Jiya tapped tentatively on the door of the women's locker room, having followed Lucy straight from the Lifeboat. The team had just returned from another mission to the Civil War era, and Jiya was attuned enough to their moods to know that, despite the fact that they were physically unharmed, something had gone very wrong.
The mission itself had been a qualified success, having preserved the outcome of the Battle of Westport, with only minor alterations to the nuts and bolts of history. Clearly, something else was at play. Wyatt's stone-faced expression and Rufus' clear discomfort as they stumbled out of the Lifeboat spoke volumes; there was no way she was getting any information out of the guys.
Lucy Preston had proven to be a tough nut to crack - especially difficult for someone who often found it easier to relate to 1's and 0's than actual human beings - but over the past few months, Jiya felt they'd developed the beginnings of a friendship.
"Lucy," she called softly, "can I come in?"
On the other side of the locker room door, Lucy curled up in a ball on the floor. She'd hoped to escape, get a few moments alone to collect herself, but she's learned quickly that Jiya's attention to detail extends well beyond her programming skills. Truth be told, she needed someone to lean on. In her original timeline, this was exactly the kind of thing she'd hash out with Amy. But Amy wasn't here (might never be here again, she reminded herself) and Jiya had become a surrogate little sister of sorts, so she reached up to the doorknob, twisting it open just enough to let her friend scoot through the door.
Jiya squeezes through, leaning down to pull Lucy up to a standing position. "I know something went sideways on the mission, Lucy, so don't try to BS me by claiming everything's fine. I can tell that it's not, but whatever the problem is, you'll probably feel a little bit better once you're out of those clothes."
Lucy obediently turns around, allowing the younger woman access to the row of buttons down her back. They've done this often enough now that Jiya is very efficient with the buttonhook, loosening the dress in less than a minute. As Lucy steps out of the garment, Jiya works the laces of her corset with equal intensity.
"I'm late," Lucy states flatly.
Jiya's hands still briefly. "Late?" she responds uncertainly. She grips the corset laces a little more tightly as understanding sinks in, glad that Lucy can't see her grimace behind her back. "Ohhh … late."
Lucy nods as she works the buttonhook on her gloves. "Wyatt and I got into an argument; I don't even remember how it started, but we were in the middle of the fighting at Brush Creek and it just … slipped out. Wyatt shuttled me off with the field nurses to Wornall House while he and Rufus fought with General Curtis' forces. I didn't see either one of them again until 18 hours later, when they said we were clear to go home. That was an hour ago, I guess? My concept of time is so fucked up these days."
Lucy exhales gratefully as Jiya pulls the loosened corset away from her ribcage.
"Rufus doesn't know about this, does he?"
Lucy shakes her head in response. "I don't think so. He wasn't with us when Wyatt and I were arguing, and I doubt that they had time to discuss it. He knew something wasn't right when we got back to the Lifeboat, though." Now clad only in her shift and petticoats, she turns to face Jiya with a pleading look. "Jiya, can you please do me one favor, and not tell Rufus the details? Honestly, I'm not sure he'd want to know the whole truth," she chuckled ruefully, "but Wyatt and I need some time to work this out on our own."
Jiya wraps her friend in a comforting hug. "I won't lie to him, Lucy, but I'll hold his curiosity off for as long as I can. I think you're right that it's best that he not know all the gory details, though."
"Thanks, Jiya. For everything," Lucy replies sincerely.
"You're welcome." Jiya walks over to her own locker, rummaging around for her purse and keys. A quick check of her phone shows three texts from Rufus in the last five minutes. She groans inwardly, realizing that the promise she's just made has now become exponentially more difficult to keep. She realizes that she's going to have to bring out the big guns – the latest South Park game for PS4, which she was holding off for their upcoming six-month anniversary – to keep him off Lucy and Wyatt's backs for at least a day or two. Sighing, she reaches for the game case in the back of her locker, where it's been stashed for the better part of two weeks, and tucks it into her purse.
"I just got a text from Rufus. Apparently, he and Wyatt de-briefed already, and Wyatt said he'd see you at home."
Lucy nods. "We took separate cars this time, so that makes sense."
Jiya pauses before heading out the back door to the parking lot. "Good luck, Lucy. Call me if you need to talk, okay?"
"I will, Jiya. I think I'm going to need all the luck I can get."
15 hours earlier ….
Lucy wakes to the tickle of cat whiskers on her cheek and Wyatt's cat, Sadie, purring in her ear. Before she's able to acknowledge that she's alone in bed, Wyatt reaches down to scoop the cat up off the bed.
"Sadie," he whispers teasingly, "we've been over this, remember? No waking up Lucy before the coffee's ready, okay?"
Lucy burrows under her pillow, vaguely registering Wyatt rummaging around in the kitchen, filling Sadie's food bowl and firing up their coffeemaker. She peers at him blearily when he reappears in their bedroom doorway. "Wyatt? It's 7:30. What are you doing up this early?" she asks sleepily.
He leans down to place a series of gentle kisses up the back of her neck, nibbling behind her ear. "Meeting with the headshrinker for my quarterly psych eval, remember? I seem to recall someone causing me to oversleep for my appointment last week, and Christopher threatened to ground me indefinitely if I missed it again."
Lucy moans softly, grateful for her pillow muffling the sound. "Hmm, yes, I vaguely recall that. Go, before you get in trouble again."
"Yes, ma'am," Wyatt replies, and Lucy can just picture the cocky smirk on his face.
An hour later, Lucy is showered, dressed and on her second cup of coffee when she sits at the desk in her makeshift office, ready to tackle revisions to the textbook chapter that is due to her editor in a week.
When she first moved in with Wyatt, the second bedroom still functioned as a guest room, but that arrangement barely lasted a month. Wyatt bought the biggest desk he could fit in the room, and added a second bookshelf, to accommodate Lucy's research and writing. As she waits for her laptop to boot up, Lucy flips through her calendar, trying to determine whether she has any appointments she'll need to reschedule thanks to their time travels. Her calendar pages are a sea of red ink, reminders scribbled in, scratched out and re-added.
Tuesday: Dentist appointment. Lucy grimaces; she hates going to the dentist.
Thursday afternoon: conference call with her editor to review revisions to her chapter, due that morning.
Friday morning: doctor's appointment. Wait, I've re-scheduled that once already, haven't I? Lucy asks herself, as she flips back to the previous month's page. Her train of thought comes to an abrupt halt as she's scanning the dates, the mental equivalent of a record scratch.
No, no no no no… this can't be right, it's not possible; she's screaming internally as she counts off days: 27, 28, 29, 30 … she's jolted out of her stupor by the realization that her cell phone is ringing.
"Agent Christopher, what can I do for you?" she answers crisply, hoping she's managed to tamp down the panic in her voice.
If the DHS Agent notices anything is amiss, she's too much of a professional to mention it over the phone. "The Mothership is on the move, Dr. Preston. We need you here for briefing in 20 minutes."
"Yes, ma'am. On my way." Lucy slams her laptop closed, swipes her keys and phone off the desk, both grateful for the distraction and anxious as hell.
Lucy isn't generally much for swearing – Wyatt's the one who can cuss up a blue streak; he blames a particularly difficult Drill Sergeant in Basic for teaching him every colorful epithet in the book, and then some - but only one word keeps running through her head as she drives to Mason Industries:
Shit.
Back to the present
Lucy pulls up to her assigned space in front of their apartment building, not entirely surprised by the fact that Wyatt's truck isn't in his space. It was at that point that she realizes she hadn't checked her phone for messages since leaving Mason's warehouse. Sure enough, she has two texts from Wyatt:
10:52pm: Please text me to let me know you are home safe. I need a little time to clear my head, but I promise I'll be home soon. I didn't want you to worry if you got home and I wasn't there.
10:53pm: I love you so much.
Lucy lets herself into the building, acknowledging the security detail posted outside with a wave before locking up for the night. The apartment is in the same exact state as when she left it that morning, indicating that Wyatt has not been home since he left work. She feeds Sadie, changes into pajamas, and sinks dejectedly onto their bed, trying desperately not to cry as she taps out a quick message:
11:08pm: I'm home safe. Please be careful, wherever you are. Come home soon. I love you.
She curls up into a ball under the covers, clutching Wyatt's pillow like a lifeline as she eventually drifts off into a fitful sleep.
Two hours later, Wyatt pulls up in his designated parking spot, confirming that the overnight detail is at their post, and disabling their security alarm with the app Rufus built for his phone. He half-expects Lucy to be waiting up for him, or at least asleep on the couch. Instead, he sees a pair of narrowed blue eyes staring at him in the darkness from her perch on the back of the couch. If he didn't know better, he'd swear that Sadie was giving him the feline equivalent of the stinkeye. She hops to the floor haughtily and trots off to the bedroom, settling into her favorite spot at the foot of the bed.
Wyatt, realizing that he is in the metaphorical doghouse with at least one (if not both) of the females in his household, debates whether he should just pull up a pillow and blanket and crash on the couch himself, when he realizes that Lucy is tossing and turning in her sleep, occasionally mumbling his name. He knows neither one of them will get any rest otherwise, so he changes into his favorite sleep pants, grabs an extra pillow off the floor (since Lucy has commandeered the one he usually sleeps on) and settles in carefully, tentatively wrapping his arms around her, shifting around until he's spooned behind her, his favorite way to fall asleep. He can tell the instant her subconscious realizes that he's home, as her whole body relaxes and her breathing begins to even out.
[She's still cuddling tightly to his pillow, though.]
Lucy wakes again to cat whiskers in her face and loud purring in her ear, and for one disorienting moment, she wonders if she's simply dreamed the past 24 hours, and it's actually still Friday morning, when Wyatt has a meeting with the psychologist and she has revisions to her writing to complete. A tap of her phone confirms that it is, in fact, Saturday, and that she's slept in much later than usual. The sheets on Wyatt's side of the bed are rumpled, and the note he's left for her confirms that she did not dream his presence in their bed last night, either.
I'm over at Rufus' house. I promised him two weeks ago that we'd spend today helping his brother fix up his car, but in all the chaos of yesterday, I forgot until this morning. You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn't have the heart to wake you before I left. I'll be home this afternoon, and I promise we'll talk. About everything.
I love you.
P.S: I fed Sadie. Don't let her guilt you into believing otherwise. :)
His postscript is punctuated with a silly little caricature of Sadie, attempting a pitiful expression. It reminds her a little of Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies, and it makes her smile.
We'll be okay, she thinks as she heads for the kitchen, determined to get her day back on track. She'll get her chapter revisions done, start the laundry, and cook dinner.
Oh, who is she kidding? She'll order in dinner.
Wyatt arrives home almost eight hours later, covered in sweat, dirt, and engine grease, to find Lucy curled up in a ball on the living room couch, watching Weapon of Choice, of all things. Though she's facing the TV, he can tell by the unfocused look in her eyes that her mind is elsewhere, and she doesn't notice him until he's kneeling in front of her, brushing her hair off her forehead.
"Hey," he whispers tenderly, "are you feeling okay? It's not like you to voluntarily watch James Bond movies on a perfectly good Saturday afternoon," he teases.
"No," she mutters, groaning in pain. "Cramps. Can you get me some ibuprofen?"
Wyatt nods in understanding. "Ah. Coming right up. Have you eaten anything today?" he asked, knowing that when Lucy wasn't feeling well, she sometimes forgot to eat.
"Not since breakfast. Wasn't hungry," she replies miserably.
"Let me get your meds, and I'll call the Chinese place before I jump in the shower. Sound good?" He doesn't bother waiting for her answer, knowing that Kung Pao Chicken is one of her favorite comfort foods.
45 minutes later, Wyatt is freshly showered, dressed, and setting their dining room table when dinner is delivered.
Over dinner, Wyatt regales Lucy with funny stories about their attempts to get Rufus' little brother's car running. As it turns out, while Rufus is very good at hot-wiring cars, getting the engine to start the way it's supposed to is another matter entirely. They called it a day after finally successfully turning the engine over for the first time after more than four hours of tinkering. He notices that instead of actually eating while he's been talking, she's mostly been pushing her chicken and rice around on her plate, a nervous habit if there ever was one.
Wyatt sighs as he picks up her plate of half-eaten Chinese food. "I'll put this in the microwave in case you're hungry later."
Lucy follows him only as far as the kitchen doorway, watching nervously as he putters around, putting away food and dishes. "Wyatt, we don't need to talk about this right now. It's not that big of a deal-"
Wyatt wheels around, staring at Lucy incredulously. "It is a big deal, Lucy, and this is a conversation we should have had a while ago, before we ever committed to being an 'us'." He turns back around to stare out their kitchen window, into their small backyard with the hammock he and Lucy liked to swing in together on nice nights. "You deserve to know everything."
She wraps her arms around his middle, carefully resting her cheek on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter any more," she whispers, "I'm not pregnant."
They both stiffen as the word "pregnant" tumbles out of her mouth, the first time either of them had directly addressed the proverbial elephant in the room.
Wyatt turns around in her arms, kissing her tenderly on the cheek, tugging her in the direction of the living room. They settle on the overstuffed couch, Lucy snuggling in Wyatt's lap while he rubs soothing circles on her lower back.
"Where did you go last night after you left the warehouse?" she asks quietly, almost as if she's afraid of his answer.
He chuckles ruefully into her hair, nuzzling the crown of her head before he answers. "Be honest, you're expecting me to say I went to a bar, aren't you?"
He's not surprised when she nods.
"I went to Ocean Beach, actually. There's a spot on the south end of the beach that I go to sometimes when I need a quiet place to think."
"And what were you thinking about?"
"I kept replaying our argument in Westport over and over in my mind, hoping like hell that I hadn't just wrecked the best thing to happen to me in a long time."
Lucy shifts in his lap, cupping his face in her hands while tenderly tracing the circles under Wyatt's eyes with her thumbs, as though she could erase them by touch alone. "Wyatt, no. You were right about the fact that I didn't have my head in the game, and you had no way of knowing why. Sending me to Wornall House to work with the nurses was the right decision."
"You were safest away from the fighting, and that's all I could focus on. But when I thought later about how I reacted, how if something had happened to you, that conversation would have been the last thing we ever said to each other … I couldn't have lived with myself, Lucy." Wyatt swallows thickly, leaning back over the back of the couch, willing the tears welling up in his eyes to keep from falling.
Lucy leans away, studying the grief, guilt and pain in his face, and she immediately recognizes that this is another callback to Jessica.
"Wyatt," she asks tentatively, "what haven't you told me about what happened to Jessica?"
Wyatt picks her up off his lap and scoots he a little further away from himself on the couch. She's concerned that he thinks any physical distance would be necessary, but she lets him have this one, curling her feet under a blanket, focused entirely on the man across from her, clearly wrestling with the decision of how to tell this tale.
"You know that Flynn read me part of your journal entry about Jessica, right? Back in 1974?"
She nods, silently encouraging him to continue. "When he read what you'd written in that journal, I knew that in that timeline, I'd never told you the full story. You'd never have written that if you'd known the truth."
"What is the truth,Wyatt?
Wyatt hugs one of the throw pillows to his chest, settling it in front of himself as though it were body armor.
"Before Jess disappeared, we'd hit a rough patch in our marriage," he admits solemnly. "You know that we were high school sweethearts, but we'd only been married about three years by that point. I'd been gone for almost half of that time. I was deployed to Africa for a year three months after our honeymoon. I missed our first anniversary, and I had to make a decision about whether to re-up my enlistment as soon as I got home. By that point, Delta was recruiting me heavily. Jess encouraged me to apply, but I don't think she fully understood what we were getting ourselves into. I left for OTC the day after our second anniversary, and we didn't see or speak to each other again for the full six months of the program. I almost dropped out twice. Most of the guys who wash out, do it because they can't take the isolation from friends and family," Wyatt pauses, taking several deep breaths, bracing himself for what he is about to tell Lucy.
"Jess had been pressing me about having a baby. I knew I wasn't ready. More importantly, I felt like she wasn't ready. I didn't want her to be a de facto single mom, while I was halfway around the world, or having to leave on missions at the drop of a hat. I tried to reassure her that we had as much time as we wanted, but she wasn't having it. That night at the Pelican, when we ran into her ex, I just … I lost it. He was a perfectly nice guy, with a perfectly boring 9-to-5 job, and I got it into my head that Jess would be better off with someone like that. Someone who'd be able to give her everything she wanted, when she wanted it. I have no idea why she allowed me to even attempt driving home that night. She was nervous about how drunk I was, and that's where the argument started."
Lucy is now sitting up, listening intently, her knees tucked up against her chest. She's giving Wyatt the space she can tell he needs, when everything inside her is screaming to climb back into his lap and hold onto him for dear life. To reassure him by her mere physical nearness that he has nothing to fear by telling her this story; that her feelings for him are strong enough to withstand whatever transgressions against Jessica he believes he should be punished for.
"It escalated so quickly, Lucy," he says tearfully. "We said so many awful things to each other. But I had the last word. I told her that if she wanted a baby so badly, she was welcome to head back to the bar and hook up with her ex."
He looks Lucy straight in the eyes, tears streaming down both cheeks. "Those were the last words I ever said to Jessica. So now you understand why I freaked out yesterday."
Lucy now has tears streaming down her cheeks as well. She reaches for Wyatt's hands, tugging him across the space between them to envelop him in her arms, holding him tightly as he sobs. Once they're both exhausted and emotionally spent, she leans back and takes his head in her hands again.
"Have you ever told anyone the whole story?"
He reaches up to clasp their hands together, bringing them down to his lap. "Twice. Once to San Diego P.D., and again to the grief counselor I was required to see as a condition of being reinstated to active duty. I don't know if Jessica's parents ever learned what our last fight was about, but if they did, they didn't hear about it from me."
She tilts his chin up so they're face-to-face again. "Oh, Wyatt, I don't even know what the right words are here. 'I'm sorry' is so inadequate. 'It wasn't your fault' is so cliché. But you know what happened to Jessica wasn't your fault. You loved her so much, I'd be more worried if you didn't have grief over what happened between you two."
"I did love her. A part of me always will. But I love you, too Lucy, and it's different than what I felt with Jess. I can't put my finger on why that is, I just know that it is. All I could think about last night on the beach was that this was my chance to get this right. I couldn't make it right for Jessica, but I could make it right for us. That we would figure it out together."
"I'm not going to lie to you, Wyatt. I'm a little relieved to not be pregnant. We're no more ready for a baby than you and Jessica were, I don't think."
It's now Wyatt's turn to cup Lucy's face in his hands, gently diverting the tears streaking down her cheeks with his thumbs. "I agree with you about that, Luce. And I'm glad that you're willing to be straight with me. Because I need to be straight with you about one thing: we may not be ready now, but I want all of this with you. Once we make that decision, though, it's game over with Mason, whether Rittenhouse is done or not."
He presses their foreheads together, his next words as determined as she's ever heard him. "I will never do this mission without you, Lucy. You and me, together, or not at all. Once we bring a baby into the mix, we're officially retired from time traveling. I won't risk you or our child. If that's something you can't handle, I need to know now."
She smiles, though it is a watery grin through a fresh wave of tears. "Yes, Wyatt. Yes to everything – yes to us, yes to a family eventually, yes to never time traveling with anyone else."
Wyatt's smile turns into a full-on smirk as they lean into each other to kiss; a kiss that starts out tender and tentative, but quickly evolves into something much more fiery and passionate. Wyatt is the first to pull away, laughing as a realization strikes him.
"Did I just propose?"
Lucy giggles lightly in response, the best sound he's heard all day. "I suppose you did. And for the record, I said yes."
Several hours, a pint of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, and two James Bond movies later, Wyatt scoops a passed-out Lucy off the couch, settling her in their bed. As he climbs under the covers on his side, Lucy unceremoniously flops over to her other side, reaching for him in her sleep. He wraps his arms around her, tucking the crown of her head under his chin.
The images start coming to him as he starts to drift off. Snippets of their future together, as clear as the 4K Blu-Rays in his DVD collection.
A (very) small, (very) private vineyard wedding in Napa Valley.
Carrying Lucy over the threshold of their very first house, and making love in a sleeping bag that first night because their furniture hadn't been delivered yet.
Their last mission together, in which Rittenhouse goes down not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Their first Christmas as a married couple, in which Lucy has saved his best, smallest present for last: a pair of tiny, knitted baby booties.
Surprising Lucy after an academic conference with a fully painted, fully furnished nursery.
A squalling infant being placed in his beautiful, exhausted, overwhelmed mother's arms. (Told you it would be a boy, he whispers lovingly to his wife. Welcome to the world, Ethan Thomas Logan.)
It's all out there, right in front of them, waiting for the day when this future will start.
Someday. (soon)