A/N:

TW: Mentions of abuse.

Inspired by The Rookie episode 4x9, "Breakdown". Fuck Tom Bradford in every universe.

Takes place during Lucy's pregnancy, roughly halfway through the epilogue of "Inevitable".

Six months along. The baby -a girl- was now roughly the size of an ear of corn. ("Just how many ears of corn did you eat?" Jackson had teased Lucy when she made the comparison.) There were things to do; furniture to assemble, a nursery to decorate (they had already chosen a theme: giraffes in a peach and turquoise palette). There were baby books to read, a pediatrician to vet, and of course they needed to settle on a name sometime before delivery. So much -too much- to do with only three months til D-day, and little room for variation. Little room for surprises.

Little room, either physically or just in the emotional sense, for estranged fathers.

Lucy had guessed something was up a week before Tim came clean. He had pulled away in small ways that, to anyone who wasn't his soulmate, might go unnoticed; while she at first attributed it to new-father nerves, at the two-week mark, she had no choice but to call him on it.

"My dad is dying," was how he replied to her questions, stoic and clear-eyed as he told her, "His hospice facility tracked me down."

Her heart dropped. His dad? After all this time? They had rarely spoken of him; Tim had long ago decided to regard the elder Bradford as lost, and Lucy had never once brought it up of her own accord. She didn't push it now either, only took hold of both of his hands and brought Tim close.

Well, as close as her growing bump allowed, anyway.

"What do you want to do?" she asked in a whisper.

He shook his head at first, which wasn't really an answer. "Nothing," he finally said. "It doesn't change anything."

She did not press it, but neither did she believe that the matter was truly settled.

Her instincts were correct; the matter was not settled. She overheard Tim muttering to himself about it over the next few days, weighing pros and cons under his breath. She saw the way he stewed about it at the bathroom sink as he brushed his teeth, seeming to lose track of time as he stared blankly at the counter. Every time he kissed her mouth or cupped her stomach, anytime he pressed his lips to the timer on her wrist, she could not ignore the tension in his gaze.
"Do you want to talk about it," Lucy wondered one morning, and again he shook his head.

"There's nothing to say."

"Do you want to see him?"

He didn't reply.

"Tim?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I would be perfectly fine never laying eyes on him again… but then, half of me wants to show him who I am. Who I've become in spite of him." And the emotion that he'd held at bay the night he'd told her his dad was dying flooded his eyes. Lucy cupped his face between her hands as he asked, his voice grave, "What kind of person does that make me, that I want to go gloat over a man on his deathbed?"

"A survivor," she answered firmly, seeking to put to rest his uncertainty. "It makes you a survivor."

"Are you sure you don't want me with you?" Lucy asked as she followed him to the front door. "You don't have to do this alone."

She had already offered twice; for a third time, Tim declined. "You and our daughter are the best things in my life, Lucy. He doesn't deserve to know you." His hand went to her stomach, palm resting over the swell beneath her plain cotton t-shirt. "Either of you." Then, he kissed her goodbye.

It was tempting to text him at the thirty-minute mark; tempting, so tempting, to check in and gauge how the visit was going. How close to death was Tim's father? The nurses hadn't said. Would he even be conscious? She half-hoped he was, half-hoped he wasn't, and was uncertain which outcome would be better or worse.

He had planned what to say down to the last word. Rehearsed it in his mind for hours, adding and editing as the time of his visit to the hospice approached. It would be Tim's last chance to speak to his father, and he planned to leave no grievance unaired. If he got through them all without breaking, it would be a miracle (there were a lot of grievances)… but then, he entered the room. Then, he saw his father, and everything Tim intended to say left his mind, fucking right off in under a second.

It was impossible. Unfathomable. Unbelievable, Tim thought as he looked at the frail being in the bed. His skin was so pale it was closer to gray than white. Machines fed him oxygen through tubes in his nose, and his ribs rose and fell weakly with every breath. His eyes were open, but they stared towards the ceiling.

Tim had gone no farther than the doorway, and there he remained, feeling bewildered. How could this be? How could the shriveled man in the bed be the same one who terrified and taunted him every day of his childhood? How could the person that even now made fear grip vice-tight around his heart look so pitiful and small? How could the monster that gave him his first (and second, and third) black eye now appear too weak to move?

Despite his silence, Tim's presence was not unnoticed. Tom faced him slowly, freezing him in place with a single glare.

"Got something to say, son?" he said, and even on the edge of death, his father managed to sound derisive and mean. "You come to say I told you so?"

No, not that; that was not on his list, although he'd long ago guessed his dad's drinking would lead him down this very road.

"I came to say goodbye," was how Tim opened, "but I'm not going to say that."

"No?"

"No. I'm going to tell you this: my daughter will be born in three months." He thought of Lucy at home, her heart-shaped face colored by concern as he left, the way her hands had cradled the bump under her gray t-shirt as she watched him go. He knew how lucky he was to have a whole world in two people.

"Don't tell me you want me to hang on to meet her."

The thought made Tim seethe. "I'd ask you to hurry up if I thought you'd listen," he replied, then leveled his final words, the last he would ever speak to Tom Bradford.

"She won't even know your name."

Having spoken, Tim turned to go, and although his father called after him he refused even a single glance back. No, he had not rattled off a single grievance, but he had nothing more to say.

He did not need to prove himself to a shell.

A little over an hour later, the flash of headlights through the window caught Lucy's eye. Tim was home already. She rose from the couch and walked toward the door, opening it just as he walked up the drive.

He looked… okay. Not bereft, which she'd anticipated, nor angry. His face was solemn as he approached the house, but a small smile broke out over his mouth when he saw her.

"How did it go?" Lucy began to ask, but his lips over hers silenced the question. His thumb traced over her jawline twice before he pulled away a moment or two later. "Okay, I'm… not quite sure how to react right now."

Another kiss and, against her mouth, Tim whispered, "I love you," looking lighter than he had in weeks.

Some day, Lucy knew, he would tell her what had happened at the hospice; whether his father had been lucid, what words might have been said between them. But for now?

For now, it was enough that he kissed her on the front porch of the home they shared. The place where they would bring their daughter in just a few short months. For now, the past could not reach them; and all was, if not perfect, well.

A/N:

I was going to wait to start this series until after I finished Tim's side aka "Suddenly, Finally" but inspiration struck, so I figured what the hell? No promises on when updates will occur on this one, and one-shots will not be posted chronologically. See author's notes at the beginning of all subsequent updates; I will include timeline info there.
Love, Suz