Lucy wakes up and at first, she thinks it's a day she has to work, until she realizes the sun is out much more brightly than it would be on a morning she would rise for work. Then she remembers it's Saturday. It's Saturday, and she's able to sleep in, and Tim is by her side. She snuggles closer to him, sliding up and burrowing into his chest, relishing in his scent and the warmth of his body.

Familiarity. Happiness. Safety. Love.

"Good morning," he mutters into her hair.

"Mmm, good morning," she returns with a grin as she slides a hand under his shirt to slide over his skin.

She loves him so much.

Since she placed seventeenth on the detective's exam, she's started to let herself think about possibilities for her career besides making detective and doing undercover work – the two things she had only ever really considered, until now.

Until she was forced to look in other directions.

She knows she could keep working towards it. She knows Tim will be okay if she goes after it. After Nolan's wedding, they'd come up with two non-negotiables. For her, he has to be honest if he can't handle something: whether it be a particular op, her working undercover in general. He has to be honest about it and she promised it was okay to be, to say the truth even if he thinks she won't like it. For him, he asked her to never take an assignment if things weren't okay between them or if she felt like going undercover would be a way to escape whatever they were dealing with.

Maybe something magical will happen, maybe someone will finally notice something she does, maybe she'll get a golden ticket like Nolan and Harper did, maybe someone will come knocking at the door to poach her from patrol like she'd been promised when she went to undercover school.

But that's not her way, to sit around hoping and banking on maybes and what ifs. She's the type to figure out a plan b, start a new path forward.

If she's honest, it actually feels okay, the idea of doing something else. As much as she'd loved working undercover, she'd become conflicted lately – not because she knew it would be hard on Tim, but because she was beginning to realize it was going to be hard on her, too. To be away from him for so long when she can barely tear herself away from him for a night. To put that stress on him, even if he supports her. To worry about getting involved in something dangerous that might prevent her from ever coming home to him. To figure out how to merge the idea of an undercover career with the idea of wanting to have a family, something that might not be so far off in the future, anymore.

They spend the weekend showering together, eating at their favorite places, stopping for coffee, going for a run, browsing the Farmer's Market, taking a hike with Kojo, spending far too much time in bed lost in each other. A weekend that leaves them both relaxed and satisfied, ready for the week ahead.

It's a perfect weekend, and she sees a future filled with more of these days, together. Always together.

Little did she know, it was all about to come crashing down around her.

It's a normal Monday at work, though she and Aaron are busy on call after call. She almost takes an elbow to the eye but she ducks at the last second and sends up a silent thanks that she's not going to be icing her eye all night long.

Tim's busy with Metro on a hostage negotiation, so she doesn't see much of him, despite always hoping to catch a glimpse of him when she's in the station. But it's okay, because when their shift is over they have plans to cook dinner together and he promised she can pick the TV show they binge tonight. She'll go easy on him and pick one of the reality shows that she knows he likes, even though he pretends he doesn't, because that way he gets to watch it without having to admit he likes it.

"Hey. Chen!" Angela calls out when she and Aaron arrive to book the fisticuff happy suspect. She looks to Aaron, a silent ask if he's okay to do the booking and he nods.

"What's up?" Lucy asks.

"I'm working a case that we could use you on."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, probably short term, but we need to send someone undercover."

"Oh," she says, and she can't ignore the way her stomach sinks. What is that about?

"I can let you know more of the details later this week, but just… plan for it in case, okay?"

Lucy nods as Angela bustles away back towards her desk.

This is what she's supposed to do, right? Even if she scored poorly on the detective's exam, she's supposed to keep working undercover cases when she can. It's what wants, isn't? Does it matter if she's a detective? How she gets the undercover work to come to her? She's supposed to love uc work, no matter if she's on patrol or a detective.

She can't shake the anxiety that swells in the pit of her stomach, the dizziness she feels as she processes. Aaron is flagging her down, ready to head back out, so she pushes it away for the time being, but the feeling never quite leaves her.

She thinks about what's on tap for the next month or so. One of the guys on Metro is getting married, and she and Tim are invited (well, Tim is. And she's his plus one and she's excited for this first event where she's joining simply because she's his date, not because they're both invited already). Angela has invited them to Jack's birthday party. She and Tim have a reservation at this new restaurant she's been dying to try but is always packed and the waitlist is months long.

Those are the big things, things they can't just reschedule.

Then there are the tiny, minute things like the plans they have to hike next weekend with Kojo when the weather is forecasted to be sunny but only mildly hot, the new season of her favorite show dropping next week that she's planning to force Tim to watch, a double date with Angela and Wesley, a movie they've been waiting to see being released in a few weeks, this new exercise class they were planning to try together at the gym.

She doesn't want to change any of it. She doesn't want to miss any of it. She doesn't want to postpone any of it.

The nagging reality she's had in the back of her mind has finally become clear, with help from the momentary belief that she might be forced to leave this life behind.

"Lopez said they might want me for an undercover op," Lucy states casually as she clears the plates from dinner off the kitchen island.

"Really?" Tim asks from the sink where he's rinsing them and she searches his eyes to see how he reacts, but she doesn't see a hint of anything but hope for her, that things might be heading in her favor. "See? I told you that you can still work undercover when on patrol," he reminds her. "With Lopez and Harper on your side, they'll always keep you in the fold."

"I just," she dumps the ice cubes out of the cup she's holding and bites her lip. She knows that he can see her hesitating. "What would you say if I said I was thinking of moving away from the idea of undercover work?"

She watches his face go through several different expressions. Surprise, concern, worry, confusion. He has to want this on some level, she's sure, so she looks for the relief or joy she thinks should appear on his features, but she doesn't see it come.

"What? Why?"

His surprise is evident, especially after all they've been through in regards to her undercover career. He was there when she got her first taste of it, back when she was still a rookie. He saw her develop a love for it. He watched her get more and more adept at it. He's been on ops with her both behind the scenes and as a fellow undercover officer. He's the one who pushed her to go to UC school when she was hesitating.

Then there's how hard she pushed to get him to admit that he has reservations around her going under, how hard they've worked to get to a place they can both communicate about it and feel comfortable with it. Understanding now how of course, he will never love that she's away from him for long periods of time, not knowing if she's safe, but how that's different than not supporting her in it. How he's been so willing to work on his feelings, determined that he will never be the reason she can't pursue the career path she's dreamed of.

So she can understand why he's confused, because now, here she, is saying she just wants to walk away from it, making a total 180 in a rather short period of time.

"I mean," she says with a little disheartened chuckle. "There's the exam, for starters. After that I don't see myself really doing it like I'd envisioned, before."

"No, Lucy. You can still do it," Tim says with confidence. "You know there's a way..." he trails off as he tries to think about how she can overcome this, overcome Primm. "And you can keep working undercover while on patrol," he reminds her. "Just like this. Keep building up your cases, and next time you test…"

"How long do I have to wait for next time, huh?" she snaps, a little too quickly, the pain of the exam rising to the surface again. "It might not happen for years," she says, thinking about how she doesn't have years to wait around before she even gets started as an undercover detective, because she knows she wouldn't want to do it when they're ready for kids. It's not like they're planning on a family tomorrow or anything, but she is already in her thirties, Tim is older than she is, and it's something they would be considering sooner rather than later, she's sure. "This will be better for us."

There it is. She sees the flash of worry in his eyes, hesitancy that she might be making the choice because of him. "I don't want you to give it up because of me."

"It's not because of you-" she clarifies. "It's just I almost feel this relief that it's been taken from me. I've been fighting for it for so long, but somewhere along the way I started being torn between wanting to do it and wanting to, you know, live a normal life with the person I love."

She's been so driven in achieving her goal, she's never given much time to consider the nagging doubts as anything other than blaming it on being worried about how Tim would handle it. There are the feelings she felt when Noah said he'd broken up with his girlfriend and that undercover doesn't work well with relationships. The hesitancy she's had in the back of her mind that caused her to ask Isabel, straight up, if it was worth it.

"Lucy, I…" he takes a deep breath, takes his hand and runs it over his face. "If you're never going to trust that I'm okay with it, after everything, after I've told you I'm working on it, after all the work we've put into this, then we can't do this."

"It's not that," she says insistently, realizing this conversation is going nowhere, quickly. In fact, she's worried that it's not exactly going nowhere, it's going somewhere. Somewhere she doesn't like.

"It is that," he retorts. "You've been worried about this the entire time we've been together. Is that not true?"

"Well, yes," she agrees, because she knows he knows that's true, but continues on even as he opens his mouth to speak. "Until recently, I mean, I think we're in a really good place with it right now."

"So then why…?"

"Because things have changed! I've had to rethink a lot and things have become a lot clearer to me."

"The only reason things have changed for you is because of you being with me. Being with me is what got you into this mess in the first place."

She frowns, and she's not sure why she feels instantly defensive. "What are you talking about?"

"The five-player trade. That's what started all this. That's what got Primm pissed off at you. You did that because of me. Then the crime scene-"

"That wasn't because of you," she cuts in.

He raises his eyebrows knowingly. "You blamed that on me-"

She feels the guilt rise in her chest along with the bile at how sick she's feeling at where this conversation is going. "Okay, I did, but I was wrong-"

"And you've been worried since the beginning that I can't handle it."

"Yes, but… that was before."

"And now you're saying you want to give it all up."

"Tim, I just don't want to do it anymore!" she says with finality. "I've always been so focused on becoming an undercover detective that I had this narrow-minded tunnel vision about it and never even considered anything else. Now that I've had to I see that there's a lot of things I might like to do and at the same time we can have-"

"See, it always comes back to that," he interrupts her. "That it's better for us. You can't make decisions about your career because of that."

"Why not?" she finally snaps. "Are you saying we're not important enough to be a priority? Are you saying this isn't a serious relationship that's headed somewhere?"

"You can't give up on undercover work just for a guy."

She lets out a laugh of disbelief. "A guy? That's what you are? Just some guy?"

"Lucy."

"Oh, come on," she says with a roll of her eyes. "You've had issues with the idea of me doing undercover work the whole time. So why can't you just take this win for us and run with it? Be happy about it."

"So you're saying it is about my issues."

"No!" she exclaims. "I'm just saying, that has to be a benefit for you."

"It's not a win, because I don't want to be the reason you don't do what you want to do!" he snaps. "You're good at this. You can't just give it up because of me. You're scared I can't handle it so now you're looking for a reason to walk away."

"That's not true!"

A silence descends upon them, and she can see the wheels turning in his brain, knows she's not going to like what he comes up with next.

"I didn't train you very well if this is how you meet an obstacle. Just give it all up?"

"Tim," she half admonishes, half begs, as the word leaves her lips.

"I'm serious," he says, though she knows he's absolutely not. "I thought I trained you better than this. I thought you were a better cop than this. I didn't think you were a quitter."

He knows that will hurt her, knows it with everything in him because he trained her and he knows her and she knows it. She knows he knows exactly what to say just to hurt her, to push her away, and it pisses her off.

"You're a jackass," she spits, and though she's said a version of those words to him many times – he's a jackass, he's a jerk, he's an idiot – it's always been in a form of affection and now, now there's vitriol in her voice, in her eyes.

Now she looks like the same pained Lucy who had been his rookie and really believed he was a jackass, but it's a thousand times worse now. Because that Tim was her training officer and it was almost expected. This Tim is the one who supposedly loves her.

And he does. He loves her so much.

So much that he doesn't want her to give up a part of her career for him, a part she's told him she loves, a part that she's been training for since she was still a rookie.

"We can't do this anymore. We can't keep fighting about this."

"So, what? You're saying that's it? Just like that? Over nothing?"

"It's not nothing! It's everything. It's your whole career. The rest of your life. We should just walk away from this before your whole career blows up. I'm not going to do this to you."

The silence engulfs them, and she doesn't know how she got here. This morning, she'd thought she'd narrowly avoided ruining her evening by ducking. Suddenly, having to ice a black eye all night seems way more appealing than this.

She can't believe he'd actually do this, end them, and suddenly she feels like that rookie that dared to push him, to test him, to see if he was really as tough as he put on.

"Okay," she says and everything in her is keeping her voice as steady as possible, eyes alight with the fire of challenging him, asking if he's really going to do this to her, to them. "Then go ahead. Be my guest, walk on out."

She stares at him with a look he never wants to remember – pain and heartache, fear, and a tiny bit of hope. Hope that he won't do it.

But he does. He tosses down the towel he's holding, grabs his things, and heads to the door with Lucy's jaw dropping in disbelief.

"I'm sor-," he begins, and she musters up the courage and strength to look him dead in the eyes.

"Save it," she says simply as he opens the door. "Now who's the quitter!" she yells after him, even as the door clicks shut.

It's two days later before Tim sees her at Mid-Wilshire for the first time.

He doesn't know where she's been, but he assumes she's called out sick. Maybe to avoid him, maybe because she was too upset to work. But he knows it's not his business anymore to know where she is. He's not her boyfriend and he's not her sergeant so he has no reason to know why she's not at work, what her reasoning was for calling out, what she was doing.

But she's back now.

She looks tired, worn down, sad. He can read her with a glance, a skill he's perfected not long into her rookie year. Her body is tense, her eyes are tired, and her smile doesn't reach her eyes.

He sees her across the bullpen and sucks in a breath, because it hurts. It hurts more than he ever thought it could. For the first time in over a year, he doesn't know what she looked like when she woke up this morning, they hadn't talked about what was on their plate for the day, hadn't discussed their plans for after shift.

They're no longer in a relationship, she's not in his chain of command, she's not his go-fer, she's not his rookie.

For the first time since they met, their lives are completely separate. They have no business together.

And now she's here, and they had shared an entire life together, but now he has no idea what she's been up to for the last two days. No idea what she'll be up to for the next two, or any of the days beyond that.

She can probably feel him looking, he realizes, because she looks up towards his direction and their eyes meet ever so briefly before he looks away, down, and turns to head in the other direction.

He should stay in his office for the rest of the day until he has a call, he decides. For both of their sakes.

Just as he steps forward to take a walk towards his office, he hears a voice.

"What happened." Tim startles when he sees Angela directly behind him. It's a statement, not a question, and he really can't do this right now.

"What are you talking about?" he returns, feigning obliviousness.

"You and Lucy."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Tim." Angela's voice is uncharacteristically soft.

"No, I just… I have to go."

He rushes away from all of this, from Lucy, from Angela, but he can't get away from the way his heart clenches.

It's for Lucy's sake, he reminds himself. He has to do this for Lucy's sake, for her career. Things will get easier as time goes by.

After all, he's lost an entire marriage before. He can survive a breakup.

Right?

Right.

"Something happen?"

Lucy turns to see Nyla behind her in the women's locker room.

She thought she'd been pretty good at hiding it. After he'd left her apartment two nights ago, she'd stood there in shock. Moved about her evening as if that hadn't just happened.

This time there was no assurance that it was just a night off, no see you tomorrow. This time he'd said they should walk away from this. There was no phone call later. No text. No word from him at all.

She wanted to reach out to him, but she's fighting a losing battle with him and she has no idea what to say to fix it so she just let it be, wondering if he'll come to his senses eventually.

But nothing.

"Oh, um… I'm fine," Lucy says, startled. "Why?"

"If you don't want to talk about it," Nyla says gently. "That's okay."

"There's nothing to talk about," Lucy counters.

Nyla lets out a little laugh. "Chen, you two didn't fool us when you got together, and you're not fooling us now."

Lucy feels her stomach fall at the words when you got together. That's long gone, now. The excitement and optimism they had felt, the thrill of it being real after all the years of wondering, figuring out how to make their relationship work, keeping it from their friends, taking it slow.

The first date and the second first date. Talking about grandkids. The first real kiss. Their first night together.

It's all long gone now.

"Damnit, I told him," Lucy blurts out and it's a moment before she realizes she's said it out loud and not in her head, Nyla blinking at her slowly. "I told him we shouldn't risk it," she recalls their conversation outside the station, what seems like a lifetime ago, now. "Our friendship," she clarifies to Nyla. "For the relationship. It wasn't worth the risk of our friendship."

"What happened?" Nyla asks with sudden tenderness, reaching out to steady Lucy by the elbow. "I mean, you two were so…." she trails off, not wanting to upset Lucy further by nothing how solid and strong she and Tim had always come across. "I just couldn't see something miniscule derailing you guys like this."

Lucy shrugs, feels the tears stinging at her eyes, and doesn't want to cry in front of Nyla.

Tim's words are still in her head and even though she knows knows that he said them just to push her away, they're still messing with her. The cop he trained wouldn't cry over a breakup while she's still in uniform.

It's true. They sailed into this knowing each other so well, knowing the others' quirks and flaws intimately and ready to accept them. No little annoying habit or personality trait was going to come to the surface and end this. They sorted out the superior situation with ease. Their jobs and his higher rank weren't going to be the hurdle they couldn't overcome. They were in love. Feelings weren't going to end this. They were both so secure in the other's feelings there was no threat of jealousy or worries about how the other feels. No other person was going to come between them. They both agreed they wanted marriage and kids someday. Their goals for the future wouldn't be the dealbreaker. They obviously understood the demands and dangers of each other's jobs. Being unable to deal with their partner's dangerous, demanding job and long hours wasn't going to upend this.

The only thing – the thing Lucy always knew would blow up in their faces – was her undercover work.

She'd known it.

If anything were to come between them, that's what was going to end this.

She knew it because even when she was a rookie, he'd gotten upset when she took her first op, Nyla's words then ringing in her ears. His hang ups with uc work are his to deal with, not yours.

Until, eventually, they were.

Because his hang ups with her undercover work suddenly were her problem to deal with, if it was going to affect their relationship.

Even then, they'd sailed through the various ops she had done with minimal stumbling, thus far. His failed lie detector test had gotten him to realize he still has pain from losing Isabel, and fears about her going undercover, and open that line of communication between them. He'd been nothing but open to figuring out his own issues so that she could do what she wanted without worrying about him. She knew he could work his way through this, that he wanted to so that he could support her.

It's kind of ironic that their undoing is her wanting to give it up.

But she always knew it would be the undercover work.

"I told him I wanted to give up undercover work," Lucy admits, something she hadn't even really discussed with anyone at the station yet, let alone Nyla who had always been her biggest supporter. "He told me I shouldn't."

A frown creases Nyla's features. "So how did…"

Lucy takes a breath. "He basically told me if I'm going to give it up because of him, I shouldn't be with him. I should do undercover work instead."

"Is it because of him?" Nyla wonders.

Lucy shakes her head and wipes at her eyes. "No. I mean, not in that I don't want to do it because I think he can't handle it. It's not that. But all along I guess it's been a thing, you know? I kept worrying how his past with Isabel would affect us, if my undercover work would eat away at him…" she bites her lip. "But we've been working through it. It's not because of that. it's just… after the exam, I started looking at other paths and for the first time I guess I felt like maybe… I mean, I want – wanted - a life with him. Marriage and kids and…" she trails off, knowing Nyla will understand the rest on a personal level. "I never had that so close, before. Undercover seemed to fit into my plans until it… didn't."

"I get that," Nyla confirms her understanding.

Lucy nods. "Anyway, he wouldn't accept it, that I wanted to try moving away from it. So, we broke up. Or, technically he broke up with me, I suppose. He thinks he's doing some noble shit or something, I don't know."

"He's an idiot," Nyla says with certainty, and Lucy laughs for the first time in days.

"Yeah, he is," she agrees. "But…"

"You love him."

"Yeah, I do."

Nyla gives her a pat on the shoulder.

All of this is stupid, Lucy thinks. She should be able to call him, they should be able to talk it out. Nothing egregious has happened between them.

But he's stubborn.

And he thinks he's doing something to benefit her, to protect her career, to protect her.

And if there's anything Tim Bradford was stubborn about, it was protecting her.

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