Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sava Wu has a plan.

Really, it’s the universe that came up with this plan. She’s just taking the opportunity. I mean, why else would she have an exact copy of herself, that lives and works as a goddamn cop, if it isn’t for Sava to be able to assume her identity so she can reclaim her ex’s chain from the evidence room?

Jake had died wearing it, and the thieving cops took it, and refused to give it back to her. She bought it for him—well, maybe she stole it from one of the families they were Parasiting, but damn it, she earned it. Regardless, it was worth a decent amount resale. She deserves to have it back, but the stupid cops gave excuses, like, ‘He was murdered, Miss Wu. Unfortunately, all items on his person are considered evidence. We’ll be able to process it back to its rightful owner once Lisa Miller’s trial is over.’

What a load of bullshit. These cops just want to steal her hard-earned possessions, when they’re supposed to be serving her. She pays their salaries, after all!

(What’s it matter that she’s missed a few years of IRS payments?)

Point is: Sava has a plan.

She’s got the uniform. She’s got the annoyingly tight hairdo. She’s got the little ‘Chen’ stitching. And, most importantly, she has a goddamn clone that works in the station. That’s her ticket in.

Sava walks into the station with confidence. She’s been studying the documentary long enough to get an idea of Lucy Chen’s mannerisms. Her politeness. Her sweetness. Her bubbliness. Surely, it has to be fake, but it’s how Lucy acts. She needs to sell it.

She barely makes it in before someone calls out a name. “Chen, just who I was looking for! Do you have a second?”

She recognizes the man—he’s the big boss around here, the one who had a portrait that looked like him. It takes Sava a minute to realize he’s talking to her. Right. “Yes?”

“I’m going to need you to take some overtime this weekend. Burns called out.”

“Overtime?” she whines, scrunching her nose. She hates work. Now, she has to do more of it?

The man crosses his arms, looking at her sternly. “Do you have a problem with that, Officer Chen?”

Oh, right. She’s not being Sava, right now. She’s being Officer Chen, just for a short period of time. This overtime doesn’t affect her at all. “No! Of course not. I’ll be there!”

She doesn’t know exactly what policemen—or, well, policewomen—are supposed to do with their boss. She thinks she’s watched enough TV to have a decent idea, though. So, she raises her hand to her head and gives him a salute.

The boss man shoots her a very confused look. “No need to overcorrect so much, Chen. I’ll see you at roll call.”

Sava takes the out, slipping away from the boss before she does something else that’s uncharacteristic. So, cops don’t salute. Noted.

She begins her search for the evidence room.

She thought there’d be some big, giant sign announcing it, but after a few awkward hellos, she’s not seeing anything anywhere.

Where the hell is this room? She can’t just ask someone; they’d be suspicious of her. What kind of cop doesn’t know where the evidence room is?

But she’s losing hope. She only has so much time before she accidentally runs into the real Lucy, or someone figures her out. So, she takes a chance on the next officer she sees.

“Hi—” She reads his nametag quickly. “—Smitty.”

“Hey, yourself, Chen!” the officer responds.

“So, this is so silly,” she says, in her more Sava-like innocent voice; it’s the voice she uses when she’s trying to convince men to do her dirty work. “But I’m having trouble finding the evidence room. I think I got turned around or something. I don’t know what came over me!”

For a second, the man looks confident, almost smug, to be able to help her. Then, his face falls. “You know, I actually don’t think I remember either.”

Oh.

“You don’t remember?”

“No, I haven’t bothered to go since the remodel,” he says with a shrug. “There’s nothing interesting in there. And there’s always someone bothering you. Not good for a break, or snacks.”

“And when was the remodel?”

The man thinks about it. “Ten, twenty years ago? Look, Chen, I really rely on you guys to do that kind of work for me. If you don’t know where it is, I think we’re gonna have a problem.”

Normally, she’d scowl at the man and say that she’s not his assistant, that he can do his own goddamn work, and he really should know where a very important room is, rather than forgetting because a pretty young thing will do it for him. She’s a perfectly capable cop—

She isn't a cop. Lucy’s a cop. But Sava thinks she’s rather capable, and shouldn’t be taking coffee orders for these old men.

And, well, the Lucy girl always seemed rather sweet. Sava doesn’t think she’d tell a coworker to shove it up his ass, or comment about how stupid his hair looks today.

“Thanks, handsome,” she answers instead.

The man looks briefly taken aback. “Handsome?” he asks, before running a hand over his hair and smiling. He preens. “Yes, I rather am handsome. Thanks, Chen!”

He raises his mug towards her in a toast motion, before walking out of the room with a little hum and a pep to his step.

So, Sava continues on with her mission.

Only to run into yet another person—and this one seems to know her. Lucy, that is.

“Hey, Lucy,” the familiar woman greets. Sava remembers talking to her, back when Jake was killed, and they were doing that documentary. She probably should’ve actually paid attention to the documentary, really, but she just watched an online supercut of Lucy’s scenes. She didn’t think she’d be in here for this long, and have to interact with this many people.

“Hey!” Sava greets in return.

“What’d you say to Smitty?” the woman—Sava remembers her to be Detective Harley, or Harper, or Harlow, or something like that—asks. “He was in way too good of a mood and he said that you made his day.”

“Just a little compliment,” Sava waves off, hoping it avoids any further questions. It does. The detective simply shrugs, and moves on with her day.

Sava sighs in relief.

She trudges on in her search. The next door yields some random office, plain and bare, as if it’d recently been stripped. Not what she’s looking for.

The next is a bullpen, but instead of a bunch of uniformed people, it’s many in suits. Detectives, she realizes.

Now, she doesn’t love how crowded it is. Most of these people are bound to know Lucy. But she sees there’s another little hallway just across the way, and maybe that’s where the evidence room is.

So, Sava steps into the danger zone, and tries to make her way through the bullpen as noticeably as she can.

“Hey, Chen!” a voice calls out.

Mission: Failed.

Sava holds in a groan before turning towards the detective who called for her.

Oh, well, this detective, she definitely remembers the name of. It’s an easy one, and matches the last name of her girlfriend in high school. “Hiya, Lopez!” she says, bouncing over in the way she’s noticed Lucy does when she’s excited.

“What’s up?” Lopez responds, looking her up and down. “Did you need something from the detectives?”

“No, no,” Sava says. “I was just on my way to the evidence room, actually.”

The detective narrows her eyes. “You know that’s completely in the opposite direction. What’s got you so weird?”

Shit.

Well, at least she has a direction the evidence room is in.

“You’re right, I was actually looking for you,” Sava quickly corrects, trying to avoid suspicion. “I’m having some...problems.”

Lopez raises an eyebrow. “What kind of problems?”

“Uh, you know what problems.” She says it a little suggestively, trying to insinuate something private. Maybe it’ll deter the detective; she doesn’t know if the two of them are close like that.

The eyebrow is now a mile high, as if she’s just heard something very interesting. “With Tim?”

Well, maybe they are.

Sava shrugs. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Huh,” Lopez utters out, before relaxing her features. “I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.”

“I guess not,” she agrees, not entirely sure what she’s agreeing to. Maybe Lucy’s boyfriend isn’t as good in bed as she would’ve thought. “I mean, I just feel like I have to do all the work.”

“Tim hasn’t done anything?” Lopez asks, almost offended. “He promised me that he was going to try harder. I really thought he was making it up to you.”

Wow, Lucy and Lopez must be really close. Sava isn’t exactly sure what they’ve talked about before. “He is. Making it up to me. Just...not the way that I want?”

“He’ll get there,” Lopez promises. “Just give him some time. And maybe give him a little something, too. I think he struggles because he doesn’t think it’s reciprocated.”

“Oh!” Sava exclaims, piecing everything together. “Of course. I’ll give him a blowjob! That’ll help.”

Immediately, the detective begins to cough, choking on air. She hits her chest a few times. “I—Oh.” Then, she smirks. “I guess that’s one way to do it.”

“Thanks for the advice!” she offers cheerfully. “Now, if you don’t mind...”

“Yeah. Good luck, Chen,” Lopez says, looking equally amused and confused.

Sava bounds away from that situation, into the hallway. Maybe the next room will be where she needs to be—

She runs smack dab into the man who is not Jake, but sure looks exactly like him.

So, she does the only thing she can think to do; what Lucy likely would do upon running into her own boyfriend.

She kisses him.

Tim doesn’t kiss the same as Jake; it’s less sloppy, and despite a brief pause where he seems a bit surprised, he immediately consumes her. He tilts his head, and she takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, probably in a way that’s not appropriate for work.

With that in mind, Sava slowly pulls away. Maybe that’s turned him on enough to turn his brain off, and their conversation can be very...surface level. Have a good day. Can’t wait to suck you off later. Normal couple stuff.

Tim stands there, dumbfounded. He blinks at her. “Wh-What was that for? Why did you do that?”

Suddenly, Sava is unsure. She’s had men confused at her affection, and Tim certainly looks just as wanting as he is dumbfounded, but there’s something truly shocked about his expression that unnerves her. Is he really that against PDA with Lucy? She’d seen the documentary—while they’d been relatively private, surely no couple willing to air their relationship on the literal air can be that against public affection. Plus, they’re obviously not very private with their friends, if her previous conversation with Lopez is any indicator. She masks her uncertainty with a flirtatious smile. “Just felt like it.”

“But... Aren’t you still mad?”

“Oh, I’m not mad anymore, baby,” Sava tries to salvage. She just needs to convince him nothing’s wrong, that she’s his normal Lucy, and then she can go back to her mission. “It’s all in the past.”

Tim frowns at her. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” she assures, her hand suggestively riding up his chest. The uniform really does something for her; it’s too bad Jakey didn’t live long enough for her to give a little roleplay a shot. “I can barely even remember what I was so mad about.”

She thought that would be enough to get him to go along, kiss her good, and she could tell him she’s gotta get back to work, just like Lucy would, but instead, he just looks even more confused as she leans in.

He gently pushes her back. “You forgot that I broke up with you?”

Broke up?

Sava’s kissing the man who broke up with her clone?

Well.

That’s awkward.

And very not good for her plan.

Sava laughs nervously. She plays it off as a little giggle. “I mean it metaphorically, of course.”

“Metaphorically.”

Oh, no. He’s starting to look at her suspiciously. It’s time to pull out the big guns.

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” Sava says, her eyes flashing up and down his body suggestively, her hand lingering at the collar of his uniform, where he’s eyeing doubtfully—and a little terrified. 

Her and Jakey may have not worked out—crashed a fiery way down, really—but she feels like at least their clones should get a happy ending. Maybe she can help it along.

“I’ve been thinking,” she repeats, the thought finally coming to her; the perfect words that she’ll know will make a man dumb for a minute, and also maybe give the two lovebirds the push they need. “Breakup sex is super hot. We should have some. You know, after work.”

Sure enough, the suggestion has Tim staring down at her, mouth slightly popped open, his mind predictably blank.

Then, she pats on his chest twice. “Someone’s calling for me!” she says brightly. “Gotta go! Bye!”

And with that, Sava escapes as fast as she can, leaving one very still officer in her wake.

However this ends, she deserves an Oscar for her performance.

Lucy’s morning has been rather average, really. She’s running a little late, but it hardly counts, because she’s picked up Tim’s annoying habit of being at the station and changed into uniform an hour early. So, her version of late still means she’s got fifteen minutes before roll call. Enough time to grab her coffee and relax for a minute.

Except, well, this plan quickly backfires when she’s halfway into making her coffee and her ex-boyfriend strolls in, looking rather shaken by something.

“Oh,” she says, a little awkward. “Hi. Good morning.”

“I, uh,” Tim stammers, rather uncharacteristically for a simple greeting, even these days. “How did you get here before me?”

She looks at him curiously. “I just got here. Are you running late too?”

“No, I mean—” He looks back suddenly, then glances at her, throwing his thumb back to point. “You were just in the hallway. How’d you get around so fast?”

Lucy tries to think back. She’d been in the hallway at some point upon her arrival, before she changed into uniform, but that had been a bit ago. Then, she exited the locker room and came straight here, from the other entrance. “Tim, it’s been ten minutes.”

“No, it was—” He stops himself, inhaling sharply, seemingly deciding to drop the subject. “Look, Lucy, we need to talk,” he tells her. She furrows her brow, unsure. His voice lowers down to a whisper as he adds, “You may want to pretend like that didn’t just happen, but I need to talk about it.”

She blinks at him. “Talk about what?”

“About the kiss.”

Her head retracts, taken aback. “What?”

“And the breakup sex offer—”

“Hang on!” she almost screeches, her head spinning. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Tim stares at her for a long moment. Then, he glances at the hallway he’d pointed at earlier, unsure. Then, back at her—or, more specifically, her hair. It’s part of the reason she’s late, really; she decided to do a braided bun, and she had lost track of time.

But, before he opens his mouth to explain what the hell he’s doing, talking to her about breakup sex in the middle of the station break room, Nyla comes into the room and makes a beeline for the coffee machine.

“Oh, hey, Lucy, Bradford,” she greets easily. She gives her an interesting glance. “So, you called Smitty handsome? When you said you said a compliment, I figured you meant about a case.”

Tim leans back, crossing his arms, waiting for an explanation.

“Uh, no,” Lucy responds, totally confused. She would never call Smitty handsome. First some kiss with Tim, then calling Smitty handsome? What kind of weird prank is this?

To make matters worse, Angela comes in next. “Hey, Harper, I was just—Oh, hi, Lucy. Are you guys talking about your...problem?” She gives a pointed look at Tim.

“Problem?” Lucy asks, frowning.

Then, a second uniformed Lucy Chen walks into the room.

Except, well, it’s not Lucy Chen. Because she’s Lucy Chen, and she’s standing right here, and she’s pretty sure she didn’t Freaky Friday swap with someone.

The fake Lucy stops.

“Oh.”

The real Lucy stares.

Everyone else blinks between the two of them.

“An imposter,” the fake Lucy cries out, pointing at the double. Nyla and Angela send her a dubious look. “Why are you just standing there? Arrest her!”

“You’re clearly the fake,” Nyla deadpans, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

Lucy finally breaks out of her stupor just enough to say, “Sava?”

“This so wasn’t the plan,” Save whines, her posture immediately dropping.

Angela steps forward, her hand quickly grabbing the cuffs at her side. “Sava Wu, you’re under arrest for, uh—” She looks between the others as she secures the cuffs around Sava’s wrists. “I’m not sure if I can charge someone with impersonation for looking like an officer?”

“She’s wearing a uniform,” Nyla points out, but also seems a little unsure. “So, at the very least, she stole those—and that proves she’s trying to impersonate an officer. ...Right?” She looks over at Lucy, who shrugs, and then at Tim, who is unmoving, apart from his eyes, which flash between the two doppelgängers. “Hey!” Nyla snaps. “Bradford! Keep it in your pants! We’ve got a criminal to book!”

“I ain’t no criminal!” Sava immediately refutes. “I wasn’t gonna do nothing bad! I just—”

“Save it for interrogation,” Angela interrupts, pushing her through the door, voice trailing off as she reads out the Miranda Rights, with Harper on her heels. “You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can and will be used against you...”

With that, Tim and Lucy are alone.

“Well, um,” Lucy starts, still processing the whole situation, “That happened.”

“That happened,” Tim echoes, stiffening up. She recognizes it—it’s when he has something he doesn’t want to talk about. Which reminds her...

What exactly had he said when he ran into her, just minutes before?

Something about a kiss? And an offer of breakup sex?

“So,” Lucy starts, pursing her lips slightly, amused.

“Don’t,” Tim deadpans.

“Sava kissed you,” she points out. “And propositioned you.”

“Don’t.”

“And you thought it was me!” she finalizes, giggling. “All those years riding together, and you couldn’t even tell the difference between us? Let alone the kiss —”

“I was a little distracted,” he grumbles in defense. “It’s been a few months.”

“What’d she say exactly?”

Tim goes slightly red at the tips of his ears, like he’s been caught out. So, whatever Sava had said, he’d considered it. “She said breakup sex is hot, and that we should try it after work,” he mutters quietly, avoiding her gaze.

Lucy’s held-back giggles evolves into full laughter, bursting out of her. She thinks that she’ll remember Tim’s absolutely dumbfounded-yet-horny expression for years to come. Oh, God. Two Lucys. She can’t even imagine what he’s thinking about right now.

“It’s not that funny!” Tim protests.

She laughs harder.

“Stop it!”

She forces herself to take in a breath, just so she can say, “Oh, it’s a little funny.”

He shoots her an unhappy look, and then looks up at the ceiling as she works to subside her laughter.

“So?” Lucy prompts, when she’s finally calmed down, tilting her head slightly.

He glances at her, his brow wrinkling a little. “So?”

“So,” she emphasizes, the corner of her lip tilting slightly, “what did you tell her?”

The wrinkle grows deeper. “About what?”

“The breakup sex.”

Tim gapes at her. “I...didn’t respond. She ran off, and then I came here and—Well, you know the rest!”

She hums slightly. “You wanna know something?”

He looks at her expectantly, and she smirks.

“Breakup sex is hot,” she reveals. “And I wouldn’t be opposed to it. After work, of course. See you later, Tim.”

Lucy revels in the way Tim’s eyes darken, gaping slightly, and she saunters away, thankful to Sava for at least one thing.