Chapter Text
Lucy chased their informant, or who was supposed to be their informant, as the adrenaline made her heart beat rapidly. She was also out of breath. It was abnormal for her. But these days, nothing seemed normal anymore. She hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in a month. She cried all the time now. Except when she was angry. Sometimes when she was angry, too. But the angry tears were somehow more refreshing and less demoralizing than all the rest of them.
She had been cleared by the shrink to return to work just prior to the whole Maggie Shaw thing. And that had been a complete mess. She had always been good at pushing down her own needs to help others. So focusing on helping Tennant had been a blessing. Navigating and avoiding Kate had been a bit more difficult.
She climbed up the fire escape, not far behind their one and only lead. Why did he have to run?
Why…?
She paused to gather her bearings and only then realized where she was. She looked over the ledge of the fire escape and cursed herself for doing so. All she saw was the dead body that she became so familiar with from her nightmares. Only this time, he wasn’t alone. She saw her lifeless body beside him.
She never had a panic attack before. Unless this was a heart attack. She doesn’t remember ever having one of those either. Her vision became spotty, and then blurry. And even as she closed her eyes, the two dead and bloodied bodies in her imagination showed up clear as day.
She sat down on the floor of the fire escape, collapsed really. She wasn’t sure how long she was there before she heard a familiar voice in the distance. Kai.
She felt him wrap his arms around her, and in that moment, she felt almost safe. Safer than she had in a month.
“Lucy?” Kai spoke quietly to her. “Do you need me to carry you down, or are you able to do it on your own?”
She didn’t know how to answer.
“There’s no hurry. We can wait here until you’re ready. Will you breathe with me? A slow, deep breath in. Then hold it. Then breathe out slowly. I’ll do it with you.”
He counted as they breathed in. Held. Breathed out. She didn’t know how many times they did it, but eventually, her heartbeat slowed. Not her mind though. Never her mind.
“It’s called box breathing. Picture a square. A box. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Can you see it?”
Imagining a strange box took her mind off of imagining anything else. Maybe that was the point.
She eventually recovered enough to make it down the ladder, Kai’s hand on her back the entire way. Grounding her.
She thought about how badly this really could have gone. If it came to a gunfight and Kai needed her to have his back; could she do it? Would she freeze? She knew this would have to be reported. She knew that since she was currently unable to perform her duties, she’d likely be sent home on leave. Again.
That was the worst. Being alone with her thoughts. All of them. Even though all the commotion at work oftentimes overwhelmed her now, it was better than the alternative. She didn’t want to think about what this meant for her sanity. For her career. For…her. What if she could no longer perform her duties. Ever. What if she was ruined? Broken. Forever.
“Hey…the only thing going in the report is that he ran. That he got away.” Kai’s voice interrupted her spiral.
She frowned. “But why would you do that? Next time, what if…”
He stopped walking and rested his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not alone in this. You know that right? Yeah, we need to trust you to have our backs. But you have to trust us to have yours, too.”
She studied him. Then shook her head. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine.
The closer they got to the office, the worse she felt. She felt Tennant’s eyes on her as she turned and practically sprinted to the bathroom. She hated their pity. She hated that she warranted it. She hated a lot of things right now. She hated herself for feeling so weak. For being so weak.
It felt like the room was closing in on her. She tried taking slow, deep breaths. Longer exhales. Box breathing. It was supposed to work. It worked before. But her thoughts were moving too fast. She tried splashing water on her face. She even dry heaved because she thought she was going to get sick.
The drip of the faucet irritated her. Yes, everything these days irritated her. But the water? She hated water anyway, but this damn faucet would be the death of her.
She laughed humorlessly at the inappropriate word choice. Then she couldn’t stop laughing. Soon, she was on the floor in a crumpled heap, crying. Distantly, she heard the bathroom door open. She heard heels clank on the linoleum. She wanted to be angry about the noise. About the intrusion. But she couldn’t pull herself together enough to yell at the person who had the misfortune of seeing her broken down on the bathroom floor.
“Oh, my god! Lucy!”
It was Whistler. Because of course it had to be. She looked at her in time to see Whistler reach toward her quickly, before thinking better of it and withdrawing her hand slowly. Lucy focused on the movement. On the retreat. The uncertainty of the action. She felt uncertain about a lot of things these days. She was usually so self assured. Confident. Cocky at times, at least, according to Whistler, even though it had always been said with affection.
The anger radiated throughout her body at the thought. Her tears immediately dried up. The only evidence of their existence were the tear tracks that stained her face. Lucy stood up and splashed more water on herself. She needed to erase the evidence. She counted to ten in her head. She tried not to make a bigger scene than she already had. She tried and failed to hold it together.
Lucy gripped the edge of the sink so harshly her knuckles turned white. She left the water running. Punishment for her breakdown. But also, a buffer against the silence that would otherwise haunt the space between them. Figuratively, of course. Because Whistler stood right beside her, too close to be considered anything other than an invasion of Lucy’s personal space. She wanted to push her away. She wanted to hurt her because she hurt.
“Are you….are you okay?”
Lucy rolled her eyes and laughed harshly with venom and anger. “If you feel the need to ask that…I’d assume you have your answer.”
She said it without looking at her and felt Whistler flinch beside her.
“You’re right. That was a stupid question. I’m sorry.”
Lucy turned to face her, her eyes boring into Whistler’s. Kate’s. “You know…that’s the first time you apologized to me since…”
Kate’s eyes widened and she swallowed audibly. Tears formed in her eyes and that only pissed Lucy off further.
“I thought that all I wanted to hear was an actual apology from you rather than all of your excuses.” Lucy added and then turned back away from her. Her knuckles still clutched the sink as she stared at herself in the mirror.
She didn’t recognize herself anymore. The dark circles make-up refused to truly cover. More evidence. Proof of sleepless nights. Well, not entirely sleepless since nightmares don’t come to you while you’re awake. Or they aren’t supposed to. That seemed to be a lie lately–like most things in her life.
She looked back at Kate. Whistler . She corrected it in her mind. She needed to remember that she was only Whistler now. They were nothing, and that was Whistler’s doing.
“I’m really sorry.” Whistler whispered.
“I don’t want to hear it.” Lucy sighed and ran her hands through her hair. Then she cursed out loud when her fingers got stuck.
“You’re right. Now isn’t the time. Sorry.” Whistler blinked slowly and then frowned. “Shit.”
Lucy shook her head and stepped away. She started pacing. Most days, lately, she couldn’t find the energy to get out of bed. But there were times when she also couldn’t sit still. It was like if things were too quiet, then she would be forced to fill the quiet with her loud thoughts. She needed to move. To focus on something other than the images that raced through her mind.
“I’m alive.” She answered quietly. Still unable to stop pacing. And she refused to look at Whistler.
“What?”
“You asked if I was okay.” Lucy stopped pacing and licked her lips as she continued to speak. Her eyes refused to settle on anything, especially Whistler. “I’m alive. He’s not. So I should be fine. Except…the reason that he’s not alive and I am…is because I killed him.”
She didn’t need to look into Whistler’s eyes to know that she flinched at that. She didn’t need to look at her at all, to hear heels clink against the floor again. Lucy raised her hand to halt Whistler’s approach, then she finally looked at her.
Whistler looked more broken than she felt somehow. She looked hollow. She looked anguished. She looked…angry.
“Don’t you dare feel bad for being alive, Lucy. What he…what almost happened…if you didn’t kill him, I sure as hell would have.”
Lucy’s eyes widened at the righteous indignation she saw on Whistler’s face.
“Every single person on the team…you had us terrified. We…I…” Whistler exhaled shakily and shook her head. “You did what you had to do.”
“Tell that to his family.” Lucy spat out. “I was at his funeral. He had people that loved him. No matter what he did…to them…to them…he…”
Lucy descended into tears again. She hated that she no longer could control any of her emotions. She stepped away as Whistler took a step toward her.
“I had a long day. I need to get out of here. Kai’s finishing up the paperwork. If you have any questions, he’ll be able to answer them.” She wiped at her eyes as she tried to steady her breathing again and pushed past Kate.
Whistler! God, she couldn’t even keep control of her thoughts. It was like every part of herself was betraying her these days. She didn’t know what to do.
Lucy made it home in a complete haze. Except when she almost hit someone when she accidentally ran a red light. She stripped her clothes off on the way to the bathroom and turned on the hot water. She stepped in and hoped to let the water wash away her day. She cried as the water cascaded down her body and mixed with the tears as they circled the drain together. She stood there until the water turned cold and her shaking was no longer from sobbing but rather from possible hypothermia. She reveled in the pain. It felt like proper punishment for what she had done. But no matter how long she stood under the water trying to get clean, there was no way to erase her sins.
xxxxx
Kate was still reeling from her encounter with Lucy in the bathroom. She had never been so rattled before. So at a loss for how to help someone she loved. Grief she understood. Anger she understood. Guilt she absolutely understood. But the look of utter brokenness in Lucy’s eyes, she didn’t know how to fix it–how to give her space and honor her wishes while knowing that she was hurting so badly.
She knew that Lucy’s change in behavior over the last month couldn’t be completely chalked up to the break-up. It was a break-up; even if whatever they had been to each other had never truly been defined. It was a break-up, because they were both broken by it. And when Kate had noticed Lucy’s dark eyes and presumed lack of sleep, she had almost taken comfort in knowing that they somehow were together in their sorrow. She had taken it as a sign that Lucy having a hard time with it meant that Lucy still cared about her. Maybe about them.
But she had been stupid. She was an idiot. Lucy had been dealing with a lot more than just the break-up and she had been doing it completely alone. It all made sense now. That time when they had their clandestine meeting at Tennant’s when Lucy had apparently spilled the coffee she intended to bring to the meeting. She had been glad that the team appreciated her for bringing the coffee and making up for Lucy’s mishap. But it’s obvious now, that Lucy had forgotten the coffee. It had slipped her mind because she was dealing with a whole lot of shit no one should ever have to deal with. And the realization that Lucy, who might as well have an IV of caffeine attached to her, forgot to get coffee is momentous.
Kate racked her brain for all the other signs. Apart from the anger and irritability. Kate remembered the time she walked into the break room and startled Lucy so horribly that she dropped her plate of food. The plate shattered and her lunch was destroyed along with it. Then she remembered Lucy’s red, puffy eyes from crying. Crying that likely had nothing to do with Kate at all. She recalled yesterday, when Lucy actually seemed to doze off during a briefing. And the many times that the usually cheerful and sociable Lucy had not only declined invitations to hang out after work with the guys, but the handful of times that Kate had walked into the NCIS bullpen to find Lucy alone in a dark office just…sitting there in silence. Staring into space. Kate shuttered to think what had been going through Lucy’s mind in those moments. But Lucy asked for space, so she had been trying to give it to her.
Kate had been so adamant about trying to regain Lucy’s trust, that even when all the signs pointed to Lucy struggling…she refused to see them. She refused to be the person to call her out on it or narc on her to her team. She had been caught between wanting to help Lucy and wanting to prove to Lucy that she could be trusted. She kept secrets she probably shouldn’t have. Like today. The bathroom incident. She knew she needed to tell someone. But she didn’t want helping Lucy to ruin what little chance of gaining her trust and reconciling with her that she might have left. And perhaps it was selfish of her to put them before Lucy. But she really didn’t know how to help Lucy anyway. Not in any real or significant way.
She was disrupted from her thoughts when Tennant knocked on her door.
“Hey, we’re meeting at my house to talk about Lucy.” Tennant said by way of greeting.
Kate’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Talk about Lucy? I…”
“She needs our help. We’ve all seen it. We’re just trying to brainstorm how to best help her. After what happened in the field today…”
“What happened in the field?” She never read the report because she had been too preoccupied with what happened in the bathroom.
Tennant raised a single eyebrow. “You don’t know? I thought…” She shook her head. “It’s not part of the report anyway. Kai didn’t include it because he didn’t want it on her record. But she froze up. They were following a lead, the guy they were tailing climbed up the fire escape of the building. Lucy got about a third of the way up and completely lost it. She froze. I don’t want to get too much into it, but…”
Flashbacks. The height. Probably looking over the ledge. The bathroom breakdown made sense now.
“Anyway, Kai talked her down. Literally. And she’s…we dropped the ball before. I…dropped the ball with her. Because of all the stuff with Maggie, I didn’t see what was right in front of me.”
Tennant looked miserable, Kate could only imagine the guilt she was feeling.
“Hey, we all missed the signs.”
Tennant shook her head. “Kai warned me, before she returned from mandatory leave. He said that just because she can fool a shrink into being ready to come back to work, that doesn’t mean she’s ready. He…he knows what taking a life can do to a person. I mean, he isn’t the only one. And I know that. I know to ease them in. But she…she insisted she was fine. She seemed fine.”
She did. Until she didn’t. Kate noticed the times when Lucy seemed to put on a mask as soon as she noticed she wasn’t alone. She had gotten really good at that mask; at assuring everyone on the team that she was fine. And it was easy to believe her, because they so badly wanted to.
Kate knew Tennant wasn’t the only one to blame. And when she followed her to her house and saw all the guys already waiting for them, she saw it on Boone’s face as well. He and Lucy were close. Maybe closer than anyone else on the team. And he looked ashamed for failing Lucy so badly.
“Hey, we know now. We can help her now. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You saw what she wanted you to see. You know Lucy, she’s always taking care of everyone else over herself.” She told him as she stood beside him.
He nodded appreciatively. “Does telling yourself all of that relieve your guilt at all?”
She huffed out a laugh. “Absolutely not.”
He gave her a small, sad smile.
Part of her felt even guiltier for being here, talking about Lucy behind her back. But a larger part of her felt justified that they came to her and that she wasn’t the one who orchestrated this whole thing. And neither part could argue that anything they did to help Lucy through this should be construed as a bad thing.
Holman walked with her as she walked to her car after they finished hatching a plan for what to do next.
“So after what happened today…do you think…” She sighed and inhaled shakily. “Will she be okay?”
“She will be. First, she has to admit that there’s something wrong so that she can do the work to fix it. I’m surprised she held it together this long.”
Whistler knew enough about PTSD that it wasn’t predictable and just like with grief, it hits you when it hits you. No rhyme or reason. Sure, you can know about your triggers. But you don’t learn about your triggers…until you’re triggered.
“I took Lucy out for drinks soon after it happened. Thought maybe she could use someone to talk to about it.” He told her, then he looked her in the eye with seriousness. “All she talked about was you.”
Kate swallowed thickly and looked away.
“I think the break-up allowed her to access her anger…anger is the easy emotion. It masks guilt or shame or sadness or fear. So it was an easy way to distract herself from the actual trauma of what happened.”
Kate looked at him again. “Um…you’re welcome?”
He chuckled at that. “I’m just saying, she has a lot going on. And I know you both have a lot to work through. But she doesn’t not care.”
Kate frowned. “I had a long day and your double negative is confusing my already rattled brain.”
He smiled at her widely. “It’s easier for her to pretend she doesn’t care. To stay mad. To push you away. But that’s all it is. It’s just pretend.” He wrapped an arm around her. “The best way to earn her trust back is to stay. Not push and not force things. Just…hold space for her. Until she’s ready. Until she is able to process everything she needs to correctly and in her own way.”
“Stay?”
He nodded.
She could do that. That was the easy part. She had no intention of going anywhere. Not unless Lucy actually told her to.
As she climbed in her car, her phone rang. She answered it without looking at it.
“Hello, this is Whistler.”
“Kate. I need you. Please?”
Lucy’s broken voice was a plea for help that Kate would never be able to deny her.
“I’m on my way.”