Author's Note: I'm not sure how many parts this story will have. I've loosely plotted the story out but it morphed from a one-shot into something way longer. It's mostly in Wyatt's POV though that might change later in the story. Lucy won't come into the picture for a little while but that's good. It allows Wyatt to get his life together on his own. Also, Jessica is not Rittenhouse. She's just a normal person. I'm not sure about my posting schedule but I'll try to release it as quickly as possible. I hope to incorporate some actual UCLA trivia because Lucy actually went to school there. I'm a history major so I just based the classes she teaches off of classes I see at my university.

They had just gotten off of a successful mission back from 1936 where they had thwarted an attempt on the young John Kennedy. Wyatt knew he would have the whole thing with Lucy and Jessica to deal with but he was hoping that he could manage the whole situation without majorly messing it up. He was a mess right now. Lucy was sick with a fever after that knife had cut her in the 18th century and they had to go without her. It had been one of the hardest things to do. Leaving her behind. She was extremely ill apparently but he had tried to hide his extreme terror. Jessica couldn't find out he had feelings for his coworker. So he had skulked around in the shadows and Jiya had taken pity on him and given him messages. Flynn had been there fairly frequently as well. Wyatt felt the blinding envy every moment he saw Flynn glance at Lucy's room. He was a little annoyed Lucy hadn't told him the Mothership jumped. Then again it would have ended any hope of reconciling with Jessica. He wasn't sure what he wanted anymore.

The mission had nearly ended in disaster. But fortunately, they had managed to hide John long enough for them to kill the sleeper cells and return him to his school. Wyatt only hoped the huge problem in the bunker would be just as easy to solve.

"How's Lucy?" he asked as they stepped off the Lifeboat.

"Lucy?" Denise looked puzzled and he turned to Jiya who looked equally confused. "Who's Lucy?"

Oh no. No, No, No! Something disastrous had happened to the timeline. Something so bad that Lucy was…gone. Had she been erased from history like her sister? Had she had something happen in the past that meant she was no longer alive. The feeling of shock and pain settled itself somewhere between his ribs making him feel like throwing up. But there wasn't time. They had to do something.

"Don't you know her? Clumsy, dark-haired, a history professor." Flynn said.

"Of course you guys know her." Rufus looked at Jiya for confirmation.

"Historian? We have a historian. But her name isn't Lucy. It's Cynthia. Cynthia Maxwell. She's been with you since the missions began. She got injured in Salam so she didn't go with." Denise said.

"What the hell?" Wyatt swore as he considered exactly what kind of crazy thing had happened to the timeline. They needed to fix it. How to do it was the hard part.

"What kind of damage did you boys do now?" He turned to see a short, spiky-haired woman limp into the room. He had never seen her in his life. She was as different from Lucy as two people could be.

"Besides erasing a member of our team nothing," Wyatt said.

Cynthia stepped forward. "What do you mean? There isn't anyone missing."

"Lucy is missing. She was our historian." Rufus said.

"Well, that's fucked up. In my timeline, I've been working since the missions began and we were chasing Tall, Dark and Dangerous. He's apparently decided to stop shooting at us." Cynthia motioned to Flynn and then shrugged. "Who's this Lucy?"

"Lucy Preston. She was a professor at Stanford. Wrote a book on Lincoln." Wyatt thought about her book. When he had read it he had marveled at her incredible brilliance. Her ability to understand people and make history interesting. Lucy's existence was essential to him. He didn't want to live in a world where she wasn't in it. Now apparently he had to. At least until he figured out how to change things back.

"Oh…yeah. I think I know who you mean. But she works at UCLA, not Stanford. And she's never been on the team. The history community isn't that big and we have similar interests. So yeah, I think she's like alive." Cynthia pulled out her phone. "Yes, she's working for UCLA. Head of the Public History Initiative, teaching two classes. The classes are 'History 148B: Memory and Public Consciousness in WWII' and 'History 97C: Sex and the Body in the Victorian Age'." She's written two books. The one on Lincoln and a book about teaching history and memories of the past."

Lucy was alive. A totally different person but she was alive. A feeling of relief filled him. But they didn't know each other. Lucy wasn't on the team. She remembered nothing. Not of every single mission, or of every moment of danger or of every smile and laugh. She didn't remember Hollywoodland or Hedy Lemarr or anything. She didn't remember him. It hurt like a weird phantom pain. The pain of losing someone so precious. How had he discounted her? Somehow this was his fault. Maybe if he hadn't let the team down he would have been there in Salem and Lucy wouldn't have been hurt. Then she would have gone on the Lifeboat and the timeline wouldn't have changed.

He went back to his bunk. Jessica was there on her computer and she said, "How'd the mission go?"

He couldn't tell her about Lucy. Because he would look totally crazy and because she would know that Lucy wasn't just a team member the minute he started talking. Maybe it was for the best. Lucy was probably a whole lot happier working in the classroom than she would have been stuck in this bunker. Maybe she had some guy, much better than him, and she might be happy. The thought made him sick. But he couldn't undo the damage done because you could never revisit the past where you were. He'd have to figure out some other way.

"I don't know. Some weird stuff happened." Wyatt picked up his own computer and googled "Lucy Preston". He saw a link to a rating site for professors and clicked the link. Lucy's face popped up on the screen. She looked exactly the same. Her smile was bright and her eyes sparkled. She looked happy. He read down the list of reviews. Most people loved her classes. Some thought she was too hard. It was so essentially Lucy. All of it.

He checked Facebook and found her profile which was apparently set to public. Either that or his Facebook friendship with the new member of their team meant they were mutuals. He scrolled down her feed. Pictures of her food, photos of her with friends, and the occasional news article. He noticed that Amy was back. Amy was back. How could he disturb the timeline and go back to a world where Lucy didn't have her sister? Was this Lucy Rittenhouse? He noticed that she had written that her mother had died a year before. Somehow someone had reverted Lucy back to her original timeline. The one where Amy was alive and her mother was dying. Somehow he felt that her mother dying was better than finding out the truth. Maybe Carol hadn't been so bad in the original timeline.

How could he go to this stranger and say, "Oh by the way? I'm the guy you traveled through time with and we totally banged in 1941 and had a two-day relationship before my formally dead wife came back and you two were stuck in an underground bunker together. And your mother is evil and your sister doesn't exist." It was impossible. He wouldn't turn back the timeline. Lucy needed her sister. She needed the happiness that she had clearly found. She didn't need him. Not this Lucy.

The only other people who remembered Lucy were Rufus and Flynn. Wyatt left to find Rufus who was looking shaken and trying to explain Lucy to Jiya. "We can't turn back the timeline."

"Why?" Rufus said. His eyes said that there was something suspicious about it. Something suspicious about Wyatt's motives. Wyatt had to admit that his friend was probably justified in doubting him. He was a fool.

"Amy's back. And her mother died but there is no evidence she was active in Rittenhouse. She's got a good life." Wyatt swallowed hard. This was for the best. It was the best for Lucy. She deserved so much happiness.

"What? Amy's back." Rufus grabbed the phone and stared down at the picture of the two of them together. Lucy and Amy smiling and laughing at each other at podcasting convention.

"Maybe you're right," Rufus confessed. "She looks happy. If anyone deserves it then she does. Besides, it's probably better than this Hotel California."

Wyatt tried to laugh but he couldn't. The pain had settled itself into his stomach making him feel worse than when he got food poisoning from old Chinese food. He looked up from his phone and the picture of Lucy to find Flynn listening on the couch. Of course. He would hear everything. Flynn looked none too pleased about this development. Wyatt wondered why. Once all this was over Flynn was free to go find Lucy and seduce her with his brooding looks and creepy "I have read your journal and know all about you." Wyatt wasn't sure what made him sicker. The fact that Flynn would probably succeed since this Lucy didn't know Flynn's past or that Lucy was probably already dating some guy like Noah. Wyatt hoped that whoever he was he was better than Flynn or Noah or any other guy. Wyatt didn't know a single guy good enough for Lucy Preston. Somehow he had started to believe that maybe there was something in long odds and second chances. Clearly, that wasn't the case. Time was constantly changing. Nothing in this whole world was secure and stable. Not Lucy. Somehow he'd have to learn to live in a world where Lucy Preston was a stranger.