Summary: It's late, and Noah is yelling at Lucy's window. Maybe it's time he and Wyatt had a chat...
Rating: T
Words: 2,900
Spoilers: All of season 1. Set at the beginning of a hypothetical season 2.
Warnings: Minor language.
Disclaimer: Everything is owned by someone else.
A/N: Written to answer some questions I had about Noah and Amy. And to try and explain something that niggled me from 1.15, namely, how could Lucy go back to 1979 to get her mom and Amy's dad together when she herself wasn't born until 1983...?

MEANT TO BE

"Hey, hey, buddy! You need to calm down!"

So this wasn't at all awkward.

Wyatt had met Lucy's "fiancé" a grand total of one time, and at that point the good doctor had been digging a bullet out of Rufus' gut and getting all up in Wyatt's face about getting him to a hospital.

Which, you know, the guy did have a point.

Still.

Didn't give him the right to be standing outside of Lucy's apartment building yelling up at her window like some drunken Romeo looking for his long-lost Juliet.

And while Wyatt wasn't entirely sure Noah was drunk, he was pretty damn sure Lucy didn't want the guy yelling up at her window.

He was also kind of flattered Lucy had called him for help with the situation, rather than, you know, the cops or anything.

Although, Wyatt figured, knowing Lucy she probably didn't want to get Noah—the fiancé she never met till a couple of months ago—into trouble.

"Hey!" Wyatt repeated, climbing out of his truck and jogging across the road to where Noah was standing on the opposite sidewalk.

Lucy had only moved in here a couple weeks ago, so it briefly occurred to Wyatt to wonder how Noah knew her address. But he put that to the back of his mind as he finally drew level with the doctor, who instantly proceeded to take a drunken swing at him which only ended up in Wyatt ducking, grabbing his arm and somehow managing to keep the guy upright.

"You again!" Noah slurred, swaying a little in Wyatt's grip. "The boyfriend, right?"

Wyatt blinked at him. "Huh?" he said. "Whose boyfriend? As far as I know I'm not anybody's boyfriend."

Unless this was some seriously weird alternate timeline and he had a fiancée he'd never met before too.

"Lucy," Noah murmured, crumpling a little in Wyatt's grip until the two of them ended up landing on their asses on the steps leading up to Lucy's building. "You're Lucy's boyfriend. That's why—that's why…" He trailed off, genuine tears in his eyes that almost had Wyatt feeling sorry for him.

If he hadn't been yelling up at Lucy's window at three in the morning, half scaring her to death.

"Hey, look, no," Wyatt attempted to correct him, managing to get him into a sitting position with his back to the railings running up the side of the steps. "We're just...Lucy and I just...work together," and even to him it sounded pretty lame.

And we only kissed that one time…

Noah shook his head. "It has to be that," he murmured. "It has to be. Otherwise...otherwise it's me. What did I do?" Suddenly he grabbed Wyatt's shoulders, shook him slightly, and repeated, "What the hell did I do?"

Wyatt shrugged, and he actually kind of meant it when he said, "I'm sorry, man. I don't think you did anything—"

"You know what it's like?" Noah's grip on Wyatt's shoulders tightened, and he actually jerked him a few inches closer as he stared at him with the intensity of guy who'd downed at least a half bottle of Jack Daniels.

Wyatt blinked. "Uh…?"

"To lose the one person you love most in the whole world?"

Wyatt blinked again. "I...I…" and he uncomfortably remembered being on the opposite end of a similar conversation with Lucy once. "Actually, yes," he managed. "It sucks. And it rips out your heart. And you just want to know why."

It was Noah's turn to blink.

"Listen. Noah, right?"

Noah nodded mutely.

"Wyatt," Wyatt introduced himself. "I know it'd be easier for you if I told you Lucy and I were...together. That's something you could wrap your head around in time, right?"

Noah nodded again.

"But it's not...that's not what this is about."

Noah jerked him forward again slightly. "Then what is it about?" he demanded. "Because I don't know," he sighed plaintively. "I don't know. And you know what? That's the worst part. Not knowing. Not knowing what happened. It's like, one day the woman I loved went away and she never came back. And I don't know what happened to her."

Wyatt swallowed.

Yeah, no, this wasn't awkward at all.

"Yeah," he managed, his voice cracking a little on the single syllable. "I know what that's like."

"Do you?" Noah demanded, and this time when he yanked at Wyatt's jacket he actually pulled him half out of his seated position and Wyatt had to steady himself by grabbing the railing behind Noah's head. "Do you really?"

Wyatt took a breath. "Yeah, I do," he said. "Really. Although it's not the same," he added. "My wife just...just never came back."

Noah sucked in a breath, releasing the grip he had on Wyatt's shoulders and slumping backwards.

"And I get it," Wyatt continued, "that in some ways it's worse for you because Lucy did come back, but she came back...different."

Noah squinted at him, as if he was surprised that Wyatt really did kind of get what he was going through.

"But...there are things in Lucy's life that she can't talk about," Wyatt added. "Even to the people she loves."

Wyatt was pretty sure Lucy had never loved Noah, but Noah's Lucy had loved him, and Wyatt's Lucy loved her mom, and look how telling her about the time machine had worked out.

Noah took a shaky breath and ran his fingers through his hair dejectedly. "You know it was all supposed to be part of this big plan?" he said quietly.

Wyatt frowned slightly at him. "Big plan?" he echoed uncertainly.

Noah nodded. "Lucy and me," he clarified. "We were meant to be together."

Wyatt glanced sideways and up at the window where he was pretty sure Lucy was watching them from her apartment.

"You mean like fate?" he asked, and he had a horrible feeling that wasn't what Noah meant at all.

The doctor shook his head. "No," he said, "like preordained."

Wyatt tried to swallow down the bile he could feel rising at the back of his throat.

No, that's not what he means, that's not what he means…

"Who by?" he forced himself to ask, desperately not wanting to know the answer but suspecting he already did.

Noah blinked bloodshot, tear-filled eyes at him. "There are things I'm not supposed to talk about either," he said slowly. "Even to Lucy. She didn't know. Her mom never told her."

Wyatt swallowed again, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. "Rittenhouse?" he hazarded.

Noah's eyes widened. "You know?" he burst out, and it was almost like it was a relief.

Wyatt nodded shortly. He kind of felt bad using the guy like this when he was clearly hurting, but any opportunity to gather intel on what was left of Rittenhouse after the bombshell Lucy's mom had dropped on her had to be worth it, right? "About Rittenhouse?" he said. "Sure. And so does Lucy."

Noah nodded. "Carol told her, I know," he said. "But she didn't tell her everything."

Wyatt inclined his head slightly. "She didn't tell her you're Rittenhouse too?" he hazarded.

Noah nodded again. "She and I…" he said. "It was decided before we were even born."

"What was?"

Noah blinked at him. "That we would be together," he said, as if that should be obvious. "Her family, my family. Strong Rittenhouse stock. From original Rittenhouse families." He sat up a little straighter. "I'm descended from David Rittenhouse himself."

Just when I was starting to feel sorry for you…

If Noah was descended from that weasel, then Wyatt had half a mind just to ditch his ass and drive away right now.

But he didn't.

Intel.

Gather the intel first.

"Okay," he said slowly. "So Rittenhouse...it's like an arranged marriage kind of deal?" Wyatt had spent a lot of time in countries where arranged marriages were the norm, so he knew how well that often turned out. When Noah just shrugged at him he added, "Or is it more like a breeding program?"

The full horror of that possibility didn't even bear thinking about.

Noah glanced up at him, his bottom lip trembling a little. "It works better if it's a love match," he explained. "That's why our parents often don't tell us. Just push us in the direction of our chosen breeding partner."

Wyatt swallowed. How the hell was he going to explain this to Lucy?

"Carol—Lucy's mom—and my mom are second cousins," he said. "After I finished med school, my mom told me eventually I had to go find Lucy and strike up a relationship with her."

"Without letting on about Rittenhouse?"

Noah nodded. "They thought she'd be...willful. Especially after what happened with her mom."

Wyatt swallowed again. "What happened with her mom?"

Noah frowned minutely. "You don't know?"

Wyatt shook his head carefully.

"She and Benjamin Cahill, Lucy's dad? They were matched from a very young age. But when Carol was first told about Rittenhouse, she ran off and married her college sweetheart instead, just to get back at her parents. They said it was a rebellious phase."

Suddenly Lucy's plan to get Amy's dad and Carol Preston together in this timeline made sense, when it hadn't quite at the time Lucy had excitedly been explaining it to him.

Lucy had wanted to go back to 1979 and play Cupid for them. Love at first sight she'd said it had been.

But 1979, Wyatt reasoned, was four years before Lucy herself had been born, so how had her mom been together with Amy's dad back then?

"They made her—" Wyatt almost choked on the word, "—breed with Benjamin Cahill while she was married to Henry Wallace?"

Noah nodded. "It was preordained," he repeated the word. "That the Cahills and the Prestons would produce offspring in that generation."

Wyatt honestly thought he might throw up. "So...Lucy's mom went off and had a child with Benjamin Cahill then went back to her husband and brought her up as his? And then had another child with him?"

Noah squinted at him. "Carol Preston and Henry Wallace never had a child together."

Wyatt nodded. "Sure," he corrected. Amy didn't exist to them in this timeline.

Except Benjamin Cahill knew exactly who Amy had been.

Wyatt had to make a concerted effort to breathe through his nose otherwise that burrito he had earlier was likely to make an unwelcome reappearance on the sidewalk.

Noah frowned at him. "You're not Rittenhouse, are you," he said suddenly. And it wasn't a question.

Wyatt shook his head, the silent, Thank God, not making it out of his mouth.

Noah nodded. "They won't ever let you be together, you know," he said, causing Wyatt to look up at him sharply. "You and Lucy. Rittenhouse. Won't ever let you be together."

Wyatt swallowed again. "It's not like that—" he began to protest.

Except maybe it was.

Open to possibilities…

"Sure it is," Noah snapped, laughing sardonically. "I've seen the way she looks at you. She used to look at me like that."

Wyatt suddenly felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

"And I've seen the way you look at her," Noah continued.

Wyatt straightened. "I don't look at her any way," he informed the doctor, who just laughed again bitterly.

"And yet here you are at three in the morning."

Wyatt looked away.

Noah broke the uncomfortable silence. "I'm the one who's supposed to be with her," he said at length. "Not you. You're not one of us. We don't breed with outsiders."

"You're people, not cattle," Wyatt pointed out. "Ever hear of free will? Self determination?"

"Ever hear of duty? Predestination? Honor?"

"You think it's honorable?" Wyatt asked. "To marry someone you don't want to marry, have children with someone you don't love?"

"I do love Lucy," Noah returned. "Even if she doesn't love me."

"And you want her to have your children? Even if she doesn't love you?"

"It was good enough for her mother."

That stopped Wyatt in his tracks.

"Was she punished?" he asked slowly. "For marrying Henry Wallace?"

Noah shrugged. "She had a child with Benjamin Cahill. As she was supposed to. She did her duty."

"And that's why they let her go back to Henry?"

"I guess."

Wyatt took a breath. "What if they did have a child together?" he asked casually. "Hypothetically."

"Carol and Henry?" Noah shrugged again. "It would never happen," he continued. "It's forbidden. I told you. They tolerated her going back to Henry because Benjamin was already married at that time too."

"Soooo hypothetically, if Carol had gotten pregnant by Henry—an outsider…?"

"The child or the father—or both—would have been destroyed."

He said it so casually it reminded Wyatt of how Rufus had told him Rittenhouse—specifically a younger Benjamin Cahill—had spoken about "destroying" the Doc back in 1972.

And then the horrible thought that had been worming its way into the back of Wyatt's brain for the last couple of minutes suddenly started to take shape into something a little bit more coherent.

Because if Rittenhouse would never allow Carol and Henry to have a child together, then the thought occurred to Wyatt that maybe Flynn had unknowingly been doing Rittenhouse's dirty work for them all along. At the Hindenburg. When his actions inadvertently erased Amy. Maybe Rittenhouse had allowed Flynn to change the Hindenburg's history because they wanted it to happen. Specifically to erase Amy. To punish Carol Preston for bearing a child with an outsider.

Holy crap.

Flynn sure as hell wouldn't be happy about that.

And neither would Lucy.

"You can't have her, you know," Noah continued wistfully. "Nothing happens without Rittenhouse allowing it."

Or if it does they get someone to build them a time machine so they can go back and change it.

"I think it's up to Lucy what Lucy does or doesn't do," Wyatt countered. "Not Rittenhouse. Not you. Not me. She gets to choose her own future. Nobody else."

Noah smirked lopsidedly. "Yeah, you go on telling yourself that," he said bitterly, and Wyatt got the distinct impression Noah himself had believed that for a while too. "That's what they want us all to think. At first. And then they tell you what's really going on and…" He stopped talking abruptly, as if realizing he had almost said too much.

"And what's really going on?" Wyatt ventured to ask, barely able to breathe.

Noah just stared at him and shook his head. "She'll be mine eventually," he said, the absolute conviction in his voice a little bit unnerving. "Whether she likes it or not. It's destiny. You can't stop it. She'll never be yours."

Wyatt shrugged. "Well maybe we'll leave that up to Lucy," he said lightly, trying to give the impression Noah's comment didn't bother him, but not entirely sure he pulled it off. Because it did. It bothered him a lot. "And maybe you ought to go home now."

Noah continued to gaze at him for a second before wiping a hand across his face and standing abruptly.

He swayed unnervingly, and Wyatt jumped to his feet, catching hold of the guy's arm and steadying him again.

"I don't need your help," Noah snapped, yanking free his arm and pushing Wyatt away before promptly tripping off the edge of the curb and into the gutter.

"Obviously," Wyatt returned flatly.

"Screw you, pal," Noah mumbled as he started to stumble away. "You'll see. She's mine. Rittenhouse won't let you have her. They'll kill you first."

And Wyatt didn't doubt it.

"Come on, man," he said. "Let me get you a cab."

Noah didn't even turn around, just continued to lumber away, swaying drunkenly. "Don't need your help. Sheep. You're just sheep."

"Wow," Wyatt muttered. "Like great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather like great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson."

He turned away from the direction Noah was heading and glanced back up at Lucy's window.

She was looking at him.

And then she was gone.

Ten seconds later the front door was opening and she was standing there in a Minnie Mouse nightshirt with no make-up and her hair all rumpled and Wyatt had the overwhelming desire to pick her up, throw her in his truck and drive her as far away from Rittenhouse as he could possibly get her.

But, of course, he knew there was nowhere they could go that Rittenhouse wouldn't find them.

And it kind of negated that whole, "Lucy gets to choose her own future" speech he'd just given to Noah.

"Has he gone?" Lucy asked nervously.

Wyatt nodded. "He's gone," he confirmed.

The two of them just stood looking at each other for a second.

"Thanks for—" Lucy began awkwardly. "Y'know."

And Wyatt nodded again. "Sure," he said. "I was in the neighborhood."

Lucy squinted at him. "At three a.m.?"

Wyatt grinned at her. "I exist to serve," he said with an exaggerated bow, before adding, "Ma'am."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "You wanna come in?" she asked, holding open the door. "For coffee," she added, as if he might be thinking anything different.

"Sure," he said. "Sleep's overrated anyway." He jogged up the steps toward her before pausing on the threshold, where he turned to face her hesitantly. "I think," he said slowly. "I think I need to tell you something."

Lucy frowned at him. "What?" she said. "Something Noah told you?"

Wyatt nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "And I think you might need something a little stronger than coffee…"

The End