a/n: I have only just started watching this show, and I'm halfway through season 2. I started writing this about an hour after watching 2x12. So if anything in this gets contradicted later….. well, don't tell me 😜 I'm not there yet.
Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you, dear
"Run," Snow Patrol
Angela has had a day.
Work is only just starting to settle now that they know Lucy's alive and safe, but of course their friendly local criminals won't take a hint and pause their illegal activities to let them catch a break. She's tired, her feet ache, and she can't wait to get home, so she tugs on her jacket and heads for the hallway.
Outside the locker room door, she pauses and digs out her phone. Wesley texted a few minutes ago; he's in a last-minute meeting and should be home just a little late, and he can pick up food on his way.
"Hey, Lopez?"
She looks up from her phone to find Nolan in front of her, bag slung over his shoulder. Does the man own anything other than plaid shirts, she wonders? "Yeah?"
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the men's locker room behind him. "Uh—well, Bradford's throwing up in there. I asked if he was sick, and he said he was fine. Then he told me to fuck off. Which isn't really out of character, but—"
"—but he's definitely not fine. Got it." She sighs. "You go on, I'll take care of it."
Sure enough, Tim walks out of the locker room a few minutes later, his face pale and pinched. Angela pushes off the wall to greet him. "Hey. You look like shit."
"Thanks." He doesn't even take the bait to sass her back. Nolan's right, this really is dire.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing."
She folds her arms. "Try again."
Tim eyes her for a long moment, but he can clearly see she's not backing down, and finally he lets out a long breath.
"Evidence is in processing." His jaw tightens. "They have Caleb's phone."
"And?"
"He had cameras in that barrel. He was watching her."
Oh, no. No, no no no.
"Tim—no, come on, tell me you didn't—" But even as she says it, she knows. It's written all over his face. "Oh, fucking hell."
"I had to."
"No, you didn't." She's talking to a wall, she knows. Of course Tim Bradford felt personally compelled to watch it, purely because he feels guilty. "Does this help her?"
He shakes his head, shutting his eyes. "I had to see it, Angela. I just—I had to."
"Tim." Angela sighs heavily, her entire body sagging with the understanding of exactly what this man has voluntarily put himself through.
She grabs his arm and pulls him across the hallway to the nearest bench, where he sinks down to sit beside her and buries his face in his hands. Normally she'd fill the silence, but this—this is the first time she's seen him like this. So she waits.
Eventually, he takes in a long breath, resting his elbows on his knees as he stares fixedly at a point on the floor.
"She was scared," he says finally. "She was so scared, Angela. You know her, she never stops. Never lets go, never gives up. But there was nothing she could do, and she knew it. She was trapped in there. And she was terrified."
Angela has nothing to offer. There's nothing she can say that will make it okay. So she just settles one hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently in silent support.
"She knew. When she was—" He swallows. "She knew she didn't have much longer."
"Oh, Tim—"
"She was singing. We were out there looking for her, and she was trapped in there, singing to herself. Until she ran out of air. Her whole body went slack, and she just–" His voices cracks and he pauses, clearing his throat. "I keep hearing her. I just keep hearing her, singing, and she was crying–"
Angela rubs his shoulder. "You're punishing yourself."
"Someone had to see it." His jaw twitches. "Someone should know what she went through."
"And that has to be you?"
"Yeah, it does."
There are certain things about his time in the Army that Tim never talks about.
Angela doesn't know for certain, but she knows enough about his record to understand that once Tim has taken responsibility for someone, he does not let it go. He still blames himself for Lucy's abduction. He probably always will.
"Remember when I was exposed to that virus? She wouldn't leave. She stayed there, and she talked to me through that door." He shuts his eyes briefly. "She was there for me, but this time, she was completely alone."
"But we didn't lose her," Angela reminds him, nudging his shoulder. "We got there. We didn't give up. You didn't give up."
He grumbles something inaudible, but he's not actively pushing her away, so she doubles down.
"Look, you found her. You pulled her out of the ground, and you got her breathing again." Angela pauses. "I don't know how you found her. Whether it was luck, or fate, or—"
"It was Lucy."
She blinks. "Lucy? How?"
Tim fishes something out of his pocket and holds it up for her to see. It takes Angela a few seconds to realize what she's looking at.
"Is that—"
"Her ring," he says. "Yeah. She dropped it before he put her in that barrel. She left a clue."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
They fall silent for a long moment, Tim staring at the ring like he's trying to hear what it's saying, Angela wondering if he should be going home alone. She's seen Tim Bradford deal with a lot of difficult things, but she's never seen him like this.
(She also wants to know if he's been carrying that ring in his pocket since they found Lucy, because that seems… important.)
"You want to come over? Wes is picking up food, you can come hang with us if you want."
"No. Thanks, though."
"You sure?"
"I'll be fine," Tim tells her. "I will, I promise. I just—I had to see it."
"I get it." She wraps her arm around his shoulders for a quick hug. "Go home, okay? Get some rest. It's gonna be okay. She's fine."
"Yeah."
His house is too quiet, so Tim changes into shorts and a tank top and laces up his running shoes. He needs to burn off this tension. It would be a great way to take his mind off Lucy Chen, if not for the fact that he's still hearing her voice.
But it's not "Dream A Little Dream Of Me."
"For this dismal year had witnessed that ever-repeated, prolific miracle–the invisible, ethereal soul of man resisting and overcoming the material forces of nature."
Tonight's reading material is The Passing of the Armies: An Account of the Final Campaign of the Army of the Potomac, Based Upon Personal Reminiscences of the Fifth Army Corps by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Brevet Major General of the U.S. Volunteers. Lucy once mentioned she enjoyed this book more than she'd expected.
Tim pushes himself, increasing his regular steady pace, threading through the neighborhood as Lucy's smooth, calm, melodious voice in his ear reads the long-ago words of a Civil War officer.
"—what wonder that men who have passed through such things together, no matter on which side arrayed, should be wrought upon by that strange power of a common suffering which so divinely passes into the power of a common love."
His steps never falter, swift and purposeful, and he runs, and runs, and runs.
After a shower and dinner, Tim collapses onto his couch. His legs burn pleasantly, the good deep ache from a long run. He'll need to pop ibuprofen later, but for now it's good.
He hasn't seen Lucy since she woke up in the hospital and he pretended he hadn't spent the night sitting beside her.
The administrative side of this entire ordeal has been grueling, thanks to the number of resources pulled in to save her, and he spent twice as much time on his after-action reports as he usually does. Not that he's ever careless. But he has to know everything, has to go over every second, has to set up the full timeline in his mind so he knows exactly what happened (so it will never happen again).
There's some random documentary on the History Channel; he stares at it but doesn't really see anything. His mind isn't really on the mechanical history of the Sherman tank.
Calling her seems intrusive.
So he settles for a text message. How are you doing?
He stares at his phone, waiting for the response. Lucy always has her phone. Is she just trying to decide which emojis to annoy him with? Or is she asleep? Maybe she's asleep. It would be good for her to rest.
Or maybe she doesn't want to talk to him.
It's a sobering thought.
He's just about to say screw it and put his phone away when it lights up: incoming call from Lucy Chen.
Well then.
He answers with the most normal tone of voice he can muster. "Hey, Boot."
"Hi."
It's a single syllable, but he feels like he's exhaling for the first time in hours, since he hit 'play' on a video of her pounding on the roof of the barrel and finally accepting the inevitability of her own death.
"I know it's late," she says. "I hope I'm not bothering you."
"Not at all."
"I just—need to talk to someone who won't treat me like I'm made of glass."
Makes sense. He's never met her family, or any of her friends other than Rachel and Jackson, but he can only imagine the amount of careful tiptoeing she's enduring from the civilians in her life.
"You telling me not to go easy on you?"
"You can just be your usual charming self."
"Watch it, Boot." But he's smiling, and he knows she can hear it, because she laughs. She laughs, and a bit more of the tension melts out of his shoulders.
"I just want everything to go back to normal," she admits, her voice soft. "I know it won't. But I wish it could."
"I get that."
There's a long moment of silence, deep and still like a pool of water. He's not sure what to say. Maybe she isn't, either.
Eventually, she lets out a breath. "So how's work?"
"Violent, petty, chaotic. The usual."
"It's boring, isn't it?"
"Excuse me?"
"Admit it, you miss me. You miss me talking your ear off in the shop."
He does. The shop is too quiet. He still gets a gnawing pain in his stomach when he thinks about how narrowly she survived, how easily that silence could have become permanent. He's counting the days till she's back.
It's not like he's going to admit that, though.
"Absolutely not."
"Oh, right. If course not." She can absolutely tell he's lying. Maybe it should bother him. It doesn't. "Well, when I'm back, I'll be quiet as a mouse. No idle chatter. I won't say a word."
"For what, eight seconds?"
"Okay, rude." He can hear the smile in her voice. He wonders if she can hear the smile in his. "Oh shit, I really didn't realize how late it was. I'm sorry, I know you have to be up early."
"Nah, it's fine."
"I should really get to sleep too."
"Right." He pauses. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
"I will. Thanks, Tim."
"Have a good night."
"You too."
He hangs up and stares at his phone for a long moment.
The thought occurs to him, considerably later than it should have, that maybe he wasn't the only one who just needed to hear a comforting voice tonight.
The next morning, as he climbs into the shop for another solitary shift, his phone buzzes with an incoming text from Lucy Chen.
if it gets too quiet without me just turn on some blackpink
He huffs, shaking his head as he taps out a quick response.
I don't know what that is but no
She responds with a smiley face.
After work that evening, he takes a turn on the punching bag while listening to "Boombayah."
But he's definitely not going to admit it to anyone.