I have been mulling over this idea for a long time now, probably since Noah showed up and it led me to think about "what if Lucy and Wyatt came back to discover a new timeline where they are in a relationship" (fodder for another fanfic) that led me thinking about what if the change came -from the future-? What if they HAVE to change the present, instead of just trying to protect the past, so they can have a future at all?
This is set between The Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde (stars in my fucking eyes FAKE!COUPLE IS MY FAVORITE TROPE OK) and The Capture of Benedict Arnold. I have absolutely no idea how Lucy being kidnapped (and of course rescued within an episode because Wyatt (and Rufus) won't rest until she's back) will affect her and the present, especially with the many deaths in the last episode so I decided not to deal with it.
Enjoy!
Her entire body is shaking; fingers that tremble so much she can barely keep a grasp on the tiny hand inside hers, legs that move on autopilot as she tries to keep herself standing, feet so heavy she almost believes she's dragging herself through the mud. In a way she kind of is.
Her hand sweats so much that her daughter's tiny fingers slip from hers and she panics for a second, her heart beating in such frantic rhythm that it would shock any doctor. She picks her child up under flimsy protests of 'I'm tired', and walks more quickly. "We're almost there."
The abandoned building had been used for great things in the past; things she once believed were to save humanity. Oh, how naïve she had been. Now it's just a shadow across the worn out courtyard while the entire group is falling apart, raging a war that started with the beginning of history and has been leaving dead bodies behind everywhere they touch.
She takes a deep breath and tries to push away the thoughts sneaking in through the cracks of the wall she carefully built around her mind. She can't think about the bodies she left behind, the lives she lost because of them and as she adjusts the small body on her hip, small arms holding on tight around her neck, she thinks not this one. She will die before she lets anything happen to her.
The building is empty as she expected. Many people left years before, the few ones still remaining aren't willing to risk their lives for a second class machine that nobody trusts to work anymore. Except for her because she needs it to work. It has to.
When she enters she walks the halls and empty spaces in clear familiarity, through the open space that once held clothes that spanned through time, straight to the control area. In her rush to get there as quick as possible she misses the group of young idealists manning the equipment until she's already down the short flight of stairs. They turn at the sound of her footsteps surprised as she raises her gun and points straight at the group. "Out. All of you." They don't move for a moment, staring between her and the gun hesitantly. "Now!" She yells and shoots a few times into the wall behind them. The sounds make them scramble out of there like rats running from a flood.
She has only a few heartbeats until someone arrives but it has to be enough to send her daughter off so she hurries through the platform to the open door of the Lifeboat, her steps echoing painfully loud off the metal floor. She places her daughter on the machine and helps her inside. Her heart inflates and there's a sudden constriction to her throat; the time machine is still exactly as she remembers – the smell of electricity and rubber and wires, the worn out foothold around the chairs, the ridiculous small space between them. She hasn't been inside this machine in a long time, but the memories are fresh and real as if she's lived them yesterday, as if a lifetime between wonderment and familiarity hasn't passed. She can almost pretend she's still naïve. Almost.
She pulls the belts of one of the seats open and mentions for her daughter to sit.
"Where are we going?"
"You're going somewhere safe." Her voice falters, the pain swelling up is suddenly so thick she feels a pulsating pain to her head, her breath so difficult it's as if there's a hand squeezing her lungs shut. She can't go; she has to make sure her daughter will be sent off.
"Me? You're not going?" Her baby voice rises in a squeal, as children's voices sometimes do and attempts to get out of the chair.
"Stay put," and she does. So young and so brave and such a good girl. She stares at her child's eyes, bright with tears, smudged with blood around the corners. She's covered in blood that is and isn't hers.
"Mommy, please! I'm scared," she cries; small drops of tears running down pink cheeks and following the lines of her chin, tears tainted in red. "I don't want to go alone!"
"I know you are," she says, buckling the straps across daughter's chest and adjusting the length so it will be tight on her. Her hands are shaking again like a drug addict on withdrawals and she squeezes them together to try and stop it. It doesn't work. "But you'll be okay. I promise. Do you trust me?" At the nod she continues, "I love you so much. More than anything in the entire world. Don't you forget that, okay?"
"I love you , too."
"I need you to do something for me. I need you to be very brave and remember everything I'm telling you. Can you do that?"
Her daughter nods, biting her lip to stop her crying. "I think so."
"When that door opens again you ask for Lucy Preston and only Lucy Preston. You don't talk to anybody else." Her daughter starts crying again, lips quivering in fear and exhaustion. "Charlie!" She shakes her daughter a little harder than she intends, but this needs to be done. The shock of being handled in such hard manner makes her daughter stop crying and look at her startled. "Repeat with me: I want to talk to Lucy Preston."
Her baby voice comes out in a small whisper, "I want to talk to Lucy Preston."
She takes a folded piece of paper from her pocket and shows it to her daughter, "You give this only to Lucy Preston, ok?" at the small nod she hides it under the hem of her child's skirt and hopes it will reach the right hands.
She moves in the small space to the controls and turns on what needs to be turned on. She can only hope there won't be a need for a pilot for a one way trip.
Turning back to her daughter, she reaches out to grab her child's hands, wrapping her fingers around soft, small ones and kisses her lovingly on the forehead, lingering for a second longer, feelings the soft skin against her lips, holding to memory the baby perfume and the sweet smell that is only hers. When she feels the tears trying to force their way out of her eyes she lets go and stands, walking outside of the lifeboat.
"Mommy, please don't leave me! Mommy!"
She ignores her cries and wipes the tears away, swallowing down a sob. Her daughter's panicked voice blends with the sound of shaking metal under her feet and she walks the short platform back to the control panel. She's doing the right thing, she tries to convince herself. She has to do this to save her life and for a chance to change her present, as small as it is.
She starts setting a date on the controls when a gunshot ricochets in the room and she ducks, trying to see where it came from. In the panic to start the machine's rotation as another bullet hits panel, she pushes in a random date and watches the machine's door fall closed. Her child's pleas blend with the sound of the machine and the bullet that comes straight her.
Then there's only darkness.