Chapter Text
When Lucy woke up the next morning in Boston, she lay still for a quiet moment. She listened to the faint noise of the city down below, but what she focused on more closely was the deep intake of Tim's breath and the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.
Tim was still deeply asleep beside her. His face was relaxed; the tension that had lived in his shoulders for days had finally melted away. She'd been watching him sleep on and off since sometime in the middle of the night, not out of anxiety, not really. She wanted to memorize him. The line of his jaw. The way his arm stayed curved toward her, even in sleep. The warmth of his body pressed firmly into hers, and the clean scent that always lingered on his skin.
Six days or was it five now?
Lucy had been turning it over in her head since she'd been unable to go back to sleep. For some of that time, her brain spiralled into the scary thoughts, the ones she couldn't give voice to, and finally, as the morning started to change the quality of light in their room, she decided there was only one lens to look at it through.
Tim is going on a work trip.
She could handle that.
Tim can't tell me where, and I won't know how long it will take. At some point, his calls might stop, and I will deal with that when it comes. But right now he's here, and I'm here, and we have five or six days left. I am not going to spend a single one of them standing in the future worrying about something I can't change.
She tilted her head and looked up at him, pressing her lips into his shoulder, light enough not to wake him and kept her lips pressed there for a beat. The warmth of his skin, soaking into her lips.
She loved this man more than she's ever loved anyone. The road ahead might be challenging, but he's worth the effort.
When Tim stirred, he found her curled against him, fingers tracing patterns along his stomach.
"G'morning," He said roughly, running his fingers through her sleep-tangled hair.
"We're going to be okay." She said without preamble. "I just needed to say it out loud."
He was quiet for a moment. His hand smoothed over her shoulder.
"Yeah, we are."
Lucy exhaled a breath she felt like she'd been holding since she first woke up.
"Shower, then breakfast before we call our car to Logan?" Tim asked as he pressed a kiss to Lucy's forehead.
"Sounds perfect."
Their return flight felt routine. Tim landed them smoothly at LAX, and she didn't let herself think too much about how many times she'd heard the sound of wheels kissing runway and thought about how one of these days she'd be the one in the cockpit.
But the thought crept in.
She wanted to make progress on her PPL while Tim's away. She wanted to make him proud, but more than anything, she just wanted to see that same look on his face when he'd backed her into his truck after he took her flying all those weeks ago.
Once they'd deplaned, they both had some obligations to attend to. Tim dropped Lucy off at her apartment with a goodbye that foreshadowed the more difficult one that awaited them. Once Lucy was safely inside, Tim made a mental list of everything he needed to take care of before leaving town.
Leave of Absence from Pacifico
Set up autopayment for landscapers
Talk to Angela
Ask Lucy to stay at his house
Call Wesley to ensure his estate is in order.
The absolute feeling of dread that consumed him at that final thought. The last time he'd spoken to Wesley about his estate, he'd removed Isabel as part of their divorce. Wesley had always been professional, and Tim appreciated his discretion every time he'd made adjustments over the years.
This felt different.
He knew his sister, Genny, and the boys were being taken care of. Angela knew where everything was and what to do with it.
But now there was Lucy.
He thought about her curled in his arms this morning and when she watched him pack up his cockpit this afternoon. She always looks so longingly at the controls, her fingers itching to be flying. He's not sure she's noticed him clocking her longing, but he's been noticing it for a long time.
Lucy wanted to fly. Not as a passing thought, or an aspirational dream that would never manifest itself. No, her PPL was moving slowly because life kept getting in the way, and Tim knew better than anyone what that cost. Not just in resources, but in the compounding weight of a dream that keeps getting pushed to next month.
If he didn't come back, what did she have?
He didn't let himself sit in that question long. But it was there.
He pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. His front walkway was covered in a blanket of jacaranda petals, softly changing colour as they decomposed. He sat with his hands on the wheel, trying to re-center his thoughts.
Wesley would ask him what he wanted to change and why. And Tim would have to find the words for something he hadn't fully said out loud yet. Lucy wasn't just someone he loved.
Once he got unpacked and laundry started, he settled in, and he called Angela from his kitchen, standing at the counter with coffee he wasn't drinking.
She picked up on the second ring. "You're back," her face lit up his phone screen with a cheeky grin.
"Just landed a bit ago." He paused. "I need to talk to you about something."
"I figured." She paused. "Sit down, Tim. You are making me dizzy with that pacing."
He swallowed and sat down on the edge of the couch.
"I heard from Holt again. I leave in six days."
Angela couldn't hide the surprise on her face. "Oh, that's really soon. Are you okay with it?"
"I kinda have to be. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. Something's been on my mind since I knew I might be leaving."
Angela tried to read his expression, but she could only read concern.
"Sanford," he said. "I don't know what happens with his HR review while I'm gone. If he comes back—"
"He's not going near her."
"I know you'll make sure of that. But I need you to know that's my first concern. Not her spiralling, not the worry about the op. She will manage all of that, I know she will. But Chris is a different thing." He paused. "She shouldn't have to deal with that alone."
Angela remained quiet in thought before she spoke again, "She won't." Her voice was calm and steady. "Tim. I was going to do all of this before you asked. You know that."
"I know."
"Then stop managing logistics and tell me how you actually are."
He looked around the living room. All of these little touches that slowly became part of his home since he and Lucy started dating. More throw blankets and pillows. A collection of board games that they start but never finish, not for lack of interest in the game, but more because of interest in each other.
"I don't want to leave her," he said. It came out simpler than he'd expected. "That's it. I've deployed many times, and I've never had a reason not to want to go, and now I have a reason, and I don't know what to do with that."
Angela was quiet.
"You love her," she said.
"Yeah."
"And she loves you."
"Yeah."
"Then you go," Angela said, "and you do the thing you're trained to do, and you come back to her. That's the whole plan." She paused, taking in a breath. "The difference between this deployment and every other one isn't the mission, Tim. It's that now you have something tangible to come back to. That's not a liability. That's an anchor." Her voice softened slightly. "Use it."
Tim swallowed hard, his throat thick with emotion. Angela was right. He's trained for this. Do the job. Come home. Lucy will be waiting.
"I told her she can call you," he said. "Anytime. Middle of the night if she needs it."
"I'll be picking up before the second ring," Angela said. "Now go be with her. You're wasting time on the phone."
He hung up and sat for another minute, looking at nothing in particular. Then he picked up his keys.
He quickly sent a text.
The only errand I want to take care of right now is you.
Later that evening, after Tim had spent far too much time watching Lucy take care of mundane things around her apartment, while at the same time convincing her that she should pack enough clothes to spend the week with him before he deploys.
It didn't take much convincing. It was obvious that both of them were reluctant to spend much time apart.
As they walked into Tim's house, Lucy was telling Tim about the time she and Angela got kicked out of a hotel bar in Dallas.
"How have I not heard this story?"
"Angela probably didn't want her bestie to have leverage." Lucy teased.
"Alright, but you still haven't told me why you two were kicked out."
Lucy watched as Tim walked her suitcase into his bedroom and walked back to the kitchen to grab them each a beer.
As Tim sat down, Lucy perched on the arm of the sofa. "Well, we'd had a little too much to drink and may have been heckling a few of the would-be suitors that just wouldn't leave us alone."
"Sure, but kicking you out seems excessive."
Lucy shook her head, laughing, "It would depend on who you asked. We were pretty mean when they didn't take the hint. The lesson might be that scorned men tend to stick together. I think the bartender at the JW Marriott had been trying to hook up with one of us for months."
Something about Lucy joking about hook-ups made a pang of jealousy run through Tim, unexpectedly.
Tim scoffed, "I'm here for girl power. Good on you and Ange for pushing back. Still, nothing to be embarrassed about. That's honestly worth bragging about." Tim shifted, "Besides, I like the idea of you and Angela playing it safe when you are laid over."
Something in Tim's words had shifted Lucy's expression, and she turned her whole body to face him.
"Tim, what kind of flying is it?" she asked without any preamble.
He was surprised by the pivot, but he'd promised himself he'd be as forthcoming with her as he could be.
"Depends on the op."
"Generally speaking," Lucy prodded.
He was quiet for a moment, and she felt him deciding how much to share.
"Transport, mostly. Getting people in and out of places."
"Extraction?"
"Sometimes."
She pondered what that could mean, "Under cover?"
"Can be." His voice was calm. "Usually it's coordinated. You go in at a specific window, the ground team is where they're supposed to be, you get out clean."
Usually, she noted. But not always.
She also noted the things he hadn't said. The part where the window might not open cleanly, where the ground team might not be exactly where they were supposed to be, where getting out clean was a goal rather than a guarantee. She'd spent enough time with him now to hear what he wasn't saying.
She reached across and placed her hand over his.
"Okay," she said.
He turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers. "I'm glad you asked."
"Me too."
The second time Lucy had questions was in his truck on the way to the airport en route to Chicago, and she almost didn't ask it, but the question had been sitting at the back of her throat for two days, and the silence of the drive finally gave it room.
"Have you done extractions like this before?" she said. "The kind you'd be doing."
His eyes stayed on the road. "A few times."
"Were you scared?"
He paused, then glanced at her sideways.
"You learn to manage it," he said with an edge to his voice.
"I know. But were you?"
Tim mulled it over before delivering the most honest answer that he could.
"Yeah," he said. "First time, a little."
She nodded and looked out the window.
Scared means careful, she thought. Careful means he comes home.
She said nothing else about it, and he didn't offer anything more, and somewhere in the space between them was the unspoken acknowledgement that they both understood what the other was doing. Nothing else needed to be said.
When Tim boarded the flight to Chicago, Grey was already sitting in the cockpit, reviewing the manifest. He wasted no time looking up from the tablet in his hand. Grey shot him a look, and for a moment, Tim wasn't certain if he was about to get a lecture or something else.
"Bradford."
"Grey."
"You pulled the schedules."
"Scheduling changes happen," Tim said casually.
"At this airline, scheduling changes like this don't just happen." He looked at Angela. "Lopez."
"Grey." She smiled knowingly. "It's been too long."
"It has." He picked up his bag. "Still miss having you sitting up here behind me, for the record."
"I know," she said. "That's why Tim called me."
Tim grabbed the tablet from Grey, who was still looking at the manifest.
Angela squeezed Tim's bicep, "I think Bradford here just wanted to fly with his dream team before shipping off in a few days."
Tim tried to school his features, but he couldn't hide how the corner of his mouth turned up at the thought of his 'dream team.'
"Yeah, what of it, Lopez?" Tim tried and failed to dismiss being called out.
All Grey could do was look between the two of them, and then over to Lucy and laugh. A bright, joyful laugh that Lucy always loved to hear. Grey was all business until he wasn't.
Lucy stood slightly apart, watching the three of them with the feeling of being let into a room that had been locked for years. A room with its own shorthand and its own history, built in places she'd never been and under conditions she'd never know firsthand. She felt the weight of what they'd shared in the way they moved around each other. It was the kind of comfort that comes from experiencing something difficult together and making it through to the other side, maybe forever changed but intact.
She caught Angela's eye.
Angela gave her a small, certain nod.
Wade looked at Lucy then, something warm in his expression. "Don't worry, Chen. We'll keep you on your toes while this one's off being a hero."
Tim rolled his eyes but let it go.
"I would expect nothing less, sir," Lucy said.
Lucy tapped her clipboard and glanced at Angela. "As much as I'd love to stay and hear more stories, boarding starts soon."
She was already turning when Tim's fingers closed around her wrist. Not urgent, but with confidence. Lucy turned back, and he drew her in close, and she went easily, her clipboard pressed against his chest.
"I love you," he said quietly, his mouth near her ear. Then he pressed a brief kiss to the corner of her mouth and released her.
She looked up at him for just a second, something sweet crossing her face.
"I love you too," she said. Her voice was low enough that it stayed between them.
Angela eyed them and gave Grey a knowing smile.
"Have a good service, ladies," Grey called after them as they ducked out of the cockpit.
Chicago from the air was sprawling and gold, Lake Michigan spreading eastward until it disappeared into the horizon, the skyline stacked and defiant against the late-fall sky. Lucy had her face to the window on descent; she refused to take the view for granted even after years of beautiful skylines.
The one thing that could make it better was if she were flying into Chicago herself.
One day, it might not be a plane this big, but I'll do it.
Tim, from the flight deck, knew Lucy was savouring the view, and all he could think about was the thrill he would feel the day she got to pilot a longer flight into a city like Chicago or New York. A thought crept up on him then, unexpectedly. He'd been looking forward to signing off on more flight hours with Lucy, sooner rather than later, helping her move towards her PPL and eventually work towards commercial if she wanted to. Now, things felt uncertain in a way he had no control over.
Tim took a deep breath as they prepared for the approach.
Grey clocked it immediately, "Hey, Bradford, you good?"
Tim bit down on the inside of his mouth, pushing the errant thought out of his mind.
"Yeah, I'm good," Tim nodded at Grey before clearing their approach with the tower
Upon arriving in Chicago, Tim had arranged for a car service to pick up the four of them at O'Hare and shuttle them downtown.
"Bradford, aren't we staying out near the airport for our layover?" Grey's concern for the change in destination was evident in his voice.
Tim laughed, "I called in a favour. We are off to The Langham tonight! I made us reservations for dinner at 8."
Angela laughed, "You can't be serious? Tim, we aren't approved to expense The Langham. Besides, wouldn't you rather spend the evening with Lucy, considering—"
Tim cut her off, "I want to enjoy a nice dinner with my friends before I ship out, Ange. Are you really going to look a 5 Star overnight with dinner included gift horse in the mouth?"
Lucy giggled, and Angela snickered, "You got me there. But I want to know what favour you called in for the Langham."
"I'll never tell."
The restaurant Tim had chosen for them was warm. Both from the cold and the atmosphere. The heat pressed against the windows in contrast to the city's brisk evening air.
Tim had picked well. The kind of place that wouldn't rush them and would keep the cocktails flowing.
The four of them settled around the table, and the first drink came and went without anyone mentioning Tim's upcoming absence, which was a collective and unspoken decision that Lucy appreciated more than she could say. She'd had enough of carrying it. Tonight, she just wanted to be here in this warm room with these three people and revel in the pleasure of watching Tim relax for the first time in a week.
He was sitting across from her, and he looked good. The set of his jaw wasn't as tight as it had been since the gala, and when he reached for his drink, his entire body looked relaxed in a way it hadn't over the last week.
She'd take it. Every minute of it.
It was Angela who started the stories, because of course it was.
"Tell her about the airshow," she said, looking between Tim and Wade with excitement.
Wade set down his glass. "That was a long time ago."
"It was 2014, and it's the best story in the entire history of military aviation."
"That is a significant overstatement."
"Tim was asked to do a demonstration flight at an airshow," Angela told Lucy, who was already watching Tim's face, where several things were happening simultaneously. "Standard stuff. Fly the pattern, impress the spectators, wave the flag. Except the aircraft they gave him had a sticky throttle."
"It wasn't sticky," Tim said. "It was—"
"It stuck at full military power during the low pass," Angela said. "He went over the crowd a little too fast and pulled straight up because there was nowhere else to go."
Lucy's eyes widened as she looked at Tim.
"There was somewhere else to go," Tim said. "It was just a less—"
"He went straight up," Angela said. "Like a rocket. In front of about thirty thousand people."
"How high?" Lucy asked.
Tim said nothing.
"We don't know exactly," Wade said pleasantly, "because the altimeter was also having a moment."
"It topped out," Tim said, in an attempt to gain control of the story.
"He got it back, though," Angela said. "After the most vertical departure from an airshow pattern in recorded history." She looked at Lucy. "He got a standing ovation."
"I got a debrief," Tim said.
"After the standing ovation." Grey supplied between laughter.
Lucy shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks from laughing too hard.
All Tim could do was look around the table at his friends and soak it in. Lucy felt like she'd always been sitting at this table, sharing stories, drinks and laughter. He never wanted that to change.
Wade saw the moment Tim made that silent decision as he watched Tim's unwavering gaze on Lucy. He'd been at Tim's side for over a decade. Had been at his wedding to Isabel. Tim Bradford had never looked at a woman as he looked at Lucy. Wade loved seeing Tim this happy, even if they were all worried about the special op Tim was about to embark on. Wade had never been more confident that Tim knew exactly who he was fighting to come home to.
Wade spun his drink around in his hands, considering just how many times they'd all held their breath during ops, or while a few of them went off on other classified missions. Angela caught his eye and held his gaze.
He's coming home, the look between them had said. He always does.
The stories went on. Wade contributed one about a navigation exercise over the Pacific that had somehow ended with all three of them grounded in Anchorage for forty-eight hours eating airport food and playing cards. Angela added details Tim conveniently omitted. Tim denied a version of events that everyone at the table found highly plausible. The wine continued to flow, and Lucy felt very lucky to be at this table.
After dessert, while Tim and Wade settled the bill with a low-key negotiation of two people who'd been arguing about who pays for a decade or more, Angela touched Lucy's elbow.
"Walk with me for a second."
They found a quiet alcove near the coat check, warm and dim, slightly removed from the restaurant's noise. Angela turned to face her.
"Wade and I want you to hear this from us," she said. "Not as family, not because we're supposed to say it. Because it's true and you deserve to have it from people who were actually in the air with him." She kept her voice level and her eyes steady. "Tim is the best combat pilot either of us has ever flown with. We have been in situations, the kind that don't make it into any briefing, and he has never once made the wrong call. Not once." Angela paused, wrapping her hand around Lucy's, "He knows how to come home, and knows what he has waiting for him."
Lucy's throat tightened.
"I know," she said.
"I know you do." Angela's voice was gentler now. "But there's a difference between knowing it and hearing it from someone who was in the seat next to him when it mattered."
Lucy nodded, worried that if she tried to say anything, she might burst into tears.
"And I need you to know that while he's gone, Wade, Aaron, and I are all here. You are not going to be alone in this. At three in the morning, I pick up. That doesn't change."
Lucy blinked back tears.
"Don't," Angela said quietly, but her hand squeezed Lucy's tighter. "Not tonight. Tonight was a good night."
"It really was," Lucy said.
"He loves you," Angela said as the two women walked back to join the two men who had finally settled on the bill.
The Langham's lobby was warm after the cold bite of their walk from the restaurant. They said their good nights to Angela and Wade and rode the elevator up in comfortable silence, Tim's hand at the small of Lucy's back, her shoulder against his arm.
She had their key card out before they stopped.
Inside the suite, she set her purse down and turned, only to find him already looking at her.
"Hello," she said.
"Hi." He crossed to her.
He kissed her once, then again, and she reached for his lapels and walked him backward without breaking it. They took their time, his jacket, the tie of her wrap dress, his shirt, fingers at buttons with the ease of two people who'd learned each other. The city went on outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, and neither of them was paying any attention to it.
He reached the two ties on her and paused. "Shower?"
She glanced at the bathroom door. "Yeah."
The walk-in was extraordinary, with white marble floor to ceiling, gold fixtures catching the low light, a rainfall head and a full jet panel along one wall. Steam was already building when she stepped in behind him.
He turned to her, and his hands went to her hair.
She'd assumed he was going to pull it down. Instead, he gathered it up, both hands, patiently smoothing the wet strands back from her face and twisting them into a loose bun at the top of her head. He'd never done that before. It was such a small thing, but Lucy felt it land square in the center of her chest.
His eyes danced along her silhouette after, as she moved in closer to kiss him.
He kissed her back harder, his hands going to her waist, and they made out under the steady rainfall showerhead until her whole body was warm and his breathing had changed. She could feel him harden against her hip.
She pulled back, and Tim made a sound of protest until she dropped to her knees in front of him.
The marble was hot from the steam. She looked up at him through her lashes as water tracked down his chest, his jaw tight, his whole body gone still.
Lucy wrapped her hand around him. "May I?" She held his gaze. "Sir?"
The groan that came out of him was rough, and his hand threaded into her hair.
"Fuck." His grip tightened. "Yeah."
She took him into her mouth slowly, her tongue flat against the underside of his cock, and felt him twitch. She worked him the way she'd learned he liked, steady and deep, her hand following her mouth, her eyes tracking up to his face and staying there. His head tipped back. His chest moved rapidly. The hand in her hair gripped tighter, and she felt him fighting to stay still and losing.
She kept the pace. Felt him swell further in her mouth. Heard him say her name, broken, and then her name again, and then something completely unintelligible.
When she felt his thighs tense, she pulled off.
He made a broken sound like she'd wounded him.
Lucy was already on her feet, and his hands moved under her arms, hauling her up before she'd finished the thought, and then his mouth was on hers, his tongue sweeping past her lips, and she felt him groan into the kiss as he tasted himself on her tongue.
She kissed him back until they were breathless.
Tim's hands slid down her back, past her waist, past her hips, his fingers hooking under her slick thighs. He lifted her carefully, trying to avoid slipping against the wet tile. Lucy wrapped her legs around him without thinking, and he turned them quickly, and her shoulders hit the opposite wall.
She hissed. "Cold—"
"Sorry, not sorry."
He reached between them. Lucy felt the head of his cock drag through her folds, and she bit down on his shoulder to keep from making an embarrassing sound because she was already so wet it was obscene.
Then he drove in.
All the way. One earth-shattering stroke.
Lucy couldn't help but cry out his name at the intrusion.
Tim groaned against her throat and held still for one painful second, only one and then he started to move.
Locking her ankles at his back, Lucy held on. The tile was cold, but everywhere else was hot, the water pounding down and Tim's body pressed against, fucking up into her.
His mouth found her neck.
"You're a fantasy." His voice was wrecked, barely coherent, his hips pistoning and her whole body rocking with it. "You know that? Your mouth—" He thrust harder, and she cried out. "The way you looked at me on your knees. Your hips. The way you feel—" His grip on her thighs tightened to the edge of pain. "When I'm in a shower alone for however long I'm gone, I'm going to think about this. I'm going to think about you. Every damn time."
She was going to come. She could feel it building fast, her whole body clenching around him.
"Tim—"
"I know." His mouth dragged to the curve of her neck. "Come for me." He commanded.
She shattered. His name roared out of her mouth as she clenched hard around him, her nails biting into his shoulders, her thighs locking at his back. Tim's orgasm surged almost immediately. His teeth caught the skin at her neck and held there, his mouth sealing and sucking as he buried himself to the hilt and came with a low, broken sound.
Neither of them dared to move.
The shower miraculously was still hot. Steam rising. Then, against her skin, hoarse and undone and completely unguarded, Tim broke their shared silence. "Fuck, I love you, Lucy. I love you so damn much, baby."
She pressed her lips to his temple. His jaw. His cheek.
"I love you too," she said. "So much."
They stayed tangled against the wall while the water ran and the steam created a cocoon around them. Eventually, he lowered her carefully back to the floor, and they stood together under the spray without moving, her forehead against his shoulder and his arms around her, neither of them willing to be done with the night.
She reached up and pressed her fingers to her neck.
"Tim."
"Hm."
"I'm going to need a scarf on the flight home."
His mouth moved against her hair.
"Worth it," he said.
Back in LA after the whirlwind of the last four days, Tim was packing.
He packed like he flew, methodically, with nothing left to chance. Lucy sat on the edge of the bed, watching him in silence.
She'd been watching him all day. The way he held his coffee. The way he moved through his own kitchen without thinking about it, like a man who'd finally stopped bracing for the other shoe. The way he'd looked at her over the rim of his mug that morning, like he was still working out how she got here and wasn't done being surprised about it.
Four months, she thought. Who was I before him?
He zipped the main compartment and stood up straight. Then he went still.
She heard it before she saw it. The faint clink of a chain.
He turned around with dog tags in his palm. She'd seen them before, once on the nightstand, once in the drawer when she'd been looking for something else. She'd known what they were without asking. How long he'd had them and what it meant that he'd kept them.
He crossed to her.
"I want you to keep these."
She looked at them and then up at him.
"Tim—"
"For safekeeping." His voice was steady. "They're not going where I'm going. I'd rather know where they are."
She held out her hand. He dropped them in. The metal was warm and heavier than she expected, and she closed her fingers around it, felt her eyes fill with tears, and knew there was no stopping them.
"Hey." He crouched down in front of her, both hands on her knees. "Stay with me."
"I'm here." She pressed her lips together. "I just—" She shook her head. "I have something for you, too."
He went still.
She reached into her jacket pocket and found the medal by feel. The worn edge of the disc, the small chain. She brought it out and opened her hand between them.
St. Christopher. Silver-worn, the detail soft from years of handling. Her uncle had pressed it into her palm at a small regional airport in Ontario, beside a Cessna that smelled like oil and summer, the day she told him she was getting her licence. For when I can't watch over you, he'd said.
She'd worn it since. Every flight. Tucked inside her collar, against her skin. Tim had seen it slip loose from her collar a dozen times, catching the light at the end of long days and never once asking what it was.
She watched the recognition move through his face now.
"My uncle gave it to me," she said. "The day I told him I was getting my licence. He said St. Christopher goes where those who want to watch over you can't."
Tim looked at the medal in her palm without speaking. The muscle in his jaw flexed as he tried to rein in his emotions.
She watched something happen in his face. The thing he usually kept below the surface. His jaw gave him away.
"Lucy."
"I know what I'm giving you." She held his gaze. "Take it anyway."
He picked it up carefully. Turned it over once. Felt the history of it. Then he looked at her; his eyes bright, as he worked to hold himself together, and she could see it clearly and loved him for it.
Lucy stood up, took it gently from his fingers, reached up, and put it over his head, settling the chain against his chest. Tim stood completely still while she did it, watching her face and trembling fingers.
Tim picked up his dog tags and looped them over her head, his hands steady, settling the chain until the tags sat against her sternum.
They looked at each other, eyes glistening as both of them were wearing the other's most cherished thing.
"One more," she said.
She reached into her bag and brought out a small, wallet-sized print. She'd had it made two days ago at the drugstore, spent twenty minutes at the kiosk talking herself in and out of it.
When she handed it over, Tim's gaze was captive to it. Lucy is wearing nothing but his Dodgers shirt, her hair down. His kitchen was behind her on a random Saturday morning in September. His mug sat on the counter beside her. She was half smiling at the camera, but her eyes were wholly smiling at him behind it.
He stood there looking at it long enough that she said his name.
"Yeah." His voice came out rough. Tim swiped at the corner of his eye with the back of his hand, then he opened his wallet and tucked it carefully behind the cards, in the slot that would open first.
With her photo safely tucked away, Tim pulled Lucy into his arms. She came without hesitation. Her face was buried in his shoulder. His arms around her, tight, his mouth pressed against her hair.
I'm coming back to this, he thought. Whatever happens next, I am coming back to this.
Neither of them slept.
It wasn't really a decision, just the understanding of two people who knew they had only hours left together, and neither of them wanted to spend a single moment of it sleeping.
They made love twice. They took their time, soaking up every moment of connection they could. Between rounds, they talked. Not about the op, but about ordinary things. She told him about working her first transatlantic and the exhaustion of it, the way Heathrow looked at dawn with twelve hours on your feet behind you. He told her about a training exercise over Alaska years ago, with nothing below but clouds, sea ice, and open water for hours, and the unsettling feeling of being the smallest thing in a very large sky.
"Were you scared?" she asked.
"No." He thought about it. "Humbled."
"What's the difference?"
"Scared has an object. Something specific you're afraid of. Humbled is when something's so large you stop being the point."
Lucy was quiet.
"I feel that sometimes," she said. "On approach to somewhere new, looking out the window. Like the planet didn't have to let me see this, but it did."
Tim looked at the ceiling, turning that deep thought over in his head. "Yeah," he said. "That's exactly it."
Around three, she asked him if he was scared about this job.
He didn't go for the easy answer. She could feel him choosing not to.
"Yeah," he said. "A little."
"Different from before?" Lucy asked, feeling a bit nervous about what else Tim might say.
"Very." He kept his eyes on the ceiling. "Before, I was scared of the mission. All the variables. I knew how to work with that, though." He paused, thinking about how best to say the big thing. "Now I'm scared of not coming back, because now there's this."
Tim tightened his arms around her, pressing his mouth against her temple.
She pressed her mouth to his chest.
"Then come back to this," she said.
His arm pulled her impossibly closer.
"I intend to do my very best," he said.
The late October light came in slow and reluctant, and neither of them said a word about it until the alarm went off and forced them to finally confront the day.
Tim's ride was coming at 9 am sharp.
He was fully dressed by 8:20. They were moving quietly through the house in sync. She washed both their mugs. He checked his bag one more time, not because anything was wrong, just for something to do with his hands.
Lucy stood at the kitchen window looking at the jacaranda. Tim did his final walk-through, checking the thermostat, the back door, and the grill he'd finally covered. While Lucy thought about every morning she'd stood in this kitchen. How it had stopped feeling like a place she visited. In such a short time, it had started to feel like home.
"You can stay," he said from the hallway, as though he'd somehow read her mind. "While I'm gone. You've got the key. Come whenever, stay as long as you want." He paused. "It's yours too. Besides, I like the idea of thinking of you here, safe and warm in our bed."
Our bed.
Lucy turned away from the window, toward Tim.
He was standing in his jacket beside his bag by the door, face a perfect mask of composure, holding himself together by force of will alone.
Lucy crossed the room to him, took his face in her hands and kissed him softly, so certain.
I love you. Come back to me.
The thought was so loud, she wondered if it passed her lips.
She felt his composure break, all at once.
Maybe I did say it out loud.
Lucy felt his entire body subtly shift as though something was giving way all at once. His hands found her hips, her back, and he walked her two steps backward until the wall met her shoulders, and she went with it, her hands moving from his face to his collar, and he kissed her with everything he'd been holding onto all morning, letting go entirely.
He's leaving, she thought, her grip tightening in his jacket. And we are out of time.
His mouth was urgent against hers, his hands moving over her like he was trying to take possession of something he hadn't fully claimed. She kissed him back hard, causing him to groan low in his throat, and she felt the weight of the bag still on his shoulder before he let it drop to the floor.
"Lucy." Her name came out, rough and wrecked.
"I know." She pulled at his jacket collar. "I know."
She got the jacket off his shoulders, and her hands worked his buttons, as he pushed her skirt up. His hand moved between her legs, finding her wet and ready for him. Tim made a sound that died on his lips, something beyond words, and pressed his forehead to hers for one second.
Then his fingers were inside her, while she grabbed the wall at her back and bit down on her lip to keep from being too loud. She failed to hold back a gasp as his fingers hooked inside her, dragging along her front wall in firm, deliberate strokes.
He worked her fast. He had no patience, just his hand and mouth at her throat and her hips rocking into him. She came quickly, her orgasm ripping out of her without warning. Her whole body shaking, his name coming out between gasps.
But he didn't wait. Before Lucy could recover, his hands went to her hips. Tim lifted her just enough that she wrapped her legs around him, and he pushed into her with one possessive thrust. They both stilled. Panting as they savoured this last stolen moment of feeling completely connected.
This, he thought, his face in her neck, his whole body shaking with the effort of not just losing it immediately. This is what I'm leaving, and this is what I'm working hard to come home to.
He started to move.
Fast, desperate, nearly frantic. Her back slammed against the wall with each untamed thrust. His hands gripped her hips so tightly, Lucy knew she'd have imprints of his fingers for weeks. A picture slid down the wall, after Lucy's head bumped into it. Neither of them aware of the absolute wreckage they were leaving in Tim's front hall.
Lucy wrapped her arms around Tim's neck with her face against his jaw, chanting his name over and over without meaning to, like a prayer, like a plea, like she was trying to hold onto something already moving away from her.
Don't go, her body said, clinging to him. Don't go, don't go, don't go.
He felt it. He felt everything she wasn't saying, and it broke him clean open.
"I've got you," he said against her ear, his voice completely undone. "I've got you. I'm right here."
She tightened around him, and he drove deeper and felt her gasp sharply against his throat and kept going, his hands holding her steady, the wall solid behind her, and him the only other solid thing.
"Come back to me," she said desperately. She hadn't planned to say it. She hadn't planned to be that woman.
"Yeah." His mouth at her jaw. "Yeah, I'm coming back. I promise."
She came for the second time, clenching hard around him, and he followed her over immediately, both of his hands pressing flat against the wall on either side of her head, his whole body shuddering through it, her name somewhere in the low, broken sound he made at the end.
Tim kept her pinned against the wall, both of them refusing to move after their unexpected, somewhat primal goodbye.
His phone said 8:54.
Six minutes.
They cleaned up quietly. She straightened her skirt. He buttoned his shirt and put on his jacket.
They stood in the hallway, put back together, as best as they could be.
"I never have enough time with you," Lucy said with a sad smile. "We are always chasing the next time."
"I know it feels that way, doesn't it?"
Tim's phone buzzed once. They both looked down at it, knowing what it meant.
He stood in front of her and took her face in both hands. Lucy tried to school her features, but she knew her eyes were glistening with more tears.
"Lucy." His voice was low. "I have never been this happy. Not once in my life. Not like this." His thumbs moved along her cheekbones. "That's you. All of it." He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I am going to come home, and I am going to give you everything. Every single thing. The whole damn world, if you'll let me." He pulled back and looked at her. "Wait for me."
"Always," she said.
Tim pressed a kiss to her mouth one last time, lingering on her bottom lip, then picked up his bag, walked out the door and down the porch steps.
Lucy stood in the doorway watching as he walked to the awaiting car.
The driver took Tim's bag and put it in the back as Tim rounded the car. When he reached for the door handle, he looked back, just once.
She saw it.
His eyes shimmered in the morning sun. The thing he'd been holding together all morning finally poured over. Then the door closed.
She stood on the porch, her hand pressed to the dog tags beneath her shirt, watching the car go.
When the street was empty, she went back inside. Into his house that smelled like him. She sat on his couch and pulled out her phone.
She texted Angela.
He just left. Can I fall apart now? How do I do this?
He was coming back. She was going to keep telling herself that until he walked back through the door.