Friendsgiving

"Officer Bradford," Nolan called as he made his way down the stairs, quickening his steps to catch up with the senior officer. "Thanks again for inviting me tonight."

"Yeah, no problem," Tim said, holding the door to the parking garage for the older man.

"I just wanted to let you know that Grace won't be able to make it, sorry for the short notice."

"Oh ok, that's fine, thanks for letting me know."

"Yeah," Nolan said as he reached his truck. "What time do you want us there again, 7:30?"

"Yeah, address is 59 Woodland Ave."

"Sounds good," Nolan said, climbing into the cab. "I'll see you then."

Tim held his hand up in a wave as he made his way towards his own truck. Today was the day before Thanksgiving, and 5 years ago he and Angela, along with Talia and Isabelle, had made a tradition of having a Friendsgiving on the night before Thanksgiving. Talia wasn't going to be able to make it this year, and Isabelle obviously hadn't participated in awhile. This year it was at Tim's place, and he was expecting 8, now 7 people: Angela and Wesley, Jackson and Sterling, Nolan, Harper, and Lucy.

Lucy had asked him 3 times today if he needed help setting up, but since everyone else was in charge of bringing the food and Tim was just providing the dishes, he was pretty sure he could handle it himself.

But sure enough, when 7 rolled around Tim heard the unmistakable growl of Lucy's beat up car pulling into the driveway, and shook his head as Kudjoe ran to the door barking. A minute later Lucy opened the door, and Kudjoe's barking turned into excited whines as he recognized his previous owner.

"Still choosing to ignore my orders, I see," Tim said as he made his way over to take the platter of still-warm dinner rolls from Lucy's hands.

"What are you talking about, I always follow your orders, well, almost always," she said with a grin as she caught his skeptical look. "Plus, you didn't order me not to come until 7:30. Sterling and Jackson were arguing about how long they should stay here before they go to one of Sterling's friendsgivings, and my dinner rolls and I were ready to go, so I figured I'd make sure you didn't need any help over here, since I was done listening to them. Oh! And I also had to go and grab some stuffing mix from the store, since Grace was in charge of bringing stuffing, but I offered to take care of it for Nolan. It takes about an hour to cook though, so I was wondering if I could just make it here, cause otherwise I would be late."

Tim shrugged as he placed the dinner rolls on the counter and said, "Sure, I don't think anyone else really needs the oven."

"Great!" she said, bouncing over to him with a big smile on her face.

It occurred to Tim that he hadn't seen her this happy in awhile, and he was very glad to see it. While he and Chen hadn't talked much about her abduction since the conversation they had about her tattoo, he had been keeping a close eye on his rookie over the last few months to make sure he didn't miss any warning signs that she may be struggling. He knew she had been experiencing nightmares for the first few weeks afterwards, but when he asked Jackson for an update a month ago he was informed that those had stopped for the most part. Of course he knew that it didn't mean she was all better, but he felt like things were continuing to head in the right direction.

"Did Grace have to pick up a last-minute shift at the hospital or something?" he asked as he started to pull out plates while she began rooting through his pots and pans.

"No, she and Nolan broke up actually, she decided she wants to get back with her ex-, well, he never was officially her ex-husband, but you know what I mean."

"Oof, that's rough," Tim commented.

"I know, I feel so bad for Nolan, he really liked her."

"Did this just happen?"

"Yeah, yesterday."

"Great," Tim muttered as he tried to remember if he had any napkins stashed away somewhere, "so he's bound to be in a good mood tonight. But if he thinks he can pass out drunk on my couch he has another thing coming, we're not having a sleepover."

"Such compassion coming from the guy who just got dumped a mere 2 weeks ago," Lucy said sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at him.

Tim chose to ignore her comment as he continued to open every cabinet door in search of napkins. Even though Lucy was right, Tim had to admit that his breakup with Rachel hadn't affected him nearly as much as some of his past breakups had, which he took as a sign that maybe Rachel had been right to end things. But he wasn't about to admit that to Lucy, especially since Rachel's reasoning for breaking up with him was mainly because of Lucy.

"Tim," Lucy said forcefully, causing him to break from his train of thought.

"What?" he asked irritably, slamming the last door shut.

"I asked what you were looking for," she said, putting a hand on her hip and raising her eyebrows as she continued to stir the stuffing mix.

"Napkins," Tim sighed, but then frowned at the grin that was spreading over her face.

"I knew you were gonna need help," she said with a sing song tone as she went to grab the bag she had pulled the stuffing mix from. Tim folded his arms in response to her obvious delight as she pulled a package of orange colored napkins out and started waving it in his direction.

"Have you been drinking Boot," he grumbled as he went to grab them from her. "You're having way too much fun with this."

"Nope, I just enjoy proving you wrong, plus I knew you weren't gonna have any napkins, what single guy does?"

"Oh, so you're a profiler now?"

Lucy shrugged and shot him a satisfied smile as she said, "I think the words you're looking for are thank you, Lucy, from saving me the embarrassment of having to put out paper towels instead."

"Yeah yeah, whatever Boot," Tim muttered, earning him a good-natured jab in the side from Lucy as she walked past him.

At 7:30 sharp more people started to arrive, and Tim's house was soon filled with a lot of laughter, food, and rum punch. Harper and Nolan were the first to arrive, and with them came mashed potatoes, squash, a 6 pack, and napkins.

"Oh," Harper said as she walked by the table, "I guess you already had napkins."

"Yeah," Tim said, shaking his head as he showed them where they could put their stuff. Jackson and Sterling were close behind them, bringing a pecan pie and the ingredients for the rum punch. Angela and Wesley were the last to arrive, bringing with them a rotisserie chicken (because who needs to eat 2 turkeys in 2 days), a chocolate cream pie, and some more damn napkins.

"Wow Bradford," Angela commented as she made her way towards the kitchen, "since when did you become a napkin guy, I was ready to bet 50 bucks you had put out paper towels."

Tim looked towards the ceiling in exasperation as he muttered, "My god, what is it with you women and napkins?"

From across the room he heard Lucy's unmistakable shout of laughter, and he wasn't the only one. Angela gave him a questioning look, but he waved his hand as he told her, "Long story."

"Yeah," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she nodded, "I'm sure it is."

Tim brushed her off as he made his way towards Wesley and Nolan, who were currently discussing football. As he predicted, Nolan had already almost downed his first beer, and he quickly headed off to grab another. Wesley broke off to say hi to Jackson and Sterling, so that just left Tim when Nolan returned.

"So, uh, I don't know if Lucy filled you in on why Grace couldn't make it…"

"Yeah, she did, I'm uh, sorry to hear that."

"Thanks," Nolan said, taking a large swig of his Dos Equis. "And I heard about your breakup with Rachel, I guess it's that time of year, huh?"

"Mmm," Tim answered absentmindedly as he started searching the room for Lucy. He did not like the path this conversation was taking; Tim had no intention of trying to bond with the 45-year-old rookie over breakup stories. He found her almost instantaneously, as he usually did in any situation, but he accredited that to his police training that taught him to be hyperaware of his surroundings at all times. Almost as an afterthought he noted that she was wearing her hair down; he liked it when she did that.

Shaking himself from the random thought about Lucy's hair, he tried to focus on what Nolan was rambling about.

"And you know, since we both have experiences with getting divorced and starting to date again, I was wondering if you've ever felt…"

At hearing Nolan say the word 'feelings', Tim quickly interrupted the older man and said, "I'm sorry to cut you off, but I just remembered Chen wanted me to remind her about the stuffing." And with that, he made a beeline towards Lucy and Nyla, who were currently looking at pictures of Nyla's kid.

"Boot, you gotta reign him in, Nolan's over there trying to talk to me about his feelings," Tim announced as he cut off Nyla mid-sentence. "It's only been 20 minutes and he's already 2 beers in."

"Oh no he doesn't," Nyla said, frowning in Nolan's direction, "we've got the Thanksgiving shift tomorrow."

"Oh you do, that sucks," Lucy said. "Does it get busy?"

Tim huffed a laugh as Nyla said, "You wouldn't believe some of the calls we end up getting. Grandma's who forget to take their meds threatening families with a carving knife, accidentally throwing footballs through sue-crazy neighbors car window…"

"Illegal home-made frying vats that set garages on fire," Tim added.

"I'm sorry I asked," Lucy said as Angela announced that food was ready.

"Is he going for the rum punch now?" Nyla asked as she watched Nolan walk over to the counter. "Oh this cannot be good." And with that, she took off after Nolan, with Lucy and Tim falling in line with everyone else to grab some food.

Dinner lasted almost 2 hours, and consisted of a lot of conversation and rum punch consumption. Nyla ended up cutting Nolan off at 3 beers and 1 cup of punch, which he wasn't too happy about, but both of them left shortly after the dessert came out, claiming they needed a good night's rest before their shift tomorrow. Jackson and Sterling were close behind them, thanking Tim for the hospitality before running off to one of Sterling's gatherings. That just left Angela, Wesley, Tim and Lucy to continue the tradition of playing a heated, and tipsy, round of rummy after dessert. It had become a tradition because year after year, Angela insisted that she needed to defend her title as rummy champion; she wasn't good at letting things go, and she was insanely competitive when it came to games.

"Aaand I'm out, again," Angela announced as she threw her last card down with a gloating smile, "that's right bitches, I should have almost 200 points with this round, only one more to go till I defend my title for the 5th year in a row!"

"Has anyone ever told you that gloating is not a good look on you?" Wesley grumbled as he slumped back against the sofa in defeat.

Lucy was giving Tim a look that said 'I can't believe she just did that', but Tim Bradford had seen this happen enough times to know that they were all doomed.

"There's no way you're not cheating," he said, grabbing everyone's cards since it was his turn to shuffle.

"All I'm hearing is a bunch of sore losers," Angela said with a smirk as she downed the last of her punch.

Wesley sighed as he rolled his eyes and said, "Let's get this over with."

To no one's surprise, Angela ended up winning, and she made sure that they all knew it. She was still going on about it as Wesley tried to pull her out the door.

"That's the last time I'm playing anything with her while she's drunk," he declared before pulling the door shut with a bang.

"Does she really do that every year?" Lucy asked Tim as she helped him to put the remaining dishes in the sink.

"Yeah, but the gloating's been getting worse every time," Tim answered, shaking his head.

"Poor Wesley, he just signed up to deal with that for the rest of his life."

Tim inclined his head in agreement as he took a seat at one of his counter stools.

"I should probably get going," Lucy said, glancing at the clock.

"You okay to drive?" Tim asked.

"Yeah, I should be fine. Do you have any plans for tomorrow?"

Tim shook his head and said, "Probably gonna catch up on some yard work, maybe throw the football around for Kudjoe."

Lucy nodded, and looked like she wanted to ask him more about why he wouldn't be spending any time with family on Thanksgiving, but instead she just said,

"I'm sure Kudjoe would love that."

Tim turned around to watch her as she gathered her things, and got up to open the door for her as she tried to balance her tray in one hand while petting Kudjoe goodbye with the other. She stopped before getting to the door though, and just stood there, staring at him.

"What?" Tim asked, giving her a skeptical look.

"Nothing, I uh, I just wanted to say, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and all, that I'm really thankful to have you as my T.O., and not just because of everything you've taught me, but also because you saved my life."

"We've been over this before Boot, you saved your own life by throwing that ring…"

"You not only found me but performed CPR on me Tim, you literally brought me back to life," Lucy interjected, cutting him off.

Tim opened his mouth to argue but Lucy continued,

"I just want you to know that I'm glad you came into my life this year, and to say thank you, because I don't think I ever actually thanked you for everything you did for me that day."

Tim felt a tug deep in his chest at hearing her words, and was surprised by how much they had affected him, but he wasn't about to let it show. Thinking back to what Rachel had said about him and Lucy being more like partners than just a training officer and rookie, Tim shrugged and softly said,

"No need to thank me, that's what partners are for."

She cocked her head to the side with a slow smile and asked,

"We're partners?"

"Maybe, but if you ever repeat that to anyone I will have you doing desk duty for a week."

"Okay, okay," she replied laughing, stepping back to let him open the door for her. Giving him one last look she said,

"Happy Thanksgiving Tim," before stepping through the open door.

"Happy Thanksgiving Lucy," he said quietly, watching her get into her car before shutting the door softly behind her.