Kill Shot

"So, seeing as I'm almost 3 quarters of the way done with my training, when exactly do I get to start driving?"

Officer Bradford shot a quick look over at his rookie, who was currently staring him down with her arms crossed.

"Last I checked you have a license, Boot, you already know how to drive, I'm not your drivers ed instructor."

"Thank god for that, my drivers ed teacher was such a creep," Lucy said, shuddering at the memory. "One time me and this other girl were driving with him, and he started telling us about how he and his friends like to go to the tennis courts on the weekends to watch the middle-aged women from the tennis league play in their "little tennis outfits". He was telling this story to 2 teenage girls Tim! And he was always leaning over the center console and getting in my personal space when he was trying to teach me, he made me so uncomfortable."

"Yeah well, I'm pretty sure mine was involved in some illegal drug deals while on the clock," Tim said nonchalantly.

"What?" Lucy said with a laugh.

"No really, one day we were driving through a more sketchy part of the city, and he had me pull into this parking lot in the back of a warehouse and said he had to drop something off, and that he'd be right back. He was in there for about 20 minutes or so before he came back out."

"He left you alone in a driver's ed car for 20 minutes?" Lucy asked incredulously.

"Yup. I was staring to wonder if I should just leave and try to find a police station or something, but then he finally came back out."

"Did he get fired?"

"Nah, I didn't tell anyone besides me friends."

"Wow, Tim turning a blind eye to illegal activity? I can't really picture it. Although, what I can picture," she said with a devious smile, "is you being a hall monitor or something in middle school, yelling at everyone to get to class."

Tim looked skeptically over at Lucy as he shook his head and said,

"That just goes to show how much you don't know about me Boot. I used to be a troublemaker when I was a kid, the one the hall monitors were yelling at."

"Really?"

Tim nodded as he said, "Yeah, I used to get in a lot of fights and stuff, every principle of every school I went to knew my name by the time I graduated."

"Ah, so you're one of those bad boys who turned his life around and decided to be on the right side of the law, huh?" Lucy asked.

"Guess so."

Lucy's voice took on a more serious and gentle tone as she asked, "What changed?"

Tim just shook his head and said, "That's a story for another time."

Just as Chen was opening her mouth to undoubtedly keep pressing him about the matter, the radio crackled to life.

"7 Adam 19, there is a burglary in process about 5 minutes away from your current location, the home security system picked him up."

"7 Adam 19 responding" Lucy replied as Tim flipped his lights and siren on and put his foot on the gas.

When they arrived at the house, he and Chen silently signaled to each other who was going in the front door, and who was going to cover the back door. According to the security footage the thief was still in the house, but he wasn't currently in view in any of the security cameras. Tim made his way towards the front door as Lucy headed for the back, making sure to step silently on the porch before gently turning the doorknob and slipping in the house. He heard a slam of what sounded like a kitchen cabinet off to his right, and made his way down the hall towards the opening to what he assumed to be the kitchen. Peering around the corner Tim saw a figure dressed in a black hoodie and jeans that matched the description the security company had given rummaging through a drawer. From what he could see the thief did not visibly appear to be armed. Tim slowly pulled his gun in front of him before announcing, "LAPD, get down on your knees and put your hands up!" Tim was expecting the thief to bolt towards the back door where Lucy would be waiting for him, however, what he wasn't expecting was the thief to swing around and start firing at him.

Tim quickly dove to left and back into the hallway as soon as he saw the gun. He heard Lucy shouting over the radio, "Shots fired at an officer, immediate back up required" as he continued to run to the other end of the hallway and ducked around the corner, returning fire at the suspect as he continued to pursue the officer. The back door burst open, and Officer Chen took aim at the suspect before firing one very well aimed shot. The shot seemed to echo through the house as the suspect dropped and Tim looked at his Rookie, recognizing that this was her first time fatally wounding a suspect. She calmly holstered her gun before approaching the suspect, and gently pressed her fingers against his neck to check for a pulse. She quickly shook her head at Tim before radioing it in.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, after dispatch informed her that a team from internal affairs and forensics was being sent out to investigate and clean up the scene.

"No, I'm good," Tim said, still watching her closely.

"He was going to hurt you," she said after a few moments of silence, absentmindedly running her hand over her hair to check if her bun was still intact.

"I know, it was a clean shot Boot, you did exactly what you're supposed to."

"I know," she said, following him back down the hallway and joining him on the bench opposite from the front door to wait for everyone else to arrive. Tim couldn't get a read on what she was feeling, and he wasn't sure that she knew what she was feeling yet, so he decided it would be best just to wait it out in silence.

Two very long hours later Lucy was finally cleared, as Tim knew she would be, and they were given the go-ahead to head back to the station to write their reports. Lucy still wasn't talking much, and seemed lost in her thoughts, so Tim continued to give her space, even though he was slightly concerned by her silence. Lucy was not the type to bottle up her emotions; she had even admitted to him once that it helped if she talked through her problems, even if she was just talking to herself, so he was pretty sure her silence was not a good sign. But, at the same time, he didn't want to push her to talk about it if she wasn't ready yet. Once their reports were finished, they only had about an hour left of their shift, and Tim offered to let Lucy go home early if she wanted to.

"I can still finish my shift Tim," she said curtly, shaking her head at his offer.

"Good," he answered, cutting off their way back towards the garage as he stepped into Sergeant Grey's office.

"Officer Chen and I will be spending the rest of our shift on highway patrol on Overlook Drive, parked at station #3," he announced.

"Sounds good," Grey said, and Tim ignored the way Lucy was glaring at him as he made his way back out of the office.

"Seriously Tim, you're putting us on speeding duty?"

"No, I'm putting you on speeding duty," he said, holding the keys to their shop out in front of her.

The look she gave him could only be described as pure outrage, and he couldn't help but think, 'my god this woman has an attitude, why am I finding this so attractive right now?'

As if to confirm his thoughts about her attitude, Lucy began launching into a tirade by saying, "Look Officer Bradford," her voice dripping in distaste at the words 'Officer Bradford', "I don't know why you are treating me like a child all of the sudden who can't continue to perform my duties without being sent home or coddled…"

"Officer Chen," Bradford interrupted forcefully, bristling at the way she had said 'Officer Bradford'. She had stopped calling him by his official title during casual conversation after her second week of training, and although Tim usually made his rookies call him that at least through their first month of training, he for some reason had made an exception for Lucy. "I am not handing you these keys because I think you need coddling; I am handing them to you because you were right. Although you know how to drive that traffic cone-colored rust bucket you call a car, I need to see that you can handle fast and tight maneuvers in a real car, going at speeds you're not used to going. Overlook Drive is one of the hilliest and winding roads that's covered by our jurisdiction, and it is a known hotspot for speeders. So you are going to take these keys, drop that attitude, and show me what you're capable of."

Lucy sheepishly took the keys from Tim, mumbling "yes sir" as she opened the driver's side door.

"Oh, and Boot?" Tim said, climbing into the passenger's side. "If you think for one second that I'm going to believe you're in the right headspace to handle anything besides writing a speeding ticket right now, especially after that outburst, then you're out of your mind."

Tim was sure that was finally going to get her talking, but the only response he got was a sigh as she steered the car out of the garage and onto the street. After another 15 minutes of silence had gone by and they were almost at their destination, Tim decided it was time to push.

"Look Boot, it's okay to feel guilty and to be second guessing yourself…"

"I know it is," she interrupted, "and I wish that was my problem, but it's not."

"Well then, what is it?" Tim asked, feeling confused.

"The problem is is that I don't feel guilty, not even a little bit. And I keep waiting for it to hit me, like maybe I'm having a delayed reaction or something, but all I feel is nothing. I just took a man's life away today, and I don't know who I took him away from but I know they must be in pain, and I should feel terrible about that, but I don't. What kind of a monster am I that I don't even feel bad?"

It was Tim's turn to sigh, and to mentally kick himself for not considering the possibility she was feeling something like this. People reacted to death in a variety of different ways, and he knew from his own experience, as well as his experience as a T.O., that this job, and the all hard calls and tasks that came with it, could affect people in ways they weren't expecting.

"Look Chen," he said as she pulled the car into the lookout spot and put it in park. "You know how you asked me earlier today about what changed for me?"

"Yeah," she said, raising her eyebrows as she glanced over at him.

"Well today's your lucky day." Taking a deep breath, Tim started, "when I was a kid, I didn't have the best home life; my dad was a mean drunk who liked to take out his anger on his wife and kid. That in turn gave me a lot of anger, which is why I got into so many fights with my friends. They weren't the best crowd to be hanging around with, but they had home lives pretty similar to mine, so we were all very protective of each other. As we got older, they started to get into some petty crime on top of fighting, and the cops started to get called. There was this one cop, Officer Marsh, who answered a lot of our calls, so he got to know us pretty well. One night, when I was 16, my buddy got into a bad fight and was beat up pretty bad. We didn't wanna take him to the hospital cause the cops were out looking for him, but we didn't have anything to clean him up with, or any money to buy supplies. So it was decided that I would be the one to go swipe some bandages and disinfectant from Rite Aid. I usually never participated in any of the stealing, but we didn't have any other option, and I wasn't just gonna leave him there bleeding all night. Long story short, I got caught, and Officer Marsh was the one who showed up to arrest me. On the way to the station, he gave me this lecture about how if I kept going down this path, I was on I was gonna get in major trouble, and he knew deep down I was a good kid who just wanted to protect the people I cared about. It turns out he knew my mom from when they were younger, and he thought both her and her son deserved better than what my father had given us. He taught boxing classes at a local gym, and offered to teach me free of charge, to give me a healthier way to cope with all my anger. Over time he became a mentor to me, and he showed me that being a cop was another way that I could help protect the people I cared about, just in a more lawful way."

Tim felt out of breath as he finished his story, and was surprised at the weight that had been lifted off his shoulders. His past wasn't something he liked to reflect on, and he had only ever told Isabelle about it before, but he did have to admit it felt good sharing it with Lucy.

"Wow Tim, I had no idea. Thank you for sharing that with me, I feel honored that you'd trust me with that information."

Tim just nodded as they both checked the radar as a car drove past them.

"And I don't mean to be rude," Lucy continued, "but what does that have to do with me being a cold-blooded killer?"

Tim shook his head as he looked over at her and said, "The point is, Officer Marsh taught me that helping and protecting the innocent is one of the core principles of policing, and in my mind, that's what I was doing with my friends. It wasn't their fault they were raised by shitty parents in toxic environments; they were the victims in my eyes, not the felons the rest of the world saw. And even though it's hard to keep that perspective after everything I've seen on this job, I still try to remind myself of that every once in awhile. But, I will have to say that when I killed a suspect for the first time, I felt the same way that you do. This guy was going after his ex-girlfriend with a knife, and if I didn't stop him, he would have killed her. I didn't feel bad about killing him because I was protecting the innocent, and so were you."

Lucy finally met his eyes as he continued to explain, "you were protecting your T.O. from a suspect with a gun who was firing with the intent to seriously injure or kill me. Not only is that part of your job, but it's also just part of human nature, so you shouldn't feel guilty about it. And I know you're not a cold-blooded monster because if you were, you wouldn't be concerned about the fact that you don't feel guilty. But, you are, so I'm not worried about it, and neither should you be."

"Huh," Lucy said, tilting her head as she considered what Tim had just told her. "I never thought about it that way, but it does make sense. Although, you did get one part wrong."

"What?" Tim asked, frowning at her.

"I wasn't just protecting my T.O., I was protecting my friend."

"Hmph," Tim said, not really knowing how to respond to that, or what to make of the smile that he was trying so hard to suppress at hearing her call him her friend.

"Tim," she said as another car went by them. "They just clocked in at 55."

"Speed limit's 35," Tim said, giving her a look. "Go get 'em, Boot."

And this time, after seeing the look of glee on Lucy's face as she flipped on the sirens and stepped on the gas, Tim couldn't hold that smile back any longer.

Hey guys, quick AN here: I'm sorry if I got any police terminology or lingo wrong, I am definitely not an expert!