Chapter Text
It happens on a Tuesday.
Tim thinks that, after this, he’s going to hate Tuesdays just on principle.
He’s patrolling (alone, because he’s gone through every single possible gopher except for one, and they all hate riding with him) when the call comes over the radio.
It crackles and he frowns, reaching out to smack it because it’s been doing this all damn day and he needs to be able to hear what everyone is saying clearly. It’s like the people in the motor pool had given him the worst shop, and he’s not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but it’s fucking annoying.
The cracking of the radio doesn't disguise the words, though, and Tim hears the call for help clearly.
“7-Adam-19 requesting backup, RA, and airship! We were just ambushed while responding to a domestic. Officer down, I repeat — OFFICER DOWN.”
It’s Aaron’s voice.
Aaron.
Who is riding with Lucy.
He reaches for his radio with shaking hands.
“7-Adam-100 to dispatch, I need the address of the domestic 7-Adam-19 was responding to. Attach me to the call.”
“7-Adam-100, attaching you to the request for assistance. Address is 1832 W. Haven Blvd.”
Tim drops his radio, turns his lights and sirens on, and drives faster than he ever has in his entire career.
Officer down.
Officer down.
Officer down.
Lucy.
He pulls up outside of the house just as the ambulance is driving away, and he sits in his shop at war with himself as he surveys the scene, the man in cuffs and the way Aaron is trying to scrub blood off of his arms.
He knows that protocol dictates that, as patrol Sergeant, he needs to secure the scene. He needs to ignore the fact that Lucy is an ambulance that’s speeding away, lights and sirens on, his entire heart with her. He needs to get out of his shop and talk to Aaron, figure out what happened, make sure the scene is secure.
He needs to —
But it doesn’t matter what he needs to do.
He turns and hits the gas, speeding after the ambulance. His heart is in his throat as he reaches for his radio.
“Dispatch this is 7-Adam-100, send another Sergeant to the scene. I’m following the ambulance to the hospital.”
He replaces the radio with a clenched jaw, already preparing himself to be yelled at.
Again.
He doesn’t care, though, because Lucy is in the back of that ambulance and he doesn’t even know if she’s alive.
He doesn’t know if she’s alive and the last words he’d said to her were fucking goodbye.
He’d walked away from her, and now—
He pulls up to the emergency bay just as the ambulance is unloading Lucy, and he doesn’t see much but he sees enough.
There’s a man on top of her, straddling her hips and giving CPR as they wheel her inside.
There’s blood everywhere.
There are despondent sighs as the other EMTs follow at a more sedate pace, their job done.
He wonders, sometimes, how EMTs handle it.
They arrive at the worst scenes, pick up patients in all manner of conditions, and then just… walk away once they’ve delivered them to the hospital, never really knowing what happens.
It’s not that much different from his job, though, he supposes, because if he’d done what he was supposed to, he’d be at the scene cleaning up without knowing what had happened to her, either.
Fuck that, though, he decides.
He climbs out of his shop, not caring that he’s parked illegally, and runs inside after the EMTs.
His uniform only gets him so far, though.
“Sir. Sir!”
Tim turns to glare at the nurse that’s physically holding him back from entering the trauma room they’d taken Lucy into. The doors are clear, though, and he can see they’re shocking her now, a tube down her throat and blood fucking everywhere.
“I need —”
He swallows thickly as he reaches for the door again, hands shaking, but the nurse stops him.
She’s a foot shorter than him, but it doesn’t seem like it’s her first time holding back distraught people.
“Sir, I can’t allow you in there.”
Tim wants to scream.
“I need to … to be with her,” he gasps, tears blurring his vision as they shock her again. Her back bows off of the table but the heart monitor remains stubbornly resistant.
The line doesn’t even blip, and she remains dead — DEAD — on the table.
“Let me go!” he cries, but then there’s a second and a third nurse holding him back as he begins fighting.
He doesn’t even consciously realize he’s fighting, and somewhere deep in his subconscious he hopes he’s not hurting the nurse.
“I need— I— she needs —”
He can’t finish sentences as his air begins to thin. His vision is dancing and his chest hurts and he knows what’s happening (panic attack) but he’s helpless to stop it.
“I need her,” he whispers, slumping against the clear doors as the heart monitor finally — finally — jumps. It records a single heartbeat and then another, and suddenly doctors and nurses are jumping into action, throwing open the doors and rushing out with her, yelling as they go.
Surgery.
Collapsed lung.
Not stable.
He doesn’t hear everything, but what he hears isn’t good.
“Sir, can we help you to the waiting room?” the nurse asks, but Tim shakes his head despite the fact that he’s about to pass out.
He sways as he stares into the trauma room they’ve just left, his eyes darting over every single piece of medical waste.
There’s so much blood.
It’s everywhere.
On the floor, on the gauze they’d used to try and stem the bleeding, covering the tubes and trash they’d used to bring her back to life.
He stares until his vision begins to black out.
The last thing he remembers is seeing a pile of the things they’d cut off of her — her uniform, her boots, her utility belt.
As he begins to slip from the wall and fall toward the floor, the light catches on gold and he sees a single sparkle from the necklace he’d bought her on Valentine’s Day.
His heart clenches, and he passes out.
_____________________
An hour later he’s sitting in the waiting room outside of the surgery wing, an icepack on his head where he’d hit the floor and his heart in his throat.
There hasn’t been any news.
Each person who arrives asks him, and by the time he’s repeated himself for the 7th time, he feels like he’s going to explode.
Grey hasn’t yelled at him, though — yet — which he supposes is a silver lining.
“Nothing new,” he grunts as Nolan walks into the wing. He’s glaring at everyone, every nurse, at the doors that lead to the operating room, everything. He’s daring them to say anything, to comment on his wet eyes or the fact that he’s not Lucy’s boyfriend anymore.
They don’t.
In fact, they barely speak as they wait.
Angela brings Tim a cup of coffee that he doesn’t touch as the clock slowly ticks past the two hour mark.
Grey excuses himself saying he’ll return after shift change as three hours pass.
Nyla, Wesley, James, and all of the kids show up as the sun begins to set.
The waiting room is full of people.
Packed to the brim with those who love Lucy.
But no news comes.
Lylah and Jack are passed out on the waiting room chairs and Wes, Angela, Nyla, and James are all huddled together with the babies trying to decide who will take them all home to sleep.
Tim watches them, watches as they pass around the sleepy, drooling babies, and his heart clenches because he’ll never have that.
If he can’t have it with Lucy, he doesn’t want it.
She’s the last woman he’ll ever love, the only one he wants to have babies and a family and a life with.
But she deserves better.
(If she even survives, that is).
________________________
It’s been seven hours and seventeen minutes (but who’s counting?) when a doctor finally pushes his way out of the double doors and glances around the waiting room with a raised eyebrow.
“Family of Lucy Chen?”
Every single person stands.
Every.
Single.
One.
Except for him.
They are her family, Tim knows.
He could have been — he was, but now…
“Tim is her medical proxy,” Angela murmurs, and Tim finally glances up to see Grey, Angela, and Nyla surrounding the doctor.
He brushes a hand over his face and stands.
Oh.
Oh, god.
He’s going to have to make decisions about her life.
Her life is literally in his hands, and —
He’s just barely joining the group, shoulder to shoulder with Angela, when the doctor shakes his head.
“No, he isn’t. We have a Wade Grey written down as her medical proxy, with Angela Lopez-Evers, John Nolan, and Nyla Harper as being able to receive medical information.”
Oh.
Oh.
Tim’s entire heart shatters, and he feels faint again.
She’d changed her medical information.
She’d —
There are hands guiding him back to a chair as he begins to collapse, and he groans as he drops his head into his hands.
He isn’t even on the list.
She doesn’t even want him knowing if she’s alive.
She —
He can hear his heart beating loudly in his ears as the others talk to the doctor. They’re whispering in low tones, and Tim watches them from afar, his eyes wide and his heart beating out of his chest as he waits.
No one is crying.
Screaming.
Sobbing.
That’s a good sign, right?
The doctor eventually leaves and Grey walks over to him.
He kneels in front of Tim’s chair and catches his eye.
“I’m sorry, son,” he begins, but Tim doesn’t hear anything past those three words as his heart shatters.
There’s a high pitched ringing in his ears and his vision blurs.
He presses a hand to his chest as his heart shatters, and he knows he’s never going to be whole again after this, but—
“TIM!”
He startles as someone slaps the back of his head, and the shock of pain is just enough to focus him for one brief moment.
“She’s alive, Tim. She’s alive. I should not have started my sentence like that, I’m so sorry. I meant that I’m sorry you couldn’t listen in. I meant I’m sorry that you can’t go back and see her. But she’s alive, Tim. She pulled through surgery. She’s being moved to the ICU and they’ll begin allowing visitors soon.”
Tim nods, and though his brain now knows she’s okay, his body hasn’t received the message yet.
He still feels like throwing up.
“She’s… she’s alive?”
Grey nods, and Tim feels a hand on his shoulder and another on his back.
Everyone is rallying around him, supporting him.
Him.
Even though he doesn’t deserve their support.
“Can… can I see her?”
Grey shakes his head sadly.
“Not in the ICU, no. Only … only the people on her paperwork are allowed back to see her as of right now.”
Tim nods, swallowing thickly.
He glances around the waiting room, at the pitying stares and the way everyone is walking on eggshells around him.
They’re worried, he realizes.
About him.
Worried he’ll either blow up and demand he be taken to see Lucy, or worried he’ll break down.
No one knows what to do with him when he’s feeling emotion.
It’s his fault, really, because he shows it so rarely.
God, he needs to get out of here.
“S-she’s okay, though?”
Grey nods again. “She pulled through surgery. They said the bullet hit her left lung. It caused a lot of damage, but they’re hopeful. She’s stable right now, but they said the next 24 hours will be critical.”
Tim brushes a hand over his face.
He knows, if this had happened even a week ago, that he’d be the one at her side, holding her hand, waiting with baited breath until she woke up.
But she’s not his anymore — she doesn’t want to be his, if the way she’d changed her paperwork is any indication.
“Okay,” he whispers, and then, despite the way the others try to stop him with hands and words, he stands and turns toward the exit.
She doesn’t want him here.
“Tim,” Angela tries, but he ignores her as he pushes his way out of the waiting room and continues on without looking back.
He’d made his decision a week ago in that damn parking lot.
And now Lucy has made hers.