’t want to. Her breath catches, and for a second, everything tilts. Like the floor shifts sideways and she’s not entirely sure her legs are still under her.

She blinks.

Once. Twice.

Her vision blurs at the edges, the bright lights of their flashlights reflecting off the floor flickering in and out of focus.

A sob climbs up the back of her throat, but it doesn’t get the opportunity to make it past her lips. Instead, she turns. Moves without thinking, really, because if she stays still for even one more second, she’s going to shatter. She doesn’t even remember moving, her body just goes , shoving past Nolan before her brain has even caught up.

Aaron’s voice calls her name from down the hallway, but she doesn’t stop. She can’t. Because he’s here. And she has to see him, no matter what state they’ve found him in—bloody, unconscious, or worse—she has to see him with her own eyes. Until she does, none of it is going to feel real.

She rounds the corner and that’s when she sees it. A door at the end of the corridor, standing partially open. Light spills from inside, a stark contrast to the dim hallway. Angela and Harper are standing just outside, their postures rigid, speaking in low, urgent tones, but it’s Angela’s face that stops Lucy cold. Because she’s crying.

Oh god. She’s crying.

At the sound of Lucy’s boots on the floor, both women turn. Harper reacts first, stepping into the middle of the hallway, one hand coming up fast, like she’s trying to physically block the doorway.

"Chen, wait—"

But she doesn't wait. She sidesteps Harper's outstretched arm, barely feeling the brush of her fingertips as she pushes through the doorway before either woman can stop her.

The smell hits her first. The acrid stench of charred flesh slams into her with such force that she staggers backward, her hand flying to cover her mouth and nose. It's a nauseating mixture of burnt hair, scorched muscle, and something chemical, like melted plastic mixed with copper. The smell clings to the back of her throat, thick and suffocating, and she gags instantly. It's a smell she's encountered at scenes before, but never this fresh, never this concentrated in such a small space.

It’s then that she notices how cold the room is. Colder than the hallway, colder than it should be, and for a disorienting moment she doesn’t know why. Until her eyes catch on her surrounding. The steel drawers lining the walls. The stainless steel table in the center. The remnants of industrial equipment, warped and rusted but still recognizable.

This must have been the morgue.

Her flashlight cuts across the floor as she looks around. She stops moving though when the light lands on a body. She doesn’t mean to see it. And maybe Nolan was right, she shouldn’t have come in here. But her gaze locks on the shape before she can look away, and suddenly it’s like she can’t look away.

It takes her brain several seconds to process what she's seeing. The corpse on the floor is badly burned, skin blackened and peeling away in places to reveal raw tissue beneath. The face is unrecognizable, features melted together in a grotesque way that makes it completely unrecognizable.

Lucy's stomach lurches violently. "No," she whispers through her fingers. "No, no, no..."

But before she can even attempt to step closer, Harper is at her side, one hand gripping her arm so tightly it might bruise as she drags her out of the room. She doesn’t even realize she’s shaking violently until Harper stops just outside the morgue and turns her, gripping both arms now, forcing her to stand still.

“Lucy,” she’s saying. “Hey. Look at me.”

She can’t. Her eyes won’t focus. Her heart won’t slow down.

“This can’t be happening,” she whispers again. “No, no, no. This is all my fault. Oh god, I…” Her knees buckle before she can finish the sentence. Harper catches her on the way down, lowering her to the floor with more gentleness than she would’ve expected from someone who just dragged her bodily out of a room.

But it doesn’t help. None of it helps.

Because the image is seared into her brain now. That shape on the floor, stripped of anything human. 

A raw, broken sob tears out of her chest before she can stop it.

Then another.

And another.

She curls in on herself, one arm wrapping across her stomach as if she can physically hold herself together, but it doesn’t work because she’s not together anymore. She’s unraveling, and every breath hurts.

A hand lands gently on her back, grounding her with its quiet pressure, but Lucy barely registers it. She’s falling, sinking somewhere dark and bottomless, and all she can think is—

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

I wasn’t there.

He died alone.

The thoughts loop in vicious and relentless circles.

"Lucy." Angela is saying her name, her voice cutting through the thick fog of her grief. "Lucy, listen to me."

But what is there to listen to now? What could possibly matter? Her fingers curl into fists against the grimy floor, nails biting into her palms. She wants the pain, needs it, even, because at least it's something real to hold onto when everything else is crumbling around her.

"We don't know if it's him," Angela continues, crouching down beside her. Her eyes are red-rimmed but her voice is steady.

Lucy shakes her head, the movement jerky and uncoordinated. "You saw—"

"I saw a body," the detective interrupts. "A badly burned body that we can't identify yet. Not until we get forensics in here."

Hope is a dangerous thing. Especially now. She can't afford to let it take root only to have it ripped away again. "Then why are you crying?"

Angela doesn't answer immediately, and when Lucy looks up, she sees the conflict written across the other woman's face. "Because whoever that is in there, they suffered," she finally says. "And because I thought, for a moment, that it might be him. But I don't know that for sure yet, and neither do you."

"But the blood—”

"Could be from anyone," Harper cuts in, her hand still resting on her back. "We've already talked with the ME. They'll be able to tell us more when they get here."

She wants to believe them. God, how she wants to. But the evidence is there, in that room, and the tangled mess of emotions squeezing her chest makes it hard to think clearly. Lucy's thoughts fracture, then scatter in different directions. One part of her wants to run back into that room, to look again, to make sure it’s not him. Another part wants to curl into herself further and never move again. And underneath it all, a slow, creeping tightness coils around her lungs, constricting with every breath she tries to take.

Breathe.

Why can’t she breathe?

Angela must notice her impending panic attack because the detective grabs one of her hands and squeezes to gain her attention. “Hey, take deep breaths, Lucy. Come on. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

She tries to comply, she does, but each inhale drags the acrid smell back into her lungs. It clings to her like smoke, thick and greasy, and her stomach rolls hard. She chokes on the next breath, her body recoiling.

“I can’t be here,” she gasps, voice ragged as she grips Angela’s hand tighter. “I can’t—I can’t breathe—I can’t—”

“Okay,” Angela says immediately, her tone shifting to something more soothing. “We can go. The others can wait for backup to get here.”

Harper helps her to her feet, steadying her when she sways dangerously. Lucy's legs feel disconnected from the rest of her body, like they might give out at any moment so the detective keeps one arm firmly around her waist as they make their way back toward the stairwell, Angela leading the way with her flashlight cutting through the darkness ahead of them.

Her steps grow steadier with each foot of distance she puts between herself and that horrible smell. Between herself and what might be the remains of the man she loves.

The thought stops her mid-stride, the admission catching her by surprise even though it's not the first time she’s admitted it to herself today.

Loves. Not loved.

Until she knows for certain, until she sees irrefutable proof, she refuses to believe he's dead.

The very idea makes something inside her recoil.

Because if he is, she might as well be too.

Chapter Text

For the first time since being dragged from the cooler, Tim and Marcus are completely alone.

Rosalind had left a couple minutes ago with a casual "I need to prepare a few things before we continue” and while the words themselves were innocuous enough, it was the way she'd said them, with that particular blend of excitement and cold disinterest, that had set every instinct Tim possessed on high alert. He'd learned to recognize that tone well over the past few days. It was the voice she used right before things got significantly worse.

Which is why, ever since she'd disappeared through the double doors on the far side of the morgue, Tim has been keeping a careful eye on his newfound companion.

What he’s seeing isn’t very reassuring.

Marcus hasn't moved an inch from where he was standing five minutes ago. Even as the man sways unsteadily, blood continuing to drip from his wrapped hand and forming a small crimson puddle at his feet, he remains in that frozen, subdued position. The steady pat-pat-pat of the drops hitting concrete is the only sound in the small room, and the man that the liquid is slowly leaking from doesn’t even seem fazed in the slightest by the quiet noise.

That in itself can't be a good sign.

“I think you should sit down before you pass out.”

Marcus looks up then, startled, as if he'd forgotten Tim was even there in the first place. His one good eye blinks slowly, unfocused, and Tim can see the telltale signs of shock in the pallor of his skin, the way his breathing has become shallow and rapid. After a moment's hesitation that stretches too long, Marcus slides down the wall until he's sitting on the cool concrete floor, cradling his mutilated hand against his chest.

The movement seems to break something loose inside him, and that's when he watches as the man's composure finally cracks. His face crumples inward and a broken sob escapes his throat even as he presses his good hand over his mouth, trying to muffle the sound. The tears come anyway, streaming down his battered cheeks as his shoulders shake with the force of emotions he's been holding back for who knows how long.

Days, probably.

Tim lets him have the moment. Looks away, even, giving the man what little privacy he can manage. In his experience, sometimes the only thing worse than breaking down is not being allowed to when you need it most.

Eventually though, his position on the floor becomes uncomfortable and he groans as he shifts to a more upright position, his muscles protesting every movement after the days of confinement. The sound manages to draw Marcus's attention, and the man's wet eyes slide back in his direction, embarrassment tightening the lines on his face. “I can’t... I can’t stop the bleeding.”

Tim studies the wound from where he's sitting. The cloth is completely saturated, dark red going to black where the blood has had time to oxidize, and given the lack of proper medical attention, Marcus could go into shock. If he isn't already there.

"You need to elevate it," Tim tells him. "Above your heart."

Marcus nods and awkwardly repositions himself, raising his arm and resting it against the wall. The movement causes him to wince, but he holds the position. The dripping eventually slows, but doesn't stop entirely.

They sit in relative silence after that, the only sounds the intermittent drip of Marcus's blood and the erratic hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Tim uses the quiet moment to catalog his own injuries. It seems like every muscle in his body is burning relentlessly, stiff and raw from two agonizing days being forced into positions his body was never meant to hold, worsened by the vicious blows Marcus inflicted earlier. A sharp, continuous fire radiates from his arm when he tries to shift slightly to the right and, yeah, that’s definitely still broken.

None of it is technically immediately life-threatening, which is both good news and bad news, but he's under no illusions about his current situation. Rosalind didn't drag him out of that cooler just to give him water and a brief respite.

She's planning something.

"She's been acting different today," Marcus says suddenly, his voice barely above a whisper. "More... excited than normal."

Tim glances over at him. "Excited how?"

Marcus shifts his weight gingerly, protecting his bandaged hand like the raw wound it is, but his eyes hold Tim's gaze steadily. "I don’t know exactly. I guess she keeps humming to herself, like she's... happy about something? It’s unsettling." He pauses, his gaze going distant. "And she's been making phone calls all day. I heard her through the walls earlier, talking to someone about making her 'final preparations.'"

A chill crawls up Tim's spine that has nothing to do with the cold air. Nothing good ever comes from Rosalind being happy. Which means there’s only two ways to interpret that information, and neither scenario bodes well for the two of them. Because either Rosalind is nearing the endgame of whatever twisted plan she’s orchestrating, or she’s finally ready to dispose of them entirely.

Judging by the bleak expression dawning on Marcus’s battered face, he's already reached the same grim conclusion.

Tim nods toward Marcus’s heavily bandaged hand. "Were you conscious when she did that?"

The shadows under Marcus's eyes seemed to deepen, his whole face darkening with the memory. "Unfortunately, yes. She said this is what happens when her instructions aren’t followed to the letter." He looks down at his fingers. "She did this after I hesitated when she told me to cut yours off first."

"Jesus." The word escapes before he can stop it, horror and nausea fighting for dominance in his throat. He forces himself to maintain his composure though, even as guilt twists sharply inside his chest.

"She even had a camera set up," the other man continues bitterly. "Said she wanted to record it and send it to someone. But when I wouldn't do it, she got this look on her face like..." He trails off, shaking his head as if he could dislodge the image. "I've never seen anyone that angry before."

Lucy. She was going to send it to Lucy.

His stomach turns, imagining her opening that video, seeing his— No. He shoves the thought down hard, locks it away with all the other things he can't afford to think about right now.

"When was this?"

Marcus shrugs weakly. "Right before she put you in the cooler. She said it was a test of my loyalty. Obviously, I failed." His good eye meets Tim's again, an apology etched into every line of his expression. "I'm sorry about that, by the way. I should have... I don't know. Done something? I honestly didn’t know she was going to leave you in there for that long. "

Tim shakes his head, leaning forward despite his arm's vehement protest. "You don’t have to apologize for that. You think I don't understand what she's put you through? What she's still putting you through? You're not the enemy here, Marcus. She is."

"But if I had just—"

"What? Fought back?” He lets his gaze pointedly travel over the man’s collection of injuries. “From the looks of it, you tried that already."

Marcus's mouth twists into what might have been a smile if not for the split lip that reopens with the movement, fresh blood beading along the cut. "Yeah. That... didn't go well. She’s stronger than she looks."

So are you, Tim thinks immediately but holds the thought back, sensing the man really wouldn’t want to hear that.

"Fighting back is only going to make things worse for you, so you really need to get that idea out of your head. I told you already, you don’t need to worry about me. Because the more you resist, the more she'll feel the need to break you down further." Tim directs his gaze back to the man’s hand. "How many times has she already threatened to take another if you didn’t listen?"

Marcus flinches visibly, his good hand instinctively curling into a fist. "Three," he whispers. "Then she said once they're all gone, she'll have no choice but to move on to my daughter next."

The rage that surges through Tim's chest flares to life, but he pushes it down. Getting angry won't help either of them right now. "That’s exactly my point. So don't apologize for doing what you had to do. We’ve been over this already. Your priority is keeping your family safe, okay? Don’t worry about me."

Marcus swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing visibly beneath the bruises on his throat. "I didn't think it would go this far. When she first started having me do things for her, it seemed manageable at first. Uh, no offense. But then it escalated so fast."

No offense. As if beating a person to death could ever be considered manageable. But Tim understands what he meant.

"That's how people like her operate. They pull you in with something small, something that seems harmless in the long run, then before you know it..."

"You're getting your finger cut off in an abandoned morgue," Marcus finishes with a hollow laugh that quickly turns into a grimace of pain.

They share a brief, heavy look of understanding before Marcus speaks again, the dread returning to his voice. “So what do you think she’s planning now?”

The fact that she's taken them to what appears to be an abandoned morgue doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture, but he's not exactly sure what that means for the two of them. Rosalind isn't your typical killer. She doesn't get her kicks from the act itself, she gets them from the game, the manipulation, the slow destruction of everything her victims hold dear. And because of that, he’s sure she wants something more than just their deaths.

"I'm not really sure," he reluctantly admits, "but I'm going to be honest with you. I'm sure whatever Rosalind has planned, neither of us are going to like it."

Marcus sighs, the sound heavy with resignation. "That's what I was afraid of."

"Look, if there's any silver lining here, it’s that she hasn’t killed us yet. If death was the only thing she wanted, we'd be dead already." It isn’t much comfort, but it’s the only thing he can think of saying right now.

Marcus's gaze drifts around the dimly lit room, lingering uneasily on the rusted metal drawers lining the wall. "Yeah, but how much longer will that stay true? This place isn’t exactly designed for keeping people here long term."

"No," Tim acknowledges, eyes following Marcus's wary glance, “It’s not.”

The isolated nature of their surroundings underscores another grim reality Tim has been quietly dreading.

That something very, very bad is about to happen.

"Do you think—" Marcus begins haltingly, then stops, eyes flicking nervously toward him.

"What?"

"Do you, uh... do you think she's done with me?"

Tim studies the other man's face. There's fear there, sure, but also something else. Hope, maybe? Hope that his ordeal might finally be over, even if it means death. "I don't know. But like I said before, I don't think she brought you this far just to end things abruptly now. That wouldn’t make any sense. I’m sure she has another plan in mind."

"That's not exactly reassuring."

"I'm not trying to reassure you," Tim counters firmly. "I'm trying to prepare you."

Because preparation is all they have left.

Marcus sighs again, the weight of his breath heavy with defeat. "I've had days to prepare myself for what's coming next." He pauses, his gaze dropping to the bloodstained concrete between them. "Because the thing is, I'm pretty sure it's you she wants. I'm just... collateral. A means to an end."

Tim opens his mouth instinctively to protest, but Marcus cuts him off first, shaking his head with a sad kind of certainty in his expression. "Think about it, Tim. She could have grabbed anyone off the street to do what she made me do. Even from the beginning, none of this has really been about me. I'm just the tool she's using to get to you."

He’s suspected as much since this whole nightmare started, but hearing it said out loud makes it feel more real, more terrifying. Because if Marcus is right, and Tim is increasingly certain he is, then whatever Rosalind has planned next is going to be so much worse than anything that's come before.

"Look, I don't care if I'm the target or you are or we both are. What I care about is getting us both out of here alive."

Marcus looks at him with something close to pity. "Tim—"

"No, listen to me. I've been doing this job for a long time. I've been in situations that seemed impossible, where the odds were stacked against me, where people told me there was no way out. And I'm still here."

"This is different—"

"No it’s not," he cuts him off, putting every ounce of conviction he can muster into the words. "She's smart, I'll give her that. But she's not invincible. She makes mistakes. Everyone does. And when she makes hers, we're going to be ready for it and we’ll both be getting out of here."

"You really believe that?"

Tim holds his gaze. "I have to believe that. Because the alternative is accepting that we're both going to die in this place, and I'm not ready to do that. Are you?"

Marcus stares at him for a long moment, and Tim can see the internal battle playing out across his battered features. The part of him that's been broken down by days of torture warring with whatever fragment of hope might still exist.

Finally, the man nods slowly. "No. No, I'm not ready for that either."

"Good." He feels a small measure of relief. As long as they’re both still fighting, they have a chance. Slim as hell, maybe, but a chance. "Then we stick together and wait for our opportunity. And when it comes, we take it."

"Okay," Marcus says quietly. "Okay."

But even as he agrees, even as some of the crushing despair seems to lift from his shoulders, Tim can see the doubt still lingering in his expression. Not that he blames him for that doubt. He feels it too. But he also knows the moment they both give up completely, the moment they stop looking for that slim chance, is the moment Rosalind wins. And after everything she'd taken from them, he's not ready to hand her that victory quite yet.

———

He really needs to stop letting himself believe that things are going to get better.

Even if he's only been putting up this facade mainly for the sake of the other man slumped against the wall, Tim can't deny that some part of him—the stupid, stubborn part of him—had genuinely started to believe this nightmare might finally come to an end. Whether through escape or rescue, he'd allowed himself to fall into that dangerous trap called hope. He should know better by now.

Rosalind obliterates it the moment she walks back into the morgue.

She's carrying a red gas can in one hand and an open laptop in the other, two objects that conceptually make absolutely no sense together. His tactical mind tries to connect them, tries to understand what new horror she's planning given the objects she’s holding, but all rational thought abandons him the moment she sets the laptop on the metal table and angles the screen in his direction.

Because there, in grainy black and white surveillance footage, is Lucy.

The feed is clearly from some kind of security camera positioned high in what looks like a small studio apartment. Lucy is moving carefully through the space with her weapon drawn, Nolan just behind her as they conduct what appears to be a surveillance sweep of the room. Even through the poor video quality, Tim can see the tension radiating from her shoulders, the way she's gripping her weapon just a fraction too tight.

"Ah, there we go," Rosalind says, her voice carrying that familiar note of excitement that makes his skin crawl. "I was wondering if this would finally get your attention."

It has. Every cell in his body is suddenly, painfully alert despite the exhaustion dragging him down.

He can't tear his eyes away from the screen, drawn to it with the same horrible fascination as watching a car accident in slow motion. Lucy pauses near what looks like a cramped kitchen, and for just a moment, the camera angle gives him a clear view of her face. She looks exhausted. Beyond exhausted. The circles under her eyes tell a story of sleepless nights that mirror his own, and there's a tightness to her jaw that he recognizes immediately.

"What is this?" His voice comes out as a rasp, his throat suddenly bone dry. "What did you do?"

Rosalind sets the gas can down with a metallic thunk that echoes through the room. "I haven't done anything. Yet." She smiles, tapping a manicured nail against the laptop screen. "Lucy Chen, however, has been very busy these past couple days. I have to say, I’m impressed by her dedication. The woman is absolutely relentless, I’ll give her that."

The pride that flares in his chest at those words is immediately chased by terror. Relentless is good when you’re chasing the right leads. It’s deadly when someone is using that determination against you, turning your greatest strength into a weapon aimed at your own heart.

Tim forces himself to look away from the screen so he can meet Rosalind's gaze directly. "If you hurt her—"

"You'll what?" She laughs, the sound like glass breaking. "Make threats you can't possibly keep? Please, Tim. We're well past that stage."

Marcus shifts slightly against the wall, the small movement drawing Rosalind's attention. She looks at him with something like disappointment, as if she'd forgotten he was there and is annoyed by the reminder, then her gaze slides back to Tim with renewed interest.

"How did you—"

"Get access to her location?" Rosalind interrupts, clearly enjoying his distress. "You should know by now that I plan everything meticulously. That apartment she's searching? It belongs to a friend of mine." She gestures casually toward the screen. "I had someone leave just enough breadcrumbs to lead her there. Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing how easy it was."

The implication hits like ice water. This had been planned from the beginning.

On the screen, Lucy and Nolan move further into the room, their flashlights scanning around the small space. Every step takes them further from the door, further from escape, and Tim can only watch, helpless, as the woman he cares about more than he's ever had the courage to say out loud walks further into what he's beginning to realize is a trap.

The words he's never said burn in his throat.

"Why are you doing this? What do you want?"

"What I've always wanted," Rosalind replies with an evil smile. "To finish what my old protégé started. But in the process, what I also want is to see how far someone is willing to go to protect what they love. Marcus here gave me a wonderful demonstration of that principle, but you..." She pauses, her gaze fixed on Tim with something like anticipation. "You're going to give me something even better."

Tim notes the way Marcus shifts on the other side of the room, the other man's attention now fully focused as he joins in on the exchange. "What are you talking about?”

Her smile widens. "I'm talking about choices, Marcus. The kind of impossible choices that strip away everything we think we know about ourselves." She gestures toward the laptop screen where Lucy has reappeared in the frame. "Lucy here is currently standing in a building that I've had rigged with enough explosives to level half a city block."

Tim's blood doesn't just turn to ice, it stops moving entirely, everything in him going still as his mind rejects what she's saying. No. Not possible. "You're lying."

"Am I?" She tilts her head. "The beauty of modern technology is that everything can be controlled remotely. One simple click of a button from me, and that entire building comes down. Lucy, John, and anyone else who’s unfortunate enough to be nearby."

"You wouldn't," he chokes out, but the words sound hollow even to his own ears. Of course she would. This is Rosalind they're talking about.

"I would, but I think you already knew that." She taps the screen again, almost lovingly. "But here's where it gets interesting. I'm giving you the choice."

He doesn't want to ask. Doesn't want to play into whatever sick game she's clearly playing. But Lucy is on that screen, and every second that passes is another second she remains in danger. So he asks. "What choice?"

Rosalind looks delighted by the question. She turns to Marcus, who's gone very still against the wall, his face draining of what little color that remained beneath all the bruises. "This is actually where you come in, my dear."

Marcus flinches visibly when she approaches him, but makes no move to escape.

It’s not like he could anyway.

"You see, Tim," she continues, "I'm offering you a rather elegant solution. A life for a life." She waves a hand toward the gas can she brought in. "In this container is enough accelerant to ensure a quick, if rather painful, death. You can choose to use it on our friend Marcus here, ending his suffering once and for all... or you can refuse, in which case I detonate the explosives and Lucy becomes nothing more than a tragic headline."

The silence that follows her ultimatum is absolute. His chest suddenly feels too small, lungs forgetting how to expand.

The options are simple. The choice is impossible.

"Of course," she adds, "if you'd prefer to watch her burn alive instead, that's entirely your choice. But you should know that I've been very thorough in my preparations. If you don’t pick one, then I’ll make sure to kill them both for the fun of it.“

"You can't be serious," Tim whispers even though he knows with absolute certainty that she is.

"Oh, but I am." Rosalind checks her watch. "And I'm afraid I'm going to need your decision rather quickly. Lucy and John seem to be wrapping up their search. That means they'll be finding the little gift I left them in approximately three minutes, and once they do..." She trails off, letting the implications hang in the air.

Three minutes. One hundred and eighty seconds to decide who lives and who dies.

He glances over at Marcus, whose one good eye is wide with panic. The man has a wife. A daughter who's already lost so much. The shake of Marcus's head is almost imperceptible, but Tim catches it. He’s not sure if the silent plea means don't do this or please, just do it .

"I’m not going to do it," Tim says firmly, though his voice trembles. The words feel thin, inadequate against the weight of what's happening. "I’m not about to kill an innocent man. I’m not you ."

Even as he says it, doubt gnaws at him with sharp teeth. How many times had he made hard choices on the job? How many times had he chosen the greater good over individual lives?

Rosalind sighs dramatically. "I expected nothing less." She reaches into her pocket, drawing out the moment, and pulls out what appears to be a small remote detonator. "Well then, if that’s your decision then I suppose we'll just have to—"

“Wait, no!”

Oh god.

Oh god.

What the hell is he doing?

"Stop," he adds, the word tearing out of his mouth. He's standing now, though he’s not sure when exactly he got to his feet. His heart is pounding so hard he can feel it everywhere. In his throat, in his fingertips, in the throbbing pain behind his eyes. "Please. Just... wait."

The woman’s finger hovers over the detonator button, her smile widening with glee. "Yes?"

"Just give me a minute to think." He needs more time. Time to think, time to find another option, time for someone, anyone, to intervene. But the thing is, Lucy doesn't have time.

"There's nothing to think about," she says coldly. "Your choices are pretty obvious. And time is running out."

"Then kill me instead," Tim pleads desperately, the words tumbling out before he can bother to second guess them. It's the obvious solution, isn’t it? "You want to hurt someone? Fine. Kill me. Leave Lucy alone."

"But where's the fun in that?" Rosalind's smile is cold. "Besides, we both know you'd rather die than live with the knowledge that you could have saved her and chose not to."

She’s not wrong. He couldn’t live with himself if he was the one responsible for her death. Even advertently. Because somewhere along the way, between the long shifts and the banter and the moments when she would smile at him like he actually mattered, Lucy had become the most important person in his life. He'd just never been brave enough to tell her that.

And because of that, there's no version of himself that wouldn't do anything he possibly could to keep her safe. His own life means nothing in comparison to hers. She's kind, brilliant, with her whole career ahead of her. She has people who love her, a future that has so much potential. What does he have? A broken body and more regrets than he can count.

If he has to live with her death on his conscience, knowing he could have prevented it, that would be a fate worse than death.

"You're a monster.”

“Maybe. But I'm a monster who holds the life of the woman you love in her hands." Rosalind glances at her watch again. "Two minutes, Tim. What's it going to be?"

His eyes dart frantically between the screen where Lucy still moves unaware through the apartment, to Marcus's terrified face, to the detonator in Rosalind's hand. The choice she’s forcing him to make is impossible and regardless of what he ends up choosing, both options are clearly designed to break him either way.

Kill an innocent man and live with that blood on his hands forever, or refuse and watch Lucy die knowing he could have saved her.

Either way, Rosalind wins.

And he loses everything.

"Actually," she says suddenly, her tone shifting to something almost cheerful, "I've changed my mind. You’re taking too long."

Marcus barely has time to look up before the red haired woman is standing directly in front of him. She raises the can she snagged off the ground and tips it forward, letting the clear liquid cascade all over him. The gasoline splashes across Marcus's shoulders and chest, soaking through his torn shirt and running down his arms in dark rivulets that catch the flickering light. The man jerks backward with a strangled cry, his good hand instinctively coming up to shield his face, but it's too late. The pungent liquid already saturates his clothes and pools on the concrete around him in an expanding circle.

Tim is dimly aware of the small pack of matches being tossed his way, his hands instinctively reaching out to catch them before they hit the ground. The cardboard feels impossibly light in his palm, but the weight of what it represents threatens to crush him.

Such a small thing. Probably bought at any corner store for less than a dollar. About to end a man's life.

“You have one minute now," Rosalind says, her voice thick with her impatience.

"Please don’t do this," is the only thing Tim manages to say, though his voice comes out as barely a whisper.

"Fifty seconds."

"Please don’t make me do this," he repeats, but Rosalind doesn't even pause in her countdown.

"Forty-four, forty-three. You know, Tim, I'm starting to think you don't really care about Lucy as much as you claim to. Forty-two..."

He cares so much it's ripping him apart from the inside out.

"I don’t... you can’t make me... please —"

"Thirty-nine. Thirty-eight..."

When it becomes clear that his pleas are falling on deaf ears—when has Rosalind ever shown mercy?— Tim forces his attention away from the woman to instead look back at Marcus. The sight that greets him is somehow worse than anger or fear would have been. The resigned acceptance in the man's eyes serves only to twist the knife deeper. Because Marcus doesn't even look scared anymore. Just defeated. Like he's already made peace with his death.

"I'm not going to do it.”

Tears pool in Marcus's eyes. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, gentle, like he's comforting Tim instead of the other way around. "Yes, you are."

"No, I’m not," Tim insists, trying to sound firm even as his voice breaks. "I'm not going to kill you."

"What is it that you said to me earlier? Don't apologize for doing what you have to do to keep the people you love alive."

"This is different.”

"Is it?" Marcus asks, echoing the same question Tim had posed to him earlier. "She's going to die if you don't do this. So is everyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And we both know you'll never forgive yourself if you let that happen. I know I wouldn’t."

"Fifteen seconds," Rosalind calls out, her finger poised over the detonator.

Fifteen seconds. He’s seen lives change in less time.

"Do it," Marcus continues urgently. "You can choose her. It's okay."

But it's not okay. None of this is okay. And Tim doesn't know how he's ever supposed to live with himself after this. Because what kind of choice is this?

There is no good choice either way. There never was.

"Ten seconds!”

Tim's hand trembles as he opens the matchbook, the small cover catching on his shaking fingers. His vision blurs with unshed tears as he stares at the small wooden sticks nestled inside.

"Eight... seven..."

"I can't," he whispers again, looking back to Marcus. He can barely see through the tears blurring his vision.

"Six... five..."

"You have to.” Marcus's face comes into focus for a moment, and incredibly, he's trying to smile. "I've been dead since the first day she took me. We both know that. So do it for her. And for my family. I know you’ll keep an eye on them after I’m gone."

The added weight of that promise, taking care of Marcus's family, being the one to tell his daughter that he’s the one who murdered her father, threatens to buckle Tim's knees.

"Four..."

He pulls out a match.

"Three..."

His thumb hovers over the striking surface. One motion. That's all it would take.

"Two..."

"I'm sorry," Tim chokes out. Sorry is inadequate. Sorry is nothing. Sorry won't take back what he’s about to do.

"One—"

The flame catches, a tiny dancing light in the dark void that has suddenly become his world. And for one chilling moment, Tim stares at it, this small fire he's created, this tiny light he holds between his fingers. Then he looks at Marcus one last time, trying to pour every ounce of apology, respect, and promise into that final glance before time slows as the match tumbles through the air, a tiny meteor of orange-yellow light drifting through the space between them.

It lands at Marcus's feet, and for one brief, merciful moment, nothing happens.

Then the world erupts into flames.

Chapter Text

The ride back to her apartment is quiet.

The leather of Angela's passenger seat creaks softly as Lucy draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them tightly in a desperate embrace that feels like the only thing preventing her complete dissolution. She knows the position probably makes her appear fragile, childlike even, but maintaining any semblance of composure seems impossible now. So she lets her body curl into itself instinctively, creating the smallest possible target for a grief that threatens to consume her from the inside out.

Los Angeles slides past the window in a slow blur of streetlights and buildings, though Lucy's mind remains trapped in that morgue, circling endlessly around the image of charred remains that refuses to fade no matter how forcefully she tries to banish it.

The memory carries more than just the visual horror. It brings with it that horrible smell, a distinctly chemical stench underlaid with something organic and so fundamentally wrong that it somehow managed to permeate her clothing, her hair, the very lining of her nose. Even now, surrounded by Angela's vanilla air freshener and the familiar scents of leather and coffee that always seems to linger in her car, Lucy can still taste that wrongness on her tongue, feel it coating the back of her throat with every swallow she takes. It makes her stomach churn every time, makes her want to press her face against the cool window and never breathe again.

Don't think about it, she tells herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Don't think about it, don’t think about it, don't think about it.

But her traitorous mind refuses to cooperate, continuously supplying the details anyway, regardless of how much she desperately wants to forget it.

Angela had been the one who thought it'd be a good idea to wait for the DNA results at home. "There's nothing more we can do here," she'd said after they waited outside the building for over an hour, and it’d taken a single look at the woman's face, at the barely concealed devastation swimming in her dark eyes, for Lucy's protest to die on her lips.

After that, she understood why they had to leave.

It wasn't good for either of them to be there any longer. CSU needed time to work without them hovering over their shoulders and even the simple act of standing there, watching the medical examiner's team move around that... that thing on the floor was unproductive. It wasn't going to bring Tim back even if it was him, and it wasn't gonna make him any less missing if it wasn't. Yet understanding the logic doesn't alleviate the crushing guilt that accompanies every mile they put between themselves and that clinic. Tim had once torn apart half the city to find her when she'd been taken, had refused to rest until she was safe, and here she sits, driving away from what might be his body simply because she couldn't handle the sensory assault that comes with death.

The rational part of her brain, the part that sounds disturbingly like Tim, reminds her that this isn't giving up. This is simply regrouping. Taking care of herself so she can continue the fight tomorrow. But the rest of her, the part that feels raw and exposed and terrified, whispers that she’s being a coward. That she should’ve stayed and demanded to wait right there until they had answers, no matter how long it took.

Her phone vibrates against her hip, and Lucy's heart performs a violent leap, hope surging through her with painful intensity. Because maybe it's Nolan calling to say the preliminary tests don't match and that whoever is lying in that morgue isn't Tim. But when she extracts the device with trembling fingers, the screen displays only a text from Genny asking for updates on her brother. Lucy stares at the message for a long moment, her thumb hovering indecisively over the keyboard before she manages to type: Waiting on DNA results. I'll keep you updated.

The phone returns to her lap as she resumes her vigil out the window, though her thoughts only spiral further inward rather than focusing on the passing city.

If she'd known their last conversation might truly be their last, would she have said something different after they got back from Vegas? Would she have found the courage to voice what she's carried silently for months? How her pulse quickens whenever he says her first name, how she finds herself looking forward to the shifts when they get to ride together. How somewhere between all his Tim Tests and reluctant smiles, she'd fallen completely and irrevocably in love with him?

The bitter truth settles over her then because no, she probably wouldn’t have said any of it if given another chance. Because that's what she does, what she's always done when it comes to things that truly matter. She talks herself in circles about being brave, about seizing the moment and living life to the fullest, but when those moments actually arrive, she retreats into safety every single time.

Like she said before.

She’s a coward.

"He hates onions."

Angela's voice cuts through the suffocating silence so abruptly that she almost jumps. There's a strange quality to her tone that has Lucy turning to look at her.

"What?"

The other woman still has her eyes fixed on the road, her hands gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly, but there's the faintest hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Tim. He absolutely hates onions." She pauses, her throat working visibly as she swallows. "I used to purposely order his food with onions just so I could watch him pick out every single piece before eating. He’d sit there for ten, fifteen minutes picking out even the tiniest piece just because the stubborn idiot would refuse to order a new one. It was always amusing to watch. Other times I'd do it simply because it was the only way I could convince him to share his food with me."

Something loosens in Lucy's chest as she huffs out a noise. It’s not quite laughter, not quite a sob, but something that encompasses both. “He doesn’t like mushrooms either.” She supplies quietly. "He always makes this face if you try to get him to eat one, like you’re trying to poison him."

"The scrunched-up nose thing?"

"Yeah. Exactly that."

"And then he tries to play it off like he's not being extremely dramatic," Angela continues, warmth creeping back into her voice as she settles into the memory. "Like picking through your food for twenty minutes is a totally normal thing to do for a grown man."

Despite the weight crushing her chest, Lucy feels her lips curve into something approaching a genuine smile. "He does a similar thing with the paperwork he doesn't want to fill out. Keeps shuffling it around his desk like maybe it'll disappear if he rearranges it enough times. I actually had to stop teasing him about it because he'd just dump it all on my desk instead."

"God, yes. He used to try that with me until I started hiding the keys to his truck in retaliation." Angela lets out a low laugh. "Then there was last year when Grey had us all working on performance reviews. He complained for three days straight that they were—"

"'Bureaucratic nonsense designed to waste his time,'" Lucy finishes with her, mimicking his gruff tone.

Angela glances over at her with raised eyebrows. "That was disturbingly accurate."

Heat rises in Lucy's cheeks as she shrugs, turning back toward the window. "I've had to sit through that particular rant more than once." She doesn't mention how much time she spends studying him, memorizing his expressions and the cadence of his voice, how observing Tim has become as natural and necessary as breathing. After a moment, she adds, "He can be so grumpy sometimes. It's really not surprising that half the station is afraid of him."

"That's because they don't get to see the real him," Angela responds with a knowing snort. "If people knew even half the dirt I have on that man, his reputation would be ruined forever. Tim should count himself lucky that I'm so good at keeping secrets."

Curiosity temporarily pierces through Lucy's grief as she turns to study Angela's profile. The detective has known Tim for years, longer than anyone else at the station, and sometimes it’s easy to forget how long the two of them have been friends.

"Like what?"

"Well, I probably shouldn't tell you about the karaoke incident."

“The karaoke incident?”

Angela's lips twitch with suppressed amusement. "For the sake of both our relationships with him, it's probably best if I keep that particular story to myself."

She can't help but feel a small pang of disappointment, but there's something in the detective’s tone, a quiet respect underlying the teasing, that she understands. Still, curiosity burns through her. "Can you at least tell me if there was singing involved?"

"I will neither confirm nor deny," Angela replies, her eyes crinkling at the corners with the first genuine smile Lucy's seen from her all night. "But I will say that in all the years I've known Tim Bradford, I've never seen him turn that particular shade of red before."

For a fleeting moment, they share a smile, and Lucy feels the faintest flicker of normalcy pass between them. But reality reasserts itself almost immediately, the smile sliding from Angela's face first, then Lucy's, leaving behind that hollow ache that's taken up permanent residence in her chest. The silence that settles over them feels heavier now, and it’s a long moment before Angela speaks again. “I really do love that idiot.”

Lucy’s eyes drop to her lap. “I love him too.”

They both know she means it in an entirely different way. Angela loves him with the fierce loyalty of a best friend but Lucy... she’s in love with him.

The grief returns with a vengeance then, rising up her throat like bile, hot and bitter and impossible to swallow back down. Her vision blurs with tears she's been fighting since they left the clinic, and the words spill out before she can stop them.

"When we first met, I thought he was an insufferable ass. He was this demanding, infuriating man who seemed determined to make my life hell, but now—" She presses a hand against her mouth, trying to hold back the sob that threatens to slip past her lips. "Now I can't imagine my life without him. I love him so much, and I have no idea what I'm going to do if—"

"Lucy."

The hand that finds its way to her knee puts a stop to the panic attack that was quickly starting to bubble over.

"We don't know for sure that the..." the detective hesitates, her thumb pressing harder into her leg. "That the body was Tim's."

Lucy nods, trying desperately to gather the scattered pieces of herself back together. "I know, I know. It's just that... if it's not Tim, then who else would it be?"

“I don't know.” Angela sighs, the sound weary and bone-deep tired. "And it may be selfish of me, but I really can't think about that right now." She turns the car onto Lucy's street, slowing as they approach her building. "Which is why you're going to let me crash on your couch tonight, and we can both deal with the rest of it tomorrow."

Lucy doesn't possess the energy to argue with that, nor does she particularly want to. Even the thought of being alone in her apartment tonight has her stomach twisting with a dread so profound it almost physically hurts so she nods mutely as Angela maneuvers into a parking space, already dreading the moment she'll have to uncurl herself from this seat and face the reality waiting for them outside this temporary shelter of Angela's car.

Neither of them speak as they climb out of the car and make their way up the narrow staircase to the second floor of her apartment. Lucy’s hands tremble violently as she fumbles for her keys, and after the second failed attempt at opening her door, Angela gently takes the keys from her and unlocks it herself.

The apartment is dark and still when they enter, exactly how she left it the day before. The living room sits in shadows, illuminated only by the faint streetlight filtering through the blinds, and one glance around and she can tell her teenage roommate isn't home. The usual signs of Tamara's presence—shoes kicked off by the door, lights on in every room, music drifting quietly from her bedroom—are noticeably absent.

Which is another thing she gets to feel guilty about. Tamara had slept at the station with her last night, curled uncomfortably on the ground with her head on her lap, refusing to go home alone while they all stayed to work on the case. But with everything that's been going on today, she never really got the opportunity to check in with the girl. Someone must have taken her somewhere safe for the night, probably Grey or Nolan if she had to guess. And while she’s glad that someone clearly decided the teenager staying at their apartment by herself was a bad idea, the fact that she hadn't been the one to ensure Tamara's wellbeing adds another layer to her mounting failures as of late.

“Do you want some water?" The offer emerges from habit rather than conscious thought.

"Sure," the other woman replies, though Lucy suspects she's just humoring her to give her something to do.

She fumbles for the light switch before flipping it on. Light floods the apartment and she squints as her eyes adjust. She moves toward the kitchen on autopilot, not really taking in her surroundings until Angela's sharp intake of breath stops her mid-step.

"Holy shit.”

Something in the detective’s voice sends Lucy's heart into an erratic rhythm. She turns slowly, following Angela's transfixed gaze toward the living room, and the world tilts off its axis.

A figure slumps on her couch. The body alone is discerning enough but it's the distinctive shape of the person's head, the way their hair grows at the nape of their neck, the particular angle of their spine that has the voice in her head screaming Tim's name even as her mind struggles to process what she's even seeing. Because if she's really seeing what she thinks she is, then the man they've been looking for is right there.

In her living room.

"Tim?"

For a heartbeat, neither woman moves. Then they're both rushing forward, Lucy reaching him first.

"Oh my god" She falls to her knees beside him, hands hovering uncertainly over his body, afraid to touch him, afraid to make things worse. The extent of his injuries is even more horrifying than she thought it was going to be. His head is hanging forward with his chin nearly touching his chest, revealing a face that's obviously been systematically abused. His bottom lip is split and swollen, purple bruising mottles his jaw, and there’s a deep cut above his eyebrow that's still seeping blood. Most disturbing is the way his right arm is bent at a sickening angle, and now that she’s seeing it in person, it’s obvious that it’s broken.

"Tim? Tim, can you hear me?" Her voice climbs toward hysteria as she finally allows herself to touch him, gently cradling his battered face between trembling hands. His skin burns against her palms, fever hot and clammy, but oddly enough it's the most beautiful thing she's ever felt. Because it means he's alive. He's alive and he's here and he's not the body in that morgue.

"Tim," she chokes out again, his name breaking apart on her lips. "Hey, can you hear me?"

No response. His breathing remains shallow, eyes sealed shut, body limp against the cushions.

"Here, move over for a second," Angela says as she kneels on the floor beside her.

Lucy doesn't budge though. Can't even comprehend moving even a single inch from his side. Her knees have fused to the floor, her entire being focused on the proof of life she'd been desperately seeking for days now.

"We need to call an ambulance," she hears herself say, though her hands remain exactly where they are.

The other woman shoves at her shoulder, more insistent this time. "I know, but we need to check if he's breathing first."

She hadn't even thought to check. Hadn't gotten that far in her racing thoughts. She's been so caught up in the miracle of his presence that the most basic thing slipped past her completely and, oh god, is he breathing?

She jerks backward, hands falling away from Tim's face as a fresh wave of panic constricts her throat. Angela immediately fills the space she’s vacated, pressing two fingers against the pulse point in Tim's neck while Lucy watches, her own breathing suspended as the seconds stretch into infinity.

"He's got a pulse," Angela announces after a few seconds, shoulders sagging with relief. "It's weak, but it's definitely there."

Lucy releases the breath she'd been holding in a shuddering exhale, tears flowing freely now without any attempt to stop them. "Thank God."

"I'm calling for help," Angela says, her phone already pressed to her ear, rattling off the address while Lucy's hands find their way back to Tim, needing the physical confirmation that this isn't some grief-induced hallucination.

While Angela talks to dispatch, Lucy moves closer and carefully takes Tim's uninjured hand in hers. His skin is clammy there too, fingers limp in her grasp, but she holds on anyway, creating a contact point between them that she refuses to release. "You're going to be okay," she whispers, unsure if she's trying to reassure him or herself. "We've got you. You're safe now."

His face remains unnervingly still, no flutter of eyelids or twitch of recognition, just the labored rise and fall of his chest that seems to catch painfully with each inhale. Up close, she can catalog all the signs of his distress and every little thing she mentally notes are simultaneously heartbreaking and reassuring in a way, proof that he's alive even if he can't respond, and as pathetic as it is, she’s going to hold onto that.

She uses her free hand to gently brush her fingers through the sections of his hair that aren't matted with blood, careful to avoid the sections that are obviously split open and seeping. After hours of believing she might never see him again, the simple act of touching him feels impossibly precious.

Behind her, Angela's voice grows more urgent. "Possible internal injuries, definite compound fracture of the right arm, significant head trauma... yes, he's breathing but completely unresponsive. No, we haven't moved him."

The clinical description of all his injuries makes Lucy's chest constrict, but she forces herself to maintain the soothing motions and keep her voice steady as she continues her one-sided conversation.

"Tim, it's Lucy. I'm here. Angela's here too. We’re getting you help." Her thumb traces unconscious circles across his knuckles, a rhythmic motion meant to soothe them both. "I know you probably can't hear me, but I need you to know we found you. You're not alone anymore. We’re going to get you to a hospital and then you’ll feel a lot better, so just hold on a little longer, okay?

Angela returns to her side once she disconnects the call, shoving her phone back into her pocket. Lucy immediately notes the tears streaming down the woman's face. It's still a little jarring to see the usually composed detective so openly emotional.

Not that she’s faring much better herself, she’s just never seen her like this.

"Paramedics are ten minutes out," Angela reports, swiping at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. "For now, we need to stabilize his arm. That... that looks really bad."

Lucy's eyes drop to Tim's arm and winces. The limb bends at an unnatural angle just below the elbow, forearm twisted in a way that’s so grotesquely wrong, and the swelling has already distorted the natural shape, skin stretched tight and mottled with bruising so deep it actually looks nearly black in some places. Most disturbing are the areas where the bone clearly presses against the skin from within, creating tented areas that look like they might tear at any moment.

"Should we try to realign it?"

"God, no. We could sever an artery or cause the bone to puncture through. It’s better to leave that for the paramedics. We don’t want to make it worse.” She hesitates, examining his arm more closely. "We do need to straighten it out though. At that angle, it doesn't look like he's getting any circulation to his hand."

The words snap her into motion even as her mind races through all the ways this could go wrong, but watching his fingers turn that awful purple-gray color makes the decision for her, so she positions herself on Tim's right side, her hands hovering uncertainly over his shoulders.

"Tell me what to do."

"Brace his shoulder to try to keep him as still as possible if he moves and I'll deal with his arm. This is going to hurt like hell so we need to do it in one clean movement."

Lucy nods once before shifting her position. She places her hands firmly against his shoulder and bicep, using her body weight to pin him against the couch cushions. The fever radiating through his shirt makes her palms sweat, but she maintains her grip.

"Ready?" The detective asks as her hands hover over the broken limb.

"No, but do it anyway."

"On three," Angela says, gripping Tim's wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other. "One...two…"

She doesn’t make it to three.

The detective barely gets the opportunity to move his arm more than an inch before Tim's entire body jerks violently beneath her hands. His back bows off the couch as every muscle contracts simultaneously, a full body spasm that sends his good arm swinging out and catching Lucy's cheekbone with enough force to snap her head sideways.

Pain explodes across her face, but she barely registers it. She's more concerned with Tim, whose face contorts in a silent scream while his eyes bounce around wildly, not seeming to register where he is or who he’s with.

"No, no, no—" The words pour out of him in a broken litany as he tries to wrench away from Angela's grip. "Stop, please stop—"

Lucy's crying before she even realizes it, hot tears streaming down her face as she tries to soothe him, her hands fluttering uselessly for a moment before she catches his flailing arm, pinning it firmly against his chest. "Tim! Tim, it's okay! It's Lucy. You’re in my apartment. You're safe."

His eyes finally lock onto hers, though they remain unfocused, glazed with a mix of pain and confusion. The brilliant blue she's so used to seeing is dulled, though his thrashing gradually subsides as either exhaustion or some level of recognition seems to take hold.

And when his lips finally part, the words tumble out in a rasp. "I didn't want to do it."

Oh god.

His voice sounds awful , like he hasn't used it in days.

Realistically, her mind whispers unhelpfully, it’s probably because he’s spent the past couple of days over using it.

Lucy's hands press uselessly against his shoulders, every instinct screaming at her to soothe him, to run her fingers through his hair the way she's imagined doing a hundred times before in much different circumstances. But all of the sudden it’s like she can't move, paralyzed by the fear of making it worse.

Thankfully, Angela only hesitates for a brief moment before she’s using his disorientation to complete the reduction. The wet grinding sound of bone sliding back into alignment makes Lucy's stomach heave, but she forces herself to focus on Tim's face.

"She made me do it," he moans, his head thrashing side to side. His free hand clenches and unclenches spasmodically, grabbing at his shirt, at the couch fabric, at nothing. "I couldn't... she didn't...I didn’t want to."

Lucy's eyes snap to Angela’s and the two women share a worried look. Neither one of them have any idea what he's talking about, but given everything they've seen in the past twenty-four hours, the picture forming in Lucy's head isn't great.

"She made me do it.” Tim’s rambling continues, growing more distressed with each repetition of the words. "She made me do it. She made me do it."

Over and over again the mantra spills from his lips, and it's only when his voice breaks and tears begin to pool in his eyes that Lucy slides back onto the couch beside him.

"Tim, it's okay," she soothes, reaching toward him instinctively in an attempt to pull him back from wherever his mind has gone. But the moment her fingers brush his cheek, he recoils violently, pressing back against the couch as a strangled sound escapes his throat.

Lucy jerks her hands back as if burned, her throat closing around a sob as she watches the fear flash across his face.

Fear of her .

"Okay, okay," she manages, careful to keep her hands visible but not touching, remembering every de-escalation technique she's ever learned while her heart hammers against her ribs because this is Tim, this is Tim , and she's having to treat him like a traumatized victim. "No one's going to touch you. I’m sorry."

His gaze darts between Angela and herself with the unfocused quality of someone drugged or concussed—probably both, she realizes with another spike of concern— then around the apartment as if searching for some hidden threat.

Behind her, she hears Angela make a sympathetic noise. "It's just us, Tim. Lucy and Angela. No one else is here."

His eyes settle on his friend and rather than calming him, the reassurance seems to increase his agitation. "No, I saw—" He stops, swallows hard. "I saw what she did to him. What she made me—" His voice cracks. "She’s coming back. We can’t be here."

She wants to promise him they’re safe, that whatever happened wasn't his fault, but the words die in her throat. Because looking at him now, at the damage written across his body and the fractures in his mind, she's not sure anything will ever be okay again.

A sharp knock at the door cuts through his rambling and Tim nearly jumps out of his skin, a terrified noise tearing from his throat as he tries to scramble backward despite having nowhere to go. The sudden movement wrenches another agonized groan from his throat as his broken arm jolts against the couch.

"Hey, it's okay.” She leans forward as much as she dares without actually closing the distance between them. "Tim, it's just the paramedics. I’m going to let them in and then they’re going to take care of your arm, okay?”

She starts to rise from her position beside him, but any reservation Tim had about being touched flies out the window. His hand shoots out faster than should be possible for someone in his condition, fingers finding her smaller ones and gripping it with a strength she didn’t even know he still had. He doesn't actually say anything, but Lucy reads the desperate plea in his eyes as clearly as if he'd shouted it across the room.

Lucy's gaze flicks to Angela, a whole conversation passing between them in the span of a heartbeat. The detective nods once, understanding immediately what Tim can't bring himself to say out loud, and moves toward the door instead.

Lucy sinks back down beside the couch, carefully turning her wrist so she can thread her fingers through his properly. His grip is painfully tight, his whole arm trembling with the effort it takes to hold on, but what really catches her off-guard is the intensity of his focus. He studies her features with an almost frantic attention, gaze tracing from her eyes to her mouth to the tear tracks she knows are still visible on her cheeks.

"It’s okay," she whispers, pouring every ounce of conviction she possesses into those two words. She couldn't protect him from Rosalind, couldn't stop whatever happened in that morgue, couldn't even find him before he somehow ended up broken and bleeding on her couch, but she'll be damned if she lets anything or anyone else hurt him now. “You’re going to be okay.”

She’s going to make sure of it.

His thumb moves against hers in response, just the tiniest of movements, and she takes it as permission to return the gesture.

The next few minutes pass in a blur as the paramedics work on stabilizing him. Lucy tries to make herself small, pressing against the couch while simultaneously maintaining her grip on Tim's hand, contorting herself around the paramedics as they work because his fingers haven't loosened their desperate hold and she'd rather dislocate her own shoulder than be the one to let go first.

The paramedics around them speak in low, clipped words about things like blood pressure readings and possible internal injuries, but Lucy only half-listens as she tries to soothe him the best she can with a steady stream of reassurances and gentle swipes of her thumb across his knuckles.

She’s just so afraid to let him go.

Which is why when they finally have Tim up on the stretcher and are preparing to move him, she musters her most deadly glare and mutters a, "I'm coming with you” to the person standing closest to her.

The paramedic nods, seemingly unsurprised by her insistence, and Lucy wonders what he sees in her face that makes him skip right past the usual 'family only' protocols.

"I'll follow in my car," Angela says beside them, already pulling out her phone with one hand while her keys jangle in the other, and there's something in her voice that makes Lucy finally look at her, really look at her, and see her own barely controlled panic reflected back. "And I'll call Grey and the others on the way."

Lucy barely mumbles a proper response, her entire focus narrowed to keeping pace with the stretcher as they wheel Tim down the elevator and out of the building.

Loading him into the ambulance involves more jostling that has him groaning through clenched teeth, his whole body tensing in a way that must be agony on what she’s sure are bruised ribs, and Lucy finds herself murmuring apologies like she's the one causing the pain, like any of this is her fault even though she knows it isn't. And once they're moving, she positions herself where she can see his face while staying clear of the paramedic still working on him.

The ride to the hospital somehow manages to feel both never ending and brief, and through it all, the questions she wants to ask burn in her throat like acid. She wants to ask him where he’s been, what Rosalind did to him, what she ‘made him do’. But she swallows them all down because this is hardly the time for that, not when he's barely conscious and the panic from earlier still lingers in his eyes. There will be time for questions later, she tells herself. For now, all that should matter is that he's alive, he's breathing, and she's not letting go of his hand until she knows he's going to stay that way.

When they pull up to the emergency entrance, Lucy follows alongside the gurney for as long as she can before a nurse is pulling her to a stop and informing her that this is as far as she's allowed to go. The double doors of the trauma unit loom ahead, ready to separate them, and the panic in her own chest flares back to life.

Tim regained a little bit of consciousness on the way in, so when she turns her panicked eyes to him, she doesn't hesitate to lean over the bed and press a long kiss to his forehead, lingering there. The conflict registers somewhere in the back of her mind—this isn't her place, she has no right to be touching him like this, not when he has Ashley waiting somewhere, not when she just ended things with Chris—but in this moment, none of that matters. Right now, he’s just Tim, the man she loves, and she needs the reassurance before he's whisked away for who knows how long.

Her fingers move without her permission, trailing lightly along his hairline where the blood has matted his hair, brushing back the strands that have fallen across his forehead with a tenderness that makes her throat tight, and presses one more quick kiss to his temple. "I'll see you in a little bit."

If Tim is confused by her actions, he doesn't voice it. He just gives her the slightest nod, his eyes holding hers for a long moment before the nurses are moving again, wheeling him away.

She stands frozen in place long after he’s gone, staring at the closed doors, suddenly unsure what she’s supposed to do with herself. The adrenaline that's been carrying her since finding Tim on her couch has already started to ebb, leaving her feeling shaky and hollowed out, and for the first time in what feels like forever, she has nothing immediate to do, nowhere to be, no crisis demanding her attention.

Lucy takes a step back, then another, and another, until she’s back in the waiting room and sinking into one of the chairs in the far corner of the room.

And then she finally does what she's been wanting to do all night.

She cries.

Not the silent tears from earlier but real, body-shaking sobs that she muffles against her hands, hunched forward in the uncomfortable chair while everything pours out of her.

Every emotion she's fought hard to control since finding that body in the morgue crashes through her all at once—the terror, the grief, the desperate hope, the relief. So she cries until her ribs ache and her eyes burn, until her sleeve is damp with tears and her breath comes in ragged hiccups.

She doesn't notice Angela until the detective is sitting beside her, a warm hand on her back. Neither of them speaks. Angela simply passes her a tissue from her pocket and keeps her hand between Lucy's shoulder blades, a steady pressure that somehow makes it easier to breathe again.

It's still several minutes before she can pull herself together enough to speak. "I thought he was dead," she whispers, her voice hoarse from crying. "I really thought he was dead."

"I know," Angela murmurs. "So did I."

They sit in silence for a moment longer before Lucy straightens slightly, wiping the last of her tears away with the back of her hand. "Did you call Grey?"

The detective nods. "And Nolan and Harper. They're on their way."

"What about Ashley?" she asks, forcing herself to say the name despite the way it sticks in her throat. Tim's girlfriend deserves to know he's alive.

"I couldn't reach her," Angela admits, her brow furrowing. "I left a message for her to call me back ASAP."

She tries not to feel relieved about that. But there it is anyway, a selfish little spark she can't bring herself to extinguish. She's not ready to share him with Ashley, not ready to step back into the role of just his former rookie, his friend.

Not when the love she feels for him is raging like a fire in her chest, consuming everything else.

Lucy stares down at her empty palm, still warm from where his fingers had been interlaced with hers, and takes a deep breath.

She really needs to get herself under control.

Though how is she supposed to do that when it feels like her entire world is falling apart?

Chapter Text

Seventeen hours.

Lucy traces the edge of the waiting room chair with her thumb, the repetitive motion doing nothing to quiet the restless energy thrumming through her veins. Because that's how long it's been since they found Tim unconscious on her couch, and he still refuses to see anyone. Not her, not Angela, not even Ashley when the blonde finally showed up three hours ago with mascara already smudged beneath her eyes. The doctors updated them earlier this morning and confirmed he's awake, alert, and medically stable enough for visitors, but the man himself has made it crystal clear that he wants to be left alone.

A part of her understands the impulse. That instinct to retreat, to build a wall around yourself and hide behind it until the world stops spinning. But the rest of her, the part that is screaming his name, wants to shoulder past the bored-looking guard stationed outside his room and remind him that he’s not alone anymore. To see for herself the rise and fall of his chest, to hear his voice, even if it’s just to tell her to get the hell out.

That at least would be something.

Instead, all she gets is updates. So she has no choice but to continue to wait.

The only positive she’s able to cling to is the fact that they at least haven’t been sitting here completely in the dark. The investigation has moved forward, even without Tim's statement, and they've actually been able to learn a few things.

First, Rosalind Dyer has vanished—not that there’s any surprise there. The woman could teach smoke how to disappear more effectively.

Second, the burned body from the morgue (obviously) wasn't Tim. Lucy had known that the moment she saw him breathing on her couch, but having it confirmed officially was still a relief in a weird way. The body actually belonged to a Marcus Harber, thirty six years old, married with a seven year old daughter. The severed finger Rosalind sent them had been his too, a detail that makes Lucy hate herself for finding relief in.

What kind of person feels relieved by that?

Then there's Elaine Marcum. CSU was finally able to connect a single hair in Tim's truck to the uncooperative woman, and though it’s not much, it was enough to tie the woman directly to his abduction and make her arrest stick.

But in the grand scheme of things, it’s all just disconnected facts that lead nowhere. And they can’t actually work towards understanding it all if Tim won't talk to them.

Lucy knows him well enough to recognize the signs of him shutting down. She’s seen him do this before. Multiple times, in fact. The difference is that this time, she can't just wait it out or chip away at his defenses slowly over time like she has in the past.

The worst part is she's almost certain Tim's refusal to see anyone has nothing to do with his physical condition. This is Tim Bradford they're talking about. The same man who once worked an entire shift with food poisoning because they were short-staffed. Who showed up to work the day after his wife was shot in the head and acted like nothing had happened, even though Lucy could see the exhaustion in his eyes.

Tim doesn't hide from physical or emotional pain. He pushes through it, compartmentalizes it, then deals with it on his own time. He doesn't shut people out unless there's a damn good reason to.

So no, if Tim is shutting everyone out, it's because whatever Rosalind did to him over the past couple days is so much worse than any of them can imagine.

And that terrifies Lucy more than anything. Because if Tim—steady, unshakeable Tim—can't face what happened to him, then what the hell did that evil woman manage to break inside him that even he doesn't think he can put back together?

The not knowing is a special kind of torture. But a small, terrified voice in the back of her mind whispers that finding out is going to end up being so much worse.

"Please tell me you're planning on confessing your undying love sometime in the near future."

Lucy's heart nearly stops as her eyes dart frantically to the blonde on the other side of the room, confirming that Ashley is still deep in conversation on her phone, before she turns her wide eyes back toward the woman in the chair beside her. "What?"

Angela isn't even looking at her. Her gaze is fixed on Tim’s girlfriend with barely concealed irritation. "That woman has been talking for the last ten minutes about how this is going to be her opportunity to finally convince Tim that it's time to retire. Like that's the thing she should be focusing on right now."

Her eyes follow Angela’s, landing on the small, agitated circles Ashley is wearing into the linoleum floor. Her free hand gestures wildly, punctuating a conversation Lucy can’t hear but can easily imagine. “Is she really?”

"Oh yeah. Apparently Tim's 'dangerous lifestyle choices' have finally caught up with him, and this whole situation just proves that he needs to find a nice, safe desk job." The disdain in her voice is thick. "She's literally planning how she's going to use his 'vulnerable state' to make him see reason."

"His vulnerable state?"

"Her words, not mine." The detective finally turns to look at her, and there's something fierce in her expression. "Which brings me back to my original question. Because if you don't hurry up and tell Tim that you're disgustingly in love with him, he's going to end up stuck with someone who sees his kidnapping as a bargaining chip."

Heat floods Lucy's cheeks. "Angela—"

"Don't 'Angela' me. We both know I'm right." She settles back in her chair, but her eyes never leave Lucy's face. "He just survived five days of god knows what kind of psychological torture, and she's already planning how to use it to her advantage. Meanwhile, you've been sitting in this waiting room for hours, looking like someone ripped your heart out and stomped on it."

The description is eerily accurate.

That’s exactly what it feels like.

“I really don’t think now’s the time for me to do that.”

"Maybe not at this exact moment," Angela concedes. "But you should do it soon. Before Malibu Barbie over there somehow finds a way to make this whole situation harder for him."

Lucy sighs as she presses the heels of her palms into her eye sockets, chasing away the headache blooming behind them. "Well, even if I wanted to, I can't exactly tell him any of that if he won't let us talk to him in the first place.”

The fight drains out of Angela’s expression, replaced by a wave of concern that mirrors her own. "He's not going to be able to keep avoiding us forever. Now that he's stable, Grey wants us to get his statement."

"He does? When?"

"Soon. Today, maybe, if the doctors clear it." Angela glances toward the hallway that leads to Tim's room. "Grey's been patient, but we need a better understanding of what happened. The longer we wait, the colder the trail gets. And with Rosalind still out there..."

She doesn't need to finish the sentence. They both know what's at stake.

"What if he still doesn’t want to talk to us?" Lucy asks quietly. "He might not be ready to talk about what happened."

“I know.” Angela is quiet for a long time, staring down at her lap. "I've known Tim for a long time. He can be hard-headed and stubborn, and god knows the man is terrible at expressing his feelings, but I've never seen him just...shut down like this." She pauses, her fingers tightening around the plastic arm reset. "I don't know what Rosalind did to him, but based on what he was saying when we found him, I'm assuming whatever it was is bad."

The suspicion hits a little too close to her own fears. She thinks back to the moment they found Tim on her couch, the way he'd been mumbling incoherently during those first few minutes before the paramedics arrived. She hadn't been able to make sense of most of it, but the words she had caught—fragments about being sorry and Rosalind making him do it—had sent ice through her veins.

Her gaze drops to her hands as her mind drifts to a different hospital room during a different time when she was the one lying in a bed. “He sat with me,” she says quietly. “After Caleb. He was there the whole night, until I woke up.”

Angela's expression softens. "I know. I gave him so much shit for that.”

"You knew?"

"Who do you think he begged to pick up your favorite lunch just so he wouldn’t have to leave your side?"

She... hadn't actually known that. She'd always just assumed that he’d briefly left to pick up the food before she woke up.

The new tidbit of information has tears burning at the back of her eyes.

She really loves that man.

"Tim was there for me during the worst day of my life," Lucy continues, her voice thick with emotion. "And now all I want is to do the same for him. But he won't let me." She swipes angrily at her eyes, refusing to let the tears fall. "He needs all the support he can get right now, but I don't know how to help someone who doesn’t want it."

Angela is quiet for a long moment. Then, a determined spark reignites in her eyes. "You know what? Maybe we're overthinking this."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean maybe we should just go see him. Whether he wants visitors or not. All we have to do is sneak in before anyone notices."

Lucy frowns. "Why would we have to sneak in? Even if he doesn't have us listed as his emergency contacts, we're cops and he’s part of an active investigation. We can go back there whenever we want."

The detective’s gaze slides past Lucy, a silent, pointed accusation aimed across the room. Her eyes narrow. "We're not sneaking in because we have to, Lucy. We'd be doing it so blondie over there doesn't try to come with us."

Lucy follows Angela's gaze and understanding dawns. And as selfish as it may be, she doesn't want Ashley there either. And it’s not just about the supposed retirement speeches or manipulative agendas—though that’s certainly part of it—but because the thought of sharing this moment with Tim's girlfriend makes her stomach twist with something that feels uncomfortably close to jealousy.

Angela wants to protect Tim from his girlfriend’s agenda; Lucy wants to protect her own heart from watching the man she loves seek solace in another woman’s arms.

"Okay.”

Angela looks at her with surprise. "Okay?"

"Let's go see him." Lucy stands up, her decision made. "Before I convince myself that this is a terrible idea."

A slow grin spreads across Angela’s face, a look of something that resembles pride. "Now you're talking." She stands, her eyes cutting across the room one last time to confirm Ashely is still distracted. "Come on. While she's not paying attention."

They walk past Ashley as casually as they can, and really, it's not like they even needed to be cautious in the first place because the blonde doesn't even pass them a sparing glance.

Lucy breathes out a sigh of relief as they round the corner and move down the hallway, stopping briefly to flash their badges at one of the nurses at the front desk, who gives them a distracted, tight nod without looking up from her computer screen, and just like that, they’re in.

But as they approach his room, her relief dissipates as her anxiety returns with a vengeance. Angela must notice her hesitation because she places a steadying hand on her arm just before they go in. "Hey, it’s going to be okay. You know that, right?"

Lucy manages a jerky nod, her throat too tight for words. She takes a deep, ragged breath, holds it for a second, and follows Angela into the room.

The first thing she notices is how small he looks.

It’s a dissonant thought. Tim Bradford has always been this larger-than-life presence, a man who commands space just by entering it. But here, swallowed by the starched white of a hospital bed, with IV lines running from his arms and a nasal cannula tucked under his nose, he looks almost fragile in a way she’s never seen before.

His eyes are closed and for one heart-stopping, terrifying second, she’s back in her apartment, staring down at his still form on her couch. But then his eyelids are fluttering open at the sound of their footsteps, and she finds herself looking into familiar blue eyes that seem dimmed. His gaze darts between them and Lucy braces herself, fully expecting him to order them to get out.

What he actually says is, "What are you doing in here?" The question isn't angry. It’s just… tired.

"We came to check on you," Angela says simply. "You've been avoiding us."

"I told the nurses I didn't want visitors."

"Yeah, well, since when do we listen to what you tell us to do?"

Lucy remains rotted to the spot just inside the door, suddenly unsure of herself as the two of them talk. She'd been so focused on getting in here, on seeing him with her own eyes, that she hadn't really thought about what she'd say once she was actually standing in front of him.

Angela, bless her, has no such reservations. She moves to the chair beside his bed like she belongs there, settling down with the kind of casual confidence that only comes from years of friendship. "We're here to check on you, whether you want us to or not. Though I have to say, your bedside manner could use some work."

A muscle feathers in Tim’s jaw. Then his gaze leaves Angela and lands on Lucy again, and she watches as something flashes across his expression—panic, maybe—before it’s gone just as quickly.

Now that his attention has turned to her though, it's almost like he can't seem to turn away. Lucy can't make sense of the intensity in his gaze. He’s looking at her like he's afraid she might disappear if he blinks. Which is weird because she should be the one looking at him like that, not the other way around.

"You're okay," he breathes, and the words are spoken with so much relief that she finally gains the confidence to move further into the room and sink into the chair on the opposite side of the bed.

"Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be?" The second the words are out of her mouth, she wishes she could take them back.

This is all your fault, remember, a voice in her head screams.

Thankfully, Tim doesn't seem to notice her slip-up. The rigid tension in his shoulders actually seems to loosen as the barest hint of ease settles over him.

"Good," he says quietly. There's a beat of silence, then, "So she didn’t detonate the bomb?"

Angela lets out a string of curses. “There’s a bomb?”

Lucy really doesn't like the new look on Tim's face, especially the way his expression has shifted from relief to something that borders on panic.

"The apartment building that you and Nolan were looking through," he continues, his voice gaining urgency. "Rosalind told me she'd planted a bomb somewhere in the building that was large enough to take out half the block."

Lucy’s eyes fly to Angela’s, her own horror mirrored back at her across the bed. “Lopez…”

"On it." Angela is already pulling out her phone, her fingers flying across the screen as she dials dispatch.

Lucy's eyes slide back to Tim, and she doesn't even get a moment to freak out about the fact that she foolishly let herself walk into a building with a bomb because she immediately notes the way Tim's hands seem to be shaking violently. His knuckles are white where he's gripping the hospital blanket, and the tremor in his fingers is impossible to miss.

"Tim." She reaches toward his hand instinctively, but he flinches away from her touch like it burns. The rejection stings more than it should, but she quickly pushes it aside. This isn’t about her. "Hey, look at me. I'm fine. Nolan's fine. And now that we know what’s going on, we’ll get a team over there to evacuate the area and do a sweep of the entire building. The fact that she didn’t set it off while we were there is a good sign. That means she might have been lying to you.”

That apparently was the wrong thing to say.

Tim actually flinches as he pinches his eyes shut, and it doesn't take much to note the way his breathing is starting to come in shallow, ragged gasps. She recognizes the signs of a panic attack when she sees one, and this time when she reaches for his hand, she doesn't let his flinch stop her. She closes her fingers around his, ignoring the way he tries to pull away.

"Tim, breathe with me, okay? In for four, hold, out for four. Just like you taught me."

He just shakes his head, his whole body trembling now.

"You don't understand. She—" He trails off, slumping back against the pillows, defeated. When his eyes find hers again, they’re swimming in a guilt so deep it threatens to drown them both. “There has to be a bomb.”

He wants there to be a bomb?

A thousand questions scream through her mind, battling for release. What did she make you do? Why are you more afraid of her lying than of her telling the truth? How did you even know I was there? But she swallows them all, her grip on his trembling hand tightening. Her questions can wait.

Angela doesn't seem to agree because she's already asking, "What did she make you do?"

A sound rattles in Tim’s chest, a bitter, broken thing that might have been a laugh as he tilts his head back to look at the ceiling. The harsh fluorescent lights cast shadows under his eyes, turning the bruises on his skin into deep, purple craters.

"Have you found him yet?"

Angela’s brow furrows. "Who?"

But Lucy knows exactly who he's talking about. The floor seems to drop out from under her, a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach as she realizes exactly where this is heading. "We found the body right before we found you in my apartment. We actually... uh... thought it was you."

The haunted look that swamps Tim’s features makes her chest tighten with dread. "I wish it was me."

She squeezes his hand, leaning forward in her chair. "Don't say that—"

"I killed him."

He...what?

"Marcus, he... he thought he was ready to die. He even said it was okay for me to choose you." His voice cracks on that last word, and she watches in horror as tears begin to track down his cheeks. "But then I lit him on fire and all he could do was scream."

In all the years she has known him, Lucy has never seen Tim cry like this. Not once. It's devastating in a way that has her own eyes burning with unshed tears. She wants to say something, anything at this point, but what kind of reassurance exists for this?

"I can still hear it," he whispers, the sound scraping its way out of his throat. "The way he screamed when the flames caught his clothes. He begged over and over again for me to help him, like I could somehow take it back, and I just... I just stood there and watched him burn to death."

She was wrong earlier.

She’s not sure she even wants to know any more.

Tim’s hand drops from his face as his attention returns to Lucy. "She had a live feed of you and Nolan walking around someone’s apartment. We didn’t understand why at first but then she told me about the bomb and that I had to choose between killing Marcus or killing you. And I... god help me, I chose to kill an innocent man to save your life, and now I have to live with that choice forever."

And there it is.

That’s why he wants there to be a bomb. Because if there isn’t, if Rosalind had been lying, then Tim had become a murderer for a lie.

The profound relief she’d felt earlier, that selfish, desperate gratitude that the charred body wasn’t his, curdles in her stomach, turning into something acidic and shameful. Tim is carrying this new, soul-crushing burden, and it’s all a debt incurred entirely in her name.

This really is all her fault.

"Tim..." she starts, but the name is a choked, useless sound. So she clears her throat and tries again. "Tim, look at me."

He won’t look at either of them. His gaze seems to be fixed on some unseen horror playing out on the blank wall opposite his bed.

“I can’t stop seeing his face every time I close my eyes. The way he looked at me right before... before his skin began to...” He cuts himself off, and Lucy can tell it’s only because he doesn’t want to cry in front of them.

Oh, Tim.

She wants to remind him that he saved her, as if that’ll make him feel better, but the reassurance tastes like ash in her mouth. While it’s technically the truth, it also feels like the cruelest possible thing to say to him, because not only does it not absolve him, it also cements her place as the reason for the hell he’s been through.

And as selfish as it is, she doesn’t want to remind him of that fact.

Words are useless at this point anyway.

So Lucy rises from the chair, her decision instinctive rather than thought out, and without asking for permission, she perches carefully on the edge of the bed.

The mattress gives under her added weight, and mindful of the IV line taped to his forearm, she tucks her shoulder just behind his, forcing him to rest his full weight against her chest. She waits a beat, a silent question hanging in the space between them, and when he doesn’t pull away or tell her to stop, she snakes her other arm around his chest, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder in what’s probably the world’s most awkward hug.

It’s the only thing she can think to do.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy’s vaguely aware of Angela’s wide, surprised eyes on her. She can practically feel the weight of the detective’s stare, the unspoken questions radiating from across the bed, but she ignores it and instead tightens her arm around Tim as she closes her eyes and lets herself settle into the hug.

The man in question is completely rigid within her hold, and she briefly wonders if he’s holding himself this still for her benefit or his own before he’s letting out a shuddering breath and slumping against her, his head falling into the space between her shoulder and her neck.

This is why she didn't want Ashley to come back with them.

If Tim's girlfriend was here, she wouldn't be able to hold him like this. She'd be relegated to the sidelines, watching from the visitor's chair while someone else offered the comfort she's been aching to give for days now. The mere thought of Ashley's manicured hands anywhere near where her hands are now has something possessive rearing its ugly head.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she whispers, the words barely a vibration against his hair.

Even as she says it, the word feels insignificant. Okay. What a hollow, stupid word for this. He’s alive, sure. His heart is beating, and there’s air moving in and out of his lungs. But he’s not okay. Far from it, actually. But he’s here, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s the only version of okay that matters.

The three words that want to follow burn on her tongue. I love you. The confession aches to be released, and it takes every ounce of her self-control to swallow them back down and lock them away in the place where she keeps all the things she can’t say to him yet.

Tim’s head tilts to the side just enough that he can turn to look at her, his face only inches from hers. It would be so easy to kiss him the way she desperately wants to. 

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Their eyes lock, and the intensity in his gaze almost makes her forget that they have another set of eyes watching them.

"None of this was your fault, you hear me?" she whispers fiercely. "None of it."

He makes a sound at that, something between a sob and a bitter laugh, and the self-loathing in it is so obvious that she holds him that much tighter, her arms tightening around him until there's no chance he could pull away even if he wanted to.

"You did what you had to do in order to survive."

"I think that's the worst part. Because even after everything... I still can't bring myself to wish I'd made a different choice." His eyes slide back to his lap, unable to meet hers anymore. There's a long pause. "And I don't know what kind of person that makes me."

It makes you a man I will never, ever deserve.

Tim doesn't seem bothered by her silence as her arm tightens around him almost imperceptibly, or if he is, he doesn’t care. Maybe he just understands, in the way they’ve always seemed to understand each other, that there are no words for this.

A full minute drags by in weighted silence before she catches Angela's eye over his bowed head. They'd snuck back here because they wanted to see him, but Lucy can see the curiosity brimming in the detective's eyes now. She clearly wants to push him a step further and take his full statement like they had discussed earlier.

And Lucy won't lie, she's a little curious too. There are still too many gaps in the story that her brain is struggling to fill in, but Tim hasn't attempted to explain himself any further, and it's growing more and more obvious by the second that he's done talking.

Which is fine with her.

Lucy shifts on the narrow mattress, carefully untangling her arm from around his chest. He leans away slightly, giving her the space she needs to resettle more upright against the pillows. She repositions her shoulder, creating a more stable backrest, and then gently guides him with a hand on his arm until he’s leaning against her again. He follows her guidance without an ounce of resistance, his body pliant, letting her arrange him like he’s nothing more than dead weight.

The uncharacteristic display of compliance surprises her. Actually, surprise isn't the right word. It's more like shock. Because this is the man who doesn't let people help him. Ever. He's always the one doing the helping, the saving, the protecting.

Yet here he is, letting her manipulate his body without so much as a huff of annoyance or a muttered comment about being able to handle it himself. He's just... compliant.

And that almost scares her more than his tears had.

She catches Angela’s eye again, and the deep, furrowed concern she sees there is a perfect mirror of her own.

Yeah, they may have a million questions to ask him, but maybe now really isn’t the time to push him to—

"Look, I know you're not feeling up to it right now, but we really need to talk about what happened. Not just with Marcus, but with everything."

Okay, so maybe they aren't on the same page.

Apparently, now is the time to push.

Tim goes statue-still against her and Lucy wants to warn Angela off with a look or a shake of her head, but the detective is already plowing forward, her curiosity apparently overriding her ability to read the room.

"Grey's going to want a full statement soon, and given that Rosalind is still MIA, we need to know everything you know about what she might be up to. Where she was keeping you, anything important you might have overheard, what her endgame might be. The more we know, the better chance we have of catching her before she manages to get away again."

The pressure around Lucy’s hand intensifies, and while it’s a subtle change, one that most people wouldn't notice, she’s worked with this man long enough to recognize the signs of his impending anger.

“Lopez, I really don't think—"

"I know this is difficult," the detective interrupts, cutting Lucy off without a glance. "But five days is a long time, Tim. You must have picked up on something that could help us find her."

Heat spreads through Lucy's ribcage, something wild and territorial clawing its way up from her stomach. Tim obviously doesn't want to talk about this right now. It's written in every line of his body, but for some reason, Angela either doesn't seem to notice or she simply doesn't care.

And that, more than anything, pisses her off.

Tim’s friend means well, and everything she's saying makes logical sense from an investigative standpoint. She's a cop too. She gets it.

But the rest of her, especially the part who can feel the frantic, panicked thrumming of his heart, is furious. This isn't some random witness they’re needing to question. This is Tim. And suddenly the need to protect him, to tell Angela to back the hell off, burns in her throat like acid.

She’s actually drawing a breath to say just that—protocol be damned—when Tim speaks.

"I don't know where she took us first.” His voice is scraped clean of all infection and feeling. “It’s not exactly easy to tell when you're locked in a room without windows, but I do know we were there for a couple days. Then she moved us to the morgue and that's where I spent another couple days doing all sorts of enjoyable things. I really just loved being shoved in—” He stops, and Lucy's skin prickles with dread at the abrupt silence.

Shoved in what?

Her mind supplies a dozen awful answers for her.

“I was alone for most of the time I was there. I really only saw her when she came back and had me…”

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Then after... it... happened, she so gently deprived me of oxygen long enough for me to pass out and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in Chen's apartment. And that's all I know. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

The bitterness in that last question is hard to miss.

Angela, to her credit, doesn’t flinch at his tone, but her expression does soften with sympathy. "I know you're angry. You have every right to be. But we need more details than that if we're going to—"

"I said that's all I know." The temperature in his voice drops twenty degrees. "What more do you want from me, Lopez? A play-by-play of how she forced Marcus to beat the shit out of me because apparently she was too good to do it herself? What it felt like when my arm snapped in half? Or maybe you'd like to hear about how I had to piss all over myself because she stuffed me in a body cooler for two days?"

Oh god.

The image of Tim locked in that small, dark space has bile rising in her throat.

He'd started to say it earlier, I really just loved being shoved in—, but now that she knows how that sentence ends, she wishes desperately that she didn't.

When she looks to Angela, the woman is just sitting there, absorbing the information like she's taking mental notes. Which, Lucy realizes with a sick twist in her stomach, she probably is. Cataloging every horrific detail for the report she'll have to write later and the case she'll have to build off of all the new information.

That is her job, after all.

Lucy hates her for doing it. Because right now, she couldn't care less about her own job.

Pressure builds behind her eyes, a sharp sting that climbs up into her nose, and she tries to swallow it back so she can maintain at least some semblance of composure, but her body has other plans, and before she can stop it, she's crying.

And it's not a dignified cry, either. No, the distressed noise that tears from her throat is anything but quiet or graceful. It's an ugly, broken sound that slips past her lips without warning, startling both Tim and Angela into silence. Their heated exchange is momentarily forgotten as they turn to stare at her in surprise.

Mortified, she claps a hand over her mouth, but the dam has already broken and suddenly she's crying in earnest for all of it. For Marcus, for his family, for Tim.

And she's crying because it's all her fault. Every single bit of it.

All because two years ago, she was dumb enough to go on a date with a serial killer. If she'd been smarter, more careful, less trusting, none of this would have happened.

"Lucy..." All the anger from seconds ago seems to have evaporated like it never existed. "Hey, don't cry.

The gentleness in his voice only makes her cry that much harder. He should be angry at her. Should hate her role in this. Instead, he's trying to comfort her, and the wrongness of it makes her chest heave with another sob.

"I'm sorry," she manages between hiccupping breaths, trying desperately to get herself under control and failing spectacularly. "I don't know why I'm—this isn't about me."

"It’s okay.” His thumb starts up that gentle pattern against the back of her hand. "You have nothing to apologize for."

But she does. She has so much to apologize for that she doesn't even know where to start.

Angela shifts uncomfortably in her chair, and Lucy can see the war playing out across her face. She's clearly caught between her duty as a detective and her loyalty as a friend. A long moment passes before she stands, her decision apparently made.

"I'll give you two a minute," she says quietly, already moving toward the door. "And I'll talk to Grey about postponing your official statement until tomorrow."

Tim doesn't acknowledge her departure. His attention stays locked on Lucy, blue eyes tracking the tears sliding down her cheeks as Angela's footsteps fade into the hallway.

And then it’s just the two of them.

Lucy squeezes her eyes shut in an attempt to stem the tears.

"Hey," he begins quietly, and she can feel him moving against her shoulder again, trying to angle himself so he can see her face better. "Lucy, look at me."

She doesn’t want to. She wants to hide, to shrink into herself until she disappears. Looking at him means seeing the bruising on his face, the exhaustion in his eyes, the physical proof of what her mistake has cost him. But the quiet command in his voice is one she’s been conditioned to obey, and reluctantly, she meets his gaze.

"This isn't your fault.”

She lets out a bitter laugh that sounds more like a sob. “How can you even say that? She only did this to you because she wanted to get to me. Because I—”

“Lucy, stop.” The word is firm but not unkind. "You think I don't know what that feels like? Blaming yourself for things that are completely out of your control?"

She does know.

The irony isn't lost on her that they're both sitting here, drowning in guilt over the actions of a psychopath.

"You didn't force me into her car," he continues despite the exhaustion creeping into every line of his face. "And you didn't force Marcus to—" He stops, swallows hard. "You didn't do any of this either."

She wants that to be true. 

"If it's your fault that Rosalind took me, then it's my fault that Marcus is dead."

That gets her attention.

"That's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?" His eyes hold hers. "You think it's your fault Rosalind targeted me. I think it's my fault that Marcus is dead. We're both taking responsibility for things that were never our choice to begin with."

Her mouth opens to argue, to find some logical reason why her guilt is justified while his isn't. Because surely there's a difference. But the words stick in her throat because he's not entirely wrong. If she keeps insisting on carrying all the blame, then she's, in a way, validating his own self-blame. And she'd rather die than do that to him.

Still, even knowing it's irrational, she can't quite bring herself to let go of that guilt completely.

“I hate her.” And that’s the truest thing she’s said all day.

Tim’s expression darkens. “Get in line.”

She'd expected him to tell her that hate wouldn't solve anything, that it would only eat her alive from the inside out. That's what Tim would normally say. He’s always been the more pragmatic and measured one, trying to steer her away from the messier emotions she sometimes got caught in.

But there's nothing measured about the way he's looking at her now. His eyes have taken on a hard edge that she recognizes from some of their worst cases, and it should probably scare her, that look on his face.

Instead, it only makes her want to hold him tighter.

Her fingers are still laced with his, so she wiggles her other arm out from its position behind his back and snakes it the rest of the way around his body until she's hugging him from behind, staying mindful of the massive cast protecting his injured arm. It's awkward given their positions on the small hospital bed but she doesn't care. She just wants to hold him so she can feel his solid warmth beneath her palms and remind herself that he's here. Breathing. Alive.

It’s probably selfish of her, but in this moment, she’s going to pretend that the reason he’s allowing her to hold him like this isn’t just because he’s traumatized and exhausted, but because that somewhere beneath all that pain and guilt, there’s a part of him that feels at least a fraction of what she feels for him.

It's a dangerous thought, one that she should probably lock away with all the other foolish hopes she’s collected over the years. He already has this whole other life that doesn't include her in the way she wants to be included. But with his heart beating steadily beneath her palm and her breath warming his skin, she needs to pretend.

Just for a little while.

"You should get some rest," Lucy murmurs against his hair after a few minutes pass, unable to stop herself from pressing her lips there briefly. It's not a kiss, not really, but it's close enough to one that her heart momentarily stutters in her chest. "I can leave if you want."

Leaving him is the last thing she wants to do, but she forces the words out anyway. Because this isn't about what she wants.

He makes a soft noise in his throat. Then, so quietly she almost misses it, he asks, “How did you get over it?”

Lucy frowns. “Get over what?”

He’s silent for so long that she actually wonders if he's already managed to fall asleep. But then she glances down at him and sees his eyes are open, staring at some fixed point on the opposite wall. There’s a tension in his jaw, a deep reluctance in his stillness, like he's wrestling with whether he should continue the thought.

She nudges him with her shoulder. "Get over what, Tim?"

His adams apple bobs as he swallows. "You had problems sleeping after, didn’t you?"

For a full two seconds, the question makes no sense.

After what?

Then the pieces click into place with sickening clarity. She thinks of the body cooler he mentioned earlier and her mind conjures the image instantly. A narrow rectangular space barely wider than a person's shoulders, steel walls pressing in from all sides, the absolute darkness that accompanies it. She's seen them dozens of times during various investigations, has watched as technicians slid bodies in and out during the few times they needed to check for something, but she's never truly considered what it would be like to be trapped inside one.

Alive.

For two days.

Her mind unhelpfully conjures up the memory of her own time in the barrel, followed by the suffocating panic that still hits her sometimes when she finds herself in confined spaces. It had only been hours for her, and she at least had the mercy of passing out after she lost air. It’s starting to sound like Tim didn’t have that same mercy.

"It's stupid," he mutters, shame coloring his words. "It’s not like I haven’t been through worse."

"It's not stupid," Lucy counters immediately, her arm tightening around him reflexively. "After what she put you through, it’s a perfectly rational fear.” She knows a thing or two about that kind of fear. "I don't know if I ever really got over it. And I definitely didn’t deal with it very well at first."

She feels him shift slightly against her, listening.

"I slept in Jackson's room for the first week after I got released from the hospital," she continues, the words coming easier now that she's started. "And even then, I made him plug in this ridiculous little night light. One of those ones shaped like a turtle that projects stars on the ceiling."

Jackson never made her feel pathetic for needing it. He'd just gone to the store and bought the brightest night light he could find, then let her camp out in his room for as long as she needed.

She misses him so much.

"For how long?" Tim asks, and she knows right away that he’s not asking how long she had to share a room.

"The worst of it lasted maybe six months. But honestly? Sometimes I still have to sleep with a lamp on. Especially when I'm stressed or when something reminds me of..." She trails off, not needing to finish that particular thought.

He knows who she’s talking about.

Tim nods against her shoulder, and she can feel some of the tension draining from his body.

"Does it help?"

"Yeah," she confirms with a nod. "It helps. Not because it makes the fear go away completely, but because it gives me control. I can decide when to turn it off, and for some reason that always makes me feel a little better."

"And West really never made you feel stupid for it?"

The question is so quiet she almost misses it, but the vulnerability in his voice stands out. Because she can hear what he's really asking: Will you think I'm weak if I admit I’m scared?

"Never," she says firmly. "And anyone who would make you feel stupid for needing some time to heal after going through something this traumatic doesn't deserve to be in your life anyway."

She means every word, and she hopes he can hear it in her voice. Because if anyone, anyone, tries to make him feel ashamed for the way he might struggle after all this, she’s going to have some very strong words for them.

This is probably the moment where she should encourage him to open up to Ashley about his fears.

But honestly, she'd almost forgotten about the blonde still pacing in the waiting room, the one who’s planning retirement speeches and talking about utilizing Tim's "vulnerable state" like it’s some kind of strategic opportunity. It’s a little disgusting, actually, the way she'd seemed more concerned about how this situation would affect her than about how it’s going to affect him.

And Lucy suddenly finds herself genuinely worried that Ashley might be exactly the kind of person who would make Tim feel ashamed for being afraid of the dark. She can vividly picture it, the way Ashley’s version of support would be wrapped in a well-meaning but dismissive suggestion that he just needs to "get over it” and “move on”.

God, what if she actually is that type of person?

He deserves so much more than that. He deserves someone who understands that healing isn't linear, that some days will be harder than others, and that's perfectly okay. Someone who will make him feel safe.

Who will love every broken piece of him while he learns how to put himself back together.

Someone like...

Oh.

Oh.

She's not thinking about some hypothetical perfect person for him, is she? She's practically describing exactly what she wants to do for him and wow, okay, reel it in Chen. This is not the time or place for this particular revelation.

Though it's been happening far too often lately, these moments where she catches herself planning a future with Tim that exists only in her imagination. She's been letting her emotions run a little too freely these past couple days, and if she doesn't rein it in soon, she's going to end up saying something she can't take back.

But the heart wants what it wants, and hers has apparently decided that now, in the middle of a crisis, is the perfect time to consistently remind her just how deep her feelings run.

It’s all great timing, really. Just fantastic.

"You should at least try to get some sleep," she finds herself saying again, forcing herself back to the present. “I’m sure you haven’t gotten much of it recently.”

“By the looks of it, you haven’t either.”

He’s not wrong there. She can feel the exhaustion weighing heavy behind her eyes, and she's probably looked like hell for the better part of three days now. This isn’t exactly her most attractive look.

"No, I haven't."

“Well,” he pauses. “Since we’re both already here...”

Lucy's lips curl into a smile despite everything. She can practically hear him trying to figure out how to finish that sentence without making it weird, and somehow that only serves to make her smile grow wider.

Some things never change.

"Tim Bradford," she says, unable to keep the teasing note out of her voice, "are you insinuating that you want to share a bed with me?"

There's another pause. Then he lets out a tired huff that might have been a laugh. "Chen, I'm currently using you as a human pillow. I think it’s safe to say that we're already sharing a bed."

She can't help but laugh at that, a real laugh that feels strange after everything that's happened today. "True. Though technically, I would like to point out that you’re the one who leaned into it."

"Because you practically dragged me down here. What was I supposed to do, fight you off when you’re being all emotional? I've seen what happens to people who try that."

The dry delivery makes her grin, and she's struck by how good it feels to hear something resembling Tim's normal sarcasm. It makes her hope that maybe this whole thing won’t end up changing him as much as she was worried it would.

"Okay, smartass," she protests, though she's still smiling. She'll take his terrible humor over the haunted look in his eyes any day. "I offered comfort in an appropriate moment and you accepted it. Very willingly, might I add."

“Right. Is that what we're calling it?”

She laughs again, then gives him a gentle squeeze that probably only proves his point. "This is rich coming from the guy who won't let go of my hand."

"Touché." She can hear the smile in his voice. 

"Besides, if I’m not here to hold you down, then who’s going to make sure you don't try to sneak out the moment I leave."

There's a beat of silence. "You really think I would do that?"

"Tim Bradford asking if he would try to discharge himself against medical advice?” Lucy doesn't bother hiding her disbelief. "Is that a serious question?"

"Fair point," he concedes with an amused breath. Then, quieter, "If this really is your way of getting me to stay, I guess it could be worse. These hospital pillows are terrible anyway and as it turns out, you're much more comfortable."

Her heart does that stupid fluttering thing again. "You know what, I'm taking that as a compliment."

"You should." The words are coming slower now, softer around the edges as exhaustion finally starts to win. His fingers loosen slightly in hers, though he doesn't let go completely, and Lucy watches as his eyelids begin to flutter closed. He fights it for a few more seconds, stubborn even in this, before finally surrendering.

Which is good. He needs this. God knows he's earned the right to rest after everything he's been through. But more than that, she's touched that he feels safe enough to let his guard down with her. 

So she adjusts her position slightly, trying to make him more comfortable without waking him, and settles in to keep watch. 

Tim's head is getting heavier against her shoulder as his breathing begins to even out into something more deep and regular, and she just about convinced herself that he’s finally, truly asleep when his mouth opens one more time.

"Next time we do this," he mumbles, words barely coherent, "can we use an actual bed?"

Wait.

Did he just—

Next time?

Lucy stares down at him in surprise because certainly she must have misheard him. She replays the words in her mind, searching for any alternative meaning, but no matter how many times she turns it over, it still sounds like he’d just casually implied he wants there to be a next time.

With her.

In an actual bed.

By the time she manages to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, Tim's breathing has long since evened out, deep and rhythmic in a way that tells her he's not coming back anytime soon. 

Blissfully unaware of the absolute chaos he just unleashed inside her head.

Lucy lets out a long sigh, careful not to disturb him too much as she slowly readjusts herself so she can tuck her legs up onto the bed beside him. The new position is still awkward—this bed was clearly not designed for two people—and while she's still only half upright against the raised back, it's better than having her feet dangling off the edge all night.

She settles against the mattress as much as she can without jostling him, then lets her own eyes drift closed. And as the exhaustion of the past few days finally starts to catch up with her, she forces herself to focus on Tim's steady breathing. On the weight of him against her shoulder. On the warmth of his hand still loosely tangled with hers.

On anything, really, other than those two words that keep playing on repeat in her head.

Next time.

Sometimes things really are easier said than done.