Tim felt his chest tighten as he walked into his wives room.

The sight of her almost paralyzed him. The only reason his heart didn't stop then and there was because of the steady beeping of the monitor. She was alive. She wasn't out of the woods, but at this point in time she was alive.

The top half of her head was wrapped with a bandage, her mouth was filled with a tube that provided her with the oxygen she couldn't provide herself, her neck was in a brace, and her left arm immobilized in a sling. The closer he got to her the more detail he could see. Her face was swollen, her left eye black and blue with a nasty cut beside it, her right arm and both her legs in restraints. He wanted to break her out of them, she wasn't a prisoner, but they were for her safety. He wanted her to be safe.

"Oh Luce," he stated as he pulled up a chair beside her bed. He wanted to go back to that morning. Not let her out from underneath him. He wanted to pepper kisses all along her body as she feigned being annoyed with him for taking his time. He wanted his lips to memorize every detail of her naked form. He was sure he knew her body better than she did at this point, but there is no such thing as being overly thorough, not when it came to her at least.

"Lucy, I need you to come back to me. I can't live this life without you. We're supposed to have kids and grandkids, remember?" Tim's voice was weak. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed and lie beside her, knowing he couldn't, he settled for holding her free hand. "I love you so much. I know I probably don't say it enough, but if you would just come back to me I could improve on it."

Tim bent the upper half of his body down and gently kissed her lifeless hand. He looked up toward the ceiling, without losing the contact of his mouth with her hands, and let himself break. It wasn't as ugly as his stint out in the waiting room with Angela. This was more of an internal break. The break that happened where a man had nothing left to lose.

But she wasn't lost. She was still alive. The heart monitor kept proving that to him. He still had her to lose.

He kept his hand wrapped around hers as he layed his head down. He had never been so emotionally and physically exhausted in his life.

Tim had gone through his entire wardrobe and internally groaned. If someone were to tell him he would be this worked up and nervous over a date he would have laughed at them. This date was different though. This date was with one of the most important people in his life, Lucy.

He looked at himself in the mirror and instantly felt annoyed with himself. He promptly grabbed his phone and dialed the one person he could always turn to.

"Hi, I'm almost there," he heard her all to familiar voice say through his phone. He knew her so well that just by her tone he could tell she was lying.

"No. No you're - No you're not," he said calling her out on it. He felt a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Just hearing her voice soothed every bit of self doubt he was having.

"No, I'm not, sorry," he could hear the clanking of objects in the background, "Um, are you?"

"No," he stated as if it should be obvious. "Look, um, does this restaurant have a dress code?"

"Uh," he heard her draw out. He could already tell she was going to through a curve his way, "No, I mean you could wear cargo shorts, if you wanted."

He internally laughed as he imagined her smug expression as she tried to test him.

"Really?" He played along.

"Yeah, I mean what does it matter as long as you're comfortable." He could hear the confidence in her voice as she tried to play him.

"Nice try," he heard her laugh echo through his phone speaker, "That was clearly a test. And YOU, should know better then to test the master." He took pride in his ability to entertain a little giggle out of her. "What are you wearing?" He asked needing some sort of direction.

"Yeah, um, I don't know…. yet, but I do have a lot of outfits I'm not going to wear," she admonished.

"Well, we are running low on time. Traffic's getting ugly." He kept looking at himself in the mirror wondering if he himself looked good enough for their date.

"Yeah, totally, I. Uh - It's silly. I just need to make a decision," she stated drawing out the n in decision. "Uh, yes! The green dress. It is decided."

"Great," he told her unable to keep the smile off of his face. "Well, I'll, I'll see you soon."

"Okay, bye." He heard her voice finalize through the phone. He looked at his shirt in the mirror and decided to throw on a nice blazer over top. He examined himself once more and smiled.

Everything happened in a blur. One moment he was reliving one of the best decisions of his life, the next monitors were screaming, Lucy's body was shaking and thrashing uncontrollably, and he was being forced out of her hospital room. He fought them trying to get back to her.

"Sir, the more you fight us, the more you are taking us away from helping her. Go over there and let us do our jobs."

As much as he didn't want to, he acquiesced. He felt his chest tighten once again. The vision of her body convulsing already haunting him. The world began to feel as if the walls around him were closing in. His breathing became shallow and rushed. He couldn't breathe. The realization hitting him like a ton of bricks.
Lucy. Breathe. Distant voices. Breathe.

"He's having a panic attack," he heard someone yell. "Mr. Bradford, I need you to take in a nice deep breath for me and hold it for me." A few seconds later she added, "okay, now let it out." They repeated the process a few times until he felt the tightness in his chest lessen. It was still there, but the capacity of air his lungs were able to receive improved.

"How, how is Lucy?" He mustered out.

"They are taking her down to do an emergency CT-Scan. They think the swelling in her brain has increased. There isn't a lot of wiggle room for the brain as is. It causes an increased amount of pressure which can cause a seizure. Chances are she is going to be taken in for an emergency craniectomy."

"What is that?" He knew what it was. Lucy had him watch more than enough Grey's Anatomy for him to not know, but he needed to hear the nurse say it.

"It's where they remove a part of the skull to remove the pressure. This will result in her having to wear a helmet up until she can get a cranioplasty." Tim swallowed hard and nodded. "If that is the case someone will be out for you to sign some paperwork."

The CT scan proved the doctors suspicions correct. Lucy's brain had swelled more causing a build up of pressure in her skull. She was currently in emergency surgery getting a part of her skull removed. Tim looked around the empty waiting room. None of his friends knew what was going on. His sister knew even less than them and she loved Lucy. He knew she would drop everything to come support him, but it was late and the last thing he wanted to do was worry her.

instead Tim pulled out his phone and started going through his pictures. Most of them were filled with just Lucy, or Lucy with Kojo, but there were a few with him in them with her. He always acted annoyed when she wanted a selfie, but now he was so thankful for every memory attached to the pictures.

When he got to a video he couldn't stop smiling. He had caught her off guard by secretly recording her singing. He never realized how good she was until he let himself into her apartment and listed to her belt out a tune by Aretha. It was one of her favorites and suddenly, from that moment on, it was one of his.

Tim pulled out his phone and started recording as he followed her voice to her bathroom. He watched as she sang into her hair brush before setting it down to finish applying some blush to the balls of her cheeks. Tim's right side was leaning on the door frame, phone in hand, recording her. When she finally caught sight of him he watched as the pigment on her cheeks began to take over the rest of her face without the help of a makeup brush.

"Tim!" She exclaimed. She turned to him and went to grab his phone, but he quickly held it out of her reach. He watched as she began to pout. "How much of that did you see?" She questioned.

"That is what you are worried about? You should be concerned how long it took you to notice I was there," he quipped. All he got was her tongue sticking out at him in mock annoyance.

She grabbed the collar of his shirt and smoothed it out as she got closer to him. She bit her bottom lip before slowly leaning into him. As soon as her lips touched his he lost himself in the kiss. His arm holding up the phone slowly started to drop as his sense of awareness decreased. It wasn't until he felt her jerk the phone out of his hand and separated herself from him that he process what just happened.

"Hey," he laughed as he chased after her. They were on opposite sides of the counter and he just watched as she kept an eye on him, but also kept trying to delete the video off of his phone at the same time. Every time he made a move, she countered it. "Luce, please don't delete it. I promise I won't show it to anyone. It will just be for me." He watched as she pondered the idea. "Why didn't you ever tell me you could sing like that?"

"It's not that good," she said shrugging off her talent. He couldn't believe that someone as perfect as Lucy could not see just how amazing she truly was. "Okay, you can keep it, but you have to promise me it's for your eyes only."

"I promise," he said giving her the boy-scout salute.

"You weren't a Boy Scout," she stated as she made her way over to him. "Also, you should probably be concerned by how easy it was into dropping your guard, sergeant," she sassed.

"Only around you, Chen."

"Good. Now let's go eat, I am starving."

Tim pulled himself out of the memory and exited out of the video. The last thing he wanted to do was act like she was already gone. She was going to pull through. They had too many plans. She wouldn't leave him.
As soon as he started getting into his head again he went to his contacts and called his best friend, and the best woman at his wedding.

"Hey, Timothy. How is our girl doing?" He stayed silent. He felt himself choking on the words. "Tim. I'm really getting concerned here. What's going on?"

"She is in emergency surgery. Her brain it swelled, caused a seizure, they have to remove part of her skull." He stated after he finally figured out how to form the words. Saying what was going on with his wife almost made it more real.

"Okay, Tim. I'm going to come sit with you. You shouldn't be alone right now." It was only then he took into account the rasp in her voice, her exhaustion evident. He pulled his phone away from his ear to see it was two in the morning. He mentally cursed himself.

"No, Ange. You get some sleep. I didn't realize what time it was."

"Tim, I'm coming and that is final," she stated with finality. He knew better than to fight her when she used that tone. "Plus, It gets me out of prepping the kids for school, so I'm not complaining."

"Thanks, Angela."

"I'll be there soon." She stated before she hung up.