Work Text:
After a nuisance call that turns out to be nothing more threatening than a particularly noisy wind chime, Lucy’s just finished fastening her seat belt when her phone buzzes: incoming text message from Ofc Bradford.
please kill me
She snorts a little before she can stop herself. Pretty dramatic, Tim.
How’s the seminar?
His response is almost immediate. it’s a violation of the geneva convention. this is cruel and unusual.
“All right, Chen.” Lopez tucks her pen back into her pocket. “Coffee shop down the block.”
Lucy takes a sip of her latte just as her phone buzzes. She shifts her cup to her left hand and fishes out her phone to see another message from Tim.
please tell me there’s a call from dispatch nearby so I have an excuse to leave. literally anything.
Angela’s still grabbing her own coffee; Lucy sets down her cup and texts him back.
nope, we told all the criminals to behave themselves today so you could enjoy your seminar in peace
At 9:57am, her phone buzzes again. this guy’s talking about collaborative energetic frameworks and holistic authoritative platforms. what does that mean
She chuckles, and Angela glances over from the driver’s side. “Who’ve you been texting all morning?”
“Tim.”
“Tim? Isn’t he at that leadership seminar Grey sent him to?” Angela asks. “Let me guess: he’s not loving it.”
“How’d you know?”
Her phone buzzes again. now he’s talking about disruptive vertical synergy
An hour later, as Lucy walks out of processing, her phone buzzes again. I would literally rather work the drunk tank right now
She rolls her eyes. set something on fire, you can be in jail instead
His response comes seconds later. don’t tempt me
“Bradford again?” Lopez asks, popping the top off a can of Sprite as she comes up to Lucy. “He still bitching about that seminar?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is it, the Paulsen Center?”
“I think so.”
Angela thinks for a few seconds. “There’s a really good deli right around the corner. If he wants to skip out on conference lunch, he can come join us and tell us all the exciting things he’s learning.”
“Got it.”
She texts him again. Deli by the Paulsen ctr, Lopez says join us for lunch
She sees the dots appear—he’s typing—but then stop. Then appear again, then stop.
Just as she’s about to ask what’s up, he replies. thought you were on desk duty today
Oh. Of course; he wasn’t at roll call this morning. Jackson got pulled in to go over evidence from a case, so I’m on patrol with Lopez
The dots appear again. It’s probably nothing, but she can’t help feeling a little on edge. Tim doesn’t do this. He doesn’t write and rewrite his texts.
Finally, one more response. Lunch at 1230, see you there.
“Well?” Angela asks.
“He’ll meet us at the deli at 12:30.”
“Huh.”
“What ‘huh’?”
Angela shrugs. “Nothing.”
There’s a surprisingly light crowd at the deli; they get through the line quickly and by 12:27 Angela and Lucy have their food and a table.
At precisely 12:30, Tim walks in wearing an LAPD polo, looking exactly as cheerful as expected. Angela waves him over to their table. “Hey, Grumpy. Got you roast beef.”
“Ugh, thanks.” He sighs, dropping into a seat between the two of them and grabs his sandwich. “This seminar is my personal hell.”
Lucy smiles into her waterglass. “So it’s that much fun, huh?”
“None of it means anything. Making up words and talking in vague theoreticals doesn’t make you a good leader, it just makes you noisy.”
“You know what I really hope?” Angela says to Lucy breezily. “I hope Tim just keeps endlessly complaining.”
“Hey, you told me to come to lunch,” he says with a shrug. “You asked for it.”
Angela pauses, chip in hand. “So why don’t you skip out?”
“They’re recording attendance.”
“Damn.” She winces. “Well, sucks to be you.”
Lucy’s wrap is falling apart in her hands, so she heads to the counter to grab extra napkins. As soon as she’s out of earshot, Angela fixes Tim with a smug look. He groans. “What?”
“Nothing. Just interesting.”
He’ll probably regret this, but—“What’s interesting?”
“Tim Bradford, stoic hardass, spends his morning texting back and forth with a girl like he’s got a little crush.”
Tim stops short, his head snapping up to stare at Angela with an expression on his face she’s never seen before. She expected annoyance, irritation, the usual Bradford staples, but whoa.
Whoa.
Does he look guilty?
And that’s when the shoe drops, and her mouth falls open. “Holy shit, I was joking. But you do.”
“I do not.”
“Oh, you really do. Are you kidding me?”
“Lopez–”
Tim suddenly wishes he were back in the seminar listening to another hour-long monologue about synergy.
But he has no luck; he is stuck here at a table with Angela Lopez, who has latched onto something and is not letting it go. He’s playing dumb, but it’s obviously not working. Of course, if he’d realized Lucy was on patrol with Angela all morning, he wouldn’t have texted her so much. He knows how it looks. It’s not what it looks like, obviously. But it does look—less than professional.
“Look, I don’t blame you. She’s gorgeous, and she can actually deal with you, which is impressive. But seriously, it’s like Pollyanna and Oscar the Grouch.”
“Would you stop already?”
She looks like she has more to say, but he’s saved, oddly enough, by Lucy herself, who appears back at their table, napkins in hand.
“Stop what?” She pauses, looking back and forth between them. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing.”
He answers too quickly, of course, and she can see he’s got his hackles up, but Angela mercifully says nothing. So Lucy sits again, eyeing them both suspiciously before handing Tim a few napkins. “Here.”
“Whoa, whoa. Why does he automatically get extra napkins?” Angela demands.
“He’s kind of a messy eater.”
“I am not–”
“–and you don’t want to go back to that seminar with your lunch all over your face, do you?” Lucy finishes. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
He absolutely ignores Angela’s smug expression, because it’s rude and uncalled for. They’re just napkins. It’s fine. Angela is entirely misreading this. He’s sure of it. Just like the continuous texting back and forth, it is not what it looks like.
Just because Officer Chen is beautiful and smart and winsome, just because she makes him smile, just because she grabs napkins for him when she gets them for herself, does not mean it’s weird for them to be texting each other.
Tim relaxes in his chair, zoning out as this new speaker keeps blathering on about synergy again. No one has yet actually defined the word. His phone buzzes in his pocket, but it’s not Lucy. It’s Angela.
you still passing notes in study hall?
He grits his teeth.
Tim almost doesn’t pick up his phone this time when it buzzes.
Angela’s been bugging him all afternoon. Listening to the seminar is actually preferable. And it’s almost over, thankfully. Just twenty more minutes.
Eventually he loses the battle with curiosity and pulls out his phone. But instead of a snarky text message, this time it’s a picture.
It’s Lucy, beaming at the screen, with a soft fluffy grey rabbit in her arms.
Tim blinks. Stares. Looks up instinctively, like he’s about to be caught looking at something he shouldn’t, and it’s going to vanish in a second. But when he looks down again, it’s the same photo, the same beaming smile as she cuddles the rabbit against her chest.
As he’s staring at it, trying to ignore the deep ache in his chest (which he absolutely refuses to think any more about), a text appears below it. got a burglary call at a pet store, Angela explains. Lucy made a new friend.
Of course she did. Of course she did. Of course Lucy Chen took statements, filed the report, and had a spare moment to snuggle a bunny. She looks like a Disney princess, like she’s going to sing some magical song and this rabbit is going to lead a horde of small fuzzy animals that will tidy her apartment and cook her dinner and maybe sew her a dress.
And here he is, staring at this picture like an idiot, like the exact stupid sweaty-palmed boy with a crush Angela clearly thinks he is.
He shoves his phone back into his pocket and decides it’s time to start paying attention to this lecture. Whatever it is.
Probably something about synergy.
After a long shift, a shower, and changing back into her comfy clothes, Lucy’s on her way out of the locker room when she gets an incoming call. She smiles. “Good evening, Officer Bradford.”
“Heard you met a rabbit today.”
She laughs. “His name was Gus, and I loved him so much. His ears were so soft, Tim.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously. I can’t even explain how soft his ears were.”
“I’m sure.”
Lucy’s fairly certain he’s laughing at her, but the joke’s on him, because Gus really was soft and sweet and wonderful and if she had the time and space she would absolutely have adopted him. “So what’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
She frowns. “You called me. I assume you wanted something.”
“Oh. Right.” There’s a pause, and she’s just about to ask what’s wrong when he says, “I don’t know, guess I just wanted to check in. See how the rest of the day was.”
She takes her phone away from her ear for a second and looks at it before asking, “What’s going on with you?”
“What?”
“Did you just… ask me to tell you about my day?”
“Well, if you’re gonna be weird about it–”
“No! No, sorry, I was just surprised.” She’s still not sure what’s going on, but she decides to just go with it. “Not too bad. Nothing super weird, just that pet store burglary.”
“Where you met your new best friend.”
“Exactly.” She shifts her phone to her other shoulder and starts digging through her bag for her keys. “Maybe we need police rabbits. I bet we could get Gus a uniform.”
Silence on the other end. She glances at her phone—nope, still connected. “Tim? You still there?”
“Turn around, Boot.”
The voice isn’t coming from the phone; Lucy whirls around, startled, to find Tim walking down the stairs, looking amused.
“Creeper,” she murmurs, hanging up her phone and shoving it into her pocket. He just shrugs. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Had to hand in some paperwork.” He wrinkles his nose. “No way I was going to endure that seminar without getting credit for it.”
“Sounds fair.” She folds her arms, cocking her head playfully as he crosses the floor to where she’s standing. He’s changed into jeans and a worn grey henley, and he looks—well. He looks good, but she’s not going to make a whole thing out of it. “You headed home?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yep.” She adjusts the strap of her purse over her shoulder, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Tell Kojo I said hi, okay?”
“I will.” Tim shoves his hands in his pockets. “You headed to the garage? I’ll walk with you.”
He follows her out through the lobby, debating the merits of police rabbits. He’s unconvinced, but Lucy’s determined to persuade him.
Her orange Datsun turns out of the garage ahead of him, and Tim’s just about to drive out himself when his phone buzzes. There’s no one behind him, so he pauses, taking a quick look. Photo from Angela Lopez? Huh?
He opens it and catches his breath.
It’s a photo of him and Lucy, standing in the bullpen talking just minutes ago. Angela must have seen them before they left; he hadn’t even realized she was there.
And it’s not that they’re talking, it’s the way they’re looking at each other.
Lucy’s tucking her hair behind her ear, looking up at him with such a soft smile, and for just a second he can imagine—
He blinks. Shut it down, Tim. No.
A second later, Angela adds a message.
congrats. pretty sure this is synergy