Chapter Text
Lucy knew something was up with Tim without him having to say anything.
No-one else would’ve picked up on it, but she saw the tension tightly coiled through his shoulders and his neck, the way his lips were drawn together, and the way he sat at the edge of his chair like he was planning an escape.
She’d known him for a long time, suffice it to say.
She’d heard from Celina that he’d been called to a domestic earlier today while he was on patrol. He hated those, more than anyone else.
She could see in his rigid posture and the way his eyes wouldn’t focus and the way that his fingers kept tapping on his desk that it was starting to catch up to him.
He looked up at her when she knocked on his office door. His face softened, in a way that betrayed his tiredness for a split second before he compartmentalised and smiled.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey,” she murmured back, moving toward his desk and perching on the corner of it, facing him.
“You ready to go home?” he asked, reaching out for her hand.
She softened. He never did PDA at work, not unless he–or she–really needed it. Not unless it felt like everything was going to collapse if he didn’t feel her touch. He avoided her eyes as he squeezed her hand three times and then released it. I love you.
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, hopping off the corner of the desk. “You doing okay?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, taking a shaky breath in. “It’s been a rough day.”
“I heard.”
He kept his eyes down as he reached for his bag, hiking it onto his shoulder and following Lucy out.
He went through the motions that night, but not once did he seem like he was actually there.
They collected Zoe, Tim pulling her close to him and pressing absentminded kisses to her forehead. He buckled her into her car seat, tucked her bag onto the seat beside her. He drove them home, his hands tapping on the steering wheel the entire half an hour home.
It didn’t escape Lucy the way he rubbed his other hand over his thigh as he drove, scratching at his leg over his jeans. He’d been doing that for a few weeks now, without even noticing.
He took Zoe out of her car seat, carrying her inside and placing her down on her playmat in the living room, before hanging up his and Lucy’s bags in the entryway. Lucy followed him, sitting down in front of Zoe and squeezing her little hands as the baby leaned on her and pulled herself up.
He glanced at them briefly before moving into the kitchen and pulling some ingredients out of the fridge, chucking them carelessly on the counter.
Lucy said nothing. She just pulled Zoe onto her hip, moving around him to pull open the fridge and grab the container of puree they’d blended for Zoe on the weekend. She sat Zoe in her high chair and spooned it to her, laughing when her daughter hit the tray occasionally, knocked the spoon out of her hand, and somehow managing to fling puree across the room toward her father.
He barely reacted, completely in his own world. Lucy sighed, and turned back to their baby, who giggled and smiled when she saw her mama’s eyes meeting hers.
Lucy got her cleaned up, and picked her up, carrying her toward the nursery when Zoe started clawing at her chest.
“Okay sweetheart, time for your milk, huh?” She turned to face Tim, still in the kitchen. “Hey, baby, I’m gonna feed her and start putting her down, I’ll come get you when she’s about to go to sleep so she can get a cuddle from Dada.”
He made a weak attempt at a half-smile, only half looking up at her. “Okay, Luce.”
Lucy’s eyebrows pinched together in worry, but she still didn’t say anything. It was really bad today, then.
After another hour, both Lucy and Tim had eaten dinner, and Zoe was long asleep. Tim stood up to take their dishes to the sink. She stood quickly, pushing their chairs in.
“I got it, baby.” She smiled, and took the dishes from him. “You go take a shower.”
He didn’t argue, just cupped her face, and slid his hand down her shoulder, squeezing gently there before releasing her. He met her eyes for only a second before he turned away.
She watched him walk away, something squeezing at her heart. He’s not okay.
She took the dishes over to the sink, and heard the bedroom door close behind him, then the squeaky bathroom door open, then the click of the light switch, then the squeak of the door closing again.
She made quick work of the dishes, stacking the plates in the dishwasher and scrubbing out the pan Tim had used. After 20 minutes, she was done. She still hadn’t heard Tim leave the bathroom.
She quietly padded over to their bedroom, pushing open the door, then knocking gently on the bathroom door.
“Hey, honey,” she said gently. “You’ve been in there awhile. You okay?”
There was silence for a second before he responded with a broken voice, “I’m okay, Luce.”
She waited a beat, and heard him shuffling around. “Can you let me in?”
He didn’t answer. She just heard him sniffle once in respond.
She gave it another minute.
“Please, baby,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I need to see you’re okay. You’re really scaring me right now.”
Finally, after what felt like an hour, she heard the lock click on the door.
She pushed the door open gently, and let out a strangled noise when she saw him. Tim was sitting on the bathroom floor in a pair of shorts that were hiked up close to his hips, and a loose sleep t-shirt. He was shaking, badly, and was holding a towel tightly onto his left thigh. His eyes were red rimmed and glassy, tears dripping down his face, and his right hand was clenched tightly around something. He was sitting with his right elbow resting over his right kneecap, his left leg out in front of him. The towel was only small; one of the gym towels that he and Lucy had collected over the years, but it was nearly entirely soaked with blood.
Lucy dropped to her knees beside him, taking over pressing the towel to his thigh, at the same time as reaching into the cupboards behind him to grab another one.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, his voice broken. “I’m sorry, Luce, I just couldn’t–I couldn’t stop–“ He tried to suck in a breath, failing, which only made him panic more.
She quickly changed the towels over, clamping down harder on his thigh. With her other hand, she reached out and cupped his face.
“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay, I promise. Please, sweetheart, I need you to take some deep breaths or you’re gonna pass out.”
He tried a couple of times, failing. “Luce, I can’t–“
“You can, sweetheart, come on, breathe with me. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three four. Good, baby, good, just like that. Just like that.”
They continued that for a little longer until he was breathing normally.
She squeezed his arm gently. “I’m going to get you some electrolytes, you’ve lost a lot of blood and you’ve been panicking so you’re probably exhausted and feeling faint, huh?”
He nodded. His vision was starting to black out at the corners a little.
She came back a minute later, a glass filled with pink liquid - electrolytes - and a cup of water in the other.
“Drink,” she said, handing him the cup and helping him steady it with his shaking hands. She held it up to his lips and didn’t stop until he swallowed all of it.
“Good, baby, good,” she said, stroking his chin, and taking the cup off him. “I need to look at your cuts, can you let me see them quickly, please?” She looked at him for permission, and he gave a small nod. She lifted up the towel a fraction, and cleaned around the wounds a little bit so she could see what they were working with.
She looked up at him, something between pity and sympathy on her face. “These need stitches, sweetheart.”
His eyes widened. “No, Luce, please, no, we can just bandage them and it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”
“Honey,” she cupped his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know, I know. But I can’t do stitches, and these will not stop bleeding.”
He tipped his head back, more tears falling from his face, and his nose running. He sniffled. “Fine. Fine. Just…be quick?”
She nodded, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll do my best, okay, baby? We’re gonna call Lopez–“
“No, no Lopez.”
“Baby, someone needs to watch Zoe. I don’t want to take her with us, that definitely isn’t gonna make it quick.”
His face just crumpled again and more tears ran down his cheeks as he let out a couple of sobs. “I’m sorry, Luce, I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing–hey, look at me”–she tilted his chin up–“to be sorry for, okay? Nothing.”
He swallowed, taking a breath.
“Baby, you gotta choose. Genny, or Lopez. Or Grey. I’m gonna have to tell him eventually.”
“Can she please just come with us?” he asked, his voice small. “Please, Lucy.”
“Fine,” she conceded, before taking a deep breath. “Tim.”
He looked up at her.
“Please, can you give me the razor blades?”
He just swallowed, hesitating for a moment before handing the blade over to her. She took it, pocketing it, and squeezed his shoulder lightly.
“Stay here, and I’ll get her in the car.”
She was back within 5 minutes, Zoe safely tucked into her carseat, and her gun and badge clipped to her belt. She quickly wrapped Tim’s leg up, shoving a heap of gauze over the wounds and bandaging it probably more than necessary - just in case - before pulling his arm over her shoulder and pulling him up, helping him pull a light pair of track pants over the top. They made their way out to his truck, where she helped him into the passenger seat and then jumped into the driver’s seat herself, before quickly glancing in the rearview mirror to check that Zoe was still asleep, and then pulling out of the driveway.
They got to the hospital within 10 minutes. (Lucy only broke a few traffic laws).
The ED staff helped him out of the vehicle once Lucy alerted them, and then she grabbed Zoe and pulled her into the baby carrier on her chest, following behind them.
“What happened?” asked one of the nurses.
“44-year-old male, several deep lacerations to left upper thigh, bleeding for close to 20 minutes without stopping. I gave him electrolytes and water but he said he’s still dizzy and a little out of it.” Lucy switched into sergeant mode as she recalled everything the doctors needed, rubbing her hand gently over Zoe’s back.
They pulled him through reception, laying him down on a bed in the ED. She took a seat beside him, squeezing his hand gently, trying to keep him awake. A doctor came in a minute later, a haemostatic bandage and wound packing in his hand. He pressed it to Tim’s wounds, and within a few minutes, the bleeding had stopped completely. The doctor silently took a seat by Tim’s bed and pulled out a suturing tray.
“We’re gonna have to do some stitches on this, Mr Bradford,” he said. “I’ll inject a numbing agent first, and then do the sutures.”
He injected a needle either side of each of Tim’s wounds, and then proceeded to suture them all closed.
As he was nearing the end, he looked up at Tim briefly. “You want to tell me how this happened?”
Tim’s jaw tightened. “I think you know the answer to that, Doc,” he replied quietly, looking at Lucy.
“Sure,” the doctor responded. “but sometimes it can help to say it out loud.”
Tim stayed silent.
“I’m going to have to get psych down here, given the nature of the situation, for an assessment, and it might be easier the second time to say how it happened.”
Tim inhaled sharply. “Fine. Fine. I cut myself. I had a really bad day after a couple of really rough weeks, and I couldn’t do it anymore, and I needed to feel something else. And instead of talking to my wife, or distracting myself, or one of the one hundred things I could’ve done instead, I relapsed. Because I’m a coward and a fuckup. Happy?”
Lucy closed her eyes, tears running down her face. She kept one hand on Zoe’s back, the other reaching out and running through Tim’s hair.
The doctor gave him a sympathetic look. “We’ll have psych down in a minute.”
Lucy nodded, cupping the back of Tim’s head and moving so she could face him.
They sat there for a moment, just looking at each other, before Tim ran his hand down his face and then reached for Lucy’s hand behind his head, taking her hand in his. “I’m sorry, Luce. I’m so, so sorry.”
She sat there, squeezing his hand, reassuring him, telling him it was okay, for what felt like hours but would’ve only been probably 20 minutes. The psychiatrist came down, Dr Stevens, a woman in her 30’s, probably no taller than Lucy with round frame glasses and a tweed blazer. She was holding a clipboard and took a seat on the other side of Tim, close to the end of his bed, facing both Lucy and Tim.
Tim didn’t look at her at all, just continued to look at the ceiling.
“Alright, Mr Bradford?” the doctor asked gently.
“Tim,” he corrected gruffly.
“Tim,” she repeated resolutely. Then she looked at Lucy. “You’re his partner?”
“His wife, yes. And this is our daughter,” Lucy responded, her voice small.
“Tim,” Dr Stevens said, this time turning her attention directly to him. “Can you tell me about your daughter?”
A look of confusion passed over Tim’s face, but he reached out for Lucy and the baby and ran his thumb over the back of Zoe’s head with a featherlight touch.
He didn’t look at the psychiatrist as he began talking. “Her name is Zoe. She’s eight months old now.”
Dr Stevens didn’t say anything, just sat there patiently.
“She’s the best thing in my life,” Tim whispered, almost reverently. “Her and Lucy.”
Lucy smiled weakly, tears brewing in her eyes again. Breastfeeding hormones, she told herself.
“I love when she wakes up in the morning, she used to cry to wake us up but now it’s a little bit of a babble. We’ll go into the nursery to get her and she’ll recognise us and smile this massive gummy smile and clap her hands together and say ‘Dada’. It’s my favourite sound.”
“She sounds like a beautiful baby.”
“She is,” he replied. “She looks exactly like Lucy, thank god, and she has the same little mischievous face that Lucy gets when she’s plotting something.”
Lucy let out a chuckle.
“I was really scared, before she was born. About what type of a dad I would be. I still am, really. I… my dad wasn’t a good guy. He should never have been a dad. And I still worry that I’m going to become him some days.”
“What do you do when you feel like that?” Dr Stevens asked.
Tim sighed, and glanced at her briefly before looking back to Zoe again. “I talk to Lucy. Or my best friend, Angela. Sometimes my boss at work. He’s become a bit of a father figure to both of us, I think.” Lucy nodded. “Neither of us had good relationships with our dads. We were both pretty scared of turning into our parents. But I think we’ve gotten better at talking each other down.”
“All right,” said Dr Stevens. “I’ve got a couple more questions for you, and I need to ask you now, do you want Lucy to stay in the room with you, or would you prefer that she wait outside?”
Lucy stood up to leave before he’d even answered, holding Zoe tightly and bouncing her slightly so she wouldn’t wake.
Tim grabbed her hand. “Please stay,” he whispered. “Please.”
Tears filled her eyes at how broken his voice sounded. How small he sounded. She squeezed his hand gently. “Are you going to say everything you need to say in front of me?” she asked. “Because if you’re going to not say something because you’ll be scared I’ll react a certain way, I can’t be in here, baby.”
He looked down at their joined hands. “I promise I’ll try,” he responded after a minute. “But you can always see straight through me anyway.”
She chuckled through her tears. “That’s true.” She took her seat beside him again.
“Okay, Tim,” Dr Stevens said, with a small smile. “You ready?”
He nodded.
“Can you tell me how your day went today? Start to finish. All the details.” She asked.
“Well, I woke up at 5, like I normally do. Had about two minutes of peace before Zoe woke up. I went into her nursery and picked her up, brought her into our room, and Lucy fed her, then we showered and got dressed. Uh, I got up and made eggs and bacon, and facon, for Lucy, because she’s pescatarian. I made some oatmeal and mashed banana for Zoe and fed her that while Lucy was eating her breakfast.
We drove Zoe to daycare, she was pretty fussy this morning, and it took a minute to get her calm enough, so we were later than normal to work - still early, but not as early as normally are – we’re both sergeants at Mid-Wilshire Police Station, Lucy’s Field Supervisor and I’m Watch Commander. We got changed, filled in all the pre-shift paperwork, handed over from the night shift Watch Commander. We had roll call, couple of BOLOs to distribute, nothing out of the ordinary. I was in meetings the whole morning, but I got called out as a supervisor in the afternoon to a 415 domestic - that’s a domestic disturbance. Lucy was stuck at another scene so she couldn’t go. Um, the scene was…pretty horrific.” He took a breath. “The guy, he, uh, hit his wife. She was unconscious when the responding officers found her, barely hanging on. She died, uh, in the ambulance. I saw her before they put her in the ambulance. She was so bruised, and fragile. Her face was so swollen, it was barely recognisable. And, uh, they had two kids. A baby, eight months. She was upstairs in her crib. Was nearly blue in the face from crying so much when I found her. She settled down a little bit with me, but cried when I tried to give her to anyone else, so I kept her with me. And, the older kid, he was five. He was in her room with her, just trying to soothe her. He couldn’t, because she was just hungry and he couldn’t really do anything about that, plus you know, there’s that thing where babies can sense your tension.
So we, uh, got the baby and the kid to the hospital, by way of the ambulance. When we got to the hospital, we found some formula and I fed her. It took her a bit to take the bottle, but I’ve picked up a couple of tricks. The older kid, he wouldn’t leave her side. I got him to talk to me a little bit. He told me that his dad had been beating his mom for a while. Even before he was born. He would try and, uh, put himself in the way a lot, but sometimes he couldn’t. Sometimes his dad would go after her anyway. And he said his dad forced himself on her, like, he’d see them on the couch some nights and could hear his mom crying, and, uh, yeah,” he wiped his eyes. “It was pretty horrible.”
The psychiatrist watched him as he spoke, then responded, with a measured, even question, “Was that similar to your own home life as a child?”
Tim sucked in a breath, looking at Lucy. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and squeezed his hand. “Yeah,” he replied softly. “It was almost the exact same. I have a younger sister, Genny, who’s five years younger than me. My dad would…do the same thing as that guy did, beat his kids and his wife. We were lucky, in some ways. He didn’t kill my mom, for starters. I could almost always subdue my dad, force him to take it out on me. This kid couldn’t do that. And the baby from today, she had this tuft of red-brown hair, just like my sister. And uh, it doesn’t help when you’ve got an eight month old at home.”
“How did you react to this, as you were going?”
“I kept it together, kept it locked down up until I was alone at the hospital. Once a social worker was with the two kids–which nearly tore me to pieces because the baby wouldn’t calm down with anyone except me, but I had to hand her over. The older kid clung to my leg like it was the end of the world. Which, I guess, it was. I told him that he didn’t have to be the strong one anymore, that I, and the social worker, were gonna make sure that he went to a home that cared about him. That he would be safe in.”
“And what happened after you handed them over to the social worker?”
“I…got back in my shop. I cried, for probably half an hour. Talked myself down from a panic attack. Swore, screamed.” Lucy had tears running down her cheeks as she listened. “Then I drove back to the station, pretended that nothing had happened. Went to my office. I didn’t see Lucy until we had to leave, which didn’t make anything better.” He paused. “Then, we changed out, picked up Zoe, I hugged her extra tight. Then we came home. I made dinner while Lucy got Zoe in the high chair and fed her, and put her to bed. I cuddled Zoe for a bit before she went to sleep - she doesn’t sleep without me, or so I’ve been told.” He looked up at Lucy.
“No, she doesn’t,” Lucy agreed. “I’ve never once been able to get her to sleep when it’s just me there.”
He left out a half-laugh before continuing. “We ate dinner. Lucy cleaned up. And by that point, I was so tired, the thoughts in my head were so, so loud. And I just…I couldn’t. I went into the bathroom, and…. now here we are.”
The psychiatrist pursed her lips. “What was going through your head after you left the hospital? Up until you went into the bathroom?”
“Um, just that I was gonna turn out like that guy, I guess. I could practically hear my dad’s voice, saying that I wasn’t good enough, that I was a bad father and would ruin my daughter’s life, and Lucy’s, as well. And they wouldn’t stop. I tried distracting myself, I tried exercising, I abandoned my paperwork a little bit before the end of shift and went down and hit the punching bag in the gym a few times, but it didn’t help. I just…I wanted a release.”
“What happened when you went into the bathroom, Tim?”
“I… I pulled out the box of razor blades from the back of the bathroom cupboard.” Lucy was sobbing silently now, her head tucked into Zoe to stifle it. Tim didn’t look at her, his eyes glazing over now as he stared up at the ceiling, before recounting the events of the day with no emotion in his voice. “I’ve had that there since I moved in, six years ago. I cut my thigh, once, twice, five times, ten times.”
“And then what happened?”
“Lucy knocked on the door. Asked me to let her in. I was feeling pretty weak and dizzy, and I knew I’d cut too deep. I eventually let her in. She took over from me, tried to stop the bleeding, made me drink water and electrolytes. She was gonna call my sister or my best friend to come watch Zoe while she took me to the hospital, but I begged her not to. And now here we are.”
The psychiatrist took a breath, writing something down on her clipboard. “How often do you have thoughts of harming yourself in the last week?”
Tim stayed silent for a minute, looking down to his hands and fidgeting with them. “Uh, probably every day.”
“How often a day?”
“Nearly all the time.”
“What about in the last two weeks?”
“Same.”
“When did these thoughts start?”
“Well, Lucy got diagnosed with PPD pretty quickly after Zoe was born, maybe two, three weeks after she was born. We were both having a bit of a rough time around then, but I was hanging on, I was okay, until I went back to work when Zoe was six months old. It got really bad then. I went back to therapy, went on some medication, and it’s gotten easier. It got less for a while, then it ramped back up again recently.”
“What medication are you on?”
“Zoloft. 100 mg.”
“Do you take it regularly?”
“Up until recently.”
“How long have you been off it?”
“A week, maybe two.”
Lucy tipped her head to the side and looked at him, a look of sympathy in her eyes. “That’s why you’ve been feeling so sick. The withdrawal from Zoloft is no joke.”
He just avoided her eyes, his jaw twitching.
“Are you still attending therapy?” Dr Stevens continued.
“Uh, I missed the last two appointments because something came up at work for Lucy and we had no-one to watch Zoe.”
“Tim,” Lucy said quietly. “You can bring her to your therapy appointment. I’ve literally breastfed her in your therapist’s office. And if you’d told me, I would’ve just kept her at work with me. Or asked Celina to watch her, or Genny, or literally anything else.”
“I know,” he replied. “I just… didn’t want to go because…that would mean admitting that…things haven’t been that good recently.” He looked at Lucy, tears shining in his eyes. “I’m sorry. Are you mad?”
She moved so she was looking directly at him, tears dripping down her face. “No, baby, I could never be mad about that. I just…wish you had told me.”
He looked at her then, really looked at her, as the tears fell down his cheek. “I’m sorry, Luce,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, then reached out and kissed his forehead.
Dr Stevens watched them for a moment, before Tim looked back at her, and Lucy shifted backwards, away from Tim, so he could continue the conversation with the psychiatrist. “Do you have more questions?” he asked.
“Just one or two,” she responded, kindly. “Tim, do you have any thoughts of wanting to end your life?”
He paused, then nodded, looking down at his hands.
“Did you have a timeline?”
He nodded.
“A plan?”
He nodded.
Lucy looked away, covering her face with her hand to try and stifle her sobs.
“Can you tell me the plan, Tim?”
“My gun. My father’s grave. That way Lucy wouldn’t be the one to find me. This weekend, when Lucy and Zoe would be out, to visit Lucy’s aunt.”
Dr Stevens wrote something down on her clipboard, then looked at Tim, then Lucy, who was wiping her eyes as she turned back toward her and Tim.
“I’m recommending a hospital stay, Tim. In-patient. Psychiatry wing. A week-long program. May be extended, depending on how you’re going. I believe that you are an imminent risk to yourself, and I don’t feel comfortable sending you home.”
Lucy had composed herself a little bit more by now. She reached for Tim’s hand and squeezed it, and he looked over at her. “I’m so sorry, Luce,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you.”
“It’s okay, baby,” she choked out. “I forgive you. We’re okay. You’re gonna be okay, Tim. Let them help you, sweetheart.”
He nodded. “I love you so much.”
She reached and gripped both of his hands. “I love you too, baby.”
Dr Stevens stood up and took her place at the foot of Tim’s bed. “I’ll give you two a moment,” she said, her face kind and gentle, her voice soft, “and then a couple of nurses will escort you upstairs, Tim.”
He nodded. After she was gone, he turned to Lucy, who gently lifted a stirring Zoe of out the carrier on her chest and placed her next to Tim, before climbing on the bed herself. Tim pulled them both close, pressing a kiss to Lucy’s forehead and stroking Zoe’s hair, playing with her tiny hands and tiny feet. They didn’t say anything; they didn’t need to.
When it was time to go, Lucy climbed off the bed and Tim hugged Zoe one last time, before reaching over and hugging Lucy, and pressing a kiss to her lips.
Lucy watched as they wheeled him out, Zoe whimpering softly against her chest.
She stood there for a few minutes, before one of the nurses ushered her out, asked her if she needed anything, and when she said no, made sure she got to her car okay, and that she was okay to drive.
Lucy called Grey the next morning, at 4am. She didn’t realise it was 4am. Zoe didn’t understand time, she only understood that Daddy wasn’t here, and that meant that sleep wasn’t gonna happen.
“Chen? It’s 4am. What’s wrong?”
Lucy glanced at the time. “Sorry, sir, I just–“ she sniffled. “I’ve been up all night, um, something happened with Tim. I didn’t realise what time it was.”
“What happened, Chen? Are you two okay? Is Zoe okay?”
“Yeah, uh, I mean, I don’t–I don’t know. He’s in hospital, sir.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t…I can’t really say much,” her voice was getting more panicked by the second.
“Breathe, Lucy,” Grey said. “Take a breath, please.”
Lucy took a shuddering breath in. She glanced over to where Zoe was lying in her crib, her face red from screaming.
“Tim, he, uh, he relapsed, after we got home. Grabbed a razor blade and… yeah. I, uh, took him to the hospital, ‘cause it was pretty deep, and they asked him all the questions they ask you when you’re in hospital for self-harm, and they asked him some questions about suicidal ideation and he basically told us that he was gonna end it while I was seeing my aunt with Zoe this weekend. That he was gonna take his gun to his father’s grave and… yeah. He’s in an inpatient program there now. A week. Maybe longer.”
Grey was quiet for a minute.
Lucy wiped her eyes, exhaling to try and calm herself before speaking again. “Fuck, sorry, uh, I know that’s a lot. I shouldn’t’ve even–I shouldn’t’ve–”
“Lucy, breathe.” Grey cut in to try and stop her from spiralling. He listened as she took a few shaky breaths before continuing.
“I’m so sorry, Lucy. How are you holding up? I mean, aside from everything.”
“Uh,” she smiled through her tears. “I’m okay, all things considering. But Zoe’s been up all night - she hasn’t slept since we left the hospital - and Tim’s not here, so she probably isn’t gonna sleep for the next week, and I don’t–“ her voice broke at the end, “I don’t know what to do now. Like, how do I get up and get my baby ready and go to work when he’s not there? Like everything’s fine? How do I just get up and pretend that it’s all good, that my husband doesn’t want to kill himself?”
Grey didn’t really know how to respond, so he went with, “We’re here for you, no matter what, I promise.”
“And I–holy shit, I’m meant to be Watch Commander now, aren’t I? Now that Tim’s out, I’m Watch Commander.”
“In an ideal situation, yes, but this is far from ideal.”
Lucy cried again, her tears staining her cheeks. “I–I can’t, Grey, I can’t do it right now.”
“I know, Lucy, I know,” he said, soothingly. “Don’t worry about work. I’ll talk to the Captain and we’ll figure something out, okay? Take a few days off, get yourself and Zoe sorted, and see how you feel after that.”
“O-Okay,” she stuttered. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay. Is Zoe okay? I can hear her crying.”
Lucy let out a shaky breath. “She, uh, she won’t sleep. She doesn’t sleep when Tim’s not here. I’ve been up with her since we got home from the hospital.”
Grey let out a breath. “Is she going to sleep eventually? He won’t be back for another week.”
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears at bay. “She’ll, uh, she’ll cry herself out eventually. She’s just apparently… got a little more endurance than I thought.” She laughed sadly.
Grey didn’t.
“Do you want us to come over, Lucy?”
“Uh–,” She paused. She did want that. She didn’t want to be alone right now. She wanted her baby to go to sleep, and she wanted to not be by herself. She wanted her husband, too, but she couldn’t have him right now. It’s not like she was going to sleep without him here either, not until her eyes were falling shut and she was exhausted to beyond function. Which she kind of was. Right now.
“Yeah,” she replied, her voice small, and choked. “I do. But I really don’t want to impose. You guys don’t have to go out of your way for me.”
“Nonsense,” Luna said sleepily, from somewhere behind Grey. “We’ll be there in 20 minutes, honey.”
Sure enough, exactly 20 minutes later, there was a knock on the front door. Lucy opened it, Zoe, who was still screaming, on her hip.
She looked like a mess. Which, she supposed, was probably accurate to more than just her appearance. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, she had on one of Tim’s old academy shirts with Bradford on the back with a pair of his sweatpants that were rolled at the waist - and still too big. There was baby food in her hair and on her shirt, and dark circles under her eyes. Her makeup was smudged, like she hadn’t had time to rub it off when she got home, tear tracks of mascara down her cheeks outlining the fact that she’d been crying.
Luna didn’t hesitate to pull her into a hug, sandwiching Zoe gently between the two of them, taking Lucy aback a little bit. Luna pulled back, leaving a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, the opposite side that Zoe was perched on.
“Here,” said Luna. “Let me take her.”
“It’s okay, I got it, I promise. She’ll be asleep soon. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
Grey quirked an eyebrow from behind his wife, but said nothing.
Luna wordlessly took the infant from Lucy, and walked to the nursery with her. Lucy let her. She didn’t have anything left to fight.
A few minutes later, Zoe had quieted down, the calm presence of Luna there to fix all problems. Grey and Lucy awkwardly lingered in the hallway, watching Luna with Zoe, not saying a word.
“Alright honey,” said Luna, gently bouncing Zoe and stroking her soft face. She looked at Lucy. “She should be okay. Why don’t you try feeding her to help her get off to sleep? She should be a bit more receptive now.”
Lucy nodded wordlessly, a vacant look in her eyes, wrung out with exhaustion. She took the baby carefully from Luna and settled in the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery, the one that Tim had insisted upon after trialling no less than 50 chairs in about 8 stores. He’d been right, in the end. That chair was comfy, and both of them had accidentally fallen asleep there a couple of times (especially him).
Grey looked away, gesturing outside, as she pulled up her shirt and helped Zoe latch.
“I’m gonna–“ he vaguely pointed outside.
“It’s okay,” Lucy replied, without looking up at him. “You can stay, it’s fine. You don’t have to be weird, sir, it’s not like you haven’t seen me do this a hundred times by now.”
Grey nodded, and he and Luna moved further into the room, one on either side of the doorway.
The room was silent except for the sound of Zoe quickly suckling away. After a few minutes, she pulled off and looked up at her mama, her big blue eyes sleepily closing. Lucy smiled, supporting her baby with one hand while expertly using the other to pull her top back down. She stood, carefully tucking the baby in close to her, kissing her forehead gently, and then laid her in the crib, swaddling her. She looked back towards Grey and Luna for a second, her face pinched together in thought, before she quickly walked out of the room. Grey and Luna looked at each other, and then Lucy returned a moment later, with a shirt - presumably Tim’s - in hand. She gently wrapped Zoe in the shirt, making sure she didn’t stir. She paused a moment, brushing her hand over her daughter’s head, before whispering, “Goodnight, sweetheart. Mommy and Daddy love you. So much.” She paused for a moment, making sure the baby was asleep, before turning around.
As she did, Grey and Luna moved out of the doorway, and followed her into the living room. She sat down on the couch, pulling her legs up in front of her and wrapping herself in Tim’s favourite blanket, the one that smelt like him. She played with the ends of it as Luna took a seat on the same couch as her, while Grey dropped into the armchair across from them. None of them said anything for a while, Lucy maintained her attention on the blanket while Luna and Grey exchanged worried glances that she pretended not to notice.
After another ten minutes, Lucy finally spoke, “I should’ve known.”
Grey and Luna both looked at her, their faces softening. Luna spoke first. “You couldn’t have.”
“But I should’ve. I’m his wife. I know him better than anyone else. How…how did I miss this?”
Grey looked at her, his eyes full of pity. She refused to meet his gaze. “Sometimes, when people are hurting, they get really good at hiding things, Lucy. You know that better than anyone.”
Tears slipped down Lucy’s face. “I do, I know that. I just…he saved me. So many times. He figured out very quickly when something was wrong. He knew that I was depressed within, like, 4 days of the thoughts starting. I missed this. For weeks. For months. And now he’s in fucking hospital in the fucking psych ward because I fucking missed it!”
She was sobbing now, gasping for breath. Luna moved in front of her, kneeling in front of the couch. She reached for Lucy’s hands, but Lucy flinched like she’d been burnt. She was hyperventilating, her breaths choked with tears as she clawed at her chest.
“I want Tim,” she cried, her voice desperate and broken and heartbreaking.
“I know, sweetie,” Luna acquiesced. “He’ll be here soon. He’ll be home before you know it.”
It was another 10 minutes of Lucy’s panicked breathing and Luna’s gentle voice and Grey just watching the two of them before Lucy was able to speak again.
Lucy’s words were broken and stuttered as she spoke, gasping for breath. “What…kind of wife….am I…that I didn’t notice…this…was happening?”
Grey moved then, taking a seat at the end of the couch she was sitting on. He didn’t reach out, didn’t try to touch her, didn’t even really try to meet her eyes.
“You’re the love of Tim’s life, Lucy. And it’s not like you didn’t know. I know you knew that he wasn’t doing great, because even I could see that. But Tim has always been good at hiding how he feels. He developed that habit long before he met you, and when he’s in crisis, he always falls back on it, to an extent. You know that. But you two trust each other, so much, and that started long before you were together. You trusted that if he really needed help, he would’ve reached out. And normally he would’ve, normally he would’ve. But if I’m being honest? I think he was scared. Because reaching out meant admitting that he had taken a few steps back, meant admitting that things were this bad, and in his mind that means failure. And none of that is your fault, Lucy. None of it.”
Lucy fidgeted with the blanket, her fingers wringing over each other in her lap.
“Grey, he…he knew something was wrong even before I did. You know this, I had PPD after I had Zoe. I had a good first week, and then the second and third week were horrible. I just wanted to sleep all the time. I didn’t want to see her, or Tim, or anyone. I woke up only to feed her and Tim did everything else. He figured it out halfway through the third week. And he sat with me on the bathroom floor when all I wanted to do was cut myself, and he took my razor blades and my scissors and everything else sharp away from me, and he kept me safe, and he made sure I ate, and made sure I showered, and took me to therapy and cleaned my wounds and talked me off a ledge more times than I can count, all while taking care of a newborn. But I couldn’t even do half of that.”
“Lucy,” Grey said carefully. “He’s in the right place now, he’s getting the help that he needs, okay?”
She nodded, biting her lip trying to keep the tears at bay. “Mmhmm. Mmhm.”
He reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently. “Do you think maybe you should get some sleep?”
Lucy nodded, almost imperceptibly. She slowly pulled herself up off the couch, dragging Tim’s blanket with her to their bedroom, and wrapping herself in the covers. Grey and Luna sat on the edge of her bed as she cried, moving to his side of the bed after a few minutes. After another 20 minutes, she was asleep.
They both carefully stood up, careful not jostle her, and closed the door quietly behind them.