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Afterward, everything is different.
After Jackson’s death.
After they rescue Angela.
After her mandated counseling sessions and after she goes back to work.
Just… after.
The world is so silent, so lonely, without him.
She doesn’t realize (until after) how much she depended on him.
Her mother calls to yell at her about her career choices, and when she breaks down crying in the middle of the phone call, he’s not there for her. He’s not there for her because he’s the topic of the phone call, and the realization only makes her cry harder.
“— and one day you’re going to end up just like him! Dead, Lucy, because this-this foolish little rebellion of yours is dangerous and so short sighted! You need to come home. Your father and I can pull strings, and…”
Lucy tunes her out after a while, and afterward she berates herself for letting her mother go on for so long, but it’s not until she goes back to work that she realizes how truly alone she is.
Nolan has his new girlfriend, the paramedic or firefighter or whatever the hell she is, and Tim is… well, he’s Tim.
And he’s dating someone, apparently.
(She tries not to dwell on it, and she throws herself so wholeheartedly into trying to pry embarrassing stories out of Genny to tease Tim with that she doesn’t realize until after that her cheeks hurt from forcing a smile for so long).
Afterward, Tim goes to see the girl he’s dating.
Genny goes back to her family.
And Lucy goes home alone.
Alone.
She’s curled into a little blanket burrito, not crying but not not crying, when she realizes it.
I’m depressed, she thinks. And then, I should pick up more almond milk when I go to the grocery store.
It just becomes a fact of life, afterward.
She knows Nolan doesn’t move on from Jackson’s death, but he copes.
They all do, even Angela who’d spent twelve months with him in the shop and had named her son after him.
But Lucy doesn’t.
She wallows.
She isolates herself.
She forces a smile and takes the medication that she swears to her therapist is just until she gets herself back together.
She goes to work, talks Tim’s ear off so that he doesn’t realize something is wrong, and then retreats to her room with barely a wave to Tamara. The teenager doesn’t notice anything is wrong, but Lucy doesn’t blame her. She’s nineteen, just staring college, staying out late and dating (“I’m not dating him, Lucy!”) a nice sophomore.
She goes to work and then home and to work and home and work and home, and it sneaks up on her so slowly she barely realizes it’s happening until one day she’s laying in bed, staring at her medicine bottle and wondering how much Prozac would it take to overdose?
The thought startles her.
She tosses the pill bottle into her nightstand and watches three episodes of Top Chef before going to sleep.
She doesn’t think about it again.
(She thinks about it every second of every day).
_____________________
After the pills, it’s any time she’s in the car.
One day, thirteen weeks and three days after Jackson’s death, she’s driving the shop while Tim does paperwork.
“You’re driving today, Boot,” he’d said, tossing her the keys, and Lucy had rolled her eyes and told him that she hadn't been his boot in a long time.
She hadn’t missed the way he’d winced when he’d turned too quickly, though, his hand going to the small of his back, and she rolls her eyes a second time because he’s so fucking stubborn he won’t just admit he fucked his back up and wants to take it easy.
So she’s driving and he’s filling out forms, and as she’s cruising down a street she knows better than the back of her own hand, she sighs and closes her eyes.
She doesn’t open them again immediately, her heart thumping heavily in her chest as she realizes that she could just… not open them.
She could drive off the road and everyone would think it was an accident and she’d be free from the overwhelming sense of wrong and alone that’s plagued her since her best friend’s death.
But then she hears Tim grunt in the seat next to her and she opens her eyes, because as much as she doesn’t want to live sometimes, he’s in the car with her and she could never be responsible for his death.
So she opens her eyes and blinks away the tears and continues driving.
She wonders, after, if she’ll ever tell him that he saved her life that day.
________________________
She fights it, but it’s always there.
Driving down the road, refilling her prescriptions, anything risky.
She thinks about it a lot.
And it’s not that she wants to kill herself, she just wants to not exist.
She wants to go to bed and not wake up, to disappear into nothingness.
It’s not like anyone will miss her.
Her parents hate her, and Nolan and Tim will be fine — Nolan has Bailey, and Tim has Ashley.
No one will miss her, and so she thinks about it.
I wish I could just join Jackson, wherever he is, she thinks, and then she smiles and laughs at what Nolan tries to pass off as a joke.
I want to die, she thinks, and then she hangs up on her mom and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes so hard she sees stars.
But no matter what’s going on in her head, she smiles.
She laughs.
She does her job and goes to therapy.
She takes her medicine (sometimes) and rides with Tim, and rolls her eyes at his … Tim-ness.
And no one notices.
I’m so alone, she thinks, and she takes the pill bottles out of her bedside table and lines them up side by side.
She has three saved up, because she skips doses often even though she knows that taking her medicine intermittently actually makes things worse.
I could take all of these pills and just go to sleep, she thinks, but instead of doing just that, she shoves them back into her bedside table, sets an alarm on her phone so that she can hopefully remember to take her medicine on a more regular schedule, and turns on the TV.
After two episodes of Top Chef, she feels a little better, but not much.
___________________________
No one notices until they do (or perhaps he’s noticed all along, she thinks, because he's Tim and he always knows).
“Lucy,” he murmurs, and she pauses before closing the trunk of their shop.
She nearly cries as the heat from his hand seeps into her skin, because it’s been months since she was touched, since she allowed herself to be touched.
She remembers him hugging her, and she wants to fall into his arms but she doesn’t.
“What,” she manages, though she knows by the way he looks at her that the toneless, single word she manages doesn’t do anything to assuage his fears.
“Come here,” he murmurs, and he closes the trunk for her before dragging her around to where she knows the garage cameras can’t see them.
She sucks in a breath and tries not to let the tears she feels building in her eyes fall, because she knows that he knows, and her heart is pounding because oh, god, he’s going to tell on her and they’re going to make her go to more counseling and take away her gun and badge, and—
“Are you safe?” he whispers, and she glances up at him in confusion and shock as he grunts and tries again, the words he’s trying to say getting caught and jumbled up inside of him.
She knows he’s no good with feelings, and it makes her chest warm in a way she can’t describe that he’s trying, for her.
“Am I safe?” she asks, and he sighs as he runs his hand through his hair.
“On the street,” he says. “With ... with a gun.”
Lucy does whimper then, a single high pitched sound.
He knows.
“I’m fine,” she says, but she doesn’t believe her own words and he sure as hell doesn’t.
“No, you’re not,” he whispers, and Lucy feels like her chest is going to explode with everything she’s not saying. Her hands itch and her eyes burn and she feels like she’s going to cry or scream or maybe just fucking die.
She doesn’t speak, but in the end, she doesn’t have to.
Tim signs them both out, turns their equipment back in, and no one even questions him because he’s Tim and the way he glares at anyone who stares too long makes even Lucy feel a little bit nervous.
He takes her to the gym, closes and locks the door, and then puts her in front of the punching bag.
Neither of them speak, but he hovers as she begins to hit it. Slowly at first, self conscious and unsure.
It doesn’t last long, and soon she’s sobbing, loud and messy and guttural, her hands shaking as she beats the punching bag until her knuckles bleed and her chest aches and her vision is so blurry that she can’t see even an inch in front of her face.
She doesn’t so much stop as collapse, but she doesn’t hit the mat because Tim is there, pulling her into his strong arms and wrapping her in his embrace. He’s warm and sturdy and he doesn’t say anything, and Lucy appreciates his silence because she doesn’t know how to explain what’s happening inside of her.
I’m depressed, she thinks.
I want to die.
“I need help,” she whispers, broken and wet, and she doesn’t look up or meet Tim’s eyes, but she hears the way his heart skips a beat under her ear and the way his breath catches above her.
“I know, Luce,” he murmurs, one hand cupping the back of her head as they sway in the dark, empty gym. “I know. I’m gonna help you find it, okay? You’re not alone.”
I’m not alone, she thinks, and a fresh wave of tears courses down her cheeks.
She sobs and screams, and it’s all very undignified, but afterward, after Tim has handed her a tissue (a few tissues, a whole box of tissues), she feels a little better.
She sniffles and stares at the floor, too embarrassed to meet his gaze.
“I’ve been there,” he murmurs, and she makes a surprised noise as she glances up. He winces but doesn’t stop, perhaps sensing that she needs to hear the words he has to say. “After Isabel. You know what stopped me from eating the barrel of my own gun?”
Lucy shakes her head slowly, sniffling.
Tim smirks, a sad little smile pulling on his lips as he stares at her with warmth in his big blue eyes.
“I had this rookie, and she needed me. She was this bright eyed, bushy tailed little thing, and I knew she wouldn’t make it on the streets without my training methods.”
Lucy rolls her eyes and scoffs, the sound wet as she wipes at her eyes.
Tim’s smile grows a little bit.
“After I got out of the hospital, I was alone a lot while I was healing, and my gun was just… it was right there, Luce. Right there in the safe in my closet, and I cannot tell you how many times I opened that safe and just stared at it. But then I remembered how you’d risked getting shot to pull me out of the line of fire, and I knew that I needed to finish training you, even back then. So I closed the safe and made it through another day, and then another, and then another, and eventually it got easier. It’ll get easier, Lucy. It will. And until it does, I’ll be here to help you carry the weight, okay?”
Lucy sniffles and nods, and then dives back in for another hug because she needs it, damn it.
She needs the touch of another human.
She needs to not be so fucking alone.
Tim holds her and then, afterward, he helps her make herself presentable and buys her a coffee before he gathers their equipment.
She’s not okay, not by a long shot, but she knows she will be.
Eventually.
_______________________
Afterward, everything is different.
After Jackson’s death.
After they rescue Angela.
After Tim holds her in the gym and tells her it's going to be okay.
It’s different, and horrible, and she knows she’ll miss her best friend until the day she dies.
But she’s not alone, and that makes all the difference.