Safe Place to Hide || Chenford / The Rookie

Chapter 10

"Have you always been this insubordinate?"

Lucy laughs and though it's a welcome relief from the stress of the evening, it's short-lived. She looks at Tim, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice, "What's going to happen to me, Tim? With the note, I mean?"

"It's going to be okay, Lucy. We'll figure it out."

And it doesn't matter that they are simple words; words anyone would say really. It matters that they're coming from him, and that he wouldn't say them if he didn't believe they were true. They blanket her in such an unexpected sense of comfort that she finds herself thinking she might actually be able to get some restful sleep tonight for the first time in what feels like days.

"We'll talk to Grey first thing. Have you told anyone else about the note?"

"Just Jackson and Nolan."

"Okay. Good. Let's keep it that way for now, until we get a chance to discuss it with Grey." He studies her carefully, and the pause indicates to Lucy that he's debating his next words.

Please god, don't bring up the fact that I practically mauled you 10 minutes ago.

Her relief is almost tangible when he settles on a simple, "Are you going to be okay?"

Lucy laughs dryly, "I feel like I'm about to collapse from exhaustion, but other than that, yes, I'm okay. And before you try and talk me into a safe house, I promise I'll barricade myself in before I pass out."

He hardly looks convinced, but the over-exaggerated yawn that follows seems to be enough to convince him to let it drop for now. He gives her one last nod before turning to leave, pausing to glance back at her with his hand resting on the door handle, "I'm glad you called me Lucy."

And despite her mortifying misstep, she is too. She attempts to convey the immense gratitude she's feeling toward him via her tired smile, "Me too, Tim."

***

Tim's head is spinning as he leaves Lucy's apartment. Angela's call may have been the distraction they'd needed to skirt around what had happened without too much lingering awkwardness, but it certainly wasn't powerful enough to stop him from reliving the feeling of her lips on his, her body pressed up against his own, even if only for the briefest of moments, over and over in his head.

Before tonight, there were a number of truths about Lucy that he'd come to accept.

One. She is beautiful, and, as a straight male with vision, he's not oblivious to that fact. But of all the truths, this one was probably the easiest for him to acknowledge, compartmentalize, and ignore. He's not a stranger to temptation. He's worked with and trained beautiful cops before. Hell, he's a cop that patrols in LA; there is hardly a shortage of badge bunnies ready and willing to test his willpower at any given time. Though he can appreciate a beautiful woman, he is, by no means, powerless to one (yes, even despite his admittedly awkward reactions to them on occasion).

Two. He enjoys being around her. When he first met Lucy, he had found her eagerness to please and desperation for approval annoying, her tendencies to meddle and overanalyze aggravating. But somewhere along the way, those little quirks of hers became more endearing than irritating to him. And he began to see and respect the courage and strength and resilience just below the surface of her never-ending supply of hope and sunshine and cheer.

She lightens his moods and brightens his days with an ease that baffles him, no matter how much he resists. She makes his life better. Hell, she makes him better. And though he'd never willingly admit it to her, he deeply values their friendship.

Three. He feels an intense sense of responsibility and protectiveness towards her. And that has held true for all of his rookies — their lives depend on how well he can prepare them, and the seriousness with which he takes his role as a T.O. reflects that fact.

Four. Everything that the two of them have gone through, personally and professionally, during Lucy's rookie year only intensified those feelings of responsibility and protectiveness. It isn't actually surprising that he is more attached, more emotionally volatile when it comes to her than any of his previous rookies.

Five. His feelings towards Lucy are not and have never been romantic. Even taking into account the undeniable chemical magnetism between them, their relationship has overwhelmingly been defined by their roles as T.O. and rookie. So up until Lucy almost made his head implode on their last day of training together by suggesting otherwise, this truth had never even crossed his mind. Her prank had only confirmed to him that while she could see and appreciate their connection (as he could), she did not see their relationship in any kind of romantic context. The idea was so outlandish to her (as it was to him), she felt comfortable enough to turn it into a joke.

So, why, then, had she managed to set him so completely on fire with a single look? A single flicker in her troubled brown eyes of a want, a longing, a hunger even, that toppled his tower of Lucy truths in an instant.

Sure, at times she had been cute and coy and playful with him, some might even say flirty, but he'd never seen anything like that from her, and certainly not ever directed towards him. And it has rattled him to his very core.

He shakes himself, remembering how distressed Lucy had been when he'd gotten to her apartment. Of course she was desperate for comfort; she's been dealing with more than any one human should have to over the past few days — flooded by worry, anger, and fear. The kiss may have shocked him in the moment, but he can understand what drove her to do it.

What he can't understand is how close he came to being unable to resist her advance, how fucking fast a line that he thought was practically cemented in his mind disappeared, how close he had come to taking advantage of her distress, as he just barely managed to shut things down before they escalated faster than either one of them was prepared for.

The fact that he's also close to going out of his mind with concern for her safety does nothing to assuage his mental turmoil. He tried not to let on how much the escalation in the notes was bothering him; the exhaustion reflected on her features enough to tell him she didn't need him to pile on to what she was already carrying. So he does the only thing he can think of that will give him any hope of sleeping that night and calls in a favor to get a patrol detail assigned to her apartment, knowing he'll have to justify his decision to pull from an already constrained resource pool eventually, but not caring if it means she will be safe until they can sort things out with Grey in the morning.

***

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