Chapter Text
Via, via, vieni via con me
Entra in questo amore buio
Non perderti per niente al mondo
Via, via, non perderti per niente al mondo
Lo spettacolo d'arte varia
Di uno innamorato di teIt's wonderful, It's wonderful, It's wonderful
Good luck my baby
It's wonderful, It's wonderful, It's wonderful
I dream of you
Every flight of stairs has exactly twelve steps.
Every main hallway has five large non-slip tiles. The smaller hallways have three.
Tim has paced every inch of the hospital where he was allowed to pace. Every nook and cranny is no secret to him anymore. He has walked on every tile and every hallway in this section of Shaw Memorial in the past few hours, while he waited for Lucy to get checked out.
After the rush of digging her up in the desert, the adrenaline still hasn't left him and, while he was able to change out of his uniform an hour or so ago thanks to Angela, his fighting stance doesn't give any signs of diminishing.
Not until he knows Lucy is okay.
His nerves are frayed, but he can't stop until he knows his Boot is going to be fine. Until he can hear her breathe again, and maybe squeeze her hand, just to make sure she's warm and responsive. He wants to hear her endless chat in the shop again, her streams of questions and personal facts that he had never allowed within the confines of his police vehicle, and yet, with her, it had always given him comfort.
Maybe it’s because her voice could drown out the darkness in his mind, maybe because her questions have kept him on his toes. This time, he's not on the other side of the ER bay like on Chen’s second day when he got shot, and he dreads waiting one more minute for the doctors to come out and tell him how she is.
He's expecting bruised. Scratched. Battered. Hurt. He truly hopes this hasn't killed her spirit, though. Her brightness. Her zest. Her sunshine.
He had sat in the waiting room for the first half hour, still too stunned to move, with dirt on his uniform and under his fingernails, his body feeling sweaty and battered, his mind sleep-deprived and yet working a mile a minute.
Angela and Jackson had joined him after one hour, probably after sorting out all the paperwork and the questions they would surely ask him when he became more coherent. Angela had brought him clothes, and Jackson had brought a duffel bag for Lucy. It looks like the go-bag she keeps in her locker at the station.
Angela had forced him to clean up and change out of his uniform and, thanks to a complicit nurse who let him use the bathroom in Lucy’s room, he even found a shower to rinse the desert off him. He felt marginally better after that, but he tried to be as efficient as possible while fixing up his appearance, meeting his eyes in the fogged-up mirror only to comb his hair.
His hair had dried by hour three, but Lucy was still under testing, and nothing changed until hours four and five.
After five and a half hours, when the sky is already black and Tim has no idea what time it truly is, a doctor comes by to talk to him. Only then does Tim notice that Jackson had stuck around, since he was standing up straight two chairs down from his own in the waiting room.
“Family of Lucy Chen?” The doctor asks, looking around.
“I’m her emergency contact; her parents are on their way back from Sonoma,” Jackson says, his voice somber but eager. He’s not wearing his uniform either, and he looks ready to run in whichever direction Lucy is. “It’s okay if Officer Bradford hears, too. They’re partners on the job. She’d want him to be in the loop,” Jackson adds, and Tim exhales a deep, relieved breath. He needs to know how Lucy is firsthand.
Tim hears every single word of the doctor when the man starts talking, but he has a hard time processing things like “contusions”, “abrasions”, “mild concussion”, and “no internal bleeding” after the doctor mentions “no signs of sexual assault”. He’s not able to connect them to Lucy just yet; he hopes Jackson is taking notes as her medical proxy. At this point, he just needs to see that Lucy is okay.
“I can take you to her if you’d like,” the doctor says, and before he knows it, they’re following the guy in scrubs through a couple of doors and corridors to her room.
When Lucy appears in his line of sight, something in Tim’s chest unknots. She looks asleep, and he remembers the doctor mentioning that she would be asleep for a little longer since they had to sedate her for the MRI, but he can see monitors beeping and her chest rising and falling rhythmically. His knees wobble imperceptibly, but he manages to plop down on an uncomfortable plastic chair near Lucy’s bed anyway.
Jackson holds Lucy’s hand, but Tim can’t bring himself to move closer. The first time he held his rookie, she was traumatized and in the middle of a panic attack, and he’s not sure if his presence here is welcomed or a trigger, so he’ll keep his distance for now. Yet, he can’t bring himself to leave.
“I’ll go get a bite to eat while we wait for her to wake up. Fuel up, like they suggested,” Jackson says, and Tim realizes the doctor has left the room, probably a while ago, too. “Would you like anything?”
“A small sandwich is fine, I’m not hungry. Get a veggie burger with fries – extra pickles. For Chen,” he rattles out her order by rota, and Jackson looks mildly surprised. Tim hands him a wad of cash, probably more than what Jackson needs for their dinner, but he doesn’t care.
“I’ll be back soon,” Jackson says, a solemn look on his face. “You’re staying here, right?”
“Of course,” Tim replies, knowing there’s nowhere else he needs to be for the time being. “I’ll text you if anything changes.”
Jackson nods, his face still tight, still unable to relax, just like Tim feels his body unable to fully be calm and collected until he can meet Lucy’s eyes, hear her voice tease him, and see her sunshine smile.
The room plunges into silence again, broken only by the beeping of the machines and Lucy’s steady breaths. It’s soothing, and Tim feels his energy slowly drain out of him the more he sits there, and all the sleep he missed in the past couple of nights catches up with him.
He doesn’t want to lose focus, but his body apparently decides it’s time to switch off the batteries, and, before he can stop it, he’s asleep, his head leaning against the wall and his body bent at an awkward angle.
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Tim is startled by the click of the door, his senses on alert as he turns to see Jackson coming back into the room. He exchanges a nod with the young rookie, watching as he takes a seat on his left, but not before he drops a paper bag with the logo of Lucy’s favorite burger place on the tray table.
“I tipped with the rest of the money you gave me,” Jackson says, almost making Tim smile.
“Thank you. Chen will appreciate that.”
There’s more silence as Jackson settles next to Tim, picking up the copy of Teen Rebel that was already on the chair with a puzzled look.
“I found this in the lobby. This hospital is short on reading materials. I needed to keep my hands busy,” Tim says, almost to justify his need to keep his mind off the fact that Lucy is coming out of sedation after being poked and prodded and sent into all sorts of testing machines for the last few hours.
Tim is hopeful the drugs will make her forget about most of this last part of the ordeal because he’s sure it’ll take him a long time to get over the way her unconscious body had felt in his arms before he had to breathe life into her again.
“Any changes?” Jackson asks, breaking the silence with his whisper.
“The doctor came in to check on her and said sedation is wearing off and she’ll wake up soon.” Tim sighs as he whispers in response. He is eagerly waiting to see her eyes lock with his once more and get lost in the hues of brown there.
“Anything else about her injuries?”
“They’re still waiting for the results of some blood tests for infections; they’ll update us when she’s awake so they can tell her directly. They did confirm her ankle was twisted and she has a few contusions and abrasions, but nothing too serious so far.”
“Good.”
Jackson nods in understanding, falling silent again.
From a physical point of view, Lucy was lucky. They are monitoring her status because she had been unconscious, dehydrated, and oxygen-deprived, but her body held up pretty well to the kidnapping and attempted murder.
Tim has to take a deep breath and deviate from his thoughts: if he starts categorizing all the many different ways Lucy could have died in the past few days, he might have a panic attack. And all because he suggested she get a drink after a tough case.
“Sir, if you need to take a break…” Jackson interrupts Tim’s thoughts, bringing him back to reality.
“I’m not moving, West. And no need to be so formal. I’m not here as a TO.”
Tim wins a puzzled look from Jackson, then a nod.
“I want to help Lucy get through this, get back into being one of my best rookies, and finish her training,” he adds, almost as a justification for his words.
“Okay. So I can count you in as backup while she recovers?”
“Yes. I’m at her six for whatever she needs.”
“Okay…Tim,” Jackson says, then grimaces. “Okay, nope. I’ll settle for Bradford.”
Tim smirks before he goes back to skimming through Teen Rebel, as Jackson makes his way back outside, claiming he really needs to get some water after the greasy burger he just ate, and then hit the restroom.
Tim really doesn’t mind sitting vigil at Lucy’s bedside until she wakes up. He ignores the burger a little longer, focusing on Lucy instead.
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The hospital only allows two visitors at a time, so when Rachel shows up, her eyes full of panic, it’s Tim who retreats outside and leaves Lucy surrounded by her friends.
Lucy is still asleep, her body clearly needing the rest. Visiting hours have just started, but Tim knows Rachel needs to get to work soon. He also needs to sort out some PTO for himself if he wants to remain at Lucy’s bedside and help out.
The moment he calls Grey, he sighs in relief.
“I have already benched you for today,” Grey says, almost as a greeting. “You can take as much time as you need, and so can Chen. I’ve already cleared it with IA and the Chief. Detectives will be by for your statement after she wakes up.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“She needs the support,” Grey adds, his voice strangely soft. “You send me a message the moment you have news, okay?”
“Will do,” Tim adds, hanging up right after Grey, then taking another deep breath.
His chest still feels tight, but not as much as it did before he actually saw Lucy, and taking deep breaths now feels easier.
The door clicks shut sometime after Tim finished the call with Grey, though he couldn’t pinpoint how long it had been. He’s in a daze, time moving slow and fast at the same time.
“Hey,” Rachel’s soft voice reaches him, and he can feel her hand cup his cheek.
His whole body shivers at the unexpected contact, and Rachel is quick to pull her hand back, almost as if she had burned him.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come out,” Tim says, trying to shake off the fact that he had just recoiled at the touch of his girlfriend.
“It’s okay. It’s been a long couple of days,” she says, sitting in the plastic chair next to his, though she’s careful not to touch him.
It’s Tim who reaches out, squeezing her knee as an apology, his words hard to come out. She beats him to it, her turn to speak.
“Thank you for never giving up on Lucy,” Rachel says, her voice soft, almost a murmur in the din of the hospital hallway. “Jackson told me what you did, so thank you.”
“Just doing my job,” he says, echoing his classic answer that for once doesn’t feel one hundred percent true to his own self.
“You went above and beyond. I know you care about her, even if you pretend not to,” she adds, a small smile on her face.
Tim sighs, nodding, unable to deny her. He knows what he feels for Lucy is much different than what he felt for his previous rookies, but he can’t put a finger on what that means just yet, his mind too clouded by worry and adrenaline and leftover fear to think clearly.
“She’s so good at getting under my skin,” he adds, winning a smile and a squeeze of his hand from Rachel.
“She’s gonna drive you crazy in your shop soon enough, don’t worry.”
Tim nods, their conversation stalling as Rachel looks at him while Tim stares at a poster about flu vaccines.
“I have a case here at Shaw, so I have to go meet them now. Let me know when she wakes up so I can come back?”
“Of course,” Tim says, nodding, not feeling the loss when she untangles their hands. “Have a good day,” he adds, not surprised when Rachel leans over for a quick peck.
The kiss feels almost wrong, and Tim’s stomach churns at the uncomfortable sensation he can’t name. There’s gonna be time for him to figure out what everything means after Lucy’s awake, though, when he can string more than two coherent sentences together and he can think clearly.
Most of his uneasiness disappears as soon as he’s back inside Lucy’s room, sitting on the plastic chair furthest from her bed, Jackson on the other side of the room, waiting.
Tim synchronizes his breathing with Lucy, and he lets himself drift off, just for a second.
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After Lucy wakes up and they have a short but light conversation, Tim feels marginally better, but he still can’t bring himself to move out of her room. He sits outside, leaving the room for West and Nolan to visit in private, but he still can’t go home.
He can hear their muffled voices through the ajar door, but he is still on alert, knowing that Caleb might not be a threat anymore, but Rosalind Dyer probably is, and they’ll have to come to terms with that fact sooner or later. He feels responsible for this, the catalyst to Lucy’s hospital stay, and maybe being uncomfortable until her release can be his penance.
“Get up,” he hears, and when he looks up, Angela is staring down at him, hands on her hips and a stern look on her face.
“What?”
“Go home. Go to bed, then come back in the morning.”
“Lopez –”
“Nope. No excuses. She’s fine. She’ll be fine even tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure of it. And Jackson and Nolan will make sure of it.”
Subconsciously, he knows she’s right, but reconciling his heart and his head is difficult in this instance. He’s usually a much more rational man, but apparently, his injured rookie throws all of his walls and safeguards out the window.
“Are you staying here?” Tim asks to confirm.
Angela nods. “I’ll drive you home, then drive back here. I’ll text you proof when I’m at her bedside.”
Tim doesn’t relent, though the prospect of a real shower and a soft bed is appealing. He doesn’t know if he deserves any of it, not when Lucy is still here.
“She’s fine. And she’ll be fine even if you are at home.”
He fights with himself and Angela’s stern look for a minute longer, then his exhaustion wins. He stands up, following Lopez to the parking lot, and he lets her lead him home.
“Thank you,” he murmurs when they’re halfway home.
“Don’t mention it,” she says, her features softening.
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The proof picture comes when he has already crawled into bed and he’s ready to succumb to sleep. It’s the still frame of a video of a soft-smiling Lucy, her eyes tired but bright.
“I’m fine. Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning,” she says, her voice rough and scratchy, but she already sounds better than she did when she first woke up. She almost looks like the rookie who sits beside him every shift for twelve hours, driving him insane.
Almost.
It’s not much, but it brings him enough relief that he loops the video only five times before he’s asleep.