Chapter Text
“What would you do with a week of PTO and the sweet boost of cash from taking on a special assignment with hazard pay and overtime bonuses?”
The seat dips slightly under his weight as he shifts, but Lucy keeps her eyes fixed out the window, continuing to take in the stunning scenery whizzing past as she awaits his answer.
“With only a week?” Tim’s voice rumbles from just a few feet away. “You’d spend half that time stuck in traffic just trying to get out of Los Angeles. Might as well stay home.”
She can’t suppress her eye roll as she finally turns her chin to look over at him. “Fine. Two weeks. I haven’t had any substantial time off since before I joined the academy and I’m looking for ideas.”
She isn’t prepared for the intensity of his gaze as their eyes lock together— him studying her. But that look… she can almost read his mind— the way he’s searching for a deeper meaning to her question.
Wondering if her asking is akin to an invitation.
She bites her lower lip, not backing down.
They’ve been in this dance for weeks. Neither one of them daring to make the move to finally bridge the gap.
Today isn’t any different.
After a heated moment, he slouches a little further in his spot, lifting one shoulder and letting it drop back down. “I’d probably look up where the Dodgers were playing. Hope it was someplace nice enough to make it worth the trip.”
She raises an eyebrow, shooting him a pointed look. The tone of his voice told her everything. He said it to exasperate her.
But before she can make any sort of puckish remark in return, the US Marshall sitting in the front seat pipes in. “Come on man. You don’t have a single place you’ve been dying to see? That’s sad.”
Lucy grins, flopping to lounge against the seat back in triumph. “Thank you. At least someone realizes that having a little ambition to explore is actually healthy. Where would you go, Marc?”
He starts rattling off some long explanation about how he’d been wanting to make it back to the east coast to go fishing at one of his dad’s favorite haunts—
But Lucy is barely listening.
Because Tim’s eyes haven’t left her. She turns toward him slowly, feeling the heat of his gaze sear across her skin.
He lifts an eyebrow and she tilts her head, worrying her lower lip with the edge of her teeth.
She hadn’t exactly been surprised when he’d put himself forward to go on this assignment with her.
Even before the friction between them had started to dissipate, she wouldn’t have expected anything less. Especially not when she’d volunteered as added protection for a man with no less than seven mercenaries known to be out for his head.
But now—
Now that something had shifted… That a certain warmth had returned every time their eyes met and she felt herself softening more and more to him everyday—
There’d never been any question in her mind that he’d find a way to get himself assigned to the operation as well.
And if she’s being honest with herself, she wants him here— Even if she’s still not quite at the point where she can say it out loud.
“There’s also The Alamo,” Marc drones on. “That’s a real piece of American history right there. Something I think everyone should see at least once…”
Lucy vaguely nods in his direction, feigning just enough interest to pretend that she’s still listening.
They’re in the middle of escorting a key witness against Elijah Stone from his WITSEC relocation in Bear Valley back for the upcoming trial in Los Angeles. It wasn’t the type of assignment that LAPD officers would normally get pulled for, but with so many cuts to federal resources, an ask had been made.
And with her own personal funding decrease— namely the loss of her 5% pay bump after bouncing Ridley from the FTO program, it hadn’t taken much convincing when Grey had come to her with the offer.
The compensation was substantial. And it came with other opportunities too.
She’d taken full advantage of the assignment, making sure to use every moment of the almost seven hours of uninterrupted study time on the drive up—
Tim’s brain to pick whenever she needed in the seat beside her providing the cherry on top. Not to mention the little smiles gracing his lips when he thought she wasn’t looking.
And the scenery outside— soaring mountains and sprawling forests - wasn’t half bad either.
But now, the ‘tour van’ that they’d commandeered for the mission is a lot more crowded— two Marshalls occupying the front seats with their witness slouched and sulking in the back— and that easy air is gone.
Lucy isn’t worried per se. Certainly not wrought with the kind of tension that has Tim noticeably drawn tight in the seat beside her. But she’d be a fool not to keep her guard up, even if the likelihood that they’ll run into any kind of trouble, especially this far out in the middle of nowhere, is slim at best.
But it’s not so much of a cause for concern that she can’t be relaxed enough to have any reservations about keeping the conversation flowing. It helps the time go by faster. And she’s always loved picking people’s brains about this sort of thing.
“I think I’d probably stick closer to home,” Darryl, their driver pipes in. He coughs under his breath, tugging at his collar for a moment, then continues. “I might even bring the wife out to this area one of these days. She’s always going on about how beautiful Yosemite is supposed to be. And I think I’d enjoy it more if I wasn’t working.”
Lucy nods sagely, finally turning her chin to once again enjoy the view. They’re still in the mountains, the road shaded by towering trees as it winds around the current peak they’re starting to climb. She’s sure the trails in the area are breathtaking and would love to get a chance to explore them. Preferably with Kojo in tow. “It would probably be gorgeous around here in the fall. More tolerable temperatures… less tourists…”
She slants a glance at Tim from the corner of her eye, wanting to gauge his thoughts—
But only gets a brief glimpse before her musings are interrupted.
“This place is a dead end. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. It sucks the fucking life out of you. I don’t know why anyone would ever come out here by choice.”
Tim rolls his eyes, his jaw tightening as he shifts to look over his shoulder at the back seat. “Can it, Jeff. No one asked you.”
“That’s not my name man, and you know it.”
Tim exhales through his nose, clinging to whatever morsel of patience he has left. “It is until you walk through those courthouse doors, and not a second before.”
Lucy grimaces, but she doesn’t disagree. They may not be treating this assignment as a true UC mission. They hadn’t been assigned carefully crafted covers, and everyone in the vehicle is completely in the know.
But still, for security reasons, protocol dictated that Joel Wilson continue to be referred to by his protected identity at all times outside of the actual trial. And considering the whispers they’d been hearing from their CIs, it was with good reason.
‘Jeff’ falls back against the seat with a huff, throwing his hands up in front of him, the metal of the cuffs around his wrists glinting in the sunlight. “As if any of that shit matters, man. You think anyone would actually believe we’re out on some holiday the second they see these? Y’all are even dumber than you look.”
Tim bristles, but before he can snap back, Lucy reaches over and puts her hand on the seat beside his thigh. He notices the movement, his eyes darting down. Then he forces a breath, his shoulders deflating half an inch.
“The handcuffs are because you’re a flight risk,” Lucy reminds their subject calmly. “They’re to protect everyone in this vehicle in case you decide to try throwing open one of the doors. You’re not under arrest. But if you decide to renege on the deal that you agreed to, that changes.”
Wilson sinks further into his slouch, his short dreads flopping into his eyes as he regards her with a scowl. “Whatever man.”
Lucy doesn’t turn back around just yet, worrying her lips together, still in thought.
He lets out a huff, shaking his head with a dramatic eye roll. “That dump y'all left me in is still a dead end though. You wanna know what my options were for employment? Grocery clerk or janitor at the visitors center. There is literally nothing to do in that town. Even the gas station closes by 10pm.”
The corner of Lucy’s lips ticks up with a hint of amusement.
“Because when your previous work experience essentially amounts to drug and weapons trafficking, it doesn’t exactly set you up with a bevy of transferable life skills.” Tim grumbles under his breath.
Wilson makes a face, but Lucy lets out a breathy chuckle. “It’s true, you know. Not a lot of gang activity up in the Sierras. Pretty sure that was kind of the point,” she adds wryly.
Wilson turns to aim his glare back in her direction, but there’s no real heat behind it, the tiniest hint of self deprecating amusement trying to peek through in the twinkle in his eyes. He’s been putting on a show of pouting every chance he gets since they’d accepted him into their custody. But Lucy knows she’d secretly won him over.
She lets her expression soften a bit, pulling her leg up onto the seat beside her to turn more comfortably as they rattle over a few bumps. “So what would your suggestion for a short getaway be then?”
Tim scoffs, muttering something about how smuggling dope across the border doesn’t count.
Without looking over, she whacks the side of his thigh as subtly as she can.
Darryl lets out another low cough in the front seat, and she’s pretty sure that Tim is glaring daggers into the side of her head, but she ignores them both.
Wilson stares at her for a long moment, sizing up whether or not her interest is genuine. After a long pause, he relaxes. “I’d head down to Mexico. You can’t actually relax and call it a vacation unless you leave the country. Plus the beaches… the women—”
Out of nowhere, an odd, spluttering noise sends goosebumps racing up the back of Lucy’s neck, right as the van jolts slightly.
Unconsciously her body tenses, a cold shot of adrenaline rushing through her veins.
“Darryl?!” Marc shouts. Out of the corner of Lucy’s eye, she sees him lunging across the center console, reaching a hand for the steering wheel.
Turning back quickly she sees the driver’s face has turned an alarming shade of scarlet, and it’s only then that she notices the sweat soaking through the back of his shirt as he clutches a hand at the center of his chest.
“Oh my god,” she murmurs, reaching forward in her seat, but the restraint over her shoulder cuts the motion short, constricting across her body.
Tim is also in action, grabbing Darryl’s other arm and offering curt directions, but Lucy can’t hear them over the sudden buzzing in her ears.
She sees Marc click the buckle beside his hip open, trying to give himself more room to maneuver as one hand grips white-knuckled at the top of the wheel and the other reaches into the footwell for the brake—
But they don’t slow down.
Lucy claws at the strap biting into the side of her neck, jerking it looser so that she can lean forward, grabbing the seat back in front of her for leverage, a hollow forming in the center of her chest.
The cacophony in her head reaches a fever pitch—
Just as the road curves sharply, their tires not following.
She gets a brief glimpse of the pure blue of the sky, filling the windshield, the color so rich it leaves her eyes burning.
Fingers thread through hers— the familiarity of the warmth of Tim’s hand engulfing her own sending a pang right through her heart.
His eyes are piercing, shining with an intensity that she’s never seen before. And for a second everything freezes. All that exists is that unbreakable moment. The air thick between them, filled with so much left unsaid.
But not unfelt. Never unfelt—
And then her stomach bottoms out, that beautiful blue disappearing in an instant.
Chaos reigning in its wake.
Her body slams forward before being tossed from side to side like a rag doll.
She doesn’t even have a moment to process any of it before the tumbling world around them flashes away and everything goes black.