A/N Hello all! This is my first foray into the Timeless fandom! And while posting stories in new fandoms always makes me nervous I felt like we could all use a little more fluff at the moment, so here is my contribution to that cause :) This takes place in some undefined point in a post season 2 universe where they already have Rufus back...
I want to thank katertots for encouraging/enabling me to write for this fandom, and for listening to me whine when the muse isn't cooperating and for letting me shout headcanons at her while I'm brainstorming...
That's all I have to say so I hope you enjoy it!
Wyatt was still trying to will all his internal organs back into their intended places as they touched down in present day, but Lucy had already thrown off her seatbelt and was waiting at the hatch to get out of the Lifeboat.
"Open the door would you, Rufus?" Lucy asked impatiently.
"You have to wait for the rings to stop spinning," Rufus replied, looking at her askance. After years of traveling through time, he wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know.
"Whoa, where's the fire Luce?" Wyatt asked, looking at his girlfriend curiously while he casually unbuckled his own seatbelt, chuckling when Flynn flinched back in his seat when he accidently got whacked in the face by Lucy's bustle. After all, they'd come through the mission remarkably unscathed for once, the only casualty they'd suffered being the splinter he'd picked up from a roughly hewn banister, so he didn't know what her hurry was.
"I have had to use the bathroom since 1869," she admitted, squirming as they all listened for the mechanical whirring to slow to a stop around them. "But I wanted to wait until the invention of modern indoor plumbing."
All three men couldn't hold back their various noises of amusement as the Lifeboat finally powered down, but Lucy was too preoccupied to get mad at them for it. Instead she practically threw herself through the opening and down the stairs as soon as Rufus was able to hit the switch and open the hatch. Gathering up her 19th century skirts so she wouldn't trip over them, she ran past a waiting Jiya and Denise on her way through the bunker towards the bathroom.
"What was that about?" Denise asked, her concern tempered by the fact that Wyatt, Flynn and Rufus climbed out of the Lifeboat at a calmer, more sedate pace.
"It was a long commute," Rufus said with a laugh as he crossed over to Jiya to give his girlfriend a kiss hello.
"And perhaps one too many cups of tea while we were waiting to make sure the Fisk–Gould Scandal went off the way it was supposed to," Wyatt added, reassuring Agent Christopher that everything was fine and the mission went well, while he tugged at his tie and undid the top button of his shirt, feeling like he could breathe for the first time in hours.
"Got it," she nodded her understanding, a bemused smile ghosting at the corners of her mouth. "Well go change and meet back here in fifteen so we can go over mission," Denise dismissed them, none of the men hesitating before they all scattered to their respective corners of the bunker.
It was a long established fact that no one liked to stay in their period clothing a minute longer than they had to, and the Homeland Security agent had learned from experience that debriefings went a lot smoother when they weren't all antsy to get changed.
Wyatt was rounding a corner on the way to his room, trying to pick the 150 year old splinter that he'd picked up earlier that day, out of his hand and trying to remember Lucy kept her tweezers, when he nearly ran into someone who had been equally distracted as they were busy scrolling through their phone.
"Oh sorry…." he trailed off when he looked up to see a woman he'd only ever seen in pictures, standing right in front of him.
"Well hey there soldier, welcome home," she greeted, her face lighting up in a wide grin at the sight of him. "I thought I heard you guys come back. I would have come out to meet ya, but I was finishing up recording this weeks podcast."
"A-Amy?"
"Did the mission go okay?" she asked distractedly, as the majority of her attention returned to the phone in her hands as she tapped out a message.
"Uh, yeah, it went fine…" he answered on rote, still stunned that Amy Preston was standing whole and hale in front of him like nothing was out of the ordinary.
Lucy.
Lucy needed to see Amy.
Lucy needed to come see that her sister was alive and here and apparently accustomed to life in a bunker that revolved around time traveling missions.
But before he could call out for her, Amy spoke again.
"Good. I'm glad it went well. And I'm glad it turned out to only be a one day mission this time, I was starting to think you'd all be gone so long that you were gonna stand me up for our date tonight. And I'd have to take a raincheck, again," she added, glancing up just long enough to shoot him a playful wink. "Unless Rittenhouse wore you out today? I mean you're not too tired to handle me, are you Logan?"
Wyatt couldn't answer since he was too busy choking on his own tongue.
"I know you still have to debrief, but I'll go change and meet you afterwards?" she offered, looking up from the phone long enough to actually take in the shell-shocked look on his face.
"Wy? Are you okay?"
"Lucy!" Wyatt called down the hall, his eyes wide with growing panic.
"Wyatt, what's wrong?" Amy asked, reaching up to rest a hand on his cheek, worried about the way all the color had drained out of his face.
"LUCY!"
"What are you yelling about, Wyatt?!" Lucy called back annoyed, emerging from the bathroom down the hall, still straightening her skirts. "There's a lot of layers involved in this dress, it takes me a minute."
Amy turned around towards her sister's voice, and Lucy froze mid step as she suddenly understood why Wyatt was shouting for her.
"Oh my god! AMY!" Lucy practically screamed, as she came running down the hall and threw herself at her little sister.
"Umm, hey Lucy," Amy greeted, stumbling backwards a few steps as Lucy barreled into her, wrapping her up in a stranglehold of a hug. "I missed you too? Even if you were only gone for like nine hours."
Lucy didn't reply, instead bursting into tears as she held onto Amy harder. Neither of them noticing as Wyatt slipped away.
Now Amy was officially worried. "What happened? What's wrong?" she asked, patting her sister's hair as she cried into her shoulder. "Do I need to kill someone? You know I can do it. I'm little, but I'm scrappy."
"Nothing's wrong," Lucy managed to choke out past her tears. "For once something is right. You're here and everything is alright."
It took Amy a minute to figure out what Lucy could possibly mean by that. "Where else would I be Lucy? We've all been living underground like mole people together for years now. Unless... was I not here before?" she asked, putting the pieces together. "Is this like when Wy's evil bitch of an ex showed up? Oh shit... was I dead?"
Lucy pulled back just enough that she could see Amy, drinking in her sister's face. A face that she had thought she'd never see in person again. "Not dead," she corrected with a sniffle as she tried with limited success to compose herself. "Never born."
Amy sucked in air through her teeth as she processed that. "That's…. weird."
"That's not the word I used for it," Lucy laughed wetly, indescribably happy to have her sister back.
"So, how long have I been…." she trailed off not sure how to phrase it. "A non person?"
"I haven't seen you since the night Homeland Security showed up at the door, that first time," Lucy answered. "But I don't understand, how is this possible?" she asked herself more than Amy. "I don't think we did anything on this last trip that could have changed the timeline like this. You know what I don't care. We can figure it out later. I'm just so so happy you're here, I don't care how it happened."
"Wait, hold on..." Amy paused as the ramifications of all of this information sank in. She turned and looked over her shoulder, just now realizing that they were alone in the hallway. "If to you I've been gone since you went on your first mission, that would mean that that was the first time this version of Wyatt has ever met me?"
"Yeah," Lucy nodded. "But I've told him a lot of stories about you, so he knows who you are though."
"Well that would explain…. Oh… oh no," Amy's eyes went wide. "Whoops."
"What? What's wrong?" Lucy asked worried.
"Can I ask you a question first?" Amy asked, continuing without waiting for an answer. "In your timeline, just what is your relationship with Wyatt? Are you two together?"
"Yeah, we have been for a long time," Lucy answered readily, not sure what that had to do with anything. "I mean it took us awhile to work through our issues after the whole Jessica situation, but we're together now. Why Amy?" she asked with a growing sense of foreboding.
"Because uh, I think I just accidently suggested to your boyfriend that he and I were together," she admitted with a cringe. "Yikes. No wonder Wy looked like he was having a heart attack."
Lucy felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. The idea of a world where her sister was dating the man she loved made her heart sink to the floor.
"Are… are you…" she couldn't even get it out.
"God no!" Amy denied vehemently. "You two are disgustingly in love. I'm fully expecting you to tell me he's gonna be my future brother-in-law any day now. You two are ridiculously perfect for each other. Total #couple goals."
Lucy's world righted itself on its axis, and she couldn't hold back her sigh of relief. "Okay, but then why would Wyatt think that-"
"Because I might have mentioned something about him standing me up for our date tonight?" Amy confessed, looking apologetic. "And it's possible that I asked him if he had enough energy left after the mission to um… handle me."
"What does that even mean?" Lucy asked with a frown, since Amy had already implied that it wasn't what it sounded like. Which was good, since it sounded terrible.
"We have a standing 'date' to spar a couple days a week," Amy explained quickly. "He's been teaching me all the ways to fight dirty that they didn't teach us when I got my black belt."
A relieved laugh burst out of Lucy's chest. That made perfect sense, but she also knew her sister. Amy flirted like she breathed, it was just a fundamental part of her personality and she could only imagine how Wyatt, who wouldn't know that about her, had taken it.
"Okay, let me make sure I've got this straight. So from his point of view, within minutes of meeting him, you asked my boyfriend if he was up for handling you?" Lucy reiterated with an unladylike snort of amusement.
"Yeah, I gave him a flirtatious wink and everything," she said chagrined, but clearly mostly unrepentant.
"Poor Wyatt," Lucy giggled.
"You know how I am," Amy shrugged. "Back when you first started bringing him around I used to flirt with him because Mister Badass Delta Force used to get all stammery and blushy-faced and it was adorable. Then once he realized I wasn't serious about it and that you weren't gonna get jealous, because you also knew I wasn't serious about it, he started giving back as good as he got. And so we developed this whole over the top, flirty repartee thing. But it's just fun banter, no one takes it seriously."
"No, I get it, I'm not mad," Lucy assured her sister. If anything, she was happy to hear that Amy and the other version of Wyatt apparently had such a good relationship that they were able to comfortably joke around with each other like that. It gave her great hope that going forward, the two most important people in her life would continue to get along. Perhaps she could finally have some of the things that she thought Rittenhouse had stolen from her forever.
"Okay, good," Amy said with genuine relief. For all that she enjoyed teasing her sister's boyfriend, she never wanted to cause actual friction between them. "I promise I'll dial it back a bit until he gets used to me again, but you should probably go explain the situation. Talk him off the ledge I'm sure he's standing on," she suggested with a knowing grin. Because even if this incarnation of Wyatt didn't know her yet, she knew him well enough to know that every version of him would be freaking out right now.
"Yeah, I should," Lucy agreed easily, despite making no move to actually go do that. She found herself unable to make herself walk away from her sister, so soon after getting her back.
Amy laughed, "Go," she insisted making shoo-ing motions with her hands. "Go explain to your man that his girlfriend's sister wasn't coming onto him on purpose. I'll talk to him myself later and explain that I only love him as brother, but I think it's best if you talk to him first. I think he might try to tunnel out of here with his bare hands if I tried to approach him right now."
"Okay, I will," she nodded, unable to stop herself from reaching out to give her sister another lingering hug.
"I promise I won't disappear in the next twenty minutes," Amy said, pulling away first. "I'm just gonna go introduce myself to Rufus and Flynn and use the fact that I've already known them both for years to my advantage to mess with them."
Lucy couldn't help but laugh at her sister's antics as she stood and watched her walk away towards the common room. She waited until Amy was out of sight before heading to the bedroom she and Wyatt shared. When she got there she paused in the doorway for a moment to take in the scene in front of her.
Wyatt looked like a mess, still dressed in his 1860s clothes, his hair standing on end from where he'd obviously been raking his fingers repeatedly through it. He was pacing back and forth, only able to get three strides in the narrow space between walls before he was forced to turn around and head back the other way. She started feeling bad for laughing about the situation with Amy when she saw the worry and tension in every line of his body.
"Wyatt," she called softly, trying to get his attention without startling him.
It didn't work, and he visibly jumped as he turned to face her. "Lucy!" he exclaimed, his eyes wide and wild. "I didn't… I don't… She just…. I…." he stammered, not even sure where to begin.
It had taken them months of slow and careful rebuilding to repair their relationship after Jessica's appearance in their lives had almost destroyed everything, but they were together now and stronger than they ever had been. Wyatt didn't know what he would do if it all fell apart now. All he knew was that he couldn't lose her, not again.
And even though he personally, had never met Amy until that moment just a few minutes ago in hall, and logically couldn't be held responsible for the actions of another timeline's version of himself, he couldn't even begin to imagine how being dropped in a world where he'd ended up with the other Preston would affect the relationship he had with the sister he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
"Wyatt," she said again, a gentle smile on her face, as she crossed over to her clearly panicking boyfriend. "Calm down. It's okay. Everything is okay."
"But-"
"You're not dating my sister," Lucy interrupted, getting straight to the point, reaching out to take his hands in hers.
"I'm not?" Wyatt asked, confused. "I mean I know I'm not," he course corrected. "I would never-"
"I know you wouldn't," she cut him off before he could spiral. "In this or any timeline. I mean look around," she gestured to the room they were standing in.
Wyatt had been so busy panicking when he retreated to the safety of their room while he regrouped, that it never registered that it was still their room. He took a minute to actually look at their surroundings, filled with their mingled belongings just as it had been before they'd left that morning.
Lucy's favorite floral robe was draped over the end of the bed, half covering his second pair of boots that were tucked underneath the bed. The files she had been reading the night before were sitting on the bedside table underneath the dredges of a cup of coffee he'd brought to her that morning when he'd woken her up. The chair in the corner was covered in his clothes that too dirty to hang back up, but too clean to put in the wash, a habit of his that drove Lucy nuts. The piles of books all over the floor in an organizational system known only to Lucy were right where he always tripped over them, something that always drove him nuts.
The knot that had taken up residence in his chest finally loosened. It was clear that he shared this room with one particular Preston sister and it was the one standing next to him.
"But then what the hell was Amy talking about?" he questioned, still confused.
"You remember how I told you that she has her black belt?" she asked, reaching up to smooth down his hair.
"Sure," he nodded. "But what does that have to do with-?"
"Apparently in this timeline, you two train together," she explained. "You guys have a sparring 'date' several times a week," she said using air quotes around the word date. "Allegedly, you're teaching her to fight dirty. That's all."
A whoosh of air escaped Wyatt's chest in a rush as he exhaled in relief. "Oh, thank god. She made it sound like something completely different."
"I know, she told me what happened. But that's just Amy," Lucy reassured him. "Her default mode is permanently stuck in flirt, with a healthy side of innuendo. You'll get used to her. Trust me, you're not special."
Wyatt let out a barking laugh. "Thanks," he said sarcastically, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her in close.
"Well, you're special to me," she amended teasingly, going easily into his embrace.
"And you're the only one that matters," Wyatt replied smoothly.
"Excellent answer Sergeant Logan," she grinned up at him.
"Thank you, Ma'am. I aim to please," he smirked, as he leaned down to kiss her.
Things were just starting to get interesting when a voice sounded from the doorway. "Yo! Lovebirds! Denise says to stop sucking face and come debrief so she can go home, before her wife and kids forget what she looks like."
Lucy let out a soft laugh as they broke apart, leaning her forehead against Wyatt's. She would be annoyed at the interruption if she wasn't just so damn glad that her sister existed to interrupt them at all.
"Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what she said," Lucy said, before looking over her shoulder at Amy, so her sister could see her roll her eyes.
"It's what she meant," Amy replied shamelessly. "I just translated."
"We'll be right out," Lucy promised. "We just need to get out of these clothes."
"Alright, but if you're not out here in ten, I'm coming back with the hose to break you two up," Amy warned. "Oh and Wy, I'm sorry about before. I didn't mean to give you the impression that we've got some sort of weird sister-wives thing going on in here. Lucy and I are close, but we're not that close."
Wyatt laughed. "I can't tell you how relieved I am hear that."
Amy just winked at him before disappearing as quickly as she had appeared. "Ten minutes you two, or you get the hose!" her voice trailed back down the hall after her. "Timer starts now!"
"She's not kidding," Lucy warned Wyatt. "She'll do it."
"I have no doubts," he said with a chuckle. He'd only known her for twenty minutes but he had no problem believing it.
"I can't believe she's actually back," she said looking a little dazed at the turn of events. "Tell me I'm not dreaming?"
"You're not dreaming, I promise," he assured her, pulling her back into his arms. "And I couldn't be more thrilled for you. I can't wait to get to know her, even if it does mean we'll have yet one more person constantly interrupting us, like its an olympic sport and they're all going for the gold," he teased lightly.
"Well she is my little sister," she laughed lightly. "It's basically her god given right to be a nuisance."
"Come on," he said, starting to work the tiny buttons that fastened Lucy's historical dress. "We've got ten minutes. Let's make the best of them."
A/N And there we have it! I have some other Timeless fic in the works so let me know if you enjoyed this enough to want those as well... Until then you can always find me on tumblr as Danimydear :) Let me know what you thought!
