Work Text:
i .
There’s an earthquake at six p.m on the hottest day of the year so far, rattling the dishes waiting to be washed in the sink, shaking the walls so hard that the framed photo of the two of them from the night of Angela’s actual wedding tumbles to the ground, glass shattering on impact. It doesn’t last long, maybe fifteen seconds or so, just long enough for Lucy to chew and swallow her mouthful of Lucky Charms and for Tim to rush into the room, plaid shirt half buttoned, his eyes a little wild.
“You ok?” He asks quickly, as the shaking subsides, bracing his arms on the sturdy wood of the kitchen table and checking her for any visible signs of injury.
“Yeah,” Lucy nods, looking down at her bump beneath the stretched grey fabric of the t-shirt Tim used to do yard work in. She’s claimed it now, one of the only things she can fit into these days, has stretched it out enough that it’ll be useless to him now anyway. “I don’t think the kid liked that, though. He won’t stay still,” she winces, feeling the baby’s sharp kicks against her insides.
“That’s because he takes after you,” Tim comments, bending to kiss her head.
Lucy shoots him a withering look, “just so long as he doesn't take after you with his birth weight.” She winces again as the baby wriggles more, a foot getting jammed up beneath her rib cage.
Tim reaches over, spreads one palm flat against the swell of her belly. It doesn’t do much to still the baby, but it calms Lucy a little. She’s lived in California for most of her life, is accustomed to the feeling of her earth shaking under her feet. But this one felt bigger than the quakes she's used to, and she’s felt off-kilter for the past weeks as it is, as she crept up to her due date and watched it pass without ceremony. She’s nine days overdue now.
A distant part of her wonders whether the quake will finally shock her body into labor, but other than the ever-familiar dull ache in her back, nothing feels different.
Lucy’s about to ask Tim how bad he thinks the damage from the earthquake might be, but there’s a clicking sound from the other room; the telltale sign of their air conditioning switching off, and the bright green clock numbers on the oven’s display panel disappear.
Tim notices too, standing up straight again, hand falling to his side. “Power must be out.”
Lucy groans. As if she doesn’t have enough to deal with. “Think the quake knocked something loose?”
“Probably,” Tim comments, stepping towards the window and peering out onto the street. Lucy struggles to her feet to join him.
It’s summer, the sun still high in the cloudless sky, and aside from a few car alarms going off, there’s no sign that anything’s amiss.
“I’m gonna check the outside of the house, ok? See if there’s any more damage, or if I can do something about the electric,” Tim says, squeezing Lucy’s shoulder as he passes.
Lucy would have helped him before, what feels like years ago now, before her body became alien to her, skin stretched out tight across her stomach, before it took her twice as long to do the things she once took for granted. It’s not that she isn’t excited about the baby, because she is, now she’s had time to get her head around it and they’ve filled up the spare room with a crib and a shelf of picture books and a closet stuffed to the brim with tiny, soft clothes. But she can’t help grieving the person she used to be, will never be again, just a little bit.
The baby wasn’t quite planned, and sure, they were in a good place when it happened, were living together and had made plans for the future, but on days like today she wishes she got those extra few years they’d budgeted for when they mapped out what they wanted to happen next.
Other times, it feels perfect, like the universe lined up everything for them just so. Sometimes she passes the sonogram pictures stuck to the refrigerator with bright letter magnets and she can’t help but smile, or she listens to Tim reading to the bump while she’s half asleep and wonders how her heart hasn’t melted entirely.
Either way, this is her path now. She’s committed to making the best of it. So she picks up a trash bag and a broom, struggles to her knees, and sweeps up the fragments of the glass from the tile.
ii .
Whilst there’s no damage to their house, there’s also no easy fix for the electric, and since Tim’s got a night shift starting imminently, he suggests Lucy comes too. There’ll be power there at least, and they can make the necessary calls to see about getting things working again at home.
The ride in is slow, traffic backed up more than usual, and they spend it trying to assess the damage from the quake. Tim makes some calls, Lucy Googles, and they spend the final fifteen minutes of the drive in relative silence, radio turned up and tuned into rolling coverage of the event. It’s mostly structural damage; cracks in facades of houses and roads and burst water mains and, as they’re all too familiar with now, power outages.
The station is in chaos when they arrive, and after Tim walks her in with a hand on the small of her back, he’s pulled into a briefing with Grey and a handful of other senior officers. Lucy plans to ask him if there’s anything she can do to help when he reappears with information, waits him out on the desk she’s been working at for the past few months, once the department’s occupational health team decided she was too far gone to stay on patrol. She never thought she’d miss the desk, but two weeks ago her blood pressure got a little high after a stressful day, and she’d been placed on leave until after the baby’s born. Needless to say, the occupational health team have quickly become Lucy’s least favorite department.
Someone else has clearly been using the desk in her absence, and she busies herself stacking the loose papers and pushing the little collection of candy wrappers into the trash can with disdain.
“Still going, Mama?” Lucy looks up to find Smitty walking past her desk, gesturing to her bump. She’s been getting comments like these for a month already, is almost ready to bodily harm the next person who throws one her way, consequences be damned.
“Yes. Clearly ,” Lucy growls through gritted teeth, turning back to the desk and picking up the pen holder from its side, stuffing the mismatched collection of biros and mostly blunt pencils back inside.
“Have you tried-”
Lucy holds up a finger to silence Smitty. “I’ve tried literally everything . There’s nothing new you can bring to the table here.” She shoots him a look she hopes properly conveys her feelings, guesses it works when he holds up his hands and walks away.
He’s replaced by Jackson a second later; someone she’s much happier to see. He looks surprised to see her, but reaches down to hug her quickly so she doesn’t have to get up.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be here?” He asks, pulling up a chair to sit next to her.
“The quake took down our air conditioning,” she groans, “and it’s hot out there.” Lucy winces as the dull ache in her back sharpens for a moment, readjusting in her chair to find a more comfortable position.
When she looks back up at Jackson, he’s watching her with eyes twice as wide as usual. “You’re not, like, about to give birth here, right?” He asks, looking her up and down nervously.
“What?” Lucy frowns, forgetting her friend has no idea that the last weeks of pregnancy are a constant string of one discomfort after another. “No. God, I wish. I don’t think he’s ever coming out of there.”
“Oh! My mom asked if you’d tried-” he stops speaking abruptly, before Lucy can yell at him or cover her ears with her hands or throw up, or all of the above, in that order.
His eyes are fixed on a point directly behind Lucy’s shoulder, and when she spins, she finds Tim signalling to Jackson to stop . He stuffs his hands into his pocket and tries to arrange his features into something casual, but it’s too late, Lucy’s seen it. She’s happy he’s stopping Jackson, but gets the sense he’s doing it more for Jackson’s benefit than for hers.
“Trust me. We’ve heard all the suggestions, unless your family has single-handedly managed to revolutionise childbirth,” Tim says, squeezing Lucy’s shoulder. “Keynes just asked me outright if we’ve tried sex . Said it was the only way his mom could get him out,” Tim’s voice is heavy with disgust, and Lucy grimaces involuntarily.
“Ugh! Has Keynes even ever talked to you before?” Lucy asks, remembering the way Harper’s overzealous, unfiltered rookie always seemed terrified of Tim.
“I don’t think he has, and I never want him to again.”
“More to the point, why is that so many people’s first suggestion?” She rounds on Jackson, “wait, please don’t tell me that’s what your mom was asking if I’d tried?”
“Uh, no,” Jackson confirms, shuddering, “I would never talk about that with my mom. Unlike Keynes, apparently. But you’re both, y’know… nice to look at. People are gonna say it,” he shrugs.
“Jackson!” Lucy chides him.
“What! Objectively speaking, you are .”
“Ok, enough of this. West, you’re riding with me tonight. People are taking advantage of the power outage. There’s looters, so go stock the war bags.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Lucy asks, as Jackson wanders away.
“You’re not supposed to be working,” Tim reminds her, as Lucy raises one hand to cover his on her shoulder. He pulls back a little so that he can tangle their fingers together.
“I’m fine, Tim, I’m sure there's something I can do. I’m not saying I want to come with you and deal with the looters, but answering phones or something isn’t gonna elevate my blood pressure.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Have you tried answering phone calls from the public?”
“Yes,” she fights the urge to roll her eyes, “and I know how to deal with them.”
“Lucy,” he rounds her chair, standing in front of her with their hands still joined. “You’re not here to work. You’re here because there’s power in this building. Go sit in the break room and order postmates, call the power company, and I’ll try to get back here as soon as I can.”
“You think calling the power company is gonna be any less stressful than speaking to the public?”
He considers. “You’re right. I’ll call the power company.”
“No, Tim, I’m kidding! I’ll call them. Go deal with your looters.”
“Love you. Don’t be a hero,” he leans to kiss her forehead, lets her hand go, and begins to walk away.
“I’m inside a police station. What’s the worst that can happen?” She calls after him. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t hear her, watching him until he disappears from view.
iii .
If Lucy had seriously thought about a metaphorical worst that can happen inside the station, she’d probably have wagered on a bomb threat or an anthrax scare, or maybe someone coming in and trying to rob the evidence lockup. She doesn’t bank on a powerful aftershock from the earthquake shaking the building’s foundations and, ultimately, she guesses from the way they’re immediately plunged into darkness, damaging more of the city’s power networks and whatever backups the station has in place.
The aftershock rattles the desks and chairs, sends the pot of pens she’d righted careening to the floor. It’s only been fifteen minutes since Tim left, and Lucy had been on hold with the power company, absently researching yet more ways to induce labor on her work computer despite the fact she’s already read through no less than sixteen pages of Google results.
The ten minutes after the aftershock are manic; the phone lines go down, flashlights and temporary lighting units are passed around, senior officers are yelling orders across the floor, and Lucy’s trying her best to help whilst the pain in her back spreads to her lower stomach, increasing in intensity. She’s sure it’s some kind of muscle cramp, or the baby sitting in a weird position.
Her main concern during the chaos is whether Tim’s ok, out on patrol. She knows only too well that he can handle himself in almost any given situation, though there’s always a low level of worry for him ticking over in the back of her mind, but a natural disaster doesn’t care how capable of a cop a person is, isn’t something he can train for or outsmart. Lucy borrows a radio, her cell phone reduced to a useless hunk of metal and wiring with no service and patchy internet, and hears his voice for just long enough for them both to confirm to the other that they’re ok, before he’s telling her he loves her and that he has to go.
Worry quietened a little, Lucy’s left standing in the middle of the noise, seemingly the only officer without a job to do, and she’s so sick of feeling useless that when Nyla appears and asks her if she wants a job, she says yes without follow up.
“Outages make people crazy. Crazier than usual,” Nyla says, leading Lucy to the front of the building.
“I’ve noticed,” Lucy half laughs, hands on her belly, waiting out the twinge of pain.
“Some of them get bold, others get scared. Both extremes of the spectrum are likely to show up here for one reason or another.”
“So, what do you need me to do?” She asks, eager to do something - anything.
“We have a lot of people coming in off the streets. Most officers are needed out on patrol, but I’ve got a couple of rookies and some of the non essential staff on triage. I need you to manage them.”
Lucy freezes in the hallway. “Manage them?”
Nyla turns, noticing she’s stopped. “Yeah, Lucy, manage them. I need someone with their head screwed on straight, someone who won’t fall to pieces under pressure, someone who has recent experience working directly with the public, out on the streets. You seemed like the perfect person for the job. You up for it?”
When Lucy had told her parents about the baby, putting it off for as long as possible, until somewhere around the fifteen week mark when she broke down and told them over an awkward as hell lunch, they’d been worried for two reasons. The first was because they were unsure how committed Tim was to her, not having been together that long, and not being married. He’d allayed their fears as best he could, using the calm cop voice she’s heard him use on people in crisis situations on the worst days of their lives countless times.
The second - as most things seem to be with them - concerned her job. They’d told her to quit, or to at least take some time out, told her it was too dangerous. She’d explained that she was fine, that she had it handled, that she was capable , and not the least bit fragile.
As her bump grew, it wasn’t just her parents who treated her differently, but the attitudes of other cops; her friends; cashiers; old ladies she passed in the street; and once, in an odd turn of events, a robbery suspect who’d been high on something had surrendered on sight because ‘ ah shit, I can’t make a pregnant lady run after me .’
She’s had to remind people that she’s not breakable so often that Tim had joked she should get a sign or an FAQ sheet made up to hold in front of anyone who questioned her.
So, sure, maybe she is nine days overdue, in pain, and a little shaken up, but this all feels like one final test she’s got to pass to prove to herself and to anyone who’s looked at her differently in the past nine months that she’s as capable as ever.
“Right. I can do it,” Lucy nods, wincing a little as the pain sharpens.
Nyla studies her for a second. “Everything ok?”
“Mmhmm!”
Nyla steps closer, lowers her voice. “If you need to stop, or leave, or go to the hospital, call me right away, ok? I can find someone else to do this. But you’re my number one choice.”
Lucy nods, pride at being chosen for something important fighting the increasing pain and the nagging sensation that something’s not right.
The pride wins. She thinks it was always going to.
“Yeah,” she says, with as much confidence as she can muster, “I want to help. I can do this,” she repeats. Nyla leads her out to the reception. Lucy starts to wonder if, maybe, what she’s feeling isn’t just a weird muscle cramp.
iv .
Triage is busy enough that it keeps Lucy’s adrenaline levels up, makes time move faster, lets her brain work like she’s figuring out a difficult puzzle, the way she hasn’t been able to test it in a long time. There’s a near constant stream of people coming in to report crimes, or ask questions, or collect bottles of water and flashlights from the big boxes deposited in front of the desk. Lucy half deals with the public and half with the small team, and it’s only an hour in that the pain digging itself into her lower back and belly becomes too painful to ignore. She’s forced to admit to herself that maybe, possibly , she’s finally in early labor.
But she’s done enough research to know that, especially for a first baby, the process takes hours - days in some cases. She’s confident that she can finish up here, get home, take a shower, and then, maybe , it’ll be time to go to the hospital.
So, Lucy grits her teeth and carries on, helps out with two lost kids who wander in, an elderly lady whose home has been burgled, a sickly looking man who left home without his medication, two car robberies, and a woman who comes in looking for her missing teenager and winds up crying on Lucy’s shoulder for thirty minutes, until said teenager calls her mom back when some of the cell towers come back online.
Somewhere around eleven p.m, during the busiest period of the night, Lucy’s pretty sure she feels her water break. It’s so hectic in the station that she makes it to the locker room undetected, cleans herself up as best she can and changes into the stash of clothes she’d put into her locker six weeks ago in case of this exact situation. She’s just thankful she forgot to empty the locker before she was placed on medical leave.
The worst pain yet hits her like a tidal wave near the door of the locker room, and she has to lean heavily against the wall, eyes scrunched shut, as she breathes through it. She knows she’s supposed to be timing them. She’s known that’s the thing you do with contractions since way before she got pregnant, knows she should be doing it, it’s just that it doesn’t seem important when there’s so much going on. She can put up with this pain, and it’s not like she’ll actually be ready to have the baby anytime soon.
“Lucy?” She jumps, pulling her eyes open, at the sound of her own name. It’s Angela, standing in the open doorway, half in the locker room, half out, flashlight shining in Lucy’s direction when she realises she’s there.
“Oh, hey,” Lucy tries her best to seem casual, pushing herself into an upright position, away from the wall. “Crazy out there, right?” Her eyes are watering. She fights the tears as hard as she can.
“You’re in labor!” Angela accuses with no preamble, striding to Lucy, door swinging shut behind her.
“No I’m not!” She tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a whimper, “why would you think that?”
“Lucy, look at you. You can’t even stand up straight!”
“I’m standing up straight right now .”
Angela raises her eyebrows, gives Lucy a second, then three, then five, and then watches as the pain crashes over her again, and she’s forced to lean back against the wall for support.
“Ok, we need to get you to the hospital. I’ll drive you, get your stuff.”
“No!” She protests, trying to breathe through the pain. “It’s just early labor, ok? I’ve got hours, I need to stay here and help.”
“You don’t know that you’ve got that many hours, I was only in labor with LJ for three! And weren’t you signed off work like two weeks ago?”
Lucy hesitates before answering, but she figures there’s no use in lying about this. “Yes.”
“Ok, you-”
“Angela, I just - I need to do this, ok? Everything’s gonna be fine. Just please , let me do this.”
Her friend studies her for a second, and the tightening in Lucy’s belly eases enough that she’s able to stand up straight again.
“Police stations are a really gross place to give birth in. Don’t leave it too long.”
Lucy wrinkles her nose at the idea. “Ew. Don’t worry, I don’t want this to be the first thing my baby sees.”
“God, no,” Angela laughs, “but look, I get it - the need to prove yourself. I’ve been there. I hid my pregnancy for as long as I could do nobody could treat me different,” she shrugs, and Lucy smiles gratefully at her. “Tim’s a tall dude though, you’re gonna wanna have this baby in the hospital. Just listen to your body, ok?”
“Don’t remind me,” Lucy groans. “But thanks. I will,” she smiles gratefully at Angela. “I better get back out there.”
“You’ve got this,” Angela passes her, squeezing her shoulder as she goes.
v .
Lucy has never been a quitter, whether that be the seventh grade volleyball tournament after she sprained her ankle during the tenth minute of the game but kept playing until the bitter end; the police academy after her parents told her time and time again to quit; or it turns out, working during the middle of a power outage and actual labor.
She makes it through another hour of the night, but right after midnight her whole body aches, and the contractions are so strong that she stops being able to speak through them. At that point, she’s pretty sure she also stops being any help to the triage team, but she tells herself she’s there in case of an emergency, and is able to help one of the administration staff find a form he needs, so she calls that a win.
Lucy’s just starting to panic the tiniest bit, eyes closed tight, regaining her breath after pain so severe she feels like she might possibly pass out, and it’s not that she’s worried she won’t be able to do this, it’s just that there’s a tiny inkling of fear in the back of her mind that maybe she should have gone to the hospital earlier.
There’s a sturdy hand on her shoulder, and Lucy thinks it’s one of the rookies trying to get her attention, but when she opens her eyes, she finds Tim kneeling in front of her, concern written all over his face, and she’s so relieved to see him she could cry.
“Tim?” She blinks, wondering for a second if it’s actually him, or a pain induced illusion.
“You were supposed to call me if this happened,” he reminds her, one hand cupping her cheek.
“I’m - I thought I’d be fine. I am fine, it’s just I - maybe I kind of should have gone to the hospital before?” She hisses, not wanting the rest of the triage team to overhear her.
“You want to try make it now? The roads are gridlocked,” he warns her, “hospital’s kind of crazy.”
Lucy considers it, goes through the motions in her mind of getting up and sitting in the front seat of a car, waiting in traffic, walking into a hospital full of scared people and busy employees. It doesn’t sound so different from right here. But here , at least, she almost feels at home. She’s spent countless early mornings and late nights here, felt sad and happy and scared, fallen in love, found her people. Police stations might be gross places to give birth, but right now, this is the best she's got.
So, she shakes her head, commits to her decision. If nothing else, they’ll have a great big story to tell their son when he’s older.
“Ok, c’mon. Can you walk?” He asks, seemingly reading her mind.
“I think so,” she nods.
Tim helps her to her feet, and slowly, carefully, they make it to the station’s medical suite - a small rectangular room containing a gurney and a desk and not much else. She settles onto the edge of the mattress, familiarises herself with the peeling yellow paint on the walls and the posters reminding anyone in here that they’re under surveillance. Everything looks a little creepy, bathed in the white glow of the temporary lighting units.
Tim pulls up the office chair beside the bed, doing something on his phone in a hurry, and as relieved as Lucy is that he’s there, she can’t help but wonder why .
“Hey, are you here booking someone?” She asks, the only logical explanation she has.
He looks up from his phone. “No. Why?”
“How are you here ? Aren’t you supposed to be out keeping peace all night?”
“Uh,” he ducks his head, taps something on his phone screen and then pockets it, looking a little sheepish. “Angela radioed me.”
“Of course she did,” Lucy groans. “I told her I was fine.”
He raises his eyebrows at her, “she thought otherwise, and look - she was right to call me. I had to walk halfway back and leave Jackson with the shop, the roads are so screwed up.”
“Wait, you walked here?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t that far. My legs are a lot longer than yours, Lucy, distance is relative.”
She’s about to protest, but another contraction hits her with very little buildup, and all she can do is grit her teeth and try to remember how to breathe. Tim’s up in an instant, standing in front of where she’s sitting, holding her hands and letting her squeeze them hard enough she’s surprised his bones don’t snap beneath her fingers.
“Angela’s finding someone to deliver this kid,” Tim tells her, when her ears have stopped ringing. “You’re doing amazingly. Just keep going, ok?” He leans to tug her close, rests his chin on the top of her head. They wait.
vi .
Lucy’s pretty sure that Angela is nothing short of a miracle worker. Within thirty minutes, she’s conjured up clean blankets and towels, hot water, a freshly stocked first aid kit, and an actual living, breathing EMT named Sylvia who had just so happened to be finishing up at a scene with her crew two blocks south. The roads are so jammed up that Sylvia says she isn’t sure she’d have made it here had she been much further away.
Sylvia brings a calm confidence to the tiny room, getting on with her job like she’s done it a thousand times. She’s older, reminding Lucy vaguely of her mom, which kind of makes her want to cry because she’s not even sure how much involvement she’ll want in her grandchild’s life. She doesn’t have time to dwell on it though, because before long, Sylvia’s telling her it’s time to push, and it hits Lucy that in a matter of minutes, if everything goes well, she’s going to be a mom herself.
For a lot of her pregnancy, the baby has seemed abstract, getting more and more real with every stage. The first time she struggled to button her jeans; when they found out they were having a boy; the first signs of movement inside of her and the first time she laid her hands atop Tim’s on her stomach and watched his eyes light up as he felt the kicks too. They all added to her concept of their child, building up an image of the person he might be. But now, in these last few moments before he’s actually here, it’s like it’s hitting her for the first time all over again.
She turns to face Tim, half on the bed beside her, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “We’re really doing this, huh?” She asks, in the space between contractions.
He laughs softly, leans over to kiss her temple. “Little late to back out now, Lucy.”
“He’s right, sweetie,” Sylvia says, pulling on a fresh pair of latex gloves, “ready when you are.”
The thing about pushing, like so much of childbirth, is that it looks easier in the movies. Lucy had figured she’d be doing it for five minutes, maybe ten, and then they’d have their baby, one chapter ending just like that, another one starting afresh. Instead, after thirty minutes and a whole lexicon of encouragement from both Sylvia and Tim, Lucy feels no closer. She can feel the energy draining out of her with each push, stars popping into her vision, tears in her eyes, hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.
She’s about ready to give up, mind drifting away from logic, and just let the baby stay in there forever.
“You’re getting so close now,” Sylvia assures her, squeezing her knee, and Lucy would love to believe her, but she swears she’s been telling her that for the past twenty minutes.
This isn’t how she planned for this to go. Their baby was supposed to be born in a hospital, on a normal day, with teams of doctors around and medication options. Right now, the pain is so bad that Lucy’s unsure how her body is still in one piece, Tim’s hold on her the only thing keeping her grounded.
“No,” Lucy shakes her head, voice hoarse, lips so chapped up that they hurt. “I need to stop. I just need a minute .” She leans her head back against Tim’s shoulder, every muscle in her body screaming at her.
Tim pulls her close, rocking her a little, planting a line of kisses along her cheek and her forehead.
“Lucy,” he’s talking to her in that steady, confident manner, the one he used to help her think her way out of problems a million years ago when she was his rookie. “If anyone can do this, it’s you. Know why?”
She shakes her head against him. He reaches a thumb out to brush away the tears gathering below her lash line, her arms too shaky to lift.
“There’s no quit in you,” Tim continues, “I’ve known that for as long as I’ve known you . It’s one of the best things about you, even if it has got you into trouble more times than I can count.”
If she was in less pain, if the world wasn’t spinning around her, she’d laugh, or swat at him playfully, or probably both. As it is, all she can manage is half a whimper.
“You don’t ever give up. You didn’t give up on me, or on Tamara, and you never back down from anything that scares you.” He pauses once more, kisses her temple again, waits for her breathing to even out. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. So don’t start quitting now. Ok?”
Lucy sits up a little, tilts her head just enough so that she can see him properly. He catches her eyes, brown meeting blue, smiles the soft smile she’s pretty sure he’s reserved only for her, the one that made her get butterflies around him for the first time, the one he gave her in the bathroom at home when she was trying her best not to freak out as she looked down at the little pink plus sign and realised for the first time that everything in her life was about to change.
He knows her better than anyone else. Sometimes, she wonders if he knows her better than she even knows herself. He hasn’t underestimated in a long time, maybe not since he had to rewrite his evaluation of her on her plain clothes day, is one of the only people who she never felt she had to prove her capability to whilst pregnant.
If he believes she can do this, he’s probably right.
So Lucy nods once more, tiny, almost imperceptibly, and then turns back to Sylvia with a newfound focus. She takes a deep breath, draws her strength from him, and pushes.
vii.
Their baby is born sometime in the quiet hours when the sky is turning pale, screaming into the unnatural white light of the hospital suite. Moments after he quietens in his mother’s arms, the power flickers back on, like the whole block had been holding its breath and waiting for his arrival.
He’s got brown eyes and tufts of light brown hair, he takes his first nap wrapped up in an LAPD issue blanket, and they weigh him on a fresh-out-the-box scale, the kind Lucy knows is usually reserved for weighing amounts of drugs found on suspects.
And though not a second of this is how Lucy pictured it in her head, when she and the baby are cleaned up, she leans back and watches as Tim holds him for Angela and Nyla to coo over, and it kind of feels like she’s exactly where she needs to be, right back at the place where their story started.