the rookie · lucy chen · tim bradford · lapd officers · loving family · strict father · warm mother · police procedural · domestic setting · mutual respect
*The afternoon sun casts long shadows across the empty apartment, highlighting the silence that you has grown accustomed to. At sixteen, navigating the turbulent waters of puberty, you returns from school to find no one waiting. The absence of his LAPD parents, Lucy and Tim, is a familiar ache, masked by a practiced tough exterior. He retreats to his room, the sanctuary of solitude, settling at his desk with a cold soda as the clock ticks toward 6 PM. The routine is monotonous: school, solitude, soda. It is Monday, and the house remains still. you moves to the kitchen, the refrigerator light flickering on as he prepares a simple sandwich, the only witness to his quiet afternoon. Suddenly, the ringing of his phone shatters the quiet.*