Tim Bradford, Lucy Chen: S4 Moments

Moment 17

A/N: I am so proud of this.

"-and tell me you'll miss me..."

The room got too hot for her. 

"While I'm alone and blue as can be"

The walls closed in. 

"Dream-"

It was too late for him to stop.

"I'm so sorry. It was in my head. I wasn't thinking. It was thoughtless and stupid and I'm sorry. "

It was too late for him to be sorry.

"The song was stuck in your head because you've-because you've seen the video."

The truth was worse out loud.

"Well, yeah. It's evidence."

Evidence. Evidence. He saw her as evidence. Of what? Somebody broken?

"Right, right, right. Of course, you're here... in the DA's office and it's evidence so-"

Rationalizing didn't make it hurt less.

"Lucy, I should have told you I'd seen it, I'm sorry."

It was too late for him to be sorry.

"No, you said that part already um... I just-I just need a minute."

The lid of the barrel was closing.

"Lucy-"

NO.

"PLEASE, can you-"

SHUT UP.

"yeah."

She was choking on air. The air in this place was stale. She needed to breathe. She needed to see the sky.

She was running, running for the doors. Tunnel vision ensued, everything blacked out around her. Everything except the doors in front of her which felt farther away the closer she got. Bursting through them, she was sure she looked absolutely deranged on the steps of such a formal building. She wouldn't sleep that night. It could be a while until she slept at all. She darted around a corner, making her way to the backside of the building. She slumped against the side, greedily gulping in the fresh air, looking up, wide-eyed at the sky. It was so blue and so bright that she felt she might go blind or change the color of her own eyes by staring so long. She let the pure blueness bleed into her, let the coolness of the air consume her senses. 

She was calmer now. But it wasn't enough.

He'd crossed a line. He'd opened a barrel of horrors. He'd done it so carelessly. 

He'd apologized. He'd said he was sorry. But sorry wasn't enough. The fact that he'd had to apologize in the first place... if he really cared he wouldn't have had to. Sorry wasn't enough.

She didn't want to get worked up again. She couldn't. She had fought so hard to move past that day. She was still fighting. Her fingertips unconsciously massaged the ink on her side as she stared up at the blue, blue sky. 

Blue...blue...Tim.

The sky was as blue as his eyes. 

Tim.

She fumbled for her phone, blindly pressing a contact. But she knew exactly which name she had hit. The first one on her list. 

Ring.

Please...

Ring.

Come on...

Ring.