a/n: this fic is brought to you by 2 prompts for the price of 1:
- Gracielinn PMed me with the following ask: So my request/prompt is for a story that features both characters reflecting on how he can't seem to keep his hands off her and what that means to both of them. (hope I got this right for you!)
- Contest prompt from timeless-fanfic-prompts on tumblr, which was to incorporate these lines of dialogue: "The fate of the world is in your hands." "…yikes."
This fic is basically my lyatt-heavy version of what could happen in 2x01. By no means is this supposed to accurately encompass an entire episode, mostly because this is just fanfiction and I have a (often neglected) day job to attend to every once in a while, but you get the idea ;)
She didn't shed a single tear until she was back in his arms.
Wyatt found her in the mayhem of Mason's largest conference room, cutting a straight line through the collection of techs and agents that were flurrying around the facility. All hands were on deck to make sense of the latest disaster, but he approached her with fully-focused intent, seemingly immune to the surrounding chaos as he gathered her in an all-encompassing hug.
"Where have you been?" he asked in a timbre so low that she had to concentrate to understand the question.
The story of her mother's confession spilled out in a broken, sobbing jumble. She kept herself centered in his faithful blue gaze, allowed his hands to guide her to the nearest chair before her legs could surrender to the jello-like weakness that filled her body.
It wasn't until after she'd finished recounting the hellish entirety of what she'd encountered on her trip home that she realized the extent of her audience. Agent Christoper stood solemnly across from Lucy, several agents from Homeland Security were taking notes at the farthest end of the table, and Connor Mason was stationed in the doorway with a grim frown.
Wyatt's gentle pressure on her hand brought her eyes back to his. "They have it already, Lucy. The Mothership is gone."
She nodded through a surge of nausea, another tear springing loose as she let herself accept the undeniable truth; they were going back out again, and it wasn't for Amy. It was to stop Rittenhouse. To stop her mom.
"Where - where to...?"
"We don't know yet," Denise answered quietly, "but we're working on it as fast as we can. I'm still trying to get a hold of Rufus, so you should get some rest in the meantime."
Lucy wiped a hand over her mascara-streaked face, almost breaking into a frenzied laugh at the idea of resting any time soon.
"Come on," Wyatt murmured with his hands on her arms, hauling her up to her feet. "You heard the orders, ma'am."
She couldn't smile or pull a faux-offended face in response to his words, just silently permitted him to take her wherever he wanted to go. Her head felt frighteningly empty now that she'd unloaded the secret of her Rittenhouse lineage for all of Mason Industries to hear, but she trusted the warm familiarity of Wyatt's arm around her.
It was hard to pinpoint when exactly she'd decided that his touch was worthy of her utmost confidence, but she was sure that he hadn't steered her wrong yet. History - both theirs and America's - told the story all on its own. He'd held her hand as she wept over the agonizing bloodshed of Abraham Lincoln. He took her arm and pulled her out of the road as they ducked into the green forests of Nazi Germany. It was his arms that had shielded her from gunfire even while he'd been struggling through the grips of a PTSD flashback at the Alamo. He'd offered a hand up to the Lifeboat as they finally made their harrowing escape from 1754. He guided her into his lap when Bonnie and Clyde had looked less than convinced by their cover story. His fingers had clutched the back of her neck and swept her into a desperate hug once Houdini had set him free from imminent death in the murder castle. And just days ago - how many had passed now, she couldn't be sure anymore - he'd kept a hand on her back as they made a hasty retreat through Washington, D.C. in the 1950s.
When looking back at it all in retrospect, was there really any doubt that she would willingly hand him the reins now when she was truly at a loss for how to operate from this point forward?
So Lucy moved with him, feet functioning on autopilot, until he opened the door to the modernly furnished sitting room that Mason used for incoming visitors. Her flagging gaze flickered around their new surroundings with half of a tired smirk. "Interesting choice..."
"If I was feeling sappy, I'd tell you that this room holds some rather fond memories for me. You know, of meeting this beautiful, high-strung professor who wouldn't stop asking me a million questions while I was trying to catch a quick nap." He brushed a hand between her shoulder blades before pulling her down onto the nearest leather couch. "But obviously I'm not the sentimental type, so practically speaking, this is the most comfortable spot in the whole place. Best choice for someone who needs to unwind a little. I know this from experience."
She shook her head with a reluctant smile, eyes sliding closed as he angled her further into his shoulder. "The last several months have been so surreal...I almost feel like I could fall asleep now and somehow wake up back in this room on that first night, still waiting for Agent Christopher to show up and tell us why we'd been brought in. The whole time travel thing - and Rittenhouse, for that matter - would be nothing more than a ridiculously wild dream that only took place in my head."
Wyatt sighed into her hair. "This probably sounds so damn selfish after what you went through tonight, but I...I can't imagine how disappointed I'd be to go backwards now, Lucy. This job has changed a lot for me...you have changed a lot for me."
She nestled herself closer into him with a yawn. "I don't want you...us...going backwards either."
A minute ago, she'd been sure that sleep would never find her in the midst of so much heartache, but the immeasurable safety that existed inside of Wyatt's embrace was quickly invalidating that assumption. He was like a natural sedative to the tangle of her anxious thoughts, something akin to walking through the front door and just knowing everything will be alright because you're home again.
The last thing she recognized before fading away into the web of her exhaustion was the sensation of Wyatt's lips descending against the crown of her head.
"Lucy? Time to wake up, sleepyhead..."
He watched with the smallest of grins as her eyelids fluttered with some resistance. She made a grumbling noise into his chest, tried to burrow further into him, and then gradually gave up the fight as he gently shook her shoulder again.
There was no questioning when the reality of her recent memories snapped into focus. Lucy sprang out of his hold in the blink of an eye, both hands moving rapidly through her mussed hair as she glanced defensively around the room.
"You're okay," he spoke quietly, reaching out to trace his fingertips over her leg, "We're at Mason."
She nodded, but her brow was still furrowed guardedly in a way that fractured his heart.
Agent Christopher stepped forward with a sympathetic frown. "I wish we didn't have to ask you to do this, Lucy, but Rufus is back from the hospital and we have a location on the Mothership. I know it's soon, but - "
"Soon?" Wyatt asked with a trembling line of anger appearing in his voice without sanction. "Tomorrow might have been soon. This is like whiplash."
Denise pursed her lips in a way that told him she wasn't disagreeing with that statement. "Nevertheless, we have a crisis on - "
This time it was Rufus who cut her off, albeit unintentionally. He came rushing through the doorway with his eyebrows crinkled together, dropping onto the other side of the couch next to Lucy and immediately pulling her into a hug. "I am so sorry, Lucy. Holy shit, your mom too?!"
Wyatt met his eyes over Lucy's head, morosely nodding his confirmation, which prompted Rufus to squeeze her even harder.
"Thanks, Rufus," came her muffled response, "...but I do need to breathe at some point, if that's okay."
He released her in a flash, both of their eyes watery as they looked each other over with humorless chuckles.
"I know this is the last thing that the three of you want to hear right now," Agent Christopher broke in slowly, "but, once again, the fate of the world is in your hands."
Rufus pressed his palm to his forehead and let out a fatigued exhale. "…yikes."
Lucy raised a hand with a weary look of acceptance. "I'm in. Where are we going?"
"Boston, December of 1773."
Wyatt grimaced at the instant horror filtering over Lucy's pale face. "What? What is it?"
"We need to go, now." She was already up, presumably off to the wardrobe bay for the proper attire, leaving Wyatt and Rufus to scramble after her with parallel looks of confusion.
"Lucy? Are we talking complete and utter catastrophe here or what?"
"You guys really don't know this one?" Her gaze glinted backward in expectation, darting between the two of them for a beat before her face caved with disappointment. "And so the American education system fails again. Hope you boys like tea, because if this goes poorly, we might be swimming in it by nightfall."
A jubilant battle cry rang through the air as a series of audible splashes echoed across the harbor.
"So tell me," Wyatt murmured so close to her ear that she was suddenly shivering for reasons that had nothing to do with the brutal cold that was so essential to winter in New England, "if no one got hurt here tonight, and the worst that could happen is maybe a slightly altered timeline for the American Revolution, why are you so worried? You're sure that everything has gone off without a hitch so far?"
Lucy swiveled to face him as well as she could from behind the twin set of barrels that were concealing them from view, never quite used to the frustration of so many bulky layers of clothing constraining her every movement. "We have no idea what their agenda is here, Wyatt. Sure, from here it all looks the same as of right now, but maybe Rittenhouse's preferred version of the Boston Tea Party is that everyone gets arrested as soon as they come back to the wharf. What if this gets just as ugly as the Boston Massacre once they return? Do you know how many of these men are imperative to what happens in the next several years? I can't let anything happen to them, okay?"
He grasped her hand through the barrier of her woolen mittens, his azure eyes gleaming in the glow of the candlelit streetlights. "We can't let that happen, and we won't."
She smiled faintly at his correction and did her best to keep her voice composed as she spoke. "I...I know it sounds silly, but this is the stuff I grew up on, you know? The American Revolution and the events that led up to it...they were like my comic books, and the ones who fought for our freedom were my version of super heroes. Not that the Sons of Liberty necessarily did everything the right way, but I...I just need this one to stay the same."
"There's something else, isn't there?"
Of course he saw the underlying strain warring within her. Wyatt noticed everything it seemed, possessing an endlessly accurate radar for every unspoken thought or emotion that she held. She nodded, then dropped her eyes from his. "I'm going to be really disappointed if...if I have this wrong, and the Sons of Liberty all turn out to be the forerunners of Rittenhouse. If the real reason we're here is because present-day Rittenhouse wants to arm their ancestors with some type of advantage..."
She broke off with a dismal sigh, incapable of vocalizing that nagging thought any further. Wyatt surely knew where this was really stemming from, anyhow. The last thing she wanted to deal with now was one more fallen idol; one more grand-scale setback to the very fabric of her existence.
"That's not silly, Lucy. None of it is," he said with quiet assurance. When she looked up again, his face was just a breath away from hers, cold puffs of expelled oxygen swirling between them as they both exhaled unevenly. The harbor had gone startlingly silent, the vibrant shouts of the uprising having slowly ebbed away into the midnight sky.
Rufus rounded the corner of the adjacent alleyway a moment later, disrupting the expectant calm that had settled over the pair of them as he ducked sideways behind the nearest barrel. "Guys, you are not going to believe who I - "
"Wait, shhh," Lucy hissed as a splashing sound - one that was far more closer than any that preceded it - broke through the clammy air. "They're coming back this way."
"What's the plan exactly?" Wyatt asked, his hand already on his holster.
"To stay completely out of sight unless someone interferes with their escape," she whispered back, eyes locked on the approaching crowd of huddled bodies, the silhouette of feathered headdresses being the only distinct part of the massive outline that grew larger and larger as they advanced. "They aren't supposed to face any opposition."
Rufus leaned forward, trying to catch Lucy's eyes with a hint of desperation. "It's Emma, guys. Emma Whitmore is here."
Both Lucy and Wyatt turned to gape at the third member of their team, and before either of them could form a reply, the Sons of Liberty filed past them in a rush, scurrying into the mouth of the alley that Rufus had come through just a minute beforehand. Lucy held her finger to her lips, her eyes rounded as she watched the parade of disguises fly by on hushed footsteps. Most of the men were gone in a flash, but a few of them were staggering by much more slowly, shouldering one motionless body between them.
Wyatt titled his head by just a fraction, his eyes searching Lucy's with a silent question. She shook her head minutely, because the one detail she'd almost forgotten had just clicked into place. The lingering men ducked into a neighboring doorway, and when they reappeared after several nerve-racking seconds had ticked by, it was without the burden of the extra body.
The extra body of John Crane.
For the briefest of moments, Lucy actually remembered what it felt like to enjoy this job, to be in awe of the enchantment that came along with traveling through time and living out the stories that she'd memorized from such a young age. Here she was, hunched between a splintery barrel and an unforgiving wall, looking on as a well-beloved fragment of history took place right before her eyes.
That moment came to a screeching halt as she caught sight of a shadow stealing through the night from the other side of the wharf.
"Wyatt," she whispered, gesturing almost imperceptibly in the direction of where she'd last seen movement.
"I see it," he returned without missing a beat. "Are we not expecting anyone else?"
"No one who would need to stay hidden from the rest of the Patriots."
The figure separated herself from the inky blackness that shrouded her, stepping into a narrow cone of light, and then two more shapes came into focus from behind her just a second later.
"That would be Emma, and apparently with backup," Rufus muttered. "She must have been double or triple agent-ing Flynn this whole time...and I'm officially at a loss for words. Don't know a damn thing about a damn thing."
Lucy held her breath, willing Emma to keep moving along the docks without chasing after the freedom fighters or taking notice of the three of them.
The third option - one that hadn't entered her brain until it was already unfolding before her - was that Emma knew exactly what she had come for and had timed it in perfect succession to the Sons of Liberty's effortless escape. She was going after John Crane.
Lucy jumped to her feet as soon as Emma and her two other men slid into the carpenter's shop.
"We have to stop them from getting to him!"
"Wait, we need to protect the dead guy that just got dumped by his so-called friends?" Wyatt asked as he vaulted himself into action, trailing closely at Lucy's heels.
"It's John Crane, and he's not dead, just unconscious. He was knocked out by one of the tea crates falling on him, and they made the mistake of thinking he was a goner. He's not. He recovers, rejoins the the rebellion, and serves in the Revolution War after this."
Wyatt took her by the elbow to slow her down, his glance skimming past her to regard Rufus as well. "Okay, you two wait here while I - "
His voice broke with an ugly cracking sound, his head pitching sideways with the impact of a sucker punch from behind him.
"Wyatt!"
Both of the Emma's companions leapt forward, one going in for an undercut to Wyatt's jaw while the second guy took a menacing step toward Lucy and Rufus, cutting them off from attempting to come to Wyatt's aid.
"You think I didn't plan for this to happen?" Emma asked archly as she stepped into the open doorway of the carpenter's shop. "I spent the last several weeks studying the three of you under the unique tutelage of none other than Garcia Flynn himself. I brought the muscle for a reason - you people have an obnoxious habit of popping up at the worst times."
"How..." Rufus staggered a half-step closer, his voice dipping low with disbelief, "how could you do this, Emma?"
She shook her head with a hollow smile. "Your side will never win, Rufus. The sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be."
With that, she nodded to the guy who wasn't currently locking horns with Wyatt just a few feet away, giving one last command before dissolving backward into the shop - "Remember, Ms. Preston is not to be harmed. Her future is with us."
Lucy shuddered, a wordless cry parting her lips at the sound of Wyatt's gun clattering to the ground and skidding across the wide planks of the dock. Rufus dashed after it, but Emma's lackey got there first, kicking the gun out of Rufus's reach and sending it into the murky water below with a sickening plunk.
"Go," Lucy yelped, throwing herself between Rufus and their adversary, her breath turning to vapor as she shouted out again, "go find backup, Rufus!"
"But you - "
"You heard her, they won't hurt me," she sputtered back, her lips trembling as she stared up into the callous eyes of the snarling man before her. "Just go!"
To be continued! Think of it as a commercial break, okay? Let me know what you think so far!