So, what is this? It's just a very small fanfic that I felt like writing. Why? I watched the last episode as soon as it came out, and I was like, damn, I need to write something about Lyatt, but surprise, no future!Lyatt, unfortunately. I dunno what this is. This is just a short something, a retelling of events you already know about.
So YEAH, NOTHING NEW. I mean, not really.
I DUNNO, OKAY.
Warning: this fic is potentially crap. And lazy ending. It's 3am.
Disclaimer: I don't own Timeless, but if I did, damn right this show would be going on for at least another four seasons, but NO, this show is constantly being cancelled and I don't think we're gonna get a full season 3 (but I did hear about a two part finale?). Aish, so much wasted potential.
Please review!
EDIT (17 Aug 2018): I just edited the author's note at the bottom to point out a PUN. That's how sad of an existence I am.
Counting the Seconds
She waits.
Lucy waits as he kisses another girl (even though she's the other girl), waits as his fingers, callous, agile, snake around Jessica's waist, thread into her sunray hair, waits as Wyatt's gaze flickers to her in the instant it's not on his wife.
Lucy waits, because some part of her must think that if she is patient, time will reward her.
(She forgets that time is a mere concept— there are people, there are emotions, and there are consequences. Time is just the hands on a clock governed by the infidelity of constants.)
You haven't lost me.
Hasn't she?
Lucy crumples onto her bed, scornfully laughing, melancholia ripe in all the tears she swipes away.
How times change, Lucy muses.
She finds solace in her enemy and pain in her friend (which is what Wyatt should be). Flynn sinks into the leather beside her on the couch, two bottles in hand. He unscrews one, passes it to her.
The TV screen crackles and glitches in surprise of the situation. Lucy laughs. It's an old model; it wouldn't be familiar with new and dynamic times. Trapped in history.
"Old days, old ways." Lucy hiccups.
"You—" Flynn takes away the bottle. "—are drunk."
She misconstrues, more often than not, the look in Wyatt's eyes. Blue seas, high tides, always stirring, always hungry— as if he still wants her.
Even though his wife is back, even though he has exhausted his miracles.
Lucy is tired of this game, of his game, because this is not a war she where she strives to prevail. She doesn't mind losing, not if it means Wyatt gains the love of his life back, not if it means that she doesn't need to interfere with the work of marvels.
But she does mind if, even in the aftermath, he refuses to liberate her heart from the strings, if he still tugs and pulls and pushes her away, only to propagate a cycle where she is constantly aching, bleeding, drowning.
He grabs her wrist.
"What were you doing in Flynn's room?"
Lucy misconstrues, more often than not, the look in Wyatt's eyes. And she is bitter, wounded, because why can't he just let her move on?
(It's as if he still wants her—
—and what hurts and terrifies Lucy the most, she realises, is that he does.)
There's no use living in the past, she tells him.
(Even though Jessica is the past, Lucy thinks, unwinding the convolutions of time as she tries to fall asleep.)
But then again, living in the past is what they do.
Lucy wonders —when Wyatt, bewildered, is sprawled on the ground, his pretty blues as reflective as refined sapphire— whether love truly makes one blind.
He had suspicions, but he turned them to ghosts, tucking them beneath his black leather grave, beneath his skin, where eyes can't pry.
Lucy pretends not to hear the violent reverberations of her snapping heartstrings, and mourns for Wyatt's kamikaze secret, for the destruction it was destined to cause.
Jessica is gone, Jiya is gone, the Lifeboat is gone, and there is fear gnawing at her that the trust binding them together will be of the same fate.
(And it gnaws at her the way the ice does at her skin when she holds it to her chin.)
Their foundations are in rubbles, and too much has been lost.
Lucy and Wyatt lean against the wall, drunk on tragedy, on regrets.
"This isn't your fault," she murmurs, and there is a glister in his eyes as he sharply inhales. "Rufus would have wanted you to save Jiya."
"I love you, Lucy," Wyatt breathes out. "Rufus wanted me to admit it, but—"
Lucy doesn't hear the rest. Her mouth is suddenly dry, and her breath hitches. How is she meant to respond? What is she meant to say?
Lucy is not blind. She has waited at her own expense, and there are scars that need healing, wounds that need stitching. She needs time.
"You don't have to say it back," he says finally, softly, erasing the silence.
And she doesn't.
I gained a whole new level of respect for Lucy when she didn't say it back. It's so much more representative of real life relationships, and well, I appreciate it. They need time.
But yeah, 'tis me.
Enjoy? No enjoy? Or in between? I dunno.
Also, can I just say that I find a huge amount of satisfaction from the fandom name? Clockblockers? I absolutely love it. (NBC totally be clockblocking us, though, haha).
[Another] also, can I point out the title is a pun? Because Timeless and therefore seconds and because Lucy= Second girl? Does that make sense? And I guesssssss you could say she's counting the number of times where both Wyatt and herself are putting her second, until the end, where they both put Lucy first (so Wyatt finally "picks" her, and Lucy finally prioritises her well-being). Am I stretching it? Maybe a little, but I am firm in my belief of this pun.
I just very desperately wanted to point out the pun. I'M SO SORRY.
~Adieu!
X's and O's,
Liberty