Want You to Stay || Chenford / The Rookie

Part 23

The next few weeks are... interesting, to say the least. As expected, Lucy is scooped up for the pilot program as soon as she applies, and by the time Tim returns back to work, she's no longer his aide.

She misses working with him, misses seeing him every day almost desperately. But there's also an unspoken understanding between them that they need this time apart. The road they've been on since their night together after the hospice has been bumpy and painful, and that's not the journey Lucy wants for them both going forward.

She cares about Tim too much to rush; they have break-ups to get over and grief to process. And that's not even taking into account the professional implications for them both if they do mutually decide to pursue a relationship.

But despite every single one of those hurdles, Lucy is absolutely certain about how she feels toward Tim and what she wants with him in the future. And though he hasn't said it in so many words, Tim has started to do little things to show her that he might just feel the same way.

The first time is just a few days after Tim's return to work, about a week after the funeral. Tim steps in to monitor the tail end of an interview of one of the suspects in a major drug trafficking case, joining her, Angela, Grey, and another detective in the interrogation room.

She glances over to where Tim is huddled with Grey, quietly sorting through which findings will require follow up from patrol. She hasn't seen him since the funeral, and taking him in now feels like finally getting a sip of water in the desert. But also like maybe she's forgotten how to sip water without it going down the wrong pipe.

She'd thought about her feelings for him and how important it was to take the time they each needed. What she hadn't thought about was how she was supposed to act around him in the interim. Seeing him at work after their night together had most definitely been uncomfortable (and being trapped in an Escape Room certainly hadn't helped), but seeing him now is strange in its own way. He's still Tim, the senior officer who trained her and barked an endless list of orders and certainly never let her forget who was boss. But he's also Tim. The man she is secretly head over heels in love with.

Realizing that she's been staring, Lucy forces her attention back to her notes. This is her very first case in the pilot program; she's here to help suss out possible connections between this suspected trafficker and the drug running that has all but destroyed a local high school. Three students have overdosed so far; one girl died last week. This is important work, and she wants to make a good first impression. That means capturing every critical detail.

Lucy is so thoroughly distracted by the task at hand that she doesn't even notice how quickly the room clears out once the questioning is over. She glances up in surprise when she feels a presence hovering over her. It's Tim.

She surveys the room. Only Tim. And her. In this tiny room that somehow feels much smaller with just the two of them inside than it did just moments ago when three additional people were also crowded in to monitor the interview.

She swallows, feeling inexplicably shy all of a sudden. He looks like he wants to say something, his lips just barely parting and clamping shut in a way that has her seeing nothing but his damn mouth. Thinking about how that very same mouth would feel —

Shit.

She forces a smile, hoping her cheeks aren't as flaming red as they feel. "Hey..." she offers helpfully.

He offers her back an equally strained smile, "Hey."

And then it's just silent again.

Lucy bites into her bottom lip, quickly releasing it when she notices how rapidly Tim's eyes zero in on the minuscule movement. "Um... did you need something?" she tries, wondering if maybe he needs her to confirm some detail about the earlier part of the interview.

Tim shakes himself, clearing his throat, "Oh. Um. No — I just wanted to see if you needed any help with those notes?"

Lucy's eyebrows launch practically into her hair, "You're offering to help me? With paperwork?"

Irritation flickers across Tim's features. "What? You don't have to say it like I've never offered," he sniffs.

"You haven't," she says pointedly.

"Well, now I know why," he says, biting back a teasing smile.

Lucy laughs. "As much as I appreciate the offer," she caps her pen and begins to collect her files before getting to her feet, "I'm just about done."

She turns toward Tim and is caught off guard by how close he is. He seems to be as well, if the stumbling step he takes back from her is any indication.

Now they are both flushing.

Lucy pushes a stray strand of hair that's escaped her messy bun back behind her ear, sucking in a deep breath before forcing herself to meet his eyes, "I should get going."

Tim nods, "Yeah, me too."

And then they are both stepping toward the door, Lucy colliding into Tim's shoulder as he moves to open it for her, paperwork flying in the air and then fluttering to the floor around them. Tim turns so quickly to check on her that he almost knocks her over with the force of his momentum, his arms automatically surrounding her to keep her upright as she stares up at him in wide-eyed surprise.

He is so solid and so warm all around her. God he smells good. If the whole situation wasn't so mortifying, Lucy thinks she might enjoy staying here, wrapped up in him forever.

She buries her head in her hands with a groan, "Smooth."

She feels Tim's chest begin to shake before she hears the sound of his soft laughter.

"You okay?" Tim asks softly, and there's something in the low rumble of his tone that sends a shiver through her entire body. His grip on her is still so firm, so steadying that Lucy briefly contemplates letting him know that, actually, no, she is absolutely not okay. He is driving her absolutely crazy, being this close to her.

Instead she just nods, and he steps back from her, the loss of warmth when he releases her feeling worse than someone yanking away her blanket on a winter morning. She wants to claw it back into place.

He helps her collect and reorganize the paperwork, a crackle of static sparking between them as he hands the file back to her causing them both to laugh uncomfortably.

And this time, when Tim moves to open the door for her, the same exact way he has every time the two of them have approached a door, Lucy somehow manages to wait patiently until he has cleared the way before moving through it.

She smiles gratefully, asking, "So, ah, did you decide on a new aide?

At the very same time as Tim blurts, "How is the pilot program going so far?"