a/n : This fic would only exist in my head if not for angellwings, my fellow writer, friend, & screeching fangirl :) The finale was SO UNBELIEVABLY WONDERFUL that I really had nothing to add for quite some time, and when little ideas did begin to materialize in my brain, I was still hesitant to string them together into a fic… Until I got a good kick in the pants from my pal, that is. This one is for her!
Also, when in doubt, an entire list of nothing but kissing prompts is basically the backbone of fanfic, right? Credit to blog-of-a-multitude-of-fandoms on Tumblr for supplying a common thread. The specific prompts used in this fic are listed at the end. Enjoy!
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions…
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
- T.S. Eliot
Seconds before Agent Christopher lands in 1950. Several minutes ahead of Rufus dropping them off at the upgraded Lifeboat. Prior to the mistletoe, preceding the noisy springs of their rusty piece of shit bed boldly declaring what they're doing to every occupant in the bunker. Before the holiday could settle comfortably around Lucy's shoulders with the warmth of a cozy blanket…or a handmade scarf.
Before all of that, there's this — a shared turning point at the altar of a tiny stone church in war-weary North Korea. It's Wyatt's hand on her neck, cradling her jaw, his thumbprint stamped upon her cheek. Little did they know, it's their own brand of a V-J Day celebration; a darker, colder, quieter Times Square. The close to a battle that will never be famous, will never really be known at all, other than to their small unit of six. An unlikely family, a troop of unconventional warriors.
She doesn't recognize it for what it is, not until she's huddled into Wyatt's side in the predawn light of Christmas morning. That moment in time is theirs forever, one that speaks of euphoric victory. It's a kiss to mark the war's end.
There won't be a next time. Not a next era, next sleeper agent, next strategy session, next frantic search for the ripple effects they've inflicted upon their present. The war is over.
And because — beneath the layers of notable dates and names and stories — her brain is instinctively wired to function as a never-ending jukebox, the melancholy lyrics of John Lennon and Yoko Ono start playing on a mental loop right then and there.
War is over, if you want it
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over now, and even though it still feels far too good to be true, Lucy's ready to live without fear.
She snuggles deeper into Wyatt and breathes slowly, in and out, with one solemn tear trickling across the bridge of her nose. Without Amy, without Garcia Flynn...this won't be the easiest Christmas to celebrate, but it's the present she's fought so hard to maintain. It's her today, her right now. Their right now.
She's holding onto that present with all she has.
"Can we leave yet?"
"Five minutes after we walked in?" She arches both brows, fighting the grin he doesn't deserve. "Unlikely."
Wyatt shrugs, clearly unaffected by her snappy dismissal. "Worth a shot."
"Do I have to go through this with you again?"
She's never seen a sulkier expression on a grown man. It's impossibly juvenile, and yet...ridiculously attractive. Damn him.
"No, ma'am."
"You're really resorting back to that? I thought it was the seat belt that brought it out in you."
"The seat belt, getting bossed around...it has a variety of triggers."
Lucy leans into him briefly, straightening his perfectly straight tie if only to touch him. Tease him. Remind herself that he's really here as her date. It's still a lot to take in even after a week of practically being superglued to his side.
"We got here late," she reasons deliberately, as if speaking to a child. "It's only a few hours till midnight. And it's a party thrown by Denise's work friends, work friends you've met, which means you know more people here than I do. I think you'll make it, soldier."
"She should've offered the Homeland position to you. I'm half the militant hard-a— "
Lucy yanks playfully at his tie, turning her face up closely to his. "Do you think it's wise to finish that sentence?"
His slow grin boils beneath her skin. "That is a resounding 'no, ma'am.'"
"Good answer. Besides, I've seen your closet, and if that doesn't qualify as the work of a militant hard-ass, I don't know what does. You're no slouch, Master Sergeant Logan."
"My closet, huh? Looks more and more like your closet all the time."
"Is that a problem?"
His hands encompass her on either side, squeezing gently with a broad smile. "Hell no."
She releases a big smile of her own, one that's tinged with no small amount of solace. It's all happened so fast, him and her becoming a them. She's never done this before, the tumbling heart first into someone else's world, a whirlwind of shared space and bumping elbows at the sink each night, a firestorm of passion that's damn near inextinguishable. It still feels like there should be a catch somewhere, a snag to unravel this ridiculous mutual addiction they carry for each other; an annoyance that causes actual contention, resentment over the fact that she's silently confiscated at least half of his hangers...something. Right?
But Wyatt offers an arm and whisks her toward the nearest bar cart, boyish elation never quite falling from his face every time he catches her eye. She sees no reserve in that look, no lack of warmth or acceptance. Even here, at a party he had no interest in attending, he's showering her with unsullied affection.
"You're going to think I'm crazy for saying this," he confides close to her ear once they're both supplied with short, sparkling highball glasses, "but this place...this party, everyone in their cocktail attire and you with your hair up like that, the lipstick…"
Lucy waits for a compliment. Probably a suggestive one. Something that will make her cheeks go pink long before the alcohol does that job on its own.
"It makes me feel like I should be on high alert for a sleeper. Or Emma. Or both."
A low chuckle sputters out of her, a strange concoction of sadness and amusement, because he has a point. The setting, the clothing...well, it is a lot more reminiscent of a mission through time than anything they've ever done together in normal life.
She pauses for a beat before turning to scan the crowd with a narrowed gaze, playing along in a conspiring tone. "So who do you have your eye on?"
"Three o'clock. Jackass of a mustache, checks his watch every ten seconds. He's up to something."
"Or…" she drags out in exaggeration, "maybe he's just waiting on someone."
"Yeah, someone to activate him."
"Mmm, I don't know. Now the couple off to the left of him, clustered together by the window? They set off my Rittenhouse radar. Stuffy, aloof, overdressed. He's the only one here in an actual tux."
Wyatt nods authoritatively. "And she has a nose that says, 'I used to compete in equestrian shows.'"
"Yeah, I can see — wait," she chokes out in a sudden frenzy, almost drenching him with the contents of her glass, "do I have an equestrian show girl nose?"
"You — "
Her free hand blocks her nose from view on an impulse. "Don't answer that. I never competed, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. My mom sent me to horse camp every summer for at least four years. Maybe five. Clearly it didn't stick quite how she'd imagined it would."
Wyatt tugs at her wrist, smirking like the scoundrel that he is. "You do not have a Rittenhouse nose, Lucy. Promise."
"You're picturing me falling off of that horse in 1882, aren't you?"
He finally succeeds in wrangling her hand away from her face only to replace it with his nose sliding into place against hers, his stubbled chin brushing along her jaw. "A distinct lack of coordination has never looked better."
She steals the kiss that's so obviously being flaunted before her, smiling against his lips as she's transported to those early days… Days when she thought she was alone in falling, and it's not the overshot horse saddle that she's thinking of now. It's that old infuriating attraction, the quickly matched banter, a barely-there drawl that had her hooked far too early. Galvanizing blue eyes and a sideways lip curl that never failed to accelerate her heart rate even as her brain labeled him as an insufferable pain in the ass.
Wyatt breaks the kiss with a mischievous grin. "Mustache at three is on the move. Should we follow him?"
"Probably not," Lucy answers after a moment's consideration.
He feigns disappointment and nudges his shoulder to hers. "Fine, have it your way. But I'm not letting Overdressed and Aloof off so easily."
"You do realize this is part of the reason we needed to do this tonight, right?"
"So we could go out and accuse innocent people of belonging to an evil power-hungry cult?"
"So we could go out and remember that they're not." She waves a hand around like she's sprinkling fairy dust over the entire affair. "Normal people. Normal party. The world won't burn down around us if we try to enjoy it for what it is now. Tonight is all about fresh starts, isn't it?"
"Is this your subtle way of telling me that holing up in my apartment and avoiding civilization as a whole isn't working for you anymore?"
She cups his jaw in her hand, head swinging decisively from side to side. "Most days it's the only thing that's working for me, but… Wyatt, you're officially going back to work the day after tomorrow, and I need to figure out what I'm doing with all the time I have on my hands. We can't spend the rest of our lives hiding, ducking in and out of the corner market like fugitives, hoping for the absolute minimal amount of human interaction possible. If we have to start doing this, I wanted to do it together."
He nods somewhat begrudgingly, but the warmth of his gaze never wavers. "I'm going to miss it, you know...wasting half the morning, only leaving to buy coffee and takeout…"
"Then wasting half the afternoon and all of the evening too?" she finishes knowingly. "Same here."
She's fairly certain that the two of them are putting off actual steam now, a neon warning of heat and light and fireworks, a boom that's set to go off well before midnight if they don't force themselves to mingle immediately. It would be all too easy to give in and waste the rest of this evening too.
Denise materializes out of thin air just as Lucy is deciding that mingling is overrated, dousing the flames just as they begin to flicker out of control. "I've been looking for you two all night! Lucy, I have some fans of yours who've been pestering me for an introduction from the moment I let it slip that we were working together."
"Fans? Fans of mine?"
Her work doesn't collect fans. It mostly collects disgruntled grad students in need of another source for their thesis.
"Yes, fans," Denise all but sings. "Is that really so hard to believe? C'mon, Wyatt can fend for himself for a few minutes, can't he?"
"He can," Wyatt answers cheekily, raising his glass in a mock toast. "Knock 'em dead, Professor."
The thing is, a few minutes turns into way too many minutes, and Lucy is totally fine with that until she suddenly isn't. The discussion has been far more compelling, more gratifying even, than anything she'd expected to encounter at a New Year's Eve party, and she's honestly shell shocked at the enthusiasm over a handful of titles she's all but forgotten until tonight. It's nice to be recognized, nice to simply be known, but as soon as the conversation begins to dwindle, she just wants to find Wyatt again.
When that task proves to be more difficult than expected, she's ashamed to feel a sharp, irrational despair advancing upon her. She grits her teeth and fights back against the senseless panic as every face that isn't his begins to blur together in a sea of unfamiliarity.
It's fine. She's fine. This party is nothing more than an oversized penthouse, a series of interconnected rooms. Sooner or later, they're going to stumble right into each other.
Someone else stumbles into her first though, a stranger who's apparently been hitting the open bar a little too aggressively, and Lucy's reflexes go haywire without her permission. The elbow that lands squarely against her back almost has her screaming Wyatt's name. Almost has her swinging around with a clenched fist. Almost brings the revelry and laughter to a screeching halt.
She bites down on the inside of her lip and stifles all of it, nodding meekly until the blustering drunken apology finally comes to an end. By the time her unnecessary adrenaline has faded, she's left with shaky exhaustion and an aching to just be home again.
And then he's there, chatting with Michelle, dutifully smiling at something she's showing him on her phone. It takes all of Lucy's willpower to avoid mowing him down in relief.
He glances up, almost like he senses her prematurely, and his whole face brightens. "Hey. I was getting ready to send out a search party."
"No need," she responds with all the bravado remaining in her depleted arsenal. "Here I am."
She doesn't let on right away, not even once Michelle has wandered off to talk to another group of guests. Lucy snuggles up to him slowly, wrapping both arms around his torso in an off-balance hug, amplifying the heat one degree at a time. A finger through his belt loop. A smudge of red lipstick on his neck.
Wyatt doesn't require much prompting. His hand fits just above the curve of her hip, guiding her a little deeper into the nearest alcove of built-in bookshelves, not stopping until she's spine-to-spine with what appears to be an impressive collection of first editions.
The intensity of his kiss catches her off guard. She's not the only one putting on a brave face tonight. His emotions are all bubbling to the surface too, whiskey-flavored desperation, possessive hands, a complete one-eighty from the casual levity he'd offered when they still had an audience.
Her name falls gruffly from his mouth. It's several seconds, maybe an entire minute, before he can say anything else.
"Unless this is the kind of party where we're encouraged to go pillaging through random bedrooms until we find one that's free for the taking, this might not be the best idea."
"No?" she asks not so guilelessly, heart pounding at an excessive pace.
"This shadowy corner isn't shadowy enough. Not if I'm really supposed to make it till midnight."
"I think I could be persuaded to leave a little early."
The eagerness in his gaze is unrivaled. "Really? I thought you — "
And that's when his usual sense of perception comes barging in to ruin her scheme.
"You're the one who wants to leave, aren't you?" he asks shrewdly. "This is a ploy to make it look like you're letting me have my way when this is really what you want."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Wyatt scrutinizes her for another long moment before planting a much softer kiss against her mouth. "You're a terrible liar, not that I'm complaining. We're making a break for it then?"
She nods, swiping a thumb over his stained lips without much success of clearing the evidence.
He doesn't hesitate. He holds her hand firmly in his, finds their coats with the precision of a bloodhound on a hunt, and then they're saying a hasty goodbye to hosts Lucy hasn't even properly met until she's halfway out the door.
"Wait," she says with a gust of exhilaration, a little high on this rebellious exit of theirs, the giddiness of spontaneity and freedom and him going to her head. "Do you have champagne at home?"
Wyatt snorts dismissively, all but hauling her out into the hallway as she digs her heels in.
"I want champagne at midnight, and trying to find a place that's open now is — "
"Please don't tell me we're going to stay for the free booze, Lucy. We can just toast with something else, can't we?"
She purses her lips, squares her shoulders, and spins back into the party for just long enough to spot her intended target. When she comes waltzing past him seconds later with a pilfered bottle in hand, she can't tell if he's impressed or horrified.
"You — you actually…"
Shame blooms up her neck, the uncharacteristic impulsive streak waning all too quickly. "I should return it, shouldn't I? That was bad. That was — I don't what that was."
Wyatt gathers her in his arms and backs her into the awaiting elevator car, wickedly handsome and very, very persuasive in his approval. "Lucy Preston, wanted champagne thief…it has a nice ring to it."
"I'm going to hell."
He shrugs loosely, forehead locked against hers as they sway slightly on their way to the ground floor. "Your face is going to be plastered on posters all over the Bay Area. Bonnie Parker would be proud."
She laughs in spite of herself. "Yep, I'm definitely going to hell."
"You'll have plenty of good company there."
He keeps his hands on her in the foyer, as they hail a cab, sneaking all sorts of provoking touches in the dimness of the backseat, her prized bottle of Veuve Clicquot occasionally clinking against her bracelet as Wyatt keeps dragging her in for one more lingering kiss. She tumbles through his door with a giggle, more tipsy than her scarce indulgence of alcohol can account for, not that she's really left guessing as to why she feels this way.
He has her sprawled across the couch in no time. Her dress rustles higher, heels clattering to the floor.
The champagne is forgotten. There's no midnight toast.
Somewhere between his mouth instigating one climax and the rest of his body getting in on the act as they stagger into the bedroom, 2019 begins. It's impossible to identify which kiss counts as the kiss, the one that rings in a brand new year, not with the type of celebrating they're doing.
As promised, they've made up for as much lost time as one week could possibly allow.
In a lifetime of early alarms and reluctant goodbyes, no morning has ever felt quite like this. On one hand, he's not going away on a classified assignment and he'll see her again in less than twelve hours. On the other hand, his body longs to stay in bed with her, to drag her sleepy form into the shower with him, to prop her up at the kitchen island as he eats his breakfast, savoring every second they have until he's risking tardiness on his first day. But seeing as he kept her up well into the night with a very physical version of said savoring, he can't bring himself to wake her now.
So he's up, he's dressed, he's caffeinated.
And now it's time to go.
Wyatt aims one final glance over his shoulder, wishing fervently for five more minutes just to sneak back to the bedroom and watch the rising sun slowly tiptoe over her skin as it creeps in from the window.
Sayonara to the glorious days of holing up and avoiding civilization. It's been a good run.
"Hey, wait."
It's mumbled and almost inaudible, but it's everything he's been waiting for — it's Lucy padding through the apartment in a camisole that's falling from her shoulder and a pair of his boxers rolled a few times at the waist. She barely clears the corner of the island as she navigates with half an eyelid cracked open. Her hair is a certifiable mess. There might be drool crusted at the corner of her mouth.
Jesus, does he ever love her.
She walks straight into his open arms on autopilot, head tucking beneath his chin as she hugs him lazily around his middle.
"Have a good day."
"You too," Wyatt returns with a smile buried against her dark hair.
"I won't cross my fingers."
"Then I'll cross mine for you."
Her arms crowd him a little closer, and he reciprocates without a word. It's not just their week of solitude he's losing, it's months of having her within reach at any given moment. And as if that's not already weighing heavily enough, his traitorous bastard of a mind reminds him of where his unhinged mental state had taken him the last time they'd separated for any length of time. Lucy taking off to San Antonio without him, the Rittenhouse raid that had sharpened his dull pain into a finely chiseled point of excruciating distraction. Or before that, abandoning her, abandoning his team, letting them go to Salem while he —
"Wyatt," she hums at the base of his throat, cutting off that hellish trek down memory lane. "You're going to be late."
He releases her with a faltering grin. "See you tonight."
"Tonight," she affirms in a valiant attempt at normalcy.
He smooths her hair back with both hands and kisses her unhurriedly, languidly. She finally looks a little more alert when he pulls back, as if his coffee breath has been just enough to revive her spirits. Wyatt kisses her once more, a final farewell, and then he's marching out the door like it isn't the last thing he wants to do.
An unexpected swat to his retreating ass makes it that much harder to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but at least his grin is genuine now. "Save it for later, Preston."
"Oh, I will. You don't have to worry about that, Logan."
Her food is getting cold. That's all she really cares about. No one wants a cold...salad. Okay, that might not sound rational, but there's grilled chicken on that salad, and the chicken is definitely going to be cold if he doesn't get his ass moving.
They'd walked in together. His arm was around her shoulder as they ordered. He paid for both meals while she stood in line right behind them. Nowhere in this equation has Lucy become invisible. She just left to grab a table, for God's sake. She didn't cease to exist simply because she isn't hovering right there at Wyatt's side.
This is not who I am. That's her immediate rebuttal each time her leg twitches impatiently, the mantra she keeps repeating to herself as she waits him out. I am not that woman.
But then Little Miss Can't Work The Soda Machine actually runs her hand down Wyatt's arm and Lucy is exactly that woman.
It honestly scares her to realize how quickly she's on her feet and across the food court. She's not going to make a scene. She won't be obvious. She'll politely take the tray from behind them and — and...
And kiss his stupid lips off of stupid face.
No. No. Only a lunatic would do that.
But she can't stop herself, can't find the emergency break on this runaway train. Plan B is in full force. It's not about the food. It was never about the food. She's jealous and she hates herself for it, but something in her just won't subside until Wyatt forgets that the mini-skirted supermodel in front of him has ever breathed air.
He glances sideways right in time, eyes going just wide enough to imply that her current insanity is scribbled plainly across her face for all to see.
"There you are," she practically wheezes at him, like she's run a full marathon and he's the last free bottle of water at the finish line. She hopes to God that he's bracing himself for impact.
Lucy uses every Wyatt-specific tactic she knows, every tempting trick she's learned in the last few weeks, and damn have they ever done a lot of studying. She feathers her fingers across his scalp, letting her nails dig in just enough to rile him up. She intentionally sinks her bottom lip into the seam of his mouth and drags her top row of teeth over him as she settles in for a sumptuous kiss. Her hips cant forward to flirt with his. Her tongue does the same. Just a hint, nothing more. It's his own signature move, an offering of the one thing you most want only to cruelly take it away too soon, inciting a dizzying seesaw of frustration. He routinely breaks the stereotype on foreplay, seemingly never tiring of the game even when Lucy is well beyond her threshold for teasing.
To put it simply, she's channeling him. In more ways than one. He's supposed to be the jealous asshole, not her.
Oh God, this is so not okay.
She hears the groan he tries to bite back, and that's her cue to pull herself together, which leaves her face-to-face with his blitzed expression — blue eyes nearly overtaken by black pupils, slack-jawed stupor. And a bit of a crafty grin on his inflamed lips, if she's reading that fluttering motion correctly.
He knows what this is about, but thankfully he doesn't seem to be in the mood to complain about being marked as territory. His mind is very much elsewhere.
The Victoria Secret model sees herself out. There are actual words spoken, maybe a 'nice to meet you,' but the roar of humiliation in Lucy's ears makes it difficult to pick out the particulars.
"Something you'd like to discuss with me, ma'am?"
She winces at the roughness of Wyatt's voice and plucks the tray from the counter behind him, fully prepared to pretend that she hasn't just accosted him in public like a feral animal, but his hand on her elbow blocks her escape.
"Hold on, I need to — just stand there for a second."
It's only fair that she does as asked, which turns out to be the task of blocking him from an entire courtyard of people until he's discreetly adjusted himself. Her fault, after all.
"Okay," he exhales from between his teeth. "I would like to sit down and eat my lunch now, if that's alright with you. Unless your next move was to have your way with me across a salad bar or something."
"Lunch...lunch would be good."
She's not off the hook and she knows it. His gaze is hot between her shoulder blades as she leads the way to their table, and the manufactured air of indifference he employs as he unwraps his sandwich doesn't fool her. Wyatt lets her dangle there, twisting with discomfort, as he takes his time in chewing several bites of food.
His silence gnaws at her conscience until she can't take it anymore, which she assumes was his strategy from the beginning. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"For being — for…" nettled tension snakes across her shoulders as she grapples with the impossible task of explaining herself. "You know what for, Wyatt. But come on, how hard is it to work a soda fountain? She really couldn't — "
"The lever for the ice was jammed," he cuts in dryly.
"And it took you almost ten minutes to un-jam it?"
"She was thanking me for my service, if you must know. Grew up as an army brat, said she'd know those good manners anywhere. Naturally I asked where her family had been stationed after she told me that."
Lucy is confident that she'd wanted to do a whole lot more than say thank you, but how can she argue with that answer? Damn him for purposely making her feel even smaller. "I think… Look, I know this is dumb, but I guess she's more the type that I'd expect you to — "
"Nope, not interested. Try again."
"But she — "
"Do I seem even remotely dissatisfied to you, Lucy? Have I ever given you that impression, even once?"
His sincerity pierces her, lasering right into her soul. "No."
He smirks to himself, digging into his fries with abandon as soon as he has his answer. "Didn't think so."
Wyatt proceeds to all but shovel his lunch down, leaving Lucy to pick at her salad and debate whether or not she can bring herself to just let the incident drop.
Obviously she can't.
"What are you doing to me?" she asks more intensely than she'd intended. It's supposed to be a joke, but she's becoming increasingly sure that this issue is a serious one. "I've never acted like that before. I've never even wanted to act like that until today."
He has the nerve to chuckle at her expense. "You are full of surprises lately."
She arches an expectant brow, and his laughter escalates.
"The infamous New Year's Eve champagne robbery…?"
"Oh my god," she says into her hands, "I'm telling you, this isn't me, Wyatt. It's somehow your fault, I just have to figure out why it's your fault."
"As offensive as that allegation may be, there's probably some truth to it."
She turns her eyes up to him immediately, desperate for any explanation that eases her own culpability. "Please tell me you're planning to elaborate on that statement."
He knits their fingers together from across the table and gives her hand a squeeze. "You're still standing by that declaration of love, right? No going back on that?"
This conversation is taking a strange detour in her opinion, but she's willing to follow through on whatever it is he's offering. "Right. No going back."
"That's it, then."
"What's it?"
"Love." Wyatt sits back like he's immensely pleased with himself for waxing poetic. As if he's just explained the mysteries of the universe. Frankly, she wants a refund.
"But — "
"Love makes everyone a little crazy, Lucy. If you don't feel the slightest bit out of control, you're probably not in love."
Okay, that's not completely out of the realm of possibility. She...well, she's as good as told him that she's never experienced the bolt of lightning or a no-one-else-for-you kind of fixation in any of her previous relationships. With Wyatt, though…
Lightning strikes so often, it's a wonder his building is still standing.
"And what about you?" she asks skeptically. "You seem rather...well-behaved. Which is a bit unsettling to me, if I'm being honest."
"Have you taken a recent knock to the head? Because if you really have to reach that hard for memories of what an unbelievable dick I was over the thought of losing you, we should probably order a brain scan or something."
He has her there. And he's also managed to bring it up without looking completely devastated over his past behavior, which goes even further in making her feel better about this entire debacle. "Touché."
"What's important is that you know it was out of line." His thumb brushes over her knuckles, voice dropping by an octave or two. "And if you promise to follow through on what you just started in front of that drink machine the minute we're alone, I'll make a promise of my own — no one else has to know that you've become the reckless hothead in this relationship. I'll take this story to my grave, our secret."
Her relief is so palpable, she very nearly melts into it. She never wants to relive this embarrassment again. "You have yourself a deal."
"I'm not kidding. I mean the minute we're alone — "
"Okay, Wyatt, I heard you," she cuts in with a roll of her eyes.
He pops another fry into his mouth with a rakish wink that would look absurd on anyone else. On Wyatt, though?
Having her way with him across a salad bar suddenly sounds like the best idea she's heard all week.
"Lucy?"
Her car was in the lot when he'd pulled in. He knows she's here, she has to be, and yet his voice bounces back at him with no reply as the door swings shut. "Lucy...?"
The silence feels loaded with unspoken danger, like an ambush or air raid is bound to shatter the quiet at any given moment. Apprehension courses down his spine as he makes a loop through the apartment — kitchen, living room, the cramped hallway that leads to an empty bedroom and a darkened bathroom. His search yields nothing, no one, until there's a small scrape reverberating from behind him, which means she's somehow lapped him. He assumes this is a funny little game she's playing until he catches sight of her wrangling a key ring from the bottom of her purse.
"Hey, I just got back and you're leaving already?" Wyatt waits with a smile, but when she doesn't pause, doesn't even fully glance up at him, that smile self-destructs in an instant. "Lucy? What's up?"
"I — I'm just going home for a few days. My mom's home. I, umm...I've been putting it off for long enough, you know? The responsibility of dealing with the house, I mean. Can't get anywhere with that if I'm spending all my time here, right?"
"I'll go with you." He crosses the threshold into the kitchen, momentarily stunned to see that his advance has her creeping closer to the door. "I've seen your mother's house. That's a huge undertaking for one person."
"No, I...I just need some time to sort through all of it on my own first. I'll let you know if I need anything."
She still hasn't met his eyes. Hell, she won't even angle her body in his direction. Her voice isn't quite right either, weaker than usual, and also…lower? She's hiding something big, and it's killing him to know that there's still a concern or problem that she won't...won't share willingly.
God, that hurts even worse than he thought it would. Mostly because he still thinks he deserves to be shut out after all he's done to hurt her.
There's no masking his despair as he calls out to her one more time. Not with a volcano of dread rising higher and higher at the insistent bend of her shoulders.
"Lucy, wait. Please, just...just tell me what's wrong."
Her eyes are glassy as she carefully pivots with one hand gripping the counter's edge, skin waxen and washed out, her expression sealed in a precariously arranged mask. "I'll be fine."
"I didn't ask if you'd be fine." Wyatt steps forward and she steps back, a torturous dance he never agreed to participate in, one he'd like to put to an immediate end. "I asked what's wrong, and I'm not taking fine as an answer. 'Fess up, Preston."
"It's just a bug. Hits me hard, like damn hard, once every few years. It was overdue really."
Just a bug. Just a bug. The stress of not knowing — of imagining much worse — evacuates his chest all at once. "So why are you leaving? You should be lying down, resting. I can go get whatever you need."
"No," she responds adamantly before pressing a hand to the side of her head, massaging slowly. "Trust me, I'm sparing you a lot of misery. You don't want these germs, and even worse, you don't want the shitty attitude that comes with these germs. It's all downhill from here."
"You can't be serious."
"Serious as — as influenza," she deadpans somewhat pathetically. "You don't understand. I'm the worst when I'm sick. Just...the worst. I'll see you in two days, okay? I always beat it in 48 hours."
"I'm sorry, Lucy, but I...Nope, I can't do that. I just can't. You're staying here."
Her chin juts out stubbornly. "You can't make me."
"Uh huh, sure," he says with a disbelieving smirk. "And how are you leaving? Because I'm pretty sure you can't even make it from here to the door without using the counter top as a crutch. I'm supposed to let you get behind the wheel when you're barely standing on two feet?"
She releases the Formica surface with a defiant look, but one step and she's rocking backwards, eyes slinking shut and hands spread wide in a staggering balance check. He has no intention of letting her fall. If it's up to him, she'll actually never fall again, not anymore. Which is a tall order, considering all that havoc those long limbs tend to inflict upon her, but it's a metaphorical pledge as much as it's a physical one.
Wyatt has both arms around her before her inclination for disaster can catch up, his forehead nudging softly against her temple. A temple that's startlingly warm to the touch. "Let's get you tucked into bed, alright?"
"You're going to regret this."
"Doubtful."
He guides her as far as the open archway before her legs simply quit shuffling in time to his own. Before he can even ask if she's okay, her fingers grasp at his shirtfront and her head pitches into his sternum. "Just dizzy. It'll pass."
"Maybe I should be taking you straight to a doctor."
"Nope. Not necessary."
He can't ward off the panic that grips his insides. He's watched Lucy stand up against all sorts of giants, springing into action with a festering arm wound, clambering upwards into a time machine with no regard for how bruised and beaten the last jump has left her, but this...now? To see her suffering like this just when he's started to accept that he shouldn't have to worry about her well-being anymore, at least not when it comes to health and safety, seems so extraordinarily unfair.
"But, really? You're sure? Because this seems...extreme."
"Two days, Wyatt. Just give me two days. You'll see."
"Because you beat it in 48 hours every time?"
Under other circumstances, she'd spot the cynicism in his voice from a mile away, but Lucy simply nods emphatically now, naively convinced that he's convinced. "Exactly."
She really is going to be the worst patient, isn't she? Obstinate and self-reliant, in total denial about the severity of her symptoms, rebuffing him at every turn.
So basically the same as every other day with Lucy Preston. Swell.
"Are you laughing at me?"
Oops. He glances down to meet her petulant scowl with a wide smile. "Yes, but not at — not because of anything you just said or did, just...you in general."
"I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean."
"Alright, cranky-ass, you're going to sleep as soon as I find something to bring that fever down."
"Good luck with that."
"Which part?" he asks, genuinely perplexed.
She closes her eyes again with a minuscule shrug. "The fever. It's gonna be a real bitch, just so you know."
He's pleased to find her muscles are loosening into his embrace, and he doesn't waste his chance. He very carefully scoops her against him and does the rest of the walking on his own, firing off one last jab as she sighs into his shoulder. "You really are a know-it-all, Luce. Even about this."
She lets that comment go without retort.
Hours later, and he's realizing a verbal retort hadn't been necessary. Her body does all the trash talking for her when Wyatt stirs in the middle of the night to the alarming heat of her fiery cheek against his arm.
And then there's the muttering. Restless, dry-lipped, tearful muttering. Shit.
"Lucy, hey…" he shifts upward against the headboard and slides his hand into her hair. "It's time for another aspirin, okay? That bitch of a fever is back in full force."
Her eyelids flutter after a few more strokes of his hand against her head. She makes a sound that's either the beginning of his name or a pouty why, but before he can repeat his statement about her crescendoing temperature, she's arching away from him with an emphatic flinch.
"Lucy?"
"You…" she shakes her head, then winces, "you shouldn't..."
"I'm sorry, but you really need to get more medicine in your system. It'll only take a minute."
"My arm...is fine."
The words are slurred, but that's not what throws him off. It's the message itself that makes no damn sense. What the hell does this have to do with her arm?
"Lucy, the fever, remember? You'll sleep a lot better if we can get the fever to break. Again. Just like you said, right?"
He adds that last part with a smile, hoping to coax one out of her as well. The only thing she likes more than being right is hearing someone else admit that she's right too.
No dice. She still wants no part of the hand that reaches out to ease a renegade strand of hair back from her damp skin.
"Stop. You need to — to be with...with her."
Her? There's only one her that's ever stood between the two of them, harmless women in random food courts notwithstanding. And… Dammit, what did she say about her arm?
"Lucy, we — we're not…" he's an idiot who can't get to the point, because the point pains him too much. "You know where we are, right?"
She seems to look past him, past everything. "I didn't want to go without you, but I — I didn't have a choice. You left, Wyatt. This is...this is what happens when you aren't there."
Not only is this the most eerie delirious shit he's dealt with since he stayed up all night in Syria with a critically injured buddy in his unit, it's also the most heartbreaking subject matter her frenzied mind could have possibly produced for either of them. In a split-second of weakness, Wyatt sides with the damn near prophetic argument she made earlier in the day — this is the truest definition of misery, and she did her best to mercifully shield him from it.
How is he supposed to fix this? To convince her that Salem isn't just in the past generally speaking, it's also in their past.
"Listen, Lucy...your arm isn't hurt. We aren't in the bunker. There's no — no Jessica, okay? It's just us, and all of that is over. We're home, sweetheart."
Dark eyes drill into his for no small eternity before one side of her mouth inches upward. "Home?"
He assumes she's being coy. They haven't formally decided on a real living arrangement. His old place has become the site of their mutual crash landing without any real discussion. He doubts it will be permanent since more and more of her stuff — books, sweaters, a dozen pairs of boots that all look incredibly similar to him — has begun to crowd in around them, not that it matters much to him. If it's this apartment, somewhere new, or a rundown RV parked in the middle of nowhere — he doesn't give a damn, not as long as it's with her.
So he answers the call, eager to prove that there's nothing more important to him than the future he longs to build with her. "My home is wherever you are, Lucy."
Her head lolls backward into the pillow, a five-star smile on display as she closes her eyes once more. "This is a damn good dream. Don't let anyone wake me up."
"Lucy — "
"I mean it. My arm doesn't even hurt."
Wyatt raises the white flag of surrender, not bothering to go another round with the delusions that warp her subconscious. He adds another pillow beneath her head and rallies the necessary provisions, rousing her again for just long enough to force a few unwilling gulps of tap water and two capsules of medicine, then she's out again.
She sidles right up to him once he's reclaimed his side of the bed, a sleepy note of contentment rumbling against his chest as she settles herself there. He hears her voice in that faraway chapel, the rapturous confession that she's loved him as far back as the Alamo, Arkansas, Hollywood. It had been surreal then, absorbing each treasured landmark of their journey as she'd rattled them off in rapid succession. Those words had been the only Christmas gift he'd needed, his every wish tied together with the shiny bow of her loyalty, her affection, her forgiveness.
It's far more sobering to think of the other jumps she's loved him through, the ones that have caused her more heartache, more harm, than the list she'd compiled in North Korea. She loved him when she came back from Salem, sporting an outward injury he'd been desperate to mend, as well as the internal injury he'd created himself. She loved him enough to release him then, even when she needed him most.
But this… This is what she'd really wanted all along, despite the way she'd prodded him in the opposite direction. Him, at her side, telling her she was his home. A damn good dream.
He curls an arm so tightly around her waist, he's half afraid he'll accidentally wake her again. His other hand trails up and down her back, over her neck, sweeping her hair across the pillowcase so none of it will cling to her sticky skin.
His lips touch down on her forehead — for maybe the hundredth time in a handful of hours — and she's finally cooling down again. Only then does he relax too, leaving a grateful kiss in the same spot, just above her one visible eyebrow.
As soon as she's back to normal, they're discussing this 'home' thing again. He can't waste a single second on her potentially not knowing how serious it is to him.
And of course she bounces back in precisely 48 hours, clear-eyed and triumphant, as if she's a superhero capable of willing away illness all on her own.
Which, he presumes, she very well may be.
There's a stack of biographies on the table next to her, but they remain untouched. Her laptop occupies a couch cushion on her other side, sleeping inertly at her feet. Her phone glows in her hand, open and unlocked and even displaying an email she had every intention of replying to when she sat down with her coffee, but she's ignoring it too.
It's not like her to lose focus so easily. She almost wants to blame that 48-hour flu bug, not that she feels any remaining trace of it in her system today. And Wyatt isn't flaunting it, isn't really doing anything to act like the inflated meatheads she usually associates with such religious exercise regimes. He normally jogs to and from the gym on his days off, but the rain has been brutal all morning, so the gym has come to him in the form of a bajillion sit-ups and push-ups and whatever other-ups she doesn't even recognize from her horribly scarring memories of the mandatory torture known as Phys Ed.
"See something you like?"
So much for the not flaunting. "Nope. Just sipping my coffee and minding my own business over here. Carry on."
It's hard to sound convincing when she's forced to listen to him breathing in those short panting spurts, the same kind of panting spurts that get trapped against her neck when he hits his high and can't hold himself upright for another second. And then there's the flush of exertion in his neck and face, the damp shadow of sweat darkening his t-shirt, the ripple of laboring muscles making themselves known from beneath the fabric as he repeats the same circuit of activity again and again.
She's exhausted — and yet also startlingly alert — just watching him.
"I can still feel you ogling me."
"Bullshit. You're not even facing my direction."
He tosses a knowing smirk over his tightly-outlined shoulder. "But you are definitely facing mine."
"Well pardon me for...for appreciating the view. You parked yourself right in front of the window, you know."
"Oh, so it's that view you're interested in. The overcast one with all the fog. Got it." The back of his hand swipes against his forehead and then he's dropping back into sit-up position. "You can join if you'd like. Always helps to have a buddy."
She snorts so hard, coffee almost splashes into her lap. "Yeah, okay."
"'Yeah, okay,' you're going to join me...?"
"Wyatt — "
"Two sit-ups, Luce. I dare you."
"You honestly think that's going to work?" she asks with a raised brow. "Daring me, like — like we're..."
"Childish and ultra competitive?" he challenges without missing a beat. "We are."
Point taken. She wouldn't have been surprised if last weekend's game night with Rufus and Jiya had ended in one of Wyatt's neighbors calling the cops on them.
Lucy takes her time in situating her coffee cup on the end table, then rises slowly, inching away from him with a furtive sidestep. "I should probably stretch first, or...maybe go take a hot shower to loosen my muscles. I'll let you know when I'm ready."
"Coward."
She stiffens, jaw set in an unbreakable line. "Alright, it's on."
"There she is," he retorts smugly, coming to a halt mid-rotation. "Would it help if I held your feet down for you?"
Lucy scoffs at his sickly sweet inflection as she yanks her cardigan off and flings it at the couch. "Just shut up and watch."
His eyes flit over her, showing an almost cartoonish interest in a simple tank top and plain black leggings. "Gladly."
Something actually pops as she lowers herself into sitting position. Probably her ankle. She doesn't dare make eye contact with him when that happens, choosing to pretend she hasn't noticed her body's poorly-timed betrayal. And he's right about her feet, dammit. One pitiful curl of her abdomen and both heels float right off the ground.
"Your form is atrocious, Preston," he chides with a tsk.
"You didn't say they had to be good sit-ups," she grunts, shoulders flopping back to the floor before she makes a second dismal attempt.
"True, but I at least thought they'd be recognizable."
She glares up at him, but he's right and she knows it. She can't remember the last time she did anything other than cardio, and even that's been sporadic at best. Other than running from enemy soldiers and angry mobs, of course.
He's still watching her with a vaguely amused smile, but she's completed the dare and isn't accepting another one, so she props herself up on one elbow and bats a hand at his bicep. "Alright, get back to work. Break time's over."
She expects him to launch a witty comeback in return, to make a dig about her bossiness at the very least, but Wyatt surprises her with an immediate roll onto his stomach, and then he's whipping through a brisk series of push-ups at a much faster tempo than before.
"Anything else, ma'am?"
She intends to teach the damn show-off a lesson when she plops her backside in the center of his back. Lucy knows he's strong. Fit. Impressively agile. And she's not exactly a heavyweight. But even then, with those considerations in mind, she's utterly unprepared to find that the addition of her entire body barely puts a dent in his pace.
His voice is gritted with effort, but the tone is haughtier than ever. "Anything besides that, or are you satisfied now?"
"Well, I'm feeling generous, and since I know how much you like to have your turn on top…"
The entire apartment whirls before her eyes like a spin-cycle blur before she lands beneath him with a yelp.
"Am I supposed to keep going with the push-ups, or — "
She decisively chooses or, lifting her mouth to his and finally allowing desire to run its course until one hand climbs up his neck to encounter a disgustingly slick hairline.
"My god, you're sweaty." She tries to dry her hand on the back of his shirt, but it's too drenched to effectively absorb more moisture. "Really, really — "
"Sweaty," Wyatt supplies with an impish nip at her mouth. "I know. Almost like I've been working out or something."
She snickers at that, trailing her fingers down his sides until there's a small patch of cotton that's not completely unpleasant to the touch. "And here I thought our workouts were pretty thorough…"
He parts her legs with a well-positioned knee, then slants his lower half more firmly against her. "Mmm, they're my favorite kind of thorough."
Lucy squirms as he kisses her earlobe, then her jaw, none of which is enough to quench her appetite. She turns her head and takes the reins, giving him no choice but to kiss her fully on the mouth. His hips grind down in response, and the flimsy combination of gym shorts and spandex leggings conceals nothing between them. He's already well on his way to hot and bothered, and she's more than willing to assist him in getting the rest of the way there. Her hands dip farther to slip past the hem of his t-shirt, thumbs slotting along the sharp guideposts of his hip bones, brazenly caressing his overheated skin.
Wyatt's mouth tears away from hers with a gasp, eyes shuttered, looking adorably stricken with lust.
She can't help herself. She arches into him and murmurs his own words against his ear. "Always helps to have a buddy."
The thick cloud of longing hasn't left his face, but when his sapphire eyes find hers, she's knocked for a loop by the poignant depths of his gaze. "You know how much I love having you here, right?"
Her heart sprints against her rib cage in a culmination of everything she's feeling, the craving for him that's both inward and outward. "Is there a catch coming?"
"No catch," Wyatt answers with a kiss to her nose. "I just wanted you to hear it."
There's something crucially important lurking behind his expression. A trace of sadness, or…
Regret. He actively pushes it away as best as he can, but it's no secret that the cracks and bruises of so many rigidly-held regrets have yet to fade from memory.
"You're the best part of coming home," he continues before shifting to kiss her neck. "The only thing that makes it a home at all."
The conviction in his voice is raw and real and contagious. She's still a little unsure of where this is coming from, but she can't argue with how uncomplicated it is at its core. He's her home too, after all.
"I feel the same way."
His eyes brighten with delicate hope. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Her thumbs move in another short arc, wanting him to feel her love and not just hear it. "I can't imagine being anywhere else."
He's the one who leaves her gasping this time, kissing her to the point of madness, grazing his knuckles against her, steadily rolling her leggings down, down, down…
Working her body until she's done a hell of a lot more than two meager sit-ups.
The last spoon finds its place on a tray full of other gleaming utensils before Lucy nudges the drawer shut with her hip. This is becoming a routine of theirs, Wyatt answering questions about his new role with Agent Christopher as Lucy attacks one frighteningly domestic chore after another. It makes no difference to him if she works or not, and neither of them needs the money, not after two massive payouts from Uncle Sam. If she really loves organizing the cupboards and sorting loads of laundry, he's not standing in her way, not even if it means he doesn't recognize his own medicine cabinet anymore.
It somehow spills out of his mouth anyway, though, because no matter how much he tries to reconcile this strange Suzy Homemaker prototype with the woman he loves, it's just not adding up to him.
"So how about you?" he asks after a beat, feeling inescapably guilty over the fact that they're always catching up about his day, not hers.
"What about me?"
"I know it's...well, the timing is probably off with classes or whatever, but aren't you going back?"
She blinks up at him, revealing next to nothing with that impassive expression. "Back to Stanford?"
"Yeah," he chokes out dumbly, sure that he's just stuck his foot in his damn mouth. Why the hell would she want to go back to Stanford after everything she's been through with Carol? Her entire perception of the place — even her own achievements, though he's sure they were all well deserved — must be tainted now. "Or somewhere else. Wherever you want, really."
Her face unfreezes, only to flash in mournful resignation. "I don't think...I don't think I'm ready to teach. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I have no idea where to even start on catching myself up to speed. As you may realize, the subject matter has been drastically revised since I last stepped foot in a lecture hall."
"But you're you," Wyatt answers automatically, so sure of it — so sure of her — that he honestly can't make sense of the way she shrinks away from his reply. "If anyone could bounce back quickly, it's — "
"I don't want to bounce back quickly," she interrupts forcefully. "I want to feel prepared, to be just as sure of myself as I was before any of this happened. I can't just wing it, okay? Besides, I…"
He pushes down his instinct to insist that she's not giving herself credit. It's all he wants to say, what he wants to shout from every available rooftop, but this isn't about him. It's about her, and he's determined to hear her out, to listen, to — to be a better partner in this relationship, because his life pretty much depends on it. "You what, Lucy?"
"I know what I want to do instead."
And here he's been foolishly assuming that she feels lost in the post-war rubble. Serves him right, underestimating her like that, because Lucy has always been a good five steps ahead of everyone else in the room. In any room.
"Really?"
"Really," she answers with a small smile. "I want to write again. It's the only way I know how to make sense of everything that's changed. I need to dig in, to do the hard work and relearn it all as best as I can. But most importantly, I want to...to give a voice to the history I remember, too. To shed light on the things we saw, the people we met — to make it come alive."
"That sounds like a damn good plan to me."
Lucy glances away from him, gravity settling in at the corners of her mouth. "It's what they deserve."
He clasps her hand in his and leans closer. "Which they are you actually referring to, Luce?"
She gives him a look that says it all. A look that succinctly confirms his theory.
"I can't tell the full story. I know that. But if I can make an argument for why Alice Paul was destined to be the trailblazer that history recognized before Grace Humiston stepped up in her place...or to explain that if a man like Joaquin Murrieta is treated with dignity and respect, his entire life changes forever, that more people live as a result, all because cycles of bitterness and violence can be broken…?" Her voice tapers off, then rebuilds itself. "I have to try to make peace with how fragile it all is, to definitively state that no one is inherently good or evil, not in those pivotal world-shifting moments. Even if no one ever reads a word, I still have to — to pay tribute to the bravery of people who will otherwise be forgotten."
It's not hard to hear what's been left unsaid. Wyatt knows these stories well.
A man as broken as Garcia Flynn meets Lucy Preston, and in one encounter that barely lasts sixty seconds, he becomes the hero who saves them all.
And no matter how brilliantly she stands on her own two feet, that same Lucy Preston will always see herself as the byproduct of a world that once included Amy Preston, her own personal hero.
Fragile is a fucking understatement. How wrong it can all go, how easily one seemingly inconsequential snag can upend an entire lifetime, the immeasurable impact of every decision, every moment, every person.
Everybody's important to someone, I think...
Wyatt stares intently back at her, his voice more than a little unsteady. "Put me on the pre-order list. I want twelve copies."
"You don't have to say things like that, you know." Moisture gathers in her eyes even as she deflects his praise. Classic. "Especially when I haven't written a single word yet."
"I absolutely have to say things like that, because it's the goddamn truth."
She shakes her head at him, but her throat is fluctuating with a heavy swallow and there's a reluctant grin twisting at her lips.
"So what happens next?" he prods after a meaningful lag in conversation.
"I already pitched it to the agent who worked on my last book, and she's totally on board. We're meeting next week to hammer out the details."
"Wait, really? It's already a done deal?"
Like a sudden storm rolling in across a deceptively clear horizon, her expression darkens abruptly. "Oh god, this is the sort of thing I'm supposed to tell you, right? I mean, before I just go and do it on a whim?"
If she didn't look so damn serious, Wyatt would have laughed long and loud over the idea of Lucy needing his permission to do much of anything. "No. No, of course not, Lucy. And this hardly seems like a whim, by the way."
"I've never been the best at...at figuring out how to balance…" she stops to make an ordeal out of a simple breath, her whole body heaving into the act like she's about to go to battle. "What I'm trying to say is that I'm not so great at this whole...boyfriend-girlfriend thing."
Now he does laugh, because the wrinkling of her nose over those two words is too funny to pass up. "Boyfriend, huh?"
Lucy draws her arms across her chest, as straight-faced as a career spy under intense interrogation. "I cannot think of a more tragically inadequate label."
"Ditto." He reaches out to shake her arms loose, opening her up as much as he can, allowing her to unwind the tightly spooled posture that keeps her from embracing this moment for what it is — a milestone. A good milestone. "I accept, though. I will gladly identify myself as Lucy Preston's boyfriend to anyone who wants to know."
Those words elicit a radiant transformation. "So...that's what we are? Officially official, awful terms and all?"
"Yes. If you'll have me, that is."
She's finally laughing too, and it's all the incentive he needs to overperform for more of that same reward.
"If you come up with a title you like more, I'm open to suggestions. The object of your affection. Your most favored suitor. The booty call that requires no actual calling."
"Oh my god, stop it," she says with a thump to his chest, more laughter — more joy — shining from her glittering eyes.
"I'm just trying to give you options, ma'am."
With four simple words, Lucy shuts the door on another round of his stupidity. "I love you, Wyatt."
That decree still has so much power over him. Maybe someday it will feel commonplace, the idea that she really, truly, unreservedly loves him, but today is not that day. Not even close.
He kisses her. It's gentle, pure, a slow exchange to echo the entire spectrum of emotion that runs through him when the word love leaves the same lips that are now caught between his own.
"So we're clear," he murmurs a little thickly without doing much to extract himself, "you have my full permission to choose a different label — any label — whenever you want."
Instant understanding blazes over her face. It's not the best way he could have worded it, and he fully intends to expand upon that offer all on his own when the timing is right, but she needs to know…
To know that he's dreaming a hell of a lot bigger than boyfriend and girlfriend.
When Wyatt leans in to kiss her again, she wastes no time in upgrading gentleness for blistering passion, raking nails into his hair, his lower lip becoming an irresistible piece of bait that she just can't seem to release. It's not long before has her out of the kitchen, down the hall, and across the bed...the freshly made bed, a set of crisp, clean sheets tucked surprisingly well into the edges of the mattress.
"I'm gonna have a lot more chores to do once this book takes off, aren't I?"
Lucy ruffles a doting hand through his hair, but her voice is all business. "Damn straight."
His half-assed grimace convinces no one. He's too insanely proud of her to pretend that he's anything less than thrilled, chores and all.
"We may need something that's not on your list."
Wyatt has been systematically working from one aisle to the next as if it's a timed exercise, more than ready to get this excursion over with so that their lazy weekend together can officially commence. He's been away for a few nights on assignment, Lucy's schedule is becoming increasingly cluttered with a bevy of meetings and long days at the library, which means they're both feeling the strain of less time devoted to nothing but each other.
Or at least that's what he thought the strain was about.
He'd lost her somewhere between makeup and mouthwash, but she's more of a natural meanderer, so it's not really on his radar to worry about her disappearance. She'll inevitably turn up again, most likely saying that she had to backtrack for that bottle of nail polish she'd talked herself out of, a choice she will continue to debate until the moment they're standing in front of a cashier.
But it's not nail polish that has her attention, and he damn well should have been worried, because she's standing in some harrowing form of a paralytic daze when he finds her again.
Pregnancy tests. She's standing before a solid wall of pregnancy tests, making ominous comments about an item that's not on his list.
He must look completely dumbfounded, because she nods toward the shelf as if he needs more pieces of this puzzle, her lips pressed together in a thin line.
"I'm...late."
"What?"
Trepidation looms large in her dark eyes. She pronounces that one word again, flat and stoic despite the rampant anxiety in her gaze. "Late."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
Wyatt hears a thousand other questions in the steep pitch of her voice. She's not sure she's okay, and as incredibly unfair as this may be, his okay-ness — or lack thereof — also somehow falls on her shoulders. Because she's the woman. Because it's her body that might be carrying a newly created life inside of it, not his.
Which is bullshit, and he's not having that for a second.
He takes her hand, folding it gently in his. "It's you and me, Lucy. That's what'll make it okay."
Her expression softens slightly, but the crease between her eyebrows doesn't fade completely. "You sound awfully sure of that."
"We make a damn good team. If I'm betting on anyone, I'm betting on us."
"This isn't a quick jaunt to 1919, Wyatt. Hell, it's not even five godawful days in 1754. It's — it's potentially…"
A lifetime. If one of those tests can confirm what her body is already telling her, this has the power to link them together for a lifetime.
He pulls her hand up to his heart, a solemn pledge, an indestructible promise. "If this is the reason for everything else, a bookend to the pain, the time we've lost, the sacrifices… Well, there's nothing about this future that scares me, not when I've seen the alternative."
Now he's gone and sold himself on how much he wants this, as in he could have started a family with her yesterday and it wouldn't have been soon enough. That's how much he aches to live out this impossible fantasy, to spend all his years with Lucy, to raise a child with her when he once seemed destined to permanently lose her in one way or another.
"Wyatt — "
"We figure it out as we go, just like always. You're the only one I ever want to do this with, Lucy. Any of this. For as long as we're both here."
Tears glimmer in her eyes as she grips his hand fiercely. "Don't you dare propose to me in a damn Walgreens, Wyatt Logan."
"Does that mean you'd say yes if I asked at CVS?"
She careens into him with a thunderclap of reeling laughter, her arms winding around his neck, face pressing into his shoulder. "You're hopeless."
He laughs too, but a consistent thrum from somewhere deep inside defies her words so loudly that Wyatt has no choice but to verbalize the truth. "Quite the opposite, actually."
Lucy goes still, releasing a long exhale only once she tips back to find his eyes. "Me too. God help us both, but...yeah, me too."
The opposite of hopeless. It seems safer to phrase it that way, although he's beginning to believe in a day where they won't have to hedge all their bets with such carefully chosen wording. Until then, he'll keep holding onto this flimsy dream with both hands. So right there, despite the glaring fluorescent lights and a harrumphing sound of disapproval from one aisle over, they gravitate into a kiss that spells infinite relief for them both. They're taking one of those tiny cardboard boxes home with them, and regardless of the answer it gives, his fate is forever intertwined with hers.
Distraction
The timer on her phone might be counting in the wrong direction. That's the only explanation for why this is turning out to be the longest three minutes of her life.
Or maybe she forgot to hit start. Lucy cranes her neck to check it again, earning a clucking noise of disapproval from beside her. He's the one who took the phone away in the first place, mumbling a word that sounded a hell of a lot like 'obsessive' as he set it on the nightstand, woefully out of reach.
Wyatt rests a placating hand on her knee, but she's not sure she wants to be placated. She shakes him off unintentionally, her leg bouncing up and down at a magnitude that might just break the Richter scale, but holy mother of God how is he able to sit so infuriatingly still?
His attempts at small talk barely register in her brain. She answers once, too numb to say anything even remotely sensible, and then she snaps at him when he tries a second time.
The apology is immediate. The words truly cannot come out of her fast enough. He's trying his best to keep them both sane, and here she is, rebuffing his efforts as if he's doing something wrong. "I'm sorry. Really, Wyatt, I — "
"It's okay."
"No, it's not. I didn't mean to — "
He muffles her words with his mouth, unleashing a litany of persuasive kisses, not backing down until she's yielding to each entrancing movement of his lips. Her senses come alive as he traps her crossways over the bed. The rough texture of his fingertips raises goosebumps along the skin of her waistline. His tongue slides over hers and there's nothing else but him, his taut muscles in suspension as he torments her body with the lure of his own. Lucy melts into it because she has no other choice. He's just that damn distracting.
How ironic that it's this exact type of single-minded infatuation which has landed them here.
The timer.
Her phone.
A test that lies in wait on the bathroom counter.
She forgets again, just for a sliver of a second, because now Wyatt is kissing her neck and generating an absolutely diabolical friction between her legs with his denim-covered thigh.
But then the alarm goes off and he peels himself away from her with a heady grin. "Time's up."
Just like that, three minutes have passed. Three minutes that may very well redirect her entire life.
She wants to be a mother. She's always wanted to — well, that's been a little more complicated lately, but her heart hasn't quite allowed that dream die, not entirely. Not even if it's been the last thing on her mind up until a certain lapsed date on the calendar demanded her attention.
Which still boggles her mind. She's Lucy Preston, dammit. She has always made safe, well-informed decisions. Even about sex. Especially about sex.
It would be him, wouldn't it? Because it's the sperm of Wyatt Logan at work here, with its genetic predisposition for defying precautions and percentages. It's just one more rule that doesn't apply to him, a reckless rewrite to the future plan, because no plan is his favorite kind of plan.
It would be him, she thinks again with a fond smile. All the meant to be's and only ones...they apply to no one but him. And she trusts that now. She trusts that they make each other better, trusts that two seemingly opposing forces can foster a love that saves lives and realigns the universe. Fate has won her back over to its side.
Which is why the tears that stream unchecked down her face when she steps into that bathroom are the happiest tears of her life.
Everything is about to change. Again. All because one life-affirming kiss behind the battle lines of the Cold War had actually, in hindsight, been a life-building kiss. It's another new beginning, brighter and warmer and louder than the last, because Wyatt is lifting her off her feet with a whooping laugh and a few tears of his own, their sunny little bathroom suddenly feeling too small to contain all of their joy. Logan and Preston — a damn good team, one worth betting on — are about to add another member to the roster.
Little do they know, their team is actually going straight from two to four.
THANK YOU FOR READING. And thank you Timeless for daring to exist in the first place. It's been a wild, incredible, emotional ride :)
Without further ado, the official kiss list:
War's end kiss
New Year's kiss
Goodbye kiss
Jealous kiss
Kiss on the forehead
Fingertips under shirt, break kiss with a gasp
Starts gentle, ends in passion
Public kiss
Kiss meant to distract