Lost is Found - Full Story

Lost is Found: Part 9

Time moved in slow motion. Lucy stopped in her tracks, face paling. The seconds seemed to stretch into eternities, each tick of the clock warped into hours. Sound muffled and distorted to an irritating ring in her ear.

Lucy didn't know how long she stood there, watching the brown of Kofi's fingers blend with the red-black of femoral blood, stark against Tim's pale and shaking face.

Tim's face. Tim. Tim was shot. He was bleeding out. He needed help. He needed her.

And just like that, Lucy sprang back to life: the seconds snapped back to seconds, sound came back, and she was radio-ing for help as she crashed to her knees on the ground. Kofi's grip was tight, unforgiving and uncaring of Tim's writhing. She supposed this was the military man in him, where the only goal was to keep the casualty alive. She didn't disturb him.

Two paramedics burst through the space where the glass door had been, boots crunching over shattered glass. In a little under a minute, Tim's wound was packed.("We're trying to avoid  a tourniquet: once it goes on, it'll likely not come off again - unless his leg does too," the paramedic had said as she shoved gauze into the hole. No exit wound.)

"I'm going with him!" Lucy said to Grey's shocked face as she charged past next to the medics, and Tim on the stretcher. He had stopped writhing. Lucy climbed into the ambulance after Tim and grabbed his bloody hand immediately. The last Grey saw was Lucy's lips on Tim's fingers, tears glistening on trembling cheeks before the doors slammed shut on them. Grey saw but didn't register: the information would hit him later.

Tim was under the knife for three hours and twenty one minutes. Kofi had washed up and given his statement, then retreated to his home on mandated leave. Technically, since Lucy and Peck didn't see the shooting, protocol meant they weren't actually required to take leave. For that, Lucy was grateful. Unfortunately, Peck wasn't faring so well.

He was scared, understandably so. He hadn't moved from his chair in the waiting room. His stare was fixed in some non existent point in the great beyond. Bitten fingernails gripped the arms of the chair, so his fingertips were white with the pressure. His knee bounced up and down.

Lucy paid him no mind. She was preoccupied already, adrenaline surging through her veins.

When Tim came out of surgery, she sat with him, running her hands through his hair. Her heart did not slow. The gel in it was stroked and smoothed, turned to dust until eventually Lucy's fingers swept smoothly through golden strands, turned copper with the stain of old blood.

Fifty minutes passed before Tim began to shift. Lucy saw when he woke up. His brows drew together, his muscles tensed, and he sighed a deep, pained sigh. Truthfully, Tim's body looked tired, weak and old, lying still there in the bed. This would mark the third time he was under the knife for a bullet. The fourth time he'd been shot. How many more times could his body handle this?

Lucy gripped Tim's fingers, searching his face as his eyes fluttered open. The corners of his mouth twitched upward at the sight of Lucy before him, and when he spoke, his voice was gravelly.

"You look worse than I do," he struggled out.

"That's not funny," she chastised, but she was still stroking his arm gently. Her other hand was still in his hair, twining the longer strands at his crown around her fingers. "I was so scared," she whispered softly.

"I know," was his reply. "I'm okay, though. I'm here."

"You can't keep doing this," she huffed out a bitter laugh. The corners of Tim's eyes crinkled in amusement.

"I promise i'll try not to get shot anymore - does that make you feel better?"

Lucy lifted his hand and kissed his palm twice. "So much better. Sleep now, my love."

Tim took a grand total of twenty seconds to succumb to sleep, the pain and fatigue leaving his face. Even in sleep though, his eyes twitched as images flurried behind his eyes, traumatic snow.

As the adrenaline began to drain from her system, the days events started to hit her. She let go of Tim's hand and stumbled out of his room, pressing her hand firmly to her chest to calm her racing heart. Anxiety drummed its claws against Lucy's glass heart, spider-web cracks opening her to pure dysphoria. She got two steps from Tim's door before the glass of her heart shattered, and fear drove carelessly through the crevasses the sharp edges left.

Her chest heaved with unshed tears, her body wracked with sobs, and she was reduced to a shaking mass on the floor. Her badge and gun digging into her side didn't even register.

Fortunately, it was at that moment that Nolan and Grey rounded the corner.

"Lucy!" He called, shocked. "Hey, hey Lucy, I heard about Tim, are you okay?"

Nolan lifted Lucy to her feet and pulled her into a hug.

It hit Grey, then, what he had seen before the doors of the ambulance shut on Chen and Bradford.

Nolan led Lucy away as she cried into his chest. He heard some muffled murmur of how she was so scared, that she couldn't lose him.

Grey blinked. That was a job for another day. At present, one of his best (and favourite) officers was shot. He looked about the waiting room, his gaze falling on Samuel Peck: their newest rookie, looking rather worse for wear. This had to be one of the most horrible first shifts heard of. He wouldn't be surprised if Peck wanted to quit after this - he wouldn't even blame him. Glancing through the window into Tim's room, he saw the latter was asleep, and so Grey made the decision to go check in with Peck instead.

"Peck," he called.

"Yes sir!" His answer was overly loud, rehearsed. First day on the job, and the impact of Tim Bradford could already be seen. He smiled fondly.

"At ease rookie, I'm just checking in - are you good?"

A hesitation, then: "yes sir, I'm good."

"You don't look good."

"I'm good."

"You sure?"

No answer. Peck's chin dropped to his chest, and finally, finally, he let go of the chair arms for the first time that evening.

"It was really scary, you know? I mean, I've never seen an actual shooting before, only ever on the news or on like, TV. And for Sergeant Bradford to get shot? I mean, Officer Chen was so worried, and she's so badass, and she totally froze when she saw him bleeding!" Peck's voice was bordering on hysterical by the time he'd finished his piece. 

At this point, Grey reached out and squeezed Peck's shoulder. "A shooting's a scary thing to witness. Especially on your first shift. You're twenty two years old. I'm more than double that, and shootings still scare me shirtless, even when I'm just reviewing body-cam footage!" Peck turned to Grey, a confused, and yet relieved look in his eye. "That fear? It never goes away, but you do learn, eventually, to react to it better. Every time will be different, but every time will get easier."

Peck nodded, and relaxed ever so slightly. Grey continued, "you will have mandated sessions with a shrink, of course, but you can continue those sessions if you'd like to," he finished. Grey stood up, and patted Peck on the shoulder again before he departed to enter Sergeant Bradford's room.

Peck caught a glimpse of his pale, still face before the door swung shut. He looked around to Officer Chen, who was leaning against Officer Nolan, his arm round her.  She looked better, comforted. Like she was with family.

He hoped to have family like that one day.

FIN

And that's all, I hope y'all enjoy this obnoxiously long chapter. Yes it's not all Chenford, but considering this doesn't count as a 'oneshot' persay, I feel like it's good to branch out to characters OTHER than Chenford themselves (also it's my book and I can do what I want lol)

Do we like Peck? Is there anything else we'd like from this story, because I'm considering ending it soon. Don't wanna drag it out yk?

Remember to please vote and comment, a that's all for now, au revoir ❤️