Chapter Six

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

She had lost the radio in the fall as the floor gave away beneath them and it had taken her at least twenty minutes to free herself from the debris that had covered her. An eerie sense of despair had settled deep inside her stomach as she realized she was alone and that no one answered her calls.

She knew Tim had been in the next room while Juarez and Nolan had been searching the upper floor as some sort of explosive device had gone off in the basement. At first, she couldn't understand how she was even alive but - after giving it some thought - she deduced that the bomb hadn't been powerful enough to kill her.

Lucy hated cramped spaces, she always had. However, it had gotten worse after she'd been placed in the barrel and left to die. Her therapist - the one she'd been forced to seek out by the police department - said she had to work on that because if she didn't deal with it; there was a real chance of it becoming a common cause for anxiety. The man had no idea how grateful she was for that practice right about now.

"Hello!" Lucy called out and grimaced at the sound of her hoarse voice.

"Tim!" She tried to see something through the swirl of dust, squinting her eyes, praying to find the others. She coughed as the filthy air made its way down her throat.

She took a moment to gather herself. She had no radio, no flashlight, no nothing. "John!" she tried but once again she was greeted with nothing but silence.

"Please," she whispered then hollered again. "Celina!"

Lucy crawled slowly across the uneven ground of what was left of the two-story building they had entered a little over an hour ago and hissed as her knee got snagged on a nail. She let out a string of curses as she grabbed the broken floorboard and threw it away. She froze as it connected with something soft instead of clattering to what remained of the tiled basement floor or the caved-in wooden construction.

A soft moan suddenly alerted her senses to a presence not too far away to her left. Hope rose deep within her as she changed direction and started crawling on elbows and knees toward the origin of the sound.

"Holler if you can hear me!" she shouted. Once again, she was met by the eerie silence. 'What if it was all a figment of her imagination? What if they were all dead except her?' She felt her pulse quicken and her heart starting to pound in her ears. "Get a grip, Lucy," she whispered to herself. "You can do this."

A faint ray of light filtered into the remains of the basement through a broken window above her head and she froze as she saw a mop of dark blond hair, the left side of his face and an arm sticking out of a pile of debris.

"Tim!" she redoubled her efforts, no longer caring about her scraped knees or the agony in her shoulder or the way her ribs seemed to squeeze around her lungs as she moved. "Tim!"

The dark red blood was contrasting harshly against the porcelain white skin next to his temple, a cut on his cheekbone below added to the grim look. His eyes were closed and he was completely still. She hitched on a breath as her mind tried to tell her he was dead.

"No," she whispered, she was feeling sick to her stomach as she reached out to touch him, afraid his skin would be cold. However, her heart skipped a beat as she reached around his wrist and found a pulse.

Lucy nearly collapsed with relief and took a deep breath. "Tim," she said warmly. "Come on, talk to me."

The relief was replaced by anger and frustration as she got no reply. "I know you're in there."

She placed her hand gently on his right cheek then she started tapping it, first lightly then harder until she suddenly felt something grip her other wrist.

She gazed down at it, seeing Tim's fingers locked around it, and couldn't help but to smirk as she looked back at his face and saw that his blue eyes now looked back at her.

"You are going to give me bruises," he whispered faintly. Despite the predicament, he appeared somewhat amused.

"Are you serious?" she teased, playing along. "I am going to give you bruises? You should see yourself in the mirror."

She was rewarded by a smirk. "You are no ray of sunshine either, Chen." He emphasized her last name as if to remind her they were on duty.

She studied his face carefully. She didn't like the pain that seemed etched onto his forehead or the tightness around his eyes. She had seen him in pain before, she had seen him get shot on her first day at the Mid-Wilshire station and she had seen him trying to keep up appearances after having emergency spinal surgery. None of that compared to this. He was no longer her pain-in-the-ass T.O. Over the years she had found her soulmate in him. He was her friend, her man, her everything. She had come to rely on him and she could no longer – or would no longer – live without him. That realization actually scared her at the moment.

"Stop looking at me like I am some kind of project," he said, annoyance seeping into his subdued voice. "You want to help, then start freeing me from whatever is on top of me."

She made a face, a little offended by his commanding tone of voice but she also appreciated it, because it helped her focus. "How are you, Lucy? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" she said, looking directly at him with a poignant look. "You know, I kind of expected to hear those things from you."

"I'd say you are holding up pretty good," he replied through clenched teeth, a faint smile curling the corners of his lips slightly upwards. "You are favoring your left shoulder, appear to have hurt your left knee, it looks like you are having some difficulties with your ribs and you're pouting."

She broke into a grin. "Looks like you do pay attention to detail," she drawled as she slowly began to help him get rid of the debris that nearly covered him from top to toe.

He looked at her, all too serious for her liking all of a sudden. "Don't be alarmed."

She froze. "What is it you aren't telling me?"

He let out a shaky breath as she fully uncovered his upper body.

The left side of his shirt, just below his ribcage, was darker than the rest, it looked like a large splatter. She prayed it was just water or some other liquid that had spilled on him during the explosion but deep down she knew it was another injury she had uncovered because her fingers turned red as she gently grabbed the garment.

"Damn it, honey," she managed as she swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Have you heard anything from Nolan or Juarez?" he asked in an attempt to steer her thoughts into another direction.

As she glanced around the cramped space, he noticed that she was zooming out a little, looking lost.

"Officer Chen," he demanded. "Focus, I thought I had trained you better."

Something sparked behind her brown eyes as she looked back at him with fierce intensity. She was tougher than most people thought despite her soft and caring side. She had proven that when Caleb Wright had tattooed a date on her stomach – a date when she was supposed to die – before tying her up, putting her in a barrel, burying her alive.

"I have tried to make contact, sir," she reported. "I have called out, searched for them as best as I could, given my injuries. I was unsuccessful, finding neither of them or you earlier."

"Lucy," Tim said softly. "My intention was not to get you to rattle off a string of words with robotic stiffness."

"No, you wanted me to think about something else than our predicament and for that I am grateful," she replied sincerely.

He nodded with a faint smile on his lips. "Not that I keep count or anything but I think it's your turn to save my ass."

She smirked. "You are going to owe me big."

"You know, in a perfect world I don't need to rescue you in the future," he drawled slyly.

"Well, I've got news for you, the world we live in is very unpredictable and imperfect," she chided as she removed the last piece of debris from his legs and carefully scooted closer again to lift his shirt.

He pursed his lips as her petite hands gently dragged the rim of the shirt free of his pants and started to unbutton the last few buttons.

"How do you feel?" she asked carefully, trying not to let the worry for him shine through, failing to keep a slight tremor of her hands from becoming visible.

"Wonderful," he quipped sarcastically.

"Tim," she whined and tried to offer an encouraging smile at the same time. He was so pale. "I am serious."

"A little lightheaded," he replied seriously. "My side is not so bad; it kind of stings."

She braced herself as she peeled the fabric of the shirt away from the skin, revealing the injury. She froze as the upper edge of it seemed to continue up under the bulletproof vest.

He saw the troubled look on her face but he was lying flat on his back so he couldn't really see what she saw. "What is it?" he asked, his voice strained and a little subdued.

"Huh," she smiled at him but it didn't reach her eyes. "Nothing."

"Lucy, what?" he demanded and tried to raise his upper body a little from the floor. He flinched immediately as activating his core muscles caused the pain to flare up.

"Lie still," she said worriedly. "You have a pretty impressive gash covering your side. It disappears beneath the vest. I am going to unstrap it so that I can get a better look."

He nodded.

She grimaced slightly as she had undone all the buttons on his uniform shirt and pulled at the straps around his midsection, she then freed the straps over his shoulder so that she could lift away the front part of it. He craned his neck to see better but from his flat position there wasn't much to see other than a crimson red starkly contrasting the white surface of his t-shirt.

It brought back unwanted memories for both of them from a time when Lucy had been fresh out of the police academy and Tim had been assigned as her training officer.

"This brings back bad memories," she said softly. "I had nightmares for days."

Tim turned his head to get a better look at her. "Could have been worse," he replied somewhat cockily and then sincerely added; "It could have been you."

Despite their predicament she smiled at him. "The fierce protector-," she began and then suddenly stiffened. "Rosalind's words."

"She's long gone, Lucy. You have to let go. She can't hurt you anymore."

"I know, I know. I just-," She trailed off and stared at the gash on Tim's stomach. It ran from the last rib and continued downwards, ending at the navel. She felt completely helpless, she had no first aid kit or anything useful with her. "Actually, I would gladly deal with the pain if that is all it takes to spare you from her evil deeds."

"I've had worse and survived," he replied.

"Of course you have. Mr. though-guy," she teased him a little but deep down she was worried he would bleed out while she watched. He must have lost a lot of blood already and if she couldn't stem the blood flow - if the sickly pallor of his skin was anything to go by – he would not last until the rescue unit arrived.

Lucy grimaced as she began to unbutton her shirt.

Tim craned his neck a little, a frown on his face. "What are you doing?"

She shrugged out of her shirt. "Do you know what happened? Did something hit you during the explosion?"

He shook his head, trying to remember the chaotic event. "The shockwave threw me into something. I don't really remember what it was - I didn't have time to find out - because the next thing I knew the floor beneath my feet gave away and I ended up down here."

She sat back in awe as she glanced at the shirt and the dents in the vest. "It appears the bulletproof vest took the brunt of it. Good thing you had it on or whatever it was would have done more damage."

"Lucky me," he said dryly.

She ripped her uniform shirt to shreds and made a face as she saw how dirty it was. She swallowed and took one of the shreds and used it as a makeshift band aid.

Tim gritted his teeth, squirming, as the cloth was pushed over the wound. He bit his lower lip trying not to scream as his eyes moistened and tears of pain threatened to spill on his cheeks.

Lucy's skin prickled, she was in agony over the agony she was causing him. "Hold on Tim, please," she whispered sadly.

He could see that she was on the verge of tears so he gently reached out to lock his fingers around her wrist, giving it a squeeze. "It's going to be okay," he tried to reassure her.

"Give me your hand," she commanded. "Put pressure here, make sure not to let go."

"Okay, I've got it," he said, gritting his teeth. "Take it easy for a while – okay – you are injured too."

"I need to go and find us some help," she said resolutely.

"You have no flashlight, no radio and no way to get out of this place without help from the outside. The best thing you can do Lucy is to take a deep breath, calm down and sit for a while."

OOOOOO

To be continued