AN: I thought I'd try my hand at a Timeless Flynn/Lucy fic because I love doomed couples, clearly...

Hope you all enjoy this happier timeline I envision for these two :)

Prologue.

Maria Thompkins had one wish as the steady beat of her heart slowed further and further: That her two sons make amends.

As Garcia Flynn sits in a chair, his hand on his mother's, and her breathing becoming more shallow by the second, he whispers it. "I'll do it, mother. I'll be a better son, a better brother." He emphasizes the last word. "I'm so sorry for causing you pain. But please, hold on a little longer… So Gabriel can say goodbye."

With this promise, she finds the strength to hold on a little longer. She holds on just long enough to watch her dreary eyed sons hug for the first time in fifteen years. Stepping away from his brother, Gabriel draws nearer to his ailing mother. As Gabriel leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead, Garcia on her other side, Maria draws her final breath.

Fourteen months later.

In all of the places he has traveled, in all of the seasons he has lived through, Garcia Flynn knows with certainty that the most beautiful city in the world during spring is Paris.

The falling petals from the trees and the sunshine on his skin have erased any traces of grief. Over a year later, he finds himself looking up to the blue skies and thanking his mother for her final wish granting him so much happiness.

After her passing, he kept good on his word to rebuild his relationship with his formerly estranged half-brother. He learned about Gabriel's work as a professor at the University of Kent in Paris. It turns out, he shared more in common than he thought with Gabriel. History had always been of interest to Garcia. After long days at the NSA, he would often find himself unwinding of a tale of a time long ago.

Finding his house too empty without his wife, the divorce long-ago finalized, and his work no longer fulfilling, Garcia made a decision. He needed a change of scenery.

Gabriel, just as loyal to their mother, had agreed quickly that Garcia should look into opportunities abroad. He helped him get set-up with a visa, a new apartment, and job. By that summer, Garcia Flynn was officially a resident of Paris, France.

Garcia quickens his pace now, armed with a 1999 Bordeaux that will hopefully ease the irritation of his tardiness. It's Sunday, the weekly night in Gabriel and his wife, Elise, host him for dinner. Normally, he's a punctual guest but not on this occasion. He had taken the train to Lyon to pick-up an item for the archive, earlier in the day, and had gotten delayed on the way back.

As he finally reaches the marble building in the 16th arrondissement, he exhales sharply knowing he's over twenty minutes late. He makes a winded trek to the front door and knocks loudly enough for Gabriel and Elise to hear over the undoubtedly loud sound of their cooking. Gabriel answers a few seconds later and Garcia is too exhausted to notice the quizzical look on his brother's face and instead, pushes inside. "Garcia?"

"I know, I'm late. I'm sorry. The train back from Lyon was hell but I'm here now. And I brought your wife's favorite," He outstretches the bottle of Bordeaux and looks around the empty kitchen. "Where is Elise?"

"Garcia," Gabriel repeats, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Remember? We postponed dinner this week, I'm entertaining a-"

An American-accented female voice suddenly wafts through the hallway and Garcia freezes. "Is there anything I can help with, Doctor Thompkins?"

Suspicion suddenly takes hold and he narrows his eyes at his brother, indignant on Elise's behalf. Gabriel continues, "A colleague." He turns his attention toward the entrance to the kitchen where a petite brunette now stands.

She's staring at Garcia and then suddenly pastes on a bright smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize Gabriel had rounded up more professors on my behalf. Which course do you teach?"

Garcia frowns and looks at his brother for an explanation who's still shooting apologetic glances to the student, or whoever she is. "I'm sorry for the confusion, Lucy. This is my brother, Garcia, he can't keep track of his schedule apparently and forgot we had postponed our weekly dinner. Garcia, this is Doctor Lucy Preston. She's a new interim professor in my department at the University."

So, not a student...

Realization washes over Garcia and his manners take hold. He shakes her hand and meets her light brown eyes. He feels a flicker of something and tries to ignore it as he says, "Nice to meet you, Doctor Preston."

"Lucy, please." She corrects, in a friendly way.

"And Elise?" Garcia asks his brother again.

"Still in the UK, coordinating that meeting in London. Remember?" Gabriel sounds exasperated.

"Right," Garcia still feels wary of leaving this beautiful woman alone with his very married brother but nods. His past at the NSA has made him equipped enough for interrogation but that can wait until tomorrow. "I will leave you two to your evening then."

Garcia makes his way toward the door but Lucy's voice breaks his path. "I don't know anyone in Paris. Besides your brother, that is. So please don't leave on my account."

He turns in surprise and Gabriel chimes in. "I suppose, she's right. I did offer to introduce you around, Lucy, so perhaps I will start now. Stay, Garcia. You're already here and you brought wine. Plus, there's plenty of food." He gestures toward the ceramic dishes on the counter, all brimming with aromatic contents.

"I don't want to impose," Garcia begins weakly. There's something holding him back though. A will to learn more about this woman who he feels inexplicably drawn to. When their hands had unlinked, a chill had washed over his palm. An ache for her touch again.

A ridiculous urge, he reminds himself. His desire to stay probably stems from a wish to protect his sister-in-law from any potential infidelity on Gabriel's part. Although, he would never have guessed Gabriel would need someone keeping him in check. Not with the way he worships his wife.

"Nonsense," Gabriel pushes Garcia away from the door and into the kitchen. "Start serving up the food. I will go retrieve the information I compiled for Lucy."

It's silent as Gabriel recedes down the hallway and toward the staircase leading to the upper level. Garcia fills the quiet air with the clang of plates and glasses as he sets to preparing dinner. He looks up briefly, as he's dishing out the balsamic roasted vegetables, to ask Lucy a polite question. "Do you like Paris so far?"

"I do," Lucy sounds genuine. "I've only been here for two weeks but I think I made the right choice in moving here. Even if it is temporary."

"Where did you move from?" Garcia eyes her with interest. He thinks perhaps she'll say New York or maybe Boston…

"San Francisco. I was teaching at Berkeley but I moved home to-" She falters and then tries again. "My mother got sick. So I moved home to be with her until she passed."

Garcia meets her gaze and he understands the pain in her eyes all too well. "It's the natural order of things but it doesn't make it hurt any less, does it?"

Lucy looks at him with something like recognition.

"Exactly." There's a question in her eyes. "Your mother or father?"

"Both have passed," Garcia says, picking up one of the now-filled plates. "But my mother's loss was the hardest."

He steps away briefly to set the plate down on the dining table and comes back to the kitchen to grab another. Once he's done setting the plates, Lucy says. "It's the opposite for me. It was much harder to lose my father. Although-"

"Alright!" Gabriel's bright tone breaks the melancholy conversation and Lucy's unsaid sentence hangs between them. Garcia wonders what she was going to say. He wants to iterate how he feels for her, losing both parents at such a young age. Because certainly, she's younger than him. By maybe even a decade…

"Let's eat." Gabriel continues. "Lucy, I hope you're hungry. Elise meal prepped what amounts to a feast. She was terrified I would starve while she was away. As though I don't know how to cook…"

"I take it you've met Elise?" Garcia asks Lucy once they're seated. Gabriel is at the head of the table with Lucy and Garcia on either side of him.

"Yes," Lucy nods, emphatically. "She's so lovely."

"She is." Gabriel smiles in such a warm and wistful way that the apprehension in Garcia's gut settles, a little.

Garcia watches as Lucy sips her wine and the silence is quickly filled by Gabriel filling her in on the university's history, protocols, and a host of other information Lucy seems to be mentally filing away. His brother, in his charming way, includes Garcia throughout the conversation. So much so that Garcia feels by the end of their meal that he could walk into a University of Kent auditorium tomorrow and begin teaching.

"So Garcia," Lucy looks at him over the rim of her nearly drained wine glass. "What do you do?"

"I'm an archivist." Garcia supplies. "At the Ancestry Archive."

Gabriel laughs. "You wouldn't believe what he did before that."

Lucy brow quirks. "What?"

"I worked for the NSA." Garcia answers. "As Gabriel knows, I really can't say what I did." Garcia gives his brother a meaningful warning glance. "But suffice to say, I grew weary of it and needed a change. I already had a BA in History so it was easy to secure the position at the archive."

"Wow," Lucy seems impressed. "That must be amazing. It sounds like the archive you're at mostly stores genealogical information then?"

"Yes, it's fascinating though what you can learn about people who by textbook standards, may have been considered inconsequential to history. Everyone, in someway, has a ripple effect on time."

Lucy leans forward slightly, her chin in her palm, and Garcia feels that flicker again. "I feel the same. In fact, I used to make my students back at Stanford write a paper on someone not covered in any major historical publication. They had to go to local libraries and on genealogy sites to get their research. Sometimes I'd help out with names or resources if they were really stuck, but I suppose I won't do that assignment here. Not without knowing of locals and their history myself. I'd feel a bit like I was sending them on a wild goose chase."

"I have acquired a bit of knowledge in my year at the archive." Garcia slowly thinks over what he's about to say next but impulse wins out. "I would be happy to help with resources from the archive, should you choose to send your students on said wild goose chase."

Lucy beams. "I would love that actually."

"Look at that," Gabriel claps a hand on his brother's back, looking between the two of them. "You made yourself useful. I'm glad you imposed."

Garcia glowers at his brother, in a light way. "I am always useful." He turns his attention back to Lucy. "I will give you my email and the address of the archive. It's open Monday through Friday from eight to two PM, should you choose to stop by at all."

Garcia goes to the kitchen to grab a sheet of paper off the to-do list Elise keeps on the fridge. He scribbles his email and the address then hastily writes his phone number too before he can think better of it. When he hands her the neatly folded paper, their fingertips brush and he's hit with a pulse of electricity.

She thanks him politely and Garcia starts clearing up the empty plates and glasses, while Gabriel begins showing Lucy some collegiate looking documents. Once the kitchen looks pristine again, the way he knows his sister-in-law likes it, Garcia returns to the dining room armed with his coat. "I am going to head out, brother. I have imposed for long enough and I'm sure you and Lucy have plenty more to go over. It was lovely to meet you, Lucy."

Lucy stands and shakes his hand once more. "Thank you, again, for your offer."

"Of course," Garcia ducks his head. "I meant it. Please do reach out. Gabriel, I will see you next week."

Gabriel walks Garcia to the door and once Lucy is out of earshot, Garcia whispers. "Your wife is a very clever woman."

Garcia retrieves his phone from his coat pocket and pulls up the shared calendar app Elise had installed. On today's date, is a dot marking tonight's dinner. "She clearly didn't remove tonight's scheduled dinner so you wouldn't get any ideas about Lucy Preston. But I trust that you'll see to her leaving here without a single infraction against your marriage."

Gabriel looks stricken. "Of course. You know as well as anyone that Elise is a goddess who I worship and anyone else is well, irrelevant to me. Besides, she's not the jealous type. I think the calendar must have glitched."

"Uh huh," Garcia laughs, unconvinced, and pulls the door open. "Goodnight, Gabriel. Thank you for dinner. It was nice to meet the professor, too."

Gabriel eyes him with a look Garcia can't quite place before bidding him farewell.

Garcia's eyes remain steadily fixed on his phone throughout the next two weeks. He keeps hoping Lucy will take him up on his offer and ask for a tour of the archive, or coffee, or anything. When he had woken the morning after the dinner, he had a smile on his face that hadn't been there for a long time.

It was presumptuous and a rather sad indicator of how lonely he was, despite the frequent company of his coworkers, Gabriel, and Elise. Yet, he couldn't help but want to keep the ray of hope in his chest lit for as long as possible.

To say he hadn't felt a spark with another woman since his wife would be a lie. Because, if he was being honest, he had never quite felt a true spark with her. Instead, it had been more of an ember that eventually grew into flames with time and attention. He had loved Lorena, before their divorce, certainly. But not with the passionate adoration he knew his brother shared with his wife. He could see it in the way Gabriel looked at Elise. With her cascading blonde tresses and bright blue eyes, she turned many a head. But it was her charm that truly allured men, Garcia figured.

She was beautiful, but far from his type. Dark hair had always pulled him in, instead. Dark hair like Lucy's. The way her eyes had shone so brightly when talking about her work had unfurled something deep inside him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he had a desire to be the reason for that glimmer to her eyes.

But he wasn't foolish enough to assume she was single or that she would even be interested in an old cynic like him. His jaded edges had seemed to smooth just a little when in her company, though…

So each day, as he came to work, he kept waiting for the knock of a visitor at his office door or the piercing shrill ring of his phone.

The smoothed edges of his outlook begin to sharpen again as his phone remains staunchly silent and the archive remains visitor-less. Yet, Lucy Preston and her megawatt smile still beam bright at the forefront of his conscious.

TBC...